Saying anything to a parent was an unforgivable admission of weakness, a puny disregard for the essential rules of suburban summer, but worse, a denial of faith in the order of things, of the triumph of right.  Sacrilege.  So slaps then, and hammer punches, and hair pulling.

We believed in fair play, even odds, a just world.  America pulled up by its own bootstraps, where preparation met opportunity and hard work was its own reward. 

We rooted for the underdog because were all liked to think we were underdogs ourselves.  If and when we made it, we would celebrate our triumph, but feel no guilt about refusing to help someone else along because they were underdogs too, weren’t they?  And who would be so depraved as to deprive an underdog of his chance?

        This is the way we build things.  On notions.  On myth.  Our foundation is totally ephemeral.  You know?  We believe something is good.  We want to believe.  But it just takes a second of giving it a good look and you realize that life is really just an endless string of incidents that are pretty much frustrating, annoying or undesirable.  Bills, getting sick, a pipe breaks under your kitchen sink and shitwater goes everywhere.  I know, I know, sometimes we win a scratch off, or smell popcorn or I don’t know what the fuck.  But that’s like a partly sunny day.  A day that’s more cloudy, with a little sun coming through, right?  That’s partly sunny.  Because if it was partly cloudy, that would mean mostly sunny with a little cloud cover.  So I think life is partly sunny, for the most part, and there’s times, like  cancer or car accidents that it’s just a godforsaken joke.  Who, here, anywhere, asked for one second of it?

It’s bootlegs and bars until 5 a.m., second-hand clothing and two-dollar beers. The railroad apartments, black and white bathroom tiles the size of oyster crackers, windows painted shut and radiators next to the pedestal sink. Sweating rent money, but having enough to buy a case of beer and some grass. A gigantic time.

Losing balance is its own kind of balance

Surrender maybe but it takes less work than trying too hard

Which most of us are guilty of

I’ve forgotten sleep (an impossible narcotic)

I’ve forgotten rage (useless audiences)

I’ve forgotten love (lingering nectar, warm suffocation)

But I remember new things

Hallucinatory laugher, raw and pure and sweet as comb honey

Being weary

There’s no crime in it

Hope is a punk out, Grig. It’s an excuse to stall, to think that all of this (waving his cigarette) is beyond our control. Right. Sorry but no. No. That’s what’s terrifying is that it’s all precisely within our control. We’re just that mighty. Mighty. And that scares the shit (a swig) the absolute blue shit out of us, which is why we want to put it on somebody else, some THING else. That old lady I had before you went in, she read those star charts every morning and they always said sometimes you know what you’re doing. Other times you don’t know dick from donuts. Got me? No shit. Like the movie said: “You believe in that big bearded boss up there? You think he’s watching us?” You know, I have issues if he’s there, because what’s in it for him to be such a prick? The mysterious ways shit the nuns fed us. Remember that? So what’s mysterious about cancer or taking a nosedive off a fire escape? What’s mysterious about the cripple chewing on his chin next to the turnstile? Nothing. People are sick, brittle, insane and alone. Hang that hope crap out to dry and start working (another swig). You understand me? It’s you and the people you trust and that is it. And hell, I’m not even sure any of them that I trust is worth trusting because they’re just as nuts as me and you and damn but you know we’re all an absolute batshit madhouse bunch of fools. Alright, get some sleep. We’re about to get busy.

I took my daughter into a blizzard.

It was after midnight, echoless in the muting snow.

The streetlamps

Made everything amber, light bounced backwards off the drifts and against the houses.

I carried her in an old blanket, blue Irish wool with one corner chewed away by the dog

So it was the outside blanket now.

I set her on a mound of smooth snow.

She stared back. Was that mistrust?

I had to pick her up.  I had become essential.

It’s a swarm of false starts, missed opportunities and unforeseen tragedy, lucky breaks, honest effort and second chances.

Why do we expect so much from others?

Why are we so hard on ourselves?