The gaunt man wearing the sunglasses picked up the shaker of salt at his table, held it over his green beans, hesitated, and put it down again, shaking his head. Across the dining area of the restaurant, an aristocratic woman in a green dress watched him from behind her upraised glass of tea.

Well, she thought, is he going to use the salt of not?

The man poked a forkful of green beans into his mouth and chewed vigorously, then reached for his salt shaker again. His fingers wavered just short of it and the man sighed. He was unaware of the woman in the green dress.

Now, what could his dilemna be? the woman mused, swishing an ice cube in her warm mouth. And why does he wear those shades in here? She watched him drum his fingers on the tabletop in front of the salt shaker.

The man noticed, with vague wonder, that he was getting an erection. The rustling and tightening in his crotch quickened his heartbeat. He could even feel the stitching in his underwear. He squirmed in his chair to offset the discomfort, and thought about salt. First, he imagined huge trucks with mountains of salt stored in their beds. Then, he envisioned that little girl with the umbrella and the short skirt, skipping cheerfully through a downpour of salt. Sexy. He seized the salt shaker.

This is it! thought the woman as she watched. He has finally made up his mind! Somehow, this man’s rendezvous with the salt shaker had aroused some unbidden fascination in her. This, she mused, must be what Mondays do to middle-aged women like me. While others debated gun control and immigration issues, here was a man utterly torn between eating his green beans with or without salt. She watched, not caring anymore if he happened to notice that she’d taken an interest. She watched.

In his mind, he saw nymphyte, vulnerable women slithering like snakes across hot, shiny flats of salt. He saw the Morton salt chick standing in the sodium rain, inexorably, delicately, drawing up her skirt just for him to see. An unclothed housewife sucked the salt from the mailman’s sweaty abdomen. YES! HE WANTED SALT! AND HE WANTED IT NOW!

He shook the shaker violently. Crystals of salt landed in his food, on his table and on his suit. He thrust his thick-feeling tongue out to taste the flying sodium like a six year-old tasting the first snow of the winter. Behind his mirror shades, his eyes widened and jittered with horrendous glee.

The aristocratic-looking woman was aware of the fact that her mouth had popped open as the shaded man threw some kind of tantrum in his chair, which squeaked and creaked under his sudden upheaval. Amidst the shock of the stranger’s eruption, a single ice cube melted on her tongue.

The man’s shades finally toppled from his writhing, grimacing face as he stood up and thrust the salt shaker into his pants, still shucking it. He grinned broadly at the woman in green, but seemed not to notice her. Nor did he notice the stout, wide-eyed waiters who were making their way over to restrain him.  Nor did he notice that he'd spilled his water onto his green beans.

The woman never ate at that restaurant again, and for reasons too buried to explain, she never again wore her green dress.



A gaunt man in shades .....

I'm so far behind in the race to demonstrate inner beauty, I won't even run the last few laps.

I don't have it in me.

You want haiku about the soft scent of my lover's shoulders on a cool, rainy morning?

I don't have it in me.

A delicate sonnet about all the little ways that nature inspires me?

I don't have that, either.

A long meditation about the blessings of friendship, trust and faith?

No need.  There’s enough of that out there already.

Anyway, I don't have it in me.  Sometimes, I wish I did. I sit at my keyboard and I try to conjure it forth — some flowery understatement that will turn up the corners of a reader’s mouth, make them grin, swoon and say "oooooh, that's so precious," or whatever. I try -- but it's not here.

I could fake it, maybe. But I don't want to. I don't want to be your comfort blanket. I want to push you, challenge you, bother you, shake you up and haunt you.  I’d also like to get you laughing from time to time, maybe.  Please understand; what you’re reading isn’t me, but something that came over me when I started writing.  There is a difference.

So, if you're scouting for "inner beauty," you better wait for one of the other 2000 trains pulling into the station. This train left without it, and I’m now hoping to arrive at inner truth instead.

Or maybe I’ll never arrive anywhere.  You know, I can’t resist the detours ...



How do you recognize a person?  By the face?  Or by the curious things you just know are happening behind it?

I have a lot more to say. A lot more — and no other place yet to say it. So, if anyone's still hanging around, brace yourself. The volcano is about to erupt.

This post would seem to contradict the one just before it, but both of them are sincere, as you'll see.

I am leaving Blogstream and discontinuing all manner of blogging. There are other things I want to pursue, and I never intended to do this forever.

