Karmic Events (2001; 2004; 2009)

“Where’s the big money?! Who’s got the key?!” My manager was under a desk just outside the vault. I was wide open and easily accessible to bullets with my body holding tight and shielding the mortgage lady who was filing paper work just minutes ago. I dropped down and covered her with my body. Her hands were white with bite marks. I looked down at them and prayed. “I said where’s the big money?!”

I turned my head up and saw a pair of ashy legs shaking with impatience. I looked at my manager and he was frozen with fright. He wasn’t moving. I looked past the knees and saw the glint of the gun. His hands were shaking. He was more nervous than I was. This was no professional. He was jumpy. If I was to die right then, it wouldn’t have been on purpose. Everything was in slow motion. “I’ll give you anything you want.” I flew up from the mortgage lady with my hands raised in the air. “I just need to get my key.” I reached in my pocket but it was my car keys to my 01 Jetta. “You better hurry the fuck up.”

He whispered hard in my ears and fired a shot past my head. I felt the warmth and saw the bright light that blinded the corner of my eye. I took a deep breath and reached in my other pocket. I got my keys and opened the vault. I prayed the safe would open.

We were just getting the money transfer ready for the trucks when the bank robbers came. I was the lead teller. It took my key, his combination, and exactly five minutes to open the safe. One second early or one second late and it locks up again. It happened when the Operations Manager finished the combination. “They’re robbing the bank! Let’s get out of here.”

Now I’m back in with now two guys on my back. My body moved without thought and I turned the dial…and the safe opened. I grabbed the bag, filled it and took cover.

Seconds passed like hours. “I’m so sorry… so sorry. They got away with so much money. It’s all my fault. I didn’t know what to do. No one was moving. When I got up I saw Mrs. Robles with a gun to her forced to hand over the money in the other tellers’ drawer. No one was doing anything and the gun was shaking.” I threw myself in the corner I came from. “They got away with $110,000.” The mortgage lady put her teeth-marked hands on my shoulder. “Josh…the bank will make that money back in a few hours. They would not be able to bring us back.”

This was the first of many events that screamed that my move to Miami wasn’t a good one. I had interviewed months ago when I took vacation to see my ex, Theresa, and not once did they mentioned it was robbed 10 times in the last 8 months. I should’ve research Hialeah before making my move.

She was an ex to me…one of the greats if you ever watched A Bronx Tale. She probably considers me just a fling. I had met her on the ship during muster on 9/11. We had just came back from a gulf deployment.

I was stationed in Japan on shore duty for two years. I almost came home on leave at the end of my tour until I found out my next ship was in Sydney. “Mom, I’m sorry but how many times am I going to see Australia?” We had this conversation before when I told her I chose Japan over Connecticut as of it were ever a choice between the two.

Now, I’m being pulled to the side along with the others to check on my friends and family back home. The towers came down over and over again on the tv in the background as I made my calls. My family was fine.

I walked out of the IT office I worked at and saw Theresa quietly get her room together. She wasn’t a typical military girl. She was extremely pretty with a heavy Alabaman accent. I peeked into her room and watched her placed an over grown Scooby Doo stuffed animal on her bed. I knew we would be tied together somehow.

“We’re going back. We’re probably going to see beheadings.” I teased Krans, another in my soul group that wasn’t made for the military. She was an old soul and as connected to the spiritual world as she wasn’t to Earth. I remembered her in “A” school when I stood next to her in muster. She was tall, white and flighty, with black dreads. Now she had her natural blonde hair with a constant giggle. She was in my group when we came to Japan. I was terrible to her back then but volunteered to show her around when she came aboard. She talked about how the ocean was a huge burial ground and filled with all sorts of chaotic energy and that we needed to do what we could to cross souls that passed from 9/11 over. We had just got back to Guam after a six month deployment and now we’re leaving again. It’ll be back to seeing nothing but water for months at a time feeling like we’re never getting anywhere.

It made sense to me. I am spiritual as well. I was raised Catholic and feared God. I thought it was too mechanical with sit, stand, kneel and prefer my own personal relationship with God. I prayed both out loud and deep in my heart. There’s too much in my life that was too coincidental… too serendipitous… and there were too many close calls.

Meghan Kransberger could’ve been my sister in another life and probably was. Maybe we were married. We fought a lot but had many spiritual moments together. She was into tarot, reading auras, and yes, crossing souls over. She was my real life Shirley The Loon. We would often escape to the front of the ship, the forecastle—where Jack screamed that he was “King of the World.” It was amazing how our eyes would adjust from pitch black to be able to see clear as day. She had a white candle that she channeled her energy through. This is the same candle I once saw her use to part the clouds to reveal the full moon.

I was not without my own powers. You would think I let spirits take me over in my writing. I’ve astral projected and returned to my body on the floor in my stateroom on the ship. Maybe I had a vivid dream when the ship took a roll and I fell or maybe I was floating over a deep burial ground and was enhanced.

