{"id":10449,"date":"2015-04-01T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T06:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=10449"},"modified":"2015-04-02T08:15:14","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T14:15:14","slug":"where-we-never-see-our-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/10449","title":{"rendered":"WHERE WE NEVER SEE OUR HEROES"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cutting in line at the DMV with telekinesis,<br \/>\nbrandishing a wine bottle in the kiddie pool,<br \/>\nwatching <em>Cheers<\/em> reruns with nachos at three,<br \/>\nthump-testing the supermarket watermelons,<br \/>\nthe banned customer at the dimly lit massage<br \/>\njoint, scary silhouette hovering in the portrait<br \/>\ngallery at the termite museum, wetting his<br \/>\nor her shorts in abject clown-terror, the rope<br \/>\nfrom the company tug-of-war contest worn<br \/>\nlike a wrestling belt at the mandatory bingo,<br \/>\nhooked up for hours of cut-rate dialysis due<br \/>\nto lack of health coverage, welding the pipe<br \/>\neven when &#8220;the pipe&#8221; is a metaphor for jobs<br \/>\nof folks with character and without arch villains,<br \/>\neven when &#8220;welding&#8221; means coping each day<br \/>\nwithout heat vision or laser cannons, rocking<br \/>\nthe wife beater and cargo pants at day care,<br \/>\nhoping early mutant powers of their kids don&#8217;t<br \/>\ninvalidate leases or insurance policies, fretting<br \/>\nabout credit-card APRs, selecting a quick pick<br \/>\nsix lotto ticket on the digits from the hot telepath<br \/>\nsleep-talking after a booty call, mouthing lyrics<br \/>\nand playing air drums to Rush&#8217;s &#8220;Tom Sawyer&#8221;<br \/>\nin stained tighty-whities in a studio apartment,<br \/>\nor any rental, or carrying any money in skin<br \/>\ntight pants; perhaps we don&#8217;t have the eyes<br \/>\non the astral plane to spot the nervous tics,<br \/>\nthe tears beneath the hood, the slipped discs,<br \/>\nthe secret moon bases reflected in puddles<br \/>\nbeneath the leaky toilet, the forgotten portal<br \/>\nto the second-least-favorite in-laws&#8217; garage,<br \/>\nthe walk-in closet filled with stuffed lemurs,<br \/>\nthe failed prescriptions that didn&#8217;t account<br \/>\nfor alien platelets, forbidden shower duets<br \/>\nwith the sidekick&#8217;s great-aunt, panic while<br \/>\nlost in the corn maze, the wrong size battery<br \/>\nfor the sexual aid causing a rift in the ozone<br \/>\nlayer, the cheaters in motels and on taxes,<br \/>\nthe radioactive lint on the jet-black Spandex<br \/>\ncowl, the failed xenobotany experiments, ten<br \/>\ntimes failed in marriage, de-friended for politics,<br \/>\nthe forgotten team member hawking trophies,<br \/>\na loneliness that lasts so long it seems heroic,<br \/>\ntime traveling to a worse place on purpose,<br \/>\njust to find a purpose, the ink of secret tattoos<br \/>\nglowing only in full moonlight: <em>We miss you<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h6><a href=\"\/nashvillereview\/archives\/10400\">Martin Ott and John F. Buckley<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cutting in line at the DMV with telekinesis, brandishing a wine bottle in the kiddie pool, watching Cheers reruns with nachos at three, thump-testing the supermarket watermelons, the banned customer at the dimly lit massage joint, scary silhouette hovering in the portrait gallery at the termite museum, wetting his or her shorts in abject clown-terror, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-2Ix","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10449"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11926,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10449\/revisions\/11926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}