The Man in the Quarry

One warm afternoon in early June, Amy and I decided to go for a bike ride. She called off work, I called off work, and that was that. The day was ours. We stood in her kitchen and drank iced coffee to prepare for the excursion. Planning went no further. We would go where our cycles took us, hell to all.

Amy and I departed with the hope of stumbling onto a paved trail that led west along the Mighty Cuyahoga, toward Stow. Instead we found ourselves ineffectually navigating the back roads of West Kent. Amy couldn’t quite remember how to reach the trail, so we let our adventurers’ spirits run wild. We crossed a dilapidated bridge that had been blocked with 3’ tall dirt mounds at each side to impede the progress of intrepid journeymen like ourselves. Passage was not that difficult. We were able step over the far edge of the mound where the dirt was not piled as high. Then Amy handed me the bikes. The bridge spanned a series of railroad tracks below. We stopped in the middle, hoping to see a train rattle past.

Our attention wavered when a guy on a motorcycle jumped the mound at our left. He had his girlfriend step off the back of his cycle before he did it. He executed the task with aplomb, as the front tire came down with a squeal upon the wooden surface of the bridge. Then he accelerated again and catapulted himself over the second jump. His girlfriend ran after him and became a bit tripped up when confronted with the dirt mounds. She gave us a breathy and uncomfortable “Hi,” as if to say: “He does this all the time.” We wondered how far she would have to run that day.

After about 15 minutes, Amy and I decided to abandon the train idea, and crossed the bridge. Immediately to our right was a tree-lined dirt road that led down a ravine. It screamed for cyclists, so I signaled with my right hand and turned inside. We made sure to casually ignore the ‘NO TRESPASSING: THIS MEANS YOU!’ and ‘HOURS OF OPERATION: [blank]’ signs that lined both sides of the road. I assumed that the signs were geared more towards solicitors than a pair of benign bikers. The road dipped in front of us and we rode down a steep hill and across some railroad tracks. An attractive McMansion sat at the bottom of the ravine. The house butted against a man-made pond. A dozen or so geese relaxed along the water’s edge and I used my momentum down the hill to scatter their ranks.

“Whoa!” I yelled, kicking my legs as if I were out of control.

Amy laughed.

We found a road that led behind the house and began a climb above what appeared to be a rock quarry. To our left, up a bit higher, ran the railroad tracks we had crossed. A few hundred feet to the right, on the other side of the quarry, a red pickup truck sped back toward the house. The dust trail lingered long after the truck had gone. I began to worry about the signs that marked the entrance to this place.

We stopped before the road turned us back toward the entrance. Just beyond the turn, a diesel tractor hacked at high grass in a sloped field. Amy and I hoped to find a path at the tree line bordering the pasture. Very much wanting out of the place, we rode, as best as we could manage, through the high grass. We made it about halfway before the drone of the mower ceased.

“Hey!”

I turned and saw Amy drifting over to the man on the tractor.

“How did you two get in here?” he asked, removing his Caterpillar cap and mopping the sweat off his bald scalp.

Amy pointed vaguely in the direction we had come. As she was a woman (and he, an older man; lest a heavy-set older man; lest a lonely, bald, heavy-set older man on a tractor), Amy was better suited to do the talking. “Do you know how we can get out of here?” she asked.

“The way you come in,” he said, irritated at our lack of direction.

“Okay,” Amy began speaking rapidly, as she had a habit of doing. “We just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a path back here that we could take.”

“Uh-uh,” the guy grumbled, “only one way out. I’m surprised the owner didn’t see you. He was just through here in his truck. He doesn’t take kindly to visitors. I’m working. Only reason I’m here.”

“Well, we’ll just be on our way then.” Amy climbed back on the pedals. “So, that way?”

“Yeah, and I’d hurry if I was you. He’ll run you right outta’ here.”

We began to retrace our tracks. Luckily, the terrain allowed us a down slope so we could pick up some speed before passing the house. There would still be that steep climb to get back onto the main road. It could cause a problem if the mysterious owner attempted pursuit. But we’d climb that hill when we came to it. Our dust trails rose higher and higher as we began to pick up speed.

I looked over at Amy.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.

“Full steam ahead, I guess.”

A train whistle sounded in the distance. The flight began. The shifters clicked. The chains shuddered into high gears.

We hit a straightaway that put us in a direct line-of-sight with the house and the red pickup truck that had come to rest beside it. We were exposed for about a minute-and-a-half as we pedaled as fast as we could down the hill. To reduce drag, I tucked my body low to the frame. Amy and I flew past the house and had reached a healthy speed to carry us most of the way up the hill. The problem was that a passing train had cut off our intended exit vector.

The road forked at the crossing: turning right would run us into the train, turning left, though potentially dangerous, would afford us some more distance from the house. Instead of waiting for the train to pass, we continued our burn past the crossing and along another dirt road, which continued to leave us exposed to the man in the truck. We were still making good progress, but had begun another climb. Our momentum waned. We were in uncharted territory. My legs burned and I turned back to see how Amy was faring.

The red truck, right behind her, spat dust trails at it approached. The cab bobbed up and down in a frenzied rage. I stopped. It pulled alongside Amy, nearly knocking her over. We had been caught. The old man in the truck wasted no time.

“What the fuck you doin’ here?” he belted at us. “Can’t you read or you just ig’nant?”

Amy was a woman—he, an old man. I thought it best for her to field this one. She shrugged jokingly. “Eh. . .”

He wasn’t laughing. I glanced inside his truck. It was covered in dust: caked across the dashboard and steering wheel, the inside and outside of the windshield, obscuring the mirrors, over the visor of his John Deere hat. I imagined a permanent layer smeared against the walls of his nasal cavity and lungs and innards.

“Well, we got lost in the woods,” she lied breathily. The recent exertion had caused her to speak even faster. “We found a path that came out over there.” She gestured vaguely in the direction from whence we came.

“Where?”

“Over there, by the guy on the tractor. He told us to come this way.”

“Didn’t fucking think to go back, or you just stupid? You from ‘round here?”

“We go to the University. We didn’t know—“

“You fucking kids think you can go wherever the fuck you want. Just do whatever. So fucking free and easy. I’m just some fucking asshole who lives down here. Don’t give no shits about nothing. Never—“

Amy cut to the quick. “Sir, how do we get out of here?” She said this quickly.

“Fuck you.”

“So, straight then?”

He gestured in a way that could be vaguely considered a nod. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“We were leaving anyway,” Amy said. “So, this way?” She pointed more directly.

“Get out.

Get out.

Get out.

Get out.

Get out.”

The old man in the quarry faded into the distance, as we spit our own dust trails back at him. A hundred feet later, we reached a locked gate that led onto the main road. I bent low and crawled beneath the rusty arm. Amy slid the bikes to me.

“Another hundred feet and we would have made it,” I said.

“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Amy said after she slid out.

Our bikes had become covered in dust that dried out our chains, gears, and bearings. Our throats were dry; our zeal was dry. The dust had inundated every facet of our beings. It had settled into our innards. Amy and I squeaked and groaned the whole way back to her house. We sat on her front porch, drank iced coffee, dusted each other off, and reflected on living life free and easy.

excerpt from my memoirs, Bocced Up: My Life Interpreted Through the Great Sport of Bocce Ball

25 April 2007:
Seeking Cinque

I had fallen into a rut. Cleveland celebrated the opening of spring by spitting snow everywhere. Any inspiration provided by the equinox froze beneath ice sheets. My blog sat barren and neglected—the month of April afforded little hope, as my internal calendar flipped for the 23rd annual time. I strolled into my mid-twenties rather sheepishly, as if I were searching out a seat on the RTA and wished to sit equidistant from all the other travelers.

But last weekend, the weather broke. Spring punched me in the face. The smell of fresh clippings wafted along the swelling sidewalks. The spectators had rushed the field. I spent my day job slinging mango smoothies and hummos/pita at young urban professionals and undergrads brave enough venture beyond the hermetically sealed bubble of their private university down the road.

I stumbled home from work late that Saturday night. The electricity of the first true spring evening vibrated inside my lungs. Transcendence tapped me on the shoulder. It was time. My roommates greeted me enthusiastically. They had big news.

“dB,” Jdubbs said, “me, you, and Thed are entering a bocce tournament in Little Italy.”

“We found a flyer down there,” Thed said, a grin-shaped crater on his face. “Our team is called cinque piu uno.”

“It means five plus one,” Jdubbs explained. He presented me with an Italian magazine, the cover of which featured five penguins walking to the right; a sixth stared stoically back at the reader.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly, “what does this have to do with bocce?”

