Hollows Eve

What's to - hang on. (Hey, what's today's date, is this the 26th? Hah? Technically, the 27th... Okay, great.)

Alright. Upon sunrise of the morrow, there will be scantily four days until Halloween, a popular holiday in America and around the world. The prospect of receiving free candy has, apparently, universal appeal.

By now, you know what this is about, so I won't bother beating you over the head with stories of Trick-or-Treat Past. I won't festoon cyberspace with tales of the price that must be paid to get that candy, the horrors that have to be endured.

It's too late for that. That was last year. And last year my sister's house was done up in the spirit of the Season of the Witch. Enough young socialists-in-training showed up to make it all worthwhile - the Jacks O'Lantern, the scary music, the blood-soaked ax buried in the block of wood, the anti-dental goodies...

It went over. Sure it did. Fright Night. But none of those young socialists-in-training was Charlie.

This year could be the same, if she felt like it, but four days out, not a sign of the holiday is evident. No knives or candles have invaded the pristine bodies of pumpkins, spilling their guts and carving crude faces out of their agony.

There are no clattering glow-in-the-dark plastic skeletons. No dangling rubber bats. No fake spiderwebs. No spooky music or creepy lights. All that stuff remains in the basement.

There isn't even any candy in the cupboards this week, and there normally is, year round.

Tomorrow will come and go, and nothing will get done about this, and then it will be three days away from Halloween. The house will be no closer to where it should be to properly honor the dark hours of the event.

But at least tomorrow will have come and gone.

pH 1o.27.17

***

Illucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming. Heard of it? It's the idea that one can control one's dreams if one can simply become aware (lucid) of the fact that one is in a dream state, and not bound by the laws of reality. This is how a mundane dream about digging potatoes can suddenly turn into a Flying Cowboy dream - and boy howdy, let me tell you, it doesn't get any better'n that.

The key to becoming lucid in a dream state, I have read, is not dissimilar to what Carlos Castaneda wrote about (except that his "dreams" were hallucinations brought on by the ingestion of psychedelic plant matter). Castaneda's moment of control came when he believed he had seen a monster out of the corner of his eye.

His first instinct was to flee, but he forced himself to focus on the monster, which turned out to be a shrub. He insisted to himself that he must stare at the thing, must ascertain its identity, must figure it out... And the shrub became as fascinating as the monster was terrifying.

Anyway, they (the supposed experts) say that one way to attain lucidity in a dream is to think about your hands as you are falling asleep. Hold them in front of your eyes as your lids slide closed, and say out loud to yourself, "Look at your hands... Look at your hands..." Kind of like counting sheep but with a way different purpose.

Then, if a particular dream becomes too vexing (like the one where I can't get a ride to someplace, so I start walking, and it starts raining but it isn't rain falling from the sky, only tiny lizards that wriggle and squirm into the gutters after bouncing rudely on the ground), you just... look at your hands. Once you have accomplished that monumental subconscious task, you become aware - Hey, I Did It! After that, like I said, Flying Cowboy.

Look at your hands. Look at your hands. Look at your hands.

Yeah, look at them. They're scarred, skinned, singed, scraped. Once described by my dear mother as "piano hands", they now look like undercooked pork chops with fingers. The knuckles have been calcified into cornices. Look at them. They've been crippled, crushed, crimped into crab claws. The calluses have no nerve endings under them anymore. Look at them. Look at what's left of them.

I used to tease Charlie about his soft, boneless hands (that's what I called them). I used to tell him they would someday find his body in the desert next to the jug of water that he was unable to open. He found a way to be indignant and still get a laugh out of it at the same time. The horrible fact is that my nephew never got the chance to turn his hands into anything like mine.

Look at them.

I've been using them while I still can, because life is not a dream; I still have to fix the car when it breaks. I still have to build shelving units to hold all the tools I use to build shelving units. Still have to get in a kitchen and work with them every night. Still have to type.

I find woodworking to be beneficial - not to my hands but to my mind, which is far more fitful in its waking state than it could ever be in the respite of REM sleep. Building things is a good way to kill the time when you'd much rather be killing something else.

When the project is complete, I have transformed a few bucks' worth of lumber into a table, or a shelf, or a nightstand, or a ladder. Something I can use, that I can trust, that I can rely on, because I know how it was made, what materials went into it. I don't have to feel too terrible about the working conditions of the poor guy who had to perform all that labor. And that which occupies my hands also occupies my mind (math, mostly).

That which I cannot grasp with my hands or my mind rests none too lightly on my shoulders. But I can't make a dream better by saying, "Look at your shoulders." They are broad and strong, the basis of many a bill of lading. They are tired and sore from the weight of angels and devils sitting on them. Angels and devils, saying, "Look at your hands."

