Goals

"Come over for dinner tonight, Curt. My wife is making a ham."

The Ghost had called me by my first name. The Ghost had invited me over for dinner. The Ghost wouldn't take no for an answer, and I guess that struck me as reasonable. Hell, the Ghost is an authority figure, and I listen to authority figures.

He doesn't intimidate me physically. I'm not sure that there's really anything intimidating about him. But the Ghost is in a position of power over me, and that's something I feel, deep down in my bones. In prison, I learned to fear authority, and I doubt I'll ever be able to shake that fear. The Ghost is the Boss. I fear the Boss.

Thankfully sharing my schedule, the dinner was scheduled to start early. For people who deliver newspapers, 7 PM might as well be midnight. The Ghost told me to come over at 3.

Rita insisted on watching "Dr. Phil" with the volume cranked while she put the finishing touches on the meal. The Ghost and I sat in the dining room trying to avoid eye contact. From elements peppering the conversation, I guessed that he knew all about my past, and took me as being very lonely. I think he was only compelled to the invitation by his wife, who displayed multiple signs of being religious. She was awkwardly friendly to me, acting something like Jesus if He were afraid to touch you. An external obligation to good deeds. Hanging across the table from me was that portrait of the white-bearded man bent over in quiet prayer.

I imagined that the Ghost was the kind of man who knew he was destined to be a leader at a very early age. He talked like my father, but it didn't ring as hollow since he actually had experienced some success in life. "I can't move forward without a goal in my head," he told me. He motioned to Taxman. "I'm trying to teach Taxman something all the time," he said, "and once he figures it out, we start on something new. Always moving forward. I just taught him to speak." He demonstrated. "Now we're working on giving kisses." Taxman doesn't have an ounce of Warden's personality, but he does tricks. Whoop-de-doo. I smiled and nodded, but my mind was elsewhere.

I flashed back to a conversation I'd had with an uncle when I was still pretty young, maybe 16 or 17. I still believed I had a chance to be normal then, at least maybe manage not to spend half my life in prison. My uncle had just lost his job, he had worked at the Lordstown GM plant for 15 years and seemingly had his life together and his future in order. Not goals, exactly, but expectations. He was on the path to being comfortable, to being beyond questions of mere sustenance and into answering questions of how to live well. Then it was gone, too late for uncle Ray to pick up the pieces and start over.

I was naive. "I don't set goals," I told Uncle Ray. "Then I'm never disappointed when I don't reach them."

A year later he was gone, the first suicide in my mom's family.

"Curt?" the Ghost said, and I was back in the dining room. An old cat was on my lap, purring loudly but with labored breathing. I found it striking, the overwhelming sign of pleasure mixed with the mortality. "Why do they call you the Ghost?" I asked him.

"I was a running back in high school." I knew this was a lie. "I was so fast they used to say it was like trying to tackle a ghost."

Rita finally brought dinner out, and it was good. I enjoyed having a big, hot meal. "Why do they call him the Ghost, Rita?" I asked her.

"Curt," she said, "when the Ghost was in high school...," she repeated the lie.

I was determined. I had a goal. "You were a backup tight end in high school," I told the Ghost. "And you were slow." I had gathered this information from various sources. "Why do they call you the Ghost?"

And that's how I got fired from my job.

Talking

Bailey came over and we played a game of chess. We didn't get to finish because Warden jumped onto the table and knocked the board to the ground! At first, I was angry, but we had a good laugh, Bailey and I, and got a few drinks at the bar down the street. When we got there, we were surprised to learn that it was Tuesday Chess Night, so Bailey and I played another game, and we still didn't finish because I knocked over my beer onto the board and all the pieces were carried away! It just wasn't meant to be I guess, that is, I just wasn't meant to play chess today.

Bailey and I did a lot of talking, about the past and the future. We talked about March Madness and baseball and then we talked some more about March Madness and the past and the future.

It was getting late, and I had to get going because of my early morning delivery shift, so I shook Bailey's hand, then gave him a fist pump, and said goodnight.

He said, "Thanks Curt, you're like a friend to me."

"Thank you so much," I said.

End-Life Crisis?

I wonder when I'll have my mid-life crisis?

At my age, I should have, or should be going through this "crisis," but I managed to get myself locked up and so, maybe, I'll have this introspective meltdown when I'm 70!

What kind of tattoo will I get? A portrait of Stella.
What kind of car will I purchase on impulse? A 1968 Plymouth Barracuda.
Who will I have a steamy romance with? Belle Star.
Who will I go see in concert? Lady Gaga.
What new hobby will I take up? Trick question. Nothing's as neat-o as making butter!

On a more serious note:

Sometimes, in prison, I would receive letters from my sister. They weren't long. Her handwriting looked tiny on the piece of paper, unfolded in my lap. Things are fine, she wrote once. That was all. Mom died, in another. That was all she needed to say and I understood. Revealing much else would have been too painful, too confusing.

There was one letter though, three pages front and back, covered in writing. In this letter, my sister wrote about Dad and how strange he was acting. He's going through a mid-life crisis and I don't know what to do, she wrote. My father, a very private and stoic man, got a tattoo in a very provocative place on his body. He was in a bar fight (in which he lost), and told the neighborhood children to "Suck it!"

My sister's letter ended with:

Dear God, Dad just pulled up to the house wearing something that would put him in jail!

Qualifiers

"Hello?" I say. It is Homes. I haven't spoken to him in several years.

"Curt! How are things?"

"Things are great!" I say.

"How are the dogs?"

