A chuckle and a slap on the back

I pulled up to the house that was soon to no longer be mine.

The cool ocean breeze hit my face as I exited my car. The last chords of American Aquarium’s “Burn, Flicker, Die” faded into the air, replaced by the distant waves crashing on the beach.

“I’m going to miss this place,” I say out loud to no one but myself.

I look at the dilapidated plastic flamingos that stand guard. One of them is duct taped on the legs to keep him upright. His partner is missing his eyes. On the other side of the yard, two more sway in the breeze. They came later in the process. A gift of a friend who has sort of faded into the periphery of life. I hate it when things like that happen. But it does happen. Too often when you never stay put. I envy folks who have stayed in one place for long periods of time. They develop roots. They develop routines and have friends always available.

Me? I’ve moved so many times to so many different places. My friends are scattered from 30 miles away to New Orleans to California, then over to Japan and into England. Pockets of friends are in Virginia. Some on in Louisiana. Others are in this hell hole of Eastern North Carolina.

Some of those same friends say they are jealous of me.

“You’ve got to see so much, travel so much,” they say, “And you don’t have things holding you down.”

True, I tell them, but you have things I have always wanted. A wife, a family a dog and a cat. A steady paycheck and a feeling of purpose.

“I’ve got none of those,” I’ll say.

Usually that gets a chuckle and a slap on the back.

I open up the door to my “paradise house” as one friend described it to me once. The intense heat hits me like opening an oven to pull out a pizza. It actually blows the hot air outside. A front was just formed by this.

My brow instantly begins to sweat. I open the fridge and enjoy the cool air. I grab a Lone Star – 16-ouncer – from it and pop the top. I swig a huge sip of the Texas swill and realize that life is good most of the time. It’s only bad when you start worrying about it.

I go to the thermostat. It’s 99 degrees inside, according to the piece of plastic. But it doesn’t go to 100, so it could be 120 in here. It isn’t. There was a time about a month ago when it was 99 on the thermometer. But it was much hotter than it is now.

Then, I turned on the air. My girlfriend was there and it had to happen. We left for an hour to get some coolness from a local dive bar. Drank a couple Yuenglings and forgot about the last 48 hours.

Those are the times you remember. When someone sticks by you. Even when most people wouldn’t.

“You got a keeper,” my dad said a week earlier.

“Damn right,” I thought then, and am thinking now as I finish off the tallboy.

I don’t turn on the AC. It’s too expensive now that I’m unemployed. I have enough money to support myself for about 8 months, I figure. Of course, my figures will be way off and it’ll last five, tops.

I open up the windows and turn on a couple of fans.

Soon, it’s 91 inside.

“Not too bad,” I think.

I take a swig of beer and go outside. I open my car’s hatchback and start hauling in boxes. Medical boxes. Rubber gloves and gauze, they are slugged. My boxes display my journey as well.

These are the “I’m dating a nurse” boxes.

Others are : “I’m dating a girl from New Mexico who’s mom liked fruit” period.

Still another is :”I’m dating a Mexican who’s mom wrote what was in the boxes” period.

And still another is “This was the lesbian that I pined for” period.

Lastly, there’s the “The bitch was just looking for a safe place to be for a while” period. Those boxes, I threw away.

I sit down at my computer, hoping one of the gaggle of jobs I’ve already applied for has responded. I boot it up, log in to my email and … nothing.

I log into my other email … nada.

I went through nearly 14 months of this before, but I had a steady paycheck from the taxpayers of the United States then. I don’t now. Even though an old colleague told me “You should apply anyway.”

What’s the worst they can say? No. Right, I get that.

But why bother getting even two seconds of hope raised?

You’re a glutton for gluttony. If by gluttony you mean stupidity and pain.

I shaved my goatee off yesterday. I don’t really know why. I just did. I look weird without it. I think I look older. I definitely look “sweeter” as my girlfriend told me.

I’d rather look surly. Keeps people – other than tourists who want directions or a photo taken – away.

I need to eat some food. I always slip into these “forgot to eat” days when something happens dramatically in my life. And though I was going to make this happen in about two months anyway, this does qualify.

I look at the stains on the carpet and the broken blinds and I wonder if I’ll get any of my security deposit back. My last place I got it all back, minus the carpet cleaning fee. I had even left a piece of petrified baby poop – well, three and a half year old poop – exactly where the kid had left it months before.

Yeah, you can call me disgusting for that, but I didn’t want to touch it. And hell, that kid was good at shitting somewhere and hiding it away from us. Gotta give him credit for that. I’m sure his dad had nothing to do with that talent.

This makes me think of the Doug Stanhope concert I went to the other night. I’d bought the tickets drunkenly one night. So it was a sunk cost. Except for the three beers and tip I bought. I woulda bought more, but I felt bad about it. That kind of thought process probably won’t last.

Anyway, he told an Assburgers joke. Or maybe one of the opening act guys did.

It was funny.

I laughed.

But it made me a bit sad too.

I wonder how that kid is doing?

Good, I hope.

It’s really all I can do.