“Give it to God,” she said.

I’ve written this story a million times before. I’d like to do it differently, this time.

When I think of John, I never know where to start.

In the beginning.

***

We became friends in the first grade, John and I. But his shadow invades my few memories of kindergarten. John was around. Somewhere. Perhaps sipping from a school-issued milk carton; maybe asleep on a cot during school-issued nap time, when the lights went out and I, horizontal, stared at the ceiling. Six years old and already an insomniac.

I used to subscribe apathetically to Christianity. There was a church in the middle of nowhere, a white building with a dirt parking lot, surrounded by electric poles and straightaway roads, runaway roads, highways you take to evade. John didn’t attend my mother’s church; it was a black church; I think John was Catholic, I never asked him; he would’ve enjoyed the music, the stomping and the showmanship–I think–while I flipped through Psalms and fought through urges to sleep.

I don’t know if John is in Heaven or Hell; all I know is that I miss him less. Ten years since he died. Ten years. Once, I couldn’t conceive of ten years into the future. In two months, I’ll turn thirty. Ten years thrice over. Each day, I’m forgetting him in triplicate. I don’t even know what that means. All I know is that he’s no longer here. Dead for ten years. A day in Heaven equates to 1000 years on Earth. If he’s in Heaven, then John hasn’t had time to look down on me. I don’t know what that means.

“Give it to God,” she said. “It is so–so–so–so helpful.” Her face scrunched as she said the so refrain. “Fair enough,” I replied.

***

In a dorm room in North New Jersey, on a college campus, three bodies lie charred on carpet. Or asphyxiated, their faces ballooned to planetary proportions, sucking in Universe air, not receiving the expected, reciprocal favor of life renewed. Three spirits are pulled from their bodies; three spirits drop three tokens–one each–returning their priceless currency, life, to God. Give it to God.

In therapy, I surmised that John’s death was a watershed moment for my psychosis. Ah, yes. He was eighteen when he died–my eighteen, too–and had all the futurework in front of him. Ah, yes. John’s death frightened me; my sense of immortality ruined forever more. But. I buried grandparents and saw, on multiple occasions, squirrels spin themselves into delirium in the middle of an avenue, their skulls th-thumped by Pontiacs. I was well aware of death before I was old enough to voice it without parental and clinical intervention. Ah. Yes.

I did not attend his funeral. I do not know where he’s buried. I do not know the names of the two other boys, his compatriots on a journey back to God, copper tokens in hand. I know the fire was arson. I know someone went to prison. I know John’s parents, his siblings, though I have nothing to say. I only hope they remember him in triplicate, folding and refolding and folding his life into origami shapes–a buoyant swan, perhaps–and never forget, never let it slip, never give it to God. Holding on, carrying that weight like true blood families should. I was only a friend–a best friend, once–but only a friend.

***

“Give it to God,” she said to me, wanting to touch my hand, to breach clinical ethics. Which is fine by me. Rules are made to be broken in the name of human showmanship. Show me, I wanted to say, that you care. “Fair enough,” I said in reality.

In my previous retellings, a million times over, I ended with the perfect final scene. Our last time in each other’s presence. Never for his benefit, though–the scene was used to flog myself into making the same life change still waiting in queue: be gracious and selfless with my time. Ten years and I still prefer loneliness, at times. Ten years and I rarely share my time; my family reads none of my work, because they don’t know it exists. Ten years of the perfect ending–a parable in scene–but the lesson remains lost to me. Or there’s no lesson at all. I am who I am. God–help me.

“Give it to God,” she said, although I looked skeptical. I perceive religion as a series of tenets for weak people. People like me, if I dare to participate in honesty. I identify myself as a Buddhist, but I never meditate; an introvert is intimate with constant, persistent meditation; I need to wake up. “Fair enough,” I said, giving God the benefit of the doubt.

Thomas DeMary, whose work has appeared in Up The Staircase, Monkeybicycle and is forthcoming in 4’33”, Used Furniture Review, Hippocampus and PANK Magazine, currently lives in southern New Jersey. Visit him at www.thomasdemary.com or @thomasdemary.

Today marks Day 5 of my summer cold; when I’m sick, my desire to write wanes–if anything, I write in my head without putting pen to pad [or finger to keyboard]. Being sick, however, can’t stop the movement*.

