“That’s a great book,” said the dark haired stranger sitting across the hall. Dylan looked up from his copy of I, Claudius, literally holding together its three distinct parts by the binding that had all but fallen apart. Robert Graves would have shrieked in panic to see his masterpiece as loosely bound as if it had spent a New York winter on the windowsill over a radiator.
“Yeah,” Dylan said, not wanting to stir too much conversation, and tried to go back to his reading of the Roman imbecile.
“Robert Graves is a bit effusive with his plot, though,” continued the stranger. “I trust historical fiction much more to the capable hands of Gore Vidal than the verbose rantings of an English poet, know what I mean?”
Dylan heard banter but he didn’t look up. “He’s a doozy, alright,” he said, with a hushed exhale that reeked of gin to the old lady sitting on his left of the waiting room bench. He tasted it in his own breath, even at eleven in the morning.
Who cares? he thought. I’m a freelance political columnist and I’ve been up writing about horrible things since 2 in the afternoon yesterday. Of course I reek of gin.
“You here to see Mr. Rabban?” The black-haired man asked, interrupting him a third time. Dylan looked up this time and brought his book to his lap. The vinyl chairs made a lot of noise when he moved so he wasn’t in the mood for any unnecessary shifting in the cramped heat of that dingy basement in the Lower East Side. He answered softly, hoping it wouldn’t go beyond meaningless chit chat.
“Aren’t we all?”
“I guess,” the stranger replied, thrusting his chin down and his shoulders up like Dylan had asked him the most bizarre question. “Short stories?” the guy added.
“Freelance political commentator,” Dylan fired back, still holding his book open. It seemed they were both there to see the same person, but for different reasons.
“Nice,” said the stranger, “no competition, then.” Dylan nodded.
“Are you from around here?” the stranger asked, sitting back in his vinyl bench now, making all kinds of ugly squawking noises. Dylan cringed a bit.
“I’m from a lot of places,” Dylan responded, seeing that this was going to go on until they called out his name to see Mr. Rabban, the editor of the small magazine based out of a basement office in the East Village that he was there to showcase his articles, hoping for a staff position.
“Anywhere in particular?” The guy asked.
“I don’t really like to talk about it,” Dylan said. “I’m a man without a country.” The guy across the way smiled a coy smile.
“That must serve you well as a political commentator,” he said.
“Of course” Dylan said.
“Never seeming biased - it must be a good thing for unbiased commentary.” the stranger said.
“Yeah,” Dylan thought for a moment, “I guess it is. I don’t know. I’ve never given it much thought why I don’t like to talk about it but that must be close to it, I guess.”
He thought some more.
“I’m always moving around so much. I think I just never had a chance to call anywhere home, and I’m not sure I have much of a yearning for it. Quite the opposite, actually,” he finished.
“I know just what you mean,” the stranger said. They looked at each other for a moment, Dylan checking out the stranger’s handbag at his feet and the stranger looking down at Dylan’s, both wondering what this other guy had to say for real…
“Dylan Cormack,” the secretary’s voice could be heard resonating through the hallway. Dylan arranged his things and got to his feet, the stretching vinyl making ugly sounds.
“Good luck, mate,” the stranger said from his seat.
“Cheers,” Dylan replied.
–
The door opened in Tor Rabban’s office, the weather stripping on the bottom of the door rubbing against the short carpet the whole way. Dylan Cormack walked in and stood motionless for a moment, taking in the editor’s decor.
“Have a seat,” Mr. Rabban said, motioning to the only other chair in the cramped room. The desk was an old one, made of sheet metal and reminiscent of the computer labs at Dylan’s old university. Something definitely out of NASA from the 70’s, when pencil sharpeners were still bolted to office walls. There was no decoration on the bare white walls save for the gold-plated plaque with Arabic inscribing, which Dylan had never learned to read. The off-green desk offered most of the color in the windowless room aside from the calendar of cats sitting by the door and still turned to February of ‘92.
“Thanks,” Dylan said, sitting slowly, wanting to make his presence in the room very much felt.
“Sorry about the wait,” Mr. Rabban said. Dylan noticed his darker skin and large nose, the protruding bridge screaming of Syria or Lebanon. The truth, though, is that he could’ve been from anywhere between Istanbul and Baghdad. “We’ve had so many people show up today with articles on the Middle East that I feel like exhuming Yasser Arafat’s rotting corpse and giving him this job.”
“I hope you’ve sent them all packing,” Dylan said, smiling but with all of his confidence. He still sounded condescending and he knew it. Oh, well, he thought. Keep up the appearances.
“Yes, well,” Mr. Rabban said. “We’ll go through the motions, yes?” Dylan didn’t like how that sounded. It was commanding but it still had a hint of patronizingly methodical bureaucracy that made him uncomfortable, as if the room had just become smaller and the fluorescent lights had been dimmed. Also, he sounded unerringly foreign, which made Dylan very self-conscious in a local magazine office in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
“Are you from around here?” Tor Rabban asked Dylan.
“Well, sir, I’m really from a lot of different places…”
“Doh, I’ve heard that before,” Tor Rabban cut him off. “Journalists are just like consultants,” he said. “You never want to commit to either a fixed location or a specific point of view.”
