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.

Who are we kidding, there was never a plan ...

He sighed long and loud. His car was parking at a traffic light in New Bern, North Carolina. He’d made it 37 miles from his starting point – the Atlantic Ocean. How on earth was he going to finish this task in the three weeks he had?

Burying ghosts isn’t something that comes with a manual. He’d been dealing with them like a pit bar-b-que guy must deal with flies, he swats and hopes for the best.

She’d left him over six years ago. Six years, four months and 17 days ago to be exact. Two nights before, he’d finally realized that he’d been pining over her for longer than he knew her – six years, four months and 11 days. That epiphany hit its mark while lying in bed that morning. The wind was blowing outside and the cars were driving by on the still wet from an early rain road. He had to stop. And to make that possible, he had to do something interesting, something dramatic, something only he would think of.

So, he took a shower and went to work. Like he always did. For five days. Then, while sitting in his dusty cubicle at work, listening to the trollish co-worker beside him crying for the God only knows how manyieth day in a row, he got up walked to his boss’ desk and said “I quit.”

Stunned, the copy desk chief stared at him. “It is what it is, man,” he finally uttered.

“Fuck that,” he countered. “You’re just as stuck as I am, dawg.”

With that, he went outside knowing full well he’d never enter another newspaper office again. At least as an employee. That felt more liberating than what he was about to do, and that, he decided, was a damn good sign.

Driving the 58 minutes home he started plotting a course of action. How on earth could he do this? He had no job, was deep in debt and had a girlfriend. She knew he was messed up about his past, but she thought he was just too emotional.

His first decision was she couldn’t come with him.

He dialed her number. They rarely talked on the phone. She hated it. He hated it. His worst relationship moments had come on the phone. Fights from New Orleans to Arlington, Virginia. Crying fits. And the break up from Gainesville, Florida, to New Bern, North Carolina.

She picked up.

“Hey, honey,” she said. He didn’t remember her ever calling him honey. He tried to call her honey or hun a few times. She said it creeped her out.

“Hey, babe,” he responded. “I’ve got some news.”

“Good news?”

“I think so.” He paused. The next words out of his mouth were very important. And he hadn’t thought them through at all.

“Listen, I need some time by myself,” he instantly knew those were the wrong words.

“What?” she said, terrified.

“Let me re-phrase that,” he said. “I need to take a road trip. It’s going to be a long one. But I have to do it alone.”

“OK…Why?” she said, tentatively.

“I have to bury her,” he said. “She’d dead now. Well, she’s been dead for a long time. But I just found the corpse.”

He hoped she’d get it.

“You mean her? The one you always talk about in your sleep?”

“Yes,” he said. “I quit my job today.”

“What?”

“Good news is, I can move in with you now. No more long distance relationship. That is, at least after this trip is done.”

“Honey,” she sadly, “are you going to come back?”

“Unless I get killed driving or while eating pancakes somewhere, yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “I promise.”

“Love you,” she said softly. Her voice didn’t sound confident. He knew she had doubts about his intentions. It was funny, for the first time since they began dating a year and a half ago, he didn’t have any doubts about his.

“Love you too, babe,” he said. “I’ll send you a postcard from every stop I make.”

“OK,” she said, now crying.

“It’s going to be all right, baby. I promise. I just need this. We need this. To survive.”

“I know,” she replied.

“Good bye baby,” he said.

“Love you,” she said, hanging up.

He stared at the phone. He had a real hatred for phones. He hated having life-altering conversations on them. Twice in his life, he’d suffered through that life-shattering talk on a phone. One of them was while he sat on his parents’ living room floor; the other, on a broken down futon. His grey-blue eyes looked around to see where this one occurred. He was sitting on a hand-me-down couch in his holey underwear. It seemed fitting.

In the spare bedroom he kept his suitcases and bags. Under a cheap spare bed, he reached for, and found his sister’s old Virginia Commonwealth swim team bag. He loved that bag. She’d given it to him years ago. “I don’t need it anymore,” she said. He marveled then at how easy it was for her to just give away something that used to mean so much. It was a concept foreign to him. Things that had meaning, you hold on to them. They keep you grounded. They remind you of when times were better. Because, honestly, they don’t get better.

What an awful way to look at life, he thought to himself after that flood of memory.

His first instance of purging came in 2003. He and the redhead were moving. Well, she was moving, and he was moving his stuff. A box of old letters and trinkets popped up while he was taking things out of a closet. His old girlfriend’s letters and memory box. Things that reminded him of her. He looked through it all, smiling at the things it contained. His current girl had replaced her. While he was lost in thought, she walked in.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Just some old junk I don’t need anymore,” he said, throwing the entire box into a trash bag.

“I’m proud of you,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you throw anything away.”

She was right.

