I am a string man. String keeps me tethered to a place in time and to a time in place. It keeps me from floating away. I’ve got string tied to my hands, my arms, my head, my feet, and my heart. The cords attached to my heart are the biggest and they’re tied the tightest, but even these strings have limits. My string defines me.

I am a string man. I started tying strings when I was a small boy on the bayou living with my family. I tied heart strings to my mom and dad and my brother and every year I would add more cord and pull the knots tighter. I also tied heart strings to my relatives and friends; some of my friends were tied to my head instead of my heart. Some of them were just tied to my hands.

I am a string man. The home that bore me and grew up around me was covered in string. I tied string to the little cracks in the brick foundation that had to be stuffed with old socks in the winter. Some of the old socks had knotted threads on them too and were tied to my feet, green and gold threads of the Galliano Wildcats. The gutters filled with Chinaberry leaves were tied to my hands. The ‘creak’ in the hall floor had a string tied to my ear, the attic hatch rope above to my hand. I even had string tied to the toilet handle that had to be jiggled twice to shut off. After living in that house for nearly 20 years I created a tangle of twine that reached out of the house to all places up and down the bayou, but I could maneuver through the chaotic web with my eyes closed.

I am a string man so I packed a trunk full of string for my move to university town. But I packed on a budget and bought cheap cotton twine. I also hastily tied knots and my bonds quickly loosened or withered away like an abandoned web. Luckily my home tethers prevented me from completely drifting away, a fear I always have. I held fast to my home string and pulled on them until I found myself back in the comfortable tangle on the bayou. With my brother’s strings long trailing north, and friends drifting into the netherworld where my cords could not reach, my mass of twine at home was not as chaotic.

I am a string man and for the next two years I bought a combination of strong nylon twine and some stainless steel leader line. I used this to strengthen my connection with my parents. During my two-year university break I helped my dad build a camp out on the Gulf coast. Four hands and two hearts tied securely together created a beautiful camp overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and the distant oilrigs. I could see some of my string extending to those oilrigs and to the shrimp trawlers easing out of the pass, dark lines stretching across the sky; negatives of an airplane trail tracing my past.

I am a string man and I went back to university after carefully checking the quality of my twine. This time I used my string cautiously and sparingly. When someone else tried tying their string on me I would rip out my pocketknife and cut it. I started accumulating a lot of knots that had short, frazzled ends.

Then I met someone, someone special, and I found myself tying knots as quickly and gently and as securely as I could. I also knew this person would require great lengths of twine because she lived halfway around the world.

I am a string man. So now I’m in the East still tying and collecting string. I’ve got string tethered to a new home. String knotted tightly around the hearts, minds and bodies of my child and wife. String wrapped around my office, my business. I’m held securely from the West and from the East. I’m tethered firmly above a place with no possibility of floating away.

But what’s this? The core of my tether, the ties I’ve secured over the years in a little home on the Bayou are starting to unravel. Sharp twangs ring in my ear from my Western ties snapping and echo with the cords of the camp that were torn loose by a past hurricane. Frayed are my connections to friends, family, and places. I reel in the string only to find broken knots, freshly cut ends, and unraveled threads. I’m finding my western tethers unlashing, and I’m starting to drift eastward… forever.

My cords connecting me to the West have nearly all been severed and I look down on a world, an Eastern world I’ve been securing for the last 20 years, covered in my mass of knots and cords. Too much of my heart has been exposed by the cutting of my past bonds and I look down now in fear; fear of a home that is not truly mine and fear of a past that has left me tethered afar.

I’m floating now with only the cords tied to my wife and daughter keeping me in place. And I’m hearing through these taut strings echoes of a break and I’m seeing new strings drop down on another land to another person. So as I check the condition of my remaining knots and string I’m sourcing for new cord to fasten to yet another time and place. And now more than ever I feel how easy it would be to drift off into an infinite sky further than any string can reach.

I am a string man looking for more string… and the memory to tie knots.

So I really don't know where to put this but I have to put it somewhere... while I can still remember it. These are some of the things that shaped my life. Some of the things that haunt my life. Some of the things that really happened and probably shouldn't have happened but they did... These are little things remembered. I sometimes can’t sleep at night so I lay in bed and remember these little things. I guess they're important or I would have forgotten them. It starts from nowhere and really goes nowhere… If I ever need to seek professional help I’ll just hand him this paper and say here. Ask anything after reading…

I swallowed a penny when I was a kid and my parents called the doctor. The doctor just said it would pass. I'm not sure why they called the doctor because I've swallowed a lot worse and I'm still alright.

