While I sat in the Urgent Care room, its chilly pleather aqua blue and mauve chair squeaking beneath my restless twisting and turning, they told me it was the last time. I was given the script for antibiotics that would drain my credit card and destroy my guts. It's been two weeks I've been sick, maybe three, it's hard to remember now.
We'll culture your sample, we're shocked its never been cultured before, with your history.
I don't go to doctors.
Your sample was incredibly dilute.
I drank 96 oz of water since 7am to keep the pain down.
Infections can be resistant to all but the most exotic antibiotic.
Great
They listened to heart and lungs. Peered into ears, eyes, nose and tonsils. Tapped an aching back. The doc was excellent, thorough.
It's the last time. Another, in a month or less, you'll need to go to a Urologist.
I don't go to doctors.
You've likely already damaged your bladder and possibly kidneys.
My face in my hands I stare at blue smears on a composite tile floor, all a fluorescent white, burning my eyes...
...I'm cold.
(another sketch for a short story)
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Standing in Danny's Garage - A Brief Character Sketch
I stand in Danny's Garage, it's owned by this fellow with a red tinged quarter inch beard. The thumb of his weighty, cracked hand is confidently hooked into his already strained jeans. His flaccid belly is stretched taut with a woodland camo shirt and is indented where his right thumb fits in. Beer he bought cheaper than "that bottled water" is in the left hand, crusty and torn jeans sag at the crotch pulling the eye down to scuffed steal toed boots that used to be dark shiny brown and are matte tan now. He stands hips jutted forward, hair in slick dark blond clumps strings out from under a day-glow orange hat, gathering into a mullet that looks like it was shot and applied to to back of his head in the 80's and has been decaying ever since. His shoulders are collapsed forward because he's relaxed, in his domain. He's the king of chaos and stuck to 2"x4" studs he has a harem of naked women torn from tawdry magazines, all inflamed for his desire. (Don't judge, greasy guys need love at their command too.)
He's standing in his garage where he does dubious shade tree mechanicing. He loves Fords cause his daddy loved them and they ain't no foreign junk and that's all he needs to know, ever, period, don't bring it up again. Snap-On sockets, the only thing of quality to be seen, are hanging out of the open drawers of his red, 5'4" tool box (I know because I stand by it). Black, limp rags hang from the corner and are piled all over a darkly stained cool gray floors, scattered with clay cat litter that scuffs when I move. Old cylinders of various welding gases stand in a corner, not sure what color they started life as but the scratches showing different layers of paint and ending in rust. Cars are in various stages of being repaired or torn apart. Parts from all the cars mingle like it's a cocktail party and they're hell bent on going home with a different car then they came with.
I've stood here before, not at these exact coordinates, but I've been here assessing the general view of the area. I've stood here doing the complex math required to extrapolate what it means about the people who own and work in the place and what it's going to cost me to leave with a car that runs and drives.
- This is simply a character sketch I want to save for a future story, our cars are fine. My mechanic is far classier and better looking than the quality one described. :) My thanks goes to S for the business name.
He's standing in his garage where he does dubious shade tree mechanicing. He loves Fords cause his daddy loved them and they ain't no foreign junk and that's all he needs to know, ever, period, don't bring it up again. Snap-On sockets, the only thing of quality to be seen, are hanging out of the open drawers of his red, 5'4" tool box (I know because I stand by it). Black, limp rags hang from the corner and are piled all over a darkly stained cool gray floors, scattered with clay cat litter that scuffs when I move. Old cylinders of various welding gases stand in a corner, not sure what color they started life as but the scratches showing different layers of paint and ending in rust. Cars are in various stages of being repaired or torn apart. Parts from all the cars mingle like it's a cocktail party and they're hell bent on going home with a different car then they came with.
I've stood here before, not at these exact coordinates, but I've been here assessing the general view of the area. I've stood here doing the complex math required to extrapolate what it means about the people who own and work in the place and what it's going to cost me to leave with a car that runs and drives.
- This is simply a character sketch I want to save for a future story, our cars are fine. My mechanic is far classier and better looking than the quality one described. :) My thanks goes to S for the business name.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
The Pop-riveted Wonder
It was green, wasn't it? Last time I saw it, green was the predominant color. A dark, dusty green, with small cracks where the sun had been able to get through the shiny gloss that enticed the original owner. The cracks ran down to a peachy spot that was sandy and dull and picked up on the other side where they branched out to a burgundy burst of rattle can paint. Then they dove on down to where it suddenly stopped short in the mottled silver of tin that took up where the crack had left off. A rivet seam sewed the tin to the fractured green.
