Sober, even

 Jesus, the Dave Matthews Band! Is all I can think. I’m sitting in my kid’s dentist office when I notice that I’ve listened to an entire DMB song.

I can’t say it’s the first time, as I think it happened by accident somewhere in my past, but it sure as hell ain’t the third time. It was always somewhat of a badge of honor, being a graduate of the University of Virginia (read as nasally as possible) during the years of 1989 to 1993, and an extra year of being in C’ville while one girl broke my heart and I started another down a path that ended with me breaking hers…

“Does it always go back to a woman, Randy?”

Apparently.

There is ice on the ground and it’s cold as shit outside. I don’t know how I ended up this far north.

“North Carolina is north, Randy?”

Apparently to me it is.

I left Virginia in 1994 to go to Arizona. I remember being in shorts all year long, even on those rare below freezing nights at the bar, that would almost always lead to at least 50, but most likely 70-degree days.

After that, New Orleans. For not long enough. I still dream of that place. Just how magical it was. And just how much I seemed to fuck up the possibility of living there permanently.

“If you’re honest with yourself Randy, you’d probably be dead if you’d stayed.”

Yeah, probably. But damn never really knowing.

I know things wouldn’t have worked out, in my mind it was beyond repair. The redhead wasn’t the cause, she was just there at just the right time.

“Right time?”

Hell, I don’t know how to articulate anything. I’ve never been any good at talking about it, mostly because there was never anyone to listen to me. Not having “die for me” friends, is you don’t get to have those conversations. Internally, yes. But that really doesn’t help.

Eight sessions with a therapist. That’s it.

“I think we should have talked about her,” was her last words to me. That kind of scared me away from therapy. Shouldn’t have. But it did. That and using all my EAP on those sessions and getting laid off for the first time just weeks later.

Two years later, I had shittier insurance. But, I didn’t take advantage of 8 more EAP sessions.

Today, I’m working on myself again. I have too much baggage. I want to do the John Cusack thing, but I think most of the people I want to talk to would be like “who the fuck are you?” except one, who would be “get the fuck away from me.”

Funny. Not funny.

I downloaded any app. Those Instagram ads really work, I tell ya.

A few sessions in, lots of close to tears writing and AI responses and it dawned on me that yep, I need a therapist. Seriously don’t want all of my baggage being absorbed by AI and spit out back at me. I’d guess one day, my AI buddy would suggest a beer, a bullet and a bye-bye. So, doing a quick Google search brought me a bunch of options. But how do you pick a therapist nowadays. Too many options. Too many fake reviews. And who wants to lay it all out, then find out you picked a shithead. Then have to do it all again?

Eh. You are a coward.

“This beating myself up, isn’t helping.”

Thank you mind for pointing out the obvious as I sit here listening to Lucero, not drinking and trying to justify gaining 13 pounds in the last three weeks.

It’s cold.

Been working at home.

New job.

Terror. (GWB voice, please)

I want to get in my car and drive. South. West. Not North. Can’t go much more East.

I had tickets to the Glossary reunion show in Nashville. No one wanted to go with. Then, snow back-to-back weekends and the chance of going solo died in icy roads.

My mom has been gone almost 3 years now. That’s a skull splitter for me. It seems like yesterday. Nothing else seems like yesterday anymore.

Not the breakups. Not the miscarriages. Not the lies. Not the truths. Not even the good times. They’re faded. I think my early stage dementia is real. I have really hard times with words – but only when speaking. I really loathe speaking. Unless I’m drunk. And I don’t get drunk anymore.

I am also promising myself to get off the phone. I’m deleting apps as soon as I reach the end of this typing road. I wonder if I’ll stay committed to finally doing this again?

Sober, even.

By the way, copilot things I should write that “I am considering whether I will remain dedicated to undertaking this task once more.”

How the hell do you follow that with “Sober, even.”???

Drinking hurts now. Maybe that’s fitting. The hurt now lives elsewhere. It’s pretty to think so. Ha!

Short, with long hair

 

“Do, do, do. You feel, like I do?” is wafting through the air in the Anchor Room on a Thursday afternoon. It’s 4:37 according to the clock on the wall behind Beatrix, the waitress on duty.

The workers at the plant haven’t gotten off yet, which means it’s just me and her and Johnny, the 71-year-old former teacher who taught me U.S. Government so, so many years ago in this small industrial town tucked away in southern Virginia.

Not sure why I’m here. My parents both died years go now. Which was the main reason I ever came back after leaving for good at the age of 24. I still remember that day. I got into my black Firebird and pointed it towards Arizona.

