Tag Archives: alcir

by

… he returns …

It’s September, and after many weeks of sporatic calls,
hits and misses, Alcir comes back around to the himself
that I know and love, and begins talking.

He’d had a job for a short while… one he loved, working in
the Bay, laying some sort of lines… I think it was electrical,
and he was ecstatic.

“So, you like it?”
“oh it’s so good… I ought to be paying Them”, he laughed.
“I drive this boat around, jump in the wadder when I wan’ to,
catch a fish….. I am a very happy man.”

That didn’t last too long.  The funding got cut, the project was
dropped, and he was completely in the dumps again.

Still, there were the classes now,  the ones for a
Captain’s License, and that gave him hope.

Back in August, he called after spending time in the bar,
explaining celestial navigation….
…. a crowd had gathered…he had felt so proud.

Then he began lamenting about his daughter, and at last he
cried, sobbed uncontrollably.
I felt grateful that he could do this with me, but more so,
I was happy for him that he got some of this pain out.
As a woman, I know how important it is to cry.

“This thing is killing me,” he began, “and I’d just End it, but
I’m too much of a coward. ”

“No, that’s not true” I replied…
“It takes a braver man to stay and feel it, to grow.”

Now the daughter came up again… it was eating away at him,
as the mother and he were so at odds, she wouldn’t allow him
to take her, or even see her.

“I told V that I would be alone… an she said
‘No Daddy… I’ll be there’, an I said
No you won’t.   I will be alone now.”

He went on to change the subject…

“When I met you that first time, I was scared… but every time
I turned around I thought of you…and then that 4th of July,
when we did it for real…you fit like you…it…was made for me…
you’re my woman…
…an  now, I wanna be with somebody who shows me how
it is to feel that…
I wanna be with somebody who loves me like you love me…
Oh, I’m gonna put on Frank Zappa records, and fuck you…”

then he turned a corner… he did this a lot… thing to thing

“So Hunter S Thompson died…… an they shot his ashes out
of a cannon like he wanted….oh that’s beautiful!
I want my ashes to be blown out of a cannon…
play a bugle ……play anything…
Saints go Marchin in………..Me and Bobby Magee…
I don’ care…just get me outa there…”

“When I die, I’m gonna sign a paper that says to donate
my liver to science… they need to study me…I’m not normal.
I’m a guzzling V8, built to last.  ”

“I nearly beat the British world record for diving, 419 meters.
I made it to 413…..that was with professional diving equipment,
helium and nitrogen.”

“In my first free dive, I broke 75 meters!  the guys on the boat
didn’t believe me, so I followed the anchor back down, an
brought back some dirt, so they’d know!
I’m not a normal man, babe.  ”

“I don’ believe in God, macumba, gnones, santa claus …
…nothing…but one thing I believe in is a man’s envy….
they give you the Oro Grande…. the Big Eye…
an then I shut up an have another drink.
It’s a man’s ability of another man to kill with envy….  ”

Then, as he closed for the night, the tenderness came…

“I wouldn’t be here tonite, if not for you.
I’d go to the bar, an I’d have gotten in a fight…….
………… oh woman…. ”  and he sighed.

 

—————————————-

 

 

 

by

… the coquis …

My friends Jeff and Eileen had to move again… they have been
house sitting the place on the papaya plantation, and that has
come to an end… so Jeff calls and asks if I’ll come look at this place
with him, as Eileen is on the mainland.

We arrive, and it’s in the middle of what is literally a tropical forest.
It’s an upstairs artists’ loft, and as we climb the stairs, there are
wild and leafy murals on each side, guiding us to a widely windowed
flat with sweeping views of the treetops, vines draping, little balconies
on which to stand, open except for a bedroom, enclosed Asian style.

The openness of the place immediately strikes me, and a vision of
their work spaces and wide tables covered with projects just fits,
under those high ceilings, fans dreamily turning, breezes softly
wafting, that eternal blueness in the distance.
It opens the brain pan, stretches the reach of inspiration.
…..and for me it’s an immediate Yes!

He is one of the inventors of the Hologram, with a couple other guys
back in the sixties.  Their style was the flat kind…the ones that jump
off the page at you.
There was another school of thought developing at the same time,
and oddly enough I know one of those fellows as well.
They each have chosen to spend time in Point Arena, and of course
are friends now as well.
That school developed the one that you can walk around, and the
image follows you and changes, moves…

The most famous and original holo is called The Kiss.  You may
have seen it.
The woman was quite young at the time, and she is blowing a kiss
to you as you move from one side to the other of this semi circle
of clear material mounted on the wall, that holds the imagery.