“Each team has five members,” Thed said. “So ours would be you, me, Jdubbs, Chuck, and someone else. We haven’t figured out who yet.”

“Then who’s the plus one?” I asked.

"I dunno," Jdubbs said, "our merch girl." It seemed they had envisioned a hot, impassioned voice from the bench. We only needed a fifth, our cinque.

Thed and Jdubbs went on to describe the uniforms they had designed: track shorts and skimpy tees: purple, purchased from American Apparel; they planned to blazon the shirts with sponsors and the 5+1 penguins logo; also, aviator sunglasses; and, of course, (ironic) mustaches. I requested tube socks and matching purple Sambas. The ensemble was complete, at least in concept.

We slid headfirst into spring. This bocce tournament was to be truly transcendent. We planned practices on the grass medium separating the lanes of Euclid Heights Blvd. We considered hiring a documentary crew to chart our progress. We considered actually buying a bocce ball set.

And still, we needed a fifth, the final keystone to be set into place, the one person who could tie it all together. The foundation had been set. Bocce was going to solve all our problems, and a world of opportunity was opened to us. Thed, Jdubbs, and I—friends by chance, roommates by choice—left for a party that night feeling inspired beyond even our wildest expectations. The three of us were rolling headlong toward our destination, and would collide with it in due time. What mattered was that we were on the right trajectory to make contact.

Bocced Up archive

media

Thanks are extended to the Luna Negra staff for their inclusion of my humble work of short (creative non-)fiction, "Late Fights." These Kent State students have really put together a sharp publication this semester.

A podcast of the magazine's recorded stories should be floating around the Net Waves sometime soon, so keep posted to their site.

In the meantime, listen to "Late Fights" as an mp3.

Size: 2.3 MB
Length: 2:30

Mp3 post courtesy of box.net.

On 23

There’s something incredibly mundane about turning 23. I write from experience, because yesterday was my birthday. Anyone who was with me was reminded of this ad nauseum, because any request afforded me was responded with “It’s my birthday.”

Last January, my roommate Ted hit the big 2-3. My friends and I celebrated by taking him to Applebee’s: the Neighborhood Grill and Bar. This venue seemed somehow appropriate, as its pseudo-personality of framed portraits of pop culture stand-bys like Frank Sinatra and Michael Jordan are juxtaposed by contemporaries like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Carrie Underwood. Despite the down-your-throat attitude of the suburban American-style eatery, my dining experience was one of anonymity, for I was just another face in the crowd celebrating another meaningless milestone.

I accosted a co-worker to cover my shift that day, citing for the first time the soon-to-be familiar excuse: “It’s my birthday.” She accepted without much dissent.

“Well, if it’s your birthday. . .”

Then, of course, came the obligatory inquiry as to my age, which was to be followed by the equally obligatory: “23? Wow, you’re getting old.”

It’s all downhill from here. Every previous birthday served a sort of potentiality. 18 was, of course, significant because of the potential to buy cigarettes and porn. 19 invested all its hopes in a trip (which never panned out) to Canada for alcohol and gambling. 20 came and went without much potential; it’s more of a state-imposed hiatus until 21, which opens one up to the world of (legal) bar hopping and the inherent dating scene. Before you know it, you’re 22 and used to the bar scene—maybe even a bit jaded by it.

Personally, I enjoyed 22. The perpetual slew of slurred speech and blurred liaisons reached a steady rhythm and made it easier to pace myself, both in terms of intake and interactions. I fell into a niche and was neither a youngster nor an oldhead. My age could still be categorized as ‘early twenties:’ youthful and alive.

But what of 23? Following Ted’s lead, some friends and I went to our favorite birthday hangout, Applebee’s. We sat below a 5’ tall portrait of Jessica Simpson. Our server, an enthusiastic ‘early twenty-something’ go-getter, asked how I was doing.

“It’s my birthday.”

This information was greeted with a complimentary sundae, a rather anonymous dessert item. A person selects a sundae from a menu just as one would select a pair of socks from a bin at Wal-Mart. Don’t get me wrong--I’m not for sundaes; I’m not against them. I just found that it equated with the limited amount of gratuity bestowed upon a humble agester turning 23.

One day removed, I’m bracing myself for the questions about aging: “So, how does it feel to be old?”

I suppose it’s no different than being 22. I would assume it’s no different than being 24 or 27. And that’s just the point of entering the mid twenties. Time accelerates and it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate one interval from the next. Birthdays can be grouped within 3-to-5-year blocks. That is, until you turn 30, when all bets are off. Intervals jump to 10-year spans. But that’s so far down the line, I won’t focus on it.

I sat in silence and enjoyed my anonymous sundae in the anonymous suburban restaurant. My mood that day did not suggest mild depression or even light cynicism. If it does now, I assure you, humble reader, that it is not intended. There is just a certain blankness that accompanies the 23rd year, and I felt it should be expressed. But at the same time, we all search for reasons to celebrate, and, much like birthdays, we tend to lose that sort of enthusiasm as time goes on.

But, at least we can reside our hopes in that one selfish day when we can say:

“It’s my birthday.”

The opening for my yet-to-be-titled novel redux

At the end of the first week of our last semester of college, Calvin and I sat on the roof of my apartment on Main Street, smoking victory cigars.

“We won,” we said, in between catcalling the ladies and gentlemen who passed below on the sidewalk. Headlights zipped past all night. Cars without mufflers rattled our beer bottles. We toasted to victory. We had won.

Early September tickled more than it pinched and, Cal and I, our lungs often strained from all the giddy chuckles of self-righteousness and accomplishment. The culmination of our undergrad years flashed before us. August had been a frolic through a meadow of poppies, as the oyster of summer slid down our gullets and came to rest in the digestive soup around the time of the last midterm; the last knee-jerk; the last failure; withdrawal.

But all that was to come. For those initial weeks in late August and early September, we remained unfazed, for the future was a great big bulbous nest egg vibrating beneath us, certain to hatch in four months, its contents flinging us in grand fashion toward the horizon. I had my sights on New York (or Chicago). Cal spun the wheel towards any damned place but Kent, OH.

He drained the last of his Molson and lofted it gently into the middle of the sidewalk. No animals or scantily clad freshmen were harmed.

Cal drew on his cigar. Smoke billowed out of his nose and mouth and ears and eyes. His head was a jack-o-lantern, a pumpkin raw and gutted, completely empty of any slop and seeds. Raw. Gutted.

“We won.”



Working title: Victory Cigars

Much Good for Me

Neighbors. Never trusted them. Thanks to Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood, I grew up with an unrealistic view of the benevolent neighbor, anxious to help out. You help me, I’ll help you. Here’s some brownies, use my weedwacker. I’ll lend my goods and services in return for your goods and services. Bullshit. Never happened like that.

My neighborly distrust began with my first neighbor, Mrs. McAllister, an ageless raisin in the sun with severe arthritis. From my bedroom, I could look down on her in-ground pool as the membrane of algae grew to bright verdant hues while she, clad in a paisley housecoat, attempted to skim the water.

One summer, she asked me, at the age of ten, to cut her fairway-sized lawn and offered the use of her forward propulsion mower—one of those contraptions that yanks you around while threatening to chop your feet off.

“It’ll be fun!” she said, pinching my cheek with all five fingers. “The thing does all the work for you.”

The handle of said mower sat just below my chin, and after being dragged from one end of her yard to the other for 6 or 7 hours, I knocked on her front door and demanded payment for my services.

Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was a bit disappointed when her claw hammer hand presented me with a measly $10, divvied in five $2 bill increments. Since then, $2 bills have always proved to be bad luck for me. Vowing to never again be exploited for less than $2 an hour, I locked the front door and spent the rest of that summer watching Cartoon Network from the comfort of my unfinished basement. For the next few months, the answering machine surged with messages from Mrs. McAllister, gingerly asking me to come back and cut her grass.

“It’s almost up to my waist now, honey,” said the answering machine.

I rationalized that, because Mrs. McAllister stood at an elfin 4’10, her definition of ‘waist-high’ would really only be considered ‘knee-high’ by normal standards and thus, nothing really to fuss about.

Summer bore way to fall and her grass eventually stopped its growth at a healthy 3 feet. Her calls waned and eventually ceased, with the last few entreating me to come over and help with the unclogging of her commode, as her pincers were unable to gain the necessary torque on the handle of the plunger and send the blockage to its intended destination. I hunkered down in the basement for a long winter.

