I wonder if

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Gordon asked.

It seemed our housing for Mardi Gras just fell through. Minutes before we – a group of seven in three different cars – were about to embark on the drive from Charlottesville, Virginia, to New Orleans. We were college seniors – Fourth Years as the folks at the University called ourselves – and this was a trip that was going to be our Fandango. A final hurrah together. Drinking. Wandering the streets and just doing what stupid, single and way too innocent college students do.

Now, however, we’d hit a snag before we’d even left.

“That fucker was supposed to get us a place to say,” Mark shouted. “And now we’re shit out of luck. How the hell are we going to New Orleans for Mardi without a place to say.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” was all that J.B. could or would muster.

I just sat back and smiled. I was going. Yeah, I’d have to convince at least one other person to keep the dream alive – since I did not have a car, and would not have a car for another three years – but I was going.

“What do you think Randy?” Josh asked me.

“We have a plan, and it’s hit a snag. We either pull up tents and keep driving forward, or we stay here and get shelled.”

I had no idea where that came from. Kind of like channeling John Belushi in “Animal House.” You just kind of said what was there and hoped for the best.

“I like it,” Josh said.

“Ok, so we’re still going?” Gordon said. “I mean, my sister has a friend at Tulane, maybe we can hook up with them?”

“See, things are already better,” I said. Ryan stared at me with a blank expression. He was scared of what we were all about to do. Be homeless in New Orleans for five days and five nights. Maybe six nights if we drove fast enough.

“Let’s get fired up!” Josh yelled. “Fuck Nate. He screwed us. But we can’t let him fuck us!”

“Yeah!” J.B. shouted.

“Fucking right!” Mark joined in.

“Oh well,” Gordon sighed.

“Yesssir,” Will chimed in finally.

“Let’s get on the road,” Matty said.

Then the phone rang. It was 1992. There were no cell phones. At least in the house of a bunch of broke-ass college students there weren’t. So the landline sang its song.

“Ring-a-ling-ding-ding….Ring-a-ling-ding…Ring-a-ling-ding…”

Finally, someone upstairs, Gardocki or Pollock, answered the phone.

You could hear some chatter, then walking on the hardwood floors upstairs.

“Hey! Randy! Phone’s for you,” Gardocki said.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Some chick. Said her name’s Katrina.”

Now, Katrina was a name that didn’t mean a thing to those in New Orleans in 1992. But it meant a whole hell of a lot to me in 1992. Katrina was a woman I’d met just a few weeks earlier. It was a cold, dark and snowy night in Oakton, Virginia. We were going to a party at one of my friend’s high school buddy’s house. When we got there, everyone was already drunk. It was cold, so we all started drinking too. A lot.

Soon, I was doing shots of Jim Beam with Miller Lite chasers. Soon, this girl was eyeing me. Big time. Her name was Katrina. She had long dark hair, in a very late-1980s do. She had on a sweater and jeans. They were tight and showed off an amazing body. And for some reason, she liked me.

We talked endlessly on the back porch. Drinking and talking. Talking and drinking. She leaned in and we kissed. It was magical. Before I knew it, I had her in my arms, kissing those kinds of kisses you don’t experience too often and when you do, you remember them.

Later, she was making out with another friend. It was weird watching it happen. Just minutes before she was with me. But while she was doing it, she was looking at me. Making it hot for some reason. This made me want her more.

Soon, everyone was gone except for the last few friends. Me and two compadres, Katrina and the guy who owned the place. Soon, it was just me and Katrina awake.

We made our way to the bathroom. I pulled off her sweater and couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Two large breasts with very large nipples. I grabbed them and kissed them. Probably too hard and too much. But damn, I was drunk, she was drunk and we were going at it like crazy.

She grabbed my dick and pulled it out of my pants. I was stunned. At this point, I’d had sex with one other person in the world. And it was a horrible experience. Now, I was living out a Penthouse Forum letter.

She didn’t need to do anything to get me ready. I got her naked and we fucked. I looked at myself in the mirror while doing it for a second. “Whoah, that was weird,” I remember thinking. Before I knew it, I was done.

“Did you come?” she asked. That certainly inspired confidence in what I’d just accomplished.

“Uh. Um, yes.” I said feebly.