I wish I understood holos.  Jeff has tried to explain them to me,
but to no avail.  To me they are just magic, pure and simple.

Eileen is this magical little elfin person, a blond sprite brimming
over with energy and glee from just being alive.  She was the
protegee of Erte, the old queen artist world famous for costumes
and stage design, as well as fashion, in the thirties and forties.
She worked and trained with him for seven years.

Now she designs the most glorious sculptures that are reproduced
for large companies like Promax, MTV,  and others, for their awards ceremonies.
We’ve all seen the Oscars… no, she didn’t design these, but hers
are much like that, frequently female forms which she excels in,
and you can see Erte’s influence in all her work.  Lucky her!

She has been commissioned make both 2D and 3D objects d’Art
for many famous people and their estates, like the clear lucite
miniature “Lucile” guitar, a gift for BB King, and etched repros of
John Lennon sketches.  So many wonderful things,  I won’t go on.

So an expansive creative space for these two is rather essential!

I’m completely going Yes with all of my being, and Jeff loves it, but
he’s having trouble deciding.  Eileen is gone, he must make the call,
and there’s one big problem.
That gorgeous jungle out three sides of windows?  it’s filled with….
the infamous COQUI FROG!!.  Millions of them.

They started invading the big island years ago, and now have taken
over many places…so much so that it’s lowering the land values.
No Really… some people just freak out at the sound.
Personally, i think it’s quite clever of those little frogs…

See… they are tiny frogs (one inch) with very big voices, and
at night they hold major parties with wild abandon, dancing girls
and froggy orgies…!
Great for them, but their chirps are so loud, you’d never guess
their tiny size, and some people’s brains just get taken over
by their vibrational levels.

To me they sound like crickets… allbeit very Loud crickets…but
I can just put them in that category in my mind, and be done with it.
He’s just not sure She will be able to cope.  She’s sensitive…

He decides, we decide, and next day I help him move all their studios
into this magical place… done with it, and Eis will have to adjust, at
least until the next place.   Earplugs work…she loves ear plugs.

They like to move a lot, and because of their work they have so many connections with monied folks, and they end up house sitting 3/4 of
the time in amazing places.  They love change.  I think it inspires them.

Meanwhile, I am delighting in my little hippie house with dog and cat, landscaping work, helping the owner next door organize and clean,
and exploring the island a little.

Up in a town called Volcano, up top of the…. bet you guessed….
there has been built a tiny theater … the Ulua , named for a fish…
and the entire area around it is being brought back to its original
glory, with plantings and clearings.

Jason Scott Lee, famous for playing Bruce Lee, Mowgli in Jungle Book,
and The King on stage in NY in their the King and I production….
He has left Hollywood,  gone native, back to his roots, and built this
little theater, so now there’s this little energy center forming that
I find fascinating.
He’s focusing on natural farming and sustainable agriculture, all
around his property, and is seriously weary of the Hollywood scene.

There’s his first play opening soon, Burn This, and I plan to go.
Maybe Jeff and Eileen, and maybe this guy Steve, will go too…..

——————————————–

Go here if you want to know more  about the COQUIS!!!
and you can hear them too….

http://www.hawaiiancoqui.org/

——————————————–

by

… time alone …

There are no days of the week, no time to be somewhere,
just waking with the sun, and long invigorating walks.
At home I make jewelry, clear out the jungle, wash
windows, and let the days drift.

Talks with Alcir are sporadic… time zones collapse time into
different worlds… he’s not home when I call, or he’s sleeping
and doesn’t want to talk, or he forgets my number, and calls
my daughter when he’s drunk…
…and she’s getting annoyed with his ramblings.

Sometimes he thinks he’s called me, but he never did…
and I wonder who he did call, because there was no message.

It’s all in a fog, but as usual, just when I drift away, he
comes back with clarity, telling me his deeply amusing
stories, or reminding me of his real self.

His experiences pile up with pain and disillusionment…
His grandfather gave him a house on the coast.
While he was gone, his father took it and sold it.

