And even though no one will read it, say hello to the newest short story/chapter of my novel/anthology.
The Spider that Broke the Camels Back.
I had been living comfortably a few miles from my hometown for four years when it happened.. Id been attending school on and off and trying to come up with a plan for myself beyond paying for and occupying space but not much had come from it so far. On that fateful morning, a lukewarm, slow motion sunrise found me sinking into a nicotine haze. It was 6:02 A. M. and the wanderlust had hit me again. It had been brewing in me for a while. It was sleeping in my bed at home while I worked. It was in the way I had begun to crawl into bed as far from her silent frame as I possibly could; facing the other way, I did my best to pretend it was still just my room. It was in the way her whining, selfish pleas for me to wake up after only a few hours of sleep had stopped being cute. It was a lot of things that had to do with her and even more to do with me: The tiredness in my eyes, my increasing inability to enunciate, or enjoy my sleep. Most mornings I would simply lay there for hours on end thinking of all I ought to or ought not to do. It was in the way every good band made me miss music and every good book made me miss writing. It was the way every familiar road sign made me throw up a little in my throat. That feeling waited for me everywhere I went. I felt it in my job, my girl, and my apartment. It grew and grew until finally it took the form of a defiant spider. The spider that broke the camels back.
I was reclining on the porch enjoying the early morning sky with my feet up on the banister. Work at this hour simply meant trying not to fall asleep and cleaning up if my clients made a mess. I mostly just smoked and stared out towards the horizon while they slept. Three things were mine and mine alone in those days: The slow, contemplative drive to work, the lazy sunrises, and the hope-filled morning drive home. The easy, powerful nature of the Cadillac accounted for the first and last joy, but the sunrises were purely isolated and very special to me. The dark, confusing nights melted into clear young mornings and left me in the middle trying to decide which one I would be when I got home. For the most part I never left that spot in the middle. I was a 24-hour panic attack with a collection of Disney movies and dreams of the road. I was half hope, half despair at all hours. The early sunrise was the only time I fit in. I could be both and never have to choose how or why I would feel or what I would do. It was like the night before graduation. School was done but the real world seemed so far away.
To some degree life means despair, everybody knows that but hope Hope was important to me. The reason I ended up at that job in the first place was my due to my hopeful nature. See, I refused to give up on the night. When nothing was shaking and no one cared I always held out that if I waited long enough something good could come of my patience. So every night I would pace, and smoke, and write, and read and debate where to go. The problem was I was too paranoid, too bitter, too fucking jaded to believe that any where was better than home. Bars meant fights... Shows meant feeling old as you watched the crowd get younger and younger and 24 hour diners meant meeting people who were always somehow lonelier than you. I came up with a million reasons to never leave and yet I refused to just sleep. I couldnt give up. I was about to leave any second, I just needed a destination.
I had heard about the job that way; online and reading the local listings. 24-hour residential care for Mental Retardation Services, full time pay with benefits. No prior experience necessary. Ask for Rachel.
Rachel turned out to be quite nice and I got the job. The first month was all training. I learned CPR, medication administration, and how to fill out the mountains of paperwork caring for Special Needs clients required. When I finally received an assignment I was told I would work with two clients with Autism. My shift was from 11 pm to 7 am and for the most part was administrative. I fell straight into the routine and things went well enough for the first six or seven months. I even came to really like the job. But when I saw that fucking spider set against the purple and orange sunrise and I knew that I wouldnt last another week.
Every shift at the group home had a checklist of chores. One of my most important was clearing the spider webs every morning just before I left. State checked for them every single time they did a surprise visit. I tidied up the rafters every morning at 6:45 just after sweeping up nearly a full pack of cigarette butts from the cement porch floor and just before clocking out. The webs were usually empty but I had run into a spider or two before. I didnt like killing bugs. I dont like killing anything but you get used to it. In a job where you change sheets for clients who smear feces on them selves when they get angry, a spider or two is not much of a worry. But this bastard, this proud, black monster was either oblivious to my routine or had decided he didnt care. Hed built the same web every morning for the last two weeks but had never been in it when cleaning time had come. I had gotten used to seeing it over the last fortnight and even sort of admired the little bugger that kept up the routine. But this morning he waited, hanging down grimly. His thick legs tidying up his web, he patiently waited for something to happen. He reminded me of myself before I got the job, always cleaning up my flat for guests who never arrived. I looked at him and just knew I couldnt do it.
