An economics major...

Six Miller High Lifes in my belly, I decided to go down to the beach. I wasn’t drunk, but I had a good buzz in my head. Nothing too special, nothing to out of the ordinary. I just wanted to go see the ocean.

The drizzle marked up my glasses in a hurry. I looked down at my $2 Wal-Mart flip flops and tossed them into the weeds that make up my yard. No reason to slip and break my ankle right now. No insurance.

Getting fired does that to a person.

I walk down and notice how quiet everything is. I don’t notice that enough, sitting in front of my computer. Going to the same six web sites over and over, hoping for a conversation with friends who have long ago moved on from being my friend.

The sky isn’t cloudy, it’s murky. I see a few stars busting out of the mist. I look at them in awe.

The houses are mostly empty. The summer is nearly over. Just two weekends until Labor Day. Then everything will start closing up shop.

I won’t be here anymore. My last day here will be August 31. A Friday. I guess I’m excited.

I get to the beach and I marvel at how empty it is. I love it like this. I realize how little in the last year I’ve taken the time to come down here and revel in it.

When I first moved to the beach, I was here every night. I got off work, then in April, and walked to the shore. I always had a beer with me. Sometimes a few.

I’d sit in the sand and watch.

The waves. The people. The clouds. Whatever was there.

The boardwalk was always empty. A sexy lady would be working the bar at the TBT, but I’d never go in. Sometimes she’d wink at me. Wave me in. I always pulled out my pockets when this happened. My “I’m a hobo” moment. Or statement. Whichever you like better.

She’d always wave me in anyways.

I wonder what would have happened if I’d gone in?

I don’t think I would have ended up much differently, really. So, chalk it up as a lost chance. A missed opportunity.

I’ve had a lot of those over the years.

I think about my key. I placed on top of the carport when I left a few minutes ago. What the fuck, I thought. My stuff is packed. I’m leaving. Who cares if someone robs me now.

It’d be fitting, really.

I’ve thrown away more stuff than I did in the great purge of 2008. Of course, that was just my writing. How stupid was that? Hemingway would look at me and shake his head. His woman lost his writing. I threw mine away because of a woman. Hell, there isn’t much difference in the end.

The ocean slashes away at the shore. If man wasn’t here, the beach would be hundreds of feet the other direction by now. But, we’ve got houses here now, so, it stays. Until it wants to really move. Then it moves. Houses be damned.

It’s a fucking sandbar people. If you build here, you should expect it to fall.

That never goes over well with property owners.

Anywhere really.

I’ve never owned. Except for that car I bought.

It already has a dented bumper and scratched up paint. Character points.

One day, I may actually own it myself. Just $5,800 more to go.

Debt enslaves you. I wish someone had told me that when I was young. Instead, I watched my parents buy too much. And I thought it was normal. I thought I’d find a great job and it would all be all right. Then, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. So, I decided I’d find a rich lady and she’d make it all right. That didn’t happen either.

Now, I’m still a drunk. Who thinks he can write, but never does and I still have credit card debt.

And I was an Economics major.

Ha.

It’s unrealistic of me to expect much out of myself.

Unless I apply myself. Then it’s pretty impressive.

I can’t type well anymore. My carpel tunnels is deep and ingrained. My hands get tired.

I noticed that the other night while interviewing someone for the first time in over three years. I couldn’t keep up. Kind of like sex. I have good intentions, but they seem to go awry most of the time nowadays. The belief is still there. The effort is still there. But the results aren’t. I guess this is how a 30-year-old NFL running back feels. Unless he was lucky, and sat out a few years because of an injury or dumb coach. I always think of Otis Anderson.

My throat is dry. You drink shitty beer all night, that’s what happens. No matter if you eat a fucking fantastic meal – which I’ve managed to do the last two nights – or not.

I hate shitty beer. But I like getting drunk. I used to like both. But, I got refined. I got cultured. Fuck that, I got a little bit of the “good life” and I don’t like going backwards. Who does, really? Unless backwards means the best fuck of your life. And damn, I was 21 years old when that happened. On my childhood bed even.

The things you remember.

I know she probably doesn’t think of me. That pig-tailed girl with doe eyes and ab muscles before they were cool.

A redhead was working at the bar across the street tonight. She wasn’t attractive. She had an awful voice too. But she was staring me down. And I looked back.

I’d never have done a thing, even if she came over and said “Your dick, my mouth.” Which really, is just something some guy would write in a letter to Penthouse.

I’m in love. But I’m scared. And that scares me.

Does that make sense?

I hope so. Because I’m scared and don’t want to be.

hand-me-down advice

I sigh as I plop my ass down on my old, dirty hand-me-down couch. It used to be some kind of off-white color, but that has long ago disappeared. I was given this couch by my sister’s boyfriend. His words upon offering it up were “It’s the dog’s couch right now, but I’m sure a little bit of Woolite and some elbow grease will make it all good again.”

