We both had different ideas about God. He believed. I didn’t.
Neither of us bought into religion and not many topics revolved around theology but we often wondered if there was a higher power at work when it came to our repetition of mischances.
Computers mysteriously blew up, shut down and never returned, sparked, ate papers, locked up, chased us around the room with a cleaver. We’d order parts and they wouldn’t be the right ones, right ones would never show up, new computers replaced the old computers and when we’d take a deep breath and think, thank God that’s over, it would happen again. Almost immediately.
And I know you’re thinking, “quit victimizing yourselves. This happens to everyone.”
Not like this is doesn’t. If you were to map the footprints through our lives you’d want to write your own book chronicling the unrest.
There’s this man, Roy Sullivan, he was hit by lightning SEVEN times. Each of these times the sky decided to shoot him up with electricity like a heroin junkie, Roy lived. He was essentially plagued by lightning strikes. The dude started packing a freaking watering can that traveled everywhere with him. And he had to use it to douse his head because his HAIR was on FIRE. Due to the LIGHTNING.
If you think of all the people in the world and how many are hit even once by lightning it becomes abundantly clear that old Roy Sullivan had become a path of convenience for lightning to travel to get wherever lightning needs to go. Why did he get struck seven times by lightning? He’s proof that it is possible to be bullied by Earth. Or God, or Gods or The Universe. Whatever you want to call it.
Unfair? I don’t know. Maybe Roy burned a village in the 1700’s and in this life he had to suffer by way of heat.
Maybe Kipp tried to start a campfire back in 1814 and lit his curled wig on fire prompting a high tech pilgrim camp to burn down on his run to the Potomac. He’s been settling off his karmic debt since.
I pray Kipp is someplace safe at this moment, away from his PC. Wherever ‘safe’ may be for a guy like Kipp. I picture him in a sunny wheat field. He’s sitting Indian style, chewing on a strand of golden wheat and curling his lips at the sour taste, yet continuing to chomp like a dumb pit bull. There are blue skies. No sign of any living creature in sight, the wind blows through the field shifting the wheat in a synchronized swim. Kipp seems to be enjoying his vacation from Hell and for a moment he stops and smiles. Appreciation for life is breathed in and as he takes a deep sighing exhale he is amazed at the silent peace warming his soul.
A black Grand Piano falls from the sky and crushes him.
His computer would break, and my car would puke, my computer would get hit by lightening and he’d have to wait in a lightening storm to get his car towed, I’d fall down the stairs and break my ankle and he’d get red, blistery cold sores on his nose. People thought he had herpes, even his mom.
Our lives were fucking ugly.
In a willful desperation we decided that we needed a plan. We came up with the double negative theory. Individually Kipp and I were vulnerable. We were too easy to target and become The Universes’ Bitch. However, together, side-by-side, Ellie and Kipp could walk upright. We could drive cars that had working engines and brakes. We could eat food that didn’t strand us on a mall toilet. Without toilet paper.
We could at least be present to witness the other’s pounding if our double negative theory proved incorrect.
A boisterous, theatrical laugh was had by The Universe at our expense. I remember the lift of our eyebrows at the sweet discovery of figuring out how to evade the Hell. If we stayed together, if we clung and clawed at the red flesh of our best friend, we could live.
Yeah, with blisters.
But alive and only notably unlucky not Guinness Book unlucky like Roy.
Together our double negativity would form a crested shield. Our double negativity would be our condom, protecting us from the icky diseases life was so eager to squirt on us.
Kipp and I were, in fact, a double negative together, but we didn’t equal anything positive.
If it weren’t for Kipp who saw it all happen to me, while I watched it all happen to him, we would be considered pathological liars. There would be absolutely no one alive to understand the irrational plunder I took to arrive at my destination. The loneliness I’d feel at having zero acknowledgement for what it took to arrive would push me to suicide.
I’d be nothing but a question mark in the midst of everyone else’s gossip. They’d wonder why I decided to die. My mystery would be my legacy; it’s not like I had anything else to leave.
Life was bleak because it was relentless. There was never just one thing, no matter how bad it got, something worse caused a collision and all the broken parts hit like a round of bullets. We were a horror movie that gets more violent as you watch; eventually the brain matter on the ceiling is unnoticeable.
Poor ole’ Roy. Forty-some years that guy was stalked like prey when the winds blew up and the skies grew dark. He couldn’t get away from it whether he was inside a building or in a truck with rubber tires. Eventually Roy shot himself dead. 71 years is a long time to wonder why.
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