Tagged: family
I Killed Church
Arrest me. Do it soon. I need to feel the cold steel of handcuffs around my wrists. I am even okay with the sharp-edged plasticky feel of zip-ties. Hurry up and place a guiding hand on my head as I step into the back seat of a squad car.
I did it. I confess. It was over a decade ago. I cannot remember the exact day but I remember why I did it. He had become weak. He had lost his edge. He was no different than anyone else. He did not even know my name.
Replace my name with a number. You can have my personal effects. I look forward to putting on a jump suit. My favorite letters are D O and C. I will wear them with pride.
I never wanted to hurt him. You should know that. But I did it just the same.
So what if it was negligence. I am still the guilty party. I saw his thirst for more money. I heard his desire for a bigger house. I felt his demand for more friends.
I prefer powdered soap. I have no friends. I have no family. No one will miss me.
He disgusted me. So I killed him the only way I knew how. I left him.
I thought I saw him last Sunday. I was mistaken. The man I saw was just an imitation. He was older. He would not offend. He would not provoke. He would not incite. He would not love. I knew then that I must confess my crime. The world needs to know. Church is dead. I know because I killed him.
Sacred Harp (Shape Note) Singing’s Gift
If you’ve seen Cold Mountain, then you’ve been introduced to Sacred Harp singing. It’s also called Shape Note singing. Essentially, it’s this ol’ timey acapella singing where the notes are shaped like squares, circles, diamonds, and triangles and named fa, so, la, and mi. The singers sit in a square (tenor, bass, soprano, alto) facing each other. You can view a video of it here. In any case, one day I was reminded how much I liked the sound of it and used the interwebs to see if anyone in Denver actually still does it. Sho’ ’nuff, they do. So I took H- last night.
First, it was a beautiful church. But the attendance was much lower than I expected. There were eleven of us. Well, including H- there were twelve. Eleven adults, one child. But what a child. If you haven’t watched the video linked above, now is your second reminder and link.
The way the session worked was we just went around the square and chose songs. Usually a person stood up in the middle and “led” the singing. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it is common and helps everyone stay on time.
Being sharp and displaying perfect innocence, H- was sure to spell out her first name for the group between the first and second songs and her last name between the second and third songs. And this without even being asked. Endearing is a little weak when it comes to attempting to describe the scene with words.
Next, H- noticed that a participant stood in the middle of the group and asked if she could do it. A kind old woman offered H-, “You can stand with me when I do it.” And H- did–foot tapping and all. (If you’re not in tears at this point, please dial 911). A few songs later there was a delay in anyone standing up to approach the middle of the square. H-‘s response was to fill void. She is so smart. Can you picture it? Use everything I’ve shared with you about this little girl and just imagine her responding to the group’s inquisition, “What are you doing?” with,”Someone needs to stand in the middle.” This child has no fear. Do you remember what that was like? Can you remember? I can’t remember it, but I can report that witnessing it is a gift from God.
Shape note singing. Who would’ve thought it would beget a miracle?
Dropping Off
Same car. Same smorgasbord of items in the car. Same occupants. This time, however, they are pulling into the pre-school parking lot. It’s day two of three for the week. Day one’s drop-off ended in tears. Truthfully, it ended in adults acting a-fool in an effort to distract poor H- so that the tears would stop.
Car in mid-turn, he glimpsed the future and said, “Oh, H-.”
“Yes, daddy?”
“I meant to tell you that I’d like it if you didn’t cry today,” he said. “Remember what we talked about? Instead of crying, how about we agree that you just say, ‘Daddy, I’d like one more hug’?”
“Uh, I think I might do what you said, daddy,” she said, referencing the crying.
“No, H-,” he bemoaned. “You can’t keep crying every day–even if you’re sad. You’re a big girl now-”
“I think I might do what you said, daddy,” she repeated. While strong and carrying surprising foreknowledge, her voice faltered just enough to indicate she really was getting nervous to leave his side.
The exit of the car was uneventful. They entered the room one after the other. He struck up a conversation with the teacher; H- walked towards her seat. He tried to say goodbye. She didn’t turn. He tried once more. She didn’t turn. He quickly scanned the faces of the others in the room. He was speaking out loud, wasn’t he? Then it hit him. Ignoring the pain can be easier than acknowledging it. Social grace told him it was time to exit the classroom. Now it seemed that the pre-game speech was a bit much. No, he thought, that’s not it. She must have just been distracted. Yeah, that’s it.
