Saturday, June 9, 2012

Heaven and Ice Cream





June 9th, 2012


Among the weeps and sorrow I hear the last words that lay me down to sleep, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

The words echoing into my brain as I slowly fade to black.

My soul rises out of its integument, leaving its carriage behind. I hover above myself as I absorb the life of those around me.

My energy quickly evaporating in thin air as I say goodbye to the carcass that is now empty, soul less. Just remnants of who I once was and who I’ll never be again. My noumenon bouncing around the walls I playfully celebrate my freedom. I pass through my love ones breathing life into their sorrows supplying them with vitality and strength. My essence begins to dissipate but I leave the gift of love as I journey into the heavens.

I move across the bright sky, that even in night, is illuminated by the light that radiates from my aura. I am free as a bird, all my worries left behind. My journey will continue on, but not here not now.

My climb continues above the earth, but not at the speed of light nor the speed of sound. My ascend is slow and deliberate, taking one last glance before I evaporate into the atmosphere. My last look back, I must move forward now and leave behind a life and love that was worth living, as I leave behind the ones whose time has not come.

My spirit becomes energized from within the person I once was, it reinvigorates my vivacity, that had seemed to elude me, before my dissolution. I move closer to space with nothing but time to reflect on the ones I left to mourn me. The beauty in their eyes, the dignity in their spirit, and the love in their hearts. My soul languishes for them knowing that they will never feel this free until their own peregrination into Elysium beckons them.

The blue sky fades to black, as I reach the darkness of outer space. I’m in a vacuum, sucking me towards the stars. I quickly move past the blue horizon, leaving the earth behind. On my way to another world. I don’t need to see behind me to know how small we truly are and who I left behind. I look forward knowing we are meant for greater things, once our time on earth has passed. I am not sad, I am relieved. There is another day, beyond our darkest ones.

My soul is invigorated with strength and power, producing a glow that is brighter then the closest star, my phosphorescence putting on a light show for the people down below, as I move across worlds into my heavenly place. Moving beyond the limits of space, I break through the nebulae of the Interstellar Medium of light, produced by the closest burning star, breaching the ultraviolet illumination of red and blue, that adds color to space's black canvass.

My search for divinity is almost complete, as I pass the outer limits of the galaxy, beyond the deepest imaginations of those on earth and surpassing the written word, as I make new discovers unknown to mankind. I am on the verge of finding myself and why we exist. Going beyond a world I only knew. Moving toward my far away place to rest my soul amongst the ones I have missed. Finally, quenching my thirst to heal and closing my open wounds. Their loss is the only thing that still makes me feel human.

I have traveled farther then any human space voyage has ever traveled before, well beyond the prying eyes of the living, who place telescopes in the sky in search for the meaning of life. The deeper I go in my trek, I realize that I do not fear the unknown anymore. Rambling beyond our Milky Way I find my sense of purpose as it begins to take shape. My destination to Nirvana is filled with anticipation, I can hardly wait. The world I left behind a distant memory now as I approach a new horizon from the depths of a place that is only meant for the afterlife. I am on my way to the promised land, busting through to the Zion;  I enter a world of everlasting peace. Filled with love and admiration, I am home.

I look forward to seeing the ones that have taken this path before me. I can not wait to hear their voices, knowing that I will soon see them again. I have found comfort here. I have found my harmony in this place. I am truly at rest. I long to walk through the door, a passage to my loved ones, gathered around to greet me. To see their shapes to listen to them say, “welcome.”
 

I want to hold my children in my arms and decide who they look like more, me or my wife. To kiss their face and hold their hands. To look at my wife and smile, as we make eye contact and say nothing because there is no need, this moment is real, beyond expression, we are reunited as one, surrounded by our loved ones, we are a family again.

The haziness clears and I zone back to reality. My life is where I left off, I am in my present. I am among the living and I am thankful that I am here. I look at my sons and smile knowing that we have a life here, together. I am grateful to share the time I have with them. I cherish it, but I do not fear when my time comes. I am beholden and appreciative to have them near me now so that we can leave and find our own piece of heaven, here on earth.

A drive down the long road, past the palm trees on a path to ecstasy. Just beyond the red, yellow and green traffic lights and through the sea of red tail lights. Not to far from our final destination now, as we pass the large concrete structures obstructing our view but not our resolve. The moment of truth has arrived, our journey ends.

