No keepers anymore

The first day I was here, back in April of 2010, I drank my last Lone Star beer to celebrate. That beer had been picked up by me when my buddy John and I drove across country to take his wife and his old dog to his parent’s house.

I held on to that beer for quite a while, saving it for a celebration. That celebration would only come when I got a job.

Well, I got a job, I moved to the beach, and I drank that beer. Up until a couple hours ago, I still had that bottle. But, I chucked it in the garbage as I was moving my stuff from that house to yet another moving van.

I’ve moved a lot over the years. Less frequently over the last decade than the decade before, but still a lot by most folk’s standards. Since 2002, I’ve lived in Greenville, New Bern, Greenville again, and Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. I also had a year-long stint in Richmond, Virginia. There was also the move of almost all of my stuff to Gainesville, Florida, where I stayed for about the amount of two months, maybe three, over the next three years. Then, I had to move all of my stuff back. That took three trips. That was pretty fucking awful.

Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving the beach. Well, my stuff will be. I’ll have to come back to get my car and to clean up the place. I may just hang out on the beach those few days. I won’t have anything else to do. All my stuff will be in Raleigh, North Carolina.

For the third time in my life, I’m moving in with my girlfriend. My lover. You get the point. Technically, it’s the fourth time, but she moved in with me the other time.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to this move.

I hated my job, and I no longer have it. That’s a good thing.

Not having a steady income, that’s a bad thing. But I’m working on it. Already got some freelance stuff lined up, which is more than I had the last time I got shown the door.

It’s raining outside. It’s pretty much rained every day since I got canned. I think that’s a sign. That even the beach isn’t worth what you went through to live the life.

Driving 100 miles a day. Killing your old car, then putting 70,000 miles on a new one in less than 2 ½ years. Looking at mediocrity being rewarded, hard work not. It was enough to make me quit. And I did, without leaving the job.

I regret that. It was a mistake hanging on “just because I have bills”.  That’s been my excuse for so many wrong decisions in my life. Hanging on to a job, hoping things would work themselves out on the other end.

Well, it never fucking works. Unless you win the lottery. The, of course, you get introduced to a entirely different set of problems and concerns. Ones that, honestly, I wouldn’t mind facing.

So, I’m going into this new chapter of my life – fuck, I’m 41 years old – with my eyes wide open. I am not going to take a job working for slave wages “just because it’s in the business” ever again. And I mean ever.

Yeah, I may get a job in the biz again. But only if it’s one I want. And know that I’ll enjoy.

Hell, one of the ones I turned down I would have loved. But, the place would have made me miserable. So I chose destination over substance. And for a little over a year, I knew I’d made the right decision. Then things changed.

I don’t regret the decision. I just wish I could have that chance again. Right now, not then. I’d go now. I’d kick ass and enjoy myself.

That’s what I’m hoping for wherever I end up. It could take days, weeks, months to find a job. I have no idea. I just know that I want something I enjoy.

Maybe I’ll bag groceries? That Whole Foods looked like an interesting place to be. A hell of a lot more interesting than a newsroom with no reporters, no editors and no one giving a damn at 6 p.m.

I’ve been bitter. Way too many times and for way too long of periods of time in my life. I’m not bitter right now. At all.

The random pop ups of the past still happen. But I smile at them now. I talk to people about them more often. And when I do, I don’t cry. I don’t squirm. I don’t try to change the subject. Yeah, it took me a long time to figure it out, but I did.

I haven’t lived in a ‘city’ other than my little journey into Richmond for a long time. I guess Arlington was it. I didn’t see Manassas as a “city”. It was a suburb.

New Orleans? I didn’t live there very long.

Ditto Birmingham.

Although I loved both of them, for very different reasons.

Tempe/Phoenix was certainly the last I lived in for an extended period of time. Not living on couches or on someone else’s dime, or even on a Murphy bed while one-legged women tried to get me to drink cheap beer with them. Damn, I should have drank beer with her.

Today, I’ll grill up some food and wait for my girlfriend to get here. None of my friends could help me move on this end. I’ll take that as another sign. Two people said they’d be here, both waited until yesterday to tell me they wouldn’t.

On the other end, at least a dozen people are going to be there. Lifting boxes and drinking beer brewed in my new home city of Raleigh. I’ll take that as another sign.

