Proverbs 31, Verses 6 & 7
"Hard liquor is for sick men at the brink of death,
and wine for those in deep depression."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
It used to be, if you asked me why I believed in the death penalty, I could tell you. And I would tell you. I wouldn't just tell you about it, I'd write about it, too. I wrote about it, a lot. It's recorded. It is on record.
Now, it all seems like somebody else's thoughts and words. And bile. And animus. And violence. I'm in there, somewhere, of course. I'm in there somewhere, floating around, circling the drain, watching for cues, thumbing my nose at the memory of myself. Back then-- way back then.
I don't believe in the death penalty anymore. I've seen what it does-- I mean, I haven't seen somebody being put to death by the state-- but I've seen how it martyrs people, I've seen how it turns people's brains to yogurt. If you read Monday's post, or the book I wrote when I was in college, well, you know what I'm talking about.
You know.
It used to be, if you asked me why I like to wear ties and what I call "Tier 1 pants" (trousers that could pass for suit pants, typically necessitating dry-cleaning that I wouldn't be caught dead spending money on) and dress shirts, I could tell you. I'd prattle on about self-respect and dignity and how my grandfather was a haberdasher and all of that muck. But, really, I don't know why. I have a hundred ties. Maybe two hundred. There's around a dozen bowties. And sometimes I look at them and I don't know what they're doing in my room. Why do I wear ties and not bowling shirts, or flannel shirts? Now, it's just what I do. I wear ties to the beach.
Gee, that's silly.
Used to be I could tell you why I liked sad folk songs-- I could tell you why if you asked me. I'd talk about how they're moving and they're poignant and about how their stories of sorrow or loss or struggle speak to me, and about how they're more lasting than, I don't know-- than that other stuff. Now, if you asked me why I cry when I hear Dar Williams's "When I Was a Boy", I'd probably just take a sip of coffee and change the subject; to the weather, or the bomb, or the gumbo. Let's talk about something else, cuz my mom and I, we'd always talk, and I'd pick flowers everywhere that we'd walk.
But you knew that.
Used to be I knew why I wanted to be a cop. I'd tell you a story about-- I don't know-- something, anything to explain it. To make sense of the most irrational desire of my life. I'd explain it away for you until it almost made sense, until it almost made your brow stop furrowing. I'd talk until you left me the fuck alone about it. I'd talk and talk and talk until I almost understood it myself. I'd tell you that it started in high school, or college, or the months after college, after she'd broken up with me and after the book and after I waved to Charles after getting that stupid piece of paper wearing that oversized trash bag, but, a couple months ago I was looking at pictures that my father took of me back when I was nine or ten. I'm dressed in dark pants, a dark blue polo shirt and a child's-sized police hat. I have cheap metal cuffs and I'm doing various police poses-- talking on an imaginary radio, pointing off in the distance while squinting my eyes (probably at the direction a "suspect fled on foot"), even cuffing an imaginary suspect up against my father's white Oldsmobile Ciera. There's a badge on my chest, with a piece of black mourning tape over its center.
I don't know. I really just don't know.
Used to be I could tell you why I don't drink. Why I've never had a drink. Why. People think I'm in recovery, but I'm not even that advanced. I'm so entrenched in my own bullshit I don't even have the slightest idea what I'd be in recovery from. Maybe I don't drink because I'm frightened. Maybe it's because I think alcohol is evil, that people who drink behave like idiots. Maybe I don't think I need any help behaving like an idiot. I've got that covered pretty much. Maybe I don't want to be out of control. Life's pretty out of control as it is.
Isn't it?
Used to be I could tell you anything-- even if you didn't ask. Now, I don't know what to tell you. I could have told you, once, very clearly in writing. I was always afraid of speaking, because I never knew what was going to come out. I'm still like that, but now it's metastasized to infect not only my speech but my writing. I still don't know what I'm talking about. Or why. I don't know who I'm addressing, who is out there, why I'm writing or why you're reading. But I suppose all I can say it that I like that you're here. Here with me. "Stay with me," I used to say to my mother so she wouldn't leave my bedside as I lay there, awash in anxiety and fear-- irrational and sane-- and she would stay. She'd stay with me.
And I always knew why.
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