Look at them.

Trying to pick up the thing they dropped, one priceless, shattered piece at a time.

Bleeding as the shards sink into the skin.

Breaking as the weight becomes too heavy to carry anymore.

Feeling along the floorboards hoping to find anything that might help.

Pushing back against my eyes as if to keep the pressure from bursting out through them.

Balling into stony fists as I lose control of, not a dream, but my nightmare, the one I go to sleep to get away from every night. Go on...

Look at them.

***

pH 1o.17.17

So Fast

See, the thing about Charlie is that he can never be made to fit the profile of a "teenager". He was only a couple of months into his 12th year. His choice of games, downloads and videos that he made himself were evidence enough of that... He was still just a little guy.

Even (or especially) his handwriting bore that out. He never learned cursive, let's just leave it at that. His Mom just came across a pile of Charlie's missives. Among them were his persistent and devoted free advertisements for (as in, on behalf of) Jimmy John's Subs.

There is a location within walking distance of the house, so it was kind of something he grew up with, and even the interiors of his Mom's car were plastered with their stickers: Subs So Fast You'll Freak. And there among the sheaf of papers she found were several of his own offerings to the world of restaurant marketing, in his pencil-printed child's scribe:

Subs So Fast You'll Freak.

Subs So Fast, You'll Freak.

Subs So Fast You Will Freak.

He wanted everyone to know. And to Charlie, the only thing better than walking down to Jimmy John's, or driving through at Jimmy John's, was having Jimmy John's delivered. My sister and her son would spend more than a fair amount of time in front of the computer screen, surveying the menu, deciding what to order. They would then place The Call.

Once the preliminary task was completed, they would start counting the minutes.

Considering the fact that a vehicle with no coolant in its system could motor up to her house (and back) with no problem, it never took the driver longer than maybe seven or eight minutes to make the trip. Charlie was always duly impressed, and he was happy to know that the driver got to keep the tip money that he got for being so freaking fast.

On one occasion, I was in the back part of the house, and heard them going through the ordering process, crafting it, in accordance with the menu and money aspects that they had already figured out beforehand. As I heard his Mom concluding the purchase order, I quietly exited through the back door.

I snuck down the walkway between the house and the garage, keeping the window air conditioner in between me and their view of the outside world - but they were watching the clock. For all they knew, I was still in the kitchen.  It was a mild, pleasant afternoon, and the AC was not running, so I could hear what they were saying inside.

I heard Charlie, barely a minute after the phone call had concluded: "I wonder how long it will take them to get here?" That's when I stepped right up to the front door and knocked on it loudly.

The door opened, and Charlie's face went through a three-part morph, each expression more pronounced than the one before it. Frame One: He really thinks it's freaking Jimmy John's. Frame Two: It's only Uncle Paul, who clearly thinks this is funny. Frame Three... It's not funny.

Except that it was. That was the kind of thing that Charlie really liked. Goofy stuff. Silly stuff. Playful stuff. Kid stuff.

He was still a puppy.

Well, puppies don't always make it. They get hit in the road sometimes, or they get sick, or a bigger dog gets to them, or... And it's always sad. But that doesn't mean they didn't enjoy their run, the entirety of it. Oh, they did. Bounding along, never knowing, every day, through life.

Life so fast, you'll freak.

pH 1o.o3.17

***

Benedictions for a Peninsula

It is here. No, not football season. That is well underway. The monster. It's here. It's eating Florida alive.

Charlie absolutely loved Florida. His big sister lives there, and he visited her often, with his last trip (by himself, big boy!) coming just a couple of months before he left us.

He got to go to a something like a zoo, where people can interact with wild animals. The pictures of young Charlie Wolf cuddling with wolf pups remain at once adorable and heartbreaking.

How he would chafe at returning to dreary, boring Michigan, the other peninsula, same as it has ever been, the place where not much excitement comes barreling into your existence.

By the end of the day, that wildlife zoo will be gone, just like Charlie, swept away in a disaster. The difference is we can see Irma coming. We can prepare for the shock and the sorrow, and stare in astonished horror into the uncaring eye of the approaching hurricane.

Florida faces this storm with the prayers and benedictions of an entire world behind them, and not much else. But, after the worst has passed, Uncle Sam will be there to lift them up, hold them in his arms, and try his best to make them whole.

That is truly the least an uncle can do.

pH 9.1o.17

***

The Fall

The heat finally broke. It's almost as if the moon wiped it clean off the face of the sun during the eclipse. All week it was brutal and muggy, and now, cool as one of the cucumbers we've been pulling out of the garden.

