Two Weeks & Twenty-Six Cents

When I was younger, two weeks could seem like an eternity. What about for you? Did the two weeks leading up to Christmas drag on forever? And what about the two weeks before your 16th birthday? Or the two weeks leading up to the end of the school year? Weren’t the hours endless? Of course, there are exceptions to this prolonged waiting period; e.g., the two week break I used to get during the Christmas/New Year’s holidays when I was in secondary school felt like it only lasted a couple of days. 

Back in October of 1998, I found myself unemployed for an indeterminate amount of time. (Kind of like right now. Except, right now, I “kind of” have a return-to-work date even though it keeps getting extended.) I worked in the box office at the Century Center for the Performing Arts Theatre; an off-Broadway performance venue where the most recent production, Stupid Kids, had closed early (October 4, 1998) and there was no replacement waiting in the wings.    

I took a Greyhound bus from the Port Authority in New York City to Nashville, Tennessee. At that point in my life, taking the bus was the only way I could afford to take the trip. It was an adventure—a 24-hour adventure 😳. (And one that I didn’t relish repeating for the return trip. I’m just sayin’.) It took roughly three more hours by car to get to my ol’ Kentucky home. But I got there…with no responsibilities and no plans.

During that visit, I felt very creatively fertile. Every morning I made a pot of coffee and perused old journals, searching for those soul bearing moments that might make a good country song. Some days I didn’t change out of my pajamas: no shower, no real clothes, just focus and flow. My parents would leave for work, and I would pour the first cup and sit down in front of my mother’s computer and start transforming adolescent thoughts into lyrics, hoping I might be composing A, if not The, Next Big Hit for country radio.

While stardom was something that eluded me, mostly due to my own lack of motivation to chase it, that time in my life is a warm memory cloaked in fuzzy slippers that is at once comforting and melancholy. 

Two songs figure prominently in my memories from that visit: “26 Cents” by the Canadian country group, The Wilkinsons, and “Wide Open Spaces” by The (no longer Dixie) Chicks. While both were favorites before, they became touchstones for me...and my mom. And remain so to this day.

Two weeks had expired when the time came for me to return to NYC. The Century Center had a new tenant. I was employed again. Memories fade. And while mine is pretty solid (ask anyone who knows me well), I don’t recall a flying-by feeling. In my memory, time marched at a steady pace—not too fast, not too slow. I remember feeling free and dare I say, happy. That’s not a feeling I always feel when visiting Kentucky.

At the Greyhound station in Nashville, my mother gave me an envelope. She asked me not to open it until I was on the bus. I was extremely curious what was inside, but I waited—like I used to have to wait for my grandparents to arrive on Christmas morning before I could unwrap anything. Once the bus started moving, all deals were off. I opened it.

In my hands I held a lined piece of notebook paper where, in her perfect left-handed cursive, my mom had written the chorus to “26 Cents.”

When you get lonely, call me

Anytime at all and I'll be there with you, always

Anywhere at all

There's nothing I've got that I wouldn't give

And money is never enough

Here's a penny for your thoughts

A quarter for the call

And all of your momma's love (9-16)

Below that she had written her own message of love and encouragement. And at the very bottom she had taped a penny and a quarter.

Cut to August 3, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has left me unemployed, isolated, afraid, and with limited access to my fremily (that chosen family of friends) for nearly 20 weeks. 

I was supposed to take a trip to Kentucky in June for a wedding that got postponed to August. When I changed the flight I decided to add an extra week to the stay. I mean, why not? I had nothing better to do. And sure, after 23 years in New York City, country living in the southern part of the United States is something that I can only take in small doses. A week teeters between just enough time and an overstay. It all depends on how I let outside factors affect me. But weighing the options, a large back yard and a pool seemed pretty charmed even if I might have to deal with Trump-supporting politics. And lest I forget, momma’s hugs and home cooking would be beneficial perks.

My mom might be the one person in my family that I allow myself to be vulnerable enough with to have very frank discussions. I push. She listens. Sometimes she has advice. Sometimes she doesn’t know what to say. I often wonder if I make her uncomfortable with my statements or questions; if I’ve pushed too hard or too far. I probably over share. But she keeps smiling at me, hugging me, loving me. I don’t know how she does it—(This must be where All of your momma’s love comes into play)—but I’m grateful that she does.

For two weeks the days were filled, each turning to night without me seeming to realize it was happening. 

