A Quick Recounting of Acadia

 We drove out to Maine.

Didn't have much reason to, or much reason not to. Sage had ordered a truck bed tent and I had quit my job. I guess that was all the reason we needed. Left early on a Saturday morning in late August and stopped a handful of times. I offered to drive every hour or so, but Sage kept turning me down. Something about that made me smile. The "I've got this" attitude. 

Long fucking drive, but we arrived in the afternoon and walked the rocky coast line for a while, stretching our legs and breathing the salt air, before driving into the campground to look at our site. 

It was what you'd expect in a town like that. A paved loop with people packed together in 20x20 sections. RV's and netted canopies, drunk dads and loud kids. Eighty fucking dollars. Neither of us had any interest in hanging around. Drove back out of the campground and parked by the large "Acadia" sign. Debated on if we wanted to camp at the campground or try to camp unnoticed by the water, listen to the waves and watch the lights of boats in the distance. A sign nearby told us it was illegal to camp near the water, but we debated anyway. Sage asked a couple people if they had, or if they would and didn't really get any clear answers. Eventually I pushed for the campground, to avoid being woken up at three in the morning and having to relocate or deal with cops. Probably the wrong choice. 

Bought a few gallons of water and a sweatshirt because I forgot my jacket. Walked the rocks and the water, collecting shells. The stink of fish and rotted seaweed and the beauty of the expanse and indifference. I filled a large shell with smaller shells and other bits I thought were pretty and gave it to Sage. As far as I know it is still tucked safely between the windshield and dashboard of her truck. Kissed her in the sun. Walked on. 

Sage found a quiet hidden place, took off her clothes and stood in the freezing ocean. She had to. I didn't. Too fucking cold. Probably the wrong choice. Eventually a man and his dog were approaching and I handed her her clothes and we laid on a rock for a while, staring at the sky and talking about nothing. She held my thumb and that did more for my heart than I expected. It always does. 

Eventually we walked back toward the truck. Walked another path in the treeline and against the rocks. Bought a bottle of wine and went to sit on different rocks as the evening settled in. A couple near us had stainless steel wineglasses and we asked them if we could use their corkscrew. Stared out at the ocean, ate pea crisps and drank wine. 

Drove back to the site when the sun began to die.

Sage started a fire and I prepped the food. We ate, fucked around, and slept in the truck bed tent. Something washed over me in the night, a dream maybe, or some fear or anxiety or maybe a combination. I woke unable to shake it. In the morning, we cleaned up a little, ourselves, but mostly the site, and left to get breakfast.

Downtown.

Place called "Eat a Pita". A line out the picket fence of stereotypical upper-class New England tourist folks. And us. Hair everywhere. Filthy. Ripped clothes and large glasses. Vapes and American Spirits, mumbling about fucking and class consciousness and arson. I'm sure we had a scent. I felt like a cancer cell in fresh tissue and it was beautiful. I sat taking notes of the people and their conversations (using none of it here, apparently) while Sage typed on her phone. Our coffee came, which was all we really wanted, and then our breakfast. Mine; French toast with peanut butter, and Sage; a Greek omelet (though she had trouble nailing down just one choice). Sage playfully gave me shit about the peanut butter. People have, people will. They're wrong. She's wrong.

The family of seven next to us was grating, but I was writing down everything they were saying. In case I needed villains for something later. Sage got up and stepped outside of the fence to smoke. She brought her coffee with her but before she did asked me if I thought they'd think it's weird. 

"Who cares?" I said.

"I do it all the time," she said.

I had a couple hundred words of shorthand conversation written in my phone when she came back. We finished our breakfast, had another cup of coffee, and walked to the truck.

Debated on where to go next. Portland for lunch? Straight home? We figured if we made good time we'd be back by six or so and have time to wind down and relax for a while in the evening.

Maine doesn't play by normal rules of time and space. At one point we were certain we had somehow lost two hours. Neither of us could remember the time passing, and we were short of where we should have been by quite a way. We joked about it but, on top of the way I already felt, it stuck with me. Still does. 