It's almost over - we'll harvest the food, turn the Earth, and wait for the rain to become snow the way caterpillars morph into butterflies - or like a negative of that.

This is not to be confused with the Farmer's Almanac, though. For my nephew Charlie, this was a bittersweet time of year. He chafed at the thought of going back to school, spending his time parked in the classroom instead of doing (as one of his teachers put it) pretty much whatever it was he wanted to do.

I was not the kind of uncle to let it slip his mind, either. "Sixteen," I would say to him on a random sunny day.

"Sixteen what?"

"Sixteen days left until the First Day of School!" Followed by his groans. Charlie loved to groan... It runs in the family.

The good part, though, was the new school clothes. Both my sister and Charlie's Dad had keen ideas about how a boy should be dressed for school. They weren't necessarily on the same page (or even looking at the same catalog), but that provided him with a broad fashion spectrum from which to choose, and Charlie liked that, too.

But soon enough the leaves would turn and then drop, and the bicycle would be put in the shed in exchange for the sled, and the rake swapped out with the snow shovel. Those fancy new duds would be buried, first under a coat, then under a hat and scarf, and finally disappear beneath an outright snow suit.

This is the way the world turned for Charlie and his Mom. And for me, the not-silent observer.

And then, one day, the world just... Stopped.

These last few summer days will run out like beads off the end of a string. The school buses will still rumble by the house. The impending season, this time before us, is sometimes called Autumn. But we know it as the fall.

pH 8.22.17

***

Back in Time

Well, we got through it; three days have passed since 26th July, the darkest square on my calendar. Last Wednesday marked twain years since our extended family flock lost its second-youngest lamb.

As I mentioned to my brother, quite a while ago now, go back in time to that terrible night. After all the neighbors and the cops and the medics and the chaplain and Charlie had gone away, he and I stood in the driveway and looked ahead at a long road that disappeared into murky blackness.

Didn't know how long it was. Didn't know where it would take us. But we were on it, all right, going full-tilt boogie with no headlights, no GPS, no speedometer, no seatbelts.

Now, quite the opposite. We rolled through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We fear no evil. The road hasn't ended yet... I suspect our muscle-car era vehicles will break down before it ever does. Whatever.

We can look back now, in the light of day, and see the route we traveled. Some rough terrain, to be sure.

***

But nobody can live that way forever.

***

Although it takes quite a bit of (s)training, we've got to do it. We Hellers have got to stop ticking the time away from Charlie's tragic death as the starting point, as the Big Bang to our universe.

What we have become is who we are, yep, I get that. Still, we didn't teleport here. Nobody beamed us up.

It's both effortless, and not - letting your mind return to those easier, less painful times. Forgetting what you know. It is both helpful, and not. I don't just mean this thing. I mean everything, everyone.

Charlie's passing on July 26th, 2015 and all that has followed was our family's private 9/11. September 11th, 2001 was America's 9/11. Lost are the loved ones.

As described here, we have been engaged in a personal conflict ever since 7/26. America has been engaged in a global conflict since 9/11. What was lost cannot be found.

The road is closed.

But remember what it was like on September 10th of that year? It was a really nice day. Kids were settling into their school routines. The summer warmth had slacked off but the leaves were nowhere near turning color.

The night was capped off by Monday Night Football. It was Ed McCaffrey's last game. The Denver Broncos' wide receiver broke his leg. Falling asleep on pain killers that night, he probably figured his life had changed forever.

The next morning, it all came crashing down, out of a clear blue sky.

That is not where America's road began. But we treated it that way, and now look where we are: Billions of miles away from where we were, no end in sight (unless you mean that cliff up ahead).

***

That's not gonna to happen to us, Charlie. I will not remember you merely as my nephew who died, but as that spirited little boy who lived for 12 years, who made my sister happier than anything else in her life ever had.

That doesn't go away, kid... Not on my watch.

pH 7.29.17

***

A Fistful of Summer

Well, here we are. July. The worst of the warm weather months. It wasn't always this way, of course...

It starts out great, with the initial week's heat and humidity still a thing to get used to. The grass is still green and soft and cool underfoot, damp with dew in the early mornings.

The first few days are for laying still and listening to the birds chirp. Most everyone has the work week off heading into Independence Day. The bluey haze of the afternoon air is escorted into dusk by grilling smoke and the sound of summer's lazy laughter.

It is the month of yard sales, street festivals, high school and family reunions. The nearby lakes are, by this time, warm enough to get in. Even if they aren't, that won't stop you once Old Sol stands on top of your head in the middle of the afternoon.

