The Bali Clap

It's one of those stories that becomes a legend.  The details may get foggy and the events exaggerated through repetition even while the involved parties are still alive.  It's a phenomenon I've seen before, but I must admit it's sort-of surreal when it's your legend.

For me the location was everything- I never dreamed of being able to travel to Bali, especially not with my sons in tow and no fuckwit husband to slow me down.  It was a dream, completely incomprehensible.  At least once a minute I had to close my eyes and take a breath just to make sure that when I opened them again it would still be real.

That cove was particularly idyllic and very much the stuff of legends.  It wasn't just the view- though I've never seen anything quite as beautiful and doubt very much that I will ever again- it was everything.  The wind was clear and smooth on the surface of my skin and it carried on it the faint scent of oleander.  That mixed with the dense scent of the coastal water made the air itself intoxicating.

The water was impossibly blue- darker in some spots, like the cove we were in where the water deepened due to the high cliffs.  But mostly it was crystalline and perfect.  And it felt like silk as I swam through it.

There was a rock in the middle of the cove- a high jetty of stone sticking up from the water.  At the top was an edge that hung out over the surface of the ocean and the more daring swimmers would leap from it into the deep pool below.  The old me would have thought it unsafe and strictly forbade such foolishness.  But this was the new me- wild, free from the confines of a miserable marriage, eager to fully taste from the fruit of life.  So I climbed up.

Andrew was yelling for me to come down- only 17 at the time he still feared this new version of me and half expected me to get into something too deep.  But Bran was cheering me on, chanting for me to "Do it!  Do it!  Do it!"

I peered once at the flat surface below with it's impossibly blue surface and cool, clear waters.  And then, without hesitation, I jumped.

For a moment- a time too impossibly short to determine- I was free.  Flying through the air as if my body were designed for the action.  Smooth lines and perfectly contoured arcs as I assumed my best diving position.  I had been a high diver in college and it had been an obsession at the time.

But a marketing career and marriage and two children and the endless tasks and chores of everyday life had taken that away from me- until that moment.  As I slid through the air like a knife I was freer than I'd been in years.  I was perfect.

Until I sneezed.  That damned oleander.  How in that exact second with wind whipping past me something so irritating could have lodged itself in my nostril so exactly as to wrack my body with  a compulsive bend I will never understand.  But bend I did- right in half. 

And before I could realize what had happened, before I noticed the surface of the water breaking around my panicked form- I hit.  My knees recoiling presented my belly as an almost perfectly flat surface to break against the liquid wall and I ended up doing the worst belly flop of my life.

To hear Andrew tell the story, the clap was so loud he actually went deaf for a few seconds afterward.  To observe Bran's tale it made the ears ring.  For me, I heard nothing.  Saw nothing.  Felt nothing.  It was just water and then- blackness.

When I came to Bran had me up on the ledge and was blowing hard into my mouth.  I must have gone into shock or something because I have no recollection of the time that had lapsed.  I should have been scarred but all I could think of was how proud I was of him.  My eyes stared out at him barring down on my chest and I thought that if this was the last thing I ever saw it wouldn't be the worst.  His firm jaw clenched in concentration, his hair dangling over his high brow- his eyes focused like lasers.  He was a vision of strength- an Adonis.  And I had brought him into the world.    Strange thoughts from a near-drowning.

But then my body responded to the thrusts and pain took over.  It was pure, reflexive convulsions for some time before I had any choice in movement.  And the string that settled in afterwards felt like dying.  Andrew swears it was nothing short of a miracle that I survived.  Bran can never tell the story without laughing.  It's a defense, I think.

Either way, it became a defining point for all of us.  A reminder of how quickly things can change, how untenable life can be, how tossed about me all are sometimes.  At first it was a story, as most legends are.  "Did mom tell you what happened when we were in Bali?"  There'd be excited glances, and eager ears.  Shocked expressions and finally, the relived laughter.

But over time it changed.  The exaggeration, the dramatic pauses, the added details that hadn't been there before (like a suspicious dorsal fin nearby) making the tension even higher for the listener.  It became something more than just a memory- it became the Bali Clap.

X is for Xerox Box

Source: NationMaster Encyclopedia

I wasn't paying attention,  If I had been paying attention, I would've left it where it was.  But I was talking to you, rambling like an idiot, and I got distracted.

"Spring cleaning is such a lovely concept and such a shitty actual practice," I complained.

"Yeah well, a lot of things are great in theory," you said.

"Like this- what the hell is this, even?  What would possess me to shove a random office box in the back of my closet with no label that might give me even the slightest clue as to what's inside?" I said, pulling it out without even thinking.

"Well, if you can't remember what you were thinking, I certainly can't," you laughed.

Then I opened up the box and the world stopped.

"I uh... I gotta go," I told you, my brain struggling to form the words.

"You ok?" you asked.  You could hear it in my voice.  You must have.

"Yeah, yeah- I just uh.... this is a two-handed operation, you know?" I lied.  

"Ok, well don't work too hard," you said.  I could hear the concern in your voice, the warning.  But I was already gone.

I gave you a superficial farewell and hung up.  I heard my phone clatter to the floor, I didn't even put it down.  My hands were in the box puling out memories before I could think better of it.

After so many years of keeping her hidden, there she was.  Our entire time together in a box in the back of my closet, just waiting for me to open it and fall apart.

A picture of her smiling as she rode me piggy back, the light still bright in her eyes at that point.  Her and Sam and Chris and me all doing bunny rabbit ears to each other as we stood on the sidewalk in the fair.  That stupid elephant I won for her that night cause Sam was a shitty throw.  The necklace we got in that stupid novelty store- the FF of the BFF heart halves she said we had to get because it would be a novel thing to do.  Her favorite hoodie- still torn up and stained with her blood.

I sank back and looked over the contents of the box.  That stupid box that I'd shoved everything into after the accident so there wouldn't be any remnants of her to weaken me.  Cause I had to be strong.  Cause you weren't.

