Tag Archives: fear

hungry and the mop

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Mess. Confusion.

I’m mopping the floor. I’m expecting someone. Ardently. Fearfully. The place is a mess. A bell rings. Too late. I’m too late. It’s too late. The bell rings with insistence. As I rush to the door, I fall to a horizontal position. Flow to the side… and turn.

What? Where?

My mind focuses down to a point before my eyes. My phone is on the night table, vibrating madly. It buzzes off the table, onto the ground.

Shit! It’s 7 a.m. again. I might as well get up quickly. Staying in bed means falling asleep and mopping the floor in fear.

As I step out of my room I bump into Noah, catch him before he hits the wall. He looks up at me with puffy eyes.

“Hey, dad. It’s dark.”

I look at the kitchen window. Actually there’s bright sunlight streaming in.

“Open your eyes, Noah, it’s nice and sunny.”

He lifts his eyebrows but fails to open his eyes beyond the embryonic slit stage.

“Oooouuuh, that’s too bright, dad. I wanna go back to bed.”

He leans his head against my belly. I rub the scruff of his neck, idly run my fingers through his hair. Something springs onto my hand.

LICE!?!

There’s been an epidemic at his school. I look at it more closely. A crumb from last night’s blueberry muffin.

“Gotta pee, dad.”

He runs off, dropping his pants as he goes.

“Make sure you open your eyes.”

As I move to the kitchen, I cross the open bathroom door and see him, head thrown back, eyes closed as he hits the toilet with a full night’s accumulation.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh……” he says. Total satisfaction. I don’t look too closely at the accuracy of the fire hose.

Choose your battles, I say to myself.

As I prepare our breakfast and his lunch, I make mental notes: last juice box, okay on bread for tomorrow, out of coffee, almost out of cereal, definitely out of lunch meats.

“Dad, dad.”

He comes rushing in, wiping his hands on his pants. I say nothing. Choose your battles, I remind myself.

“Dad, you know what sucks?”

Do I ever!!

“No, what sucks?”

“That we, I mean, me, I’m going to have to wear long sleeves on the rides. Because it’s cold now.”

“What rides?”

“The scary ones that they like, like …” He hops on the spot in the irritated impossibility of finding the right words.

He looks like a writer on a bad day. Like me on most days.

“We have to go, and stay up until, uhm, until at least 11 o’clock. You know.”

I stand by the moka coffee pot which is just starting to hiss on the stove. Still minutes away from kick-starting my brain. Noah has no such issue. He went from sleep to 100 mph in one urination.

“Dad? We get to ride on the new ride that they always like open every year, yeah we get to ride it first, you know.”

The coffee is rising. Like Reagan in the morning…

“Noah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I already told you dad. The special Halloween night at La Ronde. Yeah, they have special freaky scary rides just for Halloween and then you get to be the first that goes on the new ride for the next year. Cool, huh? But you have to stay late, or else, it’s not like freaky scary enough.”

Wooouuuaaaaaaaahhhhh! The coffee expresses itself as it pushes up into the pot. I preemptively pour myself the first milliliters.

“I don’t know why dad. I don’t know why it feels so good to feel so scared.”

I sip the kahwa. Ah yes!

“It’s exciting because you feel really alive when you’re at risk.”

“Yeah, that’s it dad. You’re all excited because something bad could happen and you could like even die but then you don’t.”

“Yup.” You don’t die.

So who exactly was I mopping the floor for?

“Dad, you know that nobody ever died doing the rides at La Ronde. Yeah, so it’s scary, but good scary because you scream and you freak and then you laugh because you want to start over.”

I throw down the mop, fling open the door, and….

…wake up to a new day, much like any other, but then again, who knows?

Freaky, scary, but you don’t die and then you laugh and start over.

“Dad, I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

 

 

fruits, nipples and republicans

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“I hate this sweater.”

“It’s a great looking sweater, Noah.”

“It’s too big, makes me look fat.”

“Geez, if you’re fat, I’m a fairy with wings and a wand.”

He starts taking the sweater off. We’re already late for the school bus and risk missing it.

“If we miss the bus, boy, you will suffer the torments of hell for eons to come.”

“It’s not even cold outside.”

“It’s nipple stiffening cold.”

“Gross dad.”

He huffs and twists in frustration but keeps the damn thing on. It’s a really nice sweater, cool, with hoodie and big pockets.

“It has no zipper. That’s one of the things I hate.”

Of course.

“So wear your brand new blue sweater.”

He scowls.

“Oh right, you lost that one in a record three days. So wear the old red one, why don’t you?”

