AN UNTITLED NOVEL

The Trials of H.P. DiVelga *

The Unlucky Lot

I.

As I stand atop the front steps of an old friend’s apartment, the fear of an undeniable and
uncomfortable look of disgust, pity, shame, and uncertainty crossing his face prevents me from
ringing the bell. I turn away and step down the decrepit, light-colored stone steps.
“Actually…”
That is what I say.
I say this when I change my mind; need to turn around; go in a different direction. I never
have a proper destination when I walk, so I often decide on a whim where to go.
I say it because I believe that everyone around me is watching me at all times. I’m sort of
an entertainment for God-knows-who. So, I say it outloud.
I turn and look back at the bright green, wooden door with a gold handle.
Luckily, they shouldn’t be able to see me from their window at this angle.
By ‘they’ I mean Mark and Rosie.
Mark Rowan is a now successful illustrator who lives in Paris and spends his days
galavanting throughout the city with his girlfriend Rosie.
I grew up with Mark in America. I have never met Rosie.
We were best friends for a long time until he moved away to Paris two years back. What
brought him here was a hopeful annihilation of the torment from our schooling back home,
where he was scolded by the teachers for drawing, and forced to study mathematics. Mark loved
to draw. It was his favorite thing to do when we were kids.
I continued on to college for two full semesters. I dropped out six months ago.
Since then, I have clamored to admit that I have a giant empty hole living inside of me. I
believe this to be true, and I believe it to be potentially fixable. I’ve always been a broken
person, and now, at nineteen, I am on my search to find out why.
Once I dropped out I spent a lot of my time laying in bed. I envisioned myself back in
grade school: the teachers fielding for answers, the brown desks tightly pushed together in rows-
the placement of yellow pencils at the top of each one.
In my vision I look over to my right and see Mark, he is drawing a picture of creatures
and animals that I couldn’t even begin to imagine, or let alone have the mind strength to sit and
perfect its features into existence. I know Mark will be there by my side, just as he was in school.
So, I came to Paris.
I reach the sidewalk and get my bearings.
The fear and and emptiness that sits inside my body propels me to leave and walk around
the city.
I don’t look back up at the apartment in order to prevent making eye contact with them. I
know there is probably too much sun glare, anyways - but you can never be too sure.
I decide to walk around again, this time in the opposite direction from where I came.
I pass by stores, boutiques, many that have beautiful flowers in large, painted vases; the
purple colored vases with the bright, yellow flowers are the prettiest.
There are several orange-colored cats laying around too; they appear to just sit in the
shade for hours, watching the light of the sun spread itself out onto the day. As I continue down
the sidewalk along the store fronts, I take in Paris:
I pass by a large yellow sign that probably reads: “sandwich shop” in French.
I can’t read French.
I see large breads and various meats and cheeses in the window. The cheeses have small
holes in them, and the meat is folded neatly into thin, individual slices.
I notice I stare at everybody that walks by me, left, right, walking by, right and left,
looking them right in the eyes. I don’t necessarily want them to look at me, though. I mostly just
enjoy finding what it is I like in people.
Sometimes, you see someone you like a lot in.
When I heard Mark had met a girl named Rosie I was excited. My childhood friend,
finally getting to enjoy love, sex, romance in all its parts. We always dreamed of going on dates
together. I always preferred red haired girls, Mark liked brunettes.
I am afraid Mark will be disappointed in how I’ve turned out.
Since he has seen me, I have turned from a strong boy, into a weak man.
How does a weak man cure himself? How does someone who is so desperate to find their
place in the world ​begin​ to find their place in the world?
These are questions I planned on finding answers to.
I always thought that life was ​too​ quiet. I knew that as a child there was chaos brewing
inside of me.
Ironically, that “chaos” was emptiness.
The second I left the routinely regimented operations of grade school, the quietness I
grew weary of broke into an endless scream of sound.
I went away to college, dropped out, crawled my way home, and became “a burden to
everyone, and a strange human being”.
So, I sent Mark a letter, and in a roundabout way I came here with the intention of being
fixed.
God can’t create a completely broken person, can He?
 Actually, I know quite a few - one of them was named Henry Dogthorn. He ​was​ a writer.
In fact, he loved writing so much, and not talking to people, that when he met the girl of
his dreams he could only find ways to share his love for her through writing.
The perfect love he wrote about in no way matched reality, when she learnt of his
obsessive behavior and he would not stop writing.
He couldn’t even make love to her, he was so entranced in written words.
So she left him, obviously.
Now he works at a deli; in my hometown, actually.
So if God can create completely broken people, how does one come to terms with the fact
that they are part of the unlucky lot?
The street is opening up and there are more people buzzing around. I become hit with hot
Paris sun and beaming French voices. Walks for me are the body’s way of turning off the
mind, and letting thoughts roam free.
A poet to me is someone who can take those thoughts, and place them into a satisfying
order. Much like the meats and cheeses in the window of the “sandwich shop”.
A genius is someone who can convince the world that they are able to think up the
thoughts by themselves; that they can walk at will, even when they aren’t moving.
To me, all geniuses are just poets. And that’s still saying a lot.
I, am neither of those.
“Actually…”
The boutique with knit sweaters looked enticing, but, realizing I had no euros, I turned
and began walking towards the white Chapel.
I am Harris Porter DiVelga.
A broken man; a one-man-army.
Sadly, that means my entire battalion is broken, dead.

