Although I can't explain all that I want to do...

When I wake, I see the tweets I shouldn’t have sent the night before; they make me look weak, but I’m not, or at least I don’t want anyone to think of me as such. I’ll see the photos eventually—"I don’t remember taking these.” I’ll see the notes eventually—I mostly remember scrivening those. One in particular I’ll abridge yet elaborate, for it’s actual manner of phrase is overly caliginous. To quote myself, imbibed and not wholly of sound mind; "If not, it'll die in her iPhone with her, and when'd she start speaking in the third person?"

• 
  

“What are you thinking about?” I’m asked by the girl with sparkling eyes that knows mostly that I probably won't say...

The dead strand of lights out back and incurable tweak in my neck, the light gone from just one string of bulbs, illuminated in her eyes, (I envy this,) escalating tension in my back and shoulders. 

I’m staring off, thinking of only that, tossing back my flask, wondering why she asked and why I’d end up saying, “wouldn’t you like to know?"

No one here knows me for more than a familiar face, an embarrassing mess most nights. I’m being quiet, I have so much to say, but no one would understand. No one here knows me. 

• 
  

I drive to work and think about the ways in which I’m ruining my own mood—for over-analyzing every conversation, look, gesture, that was most likely innocent and misunderstood. I constantly preach not to idle on self consciousness, ("fuck what they think! you’re perfect, and if they can’t see that…)—my duplicity clearly wears me out. 

At work they call me sunshine, say good morning. “Good mawnin’,” I smile, illuminating the illusion that I actually am spreading rays of warm light in the cold atmosphere. I think I make them happy. Crouched down to fill the coffee carafe to the 12 line at the slow, trickling water cooler, they say, "thanks, Cass." I consume about half the pot on my own, usually make a second half-batch if I don’t pick up a diet Coke or Monster on my lunch run. 

Attempting to be eternal sunshine exhausts me, and I can’t do it on these cloudy mornings, let alone smolder all night. Consequently, I’m not the cheery little lass I once was. My flame's burning out, I need to be where it’s warm, or with someone who warms me. I think people try, but it’s not enough. I’m scared I’ll suck the life from them. I don’t want good company if I’ll destroy it. 

I keep my phone on airplane mode—every notification I see makes me feel so sad, even if it’s the sweetest text message in the world or a "like" on a photo from a sincere soul.

• 
  

The note ends, "I'm sobbing in someone's room (who doesn't know me,) listening to some song (everyone knows,) when my girls ask if I'm okay, and what do I say? Yep. I'm good. Typical. I'm the driver." (Do they know I was crying? Did that even happen?) I don't remember crying, and I sure as hell hope no one else does. Reflection only amuses me anymore when it's horizontal, and I haven’t seen it that way for weeks.

December Never Felt So Wrong

I died listening to George Winston driving around on a rainy Tuesday night. The piano keys struck, "ba da da ba, ba da da ba," staccato, yet fluidly, and I knew the artist so fluently articulating "Carol of the Bells" immediately. Not suspecting that this would play on Bing Crosby holiday Pandora, I didn't see the light come toward me, because of the headlamps and street lamps reflecting the glittery rain turned sequins on my windshield. 
When it's dark, the total absence of light, it's equivalent to being blind, but when light is so powerful that you can't see anything, is that being blind too? Or is it not that we cannot see; perhaps we are not meant to see what is so light, or so dark, so we wander the muddled mess of the two on this spherical mass in space.

It's rotating, like the vinyl on the record player I sought out for my best friend for Christmas. When the shop owner tested out the purchase for me, he picked up leaning in a stack on the floor against a mini fridge, an album for a band I'd never heard of, "Loverboy," saying, "you probably never heard of Loverboy," which I hadn't, but I did catch a glimpse of the album behind it.

Autumn, by George Winston, in all its 12-inches of phonographic glory, encased in the worn and granulated cover--amber waves of grain sheltered under a seemingly endless blue sky. I asked the shop owner, a retiree who only accepted cash and cut me a sweet deal on the modern Victrola, "Do you think we can listen to Winston instead?" 

"Oh, you're not going to get the same sound out of it, but sure."

We chatted about Winston visiting at the end of the month a nearby town  in Pennsylvania, and I told him that, "my favorite album by him is the Vince Guaraldi cover album. 'Winter' is good, too."

"Yeah, 'December' tends to be one of his more popular records," I wanted to kick myself just as he said it; I knew it wasn't 'Winter' right after the sentence slipped out. Such a pompous early 20-something hipster in a used appliance shop in Levittown, in all her cultured baccalaureate glory, kicked down by the Veteran retiree more knowledgeable about an artist typically lauded by new-age, jazzy cats. I own "December" on cassette. How stupid of me.

The light in front of my eyes dims, and I keep driving on the first Tuesday of December, "ding, dong, ding, dong, hark blah blah bells," I'm singing. I said I died, but just as dark is the absence of light, isn't death the absence of life? I stopped living right then, to the stroke of the keys playing a song so familiar that in absolute light could shatter me to shards of piano keys and strings, like a baby grand dropped 22 stories. 

Angel

Originally titled "A Fourth C," Written April, 2014, the second of three creative non-fiction essays with a focus on research and interviews. Presented at Shippensburg University's Annual Student Research Conference. This should probably not be posted, since the only people to ever read it were my adoring and kind class mates who have no idea who I really am, but fuck it. It's all lies anyway.

Mom had 4 babies all without an epidural; me first, my 2 brothers, and a little sister. Natural pain of childbirth was nothing compared to the hollow hypodermic needle piercing her skin, entering her midline spine and opioids or local anesthetics injected, possibly causing side effects. She took no risks and on pain.  

Cassandra, the name chosen for me before I ever existed when my mom was still naturally blonde, graces my family with more irony than all Greek tragedies combined. Conceived out of wedlock to religious grandparents, I brought my parents together in marriage. In Greek mythology, Cassandra is gifted with prophecy, mostly concerning negative outcomes but she is cursed, never to be believed. 

Coady, the eldest of the boys, has an extra letter—my dad said because mom was drugged up when the doctors burst in and told her to sign the birth certificate. She’ll say it was because she wanted it to be different. I call him Broady, brother-Coady.

Coady’s two years and two months younger than I, a taller, thinner, more reserved and less open-mined version of myself. He’s equally intelligent and motivated, though he in the form of filming, editing and riding in street BMX edits, in which he and his friends do “sick” tricks. 

We’re similarly cleanly and equally hard-working, unlike our spoiled little brother. The babe at 15, a blonde and more baby-faced spitting image of Coady, Curtis is my personality twin. I call him Brutus, brother-Curtis. He calls me Sass, sister-Cass. He’s into drama, not just theater, but in age. Kid has swagger, I’ll give him that, I borrow his new made-to-look-old sweaters when he turns his back, and I stumble upon his cigarettes. 

“What the hell is this?” I ask, noticing the crushed Newport 100s in the small—open—zipper pouch on the outside of his backpack, mortified. Do not be like me, do not make these choices, do not disappoint.

He makes an awkward, caught grimace, but my dad stands behind my back, unaware of what’s out of his view and in front of my face. 

“Knock that shit off, got it?”

“Okay,” through teeth, rolling his eyes not in attitude toward me, but at himself for letting that slip.

Curtis is a good kid, but he’s confused. My parent’s divorce certainly complicates things. He’s gay, he says, but not directly to me—to social media. He’s growing up unsupervised, living with my dad who works constantly. I pray for him, not that he won’t mess up, but that he’ll make it through the rough few years ahead of him and live the life he deserves.

And unlike all three of us is my sister. I’ve never called her that before; we’ve never met, but I’ve always known. Angel, she does not fit in with the 3 “C”s: Cassandra, Coady, Curtis. Angel hovers above alphabetically, symbolically, holy. Born without life, born without sin, never a complaining breath slipped her lips as so often they do mine. 

Coady and I were young, and Curtis had not come along yet. For several months after a blood drenched urine cup test, my mom was home for “bed rest” and under the impression things were fine. Fine—such a loaded word—“of superior or best quality; choice, excellent or admirable; very thin or slender; in an excellent manner; very well.” 

She folded the family’s clothes as she sat on the couch when she felt it again, this time 6 months in, the blood blending in with the velvet burgundy sofa. I remember that couch like a nostalgic spoil, for it took so much poison. 

I named Dixie, the feline who pissed and shit on those cushions at any opportunity, and who lost control of her bladder due to a thyroid condition, banished to the basement in my college years. A bitter Cass brought Dixie to her lonely townhouse at school sophomore year when her roommate transferred, where Dixie would moan a sorrowful, natural death on Broady’s birthday. 

