Christianity and Creativity: Eugene McBride

"Oh, life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes."

R.E.M.

When I was a tall, gawky eight grader with braces at Northwood Jr. - Sr. High School back in 1980, our Student Council President was a guy named Eugene McBride.  To me, Eugene seemed like a "big man on campus."  He always seemed to have all the confidence I lacked.  He strolled around as if he belonged exactly where he was, which I found interesting, being lost as I was. He always had a smile on his face. Thirty plus years later, I ran into Eugene on Facebook.  He's now the pastor of one of the churches I grew up attending.

Due to my Southern fundamentalist upbringing, one of the themes I tend to gravitate toward in both my writing and art is the close mindedness or "black and white" mentality I have encountered in some of those who dub themselves Christian. The basic religion itself has never confused me but, whether intentional or not, many of people who practice it have managed to twist my understanding until it nearly strangled me in my own guilt and self-hatred. I'm not so sure the belief system has failed me, but I know some of the people have. People whom I trusted and loved. I've never once stopped believing in God, but, like many people, I've lost faith in organized religion. 

Eugene has been reading my writing and loves it because he recognizes it's honesty. His support of my work lead to a friendship that has ultimately brought him to Aberration Nation today. Regardless of your beliefs, I think you'll find our exchange of ideas thought provoking. Both Eugene and I would love to read any comments you may have regarding the interview content.

Because the interview is long and quite meaty, I'll not go on and on.  I'll just say that from my perspective as someone who grew up in a fundamentalist environment, I think one major error that has brought harm to what has traditionally been the foremost American religious institution is a failure to recognize and accept the basic blood and guts humanity of its people. I don't believe we were ever meant to be God-like. When we try, we fail. When someone tries to stuff us in the God box, most of us can't stay.  We kick and scream to be let out. We can't breath in that environment because it lacks the appropriate atmosphere. When we jump out, those who sought to stuff us in chastise us for not staying.  They say we've failed and must be forgiven. It's a painful place to be when all we really need is for someone to see who and what we truly are ... and then say, "I love you."

What's your story? Was the journey on a straight or twisted path? Are you surprised by where you are today?

I was born and raised in Shreveport Louisiana, one of four boys in a Christian home. At the age of 15, I felt the call of God in my life in a strong and real way. I went on to marry my high school sweetheart and graduate from LSUS with a degree in Marketing. In 1990 I was working for a fortune 500 company and was relocated to Texas. My wife and I helped to establish a little church there that would eventually grow to 1500. In the course of doing this, I realized how far I had strayed from the calling that God had placed on my life. In 1998, I left the business culture and went into full time ministry.

In 2008 I was asked to come back to my home church in Shreveport and minister. The church has been through a lot of changes in the 20+ years I have been gone. Even though I said I would never move back to Shreveport, we moved here in September 2009 and I now Pastor New Life Center/Life Tabernacle. I look back at the many decisions and turns my life has taken and I am thankful to be home. I know that God has brought me here for a specific purpose.

It seems to me that being a pastor requires a certain level of creativity. You are required to write an interesting and worthwhile message at least once a week. How do you get ideas for what to share with your congregation each week?

I love communication and the written word. It was only natural that I would be in a calling that required public speaking and an immense amount of reading! I love to read a variety of literature and stay up to date on current events. I do like to keep my messages real and simple, so the majority of my inspiration comes from real life. My family, my own struggles and victories, and from the world around me. The least effective thing I can do would be to teach another generation of believers to live life in a fairy tale world of “proclaimed” prosperity and success. The truth is that life on this earth is not easy, but we are only passing through!

Some people believe that Christianity (and religion in general) requires a certain level of creative thinking. Otherwise nobody would believe it. Others call it faith. What is the difference between imagination and faith?

To some, it is a stretch to imagine that all that we see, all that we know to exist, all that is real, could possibly be the creation of one supreme being. It is in that understanding that we can define both faith and imagination. To imagine something is to “see” it as if it were real. In our imagination we can create worlds of our own, God’s of our own, and ultimately morality of our own. Faith is different in that faith is not the substance of things seen, but is actually a belief in the things NOT seen. The Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So for me as a Christian, faith is my belief in what I have not seen with my own eyes, but know in my heart to be true.

My faith begins in the Word of God. Many struggle to accept that this one book could possibly be the inspired Word of God. But really it comes down to this, everyone has faith. To say you do not believe in the Bible or in God is to put your faith in your own understanding of what eternity will be. Someday, one of us will be proven wrong. If we get to eternity and all that I had faith in was not true, then I really have lost nothing. But if all that unbelievers placed their faith in is not true, they have lost everything.

The Bible is the most widely read, sold, and referenced book on Earth as well as one of the oldest. Aside from being a religious book, it has all the great elements of literature. Some find it hard to believe that the stories actually happened. And of course, there are differences in interpretation. Is it a good idea to get hung up on how exactly true the stories are? Are the underlying messages more important or are we to believe and accept it all verbatim in order to truly understand the power of God?

To characterize the Bible as anything other than the greatest book ever written would be an injustice to its very nature and inspiration. The Bible is a collection of 66 individual books, written by over 40 different authors over a span of 1600 years. There has been so much research done to disprove the Bible and the claims of Jesus, its central character. Interestingly enough, every major religion in the world acknowledges the life and existence of Jesus. But to answer your questions, I do believe that too many seek to discredit or not believe the authority and power of the Bible because of some difficulty in explaining or accepting one aspect of one story in the Bible. For some, this becomes a stumbling block of faith.

Every denomination and division in the Body of Christ can be attributed to some disagreement or interpretation of some aspect of the Word of God. It is sad but true none the less. For me, I read the Bible daily, accepting its authenticity and accuracy by faith, and find that the moral and life guidelines it encourages bring me security, peace and a reason for being.

When I was a little girl, it was so much easier to believe all the Bible stories and also the underlying messages. It seems to me that there are two groups of people who grew up in the church, particularly in more fundamentalist cultures: 1) those who seem to maintain that childlike believe, faith, imagination (whatever it's called) as they become adults, and (2) those who evolve to another level of thinking that makes it more difficult to believe it all. They take drips and drabs of it with them into adulthood. Is the first group filled with better people/Christians? If so, it almost seems unfair since we're all wired differently ... and God wired us.

I have endeavored to try and answer each question here without quoting a whole lot of scripture and verse, but to be honest… we are encouraged to have a “child like” faith. Having said that I too have seen this great abandonment of faith. As “church” kids grow up, and in their own way of thinking, become more educated and learned, there is a tendency to reject what we cannot explain, or do not fully believe. But to put it simply, it really is not that important if you accept or reject the stories. What is imperative is do you accept or reject that Jesus is the Son of God, sent to this world to be the ultimate payment for the sins and failures of mankind.

This blog is also about the aberrations life throws our way. Have you struggled with aberrations of your own, and if so, how have you overcome them? I know God can heal and bring hope to those suffering but doesn't it also take something within ourselves to stand up and say, "I will not be defeated!"

My life has been an incredible journey marked with great opportunities, worldly success, and also utter despair! I suppose all of us can point to a specific incidence or event that formed us and shaped us into the people that we ultimately become. For me, that moment came when I was about 8 years old. I will make a long story short, but to summarize it, I overheard my mother and father in an argument one night. At the time, my father’s mother was living with us. She was an alcoholic and was dying from cancer. The stress of it all had overwhelmed my mother to the point that she was ready to just leave. My parents thought I was asleep, but in the midst of this argument, I hear my mother tell my father she hates his mother. A few moments later I hear her begin to tell my father of something I had done that day, and how she felt I was just like his mother. Then, I heard her say she hated me too.

I slipped out of the house and ran away. Of course they found me the next morning. Mother tried to explain to me that she did not mean what was said but to an 8 year old boy, it had quite an effect. I became an overachiever. I began to do anything and everything to be loved and accepted. The long term affect is that on the outside I appeared to have it all together and succeeded at everything I did, but on the inside I was a deeply insecure and lonely person. It was only a few years ago that I was truly able to get past this insecurity and come to grips with who God created me to be.

 I do agree that we must decide within ourselves to get up, keep going, and not give up, but I also know that sometimes, despite our best self-help efforts, we need the healing that comes from a relationship with the Lord. Only he can totally erase and replace the hurts that are formed within us by others.


