Educated

Sitting in the unemployment office, the signs on the wall always amuse me. My favorite is the one that says “More education is better.” I chuckle each time I see it. And I see it a lot lately. My social worker, well, that’s what I call her at least, Marlena, has three of them on her wall.

She’s kind of fat. The kind of fat that lets you know she worries about it all the time. She has these huge arms, which tell one that she was once a whole lot fatter, but couldn’t afford surgery or the right kind of trainer to get rid of the arms.

And she loves that motivational poster: “More education is better.”

“How so?” I asked her the first time I was in her office.

“Excuse me, Mr. um, uh, Jones,” she said, quickly glancing down at my file to get my name right. Kudos for the effort Marlena.

“The sign. How is more education better?”

“Studies show that having a high school degree you will make more money than one without. A college degree more so than a high school grad. A masters, more than a bachelors. And so on.”

“So, I should stay in school forever, and eventually I’ll be rich?”

“Well…It doesn’t work thaaat way, Mr. Jones.”

“Really? That’s not now you’re telling me. And your posters are telling me.”

She frowned at my last response. I wished it was more like a Bukowski book right now and she had great legs. Because then I could stare at them instead of those God damn posters. Or her giggly arms. Every time she reached for something – and she reached a lot, for her coffee, a pen, my file, the phone, her cell phone, her teeth, it went on and on – they giggled. It was almost mesmerizing. Luckily, it wasn’t.

“What are you here for today, Mr. Jones?”

“Well, the state says I have to come in here to prove that I’m A-unemployed and B-still looking for a job,” I replied.

“Well are you?”

“Which?”

“Both, Mr. Jones,” she said callously.

“Yes and yes.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Well, I’m broke and I have the time to come here to talk to you, don’t I?”

“Certainly, but I need proof positive that you are indeed seeking a job.”

I pulled out a stack of resumes and a stack of rejection letters from publishers. I also pulled out three forms signed by jobs I had applied for, interviewed for, and been turned down for. One was at Food Lion as a cashier. One was for a deep sea fisherman. And the last was for a bridge attendant.

“So, this will do,” Marlena said, stamping the files I handed her with her giant rubber stamp. Her arms giggled. I even think her nose giggled a bit.

“Here are some new leads,” she said after a few seconds of sweet silence. “Hopefully, something in there will do.”

I couldn’t help but think of Alan Arkin in Glengarry Glen Ross. I wondered if I was just as sad a character? Then I started thinking of Alec Baldwin holding those big metal balls. I wished Marlena would do something like that. I scanned her desk for any giant balls. Instead, I saw a Furby, a Ziggy calendar and a box of unopened Triscuits.

“I’m sure these will be great,” I said.

“Mr. Jones? May I ask you a question?”

“Certainly Marlena,” I replied, somehow now thinking of “Falling Down” when Michael Douglas is in the Whammy Burger place calling everyone by their first names. I chuckle. Out loud.

“What is funny?” she asks, almost hurt it seems.

“You ever seen the movie “Falling Down?”

“No, I have not.”

“Well, that just popped into my head. You should rent it sometime.”

“Back to the questions. Can I ask you something?”

“Like I said, certainly.”

“Do you have an education?”

“Yes. I. Do!”

“How far did you make it?”

“I have a high school degree, as you call it. I have two bachelors. I have six Community college associates degrees and I almost finished my masters in creative writing, but gave up when the professor in charge of my thesis said I was “too God damn repetitive!”

“Oh, why that was mean of him.”

“Not really. It was the truth. But he just didn’t like my answer to his question of why I was so G-D repetitive,” I said, not cussing this time because I saw her wince the first time.

“What was your answer?”

“That I only have one story to tell, and I want to make sure and get it right.”

Ol' Puddin'

Hanging out at the local dirt racing track, things sometimes take a turn for the better.

Me and Mitchell just got into line for some cold beers – Miller High Life bottles, of course – when Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” started blasting out of the shitty speakers surrounding the track. No one but us seemed to take much notice of it, instantly going into air guitar mode. A couple of ladies with Billy Ray mullets and old Iron Maiden and Warrant tour shirts started pointing and laughing.

“Wanna get laid tonight?” Mitchell asked.

“Yeah, but not like that. Too desperate and too easy.”

“So you say now.”

“Yes, I say now.”

We got our beers and ambled over to the parking lot. There was some kind of distraction going on near the bunch of El Caminos parked bumper to bumper at the area known as “El Rey” to the locals. We found this out later in the evening.

Some guy was talking about how lucky he was this afternoon.

“I was brushing my teeth in the kitchen when the water stopped working all of the sudden. You know, you turn it on and all you get is the sound of pipes shaking? Well, I had a mouth full of paste and I needed to get it out, pronto! (Giggles from the crowd). So I reached for the first bottle I had on my countertops. It, of course was a mason jar, as that’s where I keep all my booze. The legal stuff and the “homemade” stuff. If you catch my drift?

