First, don't expect too much because this is not for you. It is only for myself, and I don't even care too much about it. When we decided - Domenic, Brandon, and I - to leave the Northeast for an indefinite amount of time I thought about not writing at all. It occurred to me spending too much time hunched over a notebook may cause me to lose track of my priorities, which are as follows: sunrise, music, avoiding fast food, visiting people i have lied to about 'making a trip' for years, cigarettes. I am not sure if it is the quitting or the smoking part but sadly the bottom wrung of the latter will be a major part of this adventure.
I also hesitate to refer to this trip as an 'adventure.' With it the word carries a pomposity like a jet plane carrying microwavable dinners and one thousand gallons of gasoline. Nevertheless, it has also occurred to my feeble mind the immeasurable value I would gain from the documentation of the next x months. As a species the restrictions of our intelligence is depressing, and writing things down helps. Try it.
I have staked the intention of this journal, after a long discussion with Domenic over a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon, will be honesty, which is bull shit. I will be as honest as I can about what has happened, who I think my friends are, and who I am, which is really only a sad reflection of what my interpretation of reality and my petty illusions of morality are lacking, however misguided.
I take insult at my 'American-ness.' The way it is exploited and that I find it just. I am disgusted by the truth that despite any rants I punctuate or sparks I ignite with my words it is still in itself hypocritical. I write with my ego. A gruesome, pathetic, powerful influence. I have accepted this and chosen to overlook the hypocrisy because I'd never get out of bed if I didn't.
I am reminded of an old friend with whom I attach a respect I can say with certainty I do not, nor will ever, associate with anyone else on this earth. Her name was Margaret Pilsner, like the glass, and she was a bold, obnoxious, dim-witted, motherly, brilliant Atheist who succeeded in inspiring me to stop trying to speak to God. She'd say, "If it is the way they say it is, there ain't nuttin' you can do about changin'. If it isn't, well then you are walking around muttering words to yourself like a fool, while enough other fools make you think you are somethin' you ain't to make you sleep better at night.'
Shortly thereafter I stopped attending Catholic Mass. It may have been around the time the pastor at my parents church was guided from the alter in handcuffs because the man had decided to unbuckle the belt of an alter boy and put his mouth on his pecker before his sermon. This same man would then step out from behind his sacred robes and remind my parents and a whole flock of other croons to take care of business in the morality department by giving the church a few extra dollars so they can continue to spread the "good" word.
Margaret was stubborn. She blamed most of what she referred to as the 'fecal matter' of the world on the way in which we are tragically wired. She rarely held anyone accountable for anything. Her two sons, one who had joined the Marines after September eleventh and was killed in a training mission three months later, while the other took to a heroine addiction and still frequents McSorely's and with who I still have a chat from time to time, left home and rarely spoke to her.
When we were younger I can remember the three of us sitting around her table while she brewed coffee and smoked cigarettes until the kitchen appeared to be engulfed in a dull blaze. I was reading the funnies on the back of the newspaper Margaret was reading across the table. I would try to finish reading each strip before she became bored with whatever headlines she was reading and turned the page. Margaret knew it too. She used to enjoy playing that game with me. We never spoke of it, and I would never complain when she turned the page before I was finished. It just was that way.
After about half an hour of silence save the ruffle of newspaper and the tick, tock. of the clock, Margaret, who had been deflecting my eyes and shooting anxious looks across the table, slowly folded the paper on her lap. She stabbed her cigarette in the ash tray amid the ten she'd already inhaled that morning.
I sat patiently. I could recognize her look of discomfort, as if what she wanted to say was poking her softly but firmly in the small of her back. After a deep breath and long sip of coffee she parted her 'cherry fever' coated lips and smiled, "William, don't ever apologize for anything. I mean it. Don't ever apologize for who you are or what you did, even if it is the most foul or selfish thing you can imagine. Promise me that. I want to hear you say it. Say, 'Margaret, I will never apologize for who I am.'"
I remained silent. She continued without more than a pause.
"If anyone ever makes you feel like you need to apologize, Fuck 'em," and she swung her arms across her body and her bracelets rattled as her fingers slowly gripped her forearms like dominoes.
"It ain't anybody's fault, and there ain't a damn thing anyone can do about it, but people think we are all rushing to somethin'. By the grace of Tuesday I don't have the slightest of what they think they are heading too but it ain't nothing different than anything. Listen to me: this is it. It won't ever be more or less. You are just sitting here, and that is how it is always going to be, and it isn't your fault. It just is. Don't waste your time apologizing when there isn't a soul on this planet who could sit here and tell you different. Me and you, we are here, and we are going to be alright."
Margaret died on a Thursday six years after that. I was older and I didn't go to the funeral. I don't even know if there was one. I was busy and I had not spoken to her since Timmy died in that training mission. Truthfully, the whole business of her death didn't rouse in me much emotion. Last month I pulled in the cemetery in which she was buried. I'd drive by it every day on my way to work. I walked along the headstones until I reached her barren grave. Her tombstone read, quite perfectly, "Here lies Margaret Pilsner, honestly." I smiled and walked slowly back across the lawn. The sun was boiling the earth. I have grown to hate a lot of things. I am leaving on Monday with my two friends. I do not apologize for what has happened. Thank you Margaret, this is it.
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