Everyone is guilty.

We all fall short of the glory of God.

We all want confession.

A cathartic release.

Clarity.

This is mine…

“It’s not all about the money…”

I said, carefully watching her reaction…

You can tell a lot about the mental make-up of an individual or lack thereof when you bring up the almighty dollar.

“And what else is there?! Came her reply.

Nothing more was needed; I decided right then that this would go no further. Now I was just going play it for some Tom Fuckery.

“Oh, I don’t know… Maybe spiritual matters could be considered… You know, maybe thinking of others in a less selfish, self-centered, narcissistic manner. Maybe taking some time to smell the flowers.”

“Is that going to put food on the table?” She snapped.

“Have you missed many meals? You don’t look like you’ve missed too many. “

“Are you calling me fat?”

“Goodbye.”

I don’t worry too much about love.

I have never been that cold.

Had it bad for scent and beauty.

No more meaning she could hold.

In the end, I grew from gullible.

I held on for the ride.

Like a soldier has his duty.

I kept all those things inside

It’s just daydreams hope desire.

I guess I am that blessed.

To know now how you felt then.

I just never would have guessed.

I don’t worry much about love.

My head it feels so clear.

No more hunger expectations.

I just walk the earth, my dear.

Jimmy MacIver was 92 when he died; 7 days after his youngest daughter Margaret passed. My mother. Worst week ever. I was 11.

I never really got to know him the way I would have liked to. However, he kept a log, what some would call a diary, and I own 7 of those. He was a horseman just before the automobiles came into vogue.

I remember people saying how cantankerous he was. He was very old then.

I have this memory. It would have been in 1960 or 61. I was 2, maybe 3…

I was with these other children, teenagers and adolescents, maybe 6 of them. I was crying, and some of the older kids got annoyed with me, and they left me.

We were in a field where they left me at the base of a hill and disappeared over the summit. It took me some time to climb the hill with my little short legs. However, I fully expected to see them all when I reached the top.

The top of the hill led to a cliff, and no one was in sight. I was alone. I remember just laying down in the grass. I think we were outside of Halifax.

I don’t know who came back for me, but it was an adult man, and I remember his concern. I remember him yelling at the kids who abandoned me.

I guess that could have turned out differently…

The Indians called it Deception River. It rose and fell and snaked its way through the north shore of New Scotland from Northumberland and beyond… This is where I learned to swim when I was 7 at the courtesy of 3 older boys who pushed me into the channel. I said to Robert, the oldest one who pushed me into deeper water while the other 2 ran away with my clothes.

“Don’t put my head under. Give me a chance.”

Robert gave me a chance. I knew how to float and hid my fears with faith. I spun in the whirls of a falling tide and learned to manure my floating body by moving my hands.

As I ran up the road towards the house naked except my underwear. I met my mother, who wanted to know what happened. “I can swim.” I smiled.

Later, she said, “Those boys tried to drown you.”

They avoided me after that. I never saw any of them at the river. Not one of them knew how to swim.

Nothing is as it seems…

Deception River.

I was somewhere far away.

There was a tap tap taping on the window.

She wasn’t going to go away.

I opened my eyes to 4:15 and Nina laughing.

She handed me something for set. Really? I’m the only one here? I looked around and drove towards set.

It’s darkest before the dawn.

They gathered in the city after abandoning the farms.

A silent somber motley crew, full of piss and doing harms.

They hardly drew a notice, just didn’t look the part.

The country cousins consortium, taking mayhem to an art.

They stole and raped and pillaged. Took a dark and fearsome path.

Until they ran into a ringer with a cold and wicked laugh.

There’s a silence in the meadows. She is waiting by the phone.

But her boys don’t call or write. For their sins they must atone.

I’ve been there and I’ve been down and I’ve been missing you. Thought I’d share a truthful bomb. Cause you know we seldom do.

I didn’t know it’d be like this. Yet I saw it from the start. I gave it up so easily, and now I’m just ripping me apart.

I’ve been down, and I’ve been there… You know push comes to shove. You proved to me, and now I know. I’m just too cool for love.

I’ve been down, and I’ve been there. You know push comes to shove. You proved to me, and now I know, I was too cool for love.

The north coast of Nova Scotia is somewhere between the middle of nowhere and God’s country.

Somehow, I was still there when I was 18, and she’d been dead for 7 years. I would still look for her whenever I was in a crowd of people. Straining searching. Imagining that she had faked her death to get away from me. My mother. By the fall of 1977, I guess I figured she was really dead. All of this I kept to myself. Winding wrapped tight. In my tiny bedroom on a twin bed in a mobile trailer on an acre of land at the edge of Deception River is where the nightmare began…

I ripped out the window screen at the foot of the bed one night and the screen at the head of the bed the next. Screaming some nonsensical rage about “I’ll get you! You motherfuckers!” The next morning the fingernails were torn and bloodied from ripping out screens. Both windows smashed.

I could hear the breathing coming from something somewhere. I held my breath and lay still on my bed, making sure it wasn’t me. I looked under the bed and under the trailer. Nothing. I was alone… except for whatever was breathing. It felt like it was coming from inside me. I had never been so terrified. I forgot to pray. I forgot God.

After a few days and nights of this, I realized that I had to leave that bed, that bedroom,that trailer, that acre, that river.

I left and never returned…

I