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Perchance to Dream

3/30/2013

Who cares about dreaming? I just want to sleep! But my failure seems in direct proportion to the energy that I pour into the task.
That’s right, lol – I said “task.”

I begin each night with an hour of “The Golden Girls”. Silly, I know, but I love these ladies, and they never do anything gruesome that will follow me into dreamland. We can’t say that for “Cold Case”, right? Learned that the hard way.
By midnight , the girls have had the last laugh, and it’s down to business, television off, alarm set, fan on high. If I get serious about this, I can catch four hours before wake-up time.
Two pillows, three blankets, socks – I am comfortable on my right side, yes. Good. Alas, the mind is not comfortable, and so it begins . . . What was the balance in my checking account this morning? I gave Johnny the debit card and told him he could get gas, did I bounce? Aaargh, please no.
My little nocturnal voice demands an accounting. How I can be working sixty hours a week and worrying about a bounce? I don’t know, pestiferous one, go to sleep.
But my shoulder hurts, turn over.
No, you’re fine.
Turn over!
All right, it’s nice here on my back, even though if I drop off, I’ll snore and wake myself up.
Only twenty-eight carbs today, that’s not bad. I should be losing weight, wonder why I’m not. I’ll be the only woman in history to do the Atkins for three months and not lose an ounce. Sue the assholes.
Hush up, go to sleep.
Maybe if I count. Deep breaths, count of three. But that’s more a hypnotic state than actually sleep, and that’s kind of weird, isn’t it?
What was that! Is there a wild animal in the room? Oh wow, that was me snoring.
Turn over. I can’t believe I was asleep and didn’t know it.
Only one o’clock ? Okay, three hours, then. I can do this. Except my feet are hot. Take the socks off, who wears socks to bed?
But I’m tiiiiiiireeed!
Take them off!
Fine, but now I’m going to lay on my stomach and I don’t need two pillows for that. Throw one on the floor and shut up, go to sleep.
THE ELECTRIC BILL! What? I paid that, didn’t I? No, that’s right, the laptop shut off in the middle of that, and then we got a call, and I never got back to it.
The call was a nightmare. Why do the biggest people always call 911 from the upstairs bedroom? I hate it that we couldn’t get the cot straps around him, maybe we should get a bariatric cot. Right, when pigs fly.
Where on earth did that phrase come from?
Well, pigs do race. Northern Ireland hosts pig races every year. How do I know that?
I used to drink a lot on Saint Patrick’s Day, but not anymore. Really, not ever, because it hurts my esophagus. Should maybe get that checked.
When I get insurance. Or Obamacare. I didn’t like Barack until the Osama victory, and then I loved him for the look of quiet triumph on his face.
He looks like a camel. Shit, is that racist? No, it’s just creative license.
Well, that’s all right then.
I don’t mind at all that my sweetie snores. It seems kind of sweet. But I do hate the long pauses in between.
Is he still alive? Hush up, don’t listen to it.
Despise laying on my stomach, hurts my back.
Shut up!!
Just saying.
Writing a blog is harder than I thought it would be. Light and chatty, not quite my style. The pen name is kind of fun, though.
Hell, kind of goofy.
You, little voice, are kind of goofy. Just sayin’.
Oh wow, is that the alarm? I was asleep!! What was that, maybe two hours, off and on? Pfft! I’m good to go.

Any suggestions on how to turn off your brain and sleep? I'm drawing a blank, but while you're here, let me give you a section from the novel I am currently working on. If I titled chapters, I would call this one “Delilah’s Rescue”