Six years later, he was in a crappy apartment in that same town. He’d moved twice, but somehow ended up back where he was. Another girl had come and gone, and she had the audacity to say she left because he lived in the past.

She was right.

And he was throwing it all away. Garbage bag after garbage bag was filled with his past. Diaries and notepads. Menus and receipts. He even threw away the necklace that the first girl he saw naked had left on his bed that night. That was one of the things he never thought he’d throw away. Now, years later, he still can remember what it looked like, but he can’t describe it.

“Guess that’s progress,” he said out loud.

He’d packed up a bag while thinking. He also had his digital camera and his laptop.

His bank account was empty, he’d paid the rent for the month and turned in his notice. He’d get back and have one week to move.

“Good plan,” he said with a chuckle. It made him think of a line from Lucero’s “She Wakes When She Dreams” Which, of course, made him grab his Ipod – which contained only Lucero and Ben Nichols songs.

“Time to hit the road,” he said, slamming the door shut.

He’d go north first, he decided. Go right into the belly of the beast.

Sid's Taco Stand

One day, you’ll look back at all this and laugh.

No one ever means that when they say it. You can either laugh at it in the moment, or it hurts like a fucking lockblade knife plunged into your stomach. You may be able to look back at it and laugh at yourself, but deep down inside, you know it still hurts.

July is a strange month.

I love the weather. I like it hot and humid and nasty. It’s why I’m sitting in my house at the beach and it’s 90 degrees inside and I’m not stressed out about it. A couple of fans blowing and a pint glass full of water to keep me cool. It works.

That would kill most people I know now. Not most people, because most people still don’t have decent air conditioning. It’s why I laugh at the folks that are so damn fed up with the heat. Go outside and live for a few days. Then, you won’t feel so bad.

July was her birthday. For a good while it was festive. Then it died. Well, she killed it.

Then July became the breakup point. Twice. From the next one.

Now, funnily enough, she popped back into my life today. “… wants to be friends.” Fuck you Facebook.

And of course, between 13 and 15 days from now I was supposed to be a dad. Instead, I’m not. Another process I’ve gotten used to over the years.

My God I’m a whiny little shit.

…

My wrists burn with almost every activity now. CT is no fun-o.

….

I try to remember the last time I saw her face. It had to be in Smithfield. But, I’m not really sure. It didn’t have a finality to it, from my perspective. So, I didn’t watch it.

I don’t want to write about her. She caused me so much pain, and cost me so much more in my own stupidity. Let’s not go back into that box.

…

“Eating tacos would be nice,” she said with a smile.

Finally, I thought to myself, a girl that will actually tell me what she wants to eat. No more “Whatevers” or “What do you wants?” or even “I don’t know, you picks..”

Ugh.

I hugged her on the spot. We’d only been on two dates, and not even touched each other. She tensed up a bit, until I said “Thank you for picking! It means a lot.”

She smiled.

“You’ve had indecisive women in your life, haven’t you?”

“Well, not really. Just about food.”

“Ahh…” She seemed to ponder that one. I like a good pondering look. I pulled out my phone and took a picture.

“Why?” she said in a faux-mad voice. “I should go Mad Max on you!”

“Mad Max the first 30 minutes of the movie, or the last 10?”

She punched me on the arm. I dug this chick. I hoped I wouldn’t fuck it up.

We drove downtown. 6.3 miles exactly. I knew this because I made the trip to Sid’s Taco Stand at least four times a week. I figure when I have a heart attack, I can send the bills to Sid. I told him that one time.

“Fuck you say?” Was his only response. I liked Sid. But I liked his tacos better. It had something to do with the sauce. He said it just came out of a bottle, but I didn’t believe him. I got a job at Sid’s just to see where the sauce came from. It didn’t come from a bottle. It came from a bucket. Sid laughed when he handed me my first – and last – paycheck.

“You got your answer?” he queried.

“Yep,” I said. “I now know it does not come from a bottle, but instead from a plastic bucket. But what is in the bucket, may I ask?”

“Now that you are no longer employed at Sid’s Taco Stand, I cannot share any company secrets with you,” he said. “Now, what do you want?”

“Four tacos and two mandarin Jarritos. Extra sauce.”

“That’ll be,” he started.

“Four dollars and 11 cents,” I finished.

“You got it kid,” Sid said.

When we pulled into Sid’s, the neon signs were all off. I had never seen Sid’s closed. Even on Christmas. He stayed open.

“If you close, you can’t sell Tacos,” Sid told me during my second day of work when I asked why he was never closed. It made perfect sense. Just like everything else Sid said.

He had told me to ask Marie out on a date. That was three weeks before I started working for him. I asked her out on my fourth day of work.

“About fucking time,” he said.

“I’m giving you my one day’s notice,” I told Sid.

“What?” he replied, holding his knife menancingly.