I should've gone through it.  Waiting all these years hadn't made it any easier to see, and waiting another decade wasn't going to help.  But I'd been keeping it together all this time on an idea.  The idea that I was the strong one, I was the rock.  And rocks don't crumble over old photographs and junk.

So I shoved the lid back on and pushed it back into the corner of the closet and closed the door.  Let the dust have it, I figured.  I've got cleaning to do.

Fitting

"You’re probably gonna think I’m crazy… and the thing is, you might be right.  The world stopped making sense the day I saw her in a bathtub full of blood.

"And I could even guess what you think happened.  You find your sister like that and you’re gonna be a bit traumatized.  Anybody would be.  So you think I built up this delusion as part of PTSD or some shit like that.  And if that’s how you’re looking at it, it makes sense.  It fits.  People like it when things fit.  But sometimes they don’t.

"Sometimes you can’t explain away what happens with a pre-existing understanding.  You can’t just categorize everything, slap a label on it and file it away.  Cause some part of you (maybe not the logical part, but some part) knows it doesn’t fit.  And when that happens, you gotta wonder.

"Like when they pulled her out of that tub- she should have been dead.  And I think she was.  I know she was.  No one agrees with me, but I know my sister.  She died that day.  They may have pulled her body out of there, stitched up the cuts and pumped it back full of blood- but she was already gone.  I knew it as soon as I saw it in the hospital.

"They let us go in (my dad and me), and as soon as I saw those eyes I knew.  They were the same blue eyes as my sister’s but they weren’t hers anymore.  Something else was looking out of them.

"And I’m sure it’s about now you want to see if facts and logic contradict the story.  You wanna point out that anyone would look different after trying to kill themselves.  That I was looking at someone who was too depressed to seem like the person I knew.  But I did know her.  I knew my sister and I knew her depression.  She’d been depressed as long as she’d been alive.  It was just part of her personality.  I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.  And that wasn’t it.

"It wasn’t depression that made it lie and manipulate every single person it came in contact with.  It wasn’t depression that made it start sleeping with every guy in school.  And it certainly wasn’t depression that gave it seemingly magical powers over everyone.  And it wasn’t those meds they prescribed, either.  Every kid in school, every teacher, every neighbor, even my dad- they were all under its spell.  Jumping and posing and bouncing like marionettes.  Depression won’t do that.  Meds won’t do that.  And my sister sure as hell wouldn’t do that.

"And I’m sure you wanna point out that my dad knew her, too.  Say that a man would notice if his own daughter wasn’t there anymore.  But the fact is he was too busy worrying about her to really see it.  See it where she had been.

"I don’t know what it was.  I don’t know what they pulled out of the tub that day.  I did a lot of research trying to figure it out.  And you want crazy, there’s plenty of that on the internet.  I may be crazy but I’m not crazy.  I never figured out what it was.

"We stopped going to church when my mom died and since I was so young I don’t remember much of it.  But there was one thing the pastor said that stuck with me.  He said that evil was opportunistic, that it preyed on the weak willed and that we had to secure our will in God in order to protect ourselves.  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about at the time.  Not until I saw my sister’s body in that hospital bed.  Then I remembered.

"I said I didn’t know what it was and that’s true, I don’t.  But I know it was evil.  You don’t do that kind of shit if you’re not.  My sister wouldn’t do that kind of shit.  And don’t tell me that sexual promiscuity or whatever you call that bullshit is normal in disturbed people- that’s not what it was.  It was control.  It was removing the order from the world and putting chaos there instead.  It was breaking things down and creating… I don’t know what.  I just know that within three months things were so irrevocably fucked up that there was no repair, there was just damage control.

"Telling my friends that it wasn’t her who sacrificed them in the public eye and left everyone whispering in the hallways every time they walked to class.  Telling the quarterback (who I don’t even like) that there was more to life than football after it crashed his car and left him in a wheel chair.  Trying to get my dad to go to the doctor when he kept having those pains. 

"I should’ve done something sooner.  I think he might still be alive if I’d realized the twisted shit it was doing sooner.  Or if I hadn’t been such a fucking pussy about doing something about it.  And I know you think that was a heart attack- but it fucked with his pills, I know it did.  I don’t know what he was taking instead of his heart meds, but whatever they were they killed him.  And there’s nowhere else they could’ve come from.  There’s no logic you can use to argue that one away.

"It looked at me at the funeral, you know?  It held my hand, to make it look it good.  And that’s when I realized what had happened.  Why he was dead.  And that’s when I realized I had to do something.

"So I know you think I’m crazy, because you think I shot my sister.  But I had to use a gun- cause the slit wrists and legs didn’t do it.  It had to be a shot to the head.  Well, several.  But that was the only way I could be sure. 

"And I know that’s a crazy thing to do, so I accept that I might be crazy.  But that’s not the question- is it, doc?  The question is, if there’s a diagnosis for that.  The question is if I fit.  Cause if I don’t fit the label you gotta wonder… know what I mean?"

Bad Day

There was a battle going on. Pain, confusion, and external stimuli were fighting to gain ground in his consciousness. Excruciating pain in the back of his scull fought for control with the stinging in his eyes as they struggled to open. A fuzzy, indistinguishable sound faded in and out around the edges of his perception. His senses struggled to take in all the information. In the end the pain won out and dominated everything else, making it impossible for him to open his eyes.

His mind raced through the events of the day, images flashing through his head. There’d been traffic on the way to the meeting, a veiled threat taken as an insult, a promise for further action if amends were not made. He’d been thinking through the stupidity of his mistake in the parking lot of the warehouse and something had happened. And then, like an explosion, it all came back.

His eyes shot open and it was then that he realized the sting had been caused by blood. His head hurt the way it would from a tire iron to the back of the scull. His arms were bound behind him as he slumped on the dusty, concrete floor. And that weird fuzzy sound came into awareness of the buzzing of the florescent light overhead, fading on and off and the bulb slowly puttered its last light.

