Randy Randy

So many human foibles have we.  So many.
In the mid 1960’s, we lived in a fourplex, and had some new neighbors move in.  It was a mother and her teenaged son, and we got to know them and to be friends.  The son’s name was Randy.  He was a skinny, wiry little guy, something like a young Mick Jagger, with kind of a hard looking streetwise countenance.  He may have been a year or two older than I, but we chummed around anyway, being convenient to each other.

About fifteen years old at the time, I was easily impressed (and corrupted) by his cunning ways, and by the picture he presented of being a rebel against his mother’s authority.  Each escapade of his seemed to top the last one.  Looking at it now, I think he was acting out because of his broken home life and estrangement from his father.  He never talked about it.

We got involved in some small time misdemeanors, such as creeping out in the middle of the night and running down the street in our sock feet with a shopping bag to rob a coke machine at the local gas station, using his deft technique, learned from who knows where.  He came on vacation with us one time, to a cottage we rented each summer, then suggested we go for a long walk,  whereupon he magically produced some bags from his trousers, and we pilfered a local farmer’s garden.  We were chased before we got far, but managed to elude the pursuit in the bush.  Farmer Maggot never did catch us.

Things got more serious later on in this career of crime.  Randy got involved with drugs, and his behavior became more erratic and unpredictable.  He made it known that he had a gun, but of this I am not certain.  He was still allowed into our house, as my parents didn’t know.  One night, while we were playing poker, he took out a small bottle from his pants and began to sniff it.  Nail polish remover.  It had an instant effect upon him, and he did some crazy and destructive things.  We got him to his house and left him with his mother,  and we had to explain to our own folks what had happened.  That was effectively the end of our association, and it wasn’t long before he moved away.  A short time later, I heard that he had been picked up for grand theft, and was spending time at juvenile hall.

It may seem wrong to have “Sympathy for the Devil”, but there are a few things that I will always carry with me about Randy…..he needed a friend, and so did I, and it happened.  The little hints that one could divine from his conversation showed what kinds of wounds he had within his soul.

And, lastly, he may have saved my life one night when we were attacked by a group of hoodlums trying to show off to their girlfriends.  They got us from behind, pulled us down on the pavement,  and began the beating.  Six against two.  I didn’t know how to fight, but he did.  We both took a pretty good beating,  but my wiry little skinny friend managed to defend both of us until they took off.  The last memory I had was of Randy beating one guy’s head against the pavement, before someone came along and called an ambulance.

Dead end

There’s that one that you’ve seen,
passing by gauzy curtains at night.
By chance, a sidelong glance.
A stooped shadow,
seeming to peer back at passing cars.
His round shoulders, sloped by time.
On clockwork, as ever,
There he is, still.
Each night, as you make your way to wintry home.

In wonderment, you muse:
Does he, perhaps, scratch bundles of five on his wall,
as at Shawshank?
Is there another, moldering in a deadened back room?
Or does he wait
for a knock,
thinking to trade hot tea and a biscuit
for someone who will listen?

18. A dream of subjugation

I stand, looking out,
on the highest rampart of the cantilevered castle.
All of the Members stand with me today, deck upon deck,
in honour of this coronation.
The crescent walls jut out below me, each further than the last.
They hold our numbers of today,
ten thousand and one.
I am filled with terrible power and intent.
My robe of eagle feathers encircles me.
All other Members are clothed as lesser birds,
and they remain still, heads bowed.
The crown is of the eagle’s head,
hooked beak and eyes of adamant.
It is set upon me in that moment of stillness.
I raise vast pinions and give a cry.
The lesser birds follow.
In the ten thousand, there are those who would not.
They are bound onto crosses of wood, set alight,
and cast into unfathomable mist.
Now is the time. The time is now.

Impossible

I learned in high school math
That it could be proven, with numbers,
that motion is impossible.
It was called Zeno’s Paradox.

It went something like this:
A man running to catch the bus at a certain time
would first have to run half the distance,
then half of the remaining distance,
and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.
He would never get there.

Some days, I am that runner.
Knowing there is a “bus” to catch,
Every day, every day, ad infinitum.
But I am tired, and sad, and poor in spirit.

The stodgy determined part of me
is a little sick,
but, like a voice crying in the wilderness,
it says I must refute Zeno.
His paradox was meaningless numbers
that could be proven wrong, just as easily.
And, as everyone knows, motion is a fact of life.

I lie in my bed, in the late morning,
and say to the now distant voice:
See?  I have already done the impossible!
Each day I move, I do, I rest, I do again.

Ah! Do you! ( It says back.)
Try!  Try now!
I say I must rest for a little first….
there is chuckling.
Then, there is something like paralysis of the will.
I want to weep from frustration,
but I must rest for a little, first.

Somehow, I get the upper hand in this wrestle.
Shuffle to the shower, start to shave.
What for? (I think, or hear).  I stop halfway.
The sourness of doubt slinks back.
If I could just rest for a little bit first.

Coming back to myself, I am somehow in robotic mode.
Finish the shave, get dressed, carry the laundry downstairs.
Back upstairs I go with the load from the dryer.
Stopped halfway in a spiral of hopelessness.
The Runner.  The Runner.  This is impossible.
If I could just rest for a little bit first.

Zeno has won today.

 

String theory

Ah, child of the dust,
how shall I tell you?
Come, please, and play my strings.
For I am mute.  Absolute.
I want to be heard,
but the weight is the word.

Please, sit.
Rest.
Bring your patience.
Inspect.
See.
Care.
Is there not some residual worth?

And now, you must tune.

Though you know me not,
in weary sighs I will tell you how…

The two highest are of a single strand.
They can speak beauty, poignant and piercing,
played with a bow.

The two that are next are of wire finely wound.
They speak of wisdom gained, lessons learned,
kindnesses felt and given.

The two that are last are more heavily coiled.
for they bear the most weight.
They speak of things sad, and of guilt and betrayal,
of regret, and of harrowing penance.
Pluck them slowly, with soft fingerpads.

If any should break at the peg,
stay and warm me.
Let the sting subside.
Rid me of the useless member.
Play me again, with your love,
and know that, now, it matters not.

 

 

And in the Winter, extra blankets for the cold, fix the heater (getting old)

We had a sliding patio door of glass.
February frozen.
Final, ’til the spring.
A poor insulator,
it grew small spires of frost, even inside.
Like so many iron filings
straining to a magnet, only white.
Quarter inch runnels of ice said we were locked in, for now.
I stand in pajamas.
Run fingernails down,
bunching cold cakes of whiteness under each.
A throwback to my ten year old self,
I make a squeaky wipe on the fogged glass,
and peer into the next dimension.
Minus thirty says the little red thermometer,
as a tiny grey-brown visitor swoops in and lands on the windswept stones.
How can these wee birds, with toes smaller than a pencil lead,
not freeze in an instant?
So thin, so small, nothing to eat.
I run and get bread, and the hair dryer.
Thaw the frosty door, pull it open with a groan.
Scare little buddy away, but I toss the bread anyway.
I think he went to tell the others.
In five minutes, it’s party time.