Dylan looked at Mr. Rabban straight in the eye now, as he’d read so much about doing from his interview books.
“Which is exactly what people hate about reading the papers,” Mr. Rabban continued, “they want to see and understand what the reporter who was there was thinking at the time. Facts aren’t enough - they can get facts from CNN. We offer them something more.”
At this Dylan pounced without thinking, heading for the strategic angle he’d planned on from the beginning, “But that’s biased and unprofessional,” he said, sounding much like his professors. “It’s like…” He paused, wanting to be steady on the topic, “…it’s like Gonzo journalism,” he said. “Trashy narratives that veer from the topic at the writer’s pleasure.”
“True, true,” Tor Rabban said, nodding gravely. “But people eat it up. And besides, there’s a lot of gonzo out there. Shitty, yes, but that increases the volume of good stuff that comes in every now and again. Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because the good doctor is dead that it doesn’t mean that the style doesn’t deserve credit in other worthy hands.”
Dylan didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t expected the editor of a non-political magazine to like Hunter S. Thompson’s work, let alone advocate for it in his publication. He’d spent his entire journalistic education learning that Gonzo, though fun for the writer and entertaining for the reader hadn’t been an acceptable form of journalism since Hunter Thompson tasted the steel and gun powder of the bullet he put through his head. He’d learned that the only people who even tried to emulate the style had been eccentric bloggers and unemployable correspondents, to say nothing of doing well.
“I’ve seen people come and go in this business,” Tor Rabban continued, “but the most consistent piece of knowledge that I’ve learned from this line of work is that the general public is at the reading level of the New York Post - a vocabulary of 6th graders.”
“Yeah,” Dylan agreed, smiling genuinely for the first time, “that sounds about right.”
“Look, remember that bit about the Danish newspaper that published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad?”
Dylan nodded, “Why not? Danish flags burning in Damascus? It was a fiasco. Everybody remembers it.”
“Right,” said, Tor Rabban. “I remember it well. I was part of that Danish paper and…”
“Really?” Dylan asked suddenly. “What were you doing at a Danish newspaper, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m half Danish,” he said, “and for all the ridiculous arguments that were made at the time, including my own in the defense of my paper, it occurred to me later that the whole thing was unavoidable.”
“Why?” Dylan asked, despite himself. Mr. Rabban leaned back in his chair, putting his fingers together in meaningful thought as he spoke.
“Because the people who want the drama are the ones that are buying the newspapers. We can never get around that.”
Dylan sat motionless again for about ten seconds, digesting what Mr. Rabban had just said. But Tor Rabban didn’t give him too much time to ponder.
“So,” he said, shall we get to it?” he asked, rhetorically.
“Yes, let’s,” Dylan responded with confidence, snapping out of his reverie.
“I’ve looked at your piece on the Middle East,” he said, looking down at the clippings in front of him on his desk. “It has a lot of balls, I must say, and I admire that. Have you been to Iraq?” he asked Dylan, point blank.
Dylan raised his shoulders and filled his chest. “Yeah,” he said, “I have. A friend of mine, an Army Captain in the Rangers…” Dylan recalled the face of the Captain, the tall, broad shouldered human torpedo that stormed into many a firestorm with pure courage and no brains at all. “I spent a month with his battalion stationed just outside of Fallujah and later in Rutbah, near the Jordan Junction.” Tor Rabban nodded but didn’t show any signs of being impressed. Dylan continued.
“I did most of my data gathering under the guise of a CNN reporter who’d been shot in the neck while standing next to a humvee. He unknowingly left me his credentials. I spent a lot of time under fire and I have a renewed sense of faith in our troops after it all but…” Dylan took a deep breath.
“But what?” Asked Mr. Rabban, still leaning back on his chair.
“But I still have a lot to say about this war,” Dylan said while exhaling.
“I see,” Mr. Rabban said, and Dylan saw his lips purse a bit. A moment passed while Mr. Rabban considered his next move. Then his face straightened out into a serious tone. “To be honest with you, it needs a lot of work.”
Dylan had seen this coming. This was, after all, a local magazine that featured one or two political commentaries as a way to diversify the reader’s knowledge a bit and he would not be a focus of the publication. But his in, he thought, was going to be to offer Tor Rabban political articles that he would normally have to pay syndicate fees to get from the likes of the Washington Post or the Boston Globe, and instead, he’d have an exclusive on these major stories. Dylan, in turn, would get his own political column in a magazine he believed would soon have a complete New York audience. He did his best to remove all signs of expression from his face. Tor Rabban continued.
“Your experience is interesting, and your facts are impeccable as they are thorough. But you don’t take the reader anywhere. Your articles don’t make me want to know how the story ends.”
Dylan sprung into his rhetoric. “Mr. Rabban, if what you want is a story that leads the reader to a predefined position, then there are a couple of old ladies outside your office who’ve been talking local politics incessantly in the hallway. Across from them is a short story writer who looks like he’s been out of work for long enough to have read all of Joseph Heller’s books, including the ones he didn’t steal.” Tor Rabban’s left cheek showed the faintest sign of a smile, but Dylan didn’t catch it and went on.