I’ve never been one to be into being positive about things. It’s a flaw, not a badge of honor. It’s taken me a long time to believe that too. Yeah, I’m still a pessimist. Yeah, I think it’s going to be amazingly hard to find employment. But, I don’t want to let it get me down. Not yet. It’s too damn early. And hell, I’ve actually networked some and shown some signs of it actually working. When newspaper guys email me, asking if I can work, that’s a hell of a good thing.

I enjoyed all my time here. Yeah, I cried some. I was sad some. But I also had a couple of kick-ass get-togethers, a few latenight drunken stumbles on the beach – both alone and with friends – and hell, I got to live at the beach for two and a half years. Another life’s goal met.

So, tonight I’ll drink the last of another batch of Lone Star beers. This one brought to me in Arkansas by a friend who lives in San Antonio. And I’ll smile when I throw the bottle away.

No keepers anymore.

An economics major...

Six Miller High Lifes in my belly, I decided to go down to the beach. I wasn’t drunk, but I had a good buzz in my head. Nothing too special, nothing to out of the ordinary. I just wanted to go see the ocean.

The drizzle marked up my glasses in a hurry. I looked down at my $2 Wal-Mart flip flops and tossed them into the weeds that make up my yard. No reason to slip and break my ankle right now. No insurance.

Getting fired does that to a person.

I walk down and notice how quiet everything is. I don’t notice that enough, sitting in front of my computer. Going to the same six web sites over and over, hoping for a conversation with friends who have long ago moved on from being my friend.

The sky isn’t cloudy, it’s murky. I see a few stars busting out of the mist. I look at them in awe.

The houses are mostly empty. The summer is nearly over. Just two weekends until Labor Day. Then everything will start closing up shop.

I won’t be here anymore. My last day here will be August 31. A Friday. I guess I’m excited.

I get to the beach and I marvel at how empty it is. I love it like this. I realize how little in the last year I’ve taken the time to come down here and revel in it.

When I first moved to the beach, I was here every night. I got off work, then in April, and walked to the shore. I always had a beer with me. Sometimes a few.

I’d sit in the sand and watch.

The waves. The people. The clouds. Whatever was there.

The boardwalk was always empty. A sexy lady would be working the bar at the TBT, but I’d never go in. Sometimes she’d wink at me. Wave me in. I always pulled out my pockets when this happened. My “I’m a hobo” moment. Or statement. Whichever you like better.

She’d always wave me in anyways.

I wonder what would have happened if I’d gone in?

I don’t think I would have ended up much differently, really. So, chalk it up as a lost chance. A missed opportunity.

I’ve had a lot of those over the years.

I think about my key. I placed on top of the carport when I left a few minutes ago. What the fuck, I thought. My stuff is packed. I’m leaving. Who cares if someone robs me now.

It’d be fitting, really.

I’ve thrown away more stuff than I did in the great purge of 2008. Of course, that was just my writing. How stupid was that? Hemingway would look at me and shake his head. His woman lost his writing. I threw mine away because of a woman. Hell, there isn’t much difference in the end.

The ocean slashes away at the shore. If man wasn’t here, the beach would be hundreds of feet the other direction by now. But, we’ve got houses here now, so, it stays. Until it wants to really move. Then it moves. Houses be damned.

It’s a fucking sandbar people. If you build here, you should expect it to fall.

That never goes over well with property owners.

Anywhere really.

I’ve never owned. Except for that car I bought.

It already has a dented bumper and scratched up paint. Character points.

One day, I may actually own it myself. Just $5,800 more to go.

Debt enslaves you. I wish someone had told me that when I was young. Instead, I watched my parents buy too much. And I thought it was normal. I thought I’d find a great job and it would all be all right. Then, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. So, I decided I’d find a rich lady and she’d make it all right. That didn’t happen either.

Now, I’m still a drunk. Who thinks he can write, but never does and I still have credit card debt.

And I was an Economics major.

Ha.

It’s unrealistic of me to expect much out of myself.

Unless I apply myself. Then it’s pretty impressive.

I can’t type well anymore. My carpel tunnels is deep and ingrained. My hands get tired.

