beautiful, funny, sad & true

Roll Out Cowboy from Roll Out, Cowboy on Vimeo.

Last night I had an especially detailed, bizarre and beautiful dream.

* * * * *

I’m at my dad’s house (although he’s not my real-life dad) watching some television show about government secrets, everything from technology to covert special-ops agencies.  Just for fun, I decide to grab a piece of paper and write down some of the things that are mentioned on the show, so I can check them out on the internet some other time.  My dad comes home, and he has a couple of friends with him who I’ve not met before.  They walk into my dad’s home office room and close the door behind them.  I walk into the kitchen, and just as I do, I hear a snippet of their conversation, and they’re talking about these same secret agencies.  I compare the names to the ones I’ve written on the notepad, and they match up perfectly.  This is how I come to realize that my dad works for one of these agencies.

I leave and go home to my place, which is a small building of one-bedroom apartments that’s located on the edge of a bluff overlooking the ocean.  I live near the end of the row; there’s only one apartment behind mine, and then the hillside slopes down toward the parking lot, with another bluff behind that.  So our building is built on a jetty, of sorts, that sticks out into the ocean.  It’s a beautiful place, but very isolated, and the only other person who’s ever around is the guy who lives in the unit behind mine, at the back of the building.  His name is Raymond Hsu, a Chinese-American guy about my own age, who is very quiet and reclusive.  He’s a computer guy, and spends long hours programming.  His apartment is immaculate, and it’s obvious that he takes great pride in living there.  He has a little white cat who often comes over to visit me, but I never see Raymond and the cat together at the same time.  After a while, I begin to wonder about this non-coincidental coincidence, and finally reach the conclusion that Raymond is the cat. He can somehow morph from human form into cat form, and I am determined to find out how he does it.

The next time the cat comes over, I say, “Hello, Raymond.”  The cat looks surprised, turns away, and walks back into his own apartment.  A minute later, Raymond walks outside to where I’m standing against the railing, looking out to sea.  “So,” he says, “you’ve discovered my secret.”

“For a while now I’ve thought this was the case, but I didn’t exactly know how to bring it up.  I just had to test my theory.  Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret safe.”

“I’m too shy to interact much with people,” he says, “but I know you like cats, and I figured that would be a safe way for us to meet, even though you didn’t really know what was going on yet.  But you figured it out.  Well done.”

He invites me into his apartment, where he pours two glasses of white wine, hands one to me, and shows me around.  His comfortable living room has a view of the ocean on two sides, and there are long tables of computers and monitors and bookshelves that run the length of each wall, underneath the windows, so he can gaze out the window while he’s working.  I tell him this is by far the nicest home office I’ve ever seen.

“Thank you,” he replies.  “I decided at some point that if I was going to work from home, I ought to make my home as beautiful and enjoyable as I could.  I was very lucky to find this apartment.”

“I agree,” I say.  “I love living here.”

“You’re welcome to stop by any time.  Really.  No matter what form I’m taking.”  We both laugh a little.

A woman of undeterminable age suddenly appears on the sidewalk outside our apartment building to speak with Raymond.  Actually, that’s not entirely accurate; it’s as if her age is fluctuating between ten and fifty years, slowly but perceptibly.  Her face has a greenish tinge to it that is also fluctuating.  I see her a handful of times over the next few weeks, sometimes alone and sometimes with a friend or two, and they seem to be interviewing Raymond.  Her two friends are also of fluctuating age, so I assume they are related somehow.

A few days later, while I’m out walking on the beach, I discover the nature of their interviews when I see the four of them (Raymond, the woman and two slightly younger men) in the surf, talking quietly.  The woman seems to have the ability to change herself into a frog, Raymond into a cat, and the two men have similar abilities that aren’t apparent.  I wave to Raymond and walk over to join their group.  He introduces me to Rachel and the two men.  They look a bit concerned about my presence there, but Raymond reassures them, “He’s okay.  He knows about me.”  His features become slightly more feline for a few seconds, but he retains his human form, to show me how he does it, and that he’s in control of it.  Rachel, who is the ten-year-old version of herself, starts to change to a frog, then reverses it in the same way that Raymond did.

These people are their own separate race of shape-shifters.  Rachel and the two men explain to me that they’ve been looking for others like them for quite some time, without success, so when they found out about Raymond, they wanted to be sure that he was one of The People, so they interviewed him at great length.  So far, I’m the only one outside of their race who knows of their existence.  I tell them I’m prepared to keep it that way, if that’s what they want.