“I didn’t lose that one. I know exactly where it is.”

“Is it in the house?”

“No, I left it in the music room at school.”

“So can you wear it this morning?”

He doesn’t answer the question, like a nasty politician.

“Dad, I still hate this…”

“Stop. If I were you I would be thankful I’m not freezing this morning despite having lost or misplaced the two sweaters I normally wear. I would hold my peace knowing  that I screwed up but somebody else is fixing it. You sound like the bloody Republicans. Take responsibility and work with me. Dammit.”

The Republican jab is sure to rile him. He thinks they’re all dumb or nasty or both.

“Geez, dad, take it easy.”

I should just have let him suffer the cold wind, let his sensitive little nipples stiffen so hard they would scratch up against his shirt and drive him to distraction. Happened to me in high-school when I sneaked out in my older brother’s new jean shirt. By midday, I was so raw I  cried, literally.

The price of my arrogance.

“Dad?”

“No.”

“Wha…? you don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I’m just being uncooperative, For no reason.”

He shakes his head and walks quickly ahead of me. At least, we won’t miss the bus.

I spent over an hour the previous afternoon talking him up with his new teachers. How he was brilliant and moral and fun and full of talents.

All true.

But I also worked with them to understand how to circumvent his self-defeating extremism, his arbitrary barricades, his wrong-headed stubbornness.

Flashback over flashback tells me that he’s a sweet fruit that fell close to the family tree.

I saw one of his teacher’s tear-up in the discussion, yesterday. Not at the obvious moment when I was describing how he had to live his Mother’s insanity with it’s predictable violence, both physical (to me) and psychological (to us both).

No. Her eyes became shiny and moist when I stuck out my clenched fist and  opened it slowly to demonstrate how I wanted to release his tense fearful energy so that he felt safe enough to just be open.

My only objective was to help him learn happiness.

He turns back to look at me over his shoulder. I stick my tongue out, but with a smile. He does the same.

And he chortles.

Yeah, we’re a team. And, yeah, he’ll be all right. Perhaps, he might even go through life without ever suffering from raw nipples.

Now that’s progress.

 

 

slippery slopes…

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…and zombies in the alley

Reasoning is a daytime activity. The night is a different dimension.

“Dad, if something can’t be proved it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, right?”

“What are we talking about exactly?”

This as we slip and slide through the inches of slush and snow accumulating on the sidewalks and streets of the city.

“God, devils, zombies, that kind of thing.”

For the last while, he’s been waking nights in a state of fear. Ever since we set up a loft bed in his room. After two weeks of effort, he’s finally decided that the bed freaks him too much, so I’ve pulled the mattress down and he’s sleeping at ground level. We need to wait for help to undo the bed, it takes two adults, and his old bed is at my sisters’ so his room is a little odd.

Maybe that’s why he wakes and gets afraid. Or not.

“I don’t know Noah. There’s a lot of stuff that’s mysterious and unexplained but that doesn’t mean they’re magical or supernatural. It just means we don’t understand how they work, yet.”

Daily reality is enough of a challenge without going magical.

“You know, people used to think the moon and the stars were gods and goddesses.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Science has explored space and now even kids know better. Well, I think a lot of weird explanations are just filling the blanks until we find real answers.”

“Yeah, but when I hear noises like at night when it’s dark it freaks me and I think that some monster is crawling up the house to like eat me.”

“Midnight monster snack.”

“Dad, it’s not funny.”

“No,  it’s ridiculous. In all my years I’ve never met even one devil or one vampire or anything like that. First, look for reasonable explanations. In winter wood and bricks and cement contract when it’s cold and expand when it’s warm.”

“Yeah, yeah, we learned that in Mad Science.”

“So the house creaks and groans not because it’s alive but because it’s wood and mortar.”

“Yeah, I guess. It still freaks me because I start like thinking what it could be and then I think of dragons and stuff and magic and then scary creatures going after me.”

“Just tell your head to shut up.”

“Wha…..?”

“If one of your friends starts telling zombie stories that are too scary or too gross, you can tell him to keep quiet or just walk away right?”

“Yeah, I do that all the time…there’s one kid like he has all the most sick stories and when he starts I just don’t listen.”

“Well your imagination is like that kid. It talks to you in your head, right? Great to tell stories and invent fabulous stuff, but sometimes you just have to tell it to shut up.”

“It’s hard dad, because like once I think of one thing then the next and the next and ahhhhhh….you know?”

“That’s the slippery slope of fear. One idea leads to the next and then you slip ever more quickly into fear and then you can’t control the slide anymore.”

