Poetry & Blindfolds

Parallel Life #137

Vincent Truman — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 04:33:50 +0000

There is a strange eye thing that happens when you wake up. Sort of like an old film. A pinpoint of focus in the middle of the frame, gradually growing until it takes up the full screen. It was this phenomenon that met me as I found myself glaring at a pale blue television screen. A small TV, black and white, the reception unsettling and distorted.

I glance across the room and see what appears to be my wife, asleep on the other side of the couch. But I rub my lefthanded ring finger and there is no evidence. I attempt to stand, in an effort to fully take in my surroundings, but find my balance compromised. I fall back onto the couch and a light cloud of dust rises in my wake. I rub my chin. I have a beard here. It’s uneven and unkempt.

Unable to move, I glance at the wife, or woman, sleeping next to me. Her cheeks are hollow, her blonde hair decidely unblonde. Her eyes sunken in. Unhappy.

I move off of the couch, like a snake, pulling myself over the armrest and sliding into the bathroom, which I notice is very small – and very close. I pull myself up to look at myself. When this happens, this transfer of realities, I try not to look at myself immediately, preferring to examine my surrounings first. But, having seen a ratty couch, a ratty woman and a ratty television, I think I have seen enough of my surroundings to do me just fine. I flick on the light, and the buzz of a sad flourescent light blinks to life above me. A pale blue light cascades onto a very sad face looking back at me from the mirror. The hair is thinner, curlier. The beard is thick around the chin. And the same sunken eyes that were stuck onto the front of the woman’s skull.

I am in a trailer.

I stumble outside, falling down the metal, retractable stairs. A fire can be seen in the middle of a series of other, unremarkable trailers. Hearing voices, I walk to the fire. Several similar looking men – with the same plaid shirt or variations thereof, the same beards, the same lack of socks – sit around the fire.

“Hey Vinny,” one says to me. For once, I’m not offended by being called Vinny. This is a name I feel like I have sought. I feel respected. I nod.

“You done with Suzi?” asks another. I nod.

The second bearded man gets up and staggers to the trailer. Is it mine, the trailer? No, it’s not. It’s Saturday night on the Reservation – this is what this trailer park is called – and Suzi is the entertainment.

I sit on a kitchen chair that was seemingly stolen from someone’s kitchen 50 years ago. It is yellow and stained and metal. I look at the fire.

“How was she?” asks the first bearded man.

“Good as always,” I mutter, automatically. A sinister feeling seeps through my gut. I am becoming more aware of my body. There is a limp on my right leg. A gunshot. Fifteen years ago. An episode involving a bar and an attempt to stop a fight. A hospital stay. A horrible band doing a concert on the Reservation to raise funds for my stay. A heightened respect upon release.

My eyes are dead. I feel that. I look at each and every one of my gang with suspicion. They look at me the same way. But somehow I have organized the gang into a force. There have been “jobs” on wayward truckers, some 40, some 50 miles away. There have been newspaper stories about a band of theives, dubbed The Robin Hoods by some young journalist. That is us. Our jobs have resulted in the members of the gang owning everything around us. It is no longer a trailer park. It is a compound. I look up to notice that, instead of in a row, the trailers are all in a circle, blocking easy entry or exit.

“What took so long?” asks Tommy, one of the younger members.

“Fell asleep,” I say. I want to tell them about the dream. In the dream, I am living in Chicago and am separated from my wife. I am struggling to live. I am afraid of talking to my wife. I want things to work but feel powerless to fix anything. My wife, in the dream, wishes I had done everything three years ago, and even if I try and fix it now, it is dubbed “too late.” I decide not to talk about the dream, not because it is insane, which it is, but it makes me so sad that the words cannot form in my throat.

I stop thinking about the dream long enough to hear the boys laughing. I instinctively pull the gun from the back of my jeans and hold it before the fire. The laughs end. They all think I might shoot one of them.

