Glass

I can hear their laughing on the other side of the glass. Yes, I feel envy, but also disdain. But I brush both feelings off and scan myself for deeper thoughts. I can write about my feelings all day long. It's feeling them that gets me.

Hard Blood

The hardened blood runs thick through all our veins, but it is most striking in the women of the family. My father has three sisters, Alex, Sam, and Rea. As reflected in the shortened versions of their birth-names that they go by, they are proud of the hardness in their blood.

My Aunt Alex is the most straight forward of the three, seemingly given the largest dose of hard blood. This is a woman who was shocked to hear that I'd made it to the age of twenty-four without ever being sexually assaulted; she was almost offended. She avoids one-on-one time with family members, though she likes their general presence. She only feels comfortable discussing things that are killing us and the hopelessness of the world.

At my family reunion, I obtained several wounds from drunken wrestling with my male cousins. I spent the rest of the week flaunting these wounds, bragging that, no, those boys never did get that damned float from me! I got some strange looks; someone even suggested that I was suicidal, a point I did not care to dispute. Only my Aunt Alex gave me the response I was seeking.

"They may have kicked the shit out of me" (I point at my black eye and fat lip), "but I won!" Aunt Alex's eyes flicker at this boast. "That's my girl!" she says with pride. I immediately feel the irony of my own statement, but my Aunt Alex is thrilled, and I smile.

My Aunt Rea's hardness is more covert. She is a devout worshiper of Jesus Christ, a motherly figure himself. The religion she advocates encourages love, but in classic hard-blood manner, she emphasizes the inevitable end of life:

Aunt Alex's grandson, Isaac, grabs a sand bucket to dip into the pool, and Aunt Rea's son Jude helps him gather water into it. Issac holds the bucket over his head, grinning at Jude, and overturns it. The grin doesn't leave his face for a moment as the water flattens his hair and darkens his clothes. He sees that this pleases Jude, so he goes in for another. Again he tips the bucket onto his own head. All of us at the pool enjoy this show immensely, so he continues the act until we lose interest. Seeing our growing boredom after four or five times, he looks at the floor of the pool for fresh ideas. Suddenly, he hurtles himself straight at Jude, and Jude just barely catches him in the water. They laugh hysterically. Isaac gets out for another go, and Jude is ready. They go at it like this for a while, and the scene draws a bit of a crowd. We all laugh along with them.

"Someone ought to teach him." my Aunt Rea interjects. "One of these days he's going to do that when no one is around. He needs to learn to be afraid." She's subtle, but affective. I notice Jude's smile shrink with Isaac's next jump.

"How old is he?" I object.

"Three," she turns to me with a grimacing smile; she likes a challenge.

"Hmm" I respond.

She loves it. "Don't you think he should be afraid?"

"At three?" I counter. She lets her eyes grill me. "Someone should be watching him." I offer.

"Ha!" She's visibly tickled. "No, he needs to learn. There won't always be someone there to watch him, and what if he does it then?"

"Well, why won't there be? He's only three. Someone should be watching him all the time at that age."

This is so obviously absurd to my aunt that she can barely respond. I look over at Jude, and he is no longer having fun catching Isaac, who remains in blissful oblivion. Uncomfortable with the argument, Jude passes Issac to his brother, Job, who takes up the cross and scolds the ecstatic child for being so reckless. I consider this the loss of the argument and merely smile at my aunt.

"What's he doing now?" Isaac's mother wonders up and projects to the pool.

"He's been jumping into the pool, and I was just saying that he may do it when no one is around to catch him. I was explaining how he needs to learn to be afraid...."

"Yeah! Let 'im drown!" she screams obnoxiously, as if she were drunk. "Put the fear in 'im! Job! Let 'im go! Let 'im drown!" I imagine maniacal laughter after her exhortations. All the while Issac is smiling bigger than his mouth will let him and giggling to no end in Job's arms.

"I was telling Ingrid here that he should be scared." My Aunt Rea won't let me off without a little more fun.

"No, Ingrid, he needs to know! If no one is there to catch him, that's it! He's dead!" Why is she yelling like that? So excitedly. My Aunt Rea just smiles triumphantly at me out of the side of her face, but I don't respond. I force a smile at the ground and steal a glance at Jude. He's out of the pool now.

Several years ago, I would have told them how much their envy corrupts them. They can't be carefree and happy, so they want to rob their offspring of it, the sooner the better. I would have happily dug my heals into their chests to carve out the word 'lazy'. Why watch the children and spend time with them? They're going to die anyway, and we should make sure they remember it. Let's make them as miserable as we are!

I'm older now, though. It wouldn't change anyone to rant like that. I no longer fight with authority to get my aggression out. Now, I am my own authority; I fight with myself. Besides, I don't claim to know how to raise children. Let them have their ways, and me, mine.