Once while walking with my aunt around the hospital I saw a windsock blowing on the roof and it scared me. I don't know if it was an omen. Nobody died.

At about 4 or 5 years old I thought our neighbor’s daughter had her penis removed and it scared me. She showed me where it used to be and I just saw a crack. I didn’t have sisters. I grew up a Baptist. Some things should be forgiven.

I went to the beach. It was some kind of church outing. I overheard one of the chaperones tell his wife while pointing at me “we never had that ring of fat around our stomachs when we were young”. I looked down at myself. Yeah… I had a ‘spare tire’. Later his wife left him for a banker. Today I call that retribution.

I remember peeing in the kitchen garbage can one night. My parents asked me just what I thought I was doing. Looking at the garbage can I just said “oh” and went to the bathroom.

Nightmares were common. My nightmares made no sense. Sometimes I walked in my sleep. I’d go to my parent’s room, wake them up and ask things like, “hey, that cheese in the icebox, how does it work?” or “have any of you seen a screwdriver?”. My mom would just tell me to go to the bathroom. It became a ritual to lower the toilet lid and sit on it until I woke up. Then I’d go back to sleep. Once they caught me walking out the door and asked where I was going. “I don’t know”. To the bathroom I went.

I had a Chihuahua once. It was supposedly born on the same day as me. Her name was Teeny Weeny. She had a brother named Tippy Wippy. Tippy lived in our house too. She belonged to my Grandmamma. Teeny lived about 10 years. She ended up with asthma and arthritis. Her last two weeks were spent in the bathroom in her box. One night as we were sitting around the table she wobbled into the kitchen, looked at us, then went back to the bathroom and died. She knew. She was just saying goodbye.

When I was impressionable I caught one of the neighborhood teenagers butt riding another neighbor boy. He told me if I ever told anyone he’d kill me. I told everybody. I’m still alive. He’s married.

The first album I ever bought was Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Bark’. I bought it at a drug store. It was defective and they didn’t have any other copies. My brother told me that one of his English teachers said that Carol King’s ‘Tapestry’ was really good so I switched it for that one. I got screwed.

I had a friend. We grew up together. One summer during high school break I didn’t see him. His senior year he came back as a closet transvestite. He once traded me Joe Walsh’s ‘The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get’ for my Queen’s “Queen II’ album. I remember I could never figure out why anyone would trade a Queen album for a Joe Walsh. Today he’s a hairdresser and wears pumps. Looks really sexy too.

In the 4th grade I had a teacher pull out one of her sagging breasts from her blouse and showed everybody where babies ate. Later, one of my Mere Mere's (grandmother’s) old friends pulled out her breast and squeezed her nipples to show me and my cousin some black stuff that came out. Old people were always showing me their breasts. I don't know why they did that. My cousin and me laughed. Old people are funny. Then I had an art teacher that used to undo her buttons and lean over me so that I could see her breasts. She wanted to take me home. I think today that's considered illegal. Back then I didn't know it was illegal. I didn't go home with her and I wasn't insulted by her little show and tells. Today I guess I'm a 'breast' man. It was fated. I'm not fond of black stuff. I like legs too.

I once met a girl in Arkansas. We sat on a porch in the middle of the country and talked until sunrise. I think that's considered love. Later she mailed me my graduation ring back without a note. I think that's considered falling out of love. Falling out hurts more than falling in.

I had a really fat friend that had to be helped off the couch. He was too big to start any forward motion on his own. One night when he was sucking some meat out of a crab claw he choked. My friends and I just stood around and watched him. He was too big for any un-choking maneuvers. He eventually coughed it out. Then he laughed and we drank more beer and finished the crabs. Later we pulled him off the couch.

I can never remember the difference between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ and frankly I don’t really give a shit.

When I was really young I was at my grandmama’s house playing in the yard. There was this big tree and it had a hole in its trunk. It was a dark little hole right near the ground. I got down on my hands and knees and stuck my face up to it... and saw two eyes... and it went ‘beep’. I immediately thought alien. I have no idea why because aliens were not that big a topic back in the early 60’s, at least not in my home. I never looked in that hole again.

The preacher and his family lived across the street from my Grandmama. One time my parents brought me to their house to visit with the preacher’s wife because she just had surgery. Her toes were screwed up so the doctor put pins in them to make them straight. I grew up with a fear that my toes would suddenly get crooked and looked at my feet more than was necessary for the next few years. I don’t like feet.

I peed in my bed longer than what was thought to be normal. Peeing in bed is evidently hereditary. The doctor gave me little red pills to take before bedtime. I thought they were to plug up the hole. They worked... for the most part. I probably quit bedwetting when I was about 10 or 12. Sometimes I dream that I’m peeing and then I realize that dreams do come true.