I recall spewing Cocoa Puffs on that same sofa over my dad’s shoulder before I ever went to school, a vomit memory not forgotten, unlike the countless college parties that left my stomach empty and my trashcan full and reeking.  But the sofa was before; before the time Angel came and went. 

Mom and dad got our brown-haired little heads in hooded coats, arms in sleeves, no shoes though… She and dad forgot. We were dropped off at Grandmom’s, on the way to the Trenton hospital where the doctors asked, “Where’ve you been we’ve been waiting what took so long?” No emergency room wait, ultrasound, sit in chief doctor’s office. What’s going on? What is wrong? 

     A blood clot, sizable—about 4 by 6 inches—affixed to her placenta, the sack that fed my sister, tore a hole in the organ that connected her to my mother, and out leaked her sustenance, her chance at a normal life dwindled.

The ultimatum; the chief doctor shared with my mother two possible outcomes; my sister would be born “possibly, most probably deformed,” or my mom could die.

She made the decision to, as my devout grandmother so gingerly put it, abort the baby. A 6-month-old baby, barely formed, barely a girl, barely given a chance, forced into the world not alive. But the choice was not a choice. Choose to give Angel 3 more months, and innocent Coady and I might ever wait like birds longing for their momma to return, chirping in the nest for eternity. She flew back to us, leaving one egg for dead, to care for those chicks that already hatched.

My mother and father rarely agree on anything, especially now, post-divorce. Yet talking to them, they have startlingly similar feelings on one topic; jerk. 

The doctor plopped down on my mother’s hospital bed as tears leaked out of her ducts, and asked, “are you crying?” How critical, how judgmental, how insensitive? I cry for this moment more than the loss; I cry for my mom for the first time in years. 

They photographed Angel in the little hat and name bracelet my mom kept to this day. I’m curious to see the photo, and I know I could take it, braced for the image, but I’ll never ask, the curious image better left unseen. They asked my mom if she wanted a burial, and my mom declined, she only wanted Angel to be for something—medical research, anything. They couldn’t, so she was disposed of the way hospitals deal with those instances, probably the incinerator.  

“Normally, when you leave the hospital after having a baby, they wheel you out… you know, in the wheelchair? And they put your baby in the car seat. This time, when they took me out, I was left with nothing.”

November 26^th, 1996, Angel’s due date. I was 4-years-old, Coady 2. Coady and I were photographed for Christmas around that time, I see his little face, so round and hair dark, soft, long. He wears a tiny green sweater and little booties. That face stretched into the slim face he has today, spattered with patchy hair he says won’t grow into a full beard, but he says means he won’t bald.

November 24^th, 1998, C-u-r-t-i-s was born. I remember going to the hospital, spelling his name in the front seat of my dad’s old pink champagne car, passed down from his sister, with its burgundy interior that smelled of church and that plasticy fiber that in the heat seemed to roast. He’ll never be called “Calvin,” the other name my mom considered, but discarded. He’ll never be called “Curt,” a choice I wish I’d made when “Cassie” became my nickname, the identity I so strongly wish to leave in 1996.         

“I don’t think I would have had Curtis,” mom said of Angel, the bird that never flew. Her wings were clipped for C-u-r-t-i-s to soar. 

Each Christmas, my dad took us shopping for my mother, and we always picked a gift not on her list; an angel. A snow draped figurine, a beanie baby bear with wings, a crystal rearview mirror charm, a twisted metal hanging garden decoration. My dad said it faded with time, the gifts and the pain. “You know, time heals all wounds… She’s still your sister, maybe someday you’ll meet her in heaven…” He laughed, a “ha” here, nervously, doubting the depth of the words I’m not sure I buy, the words he might not even believe himself. 

Until this moment, I’ve never called her my sister. Sister. She’d be 17, a junior in high school. I’d imagine she’d be hardworking like Coady and I, the distance not there like with Curtis. I imagine her the blonde version of me, like Curtis, the blonde version of Coady. I’d imagine her name, a real name, not one based on her death, but based on the future she’d hold. It’d start with a ‘C’, like the 3 Clarhaut children that exist, that got the chance to exist.  

Paradise Holding

Propelling myself between white and yellow lines, my journey laced with the highs, then inevitable crashes, but never totaled, I still roll onward. I make it to work on-time this morning, the three cigarettes to calm my nerves on the trip-up. Light, suck, blow, ash, flick. I noticed this morning in the bath that the cut inside my mouth on my cheek, caused from chomping on 750 calories worth of chips after dinner last night, has healed almost completely. I’ve always healed fast-- my piercings and scrapes, my sprains and bruises. I don’t get sick, and when I do, my body usually relinquishes the illness in about a day. Perhaps my physical resilience makes up for what I lack mentally, emotionally: the pains of my mind hanging on like an unshakable cold, even when I’ve decided for myself that, “I’m over it.”

So I turn down the road less-traveled, always, because Frost said it makes the difference, but I’m not so sure how this road is different. I feel good (for now,) looking at the world in this new and heightened way, I actually feel, but I’m still just focusing on avoiding that cliff to my right.

The unpopular road I’m on is dark and over-grown, it’s so dangerous, really, but I don’t know how many people have really died here. I’ve heard the stories, people plummeting over the edge, but they weren’t as smart as me, as observant or self-aware, and I’ve got a better control of my vehicle, an assumption based upon the circumstances. The course I travel has a clear destination, a good time and place to rest, I just need to keep my eyes out for the signs and make sure no one notices me here. A girl like me in a place like this is a guaranteed disaster if my presence is realized. Though my speed continues to accelerate, it is still steady and reasonable, and if I keep my eyes on the road, no one will notice that I’ve strayed. I’ll end up where they are on-time despite our contradicting passages. I just need to focus.

What to make of the ones who didn’t make it? They went too far down this road, where the pavement ends and all is lost, all are lost, but I’m not worried; I’ll exit in time to get back on course. If by some chance I miss the exit, or I get too close to the cliff; if I roll into the embankment's brush or it gets so dark I can’t see an obstruction in front of me, you won’t know until it's too late.

I’m turning up the music now, speakers are blowing out. I won’t tell anyone what road I’m on, not even my best friend. “This is something I have to do for myself,” shout-sings Max Bemis competing with my back up vocals. Chain smoking between the lines, the path less clear, the boundaries blurred--I’m getting to work now. Flick. Tomorrow I’ll take this road again, and don’t follow me. I’ll find my way back on my own.

I’m not worried, but maybe if there were ever absolute truth, you’d never be reading this in the first place.

A Lone Native American Among Pilgrams

Well, Thanksgiving is here, my favorite holiday next to Leif Erikson day, and I feel obligated to speak on what I’m thankful for, mostly because I complain so God damn much and I really do have a great life. 

As is tradition, Thanksgiving has always been our holiday, held at my parents house, now my dad’s house, though my maternal grandparents still join us. Every year, we "go around" the table, per Grandmom’s sentimental demand (and to my dad and his sister’s consternation, though we participate annually—the Clarhauts are not typically the most “feeling” oriented family.) 

As I spoke to my Grandmom a few days ago about what she should bring to the gathering (I don’t know why she asks me, I’m not cooking,) she reminded me of the custom as if I've forgotten what’s happened on this holiday for the past 12 or so years they’ve been in attendance.

“I told Pop Pop to try to think of something different this year, something he doesn’t usually say.”

Which, is hilarious, since if you’ve ever met Pop Pop, you’ve probably heard the 1950-something Neshaminy H.S. football team stories, or about the electricians union, all amplified, upon each greeting. He probably has no recollection of what he’s said he’s thankful for in the years past, as he probably doesn’t even remember what exactly he said 5 minutes ago, let alone what he should be thankful for in general.

“So try to think of something new… We have so much to thank God for, and that’s why we celebrate Thanksgiving,” Grandmom continued, as if I were confused about the purpose for which we eat turkey on the last Thursday of every November for the past 22 years. Which my celebrity doppelgänger Christina Ricci put so eloquently as Wednesday in the 1993 Addams Family Values’:

“You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, 'Do not trust the Pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller.'”

So Grandmom isn’t necessarily Sarah Miller, but she might be missing the point a little, along with the rest of obese America that uses this holiday as representation of something it’s not; an excuse to pig-out and express “thanks” for things we take for granted, that we forget we received from someone else’s suffering.

Anyway, Grandmom said this same spiel last year, and I really put thought into it. I sat patiently waiting my turn to share, “I’m thankful for the fact that I was born into this time period, where women have the freedom to get a proper education, have a career and vote, without being confined to the life of a housewife, independent from men if they so choose to be.”