“That’s exactly how I feel dad. How did you know.”

“Because I spent a good bit of my life afraid of a lot of stuff. Some things are still scary to me.”

“Really?”

No kidding. He thinks being a kid is frightening. Wait till you grow up and find out that the witches and goblins of your childhood have become the lovers and bosses of your life.

“Which is why as soon as your imagination says ‘monster in the alley’ you say ‘shut up, it’s just wood cracking in the cold’, and then you think of great fun stuff like the next Pokemon card release, or your girlfriend.”

***

1h25 a.m. The door to my room blasts open. Noah’s face is lined by the tracks of tears flowing down his face.

My body bolts up. My brain struggles to make the leap from pillow to upright.

“Noah, what’s wrong?”

He’s sobbing. I cradle him in my arms.

“Noah, what happened?”

“Daaaaaddd…daaaadddd.”

“Noah, talk to me.”

“Daaaadddd….there’s zombies in the alley and they’re crawling up…..”

He buries his head in my body.

“Oh come on!”

He looks at me, fear superseded by surprise.

“Shut up, Noah’s brain. Tell your scary stories some other time.”

“But dad, I’m reaaally scared. There’s these noises, they woke me and I started thinking it was someone and then it made sense that they could crawl up the wall in the alley only if they were like you know…”.

“…zombies.”

“Yeah.”

I scoop him up. Sometimes he’s no heavier than a feather. I go to his window and pull the blind aside.

The frigid winter wind blows eddies of snow in the alley. It howls and slaps against the apartment. Some piece of something on the balcony is flapping.

“You see. Tell your brain to stop imagining stuff at night.”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“No, you gotta train your brain. Go to bed and as soon as your brain puts one neuron on the slippery slope, you tell it to change the subject and you keep telling it. You might still be afraid and maybe it’ll take a long time to fall asleep. But your brain will learn. Leave me alone at night, brain!”

“But, dad….”

“No, go to bed. You’re safe. Fight your fear. Get over it.”

My tone is unsympathetic.

He slips quietly under his covers. The cat jumps in with him. He hugs the warm beast, which looks at me with what seems to be resignation.

“Good night, Noah. I love you.”

“I love you too dad.”

I lie in bed, exhausted, listening to the noises in the house, imagining what he’s imagining. For a little while, I hear Noah rustling, whispering to the cat. I resist the urge to call him into my bed, to comfort him. Eventually, I hear him snoring.

I’m fully awake, standing at the top of a long slope. I can feel my feet slipping out from under me. My mind races forward, imaging all the horrors that could befall Noah. I suddenly see my own death.

Stop!

My hand to hand combat against fear has begun again.

 

Life #1…

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life #2…life # …

“What’s wrong, Noah.”

I succeeded in asking with a gentle tone. I like it when my dulcet tone masks the monster within.

I’m in bed. It’s early. My body hurts, my throat is number 2 sandpaper, my lungs gurgle like a swamp, my head is filled with mucous and my eyes are like wet tennis balls full of clay.

“I’m freaked out dad.”

I feel myself smiling. I hope it looked comforting and not like a grimace.

“You want to come in my bed?”

He nods hastily and jumps in before I change my mind. No matter how bad I feel, no matter how absent of joy I may be…I  am always moved by his cuteness. Scrawny shoulders, bulgy belly button, clear, curious, sensual brown eyes, a smile like a song.

“But you can’t chat me up though. Must sleep.”

“Ok, dad.”

One second, two seconds.

I slip back slowly towards my unconscious, drowning in a green sea of acidity with hardly a Zantac in view. But, somehow, it’s my mind not my stomach.

“Dad, I was really freaked. Yeah, I freaked myself out. This is what happened…”.

So much for sleep and my oneiric voyages.

“…yeah, I was dreaming that I was on a spaceship and coming back to earth but because it was a really long trip, like to another galaxy, you know, when time no longer counts the same. Yeah, I was all freaked out because I knew, I don’t know how I knew, but I knew, that when I came back I would be in Grade 2 and everybody else, all my friends would be in Grade Three. I felt like I wasn’t me anymore. You know?”

My kid loves T-Rex’s, witches, flesh-eating Soul Reapers and loves to read comics and watch films where, I quote: “…blood spurts.”

But Time terrorizes him.

A different kind of monster. Mostly for those of my age who are closer to the end than to the beginning. But for a nine year old?

“Why did it scare you?”

“I don’t know. It’s like I was going to be alone, always. Freaky.”

