Rage – Pheasant

“Up here to shoot partridge and pheasant, probably.”

Charlie Decker’s father was a hunter. Deer, primarily. He had guns.

My dad was a hunter. Pheasant, primarily. He has guns.

As a kid, I went with my dad on a hunting day trip at least once. Of course, I was relegated to sitting on the floor of the big yellow van while the men in their gear searched for the pretty birds. The heavy side door slid open and I sat there, feet swinging over the edge, pigtails on either side of my face, wearing my favorite yellow Iowa Hawkeye hooded sweatshirt.

I watched the men hunker down, aim, pull the trigger, then, gun lowered and neck extended, search the horizon for a sign of where the pheasant landed. I watched our family dog Sadie, a black Lab – cocker spaniel mix, bouncing in and out of the grasses. Or crops. Or brush. I watched my dad: slim, dark shaggy hair, Tom Selleck mustache, with his easy gait and dark blue stocking cap.

When we arrived home, I watched (& helped!) as my dad feathered, skinned, and cut apart each bird on a makeshift table in our unfinished basement, in front of the washer and dryer.

And I ate that pheasant for dinner that evening, sitting at the card table with my pops and two siblings, careful not to fall for the teasing about “the best part!” … the heart.

I knew my dad had a gun. I knew he had a couple of guns. I knew, or was pretty sure I knew, where he kept them. Yet I never once was curious about them.

My folks did it right. There was a respect for a rifle but not an awe. It was like any other tool: something you used for a job and once that job was done, you set it aside. Since it was treated as such, the curiosity of something forbidden never besieged me.

I’m unsure where this leaves me on the spectrum of the whole Second Amendment debate, and I’m sure arguments could be made using this anecdote for and against, but I do know that some folks get it right. Like my Pops. And some don’t. Like any number of infamous examples.

Like Charlie Decker’s father.

Rage – The Breakfast Club

As I read this, I keep thinking that this is what The Breakfast Club would be like had it been written/directed by, say Quentin Tarantino.

(or, y’know, Stephen King)

Rage

In Defense Of….

This short article reminded me of my own story with people giving horror writers a bad rap.

Here’s the article: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110724/FEATURES06/307240022/In-Defense-Author-Stephen-King-elevates-horror-genre?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cs

Here’s my version: http://theskproject.wordpress.com/background/

“If All Else Fails…

…a Stephen King book is a perfect present for me!”

My younger brother got me two SK books (in addition to the first two Harry Potter ones) for Christmas.

He knows me so well … & I have some catching up to do!

Stay tuned….

The Shining – Crayolas & Christopher Robin

“His pictures of Pooh and Eyore [sic] and Christopher Robin were tacked neatly to the wall, soon enough to be replaced with pin-ups and photographs of dope-smoking rock singers, she supposed.”

My childhood bedroom was blue.  Blue blue blue.  We had our colors & apparently, mine as a kid, was blue.  Elle’s was pink.  Where she had Strawberry Shortcake, I had Holly Hobbie.  Strewn about, I had dolls, crayons, & books.  These were my main playthings.

Dolls were a way of acting out imaginery situations.  I was limited only by what I could conjur up.  This was exhilerating.  I could be the person I wished I was.

Crayons were a source of pride.  I was the best colorer around.  I had very little by way of original artistic skill, but I could maneuver a Crayola like no body’s business.  Shading, darks, lights, shadow, & staying in the lines?  Fuggedaboudit.  Also, when dolls were scarce, “colors” could easily be used as people.  Red, Orange, Yellow – females.  Green, Blue, Violet – males.

And books.  Sigh.  Books.  When my imagination proved too limiting, all I needed to do was crack the spine of a book to visit all sorts of new worlds.  Interesting people doing interesting things all released the moment my eyes afixed to the page.

