Tag: between the lines

Between the Lines: ‘On a Plain’

Posted on by Editor

I’ll start this off without any words. Well, I would. If I could paint, or sing, or run like a deer. I’m pretty clonky. So, words. A few anyway …

Yesterday, after work, I went out back of the old school. I had a tin of chewing tobacco that Uncle Mike left in the front seat of dad’s truck the last time he was here. I packed a little wad of it and put it in my mouth, way over on the side, in a ball, like I seen Uncle Mike do. After a minute, I got so high, I scratched til I bled. Just my arms. Ringold, the janitor, came around and looked at me funny. Then he saw my arms and looked at me funnier.

I started crying. The finest day I ever had was when I learned to cry on command. Remember that? We were both doing it, after awhile. Anyway, I started crying and old Ringold got all nervous and went inside.

I spat the tobacco out and went uptown and got some ice cream at the Pixie. For awhile I was all about the chocolate. Then I was on a strawberry kick. Now I’m on a plain. I can’t complain. Cools your mouth down after the tobacco.

I was gonna send you a birthday card. Oops! The black sheep got blackmailed again — forgot to put on the zip code. Oh well. Next time. Thought that counts and all.

My mother died every night. Remember? Even you heard the screams, next door. You were always like, “Your mom died again last night.” But maybe it was pleasure. At least, I hope it was. It might have been, sometimes. And if not, well, at least she felt something. (Safe to say, don’t quote me on that!)

They have a new fire engine over here. It’s not like the old siren. This one’s like, “ga-goo-ga!” Somewhere, I have heard this before. Los Alamos? In my dreams — that’s where my memories are stored. As a defense, they say your dreams are more vivid if you’re not getting any. Ha! That explains me! Heck, I’m neutered and spayed!

What the hell am I trying to say? Just this: You seem so bothered, so pressured, into spelling everything out for everyone. Not everything has to make sense. Even to you!

How about this: It is time now to make it unclear. To write off lines that don’t make sense.

Let them figure it out! Baudelaire, Rimbaud, those guys … they’d just write whatever came into their heads. You can do that, too. So can I, for that matter.

One more special message to go. Then I’m done and I can go home. Ready?

I love myself better than you.

Whew. There it is. Okay, Okay, I know it’s wrong. But what should I do? Start over? Become a monk? Take a vow of silence? Again, words! I’d give up the words, if I could make furniture, be a lion tamer.

But whatever. I’ve still got my ice cream.

Story by Dan Bern based on "On a Plain" by Nirvana. Photo credit: stevendepolo / Foter / CC BY.

Between the Lines: ‘She’s Already Made Up Her Mind’

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She had these green eyes that looked at me like no one had ever looked at me before. It's intoxicating to be looked at like that. Everything else in the world disappeared when I was with her. I knew I was in trouble right from the start. All my friends told me she was too young. I knew that myself and I tried to run. I did. I ran across seven states. But the faster I ran, the more I fell behind because she was always there with me. Like a memory of what might have been. Like a hope for what used to be. She's the dream I can't wake up from.

Still, I knew better than to fight her on it. That's a lesson I learned the hard way. Because, while there is nothing so deep as the ocean and there is nothing so high as the sky, there is also nothing unwavering as a woman when she's already made up her mind. Once she's dug in … best to just leave her be.

I did that.

Then I didn't.

That was my first mistake. Or, maybe, my third.

So now she's sitting at one end of the kitchen table and she is staring without an expression. Those green eyes of hers … absolutely blank. Like I could reach right through her and not touch a thing. I can hear the TV on in the other room and the dog barking outside as the big yellow school bus bucks and rumbles its way down the road. I can feel everything else in the world except her.

Here, in the kitchen, she's not looking at me. She is looking at the space between us and she is talking to me without moving her eyes. She's just talking. She said something about going home. She said something about needing to spend some time alone. “It's not you, it's me.” “I just need to figure some things out.” Like it was only a temporary break we were taking. And she wondered out loud what it was she had to find, but she'd already made up her mind. She'd already left without leaving.

I feel dead inside. In my heart and soul. But my body still has some life left in it. When that finally goes, my friend, carry me down to the water's edge and then sail with me out to that ocean deep. Let me go easy down over the side and let the water wash me clean, wash me away.

