The Storm & Super Dad
Dispatches from Bizzarro World by Longshot the Sane
11/8/2005
I had a dream again--this one not in black in white, but in white, blue and black shades. Nothing more. It was strange, but that’s why they’re dreams.
Lightning was all around, and it opened on the large cheap plastic shingles on the false roof of a store front (the modern day equivalent of an old-west block-style façade) blowing off in sections, and it panned down to me by the Car. I was standing by the open drivers side door, gripping the upper edge of the frame at the roof, and gritting my teeth. The storm was here; it was all wind and lightning and no rain, and the lack of rain was maddening, as if a lack of closure was pervading what I knew should be the kind of blistering rainfall that made windshield wipers useless and thoughts of crawling into the attic seem sensible. Again, my hair was longer and this time there was a streak of gray in it a half an inch above my ears, but I was not many years older than I am now.
The fingers of my right hand clenched the roof, my left hand balled into a fist. I was furious. I had been operating without a tether for a long time, years, but not like before when I was New. Then, I was a free agent because the High Command slept and didn’t care what I did unless it made the news, but now, I operated without thought of them asleep or awake. I was my own man, and I knew what had to be done—and unlike before, how to do it. Something bad had happened, but had gone unnoticed and unstopped and was continuing, and it was eating me alive. I knew that I had to stop it or it would drive me over whatever edge remained, but I couldn’t quite catch it and it was getting ‘bad’. People were getting hurt—the wrong kind, and I owed them. I owed them all, and time was short…but for me or the next victim, I could not tell. The collars of my coat were whipping against my disproportionate neck, and my embroidered badge was frayed but still visible. I needed a different means to attack this thing slowly, as if there were such a way, and I wasn’t being allowed to work ‘freely’. Time was short, as was my patience. There were only a few options left…but to call them ‘Out of Policy’ was a stretch, at best.
The dream ends.
I was counseling a man this morning. He had tried to make his 16 year old son a Man the night before by proffering him a fight, 37 year old to 16 year old Mano-e-Mano , and the 16 year old had declined… because his dad was drunk. Again. The dad had the ‘new girlfriend’ drive him to his birth mother’s house, and then after sobering up, realized he hadn’t sent him with a school uniform and driven over to chastise the mother for not sending him to school at all, and called the police to assist him. After all, he was a Righteous Man.
I talked to Superdad at first with my hands in my pockets. It seemed most sensible at the time, given my penchant towards Fixing Things and what not. I asked dad for his scenario of the whole thing. Then I asked why I was Summoned. Then I asked…what he was really worried about. And finally, what he hoped our Presence would Gain.
POWER AND CONTROL, my droogs. The man was an un-illustrated and poorly written textbook on the subject, and his eyes squinted and then opened wide as I Educated him on the topic of Power…and Control.
I let him know that his son was just that—his Son, a kid that at one time or another looked up to him as his father, as his masculine word for the only earthly entity he could equate with ‘God’, but that ‘God’ had apparently fallen a few notches since he currently at 8:34 am stank of cheap malt liquor and scratched at His arms from the Meth he had been consuming the months since. So I helped him, without my hands.
His cigarette began shaking when he realized the Decade of Neuterization of Police was apparently over, and that he had found an Olde One that sensed his amateur treachery and called him out, with the simple statement that maybe…just maybe the solution to his sons perceived woes would not be with the invitation to fight his father, fist to fist…but that his father may have to consider the wildly minute possibility…that his sons Problems may lie in the Fathers mirror. That the son should not be asked to defend himself in such a way for having the audacity to ask to leave his fathers drunken household after declining to fight same, as evidenced by a stranger having to take him home at 1:20 am on a school night, and his father seeking retaliation on both the boy and the mother by scrutinizing school wear he did not supply and so logically making the drive over to address such and calling the police to assist him, while waiting in a car that stank of stale beer, nicotine, and misplaced aggression.
Session was In at the drivers door of his beaten up Beretta, and for one rare instance in his blurry life, Dad was not oblivious of this. I had no shades on, as I prefer the Crazies to see my eyes, and he could barely make contact. I corrected that by means of visual stimulation, and he indicated understanding by way of dropping his half-lit cigarette into his lap. I assured him it was fine when I grabbed his wrist, and continued my Counseling. His son was at an age where he could not morally or physically respond to his fathers methods Properly, and I explained that this is where I came in. That his address in East Ridge, Tennessee made little difference, because Doing Right had no 'jurisdiction' ( I snickered at this inwardly, Josey Wales never being far from thought) and I made him Understand. His Son could not defend himself properly in the face of his father, and that as such it fell to Me to defend him, where no others would. It was all that kept me going, I insisted, and while I held his wrist (and unbeknownst to me his shirt collar, until I looked) I began to see Understanding in his pale, meth-addled face.
I had made a Believer this morning, however brief, and I stepped back. The Fledglings were approaching and still did not understand my Methods…but they Respected them.
I told Da’ to move on now, and find a mirror and think of what I had told him. And the son? I asked him what he thought about doing later in life…and for perhaps the second time ever, suggested he look into the Great Work, and consider joining us. He had a quiet but powerful look to him, and not because he was three inches taller than I at only age 16. He too, looked Lost and Angry, but Patient...whereas most did not.
I bid him well and reassured his mother, and left for the next call, a father wishing to prosecute for ‘Statutory Rape’ of his 17 year old daughter who was living with her 23 year old half-retarded boyfriend who made a living selling hot dogs at Bellsouth Park.
There were clouds in the sky to the southeast above the Ridge, but no rain. Still, no rain, and it seemed wrong…but I drove on.
There was more work to be done, and I felt Incomplete. Not so much as before, but something was missing. I was still looking.
Perhaps, I told myself…the Next Call will answer it All.
