Mr. Fix-It Real Good

I’ll have it back to you as good as new!

I had locked myself out again.  There was only one solution, to put on a sap glove and punch out the glass.  Cheaper than a locksmith.  Besides, it was only a small pane.  Except it was not.  It was a singular big pane disguised as individual small ones by the faux frames in the door.  A cloud burst of double-paned weather-rated safety glass came raining down on me.  What a surprise.  What a clever decorating device.

Well okay, now you know…don’t ever forget your keys, and that what looks like little individual panes of glass, thanks to some bullshit phony frames, could be connected to a motherload of glass, and that punching it out is not cheaper than a locksmith.  You can conclude that and learn from it.  Can’t you?  I found out ten years later that I couldn’t.

One of the best things about being sober is not having to fix as much stuff.  I don’t just mean abstract stuff like relationships and credit ratings, but actual stuff, like car doors, furniture, windows, televisions, bathroom fixtures, and heirloom china.  Stuff that costs beer money to replace.  And it always needs to be replaced.  Always.

Tough shit for someone who’s been the proverbial bovine male in the china shop his whole life.  Never fully at ease in this material dimension, I was perhaps, I’m saying perhaps, self-medicating.  Any natural clumsiness was now aggravated by the constant ingestion of central nervous system neurotoxic zombie juice.  Even sober, anything less durable than an AK-47 or lead ingot doesn’t stand much of a chance under my sustained proximity.  Just dig me after a few forties of malt liquor and shot or three of whiskey.  Hey, hey, hey!  I can find a way to break sand.

While drinking, I was a one-man wreckage machine.  Just add priceless family keepsakes and I’d churn them out into a stream of broken junk, swirling in a wake of pissed-off people.

Things were worse around my friends.  Those miscreants had a blatant disregard for property and unhealthy ideas as to what constituted fun, and of course applied coercive peer pressure for me to participate .  Honest.  I never wanted to run wild, destroying stuff.  Except for always.  While other kids had posters of sports heroes on their walls, I had ones of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.  I remember moping around grade school all grumpy because I wasn’t allowed to sack or pillage.  I made up for this in later life, in spades, of wall putty.

My friends and I liked to drink beer and rough house.  Pushing a friend’s head into a door jamb was one of the few ways we knew how to comfortably express our affection.  The more love in the room, the more collateral damage.  You never knew when a karate kick would miss a groin and land on a trophy case or computer monitor.  Shopping for sliding glass doors on a Saturday became almost a tradition.  “Hey Manny, let me have the single plate, and some new runners.”

Then, as you all know by now, there was the gunplay.  More Spackle.  More airline tickets.

That shit added up.  The cost of operating an alcoholic was not cheap.  There was always somebody to pay for something.  It was either that or try to fix it myself, and that was always problematic since I’ve never been much of a handy man.  Anything with more moving parts than a bottle of beer baffled me.  If it couldn’t be fixed by repeated chops from a tennis racket, it was time to throw it away, and do without.   Being drunk doesn’t lend itself to any painstaking problem solving.

I preferred a more action-oriented approach.  The idea was to reduce what was originally only slightly damaged, back to its molecular components, in the hope that it would somehow rebuild itself, perfectly.  You know, in response to the tantrum I just threw.  Cup handle won’t stay glued?  Throw it against the fridge.  See if that works.

“So if it belonged to your great-grandmother, that means it was really old, huh?  Like some kind of antique type of thing? “

Whether through accident or anarchy, the physical world crumbled at my touch.  Especially cars.  I could disintegrate your car interior just by sitting in it.  I’d be trying to roll down the window and notice I’m twirling a useless handle in the air.  I don’t know how I pulled that ashtray out so that there is no human way possible to re-insert it.  Radio knobs?  Please.  I might as well have just pulled them off as soon as I got in.  Cigarette lighter?  Throw it out with the knobs.  Ignition broke off, but now I don’t have to look for your keys to start it.  Rearview just snapped loose.  “Here, save it for somebody who does coke.”

What’s wrong with all this shit?  Why can’t anybody build a car for a modern drunk Neanderthal?

Car doors never failed to fail me.  I was always having to climb in and out, NASCAR style, because the fucking things wouldn’t open anymore.  I don’t know of many ways you can close a car door wrong, but apparently I knew a good one.  Opening one, too.

I went to visit some friends in Northern California.  They picked me up from the airport.  I was drunk, of course, because I was traveling–through space and time.  They drove up to the white zone for loading and unloading of passengers only, no parking.  I opened their car door and superfuckingfantastic, broke it.  A very Herman Munster Moment.

“Really sorry about that.  Hey, this is going to be a wild weekend, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Later on they let me borrow one of their cars (I know, crazy) to make an appointment.  As I was getting on the freeway I saw a bum dude hitchhiking.  Always willing to help out a fellow traveler through space and time, I pulled over.  He ran up, opened the door, sat down, and couldn’t shut it.  Who’s this?  A kindred soul plagued with the poison touch?   I got out of the car and we tried to close it.  No way.

I finally had to drive with the passenger door sticking out a right angle.  I dropped off my long-lost brother at the next on ramp.

“Sorry about your door, bro!”

“Yeah, it happens…to me…always.”

“Me too,” he said, then held up his cardboard sign.

We looked at each other and nodded.  Yeah, he knows.  That was kind of a neat moment, but now what the fuck?!  How am I going to drive all the way home with this door sticking out?  I’ve been pulled over for less.  Fortunately, I wasn’t drunk.  The morning maintenance shot I drank had ceased to smooth the edges of this harsh reality.  But, now it wouldn’t spike a breathalyzer either.  It was one of those bad thing/good thing things.

Still, I’d rather not have any discourse with armed lawmen, especially while driving someone else’s car.

“I can’t seem to find their papers, Officer.”  Fumbling around the glove box, finding a hash pipe and a chunk.  “What’s this?  Holding out on me, were they?  Oh, you saw that too.”

“Please put your hands on the dash.”

Yeah, always better not to even get started.  I chose speed over stealth and just burned it home, hoping that the wind would shut it closed.  Every time I took a left turn people behind me would start braking for the body they expected to roll out.  They’d drive up next to me, honking.

“Your door is open!”

Really?  Which one?  Oh, this one next to me, bending like an airplane wing?  Got it.  Smile and give them a thumbs up and hope it satisfies them.

It was a nerve-wracking drive home, but I knew a more awesome time awaited me when I returned the car dog-eared.  “I didn’t do this one, guys.  It was my spiritual twin.  I gave him a ride.”  They looked at me and shook their heads.  What sort of vendetta does this guy have with the doors of our vehicles?

