She Succeeded

Things just fell into place.  She had worried.  She had walked the floors day and night, imagining success, dreading failure, yet always pulling herself back into the moment long enough to continue pushing forward.

Now, freshly praised by the keynote speaker at the luncheon, she broke away from the throngs of admirers and well-wishers.  She pushed through the revolving door and emerged on the sun-splashed city street.  The buses roared encouragement, the taxicabs honked in salute, even the fire trucks wailed in a positive way.

She took in a long draw of air, filling her lungs with early spring.  People brushed past anonymously, in swift pursuit their own success.  They needed to eat, those grim faces in the sun.  They sought to sleep in warm clean beds, to dance, to laugh, to own second-hand saxophones.  They would run until the road ended or their legs gave out.  The chase.  That was all there was.

It seemed as though centuries had passed since she sat mired in complacency.  Brimming with her new glut of success made those dark hours of fear and anger and uncertainty positively Victorian by comparison.  Had she worn petticoats and high-buttoned shoes in those days?  Had her many thieving and dishonest suitors arrived at her door on horseback, dressed in knickers, with conductor’s watches chained to their vests?

Of course not.  Although she had been a cutter back then, gouging deeply and frequently into her upper arms while wearing out the latest offerings from Hole and L7.  The men who came around had all adopted a lifestyle of soft anger and non-specific dissatisfaction.  The heroin probably had something to do with it.

Looking back, it occurred to her that the phrase “This Sucks” had become the carefully marketed motto of young, disaffected white suburbanites.  When someone bothered to ask:  “What sucks?”, they would make a sweeping gesture — meant to encompass the entire world, from Mumbai to Milwaukee — and reply:  “This sucks.  All of it”.

All those wasted afternoons of Ramen Noodles and Ricki Lake in the cramped smoky apartment.  All the drug-fueled, ham-handed ballads of angst and disillusionment hammered out on cheap guitars by boyfriends-of-the-month.  The goatees.  The ponytails.  The plans to move to Seattle or San Francisco or Portland;  any place where people understood them.  Any place but here.

But she had stayed here.  The men had drifted away.  Some had died, some had moved west, others were still tending bar and using milk crates as end tables.  This was home for her.  She had decided to make a go of it.

She had succeeded.

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her new courderoy coat and strolled toward the coffee shop.  She saw groups of young people scattered around the place.  The men wore beards, skinny jeans, and Pabst Blue Ribbon t-shirts.  They hunkered over laptops, hammering out their 21st century manifestos.  The ladies lounged on sofas and pecked at paper-thin telephones with their index fingers.

She ordered an iced green tea and took a seat near the window.  She pulled her iPod from her pocket and searched out Uninvited by Alanis Morrisette.  She pressed play and smiled.

He Failed

He had failed.  He looked down at his scuffed shoetops and knew it.  He had prepared.  He had been honest.  Things hadn’t gone his way.

He was broken and humble.  He sat on a curb and smoked.  His clothes hung from his trembling frame, sad ribbons of utter defeat.  He flicked his cigarette into the rain-dampened street and studied the fade of its glow.

He thought back to the time he had told an old man:  “I didn’t finish, but I tried.”

The old man said:  “There is no such thing as trying.  There is success and there is failure, nothing more.”

He had failed.  There was no denying it.  It was over.  Lost.  Everything was lost and spent.  He hung his head and waited for the vultures of doom to circle, to descend, to suck his lifeless eyeballs from their sockets.

All the highways he had travelled.  The dreams had blossomed over many years in the rare quiet moments of  youth, a youth from which he emerged screaming, wild, dented, yet heroically intact.

Age had calmed him.  The passing of years had sharpened his focus, steadied his resolve.  Finally, it was time to make something happen, to get something done, to succeed.

He did not succeed.  He failed.

The brutal sting of failure did not discriminate.  He was no special failure.  He was simply more human litter cast aside along the narrow road of history.  There were piles and mountains and continents of stories just like his.  Visionaries who set sail to conquer the sea of destiny only to find themselves sunk and forgotten, slowly dematerializing among blind slithering urchins of the cold, black seafloor.

