Chaos everywhere in the five county area and by the time I creep into the last ER I’ve had more than my fill of manic-depressives and opiate suicides gone awry. I drop my gear and sift through the patient fridge for a Gatorade G2.

“No Grape?” I ask Jody, the nurse.

Swiping her name tag, she ducks into the doctor’s lounge and returns with a purple drink.

“Thanks,” I say, twisting off the top. “So what you got?”

“Well,” she sighs, puffing bangs from her eyes. “By the time she got here she’d already shucked off all her clothes and throwed them out the cop car window. Then when they dragged her through the double doors she stripped off the sheet they wrapped her in and shouted “I AM THE ARK OF THE COVENANT - do not touch meeeeeeeeeeee….” Jody claws up her fists and screeches the last line.

“Alright then,” I respond, pulling deeply against the grape.

“Bed nine,” she grunts, tossing over the chart. “Took six of us but she’s in four-point restraints and a hospital gown. For now.”

I knock against nine’s wall and pull the curtain back. The girl is mid-twenties maybe, with witch black hair, baby blue eyeshadow, and a face ravaged by acne scars. She’s upright in bed, latched at the wrists and ankles and scowling me down with the cackle of the damned.

Jody’s on my tail. “I wanna see this,” she clucks.

I stride forth and offer my hand. She flinches back and pulls against the straps. “I do not shake hands with the devil’s son,” she says with disgust.

Jody lets out a short whoop and leaves the room.

I pull a stool over and sit by the bed. The patient turns her head slowly towards me, as if rotated by gears. “You,” she commands. “Look into mine eyes and know what it is to be loved.”

I slide in. We lock eyes. “OK. Sure.”

She stares intently, like trying to bend metal with her mind. God’s love, I think, Try not to smirk. Monster be nice.

A minute seems endless when you are staring into the eyes of a stranger. The monster is me, I consider, toying with those acutely psychotic. Love of God, I recall. Be nice, be kind, do no harm.

Time crawls and two minutes pass slowly as the waters beneath the Silver Creek Bridge. She moves closer. Her breath is hot and faintly smells of SweetTarts. Peace of God. Mercy, I pray. Lord, let the straps hold.

Three minutes, four. Silence, save for the soft hum of florescents and sirens far away.  Closer still, she comes, until our faces nearly touch. Enough.There is a sadness. Leave. Go. I cannot fathom. No. Stay.

The emerald of her iris flickers in the light. Somehow I know the hell she has been through. Stop the melodrama. I want to tell her that we are all so damaged. The darkest heart hopes for beauty still. But sometimes there’s just no words. Somebody’s baby, somebody’s sister, somebody’s friend.

“Anna, c’mon.” I say softly.

She looks away, as if staring through windows only she can see. “You can go now.”

Imprints of the buckles and leather mark her arms. Her gown is torn and falling away. I stand to leave. “Is there anything I can do?”

She shakes her head.

“Want something to drink?”

“Juice,” she says quietly.

“Juice?”

“Juice.”

“That it?”

She shrinks into herself and in a tiny voice asks: “Do you have any extra underwear?”

There is no rush to speak in jails and emergency rooms. Words can breathe. Questions linger. It’s never awkward.

“Juice. Underwear. See what I can do.” I turn to go. At the door she calls out to me.

“Hey mister.”

“Yeah?”

“So. Do you feel any more loved now?”

Sometimes the job is a blessing, other times a curse. Sometimes it’s sport, other times all too serious. Sometimes I know why I’m here, other times I don’t have the first damn clue.

“Yes ma’am,” I reply. “I do.”

***************************************************

JAMES MICHAEL BLAINE is an accidental psychotherapist, bass-playing rapper in Music City’s third most popular party band; personal fitness trainer and prize fight manager (permit good only in the state of Georgia). As likely to quote Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach as Saint Augustine, he’s a licensed suicide specialist who helps break southern rap artists and writes songs for secretly gay Nashville cowboys. He has worked in libraries, haunted houses, megachurches, radio stations, roller rinks and may or may not have been the infamous Japanese masked wrestler “Sir Pink” who was booed lustily in auction barns and National Guard armories across the rural South. JM has been welcomed into the Vanderbilt MFA program, just as soon as he can more efficiently channel his “inner Yeats.” He is happily married to a Vandy med school student and former ballet dancer. They have no children, no pets and no yard.