II.

I reach the white Chapel.

It sits like a frog on a lily pad; the surrounding streets that extend outwardly on its sides
hold it like a pond.
The Chapel is on the corner of La Rue St. Jacques and St. Catherine.
The two streets meet at the front of the Chapel, like a point in a triangle.
The two front doors of the Chapel are deep, apple red.
I decide that I can go back to Mark and Rosie’s apartment later in the day. Now, I want to
see what the inside of the Chapel looks like. I’ve never properly been inside of one. Religion was
something my parents chose to attach themselves to at random, special occasions. I remember
being dragged out on several of them. I would bring small stuffed toys like dinosaurs, fish, or
giraffes, and put on little shows for anyone uninterested in the sermon.
If my parents caught me, I was scolded painfully on the wrist.
I was only caught twice.
I walk up the stone steps of the Chapel and open the doors slightly. This makes a much
louder noise than I expect, as the doors are old and wooden.
I hear the sound of a choir get louder.
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me.
See on the portals He's waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me.

Come home, come home

Ye who are weary come home.
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling, "O sinner come home".

It was beautiful, maybe the most beautiful song I had heard in a long time. The sounds
reverberated throughout the church and fled out onto the bright street as I held the door ajar.
The voice of the choir, made up of about fifteen or twenty people, all good-looking,
kind-hearted, sang from their souls at the zenith of day; when, we could all be sweating, dogging,
and romancing in the seats of our minds about foods, or comfort.
This was comfort.
They​ were people who did not have giant empty holes living inside of them.
Or, if they did, they fed it well.
A young woman looked at me and spoke to me with her eyes as I entered. I knew what
she had said:
“Are you here for the choir?”
“No” I waved with a slight gesture of my hand.
She allowed me in with a waving motion towards her. We were still at the Chapel doors
where we could not be seen by the people singing. She seemed just as good-looking and
kind-hearted as the people in the choir.
She held my hand and walked me to the pew where we could sit and watch the choir sing.
They sang many more songs.
All of them just as beautiful as the ones that came before; their voices were passionate
and young, and resonated with a charming wisdom. I wish I could sit and listen to them sing all
day.
After about half an hour or so the choir stopped singing and began chatting for a bit;
some of them got into smaller groups and drank from tiny cups of water.
 The air in the Chapel was fresh and clean.
The girl in the pue turned to me and smiled while they talked. She opened her mouth for
a second, then looked back at the choir while her head was still facing my direction. I watched
her.
She looked at me and said:
“Nervous?”
I was unsure what she was talking about, but I suppose it fit the circumstances of my life.
I was nervous. I was nervous that I would never be allowed back home, I was nervous
that Mark and Rosie would not take kindly to me, and I was nervous that I would never fix
myself.
I gave her a reclusive look, which made her more certain:
“Are you trying out for the church choir?”
“Oh. No, I’m not”
“Oh.”
“I just stumbled in here. The building looked nice.”
She smiled. She was very pretty.
“It is nice. What did you think of the singing?” she asked.
I tried to gather my thoughts. I was getting tired.
“I thought it was amazing. It was.”
We both looked back up towards the choir where our heads were turned to.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked quietly.
“The song that played when I first walked in - what was that song called?”
“‘Softly and Tenderly’” she said.
Softly and tenderly, I thought.
She sat to the left of me in the pew. Her body was faced towards mine, but her head was
turned towards the choir; her left leg crossed over her right; her pants were blue and trimmed
short, so her ankles were exposed.
It was very hot out.
“That one’s my favorite” she said.
“Me too” I said.