9/11 was a rude awakening to a lot of people in the military. We were filled with anger and brain-washed after the towers went down and had to face the fact that we gave our word to defend, give our lives, and even kill for our country. Most of us wanted College money or to see the world. We now had to face the fact that we have to honor our word and do things that were not in our nature to do. While Krans was a force with a white candle, I just don’t see her with a gun. I don’t remember if she even qualified for one yet.

Theresa always considered herself a raver and me a club kid. She was stationed shore duty in Guam and went to all the clubs. To me, she was a club goer and I was the raver. She went to all the parties but stayed in her group. I was all about PLUR… (Peace Love Unity and Respect) and was known throughout the island as the Ultimate Party Machine. My typical gear was a visor, overgrown Thundercats t-shirt, jnco jeans, and Addidas shell tops. We both knew the clubs and the dealers but I knew the locals, strippers, and all the underground parties.

We would often find a jazz bar with unlimited drinks before going to the Hardrock that would turn into a club once a month in Guam after closing. In the military, the guy/girl ratio is 8 to 1. At these bars, I didn’t exist to her. I kept drinking with my crew. We would ignore each other but really, she was ignoring me, literally chatting with eight dudes at the same time.

One time a girl from another ship remembered me from “A” school or back in Japan, and would catch up. She asked if I was still drawing. All of a sudden, I existed. Theresa came over, sat on my lap and tossed a look at the girl and asked, “who’s your friend?” in a not so friendly way. I stood up and dropped her. “Let’s go.” I grabbed the girl and took a walk around the block and up the steps from where the bar was. It was crowded but I was grabbed by Theresa and brought into the bathroom up the stairs. Nothing happened. This was really a way to get me away from the one girl that paid me any mind. “Our ship is leaving. There’s going to be a really cool party playing trance and hard house. We should go before we leave.”

We had days before the ship left to the Gulf and we partied like we would never see land for six months. We did most of getting to know each other at a bar right outside of base with the juiciest steak called Bobs. We would chat and drink over loud chatter kind of like Rob and I do. She entertained guys but didn’t ignore me. She was flirting with a guy named Jason Quellett and she took him along with Krans to this party.

I don’t quite remember but I think it was a gay club. Looking back, there isn’t a difference but I wasn’t out to myself fully and not comfortable with this. The music was bumping. I got a drink at the bar and Theresa had came from a hidden corner… she had cornered me and looked like she was reaching for a kiss. I saw the pill floating on her tongue and I reached in. She grabbed my hand and we swam through a maze of lights, bodies, and sound to the gasp of air outside. There was a metal staircase outside and around the corner. We sat and I looked down at the purple in her naval ring. “

Aren’t you on a date?” Her eyes squinted so I just saw a hint of hazel inside of globs of mascara. “Oh he’s with Krans.” There was a glimmer of sweat on her naval that showed like velvet diamonds dripping slowly. I slid my thumb across and then my hands slipped onto her waist. She looked up into my eyes, “I think I’m peaking.” My jaws clenched at her last words. I could feel my eyes dilating. I closed them and fell into her in what felt like a few minutes.

“Josh?! Josh, we’ve been looking for you for hours.” We kept making out ignoring Krans. “Josh… You need to stop. Jason is looking for either one of you.” We kept going. “Well, I gotta find him before he finds you. You need to snap out of it.” I felt a tug and a hand wrapped around my wrist. A few minutes later I found my head out the window of a car. The wind hit me and I looked over. Krans was not happy. “This doesn’t make sense. Were you out there in the same spot for four hours?” I stuck my head back out the window and let the wind feel amazing on my face. I felt Every breath I took fill my lungs. I came back and look past Krans to see a pissed off Jason and Theresa with her head flat against the window on her side. She reached her hands over Jason’s lap and over Krans to clasp mine. This must’ve be rough to anyone else not on our level. It was work to separate us.

About Seven Years later, I’m caught in a similar situation. I’m moved into my new apartment in Pelham Bay with E. He needed to go into work early the next day and took an Ambien, which was a big mistake. Rob and I stayed up and smoked. We didn’t have cable yet so he gave me a play by play of the latest episode of Heroes. We took shots of jack with every pause of his story. We were in the dark living room as the bottle emptied down our throats. I think of this moment whenever I listen to “drunk in love.” This time, there wasn’t anybody to try to pull us apart. In that moment, we risked it all. Our lips finally met in all the ways we both secretly wanted. Everything collided in the inevitable crash that was destined from the moment we met. The clink from his original Nintendo belt buckle was followed with the clunking sounds of his pants dropping. This was far worse… this wasn’t because of a pill. We couldn’t blame this on the alcohol. We both wanted this for about two years. We blacked out and light came to me in the morning. I stumble to the bathroom to find E staring at Rob passed out on the floor with his pants down.