Out on the Weekend

My 2 ½ year old son looks up at me as I stare blankly as Neil Young’s “Out on the Weekend” wails along on Pandora Radio on a giant Samsung television in our living room in Raleigh, NC.

It’s a Wednesday night, around 7:30. I start to wonder what the me of even 7-8 years ago would have thought of this moment.

I hope he’d be happy.

Though, I tend to doubt it.

I wonder sometimes if that guy knew how to be happy.

“The woman I’m thinking of,

She loved me all up

But I’m so down today

She’s so fine, she’s in my mind.

I hear her callin’…”

They’re kind of fitting, those words. Especially thinking of me so long ago. Not really that long ago, but yes, so long ago.

If I’d been home at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday in my previous life, I’d already be drunk. The stereo would be cranked up, maybe playing some Neil Young, it did happen. Probably blasting Lucero, however, more likely.

Cooking on my mini Weber grill, hoping the sea gulls didn’t steal my sausage. Now there’s a title of a book…

“See the lonely boy,

Out on the weekend

Trying to make it pay.

Can’t relate to joy,

He tries to speak and

Can’t begin to say.”

I like to think back. Always have. Always will. It’s just how I’m wired.

Lately, I’ve been purging stuff. I did one other purge in my lifetime. AC. After Crystal. A good buddy of mine told me it was stupid. Throwing all that stuff away. My writing. My memories. My junk. Yeah, I miss some of it. I’d like to be able to see a picture of Rebecca. She and I almost dated. Well, I guess we did for a bit while I was a drifter in Charlottesville, pining away for another gal that didn’t want me.

We met at Roses. She was a cashier. I was a cashier. We made $4.35 an hour. I had a college degree from UVa. A B.A. in Economics.

We talked at work. She was cute. I liked her.

I wasn’t ready to like someone else though.

We ate lunch in the break room.

Me, always a salad from the Farm Fresh in the same strip mall. Her, something from home.

She brought me lasagna when I was sick once.

We went and rode balloons.

We went to see the movie “Thinner.”

We took a trip to Kings Dominion.

We did other things. I remember riding in her big-ass car.

Wondering a lot about what was going on.

I ended up moving back home.

We played truth or dare via letters.

Then I moved to Arizona.

In 1995 she came to visit.

We drove to the Grand Canyon. It was awesome.

In some retro-not-by-design hotel, we awkwardly sat together. I got wine coolers and beer. I was hoping to get drunk. But we didn’t.

The next morning we drove back to Tempe.

A few days we spent together. We hugged as she left. It was awkward. I think we both wanted to kiss.

We didn’t.

A while later, she sent me a cassette tape. She professed her love for me.

I was scared.

I don’t remember now if I ever replied.

It’s haunted me forever. Whatever became of her.

“Think I’ll pack it in

And buy a pickup

Take it down to L.A.

Find a place to call my own

And try to fix up.

Start a brand new day.”

Today, I hung out with my son at a park. I watched him hang out with other kids. Then we went and had doughnuts.

“See the lonely boy,

Out on the weekend

Trying to make it pay.

Can’t relate to joy,

He tries to speak and

Can’t begin to say.”

Of course, my kid walks up just now, says “Daddy stop. Put the ‘puter down.”

I must listen of course, so I stop typing. Still a few words away from filling the quota.

After a few minutes he asks to watch the robot song, aka, The Beastie Boys’ “InterGalactic”.

Pull up YouTube and we share about 4 minutes of MTV’s heyday.

I don’t think about anything else.

It’s a very good feeling.

“What’s next?” he asks when the video fades to black.

I put on The Chordettes’ “Lollipop”. He digs it. He digs Dean Martin, too. I hope I’m not creating another version of me. “Well, that can’t happen,” I think to myself. My dad never spent that much time with me that didn’t involve a beer in one hand and old guys talking about things I could have cared less about.

My son gives me a side eye when I start singing.

I stop. I smile. I don’t think about Neil Young anymore.

Finishing... (aka, why word count quotas can be a bad thing)

Staring.

It’s all I can muster. Just my eyes firmly planted on the book – Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style.”

I have carried it with me now for almost 20 years. It was over a decade old when I bought the copy in a thrift store in Tempe, Arizona. I was 8 years old when someone else bought it brand new in 1979.

I paid 25 cents for it at Gracie’s Cottage. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, may have been in Mesa.

The unknown original purchaser, who put a drink on it to leave the distinctive “O” ring on it, paid more, I’d assume. But the edition – the third of the book, which I’m sure has now reached double digits, according to the cover – had no price on it.

The thing I noticed then, and am thinking about now in my un-air conditioned house in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, is that the spine was pristine.