In his book, The World's Religions, Huston Smith wrote, "It is possible to climb life's mountain from any side, but when the top is reached the trails converge." Sometimes it seems closed minded and arrogant to believe that even with the Bible in our hands, we can profess to know and understand the bigger picture. Why would such a phenomenally creative God narrow His plan to only include certain people who agreed to follow certain rules? This confuses me and perhaps others.

It really is simple and I believe that the simplicity is what makes it so hard for some to accept it. There are many who want to believe that “all roads lead to God”, and that ultimately every person will find their way to a meaningful eternity, even if we not agree on who God is, or how to get to this place of eternal peace. Although you used the terms closed minded and arrogant, believe in Jesus Christ is anything but this. My faith is based on 3 simple things. First is the universality of sin, that is all men have sinned and no one is worthy of eternity in heaven based on our own merits or deeds. Second is that because of our sinful nature, some form of punishment is required. According to the bible, the wages of sin is death, or simply put we are eternally separated from God. Finally, I believe that Jesus came to be that punishment for every sin I have committed, and the sins of all mankind. So to summarize this, God has not narrowed his plan to exclude anyone. It is his will that NONE should perish, but that all should have eternal life.

I interviewed a woman on Aberration Nation who felt that being a Christian is one of her aberrations. Have you ever had to deal with people in your life failing to understand your religious passion? If so, can you tell us about it and how you've dealt with it?

To be honest, I am sure there are many who struggle to understand my passion for God, his son Jesus and my faith. There are even many professed “Christians” who think that it is possible to be too passionate for Christ. The truth is that everyone is passionate about something. It may be for Nascar, or the New Orleans Saints, or golf. I have seen people act completely crazy in each of these venues but then question how I can live my life so committed to what I believe. I can sum it up like this. Belief creates attitude. If I believe that the New Orleans Saints are the best team in the NFL, then I my attitude will show that in my fanaticism to support them and defend them. Then, my attitude creates my behavior. My believe creates the attitude, the attitude is demonstrated in my behavior.

The same is true in my faith. I believe that Jesus Christ came to this world as a payment for the sins of mankind, including mine. Because of this belief, I have an attitude that says “It is no longer I, but His spirit within me”! Because of this attitude, my behavior reflects that. I live for Christ, I love my fellow man, I seek everyday to be a reflection of the Christ who now lives within me.

I'm just finishing a novel about a man who goes to his "afterlife," meets God, and finds out that it wasn't quite what he was expecting.  Do you think there are people who miss life because they are so focused on the afterlife? There are those who say life isn't important because it's what they will have in heaven/the afterlife that matters. Well, what if they're wrong? Or what if God intended them to explore and be all who they are as individuals in order to play a critical roll in his plan? How can they do that if they're only focused on what comes next?

There is a saying in church circles that goes like this: “That person is too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” I believe that eternity is in the heart of every man. Even the unbeliever has eternity somewhere within his heart. If that were not true, there would be no fear of death. God did create us to be individuals, with different abilities, desires and purposes to fulfill in this earth and the life we live on it. I personally seek to use all of the unique gifting God has given me on this earth, but also remembering that my primary purpose here is to be light in a world of darkness, and to share the same hope of Glory that I have received in my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Some people may not like this comment but over the years, I've observed what I call the "Christian personality." For me, this is a person who, overtime, seems to sweep who they are as an individual under a rug and take up a recognizable personality that focuses nearly 100% on Christ. And I do have to say that I observed this more in the Deep South. They put Bible verses on Facebook. They listen to religious music and read religious books. They mention scripture, Christ, etc, in nearly every conversation they have. In the end, I almost feel that they have the same exact smile and twinkle in their eye. They may say that it's the love of God I'm seeing. Honestly, this is who my mother would love for me to be. But I never wanted to be like everyone else. I just couldn't, and I felt that the part of me that couldn't was the part of me that God made, so how would I ever be able to take on the "Christian personality?" What are your thoughts on this phenomenon?

It really does disturb me that some abandon the faith that has so sustained me because of the perceived shallowness of the “Christian Personality”. The truth is that many do put on the Christian persona, without truly living the Christian purpose. I will take exception to your statement that the “Christian Personality” you are lamenting is about “sweeping who they are as an individual under a rug and taking up a recognizable personality that focuses nearly 100% on Christ”. A true believe is one who will be a total reflection of Christ. Having said all of that, I find it quite amusing that the more liberal individuals in our society are relentless in pushing their liberal agenda and beliefs on the rest of us while at the same time utterly refusing to allow the very mention of Christ or Christian morals and principles in any public forum.

I grew up with the understanding that Christianity was about loving your neighbor, accepting others, etc. If this is true, why do we see so many fundamentalist Christians judging other groups of people? This is disturbing to me as I don't believe it follows God's message of love. Who are we to judge others or to take up residence as God's army against something we don't feel comfortable with? This mentality was pervasive during our country's long, tragic history of slavery.

One of the biggest lies that exist in the mainstream thinking today is that because the church speaks against such things as abortion, homosexuality, and other liberal issues that we do not “love our neighbor.”. To love something is to seek to preserve it, protect it, and ultimately save it. It is our belief that living a lifestyle contrary to the Word of God will ultimately lead to eternal damnation. Now I could choose to just ignore it and watch many continue in that lifestyle, or I can choose to love them, serve them and hopefully by the example of the life I live for Christ, bring them into a forgiving and loving relationship with Jesus. I agree that slavery was wrong that our country prevailed upon the God given freedom of our fellow man. But that does not change the fact that the bible specifically speaks against sin and there will come a day when every knee will bow before our creator. Some will bow in honor and praise having chosen to live their lives for Christ on this earth. Others will bow in fear and regret for having not accepted the love and the truth of Jesus that I seek to share with all men.

Growing up, I often heard, "I hate your sin, not you." But in many ways, we are our sin. Sometimes there are deep, complex reasons why we make the choices we do. And some of those choices feel like the only choices at the time, and we learn tremendous lessons from them. They ultimately help mold us into who we are. Hatred of my sin implies a judgment against me and my life. Instead of saying "I hate your sin, not you," I would rather someone say, "I love you." Isn't that a much more positive message? What are your thoughts on this?

I do believe the message is love. John 3:16 says that “God so loved”- even when we have sinned, and failed and rejected him. “That he gave”- God gave us a way out… a way to find the peace we seek and desire. Other religions of the world require you to work to obtain your salvation, or to rise to some level of reward and achievement. “His only Son”- Jesus came as a total and final payment for the wrongs this world has committed. “That whosoever believes”- this is not limited to a select few, or a narrow group… anyone who believes in Jesus as the crucified and resurrected Son of God will be saved. “will not perish but will gain eternal life.”- there are two choices… believe and gain salvation, choose not to believe and perish.

That is the most powerful love letter ever written.

What is your primary motto or mantra in life? Why is this important to you?

If I had to sum my life’s purpose in one statement it would be this:

I have a God to serve, a world to save, a devil to harass, and a message to live. 

Everyday I am reminded that I live to worship and honor God my creator. As I worship him I am a reflection of His Son Jesus to a lost and dying world. Every opportunity I get, I am going to resist the devil and stand in victory over him, and ultimately live my life for a higher cause.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 28)

Note: To learn more about Penelope Przekop's novel, BOUNDARIES, and to start reading at the beginning, go here!  It all comes down on October 1st.  Don't miss it!

Chapter 12: Peter

Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.

