Because it was Rome

I lost 32 pounds during that time. Now I remember it as being very dark, but in my pictures it's sunny every day. I was a student living in Rome. I'd gone to Rome because I loved language, loved art, and wanted to be as close to these things as I could, language and art. (I knew both of these things existed in Minneapolis, but at 18, I wanted a lot more than what I could see around me.) I was so sure I'd love it there I didn't even bother looking at year-abroad programs. I signed up for four years at a little school in Rome that took a lot of American students. As I got off the plane into the sun I was so excited I was actually shaking.

After one day of immersion classes I was ready to quit. Twenty years later, now, I could do it, assuming I wanted to. But at 18 I was possessed of the powerful notion that as I had had a 4.0 in high school, had taken eight AP classes, had been captain of my volleyball team, I ought to be immediately good at anything I put my mind to. I sat through one class not understanding a thing, and felt a mild irritation with myself. After two classes I was nearly in tears. I'd been off the plane for 36 hours and all the things I'd loved or was up to that point had vanished as the world narrowed to the singular, overwhelming and deep-seated conviction that I could not learn Italian.

I have a picture of the Colosseum, taken, I suppose, during welcome day, when the new Americans were bused around the city before we were left to find rides to the apartments we'd managed to reserve a room in while still in the States. In the picture, the sky is washed-out and the structure looks oddly two-dimensional, as if it were a stage set that might blow over in a high wind. I have another picture of the interior of the little cathedral near the school where I spent so many hours. It also looks oddly washed-out, almost like a black and white photo someone had gingerly colorized. This is not what anything in Rome really looks like. In person, every piece of dirty marble is so real and full of character it's impossible not to touch them.

I struggled badly that first semester. My classes were about art and literature and history, my best subjects, subjects I'd already learned past the level of what was being taught here. But with each day that I failed to understand more than a few of the instructor's words, I became more convinced of my failure, and spent less time studying and more worrying. All of my hours outside class I spent either at the cathedral or in Lisa's noisy apartment. Lisa and I would never have been friends back home, but here she was the only person I wanted to be with, to get away from my Italian roommate whom I couldn't understand, and who was--I was sure--constantly making fun of me with the skinny boys she always had over. They would say something and then look at me, look at me and then say something to each other, until my ears were burning and I would leave.

Lisa didn't know where I was when I wasn't with her. Over the holidays we drank a lot and managed to visit a few of the sights the bus hadn't hit when we'd first got into Rome. I didn't think about Spring classes until I got into them. After the second day I stopped going to class and spent all my time in the cathedral, in a pew in the back row, watching the tourists come in and out and trying to pray. I would pray that God would make me stronger, braver, smarter, more capable at this monumental thing I'd taken on. Mostly I'd pray for the strength to go back to class.

I never went back to class, but it wasn't until the last day to sign up for Fall classes that it even occurred to me that I didn't want to be here another year. That I could go home. I'd spent hundreds of hours in a pew in a little cathedral and only a couple dozen in class, and yet all that time I'd held the idea in my head that I would simply press on. Because I loved language and art. Because it was Rome.

The plane ride home was the worst thing I'd ever experienced. I hadn't eaten in two days, had gotten no sleep the night before, had a sinus infection, and was convinced everything was over. My chance to live a great and rich life were gone. But then I saw my family when I got off the plane, and that Fall I was at the University of Minnesota, studying English and playing volleyball, and by October I wasn't thinking about Italy at all.

People have strange ideas about things. Everyone does, but if we're lucky, we grow out of them. I've never been back to Europe, and mostly, people are surprised when I tell them I spent a year in Rome. I tell them it wasn't for me. People need to hear that sort of thing. Kids need to hear it. I say it as often as I can.

Googled "I lost 32 pounds during that time" and went off this picture.

The way that works for me

Not everybody does it this way, but I do. First, take a single match and a very sharp knife. Place the match down on a piece of wood and slice it lengthwise, carefully. Now you have two match halves.