I couldnt kill him. I wasnt afraid of being bitten, or of even being touched. I just didnt want to become some Darwinian law of nature. All porch spiders die at 6:45 A.M on 1234 Greerson street. Always have, always will. I wanted to be subject to laws of nature again; not become one. But instead of cheating death and testing fate I was a cog in the machine. I was an instrument of the pitiless world. The suburban neighborhood where my clients lived suddenly felt very cruel to me. Everyone doing exactly what they were told, like so many inmates hoping for parole. Everyone had the same obligations: mortgages, marriages, and maintenance to attend to. They were chained like murderers to their cookie cutter homes. I had always told myself that my only obligation in life was to figure all this out, to find some point to all of this. If I died searching at least I would know I had tried. I guess that hope was that the search for purpose could provide it but here I was, supposedly saving money to travel but really just getting fat and comfortable in my routine. A part of me had even considered moving down the street from work in one of the older suburbs. Home Loan. Linoleum. Lawn Mowers. Yard Sales. Terrifying.
And now I was being confronted by this big nasty spider, who was somehow no where near as vicious as my girlfriend. She was as poisonous as they come and yet I had grown accustomed to perhaps immune is a better word her attacks. I usually just shrugged them off and turned the game up a little louder. Savannah used words and threats to hurt me but this ogre faced, eight legged bastard was just staring at me as if he knew that I could ignore anything but my own thoughts. As if he knew that confronting me in this way would lead to some form of self examination which would lead to either apathy or pity. Freedom for him either way.
I swung the broom hard and fast in anger. You dont know me. I yelled surprisingly loudly. I inexplicably defended all that I hated about myself because I was too insecure to admit I was wrong. From the floor to the air above my head the broom moved fast, but as my downward baseball swing neared the web time seemed to slow. Each delicate strand of his home, each sticky line of architecture glistened like the gossamer timbers of an ancient temple. Glowing orange and yellow from the early morning sun it reminded me of the robes of a Buddhist monk. It reminded me of the temple that used to be the filling station for my soul-searching journeys. And it reminded me what an asshole I had become. When the world returned to real time the spider transformed into a little black blur and hit the banister. Broken, he slid off of the rail and hit the floor.
Staring at him, filled with pathos, I was over come by shame and a feeling of irrelevance. As respectfully as I could, I gently swept him off of the porch and headed back inside to warm up the eggs I had cooked the boys for breakfast. First shift would be arriving in ten minutes and I knew they would notice any failure to prepare their morning for them. Methodically moving through the task I reheated breakfast and set out Pauls special eating utensils and dining plan. I made Terrance an extra Pop Tart and a glass of juice without a single thought. As the cars pulled in outside I walked into Terrances room one more time to do my final bed check of the night. He looked like a big black angel. All 230 lbs of his caramel frame was curled into a ball and he smiled a bit as he slept. I knew he wasnt incontinent. I had broken him of that long ago. It had been months since he had wet the bed but I still checked the sheets because my routine was set in stone. Dry again, I thought to myself, good job T.
I was starting to feel a little better when the door opened and Dave from first shift stepped in surrounded by a cloud of smoke from his final drag.
Way to go man. He laughed as his curly rats nest of blonde hair shook gently.
What? I said in protest, knowing from his tone that he as about to complain about my work ethic.
Well the house looks good and everything but the porch looks like shit.
What the shit? I cleaned up all my cigarettes, moved the chairs back, and even bleached the banister what could possibly look bad?
No, no youre right, all that stuff looks great. Its just that four foot spider web that bothers me.
No fucking way. I knocked that down 15 minutes ago, there is no way another one is up. I mean, at least not a big one.
Its not big. Its fucking huge. You can see it from the road bro. State would certainly notice it.
I brushed by him, nearly running in disbelief as I threw open the door and saw it. Twice as fucking big as before, with that same black bitch sitting right square in the middle of it. It was so big it seemed he given up on flies and gnats and had perhaps set his sights on me. Dave just laughed and said something like ooops.