I approached each subsequent neighbor with an air of aloofness. Still, a neighborly relationship arose inevitably when I moved into my last college apartment, a two unit converted house on Main Street. I first came across Chung while sifting through mail in our communal bin. Multiple correspondences from the Aviation Students of America sat awaiting their reception from a ‘Chung Kao Yu.’ I had never met this ‘Chung,’ though I assumed he was Asian, if not for the namesake, but also the Mandarin exclamations audible from the hallway we shared. On multiple occasions, I considered breaking the silence to ask Chung for a cigarette, as the stench of stale tobacco constantly wafted under my door. But, like I said before, aloof.

One morning, a week or two after moving in, the windows of my car were smashed by an unknown assailant or assailants. I found the offending rock sitting on the front seat. I had never thought my car a target for vandalism—the ’87 Chevy sedan held no distinguishing marks, apart from the various rust holes and one ‘Go Pittsburgh’ magnetic decal left on the trunk by the previous owner. Said decal must have been the catalyst that drove the agitators to uncontrollable rage. I pictured a bunch of drunken Charlie Frye fans, bladders full of Natural Ice, taking a shortcut through my parking lot and finding this lone vestige of Pittsburgh spirit. They became possessed with that familiar Cleveland rage and were thusly capable of chucking thousands of bottles at NFL referees or a single rock at an unassuming late model sedan. It was like beating up an old lady with no purse. They might as well have punched Mrs. McAllister in the face. At least she had $2 bills.

Later that day, I returned to sweep away the millions of granules of broken glass and hang a reward sign which read: I Don’t Like to Use the Word ‘Heinous’ very often, but this __________ act of violence has left me no other choice. If you have any information about this broken glass incident, don’t hesitate to speak up. REWARD: one case of Natural Ice to whomever steps forward.

Behind me, I heard, “Can’t believe what happen to your car, man. I hear crash, look out window, see them run away.”

I knew him immediately: “Let me guess, you’re Chung?”

“Yeah, but most people call me Mike.”

“Why?”

“It’s my American name. Most people have trouble with Chung.”

“Are you kidding, man? ‘Everybody Wang Chung Tonight,’ come on!”

Chung let out a chuckle, “Yeah man, you know.”

I don’t mean to come off as bigoted or stereotypical, but Chung looked exactly like I thought he would: roughly 5 and a half feet tall, shaved head, air force bomber jacket, shoulders preeminently slouched forward and hands thrust in the pockets of his Dockers.

“So wait, uh, Chung,” I said. “You said you saw the people do this? When did it happen?”

“Yeah. Probably happen around 8:30. They stood out in the street.” He gestured toward the sidewalk roughly 100 feet behind my car. “I could not see them though.”

“8:30?” I asked. “It would have still been light out. You’re saying they did this in broad daylight from all the way in the street?”

Chung shrugged. “’S what I heard. Bad kids in neighborhood. Fuck with my mirror.”

I looked at Chung’s Toyota. The sideview mirror bore a jagged gash, as if it had lost a knife fight.

“Does this sort of thing happen often here?” I asked.

“Nah. But don’t park your car so close to building. I can’t watch your car when so close. Move over. Your car does no good for me here.”

I assumed this meant Chung had nothing better to do during the day than keep watch over the parking lot. Looking up at his bedroom window, I could see how the line of sight could be obscured from this position.

“Okay, Chung,” I said. “I’ll move the car, so long as it does some good for you.”

The next day, upon leaving for work, I saw that Chung had moved his car into the spot I had previously vacated, the one closest to the building. Huh, I thought, I guess that does more good for him.

My last semester began, and Chung appeared randomly in my Fundamental English Grammar class. I tried my best not to question his judgment in taking an upper division English class, but, I mean, come on, the guy was an aviation major. My concerns disappeared when Chung sat down beside me with the $150 Grammar text required for class. I had yet to purchase the expensive book. Suddenly, the benefits of being neighborly were realized. During that first class, Chung announced that he was from Taiwan, that Mandarin was his native tongue, and that he very much like to fly.

I accosted Chung after class, “Hey, Chung, can I borrow that book when you’re not using it?”

“Sure, man, just help me pass the class.”

As the tests were all take-home, I said I’d have no problem letting him copy off me if he would save me the money on a book.

He reiterated that he just wanted to pass the class.

Four weeks later, my fist, clenching the first Grammar test, resounded against the door to apartment #1. Chung had been absent from class the last week, and I visited with the veiled intention of seeing if he was all right. Really, I needed to use that book. The thumping bass to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” reverberated against our common wall, as it had all semester long, usually between the hours of 3 and 5:30 in the morning. Shirtless, Chung answered the door. It appeared I had awoken him.

“Chung, you haven’t been in class all week, is everything okay?” I asked with as much concern as I could muster.

“Yeah, I fine. Have aviation test need study. Very much reading. Right now, I taking nap.”

“That’s cool. You know, we have a Grammar test that’s due tomorrow. I was wondering if I could borrow your book.”

“Oh, yeah, book.” He began laughing and rubbing his neck uncomfortably. “I lose book. I drop the class.”

“Wait, Chung? Drop the class? We had a deal. I need to use that book! Exchange, Chung, for goods and services! Haven’t you heard of capitalism? Aren’t you neighborly? When you can’t deliver the goods, the whole system crumbles!”

Now was probably not the time to engage in a socioeconomic discussion with a communist. Taiwan’s communist, right? I suppose it doesn’t matter.

“Yeah, I realize I don’t need class anyway,” Chung explained. “Does no good for me. Take easy one instead. I go back to nap. Good luck with grammar.” He laughed again.

“Goods and services!” I yelled, as Chung shut the door in my face.

That night, I stumbled through the exam and possessed neither the time nor the money to procure a new Grammar text. Instead, I was left to realize the sins of the dangling modifier on my own. I vowed never to speak with Chung again. He does no good for me.

For the rest of the semester, I stayed true to my vow and cringed each time I heard ‘SexyBack’ or caught a whiff Marlboros in the hallway. Does no good for me, Chung.

The semester came to an end, I graduated from college, every appliance in my apartment broke at once, and I began to pack my things for the big move from Kent to Cleveland. To help with the move, I enlisted my special lady friend to sort through my clothes with me. An hour or so into the job, the only clothes we had managed to sort were each others’, which sat in sporadic piles around the room. Chung’s gracious musical choice of ‘SexyBack’ one wall over provided a romantic ambience. We just couldn’t help ourselves. That is, until, I heard a cautious ‘Hallooo!’ from out in the kitchen.

The sound frightened my special lady, and she curled up underneath the comforter. Pulling up my jeans, I told her to hold tight and I would see about the commotion. I strolled into the kitchen with clumsiness of interrupted intimacy, or as I liked to call it, Quality Time. My maintenance guy, Big Dave, stood in the doorway to my bathroom. Inside, crouching with a plunger over the shower drain, was a plumber. I discerned his title—and I’m not trying to come off as bigoted or stereotypical here—by the gratuitous length of protruding ass crack.

Big Dave saw me and said, “Hey, we knocked for like five minutes but no one answered so we just came in.”

I rubbed the back of my neck uncomfortably, “Yeah, I was taking nap.”

“Well, this shower’s been clogged for a while, so I just thought we’d take care of it,” Dave said.

The drain emitted a digestive gurgle and spewed close to four gallons of matted, swampy hair clumps.

“Guess that’s the clog,” said Plumber.

“Jeez,” Big Dave said, “have you been shaving in the shower? That’s a lot of hair.”

I denied it vehemently, citing the trauma of a sink clog in my youth.

“Well, you and Mike share a drain,” Big Dave said, “maybe this is his fault.”

“Who the hell is Mike?” I asked. “Oh, you mean Chung, yeah. It could be his, I mean, I don’t know what type of bizarre bathing rituals those East Asians have, you know?”

“He’s a pilot, you know,” Big Dave said.

Does no good for me. “Just don’t ask him to borrow a Fundamental English Grammar book,” I said.

“Why would you do that?” Big Dave asked, “He’s from China.”

“It’s Taiwan and you’re absolutely right. Congratulations on the clog.”

I turned and went back to my room to continue with the sorting.

About an hour later, my lady friend and I were interrupted with another ‘Hallooo!’ I yelled an impassioned expletive and again replaced the comforter over her. She was a headstrong lady, but some things made her anxious.

The front door hung wide open with keys dangling from the knob. Hunched over the kitchen sink, my landlord, Chris Smiles, attempted to tighten the knobs on the faucet. The thing seemed to drip agelessly, and considering that I had seen Smiles a grand total of twice since I had moved in five months ago, I found his timing impeccable, given the circumstances.

“Is that you, Chris?” I asked, stumbling against the kitchen doorway.

Chris looked startled, “Oh, hi. I, uh, I knocked but no one answered so I just came in.”

“Yeah,” I said, a bit more irritated. “I was taking nap.”

