Mistake II

entry_172Lost in thought, I accidentally sprinted up eight flights of stairs this morning instead of six, passing my floor in a daze. I was thinking about the mistake I’d made when I was but a lad of eleven. Singularly well-burdened of intellect, I was, even then, wont to losing myself in contemplative spells, to the detriment of chore, courtesy, and couth. So it was that I found myself dangling from the business end of my stepfather’s clenched fist, my slackened feet leaving circular furrows in the gray mounds of his father’s ashes. One might conclude that my mistake lay in tipping his precious urn in the first place, especially as I was using it for balance as I sought the box of porn magazines in my stepfather’s den closet. But in hindsight the far greater mistake was my reaction to the fury directed at me.

In spite of my precarious position, I suddenly felt the urge to laugh. I tried to stifle it as soon as I felt it coming on, but it was like the onset of a sneeze. My field of vision contracted as time slowed, until all I could see beyond my elder’s immense white knuckles were his bulging eyes and quivering jowls. He was so consumed with emotion that it summoned in me a kind of dark joy. More! I wanted to shout. I wanted to see him combust into a plasma cloud of rage, as I shrieked with joy from the excess of it.

I tried to hang onto reality, mindful of the myriad physical repercussions that would surely befall me if I allowed myself to be swept into the throes of laughter. It seemed I had ages to imagine the gristly aftermath, but however inappropriate, I couldn’t help but to surrender to mirth. I felt the right corner of my mouth curl upward ever so delicately, in spite of my every determination not to allow it to end like this.

Reality! My stepfather’s countenance was a marvel of form yielding to function. He was anger incarnate. In a way he had transformed into something other than human. No longer was he digesting stomach contents, or pushing out fresh ear hairs, or suffering macular degeneration. At that very moment in time every process served the singular function of shaking me over his paternal remains like a ragdoll.

And yet the image of it became a cartoon taunting my mind, a vision of myself whooping like a retarded child on the Octopus ride, “Wheee! Wheee!” The laugh overtook me in a spasm, and I snorted through my nose as I averted my face. It sounded a bit like a sneeze, in a way. An awful lot like a sneeze, except for the trace smile now dooming my right cheek. Maybe he didn’t see though. From his angle maybe mine was an expression of abject horror, a grimace of fear, or of self-loathing at least. But a moment later I was choking with laughter.
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Mistake

entry_171Thousands of fake lives were at stake, and I’d dropped the ball. Actually, I’d selected the wrong menu item, and as a result the jukebox uploaded the wrong telemetry tape. I was a rookie, still in training, but to my authoritarian instructors I was nothing more than a liability. My supervisor was playing terminal jockey in the pit next to me until I figured out the process. As he snatched the light pen from my hand he said, “You load the wrong tape, you compromise the mission. What if we’d been live?”

The technicians worked to reset the scenario as I searched for the right words, which hadn’t yet been invented. “I’m sorry,” I said, inviting the worst. “I thought the-”

“You made a mistake,” my supervisor interrupted. His very being seemed to exist solely to point out my erroneous state, like iron filings standing up around a magnet’s field. “You can’t make mistakes when you’re feeding the Console.”

There’s always been a flaw in my character that is triggered when people tell me things that are already apparent. It makes me want to do irrational things, and it’s as seductive as the desire to press the soft spot on a baby’s forehead with my thumbs. Come to think of it, that’s probably another flaw in my character.

In this case I merely responded to my supervisor, which was at least a highly inefficient use of our time. “It was a mistake,” I said, “so I can only try not to do it again.”

He looked confused. It was the same look he might have given to his father’s fists when they failed to pummel him one night for daring to speak his mind. Now was not the time for commentary. “No. You can’t try not to do it again, you have to not do it again.”

I didn’t waste a moment. “Well if I did something wrong again then that would be, again, a fresh mistake,” I said.

“Don’t do it,” he said.

“Well you’re assuming… See, I didn’t mean to do it to begin with. It was a mistake, so by its definition it’s something that happened when my intent was to do something else.”

