Cecil Disharoon, author

I'm Cecil, writer of Anywhere With You; Be Chill, Cease ill; I was an ESL Online instructor until the recent law changes, My new interactive horror adventure, Versus the Curse of Allautou, is waiting for you on itch.io games. Games Create, under Lyron 1, contains several interactive story games you can play, free. The very latest is Sunstrike and Company: the Infinite Pyramid, a science fiction adventure with childlike, superhero, and philosophical elements. Choose Tappandali (the plant man), Merriwyn di Archiere, or Shamilal Asano to begin this choose-your-own story game, with three other playable characters within.

In the past, I've written freelance feature articles, often with a first-person experience twist, for Planet Weekly in Tuscaloosa, AL/Jackson, MS, The Strip in Tuscaloosa, and most recently, since 2018, for Eisner-Award winning Back Issue Magazine. It's internationally-distributed periodical, interviewing comics creators from the 1970s to 1990s, many of whom worked on properties now popular in television and film! We drew and created D'n'A: The Mountain, a horror comic plotted by Angela Dawn Disharoon. We sold the comic and its t-shirts in San Diego, CA. I worked later on the IDW comic book, Hero Duty (with Joe Phillips, creator/artist); and the interactive YA horror Ciara's Haunting, a Select Your Own Excitement web of multiple option storylines. I've been performing and writing songs for Integr8d Soul for many years now, including eight and a half spent in San Diego, California. Marc Kane's my partner, also singing and writing with me. You can give us a listen on reverbnation.com and bandcamp.com. We're working on new recordings, of indie rock songs that range from musical callbacks to the original days of rock'n'roll to gentle folk-influenced tunes and crunchy drop-C rockers. There's an ebullient heart beating beneath the often-upbeat, spiritual lyrics.

Anywhere With You was modeled superficially on romance novels, as an effort to break out of my usually intensely-introspective prose style, to deliver a plot of two young people falling passionately in love. It's a story about coming of age, pursuing Art and Freedom, and Romance- with a twisted ghost story threaded within. Be Chill is an outgrowth of my blog, full of short stories, essays, and pieces based on visiting the haunts of San Diego. It's dedicated to my friend T.J. Jones, for whom I began the blog, and Penelope Medina, a newborn addition to the family of our friends Hai and Moriah Medina. Great Job! You Get A Star! is based on our first year experience as ESL online instructors for children in China. The biggest PR boost my writing almost had, came from Love Is Love, a 144 page offering by DC Comics & IDW Publishing- a benefit book dedicated to the victims of the Orlando Pulse Night Club shooting in June, 2016. Joe drew a page and asked me to script it; only later did I realize the high profile of the project, which was announced soon afterwards by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times! Our page was dropped for space. It may not be famous work, but I see its promise. I think you will, too. - Be Chill, Cecil The latest, Sunstrike, can be played for free at : Please, leave a review! Did you have fun? What do you think?

This video previews my first published book, which I'd like to re-create.

A gentle one: It Can Be Like That (a love story)

“It Can Be Like That”

AS I think of you, falling asleep
there’s not much in my many memories to keep
me from waking you with the gentlest touch
and sweeping you up when the feeling’s so much
and it’s lately been that way
just like an early day

I’d give up gladly anything that I own
for a glimpse of your face, I might take out my phone
pictured there on my arm with an angel-like charm
for you’ve earned peaceful sleep
but I’m raptured so deep

when we sing together, cling together
It can be like that
and what years that we know, and what wrinkles may grow
if we keep this fine art, of our love from the start
It can be like that.
It can always be like that.

When I see young love in the making anew
and I hear of whispered words that will ever be true
I see them in the hearts of the lucky ones old
who hold hands and hang on when the years become gold
for it’s all the same
never end this game

For there’s days, many days, that pass in our eyes
and should time make them dim, here’s a word to the wise:
that the first flush of feeling that you find so appealing
needs permanent room
hidden safe from the gloom

and just walk together, talk together
it can be like that
and what years that we know, and what wrinkles may grow
if we keep this fine art, of our love from the start
It can be like that.
It can always be like that.

And it’s heart felt to say, I’m not that kind of man
who can never be found when he finds a new plan
when you’ve got to get a grip, reach for that same hand
for like fingerprints, the pattern remains
even after pitter-patter, and so much for our brains

Over seas together, please together,
no I’ll never complain
If we cling together, sing together
unbroken ring together
long as the sun reflects on the moon
and deep as midnight, yet brighter than noon
when we walk together, talk together
it can be like that
we return like spring and everything
I ever loved in you
it stays on my mind
and we’ll always find
it can be like that

it’s our fling, together, wings together
that’s how we’ll fly
when we love together, love forever
across the sky
and we’ll cry together, why together
we could smile
of our love forever, love together
it can be like that

It can always be like that.
7/14/17 3:39 am Cecil Disharoon, Jr.

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Write Your Novel! (and I'll Write Mine) A look back, a look forward

Write Your Novel: How I Did It, and Believe You and I Can Do It AGain!

Summer More Fun Than Others?


I have a lot of creative ideas visit me each summer. If I can wash away any corners of maudlin thought or unnecessary conflict, what’s left besides Creativity, Kindness, Love, Beauty, Expansion, Abundance, and Receptivity? There at every pivot is another helpful possibility, vibrant, opening another detail, unlocking ideas towards the future- and the future of each individual invention, or even each individual relationship. An impulse awaits to unlock more of my energy and engage with some work: helping someone, making something or offering an activity that will help or delight a person, filling the present with another logical part of progress.

I love the feeling of mild anticipation, love when it waits for me on either side of my sleep, an almost conspiratorial sense as if preparing a surprise. I love when my thankfulness fills the emotional spaces in between my actions. I love when I’m in such a mode of appreciation and attention that simple details take on meaningful resonance. I love when my skin practically tingles with my imagination interacting with another impulse towards activity. I love when it’s a spontaneous moment, and I love when it’s a vision of many pieces coalescing into the edifice of a strong story, song, essay, career defining pathway. I love living them out in my imagination, and I love recording that journey in some way that marries practice with spontaneous discovery. I love when walking a passage seems like another handful of a thread through a secret, rewarding maze, invisible to the world- but sometimes, possible to depict!

I enjoyed that first month of summer all my life, when the freedom for my mind to play would first open the possibilities of time all my own. When I was given access to my grandfather’s typewriter, I began composing my own index, emulating the format of text guides that provided credits, title, a list of dramatis personnae and their ongoing continuity, and then, a succinct plot synopsis with which the imagination could conjure a story in the most terrific images and style imaginable. I would try to envision what the pages of these never-drawn comics might be like, what pacing and angles might compose the panels. I drew a few humble comics, too, and creating a checklist and funny bulletins of titles that, if I only had time free, I would love to write as a coherent universe of individual tales. I’d drink sweet tea and sit outside in the cool of morning with my own type write, a twenty-five year-old hand-me-down from my aunt, staying geeky long after supposed grown-up interests and the cruelty indoctrinated in adolescence would’ve otherwise subsumed my wonder.

I have made each of my completed books, largely during that late spring/ early summer block of the year. I have at least contributed heavily to each of them during that time, and it seems to return to me each blessed year. The task itself takes control of my life, and I lose myself in its joy.


So I wrote a real novel. Yes. It’s a process detailed four years ago now across the June and July entries of Be Chill, Cease ill. Once I settled in, I began writing, over the course of six weeks, first 1500, then between 2000 and 6000 words daily. I kept up with my weekly word totals. I would revise as I went along, and would accept getting less total words in some days for the sake of spiffy up writing from the day or days before. Since I was commemorating memories to serve a specific, emotionally-satisfying purpose, I talked often with my partner, best friend, and incidentally, wife, Angela Dawn. I’d intended to do this for years, tried drafting early parts many times. I guess a quiet desperation mounted to finally see it through, so as to appreciate its value as a story, moreso than to acquire my own book.
I read similar materials, though I also read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods that spring, too. Point is, I wanted to craft an extended narrative, so that’s what I read.
I believe I was reading books aloud together with Angela when it occurred to me the directness of the romance novel format- which develops character, but also moves plot forward in a straight-forward manner without Faulknerian rambling- would center a story that could just as easily have been filled with lengthy digressions and experimental approaches and clever tricks. This way, I would ascribe the emotional atmosphere of each beautiful moment I wished to fictionalize/ novelize, then resume the business of moving the characters’ lives forward. I was well into the process when I figured out the ending- the last two weeks saw a more deliberate pace, crawling up from probably 60 thousand to right at 73 thousand words. I also posted suitable samples that would not give away too many surprises nor catch our characters in, well, too sexy a moment too often, as intimacy, its discovery, was my subject, rather than smut. I lived in the world of that story those six weeks. It was the last and probably most major and complete work I did living in California.

