On a trip to a friend's house the other day, I decided to go out to the site of where the other house used to be. As I came around the curve, I could see them there. Fire trucks littered the street; lights flashing and hoses strung all over creation. People bustling about, firefighters running out of the house and tearing turn outs off like you wouldn't believe. One firefighter pulled his turnouts off and he was smoking. He had steam coming from every place on his body. Oxygen tanks that had run out of oxygen littered the yard, making an awful, shrill sound. I could see myself running across the yard; jumping over and dodging hoses. I saw my husband get out of his truck with our dog in his arms. "Is he OK?" I screamed - he just shook his head no and placed his limp, lifeless body in my arms. I fell to my knees with our best friend in my arms and began to scream. It was raining like pouring piss out of a boot on a flat rock. I didn't care.
As I pulled up into the driveway the other day, it was like something out of a movie. I was listening to a CD that I came across in my car - I thought it had burned. It was Nickelback, "Silver Side Up." If you've ever heard it, the last song is called "Good Times Gone" and if you know me, you know there's only one way I play my radio....Balls to the wall LOUD. It began playing as I pulled into the driveway - up to nothing but a concrete pad where our carport used to be. Beyond that is just a mound of dirt where our house used to stand. The beginning of the song has always sounded a bit eery to me. I opened my car door and stepped out. I could hear the music. It began to pick up a bit just as I started walking around. I picked up a stainless steel pot that had somehow ended up in one of the flower beds and began to walk the perimeter of the dirt...hoping to find something. What I found were a few shards of glass and an old, moldy sock. Certainly not what I was looking for....
"Lost it on the chesterfield
Or maybe on a gamblin wheel
Lost it in a diamond mine
It's dark as hell and hard to find
You can climb to the top of the highest tree
You can look around, but you still won't see
What I'm lookin for
Where the good times gone?
Where the good times gone?
All the stupid fun
And all that shit we've done
Where the good times gone?
Well I still don't know
Out in the back in the old corn field
Underneath the tractor wheel
Thought I'd dig, til I'd found it first
Broke my back and died of thirst
You can bribe the devil, you can pray to God
You can sell off everything you got
And you still won't know
Where the good times gone?
Where the good times gone?
All the stupid fun
And all that shit we've done
Where the good times gone?
And you still don't know
Saw it on the silver screen
Preacher says, "don't know what it means"
Last page ad in a comic book
Bought me a map, showed me where to look
It ain't carved of stone or made of wood
And if you paid for it, then it's still no good
And you still won't know
What I'm looking for"
...So what WAS I looking for? Not even I knew...I looked around at the corn field. I thought about the corn our neighbors always gave us from that very field. I saw the tractors. I remembered smoking dope under one of them until I made myself sick. I looked at the guest house and remembered how my sister and I drank ourselves stupid and smoked cigars in there one sultry summer night...in fact, I was so fucked up that I eventually began swallowing the cigar smoke and blowing the liquor our of my mouth like smoke. I remembered "the reaper" and how we didn't care if he just kept right on pricking (sorry, inside joke that I can't even attempt to explain). I remembered bringing our daughter home. I remembered our dog barking his ass off at her the 1st time he saw her. The baby got so frightened that she just played dead. I remembered when I left my husband and moved into an apartment. I remembered moving back in. I remembered the gorgeous nursery that I had worked so hard on. I remembered the bathroom and how I got so mad at my husband once that I threw a shampoo bottle at him. I remembered the kitchen and the time my husband was working on the stove. I told him to unplug it, but he didn't. I heard a pop and the next thing I knew, his big ass was flying across the kitchen. He landed on his back on the counter (nearly 6 feet away from the stove) and was too stunned to say anything right away. Then all he could do was grab his tongue and say, "My tongue is numb!!" I remembered the carport and the time he fell out of the boat onto his ass. The flood of memories was too plentiful to write them all down...both good and bad.
I have a few (and I do mean a few - 8 is the actual number) tangible things that I can touch and see that were in the house. Somehow, and I don't know how, they didn't burn. I looked at the pieces of glass that I had deposited in the pot and thought, "What the fuck am I doing here? What am I looking for???" I know that nothing is there but I just wanted one more thing to hold on to.
I got back in my car as the song ended and realized that I already had what I was desperately searching for. I had the memories. Still I thought, "We had so many good times here. I just need something..." and then I got it. The good times aren't gone. They're yet to come. And for the 1st time since it happened, instead of saying, "This sucks." I said, "That sucked."
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