“Well, I open the lid and commence to sippin’ and garglin’ when I notice a funny taste. Now, all of you know my liquors can have a taste that takes some getting’ used ta, so this ain’t no surprise. Neither is a slight burn. But, this my friends won’t no slight burn. It was Devil’s Spit kinda burnin’.

“So I spit it out pronto. All over my kitchen, my shirt – which I just paid five dollar fur at the Roses – and just start cussing up a fit.”

“What was in that jar, Puddin’?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Let’s me tell ya what was in that jar, Smithson. It was freakin’ GAS-O-LINEY!”

The audience laughed up quite a cackle. Even Mitchell and I had a good gut laugh out of Puddin’s story. Hell, he knew how to keep an audience with him. Maybe politic-an would be a future endeavor for him, if he so choose that path.

We started to walk away when someone screamed.

In a flash, we turned around. Just in time to see ol’ Puddin’ running. And he was on fire.

And instead of the stop, drop and roll we all learned in sixth grade – probably a grade or two further than ol’ Puddin’ made it – he was running around “Like a damn chick with its damn head plum cut off!” as one of the amused audience members would later be quoted describing the scene on local television at 11 p.m. later in the evening.

No one was chasing poor Puddin’ with a blanket or anything. A couple of guys in mesh hats threw some beer on him as he passed them by. But ol’ Puddin’ seemed to have a destination in mind.

About 200 yards away was a duck pond. It was a duck pond simply because someone had placed some wildly painted duck decoys in it. So forever it was known as the duck pond by locals and race affciandos.

Anyway, Puddin’ made it to the pond and dove it. A loud sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sound followed. Which we all figured was his skin singeing after hitting the water.

Puddin’ then let out a yell.

Soon after, an ambulance arrived. It was already on sight for the racers, but now it had a fan to take care of.

A lot of folks had their cell phones out and recorded Puddin’s run, as it became known on the Internet. “With gas so expensive these days, Ol’ Puddin’ decided he wouldn’t wash it out of his shirt until he’d gotten a little buzz off it.” Was just one of the t-shirts which ended up selling. Thankfully, no one auto-tuned Ol’ Puddin’s run. I think he didn’t scream enough for it to work?

As Mitch and I were leaving the race later that night, a local newspaper reporter came up to us and asked us some questions about Ol’ Puddin’. Neither of us knew him, we said, but we saw the whole thing happen. Well, except for ignition, as we turned away to drink our Miller High Lifes.

She asked some questions and we answered. Some serious, some not so serious. It was interesting to see what got into the paper when you got asked questions by a reporter. Being a former ink slinger, I knew a thing or two about the truth and how some choose to bend it.

Finally, the reporter, who looked all of 19 years old and very out of place in rural North Carolina, asked me: “One last question, Mr. Jones. What would be your one regret if you were to die like Ol’ Puddin’ did tonight?”

I scratched my beard and made it look as if this was the single most important question anyone had ever asked me. Finally, after a few moments of silence I said: “Not having sex in a car. Now, I had a girlfriend that promised me she’d do it. But she never did. We did just about anything else. We even re-enacted the train scene from “Risky Business.” I’ve done it in a Burger King bathroom, as Digital Underground instructed me to do in 1989. I did it in front of a hotel window on the top floor. Albeit in Rockville, Maryland over looking a parking lot, not in Las Vegas looking out at the strip like it is in my fantasy.

“But never once have a fucked in a car. It would be a damn shame to die that way. Especially, if it was to go like Ol’ Puddin’ went.”

She laughed, and said “Don’t think I can use that one.”

“Sure you can. Just take out the fucks and such.”

“Have a good night fellows.”

“It’s fellas. You ain’t from ‘round here are yeh?”

“No thankfully. No.”

“Same here darling. Moved from Northern Virginia, myself.”

“Really?”

“Yep, really. Manassas via Arlington.”

“I went to Chantilly High School!” she said, now a little bit more interested in us two – me in a Lucero shirt, him in a Zanadu one.

“Actually dated a girl who went there, way before you, but still…”

“Awesome,” here’s my card. “Give me a call sometime. Maybe you can show me what there is to do here?”

“Well, tonight, Ol’ Puddin’ put on the show. It wasn’t expected, but it was a good-un.”

She smiled and walked away at that.

seagull

It’s surprising sometimes exactly what makes you fall back into bad habits.

Today, it was walking on the beach and hearing a seagull cry. That lonesome wail that come out of its beak forced me for just a second to think about what I haven’t thought about. And I started to cry myself. Alone on the beach on a warmer than it’s supposed to be day in February I stood on the beach wailing like a small child.

So, I went home and started drinking.