He blinked at me. “You do what you’re supposed to do and don’t do anything else. No mistakes. You’ll be more aware from now on, so keep your eyes open and do it.”

“You’re missing my point,” I said. “Even if I did the exact same thing again, it would be a new mistake. Because the first time I made the mistake it was the first time I’d learned it, so the lesson was simply a naive sense of ‘don’t do it.’ But now, if I did it again, it would be after having learned about the mistake once before, so the lesson would be more about realizing how this mistake can happen in spite of all of my previous learning, and then incorporating that data into my actions going forward. You know, countermeasures.”

My supervisor slapped his palms on the table and bleated, “look, I’m not interested in a philosophical debate!”

“I was just kidding,” I said. Cherry on a sundae.

Still, it was a long while before I gained confidence in that procedure. A big part of that has to do with the way my mind works, which is incorrectly. In any given situation one may expect a fair chance of eluding blunder. It is rare, in fact, for situations even to seem matters of right or wrong. But, given the choice between making a right decision or a wrong decision, I will invariably choose in the wrong, even after I’ve backtracked to take the right path. This is partially because experiencing wrongness leaves much more of an imprint on me than any meager chemical reward for doing right. “Don’t do that again,” is hardly sufficient to guard against making a mistake.

It plays out like this: I realize that I’ve done something imperfectly, so the next time I come to that branch in the path all I can think of is the horror I felt the first time. And since that was the first time, it stands to reason that I must have relied on instinct… which would dictate that I do the opposite of what my instincts tell me to do this time. So I compensate in the opposite direction, and it all cancels itself out, and I end up making the same mistake again. It just reinforces my predisposition the next time, until I can do no right except through accident.

In fact I’m highly reliable if you look at the situation in the wrong way. My compass needle just faces South. If you know that then you can compensate and still get where you need to go. But don’t take my word for it.

Failure

entry_170When I say that I enjoy failure, it’s not some clumsy euphemism about the thrill of facing an insurmountable challenge. Neither am I referring to the opportunity to gain wisdom from past mistakes. Rather, I’m talking about the delicious sting of failure itself. The knowledge that neither the sum of my resources nor the strength of my will was enough, in the end, to see me through. And all the better if this truth, that I am unequal to the task at hand, that I am no more effective than a jellyfish in a blender, is witnessed by as many people as possible. Let the world know–I should find no opportunity for extenuation or sanctuary.

I like to feel the full brunt of inadequacy, and not because of any kind of cultural guilt or unresolved childhood issues. I’m not playing reverse psychology with my expectations, or attempting to forestall cynicism. I do not court failure by aiming low, for that would be as pointless as aiming ridiculously high. In fact, ideally I would aim square in the middle, right for that sweet spot, then still fail, forsaken by my very instincts. I enjoy the flavor of incompetence. I do not fear success, I simply have no appetite for it. I like skunk smell. It’s not a fetish, it’s a preference, and if it should lessen your opinion of me, then I’ll thank you to tell me about it in excruciating detail.

That ubiquitous need to succeed, that all-too-common attitude of righteous entitlement, they do not visit my den of blight. I wish to have less–or better yet, to have what is mine summarily taken from me through my own inaction. And I want my friends to watch it happen. “He had it all,” they will say, and I will agree with them. “I know,” I’ll say, “I did have it all, and I deserved most of it too. But in the end I was equal neither to improvement, nor upkeep, nor even to mere ownership.” I will say this to their backs.

Let it break or wither or stop working for no apparent reason, and let me never understand why. I don’t even seek the easy satisfaction of answers. I’ll make do, instead, with failure in any form, large or small. A typo or a train wreck, it makes no difference to me. They say you can’t fail if you don’t care, but I don’t care: I want to fail. I’ll cling till I suffer, a victim of circumstance, a boil of determined resignation.

