It's the scariest thing in the world. This. This new thing. I don't know what I'd call it. I don't know if it has a name. It must. I'm sure it does. I'm sure you think you know what I'm talking about. You know, that big word. Four letters. Small word. Big meaning. Yeah, that's scary too, but we're not at that stage. This is the beginning. There's a hell of a lot of room left for disappointment. Failure. Regrets. I know what it's like. Regret. Disappointment. Failure. I tell the same story. The one that flashes before my eyes every night. Sometimes, I get a night off. I don't worry about it, don't think about it. But most nights, most nights, it's there. Scary. There are a lot of scary things out there. There are a lot of risks. Do we leap? Should we leap? Is it wise to leap and throw caution to the wind? That's how you get caught. You can live in the moment. It's the only way to live, to be, to exist. But once that moment fades, because all moments are fleeting, what are you left with? What was and what will never be. It's scary. I'm scared. I'll admit it, I'm scared. And I've been here before. Back for a second time, I'm a hundred percent sure I don't like it. I don't like doubt. I don't like uncertainty. I like being in control. I don't believe in destiny. Soulmates. Perfect person for everyone. I don't believe in it. But I do believe in that four letter word. I believe in that, I can tell you that much. But will it save me? Does it have that power? Doubtful. Self-actualization is key and only I can save myself. So what am I doing? Where's my step in the right direction? Maybe I'll find it in Paris. Maybe she'll find me. Maybe we'll go into our pasts and reveal our inner most feelings. She'd tell me to stop being a pansy. I'll slap myself later. Secrets always come into the light. She'll know the truth if she wants to. I'll tell her the truth because I'm scared. It has nothing to do with what she wants to hear but everything to do with that fear.

 

Fear keeps me running. Scared of change. Scared of failure. Scared of disappointment. One day, I'll have to find it. Him. It. I'll have to man up. It's the least I could. I'll take that step towards the right direction and be the man I was supposed to be. We'll play in the park. I'll buy him a car, first a matchbox and then something better. We'll listen to Sinatra and watch Allen and Lee. And somewhere in between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, I won't be his hero. I'm not his hero now. But maybe, maybe somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three, he'll look at me the way I see my old man. Funny, isn't it? The things we want. The future we see for ourselves. The one I've created. Because that's what I want, right? A future with my son. Self-actualization. And look at that, I didn't even need to escape to the mountains.

 

I do it for the money. I can look myself in the mirror morning after morning and even when I wonder if someone else has those eyes, I know I have to keep moving. It's the only real solution. Maybe one day, I'll take a break and slow down. But for now, I press through the weeks. Day by day. I lay in bed each morning, for an extra ten minutes, and think, here it goes, another sunrise. My eyes open at 6:15 and I wonder what the fuck I'm doing awake. I don't have anywhere to be. But my eyes are open. So they stay that way until I fall back. I'll wake up, that is really wake up, sometime between ten and twelve. I can afford to waste my days when I live for the nights. Makes sense, right?

 

But it's the scariest thing in the world. Too new. Too soon to tell. Only time will tell and time, well time is the funniest thing of them all.

What separates the monster from the man? The good from the bad? What defines a rotten person? Rotten. Am I a rotten person? An afternoon for reflection. Who am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? What do I love? I used to think I had answers. A book with about a thousand of them. Depending on who I was and what day of the week, I knew. The good guy. The Irish accent. The blonde woman who had lost her husband to cancer three years ago. Sometimes, it's not as easy as you think. Sometimes, it is. Am I a rotten person? A dead husband. A woman in mourning. Does it matter to me? Pull at my heart strings just a little? Maybe for a second, two tops. A rotten person. A sour grape, apple, cherry, take your pick. The monster and the man. I used to think they were two different people. A switch in my head. An actor. A phone call home, the man. A woman in my bed, the monster. They bend together. Blur together. Water colors turning into one. Black. Red and blue and green and orange and every other color mixed. The result...a black canvas. Empty. Alone. Words I don't like to hear, to write, to think. Because once you go there, you don't come back. Always the perfect excuse to sink to the bottom. Lonely. Empty. I am a black canvas. A monster. Rotten. Sour. The only sad part, no one will miss you when you're gone. Nothing left behind. No memory. No legacy. No piece of paper with your name hanging on a wall somewhere in some downtown office where your secretary sits for seven hours, eight including lunch. That's not me. No paper. No memory. No I am legend. It is what it is.