My mom and I took three-mile walks almost every day. In that freedom of companionship and exercise, we talked about many things: the pandemic, people’s reaction to it, people’s inability to respect others and wear a mask, other frustrations, the fiction I’m writing, the soap opera Santa Barbara, my love for the soaps in general. We talked about the past, the present. We questioned the future while also looking forward to it. We huffed and puffed and challenged ourselves while sweating through our shirts. 

We played card games almost daily: Rummy, Five Crowns, Karma. We laughed. We quibbled. (One is prone to quibbling and deep sighing when a winning streak seems to be consistently elusive. Trust me, I sighed. I sighed so much.) We ate Milk Duds. We ate the fresh blackberries that we picked from the garden. Picture it: Arlington, KY. 2020. Me picking blackberries in a garden. But I digress.

The inevitable question: “What would you like to have for dinner?” was usually asked before we had even decided what we wanted to eat for lunch, and was usually met with an exaggeratedly humorous response along the lines of, “We haven’t even eaten lunch.”  But the duck, the chicken, the steak, and the pork chops were all worth the early decisions when they made their way from the grill to the table to my mouth. 

Sitting side-by-side on my parents’ sofa, my mom and I battled for the win playing Words With Friends. Books were completed and new ones started. Homemade ice cream churned in the garage, its hum becoming white noise until it stopped. Hours were spent cavorting in the pool: sliding into the refreshing coldness, tossing a volleyball back and forth, sitting on the bottom, attempting to keep a frisbee in the air—fifty-four times was the record between my sister and me. 

We found family relics that I thought had been inadvertently discarded by me long ago. I had resigned myself to the sadness of their loss, accepted I would never see them again. Yet there they were in a storage tub in a large closet in the basement of my parents’ house. I was overwhelmed at seeing again this bonanza of sepia-toned pictures and daguerreotypes; images of family members I couldn’t possibly know and that no one still alive could provide information about. I was beside myself to once again hold the hand-written document noting the births and deaths of the family from which my own maternal line started five generations prior. My excitement was contagious and my mom caught it. 

We consumed hours of television: The Golden Girls, Friends, Santa Barbara. We watched Jurassic Park and Scream.

Sleep came. And, for the most part, it cast us deeply in its shadow. Morning brought a new day, a fresh pot of coffee, a mug of hot chocolate, and a question of what to have for dinner.

We washed, rinsed, and repeated our way through two weeks. And even though those two weeks 

contained the same amount of minutes and hours as any other two-week period, they seemed to fly by. I guess it really does when you’re having fun.

As we get older, time no longer marches at a glacial pace. It speed skates. There is no way to slow it down. Our task it to enjoy every moment. That’s all we can do.

As we said our goodbyes outside the small regional airport in Paducah, Kentucky, I thanked both of my parents for the welcoming opportunity to freeload at their house and told them I loved them. Mom always gets the last hug. That’s the way I want it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a penny and a quarter and placed them into her hand. She looked down at what I’d given her and continued to smile even as her eyes filled with tears. History repeating. A full circle moment. 

Now that I’m back home in NYC, a two-week period of self-quarantine begins. That’s because I’ve returned from a state with increased rates of COVID-19 transmission. Time in isolation is rarely fleeting so I’m betting this two weeks will inch along like an airplane sitting on the tarmac, 24th in line for takeoff.

“Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?” The Chicks ask in “Wide Open Spaces.” Who doesn’t indeed. 

Room 14

Ragged breath. Gasps fill the quiet room. 

The breathing stops. No sound. Silence. 

Inhale. 

Relief. 

His sentinels sit. We watch. We listen.

A melody sings out easy. A husband, to his love.

“The landslide will bring it down.”

The dread is heavy, the uncertainty thick.

There is no hope. But there is love.

Visible. 

Abundant. 

Resignation hovers. The inevitable approaches. 

Peace will come, leaving sadness in its wake. 

When tethered no more, this will be the down.

Remember.

Now soar.

©️Michael Rohrer

July 29, 2020

Christmas 1995: A Memory

I drove through the night. Snow was falling like the steady rain of summer storm. As the yellow dividing line disappeared under the white fluff, so did the dark paving of the highway. I was traveling as fast as I dared, which wasn’t fast enough. The headlights illuminated the snow as it pelted my car giving the illusion that I was driving through an avalanche of stars.

I was headed to my momma’s house for Christmas. 

Christmas at momma’s house: the anticipation, the excitement. Remember? There’s an ease to it, a comfort. It’s childhood and cookies and surprises: memories flooding the mind. 

At that time, my momma’s Christmas tree was decorated beautifully with ornaments both old and new, standing proudly in the living room. I can see it in my minds eye filling the corner by the front door, the lights glowing with a beauty that’s hard to match at other other time of the year. 