Mark 1:17

           

When we get to Peter's apartment, he unlocks the door with a key he keeps hidden beneath a scorched azalea bush. Like me, for months it’s struggled to survive in the tight boundary between his door and Matt’s. He holds my shaking hand and leads me into his apartment. It’s identical to Matt’s.
     In a surreal moment I wonder if I’m drunk again. I see Matt sitting on Peter’s couch. He bolts for the kitchen. He distances himself but I can still see him through the narrow serving space above the bar. I wonder why it always seems as if he’s running toward me when he’s actually running away.
     Peter squeezes my hand until it hurts. “This is unbelievable,” he says, dragging me farther into the room. “What the hell are you doin’ here?” he asks Matt. “You were supposed to put my car key through the mail slot, not show the fuck up.”
     “I called her mom,” Matt says, shifting in our direction while hugging the back doorknob.
     I sit on the couch. The neutral walls, the hardwood floor, and the out-dated kitchen are too familiar. It’s the same place. I keep ending up in the same place. I can’t stop crying.
     “You think her mom’s gonna help?” Peter asks. He stands beside me, stroking my hair like a man strokes his puppy. “She’s crazy,” I hear him whisper just loud enough for Matt to hear him. But anyway, you’re the one who got her into this crap.”
     “You don’t know anythang about it … about us,” Matt says, his eyes confused. I want to tell him that it’s not his fault. It’s mine.
     I murder the innocent.
     “You drove her nuts, and flunked out on the way.”
     “Shut up. Just shut the fuck up!”
     “You’re so stifled by your dad that you cain’t even have a normal relationship.”
     “Leave him out of this.”
     “At least I have a dad who cares about thangs that matter.”
     I never thought Peter could be so cruel but then realize I shouldn’t pass judgment since I’m the one who just pulled the trigger.
     “I have a good father,” Matt says, but we all know he doesn’t believe it.
     “You have a career advisor who’s dyin’ and you’re too chicken shit to face him. Instead, you had to go to that party because you knew she’d wanna see you.” Peter seems unnaturally calm despite his heavy words. “Jesus Christ, you’ve been havin’ trouble for months and instead of just admittin’ it, you used her to boost your ego.”
     “Shut up,” Matt begs. “Please, just shut up.”
     I wonder why he doesn’t just open the door and leave but then I remember—friends tell the truth.
     The truth shall set you free.
     Peter says, “Welcome to the crowd, Matt. Welcome to the real world. It looks like bein’ smart couldn’t keep you out of it after all.”
     They both stare at me, waiting for my reaction, but I can’t speak. I know I don’t want to be one of the crowd—and I know Matt feels the same. It’s a terrible place to be. To want to be different, yet long to be the same.
     The doorbell cuts through our silence.
     Within moments my mother hurries in without an invitation, primed to save me all by herself. She looks different. Her bathrobe clings to her thin body like a shroud. Her hollow face, free of makeup, looks like someone else’s.
     A siren wails through the neighborhood.
     “They’re comin’ to get me,” I cry, pulling my legs close to my chest. “Don’t let them get me.”
     “Peyton, honey, look at me.” My mother’s soft fingers run over my cheek. It’s a painful touch, one I felt on warm cuddly nights being her best friend, hearing her grown up secrets, trying to tell her what to do when I couldn’t even make two plus two equal four. “Nobody’s gonna to take you away. You’re gonna be just fine.”
     “That’s what everybody keeps sayin’ … but I wanted to kill him,” I say, looking at Matt. “I’m a murderer. I’ve always been a murderer.” I pull up my skirt to scratch my bare legs. “I have no respect for life.”
     Peter sits beside me. “You probably just needed to get some repressed anger out of your system.”
     “Anne’s dead,” I sob. “My friend’s dead and I feel like I killed her. I cain’t stop thinkin’ about her no matter how hard I try.”
     “Peyton, how can you say such a thang?” my mother asks.
     “I just feel … so angry.”
     “It’s a natural reaction,” Peter says, as if reading from a psychology textbook. “It’s one of the first steps in the grievin’ process.”
     “She had hobbies and collections and posters of cats all over her bedroom walls. She didn’t leave one single spot uncovered. She knew what she wanted, and she died and then I realized that I haven't even lived. Not like her. I’ve never lived, Mom. I’ve never really lived my own life.”
     “I don’t understand,” my mother says, sitting down on the other side of me. “Of course you’ve lived.”
     My mother and Peter press against me as I stare up at Matt. His knuckles stretch white and flat across the doorknob. “No, I’ve always lived your life. You told me it wasn’t my life. You always said, ‘This is not your life. It’s my life. When you grow up it’ll be your life.’ And you told me … I’m a murderer.”
     She rubs her head and then her tears. “You’re angry at me. I just knew it. I knew this was all about me.” Her face looks old. “But all that stuff you’re angry about is over. It’s all in the past.”
     It will always be about her.
     “I’m just sad,” I say. “I feel so sad—like somebody actually died tonight.”
     “The sad, mournin’ stage usually comes after the anger,” says Peter, sincerely trying to help.
     Matt’s nervous eyes roll.
     My mother says, “Don't you worry about that right now. You listen to me.” She takes my chin in her hand. “Maybe Anne’s childhood was better than yours and maybe that’s my fault. But believe me, there are truckloads of people out there who had it worse than you. When you get older, you’ll see that I did the best I could.”
     Her touch makes me sick and I jerk my head away. “But sometimes your best was shitty.” I expect her to react but she just stares at me.
     She finally says, “It’s taken me years to forgive my parents for all their mistakes. Now I know they never meant to hurt me. Over the years I’ve tried to figure out why they acted the way they did.” She wipes my tears. “Peyton, parents don’t make mistakes on purpose.”
     Matt’s words run through my head. Everybody and his brother has an excuse.
     “But some parents seem to screw up everything ,” Matt says. My mother, Peter and I look up, surprised that he spoke. “Don’t you think people ought to pay or accept the consequences for their mistakes?” he asks. “You think parents are immune to that?”
     Peter says, “Matt’s dad is dyin’,” as if it explains a lot.
     “We don’t know that,” Matt snaps.
     “You’re right,” my mother says to Matt. “Parents are responsible to deal with their own problems.” She waves her hand through the air and I wonder why she never understood that I'm separate from her, that her problems should never have been mine. “The sad fact is: we pass all that baggage on to our children along with all the good thangs we try to give.”
     As she speaks, Matt silently forms the words, truck bodies. I read his lips knowing the others can’t possibly understand. The beautiful and horrible thing that connects us, that feeling I can’t explain or find a word for, passes between us and I know he’ll never forget me.
     “But I don’t want that!” I yell. “I don’t want your baggage. I don’t wanna spend my life tryin’ to figure you out, or Daddy, or anybody else. I just wanna be happy and normal. I need to have my own life.”
     She ignores me as usual, and says, “We do pay for our mistakes. We start payin’ the first time we see our children makin’ the same mistakes we did. We pay when we see you hurtin’.” She looks toward Matt as if to offer an excuse. Then her face changes and she looks happy, as if she just figured out something that will save us all. “Peyton just doesn’t know how to be happy because I didn’t know the first thang about it either.”
     “I can’t care about your life anymore,” I say, shaking my head. “You cain’t make me care; it’s just too hard. I’m so sorry for you but I can’t care anymore.”
     “But that legacy is part of who you are, just like what their parents gave them is part of who they are,” she says, motioning to Peter and Matt. “You have to accept it but you don’t have to let it ruin your life.” She points at Matt. “He’s not the real fisherman.” She has the voice of an expert and likes it; I can tell by the satisfied look on her face.  She's happier about saying something profound than about actually helping me.
     Peter and Matt look at each other, puzzled, as I realize her legacy has already ruined my life. I’m sure she’s going to start talking about Jesus, the fisher of men, but instead she says something altogether different. “Your life so far, my life, our past—they’re all just a big pack of fishermen standin’ on the side of your life. Like I told you before, you have to swim away.” She spreads her arms out as if to hug me. “Swim out into that ocean. You cain’t be afraid. It’s the only way you can be in a new place with no fishing lines, no chains, nothin’ holdin’ you back. You always talk about that ocean like it’s somethin’ bad but I don’t think it is. I think we’re all just tryin’ to survive in it. It’s where we live and nothin’s ever gonna change that.”
     She’s speaking my language. The one she taught me but then refused to hear. Since the day I was born, she’s been fishing at the dark side of my life, pulling me out and throwing me back in again and again with a thick, heavy hope hooked to my heart. I walk to the door feeling like her words are a trick that she doesn’t understand herself. I open it for her to leave. “I cain’t help it,” I say. “It’s too late for all that. I have to get out of your ocean.”
     “But it’s not too late,” she says. “I know I look like a monster right now, like some kind of sea creature tryin’ to drag you down, but I’m just a mother. Besides you need different things from me now.” I try to close the door, but she holds it open with a strength I didn’t know she had. “And you’ll still need a mother when you’re thirty and forty and fifty. I swear to God, Peyton. I’ll always be your mother.”
     “I cain’t just say I forgive you and start all over,” I say through the crack in the door. “It’s not that simple.” My voice falls to a whisper. “I wanted to kill somebody tonight. Do you realize how that feels—to feel so much hatred in so short a moment that you actually want to end a life?”
     “But you don’t really hate Matt,” says Peter behind me.
     I spin around to face him and snap, “I do and I don’t.”
     My mother’s desperate voice rises behind me. “Peyton, please don’t hate me. Please don’t blame me for all of this.”
     “I don’t want to,” I say, turning back to her for the last time. “If I blame you, I’ll hate you. And I’m never gonna let myself feel like that again.”
     I watch her face grow small and disappear as the door finally closes.
     “How can I hate her when I love her?” I ask Matt, searching for an answer that will evade me for years.
     A tear, the kind that men cry, rolls down his cheek. As he quickly wipes it away and leaves through the back door, I think of all the tears we've lost and found.
     Peter stares into space. “My parents were always pretty calm.” He smiles, desperately trying to make things better.