The bungalow in Brighton Park looked familiar – a fact that nagged at the back of Rush’s mind until he remembered that DTF had broken up a meth lab at that address the year before. The property seemed even shabbier now, diminished in a way that he could not quite finger until he realized that the corner street light was out, leaving half a block in darkness. The little house cringed in the resultant shadows, made ugly by a splintered and broken space in the porch railing, an upstairs window that was patched with corrugated cardboard.
An overturned garbage can spilled its contents onto the sidewalk – dented spaghettios cans and broken beer bottles, coffee grounds; Rush kicked at the mess in passing.
“What the hell?” he said to Bobby.
Bobby squinted, lifting his chin to look at the house number and shaking his head once. “It’s the right address,” he said.
“Jesus, what’d she get into this time?”
“Go easy here, Bud.”
Not an unwarranted request. Delilah’s call – channeled through Bobby and long overdue – had eased tensions, but Rush was still strung out, tired of being played with and more than a little angry. “God, she was here all this time?”
            “Boyfriend, she said.” Bobby had stepped back from the porch a little, and was scanning the sagging windows of the dark and shuttered house. “Probably told Meiko she was with you.”
            Rush made an impatient fist and shook the door with the force of his frustration.
            “Go slow here, bud,” Bobby cautioned again. The insouciance in his blue eyes, bright behind their spectacles, made his words a lie; Bobby could rumble with the best of them, and enjoyed it more than most.
            “Nobody fucking home?” Rush’s voice registered somewhere between disbelief and fury. He produced a bump key from his pocket, rattled the doorknob and shouldered his way in. Stopped for a moment in the unfamiliar darkness. “Chupie?” The fond nickname slipped unwittingly past his lips, and seemed ludicrous in the angry tenor of his voice.
Bobby flipped the wall switch, bathing the room with an unforgiving fluorescence that highlighted the worn spots in the carpet and the water rings on the coffee table. A Styrofoam take-out box shared floor space with video games and koozies; the couch was littered with laundry and crocheted pillows that had faded from lilac to gray.
Rush blew a sigh past his lips, tenting his brows and fingering the roach clip that lay discarded in an ashtray. “Beautiful,” he murmured without inflection, and Bobby shot him a quick, assessing look. “My daughter has found good people. Wanna bust him, Bob O? We got dope here.”
            “Nope,” Bobby was firm. “Not tonight, okay? Just find Delilah and go.”
            “Daddy?” She appeared, as though on cue, in the narrow hallway that exited the living room, long black hair tousled, coarse and curly; she spoke in a raspy whisper, and fluttered anxious fingertips over the enormous hickey on her throat. “I texted you not to come. I’m okay now.”
            “What the fuck, Delilah? What are you doing here?” Rush was unable to check the fury in his voice. He drew a deep breath as his daughter made shushing motions at him, and hurried away to close a bedroom door. “Who the hell is in there?”
            She stood before him, tiny and unafraid, in a baby tee and white cotton panties – not shy, not his daughter – and she had the gall to look exasperated, as though their arrival had inconvenienced her. “Look, I don’t need you here now,” she said. “Mom knows about him and she’s okay with it.”
            Rush lit a cigarette to keep his hands busy.
            “I tried to text you back,” Delilah said again.
            “Get dressed, Chupie,” Bobby advised. His voice was root beer schnapps, smooth and sweet and taking charge. “Go.”
            “I’m not going with you.”
            “Clothes. Go.”
            “It was just a bad night, I was off my meds.”
            Rush advanced a step toward her, and Delilah drew back, hunching her shoulders away from him.
            “I’m all right, Daddy!” she complained. “Quit looking at me like that.”
            “Like what? Like you’ve got a busted lip?” He ground his cigarette into the carpet with his boot heel and closed the space between them before she could pull away, grasping her chin. “That’s ugly, baby. Who hurt you?”
            “Go away! I don’t want you here!” Delilah made a swatting motion at him, but he held her firm, turning her face toward the light and whistling low, between his teeth.
            A spectacular bruise bloomed beneath a dusting of Cover Girl on her left cheek; Rush wet a finger with his tongue and swiped at it, revealing hues of purple and blue.
            Bobby saw, and caught his breath. “Easy, Johnny.”
            “He didn’t mean to!” Delilah squirmed away from him. “He couldn’t help it, I made him!”
            Rush pushed wordlessly past her into the bedroom, and had broken the nose of the man in the bed before Bobby found the light switch.

