Coronavirus Is My Friend

Coronavirus has done for my life what I've been unable to do for 14 years.

Keep people the fuck away from me.

I started in customer service - tending bar - in 2006. Seemed like a brilliant move at the time. I love bars, I love being around drunken psychopaths. But I ended up working at an American Legion; no money in that.

I gradually drifted into true customer service jobs. You know, the kind that are demeaning and choke the life out of your soul.

First - NH State liquor stores. Again, good to be around booze. I'm comfortable in that environment. But customers suck. Sales reps suck. Liquor commission management sucks.

I began to slowly die.

Semi-retired (I hate that fucking phrase) in 2016. Took one month off - just one, after an entire lifetime of working for ungrateful, short-sighted motherfuckers. Got a part time job working in a thrift store. Told myself I was doing a good thing, working for a good organization.

I lie to myself all the time.

Couldn't get out of there fast enough. One year later I was working at the Capitol Center for the Arts. Been there for 3 years.

Soul sucking. Answering the same idiotic questions over and over again from an unlimited supply of mindless morons.

Last September I took on a second part time job; working for the city of Concord. Pays well but.......how bizarre, how bizarre. Fucking weird job. I won't get into details but it is strange. And still, the entire focus is waiting on schizophrenic subhumans.

Since September I have been slowly melting down. The combination of the two jobs is eating me up. Five days a week of sacrificing my ego and swallowing my pride to bring in a buck, in two completely different environments with two completely different sets of types of people.

Two Mondays. Monday is Monday. Wednesday is Monday.

My anger and frustration has been slowly building.  Whiskey input had increased to the point where I was hurting myself. Waking up with fucking headaches. I never get headaches from drinking whiskey.

The jobs were destroying me. Physically and mentally. Whiskey was destroying me.

I had no hope. You gotta have hope, you gotta see a light at the end of the tunnel. If you don't life will eat you up like cancer.

When coronavirus came along I was on my knees praying to be sent home. I did not know how much longer I could keep this up.

Now here I am. Home. City of Concord is essentially giving me a paid vacation - the job is too stupid to do at home. I hope they keep it coming. Cap Ctr is giving me six weeks working from home then everybody gets laid off.

I am catching my breath. I started exercising again. Dieting again. Writing again. Drinking less whiskey. My philosophy is to do healthy things and things that make me happy. Flush out my brain. Air out my soul.

I gotta create hope. Not sure how I am going to do that but the seed has been planted and has a little time to be nourished. I am hoping to hold on to these good habits when I am inevitably called back to the grind. I am hoping to develop a new perspective to help me deal with these jobs.

I do not want to go back to where I was. I don't think I can go back to where I was.

I hate that so many people are being hurt by this disease. These are the most bizarre times I have ever lived through which, for someone of my generation, is saying a lot.

On the other hand, if a few thousand people have to die to enable me to find peace of mind, it's a pretty fair tradeoff.

Shock of Recognition

I am always up before Carol.

By the time she comes downstairs I am gently settled in the recliner, cup of coffee to my right, Maka in my lap, book in my hands. Sometimes for hours on weekends before she arises.

When Carol gets to the bottom of the stairs I always say good morning. Often, after that, I am compelled to say something brilliant, as is my way.

This morning I said "I would applaud, but I have a book in my hands." An electric shock ran through me as I immediately recognized the meaningfulness of that comment. If I were a songwriter I would have immediately begun writing a song with that as the theme. If I were a poet, a poem. That's how creativity often works.

"I have a book in my hands" gets to the very essence of who I am. I am a whiskey swilling, blues loving, barfly used-to-be-wannabe, football worshiping, insanity leaning motherfucker. No doubt. I am deeply sensitive, emotional, and endlessly loving.

But if you break me down to my soul, if you look into my heart, I am all about books. More specifically, words. I like to write, I love to read. I love to lose myself in books.

I worship words.