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THE IRRESPONSIBLES: We are a collective of nonfiction writers who are mostly Gen X misfits. There’s a few stragglers. We love them too. Either way, the Irresponsibles are part of a collective exploring life through creative nonfiction. It’s more than just a group of writers, but a core who believe in group writer therapy with each other, since we can’t afford it on our own. We like to get to know and write about each other too. If you’re interested in being one of the Irresponsibles, first admit to yourself that you are irresponsible. Then, send a query to nonfiction@facebakersfield.com. In your query, list any applicable writing credentials and a sample. This section is brought to you by Noveltown.

MORE: James Michael Blaine Irresponsibles Stories

We eventually made out way to the Doubletree Hotel where Bakotopia was hosting the comic-con (that’s how they spell Comicon). We went straight to the Hectic Films booth where it was all mayhem: actors, filmmakers, goofiness and a table full of goodies.

I then followed along as Spike TV’s “Deadliest Warrior,” and movie “The Lackey” director Shaun Piccinino (yes he does it all!) passed out fliers for a sneak peek of his gangster-hitman film. “The Lackey” is being shot mostly in Bakersfield. Think dark alleyways in Old Town Kern and quaint city streets that capture Bakersfield’s hodge podge of Sixties and Seventies downtown architecture.

Watch the zaniness unfold:

See, while Bakersfield isn’t all that beautiful, it’s got a vibe that’s great for filmmakers. Piccinino is also a dangerous character in the Hectic Films zombie flick “Phase Two.” Clips of that movie were up for sneak peeks as well. So blend hitmen and zombies and the weird nature of filmmakers with a comic book convention and you have a wacky world of people in costumes, makeup, and out for some collectible fun.

I was the host during the filmmaker panel and got to talk to the hot up-and-coming actress Jessica Erin Sylvia, as well as comedic action-movie actors Matt Thompson and Robin Steffen. Good times. The movie clips were fast paced. The house was full of curious film fans, and there was a genuine buzz in the air as Hectic Films had outdone themselves in their ability to work on interesting films and network with Los Angeles filmmakers and actors.

I later spoke with Sylvia about her acting in an upcoming Mothman film for the Sci-Fi Channel. With all the Mothman stories I’ve been telling lately in my book “Random Obsessions,” it was a weird conversation just waiting to happen. Of course some rather gruesome events happen in the film that’s set in swampy backwoods West Virginia. But I better not give away the plot or what happens to Sylvia in the made-for-TV flick.

On a personal note, I got to meet former MAD Magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragones inside the actual Bako Comicon event. He’s a childhood hero of mine in the world of irreverent art. I passed him a copy of my book “Random Obsessions” that talks about him in the intro and how he inspired me as a kid. He in turn handed me a copy of the book “Wertham Was Right” (2003) that he illustrated. I should add he also signed an original copy of a a MAD Magazine U.S. map that he illustrated decades ago. Matt Munoz had presented me with the artifact from my youth at Borders Bookstore in Bakersfield earlier this year at a book gig.

Talk about a day of magical moments. It was filled with many, as after I left I then got to celebrate my son Jordan’s 20th birthday.

More info:
www.hecticfilms.com
www.thelackeymovie.com

Actress-model Jessica Erin Sylvia with actor Matt Thompson of Phase Two

Matt Munoz of where? and Rickey Bird behind the screen at Bako Comicon

Me in the middle (Nick Belardes) with film stars Matt Thompson and Jessica Erin Sylvia

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For some reason Mondays bring the most reader mail. I don’t know if it’s because people have more time over the weekend and decide that writing to me is preferable to cleaning out the garage or what, but the mailbox always seems to be particularly stuffed come the start of the week.

Today I received two e-mails that–for very different reasons–made me happy. Here’s the first one. (Note: I’ve changed the writers’ names, but the text is unedited.)

Mr. Ford,

Were you born a homosexual or did you choose to become one (long story short I’m writing a research paper for my English 104 class and I came upon your book, and I just HAD to email you)?

Thank You,
Debbie in Dubuque

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE at RedRoom.com!

The atheist and the believer walked together on the path that followed the highway, looking for light.