“What I’m offering you is exclusive access to Boston Globe and Washington Post quality, unbiased political columns for your magazine.” Dylan leaned forward in his chair, looking for a response, and Tor Rabban’s smile grew all over his face.
“What makes you think I like the Washington Post?” He teased Dylan, whose shoulders sank a bit. “Look, kid, like I said, it’s got balls, and your experience is interesting. I admire your stamina for coming in here like this today, with no credentials and a hell of a fish-story about Fallujah and some town I’ve never heard of. I’m just telling you I can’t publish any of this kind of thing you’ve given me. It needs a lot of work.”
Dylan’s deep breath left him slowly as his hands fell to his lap and his swollen chest deflated. But he had a plan B.
“Look, Mr. Rabban, with all due respect, I’ve heard these words of rejection before - develop it further; try us again some time; it needs more content and all that - but that’s not why I came here today. I’ve been writing about politics for a some time now, enraged, furious and still managing not to froth on the page and turn out decent, unbiased and logical journalism that can be digested and discussed. But nobody seems to want that anymore. Editors tell me left and right that their readers don’t have the attention span for what I’m writing, that people want to read things they already agree with, that they’re not interested in being presented both sides of the issue and that that’s why we have FOX news and MSNBC.
“And there have been the occasional few outlets that still publish news in a raw enough format that an intelligent person can imbibe it without throwing up all over the page. But I’m not experienced enough for them. I need to start out small, they say. So here I am. And you need someone good. I think I’m your guy. You want me to rewrite it? Fine. You want me to put more juice in the words, moisten them up a bit? Sure.
“But I need to know that some part of this is worth it. I need to know that you’re the slightest bit interested in any of these words. I’ll develop it, I’ll toss them around, I’ll starve over the words, rolling them about in my head if you want me to. But I need to know that there’s some valid reason I’m even trying. I need to know that someone in the industry thinks that I can hack this. That I shouldn’t give this up.”
Dylan lied. This was only the second magazine he’d gone to with his articles, but he’d heard the stories from other writer friends and he reasoned that his imagination could go farther than most, and he tried to imagine what a veteran out of work journalist would be saying, hoping to snag Tor Rabban’s attention with another angle.
“Is it interesting to you?” He asked Mr. Rabban one more time.
Tor Rabban thought silently. Who am I, he thought, to tell this kid what to do with his life? If he said no, the kid might quit, and fewer writers is never good for business. No, the more shit is out there, the more it becomes a buyer’s market, and that meant easier dollars. Fewer agents. God, I hate those lawyers, Tor Rabban thought. Besides, the kid wasn’t hopeless. He just couldn’t tell a story.
“Yes,” he lied, reasoning that more effort on the kid’s part would cost him nothing. “Yes, it’s interesting to me. Send me someplace with this story of yours. Come back next week with more - ahh, juice, as you say.”
“Fine.” Dylan said. “See you next week, then.” He stood up and leaned over the desk to grab his clippings, figuring the editor would offer to shake his hand when he did so. But instead of reaching for his hand, Mr. Rabban put his open palm face down on the papers on his desk.
“Leave these here,” he said calmly, and then added, “if you don’t mind.”
Dylan looked down at the Mediterranean-looking man square in the eyes. “First we try, then we trust,” he said with a coy smile. “You don’t think you’re the only editor I’m querying about these articles, do you?
Tor Rabban lifted his hands slowly and Dylan took his clippings and started to turn for the door. “Do come back next week,” he said, and as Dylan’s hand touched the doorknob he added, “and Dylan…” Dylan stopped. “The biggest mistake people make when discussing the Middle East is trying to stay on the fence. Take me to one side, or take me to both. but don’t try to stay in the middle. There is no middle.”
Dylan nodded, and opened the door.
–
Dylan walked out into the white hallway, his steps muffled on the blue carpet. He pulled the door shut, almost closed, stopping it just before it clicked.
“See you around?” came a voice from near the doorway. It was the guy from before. Dylan turned around and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time. Newly enthused by the recent good news that his stories had interested someone he let his excitement get the best of him and he smiled at the stranger.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, standing at the doorway still. “Say, what kind of stories do you write anyway?”
“Travel pieces, mostly. But not travel writing. That’s the lowest form of literature, man.”
“Yeah?” Dylan asked, not remembering the last time he even bothered reading a travel article.
“Yeah. I like to write about the stories as I travel, guide the reader a bit into my own adventures, you know? Especially when they’re not entirely factual. I guess it’s kind of like Gonzo writing, in a way,” the stranger said. “Have you read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72? That fucker will knock you on your ass. Twisted piece of work man, and heavy.”
“No, I like to stick with facts. No raving for me - it clogs the arteries. There’s enough weirdness out there in politics to nearly drown a man. I don’t need the drug-induced distortions of some out-of-control journalist who just couldn’t get a grip, know what I mean?”
“I guess so. But you’ll have to delve into it sooner or later in your line of work, man.”
Dylan thought about it. “Why not? The pigs will stuff me with bullshit one way or another, right?”
“Right. You might as well have a handle on it.” Dylan chuckled and the stranger put out his hand. “I’m Oscar, by the way” he said. “Oscar Bjørne.”