"I Have a Book in My Hands" would be appropriate on my tombstone. It's perfect. You could bury me with a book in my hands. I choose those words over "Please Forget You Knew My Name", my previous choice.

Catch is you ain't gonna bury me. As much as that image fascinates me, the dead underground lying in the shadow of a tombstone, I prefer that you toast me like a marshmallow. I haven't decided yet where I want my ashes scattered. Maybe you will make that decision for me. I trust your judgement.

"I Have a Book in My Hands". It will be the name of the biopic Hollywood will one day make about me.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Who exactly am I. Life has really buried me under  a mountain of deception; all the deceptions I have to manage every day just to survive. I lost myself. I really don't know who I am. So I function as a ghost, a shell of a human being, stepping out on stage every day to put on the act. Call me Pacino.

Then I return home bewildered. Stunned that I am 66 and not retired. Maybe never retired. Stunned that I am working menial jobs. Two menial jobs. Stunned that I still answer to other people.

I slip into my recliner and hope to find myself. I never do. Even there I kid myself. But Maka and whiskey soften the blow.

I am reading a biography of Paul Simon. He wrote a song called "Mother and Child Reunion". Know where he got the inspiration for the song? A Chinese restaurant. Specifically, the menu. It had a dish on it called mother and child reunion. Amusingly enough it was a chicken and egg dish.

Of course there was a helluva lot more that went into the writing of the song, all kinds of influences and experiences and memories, but the phrase got into his brain and escaped through creativity.

Creative people get struck by lightening. Words, phrases, images that juice up the creative process. It gets filed away in the brain. It stews. Other words, phrases and images get connected to the original. Eventually you have something. Something very cool.

I am a creative person. Fiercely creative. Even if there is little or no evidence to support that assertion.

Words and phrases are forever burrowing into my diseased brain. I love the feeling. I will stop whatever I am doing when I hear words that impress me. Someone talking. TV. Wherever it comes from. It floors me.

When I come across stuff like that as I read, I often stop and write them down. It means that much to me. I especially love the feeling when I come up with creative phrases on my own. It is the best feeling in the world to me. It's just that I don't do anything with them. They languish unused but hopeful in the dark corners of my mind, repressed by boredom and despair as I lurch through life like a blind man in a minefield.

"I have a book in my hands". No big deal for you. I understand. They are just words. But when I said it I felt like I was saying "This is who I am". I felt like I was explaining myself to god. Books have provided more peace for me than any other recreational thing I have ever done. And I have been doing it longer than anything else I have ever done.

I don't ever remember not wanting to read. I will never stop reading.

"I Have a Book In My Hands". Inscribe it on the urn.

&

"You know I've been thinking I just might quit drinkin'
  And now I don't know all in all
  I just might stay home and get drunk all alone
  And punch a few holes in the wall"

"I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight",  Chris Wall
 
 

Years

"Years.
  Everybody knows
  You gotta let 'em go
  And they kinda roll by
  Like tears
  Just a measure of time
  Playin' with your mind
  Passin' you by

  Those years
  Look around
  Up and down
  They're nowhere to be found
  Like the wind
  Old friends
  They come and go again

  Don't look back in sorrow
  Just hope you see tomorrow

  You and me
  Came to be
  We raised a family
  When we're gone
  They live on
  To see what we won't see

  Don't look back in sorrow
  The children have tomorrow

  Those years
  Everybody knows
  You gotta let 'em go
  And they kinda roll by
  Like tears
  Just a measure of time
  Playin' with your mind
  Passin' you by"


"Years", by John Anderson

*

"The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves and to suffice for our own happiness."


"The torment of mind I endure till the moment shall arrive when I shall owe not a shilling on earth is such really to render life of little value."

Thomas Jefferson

Lakota

I pray to god Lakota was not in any pain.

Especially when I was with her. It was my job to comfort her. It breaks my heart to think how confused and frightened she must have been. It would kill me to know that she was in pain.

