13 February 2000

Strangled by An Angel


When things get this bad I look for the point. There always has to be a point. Otherwise, what's the point? It's an existentialist's nightmare.

I almost expect to see Roma Downey from Touched by an Angel standing outside the van in the Toys R Us parking lot in the middle of the night. Her aura an unearthly glow. She will say, in that endearing accent of hers, "Jae, Got loves yew. . .He only wants the best fer yew . . ."

And suddenly it would all be clear to me, and my heart would fill with love and understanding and I would sleep peacefully through the night finally, waking to find my whole world had changed...the claim had gone through with the VA, the lawyer calls and tells me he has a fat check from Social Security, a publisher is desperately trying to reach me to publish my book. I would gleefully deposit the money in the bank, buy a house and a new van, start a band, and then the real love of my life would enter, stage right.

In my distorted dreams, it's more like an ugly, unshaven angel appears, puffing on a big cigar he got from his deal with Castro, smiles at me with rotten teeth and from within his aura of soot and smoke, he says, "God doesn't love you. He thinks you're a miscreation. He only wants you to suffer." At which point he leans forward and burns me with an ugly finger.

An angel never touches me. God doesn't send any messengers, except of the foul variety, and I wonder why life can't be just a tiny slice of what Hollywood tells us it is.

And then my mind drifts to the only other method I have at my disposal to be touched by an Angel...take that step into the hereafter, hunt one down and say, "Touch me, Dammit!" And when it refused, I would touch it around the neck with both hands--and squeeze.


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03 February 2000

Alexander Graham Bell Overture

(from my unpublished memoir, "The Misadventures of No One Famous")


I intended to plug in my laptop through the open side window and into the outlet by the lot light in front of Barnes and Noble. I knew I couldn't take the chance of doing that in the light of day, so I was waiting for the sun to go down like some sort of literary vampire, who can't begin to sully the unsullied page until there's proper concealment.

I spent the usual few minutes staring into space, and was looking at Gizmo's ears. He is supposedly half spaniel, half Chihuahua, so his ears never decided whether to be perky or droopy. They sort of jut from the side of his head like wings that won't retract.

Pulling myself from this insipidness, I begin to read Carrie Fisher's "Surrender the Pink" and someone's car alarm goes off. It's one of those that honks the horn over and over instead of ringing.

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

...in a cadence a metronome would envy. After a few minutes of this, I stopped trying to understand that paragraph I'd read four times, and wonder when the owner of the car will take care of the noise.

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

That's when a creative soul in another car begins to join in, adding an echoing blast at equally metronomic intervals...

HONK! Honk. HONK! Honk. HONK! Honk.

I start to smile. The Alexander Graham Bell Overture in C Minor.

Then another would-be composer joins in...

HONK! Honk. TOOT! HONK! Honk. TOOT!

And there begins a cacophony of horns about the area. None of them are on their way to Carnegie Hall, but it was good for a laugh.

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