“Dylan Cormack,” he said, shaking it, then turning towards the exit. “Good luck with your stories, Oscar.”
“See you in another life, brother,” Dylan heard his voice echoing down the empty stretch of fluorescent lighting and drywall. Sure, he figured. Why not?
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They say you should never drink alone, which is why I always order TWO drinks.
Hahahahaha…
uhggh.
–
SFO to SNA: John-motherfucking-Wayne airport in Santa Ana. A windless quiet and complete solitude over the mighty Pacific and the California coastline, all through window 1A of first class…I guess there are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon but only because I could be at the back of the plane paying for my drinks.
Oh god. It’s a new day only in the sense that the sun set last night and rose in the morning. Other than that, I’ve prodded along the same sterile hallways in the hours of day and the same lamp-lit streets when I should’ve been asleep. Producing seems to be a thing of the past but I must, must get out of this slump.
At least a night with the illustrious brother Shakib opened some windows into the metaphorical light, but the day is essentially unchanged. I-5 moves through the LA basin like a lamppost: straight and not at all. But all the driving, the traffic, the stop and the go, and sheer mass of vehicles wearies a soul and opens up all kinds of evil doors to dark thoughts…who knows, friends? Maybe it’s a tunnel with some light at the end…but who knows how deep the hole goes before something happens?
Oh well. Dwelling on the dark is so last month. I’m surviving, which is what’s important, right? I’m still here, with possibilities and potential at my fingertips, twenty-something and full of lucid stupidity and wit, bound by nothing but time and dollars, and they’re sure to be coming at me soon, fast and hard, like excuses during midterm exams.
Are you still comparing things to college?
What? No. Only a jackass would do that. I am telling a story here and it’s more or less coming together. In the meantime, like I said, I survive. Even in the OC. A strict regiment of Thai food and bagels along with at least 6 hours of sleep and 90 minutes of hard exercise per day is slowly bringing me to levels of consciousness attributable to a human. I was functioning with one foot in another dimension there for a while, another plane of existence or something…I mean seriously — 4 hours of sleep, boiled meat/fried fish and chips and no exercise but the constant walking on a sprained ankle for four or five hours a night, not to mention the ghastly amounts of hand-pumped cask ale I was drinking were making me question my very humanity. On the other hand, it was all for a higher purpose and worth every second of misery I may have experienced across the pond. And that’s what it’s all about, kids: experience. It builds character.
–
Recent thoughts and conversations have leaned towards this…tendency, I guess. It’s not so much a theme as much as it is a trend of bending any discussion I’m involved in to turn to the one thing I don’t want to think about.
It’s been far too long, and although it would be easy to say “I’ve been busy” or to utter the other usual mediocre words people choose to formulate excuses, they’re just that: excuses. These days abroad have shed some light on a complicated little facet of life between cultures. It occurs to me that it’s not so much that I have a foot in both camps, but rather like not having a foot in any camp at all.
The way I see it, the problem is a matter of self-image, of pertinence, of identity. Examine where my loyalties lie, in order of importance:
- Family
- …
- Earth
It’s missing some critical junctures, don’t you think?
I had this thought the other day whilst thinking about war. You know who I’d kill for? You know who I’d go to war for, fight for, or give a shit about? Family. You see what I’m saying? I don’t think you do, yet.
Here’s the thing: there’s no city to which I feel tied, no state I feel duty-bound to defend. No way of life except mine. It’s all just land and water to me, with different plants and mountains and a variety of vermin infesting all of it. Principles matter to me much more than does dirt. Terra. And that’s the other one on the list, right? Earth is a great planet (definitely the best inner planet) and if I were in some kind of mid-space truck stop and heard non-Terrans talkin’ shit, it wouldn’t stand. I might do the same for California if I were in a pub in London and heard some dude from upstate New York slobbering a lot of gibberish about New York being better…
But that’s about it.
So when I walk into a foreign place and hear the voices and the words in their strange tongues and they are laying the proverbial smack-down on that American man, the machine of war that is the current administration, the insolent loudmouths that turn the lights on in the middle of the night in hostel dorm room their mothers paid for…well, I’m not the right person to be repping’ that.
Fuck it.
If the Swiss exchange student in dreads wants to say that Americans are obnoxious servants of the ignorance they practically package because fools are lining up for the culture they’re selling, he’ll get no argument from my end of the table. If he wants to say that George Bush AND John Kerry are both puppets of evil incarnate and no more intelligent or independent than the average galvanized nail, I will be buying the next round of drinks. Hell — if he wants to say that Brazilians are lazy & corrupt, hell, we’ll down ‘em all, ’cause it’s all true. I mean… shit. I revel in amazement, and only because I am tied to my own cultures solely via the past. Besides that, I’m with them.
I don’t know. My insolence is usually a bit much for people to feel completely comfortable around me. But I, too, have been occasionally known as a nice guy. People are — apparently — fooled, at least to some extent.
Maybe that’s the “why” around this urge to get the hell outta Dodge…there’s nothing specifically tempting about this place. Don’t get me wrong: California is a hell of a place and there are few other places you’d find me putting down roots in the long scheme of things; San Francisco in particular is a difficult place to leave. But the fact of the matter is that I have no history holding me to this place, so there are memories but no substance. And I’m just jonesin’ to fill in that empty space while it lasts, before I become some cynical old madman, weary of the freedoms of the world.
