Moments

Moments travel back to back and it takes many of them for anything to happen. For most, a moment is a single thought, a breath, a blink of an eye. For others, it's a slow reflection, a deep inhale, or a long, blank stare. I often reference time in terms of moments. Some things take several, while others require five or six. Unfortunately, there's no practical way to gauge the duration of a moment other than to use your own intuition. Personally, I make the determination based on shifts in my train of thought. For example, if a blind woman asks me, "What is it like to see, Rory?" it might take upwards of ten moments for me to contemplate a response.

First Moment: Is there any way I can possibly put into words what it's like to use the gift of sight? Without me asking them to, my eyes look around, take moments of their own to process the information, and then tell me what's going on in my general vicinity. It's quite miraculous, really. Is that my answer? Miraculous?

Second Moment: Sight isn't a miracle, it's a given. Viewing the world can be beautiful, true, but that doesn't make it any greater than the other senses. Seeing is no more of a miracle than touching.

Third Moment: Touching this woman, that would be a miracle. I wonder if by touching herself she can tell how gorgeous she is. Though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she's completely average and my eyes are deceiving me.

Fourth Moment: Is seeing deceitful? No, that's far too grim to be the truth. Grim is the fact that instead of reaching out and touching this woman's four-sensed figure, I'm going to remain alone.

Fifth Moment: Loneliness is an active characteristic; one chooses to be alone. Most people justify their isolation by believing they've been disregarded. That's simply untrue. I've spent my entire life consciously rejecting relationships. I think it's worked out for the best, but still, I've shielded myself from the outside world.

Sixth Moment: She's wearing shields on her eyes. It's never been clear to me why so many blind people wear sunglasses. Most of the time they're very fashionable, too—the kind of accessory that makes one stand out in a crowd. It's ironic. By shielding their blind eyes the sightless become a visual spectacle, when really all they're looking for is acceptance.

Seventh Moment: What's the appeal of being accepted? I've never found belonging to the whole particularly important. And it doesn't matter anyway, because regardless of my appearance or demeanor, I'm quite the same as everyone else. I sleep, I breathe, I eat, I see. Everyone sees. There's really nothing that special about it. . . Ah, there we go.

On the eighth moment, I arrive upon a satisfactory answer. I say, "Seeing is like being part of the least elite club in the world." How about that? It only took eight.

It's hard to say how long such a transaction might take to occur. Using standard time measurements, probably only a few seconds. In my own head, however, those seconds, those moments, span an indefinite amount of time. Amazingly, it happens this same way with every passage in our lives.

So here, as I write, I take three moments to contemplate my explanation—one, two, three—and arrive at this conclusion: Moments happen slower than you think and faster than you can remember.

Smoke Signals

"I'm glad you've made this decision."

"Thank you," I said. I didn't mean it at the time.

"Quitting smoking is a difficult undertaking for a man your age, especially considering how long the habit has been present." Dr. McDonough had eye glasses that reflected how long he had been practicing medicine. "Are you really serious about this?"

"Not really. I think it's worth considering, though."

"I see." He didn't see. "Then why, may I ask, are you here?"

"For the consideration," I said.

The examination room was not sterile. Not to say that it was unclean, but rather is was like most other rooms. There was a table, a couple chairs, a desk. These are all things typical of a living room. Everyone describes doctor's offices and hospitals as sterile, which is really just a more intellectual way of saying white. The room was white, I will say that.

My blood pressure was normal. Good news. Then he checked my pulse, ears, eyes, then mind. Though he didn't come right out and say it, I think he was most concerned with the latter.

"Well, let's talk about your smoking habits. It may help us develop a strategy for. . . um, Rory, I'm sorry, but you can't do that here."

Yes, I had lit a cigarette in the doctor's office. In part it was instinctual, but I also realized the irony of the situation and couldn’t help but capitalize on it.

"My apologizes." I put it out on the side of the examination table.

