I could have been Trayvon...

I could have been Trayvon Martin, sadly I could have just have easily been George Zimmerman. It is the very nature of men that I feel is at the root of this whole sad incident, not hate or race, and I feel that any man among us could have had this tragedy befall us.

From either side of the gun.

You see, I think if you strip down all the guessing games over motives, what kind of people each of these men were and if you ignore all the hype the media circus placed on the event, you'll find two guys that wouldn't back down in a bad situation that ultimately ended in the useless death of an American male.

No matter if it was fear for the neighborhood or hate that drove Zimmerman in his dogged pursuit and confrontation of young Trayvon, it is clear that the two had a confrontation that neither would, or possibly could, back down from.  Zimmerman followed and confronted Trayvon and the two had a verbal altercation that came to blows.

How many times does that happen to any man? I know its happened more times in my life than I am really proud to admit. Some jackleg has an axe to grind with you and just won't let it go, so he keeps pushing at you until you snap back at him. Next thing you know you're jawing back and forth then someone throws the first blow. From there it can go any way, you fight to a standstill or until someone can't fight back. Maybe someone shows up and separates you, maybe one of you runs off.

What if one of you has a gun?

What if one of you has a gun, a temper and you're so full of adrenaline that there is no thought other than pull the gun then squeeze the trigger?

Is it worth it? For either of you?

Most men, in our hearts, are Alphas and have a hard time backing down, turning the other cheek or losing face by not "manning up" or "keeping it real".   Where I think we fail is not knowing ourselves well enough to check our Alpha before we make a mistake that there is no coming back from.

I am not a gun control nut, but I don't carry a gun either. I won't carry a gun. Because I have learned, after many hard lessons, that I simply can't control my anger in some situations. I have had more fights, yelling matches and the like in my life than I even remember and of the ones I do recall only one of those other men deserved to die(child abuser and wife beater caught in the act), but how many of those would my out of control anger caused me to kill if I had the option ready at hand?

How many of those times would I have been killed had my adversary been carrying a firearm?  

I shudder to think.

What if both men had guns? Would this have been a senseless double slaying, could it a turned out the other way around and Trayvon been the killer that night?

When you assume the responsibility of a firearm, I feel you also must assume the responsibility of yourself and must hold yourself above the standards of others. I am not saying you should not be willing to use the gun when truly needed or that no man does not have the right to carry a weapon if he so chooses, but rather you have to be your own master and control the situations you allow yourself into when you carry death in your pocket.

Ultimately, I feel George Zimmerman was at fault and in the wrong. Not for his pursuit and confronting young Trayvon(regardless of motive), but in not being responsible enough as a legal gun carrying citizen to walk away from a situation before it could escalate to that moment of either ultimate decision or fatal reaction, and by all accounts I have heard, he had that opportunity.

Maybe his Alpha instincts had him and he couldn't walk away or at the very least follow at a distance not to invite confrontation, but that is the nature of being a man.

That's why I could have been George Zimmerman.

That's why I could have been Trayvon Martin.

Return of the warrior poet...

Long time no see.

Yes, I am to blame for the absence, but tell me have your hearts grown fonder? Probably not for most of anyone who has ever read this pitiful excuse of a blog, but certainly yes for someone who has just recently read it all.

This entry then, is just for You.

For almost three months I have experienced a feeling I thought I'd never feel again, in truth, I doubt I've ever felt it like this before. All the warmth and trust I long ago buried, locked away and otherwise thought to never see again have bubbled up inside my heart, taken root and blossomed into something truly wonderful.

Love.

For now we steal our time and hide the most beautiful gift a couple can be graced with. We hide out of necessity, not fear or shame, but please remember what we have can not, will not and shall not be hidden much longer.

Stay secret at my side just a little longer dear, and let not the whispering mouths and prying eyes weigh down your beautiful heart. When our time comes and we show the world proudly what we have, watch how those whispers cease and those eyes turn in shame of not being worthy to see what we two share.

I am truly more than I have every been, restored and made better through your Love, by you and for you. Your warrior poet.

Forever. 

