SAINT ANDREW AVELLINO, Theatine Priest (†1608)
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Immediately after his death, the members of his order began work to beatify their beloved friar. These men died off and others took up the cause. They died off too, and others rose in their place. The Order was eventually successful. Friar Diego became San Diego.
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And then a rainbow came!
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In the backseat, a little white baby-sized casket was held in place snugly by a seatbelt strap.
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And then it was spring in the cave!
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Keep comin, keep comin, those legs are starting to give out on us again. Now, OK keep coming. Keep comin, keep comin… Keep those legs movin… Keep those legs movin… Now start backing up for us, OK? Take some steps backwards, Michael!…
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The turtle was lost in the scary forest far, far away.
Helen rode the unicorn and found the turtle.
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Take steps backwards! There you go… March your butt back as far as you can… OK, sit down! Sit! Good, Michael!…
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Then somebody was in the scariest forest and somebody saw red eyes and it was a monster!
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September, two thousand one.
We were living in salt lake city then.
My wife—my girl friend—was at work.
I, per usual, was sleeping in.
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The phone rang. I pulled the blanket over my head.
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Eventually, the ringing stopped.
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It started up again.
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So I got up and answered it……………………… Hello?
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She said:
TURN ON THE TV, BABE! IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD! PLANES CRASHING INTO BUILDINGS! PEOPLE JUMPING OUT OF WINDOWS! THE TOWERS ARE FALLING DOWN!
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They saw red eyes and went back to the cave and closed the door very tight so the monster wouldn’t get in.
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I turned on the TV.
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and there was a bright orange sky like I had never seen
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The unicorn went away when somebody stole it.
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I sat alone, in my underwear, all day long, in front of our 20-inch Sony Trinitron television screen.
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On every station:
HERE THEY COME AGAIN:
COLLAPSING:
COLLAPSING:
IMPLODING?:
FALLING DOWN:
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She just found the unicorn.
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over and: over and: over and: over and: over and: over and: over and: over again: and again: and again: and again: and again: and again: and again: and again: and again: and again:
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She just rode the unicorn and there was a buzz behind the cave and one little pink bee in the cave.
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All day long I watched those towers fall. And in the evening my wife—my girl friend—came home from work. She hadn’t seen the videos yet. So I was forced to watch them with her all over again. And again. Etc.
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There was a baby snake, there was a baby dog in the cave, a baby cat, a baby lizard, a baby frog, a baby rabbit, a baby kangaroo, a baby zebra, and a baby lion.
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Only now the constant repetition had become too much for my weak mind to take. After a few minutes I told her that’s it, that’s enough, turn the fuckin TV off. But she needed to see.
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I requested.
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She refused.
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I implored.
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She said take it easy.
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I demanded.
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She ignored.
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So very calmly I got out of my seat. I walked over to the mirror. I lifted it off the table. I slammed it to the ground and, screaming like a maniac, stomped around in broken glass.
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Then a little baby was learning how to walk.
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And that, children, is how your old man got the scars on his feet.
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And the baby’s name was Margaret.★
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But it’s not over.
I
Baby Margaret is growing bigger.
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[3] We parked at the entrance and waited for the manager of the cemetery to give the OK. And when he did, in a line we drove up a winding one-laned road, through trees, to the top of the cemetery, and over to the statue of Jesus, where children are buried. We parked and got out. And when we were sure everyone was present, myself and three of her other uncles retrieved the little white casket from the backseat of her parents’ car, and carried her, one handle each, to the site where a green tarp had been set up over a hole in the earth. We set her down in it. We all stood around and some of us said words; and the nurses who had raised her in the premie ward told us she had been a fighter and a joy and we cried. Margaret had only been home for 17 days before she died. Her death had been a surprise. After everything was said, we each put a flower on the casket, and when that was done, William took a shovel and began to shovel the dirt into the grave. Then his father did the same. And then handed the shovel to Rebecca’s father, who took his turn. And then William gave Helen a little kid-sized shovel, and she bent down in her nice dress and scooped some dirt, then carefully balancing the dirt on the shovel, she moved it over the hole, and dropped it down, looking very closely at what she was doing, and burning the memory into her mind. Amelia was getting impatient, so Rebecca told Helen to give Amelia a turn with the shovel. Then Helen helped her little sister gather the dirt. Then she stood behind Amelia as she dropped dirt over Margaret, holding Amelia’s shoulders so that she wouldn’t fall in. Afterward we all went to the Old Country Buffet, where William, Rebecca, Amelia, and Helen would often go after visiting Margaret in the premie ward. Everyone seemed happy. The girls ate ice cream. My wife ate salad. Rebecca didn’t eat. .
I tried everything, but it all tasted like shit.
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She was sleeping in my pink sleeping bag.
