Sleep Timer: A Short Story

They lay in bed together. The room is dark except for the light from the television. The movie had just finished; the credits were rolling.

He knows he should get up, either to put a different movie in, or at least get the remote so they could watch TV. But he doesn’t want to let her go. She isn’t sleeping- he can tell by her breathing- so getting up wouldn't disturb her.

He had memorized how she breathed when she was sleeping. They spent the night together often, but they had never slept together. He was okay with that. He knew she wasn’t ready for that sort of step, even if she wanted to. That’s what he didn’t know; if she wanted to. That’s what he would think about at night while she slept in his arms and he watched her sleep and listened to her breathing.

That’s what he did most night when they were together. He’d watch her sleep and think and wonder how they got there and where he was going. He wasn’t sure what was going on between the two of them. He was, however, pretty sure that she didn’t know either. Sadly, he thought she preferred it that way.

She turns her head and twists her body a little to face him, the green comforter that’s covering them twists as it gets tangled in her clothes. He turns to face her, sitting up on his elbow. His clothes turn and twist under the blanket, becoming uncomfortable. He adjusts to make them comfortable again, and spreads the blanket smoothly over them.

She looks up at him and smiles. He loves it when she does that. It makes him feel good inside; warm. It makes him happy that she is happy. “That was a pretty good movie,” she says softly, stifling a small yawn, “I liked it.”

He smiles back, “I told you.” She reminds him of Penny Lane. There’s a dull ache that comes with the happiness, though. It comes from knowing that he wants more and makes it known. But it’s not reciprocated, not completely. He loves to see her happy and he does a lot of things in order to make her smile. He gets her little gifts sometimes, but never anything expensive; he knows it would make her uncomfortable. He calls her whenever he sees it snowing because he knows that she loves the snow, and he is always reminded of her when he watches the frozen flakes fall outside his window.

He even built her a snowman once. It wasn’t a very good one, nor was it very easy to build. The snow was light and fluffy. It took him forever to build each of the individual pieces. He had to do it without gloves, using body heat to melt the snow and make it stick. Each of the body balls was built in layers. The snowman wasn’t very big, a foot and a half tall at most, with Pepsi bottle caps for eyes and an old pen cap for a nose. He built it right outside her window. He felt like such a dork doing it since they weren’t together yet. He couldn’t help himself though, despite being worried about weirding her out rather than make her smile. He called it a Lloyd Dobbler moment.

She likes him too. She enjoys his company; she likes spending time with him. She knows he's a nice guy and would do almost anything for her. This makes her feel bad, because although she likes him too, she wouldn’t. She's told him this, too. She likes him enough to make sure he knows that while he 's rocketing at 100 miles an hour, she's idling at the starting line.

She wasn’t even sure why she was even at the race. It certainly wasn’t a friends-with-benefits thing. She wouldn’t do that. Neither would he; not with her. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t need to be with him, or any other guy for that matter, just to feel better about herself. It couldn’t possibly be her ex-boyfriend, could it? She refused to give him that much credit, though maybe he deserved it.

She’s a good person. She sees the good in other people. She sees the bad, too, but chooses to give them the benefit of the doubt. She’s fiercely loyal to those close to her, maybe to a fault. She’d been mostly lucky, that trust never seriously hurt her. Not until recently. She’d had to deal with things on her own, things she wasn’t used to dealing with. It was a hard and painful lesson. Now that she’d learned it, she was afraid of leaning on someone else the way others leaned on her. She didn’t want to learn those lessons again.

She knows he’s the same way. He’s very trusting. He also always assumes that everyone else is a nice as he is. Like her, he gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. Also like her, his openness has been taken advantage of. He’s unaffected by it, or at least he doesn’t show it. Maybe that’s why she’s with him. She thinks he hasn’t let the badness of the world wear him down.

