This Is An Exercise In Words – ReubenRock.com

There are poisons in this town far worse than those I lean on today. They have eyes and ears to perceive your weaknesses. Mouths that spit savage syllables into the open air of this city. Hands that scratch and claw at your coat tails as you flee the damp alleys and smokey back rooms. They cling to your life because they have none of their own. And you’ll fall to your knees before you realize what’s taken hold.

I knew such a poison. Occasionally, I can still taste her name in the stale breath that booze hounds come to know.

In the interest of circumventing the obvious bear trap in the public park, I’ll choose a different route. A detour, if you will. Where she calls but gets no response. She seeks but does not find. Let the poor have her. She finds satisfaction in being groped on crowded sidewalks.

I’ve said it before and defended it arrogantly – some people are simply more fit for this world. We succeed where others cannot. It’s a sort of capitalism, and I won’t carry the dregs of society. Not on my time. Not on my dollar. Harlots are not an investment.

It’s a strange love. The kind that slips into your bed in the dark. Thought the alarm was watching you in the night. The dog would bark. Sheets would hold you tight.

Then she’s there. Wrapped in your arms each morning like she belonged in them. A robber looking for more than a meal card. She has her own ground to stand on. So what is she looking for in you?

Only god knows. And what does that even mean? Logically – nothing.

Just expect the company. Enjoy the embrace. Swallow sins each weekend. Never detox or come down.

Tonight I’ll have withdrawals. Shakes. Shivers. Fresh linens. They don’t smell like us. But I’ll bet Friday comes like wildfire. And I can’t wait to burn.

We fell short of nine. Ten would have been a stretch. Had we made it this far, there wouldn’t have been much left.

It’s better this way, right? To have run up against a wall so quickly that we didn’t have time to process the loss? No, there would have been very shallow waters for us to drown in if we dragged it out another twelve months. We would have been forced to hold each other’s heads below the waves. Force ourselves to swallow those last days. Fill our lungs with the muddy river.

Drift south. Maybe to the levy. Where we drank our drive-thru margaritas and felt the warmth of summer. The thick humidity moistening our skin.

You made it out alive. I hear bits and pieces from those friends we called mutual. It’s surprising – you would be proud – but I rarely ask anymore. There’s this assumption in my chest, down to the bottom of my stomach, that you’re doing fine. That you found some chunk of life that you never had under my watch, in the shadow I cast over you for years until you found your own bragging rights. Your own devoted crowd.

Ten years would have been too much. But I’ll share this secret with you: every sip seems to bring you closer. Back to me. Coursing through my veins, slowing down my overactive mind, comforting my body. Just an old friend that knows how to halt the world.

“I’m reaching for the phone to call at 9:16, and on your machine I slur a plea for you to come home.”

But those old digits don’t work anymore. I don’t know the person on the other end of the line.

76.

Looks like I’m celebrating in the truest form – the most true-to-life form. The side of you I didn’t know until you were gone. It seems treacherous to bring it up now. The murmurs seemed to say I was something like you. Something more than what I believed was in you. There was a legitimacy I saw in you. I didn’t want to believe the rest was there. But obviously I learned first hand. Not from the movies like the other kids.

Let’s remove all that. There was so much about being a responsible, truthful man that I learned from you firsthand. You gained wisdom with age. And you passed it to me quickly… like it would run through your fingers if you didn’t splash it on my life immediately. I followed along. I was diligent.

There must have been some part of me that sensed it was over. Because I fucked up.

It’s like there was some premonition. But I couldn’t have prepared for the basement scenery where I first looked across a room and didn’t recognize your body.

More than a year later, I know what you must have gone through from the beginning. I’m at the start of it. The forefront of loneliness that you probably experienced for years. That’s the advice I wish you had given me. How to get through it.

Dad, I need you. Maybe you didn’t make the decisions you wished you would have – but that’s exactly what I need to hear.  I need to know what choices to stick to, what alleys I closed when I should have kept them open, what destructive maneuvers I’m making just to get by another night.

Tell me stories of the Bear and his tail. Tell me why I shouldn’t swim in certain lakes around White Earth. Jesus, tell me where we spread your ashes.

I’ve forgotten my culture. My land. Are you in Ponsford? Near Park Rapids? That’s where I last saw grandma. I left you in Waubun. Actually it was Fargo. But Waubun was home for you. Mahnomen county – Mahnomen means “rice.” I know. We abandoned Pine Point. Grandma was honored there. But there was so little honor in the tradition that we tried to carry forth in that small gymnasium. We laid Bob there first. It should have been obvious that, despite the spirits of ancestors, there was nothing there for us. I miss my brother. The White Earth Veterans and Honor Guard were there for you. And I felt detached. She left that day. I think you knew it. Losing both of you in one day. It killed me.

I don’t know where you are. Except the bits and pieces that I have with me.

I’m trying to do better.

25.

I was wondering today if I would even know you anymore… if somehow your essential being had changed. The best I can figure is that it hasn’t. Odds are you’ve carried forward brilliantly in whatever way does the most good for the world – for strangers, for friends, and maybe even for yourself. I’ve never known you to do anything else.

After all, we never really change. Just move down paths as we march toward the horizon. It looks like higher ground up ahead. Like we might be bigger and better people when we get there. But we really just learn as we stumble on broken cobblestones and try not to fumble whatever cargo we’ve accumulated.

It may be a matter of time. Days or weeks maybe. But I think as paths diverge and intersect, somewhere your way will meet with mine.

Then we’ll know – do the years make a difference? Does the conversation pick up where it left off? Shaky at first. Tempted to flee in the first direction we point our feet. But instincts will keep us planted in that moment, trying to soak in the details of each other that aged, or altered, or became obscured.

I’m confident of this.

Tonight, allow me to imagine that nine six eleven is better than nine six ten. And fantasize that since eight six, nobody has known you better than I still do.

The weather is cool. The day was clear. And it was all for you.