Made it eventually. After spending a week in South Carolina after the car broke down. Watching Pulp Fiction a bunch of times. In New Orleans, got robbed of half of my worldly possessions while hanging out with the first girl to steal a piece of my heart – symbolism was always hitting me over the head hard in the early 90s. Getting me first speeding ticket outside of Houston. Seeing the Texas Hill Country alone for the first time. And finally, arriving in Phoenix to stay with my great aunt and her mean-ass poodle. Bitchy little thing that just growled at me.

I look around the bar. The décor is gone from my youth. It was a karaoke bar for a bit before the whiny owners sold it to some folks from India. Wish they’d at least put the old booths back in. That would be cool.

I saw a pub in Ireland for sale today on the phone. Little less than 400K euros. Comes with an attached house. That would’ve been the dream at 38 when I was L-I-V-I-N at the beach alone, drinking my life away and ignoring signs. I tend to do that, and I end up either breaking a heart or getting mine stabbed with a rusty screwdriver.

It doesn’t hurt that much anymore. I just think about it too much.

I take a swig of my Mille High Life. Only beer I enjoy anymore. It’s not attached to anything good or bad, so it’s safe.

The bell over the door dings. I think quickly that it’s pretty annoying to have that in a bar. But, maybe this place ain’t really a bar anymore.

It’s 4:51 p.m. The shift will be ending soon. Sending folks my way.

I look at the mirror behind the bar and I see her. She’s short. She’s got long hair. She’s wearing a Kix t-shirt. And I ain’t talking about the old video game.

She ambles over to the jukebox. It’s a vinyl one, thank goodness, and not an internet one. She puts a dollar in the slot. Clicks a couple of buttons and walks over to the bar. She looks at the seat next to me. I look at her.

Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got, Till It’s Gone” starts playing. I don’t know exactly what to think about that.

“You mind if I sit here,” the short, long-haired lady finally says.

“There?” I say, pointing at the seat next to me.

She just looks at me. She’s got far-away eyes. I start wishing the Rolling Stones were on the jukebox instead of Tom Keifer.

I don’t get a verbal answer. I get a physical one. From the other side.

“That’s my lady,” a voice says.

I hadn’t noticed that the short, long-haired lady from my hometown came in with someone else.

I also don’t see the fist, making contact with my face.

I wake up 14 minutes later. I know this because Johnny, my old government teacher tells me this as he orders me a beer.

“Two Red Stripes!” he says.

I wince. Not at the beer, but at my eye. It’s swollen shut.

“14 minutes you were out, Randy,” Johnny says. “I thought we were gonna have ta call the cops.”

“Glad you didn’t,” I manage to say. I take a sip of beer. It feels good going down my throat.

“Where did she go,” I ask.

“She’s left,” Johnny said. “But she handed me this before she headed out.”

Johnny handed me a crumpled up piece of paper. On it was this “Sorry about David. He’s a dick. But, he’s rich. Here’s my number. Call me if you want. 804-458-5435.”

I stare at the number. It’s my parents’ old number. It had been our number my entire life. Until my sister turned it off a year after my mom died. A year after we all watched my mom die. In our childhood home. In our hometown.

“You gonna call?” Johnny asks.

“Hell no,” I say. “Sometimes signs are so big you just can’t miss ‘em.”

I go to the jukebox. Put in a dollar. Push some buttons. I walk to the bar, sit in the seat the short, long-haired girl asked about. I feel sometime poke me right in the ass. It’s a nail from the chair.

AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” starts playing. I take another swig of Red Stripe. Tip my bottle to Johnny.

The door bell dings again. I feel a cold feeling and get goosebumps.

I look at the mirror. And I don’t like what I see…

Jay Leno midget porn

It came down to this: Jay Leno or midget porn.

Smug jokes about people I don’t care about or some chick named Twiget.

Either choice could end the relationship that was just three dates old. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I made a decision, and God damn it, I was going to live with it. What else could I do?

“What the hell are you watching?” she asked as I pretended to not know she was standing behind me.

“It’s redhead midget porn…” I said as numbly as possible to create some kind of illusion that I didn’t actually type “redhead midget porn” into Google to see exactly what was on the screen of my 52 inch television.

“Weird,” she replied and walked into the kitchen. I heard her books slam against the cement floor, then the fridge opened. Some bottles clinked around and one opened with the pssssssssssst sound that I have heard more than any other in my lifetime.

She came back in the den. Took her boots off and plopped down on my ratty red futon mattress with me.

“Is this what’s in store for the next 50 years?” she said.

