F.O.S.: The Day Before Ground-hog Day
To readers old and new, I say “greetings.” Welcome to Fortress of Solitude. You may have liked Quest in Cold Metal better for a title but a name change now and again helps to keep interest alive. In this case, the name change is meant to cultivate attention where it has gone dead. A perusal of my archives might show why such a death was merciful: the ‘quest’ became melodramatic from time to time. Not even I want to read my archives over again. So... let's just call it even and start a new journal...
Fortress of Solitude was meant to begin with my thoughts on Deficit; living alone and unemployed for such a long time is changing, undoubtedly, the way I think about life and myself. From that solitude came the idea for the other half of this two-headed journaling project, whose first entry stole my attention Monday. Yesterday would have been my day to think about ‘deficit’, if adventures had not come first. Foremost, I needed to complete my Mission Intern Application and get it into the mail. After some last minutes touch-ups and an hour-long cajoling of my printer, I shimmied the application into a manila envelope and embarked on an errand-run. Little did I know, I say in my best fore-shadowing voice, the adventure that awaited me at home.
My first stop was at the Plainfield Bank to deposit the check of a generous donor (thank-you, Dad); my donors will be glad to know that I have not abandoned my dreams of writing great fiction-I simply have not started yet. In any case, I found myself noticing the bank teller, which was my first “F.O.S.” moment for the day-me noticing how I interact with my world. I concentrated on keeping me head up and away from her necklace. Necklaces are a problem for me. A shiny object hovering so innocently over a woman’s cleavage tends to draw my eye during frequent day-dream attacks. The image of a peace-sign made from bent finishing nails and hung upon a black cord is still burned into my mind from a volunteer orientation I performed; she always smiled at me but never replied my e-mail about an on-going friendship. Nonetheless, when at last the teller handed me my cash, I was relieved not to remember the shape of her pendant but instead the pale turquoise of her irises and the slight wave of her blonde hair-she looked Dutch to me. I proceeded to the post-office, listening to sports analysts complain about the weather and the “wussification” of our nation.
At the hair-stylists’, I did not even have to wait. Of course, there would have been no wait at Plainfield Barber-shop either but I felt out-classed there in November. The gentleman who cut my hair did a fine job, going where no man had gone before: his name was Ken and he was a clean-shaving man of about fifty-five. At the same time, I felt out of place in the barbershop-talk, which consisted of which roads were unpaved thirty years ago and how Ronald Reagan would be running the country. At this ‘Jude’s Barber-shop’, staffed entirely by women, a young lady led me to her chair and talked to me about, of all things, how I wear my hair and how I would like her to cut it. Imagine that: I liked talking about my hair while getting a hair-cut. It was one of the better hair-cut encounters in my life. She put some product in my hair called tea-tree palm-aide (or something) that smelled glorious and offered me the customary shoulder massage. Poor Ken just could not contend with the promise of a pretty girl with a vibrating massager. As I walked from the shop, I had my second F.O.S. moment: in terms of haptics, what did it mean to be touched be the hair-dresser? I am a touch-person; was this the human contact I craved? Yes and no. It meant nothing but that was fine because my muscles were tense. C-3PO could have done it and it would be just as good...
“Master Gore, I am trained as a protocol droid-not as a masseuse!”
“C-3PO! If you want any oil on your joints you had better get some oil onto my back!”
Back in the fortress, I browsed news on the nearing snowpocalypse. With the resignation of a native northerner, I quietly poked-fun at the predictions and then put a cover over my windshield. Without decaying into a discussion on sensationalism by meteorologists and on the internet, I will say this: I doubted the blizzard’s power but decided that I would rather have measures in place, should a real catastrophe arise. This is what passes for an excuse to make an extra buddy-burner, especially when I am in a mood for silly procrastination projects. For those unfamiliar with them, buddy-burners are made by coiling strips of cardboard inside a tuna-can and dripping hot wax over the whole lot; the burner is placed under an upside-down coffee can to become a cooking-surface or ill-advised space-heater. I scraped some prayer candle drippings into a bean-can and started cutting apart an old box full of expired medications. This was the first chance I had to play with my new toy: a large pocket-knife with a retractable utility razor in the stock. Making burners reminded me of my first staff-training, on top of the hill at Camp Kinawind. Thomas and I had met only a few days before and decided to be buddies with one another; as the name implies, and for safety reasons, buddy-burners are meant to be made and used by two-
Damn.
Engrossed in my day-dream, I mistakenly pushed the safety button my knife. The blade slid partially inward, then skidded from the surface of the cardboard and sunk, deeply, into the fleshy patch at the base of my thumb. Blood gushed from the wound, down my fingers first and then down my wrist as I reached up for the paper-towel. Wine-colored droplets dotted the floor from the kitchen to the bathroom and back again as I paced muttering “pressure first; think; what next? what next?...”. I had the presence of mind to sit down...
Why don’t I have gauzeI just have that cheap ace-bandage...
Crap, I don’t even know if I need stitchesI’m afraid to even look...
I cannot drive in this weatherI would probably bleed on my steering-wheel anyway...
Nurse!...BethEmilyElizabethBlairKristen...
Kristen! Nizhoni-house! GregAndreaPeterKellyJimNathan and Kristen, the nursing student (okay... not technically a nurse yet but...)
