Three dots, three pauses, & three more dots (April 14, 2008)

I’m a pretentious snob,

The front yard was dirt behind a three foot fence. Assorted car pieces, pieces not parts, sprawled across the ground. The front porch was a foot shorter than me and a wheelchair ramp rolled around and around to the dirt. The house was easy to find because the address numbers were two feet high. That and the inflatable moonwalk. There were dogs, there’s always dogs, and one of them was blind.

Our host had two older brothers. The oldest was in jail, the other condemned to a backroom in a permanent vegetable state. “No one knows what happened,” our host said. We just found him on the side of the highway. Blunt force trauma to the head.”Our host just got out of jail himself. The love of his life now lives next door with his ex-best friend. His son’s mom keeps threatening to sue for custody of his 8-year-old, but the judge told her she leads too much of a “nomadic lifestyle”. The five kids at the party jump up and down on the inflatable moonwalk. One of them is Janey, who I would go to war with God over.

I pass judgment,

The world is divided among people that believe they’re owed something and those that have given up. My ideal philosophy is to fall in between the cracks of the two.
Destroy the stars and burn down the sky but don’t expect anyone else to help.
All the world owes you is a fighting chance and a lot of people don’t even get that much.

A 13-year-old girl wearing an Avenged Sevenfold hoodie kept to herself and her I-pod. I don’t know if the rips and holes in her shirt are stylishly-inflicted or financial positioning. I don’t like not knowing.

and I’m an emotional wreck.

Our host’s mother insisted we meet her bedridden son. I follow Janey into the room, ducking down on the porch. His walls were covered in photos, one on top of the other, none of which I could bring myself to look at. I know what they are. Better days. Days when he could walk and talk and understand his surroundings. Two weeks back I came home to find my neighbor beaten to death with a hammer. I didn’t blink. Damn if I couldn’t look at those photos. Janey didn’t understand why he wouldn’t get better. I had no answer.
I felt less than zero.

“Seen the carnival at Rome. I had the women, I had the booze. All I can remember now is little kids without any shoes.” - Pogues