bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

Woo-hooo! I made it. I wrote over 50,000 crappy words of a crappy novel draft in 30 days, something easier said than done. Okay, words by themselves aren't crappy. But in the way they are now arranged, I think it's safe to say this is a crappy novel. But I got my winners link and logo, over there on the left of the screen. See? Whoopie! Below is the final installment. The counter in Word (sorry about that OpenOffice folks) tells me I have 50.272 words. The official counter puts me about 50 words over the line. I think it's because I used '--' to introduce dialogue, and Word counted those as words and the word counter for NaNoWriMo didn't. Either way, I did it, simply by slogging on, one word at a time until I had fifty thousand of them. Now, If I can just bring myself to keep working on it, to go back to the beginning and incorporate the ideas I had as they emerged. This was one, long free write. Now, if I'm a writer, I have to go back and revise, and make something worthwhile of the mess this thing is. But for now, I'm done.

Alexis,

I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to get back to you. I probably should have called, but in the end, I decided this is how I’d rather say good-bye. It took me a bit of time to figure out what to say after I left the other day. I don’t know how much of a talk you have with L---- or Portia, but if there is still a need, they can tell you why I left so abruptly. In a way, it doesn’t matter much why I left then, because it turned out to be a good thing for me overall. It’s everything leading up to that that is the greater concern for me. I just didn’t realize it until now. I guess this is all because I wish you and L---- had been more like parents to me, rather than trying to be my friend.

It goes back a long way, this lament of mine. At first, and for quite some time, I liked things the way they were, how you would look the other way if there was something you’d rather not see or know, how you provided me a blind sort of trust, or so I thought at the time, but now I see what I thought was an unconditional trust was just willing denial. You just never wanted to know the truth about me and what I was doing. When I was drinking a little, smoking pot, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and if it had stayed that way, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But things didn’t stay that way. The drugs evolved over time, from a little drinking to a lot of drinking, to a little pot to a lot of pot, to psychedelics, cocaine, a little meth and finally heroin. I don’t know how either of you could have not noticed, but that’s the way you acted, as if everything was fine, that there was nothing to worry about

Maybe that would have been okay if that’s all there was to it. When I left college the first time, after a semester working the internship on the organic farm, I see now I was hoping you might disapprove somehow, might see it as a failing on my part, or at least quitting. But you bought the line that I fed you, that the school was a poor fit for me. You didn’t even complain that I didn’t write the paper for the internship, to earn those credits. It was like you didn’t care that I threw the money and scholarship away. That’s just the way it was then. There were no consequences. So I came home, you put me up, and I did a little work every now and then, but you kept me clothed, in money, gave me a car, made things easy for me. Probably you should have done otherwise.

Then I went back to school and you bought me a house, which I walked away from so I could go to school in Hawaii. Again, even though all I did to take care of the house was to find someone to live in it, rent free, you did nothing. Later you sold the house and gave me the money, never asking for an accounting. Being that I was half an ocean away, you never exhibited any curiosity about how I spent that money. You paid my tuition, rent, provided me food money, and shipped me a car. How crazy is that? Like they don’t have cars to buy in Hawaii, so you ship me one? So how do I repay the generosity, I come close to earning a degree, but don’t. I spend most of my time hanging out, getting loaded, and surfing when I can, when I’m not too loaded, too strung out, or too busy copping some dope. You can’t believe how easy you made all of this.

So, two classes short of a degree, I come home. I’ve had a few jobs along the way, but never needed them because I never needed the money. If I didn’t want to work some day, because I’d rather shoot dope, I just quit and had you to fall back on. If I needed money to cop, I’d just ask you, tell you some silly story that you bought, and copped dope. Everything was so easy, too easy of course. Then anyway. So, I come home, and you create a job for me at the ranch, but I don’t really do anything any other idiot couldn’t have done, but you talk it up like I’m indispensable. The thing is, if any job required any skill, you called in someone who knew what they were doing, a plumber, carpenter, electrician, whatever. What did I do? Built a chicken coop, painted the barn after replacing a few planks in the wall, nothing of substance in other words. But you praised me, to my face, to B----, to L-----, to any woman who would listen if she showed any interest in me. But that didn’t last.