The truth of the matter is he won’t let it. He used to be cynical and pessimistic, until he fell in love with a girl. Life became easier when he looked for the good. The girl broke is heart, and he was angry and bitter and cold for a while. But he realized staying that way took too much energy. He let it go. She hopes that someday, she can let it go too.

She can’t understand why he wants so badly to be with her. For him, if anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. It’s all or nothing; play hard or go home. She can appreciate that. She’s the same way. That’s what confuses her the most. He’s in it all the way, and she’s not. She can’t figure out why she’s different; why she’s special. She doesn’t know that to him, she just is.

She smiles at him again, arching her back a little bit, stretching. “It’s getting kind of late, but I’m not that tired yet.”

He looks over at the digital clock. The red LED says that it’s pushing . “We can watch another movie. I’ve got lots that you haven’t seen.” He hopes she’ll stay.

“She cranes her head back, looking at the clock herself, “It’s almost 10. I’ll probably fall asleep.”

“So? You know I like it when you stay over.”

She doesn’t respond. He knows he probably made her uncomfortable. Still, she doesn’t move to get up. He throws the comforter off. He wants to give her a quick kiss as he steps over her and off the bed, but decides against it, not wanting to make things worse for her.

He adjusts his khakis again. They got bundled up and uncomfortable while he was moving and getting up. He has two different DVD stands in his room. He walks over to the one behind his bed. Most of it is filled with TV seasons, “I still can’t believe you never heard of Firefly. Someday we’re going to block off an entire weekend and we’re watching it straight through.”

“You are such a dork.”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

There weren’t any movies worth watching on that rack, so he turned back to the DVD’s underneath his TV, “What about Brick? Or Garden State? Gross Pointe Blank?

“You pick. You’ve seen them. You know what’s good.”

“I don’t buy crappy movies.”

“Yeah? Is that The Girl Next Door?”

“Fair enough.”

He puts in and crawls back into the bed. He pulls the blanket back over them. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, his chest against her back. He doesn’t know how much she likes it, but she doesn’t move away. She’d tell him if she didn’t, or more likely, just push him away.

He enjoys doing this, just holding her close. He kisses the back of her head, inhaling the sweet smell of her hair. She squeezes his arms tighter. He moves to her neck, taking in a full breath of her perfume. She pushes her head into his, moving him away from her neck, “It’s not happening.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come off like that.”

She smiles again, and his pulse quickens. She reaches up and strokes his cheek, then pulls his head to hers, kissing him. She enjoys it, but it’s a lot more passionate for him than it is for her. He runs his fingers through her hair and cups the side of her head in his hand, pulling her body close to him with the other. It won’t go past first base, but he doesn’t care. He thinks she’s beautiful, but it’s not a physical thing for him, not unless she wants it to be.

He feels something stirring inside. His heart starts beating even faster, and his legs get a little weak. He pulls away and looks into her blue eyes. He pushes her hair to the side. He caresses her angelic face. He shouldn’t do this. It isn’t fair to her. He knows what the situation is. She made it perfectly clear to him.

He doesn’t have much time left to bring her around. She’s graduating. He’s not. He doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s going to do- she doesn’t either, really- but they both know it won’t be around here. She’s graduating only six months before he is, but he knows that they’ll never see each other again unless he can create something more permanent. He's not wild about something long distance, even over the short term, but he wants something. He knows he can’t create it by himself without help from her, but damn it if he isn’t going to try to convince her.

He feels awful about what he’s about to do. It’s not fair to her, knowing that she likes him, and knowing that she feels bad about not being able to give herself up to it like he has. It’s a selfish move on his part. He tells himself it has to be done, and it does. He wouldn’t be able to face himself in the mirror if he didn’t do this when he had the chance. He has to know that he tried everything.

“Are you okay?” she asks, a little concerned at the look of sorrowful determination on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He pauses for a moment. “I’m going to say something to you right now, and you’re probably not going to like it.” Her brow furrows, she’s wondering what he’s going to say.

“I love you.”