“OK,” I say, “let’s talk about the next plan.” I have already devised a plan in which there will be tremendous risk. A truck stop holdup. It will end badly. But it already has, so what’s one more?

Parallel Life #75

Vincent Truman — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 06:20:01 +0000

I wake up on my back and adjusted my shoulders slightly to get the feel of the bed. It isn’t a bed I am familiar with. However, I consider it best to just familiarize myself slowly with my surroundings, instead of doing what I would prefer: sit up screaming. The mattress is very comfortable and, I would guess, pretty expensive. My left shoulder is exposed and the blankets and sheets ripple like frozen tsunamis to the other side of the bed. I turn my head and see the back of the head of a woman. I run my left thumb against my left ring finger. She is my wife. Or she is sleeping with me and I am a married man. This is a lot to consider before getting out of bed.

I ease out of the bed and my feet find a pair of leather slippers almost by instinct. I step into them and stand, looking around the bedroom. I have done quite well for myself, I think, noting the paintings and vast array of furniture which still leaves plenty of room to navigate the room. I walk on the plush carpet and into a long hallway. A door opens in front of me. A small girl, maybe 6, enters the hallway and calls me dad. I examine her face closely, instantly recognizing my physical traits but many more that I’m not familiar with. I look for the face of the woman in the bed within the face of the child. I rub my eyes and scratch my face and let out a tired, “morning”, when inside, I am in a slight panic. It always takes too long to realize where I am.

Trying not to think, I let my body carry itself downstairs and into the kitchen. The little girl tags behind me closely, pulling at my silk pajama shirt. I instinctively reach for a cabinet which has it in cereal. I grab my favorite. “Not that one, daddy,” the girl says. I return the sweetened cereal to the cabinet and instead pull out a healthy box of what appears to be rice and raisins and flakes.

I watch the girl eat from the other end of a large dining area. She chews like me – fast, determined – so I know she is definitely mine. She puts her bowl in the sink and runs upstairs. In a few minutes, she comes back down, wearing a sweater with puppies on it and pants with puppies on it and a backpack with puppies on it. I experience a moment of disdain, and in that moment realize that I am still a cat person in this life. That relieves me somewhat.

Again not trying to think, I drive the girl to school. I kiss her forehead and tell her I love her, and I do not doubt that, if I belonged here, I would. I buy some cigarettes and return home to find the house empty. A small note on the counter reads, ‘be home at 7 – big meeting – xoxo.’ I light a cigarette and cough uncontrollably. There are no ashtrays. I don’t smoke here.

I finally build up the courage to look into the mirror. I am the same age but look older. My hair is more grey and there are more lines in my face. The lines that only a stay-at-home spouse has. This is always the moment I dread and the one I look forward to.

I stumble into an office that does not look like mine. There is a picture of my wife and I on our honeymoon. The year 1997 is etched into the frame. There’s various family photographs on the walls and I notice only one of our daughter. I recall now urging her to have a child with me and why I did it. On the surface, I wanted a family. But deep below, I had nothing compared to my wife. She is an attorney and wildly successful and she bought our house in Palo Alto with cash. I had no friends left. Just blocks and blocks of identical and imposing homes. My wife Marta’s friends were all amused with my stories about theater and art, but my wish that someone would want to produce a work of mine never came true. So I pushed for a baby. Being a househusband is like being a 24/7 performance artist.

Now my thoughts continue to go back to Melinda. What is she learning now? Is she being bullied? Did the Mozart albums work? Is she scared? Is there a boy she is glancing at now, feeling something but not knowing what? Will that boy be around in ten years’ time? Will I be strong enough to take him in a fight if she wants to take my little girl away for a weekend? If Marta wants a divorce, what can I get in the settlement and how can I keep Melinda with me? How can I change her name from Melinda to something I like?

