the lie and how we told it: Musings of Monsters by Joe Zavella

Oh boy, it's been a while since we posted a story up here. Sorry for that. What with all the moving I've been doing and the sickness with the coughing and the spitting and the mucus and the headaches. Not to mention all the birthdays, oh! The birthdays! So many birthday's last week (and today)! Also, I didn't realize (quite stupidly) that my new apartment would not come with built-in interwebs. Anyhow. I will be posting when I can, hopefully everyday again. We still have quite a few stories left so I hope you're still reading! Anyhow, sorry for the interruption in service, please carry forward to read a new story by Joe Zavella.

Musings of Monsters
by Joe Zavella

My body jerks to the left and I am ripped out of a good dream, probably my last . My eyelids close tighter before opening into tiny slits. Blurs of color and shape begin to focus in front of me. I bend down to rub my eyes and let my head rest in my hands for just a moment. First I notice the chains that bind my wrists to my ankles. They jingle as they sway. I lift my head and I remember, sometimes it takes me a minute to remember. Orange jumpsuits. Another jerk to the left. This bus ain't made for four-wheeling like this. Only thing making this a road and not a trench is that we're driving in it. They welded a bird cage to the outside of this bus, s'pose they got hip to folks jumpin' out the window. Course the guards would just shoot you down, more bullets on this bus than there should be. All for us. On the other side of the glass the rain and dirt mix to blur my last glimpse of the outside world. They locked me next to some billy-goat punk kid. A degenerate and a thug. He belongs here. Most of them do. Mad and vicious, hooligans. Rapists and murderers. Hissing and spitting when they laugh. They better not spit on me, dammnit this dog's still got bite! They don't care what they leavin' behind, they dont think about it. Not me though, I think about it all the time. Playing with my kids, two girls, laughing and running, playing chase around an old stump we had in the yard. Every time I would catch them they would start screamin and laughin'. My wife, my beautiful wife. Sometimes I close my eyes and remember times when she would come from behind and wrap her arms around me, thin and delicate. Her hair laid gently against the top of my head, her warm breath on my neck, the feel of her cheek against mine. The smell of her lips. I like to think about the little things with my wife.

This is not my first time in a bus like this. I been on the inside of a cell. I have even been in this very trench before, too many times, each time with a new lie for my girls. Daddy’s going on a business trip for a few months. Don’t worry girls, daddy is gonna go take care of a friend for a couple years. Daddy got a job for the summer. Don’t worry honey, daddy is just gonna be gone for the weekend. I s'pose I didn’t want my lil' girls to know the nature of their ol' man. But that’s just the thing about girls; The day comes when you don’t have to get down on one knee to talk to them. The day that they realize all the lies you told, all the holes in their lives that you've dug. That one more is coming, and this time I won’t be coming back to fill it. Everyone's crying while trying not to. Lil' Mary hugs me so hard I think she's gonna break her arms. Allie slaps me with all the hate her little heart can hold. My face stings as tears stain both our cheeks. And I know that at least one of them gave me what I deserved. My beautiful wife, she tells me they're moving, that they won't visit. She cries through her words. The tears stream down her face, aged with a lifetime of worry and struggle. I try to memorize every line.

They say I done terrible things. That I used up all my chances. It's true. I hurt too many people and now must spend my life in a barred cell. Finally going to put this old monster in his cage. Where he can sit and think bout what he's done, all the things he's destroyed. That billy-goat punk neighs another punch line and everyone is laughing and spitting. Fangs disguised as teeth, horns combed back like hair. Claws like fingers. A carriage of monsters who look like men, given only so many chances to hurt anyone who would love them before being sent away to howl and grunt and beat their chests. The bus comes to a stop and as I emerge I feel the rain on my face. It feels good. I wonder if this is what a man feels when the rain falls on his face. I s'pose there is no point on wonderin' how a man feels in the rain. This is not a place for men, only monsters who once were given the chance.

Joe Zavella lives and studies in Riverside, CA. In fact, I'm his new neighbor. Read his blog, it's wonderful: Joe Zavella, Man Shaped Gorilla.

