Papa Was A Soldier For Rome.

There is a scene at the end of Gladiator when Maximus, lying fatally wounded on the Coliseum dirt, begins to walk slowly though a late afternoon field of high grass. His slightly clenched hand gently skims the swaying blades as he moves forward. The camera pans back. And back. And we see him alone in the vast open place heading towards his murdered wife and son in the shimmering ancient distance. Heading home. To his family. Or maybe heading home to God, to Heaven. Or maybe both. Maybe they are inseparable. Who knows.

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I like it a lot. The scene of the Roman General/Gladiator in his moment between this cruel world and the promising next one. There is a feeling/chill that comes with it. A vibe. He's heading towards something that feels like forever. The music, the rolling plains. The far off road where his family await him. His young son's eyes. The cinematic lighting. Wind. Wheat. A dying handsome hero. It's good Hollywood.

And we're walking beside a soul. I dig soul art. How can you not, really?

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I emerge from a strand of ridiculous willows with my fly rod thrust high above my head so it doesn't snap like the overpriced bread stick that it is. Sweat beads up on my eyebrows and in my ears. Plops of it trickle down behind my sunglasses and slip into my eyes and burn a little. Everything is hazy. I'm in waders and a flannel shirt and a big chest pack and its like 85 degrees and I'm Meatloaf in his second encore.

But there they are.

My wife and daughter off in the distance, sat upon the bowling ball stones beside the river. Monica had called me just as I was starting to nymph a good cold pocket; she told me they were there, to visit me as I fished. And the notion of catching a trout in front of Violet had made me instantly delirious. It was something I'd been wanting/hoping/dreaming for awhile.

That right there says a little about me, I guess. Other men dream of threesomes and financial nirvana and Super Bowl titles. Me? I dream of catching a slender mountain fish for my little girl who could give two shits. Whatever. Our minds are our minds and there is no use arguing with them when they set their sights on things like this.

So, off I went: off to find my wife and child somewhere out there where the tall grass grows.

When I came clopping out of the trees a mile later, I started waving my rod in the air and grinning and stuff. Monica saw me after a second and gave a short brief wave back and said something to Violet. Then, I thought of the scene. From the movie.

I slowed down a little. Almost stopped. I saw Monica raise her hand to her brow to shield out the sun as she watched me approaching from pretty far away. The slender dirt trail I was on cut through, I shit you not...some tall grass.

I let my free hand spread. I let my fingers tickle the tops of the blades. I began to move more deliberately, like human molasses. In my mind I began to morph into something dangerously handsome; here's me walking a glorious reunion walk towards my family squinting to watch my approaching silhouette from the banks of the cold rushing stream. For perhaps a hundred steps or so, I was, for the first time in my life, a fallen hero walking towards glory. I didn't dare wave anymore. Or smile. That's sissy shit when you're a Roman legend moving through the fields of the Lord.

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Of course, when I get over there they're not even actually looking at me. Violet is bouncing pebbles off of stones in a puddle of lost river water. My wife is messing with her new phone. But, it doesn't matter because what's done is done and I feel closer to them now somehow. I ruffle my daughter's curls and kiss her head top. Monica offers me cold pizza and soda beside a kingdom of eager trout.

And that's pretty much heaven right there.

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I am determined as hell. I wade into the current and lob my size 18 Rainbow Warrior up and across the slashing water. Never before have I felt an actual need to catch a fish, but I feel it now.

I watch my indicator with hawk eyes.

Nothing.

I lob it all upstream again.

Same thing. Nothing.

I turn around nervously. Monica is staring at me blankly. Violet is licking a wet rock.

I cast again.

Take it. Take it. Eat it you slippery bastard.

Boom. My indicator nudges an inch and I set the hook and I've got one. My heart explodes. The fish clears the water by a foot and a half and I announce to the world that I've got him/ HE'S ON!

"Ooooooh, look Violet!," I hear Monica say, "Daddy's got a fish for you!"

The trout is not big in the physical sense, but in my galaxy at that moment: he is my ticket to the next level. He darts upstream and then turns and races back down, jumping and pulling, fighting for his life as it collides with mine, with ours.