“You didn’t have a condom, did you?”

“Uh. No.”

“I’m not on the pill.”

We kind of looked at each other while pulling ourselves together. My drunk was gone. Hers wasn’t. She had sobered me up.

We went back into the living room and laid down on the floor together. Fell asleep real fast under a sleeping bag.

The next morning, I woke up to the sun hitting the snow piles outside. It was way too early to be awake. Katrina was by my side. Her pants had fallen back down. I pulled them back up. She had on white, with stripes – all sorts of colors like Juicy Fruit – panties. I admired her for just a second before putting her jeans on the best I could and pulling the sleeping bag back over her. She woke for just a second, looked at me and smiled.

I was feeling better now about what happened and what might happen.

We went back to sleep.

Hours later, Matt woke us both up. Me with a kick to the side. Her with a slight tap to the head.

“Hey guys, I’m hungry. Let’s grub.”

We ambled outside into a car. It was cold. I was shivering. She was shivering. I put my coat on her, as she stumbled out without it.

We talked at lunch. About life. About school. About music. About movies. About everything. Except last night.

Soon, it dawned on me that she didn’t remember a thing. By the end of my day there, when we had to go back to Charlottesville, I knew it was so.

“Are we cool?” I asked her when I was getting in the car.

“Of course, silly,” she said, kissing my cheek and handing me an index card. On it was Katrina. (703) 565-5565. It had hearts and was in pink magic marker.

“Call me sometime. Maybe you can go to that formal with me next week?”

“Yeah, sure. Most definitely!” I said.

We snuck in a kiss and I watched her fade away as we drove down the road towards Route 29 and Charlottesville.

“You fucked her didn’t you?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, I did,” I said.

A couple days later, I called her. Nervously I dialed the digits and hoped for the best.

“Hello?” her voice, so soft, answered.

“Hey, it’s Randy,” I said.

“Oh, wow. How are you doing? I wasn’t sure you’d call me.”

“Of course I was going to call you. You’re an awesome chica.”

We then talked for about three hours. Time flew. I forgot I was supposed to be studying for an Economics test. I ended up getting a D on that test. But it was worth it, mostly.

Finally, as the conversation was coming to a close, I broached the subject.

“Are we good?”

“Why do you keep asking that?” she remarked.

“Because of what happened.”

“What do you mean, what happened?” she sounded confused.

“About us, you know, having sex.” There I said it. I felt relieved and scared.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Um… We had sex. In the bathroom.”

“Fuck,” she said. Not the word I would have liked to hear at that moment. “Did you have a condom?”

“Um…no.”

“Shit. I’ve got to go.”

I called her each of the next three nights. All three times, her roommate said she couldn’t come to the phone.

Finally, she called back on Day 4.

“Randy, we can’t see each other anymore,” she said. “I just can’t.”

I tried to find out why. But she was set. She also ended our conversation with these words: “I won’t call again. Unless I’m pregnant,” and she hung up the phone.

Now, here I was weeks later, staring at my roommate telling me she was on the line.

“Gardocki, tell her I’m not here. Tell her we already left for New Orleans and you’ll leave a message.”

I felt like shit. But, I could not face what might be on the other end of that line. Not now. I was taking the most selfish path I would ever take in my life. I wanted to go to New Orleans and have fun. Not start thinking about having a kid. Although, all I would think about during that trip was exactly that.

Six days later, I was back at home. Broke. Unshaven. And scared shitless.

I looked at that index card. Probably for at least 45 minutes. Then I dialed the number. Answering machine. I left a message.

“Katrina, hey, um…This is Randy. I just got your message that you called last week. I was in New Orleans and didn’t know you’d called. Call me back. OK?”

She never called back.

I never called again.

And to this day, I wonder if.

He or she would be nearly 20 now. In college.

And I wonder if.

And I’ll probably never know.

cat pee and regrets

Woke up this morning to two revelations: 1. The memory of her doesn’t cause me pain anymore. Discomfort? Yes. Loneliness? Yes. Pain? Not at all. 2. Waiting for the right moment always is a bad idea.

The road beckons me again tomorrow. It’ll be a fine ol’ time for at least five days. The car will get yet another test and she’ll pass with flying colors. A friendship will be tested by 30 hours in the car together. Always fun to see how those turn out. And a city will be visited again. Every time I go, I wonder if it’ll be the last time. I can’t help but wonder that more and more now. It’s funny, life.