I hate them, for one thing.  Flimsy fickle bitch doors.  So how many beers will a new one cost me?

I was perplexed.  What is this with the doors?  Always some broken door.  What is the Universe trying to tell me?  There must be some metaphysical meaning, something symbolic going on, but it’s beyond me.  Jim Morrison?  Am I to learn something from Jim Morrison?  Do I need to be more groovy?  More Lizard Kingy?

Yes, that’s it.  There could be no other conclusion.

It’s fitting that my last good piece of physical wreckage before getting sober was a broken door.  I came home to an apartment I shared with my buddy, Spike.  I was wavering in and out of a black out.  I forgot my keys and didn’t want to wake him up, so very logically, I decided to punch out a small pane of glass in the door.  Sound familiar?  Not to me.  This time I didn’t bother using a sap glove and just shot my fist through.  The whole door shattered.  Fucking faux frames.  I never learn.

That was the final straw for Spike.  He drove me to rehab the next morning, and you know the rest.  My last drink was a Coors Silver Bullet I stole from him while he packed the car.  I’ve been much better since.  Stuff around me, too.  As for fixing things, I’ve added sincere amends to my fix-it kit, along with the duct tape, Bondo and Spackle I still seem to need.

So I guess, the big lesson here is that sometimes the solution is punching out what you think is a small pane of glass.  I can’t come up with any other conclusion.

And thanks, Spike.

Living At Large and Not Charged

I knew we shouldn’t have gone back to get another.

I was looking for the gun.  I remember thinking, “No one will find it here,” but now I couldn’t remember where that was.  Man, that sucks.  It was somewhere here, in this apartment, for sure…right?  Was it time for a prayer to St. Anthony?  The phone rang.  It was Danny.

“Hey dude, I’m sorry, but last night I had to throw the tweed jacket you lent me over a gravestone to throw off the cops,” he said, ” They were chasing me through the cemetery and I had to think fast.  It was very Macgyver.”

That’s what I loved about those early morning calls from Danny.  They always made me feel better about myself.  I told him not to worry, that it was a thrift store purchase.  I was glad to contribute to a good cause.  The old, Throw the Tweed Jacket on a Gravestone to Misdirect the Police, seemed as good as any.

It was 9:30 in the morning and seemed as good as any time to crack my first beer.  I knew Danny was probably on his fourth cocktail, so I was lagging.

“Obviously, it worked, eh?”

“Like a charm.  It bought me enough time to jump a fence and crawl on my belly like GI Joe through the arroyo for a few blocks, then I got up and ran the rest of the way home.  I was coughing up black shit for hours after that.”

I was impressed.  Danny wasn’t much into exercise and much into Marlboro Reds, so I could imagine the rebellion his body staged after a little adrenaline-fueled run through a boot camp obstacle course.  He wasn’t a young man anymore.

I could see him bent over, hacking up splatters of tar and tooth, generic gin flowing from his brow into his stinging eyes, then straightening up, shaken and stirred, but un-arrested.  Fear is a magical juice.  I know.  The sound of a cop’s utility belt clanging close behind has allowed me to perform athletic feats that would make any Sunday night highlights reel.

In those moments of crisis, of extreme focus, you simply don’t tell yourself  “can’t.”  You will, Sonny Boy, and not just that fence, but the one after, and the one after. Chopped at the knees by a dog house roof, you roll over, land on your feet and are up running again.  The Bactine can wait, Mom!  I have to moooove, really have to move.

Hip check the mailbox.  Accidentally step on a Tonka truck and do the splits.  Scissor kick it off and roll into a crouch.  Thrust your heels into the ground and lunge for the gate.  Pray it’s unlocked.  Oh shit!  Scale it!  Scale it like Spidey.  C’mon, you eat chain link for brunch.  Scramble up and over the top and drop.  Favorite t-shirt ripped.  Fuck!  Now is not the time to mourn, keep running.  I loved that shirt, The Exploited- Let’s Start a War.  Keep those legs pumping.

Their donuts and coffee are no match for fear fuel.  You are a wing-footed Greek god, a leaping Chinese acrobat, a mutant fugitive from the laws of Physics.  Rusty nails, barbed wire, and broken glass can’t hold you down, can’t incarcerate your spirit.  Watch out for that kiddie pool.  Clothes line.  The rake!

It’s not for everyone.  Balance, agility, stamina and body strength, are all critical.  An outstanding warrant or two also helps in boosting performance for this extreme sport, if it counts as a sport.  It’s certainly extreme enough.

After looking for the gun in the oven for the nineteenth time, I gave up.  “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, something is lost that must be found, could you please ask God to bring it around.”

“You lose your gun again?”

“Yeah, it’s here somewhere, so what happened?”

I heard him light up a cigarette and exhale.  He said he took a couple of Valium that night and decided to shoplift some dinner and drink from Albertsons.  He said he went in feeling relaxed and comfortable.  That night he might have been a little too relaxed and comfortable.

Danny was usually pretty relaxed when shoplifting.  He would walk around the store like it was his personal pantry.  He’d go to the seafood department order some crab legs, oysters or clams, maybe a lobster tail or two.  They’d wrap it up and he’d thank them, then make his way down the spice aisle.  Let’s see.  Pick up some saffron, some tarragon, a little lemon pepper.  Okay, now over to the liquor department to grab a big bottle of Tanqueray, and then just stroll out the front door.  No big deal.

Usually it wasn’t, but that night the benzodiazepine had loosened his grip on the bottle.  It dropped and smashed on the ground by the car.

“Oh shit, that hurts just hearing about it.  Did you break down and start sobbing?”

“No big deal, I think, I’ll just go in and get another.”

“Yeah, that’s too comfortable,” I said, finishing my beer.  I knew how these stories go, the just go back and get another.

I got up and went to get another.  I picked the phone back up.

“So you didn’t think they would remember you from a whole thirty-five seconds ago?”

It’s not like a guy like Danny would blend in with the your average suburban supermarket crowd.  He could look a little serial-killerish when lounging around in his Rock and Roll leisure wear.  Charles Manson hair pulled back under a bandana, t-shirt torn and transparent from age, jeans burned with cigarette holes and dragging in threads behind dirty flop-worn sneakers.

I always thought he dressed like Keith Richards, if Keith Richards lost his luggage for two years.