I know what you’re thinking, but when I say that I enjoy failure, it’s no lie geared to catch you with your guard down. I’m driven to tell this through neither humility nor pride, but rather so that you’ll understand when I don’t live up to expectations, when I fail to raise the bar, or to even find the bar. In fact, the bar is broken, and it’s my fault, and I’m admitting it now. Blame me if you must. No sweat off my back. I am a hapless creature.

But I still got your girl.

Invisible Connections

entry_169I had a friend who was always mindful of the path he took to cross a room. As he navigated between two chairs, around the table clockwise, and over to the coffee maker, an invisible line was drawn behind him like a spider’s thread. Such was his belief. Returning to his origin by a different route would spell entanglement, his efficiency declining throughout the day as he became ensnared in his own past.

My friend’s philosophy never worked for me because of the cognitive load. Where was the true origin, after all? Was it reset at will at the beginning of each day? After first coffee? Could the line be severed under special circumstances, or was that against the rules? My fear was that these questions could never be answered to my satisfaction, as seductive as the concept was. But my position was that if one was going to hold a belief then one must stay true to it regardless of the inconvenience involved.

Which is why I prefer to obsess over imaginary things that don’t require as much attention to physics. My obsessions should be troubling, inherently, but intuitive. Thus, for the most part, my preoccupations all have to do with social affiliations. These are the taffy-like connections that form spontaneously between people, usually those in close proximity. For these nonverbal accords to be struck, the sole requirement is that a group’s constituent members find themselves properly arranged. What denotes “proper”? Well, that is an elusive thing.

Office Orphan

By way of example, say that you’re at work and need some technical support. You stroll over to the technician’s desk only to find them having a conversation with someone else, so you linger at the back of the queue, waiting until they’ve finished their dialog. However, a connection of sorts has already been made, and when your party suddenly gets up and leaves with the other person, you must wait where you are until your party returns. Are there any other realistic options? Trudging back to your own desk without an answer would be as inefficient as it would be humiliating. Or, to follow the two of them… well, that would be tantamount to stalking. No, you must wait for as long as it takes. It’s a burden, clearly, for what if they have gone to lunch? Or what if they’re both enjoying a stress-induced bout of amnesia, and are even now wandering the streets, shirtless, howling?

Spontaneous Servitude

Or maybe you stop to speak to a friend briefly as you’re leaving a party. It’s unfortunate that you didn’t spend more time talking to them during the party, but you were busy exploring the house. But say, did your friend find the opportunity to see the amazing cellar? You enlist the host to take your friend on a tour, and a moment later you watch as they both descend the staircase. Unfortunately, your transaction has committed you to a tacit contract which effectively bars you from leaving the party until your friend has returned, no matter how long that takes. If you left now it would appear as though you had consciously ditched your friend. And to follow them… well, not only would that be stalking, but it would also seem like you were looming just to gauge your friend’s level of cellar appreciation.

Social conduct is tricky business, even without the additional burden of subconscious game-playing. But it’s only the structure imposed by these games that prevents disparate groups from engaging in melee after orgy after melee. Have you ever wondered, as I do, what perverse constructs keep your friends on the visitor’s side of the orangutan cage? Even now, are those around you obsessively labeling, ordering, and concatenating each interaction in inscrutable ways that would be impossible for them to articulate? If so then be glad of it, for I believe that we are all merely savages in costume, momentarily distracted by the music of creativity, lest tooth and groin have their final say.

Finity

entry_168Seeing a friend off at the train station it occurs to me that there’s a last time for everything. This is the last time I’ll see my friend off, for instance. At least, while I’m standing in this position, wearing these shoes. The next time won’t be the same, because the configuration of elements will be different. An event, after all, is defined by the orientation of its component parts as much as anything. And it’s a good thing too, isn’t it? To repeat something endlessly is to rob it of meaning… or to create a religion.

So, an end to some activities is clearly desirable. It’s for this reason that we actively avoid people after having delivered our goodbyes. To chance upon them a few minutes later would be nothing less than bad form.