It didn’t seem like a particularly dirty couch. It had some slobber marks from the dog just sitting there on it all the time. Since the dog was fixed, I didn’t need to worry about red-rocket stains. So, I snagged it up and took it to my house at the beach. Yeah, I said my house at the beach. The three-bedroom shithole that I rent for $695 a month. A little price to pay to live at the beach, but a hell of a price to pay on my paycheck.

On the couch are a pile of bills that came in the mail while I was away on vacation. The girlfriend and I spent five days jaunting and juking about the country. We saw 11 states in all. Went to Louisville for the first time, as well as Batesville, Arkansas. Add Huntington, West Virginia, to that list of new places as well. Plus all the small towns in Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and others that I’d never been too and it was a damn productive trip.

I also made it a point to find the time to write. Each day. Sometimes in the morning. Sometimes while she was driving in the afternoon and one time late at night. But, it got done.

“What are you writing about?” she asked.

“What we just drove by,” was one of my answers.

Another was “Sheryl Crow.”

Still another was “you.”

She crinkled her nose at that. I asked why.

“What do I do that needs to be written about?” she asked.

“Everything,” I said.

She smiled.

This reminded me of a conversation I once had. A writer of more renown and talent than I was sitting on the beach with me one hot summer day. It was Memorial Day because we were listening to the Indianapolis 500. Hundreds of tourists all over the place and there we were, sipping on Budweisers and listening to a transistor radio. I always dug that about him, he took that trusty old radio with him everywhere. And damned if he couldn’t always find something interesting to listen to. A much better success ratio than those with XM Satellite radio. However, I do believe he now has it.

But the topic of writing about people came up.

“You’ll lose friends when you write about them,” he said.

“Then were they really friends?” I replied.

“Trust me, when you write about somebody, they’ll take it the wrong way. If you mean it as a compliment, they’ll take it as a dig. If you mean it as comedy, they’ll look at it like a tragedy. It never fails.”

“I’ve written about just about everyone I know. Some have read it, some haven’t. I don’t even know who has or hasn’t. It doesn’t matter, really. I just need to type things. Scribble things. Jot them down on napkins or receipts. If you say something funny that I want to use later, the only way I’ll remember it is to write it down.”

“Exactly, and people will want to read it. And then they won’t like it. You could write like Hemingway, or you could write like Nick Sparks, either one they’ll hate it because it’s them.”

“It’s the only way to get people into a story,” I continued to rebut. “Real conversations top fake one’s every day.”

“Yes, I agree. But be ready for the consequences.”

He was right, of course. I’ve written about a lot of people. Friends, family, co-workers past and present. Ex-lovers and current ones. The ones that stumble upon my scribblings usually don’t know what to make of them. Especially if they see themselves.

“You’re such a good writer,” they say, “but what did you mean by this?” And by this, it always means the stuff about them.

“I don’t remember, really,” I respond, completely honest in saying it. “I write something that I feel in the moment. Not something I’m going to dwell upon. Well, except for the damn breakups and tooth decay.”

Sometimes I get a laugh then. But usually not.

But I don’t write for others. The time I tried to do that, it blew up in my face. “You don’t write like you did before,” she said. Well damn it, it isn’t like it was then. “You wrote about her so much better than you wrote about me.” Ugh.

Get off of the horse and you have a hell of a time getting back on. Without the stirrup, at least.

hello sadness

He came home. It was dark, cold and silent. That was the hardest part to get used to. The silence. His house used to be full of noise. Full of action. Now, it was just a shell. A place to lay his head at night. Alone.

Thoughts tend to betray when sadness dominates. He knows this. Yet he keeps a room in the dingy hotel where loneliness resides. In some ways, it’s comforting the emptiness. It’s been with him most of his life. He remembers feeling this way as early as 8. Just apart from everyone else. It used to be easier to fight off. To lock away with a smile, a laugh or even a game of hoops with friends. But as the years multiplied, so did the power of that dark force. He’d be at a gathering -- a party, a concert, a sporting event, anything -- and sadness would show up and butt into a conversation. Rendering him silent.

Dogs seemed to know. When he was in places where dogs were roaming around, they would migrate towards him.

“That dog sure likes you!” or “Too bad you’re not a dog too!” were the kinds of comments he’d get sometimes. Many times, he’d just say “well, the dogs and me, we just get along better than people and me.”