The response? Crickets, stares, then mocking. My dad laughed, everyone rolled their eyes, and I slunk back down in my chair, recoiling in embarrassment for an educated, well thought-out answer. I’m the only one in this little gathering this year with a degree, though my brother is enrolled in college, but I feel like maybe I should go simpler for fear of rejection. Here are some options for what I’ll say at dinner on Thursday;

• I’m thankful that I’m not pregnant (at least that I know of.)

• I’m thankful that I can date a black guy without societal oppression, regardless of judgment (a.k.a. the horrible racist labels like n*lover and snow bunny.) 

• I’m thankful that my seriously pushy, overwhelming grandparents could make it to this forced event.

• I’m thankful my parents are divorced so I only have to deal with one drunk parent on this dreadful day.

• I’m thankful that I was born into a low-income household yet still retain high-brow cultural appreciation (as I scoff, laughing, and quoting someone like Dobšinský, who I've never actually read, to my knowledge.)

• While I'm at it, I'm thankful that I'm almost $40,000 in debt to have a terrifically sexist position at an auto body shop, which I am highly over-qualified for, while working extra hours at a minimum wage job that has brought me misery for the last five God-forsaken years of my life.

These answers won't be appreciated by my family, though my brothers might get a kick out of it. I'll probably go back to a generic crowd-pleaser, like "I'm thankful for my loving family," though really, I'm more grateful for my friends, but that wouldn't appeal to anyone at the table and would offend. I'll probably just say that I'm thankful for my father, who has taught me that money isn't everything while providing for me in every aspect of life through hard work, and that nice things are a privilege to be valued, not expected. Whatever I settle upon, if it's genuine, it's bound to leave someone feeling embarrassed, and I don't mind. I'm thankful that I can share my thoughts and someone somewhere will listen.

Thank you for reading, it means more to me than you'll ever comprehend. May many blessings come your way this holiday season.


With love,

CLC

A constant struggle deciding between trendsetting and something for which the world may not be ready

You’re driving, leaving some location where you fulfilled some obligation, the only obligation you may have, when you feel the dread take over. You need gas… But no, that’s not it… You just filled your tank. You have something to do, but you always could be doing something. You could look into those appointments you need to make, or the bills you need to pay, but it seems better to drive around, even though this gas has to last you until Friday, and the smarter thing to do would be to just go home and throw in a load of laundry.

But to go home, where those responsibilities lie, the piles of clothes and paperwork, the emails requesting prompt payment for accounts overdue, the lists of tasks to complete before you can actually move the hell out of your “home," that dread takes hold tighter than the original gloom you felt leaving your obligation. You’d only end up laying in bed for the night watching Netflix, feeling sorry for yourself, wishing someone would come over and drag your ass to your desk or elsewhere, so that maybe today wouldn’t be a total waste. 

You’d get out of the car and take a walk, to clear your head, but it’s so cold; you’re always cold anymore, so cold sometimes your face feels like you got a Novocain shot right in your cheek. So you light up, let it drift, and unfortunately remember those plans you have for dinner. Maybe. You never specified if you’d make it when you replied, “I’ll let you know.” 

You should go: not spend money on food, not waste another hour driving around, fulfill the visit so you’re off the hook for another week or so. But the company is daunting and you’re disconcerted. If you just go get it over with, maybe next time won’t be so bad. But you feel it, the overwhelm, now a noun, like a wave, and you’re pulled back out to the ocean, except you can’t fight the current anymore. Now you’re exhausted, and decide “tomorrow," though you’ll be deeper at sea. Then just seems like you'll be able to fight it. The day's half over anyway, and that means it is over, if you round up.

Tomorrow, every day, it’s always tomorrow. 

"Escape," as written in Feb. 2014

The first of three creative non-fiction essays, written spring semester 2014. Presented at Shippensburg University's Annual Student Research Conference. Rejected by Brevity Magazine for online publication. Still the only thing of any worth I've ever written, and though half of my blog audience has probably read and edited this particular piece 10 times over each, it's still the only work for which I have pride. A year later, I drink my coffee black and eat dinner once a week with my mom and her husband, but I still feel the same. Enjoy.

I drank my Wawa coffee everyday over break. I’m addicted to caffeine; I need it to avoid a throbbing headache and awful attitude. Since I paid for it, I went all out; splash of non-fat French vanilla creamer, a packet of Sweet and Low, a quarter of the cup low-fat French vanilla steamer, the rest split French vanilla and regular coffee.

I work 40 hours a week at home. Money goes to car insurance and gas; heat, electric and cable/internet at school; a long list of fines for a very big mistake I cannot share here; my recreational activities—like stoges and beers and Wawa coffee.

My dad works 60 hours a week all the time. Money goes to everything. Food, water, heat, the joint rent for my brother and I, his own mortgage, even my mother; he pays it.

Homemade coffee is more my speed. Heat steams upward out of the mug and moistens my face, the strong aroma wafts up my nose, whereas store-bought cups’ lids cap in condensation and perky balm. I hate to spend money on something I can easily do myself; splash of skim, one packet of all-natural calorie-free plant derived sweetener, 8 oz. of strong, bitter coffee. When my mother left, I took the sweetener to school, and when I came home for break, I left it there.

My dad does not use sweetener, his coffee is doused with light cream. When I first got home from break, I asked him to pick up some, if he could, from the store, if he went. I forget what he said, it was something like, “get a list together for me, I’m gonna go food shopping soon.”

I never got a list together; I rarely ate at home. When my mother left, we stopped eating dinner together as often. My dad works 60 hours a week, I work 40.

My dad gets upset with me; I go out a lot after work, my nights often spent drinking at my friend’s apartment. My dad comes home after work often to an empty house, (my brothers are out, too,) his nights often spent drinking alone. When my mother left, us kids stopped sleeping home as much.

When I come home nightly before I make swift exit, the conversation is always the same.

“How was work?” I inquire, trying to stomach my nerves for the reaction I know is to come. 

Dad replies, “eh, work,” blowing out a solid, half optimistic sigh as he releases the words like a tire quickly losing air.

“I know, we’ve gotta start that business, man.” I lack consolation here, what else can I say? It irks him when I say ‘man,’ but dad doesn’t feel right anymore.

“Or, you get really rich and take care of your pops,” he retorts jokingly, using the other disliked name I call him. Regularly making light of the heavy; a quality I’ve adapted. 

I laugh, then break the news; “alright, well I’m going to Sabs’,” referring to my friend’s apartment, and almost colliding with my last syllable—“Oh, SHOCKER,” dad snarks.

I mock. “Aw, shocker.” Once again, nothing to respond. I’d say sorry, but the words don’t take form. We have trouble admitting our wrongs, though I less-so than him, another quality I’ve adapted. 

On the next hung-over mornings leaving the apartment, Wawa is my first stop, either on my rush to work, or on my rush home to grab my uniform before work. I wouldn’t have time to make coffee at the house. Plus, we don’t have any sweetener. 

Some mornings, when I was home, I’d go to get my coffee just to get out, just to smoke a cigarette.

I didn’t want to come home for break. My job is exhausting, mentally and physically, and being at home is similar. I often fled to my friend’s apartment. She didn’t have sweetener either, but Wawa is closer to her place.

I could have gone to the store and bought sweetener. I made excuses; I was too busy, it wasn’t my responsibility. I could have asked my dad again, or made a list, but I didn’t want to put more on his proverbial plate, already piled high with inadequate feelings about fatherhood and his failed marriage. 

If I spent more time with my dad, I wouldn’t feel the guilt run so deep, like a creek frozen-over, rush propelling under the translucent, placid façade of solidity. When my mother left, so did my dad’s former self, leaving the shell of a man, only a damaged, child-like soul remained.   

A few mornings, my guilt brought him coffee from Wawa. “How do you like it?” I’d ask over the phone. 

“French vanilla, three-quarters of the cup, half of the remaining space regular, the rest, cream,” he explained slowly, so I’d understand and wouldn’t mess it up.

My dad’s pride almost kept me from getting him Wawa coffee once when we went Christmas shopping together. When my mother left, all the responsibility fell on him. 

I bought the cup anyway; “I’m an adult, I understand, I’m here for you,” I often said, about more than just coffee.

Back at school, I don’t have to escape my house nightly just to retain sanity; neither do I feel guilty for abandoning my father. I have to go to school, it’s my responsibility.

I made coffee at home this morning; splash of skim, one packet of all-natural calorie-free plant derived sweetener, 8 oz. of strong, bitter coffee. Yet to my dismay, I am running very low on sweetener, with no list to write my dad, no dad here to get it, and no Wawa to run to. 

