Versatile Blogger Award

I was pleasantly surprised to find that good friend John Wiswell over at Bathroom Monologues bestowed upon me the Versatile Blogger Award. He also added some nice comments, all of which are unnecessary but highly appreciated. Had he told me his intentions in advance, I might have given him a few more unnecessary comments. :)

According to what I surmise, the recipient is to share seven "unknown" personal facts and then to pass it all forward. So, in a theme of "I never tried that again," here we go...

1. At the age of four (or maybe it was five), while living in Colorado Springs, I had a neighbor girl over for a play-day. On this day, she and I decided to explore and watch each other "potty." Suffice it to say, my father, a bible college student preparing for the ministry, was not as amused as I was, and after a stern lecture, along with a bit of corporal encouragement, I never tried it again.
2. During the same age, I scared the pants off my parents when another friend and I climbed through a church balcony window and stood the edge of the roof looking down at all the people on the sidewalk below. Another stern lecture, with my father probably having doubts about me living in a parsonage, and I never tried that again.
3. At the age of thirteen, while living in Michigan, I was visiting a friend down in the Pontiac area. After watching him roll down a hill on his BMX and jump off a ramp, I decided to give it go. After pulling the handle bars out of my chest, the pedal out of my leg, and then staggering around with no air in my lungs, I was certain that I would die at any moment. I never tried that again.
4. At the age of eighteen, after a night of working at J.C. Penney's in Overland Park, Kansas, I decided to take my Toyota Corolla for a thrill ride of slides and spins, through the fresh snow in an empty parking lot. In the excitement, I completely forgot about the sidewalk that divided the parking lot in half. Four replaced rims and an empty wallet later, I never tried that again.
5. At the age of twenty, while living in Fort Worth, Texas, my boss and I took a road trip to the border town of Juarez. Wanting to explore life and see some "dancing girls," we asked a taxi cab driver if he knew where we could find some action. Several twists and turns later, zipping down alleys and completely lost as far as I was concerned, we finally stopped at one of the brothels John mentioned in his blog. After a few minutes, seeing as how we weren't spending any money, the establishment kindly escorted us out. I never tried that again.
6. At the age of twenty-one, still sowing my oats as it were, I decided to take on a bottle of Glenlivet. After losing miserably, and then having to clean up a nasty mess in the bathroom, I never tried that again.
7. At the age of forty-two, now living in Lubbock with a my wife and two kids, I looked at the prospect of remodeling the kitchen cabinets for my wife and told her, "I can do that." Several weeks later, with my lungs full of sawdust (and primer and paint and glaze and sealant) I finally finished. I can tell you now I will never do that again. In the words of Dirty Harry: "A man has to know his limitations."

There. I hope you learned a little more about me and enjoyed a few laughs at my hard-knocks education.

For my recipients, I would like to honor Linda Simoni-Wastila, whose blog is a virtual potpourri of poetry, flash fiction and personal stories.

I also want to honor good friend Paige over at Paradise Valley. Just like Linda, Paige's blog is a mixture of poetry and personal stories. She even has a secondary blog where she has posted a photo a day.

Again, my personal thanks to John Wiswell for his thoughtfulness. If you haven't been by his blog, or by Linda's or Paige's, then I recommend you do so.

Until next time...

#FridayFlash - Because You Pay Me

My patient lies quietly in the bed. His eyes are closed, his cracked lips slightly open, but he is not asleep. Not completely. More likely than not, he is in the far away place he turns to each day.

Tired lungs, ravaged by years of abuse, raise his chest slowly and then collapse with a huff. Beside the bed, an oxygen tank beckons me like it has a secret to share: Not much longer.

I step across the room on carpet so thick it squishes beneath my feet. As I open the curtains to welcome in the morning light, my patient coughs.

“Why are you here?” His voice is whispery.

I look over my shoulder.

“It’s Ignacio Garcia, Mr. Cohen. Your nurse.”

“I’m not blind.” His eyes hold fast on mine. “Why are you here?”

I look back through the window, a flash of anger burning at my face. It is the same question he has asked for the last two weeks.

“Because you pay me.”

A fragile breath wheezes past his lips. “Then close the curtains.”

I take a deep breath and pull the drawstring.

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

His hooded eyes lift up. A dry tongue rolls across chapped lips. “A glass of water, maybe?”

The adjoining bathroom is closer, but I opt to use the kitchen instead. Downstairs, I wonder if he’s always been this way. Surely there must have been a time when he was nice, as a young man. Filling the pitcher, I try to visualize this younger man, a man who opened doors for women, who considered his word just as binding as any contract drafted by an army of lawyers. But then, reality sets in. People like J. Samuel Cohen don’t exist for others. The only door he ever opened for a woman was the one to his bedroom. And words hold no value unless they can be looked upon, pointed at, enforced.

