Great pap Richie

It was very chilly out this morning… it reminded me of one of those days when we’d get up early and go to Suches with dad for the Indian Summer Festival. That’s next week… Anywho, so I took a walk before I ate breakfast and just went out to talk with God. The moon was sitting in the sky straight across from the sun just behind the trees. We have our first orange fall tree out… I can’t believe it’s already getting cold. I want to be able to wear jackets and hoodies and all my winter clothing (because I have more of it than Summer clothes) but sometimes the in between weather change can be so annoying when it can’t make up its mind. I was so cold this morning in my room I had to put on my flannel pjs because I don’t have any sweats, and some socks, but then I just decided it was pointless and I went to sit in the sun on the porch. It was warmer outside than in.
Monday I got out a bunch of books and picked three to start reading. I began with Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte---I love the way she writes), Much Ado about Nothing (Shakespeare), and Run, Baby Run (Nicky Cruz)… I think Run, Baby Run is the most addicting and I haven’t been able to put it down. Much Ado about Nothing is just like the movie and I can picture all the characters in my head while I read it… and well, I didn’t make it too far in Jane Eyre, but I’ll get there. Anywho, these books should keep me occupied during my boredom stages in the evenings and if not… God help me.
We had steak for dinner the other night. Dad likes his meet red; I like mine over cooked until it’s crisp and a little burnt around the edges. I literally squeezed a strip of meet in my hand until blood came dripping through my fist into a puddle on my plate… sick.
I’ve been staying up ‘till twelve every night reading. When I get tired of one book I switch to another and so the process goes on and on until I realize what time it is. All three books have been highly entertaining, and sometimes they keep me from my studies.
Last night I had a strange dream with Darryl in it… probably because Leah and I mentioned something of him about shining and not whining yesterday (something he always said at camp)… it was a creepy dream and I was always trying to run away. But then I was pulled from sleep when I heard a voice, a girl’s voice call my name. At first I thought it was in my dream… but I couldn’t find my dream anymore. So then I thought it was Stephanie, but then I remembered she isn’t here. It was a beautiful, gentle voice, so then I thought maybe it was an angel… oh well, I guess I’ll never know.
Well, I’ve started (writing) yet another book… sort of… I have some ideas for this one but I’m not sure how far it’ll actually get. Here’s what I have so far:
I thought I had escaped this life, but here I was clear as day driving through town seeing too many familiar faces. Great pap Richie had died and I was called back only two months after my escape. Of course I would never talk like this to any of the town folk… they didn’t know my dreams about living in a city and making big money as a writer... about having my own apartment and living on my own independently without a whole town of relatives and so-called relatives watching my every move. Sometimes they suffocated me like a canary in a cage. And when the cat comes to claw through the bars at me sometimes I think I’d prefer the inside of its stomach than looking through those bars at a world I’ll never experience.
I made myself cry at the funeral. And it wasn’t because of Richie either, or the old crows dabbing at their eyes with pink handkerchiefs. I cried for the soul purpose of crying over the inexplicably, painfully long service. When a person is dead, you should honor the person by giving them the shortest funeral service ever—the sooner it’s over the sooner that person can be put into the earth to deteriorate while everyone else goes home and moves on. But by keeping it as long as possible—and I mean as long as possible---you make things more dramatic than they really are. He’s dead for goodness’ sake and he’s not coming back. I hardly new Richie myself, but I was sure I’d know more about him than even his late wife did at the memorial service that afternoon when all the stories and rumors would go around and people would laugh and cry and eat pie… it was like a thanksgiving holiday, only we were getting together over a death… but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. I was dreading those long hugs where you’re embraced for eternity in the arms of someone you don’t even know. Someone who says they knew you as a baby and all they talk about is how you’ve grown. It has always puzzled me as to how one should reply to that. “Gee, thanks I guess?” And then of course what I really want to say, “Please stop hugging me I’m about to gag from all that perfume… and don’t get so close to my face with those lipsticky fish-lips.” Either it’s a plump old woman with a big smile, a crying bony old woman with sagging boobs, or the worst: an old man hugging me so tight I feel like all my bones will crunch and I’ll slither through his arms and over his fat bear belly to the ground where I’ll lay a skin sack of bones. Sometimes I wish I only could disappear that fast.

smithy