On this particular night I wanted to be at her house desperately. But the snow was slowing me down. I was scared and frustrated. But I kept going. Moving forward with caution.

When finally I arrived in Arlington, Kentucky—in the wee hours of the morning, after an arduous journey from Bearcreek Farms in Indiana—I was met with an excitement I could actually feel in the air. For you see that was the year my aunt Cindy and her family spent Christmas at my momma’s house. I’ve seen my mom very happy on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day many many times—she has a childlike joy during the Christmas season—but that year was like a Brady Bunch Christmas. And as crowded and chaotic as it sounds like it could have been, it wasn’t.

It was amazing. 

I quietly walked into the house to find the living room floor strewn with blankets covering sleeping bodies, pillows supporting resting heads. Aunt Cindy awoke as did momma. They came into the living room where my sister, April, and cousins, Casey and Whit, had all stirred awake from a half slumber under those blankets. We sat talking in the glow of the white Christmas tree lights: alive, awake, happy. It couldn’t have been more special.

The snow fell that night. And Santa delivered his presents. The house was warm and filled with love. I don’t think the lights on that Christmas tree have ever been more dazzling.

Time spent together with the first people who love you is special and as we get older that time becomes more rare...and even more precious. 

As Christmas morning approaches take a second to step outside and feel the magic in the air on the Eve. Look at all the beauty. See it...before it disappears. Laugh, hug, eat, tell stories. Remember.

Merry Christmas 

Frozen, Broken, and Hearing the Lyrics for the First Time

I feel as if I heard the below lyrics for the very first time today, and in hearing them, I see exactly where I am in my life...

You only see what your eyes want to see
How can life be what you want it to be
You're frozen
When your heart's not open

You're so consumed with how much you get
You waste your time with hate and regret
You're broken
When your heart's not open

Mm, if I could melt your heart
Mm, we'd never be apart
Mm, give yourself to me
Mm, you hold the key

Now there's no point in placing the blame
And you should know I suffer the same
If I lose you
My heart will be broken

Love is a bird, she needs to fly
Let all the hurt inside of you die
You're frozen
When your heart's not open

Mm, if I could melt your heart
Mm, we'd never be apart
Mm, give yourself to me
Mm, you hold the key

I hold key but I'm stuck in a cycle of fear and self-loathing with a near continuous inability to be vulnerable. I seem to be unable to truly forgive and I never forget. I definitely feel broken, frozen, closed.

Subway Stories: An Observation Toward Forest Hills

He sat next to her on the hard, orange-colored seat in a Queens’s bound subway car, fanning her with a bright pink fan covered in white leaves. He was 65 if a day. The light glinted off his 80s style herringbone necklace. His beard and mustache were close-cropped, well taken care of. His backwards facing cap said Nike.

Her age was indeterminate. She might have been younger than he but from the looks of her, cigarettes and, I don't know, drugs maybe, had taken their toll. She was still attractive in a worn kind of way, but she seemed worn down, tired, but more than tired. She seemed spacey. She grabbed a scarf from her backpack and dabbed it across her face. I couldn't see the wetness she must have felt.

Her bleach blonde hair was brushed straight back from her face and gathered into a short ponytail. She was wearing all white. She looked fragile and vicious all at once.

The sores on her leg could have been from over-scratched insect bites. Or cigarette burns. Or they could have been the broken skin of a shin bashed too hard against a coffee table. But to me those glaring sores looked like puss-filled ulcerations the can result in over-active drug use.

Her face was made up. She seemed the type to never leave home without it. But it wasn't garish. Just enough. She knew what she was doing. Her eye lids were lined with long fake lashes that didn’t quite fill the expanse of the full lid. They were generously covered in black mascara, which accentuated the empty spaces on either side.

She leaned over to him and kissed him gently in the cheek. He turned his face so that his lips met hers. Another kiss. He loved her. I could tell. And she loved him. He continued to fan her, loose wisps of her bottle blonde hair blowing back and forth in his created breeze. 

I had heard her mention Forest Hills in her cigarette-choked voice when they first sat down on the train. But Forest Hills didn’t seem like their final destination. 

I never heard his voice, but watched him listen intently to every world she said, fanning, fanning. She closed her eyes and lay her head on his shoulder. I watched as he pulled the bottom of her shirt dress down over a thigh he must have felt was too exposed. He would protect her until he died. I knew it. I bet she knew it too, even if she did seem slightly languid at the time.

I wonder where they were going with their five bags of stuff? I wonder who they were? I’ll never know. 