Finally, I slip him to the bank. He's maybe ten inches tops. A small fish anywhere. I slide my hand in the water under his belly and carry him over to my little girl. It's all exactly how I hoped it would be/could be. It's all a beautiful fucking blur.

Violet stares at the trout. She giggles. He gasps evenly for his liquid breath. She touches his nose. I let him kiss her and she likes that a lot. She touches his small mouth and he seems to let her. Or at least he doesn't seem more pissed. The whole scene takes a few seconds and I tell her to say goodbye to him and she picks up a pebble and loses interest. With a heart made of thanks, I set him down gently to swim away forever.

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I live a lot in my head. A hundred times a day I pretend that my life unfolding around me is the final scene of a really great movie. I don't have to be lying in the arena dust for it to work either. Hell, I don't even come close to that really. Mostly it's just me behind the wheel of the Honda at a stoplight with the dogs way in the back and Violet in her car seat. The satellite radio on the 50's channel, RIP IT UP by Little Richard comes on. I crank the volume. I get goosebumps. I pretend the credits roll right over my face and the cinema is filled with people smiling and staring and feeling good as hell as my story wraps up.

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Maximus is dead maybe fifteen seconds when the gorgeous woman turns to the people.

"He was a soldier for Rome."

"Honor him."

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Empires are everywhere. Rule 'em all if you can.

The Ballad Of The Mongoose Kid.

Somehow, I had my dream bike, a Mongoose, at 11. I don't know how we got it. My Mom got it for me. Maybe she stole it. Probably she saved for it for awhile. It was all chrome and red and California.

What was California about, Serge?

I dunno. Nothing really. But when I rode it I felt like some scraggly blond-haired kid from California. A cool thin kid who took his pads off the bike and jumped it high off hills overlooking the tranquil refreshing Pacific in the evening, as the sun slithered down in a hail of western sky fires. A kid with two parents at home preparing shellfish for dinner.

That wasn't the reality, obviously. The reality was that I was just a lackluster kid. A kid about three-quarters the size of Tommy Lasorda. A kid who left the pads on his bike because one late autumn afternoon when I had decided it was time to take them off, to ride bareback like the wild boys did: I slammed into a high gutter curb in a mortifying attempt at jumping it; my tiny balls smashing into the naked demonic hunk of bolts called the goose-neck. A bruise the size of young Elvis formed on my inner thigh and hurt like hell for two weeks. My flesh turned urban camo.

So, I rode around the streets with my bike pads on.

There were places I would ride that are probably gone now. Under canopies of roping vine, down through dark tunnels of summer branches; a thousand flappy green fingers reaching out to touch my skin, to stroke my hair as I flew by. Down dirt rut trails behind buildings where older kids smoked. Zipping past thickets where adult weirdos appeared/vanished like battlefield ghosts. In and out of the dusty mists left behind by other kids who'd rounded bends ahead.

On certain evenings, as dusk settled on the land, I'd come up over a rise, popping a weak wheelie on the rock jutting out of the fallen leaves, and there would be a big six-point buck just standing there staring at me from ten feet away. My heart would stop in the moment our eyes connected. Then, like a lot of other American bucks stuck wandering/wondering in some suburban woodlot, he'd turn his head slowly, gracefully, and bound off. Before long some other kid would come up over the rise behind, pop his weak wheelie, and haul ass past me straddling my Mongoose. That was my buck. Not his.

Beer cans and fire pits from some deep night. Pizza boxes. Cigarette butts ground into the dirt and hidden from the world forever. The lazy drift of marijuana smoke from a dark nook by the crick. Beams of golden sun slit by still tree limbs, gilding a field of tall grass with beautiful hues. Girls in plaid catholic school skirts passing me on the trail, peddling furiously, pushing their Huffys and Schwinns forward and past me/though me, as if I wasn't even there on my Mongoose in that moment. Pheasants standing dumbfounded. Fried chicken bones on boulders. Sparrows and robins and doves perched on power lines. Six or seven feet of knobby wheel tracks in the low wet patches of trail. All of it, I'd pass along my way.