I loved owning books – knowing that that story was now officially mine – but there was something magical about the Public Library.  If I could replicate “Public Library Smell” & put it in an air freshener (freshener? un-freshener?), I would do so gladly.  My Public Library’s children’s area (the basement, essentially, on the side) was my favorite place to go on a weekend morning.  The intensity with which I dreaded Sunday mass was matched only by the intensity with which I anticipated Saturday storytime.

And whom would I find on the walls of the storytime room?  When the doors were slid open, yellows & tans – Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga & Roo, all of the characters from the Hundred Acre Woods greeted me like old friends.

So I suppose, as my parents flicked off my lights when they put me to bed, quickly assessing my blue bedroom as they did so, they may have shared in the thoughts of Wendy Torrance.

They’d have been right.

Holly Hobbie turned to Barbie turned to Michael Jackson turned to Johnny Depp turned to Pearl Jam turned to Audrey Hepburn.  Magazine clippings & photos taped haphazardly to my walls & wooden doors.  Crayolas turned to markers turned to ballpoints turned to keyboards.  Books turned to … well … books.  But Christopher Robin turned to Nancy Drew turned to Ramona Quimby turned to Judy Blume turned to … heh … Stephen King.

And there we are.  The visible changing signs of a child growing older.

And yet … and yet … From the bed in which I sit, typing away, I see an open jewelry box with a tiny, spinning Holly Hobbie inside.  I can still hum the tune it plays when twisted & released.  I know that just around the corner, in the living room, there is a stack of colored construction paper underneath a box of Crayola markers & crayons.  Below the construction paper, in a small green crate, are the books of my childhood.  Judy Blume, Ramona Quimby, Maurice Sendak, & yes, a few coloring books.

So while I have definitely grown up, rest assured, I have not yet grown old.

The Shining – The Wasps’ Nest

“When you unwittingly stuck your hand into the wasps’ nest, you hadn’t made a convenant with the devil to give up your civilized self with its trappings of love and respect and honor.  It just happened to you.  Passively, with no say, you ceased to be a creature of the mind and became a creature of the nerve endings: from college-educated man to wailing ape in five easy seconds.”

And so it begins – Jack Torrance’s rationalization of his behavior.  Of course, he couldn’t be to blame.  He was the victim here.  He had wandered into the wasps’ nest his whole life & this was just one more situation in which he couldn’t be expected to mind his manners.  No, no.

Of course, we all see through that.  There is no justification for murder.  But the beauty of King – particularly in this novel – is that he so logically explains even the most twisted of behavior from his subject.  At this point, we’ve all seen the movie, we know the catchphrase, we get the gist (that being said, read the book if you enjoyed the film – seriously – read the book).  Spoiler alerts – whatever – he is a dangerously bad man.  & yet, why do we feel a kinship, a connection with him, an empathy?

Because we’ve all been there.

Joanie & I were waiting to jaywalk across Diversey on our way to this cheap Mexican restaurant for lunch.  Look to the left, step out a little more, look to the right, one more step, look again to the—

“Ho-lee shit!”

From seemingly out of nowhere, a blue sedan came barreling eastbound.  In a span of time lasting no longer than a half-second, I dashed backwards, stumbling as I did so.

“Christ, Nik!” Joanie shouted, then began laughing.

I had no idea what was so funny, but, because when I’ve just had the piss scared out of me, my natural reaction is to laugh, I did, too.

“Way to throw me under the bus!”

I was still clueless & apparently, it showed on my face.

“You pushed yourself back on ME, making me go forward!”  She could barely get the words out, between chuckles.

It dawned on me & the slow-motion memory played itself out in my brain.  I had.  In my rush to safety, I disregarded anything & anyone else.  I had grabbed her arm as a way of catapulting myself away from the car, in effect, shoving her in the line of traffic.  Luckily, her legs had buckled & the car had swerved.

I was embarrassed, disgusted, ashamed.  She insisted that it was no big deal – no harm, no foul – but I couldn’t stop apologizing.

I take great pride in my insistence that I would gladly put myself in danger to save a friend.  It’s who I am.  That’s me.

Or so I thought.