 

How many times can you twist? Flex? Bend? Something until you see it the way you want to? Turning words inside out to make yourself feel better at the end of the day. I'm not that guy. Nope, not me. Looking in the mirror, there are no pep talks. After a while you realize there's nothing to worry about. You become the person you were always meant to be. The man or the monster. No in between. It's black and white. Good and bad in everyone, we decide to act on one...only one. A heart of gold. A secret softie. Maybe that's me. But I know the monster. I've seen him in that mirror. Standing beside the man, one tries to speak. I can only hear one voice. So who do I listen to? The secret softie? The monster? The man in the mask? Who am I today? Where am I going? What am I doing? Who do I love?

 

She asked me when it would stop. Didn't I want someone? Don't I want someone beside me at the end of the day? Well, what's your answer, Jimmy? I don't know. Can't you ask me tomorrow? Tomorrow? No way. There's no time like the present. So, what do you say? Don't you want a last call of the day? Don't you want to see his face? Find a nice girl and settle down? Be the father you were supposed to be? I'm a monster. What do you expect? I don't need anyone. You're a liar. A good one at that. But we know the truth. We know. So what? I know too. Well then, what are you doing about it? Where are you going? What's changing? Nothing. People don't change. The more things change, the more they stay the same, you should know that. Conversations with myself. With a man in the mirror who doesn't know right from wrong, good from bad, monster from himself.

 

So which one am I today? The monster? The man.

There's nothing better than this. Nothing that can bring a smile to your face faster than this. Dion and the Belmonts, maybe a little Barry White, sometimes The Temptations, Dean, and always Sinatra. Though it's been said that music is the food of love. Songs about girls. Songs about heartbreak. Songs that stay with you and songs that end within three minutes. Now, I've never been in love. Teenage love, teenage lust, girls who liked me because I was mean to them, girls who liked me because of the way I treated them when no one was looking. But love? Love is an entirely different matter. I've never had a real romantic love. Faked? Sure thing. It's easy. You see enough Hollywood endings and you know how the story ends. You know the lines, the way you tilt your head, and press your lips against hers. It's easy. Any asshole can do it. Look at me, I do it for a living. But real love? Romantic love, you can fake it. Real love, when its fake, you know it. Some women can convince themselves that it's real, the real deal, but they know. Deep down. Despite the way their husbands treat them, despite all the fighting, and the working, they know what they have is golden. Photographs from weddings and dates, of kids growing up, hockey games, and girl scouts. Now that's real. The way my father looked at my mother. The way he picked me up after falling off my bike. Not romantic but real. Because love doesn't always have to be romantic. I used to know a girl who would always say, "James, dancing is what love must look like." She loved to dance. So we used to dance. Before any cons or scams or women with bank accounts, there she was. Now I wouldn't call it love but we had a lot in common.

 

Sinatra. Dean. Barry. Dion. Albee. Spike Lee. She wanted to see the world. She told me, "One day we'll meet in the middle." Though, I was never sure where that middle was. So maybe it was love. Maybe James Bloom had it once. Stranger things have happened. So, back to dancing is what love must look like. She loved to dance, so we danced. I was eighteen, maybe nineteen, at the very oldest, twenty. She was somewhere around there too. It wasn't that long ago. Six years? It's nothing. But time flies. Boy, does time fly. My old man used to say, "Time's a funny thing, son. A real funny thing." He still says it, just not as much. He saves it for those phone calls when he can hear that whisper at the end of the line. The one that comes out strong but doesn't have a chance of standing alone. He saves it for then. But time is a funny thing and this girl, this girl loved to dance. Runaround Sue. Her favorite. So we danced. And when we weren't dancing, she liked to sing. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. She didn't have the greatest voice but she pulled it off and I thought, maybe, maybe they're right. Maybe music is the food of love.

 

So what the hell happened? Well, we both traveled the world. I went from New York accent to British accent, sometimes Scottish, sometimes always British. It worked. She liked accents too, though she wasn't very good at them. Everything we ever wanted, we got. Except the middle. I never could find it.

 

But there's nothing better than this. Runaround Sue. Fly Me To The Moon. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. New York, New York. Volare. My Girl. Songs about girls. Songs about heartbreak. Fuck everything else. The whiners, the haters, the cynics. I might be the biggest one but my music, my music has to be chipper. Golden oldies. Songs that make you smile. Real songs. Romantic, sure. But real, always. It's a must.