–
Ahh, dammit. In retrospect I should’ve know it was a terrible idea, reading my old journal from New Zealand. I shouldn’t have overlooked the obvious repercussions that the writing and re-writing of those posts from NZ would have had. Now the damage is done.
But I guess you adapt to things. You do it relatively slowly, and you usually only complain when you can’t keep up with the changes, with the moving of the cheese, or whatever. I had adapted well to not being 23, to not being 23 and on the road with nothing but my pack, beard and compadres. Then I toseds myself into not just my memory but the lucid words from my own mind. I spat it into the wind and got it right in the face.
And now? Shit. Now I need some leverage.
Posted in Politics, Rants, Travels | No Comments…
“Who?” I said to the owl outside my window.
It looked at me curiously and said, with a slight twist of its head: “Keith Olberman.”
“Wow, really?” I said, with sincere surprise.
“I guess,” it said, “I’ve never thought to answer before. I usually just ask.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, “you’re an owl. You can’t talk.”
“Can’t I?” it responded with a sarcastic grin.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Whooooo?” it said.
… and shit if I know. Now I’m back to square one. Fucking owls.
–
Readers, the last few weeks have been progressively more unintelligible, as you can see from above — abstract in meaning and purpose. Things have been practically productive and yet lacking in substance. They’ve been filled with laborious management work and the unfruitful worries of politics…
Except last weekend. Last weekend was fun.
In a spur of youthful relapse, I received a call from a shady character you all know as Mo.
Mo does not like to be answered; he prefers to be responded to. He’s from Oregon, so it’s cool. But it means he leaves messages, often cryptic and spotted with holes that consume entire sentences. Sometimes he says the message is from someone else entirely, leaving me to chase down imaginary names in an Oregon mindset, which I don’t really have. Except when I do.
The call spoke of capoeira in the ‘Lou, and y’all know I just love me some capoeira in the ‘Lou. There are far too many spankings needed in slo-town these days and with a Mestre going down for the sheer love of the kids, we thought we would whoop it up down there with those that needed us.
Really, the entire weekend is a blur of fast kicks, raging pain and something involving a duchess. I’ll explain in a few paragraphs. It makes more sense if I do this semi-chronologically. Let’s start with the airport, of all places.
–
Now, normally I wouldn’t start with such a predictable starting place as an airport but in this case I’ll make it worth your while.
Trevor and I drove around the San Jose airport several times, mostly looking for Mo. It was a pleasant day and we rolled the windows down, taking in the brisk air and the sunny rays and coming up with what to write on the sign that we would greet him with. We were preoccupied with the cops that shoo-ed us along and had to drive around the airport a dozen times before an ominous character emerged from the terminal wearing a blue shirt with a middle finger on it and dark shades that meant trouble.
“Just write something quick on that notepad while I drive passed him,” I said to Trevor. “I’ll pull over to get him about a hundred yards ahead. That’ll make him have to walk through that group of security men who’ll certainly give him a hard time.” Trevor chuckled.
The next thing I knew Trevor had opened up my sun roof and was standing up in the car, his skinny torso hoovering over my Honda Civic, holding a sign towards half a dozen airport security cops and Mo, standing on the sidewalk, nodding and smiling. Whatever Trevor had written on that notepad, Mo had understood. I drove beyond the pick up point and pulled over so we could watch Mo be harrassed by a few cops before catching up to us.
“What’d you write on that pad,” I asked him.
“Mo Isgay, in very large letters,” he answered.
“Crafty,” I said. “Think those militant cops were bothered by it?”
“We’ll find out soon enough. Look at this guy…”
Mo was sprinting towards us after he’d answered the respectable-looking marines to their satisfaction but it seemed they were chasing him. When he opened the door it was to the sound of, “You goddamn motherfuckers, I love you guys! Now drive!”
“Are we picking up a fugitive?” I asked.
“Drive!”
Having gotten to know the airport circle better than most, I got us out of there quickly and onto interstate 101 heading south. Once we were safely past the traffic, the air in the car thinned out a bit and the conversation started up again.
“‘What’d those ugly cops want from you?” asked Trevor.
“Probably a blow-job,” I said.
“Heheh, nah — they told me to tell you jerk-offs to stop circling the airport like lunatics. I thanked them appropriately and then left.”
“You liar,” Trevor said. “What else did you tell them? Like, just before you started sprinting here?”
“Oh yeah! HAHA! No, man, it’s not what you’re thinking. I just said that ‘the fat is in the fire’ as I passed them, you know, because this weekend is going to kick so much ass. But then I realized what that sounded like, with security and everyone else wound up so tight these days. So I sprinted to the car before they could get me.”
“You fool!” I said. “They’re going to label this a fugitive car and have every cop in Salinas waiting for us.”
“Nevermind those airport cops,” said Trevor. “They have no coherent process for communicating with the police force. I used to work for the DA’s office in Oakland and I’ve seen the systems they use for data logging and transfer to other districts and precincts. It’s a goddamn miracle they can find their way home at night. We’ll be fine.”