I'll post a few more entries, to satisfy my own sense of conclusion. Then I'll leave these peckings and scribblings behind for whatever and whoever. They came from me, but they don't belong to me.

I hesitated to post this until I was sure it was what I wanted to do. I'm sure now. I am grateful to anyone who ever stopped by.

~ Brian

His name is Woody Barksdale.  Every morning, with my iPod in hand, I walk past him on my daily 3-mile trek around the neighborhood.  He waits at exactly the halfway point of my walk, 1.5 miles away from the palacial apartment building I live in.  I don’t have permission to reverse directions and go back home until Mr. Barksdale has given it to me.  

On the morning of April 6, I set off under ominous skies. The last thing I heard before I clicked “ON” my iPod and got my playlist going — a murmur of thunder.  Not good.  But I started off anyway because the air felt perfect and I felt horrible.  Also, I had my digital camera with me, tucked into one pocket of my fading jeans.  Finally, I’d remember to snap a photo of Mr. Barksdale.  I zipped up my hooded green sweater and started walking.

Thoughts come as naturally as breathing when I’m walking.  Hell, if I could write AND walk at the same time, I’d have 18 published books and the legs of a Kenyan by now.  In fact (and I can’t believe I’m relating this now), when I’m really writing well, I can’t sit still.  I alternate 20-minute bursts of writing with 10-minute bouts of pacing when I’m really on a roll.  I love it.

Sadly, I’ve written three paragraphs now and haven’t jumped out of my chair to pace even once, yet.  Anyway ...

On April 6, my mind raced far ahead of me.  I saw a future so bright and clear that I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I couldn’t do that.  I saw old-man Brian tending a ridiculously ripe tomato garden behind my little old-man house.  With slightly-arthritic fingers, I lightly caressed the cool, firm stalks.  I felt the leaves brushing against the back of my hand, saw tomatoes so green, so ripe that I wanted to reach out and squeeze them .... but I couldn’t do that.

“Brian? .... Brian! ...” A woman’s voice, drifting out to me from somewhere inside the little old-man house. “Hey ... come on inside now.  The grandkids are here. Leave the tomatoes alone and come in here.”

I saw a beautiful home — small and cozy, surrounded by the most well-kept lawn in the world.  I imagined myself standing in a kitchen one early summer evening, high on the scent of fresh-cut grass, bubbling up inside with joy as I gazed out the window at birds, birds playing around a clumsy little fountain I had made for them.

As I walked and imagined all this, I started to wonder: Do we find our way to happiness, or does happiness find its way back to us later in life, to reward us for sticking around so long?

I’d guess the former, because I’ve met a lot of older folks that I wouldn’t describe as “happy” at all.  At some point, the decisions we make earlier in life ultimately determine how we’ll spend our last days here.  To be honest, I’m not sure I’m even on the path to that tomato garden yet.  I could just as easily end up a hermit, peering at the world through a window stained with gloom, sewing madness into every page I write, thousands and thousands of pages nobody will read.

MR. BARKSDALE, HELLO!  The strange face interrupted my thoughts, reminding me again to turn back for home.  This time, I fished the digital camera out of my jeans, aimed it and FLASH!  That’s the photo you see at the top of this entry.

I turned for home. But just then, in the second of space between songs on my iPod, I heard thunder again; this time a crash, not a murmur. Then, the white sky opened up on me, sheets and sheets of sudden rain.

1.5 miles from home and on foot.  DAMN!

The rain pounded down, drenching me completely in less than a minute.  My feet and socks squished inside my shoes.  The wind blew the rain into me, directly into my face as I hurried for home.  The iPod kept on playing and I tried to concentrate mostly on the music in my head as I slogged home, caught in the storm with all the other squirrels and insects of the world.

I glimpsed mortality then.  For all my odd dreams and hopes, I was nothing in the grand plan that morning but another lost creature, trying to find my way to a dry place.  The trees know.  They watch us scurrying, hurrying about all the time, up and down streets and sidewalks, in and out of storms, of seasons, of life.  The patient trees tower over us and out-live us; they constantly renew themselves.  

I thought of Woody Barksdale’s serene, man-made face and how I’d spent weeks reminding myself to take a picture of it.  The day I did, I got rained on, drenched and chilled to the bone.  Well, of course, of course.

Maybe Wood Face even smiled at my bad timing.  Or maybe the joke was on me the whole time.



It's ok.  I'm all dry now.