Organ donor

Beer shits, dehydration and gout toes. A normal way to wake up now.

Old creeps up on you. One day your sunning on the beach, watching bikinis and drinking cold beers. The next morning, you can’t get out of bed due to the pain inside.

Staring at the hair on my shoulders and the lines on my face, I don’t want to believe it. But I do. Golden teeth and white pubic hairs are now standard.

I don’t feel old otherwise. It may have more to do with lifestyle than fact. When you don’t change the way you live – except no longer eating frozen pizzas for just about every meal – it’s tougher to emotionally change. Which for this character, is probably a good thing.

If I was wearing a suit and tie, sitting in a cubicle, hating my job … oh wait, that has happened.

If I was DVRing every television show that I’m told is “hot”. If I was listening to modern jazz or Ray Lamontague. If I felt the urge to vote for Mitt Romney. If the contents of my 401k worried me. Then, I’d be worried about myself.

Death comes easy if you let it in. Guess there are many ways to do that. The way I’ve chosen seems to be nicer. I enjoy most of my life. Just those moments of too much reflection get in the way. Yeah, I’d love to have money in the bank. That way I could go buy some new underwear that the waistband isn’t saggy, but I’m OK. They still do the job. Just have to pull them up every so often.

That my friends is getting old gracefully.

Ha.

It’s good to have a sense of humor. When all around you crumbles. Who wants to be the guy huddled in a bomb shelter, hoping it doesn’t cave in on him? I’d rather be the guy with a bottle of gin and some Robert Johnson playing while I sit in my lawn chair and watch. Are they really going to take aim at one guy in a lawn chair? Or a bunch of  townhomes full of folks huddled in basements?

The sound of a fan blowing is soothing. The fan itself is what keeps me cool in this un-air conditioned house. Yeah, I could turn it on. But then I’d have $150 to $200 to pay the electric company every month. $58 or so is much better. And, you get used to the heat. Just like you get used to the cool. Heck, when the A/C is on, I sleep more. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing. You miss life sleeping too much. It’s why I don’t take naps. Some of the best things in my life have happened when I was sleepy. If I’d taken a nap, I would have missed them.

Like right now. I’m going to open up the window and see what’s going on outside.

No people. Heaven.

An empty Pepsi can saunters down the street. It’s windblown and makes a slight clanking sound as it moves slowly down the road. In the big city, that can would’ve been swooped up by a homeless guy looking for a little cash, an environmentally driven hippie or maybe even a giant behemoth of a street cleaner – spraying dirty water on the road and sucking it back up again with whatever garbage it can.

Here it’ll get to go on a journey.

It could get buried by a freak storm in a dune, preserved for years until a hurricane comes along and exposes it to the world again.

Maybe it’ll roll into an abandoned yard, slowly making its way under an abandoned house. Safe from the elements and content to have a spider move into it.

Or it could be picked up by a kid, stared at intently and then tossed back into the world.

Or another kid may kick it down the street, over and over again.

Still another kid could shoot bbs at it.

But, most likely it’ll make it to Fort Macon Road and get run over by a car. Flattened, it’ll sit there crushed over and over again until it rains. The rain will float it down to a drain. The drain will dump it in the ocean. There, it’ll get eaten by a fish or shark if it’s unlucky. If it’s lucky, it’ll float to Cuba, where some kid will find it on the beach, pick it up and put it in a bag. To be recycled for money.

I guess the life cycle of an aluminum can is pretty depressing. It’ll always end up the same – melted back down and sold for scrap.

Sure am glad I’m an organ donor.

change for some coffee

“Do you even care about it?” she asked me from the bathroom. She was brushing her teeth, I was watching. The question irked me. Not because I didn’t want to answer it, or didn’t want to know how I really felt. No. It irked me because it took my attention away from watching her.

“Honestly, no,” I said matter of factly as I turned over in bed. I stretched my legs, feeling the tightness in my calve muscles that drinking too much beer and not enough water has made a common element in my life. “The care has been drained out of me like the puss out of a cyst.” I figured she’d like the medical analogy, being a nurse and all. “So, I just decided to not care anymore. Yeah, I haven’t gone full Peter Gibbons yet, I’m still showing up every day to punch the clock in and out, but inside the head I’ve certainly gone that far.”