On my way back, I stop at the foot of the stairs and gaze upon a portrait. At his side, Cohen’s now deceased wife, Anna, sits in a velvety red dress, her placid hands in her lap. Behind them, wearing expensive clothes, are four young children—the same ones who now, years later, have left his care to me.

I shake my head and climb the stairs, stiffening my resolve. We are worlds apart, those children and me. Growing up in a mansion, living a life of prosperity, they have never struggled. They’ve never felt the pain of whispered conversations—snide remarks regarding the lightness of skin or the unusual color of eyes. They have never felt the ache of a father’s embarrassed gaze.

Back in the room, blue eyes as bright as a cloudless sky look at me. “Do you have any children?”

“No. I haven’t found the right woman.”

He nods.

“Do you fear death?”

I shake my head. I’ve seen enough death through this job, and my heart has grown calloused. People get old, they die. “I don’t worry about it much.”

“Someday, you will.”

I shrug.

He closes his eyes. “It’s all I think about these days.”

I fill a glass and place it on his nightstand. Then I turn to the television. “Shall I find something for you to watch?”

“Not today. Something different, maybe.”

“The radio?”

“Some poetry.” He coughs and groans and then continues. “Maybe the Greeks. They were famous for the iambic hexameter. Did you know that?”

“I never paid much attention in school.”

“Poetry, Ignacio. Language of the gods.” He points to a bookcase. “You’ll find something over there.”

“You sure you don’t want the television?”

“No, not the Greeks,” he says. “Grab volume four instead.” When I hesitate, he adds, “The blue one.”

“I don’t read very well.”

“And yet you made it through nursing school.”

“That’s different.”

“Not really. Please, grant an old dead man his wish.”

“You’re not dead yet. You have adinocarcin—”

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t dignify it.”

Turning to the shelf, I find that the book is heavy, its pages worn.

“Anything specific?”

He shakes his head.

I open it up and read.

“‘Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long…’”

“Ah…” A warm smile tugs at the sides of his mouth. “Shakespeare. How appropriate.”

I read only another line when he closes his eyes and recites the poem word for word, finishing with a triumphant smile. “Very good,” he says.

“I can’t take much credit.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“He’s looking for someone.”

“Not someone, but something. You understand that.”

I shrug.

“Of course you do. It’s why you’re a nurse. Why you’re here.”

The flash of anger again burns at my cheeks. “No, I’m here because you pay me.”

His smile fades, replaced by a deep sadness.

I quickly close the book and turn toward the bookshelf.

“Keep it,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

He lays his head back. “In fact, take the whole set.”

“But your children.”

He scoffs. “Where are they? Do you see them?”

I shake my head.

“There is only you now.”

I set the book down on a chair, but intend to replace it later. I’ve worked too hard, and I will not be accused of stealing anything, not even a trifle token.

I look at my watch. “We should probably get you something to eat.”

“Your mother,” he says. “She was a good woman.”

“She was a great woman.”

Mr. Cohen nods and then mutters something else.

“Sir?”

“You have done well for yourself. She would be proud.”

“I can only hope.”

He fixes me with a piercing gaze. “You are a good son.”

I stand in silence for a while, uncertain as to what I should say. Then, the oxygen tank beckons me again. Mocking me. I silently curse it.

“Ignacio?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve changed my mind. Will you open the curtains?”

“Certainly.” I walk across the room. “That’s what you pay me for.”

#FridayFlash - Timber Pass

The Timber Pass Bridge bristled as two boys pushed their bikes across its deck. Under the supports, the cliff walls cut jagged edges toward the bottom where, over four hundred feet below, they framed a narrow river and its rocky bed. From this height, the deck muffled the sound of the bubbling water to a whisper.

One of the boys asked the other, “You watch the game last night?” Squat and pudgy, the boy waddled across the deck, his double-rolled belly squeezing into a tattered pair of jeans. Dark stains marked the pits of the shirt stretched across his chest, and an exclamation point of sweat soaked the center of his back.

The second boy said, “Yeah, man, the homer Rodriquez slammed in the ninth was awesome.” Compared to his porky-pie friend, this one was taller, thinner, and better dressed.

Baseball. If it weren’t excited about the prospects of two more victims, the bridge would have groaned. The boys had all of creation spread out before them—grasshoppers buzz-sawing across the meadow, birds singing merrily in the trees, not to mention the beautiful fifty-year-old wooden structure beneath their feet—and they wanted to talk about sports?