I don’t like drinking alone like I used to. At one point, it was a ritual. I did it out of habit instead of want. I can’t say it wasn’t a need, however, as it probably was sometimes. Sanity is a tough thing to walk the fringes of and not falling down on one side or the other.

Much like if you travel the same roads of your past, you’re going to see ghosts. Or feel them. Deep in the bones. An ache that won’t go away. It hides sometimes. But it usually knows when to show up again.

I stopped crying for a moment and watched the seagull. It hopped on one foot for a bit, adding a bit of tragi-comic effect to the moment. Then the other leg popped out and he started walking away from me. He’d done his job, I figure. Stirred up something inside me that needed stirring. So he was off to do whatever it is that seagulls do when they’re not annoying you on your beach blanket or following behind a boat looking for food.

Staring into my fridge, I see the many six packs of beer that my girlfriend has brought me over the past few weeks. It’s a tradition of sorts. There are beer stores worth a damn in Raleigh where she lives. Here at the beach, not much to speak of. I can get Shiner at the Food Lion, and for most of my two years here, that’s been enough.

I pop open an Abita and it starts to flow over the rim of the bottle. I curse the foamy remnants that cover my hand and I go to the sink and wipe it off. I think for a moment about how not too long ago, I would have just flicked it onto the carpet or just patted it on my clothes.

After a couple of beers, and some Lucero music blasting, I start to calm down a bit. I begin to make my plans for returning to the scene of heartbreak in just 13 days – New Orleans. I bought tickets to a Lucero show at Tips in December. Figure I should use them. The long-ass drive will do me some good. As will re-visiting the scene. I have a thing with returning to the places that remind me the most of the pain. I guess it’s good that I don’t go back to Gainesville, Fla. But seriously, that would be stupid. She’s in Alexandria now anyway. Working just down the street from my best friend’s apartment. Funny how that all works out.

Now, with the mind distracted just enough, the tears start to evaporate. I hope the hate doesn’t rise. It caused me to lose a friend, well, in the way someone loses a friend now-a-days with the deletion of self from social networks. But, I’ve decided that yes, I could chase after him. Apologize. But why? He is one of a very few who knows how I’m hurting right now. And he chose to be an ass because I was an ass. But taking it a step further. Maybe it’s a joke and I’m too fucking sensitive. If so, jokes on me Sasha Baron Cohen. If not, jokes on you.

The beer isn’t as effective as it used to be either. Or the words of Ben Nichols. But the pain inside right now isn’t about a girl. It isn’t about being a fucking asshole. It’s about life itself. Just not mine. Which makes it really hard to figure out, being the narcissistic fuck that I am.

So I turn my attention to finding a way to stop thinking about trying to figure it out. It never works, but you can’t say I haven’t tried. Well, some would say that, but fuck them.

The CD ends and all I hear is the ocean. Waves slowly breaking against the sand. This time of year, it’s easy to hear. Which is nice. The tourists and jarheads are nowhere to be seen, and especially heard right now.

heath ledger

You always hope the one that got the good stuff, the good life, won’t throw it away.

Then there are the friends that you warn to back away from the ledge, only to watch them run right off of it.

Today, a friend of mine jumped off that ledge. I just hope that he finds Keith Richards when he lands. That way, he’ll be on the ledge below the ledge and not in the bottom of some endless ravine. That ravine is not a fun place to ever spend a night in. Or even an afternoon. Or a lunch break.

Driving across half of the country with that kid, I didn’t learn much more than I knew beforehand. He spent the entire time texting the woman who would later be referred to only as “the woman of my dreams.” No matter what she did to him, mentally, physically or other she could do no wrong in his eyes. I’ve been there before. The cloud of love. Or is it the fog of love? Anyway, some people are lucky and the love is returned, completely. Fully. Honestly. With no cost. No hidden Bank of America-type fees.

I hope the kid is lucky and gets that love. The first months – hell almost year – certainly don’t point to that being the case. But, I’ve always believed that you have to learn these lessons the hard way. On your own. If you don’t, you don’t actually learn from it at all. It’s like having daddy cover your mistakes or being a Kennedy and being allowed to kill someone.

My cynical nature doesn’t allow me to not look at it in a bad light. Hell, it took me so damn long to get over the so obvious game I was played for a couple years ago. Luckily, I saw it coming the second time around and didn’t fall again. I almost did, hell, I did, but I didn’t fall fully, which kept me from falling all the way. Lesson learned. And it has let me love again. A love that has had more hurt in less than a year than it should have.

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered as she turned the ignition.

He hadn’t known this girl for more than 10 minutes, but he was getting into her Kia and not thinking twice. It was a beat up car. Definitely had seen some serious action, KFC wrappers all over the floor. “Who eats at KFC that often?” he thought to himself. “I’ll have to ask later.”