When my mother left, she left her three children and their dad to pull life back together, to take on all the responsibility at once. Thus left my ambition to grow up and here I am, without any sweetener.

Correspondence by Definition

Thank God (or more likely, curse Satan,) I'm a writer or else I'd probably not remember much of any of this time in my life.

I left work with the fuel meter covering the orange "E" line, a hair from resting on the illuminated peg. So I headed on to job number two with 45 minutes to spare, when I contemplated crossing the bridge to get gas. Yet the problem with this plan, I kept forgetting as I continued east, was that I really didn't know how to get to Jersey from there. And with a serious need for gasoline, I risked running out and getting stuck, with 30 minutes before my shift. 

If I did run out of gas, I mulled over, well then I'd just have to call Taylor. No--class. Dad? Work... My boss, Nina, that'd work. But how funny, first I chose my friend. Most 22-year-olds would probably dial mom, but me? If I got into a rut, like a car accident, (God forbid, and as long as I didn't need hospitalization,) I'd call Tay, Coady, Sabs and Ash in that order most days, the varying schedules taken into account, but general accountability, common sense and usual availability and proximity the prime discerning factors (no offense to anyone, this is not the order of how much I like you-- in that case my brother would come in last. And we all have our strengths and weaknesses.)

My thoughts return to the immediate issue; the fumes my tank's emitting, sputtering the engine, barely inching me to the gas station down Big Oak Road, let alone some cockamamie idea that I'll even make it across the Delaware. 

I'll call my boss. So I don't seem so dependent... On... my friends? Because I don't really ask too, too much of my parents. Not since the divorce, and not in these kinds of situations anyway. At the same time, I am a needy friend, and there's only two reasons I can attribute this to-- I don't trust my parents, and and my parents encouraged me (more negative though,) to become this independent ideal, yet I still crave some sort of validation, or something needs to be filled. That's probably Freudian or whatever any of those great psycho-what-have-yous would say.

It's not that I don't believe my parents love me, or would be willing to help me, I just have too many childhood memories of being the last kid picked up from soccer practice, long after the lights shut down. In the sixth grade, my mom was supposed to pick me up from a birthday party at Core Creek Park in time to go to Sesame After-Dark with my friend Leah, but she couldn't seem to locate the particular pavilion at which we were, and eventually, my dad on his way home from work came to my rescue.

And I hate to bother him, the busy worker bee that slaved on for hours of overtime so we could move to a proper, more pristine hive in the cul-du-sac, only for the queen to abandon him. 

He never (though sometimes there were exceptions,) picked me up from youth group or practices; we mostly found our own way home, Coady and I. My dad only made it to one or two games a season. I'm not bitter or upset, it's just something I accepted: just was what it was. And truth be told, I preferred not to have them there. From dad, too much pressure. "Good game, but man, you coulda had that pop-up!" Mom, too much the opposite; "Your team doesn't really do much at all to help you out, do they... Oh well, there's always next time!" 

I pulled up to the gas station on the corner where Tay once told me to turn to get to work and wished she had just given me back the book which we use for correspondence, so I could write this all down. But I'm glad I couldn't, so I was forced to be less candid about my real feelings surrounding the people in my life, though they all might hate me for it like David Sedaris' family, for exposing them as he saw. If you're not sure that what I'm saying is true, or have definitively decided it is not accurate, let me tell you, it's not. Truth is relative, and my character and situational portrayal is defended by literary license.

I pleaded with the universe that no one would pull up to the Gulf or whatever the damn brand petroleum was I poured into the tank and that read on the sign, for I only put 5 dollars on my card. And thank God I made it, I'd later find out my boss was off that day and I couldn't have called her. I'd head to Burlington after work and fill up, but right now I am busy and I don't need to fill my tank, just enough to get me by and across the river. 

The Old Colossus, Anew

This isn't a personal affront, though someone's bound to take it personally. It's personal for me, and that is all, so probably not what you're interested in, not universal enough, perhaps. It's just settling with the truth, that I am what I'll always be, what I've always been, who I've lost touch with as of late. I am the rock, the constant. I am stability and strength, the support to be pulled in every direction, that holds itself up and takes the strain and the hits. I forgot that my purpose is not to exist for me, it's for the rest of you that need something to knock down, not negatively, but in place of you, I'll take the rough swells. I exist as something on which to inflict the impact of your fears and your nightmares and your problems and it all. 

I'm the statue-- give me your tired, your poor and the huddled masses yearning to be free. Send to me and on and on and I'll be here, I'll take it, that's fine. I forgot that's what I do, but I'm back, and I'm getting just as cold as the oxidized copper raised high in New York's harbor.

You haven't even the slightest idea, do you? What I value, what haunts me, what I think about myself, or you, or anything, everything; it's all something you might think you have figured out based upon what's said and what's observed. If you even care enough to think you have it figured out, that is. But you don't ask, not about the real shit anyway. And when I try to delve into the real shit, far deeper than the foam that grazes the shore, you shove me back out to sea, and I'm again alone in my own lifeboat. Back to France, belittled.

I only know what you tell me, but I ask, I prod, I try. I'll say everything... Or try to, but usually you don't care to hear it. And the worst part is, well, I want to hear your shit, what makes you satisfied or upset or just generally content, and I know you don't care to hear mine, but I try to get it out, relieve my skull from the pressure anyway. Because I'm sad. Sad-pathetic. And I'm going to explode.

And I know you're like Pandora's box, but it's me, and I just wish you would just unleash each of the "terrifying" you have kept locked away. But maybe you don't know that me, I am here for that purpose. I'll take all the shit, I always have. Yet the same façade over and over. I mean I get it, but it's just almost heartbreaking.

Like I'm telling you all this now, for what? 'Cause now I can't vent to anyone, not ever; oh loyal me, abstaining from every opportunity that will leave me feeling anything but guiltless. 'Cause I'm fucking shit. And I'll take your shit, the homeless, tempest-tossed. My lamp is raised and you, you can no longer get up to my crown, it's closed indefinitely for renovations.

Heard, Yet Not Listened to

Standing in Auntie Anne's Pretzel Asylum, my five-year (thus far,) food court living hell of a job, I roll my eyes at someone, anyone--everyone, at least once.

"What?" Or, "Huh?" Or, "I didn't hear you..." 

"Well I'm not fucking repeating myself so too bad," as if what I said was even slightly important or worth even my own remembering.

This is a memory from years ago, because now I don't say as much, and without prevarication, I couldn't give a shit about that job any longer than I already have.

Outside of work, where one has no choice but to communicate with friends and enemies and/or other, I hate going out with more than 3 or 4 people, unless one of them only knows me and I have an alliance--a partner--someone who will listen to and acknowledge me. Otherwise, I usually can't get a word in, or I get cut-off. I used to do that thing where I'd instantly crescendo my voice to near-full volume, competing with the other person that interrupted me like televisions blaring in neighboring rooms. Occasionally if I'm feeling so boldly confident that my words will be received well enough, I'll revert to this tactic, but screw it otherwise. If you can't take the time to listen to what I have to say, never mind. And if what you have to say is so God damn important that you can't humor me enough to listen to my 1-minute, "one time, in college..." parable, then you're a dick. I hear your stories and listen. I read your words and comprehend. I try to remember.

But alas, there's this blog. The blog is terrific for me, because I can get out exactly what I want to say without interruption. And you can read and stop to ask your friend what stupid color stupid lipstick she's wearing tonight without interupting me; pick back up your phone and keep reading if you do so please. If I'm so dreadfully boring or miserable enough that you begin to wish I'd put you out of your misery, you can quit reading. 

I see the Google analytics, you know. People do click the links I tweet, though I wonder if they do so, then close it out and come back later, skewing my numbers, giving me some false hope that someone gives a shit. In any regard, the view counts are "HA" to say the least, but I wonder, of those views on my posts, how many of you have ever even read this many 'graphs down? I doubt many make it this far, caught up in my blubbering attempts to sound prolific yet relatable all the while questioning my mental stability. I don't read the posts of my fellow writer peers, the concert reviews and interviews with performers, or when I do start to read, I get bored, so I can't be mad that you do this to me.

Know something; to those who will never read these words because they were bored at the first paragraph, or even if you've made it this far, none of this is for you. This is not to entertain you, nor make you feel better about you not-nearly-as-dismal-as-my-life situation; this is for me. For reading, I thank you, because if you've made it this far, you've given me a purpose; I want to be heard. But this is not for the audience, the audience is for me.

I wonder if I'd feel so disregarded still if I never knew the greek-be-damned origin of my name. Though now at least I feel like my words hold the weight of a goddess's, a gift, disbelieved or ignored, cursed to a meaning internal, and that's just fine for my conviction.