We exit our transporter and enter through the door that displays the large “WELCOME” sign.

We hear the word we traveled miles and miles to hear, “Welcome to Ice Cream World, how can I help you."

 A little piece of paradise for my boys. Heaven in a scoop of ice cream, to heal their souls.












Christopher Fusaro. The author of Captain Imperfecto.

© copyright 2012. All rights reserved.


Also see us at www.captainimperfecto.com

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

There's Always Time: I've Got Twins, PART VI



June 6th, 2012





I decided to tell this story because it was a pivotal loss we had between losing the twins and the birth of our oldest son, Nico. It was a trying time for her and I. That stretch of time tested everything our relationship was about and everything it was going to be. We were desperate to heal ourselves and try to replace the loss we suffered on that terrible October morning in 2006 when we suffered a double loss of twins the morning we were scheduled to give birth. Mimie was very strong but strength can only last so long.



Theres Always Time: I've got Twins



PART VI




I remove my very bright maglight flashlight from its holster that’s attached to my gun belt and use the 24,000 candle power to light up the inside passenger compartment of the car.

The bright light would shine on a reality of life that is more common then some think. And total bullshit to come across after what Mimie and I just went through. It made me question my faith in God and the process of natural selection.


There are three woman inside the automobile. I could clearly see a blonde female in the back seat of the older model vehicle. It was a little difficult to see the two other female’s in the front seat. But the view of them got better as I moved in closer and my light shed more light on their situation.

There was a haze of smoke in the air causing the light to reflect back against it, but I could see through it as if it were a transparent wall. The light startled them. The girl, sitting in the driver’s seat, attempted to conceal something under her butt, but the window gave way to a clear view of her jumping around as if she was sitting on something hot. Her body language giving her away.

The female in the driver seat lowered the car window. The smell that entered my nostrils through my sinuses and down the back of my throat smelled like burning plastic, but with a flare of sweetness to it. They were smoking crack cocaine.

“What are you doing out here tonight in a parking lot of a closed business?” I inquired the driver in typical police officer fashion. But like a parent already knowing he answer.

“The car won’t start”, the startled and nervous driver said.

She couldn’t have been older then twenty-five years old. Her black hair, brown eyes and olive tone complexion, giving away her Hispanic heritage. She had decent clothes on from what I could see from my advantage point standing outside the car, but the rest of her was a mess.

“Get out of the car for me”, I order her. Her suspicious activity not dispelling my alarm, thus warrants a further investigation. She was, without a doubt, not free to leave.

It appeared that she hadn’t showered in days. But at this stage of her drug life, I don’t think hygiene was her priority. By the looks of all the women in the car, it wasn’t a priority for any of them.

“Okay what are you guys really doing here? Stop bullshitting me. I’m not new to this.” I said to the driver of the car. She was being coy with me but I wanted to hear what I already new. I wasn’t yet a parent but to this point I was truly feeling like one.

“Nothing officer” she said without looking at me, “We basically broke down and we were just chillen until someone came to get us.”

“Well when are they getting here? And why were you arguing?” I said, demanding answers.

“Oh shit, we were messing around we weren’t arguing, damn.” she said with content, “and I don’t know when they are getting here, we haven’t called anyone yet.” She said with some frustration.

I just stared at her but she wouldn’t look at me. She’d averted her eyes to the ground every time she spoke. I felt like I was talking to a wall. I decided to speak with the young girl. Who I first encountered when I arrived into their world.

She was very young, not yet twenty years old. She had blonde hair that was almost white. Her skin was very pale, her body very skinny and she wore glasses.

After talking with the driver of the car this little nineteen year old was way out of her league. Possibly new to the crack game. My trainee took the front passenger out of the car and begun to investigate her story.

“Okay I know what the hell is going on here. She already told me”, I point to the driver “I just want to hear it from you.”

“What did you hear officer?”, the young girl said with a tremble to her voice.

“That you had all the drugs and refused to give them any. In fact, you wanted to fight them, but they were trying to calm you down.” I told her with a straight face.

Her pale skin turned even more flushed, like all the blood was being drained out of her. The thought of those girls placing all the blame on her scared the hell out of her.

“No, No, No!”, she said adamantly, “ that is not how this went down. We were all fighting for the crack but that bitch wouldn’t give it up. Fuck that, I didn’t do shit.”
I have to admit, I was shocked how quickly she turned on them, and even more shocked she was so forthright.