Nothing mattered now.  Not love or death or football or Shakespeare.  He looked up into the light rain as his boisterous stomach howled for something more than the tease of a day-old dinner roll.  Obscured by the low-hanging clouds were all those goddamned stars.  In between them, hurtling carelessly through the endlessness of space, were many rogue asteroids and extra-terrestrial boulders.  It was only a matter of time until one of them, probably no larger than Vermont, would randomly enter earth’s atmosphere and initiate a catastrophic collision.  The impact would subsequently wipe out every trace of human existence.  Knowing this comforted him somewhat, and this comfort he wore like thick coat to fortify him against the permeating chill of his own failure.

He nestled in it for a moment.  Gone would be the works of Picasso, the relics of ancient civilizations, little black dresses, warehoused senior citizens, incandescent light bulbs, bombs, The Vatican, Brad Pitt, and Bank of America.  All things that seemed like a good idea, reduced to dust and vapor as though they had never been.

And he would be gone to.  The asteroid strike was thousands of years away, however.  In the meantime, he would be left sitting on this wet avenue, supping on the rancid gruel of his shortcomings and inadequacies.

Buses roared by, their steamy windows filled with the fearful, anxious faces of those who had yet to fail.  Where there is bus fare, there is hope.  He shoved his hand into the pocket of his greasy trousers and again pulled out the worn letter which had first alerted him of his failure.

He flagged down a rumbling bus and it hissed to a stop.  The door swung open and he entered.  He handed the bus driver the letter and, without waiting for a response, walked to the back.  He took a seat next to a woman in a little black dress.  She was reading a magazine.  Brad Pitt was on the cover.

Rockin’ Eve

December 31, 2011, 10:37 p.m.

Jack was standing over the temporary bar, busying himself with another Bombay Sapphire Martini.  Larry was sprawled on the sofa in the living room.  Bob Marley’s Jamming rippled from the speakers.  Lucy was dancing around in that drunken, meaningless, non-specific way.

The other guests were in the back yard smoking weed and lighting fireworks.  Their hoots and laughter could be heard through the open patio doors. 

The coffee tables had been moved aside to allow for the dancing.  A large, flat-screen TV (purchased at a steep discount before sunrise the day after Thanksgiving) flashed images of a dapper Ryan Seacrest reporting live from Times Square.  He oozed heterosexuality.  A moment later, he was joined on the platform by entertainment legend Dick Clark.

“That guy really needs to retire,” Jack said, taking a tentative sip of his martini, within which bobbed two bleu cheese-stuffed olives.  “I mean, look at him.  Listen to him, for Christ’s sake.”

“He had a stroke,” slurred Lucy, still twirling aimlessly in front of the TV.  She clutched her chest and released a hiccup.  “Strokes are bad.”

The volume was low, but it was clear that Mr. Clark’s annunciation wasn’t anything close to the golden-throated delivery that generations of white Americans had welcomed into their living rooms across the decades.

“Why do they insist on trotting him out there year after year,” Jack continued.  He made his way to the dancing area and began to sway to King Of Pain by The Police.  Jack was cool.  Cool enough to dance to a song that wasn’t really meant for dancing.  His real intention became clear as he danced closer to the listlessly swirling Lucy, using the opportunity to grind his crotch up against her.  She didn’t respond in any remarkable way.

“Does it bother you, Jack?” said Larry, who had been sullen for most of the evening.  He had arrived with a 12-pack of Rolling Rock and a bottle of Jose Cuervo.  He was well into both.

“I wouldn’t say it bothers me,” Jack said.  He was snapping the fingers of his free hand while swaying his hips to the music like an all-American frat house asshole.  “I’m just not sure what kind of audience they’re hoping to attract by wheeling a disabled senior citizen out on national TV while the world is trying to celebrate, you know?”

“No, Jack,” Larry said slamming his beer bottle down on the end table.  “I’m not sure I understand.  Why don’t you explain it to me?”

Jack stopped dancing.  Lucy didn’t.  She was long gone. 

Jack gave Larry a quizzical look and pointed at the crystal clear picture on his sparkling new television.

“You got eyes and ears, right?” Jack said to Larry.  “Look at the fucking guy.  Listen to him.  Aren’t you embarrassed for him?”