"It's alright. So, how long have you been a smoker, exactly?"

I had my first cigarette when I was ten years old, mentally and physically ripe for addiction. As I did often, I was watching a cat and a mouse on television. Jerry, that rascal, was always causing Tom trouble, leading to exciting chase and evasion. Despite his best efforts, Tom could never catch Jerry. It was like watching a master magician practice his craft. In the particular episode I was watching, Jerry ran and ran and ran, but stopped to take a break. With disregard to the danger at hand, he kicked back, closed his eyes with quiet satisfaction, and lit up a cigarette.

Why on God's green earth would he do that? I thought. Taking four or five moments contemplation, it dawned on me. Jerry, in the face of constant danger and dismemberment, needed something to control his destiny. He was able to elude certain death time after time, so it was only fair to give death a spitting chance. Maybe smoking could kill him.

Filled with a similar air of infallibility, I decided to follow in Jerry's footsteps. Certain that no force outside my own authority would be able to end me, I figured it was time to start smoking.

I probably seemed out of place at the convenience store. Anytime you see a child alone in a public place there's something odd about it. My candor and forthrightness no doubt added to the perplexity of the situation. I approached the store attendant with a five dollar bill confidently pinned in my fingertips.

"I'd like a pack of cigarettes," I said. On some level, it must have been cute.

Ray, as indicated by his embroidered work vest and graying facial hair, looked at me long and hard, the hard being most prominent. "No," he said.

My mother had taught me manners. How impolite of me! "Please, may I buy a pack of cigarettes?"

"How old are you, kid?"

"Ten."

"I'm not selling you smokes."

"I don't see why not." I went on to explain my perspective on the situation. Simply put, if a cartoon mouse can smoke, then why can't I? My argument was clear and well-stated. Plus, I continued, if I had the inclination to smoke at ten years old, it would likely still be present later in life, at a time when it would be permissible to sell them to me. In that case, why not let me take the risk now in the hopes that I'll use my better judgment to stop?

It worked.

"Don't tell your mother where you got them, okay?"

I believe Dr. McDonough was exhausted with me at this point, but he nonetheless pressed on with his inquiries. He had stopped taking notes minutes ago.

"Okay. How much would you estimate you smoke on a day to day basis?"

"An estimate," I pondered. "Somewhere between twenty-five and forty cigarettes a day, depending on the weather." It was such a nice day outside. I had to restrain from lighting up in the office again.

"So on some days upwards of two packs. That's a lot, Rory. Do you smoke first thing in the morning?"

"Of course. I like to start my days off dying."

That one really got him. Stifled for words, he began to jot down another note, but interrupted himself with a frustrated objection. "You do know it will kill you, right? At this point it's pretty much inevitable."

I disagreed. People say that smoking will kill you, but that's just not true. Cancer kills you. Emphysema kills you. When someone dies in car accident, they don't say the victim died because of poor motorist skills. They say he died in a car accident. That being said, there was always something comforting in knowing the direction in which my death was headed. Like Jerry, I knew nothing could take me but my own will, and my will was smoking.

"Good luck," Dr. McDonough told me. I have no way to prove it, but I wager he murmured something under his breath after I walked out the door. "Asshole," he probably said.

The sun made me warm and the breeze made me cool. It was just as beautiful outside as it had been when I arrived. With a spark and a deep inhale, I took in the flavorful aroma of my seventeenth cigarette of the day. One step closer to sealing my own fate. Boy-oh-boy, it tasted good.

I reached the sidewalk, beginning on my trail home, when something caught my eye. In the middle of the street, flattened and no longer breathing, I spotted a once-living creature. Intrigued, I took a step towards the striped yellows lines of the four-lane highway and knelt down to observe the unfortunate victim. It was a mouse.

"Never smoked in your life, did you?" I ask her, not expecting a reply.

She had been hit by a car.

Then I was hit by a car.

