Excuses

A Story by Tim Wilkinson

Our greatest blessings often come disguised as a curse.

Title: Excuses

Word count: 1098

Author: Tim Wilkinson

Excuses

Tim Wilkinson

“How did you get to be this way Wayne,” asked Nancy as they both sat quietly on the third story veranda overlooking the green and verdant hills below.”

“This way? What’s that mean? Which way am I exactly?”

“Don’t be coy. I’m talking about your attitude---your, oh I don’t know, your essence or your spirit. It seems, well to be frank, wounded. And yet you seem so content most of the time. But there’s always a shade of darkness or a tinge of sadness surrounding you, even when you’re seemingly happy, like right now for instance. In fact, the only time I don’t sense it is when you’re making love to me. That seems the only time that the darkness truly goes away.”

“Darkness? Really? Sounds a bit morose don’t you think? Or is morbid a better word.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I? Then you must be asking how I came to be such a wonderful, charming, and handsome lover, and in only fifty-five short years.”

“No, not exactly that,” Nancy answered with a curt laugh. “Although you ain’t too bad at a few things and you are kind of cute, in an old man sort of way. No, what I mean is…what I’m asking, in general, is what made you who you are?”

“Well, try not to flatter me too much, will ya? And I’ll see what I can come up with. Now, which pathetic excuse would you like to hear first,” asked Wayne”

“Excuses? Have you many?”

“An endless supply, and of an unchallenged variety.”

“I am impressed. Been collecting them long?”

“Infinitely.”

“Then, by all means, hit me with your best.”

“Okay,” paused Wayne, scanning his memories as he traced through the deeply entrenched, well-maintained list now scrolling through the front of his mind. “But where should I start?”

“I find the beginning usually works best for this sort of thing, don’t you?” replied Nancy.

“Yes, of course, the beginning. How about my distant, disconnected, and uninvolved father that the ladies and the girls were very fond of; a father who’s cheating, sixteen year old wife, soon to be my mother, found herself three months pregnant, eight months after he left for the overseas destination where he’d spend a full year in the service of the US Air force. A father who moved away right after being dumped by his…well his rather loose willed wife whom I never really got to know, but for two weeks a year during summer vacation or alternating Christmases, as well as by the card and the crisp, fresh, five dollar bill he sent me once a year on my birthday.”

“Of course then there’s his wife, dear ole mother, who after seven years of marriage and another child, one presumably fertilized by the above-mentioned husband, left same for another member of the armed services with which she’d developed a ‘deep and penetrating’ attachment during her husband’s forced absence.”

“Not bad for starters. What else you got?”

“Okay, how about a cold, emotionally vacant stepfather; an alcoholic with the heart and soul of a codfish; or maybe the self-centered, sociopathic, drunken, drug addicted, and sexually abusive older brother, the one with narcissistic, violent, and destructive tendencies.

“Then there’s the sadistic uncle, bent on supplying his own sick and impoverished need for self-gratification and amusement at the expense and humiliation of others, and this by means of liberally dispensed doses of degradation and shame, these in the form of fee based activities pitched to his adolescent nephew taking the form of a quarter or three for the performance of such illuminating and exciting tasks as eating a large spoonful of wet, canned dog food without retching, holding ones head under water for two flushes of the toilet, drinking a gallon of water in one sitting, or the best of ten, curling inside a small, tin roofed box sitting in the center of the sun drenched backyard, in august, in one hundred and three degree heat…for only thirty minutes.”

“Bata-Boom---and the bar keeps rising. That all you got?”

“Need more? Okay, how about getting back to the clingy, manipulative, scheming, bi-polar and depressive, pot-head mother that screwed or blew any man that exhibited any interest, or more succinctly put, any man that showed the least likelihood of paying for her sexual services in the form of new houses, cars, prestige, and above all, leisure; drunks, lawyers, and losers most preferred.”

Of course, there’s always the failed education in the all-black, ghetto based institution commonly and laughingly referred to as a high school, where I, as one of the thousands of specially selected lab rats participated in a failed social experiment. How about thirty plus years stoned on marijuana, a sexless and passionless young wife, five years of drunken debauchery and world class sex with a cheating, loveless, gold-digging ex-stripper followed by a long, unbroken line of failed and unrewarding relationships. How about a younger brother, sister, and only daughter who like the before mentioned parents disappeared into deliberate, intentional seclusion, rejecting and abandoning said child, by now in his late thirties or forties. And this, followed closely by ten to fifteen years of high functioning addiction to cocaine, crack being the most commonly used form, and years of solo, self-administered sexual fulfillment.”

“Is that all?’

“No, but that’s enough for now. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, I suppose that’ll do---for now. So this is why? This is what you offer to explain and excuse who, what, and where you are; where the darkness comes from and why your spirit is sad even when you are not. Is that it?”

“I never said this explained any such thing, Nancy.”

“Then why tell me all of this. Are you not saying that these things and these people are to blame for the life you now lead, and that it is they and them that are responsible for who you are and the deep veil of gloom and shadow that seems to surround you like a shroud?”

“No, not at all. Don’t you see Nancy?” It’s not them, but you, who are responsible for where, whom, and what I am today. I was simply listing some of the many blessings that have come my way, for if not for each and every one of them I would never have found you. But you were right about one thing. The only time that I am ever truly happy and content, is when I’m with you.”

The End