His first girlfriend, at the age of 20, took away a lot of the power of loneliness. He remembered bits and pieces of feeling like this. Like when he walked home with the girl he had a crush on in high school. They talked, laughed and simply talked like people are supposed to. Not like the insanely shy person he was inside the walls of the school. He knew where she lived. Had rode his bike past her house many, many times over the years. Yet, when it came time to take the turn to her house, she hesitated. Said “see you at school tomorrow,” and walked down a different road. He took the cue. And the sadness tapped him on the shoulder. She moved away soon after.

That first girlfriend treated him like shit. He really didn’t mind. At least she was treating him to something. Eventually, she cheated on him and dumped him. Married that guy. Started a trend of girls coming, then going away with their eventual beau. It made him cringe when they made a movie much like that, except that guy was a happy-go-lucky dude, who seemed to enjoy the curse. Which, really, is what it is. Hell, even the lesbian he dated “married” the first girl she was with.

Now, he thinks back on all of it. Every day when he comes home to an empty house. Friends tell him to get over it. To go out. Yet, they don’t go out with him. They’re married. Most with kids. He’s just the old single guy now. Attractive women call him “sir” now.

He used to hang out with loneliness and his pals bottles of beer. Luckily, that’s a thing of the past. For the liver and for the wallet. Still, he can’t help but think that those bottles actually contributed to his state. His lot in life. Along with this own insecurities that he can’t figure out from whence they came. He’s tried. Even in therapy. To figure out where these awful thoughts came from. A few months ago, a breakthrough of sorts. His dad admitted he was depressed. Had been for decades. And he “understood” his son’s feelings and failures more than he had before.

Hearing that made him feel better. Since then, he hasn’t dredged the bottom too often.

A line he wrote down, he thinks it’s somewhat original in thought summed it up.

“I knew I was over you when those songs didn’t remind me of you anymore.”

Even though he knows he’ll never be over it, it’s just not possible, and people who say they are, they are just better at covering it with dirt than he is. Because the deeper you bury it, the less likely it is to come back and grab your ankles.

So now, he opens up the blinds every day. At least when it’s warm -- bad insulation and all. Lets the sun shine in. Brighten up the house, brighten up the day, brighten up your mood. That would make a good greeting card or cheesy Target “room art” piece.

Mick Jagger belts out a tune and Keef a riff. Friends are visiting this weekend. And loneliness can stay in his room alone for awhile. He likes it better that way anyways…

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…

topeka

We’d been dating for over three years. Seemed like it was heading in the right direction, whatever the right direction is. Maybe that’s why I shouldn’t be too astonished that tonight I came home and found one piece of notebook paper ripped out from one of my endless supply of journals.

It read simply “That’s enough. See you in Topeka.”

Topeka? I couldn’t wrap my simple mind around what the hell that meant. Never been to Topeka. Never openly expressed the desire to travel to such a nothing kind of place. But, I want to go everywhere in this country at least once, so I guess it’s as good as any other place to say “Fuck you.”

Or is this some kind of cryptic message being sent. Go to Topeka the mind says. Maybe you’ll find the answer there. At least it will answer a question. One question. And usually you don’t even get that much.

When we first met, she seemed to share my desire for aimless rambling. Going somewhere just to go there. Not planning out a course or even booking a hotel room. Slowly, the journeys became less frequent and the spontaneity non-existent. But I just took it for what I thought it was, a little bit of complacency. Maybe a little bit of laziness.

In fact, it was both of them, and neither of them. We just stopped paying attention to what we needed from each other. Or maybe we got exactly what we needed, and no longer had to suck from the tit of “us.”

Those first few months were reckless and stupid. We kissed on a random moment after skirting around the issue for too long. We laughed constantly around each other. We did the same things. We talked about the future. We got in our cars and drove, and went places. And didn’t much pay attention to all the places. Instead, paying attention to each other. Well, that’s what I did. I can’t much speak for her point of view, except what I thought was going on.

We had sex. It was good, but it also was strange.

Soon, we fought a lot. I never understood why. I never knew how it started or what would end it. It always did end. And we fell back into each other. Drinking too much. Fucking in bathroom stalls and shitty hotel rooms. Trying a quickie in the living room of my best friend. It didn’t matter. We were in love with each other. And we wanted to suck every last moment of it out.

After a while, the passion was still there, but life interrupted. It has a way of doing that, if you let it. My experience is that if you let it get in there, it will. Like a slow drip of water. Eventually, even that topples a mountain.

Decisions became less about us, and more about I or me or you or him or her. It wasn’t on purpose. And honestly, I think decisions were always attempted -- in the most roundabout ways -- to be for the good of “us.” But there was never a discussion. It’s why the lyrics “who are we kidding? There never was a plan,” resonate with me every time Benjamin belts ‘em out. The first time I heard those words, I thought of her. The years haven’t dulled the feelings. They haven’t made them less important. All the time has done is fade the memory. Like a painting that been on display in a museum for too many years, it gets old, dirty and maybe starts to crack a bit. But underneath, it’s still the Mona Lisa. It’s still a Picasso or a even a Yves Klein.

