Excerpt From Crooked Tracks: Part 1 - Asylum

Sookie DiMaeoli jammed his foot in my crotch and said, “Disappear like piss on sand, Dave,” but I didn't. He also said, “I don't give a shit,” when I told him my name wasn't Dave. Then his leg snapped in three places. That was about two hours ago in Jersey, at a place called Take Five. Now I'm leafing through one of my grandfather's art books, called Seurat's Dots, and before I know it, I find myself strolling through the crowded shade of a Parisian park where the grass never needs mowing, every leaf remains loyal to its branch, and a Frenchman belches tug-stack notes from his fancy toy French horn. Parasols and tobacco smells and chimpanzees on leashes. De-Stephened, I have nothing on my nineteenth-century, middle-aged mind but the top hat on my head, spectral dots before my eyes, a cigar between my fingers, and at my side, a corseted woman and her colossal rump. My father, the seldom-seen Jacob Schaech, is as comfortably visible as a pipe smoker in a sleeveless T-shirt, and my brother, Howie, is still alive. I am not just imagining myself inside Seurat's painting, that's where I am—in it every part of me, breathing colored specks, feeling the sun's heat on the back of my neck. I never know how long I actually remain inside these pictures. Hell, one time I trekked for so many hours across an English landscape painting that my big toe pushed a hole through one of my shoes. That was several years ago, right around the time when I first discovered my skill, or gift, or curse (I'm still not sure what to make of it) of losing myself inside a painting. Since then I've found that it's often there when I need it, like now in my grandfather's New Jersey apartment, looking at Seurat's dots. Most paintings are calming places for me to play, hide, or just get lost within—asylums—where I'm protected from my Howie memories, which I do my best to keep out of my sixteen-year-old gut. Today, those memories won't let go.