Waterlick and Leesville

A portion of my life, nearly five and a half years to be precise, I spent laboring for a wage. I worked in a printing shop. We produced local and national publications and advertisements by the tens of thousands and often times into the millions. My shift was six at night until six the following morning for 7 days in a row. The seven days following I did not work. Most of the time I worked extra days during my seven days off and at one point I worked nearly three months straight without a day off. I would get home from work in the morning by seven, and be in bed and usually asleep no later than eight. The alarm on my phone would wake me up at one or half past one in the afternoon. If something else didn't wake me up, a neighbor mowing grass, an obnoxious census taker ringing the doorbell. This cycle repeated over and over. I began to get by on less and less sleep. I started to wake up earlier and earlier. I played first person shooters game after game. My closest friend was a cat named Babygirl, her brother Otis was less so.

Perpetually exhausted. I toiled, in exchange for a decent paycheck and healthcare. I had the job for four months before I got married. After three years I began to loathe my employment. No room for advancement, no raises given regardless of merit. I could not get off the night shift. I grew weary. Along my route to work in the evenings I had to pass through a four way intersection with a traffic light. Once, as I waited for the green light to illuminate above me, and as I gazed down the oncoming road ahead and saw the building I worked in, I had an epiphany.

I glanced to my left and right. Green Ford, barrelling through the intersection, 45 miles per hour. Opposite direction and a light blue Toyota truck flies past me at an easy 50. I stare intently now at the light beckoning my halt. I stare at the glowing unwavering red. Did it just get a little less bright? Is it starting to extinguish and turn off? I ease off the brake pedal and the small Mercury Mystique gently begins to roll forward at a snail's pace. That light is definetly on its way out. I pull my foot of the brake pedal completely and slide over to the accellerator. The red bulb is done, the green starts to illuminate and I press the skinny pedal down. The car enters the intersection.

There is no horn only screeching sliding tires. Its close to dusk, and the headlights are what actually catch my eye. The downward flash and then the darkness as the beams drop from shining into my window to shining against the passenger side doors of the Mystique. The timing is impeccable, and the initial impact is textbook "t bone". My head and body fly towards the oncoming car, held in place by my shoulder and lap belt. Ear smashed against right shoulder hard, instantly hot with pain. Metal shreiks and bends, the glass in the windows doesn't crack. The glass pops, just one finite loud pop, followed by the rain of crystals and the din of groaning rubber and sheet metal and plastic. The passenger front door pressed inward as the car slides sideways. I see shadows dance across the headliner as my skull rolls backward on my neck and shoulder. I close my eyes.

When my eyes open again there is young man leaning over me, a pen light shining into my pupils. I say nothing as he questions me, I just stare at his fuzzily outilined face. My eyes close again. Bright light and white drop ceiling tiles. The smell, clinical and sterile and devoid of perfume. Hospital noises and hospital people wearing hospital clothes. I grin slightly before the pain rushes forward and I wince instead.

At least I do not have to go work tonight I think, as the morphine takes me away.

Years would pass, and everytime I aproached this intersection I had to fight the urge to stare at that glowing red lens and wait for it to dim. Some nights the urge was harder to fight than others. Heading to work was a test with but one question, is time away from the job worth the risk. It wasn't until I began having this same debate on the way home, to where my wife was, that I realized something was wrong.

Minutiae

I barely hear what is being spoken at me, muffled inflection and high notes so I know when to nod in oblivious agreement. The sound of my keyboard is what I concentrate on while I stare at my computer monitor and it stares back at me. Blinking cursor, shitting out letters and numbers as it marches across one dialog box after another. Filling out forms with a myriad of specifications and personal information at the speed of synapse. Any given day can pass and I can type thousands of words and not once do I actually know what I am inputting. Names, dates, and addresses certainly but there is no chance of recalling this information as soon as a few seconds have passed.