Each tin patch gave way to another tin patch, their rivets lined up in precise rows until the tin gave way to a cancerous lesion's lacy edge. The rust that threatened to end the life of the venerable machine, eating it in pieces and leaving it in the Upper Michigan driveway to nourish life with its oxidized iron.
Sometimes Dad, a tall imposing man whose gigantic hands were the terror of every naughty boy in Sabbath School, would wind up its motor and charge the feisty steed shooting gravel from under balding tires down the driveway toward the growing pothole that marked the quarter mile point. As my brother, Eric, and I, bent toward the space between the two front seats our blond heads nearly colliding in the center with each lurch. Our eyes were pinned wide open with the g-forces and we leaned forward with the thrill that 35 miles per hour on a gravel road can give two grade schoolers.
Then we would hit the dip, our seats dropped out from under us, our heads rapped the seat in front. We would be suspended for just a second at the apex of our bounce and then we would be falling down while the seat came up impacting our bums with the force of a resounding spank. Our high voices would cheer. The sharp smell of the dust that had hovered above its resting spot, the lightly grooved plastic mats, was pulled into our noses as we inhaled sharply. Dad cheered too, I think, but it sounded kind of like, "it should make it to school and back." The struts were rusted so badly he feared they would give out and the sporty hatch-backed car would strand us on a lonely country lane while doing the permanent splits with its tires.
Normal places people don't have to worry about breaking their struts on the way to school, even if they are rusting. But Upper Michigan was hit hard by the slump of the 80's and it was rumored that our town had written the head of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to stock our potholes so all the non-vegetarians could all have fish to eat. We vegetarians were happy too, that meant more food for us since everyone else would be eating their Rainbow Trout, Sucker or Coho Salmon. Maybe, the hardy locals whispered, they would even stock a few Smelt for those prone to biting the head off of the little fish in the ecstasy of successful fishing.
This fish head biting was a local tradition. My 10 year old male classmates would puff out their scrawny plaid, flannel covered chests and recount their latest experience of this tradition hoping to make the small female population at our school scream. Most of the girls did scream, their stiffly sprayed bank of upright bangs quivering in their horror. The DNR never did honor the request and it seems that the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) - busily making life better under the bridge, never came to patch the holes. And so my dad continued to try to break the car in the driveway where we could get home easily.
I didn't like the car. In spite of the joy of the daily NASCAR like drive down to the looming pothole in the driveway it was beneath my 10 year old permed and hair sprayed dignity. Thinking back, it was the 80's, everything was ugly and there were very few new cars on the road but somehow I knew I rode in the ugliest car in the nation. This was my third school since I started five years ago and since it was populated with cousins and people of the North that had dug in for years, as a newcomer I did not feel welcome. Simply put, I was really not cool. Life was a tragedy and that was compounded by the green patch worked Datsun that got us to school.
As Dad drove, I would sink down in my back seat, well under the little triangle of glass that was my window. When we arrived to our orange and white vertically striped, tin sided school, Dad pulled the grayed green emergency break until it clicked out to its last setting and hopped out the "pop" the seat. I would scramble out careful not to catch my tightly pegged jeans on the car and hoped that no one, in the twenty kid classroom would see me out the plate glass windows.
Even then I had to admit it added brightness to my life. Eric and I with our heads down resting on our knees would amuse ourselves by pealing up the aforementioned rubbery black floor mats and peer at the pavement streaking by. The different colored rocks that made up the gray concrete would speed by making faint streaks of color under the car. We would whisper in conspiratorial tones about what we would do if we were kidnapped in the Datsun. At 10 and 7 we had it all planned out. We kept an arsenal of driveway gravel on the floor near our seats. IF someone were foolish enough to steal the Hornbacher children we would quickly pull up the mats to the secret holes in the floor and drop out the little rocks. A Hansel and Gretel trail of gravel. It was infallible.
But the best story happened when the Mother-in-law or Coco as we all called her, came up to visit.
To be continued...
Each tin patch gave way to another tin patch, their rivets lined up in precise rows until the tin gave way to a cancerous lesion's lacy edge. The rust that threatened to end the life of the venerable machine, eating it in pieces and leaving it in the Upper Michigan driveway to nourish life with its oxidized iron.
Sometimes Dad, a tall imposing man whose gigantic hands were the terror of every naughty boy in Sabbath School, would wind up its motor and charge the feisty steed shooting gravel from under balding tires down the driveway toward the growing pothole that marked the quarter mile point. As my brother, Eric, and I, bent toward the space between the two front seats our blond heads nearly colliding in the center with each lurch. Our eyes were pinned wide open with the g-forces and we leaned forward with the thrill that 35 miles per hour on a gravel road can give two grade schoolers.
