A Simulacrum of Life

I'm still writing here as if it matters, as if anyone still comes here at all.  I have no idea.  Meanwhile, the Substack page grows.  This I know, for I get data on the fly.  But I am dedicated to this now as I am to my journaling.  Whether people read or not, it is legacy stuff.  A dirty little flawed legacy, sure, but what do most people leave?  I know in my own hillbilly family, the legacy is overdoses and prison sentences and a few addled surviving children.  Children, though, are legacy if you subscribe to the Taylor Sheridan way.  

I have two dead cats, a dead dog, and a blog.  What the fuck is legacy anyway?  

I am overwrought, so forgive me.  I have become irritable and snappish.  I would like to have my life back again, such as it is, but I am servant to my mother's needs for what may be an interminable amount of time.  I was happy for a brief moment yesterday.  After the gym, after a soak in the tub and a shower, I sat down at the computer in my own home for a moment to work on a couple photos.  I turned on "my" music.  I haven't heard it for a month.  It put me in place.  Surrounded by the detritus of my life, old artifacts and hand woven 19th century plant dyed rugs, a whale's tooth and two poison dart guns, prints from old photo chums, now well-known, the Russian pine cabinet and, of course, the scent of essential oils. . . my excessive indulgences so contrasting with the frugal environment of my mother's house, neat and trim but without personality, looking like any other decor you might walk into in the neighborhood, lock, stock and interchangeable. . . for a moment I was happy.  

In the late afternoon, the sun came out and I went to the cafe for a decaf latte.  When I sat down to write, nothing came to mind, yet I was still happy.  It was a crazy joy like floating just inches above the ground.  I haven't felt that well for a very long while.  

But time and circumstance. . . the clock harkened me back to my mother's when I would rather have gone "adventuring."  I felt as if I might belong in the world again.  I felt attractive-ish and sure, and that is when the urge to wander will strike.  

Rather, I walked to my car and pointed it in the usual direction.  

When I got to my mother's house, the across the street neighbor was there.  She made a big deal out of telling me she was going to vacuum my mother's house.  

"Good," I said.  "That's just the thing.  I'll wait out here."

It pissed me off, you see, as if it were an accusation or insult.  I'm doing 20 hours a day with my mother, but if someone spends fifteen minutes, they consider themselves a hero?  Whatever.  

"You might want to wash the windows while you're at it," I spat.  

Determined to lose more weight, to become younger and prettier, I opened a faux beer.  I could feel my attitude plunging.  Decaf and alcohol free?  I was leading a fascimle-life.  

When the girls were done inside, they came out to sit and tell me all about it.  Then the neighbor wanted to tell me the non-adventures of her life.  She should get a blog, I thought, so she could bore the void as I imagine myself doing, or as C.C. quotes, "another stain upon the silence."  People, in the main, however, don't read let alone write.  Just look at what has happened to the check out counters at grocery stores.  Remember all those terrible popular paperbacks that used to line the shelf in front of the conveyor?  Gone.  Not even a Danielle Steele or a Stephen King or any of those silly Harlequin Romance novels.  

Eventually, the neighbor stood up and said she had to go.  She stood for another twenty minutes retelling her weekend with her daughter and son-in-law.  Payment, I guess, for vacuuming the carpet.  

It was nearing sunset, so my mother followed me into the house where I was to get to work preparing dinner.  I needed the two cans of tuna I had bought and placed on a cupboard shelf, but they weren't' there.  I did a little search.  

"Mom, where's the tuna?"

"What?"

Louder--"Where are the two cans of tuna that were sitting here?"

"They should be there."

I tore the cabinet apart, but they were nowhere.  I snapped.  

"Goddamnit, mom. . . what did you do with them?"

My mother's memory is going and I shouldn't have.  She began looking, moving things about in her crippled, slow motion way.  

"Jesus Christ.  I don't feel like driving to the fucking grocery store."

O.K.  Now you know.  I can be like that, a petty little shit.  It put my mother back.  She went to anther cabinet in the dining room.  On the bottom of one shelf were cans of tuna.  Not fancy albacore free range or whatever the fuck, in cans that  I didn't recognize.  They would have to do.  And so I made the noodle and broccoli bowl with tuna and cheese.  My mother was silent and I was feeling the red rush of remorse all over.  When I plated the food and sat down, I said, "You know what I think happened to the tuna?  Remember the other night when you said you didn't want dinner and I made a tuna sandwich, then you said you wanted one, too?  I don't think I replaced them."

