THREE FACES REDUX

If only I could make sense of it.

I've never been good at puzzles, crosswords, jigsaw, whatever. Don’t get me started on them Rubik’s cubes, neither. Or Rorschach’s. All that ink always looks like unmentionables to me. I’ve seen more than my share, sitting across from the sandy-skinned eggheads, pushin’ their glasses up their needle noses, grunting, sighing, scratching pencils on paper in stupid leather-bound journals. They’re just ink blots to me, these eggheads, man oh man. I just tell 'em what I see and let the dominoes tumble. I see lots of crime scenes. Blood on walls and floors, dripping from chandeliers. And the occasional butterfly. I see them, too.

Butterflies keep me sane.

Anyway, I got no patience for puzzles, it is always a catch-22. If I solve it, it don't make no never mind. It doesn't change a damn man thing, just like when politicians flap their gums. They’re all crooks and I’ve always been under their boot, bubble gum on a slimy toad's shoe. I see 'em all the time, slimy toads and their slimy toad offspring, all plump and candy apple red cheeks, stamping their feet in those catholic school get-ups. I yousta wear my older brother’s hand me downs, even the pants he was wearin’ when he died from pleurisy. No one even knows what pleurisy is anymore. They cured it about a year too late for Jim. Still, the pants were good. I wore the knees plumb through, with my ankles showin.’ I was the high-waters kid growin' up.

It left a mark.

Back to it. I drift, you know.

I’m still trying to put this dream together. I’m talking to Matthew McConaughey. He's a head-shrinker. He's going to chat with my lady friend. Well, three of my lady friends, actually. I'm sitting on the side of the bed, and faces started rotating, clickin’ in, clickin’ out. First, it was Anna, my last, and then it was Bebe, my first, and in between, Callie, who I hadn't considered in years, given her frightful temperament—she was a shoe thrower, that one. It was like I was at the optometrist; it was. The way their faces slid in, making that sound you only hear at the optometrist when them Teddy Roosevelt sized lenses glide and clack and turn. Who invented that contraption? Whoever it was probably croaked broke.

Anyway, all the faces came into semi-focus, then clearer, then fuzzy. A or B? A or B? Ok, how about now, B or C? C? We all know the drill. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was five. A kid called me four eyes once. I beat him with a board behind what used to be Shiner’s Livery—the horses were long gone by that time. I never rode a horse, now that I think on it, but I have lost a bunch of dough on them. Nags, all of ‘em. Never bet the jocks from Argentina, either. Trust me, just don’t, never do it.

Ok, back to the point, their faces just kept rotating through, and then it was just Bebe. Figures, it’d be her. I hated her. And I loved her hard. She grabbed my hands and said over and over...leave me before I leave you. Don't wait for me. Don't wait for me. Her breathing is shallow and labored, and she wheezed when she spoke, but her words were strong and clear, and she smelled of chlorine and salt and Autumn. Then she evaporated, like one of them Dracula movies where the rising sun hits them demons through the stained glass. Like sandpaper grating hard cheese, she became a pile of moldy dust, nothing really. Not enough to put in my pocket. And I tried.

What she said made me laugh. I would never have waited for her knowin’ what I know’d about her. But I would have walked up to the volcano's edge and looked in. I woulda done that for her, and I had done that more than once, whether she knew it or not. I’m good and steady walkin’ to the abyss, peering over. But I would never throw my life away for her—no one else, neither. I don’t tell her that, but I think it. I would deplete myself for her, though, sacrifice. But there is a point of goin’ too far. Danger close like we usta’ say in the jungle. Still, I can be a loyal dog, always lookin’ for love that will never come. Even when it's gone.

From here, it gets weird. But I’m exhausted, so the rest will have to wait, the story I’m tellin’.

I can’t sleep with all the racket in here. I’m not the only one dreamin’ out loud.

And most of it is not pleasant, the shrieks I hear.