Mis apologias

Me estoy sintiendo sin inspiración. Cuando miro mis diezentradas pasadas, son como mierda. Mayor que otros, por supuesto.

Me disculpo -- intentaré más difícilmente y no me preocuparéquizá de escribir para un poco mientras que.

Flashback

It was early. He hadn't left the island yet, and he knew he had to stop for gas at some point soon. Just then, two deer skittered across the highway right in front of him. Michael raised the camera and took a shot of the second one getting across with one despearate last leap. Blurry for sure, he thought to himself.

Five minutes later he pulled into a Chevron station and filled the new midnight blue Subaru Outback with gas, knowing he was going to burn most of it that day in his random road trip.

His digital camera was unsheathed and waiting on the front seat--he decided it would be best to tuck it under something rather than leave it exposed and invite a problem. He clicked the doors locked as he hurried inside to buy a couple of cartons of chocolate milk and some chips and candy for snacks for his road trip today. He paid cash, and carefully put his change away so he could go through it. He hoped that his trip to Maine would enable him to get some of the state quarters with the P mint mark--these didn't seem to make their way down to Texas, where he lived, which was supplied by the Denver mint.

He was pretty tired even before starting what promised to be a day-long adventure. In the previous week, he had worked almost 100 hours at the workshop, and ironically, due to his pure commission pay structure, wasn't paid a cent for it. But that was a little secret that he didn't tell anyone...

As you sow, so shall you also reap.

His thoughts started to dwell on that verse from the Bible--it can mean so many things, and can be applied to so many diverse situations, yet the words ring true and are certainly wise. He was considering what he was currently reaping and wondered how he sowed such seeds. Some good, some bad.

Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord giveth thee.

Suddenly it was blurry, then a technicolor scene came into focus. The three boys lay low at the top of the staiway"She got dat naas ass. Like a white girl. Ummm I lak that un her." He was pointing to Miss Linda, who was walking slowly away from their position toward the large coffee percolator by the serving window of the dining hall.

He had no idea what the larger boy, Jarrod (which rhymes with "the rod") was talking about. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. No, they don't. It would be years before he would understand what that was supposed to mean. What it could mean to other people, but would never mean to him.

The smaller boy, Samuel, hadn't said a word in two days. He and Jarrod met at the top of the stairs every night. Tonight, he had joined them, and they all three hid in the shadows above the 3 adults talking down in the main room below. They were sitting at the folding tables on the benches. It smelled like coffee and Aqua Velva.

Samuel stlll didn't say anything

She fine. Dat Jennifer mo fine but her daddy been up in 'nayre. She messed up over dat."

The boy felt repulsed by that type of talk. He looked down at the foosball table and wondered if they could play again tomorrow.

They had listented to music together as a group earlier that day. Jennifer said her favorite song was "What's Love Got to Do with It?" by Tina Turner. The room had gone silent.

"Theys call it 'foos ball', 'cause foo's think 'a cn beat me in it" Jarrod had said, patting him on the back and smiling broadly. They had played for 2 hours until Miss Vickie had put the ball up. They played with spins allowed, and encouraged.

He looked down at his hands and saw that there were tiny green flakes of comet on his right hand from scrubbing the bathtub when he was finished washing tonight. Everyone scrubs the bathtub when they are finished so it will be clean for the next person. Mister Robert checks how you did and always finds something to make you go back again and do better. Then he had started to lay down on the scratchy, hot, mustard-yellow sheets before he saw Jarrod sneaking out and followed him to the shadows at the top of the stairs.

Jarrod was surveying his domain. He was the 16 year-old alpha male of the group of 20 or so kids, seven of whom were boys. The boy looked up at him. Jarrod had deep scars on his back from being slashed with electrical cords by his mother. Samuel was his brother. The boy had already known it could have been much worse.

I don't know why he chose to help me, he thought, but I sure am glad he has. He took him under his protection and helped him. Must have even helped him when he came in, practically naked, seeing red. Red was all he remembered. That and how to hold a cigarette between your index and middle finger and flick the ash off the butt by snapping your thumb from your middle finger against the butt. He had seen the preacher doing it a hundred times, chain-smoking passive-aggressively for hours til the waiting room was a foggy haze.

When the preacher cussed and stormed out, he went over, picking up one of the smoldering butts, and practiced it quickly to make sure he wouldn't forget it. He waited to make sure no one was watching, but he was alone on the hard plastic chairs, unwashed, teeth unbrushed, and wearing his blue, gappy shorts with no underwear and his shirt with the devil playing the drums on it like he had been plucked out of bed 8 hours before.

The boy had been dumped in the waiting room and apparently was in some kind of state custody war that he couldn't see being fought, or who was winning. He was stripped naked and viewed and photographed twice. He was humiliated, starving, and had lost his family today.

The preacher came back with the smallest McDonald's cheeseburger he had ever seen, but he took tiny bites and made it last.Then it was just red. He was dazed and disoriented, like a dream. Tragcially sad and euphorically happy. He couldn't see what was going to happen two hours in front of himself, and there was something to this impulsive life of safety that felt fantastic although he knew it was temporary.

He felt like his life had just been ruined.

Miss Linda came back with her cup of coffee, and Jarrod used his long arms to scoot them both back from the light.

"Miss Vickie got a black gurl's ass. Wide lak a train track..." He was whispering but now he stopped talking suddenly.

Mister Robert was coming up the stairs, and they all froze. The boy's heart was beating so fast he could feel it, and he flinched when he reached out to them. Mister Robert smiled and put his large arms around all of them. The boy flinched again involuntarily at his touch, but knew he was safe for tonight.

"All right now, boys, you better get off to bed now. If ya'll 'r hungry I can git you a snack or somethin'."

They marched back into the dark room.

Michael woke up from his daze and kept driving quietly off the island. It was twenty years later, and he had survived--survived with scars that people can't see and secrets that no one knew or could possibly understand.