Its hard to say. I cant really remember much after that. I made some sort of guttural grunting sound and ran to my car. My heart was pounding. I didnt know what any of what was going on meant but I knew it terrified me. I I I just need to drive, I told myself. I flew home, packed only the barest necessities and headed away from the sunrise as fast as I could.
I didnt even bother breaking up with my girlfriend, Id been caught in that web for too long. She had already replaced all my decorations and remade my apartment in her image let her have it I thought as I nervously light my last cigarette. As I crossed the state line, pulled into a gas station and wondered where to go from there a car pulled in next to me filled with a miserable looking family on vacation. Looking at them I had my second vision of the diay. It didnt seem to matter where they were going they werent going to escape the loneliness they felt. It was written over all their faces. Dads confused glare was the result of feeling guilty for leaving a job he hated even though it was just for a few days. Mom missed her T.V. and so did the middle child. His sad expression made clear the difference between books and Television. He just didnt have the imagination to replace his best friend with written words. His older sister missed sitting in the hallway with the phone cord curled around her arm and hand as she rolled around and gossiped about the other kids in class. They all looked so lost, except for the three year old. He just stared out the window with his hands and face pressed against the glass. He had never seen me before and his head tilted like a puppys when he spotted me. I was new. His eyes widened as he explored my frame and waited for my reaction. I smiled awkwardly and waved a bit and giggled with delight that he could affect something outside his restrictive car seat. He was at the age where was happy to experience anything new. God, I envied him. He reminded me so much of myself, twenty years yonge learning how to play house excited just to know one more thing about the world. Fuck my routine, I thought to myself as I mouthed thank you to the little boy and hopped back in my car. The engine roared beneath me and the Deville nearly left the ground as it flew towards tomorrow.
I didnt care where I was going so long as it was so new that I never closed my mouth again. So many small towns nearly identical to mine passed by and I wondered if there truly was anything new to behold in this bland country. I smoked, I sang, and I giggled at the novelty of eating beef jerky as I flew down the open road. Slowly the feeling of motion became so familiar that I stopped wondering where I was going. It was then nine hours after I had left my past behind that the Chicago skyline broke from the clouds and I knew I was home.
The Spider that Broke the Camels Back.
I had been living comfortably a few miles from my hometown for four years when it happened.. Id been attending school on and off and trying to come up with a plan for myself beyond paying for and occupying space but not much had come from it so far. On that fateful morning, a lukewarm, slow motion sunrise found me sinking into a nicotine haze. It was 6:02 A. M. and the wanderlust had hit me again. It had been brewing in me for a while. It was sleeping in my bed at home while I worked. It was in the way I had begun to crawl into bed as far from her silent frame as I possibly could; facing the other way, I did my best to pretend it was still just my room. It was in the way her whining, selfish pleas for me to wake up after only a few hours of sleep had stopped being cute. It was a lot of things that had to do with her and even more to do with me: The tiredness in my eyes, my increasing inability to enunciate, or enjoy my sleep. Most mornings I would simply lay there for hours on end thinking of all I ought to or ought not to do. It was in the way every good band made me miss music and every good book made me miss writing. It was the way every familiar road sign made me throw up a little in my throat. That feeling waited for me everywhere I went. I felt it in my job, my girl, and my apartment. It grew and grew until finally it took the form of a defiant spider. The spider that broke the camels back.
I was reclining on the porch enjoying the early morning sky with my feet up on the banister. Work at this hour simply meant trying not to fall asleep and cleaning up if my clients made a mess. I mostly just smoked and stared out towards the horizon while they slept. Three things were mine and mine alone in those days: The slow, contemplative drive to work, the lazy sunrises, and the hope-filled morning drive home. The easy, powerful nature of the Cadillac accounted for the first and last joy, but the sunrises were purely isolated and very special to me. The dark, confusing nights melted into clear young mornings and left me in the middle trying to decide which one I would be when I got home. For the most part I never left that spot in the middle. I was a 24-hour panic attack with a collection of Disney movies and dreams of the road. I was half hope, half despair at all hours. The early sunrise was the only time I fit in. I could be both and never have to choose how or why I would feel or what I would do. It was like the night before graduation. School was done but the real world seemed so far away.