Another time he gave $30,000 cash to his uncle for
a house in Ibicui….that idyllic place we want to live…
He never got the deed, and now his uncle is selling it again…

Again and again, the knife in the back.  Since he was small,
the public beatings, and humiliations before his extended
family have created such isolation for him, such mistrust
in someone so naturally trusting…. and such disrespect
from the relatives, who used him as the scapegoat of the family.

There was/is  deep inside of him, this pure childlike trust…
a clear sense of what’s right and wrong… a fury at the travesty,
at the viciousness of humanity.
He sees things in such clear terms, as a child…or an indian…
might see them.

He truly doesn’t understand how people behave the way
they do, how anyone can be so untrue to the most basic
elements of kindness and justice.

“When I see stories of slaves being beaten, I think …
…This is nothing.  This is what I go through all my life.
Til one day I stood up and said…. NO MORE !
If you touch me one more time, I will break your neck…
I was 14…. and they never touch me again.

“Beating a slave is one thing… beating someone you
don’t know, who you have no feelings for…
But to beat your own flesh and blood……”
…and he sadly let the memories drift away…

And now, although some of that pure knowing remains
deep inside, he is an island unto himself.

Being one he trusts is an honor and a deep commitment.
I do my best to be clear and true, to remind him of who he
really is inside, beyond the distortion of carnival mirrors
shown to him as a youth, those wavy, untrue reflections.

“The first time I laid eyes …and lips… on you.. oh good lord…
how you changed my life.  I tasted what could be…”
…he told me once again, this time with different words.
“I want to remake myself with what’s inside of you”

I hoped that this desire for rebirthing was true.
And I hoped I could live up to his vision.

—————

by

…june 13 2005…

Today I face my fears.  Today I face creating money,
being on my own, not knowing what the future holds,
and liking what I have created for myself.

Go towards what opens, leave what closes….

Journal…
Last nite after talking with Alcir, I went on his writers’ site
as he had asked… he thought a virus had perhaps affected it…

And there… 4/26/05…. is a new “erotic poem”.  And
what am i to assume?
Is it about me?  how can it be?  Is it about Her…
…whichever her it might be?

How am I to know?  Yet the title is in Portuguese, and it
will not translate for me, and it seems like it’s either
“You Did Not Come”… or “Don’t  Come”…

It’s some sad poem that talks about never her,
not showing up at all, and never knowing his Love…
but something about not coming…. and
one could easily take that in several ways.

I call him…..  I am confused, as well as potentially angry and jealous.

About all he could offer me was to ask me if I was jealous…
He seems unwilling to give a straight answer, and unable
to just Talk about Anything…
There is no explanation, resolution, or sense made of any of it.

I am left with something akin to everything else right now….
Nothing is sure, and It’s all up to me.

Then I watch a film and I take down a quote…
“God is the principle of simplicity and unity that seems to be
underneath all the complexity at the surface of things.”

I like what i hear…..

…and this is from a group of top scientists and theologians
that had gathered in order to redefine God for the 21st century,
bringing spiritual and scientific value into greater harmony.

and then the Journal …

“She let him go.  He was an aquarian after all…. and what is
anything without freedom…”

This terrible letting go engulfed her, and she realized that
was all she could do.  Let go with Love… because that was
still there with all its prickly holdings.
But letting go of any semblance of Control was the only
path there for her.  It was the high road for both.

Somehow she got in this place, the place of releasing
him and herself from any expectations or obligations…
and then serendipity came along,
and this song kept on going round and round….
..and it was in an Angelina Jolie film she watched,
and it spoke the truth… and as tears fell, she
stood on its ground at that moment.

Love Song

Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am Home again.
Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am Whole again.

However far away,
I will always love you.
However long I stay,
I will always love you.
Whatever words I say,
I will always love you;
I will always love you.

And for a Sexier Version… a newer cover by Adelle…

Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am young again.
Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am fun again.

However far away,
I will always love you.
However long I stay,
I will always love you.
Whatever words I say,
I will always love you;
I will always love you.

Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am Free again.
Whenever I’m alone with you,
You make me feel like I am Clean again.

However far away,
I will always love you.
However long I stay,
I will always love you.
Whatever words I say,
I will always love you;
I will always love you.

 

 

by

…then and now…

…1986…

When we first met, Mendocino Coast California… he was 29, I was 43…

 

 

…2005…

Together in Brazil, here we are nearly twenty years later…

 

 

 

by

…making a move…

The weeks turned into months, with no solution.
She’d been living with a daughter, helping her settle into
a new house, but now the daughter was helping her, to
the point of exhaustion.  It was time to leave.

