a short story

let me know what you all think of it (especially you ladies, since i tried to write it from a female perspective... probably my first mistake)...and sorry some of the tabbing and formatting didn't carry over...

Before I Go
by Tom Passaro

My name is Caira Evans, and these will be my last words to the world. I have just a few short hours before they strap me down and fill my veins with death. Maybe no one besides the “proper authorities” will ever want to read what I am going to write on these sheets of paper, or be allowed to; but maybe someday someone, maybe even my parents, will want to know how it all happened.

His name was Timothy Maurer, and less than a year ago we were in love. A lot has changed since then. Tim is dead. Everyone seems to think that I’m responsible for that. Personally, I think he is as guilty as me; but I suppose you can’t execute a dead man.

I guess it all started when I moved into my apartment here in the city. I’m not a city girl. I don’t think I really belong anywhere in particular – especially not now – but the city wasn’t the best place for me. Honestly, I moved here to get away from my parents. They’re filthy rich, and have a gaudy house in the country about two and a half hours away. I dropped out of the community college there in March, and they agreed to let me move to the city for some “life experience”. Their conditions were that I had to get a job (to “find responsibility,” as my dad put it) and I had to stay on my medication.

I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder ten years ago, when I was thirteen, and I’ve been popping pain pills and antidepressants and crying to shrinks ever since. I don’t remember a lot of my early childhood, which they say is normal for my condition, and I can’t even count how many blackouts I’ve had over the years.

My parents set me up with a shrink in the city – Dr. Kali Shira – and I was scheduled to meet with her once a week to talk about my problems. She liked to start our sessions by asking me if I had heard from Melinda lately. If I hadn’t, it had been a good week. She didn’t seem to like Melinda very much – and for good reasons, as it turns out.

Just a few days after I moved to the city, I got a job at the dry cleaner’s about a block from my apartment building. It seemed like it would be the easiest job nearby. I only worked about twenty hours a week since my parents were giving me money. They had me working the cash register, answering the phone, and bringing clothes out when customers came for pick-ups. So technically I had a job, and my parents were happy about that. I never missed an appointment with Dr. Shira, and I took my medication every day, until I found out that I was pregnant.

My apartment was a two-bedroom, with a huge living room and a kitchen. The day I moved in, I fell in love with the simplicity of empty space – the bare white walls seemed to speak the same promise of potential as the new, sand-colored carpets. The first call I made was to the Salvation Army – for them to come pick up most of my boxes of stuff, and all my furniture. I kept just enough clothes and other essential things, and sent anything that held sentimental value back to my parents’ house. I decided that I would just pile up some blankets and pillows on the floor each night, the way my cousins and I did once at my grandma’s when we were young. I slept that way for over a month. I had no friends to invite over, no parties to host, and no one to give comfort to through soft leather furniture or dark mahogany end-tables.

For as long as I could, I kept all those things away. It was my period of material hypocrisy, I guess. No one could accuse me of love seat or fancy lamp lust. I say that they couldn’t accuse me, but I was guilty. Those two months before I really knew anyone, I would spend hours staring at my empty walls and floors, arranging and rearranging – in my head – all kinds of paintings, tables, chairs, recliners, and vases of colorful flowers. No expense was refused when I would wander the rooms and halls, decorating corners and open spaces.

One day I pictured a black Steinway grande piano in each room, and filled the rest of the apartment – every counter, shelf and imaginary table – with burning white candles. It was exquisite, but just wouldn’t do. The neighbors probably would have complained about all the noise, and all those candles might set off the smoke alarms. So with a blink, everything was gone again. It was Tim’s fault that the tables and chairs and sofas and clocks found their way inside.

It was a warm Saturday in May when Tim moved into my building. It was a beautiful day for me. I woke up to find that the headache that was bothering me the day before had gone. I hadn’t been getting them as often as I used to, but when I did, I followed Dr. Shira’s advice to take the pain medication she gave me and try to sleep. I didn’t have to work that day, so I slept in until the late morning sunlight had filled my room.