"Warden is great," I say, and quickly the conversation devolves into a flurry of 'buts':

Warden is great, but Stella is dead.
Work is great, but there's never quite enough money, and I think the Ghost hates me.
My apartment is great, but the shower pressure stinks. And the water goes freezing cold without warning. And boy, I wish I had a yard.
My family is great, but my Dad still makes me feel like a disappointment. And I wish I saw them more.
My neighborhood is great, but there was that time I caught some teenagers having sex on my car. And the time somebody stole my recycling bin.

I start asking myself, am I miserable, but so out of touch with myself that I don't even know it? "Am I happy, Homes?" I ask Homes. "I feel happy. Am I happy?"

"Is the pain still there if you don't feel it anymore?" Homes asks me.

Homes always knows what to say.

The Pink Flamingo

People are preparing for their gardens.
Construction is beginning on new homes and new neighborhoods.

The pink flamingo appears.

Today, on my delivery route, I saw the pink flamingo before I saw the sun. It stood, thin legged and pink, in someone's lawn. It was made of plastic. It was made to graze in this lawn and stand wobbly in brown grass. When I returned from my second route, I told the Ghost about the flamingo.

"The flamingo's up!" he said.

The flamingo is notorious, apparently. Every year, the flamingo appears and moves from one lawn to another. No one knows who moves it, although some have mentioned the name, Thor.

What I think is even more mysterious is the reason as to why pink flamingos were manufactured as lawn ornaments. Strange! Sure, they're beautiful, but why not the ostrich? Or the kangaroo?

Why not giant sticks of butter! *sigh* Now that would be something!

Audition!

It's funny what an exclamation point will do to a man!

I was walking Warden when I saw a piece of pink paper on the ground. It read: Can you sing? Can you dance? Casting for Lionel Bart's musical masterpiece Oliver! March 26th 2010 at the Polish Dance Hall at noon.

I can't sing. I can't dance.

I don't particularly enjoy musicals, but the exclamation point following Oliver suggested spontaneity, urged me into a state of impassioned excitement. Lionel Bart's musical masterpiece wasn't just Oliver, it was Oliver! I picked up the pink paper, looked at my watch, and announced to a woman carrying a terracotta pot passing by that "I [was] going to audition for Oliver!!!"

I was five minutes late to the auditions. I wanted to trim my mustache, look my best. When I opened the doors to the Polish Dance Hall, there were three women sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of the room, and a dozen or so people standing by the stage. A woman with large lips was singing, accompanied by a short man playing an upright piano with a can of Pledge beside him on the piano bench. When she finished, no one clapped.

This audition was serious.

"Who are you?" one of the women sitting in the lawn chairs asked. I tried to hide my excitement. The three women were identical! They were triplets! Except one of them had a beautiful mole where a dimple might have been. I liked her best.

"Hi! I'm Curt! I'm auditioning for Oliver!!!"

"No need to scream, we can hear just fine," the moled women said.

"Stand with the others," another triplet said and then, "Next!"

The short man at the piano sprayed Pledge on the wood and wiped it with the sleeve of his shirt. A boy walked onto stage and sang a song I'd never heard before and the short man played as if he'd heard it a million times. This went on and on, until finally, it was my turn to audition.

I walked onto stage and announced my name.

"And what will you be singing for us today?" a voice said from the lawn chairs.

Singing? For nearly 20 minutes, I listened to other people as they sang, and the thought that I needed a song to sing never crossed my mind!

"Umm," I said. I felt cold, then hot. My palms began to sweat. I started to shake. I'd come this far only to fail!

Then, I heard the song in my head. In 1986, a new inmate, Chris Buccoci, sang this song over and over again, even after being threatened by several inmates. "Do you know 'All I Need is a Miracle'?" I asked the short man sitting at the piano. He nodded and started playing.

I sang:

I said go if you wanna go,
Stay if you wanna stay
I didn't care if you hung around me
I didn't care if you went away
And I know you were never right
I'll admit I was never wrong
I could never make up my mind
I made it up as I went along
And though I treated you like a child
I'm gonna miss you for the rest of my life

All I need is a miracle,
all I need is you
All I need is a miracle,
all I need is you
All I need is a miracle,
all I need is you.

I sang my heart out. I crossed the stage, waited with the other auditioners, and five minutes later, my name wasn't called to perform a monologue...or to dance. Was I crushed? For a whole 20 seconds!

I am only one man. Curt. G. Jimenez. Time goes on and on. My life will end and yet time will have just begun for someone else, someone meant to play the part of Oliver in Oliver!

Maybe, one day, there will be a musical called Curt Jimenez. No, Curt Jimenez!!!

Where's George?

When I woke up this morning, my voice was unusually raspy. My throat wasn't sore, but when I came into work and said, "Hello!" to the Ghost, he said: "JESUS H. CHRIST Curt. Go home. I don't want you getting germs all over the papers and infecting our clientele!" I tried to explain to him that I wasn't sick, but he wouldn't have it--he waved me away with one hand over his mouth and nose.

So, I treated myself to some breakfast at Belle Star's place. She was cheerful, calling me psycho and whatnot, mixing in some expletives. She presented me with a plate, heavy with eggs, potatoes, and bacon, swore a good bit more, and looked out the window, cigarette in hand. Belle Star gave me my change after I'd paid the bill and I noticed that one of the dollars had written on it: follow this bill at www.wheresgeorge.com.

I rushed back to my apartment and logged onto the site, and this is what I learned about my George Washington:

1. A89392619A began it's journey in Burlington, KY. The user's note reads: Received in change from Homegoods on Mall Road when buying a picture frame. Ashley was as hot as the weather!