The dream changes just then, and I’m back at my dad’s house watching that show again; this episode is about a series of factories in which aliens disassemble humans and rebuild them from the separate parts.  They create these humanoid creatures, and then they pull out human eyes and cut off human noses and ears, whereupon they attach them to the hideous creatures they’re creating.  This is apparently one of the secrets the government is keeping. The show continues, and talks about veterans of the armed forces who have lost body parts in various wars, and who have been restored using this kind of technology.  The process requires massive amounts of medication in order to keep the vets alive.  Most of these men are little more than deformed vegetables, whiling away their lives on beds in remote hospitals.  Some can be seen and heard crying loudly, some are merely lying prostrate and silent.  One complains into the camera about having seen people who could change into animals while he was in Iraq, and then he spirals off into stream-of-consciousness gibberish, but I decide that my new friends need to know about this.

I go back home.  Raymond sees me, comes out, and asks if I’d like to go for a walk.  “Sure,” I say, and shut the door behind me.  We walk along a narrow, curvy highway that runs along the edge of the cliff beyond the jetty on which our building is located.  He tells me he’s gay, and asks if we can hold hands.  I don’t see a problem with this, so I agree, and we hold hands the way children do, without the fingers interlocked.  He says, “That’s very nice of you.  Gay guys always want more, like kissing and all that, but sometimes it’s nice just to hold hands.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me,” I tell him.  “I’m not gay, so I don’t go for the kissing or anything, but holding hands seems like it’s harmless enough.  Besides, you’re a shape-shifter; it would never work between us.”   I laugh.

Suddenly there is lots of traffic on the highway, and we have to let go and walk single-file.  There’s been an oil spill of some sort on the road, and it’s very slick, so much so that we’re having difficulty walking, and we almost slide over the edge of the cliff a couple of times.  A truck barrels down on us, and I grab Raymond’s hand and jump into the air with him in tow behind me.  We are flying over the ocean and over various parks and places that look like they’d be safe – albeit uncomfortable – places to land.  I’m unable to land, however, so we just keep flying until we come to a place where a small river meets the ocean.  Rachel is sitting in the sand next to the river.  She sees us and waves, and I’m able to land near her.  Raymond and I land feet first and knee-deep in the mud alongside Rachel.  She claps and laughs, telling us that was an excellent landing.  Raymond and I are laughing too, and we extricate ourselves from the mud and trudge down into the river to wash the mud off ourselves.

We climb out of the river and start to walk along a path in the adjoining park.  I tell the two of them about the vet I saw on TV who seems to have seen more people like them.  We talk about how dangerous it would be to go over to Iraq, and Rachel asks, somewhat sarcastically, “Why couldn’t they be somewhere nice that’s NOT a war zone?  Why do they have to be there, of all places?”

Rachel leaves us then, and we walk home, not holding hands this time.  I decide it’s probably not the smartest idea to encourage that very often.  We arrive at home and walk down into the parking garage behind our building.  There are these huge wooden beams that support the roof over our cars, and beyond the parking lot is a small grassy area.  We walk through the wooden beams toward the grass, and as soon as we get to the grass, a very strange feeling comes over me.

“I’ve seen this before,” I tell Raymond.  “I’ve watched this discussion happen, but I’ve seen it from a different vantage point. . .from over there!”  I point to a spot in the distance, toward a group of houses nestled along the edge of the wooded hillside, trying to work out how and when this could have occurred.  Am I a time traveler, or am I merely hallucinating?  I don’t feel as though I’m hallucinating, so the answer seems to be that I’m a time traveler.

This my new favorite 1950’s song; “Just Multiply” by Varetta Dillard. The electric guitar part is particularly noteworthy and awesome.

At lunch, Sister-in-Law told Niece that she’d always love her, until the end of time.

“When’s that?” Niece asked.

I chimed in with the type of random comment for which I’m famous (or maybe infamous) in my family.  “I’ve been watching Doctor Who – which is all about time – and the end of time is the year five billion and something.”

There was a slight pause while everyone gave that comment the merit that its gravitas deserved.

“Uncle Todd,” said Niece, quietly.

“Mm hm?”

“No one’s laughing.”

Suddenly, everyone was laughing.

I saw this on Craigslist and thought it was extremely insightful (and well-written), so I wanted to share it here to spread the word and to save it for posterity, since CL postings only stay up for a week.