III.

The entirety and heat of summer, when screened porches and windows are listening
places for crickets, when the day sweats sourly with you, when the sun rides high, are essential
qualities of childlife that I hold dear to my heart. Sadly, as I make my way through the streets of
Paris, France, I feel nothing.
 The Chapel with the girl managed to comfort me for the moment, but when I left, I felt
like a lost dog. For that moment, the singing choir was like a cold, wet rag placed on the back of
my neck; it was now a warm rag, abandoned in the dirt.
I was raised to believe that the universe revolves around me. I still believe it does. In a
way, it does for everyone.
My Father told me that if I followed the footsteps of my brothers and sisters, accepted the
system set before me, that I’d be a success.
He told me this at the age of six.
There were not many words my Father said to me after he said those words.
With each child he raised, he said less and less. This is what it probably sounded like to
my oldest brother:
“Hey boy. Good boy.
You’re gonna be a great man some day boy. I just know it.
I see it in your eyes boy - there’s a golden light pouring out.
If you work hard, and follow in my footsteps, you will be great boy.
I​ followed my Father - he was a great man.
Now, go see your Mother, she’s making you food.”
And my second oldest brother, or third oldest sister:
“Hey you. Good job you.
You’re gonna be a great person some day you. I just know it.
Work hard. And follow my footsteps.
Now go.”
At fifty my Father stopped speaking almost entirely.
His words were meant to live on through his sons and daughters. I was supposed to be the
final word for his last sentence; I am still searching to find the perfect punctuation for his
overdone, dry, and feeble life.
Ted DiVelga’s (just Ted, as he liked to be called) claim to life’s contributions was his
multi-million dollar Yacht fortune, and five manic children who looked just like him. Thought
just like him, too.
I was the sixth child.
Truthfully, I am not as aggressive as my Father, nor am I as scarred up as he is. I have
one ​big ​scar. And, I am hopeful.
That is what​ it​ is in me that my Father raised. Certainly by accident.
Rather than it being a transaction, or, a purchase, or a sale, a deal; it is the feeling of
hope​. I believe that the world could turn out for me, I just have no means of doing so.
I watch everyone around me like a machine I can examine. With me, we are ​all
machines. With my Father, ​they​ are the machines, and​ he​ is the operator.
Everyone in my family was raised to be an operator.
 My Mother was a machine. She cooked, she cleaned, she washed dishes, and she hung
clothes out to dry. She had love for ​others​, but she could not get the means to conquer her feeling
of worthlessness in ​herself.
All she had was hope.
My Father had no care for my Mother other than a tool to clean his hardware. As the
operator, he needed maintenance. But, he wasn’t gonna do it himself. Why would he? And I do
believe my Father loved my Mother. Love is easy for operators. Love is simple.
And that’s where I come in.
As a machine, like my Mother.
Eventually, all the machines stop functioning the same way as you do. The machines start
living, breathing - turning from hope, to transactions, to deals, to results. ​Operators​. All the
machines around me have started living, and breathing.
All I have is hope.
I left my home in America as a broken machine hoping to be fixed. My first thought was
my childhood friend, Mark Rowan.
I was supposed to meet Mark at his apartment at midday, 12 o’clock p.m.
It was now 1:35 p.m.
I will make my way back around the block, down St. Chassagne, then cross over onto La
Rue St. Michele, the street where Mark’s apartment is on.
If anything, Mark can point me in the right direction for fixing myself.
Anyways.
My one ​big ​scar is the ​epitome​ of ​hope​.
It is the tick of interest in a child that there is something more out there; it’s what makes
you feel special; it’s what sets you apart until you finally realize you’re unable to have a means
to do so - stuck like a child forever.
Stuck in the entirety and heat of summer.
Hope is the broken piece of the machine: Hope is the giant empty hole living inside of
me.