When I was tired of the ranch, you bought me the coffee shop. Things there played out pretty much the same way they did on the ranch. If some idiot could do it, you let me. If it took any sort of skill, a professional was called in. Beyond the craftsmen, you brought in designers, purveyors, everyone. I sat in on the conversations, and I learned a little, and even though you pretended the decision was mine, it wasn’t. I was just doing this for you, like it was your job to keep me employed. Maybe you thought this would keep me from using drugs as much as I was. But this just made it all that much easier. I could be loaded or strung out or just about anything in between and it didn’t matter. Everything was taken care of. No failure possible. Some people might appreciate that over the long haul. I was seduced by it in the short term, but I don’t think I can be any longer.

When I tired of the coffee shop, it was a bit too much to just walk away from, so I, you or we sold it. All I know is you signed the papers and I received the money before moving to Portland so I could learn to sell real estate, just like L----. Let me tell you, following in these footsteps, sucking up to people so I can make a living, kissing ass with the hopes of a commission, it sucks. I hate it. I never wanted to do it. As much as I’d like to quit doing drugs, I want to quit trying to sell real estate even more. It’s an idiot’s profession, if it can even be called that. It’s like Amway, but worse. I used to think some of my bosses were stupid, pains in the ass. Real estate people are way worse. Maybe some people can find some pleasure in helping people buy or sell a piece of property, but most everyone in the office, especially L----‘s friend who is helping me, if you want to call what little he does help, are just self-centered idiots. And that seems to be what I have to look forward to.

So, here I am now, still not having told you why I left the other day without a word, and I’m still at the point where I can’t tell you, despite what I’ve planned for myself. I’m guessing too that Portia didn’t stay long after I left, though how she made her way home, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her either since coming home. If you’re curious, like I said, you’ll have to ask L----- about it. He can clear things up. At least he can clear up why I left. Beyond that, there will probably be a few more things to clear up. Maybe a lot more to clear up. The two of you will have to come to your own decisions on that. Thankfully, and it’s for the best this way, it’s wholly out of my hands. Besides, I’m the last person you’d want to try to work on this, especially at this point. But I’m okay with all of that. There’s really nothing left for me to do, and that’s good. In an odd way, I love you and appreciate what you and L---- have done for me, and finally I can say the same for B---- after having written to him, even though I don’t know how or if he’ll be responding. It doesn’t matter any more.

As you can tell from all of this, I’m not particularly happy with how things have gone. There’s a lot of a mess to clean up, but I know how to do it. I wish, as I wrote earlier, that you and L----- would have been more like parents, less like friends, and held me to account for some of the shit I pulled, even though I never thought of it in that way. Please don’t think that I blame you because, despite all I’ve written, I know that I was more than happy to go along with how things were. I was never willing, though fairly able, to do what was difficult because I didn’t want to do difficult. For now, I am going to do difficult.

Give my regards to L-----. Roddy

Portia, this is Alexis, Roddy’s mother. I’m sorry to call, and to have to leave a message. I just received an odd letter from Roddy and I was hoping you could help me make sense of it. He said that either you or L---- could tell me why he left the other day without saying goodbye. I was hoping to catch you so you could tell me what you think it’s all about. I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call when you get this message. You have my number. Thanks, and happy new year.

--L----? I just received an odd letter from Roddy.

--What did he say?

--Well, one thing he said was that you could tell me why he left the other day without saying goodbye. What did he mean by that? What can you tell me?

--I’m not sure. I wasn’t there when he left. He didn’t tell me why he left. Portia didn’t seem to know either. Are you worried?

--I guess I am worried, but I don’t know about what. Why would he tell me that you could explain his disappearance when you say you can’t? But that’s only part of what has me worried.

--Worried? Why worried?

--He said “goodbye.”

--Goodbye? What did he mean, goodbye? Like it was a goodbye from when he left the other day?

--No, I don’t think that’s it. It didn’t seem that way. It seemed more solemn, but I haven’t been able to get him on the phone, to find out what he means.

--I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he’s just unhappy that Portia has left him.

--She has? I didn’t know that.

--Didn’t he tell you they’d been having problems before they came to visit? It seems he’d been seeing someone else, behind her back. I never would have expected that of him, but that just shows how hard it is to know your own child even. I was sad to hear that about him.

--Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like him, not at all.

--Only because that’s what Portia told me when I drove her to town. She said there’d been some problems for some time now, since they came down for Thanksgiving. She sensed it when they got back home, that something was off in their relationship. He finally confessed to her after she confronted him. That’s what she told me.

--Confessed?

--Yes, confessed.

--Do you know something I don’t? Something about Roddy and Portia?

--About Roddy and Portia? No, nothing. Why, is there something you know, something you want to tell me?

--No, no. Not now. I don’t think so. Nothing.

--Have you tried Portia?