“You think too much about the past,” every girlfriend before and since has said to me. They’re all right. I know this. But the fact that they say that means they just don’t get it. Or, I’d like to think they don’t get it. Love lasts forever. Every book ever written on the subject says so. Every song does too. Why? Because you wouldn’t write it if you didn’t want it to last. For the message to be there. Always.

Is it wrong to allow a piece of you to still hold on to the past. No matter how cruel that past was to you, or you to it? I believe it’s folly to believe you can let go of it. Completely. Hell, that’s why we have memories, right? To learn from mistakes. To not repeat them. You put your hand on a hot oven once. Not over and over again. You knock a hornets’ nest from a tree but one time. Unless you like being stung.

What the fuck is in Topeka? Neither of us will probably ever know the answer to that.

Maybe she should have written that note. Instead of me. Or maybe I just think too much about her. And me. And what it is we used to be.

blood

Man. I need to piss. This isn’t the normal, everyday wake up at 8 in the morning and the bladder needs to be emptied kind of pee either. This is the you’ve been driving for six hours straight needing to relieve yourself but you don’t want to stop the momentum of a great drive kind of piss.

But you can feel just how cold it is on the other side of your blankets. Five piled high. The thought of turning on the heat at night makes your cringe. So you just add more blankets the deeper winter gets.

This conversation has been had many times. Folks don’t understand what it’s like to not be able to turn on the heat. “What do you mean it’s 44 degrees inside your house?” They always say, with the degree mark fluctuating between 44 and 55. Well, you say usually with a long sigh, much like Homer Simpson’s brain trying to explain the correlation between a $20 bill and having peanuts to eat, when one is poor, one has to make decisions like this. Should one keep eating and paying debt down or should one be comfortable when waking up in the morning. Because let’s be serious, that’s the only time it really matters.

And right now, it matters. The pee isn’t going to wait much longer. So, throw the blankets aside and run to the bathroom, which is always five degrees cooler since it has tiled floors and gets absolutely none of the morning sun.

Sweet relief as the urine flows into the bowl. Fingers so cold that shrinkage makes it take just a little bit less time.

Done. Flush. Jump back in bed. Shiver. Try to get back to sleep. Some days, it’s easy. Others not so much.

A few hours later, sleep or no sleep, it becomes necessary to get out of bed. Either due to work commitments or just the overall want to not be so God damn lazy today. Rise and shine, ya bastard.

Put on some dirty clothes. Ones that may have been worn the past two days, depending on what time of the week it is. Brush the teeth. Trying to stop the eventual death of the smile is important. Stumble into the hallway, look at the thermostat, it usually will be rising by this time of the day. Walk to the windows and open up the blinds. Let the sun light in. Good thing about the beach, the sun beats down on you, even in the winter. Heating up the house. Even on cold days it gets to 70 inside naturally.

Turn on the computer. Decide whether to even attempt to write in the morning. If so, sit down, type. Usually aimlessly. Words just appearing with little or no thought involved. It’s therapeutic and anguishing at the same time. There’s a story in there somewhere. It’s about heartbreak and redemption. Or heartbreak and death. Or heartbreak and things. Yeah, it’s about that.

On a day off, spend a lot of time convincing one’s self not to drink. Lately, it’s been easier than it used to be. Mostly because of the balance in my bank account. Hopefully that’s not the real reason, but optimism is not a strong suit.

If that victory is won, outside usually beckons. Some kind of new adventure must be had. Every single day. If not, the soul starts to itch. The mind starts to gelatinize.

If that victory is not won, inside rules. The stereo gets turned on. Shitty speakers don’t let the music live correctly, but there isn’t any way to replace them. Beers go down like hookers used to on 42nd Street before Rudy Guiliani cleaned up the big city. The words flow a bit easier onto the written page now. Journals get entries. The past sometimes makes an appearance. She usually goes away now when I ask her to. It’s a nice compromise we have. I don’t let go of her, and she goes away when asked. What else could one ask?

When the words are forced, it just becomes a countdown to the pre-set limit. That’s a cop out. There are times when the wall needs to be smashed into. Ignored. The forehead needs to be bloodied. That’s the goal, right there. To never stop until the time is right. And to be there, I have to figure out what it means to know the time is right. And to know that, I have to write. More. Even when it sucks. And it usually does suck. Beat myself up about it until it no longer hurts. Show other people and watch them wince. Heck, take a class and watch uneducated fuckers rip it apart for not having structure or a proper flow.

Then go to the bar and try to meet someone. Even though you never do.