Get Down Moses, Chapter 1

The young guy stared him down. They pulled into the parking lot almost simultaneously from opposite ends. A young parking lot attendant just stared at the both of them. He wasn’t about to interfere. It was one of the perks of the job. And there were few.

“Hey, asshole!” the young guy, driving an orange F-150 with flames down both sides yelled. “I was fucking here first!”

The old guy, who probably hadn’t shaved in 10 days or so, got out of his car, clicked his key to lock the door and walked up the monstrosity of a truck.

“Put your dick back in your pants,” he said. “This is a no-fucking zone.” And he walked away.

The young kid, angrier than he’d been in years, revved up his engine. It had a Hemi, so why the fuck not, he thought. However, just as he did this, his hand slipped from the gear shift and his foot slipped as well. His truck lurched forward slamming directly into the car in front of him. The old guy looked back, expecting his tiny Saturn to be destroyed. He laughed out loud when he saw that it wasn’t his car, but the one next to it. The one with the plates that said “Gator 8.” He knew exactly whose care it was.

The old guy moseyed over to the bar across the street, opened the door and peered inside. He found who he was looking for pretty quickly. He wasn’t hard to find. Anywhere.

“Hey Moses,” he said, “Some skinny kid just slammed into your car.”

Moses, who played linebacker for the University of Florida three years ago before being kicked off the team for steroid abuse, looked up from his newspaper.

“What the fuck,” he muttered, folding the paper up and placing it down on the table in front of him. “I’ll be right back,” he said to the two ladies sitting at the table with him. One was Dynasty, a former stripper who was known to get around with the Gators’ players back in the day. The other was Sheena, a local barfly – just 22 years old, but already half way to the grave.

“Who’d you say hit my car,” Moses asked the old guy politely. The old guy walked outside with Moses and pointed across the street. There the kid was nervously looking at his bumper and the smashed up back bumper of the car he’d hit.

“That guy,” the old guy said. “He’s a real charmer too.”

“Thanks,” Moses said, patting the old guy on the back. “I owe ya a beer.”

Moses walked across the street. Not even looking to see if any traffic was coming. He never looked. Figured if anyone was coming, they’d see ol’ Moses parting the sea and stop. They always did.

“You. Me. Discussion. Now!” Moses said, pointing to himself, the kid and the dirt in front of him. The kid looked scared now. He didn’t know who Moses was, but he was about to find out.

“Did you hit my car?” Moses asked politely, but sternly.

The kid looked at Moses. Then his car.  Then Moses’ car. He swallowed hard. The next words out of his mouth were going to determine the path of the rest of his life, he thought.

“Um, uh,” he could only manage.

“Listen kid, it’s a simple yes or no question. You either hit my car with your truck. Or you just so happened to park an inch away from my car, with a big dent in your car that corresponds to the dent in my car. Orange and blue paint swapped. So…Did. You. Hit. My. Motherfucking car or not?” He added the pauses between most of the words. Mostly to keep himself from getting angry. The last time he got angry it cost him his scholarship, and as a result, his NFL career.

“Sir, um, I,” the kid once again sputtered.

“OK. We now know you don’t understand the English language. A lot of folks used to think that about me. They’d say ‘That Moses, he can’t speak.’ Or ‘That Moses, he real dumb.’ Well, kid, I think you know I’m not dumb. And I’m pretty sure from the looks of you that you’re just playing dumb. So, let’s have an answer in the next five words.”

“Um.”

“One.”

“What?”

“Two.”

“Shit.”

“Three.”

The old guy watched from across the street, now with a pint glass of Guinness in his hand. He figured the kid would have either started crying or bleeding by now. It was sort of disappointing.

“Yes,” the kid finally said.

“Thank you,” Moses replied. He reached into his jacket pocket, causing the kid to recoil. Moses pulled out a piece of paper from his notepad, the one he kept at all time to write down the moments of his life. He’d done it since he was 12 years old and a teacher said to him “One day Moses, they’re gonna want to know about your life. You should write it all down.” And Moses did.

He licked the tip of his pencil and wrote down some words. Then he handed them to the kid.

“Kid, this is my insurance information. If you could kindly reach into your car, and write down yours we can be done with this.”

The kid scrambled to the truck, opened up his glove box and paused. There was his grey 9mm pistol. Moses saw it to.

“Kid,” Moses said. “Don’t even think about it.”