You have wood, you have kindling, you have tinder, but make sure you have very small pieces of twigs. This is the most important thing. Pick up the smallest things you can find that are actually twigs. They should be thinner than the tine on a fork. Thinner than... what am I thinking of? Thinner than a piece of string.

Take your small sticks and lay them in the firepit in any way you choose. The sticks that are as big around as your finger. Some people like to make a tepee, or a lean-to, but I always make a log cabin, because you can make it every time and it's not dependent on the size of the sticks you have at your disposal. Two things are very important: Make sure you have a hole you can slide the match into, and Make sure you have more holes for air.

Once you've built it up a couple inches, I like to make sure the final sticks at the top are close enough together to lay all the tiny twigs across without them falling in. And do so. Before you get your match, put increasingly bigger sizes of twig close at hand, because you'll want to add them on.

Then take one of the match-halves and strike it, and get it under the tiny twigs. Once they start to burn, put slightly-larger twigs on top of them. Then once they burn put some larger ones. Soon your fire will be going, no doubt about it. But if something goes wrong, use the other match-half. Be very careful about wind.

That's how you start a fire on one match. I've been doing this since I was twelve and I still win the contest every year. My dad taught me and like I said some people do it other ways, but this is the way that works for me.

Googled "Not everybody does it this way, but I do" and went off this picture.

This crazy ocean

Third time's a charm. I bought another boat in January and in April I made it here. Standing under the pier watching the waves come in and out. My first thought's I wasn't wrong, it's still the same dream blue and white, the colors so strong that was how I could think I'd had it wrong for the past year, just like I thought I had it wrong last time. You did things to me, I always thought. Like you made everything brighter and warmer and stronger. Miami and Junior's and our little green boat. Except I guess Cayo Bravo doesn't need it. Cause apparently it's still part of a dream, even when you're not here.

But it's still different from the second time I came back. The second time I was still in love with you. I cried right here, right into the ocean. Everything was blue inside me and out. We were tied up here for five days waiting for Octavio to come take the load off our hands, and every day was torture. Because the memory was so strong. You and me here one year before, you in your panties at the wheel, blonder than the sun, tying up I was so happy I was dizzy that we had this whole island to ourselves and our hash and we were in love. Had so much sex there wasn't hardly any time to smoke. I remember the white sand sticking to your skin like you were covered in sugar, just a big donut out of the oven, warm and ready to eat. I remember that more than the real things we did.

You wouldn't have sold me out in San Juan. If you'd been there we would have found another boat, gotten out. I tried to call you from the jail cause I didn't know you were already gone. Don't know what you would have done for me except make me think everything's all right, I guess. It was all over anyhow. Took me almost a year to get out of that place and get back in Miami. But it took me a lot longer than that to feel better. Seems like I just couldn't get myself together.

When I had to come back here last year with the crew it just about killed me. I was shooting up, then, nobody was stopping me. Right where we rolled around under the pier. Five days here trying to make it all go away.

Things must be changed now though because I don't feel like throwing myself into the ocean anymore. Or getting high. The drowning feeling that made me feel like I was choking just standing here is gone, all there is is this sweet blueness inside and out. You left a big hole. But I can smile because it's all so sweet now, thinking of you and me here two years ago. I wanted to come here a third time because I had to fix how the second time was and because I had to say goodbye. And I wanted to know, I guess, if it was really over. If I could be here and not want to kill myself. It's over. So our love affair is over. So I guess I can let go of everything now, the drugs and Junior's, get out of Miami and do something else with this new boat. And I'll just know that it always looked like this, it wasn't me being high or high on how you made me feel. Someplace there is a place that looks just like this. This crazy ocean.

Googled "Third time's a charm" and went off this image.

Felt so bad so long

I sure am glad I was drunk when it happened. My memories are all so soft and blurry, merciful. It's funny because the day it happened I felt so bad about being drunk. I felt bad about it for months after it happened. For a couple years actually. But I don't feel bad now. I'm just glad.

