The Wedding

Today my wife and I celebrate 1 year of marriage. Happy Anniversary, my love.

William’s palms were sweating. It wasn’t even warm in the church. In fact, it was a bit on the chilly side. This was evidenced in the shawls and coats still worn by the women in the pews. William had just walked out from the choir room with his best friends and brothers to stand at the front of the church.

Stand up straight, don’t bend your knees.

William reminded himself how to not pass out. He looked around the room for a comforting face. Neither of his parents nor any of his grandparents were in the sanctuary yet. The music started plaing and one of the ushers, some 3rd cousin twice removed whom his mother forced him include, escorted her grandmother down the aisle. Next was his grandmother, escorted by her little brother and followed by William’s grandfather. He grandfather stopped and gave William a wink and a smirk before he took his seat. That simple act, calmed William’s nerves, and reminded him that he was loved, Here came his parents, both of them giving him a warm smile after they sat down. Last was her mom escorted and joined in the pew by her brother. He was only 11, but nearly as tall as William.

The music changed and the bridesmaids started their procession. There were only 3 of them, so it went quickly. However, it felt like and eternity to William. There was a burst of fanfare from the organ, the congregation stood and turned towards the door. They swung open and there she was, standing next to her father, in a luxurious white gown with a long train. Her veil was over her face, but William could see the huge smile on it. That beautiful, wonderful smile.

Breathe, he told himself, everything is going to be OK. She is here.

Paul, chapter 4

This is part 4 of a 4 part story. To start over, here. Part 2, here. And Part 3, here.

Paul awoke with a start.

Where am I?

He remembered that he had driven non-stop to Arizona in search of his ex-wife. And he remembered the gun he purchased from a man in a old Cadillac. This gun was lying in his lap now.

What just happened?

He looked out the passenger window at the house he has come to see.

What did I do?

Paul stared at the gun, now in his hand, wondering of what he remembered was real or just a dream. He removed the clip from the gun, still full, then he looked again into the open living room window. He saw a light come on down the hallway, and a shadow pass in front of the light. So it had been a dream. Thank God. Again, Paul looked at the gun.

Why did I buy this?

She hadn’t asked for anything in the divorce. Quite the opposite, she had explicitly given him everything. Except for her leaving, he had no reason to hate her. It was trash pickup in the morning on the street and everyone had their cans out at the curb waiting for pickup. Paul got out of the car and proceeded to walk down the street disposing of the gun and its accessories in as many trash cans as he could. He returned to his car, turned on the ignition, and pulled out his cell phone.

“Siri, get me directions to the nearest motel.”

He was in need of a good night’s rest. He had a long drive back home in the morning. Or afternoon, whenever he eventually woke up.

Paul, chapter 3

This is part 3 of a 4 part story. For part 1, here. Part 2, here.

Paul’s hands were shaking uncontrollably.

What have I just done?

This wasn’t what he had intended. He had just wanted to talk, to find out why his wife had suddenly left him. It had taken him a couple of months to find her. She was living under an assumed name, halfway across the country in Flagstaff, AZ. Paul had immediately gotten into his SUV and driven the 2,500 or so miles to confront her. He had found the forgotten pistol in his glove compartment when he ran out of gas on I-40 in No-where, Arkansas. Paul knew he should have just dumped it then, but something inside his head told him to keep it in the glove box. A small voice that said might need it in Arizona. At the time he pulled up to her house, Paul had just driven the past 2 days straight through without sleep. His hands had been shaking, but he felt a compulsion to finish things right then.

In a mental haze, he had plucked the gun from its hiding place, checked the clip and screwed the silencer onto the barrel threads. He saw her through the window, she never did close the curtains, making love to some other man.

What have I just done?

This was never supposed to have happened.

Paul surprised himself when he broke inside. He didn’t get angry at his ex-wife, he got convicted. The man had tried to run, he couldn’t even attempt to protect her. Loser.

What have I just done?

Paul looked at the gun in his hand and checked the clip. 1 round. Calmly, he unscrewed the silencer and put the muzzle in his mouth.

What have I just done?

Paul, chapter 2

This is part 2 of a 4 part story. For part 1 click here.

The streets had become bleak, the buildings more and more abandoned, as Paul continued towards the meeting place.

What am I doing, he thought, why am I meeting this guy?