After getting cleaned up, I threw my blankets and pillows into the closet and went out onto my balcony to see what it was like outside. I remember seeing a mid-sized U-haul truck moving so slowly down the street, trying to avoid the cars parked on both sides, and eventually coming to a stop in the tow-away zone in front of my apartment building. The truck had alligators and scenery from the Everglades painted on its side. I remember thinking that they must have been from Florida, but later I realized that the trucks get transferred all over the country, so the pictures don’t really mean anything like that.

Tim and his friends got all his stuff moved inside pretty fast since his apartment was on the ground floor, but I had enough time to admire him from my balcony. He appeared to be a very clean-cut guy, and I wanted him to look up and see me. He did, eventually, but I had to do a little bit of fake coughing first. When he looked up, he smiled, and I felt my pulse quicken. After they were finished moving everything inside, I noticed that I was sweating for no good reason. I was feeling nervous, and anxious. I wanted to go downstairs and meet him, but I started to feel a strange fear of the steps. What if I trip? was all I could think.

I woke up over an hour later on the freshly-vacuumed carpet of my living room floor. I didn’t remember walking back inside from the balcony, but when I saw the phone number written on my hand I knew what had happened. That week was “not a good week,” according to Dr. Shira.

“Melinda has made a new friend, then?” she asked me at our next session.

“Yes, just yesterday. His name is Timothy Maurner... or Maurer. I can’t remember. He lives downstairs in my apartment building.” I took a nervous breath. “We have a coffee date this afternoon.”

“Oh?” she said, as she shifted in her shiny leather chair. “Do you think that is a good idea, Caira?” she asked earnestly.

“I don’t know... I really don’t know. I realize at least some of the problems with it. He thinks my name is Melinda,” I said. I looked away from the soft, waiting expression on Dr. Shira’s face, towards a painting on her wall. It was a large canvas – almost as big as her desk – with swirls of all different colors on it. I never could figure out what it was supposed to be.

“But that’s not a big deal, right?” I tried to argue. “I mean, like Shakespeare said: ‘What’s in a name?’ Part of me is Melinda, anyway, so it’s not a complete lie.”

“You know what I’m getting at, Caira. It’s going to be impossible for you to have a healthy relationship with anyone who does not know the truth about you.” Dr. Shira set her notebook down, walked out from behind her desk, and sat down on the front of it, facing me. “Timothy may be a great guy – the kind of guy who would be interested in you, even in spite of your condition. You are a very pretty young lady, with many good qualities. But you have to let him make that choice.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say,” I said after a dry silence.

“Look, Caira,” she said, sympathetically, “...we’ve had this conversation before. I don’t take piles of money from your parents just to give you arbitrary advice to makes things hard for you. I didn’t go through eight years of schooling so I could come into this office and play god with peoples’ lives. I really am here to help, and I hope you see that even when I’m not telling you exactly what you want to hear.”

I slouched down into my chair. She was lecturing me, and even though I deserved it, I didn’t want to hear it.

“Yes, Melinda is a part of you,” Dr. Shira continued, “... but she is not all of you. The trauma you endured as a child... the boating accident, the feelings of abandonment as you recovered... all those things we’ve talked about these past two months... they led you to create Melinda. What we are trying to do is unify you into one whole, fully-functional lady; and you have been making some great progress, even in the short time that we’ve been meeting. I don’t want to see you take a step backward by giving yourself a reason to keep Melinda around.”

I left Dr. Shira’s office that day feeling a little depressed, which wasn’t all that unusual. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to tell Tim. I didn’t think he would talk to me anymore if I told him the truth, and he was the only person I had met in the city, except for a few people at work. But I knew Dr. Shira was right. I didn’t want to lie to him, and I was pretty sure he would find out anyway. As I walked back to my apartment from the bus stop, I started feeling cynical.

“What am I so afraid of?” I thought. “I don’t even know this guy. Maybe he’s a complete loser.”

I decided that I was going to tell Tim the truth before we went out for coffee. When I got back to my building, he was sitting outside on the brick doorstep, smoking a pipe that smelled like vanilla. It reminded me of my grandpa, and that relaxed me a little.

“Hey, Tim,” I said.

“Hey Melinda,” he said. I cringed a little.