She turned out onto Lejeune Blvd. A strip of road that he had come to hate over the past few years. Before, it had just been a place that was visited a couple of times and really never thought of. Now, it was a road that led to the place he hated more than any other place he’d been to. But it appeared by getting in this beat up Kia, he’d never see it again.

“Just let me get a few miles away, then I’ll push the button.”

“Ok,” he said, not thinking really of what she meant by that.

After about six minutes of driving, she whipped out what looked like a remote control for a television.

“Here we go,” she said. “Life’s never going to be the same for me and you now.”

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

“Why’d you do that?” she said balkingly.

“For luck.”

“I don’t need luck,” she said, pressing a button.

A loud rumble percolated from where they had just been. Soon, a cloud of smoke appeared in the distance.

“Guess that’s done,” he said.

“It’s just beginning, darling,” she said, pointing the car west. “We’ll be in Winston-Salem before anyone figures out what happened. Then, it gets interesting.”

The next six hours were mostly silent. Her driving, me looking out the windows. I-40 has been a constant companion for me and her for the last year. She lived hundreds of miles away from me. She built weird contraptions. I sat on my butt all day at work and slowly developed Type II Diabetes. Now, I was about to start running. Not the kind that ends with you running your first 5K and posting pictures of it on Facebook in hopes of getting a few Likes and Comments from friends and people who are simply Internet friends. No, the kind of running that would involve never seeing family ever again. Of hopefully getting out of the country before sunrise, kind of running.

I guess one could say, life no longer is what it was.

for once

Tom Petty's “So You Wanna be a Rock'n'Roll Star?” is blasting out of the jukebox as he enters the bar. A cloud of smoke billows around his face as the wind from the open door hits the stagnant atmosphere of the place.

“It feels like home again,” he says to himself.

Three weeks ago, time had kind of stopped.

His dog died first. Ol’ Sidney was just 9 years old when he ran into the street one times too many. That hound had dodged many bullets in his life, but he wasn’t about to dodge one more on that lazy Thursday night.

Two days later, at exactly 6:27 a.m. his boss called to let him know that his job didn’t exist anymore. In reality, as a newspaper reporter, his job hadn’t existed for quite a while. Instead, he was a videographer/paginator/photographer/copy editor/multimedia tweeter-facebooker who every once in a long bit got to actually write something about what was going on in the world. He wondered aloud quite often in the office the last time his pen actually hit paper.

After a three-day bender with an old college buddy, Josh, which saw them aimlessly drive – West, then South – and end up in Sierra Blanca, Texas, he got a call saying his credit card was maxed out.

“Time to go,” he said with a shrug and a pat on Josh’s back.

“Why?” Josh asks as he popped open another Budweiser.

“Money’s gone.”

“Bummer, man. I got the next round.”

The next day, they headed back to Ol’ Virgin-ia. Hung over, but happier.

However, on the following Thursday, the last bomb dropped – Amber, his stripper-turned-accountant girlfriend had decided Randy was a bum and left him for a slide guitar player for one of his favorite bands.

“Can’t get much worse than that,” Randy’s sister had said to him the next day.

And she was right. Since then, nothing had gotten any worse. Not better either, but one takes what one is given. Learned that sitting at the dinner table with my father. You put the Brussel sprouts on the floor for the dog to eat, she ain’t gonna eat them either. Why? Because they’re nasty fucking little pieces of green awfulness.

Once the dog puked it back up with a loud “Ack, ack … Hawfffffff, the smack on the back of the head and then the belt coming off wouldn’t be too far away.

“God damn son! You know how much money I have to spend feeding you? And then you just give it to the dog!”

Always in the back of my mind the thought of “isn’t mom really buying all of this?, was always there, but I never dared utter them. Fear can do that to a person.

“Sooner or later I’ve got to stop thinking about Brussel sprouts and finding a job,” I said to Manny, the bartender here at my favorite watering hole.

“Yeah, but we know that ain’t going to happen for at least another month,” he replied, always rubbing a glass with that nasty old hand towel. “You’ve got what, six weeks of unemployment left? Plus, they gave you a two-month severance package. I know you haven’t blown through that yet, have you?”

He looked at Manny. Some looks are better than words, and this was certainly one of them.

“On the house, man. On the house,” Manny said handing him mostly full bottle of J&B.

“With more friends like you …” he said smiling and drinking.

“I’d be completely out of business …”

“Fair enough.”

Thirty three minutes late, the bottle was done, and so we he. A quick glance around the place told him that staying wouldn’t hurt, but leaving wouldn’t either.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Ramirez,” Randy said ducking out the door. A Nerf football buzzed just inches away from his face as the door slammed. The orange poofy thing sat on the sidewalk teetering back and forth as he walked away.

“Missed me by that much!” he thought to himself in his best “Get Smart” Agent 86 voice.

“That was a pretty bad impression,” he heard from a nearby coffee shop table.