2. A89392619A then traveled 152 miles to Fort Wayne, IN. There, the dollar "lived in my change purse for nearly two months. Will spend it this afternoon on a chocolate bar or give to church offering."

3. 361 miles later, in Akron, NY, the dollar was "given to me by grandma, for getting all A's and one D on my report card!"

4. The dollar than traveled 192 miles into Belle Star's cash register and then two feet into my hands where it "was given to me as change from a woman who claims she was Satan in her past life."

Exercise

One of these things didn't actually happen. Guess which one!:

1. I was on a walk with Warden this afternoon, and I walked by a young lady listening to music and reading The Brothers Karamazov. I guess I have gotten over my amazement at how people do this--are they listening to music, or reading?--but I still like to ask them about it. Usually, they can't hear me so they don't respond, which is probably what I want to happen anyways. This girl said she wasn't listening to anything, that she wore headphones so people wouldn't bother her. She said this with a smile and tone that I found impossible to interpret. I asked her what she thought she would be listening to if she were listening to music. She said Suicidal Tendencies. I got home and looked them up.
2. I was bending over to pick up some "business" that Warden had made. I guess I didn't have the grip on him that I thought I did, and when he tried to chase after a squirrel that he saw, he pulled me down and my knee went totally into the "business".
3. I delivered the paper to one of my older customers this morning. I had continued on with my route, when I heard him calling after me. "Curt," he said, visibly upset. "The date's wrong on my paper!" "Let me take a look, Mr. Tobin." The date was right. He insisted I cancel his subscription. Maybe he's sick.
   
4. I was done with my route, and was driving past the courthouse when I saw some people marching around with signs. It was a tea party protest, I guess in response to the passing of the health care bill. I felt like talking to some people, so I parked and started hanging out with the crowd. I started talking to an older gentlemen (he said he was 84!) with one of those baseball caps with a transparent window where you can display something personal. The window had a seedy picture of a young woman with very large knockers. I asked if it was his wife. He said it was his granddaughter.
   
5. I was listening to Live at Massey Hall, which I'd not heard yet. I had had a good day, and most days lately have been good days. But A Man Needs a Maid came on, and I started crying.

On Driving

I don't write about driving because I do it for a living.

This post is about driving.

Sometimes, when I drive, I like to listen to the car and when I listen to the car, it gets me thinking about things, like the past and the future. Have you ever driven so long, you don't remember having driven the last 100 miles? It's not scary, although, maybe it should be. Have you ever driven without somewhere to go? Maybe that's what loneliness means.

Today, I stopped at a red light and had my windows down, when a kid came up next to me on his roller skates and grabbed my side view mirror. "Hello," he said. He must have been six or seven years old.

"Why aren't you in school?" I asked. But he didn't say anything and the light turned green.

"The light's green," I said, "you have to let go."

But he wouldn't let go. So I started to drive, very slowly, but the kid still held onto my side view mirror. "Hey kid," I said, "go home."

"They told me I wouldn't live past the age of four," he said and let go. I looked at him and noticed that he had a lazy eye and that I was looking at the wrong eye because when I looked at the other eye, it was looking right at me! I sped up and didn't look in my rear view mirror. I put up my windows.

Sometimes, when I'm in a car, I forget that the world outside is real. I am lost in thought. What I see through the windshield are images projected from some source behind me. It only takes a kid on rollerblades to wake me up from this kind of hazy state.

Or a deer I hit but didn't kill near a horse farm in Virginia early one August morning.

Or a tree branch that fell from an oak, onto the hood, after a thunderstorm.

Or an ice patch that directed me into a neighbor's picket fence.

Or a heavy fog. Lean forward. Squint. Adjust the lights. Because you can't quite make out what's coming next.

Storytelling

I was sitting around watching old Jonathan Winters footage on the "youtube" and I daydreamed about being able to tell stories off the top of my head like he does. Sometimes, I can barely get a sentence out, let alone make up a five minute story. My Mom was from Dayton, which is where Mr. Winters is from, and she always used to say he was the funniest man who ever lived. I remember trying to just make up stories like him when Mom was really sad to try to cheer her up. I was really bad, but I think she enjoyed it. "That was great Curt," she would say, and she would keep asking me questions to help me out and get me to flesh out the details.
I guess I just don't have much of an imagination. You couldn't invent a story like the girl with the unicycle from yesterday!

It's like learning how to ride a...unicycle?

Day off.

Walked to the park to read and find someone to play chess with. I knew I'd never ask anyone to play chess, so I set the board up and waited and as I waited, I read.

I heard her before she hit the lamp post. The sound of leaves and twigs breaking beneath a tire. When I looked up, a woman with a long braid and red circles painted on either cheek, rode her unicycle into a lamp post. I watched as she brushed her pants off and picked up her unicycle. I wanted to ask if she was alright, but I didn't because I was afraid I was too far away for her to hear, and then I'd just be speaking to the air, like some loon. She looked around and when she caught my eye, smiled. I smiled back.

She supported herself on the lamp post and sat back on the unicycle. But, she couldn't stay on. She kept falling off. She'd get back on successfully, pedal spastically, and then hop back off in frustration. The unicycle would hurl itself forward and then fall to the ground. This must have happened at least a dozen times before she picked up the unicycle and walked away.

How'd she get on the unicycle in the first place? And how'd she forget? I guess the adage: "It's like riding a bike..." doesn't apply to unicycles. Ha!