I noticed that the other night while interviewing someone for the first time in over three years. I couldn’t keep up. Kind of like sex. I have good intentions, but they seem to go awry most of the time nowadays. The belief is still there. The effort is still there. But the results aren’t. I guess this is how a 30-year-old NFL running back feels. Unless he was lucky, and sat out a few years because of an injury or dumb coach. I always think of Otis Anderson.

My throat is dry. You drink shitty beer all night, that’s what happens. No matter if you eat a fucking fantastic meal – which I’ve managed to do the last two nights – or not.

I hate shitty beer. But I like getting drunk. I used to like both. But, I got refined. I got cultured. Fuck that, I got a little bit of the “good life” and I don’t like going backwards. Who does, really? Unless backwards means the best fuck of your life. And damn, I was 21 years old when that happened. On my childhood bed even.

The things you remember.

I know she probably doesn’t think of me. That pig-tailed girl with doe eyes and ab muscles before they were cool.

A redhead was working at the bar across the street tonight. She wasn’t attractive. She had an awful voice too. But she was staring me down. And I looked back.

I’d never have done a thing, even if she came over and said “Your dick, my mouth.” Which really, is just something some guy would write in a letter to Penthouse.

I’m in love. But I’m scared. And that scares me.

Does that make sense?

I hope so. Because I’m scared and don’t want to be.

World Wide Web, get Kraken

AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood … You Got It” screamed out of the speakers. He took a swig of Shiner Blonde as his girlfriend’s dog warily eyed him. She had left just seconds before, taking back an expired package of Stir Fry sauce back to the local Food Lion. He would have gone ahead and made the food, but she was a stickler for such things. It was one of the things that made them compatible – having the differences be in such little things.

Of course, their taste in music differed slightly as well. She still listened to a lot of heavy metal and garage music. The stuff he liked in college, but had gravitated away from to enjoying more alt-country music.

But who gives a damn.

They were good in bed together. They made each other laugh. They knew when it was OK to cry.

He didn’t like turning the air conditioning on. Only in hotel rooms. “It’s free there,” he said, justifying his sweaty existence that most folks would deem “eccentric.” He deemed it frugal. And hell, with the coming economic apocalypse, he’d be used to not having air conditioning a lot more so than most of the people he knew. It was a bit of a hipster badge of honor. Like his flip phone and reading “Writer” magazine. Ha. How is that hipster. It’s not.

Getting drunk tonight was a priority. He had to drive to Richmond tomorrow night. Had a job interview set up. Didn’t know if he wanted the job, but figured what the fuck. It was a newspaper job. It was a work from home – mostly – job. Something a lot closer to the General Assignment Sports Writer job he supposedly had in Greenville, North Carolina, about three years prior. Only problem with that job was the sports editor was such a control freak he didn’t allow it to be a free-for-all reporting job – as advertised by him in luring him away from a very comfortable sports editor job of his own – and he ended up sitting on his ass designing the agate pages too many nights.

Photography and video shooting, not so much editing, skills were honed during the time. He won a couple more writing awards. Then he was laid off.

Oh well, he thought when the phone call came to his desk. Everyone else was sitting around on pins and needles. He figured he’d be the one. Newest hire, highest salary. It was a no-brainer, really.

He took it in stride. Even the next day when he was on a list of people not allowed back in the newsroom on the new secretary’s desk. Her eyes bugged out when he said he wanted to go there, and she didn’t quite know what to do. Before long the H.R. lady was there, taking his paperwork and shooing him back out the door.

Thinking about that right now made him chuckle. And take a couple extra sips of beer.

Her dogs stared at the door. Wondering where his girlfriend went. “Did she leave us here?” had to be going through their minds.

Bon Scott says “Shazbot, Nanu-Nanu,” it makes him laugh. Then he gets a bit sad. Bon Scott is dead. Damn. It makes him think of his other heroes, and how so many of them are dead. Joe Strummer. Johnny Thunders. Stiv Bators. Freddie Mercury. All dead. Bill Hicks. Dead. Johnny Carson, Marlon Brando. Brian Jones.

And yet Jay Leno lives.

Yes, God has a very wicked sense of humor. He wants all the good guys with him sooner. The rest have to stay longer. I’m sure they get the same great welcome, but it’s later. Much later. Then he thinks about himself. He almost died once while driving. Twice while contemplating just leaving. Would he have been greeted by God? Or by Keanu Reeves?

