Van Damme in ... Future Memories...

I woke up this morning feeling particularly empty.

A feeling I’m used to having at all times of the day, but this morn, it felt different for some reason.

Maybe it was because a line from a Waylon Jennings sung, but Hoyt Axton penned song finally materialized in my brain while driving home from work the night before.

It was one of those moments when a song you’ve been singing along to for years becomes crystal clear in your head for the first time. Yes, you blurted out nonsense words, or just a phrase you thought was being said at the top of your lungs for years. But then, all of the sudden, those words hit your ears at just the right angle and they were crystal clear for the first time.

And you were disappointed by them.

Epiphanies are costly, I’ve found. At least the older I get I start to feel that way.

Maybe it’s because I’m just tired of it. Tired of always wondering what went wrong. Always struggling to see the good of today instead of the good of yesterday. The good of yesterday that is skewed to be good, always and forever. Even though it wasn’t all good, no matter how much lip gloss you apply.

My dog looked at me like I was crazy. Then he went back to sleep in the small cat bed. That’s his new obsession, getting in the cat’s bed. I’m beginning to think my dog has some kind of personality disorder, which of course means he’s the perfect dog for me.

The emptiness subsided while I was driving to work. Must’ve been the Motley Crue that fixed that. It certainly wasn’t the Turbonegro. I’m guessing the album “Ass Cobra” will be set on a shelf for a good while now. It’s run its course of being interesting and simply couldn’t hold my attention. I’d like to think that’s just what happened. She lost interest in me. I became boring.

I doubt that, however. We didn’t see each other enough for her to get bored with me.

Bored with the silence. Bored with the distance. Yes and yes.

I still wonder what it would have been like had I bought a cell phone. One much like the one I have now, only it would have been sexy then.

Ha.

Funny to think about the amount of money spent. On calling cards. Phone bills and credit card calls. I laugh at the thought of a credit card call now. But then, it was something I did often. And boy to 45-minute phone calls charged to a Master Card or Visa get expensive.

I wonder if any of the old girlfriends ever thought of that when they said “Call me.” Always with just a tinge of guilt.

Being broke became an excuse. Then a crutch. Now? I think I’m just stuck there. I’m lucky, I guess. My mind is still mostly intact. Except when I’m interviewing kids after games. I don’t hold on to moments of the game like I used to, and then be able to recall them perfectly for a well-thought out question.

Instead, now I stammer a lot. And most likely appear feeble.

Some would say blame it on the stroke.

I can’t.

Even though it’s probably true.

Like a tortoise, I’m just a shell.

See? Even that doesn’t make sense. I saw it in my head, it came out like that. Fuck it.

The emptiness goes away while I’m typing. Even with this free version of Word that locks up every so often when a new ad has to appear on the side of the page. Or heaven forbid, if I want to save or look up the spelling of a word, like tinge. Which, isn’t the word I want, I guess, since it’s not in the dictionary of this version of “free Word.”

Let’s write some ol’ honk, now ‘right! Ha-ha.

Southern joke. Fuck, sleep doesn’t come easy any more. I take pills for that now.

I guess soon I’ll be taking pills to wake up. At least the dog wakes me up for the time being. He’s a damn good dog. It makes me wonder why I never got a dog before. Oh yeah, because I would never have seen him/her, and that ain’t cool. I already feel bad leaving the guy alone for five or six hours every day that both of us work.

Anyways, I finally figured out what was gnawing at me this morning … I realized that I’m no longer chasing the dream.

I started out in the right direction, then I moved to North Carolina. It seems that North Cackalack is the state where dreams, well, at least my dreams went to die.

Well, not die, just fester. Like my old leg wound did back in 1992. It’s funny that the girl I was chasing then was untouchable. Even though she kissed me that day that the photo in my bathroom right now was taken. Staff infected leg and all.

Those are the memories that don’t fade. Why? Because I have a picture of them. Just like the ones that are written down. One day, maybe, maybe not; I’ll read this and remember sitting in the cold living room in Raleigh, NC, looking at an ultrasound photo and a Kit Kat bar wrapper. Yep, that’s what this memory will be.

I’ll call it a future memory. But can something be a future memory? If it’s a memory, it’s in the past already. I’m sure wiser men than me have pondered this and the comments on this story, if there ever are any, will surely advise me on the answer to each question pondered.

Maybe, we’ll be lucky (is that the right word to use?) and he or she will read this and think that his/her dad was really just as confused as he/she is/was.

Van Damme.

blood red '74 Ford Ranchero

I pulled up to the house. My ’74 Ford Ranchero sparkled in one place still – the hood.

I found myself staring at that shiny place a little too long.

“What you want?” a little black kid yelled into my window. I hadn’t noticed him standing on the sidewalk seconds before. I’m slipping, I think to myself.