Like Myspace and Top 8s and 'Falling' for Boys

Earthy, erring on the side of punk rock. Do you call that a hipster? If you say so... All my college friends thought so, in little bumble fuck Pennsylvania. Is that what I wanted? Am I who I wanted to be, nay, want to be? 

"We were meant to live for so much more; have we lost ourselves?"

It's playing through the shop right now, and I remember the album on repeat in middle school. Oh, the sad days, when I tried to scratch my wrists with plastic knives because I was so, so invariably sad and the world was horrible and everyone, EVERYONE, was doing it. I couldn't cut through the skin, blood freaks me out. I'm not upset about this failure, for today, none of my scars were intentional.

Pick up maybe 6 years later. November 30, 2011, I write: 

"When it does that

I look up, sparkles in vision

Like a film rolling before my eyes

The clouds shield cornea from crisp

And perfection in a Devine moment 

Reveals a Glorious peace of mind that I continually forget exists." 

Ooooh Cass, you're so fucking deep. How articulate, what imagry. So much passion! So spiritual. If you say so...

I had just lost something very important to me then, stolen with my iPod that waltzed right off its speaker port while my roommate was gone and I'd lost my key in some stupid boy's car. He said he looked, but didn't, and I had to leave my front door open for a weekend until he decided to check the floor of the passenger's side. It was my fault, the iPod, and the real loss. I gave-in too easy. If you say so...

I used to be so good with creating metaphors. Now it's funny how it just appears, the iPod stolen with everything I had to give, gave because I had it, not because I was forced, but because I was able to give and knew no better. The music: gone, the Switchfoot album in MP3 form lost forever, but floating through the office windows from the shop this morning, as if I hear it not in actuality, but from a distant memory, on a CD walkman through headphones encased with light black foam ear protectors.

The defiance, the piercings and tattoos, not for looks: for feel, for pain and healing, for knowing these things take time. So call me a hipster, or emo, like middle school, or what-fucking-have you. If you say so, it is so, because what am I without you, but just a bunch of letters arranged to form a name I was given 23 years ago?

Another Rational and Cognative Nervous Disintegration

Cold black coffee sits in the cup holder in my car next to the window, where cigarette smoke dissipates into the clouds. I think I spend too much of my own time invested in everyone else's lives; what are they tweeting about? What the hell was that snap chat story? 

I smack my head into the steering wheel a few times, and now I wanna smack my head into a wall. It'd be cool to be in a coma; I think I'd find myself in there. There are just so many things to know and try to understand and remember in the universe, too many to know where to start.  

Everyone's talking all around me and I'm not listening to it, I don't care to hear. I go into the kitchen to fill my water bottle and lean my back against the counter. I think about slinking down and keeping my feet in place, letting my ass rest on the cold linoleum, but that'd be anti-social and viewed as attention seeking. 

And we pray to God when we leave the room that our friends aren't talking shit about us. And we also pray that we remember what we wanted to write down, to live by.

I'm dramatic these days, but it's not for attention, but then again it is I guess. Can you be dramatic without seeking attention anyway? Don't the both go hand-in-hand? I don't want attention, I want someone to relate with me, to tell me that they feel just as inconsequential, inadequate, in vain as I do. I want to be told I'm not bat-shit, that I'm not the only one to feel alone. I want the reaffirmation that I'm fine and it'll all be fine; I just want someone to hold my hand and identify. The point is this has started to physically consume me; the headaches, the random shakes, the cravings for everything and nothing at the same time. Everything is nothing anymore. So dramatic, ha.

We pray that our efforts are not futile, like the societies before us-- the Romans and the Greek and such. We pray that we don't go down in history for failure.

There are happy things to write about; I'd just like to live through them instead of taking the time to write them down, because I don't need help with the happy things. I need help with the nothingness that surrounds them, when I'm driving in my car and I gulp down the rest of that cold black coffee, that won't quench my thirst, but will cool the burn from the cigarettes for now. 

Irreparable Damage or Harm to

Don’t drink the soda yet—the bag broke and I dropped them all. I’ll say "I dropped them all” and not “they fell,” because I’m taking responsibility for bagging them all together.

I ruin everything. All my clothes are worn with rips and stains. I burn cigarette holes in my car upholstery. I let friendships either fizzle out with neglect, or I find a way to smother them. My nails, I manage to chip right after painting. I leave food in the microwave for too long, or more often not long enough, and eat it cold, because well, I’d just ruin it anyway.

“A well-crafted essay is thought-out and universal.” I’m a terrific writer, I know, because I’ve always been the top student in English classes, or not far off. I’m not bragging, I just know I can write, by conventional standards anyway. I’m a grammar slut and neurotic with word choice and vocabulary. But I’ve always been a poor storyteller.

I tell the punchline too early, or forget about the most important detail. I have a terrible memory mostly, never could remember movie quotes like my friends, or who starred in the films, though film is my favorite form of entertainment, except for music. I guess film is my favorite form of active entertainment, because you have to pay attention.

People dread when I try to summarize a movie or tell a joke, for “um,” and “uh,” litter my speech and I usually lose my audience somewhere before the first act’s over. 

So the idea of universal is a tough one, because how can I relate? I can tell you my story if you’re interested enough to look past the um’s and uh’s and characters for whom I cannot do justice, and the details I forget to include, or introduce at the wrong time. But even if you look past all those flaws, can you identify with the ruin I’m trying to share without believing I feel sorry for myself? Or is it all in vain? Do you even understand what I’m getting at?

I don’t call myself “a writer.” I feel like you need to be published by some reputable publication to say that, or have written a novel or something. I think I write every day now, but I’m not a writer. Since I’ve graduated and lost the title “student,” I have no idea what I am. I mean, I’m a secretary, and a minimum-wage employee at the mall food court, but that’s not really who I am. I’m nothing right now, and that’s everything, and I hope I’m not ruining it all before it even happens because I have a habit of doing that too, and everything is tainted before I know it. 

A Catch in the Current

Every so often, a little speck of grey mold comes out of the water cooler in the shop and enters my bottle as I fill it. It looks like dust, but dust when wet doesn’t stay all one whole fleck, so I think it’s mold. Usually when this happens, my water bottle is too full to empty it down the drain, because, well, the world is running out of water, so why should I waste it? At least that’s how I see it from taking Kay Williams Conservation of Natural Resources 108 in Rolland 200 a few years back. No one liked that class—prof. was pretty old-fashioned—but I got something out of it, like to flush the toilet less and shower quicker.

Sometimes I try to drink the water all the way down to the last sip without ingesting the mold. Sometimes I don’t care and slurp it down as soon as possible to decimate the agonizing worry that I might drink down the mold. I guess it depends on my mood, or rather my degree of apathy. Apathy is a funny word for me; it signifies relaxation and a sense of calm, yet also represents a piece of me that didn’t really appear until my college years.

I mellowed out a lot when I settled for my second college choice, a Pa. state school that was cheaper than the privet St. Joe’s U. in Philadelphia, where my heart and mind truly fancied. Everyone knows this story, and it's not that I'm complaining or I regret the decision, it's just 100 percent a part of who I am now, kinda like the crown on my front chipped tooth or my squinty left eye. 

I fell in with some West Philly hood rats my first year away, (they were familiar and they talked like me,) and learned how to roll my first blunt, but still maintained Dean’s list… for the first 3 semesters.

Then came the apathy, for reasons none of your business, but it was every sign of depression shy of extreme disparity, and I left that spring for home, my car crammed with lamps and trashcans and comforters and the like. I left behind my apathy though, and brought home a new major, a new outlook, a new start.

From then on I was back—I was motivated to get involved, I kicked aside the regret of that dropped class sophomore year; I took it as a learning experience. 

I rode the high though this past summer, the summer after graduation, applying for what few jobs were available in my career path, while working part-time with my uncle at as a secretary at an auto body shop.

Now I’m panicking as tens of thousands of dollars loom over me darker than any cloud I’ve ever seen, even darker than that blockbuster Twister picture, with Helen Hunt? Or was that Jodie Foster…

Who cares? The summer's over, and I took back my old job at the mall to help with bills. I drink spirits just about every single night, and I drank the mold the other day without a second thought.

After Sundown and Before Sunrise

Her bathrobe always hung on the back of her door, the lighter, longer, pink one that was probably cheaper than her green puffy one, but she got hot easy and besides, summer had just ended. After falling asleep prematurely that evening, she awoke in a flit to see what she missed out on during the prime Thursday night hours, courtesy of the nearly 20 text messages she'd snoozed through. She was starving, but no one in their right mind eats in the middle of the night, so after a long debate she settled for putting on the bathrobe and heading out for a smoke, instead of risking an argument with her father and leaning out the window.

