<\/p>\n
I like to think that I\u2019ve dealt well with all the stress in my life because, regardless of the blood on my hands and the screaming horrors surrounding me, I sleep well.\u00a0 I sleep through the night, I never wake up, I don\u2019t have nightmares, I don\u2019t grind my teeth, and I wake up refreshed.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Maybe a restful night\u2019s sleep is a sure sign that I really am a sociopath.\u00a0 And thank god of that!<\/span><\/p>\n While we were listening to weird Tori Amos b-sides, my old friend James leaned back on the worn basement couch I had dragged through much of my life and congratulated me on my odd ability to maintain my cool while also existing in a constant state of emotional meltdown.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNeedy detachment,\u201d he said, \u201cYou\u2019re a paradox.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The couch had begun life with mid century glory before being forgotten in a pest-ridden corner of the basement.\u00a0 It now sat in the sun, a lifetime later, centerpiece.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I remembered the basement of my parent\u2019s house.\u00a0 Family homestead, four bed, four and a half bath, top of the hill, glaring in haunted mansion glory at passersby with a red maple canopy planted by some dead relative.\u00a0 Suburban dream, a bike ride away from big bad DC \u2013 slow down, neighborhood watch, keep your dog off the lawn, money in and money out, blank windows and family horror in the closet.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n When it all stopped working, when it all fell apart, it was just mom and me.\u00a0 Launched into food stamp poverty, her parents throwing themselves into the fray to keep everything floating, to preserve an ill-advised, desperate island in the storm that took us all unawares when dad left.\u00a0 He walked, we fell.\u00a0 Mom never returned from that terrible moment, she never woke up again.\u00a0 Her life drifted through utter despair, fueled by booze and drugs and anger.\u00a0 A brilliant mind trapped in simple, broken emotions.\u00a0 Mom had a quirk that had been handed down through the family tree, the unpredictable insanity that seemed to stop development at age 14.\u00a0 A little girl in a hateful world.\u00a0 Everything she did was an attempt to escape, a crazed run for some sort of relief from her self-misery.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t figure out the best way to do it until I was 26.\u00a0 By then, in a squalid apartment, she smoked her last joint, popped her last pills, downed her last beer, cleaned the kitchen, and organized all of the important documents on the kitchen table.\u00a0 Then she drove to visit a childhood memory in the hills of Virginia before driving herself into a tree at top speed.\u00a0 Purified by fire.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I visited the spot a few weeks later.\u00a0 The car had blown up movie style, the tree was blackened, a hole blasted through the branches towards the clear summer sky, the grass UFO landing chic.\u00a0 Mom always knew how to put on a show.\u00a0 It was that little girl in her, I think.\u00a0 Drama queen glory whore.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n Someone still puts flowers on her grave.\u00a0 She lies next to her grandfather, the great patriarch, the West Virginia mafia man.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n A childhood in that broken home, curtains drawn, smoke hovering in the air, shadows following every light step, pushed me into corners, behind closed doors, into haunted basements.\u00a0 Keep your back to the wall, keep your head down, please be careful if you visit.<\/span><\/p>\n The basement, finished and beautiful two generations before me, was meant for parties, pool tables, a maid in residence, stylish flare and inset bookshelves, room for a waltz and dozens of drinkers, begging for a bar.\u00a0 In my time, it was a basement full of ghosts.\u00a0 Boxes and trash, wall to wall, hip-deep.\u00a0 Remnants of a past frozen in the present, nothing thrown away.\u00a0 Nothing touched.\u00a0 Decorations and books and papers and furniture.\u00a0 A sea of rotting cardboard boxes and puddles of unknown liquid, old clothes and forgotten appliances.\u00a0 On the old couch, sitting silently, there was nothing but angry fear in the air.\u00a0 A big, bad \u2018Get Out!\u2019\u00a0 Go back up those filthy carpeted stairs \u2013 powder blue \u2013 through that door with the big fuck-off deadbolt.