To some degree life means despair, everybody knows that but hope Hope was important to me. The reason I ended up at that job in the first place was my due to my hopeful nature. See, I refused to give up on the night. When nothing was shaking and no one cared I always held out that if I waited long enough something good could come of my patience. So every night I would pace, and smoke, and write, and read and debate where to go. The problem was I was too paranoid, too bitter, too fucking jaded to believe that any where was better than home. Bars meant fights... Shows meant feeling old as you watched the crowd get younger and younger and 24 hour diners meant meeting people who were always somehow lonelier than you. I came up with a million reasons to never leave and yet I refused to just sleep. I couldnt give up. I was about to leave any second, I just needed a destination.
I had heard about the job that way; online and reading the local listings. 24-hour residential care for Mental Retardation Services, full time pay with benefits. No prior experience necessary. Ask for Rachel.
Rachel turned out to be quite nice and I got the job. The first month was all training. I learned CPR, medication administration, and how to fill out the mountains of paperwork caring for Special Needs clients required. When I finally received an assignment I was told I would work with two clients with Autism. My shift was from 11 pm to 7 am and for the most part was administrative. I fell straight into the routine and things went well enough for the first six or seven months. I even came to really like the job. But when I saw that fucking spider set against the purple and orange sunrise and I knew that I wouldnt last another week.
Every shift at the group home had a checklist of chores. One of my most important was clearing the spider webs every morning just before I left. State checked for them every single time they did a surprise visit. I tidied up the rafters every morning at 6:45 just after sweeping up nearly a full pack of cigarette butts from the cement porch floor and just before clocking out. The webs were usually empty but I had run into a spider or two before. I didnt like killing bugs. I dont like killing anything but you get used to it. In a job where you change sheets for clients who smear feces on them selves when they get angry, a spider or two is not much of a worry. But this bastard, this proud, black monster was either oblivious to my routine or had decided he didnt care. Hed built the same web every morning for the last two weeks but had never been in it when cleaning time had come. I had gotten used to seeing it over the last fortnight and even sort of admired the little bugger that kept up the routine. But this morning he waited, hanging down grimly. His thick legs tidying up his web, he patiently waited for something to happen. He reminded me of myself before I got the job, always cleaning up my flat for guests who never arrived. I looked at him and just knew I couldnt do it.
I couldnt kill him. I wasnt afraid of being bitten, or of even being touched. I just didnt want to become some Darwinian law of nature. All porch spiders die at 6:45 A.M on 1234 Greerson street. Always have, always will. I wanted to be subject to laws of nature again; not become one. But instead of cheating death and testing fate I was a cog in the machine. I was an instrument of the pitiless world. The suburban neighborhood where my clients lived suddenly felt very cruel to me. Everyone doing exactly what they were told, like so many inmates hoping for parole. Everyone had the same obligations: mortgages, marriages, and maintenance to attend to. They were chained like murderers to their cookie cutter homes. I had always told myself that my only obligation in life was to figure all this out, to find some point to all of this. If I died searching at least I would know I had tried. I guess that hope was that the search for purpose could provide it but here I was, supposedly saving money to travel but really just getting fat and comfortable in my routine. A part of me had even considered moving down the street from work in one of the older suburbs. Home Loan. Linoleum. Lawn Mowers. Yard Sales. Terrifying.
And now I was being confronted by this big nasty spider, who was somehow no where near as vicious as my girlfriend. She was as poisonous as they come and yet I had grown accustomed to perhaps immune is a better word her attacks. I usually just shrugged them off and turned the game up a little louder. Savannah used words and threats to hurt me but this ogre faced, eight legged bastard was just staring at me as if he knew that I could ignore anything but my own thoughts. As if he knew that confronting me in this way would lead to some form of self examination which would lead to either apathy or pity. Freedom for him either way.
I swung the broom hard and fast in anger. You dont know me. I yelled surprisingly loudly. I inexplicably defended all that I hated about myself because I was too insecure to admit I was wrong. From the floor to the air above my head the broom moved fast, but as my downward baseball swing neared the web time seemed to slow. Each delicate strand of his home, each sticky line of architecture glistened like the gossamer timbers of an ancient temple. Glowing orange and yellow from the early morning sun it reminded me of the robes of a Buddhist monk. It reminded me of the temple that used to be the filling station for my soul-searching journeys. And it reminded me what an asshole I had become. When the world returned to real time the spider transformed into a little black blur and hit the banister. Broken, he slid off of the rail and hit the floor.