He glanced at the source of the voice and was pleasantly surprised it came from Amber.

“Never thought I’d see you again,” he said.

“Neither did I,” she said. “But Josh called me. Told me what you and him have been up to. Well, you mostly now as he’s in India right now.

“Yeah, making more money this week than I’ll make in three years.”

“You chose this life.”

“Did I? It’s hard for me to remember what I chose and what chose me anymore.”

“Well, let’s get you home. You need a bath.”

“Sponge?”

“Dream on, fella. My sponge days are long behind me.”

“Seriously? Those words?”

“It’s all I know fella.”

He loved the way she called him fella. She knew that. I guess she really was trying to make me feel better. For once.

I want my bacon

The process of losing friends is a funny one. You usually never know why it happens until after the fact, and then it’s downright sad to think that you could ever have lost a friend because of something so silly.

It can be falling love with someone else. It can be getting a job far away. I can be a single comment taken the wrong way. It can be jealousy over a job. Over money. Over an accomplishment.

One thing that it always means is you just really weren’t friends to begin with.


A wrapper from an old Kit Kat bar sits on the table. Being a diabetic, he couldn’t remember the last time he ate one. But there was a wrapper, staring back at him. Almost mockingly.

His old lamp was full of beer caps. Years worth of collecting led to that lamp finally being full. Each cap different than the next. Yet it’s hard to enjoy it now. Simply because he can no longer drink beer. Hell, drink anything fun. It’s V8 juice and water and homemade smoothies from now until the day he joins Jack Lalane in the ground.


“I’ve got to get out of here,” he thought sitting in his cubicle.

He hadn’t really moved in the last three hours. And certainly hadn’t done any work. But this is what his boss wants. Sometimes he believes it’s actually punishment for some sin done to the Napoleonic bastard.

“If you can’t do anything to fix the problem, don’t complain about it,” a co-worker said softly to another, but with just enough bile in the inflection that the meaning was conveyed.

“It is what it is,” was the boss’ favorite saying. He never fixed any problem. He let them fester and fill with puss. He was miserable, and he wanted everyone else to be so too.

“Fuck it,” was another favorite.

Somehow, the publisher never saw this side of him. Or if he did, chose to ignore it because he did plow through a lot of work. Unbelievably, he never was called on his stealing of ideas or images or words from others, snide comments from me notwithstanding.

Karma’s a funny bitch. Sometimes she bites you quick and you move on, other times she just slowly jabs you with a knife, inching it further and further into your gut with a dirty blade. Oh how I wish she’d turn her attention elsewhere for a while. But, I guess one gets what one deserves. And now, this is what I deserve.


The fog settled in on the island. The warm February days were still not normal for her. The water was cold and the days when the temps dipped back to the 20s made damn sure she wouldn’t feel normal for a while.

Today? It’s supposed to be 70 degrees with severe thunderstorms.

“Maybe a tornado will come and fucking wipe that shithole off the face of the planet,” he thought casually about the place of employment. “Maybe a bit harsh,” he continued to think, “but dammit, it may be the only way to get out of there alive.”


“Have you ever fucked in a booth in a Denny’s?” she asked with all seriousness.

“Nah,” he said. “But I’d sure give it a go.”

“Awkward,” she said with a snort. “We’re in a Waffle House.”
“Who said I wanted to fuck you?” he said, trying to be funny but knowing before the words finished coming out of his mouth that he’d regret them.

“Oh really,” she snapped. “That hard on you had last night while we were watching “Full House” was because of the Olsen Twins then?”

Blood rushed to my face. I could feel it. I’d pretty much thought that my strategic placing of a pillow moments after the erection saved me this embarrassment. But alas, she was once again, smarter and quicker than me.

It’s why I dug her so.

“I’ve always been a Bob Saget kind of guy,” I replied.

“Weak,” she said. “If you’d said Joey Gladstone I would have blown you in the parking lot.”

“Kind of like knowing the name of the guy who played Matt Houston,” I replied.

“What? Lee Horsely? The poor man’s Tom Selleck?”

“Dammit.”

“You know you love it.”

“More than you know.” Once again, too much information coming from my mouth.

“I think I’ve got a pretty good read on you Mr. Jones. And you have no reason to be worried. I like you too.”

“You want to get out of this place?”

“No, not yet. I want my bacon.”

-30-

Walked into the bar about 3 p.m. That damn Eddie Money song “Baby, Hold on to Me” was playing a bit too loudly from the jukebox. My eyes peeled about the place to see who the most likely candidate for plunking down a quarter to play this monstrosity was, and they settled on the 40-ish blonde woman wearing a flannel and jeans in the most lit-up portion of the place.

She had a smile on her face and a pint of Guinness in front of her.

“I can appreciate that,” I thought to myself while forgiving her from her musical sins.

