Trauma has isolated me from much of the world. Maybe this is what it feels like to come home from war. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to a war, or at least not in the traditional sense, and I suppose like me, folks who have are isolated as well. Maybe this is what it’s like to be a quantum physicist at a Tupperware party. Maybe this is what it’s like to be an English professor on planet Xenu or a Thomas Sowell ever. They’ve never told me, but I feel like we may all be living within our own unique habitations, rolling around in big plastic balls of experience all over this planet. Everyone is smiling, chatting about obscure foods and the ambience of their stunted emotions, vibrant vacancy, assaulting flatness. “I love dogs. Like, I love them,” someone says and then someone else produces a photo of their corgi, Wilson. Wilson loves to watch birds through the windows and chased a shadow once. They all chuckle and that guy on the left straightens his tie. And here we are, me, Thomas, the teacher on Xenu, General Survivor, rolling around in our awkward plastic balls as we eye these strange creatures. They like anime. Ok? What do I say to that?
I like dogs. I don’t dislike them. I don’t really care, honestly. If a dog was suffering I would help it. I like piercings and cobb salad also, but who wants to talk about that? Who even thinks about that? In 2009 I pulled a man’s false teeth from his mouth so he wouldn’t swallow them as he had a seizure from a heroin overdose. He had just come back in town after spending a year living under a bridge in New Orleans. When he left for New Orleans he persuaded a friend to sell his truck and come with him so he could fund their trip. They both lived under a bridge and every morning they sat at the day labor temp agency hoping to get enough work to fund their habit. Sometimes they would call and ask someone from North Carolina to ship them syringes or buy gift cards. Did you know that Louisiana doesn’t allow the purchase of syringes without a prescription and gift cards are highly devalued? Hepatitis. I don’t want to talk about dogs.
I’ve done my best over the past years to reintegrate back into society, but honestly, I was never very good at it even before I experienced trauma. When situations were dry, awkward or emotionally perilous, I had a habit of commandeering the narrative into my own arena, often to my own detriment. I was arrested for passing a stopped school bus when I was sixteen years old and I plead diarrhea to the judge. “Your honor, I had sudden diarrhea. I’m sorry.” I said in open court. That time it worked to my advantage. That time. Last week I told my coworker that she looked like the type who would be a bridezilla and I was surprised that she wasn’t. I thought it was a compliment. It didn’t land as I expected. I was built for a post-apocalyptic world, but most people haven’t gotten there yet and I hate to wait.
I find it so difficult to entertain mundane conversation about weekend plans and mild illness. I want to change things! I want to be that person I knew from my first recalled memory that I was created to be. I want to shake it up, stir it around, juggle it behind my back and throw it triumphantly to the next. People are dying, I’ve seen them. People are hurting, I’ve been one. Neglected children are on their way to being destructive adults and we love dogs. We love sushi, too and that commute was terrible and Sailor Moon is my favorite. I don’t begrudge you, I just can’t take part. I can’t understand. I can’t form a response. My friends are dead, in prison dying, in the streets dying, clinging to what is left of their souls. My friends are ghosts. I have none. I have what I cling to desperately. I have faith, I have a family, I have proven endurance. I have a wall that is higher than my eyes can see and your dog doesn’t even come close to clearing it.
“You think weird,” I was told. I think like a sane person who was locked in a mental institution for decades only to come out and learn that the world has become the haunting ground for spiritual zombies. I think like a person who has embodied a corpse. I think like a person who has seen beyond the veil. I think like a person who is perpetually trapped in two worlds. I can’t tell most people what I’ve seen. They need safe zones and ice-cream socials. Everyday I want to scream, “You don’t know! You have it so good!” but instead I turn my head and hate Wilson silently. I don’t want a support group, I want a world where people are honest about their experiences. I want a world where we can communicate openly about what we have endured, witnessed — and then get over it. Half of me already lives in this world and if you choose to visit, we don’t require a passport. The other half of me begrudgingly pulls a paycheck.
I know who’s dying and why. I know the status of their wasting and I know how it feels to be left behind. I know how it feels to know things no one wants to know or hear or think about or even believe exists because it makes them culpable. I know how it feels to tell the heinous truth and be shunned for the stun of it. I know what happens when the curtain is drawn and the soul stabbing pain of finality which is so great it makes death seem delightful. I’ve seen centuries of consequences pass before me, I’ve seen the waste of a different kind of war and I’m a better person for it. Those things made me worthy of knowing. Maybe you know a different loss, a different stab and if you do, I want to know it too. I want to know how you got the dirt under your nails and why you have that eye twitch and that thing you swore no one would ever understand because I swear too, I will try.
I want to tell it all true, hear it all true and never, ever have to pretend to care about a single thing that can’t clear the fence.
The Reprobate's Guide to Pancakes 