Grainy, over-exposed slide show image projected
on a bare concrete wall:
I’m five years old. I don’t even need to
get my bearings this go-round. In a flash-bulb instant, I recognize this is
Christmas day at my grandmother’s house. My senses are wracked by the cacophony
of a happy family, wafts of Christmas dinner and stale cigarettes. Before me
lies a large gift, my name carefully written on the tag. I know it’s the first of
many Star Wars action figure play-sets which will provide me years of
fun-filled days.
On the other side of the tree is my
sister, only nine, still showing the signs of retained baby fat. She smiles
gleefully as she shreds the paper from a candy-colored box. My grandmother has
maneuvered herself by my side and kisses me wetly on the cheek, smelling like
whiskey and a dirty ashtray. I rub the slime away and lunge for the present…
Shift.
The room is dark and barely lit by a
half-moon. There are arms wrapped around me, a mouth firmly planted on mine,
tongues fencing in the heat. All I can smell is his cheap alcohol and cheaper
Thrifty’s bought cologne, mixed with the garlic and wet dog smells of the
house. One of my trembling hands is tangled in hair, the other groping under a
loose t-shirt attempting to clumsily undo the button on his denim over-alls. He
is grinding his slender hips into my lap, moaning, asking for more. My arousal
is painful because it has nowhere to go in my tight jeans.
Seventeen then.
All of my virgin fears hit me in an
instant. Never before have I done what he asks of me. He issues a frustrated
sound, pushes me back onto the couch. Wrenching his t-shirt off and my eyes
fixate on the hairless smoothness of his copper colored torso. Standing up, he
releases the clasps and lets the denim over-alls fall…
Shift.
Incandescent lights nearly blind me
after being in the dark room. I stumble a few steps, loose-fitting shoes
flopping on the floor. A large room surrounds me, industrial lighting leaving
no shadowed corners. Greasy stainless steel tables and benches are bolted to
the floor and a number of solemn men are about, sitting or standing wearing
orange jumpsuits. Looking down, I am wearing the same jumpsuit and lace-less
sneakers.
I am twenty-two.
On the table next to me is a box of tobacco
and rolling papers. Expertly, I roll a cigarette, not noticing the two men
watching me with unblinking eyes. In the far wall is a mesh covered heating
element, used only for lighting cigarettes. I push the button, the coils glow
like an ember and I lean in to light the rollie.
My arms are roughly grabbed at the
wrists and twisted behind me while a coarse hand shoves my face into the mesh
covering…
Shift.
Today I am twenty-seven and I stand on a
shattered sidewalk, the multi-colored slums of north Tijuana stretch out before
me. I am amiably mesmerized by their alien beauty.
Shift.
Twenty-five, full of booze and pot, a
guitar in my hands, fingers working furiously, hair in my face, strumming horribly
the melancholy rhythms of The Smiths.
Shift.
Eighteen, staring into the empty, cock
roach infested studio apartment on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Highland
Avenue, elated I’m finally going to be out from under my parent’s iron boot
heels.
Shift.
New York’s hallucinogenic nights.
Shift.
Tampa and marching feet.
Shift.
Shaving my head in an El Paso Greyhound
men’s room.
Shift.
Cursing my fate in a Guatemalan jungle.
Shift.
A Boise bus station.
Shift.
Broke and hungry, stumbling weary down a
San Francisco sidewalk, clutching my tattered black coat vainly attempting to
ward off an unrelenting freezing wind.
Shift, shift, shift.
It blurs now, an ever-increasing slide
show of everything I have ever seen or done. There is no set pattern of what
shifts to when. Time has no meaning. Details have no meaning. Experiences I
enjoyed last mere seconds, while agonizing heartaches last forever.
I spin on and on, a passenger on my own
tour bus, not knowing when this masochistic carousel is going to stop.
I ride it, though, because I realize when
it does stop, I will experience sights, sounds, smells and characters to draw
from for my next lie.
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