The bridge slowly shifted its frame.

The skinny one stopped. “Hey, you feel that?”

The fat one looked over. “Feel what?”

“It felt like it moved.”

“Ah, that’s only the wind. Nothing to worry about. This thing is just old.”

The skinny one looked over his shoulder. “Maybe we should go back.”

“What for?”

“What if it collapses?”

A grunt. “Don’t be a wus.”

“I’m not a wus.”

“Yeah, you are.”

The fat one bent over and picked up a beer bottle. It had been left by a drunkard who happened along two weeks earlier. Barely twenty yards across, he stopped and set the beer down. Then, he unzipped his pants and sent a stream off the side of the Bridge. The way he swayed, all it took was a shudder and the man was never seen again.

Porky-pie inspected the bottle, the contents long evaporated. He said, “Hey, watch this,” and chucked it. Both boys pushed their bikes to the edge, watching as the bottle performed a graceful series of summersaults down into the mouth of the canyon. At the bottom, it hit a boulder and exploded.

The fat one pumped a fist into the air. “Awesome!”

“Yeah!”

The Bridge was about to send a shockwave across its deck when the boys turned their bikes and resumed their walk.

“Hey,” the skinny one said. “You hear Danny Ekstrom went out with Teresa Jameson?”

Another grunt. “They ran into each other at the county fair. Hardly a date.”

“Well, I heard they rode the ferris wheel and kissed at the top.”

“What? Who told you that?”

“Edie Hall.”

“And she saw it?”

“She was at the bottom watching.”

The fat boy stopped walking. “Edie wasn’t even up in the next car or something?”

The skinny one didn’t respond.

Porky-pie shook his head. “Doesn’t count.”

“Whaddayah mean?”

“There’s no way she could have seen them well enough in the dark. Danny was probably just whispering something in Sarah’s ear.”

“How do you know? You weren’t there.”

“And neither were you.”

The skinny boy stood there for a moment. Then, “Ah, I get it.”

“What?”

“You got the hots for Teresa.”

The fat one’s mouth dropped open, but nothing came out.

“You got a big ol’ flaming crush on her.”

“Shut your pie hole, or I’ll throw you over the edge.”

The bridge liked the sound of that. Little Porky-pie Toby might actually save it some of the trouble.

The boys stood in silence, staring at each other. Finally, the skinny one said, “Hey, it’s cool. I think she’s good looking, too.”

“Whatever.”

The boys resumed their walk. Halfway across, the Bridge shifted its frame again, this time not so subtle.

The fat one stopped. “Whoa.”

“You see,” the skinny blurted out. “This thing’s not stable.”

The Bridge held still as a breeze cut across its deck.

The fat one looked around for a moment. When nothing else happened, a small chuckle escaped his mouth. Color returned to his cheeks. “You’re such a jerk-off,” he said. “Now you got me acting all scared.”

“No way. This thing moved, and you felt it.”

“It was just the wind.”

“You kidding me?”

“C'mon, let’s just get off this thing.”

The pushed their bikes another twenty yards before the fat one spoke again.

“I wonder how many people have actually taken a swan dive off the side.”

If it could, the bridge would have told them the answer: fourteen. Sixteen after today.

The thing was, hers wasn’t even intentional. A young girl, after enduring months of jokes and tricks and criticisms about her red hair, her freckled homely looks, coming down to cry it out. Only the wind decided to play a game too. Taken by surprise, she screamed as she fell, but nobody heard. And nobody came. Not even her mother.

Afterwards, her spirit turned bitter. She vowed that nobody would ever walk over her again.

“So, you think Sarah would be interested in a guy like me?”

The fat boy’s voice broke the reverie. They were now two-thirds of the way across and still the conversation was about them. Them. Them. THEM!

The bridge’s structure popped as it shifted harder this time, twisting beams, dropping one side down.

The fat one screamed. “The bridge is collapsing!”

The thinner boy dropped his bike and ran as the bridge sent another jolt and dipped its deck further. Wood splintered along the causeway. This time, the fat boy fell to his knees and cried, “Wait! Wait for me!”

Before the bridge could shift again, both boys gained their footing and made it to the other side. They turned and watched in horror as their bikes slid off the edge.

Slowly, the bridge righted itself, cracking up and down like a stiff spine.

The thinner boy said, “Wh-wh-what just happened?”

The fat one boy shook his head and quickly turned, running as fast as his legs could take him.

The bridge groaned in disappointment at its loss. But that was okay. Sooner or later, someone else would happen along.

They always did.