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John Rush and the Miracle Story of Lazarus

3/25/2013

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Easter is upon us!
It’s never been my favorite – or so I tell myself each year; I am geared more to the sticky exuberance of Halloween – but then the actual day arrives and I am blindsided by its sheer beauty. Early morning eggshell sky, scent of new grass and wet earth, hallelujah hymns vibrating stained glass windows. Joyful, joyful noise and color and . . . well, Easter. It has its appeal.
This year, I began early in Lent a project that would keep me busy throughout much of the season. I wanted to write about the miracle story of Lazarus. Too often, his story feels to me as though it is overlooked, that glorious shout “Come forth” boiled down to something that sounds a lot more like “blah.” It’s unfortunate, I think, that so often the reader of the scripture is merely going through the motions, and the listeners are asleep - but that’s a story for another day.
My initial attempt went south rather quickly, and I found myself mired in the small details that are the backbone of any properly told tale. Landscape, language, wildlife – all alien to me. The story, I realized, might best be told in our time, and from the perspective of someone who needed to hear it as badly as myself.
My characters John Rush and Padre Paul won’t be strangers to anyone who has dabbled in my writing, but if you are new, this will hopefully work as an introduction to them, as well as to my writing style. And so, without further ado, I give you my short, “Come Forth.” I hope you love it!