That was the reason he wore the tweed sport coat I had lent him, for camouflage.  It was my costume of choice for court appearances, a basic tweed, tailored waist, and no elbow patches, as they have been proven to irritate jurors.  I’d have preferred a black pin stripe with purple tie, but those poll negatively.  So I settled for something academic and modest, if not entirely innocent, an able-to-turn-over-a-new-leaf look.

The only thing Danny would be wearing for a court appointment would be an orange jumper with steel accessories.  He was wanted back in Texas for a little escape thingy.  He had asked to borrow the jacket a few nights before, but I didn’t ask why.  I figured out later that he had planned on using it as a disguise.

He had calculated that under the cover of tweed, he wouldn’t look like a thrill-killing drifter with a body waiting in the trunk.  Instead he’d pass himself off as some sort of college professor or atomic scientist, just there at Albertsons to pick up his complimentary seafood and premium gin, before getting back to the body he had waiting in the trunk.  That was his plan at least.  Flimsy the first time, but really not going to fly for a Just Go Back and Get Another.

Hey, there’s that homeless physicist from Los Alamos again.  He scared me the first time.  Why is he back?  What in God’s name does he want?  I think he’s here to kill us all.  Oh God, I’m too young to die!  Wait,  he’s just getting a bottle of booze…and walking out the door.  Security!

Danny said they were on him like a pack of wild dogs.  The assistant manager gave chase, followed by a squat little squaw doing security, a high school football player bag boy, and the seafood department dude.

“That sounds like a fairly easy foot race to beat out, except for the football hero,” I said, ” That might take getting dirty.”

Danny thought so too as he hauled across the parking lot.  He turned the corner and almost got run over by a cop car cruising around.  The cop had to lock it up screeching.  Danny looked at the cop’s face and saw he was totally freaked about almost hitting him.  Danny unfreezes first and takes off, but followed by all these store employees.  I started laughing.

“What’s this?  An angry mob of citizens chasing some werewolf with tenure.  Perhaps this will require further investigation.”   He was fucked now.

“Yeah, ” Danny said, “I just leveled up without getting any extra powers.”

Now the cops joined the chase in their squad car.  Lights, siren, spot light.  Danny ran up the landscaping incline to the street, and saw Rosario cemetery across the way.

“Yes, into the darkness that only death can provide.”  A very good place to lose them.

Only the two cops were following at this point, but there were more of those coming soon, just as sure as a very special Christmas is coming to Branson.  That’s what we called “The Window of Opportunity.”  It’s the least amount of cops you’ll have chasing you.   You have to lose them now, before the dogs, helicopters, and SWAT team get there.  This is it.  If this is not your time, then this is the only time it will be for a long time.  Now juke that light!

It’s motivational.  Like I said, it’s not uncommon to surprise yourself with exceptional ability.  Draping the tombstone in tweed being a good example.  Quick thinking.  Like when he was making his way up out of the parking lot, he carefully set the bottle of gin down intact instead of just dropping it.  That way someone would be taken out of the chase having to retrieve it.  Either that or he just could witness another bottle of Tanqueray shattering that night.  The point is he wasn’t running total spaz, and I appreciated the self-discipline under pressure.

Danny made it into the graveyard while the cops were still driving through the gate.  He got the brainstorm to hang the jacket over something to make it look like he was there, and of course, not be.  He said he saw them flashing the spot light on it when he went over the fence and ultimately to freedom, at least the freedom that being a raging alcoholic provides.

I looked in the oven again. “You actually hung it on a tombstone?”

“No, it was more of a statue thing. “

“A statue of what?”

“I think The Virgin.”

“Wow.”

That didn’t seem right, even to me.  Using Jesus’s mom to help you hide from the cops.  I don’t know.

“You better hope they didn’t take Our Lady of Guadalupe in for questioning, or worse, charged her with aiding and abetting.”

“Hey man, I wasn’t going to take the time to look around for the least sacrilegious mannequin.”

“Jesus, Danny, I guess.”  It felt good to know someone worse than me.  “I think you owe Her a prayer asking for forgiveness.”

“Dude, I’m Jewish.”

“Uh, and last I heard, so was she.  Anyway, you got your cardio for the year.  Glad you made it, Danny.”

“Thanks, and sorry again about the jacket.”

“No sweat,” I told him, and leaned back on my bed.  Something poked me from under the pillow.  “Thank you, St. Anthony!”

For Danny, getting caught in that little act of petty thievery would’ve meant going back to prison.  He shouldn’t have been fucking around like that in the first place.  But I understood the madness, all too well.  I didn’t feel better than him about that.  We were always risking big stakes for penny ante payoffs.  Our stupidity was breathtaking.  Constantly drinking our judgement impairing potions didn’t help much either.

The first year I was sober, I got a flat tire on the freeway at night.  I was working on it when a C.H.P. pulled over behind me.  My first impulse was to take off across the ice plant.  It was Pavlovian.  Then I realized, wait, you’re not drunk, you don’t have guns or anything in the car.  You have a license, registration and insurance.  You’re okay.  You’re just a citizen changing a flat tire.  That kind of normalcy felt exotic.

The cop turned out to be cool and even hung out with me as I struggled with the tiny Japanese jack.  We cracked jokes and talked about firearms while he held his flashlight above me.  It was nice not to have it come swinging down on my skull.  When I finished, I thanked him and we shook hands.  “Switch to a .40 caliber!” I yelled as I drove away.  He smiled and waved.   I felt better at that moment, pulling away from that cop, watching him disappear in my rearview than I ever did getting away from one.  Well, almost.  Let’s not get crazy.

Oh great, the gate’s locked.

My Road to Redemption is Littered with Empties.

We’re not stopping until Seligman

There was hot death blowing through the windows.  Before us a black ribbon of asphalt unrolled to a horizon dancing hula in the heat waves.  Every party has to come to an end, and ours just came to a screeching halt through a cinderblock wall, up a ramp, over a troop of Girl Scouts, and into a vat of hot tar.  Panic attacks, shakes, retching, eyes watering, the hammer of guilt banging on the anvil of shame, just behind the temples.  It was going to be a long ride home.

Marko and I were on our way back from a visit to California, after an eleven day bender we would never forget–if we could remember any of it.   I do remember emceeing a punk rock show in Ventura while in a black-out, if that counts as remembering.  After 1,200 beers or so, we finally ran out of steam and decided to call it a day.  We could sense a mob collecting torches and pitchforks, so it was time to go.  Besides, I had library books due, and Marko couldn’t remember if he left the curling iron on.