Then we would hit the dip, our seats dropped out from under us, our heads rapped the seat in front. We would be suspended for just a second at the apex of our bounce and then we would be falling down while the seat came up impacting our bums with the force of a resounding spank. Our high voices would cheer. The sharp smell of the dust that had hovered above its resting spot, the lightly grooved plastic mats, was pulled into our noses as we inhaled sharply. Dad cheered too, I think, but it sounded kind of like, "it should make it to school and back." The struts were rusted so badly he feared they would give out and the sporty hatch-backed car would strand us on a lonely country lane while doing the permanent splits with its tires.
Normal places people don't have to worry about breaking their struts on the way to school, even if they are rusting. But Upper Michigan was hit hard by the slump of the 80's and it was rumored that our town had written the head of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to stock our potholes so all the non-vegetarians could all have fish to eat. We vegetarians were happy too, that meant more food for us since everyone else would be eating their Rainbow Trout, Sucker or Coho Salmon. Maybe, the hardy locals whispered, they would even stock a few Smelt for those prone to biting the head off of the little fish in the ecstasy of successful fishing.
This fish head biting was a local tradition. My 10 year old male classmates would puff out their scrawny plaid, flannel covered chests and recount their latest experience of this tradition hoping to make the small female population at our school scream. Most of the girls did scream, their stiffly sprayed bank of upright bangs quivering in their horror. The DNR never did honor the request and it seems that the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) - busily making life better under the bridge, never came to patch the holes. And so my dad continued to try to break the car in the driveway where we could get home easily.
I didn't like the car. In spite of the joy of the daily NASCAR like drive down to the looming pothole in the driveway it was beneath my 10 year old permed and hair sprayed dignity. Thinking back, it was the 80's, everything was ugly and there were very few new cars on the road but somehow I knew I rode in the ugliest car in the nation. This was my third school since I started five years ago and since it was populated with cousins and people of the North that had dug in for years, as a newcomer I did not feel welcome. Simply put, I was really not cool. Life was a tragedy and that was compounded by the green patch worked Datsun that got us to school.
As Dad drove, I would sink down in my back seat, well under the little triangle of glass that was my window. When we arrived to our orange and white vertically striped, tin sided school, Dad pulled the grayed green emergency break until it clicked out to its last setting and hopped out the "pop" the seat. I would scramble out careful not to catch my tightly pegged jeans on the car and hoped that no one, in the twenty kid classroom would see me out the plate glass windows.
Even then I had to admit it added brightness to my life. Eric and I with our heads down resting on our knees would amuse ourselves by pealing up the aforementioned rubbery black floor mats and peer at the pavement streaking by. The different colored rocks that made up the gray concrete would speed by making faint streaks of color under the car. We would whisper in conspiratorial tones about what we would do if we were kidnapped in the Datsun. At 10 and 7 we had it all planned out. We kept an arsenal of driveway gravel on the floor near our seats. IF someone were foolish enough to steal the Hornbacher children we would quickly pull up the mats to the secret holes in the floor and drop out the little rocks. A Hansel and Gretel trail of gravel. It was infallible.
But the best story happened when the Mother-in-law or Coco as we all called her, came up to visit.
To be continued...
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Changing Like the Wind
Muscles bulged, white knuckled fingers wrapped around the halyard and eyes squinted to see the top of the sail. Did the mainsail catch on the hook? Are we ready to go? The jib, pregnant with wind, pulled at us, our feet were braced in the water that tickled our knees. There was the hollow clang of the ring settling on the hook and we all began to look at the job in front of us. Batten down the snacks, jackets and shoes, sail and tuck the mainsheet in its cleats then bruise shins and stub toes while scrambling topside because sailboat 888 is not staying by the dock for very long.
Our eyes turn to the open lake, wind creating a map of it's directions and speeds around the lake. Out to the starboard side a it is like a crazed weaver created a cloth with random texture, some of the water nubby with wind and other parts smooth and soft like velvet where the breeze has lifted her skirts and floated past on lace pantaloons without touching down.
We were in a nubby section and the boat is sliding backwards toward immanent collision with the dock at a frightful speed. The mainsheet yanked forcefully from the stainless steel of cleats allows the mainsail to slide across the hull, we ducked our heads one right after another in a silly looking dance to miss the mainboom's skull crunching reach as it swings overhead. Turbo lifts his black fuzzy ears as it comes toward him and drops to the trampoline deck with an omph. Once it is settled in its new location it causes us to bear away, out of the wind's strength, and gives us more time to get all the tack arranged and ready for the warm breezes that are pushing across the lake.
