QNTNs.com Podcast

I want the backstory,

There's a connection in my mind which drives itself from the prefrontal cortex at the brow of the skull, arching up and back to the periphery of each hemisphere at the topsides of my brain. It is at this very position, both right and left above the ears, that the energy takes perfect seat.

There's an electricity brewing within me which expresses itself as a gnawing tension in my brain, starting from the front and moving its way upwards towards the rear. The feeling moves about until it finds a home. It's not unlike how a bit at the end of the reins takes perfect seat in the mouth of a horse, nor unlike how the grooves of a screw align in perfection to the precise threading of a nut.

It's most like a clutch in the body of a car as it fits the gear into the couplings of the powertrain.

I can feel the tactile linking of the car's metal teeth at the top of my brain, the churning of the motor heads, and the revving torque of cylinder pistons firing in endless succession and in perfect harmony, violently pulling my whole person towards the future moment.

And so it is, at any stressful point of self-awareness, my mind saves my body from shock's paralysis.

When life frightens me and I freeze up, my mind's eye reaches for the gearbox, shifts me down into first, to second, to third, till my body is moving again, for while my physical self lies motionless, my mental self and the mind's eye will flail like a drowning child, desperate to catch hold of something.

But while the drowner reaches for the pool's sidewalls, my mental image reaches for the shifter, cleaving that car's lever to the left, towards myself, from neutral, tucked hard into the sidewall between first and second gear, and then straight upwards towards one. And the throttle is in, and the clutch is inching out, and this bodily car of mine is inching forwards. And when the gears bite, my brain glows strong. The whole sensation lights my mind with fire. It's a burning impulse down my right arm to immediately advance towards second. It's a burning impulse in my toes to knead the pedals up and down, clutching gas, back and forth, till the engine sings, until my body purrs through whatever tribulation assails me, sending me forth at the speed of joyous light. This is my happy place. This is my place of comfort.

When the whole body is whole in the seat of an automobile, and the right hand is the shifter, up, down, left, right, in every direction and at all times, and the feet are harmonizing to the chorus of a roaring engine, and between the cacophony of gear changes is the sweet nectar of speed, a humming acceleration to, through, and beyond wherever I'm trying to go and wherever I'm needed to move along, both hands at the helm of a tight rotary, and it's as if I'm in control, but really, I'm but following a road paved long ahead of me.

With the right amount of speed and the right amount of torque, my vehicle is glued to the ground, hugging and clung to the roadway, zipping forth to the rhythmic seesaw that are the turns of life. In this convertible, it's the wind whipping through the cabin, but it's mostly the moaning wail of the combustion leaking into our ears and dancing upon our bones, a kind of organ conducting our movements to the song. At this final turn to the right, we were headed again to and past home, a long country club drive and through the wiggles of broad suburban streets that just sixty years ago were rich countryside.

My father's mid-engine made quick work of the journey, and I was slowing again for a gander at the view. So my passenger and good friend asks, "Do you miss your old home?"

My childhood home. I've only really known two homes, and this neighborhood we were now passing had been my first.The vineyards.

"Eli, it's real weird," I said. "I've only ever been able to dream in that home. I mean, whenever I dream, no matter what age I am in my dream, no matter what scene I am having, the location is always one way or another, there, in that home."

"Whoa," he said. "There's probably some deep psychological reason for that. Seriously, what's the psychoanalysis for something like that?"

I don't know. I've only done psychoanalysis once, back in treatment. And I cannot say I found it very helpful. The point of dreams, so they say, is a brain's chicanery, presenting trauma in figurative language so we can work our way through the pain without creating further hurt. If a man, then, is traumatized from a fear of snakes, he might dream instead of snake-like objects, the water hose which thrashes uncontrolled from the spigot of its garden home. And in parallel, the dreamer can work out a solution to this pain without further scarring his mind, without waking him up from the dream. Whereupon wake, you will likely avoid the hurt, burying it for another day where it will fester indefinitely in his subconscious mind. But what my dreams mean for me and why I always dream in the home of my childhood, I do not know. I fear not to know.

So I reply in turn, "Not sure," unsure why my dreams are stuck in the past. Adding, "I prefer to look forward."