“Nah, I like this tranny named Bailey Jay a little more than Twiget the Midget,” I replied, taking a small swig of whiskey from my “Makin’ Bacon” glass.

“Nice glass,” she said, pointing.

“Found it at a thrift store a long time ago,” I said. “Was with a redhead. She won’t no midget though. She was normal sized.”

“What the fuck does normal sized mean,” she said, glaring back at me.

“You know, not a midget or playing in the WNBA,” was the best I could do. I took another swig of whiskey. It was a bottle I’d brought back from Ireland in 2011. My best friend from college took me with his wife overseas. They paid for 99 percent of the trip. I’m a deadbeat, but I’m a lucky fucking deadbeat I thought to myself as I watched some guy with an 8-inch penis fuck a three-foot, 4-inch midget.

“This is pretty good,” she said. “I wonder if it hurts?”

“Nah,” I said. “It’s no different than if it was a …” I honestly couldn’t think of anything to say. My dick wasn’t that big, and I’d never fucked a midget. So my frame of reference was slight.

“You were saying?” she asked, taking a long swig of Michelob.

“Don’t drink that!” I screamed, grabbing the bottle away. “It’s old.”

“How old?”

“It’s been in my fridge for about 3 years, I’d guess.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse,” she said, grabbing the bottle back. Some of it spilled on my table/trunk. An old Joe Strummer sticker got the worst of it. I cringed a little bit. She noticed.

“That trunk means a lot to ya, doesn’t it?”

“It’s been with me for a while,” I replied, trying not to look like it mattered.

“How long?”

“After I left New Orleans. So…about 14 years now.”

“You lived in New Orleans?”

“Just a short while. I should have never left New Orleans…”

“You should write that down,” she said.

“I have.”

“Don’t get testy with me.”

“Not testy, just sad. The past does that to me. I cling to it like the Spanish moss does to the trees or maybe how the Kudzu hugs everything around here.”

“Yeah, Kudzu sucks,” she said. She stared into my eyes. I didn’t want to look at her. I wasn’t ready to fall in love again. The worst part about getting your heart broken isn’t getting it broken, it’s falling in love again.  I reached for my notepad and wrote those words down. I had to. While I probably heard them before in some clichéd Americana song in some shitty dive bar in North Carolina or Richmond, Va., over the years, they sounded close enough to good that I figured I could re-write them some other way years later and maybe sound profound.

Not likely.

The notepads full of aimless starts at stories. The blogs full of inane ramblings. The scaps of paper, or receipts or napkins or even the backs of cigarette packs that I never smoked are full of endless words. Usually scribbled while drunk, but never while thinking about Bob Costas. He scares me. Looks too much like Ellen Degenerees. Or whatever.

She watched me put my notepad back under the couch. I left one there for just such moments. It had beer and some kind of peanut residue on it.

“What was that?” she said.

“Annoying habit I picked up from a buddy,” I said, finishing off her beer.

“Did you just write down something I said?”

“Nah.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not. You haven’t moved me that much yet.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you’re really smooth with the ladies, aren’t you?”

“Never.”

Finishing... (aka, why word count quotas can be a bad thing)

Staring.

It’s all I can muster. Just my eyes firmly planted on the book – Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style.”

I have carried it with me now for almost 20 years. It was over a decade old when I bought the copy in a thrift store in Tempe, Arizona. I was 8 years old when someone else bought it brand new in 1979.

I paid 25 cents for it at Gracie’s Cottage. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, may have been in Mesa.

The unknown original purchaser, who put a drink on it to leave the distinctive “O” ring on it, paid more, I’d assume. But the edition – the third of the book, which I’m sure has now reached double digits, according to the cover – had no price on it.

The thing I noticed then, and am thinking about now in my un-air conditioned house in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, is that the spine was pristine.

Then, I was a 20-something who thought “Maybe I’ll be a writer someday.”

I lived in a house with a gaggle of dropouts who smoked dope and rode motorcycles. Except for the guy from Massachusetts who looked way too much like Johnny Thunders. He smoked dope and drove a beat up old BMW. Soon, however, he was replaced by a corn fed, blonde-haired Real World wanna-be from Nebraska. A Mormon to boot. Making him Mormon number three that I had already lived with in Arizona in just over a year and a half. I never even remember meeting one before then. Although, I’m sure I had, visiting Utah and all.

Lots of midgets in St. George. Wonder if any of them do porn now?

That house also had no air conditioning. So, I haven’t done much in those nearly 20 years in between.

I wrote a screenplay about a demonic, well, really just mean, cat.

I threw it away right after I finished it. No one ever saw it.

