The Rise Of Skywalker

The Last Jedi is the most divisive movie in the Star Wars universe. The middle of the sequel trilogy turned director/writer Rian Johnson into a lightning rod for either profuse scorn or effusive praise, depending on what segment of the fandom was speaking up at the time. The subversion of convention, the hints of romance between "the Jedi and the Jedi Killer," the abundant humor--these were the elements that won new fans disinterested in the OT/PT methodology while simultaneously pissing off the diehards who swore by the lore of Lucas.

Dissatisfaction with pacing, comedy and characterization--these are all legitimate reasons to not like any film. The loudest, longest excoriations of The Last Jedi reeked of a vicious hatred, a shameless disgust at seeing a more inclusive, diverse Star Wars universe. Which is not a legitimate reason to dislike a movie.

Once entrusted to Colin Treverrow, the ST finale was handed over to J.J. Abrams, whose re-imagining of Episode IV pulled the nifty trick of pleasing both critics and audiences. Could he do it again?

WHAT HAPPENED (Fair warning: I left the Blue Milk on the counter in the stereolab.)

My personal expectation: a flashy, gorgeous, and derivative experience thick with fanservice. The shaggy-haired, finely-muscled fuckboy who grabs your attention despite the warning signs because, well, who doesn't like watching a good fucking? I sure do.

Oh, who me? Born late '77, youngest of seven, most married and moved on by the time I was desperately seeking entertainment beyond peek-a-boo and Poky Li'l Puppy. My big brother (only eleven years older than me) boasted a formidable collection of VHS/Betamax tapes filled with movies he'd recorded off of our tank-like TV. Dozens of hours of escape, none of them pulled me in like Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Fairy tales in space, Kurosawa with lasers, it was like nothing I'd seen or heard. I quit counting sheep, choosing instead to recite ESB dialogue from line one. The Glo Worm and the X-Wing were my favorite toys. Princess Leia was my favorite character.

And I was the only girl I knew--in a town full of people who worshipped fantasies of the past while vilifying fantasies of the present--who loved Star Wars.

Maybe there were other girls my age in the theater when Mom took my brother and I to the Valley Mall on May 25, 1983. I don't remember much about the first time I saw the "last" SW movie, save for the Imperial Guards, the Ewoks, and Leia kicking ass.

When the prequels were announced, I felt a sense of duty to buy tickets for all three. Same with the sequels. I never, though, felt a sense of entitlement. Whatever expectations I harbored, I tempered. The thrills resonated longer, the disappointments puttered out in the life of a sigh, and I never once reacted with the fervor of a loon, distraught over moving pictures on a screen not matching up with the moving pictures in my head.

This is a neat little trick I've far from perfected, and one the fans degrading Episode 9 (and 8, for that matter) would do well to practice.

The most interesting characters in the ST are scavenger-ass Rey and Vader-wannabe Kylo Ren. The young woman struggling with issues of identity and family, the young man doomed since conception to defy the expectations of his parentage. Searching is the vital verb, and so it proceeds both Rey and Ren are leading charges to locate Emperor Palpatine. Sheevy Baby's 'bout as dead as Pearl Jam's breakout single, and havoc-wreaking is in the stars! Training, trio and traitors, oh my! For an offering that aims to "tie it all together" (meaning all eight preceding films), TROS revels in adding new customs and characters. This works well…mostly.

Rey's training (as overseen by Leia, who has a saber now, y'all), is pretty fun until Kylo ForceTimes himself into it and BB-8 finds out what happens when a tree decides to initiate the hugging. The Emperor is out there, on the Sith planet of Exogol, and Kylo's found him, and now Rey has to find the Emperor, but she won't be alone thanks to her insistent Resistance chums. Enter shenanigans with Poe, Finn, C-3PO, Chewie and Rose! Wait, not Rose? Huh, okay, 'cause last film she was all gung-ho about staying in the fight and emphasizing love and now she's a pessimist?

Trio adventures are better late than never, packed with plenty of laughs and fake-outs and important reveals. Then Kylo drops the twist (twists the drop?) and either the shit becomes incredibly real or the real becomes incredibly shit, that's one I gotta leave up to y'all.

The final fight between scavenger and trash is fantastic, since Kylo finally remembers who he is and whoops ass. Only to remember who he is--again. The Resistance, led by new General Poe Dameron, battles the First Order while Palps and Rey-Rey powwow.