Days later, I woke up in the hospital. The luxury of getting in a near fatal accident outside a doctor's office is that the care is immediate and very professional. A nurse called an ambulance; the ambulance came and whisked me away for emergency medical attention. I suffered numerous cuts and bruises, a few fractured rip bones, and rough bump to the noggin. An EMT I wasn't sure what he meant by "legally", so I refrained from asking any questions, seeing as how my lawyer was not present. on the scene later explained to me that for a matter of thirty seconds or so, I was legally deceased.

As might be assumed, the last thing I remember prior to being driven through was asking the mouse a rhetorical question. (I consider it rhetorical because I was really the only one there.) However, if the mouse did speak English, she would have likely answered with, "No, Rory. I have not ever smoked a cigarette." To the contrary, I had. I had smoked a lot of them. Then I lived through a fatal collision. In large part, my hypothesis had been proven. If I was going to die, I'd have to create the stimulus myself. I'd have to keep sucking in smoke.

There in my hospital coffin, I thought about Jerry and how he was indestructible. No matter how many times Tom gave chase, Jerry always came out ahead. What I realized, though, during my weeks in recovery, is that Jerry had never been hit by an automobile. In fact, he had never incurred more than a minor injury. He didn't just evade death, he evaded all situations that could possibly lead to it. I couldn't avoid that car. Well, I could have opted not to walk into the middle of a busy street, but once that car came barreling down on me, I had no escape. Jerry would have gotten himself out of the way, I'm sure of it. Or, maybe he would have ended up just like his comrade who never puffed a cigarette in her life. Either way, it put things into a new perspective for me.

After twenty-three days I was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. Much like being released from prison, I was reissued my personal belongings—a musty flannel shirt, gray sneakers, blue jeans, and a nearly empty pack of cigarettes. I jingled the contents of the flip-top box like a child's rattle as I approached the sliding glass doors. My motion asked them to open and a burst of fresh air was released into my tar-ridden lungs. To my left, the plump, young face of a little boy stole my attention. Our eyes made contact as he sat there, legs dangling freely in his waiting room chair. Without a word spoken between us, I tossed him the pack of cigarettes. Hope you have better luck with them than I did, I thought.

Once I was settled back at home, I wrote Dr. McDonough a letter. These were the words I used:

Thanks for the advice. My lungs feel better, but I have no idea how I'm going to die.

After Life

"Go to hell," she told me.

We never married. Fortunately, it couldn't have ended much better, those being the last words spoken in our relationship. She walked away having made her peace. I remained emotionally unscathed. The fact is, I don't believe in hell. There isn't one to speak of. On that note, there isn't a heaven, either. It's all still in the making, but waiting to be undone. True, what I've postulated is based solely on personal theorizing, but I deem it to be true and have for most of my life. This is the story of heaven, hell, and the Man who tried to make them.

In the beginning. . .

God wanted living things to play with. We all do. That's why people own dogs and house plants. He planned carefully and devised a method to cook up some humans. Using the Universe (the only thing more omnipresent than God Himself) as His eternal canvass, God made elements to make matter, to make space dust, to make planets and suns, to make solar systems, to make the Earth, to make amoebas and dinosaurs, finally resulting in man.

I need to back up a bit. Somewhere between dust and planets, God made heaven. It was a glorious holding chamber for all things not living, furnished with tennis courts, waterfalls, spiced rum, and everything else He had yet to create for His living planet-to-be-named-later. A work of true artistry, God thought. More accurately, it was true chemistry. God was (and still is) a chemist—a damn good one, at that. Sadly, however, as most science projects go, the first experiment was a failure. Heaven broke.

"God!" He yelled, taking His own name in vain. He yelled so loudly that a Big Bang erupted from the nothing He'd built, sending the dust and matter into motion. Before He could stop it, everything happened. Planets, suns, solar systems, Earth, amoebas, dinosaurs, and man. Beyond His will we were here, but with nowhere to go when we were done.