_________________________________________________________

Read the end of the novel on Thursday!

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 27)

Note: To learn more about Penelope Przekop's novel, BOUNDARIES, and to start reading at the beginning, go here!

Chapter 11: Bartholomew (continued)

God, why cain’t you make me love Peter this way? Why does it have to be Matt? Shouldn’t I be allowed to choose?
     I pull away from Peter, thinking that if I can look into his eyes—if I can just feel okay about it—I may be able to kiss him, and feel something more. But as I create some distance between us someone bumps into me. As I’m pushed away, I look into Peter’s eyes for a moment—long enough to know that I don’t want to kiss him. So instead, I let myself drift in the direction I’ve been shoved.
     The crowd throbs to the beat of a pain above my left eye. Without Matt’s body to block it, the kitchen light blinds me. Turning from it, I wade through the house, squinting, head swimming, searching for him. I know Matt wants me; he loves me. Loving and wanting go together like Siamese twins, twin cities, and twin peaks—impossible to separate once established.
     When I’ve come full circle to the kitchen door again, I stumble through it, and head up the narrow back stairway of the old house. The unnaturally steep stairs have no handrail so I slide my arms across the walls to steady myself. When I reach the top, I take a step that isn’t there—like a climbing dream that strikes before you realize you’re sleeping. Matt’s laughter echoes through the second story hallway, a homing device, a mating call. A siren.
     He’s in the room just ahead to my left.
     Before going in, I stand at the doorway for several minutes. A damp, musty smell fills my head. The large room has two sets of bunk beds; each holds a clinging couple. Two of the couples make out at a speed adults recognize as private, but that's commonly seen at high school dances and college frat parties. Matt and a frat brother named Bart are sprawled across a long window seat. Bart’s girlfriend pokes each of them in the ribs as fast as she can. They laugh, yelling at her to cut it out. She’s a slight girl, light enough to walk on water.
     It strikes me as odd that Matt’s even in the room. He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s the odd man out. I wonder if he’s hiding from me, but then decide that if his purpose is to hide, he wouldn’t be laughing so loud. Furthermore, he wouldn’t have told me about the party in the first place. After all, only a week ago he waited outside my jungle. He knew I was coming then, and he knew tonight.
     After taking a deep breath, I breeze into the room as if I have every right to be there—as if I’m the missing link for the odd man. The closer I come to him, the louder Matt laughs. It isn’t real. The uncomfortable sound continues to pour from his mouth until I stand directly in front of him. I smile, fighting back tears. “What are you doin’ up here?” I ask in my cheeriest voice.
     Bart pokes me in the ribs and says, “Just goofin’ around.”
     Laughing, I poke him back.
     “Hey, don’t poke my boyfriend,” his girlfriend says. “Poke Matt.”
     “Yeah, he needs a poke!” Bart says, giving Matt a hard jab in the side. Matt yelps. But the yelp quickly turns to more laughter as he stares at me through the darkness.
     I try to read his mind, but my desire to touch him clouds my judgment. My guts smash into the front side of my body, the side that faces him, trying to get closer. He has the look of smashed guts, too. But his laughter scares me. His mixed up face is not that of a person laughing. My drunken eyes dart around the room. The bunk beds are like surreal sailboats floating in the distance. The beautiful couples cling to each other as if afraid they’ll fall into the sea rising above me.
     Bart and his girlfriend begin to kiss. Their tongues dart around their mouths until I can no longer tell them apart. Remembering that it’s not polite to stare, I look away.
     The only place for me to look is at Matt. His incessant laughter teases me until there’s nothing I can do, no choice I can make except to lean into the window seat and poke, tickle, prod, jab, nudge, and jolt. All I can feel are my fingers and hands touching him, exploring in the process, loving him in some desperate, pathetic sense, familiar to us both.
     He jumps from the seat, shaken, as if he feels my radiating pain and can’t bear it. He shoves me toward the deep, center of the room and yells louder than the blaring music, louder than any laughter, any siren.  “Get your fuckin’ hands off my dick!”
     The beautiful boys and girls floating dreamily across the green carpeted sea in safe, fluffy sailboats bolt up. Their arms fall from one another as their mouths drop open. Their eyes grow large as they watch Lolita’s juice drain from my head.
     In the oddest moment of my life, I wait as it swirls toward the tiny opening at the top of my neck. It dribbles into my body. As if following a recipe, I can’t go on until the last drop splashes out.
     Somebody snickers.
     Matt’s words echo in my mind. Get your fuckin’ hands off my dick! Get your hands off my dick! Then I hear other voices. They twist through my head, making their way toward the funnel's opening, searching for an escape.  
     Don’t sleep with them.
     You’re a murderer! Do you realize that? 
     GO AWAY! 
     That’s what you get for spreading your legs at the drop of a hat! 
     We’re goin’ to Grandma’s for good this time. 
     You’re not the kind of girl I wanna get involved with. 
     Don’t be selfish. 
     Selfish. 
     Selfish. 
     I heard you were a psycho! 
     It’s my duty to help save these people … these people … these people. 
     Please, just put my baby back. 
     I have seen the face of God!
     If I fuck you, will you leave?
     A familiar band of demons surrounds me as the voices dissipate. The creatures cling to my right arm, slowly pulling it behind me. Just when I think it may snap, my arm shoots forward. The last echoing voice draining through my body settles into my fist as it makes contact with the side of Matt’s head.
     I hear myself scream.
     My arms and legs fly wildly through the tight space between us, hitting, clawing, punching, and grabbing at the boy I want to crawl into. The stitches in my back separate, wetting my shirt with blood. Voices rise around me like those of the drowning students in my psychedelic dream. For several glorious moments, I lose all sense of good and evil, right and wrong.
     Finally, what seems like a thousand hands grab my arms and legs. Fingers dig into my throbbing, lonely skin. I don’t resist as they carry me from the room like pallbearers. They dump me at the deserted end of the hallway and then hurry back to comfort Matt, their wounded brother. Closed doors stretch high above me on all sides. Dirt sits next to my face.
    As the last guy disappears into the bedroom, I struggle to my feet. I yank open each closed door surrounding me until I find the right one. I stick my head in the toilet and vomit. As my head hangs over the fraternity’s filth, I remember what my father said the day he cried. “You’ll make it, Peyton. You’re strong.”
    I will ... never ... give ... up.
    Rhythmic thunder created by hoards of jumping students, upstairs and downstairs, fills the house like tribal war drums. The pseudo home shudders as I tear through the bathroom cabinets, searching for something, anything that will serve my purpose. Dissatisfied with what I find, I move to the hall closet. There, buried deep inside the clutter, I find some redneck frat brother’s hunting rifle or BB gun; I don't know what it is but I know I'm going to use it. I don’t know if it’s loaded or not; I don’t stop to think.
     I go back to the bedroom and only hesitate long enough to spot my prey. Now, dancing students pack the dark space like refugees hanging over the side of a ship too small to hold them while I stand in the doorway, in an ocean, flailing for help. Suddenly the music and the dancing stop, and for a second I see fear in the eyes of a pale, redheaded girl. She looks like Anne.
    My heart shatters.
    I lift the gun to my shoulder and fire.
    Then I stop breathing because the terror of feeling such hatred takes your breath away.
    The blast is loud but as I fall back dizzy against the wall, I hear Peter’s voice. “Jesus Christ!” he says. Light floods the room and a communal drunken roar of laughter, fear, and disbelief rings out as the students realize it’s me.
     I cry as Peter pushes me down the narrow back stairway, and out the kitchen door. Madonna’s voice permeates the thick southern air as he shoves me into the passenger seat of my car. “You sit here and don’t move,” he yells, his normally cheerful face distorted. It fills my view. “Do you hear me, Peyton? You just sit here and pray to God you didn’t hurt anybody.” He slams the door. “You better hope he’s listenin’ because you’re in a shit load.”
     I sit in a trance; my eyes unable to blink. I rock back and forth until sweat from my forehead shines across the dashboard. I hear myself repeating three pain-filled words, “Please save me,” until he finally returns. I sound so far away from myself.
     “I hope you’ve been sayin’ your prayers,” he says, jamming the keys into the ignition. I continue to chant as we drive away. “God damn it, Peyton.” He shakes his head. We’re both shaking our heads. “I don’t know what happened,” he says. “I couldn’t get back into the room. It was crazy.”
     I’d never heard Peter curse. ”Please save me,” I cry. “Just save me.” Tears stream down my face, and blood, like tears from a third eye formed because the two I have aren’t enough, seeps out of the stitched up cut on my back, matting my clothes.
     “Peyton, it’s gonna be okay. They’re all wasted. Nobody seems to understand what happened.” His head darts back and forth between the windshield and me. “Bart just told me to get you out ... like it was nothin’.”
     “God, please help me.”
     “Peyton?” He grabs my leg with his free hand. “Peyton!”
     Then I try to tell him how I feel but the words spew out like foreign language. The garbled nonsense goes on and on. His grip tightens and I know he can’t understand. Salty sweat and tears fill my mouth. My body begins to shake and I can’t make it stop. He finally silences me with a soft slap across the face. The car swerves, nearly hitting a truck, and somehow through the darkness I see the terrified face of the driver, shocked and innocent.
     I hold my cheek in my hand. I can feel my eyes grow larger than they’ve ever stretched. A pain shoots through my head. “I wanted to kill him,” I say.
     “You were drunk. People act stupid—they make mistakes when they’re drunk. You know that.”
     “But I’m not drunk anymore.” In my instant sobriety, I realize that the details of my actions are already slipping away. They are clearing back like doctors preparing to shock a person back to life. The body jolts. The heart restarts. The person lives.
     “I wanted to kill him.”
     “Okay. Just forget about it now.” He reaches again for my leg and begins patting it, lightly at first, but then harder and harder until it seems as if he’s trying to shove something back into me. It starts to hurt but I don’t care.
     “You’re the one who told me to think about thangs for as long as it takes.”
     “Yah, well, I don’t know. Maybe there are some thangs that you just have to force yourself to forget and thank God they didn’t ruin your life.”
     “I cain’t forget this. I’ll never stop thinkin’ about this.”
     And I never have.
     My heart squeezes in on itself and I’m not sure if it’s stopping for good or starting back up again. “Where are you takin’ me?”
     “To my place. You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
     “It doesn’t matter.”
     “Sure it does,” He says, smiling. He pats my leg again. “I’ll take good care of you.”
__________________________________________________________

