When I was a little girl growing up on a beach somewhere on the East coast, I thought the devil was cool. I figured he was about 35 years old, chain-smoked king-sized cigarettes and had tattoos. He wore a lot of black, usually biker clothes or funeral director with a wild-west-twist suits, and he listened to heavy metal. In my head he was a combination of Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger and James Hetfield all rolled up in one man, but better looking. Scorching, smoking hot.
And Jesus was a wimp. One of the uncool kids, sitting in his room with his record player and out of date seventies garb, fringed faded jeans, love beads and flowing white shirt with his long wavy hair and a beard to die for, spinning Simon and Garfunkel or perhaps some Nick Drake while he waited and hoped for the heathens to settle down. While he prayed for them to be good people.
For some reason Jesus was impossibly eighteen years old in my head.
And emo.
Both images are forever stuck at a point when I was eight years old, like most ideals I have. Possibly this might be where my brain stopped growing. In fact, I might be almost one hundred percent sure of that, since I still like to play with the Rubik's cube when I pass one. Sometimes to the point where I am late for an appointment or miss a call, because hey, if I can get this side all red, maybe I can get this side all white and how the hell do people do these again?
Must be nice to be so smart.
But this post is not even about how smart or how dumb Bridget is.
No, this post is about Seth.
Seth is a guy who fixes lives. And he is a friend of Ben's. And two years ago when Ben went off his rocker completely and came on to me in one drunken, dangerous night, Seth was the guy who flew out here the next day and stood close to Ben for weeks on end, pointing out the pieces, and Ben picked up those pieces and managed to put his life back together and stayed sober for over a year. Seth is coming back and they're going to pick up the pieces yet again because the first time Ben couldn't hold on to them. Seth is someone who will shadow Ben, schedule him and basically become his new best friend. He will evaluate and get him all the help he needs and then in twelve weeks hopefully Ben will be at a better place and he'll be able to go back on the road because the night job is calling again.
Thankfully Ben does well with direction and he does even better with deadlines and all he needs is a push because life got to be a little much and he's been veering wildly between being Jesus and being the devil himself lately.
(I do realize that I am no picnic to live with either. No one likes the beautiful fucked-up ones with the maturity of your average eight-year old.)
And so I'm hoping that when Ben has to go back out there into the world where the devil comes in many forms but so does Jesus and so you better watch out for both, that Seth might stick around and maybe give me a little direction, some guidance, a plan of some sort because I am currently without one and I'm sure the recent levelness of my head is due solely to the fact Ben keeps my hands and that single-digit head of mine really busy. In twelve weeks that vanishes for a bit again and I might lose that kid.
I don't want to lose that kid.
Thankfully the kid isn't old enough to drive, she's in her room listening to the Stones and to Black Sabbath and even to a little bit of Drake.
And fine, yes, Simon and Garfunkel.