On my desktop, I have a folder named Inspiration. The last few days, I’ve started collecting images from the Internet–pictures which instantly spark my creative juices–and I dump them into my Inspiration folder for later use. How I’ll use them in the future is unknown when I save the photos; I just love to have them stashed away; there’s an odd security knowing they’re available when needed. My pack-rat habits have gone digital, apparently.

My last two columns started this “Pictorial” series; the intent was to match beautiful words with beautiful images, to let the latter inspire and direct the former. Whether the series continues or not remains to be seen; I tend to leave projects behind while chasing the new, shiny idea. Regardless, I don’t have much to say this week [can’t you tell?], in part because of my cold, in part because I’ve been concentrating on a very large project–there’s only so many hours in the day.

So this is the crux of this week’s Pictorial: just immerse yourself into the books, the spiral staircase, the silver-haired gentlemen chilling on the couch, the typography of the Karl Lagerfeld quote. Whatever this photo does for you–generate a new story, make you pick up a book, make you smile and feel warm inside–make sure to hold tight to the result. Smile, read, write, share–it doesn’t matter. Enjoy the photo. Feel free to share in the comments what it does for you. Move the movement.

*The Movement = Creation, In All Forms.

Thomas DeMary, whose work has appeared in Up The Staircase, Monkeybicycle and is forthcoming in 4’33”, Used Furniture Review, Hippocampus and PANK Magazine, currently lives in southern New Jersey. Visit him atwww.thomasdemary.com or @thomasdemary.

Predictable?

Somewhere on my hard drive lies a column–most likely under a folder labeled “PANK”–that I intended to post this week. I decided to save it for next week. Or maybe not. Depends on where I go with this new, sudden column. That tends to happen when I sit down and show up to write: my plans go astray; questions collide in my mind to form colossal mysteries; I chase the ball of yarn to see where it leads me. I like showing up; I’ve fallen in love with discipline.

I said to someone today I kinda hope the Rapture does happen on Saturday. She asked me why and I replied Well, I doubt I’d go to Heaven, but I’d like the believers to get their wish. I think I meant to say The end of the world is fine with me but I didn’t say that. I turned it outward to the Christians–I guess they’re Christians?–as though I truly long for some of them to disappear and enjoy copious amounts of milk and honey. I’m assuming that’s the menu of Heaven. Or whatever you like. I probably wouldn’t eat. I’d probably get upset because I got Raptured before I wrote a new novel and visited the Netherlands and made it rain at a strip club [with my wife’s permission]. But all of that is moot since I’m not going anywhere on Saturday–I don’t plan on it, anyway.

I also said of the Rapture To tell you the truth, I kinda want to see it happen. Something in my comic book brain would like to see the fantastic occur. It would be awesome, in my opinion, to see butt-naked people float up to the sky while I suffer through the End Times with the rest of the world. I’d probably think to myself Is it too late for me to believe? because, ever the agnostic, I believe in what I see–more importantly, in what I experience.

I never felt lifted, light and abound with love because of the Bible, of the Word of God, of anything related to organized religion. I don’t know what it’s like to feel eased and comforted by an Unseen Hand. I can’t say God will take care of it for me because I’m too well aware of my own influence. That is, I typically cause my own problems–forgetting to pay bills, not returning phone calls, refusing to slow down on a highway–and it’s on me to fix my shit.

And I’m not suggesting that I, agnostic, take responsibility for my actions as opposed to them, the true believers. It’s not about that. It’s not about tearing them down. It’s about jealousy. I’m envious because something comforts them, massages them, something beyond Man. The best I can do is a prescribed anti-depressant; I have to wait six to eight weeks for the meds to take effect, but the Rapture is four days away. Yet one more thing I won’t experience.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure if I’m a true agnostic. I believe in God. I don’t believe in any beliefs. Does this make me Spiritual, the esoteric descriptor used by people who want to fuck and get high and lie and brush it all away by saying at The End C’mon man, I was just being Spiritual. I mean, if I KNEW you existed…?

[i should say the fucking and getting high and lying all applies to me, except for getting high unless cigarettes count.]

