Burning Bite

The latte burned his lip and the tip of his tongue. He winced. It was all planned, all by design. She loved when he did that. She would crinkle her nose and just barely stick out her own tongue, trapping it between a crooked top front tooth and barely off center bottom tooth. The level of empathy killed him every time. He liked to think it sort of made her fall in love with him all over again; like it was all worth the pain.

He thought.

He thought a lot of things.

“It’s not gonna work. This time.”

“But it did before, yeah?”

“Put your eyebrows down.”

“Stop biting your tongue.”

“Fair.”

They looked anywhere but ahead. Well, she did. He kept his eyes on her. Unblinking. Focused.

“Maybe if you focused like that over the last year we wouldn’t be sitting here.” She said it in the matter of fact way he had come to know well - and loathe - over the last year.

“Well,” he said, trying to fill the air with banalities before she could fill it with the words he had a feeling were coming. But he stopped there. Regardless of what was coming he sat there dumbfounded that it was happening. She raised her eyebrows again, telegraphing an altogether different tone.

“Well.”

She had a singular way of turning sentence fragments into fully formed and devastating soliloquies. She continued.

“Well, I had expected you to say something.” She let out a slight chuckle, sad but resigned. “Maybe that was my mistake. Not my first, but-”

“Your last.” They both jumped slightly at his interjection. “I mean, like, it’ll be the last you’ll have to make as far as I’m concerned.”

She winced. Was he aware of what she asked him here after all? It wasn’t easy to tell. He had a history of being obtuse but this would be a new level entirely.

He narrowed his eyes. “What was that look for?”

“Do you really not know my reactions? Even after all this time?”

“What do you mean by that? All what time? We’ve only been together, like, officially, for like, a year.”

“You’re not helping your case here.”

“Yeah, guess not. But you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And that’s sort of the problem. I know what you mean but you…” she trailed off hoping he would pick up the thread. She sighed. “Of course not.” He looked blankly. There seemed to be nothing - no questions, no understanding. Just eyes. She swallowed and went on. “I know what you mean but you don’t know what I mean.” She waited for a glimmer of…anything on his face. All she got was a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was enough to keep her going.

“This…us…we…we’re broken.”

“No we’re not.” The lack of passion in his response caught her off guard. Him too, if he were honest. His tone was flat and his eyes were starting, just barely, to well up.

“Yes, Josh. Yes. And that response, the way you said it, the way you’ve done, well, most everything as of late leads me to believe - no. I know you agree.”

Josh blinked. Any tears had dried up. He cleared his throat but didn’t speak. An almost imperceptible nod was all he could manage.

“See?”

“What?” He whispered.

“I know what that nod means.”

“Anne…”

“Bye Josh.”

She got up, kissed his head, and left.

Josh took another sip of his latte. It was cold now. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have anyone to bite their tongue instead of saying I Love You.

That’s what Anne always meant by it.

And Josh know that.

He always knew that.

Return To Sleepy Hollow (work in progress for my kids)

The man wanted badly to raise his head but knew better. There would be plenty of time for that later. Presently, he sipped his ale and returned his wandering attention to the book he held close to his face. The ale was of common variety but the book had been chosen with purpose, though it had yet to elicit the response he had hoped. A tome on witchcraft in New England was rarely seen outside of the parsonage; even there it would have been behind glass on a high shelf, safe from the wandering eye of a godly inhabitant of the town. It was obvious to the man that such godly folk were not apt to be in a pub at a time well after dark, which was all for the better. He had no qualms with them.

His eyes were darting from his book to keep close watch on a group of three men at the rear of the bar. One was inconsequential and did little else than constantly obstruct the view of his two companions. The other two however were loud enough to track even without constant view. The wide, squat man was bright red from drink. The unkempt state of the ring of gray hair along with his flush gave an indication of the headache he was to nurse in the morning.

Ah! But the other man. He was the reason for the faux reader's visit. He was to blame for the return of this specter of a man.

He was to blame for everything.

Him.

Brom Bones.

He stood at the bar next to his father-in-law, Baltus van Tassel. Both stood, drank, laughed, and went about raising glasses to a good harvest. They acted as though nothing had happened the previous October 31ˢᵗ. As if they hadn't conspired to drive the schoolmaster out of town and away from Katrina.

Unbeknownst to them the reader made a slight move with his glass, a sort of toast. He spoke, almost to himself but still giving the words breath. “Drink to your health, you pair of fools. And rue the day you crossed me. Ichabod Crane will have his revenge."

Infinite.

“See that water tower?”

“I’ve lived here all my life. What kind of question is that?”

“C’mon, Jimmy! Just, do you see the water tower?”

“Yeah. I see the water tower.”

“Ever read War of the Worlds?”

“What’s with all the ques-“

“Just, did you or didn’t cha?”

“Yeah. Same as you. Mrs. Abigale’s English class.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s what I think about when I see that water tower. It’s gonna rise up one day. It’ll come alive and it’s great big skinny legs will stomp and stomp until there’s nothing left to stomp. It’ll use its heat ray to vaporize anyone with the balls to shoot at it. Everything will be gone. Done. Just…gone.”

“Everything?”

“Well, not everything. Not us. We’ll have seen it coming, see?”

“Yeah? What makes you so sure?”

“You and me can do anything together.”

“Including dying, then?”

“No. Not that. I read in a book once, a different one I mean, about a kid who finally found a place to belong after years of searching. He said ‘We are infinite’. That’s what we are, Jimmy.”

“Infinite?”

“Infinite.”

“But what about everybody else?”

“Don’t worry about them. They don’t matter near as much. I’ll still be here. With you.”

“Good plan.”

“Great plan. Now kiss me before the water tower attacks.”

I Hope You Take A Piece Of Me With You

You won’t. Will you? No. It’s okay. Really - no need to go easy. My ego will be just fine, thank you. It survived loving you and that was honestly the most harrowing experience I could ever imagine. Someday you’ll have to tell me the secret to detachment; you made it look so easy.

Actually - never mind. I think I may have figured it out a while ago. Yeah. You were never as aloof as you attempted to be. NOW who’s being obtuse, sweetheart? Your “secret” has never been one. Anyone who’s experienced a broken heart could read the story on your face and tell your hand. Still want to bluff? Fine. I’ll call:

Never love, but always promise.

Always kiss, but never close your eyes (mine were open too).

Never be the first to hang up, but always the first to suggest it.

But most of all never call it what it is: sabotage.

Oh! How skillfully you sowed your seeds of doubt! It’s almost as if you’d done it before. Which, of course, I’m certain you have. And before you try, don’t bother denying it; denial always looked abhorrent on you. Maybe try some honesty on for a change? It’ll be tight, a bit ill-fitting at first, but I’m sure you’ll find an adjustment to make it work for you. I hope you don’t though. You could use a few moments in the real world where the cold reality is that your actions have consequences. Small and fleeting or massive and utterly devastating, consequences find you and make you pay harsh sums. A pound of flesh? You had better hope you get off that easy.

So many friends, so few group outings.

So many men, so few connections.

So many nights without me.

Perhaps you’re being truthful. Maybe it was all innocent. But even your innocence hid ulterior motives. You didn’t cheat. Not exactly. All words, thoughts - nothing physical. That’s not your style. It’s…too…straightforward. Too childish. Too…pedestrian. “Below you”, if I remember your words correctly.

Ha! Below you. That’s rich. Too good to cheat? Do you want a medal? Cheating was just too easy. Too obvious. You wouldn’t have found it a challenge. But:

to play a long game of ever more complex mindfucks? NOW you’re talking! The idea was born in a corner of your mind I’m relieved to say I never fully discovered. Still the idea grew to encompass a space bigger than your skull. Even now I can picture you reading this (thirty five miles and twenty three years away, no less) and can see the glint return to your eye.  It starts as a flash from the tiny speck of yellow in the otherwise clear powder blue of your left eye, still now, I’m sure, as it did then. Then…

For a split second I think it’s love.

But then the moment is gone and I’m left with sweaty palms and the heavy heart of a cold premonition, something on the horizon. It burned like the sun but was as cold and stealthy as the night. It was all shades of shadow.

Shadow on my face.

On my chest.

On my heart.

The sun returned (a gift from you perhaps?). It stabbed at my shaded corners as you turned once again toward it.

A new day for you.

A new reality for me.

We knew nothing but were thirsty for everything. Well, that was true for me at least.

In the end the night and the day treated us much the same. We both ended up lost, parched, and weary for respite from the lesson. I may have been there before you, but that hardly matters.

I must ask before I go: did you learn anything? I don’t need to know what it was, just…did you?

You know what? Never mind. It’s not important. I’ve gone on to live, love, create, discover - all the things you attempted to take from me and all the things I didn’t even realize you grabbed while you were in my head.

No more. Go. Walk away and leave all the pieces of me right here at my tired feet. I know I bid you welcome again into my mind after so many years gone and I’m to blame for this current bout of angst, but go.

Walk away. God knows you’re good at it.   

You First

Morning came.

As the weight of the night before pressed down on him Jack felt as though he had slept enough. Whether it was true or just he guilt talking didn’t really matter. The morning had come despite Jack’s best efforts of holding it at bay.

He kept his eyes still. Counted heartbeats. As he silently mouthed ten he rotated his left wrist. The sheet over it moved in unison.

So it’s true, he thought.

It was. He cursed himself for not learning from the last time. It wasn’t deep enough then either. And this time the cotton bedding – high quality at the insistence of his wife – had acted as a bandage more than anything.

Bathtub, dumbass!

He shifted his eyes to the clock next to him. The numbers were blurry but he could make out an eight on the left. He shivered; wiggled a big toe. A blanket was on him.

But how? Certainly he hadn’t bothered. What’s the sense of tucking yourself in for a sleep you don’t plan to wake from?

Sarah.

It must have been Sarah.

“Shut up, stupid. It couldn’t have been her.” He whispered this time, the consonants sticking in his dry throat. He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. The room shifted as he did so. Nothing was stationary. Reality sure as well wasn’t.

His head swam but his stomach remain grounded. He nodded slightly at what the last set of EMTs had called ‘traumatic blood loss’. He knew all the jargon now. He knew what it looked like. He knew what he felt like.

So did Sarah.

“Finish the thought.” he said, hushed but with enough breath to tickle his lips as the words passed.

So did Sarah. Which is why she left.

“Exactly.” His lips itched. He nodded.

She’s gone. She was gone six months ago. And last week. And last night.

And right now.

So why the wrists?

Jack smiled at his inner self, relishing the answer. “No. Just the one this time.” He felt an odd sense of pride. He had stopped himself at one. Perhaps it was just a cry for help this time.

Probably you couldn’t grasp the razor in your left hand on account of all the blood.

“Fuck.” It was the first word said at full volume since Jack opened his eyes. The only word.

Jack reached over his body to grasp the sheet that was plastered to his left hand. He winced with the realization that the blood had caked the sheet to his entire arm. He thought better of tearing it away.

The words from a moment before flashed again: she’s not here.

Jack swung his feet over the side of the bed and willed himself vertical.

She’s gone.

She’s flown away.

She flew.

“I don’t believe in heaven but she always did,” said Jack to Jack.

Jack took three unsteady but certain steps toward the window.

How does one get to heaven?

Jack didn’t answer right away.

He slid the window to the side and pushed at the screen. He inhaled the sharp winter air.

“The only way to heaven is to fly.”

Construct of Connection

(This started a brain dump, then kind of got away from me. Let’s be generous and refer to it as a rough draft.)

With minimal effort the word “we” can take on mammoth proportions. Seriously - for two little letters it can really fuck a guy up.

The problem lies in its misleading simplicity. It’s uttered hundreds of times a day - thousands probably - without a thought and used to count any amount of persons from a few to a few billion. But it’s never more dangerous than when referring to the real loneliest number: two.

