Category: Good vs Evil

the giving

December 14th, 2019

My kids go round the block. My daughter to her friend’s place. Within sight. Within earshot. But sometimes she goes left instead of right. A shortcut that eliminates 67 steps.

My boy rides his bicycle to Bay View to play basketball. He runs too. From our street, up 1^st, to Ripley, to 2^nd and back home. They have been out and about in this neighborhood for ten years. Playing, walking, skipping.

I know where some sex offenders live. Everybody that wants to know can. The ones that register their whereabouts, anyway. They can be seen on a map. I have advised the kids areas to avoid. Reminded them time and time again to not believe anyone that approaches them. To kick them in the nuts. Bite. Pull hair. Scream. To run. Run as fast as they can from whomever it may be.

Recently, a man approached children at the bus stop a block from our place. He wanted to give kids a ride to school, even though he was on foot. My kids don’t ride the bus. I drive my son. My wife drives my daughter. But the kids that were there were in danger. The bus came. He left. But people didn’t forget. It was reported. And he was arrested.

He may be out on bail tonight.

Sitting in his home.

I can see his place from here.

My wife is out with her girlfriends, celebrating Christmas.

My daughter is at her friend’s house.

My son is at the in-laws.

I am sipping a drink. Watching our Christmas tree. Loving this time of year. The lights. The warmth. Remembering where I am from. How hard people worked and sacrificed so that I could be here. Happy and safe. Strong. Very much aware that there are people waiting to take it all away.

And I consider taking a walk. Bundled up. Around the neighborhood. Stopping, only once—for as long as it takes—to improve my kids’ chances of success.

He wouldn’t see it coming.

I’d make it as quick and painless as possible. I’d be saving him, really.

And that’s what this season is about, right?

The giving.

~ KJ
Been Here Before

July 27th, 2019

July 17, 2019

8:26 am

We are citizens of the Universe. Feeling like we’ve been here before.

Energy waves. Vibration. Attracting and repelling other energy.

It’s difficult to remain connected—centered, but even more challenging to rediscover connection once it’s been lost because this existence requires a measured amount of disconnect to function.

The great trick is learning how to disconnect without becoming desensitized. To take that leap of faith that propels you beyond what you know.

Maybe it’s a new job.

Taking a different route to work.

Or forcing yourself into an uncomfortable situation.

Whatever it is, you’re never sure in the moment, but recognize it once it has passed because you feel regret for not letting go and allowing the Universe to take control.

Why are we so afraid of giving up?

So content with comfort?

Stuck in this perpetual return. Die. Come back. Die. Come back. We die again and again and again. So tied to the fears of this physical world that we’re unable to break free and simply be.

And so, we are left with fleeting instances of déjà vu.

~ KJ
nice or not

April 10th, 2019
nice or not Download

It’s so early, but so late.

I wouldn’t have this perspective if I’d had more to eat or less to drink. Nothing would make sense, and these words would not fall into place like this had I not gone through all that I have in my life.

And I haven’t gone through much.

At least that’s what they tell me.

I am after all, white.

And male.

And semi-privileged. Which means my parents worked their asses off to make sure I had what I needed to succeed—food, shelter, and an insurmountable amount of love.

But I don’t want to get into the haves and have nots. I did that once before—writing about riots and the poor decisions people make when they are oppressed and frustrated—and a woman said that she felt sorry for me. I didn’t understand, she said. I couldn’t understand, she said. I was ignorant, she said. All because I mentioned that the issues we have can be boiled down to something simple—you’re either nice or you’re not.

My kids get it. Other kids get it too. They don’t see color or history or gender or whatever other labels we do. They just see good. Unless their parents have poisoned them. Making them see what they want them to.

You know who you are. Devils.

We do everything we can to complicate this life. Create issues that don’t exist. Blame people for their ignorance and try to push them into some category that says—indirectly, of course—that they are less than others.

But that’s not true.

The overweight fella collecting carts at Walmart is not all the different from the man loading his cart with organic veggies, cage free eggs, protein shakes, and booze.

The elderly man offering savings in the form of a coupon-filled flier at the entrance of Meijer is not so different than the lawyer and his family buying candles, chocolate, and video games.

We are all in this together.

Human beings on a big ball of dirt and water whirling through space.

But we don’t want to break down to the basics.

We want to be special. To be heard.

We are so selfish that we believe it’s early, but late.

We believe that our perspective has the power to shape. That if we have less to eat or more to drink everything will make sense. Words will fall into place and finally we will express all we’ve gone through in this life.

We are ignorant, they say. All because we believe the issues we face can be boiled down simplicity—either you’re nice or you’re not.
- KJ
the never end

October 4th, 2018

I lifted the cat and hugged her.