My monitor owns my gaze. I rarely look away from it. I dive into the soul of my computer through the glowing panel in front of me. I imagine myself floating past circuit boards and wires and litte funny shapped resistors with colored bands. I am actually quite certain those are no longer used but it is my damned day dream. I twirl delicately through the digital air, finding my way into one of those cables that clutter the backstop of the counter top. Picking up speed now and twisting faster I bump along into the PC. Dust everywhere, lots of it. I choke and cough and sneeze, a fan blows my towards a motherboard or hard drive or graphics card. I do not know these parts. I do not care to know these parts. I drift towards the ethernet cable, the internet awaits. A bright and warm and enticing light envelopes me.

I hear a high note, glance up and make eye contact, force a smirk and give that reassuring nod. Fuck off, go away, I have piles of data to mindlessly input. Tapping on my keyboard, every so often I pound the enter key extremely hard for no other reason that to release frustration. I fly the irritated flag so high, it must be above the clouds because no one else seems to see it. If a flag flaps in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, well I digress. I want to egress, I can not. She still stands above me, I have given up explaning that I have a hard time hearing when she speaks. Perhaps she feels that if everything she says is a secret it makes her more important. My typing has stopped, I am not sure why. I glance down at my papers and take a second to inhale a long slow breath. A flash of light on my monitor screen, reflection from the glass behind me. I look back expecting to see a customer vehicle pull in, my heart rate increases my stomach turns into a twisted knot of fire and ache. My pupils get small and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. There is nobody there, no customer, no demon, and nothing happening. I return my gaze to my dreamy liquid crystal display and start to find my way back.

Back to that glowing warm portal to the outside world. The light is intense and bright but I don't need to squint or cover my eyes. I feel weightless as I drift through and become completely drenched in the freeing rays. I'm hovering now over the earth as seen through Google Maps. West Virginia, gorgeous green, mountain covered and river riddled. Friendsville, Maryland with its small town and huge appeal. I float lower and lower, small ripples in the great green country side become larger and rivers become wider. I cruise up the Yough river valley, north toward Ohiopyle, past Deep Creek Lake. Cool mountain air rushes past me and flattens my shirt against my chest. I am amongst the trees, soaring with the birds like Peter Pan. Do not judge me, this is my damned day dream. Lightning, fast and sharp our of nowhere.

The door behind me and to my left swings open and the light flashes across my monitor. I glance quickly, face blank but a fake smile ready to deploy at a moment's notice. Just another co worker. Good morning, the weather is great, sell some cars so on and so forth. Pleasantries with no meaning aside from cursory politeness to those we force ourselves to work with. My heart has already raced back up to high gear, stomach returning to its tightened state. Damn it can't I have just five minutes. I close my eyes for a second and stop typing. Tilting my head side to side my neck cracks, what sensational relief.  I open my eyes, she is still standing there, muttering and yammering. I shrug my shoulders, it coincides nicely with a high note, but ultimately it is just me resigning myself to having to hear more of those noises. Deep breath, nice and slow.

I lift up from the valley of the Yough river. Turning south and pulling far back up into space. I spin South and find Fayeteville. Gliding high above the plateau I hover for a second over the New River Gorge Bridge. People jump from this thing, that's insane. I drop down and fly under the bridge feeling like Will Smith in Independance Day chasing aliens. Swinging down by the river I fly so close the spray from the waves at Fayette Station splash onto my face. So refreshing and so cleansing this water is, it must have been created with some bigger purpose in mind than just to form valleys. I can see rafts and kayaks and canoes, I see campers and hikers. I see smiles and clear heads and happiness. I slow to a hover and touch down on the bank of the New River. I strip of my shirt and pants and dive in. Cold water, my body absorbs the shock and I surface to gasp at air. I catch my breath and head back under, opening my eyes and seeing blurry rocks and plants, such beauty and peace. A bright flash catches my eye, a large fish off to my left.

The door swings back shut, faux smile locked and loaded. Stomach bound and heart in my throat. My 10:30 appointment just arrived.

Letter to the Island Dweller

Dearest Island Dweller,

 

 How are you recently? I know it seems a question more of formality than genuine interest. I assure you it is not. I am curious and I do want to know. Do not answer yet though, there is more to my question. I could not care less if you are feeling a cold coming on. I do not wish to hear about your lower back pain. I certainly am not looking to entertain a conversation on the latest outcome of "college x's" sports team.