That Rey and Ben Solo were connected by the Force (a "Dyad" per Palpatine) isn't a surprise. I'd assumed this would play a part in the third movie, during their climactic final fight. Instead, Sheevy Baby exploits this bond to gain UNLIMITED POWA and end the Skywalkers. Which he both succeeds to do, and fails to do.

Celebration on Endor, the established party planet! Burial on Tattoine! Spotlight on John Williams, y'all!

AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED?

The female protagonist kicked ass. Just like in the last two. Get mad, stay mad. Sure, there was resurrection via dead Jedi pep talk, and the wide-chested Solo boy escaped to the World Between Worlds before sliding into second base, but fuck me, she's got a cool new saber!

Ben showing his inner Han ruled, incidentally.

What's even cooler than ship porn? The one, the only, the Richard E. Grant, born to be a villain in a galaxy far, far away.

All right, enough bullet point writing. From the moment I sat my butt down in the theater, my nerves were crackling. Audibly. Like my partner pointed out more times than three that I should calm the entire fuck down, the previews haven't even started yet, ya antsy cunt. Then the movie started and I calmed most of the fuck down. The fate of Leia tested the tensile strength of my blood vessels, and each time she popped on screen, a curious admixture of gratitude and trepidation poured itself into my esophagus, and I rode every curve of the journey with pale knuckles and florid face. (Mad Luke bit it? Mark Hamill's still alive and ghosting. Mad Ben 'n' Rey won't bump pretties? Y'all got a kiss.)

The thoughtful utilization of archival footage aside, Episode IX became hypothetical
on December 27, 2016, when Carrie Fisher passed away. VII was Harrison's sendoff, VIII was Mark's sendoff, and IX was to be hers. Then real life intruded, denying audiences (and performers) the emotionally satisfying mother-son conclusion the whole damn story demanded.

Well, Disney hates Moms anyway. Enter Han Solo to make sure Harrison Ford keeps up with Samuel L. Jackson in all-time box office. Oh, and also to provide his son with the needed absolution to chuck the best lightsaber ever constructed into the water, drop the act, and save the girl. Between this, and the announcement of Leia's death, the Solo-Skywalkers provided the most emotional moments in TROS.

(Poor Chewie, all his old friends were lost to this stupid war. Least his girlfriend gave him a medal.)

Glad to see more of horndog pilot/pusher Poe, whose past with Zorii Bliss interested me far more than Finn's frantic inability to tell Rey something ostensibly significant. Oscar Isaac grabs his opportunity with both hands and throttles. He's dynamic, magnetic, and sells iffy dialogue in the style of the OG scoundrel pilot.

For more well-earned nostalgic good feels, C-3PO (the "C" is for "comedian") and Babu Frick (a Baby Yoda/Groot hybrid who will make a very nice Funko Pop one day soon) occupy the same chamber in my heart forever. Thank you, silly heroes.

OH NO, HERE SHE GOES

Already, the fuckery. A split in critical and audience reception, talk of behind-the-scenes discord and Disney sacrificing Lucas's work for the sake of an entirely new Star Wars universe. (And yeah, I suspect if you peer at the pie you'll find Iger's thumb-holes gouged in certain slices.) Evidence of ret-conning, incomplete or contradictory threads (Finn/Rey, Kylo/Rey)…it's frustrating, but I feel those problems were going to exist with or without J.J. in the driver seat. I sympathize with fans who view Ben's death as reinforcing the lesson of "death is the only true redemption," who resent stripping Rey of her "other" status and denying her a fertile future on a lush planet, instead sending her back to the sand to live out her days as an intergalactic spinster with a basketball droid for a cat.

But goddamn I liked this movie.

The first act is too fast for its own good--why this movie wasn't three hours long is up there with Jack the Ripper and The Beast of Bodmin Moor I tell you--and not all the emotional beats thump, but it's a good Star Wars movie. I'd like to watch it again, though thanks to circumstances beyond my control, that won't happen for awhile.

I save my vitriol (in a Snoopy thermos, no less) for the gatekeepers who hunger to dictate fandom, the click-click commandos with more usernames than anatomical digits, YouTubers who've made projection and vitriol lucrative business, the prune-breathed oafs hungering for midichlorians and Force Ghost orgies who bond over their rancor for outsiders, a considerable percentage of whom check the box marked "female."