And at 50 I punched the gas to 5,000 and we dropped into second, swallowing the road in a devilish blur till the engine capped and we were pushing 100. And by that point there was no use for third already at the bumper of the common car before us.

We drove like this for a while. What could have been hours, what felt like moments, and what was really lifetimes of long gone places we'd since forgotten.

If someone told me I'd been a racer in previous lives, I'd not hesitate to agree. And if they said I weren't, in my denial I'd prove them wrong till the moment of death trying to prove them right.

My brain's addiction for gear changing and the growling of exploding petrol is a compulsion upon my mind. The very ruminations of stick shifting are what save me whenever I'm afflicted with difficult feelings or uncomfortable circumstances.

But on the contrary, to accidentally move the gears with the clutch not depressed, or to stall the transmission or to slip the clutch too soon, too late, to overthink the practice or to not pay it enough attention, all of the wrongdoings that can so easily afflict a good drive, all of it is the highest misery and the lowest hell upon my person.

At that, driving that manual car of my father's is both my saving grace and gravest sorrow. When we pulled in for the day, she, the baby blue Carrera, was clicking and popping with the pattering sounds car engines make after a hard drive: the sound of hot metal cooling down, the sound I'm not too sure sounds good nor is a good sound, but is that noise which most certainly has a reminiscence of completion.

But we're done, we're home, and so is the car in the echoing garage of its chambers, panting like a dog back from a walk, whinnying like a horse back from a ride, crackling like a fire right after its flame.

Before this moment was another moment, a moment when a friend of my mother's was gunning it, driving baby Porsche exactly how my father doesn't drive it, right up to the red line.

"You smell that?" he said.

"Yeah, that's not good, is it?"

"No, that's great. Porsche perfume," he added.

"The Germans so over-engineered these cars you just can't do wrong. Everything of them is to perfection, to drive right up to the limit."

I thought that was the smell of me riding the clutch.

"No." And to quell my skepticism, to justify his expertise, he sings it hard, really makes her sing. Howl.

He assures me he knows what he's doing, knows what he's talking about, how to drive by swinging all three of us, him, me, and the car, to the sides of our seats, skirting round a bend at a perfectly comfortable and completely unreasonable sprint. Everything and one was behind us and we weren't getting caught dancing on the fumes of devil breath.

In that instant, I was sold that the smell the Porsches exude after heavy driving is the kind of springtime fragrance certain trees give when pollinating, the queer and fragrant cleanliness reserved for puppies, newborn babies, and healthy orgasms.

And she, this fully alive yet inanimate labyrinth of motor parts was wafting fragrance in droves, the same fragrance was around us that afternoon.

We closed the top and pulled ourselves out from the coaming, from our seats just inches from the ground. We were bathing ourselves in that scent and I felt we'd done well that afternoon, just as I was too shy to give a grin.

Eli asked, "Can I help you put the cover on?"

"No, I'll let her cool down first."

"Good idea," he said.

But what do we really know about good ideas and cars? We're not mechanics, nor engineers, nor real drivers. We're just fanatics addicted to the drive.

I saw another like you,

What is this? When I was by the ocean (Sea), I saw (See) an angelic woman who reminded me of another celestial woman I know. Each has a kind of infinite innocence which vibrates the heart far beyond lust or love and straight into mourning: to mourn being separate of such beauty. Why write this? Some wants are why enough. Still, when my body tires but my brain still desires, I'll seldom drink a coffee to invigorate some life. The feeling is intensely focused and inspires me with a will to live, but the feeling is only temporary, at best, forty-five minutes. So I write while I can, using that sliver of willingness. I'd taken my seat along the beach front, latte in hand, and I was set on being still and enjoying the breeze, though, to distract up all the pretty folk, I wrote a thing instead. That's why. My favorite quote, "Not a thousand passing passers-by shine cents of you as bright."