The reason I was drunk was that I'd been up till 5 AM drinking because I'd just gotten fired. I wasn't working in the Towers--that would have been too weird. And I wasn't drinking alone. We had a party. I'd known for a long time they were probably going to fire me because I was barely showing up anymore, and I kept saying we'd have a party when they finally fired me. Me and my friends, I mean. So I came in that Monday morning and they fired me, and by suppertime I'd already been to the gym, gone to see a movie, changed the sheets on my bed, and been to the liquor store and bought three twelve-packs and eight bottles of vodka.

People started showing up around 8 and I remember we had music on incredibly loud and there were women I didn't know, because I told people to bring women, and my friends are amazing, even though almost everybody had to work on Tuesday. I got drunk so fast. I was drunk maybe by 9 PM and I stayed drunk until Tuesday afternoon. At 5 AM there were just three of us left, me the only one still drunk, there was silly string all over the apartment, and a hundred Solo cups, and I was so happy because I had such great friends. I went to bed happy as it was just starting to begin to get light outside.

I guess I woke up at about 9 because that's what time it would have been. I only know my phone had been ringing for five minutes because that's what Jess told me later.

"Ricky, are you okay?"

"I was until you woke me up!"

"Are you still drunk? Are you okay?"

"Yes, why?"

She tried to tell me but she didn't make any sense, and then she told me to go up on the roof. I went up on the roof and saw the smoke in the west, and it looked just like a nature show I saw about a forest fire once, and I guess that's why I just knew there was a forest fire. In downtown Manhattan. Until Jess finally got through to me.

"Ricky, I'm freaking out. Nobody knows what's going on. They think maybe all of New York is going to be bombed. Jackie said people are trying to get out on the bridges and they can't, everyone is trapped in the city."

I couldn't focus myself to save my life. Everything was funny, like amusing funny, even though I knew in the back of my mind it was deadly serious. I heard myself talking more than I actively talked. I heard my voice coming out and hoped I didn't sound too stupid. "It's all right, Jess. Just stay calm. You're not in any immediate danger. Right?" My head was floating about five feet above my body all day as I talked to Jess, and Jackie, and Brian, and Rachel, who said that one of her cousins worked in the Towers and wasn't answering. She was freaking out, she was crying. Everyone wanted to know if I could see anything from my place. I spent all day out in the sun on the roof. Somehow I had to be there for all these people and as the day went on I began to understand that there was no way to do it, there was no way to make anything okay, and I was completely and totally inadequate and I never should have gotten drunk the night before. And I felt like shit about that for a long time.

Rachel moved out of the city a couple years ago because she still couldn't sleep. Brian is in Afghanistan. And I'm fine, I still live here, that whole day is now like a tape of a cartoon to me, barely real. It's funny I felt so bad so long about something that was really just a big blessing.

Note: Googled "I sure was glad I was drunk when it happened," went off this picture.

The five things

There are five things that need to be done today.

One is that I have to get all of the robots working. I have thirteen robots and three of them are broken. I need all of them to be working because we are having a robot soccer game on Saturday and Josh Michael Henry Tommy and Jake are coming over and there needs to be enough robots for all of us. Ben probably isn't coming but he might come.

Two is that I have to make the invitations for the robot soccer game. They have to have a picture of a robot that I have to draw and they have to have the time the date my address and RSVP on them. I already told everybody about the robot soccer game but I want to have invitations because this isn't like a normal everyday party. This is a big deal and there needs to be invitations. I will give them out when people get here.

Three is that I have to clean my room. There are way too many clothes in here it's like crazy! There are so many clothes that it would be like the robots were climbing over mountains, and they couldn't get the soccer ball. We are just doing soccer this Saturday. On another day we could have war with soldiers and robots.

Four is that I have to be nice to my sister. No hitting yelling pushing or shutting her fingers in the door. I didn't shut her fingers in the door on purpose but she was trying to get in when I was doing explosions and I had already told her no girls were allowed but she wouldn't listen.