I can't claim absolute association with all of my like-chromosoned brethren in the fandom, since women are as gorgeously varied as men, but I'd never make them feel unwelcome. Those "shippers" who raise hackles by injecting gross romance into everything, guess what? I love 'em. I embrace 'em, I smooch 'em on the forehead, I offer 'em a swig outta my Snoopy thermos. They're enthusiastic, they expand the universe with fanfic and artwork, inspired by characters and settings and plots, so occupied they haven't the time to search out dissimilar spirits in order to execute harassment campaigns. (Already I'm seeing mean, condescending messages online towards fans who convey anguish over the fate of certain characters. Probably from the same men who threw the poorest of hissy fits over Luke Skywalker's boss sacrifice in The Last Jedi.)

Bless 'em. Telling other fans how to feel, trying to dictate the proper reactions, is lamer than Attack of the Clones. (Totally cool if you like that movie, though.) And I hope they make peace, soon, with the fact that Ben Solo, having been Kylo Ren, could not exist freely in the post-Palpatine world. Without his sweet sacrifice, he'd be doomed to a sour life.

Critics who call TROS a "fuck you" to TLJ are ignoring/missing the homages to Rian Johnson's work, be it Palpatine narrating Rey's supposed imminent turn or "the Holdo maneuver" referred to as a "one in a million" move ('cause it fucking was, one of the greatest moments in Star Wars, come fight me if you enjoy shadowboxing).

"Rey Nobody" turned out to be somebody, and initially that pissed me off.* Then my partner laid out an alternate read. "You are not your genetics" is still a valid moral. Rey's survival is not a victory for Palpatine, since she introduces herself as a "Skywalker" in the last line of the film. This defiance of her birth name is pure hope. What did Snoke say? "Skywalker lives. The seed of the Jedi Order lives. As long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy."

She's a long way to go, though. Burying the sabers of Anakin and his daughter in the sand. Honey, the sand? Jesus, babe, read the planet. (Or the shared Jedi texts, which certainly feature a chapter on the stated pet peeves of noted Jedis.)

The ninth and (allegedly) final installment in the saga is at once a relief and a reminder: they're just movies, y'all. 



*(Hi, and thanks for reading. When I say the twist pissed me off, I mean I voiced my displeasure in the theater, although thankfully only my partner seemed to hear. I don't normally behave so rashly in an audience, and while I regret my minor outburst--to the point I'm addressing it in a review--I take solace in the fact I'll never be as imbecilic as the douchenozzle wearing the bright red "Trump 2020" sweater in our theater.

Signing off, Jennifer Shakespeare.

FINAL RANK
1) THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK A+
2) A NEW HOPE A
3) THE FORCE AWAKENS A
4) THE LAST JEDI A
5) RETURN OF THE JEDI B+
6) THE RISE OF SKYWALKER B
7) REVENGE OF THE SITH B-
8) THE PHANTOM MENACE C+
9) ATTACK OF THE CLONES D

Captain Donut & The Holes Make The Boys All Pause

Christ, it's like more attention is paid to what men aren't doing then what women are doing.

Late 2017, like super-late, like I'm still digesting the turkey and potatoes, Rolling Stone prints their annual interview with U2 front-bug Bono. On the surface it's a fluffernutter to promote the band's 700th album, free ad space that should probably have been given over to a younger, more sonically interesting act. Covertly, it provided one of rock's longest-running figureheads a chance to bitch and moan about how "girly" the genre had become. Insinuating that A) men in rock must meet certain standards in appearance and execution to qualify as worthy and B) women in rock just don't cut the mustard.

Well, it's like my mother says: "If you can cut mustard, throw it away."

Bono's lament is summarized thus: "In the end, what is rock 'n' roll? Rage is at the heart of it." Sure. But it's possible to maintain a heartbeat with no brain wave activity. You can technically be alive, and unable to live. Other qualities--nuance, compassion, curiosity--made the body move. And move and move and move.

The assumption that rock must necessarily project anger is as foolhardy as the assumption that women in rock are not angry. They are. A woman's anger, furthermore, is not to be misunderstood as a repudiation or a representation of a collective. Has any person listened to an all-male band like U2 and thought, "This is how all men are"? Is "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" the Irish national anthem?