A direction was beckoning, with friends, work, and places
to stay…. Hawaii.  The tropics agreed with her.

She loved the way her skin felt after a day with sand and sea…
loved the shade she turned as the days turned to weeks.
The brilliant colors fed her eyes and inspired her to new
directions in her art.   It all made sense.
To just breathe…

Need Nothing…Desire Everything…Choose What Shows Up.

She liked that outlook.  OK…. the islands it would be.
As well, this would take the pressure off of him, leave him to
himself, without the pull of her needs, her emotional stress,
her questions.  Maybe that would allow him to relax and
figure out things, for he was still stuck.

He had vacillated continually, was often drunk when they
talked, frequently contradicting himself .
Getting away from all of this was just what she needed.
Taking action out of limbo land was the proper tack.

Her friend Eileen had an idea, and a good one.  A friend of hers
needed a house sitter for a month or two, there was a dog and
cat to watch, and perhaps even a car… a necessity on the big
island with its expanses.
The woman friend was nice enough at the onset, but seemed
intent on not only having her house and animals taken care of,
but also making money in the deal…
She wanted all her rent paid, and reneged on the car unless it
was rented at a separate rate.
Funny thing was, it became known that the woman received
most of her rent from government subsidies, only paying a small
amount herself.
This all began to feel uncomfortable, a certain used car salesman
aspect to an otherwise lovely adventure…
The Real funny thing was she went by one of those super cosmic
spiritual names, and did her very best to appear a super spiritual
gypsy, always dressing as if going to some reunion with
Swami Sensational and the Maha Rootietootie, and she was to be
their dancing girl, and crystal ball advisor.

Way too much jewelry, blackened Kole eyes, and … of course,
as it turned out… Pachouli.

… Goddess Beyondananda, she smiled to herself…..Perfect….

It became problematic at the onset, but eventually the woman
put away her sales talk about how special it was to be on the island,
and how lucky the girl would be, and realized she had the best deal
going to get a little bit of her rent paid, the amount she Actually
paid, and throw the car in the deal.
It would just be sitting there anyway!

She also knew very well that a great recommendation, a referral
with trust, and an animal person, was a priceless commodity.
There was just no other way for either of them.

She began to get excited.  Friends, places to go, nature everywhere,
a mellow dog for company, and her little monthly income covering
the basics.
She’d worked with Eileen before, so that might fit in as well… cool!

Now there were three things:  her stuff, her animals, and money.

The stuff got packed into storage.  The animals were to stay with the
daughter, and with her son in the woods.  The money came in…

As the time neared, Alcir seemed to be more receptive, even
leaning in as she pulled back… and isn’t that a typical response in
relationships?  the old dance of energies.

Journal…May 5, 2006

Alcir proposed on the phone tonite.  He said he wants to adopt
a black boy, to give one the advantages, to make up for the things
he’d done in war.  She thought that was sweet, and also knew that
tomorrow the thought would be replaced with another…
both curse and blessing with ADD…

“Do you know what I want?” he began.  “I want Peace.
I want to wake up every morning, and kiss you on the mouth,
and tell  you I love you.”
That made her smile…

He’s looking for a place in Ibicui… July is the goal.
“Sell your ticket…!  When are you coming?”…
But she says ‘no…you don’t have a place for me yet.’

Journal entry… May 7

She was scared…scared shitless.. scared beyond scared…
It was big…biggest…A change of life beyond what she’d ever
known, or imagined.
She drank Vodka tonics… she’d never drank like this.
And he?  He was a drunk.  The last two talks were impossible.

He couldn’t talk about reality at all… only bullshit.
His ups and downs were exhausting.

There were two things he said stuck in her mind, made her
laugh, and she noted them in her journal…

“I’m a mixture of Homer Simpson and Melvin Udall…
most men are…”  he said one night …
…”and I’m the only one who’ll admit it.”
She pictured Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets…

…and the best of all …

“I can never be someone else, because I will fail”

So it’s off to the healing balm of the islands, to clear the
mind and find center.

Maybe in a month or two, there will be a clearer path to him
and Brasil.  He had to find himself and his way, before he could
ever be fully with her, but she admitted to being eager to begin
this new chapter in their mutual life.