“So who has the crack now?” I inquire.

“Toni” she said pointing in the direction of my trainee who was investigating her.

My eyes follow her arm down to the tip of her index finger. I then gaze beyond her and to her friend Toni. As I size her up, I notice one blaring thing sticking out to me above all, literally. Her very large, very real pregnant stomach sticking out over her waist.

As the nineteen year old continued to confess their sins, I ignored her. I began to walk in the same direction her dirty, calloused, cracked burned finger was pointing at. Ignoring all officer safety protocols, ignoring her, ignoring the driver. I was oblivious to anything else around me.

I approach the passenger and my eyes are locked on her belly. I hear her talking to my trainee but I didn’t give a fuck what she was saying, in mid-sentence I cut her off abruptly.

“Your pregnant?” I ask her stating the obvious.

“Yea, I am” she said with a Spanish and New York accent.

She was an average girl in height. Her hair was black and pulled into a pony tail. She had brown eyes wearing blue jeans a black shirt and had on a light jacket. She wasn’t wearing a maternity shirt, I suppose at the rate she wasn’t being very maternal anyhow.

“Your pregnant?” I ask again, in disbelief.

My eyes are bulging and I am trying to contain what little patience I have in me. I can not believe she is pregnant. I was begin to boil. I am still mourning the loss of our twin daughters just a few short months prior to this.

“Yea, I am so what.” she said with an attitude.

She rolls her eyes like a child and sucks her lips in. Her stance is one of pride and she won’t back down from this confrontation. She crosses her arms in defiance. Resting them on the large bubble that is her stomach.

“Your fighting over crack cocaine, in a fucking parking lot, at two in the morning, and your fucking pregnant.” I say sternly, still in disbelief.

My focus is solely on her. Thankfully there is other officers here since I am no longer aware of my surroundings. As far as I was concerned it was just her and I in the world.
“I ain’t smoking no fucking crack.” she says adamantly.

I can see the red in her face even in this low light. I can’t tell if its embarrassment or genuine anger at the fact I am judging her. But when your in a crack filled car bearing a child I will judge your character.

“That’s not what she said.” I point back at the blonde, “in fact, she said you have the crack on you. She must not think too highly of you. And honestly I’m not right now either.”

“I ain’t smoking no crack.” she said again getting more angry. “ I don’t give a fuck what the ho says.”

“Bullshit you aren’t smoking crack. And your fucking pregnant!” My voice elevating cutting her off before she can finish a thought.

She patiently waits for me to finish my rant.

“Let me tell you something Mr. Officer, I may smoke a little weed and snort some cocaine, but I ain’t smoking no crack, I got twins in here”, placing both hands on the sides of her stomach, she grabs her belly and lifts it up.

My demeanor blew up within me and the debris spewed from my mouth with all the anger of a two year old being told no. I point my finger at her and started to yell whatever came in my mind. My voice raising higher and higher as hearing about her twins continued to be absorbed through my fragile exterior and into my being.

Another officer pulls me back by grabbing the rear of my gun belt as I continue my verbal tirade. He uses the momentum of my attempt to work my way out of his grasp by swinging me around in a semi-circle. He bear hugs me and pushes me away like a offensive lineman defending against a defensive lineman protecting his quarterback.

He backs me into the side of my police car and braces me against it as I continue to yell. The crack smoking pregnant female is just staring at me unable to move not fully understanding why I am taking it personal.

After I calmed down, I had to sit in my patrol car. Removing myself from the situation. It became too personal for me and I could not work through my pain and anger to follow through with the rest of the investigation. My supervisor assigned it and my trainee to someone else for the night and I went home.

It always bothered my that I never gave her my card, thinking that maybe I could adopt the children when they were born.

This incident is something that will stick with my for all my days. It was a sad story to tell Mimie. It amazed us how ungrateful some people were that they had a gift to procreate.

The honor bestowed on them to continue the human race. This wasn’t a political debate about a woman’s right to choose. It was more of moral debate about the choice’s she made throughout her life.

It’s a story I’d share again over our breakfast on this day, as we talked about the potential of losing this pregnancy in its infancy. The idea that we had to struggle knowing that we would be excellent parents and the knowledge that their were others, like the girl with the twins, who didn’t appreciate that gift, seemed unfair. But who ever said life was.