 How ARE you recently? How do you exist? The minerals that make up your body, are they the same as mine? When you inhale to breath do you exhale the same as I? You're existence seems so distant from my own. It is as if I observe you, not just from the shore while you inhabit an island, but from a satellite moon whilst you inhabit the terra forma. What planet do you call home? If your home really is where your heart is, where is that? Can you get there from here, and will GPS take me? Should I Google your whereabouts?

 I spend a lot of time looking inward, inside the cavernous skull that houses my brain. The thought factory. I can crank out thought after thought after thought like so many batches of instant macaroni and cheese. Endlessly adding the same amount of milk and butter and stirring the same amount of that God awful yellow powder in. None of these thoughts are from my heart. Do you think from your heart Island Dweller? Can one think from the heart? Feelings are so hard to decipher. My heart speaks Francais, my brain is stuck in English. How can you follow feelings you don't understand? Have you figured out a way to understand them all? If my heart says two different things how am I to know which is the correct choice?

 I have so many more questions. Practical and impractical. Tangible and abstract. I hope to hear back from you, perhaps even soon. I know on the ever winding path that you walk, that this a trying time of change and transistion. I am at the trailhead of a winding path for myself now, and hope to keep your company through this correspondence as I wander.

  

  Have Canoe, Will Ramble,

  PB

That time I dreamt I was my own hero

Six forty four and fifty seven seconds.

The amount I have had is enough.

Six forty five. I am awake 3 seconds before I hear my phone vibrating next to my head. Reaching over to find my phone without lifting my head from a mildly comfortable pillow is futile. The night before when laying down to go sleep I purposely placed this device far enough away as to force myself to have to actually move to get it to stop its annoying vibrating. Rarely is the time when I allow the vibration to lapse into full on alarm. Those shitfuck horrible sounds meant to arouse without the misery that is associated with the typical clock radio alarm din.They fail, and flail, and ding and ring and fuck that noise.

The amount I have had is enoug.

Exit the bed. Now. Not five minutes from now. NOW. Shower quickly, just enough to wet the thick hair adorning my head. I need it tamed and combed. Teeth scrubbed, hair trigger gag reflex tested, it is still there and a I still gag. I dry off as best I can. I take my nexium, modern wonder drug that keeps my body from digesting itself from the esophagus out. Washed down with water left over from last nights bedside glass, ignoring that reflective rainbow film across the top and just knocking it back. Deodorant, marketed towards someone in search of a smell that will attract females by the herd, women ready to mate based on olfactory alone. This is not my grandfather's old spice.

The time is seven ten.

The amount I have had, is enough.

Seven eleven and I'm searching for clean underwear, they are blue and relativley new so they still fit fairly well. Pants are next, shitfuck cheap dress slacks provided by THEM. Three damned buttons. THREE FUCKING BUTTONS, and a zipper. Cool white, or what used to be white, tee shirt. The chill from the cotton on my chest causes my nipples to tighten, its not an altogether unpleasant feeling. I have always enjoyed slipping into fresh clothes after a shower. Clean smooth skin against clean smooth cotton and nylon and denim and khaki and these shitfuck cheap dress slacks even. Socks, I nearly forgot about socks. I bend over fumbling through the drawer. I have had enough, but I want good socks today. New socks have so much more cushion and elasticity and support. There are no fucking new socks this morning. Old socks, worn at the heals to near opacity. Socks with holes in the toes, elastic torn, shitfuck socks that fall down around your ankle in those obnxious bunches. A lifeless pair of socks chosen and applied, no pleasure found in putting them on. I do not wish to talk about the socks.

Seven thirteen.

The amount I have had is very nearly too much.

