heath ledger

You always hope the one that got the good stuff, the good life, won’t throw it away.

Then there are the friends that you warn to back away from the ledge, only to watch them run right off of it.

Today, a friend of mine jumped off that ledge. I just hope that he finds Keith Richards when he lands. That way, he’ll be on the ledge below the ledge and not in the bottom of some endless ravine. That ravine is not a fun place to ever spend a night in. Or even an afternoon. Or a lunch break.

Driving across half of the country with that kid, I didn’t learn much more than I knew beforehand. He spent the entire time texting the woman who would later be referred to only as “the woman of my dreams.” No matter what she did to him, mentally, physically or other she could do no wrong in his eyes. I’ve been there before. The cloud of love. Or is it the fog of love? Anyway, some people are lucky and the love is returned, completely. Fully. Honestly. With no cost. No hidden Bank of America-type fees.

I hope the kid is lucky and gets that love. The first months – hell almost year – certainly don’t point to that being the case. But, I’ve always believed that you have to learn these lessons the hard way. On your own. If you don’t, you don’t actually learn from it at all. It’s like having daddy cover your mistakes or being a Kennedy and being allowed to kill someone.

My cynical nature doesn’t allow me to not look at it in a bad light. Hell, it took me so damn long to get over the so obvious game I was played for a couple years ago. Luckily, I saw it coming the second time around and didn’t fall again. I almost did, hell, I did, but I didn’t fall fully, which kept me from falling all the way. Lesson learned. And it has let me love again. A love that has had more hurt in less than a year than it should have.

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered as she turned the ignition.

He hadn’t known this girl for more than 10 minutes, but he was getting into her Kia and not thinking twice. It was a beat up car. Definitely had seen some serious action, KFC wrappers all over the floor. “Who eats at KFC that often?” he thought to himself. “I’ll have to ask later.”

She turned out onto Lejeune Blvd. A strip of road that he had come to hate over the past few years. Before, it had just been a place that was visited a couple of times and really never thought of. Now, it was a road that led to the place he hated more than any other place he’d been to. But it appeared by getting in this beat up Kia, he’d never see it again.

“Just let me get a few miles away, then I’ll push the button.”

“Ok,” he said, not thinking really of what she meant by that.

After about six minutes of driving, she whipped out what looked like a remote control for a television.

“Here we go,” she said. “Life’s never going to be the same for me and you now.”

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

“Why’d you do that?” she said balkingly.

“For luck.”

“I don’t need luck,” she said, pressing a button.

A loud rumble percolated from where they had just been. Soon, a cloud of smoke appeared in the distance.

“Guess that’s done,” he said.

“It’s just beginning, darling,” she said, pointing the car west. “We’ll be in Winston-Salem before anyone figures out what happened. Then, it gets interesting.”

The next six hours were mostly silent. Her driving, me looking out the windows. I-40 has been a constant companion for me and her for the last year. She lived hundreds of miles away from me. She built weird contraptions. I sat on my butt all day at work and slowly developed Type II Diabetes. Now, I was about to start running. Not the kind that ends with you running your first 5K and posting pictures of it on Facebook in hopes of getting a few Likes and Comments from friends and people who are simply Internet friends. No, the kind of running that would involve never seeing family ever again. Of hopefully getting out of the country before sunrise, kind of running.

I guess one could say, life no longer is what it was.

a boy can dream

Wilford Brimley mocks me. Every single day.

Not just because an average meal for me lately has been pizza and crullers, but also because that’s what I think he was put on this earth to do. Mock. Not just me. But you. And him. And her. And that dog over there. And maybe even the fish swimming in the ocean.

Speaking of the ocean, the waves are blasting tonight. It’s almost like I have a microphone down there and it’s pumping the sound of crashing waves into my living room. It’s most magical. In fact, this may be the coolest night that I’ve experienced since being here. So much so, I get up from this typing machine and open my front door to listen in Doubly as Nigel so nicely put it.

I hung up a picture of the diabetes man in my cubicle a few months ago. It was a funny lark back then. But since I moved him to a more prominent position, above me and too the right, he has taken on a whole other meaning.

People stop and laugh at his picture. Some just look at him, then look at me. After which, they may shake their head in disbelief or shrug in that defeated way so many of us do every day.

I put him as the front wallpaper of my phone last week. It’s almost like he’s the alien from The Thing, taking over parts of my life one by one. I suppose if I ask for Cocoon on DVD for Christmas, I might be in trouble. I’ve already pondered making a Wilford Christmas decoration for my new tree. It’s a fake one, which is troubling in its own way. However, it is also the first tree I have ever purchased for myself.

Over the years I’ve bought a pink tree for a friend. A couple of fake ones for girlfriends and I think that is it. I’ve picked out the one for my family many times.

But, every year I’ve been alone, even when I was dating someone, I never bought a tree for myself. And I think that was dumb. Which is why I’m fixing it this year.

I think it’s been a gradual process. At first it was finding a copy of Santee in a thrift store in Petersburg about 8 years ago. Then the year after Emily, I bought a strand of lights to hang over my window. And now this, a four foot fake tree, with lights.

Next thing you know I’ll be carrolling the night away.

Not decorating without someone to help decorate was kind of my tradition. A constant so to speak. Like Wilford Brimley. He’ll always be around. At least that’s how one feels. But, like everything, Mr. Brimley will die one day. A lot more people will just say Di-ah-bee-tus that day than feel bad. Which, I guess isn’t completely unexpected in this day and age.

I’ll say a little prayer for him when it comes. But hell, he may outlive me by a decade. Who knows? That freight train of diabetes could hit me tomorrow and take me out, no health insurance and all. Can I get a free glucose monitor without insurance Mr. Brimley? Mr. Obama? Mr. Cheney?

Oh, hell. I gave up on politics too long ago. It seems like another life when I used to debate such things with Sharon. Taking the side of Richard Nixon just to get under her skin. It worked. She liked me. I liked her. We dated. I was too chicken to try to take it somewhere further. Bad decision in the short term, not long term. How reversed is that one compared to the rest of this life?

Anyways, I wonder if Wilford Brimley would sit on my porch, eat leftover pizza from last night’s Monday Night Football game and listen to the ocean with me? Anyone got his phone number? Seems like a perfectly plausible thing. How about a movie, like Andy Kaufman’s “Breakfast with Blassie” but instead, it’s “Leftover pizza with Wilford.”

We could talk about the proper diet for us kinds. Maybe even discuss prostate issues.

I’m sure he’d love to chat about “The China Syndrome” or my all-time favorite of his “Brubaker”. He could remind me he was in “Remo Williams” and kicked ass in “The Natural” -- one of my favorite books and a book I actually own.

I wouldn’t want to shoot it in a Sambo’s, however, as that would be too redundant and plagiaristic. Instead, a Bojangles maybe? Or an In-and-Out burger. Maybe have Steve Buscemi stop by?

It gets a little bit more interesting, at least for me, with every added layer.

We could even get Wesley Snipes to come over and re-enact the “always bet on black,” scene -- with musical cues -- from “Passenger 57.”

Sounds plausible.