People; the most important thing was to surround myself with people who would help me. First, I needed to bandage the wound so that I could get my hand into a glove. The irony was too delicious: the roll of bandage would not come undone so I had to cut it-with the same razor with which I had cut myself. I took the of paper-towel off and smeared anti-biotic ointment on the wound; I find it fascinating, the way that blood collects in bright red bubbles under the glob of medicine. Once I had wrapped my hand so tight in that ace-bandage that my knuckles ached, I put gloves on and jogged to the Calvin College group-home called Nizhoni-Navajo for beautiful.
I recounted the entire story to my father over the phone later, how I had fun waving to each housemate, in turn, with my heavily bandaged hand. Greg and I discussed the exigencies of not having health insurance in the United States (“If this were Canada...”), as well as a finger cut he sustained which oozed steadily for two days. Jim was concerned that I might need stitches and strongly encouraged me to consider going to a clinic. The best moment was, of course, when Kristen waltzed into the kitchen and began working on dinner without missing a beat. A few minutes later, she gasped and asked me what had happened. This led-up to my third F.O.S. moment for the day, when the lovely Kristen unwrapped my bandage and helped me clean it under some running water. She kept asking me whether it hurt (it did not and that was what scared me...) and if the water was the ‘right’ temperature. I could not help pondering: “Was this supposed to happen? Did I need to come here and have my wounds tended by a woman, on an emotional level? Could I enjoy this on some, twisted level? Her hands on my hand?”
No. Not really. What impressed me was how normal it seemed to me, in spite of the blood. I am a touchy person but I was not in need of being touched physically. I was more touched with Jim’s concern than anything else-even though Jim would be concerned for anyone! It did not matter if I was bleeding to death or there on a whim: I was among friends. We talked about polar-bear swims together, ate quinoa together-some of us watched Glee (awkwardly) together. Kelly was dressed nicely and wearing make-up, so I told her she looked lovely-she didn’t feel pursued and I wasn’t embarrassed to notice (F.O.S. moment #4). Later, I told a Kinawind story (about the queen of the dolphins...) and everyone laughed with me. It was never haptics themselves that I needed but the messages behind them: messages about caring, about bonds forming, and about mutual acceptance.
It is a fortress of solitude but not necessarily of loneliness. The spell is breaking.
If you will pardon the pun, the whole bloody adventure seemed to be over by the time I had re-hashed it with my Dad later that evening. I remarked to him just before we hung-up that I did not entirely regret my silly procrastination project. Then it dawned on me at last: my project was not complete. Smilingly, I shook the bean-can full of candle dregs and filled a pot with water. Being safety conscious, I decided that it would be best to heat the can in water rather than expose it to a gas flame; the last thing I needed was to melt a seal in the bottom of the can or something crazy like that. My day was ending much more mundanely than it might have: watching the water slowly come to a boil and the wax slowly melting inside. In fact, much too mundanely for someone who wanted to get to bed early. Using barbeque tongs, I removed the can from the pot of boiling water and held it over another burner. To my delight, it began to gently puff a sweet smelling smoke as the scented candle bits inside quickly liquefied and began to hiss. Through the smoke, I could just barely see the boiling. I gave it another minute before I removed it from the heat. Wuff! The can came to life and foofed-it-out, the way I had foofed a dozen cans of boiling wax before. Wuff! None of those other cans had been stuck over a bright, blue, gas flame. Foof! It went out. Wuff! It was back. Foof! Back. This time I aimed a steady stream and passed it around the rim of the can; it sparkled and an eight inch flame uncoiled from the bean can and swayed like a king cobra. “Alright” I said, heading for the bathroom sink, “I guess it’s time to put the kabosh on this little project.” Un-phased, I flicked on the tap.
I am glad that I ducked and closed my eyes in time. In hindsight, I noted that my faucet is equipped with an aerator, which must have contributed to the effect. Most would call it a fire-ball but it was really more of a fire-plume, a sort of blazing mushroom cloud like a cross-between Die-Hard and Bikini Atoll (yippee-ky-yay, mother-waxers...). It was gone when I opened my eyes again, leaving an after-image ghosted onto the bathroom mirror. The wax vapors swept aloft in the fiery updraft instantly condensed on the cool mirror in the shape of a depth-charge heaving a spray of salt-water from the ocean-or something? I could describe it better if I had not scrubbed it away immediately, fearing that my land-lord would find it that way and keep my four-hundred dollar deposit. Still not thwarted, I drained the water from the can and returned to the stove to finish the job. This time, I set the can on the emptied pot and waited until the wax started to hiss venomously before I, carefully, dribbled water around its base to moderate the melting. It worked handily: I will do it this way from now on.
When the alarm sounded the next morning, I turned it off and retreated to bed again, knowing that there was no way on Earth that Phil the ground hog was coming out of his own volition. I finally waved the white flag in my battle to wake at a reasonable hour in the morning. Instead, I enjoyed the untroubled sleep of a reckless artist who has finally given-up being hard on himself-at least for a day. After all, I had kept my eyes up in the face of cleavage, gotten a good hair-cut, bled all over my kitchen, discovered I am not pathetic and lonely and, best of all, still finished with a bang. *fist pump* Brassknight86 rides again, bitches. ...now if I could only get a part-time job...
...but instead, let us draw a curtain over Ground-hog day and the snow-shoveling that was to follow as I un-inundated two vehicles and a side-walk with Gail-the-neighbor-lady. Instead, I want to leave you with the image of me, heavily bandaged, rolling over into a string of strange dreams where I had a Dragon-Ball Z battle with Satan in a Wal*Mart.
Peaceful sleep.
EDIT: That ran a little long.