Clown-Lipped Strangers

There are truths in every cliché.  People have been passing on quips and one-liners for decades.  Each culture has their own idioms that have become staples of their lives, even jumped the hurdles into stereotypes and superstitions.  My grandmother always says, "How about them apples."  My mother-in-law and others promise that death comes in 3's.  And for me, mine is "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Walking has become a cliché, too  Roads and highways, the walks of life.  I once wrote a poem about a road in a senior creative writing class and was politely given a C.  Road movies have been around for decades and they all represent a segment of the population, from "Easy Rider" to "Thelma and Louise."  So when I found myself taking a 2 mile hike Saturday night, the pop culture that infests my mind like some Cameron Crowe movie began playing its soundtrack.

After enjoying a college football game with a friend and his son(even if it was a loss, but I will not turn my peaceful blog into a sports diatribe), we returned to find my friend's car had been towed.  He had questioned the legitimacy of his parking choice early on, as it was close to the dumpster on the corner of a paved parking lot for an apartment complex.  We called and GPS-ed the name of the lot and began a 2 mile journey through campus downtown.

Now, had this happened in a movie, many of the following would have occurred.  Scenario 1--we end up being chased by thugs and some sadistic master criminal.  Two of us die and eventually we throw the criminal down a building alleyway (which stands for some metaphor of corporations v the death of industry or some other philosophically heady conceit).  Scenario 2--We whimsically travel from station to station meeting an odd assortment of characters.  One of us make a huge life decision (leaves his wife for a heart-of-gold hooker), one ends up "staying" in this version of Wonderland, and one finds his way out only to realize that the fantasy land was always around him to begin with.  Or Scenario 3--the men turn on one another in some survival of the fittest testimony about man's brutality towards one another.  A friend, a father and his son?  Oh, such a rich idea!

But my story was none of these.  Out of the three, I was the one panting, legs stricken with rigor, eyes affixed to the sights around me.   I didn't have the energy of confrontation that awaited at the impound lot (more on that later), or the will-power of a power walker reaching a finish line.  I was consumed at first with my body's denial.  Ironically, I had been thinking of my food intake all day.  How much beer should I drink? Is that one too many pulled-pork sandwiches?  So the first few blocks were a blessing in disguise.  Wait until I add this activity to the weight watchers database tonight!

Eventually, the crowd and lights of the city eased the tenseness in my feet.  Every establishment a dorm room of food and conversation.  The music of the bars echoed into the streets.  Not a taxi or pedestrian honked at us even when the analog hand of caution warned us to heed.  Couples shared rides, buses were full, their plexiglass a gauzy, grease-smeared transparency.  Neon signs, a-blinking advertisements and specials adorned each window.  We walked past a veterinarian shop, where it's medicinal tubs and clinical tables reminded me of some Eli Roth torture epic.  Several hookah shops dotted the landscape where it's colorful "blue milk" concoctions were something from Mos Eisley Cantina.

People too.  Couples, dancing girls who said hi to passerbys.  A student being heckled for being mistaken for a Pennsylvania native (it was his hockey jersey that outed him), bike riders, a girl clutching a pillow.  Girls crying on steps (I'm convinced that steps are better used for smoke breaks, girl-watching and crying than any other architectural structure ever made).  I fell behind numerous times along the trek, squeezing through groups of young men and women.  I craved pizza slices so I could walk like John Travolta down the streets of Manhattan.

By the time we reached Fifth, the area changed.  The lights grew dimmer.  Chain link fences that bowed from the implosion of its neighborhood wavered in the breeze.  The casual shorts-n-bike law enforcement turned more formal.  Industrial sized wood staples jutted from its foundations.  Will future generations look back upon the graffiti of its youth and study them like hieroglyphics?  Somewhere, there's an Incan ghost running around with an ancient spray can, laughing his ass off.   

Then my walk became arduous.  I clung to my bookbag tighter, then lamented whether or not I should have had my wallet handy in case I ran into someone who needed it.  I looked over my shoulder a few times.  I fell victim to the stereotype of the dark alley.  I began to think of the people in my life who couldn't make this same walk.  The ill, the forgotten.  Kris Sims, my wife's share partner whose thymoma has stricken her energy.  My walk was for them as much as it was for me.  Praise the good and bad.  A sign bore down on our last street.  Just what part of "thou shall not" did you not understand?

It was then I noticed a girl with Rolling Stone-painted lips.  She must have noticed I saw them, simply walked up to me, grabbed my face and kissed me on the lips. My friends and I shared a laugh.  A kiss from a clown-lipped stranger.

I don't know what lesson I was supposed to learn in that walk.  I talked to my step-dad earlier in the week about being thankful for each day isn't guaranteed.  Perhaps that was it.  Or to be grateful for the experiences of life.  The vice, the pleasure of girls in yoga pants, a kiss, the knowledge that our walk had an end.  What of others?  Theirs has just begun.  My friend's car end up being damaged too, and perhaps it was a lesson in patience.  A lesson in frugality--our sense of payment for "free" parking. (On a side note, another friend was towed that night too, from the same exact spot where we had once been towed.  Imagine that movie, the Tow Trucker who transports the lives of its victims.  Morgan Freeman!)