He looked around and saw the pair of shoes in front of him. They were polished to a sheen and he could tell from the look of the leather that they were custom made. At least they weren’t leaving him to the grunt workers, he consoled himself.
He painfully struggled to turn his head to see the face of his assailant. He hated himself for being surprised, he’d known that snake was gunning for his run since he took from Johnny that short while ago. Mac’s slimy smile insulted the injury that dominated the scene and he grimaced in spite of himself.

“So this is it, huh? No second chances, no discussions- just a little piss ant like come to get rid of me, eh?”

Mac gave him a conceited, toothy grin as he aimed the muzzle at his head.

“Figures,” he said.

The gun shot echoed off the walls.

Independence Day

She sat on the hood of the car watching the night sky explode into color and felt like something was missing. She had the radio on with the Academy Band’s Medley blaring out the open windows, the flannel blanket was tucked underneath her as she rested against the windshield, her box of sparklers was close at hand for her to light up at the finale. But somehow, still, something was missing.

She went over the checklist in her mind, ticking off each item she’d specifically packed. She realized the cheap bottle of fruity wine she’d purchased was still sitting on the passenger’s side seat. She groaned to herself, slipped off the side of the hood and felt the blanket slide off with her. She walked around to the window, leaned in to grab the bottle, and saw it.

Just for a split-second, before her conscious mind could invalidate the vision, she saw his hand sitting there on the gear shift where it’d always been, as if waiting for her to get in and drive. It was so real, so clear of a vision that she bolted upright and hit her head on the ceiling before pulling out.

“What the-“ She stopped, blinked a few times, then jumped up to look again.

He wasn’t there, but she knew that already. He hadn’t been there before, of course. The seat was empty except for the bottle which she grabbed angrily, cursing herself for what she perceived as actual psychosis in response to her out of control emotions.

She stood there, looking at the now empty seat, reminding herself that she was not, in fact, insane. And then she remembered. That’s all it was- a memory. From the thousands of times that he’d sat next to her, shifting the gear in response to the engine’s effort, sensing the need for change. She’d always loved that. Such a simple exercise transformed into such a symbiant exchange.

But then she hadn’t thought about the fact that she would need to drive herself again, that their life together would end and all the activities they’d done together would now have to be done alone. She laughed at the analogy and how painfully appropriate it was now.

She jumped back on the hood, ripped the aluminum wrapping off the wine, twisted the cap off and took a swig. It tasted like cheap, fermented fruit punch. She took another swig and smiled.

This was, of course, what everyone had told her to do. That’s how it works, after all. Make new traditions out of the old ones. Come to the same places, engage in the same activities that you enjoyed, but put a new spin on it. This was her new spin, the “girly” wine he had called it, instead of the “real” beer he preferred. It was a simple change, but she’d hoped it would hold a greater meaning.

Her friends had invited her out of course, to a group excursion to the field below. But this place had always been their secret and she didn’t want to give it up. He couldn’t take that from her as well, she wouldn’t let him. So she sat there on the hood of her now single-driver car, without the weight of him evening out the dip in the hood and sipped her cheap wine. She told herself this was hers, her celebration, happy on it’s own, without him.

She wondered if she would have been better off going with her friends. But she’d wanted so much to make a statement to herself. She was strong, she was independent, this show of light and fire was for her. She listened to each boom following the flashes and told herself it was the breakdown of the wall she’d built out of him. The wall which had separated her from her life. She told herself she would do all the things he’d never wanted to do. She would be selfish, she would be free, she would be herself without the restraint she’d imposed on herself in order to fit his preferences. She would be, unapologetically, her.

So she sat, watching the lights in the sky and willed herself to feel everything this holiday had once represented. At least in theory. As the booms grew louder and more rapid signaling the finale she pulled out a sparkler and lit the tip, waving it around to the rhythm of the music coming from the car. She waved her sparkler high into the air, as if she could touch the brighter colors exploding in front of her and celebrated her independence.

Swimsuit Shopping

I can’t believe my mother is making me do this. Well, no, I can. But I, like, can’t. It’s just way too obviously an exercise in torture. Like you have to get a new swimsuit every single summer, cause having to go shopping with your mother all the other times of the year isn’t horrible enough.

I hate my mother far more than usual today. With the… the hatred from some Shakespeare play- like the fire of a thousand suns or something. Yeah, that’s it. I hate her with sun flares like I’m constantly burning but every now and again there’s a spike. At least I think that’s how sun flares work.

And it’s like she has to try on swimsuits with me, like it’s a fun bonding time or something, just to make me look worse. Her with her fully developed body and her stupid perky hair and her ridiculously Baywatch-looking legs.

I have the body of a twelve year old boy with stringy hair and acne that looks like bubonic plague or something. And then she makes me stand with her at the mirrors talking about how cute we look. I could smack her. Seriously, I could. Except that then I’d have to kill myself for smacking my mother. Although, honestly, I could kill myself anyway. Now seems like a good time.

And then when I’m all depressed and miserable after all this- as anyone who looked as horrible as I do would be- she’s like, surprised. Like she can’t figure out why I didn’t have fun. And like ice cream is gonna make it better? Yeah mom, let me just get fatter- then I’ll fit better.

And she’s like so freaking beautiful it makes me wanna just, you know, die or something. Like I have this handsome father with a pronounced jaw and gorgeous hair and my mom with her prefect body and perfect figure and here I am with none of these features. Like a xenogenic anomaly… or whatever the term is I learned in bio last week.

I hate my mother.

Sojourn in the City

You know that feeling that you get when you really, really have to pee and then do but your bladder’s been so full for so long that afterwards you still feel like you have to pee? Well that’s how I felt when I left my ashram.

I’d let go of so much while I was there, done so much personal investigation, released so much anger, shame, remorse and doubt and unloaded so much spiritual crap that even after I was ‘ready’ I still felt like I needed more time. I was advised that this was a common feeling and that the real work, the real change would come day by day as I practiced what I’d learned ‘in real life’. I trusted my teachers and advisors enough not to question this, so I dove back into ‘real life’ with all the trepidation that would come.