Near four, we broke into New Hampshire. It was fucking hot. We had essentially been driving straight down the coast, so we decided to take an hour, go to the beach. Searched up a couple beaches on the map, chose one. We had to park a half mile away (summer in tourist towns) and changed in the car.

"Fuck," Sage said. "This is gonna be a pube thing."

"Who fucking cares," I said.

"I do."

It didn't matter, but I could feel the nerves coming off of her for a bit. A man near the car in a panama hat, playing guitar and singing at the ocean. I took a picture. We walked to the beach and set up a towel and laid there for a minute. I tried to shake the weird feeling out of me again, but it wasn't going anywhere. Into the water, out of the water. Sun dried, walked barefoot back to the car. 

We were both getting hungry again and drove a half hour to the nearest Whole Foods and scooped twenty dollars of shit and sushi into containers and ate it at a table outside in the evening. I could feel myself detaching. Dissociating. It had been getting worse since the night. It was six and we still had hours to go. 

"I can drive the rest of the way," I said. 

"No, it's fine."

So Sage drove. New Hampshire into Vermont. I was mostly quiet and staring out the window letting my mind wander. Doing my best to avoid that feeling, whatever it was. Stopped to piss behind an abandoned gas station. The sun finally went down and we had an hour and a half left. 

Sage played music she loved, or liked, or wanted to make fun of. I absorbed the moment. It was beautiful as the truck careened the winding mountain roads, headlights crashing off into the forests. 

It was ten or so before we got back to her house. 

"Do you want to watch a movie and just relax?" she asked.

"Yeah that sounds great."

"I think you should stay here tonight. It's late and I don't really want you to leave yet."

"Of course," I said.

We sat on Baby Bed for a while while she smoked and I laid my head against her legs, my legs dangling off the end of the collapsing toddlers bed and wondered if there were spiders near me. We went inside and watched a movie, fell asleep together on the couch, and eventually went to bed. 

And I just couldn't shake it.

We didn't talk for a week.

A Beautiful Word, Maybe in Portuguese

Elle told me the moon was full. Said she thought that that was why she was in such a happy and chaotic mood. 

Maybe. 

I was neck deep in some emotion that I'm pretty sure there's no word for in English. I tried to articulate it by writing down the combination of obvious physical and mental sensations.

Head pressure. Chest weight. Panic. Isolation. Heat. Hopelessness. 

I had also been clenching my jaw, but I do that a lot anyway. 

It was some combination of loss and sadness and anger and fear and jealousy. There must be some beautiful word for it somewhere. Maybe in portuguese. Whatever it was, it wouldn't leave me. It had been present, loudly, all day. I know what started it, and I knew a reason it perpetuated, but it didn't seem like it should be having such an impact on me or my day. Maybe it was the moon.

Or maybe it was because I looked at the wrong social media account first thing in the morning. Or maybe because I still hadn't figured out how to stop expecting cinematic moments from people. 

Yeah, whatever it was.

As soon as I had closed the app I thought; Fucking idiot. Right before work? What did you expect? And now, here I am. Sitting at my desk, staring blankly at my email, unable to focus on anything but whatever this eldritch and all-consuming emotion is. 

On the bright side, it's a Friday, and it's been mostly dead. Only twice have I had to speak to anybody, and each time I was able to throw the mask on just long enough to get through the conversation. I'm exhausted, but the day is almost over.

Pace around. Try to remember lyrics to songs I like. Organize a filing cabinet. Whatever I can do to distract myself. I'm not sure if I've ever felt this particular emotion before, but so far it wasn't great. It'd be nice to never feel it again. I have a feeling though that I'm just opening myself up now to regular bouts of it, which is also not great.

Press my palm against my chest. Yeah, heart beating heavy and quick, but not fast like panic attacks. Just heavy and quick. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Same as everything else.

and the mantra;

It's an emotion. It will pass. You're okay. You'll feel better.

