The thing about Mishon’s absence was what his absence created. The sense of loneliness that welled up in me came quickly and without warning. A deep void within myself left me feeling woozy and completely lost in nothingness. A fracture, where no freedom or liberty rang, a whole I didn’t want to see because it didn’t seem to matter what I did, I could never fill the hollow within me.
I found myself wandering back to the hospital without friend or foe.
I began thinking about my life and where I had gone wrong. How did I get so far off track? In youth, I felt I was entitled. I was entitled to as many women as I liked, wished or wanted. I did not know how lost I’d become until my last girlfriend threw me out of our place. She tossed my shoes out the front door and locked every stinking piece of cloth or clothing in the one room in the house that had a lock on the door.
She showed me to the door just after I climbed out of the shower dripping wet. Naked, bare, exposed she told me: “Now it’s your time to go.”
Her emphasis struck me, despite the fact I told her, in the days preceding this, that she needed to get herself together, or I’d leave.
It was an idle threat I didn’t plan to execute.
I didn’t fight with her.
“But I’m naked.”
“So am I.”
Her quick response, her body fully clothed, I knew, I just knew, sensed the verbal butt-kick was about to arrive and God, Jesus, I needed, wanted, to keep it at bay to avoid it at all costs. I had grown tired of fighting with women, every woman I had been with, but the first one.
So I walked out the door to avoid a fight, as I had done before, but not realizing what I was really doing by walking over that threshold.
The clothes I had worn on my back weren’t even on the lawn, like I expected them to be. I saw my shoes, littered on the porch and part of the driveway. When I tried to find the mates, I realized she only threw out the left ones. I stood there thinking of what I could grab to clothe myself, but there wasn’t anything. Then I thought about my truck still parked in the driveway. I didn’t have the keys, and it was locked. Damn it.
I went to the garage and busted down the door; Jesus that hurt. I got some tools and jimmied my driver’s side door open. I got in, but the clothes I had left there were gone, too. She cleaned me out good. There would be no going back, no apologies and no making-up. It was over.
I sat in my truck. I felt embarrassed. I was so keenly aware of my rejection I thought my heart was going to burst open raw. I saw my heart splattered with ventricles pumping blood to no man’s land, which is exactly where I felt I belonged. I saw myself as part of the walking dead, of people so lifeless and clueless that they have no idea or any ideas of how they fit into the system of living. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw my sunglasses there. I put them on. Then I started crying like I had never done before.
It all came back to me.
The neighborhood looked nothing like where I grew up, but as I sat there crying I felt like I did the day I went to the get the mail when I was a kid. For a brief moment, I saw it, I saw the envelope with my Dad’s handwriting addressed to me. At the same slip of time, my mom yelled and I leapt out of my skin.
“What are you doing!? Close that box! Close it! I said close it!”
“But Mom I think I just saw…”
“A letter from your father? Silly fool. Wishing for something that won’t ever happen. Shame on you for believing in a man that doesn’t believe in you!”
“But Mom, I really saw…”
“What’s wrong with you? Your father left; get over it! Now get in the house! You’re not supposed to be snooping in my bills! And no baseball tonight with your friends!”
As I walked past my mother, she continuously hit me on the butt. The neighborhood was full of kids playing outside. I was too old to be spanked. The humiliation rushed back to me and for a moment, I had no idea where I was. Did I belong to the past while I was hopelessly lost in the present? My future was beyond my grasp.
Like a drunk who experiences bed spins, I sat in a flood of memories that spun webs around me.
I closed my stinging, tear-soaked eyes and tried to bring myself somewhere where there was peace.
I pretended I was far away someplace I’d never been and I was alone. Driving. No place special, no place to be, and no one to ask, bother or probe me.
The dream felt like an oasis.
*****
Mishon changed that.
Without realizing how I was once again looking for lost thoughts, I was staggering for something to touch and hold onto. A utility pole came into view and I went to touch it. As I slumped down with my back propped up by it, I felt the coursing energy through its wooden beam. Its humming support, the nervous energy, was matched by my own.
I tried to calm my unquiet mind that was feeling dizzy being stuck on rewind. The visual images of negativities, internalized, continuously played on the screen behind my façade.
“Sometimes if you cling too tightly, the things you want don’t come.”
*****
I let go of her.
I sat staring out at the world like that day I sat staring out my truck’s window.
My vision was muted and my undertones blurred.
“I don’t have the keys,” I muttered. I didn’t that day or now.
I looked down at the set of keys poking out of my pocket: Mr. Hadley’s.
I felt remorse for what I had unintentionally done to that man.
He believed in his wife’s return.
I could not give back his keys knowing I’d crush the man’s heart, which was already heartbroken by her death.
I knew too well what it was like to lose and I didn’t want to lose anymore. It was bad enough to lose the women, but losing Mishon hurt more. Women were harder to understand, but a fellow man? I thought he was like me and I guess that’s what I wanted. Someone like me, a son; I was old enough to be his father. Somewhere in my mind, it was a perfect fit, but it was a one-sided perspective that I’ll admit, probably only fit me.
I guess I was foolish after all. Foolish to think the world revolved around me.
When I sat in my truck envisioning where I wanted to be, I knew then I was going on the road and going wherever the road allowed me. I wasn’t going to look back, I was going to continue with forward momentum. I was going to go where life wanted me to be, not follow a woman, not follow anyone, but follow what my gut told me. My gut told me to go on an open road and ride, ride the road, take my heart in my cradled arms and do what my mother wasn’t able to do for me. Cradle my own pain, my own fears and give my heart the compassion it needed.
Although I felt I was criss-crossing my tracks, I also felt it couldn’t be helped. I needed my keys. I needed my truck. Maybe I was wrong and been wronged in my life, but now was not the time to feel sorry for my sorried* life. Mishon—to his credit—never seemed to be annoyed with me like I was with him. Go figure; someone I didn’t bother. I think that was a first. The further I walked, the more clear headed I became and felt okay about it all: that even being truck-less I seemed better off.
I got up from my utility pole stop and at first, I started towards the hospital, but I changed course and started my journey back to the Chat and Chew. Honey Bee she said her name was.
Despite how annoyed I was by her, I was convinced in some obscure way that she’d know where Mishon was.
*As the author of this piece, I do know and realize that “sorried” is not a word. It has been my experience that most people do not speak correct English; therefore, their thoughts would also reflect their incorrect usage. What other way to show this then by forming their own “speak” and “thoughts” using their terms? This means his dialogue and/or thoughts do not necessarily follow the rules of the English language, and therefore, does not need to be correct. I want this character authentic. One of the ways in which to do this is by throwing out the rules of the English language.