Nantucket, 1991: In The Summer

I.

Today is special.
Certain summer days are endowed with a spectacle, making them both delightful and
daunting.
 I’m never fully involved in the comings and goings of family friends, or my parent’s
friends, or my father’s business partners, so I enjoy these days as I take them, which is, as an
observer.
An observer gets to experience the disruption of routine as a colorful, new background; a
proper, and well-needed change of pace without bleeding too much into the personal life of said
observer.
It keeps life delightful without making it daunting.
Today is a special day because today is my birthday.
Technically, it’s not my birthday, but it is the day in which my family celebrates my
birthday.
So there.
It’s already sunny our and it’s only 10:02 a.m. Guests will arrive 12 o’clock. Stowed
away in my room, I’m safe from this madness.
My mother opens my door and greets me with a ‘Happy Birthday, Harry’.
I heard her feet with her white socks and sweaty ankles sweep across the carpet hallway
outside my room to my door. I braced myself with a pleasant demeanor.
“Thanks Mom” I say.
She closes the door and lingers in the room. She sighs.
I feel like I am a part of the white, silky walls which surrounded the innards of the room.
Downstairs my father prepares food, like steak or chicken, with my older brothers John
and Roger talking up a storm, while my two oldest sisters Louise and Verna chat at the table; and
Patti, my other sister who is also older than me, knits on the porch.
My father’s voice strikes through the air like a sizzle on the grill, and much like the meat
cooking over the flame, his loud voice was a moment of burning, fire, and senseless anger.
The house was big enough so that the sounds dispersed and traveled there way around
until they met you somehow.
Voices would mix up; sometimes they’d cross paths. The open air of summer dissuaded
the untempered voices, calls, and yells of sweaty summer-goers.
The sound of my mother was first dampened by her entire body.
She spoke softly, in jagged sentences, often so that her first thought in no way matched
her final.
Usually, you just spoke to her final. But for me, I was always interested in her first
thought. Like a person who accidentally shares a secret.
With someone like my mother, however, it’s treated like a purposeful blemish. Meaning,
God made her this way, and it doesn’t mean anything significant. I went twelve years hearing
things come out of her mouth that I paid no attention to.
Over time, you grow guilty of something no one else feels shame for.
I guess that’s just a part of growing up.
My mother is still in my room. She turns to me, and speaks without looking into my eyes, or
really opening hers:
“Honey there’s chicken, steak, and spiral pasta noodles downstairs”.
Digging into her brain she says:
“I think your aunt is bringing hot dogs”.
I replied with a thank you and waited for her to exit.
She took out a lighter and felt around her pockets. Again, she sighed, and left my room
leaving my door slightly open.
Without much emotion I got up and shut the door.
I was really starting to feel the heat of summer seeping in through the walls, and into my
body.

****

Outside my window two chipmunks play over a small acorn; in the cool grass, dirt, bugs,
and critters make their home; their feet reach over a single blade; the refreshing touch of grass
coats all that walk through it.
When I was younger I played with smaller toy versions of chipmunks, fish, and birds in
my room on my bed.
It sits like a raft on a deep, pond-blue carpet. Next to my bed is an open screened window
that leads to outside. The white-colored walls look silky from the paint; they’re warm where the
sun touches, and cool where the shade reaches.
I keep the lights off in my room because I enjoy shade and light, and, the corners of the
walls with which they encompass throughout the day.
My room is quiet in the summer; summer is quiet, and summer feels endless.
The decorations on my wall are from when I was younger, like seven or eight, but, I
enjoy the simplicity of them and how they remind me of back then. There is a picture of my
name with one of those dinosaurs with a long neck, and it is holding the letter ‘P’ in its mouth,
for my middle name “Porter”.
In my daydreams I place myself into pictures, or paintings. Paintings of pots and flowers;
lakes and ponds; houses and porches; the pieces of summer are like pieces of a puzzle.
The puzzle remains with you as you grow, and every summer you put the puzzle back
together again: Piece by piece; path by path; flower by flower; and stream by stream.
I sit silently on my bed without thoughts in my mind, just feelings, and I listen to outside.
The whirrs and caws fill the spaces in my head, and drown out the noises that come from inside
the house.
My mother and father yell down the hall, but it doesn’t last long, my mother gets too tired
and needs to lay down. Nobody wins, it’s the way they talk.
 “Brancy!” he will say.
“Oh?” she will retort. “Bring it on Ted”.
This infuriates him.
My father wants answers. I feel like all he expects out of people is an answer. Then he
can move on to the next thing, which, forces him to squeeze out another question. Thereby,
needing another answer. It’s a game of cat and mouse and neither have realize how useless it's
become.
My mother’s yelling is quietly fleeting, dying slowly like a deer that’s been shot. She
begs and she whines, and she hopes to be given something to sustain her from agony; she sweats
and sweats in the summer heat.
My father yells like a moose; most of the time silent, but it marches towards you like it’s
bigger than you thought. It gets loud; he also sweats in the summer heat.
My bed is covered with a white, light blue, and light turquoise-colored bed sheet. The
floral pattern traces the perimeter of the fabric; it looks and feels like it will always be the perfect
place to listen to summer.
I never feel bored, or tired, or too hot, or unsettled.
I don’t give too much attention to what my body says.
Summer doesn’t care how you feel. You don’t ​need​ to feel any way.