One summer when I was around 14 I was working on my neighbor’s trawl boat. We were about 100 miles offshore. We slept on the boat for 2 to 3 weeks at a time. I had one of those not-so-nice wet dreams. I threw the sheets overboard along with the mat. He asked me the next day what happened to the bed and I just said I don’t know... it was just gone when I woke up... I must have had a dream or something...

At night when we weren’t working around the clock we would drop anchor and a few other boats would tie up to us. Some of the older guys on the other trawl boats called my name, ‘hey you’ (that was my name), and did the universal joint smoking sign... you know, when you pinch your index finger and thumb together, squint your eyes and make that inhaling hissing sound? Well I gave the universal affirmative sign... when you nod your head a couple of times and smile. To get to their boat I had to crawl like a sloth across the rope tied to the back of our boat up to the bow of theirs. There was about 40 feet of rope that alternatively slackened and tightened as the waves shoved the boats around. These guys were 3 or 4 years older than me so they were like another generation away. They were ‘the cool older guys’. So I had to act cool. I smoked like a true ‘head’, inhaling a full lung’s worth of smoke, held it for the accepted amount of time, and then blew it out like it was nothing... no coughing. This went on for a while. I was goofy fucked up but still acting cool, an act that was getting harder to perform. Then I heard my captain calling me to get back to the boat to help change the nets. Man was I ever screwed. The rope between the boats now appeared about 4 miles long. I just remember hanging on and inching my way over the water. A month or two later I made it to my captain’s deck. Being stoned, having to look up at the booms and ropes and the nets filled with rotten fish... the boat rolling in the deep-water gulf... well, there’s this thing called seasickness. That was the excuse I used. He angrily sent me to the cabin. I sat in a chair, ate potato chips and watched a movie.

One day he thought there was something caught in the propeller and told me to jump in the water and check. I figured it would be a simple job... and fun. I jumped in from the back of the boat and dove under. I couldn’t find the propeller. Nobody told me that the prop was not really in the back of the boat but under it, closer to the middle. I came up for air, went back under and looked for rope or net or anything else that might have gotten tangled in the propeller... nothing. It was clean. And I think the Captain knew it too. He did those kinds of things to me. The water was over 100 feet deep and clear. I looked down and saw hundreds if not thousands of ‘jack’ fish swimming up to the boat. Jack fish to the best of my knowledge don’t bite. But even if babies, or kittens, or cute little puppies approached me by the hundreds I’d be scared shitless. I was back on the deck in no time. Later that night when we were all sleeping, I spit on my Captain. I may have been dreaming... or not.

I can't remember anything else. Is this what they call sleep? It may be happening to me now...

Before

1. My mom was in a car accident when she was about 7 months incubating me. The doctors said I was fine. I was born during a hurricane. I got sick a lot. I had rheumatic fever twice. The fever gave me nightmares. One nightmare I often had: I was laying in bed and had to count all of the holes in the ceiling. The holes were part of the ceiling tile decorations. There were more holes in the ceiling than stars in the sky. After counting for a few hours I would lose my place and have to start over. That's when I'd scream. Or another recurring nightmare... I had a motorcycle. A really big one and it wouldn't fit in the room. I would scream. My nightmares were lame but they scared me.

2. When I was 3 or 4 years old I saw a man get stabbed. My parents were holding my hand as we walked through a crowd of people in the New Orleans' French Market. The man was about 3 feet from me. The knife was about 6 inches long. His face had a grimace as he bent over. My parents quickly covered my eyes and pulled me out of the crowd. Children do not go through PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). This children didn't.

3. Later that year there was a oil storage tank fire about 6 miles from our house. It lit up the entire sky to the north. Dogs pee when they get excited. I throw up. Fires upset me, watching someone get stabbed evidently is alright.

4. During a bout of high fever I left my body and floated near the ceiling. It was pretty cool watching my mom give me alcohol rub downs from the top corner of the room near the ceiling with holes. I now have a white ceiling. Spotless. No holes, no cracks. And I keep it clean. I sleep pretty good now.

5. I stuck a match to the bathroom curtains to see what would happen. The curtain caught fire really fast. My grandmama extinguished the fire before it spilled on to the ceiling. I threw up.

6. My first love was in the 4th grade. It lasted 2 days. Her name was Selma. We kissed on the bleachers. We never advanced to below the bleachers. I've only been below bleachers to buy sodas or look for loose change.

