The Rambling Candy Apple Red Bubba Blues.

I got this forty buck red tricycle at Walmart a couple of weeks ago; for my kid. It was a payday, so I got a little nuts and went ahead and bought one of those clown honker horns to tie to the handlebars. I knew it was the right one to get because as soon as I fired off a few shots by Violet's ears there in the store, she became fixated on the thing and wouldn't stop popping it off. People in Walmart don't care if loud clown horns are rippling over from the next aisle. Its part of the deal. It's why they don't have tents set up back in Sporting Goods; some people would just crawl in there with some bread and peanut butter and just start camping out until they got the boot. Its a wilderness.

Anyways, we walked around for awhile, horns a-wailing, when I came across this little display of fake plastic Utah license plates. We stopped. They were pretty picked over; there were a couple Kody's/a couple Hunter's. There weren't any Violet's, which pissed me off pretty good. There wasn't even a place for Violet. Whatever.

We picked through some and I'd hand her one here and there. Ask her if she wanted to be a Micha? Or a Chase? She'd just stick the corner of the thing in teeth for a secd and then fling it on to the ground to watch it slide. And to watch Pops pick each one up and hang it back on the rack. Finally, I moved a couple Kami's to the side, on a hunch. And there it was. Sweet Motherlode. The Hidden Treasure of Boxstore Forest.

A plastic Utah license plate that read:

BUBBA.

I threw it in the cart, wheeled that shit fast to the Express lanes in the front, and bought the bike and the horn and the plate before Violet could even manage to clock that we were splitting. I wanted to get out of there as fast I could. There's no way that if someone saw that I had found the last one with BUBBA on it, there's just no way that wasn't gonna lead to trouble. Hell, I probably passed three or four Bubbas just on my way out the electric doors. Chances are: the Exit Greeter, an old lady, maybe 80 years old, chances are: her name is Bubba. Or, if not, then you can be goddamn certain that one of her grandkids is called Bubba. And that she would have jeopordized her job/her dignity to try and get that little piece of junk off of me any way she possible could had she knew what I had in my bag upon my leaving.

Luckily, she didn't get up to ogle my receipt. Luckily, we didn't have to open a pounder can of Whoop-Ass on each other righ there at the exit, by the eight hundred people in line at the Redbox.

===========================

When I get Violet on the bike, I make Harley sounds because that's what you do. You rev the plastic grips of the handlebars, so that the red and white streamers hanging there look like they're blowing in a bum-rush of desert wind. I rev it up hot and loud like a Warlock at a stoplight. The kid loves it. She looks back at me with her Question Mark Eyes, smiling halfway, seeing if its ok to smile. I smile big at her and blow hot air from my mouth down through her curls, like pipe exhaust/like motorcycle gusts, and then she opens her mouth wide and grins so wide that I can see every little white nub in her mouth for a beautiful moment or two.

Honk your horn, I tell her.

I guide her hand a little and then she pulls it away from me and lays out a bunch of rapid squawks all on her own.

You ready?, I say.

Put your feet up!, I tell her. Then I rev it with all I got: VRRRRRROOOOOM! VRRRRRRRROOOOM!

And we're off. I push the thing because her feet barely reach the pedals now. I push it slow at first, making sure she doesn't get her tiny toes stuck between the mud guard and the tire. We cruise into the kitchen, across the linoleum, the bike making a little bump when we pass off of the carpet onto the hard surface. She bends her neck and turns to look around and up at me, always smiling, making sure that I'm smiling back. Making sure that all this riding around is not just some late afternoon nap dream; checking out that it's real, that the fun is true.

Hold on tight, I shout between chopper grunts and shovelhead spits. Honk your horn!

She honks it. We do the sharp turn in the hall and I take her fast down the straightaway back into the living room and she giggles and bucks up in her seat, the hot sauce of excited blood bubbling through her little heart.

Then the dogs come in and we raise hard hell to 'em. I zero in on Milo and he tries to jimmy himself just a step out of the way but its too late, we're too zoned in to his ass and the next thing you know: we're trailing him super tight and he keeps trying to make these weird circles as if his tail is in flames or something. We follow him close though, around and around, honking our horn at him, fucking with his confused dog mind, around and around the same six foot lap maybe fifteen times before he does a crafty side maneuver and flicks himself out of the vortex.

We honk him a goodbye honk and tear off back into the kitchen, passing Microwave Mountain at 99mph, the afternoon beams of sunlight laser-beaming off the sweet Candy Apple Red of the frame that moves two Easy Riders through 3 o'clock's high fields of shit-eating grin.

Violet and Bubba.

We gone.

Blue Sky.

I go days without really giving a shit about much.

I eat my face off and read my books, go to my little job and rake leaves or pull up old carpet. I sit behind my little girl on the floor as she dances around in front of the television and I stare at her and hold her in my eyes. I'll put the dogs in the back of the Honda and take them to the place where we walk. I throw tennis balls we find in the bushes until we lose them again, in other bushes.