My Aunt Sam displays the hard blood in the most complicated way of all. To me, she was always Pepsi and cigarettes, that and a blue station wagon with a German Sheppard in the back. She always seemed to be on the outskirts of everything, watching. Everyone jumped around the poker table, screaming at the one scooping up the money; she'd be outside, smoking a cigarette, staring into the dark. She was the wallflower, cleaning up after everyone, looking after the forgotten, staying up the latest and waking up the earliest. If anyone ever cared to look her way, she wouldn't stand for even a glimpse of pity from them. She didn't want recognition; she'd rather be ignored.

Aunt Sam was always my favorite.

I throw my arms around her behind the chair. She puts a hand on the one under her chin. "You always were my favorite," she tells me, outright, in front of Jude and my Uncle Hugo. I smile in surprise. "Yes, you turned out well, certainly the most beautiful." I look around nervously, are my cousins or sisters around? Jude glances up at me, and I blush.

"Well, thanks, Aunt Sam." I give her a squeeze. I want to tell her she's my favorite, too, but I don't want to offend my Uncle Hugo or anyone he might tell. In a family of talkers, I can't believe she'd said it so openly, as if she didn't care if the whole family were standing there. Though I'm more than flattered, I find the whole thing quite strange. She gives my arm a rub, and I let her go. It didn't seem like a confession. It didn't feel like she was fawning on me. It was as if she were merely stating a fact, and there was something melancholic about it. This is the only interaction I have with my Aunt Sam the entire week.

Orange Death

"See that color there? No, no, the orange, there. I love that color. I think that's my new favorite color. Yes, it's official. My new favorite color is orange."

There it is. Now there is no trace of darkness in me. I let it sink below the surface with the sun. But where is it hiding? Where is the darkness if I don't put it through my lip, my tongue, my eyebrow? Where is it if not in my clothes and my hair? Where does the darkness go if I don't put it on my back and ankles? Now it's trapped inside me. How do I get it out? Drown it in liquor. Pick fights with people bigger than me. Swim out too far. Stand close to the edge of the platform as the train goes by. Hang over the edge of the boat. Suffocate it with food, or starve it. Over-indulge it or make it suffer. Hate the world, hate the hungry, hate the powerful, hate myself. The darkness is me, and whatever I do with it, I do with myself.

"That's right, Fredrick, you're going to die!"

Whoops. I let my death wish slip out. Keep it under the surface, Inger, where people like it. They don't want to see it. Fredrick doesn't have to. I challenge myself by challenging him. Yes, you will die someday. Maybe by a boating accident, maybe a meteor, or a car accident, or cancer. Tip-toeing around death doesn't prevent it. You fear it, because you secretly want it. So maybe if I perch it on my chest, it will be my friend? Its weight makes it hard to breathe. The dark storm inside won't calm. Pressure outside against pressure inside. I feel it leaking out of my eyes and out of my mouth. I feel it in my fingers. I smell it everywhere. Death, it wispers, death. The only way to live is to live alongside death. Death on your couch, watching tv, in your bed, dreaming, on your dinner table, eating, in your child's face, smiling, and as the wings on which your prayers fly to god. My fear is my comfort. I rest assured knowing that there is rest, assuredly.

Alter Ego

She stands close to the edge, so it feels like the train is going to hit her when it buzzes by. The wind feels nice. It's her city-version of going out too far in the ocean. She has a death wish, constantly challenging her life wish.

That's what she shares with him. He likes that she looks death in the face. He likes that she craves it. But it's her cowardice that keeps her alive. And he likes that, too. She's reckless, but vulnerable. And she likes it that someone is watching. It's a new sensation -- someone else seeing. Exhilarating.

They are unified, silently. Words are obsolete. After all, they share the same thoughts, why would they need to speak? Even if they don't, who cares? The thoughts don't even matter. Being matters. They share that, purely, undisguised. They don't have to muddle it with words and thoughts and muck. Not only do they accept each other, but, more importantly, they also accept themselves through each other.

She misses herself through him. The self that throws caution to the wind. The self that doesn't care about anything but adventure. She misses feeling cool and confident, open and unabashed. She misses sharing the silence with someone. The silence is still there, the someone isn't. She goes back inside herself. She could be herself with him, but not when she's alone. She looks ugly through her own eyes, plain and boring. She looked better through his eyes, strange and interesting.

Once he's gone, she easily slips back into self-loathing, stripped of that filter. All she sees now are flaws. She is a coward. She is a fake. And her life? Empty.

Ode to Jenny Lewis

I'd rather be lonely

"Come with me."

I'd rather be free

"Where?"

I'm as sure

"New York?"

as the moon

"To live where?"

rolls around

"You're mother's house?"

the sea

But I like watching you undress

"Stay here"

And I think we're at our best

"Annapolis?"