“Yeah, I see him,” Larry said.  “I hear him.  So what?”

“So what, Jack?” Lucy repeated.  “So what?”

“I’m just saying, after all the years this guy’s been doing this, is this really the way he wants to be remembered?” Jack said.  “Slurring and drooling.  And all that makeup.  He’s had plastic surgery.  Looks like he was carved out of a block of wood and somebody installed a hinge where his jawbone ought to be.”

“My heart bleeds for you, Jack,” Larry said.  “This must be difficult for you.  I’m sure if the executives at ABC had any idea how much this was going to hurt you, they would have sent Jimmy Kimmel out there in Dick Clark’s place.”

“Not Jimmy Kimmel,” Lucy pouted.  She was stomping her way around the floor, trying to make a sensible dance out of The Black Keys Lonely Boy.  ”Jimmy Fallon.  Jimmy Fallon is the top Jimmy.  Kimmel’s a ham-and-egger.”  

Jack chuckled.  “That may be true, but if you asked Dick Clark, he’d probably say Jimmy Durante was the top Jimmy, and Durante’s been dead for fifty fucking years.”

“You need help, Jack,” Larry said.  “Serious professional help.  Can I help you find a counselor?  A therapist of some sort to help you work through these issues?”

“I’m in therapy,” Lucy said, throwing back the last of her Appletini before lurching unsteadily toward the bar.  “We’re really starting to make some progress.  My therapist told me last week that we had a breakthrough.  You guys ever had a breakthrough?”

Jack ignored Lucy.  “Did I miss something, Lar?  I’m just questioning why they would continue to allow Dick Clark to make a spectacle of himself.  Does anybody under the age of 50 even know who this guy is?”

“But there is pain in your voice, Jack,” Larry said.  “It’s as if you’ve been wronged somehow.  And the more that I think about it, the more I agree.  You have been wronged, Jack.  You’ve been made to suffer here and I want to empathize with you. I want to put myself in your shoes to better understand the burden that Dick Clark’s presence is causing you to bear.”

Jack looked over at Lucy as if seeking an ally to support his position.  Lucy was leaning against the bar tossing olives into the air and attempting to catch them in her gaping mouth.  One bounced off her forehead, the other glanced the side of her nose.  As the olives rolled away across the floor, she said:  “Fuck you…fucking olives.  Who took my drink?”  Some breakthrough.

Jack held up his hands in surrender.  “Okay, I don’t know what your problem is here, Larry.  Forget Dick Clark, okay?  Run him out there for another seventy-five New Year’s Eve’s for all I care.  Jesus.  Never knew you had such affection for the guy.”

“That’s the thing, Jack,” Larry said.  “This isn’t about Dick Clark at all.  This is about you, Jack.  Just like every other goddamned thing.  It’s all about you and your discomfort.  Seriously, someone at ABC should be made to apologize for this unthinkable transgression.  Who can we call to demand an explanation?”

“Disney owns ABC, you know,” Lucy said, splashing way too much vodka into her glass and quite a bit onto the table and into the bowl of salsa as well.  “Call Mickey Mouse.  That mother fucker will get to the bottom of it.”

Jack reached into the pocket of his stylish slacks and removed his cell phone.  He walked over to Larry and held it out to him. 

“Here,” he said.  “Call someone.  Call Mickey.  Call 911 if you must.”  He moved the phone closer, nearly touching Larry’s face with it.  “Call them, asshole.”

Larry reached up and slapped Jack’s hand away.  “Get out of my face.”

Jack persisted, this time he shoved the phone against Larry’s face and pushed it against him.  “Call them, call them all, smartass!”

Again Larry slapped his arm away.  “Knock it off, Jack.  I’m warning you.  You’re fucking with the wrong hombre.”

“Boys, play nice,” Lucy said.  “Come on, dance with me.”

Lucy moved back to the living room and began to dance.  The opening horn section to Glenn Miller’s In The Mood began playing. 

Jack and Larry continued to glare at one another.  Mercifully, Jack’s toe began to tap the floor in rhythm with the infectious swing music.  Larry’s head began to bob along with the beat. 