At night, I flop down on my bed when the house is still and quiet and before long I can't hold my eyelids up anymore.

Weeks go by for me when I don't let the past in. Any drips of nostalgia that leak out of the ether, I blow them off my skin like knats. People I knew before, I bury them in chunks of rubble, in piles of yesterday, so that only their dusted hands and feet stick out here and there. And those could be anybody's. All the good times I had in the band, I shove them off. Because inevitably, nights out in Spanish bars or afternoons spent laughing out loud in vans ripping down lost highways, sooner or later they lead to faces and names and so many of those are tainted for me. It was a fun life to be sure, but it was a castle of dreams too. A castle often ripped down by things ending badly. Pride plays a part, I guess. And hurt. We're only human, I tell myself, and we have to forgive and forget and blah blah blah. Still, most of the faces: they walk into my head, stroll up behind my eyes and smile one of their old smiles, and before you know it: I got the grenade in one hand and the pin in the other. Adios, amigo. Again, I guess.

My blues come on like a lot of people's probably. Slow. Like cars poking around Christmas lots, far from the store doors, just looking for any damn spot they can find. Eventually they find one and park and that's when I have to just deal with it all. And I'm not complaining and if you think I am, well, you can kiss my ass. I eat my Zolofts and plow through my days and try and be the best dad I can be without ever dangling my blues in front of her. But there are times when I wonder whether she can tell. People smell other people's burdens sometimes. And little kids: I get the feeling they are sniffing stuff out long before they could dream of explaining it to you. It's just a vibe; a couple pink or grey clouds rolling slow across the living room ceiling.

And, I know this much too. Kids love you so much, just like you love them. And if they could slice off a fat wad of your blues and just deal with it themselves, I bet  they would. But, it isn't that simple really.

Time fucks with you like nothing else. Good wise people all over the place surprise us when they show up with new obvious sheens on their skin. Noses get rearranged on purpose. Grown men go out to bars wearing Ed Hardy shirts, believing they have found some little secret on slowing time down, if only for a couple of hours. But its all useless. Inside of you, clocks are ticking and they don't care about your hide or your outfits. You're just an hourglass marching around, wondering if people like how you look. You're just doing your best, I guess, finding your own little ways to deal with your own little blues.

Me, I haven't done any surgeries yet. And I own less clothes now than I ever have in my life. If you were to watch me from behind trees for a week or so, you'd wonder to yourself why this guy never changes out of his tattered work pants. And that's a fair question. I think it's because I've been battling my blues with some sort of Peasant Power for awhile. I figured maybe less was more. I started reading about North Korea a lot, trying to see how people there got through their days. They must know blues, you know? But I don't find all that much. It seems like no matter how bad it gets you either clench your teeth and plow on or you don't. The conditions change drastically, but the mantras don't.

Satisfaction comes back. It always does with me. And I guess that makes me lucky, because for some people I think it doesn't. It comes back for me probably because I chase away everything that could possibly keep it from bolting out of the dark woods at some point. Old faces, old times. The here and now. Everything but the push, the forward momentum, I bitch slap them away from me.

The sun comes out and I find stuff to get high on. Jelly cheeks. Little trout. Something I was able to write or something some stranger wrote to me. My wife's fat belly and the boy cooking in there. I take a shot of that and before I know it I'm getting off on something good, something ancient and strong. Tomorrows. Tons of them, lined up like an endless ranch fence, only disappearing over some slight rise so far off across the windy barren fields that you don't even have to worry about way out there for a long long time.

This isn't advice from me. I don't have any. And I ain't looking for any either. Maybe you don't have much blues. Good lookin' out.

I'm just writing shit down that's way too long to put up on stupid Facebook.

Later.

The House Chicken And The Swedish Rat.

My face is squished into the carpet and the dogs think maybe I've had that stroke they've been waiting for. They are sniffing at my neck and my ass, taking big drags of my odor, seeing if they can smell the Grim Reaper on me. Lucky for me, they don't. I know they would start in eating me before too long. No Call of The Wild shit here. No pacing around the master, whining/worrying. No miraculous calls to 911 placed by a black lab. Hell no. One of them would give the other one the green light with a quick glance.

There! There I smelled it! I just smelled the dead smell! He's gone/Dig In!

They'd be conking heads and making snorts and using their paws and their fangs and their long stinky tongues to get at the best cuts of me; like the rednecks at the Golden Corral on Saturday night, when they refresh the ribs and the pulled pork. Fucking fat bastards. Thankless pickled-brained gluttons, vaccuming my sweet fine muscles into their dog guts.

Ugh.

Anyways, I'm not dead, so they can shove it.

I'm down on the floor, with my left cheek planted so hard into the carpet that I can feel some of the fibers tickling the corner of my eyball. I'm being still too, and quiet, so when the damn dogs come hovering I have to give them stealth kicks and ninja pops to get them to clear out. 

I see Violet's little socks thumping across her side of the floor. She's on the move. Perfect. She has no clue I'm here. I can barely make out her feet when they stop just a few inches away from my eye, on the other side of her bedroom door.

