Shit

The wind really started blowing about 10 minutes ago.

Five minutes after I got the hiccups. Damn strawberry daiquiris. Which of course means, at the moment, I’m in a relationship.

She kissed me on the forehead and said “Good night” about 20 minutes ago. Since then, I’ve been staring at nothingness. A blank Word document that stares back worse than any stray cat with a bit of rabies ever will.

“I’ll get you another beer,” she says before she leaves.

I answer with “Why? So I can get drunker staring at this fucking thing?”

Not the best way to handle that. She actually is the first girl I’ve been around that has encouraged me to stare blankly at the screen, notepad or what have ya, and put words down. It’s a strange feeling, really. Someone who believes in me when I still don’t believe in myself.

If I’m writing about some kid in community college who fucked his life up but got a second chance in the NFL/NBA/NHL/whatever fucking sport you choose draft, I’m great at that. I guess because the story is already played out. It just needs to be dissected and transcribed, so much easier than just making it up. Or is it. Reality trumps fiction, right?

Shit. I don’t know.

The many mistakes of my past stare at me currently. I don’t feel their urgency in gaining attention to things. God damn it.

Yep. I cuss God. Quite often in fact. Why? Because he’s never given me a reason to stop. Which, of course, is exactly why I shouldn’t stop, someone with a white shirt, tie and Gideon’s bible in hand will tell me.

The damn ping-pong ball is staring at me. And is ping pong ball hyphenated or not? God damn it. I hate that feeling.

Anyways, yes, anyways, not anyway, I decided to just open another beer and think about it.

On antibiotics that I need for my teeth, but only because I don’t get the dental work done on them that I should do, not for the cut in my hand which was so un-severe that the doctor scoffed at my even paying him 30 bucks to look at it. The shit and the fan just don’t love each other like they used to.

I hate most people I meet. Only because most people I meet work at the same place I do. Which means generally, they shouldn’t be working there.

If I meet someone at a party, heaven forbid, I love ‘em. The last guy I met probably wanted to shoot me in the eye because I wouldn’t stop talking about the Minutemen and Johnny Thunders. But hell, the last person I talked to at work about JT openly scoffed at his worthlessness. I think if I’d had a gun, I would have used it.

It’s why I lament the internet. We’re all so full of snark and bite. Yes. All of us are. Just a few of us actually draw blood. And I’m not one of them. So far. And it hurts. I just don’t think it hurts most.

How am I going to come up with over 200 more words to type?

Shit. Damn. Motherfucker. Cocksucker. Oh wait, that’s been done.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Damn it.

I had a really good idea about throwing pizza out the window, but I just don’t want to think about it at the moment. That’s the real problem, isn’t it? Thinking?

Shit.

I’ve said shit a lot today.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Wet shit.

Drippy shit off your ass.

The kind that stays behind. Even if you used too much toilet paper. Enough to clog the freaking commode.

How the hell do you spell commode? Did you fucking know it had two Ms? I had no clue until 10 seconds ago.

Live and learn. That’s why we are here.

At least that’s what my teachers always told me. Fuck my teachers. The only one I’ve seen since I was “taught” by them spends his nights in the same bar as my dad. Drinking away the failure that is his life. Or at least the perception of failure. Shit. We are all failures if you compare it to someone better. So, damn. Just compare your life to the bum you see every day asking for change to ride the bus. I mean, even if you have no reason to live, you at least have the change to ride the bus? Right? If not, just fucking kill yourself. Shit.

Bye.

This was fun.

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…

Harp

“Well, at least you’ve got some health benefits now,” my dad said, putting his fist out for me to pound it. I never really figured my dad as the fist-pound type. But for years now, he put out his fist for folks to pound.

Where that started, I don’t know. But every single time he does it, I try to remember when he did start doing it. And every single time, I have no clue.

To me, it’s strange. It’s also fitting. He has intimacy issues. I think I was 35 before I heard him tell me he loved me. That’s probably an exaggeration, but not much of one. The year I turned 35 was just one so full of emotion and angst that I guess it seems to fit.

I pounded my dad’s fist. It’s always an awkward kind of affair. But I do it. Because despite all the shit between me and my pops, he is my pops. He has stuck his neck out for me many times. And I love him endlessly for the sacrifices he made.

But he makes it hard.

And I don’t tell him that, yes, I took a job. Which will be my first job in 14 months. But, no, I do not have benefits.

A friend at the bar listens to me tell this story. She looks at me and says “what if you get sick?”

“Well, I had the swine flu when I was unemployed. I just stayed in bed, drank orange juice and about a month later, I was fine. A few pounds lighter even!”

I take a swig of Harp and glance at the television. Local news is on.

“I guess,” she says.

I get distracted by the beer again. Harp has become my beer of choice when I go out. I don’t really like it, but when in an Irish Pub, it always seems to be my pick. It’s better than Yuengling. Which got me through the break up. And if it wasn’t for my buddy Andrew, I never would’ve drank it. It gives me heartburn now. Which I think is a sign.

Alison and I have been hanging out at this bar for most of my unemployment. It’s funny, we met up one day, just to shoot the shit. This was while I was still chasing after my folly of a relationship, part 2, with Crystal.