11/8/2005
I had a dream again--this one not in black in white, but in white, blue and black shades. Nothing more. It was strange, but that’s why they’re dreams.
Lightning was all around, and it opened on the large cheap plastic shingles on the false roof of a store front (the modern day equivalent of an old-west block-style façade) blowing off in sections, and it panned down to me by the Car. I was standing by the open drivers side door, gripping the upper edge of the frame at the roof, and gritting my teeth. The storm was here; it was all wind and lightning and no rain, and the lack of rain was maddening, as if a lack of closure was pervading what I knew should be the kind of blistering rainfall that made windshield wipers useless and thoughts of crawling into the attic seem sensible. Again, my hair was longer and this time there was a streak of gray in it a half an inch above my ears, but I was not many years older than I am now.
The fingers of my right hand clenched the roof, my left hand balled into a fist. I was furious. I had been operating without a tether for a long time, years, but not like before when I was New. Then, I was a free agent because the High Command slept and didn’t care what I did unless it made the news, but now, I operated without thought of them asleep or awake. I was my own man, and I knew what had to be done—and unlike before, how to do it. Something bad had happened, but had gone unnoticed and unstopped and was continuing, and it was eating me alive. I knew that I had to stop it or it would drive me over whatever edge remained, but I couldn’t quite catch it and it was getting ‘bad’. People were getting hurt—the wrong kind, and I owed them. I owed them all, and time was short…but for me or the next victim, I could not tell. The collars of my coat were whipping against my disproportionate neck, and my embroidered badge was frayed but still visible. I needed a different means to attack this thing slowly, as if there were such a way, and I wasn’t being allowed to work ‘freely’. Time was short, as was my patience. There were only a few options left…but to call them ‘Out of Policy’ was a stretch, at best.
The dream ends.
I was counseling a man this morning. He had tried to make his 16 year old son a Man the night before by proffering him a fight, 37 year old to 16 year old Mano-e-Mano , and the 16 year old had declined… because his dad was drunk. Again. The dad had the ‘new girlfriend’ drive him to his birth mother’s house, and then after sobering up, realized he hadn’t sent him with a school uniform and driven over to chastise the mother for not sending him to school at all, and called the police to assist him. After all, he was a Righteous Man.
I talked to Superdad at first with my hands in my pockets. It seemed most sensible at the time, given my penchant towards Fixing Things and what not. I asked dad for his scenario of the whole thing. Then I asked why I was Summoned. Then I asked…what he was really worried about. And finally, what he hoped our Presence would Gain.
POWER AND CONTROL, my droogs. The man was an un-illustrated and poorly written textbook on the subject, and his eyes squinted and then opened wide as I Educated him on the topic of Power…and Control.
I let him know that his son was just that—his Son, a kid that at one time or another looked up to him as his father, as his masculine word for the only earthly entity he could equate with ‘God’, but that ‘God’ had apparently fallen a few notches since he currently at 8:34 am stank of cheap malt liquor and scratched at His arms from the Meth he had been consuming the months since. So I helped him, without my hands.
His cigarette began shaking when he realized the Decade of Neuterization of Police was apparently over, and that he had found an Olde One that sensed his amateur treachery and called him out, with the simple statement that maybe…just maybe the solution to his sons perceived woes would not be with the invitation to fight his father, fist to fist…but that his father may have to consider the wildly minute possibility…that his sons Problems may lie in the Fathers mirror. That the son should not be asked to defend himself in such a way for having the audacity to ask to leave his fathers drunken household after declining to fight same, as evidenced by a stranger having to take him home at 1:20 am on a school night, and his father seeking retaliation on both the boy and the mother by scrutinizing school wear he did not supply and so logically making the drive over to address such and calling the police to assist him, while waiting in a car that stank of stale beer, nicotine, and misplaced aggression.
Session was In at the drivers door of his beaten up Beretta, and for one rare instance in his blurry life, Dad was not oblivious of this. I had no shades on, as I prefer the Crazies to see my eyes, and he could barely make contact. I corrected that by means of visual stimulation, and he indicated understanding by way of dropping his half-lit cigarette into his lap. I assured him it was fine when I grabbed his wrist, and continued my Counseling. His son was at an age where he could not morally or physically respond to his fathers methods Properly, and I explained that this is where I came in. That his address in East Ridge, Tennessee made little difference, because Doing Right had no 'jurisdiction' ( I snickered at this inwardly, Josey Wales never being far from thought) and I made him Understand. His Son could not defend himself properly in the face of his father, and that as such it fell to Me to defend him, where no others would. It was all that kept me going, I insisted, and while I held his wrist (and unbeknownst to me his shirt collar, until I looked) I began to see Understanding in his pale, meth-addled face.
I had made a Believer this morning, however brief, and I stepped back. The Fledglings were approaching and still did not understand my Methods…but they Respected them.
I told Da’ to move on now, and find a mirror and think of what I had told him. And the son? I asked him what he thought about doing later in life…and for perhaps the second time ever, suggested he look into the Great Work, and consider joining us. He had a quiet but powerful look to him, and not because he was three inches taller than I at only age 16. He too, looked Lost and Angry, but Patient...whereas most did not.
I bid him well and reassured his mother, and left for the next call, a father wishing to prosecute for ‘Statutory Rape’ of his 17 year old daughter who was living with her 23 year old half-retarded boyfriend who made a living selling hot dogs at Bellsouth Park.
There were clouds in the sky to the southeast above the Ridge, but no rain. Still, no rain, and it seemed wrong…but I drove on.
There was more work to be done, and I felt Incomplete. Not so much as before, but something was missing. I was still looking.
Perhaps, I told myself…the Next Call will answer it All.
posted by Longshot! [Sane] at 6:44 AM
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