RESURRECTION

Dad and I with some of his buddies had gone camping, it had been a long and harsh climb, I whined every ounce we marched. Part of me did not want to get dirty, step on the puddles, dad was consternated by my lack of manliness, he would jump into the mud puddle and urge me not to be afraid to jump in, his perception of danger and excitement were like mine, warped by size, but mine more by a fidelity to my inner being, I was immaculate, I was a virgin boy, I was a child fit for a satanic altar, dad was trying to make a man out of me, and all of that contradicted my aesthetic sensibilities; I was a child of the universe, a magnificent being born from many lives into this linearity, I had done a little more than jump into puddles, the little boy rejected the puddles and rough play because I was made of the cosmic fiber. A mirage ought not be splashed with dirt because its unreality will become visible. Hiking and fishing were contemplative manifestations of only this world, and for my own sake, for the sake of his ancestors, dad wanted to make this boy a tough and disciplined man.

Dad too was Shaman from another place, he too had traveled the metaphysical sensitivities of the universe, he had many hearts, and one giant one on earth, so large a heart that he did not have himself the capacity to suffer, his heart had to be tough so that others might not suffer his frailties; dad discipline and corrugated himself, locked his immense emotions up, so that he would not emotionally fall apart, so as not to burden us all. He was eliminating weakness from the fragile earth, dad had conquered himself. And this giant heart of sensitivity wanted me to be tough so that I would not suffer, he wanted me to get dirty and dig into the earth like the worms so as to give this life the oxygen it needed to stay alive.

But I was afraid of touching worms, I was afraid of fish, I was afraid of the night, I had never grown accustomed to earthiness, I kept myself all locked up too, only not to live here but in the clouds, on top of mandarin gardens, I had discussions with angels, I used to stay in my mind and occupy as little earth space as possible, earth life for me was like going to the zoo to see a tiger. You stuck your hand in the cage to feel brave but only dared so when the tiger was sleeping on the other side. A snore from tiger would make me pull my hand out so hastily that I would always hurt it during the retreat; and still I blamed the tiger for insensitivity. A fish bleeds pain, wriggling dangling pain, spastic alterations in the air that vent the mind agitating nerves, wriggling from a hook that would have to be surgically removed from your ear, a hook that is so real that it just won’t let go, a hook that never questions its existence or its right to prove it at the expense of the fishes in the sea. And the net, what a contraption of manifest nothing, swim into me and I will show you how the suppressed air will suffocate; gills, you should have never needed gills, you should have adapted entirely to live without air! The fishes failed at being true underwater creatures, somehow they failed to forget all of their history, and they failed to move onto land, and now the land creatures scale them, rasp! Rasp! Rasp!

During the hike, I went to rest my tired legs and I almost sat on a banana slug; the big yellow ugly thing scared itself an etching into my irises, insignificant no more, I avoided sitting on her because Dad’s friend cautioned me of her existence, and to be a tough guy I sat next to this banana slug though every part of me wanted to get away from it; I had never had nightmares with banana slugs infesting my every crevice, but in life everything and everyone is always trying to penetrate you, I was aware of that as a child, and I was still a virgin, meaning I had not learned the art of jousting, I had not the awareness that I was here to penetrate something, to get into some hole and to make something come out of it. I was not aware that there was a need for me to have a desire to bugger so that the buggering that would be perpetrated upon me would suffer at least a shared experienced.

We paused further along the hike so as to pause to drink some cerveza and to eat some rice with peas and pork, the rice was delicious, the sun was hot, dad gave me my first taste of beer, I was eight years old and it did not taste like mother’s milk, it tasted repugnant, something about the taste said, don’t taste me, don’t drink me, and it was that denial which would eventually lure me to alcohol; not just a cure for manic depressions but more proof positive that I could overcome the denials offered to me by beer, by vodka martinis. And hot sauce, red hot chili peppers poisoning themselves so that I would not eat them, only like my Latin roots, I understood the desire for pain, here I am pull my heart out with a knife, it would be a dishonor not to feel the absolute pain of life, green chili peppers, hot chili peppers parallel this agony, only it is self induced, like the pain of a knife through the heart, self induced by my will. Dad had self induced his own pain, he did not need red hot chili peppers, my dad had maxed out on pain, they had abused him as a child but he would not allow them to break him! He had desensitized himself so much that he had refrigerated the world, and deep inside of him was all the furnace passionate pain, incubating itself, a willed contained chain reaction. Dad had ingratiated himself to absolute pain. And with his giant incubating heart he did not want me to feel the cold world; he knew that I was a mirror, he did not want to look in the mirror.

As I got really tired of the hike, and my weakness in the act grown me a smaller man than all the rest; one of dad’s kind friends offered to carry me in his jacket pocket. Only they soon forgot I was there, and I suffocated.