****

I remember a boating trip my family took when I was seven years old. I remember this
being the last year my mother was not a complete emotional wreck.
In my mind, my mother looks very beautiful, with her dark brown hair and blue eyes;
and my father very trim, young, and fuzzy red hair on his cheeks and chin. He was wearing a
baseball cap, a white top with a red brim, and it had a blue logo on the front. My mother was
wearing a green cardigan, the sleeves long and baggy, and her hands held balled-up inside of
them. It was too hot to be wearing a cardigan.
Missing were my brothers and sisters, except for my sister Patti, who was thirteen at the
time (how old I am turning today).
She hanged over the side of the boat so that her hand kept splashing the water. It was
clear her age was catching up to her and she did not want to be hanging around my parents. My
father liked her, as she was his youngest girl, so he rubbed her shoulders and patted her head; he
bought her ice cream and souvenirs at Martha’s Vineyard when we reached the island; it was an
unspoken agreement they seemed to have without me, or my mother.
I remember wishing my sister Verna was there. She was my favorite sister. I thought
about Verna the whole time, and I smiled a lot thinking about her picking me up and swinging
me around. She used to put me on her shoulders in the pool, and throw me up, out, and in to the
water. Verna made me laugh like no one else could. And she loved my laugh, and I loved hers. If
I could make Verna laugh I was happy. This is how a lot of my childhood went.
My family took several boating trips when I was younger. When my father’s yacht
business first took off, he wanted to spend as much time using the boats as he could. It felt like a
fabricated family tie, and I often wish I could go back out on one of the boats by myself now that
I am older.
On this particular trip we went to Martha’s Vineyard. We took a smaller boat, and landed
on the shore where we crept out into the water towards the beach. I remember feeling nothing in
my body again, everything in my mind. I hated that my sister was annoyed by the heat and the
waves. I never understood lamenting in the summer heat.
Living on the island was my grandmother and her caretaker, my uncle, who have both
since passed. She was my mother’s mother; at the time, my grandmother was falling ill to a
mental disease that made her only want to eat ice cream, hum, and laugh joylessly like a toddler.
My father had no patience for someone like this, and I remember when we arrived and entered
the kitchen, my uncle asked my father how the trip was and he said:
“Yeah, it was fine Bob. Say, it’s pretty hot out why don’t we get moving. We should
really get moving”.
My uncle smiled at him as he held my grandmother's hand who could barely eat on her
own.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We have AC” my uncle replied candidly.
“Yeah, we love the home. Unfortunately, we have to go” my father said.
Patti waited on the porch, as far away as possible from everyone there.
What stood out to me was the blatant lack of interest in a family members life, or day, for
that matter.
Blood rushed through my body and left my head, I looked down and acted confused, or
innocent. For, I was just a little child.
My mother had a hard time coming up with words to say:
“Hi Bob” she said as she looked down.
“How’s Mom?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s good” or “Oh, that’s bad” depending on the answer.
Though, I can’t imagine Uncle Bob told my mother anything too abrasive. Often, I
imagined what it would have been like if I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard with my Uncle Bob. I
could live with him and my grandmother, and spend everyday riding my bike around the island.
I’m sure I could get around two times a day. I guess I’d also occasionally get a half-hearted visit
from my father and his wife, and children.
We only stood in the kitchen for twenty minutes before my family found its way out of
the house.
I hope Uncle Bob reflected well on me. Tragically, he passed away from heart failure one
year ago. I suspect that may well be my fate.
 Why this trip was significant to me was because I remember feeling separated from the
innocence of my age, and the maturity of adulthood. I didn’t understand adults, I couldn’t, but I
could understand Uncle Bob. I could tell my mother was no longer equipped to take care of
anyone. By the end of the trip, from this final conversation, I could tell that if my parents didn’t
get a divorce, that they’d torture each other until their deaths, where they, I’m sure, will likely be
suffering from inflictions caused by one another, or themselves.
“I want to go back for my mother” said my mother.
“No, I’m not wasting time. We’re leaving” said my father.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she yelled.
He didn’t answer.
“I said-”
Then he pushed her, or should I say, lightly punched my mother to the ground, where she
struggled to get up with a damaged look on her face.
Ever since then she has shut up, and every emotion she had in that moment before
boarding the boat that led her to want to see her mother again gets bottled up into her scared,
shocked brain.