Everything visible was dampened gray, as if some colossal waterlogged blanket was thrown on top of their sky and hung there, dripping. Incessant raindrops had been pricking their faces for over two hours, and the cutting wind foretold the road ahead without visible end. The others had gone ahead, and they couldn’t see anything except for the highway to their right, the miry path directly in front and the snow-quilted fields to the left that were melting reluctantly in the cold rain.

The panorama was muddy, leaden, soppy.

“That’s the thing,” the believer explained, whose face was hidden behind his poncho, “Of all the religions in the world, even though they say different things, you know, in the details, the principal belief –what everyone believes– it’s the same.”

“Really?” the atheist questioned. “Didya know that of the twelve official world religions currently in the world, one doesn’t agree.”

“Which one?”

“Jainism.” The atheist looked at the believer, who kept looking ahead. “From India,” he continued, “it’s the only religion that’s completely atheistic,” he detailed. “They don’t believe a God exists, nor do they believe in life after death. And in order to obtain salvation, instead of amassing wealth to guarantee a comfortable ending, [...].

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE at TheNervousBreakdown.com!

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Who, in this reading audience, hates moose and thinks they should die, should be wiped off the face of the Earth? (Sarah Palin, put your hand down.)

Moose aren’t typically seen as evil—they’re innocently goofy-looking, slow lumbering, vegetarian beasts. They’re even mildly cute in a gangly, too-big-for-their-own-good sort of way.

Think about Bullwinkle, and a certain sweetish, inexpensive Canadian beer. Consider how a fine rack of antlers may be a prized possession, handed down for generations. Maybe even imagine gulping down a steaming bowl of Moose Chili, stirred by Sarah herself, in her Wasilla kitchen (even though I’ve read that she doesn’t really cook).

Moose are associated with many reasonably good things, aren’t they?

I’m sure that if you’ve ever hit a moose with your car or been charged by a seven-foot-tall, three thousand pound moose during rutting season then okay, you might not think too charitably about moose.

Still, moose are not the natural enemies of people, nor our first, most hated creatures. Moose are not quite like snakes or sharks or even crocodiles.

But moose (especially moose heads on walls) are my ten-year-old daughter’s primary fear.

I’ll be honest: she has a short list of phobias, but most of them have to do with taxidermy, particularly stuffed heads of moose nailed to wooden plaques, staring down with brown, glassy eyes and bulbous (if velvety) noses.

I remember speaking with a psychic when my daughter was around two. My daughter has a very unusual name, but the psychic nearly guessed it (yes, without ever being told). Then she asked about moose.

“I see moose,” the psychic said, in a dreamy, monotone voice. “Lots of moose heads.”

I had no idea what this famous psychic was talking about. It sounded bizarre, implausible, and yet, it was so odd—moose heads? Wha?—that I didn’t discount it.

I’ve heard psychics say, “You will take a trip over water,” or “I see you attending a funeral,” but predictions of moose heads? No. Still, moose, at that moment, meant next to nothing to me.

This conversation with the psychic happened a couple of months before my daughter formed her moose phobia. Then we took a trip to a family resort on a small, Minnesota island. There, on that island, to my surprise, moose were the mascots. Cute, fuzzy, cuddly moose toys were all over the place and even pinned to trees.

My daughter didn’t seem to have a problem with that—but maybe Minnesota is where she first formed her moose fears. I thought the mini-vacation went pretty well, but who knows how it felt to her?

The following year, we ate in a restaurant in Florida that had animal heads tacked on the walls. A lion, a giraffe, maybe an elephant. I don’t think they were real (though they were rather frightening to my three-year-old daughter who averted her eyes and seemed to be nervous).

In the next room was a moose head. When she saw it (on our way to the bathroom), my young daughter screamed like in the shower scene from “Psycho.”

After that, it was downhill. Moose were a menace. My daughter had nightmares about moose. She hated—still hates—to even see the silhouette of antlers on cars’ stickers. Any antlers of any kind set her to trembling.

To no avail, I described to my daughter how I once saw two baby moose in Glacier National Park, and they were soooo cute, the way they cocked their heads at me, peered at me from behind some pine trees and seemed to be sort of smiling. They were curious, innocent, adorable creatures, I explained.