I was still a little apprehensive about the cop situation but I guessed we’d see what kind of trouble was waiting for us in Salinas.
–
I had forgotten how much that drive sucks dry, vast empty balls. At Coyote you start to lose the sense that you’re still in a populated area and as Morgan Hill rolls by that notion really thins out. By Gilroy, only the signs for cherries and garlic still remind you there is a reason people would ever live out there. By the time you hit the red flea-market barn by Prunedale there is only farmland and all semblance of a city is long gone. Thank god for the winding Blood Alley before Salinas to grab your attention and knock your nerves around a bit, if only to avoid rear-ending the naked big-rigs that seemingly swerve onto the highway instead of merging like decent, god-fearing human beings. But the rest of it is a collection of largely meaningless miles between one metropolis and another with nothing but fields of lettuce and cabbage and other Mexican-grown crops. I had T drive the stereo while I drove the car.
I had been tense up until that point but once we rolled into the In & Out in Salinas I relaxed my nerves. From here on south there was very little crossing of jurisdiction as no respectable central coaster wants to get tangled in the bureacracy of the north.
“I think we can relax now,” I said. “They won’t come farther down than this.”
“I knew it all along,” said Mo, and then he paused for what seemed like a moment of pondering. “Holy shit, does that drive suck or what?” he suddenly blurted out.
“Glad I don’t have to do that on any kind of regular schedule anymore,” said T. “Fuck college.”
We all agreed on the spot that it was best to be out of that institution and that San Luis Obispo itself was a setback to evolution and epicosity. But as we approached the Cuesta Grade we felt the nostalgia kick in with the smells of the dry grass on the hills and the burnt clutches and brakes of the semi trucks rolling beyond Pismo towards Ventura and Oxnard. We listened to the whisps of the wind rushing through the valleys of Poly Canyon and the crushing sounds of downshifting eighteen-wheelers driving over Grand Avenue. We admired the views of Mt. Madonna and Bishop’s Peak that hug this city that we all but ruled for five years. T’s signature mix of Rock and Roll will save the World had gotten us this far. Despite all the shit we’d been through in that town, we felt like we were coming home.
Sort of.
Interestingly it hadn’t occurred to us up until then that while we had been invited to this affair, no one had prepared lodging for us. So where would we go? Familiar places were no longer familiar, old friends were long gone. Some ex-girlfriends were still around but we weren’t that desperate. But it turned out that a friend named Henry was still in town and had recently moved out of his van into a more stable establishment. We were promptly invited and we partook of the hospitality of his couches, which were many. The beer broke out almost immediately.
After capoeira we headed to the bars, determined to be as filthy sleazy as we could handle. We were, after all, returning college grads, and only a loser comes back for college girls. We started at Spike’s at the bottom of Higuera, usually a place to end the night, though we were using it as a warm up.
In between the first and second rounds I went to the bathroom and noticed on the hallway wall something that made me jump out of my skin and I dashed back to our table.
“Holyshittheresafuckingpictureofusontheirwall…” I managed to get out to them.
“What’d he say?” Henry asked Mo.
“Ah, don’t worry about him, H-bomb,” Trevor said. “Here. Have another beer,” and he poured him another beer.
“DammittheyhaveapictureofTrevorholdingahugebucketofbeer!”
“No, wait guys,” Mo interjected, “I think I know what he’s saying. Remember that night we all came here and they said if we could finish that huge mug of beer we could get our picture taken for their wall?”
“Is that the picture you’re talking about?” Trevor asked me.
“Hmmhmmmm,” I mumbled, still slightly in shock. They walked over to the wall with me.
“Holyshittheresapictureofusontheirwall!” Mo yammered.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I said.
“H-bomb,” Trevor started, “you and I are calm right now. These two jackasses need a moment to lighten up. Now, we must have this picture.”
It was a picture of an array of our friends on a night when they’d decided to finish a mug of beer the size of a small kayak and had been posted as a token to our awesomeness. When the bar changed owners, though, we figured it was long gone.
“We must have this,” I heard T tell Mo when he calmed down. Henry and I looked on, slightly worried, but still with it.
“We will take it,” Mo decided between the two of them.
“Yeah, but we’ll need a screwdriver,” T noted. “or maybe a really potent hammer. These bastards used three goddamn drywall screws for a fucking picture. That’s probably why it’s still on the wall - they couldn’t get the goddamn thing out.”
“It’s like fucking Excalibur, man,” I noted.
“I’ll bet you it was the Canadian chick who didn’t like me,” Mo insisted. “She had strange markings on her ankles. I don’t know why she didn’t like me.”
“Didn’t you threaten to bite her once if she didn’t get some Ashland beer into this place?” I asked him.
“A perfectly natural reaction to her saying that Canadians have better beer than Oregon,” Mo retorted. They all agreed. I let it go.
H-bomb wanted to make sure the situation didn’t turn ugly so he got the process started quickly, turned around and called the waitress with the sparkle in his eye.
“Listen, who would we have to talk to to get that picture? And can I take you to dinner by the starlit beach?” He didn’t actually say this last part but it was both heavily implied and certainly understood. She melted instantly.