This man's name is Joe Zavella and he loves you

This is Joe Zavella, today's special guest writer. He loves three things: Mexican food, Mariachi music, and Magic.
"I remember 2009 in the same way you might remember a dream: Some of the facts have intermingled with fantasy and I probably got smaller laughs then I remember or perhaps they were larger. The year started off with a surprise in my home town of Riverside, great friends and good times is how I remember most of that night. I danced with the waitress and she kissed me on the cheek, I smiled. In 2009 the only girl that I ever tried to love got married. I was told the ceremony was quite beautiful and I hear she is doing very well. I think of her from time to time and smile knowing that a girl that I once loved, and perhaps always will, found the bond that we could not make.

In the summer I took my first real vacation in years. We took a train north to Oregon where we met a lot of people who reminded me of us. With full hugs and big smiles, we reunited with old friends, who were there when we started to become the people we are now. It reaffirmed that we would still be together when we were done being whomever we happened to grow into. The days were sky blue and the nights star-filled. The kind of place you'd never want to leave, the kind of people that I will never stop loving. I found myself ecstatic and convinced myself that some bonds can not be broken.

The summer of 2009 was one of the happiest I can remember, but as the summer came to a close I was taught a lesson that I was not prepared for: The lesson that some bonds can be broken, that sometimes, your heart will break in ways that you can’t repair, that sometimes one of the bright spots in your life can turn into a hole in your heart, and you cant fill it, you cant help it, and every time you think about it it’s like the ocean crushing down on you, and you can’t breathe.

There is something beautiful about being brothers, when you can walk through life knowing that there is someone out there who doesn’t care about any of the things that you agonize over. People who can love you as good or as bad as you get, tall or fat, short or skinny, prince or prick. It’s not something that I’m fully able to understand. It is my opinion that it is something that takes a lifetime to comprehend. I don’t know why we were so close. I don’t know what it was that made us such good friends. I do know that I miss my brother, and I fear that I will always be haunted, not by the memories that were, rather by the memories that will never be, the experiences that we never had a chance to share. A brother lost, a good man, a good friend. I found myself unable to focus.

You know that feeling where the walls are closing in on you, even when you're outside? My lack of enthusiasm was apparent in my everyday life and in my work. After a short time I was let go from my job. I felt like I had hit rock-bottom, and my depression began to envelop me. I was broke, the bills were beginning to pile up and I could feel myself drifting away into my own sorrow. But you will be pleased to know that I am not a pessimist! I am an optimist! I like to look on the bright side, and while losing Robby was to date, the darkest time in my life, it is good to remember that it's always darkest before the dawn. I guess through his death Robby taught me my greatest lesson: That right when you get knocked down and you feel like you cant get up, right then, right in that moment, that’s when you have to. That’s when I reached up, and wouldn’t you know it, all the people who loved me reached back.

I loved Robby with my whole heart and I know that’s why it still hurts, but I also know that allowing myself to love and to be loved is what turns your friends into your family. This year taught me that my friends are my family because I love all of you and every time we meet I’m going to try my best to allow you into my heart and, maybe with a lil’ luck, I'll get into yours. So in 2010 let’s go for a bike ride or maybe we could have a picnic. Let’s go to the bar and drink too much. Let’s laugh till it hurts, let’s cry until it doesn’t hurt anymore, and after that lets do it all over again. Let us warm ourselves in the glow of our souls and never forget that through each other we can reach heights never before imagined.

My name is Joe Zavella and if you’re reading this, that means I love you and in 2010 I would like to show you."

Joe Zavella hails from California's High Dessert but is currently "funemployed" while getting ready to go back to school in Riverside, CA. To catch him in his natural environment, watch him on any dance floor.

If you'd like to read up some more about Joe and his friend Robby, check out his blog, 100 Days of Robby, where Joe is recounting his favorite memories with his best friend, who is sadly no longer with us.

Also, Joe's somewhat of a twitterer. Follow him @joedancemachine.

If you missed any of the previous entries in this collection, here are the links.

• Viet used to be too young to live
• Jake Kilroy's take on "growing up" in 2009
• Keith Hernandez talks about travel and family in 2009
• James Park drops some truth bombs about 2009
• I talk about lessons learned, '09 style