“Um... listen,” I said as I wrinkled my face slightly, “... I’ve gotta tell you something... something you might not like very much.”

“What, you’re not gonna go get coffee with me?” he said, sounding a little disappointed.

“No... it’s worse than that. Could we go inside and talk?”

“Yeah... sure,” he said as he cleaned the tobacco out of his pipe.

Inside his apartment, I noticed that he had pretty good decorating tastes, for a guy. There were the Jimi Hendrix and Beatles posters in his bedroom, but the rooms were comfortable and welcoming.

“Do you take the grand tour every time you visit someone’s place?” he asked with a short laugh. “Or are you really just the secret police of this building?”

“Oh, right...” I said, embarrassed. I had forgotten that it was not my first time there.

“Ok, well I better spill it, then,” I said, sitting down on his couch as he turned on another lamp. “This is kinda hard for me, but here it goes.” I took a deep breath.

“When I was younger, I had a boating accident at my parents’ lake house, and I was in pretty critical condition. It took me a while to recover physically, but really that was only the beginning. The worst of the accident was my head injury...” I said, as Tim looked at me with concern.

“I had to go through a lot of physical and mental therapy, and I was in and out of hospitals for a while. But my parents are kinda rich, so it was always “the best of the best” working with me. What I’m really trying to tell you is that about nine years ago – because of all that stuff – I was diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder.” I stopped there to see if those three words would be my queue to leave.

“What’s that?” Tim asked.

“Well, my doctors tell me it’s basically my way of coping with all that trauma. It’s similar to multiple personality disorder, I guess. In my case, my personality has split between Melinda... and Caira, which is my real name.”

“Dammnn...” he said, slowly, almost laughing out of discomfort. “Sorry, I’m really not the cussing kind,” he apologized, “... but’s that’s some crazy shh... stuff.” I saw in his eyes that he wanted me to say that I was just joking. That glimmer faded, but another one remained. “Look... I’m really sorry. That’s some really crappy stuff you’ve been through. I don’t want to sit here and pretend like I can relate.” He sat silent for a moment, thinking.

“Well,” I said, “...I’m not trying to play it up for sympathy. I just wanted to tell you the truth, so you can decide if you’ll be able to make it for coffee, or whatever. And you just met me yesterday – or today, really – so you don’t have to feel committed to any kind of friendship.”

“Uh...” he said, “Yeah, this is pretty crazy. But I guess this is hard for you to deal with, too. Thanks for telling me. At least I know that one of my neighbors is an honest person.”

“Or persons,” I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. It worked.

“Well, I guess it’s good that you can have a sense of humor about it,” Tim said, sounding a little unsure of what he was saying. “I guess I do have a ton of questions... so what do you say we keep our date?”

I've written down what happened that day to show that Tim was almost unbelievably compassionate and understanding. I knew that if there was ever going to be someone who could love me as I was and help me to get better, he was that person. After that day, we started going out a lot, as we were both pretty new to the city and wanted to see it all.

I knew that the time was going to come when Tim would want to see my apartment, but I didn’t want him to see it so empty. So one Friday, when he had gone back to his hometown to visit his family for the weekend, I swallowed my pride and called my mom. I told her about how I had been living in my apartment, and that I really needed to furnish it that weekend. She was pretty upset that her own daughter had been living in such “poverty”. She wired me ten-thousand dollars that afternoon, and told me that my apartment better look “respectable” by the time she and dad came to visit, which never did happen.

I spent the rest of that afternoon shopping for all kinds of things. Anything that would make my apartment seem nice and comfortable, I bought and had sent to my apartment the next day (since I didn’t have a car). That was the day that I bought the used Steinway baby grande piano. They gave me a deal on it, and I knew Tim was into playing music.

That Saturday was chaotic, with movers delivering furniture all day long. I started to get worried that it was creating such a stir in the neighborhood that Tim would hear about it, but luckily he didn’t; or at least he never asked me about it. When he got back in town, I was anxious to invite him up to see my apartment. I thought it looked really good, and when he saw it, he did too.

That was the night I got pregnant. I wish I could say that it was one of my blackouts – that I didn’t know what I was doing – but it wasn’t. I was fully aware of what was going on.