“I’d love to give it to you (I’m assuming at this point that she’s talking about the picture) but I’m not sure how to get it off the wall. The previous owners put it in there and weren’t able to get it off. See how the frame is cracked?”
“Never mind the frame,” T blurted out from behind H-bomb. The bar had gotten a bit more packed and he’d missed part of the conversation. “How much for the picture?” He was dead-set on ripping the thing from the wall but I knew this poor lamb trying to finish her shift at Spike’s without any ugly incidents didn’t need that kind of chaos on her hands. I decided to do what I could to avoid it and offered that I recalled them keeping a drill of some kind on the premises. Bullshit, of course, but the chances were good that if they at least looked they would find something. So she let us look.
Mo went straight for the bar while T and I scoured the restroom area. It’s not a big place and H-bomb kept the girl’s gaze by smiling and sparkling. The man is a beacon of game.
I turned quickly when I heard T whooping up a pre-mature victory jig but I realized why when I saw Mo coming out from behind the bar with a full-on cordless power-drill, complete with the bit and everything. Drilling started immediately.
The waitress didn’t break her gaze from H-bomb for even a second. When the screws had been pried off, T showed it around to everyone but didn’t let it leave his hands. Leaving Spike’s, he clutched it close to his chest like a prized family heirloom. I’ll bet it will fast become one, knowing Trevor.
After having salvaged that war relic, we walked up the strip, headed towards trouble. T was still clutching the picture like a vip pass. Lord knows how much we drank at the newly named Downtown Brew where I witnessed a fight while I relieved myself. Some dude crushed a pint glass over another guy because he cut in line. I tried to stop the damn thing but there’s only so much you can do while looking over your shoulder in mid-stream. But the Downtown Brew is and had always been a place where boys go to dry hump sketchy girls while geeks and vagrants look on. There may be a time for that kind of behavior, but that was not the night. The Frog & Peach pub was a much better bet place for the things we wanted that night.
When we walked into the Frog we were introduced to a dangerous game. A crowd of Orgeonians had all converged there and I knew we California boys had our work cut out for ourselves. When they started buying rounds I wasn’t worried, so much as challenged…but when they started playing drowning duchess I knew I had little chance of getting out in one piece.
It works like this: you get a newbie to buy a pitcher of something. Drew is a perpetual newbie, poor bastard, so he bought quite a bit. Then you get a shot glass. The newbie buys everyone a bottle of something else (bud, probably) and you take turns filling in the shot glass while it floats in the pitcher of beer. Whoever fills the glass so much that it sinks, has to fish it out with their hands and drink it’s contents. By Oregon rules, I found out, spitting in the pitcher is allowed. But this isn’t Oregon, dammit. We have limits.
Weird people and best friends. Damn — what a fucking place. As the night wore on we got out of control, saw a familiar face here and there but mostly stuck together. We behaved like degenerates because, after all, we’d earned it. Everything after that was bitter sweet. But we conquered our past and resolved never to go back again, though we may one day do just that.
Who the fuck knows? Who can face the week ahead without something of this kind close by? Sure, the drive on 101 south after all, still sucks.
But the drive back? Well, it’s even worse.
Posted in Anecdotes, Rants, Travels | 2 Comments…
“It looks like he went for the throat,” Trevor said as they dragged me to the sidewalk. I was clutching my left cheekbone, which seemed to be loose. I remember the punch that did it, too.
A mighty adversary he was if he had indeed been aiming for the sub-mandibular region housing the vocal chords and sub-lingual tonsils. Those are gonna swell up big and they’ll probably want to remove them.
“I don’t know — me? I would’ve done the same,” he continued, “Gut punching is for frat boys. Real men go for the throat and…”
“Trevor — ” I stopped him.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up. Save it for your blog.”
“Whatever.”
Tired and weary from the brawl in the last pub we found open that night, I check the swollen neck under my head. A relic I took home with me from the fight we found ourselves in that night. I had plenty of their blood on my fists too, but that’s another story. It will probably leave no permanent scar, which is a shame. Still, totally worth it to have seen those shit heads sprawled between the bar and the floor and still have to pick up our bar tabs.
There’s no need to go into the details of the fight except to say that it was a good and old-fashioned fair fight. We just happened to kick the shit out of them, though not before one of them got a clear shot at my throat. Also, there’s no cause to delve into the reason for the thing.
How we got to the hospital is sort of a mystery to me though my cohorts have told me a few details. How they determined it was necessary was not part of those details but I did hear that it involved an epic arm-wrestling match between Nate and Shak followed by the running of countless red lights.
After the lengthy and arduous check-in process at the emergency room, I was finally seen by a nurse in training who had less field experience than most Foster Farms chickens. Nate navigated their bureaucracy like an expert and eventually they let me talk to someone who had actually been to a medical school.
“I can’t advise you enough to take immediate action,” the doctor said.
I didn’t trust him. “Has he looked at me at all?”, I asked Shak.
“What do you recommend, doctor?” Shak asked in his most respectful tone.
But Trevor interjected. “What kind of doctor are you? Have you seen this kind of swelling before? It was a very rare kind of kick,” he insisted.
The doctor looked hard at Trevor. “Tell me about this kick,” he said.