With no other recourse, God had to end it all so He could start over with a new heaven. I find this admirable. How upsetting would it be to know God is a quitter? A holy holocaust was out of the question. This is God, after all, and murder is a sin. So instead He made man intelligent. He gave him the tools and the mental capacity to bring it all down, with the eventual goal of wiping the slate clean.

And so the slow destruction to reconstruction process began. God cracked his knuckles. . .

And then lifted man up so he could Fall. Adam and Eve, His first play things, ate some fruit that was planted for them, but it was wrong to do so. Now man had sin.

And then His only Son was nailed to a lower-case t because the neighbors didn't like him. This upset God, but at least the plan was working.

And then man declined. The ages were so dark that no one made progress or drew pictures worth saving.

And then He brewed a disease that plagued the knights and farmers and peasants of olde. It killed many men, but the Earth kept turning.

And then God gave man gunpowder so he could blow up all the people he didn't like. The POWS! and KABOOMS! weren't big enough, though.

And then millions of Jews died when God watched a mustached man believe in hate.

And then He allowed some imbalanced men to fly jet planes into two tall buildings. This led to war. Many have died.

And then God let my mother have cancer. In her hospital coffin, she said to me, "I'll see you in heaven, Rory Cleveland." Though grief-stricken, I knew she was wrong.

And all along the way, God made us very good at using chemicals, ignorance, bombs, hate, and fear.

It's all been very effective thus far. There's plenty of disease and war going around for everybody. Scientists say our planet is boiling over. The Bomb has gotten so small and so powerful that we don't even see it anymore. It's all crumbling. Just look around. Despite all this, I can't help but think to myself (and I know it's grim): You're doing a great job, Buddy.

At this point one might begin to wonder, What happens when people die, then? A valid question. The answer: Nothing. Though I have no experience in the arena, I imagine death to be very similar to life, only you don't have to think or be. It's very relaxing. Unfortunately, if this doesn't appeal to you then you'll just have to wait until God pulls your card the next time He creates the Earth. It should have a Heaven by then.

So, based on this outlook, I've never been offended by someone telling me to "go to hell", nor have I found comfort in the prospect of going to heaven. Quite to the contrary, amidst watching man destroy the Earth by God's will, the most chilling and poignant phrase any person can debase me with is simply, "Look around."

Bridges Freeze First

People think about bridges. It's irrelevant what kind. Whether suspension, draw, or wooden, they're always on our minds. This is made clear by how often they work their way into American idioms. Here's one:

It's water under the bridge. This statement lets us know that something that was once burdening has now passed. The burden is driftwood and it's gone down stream. Theoretically, it eventually reaches the ocean and settles with all our other problems.

Here's one, too:

Don't burn your bridges. In this case, the connections in question represent the future. For instance, the bridge is a former colleague named Derek: Don't burn Derek or he might not help you get that promotion in three years.

The bridgeism that's always stuck like mortar in my thoughts, however, was given to me by the Masons. Bear in mind, the Masons I'm referring to have no affiliation with the fraternal organization, though they are every bit as free. And if these Masons were Masons, it would have little or no affect on the impact of their words. (For reference, I believe the Masons were Christian.)

From the time I was eight years old to fourteen years old, Grant Mason and I were friends. His siblings, Tyler, Arthur, and Madison were also my friends, but to a lesser extent. Plain to see, the Mason children were all named after former Presidents of the United States of America. Unfortunately, Madison always harbored some resentment for being named after a man and chose to go by her middle name, Hillary. Oddly, I myself had (and still have) the last name of an American President—one who served two terms, in fact!—which was a popular topic of conversation on our summer road trips.

On one such trip I traveled with the Masons from home to Niagara Falls. It was a venture via station wagon, so needless to say we were bound to cross over several stretches of water. It ended up being six, roundtrip. Wedged between Grant and Madison, with Arthur to the right of Madison, I enjoyed the backseat revelry that was sing-a-longs, counting license plates, and dozing in and out of claustrophobic slumber.