“Huh. Well, I got a $300 water bill from this building last month. I thought it might be the faucet, but I don’t think this drip would cost that much. Have you heard water running?”

I thought back to that previous December, when, for three straight weeks, I could hear water perpetually running behind the wall in Chung’s apartment. Assuming it was some type of makeshift Chinese Zen ritual, White Noise, Feng Shui, I left well enough alone. But coupled with the recent hair clog, I wondered if Chung had embarked on a three-week cleansing/body shaving ritual, to commemorate (I don’t know) the ensuing Chinese New Year. What other holidays do they celebrate over there? And I’m not trying to come off as bigoted or stereotypical or anything.

I looked my landlord in the eyes, “No, can’t really think of anything like that.”

“Well, if you do, let me know," Smiles said. "In the meantime, try not to use your toilet too much. Let’s try to keep this bill down from now on.”

Regardless of my feelings for Chung, I wasn’t about to sell him out in favor of this tightwad.

As Smiles was leaving, Chung, Marlboro dangling from his mouth, stepped out of his apartment and casually into mine. He narrow eyes lit with surprise.

“You still live here? Wow, place look lot different.” He took the liberty of navigating between the boxes and milk crates I had stacked in the kitchen and walked into the living room. “Yeah. Haven’t seen you all semester. Can’t believe you leaving. I miss you.”

“Chung, I have to say, I’m going to miss you too. You’re almost done with school, right?”

“Yeah, one more semester. Then I go back to China. Become corporate pilot.”

“Why do you want to go back to China?” I asked. “Don’t you want to stay in the U.S.?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I get no respect here. Will never have power.” He thumped his chest, “I want to go place where I have power.”

I understood and maybe smiled a bit at the irony of going to China to achieve freedom. But, I guessed it would do much good for him. I wished him luck.

“Beside,” he said, “I make more money there than here. And I want most return for my work.”

“Goods and services,” I said.

“Yes, does much good for me.”

“Me too,” I nodded.

Chung, still pulling on his cigarette, turned and walked, as if he owned the place, into my bedroom. I couldn’t stop him.

“Yeah, place look lot different.” He startled, “Oh! You have naked girl in bed!” As if driven by habit, Chung dropped his Dockers and stood in plaid boxers.

“How much for service?”

He shut the door.

“Chung!” I yelled. “Goods and services! Goods and services! That’s not what I meant!”

Neighbors always try to take more than they give.

This essay was originally presented as a spoken-word performance piece for Chucklef*ck, Monday Night's Leading Alternative Comedy Show. For more info on the show, contact series organizer Carrie Callahan.

Sleeping Spiders

Some time in the afternoon, my roommate Geoff awoke from a dead sleep and stumbled into the living room, where I was hopelessly engaged in NHL 2K5.

“Leggs is gone,” he imparted.

“Oh no. Leggy?” I sighed, “No. . .”

A few days prior, Geoff had found a spider taking up residence in the corner of his bedroom. Decorated rather sparsely, the room was the work of a hyper-minimalist architect, and we all felt, upon spying the daddy long-legger while he slept, that the spidery presence livened at least one corner. And it seemed that Geoff had enjoyed the company. He’d even taken to bed an hour earlier, as to not disturb his guest. He was really playing host.

“I’d like to think he’s moved on to a better place,” Geoff said, becoming rather choked up. A sinewy tendril tickled the back of his throat. He swallowed and the sensation died forever. A unsettling reality shook Geoff’s foundation. “Dude,” he uttered, “I think I ate Leggs.”

“Leggy?” I whimpered, then yelled, “Where the f*ck are my wingers?” My attention had drawn back into the hockey game. “Sorry man, I gotta go.”

I considered the statistic that any given sleeping person swallows an average of eight spiders per year. A recent sinus infection had rendered Geoff as one of those disgusting agape-mouthed sleepers. Their slack-jawed gasps have been known to drive roommates to insomnia. I know this because Geoff frequently chided me for keeping him up all night with my snoring. I blamed allergies.

Apparently, Leggy had become possessed by whatever primordial mechanism drives spiders into a sleeping person’s mouth. That one last thrust at Geoff’s throat was Leggs’ realization of his fatal folly.

That evening, I found a tree spider casually sipping water from my bathroom faucet. I watched his right front paw come down and draw water into his mouth or fore pincers or whatever. He seemed a lot less docile than Leggy, and, as I was feeling intolerant toward freeloaders, I decided that he had to go. Despite my better judgment, I gave him a name, Butch, and covered him with a tissue. Offering a reprieve, I unmasked Butch on the outside windowsill and shut the screen. No harm, no foul, I thought

A few days later, I sat on my bed and folded laundry. Butch crawled out from the crevice between mattress and wall and came to rest next me. His beady eyes sparkled with affection—or rage, I couldn't really tell. Either way, I scooped him into a sock and deposited him off the balcony.

Now, I tolerate spiders to the best of my ability; in their presence, I an not paralyzed with fear, nor driven to violence against them. I am happy to say that I have never drowned a spider. I try my best to appreciate their gifts to humanity (what with the insect-eating and all) and live in harmony. Still, upon seeing Butch nestled comfortably in my bed, I factored in my tendency to sleep with ‘bass mouth’ and Geoff’s gruesome spider-eating statistic. I deemed it mutually beneficial for Butch and me to never see each other again. If I had to take his little life, then so be it, as an exception that proves the rule. Something told me I had already reached my spider-eating quota that year.

(Certain to Be Unfulfilled) Goals for Spring Break

Yes, I realize I am no longer in school, and thusly, have no Spring Break (or as I like to call it, Spring Brake). Still, we all need some leisure now and then. And it's like Peppermint always says, "Nay, what is life for but a list of certain to be unfulfilled goals?"

1. Go to Florida
2. a) Begin short story: "Untitled"
b) Begin novel: Love in the Time of Facebook
3. Work on The Postmodern Experience: Season II
(By the way, I'm doing that for you, Parsons.)
4. Go drinking with mum
5. Come into ownership of 1983 Buick LeSabre
6. Drive Jitney back to Ohio
7. Have Parsons wire me gas money in North Carolina
(As compensation for my work on The Postmodern Experience.)
8. Arrive 13 days late to Cleveland
9. Find that Shelia-5 has once again disappeared, this time for good
10. Discover that the problem really did take care of itself
11. Begin new life driving around with, you know, my home boys
12. Do taxes
13. Get married and start a wonderful family

One of the benefits of being out of school is the potential for an infinite Spring Break. Now it's off to bed for me; I've got work at 10:30 tomorrow morning.

(Unfulfilled) Goals Archive

Journal Excerpt

9/28/06

I am 22.
I am only 22 once.
I am irresponsible.
I am artistic.
I am goal-oriented.
I am a baby.
I am messy.
I tend to forget things.
I tend to forget people.
I ignore problems until they go away.
I have confrontational issues.
I am working on it.
It is one of my goals.
I love making radio.
I have been distracted lately.
She is beautiful though.
I need to focus.
This will come.
I am also becoming better at lying.
To myself and others.

--Done, in part, as a response to a poem by Charles Parsons.

The Shelia-5: RETURNED

She's back in my life again, sans body work, sans oil change, (still) sans muffler, sans gas. . .

At 3 in the morning on Monday, I received a phone call from an Officer Hatrick of the CHPD. He informed me that my car had been found at a place called The Boneyard in Mayfield Heights, roughly 10 miles away. Assuming that he meant the car had been found in an actual boneyard, I could not contain my glee at essentially having my car troubles worked out for me. O. Hatrick was quick to explain that The Boneyard is actually an entertainment venue much in the same vein of Dave & Busters. These car thieves really were on a joy ride. He then recited a laundry list of damage to the car. Somewhere near the bottom, he reached the affectations done by the assailant(s).

"They punched the passenger door lock and stripped your steering column," said Hatrick.

"Huh," I yawned, "sounds like a lot of work."

"Not really. Late model American cars are very easy to steal."

"Well go figure."

The intrepid police officer gave me directions to the Mayfield Heights PD and the impound lot where Shelia had been secured. I needed to procure the vehicle's title in order to receive a release form to give to the impound.

The next day, my roommate Ted graciously provided me a ride to the Mayfield Heights PD, where I informed the officer behind the desk that said title lay in the glove box of said stolen car.

She, in turn, informed me that, "Keeping the title in the car is basically writing a blank check for the thing."

I replied, "Maybe, subconsciously, that was the point."

She smiled and phoned the impound lot to see if the title could be located in the vehicle. It was, and following a gracious fax of the document in question, Ted and I made our way to the impound lot. The vehicle release form told a narrative of the status of my car. My eyes collected on verbiage like 'poor' (as in, 'condition') and 'no' (as in, 'muffler').