Even though she’s shit on our bedroom floor and I stepped in it twice.

Barefoot.

Once, as I clomped my way to the john in the dark. Bladder so full of vodka, Sprite, and water that I thought I’d never go back to bed.

The other, a weird moment when I was here, but there–a man dead, but alive–dreaming but awake. It woke me, but instead of cleaning it up I sat on the floor listening to my wife snore.

And I loved her more than I did the day I said I do.

There are more moments like this than I like to admit.

Broken plans.

Wayward dreams.

An intense belief that ghosts do not only exist but push day-after-day to remind us of how quickly this life ends.

But I don’t believe them.

I can’t.

There are cats to hug.

There’s shit to clean up.

And those hands sweeping round silently never ever end.

~ K.J.
understand

October 2nd, 2018

I have many faults.

I’m impatient. Lack discipline.

I’m too lazy to understand

our differences.

And so,

I get stuck

in deep ruts.

My wheels spin.

I create paranoia.

Make problems that don’t exist.

Because I’m bored.

Like a coyote in a cage.

Running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

Again.

I don’t stretch beyond what I know, so I do what I’ve been doing all along.

Dying without ideas.

Even if it’s wrong.

Because it is easier to reject the unknown than it is to understand.

~ K.J.
devastation like this

September 20th, 2018

(Please note, this is a creative work. If you need help, please call 1-800-273-8255. Or reach out to family or friends. It’s bleak, but it isn’t worth shutting the light out.)

I know how deep it gets. A switch clicks. And there is no coming back from it.

Whatever IT is.

Could be chemicals. Or the devil. Or any combination of fears, ignorance, and neglect. But it is real.

I know because it has pulled many people into it.

Including me.

The dark, sticky, sad, angry mess.

Where you can stay in bed for days and not give a shit.

When nobody understands how deep the rabbit hole gets.

And you find beauty and comfort in the darkest, most unfriendly places.

One night, I stopped a friend from pulling the trigger. It was accidental. I had just rented Conspiracy Theory and stopped by to return his Van Halen tape. When I walked into his house, he was sitting in the middle of the kitchen with his forehead resting on the barrel of a 12 gauge. He had his shoes off and his toe on the trigger.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

I didn’t know, so I said nothing. But I did walk over and smack him in the side of the head with an open hand, and then I took the gun.

He cried and hugged me and said he was sorry, but I knew he’d be back again.

And he did it. Finally. Eight years later. After his kids left to live with his ex-wife and her new husband.

I wonder if he waited, paused at the sound of a car coming down the road. If he hoped it was another accident in the making—a friend with a cassette tape and a Mel Gibson movie.

It comes suddenly. Ruthlessly.

One minute I’m wondering at the strength and balance of my twelve-year-old boy as he beats opponent after opponent on the soccer field. The next, I’m thinking about a friend I had in high school—an acquaintance really—that made an impact when nobody else could.

He had a full-time job. Drove a CJ-5. Was upbeat, friendly, and always out for fun. One time, he took me aside because he was concerned about how I was handling the break up with my long-time girlfriend. He asked if I was depressed. If I was going to make it. Offered to be there. Anytime. Anywhere. For me. He told me this under the bleachers at a high school football game. Both of us sipping Mohawk and Mountain Dew Big Gulps.

I would never have imagined that thirty years later he would give in. That his wife would find him hanging from the rafters of the garage. Twitching. Not strong enough to lift him up and save him.

Then again, there has always been devastation like this.

Three from elementary school, that I know of.

Two from high school.

One from college.

And two co-workers.

People so sad and disconnected that they took pills, fashioned nooses, and put guns to their heads. Not because life was bad, but because it was so good, and they never knew how to feel the way they were supposed to.

It’s hard to get up and just BE every day. To maintain the happiness, patience, and normality everyone expects. But it is doable. And it is possible.

Pull yourself out of the depths into the light, so you can see and breathe again.

Know how deep it gets. That the switch clicks. And that there’s no coming back from it.

Whatever IT is.

It could be the chemicals. Or the devil. Or any combination of fears, ignorance, and neglect. But it is real.

I know because time and time again it tries with all its might to pull me in, and down and under, but it never wins.

~ K.J.
running out of time

August 27th, 2018

monarchs © 2012 Brooke Stevens

My kids love without conditions. They care about people and animals. Water, dirt and sand, rocks and trees. They care about many things. They have not yet been spoiled by their surroundings. They want to help others. Pick up trash. Recycle. Give.

Not only to those less fortunate but to everyone.

