The Life Of Roger Hamilton By Jeremiah Dillehay

The Life of Roger Hamilton By Jeremiah D. Dillehay

There is always a bitter cold wind in late August; after the piercing sun has bleached your spring dreams into an icy cold reality, when thirsty roses stop blooming and the trees begin to turn shades of drab green. This is the same reality we all face when our dreams fade and wilt, when the perfect rose bush no longer blooms and the love that filled every tissue of your flesh is silenced. So why do we hope every spring for the beauty to last through the summers brutal reign? Why not accept the rose bush with its vibrant green leaves and be happy that the baked leaves of the oak tree have sacrificed themselves for your shade. Perfectionism rots your flesh and destroys your very core. Roger Hamilton… yes, let me tell you about him. He was a miserable lonely perfectionist to his core. His life was a perfect shell always in want of fulfillment. For him there was only one spring dream. And in his confused and insipid dream, there was only one perfect spring blossom, one perfect vibrant fall leaf, one perfect woman, one perfect bottle of wine. In his mind the pains of life were avoided by living to high and lofty ideals embodied in a day to come; never delighting in the swirling myriad of change and uncontrolled pain we call the present. This led to … well, let me just tell you his dreadful story and you take from it what you will. My memory may fail me and my tongue may tell a lie or two, but the meaning will be clearer through the ensuing embellishments. And, is not the lesson learned more important than simplistic details? The skeletal truth is all that matters, and the whole truth will be evident in spite of my straying recollections. …Roger grew up in an empty home full of antiques. It was lonely, only occasionally interrupted with the stark affection given to

him when company came to visit. But for the most part Roger was content knowing no different. When he was about four, his grandmother gave him a kitten (for some inconsequential reason). Roger took to the kitten like… well… a flower to its own bloom, inseparable. His mother quickly and repeatedly warned Roger to leave the kitten alone. “You’re going to smother it; it doesn’t want to be drug everywhere in your pocket; just leave it alone and let it be before you kill it, God didn’t make it for you to play with. Just let the kitten be!” And, sure enough, one morning Roger awoke to find the lifeless kitten sleeping on his pillow. And further, he found an unsympathetic shoulder in his mother’s fleeting embrace. That night when she tucked him in, the bed had the warmth of a cold steel table and his blanket the consoling relief of a zippered body bag. Roger knew he had killed the only precious thing in his life. He would be more careful in the future. And soon enough, with deliberate exertion the future presented itself. When Roger was 15, he started his first job. It was a tiring job and pointless as his family provided well. But, Roger wanted a new Barracuda. He saved all year and on his 16th birthday, with his and his parent’s money, he bought his car. It was red; the kind of red that makes your mouth water and your blood boil with envy. And it was fast, zero to 60 in five seconds; or so the magazines told him. It was the kind of car that induced passionate chills down every young girl’s body and fear in the stares of men. And, the car wasn’t simply heard by others but rather announced Roger’s arrival as one of the holy high elite. Dismayingly though, it only proclaimed Roger’s arrival to school four times. For on the fourth day, Roger saw someone run their finger down the sensual curve of its rear fender. Roger, infuriated by this nearly harmless action, confronted his car’s assailant and a fight

ensued. After this, Roger only took his beloved possession out on the occasional date. However, riding the bus and catching rides to and fro did little to help him with the young women he sought to woo. So his car sat in the garage too often during his life. In fact, he only began driving it regularly shortly before his demise. It’s such a shame that a magnificent vehicle was wasted on such an old man. As a teenage boy the car would have brought him entertainment and more importantly peers to create high school memories with. But, he rarely took a girl out in it and never drove it over seventy, completely defeating the purpose of 400 horses of scalding red testosterone. Roger treated his car as a collector’s item rather than a car. Over the years, he rarely paid any attention to it. His protecting and collecting, sadly enough, only began with his car. Roger went on to have several eccentric collections. However, his most notably wasteful collections were wine and fall leaves. Wine collecting is not uncommon, but is a waist! A bottle of wine should be celebrated. It should be held with care; then consumed! A fine bottle should never be wasted in a cellar, or forgotten on a rack. Why bother having it if you don’t drink it? But, Roger did just that. At his end he had thousands of bottles. Oh, he did occasionally drink wine, but only the cheapest and bitterest of vintages. This was, for one, because he was so cheap. But maybe also, so he could further venerate the splendor of the ales that lay dormant in his personal hell. His wife however, drank! She drank from the time she awoke until the baby blue and pink skies of the anguishing sunrise, when she would die beneath her pillows. Her veins weeping, and her scull numbly buzzing with anguish for the life she was trapped in. But, I am straying. I will tell you all about his incompetent husbandry, I won’t forget, but first his leaves. I truly don’t know why but he found fall leaves absolutely fascinating. Perhaps, it was the variety, or maybe it was their fleeting