And I will feel better. I know that. Spring will come and beautiful things, days and people, all lie ahead for me. The weight and the dark of the world around me is caked up over my shoes like thick mud, but, even mud dries, flakes, and disappears. 

Outside the sun breaks through the February cloud cover and then the windows, before finally splashing across the walls and floor. I look for a moment, stand and go to the window. I wish it was warmer. I need to take a walk. Under the trees and in silence, where answers come and the dark fades. Few more weeks.

I really thought writing would help. 

Juniper in an Empty Circle

Pace my apartment all day, unsatisfied and fighting myself and remember I have paintings to pick up. Go back and forth for an hour about whether or not I want to leave the house and finally grab my coat, keys, ephemera, and head to the bar where they were hung. 

Park and leave my car. The cold bites into me. Quickly walk the street, past my old job, and into the bar. In no rush to go back out, I sit down. Everett's behind the bar, a few other Sunday afternoon gnomes perched around. 

"Hey James, buddy. How's it going?" 

"Not bad," I say. "What did I get last time I was in here? The Funky?"

Everett glances up at the menu on the wall. Twelve planks with painted cartoonish letters spelling out the names of the current fun new beers on tap and their ABVs. The Funky is a twelve ounce pour and has an 8% ABV,  but when I had ordered it a while ago Everett got it backwards. It didn't matter. It was fine. It tasted like a syrup of slightly rotting fruit. I've drank worse.

"Yes... Yeah, I think you did."

"All right. I'll take that." Hand him my card.

"Open?"

"Yeah, that's fine. How've you been?"

We shoot the shit. Me. Everett. The other guys around the bar. Someone's brother was marrying the wrong girl. Someone was avoiding his kids. Someone just lost their job. The same shit, the same shit.

A while later, my third Funky, Everett says;

"You know who I haven't seen in a couple months?"

Sip my terrible beer. "No. Who?"

"Ann."

It knocks me back. Try not to react. I had come to this bar with Ann pretty regularly but I don't remember Everett ever being there. 

"Oh?"

"Yeah. She's something, right? What was it like dating'er?"

Again, knocks me back. Run it quickly through my head and I can't understand how he knows I even know Ann, much less dated her. A theory forms, but I try not to think about it.

"I... have nothing bad to say about her. She's a wonderful human being."

"She's somethin'," he says. "I used to just think she was pretty attractive, but then, I mean, she's always got something going on. I mean, mental illness isn't a joke, I know, but, Jesus."

It's like he's talking about an entirely different person. It forms a worry somewhere inside me. It had been about a year since I spoke to her and a lot can happen in a year. 

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to her. But again, nothing bad to say."

"Sure, sure," he says and starts putting his coat on, pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

"Hey, before you head outside, wanna pour me one more and cash me out?"

"Sure buddy."

I get up, and head to the bathroom. The goddamn thought won't leave my mind. 

In the bathroom, large black circles are painted on the walls and a small table has a basket filled with colored chalk. The black circles are spattered with messages from dozens of others. Rhymes. Jokes. A phone number. I read a few, looking for familiar handwriting. Piss, wash my hands, and write "Juniper" in an empty circle before leaving.

As I make my way back, I track down the four paintings I didn't sell and take them all down, setting them on the bar in a nice pile. The credit card terminal is in front of my spot. I hit the 25% tip, take my card out, and sit back down.

The two guys to my left want me to go with them to another bar downtown. They've mistaken my deadpan sarcasm for comradery. Everyone does. Maybe it is. 

"There's mozz sticks down there," one of them says. "Nothin' special, but it's mozz sticks."

It isn't a bad pitch.

"Yeah man, all right. I just gotta run these paintings up to my apartment, then I'll catch y'all down there," I say with no intention of going.

One of them high-fives me as they begin to put their coats on. "Fuck yeah," he says for some reason.

They pay their bill, now slurring a little and reddened, and they're gone into the dusk. Now it's just me and Everett and one old man to my right staring emptily into his beer. The thought that's he's been shut off or deactivated floats through my head. 

