The Pink Bow

As Kyle stood within the white-walled bedroom he had shared with Amy for over six years, his hand resting upon the empty now-full suitcase, he sucked in quite a breeze of wind like a palm tree in California. He needed a moment to wrap his mind around the whole moment just enough so that he could tie a nice, pink bow around this little present- which would more-than-likely be declared a bomb if it were to be delivered by the Joker.

Kyle Mooch had realized something that he had debated like a double-sided-coin-collection of politicians in a closet; he had lost interest. When it came to his wife, his daughter, his dog- Terr the Bear- , Kyle simply lost an interest in all of these things and much more. The term “ball and chain” was the most lackluster explanation for the things he had begun to feel toward . . . well, everything.

Amy, his wife over the course of six years (they had dated for about a year, yet never lived together due to her lame-a*s Christian morality, which Kyle could have sworn demanded that you keep your distance from atheists or anything other than your low-browed mindset and bigotry), and such a long stretch of time and a three-year-old daughter to bond the years like glue should have settled any sort of resentment to a small lighter-sized burner within himself.

Amy had tried to talk Kyle into staying. Once again, that Christianity had stuck its nose into the midst of their relationship (and, ooooooh, how Kyle had tried so very hard to convince her to drop that silly, buggy, corrupt religion since the time they had begun to date). She always said s**t like: “God loved us enough to bring us together, Kyle- why can’t you understand that?” and “The Bible says a divorce is ungodly, so please- please- stay around, even if its only for Hope. The Bible even talks about how a child needs a mother and father to help them learn to grow and become an adult. On top of all that, Hope idolizes you, Kyle. People constantly claim their child is the apple in their eye, but they never stop to think about how a child could have an apple of their own- and it’s usually a parent.”

Deep down, Kyle knew that he wouldn’t be gone for very long. In a way, he felt like he might simply be burnt-out on all of this parenting and husbandhood phenomena his friends had always claimed was so fantastic. Interest could always resurface, and whomever claims it can’t or never could was f*****g remarkable in their idiocy.

“I tell you, man, it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced in all of your life,” Jimmy Townsend told him a whopping eight years back, before he had ever come near to meeting Amy at the old Baskin Robbins that just so happened to be gone for the passed year or so. “Smiles from silly sound effects you make for the kid, kisses and a*s whenever you might want them from the lady, and you practically never have to cook your own meals ever again- unless, of course, your old lady is working night shift the way Barbi was when we first got hitched.”

Jimmy hadn’t fallen to this point in his marriage, but Kyle didn’t think it would be too much longer before Jimmy ended-up having some kind of meltdown. Last time he had heard from Ol’ Jim, Jimmy’s daughter, Rebecca, had been caught with a joint in her pants pocket. Kyle felt a little sympathy toward Rebecca, because being caught with anything adults frowned upon at the age of ten was already a worrisome situation; you never really knew what your parents would do to you as soon as they held the joint up to your face and ask what the hell you were doing with this in your Levis and if this is why you’re late getting home from a school simply four blocks away. Hell, Barbi was a screamer. That was her signature description from anyone whose ever had a short chat with her while Rebecca was about four or five. If poor Rebecca, as small as she was, took two queer steps to the left of the ridiculous, obligatory dog-leash-for-toddlers, Barbi would stretch her vocals out like a f*****g panther just enough so that everyone on the street would completely freeze up and the neighbors driving by would turn their heads right toward Barbi and Rebecca. Just thinking of the puppy face Rebecca might have made when Barbi was screaming in her face was tragic in its own right. Kyle felt especially sympathetic for Rebecca after Jimmy had told him that Barbi was the one who had found the little popper. Shockingly enough, Kyle just couldn’t understand her issue, considering how she, Jimmy, and himself inhaled so much crud in their youth that it was a wonder their lungs weren’t completely numb. Yes, it sounded a bit irresponsible, but he just hated simple hypocrisy.

Kyle wasn’t too insatiably fond of Barbi, even back in those days. She always had this mojo and aura of unlikability that enshrouded her like empathy at an AA meeting.