“Don’t talk about moose!” shouted my daughter. “I hate them! Moose! Aggh!” My daughter nixes all talk of travel to any national park, to Canada or even Maine–all because of the possibility (however remote) of seeing moose.

Her moose phobia (although we live in Philadelphia) has even become a bit of a local problem. I have to check each and every restaurant and some hotels and other institutions for moose heads before my daughter will walk in. This gets tiresome. It seems crazy. Sometimes, I rebel.

“You know what? You are being ridiculous,” I told her. “You’re out of line. Afraid of moose heads? We’re in the city, honey. There are no moose in the city. None. What are the chances of seeing a moose head around here?” I firmly steered my child into a restaurant.

Boom. Right in front of us, a horned boar head glared from the wall. My daughter fled in fright, stifling a scream.

So you’d think I’d learn my lesson at this point: you never know where there could be a moose head, or any sort of animal head with big horns attached to it.

Wrong. You may never know where there could be taxidermy, but people’s propensity for hunting trophies—that’s utterly unpredictable and seemingly insatiable.

We tried another restaurant with my firm assurances that the chances of animal head décor had to be nil. Theyhad to be. Right? This restaurant had nothing to do with the North Woods. Its name included the word “fish.”

Try four moose heads. Four. One on each wall.

I thought we might need a sedative. Industrial strength.

“Why do people do that?!” my daughter wailed.

Why, indeed? And why haven’t I learned yet that you just never know where there’s going to be a moose head?

*************************************

ELIZABETH COLLINS is a writer and a teacher of writing and literature. She lives near Philadelphia. She has two kids and has her MFA in writing from the University of Iowa. She has won numerous prizes, including the Columbia University Nonfiction Prize. She is working on short stories and essays and mulling over her next novel project. She used to work as a journalist, and she appreciates absurdity in all its forms.

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THE IRRESPONSIBLES: We are a collective of nonfiction writers who are mostly Gen X misfits. There’s a few stragglers. We love them too. Either way, the Irresponsibles are part of a collective exploring life through creative nonfiction. It’s more than just a group of writers, but a core who believe in group writer therapy with each other, since we can’t afford it on our own. We like to get to know and write about each other too. If you’re interested in being one of the Irresponsibles, first admit to yourself that you are irresponsible. Then, send a query to nickbelardes@yahoo.com. In your query, list any applicable writing credentials and a sample.

*************************************

More Elizabeth Collins Irresponsibles Stories

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For the first time in my life, this past week I felt pity. It may sound strange as the word is so commonplace and yet it was profound experience.

As a writer, I am fascinated by the near impossible challenge of capturing human experience in words. It is the ultimate paradox: to attempt to capture the subtleties, complexities and vastness of human experience with materials and tools that are inherently inadequate and ill-suited to the job.

This means that I am always astounded when I grasp the meaning of a particular word. That is always an exhilarating moment of epiphany, when a commonly used word or phrase takes on new and powerful emotional resonance and understanding. It is a flash of insight into a word’s original use. Those moments are like an instant journey through human history into the very dawn of time, to that first moment when that emotion was felt and expressed by some anonymous human ancestor.

It is also a strangely mystical experience: as if for that instant I am connected to the entire unfathomable spectrum of humanity, from its very origins to my own. In that instant there is magic: of sudden understanding of how extraordinary the human mind is, and how extraordinary our journey through time and space has been as a species.

And while mysticism and evolution are not two words that normally go together, [...].

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE at RedRoom.com!

Rich Ferguson, because it’s your birthday and because you just make being a Bond Girl so insanely cool, we’ve run a little contest in your honor: Who Makes the Best Bond Girl?

As you will see, several of the TNB guys have slipped into something a little more comfortable in your honor. So, quiet your inner Wai Lin, have a martini and leave your briefcase tear gas canister and testosterone at the door.

We all know what a cool Bond girl Rich makes [...].

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE at TheNervousBreakdown.com!

Like any other issue, the question of defending or excusing the behavior of Roman Polanski is vastly more nuanced that either Geraldine Ferraro (jail for life, how could you think otherwise?) or Debra Winger (he’s a great artist, this is an outrage) would have it. The abuse of a minor, on the surface, is a frightening and indefensible act. Perhaps even more frightening is the widespread talkshow/blogosphere slant which seems to imply that questioning a presumption of indefensibility is tantamount to approving the behavior. While certain people have been pilloried for standing by Polanski’s side, few of them have been ask to explain their position at greater length.