Sometime later, I incorporated the diary addition, as I was handed my grandmother’s diary of the most romantic period of her own young life, after she started seeing my grandfather. I felt the characters, who had embraced Love as though they invented it, would benefit from a tie-in with the similarities true love reflects in lives of all generations. The change in the times, the more liberated modern era’s contrast, also spelled out some ways their love was unique to its era. I found the perfect place for them to make that discovery and inserted adapted bits into that expanded late-book chapter. I had used the distance of California, physically, to reunite with everyone in our lives as they had appeared in the perspective of that time. In some ways, the account served as my own diary. Now while revisiting our home state and towns, I could add the finishing touches.

Almost a year after I began my rough draft, (I’d Go) Anywhere With You went on sale on Amazon.com, May 1st. I made, once I had online access again daily, my first attempts at publishing and sales, printing copies on demand through CreateSpace and getting an interview with a local radio show hosted by Nell Regan. My book was carried in the two local bookstores; I had a rather dreary attempt at a book signing at Dogwood Books, accompanied by posters spread across downtown carefully, and made a few bucks playing my guitar that day. I tried contacting book clubs- no luck- and offering my book for review- no luck- as well as to a few likely publishers. My query had- no luck. But I sold a copy here and there personally along the way, and sometimes I’d have an Amazon sell, even over seas!


As much as Anywhere became my first complete actual experience writing a novel, that still tells only part of what it meant to me, and what might it mean to you, if you read it. Would you rediscover the initial, perennial elements of young love? Would you remember a time, or a dream you had of love? Would you enjoy a coming of age story set in the 1990’s? If you have your own book in mind: along with necessities like a plot, writ beforehand or discovered in the process or both, characters to grow and explore, or formulas for experiments you’d like to try- what would writing it mean to you? Not just the completion of it- but the writing itself, the recurrent appointment?

I ask myself, what did I learn, as I turn to crafting the next one. I have another one, composed of short stories and later tied together by an intermittent and bracing framework, which I wrote for a private audience. If I could re-capture the sense of crafting short stories, a sense of my audience, and merge its promise with the exciting notion that my OTHER book and comic might help me reach them, then these chapters which lie ahead might not prove so daunting. Already, events in the news such as the travel ban speak to the formation of the single character whose interpretation I feared failing most. Sometimes you just have to see what you can do!

This time out, it’s a subject matter not so much for me, personally, but crafted to speak to the experiences of others moreso. It’s also a synthesis of things I’ve learned as I resumed writing comics and cultural analysis late this April, as I used the completion and planning of Integr8d Fix to train myself again to produce promising amounts of story material. I’ve written a novella, or long short story, take your pick, based on another fictional property in between. I adapted the plot for this one starting with a comics inspiration, with a character imagined from talks with my friend in Australia, James. I shifted and played with how to create a series, as selling a series is a useful way to produce commercial novels. And make no mistake, I intend craft as well as art, because I want to earn a living that will allow me to keep exploring this talent- and growing!
This time, I’m looking at technology and social trends I see developing now to help me create a world set in the near-future. It takes some thought: what might be more possible in five years?
I feel like The Butterfly has a strong chance to be loved by, and populated by, young characters.
Will my young adult characters be convincing? I want it to contain a socially diverse cast. Will they each sound authentic? But then, the authenticity of one’s own identity is a perpetual coming-of-age question- regardless what age you find yourself becoming, young adult, middle-aged, older.

You can drive yourself to distraction wondering too much about “will this be ‘this’ enough?” I looked to the past for Anywhere. This will have less of my reliable memories and it may not be as emotionally comforting as that cozy, love-filled novel. But those characters faced their own set of uncertainties, too. They just faced them together. I wonder how broad a set of supporting characters I’ll really need to speak for a true variety of what you find in life, and I think I’ve got it. At some point, you decide you’ll tell the story of whomever shows up.

You may worry about writing unnecessary passages, but who knows what good writing all of it out might be. You can always edit and revise further. Don’t let a desire to take every step perfectly stop you from putting another step out the door! Don’t worry too much about plans you may have had if you started something you’re continuing later. Dig them back out as you go! Once you see the names again, the plot points again, you’ll either see new directions or remember the compulsion you felt when you included that character, that point. You can always retrofit things you meant to say, make room for what tells the most focused story. Relating a realistic set of human beings always offers the chance you’ll sprawl. That’s a credit to the number of stories you’ve added to your storytelling. Let the process guide you as you engage.

There’s always room to be made for a brand new idea- like a bizarre dream I had that works as material for a near-future VR party. It’s off-putting in the way social gatherings sometimes are, and reflects a real discomfort with some of the steps society’s taking towards the future.

As a very young person, I often found myself alienated by how callous others could be; now’s not the time to worry that I’ve become old-fashioned, because naturally some of my characters will reflect my own sensitivity, while others will simply be less-caring for motivations of their own. You also don’t have to completely map out anyone’s motivations, and you definitely don’t have to telegraph them! Let cool phrases and insights be your guide in what you put down. You can make any statement you want- just don’t bore your own self, meandering!



The illustrations inside the book Angela just showed to me got me thinking how we used to do one for each short story. Finally, last winter I got the first seven chapters of Chrysalis of the Butterfly basically down in a concentrated frenzy similar to my Anywhere outburst, interrupted by my foray into Select Your Own Excitement, prompted by an opportunity offered by my Danish programming friend and the arrival of my teen niece Ciara into my life. Since then, The Air Is Haunting’s fallen into disrepair beyond my control- a risk you take entrusting others- but one day I hope to get up material saved there to try another book, plus its setting precipitated the plot I chose to write a pilot for a cartoon I hope to resume with its creator this winter...after we complete the comic book he pitched successfully to IDW Publishing, with a little writing help from me. I accepted a friend’s suggestion to write for a comics site, and learned from my enjoyable friendship with a long-time professional writer, too. And hey, I finished a magazine article this spring, then, chapter seven!

However trying to my patience Life around me has been, always there was a faithful return to enough personal peace to settle in and write. Whatever promises were forgotten by others or never meant at all, I kept one eye on the most objective standard of Truth I could conceive, and the other on dreamlike possibilities.

My point here? Keep trying things. Keep creating and writing. Even if years must sometimes pass and projects seem to fall apart, a character or idea might be knocked loose to visit another storyline elsewhere. Allow yourself some creative experiments! Do things for fun, but always with some resonance in your genuine interests. Write different formats like skits, songs, poems, plays, essays, magazine features, blogs, stories-but keep turning to yourself often, if not practically daily, for entertainment born of your own intellect. Read! And take in life around you, building the most meaningful relationship circumstances will allow. This widens the identities of characters you can create. You are writing for today. Today is writing to serve tomorrow, and often, to preserve fascinations of yesterdays. Learn to examine skillfully delivered effects and how and when to implement them in your craft. Find an audience that compels your inner voice to speak. Schedule yourself some structure, but know when it’s worth getting behind to attend a new idea or a valuable personal interaction.

Let go of thoughts that block your intention, even as you let go of even the nicest compliments and starry dreams more readily than you imagined. And if your finished product turns out twice the length of the estimate with which you cajoled yourself into sitting down to start it, like this one did for me, don’t fret, pet.

Love, best always, sincerely, and with regards,
Cecil aka C Lue.

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I'd Go Anywhere With You: Reminiscing at the Awful Waffle

Chapter Seventeen

Lewis and Gina awakened after a quick nap. He felt a little bad about not re-joining the party.

“Believe me,” said Gina, “no one expects you to…no hard feelings!”

http://integr8dsoul.bandcamp.com/
They met his dear friend Chris at the Waffle House later for warm congratulations. He explained how he’d called out from work and gotten a replacement for his shift, then spent the next four hours trying to get to the wedding on time.
It wasn’t much time to get to know the bride, but Chris felt a genuineness about her. She was bright, too, and the three had many a good laugh. Their party felt very natural with Gina along.