The ex and I were just starting to talk again, and at first, it was great. Just like everything with Crystal. But, the inevitable fall would come. Later.

But my first meet up with Alison should have been a bright flashlight in my face. An awakening of sorts from a stupor. Much like when you pass out in the car on a cold night of too much to drink and a cop raps on the window. You, figuring out your predicament, hope that the gum you chewed hours ago will still cover up the stench of beer on your breath as you roll down the window.

That first time the two of us hung out, it was interesting. I came away really thinking we’d hang out sometime again, but who knows?

So I wrote about it. And Crystal read about it.

She, of course, twisted the words to fit her version of what I was about. And this time, she was completely wrong.

And soon after, she stopped talking to me again. Just as abruptly as the first time, though not nearly as painful. It still sucked. It still hurt. But I kind of expected it this time. I still trusted her. Much to the chagrin of anyone that knew me and knew of her.

I still have that e-mail somewhere in my old hotmail account. The account that I keep for two reasons. Both being stupid. 1. Because it’s the e-mail address that Emily knows of. 2. I sent one of those in 5 years e-mails to myself and used that address. I figure it was sent in late 2005 or early 2006, because it was before I was single. And I want to see if that e-mail ever comes.

Glutton.

Sitting on that barstool, it hits me that I’m very lucky to have become friends “again” with Alison. We’ve got a lot in common. And I think more so that I even know.

We order another drink. Finish it and decide to go somewhere else. “Where something interesting might happen,” we agree upon.

Outside, it’s still chilly. I’m glad winter is almost over. And I guess that I’m going to be employed soon.

Awake

I woke up this morning. Nothing was right. Normal was not going to be.

First was the smell. Cucumber scented something.

Then it was a voice. Southern as all hell.

Almost lost in this was the location. Sterile, small apartment.

The music being played is very familiar, yet it sounds like four songs all at once. Is that even possible? For four songs, all very distinct, playing at the same time, in the same place.

There’s a conversation. It’s just one side of it, like on a telephone. It’s all Spanish.

I hear a blow dryer. And a voice singing. Very high octaves and in key.

Finally, there was the laugh.

How the hell am I surrounded by all four of them at once?

The last thing I remember was passing out in my bed. At the beach. A cool ocean breeze blowing through the open window. The light from the motel next door flickering on and off. And a prayer I made.

“God, please let me stop. Help me stop. I can’t do this anymore.”

Then nothing. Did I fall asleep? Am I still asleep? I don’t remember my dreams, so maybe I’m stuck here in one. Maybe this is death. But why would they all be here? In life they haunted me. Not while they were in it, but when they left it. Always heard stories of needing to put your demons to bed. Is this just the literal appearance of this hokey thing that has been passed down from generation to generation.

I used to think that stuff was useless. Much like the bibles in hotel rooms.

This is too hard, I think. But that’s been an excuse too long. This is the zit coming to a head. Time to pop it and take the chance at another scar or just let it fester.

I start to get out of the bed I’m on. The sheets are clean, so I know I’m not at home. I pull back my covers to see that I’m completely naked. The clothes I was wearing yesterday, a pair of green mesh shorts, underwear and a Lucero t-shirt are laying on the floor. First the shirt, then the shorts and finally the underwear. Just like they should look as you are taking them off in a hurry while moving toward the bed with a lover.

But I have no lover. Just myself.

“He just doesn’t get it,” a voice says in the next room. I look towards it, seeing a gleam of light through the crack under the door.

“He never did,” another voice replies, laughing that same laugh from before.

“I think he does get it. But he’d rather not admit it,” a third voice bellows out. It’s louder than the others, more confident. Yet, it only sounds vaguely familiar.

The sound of beer bottles being opened. Psssst. Psssssst. Pssst. Psssst. Four of them alright.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

“What do you think?” they trio says in unison. I guess to the fourth person that I heard earlier.

“Wait,” voice number 2 says quickly. “Let’s have a toast. To all things right and wrong.”

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

“And…to him.”

Laughter. Giggles. And a snort.

“It is all about him, isn’t it?” No. 1 says.

“Well, I’m sure that’s what he thinks. It’s what he does,” No. 3 points out.

“Yep.” No. 4 finally speaks again.

Silence. Drinks are most likely being drank.

Four bottles hit the table. One at a time. All but one of them are empty. I guess I’ve spent too much time with bottles, empty, full and half-full.

“Well?” the trio demands. “You still haven’t answered the question. A promise is a promise.”

“I’m not allowed to say,” she says.

That voice makes me smile for some reason. Was it the answer or the lack of one? Or maybe it simply was the soothing feeling I got hearing it.

“Damn, it’s been a long time,” I say out loud.

That feeling I get comes upon me at that instant. That Sam Raimi-moment. Where the world is fine. Happy even. Then you say something. Do something. Don’t do something and the world begins to speed up. You feel the rush of air around you. The room, the field, the car, wherever it happens, begins to move. And I’m helpless to stop it. I just go along for the ride. It’s all you can do. Knowing there is a crash at the end.

It comes with words from the other room.

“I see our guest is awake,” the fourth voice says. “Let’s go.”