Before leaving the police office, I asked the officer what would have happened had I neither reported the car stolen nor came back to claim it. She said that the vehicle would be filed as abandoned and after a few months, I would have been sent an invoice for towing/storage fees as well as criminal charges for having abandoned my vehicle. It seems the system is built as a preventative measure against easy disposal of your car. All this time, I had no idea.

Ted and I reached the impound lot and after some failed negotiations, I provided $100 in full to have my car released. It felt like I was bailing Shelia out of the clink. She hadn't been driven in five weeks, and during that span, she had behaved magnificently. Maybe I had trusted her a bit too much, for as soon as I turned my back, she was off gallivanting with a bunch of dirty crooks and owing money all over town. Who is left to pick up the pieces? Me.

Someone from the impound lot showed me how to start the car, as the column had been stripped and the key no longer worked.



"Just finger the little latch on the left hand side," the guy said, "and she starts right up."

"To think, the last thing I had replaced on this thing was the starter," I said. "Do you know of any junk yards between here and Cleveland Heights?"

He did, but they were a bit out of the way, so Ted and I decided to head home directly. After we put some gas in Shelia, she started like a dream. The AM/FM radio was tuned to a rap station. The floor was littered with cigarette butts and empty cans of Colt 45 and Icehouse. Something told me Shelia had had the time of her life.

Later, I called my mom to inform her of the car's condition. She seemed taken aback when I told her the police had no suspects in the case.

-Do you guys have any promising leads on this thing?

--Leads, yeah. We just added three guys last week. They got us working in shifts. Haha! Leads!?

I was a bit disappointed at the lack of vagrancy left behind. Shelia has returned to her spot on the street. I have placed a CLUB (which, ironically, was under the front seat this whole time) across her steering wheel, to act as a deterrent in case the thieves should return and decide to do it all over again.

The albatross is back and she's squawking loudly. Does anyone know of a junk yard around here?

Enjoy

On Friday, March 9, the weather broke. The sooty, aggressive snow piles were seeping slowly toward clogged sewer drains. The relics of a Long Winter were slipping back toward the earth. The sun shone upon me as I walked home from work.

Shortly before leaving, I caught my coworker Angela staring out the front door as families and young couples frolicked along the sidewalk.

“It is so nice today,” I said. “It’s about time. I can’t wait to go out and enjoy it.”

“I know,” Angela beamed. I wanted to launch into my spiel of feeling more alive on wonderful electric days like that Friday, how I would take a long walk around the neighborhood, maybe find myself in the window of a Little Italy bistro while furiously filling pages of my comp. book. This was walking weather. This was writing weather.

“I love days like today,” Angela said. “This is the kind of day that just makes me want to drive around. You know, all the windows down, listening to your favorite music, not really going anywhere. Not really doing anything.”

“Yeah,” I said, “driving. Or walking.”

“I just love driving,” Angela said. “It makes me happy.”

Enjoy every single second of days like these.

The Shelia-5: MIA

As I walked to work yesterday and passed the spot where my car normally sits, I noticed an odd vacancy. Someone had stolen my oft broken-down and underappreciated late '80s sedan. Shelia stuck out like a sore thumb in the more elitist realms of Cleveland Heights, and I think she may have been the target of a kidnapping. Or some kids decided to go on a joy ride and knew that an old Chevy would be easier to break into than the dozens of Passats that line the street.

Either way, she's gone. Immediately, I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. With increasing frequency, Shelia has been described as an albatross. Over the year that she's been in my possession, she's been out of commission longer than she's been running. Oh well.

Shelia will be missed. . .but I'm sure she felt gratified to have been stolen.

Finally, someone appreciates me!

I was lighthearted with the cop who took my report. She said stolen vehicles usually turn up in parking lots with an empty tank of gas. I said I'd be surprised if it made it a full tank without breaking down. I also told her to keep an ear out, as the car's lack of muffler resulted in a very abrasive engine drone. She asked me if there was anything of value in the car.

--Uh, tape deck, some tapes, Credence tapes, uh, my briefcase.

-And what was in the briefcase?

--Papers, business papers, my business papers.

-And what business are you in, Mr. deBiase?

--I'm unemployed.

I'd like to think that Shelia, regardless of her situation, is in a better place. Maybe her new owners are cleaning her up, patching up those rust holes, replacing the muffler, vacuuming the velour, changing the oil. I only hope they leave the NPR presets on the AM/FM radio.

R.I.P
The Shelia-5
1987 - 2007
The albatross flies high once more.

Ode to Wife

Wifey, oh wifey,
you are my tuna casserole,
my chicken parm.
A bottle of Bud Select,
rolling closer and closer
to the roof's edge.
our terrace
our house
our wine
our cheese
Utopian vision,
this marriage.
Your bedroom
and mine.
Separate,
but together.
The way a marriage should be.

Metaphorically Speaking

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Maybe your life is a boat against the current. . .

Career choices are grinding your gears. . .

You are, like, totally turned on right now. . .

(Actually, that last one is more of a simile.)

Don't wait, call now. We are your gateway to literary brilliance!

Come One, Come All

Roads to Nowhere

Two headlights split the Ravenna darkness. The landscape was silhouetted by muted moon glow. The trees, nearly bare, cast their leaves to the October wind. From the passenger seat of the sedan of the girl I loved, I thought of my very first voyage as a hopeless romantic.

Hopeless romanticism has sort of been my MO for most, if not all, of my life. The first girl I ever officially dated had been the love of my life since kindergarten. My earliest school memories are of the young Autumn Cymannova blowing me kisses from her table across the room. I never reciprocated her affections because boys don’t do those things. By second grade, she had given up on me, citing the fact that we had moved apart over the two years when we were in separate classes. It should be said that I never really appreciated Autumn early on, but, much like the proverbial ‘bird in hand,’ once she left, I missed her tons, and hoped amongst hopes that we would find each other again.

In 5th grade, our stars aligned once more. Autumn, beautiful as ever, sat directly to my left, our desks physically touching. The powers-that-be afforded a class with a Cymannova and a DeBiase and no one in between. My temples throbbed with the activity of sitting close to someone with whom you are secretly in love. She would lean over, dark wavy hair dipping over her shoulders and smelling of fallen leaves, to ask me if I had seen last night’s episode of Full House. Of course, I had, and we engaged in many deep conversations throughout our weekdays together. I finally found the stones to ask her out at the fifth grade roller skating party. During the last couple’s skate, I had my best friend and side kick Tom Napolitano go over and ask her for me. I watched from behind a Ninja Turtles arcade game as Autumn laughed in his face. Tom skated back over, tripping once on an empty can of Pepsi, and joined me behind the Turtles game.

“She said she’d skate with you as long as you don’t fall,” Tom said.

“I can’t promise anything,” I replied.

Subsequently, I tripped over the same Pepsi can that had impeded Tom’s progress seconds ago. Autumn and I met along the half wall bordering the hardwood rink. She warned that, despite our history, we would not be getting back together. I was still nothing to her. We held hands and circled the rink with all the other happy couples. We also absorbed countless ‘thumbs ups’ from my friends.

Nice job, DeBiase!

After the song was over, Autumn and I found ourselves against the half wall. She commented on the roundness of my face, laughing at how my puffy cheeks made me look like a chipmunk. On the car ride home, I looked in the sideview mirror and practiced sucking in my cheeks. My mom turned to me to ask a question and was greeted with my puckered face. She asked what the hell I was doing, not understanding the lengths people go to for those they love.

During Reading class the next day, her friend Jen approached me and asked if I liked Autumn. Liked? I thought. I’ve been in love with her since kindergarten! Of course I didn’t say that to Jen at the time, though I couldn’t deny an obvious mutual attraction. Later, as the class was leaving for recess, Autumn came over to me.

“Jen said that you like me and want to go out with me,” she said.

“Yeah, would you?” was my delicate and tactful response.

She spent the next three weeks deliberating, which, in retrospect, might have been a red flag. But she finally agreed. We were in Art Class. It was a Friday. I responded to the news by making her a heart out of clay that said ‘Autumn + Ryan Forever.’ She gave me a Hershey Kiss. That weekend, I bought her a teddy bear to further express my undying devotion. I assumed that she likewise was composing a piano concerto about the two of us, hand-in-hand, roller skating along the Mediterranean Coast. Monday at lunch, she dumped me.

Although we had only dated for a total of 70 hours, I knew it would take a long time to get over Autumn. I relayed this sad news to Jen on the way home from school. She was sympathetic, as she thought Autumn and I had been good together, and said she would be there if I needed her. By dinnertime, I was over it.