I wish I could have held her in my arms for 1 hour and 10 minutes. But she wouldn't let me. She never let me hold her. She did not like to be picked up.

I tried over the years. I'm a guy who needs hugs and kisses. My love is intimate. I tried every once in a while. I would pick her up and she would immediately squirm to get down.

If there was ever a time when she needed to be held it was Friday morning. And I couldn't do it.

I pray to god that whatever happened to her happened shortly before I found her. I cannot bear to think she was like that for hours. Scared, confused and just waiting for someone to help her. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that.

I hate closing the bathroom door. It kills me. I hate walking by her box. I sit in my recliner and glance over at the box over and over again. When she was in there I could see her. I used to look over at her and wait happily for her to walk over and climb up into my lap. The box has got to go. I hate putting down one bowl of food.

Sadness sits in my stomach like a piece of lead. It has not gone away.

My brain is at war with my heart. Yesterday I went out to do errands. Carol went out too. I beat Carol home. Maka came to greet me. Lakota did not. My brain does not accept the fact that she is gone. I glance around expecting to see her.

My heart tells me the truth.

I know I will get past this. I have in the past. But it doesn't feel right to think that I will get past this. She meant so much to me. I don't ever want to forget her. I don't ever want her out of my heart.

I don't want to love Maka with sadness oozing out of me. I pet her with tears in my eyes. I hold her with tears in my eyes. Maka loves to be held, thank god. But I don't want her to feel my sadness and I know she does. She is an animal. Animals get everything. I don't want her to associate sadness with me and her.

I love Maka deeply. I have loved all my pets deeply. That is how I love. Lakota was my sweetheart, my pretty girl. That's what I always called her. Sweetheart. Pretty girl. But I love Maka with all my heart too. She brings me enormous joy.

I want to believe she is sad too. I think she misses Lakota.

Maka has been in my lap most of yesterday and all day today. Thank god.

I hate the fact that tomorrow is Monday. I do not want to return to routine. I am not going to get over this quickly. Friday at work was brutal. I could not concentrate. Tears came to my eyes over and over. It felt so wrong to be working a meaningless job after a precious life had been taken away from me.

Sadness sits in my stomach like a piece of lead.

Lakota

I went to bed at 10:00 Thursday night.

Lakota was sleeping in my lap. I woke her up gently, petting her, kissing her head, talking to her. I always wake Lakota and Maka up gently. I never want to be their rude alarm clock.

Lakota jumped down and strolled into the kitchen because she knew she was about to get a snack. Maka followed. I gave them fresh cold water (which they love) and snacks. Went to bed.

Everything changed on Friday morning.

I got up at 5:30, went downstairs at 5:45. Lakota was not in her box in the kitchen. Other than my lap, her two favorite winter locations are the box (it sits on a heating vent) and underneath the bed in the spare room (there is a heating vent there).

She is always in the box in the morning and eagerly walks out of it when she sees me. On the rare occasions she is not there I worry a little bit.

I walked into the living room to see if she was on the couch. She was not. But Maka walked into the spare room and came out again 5 seconds later. I thought that was odd; she never does that. My antennae were partially up. But it was 5:45.

I reluctantly gave Maka snacks without Lakota.

 Went back upstairs at 6:00 to get dressed. Came down, grabbed my keys to start my car, which I always do on cold mornings. As I walked towards the French doors Maka walked into the spare room and came out again in 5 seconds. My antennae were all the way up.

I walked in. Lakota was on top of the bed in a very uncomfortable position. I immediately knew something was very wrong. I went to her, kissed her, petted her - she barely raised her head.

Lakota never sleeps on top of that bed. I think she was there to make sure we found her. If she was under the bed it would have been quite a while before we knew something was wrong.

I think Maka deliberately let me know something was wrong.

I looked away to slide the exercise bike over to make room for me to sit with her. She tried to get down but fell off the bed.