Kyle just continued to sit on the edge of his bed and stare out, into the rainy day beyond the windowpane.

You were so off-point, Jimmy, my boy, he thought.

Kyle meditated over what Jim had said all that time ago in sync with the tappings of rain on the glass of the window. He flinched when the first crackle of thunder exploded over the skies that hung from the Heaven only imbeciles like Amy could fathom a central lifestyle around.

Kyle thought about how he had been raised a Baptist and fell right out of it in high school due to lack of interest. Same thing with football. Same thing with track. Same thing with Star Trek and Lost.

Religion and belief were much like basic school relationships (if they could even be called that). Hormones are on the edge of the tides and all the boys and girls are seeing each other in a new light, a new frame, and a new friendship; and it was just that! No one wanted simply a friendship, they wanted a total, never-shared companion! In Kyle’s experience with Amy and her fellow Christian pals that would come over for cookies and Bible Study and Group Prayer and all of that odd s**t, they all explained to him that being a Christian is realizing that love was in the bag with belief, faith, hope, joy, and framed in the midst of the Trinity. It was about being in a relationship, supposedly.

Kyle never liked this idea simply because he liked to be able to talk to the ones he loved. It wasn’t like he stopped loving his mother and father once they had passed-on, but felt it very queer to care so insanely- much less, believe in- something that never spoke a f*****g word upon the earth, outside of the Bible’s fables, of course.

God wasn’t something Kyle Mooch very interested in, and- if God Himself existed- the Alpha/Omega probably wouldn’t even ask him to open his mouth for the piss that would soon rain down from Heaven.

Outside of this bedroom, there was no sound of a little girl giggling, or tiny feet thumping and clacking across the floor to see if her daddy was awake. Hope was probably still in bed, now that the summer break for elementary school had started a week previously. Kyle had also noticed how she would stay blacked-out a little longer- about an hour or so- on heavily rainy days like this, when the pounding of the rain was almost orchestral. Yes, today she would sleep in for a while longer. And when she would awake, she wouldn’t see daddy around all day, and then all week, and then it might be a month, or a year and then a whole lifetime.

And at that moment, his eyes locked with the photograph of he, Amy, and Hope at Myrtle Beach, when things were okay. When things were quiet in the House of Feud Kyle and Amy had structured shamelessly.

In the photograph, Kyle held that even-tinier-then baby girl a little over a year previous to now. Amy had her arm around his shoulders and her huge smile of white glory.

That had been a damned good day, if he said so himself. It may have only been listed as the okay time in their marriage, but it certainly wasn’t the load of bull they had going on these days. At least when everything is okay in someone’s life, good days come just as often as the bad days.

But this was a wonderful day, he thinks as he absorbs the moment, the instant, the memories, and the time.

That particular picture was taken after they had returned from the amusement park with Jimmy and Barbi. The stroller hadn’t been too well-crafted, so it was pretty bumpy, explaining why Hope looked like she was wanting to burst into a scream of terror by all of the lights and people swarming the three-block-long amusement park. One of those somewhat-three-block-long pieces was the “kiddy” section, where parents would get on the rides with their children and probably die of a boredom unknown to any person whom wasn’t a parent yet, because these rides were so slow that he found it hard to believe that even very small children could find enjoyment in any of the rides in the Kiddy Section of the South Myrtle Beach Amusement Park.

From down the hall came the echo of Terr the Bear's collar identification tags ringing as they clanged together with his short movements. Terr the Bear was a small pup with the biggest eyes Kyle had ever looked into. They were so close to being cartoon "Puppy Dog Eyes" that they could storm through the castle-thick barrier any human being tried to chain their heart inside. Terr's real name was Terry--to Amy and Kyle, at least. Hope had kind of pressed this ragdoll type of name on the poor pooch nearly a weak after they had gotten him. Hope certainly adored the little guy.