Before I continue I’ll admit that this one is going to be a downer. It’ll probably sound either pity inducing or pathetic. I don’t meant it sound either way but I’ll leave the ultimate interpretation to you.

Growing up I was always told by well meaning (but totally off base) adults that when I grew up I would find that one person who turns me from a single, meandering man into a complete human with a capacity for everything larger than himself. Once I met that special someone my life would change forever and only for the good.

They really should have mentioned the bad.

They should have also mentioned the importance of me before we.

I’ve always wondered, or at least since I got sober, how my life might be different if I knew who “me” was before my head was filled with “we”. In a rather insidious but smiling way I was indoctrinated into a cult that didn’t allow single members. I won’t pretend I would have made exclusively positive choices were I to have walked a solitary path. Hell, I know for a fact I wouldn’t have. I’m a bad idea factory, for Christ’s sake! But decisions made alone normally differ from those made by committee, if only a committee of two. It makes sense. Once you are forced to take someone else’s feelings, thoughts, and attitudes into consideration the idea of free will kind of goes sailing out the widow.

I’ve spent a majority of my life trying to find this elusive version of “we” that I was promised as a kid. I’ve only just recently gotten to the “me” - at around forty years of age. But even now that “we” is gnawing at the back of my mind regardless of my continuing attempt to ignore it.

Let’s take stock:

Would I have started to drink if I was “me”? Probably. But not at age nine and just trying, as I realized later, to impress a neighborhood kid I looked up to.

Would I have started to use drugs if I was “me”? I honestly do not think so. Every pill I took at the beginning (and every line and bump I snorted and joint I inhaled, for that matter) was because of the other people in my life and my inability to capture the construct of connection.

Would I have made so many questionable choices in women if I was “me”? No. Absolutely not. The only thing I had less of an idea about than what I wanted in another person was what I needed from one. And that’s all ignoring the fact I didn’t know who I was.

Sitting here thinking back over all the mistakes and successes (a roughly 3:1 ratio by my count) I’d have to admit that I wouldn’t go back and change anything. I know it all turns out and I have a vague idea of where I’m going, or at the very least where I’m trying to point my life, so I’ll make do with the today I’ve laid out for myself.

Ultimately I drank, used, and made horrid relationship decisions alone and of my own accord. That was all me. I learned more than fifteen years ago that taking responsibility is important and the more it stings the more necessary it usually is. Well, my life has stung like a son of a bitch!

So where were you while we were - I was - getting high? Knowing me, you were right there, right next to me. I was just too fucked up to notice.

Thanks for sticking it out.

The Road Is Real. Fate Is Not.

I blow stuff way out of proportion. A lot. More than most probably. I also tend to err toward the romantic and this is where most all the problems start. Every first kiss is magical and deep and is the beginning of something that no catastrophic event could ever destroy. Soul mates, every one of em. Meant to be, fate brought us together, destiny. All of that.

Of course it’s all bullshit. I know it now. And sadly (pathetically?) I probably knew it then. I mean, how many soul mates do you get in life? By many counts that answer is exactly zero.

I don’t quite recall my first legitimate kiss but I now it was a neighborhood girl on whom I harbored a serious crush. I was in no way meaningful and nothing ever came of it. In fact, to my recollection, it was never outright spoken of again. Sure I tried and tried to repeat the interaction. I knew it was special. Obviously. There’s no way the girl you’ve been lusting after (if you can lust when you’re not yet at double digits) just kisses you for no reason. But that’s all it was. That’s all there was: a whole lot of nothing.

I got my first real girlfriend in middle school. We met under duress. We dated under duress. We split when that duress subsided. She came into my life when I needed something to help me understand my emotions. It was meant to be! We were as passionate as two people who had yet to have The Talk or even health class could be. On the plus side we got through the death of a mutual friend. On the negative side I held on for weeks, trying to convince her of something I was slowing realizing was a lie: there was love because of fate and it was fate that brought us together.

Once again, bullshit. But at least I was starting to figure some things out. Not that it really matters…you’ll see why in a minute.

My high school girlfriend lasted a year and three days. We argued every day. We made up every day; sometimes several times a day. We traded virginities. We met in choir. My god! We were meant to be! Adults argue and make up all the time, so obviously this was a sign of maturity. Sex? That’s for adults; for people who are responsible and loving. And we both like the same bands! I mean, how many teenagers happen to have the same taste in music? (Yeah. All of them. I know that now.) And they also have sex. And fight. And make up. And maybe adults shouldn’t fight so much and maybe it isn’t a sign of a healthy relationship. Again, no shit. But youthful escapades and all that.

It’s not that we weren’t meant to be, it’s just that we were teenagers. As far as I can recall I didn’t quite grasp that at the time but I had my suspicions. And that was a good thing.

I then moved on - after too many tears and maybe just a slight amount of what we now call stalking - to a girl who was on the rebound. I was nursing an inkling of a thought about “signs” and “fate”’ but hadn’t added “is/are bullshit” qualifier yet. We focused on sex. And then risky sex. And then veiled jealousy. Sex and jealousy - what could possibly go wrong? Everything, of course. I did absolutely every last thing I could to convince myself we were special. But this was my first tiny epiphany: we are not special. We were broken, if we had ever been whole to begin with. Thus the ending of this one isn’t really important because I can’t say for certain we legitimately started. Maybe we ended up together for no discernible reason. Whoa.

Fate (or whatever) led me to three more women after her, each more fated (?) than the last. All fated for me through some kind of devine intervention into my love life. Well, at least my sex life. Now I knew for sure fate was real and only something that powerful could lead me in the right direction. Yes, I was ignoring everything that had happened to this point and was willfully ignorant of my situation. But I’m assuming you’ve already caught on to that.

Finally I met the girl who would become my wife. (And later my ex-wife, but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

A random seven A.M. AA meeting in a town neither of us lived in brought us together. I was there to quit drinking. She was there too…actually I still don’t quite know. She never seemed too sold on the not drinking idea until we started dating. She was single. I was single. We were both sober. It was stupid early in a room we both had to drive thirty minutes to. That right there has to mean something right?

And we both loved to read. And we know all the words to the same obscure indie emo song - a nine minute opus! We both loved musicals and singing along loudly. And of course this was all fate.

I’m going to omit the bad things here the same way I omitted them from my immediate view then. While it was happening…in real time. My fingers would fall off from the amount of typing that would take anyway.

But the facts remain: we really, honestly seemed in some abstract way to be fated to meet. Sure we made three beautiful kids, but there has to be more. There has to be more because it it wasn’t fate but convinced myself it was and we ended in divorce, what does it mean for the validity of every relationship I’ve ever had?

Now I’m single and even with all the women whom “fate” so brashly threw into my life thoughout my past, all I see in my rearview is open road. And as it turns out the view is the same in front of me.

But isn’t something missing? Fate maybe? Yes. But that’s for a damn good reason:

The road is real. Fate is not.

Never Say You'll Never Leave

When it comes to relationships I’m fantastically adroit at attempting to leave. Amazing. It’s a knack I’ve always had. Maybe it’s in my genes, deep down in some forgotten and otherwise dormant twist of my DNA. No one else in my family seems to have this strange, unwelcome trait. Talents aren’t always positive, I suppose.

Perhaps a little specificity is in order. I think it would be more precise to say that while I have been fantastic at not-quite-leaving what I’ve really perfected is the art of making other people leave. I don’t say this to elicit any sort of pity. None. I’m also not entirely proud of this, to be honest, but it’s the truth. And what’s arguably worse is this talent has been honed entirely on purpose. It’s been a labor of fucked up love for the better part of twenty five years.

Ah, but I owe you an answer already, don’t I, Dear Reader? You’ve already asked the question to yourself and I know it verbatim: why the hell would you devote so much time and effort to such a twisted endeavor? That’s just sick!

Simple really.

Self preservation.

Before you say it, yes, I’m aware I’m well into my forties already. Yes, I’m aware it’s one of the most unhealthy habits I can possibly conceive. Yes, I’m aware I’m probably too old to be acting this way. But to you I say: forty is young! Fifty is young! Especially when you’re single! I am not acting, I’m reacting. And I have been since my early twenties. And honestly if you think this is the least healthy habit I’ve had in my life, honey, you haven’t been paying attention.

If for some reason you find this an attractive character trait and you’d like to know my secret I’m happy to share. It’s actually not a secret. In fact, you could easily call it logical: if you tell the other person you’ll never leave from the get-go, the seed of them having to eventually be the heavy and do the leaving will have been planted. Sooner or later one of you will reap what was sowed. Underhanded and more than a little “icky”, yeah. But effective as hell…and risky. Let me explain.

The difficult part - the hardest by far - is to not get attached. We self-aware codependant folks struggle with this, hence the clinical label. Because of the warring factions of our brains we develop little ways (little = harder to detect) to keep our distance, because we know what we want to do versus what will end up happening, which is us huddled in the fetal position in our showers as our tears mingle with the water and flow down the drain with our other hopes and dreams. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s the usual quasi-sociopathic things like ignoring plans intentionally, but not entirely, so as to have the other person reach out and show some kind of emotional need for us. We always hint at the word love but never say it first. The end goal is to be able to weaponize the connection at will. And it works surprisingly well, not that I’m proud of this today.

The really fucked up part is that I’ve done this so much I can write all this down on autopilot. That said, there is one other thing tied with this for “Most Fucked Up”: a good amount of you are nodding along with my description in the previous paragraph. And most of that nodding is in agreement and recognition of the plan.

Sucks to be called out, doesn’t it?

But there’s another side to the coin. The other shoe is going to drop, if they haven’t thrown it at you already. Sooner or later you get exactly what you wished for. It’s only then you realize how stupid of a plan this all was. It barely made sense. You can’t protect yourself from something you not only orchestrated but welcomed from day one. But they leave. And it hurts. A lot.

But why?

Because, dumbass! - this plan is ridiculous, asinine, and has no end point that isn’t total devastation. You jackwagon!

But maybe taking relationship advice from a divorced guy whose two longest relationships in life turned out to be with lesbians is a bad idea.

Don’t wait to be left.

Don’t leave if you’ve got a good thing.

Don’t listen to me.

Except this smart stuff here at the end. This is the good stuff.

What's In A Name

(snippet, still in progress, unedited)

We were convinced that drinking highballs would in some way convey that we were not, in fact, alcoholics but rather sophisticated connoisseurs of drink. We bought highball glasses. (Okay, we stole highball glasses from the bar I DJed at but still.) We swiped his mom’s tabletop ice chest and tiny tongs she reserved for parties. We bought square ice cubes so they looked good while floating in the booze and mixer. We bought good whiskey and better gin, Canada Dry and New York seltzer. We were ready to look every bit the spitting image of the well mannered and suave men in suits we would see having liquid lunches at the restaurant he worked at. He even surprised me with a couple cigars. We were ready for the whole spectacle; prepared for everything. Except the repercussions. 

But really what else is new?

“He” was Mike. We had met about a year prior and ended up becoming close friends (and eventually roommates). He was several years my junior and not quite of legal drinking age but to my knowledge that’s never stopped anyone from developing a chemical dependency. If I could pick mine up at before puberty I figured he was already doing better than me. I would drive to his house most days. Drinking at bars cost money we didn’t have and since only I could get in anyway they were out of the question. His parents were also, oddly, always at “work”. They were rather straight laced so I’m sure nothing nefarious was taking place behind the scenes but looking back it is strange. More than that though it was welcome. There was little to no chance of him getting caught and it gave me a place to day drink that didn’t involve a basement or a public park and paper bag. 

We had inadvertently worked out a sort of elaborate, well choreographed set of motions when the decision was made to drink:

1) I call to make sure he is at home.

2) He tells me yes, but he would really like to take a nap.

3) I do my best Ferris Bueller and casually insult him until he emphatically slams the phone down.