Memorial Day 2012

Three things you should know about me to help this story make more sense: I have intense leg cramps in my sleep, I am a sleepwalker and my grandparents are often still in my thoughts.

Last night I had the same dream I always have about being shot. It is an intense and frightening dream that recurs often, about the first time in my life I had ever had a gun pointed at me. The dream almost never deviates from its normal run. I am working delivery gas behind a store in Macon, when a car pulls up and a man gets out and points a gun at me. As we argue, he lowers the gun and I turn to run away from him and I hear gunshots and then feel massive pain in my leg.

At this point in this particular dream I normal awaken with a throbbing and painful cramp in my left leg, last night I didn’t wake.

Last night the dream continued.

I was desperately trying to run away from the mad man who I could hear yelling at me, shouting that he would kill me. As I ran the pain in my leg was so great that I fell over and lay in the middle of the street waiting for the man to catch me and finish the job.

I felt someone grab my leg and gently but firmly start rubbing it and slowly the pain started to ease. As I raised my head to look around I found I was no longer in the streets of Macon but rather I was on the floor of my Grandparent’s home.

A familiar, soft and gentle voice told me to “calm down man, I have you. Everything is alright.”, I looked over my shoulder and saw my Pawpaw (Grandfather) kneeling over me and rubbing the pain out of my leg.

As he smiled at me I started to feel the dream slipping away from me and try as I might to hold on to it, I awoke.

I was lying on the floor of my bedroom facing the portrait I keep there of my grandfather from his days in the Army.

It seems our heroes and angels never stop looking out for us.

Happy Memorial Day Pawpaw, thank you.

Best idea for social media ever, free idea for programers...

So, here is my idea for the greatest application ever for social media sites like Facebook. I will freely give this idea now in hopes that some computer genius somewhere can create it, and though I would hope to get free use of it I would even be willing to pay for it as long as it works.

I want an app that will block all political and religious propaganda posts. You know, as a matter fact design it so that I can create a list of keywords and phrases that will automatically filter any kind of posts I just don’t want crammed into my brain. Besides posts about politics I don’t want to see posts about things I refuse to accept as real…like women pooping and farting, (yuck). I don’t want to block my friends and I don’t want to remove them from my list. I just don’t want to weed through some stuff anymore.

Notice I want something to block me from seeing just those certain types posts. I am not saying I want my friends to stop posting them. Hell, I will guaran-damn-tee I post shit nobody wants to read or cares about, but it is everyone’s right to say what they want. Just like it is everyone’s right not to listen to anything they don’t want to hear. I have my ideals, my beliefs and my faith and odds are that in spite of all of them I became friends with all of you to some extent.

In fairness I will point out my own hypocrisy in that I would also filter out posts that bitch about what other people post.

The Center

Truth be told, I am a bit of an attention whore. I love to be at the center of a group, amusing people or sometimes just pissing them off. I do it for the joy it gives me in being the warm center of the universe at any given time. So, now that I have admitted to that openly let me tell you that I hate people like me or at least make the vain attempt to be. There is only room at the center of the universe for me, get back in orbit and wait to be entertained.

However if people are going to continue to try to garner my attention for themselves here a few very critical critiques that I will give you:

NOT EVERY SITUATION CALLS FOR YOU TO PUT ON A SHOW!

Case in point, when ordering at the drive-thru at McDonald's at 1pm on a Monday. More specifically while in a mini-van (that has a non-working driver's side window) full of screaming children who all want chicken nuggets and ice cream.

If you do not know what condiments come on a McChicken and that cheese costs extra you really should consider going in to order, the drive-thru window should always be for speed and convenience especially at lunch time.

Also there is no need to assure the order taker that you "wants chickens fresh outda grease", that is what we all wants, enjoy your spit flavored sandwich.

After you've painstakingly ordered your $1 chicken sandwich, small fries and sweet tea(no ice) and repeated yourself thrice over the yells of your children ("mama I want nuggets and ice cream MAMA!") you have probably realized that the children's order should have been placed first. Once kids know they have food on the way they tend to calm down and make the whole ordering easier for all parties involved. Even the 5 cars now lined up behind you know what your kids want.