What I do know is that he was with me.  I had an old high school friend tell me that he was told, "Never trust anyone who is always smiling."  One cliché is another man's value.  I think mine was the biggest of the night.


 

Guarded Addictions

Last night I watched "Unguarded" an ESPN 30 on 30 special about Chris Herren, a basketball phenom from Massachusetts whose career was undermined by an addiction to heroin.  Brutal story.  It reminded me of watching the movie, "The Fighter" in which Christian Bale played the real-life brother addicted to smack.  He had those sunken eyes, that drugged-out look.  There are times in watching "Unguarded" that Chris looked much the same.  It's any wonder how he lived to survive.

And then I began to bury my mind with questions.  Why drugs?  Why did his wife stay with him though all the ups and downs, the travelling and over doses?  Why didn't anyone care enough to see the warning signs?  And better yet, where's God in all of this.  Many times during the program,  Chris is telling his story to several different audiences--the obligatory stay-off-drugs in a high school, a military audience, one that looks like a room full of ex-cons, ex-addicts.  We see clips and pictures of his past, all swagger and boastful.  We love these types of stories.  The cocky kid rises, falls, and lives to tell about it.  The entire story is a testament to the power of the human spirit.  And then again I get to wondering, are shows like this just a glorification of how humans can do mighty things without God?  I know I am being presumptuous and judgmental.  Bear with me.  

I've seen these stories before.  It's always the druggie, or the gangster, or the money launderer, the gambler.  They learn their lesson through a series of pratfalls and down-n-outs, but in the end of the movie, they survive with a smirk to the camera.  We're supposed to learn something from them, I guess.  The entire movie is filled with parties, naked women, drugs, crime but when their life changes it's dull (remember the ending of "Goodfellas"?) and uneventful.  We never see the movie about the after-life.  Those days where they struggled to stay clean, struggled to gain a foothold of being a father, being "normal."  For wise-guys and show boaters, it's always been about them.  And for Chris too, I presume.  He tells his story with a bluntness.  Some may call it courage.  Some may feel talking in front of an audience is much like resurrecting his basketball career.  Adoring fans, tears, hugs afterward.  You can hear the quotes right?  "You're such an inspiration."  "Your story made me reflect on my addictions."  Etc, etc.  

Addictions are powerful.  I didn't always understand the lure of drugs.  I smoked as a kid, and in my highest moment I realized I didn't need a bong hit to make me laugh cause I laughed pretty much anywhere.  Beer was this way too.  I was a happy drunk, a social drinker.  Perhaps it was through observing my own family that led me clear of needing that drug or alcohol fix.  My dad never drank and he rarely ever had a beer in his fridge.  We shared a few during a Monday Night Football game when I was in town years back.  It was the most awkward beer I've ever had.  My step-dad was a non-drinker too.  He played fastpitch softball on the weekends when the coolers were filled with more Budweiser than Gatorade.  These guys would smoke and drink between games, 9 am games.  But for him, he just never dabbled.  And then there were my uncles.

Two of them never met a shot of tequila they didn't like.  I mean, when one has "Tequila" as part of a nickname, you know what kind of person you're dealing with.  I know there was a lot of unseen drug use, the rumors of.  I didn't know all of their friends, only that they never really stayed around.  I guess that says something too.  

And then there was my own fear and crossed-messages.  I grew up with that Catholic fright.  I would sneak a look at my step-dad's stash-plate he slid under the sofa when I entered the room and wonder what the little green seeds were, that pungent smell.  He raised me too, and held his jobs, worked up to management.  If this was a drug addiction, how was it able to manage a family?  How was it able to hold a job?  And fear again.  I once saw cocaine left aside after an uncle's party.  Rolled-up dollar bills, lots of scary-looking white guys.  I always presumed that with my stupid luck and that Catholic fear based mentality, that the minute I took anything stronger than a Tylenol, that I'd foam at the mouth and die (with a pair of skid-marked underwear on no less, that was grandma-induced fear in itself).  I remember once going on a drug run.  I was just out of high school.  Being inside that guys house, all that fear just boiling.  I kept thinking we were going to get killed.  That this guy would get pissed and shoot us all.  His wife or girlfriend were watching tv at the time, watching us buy.  His kid was there too.  Here I am, just out of high school, with my friends in a kitchen trying to smoke something from a manipulated coca-cola can, the room illuminated by the blue light of the television and the eyes of a child burying a hole in me.  No wonder I didn't get a buzz.  

And going back to the film, he confessed to spending thousands just for a fix.  And I thought to my own addictions.  Pornography and food.  One hidden, one in plain view.  On mornings like this when I would have the free time (I took the day off of work to be a prayer partner for my wife), I would awaken to the thoughts of what I would visit on the computer screen.  Then some heavy lunch of fried chicken, hiding the evidence in the outside trashcans.  Then back to the computer.  Then food thoughts again.  Repeat.  

When I was younger and struggling to live on my own, it was much the same.  I would leave work in the early morning, buy some breakfast tacos, gorge, sleep, then awaken and venture out to rent video tapes from any place I could get them.  I think there were about 20 mom and pop video stores along Aldine Westfield and I had a membership to all of them.  They each had their curtained adult video room.  Those were my days.  Porn and pizza.  

