dackelretten.org

Irre, und ein Heiliger.
Gestern Achselhaar, heute Nasdijj.
Auf seinen fuenfzigtausend Webseiten hat er riesige Mengen von relativ inertem Alle-wollen-mir-uebel Geschreibe, und dazwischen dieses brilliante, herzergreifende Zeug. Es gibt drei regelrechte Buecher von ihm. Alle muessen ihn kennen, verdammt noch mal.
Er betreibt jetzt diese support group fuer Kinder mit HIV, ueber die ist der Text hier. Ich habe ihn rauskopiert, obwohl er so lang ist, denn auf der Webseite muss man sich erst durch zehntausend Zeilen Sproedigkeit scrollen. Ich mach das gerne, aber ich kenne ja meine Pappenheimer.

I never saw it coming because I am the blind leading the blind. The boys, however, saw it coming, and they warned me.
"Socks has a crush on you," they said.
"Oh, go stick your head in the sheep trough," I told them.
They knew.
Most boys keep a certain amount of the things they hear in their heads shoved down into their pockets with the worms and stones and twigs. Places where those voices are not exposed.
Not Socks.
It all came boiling up.
"We could sleep together in my room," he whispered one day into my ear.
It always rocks my boat.
My dappled grey Arabian into a full canter.
I run.
I do.
Then, I have to stop myself. And confront it. With the child.
Especially children who put their developing sexuality into their loneliness.
I wanted him to simply be a little boy. To have that. And later to hold it close.
In his own quiet way, he articulated what came into his head because he had not learned yet how to put a lid on it. He had never been around his peers long enough to learn that there is an editing process that comes to communication where some things are best left unsaid.
There is an arrogance in this, too.
That says: Everything I think is worth saying because I am too important or too beloved or too smart to even attempt to disguise it with banality. Most cowboys understand that 90% of what comes into their cowboy brains is garbage. We learn via our experiences with our peers and usually through the dynamics of play that not everything we have to say is appropriate or will be greeted with delighted enthusiasm.
We were in group. The boys were simply going around the circle, taking turns, and talking about their week.
This meant typically school and trouble and teachers and turmoil. The usual. After all, Eminem got to say bad words, and HE was never punished, and HE had made a fortune from it. So there. I have heard all of this about ten thousand times.
And then it got to Socks.
"Socks," did you have a good week?"
"Yes. I was thinking about you all week."
I thought he meant the group. Leers all around. He meant me.
Then it hit me. Someone had been calling all week, and as soon as you said hello to the telephone, they hung up. It drives Crow Dog mad.
"Socks, were you on the phone a lot this week?"
"Yes. But when you said hello I hung up because I was afraid."
All he knew were adults.
I was compelled to give them my best: DO NOT LAUGH AT HIM look BECAUSE IF YOU MAKE FUN OF HIM IT IS GOING TO HAUNT YOU IN YOUR CRAZY OLD AGE.
"Afraid of what?"
"You might not like me the way I like you or as much."
They were looking at me like I deserved to have to deal with this. After all, I had brought him to the group.
I have worked with emotionally disturbed boys, and they, too, have fixations from time to time. But Socks was not disturbed even if the things he articulated could be disturbing.
In his pockets, he had Poloroid pictures of his room that he had taken. He passed out the photos. Each cowboy got one.
"This is my room. This is my computer. These are my books. Those are my soldiers and cars. That over there is my bed."
When he said BED, he looked right at me.
The other cowboys were turning red with a pressure-cooker laughter that they knew damn well better stay swallowed. Everyone had issues. These were his.
"It looks like a nice room," I said.
"Would you like to come see it?"
I had to look at the photo of his room a little closer. There was a picture in a frame on the wall by his bed. I had seen it a million zillion times in bookstores I have read in. It was me, and my little dog, Toto, too.
"Yeah, maybe you could sit on his bed and he could sit in your lap," some smart mouth said.
This elicited no reaction from Socks who read at the college level and had the social skills of a salamander.
It was now or never. The sea was big enough to jump into. Jump, boy, jump.
Every boy in that room thought it was about me and Socks. They were gravely mistaken.
I continue to work with the materials I have, the materials I am made of. With feelings, beings, books, events, and battles. I am omnivorous. I would like to swallow the whole earth. I would like to drink the whole sea. -- Pablo Neruda.
The boy who jumped into the breach was Louis.
Louis is eleven. He wants to be (god help him) a writer someday. I worry a lot about Louis and his ability to handle heartbreak. He types out his stories on an old Remington we found in a junk shop in Pittsboro. Louis lives in a trailer with his aunt and his brothers and no electricity and an out house.
Louis would save him.
"I would like to see your room, Socks."
Louis did not have a room. He slept on the couch with his brother who wet the bed.
The whole trailer smelled like urine and Sustiva.
I picked Louis up that next week and we went to visit Socks.
The grandfather insisted we had to stay for dinner. Louis didn't get too many invitations to those. Dinner for Louis was usually a bag of potato chips he shared with his brothers. Or cold hot dogs brought home by auntie fresh from work and she was exhausted. The brothers would build a fire outside and roast their hot dogs and everyone was stuffed with happiness. Someone had kicked their TV in right around the time they lost their electric. Louis could be covered with bug bites.
Stop scratching Louis. But Louis was his bleeding and his scratching.
People ask: Nasdijj, where do you see any hope in this?
Bear with me.
Louis and Socks were playing with trucks underneath the bed.
Underneath the bed with the dust balls. That is where you will find your hope.
It wasn't about me. It was about them. That is where I find my hope.
Dinner was real food and the house smelled of warm chocolate and there was dessert.
It was dark and I had to take Louis home.
Socks went and put on his pajamas. "Will you come back," he asked.
He meant Louis. Not me.
We pull into Louis' drive. The trailer is dark inside. The cold woods behind the trailer was black with naked trees that seemed as brittle as their makers. "Maybe we could take Socks to the rodeo," Louis suggested. "He's not too butch but there's room for possibility. He's the only kid I know who doesn't get Lolita. I get Lolita. Do you get Lolita?"
"Everyone gets Lolita."
"Not Socks."
"Not Socks. But he's smart."
"In an odd way," Louis said. "My brother is probably gonna pee on me tonight."
"Probably."
Every cowboy lives with his own miseries. Or not.
Louis had never been affectionate. He was a hard, tough cowboy because he had to be. He gave me a hug, a fat wet kiss on my cheek, and slammed the jeep's door. I saw him disappear into the shadows of the trailer.
Strut and independence. Wherever Louis would go in life, he would go as a genuine cowboy.
"I'm home! I'm home!" I heard him yell. Hoping like all hell someone would care.

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