I looked up at Joey the bartender and pointed at the whiskeys behind him.

“A double,” I said bluntly.

“You got it Randolph,” he said with a grin. We both knew what kind of a day it was going to be if I was sitting on my personal barstool at 3 in the afternoon.

He handed me the glass and tapped the bar with his finger.

“It’s been two years now, hasn’t it?” he asked knowingly.

“Yeah, almost to the minute now,” I responded before taking a shot swig of whiskey. It felt good in my mouth for that moment before it burns the back of your throat. I needed that burn right now, hopefully by the end of the night, it wouldn’t burn anymore.

Joey turned a walked over to the lady in the flannel. I watched as he sauntered over, said something to her, sparking a laugh from her tired face, then went back to watching some soccer match on the television.

She looked at me and smiled. I returned the favor the best I could. I really wasn’t in the mood for a bar conversation. It’s why I came to Joey’s on a Thursday afternoon at 3. Well, I came here because I didn’t want to think about anything else. I wanted to get away from the ghosts of my house. Everywhere I looked they watched me back. They screamed at me like Tom Keifer in a Cinderella ballad.

So I got out of bed and came straight here. Didn’t write a word this morning even though my column with the local newspaper is due in about three hours. They’d figure out that I wasn’t going to write one and pluck in one of my “pre-written” pieces. I made a deal with the editor a year ago when I started to slip. He came to me and said they were going to fire me for missing deadline so much. Even though my column had a following, and I didn’t ask for much money, they needed it to be “ON TIME!”, he yelled.

In my mind, an idea popped up and like I usually do with everyone but the ones I love I blurted out that thought immediately – “I can write you a gaggle of columns in advance to keep in the hopper. Just so you can have a backup for when I fuck up!”

I was a little too proud of that line, and it showed. My editor looked at me and shook his head.

“You’re a real prince, Randolph,” he said. “A fucking prince.”

“It’s why ya love me, Deno,” I replied. He hated being called Deno. It was his dad’s name, he always said. Not his. Even though he was a Junior and all. But damn if anyone ever called him Junior, other than his mom – who happened to own the paper and love me.

That night I wrote 17 columns for the “emergency” backup plan.

So far, 11 of them have run in a little over a year.

Deno turned a left the building after I got out my laptop. Not a lot of folks carry one of these things anymore, but I love mine. It’s seen me cry. It’s seem me smile. Hell, it’s seen me cum, though luckily never on the keys.

I typed up some words and got distracted by the jukebox again. This time it was Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” This song reminded me of middle school. Of having a huge crush on a waif-thin black girl whose mom worked with my mom at the school board office. She had braces and eyes that would kill, if she’d been old enough to know.

My buddy and I tried to get her to hang out with us a couple of times. She lived really close to him for a while. But she’d never go for it. By high school she was cool, we weren’t and it was just accepted.

I decided to write my column about her. It ended up being 23 inches long by the end. “Guess they’ll have to jump this one,” I thought to myself. Deno hated jumping columns. Thought it was “Poofy Stuff!” he’d yell. I tended to agree. If you can’t get to the point in 18 inches, get out of my way. But sometimes, hell, most of the times, it had to be longer.

I marked it with a -30- and pushed send. I knew the 22-year-old who would open this always stared at the markings at the end of the stories. He asked me one time what it meant.

“Death of Journalism, my man,” I said with a tip of the hat. A fedora? Hell no. An ironic Lucero trucker hat.

potato skins

The miles peeled off in front of me like potato skins. Eastern North Carolina back roads seem to be like that more so than the roads of my old state – Virginia.

It’s hard for me to believe sometimes that I’ve spent over a decade in this state. It started off so promising, got really good, then fell apart in the blink of an eye one night sitting amongst a collection of crap that put me in debt over the years. I still remember staring at all those boxes of shit, moved from North Carolina to Florida and back again and never leaving those damn U-Haul boxes once. What a waste of space and time and money and any other thing that one wastes. Life? Sure, why not.

I looked out my window. The sun was setting to the west, which happened to be the opposite direction I was going. The pastel colors of the sunsets here are beautiful, especially the closer one gets to the ocean. The only good thing about going east around here is you end up at the ocean eventually. Through some interesting territory sometimes, full of Confederate flags and beat up Camaros on blocks in front of even more beat up double-wides. I look at those places and wonder how awesome it would be to just move in and do that. Stop thinking so much about the past, the present and the future. Instead, just exist for a bit and work on my Camaro.

Of course, then there is the worst part of getting to the beach – the way it’s been transformed into a mini-Wildwood by the fuckers from the north. Yeah, the Yankees. Some in this state would call me a Yank, coming from the southern part of Virginia. But I’ve got an accent, more of it comes out when I’ve been drinking or when I’m nervous as hell. Which isn’t too often anymore.

