They think they always have the same conversation set to a similar tempo. Conversations often a blend of propositions and positioning. Even so, I learn something new with each reading, watch, and/or listen.
LESSONS LINGER IN LAYERS. Of life and longing. Chuck and Jimmy McGill both teachers and testaments to time both warped and wrinkled. Their sometimes casual / sometimes carefully choreographed conversations consumed in quarters both habitual and haunted. Memory conveys more than messages. Meaning often a multiple (and multiplier) of views and vestibules. Lessons learned from the lives and lived experiences of Chuck and Jimmy McGill both wrap and ripple. Warn and welcome. Humans perfectly imperfect. Wrinkles in time both inevitable and inevitably (s)warming.
Where there is sweetness there is sorrow. Like a blemish or bruise on an otherwise perfect peach. All fuzz engaged. All senses simultaneously affixed and enraged. Where there are seasons there is both cold and warmth. Not all family ties bind but words (both those welcome and those less loving) linger. Voices of days and decades past also linger (sometimes loiter / sometimes languish) in caverns both calculated (DNA and RNA essentially mathematical equations if not sequences) and incalculable. Words weave patterns of variations both infinite and sometimes infuriating. Jimmy is to Chuck as Chuck is to Jimmy. Each threads (of varying fibers) to McGills both older if not elder and not yet borne. Eternal strands of DNA and syllables bind while also creating / new futures etched of past testimony.
Where there is bitterness there is balance. Amidst buy-outs there are both put downs and pick me ups. Hockey pucks and casual shucks. Forget-me-nots bloom in winter alongside weeds. Evergreens reliable in months of many moons. Pick-up sticks a perennial dime store favorite. Nascent nemeses both transformative and trying. Heavy of brakes and hard stops. Lights sometimes a blend of red and green. Of purple bruises that fail to heal. And egos that fail to calibrate. Of offbeat equilibriums. And upbeat personas. The threat of dials (all treads tracked) shift right / left. Angles a constant reminder of airways and electromagnetic waves. The television tries while it inspires (and sometimes tires). Commercials always consumed. Openings just as often opaque as opulent. Little Barrie and barriers in plain sight.
Where there is fire there is fear (and sometimes both freedom and flight). Lindbergh took flight in 1927 aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. Strapped in a double single engine M-2 aircraft. Flying solo. Parades of spirits watching. Charles Lindbergh McGill appeared (cells and spirits) in Seasons One through Six of Better Call Saul. Both soared and settled in moments turned minutes turned memories. Transatlantic flights across unchartered seas. Compass dials spinning. Fame both steep and deep. Luck paved of pain and promise. From Cicero, Illinois to Albuquerque, New Mexico. All sails set. All wings (un)clipped. No matter the direction of the wind or the tenor of its howl, Chuck and Jimmy would call. Whether telephonic or electromagnetic. Stars not always aligned. DNA binds.
Impromptu speeches simultaneously markers of worth and worthless. Of performances equal parts poetic and prophetic. Clandestine studies of self and sustenance. Introductions and references both ritual and brutal. Strokes of hand and health both off key and low key. Names both privileges and penalties. Of great legal minds and even greater sibling bonds. Scans and cans both manmade and imaginary. Both systemic and systematic. Soda flows as freely as advice. Pennies for thoughts. Trials by fire.
Where there is ink there is inspiration. Lyrics linger in layers. Personages and personalities both magnetic and magnified. Voices recorded on microfiche and pocket pucks (out of luck) reverberate. Both tells and tolls. Poetic license along with bar numbers proliferate. Some strands of syllables prevail. Others reveal. Mountains as much a moment as a memory. Photographs as curious as sometimes clandestine. Cells electromagnetic and familial. Both replicated and unreliable. Beauty in the abstract. Electricity both fuel power and peril. All senses engaged. Victories as vague as possibility. All oaths (and paths) in peril. All recourses and resources ultimately retired.
Questions of guilt and blame as tangled as Ts and Is. All crossed. All dotted. For-cause dismissals as muddled as blame upon the shoulders of giants. Even the walls wax poetic. Recordings and tinsel tape both reveal and reflect. Ropes both twist and travel. Through dense forests and wild weeds. Seeds spawn both sweet and sour. Both perennials and annuals.
Where there are falls there are fables (and sometimes foibles). Questions that linger. Of authorship and intention. Of space(s). Of traces. Sensitivities thrive amidst mysterious faces. And unexpected places. Its pacing both peculiar and persistent. All universes hold both promise (potential) and (potential) problems. All arcs bend. Finales often heavy of fibers both natural and synthetic.
Fibers retain forces both present and past. Saul is as much Jimmy as Chuck is McGill. Goodman a literal good man no matter what the DNA s(pill)ed (or spelled / compelled). Precedent as permanent as pressure both blood and engine. All disks and dials spinning. All scrapes and scabs long stinging. Rescues both staged and surreal. Salty tears, (s)inking, and sibling rivalry both caged and for real. Documents and destinies altered and abstract. Theories taunt. Fingers point. Blood binds.
Newspaper clippings pile and conspire. Slips spy and design affronts both unintentional and expertly planned. Tactics tangled as tightly as questions. Most with no answers. Sabotage desired, conspired, and hardwired. All watches on. All time ticks. Prime time both a number and a nuisance. HBO and Netflix devoured. On demand viewing a tonic and a tale. Lessons linger long after canned laughter fades. Even longer after ink of loose-leaf paper dries. Guilt often woven as tightly as cross-stitch and heirloom quilts. All seasons layered.
When will I see you again, I long to know. Whether now or never (nemeses often a blend of both), it’s all good. Man, it’s all Chuck and Jimmy McGill. Both good men.
JENNIFER SCHNEIDER is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.
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