“Looking for Lovey,” I replied. Hoping that actually telling the truth instead of lying to the little shit – and I could tell he was a little shit because of the way he wore his sunglasses, upside down and without lenses – would get me somewhere.

“That bitch moved out yesterday,” he said before walking over to the Circle K across the way.

I pondered that response. It made little to no sense to me. How could anyone call Lovey a bitch? She was the most awesome woman I’d ever met. She had Pam Grier’s body and Maya Rudolph’s looks. And anyone who knows me will tell you that the only thing better than that is a redhead.

Anyway. I stop pondering that when I see Jeff Knight.

He played fullback for Arkansas for three years before blowing out his knee – not playing football, but tossing cornhole in my backyard three days before the Cotton Bowl his senior year. If there was one person who I did not want to see today, it was Jeff Knight.

But there was no way I wasn’t going to see him, as my car kind of stuck out in this neighborhood. Well, it sticks out in any hood. Fucking great car it is.

“Son of a muther fucka!” Jeff Knight yelled when he saw me. “You got a lot of nerve showing your stupid face in my block.”

“What are you talking ‘bout Jeffrey,” I replied. “I come here every damn day.”

“Yeah, but usually I ain’t ‘round, muther fucka.”

“Agreed,” I said with a flick of sarcasm and fear.

I think he sensed that. The fear.

“Lovey ain’t coming out for you, man,” he said. “The bitch told me the other day what you did.”

“What I did?”

“Yeah, what you did,” he barked. “Told me you fucked that redhead that works at Food Lion.”

“In 2006, yeah, I fucked her. What can I say, I was drunk. She was drunk. And I just happened to need a box of Frankenberry. It was destiny.”

“Fuck that shit.”

“Well, it’s true. All of it.”

“So you fucked the bitch almost 10 years ago? Damn, that’s fucked up. What Lovey said ‘bout you.”

“Damn skippy.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Peanut butter, jelly time, Jeffrey. Peanut butter, jelly time.”

“You a dumb ass, man. A real dumb ass.”

“Yes, but I’m in love. So here I’m going to sit until Lovey comes out. Just like fucking John Cusack in ‘Say Anything.’”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. Kickboxing wasn’t the sport of the future.”

“Fuck you.”

“See you Saturday?”

“Of course. You know I don’t miss cornhole over at the Three Leg, man.”

Fucking Jeff Knight. Still plays cornhole. I fucking hate cornhole. Throwing a beanbag into a hole. What fucking fun. Beats horseshoes, I guess. But I fucking hate horseshoes too.

I look at my flip phone. It says it’s 4:22. I look outside, the sun is almost gone.

“Fucking winter,” I mumble.

“Why you so depressin’?” I hear a familiar voice say from behind me. I look in the rearview mirror and there she is … Lovey.

“Damn, you’re beautiful,” I say.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says, throwing her left hand in the air, making a motion that says both fuck you and keep going at the same time.

“Why’d you tell Jeff Knight that shit, I think he was going to fucking punch me.”

“Oh, bullshit. That guy loves you, baby. He didn’t punch you when you caused his blown knee did he?”

“No, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“You’re the one who kept feeding him Abita’s, hun. He never woulda slipped and fell playing Marcus in that damn hole game if you’d been feeding him Coke Zeroes instead.”

I stared at her in the mirror. I didn’t dare turnaround. She had a knife at my throat.

“Lovey, why you doing this?” I asked, knowing she would probably tell me.

“Because I love you, baby. But this, this us? It ain’t neva gonna work. You know that.”

“No, I don’t know that. You’re the one that knows it.”

“What’s the rule, baby?”

“Never lie. Ever.”

“Yep. And you lied.”

I looked at her in the mirror. It would be the last time I saw her.

She stuck the knife into my chest. The blade was cool as it sliced its way through my skin, then my lung. I felt woosy. I felt alone. Lovey kissed my neck before she got out of the car. I slumped down in the seat, blood filled my mouth. It tasted sweet. It was very red. It had been that way ever since I started taking aspirin every day. Doctor’s orders after I had a stroke at work. Hadn’t been able to interview someone since. I lose my train of thought and start stammering for what was just there seconds before.

But my writing improved.

Strange.

I passed out, expecting to die.

But I didn’t.

The next thing I remember was Jeff Knight, standing over me. Fucking naked. His balls touched my chest when he lifted me out of my car – a blood red Ranchero that Lovey gave me for my 40^th birthday. Now the interior matched the hood.

“Hang on, buddy,” Jeff Knight screamed. “I’ve got you.”

“And I’ve got your balls on my chest,” I spit out, laughing just enough to send pain to every pore.

“Chest nuts!” Jeff Knight said with a cackle.

Three days later, I was in Florida. Trying to find out what exactly went wrong.