A little blaze would do her good right now, but she left it at her friend's apartment, and there was no use thinking about what could be under the bright, almost-full but receding moon. She smelled a nearby skunk and thought how her friend could tell her what phase of moon it was, its proper name and all, and she'd never remember it, but she'd adore it. Her friend could tell her almost anything, and if she believed it, she'd absolutely adore it. 

Fingering the old burn hole near her pocket, from ancient times she thought were through, she finished up her cigarette pondering the kindness of men she never wanted, or never thought she wanted anyhow, and words she could never say, and went in for a glass of water, debating spilling it all and crying. She couldn't see the moon's glow anymore from inside the house, and she couldn't smell the skunk anymore but those things were still there. 

If no one in their right mind eats at this hour, she thought she probably should, because it would only prove what she already knew and at least she could finally be honest with herself. It seemed too harsh to think it, but that's as far as she ever got to this point, and if she never went through with the spilling and crying, then that's as far as she'd ever get, though she thought maybe thinking, under the moon she couldn't identify, that was honest enough. But thinking about it under the bright almost-full moon, it was no use. It would go on shining, and the skunk, on spraying, and the water would get cleaned up and be forgotten forever, so she hung up her bathrobe and went back to bed with her cup like a child and prayed to know what the moon was called without having to ask.

How to Avoid Getting Pulled Over: Part 1

No one wants to get pulled over, whether you’re blatantly breaking the law or unaware of your trespasses. In either regard, there are surefire ways to avoid the stress of those red and blue flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Fortunately for you, reader, I’m the queen of getting pulled over, and I’m here to share my advice. Before you face ticket fines and court appearances, take the time to review how not to get pulled over, part one in a two part series.

What kind of car are you driving?: According to Forbes.com, a common misconception is that a bold car color is more likely to get pulled over than a less dramatic hue. They’ve determined that the type of car you drive has more of an impact on your chances of facing the law. Sportier, “younger” looking cars are pulled over at a 4x higher rate than SUVs and minivans. Male drivers (sorry,) have worse luck, too. So be a girl and take out mom’s soccer mobile and you can avoid the headaches of dealing with the po-po. Or be me and drive an old gold grandma Chevy Malibu, your choice.

Know the hot-(fuzz)spots: Traveling the same way to work/school/errands every day, you should know where the cops hang out and wait for you to be caught speeding. Don’t speed around bends and hills on the highway or anywhere that you can’t see far ahead of you, like past bridges or tunnels; I’ve known a lot of state troopers to post-up in these spots. Keep your speed low enough over the limit not to be a nuisance; I’ve been told officers tend to leave you alone if you’re going only 15 m.p.h. over the posted limit. If you’re really running late, keep your eyes open for the good-samaritan opposing-traffic drivers flashing their lights. But if you’re pulled over speeding, be prepared to pay the price (a.k.a. hundreds of dollars and can't nobody afford that, no, not now.)

There’s an app for that: While some radar systems can stand alone, there are kinds you can link with your iPhone, (the equipment syncs with your cellular device and alerts you to cameras at stoplights, speed detecting radar, cop cars, etc.). There are also shady business kind of apps that are strictly on your iPhone and rely on other driver/passenger testimonial-- I can’t find much info on these because the internet is a shaaaaayyydayyyy place these days, but I’ve know people who’ve used these and ratings are varied. Can’t hurt to try though.

Keep your car in-check: You’re driving it--for your safety and that of other drivers, make sure brake lights (actually tail lights as a whole,) are fully-functioning, mirrors are intact and in position, tires are full of air, and nothing is dragging, like, say, your muffler. For one, broken car parts just scream suspect, and also, you need to keep a good visual of your environment. If your windows are tinted darker than the atlantic (well, the Jersey shore portion,) you’re not going know what’s going on. Same goes for the other senses; if you can’t hear the cop pulling you over because the volume your subs beating out of the trunk exceeds normal human capability, you probably could lower the volume. Think about what you look like from the outside looking in after you hit that McDonald’s drive-thru.

Don’t drive by the same cop twice: Unless you need their help, there’s no reason to pass a cop more than once. It’s suspect if you drive back and forth, just go where you gotta go and take a different way home.

This is pretty common sense stuff, but you’d be surprised how many people I know that could have avoided the annoyance of talking to police just by taking basic precautions and driving smart (including myself.) Join me next time for part two in the two part series: What to do Once You’ve Been Pulled Over.

The Old Ones, by Night

I remember when we used ride around and get so stoned and nothing else mattered. I'd press my forehead to the damp and crisply chilly window and look at the lights ripping by as if they'd be the death of us, some illuminated tons of steal pummeling our car. And we'd be hurt or worse but it wouldn't matter because the real tragedy would be that a bunch of honor roll kids were smoking pot when it happened. 

~

I remember exactly where I was when I heard about the suicides of two different friends--the first, in my bedroom, and the second, driving to my new job. I quit later that week. The first time, I held back tears. The second, I tried not to die with him.

~

Every night I spent in the car with my friends getting baked and wasting money and time, (such precious time,) was worth it, because I wasn't alone. If those lights lit up our car for a second longer than they did just then, we'd have burned out bright. For once, in each other's company we'd all really finally lose it, as opposed to the defense with which we covered ourselves like the blanket of night in which we used to drive around and get so stoned and nothing else mattered. 

Down, Out

The girl lay in her bed with the television volume low, her eyes closed, facing the wall. The box flickered an old black and white film, in which a mentally handicapped golf caddy follows his cup-winning "partner" to the stunning Cathrine Taylor's vacation home- but that's not focus, just the vessel.

"What does it mean to think, just think and be left with my own thoughts?" She's then reminded of a study once discussed with a friend, in which people preferred to electrocute themselves rather than "be left alone with their own thoughts."

"Left alone with my own thoughts," she thought. Just as you read it, heard it in your head, so did she. Plain as day, as they say, the words plunked silently in her mind, and sunk to the bottom of her empty well, ever-falling because there was no bottom. Erased from the chalkboard, gone as quick as it materialized.

She thought of the study, the people now with their cell phones, at the time removed from their cars and t.v.s and twitter.

On-screen flickered: a different time, a generation of their own thoughts... Not completely (of course, they filmed it, there's that,) but more so than today's world of blinking billboards and Pandora radio. But back then, at night, when her father's mother lay facing the wall, what stones plunked in her mind? And did she hear their silence the same? The girl thought thoughts would seem louder then; the world was a quieter place. She wondered if that was what they meant by "quiet your thoughts," because to her, the saying never made much sense. How could anyone hear what they were thinking if they thought quieter? 

The girl didn't like thinking about thinking, but she had to think to try to quiet her thoughts. She stared into the back of her eyelids at the almost shapes of dim colored light that faded in and out. She pictured a beach she had never been to, one that might and probably does not exist. But was imagining part of the thought-process, too?

She thought of meditation, but that only conjured up some Jesus prayer she read about in a secular book. But surely, prayer was thought, too.

She wasn't sure how to stave off thinking, however sleep seemed like the only viable option. At least in her dreams, if they were "thought," she wouldn't have to think about thinking.

But to in order to sleep, the girl would have to put her phone down and stop writing down her every thought, before they plunked down through her endless empty well, and silent as they were to begin with, were never heard from again.