In a Midwest state full of corn and men who harvested it, a flowing, glimmering oasis appeared on the horizon. As if stirred by innate patriotic intuition, the other Presidents and I awoke. It was a very large river. It was the Mississippi River—likely named after the state, I thought. There were boats. There were water skis. There were fresh water fish (presumably). Every station wagon on the road slowed to admire, as if simultaneously running out of gasoline and coasting to a halt.

Every passenger and every driver turned their gaze to the natural divider as it approached. Everyone but Mr. Mason. (I never acquired Mr. Mason's first name, probably because he was ashamed that it wasn't shared with an American Head of State.) He stared straight ahead, knuckles turning white as he clenched the wheel with more authority than he had the entire drive thus far. A protective and alert focus to his expression, Mr. Mason spoke with calculated certainty moments before crossing the first steel beam of the bridge.

"Bridges freeze first."

It was July. The temperature was roughly ninety degrees. In the backseat, the temperature was roughly one-hundred and ten degrees. Nonetheless, stone-faced and concrete, his words stood more steadily than the bridge itself. He had spoken this phrase hundreds of times before, was prepared to speak it five more times on this journey alone, and would speak it again and again for the rest of his life.

"Bridges freeze first, kids. Always remember that."

He was, of course, referring to the scientific truth that in cold weather conditions, bridges will freeze before normal roads, so they must be driven over carefully.

Even at my young age, I felt there was something more to this caution than on the icy surface. Now an older man, I still think about bridges and the fascinating dichotomy they possess. They rise. They fall. We travel through them and over them. Some are short. Some are long. Burning fire, frozen ice, and the water underneath.

Grant I were friends until I grew fourteen years old. He enjoyed athletics and actively participated in them. I didn't, so I didn't. I've just never liked anything spherical and most sports include a ball. It was a divide—a river, perhaps—that separated us and inevitably ended our friendship. Today, despite being old and mostly made of stone, I regret losing Grant. He was a nice young man at a time when I was, too.

Once we parted ways, Mr. Mason's warning gained profound relevancy to me. It can be spoken as such: Bridges are relationships. They are everything, in fact. They are life, death, Heaven, Hell, station wagons, baseball gloves, rivers, Presidents, and time. But especially, they are relationships.

"Bridges freeze first," Mr. Mason warned us. With Grant, I didn't burn my bridges. There were no hard feelings, no mean spirits. However, the water never went under the bridge, either. The remorse stuck, as I lost a friend for no darn good reason. Balls! Why didn't I like balls? The relationship was frozen. Not burnt, never washed to the ocean of other regrets, but frozen.

As it turns out, all the bridges in my life are frozen. Maintaining connections is a difficult practice. For most of my life this was very troubling to me, up until the point that my friend Saul (who is more of a mentor than a friend) pointed out that I wasn't as lonely as I thought I was. "You learned," he said, "so you're not lonely." His words have always satisfied me, or at least enough so that I can sleep and eat and live. Still, I can't help but think about bridges.

Dine and Dash

I had one major coincidence in my life. It wasn't like the coincidences in fiction and fables, though. Nobody came to a startling realization. The course of history wasn't altered. No one came out ahead. It went so smoothly, there and gone, and nothing changed.

I tossed my napkin on my plate, then retrieved it to blow my nose. I do this at the end of every meal, regardless of how dirty the napkin is. I've tried to be self aware of this habit, but my nasal never tells me it needs to be cleared until that stained piece of tissue hits the dish. Once, on an evening out, a young woman branded me as having atrocious table etiquette and stormed out of the diner we were so thoroughly enjoying. I've always assumed she just didn't want to pay for her portion of the meal. I thought we were going Dutch.