Read Chapter 12 next week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

Talented Weirdo: Joshilyn Jackson

"Oh Lord! Are you asking if I am a weirdo? Hell yes, I'm a weirdo."

If a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it, does it make a sound?  And if talent exists but nobody notices it, is it real?

Author Joshilyn Jackson admits to being a weirdo. That's interesting.  I'm a weirdo, too!  I've been called weird quite a few times.  I've even been called psycho despite not having any documented mental illnesses.  I've done crazy shit, made goofy decisions, taken wrong roads, been hurt, hurt others, had a different perspective, and barked up the wrong tree more times than I care to admit. I've had to take unconventional actions to get myself past unexpected situations; some I never asked for and others I brought upon myself. You get the idea.

I'm probably just like you.

Aberration Nation started with a focus on what it means to be human, and how we're all aberrations of someone else's definition of normal.  I miss that discussion.  Lately, I've thinking about how I might bring that back to some extent.  I'm currently finishing a novel called DUST that thematically focuses on how religion can define the norm, and how sometimes that definition has absolutely nothing to do with the deepest mysteries of the Universe.

I'm excited about completing my fourth novel (and fifth book). Over the last three weeks, I've oscillated between feeling intense optimism about my writing career and the drowning feeling that I'll end up writing thirty novels that will all turn to dust before they're embraced.

According to Joshilyn, "You have to have talent, and after that you have to have discipline, and after THAT you have to have perseverance. But it can be done."

I know I have discipline and perseverance. I hope I have talent. Some days I feel like a weirdo for having such a peephole focus in my life, but that small open hole keeps me going.  It pulled me forward past all those wrong roads and trees. It enabled me to view the world in ways that kept me interested in staying here at times when I felt giving up my very life might be the best medicine. It gives me light when I'm lost. It shows me that weirdness, failure, and pain are all breathtakingly beautiful after all.

Despite all my professional accomplishments, I bring home a failing grade every day.  I don't enjoy cooking so I can't cook.  I usually ruin clothes in the washer so my husband has been doing the our laundry for the last 17 years.  I'm terrible at money management.  I'm not as good a friend as I should be. I struggle against a sweet, doormat mentality daily. According to my mother, I suck at being her daughter. I was never good at relationships until I met my husband, the only man who could ever put up with me and laugh about it.

And that's just the G-rated list I'm willing to share on the Internet. 

No matter how hard I peer through that peephole, no matter how many books I write, I'll always be a weirdo.  I'll always be human, and as strange and lonely as it feels sometimes,  I can't stop it.

What do my shortcomings and my peephole have to do with Joshilyn Jackson?  Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.  A few of the things she shares here strike a major chord with me.  She says that, "It’s worth noting I did all this from rural Georgia with no connections to NYC publishing. I just wrote the best books I could write and never said die."

I'm a little nobody girl from Louisiana who happened to fall off the turnip truck into Philly.  I've never had ties to NYC publishing.  I've persevered through four literary agents.  I've now written five books, two of which have been published.  I currently have two novels and a nonfiction book proposal circulating in New York, and will soon have a third novel out there.

If you think I'm giving up now, you're psycho. Despite any aberrations, faults and issues I may have, I won't forsake that peephole. It keeps showing me who I am and who I can be. If Joshilyn can do it, so can I.

Watch out cynical world, here I come.  Even if it takes thirty novels.

What's your story? How long did it take to establish yourself as an author? Was the journey on a straight or twisted path? Are you surprised by your success?

I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. From the time I was old enough to hold a crayon and make letters, I was writing stories, making picture books. I eventually wanted people other than my mom to read what I was writing, so I started trying to write things that were polished and crafted and good. I failed. I practiced, read everything I could get my hands on. Mostly I read actual books, not how to books, and I read them like a writer. I read them to see how the author did what he or she was doing. If I cried, I tore the scene apart to figure out why. I read to understand pace and tension and character and show don’t tell. I read the classics, of course, but I concentrated on reading people who were publishing currently. I started sending stuff out. And I got a hundred million gazillion rejections and cried and went under my bed and picked my hair out, and then I came out and lathered, rinsed, repeated.

I am SO lucky. After years of this, a publisher got excited about my work, and they did all they could to get the word out that my books were worth reading. I was lucky enough to find a readership who agreed with them. I’m shocked as hell, and hugely grateful to the readers and booksellers and editors and colleagues who all have supported me and given me this job I always wanted.

It’s worth noting I did all this from rural Georgia with no connections to NYC publishing. I just wrote the best books I could write and never said die.

You have to have talent, and after that you have to have discipline, and after THAT you have to have perseverance. But it can be done.

With regard to your current creative focus, was there an "ah-ha" moment you can tell us about?

Every day. I am an organic writer. I never know what is going to happen next when I write a book. I only know the characters. Very well. I don’t start until I know each one down to the chewy pink middles of their black and burned up, or gray and greasy, or red and raw hearts. So I get surprised daily. It’s how I know a book is working, when it starts going almost without me, and I have to run to keep up with it.

Writing Backseat Saints, my biggest aha moment came when I realized the whole book was structured – plot, character, even geographically – exactly like a three card tarot read. Rose has her cards read by an airport gypsy right at the start. The cards represent past, present and future, and I realized I needed Rose to almost have three voices to tell it. It starts in Texas, in the present, and in the middle of the country. She has to travel east, back to Alabama and through her own past, and then she goes west, sailing over Texas, all the way to California and a possible future. Going west, in our country, is meaningful The west is the future. It’s where pioneers go. It’s hopeful to go west. Once I realized this structure, the whole book shifted, and things I'd been seeing edgewise suddenly made all kinds of sense. I love days like that.