The next day I woke up scared. Tim was beside me, asleep, in my new bed, in my newly furnished apartment, and instantly it all came back to me. In a panic, I got dressed and went to the convenience store two blocks away to get a pregnancy test. Somehow I knew the answer before I even got the results.

I tried to stay calm, but I think I Tim woke up to the sound of me crying in the bathroom. All I could think was How am I supposed to be a mother? I don’t even have my own life together! What am I going to do!? Right away, Tim tried to comfort me, saying that everything would be alright and that he wouldn’t leave me. But I knew that it was something that my parents wouldn’t handle with such grace. I became pretty hysterical at the thought of telling them, and Tim had to hold me for a long time before I calmed down.

My parents found out I was pregnant from Dr. Shira. I had walked into that week’s session with a tear-streaked face, and when she heard what had happened, she told me that she felt it not only crucial for my parents to know, but her obligation to tell them if I wouldn’t. I didn’t argue with her. I knew that they would find out eventually, and if she wanted to be the bearer of bad news, I was going to let her take the initial blast from them. She called their house on speaker phone before I left her office to go back to my apartment. I broke out in a cold sweat the second I heard my dad’s voice. I tried to breathe deeply, but I felt paralyzed with fear.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Evans, this is Dr. Shira. How are you doing today?”

“I’m fine, I suppose. How are things going with Caira?

“Well, I have just finished with her session for today, and I’m afraid I may have some troubling news,” she said.

Nestled tightly in a long stream of profanities were the declarations that Dr. Shira would no longer be my psychiatrist, and that I would be moving back to my parents’ home in the country. I felt my heart start pumping out of control. I thought that Dr. Shira was going to meet Melinda at last, but I laid down on her office floor and just cried my way through all the stress and fear. I remember her coming over and holding me, saying, I’m sure, the same kinds of things Tim had said to me days before. I heard her voice, but I didn’t hear anything she said.

Like I said before, the day I found out I was pregnant was the day I stopped taking my medications. I was afraid it would be bad for the baby. So by the time Dr. Shira called my parents a few days later, I was already having a hard time holding myself together. I know that I was having blackouts, but since “Melinda” was usually a good girl, it wasn’t getting me into any trouble. What scared me, though, was that several times when I came to I found myself scribbling on a notepad or a napkin. Each time, it was the same phrase written over and over again:

Give Tim the piano, good.

I didn’t know what it meant. At first, I thought it was just me trying to plan what to do with all the stuff I bought for my apartment. It made sense, in a way, for me to give Tim the piano – he lived close, so it wouldn’t be too hard to just move it downstairs if he wanted it. I mean, my parents sure didn’t need another one. I asked him if he wanted it, and he said yes, with much thanks. He arranged for a local moving company to send some guys over that Saturday. I paid the bill – with my parents’ money.

I woke up with a pounding headache that Saturday morning. After getting cleaned up, I walked down the street to the bagel shop for some breakfast. It was a cool July morning – I could tell by the puddles on the street that it had rained pretty hard the night before. As I sat at the window counter and finished my whole-grain bagel, I saw a white van go by with “Leonard’s Lifters” and a phone number stenciled on the side.

“They must be the movers,” I thought to myself. I felt a chill spread over my body, followed by a cold sweat. I hurried back to my apartment building in time to see two very large men unloading the special piano dolly out of the back of the van.

“You guys here to move a piano?” I asked, already pretty sure of the answer.

“Yes, ma’am. I guess that’s your piano that needs movin’? Apartment 201, is it?” replied the younger-looking man.

“Yes, that’s me. I just need you move it to an apartment down the stairs.”

“Thank God,” mumbled the older-looking man. He had a worn-out face.

“OK, what we’re gonna do first is tip the piano over and take the legs off,” said the younger-looking mover. “Then we’ll get the body on the dolly and take it down the steps that way. It should only take about an hour to get it all done. Have you cleared out a path and a space in the downstairs apartment?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, that’s been taken care of already,” I answered.

I showed them upstairs to my apartment, and left them to disassembling the piano while I went downstairs to tell Tim that the movers were there. After a second knock, he came to the door.