--Yes, I had to leave a message. She didn’t answer her phone.

--Okay. I see. Well, have you tried Roddy?

--Yes, and it’s the same thing. I had to leave a message, and it’s bothering me.

--Don’t let it bother you. I’m sure it’s all nothing.

--What do you mean nothing?

--That there’s nothing to worry about. Roddy can take care of himself. He’s probably somewhere with Portia.

--I thought you said he split up with her?

--Yeah, I did, but maybe they’re trying to work things out. Hell, how can I know where he is if he doesn’t answer his phone?

--I’m sorry, it’s just that in his letter, it’s as if he was scolding me for the way we raised him, for not being stricter with him. For letting him get away with too many things, though I don’t know what those things might be, or could be. Do you? Do you know why or when we should have been stricter with him?

--No, I can’t say I do. If he thinks that, then it seems he was just expecting us to do for him what he wouldn’t or couldn’t do for himself.

--Do you think so?

--It sounds that way. I mean, how much can we do as parents? We raise him, we pay for his college, we help him find work, and he wants us to be stricter with him, or wishes we had been stricter with him when he was younger? If he knew then that things needed to be different, then he should have done different. It’s not that hard to figure out, is it?

--No, I guess not, not really anyway. I guess you’re right. If he knew what to do, I guess he should have made different decisions. We can’t be expected to carry him on our shoulders forever now, can we?

--No, we can’t.

--So, when are you coming home?

--It shouldn’t be long. Is there anything you’d like me to pick up for dinner? Some wine maybe? Something for a salad? Veggies? Anything?

--No, nothing I can think of right now. Just come home when you can. If I think of anything, I’ll call.

--Okay. I’ll be home shortly.

--Bye.

--Bye.

2 January 2006 Dishin’ and Bitchin’ blog entry

Last entry I wrote about the shit hitting the fan, but I didn’t know how premature I could be. I just heard from my friend, P-car, and found that now the shit has really hit the fan, in ways that cannot be remedied. I’m not sure what to make of that woman, the way she sounded. But I don’t know how she should sound, or feel, as if it matters at this point. The news she shared with me was that her recently deposed boyfriend, her ex-boyfriend, whom she dumped after getting busted having sex with his father, killed himself. At least that’s the way she’s looking at it. The police have described it as an accidental overdose, and that sort of thing happens to junkies all the time. And I didn’t even know he was a junkie, this boy, but it seems he was.
I’m not sure about P-car, how much she’s using drugs. Maybe she is; may be she isn’t. But he’s dead from an overdose of heroin. I have to say that she didn’t sound too shook up, but they were broken up. I think though, that maybe he did it because of her. She trashed him pretty good. Cheated on him, got caught screwing his father, who is the person she was cheating with, and then when they made their split as official as this sort of thing gets, she really laid into him, made it all his fault, made it out that he was lucky to have spent what time with her that he did. I’d say she didn’t spare anything in making clear where her priorities were and are. It was pretty much one of those “with friends like this, who needs enemies” sorts of thing.

Before he killed himself, however, he took everything that she’d left in his house and dumped it on the porch. If I was him, I probably would have dumped it on the sidewalk where people driving and walking by could have helped themselves, but he seemed kinda considerate in that way, if naïve and easily manipulated. She is the one who found him, sprawled on his bed, the needle still in his arm, the arm tied off, a chunk of black tar heroin sitting on the night stand, saved for the next shot I guess, if this one didn’t do the trick. The lighter was there, as was the spoon. I don’t even know why she went into the house. To see if there was something to take? Something that might have been left behind on accident? Whatever the reason, she got to be the one to find him. It had probably been less than a day that he’d been there because it was just beginning to stink.

She called the police to let them know, to keep herself from getting in trouble. She told them she hadn’t been to the house since before Christmas, that she had spent some time with Roddy at his parents, that he left abruptly for no reason she understood, and that when she came back a couple of days later, he had put her things on the porch, but hadn’t changed the lock. When she went inside, to check for mail she said, she found him. Needle in his arm, dead. Eyes open and staring at the blank wall, his face somewhere between a smirk and a smile. It’s almost like he was looking for something and he finally found it. But I’ll avoid those speculations of the common sort and just avoid the “he died of a broken heart” cliché because it was the heroin that killed him.

So now I need to find something else to write about other than P-car and her now dead boyfriend. I never really got to know him, and I don’t know that I ever really got to know here, as much as she shared with me regarding the two of them. Hell, I don’t even know how much I know myself. But that itself, is fodder for another entry on another day.