After an appropriately democratic discussion on where best to tie down the mainsail we begin come about and the boat begins to heel. The three designated scramblers, Charles, Dad and I, scratch and tumble under the mainboom and onto the hull that is hovering above the water by several inches. We do not want to capsize, what a mess that would be, we don't even know how to sail let alone right an upside down boat. Thus we are off across the lake heading toward our current destination, the other side of the lake.
My hair pulls out of it's ever present black hair tie and finds a way to tickle my nose and slide into my mouth. My heel touches the water and it releases diamonds from its murky depths that land on my leg and slowly make their way back to the whole. Eric, at the helm, has the smile of the toothpaste model, his hand holds the tiller firmly. Dad and Charles lean out over the hovering hull, holding spider web guy wires, their eyes shut to the wind. Dad is dipping his backside toward the water to see how close he can get before it drags. Turbo the breeze pets him, ruffling his hair on his head, then his back and then lifting his tail for one last tweak, lays with his chin between his feet. His frosted eyebrows move up and down as he looks around at the liquid and shoreline birds sliding past. It is silent among us.
In front of us a velvety spot appears, much to large to avoid and immediately the wind stops. The heeling hull comes down to the water and Dad's posterior comes down into the water and he yelps. He and Charles laugh while splashing around to get out of the water and back topside. We're learning. So there we sit. Wind happening all around us, other sailboats speeding on toward the other side. We look over the edge and our faces stare back at us a perfect mirror in the middle of a lake wracked with wavelets. We pull out the paddles and begin to paddle toward the nearest nubby spot in the lake but we don't make fast time. Sometimes it works and sometimes we wait it out until the wind blows up on us again. It will, it always has, it may take awhile but it will come running by, pick up our languid sails and we will fly again. We may have to adjust our course, or our goal but we will sail again.
Our eyes turn to the open lake, wind creating a map of it's directions and speeds around the lake. Out to the starboard side a it is like a crazed weaver created a cloth with random texture, some of the water nubby with wind and other parts smooth and soft like velvet where the breeze has lifted her skirts and floated past on lace pantaloons without touching down.
We were in a nubby section and the boat is sliding backwards toward immanent collision with the dock at a frightful speed. The mainsheet yanked forcefully from the stainless steel of cleats allows the mainsail to slide across the hull, we ducked our heads one right after another in a silly looking dance to miss the mainboom's skull crunching reach as it swings overhead. Turbo lifts his black fuzzy ears as it comes toward him and drops to the trampoline deck with an omph. Once it is settled in its new location it causes us to bear away, out of the wind's strength, and gives us more time to get all the tack arranged and ready for the warm breezes that are pushing across the lake.
After an appropriately democratic discussion on where best to tie down the mainsail we begin come about and the boat begins to heel. The three designated scramblers, Charles, Dad and I, scratch and tumble under the mainboom and onto the hull that is hovering above the water by several inches. We do not want to capsize, what a mess that would be, we don't even know how to sail let alone right an upside down boat. Thus we are off across the lake heading toward our current destination, the other side of the lake.
My hair pulls out of it's ever present black hair tie and finds a way to tickle my nose and slide into my mouth. My heel touches the water and it releases diamonds from its murky depths that land on my leg and slowly make their way back to the whole. Eric, at the helm, has the smile of the toothpaste model, his hand holds the tiller firmly. Dad and Charles lean out over the hovering hull, holding spider web guy wires, their eyes shut to the wind. Dad is dipping his backside toward the water to see how close he can get before it drags. Turbo the breeze pets him, ruffling his hair on his head, then his back and then lifting his tail for one last tweak, lays with his chin between his feet. His frosted eyebrows move up and down as he looks around at the liquid and shoreline birds sliding past. It is silent among us.
In front of us a velvety spot appears, much to large to avoid and immediately the wind stops. The heeling hull comes down to the water and Dad's posterior comes down into the water and he yelps. He and Charles laugh while splashing around to get out of the water and back topside. We're learning. So there we sit. Wind happening all around us, other sailboats speeding on toward the other side. We look over the edge and our faces stare back at us a perfect mirror in the middle of a lake wracked with wavelets. We pull out the paddles and begin to paddle toward the nearest nubby spot in the lake but we don't make fast time. Sometimes it works and sometimes we wait it out until the wind blows up on us again. It will, it always has, it may take awhile but it will come running by, pick up our languid sails and we will fly again. We may have to adjust our course, or our goal but we will sail again.