Then fat bees started flying around me, so I packed up the chess board and headed home. That's when I saw the unicycle on the ground. I looked for the girl with the long braid and the red circles painted on her cheeks. I bent down said, "Where did she go?" to the unicycle. "Hello?" I said.

The unicycle is in my kitchen. I've posted this add on Craigslist, under missed connections:

Saw you riding your "unicycle" in the park today. You crashed into the lamp post, ouch. Sorry I didn't ask how you were. I am shy. I found your unicycle on my walk home. If you want it, let me know. I will give you some butter! LOL.

Well...what do you think? I didn't want to sound creepy. I think I was sucessful, right?

Territory

On a good day, I make butter. On a bad day, I make butter so that it'll be a good day. Today, was a good day, so I decided to make butter and have an even butter day! I didn't know how it would turn out--a lemon butter--on account of lemon being a fruit and an acidic one at that! Have you ever made tea? Have you ever put milk into your tea and then squeezed a lemon into the tea with the milk that you just added? If you have, you know that lemon juice and milk don't mix, they curdle.

I decided to add lemon zest to the heavy whipping cream, instead of lemon juice. The result: a surprisingly pleasant lemon butter! Success!

After I made the butter, I took Warden on a nice long walk. He peed on many things, marking them as his own. I wish it was that easy. I'd go up to a car I liked and pee on it and then hop into it and drive away, because I owned it! I'd pee on a house I liked and then walk inside and say: "Get out! Get out! This is my house!"

Today, winter died.

It is the first day of spring and it sure feels like it. I'm not upset that winter's passed. It was a hard winter.

I look forward to wearing t-shirts and flying kites and going on long cemetery walks with Warden.

I'm excited for longer days, and thunderstorms, and the leaves to appear in the trees again.

Ambition

I called my dad today. I don't think either of us could successfully carry a conversation with our best friends, let alone each other, so I'm content with the three minutes we manage.

"Curt," he says, "you've got to believe in yourself. If you want something, you have to go out and get it." He has never managed his own life by this philosophy.

"Dad," I say, "I've never been happier than I am now. I've got everything I need. I'm happy."

"You know that son-of-a-bitch Tim Krinock? That son-of-a-bitch moved to Vegas and just about made his fortune there. He had a dream, that son-of-a-bitch, and he went for it. In this world, Curt, there's just winners and losers and don't you get caught on the wrong side of that line." When he doesn't know what to say, Dad quotes Bruce Springsteen lyrics. He doesn't think I know.

"Dad, you're just quoting Springsteen."

"That son-of-a-bitch had a dream."

That son-of-a-bitch did have a dream. "Dad," I say, "sometimes I feel like I'm just dancing in the dark." This is a shady tactic, but a frequently necessary one when conversing with my father.

"That's all we're all doing, Curt. Just dancing in the dark."

He's right. What else is there to say?

There is much noise being made early this morning (St. Patrick's day revelers?) and so I get myself together early and go and have breakfast and coffee at an all night diner I patronize. The woman who is always there is named Belle Star. It is a very small place, and she manages to both wait on the customers and prepare the food. Most of the words she says are f**k, whore, and motherf**ker. She isn't old (30's?), and I believe is the daughter of the owner. She knows I hate pie, and always tells me what kind they have as soon as I walk in.

"Got f**kin' cherry today, Jimenez! Sold my last slice of peach to that motherf**ker." she points to a fat man in a booth in the corner.
"How are you miss Belle Star?"
"I'm a goddamn mess." She always says she's a goddamn mess. I'm convinced she hates men, but I think she is okay with me. Maybe because she knows I once killed one.

Today is a double whammy. That is what I call the morning when they pick up both the garbage and the recycling. This morning, somebody dumped my recycling onto the alley and stole my bin. I relate this unfortunate situation to Belle Star.

"Jimenez, your life is a neverending s**tstorm," she says. "If I see that motherf**cker around, I'll grab it and give the f**ker back to you. Goddamn neighborhood gone to s**t. Tell you what Jimenez, I'll give you a f**kin' slice of cherry on the goddamn house, you sad motherf**ker. Eye of the motherf**kin' s**tstorm. A goddamn break for you you sad motherf**ker." I'm not sure if this is generosity. I refuse the pie. "You motherf**ker," she says, and she winks at me. It is an awkward wink, though I think she's worked hard on it.

The food is terrible, as always. I don't know why I keep going back.

The sixteenth day, twelfth hour, and eleventh minute

The first time I did it, it had been sixteen days, twelve hours, and eleven minutes since I'd been released from prison.

"You will know," Homes said, "because it will make you happy."

Can you imagine? The world had changed so much. Things old looked new and things new looked imagined. Cars looked like softer versions of themselves. TVs looked like they had lost their winter weight. Even people looked different. I felt like a circle in a world composed of angles.

I couldn't believe what was happening. It was happening and I could feel the happiness inside me swell.

The last person I said goodbye to in prison was Homes. I wanted it to be that way, so I did not say goodbye to the prison guards, or the other inmates when they shouted, "You're outta here Jimenez, but you'll be back!" I simply nodded or shook my head.

Guy prepared the apartment. "Here it is," he said. He showed me the shared patio and as we stood out there, I could feel eyes on us from the windows other than my own. The first night on my own, I kept all the windows open, even though it was cold outside, just so I could stick my hand out, knowing that there were no bars.

Guy bought me new kitchen supplies, but on the sixteenth day after having been released, I found an old food processor in the back of the cupboard. Maybe it was left from previous tenants? When I plugged it in and turned the switch on, I was surprised that it worked.

"It will happen suddenly," Homes used to say. "You think you know and then your love grows in another, more passionate direction, suddenly and intensely sometimes."