Regret and Resiliance
As vagabonds, their little car was pretty full. The back seat was littered with jackets, a bowling ball bag, a motorcycle helmet, and a few hangars. Not to mention H-‘s booster seat. Despite the fact that she’s a big girl now, he still thought it best to place whatever worksheets and artwork she carried out of school or church at the foot of her seat. These days, however, she was doing all the climbing-in and buckling-up herself. This meant that those papers and art projects might get trampled if care was not taken.
He opened the door for her and straightened out her seat-belt before backing up to allow her room to climb in. Seeing her choose her footing slowly in an effort to not step on the papers, he plainly observed, “Man. There is so much trash in this car.”
For her, probably just an instant passed. For him, an eternity. All he could do was look away and wait. His lips couldn’t purse together harder, nor his head shake with more regret. He certainly couldn’t look towards her face in the interim. A face that was staring at papers colored with love and care. Neither increasing the time it took to inhale, nor searching the sky proved effectual towards relieving the impending doom.
“My papers are not trash,” H- finally concluded, her voice begging for clarification.
“You’re right. They are not trash,” he said.
She seemed satisfied by the new decree, but that didn’t stop him from wondering how many more breaks he would receive. Probably too many.
Beaming
“So you sold your house, but don’t have a new one yet?”
“That’s right. I can’t get any bank to understand that my overtime pay is required by my job. The problem is most of my pay is from overtime, so by not counting it, it looks like I’m hardly working, which is about as far from the truth as possible. One lender is only giving me my hourly wage times eighty hours a month. I’m working eighty hours a week. They just keep saying that the VA loan has a guideline that requires two years of overtime history before it can be counted as income,” he said, pausing. As if hearing a starter’s pistol, he quickly resumed the story, saying, “The thing is they keep blaming the VA Loan guidelines. I’ve called the VA and they said that I’m right, and that they’ll essentially support any loan that a lender is willing to make. It’s the friggin’ Veterans Affairs after all, not the Anti-Veterans Affairs. They pointed out that they’re guidelines, not black and white, and more than that they said it’s the lenders money. The lender can do what they want. The VA is going to support the veteran. They just recommend that the lender document what they were thinking with unusual cases like mine.”
“So what are you and H- going to do then?
“Tell her, H-” he said, nudging H-.
“We’re vagabonds,” H- said.
He beamed.
“Tell her where our home is for now,” he said.
“Our home is the street-” she proudly continued.
“-No…no, no, no,” he corrected upon seeing the look on the grandma’s face. “The road, H-, the road. Our home is the road. You can’t say street. Totally different meaning. Our home is the road. Vagabond. Road.”
Review of Christian Mingle Movie Preview
Click here if you haven’t seen the preview (it’s worth it–trust me). The subject line I chose when sharing the preview with my brother was “worse each second.” His response included, “Offensive to anyone with a brain.” Another friend said “ridiculous” and meant the word’s literal definition. Running only two and half minutes in length, the damage it causes is immeasurable.
Choosing a place to begin is proving difficult, so I’m just going to go free association from here on out. Who knew you had to be white to be a Christian? Who knew you had to have a full head of hair? And wear checkered button-down shirts tucked into khakis? Actually, I think we all knew that. I didn’t know Christians kissed outside, but come to think of it I should have. I am happy to see that, like in real life, once you have a black friend, you get to tell them they all look the same.
I for one can tell you no matter how happy my family looked in church, discord was the norm at home, especially during the holidays–even the big one. (What Ma?! I’m just acknowledging they were stressful.) But yes, Christians do certainly seem to be happier in public, don’t they? I think it’s because that’s when they try. Oh, and the fact that they have all the answers. And that’s why we should all marry a Christian. Or date one. Or at least subscribe to Christian Mingle. The good news is you don’t even have to be Christian or single to get a credit card.
In conclusion, I’d like to demonstrate my ability to simplify a movie’s raison d’etre from the trailer.
(Summoning deep slow-paced Movie Preview Man voice) Christian Mingle: Because Lord Knows, A Woman Without A Man Is Worthless. (Speeding up now) Coming to a theater near you.