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[2] A week after I had visited Sal in his mobile home and recorded our conversation about Adelia, I returned with my wife to check on him, and take him to dinner. He’d been out of the hospital about two weeks by this point after having open heart surgery. The hospital had refused to send him home because he was old and lived alone so we had taken him in until his church could arrange for people to come look after him. When we’d wheeled him out of the hospital he was gray and weak and looked barely alive but by the time we drove him back to his trailer a few days later he was pink and full of life. But this night, when we showed up, he didn’t want to get out of bed. He said he felt bad, and had fallen the day before. I thought he was just being dramatic. I believe I may have called him a “wuss.” My wife, though, told him: Just rest, we’ll stay in the other room and play cards for a while. About twenty minutes later we heard a commotion and raced into his bedroom. Sal had fallen into his closet, and was leaning against the wall, white as a sheet. I grabbed him and held him up, and he took my arms and squeezed very hard. He had pissed his pants and was shaking. I said, Sal? Are you all right? Sal? He couldn’t respond. I tried to get him to go into the bathroom with me, but he wouldn’t move. His entire body was shaking, he couldn’t talk, or look me in the eye. His eyes were open but he was only partially there. With much effort, we managed to move him into the bathroom, and my wife brought him juice. It took a long time but we got him out to our car and then to the St. Francis ER w
here, once he was lying down on a bed, he began to feel a bit better. A doctor with an overconfident attitude and strangely aggressive manner came in and asked Sal questions. He asked him if he had noticed any blood in his stool recently. Sal said, No. And before anyone knew it was happening, the doctor had stuck his index finger up Sal’s ass, pulled it out, and was wagging the dark stain at everyone in the room, saying:
“Well, it looks like blood to me!”
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She had no home and no stuff, and her house fell down.
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[1] When Cathy the hospice nurse and I had gotten my dad washed, powdered, diapered and dressed, and then back to his room where we sat him on the bed, she crouched down in front of him. She took his hands in hers, rubbing the tops with her thumbs. She waited for him to look at her… and then to focus his eyes as best he could…………… on her face. And then, as if to formally announce the end of his ordeal, she asked him:
>
NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL >NOW
Then Helen waked up.
INTERMISSION
(Prof Billings Brown 20080416 204155.wav)
………………I got interested in roller skating. And thereby, uh, met a lot of girls in the rinks.
W: Yeah? I wish I would have known that when I was young, Gramps! You coulda taught me some tricks!
Yeah.
W: Yep.
I remember, they had, uh, short intermissions of a strange kind, where they, played, uh, various, uh, dance, melodies, on the organ.
W: Oh, it was organ music?
Organ, yeah.
W: Oh!
And uh… and it was elimination. Where they would play music for more and more difficult… dances until, there was only one couple… left… wheeling, shall we say.
W: Cool!
And one time at the { }, it was me and my… chick.
W: Nice!
We persevered.
W: Did you get a prize?
Oh… no.
W: Awww…
All for the glory.
CHAPTER TWO
Memories return, but are they my memories? Or have they been implanted in me, time-sensitive, each one waiting for the moment the lock is set to expire, so that the latch can pop open and reveal what’s inside. Now I remember:
sitting
at my desk
working, discovering
words and numbers
seeing things that were mysterious
feeling that I understood them,
feeling large, feeling powerful,
feeling I could fly and then
looking out the window and seeing a fat white-haired man standing buck naked at the door across the street watching the ladies in yoga pants walking back to their cars all sweaty with their mats under their arms and
I remember my wife’s work’s Christmas party. Sitting at a round table surrounded by scientists. What kind? Genetics. Does she work in genetics? This memory must be a clue. The centerpiece: a logo: a circle with a little man in it. At the Christmas party I sat close to her, drinking, smiling, smiling and nodding, laughing at everyone’s jokes. Fending off questions about myself and my work. It’s easy to do. Besides, they’re really not interested. But that wasn’t me at that party. It couldn’t have been. The whole thing’s been constructed. The memory is too malleable. It is rootless. On the surface. Artificial. But so is the present that I experience. Or experienced, past tense. For this all occurs in the past.
Or not-too-distant future?
No, it was the past. For it was in the past that I stood beside my clothes dryer while a man in coveralls unspooled a long metal coil with a blade on the end a few inches wide into the pipe that went out of my basement wall and connected my house with the sewer. Every few yards the snake would become stuck, its blade jammed with gunk, and he would have to pull the snake back out, reversing the coil as he went, until finally out would come the head attached to a wad of brown gunky roots.
“Old clay pipes break,” he said. “At the joints. And the tree roots get in and they clog up your works. How long have you been in this house?”
“The neighbor lady tells me three years.”
“You should have us come once a year for maintenance, otherwise it’ll be slow going like this, and end up costing you an arm and a leg.”
“Good to know.”
The man had thick white hair and a gray-white beard. He was short, sturdy—not fat, but squat. I asked him about the job while he worked and he told me that he had lied about his previous experience on his job application and had had to learn as he went. Lucky for me, he said, he was now quite well-versed. But even so, he joked, snaking drains was not his true passion.
“What’s your true passion?” I asked.
He then went on to tell me all about a business venture he had, which was based on the Bible and the idea that the Kingdom of Heaven could be instituted on the earth. It seemed to him that what was needed was a system of commerce which was run according to Christian principles, whereby everyone profited in equal measure—or if not equal (for this was not communism) at least equal to the amount of effort that one put in. Kingdom of Heaven Incorporated, International he called it, and had already trademarked the name. He was even then working with a local company that would make sweatshirts and t-shirts with the KOHII name and logo on them. He was inspired by a bes
tselling author of motivational books. He figured: Why wait ’til tomorrow? Why wait for Jesus to come? When Jesus came he didn’t want to be asked: Why didn’t you get started? You should have been busy building my Kingdom on Earth! So he was getting started, and snaking drains to pay the bills. The thought occurred to me that: it takes all kinds.
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