Now, poison oozed from us in a viscous, bubonic sweat.  It coated us in a glaze that the desert kiln baked into our clay, our skin pulled tight against our desiccated skulls, lips pulled back and stuck above teeth dry enough to light a match on.  Grimacing like game show hosts on their third face-lift, our decaying organs gassed a fetid funk from our sewer holes.  It smelled like rotting something.  Rotting us.

We were drinking plenty of water, except it happened to come with beer.  It was hot beer, too.  Not Oh-gee-look-what-I-found-under-the-bed warm, but Cup O’ Soup chicken noodle hot.  Bottled beer broth.  Drinking beer that hot, really signals the end is near.  It’s purely maintenance drinking by that point.  Party time is over.  Drinking just enough to keep away the Jumping Jiminees, and maybe something worse, like a moment of clarity.

No time for that shit.  Now was not the time to fall apart, penitent, blubbering for redemption.  We had to make it home, and that was beyond the Indus, beyond the Hindu-Kush.

The car seemed thirsty enough for water.  It was boiling it away by the gallon.  I stared at the temperature gauge intently.  My blurred vision saw three of them, all different.

“We may be fucked, or not,”  I said, pointing to the dash, “It totally depends on which one of these is a lying son of a bitch.”

Marko didn’t say anything.  Lips tight.  Eyes on the road.  Hands at ten and two o’clock.   He was going stoic on me.

Marko and I were a combustible combination on any given school night, but even more so when on a mission to “blow off a little steam.”  We had wanted to take it to the next level and were thinking about going back to California for a while.  We figured that when you get used to drinking beer at a 7,000 foot altitude and you return to sea level, you would become a blood-doped Olympic-caliber drinker ready shatter records, and anything else lying around.  It was only a theory back then, but today a proven scientific fact.

A situation took place which presented the two of us with a perfect opportunity to research our thesis.  This incident, while a most unfortunate mishap, had created a stellar excuse for us to leave Santa Fe.  While waiting for things to cool down, we could visit family and friends, and reassure them we were doing well and feeling fit.  I know we reassured them alright.  Reeling and reeking, walking through a closed screen door, knocking over the Ficus, one of us wearing two different sneakers, the other with bloodied toilet paper stuck up a nostril, dragging a toy wagon filled with beer,  “Hi everybody, we’re really drunk, AND we brought guns!”

I don’t know if I can say it turned out to be a good visit.  Eventful yes.  Perhaps monumental.  But not all that good.  I still have some amends to make for that outing, including one to a chubby little teenage woman with bleached hair.  It’s tricky because I don’t know her name or what she looks like beyond the description I just gave.  Does anybody know her?  I think she was from Ventura.  She was at the punk show I can’t remember emceeing.  I have a letter for her.

It was time to get out of the town we got out of town to.  The air conditioner murdered our gas mileage, so we kept the windows down and let the Mohave come blasting in.  All one hundred and eleven degrees of it.  It felt like sitting in a toaster oven while wearing blow driers for goggles.

“Dude, I need you to pull over so I can piss!”  I yelled.  No response.  Did he hear?

“Dude, I need you to pull–”

“Needles in seventeen miles.  Hold it.”

“No man, this is a serious levee breaker.  Pull the fuck over.”

“We can’t stop out here.  We’ll never move again, and die.”

I kind of knew what he meant.  Sometimes you think you’re just going to take a knee to catch your breath, but fall over, permanently.  Can’t risk that.  I squeezed myself between my finger and thumb.  Time to soldier up.

When Needles, CA  looks like an oasis, you know things are sucking hard.  We pulled into a gas station.  We filled up with gas and topped off the radiator.  I went inside to use their restroom.  Afterwards, I looked around the store, and grabbed a Gatorade from the cooler.

“What good is that going to do?” Marko asked.  I thought about it, and put it back.  Don’t waste money on foolish things.  Was it time for the one hamburger I had budgeted for this 900 mile journey?  No, wait for Flagstaff.  Candy?  Bad for you.  Too hot for cigarettes.  Hmm…cold beer seems to be the only thing left.  We bought a six pack.  That’s right, for between the two of us.  Really not feeling well.

Back into the Oldsmobile and onto I-40.  Sipping on a cold beer will help.  All we needed was our 89th wind.

Marko suggested we smoke some weed.  It might make us feel better.

That is the lie, the big lie about weed, that somehow it will help, instead of making everything 47,ooo times worse.  Not thirty seconds after coughing your lungs out, you realize that you just took the first step towards turning some minor mental turmoil into a nightmare of Byronic proportions.  You brought this on yourself, with full knowledge and prior experience.  You did this voluntarily and not under the duress of some punishing deity or burdensome social obligation.  You are the Satan you once feared.

“Yeah, might as well.”  We rolled up the windows.

The weed didn’t make us feel better.  Just different.  Different as in worse.

“I think I’m going to die,” I announced as calmly as possible, “I can’t feel my heart.”

Marko looked over.  “How do we know we haven’t died already?  How do we know we weren’t killed in an accident a few miles back, and are just imagining this?”

We drove along in silence for a while.

“Okay, that better not be true!”  I started clapping my hands and blinking my eyes.  Still here.  Still here.  Fucking weed.

I tried to stay positive.  “You know, it’s not like dying right now would be the worst thing that could happen to us, right?”

“Yeah, not dying right now seems to be a lot worse.”

I thought about that.  That’s never a good place to go, especially when you’re rubbed raw and severely stoned.  Here we go with the heavy reflections…

“I’ve tried to live a good life.  You know, not hurt a lot of people.”  Marko just laughed.  “I’m serious, dude.  It’s not like I went out of my way.”  More laughter.  “I don’t think my karma will be too bad  if I have to come back as anything.”  Silence.  I waved my hands around.  “Maybe all this is just karmic payback for something.”

Highway Patrol passing us slowly.  Do not look over.  Push the bag over to Marko’s side.  Pretend you’re talking.

“Do you think molecules miss people when they die?”

“I bet people sure miss the molecules,” Marko said, cracking open a new beer, way before the 75 mile limit we set.

I had scared myself enough to join him.  Smoke more weed, too.  Might help.

By Flagstaff the wheels were really coming off.  After pulling off to fill up and finally get my hamburger, we got lost getting back on the Interstate.   It was night and our nerves were dangling out the window.  We were driving around looking for the on-ramp, barking and bitching at each other.  I was beginning to freak.