"When are they gonna pay me?" I ask Everett.

"For the paintings?"

"Yeah."

"Probably pretty soon. I think Greg's just waiting for everyone to pick up their stuff."

I nod. I'm going to have to chase this money down. Always fucking something. 

Start working up the will to go back into the cold. Sip my terrible beer and still, 

the goddamned thought won't leave my mind.

A lot can happen in a year.

Over and Over, Come and Go

 Jon Spencer was playing downtown and I thought it'll distract me. 

Pulled my hair back. Brushed my teeth. Put my coat on, and stood motionless in my living room catching my breath.

My heart had been racing and my head had been spinning and for two days I had felt like I was creeping closer and closer to some degree of violent collapse. I had convinced myself I was unknowable and that solitude was all that waited for me. That to be in company would mean to accept less than what I enjoyed in people. I wasn't unlovable, people came and went, professing love and dreams and projecting a version of me that I've already been. A version of me I've long ago smothered to death under a hundred whiskey and sweat soaked blankets in a string of bartender bedrooms. I've been that guy. I killed that guy. I can't be what they want, so I push them away. 

Ann and Grace and Sage and Serena and Rowan and... on and on. Who knows how many others? Makes no difference.

Don't I prefer to pace my house? To write the same moments over and over with different titles, in different prose? Don't I prefer spending long stretches of days without ever speaking a word or seeing another human being? Over and over? Isn't this what I want?

I needed to get out of the house. I stood motionless in the living room, catching my breath and counting my fingertips and repeating it'll distract me. It'll distract me. It'll distract me...

I couldn't tell if I had fucked up. Pushing people away. Maybe. Probably. I kept picturing small moments of beauty. The warmth of skin to skin. The smell of hair. A hand held in a theater. A mattress on a back porch. On and on. Over and over. I kept picturing these things and that sinking longing bore further and further into me. In desperate attempts to shake it I'd force myself in the other direction. Moments of misunderstanding. Yelling. Accusation. The way I had felt alone even then. Disappointed in myself and burdened with expectation and dead hopes. But that never really worked as well I had hoped. It never brought me to any peace or conclusion other than that I had become unknowable. Unknowable and, because of that, permanently isolated.

It'll distract me. It'll distract me...

I came out of it and grabbed my keys and drove into town. Parked my car and sat in it, staring at the base of the large concrete monument in the center of town. Heat on. Controlling my breathing. 

I had been talking to Sage here and there over the evening. First time a while. I had been talking to Elle throughout the day. Like most days. I had gone to Marie's house a couple days ago. Drank and laughed and hung out. It was her anniversary, and I thought that was funny. Grace texted me a single "." and I responded with a single "?".

They come and they go.

But only two of them knew me, at one time or another. Wanted to know me. Saw me for what I was. Or, am, in Elle's case. So I was closest to them. Well, they were closest to me. 

Sage told me she relapsed again and was back to bad ways. I bit my tongue and put away my phone. Got out of the car. Walked to the venue. 

It was cold. I should have worn a thicker jacket. My heart was racing and my fingers were going numb. I couldn't tell if it was from the cold or the panic.

A line of people outside. Through the windows, a large crowd. Heart pounding. Lungs struggling. I stood in the line for a moment and then decided to leave. 

Back to the car. For a moment I sat and wondered if I should just go to one of the three empty bars near me. At least that's out of the house, I thought. I didn't. I turned the key. Drove home.

I've convinced myself I'm unknowable and I've convinced myself that no one could ever really see me, or want to see me for who I am. But I stay inside. I hide from people. Literally and figuratively. I wear the smile and the charm and the big baby blues, but I hide the rot. 

I reply to Sage;

"Have nothing but faith in you."

True, but means nothing.

The isolation isn't good for me. Clearly. Amy has said it. Therapists have said it. You've probably said it. I need to be myself if I want people to see me. Know me. Love me. I need to leave the house. I need to be near friends. I need to let my guard down. Not everyone is looking for something. Not everyone is a threat. Not everyone will do what you've done. 