The bitter sweet taste of the past came calling for a little while. It’s the worst part of the times we live in. You can’t just pine over someone lost anymore. They end up in your life somehow now. Again. Maybe you get drunk and search. Maybe she gets drunk and searches, although a lot less likely.

I got my hopes up for no real reason last month. And being the insane over-analyzing fool that I am, I waited too long to even say hello. So, instead, I watched something else unfold. Sad? Yes. But I’m a classic case of sad. But it wasn’t meant to be. Never was. That’s why it was the first of many awkward endings and continuances. What would my life be without that? Sane? Boring? Normal? All those sound so awful. I’d rather be a tormented soul than a bored one. No settled life for me, as a songwriter once penned.


The hourglass curves of the lady walking by make me wonder. What was I thinking of when I left? I know exactly what I was thinking, yet I still wonder what I was thinking. If you think you’re confused reading it, imagine thinking it.


I noticed the smell while sitting at my desk. It was most definitely urine. Whose urine or what’s urine, I have no idea. But, since I was to be cooped up at my desk for the next five hours having to breathe it in, I decided to try and find out.

The most obvious culprit would be the toothless old guy a couple of seats down. He’s the old-school journo who smells like an ashtray, eats livers and gizzards from Church’s Fried Chicken every week and holds on to his 1960’s ponytail like he does to the printed word – tightly.

I walk down to his desk to spark up a conversation. I use Tim Geithner’s comment that “Default by the United States is unthinkable,” as a starter.

“Can you believe he said that?”

“Quack,” he says. Not the word, but the actual sound of a duck.

“Notice he didn’t say impossible. Or improbable.”

“We’re all doomed.”

“Agreed. You have your vegetable garden started yet. With barbed wire fences to keep out the starving?”

“Ha!”

I notice he doesn’t smell of urine. Of many other things yes, but not him.

Back to my desk, the foul stench fills up my nostrils again. God, this place is horrible. If it isn’t the rats, it’s the gnats. If it’s not the smell of bleach, it’s urine. And the pay stinks. You’d think I’d get the fuck out. But, I live at the beach…

I turn my attention to Grimace behind me. He’s a pale white version of the giant purple blob that tried to get me as a kid to fall in love with McDonald’s. It worked then. Not now.

This guy wears shirts from the 1990s with pride. I have no problem with that, as I do too. However, I have not put on over 100 pounds so they no longer even come close to covering my belly. So, every day we are graced with stretch marks and belly hair. That and he sucks on pen tops. I wonder to myself every night as he sounds like a cow doing its thing with cud how a person gets to this point?

I glance at him. It makes my blood curdle just looking upon his mass of cellulite. I walk over and spark up some conversation. He likes women’s college basketball. Much like I did. Except I just had a crush on one of the players, and followed her around the country like a 12 year old when I was 19. Thinking back on that, I wonder if I’ve paid off my debts from those trips? Probably. But maybe not.

“What did you think about UConn and Stanford losing?” I ask.

“Amazing. It was quite possibly the biggest night in college basketball for women in a long time. It reminds me of the 1994 tournament when …” I stopped listening to this manifesto on the greatness of women’s college basketball at that point. This must be how people thought of me when I was younger. Ha. No wonder I couldn’t get laid. I also note that he does not smell of urine.

Lastly, I turn to the new girl. She hasn’t spoken to me in 6 hours today. I think she’s got a crush on me. Ha! Not if I was the last immigrant grocer on earth, honey!

Anyways, she’s got allergies today and her voice is more annoying than ever. Minnesota gal with a stopped up nose. Ugh. She has been slathering on the hand lotion a lot more than usual today, and god that stuff stinks.

I do the markets page for her, tell her, and she thanks me. I don’t get a whiff of urine. Shit.

So I sit at my desk and wallow in the stink.

Then it finally dawns on me. Maybe I stink. My jeans are the ones I wore to my friend’s house the other day. They have a cat. It doesn’t like change and new people.

I go to the bathroom. Sniff my jeans. Yep. It’s me. Never think the worst of those around you, until you’ve considered it in yourself.