Her face goes smooth, her eyes widening a little in shock. Even though the room is dark, the television gives off enough light for him to see that the color has drained from her face.

“I love you,” he repeats.

“What- I- you- hold on. You can’t possibly love me. You hardly know me.”

“I don’t need to know anymore. What I do know is that right here, right now, I love you. I’d step in front of a car for you.

“I… you must be confused.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“I don’t think you know what love is.” He blanches at the sting of the words; she regrets them as soon as she says them.

“I think I’m happier when you’re around. I think I’m a better person. You know how some people say that when you love somebody, all you want to do is nothing but be around them? Not me. You deserve someone who’s smart and knowledgeable and articulate and kind and giving and funny and-and-and just a good person. You deserve that person because you are that person. And I want to do everything I can to try and become him too. I’m a better person because of you. My life is better because you’re in it. It may not be the life long love you think it should be, because that kind of love requires two people, and try as I might, I can't love enough for the both of us. But don’t try to tell me I don't love you.”

“I-“ she stops and sighs, rubbing her eyes wearily. “I’m sorry.”

She rolls away from him so she can face the TV, but still lets him hold her, “Make sure you set the sleep timer.”

Syracuse Ink: Part One

What they say about tattoos is true- once you’ve got one; you want another, and another, and another. It’s been three years since my last one, and the desire never went away. What stopped me is that I wanted something creative and unique, but for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with an idea. I suppose it worked out better that way since tattoos are mad expensive.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my tattoos, but they’re very simple. They’re indicative of me and my personality, but only part of it. On my triceps are black fists. A friend of mine gives me shit about channeling rage Against the Machine. It’s not that far from the truth. They’re a symbol of strength and standing up for what you believe in. I suppose they’re my version of the barbed wire around the bicep.

Across my chest is “Me Numquam Infringes,” written in solid black, pseudo old English font. It’s Latin for “You will never break me.” I suppose it’s in the same vein as the fists, but I’m actually much more partial to the tattoo on my chest. I think most other people like it better too. I’ve certainly gotten more compliments on it.

But I wanted something different this time. I wanted something artistic and creative. Unfortunately, I am neither artistic, nor very creative, at least not outside of the realm of the written word. I wanted something with color. It took me a long time to have the epiphany of what I wanted.

The bug really bit me again in November. What set it off was simply seeing what I thought was an amazing tattoo that someone else had. I’m not sure if it’s possible for a still drawing to be graceful and elegant, but the simple yet beautiful tattoo of a bird was. Something just clicked in my head, and I wanted another tattoo, very badly. I started browsing BME, not necessarily looking for ideas, but hoping something would spark my imagination.

I love BME, short for Body Modification Ezine. It’s a website devoted to body mods in general. They’ve got pics of everything from piercings to tattoos to scarification. It’s a simple layout, with categories for different kinds of tattoos; old school, new school, sci-fi, faeries and angels, fantasy, geek, and political are just some of the different categories. Best of all about the site is it’s fast, it’s free, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of photos and stories. Unfortunately, the website hasn’t been updated since September, so I’m not sure what the status is.

I hadn’t been there in a while, so there was a lot of new stuff. At the time, there was probably some actual work that I should have been doing, like my TWS, possibly a paper for one of my other classes. But to hell with that. I was bitten and needed to come up with something. Normally I check out the lettering section first, since the written word is my comfort zone. Since I wasn’t looking for a purely text tattoo, I checked out the other sections first.

I could get an angel with wings spread across my shoulder blades, but that’s so been done. I have every intention of getting a back piece some day, but it’s going to be epic. With that much space to work with, I’m getting something grand. What I really want to do is go into tattoo parlor, throw down a couple thousand dollars on the counter and say, “I want a back piece. Go to town.” I bet some guys would love to have that opportunity.

So the angel on my back is a no go. I wasn’t feeling anything in the other sections either. Dragons have been done, and I’ve pretty much outgrown my AD&D geek years anyway. There’s nothing that was setting a spark. So I venture into the lettering section.