Keeping Jack’s stare locked in his own, Larry rose to his feet.   Still staring at one another they joined Lucy on the dance floor. 

“I’ve always thought you were a prick,” Larry said to Jack, his head now bobbing with much more animation.  He began to snap his fingers.  “You don’t have any respect for women or your friends.  You’re selfish and dishonest.”

Jack took Lucy by the hand and skillfully swung her around and the two began jitterbugging.  “Well, you’re a world-class asshole and a loser.”  He twirled Lucy beneath his arm before before releasing her so that she could shimmy provocatively in front of him while he clapped his hands and wiggled his ass.  “How long are you going to work the graveyard shift at the gas station, dipshit?”

Larry reached for Lucy and spun her gracfully toward him.  She wound up pressed against his chest.  Taking her by the waist, he flung her effortlessly over his head, releasing her for an instant.  She let out a squeal as she descended into his arms and he spun her away.  He peeled off his suit jacket and began twirling it over his head.

“At least I can sleep at night knowing I gave an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay,” he said to Jack as he dropped to his knees and began swaying crazily to the music.  “I’m not out fucking everything that walks with my wife at home taking care of my kid.  How do you live with yourself, you dirty bastard?”

Jack removed his jacket and tossed it aside.  He got down, way down, and — in a display of impressive flexibility — began to caterpillar crawl across the floor. 

“You’re calling me a dirty bastard?” Jack said while popping neatly to his feet and starting a John Travoltaesque pimp-walk toward Lucy.  “I’ve seen your porn collection.  Is that shit even legal?  You are one twisted son-of-a-bitch.”

The song ended.  Larry and Jack stood winded at the center of the floor.  Their eyes met

“You know I’m going to have to whip your ass now because of all that attitude you were giving me about Dick Clark, right?” Jack said.  “I’m going to ring in the new year by blasting you in the side of the head with that salad bowl full of tortilla chips.” 

Jack pointed to the bowl on the bar.

“It doesn’t concern me,” Larry replied, breathing heavily and mopping the sweat from his forehead.  “I’ll be stunned for a moment, obviously, but when I get my wits about me, I will make a half-hearted lunge at you, calling you a mother fucker and a cheap shot artist and so forth.”

“Of course,” Jack said straightening his shirt and patting his hair back into shape.  “But by the time you make your threatening gestures, the others will have heard our initial scuffle and come scrambling in from the yard.”

“They will be seperating us,” Larry said.

“They will be wondering what started it,” Jack said.

“Your wife will be shrieking about why she can’t have one just one fucking evening without you starting shit and ruining everything,” Larry said.

“I will accept responsibility and apologize,” Jack said.  “I will sheepishly admit that I was the asshole who started it.”

“You will bring me ice for the nasty welt that will form upside my head,” Larry said.

“We will spend the remainder of the evening being drunk and dramatically sentimental,” Jack said.

“You won’t change,” Larry said.

“No,” Jack said.  “Certainly not.”

Lucy walked  to the bar, took the bowl full of chips, and carried it to Jack, munching a few along the way.

Bended Knee

“What do you mean forever?” she said.  “Are you suggesting that when one of us dies and is stuffed into a box that the other is expected to haul the box around –  day after day — until they, too, drop dead?”

I stood with my mouth agape for a moment, not quite sure how to answer.

“Well,” I said, clumsily shoving the ring into my pocket with some embarrassment.  “That’s a rather literal interpretation of ‘forever’.  Not exactly what I was getting at.  What I meant by forever was….”

“And, furthermore,” she continued, as though I hadn’t spoken.  “When the second of us finally expires, should instructions be left for those who handle our remains to go ahead and deposit what’s left of us into the very same box?  Is that what will be required so that your overly-romantic ‘forever’ fantasy might be fulfilled?”

I let a moment pass.

“Answer me,” she demanded.  “You’ve got an answer for everything.”

“Okay,” I said.  “First of all, you’re making one very dangerous assumption…it’s compelling, but dangerous.”

“And what is that?” she said.

“You’re assuming that one or both of us is actually going to die,” I said.

She looked at me with that same burning sympathy she’d shown when they had first released me to her care.  It was as though I’d fallen down a well and been mangled beyond hope.