“Remember my friend, Von Balasuriya?” asked Lewis. “He called to congratulate us. I don’t even know how he found out! Maybe my sister.”

“My friends LOVED that guy when he visited me,” said Chris. “He almost kept up with me, partying!”

“As you can see, the new member of the band is very cool,” he said, hugging Gina. “So the days of road trips needn’t end!”

“Great! You know Baby Aries is always up for a new journey.”

“I can guarantee,” Lewis replied, tongue-in-cheek, “next time I’m asleep on the passenger side, I won’t wake up from an Amaretto-induced nap yelling while you’re passing an eighteen wheeler in the rain!”

“Dang it!” said Chris, laughing. “I thought we were dead. It’s maybe the one time I thought of killing you myself!”

“Since I got to legal age, I’ve hardly drank anymore,” said Lewis. “I’ve had like, four beers! But we had some fun in those days. Oh!” he said, turning to Gina, “this was when he visited me at college and drove me home for the holidays. Poor guy. One of a few idiot things I’ve done.”

“You didn’t mean to,” Chris replied. “But if you do it again, I’ll open the door and let you out, no matter how fast we’re going! Ah, that was the year of the Christmas Adam party, complete with streakers and that amazing hunch punch you made that got Heather and Ed dancing in handcuffs.”

“Now this boy and I,” Lewis said with a pat, ”used to take home leftover fried chicken wings and go cruising til all hours. One call and they never gave me any hassle about spending the night. His Mom loves me. Mom and Dad never gave me any trouble over hanging out with Chris. We never hurt anybody. I don’t think they knew about the sign changing, though.”

The guys burst out laughing.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Lewis. “He and I had so many thought provoking conversations, about being yourself, finding your own way. Maybe I was too hard on the society around me; I just found it frustrating that people couldn’t raise the level of discourse.

“But dining roo og made it all better,” said Painter. “Our manager Johnny sounded so perfectly confused when he found what I’d left of the ‘dining room’ and ‘to go’ sign!”

“Yeah, I’ve got to catch her up on all those exploits,” said Lewis. “But maybe it all started the night I stayed over and messed with your Mom’s message board on the fridge.”

“Feed Michael to the Cats!” Painter said with a guffaw. “Spade Weldon!”

“That’s Chris’ brother and his now-step dad, by the way,” said Lewis.

“Look, those two are getting married this spring, themselves!” said Chris. “They’re going to have it out at his new house on the golf course on highway twenty seven. The sixth hole is actually their backyard, basically!”

“I don’t know when we’re leaving to stay,” said Lewis, “but if we’re in town, you know we’ll be there!”

************

“I meant to ask,” said Lewis, in one of the lingering interruptions. “You like that Joni Mitchell I loaned you?”

“Oh, yeah!” said Chris. “You know me. Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, all that, forever! Anything from my Mom’s era. I listen to that album at night, before I go to sleep!”

“It’s ‘Green,’ just like my first R.E.M. album---you know the one with ‘World Leader Pretend’ and ‘Inside Out’?” said Lewis to Gina.

“It didn’t have ‘Losing My Religion,’ did it?” she queried. “My Mom loves that song. She used to sing along with that video every time it came on! She calls it ‘the Losing My Religion song.’ It’s too funny listening to her sing it, because she’s kind of tone deaf!”

“She probably grew up with that expression, too,” said Lewis. He wondered what significance it carried for a former minister’s wife. Then again, it had a nifty mandolin and a haunting use of d minor, set to a cool rhythm. Maybe that was the appeal!

“Nah, that one’s on the next record, ‘Out of Time.’”

“My brother had them all, I think!” said Gina. “His band used to play a cover of ‘Superman.’ They borrowed my dad and uncle’s equipment and jammed out in the garage!”

“Ooo, I know that one!” beamed Painter. “I am, I am, I am Supermaaan…”
Everyone sang along. “And I can do anyyy-thing!”

“The smash hit off ‘Green’ was ‘Stand’ actually,” said Lewis. Painter and Gina did an imitation of the facing directions dance from that video next.

“Haha, the ‘Green’ I’m talking about is Joni Mitchell’s. You know ‘Wish I Had a River’?”

“Oh, yah!” she said sparkily. “The Indigo Girls did a cover of that!” She sang a little part of it, beautifully.

“Yah, thanks for that one,” said Painter. “Seriously, I was sleeping to it every night.”

“I liked sleeping to that one, too,” said Lewis, warmly. “I like that song ‘Carey’ too, but it’s mostly a dreamy kind of record. I just knew when I got back from Colorado, I wanted to hear all the great song writers, so I bought Carol King, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Beatles…a lot of stuff I already liked, but I really tried to absorb them. And now, I play guitar…sorta!”

“I used to sing in the chorale,” said Chris. “I only do it as a goof now!”

“What, sing in the chorale?” said Gina, jokingly. “I did that in high school, too. We did this chorale version of ‘Great Balls O’Fire’ that was like, totally NOT what Jerry Lee Lewis intended!”

When she mentioned the school production of Grease, Painter flipped. It was without question his favorite movie of all time. Sometimes Lewis wondered if Chris wouldn’t be perfectly happy diving head first into the screen while “American Graffiti” played, straight into his own ’57 Chevy.


Gina gave Chris Painter a hug before he finally got on the road. They told each other goodbye three times, and took half an hour to break up the party. As always.

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I'd Go Anywhere With You : Washing with the Beatles

The Beatles were the subject over laundry a couple of days later. Lewis had connected with them at age fourteen, when he discovered counter-culture. “The Beatles were so cool, it didn’t matter if uncool people were into them, which is saying a lot,” he said. “I don’t know if Elton John was ever really cool, but he was kind of coming back as an adult contemporary artist with a pop hit when I was a big fan. They were probably his most massive influence, too, along with a lot of black records, like it was for the Beatles, and the Band really shaped his ideas, too, early on.”

“I had outpatient surgery to remove a cyst from my eyelid when I was thirteen. The two days I was home from school, I heard his songs on the Oldies Lunch Set on K-98. After ‘Rocket Man,’ ‘Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,’ and ‘Tiny Dancer,’ I was hooked! I couldn’t believe one man sang all this great stuff. There was more, too.”

“The Beatles was what got me invested in song writing,” he admitted, with a huge load of clothes in a bag that he took into the apartment complex washateria not far from where he lived. He had gotten into the habit of coming here while Ed, Wylie and Chris lived here as roommates. Today this trip would put them close to the hospital where her grandmother Custer was recuperating, so they started laundry as part of a two-in-one trip.

“I had tried playing along with some Top 40 songs, and knew a little piano, but between Elton and the Beatles, I got into lyrics and melodies. Well, actually Bernie Taupin wrote most of Elton’s lyrics.”
Gina started slotting quarters as Lewis continued enthusiastically.

“They had such a variety of song styles, although their straight-forward rock style that broke them in America is still classic. It’s what they did with harmonies, for one. And rock was really hungry for something fresh, with Buddy Holly gone, Elvis kinda neutralized by Colonel Tom and the army…”

He began stuffing the clothes in without any care, mashing the big pile down.

“Even something like ‘Octopus’s Garden’ which was written as a Ringo Starr one-off had this special magic, you know,” he continued, blithely rhapsodizing about Beatles. She knew they would wash better if they were separated piece at a time.

“It’s all these touches they brought as an ensemble, too. I wish I had a guitarist like George Harrison to work with! I mean, that’s what makes ‘Garden’ such a cool if goofy hit.”

She smiled and looked at her cool if goofy fiancé.

“Oh, Darlin’” she began, as if to sing to him, “would you stop for a minute and pay attention? I just realized something. You just got on my nerves for the first time!”

“I’m sorry, wha--?”

“Carelessly shoving everything into the washing machine in one huge pile,” she said.

“Oh! Well, I couldn’t really see any…”

“It just washes better if you put things in one at a time. Like, if you have socks balled up in a shirt, or something. Ha!” She felt relieved. She put her hands on his chest. “If you want to talk to me about the Beatles, would you mind if I took over? Because I don’t mind, it’s just…”

“Hahah! Okay. Sure…I’ll watch for that in the future,” he said, standing aside. “You know, I don’t expect you to get that, just because you’re the woman, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” she said brightly. “I was just watching you do that, with your mind somewhere else, and it just irritated me!”