Blame it on Bey. The year before Bono cried in Jann Wenner's right arm, Lemonade snatched up the lease and turned the world's most iconic living rapper into a lawn gnome. In her wake, more female performers assumed spotlight roles and dominated all manner of music charts: Solange, SZA, Lorde, Taylor Swift. Responses ranged from "About time" to "Fuck this."

The old endearments are the new endurances. Girls grown wary of glorifying and/or defying the "bad boy" and bored of communicating strictly with pants and moans. When the muzzles come off, all barks become bites, and an integral element becomes a neighborhood nuisance. 

Women, as the shoulders of the world, are also entitled to anger over issues both grave and goofy. Men are also entitled to inquire as to the source of that anger. If the answer proves unsettling, well, that's their squabble to quell. Not every guy handles this responsibility well, particularly those sent into apoplectic fits over seeing themselves depicted in the media less frequently (a cultural shift they interpret as a portent of a world where the benefits of masculinity are construed as detriments and their individual voices will be quashed for the sins of a collective).

Beware--the decision to obey the creative urge leaves one open to obloquy courtesy of well-salted nuts wishing their jars had lids. Decency is, by definition, harder to detect. Failure to meet the demands of some well-defined segment inspires puzzlement at the very least. Make 'em think, make 'em feel, and maybe you make 'em mad, mad enough to shore up a restless defense of a rigid values system they don't even fully value.

That applies to so much…let's keep it music.

Complexity ruins rock music, the wisdom wails. Keep it tough, keep it basic, say "hey" whole bunches. The only thing worse than a man exploring the Parisian catacombs of his masculinity is a woman treating her femininity like a toy store.(Dare to play fast and loose with gender identity and run the risk of exposing suspected allies as gone Terfin' USA, eager combatants in spoon fights over scorching bowls of Alpha-Beta soup. Then again society is still somehow befuddled by how bisexuality works.)

My ever-shrinking patience with the demonizers justifies its own post.  I get it, I got it, they'e frazzled, I'm frazzled, we are all frazzled. We ain't gonna agree, but we gotta get along, meaning--stop spitting in my mouth the second you see the opening.

Speaking of nasty mouth business…twenty-five years ago, when I was slobbering around the sweet spot of my adolescence, it happened. The Angry Woman In Rock became trendy. Liz Phair, who just the year prior sent indie underthings into overdrive with her sharp and profane debut Exile In Guyville, was set to release her inevitably-disappointing sophomore album. Rolling Stone magazine featured her on the cover of an issue also containing an article on "Women In Rock," which asked the likes of Courtney Love, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett and Madonna about family, feminism, and fucking fragrances.

Speaking of nasty stink business…1994 saw another follow-up album from a relentlessly thoughtful woman. Courtney Love and her cohorts in Hole released Live Through This one week after the suicide of Love's superstar husband. More beloved by critics than audiences (selling less than two million copies to date in the United States), the twelve song collection is a fine representation of a scuzzy bombshell buffeting back at the world. Courtney's very existence wrenched forth the best and worst in people, not a one of whom seemed capable of a reasonable reaction to the grieving widow.

Not nearly enough attention was paid to L7, an L.A. band who, unlike Hole, were all tits all the time. They were flying the flannel and dying the follicles, pranking and yanking with the vigor of the boys, and oh yeah, playing great fucking physical music. (And boasted a Jennifer.) Never got as lachrymose as Hole, though, which I suppose indicated a stunted development (or a fierce dedication, let's not quibble). Butch Vig behind the boards, appearances on big talk shows and a cameo in the last great John Waters film, L7 were poised to reign as queens of the grunge movement.

Nah.

Millions were lulled into a naivete no less charming for its ultimate heaving absurdity. New York mag, in the summer of 1996, informed perusers "Feminism Rocks," even as the article focused heavily on Courtney's shenanigans and Alanis Morissette's recent ascension, the only mention of riot grrrl coming with Liz Phair's insistence music is powerless to create social change.

As the Nineties progressed, alternative's influence fizzled out. Enter, finally, 1999. An annus horribilis for the books. Hyper-masculine hybrid tunes ruled, dudes and their deals reclaimed their rightful combative stances and conflated every wrong in their lives into the last straw. Meanwhile I'm jamming a Missy Elliott cassette in my best friend's dark green Chevelle, an antidote to the scuzziness.