The routine of my uncertainty

Every night I intend to go home, if only for appearances. I don't like when my dad wakes up and no one is home, even if the sun shines and birds chirp and he packed his lunch the night before. He's alone enough. En route behind the wheel of my old-man Malibu, I feel more alive than ever-- it's the ultimatum of my final destination and the confidence that I control the time and path I take there. The world's weight lifts a little as the pedal at my foot shakes. Gas seemingly flows through my toes, and I buzz, and I sing, and my vocal chords shudder with every chorus of "If I Ever Feel Better." I think of the movie I just watched, it usually ends ambiguously, which I crave much more than a happy ending. I'd rather live not knowing than settle for something too good to be true, or have to digest something too sad to bare. It allows me to believe that my conclusion is possible, no, probable, especially in the scripts that interest me enough to make me question and anticipate the entire film.
Every night that I actually make it home, I press my pointer nail to the wad of chewing gum in mouth, still usually fresh enough to keep mashing in my molars. I stick the schmaltz, pull the sling shot back for momentum, then flick, fling the tooth-molded gelatin flavor glob into oblivion... Or my unlamped street, more literally, since my gums' landing antecedent of flower bed ticks my dad off too much. It always has, since the old house in Indian Creek.
It's stupid that I spit it out anyway; its purpose is to cover the stale cig breath that lingers from my car ride home, though it doesn't help to mask the radiative effect emanating from my outfit. Tonight no one's awake though, so it doesn't matter... I can tell because no light shines through the windows that sandwich my door, and to get in I have to key myself. Straight to the kitchen, I place my travel mug on the counter--I've been making my own coffee before work. How grown up. Tonight I also resist the fridge's harrowing taunts. Oh, such maturity.
Every night I make it, I wake my dog as I hit the second floor landing, his collar jingles and I'm glad to be there, if only for a second. In the bathroom mirror, my last destination before a restless night in my empty queen size bed, my face looks old and worn, but zitty and weak. There is no wisdom behind those liner-smeared eyes and no clue under those light roots growing in a half inch too long, no hope for effortless beauty. I find encouragement in my profile, though; my waist's almost back to the size it was when I was smallest, except this time I'm not in the gym for two hours a day and my muscle not as toned.
It's always then when I find the scalding water spout over my finger's flesh, the burn neutralizes the itch of some skin shit, eczema or whatever, probably stress induced because I haven't had it for always, but still in the back of my mind blame the years of baking soda at pretzel palace for my defect. I hold the digits there until it hurts, rubbing both palms back and forth until I can't stand it any longer, and look into my eyes. Internally, my brain lets slip a banshie caliber holler, then caves to the scream. No thoughts occupy my mind, and it's blank. My hands are raw, my mind is numb, and it's time to start again. Or maybe better, anew. I walk down to the last bedroom of the hall, on the side of my house my brother almost burned down when he threw the chiminea ashes in the trash can some odd black Fridays ago.
Every night I lay in bed for hours is exhausting, especially when I'm this exhausted. The t.v.'s on to drown out my worries, but I'm not watching. Work in 8 hours, but gotta be up in at least seven. And that'll only tick lower and lower, 'til about four and a half, and I'll scratch my hands while the television's light flickers on, dim compared to my non-refreshable Twitter/Instagram/Facebook feeds. I'm not sure at this point my alarm will make me. Or rather, wake me. I'm not sure I'll schedule a job interview back at my Alma Mater for Thursday, or fax the request for my transcripts in time. I don't know if I'll make my lunch, or if I'll hear relieving news at my appointment after work. It's up in the air, I'm not positive. I'm capable, I just can't say what keeps me in the dark for sure. I crave the ambiguous, so this close to my every night is rather fitting. I'd rather live not knowing than settle for something too good to be true, or have to digest something too sad to bare. It allows me to believe that my ultimate conclusion is possible, no, probable, especially in a life that interests me enough to make me question and anticipate the entire time. I guess though now the only question I'm asking is

Drive me insane

A story for my creative non-fiction class, spring 2014.

My dad tossed me the keys to his little red pick-up. “So go to Wawa, tap mac,” he handed me his debit card, “and then pick up the hoagies.” My brother and I climbed in the truck and rolled out of the cul-du-sac to New Falls road. From there, it was a straight two miles tops to the Mac machine, and as I was about to make the left hand turn, I saw Joey drive by in his Jimmy. 

•

“Just make sure you grab toll money for the bridge, Coad.” I had no more than 40 cents to my name, and my check wouldn’t be directly deposited into my account until the following day.

After the Sunday closing shift, my brother and I left our mall food court jobs as the summer sun set low cast shadows over the tree tops that extend above the noise barrier. We headed down 95 for a quick exchange; Coady, with 500 cash in hand and another grand written out in check, was about to buy his first car (which wouldn’t end up running too long, as my brother pulled off our street too close to a tow truck; it was Coady’s fault, but the driver hit-and-ran.)

The silver Chevy Cav Z, a sporty stick shift Coady couldn’t yet drive sat somewhere in South Jersey, about two hours of highway away. We went down to sign papers and make ownership official since the owner was quick to dump the car, and my dad was going to take Coady down a few days later to drive it up.

•

I was 16 on the rainy November Sunday, after church, when I saw Joey and wanted to catch up to show off. I had my license for a month and three days, and though I had no car, I felt empowered in the little red pickup. Rihanna’s “Disturbia” blared through the speakers and Coady and I danced, his long 14-year-old skater mop forced flat to his forehead under a cap. I looked to my right as the new lane opened, trying to catch up to Joey, and I merged. But a tractor trailer turning into a shopping center slowed traffic, and I hopped back in the left lane, and I reached the Jimmy to my right. 

•

We met the seller at a Wawa, where he pulled up in a big, tricked-out truck that probably had a duel exhaust mod and heated leather seats. He was a 20-something spoiled adult, (he still lived at home in the highly desirable and rather affluent residential area of Ocean City,) who brought his girlfriend, an attractive blonde that lacked substance, and seemed to be there only to nag and mock her boyfriend.

From there, we followed the truck down a long, shady rural driveway to a dirt lot, apparently on the property of the home/shop of the seller’s father’s friend, who I guess inspected the vehicle before purchase, though not officially. Coady bought the car without tags, (which would prove to be a mistake when it was discovered that the break line leaked while my father drove it home a week later.) We should have known that the car would be jinxed after this trip; the obvious literary foreshadowing was as present as the leftover junk in the Caviler.   

It was hot for a summer evening while my brother handed over the cash. I waited patiently in my car with the windows down instead of running the air conditioner in an attempt to save gas and make it home, no worries.

“You couldn’t even clean the car out, Christopher?” the girlfriend bitched, rolling her eyes and grabbing his “shit,” she called it, out of Coady's purchase. I watched, envious of the girl whose boyfriend clearly spoiled her.

•

I cruised along, doing about the speed limit. Coady and I both waved at Joey, the cool Senior that dated one of my best friends at school. The lax bro was trying to get Coady to join the team, and he was probably going to do it, even though he spent more of his time biking or playing X Box. My 9th grade brother was pretty cool, and we were starting to get along again after the middle school years tipped the scale on the love/hate relationship scale to the latter.

We made small talk about Coad being able to drive soon; this license to drive more a license to freedom. We smiled and tried to get Joey’s attention, but he didn’t see us…

•

When we could finally leave, both our phones had died, but we’d be home soon and able to charge them to make plans with our friends for the evening. That’s all we ever did, make plans for the night, though we’d end up simply sitting around with our friends.

We hopped back on the highway and jammed to Wiz Khalifa (one of our few remaining common interests is music,) all the way to the Walt Whitman Bridge, the $5 toll charged only to enter Pennsylvania and not the opposite, something of an economic social commentary about the perception of the respective states.

“Can I get that toll money?” I asked while I squinted at signs for the toll only lane, steering with my left hand and sticking out my right for the bill I anticipated.

“Yeah,” as he shuffled through his wallet, reached in his pocket, then started to fidget.

“Uh… Uh… I THREW IT TO THE GUY, THE SELLER TOLD ME I SHOULD GIVE HIM SOME MONEY TO KEEP MY CAR THERE FOR THE WEEK,” he defended. While I was all “what the fuck, Coady,” he yelled back at me, and in the midst of the chaos, I managed to find the last exit before the big steel structure that ultimately held fines for crossing without payment.

I figured we had to find an A.T.M. for Coady to withdraw some bridge cash. I pulled up to a Pantry One, a generally shady string of convenience stores in the Jersey area. Kid, seemingly paranoid, left his wallet in the car before taking his card into the store. He has that nervous way about him sometimes, not quite ready to dive in, hesitant. In this case, there were dirty looking loiterers outside the door, so I felt his trepidation was warranted, judgment aside.

I waited for my brother annoyed, but not yet anxious, until he returned to the car.

“So… we’re fucked. I withdrew the limit from my account today.”

“HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?” But then, I realized—he just bought that damn car, the car that had us stuck here in New Jersey, and not just Jersey, but Camden.

There were 67 murders in Camden that year, plus all the rapes and robberies, making it the highest crime rated city in the U.S. And my 17-year-old brother and I were here, alone.

By now, our shitty cellphone batteries both dead and accounts inaccessible, I pulled out my G.P.S. to try and find our way to the free bridge that spanned the Delaware in Trenton, only 20 minutes from my house. But that was also dead, and the cigarette lighter outlets that could charge any electronics in my whip were broken. Shitouttaluck.

•

The speed in which the car twisted is both unforgettable and unrememberable.

“FUCK!” Coady screamed, which was weird, because we always told on each other when we cursed. We were such tattle tales, always trying to escape the persecution, ultimately a “grounding,” by drawing attention to the other’s foul ups and mischievous deeds.

It wasn't always bad though. I recall playing on the side of the house, eating honeysuckles from the bush next to the oil tank. We'd play video games all night, and go for bike rides to places we weren't allowed. There was that one time, though, he beat me with a whiffle ball bat while I tried to climb down from the silver maple in our front yard...