4) I get in my car and head over anyway.

5) By the time I make the fifteen minute drive, he has opened the garage door, set up two lawn chairs with a small table between. The bottles of Tanqueray and tonic water glisten in the sun next to the tall expectant glasses brimming with ice. 

6) I park, get out of the car, nod to Mike. Before I’m even to my assigned chair my glass is full (more gin than tonic, as was also customary). 

7) I sit and reach over to the stereo on the workbench. Jazz, usually Dave Brubeck or one of the Marsalis brothers, gently wafts through the air, poetically mingling with the smells of stale exhaust and burnt oil.

8) In an act of prestidigitation I’ve never seen reproduced to this day Mike conjures two perfectly rolled joints. The contents of the joints however was always of questionable quality. Still, dope is dope and addicts can’t be choosers.

9) We sit, slowly letting the pot do its thing as we polish off the first round of G and Ts. (There will be more. Many more.) 

10) We drink too many ‘many more’s. We try to stand and get smacked down hard by the effects of our actions. We act surprised that we let it happen at all, let alone again! How could that possibly be?! Oh well. If we can’t stand we may as well sit and have one more drink. There was just enough ice for two more glasses - it was meant to be. Bottoms up! 

It seems somewhat convoluted but damn it if it didn’t work like a charm.

This particular story picks up right here. We’ve drunk all we could and smoked all we had. The sun had become a weapon the universe was insistent upon using against us. Our eyes burned. Our skin was warm, but that may have been coming at least partly from the inside out; the smoke was distinctly clouding the thoughts we were always certain were as deep and profound as any that would be revealed as we grew to adulthood. Of course we were in no hurry whatsoever to do that. What worse trapan one conceive than growing up? I stared into the sun (because drugs and alcohol up your IQ by fifty points obviously) and almost missed the vibration coming from my pocket. To the distinct relief of my retinas I broke my gaze with the sun and fished for the source of the buzzing.

“Shit bud! My mom just beeped me.”

“You know where the phone is. Go at it.”

I stood up. Well, that’s not quite true. I attempted to stand. The lesson of only one drink before hadn’t sunk in and the immutable laws of physics once again had their way with me. I leaned barely forward and gravity did what gravity does. I blinked, probably swore, and suddenly the driveway was a part of my face. I swallowed. Blood. And not just from my mouth. My nose had already began to leak between my lips.

I realized in that instant there was a large swath of my life where the only thin I had gotten used to more than nursing a healthy buzz was the metallic tang of blood. There was a slasher movie’s worth flowing from my nose and mouth more times than I can legitimately recall. The part I can look back on with the least amount of nostalgia is that I took that as a badge of honor. I was never one to get handovers so a little crusted blood on last night’s shirt was my proof to everyone that I was a drinker too! Look! I have proof! It may be a pathogen and possible biohazard but doesn’t that make it even better? No. No it does not. But luckily for you, dear reader, I didn’t know that at the time. Back to the story…

I got to my feet and went into the house. After stopping in the bathroom to clean up I called home. The ringing went on longer than expected. I sniffed at the rogue trickle of blood trying to escape my nostril. Finally my mom answered.

“Are you crying?”

“No. I, uh, just sneezed. What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

Fuck. She didn’t care if I had been drinking but she wasn’t too fond of Mike.

“I’m at friend’s house,” I said, hoping she’d leave it there. She did not.

“Mike’s, right?” She waited for a response. To this day I swear I heard her eyebrows raise and lower and she prepared herself for the incoming lie. I didn’t bother, probably because I was too drunk to think of a good one. Or too high. Or both. Yeah, probably that.

“Yup.”

She sighed so hard into the phone I thought for a moment we had a bad connection. I hoped we did so I could get off the phone and focus on the important things like where to score more weed and appear sober enough to buy more booze. Alas, she went on.

“Yeah. Well, you have to come home. I take it you forgot about the cookout.”

“Of course not.”

Fuck. Totally and completely forgot. “I thought it started at five.”

“Two. It started at two. I know you’re not a kid anymore but you will always do what your mother tells you to do. Now come home.” She sighed again, softer this time. “Barbara is already here.”

That sobered me up quick. I know it’s not really a thing, that’s it’s just the adrenaline flowing, but it certainly woke me up. Fuck. Barbara. I hadn’t seen her since the funeral.

Barbara was - is - my godmother’s sister. A family friend for longer than I’ve been alive. My godmother Crissie had recently passed away. It wasn’t exactly unexpected but it wasn’t something anyone was prepared for.

To say she was an important person in my life to that point (and beyond, as it turned out) would be the universe’s ultimate understatement. She and her mother, a tiny first generation Italian, adopted my family as an extension of theirs. We would visit their home several times a month, usually with sleepovers for us kids. We were loved by this welcoming and warm family who never asked for anything in return.

Crissie would lavish my sisters and me with vacations to Disney and Canada and take one of us on an Alaskan cruise. She would take one of my sisters and me eery other Saturday for a day of fun, shopping, and relaxation. I never met another kid who had a similar set up. I was insanely lucky to have someone like that in my life, so of course her passing hit me hard. So of course I hit the bottle even harder. And the bottle hit back.

I realized I hadn’t said anything in a minute when my mom, in her own ever helpful way, yelled into the receiver, “Come home now!”

I gently placed the phone down as though she would know if I had slammed it and would yell at me about disrespecting other people’s property later. I stumbled back outside.

“Yeah,” I said. “I gotta go.”

“Ha! We’re both too fucked to go anywhere.” Mike was wasted but always astute.

“Well, fucked up or not I gotta get home. Toss me my keys.” (Yeah, I know. No need to point it out.)

“I’ll come with you,” he said. He unsurprisingly swayed as he stood. “I’ll help cover for you.”

“Shit, dude. The only thing you’ll do is make me look less drunk, not not drunk.”

He shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

We got in my car and drove off without cleaning up or even closing the garage door. To this day I don’t know if he got in trouble for that. I assume not since we would be back to our usual arrangement in short order. I was also in a place where I just didn’t care to ask. In other words, I was a shitty friend. But at least I could blame the booze! (…at least for the moment.)

Let me put your mind at ease (or severely disappoint you): we made it to my house without incident. No bumped curbs. No lane drifting. No DUIs. I found a parking space, pulled in, and tossed the car in park.

“Watch your knees.” I reached over and popped the glove box. I fished out the jar of Jif. I could feel the confusion from Mike. “It’s an old trick my sister taught me. This shit hides the smell of pretty much everything.” I twisted the lid and scooped a lump with my index finger. “Here.” I pushed the jar to him. He mirrored my movements. “All better,” I said, smacking my lips and tongue. Mike just nodded and raised his eyebrows. “Let’s go.”

My parent’s house had a six foot privacy fence. I hated it when I had to help my dad paint it every other summer but now that it was obscuring my pathetic attempts to walk like someone who didn’t just down half a bottle of gin I patted it and whispered thank you as we approached the house. I’ll never know for sure what my gait was like but I’m sure I would have fit in well at the Ministry Of Silly Walks. We stopped at the gate to collect ourselves. We breathed into each other’s faces. We checked each other’s eyes. We mumbled words of encouragement to one another. Obviously none of it actually helped but you couldn’t have told us that at the time. I took a deep breath, immediately aware of the horridness of my scent. Too late to turn back. I pushed open the gate.

To say I was caught off guard would be an understatement. What I thought was just going to be a small get together of my family and few close friends was in fact something more akin to Woodstock. Okay, maybe just Lallapalooza. Regardless, where I had expected to see eight or ten people - tops! - sat thirty people in the backyard alone. I looked past the porch into the kitchen and saw more bodies. I said the only thing I could think of. “Fuck.” And for some reason, yet not exactly apropos of nothing, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now by The Smiths started playing in my mind. (“I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour/but heaven knows I’m miserable now…”)

I must have stopped short because the next thing I remember Mike rammed into my back. I stumbled, which I instantly appreciated. I now had a reason for my uneven walk: my friend had stepped on my foot. Perfect! Well, maybe not perfect but better.

“Hey, Bobber!”

Bobber. A nickname from childhood I personally feel I outgrew along with UnderRoos. It was out longtime neighbor. Someone who, once upon a time, used to change my diapers. I wonder what she’s thinking right at that moment. And what she’ll think when I start talking. Shit. Shit. Shit. This was stupid. Why did I come? Why didn’t I lie? Fuck.

“Hi,” I finally muster. I did my best to continue past her but she grabbed my arm. To this day I have absolutely no idea what she said or how long we were standing there. It doesn’t really matter, just understand I had already begun misplacing time. Thinking back I probably realized that but actively ignored it. Truth be told I was beginning to have more lucid realizations as to my real state. But all that did was make me what to drink more. Now, I know that as the disease of alcoholism. Then, I just thought of it as being a male in late teens/early twenties. Yet another example of how it’s often the most self-aware people who are also the most lost.

At some point my mom caught my eye and waived me over to her and my dad. Grabbing Mike’s arm I broke away from the neighbor and keeping my eyes as straight ahead as possible “walked” to the porch. I heard Mike say something about the bathroom and he broke past me; a small, half-assed wave to my parents as he went into the house. A flash of the last time I saw my parents repeated in my head. Drunk, high, untethered from reality. Consistency is good, right? I thought. I knew damn well it wasn’t but an uninvited smile crossed my face. Apparently - and thankfully - my mom took it as hers and returned a smile of her own. Could it be? Was it possible? Was I safe?

(Narrator: He was not safe.)

“Bob. Finally. Look, I’m sorry I yelled on the phone. I really shouldn’t have.”

Stupid narrator. I was going to be safe.

(Narrator: Nope.)

“But really?” She went on. “You forgot? I don’t buy that crock of shit for a second.”

(Narrator: As I was saying.)

“Yeah, well-“ An overly enthusiastic pat on my shoulder interrupted my thought - and thank god for that! I don’t think I actually had one to begin with. I swung around to see a friend of my sister’s, a person I didn’t think knew me well enough to be so excited for my arrival. And I thought that because I didn’t know his name. I was and am fairly certain we were never properly introduced. Ot we were and I was just drunk. Yea. That was probably it. 

And Away We Go! (a somewhat fake short story of a real event)

“Dude. We’re gonna get caught.”

“Uh, no. We won’t.” Tommy looked me straight in the eye and lied his ass off. “There’s no way they’d even notice. They’re way upstairs and besides there are a lot of people.”

He was right. There was a party going on right above us and there were a lot of people. But that was the extent of his expertise.

We had been debating the finer points of stealing booze for months prior. What is the best way to get a hold it? Where would we store it? Would we even be able to get enough to have any left over to store? How quickly would we get drunk? Would we get drunk at all? Frankly stupid questions in hindsight but at the time they were of the utmost importance and we were serious as hell. And tonight all our question would be answered thanks to a party, distractions galore, and a fridge full of hootch only feet away from Tommy’s bed.

“I don’t know. I mean your dad always seems to know how much is there-“

“Bull. He doesn’t really know.” He always interjected and would go on interjecting until he interjected himself into Iraq and was quickly silenced. But that was years in the future. For the time being he just had to prove me wrong. “He just drinks and my mom buys more every week at the store. Always been that way.”

The way he said it was enough to make me believe him, even if it was the total opposite of how things worked at my house. I knew even then it was strange to put so much faith in a nine year old but when you’re also a nine year old you require a much lower standard of evidence. Plus I really wanted to know what Miller Lite tasted like. My house was always stocked with Old Style for my mom and a few stale cans of some kind of off brand beer that were slowing fermenting in the basement fridge. I had been sneaking sips from several cans over the years just to see what the appeal was and I distinctly recall being horrified at the bitterness. This was it? This is what the adults were always so eager to drink after work and on the weekends (and in the case of Tommy’s dad pretty much any time he wasn’t sleeping)? Or maybe it was only Old Style that tasted like stale bath water. Miller Lite had to be better. Right? 