Everybody knew Missy, though. She wore trash bags and rolled with a guy named after footwear. Smaller radars detected drizzles of hope. Music in no danger of earning RIAA plaques or climbing Billboard charts. Music performed by women who struck raw poses to humble crowds. Where pizazz lacked, passion abounded. Yes, of course Sleater-Kinney, but I also mean the less-heralded likes of Erase Errata and Electrelane. Their rage was real--and unrecognizable to eyes conditioned to equate rage with a particular form, tone and timbre.

I've always considered Sleater-Kinney to be Team Dresch with more patience, tighter record collections and a nicer view. They garnered even more critical praise than Hole, and even less commercial success. No bass and competing vocals, one voice clinging to the side of the speeding railway car, the other attempting to lift the tracks clean off the ground via audiokinesis. And I'm like, fuck, this is as good as it gets. Women were still rocking, and electroclash handled the roll.

*****

New days, new waves, new ways to stay safe and warm in a blizzard. The new stars of stage, screen and Spotify, oh fuck me release day is Friday now? Also, we're eating charcoal? Christ a'mighty.

Facing threats from the lowest common denominator to the highest courts, middling around is a less-sexy option than ever. When I think women in music these days, I think of two letters: e-x. Exhausting, exhaustive, exasperating, examination, exhilarating. Excellence, experimentation.

Ex Hex. Great new album.

Who are you listening to? An épicène artiste, a fierce-brained naturalist, or a merrily mediocre fantasist. Skip the razzmatazz and give 'em their deserved fair evaluation. Lady Gaga, at her apex, was the new Madonna. St. Vincent, apex still pending, is the new Bowie. (Her electric twinning with Dua Lipa is the glorious opposite of whatever the hell happened in the video for "Dancing In The Streets.")

Now's the time to be worked into an audible froth, to let the chirping circles become part of your daily soundtrack, and who can do it quite like a woman. Virtually all the dazzlers in the maligned rock genre are female. Snail Mail, Japanese Breakfast, Camp Cope. Red foxes in the forest, each one. Courtney Barnett's supreme songcraft compels me to sit by a swamp and sketch out a week's worth of remembered reveries.

Anyone yearning for the Missy, a sizzling amalgam of pop, hip-hop and funk, had to be patient. Forget Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, bogged down by quizzical beefs and serious oversharing. Remember Lizzo. 'Cause I sure did.

I became aware of the wild-haired, bodily-blessed black woman from flyover country in 2015, when she opened up two shows for Sleater-Kinney at DC's 9:30 Club, throwing out cookies and reminding pasty faces how black lives matter. Three years on, she's an Ellen-approved star, truly the new Missy. Shit, maybe she's Sister Rosetta Tharpe with a flute.

(Janelle Monae, artier and more angular, will never receive the mainstream due she deserves, alas.)

*****

I've been looking at Lizzo and thinking, "Missy." Maybe I need to be thinking, "L7."

Away from the salt mines, L7 showed their support for women's reproductive rights by starting up Rock For Choice in 1991. A series of nationwide concerts raised money and awareness for the specific cause and for the importance of the youth vote in general. The final show took place in 2001. I'm telling you, we gotta bring it back.

Musical innovators, L7 were not. Respected and abetted by their male peers, L7 certainly were. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Fugazi--progressive-minded dudes sympathetic and sensitive to their travails. "Feminism" became a buzzword, again. (Yes, hesitate to hand out huzzahs for obvious righteousness, but hearing Kurt Cobain--the uncontested face of the genre--insist, "The future of rock belongs to women" meant something more than just a cursory acknowledgment of the right to pursue the life more solvent.) They wore flannel instead of blouses and crushed beer cans instead of rose petals, and they were proud to be women with a voice. They tossed blood at bored Brits (whose own music scene desperately needed estrogen) and galvanized overlooked segments of the American population.

We need that again.

Women in music are "between Nirvana and nothing," to quote Chuck D. Conjurers of the furious sound, signifying sweet and sour everything. Fuck the writers who spin in crude circles while asking questions that ceased to be pertinent a decade ago: Is she pretty? Is she ugly? Will she fuck me? Can I ever talk about her without feeling dizzy? (Smooth out the knots in your noodles or get rolled past.)