“I… I thought you were headed out,” you would say.

“Oh! I was, but I forgot something in here, so I had to come back.” Is that defiance in their eyes? It is! They have played you for a fool, having vampirically slurped of your farewell sentiment just moments before.

“Hm. Okay. Well, bye again.” Only this time you’re emotionally depleted, and forever suspicious. Needless to say, the rule of thumb is that if you see the person you’ve said goodbye to coming toward you from across a parking lot, the best thing you can do is to duck between two cars and crawl the opposite way. If they corner you then pull your sweater over your head and mug them brutally. Try to speak with a foreign accent to throw them off your trail. And remember that you wouldn’t be forced into assault if you’d made sure that all your goodbyes were final.
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Saving Face

entry_167There’s blood under my fingernails, and I’m trapped. The meeting with my supervisor, informal and at my desk, was going well until I swiped at an itch on my forehead, which lately has been pulling double-duty as a proving ground for novice mosquitos. As nights progress, anything left exposed is fair game for the winged beasties, and the result is that my upper forehead resembles one of the photographs sent back by the Mars Rover. My supervisor was ticking down the remaining details of the upcoming project, bracketing each item on her printout, when I felt the first trickle on my forehead.

I swipe a second time, and this time there is a thin red streak across the flesh of my index finger. I have been too indelicate, it seems, and now I have a situation on my hands. Quickly, before she looks up again, I swipe my forehead with my middle finger, and when she looks up again I am nodding, concurring with her assessment of project parameters. She looks down again, to my great relief, and I have just enough time to examine the second streak of blood on my middle finger. Horrors: it is just as pronounced, if not more so than the first. Surely my supervisor has noticed my blood-bindi, but I can’t just let it run down between my eyebrows.

I make a third swipe with my thumb, and the wound shows no sign of abatement. So the question occurs to me: should I lick my fingers? What are the prevailing social attitudes toward the digital intermediary method of oral would cleansing? Might such a practice lead to an unfavorable performance evaluation? “Performs work-related duties, and also scab mastication, in an exemplary fashion. General hygiene issues. Recommend garnishing wages to offset sheer gross factor.”

Then again, neither can I wipe my fingers on my shirt. If I had worn red, like the Roman army did, then perhaps, but I failed to plan for wound concealment this morning. In the meantime, I have three wet streaks on my favorite fingers and a swelling crimson bead front and center. I wince at the thought of the humiliation when she next looks up.

But then she offers me an exit. “I think you already addressed this with your last design, yes?”

And before she has a chance to see my glistening plasma beacon, I’ve turned toward my screen to open the file in question. “Let me check, why don’t I?” I’ll face the screen now, and not look away from it until she leaves. If there’s any negative at all it’s that I slapped my hand on the mouse so quickly, forgetting about my bloody fingers. It should be okay though, as long as I don’t remove my hand from the mouse, which should only be a problem if management were to bring the new guy around for introductions. Best not to ponder that nightmarish scenario however. “Yes,” I say, looking closely at the image on my screen. “Looks like this one’s ready to be sent… from what I can tell.”

“Okay,” she says.

Then silence.

I know she’s waiting for me to turn around. She wants a cue. A tip of the hat, I suppose. Something that allows her to leave with grace. I grow wistful at the memory of such luxuries, and frown as blood runs down the bridge of my nose. I must be cold about it. “So I’ll get back to work on the last one,” I say, and click on random things for authenticity.

“Oh. Okay,” she says. She’s disappointed. If only she knew the burden of my secret shame! Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

“Perfect,” I say. “Maybe I’ll see you at lunch?” Still friends.

“Sounds good,” she says. I continue to keep my back to her as, I assume, she curtsies and backs slowly, respectfully away from my desk.

Only when I’m sure she’s gone do I scratch my forehead vigorously, loosing flecks of skin into my keyboard, and drawing blood in torrents. “Or maybe lunch comes early today,” I say to myself as I extend my eight-inch tongue to swab my throbbing forehead.