A Dinner Scene
“Speaking of people sounding black or white, I just watched this thing on back-up singers-,” the family matriarch began, steering the conversation in a new direction.
“Yeah, one of my friends mentioned that that is just a fantastic film,” the no-good smart-ass disrespectful-though-very-funny adult middle-child added.
“It really was!” she said earnestly, taking back the floor. “And the surprising part was that a lot of the singers were black and got their start in churches as little girls.”
“Ha. That’s exactly what my friend shared about the film. Funny.”
“Well, what I was going to say was that there was one scene where the girl said that she was singing back-up for Ray Charles. And she told a story about a time when Ray Charles stopped the concert and just played one note over and over again telling her that that was the note to sing. That note,” she said, repeatedly pressing her finger into the table with her eyes open wide in a reenactment of the scene. Laughing, she continued, “And the singer said that after that moment she never missed a note ever again. It was so embarrassing.”
“Crazy,” said the middle-child, voicing the sentiment he felt was expected.
“I mean just think of it. With all that noise and the sound of the crowd he was still able to pick out her voice,” she said, letting a natural pause emphasize her child-like wonder of the skill involved in such a feat.
He lived for moments like this one. Unable to withstand the opportunity, he timed the punchline perfectly as he inhaled with about-to-speak force and added with a tone of disbelief, “And he was deaf!”
“Blind!” the son-in-law corrected forcefully, coming to her defense.
“Blind!” the mother rejoined, happy to be defended but wishing she was faster to correct the constantly instigating know-it-all smart-alec.
Not only quicker on the draw, the son-in-law was also the first to shake his head and leave the table mad at himself for ever believing his brother-in-law had anything of value to say. Everyone else just laughed and laughed. The middle-child just smiled.
As for our storyteller? Her face red as a beet she laughed until she could not laugh anymore as she wondered what she ever did to be treated this way. She would have thrown something at him if everything in the room wasn’t so darn nice.
The Morning That She Didn’t Put Up A Fight
They had finished bathing the baby. She was asleep in the pack-n-play. The dog’s constant pacing made the temporary apartment feel smaller than it was. Not that it mattered now. The seller had accepted their latest offer on the house, so only a month remained until they closed and would be reunited with their own stuff.
“I care about you,” she began to answer. He couldn’t remember what question he had asked. “But I don’t like you,” she concluded.
She wore the same resigned look he had grown tired of seeing for the past two years. Ever since the stripper.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information,” he said. “Why would I want to live with someone who doesn’t like me? I’m glad you care about me, but to me that’s not as noble as you just made it sound. I’m taking the dog to pee. Is the trash full?”
Without their separate beds he let her have the covers and slept in his sleeping bag. Sleeping bags added a level of fun to any night so he didn’t mind. He was all out of fight himself as well, especially over something as trivial as sheets.
The closing was uneventful. He tried to stay positive about the new job that didn’t pay as much as they hoped. She tried to not stress about shift work on the weekends. With each passing day his walk to the bar seemed shorter; her options, fewer.
She went out with a co-worker after he returned from happy hour with a friend. Waking by himself at two-thirty he figured she was on her way. At three his worry hardened into a decision. He was never going to feel knots like those in his stomach again. Never. Four am will forever sound to him like a door handle, the bathroom fan, and the plop of vomit into toilet water.
After the baby went to sleep the next night they were finally alone. He raged. She sat as he lectured. With each non-response he raised his volume.
The following morning she behaved as if the fight was over. For her, the cycle was complete. For him, the marriage was. Some cycles should never be repeated.
She followed him out of the house for a few steps after he said divorce. He answered the phone thirty minutes later. She told him her parents had two attorneys ready to schedule a consultation.
He now lies to himself that the hurt has decreased since that morning–the morning that she didn’t even put up a fight.
The Fastest Roughneck
His name is Becky. I mean Becki.
“See how fast I did that, Peter?” was one of the first things he ever said to me. Then settling down to a serious mood, he continued, “You gotta be fast out here, Peter.”
I could see in his eyes that he cared. That he took extra time to teach me (he’d probably say being fast creates extra time) made me care. Effort is contagious.