7. I got a shotgun one year and started hunting. At first I would shoot anything that moved or didn't move. I shot into a flock of blackbirds and it pissed them off. They followed me home screaming things I'd rather not repeat. I graduated to a 16 gauge, Browning automatic. I hunted rabbits. The last rabbit I shot talked to me as it was dying. I cried and quit hunting. I don't eat rabbit anymore.

8. A state narcotics officer once came to our high school to talk about drugs. He said that about 75% of the marijuana that came into America passed through the bayou. I knew that. It was why I was stoned throughout my high school years.

9. I did really well in high school English. The teachers liked me. They said I should go on to be a writer. I was placed in remedial English when I went to LSU. I barely made it out. My high school teachers didn't know shit.

10. My university years were split into 2 phases. The first phase consisted of mostly illegal but fun things. I had an Iranian roommate during the Iranian hostage crisis. He gave me a band-aid that was from Iran as a souvenir. He spent all of his time doing push-ups. I spent all of my time getting stoned and watching. I passed out a lot and got in trouble and failed classes and the world kept spinning and my friends were over-dosing, dying, getting arrested and there was white powder substances and letters like pcp and lsd and police watching me and then I woke up... and dropped out.

11. I painted houses. I bought a bicycle. I rode far away and slept in cemeteries and state parks. I ran out of money and bummed. Then took a greyhound bus back home and went back to school. Phase 2 was a success. I made all A's and met my wife.

Now

12. I think I have professional burn-out. I think it happened a few years ago. I don't think it's a mid-life crisis issue because I don't really know if this is my mid-life. My hair is turning gray. My knees are sometimes stiff. And I'm no longer regular. But my mind doesn't seem that much different from the mind I had when I was sitting on the bleachers with Selma. Maybe I'm just mentally impaired. I quit worrying about it.

13. I like foreign languages but the part of the brain that handles language is absent from my brain. I'm always trying to learn a language. This week it's French... again. I gave up on Russian and Japanese and Spanish. I'm about to give up on English too and just revert back to grunts and hand signals (refer to note 9).

14. I sometimes wonder how it is possible to make money drawing things on paper. I sometimes wonder why we do the things we do. I see people wearing suits carrying briefcases, talking on mobile phones, working on computers at the coffee shop and I think we could probably eliminate most of them and the world would be better. I think we're ants. Some of us are bees.

15. There are things in the jungle that are evil. I've met a couple. They're angry. They kill. I try to avoid them. You can't see them, but you know they're there.

16. The number 714 is important to me. I don't know why. I see it every day on TV, in books, newspapers, signs, traffic tickets... when it appears I always smile. I don't know what it means but I always get nervous on July 14th.

17. Crowds now scare me. City life scares me. Driving in this city scares me. I live in fear. I think I may be developing Agoraphobia. Agoras scare me. I want to live in the country, any country, with not too many people and a lot of squirrels and a friendly mailman.

18. I live in a place that I never would have thought I'd live in. It just happened. I was there a while back, and now I'm here. I don't know how these things happen. People ask me how long I'll be here and I answer I don't know. Then they ask me if I'll move back to the U.S. and I answer I don't know. I'm just sitting on a carnival ride and my buckle is stuck. Where will I be in 10 years? I don't know.

19. I needlessly complicate my life with technology and crap. I sometimes want to get rid of everything and becoming a monk or bum... preferably a bum. Monks have to follow schedules, Bums don't. I would be a nice bum. I wouldn't bother you or ask you for money or food or nothing. And I wouldn't be offended if you'd cross the street to avoid me.

20. Having a child is scary. I always worry about her. I think that's what love is. I would die for her if I needed to. That wouldn't be a problem.

Later

21. My memory will probably go before my eyesight or hearing. I'm already having problems remembering things. I often wonder where my memories go when they leave me. Do any of you have strange thoughts or dreams or unfamiliar things going on in your head? They may be mine. Send them back when you're done.

22. There are many places I haven't been that I will visit. Russia and South America are in my future. I will not be visiting the South or North Poles. They will have to visit me... and I believe that they are in the process of arranging visas.

23. I will live in the country, somewhere quiet, with a rocking chair on a porch. There will be a small rocky stream about 20' away from my porch. The stream will be at the foot of a tree covered slope, the slope will merge into the mountains in the distance. There will be wildflowers growing around my house. The air will be pure. Airplanes will not fly over my house. This will happen somewhere on this planet or in my head.

24. I never thought I'd live to be 48. I made it to the bonus round and I'm waiting for the question.

25. Death does not scare me. The means of dying does. I don't like pain so would prefer to go while sleeping. Once I'm gone I won't care how I look or what I'm wearing. I'll quit respecting myself once I'm dead. I'll sit in the top corner of a room and watch people.