Sometimes, I wonder if they’re mine. They are better than me. Purer. More observant. More in tune with the place they came from than I am or will ever be. I think it’s because they’re closer to it. Younger. Not that far removed from the magic. Like an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a Monarch. A winged insect flying a drunken pattern to Mexico. Only to love, live a short while, and die.

It’s hard raising kids when you know time is not on your side. That anything can happen. That our efforts at raising them increase the chance they’ll be messed up. They’ll learn our quirks. Adopt our mannerisms. Make the same mistakes we have. Again and again.

Giving up on gods. Disbelieving ghosts. Drinking or eating or doing whatever it takes to numb the pain. Another adult doing what it takes to make ends meet instead of doing what it is they are meant to do. Instead of that which they love.

I sent pictures of my kids—all smiles and ready for the first day of school—to my parents today. I said that it was strange how they were growing so fast. And then I thought of how stupid it was to say that. I was stating the obvious. Something they have known for years.

Life is incredible and sad and happy and inspirational. It is the hardest thing a spirit will ever encounter, especially when you choose to be a good parent and continue the cycle.

I’ve said a lot of things to them over the years that didn’t make sense. That were self-centered and steeped in ignorance. But it hasn’t seemed to change how they feel about me.

My parents…they love without conditions. They give. They listen, they watch and believe. They have not given up.

Not on people, animals, dirt, sand, rocks and trees. They have never given up on me.

And so, I am here. Four minutes after ten o’clock in the evening. Hearing crickets out the window. Seeing stars vibrate in the sky. Quieted by the realization that I too am running out of time.

~ K.J.
something unsavory

August 20th, 2018

I don’t want to let things roll off my back. I want to react. To feel, to fight, to see, and believe. I don’t want to be in the background waiting my turn. I don’t want to stand by and listen as the ignorant and selfish try to pull us down and backward. I want to move forward. To progress and learn. To change and be challenged. I’ve been working hard for far too long to fall into step and follow someone else’s lead. Too much time has passed, and my path is deep in the making.

There’s a couple of lines in my mind tonight. From a movie called The Switch. Jason Bateman and Jeff Goldblum are talking, and Jeff has this wonderful, truthful line about what drives a man sometimes.

It goes something like this: “I’ve told you about hungry dogs in the cellar. You know, if you don’t feed them, don’t acknowledge them, at some point they’re gonna get out somehow and do something unsavory.”

I felt like that this evening. Sitting on the couch. Enjoying a little TV time with my wife and kids. Happy to be home and together and relaxing, but at the same time teetering. Feeling that I just needed to get out. Get away. Have a little time by myself to decompress, unwind, get centered again. There are times, for whatever reason, that a man doesn’t feel appreciated. That he doesn’t feel wanted. That he feels absolutely alone even when he is in the best company he’ll ever keep. I don’t know why it happens. I can never predict when it will happen. But it does. And then, I get all twisted up and stupid because I feel guilty for feeling. I feel bad for not wanting to sit and smile and be Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky. After all, the moments I have with my wife and kids will never be repeated.

Not in dream. Memory. Not even in the afterlife. This is it. All we’ll ever have.

But I have to remember that there’s a me in all of this. In all we have. And maybe it’s not a bad thing to get away sometimes. Half an hour in a hot upstairs writing room. Cup of wine. Fingers on the keys. Little bits of inspiration all around me—family pictures, books waiting to be read, an old Woodstock typewriter and all of its ghosts, haunting me. Hunting and pecking or typing in a mad rush of fluidity. Strangers all around that I hear but can’t see.

Maybe it’s best I let it all roll off my back. I shouldn’t react or feel or fight or see. I just need to believe that patience is the key and that waiting silently in the background is as brave as a man can be.

Sooner or later, I’ll get my chance to move forward. To progress and learn. To change and be challenged. And when I do, I’ll do whatever I can to make my own path and take the lead.

~ K.J.
we’d never do that

February 21st, 2018

Everyone suddenly knows what it is that drives a young man to arm himself with a weapon and extinguish light.

Driven by their own beliefs, agendas, and experience, they label, pigeon-hole, and validate. Nobody seems to consider that perhaps all of it is more complicated than what we read and hear and see. We want so much to make sense of it, to understand and control it, that we do all that we can to simplify it.

After all, we have kids. We want them safe. We are good, God-fearing folks, and we believe most definitely that there’s a right and a wrong. That it is good or evil, black or white, left or right.

But maybe that’s the problem.

We spend so much time pushing people into places we think they belong that we forget.

We’re animals.

Sleeping and waking and working and faking. Doing whatever it takes to survive.