(As a side note: I came to love Old Style and respect its place in Chicago history. A Cubs game wasn’t a Cubs game without a paper cup of overpriced, poorly poured Old Style!)

“Okay.” I was giving in but really, how I could I not? “We’ll take one. Split it. We can  hide that.” I felt so sly. I had seen my first James Bond movie not long before this (Casino Royale, still my favorite) and felt a little like him. And what did he always order? A Coke? A kiddie cocktail? Nope! Booze. I didn’t have anything to stir and you shouldn’t shake a beer but still, for all intents and purposes, I was a damn secret agent. Only instead of a license to kill I ended up having a license to throw up all over my Denver The Last Dinosaur sheet set.

The party seemed to be getting louder above us which meant grown ups were streaming through the basement every few minutes to get themselves the same stuff we were impatiently waiting to grab. There seemed to be no end to the parade of ever increasingly tipsy adults traipsing around the doorway and all but throwing themselves down the long and narrow flight of stairs. We decided to play it cool. Pretend we didn’t even want the stupid beer. We were kids, after all. What the hell would kids need with booze? We took a perch at the bottom of the stairs to see if we could catch a break in the flood of drunkards. But we were still kids and quite jittery. Every time we heard footsteps we dove for the Nintendo controllers and continued the game of The Legend of Zelda. Yes, it was a one player game but the grown ups didn’t know that. So like Pavlov’s Little Lushes footsteps would drive us to lunge at the TV and as soon as the coast was clear we would not-quite-whisper in that shitty way kids trying to hide something do. It was all rasp and breath and I don’t recall being able to actually understand anything Tommy said but I kept the ultimate goal in mind that was all that mattered.

An hour went by. We gave up on the video game ruse. A rerun of Love Connection and the monologue of whatever host was on SNL crawled by slower than anything on TV ever had to that point in my life. Why did the adults keep coming down? Why the hell didn’t they just keep the beer in a cooler in the kitchen like normal people who throw parties? Why were they harshing our buzz? (I had recently heard this idiom for the first time and was using it liberally at the time.) We didn’t have a buzz yet and we wouldn’t until they damn grown ups would stay the hell away.

Then Tommy had an idea. It was more of a police report waiting to happen but six of one…

“Why are we waiting in here?” He asked.

“Because this is where you live,” I said, quickly realizing that Tommy was one of the dumbest people I had ever met. Later I would meet much, much dumber people, one of whom is typing this now. “And this is where the beer is,” I added, hoping to sound insightful. I failed.

“Okay, yeah. But why are we waiting?”

I stared at him. I blinked. I swear to this day I heard something in his head crack. It was most likely his last nerve and I had finally snapped it. I blinked again.

“Dummy. Think about it. We’re not waiting to get the beer…” He trailed off and raised his eyebrows. Obviously I was supposed to say something intelligent. 

“Riiiiight? We’re waiting to drink the beer?”

“Exactly! That’s exactly right!” I had to grab him by the shoulders to stop him from bounding around the room. I silently hoped that everyone who ever got an acceptable answer from me would respond in exactly this manner forever. But I still didn’t get what I said right. Tommy noticed my total lack of self awareness.

“We don’t have to drink it here. We can go outside. It’s only eleven. The streetlights reach to behind the bushes and by the electrical box. We can drink it there. I mean, we’ll have to be fast in case my mom comes looking but we can do it. What do you think?”

What did I think? I thought I was in the presence of genius. The smartest human being in the history of civilization was standing mere inches from me. I was face to face with inspiration personified. 

“Huh. Yeah. Okay.” I shrugged and nodded as Tommy made a bee line for the fridge on the other side of the sliding wooden door. When he emerged moments later Tommy was holding two cans and grinning like The Joker in the new Batman movie we just saw. Then reality smacked us both right upside the head. The voice of Tommy’s dad rang down from the living room, “Hey! Bring your old man a beer so I don’t have to walk down all these damn stairs!’

Forgetting my total lack of coordination and sporting technique Tommy tossed me a can. It grazed the tip of my right middle finger and smacked the cement floor with a whistle I didn’t place for the first half second. By the time a full second elapsed and my foot was soaked in Miller Lite. My heart sank and Tommy’s dad yelled again for more beer. I was immobile. Eyes wide, frantically shaking my foot. Tommy ran past me with the other one, which he held tight tight to his chest as he hurried up the stairs. 

“Here ya go dad.” 

“Yeah. Thanks. Don’t do nothing gay down there.” (The 80s really were the golden age of comedy.)

“Right dad. Have fun.” Tommy came back down, breathing much softer but walking a little funny. He went to his bed and pulled something out of his pants. 

To this day I don’t know how he did it. Tommy had managed to shove a can of Miller Lite into his pants - but NOT his underpants as he was sure to point out several times - and climb up and then descend sixteen stairs without it slipping out of the leg. I was impressed. How could I not be? But more than impressed I was wet. And I was starting to stink. Or my foot was anyway. I told Tommy to give me a second and I went to wash my leg as best I could in the utility sink in the laundry room.

“Hurry up, will ya?” He moaned it more than spoke it and it was a tone I was familiar with. Tommy wasn’t one to take his time with anything and if I didn’t finish up as soon as possible he would go outside without me and the beer would be gone.. I had never seen him drink (I would learn later that it was his first time too) but something I still can’t put my finger on made me certain he would down the whole can before I had to chance to object. I shook my leg harder than a dog finishing a good long pee and heard the now familiar crack of a can opening. Apparently we were abandoning the whole going outside plan. I turned quick to run and join my friend, soon to be my drinking buddy. I turned, but I neglected to actually remove my leg from the sink before throwing every ounce of my hundred pound frame at the laundry room door. 

Did you know laundry room sinks used to be made out of something resembling soapstone? My shin does. And my knees. The ground was just plain concrete as my chin learned moments later. I’m sure I yelled and probably swore - something I had only recently taken up as a hobby but was already proficient at - because Tommy came running into the doorway. 

“What the hell did you do that for, man? My mom is gonna hear you! Do not fucking cry! You’re only bleeding a little bit. Don’t be a bitch!”

But I was a bitch. I was in pain and bleeding and I had never sprained something before but my thigh muscles were burning. If crying over that is being a bitch then I am King Bitch. All hail and kneel before King Bitch. But wait until the snot stops flowing from my nostrils directly into my mouth. Your King demands it. 

I looked up at Tommy as the din of the party filtered back into my ears. The blood was rushing from them and out of the gaping holes in my legs and face. No one seemed to be coming down the stairs and Tommy was still holding the beer. With that sight something in me clicked. I stopped being a bitch. I was about to become a man. Forget sex - when you’re nine years old girls are still an impediment to jumping your BMX bike off a huge dirt hill. That didn’t matter. What mattered was doing what real men did: drink beer. And scotch, but that was still a year or more away for both of us so beer would have to fill the void.

Speaking of the void…

I jumped to my feet and grabbed at the can in Tommy’s hand. He was caught off guard and almost threw it at me. I recall him chuckling, but I can’t be sure. I shrugged, looked at the can, looked at him, back at the can, and tossed it back hard. I hit my nose and flinched, it wasn’t broken but it was close. I tasted blood the farther back I tilted my head. Tommy was saying something but the rushing sound had retuned to my ears, louder this time. I didn’t stop my pull until Tommy tugged the can away.

“Holy fuck, man!’ He began. He was already better at cursing than I was and could use the word fuck as a noun, adjective, adverb, and verb. Couldn’t do long division but he could work a swear word into most any sentence like it belonged there all along. I was proud to call him a friend. “Did you even save any for me?”

I shrugged. Again I winced. I had wrenched more than my legs when I went down. I could already tell it was going to hurt in the morning. Tommy continued to berate my drinking ability. 

“You better not have gotten any snot in here. Gross! You did! And there’s blood on the lip of the can!” He yelled a lot. Usually over nothing. This wasn’t nothing. 

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I kinda, uh, fell.” I looked down. “Sorry about the floor.” The shower from the opening scene of Carrie had less blood than the floor of the laundry room.

“We better get this cleaned up. Here.” He handed me the can. “Finish this. I’ll just get another one and blame it on my uncle.” I gave a commiserating nod.

I studied the can and wondered if I had actually tasted the beer when I took my gulps of it before. It was more blood than booze. What the hell was wrong with me? I had waited all this time and we had been so clever and I had blown it! I had forgotten to pay attention to my first real drink of booze. (If only I had known at the time how many more drinks I would forget to pay attention to over the next eighteen years…)

Tommy disappeared behind a curtain to get some towels and I wiped my shirt across my face to soak up the crusting blood and mucus. I don’t know if IZOD shirts were one hundred percent cotton back then but I can tell you their polos and my Member’s Only jacket were both about as absorbent as a yellow raincoat. But they were great at reminding me in scathing painful detail that my chin was still cut and had yet to scab. Fuck it I thought. Down the hatch!

I’m not going to sugar coat this part. I’m not going to say that the moment was anything it truly wasn’t at the time. I drained the rest of the can - easily eight more ounces - without coming up for air. And here’s the truth: it was fucking amazing!

Did it taste like a shitty light beer mixed with boogers and blood? Yes. But it also tasted like adulthood and independence and adventure and like it was only a matter of time before I was hanging poolside with Spuds MacKenzie commercials. It was cold and helped numb my pain, starting at my face and working its way down to my toes. It was cold but it warmed me at the same time. Holy shit! Alcohol is magic!

Then I threw up.

Abracadabra! I can make a beer disappear and reappear right before your very eyes! AMAZING! 

Lunch, dinner, snacks, pop, blood, snot, and beer were strewn from the doorway to the washing machine. And sitting between the door and washer was the steel tub of ice. And in that ice was the beer. All of it. More than four dozen easy. And they were ruined. It was at this moment Tommy reenters the scene.

You know that moment in movies where someone is frozen from shock and their jaw drops and the let anything in their hands fall to the floor? Well that wasn’t exactly what happened. A version of it happened but there was obviously more swearing and more than a few declarations of no longer being Tommy’s friend or welcome at his house anymore. I just stared. The snot had stoped flowing, which was nice. I was still bleeding. My foot still wet. I was watching Tommy yell but something else was happening too.

I was buzzed. I could hardly believe it. It was new and enchanting and I didn’t want it to end. 

But then I blinked hard as I clocked Tommy’s open hand coming at my head. He made deafening contact and my vision went blurry. I was pleasantly surprised when I slowly opened my eyes and felt somehow even better. Getting smacked in the head makes being drunk better? Noted.

“Fuck you, asshat! Get the hell out! Go! Now!”

I leisurely blinked again. Calmly I bent down, grabbed three of the cleaner cans from the near the rim of the bucket, and ran in quickening strides to the stairs. I didn’t stop throwing myself forward until I was a block away. It’s entirely possible I was asked by several adults where I was going or why the hell I looked like I had just escaped from some kind of bonkers kid version of a snuff film. I didn’t care about any of that. I didn’t care about the morning or the pain I’d most certainly feel then. I didn’t care that I was three hours past curfew. I didn’t care that it was almost already tomorrow.

I had a buzz, three beers, and no one to tell me no.

Camp Nanowrimo 2021 - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side - EXCERPT

My childhood was annoyingly, frustratingly average. Loving even. No harsh realities ever smacked me in the face. I never knew what it was to go hungry. I never wondered where my parents were or if they loved me. In fact there were more times I would push them away so I could run off and do something they didn’t approve of than anything else. It was a great way to grow up for any kid but maybe not so much for a writer. And certainly not for a writer whose life took so many drastic turns and went down roads there was really no reason to go down other than it was where the shiny things were and I was easily distracted. Am easily distracted. Bird!