"COME FORTH"
DETECTIVE RUSH AND THE MIRACLE STORY OF LAZARUS

    Pussy Willow evening, soft and silver and belying the day’s tragedy. Detective John Rush felt the roll of pea gravel beneath his boots and thought that he could still discern the Eucharist on the back of his tongue, lying there like a skin of old milk. Not so much the taste of blood or love, it was neither tangy not sweet, only faintly evocative of sun-drenched Holy Days long gone by.
    The banality disturbed him, but it wasn’t the first disturbance of his day, not by a damn sight. He wrenched the Jeep door and sat with it open while he lit his last Marlboro and watched the church crowd disperse. Little River folks were universally poor - blue-jean clad and red-knuckled. Factory workers, truckers, and the unemployed, their women solid and round-shouldered, their children squalling. Amazing that he could incite alarm amongst them, but he could feel their fear even with his eyes closed, and he knew how he looked to them. Scary street Latino with his jet hair slicked into a ponytail. Tattoos over hard lean muscle, a vulgar diamond earring.
    He sighed smoke through his nose, and at last stood again, slamming the door into a quiet grown onerous in the absence of the faithful.
    The interior of the church was already darkened, penny candles like fireflies hovering low above the side alter, lavender twilight bent and diffused through the leaded glass windows. Rush found Father Paul lacing his tennis shoes in the sacristy and frightened him with his habitually silent approach.
    “Criminy, Johnny.” The priest’s eyes were a startling blue in his swarthy Italian face
“Do you have to sneak around like a thief?”
    “Lo siento, Padre.” So undercover now that the Spanish words came first – no matter, the apology had been tongue-in-cheek.
    “What do you need?” The words were abrupt, and nine parts dread; Rush and Father Paul were close enough for one man to have discerned the other’s mood.
    What did he need? A release of sorrow and doubt, resurrection of something too long dead? Something as primitive as solace – really?
    “I lost an informant today,” he started to say, and did not. The child might have been a cog in the wheel of Rush’s disquietude, but certainly not the hub. Greasy little gang-banger, Jojo been a runner for the Disciples, and had landed in juvy for the rape of his own sister. Had been sprung by Rush and subsequently used until his untimely demise, on this, the fourth Saturday of Lent.
    “You were tired tonight,” he told Father Paul instead. He could have blunted the sting with a smile, and in fact, that had been his intention, but in the end he couldn’t make it work; his lips felt stiff, immalleable.
    “I’ll do better next time.” The measure of sarcasm did not escape Rush, and he noticed the fine lines bracketing Father Paul’s mouth, the exhaustion pooling like lividity beneath his eyes; tonight, the priest looked every tick of his fifty-two years. “A long day, Johnny.”
    He had, Rush knew, buried the Ricci girl that morning. A seventeen year old heroin overdose. Rush knew the supplier - had in fact eaten supper with him the night before - but it wasn’t time to bring him in yet.
    He crossed the altar with the soft carpet giving like grave dirt beneath his boots and sat in the front pew, elbows on knees. Candlelight drenched the walls and bathed the face of the dying Christ, gentling his agony into something more palatable, and Rush felt a flicker of impatience, harsh and bright.
    “Lazarus,” he said when Father Paul had settled beside him. “Not a dry story, Padre.”
    “Not by any means.” Father Paul crossed his ankle over his knee and massaged the bone above his rucked black sock as though it hurt him.
    “Came across like Cracker Jacks.”
    “What the hell, Johnny?” The quick, sharp bristling was typical of the man and this time Rush did smile.
    “I needed to hear it right,” he said. “Try again.”
    Father Paul sat back, fixed Rush with a long look, and finally chuckled, shook his head.
   “My mother had a fascination with Lazarus, Padre.” Rush’s fingers flexed, worrying the absence of his cigarettes. “Maybe with death in general, after my brother died. And Lazarus came back – it used to keep me awake at night.”    Nine years old and too big to sleep with his sisters. And Paco asleep forever. Not dead, his mama said, never say dead, our Lord said Lazarus only slept. And Lazarus came forth from the tomb and he lived, Juanito, he lived for a long time after that.
But when Paco came back he would be in the ground, the dirt piled over him, casket lid closed He would wake up in the dark, and Paco hated the dark.
    Hush now, Jesus works the miracles
    “He worked miracles, Johnny.” Father Paul raked fingers over his unruly cowlicks and settled deeper into the pew, slinging one arm over the back. “The loaves, the blind man. We’re inured to it, and that’s a shame. At some point, we forgot how to be amazed.”
    Rush could not have said at what juncture the miracles ended for him. Nor did he know why Paco had settled so close in his memories today, stirring up the scent of baby powder and the unremitting wails of the victimized. Paco had been two when he died, and Rush had hidden in the closet, not emerging until the silence had been complete.
    Too late.
    And too late sorry.
    “Lazarus was already been dead when the word of his illness reached Jesus,” Father Paul began. “Of course, Jesus had no way of knowing that. He was twenty miles away, teaching, across the River Jordan, and he put off traveling for another two days.”
    “So that Lazarus would be good and dead.”
    “Understand that by then the leaders of Jerusalem very much wanted to see Jesus’ head on a platter. Coming back for Lazarus was like walking into the lion’s den.”
    Across the desert by day, the land spread out like a shallow golden bowl, edges curled into the sapphire horizon. Wind and sunshine. Tired limbs and sore feet, and all the while an ache within him, sorrow and anxiety burning in his chest like a draught of bad wine.
    Ah God, not Lazarus, not his friend.
    “Jesus had followers, but few friends.” Father Paul’s voice had become hypnotic, settled into the rhythm of the story, and Rush listened with his eyes on the altar candles.
    Lazarus and his sisters had been different, a welcoming touch, listening ears. Bright as kingfishers, intent upon his words. And they had believed. They had believed to the point that now they bled
    The disciples were fearful and hesitant and so very human. Don’t go back, he only sleeps. They tried to kill us there.
    But Lazarus and his sisters had made Jesus smile at a time when laughter was a precious commodity. They had shared his soul and his vision, the hunger that never left him - and in the end, he knew that he would have faced a thousand enemy soldiers for their love.
    And so. Onward.
    “Bethany sat on the slope of the Mount of Olives, little stone and brick houses clustered near the Jordan River. The middle east is a beautiful land, Johnny, but it’s harsh, as you know.”
    Rush chuckled acknowledgement; his tattoo burned with the memory of Blackwater days, slaughter and annihilation, a blue and boundless sky, indifferent.
    “So it was in Jesus’ time. A hard beauty, defined by violence and lust.”
    But the houses had shown like fire opals in the dying light. Jesus crossed the River Jordan while the sun seeped into the long horizon, and he almost didn’t see Martha until she was upon them.
    Angry, her face swollen with tears and her hair escaping its hijab, such an excess of emotion in this small and practical woman that Jesus felt an answering surge in his chest.
    Dead, he’s been dead two days now and you didn’t come.
    Where is Mary?
    She won’t come out of the house, she’s that upset. Lazarus is gone.
    Gone. His smile, his clever ways, his beautiful, generous spirit.
    “Jesus wept. The strongest passage in the Bible, Johnny. I think he was finally just so exhausted.”
    Weighted down with the terrible knowledge of who he was and how much it had cost him. Burdened with an understanding that never left him, a gift that would kill him.
    Take me to him. Anguish choked his words and hurt his chest, a slow and terrible bleeding within him.
    Ah Lord, he’s been gone all these days. The stink will be incredible.
    Take me to him.
    “And there it was, Johnny, death reeking just on the other side of that stone, and Jesus clenching himself against it. Imagine what went into that shout, all the fear and anger and maybe even a little doubt. Lazare veni foras!”
    “Lazarus, come forth.”
    “And he did, Juanito. We know that he did.”

