The Mighty Duck

The Queen, Plimco, Dr. J, three of the Queen’s friends, and three of their brothers, and I all spent the day floating down the Duck River.  Some of us were more successful than others of us.  You can bet that the guys floating in the kiddie pool were the ones who ended up having to hitchhike back to their truck.

I don’t even know what to tell you.  It was so beautiful.  The river was slow and the rock outcroppings above us were stunning.  We canoed for a while and then we stopped for lunch and then Plimco and I went swimming.  Then we canoed some more and we drifted and talked and it was so quiet and beautiful.  You don’t see many signs of civilization, just a camper and one house and there’s nothing to hear except the crows arguing and the fish jumping out of the water.

I just had such a nice time.  God, I love those girls and I miss them so much.  Also, it made me wish I had sisters, as I have no one except y’all to talk about stray boob hairs with and whether it’s okay to use any random beard trimmers you might have around the house to gussy up your cooter hair.  Not that y’all aren’t wonderful and I’m sure full of opinions about stray boob hairs.  It’s just different.

Then we had ice cream from a gas station and I swear, that was the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life.  I’m tired in a way that feels really good.  It’s too bad Mrs. Wigglebottom is such a doofus, because I’d love to take her and the Butcher down there.  She’ll just have to miss out and I’ll have to see if I can’t talk the Butcher into it. 

Also, one of the guys had the most beautiful freckle-filled back.  I’m so jealous of people filled with freckles.  I think they’re beautiful.

I Wonder How Those Meetings Go

Y’all may not know this, but the Wayward Boy Scout is a founding member of RWGNFDD, which, unfortunately, doesn’t have the ease of actually being a word people can say like MADD.  I guess you could kind of go “Rawgnfidd.”  But rawgnfidd is lacking a certain poetry necessary to really catch on.  And, what if you’ve been drinking on the way to the meetings?  When the officer pulls you over and asks what you’re doing, and you say, “Ossifer, I’m on my way to a rawgnfidd meeting.” I’m almost certain you’re getting the breathalyzer.  It just sounds like a drunken slur of a word.

But maybe that’s fitting.

Anyway, for fun you should head on over to his place to learn more about the mission of Right Wing Gun Nuts for Drunk Driving.  Also, you might want to ask him to give the rest of the world a head’s up on where he usually drives, just so if we inadvertently find ourselves in those states, we can be extra cautious.

Almost

I think the main difference between the Butcher and myself is that I could not wait to get out of rural Illinois.  I think the Butcher would have been more than happy to stay in some small town where he knew everyone and just do what he’s doing here, but surrounded by folks he’s known since high school.  I could be wrong about that, but I don’t know.

Sometimes, folks ask me why I’m so “good” and my brothers are how they are, the insinuation being, I guess, that they are bad.  I think this is kind of a fucked up thing to ask a person, especially a person like me, who is somewhat unclear about what makes a person good or bad.  My brothers are loyal in their own ways.  They’ve never been to prison.  They don’t beat people up.

Isn’t that good?

I guess they mean that I’m successful.

I don’t really feel successful.  I feel anxious and afraid.  I didn’t do anything wrong as a child because I was afraid of my parents.  I didn’t do anything wrong as a teenager, because I was afraid of getting stuck in one of those towns.  My whole life is a trajectory away from the things I fear.

That doesn’t make me good.

I taught the Butcher how to drive.  I would come home from work on Sunday afternoons.  I was working at the gas station and I’d have to be at work by six in the morning and then I was off by two and we would get in the car and just drive.  Just to see how far we could get before we’d have to turn around and come home.

We’d try not to hit big towns, just keep to the country roads, and sometimes you’d just feel like, if you looked hard enough, or if you’d gotten to a place just a second earlier, that you’d see it, that something that would make sense of things, that would give your life clarity.

For me, that clarity has never come.  But I chase it.

Shit.  This is why I don’t drink, because the day after I feel like shit.  Not physically, at least not very often, but emotionally.  Today’s been hard.  I feel like I’ve wasted my life, but if there’ve been other chances, other opportunities, I didn’t see them.

I am where I am because I did what I thought was right.  Maybe that’s not the best way to live.  I don’t know.

I don’t know what I’m trying to get at.  I’m not sad, though, looking back on this post, I think it reads that way.

I’m shook.  But just in a general way.  And I don’t know what’s shaken me.  But it reminds me of that feeling, like I just missed something–that I’m too late for it or misunderstood it as it was happening around me.

Plimco and Dr. J are in town.  I talked to them both and they both sounded overly cautious on the phone, like they weren’t sure I’d want to see them or that I’d have time.  It kind of broke my heart.  Of course I want to see them.  And I’ve got nothing but time.

Come sit next to me on the couch and tell me what y’all have been up to since I last saw you.  Or let’s sit out on the back porch and drink lemonade and make up stories about what we wish we’d been up to.  Let me take a good look at you, because it’s always too long before I see you again.  Let me just listen to you.  Let me just be with you, my dear friends.  It soothes my heart.

Fuck it.  I’m going to bed.  I’ll get up and walk the dog and see how tomorrow goes.

If I’m fucking my life up beyond repair, well, what the fuck?  I’ll find a way to make do.  I usually do.

I just realized I don’t know where my parents live.

Happy Methodist Moving Day, Motherfuckers.

Ha.  Fuck me.  There’s some clarity.

Not the “Go forth, your life makes sense now” clarity I was hoping for, but the “Here’s why you’re anxious and ridiculous”* kind.  Well, you take what you can get.

Write until stuff makes sense.  That’s my motto.

 

 

 

*Just today.  I’ve got no answers for why I’m anxious and ridiculous most of the time.