Paul had ecome increasingly uneasy the more miles he put between his safe, suburban home and himself. There, corner of 48th and Walnut. At that intersection was a four story parking structure full of empty parking space. Paul turned into it and drove to the third floor. He pulled into a space down the row from the only car he had seen so far in the garage, a bright green Cadillac El Dorado, lifted to accomodate massive 20-inch chrome rims.

I am living out a stereotype, he thought, and I am going to get killed doing this.

Paul’s sweaty palms slowly opened the door, he did leave the engine running, just in case. Though what good that would do, he didn’t know. He walked over to the Cadillac and the heavily tinted passenger window rolled down.

“You got the money? Lemme see it.”

Paul opened the envelope he was carrying, a stack of crisp $100 bills inside. The man handed over an old gym bag with something other than workout attire in it.

“Everything you need is in there.”

The window rolled up after the envelope was pulled inside, concluding their transaction. As Paul walked back to his SUV, he heard the El Dorado’s tires squeal as the driver pulled out. Paul entered his car and sat the gym bag on his lap. He gently pulled the zipper open. As he slowly peeled sides of the bag apart, it revealed a black 9mm automatic pistol, one clip full of bullets, and a silencer.

Paul, chapter 1

The sun was out, the birds were chirping, and he was enjoying a good smoke. Life didn’t get any better for Paul. Unfortunately, the good life wasn’t going to last. As Paul reached for his ringing cell phone, he knw that something was wrong. It was his wife.

Why was she calling?

She was supposed to be getting the full treatment at a spa downtown. It was a leftover from her birthday six months ago that she had never used; and now it was about to expire. She should be occupied with a face scrube or massage or something and away from her phone for a few more hours. This spa didn’t allow phones outside of the waiting area and locker room. The gift certificate was for essentially a full day’s treatment. Granted she could simply not have done everything and be on her way home, but still.

“Hello, honey. How is the spa treatment going?”

“Hi. Fine. I want a divorce. I won’t be coming back home.”

*click*

Paul stared at his phone in disbelief. Where had this come from? He knew they were having some communication issues, but they were working through them. Right? He tried dialing his wife’s number again, he wanted to try and talk about this.

“I am sorry, the number you have dialled is no longer in service. BEEP!”

“Are you Paul Smith?” asked a man in a cheap suit, holding a thick manila envelope. Paul’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

“Yes, I am.”

“You have been served.” The man pointed to a late model Ford sedan with an onlooker in the driver’s seat. “And witnessed.”

That was fast.

Heroes

There is only one major college football team that matters in Pennsylvania. It becomes a part of you, unless you are a member of the minority with ties to the few other schools, and you feel like you bleed blue. My father and uncles went to Penn State, most of my friends from high school went there too. I wrote this a month ago, finally able to wrap my head around my feelings towards the scandal.

 

 

Heroes. We immoralize our heroes as soon as they acheive greatness. The digital age allows new legends to spread like wildfire across the planet. It used to be that an evening new braodcast and the morning paper brought these infant legends to our attention. Before there was radio or TV, it was just the newpaper and other print media that did this. Even before the printing press we were forced to wait for scribes to finish a new copy of a song or poem. If we go back to the farthest reaches of history, legends were only spread by travelling storytellers. And you heard the newest one the next time they came through your village.

In these ancient times, by the time the world-at-large knew of your accomplishments, your heroics, you were long gone. Either dead, or now irrelevant. Nowadays, heroes come and go in the blink of an eye. Our attention spans and the 24-hour news cycle do not allow for the public to dwell on and old story. The fireman who just saved a entire family has been revealed as having an affair with the wife he saved? Just wait until the star QB wins the big game this Friday and no one will remember the fireman existed. So what do you do, how do you react, when a her who has lived the hero’s life for 45 years is suddenly shown to have not been perfect? 45 years is a long time for a hero to live among us, and our need to immortalize great men will fail us when this happens. We immortalized Joe Paterno before he had even retired, let alone passed away. We couldn’t help but treat im as a living legend. In those 45 years he hadn’t put a foot wrong, and it really was only a matter of time before we became disenchanted. No one is perfect, but the epic story we had written about Joe involved him riding off into the sunset of life as a god. The mad scientist of college football who refused to succumb to the pressure to win games at any cost, and routinely graduated 85+% or his players. His mistake with the Jerry Sandusky problem destroyed our fairy tale. And we hate him for it. Now we want to see all of his good works as the work of a charlatan, not of a great, and human, man. His fall, or what we perceive as his fall, is our own fault. We made a mortal man a god, and then hated him for being mortal. Joe Paterno made a grave mistake in 2002, but please let us remember the decades of wonderful good he has done before and after that one mistake.