“Hey, they’re here,” I said, a little excitedly.

“Sweet,” he said, following me back up the stairs.

It wasn’t long before they had the support base taken off the piano and had wheeled it out my apartment door, sideways on the dolly. They stopped at the top of the steps.

“OK, we can handle getting it down the steps,” said the younger mover. “But it would help a lot if you would stay on the bottom end to help guide us – or in case my old man needs some help,” he said, looking at Tim.

“Sure thing,” Tim said in a chipper tone. He was excited to be getting the piano.

As the two men eased the piano over the edge of the top step and down onto the next, one of the straps around the piano came loose, and it shifted. They managed to keep the piano from falling, but the sudden stop made all the strings inside it cry out at once. The awful ringing of that chromatic chord in the stairwell was the last thing I remember.

I woke up in pain, lying in a hospital bed. There was a city police officer sitting in the chair beside my bed. Seeing that I had awakened, he stepped into the hall and returned a few moments later with a man in a suit. I could tell right away that the man in the suit was a detective. As he turned to close the door behind him, I saw a holstered gun inside his grey jacket.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Evans,” he said in a dry monotone. “How are you feeling?”

“Uh,” I said slowly, looking down at the IV tube leading to my hand. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” he said, a little harshly. “Well, let me try to help you.”

He told me that I had been unconscious for two days after a very serious fall down the steps of my apartment, and that they had reason to believe that the accident, which resulted in the death of Timothy Maurer and the baby I had been carrying for less than two weeks, was an intentional, possibly even planned, murder. I didn’t know what to say. I felt my legs tingling beneath the stiff, white hospital sheets, my feet were cold and sweating. I think I must have passed out, because there were suddenly nurses all about me. I heard the detective talking with the policeman.

“Did you hear that? My goodness – ‘Give Tim the piano, good’ – if that’s not a confession... Did you hear her tone of voice?” he said, scribbling on his notepad.

life goals. i don't have enough. or any, really. i need some. i'm trying to think of some. i used to have a few, but they were lost. this is my attempt to find some new ones. even though i really liked my old ones, and i will miss them, forever.

1.) ummmmm.......ok, practice run.....next...

2.) meet fiona apple, and give her a hug. or a high five.

3.) figure out if i've ever really been in love

4.) move to a big city, get a sweet high-paying job, get loaded with money, start a band, quit my job, go on tour singing songs about how every girl i thought i loved ended up hurting me, but it's ok because i hugged fiona apple once, and now we're on tour together

5.) ask the strong gentleman to loosen the straps on my jacket

6.) start my own "man vs. wild" show, but call it "man vs. wilderness of a few stray tropical flowers growing at the base of a palm tree in the natural area of the parking lot of a five-star luxury resort in the grand cayman islands where the snack bar closes at 6pm"


i mean, i don't know how to make it any clearer. you tell a boy to go to school, to be a good kid, to try to grow up. he smiles and tries. you tell a boy that life is like that sometimes, that girls are unpredictable, that hearts are designed to break, that people do their best, that clay is meant to take its shape. he smiles and tries. you tell a boy he's getting on in years, is there really no one else?, that there are bills to pay, to think of all the good things, that sometimes people just marry other people. he tries to smile. you tell a boy that some people stay alone, but surely he's not one of those, that someday those bells will ring, that it will mean so much, that it really will. you tell a boy that, just because there is a way she showed him to pop a knuckle on his thumb that makes him remember her almost every day even though he doesn't need any help at all, that doesn't mean a whole lot, to think of that love as cheap, that another 'she' will be along, and a thousand more if he doesn't like her as much as the girl who asked him if he had ever been in love.