She just stared at me and nodded.  Didn't seem to help much, nor did the meal which was pretty fucking lousy.  And I was paranoid about the tuna.  God knows how old the cans were.  It tasted funny to me and I was sure we would both die of ptomaine.  I could only eat a little.  

As it turned out, I was going to have to go to the grocers anyway.  I needed milk.  

"Do you want anything?"

She shook her head.  I cleaned the pots and pans and dishes before I left.  It was seven-thirty, an hour at which I hadn't been out of the house for a month.  I walked into the night.  It was peaceful.  No t.v.  No shuffling mom.  Just a big, starlit sky and the sounds of early evening, hollow and distant.  I took a deep breath and stood still fora minute or two and felt the involuntary vibrations begin to leave my body.  I am not sure why, but I recalled all the solitary evenings on my sailboat at anchor, just me and the big empty night into which to dream.

Who knew so many people went out at seven-thirty at night?  Not a housebound boy.  The store parking lot was full.  My stomach now was churning with real or imagined toxins.  But there was a liquor store next to the grocers, and I decided I would go there after getting the milk.  In spite of the possible gastro suffering I was sure to experience, I was feeling light again, as in the sun filled afternoon.  

Walking the aisle toward the milk, I spotted a pair of nice legs in black running shorts and a black top.  A true blonde.  She felt me coming, I guess, and looked my way.  I am lonely, and as lonely men will, I romanticized her.  She was in her mid-thirties, maybe, not a kid, and had a mature body.  There were a few of the inevitable age lines in her face.  She was not one of the dermatology women who live in my part of town, and I liked her right off.  We would certainly be lovers for a long, long while, maybe forever, and we would laugh and go to beaches and play shuffleboard and eat tacos, and I would take her sailing and hiking and. . . 

As I got closer, she looked into my eyes and smiled.  Something in me tightened up.  It was a true smile, a certified, verified smile.  I knew I was looking slim and interesting if not handsome.  Women know what such a smile will do to a man.  They know they can take his breath away just like that.  They know it, but they don't know the severity of it.  They can't even begin to imagine.  

I got the milk and turned back to retrace my steps, and as I came closer, she turned and smiled again.  Then. . . "Do you have a dog?"

What sort of quiz is this, I wondered?  Should I say no, but I used to?  Or should I say, no, but I know dogs?  

"Nope. . . no dog," I said.

"Oh. . . you look just like someone I see at the dog park."

"No. . . not me."

Shit, piss, fuck. . . goddamn!  Was it over just like that?  

A few steps later, it occurred to me. . . she had mistaken me for my actor friend.  He always takes his dog to the dog park.  

I should have said I had a dog.  

When I went to the checkout, I kept an eye out for her, but to no avail.  That was all the adventure I was getting for the night.  I crossed over to the liquor store.  I needed to kill the ptomaine in my belly, I assured myself. 

This wasn't drinking.  This was medicine.  

I looked behind the counter to see what kinds of whiskeys they might have in small bottles.  Johnny Walker Red--$2.95.  Johnny Walker Black--$5.95.  

"Give me one of those little airplane bottles of Johnny Walker Black," I said.  

When I got back to my mother's house, the t.v. was blasting some commercials per usual.  I grabbed a glass and went into another room to open and pour the whiskey.  I was hiding it.  WTF?  I poured 3/4s of the bottle and added some soda water and sat down in the living room.  Jesus, there wasn't much in the glass.  I turned on my laptop to check my emails and texts.  I didn't get far before the whiskey was gone.  I poured the rest of the tiny bottle into the glass.  Done.  I felt nothing.  I knew then how heavy I pour the scotch after dinner.  I was wishing I had a bottle.  

After checking my computer, I went into the t.v. room with my mother.  She seemed disconsolate.  I felt penitent, but what could I do?  

"You can watch what you want," she said. 

"Do you want to finish that 1884 series?"

"Sure.  Whatever."

I put it on.  It is not a happy series, and this was the end.  Death and despair were everywhere.  It was not yet ten when it was over, but neither of us wanted to stay up, and so my mother said a simple "goodnight."

And that is how things go.  And will go.  I have no pictures, no stories, nothing but the making of meals and cleaning of kitchens and decaf coffees and near-beers with too little whiskey on the side.  

But for a moment. . . there was the music and the paraphernalia and the sweet scent of life.  And goddamnit, the mistaken smile of a woman I needed to love.