From my first memories of being a kid though my ninth birthday I can’t say anything of note really happened. Fantastically elaborate Christmases and run of the mill family reunions were almost routine. My parents remained steadfast in their involvement in my life, as well as with my sisters. We were a well adjusted family from all angles - and not in the way you hear about over foreboding music at the beginning of a Netflix documentary about a family found dead at the hands of the patriarch, throats slit and bodies sliced to ribbons by the broken glass of picture frames that once held family photos from vacations to Disney and Wisconsin Dells. We were legitimately happy.

And I was apparently going to do everything I could to fuck that up.

It wasn’t on purpose. No one ever becomes an addict or alcoholic because it sounds like a super fun time. You know why? Because it’s fucking not. And I’m not talking about the more colloquial uses of those words like you might hear at a college kegger or from a few moms getting wine drunk at two in the afternoon on a random Tuesday after they drop Makenzie and Ryleigh or Rylee or, God help us all, yet another Madison at the babysitter’s. I mean taking bumps of blow off the pipe of a urinal at the now defunct Excalibur nightclub in Chicago while the random girl you found on the dance floor guards the door or orders you yet another Grey Goose and Red Bull. It wouldn’t be the first drug of the night, nor the first drink, nor the last girl. That’s a true story. That’s not bragging. And if you think it is there’s nothing I can say to make you less of an asshole.

I Refuse To Be The Favor At Your Pity Party

No ending is ever planned. Nothing is ever really a bad idea at the outset. No one plans to fail. No one falls love expecting to eventually fall out of it. But life and circumstances usually have their own plans and give less than a fuck about yours.

You can’t half-ass love. Same for relationships. Sure, some do just that and we all know how it ends. How do we know? We’ve all done it. It’s okay to admit. What’s not okay is refusing to learn from it. From your mistake. Or mistakes. Probably plural. At some point we have to understand that we sell ourselves short if we don’t go full bore into any and all possible heartache.

But that heartache comes. It’s a symptom of being human. Heartache, loss, lessons to learn and/or ignore - it’s all right there inextricably entwined with the dirtiest of dirty words: LOVE.

What to do with the destruction when it inevitably hits? What is a viable plan of attack? How do you get back up, chin to the dawn, ready to be hurt again? Damned if I know. Hell, I’m currently single. I’m divorced, I’ve never even successfully broken up with a woman. I’m pretty sure I’m writing this as a way to get to the answer myself. So let’s go on this journey together. What do you say? Great. Good. Here we go.

So I may not know how to become stronger or how to gird your loins sufficiently for yet another attack on your consistently compromised well being but I can easily list enough things not to do that maybe you can grow by a process of elimination if nothing else.

So in no particular order, here’s what to do:

1) Do not forget that you are NOT living without someone - you’re living IN SPITE of someone.

Okay, so I’m already cheating a little. This isn’t exactly a “not” but still... Give yourself some credit. You’re down. You feel out. You probably will for a while - but that’s all boiler plate normal break up crap. It’s been true forever and will continue to be true until the day the sun finally goes supernova and incinerates us all. (Note: this is not a day to patiently wait on regardless of how great an idea it may seem.) The sun is still up there and you’re still down here. If I had to guess, just that fact alone is enough to piss off your ex. Way to go!

2) Do NOT listen to “your song”.

You know you have one. Even if it’s unofficial there’s that one song that just screams every truth about how you both felt (or thought you did) when the relationship started. If you press play again one of two things will happen:

A) You’ll realize how full of bullshit the singer is and you’ll start to foster a deep and meaningful animosity to an otherwise innocent songwriter (…who is probably happily married to a super attractive person and totally made up every image of sadness and angst in all of their songs. Man! What a fucking poser!)

OR

B) You’ll realize the error of your ways. And your ex’s. All at once the past will become a crystal clear timeline of amazing peaks and valleys that aren’t actually as deep as you made them out to be in real time. There’s still a chance, right? Hell. No. This is your brain and/or libido playing tricks on you. Either way, it’s bullshit.

3) Do not think about your sexual encounters.

This cannot be stressed enough! And don’t give me the crap about how you were soul mates and the sex wasn’t really important. You’d be lying to me and what’s worse is you’d be lying to yourself. You’re better than that.

I make this point because I’ve learned it the hard way. To quote a pop song (or twenty): you can’t get over someone if you’re under them.

Oh, she does that thing you like with her teeth? Cool. She’s probably already doing it to someone else (assuming she waited until you were broken up to start). He has washboard abs and found your g-spot on the first shot? Great. Ten bucks says there’s at least a few other girls who’ll tell you the same thing…but the timing of their proof might depress you even more, so better to not think of it al all. And abs will give in to time and gravity eventually. A dad-bod is only a few fast food dinners away.

And for the love of all that is sacred delete every nude pic you two shared! Every time you look at their body you’ll wonder where their new partner likes to give them a hickey.

4) Do not keep their number, email, Snapchat, handle, etc in your phone.

DELETE THEM NOW. I’ll wait. Welcome back. I’m sure it hurt. But it’ll be a lot easier than trying to explain why you sent a Snap or random text at two AM on a Tuesday night. It’s 2020. Odds are good you never memorized their info before plugging it into your phone. The smart thing to do is scroll to their name and tap the big red delete button.

5) Do not get relationship advice from a single, divorced man who writes in a journal at 12:37 AM on a Saturday night after watching Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. Seriously. I thought that went without saying but here you are, still reading. Wow.

Look, I can’t tell you what to do and am not qualified to advise you on what not to do either. But you’ve already read this far so I guess the thing to remember above all else is that even if your ex isn’t showing it, they’re hurting too. They failed too. They tried something and it crashed and burned. They had to deal with it too. This isn’t a means to a Schadenfreude end but hopefully it opens your eyes - and possibly dry them. Look around. There’s more than one pity party happening tonight.

You can be a favor at the party or you can be the DJ who scratches the needle to a halt when a love song comes on and confidently drops the needle on an uptempo number bound to light a fire under the feet of every dancer on the floor. Even if the only dancer is you.

It's Water and Bridges Now...

It’s easy for water to go under bridges but it’s just as easy for the rapids to wash that bridge away completely. It really depends on the words that created the ripple someplace upstream.

In my experience it’s always best to have all your relationship conversations from the relative safety of dry land - preferably away from any blunt objects that could be used as weapons. Things are apt to get heated so best not to arm your opponent. The words are usually weaponized anyway.

I can look back at my twenty five plus years of dating (which I do to an alarmingly large sum) and count everything I’ve learned on both hands with a few fingers left over. My point being that I’m probably the farthest thing from an expert on the subject. Of course that will in no way stop me from writing about it and I hope it won’t stop you from reading it.

There’s a trick to recalling old arguments you want to write about twenty years after the fact. There is a singular enemy you must face down or the truth will never make its way to the paper. Two words need to be front of mind the entire time:

Fuck nostalgia.

With every fight will come a hundred rosy memories. A whole bunch of “for betters” tagging along with your one specific “or for worse” like some kind of cache of LiveJournal entries from 1996, moving at dial-up speeds but getting closer still. Just remember: no happy relationship ever ended in a split.

Oh, and it is NEVER mutual. That’s just more nostalgia mixed with 1980s rom-coms. It’s a lie and one you’ll most likely want to believe. Do yourself a favor: don’t.

I guess I should admit it now: I don’t know for a fact that I’ve ever actually won an argument with a girlfriend or my ex-wife. If you ask them, I certainly haven’t. I used to be embarrassed by that and don’t recall copping to it until just recently. And by “recently” I mean five words ago. I suppose in addition to nostalgia you should also keep these words front of mind:

Fuck ego.

Ego led to most of your fights, arguments, and misunderstandings. I don’t know you but I know it’s true. I’m certain of it. We all do it. Your fellow fighter was practicing a healthy amount of ego then too. It makes sense: you can’t be certain of your position - even if you get caught in a lie - without your common sense taking a back seat to your ego, like a fucked up bicycle built for two. And the chain keeps coming off. And there’s a flat tire. Still the ego is peddling harder and harder and not getting anywhere. Meanwhile common sense is there quietly asking the ego if he can say something. Of course he can’t.

So fuck nostalgia and ego and hold tight to common sense. It all seems so easy but it’s fucking not. You’re older now. You’ve learned so much in the intervening years. Yeah. Right. That’s what you think. If you learned so much then why did you continue to have arguments with every single human goodly enough to sleep with you? Exactly.

To this day I can pinpoint the interaction that ended every relationship I’ve ever been in . I can recall the topic of the final straw, where it took place, and how it started. What can’t I remember? Why was it THE last time we argued. Why did we let to get THAT far? Why did we convince ourselves we LOVED one another?

Against my better judgement and not acting on anything I’ve ever learned, I get sad. Melancholy reigns and all of a sudden the fight itself seems so inconsequential, it wasn’t really a big deal. We didn’t have to break up. I mean, what about the good times? What about that time...

I distracted the hostess at Denny’s while you shoved enough place settings into your purse to set a banquet?

That time in the hotel pool?

And the hot tub?

And the elevator?

And only stopping at the behest of the hotel security guard?

Those were interesting times and stories to never tell the kids. But the bigger and more important question is still lurking over in the corner and no matter how many elicit late night hotel stories you can conjure you can never strike it moot:

What about when you weren’t making memories that made you blush? What about the time...

You said you were at work late but went to coffee with that cute girl from work?

You picked a fight so you could stay up later and write without being bothered?

You caught your wife in a lie and her friend was much more than a friend

Your work friend made a move and you didn’t reject it?

Not all nostalgia is pretty. But that’s the ugly price of admission to the twisted theme park of your past. All the kiddie rides were torn down years ago, probably before your last fight. All that remains in that disaster Disneyland is a boarded up churro stand and a rusty Tilt-a-Whirl, which is actually a blessing. Sure, you’re about to become very dizzy and disoriented but there’s not going to be anything sweet to mask the desolation. Trust me, it’s for the best.

One last thing: there’s going to be people, well meaning friends mostly, who are going to tell you not to bother, that rehashing the past is a fool’s errand. you can add them to the list of things you can “fuck”. They aren’t you. They don’t own the same memories you own.

Oh yes, dear reader. You OWN them. They are yours to ignore, distort, relive, alter completely, or decide to look at through smudged and cracked rose colored glasses. You earned every memory like you earned every crack in those glasses. Use them both, the glasses and the memories.

Just do it on dry land and away from all blunt objects.

An Id You Can Dance To

Let me give you some advice: when a woman says she loves a certain song - PAY ATTENTION!

I don’t know you. I don’t know your life in any respect. Hell, I don’t even claim to know about women. I’m also not a therapist but there’s probably a lot one could say about this. But what I do know is that music speaks louder and more truthfully than most realize.

Every woman I’ve met (every person, for that matter) has not only a favorite song but also one they feel epitomizes them to a catchy beat. It’s an id you can dance to. Music is great when it helps you forget; chases away your troubles. Maybe even cloud your mind as to the true meaning of the song to the point where you misconstrue the words to the detriment of your psyche. You can try to deny it all you want but I’m not wrong.

You want receipts? Great. Thought you’d never ask. Here are a few examples from my past. Yes, this is far from scientific. And yes, the sample size is lacking. But I’m just one average guy, a little dorky, who has never been a home run hitter in the lady department so why don’t you just back off, dammit?!

Sorry. I’m better now. Away we go.

She Talks To Angels - The Black Crowes

I start here because this was often referred to as a favorite when it came out and is still pointed to by girls who randomly come across it on 90s Spotify playlists.

First of all it’s a damn fine song. Catch hooks, great tempo, the perfect length to get lost in. It’s sung to perfect early 90s pop/rock perfection. We agree: it’s a great song.

But.

The lyrics, ladies. The lyrics. Please open your internet browser of choice, click on over to Google, and search up the lyrics. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Welcome back.