The kid heard the clicking of the hammer of a gun. He looked in the side view mirror of his car and saw Moses holding a 45. It was cocked, and most definitely loaded. He reached for his insurance card and pulled it out.

After closing the door, he handed it to Moses.

“Thank you kid,” he said, uncocking the hammer and putting the gun back under his belt. “I always like to be civilized about such things. Let’s go inside my establishment across the street and wait for the police to get here. And don’t worry, I ain’t saying nothing about your little German friend in the glove box.”

“Um, uh, thanks,” the kid said, following Moses into the bar.

The old guy watched as the two went inside. He smiled at the kid. The kid just stared. The same stare he’d given the old guy before. He raised his hand to the old guy’s face, pointing one at him and pretending it was a gun.

“Bang,” Moses said.

Everyone laughed.

Ten minutes later, the cops were there. They always showed up at Moses’ pretty fast. It was either something bad, or something good. Luckily, McGinty thought after he’d written up the accident and handed both sides their paper work, it was a good one this time.

I am not a role model

I get scared when it’s easy.

That’s what the 27 year old kid said to me about writing the other day. He’s followed too many of my paths in life, but he seems to keep coming out of it on the right side. Smart kid that one. Except that whole using me as a role model part.

After that conversation I had to sit down and think about it for a bit. Who was my role model? I mean, I take after my dad in some ways. I am really bad with my money. I get drunk too much. I’m bad at relationships.  But, I have to say nothing much else.

My grandfather? I always wanted to be like him. He was quiet. So am I. He followed his heart. I do that. He was an accountant who never missed a day of work. I have only used one sick day in my career as a journalist.

But, once again, I don’t see enough. I didn’t model myself after him. Or anyone I guess.

Is that strange? I have no idea.

This is why I find someone emulating me to be a bit disconcerting.

But, lines like “So what if all my heroes are the losing kind” have to come from somewhere, I guess. So who am I to stop a kid from being whatever he wants to be. Even if it’s like me?

A couple of police cars are circling my house at the moment. I was outside just a few minutes ago, looking under my car with a flashlight. I wonder if my awesome neighbors, of who there are just motel guests, called them on me? It’s not a good thing, not being able to just check out under your car at night without a drive by of two cop cars. One, peering into my house with a light while slowly creeping by. I raised my bottle of beer in a salute to him, and then they just parked in the empty parking lot across the street. Guess they’re going to “Keep an eye on that one!” Good luck kind sirs. Why don’t you just go back to harassing folks driving their cars on a public road at night. It’s certainly what you are good at. But, like I said, you’ve got to pick something and try at it. And when you fail, take it as an omen.

The keyboard fights back sometimes. It doesn’t seem to want to produce for me. I sometimes wish it were easier. Just to sit down and type and see results. It probably is, but I don’t take the time to just say fuck it and do it. That’s certainly the next goal. To have the nuts to do that. I’m 41 and not getting any younger. My eyesight is failing faster than my teeth are rotting. One day it’ll be interesting to see if I can still tell the difference between foods when I can no longer chew or see it. Happy days indeed.

A paragraph can be one sentence.

Or it can be two. Like this.

But it never seems to matter, unless you are keeping track. If they run on and on and on and on together. Or just stay apart.

I met a lady yesterday. She seemed oh so happy to meet me. I didn’t buy it for a second. Her office had no windows. And she dressed like she shops at Kato. I hope one day I won’t marry a woman like that. It would be enough to put the gun in my mouth for me. I wouldn’t even have to think about it.

It also dawned on me that for over a decade I was ruined by one person. At first, it wasn’t ruinous, at least in my opinion. Then it was. And it festered. I like the word fester. But not when it pertains to my life and the way it has been wasted. Like a limb with a cut that isn’t treated and eventually becomes infected. It will either be cut off or saved. But a lot of that has to do with effort.

I once was told to never give up. But that seemed so silly. I learned early on that you can’t win every time. And if you expect to, that’s a lot different than actually doing so. And I’ve yet to meet that one person who won all the time.

My neck and back hurt many times now. I think it’s from over sitting.

Last week I had some money. This week I have none. Next week I still won’t have any.

It seems darker outside than usual. I think it’s because my eyes are failing. Will my eyes failing become my new teeth are rotting? Only time will tell. At least that’s what Jimmy Cliff once told me.

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.