Relativity

entry_166Standing at the rental counter my palms are so slick that my car keys slip to the cracked linoleum with a clatter. I debate whether to leave them there, but the girl waiting on us pauses in the middle of her spiel and levels a pointed look at me. A moment passes. “You need to get those,” she says, and in her urban brogue I’m not sure it’s a question.

“Oh,” I say, as if I hadn’t noticed. I squat down to retrieve them and wipe my palms on my pant legs, feeling super-white and un-cool. “Sorry about that,” I say upon resurfacing.

Mine is a sweat of trepidation, because I don’t know the answer to her insurance question, which she’s just about to ask my partner and me. “You have the option of purchasing insurance for an extra $30,” she says, in accordance with prophecy. Her pen is poised at the appropriate item on the rental truck contract, and my eyes are focused way past that. I don’t even have a basis upon which to form an answer. Insurance? I frown like a monkey tasting a Rubik’s Cube, and the world slows to a dull smudge as my mind diverts every resource toward this one monumental problem.

The other questions–the size of the truck we’d need, how long we’d need it–are easily answered. I knew what I was going to say before I woke up this morning. But I hadn’t anticipated the insurance question. And it’s a philosophical question, isn’t it? Questions of quantity require little thought. There is but one right response, and I’m the only one who knows it. But insurance requires a deep understanding of myself and of my potential, as well as an instinctual understanding of the world around me. What are the chances that I may meet with peril? Will my reactions be quick enough? Or will I invite disaster through a string of bad decisions? Is there a flaw in my understanding of the world that cumulatively guides me toward the glistening beak of chaos? Or perhaps none of that is true, but the flaw in my character is one that will cause me to purchase insurance needlessly.

I don’t know which is worse.

Should we get insurance? The question seems unfinished somehow, like something has been left out. Of course I’d heard her ask the question of everyone else, and it didn’t seem to be much cause for consternation then. But I was watching like I was sitting in front of the television enjoying a show about a truck rental agency that would never bear on my life. Maybe this is a test of how closely I was watching then, and the real question–the whole question–is: What are my insurance requirements relative to the insurance requirements of other people?

I remember now that the scrappy couple had discussed the question, and decided against it in less than ten seconds. Maybe it’s that much of a no-brainer. But they were both wearing overalls, and I would never do that. Perhaps they had learned to embrace their reckless natures. The glitter-like metallic blooms on their chests suggested that these were creatures who welded their own furniture. But then again, they were about the same age as I, so maybe I’d be at equal risk, regardless of temperament.

Insurance then.

The older black couple in polyester track suits opted for insurance the way a soul lost in the desert might opt for a snow cone. “Most definitely, give us all you got!” Because neither of them had any other sort of coverage of their own. Their story couldn’t be more different from mine. In fact, my coverage is so redundant that certain parts of my insurance statement are covered in the case of loss or injury.

So no insurance for me.

The gay, sandy-haired action duo in their checkered racing shorts (still dark with perspiration) fought about the question between themselves. He was so sure they should need it that it was almost a morality issue, whereas he found the idea patently offensive. The counter girl left them in the middle of their debate to help us, and that’s when the world went into motion again.

I wipe at the sweat forming on my brow. “I’m not really crying,” I explain to her as I blink my eyes through the salt sting. “It just looks like I am. Huh!” My voice-cracking puberty laugh should infuse the moment with some much-needed levity, but she’s looking less than entertained.

If I were the only human then there would be no right and no wrong. My way would be The Way, merely by the scarcity of alternate ways. Indeed, it’s only as competitors and adversaries are introduced to the picture that I must worry about whether my way is the wise way, whether my way makes sense in the greater scheme of things. Therefore I must possess the ability to see myself in contrast to other people, with their arbitrary, inscrutable viewpoints. In that light, how could I ever expect to come out ahead?

While I’m still worrying at the specifics of the greater question, my partner steps up and takes the decision for the both of us.

And that, really, is the only correct answer.