And when we are cornered, afraid of what may become of us and everything we believe to be true and right and just, we bite. We fight. We lie and cheat and steal and walk into schools with weapons wanting to kill those sacred, beautiful things we once had—innocence, possibility, dreams—all because we’re afraid that life as we know it is being destroyed by the OTHERS. The liberals, the conservatives, the waffling wimps in the middle, the whites, the aliens, the blacks.

It’s always somebody else’s fault.

The immigrants. The corporations. The lazy bastards at home milking the system.

It’s never us.

We’d never do that.

Ever.

~ KJ
the sins of Jimmy Watkins

November 16th, 2016

~ a work of FICTION ~

It isn’t something you do on a whim. The urge must be kept at bay until there’s that perfect moment—and even then, you can never be sure. There’s always a chance somebody’s watching. There’s always a chance something will be left behind. The only way it can be done is quickly. In this case, I knew his pattern. I knew what he had done. And finally, I knew it was time to act. I’d spent long enough studying him and now there were others on my radar. The child molester on Ford Avenue. The murderer just south of town. There was much work to be done. But for now, I had to focus. On Jimmy Watkins.

This moment was going to be special because I knew Jimmy from school. He’d had a rough go being brought up by drunk, abusive parents. But any sympathy I had for him was dashed away as he peppered me with spit wads in shop class, called me a fag in the hallway, and got in trouble over the years for various evil acts. He raped at least two girls. Cracked a little boy’s head with a baseball bat. And was accused of many acts of violence against animals—especially cats. One time, during his daughter’s birthday party, he threw the family cat into the fireplace. When others tried to rescue it, he shook the fire poker at them and promised that if they tried to save it they would be next. The cat screamed and clawed and jumped and died as Jimmy sipped his Busch Light.

There’s more than this, believe me, but a rat like Jimmy would never confess, and the chances he’d ever truly pay for his crimes were slim. So, that’s where I come in.

Not tough enough to hang out at the real dives in town, Jimmy tended to spend most of his nights at JJ’s. Bellied up to the bar, trying to flirt with waitresses half his age, and picking fights with anybody within earshot. On this particular night, I decided it was time to sit next to him. He had just chased his third shot of Beam with a Busch Light short. There was a commercial on the TV above the bar. Some pre-election propaganda. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could see President Obama on the screen.

“Fucking nigger,” Jimmy said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Jimmy said.

I ordered Johnny Walker Black. Sipped it. Watched Jimmy’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

Trump came on the screen. Jimmy slapped his hand down on the bar.

“That’s the man!” Jimmy said. “The fucking man!”

“Oh, he’ll look out for you, all right,” I said.

Jimmy’s head swiveled quickly.

“What did you say?”

“Your man there,” I said and nodded at the TV. “He’ll be sure to take care of you.”

“You’re goddamned right he will. No more bullshit political correctness. No more handouts and all the fucking immigrant aliens can go back to Mexico.”

“Aliens take your job, did they?”

Jimmy stood up. It wasn’t hard to rile someone like Jimmy.

“Hey,” he said. “I remember you. I used to kick your ass in school.”

“Yep, I’m the fag from shop class,” I said.

I stood up. I must have been about four inches taller and had him by fifty pounds easy. If this were going to be a bar fight and I was a spectator I’d put my money on the chubby married guy with kids. Me. Nice guys like me have plenty of shit pent up and even the dirtiest, toughest, rat like Jimmy doesn’t stand a chance. I looked around the bar. There were no watchers now, it was nearly closing time and everyone was gone. Even the bartender was out of sight. She had stepped outside for a smoke.

“You better watch yourself, you little bitch,” Jimmy said.

“How bout I watch you?”

Jimmy was pissed, clenching his fists.

“You little bitch!”

I finished my scotch and left twenty bucks on the bar.

“Leave that money there, by the way. Don’t go stealing it to donate to the KKK.”

I walked out quickly and headed for the 2^nd Avenue bridge. It wasn’t long and I heard him coming. I walked faster. The air was cool and fresh with the smell of Lake Huron. The sky was sprinkled with stars. I thought of my wife and kids all tucked in a few blocks away, warm and cozy in dreams. It was another night of Daddy being restless, unable to sleep, pacing, they’d think. I would wake tired, as usual, but do my best to be upbeat, positive, and make sure that whatever I was doing was intended to make their lives as comfortable and safe as possible. That’s what made this moment so necessary. It was for their safety. For the betterment of the world. For everything that is truly right and good and just. I put on my gloves. Took the wire out from my coat pocket. And I stood there waiting. Watching. Listening, as the dark water of the Thunder Bay River readied itself to receive the sins of Jimmy Watkins.