I seized on the fact that Arizona was a zero-tolerance state, which meant getting caught with any marijuana was enough to get a life sentence.  They don’t fuck around here.  They still think Hitler was misunderstood, and that daylight savings time is some sort of commie conspiracy.

We needed to throw the weed out the window, right now!

“Are you fucking crazy?” Marko asked, pulling my back my arm.

“I don’t want to be raped!”

He grabbed the bag out of my hand.  “We are NOT going to be throwing our weed out the window!  You need to get a grip!”  he commanded.  I could tell he meant it, and settled down.  I did need to get a grip, but how does one do that?  I don’t know what to do in order to get this grip everyone so desperately wants me to obtain.  It seemed elusive.

My best guess in life was to drink as much beer as humanly possible.  That didn’t seem to be working.   Still needed some tinkering.   So now what?  I felt like I was about to have a nervous breakdown, which is very opposite of getting a grip.  Then I thought, “Boy, I could sure use some help getting a grip.”  That was it.  It wasn’t a prayer.  More like a statement.

I nervously fiddled around with the radio and found a station playing Gregorian chants.  Honest to God.  Probably some public station trying to fill time, but it was just what we needed, something calming.  Soothing soul balm.  “Dominus ex patria, plurumbus unim exaltum, santu benedictum ortho novum …”  .  Monks chanting their prayers in cool caverns with damp moss-covered walls.  Some with eyes that can turn into blue flame and heal the sick with a touch a touch of their staff.

It had a sanctifying effect.  Marko and I started to relax.  While not entirely redeemed, we did feel temporarily absolved, and managed to chill out.  The air was getting cooler, too.  We stopped snapping at each other, and were soon back to cracking each other up.  He found the on-ramp and we resumed our journey.

There was plenty of horror left for us to enjoy during that death march home, but for now, with magically powered monks serenading us, we had stumbled upon a real oasis.  A place to rest, and get a grip.

To this day, we both agree that moment with the monks was the best one of the entire trip.  Looking back, I wonder if the little statement/request had anything to do with tuning in to the monk chants and subsequent chill-out.  Who knows?  Could it really be that easy?   Boy, that would piss off a lot of people.  I don’t know why, but it seems like it would.  These days.

Frankly, I had to resort to some similar hocus pocus mumbo jumbo to get sober.  I couldn’t stop drinking, no matter how bad it got, until I got so desperate that I just asked, something, anything, out there to help me.  I remember doing it in a bathroom in Redondo Beach.  I had been trying to detox myself, and was violently gagging as I tried to hold down the beer I needed to get in me to keep away the DT’s.  I looked up and saw myself in the mirror.

For the first time in my life I felt compassion for that poor fucker looking back at me.  “God, if you’re out there, and whatever you are, you need to help that guy. Nobody deserves to live like this.”  That was it.  I don’t know if that counts as a prayer, or a surrender, or whatever.  I hated myself so much that I couldn’t even ask for the help for me.  It had to be for that guy over there in the mirror.

After that, events started unfolding, and like finding chanting monks on the radio when there’s no hope left, things got better.  I got better.  All I had to do was ask.  Oh, and endure a bunch of soul-scorching fire, but you can’t be a total pussy when asking for help.  You need to show you’re willing to work.  That part kind of sucks, but not one tenth of what life was like before.  At least this journey has a happy destination, and plenty of rest stops along the way.  Good food.  Clean bathrooms.  Ice cold drinks.  And good directions.

Happy Motoring, fellow travelers!

Professional Pub Pugilist

I'm ready for my shift drink.

The guy had come up behind Marcos and clocked him right in the head.  He was a bull and had good torque.  He smashed Marcos’ glasses right into his face.  Marcos was the head bouncer, and now, on his way down.  All the other guys on our side had their hands full fighting somebody else.  I was the only guy not busy, so it was up to me to deal with this bald, thick-necked side of beef.  He looked up at me and narrowed his eyes.  I was next.  This was one hell of a first night as a bouncer.  It was everything I feared, and soon, much more.

Before I go on, let me clarify that Marcos was not my buddy, Marko.  That’s why they have different names.  If I meant Marko, I would’ve spelled it that way.  Marcos was the actual name of the head bouncer at Chelsea Street Pub, the place I had just been hired at, and was now balls-deep in shit at.  Marko was probably back at the pad getting drunk.  That’s where I would’ve rather been.

Marcos too, now that I think about it.

I didn’t even want the job.  I was semi-employed at the time.   It was winter and I was doing odd jobs for this temperamental Santa Fe artist.  He had just built a huge studio honoring his grandiosity.  The paintings were alright.   I think they worked because they were so big.  Paint anything big enough and it becomes art.

That’s okay, I guess.  It’s American, that’s for sure.  Big house, big paintings, big studio, big ego, big attitude.  An emotional Central European, he would hug me and tell me he loved me like a brother one minute, then yell at me like I was a scrubwoman that knocked over a bucket of shit in his living room the next.  I bit my tongue and took it because I needed his money.  The small amount was keeping me alive, but what he made me eat to get it was upsetting my stomach.

I lived with my sister, Ina, and our friend Keller at the time, and was having trouble making the full rent.  They were spotting me the short and not making a big deal about it, but I felt bad.  When I saw the ad for doorman at this small, live music bar at the mall, I had Keller drive me to fill out an application.  I didn’t think I would get the job, but I wanted to show them I was trying.   On the application, I lied and said that I had worked as a hospital tech at a psych ward.  I figured wrestling down enraged 5150′s would be considered good experience and qualify me for this entry-level bouncer job.

I figured right.  That would have been good experience to have before starting a job as a bouncer.  Except that I hadn’t actually done it.  I came home one day from serving my genius overlord, and Keller told me Chelsea Street called saying I got the job.  I sank a little.  I really didn’t want to keep borrowing money from him and Ina, as they weren’t exactly swimming in it themselves, but being a bouncer seemed kind of gnarly.  What if I got my ass kicked in front of a bunch of laughing people?  What if I got really hurt?  Or really killed?

I grabbed a beer to celebrate my good fortune, and take some of the edge off the terror that was pooling up in my solar plexus.

I wasn’t exactly new to fighting, as my lifestyle choices had assured enough encounters with other drunk angry males equally pissed-off about something.  That shit happened and you dealt with it.  That was different from coming in, punching a time clock, and waiting for it to come to you.  That seemed a little extra asking for it.  But then again, if getting into a fight was inevitable either way, why not make a little money in the meantime?  Thank God for beer.  Drink enough beer and everything becomes clear.  My destiny was unfurling before me.  I could tell the tortured artist to go fuck himself.  I was going to kick ass for a living.