And when Chris Herren talks about living one day at a time, I understand.  Each day I don't view that is a blessing.  I notice food habits now as well.  Why do I always have my necklace or shirt collar in my mouth when I watch tv?  Probably because I would be mindlessly eating.  Part of going to Weight Watchers is to change those habits.  Right now, I'm home awaiting the afternoon prayer vigil for my wife who is speaking in the Emmaus walk.  My mind drifts to lunch time  because that's the safe place my mind remembers.  I spoke of fear in an earlier blog.  

But I have one thing different lately.  It's not my power or a program.  All God.  I hope Chris has that for his family, instead of the humanistic approach to battling what ails us.  We can only do so much.  Chris says he thanked God a few times in the film.  I hope it wasn't just a flippant remark of a man in front of a camera.  No camera is on me or the men I look up to.  I wonder how their stories will play out.

  

The Yoke of Hope

I'm not sure when was the last time I worried.  Now, mind you, I have worries.  Typically the ones of late have been minute.  What will I try to accomplish at work in Reading?  What can I delete from the DVR to create space for the next 5 shows that are going to record on Monday?  Did I leave the garage door open?

Trivial matters.  Inconsequential wastes of time, one might say.  I think the last time I actually worried about something that gave me that upset stomach feeling was last year with a parent.  There had been some lingering communication issues and there was a meeting to be held later in the week to discuss what would be the next course of action.  It made me walk on egg shells in my own classroom.  How dare some parent dictate what I say, how I say it, or why I say anything.  Accuse me of what?  How dare they!  And I tried something I hadn't quite learned how to do after becoming a Christian about five years ago--I prayed.  And after I prayed, I gave it to God.  And he took care of me.  Since then, there hasn't been worry.

Not that my life is peaches and cream.  There are peripheral happenings that are beyond my control.  Cancer seems to be ravaging through the body of a close friend.  Terminal.  Ironic that a terminal in an airport signifies the destination point or loading station to board a plane, but if a doctor tells you that the unfair sickness invading your body is terminal, your next destination is most likely death.  Two of my colleagues are fighting new battles with breast cancer as well.

There is a student at my school who walks as if his ankles have been stricken with polio.  They turn in , and his walk is a bastardization of what God created.  Sinews twisted and rigored.  Bones crumbling under the weight of a seven year old's desire to run and play.  He was equipped with a wheelchair today.  All smiles this kid, being carted by his brother in the hallway.  "I'm popping a wheelie with you next week," I told him.  Do I worry about that kid?  Yes.  But hope runs deep in my mind.  One day him, the kids across the hallways that have been dealt some terrible deck (autism, brain disorders) will one day run in the full splendor of God's kingdom.  Whether or not we greet one another is probably a humanistic question our minds drift to.  Of course we want to see loved ones, we have trained our minds to expect such a sight.  But my mind drifts to the kids taken early, the disabled ones, the enabled, the kids who know all about love because that's the only emotion they can probably fathom, all healed, all brokenness, unified.  Am I distant with the situation?  By no means.  But hope wins over worry.

 Many of my students have their own lives to contend with.  A colleague of mine sarcastically declares to a moody fifth grader, "What you mad at?  You don't even pay bills."  If monetary stress was anything close to what they are trying to do themselves.  Dad in jail, the caring for of younger siblings, the lack of a decent meal that urges them to take extra food from the lunch room, moving to new schools on a whim, drug abuse.  This past week, a teacher finds a note in a kid's book bag talking about adult things reserved for Comedy Central of F/X.  After some questions, she finds out his dad has them watch movies with "nude people" at night over a bowl of popcorn.  Cruz's age?  Possibly watching pornography with their kid--with a snack?  So do I worry, oh yes, but God has us in the right place.  To listen, to inquire, to step in and hear those warning cries.  That case of the one girl, locked up in some shed for over ten years.  God sent people to that house.  God gave plenty of warning signs.  We just didn't catch them.

Tonight during Life Group a new couple shared some of their grief and hesitance with "giving it to God."  It sounds blasé if it were coming from my heart years ago.  Disturbing grief.  Painful memories.  Forgiveness that is a 4-letter word.  The world wants us to dismiss God, blame him for "letting" things happen.  The hurts and actions of evil hearts are somehow attributed to the same creator who made something as complex and amazing as a the human body.  That's free will.  Would it be better to make us all puppets so that no grief would befall anyone, keep everyone safe.  Man hurts one another.  Man's free will.  Man's choices.  Do we know why?  Do we understand the choices people make?  I don't think we are made to know all those answers.  I don't have that hurt in my life.  I'm blessed.


But I know one day my comfort will be rocked to its core.  It could be cancer, it could be a sudden highway death that took my uncle Richard.  It could be a stunning act of evil.  Do I worry these things will happen?  No.  Worrying will not give me an extra day.  Worrying won't give me more money or opportunity to spend more family time with loved ones.  But "Giving it to God" is replacing a heavy burden, that yoke on my shoulders in exchange for His.  Hope.