I get a call from the school. Melinda has soiled herself. So I get back in the car and find her, red-faced and shamed, in the principal’s office. I ask which bathroom I should use. She’s too old for the men’s room and I’m too male for the women’s room. I’m guided to the men’s room. I go on what I seem to call Red Alert in my mind. Nothing can stop me when I’m like this. As Melinda cries and tells me she’s sorry, so sorry, I remove her clothes, clean her up with amazing efficiency, and have her ready to return to class in fifteen minutes. “You take me to your class,” I say, “you lead the way.” I know, just by saying that, I am putting something in her head that will serve her well someday. She won’t be pushed around. She’ll be as strong as Marta someday, and I love and hate that thought.

New CDs For Fall 2011!

Vincent Truman — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:20:12 +0000

My silly meme.

1. Find pictures of friends on Facebook.
2. Find something they said.
3. Combine into CD covers.
4. Hope they don’t defriend me.

Click each picture to see it all big and stuff.

Dear Henry

Vincent Truman — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:41:49 +0000

This was a submission for a local literary magazine.

* * * * *

Dear Henry,

Carol is dead.

I have thought long and hard how to tell you the news, or even if I should tell you the news. To say my emotions have been clear of late would be to suggest that London is bereft of fog. In fact, every emotion – every word I dare think, write or say – is heavy and thick like fog around me. This is where I reside now. However, I know you would have wanted to know, so I thought I would tell you in the most abrupt and startling fashion possible.

Carol is dead.

I am unsure how you will take the news, Henry, but I hope you take it hard. Damn hard. Harder than any news you have heard in your life. If I may share the extent of my wishes, I hope your legs have given out from beneath you and you have fallen to your knees so hard that, as long as you live, every step will reflect the damage you’ve done. Further, I hope you are sweating profusely at this moment and that your hands are shaking so violently that it takes the most supreme of will to hold this letter still enough to read these words.

It is understandable if you want details, and I will share them with you. After Carol’s weekly book club last Friday, she stopped by at the mail box between her friend Joyce’s bungalow and our home. Apparently, this was the coda to the book club each week. Anyway, she had just exited her car when she was struck. Hit. Slammed into by a car driven by a group of kids, drunk on their privilege and loud music. They were caught thanks to some well-meaning soul who memorized their license place. My wife flew twenty feet before slapping onto the pavement. When you go out walking on your bad knees, Henry, look twenty feet in front of you always. I always do. That’s the distance she flew.

I was, of course, enraged that she had not returned home. And then, as you can imagine, I had that cold bucket of reality hit me when the hospital contacted me, after I had ignored their first two calls (assuming it was Carol, of course, I admit to feeling spiteful). I’m not sure where my blood went, but it drained out of me. I operated solely on adrenaline from that point on. In my car. To the hospital. Not hearing what room she was in. Rushing to it. Being held back. Being told. And then even the adrenaline couldn’t hold me up. I crashed to the dirty ER floor much like you have done.

Carol is dead.

My mind was full of everything and nothing when I was given her personal effects. Her purse, phone, clothes in plastic and copy of “Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. I remember being mystified by the tome; I knew it was the subject of the book club, but her copy was tattered and dog-eared. On the inside, just below the title, was a dedication between two strangers: “To 42 with love, H.” I wondered who these two lovers were.

You know what else I was given, don’t you? This is where you silently nod, Henry.

The oddest thing I was given from her personal effects was an envelope, addressed to “H”. One of the staff of the hospital revealed that she had it in her hand when she was hit by that stupid car, and hadn’t let go as she expired a mere second or two later. What was this, I wondered. I opened it and, in a strange way, met my wife again.

“Dear H, I am thoroughly enjoying ‘Tale’. Thank you for this. And everything. You know all the things I can’t say, but I know you hear them. And I can hear you say the same things in return. Love, 42.”

We all have little parts of our lives that no one knows about. But when life is gone, those little parts live on and can be discovered. Behind files and files and files, which I combed through in the interest of catching a smell of her hair or a written word I hadn’t seen, merely to keep her alive a little longer and to avoid the well-wishers that plastered on impossible smiles of encouragement, I found your correspondence with my wife dating back four years. Four years.

