by James SPILLANE

Dear James,

What do you think about love?

Megan

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Dear Megan:

What is with all these vague ques­tions? When I signed up for this gig, I thought I’d usu­al­ly write a sen­tence or two of gen­uine ad­vice, fol­lowed by a para­graph or more pok­ing fun at the advice-seeker…

My idea of love:

1. Walk­ing across a grass lawn and get­ting stung by a bee; my moth­er run­ning to me, her mouth jump­ing up­on me and suck­ing out the stinger.
2. My moth­er plac­ing red and sil­ver stick­ers on our child­hood win­dows that let the fire­fight­ers know there was a young per­son in the room.
3. My fa­ther when he came back from sea, when he came back from In­dia and Spain and brought bull horns and co­bra skins.
4. Books: the way I could slip in­to them like a dream.
5. My sis­ters Erin and Lau­ra — you should have seen them fight over a tee shirt…
6. My son Gavin, asleep. Once he was sick, and puked and shit at the same time. I pulled up his limp body and smelled the smells, hold­ing him in my arms. His shoes which were soiled with fe­cal matter.
7. Some­times I reach across all the stars.
8. Ra­dio­head.
9. Kim most of all, and this crash I have slid­ing down a hill of ice where I can con­trol it and she is afraid to dri­ve. I dri­ve it every day. She gives me the keys when she has to get to work ear­ly… Jamie, can you dri­ve me down the hill? I throw on my coast guard hat. Most of my life is dream, but I am good at this, dream­ing and dri­ving cars down icy slopes.

Filed under Just Ask James on September 3rd, 2009

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