Courtesy

entry_165Over the course of a few years, my friend and I developed a telephone tradition whereby we would randomly hang up on each other. Actually, it began as any evolutionary development does: with an accident. A terrific storm came through and snatched phone service away, and I found myself talking to static. Nothing remarkable, but I believe the germ of an idea had been planted. About a week later the line was severed again as I was in the middle of a thought. This time there wasn’t a storm cloud to be seen, and the phone was in perfect working order.

Sure, when it first dawned on me what my friend had done I considered taking offense. But I couldn’t deny a welling sense of liberation that far outweighed any thoughts of recrimination. The next time we spoke on the phone, my friend was describing travel plans he’d been developing. He was excited because the junket was to be funded in part by a Costa Rican social exchange program… but I didn’t hear the rest because I hung up on him. There was no enmity involved. My action was not premeditated. I just got up, placed the handset on the cradle, and went outside for an evening walk.

We never brought up these conversation-halting incidents in any formal way, but when are social conventions ever discussed? “Okay, now this is where I take your hand and pump it up and down a few times. Fine, fine, and thus are we bonded, my man.” It would have been bad form. It’s not something we needed to discuss in any case. Our unwritten rules were that either of us could hang up as whim dictated, and all hang-ups were final. No explanations, no call-backs.

Eventually conversations between my friend and me became more efficient. We knew that we might be disconnected at any moment, so it became necessary to get the important information out of the way as soon as possible. This adaptation, in turn, further informed our disconnection behavior, which fed back into adaptation, until we were using the phone more like an intercom. “Lunch tomorrow?” “Sounds good.” “Maybe somewhere up at the-” Click.

The primary result was that we had far more time to conduct other matters of business. The secondary result was that I started hanging up on other people. Like any habit, it’s a difficult thing to constrain by arbitrary rules. Perversion seeks ubiquity. But as I was offending my dwindling base of unenlightened friends, the question became ever more clear to me: why should we be the puppets of social expectation? Like a mating ritual among eunuchs, courtesy seemed borne upon some residual social inertia from a more formal age, at least as it pertains to our interactions with other individuals.

I recognized that, for most, change happens slowly, so I tempered my behavior accordingly. It became a balancing act, but I learned how to play the game without compromising my dignity. Still, the thoughts persisted: courtesy is founded upon a certain set of social expectations, which are further dependent upon a predictable chain of events. But if the chain of events were circumvented might not that obviate the requirement for courtesy? How can we be expected to willingly observe obsolete paradigms? Is that the ironic burden of self-determination?

By illustration: if you were in a restaurant and knew with absolute certainty that your friend had just been run over by a church bus, would you allow your meal to grow cold waiting for them out of mere courtesy, just to keep up appearances? I submit that you would not! You would eat, and you would eat well. Yet this is akin to the stubborn moral dilemma I find myself in almost daily.

I’ve tuned the slats of the blinds on my front window in such a way as to afford me an unobstructed view of my entire block. From the converted dentist chair in my living room I can see trouble before it sees me. I know when people are going to knock on my door well before they commit their knuckles to the task–a knowledge which renders useless every moment between now and that inevitable knock. If that’s not horrifying enough, there is the widely-held expectation that there will be a delay between a knock and the moment one can actually open a door. Opening that door mid-knock would necessitate a cascade of needless posturing: the mock surprise, the mock embarrassment, the mock laughter, and the mock conversation about how quickly I opened that crazy door. By which time I may as well have spent my day licking a small spot on the wall.

That I should do time behind my own door, waiting until it’s time to open it, is hardly a reasonable proposition. Maybe next time I should just keep on waiting indefinitely, gleefully mirroring the person on the front porch, mock-knocking as they knock, and then stomping off like a child when I never answer my door. And really, is it any great loss? I already know pretty much how it’s going to turn out anyway.