Thoughts are a dangerous things.

He doesn’t like thinking as much as he used to.

Nor reading. Books he still buys quite often. Sometimes he starts them. But usually then end up in a pile of others. Or they start a new pile. They get dirty. The salt air here really wreaks havoc on books. Paperbacks especially. He had to write wreaks havoc in a headline at work this past week. It is one of the laziest phrases he thinks, because really, how often is havoc really wreaked?

He wants to buy a book about the author John Kennedy Toole. But he knows he won’t read it. It’ll just sit in a pile, dusty eventually. Much like the Warren Oates biography he got for Christmas last December. His uncle gave it to him. Asked “why Warren Oates?” He replied “because he kicks ass.” They both laughed. The book has sat in a pile ever since. Kind of like Warren Oates in most people’s memories. He’s that guy in a lot of movies. But he’ll always be Sgt. Hulka to most. And he really still wants to see “92 in the Shade.” Why can’t it be legal to get ahold of movies that aren’t digital yet? And why isn’t that one digital.

He wished the internet world would just send it to him.

It worked with Johnny Thunders’ documentary, why not a Warren Oates flick?

Get busy getting busy.

Hey Odell!

I came home after many years. The drifting, the loneliness, the pain, it all finally came to a festering head. For years I’d run. Always trying to stay a step ahead, knowing full well I was always one behind.

My bus pulled into the Greyhound station at 4 p.m. in Richmond, Virginia. Right across the street from The Diamond ballpark on Boulevard.

A lot of my youth was spent in those stands. More was spent in old Parker Field, the old ballpark that this ugly monstrosity replaced back in 1984 or so. I loved Parker Field and it’s ratty bleachers and rusted metal poles everywhere. It had some character. The Diamond? It had none then. And now, over 25 years after it was built, still has none. Even the giant Indian -- Connecticut -- is gone. He had some “it” factor to it at least. More the “what the hell is it doing here?” or “why the hell did they build it here?” kind of thing. I always wondered why they called it Connecticut as a kid. But I never asked. Just like now, I don’t just Google why. That destroys something. I just called him “Chief Knock-A Homa.” Because that was what the white guy, white Italian guy when I met him, was called. He’d go around the stadium with his Indian garb on, taking photos with kids. I even got his autograph once. His wife was “Queen Win-A-Lotta.” So wrong now, but so right then.

That’s one of the good memories for sure.

I think that place is where I started to learn how to hide. My dad always took me to games. It was his way of bonding with me I guess. Taking me to games, professional ones like the minor league baseball games there of the Richmond Braves, or maybe a Washington Redskins game, or a UVA basketball game. Those were the times we were supposed to be father and son. What it really meant was dad goes and drinks with his buddies while little Randy tries to find something to do to get away from that.

At the games at Parker Field and the Diamond, I’d try to get autographs before it, sit with dad for a while, maybe getting something to eat, until he started drinking. Then, I’d get up and go. Just wander around the stadium. By myself. The ushers got to know me. Let me sneak into better box seats sometimes. Except for that ugly old guy. They called him Ratty. Don’t know if it was his nickname or his name. Whichever, it fit. He’d chase me out of places I shouldn’t be. So much so you’d try to find him early, so you knew where to avoid. Sometimes I’d just go way up in the rafters of the stadium. Look out at the city in the distance, dreaming of something else. Never really have been a pin-pointer of what exactly, but always something else than what was in front of me.

Other times, I’d play cup ball in the area behind first base. It was kind of like The Sandlot, except the kids were always different. Or if they weren’t, I didn’t know the difference. I don’t remember ever asking a name or anything from the other kids. Guess I always loved the distance anonymity allowed.

Foul balls and home runs interrupted games. That was it. Everything else was focus. If a person walked on to the field, they may get hit by a hand batted cup ball or by a throw from one of the fielders. That meant only one base, and some of us got good at hitting the fans instead of trying to actually get the out. It would save a run or two every so often. And get a good glare from someone who dared enter our territory. Every so often, a player would venture into our realm. Either going to the locker rooms or even to grab some food. The game would stop, and we’d all stare at them in awe. These behemoths of baseball. Walking amongst us.