This place was also a diner. A significantly nicer one than I took that young woman to, in fact. Perhaps I should have brought her there. Lovely bric-a-brac adorned the walls, all of it in some way saying "Home Sweet Home". It felt that way. The forks and the spoons were both shaped like spoons, only the forks had prongs. They made for a wonderful right hand table setting.

I ate eggs and finished them. My stomach said it was full at the moment I ran out of breakfast. Satisfying.

The Waitress (her name escapes me) dropped my check with the kind of hesitancy God must have taken before putting Man on the Earth. The curls of her bob fell in front of her eyes and she made no effort move them. It's just a napkin, I thought to myself, assuming I had offended her with my misuse of the thing. She took a long gander at me before moving on to another group of customers.

It was odd. Most things are.

Julie came. She was the manager. Light brown eyes, light brown skin, and long, long hair. As she approached, it was as if she asked to borrow the Waitress's expression served to me moments before. I've got to stop recycling my napkins. Hands folded, she prepared to speak.

". . ."

Ah-choo! I sneezed, covering my nose with cupped hands. Why didn't you warn me sooner, nose?

Julie shifted gears. "Do you need a napkin?"

She gets it! I guess I didn't offend her, and thank heavens so. It's emotionally damaging to feel like you're being perpetually inappropriate.

"Yes, please," I humbly garbled through my hands.

As I cleared the remnants of my stuffy nostrils, Julie reassumed her concerned disposition. At the time, it was unclear what she was about to say, though I was quite certain it would end in a question mark.

"Sir?"

Hardly a question, but with the correct punctuation, nonetheless.

"Sir, have you eaten here before?"

"Yes, plenty of times. It's a pleasant establishment you run here."

"Thank you. I only ask because, well, you fit a certain description. That of a man who was here recently and decided to not pay his bill. A dine and dash, as we call it."

He must have had a mustache, tired eyes, and a "W"-shaped scar on his forehead. Those are all things I had (and still have, for the most part.)

"The man had a mustache and scar like the one on your head," she said delicately.

It was kind of her not to mention my tired eyes. It's rather unflattering, something no person wants to have brought to the forefront of the world's attention. The mustache, on the other hand, was one element of the coincidence. I had only grown it the day before, as it happened. Unlike most men—a burden and gift—I have the capacity to grown nearly any form of facial hair in a day's time. A doctor once told me it's a form of genetic regression, or something like that.

"Well, Julie," I read her name tag, "I don't believe that was me."

Clearly she wasn't hoping for that response. I was making things oh-so-complicated. A confrontation would surely stem from this lack of compliance, poor Julie thought. Fortunately for both of us, this wasn't true.

"Excuse me," said the Waitress, returning with her tail between her legs. "He's right there."

Julie looked. I looked. The Waitress pointed, candidly. A man who looked just like Rory Cleveland (or seemingly so, from behind) sat at a table just down the aisle. Fascinating!

Julie turned to me, her light brown skin now flushed. "I'm truly sorry, sir."

"Oh, it's quite fine," I said, then addressing the Waitress. "Does he really look like me?"

"He does. Very much so."

"Fascinating."

Julie interjected, "Truly, I'm very sorry, sir. Can I please buy your breakfast for you."

"That's not necessary. It was a simple mistake," said I, the victim of mistaken identity, in the moment before sneezing, once again. Ah-choo!

I retrieved the same napkin Julie gave me before and wiped my nose. Both women furrowed their brows.

"Really, I insist," Julie retorted.

I initially declined, once again, but decided it would be best to allow Julie to pay the bill, as I didn't have any money on me. As it turns out, I was fully prepared (though not proud of it) to dine and dash.

"Thank you, Julie", I said.

She took the bill from my table, then went on with the Waitress to question the other Rory Cleveland—the real dine and dasher.

