A Smile That Won't Fade

Death is inevitable.

It fascinates me that none of us will avoid it. It is the one certainty. I suppose if it's boiled down, death is change and change is the only guarantee in life. As someone once said, change is good, and I hate it.

Death is a stranger in my house. I'm 46 and I've only lost 3 of 4 grandparents. I know people that have lost that many people in less than a year. I'm lucky, I suppose. I'm also completely unprepared for it. I mean, I'm in my mid-40s and haven't dealt with real loss. If God deals one of my loved ones the Ace of Spades, how will I face that?

I'm not ready.

Recently, Mike Smith passed, unexpectedly. A high school friend, he was known as Smiley. He was, arguably, the nicest person you could ever meet. Thus, the nickname. Smiley and I didn't keep up. We probably spoke once in the last 20 years. However, it seems apropos to share my favorite memory.

1987. My future wife lived in Florida. I lived in Illinois. Smiley and Red (another high school buddy) planned to move to Florida because we were 20 years old and moving to Florida seemed fun. Why not. They planned an exploratory excursion down to the Sunshine State and I would tag along, help with gas, see my future wife and fly back. You can do that when you're 20.

Days before we leave, they deliver the news. We ain't going.

"What do you mean you're not going?"

Can't see it. 

No use in playing out the argument. They're not going. End of story. But screw that, not the end. I got a future wife waiting. I can take a bus. Danny and Coady drop me off at an East St. Louis bus station sometime close to midnight. I remember it clearly because there was steam coming out of the storm sewers and I was scared shitless.

30 hours later, I arrive at Sanibel Island.

Day 2-ish after arrival, my future wife gets a call. It's Smiley. Or Red. Maybe both, I don't remember. They want to know what her address is. Like exactly where she lives because they want to send her something. It's a PO Box.

No, what's your address? 

"Why?"

Just cause. Like where do you live exactly. 

Sonofabitch.

For next week, Smiley and Red slept on the couch. Of course we let them in. They were supposed to look for a place to live, for work. Instead, they sat on the couch quizzing each other with random questions to prove who was smarter. Yeah, I was pissed the first day. But truth be told, that trip never would've been the same without them. It was a hell of lot more fun with them on couch.

Smiley warmed a lot of lives. I was not immune.

He will be missed.

The Plight of the Caterpillar

Six legs. Ten prolegs.

The caterpillar climbs a stem, finds foliage at its tip. Green, tasty. He perches beneath it, filling his mouth, filling his stomach. The moon illuminates his striped body. The wind cools it. He eats until the leaf is whittled down to skeletal veins and the framework of a leaf remains. He finds another. The caterpillar eats all day, stilling only when a moonlit shadow passes or the flutter of wings warns danger is close.



At sunrise, the caterpillar crawls down into the litter, curls into the soil, Mother Earth's embrace. Safe from the sun. Away from predators. He sleeps until the sun sets, then returns to the branch to fill his belly again.

Life is good. It is full.

As the nights pass, he sheds his exoskeleton and swells larger. Still larger. Where once he was the size of a staple, he's now as thick as a pencil. The twigs bends against his weight. The tree has become a collection of foliar skeletons splayed like skinny fingers. And the caterpillar eats and sleeps. And life is good.

Until the suffering.

It's slight, at first. His skin begins to itch. His body fits more like shrink-wrap. Even the cool embrace of Mother Earth is painful, his nervous system sensitive. No matter how many bites, his stomach will not settle. He searches the ground for cooler soil, another branch for soothing leaves.

But life has betrayed him.

He wants to go back to the way it was, when there was just the branch, just the leaf. Just the sweet slumber in day's shade. This isn't fair. It isn't right. He has been forsaken.

All that is good is no more.

He endures days of struggle, no longer eating, no longer plump and vital. Shrunken and sluggish, his color is lifeless and dull. It's too difficult. Too hard. He can't go on, not anymore. Not like this.

He lacks the strength to find shelter, lacks the will to hide from things that fly and things that peck. And when wings flutter nearby, he looks up to see the soft scales of a majestic moth. The underwings are pink. The forewings are dark and soft. The moth remains still, the moonlight revealing the antennae plumes. And then it lifts away, wings patter like a kiss of wind.

If only, the caterpillar thinks. If only.

http:bertauski.com

 

Foreverland is Dead (Coming in April!)

The Annihilation of Foreverland

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

Halfskin

Evolution of a Vampire

I'm not a vampire fan.

I don't hate them, I'm just saying I don't love them. Why do I feel like I have to even explain myself? Honestly. They're not real.

But what if?

See, I had this minor epiphany at a local theatrical production of Dracula. IF there was such as thing as a hypnotic, immortal being that lived on human blood, would he continue the eternal savagery? Or would he evolve into something more sublime?

Along comes Drayton.

He doesn't remember being born. He's not sure what he is.

His memories of the early days are quite savage: tearing open throats, wolfing down hearts, that sort of thing. What vampires do. But now, not so much. He's young and unassuming. Cultured. His skin is black, not because of heritage; 8000 years in the sun will do that to a person.

Drayton still feels hunger, yet no longer feeds on blood but rather its essence. He no longer takes it but only accepts it as a gift. Sometimes he appears to people as a savior. Sometimes, as vengeance.