I figured I couldn’t get anymore ‘real life’ than New York city. With so many people so involved in their own worlds and so much energy bouncing around I figured it’d be like placing myself in the core of a nuclear reactor and trying to remain still. Best to test my mettle when I was still fresh from the retreat and hone my abilities for real world application. At least, that was my thought.

I did pretty well in the beginning, in spite of everything. I sat in my tiny studio apartment with the sounds of the sirens blaring and the abusive father next door screaming at his kids and the constantly broken radiator clunking away and I focused on controlling my breath and calming my mind.

I sat on the crowded subway being jostled and shoved and stepped on and I imagined waves of loving kindness radiating out from me and touching everyone. I practiced my Metta and imagined myself as the stone that drops in the water that sends the ripples through the surface.

I even walked down the crowded street and practiced my Karuṇā, imagining myself sinking in and becoming one with the flow of the crowd and passing on my state to all those walking the same path. I was the food coloring in the bowl of water that changes the color of the mass and my color was completely free from ill will.

But, the city was strong and I was new at this whole transcendence thing. It was a natural erosion, an inevitable weathering in the storm. And day by day, little by little, I felt my peace wear away.

It was so subtle that, had I not been mediating so much, I wouldn’t have noticed. But it builds gradually- the slight, split-second of annoyance turns into a minute of anger. The weariness of the day turns into exhaustion. The abundant flow of energy begins to run dry.

And so, I made a decision with all the intentions of acceptance I could muster. I bought a pair of ear plugs. And I have to say, although spiritual peace may be nirvana, man-made silence is pretty damned nice, too.

Mugged

When I was in summer camp the girls in my cabin decided to play a game. It was pretty simple, the object being nothing more than to cause the other person to faint. Thus is was appropriately named “fainting”. You would cross your arms over your chest, put your head between your knees and start hyperventilating, then stand up really quickly so that the blood rushed to your head and exhale. At the same time someone would push on your arms so that no more air could get into your chest. Without any oxygen, you faint. A few second later you wake up on the ground, confused as to how you got there.

Well, when I did it I apparently scared my friend a great deal because as my limp body slid to the ground my eyes stayed open- staring out at nothing. I, of course, don’t remember this. I remember hyperventilating, standing up and then feeling pressure on my chest. The next thing I knew I was looking out at the rolling hills of a cow farms, black and white spots scattered throughout the vast green landscape. When I “came to” my friend was holding my hand and looking at me with the concerned expression normally reserved for your grandmother when she’s having a heart attack. I didn’t understand why she looked so scared, why she was holding my hand in that way, or how I’d gotten to be there.

This, despite everything different, was mostly like that. I couldn’t remember how long I’d been there, how I’d gotten there, or how long the man holding the gun had been shouting for me to hand over my purse. All I knew was that, seemingly out of nowhere, I was looking down the barrel of gun with that black hole spreading out into eternity. I had no concept of my body- whether or not I was even holding a purse, and it seemed to take a while before I realized he was yelling at me. None of my instincts or the things that I had assumed would kick in with the reflex of self preservation allowed me to react. In that moment the entire universe and every single second of my existence ceased to exist.

I wasn’t even aware of my arm throwing the purse at the guy’s feet, and I continued to stare at the space where his gun has been as he picked it up and ran down the alleyway. It wasn’t until several moments- or however long it was- after his footsteps faded from the echoing alleyway that I finally blinked and starting seeing the world around me again. I couldn’t figure out what had just happened. Everything I’d been lead to believe made me think that that sort of event would have sent my life flashing before my eyes or images of my loved ones snapping through my mind. But there was nothing- nothing but blackness and confusion. And just like the fainting game, it took a long time for the white haze around my vision to finally fade from view.

Conditioned- A Story In Five Parts- Part Five

Day Three hundred and Nine

I walk into my office. A bald girl is sitting in the waiting room. She has no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no hair left on her head. She ate it all. I know because when she first started coming here she still had hair. I talked to her in the past, tried to make some progress. She screamed at me until she was horse and then kept screaming. I walk past her now, don’t even nod.

In my small, windowless office I throw my stuff down on the desk. I don’t turn on my computer, I don’t answer the phone. Someone walks into my office. It’s the bald girl, her large gut hanging over the belt of her stained trousers. She asks me to call her sister. Her sister’s dead. I know this because it’s the same delusion she’s had since the beginning. I tell her I can’t call her sister, say I’ll talk to her later.

She starts crying. I say “calm down” quietly, cause I know she won’t. The sobs become elongated, exaggerated, child-like. I don’t even hear them anymore. I say it again, “calm down, please- we can’t call your sister, you know that.” She starts screaming at me. “I want to call my sister!” I tell her we can’t, again.

She bangs her fist on my desk, screaming that she wants to call her sister. I stand up, grab my coat and my bag, walk past her. I leave my dim, windowless office. I leave the crowded waiting room where the drunk man is snoring, the teenaged mom is beating her child, the receptionist sits oblivious to it all.
I walk out my office.

Conditioned- A Story in Five Parts- Part Four

Day Two hundred and eighty one

I walk into my office. The waiting room is empty. It would seem strange if I weren’t too tired to really notice. Inside my small, windowless office I throw my stuff down on the desk. The chair creaks as I sit down. I look at my computer, beckoning me to turn it on, start sorting through e-mails. The phone blinks at me letting me know I have messages. My cell vibrates in my bag. I just sit and look at the walls.

It seems somehow like they’re getting darker. Can’t really tell- the florescent lights tend to mess up your vision in the corners. What I wouldn’t give for a window or something. Something to remind of the real world that’s still out there. I haven’t seen much of it lately.

Something’s off. I don’t what it is. But I’ve got an uneasy feeling, like I’m waiting for something. Like a bomb’s gonna go off and I should tense myself in preparation.

Then the crying starts and I know what I’ve been waiting for. I’m used to the sound by now, it doesn’t jar me or even surprise me. But I shut the door anyway because it’s annoying. I sit back down at my desk, recommence staring at the wall. The phone starts ringing. I ignore it.