Still, it seems they always come back when you forget about them. Sure enough, Autumn came back to me several times. Several times she dumped me. And I never really lost my affections for her, even through junior high, when I briefly entertained the idea of leaving notes in her locker that alluded to a beautiful future together, you know, because of our rich history. Halfway through that year, I found out that I was changing schools and abandoned all hope of ever being with Autumn.

Fast forward to my first year of college—I am in love with a fellow freshman named Lauren Makenzie. Much like the onset my first romantic situation, I stayed predominantly in the background and used our mutual friends as informants. This time, I confided in dormmate Justin Hofmann.

“She said you’re cute,” Justin said, as I hid behind a pillar in the basement of a house party, “but a little dorky.”

“Dorky?” I said, slightly off-put. “Okay, I can see that.”

I responded by asking her to go to an opera, The Elixir of Love, put on by the Honors College. We went on said date and it went fine. We didn’t kiss at the end of the night. I took that as a sign and disappeared for a few weeks. Our paths crossed again and again and I found myself falling more and more in love with her. We went on a few more dates, but I still lacked the gumption to make a move. With summer break looming on the horizon, I resolved to make a move, and did—on the very last day before we moved out of the dorms. Not only did I express my feelings at the very end of our time together, I did so at the last possible minute. Confronted with my rambling expression of love at 3 in the morning, she did what any levelheaded 19 year old girl would do: she ran away. Literally. I made to kiss her and she ran out the door. I packed up my things and moved to Youngstown for the summer. Lauren moved somewhere near Toledo. I didn’t expect to hear from her again.

But she called, like they always seem to, right when I began to forget about her. We chatted it up for most of the summer, and my mobile phone bill shot through the roof with overages. My summer in Youngstown was mostly a lonely one, and I invested a tremendous amount of hope in the ensuing school year. Come August, Lauren and I were getting back together. I realized we hadn’t really been together in the first place but that didn’t bother me.

That fall, we went on a few more dates but nothing seemed to pan out. I suspected that she was seeing someone else, someone older, someone who could buy her winecoolers. Damn it. So I responded by disappearing again, which proved much easier than I thought, despite the fact that we lived in the same dorm. In the down time, I ineffectually sought after a rather stork-ish girl in my architecture classes. Lauren and I ran into each other again at a free jazz show in the lobby of Eastway Hall. I was with the stork, who I quickly ditched. Lauren and I ended up walking back to our dorm together, reminiscing on how much we enjoyed each other’s company. When I went to leave her in the stairwell, she dropped the line “I need to talk to you” with an air dually of leisure and utmost importance.

My heart jumped at the statement, though I reminded myself to play this thing close to the vest. The word ‘talk’ had innumerable connotations, and I had to remind myself to keep my thoughts in order. Believe it or not, I tended to have a habit of reading into things a bit too much. My thought process was a snowball expediting toward the base of a great snow-covered mountain. The sphere grew exponentially in girth and invited disaster to anyone or thing that should stray into its descending trajectory.

Lauren offered to take me for a drive, as she wanted to get away from the University for the evening. I agreed because, well, I would have gone anywhere with her at that point. She asked me to help her find some back country roads that lurked around the hinterlands of Kent. She wanted to see some scenery that reminded her of home. Lucky for her, I had spent most of that semester taking late night burn rides with my friend Amy. Ironically enough, it had been the steady diet of marijuana that had weaned me off of Lauren during the last few weeks of separation.

Now, the two of us were alone, chugging along Ravenna highways. My back road knowledge had brought her much joy and the memories came flooding forth. We were growing close again, like filaments collecting on a magnet, but would this exchange result in another collapse? I tried to take my mind off the situation at hand by counting the high voltage electrical towers as we passed them. 37, 38, 39. . .

The dash console summoned Lauren with a low fuel beacon.

“Oh,” she said, rather disinterested, “looks like we need gas.”

“I think there’s a station up the road,” I said.

Lauren lumbered the Bonneville next to the pumps as we reentered civilization for a brief Ravenna moment. When she went inside to pay for the refueling, I switched to the driver’s side. I don’t know why I felt the need to drive; it may have been an attempt to wrestle control of our situation. She had always been in charge, that could not be denied, and in all reality, she was in control regardless of who was driving. That’s the biggest problem with hopeless romantics—they’re too busy being a boat adrift in a current of love to grab hold of the oars and steer toward their own destination. And they use metaphor way too liberally.

When the tarmac halogens had faded in the distance and we found ourselves alone again on the empty road, I switched off the headlights. Now, if one has ever attempted this on an unlit street, he or she would know that the world completely disappears around you. Lauren and I were surrounded by a perpetually rolling blackness. I flipped the headlights back on and found Lauren holding her knees to her chest, frightened out of her mind. She cursed me, said I could have killed us both.

“I hate you, Ryan!” she yelled.

“But you have to admit that was pretty cool,” I said.

She started laughing and managed a choked, “Yeah,” before I switched the lights off again. This time, she screamed at the top of her lungs, out of terror and hilarity. The presumed success of the black-out inspired me to try something else. I pulled the car to the shoulder and stopped. The road was completely deserted in both directions and we could see for miles.

“What are you doing?” Lauren asked, not at all condescending, just curious.

“You can really see the stars when it’s dark like this,” I said. “Let’s get out and have a look.”

But Lauren was already climbing out. She became possessed with a zeal I tried very hard to ignore. I exited and lay down along the yellow dashed line. The cloudy sky did not encourage star gazing. Not that it would have made a difference to Lauren either way, for she was standing over top of me. Her wavy amber hair hung against her face, which looked upon me as if I had been run over. Nah, I thought, you ran me over 8 months ago, and pulled myself to me feet. I faced Lauren. We stood on opposite sides of the yellow line. The notion to kiss her seized me. This time it felt right. October wind whistled between barren branches and shifted leaves into loose piles. I placed my hand at the small of her back. She canted her chin up. She didn’t turn and run away. I mean, where would she have went? She wouldn’t have just left me marooned in the middle of nowhere, right? Of course, at the time, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I wasn’t really thinking of anything other than how good it felt. We kissed on that anonymous Ravenna two lane. At long last, everything seemed to make sense.

Our embrace lasted about a minute before a distant rumble suggested an approaching car. We pulled away, laughed at the implausibility of our suit, and got back in the car. I drove us away from that place, having no real idea where we were and not really caring. As best as I could manage, I plotted a course back toward Kent. For a night, we had disappeared from the grid, collected under the sinewy clouds, and tried to find direction in our hazy lives. We drew together briefly, passionately, appropriately. But at the end of that asphalt ribbon laid Kent, college, and obligations. We would no longer be able to venture out on our own, to get lost in ourselves. Life, as always, would become more complicated, and our future very much reflected the naked trees, bald, rolling hills, and encompassing grey cloudscape.

Still, on that night, I could glance over and see Lauren’s smiling face, as we both tried to navigate our way home, through the dark, through each other, on a road to absolutely nowhere.

COMPOSITION

Chuck, Jeremy, Ted, and Mike Sokol surrounded me on the sofas in the living room. They began the intervention with the standard fare: we’re only doing this because we love you. Here it comes, I thought. I had spent much of the last month—the last week, in particular—moping around the apartment in a constant state of feeling sorry for myself.

It was akin to that moment in Swingers when Ron Livingston’s character comes to confront Jon Favreau’s character, who has spent a few days collapsed on the floor of his dingy apartment, thumbing through pictures of his ex-girlfriend. Except, in Swingers, the friend brought some O.J. and a sandwich. I could have really gone for a sandwich.

I swung my head from right to left as each of my friends went in succession.

Their critique:

1. Get out of bed earlier.
2. Read more.
3. Get out of the apartment, for God’s sake. Start hanging around the library or Starbucks or Case or the CUDC or Coventry.
4. Stop spending so much time on that damned Internet.
5. Stay away from Facebook.
6. Fall into a daily routine.
7. Apply for grad school.
8. Start exercising.
9. Stop wallowing in your own self-pity.
10. Write as much as you can.

The intervention had shifted from lecture to open forum. Everyone could speak at will. That is, everyone but me.

“You started a new comp. book, right?” Chuck asked me.

I nodded. This was true. I had just begun a new journal in one of those thrifty $.99 COMPOSITION notebooks you can find at any corner drug store.

“Good,” he said. “Try to fill it in a month.”

The comp. book I recently finished had been my first. I bought it as a requirement for a Poetry class last semester. Two pages a day was the regimen. I finished it in 4 months, almost to the day (9/27/06 to 1/28/07).

“I just want you to keep writing, man,” Chuck said.