The radio’s not giving me what I want at the moment. Double shot of Pink Floyd by some station in Raleigh that is most likely playing a Clear Channel approved set list. I push the button. Then I push it again. And repeat and repeat.

The best song I can find on this Wednesday night in February is Eddie Money’s “Baby, Hold on to Me.” I guess it really could be worse, but at the moment I don’t think it is.

I thought about telling her last night the name I had been thinking about. She’d asked before and I said I hadn’t thought of one. But that was before that night in New Orleans when everything changed. When we had to live through the worst night of my life.

It makes me cringe thinking of how I used to think that no pain could be worse than the one I got when the redhead broke my heart. She wasn’t the first, and much to my shock at that time, wasn’t the last either. But I nearly killed myself over it. Came within a phone call not answered of at least trying it once.

But now, that seems small compared.

As does the first time I found out that I could’ve been a dad. Even though I guess I wouldn’t have been.

It was in New Orleans too.

I still remember the bricks of the building we were walking past. The Spanish moss in the trees. And the incredible sinking feeling inside of me when she told me about the abortion. Things have never been the same since that day. It took me a long time to realize it.

Now, that pales.

The memory I can’t get out of my head is her eyes. The pain she was in. Not just physically. The mental anguish of what was happening was impossible for me to stop.

I held her hand. I told her to look into my eyes. Over and over. It happened and it was over. I almost looked down, but I didn’t. I still don’t know if she did. We said we wouldn’t and I don’t think she did either.

Honestly, I didn’t want the memory. I’m too good at them.

Now, I wonder if she would have liked the name I liked. Mellor. It’s strange enough but perfectly fitting for me to name a kid that. I liked Darby as well, but knew that it wouldn’t fly. Maybe not with her, but with my mind. So, I settled on Mellor. I guess many would have expected HRJ the IV. But I didn’t seem to think it would fit. Maybe I would have grown into that idea. Maybe not.

All I know is I want that memory out of my mind. Her eyes looking at mine. They were begging me to fix it. And I knew I couldn’t.

I was strong that night. Strong for her. I nearly cried when the doctor told us exactly what had happened. The tears were there, but they didn’t flow.

Later, while she slept, I called my mom and told her. I almost cried then.

That was as close as I’ve gotten. And I don’t know if I’m ever going to. I want to. But they just don’t want to form. Don’t want to come.

The Eddie Money song ends. A commercial for some local car dealer comes on. Telling me I need a new car. I sigh a long sigh and watch as the sun disappears beyond the trees of the Croatan National Forest.

“I’ll be home soon,” I think.

inside his mind for a moment

“Yeah, I’m done,” he said as he closed his laptop. “I’m tired of it all. Checking Facebook. Checking Twitter. Pinning my interests. Blogging my thoughts. Hell, I can’t even come to delete my Myspace page.”

Holding on to the past was always smart. Now, it’s a pain in the ass. He used to read old writings. Remember how it felt. Sometimes become happy in the realization that it wasn’t as bad anymore. Now, there just doesn’t seem to be any time for it. Too much going on to spend time there.

Some would say “that’s awesome.” But not him. He misses the time spent crafting something. Thinking about something deeper than the newly reunited David Lee Roth Van Halen and whether or not tweeting 140 character or less reviews of each song on a shitty album is genuinely productive or not.

The temptation of turning it all off is always there. Just like the temptation to not do anything at all. Lately, the not do anything at all has won. And it sickens him. “So get off your ass and do something,” they say from the rafters, all the while not fucking doing anything themselves except consuming and expecting others to do things for them.

Yesterday, for instance, the fourth person in the last two weeks told him to “lie about it” when applying for jobs. Hiring agencies and bosses “don’t want to hear you’re a quick learner and can figure it out.” No, they want to hear “I have experience doing that and can do it well.”

“Fuck being honest, I guess,” he thinks. “It won’t get your anywhere anymore. At least as long as they don’t check up on it.”

So, he continues to toil at a shitty job. He’s good at it. But working two or three hours a day out of the eight spent in the office – added to the hour drive back and forth to the workplace – and it all seems so pointless. So pathetic. Watching a field die that he went all in on is saddening. But he also knows that wallowing in it and feeling sorry for himself ain’t gonna get him a job somewhere else. So, just like three years ago, he keeps sending resumes out. A rarity is a response, but it’s not unexpected.

He doesn’t drink much anymore. When he does, two or three beers is enough. “Is this getting old?” he wonders at night as Netflix brings him a six-year old episode of “Law & Order.” But how many times can one search for a leak of an album by your favorite band. Same websites over and over. All pointing to other websites in a fruitless attempt to take over his computer with spam and adware and such.