Buddhism is the closest I’ve gotten to believing in a religion–Zen, to be exact–and it grabbed me from the beginning. In the beginning, Life is Suffering and I can dig that. I know all about suffering–you do, too–and I couldn’t turn my back on such a sudden truth. Still, I haven’t visited a temple or meditated or chanted, but I’ve read books and tried to let people do as they wish without judgement and I hate gossip, too. I’m learning in these final hours. I’m learning.

Maybe my religion is Writing. Well, that sounds awfully convenient and very Annie Dillard, but it might be true. I also said to the woman I write three hours a night, every night, except for weekends in which I write for four or five hours and go to bed around 3 AM. To practice belief is an exercise in discipline; you show up, open yourself, let the stars explode and consume you, wipe you out, renew you and should none of that happen, if you find yourself waiting to no avail, you at least showed up. You gave it to God–or Tabula Rasa, lord and savior. You did your part. You can rest in peace.

We spill our temporary bodies and meager hours into the most important things. We might not practice what we preach–I sure as fuck don’t–but we practice what we love and what we love broods and bubbles within our individual cauldrons. Which is why I don’t judge someone who loves reality TV or meth; actually, my writing pays me as much as reality TV pays its watcher, or meth to its addict, so we’re all in the same fucked family, so to speak. We all look for our ways to ease the pain. As they say, Life is Suffering. Word to Buddha.

I don’t know where I’ll be when the Rapture strikes–maybe at work, maybe in my car, maybe at this computer editing next week’s column–but wherever I am, I’ll keep my eyes to the sky. I won’t believe until I see it, but I’ll hope for it the way I still hope for a lightsaber, a robe and the power to wield the Force, at which point I’ll become a Sith versus a Jedi which means, most likely, I’m not going to Heaven. But the Sith tend to have cooler powers than the Jedi–lightning and Force Chokes–so my heart’s in the right place. I got hope and I love what I love. Don’t judge me. Saturday’s coming.

Thomas DeMary, whose fiction has appeared in Up The Staircase, Monkeybicycle and is forthcoming in 4’33”, Used Furniture Review and PANK Magazine, currently lives in southern New Jersey. Visit him at www.thomasdemary.com or @thomasdemary.

So much to say in a marriage, so much unsaid.

Joyce Carol Oates

***

Only a foolhardy youth with something to prove acknowledges death, then proceeds to chase it. Some call it bravery; the old men in flannel shirts, their collars crisp and starched, hunch over checkerboards and whistle in revelry.

“That there is a brave man. A man after his own legend.”

My coworkers expressed a kindheartedness I rarely expose, or consider as “acceptable”, whilst in the daily throes of corporate dogma: they threw me a surprise wedding party and handed me a card. One hundred dollars, in tens and twenties, dribbled from the card’s mouth; behind the legal tender, the natural signatures of intimate strangers. The most accurate piece of advice scrawled: “Your screwed,” attributed to Eric M.

***

We are, to date, six months into our marriage and, to date, there seem to be no regrets. Often, I think of the vows I wrote for her. I think of that time, two days before our wedding, struggling with literature to express my love for her, to promise her my life and, equally, to yoke myself to hers. My vows brought a pause to the ceremony; she cried for a minute—or maybe years—as I folded the paper in quadrants and shoved it into my jacket pocket.

There are the sweet nothings of courtship, those lines used to convey an ache for her body, for her presence, her smile. There are vows: promissory notes affixed to our marriage certificate, captured in a white three-ring binder handed to us by Naila, our officiant. And then, there is literature: the usage of metaphor and rhyme, of setting and of time and place, of subtext beneath the words which made her weep.

Few people are macabre enough to think of the end. They will protect their assets—and perhaps their secrets—should the union dissolve in acrid divorce. I know this all too well. I wanted to approach my second marriage in a new light. Love different. I proceeded to spin the world like a basketball atop my finger. Days leapt toward decades and, in my imagination, we took turns sleeping in a deathbed. I clutched her wrinkled hand; she stroked my balmy forehead. We bound ourselves to the feasibility of lost autonomy, to the stab of relearning life as single beings; we signed our names and became probationary members of Widowhood.