By the flicker

"D.C."

by the light

"No."

of the TV set

"Why not?"

Cause I can't remember why I hated you

"Because."

Can't remember why I still do

"I just can't."

But I'm as sure as the moon rolls around you

"Okay."

That I could be happy

"Okay?"

happy

"Okay."

Oh, so happy

"So, now what?"

happy, Oh, so happy

"So, now..."

so happy

"...now we say goodbye."

They warn you about killers and thieves in night

I worry about cancer and living right

But my mama never warned me about my own

Destructive appetite

Or the pitfalls of control

How it locks you in your grave

Looking for someone to be saved under my restraint

So I could be happy, happy

Oh so happy, happy

Oh so happy, happy

So happy, so happy

"Ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in, in your head, in your mouth, in your soul."

The young bartender either is impressed by me, or thinks it's cute that I'm trying to act macho. I honestly don't care what his smirk means, I just want this bourbon to make my tooth ache go away. I keep pointlessly glancing at the shiny pink face of my watch, knowing that not even a minute passes between each glance. I'm not even looking at the watch hands, just how the pink is somehow also blue. It's the same way I keep glancing back at the gate. I don't even know how I would tell if people started to board the plane.

I'm impressed with myself at how quickly I finish the first one, so I order another straight up from the smirking surfer kid. I just want to be back on the surface of the ocean, floating in the dark. I tried it by myself, and it was too scary for some reason. Knowing Jude was near by made it easier. He helped contain the infinitude. Even then I kept popping my head over the metallic surface to make sure he was still there. I felt less like a coward when I caught him doing the same.

I didn't even recognize him after how many years? I was so happy to see Fredrick, I hardly had time to feel awkward about the stranger sitting near me.

"Hey Inger, do you know who that is?" I had just begun to feel his presence, so I turn my head fourty-five degrees to get a look. His face is in clear view, and as I study the lines, I scan my memory: immediate past, important figures. Who could this be? Not even a guess or a vague idea comes to me, even as I think further into the past.

"Hhm mm."

"It's Jude!"

Jude, who? I wonder. I don't remember anyone named Jude. I knew I'd be seeing several relatives that I wouldn't recognize, but not even his name rings a bell. He sort of blushes under my scrutinizing eyes. I still can't get it. "Your cousin!" There is a delay, and then "Max, Jude, and Job."

I had remembered Max. Max was my age. Max went to Iraq. Everyone talked about Max, how he'd grown up. It didn't occur to me, I suppose, that his little brothers would grow along with him. Back then, three and five years was a lifetime. So now that I am faced with a stranger that is about my age, I don't even think of Max's brothers. Job was still a baby the last time I saw them. He looked even stranger than Jude when I saw him. It wasn't until the second trip that I started to make out their baby faces in their grown-up ones.

That was the last trip, though. That was the trip full of strangers that it turned out I loved. It amazed me how quickly they felt like family again. It amazed me how easily everyone forgot about politics and religion and lifestyles and just accepted each other as family. I used to love to hate all of them from far away. I hated their ideas and their beliefs and their politics. They represented everything I fought against. It all melted away when I saw them. Maybe it makes me a hypocrite, but I stopped caring what they believe or how they live.

Everyone wanted to suspend time between the two trips, and let this one just be a continuation of the last. It worked somehow. Except for Max; he didn't come. I missed Max.

Toward the end and on the edges, some reality started to creep in, but we fended it off with plenty of alcohol. I jumped in head first. I jumped into the visceral nurturing of family and liquor, and I never wanted to come up for air. The years started to shed off of me right away. I was like a baby when I left, and, had I stayed, I may have ended up back in the womb. But that's what the ocean is, anyway, isn't it? I had no problem ending up there.

"...Obama and McCain..." Oh no, here comes reality. "...Guantanamo Bay..." Are they really playing the news somewhere? I haven't even gotten on the plane yet. I'm not ready for it. I finish my second bourbon, and the first one starts to kick in. The bartender thinks I'm so cute, and he's pretty cute, too, but I barely see him. I wonder if there's any part of the ocean waiting for me back home. Home. That's a laugh. Back homeless, I mean. I'll have to deal with that when I get back, too. That and Guantanamo Bay. But not Ingrid Betancourt, because somebody freed her while I was gone. All this time, and they rescue her while I'm gone. Talk about a cock-tease. We must have a thousand things in our database at work on her, waiting for the moment she's released, and then I'm not even there when it happens. Not that I am important. That's the point. Did I really think I gained some kind of control when I started following these stories? All I did was invest in the business of constantly feeling my impotency.

No, there is no ocean waiting for me there, no family, no nurturing. It's all cold thought. It's all talking talking talking. Everyone wants to get their word in.

Shh, shh. Just float.