At home, with color faded from the world, the cars parked on the street outside my house still pinging warm engine pings, I walked my Mongoose down the narrow walk between our house and our neighbor's house six feet away. At the end of the sidewalk, I'd pick it up gently by its frame and drag it up the three steps to our tiny back porch, the back tire bumping off the cement: 1-2-3 times, and lean it up against the weathered gas grill.

For a second, I'd stand there, my hands in a C just above the handlebar, as I let the red rubber grip catch on to the lift handle of the barbecue. Every night, in new darkness, that same drawn-out second would pass until I knew the bike had found its balance for the long night ahead.

Then, exhausted and fulfilled, I'd walk in the back door to our over-lit kitchen and microwave some frozen meatballs to eat with my filthy young fingers in the recliner by the TV.

Dust And Wires.

All the drinking, all the arguing. All the cigarettes and tacos and dirty pictures. All the street signs I've seen and left behind. All the early mornings, quiet streets. All the lust. The desire. The disappointment. All the spoons I've dropped on the floor. All the clean ones they brought me. All the kissing couples I've seen in the squares. All the pigeons in the background. All of the songs they played on the radio when I happened to be listening. The many more they played when I wasn't. All of the skin I've felt. All of the bashing. The jealousy. The envy. All of the hospital rooms; the unconscious back and forth we never said when we could've. All of the ringing phones. All of the dial tones. The rise and fall of endless accelerations: of passing Chevrolets and Fords and Le Cars. All of the deer right at dawn. The evening knats. All of the nights spent falling in love with someone so hard after she ordered me beer and pizza on the phone from thousands of miles away. All of the nonsense. So much static. All of the nights I laid down in spilt cheap whiskey on the barroom floor and played my harmonica. All of the time spent staring at the mirror. All of the Zoloft. All of the pot. All of the chocolate. And the rubbers that formed perfect rings through the leather of my wallets. All of the people I trusted. All of the caution I exercised. All of the filthy old snow. All of the fresh cut grass. All of the laughing I faked. All of the thrills I couldn't possibly explain. Singing birds in England. Jumping fish in Tennessee. Shaking the hand of Johnny Cash. Holding her hand on The Grand Canal. All of the curse words I've said. All of the mints I've taken by the cash register. All of the prayers, just asking for favors. The magnificent paintings in the magnificent museums. The days with only a single dollar to my name. All of the names we called each other. All of the holes in the wall I've hammered. All of the fumbling for keys to unlock apartment doors when someone inside heard me and just stayed on the couch anyway. All of the Civil War Battlefields. The famous author's graves. Rock stars at a distance. All of the bullshit. All of the stupid lists. Trying to say stuff no one has ever been able to say.

All of the potato chips.

All of it has led up to this one moment of supreme weird magic.

Saturday morning: I am sitting on the couch in front of the big screen TV, poking around Facebook. At my feet my daughter Violet alternates between convulsive dancing in front of Dora The Explorer as she sings the same fucking song a-fuckin-gain and sneaking around to the wall behind the television to peer at the wires and cables that make it all happen.

She is looking for Dora. It hits me all at once. She is looking for the characters!

Oh the sweet sauce of life. It dribbles down through my veins and bones like that first sip of beer after a long day's drive. Oh sweet little girl, looking behind the TV for the cartoon characters up on the screen.

I did that! I remember, back through the murk; I remember looking at the back of TVs, at dusty black wires and ventilated slats. I know I do because I can still see it. I can see what my daughter is seeing now without even looking! And oh how I have been desperately seeking some way, some Black Magical system, for me to be able to close my eyes and see EXACTLY what she is seeing through her little clean eyes.

Violet stands somewhat unsure. She leeeeeans back to look for Dora, slowwwwwwly. Her lips make that O that could go either way at any moment. A burst of smile. A screech of terror.

All of yesterday melts into a gob of joy I feel about once every twenty years or so. Look at her. Look at her looking. Holy shit. I'd totally forgotten what I'd seen back there all those years ago. Totally forgotten what it was like to nervously peek for super wonderful things you really believed could be found.

Imagination. Love. Expectation. Reality. Dreams. Investigation. Real true magic.

It's all dust and wires in the end, man.