Should we succeed, we pledged our allegiance to an emptiness we would otherwise dodge. We saw enough—just enough—in each other to mount our horses and ride toward death; the odds are against us, for the likelihood of us making love as an airplane tailspins into the Atlantic is lesser than her contracting heart disease, or the cigarette tar in my lungs drowning me. One of us will fade to black, leaving the other to a world of rolling credits: puttering around our home alone; driving to the bank with the oldies hip-hop station as companion; grocery shopping without comedy relief.

***

The usage of literature, with respect to my vows, was a deliberate choice. We are both writers, meaning—the lion share of our time is devoted to a search for the right word, the perfect texture, to appease invisible critics. We are both introverts, meaning—we build a life of happiness on the foundation of silence. When she speaks, I listen; when I sit quietly, she hears me. But we do not write poetry for each other, not anymore.

In our courtship, we acknowledged the possibility that the poems would cease or, rather, become understood; we made a pact to not read too much into the slowing of poems, so long as we understood each other, still. Is it awkward for writers to use their literary powers for anyone, everyone, except each other? It is the awkwardness of spouses: a husband rants in the presence of barflies, a wife hurls plates in the presence of sisters.

When they sleep, their feet touch, their calves kiss, their snores are coveted. Writer-spouses are, then, normal. Still, my vows were a novel in progress, groping at something, hinting and winking at unborn specters & wrinkles. My novel entertained, and evoked elation, but the macabre was missed and, therefore, the project failed…I think.

She is a better poet than I am; she can see the lean of a dilapidated library in Alliance, Ohio and say, “It is angled toward Mecca.” With that in mind, maybe she saw the nudity of my vows, the extension of a man, and began to cry as she thought, “I too see the dread.” Literature allows for interpretation. The writer always has an out, an escape pod labeled plausible deniability: I didn’t mean it quite like how you read it, but thanks for trying.

***

I will then interpret her tears as terror personified. Divorce is the least of our future problems for, if we wish, we could try again with another lover; I know this all too well. Neither of us, however, want to be widowed and marooned on Earth desperately sprinting to a nearby church for confirmation of Heaven or Hell. And no one saw, I think, the pause I took as I read the first portion of my vows. Yet, when I am quiet, she hears me. I could’ve saved time and said— “I’ll spend every day waiting for the day you die…and never flinch”—then hand her my finger, stoic and solid in anticipation for my tungsten wedding band, heavy and spangled.

Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight…a long time.

Portions of this piece originally published by The Rumpus

@thomasdemary. @thomas demary.

About ten miles from my job, there’s a park where I like to visit when, upon lunch time, I have nowhere else to go. My job, a manufacturing plant, has a cafeteria struck dead by austerity: white rectangular tables with plastic blue borders seem superfluous in the wake of headcount reductions; vending machines offer the remaining employees candy, chips, sandwiches and bottled drinks; a microwave–source of a god-awful smell, the aromatic warfare from zapped leftovers and Lean Cuisines–no one likes to clean, explaining its greasy door handle and permanent orange splatters along its walls. I have to leave, even when I have nowhere else to go, even when, alone in my car, the smoking and the pondering starts; the incessant voice in my head hitches itself to a daisy chain of nicotine clouds huff-puffing from my driver side window. So to the park I go.

I used to go with a Moleskine and pen–writerly tools hidden in my pockets to delineate pay-work from business–and gawk at the lake, a man-made puddle approximately one-half mile wide. In this notebook, I wrote about my past, wrote about my stories, my dreams, hopes too, on occasion. I’ve since stopped bringing the Moleskine with me. Now writing during most of my downtime, I found I needed a place, a sliver of space, where prose and publishing can lie gagged and bound in my trunk for forty-five minutes: me time, I think people call it.

The park itself is scenic, though meager. From the graveled parking lot, looking past the port-a-potties with trash strewn around their feet, ducks march in parsed cliques while a beige and green playground set appears abandoned like a crashed spaceship: swings toss in the wind; pollen gathers on the gunmetal slide; branches are snagged in between the monkey bars. The pine trees behind my car lose and regain their needles as the seconds count down, as I sit and smoke and ponder and watch the clock, knowing.