Once you have paid and pulled up, been handed your food it is ok to check your bags and make sure all items are present. However if the temperature of your $1 sandwich leads you to believe that "dis ain't no fresh chickens." instead of hopping out of you already opened van door for the world to see your housecoat and slippers, just go inside and let them know "I wants it fresh outda grease". I mean, surely your attire isn't what stopped you from going inside to start with since you are now standing at the window screaming at the girl inside. Pride and dignity definitely aren't the issue.

Sometimes it is ok to just go in and order.

That is what the warm center of the universe did when he got out of line behind you, parked, went in and ordered 2 McDoubles (instead of 2 McChickens because he didn't want a phlegm covered swap to occur with your sandwich) and has now walked back out past your van and called you a "Fucking moron" loud enough for you, the McDonald's girl and your kids to hear because all any of you could do was stare and not know what to say as he got back in his car and pulled away quietly.

Center reclaimed.

The Curse/ another writing attempt

I had an idea hit me for a collection of stories I want to put together. I just spent a couple of hours working on one tonight and hope some of you will give me your input.

I understand the punctuation and grammar is rough in places. Inevitably, I will have gotten ahead of myself and typed in the wrong form of a word if not the entirely wrong word altogether. I have not proofread for details yet, I am really just looking for feedback on the idea of this short.

I hope you can read through or past any of my errors and hopefully tell me what you think.

And maybe enjoy...

Thanks,

Jeffrey

________________________________________________________________

The Curse by Jeffrey Works

It would be dark soon. I could tell by the golden light that flowed into the room and across my bed from the slats of the old plantation style shutters. They were nicer than the typical aluminum shades one would find in your average assisted living room. In fact everything from the wall coverings and art to the lush wooden floors spoke of money and style. My son Bruce Junior would have nothing less for his mother.

Junior often tells me how Woodhaven Assisted Living community boasts of the absolute finest care and facilities that money could buy. Immaculate grounds with palm trees, a park complete with a duck pond and a staff that includes two five star French chefs, a former Hollywood trainer as the activities director and the head administrator who once managed the household of the queen of some far off African country, maybe it was a Bohemian island governess, I don’t actually recall.

There had been a revolt of some sort and the tiny man had barely escaped intact only to fight his way across the world to run a rich old folk’s home. The kind of place American royalty stick their feeble old parents who don’t have the courtesy to just die and leave their dutiful children with heart-warming tales of yesteryear when they gather around the fire with drinks and friends.

But, I digress, it will be dark soon and that wonderful older gentleman from room 413 will make his nightly call to reminisce with me on the good old days of youth and beauty.

He has never told me his name, well not that I recall anyway. I hardly remember the names of my grandchildren when they visit me monthly. In fact last visit I am sure I spent the entire hour calling Nathaniel by his Uncle James’ childhood name of Jimmy.

Deep inside I know that I am talking with little Nate, my first grandchild, but on the surface my mind only sees my oldest child. My dear James, who will always be Jimmy to me, so strong and tall always quiet and polite and taken from me far too soon by a cruel woman and the desire of a life so different than that his Father had carefully constructed for him.

Nate will always quietly nod to me and listen to me ramble aimlessly about all the tales of Jimmy’s childhood exploits. He smiles and holds my hand and quietly shushes as his Mother tries to explain who it is that I am talking to. Deep inside I want to scream that I know who I am talking to, but the part of me that lives on the surface just keeps rambling on and revels in the handsome young man’s smile and loving eyes.

That sort of things happens often now. I lose myself and forget names of people and give them the names I want them to have, I make them the people I want to remember most. It is truly a war inside me that I am not sure which side is winning at any given moment. I know only that I am losing.

My only armistice comes when the kind gentleman from room 413 visits. He has calmness about his manner that helps me subdue the busy me at the surface and digs out the old me deep inside that still knows my life and all the ninety-nine years I have lived.