In a previous life, a few years ago, I used to be lonely whenever I was alone. Now, in this life, I am often lonely, in company.  I have so much to say, so much love and emotion, physical and otherwise, to share and instead I’m stuck in the social necessities of polite discourse, discretion and clothes…  I just splutter and go quiet.

When I’m alone, my internal dialogue is no holds barred, sumo wrestling nakedness. Delightfully hard and truthful and exciting.

“You have a really good imagination, so it’s easy to freak yourself out. But that’s also why you’ll eventually love being alone. You can imagine anything, draw it, write it, sing it. Real cool.”

“Yeah, I guess. But alone in my bed, I was freaked. I like your company… thanks dad.”

And I love his.

“Dad, I can’t believe that like when you were my age you were afraid of the dark and now you love it so much that you would turn every light off at night, so that when your eyes are open it’s like they were closed.”

Used to spend every night cowering in a corner of the hallway, outside my parents’ bedroom until they chased me back to my bed with alternating threats and promises of rewards.

Forget it!

Going back to bed would have meant dying a horrible death at the claws of the rapists and kidnappers lurking in the dark of my room.

That was Life #1.

“Dad, I wish I could just fall asleep and when I wake up it’s already Saturday and my birthday party.”

“But that means you would lose two days of your life.”

“No, I would add them at the end of my life. Imagine, dad, how funny, I’m lying there all old and dead and then, I open my eyes and say, ‘Fooled you, I got two more days.’ Funny, huh?”

I wonder.  Some might find it annoying… started the crying, ordered the flowers, the coffin and the old fart doesn’t die.

“Dad, do you believe in like re-living, what’s it called again?”

“Reincarnation.”

“Yeah, re-incoronation.”

“Sure…in my first life I was a fetus, then I became a kid, in my third life a teenager, then Life #4, an adult….and I’m working on Life #5, now.”

“You mean, life as a Father?”

I was going to say, soon as an Old Man. But I like his version better.

“Dad, can you give me a hint about my birthday gift?”

“Nope…just gotta wait.”

“Awwwwwww….”

Time.

 

 

Sun, sun…

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…Son, Son

“Noooooo….”. 

His tone of voice freezes me.

“What, Noah.”

“Don’t turn the light on. It’s so cool when its dark like this. Imagine dad, if it was black like this when I went to school? So cool, we would do everything like it was the middle of the night.”

“Sure, Noah. It’s cool to be out all night, it feels weird and special.”

“Yeah.”

“But I prefer my days to be full of light and my nights full of darkness.”

“I like the dark.”

This from the kid who needs the hallway and bathroom lights on at night otherwise it freaks him out.

At his age, I was afraid of the dark to the point of panic. Until I was an adult. Slowly, without my noticing, I lost the fear and actually started enjoying the quiet, immense mystery of the dark.

Now I spend my time exploring the shadows through writing, filmmaking, lovemaking.

“Great, kid. So tonight we can turn out all the lights and sleep in perfect darkness.”

Haven’t enjoyed total darkness since Noah came about. Always a bright light somewhere on the edge of my vision. To reassure him.

“Nooooooo. I won’t like sleep in the dark, dad.”

“But you say you like the dark.”

“When I’m awake, sure, but when I have to like close my eyes and fall asleep, it gets all freaky and I imagine all sorts of things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, dad. Just scary feelings.”

Wakeful dark is exciting and entertaining. Sinking into the dark in the subconscious abandon of sleep is frightening.

Wakeful dark used to frighten me just as much as sleeping dark.

Progress !?!

“So you would like today to be as dark as tonight?”

“Oh yeaaaaahhhh!”

“You know when there’s no light in the day, it makes me sad and stressed out.”

“But I’m not you, dad.”

Lucky you.

“So true, Noah. Hey look, the sun is coming up. Oh yeah, another reaaaallly sunny day.”

“Awwwww. I wanted it black, today.”

I begin singing Jesce Sole, an ancient Neapolitan chant imploring the sun to shine. Noah and I used to howl it to the sky on dark winter mornings.

“Nooooo….don’t cooooommme oooouuutt….don’t Jesce, sun.”

“Oh, Jeesssssscccceee Sooolleeee.… .

We chant the same plaintiff notes with opposite intentions.

The delights of contradiction.

We belt our song to sky.

Just for sport, the sky slips a cloud over the rising sun.

Noah: “Hah…”.

The cloud slips off, the sun reaffirms itself.

Me: “Hah…”.

We pick up the chant with renewed ferocity.

Light and dark in a musical struggle of comical immensity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqp2AvcHh2g&feature=related