...it had been all laid out for him. Simple. A perfect, easy, simple life. A life full of reward and virtue and giving back. A life of seeing and hearing everything. Work hard, play hard, save, invest, enjoy life-use your head, retire stupid-young and never rest on your laurels.
The thing was, it was that simple. The times were ripe for the picking. He had seen it coming years in advance and maneuvered through insomnia and a shrink, and remembering things he didn't want to remember to so he could be functional enough to move past shitty minimum wage jobs into the realm of making enough to buy a house, then another, and another. All the while dreaming the sweet dreams of not re-living his past or carrying on someone else's future. Not waking in the middle of the night for unknown reasons wishing in an otherwise empty bed, that there was a warm someone in love with him to hold him during the nightmares and a big, intelligent, bright-eyed best-friend faithfully keeping an ear and a nose out in the darkness. Love and protection, protection and love.
On May 8th, 1962 the first Atlas Centaur rocket exploded shortly after liftoff. He thought, in retrospect, that the slow-motion footage of the explosion and tumbling descent of the last bits of flaming wreckage as he had seen it set to music in Koyaanisqatsi was apropos, not just of the his current situation, but of the whole fucking shitpile that his life had become long before..
Drink a river of whiskey, eat a mountain of pills. Ain't nothin' gonna put things back the way they were.
Hindsight being that of a fucking fighter pilot, he should have known the second the city started promoting the downtown as tourist mecca, a showcase for the 'cultural diversity' of the area.....read: Cash in on the local color. Who cares if they are treated like zoo animals?
Greed is always the writing on the wall.
But he came back, even though his town as he loved it was dying. The U-Haul not making much more than halfway between Palm Springs and Blythe before it broke down. Then the 48 hours in that ghost town waiting for the repairs with nothing on TV but a Twilight Zone marathon..apparently those weren't big enough signs from the Universe to stay out of Dodge.
Sunnydale.
Nightmare Town.
But, as always, there is a fine line between dogged persistence and foolish, pig-headed, suicidal tendencies.
..or at least there is for some men.
Mostly pig-headed fools. Though he preferred-and would tell you so-to say he had "balls that clank."
Which, while true, is also another trait of pig-headed fools. As well as fools who insist on falling in love with the wrong woman.
That. That last one? He wasn't sure if it made his heart sink, or his breakfast rise. Either way it was like taking another tumble. End over end. Flaming debris in his mind's eye.
He could see it-and taste the rocket fuel.
His finger twitched as, in his mind's eye, he brushed back her in the middle of the night. Just like he never got to do. So many times.
Somewhere in his head-or at least he thought it was in his head- it could have been a radio blaring from a distance, or playing softly from one of the neighboring houses-Tom Petty singing 'I Won't Back Down'.
He coughed a tiny sardonic chuckle at the absurdity of it all.
At least they dumped him behind the dumpster instead of in it.The scorched-talc smell of the dirt and the tang of the blood were better than rusty compost water. Flies were starting buzz around the blood pooling and coagulating under where his face lay ground into the gravel. The twitching of his fingers was all the movement he could muster and he was starting to not give a shit about anything-not even the pain at the base of his skull or the rapidly intensifying heat of the mid morning sun.
He sighed-or maybe heaved a little-who could tell and he could taste the blood.
Somewhere he heard a security door thunk shut as some smarter, luckier man's wife left to do her errands, or take out the trash. Or walk the dog that he now heard yelping excitedly, like good, happy dog does before being taken on a walk.
The thing was, it was that simple. The times were ripe for the picking. He had seen it coming years in advance and maneuvered through insomnia and a shrink, and remembering things he didn't want to remember to so he could be functional enough to move past shitty minimum wage jobs into the realm of making enough to buy a house, then another, and another. All the while dreaming the sweet dreams of not re-living his past or carrying on someone else's future. Not waking in the middle of the night for unknown reasons wishing in an otherwise empty bed, that there was a warm someone in love with him to hold him during the nightmares and a big, intelligent, bright-eyed best-friend faithfully keeping an ear and a nose out in the darkness. Love and protection, protection and love.
On May 8th, 1962 the first Atlas Centaur rocket exploded shortly after liftoff. He thought, in retrospect, that the slow-motion footage of the explosion and tumbling descent of the last bits of flaming wreckage as he had seen it set to music in Koyaanisqatsi was apropos, not just of the his current situation, but of the whole fucking shitpile that his life had become long before..
Drink a river of whiskey, eat a mountain of pills. Ain't nothin' gonna put things back the way they were.
Hindsight being that of a fucking fighter pilot, he should have known the second the city started promoting the downtown as tourist mecca, a showcase for the 'cultural diversity' of the area.....read: Cash in on the local color. Who cares if they are treated like zoo animals?
Greed is always the writing on the wall.
But he came back, even though his town as he loved it was dying. The U-Haul not making much more than halfway between Palm Springs and Blythe before it broke down. Then the 48 hours in that ghost town waiting for the repairs with nothing on TV but a Twilight Zone marathon..apparently those weren't big enough signs from the Universe to stay out of Dodge.
Sunnydale.
Nightmare Town.
But, as always, there is a fine line between dogged persistence and foolish, pig-headed, suicidal tendencies.
..or at least there is for some men.
Mostly pig-headed fools. Though he preferred-and would tell you so-to say he had "balls that clank."
Which, while true, is also another trait of pig-headed fools. As well as fools who insist on falling in love with the wrong woman.
That. That last one? He wasn't sure if it made his heart sink, or his breakfast rise. Either way it was like taking another tumble. End over end. Flaming debris in his mind's eye.
He could see it-and taste the rocket fuel.
His finger twitched as, in his mind's eye, he brushed back her in the middle of the night. Just like he never got to do. So many times.
Somewhere in his head-or at least he thought it was in his head- it could have been a radio blaring from a distance, or playing softly from one of the neighboring houses-Tom Petty singing 'I Won't Back Down'.
He coughed a tiny sardonic chuckle at the absurdity of it all.
At least they dumped him behind the dumpster instead of in it.The scorched-talc smell of the dirt and the tang of the blood were better than rusty compost water. Flies were starting buzz around the blood pooling and coagulating under where his face lay ground into the gravel. The twitching of his fingers was all the movement he could muster and he was starting to not give a shit about anything-not even the pain at the base of his skull or the rapidly intensifying heat of the mid morning sun.
He sighed-or maybe heaved a little-who could tell and he could taste the blood.
Somewhere he heard a security door thunk shut as some smarter, luckier man's wife left to do her errands, or take out the trash. Or walk the dog that he now heard yelping excitedly, like good, happy dog does before being taken on a walk.
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