Exit

Ivy's Revenge: A 30-Day Tweeted Serial...(And Scene)

Her anger frightened her. Her fear frightened her more. It was done. Blood covered her hands. She could feel splatters on her face. She steadied herself on buckling knees. The sweetness of her revenge warmed into nausea. She retched.

The hot bile violated her throat. She heard the sloshing sound as it hit the floor, a yellow marriage of fear and adrenaline. She watched as the pooling blood mingled with her sick, her heart racing. Each inhale of breath brought with it a sting and a gasp.

The red pool continued to widen around the head of Katie's limp body. The remains of the icicle jutting from her throat now barely visible. Warm blood had done its job. Blaine smiled as she watched the perfect murder weapon disappearing right before her eyes.

As the blood oozed toward her feet, she let go of the kitchen island she’d been using for support and stepped out of its lazy yet engulfing path. Her knees held, barely. She watched with hypnotic fascination as the surrounding white tiles drowned willingly.

As her pulse began to normalize she became immediately aware of the ambient sounds that up until then had been muffled by her pounding heart. There was chocolate bubbling in a saucepan on the stove. Its gurgling and popping mixing with the strings of...what?

She listened. She recognized those strings. Too many garden parties in her youth. Vivaldi, “Summer,” Movement 3, if she wasn’t mistaken. Those violins pierced the air with electricity. They represented hail or flies. She couldn’t remember which. Did it matter?

“So much drama,” she playfully said aloud of that particular movement. “I couldn’t have chosen a better theme song if I’d tried.” Her fear had lightened to relief. She stepped to the stove and removed the pan of chocolate from the burner, turning it off after.

“We wouldn’t want to burn the house down, now would we, ‘Katie’?” She venomously spat out the name as she looked over her right shoulder at the body lying on the floor. Katie’s eyes were open. Somehow that was creepier than the fact that she was dead.

Blaine continued to stare at Katie’s eyes, skeptically. She was completely creeped out. An icicle to the neck? Sure. No problem. But the open eyes of a dead woman made the ugly butterflies start to flutter in her gut. The music changed abruptly. Vivaldi fini.

From the twangy sound of an accordion, she thought it was something French. She rolled her eyes. Then someone started to sing. Edith Piaf, perhaps. She wasn’t sure. Bougie. What she was sure of was that she had to wash the drying blood from her face and hands.

To get to the sink Blaine realized she’d have to avoid Katie’s legs, which were lying parallel on the floor between the sink and kitchen island. She hugged the counter, edging her way to the right. She turned the water to hot and waited for the steam to rise.

It scalded her hands but she needed the angry violent wetness to wash away the dried residue of her anger, her revenge. As she splashed it on her cheeks, the burning brought with it stimulated nerve endings and tears—from pain, from release. Her body throbbed.

The tears continued as she reached for the yellow dish towel lying on the counter to dry her face and hands. Her pent-up rage was waning, the emptiness it left behind filled by a sense of elation. But the fucking tears...they carried sadness in their stream.

She’d carried her anguish for years. It was deeply rooted. But tears and sadness were not an option. She hated the dead woman lying on the kitchen floor. “So you go by ‘Katie’ now? Cute,” she said sneeringly. “Well, I found you Bethany Wakehurst. I found you.”

“And guess what, Bethany? Oh,” she paused, “May I call you that again?” she asked mockingly. “Anyway, I changed my name too. To Blaine. But I can tell you, I’m Ivy Wakehurst, Revenging Angel.” She laughed at herself. “I know you thought I was dead. Surprise!”

“And now, it’s you who’s dead.” Ivy smiled. “You left me unconscious in a burning house. From one woman to another, that was a shitty thing to do. Me surviving though? Twist. Yet here I am, standing over your dead body, by my hand, in your own house. Wow.”

“It’s crazy, right? I mean, it sounds like something you would do...plan revenge on the person who ruined your life.” She edged back down the counter toward the stove. She picked up the pan of chocolate and inhaled deeply. “I love the smell of chocolate. You?”

She took the stirring spoon that was lying next to the stove and swirled it around in the cooling chocolate. As she lifted a still warm dollop to her mouth she noticed the spoon rest said Somerston, Rhode Island. “Of course,” she said as she rolled her eyes.

“Of course you would have something from your past hidden in plain sight.” She lifted the spoon to her mouth and gently touched the chocolate to her upper lip. Cool enough. “You know, we’re both women scorned, me by you and you by me.” She ate a kiss of chocolate.