There was a large party in NW on Saturday night. I was talking to two friends I hadn’t seen in over a year, when you came up and starting throwing the charmer moves. You had one of those family names that were at one point male, but are now usually female, like Ashley (but not Ashley) – and you felt the need to interject a few defensive sentiments about it, even though no one was ridiculing you. Then you introduced yourself to me, held on to my hand a little too long, and really started with the praise.

“You’re so beautiful! So radiant!”  So this! So that!

You were at least fifteen years older than me, and this level of come-on was too much, so I inched closer to my friend. You remained on the porch, dramatically telling everyone about your likes and interests. “I am an actor!” you declared. Obviously, not a great one. “I love theatre! I love Shakespeare! I have studied Shakespearian theatre!” You never mentioned anywhere you actually studied or any show you’d actually participated in, and I knew that you were lying. You asked me my feelings about Shakespeare, and whether I had studied anywhere.

“I have a master’s in literature,” I said. “I’ve read a fair amount of Shakespeare.” For emphasis, I recited a few sonnet lines.  Meanwhile, my friends got up off their bench and went inside, saying they’d meet me momentarily. You sat down where they had been sitting, moved way the heck over to one end, and extended your arm in an invitational gesture. I kept standing, moving closer to the door.

“Well,” I said – and reached for the handle.

“Listen,” you said. “I have a question for you.”

I turned around. You were trying to pin me with your eyes.

“Do you know what the two greatest discoveries of science are?” you said.

“Uh,” I said. “I think that’s probably somewhat subjective.”

And out of nowhere, you underwent the trademark I-Am-A-Wife-Beater Jekyll/Hyde transformation, and you started shouting at me.
“You think that science is subjective?” you yelled. “Can’t you even recognize the truth? You can’t even admit the truth?”

“You appear to be angry,” I said. This obviously made you more angry, as you started shouting even louder.

“All of you women and your high and mighty shit – I am educated! I know what I’m talking about! You can’t even look at the truth! You won’t see the truth!” And then you launched into a sentence that I doubt I’ll correctly replicate (and I doubt you could, either) – but it went something like this: “The spherical unity of the nature of humanity must absolutely be subjected to universal correctness.”

Then, you started – is it challenging? – me. “Define universal correctness!” you yelled at me. “Define universal!”

“Hm,” I said. “I think I’d rather not engage the anger.”

Meanwhile, your very out-of-context and loud shouting had attracted the attention of two girls down the porch stairs, and another one of my friends came up to us on the porch and stationed herself in front of you, more or less between us.  “What’s up?” she said.  So you started shouting at her.

“Can you accept universal truths?!” you shouted.

“Um,” she said. “I don’t know.”

It was at this point that you reached into the box of Coors Light sitting on the bench next to you, took out a beer, shook it, and proceeded to cover my friend and the two girls at the bottom of the porch with beer. Ironically, the one person who had pissed you off – me – was far enough to your side so that you missed me completely, and wound up soaking the one person who hadn’t been talking to you at all.

Luckily, you’d come to a generally drama-free group. Now that the finality of your stupid action occurred to you, you were temporarily stunned into silence, and my friend held up the hem of her shirt, looked at you, and said, “Look at this. Look at what you did.”

You started yelling again, and she interrupted you.

“Look again. Look at this. Look at what you did. Look around. Why did you do this?”

Surprisingly, you actually did look, this time. There was a long silence. Then, still holding on to the hem of her shirt, she said, “Now, apologize.”

There was another long silence. Finally, you cupped your hands in front of you like Oliver Twist, and in the most sarcastic tone you could manage, said, “I’m sorry.” But then you didn’t say anything further. You got up, and then defeated, you left, probably to continue scouring the city for prey.

—

I feel for women who encounter men like this, and don’t recognize the patterns of abusive behavior. It’s always the same, and the great thing about alcohol is that one gets to see the Ugly Faces of Drunks long before one ever would in a regular social situation. Ashley, the second you opened your insecure mouth and actually thought you could start an argument over something as ridiculous as the “Two Greatest Discoveries of Science”, you morphed in front of my eyes, from a human into a thing – a lab rat – a situation to be studied and analyzed for further emphasis. See Abnormal Psychology section 4. Put the rat in the maze and see how agitated it gets when it isn’t sure which route to take. Shock it whenever it pets a white rabbit. Look – it’s fulfilling the characteristics for eventual violent relationships.