Lizard to my left,

Backstory:

The words work nicely as a compulsive chant, or at least, they work better when recited repeatedly for relief, whatever needs relieving. I imagine it as a comforting lullaby in distressing times, and something to be repeated again and again with positive effect. I know for one when my mother died I began compulsively washing my hands every 15 minutes or so in the guest bathroom of the ICU. Partly the going away to the bathroom was relief from the crowded friends and family waiting room, which was already an asphyxia of grief. Mostly the going away was all there was to do, for there's only so much you can do in an ICU. Wait for the reason you're in the ICU to end, leave, or take pause in the restroom. I chose the lather to distract from the former. In either case, I'd have loved some sympathetic verses to recite during all that hand washing. Maybe these are those verses I never had, or never knew I wanted. At least they came to me in my hungover stupor that is this morning at 5am. They came from a single phrase, "Day-by-day," which was the last line quoted from a letter by George Bush, Sr. The letter was at an orthopedic office, and it was addressed to my orthopedic doctor who lost his leg from a landmine in Iraq. The trauma inspired him to become an orthopedic surgeon. The letter was congratulating him on his steady recovery, a note from the president. Day-by-day. I was privileged to read the letter because it was framed in my temporary room, patiently waiting. I had just punched something in disagreeable fashion, and I was waiting to hear the verdict. Cherishing those three words. Day-by-day.

Bit-by-bit.

I can make myself disappear, said the chair, and beneath the chair lied planks which became the almost tan deck, almost tan because of the still rising sun, which seemed to melt the chair's plastic into the floor, but in fact was just casting a shadow.

The lake water spoke.

"I too can disappear," but the sun interrupted the water.

"You only disappear because of me," said the sun to the water.

"And as for the likes of you," said the sun to the chair.

"You only disappear because of him."

The him the sun referred to was me, the man who sits on the chair, on the deck, above the water, beneath the sun.

I hear the unliving speak because I long to be unliving.

In turn, the unliving listen to me and respond.

"We can make this happen," said the collective sum of unliving.

"Yes," added the chair as if speaker of the sum.

"We can manifest all matters of material things.

We can make you disappear."

And my hand was filled with the forming of another hand, but in fact the other hand was just a handle, and the handle formed perfectly to the form of my hand, extending itself at the head into a cold dog snout.

But in fact the dog snout was just a muzzle of a gun, and the muzzle of the gun was not just a muzzle, but was in fact an entire matte metallic colt, and the colt spoke.

"I am among the few unliving things that cannot disappear, but in exchange I can make the living disappear."

My first thought was perhaps the thought of any disappearance.

Will I return?

When will I return?

How long will I not return?

Or at least, what does it mean to disappear?

This time it was the deck who spoke.

You ask these questions as if you can understand, but to understand is definite, as definite as disappearance.

And you might consider any definite thing as disappearance itself, existing in only one state, but for as long as you try to understand you prove two states exist, pre-understanding and understanding, which makes a thing indefinite and no longer the thing.

We ask, definitely, do you want to disappear?

And the sun said, "I will evaporate your body."

And the chair said, "I will hold your body for the sun."

And the deck said, "I will prop the chair above the water."

And the water said, "I will drown the bullet and the blood."

And by the time the cult spoke—

It's warm,

Monica feared the worst for her child after her husband, Frank, who had no hair, no muscle, and no window in his room at the office, impregnated her. This balding man without ability and aspiration would ruin her child. He made good money, but such miserable genetics would never compete against her friend's children. Her husband's genes were to compete against Charlie's genes, and this is why she worried.

Charlie swam for Ivy League, where he met Nancy, who modeled her hands for Gregory's ring collection at Hartman's Jewelry. Greg and Dennis never did find themselves a uterus, but rumor has their Russian baby in the mail. Nancy spreads the news, Nancy and her fish lips. It was no wonder they were the first couple in the Sunday school to have a baby. Fish lips never entertained the swimmer, so when the rest of Nancy grew weary, she lied.

She couldn't refuse him and risk the marriage. She had the best husband in the group. The girls saw it coming, but Charlie thought they were still planning when he was taken by surprise with a nine-month depression. Monica felt depressed too. Her husband was no match for a swimmer, nor a Russian. Monica's friends would accept no indecent child as slobbery and undeveloped as hers would surely be. They would allow it, of course, but only to numb their mishaps.

Nancy would say, "Yes, it's a rightful shame our Johnny made wall art with excrement, but never mind him. Monica's child is still breastfeeding. Monica's child keeps me from Xanax." Monica wouldn't have it, so she prayed. Maybe it wouldn't work, but she was desperate. She began, "Dear..." but she quit at once. She reneged. She never said anything. She had God convinced that she never spoke. "I stopped, God. I never started. You heard nothing."