She closed her eyes in indulgence. “This chocolate is amazing,” She turned to look directly into Bethany’s dead blue eyes. “Did you add vanilla and salt to this?” She was back to the pan when she heard a gurgle from the floor. She froze. Fear seized her body.

Her stomach clinched. She dropped the spoon and watched the chocolate partially absorb it. A cold sweat mottled her body. She thought she might be sick again. She gripped the counter to steady her once again weakened knees. “She’s dead,” she reminded herself.

“She’s dead,” Ivy repeated the words to herself like a mantra. “You know she’s dead.” She took a deep breath then whipped herself around to face Bethany, still lying on the ground. Blood bubbles were foaming from the hole in her neck left by the melted icicle.

That sound was like something from a horror movie. Ivy thought she might take it to her grave. She could never unhear it. She shivered and grimaced. As her body began to relax once again she said to no one who could hear, “Revenge has too many side effects.”

The voice she now definitely recognized as that of Edith Piaf continued to sing what sounded like a mournful tune. “I lived in fear of you for a long time. But fear is a dark place. And my anger was just the light I needed to see me out of that darkness.”

Ivy picked up the yellow dish towel and carried it with her as she walked around the kitchen island. She avoided the now motionless pool as she bent forward and placed it over Bethany’s face to cover her soulless dead blue eyes. “Did you feel this euphoric?”

“I didn’t know how I was going to feel,” she continued. “But I haven’t felt this much bliss since the day I first kissed Christopher.” She lost herself in the memory of that day. She might’ve swirled there forever had it not been for the ring of the doorbell.

“Shit!” she said as she looked around the room. The icicle had melted. She hadn't stepped in the blood so there were no shoe prints. She quickly ran around the kitchen island and pulled open a drawer next to the stove. Bingo. Luck was on her side. Dishtowels.

She quickly took one from the drawer and began wiping the counter’s edge where she’d steadied herself getting to the sink. She wiped the handle of the drawer she’d just opened. She wiped the kitchen island where she’d kept her buckling knees from buckling.

The doorbell rang again. A sounding cry to escape. She began moving quickly, “90 miles an hour” she remembered her mother saying when Ivy had been moving too fast. She looked around the room. She saw the pan of chocolate. “The spoon!” She whispered to herself.

She breezed around to the other side of the island, grabbed the visible portion of the spoon that sat frozen in the suffocating chocolate, and wrapped it in the dish towel. “Time for me to go, Bethany.” Covering the knob, Ivy quietly slipped out the back door.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome

I have now come to believe that social media is extremely detrimental to my mental health.

Tweets with questions and clever thoughts get no response. Instagram posts where I try to say something honest and, in my mind, important, get no response. I try to be involved. I use the hashtags I think will send the tweet or Instagram pic to a community of people who would be willing and maybe even excited to start a conversation. Nothing happens. 

I call the feeling I feel when there's no response: Social Media Disinterest Syndrome. It's a heaviness. I can feel its weight depress upon my body. I can physically feel it change my mood.

Popularity has always been a desire. Crucify me if you want to. I wasn't popular in high school. I was the queer, the faggot, the joke. I was friends with some of the popular kids, but I never ascended to their ranks.

Why should this still matter to me? I don't know. I keep asking myself that question. I've been out of high school for 30 years and that past should have no relevance for the adult I've become. But try as I may to fight it, it does. I suffer from a lack of confidence and an inability to validate myself. I fear my own opinion being the wrong opinion. I fear criticism of said opinion and the confrontation that could follow. Could. I'm living in fear of something that hasn't, and mostly doesn't, fucking happen.

I want to be seen, but I want to hide more. I want to lift up my voice in protest but I want to remain under the radar.

Twitter and Instagram are reminders every day of my lack of popularity and an apparent inability to connect with people. And when I think about connection I am reminded that I don't connect easily IRL either.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome affects me every day. Yet I keep putting myself through it, hoping this day will somehow be different. If you're reading this, and you clicked on the link via Twitter, then you already realize I'm putting myself through it again today.

How many of us hope that strangers will validate us and fulfill our cravings? I know I'm not the only one. Likes and retweets and even comments create a dopamine effect.

More often than not I wish for the courage to leave my phone at home, or at least in my bag, and to disengage from all of it. I just want to deactivate it all like I deactivated my Facebook.

Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm out of touch. Maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am. Maybe I'm just not that interesting.

Maybe my expectations are just too high. This always leads to disappointment.

Social Media Disinterest Syndrome is a real thing for me. I am living with it...or surviving it. I don't know. It's exhausting.