I nodded again. I liked this challenge. This was something that could prove emotive, productive, and therapeutic all in one breath. And free. It could help me out of the well of melancholy I found myself in. Or maybe it wouldn’t. I didn’t know. Either way, I’d still be writing, and the friction of cheap pen upon cheap paper made me feel good.

The next day, Chuck and I sat in Caribou Coffee on Coventry and chatted about the previous night. I told him that I was a bit offended that Mike Sokol decided to leave in the middle of my intervention. I hadn’t even had a chance to defend myself in front of him.

“What would you have said?” Chuck asked.

“Nothing,” I replied. Apathy had sort of become my M.O. of late.

My new comp. book sat on the table in front of me. I flipped it open. I had only filled 2 or 3 pages, mainly of sad bastard prose. I began a list (for no comp. book can survive without a list every 5 or 6 pages) of that which my intervention group had instructed me to change. At the top of the list—#1: Fill comp. book in a month. I worked out an equation: 200 divided by 30 equals 6.66666666 pages per day. I’d shoot for 7. Seemed reasonable.

My new comp. book was a very gracious and thoughtful Christmas gift. Its giver had left a post-it note inside that simply said write. Frankly, I think it was the best $.99 spent on me that entire holiday season. I’m presently spending hours and hours a day plugging away at this journal. I average around 10 pages/day. For the first in a very long time, I’m ahead of schedule. And it feels really good.

Life Advice for English Majors

I allotted an hour in my schedule of perpetual and maddening unemployment to go around the block to Aladdin’s and meet my friend, folk singer Ashley Brooke Toussant, and her father for tea, pita, and hummus. Ashley Brooke was in town for a gig at the Beachland Tavern and happened to be dining right around the corner from my new place in the Heights of Cleveland. She had placed her guitar case in an empty seat next to the table while they dined. Adorned with Folk Alley stickers, the dark leather case sat before a plate of falafel and tabouli, exclaiming Indie Folk Songstress Does Lebanese. I thought it a great album title and ordered an Earl Grey compliments of Mr. Toussant.

As the waiter brought over my hot water and tea bag, I realized that I had spent most of December and all of January unemployed and with a college degree. At this stage, I would have killed for a job at Starbucks, like Ashley Brooke. I would have killed our server for his job. I was even willing to kill people as a job.

I remember joking with Ashley when she had said a few months ago, “You should talk to my dad. He can help you with your career. He’s a recruiter.”

“Recruiter?” I had replied facetiously. “I’m not joining the Army, Ash. And I can’t dribble a basketball to save my life.”

She had emitted one of her open-mouthed Ashley Brooke laughs that made me feel like the funniest person on the face of the earth.

Out of courtesy, the Toussants asked what I had been up to. I refrained from telling them about my devoloping habits of watching High Fidelity and rolling pipe tobacco into cigarettes. I didn’t mention my increasing disillusionment with this modern (read: adult) life.

Instead, I told them of the few job interviews I had obtained over the last week. Although those interviews had gone well, I still held no outstanding offers and my bankroll was hemorrhaging. I was getting very very nervous.

“My dad was an English major,” Ashley Brooke said.

Quietly humble until this point, Mr. Toussant nodded behind his wire-rimmed glasses. I asked him what he had done after graduation. He sprung to life and, much in an English major’s fashion, proceeded to recite his resume in narrative form.

“Well, right after I graduated, I found work as an orderly at a hospital. That went okay for a while.”

I nodded politely, though could not quite picture myself emptying bedpans for the hopelessly catatonic. I did not dwell on this image for long. Mr. Toussant had changed gears.

“Then I got a job at a plus-sized women’s clothing store, driving their delivery truck from store to store. That was a fun job.” He smirked, “You could say that I moved girdles for a living.”

Ashley Brooke looked up from writing her set list. “Dad, that is so gross.”

We were then taken slave by the Ashley Brooke laugh track.

Our conversation persisted for another twenty minutes and was pretty much one-sided, thanks to Mr. Toussant’s virtual mosaic of career moves. To date: electric company personnel administrator, Master’s degree, career services advisor, another utility company job. He came to rest as a recruiter for an employment referral agency.

“Dad, you talk for so long,” Ashley Brooke said. She had long finished her set list.

I asked her if she planned on playing “Brand New Key” by Melanie.

“I’m trying to do only original stuff,” she said.

“That’s a shame,” I said. “The roller skate song always brings the house down.”

Mr. Toussant jumped back in, “So yeah, I’ve had a lot of jobs over the years. I think the key to getting a job with an English degree is to find what you could see yourself enjoying further down the line and start in a related field. It doesn’t have to be fulfilling right off the bat, but you can work toward something that can make you happy.”

I had to admit it made sense. I could get by with a copyediting job. Save up money as I went along. Take night classes for an MFA. That sort of thing.

“So what are you doing now to keep busy?” he asked.

I told him about a bunch of creative non-fiction exercises I was doing for my blog, NOMENCLATURE.

“NOMENCLATURE, what’s that?” he asked. Ashley Brooke turned to me. She looked confused.

“Well, it’s, uh, the act or instance of naming,” I said.

“The instincts of naming, huh?” His eyes glazed over. “That’s interesting.”

I had to admit it was a lot less enthralling than moving plus-sized women’s girdles day-in and day-out.

The Last Stand in Kent

Sometime during my first week after moving to Cleveland Heights, I realized I probably needed a car to find a job. The answer to this conundrum did not exist in theory; rather, it required a trip back to Kent to fix my estranged ’87 Chevy Celebrity. My most recent exchange with The Shelia-5, as I named her (after the vanity plate that the previous owner had graced it with) resulted in a very inopportune stall across 3 lanes of traffic on Rt. 59 in Kent. Upon trying to restart the fickle broad, she refused, the coy bitch, with a series of unresponsive cranks.

“Oh my,” I remarked upon looking to my left at a series of headlights bearing down on me. My passenger Sarah, clutching our boxes of pizzas, shifted uneasily on the bench seat.

I then slipped Shelia into neutral, exited very drastically, and proceeded to push her back into the parking lot of Hungry Howie’s. But the cumbersome beast, she got away from me, hitting the down slope of the parking lot and taking on a momentum wholly her own. Luckily, Sarah was in complete awareness of the situation and—just as Shelia was about to careen into a parked car—leant over and hit the brakes.

Sarah was also kind enough to provide Shelia and me a free AAA tow back to my apartment on Main Street. There, the shitbox came to rest for another six weeks.

Over those six weeks, I graduated from college, lost my job, took a ten-day vacation, lost all direction in life, got regularly drunk/high, and moved to Cleveland. Somewhere in there, I lost track of my car. That is, until things began to shake out in the new digs. Maybe I thought the situation would take care of itself.

Alas, the Celebrity was still disheveled and abandoned in Kent, awaiting the benevolent hand of an experienced mechanic to get her back on the road again. So no more than two days after moving into my new pad in the Heights, I forced myself to venture back into Kent in an attempt to better adulticize or responsibilitize my life. I figured a working auto would be the first step in that process. The next, obviously, would be marriage.

Somehow, the trip to Kent provided both, with a brief sandwich of homeless/hopeless-ness. My final Kent adventure began on a Monday morning, following a gracious ride into town from one of my new roommates. My old Main Street apartment still needed a good cleaning, and I occupied myself with that until Sarah could come over with her free tow.

Hours later, she showed. Subsequently, my car, with one tire having gone completely flat from disuse, was tethered and displaced to Main Street Auto, a few hundred feet up the hill. There, the problem was to be diagnosed and a cure afforded. I use “afforded” lightly, as my ongoing unemployment severely limited that which I could actually “afford.”

Mike, the main mechanic, assured me that the problem could be remedied the very next day, probably by the evening. I figured that I could manage staying the night in Kent, and Sarah was so kind as to offer her place as a sort of bed/breakfast/hostel. That night, we dined on French bread pizza and entertained ourselves with Season I of Grey’s Anatomy, with which I had been heretofore unfamiliar but quickly and inexplicably became addicted to.

I slumbered that night to visions of McDreamy delicately cutting open Shelia’s hood and curing her cystic fibrosis.

I awoke at 11:30 the next morning and made my way back to my old apartment, stopping briefly in at Main Street Auto to find that they had yet to even glance at my car. I figured it was to be a long day. For the next couple hours of early afternoon, I sat in a lawn chair in my rather frigid and desolate former living room, searching ineffectually for jobs on a stolen wifi signal.

I decided to grab some stimulants and warmth from Susan’s Coffee and Tea up the street, so I departed momentarily. I spent the next 7 hours at the coffee shop, the price of a small house having saved me the indignity of stealing their wireless signal outright.

Sarah called me around 8, asked if I had heard any word from the garage, which, of course, I had not. She offered her place to me once more. We made a chicken casserole that night with meat I had found in the freezer at my apartment. We curled up on her sofa to more of Grey’s.

