Scanadlous(103)
Now that I've got my head on straight, I reach for my purse and a pen. I'm keeping a running to-do list in a small journal. Call me old fashioned, but no matter how many 'productivity' apps there are currently available in the app store, nothing comes close to a good old journal and pen. I keep everything straight that way, and it works. I keep digging my hand through my bad. In moments like these, when my bag feels like a frustrating abyss, I vow to dump everything and get organized, but it never seems to happen. I still can't find it and after a few more minutes, I decide to just dump my bag out on top of my desk. Everything rolls out, and I push it into a single pile—crumpled receipts, lip gloss, keys, pens, gum, hair bands—everything I would expect except my journal. My heart starts to race—I keep everything in that journal. I'd be lost without it—notes, phone numbers, personal thoughts, and even passwords, which I know is a bad move. Where can it be? I am 100% positive that I packed it. I always pack it.
And then my heart freezes in my chest. It's missing.
Lucien
Maybe I don't understand women, but who keeps a daily, hand-written journal these days? Isn't there an app for stuff like that? I carefully take the blue, spiral-bound journal out from under my shirt and look at it in my hands. I can see she uses it often. The corners are bent and the blue cover is fading. It's surprising I wasn't caught. When she looked back at me in the infirmary, I thought for sure I was fucking done for. But you know something? I don't feel bad about taking it. Sure, she may miss it at first, but it's just a book. It's replaceable. She'll get over it.
I open the journal and see that this woman's got a list for everything. There are notes upon notes and some that read, "pay cell phone bill," and "go for a run," which make her seem pretty organized I guess, and then there are some more interesting notes like "change wifi password to 'shutyourdogup' so the neighbor gets the hint." I grin and think that at least she has a sense of humor.
I think back to how long its been since I've lived in the real world—to a time when things like barking dogs were actually a problem, and not whether or not some asshole was going to punk you in the yard, or whether or not you had shower shoes to get cleaned up in because you didn't dare touch your bare feet against some fucking scummy tile. What I wouldn't give to have those kinds of problems now. But what am I even saying? I'm in this shithole for life. I didn't pull that fucking trigger—I ain't a baby killer, but who's going to believe me? Not a single person, that's who. If they have their way, I'll take my last breathe between these four walls. They'd love to see me rot in this joint.
Maybe if I made lists like these—run today, eat tomorrow, and pay this, and pay that—I wouldn't have been such a fuck up, right? It's hard to say. Life seems like one giant poker game to me. Some people are just born getting dealt a shitty hand. If you think that's just some negative bullshit story, it's not. It's the fucking truth.
It wasn't my choice to have the parents I did, or grow up in certain neighborhoods. I think back to being 8 years old, living in a small, brown house with my mom, dad, and brother. One night, my dad's been tinkering with his VW bug in the garage. "Come out here son!" he yells. I come out, and it's night. I remember the air being fucking freezing and only wearing a thin, white t-shirt. I cross my arms across my chest to try and keep warm, and also, looking back on it, I think as a defense for what's to come. My old man looks at me and says, "It's time you learn to be a real man. Grab this." His voice is slow and gravelly from years of smoking and hard drinking. He hands me his shotgun. From the look on his face, I know better than to talk back. I unhook my arms and take it. My arms sag under the weight and seriousness of it all.
"Point it there—to the back of the garage," he commands. I raise it up and rest it against my shoulder like I've seen in movies—as if I were some fucking cowboy. He continues, "Now pull the trigger son." I pull it and I'm bucked back, my ears are ringing, and I'm crying some hot tears. I remember being scared out of my fucking mind. Who the hell knows where that bullet even went? And my dad got some kick out of that—boy, he was laughing so hard his Coors Light nearly came out of his nose. Some prankster he was. That was the last time I saw him. We later learned he ran off with a woman named Ruby and was married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. My mom was so depressed she locked herself in her room for weeks on end. I'd watch her hold a pen in her hand in an attempt to write love letters to my old man, but she'd fall asleep in a fit of emotional exhaustion before she could ever actually write them. I'd come check on her in the morning and see that the pen ink had bled into her sheets—a pool of blue as dark as her state of mind.