I guess it was inspired by Rebecca Johnson. She was a mousy cashier that I wanted to date back in the exile year, pining for a lesbian time of my life. But I was not able to do it. Not because she didn’t like me, because she did. She paid over $500 for a plane ticket to fly from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Phoenix, Arizona the summer of 1996. I bought condoms and wine coolers. We got a room in Flagstaff after touring the Grand Canyon.

And I did nothing. I was too scared.

Or my conscious got me.  Which is a good thing. Maybe.

I was a selfish prick at that point in my life. Maybe another thing that really hasn’t changed?

I didn’t however, do what I wanted to that night. Which was have sex with her.

Why? It wasn’t moral, but I’d like to think that way.

It’s because I thought she was “beneath” me in some way. Being a high school educated cashier at a department store at the age of 25. I’m sure that was my mindset at the time.

So, I backed away.

We’d been writing to each other for over a year by then. And I liked her.

But, when she sent me a letter and cassette tape, telling me she “loved” me. I recoiled. I didn’t respond. And that was the wrong thing to do.

Over the years, I’ve thought about her. Too much, probably. I don’t forget the shitty things I do. And there are a lot of them.

I drove to where I think she lives a few years ago. A small town outside of Charlottesville. I don’t know why. I guess I was hoping to bump into her. Tell her I was sorry.

It didn’t happen, of course.

And if it had, she probably wouldn’t have cared.

People are like that. They get over things. It’s how they live.

I think back to those days in Arizona with her. We smiled a lot. And we were awkward a lot. Neither of us knew what to do.

But, in the end, I didn’t do anything. Good or bad.

How dumb.

Instead, I broke her heart. I’d get mine broken repeatedly over the years. I’m sure I deserved all of it.

And I’ve never finished anything else I’ve written.

So, now I’m staring at Strunk & White. I open the book. The pages are yellowed and old.

I start the first paragraph of the Introduction:

“At the close of the first World War, when I was a student at Cornell, I took a course called English 8.”

It took me back to those Arizona days. When I had dreams. When the future looked bright and shiny.

I don’t look at the world the same way anymore. I still think I have a book in me. A good one? No clue. But it’s there. It’ll be about women. And the road. And drinking. I know that. The protagonist will have to be me, there’s no way I’m avoiding that.

But otherwise, I don’t have a plan for it.

Maybe that’s a problem? Maybe not.

Fucking things up can be fun. It can also be tedious, when it’s all you know. All you do.

But beating one’s self up about it for years isn’t fun either. Been there.

Before Strunk and his buddy White entered my conscious yesterday, I was sitting outside. It was late afternoon. My fate was sealed by what I’d done the week before. I was in a contemplative mood. And I was enjoying a Big Boss Harvest Time beer from the previous year. Yeah, it was an “aged” beer. But after the first sip, it was quite enjoyable.

I watched the people drive and walk by. No one paying me any notice. It was nice. It was like it was when I first moved here. My mind was open. My thoughts unburdened by the past. All I had was a blank slate in front of me.

And after finishing that beer, I thought about how little I cared about my broken heart. About the woman who crashed it.

“Six years it took me to get to this point,” I thought to myself.

I’m ready to move on. Westward ho, bitches.

(If that’s not a terrible ending, I don’t know what is) – Randy Jones, August 10, 2012.

A question

Johnny walked out of the bathroom, he struggled with the small wooden door. Everyone did. It was on some kind of spring that shot the damn thing right back at you when you pushed on it.

“When did I become such a shit factory?” he said when he plopped back down on the barstool next to mine.

“Are we talking about poop or your writing?” I countered pointing at the just placed bottle of Budweiser on the bar.

“Very funny, compadre,” he said. “Very fucking funny.”

“He’s got his moments,” a voice cooed from the corner.

We both turned our stools to the source of this angelic voice. It was 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, there usually weren’t such things hanging out with us and our ever-depleting sources of alcohol.

She was stunning. In every way possible. Legs that didn’t end. Pale skin like just poured milk. A figure that would have made Jessica Alba jealous. And red hair. God damn it was the reddest I’d ever seen – and I made it a point to see a lot of red hair. Even if I have to pay for it.

“Hello trouble, come on in,” Johnny said when he was done observing.

“A Buck Owens fan, I see,” she purred. I was beginning to like this lady.

Silence filled the bar. Sarge, the afternoon barkeep had gone to the back to get something, I don’t remember what it was. The jukebox had stopped. The televisions were all on mute. And Johnny and I were completely in awe of what we were seeing.

“You boys going to invite me over or what?” she asked, slicing that silence like a chef in a Japanese steakhouse – with lots of moxie.