What I find particularly interesting is the European response, which has generally amounted to a shrug and a yawn, with barbed comments about American prurience tossed in like sprigs of parsley. While we may never live down the justified derision over our hysterical treatment of Bill Clinton’s blowjob ten years ago, the degree of Continental diffidence over Polanski’s rape has been surprisingly pointed. Without question, Americans make a game of fetishizing their celebrities prior to searching for the least excuse to damn them, even if just for being too celebrated. Europeans tend to lionize a much smaller group, and for more demonstrably intellectual talents, but also tend to support them through more dire transgressions, both sexual and violent. Polanski is an artiste of the most rarified degree in Paris, but remains the guy who made The Ninth Gate in Akron.

As far as I’m concerned, the debatable artistic merits of Polanski’s oeuvre are irrelevant to the question of whether he should be (further) punished. He committed a loathsome act, under dubious circumstances, and his artistic life changes none of the details. Knife in the Water, The Tenant, and Chinatown are three of my all-time favorite movies. Bitter Moon and Frantic were laughably awful, self-indulgent messes. Does a mediocre director deserve to do harder time than one who expressed himself with aesthetic consistency? Do we need to go down a list of revered names, from Oscar Wilde to Flaubert to Wagner to Mapplethorpe, and try to divorce their contemptible or merely shocking behaviors from the ones we deem acceptable? And then, further, apply some sort of calculus as to how we will subsequently appreciate their art?

What does matter, and what I hear almost no one mentioning, is Polanski’s background. Not his artistic background, but his background as a human being. Geraldine Ferraro ignorantly and self-righteously claimed in her recent NY Times polemic that “he’s rich and continues to lead a charmed life.” Ms. Ferraro, apparently not having done an ounce of research since vetting Walter Mondale’s chances of winning more than one state against Ronald Reagan, could not be more wrong. Polanski lived through a horrific childhood, a childhood of truly cinematic brutality and deprivation in the woods of Europe as a Jewish orphan riding out the end of World War Two. His pregnant mother was killed at Auschwitz. Jerzey Kozinski, in fact, based his epic and disturbing work, The Painted Bird, on Polanski’s early experiences. If even a tenth of Kozinski’s book is true, it’s astonishing that Polanski managed to make what he did of his life, let alone expressing a creative vision that wasn’t entirely one of dissolution and madness. Twenty years later, in a quintessentially American example of   brutal irony, Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was also horribly murdered. Her death, at the hands of the Manson Family, was one of the most sensationalized and bizarre episodes in a decade ridden with war, massive cultural upheaval, and narcotic self-abasement. Should we not at least take into account these factors when determining whether Polanski is a dangerous pedophile or a thoroughly flawed person who may, due to those experiences, have lost a certain degree of rationality and judgment at the time of his crime? This is the problem with adjudicating thirty years after the fact. It is simply unfair, if not unjust, to take any behavior out of the context of its era. Is it morally relativist to think we may not be entirely capable of judging decisions made under the moral yoke of Spiro Agnew, napalm, Owsley, and monthly political assassinations? Certainly any judge or jury or editorial could have then. And they did. A deal was reached, likely in some part because of Polanski’s celebrity, that seems ludicrously lenient now. But there were also unanswered questions that made the prosecution more difficult. Like, for instance, why was this girl made up to look like an adult and then dropped off at Jack Nicholson’s house at night by her mother, who without question knew her daughter would be alone with a notorious director? We can never know the answer, just as we can never know Polanski’s mindset, but what is certain is that we were very different people then. There were no missing child photos on milk cartons. There were no gossip websites or instantaneous cellphone photography to curb public behavior. In the drug-and-libertine haze of early seventies Hollywood there were few limits on debauchery, let alone documentaries about the Jon Benet-style sexualization of young girls,  or the very public Lohan and Spears censure of stage mothers who thrust their daughters into inexcusable situations in exchange for potential careers. If Polanski is to be brought to justice, why are there no similar calls for charges to be filed against the girl’s astonishingly and criminally negligent mother?