“Well, every disagreement should end so simply,” he said, smiling.

“I’m sorry, heh heh! It’s no biggie.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry I got on your nerves, Gina Belle. But yeah, it was Lennon and McCartney’s basic facility with these masterful little songs, about all facets of love and some kind of surreal take-offs on lyrics, that were the basis for the band’s success. All good players…great singing…but it’s the song itself that makes the difference. And you see how their writing evolved, and how they more and more started writing by themselves…”

He didn’t stop enthusing over rock history. He also didn’t bother to touch another article of clothing the rest of the time.

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I'd Go Anywhere With You: How a comic book geek congratulates another comic book geek on his wedding

http://integr8dfix.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-comic-geeks-wedding-congratulations.html


Two days later, the phone rang. It was his dear college friend Von, wishing him a happy wedding.

“Hey, what’s up?” Von started. You could never have guessed English was his second language. A steady diet of American and British programs, and liberal use around his home in Sri Lanka, had prepared him well for his American trip. After his initial shyness led him to be dubbed “The Brown Recluse,” he never missed a chance to come to the drawing room or the bars and diners on the Strip and socialize.

“So Peter Parker’s found his Mary Jane?”
“She’s in my web, Von.”

“Well, don’t let her slip away,” he quipped. “No bridge diving without a bungee! Although I can understand a girl diving off the George Washington Bridge to get away from your diatribes.”

“Aw, get stuffed, Von. She’s such a sweet, down-to-Earth chick. I can’t wait for you to meet her. We met last month.”

“Wait, are you doing this for a green card or something?” joked Von.

“Yes, and I rushed the date before she notices they’re counterfeit dollars,” Lewis retorted.

“So Booster Gold needed to marry before he got deported back into the time stream,” rhapsodized Von, “and Blue Beetle bribed Queen Bee to tie the knot with him, with Batman officiating?”

“And the whole thing takes place on the island of Kooey Kooey Kooey,” continued Lewis, “so they can have a casino wedding. Until they ask for any objections, now or forever hold your peace, and Major Disaster shows up with a ring and a desperate plea!”

“Last month. Wow! She must be really into you!”

“We were about to flee the country---I mean, travel across the country---and we decided to let her Dad officiate. If she comes to her senses the next day, I figured you would fly around the Earth at super-speed and save us an annulment!”

“If you get near my neck of the woods, you should stop by Mallet,” Von offered. “I’m moving out next month with a couple of friends, but you two will be welcome there, too!”

They continued bantering, with promises Von would spare Gina surprise attacks at the front door until they got to be friends. Ten minutes after they said “let me let you go,” they finally hung up, as Lewis heard the apartment door open and his roommate slowly trudging up the steps.

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I'd Go Anywhere With You: Someone to Talk to...

Chapter Five



The night had begun with Lewis taking Gina on an adventure, and now, she was taking him into one, in a very familiar, domestic setting. Sure enough, her mother and father were sitting up, pleasantly surprised to have company. Lewis had a cheery nature that enlivened the room, and friendly conversation between everyone ensued. In fact, Hannah was still up, too, visiting with the boy she’d invited, Shannon. She was glad she’d taken a chance; they were still just friends, but who knows?

After he left, conversation roved for hours. At one point, they were laughing about how phrases people use are taken for granted for their implicit meaning without anyone really picking them apart: what was a nook, what was a cranny? Lewis had expected a much more gruff and burly individual when he’d heard Mr. Archer was a jail guard, but he was quite loquacious and broadly read. He talked about history, outlooks on life, and his personal history with the Air Force and his radio disc jockey days, openly. Mother had stories about all the girls, around whom her world revolved, when she wasn’t nose-deep in romance novels. They invited Lewis to grab a bite from the kitchen, and make himself at home.

Once he asked about the pictures on the wall, everyone had a good laugh about their well-dressed selves posed smiling in family portraits: Ash, with his “am I really here in this thing? Oh, brother…” look; Dixie, with hair teased into a life of its own, which had been reduced, she admitted laughingly, after a long argument with her mother, who often took issue with her tendencies to wear enough make-up to be Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Hannah was an adorable cherub, and Gina was a plump little thing smiling so hard her eyes nearly shut, beside her dad, with a bit more hair combed over than now in evidence.

Another picture on the wall showed a sweet little angel of about four or five, wearing a homemade crown. “That was Gina’s crown,” Mother said. “Her little sister Hope begged her to wear it just for that picture.” He then learned briefly how they had lost the girl to a tragic accident at a family gathering, years before. He shared their sorrow, amidst jovial banter that surrounded the moment on either side. He thought of his own sister and his impending trip for the first time all night.

Finally, they talked about the portrait of the three sisters, all at the cusp of young womanhood, a gift they’d made for their parents for Christmas. Dixie, hair teased again, was up front, Hannah standing proudly above, statuesque, and Gina, arms behind her back, wearing a necklace that ended with a tiny birdhouse. The smile on her face was not quite a portrait sort of smile, almost as if the set of her mouth belonged to some anxious, distracted conversation the second before. Half of her smile was ready, and the other half of her mouth wasn’t, like a smirk. Beside the other sincere but practiced smiles she looked as though she knew something they didn’t. There was something undeniably sexy about her quirky expression, he decided.
By three thirty in the morning, Lewis wondered if he and Gina would be left alone again tonight. She seemed to enjoy the family parlay, snuggled next to him. It was the most time everyone had spent together in quite some while, with almost the whole family working and going to school as they did. Mother went to bed and told Lewis she had enjoyed meeting him. She extended Dixie’s invitation, also.

Just before the first crack of dawn, everyone else had finally packed it in. They had all enjoyed a new audience for their stories, and Gina had found out a few things about her new…friend? She heard about his first year in college, on scholarship, and his community college classes he’d taken the year afterwards. Why had he come back? Why was he not already back in college? Perhaps he had not found what he was looking for, had not found his place. He’d said something about wanting to gain life experiences, but there was probably more to his story, as school also had its own life experiences. It could be, she reasoned, his background and upbringing had not really prepared him for how to take advantage of college. Perhaps there was a sense of self-discovery necessary before any of it could be meaningful. She realized, even though she had wanted to attend college herself, it wasn’t clear just what for.
Maybe these motions that people were told to go through, by themselves, were not enough. They had, after all, led her to try the same things others her age did, and none of it had left her satisfied. In fact, beyond the confines of the family life and high school that she’d known, her optimism was largely buried, as one experiment after another left her feeling more empty, less valuable, less sure of her identity. This crisis of being was only now beginning to crystallize, here with this lovely man with the flowing, curly locks, whose attention seemed the most honest gift in the world. Something pushed her to begin to open up again, even though this had led her repeatedly to disappointment.
But now that they were alone, she took strength from him, given freely. She couldn’t have these feelings for him without telling him the truth about her pain.

How the conversation began, she really wasn’t sure; it simply meandered from her lips, as he petted and hugged her. If every life was made of one’s own songs, then now she was finding the words to sing him her love song, and its verses of sadness.

“So I wanted to thank you for the flower again,” Gina told Lewis, while grasping his hand. “I didn’t know how you intended it, but it really cheered me up. Pink carnations are friendship flowers.”

“I could plainly see,” he responded, “you could use a friend lately. It was my pleasure.”

“How plainly?” she said, with a little laugh.

“Well, if a person were to really look, it was there,” he said, with a smile. “But I thought you were pretty cool, at any rate, and maybe you were someone who would appreciate a gesture like that.”

“I did,” she beamed. “It’s sitting in a bottle filled with Sprite on my dresser. We’ll see how long it lasts.”

“I never had that idea before,” he said. “The Sprite. Well, the flower, too. No one ever gave me one, you know.”

“Haha, sure.” She looked him in the eyes. “I feel something I need to talk about. I can’t seem to stop myself. And I don’t know why I think you’d want to hear it. But you know how sometimes you just don’t have anyone else to say things to?”

“Well, if it’s a murder confession,” he winked, “this is a good time to preface your confession with something like, ‘you want to hear a funny story?’ or some other disclaimer. Not that they’ll ever get me to testify.”