“Oh course, darlin’,” Johnny said. “Come on over.”

“Your friend’s gotta ask,” she replied, looking straight past Johnny and right at me.

“Well?” Johnny said, poking me in the ribs. I hated it when anyone poked me in the ribs. Not just because it was in and of itself an annoying thing to do, but because I’d broken a rib years back in a “minor golfing accident” and it still bothered me to this day.

“Only if you can answer one question,” I replied. “Get it right, I’ll buy you beers all night.”

“It’s actually the afternoon,” she tried to sass.

“That’s my point,” I shot back.

“Ooooh, a confident man,” she went back to purring.

“Not really, just full of enough shit to make it work,” I said, not knowing what to say. “But to continue, get it right, you get beer. Get it wrong, and my buddy John here will pay for the beers.”

“Hey…” Johnny said. “That sounds like a trick.”

“Shut up,” she said to him.

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, slinking down just a bit on his barstool.

“Well, what’s this question?” she asked, now a bit of eagerness in her voice. That, I decided, was a good sign.

I racked my brain for something great. Something worthy of the buildup I had given this. But my mind was blank. Like it usually got around a beautiful woman. Completely wiped clean of anything useful.

Finally, I dorked out.

“What’s your favorite Lucero song?” I said.

She smiled. An even better sign.

“Sing Me No Hymns,” she said, walking up and sitting in the barstool next to mine.

“Looks like I’m buying,” I said.

“Leave me be and let me drink, I need none of your good intentions,” she said raising her bottle of Abita amber to my face.

“Well, if that’s not an invitation, nothing is,” I said, clinking my bottle of Shiner Bock to her bottle.

Johnny slinked a little lower in his barstool. I noticed and pointed at him ever so subtlety.

The redhead turned around and gave Johnny a peck on the cheek. Years later, he’d always brag that she kissed him before she ever kissed me.

“Why thank you ma’am,” he said, perking up.

“Listen Johnny, please don’t call me ma’am,” she said. “It makes me feel my age.”

“How old are ya?” he asked. Johnny was never too smooth.

“Old enough, babe. Old enough.”

The next couple of hours went by like lunch period in high school when you sneak out to go to Hardee’s. I looked at the Dixie Beer clock when she sat down and it said 2:11. The next time I noticed it, it read 4:57.

“Damn, the after work party’s gonna be here soon,” I said. “All those, those …”

“Employed people,” she finished my sentence.

“Are you implying, that I have no job?” I retorted.

“Why yes I am,” she said, smiling. Her teeth were so white they scared me. I wondered what she thought of my gold teeth, and I wasn’t talking 14K.

“He’s a writer,” Johnny slurred to her. “Best damn one I’ve ever read.”

“Really?” she replied. “And how many have you read?”

I laughed hard at that. I liked this gal. She had spunk. It didn’t hurt that she was way out of  my league and she was paying attention to me.

Yeah, I was a writer, I went on to explain to her. I wrote mostly about heartbreak and sadness. But my published work was about travel. I went on road trips and wrote about them. I’d stop at the ugliest, most beat up roadside diners or wig shops and find a story. I’d hang out for a couple of days, drink with my subject matter – sometimes I’d go to church with them instead – and the write up a couple thousand words. Slip it in the old electronic mail and a couple days later, I’d get a check.

“What do you do with the checks?” she asked.

“Half in the bank, half to Mick.”

“Mick?” she asked.

“He owns this place. He’ll be in here any minute now.”

“Mick doesn’t own this place,” she said puzzled.

“Huh?” I could only muster. I’d been coming here for two years now, and Mick always told me he owned the place.

“No, my father owns it. His name is Sid. He owns the taco stand a couple blocks from here too.”

Plastic and chrome

That smell. A combination of plastic and chrome. It greeted you every so often.

Some opened and didn’t release that odor.

Others opened and sprayed it out like mace. Or a Glade air freshener, depending on your point of view.

I will always identify that smell from cassette tape in particular – INXS’ “Listen Like Thieves”.

“I have a very vapid life,” I said out loud while I sat in the dark, avoiding my computer.

A bolt of lightning struck the Atlantic Ocean seconds later, filling the air with thunderous approval or rejection.

I turned on my computer seconds later.

The words still aren’t flowing. Maybe it was all the Triscuits and beer?

She sat down on the porch across from his house. She was wearing a striped shirt and knee-high socks. It was like she was straight out of a porn set. If she’d had her hair in pig-tails, it would have cinched it.

Watching her, he noticed that she was very much watching him. They played the game as if neither noticed the other, but it was too hard to do.

“Hey neighbor,” he finally yelled out.