Then, I was a 20-something who thought “Maybe I’ll be a writer someday.”

I lived in a house with a gaggle of dropouts who smoked dope and rode motorcycles. Except for the guy from Massachusetts who looked way too much like Johnny Thunders. He smoked dope and drove a beat up old BMW. Soon, however, he was replaced by a corn fed, blonde-haired Real World wanna-be from Nebraska. A Mormon to boot. Making him Mormon number three that I had already lived with in Arizona in just over a year and a half. I never even remember meeting one before then. Although, I’m sure I had, visiting Utah and all.

Lots of midgets in St. George. Wonder if any of them do porn now?

That house also had no air conditioning. So, I haven’t done much in those nearly 20 years in between.

I wrote a screenplay about a demonic, well, really just mean, cat.

I threw it away right after I finished it. No one ever saw it.

I guess it was inspired by Rebecca Johnson. She was a mousy cashier that I wanted to date back in the exile year, pining for a lesbian time of my life. But I was not able to do it. Not because she didn’t like me, because she did. She paid over $500 for a plane ticket to fly from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Phoenix, Arizona the summer of 1996. I bought condoms and wine coolers. We got a room in Flagstaff after touring the Grand Canyon.

And I did nothing. I was too scared.

Or my conscious got me.  Which is a good thing. Maybe.

I was a selfish prick at that point in my life. Maybe another thing that really hasn’t changed?

I didn’t however, do what I wanted to that night. Which was have sex with her.

Why? It wasn’t moral, but I’d like to think that way.

It’s because I thought she was “beneath” me in some way. Being a high school educated cashier at a department store at the age of 25. I’m sure that was my mindset at the time.

So, I backed away.

We’d been writing to each other for over a year by then. And I liked her.

But, when she sent me a letter and cassette tape, telling me she “loved” me. I recoiled. I didn’t respond. And that was the wrong thing to do.

Over the years, I’ve thought about her. Too much, probably. I don’t forget the shitty things I do. And there are a lot of them.

I drove to where I think she lives a few years ago. A small town outside of Charlottesville. I don’t know why. I guess I was hoping to bump into her. Tell her I was sorry.

It didn’t happen, of course.

And if it had, she probably wouldn’t have cared.

People are like that. They get over things. It’s how they live.

I think back to those days in Arizona with her. We smiled a lot. And we were awkward a lot. Neither of us knew what to do.

But, in the end, I didn’t do anything. Good or bad.

How dumb.

Instead, I broke her heart. I’d get mine broken repeatedly over the years. I’m sure I deserved all of it.

And I’ve never finished anything else I’ve written.

So, now I’m staring at Strunk & White. I open the book. The pages are yellowed and old.

I start the first paragraph of the Introduction:

“At the close of the first World War, when I was a student at Cornell, I took a course called English 8.”

It took me back to those Arizona days. When I had dreams. When the future looked bright and shiny.

I don’t look at the world the same way anymore. I still think I have a book in me. A good one? No clue. But it’s there. It’ll be about women. And the road. And drinking. I know that. The protagonist will have to be me, there’s no way I’m avoiding that.

But otherwise, I don’t have a plan for it.

Maybe that’s a problem? Maybe not.

Fucking things up can be fun. It can also be tedious, when it’s all you know. All you do.

But beating one’s self up about it for years isn’t fun either. Been there.

Before Strunk and his buddy White entered my conscious yesterday, I was sitting outside. It was late afternoon. My fate was sealed by what I’d done the week before. I was in a contemplative mood. And I was enjoying a Big Boss Harvest Time beer from the previous year. Yeah, it was an “aged” beer. But after the first sip, it was quite enjoyable.

I watched the people drive and walk by. No one paying me any notice. It was nice. It was like it was when I first moved here. My mind was open. My thoughts unburdened by the past. All I had was a blank slate in front of me.

And after finishing that beer, I thought about how little I cared about my broken heart. About the woman who crashed it.

“Six years it took me to get to this point,” I thought to myself.

I’m ready to move on. Westward ho, bitches.

(If that’s not a terrible ending, I don’t know what is) – Randy Jones, August 10, 2012.

spontaneity

Sitting around the house, decorating for Christmas, the David Lee Roth video for “Goin' Crazy” pops into my head.

“Ahhh…breath mint.”

This is the world I live in. I inhabit.

Not always such a horrible place, I guess. Insanity would pale in comparison sometimes. At others it would be an improvement. But most of the times it would just be another excuse for not trying. And that just can’t happen any more.

Being spontaneous. It can’t be forced. Hence spontaneity.