“Ha, not quite,” she said. “It’s just…I have strong feelings about honesty. I feel I have to be completely honest from you, from the start…” She wondered just what did ‘from the start’ imply. Was she putting too much on his shoulders, on this one kiss, this one night? But maybe this time, rushing into things didn’t have to end in disaster. She felt she could trust him with the nakedness of her soul.

She stared away into the darkness outside, and began to tell him about what she’d always felt, about finding love, about saving herself one day for her husband, how she had always at least tried to do the right thing, had even been a good Christian girl afraid to disappoint her parents and herself.

“My sense of order and right in the world really changed,” she said, “and it’s hard to explain why. But eventually I found myself doing things that had never been me, before. I thought I was opening myself to new things, but I …really ended up letting myself down. I never found my way back. And every time I thought I was finding some more hope, it ended up worse.” She began to cry. “And I didn’t want to bother anyone about it…I love my parents, but I just couldn’t talk to them about it, and I didn’t want to change the way they saw me, either. And my sister had her own problems, and she would’ve been there for me, I know, but…it was all my fault. And all I could do is just keep doing things to help out…to be responsible…even though my heart felt so empty, and my life felt so meaningless…I got into exercise, and did these dances in my room…Dixie used to be part of it, too, helped me figure out some yoga moves, for a while. I started looking really different, you know, and I had so much hope! I thought…thought what I was doing would make my life brighter, and maybe more exciting. Maybe I would finally stop being invisible, or just a babysitter, or just the girl you called to work overtime.”

“So I thought maybe the time had come to be a new person. Maybe the things I counted on before weren’t really my own ideas after all. Maybe now, I was ready to change.”
So, she told Lewis the story of how she’d been celebrating her friend’s wedding. I guess she had always kind of used us before, like when we’d come over and clean her room with her, but then she’d come over and just flop down and talk to Mom and Dad while we had chores. I didn’t hold it against her much. But then…we were sitting on her bed…”


(ahh...wouldn't you like to read my book now...;-D

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I'd Go Anywhere With You : No Regrets!

Chapter Nine
Literally the next day, things took a turn for the strange.

Sure enough, their next liason was beautiful, passionate, spontaneous, and fulfilling. Now that they had plucked this fruit together, there was little to stop them from exploring its tender textures, its savory flavors, and the freshness.
Her reaction surprised him considerably. Dismay might be a better word.

Gina shed a tear, taken aback by his strategic withdrawal.
Not unreasonable, he thought. They’d never once discussed the very real possibility of starting a family with their first love.
He tried to explain, and she did understand, intellectually. The truth was, the feeling of completion inside her had been the most satisfying thing ever in her memory. Its absence was unexpected this time, and however irrational it seemed, she tried to reach for an explanation.

“It’s not…it’s not that you’re rejecting me, really,” she started.

“Of course not, baby.” He felt a bit dizzy. Despite himself, he could actually feel how, from a certain point of view, their rush into everything was just short of insane!

“After what I’ve…experienced up til now,” she continued, “I guess…” She struggled to put it into words. The last thing she wanted was to make Lewis feel bad about their times together. “How can I put this?”

“Did you want to get pregnant?” he asked, softly.

“Well, one day, yeah!” she said, sitting up. “I’ve always wanted that, someday, with the man I love. I definitely love you. I feel I belong to you.” She felt just a twinge of worry. Had she crowded him in some way with her complete acceptance? Had she misjudged? She took a breath, and aimed for a more level headed approach. He didn’t seem put off by what she’d said to this point.

“We don’t have to get pregnant now. I don’t want you to feel like that was it, at all.” She took his chin in her hand. “What I did with you, I did because I love you! It’s an act of love. It’s about you and me, baby.”

“That’s true for me, too,” he agreed, “though, you know as well as I, a natural consequence of sex without protection should be…you know…eventually, a child.”

Okay. How could they just talk about this without her seeming to be a crazy lady with no regard whatsoever for any issue from their love? Their first kiss was last week. How irrational was it, that she was ready for everything with him? One thing her parents’ perpetual struggles had shown her: it’s hard to really be ready for a kid. Then again, it was hardly their fault that every single form of birth control had flopped. Society called for a more reasonable response. Then again, society didn’t think people who had known each other for three weeks had any business deciding to be together for life.

“I can go on the pill for you,” she said, “if that is what you want. It’s going to take a little while for it to start working. After what we’ve done, I’m not sure I could ever use a condom!”

“I’m sorry I never talked to you about it, myself,” he said. “I’ve acted so impulsively.”

“And I LOVE that about you! I love that, in me. I wish I could tell you why it bothered me, at all. I…how do I put this? I’m just human. I felt a little bit like you might not want me. But baby! Don’t let that bother you! I know you want me. We both know the most potent sperm’s at the beginning, anyway. And it’s not at all that I need that from you to feel loved. It was just a feeling. I don’t want it to stand between us in any way!”

He sat back and laughed a little. “I’m glad to hear it. I suppose we could consider using condoms until your birth control started working. Or we could…wait?”

Now they both laughed.

It was hard to imagine a force on Earth that would make them wait, if they were both healthy!
The weirdness dissipated before long. In fact, for good measure, they were at it again before she left for work. This time, her poor underwear seemed to up and vanish. It was just going to be one of those things she’d have to deal with tonight.

She hadn’t been gone very long when the phone rang. Lewis was right beside it, thinking about calling up Ed to see if he or Wylie wanted to hang out. They shared an apartment just two miles west, where he had often gone, before moving in with Ed’s girlfriend to a place big enough for all of them, just behind the very McDonald’s where he’d fed Gina the cheeseburger. He hadn’t really seen them since his birthday, except on the job he’d just quit the week before.

Ring!

In fact, Ed’s girlfriend, who he had only met once, was the new server at Stefan’s. He wondered if he was going to need to apply there, himself, to make some road money, rather than live out of his new girlfriend’s pocket. Or…fiancée? Wasn’t that more to the point, now? Was there any doubt?

Ring!

Marrying her as soon as possible, considering how they felt for each other, was even more understandable to him, in an old-fashioned sort of sense, if they were going to sleep together unprotected. It irked him a little that he would feel that old-fashioned, if they weren’t simply going to wait…and besides, when had he planned for sure to legally marry? It was just one more convention…but why let the phone just ring, ring, ring…

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak to Lewis, please? Say…Lew, is that you?”

“Ah…it is. You sound familiar…”

“Do I? Dude, this is April. April Hilliard. Do you remember me?”

“I…yeah!!! Completely! Hey! I never thought I’d…wow!”

The sensation of dizzy came back for the second time today. This time, he felt a sunburst of feeling, a kind of joy…
…and…Gina. The love of his life. Wow.

“I just came back to town, and I got your number,” April continued, giddily. “I’ve been doing some modeling…well, hand modeling, mostly…but I was in Cleveland when the urge to come home hit me in a biiig way!”

“Heh! I imagine that often happens in Cleveland.”

“Hahah! You’re quick like always. I really hope you don’t mind me just dropping in from out of the blue, but I asked around and decided to look you up.” She paused. “You mind if I admit something to you? I never forgot you, Lewis. You were one of the coolest people in the world, like the first truly cool person I think I ever knew.”

“Thanks, April. I thought you were really cool, too. I appreciated catching your notice. I’m glad you remembered me.” He wanted to be reassuring, to return some of this energy she was beaming his way. He readily admitted, his exhilaration, any other time---a week ago, even---would’ve known no bounds. Something like that. He would’ve at least been thrilled to be remembered---honored to be her friend. That still stood true, really. She had been such a cutie…and the first girl to make him not just feel attractive, but the first to appreciate him as an artist, a mind and soul.

That book of his poems, modest though it was, was the first creative work he’d ever “published” for anyone outside his family. He’d felt as though he were taking up a mantle of sorts. She had enough soul to appreciate a thing like a simple book of poetry. She’d had the most beautiful body of anyone who ever…

“I think, of anyone in this town, I would be really happy to see you, and talk with you again.”

“Wow…that’s…very cool,” he said, failing to sound completely nonplussed.

He remembered how very badly he had wanted her. She probably never realized how close she’d come to being his very first. That one night had enchanted him like nothing before…

…and now, nothing like that could happen, because he couldn’t just go out with her to see what would happen. He’d just given his heart to someone loveable and true. They had moved so fast…but he meant what he did and said with her. She was too special to pretend otherwise.