“Howdy,” she screamed back.

A few hours later, he was soaked with sweat and naked. Who knows what she was doing.

“I like bottle caps,” he said to the waitress. “Can you be sure to keep them for me. I collect them.”

She looked down at him, sitting in the booth. He looked pathetic in his cowboy boots and Umbro shorts. All the while the booth’s giant red vinyl seat was devouring him.

“Sure hun,” she responded. “Where’d you come from all dressed like that?”

He looked down at his knees, so much smaller were his legs than just 20 years ago. That was when he rode his bike everywhere. Back then, he said he’d never stop riding. It’s been over a decade since he did it regularly. Over a year since he last did.

“Oh, just work,” he replied.

“What are you a rodeo clown?” she snickered.

“Nah, just a hack writer.”

“Really? What do you write?”

“Anything they’ll pay me to. Anything.”

“Like what?”

He was tired of her questions, but she had red hair and a nice ass. So, he made small talk. She had on long pants – it was 24 degrees outside – so he had no idea what her legs looked like. Legs were the deal breaker for him. Ugly legs equals ugly girl. No matter what.

“My job now is writing travel brochures, so, I dress up like this to inspire my writing. Today, I wrote about Cary, North Carolina and Farmington, New Mexico.”

“Huh,” she said with some interest. “What else?”

“I dabbled in greeting cards for a while. Also was a newspaperman for over 15 years. But, no one reads ‘em anymore, so they don’t need writers as much. Hell, I was replaced by a robot in the Phillipenes. Heard he has a really good way with the letter Q.”

She didn’t laugh, and really, it didn’t deserve a laugh.

“Any books?”

“I’m writing one now. Short stories. Like Hemingway, but not at all.”

“I love Hemingway,” she said with a sparkle. This made him smile.

“What’s your favorite?”

“Oh, you know, the one about the guy who got wounded and couldn’t have sex.”

“The Sun Also Rises?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Do you think it had a happy ending?”

“Of course not,” she said. “How could anyone see that as a happy ending?”

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

“It would be, yes, but it was not a ha…Oh, I see what you did there.”

He was shocked and quite happy to discover she had actually read the book. And actually remembered how it ended. He still thought there was a possibility, no matter how remote, that Hemingway saw happiness in Jake Barnes. It’s what kept him alive many nights, re-reading that book. Trying to absorb it. Become it. Then purge it all out with a 12-pack of beer.

“How’d you like to go see my collection of copies of it?” he said.

“You have more than one?”

“I have almost a hundred now. All with different covers. That’s the catch. I need to see how others have seen the book. I really like finding old library copies. Usually, people scribble notes all over the margins. It’s quite fascinating.”

“Carol,” a voice boomed from behind. “Get your cute little ass shaking and start doing your job. And stop flirting with Mr. Fancypants there.”

He blushed. She blushed.

Later, after he’d eaten his meal – a pulled pork sandwich, Western North Carolina style, and hush puppies with a side of macaroni and cheese (white) – he noticed her phone number on his bill. He tipped $10 on the $4.66 bill and walked out humming. He didn’t know what song it was, until he smelled the awful generic taco shells that he pulled out of his pantry later that night. “Biting Bullets” by INXS. The smell of taco shells brought back the smell of a cassette tape, a fresh one, newly opened in 1985. The smell he always tried to smell because it reminded him of a simpler time, when he didn’t want to do anything except kiss a girl. Not fuck her. Not marry her. Just kiss her. And maybe hold her hand afterwards if he was deemed worthy of such finery.

He looked at the receipt he had put on his fridge. He didn’t want to go all John Favre and call her immediately, or too many times. Instead, he wrote down what he wanted to say. Figured she’d be asleep or at work still.

He dialed the number. It rang. Five times. After the fifth, it picked up.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

Startled, he just sat there, listening.

“Listen, whoever you are, we have caller ID. I’m going to get up and go look at it. Then I’m going to come and beat the shit out of you.”

The voice put the phone down and started to walk. He panicked a little, but held fast.

“So, Mr. Jones,” the voice said. “You want to fuck my wife, don’t you?”

“Actually, sir,” he said. “I want to write about her. And now, write about you.”

“What?”

“It’s what I do. I meet someone, I talk to someone, I just see someone and I write about them. Now, you have entered my world, so I will write about you.”

He hung up the phone. It rang seconds later. He picked it up.

“Randy?” the voice on the other end was much softer, much sweeter.

“Yes?”

“Go fuck yourself,” she said.

He never went back to that Bar-b-Que joint again. Even though they had great macaroni and cheese (white, of course).