That split my heart in two.

I realized she couldn't walk, couldn't stand up. Her front paws worked but not the back. I picked her up, I held her, but she kept struggling. Eventually I laid her on the floor, continuously kissing and petting her and talking to her.

I walked out of the room to get my cell phone to call the vet. I was gone 10 seconds. When I came back in she had clawed her way back onto the bed with just her front paws.

I called the vet at 6:30 and convinced her to come in to the office at 7:30 when the office opened; she wasn't scheduled until 8:30.

At one point when she struggled on the bed again I moved her to the floor. A couple of times she dug her claws into the rug and turned herself around. Such a fighter.

I sat with Lakota from 6:15 to 7:25. At 6:45 I called Carol on my cell phone to wake her up and tell her what was going on - I was not going to leave Lakota alone for 1 more second.

At 7:25 we wrapped Lakota up in a towel and I held her in my arms. Carol drove. I was able to hold her in my arms, kiss her head and talk to her.

She was very calm. She was alert but quiet.

At the vets, when we put her on the table in the towel she literally curled up like she was going to sleep. She purred a little bit.

She was telling us that she was done. She was not in pain as far as the vet could tell, she was not struggling. She was just ready to go.

Every time I put my hand on her she closed her eyes. Lakota was my cat.

The absence is the killer. She is just not here anymore. Her absence fills this house with a crushing weight. She lived here for twenty years. Twenty amazing years.

I keep expecting to see her walk out of the spare room and stroll to the water bowl or food bowl and then into her box. She used to do that all the time. Many times a night.

Every night when she was done wandering she would climb into my lap. She couldn't jump onto the recliner like Maka so she climbed onto the chair to my right, walked across the end table and climbed up onto my chest.

Literally climbed up onto my chest. She would walk up and put her face right in my face. I kissed her. I talked to her. She loved it when I stroked both sides of her face at once.

Then most of the time she would just sit on my chest. Just sit there. If I had a drink I couldn't drink it. If I had food I couldn't eat it. I had to look around her to see the TV.

Just this week, as she sat on my chest, I told Carol that sometimes I was tempted to shove her aside, but I had no idea how many more times this would happen.

Truthfully there were times that I moved her but not many.

Eventually she would curl up on my left thigh, lean against the arm of the recliner, and go to sleep. Maybe my most precious moments with her.

She used to climb up on my chest when I was sleeping in bed and put her paw on my chin. Say "Hey - give me some attention." She used to crawl up on my side and sleep there.

None of these things are ever going to happen again. I want them to with all my heart but it will not come to pass.

I got up to go to the bathroom last night like I do every morning around 3 or 4. I would always leave the door open 6 inches or so in case Lakota was around and needed to get in. If the door was closed she would just sit outside it and meow.

Last night I closed the door. And cried.

This morning I put down one bowl of food. For Maka. And I totally lost it.

Yesterday Carol and I both left for work around 9:30 after taking just a little time to recover from Lakota. I drove around at lunchtime because I was not hungry. I cried a lot. I cried in the parking lot when I left. I cried when I got back.

I am not handling this well.

I am an angry, bitter man. Unhappy most of the time. Whiskey is an artificial solution that I lean on too much.

Lakota was a real solution.

I am also a sensitive, emotional man and Lakota brought that out in me. Every day. EVERY day.

That was medicine for me. It keeps me alive.

I miss her with all my heart. All my soul. All my sensitivity. All my love.

My heart is broken. She was the pet I loved the most. We connected. She loved me too.

I have pictures in my mind from Friday that won't go away. The way I found her. Sitting with her for over an hour. Holding her in the towel as we drove to the vet. She was so calm, so trusting.

Talking to her on the vets table. Kissing her. Noticing that she closed her eyes when I touched her.

She was precious to me and to this family.

Twenty years is a long run for a pet.

We were so lucky to have her.