Conditioned- A Story in Five Parts- Part Three

Day One hundred and twenty-seven

I walk into my office. There is teenage girl sitting in the waiting room. She’s got a stroller with a young infant in it. She’s violently shoving a baby spoon into the infant’s mouth. The infant is screaming, crying. His eyes are red, his face blotchy and bloated. The teenage girl starts screaming at him to eat his food, curses at him. Part of me want to say something, do something. But instead I just keep walking, making my way to my office. I hear her smack the kid behind me, the sound echoes a little. I stop for a second, then keep walking.

In my office the phone is ringing. I don’t answer it. I just got in, I need two seconds to- my cell starts vibrating. I want to ignore it, but I answer. There’s an emergency at one of the houses. I drop everything, run back out to my car.

As I pass by the teenage mom and her toddler I see the teenaged girl is crying now, too. Crying louder than her kid as she keeps jamming the spoon into his mouth. The food is all over the kid’s shirt, spilling onto the floor. I run past them.

Conditioned- A Story in Five Parts- Part Two

Day Sixty Three

I walk into my office. There is man asleep in the waiting room. He looks like he’s homeless- unshaven, unwashed, clothes torn and dirty. He snores loudly. I know he’s not homeless, he’s my ten o’clock- here early. I walk past him, put my stuff down on my desk. There’s a thousand e-mails, as always. I check the voicemail first- someone died last night. I’m in shock, I don’t know what my next step is.

I feel like I should cry, or be upset or something. But my head jumps to the job- what paperwork needs to be filled out, what reports need to be filed, who needs to be notified first. I don’t even think of the family or friends that might be flipping out over it, though that’ll inevitably be more paperwork.

Someone starts crying out in the lobby. Loud, exaggerated sobs. It still jars me, a little. But I’m getting used to it. I walk to the door of my small, windowless office and look out. Someone is sitting with her, trying to calm her down. I close the door so I can get my work done.

Conditioned- A Story in Five Parts- Part One

Day One

I walk into my office. Or the building where I’m told my office is located. I expect my new boss to greet me there. They’re not there. I ask for them at the front desk, am told to wait, take a seat with the others. The guy on my left has some sort-of skin condition. I don’t know what it is, just that it makes all the skin on his face and scalp flake off in large, powdery white chunks. I half-wonder if I can catch it by sitting there. I hope not.

My boss arrives, apologizes for being late. Walks me back to my office. I say back because there is technically a short hallway leading there but the whole building is basically one large mass, and the waiting area sits right in the middle. There’s a copy machine next to the door, we have to push through some people to get in. Inside there are three desks haphazardly arraigned, one computer sitting on a wobbly desktop- the kind of thing you’d buy at Staples for thirty bucks and have to kick yourself when it broke cause you should’ve known better. My desk is shoved up against the back wall. I take a seat, am told to start by seeing if I can log onto the system. I can.

My boss says ‘great’ and tells me to just start there, that he’ll run back to his office and start e-mailing me everything. He reminds me that it’ll take a little time to get acclimated, tells me not to get overwhelmed, says to be patient. He leaves, frazzled by his phone which hasn’t stopped ringing for the two minutes he’s been here with me. I wonder if I’m gonna get any training, hope I will.

Someone in the waiting room starts crying. Then screaming and cursing while she cries. I hear a high-pitched soft-spoken voice trying to console the crying woman. She cries louder. I wonder what I should do- should I try to talk her down? Her screams make my gut clench, my adrenaline pump. What’s it called? Fight or flight? I should know that. Her crying gets louder and continues. I go out to see if I can help.

End of Shift

I shrugged my bag higher up on my shoulder and it slipped back down to its niche within a second. The shrug had become reflexive, I knew it wouldn’t help. But much like everything I did now- searching through the darkened folds of my purse for my car keys, clicking my tongue absentmindedly- it just came without thinking. I got a whiff of the stench of french fries wafting across the parking lot and another reflex happened: my stomach tightened in disgust.

I thought back to a time when I actually enjoyed that smell. When some days I couldn’t resist the urge to cross the concrete plain to the drive through and get myself an envelope of salty fried sticks. When I’d lick my fingers in happiness and laugh at the fact that I was destroying my pledge to eat healthy.

Now I looked across the dark, wet vastness at the steam rising from the kitchen vents and wondered what could have driven such a compulsion. Like so many other things in my life that had gone away I couldn’t understand why it was ever there to begin with.

I opened the door to my old jalopy and jammed the key into the ignition, my hand already so cold I couldn’t feel my fingers as they turned the hard metal shape. The engine struggled like an 80 year old cough and I pushed hard on the accelerator. The angry music I’d had on before I started my shift drowned out the sound of the engine as the radio blared on and I snapped the dial off with an angry grab.

I watched the dashboard light up and waited for the heat and the smell of fumes to come through my vents. I wondered how the hell I had gotten here. Another pointless shift ending with another cold night and nothing to move on to but my shitty apartment and the blissful glow of cable tv.

I’d had so many dreams, so many passions, known so many intelligent people who were going to help me make this life something like what I thought it could be. But as the years passed and my life changed less and less I found myself coming to the point where I couldn’t believe in meaning anymore. The point where meaning, like all of the other dreams I gave up, was just another fairy tale.

I shiver in my seat and had to shake of a sob that almost erupted from my throat out of nowhere. I closed my eyes and was embarrassed at the moisture that had cropped up there. I knew better than to allow myself to think of anything other than radio lyrics after finishing the work week. Stupid sentimentality made me weak again.

I snapped the radio back on and turned up the volume trying to drown out the thoughts in my head. The high pitched angry lyrics of Offspring came on and I forced myself to sing along to a song I had loved in high school. Then I shifted the car into drive and sped out of the empty parking lot.

Squatter

You’re gonna think I’m crazy… and the thing is- everything you know tells you you’re right. And I can even guess what you think happened. You find your sister like that and you’re bound to be a bit messed up about it. So you probably think this is a delusion brought on by PTSD or some shit like that. (I read about that.)