Terr the Bear is the apple of her eye, Kyle thought with a bit of a lump developing in his throat. Not me. And I think it's because he's here when I'm not. I think it's because Terry kisses her cheeks in a way that says: "Thanks for being what my day revolves around." I think it's because Terry actually shows Hope the love that Amy and I never have shown to her--all because we do the usual "grown-up thing" (which is the excuse all adults used to say they tried their best with their kids after those very same kids committed crimes, got arrested, or were killed thinking they were alone in the world and that their one friend in all of their lifetime was a puppy that had shown them infatuation and love), in which we would say that we try very, very hard to make time for our kid. That we share moments together, as a family.

It's a load of infinite bullshit.

Terr the Bear's very small nails clacked along the wooden floor leading to the room where Kyle was sitting, the jingling gaining momentum as Kyle's heart sunk a bit into his stomach.

He was hoping that Terry would leave him alone this morning. Kyle didn't want to have any goodbyes, because goodbyes with your past were so goddamned hard to take with a whisk of emotionlessness. It was never an easy thing to say farewell, in Kyle's opinion.

About three years previously, Kyle's mother and father had passed-on

(Into what?)

and it had torn his heart to pieces and then God pissed on those leftover pieces. His mother had faded from the world in the haze that is Alzheimer's--the horrid monster that allowed a person to piss themselves, confuse the most impotant people in your life with celebrities and mass murderers, and give you that smallest chance not many people on the planet get; to curse at their Pastor with total free will, uncontrolled, in tantrums that raised your pulse a few notches at the idea of some a*****e attempting to sell you a purgatorial homeland insurance.

Kyle's father, however, had met ol' Death Himself nearly four weeks later to a car accident. A drunk driver took Old Man Mooch out when he was taking a walk to the park. Kyle's father hadn't even gotten to do what he enjoyed before his time had come. He never reached that park that the new groundskeeper (and city, assuredly) took intense care of, with mowings nearly every week, landscaping commonly every two weeks, and aerobics classes for the elderly (Kyle's father wasn't a part of it, though) daily. Kyle's father died on the way to doing what he enjoyed doing, unlike his mom's unfortunate cross with the genetic slap in the face that is a total loss of yourself.

Kyle didn't believe that there was anything worse than an almost-amnesiac mindset. He thought many times after his mother's passing that it might be copeable to lose everything you've ever grown to know, but to actually lose yourself in all ways was nightmare bate.

Kyle Mooch did not doubt that nightmares would surface tonight after what he was about to experience:

Terr the Bear had reached the room, and he clacked around the bed until he was by Kyle's feet, underneath the window. He then hopped onto the bed that Amy and Kyle had banned him from again and again, but his action was so very odd; he merely sat the way dogs do, with a look in his eyes that said: "Come on, let me in. What's wrong with you?"

Kyle stared into those harrassing pits for what seemed like hours.

Finally, he decided that there wasn't an answer to the question that would suit it just perfectly, so he reached his hand out to Terr and tickled Terr's neck, stroking the fullness to it a little rough--the way dogs seem to enjoy.

And even though Kyle had no real, subtle answer for Terr's question (which Kyle had no doubt was as real a question through Terry's eyes as it would be if he had simply spoken them into this void of a room, where sound seemed to get lost in the faint burning of a tension Kyle knew he would soon face, once he left the room and hit the front door), he felt Terry deserved some form of an answer. Finding the most content (to himself, at least) was a white lie: "Nothing's wrong, Terr." He said this with such a lack of confidence that he immediately reached out and tickled between Terry's ears, hoping that it would help him drown out what his owner had said. He wasn't--and never would be--sure whether it helped tune the falsehood out altogether, but he did send a small hope--not a prayer, mind you--skyward, hoping that this little light of his

(the one he was going to let shine, but wasn't sure how to expand that light)

wouldn't be returned in a manela envelope with a statement that the Skyward Address was invalid.

In the living room, there was muffled talking.

Kyle Mooch was not a stupid man. A stupid man forgets things, and Kyle had never had any problem with remembering anything, no matter the size of the importance tagged to the subject's a*s.

Amy, in the Living Room, was watching her favorite romance movie, Blue Valentine.