Peace Be With You

A young man and his young daughter were sitting on their porch eating lunch. It was one of those beautiful spring/summer days that make a person want nothing more than to spend every second of sunlight outside.

“Daddy? Tell me again what your tattoo is.”

“As-Salamu Alaykum.  It means, ‘Peace be upon you.’ It is a phrase in Arabic, and you read that language from right to left.  Like this.”

“Why do you have that tattoo?”

“An Arab uses these words as a greeting.  Like you saying ‘Hi Daddy!’, but more proper.  I guess it would be more like ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Good Evening.’  I think that Arabic is a beautiful language, and that this way of saying hello is beautiful too.”

“Why is do you have it there?”

“On my right arm? Because that is the hand we use to shake someone else’s hand.”

“But you always wear long sleeves, unless Grandma and Grandpa are here.”

“That is because many years ago, before you were born; even before your Mommy and I knew each other, some men that spoke Arabic tried to destroy some buildings in America.  The destroyed two, these GIIIAAANT towers that were exactly alike; we called them the ‘Twin Towers.’ They stood in New York City where the even bigger Millenium Tower now is.  They also tried to destroy a building in Washington, D.C. called the Pentagon, and the White House, where the President lives.”

“Really? Why would they want to do that?”

“Because they did not like our country very much.”

“Why didn’t they like America?”

“That I do not know.”

“Daddy, you still haven’t told me why you wear long sleeves.”

“I am getting there. Things changed after that day, September Eleventh, Two Thousand and One. 9/11. Those bad men used airplanes to destroy the Twin Towers, airplanes like the ones we took to Disney World last year.”

“Wooooow……”

“After that day, the government changed how we go through the airport, and what we can take onto an airplane with us.  They tried to not have that happen ever again.”

“Did it work?”

“So far it has. Besides those changes at the airport; Americans, people like you and me, began to look at anyone from that part of the world differently. In fact, you didn’t even have to be Arab to be looked at as a terrorist.”

“What’s a terrorist?”

“It is what we call people like those bad men. Because they do things to make us terrified.  Scared.  Like the movie you watched on your birthday.”

“Rats! eeeeewwwww!”

“Remember, there aren’t any rats the size of Fido in real life. That was just a movie.”

“I know.”

“OK. Now, because this tattoo is in Arabic, I began to wear long sleeves as much as possible to cover it up. I didn’t want people to look at me like I was one of those bad guys.”

“But why would they do that?”

“Because of the tattoo. It had nothing to do with who I am at all.  I still wear long sleeves because even 20 years later there are people that haven’t learned that not all Arabs are terrorists.”

“You shouldn’t have to hide your tattoos.  Especially not that one. That one just says ‘Peace be up on you.’”

“‘Peace be upon you.’  But you are right, I shouldn’t have to hide a wish for peace. No matter what language it is written in.”

“Why do people think mean thoughts like that, Daddy?”

“Because most people do not think very much.  They see something they don’t like, and anything the think is related to the bad thing becomes bad as well. Because those bad men 20 years ago were Arab and spoke Arabic, because they were Muslim and thought what they were doing was Allah’s Will. Allah is what Muslims call God.  But because of that, the Arabic language, and any other Muslim person as well, are considered bad.”

“Why do people still hate Muslins?”

“Because they do not know how to forgive. And they think that those people are our enemies.”

“In Sunday School Mrs. Smith says that Jesus told us to love our enemies. AND you always tell me to forgive my little brother when he is mean because God has forgiven me.”

“And you should. However, some people don’t believe in God, or Jesus.  Or, if they do, they forget how much they have been forgiven.  And either way, doesn’t holding a grudge against your brother for being mean make the whole rest of the day worse?”

“Yes.”

“Well, some people don’t know how good it feels to forgive. That is why I have this other tattoo on my left arm.  It is Hebrew, the language the people in the Old Testament spoke, and the language they speak in Israel today.  It says ‘Aleichem Shalom.’ That means ‘And upon you, Peace.’  It is what someone would say in response to ‘As-Salamu Alaykum.’  I have it to remind myself how similar we all are.  Now, finish your carrots or you won’t get any chocolate cake.”

“There is Chocolate Cake?! That’s my favorite!”