Sat in the car outside of the apartment. Controlled my breathing. Slowed my heart. I headed upstairs and shut the door behind me. Shoes off. Shirt off. I am unknowable. Sage replied. Elle replied. Grace replied. On and on.

They'll come and go.

They always do.

I am barely there.

Cigarettes and Mold

Cracking my knuckles. First, each hand as a fist, pressed into the other. Then each finger straightened and cracked individually, first sideways, then downwards. Finally, tightening my neck muscles and quickly turning my head left to right. The cracks and pops resonating through the air around me. 

Better.

I miss taking smoke breaks but there is a small amount of the same relief in this. The people around me hate it just as much. 

Can't wait to get a terminal disease. Move out toward a duty free shop. Load up on cartons. Burn up darts like the last of my days. Adios world. Disappear in a puff of smoke, leaving only a deeply satisfied and cool as hell lookin corpse strewn across the back porch in the light of the dying sun. Can't fucking wait.

Anyway

It goes like this;

Pacing through my apartment and mumbling some argument with some ghost. I don't remember who or about what. It doesn't matter, they're all the same. Inconsequential and over. I walk by the guitars and pedals and keyboards over and over and each time I take a small step toward them and think do I want to play music? and then a small step away and think no. not just yet. something else, and back to pacing and mumbling.

Pass the pantry, where I've stuffed boxes of paints, a pile of canvases to paint over, a couple lab coats, and yeah, food I guess. Small step. Do I want to paint? Small step. No. Not yet.

Over and over. 

The dishes are piled up. I could wash them. No, not yet.

Clothes strewn recklessly across the furniture. I could at least gather them up. No, not yet.

Pace and mumble.

Hours pass like this and eventually I find myself laying flat across the kitchen floor. The surface cool against my skin. The daylight has disappeared and the potential has gone with it. Too late to do anything now, I think. Well, I guess I just couldn't do it today. I tried.

I had thought about it, so I did try.

It's strange. Having the desire to do things, to go about tasks, even the simplest things or things I want to do, and being unable to. Being unable to focus on them. Unable to commit to beginning one. Unable to physically move close enough to them to even consider it. Like something gripping my arm and pulling me backward. Like a hum somewhere under my skull. No. Not yet. Not yet.

The last hours of my free time pass and soon it's time to get ready for bed. Another day wasted. Make tea. Take meds. Shower. Brush teeth. Drink tea and read. Turn off the light. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll be motivated, I think. I've been thinking it as far back as I can remember. Awareness slips to hypnagogia where the black swirls and teeth gnash and faces groan and twist and the hypnagogia slips to sleep. In an instant it will be morning and it will be seventeen hours until I have another chance. Maybe tomorrow.

Before I disappear completely into tomorrow I think; was there mold on those dishes? How long has it been?

Cast Away 2

I'm not waking up in libraries or laundromats or the backs of strange cars. I'm not scraping change for small bags of whatever-you've-got stashed away under the sinks of small restaurants. I'm not known or present or anything at all. Not anymore. And it's nice.

Boring, 

but nice.

The call of the abyss still rings out. The heat of the flame. The death and the romance of it all. Of course. I'm sure there's a name for the phenomena, the return to the normal world and the alienation of it all despite best attempts to assimilate. Former addicts. Veterans. Prisoners. I'm sure there's a term. I don't know what it is. Whenever I think about it, I tend to think about a script I wanted to write years ago for a sequel to the Tom Hanks film "Cast Away".

"Cast Away", if you don't know, is a film about a FedEx delivery guy who ends up stranded on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, living four years (I think) alone and surviving by any means available. The images of volley ball war paint and ice skate dental surgery usually pop up for most people. At the end of the film (spoilers, for a 24 year old film), Tom Hanks' character is rescued and brought back to the United States. People celebrate, but his former wife has remarried and now has a daughter. The film essentially ends here, which I think is a real shame and missed opportunity. And that's where my script outline comes in.