She couldn't waste one of her godly wishes before considering what Pastor Michael said. A prayer by one is an email in his inbox, but a prayer by many is a group message on his lock screen. Ask yourself, "How should you reach God tonight?" It was a contemporary church. Who else would marry Greg and Dennis? But she knew no Christians with whom to pray, so she never did pray at all.

Three years passed and Monica had her son, Alex, somersaulting at the local gymnasium. It took effort. Hard lessons, tears, bribery. It bled Franks model train fund, but this was more important than weekends at Hobby Town. It was most important that Alex took to something and found success. She made him exercise his concentration. She fabricated withdrawals.

Mother told Alex he could only roll at the gym, and she made him watch as neighbors practiced in their yards back home. Friends rolled for pleasure, but Alex rolled for purpose. Instructors told her otherwise, to humor more freedom, but she refused to consider. Alex begged his father to beg his mother for just one spare tumble, but father only returned on the weekends, and Alex never could ring a phone.

Alex craved the gym mat. Mother had him conditioned. He studied the blue felt and rubbed his cheeks up against its surface. He must have learned it from the dogs. He looked both ways like father had shown him on the crosswalks. He asked permission because mother tricked him into thinking it a privilege. She made him wait for further confirmation until, alas, battery-lit sneakers danced and kicked and dug into the floor mats until his head went into his crotch and he came full round, flopped on his back, and somersaulted. The other kids did it better, and she despised losing.

A year followed, and she decided to pursue something else. They arrived at the soccer fields with the same effect, but with less instruction. Monica entrusted the church, so she left her son at the curb with his cleats laced in a triple knot. He cried when she drove away because he knew better than to cry in front of her. He cried at the taste of dandelions picked from the sidelines. Other children cleated the backs of his legs in pursuit of the ball. He cried more. The unending sob had his whole shirt saturated like a hard-earned sweat stain. Alex would have fooled his mother, except he never stopped wailing when she finally did return.

The other kids never cried, and she despised weeping. Another year brought another sport, this time the pool, where maybe his tears wouldn't show. But Alex couldn't swim, and he choked on the water and splashed on his dives. He refused to wear goggles but still shut his eyes. Mother never dared show herself, especially with so much tell-tale at the country club Cabana. She sent Frank instead. He took ownership. He framed the six-place ribbons. He photographed their drowning son. The other kids stayed afloat, and she despised sinking.

Mother settled her losses with a glass. She took to drinking just before the holidays. Its incessant demand left her bedridden for Thanksgiving, but her bed left her thankful. She dreamed of how well her child still was. Alex did come to swim, and he never came to quit, but he also never came to win. And she never quit dreaming of his success and the praise her family would receive come the glories her house so deserved.

Christmas promised presents with propositions for new games, and it all had mother inspired again, and sober again. So she left for the store, aisle number four, baseball. The store had her thrilled. Each aisle was another opportunity. She passed weights, and boxing bags, and football pads, and tennis rackets, and golf clubs, and kayaks, and dirt bikes, and basketballs, and volleyballs, and bowling balls. She could mold her child into anything, except she was destined to fail. Her friends predicted it long ago, long before the Sunday school ended.

It'd been since the babies arrived that Charlie returned Nancy and their newborn Jonathan back to New England. It'd been six years since Frank took a job on the West Coast, and since Monica last wrote Nancy. It was too much pressure to compete so directly, so Monica abandoned her friends, but she still wished her boy more success than the others. She still prayed for a miracle. Except Monica's son fulfilled no miracle.

Each new sport promised new headaches and further disappointment. She expected the baseball bat for Christmas to bring nothing less, but she went ahead and made her aisle four purchase. She still hoped for a miracle. A Christmas miracle, which she would find at home, in her mailbox. Nancy wrote her.

"It brings us great sorrow to call our friends to mourn the life of our dearest Jonathan, who left us far too young." Charlie and Nancy signed it. Nancy apologized. "Sorry I never told you sooner, Monica. Jonathan had a terrible accident on the stairs. It left him paralyzed and we struggled for a year. We tried operating, but the risk was far beyond a miracle." Monica returned the baseball bat. She won.