I bought the supplies.

In kindergarten, I made butter. I remember, because it made me happy. Everyone in class took turns shaking a container filled with heavy whipping cream and soon enough, we enjoyed butter on crackers.

I rushed through the supermarket with a shopping cart. There were so many varieties of food, the store seemed to grow even while I was in it and music played through speakers I could not see. I must have looked crazy, with only heavy whipping cream and salt in my shopping cart, whizzing through the aisles.

In the twelfth hour of the sixteenth day after having been released from prison, the butter ingredients hummed inside the food processor. In the eighth minute, the contents inside the vessel separated. My heart jumped. In the eleventh minute, I took a spoonful of homemade butter and ate it and cried.

"What if I don't find what makes me happy?" I used to ask Homes.

"Then look harder," he said.

I looked at what I'd made and it was the first time I lol'd since my release.

BUTTER!

Breaking Up is "Hard" to Do

Curt, what's up? You doin' okay? You slippin'?

Rick called me last night. I almost didn't pick up.

I know you're still workin' through you're issues, man. You need me in your life. Whatever I did man, let's move on. Let's let bygones be bygones.

Rick has always thought I had drug problems I never told him about. Looking back, there were so many weird things about him that I ignored because I put him on a pedestal. I guess I thought an effective spiritual adviser needed to be someone almost without flaw.

I met Rick soon after I got out of prison. There was a flier at the market. It said: Is there a big emptiness in you? Do you fill it with evil things? Call Rick, he can help!

Rick seemed so under control at first. He seemed cultured. He told me jokes that I'd never heard before. Have you ever had a wookie steak? He asked me once. It's chewy.

He has a soothing voice, and he's very willing to tell you that what happened needed to happen. That you were supposed to be where you were when you met the woman of your dreams. It's easy to do that. I needed to write this blog post. Stella was supposed to develop a horrible digestion problem at a young age.

Sometimes, I just screw up. Sometimes, I just get lucky. Sometimes, some asshole hits your driver's side mirror and just drives off. If there is purpose there, I don't see it.

I've decided, Rick needs me and everybody else who has fallen under his spell more than we need him. He only has spiritual authority over us because we give it to him.

Rick, I whisper soothingly into the phone, It's over...

Moves

Every move is made with the possibility of having made another.

That's what I kept telling myself when I was playing Bailey in chess. We haven't played in a while, and I stopped going to chess club because I wanted to play chess. Not play chess and eat pretzels or talk about celebrities I've never heard of or movies I've never seen.

Bailey seemed excited to play chess. He said he had so much to tell me when I called, but when he arrived, he hardly spoke. He looked different, but I couldn't figure out why. I tried to remember if he'd worn glasses and looked different because he wasn't anymore. But he'd never worn glasses! When he laughed, it sounded strange and I wondered if I was playing against Bailey or if I'd invited a stranger into my house!

I put on some music.

Bailey played much more aggressively than he used to, and when he won, he stood up and said goodbye.

"Is everything alright?"
"Everything's fine," he said.
"Alright, then have a good night."
"Yes, I think I will," he said.

After Bailey left, I wanted to make a salad, but instead I ate cheese and six hard boiled eggs. I wondered: "Did I make the right move? What would have happened if I ate the salad instead?" I imagined a Curt Jimenez in a parallel universe feeling good about what he just ate, a Curt Jimenez who wondered how he would have felt had he eaten eggs and cheese instead, and laughing the idea away.

My fingers smelled like Muenster.

No matter how many times I washed my hands, I smelled the cheese.

I guess if I ate a salad, my fingers wouldn't smell like this.

A Sensitive Man

"Curt, I'm selling the car. We have to. We aren't the kind of people that drive cars like that."

I'm almost too angry to respond. "Huh?" I manage. I'm not sure that I've ever even been angry before, certainly not like this.

It is a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda, blue like the picture. I am 17 years old. My grandpa bought it for me, with the condition that I pay him back. He is very sick now. I have worked hard, and have almost paid it off. Dad isn't working, and hasn't been. I am going to school all day and helping at the farm after school and on weekends.

Dad says I can drive his Corolla whenever I need it.

When the man comes to buy the car, I watch Dad talking to him through my bedroom window. "650 seems reasonable," he says. 650 is unreasonable. I have done things to this car. I have transformed this car into something beautiful. I could sell this car for 1000.

"I don't know...," Dad says. He is a sensitive man, one who cannot stomach even an ounce of something that could be interpreted as dishonesty. He is still the same way. I tried so hard not to be like him. I failed. He points out a fresh scratch on the passenger side door. It is almost nothing. "There's this," he says, "and you're going to need new tires soon. Let's do an even 500." Dad has negotiated down the price of my beautiful Barracuda. He has given it away.

This is when the rebellion starts. The anger that leads to the drug use. To detachment from the world. To unhealthy convictions. "I will be strong, where Dad is always weak," young Curt tells himself. "I will decide what I want, and I will go and I will take it."

Three years later, young Curt stands before the judge. He feels his father's presence in the courtroom. He is almost happy to think of how it must pain his father to think of having helped bring such a monster into the world.

It makes old Curt sad to think back on all this now. He doesn't blame Dad for any of it, not like he used to. He regrets that all that turned out the way it did. Old Curt is sorry, Dad.

The Unanswered Question

I want to expand outward and upward. I don't mean expand, as in to gain weight, or upward, as in to fly. I want to "broaden my horizons." I think I'm ready. With Conviction Curt! I AM ready.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I have a lot of questions like: What is the beat of my own drum? Am I simply being or am I living? I don't know where to find these answers.

