ROMANTIC BASTARD

I am not the one who hurt you.

I am not the tow-headed boy with the sadness in his eyes belying the constellation of freckles across the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, who kissed you beneath the bleachers, mouth tasting like menthol cigarettes and Dr. Pepper and secrecy.

I’m not the one who spread the rumors the next day that drew deadly, frightened stares from the girls as they passed you in the hall or whispers and knowing gazes from the boys clutched around lockers, snickering at you as you pass through their judgment like a cloud of acrid, yet somehow sweet, pipe smoke.

I am not the mirror you cried into at night, wondering why you’re the type of person who would let someone into your confidence only to have them break it like the fingers of an unwanted stepchild.

I am not the rising bile you aimed at yourself with surgeon-like precision.

I am not the mark beginning to rise from the flesh of your heart.

I am not the nice boy with the scar on his chin and the lose, laid-back manner that made you trust him. Made you share your thoughts, your aspirations, your bed and your virginity. I am not the boy with the scar on his chin who didn’t call the next day, avoided you in the halls, like a ghost you know is there but wish with fright in your heart that would just go away.

I am not your pillow soaked with salt tears, your shame spiral, your binge-eating, your drunken stupor or your resultant bad decisions.

I am not the socially-constructed, broken, misshapen sense of self-worth, stitched together out of off-hand comments, whispered snarks, loathing for your reflection.

I am not the shame you wear around your neck, an albatross dragging you down through the murk and the silt you think is your life.

I am not the man with rough hands and soft brown eyes who piqued your interest, stirred in you something that made you overlook the flaws in you that weren’t there to begin with. The one you trusted, the one you gave your heart to for safe keeping only to discover he was reckless with it, treating it like a boot-cloth to wipe the shit from his shoes. The one who destroyed your carefully constructed castle of secret girlhood dreams with the incendiary bomb of distrust and betrayal.

I’m not the shrapnel digging into your chest, making every breath, every move a constant reminder of the pain.

I am not the bricks and mortar you used to wall up your heart.

I am not the nameless, faceless men you pushed away when they got too close to the wall. I’m not the stoic, piercing look in your eye, a glinting knife’s edge you use to rip through the gauze they’ve desperately tried to apply to your wounds.

I am not the red flags you think are there, nor the ghosts of men that haunt you.

I am not your loneliness.

I am not your hurt.

I am not your past.

I am your present.

I am the ears that hear everything that has gone before and patiently listens.

I am the one who knows the truth you, veins coursing with alcohol, whisper in the dark silent hours.

I am the one who you hurt with the words the sober you takes back, pulling them out like teeth, and, yet, I still smile.

I am the eyes that search your face and finds beauty in every line other men have put there.

I am the hands, the arms that keep you from leaving, even when everything in your heart and mind tell you to flee.

I am the fists that will break down the door between the real me and the me you think I am, between the real you and the you you’ve become.

I am the care, the salve with which to dress your wounds.

I am the mind that understands you the way you’ve always wanted to be understood.

I am the heart that will love you the way you need to be loved.

I am the caress that reassures you that I am real, I’m not going to leave and I’m not going to let you hurt yourself by hurting me.

I am the one who sees through the lies you tell yourself.

I am the one strong enough to lift the funeral veil you’ve put over your eyes, your heavy heart and I am the light to blow out the shadows you’ve painted in the corners.

I am one of your possible futures.

I am the doorway, aching for you to walk through and not close.

I am here.

3

This.

Duckie. Being unrequitedly awesome.

Born in my home state of Michigan, John Hughes came to represent someone to look up to, someone you should aspire to be. As a writer growing up in Michigan, true role models like that were hard to come by. My film and writing education consisted of sitting in the dark and absorbing the creative output of John Hughes and Sam Raimi, another Michigan boy done good.

John Hughes’ writing not only defined a generation, it shaped it. I can remember the theatre I was in when I first saw National Lampoon’s Vacation. I wore my Sixteen Candles shirt that read “Can I borrow your underpants for ten minutes?” for class photos that year. I loved every minute of the Breakfast Club and knew that I was equal parts John Bender and Brian Johnson. I remember driving myself and a friend to see a sneak preview of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and getting swag like posters, tshirts and buttons, which we both wore to school the next day making everyone jealous.

But, more than all that, it was the connection to movies that spoke to me directly. Movies that said, “Hey, I know what you’re going through.” That reassured me that high school isn’t everything and there is a world out there of art and music and heartbreak and love and it‘s waiting for you to experience it and create it anew. John Hughes films were about real kids in unreal situations and they got through those situations by being true to themselves. His films taught us to recognize our fears, wants, desires and dreams in others and to accept them for what they are, whether they be a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess or a criminal.

Not since Capra or Wilder has there been a singular writing and filmmaking talent that could walk the line between the sweet and the saccharin, between pathos and melodrama. His teen movies were populated with real teens, not cynical mini-adults with grad-school vocabularies. His comedies had emotion and love wrapped in a neat little bow that was heartfelt not hokey. Don’t believe me? Watch the end of Plains, Trains and Automobiles, “This Woman’s Work” from She’s Having a Baby, or any of the scenes between Harry Dean Stanton and Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink. John Hughes’ writing made us laugh, cry, get angry, believe in love and understanding all in the span a hour and a half. And, that writing has stayed with us a lifetime.

Hall of Swoon Inductee “Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers”.

Once upon a time there lived a Prince, whether he was Charming or Handsome that was other people’s concern. Was he Charming? Perhaps, others had called him so and neither by his actions nor his words did he dissuade them from that opinion. As for Handsome, well, that too was entirely subjective.

