Amen

The day started off like most other days, me popping open a beer and taking a couple of pills. After that, it usually got a little bit better. Or at least tolerable.

She came by my place at 10 a.m. It took some doing, but I was able to convince her that coming inside wasn’t too bad of an idea. She’d been there many times before. Most of the times late at night. Most of the times as drunk as me. But she was never there in the morning when I woke up.

Most guys would think that was paradise. All of the glory, none of the fight.

But I wasn’t most other guys. And it pained me every morning when she wasn’t there as I rose. It’s why the pills started. They put me in a better mood and made it easier to face the mundane tasks that the day would throw at me.

I was a copy editor at a shitty newspaper now. I used to be an editor. Used to be a reporter. But I’d lost the fire to chase after it anymore. It happened while I was unemployed. Laid off by a newspaper that I thought I was doing a good job at. Won some state press association awards, covered some shit no one else wanted to. Shot photos. Shot videos. Laid out pages. Read other people’s stuff. Just a little of everything. But, I wasn’t friends with the folks I worked with. Most of ‘em at least. And I guess that wasn’t part of the plan.

Anyways, while unemployed I wanted to do something else. Anything else. So I applied and applied for jobs. Public relations jobs. University jobs. Business and even furniture sales writing ads. Jobs at recreation departments. Jobs at super markets. Jobs in different states. And I didn’t get any of them. In fact, only a couple even bothered to send me rejection emails or letters. Those days of actually contacting folks interested in your jobs are long gone I guess. I once had an opening that over 200 people sent in their resumes for. I sent a message to all of them.

Finally, I had to bite the bullet and interview for newspaper jobs again. I was broke and my time on the dole would eventually come to an end. So, I did it. And immediately I got interviews. At first, I was rejected for the job but only after they hired a friend. Then I got offers. But I couldn’t pull the trigger on them. I didn’t want to move to some shit hole in the middle of nowhere to work at a job that would barely pay my bills.

So, I called a friend and got a job where I’m at now. A shithole little newspaper, but I live at the beach. And that was enough.

For a while.

Now, it’s not anymore. I want to do more. I want to write. I want to get out of my cubicle. I want to interact with folks. Will it happen? Yes. Where I’m at? Only if they let me. And I’ll find out soon if they will.

She looked at me.

“You’re always somewhere else,” she said.

I looked at her and smiled. She got me. But didn’t want anything to do with me. Well, the me that was me now. She’d met me before all of this. Before depression and hatred took their toll on me.

We used to go to the bars downtown and just laugh and smile and have a good time. Then one day I changed. It wasn’t because of her, but it was because of a she. And that she killed me for a long time. I’m not fully recovered from my death yet. But I’m working on it.

That’s why she still comes around. She’s seen the other side of me, and knows it’s closer to being back than it has been for years.

“Did you write last night?” she asks me.

“Of course not,” I say. “I did scribble some, but it’s not much.”

“How many words?” she asked.

“About 3,000.” I stated with a yawn.

“What did you write about?”

“You really have to ask?”

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “One day you’re going to do it.”

“You’ve been saying that to me for years,” I replied. “And maybe I’m just another one like so many. I’ve only got one story to tell. And I just haven’t figured out how to tell it. Once I do that, I can become the Sparks of my genre.”

“Fuck that,” she said. “You could write about kittens with machine guns and it wouldn’t be funny. It would be awesome.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

She frowned at me. It made me feel small. She was good at that. I slinked over to a cooler I’d left on the porch last night. I kicked it. The lid fell off and inside were two Lone Stars. I reached in and plucked them out. The water was still cold, and so were the bottles.

“To a great day,” I said handing her one of the bottles.

“Amen,” she said, taking the beer and popping the top off.

“You working today?” I asked.

“Yes. Are you?”

“My drive starts in an hour,” I replied pointing at my beat up car. I bought that thing new and it already had over 120,000 miles on it. In three years and seven months. “In my chariot.”

It was a Hyundai Accent. Three doors and a busted air conditioner. I liked going to work all sweaty and gross. It kept the bosses from talking to me. And I liked it that way.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later tonight?” I said in the most hopeful voice I can muster.

“You know you will,” she said with a smirk.

“Amen,” I replied.