His understanding of the human condition is unparalleled. He's in complete control of his thoughts and emotions, sees with extrasensory perception, feels sensation at will. His body is undying. His mind, clear and uncluttered.

An immortal Zen master.

I wanted to uncork his endless power, really cut him loose, present him with an antagonist that really deserved a good disembowelment. You know, a real scumbag. Always with compassion, the bad guy gets it, just not the bullet-in-the-head kind of gets it. I suppose that's the character I imagined in that theatre.

Suppose I'll have to write some stories about the early years to get bloody.

For now, all five novellas are compiled into The Drayton Chronicles.

bertauski.com

All Grinched Up

The curse.

You find a good book, you're up all night. Get stuck with a bad one, you wonder why words were invented.

Writing books is a different curse.



The characters, they get inside your head. Their lives are fluid. Their actions  and motivations are limitless. It's like developing a 80,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, only you're cutting each piece individually, painting them one at a time.

There's an inner compass that guides me, something tells me when I'm onto something. A certain energy emanates. Think of the proverbial light bulb flicking on somewhere around the solar plexus. I start with characters, think about what they'll do and why. Develop a general idea of the ending. If it feels dry and empty, if it feels lifeless, I keep cutting. Keeping painting. Until--

SNAP. Yeah.

I got something.

This time it's The Grinch, a sequel to Claus: Legend of the Fat Man. Problem is, this isn't Santa Claus. The Grinch is trademarked. How grinchy.

That's all right. I can tell a grinchy story without The Grinch. I've got characters that are waking up, keeping me up at night, whispering what they want to do, telling me secrets, revealing their shortcomings. Like a good book, I gladly watch them dance in the theatre of the mind into wee hours. In the morning, I'll scratch out what I remember, regret the stuff I forget.

The journey is just beginning.

http:bertauski.com

 

Halfskin

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

I Heart My Lawyer

I'm kidding. I don't have a lawyer.

It was just some lady the bank appointed to close on our refinancing.



She plopped down with a folder stuffed with paper, looked like the history of the world. I was thinking we'd have to a sign a paper or two. Turns out, we had to prove we were human, for starters, and work our way up from there.

This paper ensures the lender that you, indeed, are not a zombie and that you have never eaten human flesh nor have you ever been tempted to taste a human brain nor has anyone in your family ever been a zombie. 

Sign here and initial, please.

I wish they were like that. Perhaps I would've listened before signing away the ownership of my soul or whatever was on that document. This is what I heard:

This document ensures mumm mum mum daddada mum dadda mumumm mmm mmmmmm... sign here.

My wife says, "We should read this."

"That's what she's for. Just sign."

On a previous engagement, we were signing 25 trees worth of paper with another law firm. I asked if anyone had ever read one of these. He said some lady insisted on taking them home, reading every word. Then he goofed on her in between passing us documents. I felt dirty. But, still, I signed. I just wanted out of there. Suppose that's the point: pen-whip us until our eyes turn milky.

We trusted the lawyer. She seemed nice. And that's a horrible reason to trust someone with legal documents.

No one has come for the kids, though. So that's good.

Using All the Crayons

My dog eats cat shit. And loves it.

I don't know if I've ever met a dog that didn't salivate over a litter box. You'd think cats were crapping out heroin. I've never tried one, but I'm damn sure I won't like it. And if I did, well, I'd rather not know that about myself.



Who am I to judge? What makes my sensibilities the gold standard of all existence? Maybe beer tastes like moldy cheese to the rest of the universe.

A box of crayons contains a lot of colors. If you're a fan of affirmative sayings, you know that Life is about using all the crayons in the box. That's easy when they're all sweet tasting colors. You know, the fiery reds and deep yellows. Not that silver crayon or the bright green. And where the hell am I supposed to use white?

But sometimes the box is full. Other times it only offers the cat turd crayon. I don't think Crayola named it that, but it's in there.

And my dog would love it.

http:bertauski.com

 

Foreverland is Dead (Coming in April!)

The Annihilation of Foreverland

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

Halfskin

Motorcycle Boy

It's been a year.

He came to the horticulture program in the fall of 2011. Like most of our students, he was in his 20s or 30s. Hard to say, I'm never a good judge of age. He walked with a slight hitch, I think it was a skateboard accident. Or was it a motorcycle? He still rides both.

I always knew when he was in the building, his helmet sitting next to his laptop. That laptop, the one he'd frantically google for facts in the middle of class. Drove some of the students crazy. He was always present, always involved in conversation or the middle of a project. He was easy in lab, just assign him to a crew and get out of the way.

Made some crazy.



A year ago, we came back from Christmas break. I was talking to a graduate, told him he probably knew one of current students. They were both skaters, of course they'd know each other. I describe him.

"That dude?" the graduate says. "He killed himself."

He's got it wrong. I just saw him a month earlier. He had some problems outside of class, but who doesn't. I describe him some more.

"That's him. No doubt."

I check the obits. Name after name after name... I then I see it. He's there. It doesn't say how it happened, just that it did.

The details, irrelevant.

He's gone.

I don't know why. I didn't know him that way. We all got demons. Maybe his were too tall, too angry. Maybe they circled the waters around him and things just got too muddy. Maybe he just couldn't see clearly, caught in the vortex of swimming demons.

He ran out of strength. He gave up. Went under.

Made a decision he could never take back.

There are others that feel like I do. I miss Motorcycle Boy.