“She said she’d go out with me, but she added that she wouldn’t date someone who worked in a taco stand.”

“Was she serious?” Sid asked, crestfallen.

“I don’t think so, but, I don’t want to temp the fates.”

“Good idea,” he said. “It will certainly be the same without you here.”

“Yeah,yeah, yeah. Except now I won’t get the employee discount. I had gotten used to three dollars and 67 cents.”

“I had not,” Sid said laughing.

We walked up to the door. The closed sign, which I had never seen turned from open was there. Scribbled on it was “Until further notice.”

I looked at Marie. She looked back. She shrugged.

“He’s got to be in some kind of trouble,” I said as I plopped back into my car. The stereo cranked out Taco Wagon by the Young Fresh Fellows. I got sad. I turned off the song.

“Let’s go find out,” Marie said.

“Huh?” I replied.

“Let’s go to Sid’s house.”

“I don’t know where he lives.”

“I do,” Marie said. “I’m his daughter.”

Right then I noticed just how pale she was. She knew what I was thinking.

“OK, hun,” I said, cranking the ignition.

“Turn left on Pedro. Then go a few blocks to St. Martin Avenue. It’s the red brick house. You can’t miss it.”

I felt bad when the only thought that popped into my head when we got to Sid’s house was “Damn, I’m never going to have one of those tasty tacos again.”

thoughts, and where they lead...

I want a moment with my ex like the ending of the first episode of “The Newsroom”. I know it’s not going to happen, but, I’d still like that moment.

“What are your plans for my Emily?” her uncle said to me in Colorado.

“I don’t have any plans for her. I’m just trying to be there for her,” was my answer.

He grabbed my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “Just don’t hurt her,” he said.

“Never,” I said with a smile.

She never heard that conversation. I never told her about it.

And I hadn’t really thought about it until right now. Especially the ending part.

And now I wish I hadn’t thought about it at all.

I want so much to believe in the Hollywood ending. The epiphany will come. Even if it takes years. But life isn’t like that for most of us. We bounce into people’s lives and it works or it doesn’t. For whatever reason, some get it right the first time. Some get it right after 100 tries. Some never do.

I hope that I’m not one of the latter. I’d hate to think that really, she was the one, and I let her go. Or she let me go.

The old cliché that if you let someone go, if they come back blah, blah, blah.

Fuck that shit. And fuck the keep trying. Fuck it. It’s all lies. We all fuck each other over. Some can just deal with it better than others.

And fuck that. I don’t want to be so God damn bitter. But I am. And I only have myself to blame. And damn you The Darkness for making that phrase always be in Justin Hawkins’ voice. No matter what the context. Welcome to my fucked up mind.

But that holds true for it all. You are what you perceive. Your reality is only what you perceive it to be. It’s so damn simple, and I’d guess so damn true.

I was thinking of writing about my father’s Members Only jacket tonight. About maybe putting it one after he dies. But I don’t want to think about my dad being dead. As much as we’ve fucking hated each other over the years – and dammit, I think he’s hated me at times too – I still love that fucking drunk bastard. I still want so much to make him proud of me. And I know my time is limited on that front. His health is bad, but damn, he keeps drinking. He keeps being bitter about things. And every day I see how much like him I really am. No matter how much I tried not to be. It’s impossible. Yeah, I don’t berate the one’s I love like he did. But I hide from them as much. And nowadays, they run away when you do that. They don’t stick around.

I wonder often what would have happened if my mom had had the guts to leave. She should have. He was a fucking prick most of the time. At least what I remember. And I don’t remember much, so for it to have made that much of an impression, it must have been a lot.

I still want to incorporate my mom taking that fucking marlin off the wall, hauling it to the front door and chucking it into the bushes into a story one day. Into a screen play. I was on the stairs, peering down through the white wood railings that lead upstairs. Me, a confused and scared little kid wondering why my parents fought so damn much. I know now why. And I always tried to say I’d never do the same things my dad did. Switch jobs for a woman. Give up on my dreams for hers. But, you know what. I always did the exact same thing. Even when I thought I wasn’t. It’s a fucked up world out there. And we’re all a part of it. And no matter, I made the decisions I made. Which either directly or indirectly led to the demise of great things in my life. And as Justin Hawkins will keep singing in my head all night “I’ve only got myself to blame…”

I see it now too. I want so badly to move to Raleigh and just get a job digging ditches or mowing lawns. But, I don’t want to give up on the “life.” Not that the “life” has ever given anything back to me but a couple of plagues on my floor – yeah, I don’t hang them – and a lot of pain – laid off, unrespected, angst-ridden.

I guess that’s why all the old guys were all single. Or divorced in the business. The smart ones got out. The ones that wanted families and lives and happiness. The rest of us, we got old and crusty and bitter.

And our teeth fell out.

Not yet, though.