Leaving the diner, it took great restraint for me not to approach my doppelganger. All I had seen was the back of his head, which gave me no frame of reference to our likeness, as I'm not familiar with the back of my own. Did he really have a scar? Was his mustache as prominent as my own? Why didn't he have any money, either? However, I managed to move on, satisfying my intrigue with the personal assurance that we'd meet again. We would.

I consider this a major coincidence, all things considered. That being said, nothing changed. My counterpart was still a thief. I was still without control and insecure of my napkin etiquette. The diner still served eggs. It was all the same as before, save for the fact that I ended up getting a cold, a likely result of using soiled paper to blow my nose. Ah-choo!

La Cucaracha

When I lived in the Hispanic part of town I was content—more content than I had ever been. Musicians call it harmony. (So do regular people.) Buddhists call it self-awareness. Hippies called it peace. The rest of us don’t have a name for it, but know it feels good. For me, it had a sound. It went like this:

Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Dah Duh Dah Da-Da Duh!

Sing it. The song is “La Cucaracha”. It’s more than likely you’ve heard it coming from a car horn. That’s where I heard it. Every night between the minutes of 9:45 and 9:50, the faint squawking of that song echoed through the streets and up to my bedroom window.

Around that time I usually found myself lateral on my bed, either sleeping or thinking about sleep. (It’s a little known fact that the best method of falling asleep is to actually think about sleep itself.) Sometimes it would roust my resting, while other times it would simply prohibit it from happening in the first place. The noise was distracting, to say the least. It took some nerve for that honking man or woman to do such a thing at such a relatively late hour of the night!

I got in the habit of waiting until ten o’clock before I started to think about sleep. On one evening, my thoughts consumed by the waking threat of the automobile opus, I was able to trace back to my first memory of the song.

The television was on and I sat in front it, seven years of age and plump. My mother allowed me to watch cartoon shows on Saturday mornings, so long as I promised to do my chores as soon as they were over. It was a reasonable compromise in my estimation, so I always followed through with my end of the bargain.

Tom and Jerry were a cat and mouse I loved. Eventually I fell out of love (as tends to happen with hobbies, spouses, and things not connected directly to one’s self), but at the time there was nothing better in the universe to me. The episode featured a Latin American setting. Jerry had made a friend, a fellow mouse of Hispanic heritage whose name was not revealed to the audience. Jerry and Mexican Mouse ran and ran and ran. Tom chased them. With capture eminent, the mice leapt into an arc-shaped hole, narrowly escaping Jerry’s not-so-threatening paws. Unfortunately for Jerry, his focus on the passion for the kill, he slid into the hole himself, though only his head could fit. He stuck. In a mocking and fantastically entertaining gesture, Jerry and Mexican Mouse took his whiskers in hand and played them like guitar strings. Jerry sang lead vocals. Mexican Mouse sang back up. Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Dah Duh Dah Da-Da Duh! It sounded more like a sped up forty-five than a car horn, but there was still a distinct similarity.

Another night. 9.31 PM. Surely it was coming again soon. Particularly restless that night, I decided to go out and find the source of the perpetual disturbance. Out the flat, down the stairs, through the front door, and into the streets. Directionally, it was clear that the honking resonated due east of my apartment, so I walked to where the sun would eventually rise.

A few late-nighters meandered about the sidewalks, gently caressing their lovers or carrying bags of groceries that they were unable to collect during the work day. In the same way I felt, they all seemed at ease with the general state of things. Not to say they were polite or even smiling, for that matter, but I could tell. It was good to know that everything was alright. Everything was fine.

I ticked along with the clock as it neared the time of the chime. Approximating the location of the noise, I stopped between a mailbox and a palm tree about three blocks from home. With nothing to do but wait at this point, it gave me time to make specific note of my surroundings.

An alley cat. Cracked sidewalk. A homeless man. The mailbox, as mentioned before. A gentle breeze. Stomped out cigarette butts. Parked cars. Chalk drawings for hopscotch. A newspaper tumbleweed. Crab grass. It was all very regular, very comfortable.