We have no July birthdays in our family, just America's on the 4th. Michigan's fireworks laws are quite liberal - not like the old days - so these next few nights will be filled with shrieks and explosions emulating the terrible battles that won us our freedom, and the ones that have kept it since.

But after the show is over, and only the fireflies light up the thick nighttime air, the real July kicks in. The temperatures find a happy new perch to sit on. The cicadas start up their ceaseless droning. The lawn dries to a crunchy, toasty tan color. And each day brings us closer to the 26th.

The pressure isn't just in our heads; it's literally in the atmosphere, cooking us on low setting. This will be the second one to come around since the boy went away.

Its approach is soothed by the balm of good tidings from well-wishers near and far. Thinking of you, too. What we experience is the opposite of a buildup. The anniversary of the death of a child is a finish line you crawl to grudgingly.

Charlie lived for 4,441 days. Three weeks from this coming Wednesday, our small, shiny planet will have rotated around our dim yellow star twice since that brilliant life ended.

Once it is past, July's last five days are strictly business. End of the month. Bills to pay. Early August is no different weatherwise, but there are a few birthdays on that calendar page... August also spirals toward the new school year. Even after two years, it's too hard not to mark it that way.

pH 7.o1.17

***

Ride

"You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?…It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs." - Han Solo

***

I need a new car.

I'm still living in the last millennium, myself. I bought my 1999 Hyundai Elantra in 2011, from my man Roy at Dynamite Auto Sales in Phoenix, Arizona.

I was leaving town in a hurry, and needed wheels that could get me from there to here. I told him I had exactly two thousand bucks on me, and that I'd give him every penny of it to get me off the lot. I told him he could mail me the paperwork. He made it happen.

I'm pretty sure I hate this car.

That's no knock on Roy, who has helped me out many times. Dynamite didn't build the car. Hell, he gave it to me with brand new tires on it. But the power windows have never worked. The seatbelt constantly applies pressure to my left clavicle. It rides rough, sits too low, and displays no information on the radio.

It has hit me up for more than a few repairs: Wheel bearing. Radiator. Mass air flow sensor. Fuel pump. Clutch kit. Axle shaft. Driver's side door. Starter.

I am so sick of this car.

For all the grief it has given me, I've put over 50,000 miles on it. I've only found a couple other Elantras in our regional junk yards, so I guess they never die. It blows heat. The rust-free Arizona undercarriage is still solid. It gets 40 miles to the gallon on the freeway.

I can't get rid of this car.

As it sits, it still needs rear struts. The exhaust is cobbled together with soup cans and radiator clamps. It's time for tires again. The windows will never be right.

Try selling a car in that condition. Am I about to sink $500 into it to get $500 more out of it? No... Am I to sell it for $500 as is and then spend all that plus much more to replace it? With what? 

I am stuck with this car.

It has earned a few nicknames. The Gray Ghost. Little Grizzly. Millennium Falcon. It runs great, with a 16-valve, 2-liter engine mated to a short-throw, five-speed manual transmission. It's fast... Less than 12 parsecs.

The first time I had my nephew Charlie in the car, I warned him - Uncle Paul drives crazy sometimes. (And if you say that, you have to back it up.) Almost every time one of his buddies got in my car with him, he proudly informed them, "Better buckle up. Uncle Paul drives crazy sometimes."

He loved this car.

My place of employment was right by where his Dad lived, so I gave Charlie a lot of rides. He had to hear a good number of Uncle Paul stories. Some of them, he soaked right up. Others put him to sleep.

I sometimes put NPR on the radio for those rides, or on the many occasions on which I picked him up from school. At the conclusion of the journey, I often asked for his opinion on what they were talking about. And he'd give it to me.

I just don't want this car anymore.

I could really use a pickup truck. An automatic transmission would be a welcome difference, too. Up here, a four wheel drive is practically a must (though I'm telling you the truth: Little Grizzly has never gotten stuck).

The memories that are soaked into the oxidized paint, the grimy cloth interior, the greasy engine compartment - they make me want to part with it even though I would get almost nothing for it. And they make me keep it long after its day is done.

Maybe some of you have similar feelings; I don't know. I'll leave it at that. I have to go now. It's a beautiful afternoon...

I guess I'll wash the car.

pH 6.o9.17

***

Editor's Note:  On Thursday, September 14th, 2017, the Little Grizzly was sold for $200. The new owner indicated he would harvest its valuable organs and sell what remained as scrap metal.

"Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another." - Albert Einstein

*** 

Memorial Day

***

Happy Birthday, Charlie! Look for the fireworks heading your way. Paper lanterns, too. Just like every year...

It's a party.

pH 5.29.17

***