11 days ... aka no words...

When I was 17, my dad asked me what I wanted to do. I said “I don’t know.”

When I went to college a year later, I had one visit with my advisor. He asked me, “so, what do you want to do?”

I said the same thing.

I drove 4,000 miles a few years later with my best friend. We talked, he drove. We listened to music. We crossed the border. We drank beer. We watched the movie “Speed”. He never asked me what I wanted to do.

I met a girl and fell in love. At that point, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. Be a journalist. Be a happy person. I’ve learned the two weren’t compatible with me. Not that they aren’t for others. Just not for me.

I broke her heart one day on the telephone. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway. But that day she forced the words out of me.

A couple days later, a girl asked me “what do you want to do?”

I said “fall in love again.”

I was drunk. I was sad. I didn’t know anything.

A few months later, I fell in love again. It was slow. It was hard. It ended up being perfect.

Six years later, on the phone, she broke my heart. She asked me a variant of the same question. I said “be with you.”

I sat and stared and drank and cried and drove for the next two years. Had a girl for a little while. Then I sat and stared and drank and cried a little more.

One day at work, I got a phone call. I got fired.

I left North Carolina. Drove back home with my tail between my legs.

I met an old friend for drinks. We talked about what we wanted to do then, and what we could do now.

It’s been a constant conversation with us two ever since. She’s had job after job after job. I’ve turned down four jobs then got one. So I could live at the beach. I turned down on really good job. And I was asked why. I said “because I want to do something for me for a change.”

So I moved to the beach. Always wanted to do it.

Now, a year later, I finally had a party here. It was fun. I kissed a girl that night. First time in almost three years. It felt good. Nervous, but good. It was the second date. She wanted a kiss on the first date, but I didn’t. I needed to not.

The same band was playing in the background of the first date. The moment was there and I went for it. I never go for it. Well, I used to not ever go for it. The last four kisses have all been me first. Maybe that’s a sign of finally moving. Or maybe it’s just me overthinking things that don’t need to be analyzed. I’m good at that.

The record player is off right now. The birds are singing some sad song. Well, it sounds sad to me. I think about getting up, putting on a record and going back to wherever it is I was. But I don’t. Atrophy doesn’t look good on me. But my roots are starting to show.

The pen doesn’t run out of ink if it’s never used. The brain doesn’t breathe if you don’t feed it words.

I haven’t written in over a week. I haven’t read in over a month.

So I sat down and starting typing. Just words. Just thoughts. Just whatever needed to spill out of my head. Slow, steady and sad. Those three words just seemed to be all I had at that moment. That instant. So I typed them. Fast and slow.

I was asked again yesterday what I wanted to do. I still don’t know. It’ll come to me, though. I have faith that the last 40 years haven’t been wasted. They’ve just been practice. Experience. I’m good at longing for something. I’m also good at chasing things down. But when I get them, it seems I’m always disappointed. Either by them, or by me. Is it ever enough? Or have I just not found the right it?

Words. That’s all they are. Actions are better. Even when actions involve just words. Remember that, will you? It’s the most important thing to remember. At least right now. At this moment. It’s what you need. It’s what you are.

Henry's Hyundai Highways

Listening to a new album right now. All the songs are very much about someone being cheated on by their husband/band member. Or her cheating on him. Since they’re in the band together, it’s all up in the air. I don’t know the back story, and really, it might harm the songs in the mind.

Very Fleetwood Mac, for sure.

As I’m listening, my heads resting against the porch storm window. I’m staring outside through the dirty piece of plastic. And I start to wonder what it would be like to cheat on someone. Been cheated on, quite a few times, I figure. But never did the deed myself.

Like any guy, I’ve thought about it in a relationship. Always in passing, as in “that girl’s hot, I wonder…” and then it stopped. Always. Hell, maybe it’s just because I’m so damn shy. It really has nothing to do with being above it. Or better than all those heathens that actually went through with it.

Or maybe it is.

I’d like to think I’d never do it. And at this point in my life, I think if I actually got lucky enough to meet someone who I trusted enough to let in, I’d guard that thing with all my might. Good thing? Yes and no, I’d figure. The point of obsession and overprotecting could become an issue?

But, that’s a road I’ll cross if I ever get to that intersection.

***

Shaking his keyboard methodically.

Over and over.

The upside down plastic receptacle empties out a couple months worth of crumbs. Which the ogre across from me in the office wipes to the floor with one swat of his meaty paw across the desk. The sound of little pieces of spit out and dropped food fill the newsroom.

Two people, myself included, notice this episode. We look at each other, cringe and laugh.

Two others don’t seem to care.

Ahh, the newsroom.

This hulking, bulbous jester of a man walks around the office with his belly protruding from his t-shirts like his is some kind of Ignatious in the wrong part of the world.

His 1994 t-shirts are either an extreme attempt to hold on to his “better days”, when I’m guessing life was better for a know-it-all before the internet and Google. Or he simply doesn’t notice his stretch-marked paunch protruding out beneath the too-little and way-too short cotton Ts.

Somewhere Bob Mould is crying at this vision.

He’s just a gross and obtuse fucktard.

Sometimes he bends over in the office, his tighty-whiteys drooping out of his pants. All pushed up to the edge of his pants, which are much too tight and short.

I know I don’t buy clothes very often, hell some of my shirts are from the early 1990s, but once they don’t fit, I get rid of them. Luckily for me, I used to buy clothes way too big for me. Now, they’ve shrunk and I’ve grown.

Not this guy.

I’d hate to see the skid marks he leaves behind.

I know nothing about him, other than he was supposedly a sports editor at a paper in West Virginia for over a decade. Yet, he doesn’t seem to grasp the concepts of what people like in a sports section. Nor does he seem to have any grip on reality. He answered the phones for the sports department one night, and seemed lost taking phone ins. And these people keep jobs. Get better jobs.

One day, it won’t matter any more.

***

Sitting outside, well, on the carport, the rain started falling.

The complete silence around me, except for a wooden wind chime and the rain was amazing. It started me thinking of Charles Karult. And those the CBS Sunday Morning News, whatever it was officially called. Even as a young kid, I loved watched those reports. “One the Road” with Charles Karult. He’d go all over the county in a Winnebago.

Where can a guy get that job today? They’d never spend the dough anymore. Guess I could do it myself.

An Asshole in his Accent.

Henry’s Hyundai Highways.

Chortle. Snarf. Gack.

It sounds like fun, anyway.

But now the rain is over. The humidity is rising. And cars are starting to drive about. For some reason, the Lemonheads’ “It’s a shame about Ray” pops into my head.

Now I can’t stop thinking about Urge Overkill.

And mopeds.

Then it all goes away, and I think about going to the store to buy a frozen pizza and some beer.

***