He never says much, usually a few words that guide me to a memory, that I then spend hours bending his ear over. He never is forward or improper, ever the gentleman, he sits at my bedside and listens and smiles as I pour happy tale after happy memory out of my life’s past. There is always a twinkle and gleam in his sharp green eyes, almost like the joy of the retelling of my past feeds him as much pleasure as I got from living it the first time.

He reminds me of someone, someone important I think, but as of yet I can’t place who. I only know I cannot wait to spend another evening talking with him again. I do hope that I haven’t forgotten his name, surely I’d remember if he had told me.

Then there he is, with a soft tap at my door. After I call for him to enter, he politely opens the door to my room just enough to stick his head in and announces “It’s just me Mrs. M. I thought you might like some company.”

I greet him warmly and assure him that I always enjoy his visits and how hopeful I had been that he’d stop by tonight. I motion him to take the chair next to my fancy hospital style bed and fumble with the controls to raise myself into a comfortable sitting position. Ever the gentleman, he asks “May I?” as he reaches for the controls and then guides my bed to a comfortable arrangement before taking his own seat. As always he is smiling, his green eyes twinkling softly as if enjoying a private joke.

Our conversation starts off as they all do; he asks how my day was, if the staff has treated me well and if I had enough for dinner. Politely I answer his queries while reciprocating my own niceties back to him. We always began with the polite small talk, but I always wait for the first real questions he’ll ask me. The questions that will send me time traveling back into my own life with such vivid clarity that I feel I am watching a beautiful Hollywood movie.

In the weeks that we have spent our evenings conversing I have told him every happy moment of my life in backward detail. Starting at my arrival here at Woodhaven last year and working backwards through Holidays, births and birthdays to anniversary parties and vacations. Even when I try to talk about things that should bring me sadness the gentleman guides me away from the pain and back to the happiness that made those moments worth the tears they bore out in the end.

I paint for him my joy of being a grandmother, a mother before that and a wife to my darling Bruce through it all. Oh, the stories of my love for my dear husband, now just two years departed, seem the most vivid to me indeed.

In fact during our last talk I remember now retelling the day of my wedding to Bruce in such detail that when I finished I must have drifted off to sleep and dreamed of it again. I had awaked to find my bed back into its sleeping position and my comforter pulled carefully around my shoulders. The gentleman from room 413 must have let me talk myself to sleep then tucked me in like a parent to a child and slipped quietly from the room.

He reminds me now that was the pint in my past where we’d left off.

“The last time I visited you told me about your beautiful wedding, and I have heard so much about your husband I feel like I knew him myself.” The gentleman remarks to me. “Your life sounds like such a fairy tale that I would hazard to guess that you and your Bruce were high school sweethearts and each other’s first and only love. It’s really the only way I can imagine things being for you and your beautiful life”

“Well, I might finally be able to surprise you then sir.” I remark to him and notice that just for a moment the gleam in his eye seems to brighten just a bit. “Bruce and I were high school sweeties and he was my first love…” I state as the gentleman sighs and says that he expected nothing less.

“…but not my only love.” I finish and I fall deep into the memory of a day I had locked away and until now had never allowed any thought of since it happened.

________________________________________________________________

I was a twenty year old sophomore at the University of Georgia, sitting alone in the Tate Center reading "Memories of Midnight" by Sidney Sheldon on a still warm September morning when Chance walked into my life.

I’d never seen the young man before he walked up to the chair next to me and sat down. I looked around the lobby and realized that at this early hour on a Sunday after a home football game most people were still sleeping off their revelries from the night before. Accordingly the lobby was deserted except for me and the odd interloper now seated next to me with a black cardboard heart pinned to his sleeve. He was wearing an obnoxious fluorescent green and purple striped shirt with ragged jeans and a beat up pair of Doc Martens with the word “Conspiracy” painted around the heels in white and green paint. I noticed the bushy orange hair of one of those creepy little toll dolls peeking out of the front pocket of the black backpack he carried and looked up to see that his own hair mimicked the style of the troll only dyed blue-black in color. He wore a pair of little round glasses, but they had no lenses, so I had a clear view of the amusement in his green eyes as he stared at me smirking.