The next night Keller drove me and dropped me off.  “Good luck,” he said.  “Yeah,” I said back, ” It’s a place at the mall, how bad can it be?”

What an idiot.  Chelsea St. was at that time, the premier club for bar brawling, much more so than up the road at Rodeo Nites.  (Taking into account fight breakout frequency on a per capita, of course.)  It didn’t quite rate a gladiator school, but wasn’t a day care either.  People were getting hurt at Chelsea Street.

Parzival the Innocent had just wandered into the dragon’s playground.

They served beer in pitchers and that spelled trouble.  I couldn’t see why.  If I was going to drink a lot of beer, I was going to do it, regardless of the container it came in.  Give me a shell with a hole drilled in it, and I will make your beer disappear.  All of it.

Turns out, the pitcher for semi-normal people is dangerous, because they wind up drinking more, faster.  Their judgement becomes impaired, inhibitions loosened, and whatever has been troubling their soul gets to find full expression in aggressive bad behavior.  Hey, welcome to my world.  At least we were all on familiar territory.

If I had realized just how at home I would become in this territory, I wouldn’t have been so scared going in.  I walked through the bar and found the manager, Rodney, a buffed-out black dude.  Far-out, I thought, it’s good to have a superman soul brother on the team.  At least I knew who to hide behind if I cracked in fear.  He introduced me to the three other guys working with me.

Marcos, was a tall hispanic guy, I immediately pegged as a Tae Kwon Do dude.  There was Larry, a short and squat black guy, and an Indian biker named Alvin.  He’s the ground fighter and that dude is the knife expert, I noted.  Seems I was the token white guy in this superhero comic.  Greetings gentleman, I hope you won’t judge my entire race by any cowardice you should witness me personally display.  I haven’t been issued any superpowers yet, but I’ve been told that I’m a quick study.

Marcos lined out the job.  Someone checked ID’s, someone else took the money, and the two other guys roamed around the place scanning for hot spots.  Start charging cover at nine.  If something happens don’t leave the door, unless the floor guys are getting killed.  Don’t let the boss see you drinking.  Make sure there’s no chairs in the aisle.  If people leave they have to get back in the line, and don’t steal too much money from the door.  He actually put it that way.  Don’t let the boss see you drinking and don’t steal too much money from the door.

So far the rules made sense.  He told me I would start by checking IDs and handed me a plastic flashlight.

“I’d rather use that one, ” I said, pointing to the steel, four battery Maglite he had through a ring around his belt.

“I bet,” he smiled, “The Beast stays with me,” and walked back towards the bar.

I gotta get me one of those.  I want a Beast.

I took my post at the door and started checking IDs.  I was a little uncomfortable.  I could feel all the men in the place sizing me up.  I’m sure many of them figured they could take me, and I’m sure many of them could.  The trick was to not get to the point where they would try, and that was a mindfuck game.  I was pretty comfortable with those.   I wasn’t so sure how comfortable I was with getting a beer bottle across the teeth.  That would take care of Mr. Mindfuck Magician.

Remember, you used to wrestle down psychotics at your last job, I reminded myself.  You can handle this.

It was a busy night, and a few scuffles broke out, but Marcos and Alvin were able to handle them.  Each time, I could feel my adrenal glands squeeze huge blobs of heart-attack gel into my system, and then stop.  Some guy starts yelling at you because you won’t let his jailbait date slide through, and again the blobs start pumping.  Is this going to escalate into a cage match to the death?  Is it time to kill or be killed?  No, they’re leaving.  Chill out.  Jesus.  I was definitely on edge.  The three quarts of beer I drank before coming in had long been evaporated by the stress.

“You look like you could use a beer,” I heard a voice say.  I looked up and saw an unlikely angel in the form of a living dead girl, Anna.  She was a waitresses bedecked in full death-worshipping  punk fetishistic finery: Doc Martins, torn fishnets, arms covered with ghoul-themed tattoos and cutter scars, jeans ripped short above the knees, black Halloween hair sticking out hither and thither, and a pallor rivaling that of any funeral parlor’s showcased corpse.  She applied her eye-liner with a switch blade  and had live black widow spiders for earrings.  She looked over her shoulder, then lowered a Heineken off her tray.

“Drink it in the bathroom.”

You have to know me to know.  How much I needed a beer just then.  How much I loved Heineken.   How much having one delivered to me, in this hour of need, by such a mordantly sexy, punk rock Elvira, free of charge, meant to me.  It gave me faith in an all-knowing and loving God.

I gave Larry the flashlight and ducked into the men’s room.  It was crowded.  The stall was being used.  Fuck it.  I tilted the bottle in front of everyone and drained it in three.   “All righty, back to work,”  I announced.  I dropped the bottle in the trash and went back out.

There’s a point where it all doesn’t matter.  The eviction notice, the search warrant, the bad job, the bad check-up, the lost car keys, the found keys to the lost car, the broken lock, the broken window, the broken heart.  They all sort of blend together in a downward spiraling force that holds your head under the water, but after a single beer, shotgunned down as fast as humanly possible,  you find the renewed strength to hang on and clog the drain just a little longer.  My superpowers were renewed.  I could handle this.

When I got back they gave me the money so Larry could take a break.  Not too much, I told myself, as I started taking cover.  I could feel my shoulders relax.  Things are going to be okay.

Shortly after that little affirmation, the shit hit the fan.  I’m not really sure how it started, but I looked up from giving a guy his change and saw Marcos get clobbered.  Instantly, everybody was kung fu fighting.  It was total fucking chaos and I couldn’t figure out who was who.

In the movies, the sword fighting guys go around the battlefield, slicing and sticking their enemies, left, right, up, down, off a horse, on a ladder.  They seem to know right away who’s supposed to die, and who to save, even though everyone’s armor looks the same.   In real life, it’s a tumble of entwined bodies, friend and foe rotating around a spindle.  The punch you meant for some Pirate Pete biker winds up landing on your buddy’s nose.  The leg you’re gnawing on turns out to be your own.  Nobody’s sitting still for their Sears portrait.

“Sorry, bro, sorry!” you yell to your buddy, then try to land your next one better, and with extra sauce to make up for the fuck up.  It’s a mess.  You can’t over think things, just keep hitting.  Your eyes dilated like a scared cat’s.  Keep hitting.  Everything strobing, fast and slow at the same time.  Mother of God help me!  “Keep hitting.”  I am, Mother!