Staring at him, filled with pathos, I was over come by shame and a feeling of irrelevance. As respectfully as I could, I gently swept him off of the porch and headed back inside to warm up the eggs I had cooked the boys for breakfast. First shift would be arriving in ten minutes and I knew they would notice any failure to prepare their morning for them. Methodically moving through the task I reheated breakfast and set out Pauls special eating utensils and dining plan. I made Terrance an extra Pop Tart and a glass of juice without a single thought. As the cars pulled in outside I walked into Terrances room one more time to do my final bed check of the night. He looked like a big black angel. All 230 lbs of his caramel frame was curled into a ball and he smiled a bit as he slept. I knew he wasnt incontinent. I had broken him of that long ago. It had been months since he had wet the bed but I still checked the sheets because my routine was set in stone. Dry again, I thought to myself, good job T.
I was starting to feel a little better when the door opened and Dave from first shift stepped in surrounded by a cloud of smoke from his final drag.
Way to go man. He laughed as his curly rats nest of blonde hair shook gently.
What? I said in protest, knowing from his tone that he as about to complain about my work ethic.
Well the house looks good and everything but the porch looks like shit.
What the shit? I cleaned up all my cigarettes, moved the chairs back, and even bleached the banister what could possibly look bad?
No, no youre right, all that stuff looks great. Its just that four foot spider web that bothers me.
No fucking way. I knocked that down 15 minutes ago, there is no way another one is up. I mean, at least not a big one.
Its not big. Its fucking huge. You can see it from the road bro. State would certainly notice it.
I brushed by him, nearly running in disbelief as I threw open the door and saw it. Twice as fucking big as before, with that same black bitch sitting right square in the middle of it. It was so big it seemed he given up on flies and gnats and had perhaps set his sights on me. Dave just laughed and said something like ooops.
Its hard to say. I cant really remember much after that. I made some sort of guttural grunting sound and ran to my car. My heart was pounding. I didnt know what any of what was going on meant but I knew it terrified me. I I I just need to drive, I told myself. I flew home, packed only the barest necessities and headed away from the sunrise as fast as I could.
I didnt even bother breaking up with my girlfriend, Id been caught in that web for too long. She had already replaced all my decorations and remade my apartment in her image let her have it I thought as I nervously light my last cigarette. As I crossed the state line, pulled into a gas station and wondered where to go from there a car pulled in next to me filled with a miserable looking family on vacation. Looking at them I had my second vision of the diay. It didnt seem to matter where they were going they werent going to escape the loneliness they felt. It was written over all their faces. Dads confused glare was the result of feeling guilty for leaving a job he hated even though it was just for a few days. Mom missed her T.V. and so did the middle child. His sad expression made clear the difference between books and Television. He just didnt have the imagination to replace his best friend with written words. His older sister missed sitting in the hallway with the phone cord curled around her arm and hand as she rolled around and gossiped about the other kids in class. They all looked so lost, except for the three year old. He just stared out the window with his hands and face pressed against the glass. He had never seen me before and his head tilted like a puppys when he spotted me. I was new. His eyes widened as he explored my frame and waited for my reaction. I smiled awkwardly and waved a bit and giggled with delight that he could affect something outside his restrictive car seat. He was at the age where was happy to experience anything new. God, I envied him. He reminded me so much of myself, twenty years yonge learning how to play house excited just to know one more thing about the world. Fuck my routine, I thought to myself as I mouthed thank you to the little boy and hopped back in my car. The engine roared beneath me and the Deville nearly left the ground as it flew towards tomorrow.
I didnt care where I was going so long as it was so new that I never closed my mouth again. So many small towns nearly identical to mine passed by and I wondered if there truly was anything new to behold in this bland country. I smoked, I sang, and I giggled at the novelty of eating beef jerky as I flew down the open road. Slowly the feeling of motion became so familiar that I stopped wondering where I was going. It was then nine hours after I had left my past behind that the Chicago skyline broke from the clouds and I knew I was home.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
variety:
that's some beautiful stuff... wow!
sarahjane:
is that so!?