Trevor launched into a second by second replay of the fight while I struggled to breath but the doctor’s attention was totally ensnared.
“So, do you think you can fix him,” Mo asked.
“It was a very rare kind of kick,” the doctor repeated, “but I think I have the right tools for the job here.”
“Good,” Shak said. “How soon can we start?”
“Shak, no,” I interrupted him, “we really should go to my real doctor…”
Trevor cut me off. “You fool. Didn’t you just hear this man? Action must be immediate. You can call your insurance company later.”
“Don’t worry, mate,” Mo said. “This is a good man. He’ll keep you together, right doc?”
“Why not?” he said. “But it was a very rare kind of kick, so we’ll just have to do our best.”
They all seemed resolved to start immediately and I was getting weak, unable to keep my focus so I agreed to the thing and the doctor disappeared into his office for a few minutes.
–
As I lay in the cold, empty white hallway, waiting for the surgeon I leafed through the 3-inch binder they had left on my stretcher. I was hoping to get a glimpse of something I wasn’t supposed to see, but every piece of paper in the binder had my name on it, and it went back to something like 1994. I didn’t even remember having come to Kaiser that many times but there it was, my entire medical file, sitting on my lap.
They stuck my IV with something tingly and I didn’t last long.
–
Let me tell you now — it comes down to this: general anesthesia is the best sleep there is. That’s all there is to it. It’s replete with cool dreams, no chance of waking and a firm grasp on your subconscious. I highly recommend it.
–
As I realized I could open my eyes I wondered if it would be such a hot idea. It felt like days had passed since they’d been open, and when I saw my surroundings, my brain felt what I can only describe as cautious surprise.
“How do you feel?” somebody asked. I thought it sounded like kind of a dumb question at the time, but I said, “meh,” which I immediately thought was kind of dumb reply. Still deeply drugged and severely malnourished, I lay in that hospital bed, limp as sod. Someone took out a camera and snapped pictures of me in this absurd state.
Why would you do this?
I was to spend the next two weeks cauterizing the wounds the doctore had left in the back of my throat for all of the swelling to subside. They’ve removed my tonsils and I would have to survive for the time on liquids and gels.
Fantastic, I thought. I could use more gels in my diet.
I don’t know what happened to the dudes whose asses we’d handed to them on that late night. The doctor who’d put me up to all of this had seemed to go missing and no staff person had any record of him. I hadn’t seen or heard from the guys since I passed out on that gurney, but I knew they would be back. They always come back.
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Hidden from the view of many an unsuspecting eye, the day approached like so many holidays out of nowhere. Scurrying to save face in the light of so much presence, the meek and timid who were so lucky to be invited attempt a last minute preparation for the event. It is coming, like it or not, and all are prepared for this.
But I’ll tell you this: the Beautiful and Talented Planning Committee of the Winter Ball at the Japra Mahal are ready.
–
I usually wait until after the events in which we participate to rain down fury on the wicked females that so savagely ignore the treasure that is thrust before their very faces from time to time. I usually wait until after the hoe’s leave the sides of my unerringly perfect homies for none other than (and always, ALWAYS) a class D tool with a drunk smirk and NO game before I start hating them again.
Well guess the fuck what, bitches?
This year the rain comes down sooner. This time, there is fair warning and plenty of time for you to think abo…
HEY! STOP CHEWING YOUR GUM AND PAY ATTENTION!!!
–
Listen honey, you will be so fortunate to even be in the same room as my folk that it blows my mind that yours isn’t blown yet. So before I lose it, PAY ATTENTION.
Now, where was I? Ahh, yes: fair warning.
This year I’m telling you BEFORE y’all fuck up and run off with some pretty ass frat boy who won’t treat you decently - these are the perfect guys.
Every time I’ve heard women describe the perfect man, both in movies and in real life, it has usually gone something like this (in no particular order):
- Handsome
- Masculine
- Sensitive
- Funny
- Intelligent
- Strong
- etc.
- etc.
I’m no expert, but I’ve got two pairs of eyes and ears and anyone with a chipmunk’s sense of perception should see that these guys got everything on that list, and them some. There are positive qualities that you haven’t even thought to want…and these guys already have them.
Honestly, I’ve still got an iota of understanding that you haven’t all met these fine young gentlemen, but I’m fairly sure that about 90% of you have, and the fact that you always, ALWAYS have a great time with them, laugh to your heart’s content around them, find them engaging and cute, and then leave them in the dust is no longer only unjustifiable — it’s unacceptable.
So listen, ladies — Tonight is your chance to redeem yourselves because these gentlemen will be attending. I expect to see some savage competition, including, but not by any means limited to:
- cat fights
- shameless flirting
- dancing…lots of dancing
- and general underhanded bitch scheming (lord knows you all were born experts at this).
- Making out in the corner. This is not limited to only one of you. As I said, fight over it.
- One of you may go home with each of them. Maybe 2 or 3, if they’re down. I won’t stand in the way of anything like that.
If I see any of you potentials running off with some square-jawed kid in a leather jacket and a bad attitude and I EVER hear you complain about not having a nice guy in your life, I will see to it that you are repeatedly run over by lawnmowers. Enough is enough. Buy the ticket take the ride.
You’ve been warned.
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