“I know I’m kind of dropping in out of nowhere,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were dating someone
amazing, but you were that rare friend who has such an incredible impact on the way you see the world…you know?”

“That’s so flattering, April. You really blew my doors off, too. You made me feel like my inner life mattered.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say…you’re so good with words, Lewis.” She paused, still sounding very happy. “I wonder what are you up to, these days?”

Oh, how part of him, stirred by memories, remembered her in his arms, their special connection. But Gina shined brightly even now in his mind. If ever one day he would learn that love could exist between more than two people, such a thing seemed utterly impossible to him now. Gina had become his wind and rain and sunshine itself. Suddenly, in the presence this astounding little lady, he could see as clearly and definitely as ever, he now knew true love.

“Doll, I was planning on bugging out, about a week ago,” he began. “I had worked my two week notice and set my eyes on the road. I bought a guitar this past summer, and I’ve been writing, too. I wanted to be what no one else ever said I could be!”

“That’s what makes you so cool,” she beamed. “You were the first person I knew who wasn’t afraid to be creative, as a way of life. Not just an artistic person, but someone who ‘got it’ philosophically! That really opened the world for me when I started meeting other artists, when I started modeling. I got to meet some very cool people!”

“I’m really happy for you!”

“Thanks. So I got really lucky even talking to you again, sounds like!”

“I…feel pretty lucky, too,” he said. Now, he had to tell her.

“So, anyway, I made this friend, lately, before I left…and when we finally got to spend some time together, something…so incredible happened. Like nothing else before. And so much has happened so fast…I just kissed her for the first time a week ago, but April…she totally won my heart…I asked her to go West with me, first. Then we realized how deep the bond went.”

“That’s great!” she said, with half the energy but all the same sincerity. “So you just met someone special?”

“I wasn’t looking at all,” he said. “I had turned my back on needing anyone else to affirm me, needing a girlfriend to feel good about myself. I think I finally turned the corner on being truly comfortable with myself…truly being happy with my own company.”

“I always got the impression you had that in you,” she said. “I would’ve described you that way, anyway! “

“Well, I guess I did, some of the time, at least,” he said. “But never to the point where I was ready to just strike out on my own. I mean, going to college was like that, but then I would get hung up on a girl, and if it didn’t work out, I’d spend as long being hung up on her as I had, going out with her. Just a co-dependent mess!” She laughed along with him.

“So, I just wanted to cheer this girl up,” he said, honestly. “I thought I could do that and move on down the highway…just being selfless, gaining my strength from the task for its own sake, working and opening my eyes and heart to the song of life all around me.”

“That’s just how I remember you,” said April. “You just finally got around to seeing yourself as you truly were.”

“You really warm my heart with that assessment. It takes a lot of soul to see people that way.” He paused. He had been truthful.

“You know, I realize I was lucky to even talk with you,” she began. “I’ve got to admit…well, let’s put it like this. You’re just too good a guy for me to regret calling you, and I didn’t know where you would be in life…actually, where ARE you, buddy?”

“You know Juniper Street? Over in Riverside?”

“Oh, is that where you stay? Sure I know!”

“That’s where I’ve been for six months. That’s where I am this week, as it so happens.”
“Then, listen,” she said, summoning bravery in her voice. “If it’s okay…I would still love to meet up with you. What’s your girlfriend’s name? I would like to meet her, too. She’s got to be a pretty cool chick.”

“She is,” he smiled. “I think that would be fine. We call her Gina.” What could’ve been. Oh well!

“Yeah, you driving? I can meet up with you today or tomorrow, I don’t see why not. I’ll see when Gina’s available…I’ll pick a time she’s not working. I have nothing but great things to say about you. I can hardly think of a better friend for her to meet,” he said, trying to mirror her maturity and magnanimous charm. “I’m just lucky I was still around, so we could meet again!”

“I feel the same.” He thought of a time, and she recommended the Dairy Princess downtown.
He listened to her tell a little about her career; though she was two years younger, her life, he had to admit, sounded a lot more interesting than his had been. At least…until this week. With the elephant in the room calmly snacking on its peanut now, he enjoyed every minute of their conversation.

His infatuation with April hadn’t without merit. Yet…

…she had her one shot with him. Truthfully, at the time? She just wasn’t ready to let go of someone else. And these things happen. Chances come and go. He had even asked her, when he saw her again, would she marry him? He realized his impulsiveness had emerged before, but never from such a self-assured place.

Always, he had been looking for someone to complete him. First he needed to grow into a whole person, himself!
Because of what his talk with April had illuminated so brightly for him, Lewis didn’t hesitate to tell Gina that he wanted them all to meet. He thought her good nature would allow for this generosity. He believed in her to feel secure in trusting him. He felt good about being above-board. Because of her absolute honesty with him, he knew he could return the favor, and nothing need be taboo or buried between them. That sense of limitless space combined with hope for a world of actions made the future he saw with her, a masterpiece.

Lewis took Gina for a walk beside the water in the park---a favorite date spot and contemplation point in one. They walked to the end of the boat landing, beneath the low hanging limbs, and sat out on the tires tied together as bumpers for the boats. She looked really great in yet another top gifted to her by Misty, lavender with a window opening on her chest at a diagonal. “My skirt’s just perfect for sitting with my legs up on the end of a pier,” she burbled.

“So funny thing is,” he began, “this friend is the same one cousin Jack mentioned the other day. “She had been friendly, so somehow I decided, on Field Day, to give her one of my copies of my book of poems. There was one about Auschwitz, one about life as a spiral groove, one about passing time in traffic in chill mode, some funny ones. I don’t even know what became of it, for sure. I guess I was comfortable enough with the charge of pretension! But she liked it. She gave me her phone number a couple of days later, and I gave her mine. Then she called me one day a couple of weeks after I graduated, and we met in the cocktail area of what is now Stefan’s. Same place we danced, later, you and I. We blew the joint after a little conversation, and went up to Clocktower Hill. We got out for a walk to enjoy the view, and then it started raining, so we ducked back into my car.”

He held her hand and looked off into the trees on the other bank.

“We started kissing…really good ones…and it was way more than I hoped for. I thought we might just be on a friendly
excursion.”

“You gotta watch that,” Gina joked.

“Don’t I, though? So we climbed over into the passenger seat, and let back the seat. I am sorry I don’t remember what else we talked about, but…she was really really revved up. As a red-blooded male, that was all I needed. How could she know I was a virgin, too? She lifted up her pink skirt, and pulled her panties down. I thought I was going to explode. I wanted her so bad! I undid my pants, too. I could see her naked body exposed, and I thought “well this is finally it!”

“Then…she stopped. She apologized. She said something didn’t feel right, and it was her, not me. Would I forgive her if we could just stop for now? And she read me well enough to know I would give in and do that for her. We just held each other while it rained, and she thanked me for caring enough about her feelings to understand. I had no idea what I was understanding,” he chuckled, “but I was sure what was the right thing to do, anyway. When the rain lifted, we kind of abruptly ended our date. I mean, we had pretty much skipped to the end, under the best of circumstances, and who knew where to go from there? I wondered, after she left, had I rushed too quickly into things…had I seemed too eager for too much? But I was hardly alone.”

“We talked a couple of more times on the phone. She got back together with this guy she’d been seeing for like three years, was it? And they had just broken up when school let out, I don’t know why.”

“I think it makes sense to me what happened,” Gina reassured him. “If that was what she was going to do, anyway, it would’ve been a lot worse for you. More baggage for her, too. It really wasn’t to do with you, darling.”

“Well, I ran into her again…I don’t quite remember when, but I was single, and so was she, and she was living with someone right across from an aunt of mine. This is what Jack talked about. Logan was there, too. Like a fool, I remembered what had happened, and affix all this significance to it. I even asked her like, would she want to marry me someday? Hahah---like you have to do that. It’s pretty obvious where I wanted things to go again, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure she said no.” Gina’s smile made him glad he had opened up so much. It really didn’t seem like too big a deal, with the level of understanding they shared. Funny how different things felt on the outside, in conversation, than they did bumping around in the dark, in his head.

“Yah. It was an amiable enough parting. Maybe, if things hadn’t gone so far before, so quickly, I could’ve just, you know, asked her out again or something normal. I guess these drives to …do certain things…and the values I was trying to honor…maybe they short-changed the honesty of my experiences. You know what I mean?”
“Intimately,” she said, assuring him with her body language and tone.