See what I mean? The subject of the song doesn’t exactly talk to angels because she fell from heaven herself. I’ve always wondered how the first four lines didn’t raise a bunch of red flags:

She never mentions the word addiction / in certain company // Yes, she’ll tell you she’s an orphan / after you meet her family

She we have a pathological liar with a chemical dependency. Great start. Later we learn:

She don’t know no lover / none that I ever seen ... There’s a smile when the pain comes / pain’s gonna make everything alright 

I’m willing to read that first part as she’s a virgin, whether in reality or in that “born again” way, my money resting confidently on the latter. But that second part is clear self harm.

So please ladies - unless you’re a sociopath with delusions, a penchant for cutting and lying, please find a different song.

(In the spirit of full disclosure I once played this song for a girl in lieu of actually breaking up with her. I was an ass. Kristy, it’s been twenty years but I’m really sorry for being such a douche.)

I Want To Save You - Something Corporate

On the surface it’s a really touching song. It’s poppy, approachable. The singer wants nothing more than to swoop in and save the day. It’s actually one of my favorite songs ever. But I’m a guy.

Let’s be blunt: the girl in the song is lost and broken. She’s afraid. She fragile. She may even be in an abusive relationship (depending on how you listen to the song). She deserves better, that’s for sure. She is in need of someone to swoop in, it’s not just something she wants.

But at some point in every life one must make their own way and call their own shots. The girl in the song will have to do it eventually too. This song is perfectly acceptable in high school, or even into your early 20s. But when you’re pushing thirty and still playing this song as a way to justify your own self-imposed prison of a life...

Press the “next track” button, move on, and grow up.

Pretty Girl - Sugarcult

I think it’s only fair that I preface this by admitting this was my personal MySpace profile song back in the day. (I was going to say “back when that was acceptable” but I’m not sure it ever really was.)

Pretty girl is suffering while he confesses everything / pretty soon she’ll figure out what his intentions were about

So far, so good. She fell for a louse and she’s about to learn a lesson. It’ll probably hurt a bit but she can use it for good and grow. Right?

She’s beautiful as usual with bruises on her ego and / her killer instinct tells her to beware of evil men

Great! Tossed that asshat to the curb! And learned your lesson! Fantastic!

And that’s what you get for falling in love... / It’s the way he makes you feel ... that he kisses you ... that he makes you fall in love.

Wait. Now we’re victim shaming? She tossed his ass right out of her life - awesome! But then they guy keeps coming around and reminding her of only the good things. That’s not acceptable. That’s what a damn sociopath does. Run girl! You’re stronger than this! The second verse says so!

I could keep going but I think I’ve made my point. It’s easy to listen to a song without really thinking about it...but that’s an extremely bad idea.

Okay. I know what you’re thinking. I get it. Maybe I just have horrible taste in women. Maybe I’m the weak one. Maybe I’ve never been strong and I’ve always sought out women just a little more broken than me. 

What do you mean “maybe”?

If You Ever Get Lonely Just Go To The Record Store And Visit Your Friends

I doubt very much I had sobered up enough to drive myself but I blinked and somehow ended up in a record store. For the life of me I couldn’t tell you how I had gotten there but I wasn’t complaining. I was still nursing a healthy buzz (at least) and an Evan Dando record was beckoning me to touch it; to slip the vinyl out of the sleeve and caress its grooves. I submitted. Dando has always had that effect on me regardless of my level of inebriation.

The store was just off campus of the state school I attended in the late 90s and early 2000s. I must specify this for the simple fact that the store was ridiculously out of place and time. The decor was a mix of early-to-mid-grunge and alternative (with some rock thrown in to appease that small contingent), leaning heavily into the jam bands and eschewing anything with so much as a whiff of ska. The requisite threadbare carpet secured at odd angles and sporadic spots by silver duct tape and black gaffer tape so uniformly dirty one wondered if it was manufactured that way. The categorization of the shelves could best be described as “Oh shit, the K-M soul rack is full! Screw it, let’s just shove N-Z over here by the Japanese Black Flag imports!” To the owner’s credit the LPs, CDs, and cassettes were at least in different locations. This made for easy retrieval of bootleg New York Dolls shows on tape and Merle Haggard records without tripping over Bel Biv DeVoe CDs in the dollar bin.

The man behind the counter looked exactly the way you want a record store owner to look. Tall, lanky, a little on the unkempt side (I’m being generous). He smelled of rubbing alcohol and Right Guard spray. The disaffected snarl was an obvious hold over from youth, which was already at least twenty years in the rear view before I walked in. I found this odd then, and maybe a little sad. But now twenty years later...I get it. Good God do I ever get it!

I didn’t stay long that first visit. I sobered up enough to make some mental notes and introduce myself to the failed Jethro Tull roadie behind the counter and buy my small haul before going home to study. An hour later I was passed out on my bed, more than a few empty Miller bottles next to me and It’s a Shame About Ray by The Lemonheads on the turntable. (Dammit, Dando!)

I went back a few days later - sober this time. At least that’s how I recall it...but given my proclivity to alcohol consumption at the time I would very much doubt this recollection. So back I went, soberish, with a student aid check burning a hole in my pocket. Music, I reasoned, is the only real teacher anyone ever has. It’s the first one and the last one and is there for all the moments in between, ready to lift you up and knock you down. If I was supposed to get an education with that money what better place to start than a record store? 

The storefront was in the center of a three unit building. There had been pristine metal and brickwork once upon a time. But by the dawn of Y2K it was a jumble of hastily pasted handbills of local shows, all underground, most likely forgotten and poorly attended. Vans stickers vied for space and attention next to indie record label decals. Scotch taped ticket stubs hung facing out of the windows. But the windows were no longer really windows. Rather they were caked with layer upon layer of album release posters. Most chain stores would have destroyed or returned the displays to keep with the major label’s rules. But not here. Fuck that, EMI! Screw you, Sony! These posters stopped being decoration years ago. Now they were part of the store. They were structural, god dammit! Take them down and the whole fucking building is going too! The strangely inviting scent of sandalwood, rubbing alcohol, vinegar, and weed (and B.O. obviously) was just as important and beckoned me inside.

I reached for the handle and my fingertips encountered something sticky. For some reason this made me smile. It comforted me. It made me know before entering that I was far from the corporate world of shiny racks and name tagged employees. There wasn’t a mall for miles.

I entered to what has to be the most perfect song for a moment like this: Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side. I’m not one to look for signs but sometimes they smack you in the damn face.

Now that I was seeing more clearly with less double vision (thanks, Lou!) I got my first real sense of the layout. It was actually quite unassuming. A big square with a smaller square at the center, where a worn down, hand-made counter (barely) stood. Each square was dedicated to different ways one could assail their ears with noise. Behind the register stood the olfactory obliterator himself, king of his personal musical Savannah. I instantly adored him.

Each corner was an oasis of a different format. LPs to the back and right. Cassettes to the back and left. CDs - front left. The last corner, front right, with the only sliver of glass to peek through from the street was chock full of rarities. 45s, 78s, imports, CD singles - even Cassingles, for chrissake! There were some concert VHS tapes thrown in for good measure, but they were in a bin on the floor with a handmade sign that read JUST FUCKING TAKE THESE in big, bold, black letters. I can only assume the proprietor took a few hearty sniffs of the Sharpie before capping it after the sign was done. 

Behind Blue Eyes.

Just like that we switched from Lou to The Who. I didn’t mind. I’ve always preferred them to most bands of their era. Besides I’ve never been able to connect with Lou Reed. Maybe he’s too hard to dance to. That said I had a feeling I would be giving the semi-comatose man behind the counter a dance show before I was through flipping the records labeled “ALT, A-Am”. Deciding to test that theory I made a beeline for the vinyl.

The floor creaked under the stained with god-doesn’t-even-know-what carpet under my worn out red Chucks. My personal turntable was on its last revolutions but that hadn’t stopped me from searching out my favorites on the fragile medium. I was surprised at the craftsmanship of the record bins as I approached. Maybe in another universe the guy behind the counter wasn’t a mute, wasn’t as rigid. He was a soft spoken artisan. I looked back to comment on the work but he was crouching down. I craned my neck to see what he was doing down there. He was changing the record. I was the only customer in the store so he was playing the music just for himself. And good for him.

I flipped though all the A’s, B’s, and most of the C’s before the first few notes of the title track from Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska album hit my ears. That harmonica could make me stop everything every damn time and just listen. It still does. It’s an under appreciated record and truly deserves a place in every music collection. This guy knew The Truth. I was pretty sure it was his personal copy. Suddenly embarrassed I flipped my way to the “Rock, Sa-Sp” section. Bruce was about to get a new home a good distance from Nebraska.

The owner let the record be and The Boss sang about Atlantic City. I made my way to the tapes. I had been in the market for a copy of Lick by The Lemonheads with liner notes intact. Sure enough this musical messiah had two copies, both pristine. So the trio from Boston joined Jersey’s own son in my arms. (I also grabbed a copy of Come On Feel since I was there and, you know, Dando!) For a reason still lost to me I also chose a copy of The Cars Greatest Hits. I had the vinyl so I didn’t really need it. Maybe it just looked so lonely by itself there sort of out of place on the bottom between a Clarence Carter Columbia House CD (still kicking myself for not snatching that one!) and a Carter Family compilation. Regardless of why, I took it and introduced the band to Evan and the boys and The Boss. They seemed glad to meet but I still needed more friends. I spied a few 8 tracks in a milk crate over by the imports but they appeared to be mostly disco compilations so I veered to the CDs. It was glossy and bright compared to the rest of the store but with all the squares of plastic reflecting the fluorescent lights the trick your eyes played was nothing short of amazing. You suddenly wanted everything. Every. Thing. Even the Yanni.

Okay. Maybe not the Yanni.

Strangely there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the CDs. They stood vertically in shoebox after shoebox. It’s entirely possible he bought a lot of discs at an estate sale or liquidation and just didn’t think it was necessary to order them. But then I started flipping through them and realized a much more probable answer: he didn’t bother because they all sucked. There was nothing remotely contemporary. Nothing originally released in the 90s even. It was something like ten shoeboxes full - hundreds of discs, thousands of hours - of digitized “remasters” of Frankie Yankovic and Lawerence Welk. Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s room for all music in the world but a college town in northern Illinois isn’t exactly a hotbed of polka fanatics.

I was about to give up but my attention was distracted by a curly cord, the ends of which were just out of my sight. I put my sonic booty on the floor and walked to the wall where I finally recognized the cord for what I was hoping it was: headphones! And Koss PortaPros, no less! The input was sticking out of a Sony single tray component CD player. I looked to the record store version of a wooden Indian.

“Hey man. Can I, like...listen to a CD before I, like, buy it?”

I never talked like that. I wasn’t from the Valley. I didn’t hang out at malls and use copious amounts of AquaNet in the 80s. But there I was saying like so many times in a five second span I felt like the world’s shittiest Tourette’s sufferer. The man either didn’t notice or didn’t care enough to point it out. He just nodded and I nodded back. Can’t go wrong with a nod.

I had to move a few copies of Rolling Stone (this was back when the publication was relevant) and a sizable pile of classical CDs teetering on top of the machine. I glanced at the titles and claimed a mint copy of La Boheme and a  Mahler symphony. I hit the eject button on the front. The tray slipped out like a black tongue promising all sorts of elicit pleasure. Someone had been here before and had left the soundtrack to their aural experience.

Dashboard Confessional - The Swiss Army Romance. (PROMO ONLY - NOT FOR SALE!)

I pressed play and adjusted the PortaPros to my melon. I wasn’t expecting much but I could have expected the world and still been impressed.That album quickly became a staple for me that year and provided the soundtrack to more than a few failed relationships and even more drunken fights between friends...mostly because of the girls from said failed relationships. 