There's all kinds of niches for all kinds of bitches. Women are natural protesters, natural reshapers, and much like cheetahs cover great distances in impressive times. Some women are contented with being whimpering wives-in-waiting or fetching mistresses who mewl in key. Some women would rather die. We all sit side by side, spices in an endless rack. Diversification works, or it doesn't. Results will vary. The sine qua non is passion.

Ignore the useless and embrace the useful. Never listen to the person who throws out all the forks in the drawer just because one is bent.

Oh oh, yeah. Change the brassy bellow of the excited towards the exalted. No more, "You go, girl!"

Keep going, girls.

The More Real Skin

One of the risks with online publishing is the possibility of a website going under. The reasons are multitudinous, the reality is this: the site which once housed my short story "The More Real Skin" is no longer online. A new home is necessary. Please enjoy.

"The More Real Skin"

Jennifer Benningfield

Presently, life hangs. "Between" is the nebulous area in which I have lived much of adulthood anyway, so upon release from the hospital, genuine concerns such as contacting close friends and family were shoved to the rear. One solid week as an inpatient rebirthed a ravenous carnivore. Neither I nor the cabbie wasted any words from the time he picked me up until the moment he deposited me in front of the Boli's Pizza one block from my apartment building. Had my time away taught me nothing about prioritization? What decent man puts a cheesesteak, swimming in mayo, onions and pickles, ahead of his own mother? Just two more questions for the shrink-resistant pile.
 

Boli's had only been open ten minutes, yet I still had to wait in line behind a plaid-clad man half a century old, his egg-shaped head covered with bruises and bumps, and I'd say, "Ha, I'd hate to see the other guy," but for the suspicion I have that he was the other guy.
 

The belligerence suggested by his appearance bore out almost immediately.
 

"Whaddayamean, I gotta wait thirty minutes? I'm your first customer! Ain't that a kick in the back sack. Hey, check this out, I just lost my appetite for pizza. Not just your pizza, I mean all pizza, everywhere. Congratulations. Take two and drown, you poor schmo. Go home to your ugly wife and change your socks. What're you lookin' at, paste-face?"

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Consider, these celebrated upsets of history: David downing Goliath, Truman toppling Dewey, Chaminade knocking out UVA, Preston victorious over Severe Depression. A battle I fought without deadly weaponry, until a disturbing irregularity began flaring up with disturbing regularity, until I stopped delivering mail, until I stopped answering the phone, until a regretful misalliance of Johnnie Walker and Seconal sent my ornery self first to the ER, then to the fifth floor, where they store the nuts.
 

Even with a tray of stunningly edible food, and a sweet-natured woman extracting important information, it still felt as though I were sitting underneath a naked light bulb, shirtless and scarred, plucked unceremoniously from a bad patch before I'd been given the chance to wind my own way out. I answered questions while nibbling mashed potatoes and conniving to gain my freedom. When the nice lady informed me that patients stayed a minimum of five days, I thought, Welp, you can pencil me in for 120 and not an hour extra, little mama.

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The experience sucked no harder or gentler than most others.
 

Via mandatory meetings (both individual and group) with well-trained well-wishers, twelve sick souls learned the value of proper prioritization, various mental and physical exercises intended to strengthen our mental health, and the eternal blessing of self-love. All leading to the most vital lesson: how to process stress without sending tables airborne.
 

In between, we passed time by sipping soda, flipping pages, or talking small. Most of us gathered round the conference table did not fit the stereotype of a crazy person. Except Skinny Santa. I needed a Coke at the ready just to keep my mouth occupied, otherwise I would have been hysterically laughing every time he began babbling on aliens jumping rope to keep the Sun from exploding.
 

And I would have been the only one.
 

Of all the lessons I learned about myself over those 120 hours, "I'm An Asshole" was the harshest.

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Also the most common. The recent pie apostate, he became hip to his own contemptibility probably on his own, likely before he learned his penis was good for more than just wizzing over high walls.
 

At least that's what I concluded after staring into those broken marbles he sees the world through. I guessed on, on the spot, that ol' egghead was no stranger to inpatient programs. I surmised he'd made several visits, perhaps even willingly. Maybe he and I missed each other by a week. Guy's spent 120 hours, minimum, fantasizing about breasts and beers as a nerd with bonafides drones out the agonizingly obvious. He's spent 120 hours, minimum, with a straw between his lips, pondering how many milligrams of caffeine the body requires in order to read Wuthering Heights without attempting suicide via paper cuts.
 