For you, is writing more about creation or expression? It could be both, but does one dominate with regard to your need/urge/desire to be a writer and why?

Expression. Response. For me, writing is my half of a conversation with a story. The reader has the other half, later, with the story alone, and I don’t get to be part of that conversation, same way the reader doesn’t get to be part of mine. But we are both friends with the book (I hope!) and that connects us in a weird, pleasing, bizarre way.

I don't believe in writer's block. I view the situation like priming a pump. If you just keep pumping, the water will eventually start to run. Do you ever run out of things to say, or do you experience an endless river? What are your thoughts on this?

I don’t believe in it either. It is like an under-the-bed monster. If you believe in it, it will manifest and pluck your eyeballs right out of your head. I firmly and decisively deny it exists. So there.

Do you believe some of the various attributes related to being highly creative have caused you aberrations in life, helped you deal with life's aberrations, or both?

Oh Lord! Are you asking if I am a weirdo? Hell yes, I'm a weirdo. But that’s okay, because I married a big weirdo, and together he and I have produced more little weirdos, and it turns out everyone I like at all is some kind of major league weirdo, too. At this stage of my life, I have begun to suspect that aberrations are actually the norm.

During difficult or challenging times in your life, does writing sooth or inspire you? Is it therapeutic in any way?

Not at the time, no. Later, I can look back on a book and see the personal connections much more clearly, see how much I invested of myself. At the time I am writing though. I am very involved with world building and theme and character and place and craft.

Have you ever had to deal with people in your life failing to understand your creative personality, interests, or drive? If so, can you tell us about it and how you've dealt with it?

I am so lucky. I have parents who did their best to foster that in me. I married a man who is the same way. I had, for the most part, wonderful teachers who mentored me. It’s one of the reasons I so enjoy teaching, when I get the chance. I want to pay that back to the universe. It’s a big karmic debt. Because of course I have had it the other way, too. I had a miserable, twisted, small, hateful professor once who was so afraid that one of her students would surpass her! She spent a large amount of her time and energy trying to undermine anyone she felt was talented. And I had another professor who fostered and mentored male students wonderfully, but hated women, saw us as sex objects and belittled us even as he grabbed our butts. You just have to gravitate to the people who support you and support them back.

Do you think there is a difference between creativity and talent? What are your thoughts on this?

Of course there is a difference – in fact, I am not even sure they are close relatives. All humans are creative to some degree or another. In the same way that we are rational in some degree or another.

Talent is just what we are good at, and talent doesn’t have to even be creative.  I have a talent for following recipes. I can make things look like the picture. My husband has a creative talent for cooking. He can smell spices and make a dish better. I am a creative person, and I have a creative talent for writing novels and acting. These are strongly related in my head, and they (or it--it feels the same) is my ONLY creative talent. If I try to play an instrument, the poor thing always ends up sounding like it is in pain. I can’t draw. I can’t dance, etc. etc.

What is your primary motto or mantra in life? Why is this important to you?

Be kinder every time. Because I am human and petty and awful and flawed, and I want to be good. I think goodness, kindness, is how we manifest love. Goodness, kindness, is all that matters in the long run. Talent is nice. Creativity is fun. But Love wins.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 26)

Note: To learn more about Penelope Przekop's novel, BOUNDARIES, and to start reading at the beginning, go here!

Chapter 11: Bartholomew (continued)

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

John 8:32

Remember the frat house where all this loving and hating started?  I'm there again; my life is a circle I can't seem to escape.  No matter how hard I pound on its boundaries, search for an opening, or scream for help, it's all connected. Like a mesh, I'm trapped in a dark space that's becoming much too small.
     I am the circle. I hate the circle.
     Hate me now because at least you'll feel something.
     I'm ready to explode.
     Just as before, blood red jungle juice spills from holes at the center of Lolita’s breasts. I hadn’t noticed before, but her nipples are gone. Amputated. I watch in a trance as I fill my plastic cup. The juice flows over the sides and onto my fingers. It’s my fourth cup and the three I’ve already downed bring a sensuous element to the task of refilling.
     “Watch out!” warns Becca. "You're making a mess." 
     I jerk the cup to my mouth and suck up the overflowing jungle juice. “You don’t have to yell,” I snap, irritated by her intrusion. She rode to the party with me although I insisted that we drive separately.
     Matt and I are supposed to meet.

After the night my back ripped open, I held my breath for days, forcing myself not to call him. It was painful, like the time I was ten and tried to hold my breath under water while a pack of kids timed me with the biggest kid’s new stopwatch. Floating in the swimming pool womb, knowing I might actually drown but nonetheless determined to prove myself, to prove I wasn’t a liar, I struggled to hold my breath, thinking, How could I be so stupid? Why should it matter how long I can hold my breath? I swore I could stay under a whole five minutes. Of course, as a kid I couldn’t hold my breath for more than thirty seconds so lasting nearly a week was a miracle I thought would never happen.
     After five days, Matt finally calls.
     “I just wanted to know how your back is,” he says, sounding like a healthcare professional. He patiently listens to my detailed explanation and then tells me about an upcoming frat party. As the phone falls into its cradle, I shoot out of the water like a rocket, gagging and choking until near hyperventilation set in. I jump up and down until my back throbs, reminding me that I’ve been hurt.
     I assume we have a date. I try to tell Becca, but she forces herself on me, insisting that I owe her for all the times she’s driven me around lately.  She’s still trying to keep me away from Matt.
     She always keeps her promises.

“It was spilling,” she says about the blood red jungle juice dripping down the back of my hand. “Don’t be so sensitive.” Long, blond wisps fall over her eyes. They're like weeds, ruining an otherwise perfect arrangement, and I feel compelled to pull them.
     I look at her as if she's dumb. “I think that’s why they have a big bowl right there?” I point to the punch bowl resting beneath Lolita’s spewing breasts. We stare at it in silence. I wonder how the contraption works. The bowl must have a hole in the bottom because it drains as fast as it fills. I lift the Garfield sheet draped over the table and see that a clear tube carries the jungle juice back to the mannequin’s body.
     Becca bends down beside me to take a look. “I sure hope all that’s sterilized.”
     Still squatting, I gulp down the entire contents of my cup. “Why are you like that?” I ask. Her stunned look eggs me on. “Why do you always ruin everythang? As long as I’ve known you, you always have to mention stuff like that.”
     “What are you talkin’ about? You know, I think you’ve had way too much to drink.”
     “Oh yeah, me? I’ve had too much?”
     “What’s that supposed to mean?" she asks.  "I’m not the one with jungle juice drippin’ down my shirt.”
     I look down like a baby examining its bib. She’s right; Lolita’s juice also trickles down the front of my shirt. It's all over me. Becca's right about most things and she always makes good decisions. I look up with baby eyes, my chin still pressed down, and laugh. As my eyes meet hers, I hate her for being normal.
     My hand suddenly slaps her as if forced by an anger that is separate from me, merely housed inside. The demons laugh as she grabs her face in shock. I feel their triumph. We can do whatever we want. We can hit. Strike out. Seek revenge.
     “What was that for?” Becca asks, her face white except for the red splotch across her left cheek.
     It feels good not to care. “Cain’t you take a joke?” I ask.
     I almost expect her to say, “Ha! Ha! It’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” but she would have said that years ago, when we were still kids. Instead, she looks around to see if anyone noticed. A couple of guys, obviously unaware, head toward us with empty cups. “I don’t see the humor in it at all, Peyton. It’s not funny.”