I read all of your letters, from the first, in which you had just met her at one of those lectures she loved which I loathed. You recapped, in a rather shaky style, might I say, your meeting and how charmed you were in her. And how charmed she was in you. As the letter progressed, it became clear that you and her fell in love with each other. Perhaps I misspeak. You loved Carol and Carol loved you. You both loved each other so much that you never met again and you decided to not disrupt your respective families.

From your December 6, 2009 letter: “I am happy to hear you are happy. I am happy, too. Of course, my deepest love is for you, and I want you to be happy. Jerry makes you happy. And Tabitha and the girls make me happy. I think I’ve rediscovered love to really be something without demands. Thank you for that. You remain my answer to life, the universe and everything. I will remain your heroin.”

Like I said, pretty shaky, H. You may note that this missive is equally shaky. I have an excuse.

No doubt you have calmed down a bit, or the shock has completely immobilized you. So I can get to the real point of this letter, Henry, with your full attention.

Carol’s happiness was always on my mind, and due to the minutiae of the day, I didn’t always ensure that it was a priority. I’m imperfect. But to let my wife retain her happiness, I want to write to you each and every Friday and speak of her. I want to read the books you recommended or sent. I want to share with you the spring in her step and sparkles in her eyes, which I knew weren’t always inspired by my behavior. Please help me keep her happy now.

Oh, and finally, as you find the strength to stand and before you plan on dismissing your sad expression from your wife and daughters: thank you.

Until next week,

Gerald

Miss Ogynist (a poem)

Vincent Truman — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:40:32 +0000

So I heard Rebecca Watson told a scary tale
A scary, scary, scary tale
Of being with a man in a Dublin lift
Wherein there was caused not even a rift.

For there were no signs of ugly aggression
Or even unwanted sexual attention
There was an invite for chat and for coffee
And no suggestion, I understand, of schtupping or boffing.

And when she said, ‘no.’
The man did go.

Well! So rattled Watson soon became
That while not mentioning this poor bastard’s real name
Took her case to the internet
And angry appetites she did prove to whet.

On camera she stood tall (well… she sat)
And said, ‘guys, don’t do that’
A blanket statement for half the population
To abbreviate or eliminate their perceived adulation.

This scary tale soon reached Richard Dawkins
Who is known for his writin’ and his talkin’s
He found such a proclamation absurd
And voiced as much in many more words.

Dawkins scribed a funny, fictional lettah
To a woman that he dubbed Muslima
And told her not to bemoan her plight
Or dare to complain about her lack of rights.

For women in the West have it far, far worse!
Like being in an elevator and having some verse
Spoken to one, and when one declines
Having that fellow say nothing but “fine”!

Reaction to this joke was instant and fast
As if all the people were joyous at last
To be, at Dawkins, incredibly pissed
And whom they all secretly knew was a misogynist.

People demanded apologies from this Oxfordian mutt
And Dawkins replied ‘Apologize for what?’
Which made everyone all the more mad
Mob mentality does not common sense stand!

‘You don’t know what it’s like to be afraid
Or made uncomfortable or ashamed!’
Came the response from the enraged blogosphere
Laying claim, as they did, to the concept of fear.

For me I find I must wonder about this
Although I’m a Mister and I’ve never been Miss
I’m made uncomfortable all of the time
To live in a city is to live near a crime.

So I could be shot or attacked or mercilessly mugged
By a random crazy or someone on drugs
So I really don’t know what it’s like to be scared?
Half the population thinks I’ve never been there?

And when I attempted to convey skepticism
Of this laying of claim about misogynism
I was told I have no respect for women or their strife
Holy hell, I thought, I hope no one tells my wife.

But if Watson and crew dictated behavior

And allowed only things in which we could savor

Then we’d never hear again from old Richard Dawkins

And forget the hell out of ol’ Sadie Hawkins.