Kyle then thought back to when they had first seen the movie at the drive-in in Salem, nearly a half an hour away from their home. It was date night, and they had a system in which they would base every-other date night on what one of them wanted for that particular weekend festivity. By the time all of the festival fun and running-around-the-cities was over with, Amy and Kyle seemed to always end their adventure wrapped in each other's arms, lips locked, moaning and whatnot the product of simply getting away for the time, because they had built so much stress throughout the horrid weeks in the offices they both took up. They had lost interest in reality, and why not? Reality was a schedule to Amy and Kyle--a schedule that was circular like a bicycle's tire. Amy and Kyle were simply the kinds of people (very rare, yet existent, for sure) that wanted to stab the prongs within the wheel so that it would catch, lock-up, and set them into a freedom outside of a circle that might have well been circling their wrists and ankles like cuffs.

Kyle was an author of a very critically-acclaimed mystery series, whereas Amy was a simple, friendly, corky accountant for Parts Depot (which had been heavily rumored to have been getting ideas of selling themselves to another company so that they could pay the bills, and use whatever was left to pay the workers for their services). Parts Depot was essentially an automotive-based production company, but it always struck Kyle oddly that the factory where those parts were produced was unlisted to anyone underneath a management postion. Amy had said that she figured it had something to do with a worry that a "low-level" (that was her phrasing) might obtain the information and leak it to another company in a very conspiratorial manner, only to open the factory up to vandalism.

Kyle couldn't help but smirk then, as did he feel that same surge of stupid sarcasm now, whilst he sat on the dge of the bed he felt all emotions available to humanity within six years, for even if Amy's idea or eveasdropping segment (which was more likely the origin of her "idea") was correct, the bosses must be imbeciles; vandalism typically never has a purpose, and when it does, it boils down to bullshit like gang locale. Otherwise, it's merely someone making their mark on a tower like a tourist in France. A mark can be repainted again and again, but a mark is a mark; once it's there in the Genesis Man's memory, it exists on that landmark until he's dead and buried. Nothing can change what a man considers to be a success in his lifetime.

And this uninterest I feel in everything is rooted in Amy. She warps what I enjoy. The first step I take out of that front door is the mark--my mark.

Standing, Kyle collected everything he wanted--not needed--into the bag, such as a week of clothes to change into, a toothbrush, his laptop for writing this fifth volume in the Angelo saga, and--reluctantly--a picture of the three of them together. It was not the beach photograph but the framed snapshot that had been on the night stand for about a year now.

Kyle tried to put it back a couple of times, zipping and unzipping his suitcase about three times in total, but he realized that in the midst of so much uninterest in everything going on around him, a lack of love for the great and memorable Used-To-Be times was utterly impossible to conjugate.

In a possible regret, he zipped the suitcase shut and stepped out of the room, with a single glance over his shoulder, into the room where Terr the Bear sat and pleaded for Kyle to stay. Even in his stillness, Kyle simply blinked once and a wave of all of the negativity that he sincerely despised flooded through his mental alleyways.

With his eyes downward, not looking at the wooden floorboards, but through them, to the concrete of the house, possibly, Kyle Mooch stepped through his hallways that were also painted in white.

(Glory, Glory, Halleluuuuuuuuuuujah!)

(For the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!)

There might have been an abscence of glory in his morals this day, but if he wasn't interested in a family lifestyle, why sit and spit crooked assurances of things like "I love you"?

That abscence was a vaccuum to one man's galaxy.

A black hole.

He stepped onward, passing more photographs framed and nailed to the wall of relatives, parents of Amy and Kyle, baby photos of Hope. There were family reunion photos that had been taken way back before the two of them had even met.

The living room's doorway came into focus and grew with every squeak of Kyle's sneaker on the wood.

Amy sat upon the beige-ish couch and had tears spilling from her eyes as Blue Valentine was on the verge of ending. Ryan Gosling was begging Heath Ledger's used-to-be girlfriend or wife or whatever the hell she was to the world not to leave him because they could work this whole marriage out. Ryan's character believed that there was reconsiliation in the relationship and that they needed to think of their daughter and how all of this drama was going to effect the rest of her life.

