Drive by

I had to pee. So, I stood up from my computer, leaving the silly game story I was writing about a girls basketball game that I couldn’t even remember the score from to be finished whenever I was done.

Walking past the empty cubicles, I thought about the people who used to sit there. I never worked in this place when they were filled. The day I started, they were all empty. Never to be filled again. Yeah, every so often one of us sits in one of them. To chat, to grab election-night pizza, or to watch election returns on the television. But for the most part, the sit empty.

But that thought passes. I continue walking.

I notice that my vision is a little blurry. I’m seeing double a little. Nothing new, I think, just staring at that

computer screen too long.

I pee.

As I’m walking back to my desk, I stumble. Then I stumble again. Eventually, I have to use the wall to walk.

“This is strange,” I think, going back to me desk.

I sit there for a moment.

I get back up, stumble to the break room. I call my fiancée.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I’m seeing stuff. I can barely walk.”

After a few minutes of chatting, she tells me she’s coming. It’s 44 miles from our house to my office. I drive this every day. I can’t think of a job when I didn’t at least start out driving 40-plus miles to work – one way.

Just sort of became what I do.

For girls, mostly.

For the beach once.

I go back to my desk and finish my story. Just like me. When I got laid off, I asked my by-then old boss if he wanted me to finish my story.

He said not to bother.

Still, the one I’d written the day before but had not run yet, it ran the day I was shit-canned.

Love the biz.

My fiancée arrived. She checked my pulse. She checked my eyes.

By then, I was feeling better. Not good. But better.

“You should go to the emergency room,” she said. Wise lady.

“I’m feeling better,” I said. “I think I just want to go home.

Unwisely, I drove home.

It was dark out. Being March and all.

We took the long way.

I made it home. Ate some food. Went to bed.

The next day, it was back to normal.

A few weeks later, I was at home. The same stuff started to happen.

I drove to Wilson. 44 miles away. And then I went to the doctor.

They sent me to the emergency room.

After a bunch of tests, I was told “Well, we know you didn’t have a heart attack. And you didn’t have a stroke.”

A few weeks later, my neurologist told me “you had a stroke.” This after telling me there was “no way” I’d had a stroke.

Doctors.

They sure as hell all didn’t mind billing me for their wrong diagnosis.

Should’ve sent some paper instead of money…

Instead, I’m more in debt.

I still eat frozen burritos.

I don’t eat frozen pizza as much.

I don’t go to fast food places. Except for Hardee’s for a hot ham ‘n cheese and Andy’s, now Highway 55, for a cheeseburger. Guess it’s good I don’t live in New Orleans anymore. I’d be dead.

If I’m not already.

Maybe watching “Raising Hope” is my hell. If it is, I know I’m dead, because it’s on right now.

Banality. Yep. That’s what this is.

The written word isn’t coming like I want it to. It’s just shit oozing out of a tightened ass. A tightened hairy ass, at that.

I wonder what that dude, can’t remember his name, from my Arizona days who shaved his ass is doing right now? Not that I really care. But for the first time in probably 15 years, I just thought about that guy. And his shaving his ass.

I couldn’t imagine shaving my ass. First, I’d probably cut myself. I cut off a mole shaving my face as a youth. Still use electric razors to this day.

And David Bowie is dead, and the people have already turned on him.

It doesn’t take long anymore. Hero today, shit bag tomorrow.

I now wonder if I truly do need to drink to be creative. I know I don’t, because I write for a living and sometimes, not all the time, but just some of the time, I do it pretty well.

Getting a phone call tomorrow in the A.M. from a temp agency. Never thought I’d utter those words. I’m considering working for a temp agency instead of trudging (or driving, whatever…) 44 miles to work. Could this be a new start? Or just another misguided stupidity fix?

At least I’m not paying rent on a house in Florida. For three years. That I got to spend at best 2 months in.

A house I drove past in 2009. Three-plus years later. And still cried.

I wonder what would happen if I drove past it today?

Who am I kidding…

Yma Sumac in Farmville, North Carolina

The girlfriend and I, we used to go to thrift stores all over the little swath of eastern North Carolina that we were sentenced to all the time. Funny, I still live there, and still go to the same thrift stores, though not nearly as much as I used to. She? I don’t have a clue.