     It makes me lonely.
     “Don’t worry about takin’ me home,” she says. “I’ll find a ride.”
     “Mission accomplished,” I say to myself. You can walk for all I care. My agenda is set. I wait my turn before refilling my cup.
     My fear that Matt won’t show up grows with each passing minute. Lolita’s juice pours into me and, like her bowl, it drains as quickly as it fills, creating a disturbing equilibrium. Her blood drenches everything. The partiers drink it from transparent cups held loosely in their hands. It’s on the floor and even on the walls, splashed from the cups of those drinking the most. Brilliant colors swirl, draped over the bodies moving around me.
     My own outfit is bright orange; Madonna would love it. I’m wearing a long, full skirt that makes a perfect circle as I twirl around and around, ignoring the growing pain in my back. The jungle juice dries, leaving a dark red trail down the placket of my shirt. A wide black belt clasps my waist like a giant rubber band. My black flats are old. Earlier, when I put them on, I noticed that each shoe has a perfect imprint of its matching foot. But the worn, smooth soles enable me to spin in faster and faster circles. My sweaty feet stick inside them. My legs are bare; something my mother insists is “just not nice” when wearing a skirt or dress. Her long-standing example is the neighbor lady who never wears pantyhose. The attractive, tasteful woman has long, tanned legs. As a child, I never understood why they should be covered by something you can see straight through anyway.
     As I twirl, I’m not sure how high my skirt is rising and I don’t care. People are looking. They’re still looking when I crash into the wall. I slump to the dusty floor like a big orange Christmas ball falling from the tree—only to be forgotten.
     As children, almost every summer my brother and I found at least one dusty Christmas ball in the corner of the living room or beneath the couch. I always wondered how something so fragile could fall so far and not break.
     My brother’s voice rings through my head. “Maybe it fell from the lowest branch.”
     “Don’t you think it has to do with how it’s made?” I asked. “Maybe the structure saved it.”
     But he just walked away, shaking his head. “No, must have fell from the bottom.”
     Now, legs move around me until I realize that I’ve fallen into a hole. They rise on either side like the edges of a pit. I unfasten the silver hook that holds my belt together and hook it back. I unhook it again and hook it back. I can’t stop. Three punk rock songs play, resulting in a communal jumping ritual. Just when I begin to wonder how long a person can jump without stopping, a song from The Big Chill soundtrack cuts the jumping short as if Simon himself said to stop.
     I hate the name Simon.
     Madonna begins to sing and a cry of joy rings out. I begin to see a pattern in the music. As I unhook my belt and hook it back I decide that it must say something about the group, or at least about whoever is choosing the music. The students dancing around me are so frenzied by the punk songs that by the time a Big Chill tune plays they’re relieved, filled with a security only the past can bring. Perhaps it’s their way of running back to momma. Of course, they have to play Madonna. She’s holy mother to us all. When space became available, three or four guys run toward each other from the corners of the room. They jump, crashing into each other, and then land in a football heap. It hurts to watch. I know Becca wouldn’t like it.
     Bitch.
     Paralyzed by my drunkenness, I fantasize about Matt’s arrival. I had planned to drink enough to lose my inhibitions, but not my ability to function. It’s a tight boundary, and being on the edge already, I opt to pass on additional refills. The remaining people are regulars: frat members, their girlfriends, other girls who hang out with the group. Last summer I enjoyed the status of the girlfriend category. Now I barely fit into the latter group. The other girls appear to be best friends, a herd that relaxes in cool parts of the house until they feel the urge to stampede toward the dance floor.
     It’s Madonna’s turn again and the customary cry rings out. Bodies smash together in front of me, the final shutout. But the dusty remains of stomping feet begin to fall from my skirt as four hands pull me up. They pull until the faceless, uncaring legs and feet of strangers become my friends. The wide black belt I’d unfastened moments before falls to the floor. I don’t pick it up.
     Matt and Peter stand on either side of me.
     “What are you doin’ down there?” Peter asks.
     I smooth my skirt, anticipating the moment when I’ll finally look into Matt’s eyes. “There was nowhere else to sit.” I turn to Matt, my heart racing. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
     “What do you mean?” he asks, glaring at me.
     “You know. I was waitin’ for you.” Something is wrong. “You told me you were comin’. Remember, you called me about it?”
     The music suddenly becomes louder. “I said I was comin’ but that doesn’t have anythang to do with you,” he says.
     We both look at Peter for some reason.
     “But what about last weekend?” I ask, confused.
     “What about it?” He eyes are blank, as if he left his contacts at home.
     The register is beyond jammed now. Smashed pieces fly in a whirlwind around me until finally, it all lands in a pile at my feet. No amount of Lolita’s juice can push the receipt through. I stare at him. As he turns and disappears through the crowd, my hope shrivels. It sinks back into the hole next to the wall, down by those legs and dirty feet.
     “I saw that you were at his house last weekend—durin’ the night,” says Peter.
     “I’ll never understand him,” I whisper, trying to calm my whirling head.
     Even though he doesn’t hear me, Peter sees the problem in my face. “He’s freakin’ out. His dad’s in bad shape." He looks to see where Matt went and spots him on the other side of the room. "His dad’s havin’ a quadruple bypass tomorrow and they’re not sure he’ll make it through the surgery.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’d think he'd wanna be at the hospital; I’m surprised he wanted to go out.”
     I stare at Matt through the crowd of people—all strangers to me now. I know why he came.
     “I’m still your friend,” Peter says, bending down to pick up my belt.
     I take it and pull it tight around my waist. “Cain’t imagine why.”
     “Because you need one.”
     “I need a lot of friends.”
     “No, you don’t. All you need’s one or two as long as they’re real.” He pulls me close and we begin to dance. It works because a new dance floor has been created by several other couples a few feet away
     Madonna’s voice travels through the ancient house. She understands. Her voice, her interviews, and the crucifix she wears as she gyrates on the stage beneath that white wedding dress convinced me that she and I share some unnamed trait. I envy her ability to tell the entire world what she feels.
     Someday I’ll find a way, too.
     Tears run down my chin and neck, dampening the placket of my shirt. My lips rest against Peter’s ear. His small, muscular arms suddenly tighten, forcing out my question. “How do you know which friends are real?” I ask.
     “They love you. They tell you the truth,” he whispers in my ear.
     Matt stands in the kitchen doorway, bathed in light. I think of the magical night we met. “Nobody loves me,” I say.
     “Somebody does.” Peter runs his hand down my back. He doesn't realize how painful it is.

_________________________________________________
More of Chapter 11 coming this week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.

BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 25)

Note: To learn more about Penelope Przekop's novel, BOUNDARIES, and to start reading at the beginning, go here!