45 minutes

I shaved my head. Nothing unusual there. Well, other than the fact I’d never done such a thing before. But it had to be done. The balding Prince Valiant look just isn’t sexy. No chance of it. Even when Brad Pitt or some other caricature of a Hollywood heartthrob has it. Just ask Luke Perry. Well, he doesn’t have it, but have you seen the photos of the guy at some autograph session? It’s horrible.

However, pretty quickly I had a revelation. Nothing that will cure AIDS or get a man on Mars before I die, but it was pretty cool to have. And it made me realize that sometimes you really do have to do something different if you want to understand something else.

I put my baseball cap on. It seemed to fit differently.

I pulled it up a little. Like some of the silly looking fools do. And it stayed up. For the first time in my life, a baseball hat stayed pointing up on my head. Funny. All these years I’d wondered how rednecks and chew-spitting dunces kept their hats up like that. It always slumped down when I put mine up like that. Not that I ever wanted to do something like this, except in a jovial way.

The secret is the hair. A close up hairdo gives your head Velcro. Who woulda thunk it?

Ha. Score one for trying different things.

***

My car pushed its way through traffic. It’s four cylinders pushed to the limit. Almost whining in how much they had to work to keep up. But I needed to get there first. She’d be waiting for me. But only for another 45 minutes. And I’m 48 miles away.

This isn’t what I thought would happen when I first met her. I figured we would get married the old fashioned way. In a church. Families and friends all around. A stupid bachelor party. A lame attempt to get me to grab a redhead stripper’s ass. And then a honeymoon.

Instead, we dated for a pretty long while. We had a lot of fun. We also had a lot of shit. Mostly caused by our pasts. And our inabilities to deal with it. Such a shame really. I think it may have worked, had we met at a different time. A different place. But, that’s silly to think about. Why? Because that doesn’t happen. Except in a Twilight Zone episode. Or a Family Guy one. Science fiction for sure.

But right now, she needs me. We haven’t seen each other in a while. Longer than I’d like, and longer than she’d like. She called one day last week. I don’t remember which day, I was drunk. I’m always drunk it seems. Someone was after her she said. Did something to her cat. I wondered if it was true. It had to be. We didn’t lie to each other. Anymore.

Her blonde hair used to drive me insane. It was blonde like my hair was when I was 6 years old. Bleach blonde. Except it was real still for her. My hair had turned greasy blonde a long, long time ago. If I got a lot of sun, it almost turned blonde again. At least when I had hair.

Now, I’m thinking about her hair. About the time I cleaned out my old car, and some of her hair was still there. Years after we’d decided it was better to not see each other anymore. Well, one of us decided that. The other? Well, the other died a little bit more that day.

That hair made me stare. It was sitting in the back seat of the car.

That car is long gone. Just like every trace of her. Except for a few things. Books. Photos. That kind of artifact.

But for now, I have to keep my mind focused. I nearly wrecked two miles back. And I wasn’t thinking then. Now I’m thinking. Need to stop.

I turn up the radio a little louder. It’s Stiff Little Fingers’ “Alternative Ulster.” That’ll do.

38 minutes to go. 33 miles.

I come up on two cars. Playing that awesome game that so many in this fucking state seem to want to play -- I’ll stay in this lane, you stay in that one. And we’ll go the same speed.

My car edges close to the brown Chevy Blazer in the left lane. This guy is a hunter. I can tell because he’s wearing an orange hat. The woman in the car on the right is about 65 years old. Grey-haired and balding. Not the best combo for sure. But she is driving a silver Jaguar. It can go faster than 53 miles per hour in a 55. I look behind me. Two cars are creeping up. I have to make a decision. I chose left. The blazer guy.

I flash my lights. The international sign for get out of my fucking way. He looks in his rearview. Then he taps his brakes.

“Fucker,” is all I can think. By now, the two cars have caught up. They are in the right lane.

I see a gap as the Jag has pulled ever so ahead of the Blazer. I gun it. All four cylinders put their gerbils to work. I get in the gap. She slows. But not before I swerve over in front of the blazer.

I floor it.

32 miles. 32 minutes. Damn. Falling behind again.

My mind wanders for a second. Her voice pops into my head. That southern drawl, just like Judy Davis from “Barton Fink” or Jane Alexander from “Brubaker”. No wonder I love those movies. The dames in them sounded so much like her.

Back in the road. Back on the road. Going 87 mph. The 35 mph zone is coming up.

27 miles. 30 minutes.