II.

Verna giggled and swiped her red hair off her face as she ran back and forth between
pushing Mark and I on the swingset in our backyard. Mark and I were too old to be pushed on
the swing, which is probably why she found it so amusing, but also Verna could push us so high
that the swing would start to lift off the ground. It felt like a bunch of grown adults ruining
something sacred from childhood, and for us, it was a hoot.
My thirteenth birthday feels weirder than I anticipated; each year feels like a landmark in
my life, and I’m confused as to what else can happen in my body and mind for another sixty
years or so. Does each year make you feel as weird and bashful as the one before?
Verna is so cool; I want to be like her. She gets me, and she acts like no one else does in
my family, which is, loving, caring, and funny. Mark loves to come over and hang out when she
is here because she’s so fun.
Her legs are thicker than mine. I don’t look a lot, but her body fits into t-shirts and pants a
certain way, if that makes sense. I’ve never played sports, she’s always played sports, so I
imagine it has something to do with that.
She played softball when she was younger. She was going to play in college, but she is
choosing to focus on school. She wants to be a school teacher for teens.
After running back and forth Verna was tired so she went to get a water. I’d rather hang
out with Mark and Verna today than spend time talking to my family. I mean, it’s my birthday.
Occasionally, my mother pops up out of the house almost like a troubled, old house
guest, or like someone who is afraid of the sun. Then she’ll be sitting on one of those green lawn
chairs next my aunts and uncles, but once I look back again she’s already gone. I don’t get why
she doesn’t like the summer. You get to do nothing.
Once the party’s began, my father is the most down to earth guy there. Right now, he
talks to relatives while eying the grill cooking hotdogs and burgers. He’ll go back and forth, and
he never misses a beat. At birthday parties and such, he’ll always call out to his son that’s turning
a new age and give them the spotlight, razz them a little in front of the family.
Within his glazen eyes, and default expression, I felt the lack of understanding between
us when it was my turn.
The family members love it, of course, though.