Kyle's writer mind had analyzed this to shreds after he had first seen the film. It was almost like the end of the movie wasn't simply a moral standing on how two people--a couple, specifically--could watch this movie and talk later that day about how to never let this happen to their very own relationship. And yet the daughter line really pushed Kyle into feeling that an extra little message so subliminally drowned in the tears the film forced you to sprout was: a s****y relationship is noticed by everyone. A s****y relationship effects every single life involved, in some way.

Even though Kyle really enjoyed the film--flaws and all--, his favorite line was the very tragic call by the daughter at the end of the movie, when Ryan Gosling's character has decided that maybe his abscence is better for the people he loves. The daughter, being picked-up and carried away by her mother, screams: "He can't go! I love him!" This was the moment that tore Kyle apart in this movie. It had hit him so internally that it had left its very own mark, for better or for worse.

Kyle remembered that moment so vivdly that he knew it was on the rise. He needed to hurry.

Deep down, Kyle knew immediately that if he heard the line, he wouldn't be able to leave. The film was almost a mirror of his own marriage in the recent times, and interest--that goddamned demon that stroked guitar string-like chords of feelings within our psyches--was ready to strike a note that would throw him back into this pitfall of what Kyle had finally declared a zombaic boredom.

His pace in steps quickened.

And from the room: "Of all the days, you pick this one."

Amy.

Kyle could hear her unintentionally gentle steps behind him. She was at the doorway now.

Kyle sighed.

"Why today, Kyle? Why are you so uninvolved in us anymore?"

Us, he took in like a sound within a cave; echoes and trails went on and on, reflecting within Kyle for uncountable eternities.

He set the suitcase down and turned to do what he least expected himself to manage: looking her in the eyes.

For a moment, he saw an anticipation coming from her face. She simply wanted a better reason than the uninterest he had explained to her about a month previously. She refused to accept that excuse, and Kyle--in some way--realized that she had been good enough to him to deserve a better excuse. The issue was that there was no other excuse. There was no guarantee that he would be gone for a long, long time. Kyle had even thought about how he might just be looking for a strong break from everything in his world (better yet, in the world).

Was that such an issue?

Was it really that much of a subtle monstrosity?

That waiting Amy had first expressed calmed into more of a look that had a faint shifting of her head side to side, saying: "I can't believe you." Kyle had had his mouth opened to speak, but it closed then.

Instead of saying a single word, Kyle simply lowered his eyes--as well as his entire body--closer to the ground and lifted the suitcase up from a very loosely-stringed handle. He then turned back to the front door, eyes still lowered, and pulled it toward him.

Kyle Mooch tried so very hard not to look up. It was even to the point of being a mental force to not look up for even a mere glance, and then that goal grew into not looking inside of the house at all. That struggle to avoid a last look

(you're not interested anymore, you're not interested anymore, you're not interested anymore, Kyle)

was a failure, in the end.

With a single intake of what was almost like a photograph in its haunting stillness, Kyle saw a frame--the doorway being the frame itself--of his past. Thank God (what God?) Hope hadn't woken and begged him to stay, for the idea of hope--not Hope--being a tiny signature to an already colossal past in this life-sized photograph would throw an invisible lure right at him, and Kyle Mooch was not stupid, so he knew that he'd suck on the lure by the a fourth of an inch was exhalted his way.

Amy had begun to cry, not in a loud way, but in a way that was just loud enough to break Kyle’s skin.

As Kyle shut the front door to the shoe box holding his past, he heard six words from another room, said by a child. It said: "He can't go! I love him!"

A tear or two burst from underneath the lids of Kyle's eyes, but it was more like the tears a person sheds whilst they realize someone in their family had been hit by a car and the life-measures of that rhythmic beeper in the E.R., and the doctor had noted that the beeper began to have longer stretches between those bassy indentions in the storyline of a life those beepers recorded.

Kyle's now-past had longer stretches between the indentions.

It was fading, now.

With each step planted by Kyle Mooch's feet, the pink bow tightened around the day.