I went to the library, but I couldn't find a single book that could help me. Sometimes, I wonder what came first: the question or the answer. What if someone said to you: "Potato! That's obvious!" Would you say, "But what was the question"? Or, would you just nod your head and say, "That was silly of me, I guess I thought you were stuttering."

At Pinkerton's, Mrs. Jewitt told me that I needed a new look. She said a new look means a brand spankin' new beginning. Mrs. Jewitt's husband cuts my hair. His name is Harry, but he died while I was in prison, so I guess he used to cut my hair and I guess his name was Harry. Pinkerton's a corner mart down the street that I've always seen but have never been in, until today. Why did I go in? I guess I wanted to answer the question: What's inside Pinkerton's? And the answer: Mrs. Jewitt, of course. I bought heavy whipping cream from Pinkerton's and Mrs. Jewitt approached me and tugged at my shirt sleeve and said, "Curt Jimenez?"
"That's me," I said.
"It's me," she said.
"It is you," I said, but at the time, I had no idea who she was. The front of her face had grown heavier since I'd last seen her. She was ancient when I went to prison. What does that make her now? Prehistoric? Gee, that's not kind, Curt.
"It's me," she said, "Mrs.--" and then we said, "Jewitt" together.
You know the rest. New Look. New Beginning.

Everyday, a question approaches me and I am quiet with thought. I think that a question is like a whisper that gets misinterpreted as it travels from one mind to another. So then, I try to think of what the question might have been. Other times, the answer will appear before me, like a cross and a bouquet of flowers by the side of the road, small and large, simple and complicated.

Sometimes, one question will answer another. I like when this happens, although, I can't give you a for instance. Maybe you could give me one!

Sometimes, a question settles just beneath your skin and you feel it, but you don't do anything about it. It lies dormant and dangerous, tender and afraid. Dangerous, but soft like whiskers.

Inspirational Video

I decided I wanted to support my local economy today. I thought about planting some things so that I could sell these things at a farmer's market later in the year. Sadly, I don't have any land. So, I thought of doing something else. Something big. Something that involves a "big risk." I watched Lady Gaga's new video and I felt inspired. I wanted to make a sandwich. A sandwich that would bring people together.

DETENTION!

What a day!

The day after my 100th post.

Today, I was all smiles and the Ghost asked if I was alright.
"Absolutely," I said.

"What's gotten into him?" I heard the Ghost mumble before I closed my car door.

"Nothing," I said, "just having a great day," I said to myself in the car.

It was a great day. The weather was perfect. Traffic was perfect. Even my brunch was perfect--a huge bowl of oatmeal and a breakfast bagel sandwich with ham and cheddar cheese. I went on a walk with Warden and I decided to go down a street that I'd never gone down before because, Why Not? We walked and walked and walked and then walked some more. We saw lots of things. We saw many other dogs and their owners. I said, "Hello" or "Hiyah" and even "Super day, don't you think?"

I stopped at a tennis court and watched two young men playing tennis. They weren't especially good, but it looked like they were having fun. I played tennis briefly in high school, in gym class. I used to get so frustrated that I'd throw the tennis racket across the courts and into the football field. "DETENTION JIMENEZ!" Mr. Gilson would yell and then he'd blow his whistle.

A tennis ball shot up over the fence and landed at my feet. I picked it up and tossed it over the fence. "Thanks," one of the men said.

"Detention," I said.

"Huh?"

"Attention," I said, "good thing I was paying attention."

"Yeah, sure. Thanks mister."

I had to go to the bathroom, but I couldn't find one, so Warden and I jogged back home. We jogged and jogged, then walked, and then jogged some more. When I got home, even my experience inside the bathroom was perfect.

; )

100!

Today is my 100th post! Thanks to everybody who has been reading, and supporting me in my efforts. I wrote a story, to commemorate the occasion:

Milestone

Curt Jimenez woke up early that morning, as he usually did, determined to treat this day just the same as he’d treated the hundred or so that had immediately preceded it. It was different though, and he knew it. It was warm outside, perhaps 50 degrees or higher, and the snow that had crippled his little town just a couple weeks before had now been reduced to a few scattered piles that were strikingly more black than white. He delivered the local newspaper for a living, and that was his first order of business on this special day.

While walking a section of his route, he encountered a beautiful girl out jogging, taking advantage of the change in weather. She was the kind of girl whose beauty you felt from a hundred yards off, young and striking in every respect. A work of art. Curt, 50 years old, single, paunchy, mustachioed, focused all his energy into a smile that was as pleasant and as neutral as he could muster as she gracefully ran past. He felt only a cold forced acknowledgement in return, and he felt reduced. He felt abandoned by his own smile, like the face that he was putting forward wasn’t his own.

When he got home, he practiced in front of the mirror. A nice smile. A pleasant smile. An inoffensive smile. He needed one of those. He was not a rapist. He had killed somebody once, but he wasn’t like that anymore. He appreciated beauty, but not in an unhealthy way. He was a good, simple man, who only wanted desperately to be liked. Show teeth? Tilt the head? How does a man get his eyes to twinkle?

As he gazed at the mirror, Curt became painfully aware of his own body, and that it was the only one he would ever have. “That’s you, Curt,” he thought. He wasn’t upset though, or disappointed. Maybe he was beginning to understand his place in the world.