She spit out the toothpaste, rinsed and came over to me. She pecked me on the forehead.

“You need a change, darling.”

“You and me both, babe,” I replied.

We looked at each other. Me sitting in my underwear on the bed, her in nursing scrubs getting ready for a job she didn’t like either. How the hell do people end up like this? And why can’t we seem to do anything about it? Anything for a chance at change.

It could be worse. Treading water in the same place is worse. I’ve moved so many times it kept the monotony at bay. Sort of. I can’t imagine if I was still living in New Bern right now. In that one-bedroom apartment that was something out of a scene of hoarders. I think I’d be dead now. I’m Randy Jones, and I’m dead now. Huh? What’s this guy selling? Bah, just re-typing Bill Hicks’ jokes doesn’t count, does it? Lacks creatively. Of course, stealing ideas and jokes and such is what got QT all the way to the top. We celebrate thievery in this country, for sure. I guess since we were founded by ‘em, might as well be ‘em.

Fuck, if Mitt Romney gets elected, I fear for my well-being. Of course, if Barack Obama gets elected again, I fear for it too. Lesser of two evils bullshit. Vote from your heart!!!!! Ok, enough with the recycled Hicks shit.

Is it possible to get a chill when it’s 83 degrees inside your house? I just did, it kind of freaked me out a bit. I wonder what Jesus would tell me?

Epic failure is much better than mediocre existing. I’ve done the first and I’m doing the second.

The folks that tell you to “get over it” and “move on” are usually the most stationary of them all.

“I’d like to just get on my bike today,” she said. “But it’s too hot.”

I thought for a moment. It’s always “too” something. Too hot or too cold. Too hard or too easy. Too daunting. Too much. Too expensive. I’m too broke. I’m too scared. I’m too lonely. I’m too intimidated. I’m too this, too that. Too legit to quit even.

Fuck. Now I’m too tired thinking about it.

He sat on the porch watching the world go by. He never noticed it happening, really, but it did. Some days were long and hot. Others were cool and nice. Whenever a girl in a bikini walked past, he watched. When a guy with a beer gut and a Styrofoam cooler went by, he watched. It didn’t matter. It was life. It was subject matter. But dialogue doesn’t come from watching. It comes from talking. And he didn’t much like talking. At least to strangers. I guess Rick Springfield taught him that.

“Damn you Rick Spingfield!” he yelled one night. No one was around, at least visually. But the catcall from the nearby hotel let him know he wasn’t alone.

I wish it had turned into my “Mad as Hell” moment.

“Maybe I should go inside and watch ‘Network’”, he thought to himself. But the porch was much more comfy. Even with the mosquitoes.

The INXS cassette tape reminded him of a simpler time…Fuck that, I’m not going to write that here. It’s a decent little ditty on its own.

3^rd Bass on the other hand, that reminded him of a different, but still pretty simple time. Driving around in David’s old fastback Mustang. Blasting rap tunes that everyone else seemed to hate except David. I took notes, and bought them later. Never really letting on how much I liked it. Except for “Ain’t No Half-Steppin’” fucking great song that one. And it really wasn’t too much of a stretch to play that, then hit Skynard’s “Free Bird” right after. Singing at the top of our lungs. Drinking Milwaukee’s Best. Hoping to get laid, but never getting there. And not really wondering why.

They were fun times, but not times I’d want to go back to. They weren’t the best times of my life. They were just times. I don’t even talk to any of those guys anymore. That’s sad, but we’re not the same, so why should we? That’s a cop out. It’s a lazy man’s way of rationalizing. Some of those guys were my best friends. Now they have wives and kids I’ve never met. Jobs and careers I know nothing about. Mothers and fathers have died. And we don’t do anything to change it.

Lazy fucks we are. Self-absorbed lazy fucks at that.

She cried at the coffee table. Today was the day the baby was due. Instead, he and she had a tree planted in the back yard. A small reminder of what could have been. What should have been.

The miles between us make it hard, not impossible, to feel it. I hope she’s doing better than me.