And if that’s how you’re looking at it, I can see why. It makes sense, it fits. People like it when things fit. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you can’t explain away what happens. You can’t file something into a pre-existing category. And when that happens you gotta wonder.

Like when they pulled her out of that tub- she should have been dead. You lose that much blood, your heart can’t keep pumping when there’s nothing to pump. Everything logical said she was dead, and I think she was. No one agrees with me, of course- cause they saw her eyes open again. But I know my sister. And that wasn’t her looking at me.

No, she died that day. They may have pulled her body out, stitched it up and pumped it back full of blood. But she was already gone. And I knew it. As soon as they let my dad and I go in- I knew that wasn’t her sitting in that bed. And those weren’t her eyes anymore. Someone- or something else- was looking out.

I’m sure that about now you wanna see if facts and logic can contradict my belief. You wanna point out that anybody would look different after trying to off themselves. That she was too depressed to look like the girl I grew up with. You wanna file me into one of your pre-existing categories and put me on the shelf with the rest.

But I know my sister- and I knew her depression. She was depressed for as long as I could remember. And that’s not what it was. And everyone else was too busy worrying about her to see that. To see it.

I don’t know what it was. I did a lot of research and I never figured it out. All I know is that it was evil. How’d I know? Because evil is opportunistic- that’s what my research told me. Evil takes advantage of the weak willed. No one is weaker willed than the dead. So it was the perfect opportunity.

That’s why “my sister” acted so weird after she got out of the hospital. That’s why she stopped talking and joking and squeaking. That’s why she gave everybody around her the death stare. That’s why her roommate in the crazy house wouldn’t stop screaming. It wasn’t cause she was crazy. Well, she might have been. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t see what I saw.

That thing inside her- whatever it was, wherever it came from- it wasn’t her. So don’t sit here and tell me that I killed my sister. I didn’t. My sister killed herself, I just took out the trash that was squatting in her place after she left.

Delirium

He was in a white room. He noticed it was dirty- dust and cobwebs in the corners, or at least the one in view. Could he move? He didn’t know. There was something in one of his eyes, sticky- he couldn’t get his eyelids to separate all the way. It blocked his view but he didn’t know what it was. Where was the cat?
Or maybe it was a person. He couldn’t place the sound. It didn’t sound human, but it wasn’t a clear meow, either. It was like a muffled growl or something . Just then he heard the growl change into what must have been words. He couldn’t make them out, but there were real words. Mumbling from somewhere. Where? He finally managed to turn his head and pain shot through him as the dark, sticky goo holding his eye half-closed split. His whole face felt like it was on fire. But not really. Almost like he’d been hit really hard, like a stinging burning. Where was he?
He managed to lift his head and look around. All he saw, everywhere, was garbage. An empty plastic laundry detergent bottle. An empty paper cup with a straw sticking out of it. Newspapers, magazines, fast food paper bags and cardboard boxes. He tried to think but it seemed to make his head hurt worse. It was then that screaming began.
Shrill, ear-piercing screams with intermittent whimpers. He looked all around trying to figure out where it was coming from. It sounded so close, but there was no one there. Just a sea of garbage. Where was he? Had he been kidnapped? Did some thug knock him out and drag him to this… crack house? It seemed like the kind-of place where people would smoke crack or something. He’d seen one busted on the news once and it’d looked like this.
He thought, tried to remember where he’d been last, how he could’ve ended up kidnapped and dragged here. But there was no memory, nothing. Just random clips like some fast forward music video- he couldn’t make sense of the images flashing behind his eyes. The screams grew louder and he tried to block out the sound by cupping his hands over his ears. He pressed in with his palms. And he could still hear the screaming, but it was a bit quieter with his hands there. Where was it coming from?
It only then occurred to him to be scared. It hit him so suddenly he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t been there as soon as he opened his eyes. A room he didn’t know, disembodied screams, disappearing legs- fear should have been the first thing to hit him, but it wasn’t. And even then, when he recognized how valid the emotion was, it went away. Like he wanted to hold onto it because it seemed so logical, but he felt too confused to keep grasp of it. He tried, but it slipped away like the stinging in his eye. When had he opened them?
He felt himself moving forward, less because he meant to and more because he just was. Like floating, an unconscious reflex propelled him out of the garbage-filled room and into an equally frightening hallway. But here he could make out a ripped carpet that might have been tan at one point but seemed more gray. Tan? Why would he think that? Had he been here before? But the screaming distracted him again.
He moved forward again in that same, involuntary way and he saw movement to his right. It made him jump and he hit the wall behind him. Looking straight ahead he could make out some sort of shape, but he didn’t know what it was. Was that the screaming person? He reached out to touch the far wall and was relieved to find it was real. Why hadn’t he thought it would be? He saw the hand that touched the wall. Was it his?
It was bloody- thick, black liquid under the fingernails and claw marks on the skin. Had he been in a fight? He must have tried to fight off his attacker- that made sense. He felt an instant rejection of the theory, like his mind wouldn’t accept his own logic. Why couldn’t he think straight? The screaming- if the screaming would stop, he could think again. But where was it coming from?
Then another sound. A knocking. Someone had to answer the door. Where was the door? He felt himself moving again, back down the hallway. It opened to his right to a door. The door moved as the banging grew louder. He reached out to open it and the bloody hand surprised him again.
“Ben, Ben are you in there? It’s Mary- from Sister St. Catherine’s? Ben, please open the door!”
He knew the voice was coming from the other side of the door. He saw the bloody hand grasp the doorknob and turn. There was a woman there with long dark hair and glasses. He knew her somehow, but he didn’t know how.
“Oh, Ben,” she said in shock, a look of horror on her face. “Ben can you come with me?”
He felt himself moving forward again, toward the woman. He didn’t want to. But he saw the woman coax him forward, concern on her face. He kept moving, feeling like he had to. He stepped out onto a landing with a metal rail, like outside of some hotel.
Just then gloved hands grabbed him on either side.
“Oh my god- did he do that to his face?” came a male voice.
“Yeah, he’s a scratcher, be careful!” Mary said. “We gotta get him to the hospital. Oh, Ben, how could do this to yourself?”
He wanted to struggle but the hands held him, wrestled him to the ground.
“It’s ok, buddy- just stop fightin, we’re gonna get you to a better place,” said the man holding him down.
He didn’t believe it.