Five is that I have to call Josh on the phone because he needs to bring the soccer goals we made because they are at his house. I was supposed to bring them home when I was over there but I rode my bike and I forgot. Also you can't carry them and ride your bike at the same time. Josh is very absent-minded and so he might forget to bring the boxes on Saturday. I am worried, but he will probably bring them. Josh isn't allowed to use the raptor robot because he broke it one time.

Note: Googled "There are five things that need to be done today" and went off this picture.

Post-Improvement

I wanted to be told what to do. I wanted this, suddenly and profoundly, more than I had wanted anything lately beside a piece of chocolate pie. Bones were scattered around me, all over the floor, I had put the other astragalus somewhere unknown when I stopped to take the phone call because I always do that, my hands move completely independently of my consciousness when I'm on the phone. Trying to break up over the phone. Saying, "No, I know, I know that," my hands picking up astragalus and ulna and metacarpal and hiding them on me while my mind was twenty miles away. My body misbehaves.

It is impossible to work when one is ending a love affair. It is especially impossible to do creative work. Moreso when one has been hired, one suspects, on the strength of one's resume and not on one's knowledge, the resume having been concocted from scratch while drunk at the behest of this man. When I got the call for this particular installation I was dead sleepy, which is almost as good as being drunk, which explains why I wasn't too startled and frightened to say yes.

I was surrounded by the bones of one medium-sized Deinonychus, plus one replica of the Arc of the Covenant, one mounted oryx head, and one life-sized wax figure of Buffalo Bill Cody. My instructions were to create a Post-Ironic display for my employer's gigantic foyer using these four objects as motifs. I didn't know what Post-Irony was. I'd meant to Google it before I left that morning but once again I'd set my alarm for 7 p.m. instead of 7 a.m. and woke up at 8 and so there was no Googling.

I did know how the bones of a dinosaur go together. But I had never worked in a museum--as my resume averred--because museums don't hire people who don't have degrees. I learned how the bones go together from him, the way I learned how a lasagna goes together, the way I learned how a resume goes together. He was very interested in improving me.

It was impossible. I attached the skull of the Deinonychus over the skull of the oryx that night, in the silent cathedral-like place, and slid one of the long femurs into Buffalo Bill's hands in place of the rifle, which implement of destruction would then make up one of the legs of the dinosaur. The Arc I draped with Bill's fringed calfskin coat for an altar cloth. I found the lost astragalus on a windowsill, and eventually placed it back there in a hopefully Post-Ironic way. I picked up my phone and put it down again ten times. I didn't know how to break up with a man who had made me his life's work any more than I knew how to put together a proper art installation. I was without a prayer. I was Post-Improvement.

Somehow during the night one of the little foot-bones made it into my pocket. I didn't find it till I got home, but you know that of course I kept it. I love the shape of metatarsals, like distended drums, lithe and instantly recognizable. It was a message. It said, "What you take without thinking is more important than what you are willingly given."

Note: I googled "I wanted to be told what to do," and this image came up, is where this odd little story came from.

Jeshua and the final act

He knew it was going to happen as soon as he walked in the door and saw her there. She was standing by the table in her blue dress and she hadn't gotten Timba from school yet. In the space of a second he felt hot, then cold, then nauseous, and then that it was absolutely imperative to keep her from saying whatever it was she was about to say.

He opened his mouth and brought up a hand sharply, but she was already talking. "I had a vision," she said, her head tilted down but her eyes looking up, into his. She seemed to be speaking to his shoes but then she seemed to be speaking to his chest, then his face. "As soon as they brought us on the ship, I saw it. That if I gave in to them immediately, everyone would be spared, but if they had to go to any effort to get the information out of us, we'd end up being destroyed. I don't know how. I just saw it and trusted it." Then she stopped talking and finally, slowly, stood up straight and faced him square with her eyes on his. She was completely calm and waiting for him.