So I jumped up in my shorts and soccer socks and dashed outside. The old crowd is gathering at the bar across the street. The shag bar. Is there such a thing as a Shag Christmas, I start to wonder as I stand out in the frigid air. The wind is blowing in from the ocean, making it feel 10 degrees cooler than it actually is. A couple is making out by their car. They stop to stare at me -- the guy in shorts and soccer socks. I feel the top of my head, I have a ski cap on. The one I bought at Mardi Gras last year. Saints. It’s much warmer than the other ones I have. And bigger. Might be the fact I haven’t washed and dried it yet. I take it off my head, give it a whiff. It has a slight odor of stale beer. That makes me think of standing on a ladder during a parade. Holding up a couple of kids. Drew Brees glides toward us in his float. It stops in front of us. He tosses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 footballs directly at us. My cousin-in-law drops all of them. After six or seven minutes, the floats moves on again. That’s a pretty good memory.

I try to think of other memories. Just random snapshots. It should help keep my warm. There was the time I went to the Grand Canyon with Rebecca. We got in my Firebird and just drove. No reservations. It was summer. We talked nervously. I had bought a box of condoms for the trip. Actually the first time I’d bought them in my life. Ha. In the drug store I bought a magazine and a box of Slim Jims with it. Can’t ever just go in and buy condoms. At least the first time. Dork. We went to the Grand Canyon. She took photos. I didn’t. I wish I had now. Even though I’ve been back there many times over. The first time with Josh, way back when. We get one of those cheesy, haven’t been renovated since the 1960s hotel rooms that Flagstaff is so full of. It was over 100 bucks, I remember that. We went and bought beer and wine coolers. I don’t think we drank any of them. We nervously talked some more. Then turned on the TV. And fell asleep.

Seeing Barton Fink with Sharon. Ha. It was a date. Go to the library, check out a laserdisc. I suggested it. She looked interested at first, then bored. Later on, I took her to see The Hudsucker Proxy. She said it was awful. Ha. I loved it. “You know…For kids!” Not everything about her was so perfect.

Wandering about on campus. Happy and carefree. I don’t even know why. But we stopped and took a photo in front of the music hall or whatever it was on campus where the music classes were. It’s one of only two or three photos I know of that exist of me and my real first girlfriend. We’re smiling and happy. I dig that photo.

Walking around the Goodwill in Petersburg, Virginia, I was bored. It was summer, I remember that much. As I browsed the shelves, I stumbled upon some Christmas stuff. “Odd,” I thought. But there it was. “Santy”, the old plastic Santa Claus that we had growing up. Well, it’s still there. And my mom still busts it out, most of the time, at least. I snapped it up. It cost 99 cents. Probably the best 99 cents I ever spent at a thrift store. Why? It still makes me smile, even during the worst times. And there have been quite a lot of “worst” times since I found it.

We were in a hotel room in New Jersey. Probably an hour or so outside of the city. She was jumping up and down on her bed. Yes, we had two. She was so cute. So awesome. I wondered if she meant it when she said she hated it when friends try to be more than friends. Finally, she tired out and plopped down on the bed. “Where are we going?” she asked. I smiled. In the office, I always dared her to be more spontaneous. That enjoying life required it. She scoffed at the idea. She liked things safe. Planned out. Orderly. I didn’t. Still don’t. Then, one day I said it, almost as a challenge. She accepted. Saying “I’ll do anything you want. Just one time. I’ll trust you.” I smiled and said, well, next week we’re both off on these days. Let’s take a road trip. “Where?” she said. “Not telling,” I replied. “No fair, I said I’d go,” she pouted. “But, you have to trust me,” I retorted. “OK.”

Now, I was kind of perplexed. I had a week to figure out something cool. And I figured it out really quickly as I scanned the agate page that night on deadline. Opening day. New York Mets. Al Leiter pitching. That night, after work, I went to eBay. I found some tickets. I bid and won. They were nose bleeders, but they were mine. Got them shipped next day Fed Express. They came. A few days later, we were in my Celica, going North.

“Ok,” I finally relented in the hotel room. “So you don’t think I’m just a weirdo, we’re going to see the Mets. Al’s pitching.” She freaked out. Jumping even faster than before. It was magical. It seemed right. We didn’t start dating for another four months. After trips to North Carolina, South Carolina, Atlantic City and Colorado. I wonder, too often for my own health, if she at least kept that piece of what I showed her. That spontaneity is a good thing. I need to go somewhere. Soon. I think Little Rock, Arkansas, is where. It’s driveable. Only need five days total. That’s two days off. Two sick days and a holiday.

Ha. Of course, then it’s not spontaneous anymore. Or is it?