Snap.

“YOU HIT A FUCKING COP!”

I opened the eyes that I closed upon contact. The little red truck was now facing the shopping center to my left, perpendicular to the white dashed and yellow solid paint that marked the lanes. 

All I could do was yell, maybe bellow, “AHHHHHHH,” as I began to cry and smack my hands on the steering wheel while the little red truck beeped and fizzed, “Disturbia” still droning in the background.

•

I turned down the rap that blasted the “n” word from my speakers as I drove away from the bridge and convenience store. We were two white kids entering a tough neighborhood, and I was not prepared for any awkward and/or risky encounters.

The next events were a cluster of chaos; cars rolled by bearing full-sized Puerto Rican flags or skull and cross bone banners, bungee corded to the hoods. Women’s legs hung out of their hydraulic convertibles, passengers and drivers alike. Police drove around the dilapidated homes. The sidewalk stoops were a scene out of a ghetto “Hey Arnold,” where neighbors drank 40s out of paper bags and smoked long, thin cigars on porches. And everywhere, in cars or on the streets, people were screaming and yelling and laughing like they were tailgating a sporting event.

“I just need to find out how to get to Trenton, then we’ll be cool,” I tried to reassure my brother. But he was not having any of that, and continued to belittle my directional ability. It started to get dark, and I was panic stricken. Plus, could I even make it to Trenton with this much gas? Our hearts were pounding as I circled around and around for about an hour, stuck, trying to get to a highway north.

We were practically biting our fingernails, at risk of sounding racist, not because we hadn’t been exposed to ‘Ricans or black people, but because this was not our turf. Plus, when the people all around us were hollering, what were we supposed to think? Other than…

                “We’re lost. Shit, shit, shit. What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?” Expletive after expletive, us going nowhere, too scared to pull in anywhere for fear that someone would mess with us.

•

I unbuckled while Coady dialed my dad. Coad wasn’t nice to me, but I didn’t deserve it, and I can't say he was mean either. Other than his angry bossy moments, (which come few and far between these days,) Coady never seems like he’s happy, nor upset, to be with me.  We’re just in each other’s company constantly.

My mom used to tell the story: “When you went to kindergarten on your first day, we walked down to the bus stop, and as soon as you stepped off those steps, you ran! And Coad ran, and you hugged each other on the sidewalk like you were gone for weeks.” We’d roll our eyes when she told this and get right back to bickering.

I got out of the truck that I was sure was totaled and walked to the Sargent’s S.U.V. in front of me. It didn’t look too bad, but the hatchback door was dented inward, clearly impacted from my 45 m.p.h. neglect to notice he stopped in the left lane and not the turning lane.

I approached his open driver’s side door hysterical, trembling, and lost on a road I travel every day.

“Are you okay?” When he didn’t answer, or even look at me, I spat out, “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry, are you okay?” He said nothing, but he wasn’t bleeding. He just grasped his wrist, the deployed airbag flattened down like a pillowcase.

Someone wandered over to me and asked if I was okay, it turned out she was the passenger from the third car involved, rear-ended by the cop, consequently on my behalf. But I had no idea who anyone was, until another officer showed up and sat me on the curb. My blubbering mess warranted Chief to request a dollar from my dad so he could buy me a soda. Dad politely declined.

•

I drove toward the hospital, thinking that this was an exit, but dead-ends and circles in the Jersey city brought us right back to the chaotic heart of Camden. Coady was noticeably irritated, which pissed me off. I was doing him a favor. He didn’t need to buy the car that day.

Sorry I don’t know my way around the hood, dick bag. Sorry your dumb ass is the reason we’re in this predicament. Sorry my car blows and we can’t charge anything, but this is not my fault. 

I rolled up and down the streets, the sun getting lower and lower, and the screams seeming to get louder and louder.

“What is going on here?” Coady and I kept asking one another, “Is there like some holiday or sports game going on?”

Suddenly, I saw a lady police officer directing traffic on the corner a few blocks away, the sun setting behind her head like the glow of a halo—my opportunity to find safety, to find our way home. I pulled the car up and stopped. When she tried to wave me on, I waved her over.

“Excuse me,” I asked the cop, “Can you tell me how to get to Trenton?”

“Huh?” she asked, so I repeated. “Oh, you gotta take this road out, over the street bridge, then make a left and hop on the entrance for north,” she said, with some highway number included. It took us another half-hour to find the road, but once we were on it, my grip on the wheel loosened.

•

Since New Falls Road is on the line of two townships, the police showed up in full force, as if someone had robbed a bank. My parents pulled up on the scene, and the cops questioned me somewhere in there, though there wasn’t much to say. I never told about Joey, even throughout the court proceedings that would stick with me until my junior year of college, a lie that I hoped would save me from more fines than I’d already endure.

Dad cleaned out the truck, as Coady struggled to tell the questioning officer his birthday, a family joke that plagues the kid 6-years-later. I just sobbed on the curb until the officer told my parents to take me home, my presence probably more pestering than helpful. We went to Freshworks to pick up lunch, and life went on for everyone except me; I couldn’t bring myself to drive for another two months.

•

It was night when I drove north with uncertainty, even though the signs “Trenton- 40 mi.” appeared and reappeared with decreasing numerals for about an hour. The highway ebbed between miscellaneous shopping centers and stretches of woods, but then, finally, we knew where we were.  I took the Capitol Complex exit and headed to the bridges, the glowing “Trenton Makes, The World Takes” sign beckoning. Approaching the light before the bridge, a big Suburban erratically followed me, honking and swerving.

Coady repeatedly commented, “What the hell is wrong with him?” until the douche merged in front of us before the bridge.  We followed him back into Pa., laughing and joking about the nutty ordeal, where I traveled to Route 13, then back into the Terrace.

The Terrace is a hood, minus the neighbor. Shootings, stabbings; they happen here. I cut through the section because one, I often do, but two, why not? We survived Camden…

Almost home; we pulled up to the light exiting the section and let out a sigh too soon. My brother beside me gasped, and eyes focused on the red light ahead, I asked, “what?”

“Look,” he uttered. So I did, and I saw something that I’ll never, ever forget. On the bus stop bench sat a deer, well, the head of a deer, eyes open, and a long thing I can only describe as pantyhose-like hung down over the bench and reached the ground.

Coady fumbled for the camera he brought to take pictures of his new car’s vin number, and I repeated more curse words while nervous-laughing than ever thought imaginable. The light changed, and I peeled out.

When we got home, my mom bitched at us for not calling, clearly having hit the bottle while we took our detour. They had ordered pizza and left us none. She told us we should have just taken the bridge and they’d bill us. We were so excited to be home, but with that welcome, we left.     

•

I drove Coady to our bank’s A.T.M. one night in the same car I drove to Camden. Only 40 or so yards from the spot where I crashed the little red truck, we waited for a red light to blink back to green. I was typically annoyed with Coady, making me drive to deposit his check because he totaled his shitty Cav. We sat at the light, getting along all right despite my irritation. The tension always seemed to be there; we could hang out, but I always felt some type of way toward him. The tip of the iceberg always comes out in the form of my bitchiness, but the bigger part of the iceberg is a mystery because I’m sailing the ocean, too. 

The light changed on the empty road, and I shifted my foot to the gas pedal. I slowly started through the intersection when I saw the light flying from the right, and slammed back on the break. The car passed through its red light only a few feet in front of us, and we could have been struck. We both sighed, another simple trip that went whack, but not so wrong that there was no coming back.

                We talk now about our family; our grandparent’s declining health and our guilt, our father’s drinking habits and our fear, our mother’s mental state and our disgust. He mostly gets annoyed with me for spitting out every little thing that happens in my life, mainly the dramatic stuff.

                “You put your business out there too much, on Twitter and stuff.”

                “I know, but if I keep it all inside, I’ll never let it go. I need to get everything out or I’ll dwell. It’ll eat me alive.”

                “I don’t tell anyone anything,” he finally admits, “I don’t know why. I’d just rather keep my business to myself. I… I just don’t see the point.”

                “Maybe if you opened up more, you wouldn’t be so angry. Maybe if you expressed yourself, someone could understand.”

                “I know.” He always knows.

We don’t deal with our problems; we push them away. Through all the rough days, my brother’s been there, not for me, but experiencing with me. We get that we don’t know how to express ourselves, especially to each other, but that tiny understanding is enough to bring us together in the worst-of-times. And since worst usually comes to worst, I’m glad that I’m not driving down this road alone.

But still, it's discomforting that when all of this nutty shit happens, I'm in the driver's seat.