Twist/Shake/Twist/Twist/Shake! Ha! She's trying to turn the door knob! I'm breaded in pride crumbs. My little girl trying to escape her bedroom on her own.

I am enamored. Fascinated with a splash of terror.

(  And I'm ok with it as long as I'm in on the whole thing, either lying in wait behind the door, or having a Diet Coke and some chips as I watch my secret bank of forty three hidden camera montors. Whatever works is fine with me. I'll get as creative as she does. Sneaking out the window at 11pm on a Friday night when we're supposed to be waking up early tomorrow morning for a family trip to the Christmas Tree Farm/YES IN JULY!, to keep an eye on the tree we tagged with a sliver of orange ribbon back in March; to make certain it is growing and will be ready for the sixty pounds of lights and kabibble we aim to hang from its carcass come December. Sneaking out the window, using the little fire ladder I have set up to aid her in an emergency, a ladder which she descends, quietly/swiftly, down-down-down, to the freedom she deserves and the friends she NEEDS to see TONIGHT; to be with other humans who actually understand her and love her, not like her thick-headed dorky asshole Dad who is, O.M.G!: waiting at the bottom of the ladder, with a glass of wine; ankle-deep in Home Depot barkchips and cedar shavings.

"Hi, Honey."  )

So, Violet whacks at the knob a few times and sighs. Then, she lets out a gasp; a sweet beautiful little cry for help from some unseen God of Kids/God of Locked Doors. I smile at that.

Watching things under a door, with only about an inch of vantage, is really something. You have to use so much of your imagination, to picture exactly what is going on in there, but you're also dictated quite a bit of the story just by the shadowy movements of feet, the sounds that slip out of people's lips when they are sure they are alone and forgotten. At one point, my daughter rams her head a couple times  against her side of the door. When you're the parent you get used to having that extra sense that tells you: Yes, that particular thwap on the front window or echoing off of the dryer, yeah, that was your kid's head slamming around out there. Same here. As soon as she pops the door with her noodle I can tell it was a head butt. She does it twice more, then: no sound.

I dig deep into the carpet and watch as her feet disappear around a corner. I strain my ears and soon enough I make out some Russian. She's in there blabbering it up with her stuffed Ikea rat, talking in tongues to the good listener. Her tones amaze me. Lilting conversational tones, tones of inquiry and chastising and gentle prodding. And no sensible words, just secret ishkibibble dressed up in tight little sentences. I see her in my head. I see her standing over beside her new big kid's bed, holding the rat in her plum fist, pointing her teeny finger at his whiskered snout.

She tells him whats up. Tells him they're trapped. Tells him not to worry, she'll think of something.

Then, she's back at the door. The small socks turn the corner and the knob bursts with a fresh bustle of turns and shakes. (It isn't locked, but it doesn't matter much.) Pow,Pow,Pow, she kicks the door just by my eye. It is a spectacular visual, for me at least. Like watching wildlife shows when you're baked. The 1978 thick clumsy footage of high mountain rams smashing skulls at 75 mph as you drag a Ruffles through supermarket onion dip and all of the universe spins up in a swirling tornado crueller of toasted mind-blows. She kicks at the door, at the camera's expensive lense, and I narrate in my head.

"I'mmmmm Marty Stouffer. The rarely seen Sleepy Grumpkin is a sight to behold. With its friend the Swedish Furniture Rat, she can tear apart her own deep cave nest in a matter of minutes, driven by her endless need to parade around on the forest floor, looking for things to pick up and, sometimes, rice cake crumbs or boot mud she can nibble upon. Join me as we peer in on this fascinating creature, Tonight on Wiiiilllllld America."

I slide my fingers into the crack between the door and the carpet and her fumbling around stops.

There is a long solitary moment when I am the soul of giddy anticipation. What will happen? What's she gonna do? I mean, there are really only two things that can happen, I guess. B ut I'm hoping of one of them.

I wait. I wiggle my digits, slide them a little this way and that.

Then it comes. I feel her light fingers brush the tops of mine, as if she's touching to make sure shes seeing; as if she's making sure she isn't dreaming. I lift as much of my hand as I can.

She pokes at me again.

I grab hold of one of her fingers.

She cackles with glee. I shake it a little bit: you're mine now!: a friendly monster coming in under the door. It makes her bananas. She darts backwards acrosss the room and I can barely see it happen.  I give knock on the door and she comes flying back and starts whacking at the knob again.

And, then of course, I go in. Like a dumbass. Like a spoiler, an enabler. Unable to stick to my plan, to just watch and not give myself up; to observe the kid in her natural habitat as she freaks out/plays me, and then eventually, falls asleep like she's supposed to be doing, on her bed or curled up down on the carpet.

I open the door and she flies right right by my kness like a chicken on its way across the yard, never looking up at me, never paying me any mind at all.

Places to go, shit to do, man. Places to go. Shit to do.