Fortunately, she had the next day off, so meeting April was no problem. He saw her parents drop her off---she didn’t have a car, apparently---and Gina and Lewis met them in the Dairy Princess parking lot. Very nice people. Not obviously the parents of a model. Then again, April was a little short for the usual top tier of that profession, but unique in her look and cute as a button in her blond pony tail. Her friendliness was rewarded and reciprocated. A few minutes later, they’d all placed an order and sat down to chat in a booth, with Gina curled up unconsciously on Lewis’s arm.

They had a good time, talking about April’s career so far, the odd and talented people she’d met, and she was genuinely interested in the strange path into the unknown awaiting Lewis. It seemed lit with more ideals than details, but that was hardly a surprise. She promised him that those things took care of themselves, so long as a person stayed true. Gina shared a little of their romance story, talked with her about babysitting, and quietly listened to the old friends’ exchange. It was funny how well they clicked, because the realization hung there, April and Lewis didn’t really have very much history together. For all the intensity of their one date, it had a kind of innocence about it. Lewis had no idea, as yet, about the different kinds of love that could exist between broad-minded people---but that is another story altogether. All he knew was, he had, however impulsively, made his choice. He could see now, it carried some consequences, and from his perspective, closed some of the possibilities of which he’d barely been conscious, now.
For all that, he felt no regrets about Gina. He was very glad these two liked each other so well. Maybe this time, they could keep touch?

How could he know, when she climbed into her parents’ car an hour later…he’d never see her again.

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I'd Go Anywhere With You: Til Morning Light

She cried some more, and let him hold her. She had no idea what he was thinking…only that he was listening. He asked how long had passed between these things. She could barely keep it straight, but she tried to tell him. It was hard to look him in the eye.

(Excerpted from Chapter Five. I've got to leave something for you folks to buy!---Cease)http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=995210395573738136#editor/target=post;postID=1417792027091669763;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=9;src=postnameis where it all began.

“So I knew I hadn’t really been in love with those guys. I had just hoped to share a loving experience, and maybe from there, something more could develop. But I felt like a fool. I just kept getting used!” He listened with a tightness in his stomach. It was a surreal experience.

“Finally, there was this guy Richie who met me at work. He came in with his uncle, dressed really nicely…he asked me for a date. I took him up on it and he took me around to see his family’s different construction sites! Some date! But he suggested we keep seeing each other. I gave him a chance with me, and hoped maybe this time things would be different, that he would really be my boyfriend. My parents thought he was pretty together when they met. But he had this pretend Mafia-thing going, just because he was Italian and macho. In this case, he wanted someone who would jump when he called the shots; he wanted me to be ready on little notice to get dressed and meet him where he wanted, and was really bossy about it. I couldn’t take too much of that. I realized I was better off with no one, than to be under that guy’s thumb.”

Her tears dried up, and she looked up at the cardinals that rested on the bare branches outside. “I thought we’d have a chance, you know. Maybe this time it would be love. But every time I tried to be a big girl about all these things, I just got treated crappily. I was just going to let go and keep my head down and work and keep my problems to myself from then on. Funny thing is, when I met your roommate, we hit it off great as friends, and he used to tickle me and flirt with me. But there wasn’t really anything there. I had him down to the house one night to watch Jurassic Park after he said he was single, but there was no chemistry there.”

Lewis picked up her chin and looked her in the eyes for a minute.

“I really don’t know what you think of me, now,” she said, “but I had to get it all off of my chest. I felt like I betrayed who I used to be and can’t go back to that…but I don’t know how to go on without breaking my heart again. And I never realized how empty I would feel from giving myself to find love.”

“Look, I don’t think anything bad of you,” he replied, stroking her chin as the sun rose. “I didn’t find love, exactly, either. It seems like I could never get sex and romance together, and romance always burned out for some reason or another…just bit the dust in depression. I eventually learned to take better care of myself. But what I did wasn’t really so different from you, and what you did…is just part of life. It’s part of the process of trying to find love…trying to discover yourself. Once you believed in the rules, and when you broke them, you found there was no going back. I’ve been there. But you mustn’t blame yourself. These experiences are just part of life. You have to believe that. You can’t be so hard on yourself for your disappointments. You weren’t trying to hurt anyone when you got hurt.”

She sniffled and hugged him. Then, she kissed him. She managed a bare smile for him, for his kindness. “It means a lot to have you listen, Lewis.”

“You know,” he said, “I’m not really sure where this friendship of ours is going. I know I really like you and feel like you’re this really great person inside.”

“Thank you.”

“Here’s what I believe we should do,” he said, taking her up in his arms again, then holding her out at arm’s length there on the couch. “Let’s just take things one day at a time. Day by day, let’s see how we feel, and let’s always do things that way. Let’s see how we feel on each day, and feel free to act on how we feel, based on the present. If there’s something more, it won’t need to survive on a promise from before. Oh, that rhymed! Heh. It will come to life based on a real feeling, then and there. I won’t lie to you. I certainly don’t know exactly where I’m headed next, but I have to tell you I’m really glad we met.”

“Me, too.”

“We’ll always have this wonderful night we shared, walking, talking, me meeting your family. I really felt a part of something. And you were really brave to open up like that.”

“Most people just play so many games at first,” she said. “I didn’t want anything from my past to hurt whatever might be, one day. I don’t feel so alone anymore, anyway, and I have you to thank for that. I know you have to do whatever you have to do now…” She remembered he was, after all, planning to leave town when they first met. Had it just been a couple of weeks ago?

“I guess whatever I have to do next is go pee,” he admitted, “and while I can go home and sleep after y’all drop me off, I know you will need some rest before work today.”

“Oh, I’ll manage,” she said. “I’ll sleep better now than I probably have in a very long time. I only have to work lunch. Heh, here, let me show you to the bathroom down the hallway. Got to warn you, it can be a real disaster area with all of us living here. It can be a housekeeping victim. Worse than the kitchen.”

“Well, not to worry, I’m not here inspecting for the health department.”

When he was alone, he noticed he’d gotten a little excited, sitting here alone listening to this woman. He thought briefly about how he didn’t want to simply take advantage of her. How many women waited down the road, that needed a friend, a kiss, a little kindness? He relished the strange adventures he’d experienced since moving out from his parents, since he’d begun driving, the places he’d awakened, the people he’d met.

But there was something so sweet and gentle about Gina…her fragility attracted him. Whether or not it would bring out the best in him was really for him to consciously decide.

When he came out, he sat back beside her on the couch, and held her hand again. “Say, Gina…if you’re not busy after work…why don’t you come over to the apartment to visit with me? If you want, we can go for another walk or something. I liked talking with you.”

“I don’t see why not,” she replied. “Okay, I’ll come over about two, maybe a little later if it’s very busy. We’ll be up to give you a ride in a couple of hours, basically. Let me get you a blanket from the closet.”

“Aw, righteous,” he acceded. “I guess this is a good time for you to sneak off to your room. I don’t want to make things too weird here in the living room, if your parents get up.”

“Hahah, well, they trust us implicitly,” she said, rolling out a comforter to drape over him. “We’ve had friends stay over before. Not anybody I kissed though.”

“I’ll take your word,” Lewis said, yawning. He laughed with her when he heard a huge snore come out of her parents’ room, next to the living room. “Sleep tight, pumpkin.”

“You too, handsome,” she said. She lingered at the hallway frame and gave him a tiny wave. Before her eyes ever closed, she felt like she was dreaming.

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I'd Go Anywhere With You: Open Door Policy

Chapter Three

Gina reached into the stove to add a baked potato side to the tray of meals she was taking out. Her sister turned the prime rib on the grill, while Denise assembled a plate for Martin. Kaylie, with her auburn hair tied into pig tails, offered to run a tray for shy Debbie, a pale white pretty petite blond who had just started. “Pretty slammin’!” Denise remarked. “Sorry I lost my cool over those dropped salads.”

“Eh, can’t take it personally,” Martin replied, tucking his order book back into his apron. “I’m glad things are picking up lately. We’ll have higher bills and rent without Lewis to pitch in.”
“Your brother’s moving?” Dixie asked, as she reached with tongs into a pan for sirloin tips. “Pardon my natural nosiness; I just butt in where it feels right!”