In that split-second of fear of my life, I had disregarded anything else.  I had, in fact, become an arm-flailing ape, with one thing & one thing only of concern: Do. Not. Die.

At the expense of my friend.

As is the case with all of my moments of which I am most ashamed & act out of character, I come back to that second often when considering life or death situations.  Given an instance where a choice could be made in due time, I still believe that I would – no question – take the burden upon myself in order to spare a loved one.  But those gut reaction moments frighten me more in theory than in practice.  Would I really – really – sacrifice myself?  I want so badly to still insist I would.

So it’s easy to understand the justification.  We do it all the time.  I cannot be  held responsible for accidentally pushing my friend into the street.  I was trying to not get myself killed.  I had my hand firmly planted in the wasps’ nest, imminent danger was upon me, & I just - flinched.  Who could blame me?

I could.

I could.

The Shining

‘salem’s Lot – Impossible

“Henry Petrie spoke his verdict in four calm, considered syllables.
‘Impossible.’”

Earlier in the story, there is a scene (scene? chapter?) in which Matt Burke is discussing the very reality of vampires to Father Callahan.  There is a frank discussion on the use of holy water, crucifixes (crucifii?), & Father Callahan himself as representatives of the Catholic church.  Freud is involved, as are generalized observations about the new way of thinking by priests & the church itself.

I find this curious, much in the same way that I find Christians who mock Scientologists for believing in those alien things that are the core of their religion curious.

(of course, full disclosure, i also am of the personal theory that they’re all kinda quacked out, but hey, to each their own, right?)

So you’re telling me that you are going to laugh at someone for believing that beings from another planet exist - a statistically sound idea, if you consider how many planets are in the vastness of space; are we really that arrogant to think we’re the only ones? – you’re going to giggle conspiratorially over their beliefs while you believe – staunchly – in the following:

-  There is no such thing as Evolution with all of the scientific evidence to the contrary.
-  2000 years ago, some lady got pregnant without having intercourse & not only that, but the guy she was dating at the time, instead of leaving her ass (which would have been totally acceptable in that society &, let’s face it, ours), married her & raised the kid as his own as a poor carpenter.
-  This kid grew up to possess magical abilities, which he used to make water into wine, among other assorted parlor tricks like not getting leprosy for as much as he frequented their colonies.
-  He also hung around 12 other dudes &, of course, not a one of them was homosexual … cuz that’d be a sin.
-  In addition, his favorite chick was a “whore” (or so the guys who were in his gang wrote after the fact) but he remained a virgin.  Right?
-  Oh yeah, & when he died & was buried, three days later, not only was his body gone, but he would just appear to people.
-  & have I mentioned that he was God?
-  Oh, & also a dirty-blonde Caucasian with a perfectly manicured beard, thin nose, & blue eyes.
-  But let’s just glaze over the fact that he was also Jewish.  Jewish, bad.
-  & despite all of the inconsistencies & hypocrisies of the Gospels (why does god hate figs? how do they know what happened when jesus was born & when he died, but somehow all of his formative years are left out? he who is without sin may cast the first stone, but we’re not going to let women into our little club?), this is the end-all, be-all of spirituality & whomever disagrees is just wrong & deserved of public ridicule, even wars.

& while we’re on the subject, you’re going to now make a rust stain underneath an expressway a shrine because it kinda sorta
(not really)
looks like the Virgin Mary?  Or proclaim a piece of toast “holy”?  Please.

But yeah … laugh at the guys who believe in aliens…

…or vampires.

*In the interest of noting that this entry is bereft with sarcasm & is not intended to over-simplify nor generalize the whole of the Catholic church & its members but instead to draw sunshine, to use a vampiric analogy, upon those of the congregation who are less than Jesus-like … I must also add that – & I don’t believe this is much of a spoiler – the priest, Father Callahan, does believe … quite strongly, in fact … as a direct result of his vows.  ”For every action, there is an equal & opposite reaction,” so to speak.