 

 

by

…bits and pieces…

Days pass, one after the other, without bookmarks.
Catching up, tuning in, taking care, adjusting and putting
stuff in place…
It’s been Three Days Home, after the two day journey, and
aside from her message to him that she’d arrived, there was
nothing back from him.

The lack of contact, withdrawal from connection, was overtaking
sanity, and she needed the emotional equivalent of methadone…

Knowing him, she thought, he’s likely getting wasted and numbing
out, while she was busy feeling all of it.
In that way they were very different.
But she could Feel his wobblings… his core off center…

She was coming down a rough slope, landing on excruciatingly hard
and itchy terra… and it felt like nothing could fill the void.

She reached into the abyss of time warps, and opposite sign waves,
and found little but empty hands and aching, longing questions.

If he was on the same E Ticket ride, they were both going down,
and no matter what she stuffed into the vacuumous black,
nothing satisfied.
Her way was to reach out, his to pull away.

There wasn’t enough beer or chocolate or cigarettes or mind
bending thoughts to fill it up, this she knew.
There was nothing she could do about his wastoid habits either…
… but keep busy, and keep on dialing.  He never answered…

It was a cruel time, a time that only would pass with time,
until another time took its place.
There were no answers to her questions now.
Her molecules were still collecting, still scattered across
half the planet, still sitting in that room, still lying
next to him, hearing his voice saying her name.

Just now, it felt like all was unknown.
Like Anything could happen …
Was Anything Real???

 

 

by

…i’m leaving babe…

Journal, March 8, 2005…..leaving Rio tomorrow.

“She tried without success to see beyond.  To find the path leading
to the future, to their future.  But all was dark, cloudy, full of foggy
mist, tiny lights flitting in when she least expected it.
Lights leading to hope, hopes of a life constructed of dream upon
dream, until it walked in and bit her.  Knocked her in the head
with its head.

That’s what he used to do to introduce himself to someone new,
when he was young… and a few passed out.  She hadn’t passed out,
but Lordy, he surely took her breath away.

She remembered her darling Carrie, who in the last episode
(Sex and the City), had said something wonderful, something so
her feelings…
“I believe in Love, inconvenient, all encompassing, can’t live
without it Love”

And now she’d found it, dreamed it, created it, and it completely
overwhelmed her.  It’s power, the knowledge that no other man
could ever again walk into her life and possess her the way he did…
this one man.
He was the love of her life truly, and the swept away feet off the
ground, the heart over head of it creating waves of pure emotion
without name.   And he had made it clear that it was mutual.

It was completely new territory, another universe, their own world.
.. Wasn’t that what he had said in that first poem….

“Meet me in a timeless world where we can be ourselves.
Where we are who we are..where I can be a true man who’s capable
to love a real woman, without limitations, without lies…
Free to become the most of our possibilities…”…”

 

The Present, May 2012… the story continues…

Reading this journal entry now makes me very sad…
sad for that girl there, the one with such overwhelming mind
stopping emotion and connection with this man.

At the same time, I feel such sadness at having lost it, for I do
love being in love, no matter how impossible it may be.
I believe in it.

The connection between us was real, and still is real.
I know it…he knows it.
He may have tried to move on, but the indelible sting of the
connection between us does not wash away, no matter the effort,
no matter the turning away, no matter what kind of elements you
may try to use, to dissolve away the stain.
Love is like grapejuice stains on the heart…

It’s something in this lifetime that doesn’t get to play out here,
on this particular plane of existence.
Too much territory to cover to get us to a place where who and
what we want is baked long enough and ready for consumption.

But… I think I’ve said this before… I do believe in other realities,
other dimensions, simultaneous places that we sometimes visit in
our dreams, or even at moments where this reality and the other
sort of cross wires, and things bleed through.
Strangely, I almost never dream of him.  And that’s odd, because
I have quite vivid and emotional dreams with other people with
whom I have deep connections.

But there was a magic to the entire thing, with loud and blaring signs
of breaking through the illusion, those signs of that Jungian Web thing,
where everything’s connected, timings, words, clicks,
and simultaneous thought.

These things happened from day one, and although I have pushed
much of the joy and pain altogether, out of my day to day, still
when I review things like I must in order to write this story…..
still there are wellings up, waves of memory of what might have been,
what could be somewhere, sometime, somehow, in another life.

Soul connections, mapped out long before we got here, work to be
done, energies to be shared, knowledge to keep.

We tasted paradise, we drank it in, we cradled it to our hearts, and
we will never be the same because of it.
And isn’t that just great…. and can’t that be enough?