I have been awake barely half of an hour. I turn towards the closet. Hanging like straight jackets ready to wrangle the lunatic into submission. So many asylum orderlies standing about face looking into a blank wall of the closet, ready to stifle my wild urges. White, collared, buttons from bottom to top, each button a nail in the coffin of that man of epic worthlessness. So many of these shirts. A shirt for each day, a bullet for each head. I grab the first and swing it on and around me. My fingers working each button while inside I hear nails scraping, dragging across the floor of my mind. I removed the shirt from the closet and on its hanger I placed my soul.

Seven thirteen and thirty seconds.

The amount I have had.

The amount I have had is, is too much.

Shirt tucked in, belt laced and buckled. Truck started, traffic cut off, hard on the gas and the engine rages as the rear tires spin. RED FUCKING LIGHT. There is a red shitfuck of a light ahead of me. The truck stops. I can feel my belt buckle digging into my stomach. The light is eternally RED. Some idiot behind me beleives that the closer they get to my rear bumper the faster the light will turn green. This theory is a foolish one. RED. Noone at the intersection is moving. Green finally, out of the corner of my eye. Just the corner because I am staring intently at the forehead of the person behind me in my rear view mirror. I imagine them in a straight jacket, bouncing off of cushioned walls. They cackle about how traffic lights react to impatient drivers as they try to bite thier own ear and slam into the padded door. HORN. I hear the horn and see the maniacal gaze being returned to me in my rear view mirror. I make the right turn and I can see the place I work.

Seven twenty nine.

Somehow the truck is parked. Somehow I am inside the building staring at a computer monitor that I claim is mine. I am certain that the Monitor also claims me the same way. I wonder privately who is correct. I have no definitive answer. I have clocked in. Announced to the workplace that I AM HERE.

Seven thirty.

Too much.

I begin to shake. Not a chill, or a shiver. I can not keep my fingers on the appropriate keys. Typing jibberish instead of commands and customer complaints. The first smiling face arrives, they forgot the smile. The face asks for the world. I promise the world. I know I can only deliver a pebble, a small part of the world, it will not be enough.

Seven forty.

The amount I have had is more than I can continue to endure. I am done.

I rise from my seat, it rolls backwards into the counter top behind me. The drawer which holds my truck keys and wallet is ripped open. Keys and wallet removed and deposited into my pocket. Left ajar, the drawer is a glimpse into my day, adrift amongst the pens are nickels and straws and pennies and pistachios and a fiber bar. The concrete jungle warrior's survival kit, cellular phone charging cable included. I pull up on the straight jacket yanking the tails out of my waistband of these shitfuck dress pants. The first door swings open with a smack of my palm and slams against the wall as it swings all the way around. I wish the glass had broken, I wish the wall had fallen. The top button of the straight jacket is undone and the second is on its way. Dead stop. A pause. Perhaps for dramatic effect as I decide to say fuck it and go full superman on my straight jacket. Pop pop pop pop pop the buttons fly. Walking, slowly, with confidence I have not had since my high school wrestling days. The straight jacket flung open and the tails swinging in the breeze. I roll my shoulders back and flip the collar off my neck. The straight jacket falls off my right arm and my left hand balls up the white stranglehold.

Seven forty one.

The straight jacket, white with starched and formed collar and pearlescent buttons, lays upon the dark black paved parking lot of the asylum. A gentle breeze blows across the lot and the straight jackets moves ever so lightly. Tiny bits of gravel and sand bounce onto and off of the sleeves. A roaring noise is growing and with it there is a shrill squealing sound. The breeze blows and the sound grows, not high pitched but shrill nonetheless. The front tire of the truck rolls quickly over the shirt, the tread pattern outlined in gravel dust and parking lot dirt. Rear tire now, spinning faster than the truck is driving, smoke rolling off the rubber as it melts from the heat. The shirt is flung backwards, torn and ripped and ruined.

Seven forty two.

The amount I have had is ever increasing.

I am at my desk and my eyes blink back open. The computer monitor that I claim as mine, and that in turn claims me as its own stares back.

Seven forty three.

Seven forty four.

Seven forty five.......

The Guide: Final Descent

You’ll burn for this Scout Master.

He leveled his rifle, eye down the barrel, finding the Guide’s chest in the sight.

No Hendrick, we shall both of us burn.