I wasn’t hitting yet.  I was frozen, looking at El Toro stand over the collapsed tower of Marcos, his bald head glistening with sweat.  When our eyes locked, I knew.  This is it, old boy.  Time to grow some spine.  He started coming towards me and I started backing up.  I reached for my novelty paper weight.

I’m not proud of this, but a few months before, through a mail-order catalogue, I had purchased some brass knuckles.  The catalogue labeled them a “novelty paperweight” so they could legally sell them.  They weren’t even brass, but some cheapo lead alloy that would close up on your fingers after you hit somebody hard, making them difficult to pull off and throw away before the cops showed up.  But, I had yet to discover this fault.  I reached into my pocket, put them on, and stopped backing up.

It was a dirty advantage, and like I said, I’m not proud of it.  I had told myself that in war, the better armed prevails.  This was war, and I really wanted to prevail.

As we closed in on each other, I remember seeing he had a Denver Bronco pony tattooed on his shoulder.  He’s going to regret that someday.  They won’t have Elway forever.

I buried that novelty paperweight in his gut, as hard and many times as possible, my arm pistoning  a pneumatic underhand while my other arm squeezed his taurine skull.  Fuck the Broncos.  He was grabbing at my ears and trying to arch away from the blows, but I kept connecting.  He fell and pulled me down over a table with him.  The film kind of breaks after that.  I can’t remember clearly what happened next.

All I can recollect is a kaleidoscope of images whirling around in no apparent sequence.  Marcos waving The Beast over his head and bringing it down on somebody.  Rodney dragging a kicking guy out the door.  A wet cocktail napkin stuck to someone’s face.  Somebody’s fingers over my eyes.  A girl’s leather purse streaking by.  A sneaker kicking me in the cheek.  Alvin screaming.  A mug of beer teetering on a table.  And, punching-punching-punching.  Very Eisenstein.

I do remember that my fortuitous catalogue purchase helped me scythe the field.  I had the magic touch.  Even my glancing shots were ringing bells.  Bing.  Ding.  Dong!  Howdy doody, Rudy.  I was putting in a good day’s work.  Something out there was keeping me on point, and these ersatz brass knuckles sure add zing to any favorite casserole dish.  Next thing I knew it was over.  Everyone we were fighting either ran off or were dragged away.

Okay, I understand this is a guy thing, but they will appreciate how fucking sweet moments like those are.  You look around and realize, holy shit, we won.  We prevailed.  We met our enemies and smote their bitch asses!  Tables and chairs get put back up, everybody grinning, checking out where we each got nailed.  Puffy lips, swollen hands, perhaps a new tooth arrangement, but feeling joyous and triumphant.

The next best part was Anna bringing us a tray of shots from Rodney.  I figured it was okay to let him see me drink mine, so I tossed it back.  “Ahhhgaah-ha… heeeeze!  Sweet nipples of Venus, that tastes good.”  Warm glow.  Looking around, loving the guys you fought alongside.  Knowing they love you, too.  Girls asking if you’re okay.  The men in the bar acting friendlier.  It’s nice.

After work, there were more free “shift drinks.”  The entire bar staff sat around drinking and laughing as we retold our version of events, with very few matching up exactly.  I don’t know if anybody saw me don the knucks, but nobody said anything.   I don’t think they would’ve cared much.  I made the team.  Marcos was especially appreciative of the vengeance my upper-cuts had delivered to the minotaur.   I made his cheap shot a little more expensive.  Oh well, that’s just what I do… plant pain and reap sorrow.  You know, destroy transgressors and righteously avenge.

Gotta make that rent.

Eventually it was time to go.  Marcos told me to be at work the next night, 8:30 sharp.  No problem.

I had a long walk up Cerrillos Rd. and it was bitter cold, but I felt really good.  I felt like I finally found a job I could hold down, a profession to match my proclivities.  I finally had a place in this world, somewhere a guy like me belonged.  For the next thirteen years, off and on, I would work as a bouncer.  I’d eventually find out that where I belonged was not that great.  It was a stupid and brutal world, but for now it was bad ass.  Perfect.  Hopeful.

So I guess it’s good not to know the future.  It’s better not to know what’s lying in wait.  It’s better not to spend your life bracing for the sucker punches.  They’re going to land regardless, and hurt just as much.  You might as well take them standing up instead of curled up and cringing.  It sure helps if you’re clueless.  I was that night, and that made for a happy walk home.  I remember that clearly.

Rendered harmless for polite society.

Motels and Mai-Tais

Let's get a room.

Every time I watch a Cops episode that takes place in Albuquerque, I see motels that I used to flop at.  The Desert Sands, The Aztec, De Anza Motor Lodge, and that place not too far from Jack’s liquor store, I can’t remember the name.  Let’s call it, The Place with a Lobby that Smells like Curry.  It had a parking lot littered with used syringes that would poke into your shoe when you stepped out of the car.  Shell casings, condom wrappers, and empty crack vials scattered like pinata candy.

Okay.  Hey, it’s only 28 bucks a night.  I hope the pool is clean.  No, there’s no fucking way.  I can imagine what kind of biohazardous broth would be brewing in there.  What’s up with the dudes by the car?  Hang back a bit, and see who they are before you walk by.  Looks like an ex-con convention.  Homey over there is printing some kind of a cannon through his flannel.  Oh, it’s okay.  They’re guests of the motel.  They’ll be right next door.

I checked in once and couldn’t get in.  I worked the key for a while, then gave up and went to see the Singh-meister.  He went up with me and used his master.  He opened the door and explained that the lock had never been the same since the cops broke it in.  I nodded.  Fucking cops.  I wondered which episode.

One night I was standing in the bathroom, taking a whiz.  I looked over to the little window and saw a bullet hole through the glass.  I could see it in the mirror and was able to line up the shot with my head.  A clean kill.  Better then than now, I thought.  I zipped up and ducked down a little to flush.  It started to overflow, so I went back into the room and closed the door.  Too much flushed stash in the plumbing.  Common problem.

I was lying on the bed once, watching the aforementioned Cops television program.  There they were, at the same motel I was at, busting a tranny for drugs.  I knew it was a pre-recorded show, but still had to look out the window.  You really feel like you’re at Ground Zero.

Casey was one of those chicks all too familiar with motel rooms.  Tired and fading fast.  She had a pill problem crowning the rest.  She was an accomplished shoplifter and from what she told me, used to do nails for her friends.  Her old man just got sent back for a violation.  By my calculations, that gave our relationship a built-in expiration date, a sixteen month max.  Perfect really.