On this day, a change of pace: I bring my iPad to read Philip Roth’s Nemesis. South Jersey’s wintry gloaming parts for the first vestiges of Spring sun. I am not alone; other cars–four in total–are parked in silence, their owners munching on hoagies or smoking squares while shifting gears in their personal lives, sifting through divorce proceedings or affairs or promotions to find, God help us, motivation to finish out the day, all our days. As for me, I’m reading: polio strikes Roth’s Newark, NJ. The writing hasn’t grabbed me yet–the book and I are in that feel-out, courtship phase: I figure out the book’s sound and rhythm; the book whispers its subtext, its subconscious secrets, wondering if I’ll find all of the easter eggs. My head jerks up.

A forest green car–a Honda, I believe–putters in a ditch, its left side crumpled. And, in the air, a white car twirls. I’m watching this while losing my sense of reality. One car hits another–an accident–but there must be another reason why the white car helicopters twenty feet from the road, spinning. The white car–a Toyota–hits the electric pole and, as if a boy pulled on his kite string, the vehicle ceases its flight and plummets to the road, flipping over twice before resting on its blown tires.

I run from a polio-stricken Newark; I run alongside a burly stranger who bolts from his pickup truck. A couple stumbles out of the green Honda. The black woman leans her weight against the car while the black man paces in the middle of the road, his hands to God–a cigarette in his right, a lighter in his left–looking temporarily dispatched via calamity back to his past: the things he didn’t do, the things he wished he never did. Back to the present, he sits on a curb, lit cigarette in mouth, head clutched in hands. Blood and gasoline pours from the white Toyota. I’m there now, a few feet from the driver’s door. Spider-webbed glass and a sickening shadow casted from the Spring sun makes it hard to see inside. A woman–Asian, I think–is slumped to her right, the seat belt preventing her from tumbling into the passenger seat. I reach for my phone–I look around–four other people send 911 signals through the skies, their pocket computers pressed to their ears. Police cars and fire engines wail from afar, their cacophonous cries to other cars–get the fuck out of the way–slowly becomes louder.

I feel like a fool as I stand beside my own car, watching the authorities authorize and dispense heroism; I should be doing something beside smoking and staring, I think; I remember this isn’t television and the real superheroes are on the scene. Officers talk to the black couple; from my vantage point, I see the black man diagraming the accident with his hands. Meanwhile, the others work to open the Toyota; I hear something about jaws of life although, it seems, they find a way to pry off the door themselves. To my left, up above, I notice a helicopter. It looks to head west and away from us–until it banks right, soars over the park and begins its descent over my car. I’m inside now: the black American steel surrounding my car shudders; my ears ring; the helicopter’s shadow slides over my car as the machine nudges itself to the field, its violent blades crying to the ducks, get the fuck out of the way.

Paramedics tend to the black couple as the helicopter lands: two men in blue jumpsuits saunter from its cockpit, orange bags in hand. Their walk seems too leisurely to me, but what do I know? I’m the guy still smoking, still cooling down from the impromptu sprint, looking and peeking to piece together the scene, playing detective from a court-side view in my sports car. Anyway, they finally remove the woman from the white Toyota; they open its backseat door; a small dog bolts from the Toyota, running in circles, then a straight line to the lake. Its long brown fur is a blur. Its bark rattles the ducks who, like us in the parking lot, are unsure of themselves–do we stay or fly away?–and they flap their wings to let the dog past, then return to the earth, quacking and beefing between themselves over bread and mallard politics.

My lunch hour is up; the others arrive at the same conclusion. One by one, cars exit the parking lot. My engine is on, my hands are on the wheel, but I’m waiting. I should scan the area for a lasting image, something to use to end the piece I’ll undoubtedly write. I do see duck feathers and the whimpering dog; I do see the black couple swaddled in blankets beside the ambulance; the woman’s head is strapped to a board as the pilots prepare to take her to our town’s trauma center; I’m looking for the abiding image–some scene, any scene, to tie my future story up neatly, nicely. I shift my car into Drive, drop the parking brake, and sigh–

Thomas DeMary’s fiction has appeared in Up The Staircase, Monkeybicycle and is forthcoming in PANK Magazine. He currently lives in southern New Jersey. For more information on the author, visit him at www.thomasdemary.com or @Twitter.