Our game would end and everyone would go back to where they came from when the real game got close to ending. Sometimes we’d actually set a score to reach, or a number of innings. But that was not the norm. It was just a game that ended when it was supposed to. I’d hang out in the empty area many times. Sweaty and covered with ballpark grime -- a mixture of spilt beer and soda, chewing tobacco and spit, peanut shells and hot dog buns. The black under fingernails comforted me somehow.

Dad, on the other hand, he’d see me covered in the scum and get angry. “Go to the bathroom! And get cleaned up dammit! Why are you always so damn dirty?” he’d slur to me.
One time, he told me I smelled of shit. Loudly. And being that I mastered public shitting around my 14th birthday, he could have been right a lot of times. This time, he was too. I used to do everything in my power not to shit in public restrooms. Holding it in until it forced it’s way out like toothpaste tubs in your carry on luggage. At that point, I’d sit on my foot and use it as a barracade against the impending poo missile or missiles. Holding. Holding. Holding. It was embarrassing. In the middle of things, taking a knee and grimacing. He’d see me doing it sometimes and he’d yell at me. “Dammit boy, go to the bathroom!” He’d cuss up a storm. Even as a little kid in diapers I vaguely remember it. He’d scoop me up, smell my ass and tell me to “take a shit. Right Now!” I’d go in the toilet, sit on the bowel and cry. Sometimes he’d come in with me, keeping the door open and staring at me. He’d cuss more when I didn’t go. He’d then go drink some more.

Eventually, when he’d leave, I’d go. Always embarrassed.

One time, before we even left, I’d been too excited to poop. In the meantime, my drawers got a little soiled. On the ride to the game, he smelled it. He pulled to the side of Interstate 95 and smacked me. “You went in your pants again, didn’t you?” he yelled. I hadn’t, but I was sure there was a streak of something in there that smelled. “No,” I’d say meekly. He flipped me over and smelled my ass. “You’re lying!” his rage increased. Back home we’d go. “Change your clothes and go to the bathroom!”

I’d go inside, change while trying not to cry. My mom would ask why we were back. I wouldn’t answer. She’d figure it out soon enough, I thought to myself. She must figure these things out, right?

That place of so many good memories blurred always by the bad.

One time, my buddy Chris tagged along. I no longer had bowel issues by then, we were teenagers. Both geeks. But happy geeks. Getting autographs and eating Cracker Jacks while trying to catch foul balls. Still haven’t caught one to this day.

My dad, he drank a lot that night. Even before we left for the park. My buddy thought it was all so funny, my happier than usual dad. His dad didn’t drink, that I knew of. At least not in public. So this was probably some kind of visceral experience for him. For me, it was an average Tuesday night in the summer.

We got to the park, went after some autographs. We had our eyes on a veteran on the other team -- pitcher Odell Jones. He was a tall, lanky right-hander who was once a Pittsburgh Pirate. That made him almost a god to both of us. I thought he looked a lot like Satchell Paige, not that I’d ever seen ol’ Satch in real life or anything. Just a baseball card that was a painting of him.

He came out of the bullpen and signed our cards. Smiling the entire time. Cool, I thought. Odell is an alright guy.

We got back to our seats. They’re good ones on this night. My dad must’ve known someone who gave him the tickets. We’re hoping he’ll buy us some food.

“Who’d ya get?” he slurs to us.

I cringe. Chris smiles.

“Odell Jones,” Chris finally says. I look at him, hoping he’ll stop. Wondering why he spoke up.

“Odell? He’s starting today!” my dad blurts out in that just a little too loud voice that drunks share.

The next six innings, my dad and his buddy who is at the game, taunt Odell Jones.

“Heeeeeeeeeeeey Odell! Odelllllllllllllllllllllll. Odell. Odell. Jooooooooooooooooooooooones!” he yells. In between large Dixie Cups of beer.

Odell tosses six shutout innings that night. He’s in rare form for a guy with over a decade in pro baseball but pitching in Triple A now. As he lets two get on in the seventh, he’s yanked.

My dad stands up and continues the taunts.

“Odellllllll. Can’t you finish anything? I guess we know why you’re not in the show anymore!”

Odell looks up to find the bane of his night in Richmond. He finds us. And tips his cap to my dad. This brings a loud series of guffaws from my dad. He elbows his buddy. “We got to him, didn’t we?” His buddy takes a long sip of beer. I don’t think he’s amused anymore either.