beauty. It could have been the way fall winked at the world in defiance, as if to say “I am the most beautiful, but no one can have me, keep me, or hold me”. But, for whatever his reasons, he found them enchanting. And every fall, he would comb the park, the woods, and his yard for that precious perfect example of that year’s fall splendor. And when he found a few, he would catalogue them in special leather albums. Of course they inevitably dried and faded. They really only remained as a memory of the moment he found them. The tragedy of his obsession for these leaves is he only looked down. And further, he always watched his step. It was as if a misstep would ruin any chance of finding that perfect fallen leaf, when all around him fall was waiting. True it would soon be gone but he did not run through the woods. Nor did he sit and ponder his existence while lying in their embrace. He never reveled in the moment when it presented itself. No, instead he meticulously embraced single leaves to ensure… well, I do not know. The rambling point here is he never embraced the moment; he captured these momentary points of death and bound them for some obscure later enjoyment. Lay in the leaves when you can. Look up into the trees as they turn their attention to you. They will soon be gone! Further, he imposed his strained construct upon his son. Once when Trevis was five he scolded him for an unappreciative characterization of the leaves. Trevis had merely mentioned that he couldn’t find a toy “because of all those stupid leaves in the yard”. Years later, Trevis piled all the leaves in one giant pile and began jumping into them. For most eight year olds, this is a simple act of fall frolic. However, Trevis knew that his father had not yet “ok’d” the leaves. This meant that he could not go in the back yard until Roger had went through all the leaves and given his blessing to use them. When Roger saw that Trevis had destroyed his autumn moment in an act of defiance, he exploded. It was tragic. Trevis was destroyed.

Trevis knew he would get in trouble, but the words Roger used… There was no Godly reason for him to be so enraged over his only child playing in “his” leaves. Their relationship was never good before that incident, but it drove a sparred wedge deeper into their scarred kinship. What ultimately ended their father-son relationship came years later when Trevis was accepted to an elite private college. Roger had the money to send him but… Well, money was another collection of his. So, he would not send him. Trevis begged his father to help him go. He begged his mother to convince his father to give him the opportunity to go and better the family. However, Roger would only give him the sum of expenses equal to going to the local university and living at home. Trevis went to the private college, and cursed his father all forty hours a week spent working in Demeans’ steel mill. He cursed him further each year when he borrowed an additional 18,000$ to finish paying the tuition. But no thanks to Roger, he managed to get through and went on to have a distinguished career as an acclaimed architect. He makes a good living for his family now, and I guess they are happy; I really wouldn’t know __________________________________________________________ The harsh cold wind of death comes all too often in a listless marriage. I know this; so, I could never pass judgment on Mrs. Hamilton. I too know the warm sensation induced by the touch of another, the brief encounter that raises you from your cavernous sarcophagus. So, how can I blame her for her infidelities? He was the constant rain over her desert. As she languished daily waiting, hoping, that he would touch her. She could see him. She could hear him. She could smell him in the air. But, she could not touch or taste him. Nor envelop her desire in his downpour. On occasion, his torrent would

flow through her, and she would come to life again. She would bloom, and the beauty was immeasurable. However, when his west wind rain was scarce she could bloom from the south or north or east winds, when they would have her. And in the times of drought, she had her bottle. It would pour down on her and quench her thirst for life, with its dehydration. She drank to forget, to forget what she had became. She had sworn she would never languish for the touch of another. She was strong and beautiful. So why did she stay? Was it for her son? No, it was her inept sense of self. She would suffer rather than risk her shit hole, because it was hers and hers alone. She was a desert and that was all she had ever known. Thus, she reveled in her misery. Roger never used her; he sat her on a pedestal, placed her in a collection. He protected her from his desire to use her, to ceaselessly ravage her. Maybe it was the kitten. Or, maybe it was the fear of a common life that impaled him. So, he hung listlessly throughout his life watching the “common folk” walk to and fro. While he hung high above, bleeding, tearing, suffocating, he felt empowered, even noble. His torment was his pleasure. In a sick masochistic way, he reveled in his perfect status quo. And, if his family could not appreciate perfection, it was their loss. They could live their trite lives. He would not lower himself from his stake to empower their lowered expectations of life. She lived for a moment that always fleeted, and he lived for tomorrow, a day that never comes.

After he found her lifeless body,

lying on her pillow piercing out the east window, he had nothing. Roger collapsed upon his stake. He lost everything, especially his will to see that day that never comes. Roger had truly killed his kitten this time. Maybe, if he would have been there when she slept beside him, when she held him, and when she was with him, she wouldn’t have given herself to a satin-lined sunrise.

Roger had lived his life in vain. It was wasted waiting for a perfect encounter in the fall, longing for a spring bloom, gazing at a mouth-watering wine. Bottles that decorate his hell, now like thousands of fingers pointing and laughing.

Roger never considered

the many opportunities for beauty around him. If the fall moment was fleeting, it was always worth it, and there would be more. So worthy were the snow drifts in December and the beach sun in July. At every moment, everything is exactly as it should be, perfect. It is seeing life for what it is and embracing the splendor at every opportunity that matters, not loitering for a “more” perfect moment. And, as for the kitten of his childhood, the whole litter had died, not just his. He had taken from the incident the wrong lesson. He was right to enjoy every flashing encounter with it, for its time was fleeting. If he had only learned this lesson, perhaps he would have soaked up every deliberate opportunity, every prolonged moment, and every prospective encounter. These are what make life wondrous……. ….…As for my wife she should have left me long before. She should have sought a better man. So don’t misunderstand the moral. Don’t stay in hell and embrace the embers but don’t live in the clouds impaled on a perfectionist’s splintered post. So, it’s ok to enjoy your blooming spring dreams to their fullest; don’t fret if they slip away, spring will come again. And, after spring, embrace the vanquishing sun of August; let it burn you, this will keep you warm. And, embrace another fleeting moment with September’s splendor. Every moment is perfect.