“People are always watching out here, Peter. Anytime something needs to be done you gotta do it as fast as you can. I’m twenty-one and going to be a driller soon. It’s ’cause I’m so fast.” Then he would smile and say, “I just love saying your name, Peter.”
Becki should’ve been named a word that means “potential” or maybe “talent.” He was raw potential. His memory was uncanny; his attitude, without burden. He loved his mom and his daughter. And he could swing a sledge hammer as fast as any man. He was not a large man, which meant you had to look close to see that he was all heart.
One of this lightening bolt’s favorite jokes was: “After I’m done I always tell her, ‘I don’t know what the problem is. I mean we started at the same time’.” Like I said, he was fast.
A member of a generation struggling to find their purpose in life, Becki knows he was born for the oil fields. I don’t think Becki’s vocabulary bank accepted struggle currency. Carrying on the binary communication tradition began by previous roughnecks, Becki only recognized the concepts “done” and “one more second.”
In the end, a man like Becki hails from a long tradition of makers. Cormac McCarthy would say these men carry the fire. I say they are the ones who attract our attention, deserve our admiration, and win our affection. Becki just does it faster.
Why $30 Per Day Is Not A Deal
As most of you know I am divorced and don’t see my daughter for half of her life. The same goes for her mom. That can’t be changed. But expectations between her mom and I can be changed.
I bet you’d be surprised to learn that her mom reads these posts. I was. I think she hopes she’ll be able to use them against me someday in some melodramatic legal battle. It’s a great feeling, hammering in your own nails.
Most recently, we were in a mediation which had a moment where the mediator gave a look that was accompanied by a primal utterance that betrayed that he thought that paying her boyfriend’s mom $30 per day to watch H- was a deal in today’s “not my responsibility” childcare market. Here’s why it isn’t a deal.
I took H- camping last week and while we were in the bathroom she volunteered, “I saw a man lick a woman’s face on TV.” H- is four. I think at least a few of you can imagine the expression I nearly successfully held back upon hearing this.
I asked if this was at her mom’s house or “Grammy’s” house (not her grandparent on any level, to be clear). Another parenthetical–(now I know you’re not supposed to play detective as a co-parent, but I’m human.) She answered, “Grammy’s.”
“So you watch TV at Grammy’s house, eh?” I continued.
“Yep.”
“Was it while she was flipping channels?”
Even at her tender age H- has a way of seeing through any attempt of mine to pretend that I’m really not interested in the answer, so she simply resorted to, “Nevermind!”
What the fuck? Television is a poison beyond measure. Does anyone doubt this? And yet a wonderful feature of my choice in ex-wives is that now my child is being raised by it when I’m not around. And I’m supposed to be happy about the financial savings. Whatever happened to the phrase, “There is more to life than money”?
What am I supposed to do? The other option is to track down some fantastical daycare which allows her to attend only half of every month. My experience in this realm is that this is not likely. And daycares that don’t cost a fortune usually are religiously affiliated. Keep in mind that as the father, I’m paying for childcare not for when I’m at work, but for when her mother’s at work. I’m paying other people than her mother to raise her. So my options are face licking or bible stories. At this point I think I’d take bible stories, but I have a difficult time understanding why a television is ever on. I know I’m not alone on this. I spoke with a stay-at-home dad (still married) a while ago, and he said he was at some function where they were discussing how many hours of television they let their kids watch a week. He said, “An hour.”
The others said, “Wow. An hour a day. That’s great.”
And he said, “No, an hour a week. Maybe.”
They said, “How do you fill the time?”
He said, “How do you have the time?”
How do you have the time to watch television with a kid? Why would you put a kid in front of the “boob tube?” Or the “brain drain?” I know why. You do it because you’re lazy. You do it because you rush to help people that behave in a way that seems like they need help when they are really just lazy. I’ve said it so many times I’m sick of hearing myself say it, but I’ll say it again. I grew up thinking the opposite of love was hate. Then I heard the notion that the opposite of love is not hate, but selfishness–and I preached that. These days, however, I’m with M. Scott Peck who wrote that the opposite of love is laziness.
Do you love your child? What’s it like finding out that she’ll admit these things to me?
It should be Miss P-, by the way. P- is not her grandmother. Words have meanings. Why your mom doesn’t care is beyond me.
Captain’s Log 