I let three tracks wash over me before I reluctantly removed the CD and placed it in its case. I took the headphones off and placed them gently on the player, as though they were the sole means of hearing the Ultimate Truth. In many ways they were. Maybe that’s why I went out soon after and got my own pair of PortaPros.

I looked to my left, toward the front of the store, and saw the rest of the CDs. There were even more magazines scattered on top of the proper CD racks, along with promo posters for bands I would soon come to love: OAR, Dispatch, The Posies, and more that were partially obscured. But those, as well as the import section, would have to wait. I had places to be (a bar) and people to meet (another failed romance). I brought my treasures to the silent store owner and he silently rang me up and I silently gave him cash and as the register dinged and the drawer clanged open he silently gave me my change.

I felt a little bad walking out. I had just robbed the poor guy and he seemed not to notice. I paid a little bit of money to take home a priceless collection of joy and sonic friendships that only exist between PLAY and STOP. 

But then again maybe it was me who got ripped off. I only had a few new friends in my bag. That mute maestro in there was surrounded by thousands of friends he knew intimately. I had never met most of them.

Yet.

I would be back again. And next time I’d be ready to make every friend I possibly could.   

there was a boy / a strange enchanted boy

Eventually it became one of my favorite movies. It took a good long while. It will be crystal clear as to why in very short order.

First: a prologue.

Her name was - no. Let’s not do that. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone. Besides, giving a name to something quickly leads to them becoming dear, precious. Part of you. She isn’t a part of me. Yes, she is. Well, sort of. She’s still a part of me in the way anyone who came into your life, tossed your everything into the air, and then disappeared before all of it came crashing down could be.

So, yeah. No names.

My girlfriend at the time and I were over. We both knew it and had already begun moving on. To be fair nothing was actually ever said...but sometimes nothing need be said. The silence and forced smiles (and lovemaking, cohabitation, dinners, cat ownership, etc.) said it all. Four and half years of not-quite-happiness was coming to an end and neither of us fought it.

Enter: the other girl.

And I mean ENTER! All caps, bold, italics, exclamation point, fucking NEON! I don’t even know what happened. One minute I was content with exactly what I had and how it was. Not happy but content. The next moment she was there and nothing made sense anymore. A million questions all at once smacked my brain. Who? Where? How? Name? I couldn’t even think in sentence fragments. Only words; utterances. Luckily (?) my face didn’t broadcast my sudden onset dumbfoundedness.

And then it happened. My friend said the words I couldn’t form. “Come here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

I’d love to regale you, dear reader, with the minutia of the next three hours but that’s all lost to alcohol and whatever the pills du jour were for me at that time. There was karaoke. There was hand holding. Dancing. Whispers. Phone numbers exchanged. I walked her to her car. A kiss on the cheek. A smile that was both the first of many and not enough - and a warning besides.

I watched her drive away. I immediately called her number and joked that I wanted to make sure it was real. It was a mask for my lifelong insecurity and I’m sure she saw through it but she was kind enough not to point it out. Never once did my girlfriend cross my mind.

Until she did.

I held no ill will for her. I didn’t want to hurt her. I went home clutching the new girl’s number and promised myself I wouldn’t use it again until I ended things with my girlfriend. Six hours later I was sitting on the front lawn of her house explaining it was all my fault and to blame only me and blah, blah, blah. Then she scrunched her face as if the words I was directing at her were especially sour (which, in fairness, they were). She spoke.

“No.”

For the second time in as many days I was speechless. Could this actually happen? Was it allowed? Can someone reject a rejection? I don’t know how long I sat there, mouth agape as she studied my dental work with unblinking steady eyes. She shook her head as if prompting - defying - me to speak. All I could utter was a choked, “Um, yes?”

She reiterated her position with a nod and shrug.

I did the only thing I could think of: I got up and left. She didn’t stop me, which in retrospect I should have interpreted as a bad thing. But like most men - boys - of twenty I had other things on my mind. And that was, obviously, another girl.

No. Not just “another girl”. Not by a long shot. In the fourteen hours since I had met her (but who’s counting?) I had already elevated her to status higher than saint, princess, or queen. She was too precious to touch, impossible to behold with mere human eyes. She belonged on Olympus. She belonged on the highest possible currency in every country in the world. She could rule over every planet and civilization in the known universe. And when we map more of the stars she would take those over as well - and the inhabitants would welcome her with open arms.

Current me sees the folly in this. Luckily for you, dear reader, current me is still twenty years away at this point.

Buckle up!

The entirety of the courtship process was two dates, if you could call them that. A house party and a double date with another couple. The fact that we were “official” was never really official. We just sort of silently agreed to be a couple. Somehow that worked. Wow! We didn’t even need communication to make this work! Wow! (Yeah...I know...)

So there we were: one intergalactic overlord...and me. I only really considered to question why I was there after the fact. Years later. But I had only just begun my string of questionable decisions so what was one more?

To wit: I didn’t know until more than two weeks later that she was, in fact, still in high school. I’ll allow you a moment to regain your composure (and respect for me). It’s okay. I’ll wait.

Moving on.

I bring this up because while it isn’t the ultimate in red flags it certainly should have been a little one, just visible in the corner of my eye. A tiny parade size hand flag down there in my periphery. Meh. Who am I kidding? I would have ignored that too.

I immediately convinced myself that eighteen and twenty wasn’t really such a far stretch. It’s only two years. Nothing weird or head turning about that. Yes, I know. I can hear you screaming it because I know it now: those are two of the most formative years in early adulthood. Personally I had spent a majority of that time drinking, drugging, and almost flunking out of a state school. (How the hell do you flunk out of a state college, you ask? Not sure, but it seems I was a natural at it.)

Before too long we were at each other’s side daily. Well, daily after, you know...school. And it was close to the end of her senior year. And I was her de facto boyfriend. I think you know where this is going.

It’s mid-May, I’m in a rented tux of her choosing, posing for pictures with her in a dress she ordered her father to buy for her. We went to the prom in a limo I couldn’t afford but she insisted upon. We got to the dance and only danced the numbers she liked.

Are you sensing a pattern?

Now: a flashback.

It’s 1989. I’m nine (but almost ten!). There’s a commercial on television all the time. It was during a rerun of ALF that my life and worldview shifted in a fundamental way. I really wish I had realized it and given the moment more ceremony than I was able to muster. But I was nine, so expectations were set to a default of ‘low’. The tag line on the commercial made no sense to me: A Lloyd Meets Girl Story. Huh? Peter Gabriel starts singing to his love about getting lost sometimes. His grand facade will soon burn. He is totally mute and sans pride. A boy stands in front of car. He is forlorn. He is lovesick. Even a nine year old can see that. Then it happens: John Cusack lifts the boom box and a few quick edits later the commercial ends with Lloyd and his girl driving away, most likely into the brightest and most perfect future any couple could ever hope for! Lloyd meets girl. As the screen faded to black I get it. 

What I’m saying is: I hold John Cusack personally responsible for not only my questionable relationship choices but my inability to accept that the person I’m with isn’t my soul mate. Seriously. All his fault. If I hadn’t seen Say Anything in 1989 who knows where I’d be today.

Now where were we? Ah, yes. The prom.

Given my penchant for romantic delusion I had actually been trying to figure out the perfect time and place to finally tell her a loved her. I had even prepared to counter her inevitable ‘but we’ve only been dating two months’. I would say that two months was actually fifty nine days more than I needed to know. Thinking back now as I write this I’m annoyed by a tiny voice from my memory chastising me for spouting this bullshit in the first place when I knew even then that it wasn’t true. But bullshit or not we were going to be on a cruise on Lake Michigan after the dance. I would take her to the deck and let the lights of Chicago and the starts above fill in for me if I lost my nerve. Let her get lost in the light as I fumble for my words.

After what seemed like far too long the dance ended. We made our way to the party bus, hopped on, and travelled downtown in relative silence. When we went aboard the boat the same DJ from the dance was playing the same songs he had just played at the dance for the same group of teenagers (and one twenty year old) that were just at the dance. It was surreal and deserves its own focus someday. But not now. Now is the time for true love to conquer all.

In the middle of Lady Marmalade she tugged me over to the side of the parquet dance floor and motioned for me to follow her further. She led me to the stairs that led to the deck. Well that was easy, I thought. I happily followed her like a puppy about to be adopted.

It was cold in the open air of the lake. I gave her my tux jacket and she accepted it with a slight smile. Then she turned to me. She took my hands in hers. We locked eyes. I opened my mouth and was drawing in a ragged breath to speak when she broke the silence.

“I love you.”

Wait. What? Huh. Okay then. Pressure off. Breathing and heart rate can return to normal. Shit! No they can’t! She just told me she loves me! And - crap! She’s still talking and I’ve been in my head since those three words. Did she just say something about college? Downstate? I’m in college upstate. Stop! Listen to her, for God’s sake!

“...but that’s months away. I just wanted you to know that I love you. Now.”

I mustered something like ‘right..’ before finally snapping fully back to the deck of a boat on a lake in front of a city that suddenly seemed small next to this woman - this girl - in front of me. I smiled and returned her I Love You with one of my own. It felt right. I felt like I was telling the truth. Mostly. The woman - the girl - smiled and kissed my quivering lips. If I only knew at that moment just how much closer to a girl she was than to a woman...

Interlude: Love, smiles, I Love You’s tossed like rose petals at our feet. Days spent together in public, nights spent in private. Soft, vague plans of someday...someday... Above all else though: a willful ignorance of the future. And reality.

Cut to: The future. And reality.

We didn’t fight. Not directly. We did however stop talking. Obviously communication was never our strong suit but even the rudimentary process we had atrophied with disuse. She got new friends I was never introduced to. Or maybe they were old friend reconnected. I never knew.

Then she set up her first campus visit to pick her college. It seems I had missed that part when we were on the boat when my brain pulled the double clutch. That’s what she claimed and since I had no real way to disprove this I smiled and nodded. She would be gone for a weekend. I shrugged it off and tried hard to ignore the fact that I had never heard of an all weekend campus visit, especially to one of the smallest colleges in the state. So like any dutiful boyfriend I packed her car, give her a kiss, and waved goodbye.

In more ways than one, it would turn out.

I’m not going to pretend I was perfect and blameless over the course of the weekend. I remain at a total loss even today as to why I called her room so many times or why I insisted on talking to her repeatedly at midnight or later. Contrary to my actions I’m not stupid. I’m not going to defend my behavior but still. I knew a girl like that with no supervision...my heart was in for a smack down.

She came home Sunday night. My phone rang and in lieu of an “I missed you!” she told me to take her to a movie. She was tired from the drive and activities from the weekend. I agreed on the condition that we talked afterward. I didn’t know I was not only driving to my very own romantic Waterloo but also pay for the noose she would soon tighten around the neck she hugged so lovingly just seventy two hours before.

She would drive. The theater wasn’t far and she was, she claimed, beginning to get a second wind. So off we went in total silence. When we arrived I ask a general and inconsequential question. I got a mumble and a shrug.

I got denied when I went in for a kiss while waiting in line. Same for a simple hand hold. We get to the ticket booth, she tosses down a fifty, and says, “Two for Moulin Rouge.”

Moulin. Fucking. Rouge.

A musical that, while I had been waiting to see it, I was not expecting to take in that night. But here we were, tickets already paid for. No choice but to get on with it. We did not stop at the concession stand. We found our theater, found out seat. As the lights began to dim she whispered, “I saw this over the weekend with Brian and I think it’s important for you to see.”

Brian? Who the fuck is Brian?!

I’m sure there were trailers but I don’t recall.When the film company’s logo flashed on the screen she leaned over and say, “Pay attention.” and nodded to the screen. And I can’t be sure but I almost recall something akin to whimsy cross her face. From barren to whimsy in five seconds flat. Damn.

The screen flickered for next two hours and ten minutes. Lavish songs, dancing, acting, and overacting filled every frame. It’s a marvel of filmmaking. Gorgeous.