****

When the sun goes down birthday parties are special days for Mark and I to hang out.
Verna is packing up her bags in her room already, as she has to leave tomorrow morning to go
back to Vermont.
Mark is really excited about tonight because his parents said he could stay over my place.
This feels like the night something could happen, anything!
“What do you think Miss Hayversmith would do if she caught us?” said Mark.
“We’re not going!” I said.
He grinned at me.
“We aren’t going” I said. “What’s the point?”
“The point is that you want to climb this giant apple tree, and I’m gonna watch you do
it”.
He gestured with his hands and face to jokingly patronize my resistance.
“Like an owl!” he said, flapping his arms up and down, and then tightly placing them
against his body.
“You can sit up there and tell me what you see”.
“Let’s just go and look” I said.
Escaping my house was thrilling and exhausting; we ran out the front door once my
parents went to sleep, Mark leading the way with only the soles of his white shoes visible to me
in the darkness.
The long driveway to my house is made up of small rock, shells, and stones. The
driveway is more wide than it is long. We kicked up stones and crunched over the rocks as we
ran.
We reached the street and it quickly became quiet again.
Except for the sound of our panting voices.
“Just keep walking” he said as he lead the way.
 I was afraid of the dark. I always looked behind me, and around me. Mark could walk
straight through darkness and never once turn around. He had his eyes set before him, and he
ventured out.
The street that my house was on was sparsely populated; there was one house all the way
at one end of the street, where a old man lived with his wife. They would often stop and talk to
my father if they saw him. He was very sweet.
Between that house and mine there was one more house. That was the home of Miss
Hayversmith. Miss Hayversmith was a kind, middle-aged woman, as far as I was concerned.
She had rosy cheeks and light brown hair. Nobody really knew much about her. She had no
husband, and she rarely ever left her home. We only ever saw her if she went outside to tend to
the yard, which wasn’t often.
I remember once when I was about five or six Mark and I were walking down this same
street, and happened to walk by her house. Neither of us knew who she was. She was outside on
the porch cleaning.
“Hello Harris” I heard he say with a smile.
I didn’t say anything back. I probably had a shocked look on my face, because when I
was younger I was very scared of strangers.
I was confused, and at one point in my life I remember feeling bad for not responding.
I remember my mother said that she was a very sad woman.
I often wondered how the meeting went between her and my family; they must’ve met, I
wonder what came up.
The opposite end of my street had a few more houses.
But we were walking towards the end with the old man’s house with his wife, directly in
the middle of the street, with Miss Hayversmith’s house.
Where a large apple tree sat in the distance of her backyard.

****

HAVEN’T WRITTEN THIS YET...somehow it maybe gets here...

The Beginning of An End

I.

The beginning of an end shoots across the evening sky as I make my way back to Mark’s
apartment.
The end is the end of my run around from Mark.
 The beginning implies that my shame from amounting no success, and, my confusion
with why I feel so empty, is merely just a feeling that’s beginning to kick in.
For, there are no words to how I will feel when Mark gets a look at me. And, how can I
go another day without ​making ​a decision?
Mark called me on the phone one hour ago when I first began walking back to his
apartment.
“I just turned around to start coming back” I said pre-defensively when I answered the
phone.
“Are you okay?” said Mark.
Mark was almost too level-headed to understand why I did not show up to his apartment.
Mark Rowan didn’t know shame.
“I’m fine, I got lost, and felt good so I explored the city”.
I lied.
This conversation happened before the stars began to shine through the day sky, as it fell
into a deeper black and blue. I was beginning to feel cool from the heat.
“Rosie and I went out two hours ago to look for you” he said. “Now I’m back out”.
I could hear his breath through the phone.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m by the markets” he said.
The idea that Mark and Rosie went out to look for me made me feel like I was more
hopeless than I had thought.
Somehow, I was so hopeless, that from my letters to Mark, I came across as needing
more help than I imagined. So when I did not show up exactly on time, it was necessary to get
looking for me. I was precious cargo.
It did comfort me however, that Mark, and Rosie (who I had never met), cared for me so
much. It only upsets me that I could in no way articulate why I had no intention of ever helping
myself for others.
The starry night brought shivers to the leafy trees; I nestled on a ledge that overlooked the
market that Mark walked about. The lights on the sandstone-colored homes floated with yellow
magic; the green that there was was calming and reminiscent of my hometown.
At least I appreciated this.
I believe I was only able to appreciate things now that I was found out - the weight of
fear from the revelation of disgust that a pariah carries is immense, towering, sheltering, and
grossly comforting if one is sick enough. However, it became entirely clear to me:
That my pathological behavior would only cause their care for me to wane. Like the
feeling of slow, drizzling rain; the feeling such rain brings among those who watch it through a
screened-in porch; remember how that feeling can never come again, until it does, and when it’s
gone it feels so fully gone?
It’s uncapturable. Much like me, I suppose.
 I’m waiting to see Mark’s blonde hair move amongst the small gatherings of people.
He walked like someone who desired to hold hands whilst he walked - he led an
imaginary person with him through the crowd; Rosie, or me.
I felt sick thinking of all the wonderful things Mark told Rosie about me, and how I
would never live up to them.
How I would fish out the entire pond in one summer, how I once wrote a letter to the
principal to ensure that students would receive time off from school when it was below zero, and
snowing.
I’m sure he’d also tell her that I was outspoken. I was supposed to be. I guess lately I
haven’t seen or done anything that’s allowed me to utilize that trait. I’ve become a mute.
It’s like I always needed someone there to give me purpose to speak at all. What is the
point in existing if not to perform for others? If I don’t need to speak I won’t, I’m finding out.
I’m sure if my father had no one surrounding him like a merry-go-round he’d have shut
off by now too, because people like him and I are meant to showcase prowess, and engage the
world, and then quietly rest our empty minds at night.
Like every business executive and CEO who goes home and immediately falls asleep;
they don’t talk to their wife; or their kids; they only relate to the world in which they are
perceived as beacons of light.
Tragic souls like us only have so much juice to fuel our lives and to do whatever we can
to fill our giant empty holes.
I think I had a deficiency and never actually received enough juice to get past third grade.
Because, for the next few years, I lived off the momentum of childhood, and, I eventually
burnt out (like one of the stars hovering in the sky above my head).
I was raised to be the perfection of self-centeredness and controlling behavior. The peak
of such traits are exemplified by my brothers and sisters, who wear tight suits and run fast-paced
businesses; manage people in a completely different world than from what I’ve experienced.
The average result of this concoction of traits is an empty, obsessive, shameful person.
I watch Mark walk away from where I sit on the ledge, towards the opposite end of the
market.
I get up quickly, and leave the area.