Monday, July 9, 2007
A New Way to View Fireworks
Hmm too much has happened since my last post. July 4 was spectacular. Why? Well I was able to indulge my pyro tendencies and watch the fire works from the happening side. And better than that my mom was here.
We spent part of the day getting Mom a computer case, then we went to Rutkowski's for "linner" (Lunch X Dinner) and I skimmed their pool for bugs while I swam...that always keeps me busy. Strange habit? I guess I like to save the ones I can and make sure the dead ones don't get on me. Then we took off for Winston-Salem, a Warthog (I could go off about that name) game and fireworks. Jason Rutkowski helps set off professional fire works shows.
I don't have the photos imported yet but the unexploded fireworks looked different then I expected. Humble brown paper cones from 2"-4" with names like orange fury and green lightening. It was very cool. There were racks of pipes that they had ALL of the fireworks loaded into and their wicks like brightly color tails over the edge of each pipe. We sat around and ate more watermelon and waited for 9pm or the end of the game if it went past 9pm.
....as I stare off into space, rock slowly and reminisce...
Eric and I were crazy about fire. When we were younger one of our jobs was to take out the trash and burn it. Truly I don't believe Mom or Dad ever had to nag us about that one. We would melt bags on sticks and little fire bombs would drip slowly off the deforming bag creating meyham and destruction where ever it landed...if you were the size of a bug. And no we never harmed little bugs knowingly but Eric and I both have scars on our hands where our little plastic bombs hit us instead of the ground.
Good times.
As the fireworks began the smell of sulfer and smoke filled my nose and a smile spread onto my face. Over and over forms would bend down, light the fuses and run a few steps away. A great flash of blazing orange light would explode from the pipe and a delicate fairy trail of light would shoot to the sky. Several times twinkly sparks would rain down around us and people would dance erratically to dodge each little searing ember.
The finale was 3 crates full of pipes each laden with a 3 or 4" shell and each fuse precisely coupled with the fuse next to it. Many of my photographs look white hot in the center with countless red tentacles trailing away. It was a wondrous cacophony of whistles and thunderous roars.
We rode home with Terry and Randy. Randy voice was a soft hum in my ears as he discussed, all the way home, a new breast cancer drug with Mom. My eyes were weighty with sleep.
Ahhh the perfect ending to the 4th of July!
We spent part of the day getting Mom a computer case, then we went to Rutkowski's for "linner" (Lunch X Dinner) and I skimmed their pool for bugs while I swam...that always keeps me busy. Strange habit? I guess I like to save the ones I can and make sure the dead ones don't get on me. Then we took off for Winston-Salem, a Warthog (I could go off about that name) game and fireworks. Jason Rutkowski helps set off professional fire works shows.
I don't have the photos imported yet but the unexploded fireworks looked different then I expected. Humble brown paper cones from 2"-4" with names like orange fury and green lightening. It was very cool. There were racks of pipes that they had ALL of the fireworks loaded into and their wicks like brightly color tails over the edge of each pipe. We sat around and ate more watermelon and waited for 9pm or the end of the game if it went past 9pm.
....as I stare off into space, rock slowly and reminisce...
Eric and I were crazy about fire. When we were younger one of our jobs was to take out the trash and burn it. Truly I don't believe Mom or Dad ever had to nag us about that one. We would melt bags on sticks and little fire bombs would drip slowly off the deforming bag creating meyham and destruction where ever it landed...if you were the size of a bug. And no we never harmed little bugs knowingly but Eric and I both have scars on our hands where our little plastic bombs hit us instead of the ground.
Good times.
As the fireworks began the smell of sulfer and smoke filled my nose and a smile spread onto my face. Over and over forms would bend down, light the fuses and run a few steps away. A great flash of blazing orange light would explode from the pipe and a delicate fairy trail of light would shoot to the sky. Several times twinkly sparks would rain down around us and people would dance erratically to dodge each little searing ember.
The finale was 3 crates full of pipes each laden with a 3 or 4" shell and each fuse precisely coupled with the fuse next to it. Many of my photographs look white hot in the center with countless red tentacles trailing away. It was a wondrous cacophony of whistles and thunderous roars.
We rode home with Terry and Randy. Randy voice was a soft hum in my ears as he discussed, all the way home, a new breast cancer drug with Mom. My eyes were weighty with sleep.
Ahhh the perfect ending to the 4th of July!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)