The thing is, I know you – and based on my very profession – I’ve read works by my students that, terms and years apart, repeat the same systematic patterns that eventually led to broken bones and black eyes. Ashley, I had a student hold up a hand to a thick black scar that disappeared underneath her eyebrow, and say, “My ex-husband. He didn’t like the beer I got, so he broke one of the bottles on my face.”

My grandfather always said, “Beware of charmers. Charmers are liars.”  And they are. They are predators and their women are prey. They seek women who need to be validated – usually intelligent but insecure; usually with a history of a nurturing, caretaking role – ones that are willing to forgive. And it always starts the same, and ends the same. Oh, Ashley.  You’re not only a thing, you’re a thing that’s a statistic! Here are the combined stories of maybe fifteen students out of over one thousand, who lived this life.  Sound like yours?

Shower her with flowers, gifts, compliments. All eyes on you, girl. You are the central star in the sky, you are the light of his life and fire of his loins, you are with somebody who cares enough to shower you with flowers. And you buy it – the compliments, the flattery – you don’t see why being the only thing in someone’s world is ultimately destructive, and you don’t see that pretty words and pretty things mean nothing. Instead, you’re finally the one that has the attention – *his* attention.

And usually, the first slip-up is accidental, or non-physical. He says something utterly disrespectful and tasteless, out of nowhere. One of my friends was with a guy for four weeks, and one day they were watching TV, when he said, “You know, all you’re good for is sex.” When she was late for work, he started throwing cold glasses of water on her face in the morning. And it STILL took her another two months to leave him.

Or he throws something and in the process, it just *happens* to hit you. A vase. A porcelain doll. Immediately he apologizes, he’s just got X and Y stressing him out at work, you know how much he loves you, yada yada. You think it was a random event but lady, there are no random events. Everything goes back to wonderful-cookies-and-puppies for a while.

And then one day, just when you’ve adjusted, you iron the wrong dress shirt or misplace the ballpoint pen, and he explodes, and strikes you, or pushes you. It’s brief, and when the color comes back to his eyes, he apologizes profusely.  It’ll never happen again; just the one time. And by this point, you’ve been with this guy long enough so that he’s a longtime boyfriend, fiance, or even husband, so you forgive this event because you feel that you have to. You tread on eggshells. It was your fault, after all.  You’re the one who misplaced the ballpoint pen. You’re always giving him a hard time when he’s had a hard day.  Hell, you couldn’t even remember what kind of beer he liked, that’s why he hurt you!  So for several months everything readjusts, and when you’ve finally convinced yourself that it was just The One Time, it happens again.

Of course, there are other issues he gradually develops.  He hates himself, woman, and he wants you to hate yourself as much as he hates himself every moment of every day. He hates you talking to your family and friends, and he’s usually distant and angry, so you start spending less time with your mom on the phone, less time with your friends on your days off. If you come home late, he accuses you of running around, even though you’re way too scared of him to consider it.

So anyway, one of two things happens. Either the man succeeds in damaging the woman’s self-confidence so thoroughly that she essentially becomes a thing and a statistic, a shell – or she eventually realizes that the guy is a horror and takes off.

That’s you, Ashley. And the second that your eyes became swollen with rage over nothing, I saw my students’ stories written across your face. At heart, you are a weakling, and you couldn’t very well perform an act of physical violence without being beaten to a pulp by the men who actually lived at the house. So, you did the next best thing appropriate for an insecure dumbass; you attacked – with beer! And then, drunk and dumb, you sat there blinking.

You aren’t most men, Ashley. Most men, at the very least, aren’t violently-inclined Frankensteins, and in my experience, most are just good, everyday folk. And it’s true that there are plenty of abusive women out there. However, if a man resorts to fisticuffs, he’s likely to cause more damage. I’m under 100 pounds. I can no more physically battle an average 150-pound guy than he can hope to get pregnant someday. Unless, of course, your balancing tool of choice is a Colt 45.

Ashley, I wanted to tell you that I pity you. Pathetic – a man nearly my father’s age so insecure about himself, that he has to argue over large, irrelevant issues to feel like he’s not the loser that he knows he is. And I hope that more women out there can see the warning signs long before they turn into a pattern of abuse. When it starts becoming angry, observe it.  See how it struggles to find the entrance in the little cardboard maze. Remember. . .nothing that comes out of its mouth has any relevance to anything at all, because that thing hates itself for being the thing it is.

You, Ashley. A middle aged child, too broken to ever be fixed, and doomed to keep missing your connections.