His voice echoed through the darkening twilight woods. The light odor of kerosene being wafted into his nostrils as he inhaled deeply. The wind was blowing directly on him, as he had hoped it would, carrying the vapors of the fuel with it and away from the mountain man standing  with rifle pointed at his chest.

Silence enveloped the forest. The trees groaned in the breeze. Somewhere an angry squirrel screamed out, eliciting further screams from his compatriots.

The last sound he heard was so much like that final smell. Crisp, definitive, and final. The hammer came down against the primer with a snap. The primer exploded into the shell igniting the propellant. The signal flare embedded itself into the kerosene soaked forest floor of pine needles and fallen leaves. The fire overwhelmed. He ran as fast as he could, straight towards that flare between the awestruck and bewildered hillbilly’s legs. The flare gun dropped to the forest floor and from the back of the waistband came the broken paddle shaft with the t-grip. Jagged and sharpened, pressed deep and hard into Hendricks belly. Twisting and pushing with the grip doing as much damage as possible.

Thick smoke from burning wet leaves, strong waves of evaporating kerosene, they soon hit the turf. A loud grunt from the impact. The Guide had expected more of a fight, had expected his plan to go completely awry. Instead Hendrick lay there beneath him, slowly wheezing, his eyes wandering wildly at the canopy and the rising smoke. Hands fallen from the guides back and splayed outward, an obscene forest floor angel. Fire beginning to singe his shirt and burn his finger tips, circling both of them and beginning to rage. The Guides face planted in the dirt and leaves, smelling of earth and life and death and decay. Smelling of Hendrick and his dying breaths, of his unwashed clothes, of his intestines. Pushing himself back up and gathering his knees beneath him while straddling the dying man. He looked skyward, tendrils of smoke reaching towards the browning canopy, leaves falling and riding the waves of heat from below.

The Guide hadn’t heard it.

Must have been the same time I fired the flare, or was it while I charged this shit heap of a dying man?

His chest was warm. His breathing labored. His hand fell away from his ribs wet and scarlet, pink bubbles forming from the red that spread from where his shirt was torn away. Light headed and confused he halfway stood, then lay down on the ground abruptly. In his pocket was the wristband she gave him for safe keeping. The Guides right pocket, where his hand weakly dug so that he could feel that rubbery little bracelet. Somehow he knew that by touching it, by knowing the feeling of those engraved little letters that spelled her name that she would know too. It was done, his promise fulfilled, no more little ones would lose anything to that monster. No more little ones would be scared into silence anymore. It ended here, in flame and smoke. He hoped, with his last breath and his last thought, that he would be hollering all ahead full and smiling at her again soon as she bounced up and down on the raft and cackled hysterical laughter. Soon, he thought, soon.

Passion and paddling.

This was originally intended for use in a magazine that was to be published by a friend. As is happens with the best laid plans life got in the way. I like what I had put together and waited until after I knew whether or not it would be published to publish it this way. Thanks for reading. - Beardedcanoeist

Countless are the passions which we pursue. Each as unique as the individual that pursues them. How do we choose those things that drive us? How do we define exactly what our goals are? These questions are some of the few that came to mind when the opportunity to participate in this experiment “Tattoo America”, came along.

Now before I dive head long into a diatribe about my passions,  let me introduce myself. I was raised in Campbell County, VA.  Although born north of the Mason-Dixon, I consider myself a Southerner (by choice and by heart). I have a few names, Matthew is the most common and least offensive. My parents, who are amazingly supportive of me through all my troubles, are still married. I, however, am no longer married. Which may be why at thirty years old I am taking chances that many so close to middle age would not.

Now please do not misunderstand, I do not for a minute believe I can completely describe myself in just a paragraph of impersonal details. There is more to me than where I was raised and how old I am.  There is more to you, than ink on skin or what is in your camera bag. When discussing what would be my contribution with a fellow contributor I was at a loss.

“What should I write about? Tattoos or people who get them, or my own?”

