Downfall

"Your downfall has always been the grass is always greener with you," she said.

In high school it was always somebody else who was the better athlete, who got the pretty girlfriend, who had a better car (most always something Mom & Daddy bought for them). Then college. Somebody else might have a job at the Marriott Hotel or a sweet gig at the adult book/toy store while I was flipping burgers & washing gross food and spit off dishes. Someone else would have a lover while I lived celibate.

Christ, I knew people with better dope than me.

I remember the day we stood in the Sedgwick County Courthouse before the judge. Tears welled in my eyes as he walked us through the marriage ceremony. Then we had a baby, the cutest baby I'd ever seen. My wife, Maria, would take tender photographs of me and my boy, Max. Sometimes when he cried too much in his crib, we' let him sleep between us in bed.

My job was good.

For a year.

Then I got antsy. "All I do is sit on my butt and ask people questions on a form. I live in a cubicle. The bathroom's a one-holer next to the kitchen and I clogged it up."

There was insurance. Stay there stay there stay stay stay

The world kept turning. My daughter was born. Just what we both wanted. One boy. One girl. My girl had a temper, the kid had spunk, but to me she was the most beautiful princess ever. She looked so much like her mother. She spent the first few weeks of her life in the Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) hooked up to machines and wiress. I remember a nurse named Roseann and a sweet male nurse named Chris. I'll be in their debt for the rest of my life.

A few more years went by. I had wanted to go to law school. If I were a lawyer I'd really look like something to my kids.

"Jeff, the kids wouldn't care if you collected garbage for a living," Maria said. "They just care about how you treat them."

Was she holding me back somehow?

Or keeping me grounded?

Resentments against people who wronged me kept me brooding. I knew who my enemy was. I knew the sonofabitch. Waiting for the day I'd piss on his grave. Then one day he did die. Massive heart attack. He was a heavy smoker so maybe that had something to do with it. Not like I did it.

Then I'd drive in my car faster FASTER and the flashbacks, the getting screwed -- the moment my doctor would later tell me I had PTSD from -- would come back. "Die! Die motherfucker," I would yell. Then I'd get calm. "Well he did die, Jeff. What do you want?"

Next the Devil got into me, but it was all my fault. A woman I work with said, "I think the devil gets into men." We were in the Buckhouse, Adam and me, having burgers and beer. "Yeah, Satan's out there," he said. (When I was a little boy, my Grandpa Mac told me the story from the book of Job where God ran into Satan in Heaven and asked where he'd been. "From roving about the Earth.") We talked about sex and temptation, the fight against the flesh. And not just sex, but everything. Falling ---

falling

falling

falling

again

Being like Paul in the Bible. Knowing the right thing to do and wanting to do the right thing but doing the wrong thing, having to beat my damn body up to do righteousness.

More flashbacks. "Jesus died for him too," Maria said.

"Don't even go there!" Anger flashing. "I didn't ask him to die for that cunt."

We moved into a house. I wasn't happy. I missed the old house. Had to move back to Jett, Kansas. Should've left that damn town for good. I'm a loser. I'm back. Can't stay away. I should've gone to California or New York. Had a chance to go to Chicago when I was young.

I did something dangerous. Horrific. It would transmogrify me.  I looked up an old co-worker on the internet to see what this awesomely talented guy was doing now. I found out. Working at the Washington Post.

THAT COULD'VE BEEN MY LIFE!

The world fell out from under me. I hurt the ones I loved. I worked at the elementary school. Betty, a para at the school, was like a mother to me. "God let me down. He didn't give a shit."

She told me the next day she was worried about me.

Then I felt remorse. I sat on the stairs of our beautiful house in Jett, Kan., the house I'd bitched about. Everyone was in bed. "God, please let me die. Please let me get some kind of disease. I'm finished here. I have nothing left." I believed He would take me. He had to. What about God's mercy? It was the only humane thing to do.

And every day I walked back to my job. The Walking Dead.

Then they put me in the hospital. The kind nurse came into my room. I told her about the mistakes, the mind control, the cutting and almost jumping from my apartment balcony. "You have a wife and children who love you?" she said. "Why do you want to live in the past?"

Then it happened. Months later. I was well out of the hospital. I was taking a walk because it was good for my soul. I understand Thoreau and 33rd U.S. President Harry Truman went on walks. I walked through the sunlit, blue collar neighborhood of Dearborn in Jett, Kan. (pop. 4,000 in the '70s) and the place hadn't changed much since the 70s. In fact many of the houses date from the turn of the the 20th century. There were white and pink houses with wrap-around and screened-in porches. A dog in a fence that always barked when he saw me, then panted lovingly when I reached my hand in and pet him. Maria would say that's dangerous, but I didn't care. (By the way, we had this routine where we tucked the kids in bed every night and held hands while praying. Usually Maria said the prayer.) The white flowers and rose vines looked lovely, these modest gardens in the small front yards. And trees. They've been here all my life and I loved the garages and cars. I'd listened to one of my favorite albums that morning, All I Ever Need is You by Sonny and Cher. Who can't like them? I like listening to early 70s vanilla pop on Saturday mornings. I listened. The Osmond Brothers. The Raspberries. Looking Glass. Badfinger. Blood, Sweat and Tears. While helping my boy precious boy fold newspapers for his paper route. Then the whole family got in the Santa Fe and it was a Saturday routine. Max delivered the paper to the library, Baptist and Christian churches, a house that looked Swiss in architecture and Mrs. Janney's house. She said Max was the best paper boy she'd had in 20 years. Mrs. Janney was in her '90s and she appreciated receiving the paper on her front porch. Sometimes Mrs. Janney would hug Max and give him $20 tips. Mrs. Janney's late husband knew my grandpa Guy in Marshallville, Max's great-grandpa. In fact, he was friends with all the Guy brothers. they're all gone now Back in the '40s, Mrs. Janney was a soldier's wife. She and her friend, Madelyn (who would become Barack Obama's grandmother) would carpool to Boeing in Wichita where they made aircraft bombers.

And it came to me. Just bam. Like in the face, from nowhere. I had it better than the guy at the Washington Post. "He doesn't have my wife and kids," I thought to myself. "I like where your head's at," a friend would tell me.

Remember in that movie It's a Wonderful Life where George Bailey feels like such a failure because so many dreams he had for life never came true and he wanted to kill himself? Then the angel, Clarence, plays the whole film back for him and says, "You know George, you really had a wonderful life?"

I laid in bed with Maria. She looked so deep into my eyes I could see her soul and told me she forgave me. She said she loved me unconditionally. She was nervous for me to see her body. "It's so imperfect," she said.

"I don't care. I just want to look at you."

                                    "Get Happy" -- Judy Garland