'...and history books forgot about us / and the bible didn't mention us, not even once / you are my sweetest downfall / i loved you first...'

we know this boy will be nice to everyone, but step lightly when you come to him with 'you should love this, you should love that.' maybe he can't.

i am dead and yet still dying;
are you familiar with the sighing?

i have seen the moonstruck streets,
with gaping holes like dead mens' eyes.
the leaves run wild across those streets
in stiff winds, like dead mens' sighs.

i am dying, always dying;
'where does this awful street end?' i cry.
when does the familiar leave - those eyes
that kill me with their sighing?

i am dead and yet still crying;
are you familiar with the dying?

with any luck (and much practice), this will be me in a few years...

falling out

i stand before a mirror and see a monster. "don't leave me waiting for the love i need. oh lord, it's wearing on me." hair shorter than ever and still out of control. what kind of striped, unironed long-sleeve dress shirt do i need to wear? i wear jeans, but don't we all? fine, fine. i'll pull out the khakis, or the dark gray slacks. what in the world to do with these tennis shoes? bought for running, were they? how many times have you used them for that? exactly once. i see...

well, we can come back to that. maybe, mr. man on the side, if you upgraded your ride. or cleaned all that junk out of it. dust off the dash, the displays. sweep out the dirt and rocks and leaf crumbs. change that air freshener, already.

more importantly, though, let's have a look at that heart. whoah! "you give me something that makes me scared, alright." what happened here? this will never do. i mean, seriously, where do you expect to go with that? cracked, exploded, stupid, growing and shrinking without a moments notice. "but i'm good at being uncomfortable so i can't stop changing all the time."

look here, you're better than this. vows or no vows, what kind of words could they have been to move you like this? so you distinctly remember that there are things that you wouldn't like about me? what does that mean, anyway. put on a new shirt, and follow me. we've got some steps to retrace. "i miss that stupid ache." and you haven't eaten all day.

rich price on repeat, it helps me to sleep

the days when i remember you clearly-
tone, pitch, inflection of everyday words
spoken across dried leaves and untended grass-
i cry without restraint.

on days like this, i find words inside
that must be spoken...

to who? to who?
to no one else but you.

some days
i cry my death of cries.

a love poem with no title

[disclaimer: this poem is not meant in any immoral way, but simply as a poem about the closeness i hope to find in marriage. please take it as such. thanks.]

i wonder if your breath
turns to frost upon the pillow -
when the cold of nightfall
creeps in through cracked windows;

i'd like to see your dreams
flash across your face like fire,
and, in the morning, see
if you're rested, or still tired;

i'd like to see the way
the blankets and sheets distort
the rolling of your hips
as you turn away from morning;

i'd like to see your hair
thrown wild beneath your head;
these are a few reasons why
i'd like to lay with you, in bed.

|L|et's |O|ppose |V|oodoo |E|conomics

when i think of valentine's day i think of red and pink. can't you see it? probably some white or black lettering on those heart balloons, teddy bears. candy boxes. glitter cards. people wearing those valentine's shirts that they sell at target, with some hilarious line on them, like "i'm with cupid -->". get it? like 'stupid', only 'cupid'. see, it rhymes, and ryhmes are funny. it's all very cute.

i don't really consider myself a passionate person, but there are two things that i feel very passionately about right now. the first is that i don't like red and pink together. the second is that i plan on being the person who will put an end to valentine's day. i see it as a mathematical equation: valentine's day + me doing something = no more valentine's day ever. it's so simple (even a caveman can do it); i just need to figure out what that something is.

i have always disliked the v-day; ever since the first grade when everyone gave everyone else the exact same cards with the little bag of heart candies. it's an economic tradition forced upon us from childhood by companies who sell anything from candy to flowers to cards to diamonds. i'll bet anyone a million dollars you'll be able to see a car commercial within the next couple days that suggest that, guys, if you really love her, you'll buy her a lexus.

my biggest problem with the "holiday" is that, somehow, it makes me the idiot, the grump, the grinch, the loser...for refusing to "fall in love" ... or at least buy a nice set of diamond earings for some girl who probably can't pronounce my last name.
no thanks. i'm still paying off the lexus from last year.

mohawk = mo' happy

in case you haven't heard, 2007 is officially the year to rock the 'hawk. i'd like to see everyone get on board with this. the mohawk: a must have for this season's fashion.

not about love

someday soon i'll post an update that's actually worth reading, but i think all you need to know for now is that i have a mohawk. also, i sometimes like to listen to fiona apple, and this music video with comedian zach galifianakis is pretty funny, especially the shots of him in the ocean.

Fiona Apple & Zach Galifianakis - Not About Love

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