Hello, I wanna connect with you all over the land. I was reminded a few days ago what it might be like if nobody ever touched you, and it was bleak - perhaps not solitary confinement bleak, but it was nothing good. That's what I heard from the men in the creative writing class at the prison. "Writing helps me communicate better with my wife and kids on the phone," a man told me.
Right now I want to go back, see Maria again (we've been lovers for many years now). I want to get hugged by my daughter, Gabby. That's always a good thing especially considering the girl does not dispense easily with affection. She'll hold you at arm's length if that's where you need to be.
My son, Max - it's great being in a car, just him and me. While the girls were off to Kober Brothers grocery to buy a birthday cake for the party, Max and I did some manly no bullshit stuff. I sifted through the $1 crap at Target, looking for a cool notebook to write in. There were notebooks with princess crowns on them and words in pink and purple like, "The colors of my life."
"Nothing but a bunch of girly shit here," I said to Max. He's a good boy. He never uses such foul words, but he suffers me as if he's aware of me and it all rolls off his back.
"I was hoping for something with Batman or Star Wars on the cover," I said.
After reconnecting with my family for an hour at the birthday party, I went off on my own.
"I'll miss you," Maria said. "Don't be gone long."
I was in Dovedale, Kan. (pop. 13,000). It's an upscale town, a bedroom community of Wichita. I texted a friend.
"Where's the best bar to write a blog at in this town?"
"The Buckhouse," he texted, authoritatively.
Writing, I was in a brown study. Upon completion, I closed my laptop, unplugged the cord behind the bar and slipped it into the black case.
"You get your homework done?" the woman at the end of the bar asked me. She was with her fiance, I want you to know that.
"Sure did," I said.
"Who do you work for?" she asked.
"I work for an underworld society. That's all I can disclose at this time."
I know I bitch about people, but I try to convince my wife, Maria, not to take it so literally, telling her I'm not a hater. "I love all humanity," I say, mockery in my voice.
Thoughts went to Maria and the kids as I stood there, ruing over how I had to go to various spots to write, how sometimes doing it righ there in the house separated me from my wife & kids, as if work doesn't do it already. Always pray in my car in the parking lot before stepping into the old building across the street in which I work. (Place is said to be haunted.)
"God please help me be good to my wife & kids, my employer, my mom, the audience, to you." Then I feel guilty about putting God last & add that I want help being moral and respectable for the day. "I don't wanna let anyone down, " I pray.
I left the Buckhouse and rejoined the family at the Clubhouse in the retirement village where my in-laws live. This is in the town of Jett, Kan. (pop. 4,000 in the '70s). They're in keen spirits as they talk about the door slamming noises and the sounds of pots and pans rattling in the kitchen and books being shuffled in the library - sounds that have come from no explainable source. Max dealt with such things at our old house, built in 1918. He made peace with the knowledge of an apparition known as "Plaid Pants Man" dwelling in the house. They all breathed a sigh of relief when they saw me enter the Clubhouse Main Room.
"We thought you were a ghost," my little girl said.