And remember me to her.

Story based on “She's Already Made Up Her Mind” by Lyle Lovett. Photo credit: squilla.dave / Foter / CC BY-SA.

Between the Lines: ‘Elephant’

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She said, “Andy, you're better than your past. So you gotta just let it go. Regret doesn't do any of us any good, no way.”

She'd always been so good to me, even when I didn't deserve it. Somehow, she knew my heart was in the right place and she winked at me with that knowing … just in case I'd forgot. Then she drained her glass, waving off the bartender who stepped over to pour another round. She was sitting cross-legged on a barstool, like nobody sits anymore. Like an ingenue in a '50s movie or a showgirl in a saloon. She was a little bit of both.

She said, “Andy, you're taking me home,” as she shoved her arms into her jacket sleeves, wrapped her scarf around her neck, and glanced around the room taking it all in. But I knew she planned to sleep alone. She liked having me close by, but she needed the solitude of the night. Nights are the hardest. That's when it all comes down on her. She just lies there, with silent teardrops slowly tracing the edges of her cheek until they find the pillow. She thinks I don't know. And it's better that way. Sometimes, she gets confused and forgets where she is. She'll wander out with hazy eyes to find me on the sofa and get her bearings. I sleep pretty light, and I'll wake up to find her staring at me, swallowed by the nightgown that once fit her frame so well. That's when I'd carry her back to bed, tuck the blanket all around, and sit on the edge until she's back to sleep. Then, sometimes, I have to sweep up the hair from her floor. That's not something anybody should wake up to.

If I'd fucked her before she got sick, I'd never hear the end of it. We've always loved each other. Just never like that. I think we wanted to. Maybe even tried to. But we just never got it right. And she don't have the spirit for that now. She don't have the spirit for much of anything now. She tries to summon it. For me. For others. Most of the time, we just drink our drinks and laugh out loud at whatever stupid something one of us can come up with. We tell each other stories about the old days some. And we bitch about the weekend crowd some. Mostly, though, we just try to ignore the elephant … somehow … however we can.

She said, “Andy, you crack me up,” when I reminded her about how crazy she was for that kid Travis when we were in high school. God, she was a beauty back then. Even now, with her Seagrams in a coffee cup, sharecropper eyes, and hair almost all gone, she's still a wonder to behold … if you want to see it. I see it. When she was drunk she made cancer jokes, even made up her own doctor's notes a couple times. Anything she could do to distract herself and everyone around her. And there were a lot of folks around her, but nobody really with her. I tried to be, as much as she'd let me. She was surrounded by her family, but I still saw that she was dying alone. Because nobody ever knows what to say or do. Death coming at you is just like that, I guess.

Before, when she wasn't so sick, I'd sing her classic country songs. She'd get high and sing along. We'd belt the hell out of “Jackson,” just like we were Johnny and June come on back to life. She don't have a voice to sing with now, but she sometimes asks me for a little Townes or maybe some Prine. So I give her that. I sing her right to sleep when she wants. It's like we burn these joints in effigy … dream about who we might've been and cry about what we used to be. We had a good run. That's for damn sure. Better than most. She doesn't want me to have any regrets, but I do. Every time I look at her. I say I'm sorry all the time. Just not out loud. She doesn't want to hear it.

In my mind, I buried her a thousand times, so when the day came it was already a memory. A bunch of folks came out to say goodbye and I ended up giving up my place in line. But I don't give a damn about that now. I took my time with her before she left. And I made sure I was there for every minute of it. Especially the minutes when we'd just sit together, not saying nothing. There really wasn't anything needed to be said, no way. We both knew.

Everybody's gone now and I have her back. It's just us and a bottle and our songs under a sky full of stars. After all she went through, the pain and the tears and the not-knowing, there's one thing that's real clear to me: No one dies with dignity. It's a hard, hard thing to see a bag of bones lying there in place of someone you love so much. But that's all it is. The rest is up to us to keep alive. Them? They're off chasing stars … flying around faster than music. That's where I find her now. In those songs. Right where she's always been.

Based on the song "Elephant" by Jason Isbell. Photo credit: Robb North / Foter / CC BY.