\u00a0 Lock it tight.\u00a0 You\u2019ll hear sounds in your sleep, even then.\u00a0 You\u2019ll hear groans, chains, moans.\u00a0 The house settling.\u00a0 Death.<\/span><\/p>\n The broken family back and back \u2013 Alzheimer\u2019s, strokes, slow deaths.\u00a0 Decay and bitterness. Loneliness and betrayal.\u00a0 Walk away.\u00a0 Bring it all down and walk away.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m the only one who did it right.\u00a0 I\u2019m the only one who walked away like a human being.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n There, the couch.\u00a0 That worn basement couch in the sun, recovered furniture from forgotten storage sheds and my grandparent\u2019s sad collection.\u00a0 Their own basement stuffed with a century of memories.\u00a0 Their own basement a strange sea of trash.\u00a0 You can\u2019t take it with you, they say, while they clutch it to them until the end.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n My eyes flicked to my own trash, in boxes and ready to move.\u00a0 From a single car load to multiple trips to a rented van.\u00a0 I paused.\u00a0 My drink smelled of rum.\u00a0 I closed my eyes. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe noble paradox,\u201d I replied.<\/span><\/p>\n James grunted.\u00a0 We stared at the wall for a moment.\u00a0 At a picture drawn by an ex-girlfriend.\u00a0 She had talent.\u00a0 My life and times with artistic women flashed, novel-like, through my mind.\u00a0 A dozen faces, voices, crystalline laughs, long fingers, gentle mouths, supple flesh, warm cunts, and tight embraces.\u00a0 I smiled for each one, turned my head slightly, took in the painting, the handmade frame, a hundred fine details not brought into sharp enough focus by my prescription.\u00a0 Story of my life.\u00a0 That faraway stuff always a blur.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe need to save ourselves,\u201d James said, \u201cBefore this turns into a Sunday.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m open to your suggestions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe should drink!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n James shook his head, \u201cMore, more, more.\u00a0 I mean \u2013 drink.\u00a0 Not sit here like queers and drink cocktails.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re drinking a glass of warm vodka.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is clear to you?\u201d\u00a0 He put a finger to his lips, then to his ear.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat you are saying is clear to me.\u201d\u00a0 I replied automatically.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPut down your four quarters Dr. Pepper and dash of Rum and get to the mix, Mix.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Tight kitchens, borrowed spoons, stolen glasses, dead woman\u2019s wok.\u00a0 James had moved to the computer chair.\u00a0 He rolled across the floor, my neighbors below no doubt snapping to attention, and slammed into the wall outside the kitchen.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFlashback!\u201d he shouted at me, \u201cYou\u2019re in the mood.\u201d\u00a0 He fluttered his hands in front of his face, held them up mystic-style.\u00a0 On the right he held up his first two fingers, thumb extended, palm out Shaolin style.\u00a0 The left hand the same, palm inward.\u00a0 I assumed significance in the pose.\u00a0 I remained quiet for enlightenment, rum over shaved ice, soda on rum, the high life of bachelorhood.\u00a0 A long silence passed between us, James holding the pose, a stupid grin on his face.<\/span><\/p>\n I swerved first: \u201cHow do you mean?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWaves of self pity,\u201d he drew out the word \u2018pity\u2019 with a growl low in his throat, \u201cand I\u2019m tired of it.\u00a0 So cathartic flashback.\u00a0 Where do you begin?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I smiled and shook my head.\u00a0 Handing him the drink, which he put on the table next to his glass of vodka, I took a sip of my own beefed up rum and Dr. Pepper, then returned to the couch, letting the cushions take me, watching the ex\u2019s picture for movement, the blank wall around it for change, and took a slow, easy breath.\u00a0 There was a tingle in my sinuses, cherry blossoms outside the window, the sound of traffic somewhere out there, three contrails in the perfect blue, a hole in the armrest, James behind me in a darker silence than before.\u00a0 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