Sacrilege

Here it comes again.  The rage.  I can feel it pulsing in my brain.  Fed by all my judgments of the evils of the world, the stupid people who day after day do more damage than can ever be repaired, ruining lives, spreading the plague of hatred to those souls who were previously untouched and innocent.  They never stay that way for long.  I know I have to purge myself before I lose control.  Destruction can be controlled if you choose your target early and eliminate it before the urge takes over your higher functioning.  So that’s what I have to do.  Destroy.  Not the most PC method of self-control, but effective.

            It doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter how, it just matters that it’s something which was created and that I am the one who destroys it.  Call it my artistic expression of the life cycle machine.  Although perhaps art is the wrong term.  Art was made to be noticed, to be appreciated.  I pray that what I do is not discovered.  I have a hard enough time justifying it to myself, I don’t want an audience asking questions.

            Call it an addiction, if you must call it something.  My obsession-driven actions.  My inescapable prison.  My personal little hell.  We’ve all got our demons.  This is mine.

            I’ve been trying to keep a low profile lately.  Ever since I demolished that modern art sculpture in the park it’s been important to stay under the radar.  I hate the justice system too much to become a part of it.  So I need something small.  Something unnoticeable.  Something that only I would know the significance of.

            I’ve been walking the streets of the city for hours now trying to find it.  My legs are starting to burn, my feet ache, the sweat on my brow has since gone cold in the frigid November winds that pour down the streets.  I stop at the street corner watching the cars pass.  Cabs and commuters cutting each other off and cursing.  Honking their horns as if that sound isn’t so natural to everyone in the city that they don’t hear it anymore.  As if it would make a difference.

            And all this time I’ve seen more and more to fuel my rage.  It tends to work like that.  The angrier you are the angrier you become.  Like fire begets fire.  I need something to burn.

            And then I look up and like magic the answer appears: a church.  A cathedral, more specifically.  Filled with more religious propaganda than I can shake a stick at.  And I run across the street to fill my need, my cravings, and almost get hit by yet another overzealous cab driver.

            I burst through the front doors and remember that it’s a public place- there may be people here.  So I cautiously open the inner doors to the cathedral and am relieved to see that there’s no mass going on.  I scan the aisles and there they are: hymnals and bibles laid out for easy access.  I set myself down and grab a bible, bowing my head as if to pray while I leaf through it.  Pages have been dog-eared.  Extra pamphlets and sermons tucked away inside.  This is no new book.  This book has been loved.  Perfect.

            Discreetly as I can I tuck it into my coat pocket.  A quick bow to the front altars and I’m ready to go.  Back out into the cold November wind, onto the busy New York streets, into the fray, so to speak.  My feet find new purpose with the bible tucked safely into my pocket.  Would that I were closer to the piers.  But a side alley would do quite nicely.

            And on 45^th and 2^nd there’s a nice little back alley next to a Chinese restaurant.  The smell of fried dumplings fills my nostrils as I crouch to the ground and lay the bible on the concrete.  The leather-bound bible looks so significant.  Having been wielded by so many religious zealots over the years as the words of God I feel an immense satisfaction knowing that it can be destroyed.  It can be taken away from the world.  Granted one single bible won’t make that huge of a difference but at least that pew will be one book short next service.  The thought makes me smile.

            I strike a match and hold it to the inner pages.  The leather will be harder to burn but the paper pages should take up quite nicely.  And they do.  And I sit and watch them burn.  And then the leather cover starts to bubble and sizzle like real leather wouldn’t.  I should have known the catholic church would be too cheap to order real leather binding.  And my satisfaction grows with the flame.

            As I watch the fire grow I can feel my rage begin to float away with the ashes.  All the hatred, all the loathing, all the violent urges leaving me.  With the knowledge that I am taking something of value from the world.  That I am being so brash as to steal straight from the house of God.  If I didn’t know better I’d expect to be smited.  I look up at the sky and wait.  And as always, nothing happens.  And I can’t help but laugh.

Piece by piece

I got into it for the right reason, if there is such a thing. It wasn’t for a lack of options. Well, I’ll admit- it was partly for a lack of other well-paying options. But it wasn’t for an inability to do anything else like some people say. I have lots of other skills, lots of other abilities. There's just nothing else that I know of which pays this well without the threat of jail time.

And it wasn’t because of all that psychobabble bullshit you hear on daytime talk shows. My father never abused me, my mother wasn’t one of those woman that feminists are so concerned with, I knew enough about ‘normal’ to know that this wasn’t really it. (Not that stripping is so abnormal, but it certainly is at least a slightly skewed view of normal sexuality.) And it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t know what I was getting into. At least, I thought I knew enough at the time. I thought my expectations were pretty realistic.

I expected to be ogled, I expected to be manhandled every now and again, I expected the requests for a “private show” and all the rest. I expected the objectification. The guys who see you as something to be owned or rented out instead of as a person. The ones that’ll go for that grab and then laugh with their friends over it. I always expected they’d be the ones to go home and beat their wives for not having dinner waiting for them.

I even expected that some of the guys wouldn’t be the run of the mill college co-eds or alcoholics or bachelor party participants or married dudes. The first fetishist I got wasn’t all that big of a shock. A little unnerving, sure, but not surprising.

I even, sadly, expected the lost boyfriends. The “nice guys” who’ll ask you out in the coffee shop or the bookstore, be all thrilled and attracted during those first few minutes of the date, talk about activities you might do together based on common hobbies. Then comes the inevitable question about what you do for a living and you lose any hope of getting the guy to look at you like a potential girlfriend again. I expected all that, on some level. And I was ok with it. Not happy, but ok.