After having met Dr. Pierson...

My father was a rich man, but he wasn’t always a rich man; my father, Ted DiVelga, was
born in the early 1950s, I don’t know exactly what year, but, he looks just like his father (or so
the pictures I have seen) and I look just like him; except I have my mother's dark hair. The
erosive elements of poverty stripped away his childhood at a young age, his father passed away,
and his mother could no longer take care of him. He was raised by a series of aunts and uncles;
so he left home at a young age, and made something for himself.
After that he became a monster; I have no eloquent words for him any longer. I still carry
the fear with me that I am no longer a success to him. Although, I was practically disowned, so
there is no need for me to care, but, that is life.
There was also no need for my mother to stay with him either; but as we see that is life
and life is biting.
I wonder who caged up life and put a muzzle around its nose and slapped it across its face
when it piped up too loud? It sure seems to take its misery out on others.
We are the others that travel this stupid world; and we have that in common.
Reminiscing often brings up painful memories; it also often brings up joy; and to others I
see their faces light up in steeping nostalgia. I can safely say that reminiscing only brings me a
feeling of emptiness. Nothing about my childhood, except for Mark and Verna, have given me
anything but broken hope.
I became self-aware (like many machines do, to reinforce my father’s and mother’s
operator/machine make up) when I was a younger man; and, I looked at old picture or videos of
myself from when I was a kid. What I became self aware of was the feeling that I ​was
self-aware. I mean, I looked into the eyes of that kid in the pictures and videos and realized I had
always known I was empty. I see a broken, sad person who knows that the veneer of childhood is
being stripped away, and behind it is more of the pain that I have already felt.
Since coming to Paris, and since speaking with Dr. Pierson, I have felt that I was running
away from my past. And now that I am reflecting once more upon my past, I feel that I have
always ran away from my it; my past was always something too precious to hold.
My past (and the only point at which I felt my giant empty hole was filled) existed at
every moment far behind me; I could only ever dream of concocting those moments in my mind.
It’s like sitting down to put together the puzzle of summer; except a piece or two went
missing, and over time you notice more and more pieces disappearing.
It’s only since talking to Dr. Pieron that I have grown up and realized that the puzzle is to
be kept in the closet, locked away forever.
That is why I watch. And that is why I listen. I am ​the​ voyeur. I invite moments into my
mind, and shake them loose, and collect the bits of gold, for one glorious afternoon; and then I
call the moments back into my mind once years pass.
Sadly, the calls stop returning.
I imagine in ten years I will do the same again, with this moment.
So I ask, why do we torture ourselves with existing only to worship the past? If life is so
fleeting, shouldn’t we just end it?
My mother lived in a scared and tortured mind because she couldn’t reach her past or her
present. I need to find a way to place meaning into the empty hole so that I can live in the
present.
The past entices us, but its love is unrequited.
Alls that’s there is dusts of gold.