While at Susan’s the next day, I called Mike the Mechanic to see when my car would be done. As it turns out, Shelia had been quite the prude, and would not divulge the location of her ailment. Huh.

“We’ll call you when we figure it out; it’s definitely not the fuel pump.” Mike said. “We think it might be the computer. Or the crank shaft sensor.”

“Well at least that’s something,” I said, knowing full well I would be spending the night at Sarah’s again.

I fished some loose change out of my pocket to pay for a refill on my long-expended house blend. The cashier said I could have it for free. I glanced down at my apparel: the same discolored red hoodie I had been wearing for the last 2 days while essentially living at Susan’s. Huh.

Once again, Sarah picked me up in front of the coffee house right before it closed. She had eaten at Ruby Tuesdays earlier that night and was so kind as to offer me the leftovers. I don’t think I had eaten yet that day.

We had depleted our cache of Season I Grey’s episodes the night prior, so a trip to Family Video was in store to grab Season II. It seemed I couldn’t sleep without McDreamy.

After I fetched Sarah and myself a beer from the fridge, I realized we were basically married and had been for some time. I rationalized that we both stayed in it, you know, for the kids. I imagined that if I had stayed another night, we’d have had roast for dinner.

The next morning, after Sarah left for work and I did the last night’s dishes, I hopped on the horn to my roommate, to see if he was coming back through Kent that day. Luckily, he was, and I scheduled a pick-up at Susan’s for later that evening. I did not expect to hear from Mike the Mechanic, and I did not hear from him. I spent another full day at the coffee shop, plugging away at new job openings and posting comments on friends’ My Space pages.

“For Sale: MINT condition 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity. Silver. Maroon velour int. NEW computer, alternator, starter. $600 OBO. You pick up. Location: Main St. Auto, Kent, OH. Available early March 2009.”

My roommate came and got me around dusk and we went back to my old apartment to make off with the last of my belongings: hibachi grill, bulletin board, cleaning supplies. I threw the lawn chair away, as I was no longer in need of the makeshift home office. I ran into the landlord, who told me to leave the keys on the kitchen counter, as he would come by later to pick them up. I left them there, as instructed, along with January’s thrifty $50 prorated rent.

This was to be my Kent legacy—2 keys and $50. I left Kent jobless, carless, homeless. My roommate and I stopped by Sarah’s on the way home to say goodbye. We separated. I arrived home disillusioned, dirty, and exhausted, but with the implausible desire for a roast.

apologies

Sorry that it took so long to republish this thing. I had been envisioning changes for some time and have been unable to find the time.

Thanks for you patience.

--RdB

options

The Dream: New York City, Brooklyn, in particular. The high-profile internship has flown the coop, but I could (presumably) make the jump as a starving artist and build my life from nothing. For this, I would need to convince myself that I am, in fact, an artist. Otherwise, I'd just be starving.

Hope: Chicago. I was in love with this city six months ago. But when said high-profile internship moved from the Windy City to the more elitist realms of NYC, I more or less forgot about it. Q: Where to start? Who do I know? A: Nowhere; No one.

Realistic: Cleveland Heights. Jobless, I take a much safer (is it?) leap away from Kent, college, burnt bridges. I'll be living in a high-profile (is it?) neighborhood with a bunch of kids my age. In comparison to the first two, this is a cop-out, but not as much as the next two.

Cop-outs: Tampa/Bradenton area, Florida. Free place to stay. I'd have my old retail job. I'd bike to work every day. Basically, I'd re-live my life from the summer of '04. Except I'd be an adult, not a college kid saving money for the school year. And then there's the family. . .

Youngstown, OH. My dad and stepmom tried to sell me on the idea of moving back home and saving money. I can't do it, for I know that I'd be working as a busser at the Boardman Chilis, sleeping on a futon in the family room (or basement), and searching unsuccessfully for the 8 creative people that live in Youngstown. Make that 7, as one of them is in Kent.

Out of the question: Kent, OH. Although the Kent scene has been very good to me these last few years, I need to move on. The jump away will be hard, but time shakes everything out. I'll miss the place. I'll miss her. But Cleve-O isn't that far away at all.

Vacation

11:15 a.m.: Following a text message and hopefully a phone call, I stumble rather gracelessly out of bed and into my day.

11: 25 a.m.: I read an article in Esquire Magazine. Something about the future of driving. I page to a decription of a $600 pea coat that I could imagine myself being able to afford in roughly 25 years.

11:45 a.m.: I boil some coffee, pour myself a bowl of Crispix and sit out on the lanai.

12:05 p.m.: I write a love letter. Sign it. Date it. Address, stamp, and seal the envelope.

1:07 p.m.: I read Sedaris for a couple hours.

3:15 p.m.: In the process of getting ready [messenger bag-check; letter-check; iPod-check] for my daily ride to the post office, I accidentally take a nap.

4:30 p.m.: I am on the road, riding as close as I can to the shoulder, for there are no bike lanes here. Passersby in their big trucks and SUVs give me dirty looks. I take a short cut through the retirement community. Get dirty looks there too, despite the fact that there is no traffic to hold up.

4:45 p.m.: Deposit said love letter a cool 15 minutes before the last pick-up. One thing I love about vacations--LEISURE.

6:00+ p.m.: Oh, neither this nor that. Maybe I'll read. Maybe I'll lust after MacBooks. Maybe I'll watch one of the Godfathers. Mostly, there is a lot of daydreaming. And the occasional flashback. Once in a while, I'll flash forward, though I try not to do that very much.

My Florida Routine

4:00 a.m.: I get up a half hour before my alarm goes off. I put on my robe and slippers, fire up the coffee maker [decaf--it's better for my blood pressure, doctor says], and turn on the evangelical network on TV.

6:00 a.m.: I wait for them to unlock the doors at Denny's. Tuesday is Senior Day and I can save 15% on my Grand Slam. Sunny side up, please. Bacon. Wheat toast. I bring my own Metamucil.

7:30 a.m.: First foursome on the fairway--myself, Gino, Frank, and Redd. We get in a quick nine, as I don't have the stamina I used to. Just ask my wife, hehheh.

HACK! I have trouble laughing these days, you know. All those Pall Malls during the War.

10:15 a.m.: Lunch at the Country Club--Pastrami on Rye. My doctor says I should stay away from the stuff, but I've got to live a little, eh?

11:30 a.m.: Home again. Catch the last half of Price Is Right. I hope and pray for Plinko! It never happens.

11:42 a.m.: Slumber to visions of myself standing atop the multi-color platform with plastic pucks in my hand. From my perch, I look down the shimmering tops of Barker's Beauties. PlinkPlinkPlink-PlinkPlink-Plink Each chip lands in the tray labeled $10,000.

11:57 a.m.: I wake, covered in drool. My downbelows are throbbing. Where's my damn wife? Sheila! She's putting the roast in the oven. Roast again? Seems like the fifth time this week!

12:03 p.m.: Damned local news is on again. Nothing but a bunch of crazies out there, you know? I flip on the golf network and fall back asleep.

3:45 p.m.: My wife rouses me from sleep with a wooden spatula. I thought you was dead, she yells. This happens every day. Nothing but a bunch of crazies. I love her to death, though.

4:00 p.m.: Dinner is served--pot roast and scalloped potatoes. My favorite. Fifth time this week, I swear.

4:45 p.m.: While eating my sugar-free vanilla ice cream, I see this doofy kid riding past on his bike. He's got on some queer looking satchel. Sonofabitch is probably taking a shortcut to the Post Office. Problem is with kids these days, always taking shortcuts. Doesn't he know this is a gated community? I rent this trailer from September until April so I don't have to deal with these hippies. Third day in a row I've seen him cutting through here. Next time, mark my words, I'm gonna say something. Kids these days. Bunch of crazies.

warm

You will feel the heat radiating as you leave Kent. You will see the glow as you crest and descend rolling Pennsylvania mountains. The light behind the trees will cast long shadows as you wind around the crooks and bends of I-80. Closer and closer, brighter and brighter.

New Jersey will pass by [thankfully] like a blur, for your eyes will be swallowed whole by the pulsing ember across the estuary of the Hudson. The beacon will shine into the heavens, casting a spectrum like aurora borealis, a wafty wave streaking comet-like across the night sky. This falling star will never fade. It only serves to guide you across one border, then another, then another. One bridge, then another.

Soon you will be standing before the pillar of light three-thousand feet tall. The art nouveau elevator is powered by bellows, great tufts of air that lift you up, up, up.

Atop the spire.



Exactly where you belong.











It is warm here.

I am at a loss right now