    Outside, the evening had rolled into night, a soft sweet air that caressed the skin and breathed promises of a thousand springs to come. Paco’s memory subsided, his little body curled in sleep, wet pink thumb resting just outside a puckered mouth.
    Rush cranked the Jeep’s engine over and turned into a dying twilight, the first bright stars scattered low in front of him, thick as angel dust on the horizon.

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An Introduction by Author Lucy Crowe

3/23/2013

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Hello! I’m so excited to be writing my first-ever blog - mostly, I think, because I have known from a very early age that much of life deserves to be recorded. I was the nerd kid on the school bus with a notebook in my lap, the teenager stuffing her journal under her mattress, and now, the book mouse at the fire station who is forever plugging away on the lap top.
It’s okay! I’ve found love and acceptance amongst my peers in spite of my oddity!
About that.
Webster’s defines a peer as “a person who is equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background and social status,” but the thesaurus nails the relationship in a far clearer fashion with “cohort, buddy, partner.”
My peers are EMTs and firefighters. They populate two separate and very rural fire stations and share my life – my coffee, my sleeping bag, my little-pink-sugars – for days at a time. Ours is a unique existence, in which we are not only dependent on each other in so many ways, but we also actually live together. This situation, combined with the occasional hair-raising adrenaline-laced call, has made for more than one intriguing tale.
Which brings me to my second group of peers – the story-tellers. These folks share my gift/eccentricity/curse. They understand my endless quest to set life to words, to form pretty phrases around the blasé for maximum palatability. Mostly, we exist for each other within our laptop screens, where we buzz encouragement back and forth via emails and writer’s forums. And so, ours is an unusual, but highly valued rapport. A kinship, of sorts.
Beyond peers, of course – and certainly of more importance – is my family. A husband and children who never quit shining for me, loving parents, brilliant and noisy siblings. They give my days texture and beauty, and their personalities have breathed life into year upon year of my existence.
As well as filling out the pages of my stories.
And so - much to write about! And many reasons to be happy!
Thank you so much for visiting my brand new blog! I hope to see you again!

** Above is a picture of my lovely kitty Gothika, who generally answers to the absurd and disgraceful nickname of Fatman. He has been perched on the back of my chair, just over my shoulder, throughout the entirety of this posting, and was most insulted when I failed to mention him in my circle of loved ones. His expression could only be described as “apoplectic”, lol.
Yes, this is him. “Admire,” says he

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Perchance to Dream

Any suggestions on how to turn off your brain and sleep? I'm drawing a blank, but while you're here, let me give you a section from the novel I am currently working on. If I titled chapters, I would call this one “Delilah’s Rescue”

John Rush and the Miracle Story of Lazarus

"COME FORTH" DETECTIVE RUSH AND THE MIRACLE STORY OF LAZARUS

An Introduction by Author Lucy Crowe

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"COME FORTH"
DETECTIVE RUSH AND THE MIRACLE STORY OF LAZARUS