There’s a lot of cool work being done. There’s some fancy lettering that looks amazing in a few pics. A lot are just names of loved ones. There are some interesting quotes and epigraphs. Then I see a simple tattoo across the chest of a girl, very similar to mine, just below the collarbone. The tattoo itself is interesting enough. It says “First thought=Best thought.” That’s not what caught my eye, though. It was who the quote was (falsely, I know now) attributed to: Jack Kerouac.

Then it struck me. After three years, I finally had my epiphanic moment.

“But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, made to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see a blue centerlight pop and everyone goes ‘Aww!’”

That’s from On the Road. I didn’t want the whole passage, since it’s far too long, but it makes for an amazing visual. Suddenly, I knew what I wanted. I wanted the fireworks exploding across the night sky, with “The only people for me are the mad ones” underneath.

Once I figured out the idea, I had to figure out where I wanted it. My back was obviously out of the question. I contemplated putting it on a shoulder, but discarded that idea quickly. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, searching for a place to put the tattoo. It sounds cheesy as hell, but fuck it; it worked. I settled on my upper ribs on my left side. Placement might be tricky because of a birthmark, but it seems right.

Now I had to find someone to do it. I decided against going back to Ray at Halo in Liverpool. He did fine on my other two tattoos, but I didn’t like his style on more complex pieces. I wanted to go to someone who had positive referrals. My choices were a guy in Geneva, which I wasn’t to hot about driving to, or Taylor, from Halo on Erie Boulevard. I decided I would meet and talk with Taylor.

Part II:

The inside of Halo Tattoo on Erie Boulevard sort of reminds me of a southwest motif without all the trappings of trying too hard to have a southwestern motif. The walls are painted a pale golden yellow. There is short brown carpet covering the floor. It is one big open room, but the “lobby” is clearly designated with plastic chairs and white linoleum floors instead of carpet. Behind the front counter is a chalkboard with all the prices for different piercings, written in different colors of chalk. Also on the walls is flash art. Flash art never really interested me, but most of it is fun enough to look at. There are half walls that separate each artist’s work area. The half walls are covered with the same brown linoleum lop as the main counter.

Sitting on the half wall around Taylor’s area are two binders with pictures of his work. Since he’s busy working on another customer’s tattoo, Adam and I flip through them. I’m really impressed by his work. It looks amazing, especially a really large and intricate back piece that was in progress (yes, I’m totally obsessed with back pieces).

Adam introduces me to Taylor. He’s tall and skinny with dark hair. He looks a lot like Travis barker from Blink 182 if Travis wore the thick plastic rimmed glasses that one sees most punk, emo, and hardcore kids wearing. He’s wearing a long sleeved shirt that’s rolled up, exposing what must be full tattoo sleeves. I’m a little envious. It must be nice to be in a profession where it’s basically encouraged to have as many tattoos as possible. While he looks like your average tattoo artist, and I of all people should know that tattoo artists live normal lives, I couldn’t help but smile when he talked about the mundane events of “chilling with the wife” and buying Christmas presents for his dogs.

Taylor’s a nice guy. He asks me what I’m looking to get done, and I asked if he’d read On the Road, hoping that maybe, finally, someone would know what I’m talking about when I read the passage. He hadn’t, so I tried awkwardly to explain it.

I feel like such a huge dork pulling out my “reference materials” as Adam called them. In the pile of papers is a page of printed out Magic cards painted by Quinton Hoover, who’s style I really like and wanted emulated if at all possible. Yes, I used Magic cards. If I could give the finger over the internet to those of you laughing, I would.

I also brought in the full passage itself, which threw Taylor a little bit, “That’s a lot of text.” I tell him I’m not looking for the whole thing, just “The only ones for me are the mad ones.” Incidentally, I also brought that line printed out in the font that I wanted, Goudi Medieval for any fontophiles out there.