He had heard rumor that the last remaining Princess had been cast under a spell by a powerful evil sorceress and was trapped against her will, isolated from civilization. Many a man stronger, more charming and certainly more handsome than he had attempted rescuing her only to be turned back, defeated.

So, this Prince pulled out his blackened armor, dented and scored from much battle. Across the center of the breastplate was a gash in the metal, which he, after the Japanese fashion, had filled with gold to bring beauty, honor and meaning to the damage. He strapped it on and headed out in search of adventure and, maybe, if the Fates allowed, Love.

Once upon another time there was a powerful sorceress who enthralled everyone around her with her magnetic personality and incredible brilliance. She was revered and, to a certain extent, feared, by men and women alike because of the power she possessed over them. Every morning when she awoke, she’d gaze into her mirror and ask it if she were the fairest of the land. One morning the answer came back, “No.”

The mirror did not lie, for mirrors cannot lie when they have no tongue. It was she who lied to the mirror, lied to herself.

Each morning after that fateful day the answer came back “No” was another whip’s lash across her heart. Hurt. Enraged. She drew upon herself the dark raiment of mourning for her life. She cast around her a deep, thick wall of black nettles and brambles with scalpel-sharp thorns. Deep within the wall in a clearing where very little light shone, she had trapped the last remaining Princess. Standing guard just outside the edge of light she had conjured a giant, fearsome black dragon with piercing yet implacably forlorn eyes. So impenetrable was the barricade and so fierce was the beast that soon no man dare risk his life and limb to enter. Closed off, alone in her pain, she busied herself with sorcery, books, exquisite meals and various hobbies and entertainments to push back the loneliness and isolation.

The Prince knew the stories, all of them, he knew what dangers lie ahead of him and yet he persevered in the face of odds insurmountable. As he approached the formidable black wall he saw the damage of where others had tried to hack and slash their way inside. He saw a hastily constructed scaffold in ruins where someone had tried to climb over, his bones hung in the vines, a scarecrow to ward off those who would attempt the same. Still another had dug a trench that had filled with the blackest pitch, drowning the poor soul. At once, he knew what he must do.

“I’ll burn it down.”

He pulled from his satchel an antique silver case and from that silver case he drew a flint. He dipped a broken bit of scaffold into the pitch, struck the flint across his breastplate and the fire growled to life.

He set the fire to its work. Each pass of the makeshift torch turned the black thorns to softest silver ash what was whisked away on the wind like it had taken it for its lover. Literally, yes, literally, blazing a trail through the angry cordon of woven vines, he came upon the clearing.

The flickering torch cast facets of light across the dark void. On a marble slab lay the Princess, asleep under a translucent silken shroud, casting her skin and hair with the color of burnished silver. Beyond her stood the evil sorceress, head to toe in robes of black and deep charcoal grey. Her eyes burned, rimmed in red, not from anger but from tears, perhaps. Towering over her, hovering just inside the limits of the Prince’s sight was the dragon, its black leather wings enfolding the sorceress’ feet, its sad eyes glinting with torchlight like an oil slick on fire.

“So, you’ve heard the rumor and in your arrogance you’ve come to slay the dragon and rescue the Princess.”

“No.”

“Wait. What?”

“No”, he murmured. “I came to slay the Princess and be with you.”

“I’m confused.”

“It’s pretty clear from where I’m standing. The Princess over here is beautiful and chaste and pure. Whatever. But, you…you are smart and cunning and can summon a bloody dragon. That’s so much more attractive.”

“Um…thanks.”

“Plus, you can’t really love something that doesn’t really exist.”

Before she could even muster the sense to form words with which to respond, he drew his tarnished sword from its scabbard so quickly the friction made the metal sing a lone achingly beautiful note that echoed in the clearing. He flipped the sword with one hand, one deft motion, and, before she could stop him, he plunged it deep into the heart of the motionless Princess and through the marble beneath her.

The instant the sword was buried to the hilt, the Princess and the marble pedestal alchemized into a bright silver vapor, dissipating in an instant.

“So, you’re a sorcerer.”


“No. I’m just a man who knows what he’s doing.”

He pulled the blade from the ground and wheeling his arm flung it end over end above the sorceress’ head. The point struck the dragon in the furrowed brow between its confused eyes. From that point, an ember burned and bloomed into a smoldering fire that snaked it’s way across every inch of scale turning them into charcoal dust.

“How…?”

“The Princess is your ideal, not mine. The dragon is your anger toward that ideal. You don’t need either of them. You are enough.”

“But, the mirror…”

“You don’t need a mirror to know you’re beautiful. But, if you will, I’ll be your mirror. I’ll tell you you’re beautiful and it won’t be a lie you tell yourself to make yourself feel better. It’ll be the truth.”

“I don’t need you to rescue me.”

“If I thought that for the splinter of an instant you needed rescue, I wouldn’t have even come.”

“But, I’m evil and broken.”

“You’re broken and hurt, not evil. You just need to believe that you deserve love and accept it.”

He took her hand and placed it on his breastplate. Her splayed fingers traced the raised scar in the metal. There was warmth beneath.

“Fill the cracks with gold and your heart will be that much more valuable to he who has the good fortune to receive it from you.”

With that, she realized he was right. Deep inside her chest blossomed an electricity that spread up her spine, her neck, through her hair, bristling it along the way, a forest caught in a wildfire and into her face from which emanated a glow and finally burst forth into her eyes until they flashed like the flint that had burned her defenses to the ground. Every cell of her being radiated with the warmth from the furnace that burned inside of her.

She felt, perhaps for the first time in her life, true love. Not for the man standing across from her in the dark with the golden scar where his heart resided. But, for herself.

Her entire body went weak from years of being strong.

She fell.

He caught her.

The End.

Songs For Those Who Ache.