 

 

by

…into Rio, the old city…

One of the more wonderful things to do, at least from
my point of view, was to go on the ferry and into the
mainland city, the old city that has held such fascination
for so many millenia.
Rio was the destination for the rich and famous, Hollywood,
and the glamorous.  It was also the place to run away to, for
its vastness made it possible to hide forever, from whatever
or whomever you were running.

Traveling through, it is such an unimaginable combination
of centuries, styles and cultures…
My camera’s eye was enthralled with the contrasts and combos,
the most incomprehensible next door neighbors created by
circumstance and availability.
I share some photos, because Words do not suffice.

Rio just goes on and on.  The sidewalks are made of broken
marble from older buildings from the past…puzzled together
to create artful walkways, each street with its own pattern.

The beaches themselves, lined with deco lighting and the
eternal sidewalk strolls, enabled by parks and grassy spreads,
and that white white sand, going on for miles…..
Copacabana…. Ipanema…. who does not feel a little thrill,
at the sound of these almost mythical places…
Nothing creates sand like that, but a million years…
This I know from Hawaiian times.

There, as the sea bed’s volcanic activity keeps on spewing, the
land mass moves over it, traveling NorthWest, and one by one
the islands were formed in order.
This is a beautiful example of geological creation of land mass
that is a clock, a window on the timing of movements
and how it all works.

Kauai is the oldest, and thus, those immaculate white sand
beaches that are indicative of long time coming…muito tempo…

The Big Island, at the other end of the chain, is relatively new,
and mostly you see black sand beaches, and lots of lava rock,
while the volcanic activity is still fresh…. the irridescent lava beds
lying like moon landscapes out before you…as each forming island
straddles the upwelling energies.
Actually off the south east end, there is yet another island forming
under the ocean, while the islands beyond Kauai on the far northwest
end have already sunk, only coral atolls marking their perimeters,
the memory of islands eons ago.

Thus… what I am trying to say, to express, is the Ancient
Quality of this so Ancient a Port…Bay…Islands…of Rio de Janeiro.
This place has basically been there forever… forming, rounding,
sheltering, protecting, like a huge womb, even in its shape…
and being the nursery for the sea for more eons than we
can even conceive.

Port of a million years, Born of a million years…. yes.
James Taylor got it right…. he got the Magic of the place.

And so did I…. and it helps to see a new country with a Native…
Obrigada……!
Ate amanha meu amor………. amanha….

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by

…a watershed…

Friday, sometime early March 2005

Last nite was a watershed of story, as he poured the scotch
and poured his heart.
It started after he came home, after going out to get smoke, and
coming back two and a half hours later.  He goes to the favellas
to score, and although I worry about that, he tells me not to worry,
they know him, and he can take care of himself.  That I believe.

He’d run into friends, drank, coked, come home and looked into
her eyes, searching for anger.
She could not hide anything from him.  He always saw,  so this
time she truly said no, not anger, just adjusting to frequency.
It’s every 2 or 3 days…

“No… not every 2 or 3 days… no……. oh…………….yes….
I guess you’re so damned smart.
Just don’t be like the other ones, please.  Just understand me.
I will never lie to you, I will always be true to you, always,
I swear.  Can you handle me babe?”

She looked long into his eyes.  “I Think so…”

This night she desperately wished for a recorder. The things he told
her, the way they rolled from his tongue…how could she ever capture
a tenth of them…?

She told him her main concern with his drinking…
“Your drinking is your business…how it affects me is my business.
I’m concerned with your health, that’s what worries me.”

“When I die, they oughta cut out a few organs…burn the rest please…
but take some of me and study, because I am not a normal person.

“I have drunk and snorted and shot, and been shot, and I live.
I’m not normal.
I’m not going to live long, babe, and I’m not going to change.
I can stop, I have stopped if there is a reason.

“But I don’t wanna spend my life sober.  I’ve seen too much.
No, you’ll see me dead.
Just don’t bury me.  Burn me, throw me in the ocean.
A Viking burial would be nice.  But otherwise just burn me, please. ”
Water filled her eyes…..

“I’m not afraid to die.  I never have been .  You know what scares
me…the only thing?.  I’ve never told anyone this.
What scares me is dying without being called a man.
To be worthy of being called a man, that is the one thing.
Not to die one of the masses….. oh….”

