It Ain’t No Sin to Be Glad You’re Alive
After two cathartic posts about Donald Trump, I’ve decided to stop caring about politics (too much, for now). While it’s important to know what’s going on I gave myself a shore leave from the circus and the clown leading it. Instead of politics, I’ve decided to write about death. Sorry.
I started caring about death more than usual in August, 2019 when my niece passed away. She had depression and it ended up taking her from us. If you’re reading this and you are a human, there’s no need to say how difficult this has been for our family. After she, a wonderful 19 year old died, I felt a lot of guilt for being alive. And then one day when I was listening to Bruce Springsteen (like I often do) the song, “Badlands”, fired up. In it, Bruce sings the line that serves as the title to this post and I paused and thought, “It ain’t, Boss. Thanks.”
Ultimately it’s still difficult to understand why some people have the chemical and genetic makeup to live—and succeed no less—while others all too often feel the urge to die. Regardless, I try not to feel bad about being alive. In fact, I quite enjoy it most days even though I still feel sadness more frequently than usual. My way of dealing with this is through writing and I’ve taken Springsteen lines from songs and used them as titles for stories I write where somebody, or everybody, dies. Baby, that’s a fact.
This is the first one.
Everything Dies, Baby. That’s a Fact. - “Atlantic City”
You might think I’m deranged but I am not. I am just hoping I don’t get shot today. Like, in the bathroom. Let’s say I go in there to play Words With Friends with my mom’s cousin, free of guilt, and then somebody walks in wearing clown shoes whistling something unfamiliar. Some sort of carnival jingle. Then, they say, “Trick or Treat, dickhead!” and I think, what the hoodily hoo, it’s July and without warning the clown (?) or person wearing clown shoes blasts through the door with a 12-gauge shotgun. Boom boom. Dead. And without even finishing my word, likely a simple one, something like FACIAL. Blood, bone, beard hair and fece everywhere. Holy. Shit. Wild. Then again, everything dies somehow, some way.
Sometimes when I’m in church I think about how far my pocketknife would fly just in case I needed to pull it out and toss it at the face of a masked shooter. Granted, even if I were able to toss my little 3” Case knife (one I got from my dad, thanks pops) in the facial direction of the gunman it’d be too late. There’d be many dead by the time it struck — through the eye, it’d have to be through the eye in order to stop the shooter.
If it’s not a shooter, it’s a falling bridge — one I drive over on most days. The problem with living on one side of the river and working on the other side is crossing it. I say to the concrete, rebar and other road components, “I’ve got substandard, cold chili to eat for lunch today. Please, oh please hold steady, Mr. Bridge.” Then I thank God every time I get across and then I forget about my chili until noon when I walk up the stairs to the fifth floor and think, my God, what if this whole building collapsed right now? Baby, I’d be dead.
Pieces of me would be crushed underneath some huge chunks of rock and rubble. If I were lucky, I’d be buried underneath the opened door of the refrigerator with the chili on top of me, maybe some of it would find its way into my mouth. Hopefully somebody brought a pan of cornbread for the office. It’d be sitting next to my cold chili, then they’d both fall into my mouth along with 10 tons of brick and rooftop. It’d be my final meal before going to heaven. Dusty, but delicious.
Do they serve chili in heaven? Not that that’s make or break but what are people eating when they don’t have a body? Do souls need to eat? If the midwestern Lutherans up there were making the chili it’d be boring — KETCHUP IS NOT A SPICE. The Baptists would have a spicy chili. Who cares? I’d be dead. And souls can’t eat. Can they sing? I don’t know. Never been dead before.
When I watch football games on TV I sometimes wonder if person (or a team of people) planted a bomb underneath the 50-yard line. Wouldn’t that be something. All of the sudden, instead of a play happening everything just explodes and the entire place collapses into a giant hole that appeared in the middle of a giant stadium full of people. People who went there for their kids’ birthday or something. If kids can be shot in school, why can’t they die in a stadium collapse? Which one is worse? Depends on if there is a bomb lobby in Washington, I suppose. Would the bomb lobby tell non-thinking Americans that if the government has access to bombs the people should too? Maybe that’ll become a new amendment, something for the incurious fearfuls to rally around and hide behind instead of thinking too doggone much.
Whew. I’m hoping I don’t get shot today. But what happens if I go to the bathroom? Happy New Year!