That day was the day of Curt’s 100^th blog post on his blog, The Better Butter Blog. Curt loved butter, and he loved writing, and he’d started a blog on which he’d written something just about every day since December of the previous year. It wasn’t the greatest blog, maybe it got a little too personal at times, but it was Curt’s and Curt’s alone, and it was the greatest accomplishment of his life. A man who didn’t understand where he came from might laugh at this, but that doesn’t really matter. Curt should be proud, and he is.

Hard

Is it hard being you?

Today, while delivering papers, I thought: "Is it hard being me?" Sure, I've had some hardships, but I think everyone has had their hardships. I mean, I guess I've been in prison and that's been pretty hard...

I think it would be hard to maintain a lifestyle without any hardships!

One day, in prison, I asked Homes what he'd done to get himself there. He said, "My life wasn't hard enough."

"What does that mean?"

But Homes never said anything more.

I've heard rumors.

I heard he abducted a woman so he could have someone to talk to over dinner and that this woman fell in love with him after he was taken to prison.

I heard that this woman comes to visit Homes once a week. I heard she has a large mole on her face. I heard they talk about everything, from ants to astronomy, and pose questions for one another. Questions that others would avoid asking, avoid thinking about, because they are considered hard.

Lo Mei Fok

Her name was Lo Mei Fok. Looking back, I realize how little I actually knew about her. She liked to punctuate her sentences, both written and spoken, by saying "Oh my!" I don't think she knew how to laugh. She was a widow from China who had moved here to live with her daughter, a doctor of some kind, in 1985 after her husband died. I never knew what she looked like, but I loved her, and by telling her that I loved her I made her run away--something she had refused to do even as I was revealing the darkest and most personal parts of myself to her in my letters. I never knew what she looked like, but I knew she was beautiful.

She spoke very little English, and when she first moved here she was very lonely. Her daughter, who must be brilliant, told her to write letters to prisoners. "They won't judge you because of your English," she told Lo Mei, "and they've got lots of time to write back." "Oh my!" I'm sure Lo Mei said in response, but she took her daughter's advice and wrote letters to prisoners, and she wrote one to Curt Jimenez and changed his life.

Thirty-six letters she wrote to me in all, each of which I still have, laminated and arranged chronologically in a yellow binder I keep in the top drawer of my bedside table. The year I received the first letter, 1987, Lo Mei was 48 and I was 27. There have been a lot of hard years for me in my life, but in 1987 I had been in jail for five years, and I think the tough exterior I had been building since I was a teenager was starting to crumble under the enormous weight of indefinite incarceration. I was drowning. I wasn't raised to be able to handle prison, and in 1987 I think I was finally starting to understand that. I was desperate for something to come into my life and change me. Many prisoners mock the idea of rehabilitation, but I was there, I was burdened, and I was ready to become someone different then the naive boy I had always been.

I remember getting the letter vividly, as notes and cards from Mom were about the only thing to look forward to in those days, and to get something from somebody else was quite out of the ordinary.

Dear Inmate Jimenez,

Hi, how are you doing? My Daughter says my alone feelings will be better if I find people to talk. I am China and just come to America to live with my daughter who is doctor. My husband is dead in China and I know no one. If you would like to send letters I would like that. Sorry my English is kind of not so good. Maybe you can help me make better! Oh my! Thank you very much!
Sincerely,
Lo Mei Fok

Lo Mei wrote me a letter for the last time in June of 1992. I had been eager to talk to her on the phone or in person for a long time. She didn't want to do it. Maybe she was scared of who I really was. Maybe the emotional distance of the written word--in a language not her own--kept me remote enough to make it okay to converse with a convicted murderer. Maybe though, she loved me back and was afraid of where it could go. Would it anger the soul of her departed husband? Was it improper for a woman her age to be with someone twenty years younger? Maybe she was just embarrassed to reveal the real voice behind the letters. I called her though, and we talked, for maybe a half-hour or more. Her voice was high pitched and a little raspy, and because of what must have been nervousness, she tried to speak faster than her mind was able to deliver the English words. I had known that I was in love with her for some time, and hearing her speak only strengthened the convictions of my heart. I told her what I felt, and I never heard from her again.

On a whim, after some strange remembrance, I Googled her name this morning. What I found was that Lo Mei Fok had a brain tumor and died back in May of 2009. Lo Mei Fok was the first person to forgive me--and to teach me how to forgive myself--by saying that Curt Jimenez in 1982 was not the same man as Curt Jimenez in 1989. "You never step in same river twice!" she wrote. She told me that I was a writer, that if it felt good to put things down on paper, it didn't matter if you were good at it. "You writer!" she wrote. She told me that I would get out of prison some day, and that when I did I would live a good and full life that I might never have valued properly if things had gone differently in my youth. She was right. Lo Mei Fok, I love you and I miss you.

Filthy Room

"Everyone carries a room about inside them."

I don't know who told me this, but it came to my mind after I'd thrown away an empty bottle of shampoo that I'd kept in the bathtub for weeks. I thought: "I wonder what my room looks like?" I thought: "It is small and assymetrical with a window, of course." Then, I thought: "It is empty! It is empty!" I closed the bathroom door and I sat on the toilet seat. When I opened the bathroom door and looked at the clock, I realized that I'd been in the bathroom for nearly three hours!

Warden was not happy. I guess he really had "to go" so I took him on a walk and he did his "business" several times.

I was walking home with Warden when my foot got caught in the sidewalk somehow and I fell. Don't worry, I'm alright. I just got a few cuts and bruises here and there. I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow though :(

A kid, who couldn't have been older than 12, came up to me and asked if I was alright.
"Sure," I said. He put out his small hand to help me up and I took his hand in mine, but then he said: "A dollar to help you up. Two dollars to help you home."
"No way!" I dropped my hand.
"Your loss," he said and walked away.
"Your room is filthy!" I said.
"Whatever dude."

