091118 I am very tired. the yellow cat is annoying, the way she wants to go outside, then inside, then outside, then inside; the fact she needs help to open and close the door. She doesn’t actually even try to close the door. This isn’t going to work tonight. That’s not true because as long as you do it, it worked. It doesn’t have to be good. You don’t have to get an epiphany. You don’t have to get a frisson. You don’t have to get an idea. You don’t have to cry. You don’t have to experiment with setting and breaking the pattern. You don’t have to show no one how bright you really are. You are looking younger. You aren’t drinking so much, and you are letting your hair grow out a little. You still have a SEVERELY receding hairline, and that one spot on your forehead, but honestly, something about this year, this fall, this time, whatever you’re doing or not doing or whatever is going on around you or whatever you’re getting into or up to, is making you look a little younger. That’s nice, but you are also worried about Megan. You are uneasy in your stomach because when you said, “We got a sick kid here, can you talk more quietly,” she didn’t say, “Oh gosh sorry, yes, I’ll be more quiet” like a decent normal human being. She said, “I mean sure I guess.” Like it’s so unreasonably. Like we’re just putting her out soooooo much. Like we’ve offended the princess with our impudent complaints. Why does this piss me off so much? Is it because I won’t tell her about it because I don’t want to start something? That’s how she defends herself: by reacting so caustically to any kind of confrontation that could be even remotely taken as criticism or heaven forfend an *accusation* that the very thought of it is so unpleasant you don’t want to do it unless it’s ABSOLUTELY necessary. In short, she can’t take criticism. She gets mean and hard when cornered, like a feral animal. OK, some people are like that. Why does it matter so much if she’s one of them? Because it makes me look bad? Because it makes the rest of the household members, aka her *family* less happy and at peace and stable and safe and happy? Because I don’t want her to grow up and be a fucked up monster like her mother? Because I don’t like her talking with boys at all, really, and the resentment at listening to her laughter, her giggly stupefied laughter rippling through the hall makes me seethe, and find all manner of other reasons to dampen it, other than just saying, stop fucking laughing like an idiot with boys at night? Because I never got to do that because we didn’t have the internet? Well, we did have telephones and I got in trouble with those, too. Because I don’t want her to grow up like me? Because I don’t want to have to face my own weakness if I avoid confronting her about it? If I let her have her way so as to avoid that snake stare, that narrow-eyed thin-lipped stare of utmost loathing? Because I don’t want to face the possibility that what I did with her mother--let her get away with it--is what I’m doing with her? I mean I sure I guess. Ha ha ha I want to say something funny and wry and cynical and dusty like a cowboy after that. I want to be wearing my duster and have a rough chin and kind of give a rueful grin in the mellow afternoon sun outside of the watering trough. Where Jameson works. In his glasses. His apron. His receding hairline. Jameson is shorter and older than I am. He smiles more easily than I do. But his smile is still bittersweet. Everyone around here has only wan smiles, only knowing smiles, only wry, ironic, sardonic, or ultimately *accepting* smiles. Yes, we do smile, but no, we do not open our teeth wide to the sky in idiot joy. We do not do that as a desert succulent does not do that. We can not afford to do that here. There is not enough water to spare, here. We cannot be frivolous and wasteful here. But occasionally, we find some small bit of redemption in the way our eyes meet. Our half-formed, half-absent smiles overlap sometimes in the afternoon, when ordering a drink, when mopping up the bar, when talking about tomorrow’s plans. Tomorrow it’s time to meet the Bakerton boys. They rolled into town and something’s got to be done. It is our redemption that despite or perhaps because of our inability to fully smile, we will work together to meet them and to do something about them. We will because that’s what we have to do. We have to go up against them even if it’s scary. Who knows. Maybe it’ll turn out to be nothing. It won’t turn out to be nothing. They will have guns and they will try to kill us. Some of us may very well die tomorrow. That’s the way it is. That’s the way people are. That’s the way life and death intertwine in this place. Are we OK with that? No. Are we human, and do we therefore still have to approximate something like a smile sometimes? Something more or less like sharing? Although we are growing old and our hairlines are receding and our jaws are rough and our boots are no-nonsense, don’t we still retain some infinitely inner minuscule molecule of the absurdity of childhood, and doesn’t it have to spark between us, arc between us in a fleeting moment, like invisible lightning in the heat when the sun is boiling the western horizon and making the shadows jagged? Yes we do and that’s why our smiles are so far away. Do you want a drink tonight buddy? Nah, Jameson, thanks but my stomach doesn’t feel too good. I think I’ll turn in early but I’ll take you up on that drink tomorrow at this time. Suit yourself. Ha ha I will you know I always do. I’ll drink to that. See you tomorrow.