Obviously he was a freshman down on his luck, weird and on the hunt, best to ignore him I thought. So I did and went back to reading my book with a disinterested sigh. I hoped he would take the hint and just leave without further incident.

He didn’t.

In fact, as far as I could tell, glancing out the corner of my eye, he didn’t move for the next ten minutes as I resolutely ignored his presence. I looked up again and found him still looking right at me with the same smirk on his face, simply staring at me. Irritated, I knew that my passive rebuttal was not going to be enough.

“What?” I asked him briskly, letting an unspoken rage tint the edge of what I hoped was a bored tone.

“I am terribly sorry, it’s just since the very first time I ever set foot into this building I like to spend every Sunday morning in that very chair and study before I walk over to The Grill for breakfast. I am afraid you are breaking my routine, but more concertedly I am afraid that you are doing so with purpose. To be fair to you, your kind intentions and romantic overtones I do appreciate your attempt at flirting; but I am not sure my Mother would approve if I started a relationship with such a forward upperclassman.” He spoke so quickly and with an almost implied concern that I was taken aback.

“I…am…I am not an upperclassman, I am only a sophomore. What romantic overtones? Flirting? Your Mother?” I stuttered at him completely vexed.

“She is truly a traditional Southern lady and it just would not do if the first girl her eldest son brought home from college was a forward thinking feminist twenty three year old with bi-sexual tendencies and a new lesbian haircut. All of which is truly a shame because you are by far the prettiest girl to hit on me this week” then he sighed at me and rose from his chair to walk away with a wave and sad shake of his head.

I was dumbfounded, angry and honestly intrigued. I didn’t know where to begin, whether I should be insulted, angry or offended. The whole time I sat there stewing I watched as he walked away from me without ever looking back. I sat there for another twenty minutes and played over and over in my head how I should have retorted, dressed him down and left him crying with his stupid little doll. Finally, angry that I had allowed him to frazzle me so I decided that I would have to find him and put him in his proper place and maybe embarrass him a bit. After all, I knew where he was going. He had already told me the next stop in his Sunday morning routine.

I opened the door to The Grill and saw my new nemesis sitting in the front booth with his back to the door. There was a half glass of orange juice next to him and he was leaning over what appeared to be an artist’s sketch pad, with a pen behind his ear and pencil at work in his left hand. I smiled to myself as I planned my approach to him, we’d see who the fast thinker was now, I thought.

My plan was to start talking to him as walked up from behind and then sat into the seat across from him without ever missing a beat. I would redress all his witty little ploys from earlier and then dump his orange juice all over is art and walk away.

“First off weirdo, there is nothing ‘lesbian’ about my hair…” I stated as a walked around him and sat down in the booth. “Secondly…” I started but stopped as I looked into his green eyes again only to see a glint of satisfaction shining above that same smirking expression from earlier. Almost in time with my sitting down I realized that he had spun his drawing around and held it in one hand as placed his other hand and pencil under his chin in a Thinker type pose. I looked down at the pad and was stopped speechless.

I was looking at an almost perfect likeness of my face and hair with a little cartoon speech bubble next to the drawing’s mouth with the words “What do you mean LESBIAN!?!” penciled in it.

“Well, I missed the phrasing but still not bad, huh? My name is Chance Quaid, may I buy you breakfast or would you prefer to throw my juice in my face and walk out on the coolest person you’ll ever know?”

“I was going to douse you sketch pad, honestly.” I told him as I picked up a menu.

We spent the next few hours sitting there talking and getting to know one another. I stated right up front that while I was intrigued with him that he had to know that I had a boyfriend I was madly in love with. A boyfriend, who was a Junior at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, that I planned to marry when I had graduated in two years. For his part Chance assured me that he just wanted to make friends and thought I was just someone who looked interesting enough to get to know.

Two weeks later I kissed him for the first time, a month after that I met his Mother. She was a true southern lady but she liked me just the same and laughed at our recounted story of the day I met her eldest son.