PART VII JULY 2ND, 2012 at 3:00pm Est.










Christopher Fusaro. The author of Captain Imperfecto.

© copyright 2012. All rights reserved.


Also see us at www.captainimperfecto.com

Monday, June 4, 2012

My Boys Need Superman





June 4th, 2012

What’s worse then being sick? Being sick and having two hyper toddlers running around that want you healthy and joyful. Unrelenting bosses who don’t care how you feel. The only thing they know is, that your Superman, and nothing can bring you down. They need me no matter what. Being sick is not an excuse, or an option.

I can feel the physical decline begin. The scratchiness in the throat, the prelude to the - Oh shit, I’m getting fucking sick- thought crosses my mind like a incandescent light bulb being flicked on. The runny nose drips like a leaky faucet. Coating the back of my throat. To make matters worse, it gives me double the trouble, as the mucus finds its way out of my nostrils. Like when my two year old when he cries.

I try to take care of myself, doing my best to avoid getting sick. My thinking is, that appearing healthy physically on the outside, would encourage my internal self to get with the program and feel healthy on the inside. I guess I should have taken more meds and less meditation.

I don’t want to deal with it. I want to return the sickness that is over taking my body to wherever it came from. The fatigue is already setting in. The aching in my joints when I move restricting what little flexibility my age hasn’t taken away from me. I need control again. My own body refusing to listen to me and giving way to my weakness. But I can’t. Not with these emotions I am dealing with. There is no returning the flu when it comes to you. There is no returning the grief when it happens to you. You have to stay strong for the ones that need you, the ones that depend on you.

My kids need Superman. They need my body filled with vigor and strength. They are sick as well. They need me to swoop in at a single bound and change their diapers that their stomach isn’t allowing to keep clean. My boys need me to arrive on time to give them their four hour cycle of medicine. They need my night vision to find them in the middle of the dark night to take care of the chills that is attacking their skin.

They just don’t need dad, they need  their super hero. But Superman feels down. I feel like I am drowning in my sickness and grief like Superman did on the bottom of Lex Luthor’s pool. Only Miss Teschmacher isn’t here to save me. She’s back in Hackensack.

My age conspires with my sickness in their evil plot to take control of my boys universe and take me down.  My head pounds and I feel more weak with each day gone by. My chest fills with fluid that my nose can no longer store in its passages. I am tired without a break in sight. Mentally, I try to keep the fight on, but it is so easy to give up. If I could fly around the earth to switch the rotation of the world to make things right I would. My grief over losing my wife joining  in with my sickness and age, forming its own Legion of Doom, giving way to more bad days then good. Their pressure weighing on me to the point where I broke down in front of my kids. Mixing tears in their milk as I fed them breakfast out of their cereal bowl. I’m in the diner from hell where Superman felt mortal for the first time. Getting my ass kicked by a truck driver. I am down. I am down in all aspects of the word.

I hear a cough. It’s loud, like a seal. It blocks out over thing else around me. The pain I am in, the misery I feel, the lack of fight in me. All of it blocked.

Something so simple yet so powerful. My youngest son has been sick. I’m his Superman. I have to try and be impervious to my own weaknesses and cast them to the wayside. He needs his third dose of Tylenol. I have to give him his breathing treatment so he doesn’t get croup. The source of the seal cough. 

I remind myself that I can not get sick. I can not feel down. I can not get into a car accident or plane crash. I can’t get cancer or get shot working my job as a police officer. I have to be their Superman, their everything. That has to be my motivation. My body has to fight off the weakness and destroy the evil plot against me to regain control of myself.

My son is on a runaway train or suspended from a helicopter. He needs me, they both need me. There will always be a new nemeses, once you defeat one, there is another. Doesn’t every super hero at one time or another have to fight their inner self in order to come out stronger on the other side? History has always taught us that. I will always win.

Where there is weakness for my boys. I will be there. When they need a parent. I will guide them. When they need a friend. I will be their best friend. When they need a hand, I will offer two. I will conquer my inability to motivate myself, for them, because without me, they are naked. Like Metropolis is naked without Superman.

They need not fear though. For all they have to do is, "look up in the sky. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's" their Superman!










Christopher Fusaro. The author of Captain Imperfecto.

© copyright 2012. All rights reserved.


Also see us at www.captainimperfecto.com