Souvenir

entry_164I don’t even know the name of the motel I’ve been staying in. I’m only passing through, but already routine has settled on me like residue. In the morning and at night, as I’m preparing, I find myself stealing glances at the appendage on my bathroom wall. Though the leg remains, the spider two whom it belongs is long gone. As out of place as it is, I can’t summon the will to brush the leg away. Day after day I see it there, next to the mirror. Each time I catch site of it I imagine it’s fastened there by the minutest trace of dried ichor, a bond that a whisper of air might break. But though the temptation exists, I leave the arachnid gam there, perhaps as a reminder.

It’s like dust, really. Dust with form. A trace of something that used to be, a hint of a thing once greater. We would be fortunate to be in the quiet company of such mementos: reminders of the past in a form that still piques emotion. Something more than just the pink, paper-thin scars so delicate that your lover once said they appeared to have been coaxed from the inside.

What gifts these artifacts would be, scattered about like discarded garments. The grainy gray suspicion of the girl you dated three years ago lies still on the sofa, her hands still covering her face to hide the tears. She is there, frozen as she was the very last time you and she were still friends. Next to her, in a faded box of gossamer and shadow are the family photos that were lost in the fire that you started. And don’t trip over the child who is you, now the briefest shimmer scampering underfoot to escape the wrath of some long-fallen authority figure.

Visited by these precious moments from times past, you could never truly be alone. These are phantoms reconstituted of vapor and web, flake and crumb, no longer content merely to coat your appliances passively. Now they will move and kick, and, if you dangle your hand over the edge of the bed, you may find, when you wake, a pair of dental crescents pressed into the meat of your palm.

I lean in close to the appendage on my bathroom wall, and for just a second consider licking it off. Eating the dried brown limb doesn’t seem an unreasonable notion. What a loss it might be otherwise, and a moral defeat! And what more responsible tribute than ingestion can there be to something you’ve personally dispatched?

Instead I direct a blow at it, and it drops at last, falling neatly into the envelope I hold beneath it. I’ll address it to my parole officer over breakfast in the diner across the way as I watch the flames leaping from the motel roof.

That will be something to remember.

Illustration

entry_163“What are you doing?”

“Just flashing my brake lights.” The car on my ass eases off, its headlights retreating in the darkness, but flashes me a warning. No one likes having to abide another’s will.

“Why?”

“To let them know to back off.” I’m keeping an eye on them in the rearview. I wonder if it occurs to them that the discussion I’d been having with my friend has stopped; that now our focus is exclusively on them, like a compass needle planted on North.

“Oh,” says my friend. “Well it’s probably safer to just pull over.”

I shrug in the darkness. “They backed off.”

“Because you never know. It can be dangerous.”

“It’s dangerous for me if I have to stop. Anyway, I didn’t apply my brakes, I just tapped the light.” The car behind us isn’t as close as it was, but it’s creeping up again. Maybe they think fire doesn’t burn twice. Or perhaps they slowed down for a moment so they could get their gun, and now they’re closing to finish the deal.

“Okay,” she says, not liking my tactic. “I just usually pull over.” She’s not wrong, but… I have to admit to getting some satisfaction in not being as passive. Maybe it’s not always good enough to forgive someone for failing to meet my high standards. Maybe a demonstration is worth some risk.

I rationalize. “I mean, for example, if an animal were to run into the road and I had to stop, and then they came along and hit me from behind….”

“Well yeah.”

Two green pinpricks bob out from the high grass on the shoulder, and as we approach, a meaty possum waddles into the road in front of us.

“Oh, whoa!” she exclaims.

I have to mash the brakes and swerve to avoid the animal, and the car behind us comes to within a few feet of my bumper. The possum looks up at us with lethargic eyes, then thoughtfully turns about and retreats.

“Told you,” I say under my breath, less to her than to the driver behind us.

“That was weird,” she says as I straighten us back out and continue down the windy road. “I’ve never seen an animal on this road before.” She’s checking her mirror. “Did they hit it?”

“No,” I say.

After a moment I add, “You know… I can make things happen just by thinking about them.”

“I know,” she says.