His body was cold and his ears were hot. His tongue was thick in his mouth. He saw her there by the table, the blue dress taut over the shapeless middle, the slack shoulders and the dark shadows under the eyes and the coarse hair, and the nausea in his stomach curdled with hatred. This old, ugly, foolish woman. He could not stop staring at her graceless face. His teeth ground together and his lip curled up and he was so hot that his vision began to tint red, and he wanted to do something terrible to her. Netra was there in her crib in the side room, quiet.

"I was accepted onto the council today," he said, his tongue so thick he could barely get the words out. He had a bitter disappointment that he couldn't say it with triumph.

She nodded.

He knew he wouldn't hit her, and he knew with a sicker and sicker sinking feeling that he wouldn't disbelieve her. He knew she had chosen this day to speak because this was the first day in twelve years that he wouldn't have disbelieved her. But how close it was! The hatred for her was complete and animal, a raging culmination of everything he'd ever felt for her over the past twelve years pressed into one day; more. For her weakness, her betrayal, her cowardice, her age, her reputation, her lack of beauty, her lack of desire for him. And it still couldn't obscure that thread of knowledge that was so thinly but solidly there for him now, that she was telling the truth. He saw it like he saw her eyes were blue.

His hand was still on the door latch. For a minute or longer he could manage to do nothing but hold onto the door latch. Finally the swooning hatred abated a little and he backed out of the room, swung the door behind him and slammed it shut, and soon he was in the small one-windowed room by the dock without having seen where he was going. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He was sick with disappointment. This was the worst thing that could have happened to him. This was the worst thing. Everything he'd been fighting for for the last decade and a half, all in pieces. The world was upside-down. He'd known as soon as he'd seen her standing by the table.

And yet she had waited for him all these years... waited for him to grow up, he knew, thinking of Netra in her crib. He could barely wrap his mind or his heart around the enormity of it. This woman. Calla. A liquid warmth trickled into his misery; he was cracking open like an egg. And he had thought he was one of God's faithful! How he'd resented every sacrifice; the waiting, the awful marriage, every night in that bed with her and the compromise to his principles that Timba had represented.

His heart was peeling open. Feeling it he knew that this was what he had wanted, more than anything. To be shown by God what true grace was, to be shown what truth itself was. The fact that it was being shown that he didn't have it and she did, he knew, was immaterial. His hatred had passed and he rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. The world was so much larger than he thought! He thought of Calla, in their quarters, her slouched and shapeless body now poignant to him. Why would he have been so sure she stooped from the weight of guilt and not from some other weight?

She had waited for him.

He went back to his quarters, again without having seen where he was going. He opened the door and she turned from Netra's crib.

"I'm unworthy to be your husband," he said.

Tears shone in her eyes and she shook her head and came forward to take his hand. "Do you think I'm some kind of saint?" she said. "Do you know how angry I've been at God, do you know how I've hated my life and hated you, despite how everything you've done has been for our people? I've been so inconstant."

"But you kept faith all this time."

She laughed, which gave her beauty instantly and which he had never seen. "I did not keep faith all this time. If you could've heard what was in my head some nights... the only thing I did was keep my silence all this time."

And he was silent too, for a moment.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "And yet I know it's true. Because you were silent all this time."

She gazed at him and nearly laughed again. "How I've hated you."

"I'm ashamed to say the things I've thought of you. God," he called, lifting his eyes, "forgive me for thinking I would never see a true miracle." And then he closed his eyes and was quiet again and the disappointment and weight of everything began to sink in, heavier than before.

"So you're on the council now," she said.

He was going to say something about the impossibility of his task now, to not only change the laws about children and save the People from extermination, but to right the years of injustice to his wife and the entire system, the entire way of thinking, that had allowed her to be so scorned and shunned and hated since the day her team was taken by the enemy. Seeing it all at once now he thought it was impossible that he should be able to accomplish this, that the most he could hope for was to start things and perhaps his children would be able to do the real work. Because he would not be a successful and an acclaimed councilman as he'd dreamed. He saw now that he would be hated too.

"Dear woman, I need your help," he said.