I got up just fine.

I got home just fine.

Drive thru

Being another (relatively) beautiful day, I went for a nice long walk. Left Warden at home though, as I'm mad at him. He ate two sticks of butter that I forgot to put back in the fridge.

I had to go to the bank. My bank has one branch within walking distance. It is a drive-thru only bank. You can go inside only to do business transactions. I went inside.

"Mr. Jimenez, I can't handle your transaction. You have to go outside." This teller knows me well. He has only one eye, and always wears dark sunglasses.
"I'm on foot. It's impossible for me to drive thru."
"You can walk thru. It's okay." He didn't say this in a soothing sort of way.

Drive thru banking is so convenient that they spell it "thru". It's like microwave popcorn: not much faster, much worse for you, and not as delicious. I explained this to the man. "Drive thru banking is delicious," he said.

So I walked thru. I always feel foolish standing there, putting my checks in the tube, shooting them thru the pipes, cars lining up behind me. Stupid bank. Stupid convenience.

Entertainment

It's beautiful outside and the snow is disappearing. Gutters are dangling from buildings. Potholes are being filled. Spring is only 15 days away and I couldn't be happier. It's been a hard winter.

Big things are going to happen tonight, I can feel it!

Today was my day off and when I woke up, I knew that I had to go on a walk. I rolled out of bed, put on my jacket, grabbed Warden and "left the building." I took Warden into the cemetery and let him run loose. I ran too, just for a little bit, and when I stopped my legs felt like jelly.

I don't think I've been myself lately and it felt good to feel my heart pounding. It felt good to run until my legs felt like they were going to fall off. It made me "feel" something other than what I've been feeling, even if it was less than a 100 meters.

After the walk, I went to get some breakfast. The cook was arguing with some older female patrons.

"I didn't say we were better," he said.
"That's not what I heard," one of the women said.
"I said that men are stronger and smarter, but I never said that men were better than women."

I ate as fast as I could and paid my check. On my way out, one of the older women walked up to me and said, "Did they tell you that your breakfast was free?"
"No," I said.
"It was the entertainment that you paid for," she said.


What a day!

Can of beans

I must be a listener, for there are listeners and storytellers, and lately, strangers have confided in me tales that I cannot help but get caught up in.

"I am leaving tomorrow," someone said behind me today while I was walking to the library. "Did you hear me?"

I assumed that this someone was talking to someone else, perhaps walking beside this someone else. "Hey, you!" someone said, and when I looked behind me, there was a man with a long white beard, speaking to me. I was a bit tired, having delivered papers this morning.

"Excuse me?" I said.
"I had a cat," the man said, "22 years old."
"That's old," I said. I tried to walk faster. But the man with the long white beard was right behind me.
"Loved the cat."
"Uh-huh," I said.
"Can of beans killed the cat. Fell from the refrigerator right onto the cat."
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. I started jogging. The man with the long white beard started jogging too.
"That's why I'm leaving," he said.
"Because your cat died?"
"Time for a change," he said. I stopped jogging and the man with the long white beard passed me and continued jogging down the sidewalk until I couldn't see him anymore.

Since Stella's died, not much has changed. How does one know when change is necessary? Seems like the answer would be easy, right? Is change ever necessary, or is it one of the last resorts one turns to before failure? I don't know.

I wonder where the man with the long white beard jogged to and where he will go next.

I wonder if the man with the long white beard opened the can of beans that killed his cat and devoured the beans straight from the can and felt full and slept well.

Philosopher

Phew! 92 posts and counting. I think if you had told me, before I started this blog, that I would have been able to be this consistent with posting, I wouldn't have believed you. I might have said, "Curt Jimenez always finds some way to let himself down." But no my friends, I get to count this as a success. And I think that it is important for me to reward myself for my successes since they are so few and far between. Thanks to those who just joined, it means a lot to me!
But here's what I was thinking about today: if I died, right now, who would come to my funeral? All of Asia? You know what I would like to have as a tombstone? Rocketship! A big granite rocketship. It might seem strange. But I should get what I want, right? I just want to "blast-off" to my next destination.
Think about this: "We are all Christ, and we are all crucified." I read that somewhere.

Chaos

Today, my sister called to tell me that she felt sick. Sometimes, she does this because she is lonely and knows that I will listen to some of what she has to say.

"I feel sick," she said.
"What can I do?"
"I don't know," she said.
"I hope you feel butter."
"You mean it?"
"Sure," I said.
"Thanks."
"Bye."
"Bye."

Besides the phone call, today was a pretty "normal" day. Work. Warden. Dinner. Sometimes, I like order. But as far as the "Laws of the Universe" are concerned, I think chaos reigns.

We are all in a state of entropy. Those who are most orderly, I find, unravel the quickest.

Homes said he knew a man that went blind, suddenly, because his retinas detached and he was born into a world of darkness. Each year, he sold all his furniture and refurnished his house with new dressers and end tables. He especially liked end tables. He asked family members to rearrange his whole house because he wanted to be thrown into "chaos." He wanted to relearn how to maneuver through each room. He wanted each step to count.

I want each step I take to count.

I don't want things to make too much sense.

Being deliberate is failing to be yourself.

A wise person once told me: "The past. The future. The past and the future. And the past. The future."

I don't follow, but it seems to make sense in this post. I think.

Poem

i am sitting here staring at a blank page
now i've typed this and it's no longer blank
is this some kind of accomplishment?