“In the Legion, they had a name they called me…..”
(I know it, but I’m not sharing it right now, as I’m not
sure he’d be OK with that).
“Oh, I’m good…I never miss.  Never.  One shot to the head.
I took out a squad of 40.  I wait…I watch…watch for days,
I know their routine, I know how many and where.  Pow Pow…
I could take out 5 in about 14 seconds.  I was the Best.

“Once they found me, they chased me for 4 days in the desert…
140 degrees day, -35 at night.  I covered myself for some shade.
I drank my own piss.
“They called out my special name, “It’s ___we gotta get him!”,
and they chased me … a bunch of them…
It was 35 miles to the sea, Once I got there, there was a beeper
and I could be found.  But I had lost mine, and no one
knew where I was….”
Obviously he escaped and was found, but I never heard how.

As a child, he was always in trouble, always being punished,
and the parents seemed to enjoy it, and from his stories,
they were quite creative.

They laughed at him, and called him Tatubola… little Armadillo…
The parents had a new horse whip and were trying it out on him.
There were other family there, and they all laughed as his mother
whipped him, and he rolled into a ball, rolled all over the ground
and down the hill.
The others said the parents must know what they are doing,
they’re the parents.  Little Armadillo, rolled up in a ball.

“My father decided the belt wasn’t good enough.  So he turned the
buckle on me.  A man 6’2”, 190#…do you think he needed to use a
buckle on a child?  What a coward.  But I never cried.  Never.
I thought of what Tom would do (Sawyer), he wouldn’t cry.
No, it was not me who should cry.  It was them, they were the
ones who were not human, they should cry.

“Once, when my mother left him, in order to get her back, he tried
to impress her by taking me on the back of his bicycle, for a ride to
show what a good father, a good man he was.
He put me behind him, and we rode.

“My ankles rubbed against the wheels, rubbed them raw and bleeding.
And when he saw, he told me how stupid I was, and he beat me.
I’d ruined his beautiful fantasy picture.”

Turns out he was ADHD.  I know it.  Total Right brain.
Got in trouble in school every day.  He read voraciously, and
everything at school seemed stupid, he already knew it.
Typical of ADD brains, unusually bright and intelligent,
easily distracted, able to focus intensely, and on their own.

He read all the classics early on, filled his head with the heroes
of so many times and places.  All of them, the great books, he read.
History, Geography, but not math, not numbers.

“If you got a woman laughing, you’re gonna get some pussy… ”
he continued.
(She remembered the big swedish nurse who assisted in her last home
birth, the most perfect birth.  Smile Carol, big smile, she’d say.
An open smile means an open pussy…. see?  it was true!)

“You always made me laugh, you’re good at that,”  she purred…
“So you must have gotten a lot of pussy…”
“Oh Good Lord, you have no idea!”
He shook his head and grinned.

“You’re clean.  Your eyes are clean.
I want to rebuild myself from what’s inside you.
I planted something in you, back then.
I planted it, and it grew inside you, and 17 years later,
you come and find me.
Because you never forgot me, and I never forgot you.

“When I saw you, I saw your goodness.  I saw you’re clean.
I was not a nice person at that time.  But with you, I gave my best.
It was out of time, and I saw another way.  I drove 400 miles..
….do you know how many times?  Just to see you.
It was apart from my life.”

She had no idea of this.  All she knew was he was diving at the pier.
So it turns out he was driving from Tahoe each time?

He and his Tahoe girlfriend fought about her.  She had called that
day, when he’d been gone for so long, took that chance, and the
woman answered.
Later, the woman asked him, and he told her…
yes, I’ve met someone, and this is why I drive.

He told her his friend Mark was a good man, a good friend,
and he lost him as a friend forever, because he hit that woman in
this fight…”knocked her lights out”…and he knew he was wrong,
that was the only time he did that.
She asked him why he was untrue to her.
“She was not a good fuck.  She had become like a sister.
I left soon after I saw you”

“You know, they are offering me a job…. I can’t believe it…
$80,000 and I said no.  I couldn’t do it… I felt like a whore.
The Legion keeps asking me to come back, come back, we could
live in France, you would be my wife, we would live well.
I would be maybe a Sargent Chief.
And I would teach people how to kill.
But no, I can’t do it.  I said no, I want something else.”

“You wanna know the two saddest things?
A soldier without a war, and
and a Man without a job…
I know….. I’m both.”