Chapter 11: Bartholomew

At the hospital, Matt holds my hand while a huge doctor the nurses call Big Doc sews ten stitches beneath my skin and twenty something more to close the wound. Big Doc explains how the ones inside will dissolve on their own; the ones on the outside will have to be ripped out. Matt listens intently but fails to mention that he’s a medical student. He looks sad.
     When we leave the hospital, Matt drives to his apartment as if he knows I don’t want him in my bed. What we have together is far removed from the sleazy things that recently happened there. We don’t talk in the car, perhaps still embarrassed by the situation. Neither of us gave Big Doc a clear story as to what actually caused the wound.
     Once at his apartment Matt undresses me. Like a child, I move my arms and legs at his visual request. A thin layer of dirt covers us both. Most people would put their dirt-covered clothes into a neat little pile, keeping them separate from the other normal discarded clothes. They would rush to the shower, desperate to be clean. But the drowning sensation Matt and I share, our mutual gasps for breath, led us to the barren field and now, it keeps us from showering. Instead, I stand at the end of his twin bed and watch as he strips it down. The old, naked mattress is dotted with large yellow circles, created by childhood bed-wetting.
     As I stare down at his stains, I know he’s letting me in on a secret and I respond by lying over them without hesitation. With me, there’s no need for embarrassment about the bed-wetting, about the wound, or about his failure. I lay naked on my stomach, the side of my head smashed into his pillow. It smells like acne medicine and Polo cologne. He stands next to the bed, staring at my body. He doesn’t take off his clothes. There’s no music. Everything is bare and naked, everything but his body.
     I force myself to speak. “Would your parents really disown you if they knew about us?” The side of my mouth is close against the pillow, slurring my speech. “People don’t disown each other anymore. Do they?”
     He shoves his hands in his pockets and sits on the edge of the bed. “You called my mom that time. I wish you hadn’t done that.”
     I stare at his back. “She didn’t act like she hated me or anything. I don’t think she hates me,” I say, sounding desperate.
     “It doesn’t have anything to do with you personally,” he says. “My parents’ biggest fear in life is that I’ll get distracted. They’re obsessed.”
     I think about my own mother’s obsessions.
     “They don’t want me to develop too many other interests.” My blood, dry and dark, cover the back of his shirt. I wonder why he hasn’t taken it off. “They’re right, you know,” he says, his voice soft and mushy.
     “But you were in the fraternity. That’s a distraction.”
     “My dad was in that fraternity.”
     “Peter says you were mad at me because you made that B last summer.”
     “It kept me from graduating summa cum laude. But that’s nothing. Now I...” He doesn’t need to finish.
     A loud, gushing noise fills the room. I think it’s the air conditioning but realize it’s rain. “That field’s probably gettin’ all muddy,” I say, imagining what it would be like to roll with him in the slippery mess. It would be quite a different experience than rolling across the hard, dry dirt.
     My toes would submerge much farther into the soil. The tree’s roots would emerge mountainous around me as the mud shrinks away, soft and pliable. The killer soil would coats our bodies until we slid closer, merging into one another. Perhaps in the end it would kill us, too. In the morning, our parents would find our bodies, a brown heap at the foot of that big dead tree.
     “It’ll be dry by noon tomorrow,” he says.
     It’s true. Nothing ever stays wet for long in Louisiana.
     I hold my breath and ask the question that frightens him the most. “Do you really wanna be in med school? I mean, do you even want to be a doctor?”
     “Every parent wants their kid to grow up to be a doctor. It’s a popular version of the American dream. My father regrets that he didn’t go to med school instead of graduate school. He’d be makin’ a lot more money.”
      I interrupt, thinking that being a doctor sounds great. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
     “Yeah, but I don’t care about all that,” he says, finally lying down beside me. The small bed forces us to touch but he tries to give me space. The more he fights against the bed, the more its weak mattress moves, moving me, and the more I move, the more it hurts.
     I suck in some air. “What do you really want?”
     “I wanna be a doctor.”
     “But you just said ... ”
     His body falls against me and his hand covers my mouth. He presses his lips against my ear as if to divulge a secret. “I wanna be a doctor but not for those reasons,” he whispers. “When I sank my hands into that cadaver ... I knew. Until that moment I was just movin’ forward because that’s what I’ve always done. I’ve never thought I was supposed to do anythangmovin,’ fast as you can. Don’t stop.’ Like it’s some kinda fuckin’ race. But that day I knew. Somethin’ changed,” he whispers. “It became an art ... a religion.” The awe-struck love in his voice has the ring of my mother’s, whispering through the darkness all those years ago. My heart beats hard and fast. I want to hear the passion and hope of someone else’s dream. Somehow, hearing my mother’s then and Matt’s now, feeds my own.
     “I know I can do it,” he says, moving away from me. His sudden withdrawal reminds me of the hospital IV needle. The nurse had yanked it out without a warning. He takes off his shirt, holds it up, and stares at my dried blood for nearly a minute.
     When his words came again, they’re fast and concentrated, like spit he gathered in his mouth and can’t swallow. “It shouldn’t matter that I’m young. I’ve always been younger than everybody. I could have skipped a couple of grades, but I begged my parents not to force me, not to make me even younger. I was doing high school algebra. I was takin’ college courses the summer between eighth and ninth grade. Bein’ young never stopped me before.”
     He crumbles the shirt into a tight ball. “This is trash,” he says, slamming it across the room. It hits the wall and falls in a heap next to the door. “My dad’s embarrassed. He told me.”
     “Maybe your dad knows how you feel. Maybe he’s just tryin’ to help in his own way.”
     “No, he has a dream of his own.”
     “But it’s not his dream. It’s yours.”
     He lies back down beside me and I’m afraid he won’t stay. Trapped by my throbbing wound, I’m pinned to his bed, but he can’t decide whether he wants to lie in it, next to me, or not. He gently gathers my growing hair into a one-inch ponytail. “He won’t let go of it. He thinks he’s sharin’ something great with me but ...”
     “He’s stealin’,” I say. I want to tell him that my mother steals from me but I don’t
     He sits up and then falls back again. The bed shakes, hurting my back.
     I wish he’d be still.
     He suddenly laughs. It’s a strange laughter that makes me shiver. I long to cradle him in my arms, to tell him everything will be okay. But I’m wounded. I’ve always been wounded. I take my deepest breath yet. “I know how you feel now.”
     He continues to laugh until it becomes fake, practically spurts of breath. “Peyton, I already told you. I cain’t be involved with you or anybody.”
     “You said you weren’t gonna deny it tonight.”
     “I was a little drunk.”
     “I thought you didn’t drink.”
     “I don’t.”
     “Then why ... ”
     “Look, the fact is, it’s wrong for us to be together. There’s too much at stake now. I’m in a shit load of trouble.” Sign language, spoken by his shaking hands as they unzip his shorts and pull them off, contradicts his words. “I tried to tell you last year and look what happened.”
     “You’re not the only one who has stuff at stake,” I say. “I have dreams, too.”
     “I know you do but I cain’t make them happen just like you cain’t make mine happen.”
     “Why cain’t we have them together? Why does it have to be so complicated? It’s so stupid.” My neck hurts.
     He turns on his side, propping his head on his hand. His elbow digs into the dry circles of urine. “One day we’ll see each other in the mall or at a movie or somethin’.”
     I try to shake my head, to tell him he’s wrong, but my position makes it impossible.
     “You’ll have a couple of kids hangin’ on you,” he continues. “You’ll still be beautiful. And you’ll be happy ... really happy. Once you recognize me, you’ll smile and then I’ll smile, but we’ll just keep walkin’. There won’t be anythang to say. You’ll know then that I’m right.”
     “No! That's not my dream. My dreams are bigger than that.”
     “There’s nothin’ wrong with that dream.” He strokes my arm and it hurts. “A lot of people have that dream.”
     “I don’t want the same dream as everybody else. I don’t wanna a common dream.” My whole body hurts. “It makes me sick.”
     “Maybe it’s common because everybody wants it and nobody achieves it.”
     “Most people have children. That’s easy,” I protest, frustrated.
     “But most people aren’t happy or fulfilled. Remember, few people make it. I think in the end we all have the same dream.”
     Everybody’s happier than me. “But I want a callin’ ... like you.”
     “You won’t hear it like this.” He stares at the ceiling. “Hopefully, one day you will. Maybe about the time I see you at the mall. You’ll hear it like a siren, wailing in your ears. It’ll bust your fuckin’ ear drums.”
     The passion in his voice ignites something in me. “But you’re my siren. I’m happy when I’m with you.”
     “No, you’re not. You’re miserable.”
     “How do you know how I feel? I’m happy! I swear to God I’m happy.” His head shakes, and its back and forth movement wounds me all over again. My eyes sting and tear. “How do you know?”
     His dirty hand runs over the length of my body, torturing me. “Because I’m like you.”
     Tears stream down my full cheeks, the ones people still like to squeeze, never realizing how much it hurts. Thousands of tiny guardian angels flock toward the wound created by Matt’s rejection. They stitch it, tight and secure, with the yarn that connects people together and fish to poles. For a moment, I’m no longer lonely. “You have to believe me, most people don’t have dreams like ours,” I say.
     He turns the lamp light off, ignoring my tears. “You don’t know that.” The angels flutter away and their flapping wings leave me cold.
     Surrounded by darkness, we’re at the center of an unpredicted storm, the kind that usually wakes people. It rolls in through the nighttime sky searching for a dry, hot place to fall. I failed to smell it coming, my senses dulled by the dirt swirling around us. Lightning brightens the room again and again and I can almost hear my mother saying, “God brings the storms, Peyton.”
     “What happened to you tonight?” My voice rises and falls with the groaning thunder. “Why did you come get me?”
     “My dad had another heart attack yesterday. It was bad.” The smell of rain suddenly drowns out the sharp smell of his pillow. Anne with her eyelash-less eyes stands before me. Matt turns as far away from me as he can get. “And I didn’t care.”
     I know he won’t face me again. I scoot closer and try to lift my stiff arm up and over his back. My shoulder blade throbs. All I can do was lie still with my head smashed to one side or the other. I stare at his back. “Are you thinkin’ about the acid rain?” I ask tenderly. He doesn’t answer, but I know he is. I know his tears fall just as far as mine. Like trails of acid, they create ditches, big holes we fall into over and over again on our way to adulthood.
     Closing my eyes, I listen as the rain drenches the only world we know, the only realm I vaguely understand. I don’t consider that one day my world will be larger than what I can see at the moment, that there may be another place for me, one that is moist and dry, fluffy and clear. A different life filled with a career and malls and movie theaters, laughter and friends and bicycles bearing children—a new place where sirens can be heard, loud and clear—sirens that have nothing to do with tragedy.
     The only reality wiggling into focus is that, when the time comes, Matt will return with me to the emergency room. He’ll want to watch the stitches as they pull away from my wound. There will be a scar, the kind that never goes away, and he’ll want to be the first to see its pink promise.
________________________________________________

More of Chapter 11 coming this week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.