Also in the pile was a quick sketch to illustrate what I was looking for. I made it well known that I have no artistic ability whatsoever. I probably didn’t even need to verbalize it after showing my sketch. The drawing was just to show the general idea for the layout.

What impressed me the most about Taylor was his understanding of his craft. After showing him my sketch, he started offering ideas. “Have you thought about giving it sort of an ‘S’ shape, with maybe the main center light at the top and curving downwards?” I got a little confused and he does a quick, ten second sketch to show the shape. I don’t see how that works, so he uses the girl at the counter as a model. I ask him why he can’t just make my sketch look pretty and we could go with that. He says, rather bluntly, “Well, I could. But it’d look contrived and out of place.” I like him for that. He wants my tattoo to look good because it reflects on him as an artist.

He gives a quick lesson shape and human anatomy. From a profile view, the human torso has a gentle ‘S’ like curve. He explained that having the tattoo have the same shape, it would look more natural, and that if my body ever changed, like getting morbidly obese, it’d still look fine. Or as find as a tattoo can look after being stretched over 200 extra pounds, I suppose.

Shape isn’t something that I was totally oblivious to; I just hadn’t considered it for this tattoo. When I was talking to the desk guy when I was getting my first tattoo, I asked him about what general shapes go best on which body parts (inverted triangle on the upper back, etc). He just gave me a blank stare and said, “Dude, whatever you want, we can put it where ever you want.” The fact that Taylor took this sort of thing into consideration was a very pleasant surprise. Needless to say, he sold me on the idea.

After asking a few more questions about how I wanted it to look, I Taylor explained that he was leaving New Years Day for Arizona and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. That was fine for me, since I actually preferred to wait a couple of weeks to get it done. Now the two weeks is coming to a close.

Part three, wherein I actually get tattooed, will hopefully be next week’s entry.

Dear Mr. Crutcher

Dear Mr. Crutcher,

It’s 4:30 in the morning right now and I’m reading Whale Talk. It’s been a long time, years even, that I’ve stayed awake telling myself, “One more chapter.” Not even Harry Potter did it. And yet you’ve done it twice in a row with Deadline and Whale Talk. I’ll be perfectly honest- you’ve moved up in the ranks very quickly. In my eyes, you stand with Tim O’Brien and Hunter Thompson as my favorite authors. Good company, if I say so myself.

I’m 23 years old an in school studying adolescent education and English. I say this because when I tell people that I want to be an English teacher, the general reaction is surprise. Most people think I’m too cynical or jaded for the profession. I suppose that might be true that I’m jaded, but I don’t think it’s indicative of a fault. I’ve accepted that there are bad people and that bad things happen in the world, but that hasn’t stopped me from looking and hoping for the best in people. It’s the disappointment of these that lead to the matter of fact knowledge of bad people and bad things that I think people confuse for cynicism.

But I’m an idealist at heart, Mr. Crutcher, and I think you are too.

You take ideas that are complex, and you boil them down into their essence, and you do a very good job of it. You make it so that anyone can understand, especially kids, and in doing so paint them as ideals to strive for. You did it for acceptance of that which is different in The Sledding Hill. You did it for friendship in Whale Talk. And you did it for love in Deadline, which has one of the most amazing passages I’ve ever read, on par with Kerouac’s roman candles and Fitzgerald’s orgastic future: “I’m going to give you one free. Love, in the universal sense, is unconditional acceptance. In the individual sense, the one-on-one sense, try this: we can say we love each other if my life is better because you’re in it and your life is better because I’m in it. The intensity of the love is weighed by how much better.” I don’t fancy myself a writer, but if ever I can create something as beautiful as that, I’ll call myself a poet.