What's in the box?

The funeral was nice, if just a tad bit sadder now that I knew Sid was Marie’s father.

He’s pushed me to date her. And now I know why. He was scared to leave her alone. And I guess our little time spent together every day for so damn long now told him that maybe I was a pretty decent guy.

Hell, I’d scrubbed out his fryers one day out of the kindness of my heart – not the $7.25 an hour, plus discount that he was paying me to be there.

But he never told me the damn secret to his taco sauce. And now he was dead.

“What are you ever going to do with the taco stand,” Marie’s sister Fiona asked her mother. Barbara had no answer. She hated tacos. She always believed that was why Sidney opened a taco stand in 1972. Just to get away from her. Even though all he did was love her. But he loved tacos too. Not as much as her, but darn close, he’d always say.

“I don’t know anything,” Barbara weeped. “It’s just too soon. Too soon.”

Marie hugged her mother. It was an awkward hug. She’d told me that her and her mom didn’t get along very well. Ever since she went to work in the taco stand as a teenager. It seemed all this family’s problems revolved around that bright yellow stucco taco hut. Maybe Sid’s passing would put to rest the family’s burden, I started to wonder.

Then I thought about those tasty tacos. And how much I was going to miss them. And miss my hours long conversations with Sid. About girls – little did I know his motive. About traveling – he’d been in the Navy, saw a lot more of the world then I ever would. About movies – his favorite was “The Shining” – “Fucking Jack Nicholson!” he’d always say. About cars – he got my obsession with my old 1991 Celica, saying “The first car you fall in love with is a lot like the first girl. You never forget her, and you always compare every one after to her.”

Damn I missed Sid.

I talked to Barbara about him for a moment. She was still crying and tried to listen to my stories. But they all revolved around the taco stand. And she seemed less than interested. Finally, I told her the story of Sid telling me I should ask Marie out. I’d not told Barbara that story. Nor had I told Marie.

“Oh, he talked about you all the time,” Barbara perked up. “On and on and on and on. In fact, he stopped talking so much about tacos when he talked about you. It’s why I tried to keep him talking about your blonde head so much!”

She hugged me and I hugged back. That was the first time I ever felt comfortable about Barbara. It felt good. There had always been a distance between us in the short time we knew each other. Little did I know she already knew so much about me.

“Well,” I said after a few more hours of standing around, eating mini hot dogs and cold cuts, “We need to get on going.”

Marie looked at me and shook her head. I knew she wasn’t ready to go, but I needed to get back in time to write. It had become an obsession of mine, writing on deadline for no reason except to make that deadline.

“Keeping my chops,” I’d tell her at 11:33 p.m. at night with a deadline of midnight to get it done. “One day, someone might actually hire me to write again.”

Marie knew this about me. She hated it. Maybe writing was my taco stand? I now had something to write about when I got back to the house. It was one she’d not want to read. But, I would show it to her anyway.

“I’m going to stay home with Momma,” Marie said. I’d never heard her call Barbara “momma” before. It was always “Mom” or “Mother”, but never “Momma.” Terms of endearment do indeed come out when they are needed the most.

I kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her hand softly.

“Call me if you need anything, babe,” I whispered into her ear.

“I will,” she said, pecking me on the cheek as well.

I started walking to the door when Rich came up to me. Rich was Fiona’s fiancé. He was a former tackle for the University of Auburn. He was a sure-fire first-round draft pick until he blew his knee out his senior year. The Tigers went on to win the national championship – and Rich had a ring to prove it – but he never got that feeling back on the field. He lasted until the fourth round, taken by the Buffalo Bills. He reported to training camp ready to go, but blew his other knee out on the first day of rookie camp.

Another year of rehab brought him into Game No. 11 of the Bills season. He’d been paid for one year to do nothing but workout, then for 10 games to sit on the bench. Finally he played. On his first snap, the defensive end pushed him to the ground and sacked the quarterback. He laughed all the way back to the huddle.

“Good job, no knees!” the defensive end – Will Bartonsmith – said to him. He went to LSU and never had a sack in the four games they’d gone head-to-head in college. Now, he was 1-for-1 in the pros.

Rich made it through that first season, and was nicknamed the “Revolving Door” by the media for his ability to allow rushers easy access with a push, as Jim Rome said.

One season in the CFL was enough to sour Rich on football. That’s when he came back to New Orleans. Met Fiona. Got married three months later. Now they have six kids and a mortgage. He drives a Saab of all things to the car dealership where he works security and signs an occasional autograph for a former Auburn businessman in town.

“Hey,” Rich says. “You need to see this.”