“Write about whatever you want to”

Those words can cripple a writer just as fast as they can set one free. Sometimes we all need a little nudge in the right direction, or any damned direction for that matter. So here I sit, typing away on a laptop that is easily seven years old and on it’s last legs. Hoping my little Dell does not just freeze up and lose all my work so far. So I have decided to write about “passion” in this installment, of what I hope becomes a series. I feel you can learn more about a person through what they are passionate about then any questionnaire.

What are my passions? Simple question, just four words. The answer is less so. The first thing that comes to my mind is a single word: river. I cannot honestly recall the first time I encountered a river, nor can I recount for you the first trip I made down one. I know it was the James, the very same that flows right through Downtown Lynchburg and eventually Richmond. My chubby butt planted firmly in a truck tire tube, soaking up the sun and bobbing gently down the small rapids and riffles. It was tremendous fun. All except the rash you would get on your arms from paddling and rubbing wet skin against black rubber. That was not fun. I would leave the river for many years. High school sports kept me busy all Summer as well as Spring. Post graduation the little bit of college education I earned and working took the rest of my time. I finally was reunited when I took up fishing. I no longer fish, lets just leave that subject for another time.

My passion for the river really ignited the first time I paddled a canoe solo. It was not a good boat, inexpensive and unresponsive. Ridiculously heavy and far too wide. I went through another boat of ill conceived purpose before I stumbled across what I really wanted. My first whitewater canoe is nearly as old as I am. Built in 1986 and showing the physical signs of a boat that has been enjoyed and abused (these are the same thing in the whitewater community). I could spend days regaling details and specifications and notable achievements obtained in this hull design, but I digress. My passion is not in the details.

Whitewater paddling is fun. If it is not fun, then you are doing it wrong. After my best days on the river I drive home with a huge shit eating grin on my face and sore shoulders and hands. Recently I had one of these days. Instead of simply paddling down my favorite section of river one time, as was planned, I went back for seconds. Paddling into a stiff headwind the first time, and a much more developed headwind the second lap. Carving hard u turns into small eddies and delicately side surfing below a ledge. Zig zagging back and forth across the whole width of the river to pick and choose which features I would play in. The sun was warm and pleasant and the cold water felt absolutely refreshing. Halfway down on my first lap I removed my paddling shirt and let the warmth settle into my bones around my pfd. Starting my second lap I could feel the sunburn starting to settle in. I am an avid sunscreen user, but this day was just too perfect. A day worth the risk. A time not worth spoiling with concern, self doubt or other worries. I could look down and see the rocky river bed passing beneath me. Look skyward and see countless birds playing in the updraft just as I played down in the stream.

During dark times in my life, I would find myself sitting alone in my truck, overlooking some familiar section of stream. Quietly watching the hours flow like the water. The sun setting and the reflection of it on the waters rippled and broken surface dancing slower and lower. Our lives are like rivers. There are rough waters and flat pools of tranquility and solace. Steep drops that are over quickly, in the blink of an eye. Long running wave trains that seem to go on forever. Wherever I find myself on the river that is my life, I take solace in the fact that just ahead and around that bend is another river feature. Maybe that feature is an exciting rapid or perhaps flat-water with a fierce headwind, either way I know I how to get past it. Words of wisdom from an extremely talented paddler I admire, “Don’t stop paddling.” I may not paddle the steepest canyons, the biggest rivers or the tightest creeks. However, I do paddle with passion and for me, for right now, that is just fine.

Thoughts on Independence

He sits in a small, but comfortable one bedroom apartment.
Reasonably Priced he says.
Small So I Don’t Waste Money On Accoutrements he says.


He sits in a small, but comfortable one bedroom apartment.
I Don’t Need Much he says.
Things Are Not Important To Me he says.

He sits in a Small, but comfortable one bedroom apartment.
Creaking Noises From Upstairs Are Fine he says.
Loud Rude Voices Outside The Locked Door Are OK he says.

He sits in a small, but Comfortable one bedroom apartment.
No One Says Hello he says.

He Sits in a small, but comfortable one bedroom apartment.
No One Else Is Here he says.

He sits Alone, in a small, but comfortable one bedroom apartment.