"What're you looking at, paste-face?"
 

"Nothing, sir. Have a good day."
 

Watching his face fold in on itself caused me to curse the distance between us and the store's beverage case.
 

"Agreeable bastard," he sneered. Before I could let loose with a helplessly liquid laugh, the employee behind the counter pretended to have a coughing fit. This snapped Eggy Gourdo back into a reality where he didn't force me to swallow three of my teeth. A reality where he walked on, walked out.
 

I walked up, specifically to the counter to place my order, shrugging off the employees attempts to joke, vowing internally to not eat my own hands, no matter how long I had to wait.
 

Which luckily wasn't long. Green for silver, grunt for grin, and I headed for the door.
(I'm not an unfriendly man; I just don't care.)
 

The walk home would take four minutes, tops. Given that I'd not made the trip in a week, I took a moment to savor my surroundings. I'd hit an emotional and professional rock-bottom that could have killed me on impact. I emerged, improved. More aware. More sensitive. More thoughtful. More real.

                                                                          #####

To be a good little inpatient, you had to be an attendee and participant at daily group meetings, held a half hour after breakfast, a half hour after lunch, and an hour after dinner. When your appointed psychiatrist shows up for one-on-one time, you will answer their questions sincerely. When the distressingly young staff hands out sandwiches after the last meeting of the day, you should really ask for the peanut butter and jelly, 'cause the turkey is sweaty and the mustard is the same shade of yellow as a late-Seventies new wave album cover.
 

And you must, you must, you must ingest the daily modifiers.
 

My day five was day one for a young heroin addict whose crisp appearance suggested an unearned affluence he could scarcely bear. I sat across from him at the huge table, empty except for arms and papers. He was too good to be in that spot, yet not good enough to be in the spot he'd been programmed to think he deserved. I could foresee a confrontation between the young man and one of the counselors, even more heated than the time Blond Rob interjected himself into a talk between another inpatient and their psychiatrist.
 

Those meetings meant to me what a cracker means to a grasshopper. There was a chalkboard, a TV set, neither of them used. I hated letting so many other people know anything about myself, never mind how unpleasant the things. Perhaps if these strangers had a chance of meaning something more, of playing a significant role in my life, of representing a real chance at positive change, I would have cottoned to the racket. But no. Frivolous and futile, every second.
 

After the final group meeting at eight, we'd have another two hours to make calls and take pills before bedtime. I was always so drained by then, not even my roommate's pitiable moans could keep me from the bliss of unconsciousness. (The road to mental health is littered with shredded rubber and bloodied fur.) I was always one of the first served, made damn sure of that, approached that counter and wasted no time giving my name to the plump lady who apparently asked her stylist for the "Judi Dench," who in turn gave me two small paper cups like the ones you put ketchup in at restaurants, one with the pills and the second containing just enough water to chase the little trip stops down.

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What's better? To live day-to-day, or to live knife-to-neck? The doctors and counselors couldn't answer me--refused to, actually--and understanding their reticence only makes it slightly less infuriating. Mental health care is one of America's profound failures, and no one wants to be a player in a failure story. I think I'd rather have cancer than severe depression (although some people would say that's not thinking at all). As great a thought as it is, no one on the fifth floor of the local hospital can be wheeled to the floor below for relatively convenient extirpation of their malignancy.
 

Walking home, plastic bag of hell-rock hot deliverance swinging lightly at my side, I began reminiscing on my imprisonment with fondness. Freedom stretched over me like a new skin. Newly lively, I met the eyes of people on porches as I doddered along.
 

I could see the awning of my building, I could envision the side gate, the concrete path, the wooden steps meant to be navigated with annoying caution, until I was no longer moving towards the dim light of a tunnel whose walls narrow with every step, regardless of direction.
 

Lesson #23 learned during my time inside the antiseptic box-within-a-box: Each person must follow their instincts before joining the insects.

                                                                         ######

Either the man possessed ninja stealth, or I'd been utterly oblivious, ensnared by a web the design of which I played a considerable hand. Lost in blissful thoughts of a return to routine, I felt something dash by my left side.
 