My attention was purely Rich’s when he took me into the back room. On a shelf was an old Monte Cristo cigar box. It was marked in Sharpie – “For Randy.”

“Sid left this for you,” Rich said. “He showed it to me a couple weeks ago. Told me to make sure Barbara ‘Didn’t steal this from the kid.’”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Rich answered. “Just don’t let anyone see you take it.”

I put the box under my coat and walked out of the room. Marie, Fiona and Barbara were all waiting in the living room, looking at me.

“What were you two up to?” Fiona asked with a little too much snark.

I looked at my feet, trying to do everything I could to not drop the cigar box.

“We were looking at some old photos on the wall,” Rich said.

“Yeah, especially the one from opening day last month,” I said. “I can’t believe Sid got it on the wall so quick.”

“He was like that,” Barbara said derisively. She walked back into the kitchen. Fiona and Marie followed.

“Take care, man,” Rich said.

“I will.”

“And take care of what’s in that box.”

I looked back, but Rich had already closed the door.

I wondered just what could be so important in this box. But, I wasn’t going to open it until I was safely at home. Will power was one thing I was good at. Unless it came to redheads.

naked writing

Naked. Face down on my bed with a box fan blowing directly into my face. When I wake up like this, I know it was a bad night.

I stumbled to the bathroom, rubbing my eyes as I stand over the toilet. A gusher of pee hits the side of the rim, trickling down to the floor. I cuss at knowing that I’ll have to clean that up. I tilt my dick slightly so the rest goes into the bowl where it’s supposed to.

Looking into the mirror, I feel like Waylon Jennings – “the hair on my shoulders, the age in my eyes.” It is, to quote my boss, what it is.

In my living room, empty beer bottles are everywhere. I sign of a night spent in front of the computer, drinking and writing. Writing and drinking. Compact discs are strewn about the floor as well. This used to be my daily routine. Cleaning up the mess of depression. I self-medicated for years after she broke up with me. Drinking all night, sleeping a couple of hours, and arriving at work bleary-eyed and tired. How I was able to function for as long as I did, I’ll never know.

I got a reputation as “surly” during that time. And who could blame my co-workers? I was surly. I was a fucking asshole. I tried to justify it by saying that the job was done, and done well. But it didn’t justify being a prick. Even if in the almost five years since I left that place the persons who followed have done a progressively worse job of what I did. That, at least, is satisfying.

But today, I have the fear. When the drinks flow like this, usually the words do to. And they flow in all sorts of directions. To the internet, via Twitter or Facebook or just a random comment somewhere. It’s frightening to think of the trail of mental destruction that is out there. Some of it anonymous, some of it deleted (but is it ever really deleted?) and some of it very much pointing back to the source.

The inbox on the email account is empty. The sent box is as well.

“That’s a good sign,” I think.

My head starts to throb from the dehydrating process. I wonder how many times the brain inside my skull has cried out for me to take a fucking drink of water over the years.

It bothers me endlessly that I type I so damn much when I write. (See?) There have been times when I purposely avoid first-person narrative, but it’s the only thing I’m good at. Well, that and dialogue. Sometimes.

“Eat my cheesecake!” the crowd screamed in horror. The clock on the tower read 4:35. The bullets would start flying at any moment.

I stand in front of the window and watch some workers set up a tent across the street from my house. It dawns on me that I’m naked only when one of them points me out to his fellow workers. I scratch my balls and put the shades down. Another day in paradise. I get so used to living here by myself in the fall/winter/spring months that when summer finally arrives, I have to be viewed naked before I start putting my pants on in the morning.

Tonight when I get off of work, I’m thinking, I’ll drink some more. Maybe sit out on the porch and watch the tourists get drunk too. It’s amazing to think that I still do the same things. Or is it? As the song goes – people don’t change – so why should I expect myself to? A drunk in AA is still a drunk. They make sure that you always tell people that. Why? Because people don’t change.

If you kill someone, you always are labeled a killer.

When you fuck a dude, you’re gay.

When you don’t fuck at all, you’re a virgin. Well, damn. I guess people do change. I was a virgin at one time.

I decide that standing around in my birthday suit isn’t fun anymore. I put on a pair of mesh shorts and go outside. The sun is painfully bright today. For a second. Then it hides behind the clouds. It’s been raining a lot lately, thankfully. It keeps it from getting too damn hot in the house. Air conditioning is a luxury I can’t afford right now. But neither is beer and I seem to manage getting ahold of enough.

I have to go to work in a few. Designing pages is not my thing. I can do more, and will soon. The winds of change are hopefully upon us. Drawing us in before devouring us.