Wreck-collect

Kenneth sat quietly on his hardwood deck and took in the beautiful,
crisp spring smells. Dusk was his favorite time of day, and he
performed his typical daily ritual of enjoying the nearly disappeared
sun by doing some reading and sipping a homemade smoothie.
But it wasn't the taste of kelp and apples that lingered on his lips.


A passage in his book had triggered something far sweeter, that he
had not thought on for many years. Touching on it had brought the
reading to a pause, lifted him erect in the chair, and now he sat gazing
doe-eyed and transfixed out onto the horizon.


Kenneth had never told anyone about the experience that filled him
with such warmth. To do so would have seemed trite, forced. It
wasn't that he felt ashamed, necessarily. It's just that the privacy
of such a thing was part of the wonderment, and to share it would
expose it to the mundaneness of this bleak world.


Besides, all memory is best savored from a distance. Rewatching
old favorite movies and attending high school reunions had been the
death of more than a few sacredly held beliefs. He didn't want a
revisiting to destroy this precious memory.


He found himself in a very contemplative mood as a result of his
memory stroll, which was a rather unorthodox mindset for this
accomplished and driven man. At 45, he had done pretty much
everything imaginable, but you wouldn't know it to look at him.
Average looks, unassuming, not significant according to the social
registry or the financial big whigs, he still was able to carry his own.


Although a loner in the truest sense of the word, he was affable
with all he met, bringing a smile and a flutter to the most stone-faced
of women and even a few men. He was not a party person, but he had
no judgment of others' vices. He had never been heard to utter a
single political or religious view in anyone's company. He was pretty
much a ghost of a man, never needing attention or causing controversy.
There had been enough of that as a kid.


And contentment had been his. Just as he had no real need for people--he
was alone but not lonely--he had no real need for any thing, either. He
was well off from decades of frugal spending and good investments,
and was comfortable in his modest surroundings. But tonight, for the
first time in so long, something was triggered in him that was a foreign
concept; longing.


He could remember vividly what it had felt like to be the object of
someone's desire; to know that their deeds and wishes were
centered around you. The power that it had given him, and the
utterly delicious awakening of enticing someone who was 'above'
you in every other way. It had been a drug that nearly devoured
him, but ultimately, it was precious experience.


That first night, all those years ago, staying in the hotel room...

(to be continued..)

"One Man's Brain Rot; Another man's Life saver" essay

In my insanity-fest household, escapism was a prized commodity.

I had an entire arsenal of trivial pursuits and mindless interests
from early on.

 And, since my parents guiltily spent every spare dime on
gifts (a doubly dubious divide between guilt over their usual
treatment of me and their own shame over such impoverished
upbringings,) I cleaned up in the swag department!


I was a comic book fiend; those four-color enterprises that
were always viewed as the red-headed stepchild, and now
have come to prominence as more of the cool uncle who
has all the latest gadgets. (Make no mistake; back then it
was Nerd City, though!)

 There was nothing better than the perfect microcosm of
comics, where everything made sense--no matter how outlandish
the explanation--and inclusion was a regular part of the mix.
Freaks and geeks were the good guys, and good won out.

I marveled at my early exposure to multiculturalism and just
how right that felt; the Legion had a different kid from every
planet, including every color of the rainbow!! I liked the friendships
and camaraderie (that I would know from no other source,)
and the sense of endless excitement and fantasy that was
available within those pages. The continuity of those stories,
the established canon and personalities and histories, it was
oh-so-significant for an adopted kid who knew nothing of where
he came from.

 Music was huge for me as an outlet; I would play LPs on the
stereo at full blast, only later learning that kid's rooms aren't
soundproof and not all neighbors are drunken lushes who
stay passed out. I belted out some of the cheesiest Donna
Summer, Pat Benatar, Linda Ronstadt, Kim Carnes, Bonnie
Tyler, and other divas' greatest hits like a pro, losing myself
in the pulsating music and the words. Sometimes they were
schmaltzy love-broken fool songs, which I equated with my
heartbreak of loneliness and powerlessness, and sometimes
they were defiant ass-kicking "Ain't nobody gonna settle me
down" numbers that fueled my sense of outrage and injustice.

My juices got flowing with the aggressive eroticism of wrestling,
and it was a strange sensation to know that the Briscoe Brothers
lived right down the road from me, as did good ole Dusty Rhodes.
There was something about the visceral, combative sport that
engaged me. The spectacular lack of clothing didn't hurt things
either, but mostly it was the power struggle that triggered such
an emotional response.


I also had a heaping helping of stirrings from such impressionable
sights as a red Speedo-clad Robert Conrad on "Battle of the
Network Stars" and Jim Palmer's infamous Jockey ads in every
single magazine published in the late 1970s and early 1980s!


My appetite for sexual imagery was insatiable, and I memorized
every soap opera's cast list to get an idea on when some hunk
might go shirtless. I think the suppression of feelings leads to the
intensification of feelings.


I had every toy ever made, especially those related to the
comics and super hero TV shows, which were pervasive in that
era. I had no playmates, so I enacted all my own storylines with
a cast of dozens. If a character didn't have a produced figure,
I bought a discount bin Fischer Price action figure or Pocket
Heroes figure and painted, glued, and accessorized until I had
that figure in my collection. Broken toothpicks super glued onto
the back of plastic hands make for excellent Wolverine claws,
in case you ever need to know. (Yes, I am totally Redneck Gypsy
Recyclable Boy.)

 And TV and movies were a drug for me; they had everything!
Drama! Intense emotion and crazy dialogue! Interesting people
and finite problems! And perhaps greatest of all was that back then,
justice was typically served up on a regular basis. Good and bad was
absolute, and wrongs were righted. That was key for me.
All of it was all representing somewhere that wasn't where I was;
I could imagine that escape was possible.


The visual stimuli, the verbal stimuli, the ability to zone out of
my less-than-stellar reality...and people said what they were
really thinking, or you could at least see what they were thinking
when the doors were closed! That was huge for me, growing
up in a house of secrecy and duplicity.


Literature taught me language and insights and that there
were others in the world like me--"Catcher in the Rye", "To Kill
a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby", "The Outsiders" and more--
and allowed me to understand a little more of life as if I had
actually lived it among my peers.


As an isolated kid, all these entertainments formed one very valid
purpose; befriending me. This inanimate objects and works
of art provided me with reassurance and fun and connection
where there would have otherwise been none. In a tiny
southern town where you're an odd duck the equivalent of
Boo Radley (which they actually called me in high school,)
there are limits on what you can do. Unless you believe otherwise.


Although I now understand the inevitability of interaction, and
on occasion the value of it, I still cherish my oldest friends
that gave me an outlet and a lifeline through some of my rockiest
years. Let others mock and squawk, and let the accusations of
'social wallflower' commence; I love all my pass times!

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