Eggy Gourdo. The very same belligerent jerk from Boli's, throttled by an enigmatic agitation which left us both overwhelmed. The wisest expenditure of energy would have been to steal a meal. Instead, this guy wanted me (the sucker) to view him (the suckee?) as the superior, alpha male he'd mentally sculpted himself to be. Steel-chinned and brick-cheeked, with a mind like a god and a heart like a dam.
 

Alas, the portrait looked no less unflattering in natural light. He was older (by two decades, I figured), and larger by a few inches all around. Still, mine was only one perspective. The old, misshapen guy blocking my path might have been factually fearless, able to dismiss mustang lizards attired in titanium armor and rocket helmets with a single sniff...or perhaps the schmuck messes his underwear at a thunder roll.
 

I had no way of knowing for sure. I didn't collect those fallen parts of myself and reassemble 'em just to stand by with my thumb in a gnarly pie while some schizo tells me to run the cheesesteaks.
 

A voice from within commanded me: ask his name. I didn't; what could I hope to accomplish with possession of that knowledge? On the spot, I decided the wrinkly, discolored Humpty Dumpty shaking before me was a clear "Clayton." "Clay" to his loved ones, who probably don't care much for the guy. A man whose seduction attempts end before they begin. A man whose childhood featured a succession of dead pets and broken promises. A man covered with a short-sleeved shirt faded to the color of raw ground beef, the neck of the thing barely hanging in there.
 

He leaned forward. My heart defied time and space, a neat feat for a muscle stuck between two sponges. My hand gripped the bag tighter. Many places to run, nowhere to truly hide. No one approaching on either side of the street. The license plate of the jeep parked next to us would, once decoded, guide me to the next move. Meanwhile, Eggy continued breathing decay into my face.
 

"Tell you what, fella. Gimme that bag, and I won't cut ya."
 

A miniature Dagonet blew a giant, soggy raspberry behind my eyes, daring me to make an assessment and act on that assessment. Food, blood--which hunger growls loudest? I reached down and drew strength from the words of not some well-meaning yet ultimately demeaning doctor, but a well-meaning yet ultimately demeaning father: "Don't run away from a challenge. Walk with it. Take a hold of its hand, look it directly in the eye, and let it know--you will not back down."
 

I dropped the bag in front of my feet, eyes glued to their broken blue counterparts, relishing the surge of confidence, face fixed into a grin I prayed matched my inner delirium.
 

I waited for Eggy to make a move. When he didn't, I did, stomping the bag's contents into a cheesy, meaty, starchy mess.

                                                                      ######

After 120 hours, release day arrived. Once a big day for the music industry, still a big day for the mental health industry. Before my breath could rejoin the breeze, though, I'd need to hop aboard the "cut-loose carousel," providing short, sincere answers to loaded questions while a hospital worker filled out a form on my behalf while also scrutinizing me, ready to leap over the table and place me in a full nelson at the first indication of trouble.
 

My replies felt sincere.
 

Knuckle-down time. Slip off the old, slide on the new. Breathe in the sun, pay off the brittle plastic. That seven-layer dip I always see at the grocery and wonder, Who in hell would pay for that? I knew the answer.
               
                                                                       #####

Egghead gaped, devastated. I was one well-timed endorphin rush from gripping my junk while busting out a James Brown ad-lib.

"You're nuts!" he spluttered. I prepared for a blow to the chin, a bop to the nose. He had no response--at least, not a direct one. His skin paled. His bruises darkened. The moisture abandoned his lips.  

Victory was mine to seal. Soundlessly, I walked on past his frozen form, past the flattened food, never looking back to see if the poor guy had torn some skin off his knees.

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Surfaces rule. They promote falsehoods, and earn reams of praise. My mother uses recordings of waves as a sleep aid. She claims it's not only the sounds which soothe, it's also the everlasting images they arouse in her brain, lustrous blue and foaming white, serene and familiar. 

Mom's mind is never invaded by visions of the ghastly hazards that dwell underneath the gorgeous immensity--sizable creatures with nightmarish appearances, some with flesh-shredding teeth, others bearing venomous gifts, none of them amenable to outsiders.

I am visited by such visions often.

Freedom is earning six figures, parenting obedient children, owning a golden gun. So it stands to reason I'll never be free.