‘salem’s Lot – Fish

“The Catholic Church is not the oldest of my opponents, though!  I was old when it was young, when its members hid in the catacombs of Rome and painted fishes on their chests so they could tell one from another.”

The Big Bad, in this story, writes this to the guys who have come to take him down.  There’s all sorts of Catholicism run amok in the latter half of this novel & this is no exception.

In my hometown, you either went to Catholic school or public school.  I went to Catholic school … for thirteen years, total.  &, just as one would expect, we wore uniforms.

The guys always had it easy: navy pants, light blue, collared shirts.  Us girls, while we could wear the same (albeit with white shirts instead of blue), had the option of wearing a blue plaid jumper as an elementary student or a blue & green plaid pleated skirt as a junior|high schooler.

Now you’d think with more options, we had it easier.  Not so much.  Girls, as it were, often do, in fact, like to wear skirts/dresses.  So it was a daily struggle with How Badly Do I Want To Wear A Skirt vs. How Badly Do I Not Want To Be Discriminated Against.

Because, see, it wasn’t like the tv shows or Halloween costume shops portrayed.  These weren’t sexy skirts.  They were uncomfortable wool or polyester blends with unflattering pleats & they had to be worn at a certain length — & that length was not inches from ass … more like inches from knee.

(of course, that didn’t stop us from rolling the waistband up once we were away from the evil eyes of the faculty … namely certain nuns who would push their vows of chastity on us — sorry ladies, i hate to tell you but that didn’t work)

The Catholic school uniform was a badge, a public symbol that immediately placed us in a particular group.  We walked around town & everyone knew.

The public school kids, as kids are oft to do, reveled in ragging on us for this.  They taunted us with their ability to individualize their outfits, their non-conformity, their
(jeans on a school day)
proclaimed superiority as a result.  But no one word could make these points more clear than the word they’d shout from car windows, from across the street, from playgrounds:

“FISH!”

Yes, since before my parents were in school, the term “Fish” was used to describe a Catholic, especially a Catholic who went to parochial school (after all, if you were a Catholic who didn’t go to Catholic school, you were pretty much ridiculed by both sides – one for being too Catholic, the other for not being Catholic enough).

We all kinda thought it was stupid … I mean, it’s not like we ate fish all the time.  Besides, we were pretty elitist, thinking that public school kids were hooligans who had to resort to name-calling they didn’t even understand themselves because their quality of education was far inferior.  Right, my Sr. High friends who may have stumbled upon this?  Right?!  ;D (that’s a joke)

I had heard several definitions & stories about how the derogatory term had come to be:

-  Jesus’s multiplying of the fish in the Gospel.
-  Most of the 12 Apostles being fishermen.
-  The Catholic church’s former tradition of not eating meat on Fridays (apparently, they didn’t consider fish flesh/muscle “meat” — this is a bone of contention for me as a vegetarian when people say, “i’m a vegetarian,” as they’re chowing down on salmon….)
-  The Catholic church’s current, amended tradition of not eating meat on Fridays during Lent.

I had never heard of the drawing of a fish to indicate a solidarity in early Christians until now.  Funny how I could go through thirteen years & never know this, huh?  Guess you really do learn something new every day.

So now there’s this revelation (pardon the pun): The Ichthys, which is emblazoned on bumper stickers, email signatures, etc.

<°(((><

What was once an exhausting derogatory term intended to humiliate & alienate is now a sense of pride.  My younger brother, while enrolled at the same high school from which I graduated, was part of the self-proclaimed “Fish Tank,” the student cheering section for the athletic department.  They wore this badge of honor to all events, were infamous for it.  They owned it & took back the power as a result.

Nowadays, I feel more of a solidarity with people who “survived” Catholic school.  Those who were raised Catholic, but who either fell away from the church or who, like me, never truly felt a part of it to begin with.  Reformed Catholics, some call themselves.

But I certainly do empathize with the hush-hush, fish nature of being a Catholic.  Let’s see what else Mr. King’s going to teach me about my former religious affiliation….