"Cast Away 2" or  maybe "Cast Aside"?

Read about vets coming home from Vietnam, or any conflict. Read about prisoners leaving long sentences. Talk to former addicts. You don't return to a normal world. You return to an alien world. 

Nothing seems real. Nothing makes sense. No one relates. Your skillset and state of mind no longer translate to survival or success. For a lot of the people in these situations their lives often head down darker paths, primarily because those are the only paths which allow them to operate in the way they have been forced to for years of their lives. 

Tom Hanks returns to the real world. His wife has remarried. She has a daughter. This bothers the character but he moves on. At first I never understood why he was able to do that so easily, but after everything, I do now. He has become detached. Though he yearned for that normalcy, that love, that life, it no longer fit a reality that he could, or even actually wanted to, inhabit.  It was fantasy. A dream, and just as we wake in the morning and remove ourselves from our dreams, faced with the reality of his situation, his character is forced to do the same.

And this is where we pick up.

Tom Hanks' character (I refuse to look up the name) lives in a new town, somewhere out in the Midwest. Let's say Salina, Kansas. A year has passed. He worked for FedEx again for a bit, but was let go in a cold display of corporate brutality after a few months after suffering a back injury and while suffering from the effects of insomnia and PTSD. He had attempted to see a woman (from the very end of the first film) for a bit, but it hadn't worked out. He sometimes speaks to his ex-wife, but it is distant. She is barely a voice on the phone, always patient and kind to Tom, tries her best to listen, but feels like she owes it to him.

Tom drinks, but not a lot. He tries to keep himself. He has a barren apartment in a lower income part of town. Tough to get a decent job or decent housing when you've been declared dead. Even now that it has been getting cleared up, there are always questions. Always hiccups. Bureaucracy takes a long time. He sits alone most nights. He has taken to writing. Sometimes letters he will never send. Sometimes journal entries about his days. Mostly though, he writes about the island. The serenity of it. The spark of life he had discovered. Wilson. 

He sees a therapist, but he can't afford the payments. She's been letting it slide, but he isn't sure how much longer she will be able to. 

Eventually he begins to sit at bus stops. He thinks about going to the airport. Riding planes and hoping... hoping... He doesn't buy any tickets. He sits at bus stops and he watches the people. The people suffering and lonely and struggling and it all reminds him of how free he was on the island. How every moment meant something. How every action was important. He watches the people and he knows the brutality of society. The cruelty of the the modern world. 

He has been unable to see a doctor about the back injury and meets a tenant in his building who has pain medication. You can see where this goes, I imagine. We've heard the story a thousand times. Because it's real. Because it happens.

And so... does Tom find redemption? Does Tom make peace? Does Tom set out to right the wrongs of the modern world?

No.

Tom ages and dies. Struggling and increasingly alone. From small apartment to small apartment, he is eventually forgotten as both the Man who Survived and as a person at all. He hasn't spoken to his wife in over a decade. He quit drinking for a few years. He kicked the pain meds. He wrote, and wrote, and wrote. 

And died. 

Eventually an ambulance took his body. The landlord cleaned the apartment and disposed of his things. 

The world moved on.

Without Tom.

Just like it always had.

You don't come back to the normal world. You don't ever really assimilate back into society. You can never see as you saw before. You are changed fundamentally, and because of that the world is also. The veneer has worn off. The importance. The hope. Sun bleached and dried, brittle and hollow, the world as you left it is long dead.

Sometimes the call of the abyss rings out to me. The heat of the flame. The death and the romance. Sometimes all I see around me are ghosts and facades and futility. No purpose. No life. No hope. I do my best to ignore it all. To look away, or try to. To pretend. To force the smile and keep waking up.

But I can feel it gazing. Watching. Calling. From the cubicle across from mine. From the second bedroom I turned into an office. From the back seat of my SUV. Curling and creeping out from the dark spaces, filling the gaps like smoke and I can feel it.

The abyss. The chaos. The island.