But who the hell is Brian?

She had said to pay attention. I did. But I also gave sideways glances to her facial expressions. They were not innocent. Was it guilt? Maybe. But as it happened the movie was the most obvious admission of guilt she could have possibly displayed. And I got it from the first frame.

We open on a heartbroken and recently disheveled writer at a typewriter (a little on the nose, don’t you think?). His anguish is the most elaborate set piece in the shot. As he begins to type you learn the source of his pain - and the reason I’m in the theater: the woman he loves is gone.

Imagine understanding that, having it all click into place in the first few seconds of a two hour and ten minute movie. Eleven seconds before, you were spoken for. Now you’re a single dope in a dark room with a woman who is enjoying herself a little too much. Just as David Bowie sings about his Nature Boy her face switches from whimsy to smug satisfaction. Unmitigated, unwelcome, and unearned satisfaction. Does she really think this movie is going to be a sort of Dear John letter to me? Not quite...but that’s getting ahead of the story.

The movie utilized several 1980s pop songs in its narrative and it becomes quickly obvious that the male lead is my emotional doppelgänger. That’s all fine and good (and demoralizingly accurate). But by that logic the female lead is her. The female lead. The prostitute. The one who doesn’t leave the man, but rather dies. Okay...if you say so.

If one looks only at the end of the first act to the beginning of the third, which is to say the majority of the love story itself, it does a surprisingly good job at conveying her message. She didn’t want to hurt me so she was going to push me away - make me blame her for everything. She’d take blame, wear it like a badge of fallen honor. I couldn’t say it was a foreign concept to me.

When the lights finally came up the male lead was still suicidal, the female lead was still dead, and I was still wondering who the fuck Brian was. I didn’t want to look at her but was fairly certain she was looking at me so I moved my eyes. Nope. She was fumbling in her pocket. She had slumped down a bit, deflated at some point, I missed exactly when.

She handed me a twice folded sheet of college ruled, spiral bound paper. It was warm from her body heat. I was struck with the realization I never would be again. I could see writing on both sides in her loopy script. I could also see the closing. It stung. I wasn’t expecting it. I probably should have.

The word was “sincerely”.

The word was not “love”.

“Read it at home.” She ordered politely, though I could have drowned in the acrimonious undertow. She got up and walked out, presumably to the car. I remained frozen. My tears refused to fall even with my implicit permission to do so. The film ran out and I blinked hard. I shoved the note in my pocket and slouched out. I caught up with her in the parking lot. I was more than a little shocked she had waited. Needless to say the ride back to my car was drenched in silence.

We got to her house and she killed the engine.

“Read it.”

Caught off guard but eager to read it (against the nagging voice in my head) I tentatively took it out and unfolded it. Before my eyes had a chance to focus on the first words she began crying. I ignored her to the best of my ability.

Dear _____, I’m so sorry.

“I’m going to finish this at home.” I stuffed it back in my pocket and almost tripped extracting myself from her car. I knew she continued to cry but to this day I don’t know if they were tears of sorrow or relief. It doesn’t matter. But I hope they were sorrow.

I never read the note. It’s still sitting in a box in my closet. Sure, I skimmed it. I learned enough. Brian was a sophomore at the school, a “nice guy” - I would “like him” - she actually wrote that. They went skinny dipping in a river. She told me that too. There was more but I studied the closing more than anything. It hadn’t changed. No love. No hearts. No feeling. Sincerity is not a feeling. In this case I wouldn’t even consider it an action. 

My phone rang early the next day. It was her.

“Come over.”

I was used to jumping for her so I grabbed the cleanest dirty clothes I could find and rushed over. It had rained overnight and the sky was threatening to let loose again in that singular way only the midwestern sky can.

And let go it did!

I should have pulled over. Visibility quickly dropped but I continued on. As I approached her street it seemed to let up but the rain still fell in thick cold splats on my windshield. I pulled into her driveway. I could see her through the glass of the front door.

My heart leapt. I was flush with lust, forgiveness, foolishness, and an urgent need to touch her; to feel her in my arms and feel her lips on mine. I needed - required - the smell of her hair in my nostrils. I needed to be reminded of everything perfect and unalterable and undeniable. I needed her.

My door was open and my left foot touched the ground before the car was in park. I don’t recall the sensation of walking or breathing or the rain on my head because I could see her. She was just on the other side of that door, not thirty feet away. I smiled as big and as real as I could. This was it. She was going to be mine again. I would hold her, cherish her, protect her. We would be happy. We would be-

She opened the door wide, then cracked the screen door. She cleared her throat loud enough to hear from the driveway and over the rain. She motioned for me stop.

She wasn’t smiling.

I stopped smiling.

She looked past me. (Had she ever not?)

I looked directly at the face I knew I loved.

She cleared her throat again.

She spoke.

“I don’t love you.”

She shut the door. She locked the door. Disappeared somewhere behind it.

I stood in glorious confusion, but only for a moment. My senses returned in a flash. I blinked.

The movie had ended this way:

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

My story ends:

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is how to love without being loved in return.”

I win.

The Magical, Mysterious Man

My dad had a weak left eye. You wouldn’t have known it to look at him from a distance. He didn’t walk funny or shoot out his hands desperately flailing for a wall to direct his uneven steps. But if you got close - close enough to, say, hug him, you could catch the blurry distortion through the left lens of his eye glasses. Sure, it was still my stoic old man behind the spectacles but the fun house mirror magnification of his worry worn eyes would make you almost certain you heard a carnival barker. It was faint, but you still followed the instruction to step right up, step right up!

He imparted upon me a predilection to honesty so I must admit that anything I say has been laundered countless times by every recollection sprung to mind in a moment of reflection and hung to dry along the years since he passed and since I grew up, if he ever really did and if I ever really have. Because of this the memories have become worn and delicate. Some holes have been repaired with suppositions and events that almost possibly maybe happened. In other words, his memory in my mind is far from absolute and infallible. But damn it if he wasn’t magic.

The whole man was magic. It was a simple magic, but magic nonetheless. He didn’t know any spells of which I was aware but he was in constant command of his surroundings, bending everything to meet his needs. That is, unless my mom wanted for something, in which case he willed his magic to accommodate her whims. If he was a magician she was his assistant. (I’m quite certain that if asked he would insist those roles were reversed. But for the sake of recollection we will keep this version of history.)

Of all the astounding displays of prestidigitation he was capable of the most memorable and awe-inspiring was also his most simple: He made me smile. Even at times I didn’t want to or times I didn’t feel worthy of happiness he was there with a strong fatherly word of advice (“Don’t be stupid next time!”) and something that, for him, passed as affection. This varied depending on his mood but it was usually a strong hand on my shoulder. His hands were always rough from manual labor. Later in life they were gnarled by unspoken arthritis. But no matter the condition of his hands they would calm my inner commotion and repair me enough to go on to the next self-inflicted childhood trauma into which I was unknowingly about to walk.

He wasn’t one for long talks or bouts of introspection. I don’t know that he ever did any intense soul searching in all his sixty-six years. I doubt he tossed so much as a cursory net into his past and trawled it for any wisdom for himself. But oh, did he ever do that for others. That is to say, he did it for my sisters and me. To this day I remember the story about how he used his older brother’s baseball without permission. When his brother found out my dad was chased to the middle of the street and cowered in the fetal position as his brother wound up and chucked the ball at my dad’s head with all his might. My dad would laugh when he recalled how far the ball bounced into the air, higher than any of the three-flats on the Chicago side street he grew up on. When the ball came back down - dented by my father’s skull, which luckily wasn’t! - his brother collected it, helped my dad up, dusted him off, and went inside to listen to the radio. This is a story I was told maybe one hundred times before my tenth birthday. My dad never tired of telling it. I never tired of hearing it. As a writer and teller of stories I can tell you: that is some kind of magic, right there. And what was the moral of this story? Sometimes you get what you deserve. Karma, baby.

Karma can be a kind of magic I suppose. I doubt very much my dad would have put it that way but he did give me the most important and all-encompassing advice anyone has ever given me. He teaching me how to drive and I began to drift to the neighboring lane. He looked at me calmly (which was a departure from his usual driving lesson demeanor) and said, “The car is going to go where you point it.”. That’s a direct quote. He said is twenty five years ago but in my mind it was earlier today. Ten words that I still use today. To wit: if I do something on Monday the repercussions may not be felt until Friday, but you can bet they’ll be felt. Do something nice, eventually it’ll come back to you. Do something bad...well, you know the routine. And so did he. He wasn’t a praying man, didn’t particularly like going to church. He had seen a lot and done a lot, not all sunny and positive. He seemingly felt his lot in life was to be as he was, and he came to be happy with it. Then he met my mother and knew immediately that he did not deserve her. No way. He hadn’t yet done enough good to cancel out even half of the bad. But now this woman - perfect to his eyes (and many others as well) - wanted to be with him, just as he was. I like to think it was that understanding that led him to being a strong husband and father. He wasn’t perfect but he was accomplished. He sinned and was forgiven. Life pointed him in a certain direction and he went there. Karma or magic? My brain says karma but my gut says magic. Magic it is.

More magic:

My dad couldn’t fly but he could bestow upon me the gift of flight whenever he felt. No countdown. No preflight checklist. No tower to radio to. It was ground to air in two seconds flat with my tiny body perched precariously atop his wide feet on the end of his spindly, toned legs. Whoosh! And I was off! Off to the moon! Off to Albuquerque! Off to Paris! Rome! Our living room couch! But look out! Oh no! The engine! You’re gonna crash! And KAPOW! He would cradle me into his chest, breaking my momentary free fall. He would tickle me and bask in the smile of his son. It was magic.

As I grew my father’s knack for magical showmanship subsided somewhat. I guess that’s the natural progression of things. Your children inch toward adulthood. They get taller, thus making takeoffs much more difficult than landings. School, dating, homework, friends - everything seems to come before what used to be paramount: time with your magical patriarch. It’s a natural part of adolescence, however sad in retrospect. But like so many things you think you lost in your youth, the magic never really went away. Rather, it just needed a little rejuvenation.

My father’s first grandchild was born in late 2004, followed only nine days later by his second. A third come a few years later. Obviously I knew what my father was capable of when given the opportunity to perform for a captive audience. But I had only first hand knowledge. I was the lone audience taking in the show for so many years; a crowd of one. Now I got to see the man in action, fresh from semi-retirement and ready to engage with a whole new generation of believers in exactly the kind of magic he specialized in.

You may think a baby smiling isn’t magic. Quite the opposite, you say. It’s common. I understand why you would think this. I just hope you understand that you’re wrong. It may not be magical when it happens to the unimpressive masses like you and me but when those smiles are directed at someone who holds a unique quality like my father had the smiles are nothing short of transcendent. Danny Kaye had nothing on the contortions into which my dad could arrange his features. A baby isn’t supposed to have such awareness as a newborn or infant but - Abracadabra! - my dad waved his invisible wand, scrunched his face, and had his grandchildren smiling and cooing within hours of their births. And in the event he stuck out his tongue you would think the children were in need of medical attention - they could hardly catch their breath! Magic.

Unfortunately every show must come to an end. No matter the success of the run, time does what time does. That is not magic, just how reality trods along. Two other sets of eyes - my other children, born after his passing - have been able to peek behind the velvet curtain that came down at the same moment as his eyelids did for that last time. And that’s the enchanting thing about charms: they are transferable. They aren’t corporal but they exist in things that are and thus can be passed down to the next willing apprentice.

I may not be a deserving apprentice but I am a willing one. I have been taught by a master among men. I have gleaned enough to fill in the gaps of those lessons that simply can’t be taught. I have a strong foundation upon which to build my castle of magic and illusion. Someday I’ll toss the keys to the gate to my children. Then - ah, then! My father’s best trick of all will finally become real: he will be immortal.