There was a calm. For a moment, it was as if all things ceased to move or breath. Even those things not known for moving or breathing—the mailbox, for example—ceased to do so. It happened the same way an animal reacts to the presence of seismic waves. Stillness. Then. . .

Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Dah Duh Dah Da-Da Duh!

Life resumed.

It was louder than I was used to hearing it, but not loud enough. I was off by a block or so. Considering the mission a positive step in my search, I returned home and thought about sleep, then dreamt about dreaming.

There I was again. 9:39 PM. I didn’t have to leave quite as early this time, for I had already picked my next vantage point earlier that day. It was a residential street two blocks further east than my previous location. Something about this place felt right. My ear was most upset about this whole debacle, so I trusted it when it told me to test 3^rd and Manhattan. At last, I could confront the honker and get to rest without disturbance!

9:47 PM hit. I started to worry. Of all the nights for the racket to end, why tonight? Was it because I came searching? Obviously this was an undue reaction. Moments after I asked myself these two questions and before I could ask a third, I spotted a man walking to his car with keys dangling from his index finger. I knew it was him.

He was of a stout build, reaching his mid-life, and had hands thick as the leather on a football. His white undershirt was tucked into a pair of plaid boxers. He was shoeless and Mexican. I found out through a later conversation that his name was Saul.

As he reached his car, Saul took slight notice of me, almost as if he was expecting me to be there, or like he’d had this encounter before. He unlocked the door of his four door pick-up truck, a modest American model with scraped paint—a laborers automobile. Casually, he hopped in the driver’s seat and closed the door behind him. His leathery left hand pushed the lock back down.

A moment passed and right on schedule, the calm came. My heart raced, then stopped.

Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Dah Duh Dah Da-Da Duh!

Thank heavens my bedroom wasn’t situated on that street! The cry of “La Cucaracha” was nearly deafening and seemed to last longer than it ever had before. I stepped to the flat bed of the car and rested on its dented bumper, back to the cab, waiting patiently. The door opened and a great weight was lifted as he returned to the pavement. My feet no longer touched the ground with him. They dangled as they do when one sits on an examination table at the doctor’s office.

Auditory senses were in charge at this point. Had he been wearing cowboy boots, my ears would have been in tune with the crackle of the hard soles scraping along the rocky surface beneath them. Instead, they heard the almost silent pats of his bare feet.

Saul faced me as I sat on his bumper. I attempted to formulate my inquisition as succinctly as possible:

“Why?” I asked.

He left. Not far, though. I craned my neck to watch him go back to the driver’s side door and once again insert the key. He had forgotten to lock it back up. Click.

Saul returned to me with the knowing saunter of a monk and put his arm snugly around my shoulder. Strangely, it didn’t seem strange. Had I not needed my own arms to balance myself on the bumper, I would have reciprocated in the embrace.

“Why?” I asked again.

“What would you think if you didn’t hear the horn tomorrow night?”

It was a calculated and unexpected response. I was looking for answers, not questions. Despite this, I answered his query honestly, surprising myself with the answer.

“That something was wrong, I suppose.”

It was true.

“And you heard the horn tonight, no?”

“I did.”

“Well then I guess everything’s alright, isn’t it?”

Saul gave my shoulder a firm pat, knocking me off the bumper and onto the pavement. He meant no harm. Tucking his shirt back into his plaid boxers, that horn-blaring Mexican walked back to his front door and disappeared inside. He didn’t need a key for that one.

Harmony, peace, self-awareness, contentment. Since I moved, it’s never been quite as easy to obtain. However, I’ve never had to think about sleep to reach it since then, either. I just have to hear that sound.

Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Da-Da Duh DAH! Bah Dah Duh Dah Da-Da Duh!

And everything’s alright.

Biography

Rory Cleveland is just a man. He’s in his forties and no longer lonely because life’s lessons have already come his way.

--Submitted by a close friend of R. Cleveland