Next thing you know, the acid reflux from the night before will comeback. He thinks it only came about because the hamburger he cooked with was a little “gamey”, but he can’t be sure. Getting old and all. The leftover part of that meal is still in the fridge. It’ll sit there for weeks before he finally throws it out. It’s more about not wanting to wash the dish than anything else. Some would call it laziness, but he doesn’t, he calls it apathy.

Speaking of, a conversation occurred the other day and he didn’t hear a single word. But said “Yep,” at the end. Wondering if he just sold his dog or agreed to a lunch date with the fat girl at work? Guess, he’ll find out soon enough.

His car just passed 55,000 miles, in about 20 months. Kind of scary to think he’s been in the car that long. Lately, there have been lots of dreams (well, three remembered ones, which for him is an epic amount) about car wrecks. It makes him pause and drive a little safer. Especially after getting a second ticket in less than a year. This one for “following too close” even though it was caused by a truck pulling out into fast traffic, but the officer wanted none of that, even though he said “yeah, I saw that happen. You should have slowed down.”

He’s right, but he doesn’t want to listen to that shit. Cops are shitbags. Just like shitbags are full of shit and bags of dicks still make him smile.

That’s a line that will one day lead to strange amounts of Asian porn spam. For sure.

He just wants this to end. And finally it is going to.

Rob, Halford

“Does anyone really even like T.Rex?” she said with a shrug.

“I fucking love T. Rex,” I thought to myself sitting there watching this 20-something gal pontificate on the importance of Marc Bolan’s output. While T.Rex certainly deserves some love, I wish someone would take “The Slider” off of repeat in this bar.

“OK, life is too damn short,” she said. “For anyone to be forced to listen to this shit while drinking this shit,” she mockingly points at her empty bottle of Miller Lite.

I could fall in love with this gal. If only I wasn’t already in love with another. I turned away before I either fell too hard, or she saw me staring. And with that short dress of red, who wouldn’t stare?

“Hey kid?” Manny asked. “What do you think of T.Rex?”

“Fucking asshole,” I thought to myself. He knows damn well that I always look at Darby when she’s in there. Always thinking about her legs, her eyes and her damn ability to make me fucking nervous and nuts.

“You know, Manny, I was born to boogie,” was all I could muster.

She laughed. I tipped my bottle of Shiner Bock in her direction and thought I’d instantly regret it. But I didn’t. She looked me up, then down, then turned back to her friend – and my friend – Alexander Rifken.

Yeah, everyone called him Alex, except for me. I used his whole name. One day he got up on a bar stool and proclaimed that his name was no longer Alexander, it was just Alex. But me, Manny and Darby were all grandfathered. We could still call him Alex.

Fucking great guy Alex. Don’t have much use for Alexander.

I didn’t sleep much last night. The kid kept me up. He cries a lot. Hell, I cry a lot. I hope he didn’t get that from watching me. Although we do watch each other a whole bunch. He seems to sleep better when I’m typing. So, my writing, while not improving or really going anywheres, has become prolific.

Last night I wrote a line that seemed so silly, so dumb I had to read it to him. After I was done, he smiled. And I cried. Fucker looks like her. Not that it’s his fault. Hell, he’s lucky he doesn’t look like me. That’s a fucking curse.

Yesterday I got a check in the mail from the government. They keep sending ‘em, so I keep cashing them. My lawyer, well, the guy I met one night at Manny’s who is a lawyer and gives free advice to those who continuously buy him shots of Jager, told me that one day they’d either stop coming or a letter would show up telling me to pay it all back. Well, it’s been sixteen months and neither of those things has happened yet. So, I’m not going to try and fix the glitch. Instead, I’m going to stay gainfully unemployed and write. One day I may actually try to send something to someone who doesn’t think I’m talented or cute or humble or family. Someone who didn’t break my heart so I broke it right back. Anyone who’d keep coming back after I pissed ‘em off for the 100th time. Or the first time. Never the last time.

There are days when the words flow. There are nights when I wish they didn’t.

Today wasn’t one of those days. I tried to put myself back in the place I was before it happened. Before she went away. For good. Those days I went to a job that I hated. A place where I worked for maybe an hour a day, but had to stay there for eight. The people either smelled bad or had given up. A couple tried to pretend they hadn’t yet, but their faces and their bellies told a different story. I guess it happens. It happened to me. That’s why I stayed there so god damned long. Just existing. Waiting for the next thing to happen. And it did. Completely unexpectedly. Completely not on purpose. Excactly the way it should happen. Exactly the way I always tell other love-lorned morons.

If you look for something, you won’t find it.

Eh, bullshit.

If you watch a fucking pot, it will boil. It will take exactly the same amount of time to boil as it did last time.

All that shit, it’s a lie. Just fucking live your life the way you want to. If you want to sit in your room and never come out to say hello to your roommates, fucking do it.

If you want to steal. Rob.

If you want to Rob, fucking Halford.

But god damn it, if you want to write … just stop. The world doesn’t need another one.