Mason-Dixon Line (click to download)

(author’s note:  Reading and comprehension of this depends on the acceptance of a few key facts, some of which have been altered from reality.  One:  There was nothing ever nobler then my attempt to save you from a life of mediocrity.  Two: We will never die, not ever, no we won’t.)

Your father once said something interesting to me.  He took my shoulders in his hands and told me to save myself.  To run, and not to look back for fear of turning to a pillar of salt.  He said that, in this way, you were a Burning City, being held in judgement, and that any attempt to reclaim or even mourn your destruction would end in my ruin.

I got your wedding invitation in the mail last year, by the way.  Forgive me for not responding, but I was convinced that you were playing a joke on me, because who picks April Fool’s Day as a wedding day?  That guy you married must have a real wicked sense of humor.

Your father’s voice cracked at these instructions, as though they were his final word and testament and I was recording his wet gasps for posterity.  I nodded my head and kept silent, not because I understood but because I wanted out from under the weight of this unexpected, forced encounter, out from under the weight of his eye contact and what it meant and what it could mean.

Ben, who by the way says hello, had heard from a friend of some girl you went to Catholic school with that you were doing great, that you were sober and clean and that you were thinking about maybe becoming a life coach or a motivational speaker, or something equally as ridiculous as that.  Good luck by the way - I hear that they could really use people who dated three or more coke dealers in the course of one year, or something like that.

I drove back to the hotel that night and sat on my bed and stared at the wall, then I sat in the empty bathtub fully clothed and drew my knees up to my chest and breathed deep and deep again.  I silently thanked the heavens that your parents had insisted on putting me up in a hotel for that weekend, insisted that I was not to sleep on the couch, even though we were both 22.  I listened for things in my breath, hoping I would find some secret, hidden plea, some covert call for reinforcements escaping my chest.

A life coach?  Really? You know how ridiculous that sounds, right?  And not just because you were, single-handedly, the neediest, most backwards woman I ever met.  I once had to pick you up from a grocery store because you had forgotten what town you were in.  You had forgotten the town you were in. You had no idea how to get home, so I had to look at every Albertsons in three towns to find you, blank-eyed and cross-legged on the asphalt, in what must’ve been 60-degree weather, and you were wearing shorts.  Shorts.

I didn’t even bother to call the next morning.  I just packed everything and drove home.  I left early enough so that by the time you woke, it would be too late, and I could chuckle and say that I had wanted to “beat traffic”, that I was happy to see you that weekend and now it was your turn to come to my town, etc., etc.  I got home and called into work sick and unplugged my phone and didn’t leave the house for like three days, because I had to think about your sad father and how much more about you he probably knew than me.

Really, the concept of you taking another life into your hands and gently shepherding it to a fuller sense of itself it maddening, in the way that Escher paintings and German techno music is maddening.  It’s maddening because I know that someone, somewhere, actually gets it, thinks it’s a good idea, thinks that the very idea of it holds merit.  Which means that someone, somewhere, probably knows that you once sold your mother’s car for “grocery money”, and is at peace with you imparting that type of functionality and rhythm to lesser people.

***

When we met it was less like two ships passing
And more like two fuses in search of gasoline

And if I knew back then
What I claim that I know now
I’d run as fast as my legs would allow

And you took the curvy part of your spine
And exchanged it for the Mason-Dixon line
And I had the good sense to turn my head and avert my eyes

When you left it was less like retribution
And more like a stay of execution

And you ran like the wind
Kind of like I’m running now
I’ll never be your savior anyhow

And by the way I heard you coming
From a million miles I saw you running
And I closed the door and heard you bump in the dark

When we met it was less like two ships passing
And more like two men at a wedding comparing their class rings

And if I knew back then
What I claim that I know now
I’d run as fast as my legs would allow

***

I’m not sure I ever broke up with you, but I must’ve, because you told my sister about how much you hated me, and you knew that she would probably end up telling me, and you were fine with that, and I was fine with that, partly because you were far outside my circle of influence, and also because I was heeding your father’s wisdom; I was.  Not.  Looking.  Back.

God, I hope you’re not having children.  You’re not having children, are you?

***

(Credit goes to Tyler P. Madsen, who heard me write this song this past summer, and urged its blossom and encouraged me to finish it.)