Not Yet.

I don't know what caused me to wake up from my nap. It was 9:30, I remember looking at the clock. I got up and started down the stairs to find where everyone had gone to when I heard a sound I hope to never have to hear again. Brakes screeching. A dog yelping. Loud voices, people reacting to something. Rugby. Where was Rugby? I don't even remember going down the rest of the steps, or outside.

"Where is he, where is Rugby, whatinthehelljusthappened??!!"

Ryan was flying around with this crazy look in his eyes, like he might fly apart, like he had no idea who he was even. He was coming toward me up the front porch stairs with his camera in hand and for some reason I took it from him. "RYAN!" I looked down to the side of the porch and there was Rugby, huddled up behind the tall garden grasses and shaking, ears pinned flat back against his head. There were all of these people on the sidewalk for some reason, and a woman was screaming "I'm sorry!!" over and over and holding her mouth. Ameer's mom was next to her repeating, "they didn't even stop!"

"Ryan, get Rugby in the car." He kept going for the front door, I had to physically stop him and make him look at me, "GETRUGBYINTHECARNOW," in order to snap him back to some conscious plane of reality. I ran in to get the keys and by the time I came out of the house they were in the car and ready to go, the lady on the sidewalk still apologizing for some reason. All of the good citizens standing around to see that we got down the road okay became a collective blur and I tried to stay removed from the situation, because one of us had to drive. Once inside the car smelled like death and I cursed myself for even thinking that. Ryan was doubled over sobbing, I hadn't even gotten a good look at Rugby yet. He was moving around back there, pacing. That seemed to be a good sign.

"Where are we going?"

"Douds," I replied firmly, as though somehow they would be open at that hour, as though there would be a doctor and examination team there waiting for us.

"Are they open? What do we do if they're not open??"

"Take him to Mom's." It's funny how you can be 26 and your mom still has some magic ability to fix any wound, however serious.

We pulled into a dark and empty Doud's parking lot and I even got out of the car to check the door, still sure that our rescue crew of emergency vets were in there anticipating our arrival. No such luck. Back in the car and down 58 to mom and dad's house. Aimee would be over there. Don't cry, Emily, you don't have to cry. You're the one who can't crack up. Somebody has to remain calm and bark out orders as though they have any idea what they're doing.

As soon as I saw her the waterworks started, they were all in the tv room, Aimee and Bobbi too. "Can I talk to you," I managed and backed right back out of the room. Once apprised of the situation she immediately sprang into action, where is he, is he walking, ok, let's get some water and peroxide, we'll take him into the happy house.

He paced around for awhile and seemed fine; scared and shook-up, but the same smiling Rugby I was afraid we'd lost. She fed him water out of her hand for twenty minutes and he calmed down enough to recognize Aimee and be excited when she came in wearing somebody's cop uniform shirt and a worried look on her face. Bobbi trailed her muttering something about how baby aspirin wouldn't hurt him, and Rugby went up to greet her too. I kept wondering how he could possibly even be there. How he could be walking. People drive down our little stretch of vine street like it's the Lorain County Speedway. That little yelp he cried out has probably taken eight years off of my life, has cut some deep and fragile part of my heart. He has a gash on his hind leg that's not even very deep, and that's it. How is he even walking at all? How can a person even begin to comprehend what a single solitary instant can mean. My head is full of rocks and Rugster is upstairs on his bed, watching Ryan. He is sorry, you can tell that by looking in his eyes. I think he understands that instant. What a fragile and tenuous grasp we have on this thing, existence.

Like The Cheshire

our limbs entwined
his breath -- warm and sweet
thrums against the hairs on the back of my neck
at in-and-out intervals
slow,
and heavy with sleep.

he pulls me closer when I try to get up
and I can hear the smile spread across his face.

this is what I thought it would be like,
and I grope the ring between pinky and thumb,
making sure that it's really there.

Painting For Nick

I think I'm done with this one, my attempt to purge what I was feeling about Nick that week after I got the news. It's a blessing, I think, to die; our lugubrious reaction to it is mostly selfishness manifesting itself. At least this is the theory about death and grieving that I kick around. The only thing I can say with certainty is that if there are heavens, they are eight thousand times more sacred and beautiful now that Nick's there.

My next project is to rework the painting that I did of Sid. It's not an accurate enough portrait of him, plus it's a little boring. I want to work in his addiction somehow, and the bleakness of his last days. I've been trying to get into that headspace (plus I have strep throat so I've been feeling too shitty to do much and I get bored watching too many movies) so I've been frequenting the library. I just finished William Burroughs' Junky, and I would recommend it to anybody. It's funny how Hollywood glamorizes heroin addiction. I watched Trainspotting recently, and though it's definitely no walk in the park, I think that ultimately it is a glorification of the junky lifestyle. I'm not trying to get all Nancy Regan -- far from it -- but Burroughs' account is stunningly incisive and honest, and you don't get the feeling that he's touting his addiction with bravado, but you also don't feel that he's harboring regrets. I dunno, it's just a really unique, interesting (I finished it in four hours, hehe, couldn't put it down), no bullshit, no preaching story about sickness. Read it. It's not annoying like a lot of those other beat classics.

Doin' It

Alone Together

That Pallid Sustenance

You draw me closer with one hand while the other holds the dagger, blade ready.

Isn't it a shame, I thought, this whole human state of affairs. The way we're cruel to everyone else, never admitting that the one we'd really like to beat up is ourselves. I was in downtown cleveland today with a bunch of rich catholics and I watched as people were sent immediately into a state of panic at the slightest deviation from the schedule, the utter inability to think and decide without at least the corroboration of one other person. I marvelled at how any of the service people could keep their cool dealing with rude suburbanites all day and the only logical explanation that came to me was that they probably practise voodoo.

I wonder how frequently other people think about different ways to die. I can't stop thinking about Nick, and I've even been dreaming of him nearly every night. I keep creating scenarios in my mind that would have prevented his death, and the fucked up thing is that anchored to these scenarios is the actual indefatigable belief that in some way I could go back and enact one of said scenarios. As if they buried him alive and all I have to do is find him, and retrieve him. But now we must pick up every piece of the life we used to love, just to keep ourselves at least enough to carry on. I will get old, probably, and he'll always be twenty-five.

A hot piece of sandstone in the pit of my stomach prevents me from sleep tonight. Gravity. Someone tonight beseeched god to keep our country safe from terrorists and evil, and I thought how silly, we are bombing the shit out of his son's homeland.