“Ha! Yah, he said he’s leaving for Colorado in about a week,” said Denise, brushing ash blonde bangs back. “He kinda wants to hitchhike, but I suggested the bus. The days of thumbing it are done.”
“I love a great road trip,” said Martin, as he helped Kaylie expedite the plates. “Danny and I went to a Ren Fest in Texas before I moved in with Lewis. I could make a life of it.”

“Oh,” Denise cooed, cocking her head, “why don’t you and Danny just elope and be Dharma Bums?”
For a second, Gina thought of Martin’s secret, passed in confidence, about his problems with Denise. He had fallen into a similar pattern years before with his mother. His pain had brought out Gina’s own Little Mama instincts. Maybe that had been part of the draw; she wanted to give what she so desperately sought for herself, even though she told no one her problems. Look what happened every time she confessed them before.

Martin smiled and ignored the light-hearted bait. He knew Denise could get a little jealous of his attentions sometimes, but this was just part of her sense of humor. Probably. “Of course, I’ve heard that not even Kerouac thought much of the ‘go on the road and find yourself’ path after he lived and wrote about it. You see a lot of things, but sometimes you lose more than you find.” He turned to Gina and offered to take one of the big trays ready to go.

“Who’s got the party in the Garden Room?” Bud asked. He was tall, and wore a trucker cap and had a goatee. He puzzled over ingredients added, subtracted, and re-added on the print out.
“Uhm, chick…” said Kaylie, snapping her fingers, as she tried to bring the name to mind. “Chick and…dude!” She spoke with a Northeastern accent.
“Chick and Dude…that needs to be the stars of a romance,” Dixie chirped.

Gina shouldered her tray with a faint smile. So Lewis was on the way out. He had been pretty friendly. It was nice to have an encounter of any kind with a guy that didn’t backfire horribly. For a moment she envied the thought of packing up and going out on one’s own. She had never spent a single night away from her family, though. Any idea of where to go was just a fog, anyway. It was a simple pang of yearning to be anywhere else. She imagined people often felt like strangers in their own lives, so she made little fuss over it.
Across the river, Lewis finished garnishing a plate, himself, amidst a flurry of activities. He enjoyed the challenge of working “the wheel.” He didn’t plan to stay long enough to be a waiter at Gunther’s Crab Shack. In fact, this was his last night.


Cheering up people and helping for the simple reward of the task for its own sake had become his guiding lights. He didn’t feel particularly close to his co-workers, but he’d gone out with them a time or two. He’d been drawn aside by an old friend who was now a coach at an area high school. Cody had warned him earnestly that he shouldn’t get comfortable being part of this crowd. They were never going anywhere else. He had settled for whatever he could get, himself, even though he had a very pretty wife, Thea, who had graduated just ahead of Lewis. They wondered what happened to his full scholarship and how he had drifted away from that world of opportunities. Cody apologized for meddling, but the message was warmth in a cold sink of drudge work, a wave, a reminder of the high hopes everyone had felt for Lewis when he was a senior.

He clocked out two hours later, shook Maureen’s hand and thanked her for the holiday work. She expressed concern for him, too, but wished him luck. With his brakes still in need of replacement, Lewis had gotten into the habit of briskly walking to and from work. The honesty of his exhaustion and the chilly air, the self sufficiency of his path without complaint or begging for ease, all appealed to his hungry yet peaceful spirit. He reflected upon the people he’d helped and wondered what the road might conceive ahead.

Without consideration of a further romantic entanglement---he’d always felt the need since adolescence to define himself with some girl of interest, before he realized he needed to be more secure in himself---Lewis valued Art now, Music especially, as his mistress, and his love was now kindness towards everyone he felt needed it. He felt he was finally growing up. Let life be the romance, now; being alive and self-sufficient offered chance meetings and ignored pleasures, free of the selfish circle of dependency that had left him empty inside. Six months with no serious girlfriend contender had become six months of re-discovering his own curiosity. It gave him time to buy and explore learning guitar, though he wondered if lessons might not have been a better choice. Still, he’d just chosen to try a few chords initially, then explore making whatever sounds he could find, in an effort to be original and different.
Even now, as he winded down Riverside Drive in the darkness, a melody quite beyond his ability to play shaped up in his mind. Hard work and new encounters were to be his only companion. Anger and depression fell away, with the self-pity that came about from lost love and confusing paths.

The next day, Lewis walked down to Stefan’s to spend a little time with his sister, who was preparing to get off work when he arrived. Her friend Gina had agreed to take her to do a little shopping, so he simply tagged along. He took a back seat in the Mercury Topaz the Archer sisters shared, and the three passed the multi-story riverside library---the sleeping place, as he thought of it, of all his intellectual fathers--- and rode down Turner McCall Boulevard to pick up a dress in layaway for Hannah, and Turtle’s Records for a used cd Denise had to have. For her, at the time, the harder it rocked, the better. She had all types of interests in music and played piano quite well, but hard-charging music was her present taste. Lewis reflected tongue-in-cheek over how long it had taken him to be comfortable browsing again without buying anything, after he’d been busted shoplifting on his fourteenth birthday with T.J., who slipped three old jazz tapes down his shirt at the K-Mart across from this very store. He watched Gina follow quietly along with Denise, and thought of how she could do with a good smile. She seemed like such a hard-working and giving person, but had a listlessness that matched her too-tiny frame, like a plucked flower. There was a reason you left blossoms in the wild, he thought: once they were cut, their beauty couldn’t be possessed personally for very long. Where had he heard something like that? A plan hatched in his mind.

Once the trio got back to the car, Lewis asked politely if he could stop by Kroger’s across the parking lot. “I have something special I need to check on,” he offered.
“What you want?” asked Denise.
“Just something special. I’ll fill out the questionnaire later.”
“Okay, smarty-pants. But if you take too long, we’ll leave yo ass!”
“Your concern is touching,” he replied blithely. Gina cranked up and gave him a ride to the door, anyway, and Lewis dashed inside.
“Wonder what’s the mystery ingredient?” said Gina, watching after him.
“Tampons!” croaked Denise.
“Condoms,” replied Gina.
“Excuse me,” said his sister in an imitation of his voice, “you got any Preparation H?”

The girls shared a wicked little laugh. They agreed, it was definitely a mission for hemorrhoid cream. At any rate, he was back, with his jacket pulled shut, in a couple of minutes.

The ride under the bridge beside the duck pond and the Civic Center had Gina on Juniper Street in seven minutes. Lewis pondered his six months in this neighborhood, just around the block from where Grandpa Green and Aunt Glenda lived.
He would have to walk over and have supper with them one night before leaving.
Gina pulled up in the driveway, beside Lewis’ sidelined Corolla. At the top of the stairs, Denise made the discovery that Martin had her key, on her keychain, to the apartment. His was locked inside. Lewis fidgeted with his jacket, mildly concerned, cradling his secret to his bosom under a winter-clouded sky.
“I forgot, I left him my car to drive home,” moaned Denise. They stood languidly for a minute before their dilemma. “We’ll have to go back up to Stefan’s and get a key to get in!”

Lewis paused a breathless second. The air pressure itself seemed to twist. “Hell with this,” he muttered coolly, as he reared back on one leg and raised his other one up to chest level. He smashed his foot into the door knob, kicking it open to swing compliantly on its frame, as his sister stood by agape. Lewis then strode up the steps inside to the apartment door, while Denise’s emotional temperature began to build to vaporous portions. Gina’s amazement at this violent if chivalrous gesture began to convert into barely-suppressed giggles. He stepped inside, with her close behind, as Denise cursed and rushed into the bathroom. Gina flopped on the couch.

He stopped at the bedroom door and turned, to reveal a single pink carnation. He turned to Gina, reached over her shoulder, and laid it on her chest. Her face lit up in complete surprise, as he drew his finger to his pursed lips: “Shhh.” She watched his blue eyes blink once, an impish smile of delight passing over his face as he turned, without a word, to his room, walked in, and shut the door.

Dumbfounded, Gina cradled the flower by its stem, looking after him. No man had ever given her a flower before. She wanted to share the moment with Denise. She heard a bottle smash in the bathroom, a plastic one full of Pepto Bismol, as she would soon discover after Denise stormed off into her room. Gina sat and brushed the carnation against her cheek, relishing its fragrance and suppressing tearful titters.