I don’t speak on the entire trip home. We drop off Chris at his house.

Then my dad says “Odell was inspired tonight. Wasn’t he?”

I say nothing.

It’s a nice summer night when we get home. He pulls into the driveway. Parking the car. I get out. He doesn’t. Instead, he starts the car back up, puts it in reverse and goes. Luckily, I’ve been a latchkey kid since I was nine, so I have a key. Back to the bar, I guess.

Two things ring out as I look at my Odell Jones autographed card here in my parents’ house decades later, me back with the world around me collapsing. 1/I did a best not to become the bad in my dad, succeeding and failing, but mostly succeeding, and 2/Potty training patience definitely was inspired by my awesome experiences as a wee lad. It was the one good thing I did while dating my last girlfriend -- potty training her kid for her.

bill madlock's batting average

Nothing to see here. Just turn around. Keep going. See ya. Bye bye.

It’s telling. The words that someone else wrote here. The entire story of here is there, on the wall. Just waiting for the next person to read it, digest it, and make a decision about what they mean.

For me, they say yep. For the last guy, they may have said nope. It’s the beauty of words. Especially simple ones.

I once wrote a love poem. The girl I gave it to laughed at it. Said it was cute. I never wrote another poem for over a decade. It cut that deep. You could say it’s still bleeding. Things are funny that way. The ones that stick.

You think something when it happens is going to be something vital. Permanent. Then, a week later, you’ve forgotten all about it. Or she forgot about it and you didn’t. Or the dog shit on the exact piece of paper you may have written it on, then ate it just to spite you.

Then there are the throwaway moments. A television commercial. A rip in your jeans. An argument in a bar. Those things, they stick. You remember them for years. Decades. Forever. Whatever that is.

I’ve always had a problem remembering “important” things. The dates a girlfriend’s parents died. The favorite drink of the woman I want to share a life with. Unless I write them down. Then I can look at them. Study them like definitions in my world history class the junior year of high school. When the one-armed teacher would write terms on the chalkboard for the first 10 minutes of class. Then tell us to remember them, read a chapter and then watch some 1940s or 50s film strip about the past. War. Death. Famine. AIDS. Well, no AIDS. It was still new then. Rock Hudson was what AIDS was about, I guess.

But I could always tell you Bill Madlock’s batting average each year he won a batting title. They were .354, .339, .341 and .323. If you want me to sign any lyric from Poison’s first two albums, I’m your man.

I don’t want it to be that way. I try my best to learn a language that I’d already studied for over six years, but never mastered. Yet I could remember the name of any girl that I ever had a crush on from the time I was 9 years old.

It’s a curse. But a blessing. Those things, those random-ass stupid facts and scenes from the past. They fill up gaps in stories. They fill up gaps in conversations. Change a little bit here, a little bit there and it becomes something different to say. To write. Tell that to the girlfriend. Tell it to her when you forget something important. Then, it sucks. A lot.

I guess that’s a guilty conscious. No. I know it is. It hurts to think of some of the stupid things I’ve done. But, there ain’t shit I can do about them now. So, I write about them. I remember them. I try to learn from them. Do I ever? Guess it depends on who you ask.

My old journals and blogs and diaries and notepads were full of confessions. Full of drunken ramblings of a broken-hearted fool. Most of it was shit. Some of it wasn’t. Sometimes people stumbled upon them. Read what I had to say about them, about us, about the things I thought we shared or should have shared. Some shuddered. Some smiled. Some never came back. Some kept coming back. Some came, went, then came back years later. Very few ever asked me about it. That always perplexes me. But what can you do except keep on keepin’ on.

Just the other day. It seems someone from my past paid a visit. I wrote something about this person drunk one night a long, long time ago. The internet is funny. It’s been deleted, but it still exists. They found it, read it, and read some more. I have no idea what the reaction to it was. Although I may be able to hazard a guess. But that’s a futile effort. Why? Because only they know, and if they don’t want to tell, I ain’t going to find out anytime soon.
Damn. I’m uninspired, yet inspired to think.

I did just eat too much bad for me food. And two cans of ginger ale. That also may have something to do with it all.

Bare with me. It will get better.

A boy can dream…