What I didn’t expect, and what I couldn’t prepare for was the shift in world view. I don’t know if it’s cynicism or if I’m jaded. Or, on the other hand, if I’m seeing the world clearly for the first time and have simply lost my childhood fantasies about the good of mankind.

The world view I’m talking about is the one that lets you see, or at least hope to see the good in everybody. The one that lets you look past the bad behaviors and mistreatment of others and seemingly cruel dispositions to the wounded soul underneath. The one that says that the person drooling over you is still a real person and they’re just thinking with their junk instead of their brain. That’s the one I used to pride myself on having. That’s the one I’ve lost.

I used to feel bad that they weren’t getting laid at home. Wonder if their wives were the kind of women that took all the fun out of sex, made them feel guilty for wanting to tie you up or whip you or something. Wonder if they were a virgin and didn’t know any better. Pity the regulars who must’ve been stuck in two addictions at once. I used to think everyone had a story, even the assholes.

And when I say assholes I mean the ones that try to grab you despite the signs all over and the big, beefy security guards standing right next to them. Usually they’re just drunk, just stupid. And I used to think I could handle it just fine. The tough cookie, the girl who won’t let nobody touch her unless she wants to be touched. The girl you had to respect or at least treat like a human being because she forced you to. I used to defend myself, tell the security team I didn’t need an escort. They of course told me that I did, but I didn’t believe them. That was before the first attack.

I made out ok, altogether. The guys got him off me before he did any real damage, before he could get me into his car. But he would’ve if Bernie and Nate hadn’t been leaving right then. After that I got a little paranoid, or so I thought. Didn’t even try to walk through the floor alone. Even the grabs and the pinches were a threat then.

I used to wonder why some of these guys would look at me the way they do, why they’d stare right into my eyes and not seem to register anything. Cause the ones that avoid eye contact- that stare at your boobs or your ass or your legs but never look you in the eye- they’re no real threat. They’re either too horny to remember that there’s a real person under that body or they feel so guilty that they’re only seeing the body they can’t look you in the eyes and let you know that’s all they’re seeing. Harmless.

But the ones that look right at you and see nothing? They’re scary. Cause real people will look at you and see you. Maybe not notice, maybe not pay attention to you, but still see you. All those people walking down the crowded streets and not really registering that yes, you are a real person with hopes and dreams and a family and all the rest of it? They’re not really ignoring your existence, they’re just busy.

But these guys? The ones that see the body and the dancing and the rest of it and seem to be only registering body parts? The ones that can look right into your eyes and the only spark of recognition that registers is the fact that they are eyeballs as compared to ‘windows of the soul’? They’re the ones that’ll cut out those eyes, dismantle that body, kill that person the same way that some people slaughter cows or cut up prime rib. Whatever it is that connects the body to the person- whether it’s a soul or a spirit or something else entirely- they don’t see that. They see meat. Boobs, ass, hands, legs no different than breast meat or thigh meat or wings or whatever. Pieces of meat in a butcher store.

How do I know this? Because one of ‘em got my friend Keisha. It was, officially, the second attack. The cops claimed it was a serial killer, a really sick whacko that was unusual enough not to worry about. But I saw his eyes when he tried to get me. And I’ve seen those eyes since. Not frequently, not reliably, but I’ve seen them.

On the guy who sits in the corner watching from a distance. On the man who won’t talk, even when you ask his name. Then he’ll look at you and you know why. On the man who stops in just to grab a drink on his way home to his wife and family, he says. Then you see him peer over at you, and you see the eyes.

The cops called me paranoid when I kept calling to report the guys. They’d say “Oh, are you that stripper that keeps calling?” Like I wasn’t a witness or potential lead anymore, just “that stripper”. Objectified yet again. They’d tell me there were no news leads but sure, they’d take down the name of this guy that looked at me funny, have someone interview ‘em. Yeah, right. There were no interviews, no calls, just the cops getting the crazy stripper off the phone with false promises. They never caught the guy.

And now I see things differently. I see the potential fierceness behind the innocent flirting. I see the potential danger in the invite for a date. I see the way some guys look at you with those eyes. I don’t know what’s behind them. Maybe nothing, maybe that’s how they do it. No connection, no soul or whatever. Just a brain dismantling you piece by piece.

Circular Living

I knew the class was going to be a challenge when I took it. Avant-garde architecture always is. How can a mere freshman emerge as the new Frank Loyd Wright, Louis Kahn or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe of his time in just one class?

But I signed up anyway, hoping that my passion, lack of constrictive cynicism, and plain old blind faith would lead the way to new ground. I’ll admit, I had dreams of taking the instructor’s breath away with my first assignment by drafting a piece so innovative that words would fail to describe it.

What I ended up with was a rounded-off cylinder.

The assignment had been to construct a house, suitable for living, with no right angels. It had to be utilitarian with all the normal spaces for storage, stairwells, bathrooms and closets. But you couldn’t use any right angles.

I started off drafting a simple two-story box shaped thing and then started cutting off the corners. At first it seemed deceptively simple- just cut the corners, no pun intended, and you’re done. It was when I tried to figure out all the damned utilities that things got screwy. Constructing a staircase with no right angles that is structurally sound is about as easy as finding a microscopic ant in the Amazon. And a plain old spiral staircase wouldn’t work with the structure. So I started cutting corners off the cut corners, spiraling inwards in an octagonal, then decagonal, then dodecagonal, then hexadecagonal, and finally icosagonal fashion until I was dealing with nothing but circles.

The storage spaces became circular crawl spaces. The hallways folded in on themselves. The rooms became too round to fit any real furniture. And the whole structure began to resemble and 8^th grade geometry equation I’d remembered having a lot of trouble with.

By 3am I’d given up on conceiving of anything habitable and just gave up, assuming I’d chalk the whole experience up to learning. I brought it into my instructor expecting a raised eyebrow and a knowing “harder than it looks, huh?”

Instead he just handed it back with a comment at the top saying “What about the plumbing?”