You also create characters that are real and flawed, but nevertheless they are inspirational (though I suppose they’d have to be flawed if they are to be changed by the end of the story, thus being inspirational). I’m not too far removed from high school, so I can be inspired and moved by your protagonists I hope someday I can be as fearless as Ben Wolf (though hopefully without the terminal illness). I hope I can be as strong a leader as T.J. Jones. Even your supporting characters draw the same response. I hope I can be as good a teacher as Ms Lloyd. I hope I can be as good a role model as Mr. Simet or Coach Banks. I hope that I can be as good a father as Mr. Jones.

In the end, I think your loftiest ideal is very simple, as good ideals tend to be: be good to each other. It’s one that I hold true, and hope I can live up to.

Sincerely
Mike

The List

APOCooter (5:10:38 PM):Yeah, I'd love to do that. It's definitely the last thing on the list, though, because I would probably actually die doing it.

Mistychic12 (5:12:59 PM):I don't have a list but I'm thinking I should make one

APOCooter (5:12:17 PM):yeah, I don't have actually list, like I sat down to make one, but every time I see something cool, I try to remember it.

I'm reading Deadline by Chris Crutcher. It's amazing. It's about this guy who finds out just before his senior year in high school that he's got a rare blood disease. He decides he's not going to tell anyone, nor is he going to get treatment. He's just going to go balls out in everything he does.

His big idea at the beginning of the book is that he has to fit an entire adult life into one year. This led me to ponder what I want to achieve and do before I die. So I actually sat down and made a list.

The Obligatory:
Scuba diving
Bunging jumping
Hang gliding
Sky diving

Seriously, who doesn't want to do these? There's nothing incredibly personal here. I'm not what one might call an adrenaline junkie, or at least, I don't get my rush jumping out of planes, but those are things that I want to experience.

The Tests:
Train Muay Thai
Achieve a BJJ black belt
Roll with an ADCC/BJJ world champion
Compete in an MMA bout

The BJJ black belt would be an accomplishment years in the making; probably one that I would savor the most. A love for wrestling and grappling has been awoken in me; I am amazed by the beauty, complexity, and grace of the sport ever time I watch it. I want to learn and embrace those secrets as best I can.

As for rolling with a world champion, the same idea applies across many different activities. I'm fascinated by the mystique of greatness. I can throw an arm bar like BJ Penn, play Magic like Jon Finkel, or take someone's back like Marcelo Garcia, but the greats are simply on a whole other level, and it intrigues me as to how and why that is. Interaction with them in the area of their greatness would give me a window into that.

I don't get my rushes jumping out of planes and off cliffs. I get them through competition. I love nothing more than being locked in conflict with another person. It's not about ranking myself in reference to others, though that happens imply because of the nature of competition. Competition isn't about other people, it's about me. It sounds cliché to say that to win you have to want it more, but that's essentially true. The ones who want it prepare for it. The ones who want it play tighter. They care about the outcome, and adjust accordingly. This is an internal process that depends very little on the outside forces. Competition is simply using another person as a tool to test myself.

The first three are basically means to achieve the fourth. Am I crazy for wanting to engage in a full contact fight? I'd probably have to be. What I find interesting is that I don't think I'm a particularly violent person. I don't enjoy hurting other people. But there's something about fighting- it's simultaneously the pinnacle and the primal of human competition.

The Accomplishments:
Bowl a 300 game
Play in the Magic Pro Tour

And then there are the activities that I've given myself nearly wholesale to. I've invested so much of myself- in time, in energy, in money- into bowling and Magic, that I want to be able to say that I've reached the pinnacle. The more obvious pinnacle is a professional money finish, or a Pro Tour top 8, but I know my limits. I know I probably can't win a professional level, but damn it if I can't compete there.

The Personal:
To be a good teacher, husband, father.

These will be addressed… someday. I'm not sure what these will entail yet, but they're goals I'm going to strive for. I want to touch lives and make a difference. I just haven't figured out how yet.

The Finale:
This should have been in the first category, but I assure you, if I try it, I'll most certainly kill myself.

Wing suit base jumping:

I know this list is going to get longer still. Maybe I don't have as much time as I'd like to think. Then again, people rarely do.