I knew that he had fallen for me and I truly cared about him. Unfortunately, I knew there was nowhere good for this to go. I still loved Bruce and could not see giving away the plans of my life with him that we had been making since the ninth grade in Perry Middle School. I didn’t want to lose Chance or hurt him, but I knew I had to cool things off with him before the Christmas break started. I knew I had to be honest and up front with Chance, but I wanted to be gentle as well, he had become an important friend to me, I still wanted him in my life.

I had invited Chance to my apartment for dinner three days before our last finals before Christmas break. I had presented it as a combination of dinner and last minute cram session. My heart jumped into my throat when he tapped on my door though and with a sense of foreboding I knew nothing was going to be as smooth and easy as I had hoped.

I greeted him at the door and dodged his kiss with a neat hug and “Hey”. I stepped back and saw a sad look of recognition in his eyes. There was no customary smirk on his mouth and those gleaming green eyes looked sad and tired.

“You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I can’t stay for dinner.” He started as he fidgeted with his ever-present backpack. “I knew this night was coming and I don’t want to make it any harder on you than it already will be. I have decided that Athens is not the place for me, I miss home and my Mom and the people I left behind. You are all that has kept me here. I know that you have big plans ahead of you with Bruce and I also know nothing I will ever do would prove to you that I am a better choice than those plans and that man. This is for you.”

I saw a single tear drop from his eye as he placed his sketch pad into my hands. Then with the same sad shake of his head and little wave Chance walked out of my front door and out of my life. Then I lay down on my couch and cried myself to sleep.

I awoke the next morning to a pounding at my door; I jumped up and crossed to the door hoping Chance had come back to say we could find a way to remain in one another’s lives as friends. It was only my roommate, who had stayed over with her boyfriend the night before to allow me some privacy. She asked how things had gone and was sad when I told her Chance and I had parted ways. Then she commented to me that I would get at least one more opportunity to see Chance because it looked like he had left his sketch pad on the floor.

I had all but forgotten the pad; I picked it up and went back to my room to look through it. Thinking if he had left me some last message it would be at the back of the pad I went to the last pages and found that first little drawing of my face and hair. I started working backwards through the pages from there and found drawing of me from nights and days over the past few months that represented big moments of our relationship. There I was in the chair in the lobby of the Tate, in the booth in The Grill, outside The Georgia Theater where we had our first kiss, in the passenger seat of my old Nissan as I let him drive me to his hometown. There was a beautiful drawing of his Mother and me laughing.

Then there was a silhouette of a messy haired boy standing in front of my apartment building, he had a thought bubble floating over his head inside it only a picture of a broken heart.

Finally, with tears welling in my eyes I turned to the last page, which was actually the first page behind the cover and instead of a drawing I found these words…

Tamara,

I guess it will be a few days before you get around to reading this, I hope it will be years. No matter how long it is though, I will already be gone. I knew the first morning I saw you that I would love you for the rest of my life. I also found out that morning how short that life would be.

We crossed on the street outside the Tate Center and I thought you were amazingly beautiful so I turned around and followed you into that building. That was the first time I ever set foot in there by the way, I made up the Sunday morning routine things! I had to break the ice somehow; you are the girl of my dreams after all.

Later that morning when you told me about Bruce, I knew that we would not end well, still like the proverbial moth to the flame, I was attracted to you beyond return.

Call it a fatal artistic flaw in me but I will not be able to pass out of your life kindly because no matter how wonderful your life and plans turn out I know that they would have been so much more with me. So I leave you now with this wish, the cruelest of words I will ever curse anyone with…

I hope your life is long and full of joy, happiness and any sorrows you must feel are hard fought and brief. I hope you have children, love, success and wealth beyond even your grandest of dreams. Then eighty years from now, as you lie dying and content, I hope you reflect on your beautiful life and think of me and how much better it all should have been. Then die with my name on your lips.

-CQ

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

I wake to see the first streaming light of morning enter my room, I feel hot and light headed. The memory of that lost boy from so long ago running through my head as I feel a tightening in my chest. I look to the chair where the gentleman from 413 was sitting last night and now all that is there now is an old sketch pad.

“Chance…” Is all I can whisper before a bright light floods into my room.