None of this excuses the fact that Polanski offered drugs to (Not “drugged” as is lazily reported, but implies shoving the pill down her throat), and then had sex with, a thirteen year-old girl. He is undoubtedly guilty of those acts. But was it an act of pedophilia, one to be followed by a lifetime of similarly abhorrent behavior, or was it a singular incident? The fact that Polanski is now seventy-six and married to a vastly younger and very attractive actress invites this sort of conjecture. Either way, he has admitted to his actions, in detail (the nauseating court records of which can be found online) and he should be punished for it. But after all this time, how should he be punished, and exactly for what? He paid the girl’s family half a million dollars to settle a civil suit. The victim has repeatedly argued against further prosecution. Polanski has been exiled for thirty years, which has likely cost him a fortune and a great deal of artistic freedom. He has also already and voluntarily served a month and a half in a California jail, as agreed to by the judge and prosecutor as part of the original plea agreement. A plea agreement the judge was, apparently, prepared to renege on. Which is why Polanski fled the country in the first place.

Ultimately where this conjecture brings us, as do so many insoluble arguments in this country, is to the hypocrisy and ultimate failure of the American justice system. From O.J to Enron to a guy doing fifteen years in Texas for a few joints, the inequity of sentencing and the capriciousness of public outrage affecting judgments renders any self-righteous punditry laughable, if not dangerous.

I have a young daughter. Even before her birth, but more so now, my personal feelings on child predation fall squarely in the Castrate Now/Death Penalty arena. But, when I’m done feeling both vengefully sated and intellectually dishonest, I’m forced to look at specific circumstances and ask myself unanswerable questions. Like about the fact that most pedophiles are childhood victims of abuse themselves. When does a neglected, abused child no longer become pitiable? At what point do they change their shirt and haircut and become a monster? Is there any way we will ever be able to truly assess levels of psycho-sexual sickness, for which there may be no effective therapy, let alone cure?

The Polanski decision, whatever course it takes, is emblematic of the division of right and left in this country. The right wants hard facts, the thrill of certainty, the pleasure of denouncement, the unwillingness to consider nuance in the face of slapping five and chuckling at liberal positions. The left wants petitions, excuses, an unwillingness to grapple with the ramifications of blanket leniency, and a free pass for the hypocrisy of only weighing in on social issues when they affect celebrities. Where were Debra Winger and Harrison Ford last week when the FOX hit machine was publicly dismantling ACORN? And even if one of them did get up and plea for healthcare or low-income housing, would the cable news, right or left, have bothered to cover it?

I haven’t made my mind up about what should happen to Roman Polanski. I’m not sure what would be justice for the girl, or even simply a fair outcome given the myriad exigencies. What I do know is that I could not give a shit less about Polanski’s value as an artist. It has absolutely nothing to do with the question. In the end, almost all artists in almost every artistic medium are self-indulgent, narcissistic, empathy-deficient, and subconsciously empowered to feel above certain societal constraints. And they always have been. One could make the case that some or all of those qualities are required in order to access the creativity and discipline to make truly transcendent art. But what about those of us that make mediocre art? Or really shitty art? Does the director of Transformers deserve a free pass for his (just guessing here) forays into bestiality because he shot and edited three hours of truck-bots smashing into one another? Talking heads on both sides always say “there are two sets of rules,” for people in our society, which is a lazy cliché. There are a thousand sets of rules, which means there are really no rules. What we have is a random, fluid, utterly arbitrary and rarely just media that delivers both ratings and floggings book-ended by dysfunction commercials, erectile or otherwise.

Polanski will or won’t be extradited.

He will or won’t do more jail time.

There will or won’t be a consensus as to whether justice was served.

What is virtually certain is that a few days from now some Ukrainian tennis player or B-list sit com actor will be caught doing something demonstrably worse, or at least fresh, and twenty-four hour cable artillery will be recalibrated elsewhere.

SEAN BEAUDOIN is the author of Going Nowhere Faster, Fade to Blue, and the forthcoming You Killed Wesley Payne(Little, Brown, fall 2010). His stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications including: the Onion, theSan Francisco Chronicle, Glimmer Train, Narrative, Opium, and the New Orleans Review.
www.seanbeaudoin.com