But one day we were in Farmville. A small town that I’d never heard of, and wouldn’t go back to again until almost a decade later – for a job.

That day, we just decided to take the road to the town. We used to so things like that. Go to a town via the highway – such as Goldsboro or Wilson or Raleigh – and then take some back roads way home to see where it led us. I saw the sign for Farmville at a blinking red light – it blinked yellow on the main stretch, which we were not on.

“Let’s go there,” I said.

“I’m kind of tired,” she moaned.

“I’ll get you a chick-a-philly!”

“Sold!”

It was a simple barter system we had. If I wanted something, I’d offer something in return. If she wanted something, she did the same. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with her. She liked to play the little game. And seemed to enjoy it as much as I. And, she didn’t mind my searching endlessly in thrift stores for vintage video games, LPs and glasses from all over the country. Such were my passions then. Two of the three still are. Don’t know why I lost the want of video games. I think it’s because the supply dried up. It got too hard to find them “in the wild.” And I hated buying ‘em on ebay and such.

We got to Farmville and it wasn’t much. A pretty little place that seemed to be lost a bit in time. Not like it was the 1950s there or something, but maybe 1987 or so.

I saw a Salvation Army and knew we’d be going in. If it was open.

Pulling up to the shop, the sign said “Yes, We’re Open!” and parked.

“Let’s see what we find,” I said enthusiastically.

“Alrighty,” she responded. I loved the – what I called almost Wisconsiny accent she had, although her mom came from New Mexico and her dad, I have no idea – and smiled at the sound of that reply.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked.

“Just you,” I said, meaning it completely.

We walked in, hand-in-hand, the little bell jingling as we pushed the door.

“Howdy, folks,” the lady at the cash register spoke to us. She had on a green shirt with some kind of logo on it. And purple pants. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”

“OK,” I said.

We wandered about the place – her looking at clothes, as always – me looking at everything but.

I noticed some LPs and started rifling through them. They were the usual: Roger Williams, Glen Miller, Liberace and lots of Christmas albums. I saw a Pete Seeger one, but it was rough. Then, I noticed a pile of old 78s. And among them was a box set – Yma Sumac “Legend of the Sun Virgin”.

Immediately, I had to have it. The price tag said $10. A bit much, I figured, for some old 78s that I’d never play, most likely, but something that I had to have. A compulsive spender of little amounts of money I’ve always been. And this was just a symptom of the stupidity that would lead to maxed out credit cards, road trips to nowhere and everywhere, rental cars and huge bar tabs.

“What’s that?” she said to me, her red hair shining under the light coming inside the old dusty store from the gigantic front window. I watched the dust in the light almost put on a show around her head.

“It’s some kind of cool old box set. But look at that art!” I said pointing to the box.

“Oooooooh, that is cool,” she responded. She stared at the box, opened it and then shut it. I loved that she played along with my silliness. Didn’t try to change that in me.

“You find anything?” I asked.

“Nah. It’s slim pickin’s over there. Let’s get out of here. You owe me a sandwich.”

“I sure do,” I said grabbing her arm.

We went to the cash register and plopped it down. That’s when I saw it. In the case was an almost brand new looking Intellivision II. Boxed and looking pristine. It also had a $10 price tag. I looked in my wallet. I had a ten, a five and four ones. Not gonna cut it. I’d have to choose.

In my head I debated. That video game was ultra cool. So was the album.

“You have a couple bucks I can borrow?” I asked.

“Nope,” she said. “I spent the last of my cash in Wilson.”

I then made the decision. I’ll come back later and get the Intellivision II. But I’ve got to have this album. Even though I’ll probably never play it.

I never went back to get the Intellivision II. But I did play the album.

And was shocked that the music was actually used in the soundtrack to “The Big Lebowski.” And that made my day.

Now, tonight, years and years later I’m watching Charlton Heston in “Secret of the Incas” in Raleigh. “Secret of the Incas” is the movie where old Charlie wears an outfit that had to be stolen by either Stephen Speilberg, George Lucas or Harrison Ford when they made “Indiana Jones.” It’s a dead ringer, proving that nothing is original anywhere, no matter how much you think it is. I’m on a couch, hanging out with two dogs and an empty bag of tortilla chips. The opening credits of the movie feature the exact same song. And I remember that day in Farmville.

Funny how memories come back.