We had what I call a stripped down affair.  Just the bare bones.  Expectations and questions were kept to a minimum.  We were both hiding out from our demons, and happened to wind up in the same abandoned shack.  We would pool our meager resources while we could, then when nothing was left, we’d split up, every man for himself.  Just like in the Westerns.  A brief, blurry chapter in our dusty epic saga.

There would be no picking out a jug band for our haystack wedding.  No vacations with the in-laws to Busch Gardens.  No nice lawn furniture.  No noose.

Besides, she wasn’t the marrying type.  I had seen the cracks in her cranium where all the craziness leaked out.  That’s why I hid the heat from her.  She didn’t need to know where the piece was.  Bad enough I knew.  It was a big deal for us when I started leaving my wallet out.  Nothing takes a relationship to the next level like that.  Except telling her where you keep the gun, and we weren’t there yet.

Across from the Desert Sands was The New Chinatown, a restaurant with a torch-lit tiki bar.  It was a stereotypical Trader Vic’s knockoff.   Decorated with fake Polynesian bric-a-brac.  A skinny Hawaiian guy named Freddy played Tiny Bubbles on a Casio keyboard.  It was where we used to go on our date night.  I would imagine we were in some clip joint in Saigon ’67, just digging on the air con, Mai Tais and opium.  Outside the streets were on fire with war, but inside this corny coconut tacky tiki tongo bongo room–things were cool…and silky smooth.

I was always trying to create sanctuaries.  This one had a writhing Asian woman dancing on a small dance floor.  It actually did, but she was a chunky middle-aged waitress who would come up and dance the hula while Freddy turned a dial on his pretend piano.  Hardly prurient fare.  My ideal sanctuary would have something a little more tangy than that.  But this still beat stepping in a punji pit of dirty needles out there in the field.  If safety means cornball, sign me up for cornball.

There was a gentle surreal quality to the place, that made you feel like you were moving through a long summer afternoon nap.  Things are important, and then they aren’t.  And then they are again.  Murky thoughts, bizarre ones, trivial, terrifying, blank ones.  Lots of different ones that cancel each other out and leave you shrugging.  It’s hard to take anything serious in a place like that, except maybe the prices.

We’d sit around and check out the squares on their way to the restaurant.  I would give her my running commentary, impressions I would receive as a psychic empath.

“She scrapbooks, and he cheats on her with her sister.  He also likes model trains and scotch.  This one next to the register, collects shells and has chronic gas.  Her husband recently misplaced the garage door opener.  They have a son in Dallas who works for a bottling company.  He likes teenage girls and Kung Fu movies.”

She’d laugh, and we’d sip at our beers.  Sometimes we’d debate whether to get one of those volcano drinks.  I wasn’t so sure they were such a great deal.

“Jesus, six-fifty?  That’s two of these beers.  Do you think the booze in one of those is worth it?”

“They’re pretty.”

“Can you drink the shit in the middle?  The stuff they light?”

“The Sterno?  You want to drink the Sterno?”

“I don’t think it’s Sterno, I’m pretty sure they use some high-octane grain alcohol to make it burn.”

“Why don’t you just ask them?  Ask if you can drink the Sterno.”

“I just don’t want it to be a gyp.”

“This date is a gyp.”

“Okay, fuck it. You want one?  I’ll get you one.”

“I don’t want one now.”

I’d sit there wishing a VC would throw in a grenade through the window and put us out of our misery.

It wasn’t always bad.  We had our laughs.  One day in our room, we heard the guy next door rocking it to his woman.  He was a real Bronco Billy.  Their headboard was banging against our wall.  We sat there looking at each other amazed, wondering when their bed would give.

“I bet he doesn’t smoke cigarettes,” I said, “His stamina’s pretty good.”

Finally, just when you could hear things were reaching a crescendo, we heard a long, loud fart, then silence.  Oh shit.  We died.  Both absolutely helpless with laughter, but trying to be quiet.  She contained herself enough to pant out, “Just because…he gave up cigarettes…doesn’t mean…he…gave up smoking!”  I nearly peed myself.

One afternoon she left to shoplift from Mervyn’s and never came back.  That was it.  I don’t know if she bailed on me or got busted.  I chose not to investigate.  I decided she saw the light to get clean, and left me for a better life.  She was such a good shoplifter, it’s impossible for me to believe she’d ever get caught.  I think she just got tired of my shit.

Why wouldn’t she?  I was even tired of my shit, and I was biased.

I was paid up until the next day.  I waited as long as I could, then went back up to Santa Fe.  I thought about her for a while after that, and then hardly at all.  Casey.  She was alright.  She never stole a dollar from me, and she liked Iggy.  I hope she made it.  I don’t like thinking about her getting sucked down under, into the propeller.  I regret not buying her that volcano drink.

When I was a kid, motels were as fun as life got.  The color TV was usually better than the one at home.  You could jump on the beds, and there was a Coke machine right down the hall.  A pool with a slide?  Kill me dead, I’ve gone to heaven.  I’ve never had to do homework in a motel room, and we got cereal in those little boxes you ate them in.  You kept the milk in the sink with the ice from the ice machine.  “Gotta get more ice,” you’d say, and if you were like an old friend, stick your bare feet into the bin, just so you could wriggle your little toes in all that slippery cold.  Innocent joy.  A fix I hadn’t had in a long time.

I’d lay there at night, drinking, listening to the sporadic gunshots or neighborhood dogs howl every time the sirens went by.  I’d feel the surrounding bleakness leak under the door with the toilet water.  The landscape matched the man.  Desolate.  Collapsing.  So different from the kid bouncing on the bed.  It took a lot of bad decisions to get there, but only one good one to get me out.  I definitely should have made that left turn, way before Albuquerque.

The Not-So-Great Outdoors

Greetings lost travelers, our camp is just beyond the burning tires.

When I discovered the outdoors, I felt like the pioneers must have.  All new land to run amok in.  The law being slower to catch up with your hijinks means you can let it all hang a little looser.  Start in a land where the law is already a step slow, like in old New Mex, and then really disappear.  You should see what you can get away with.  It’s pretty good.  Bring along some like-minded individuals and decide to only adhere to laws that are convenient, and now you’re talking Utopia to this anarchist.

Camping for me was never about frying up trout in a pan while the coffee brews, a few fake ducks scattered around.  It was about returning to the Great Primal Id.  Pagan barbarians huddling around a fire outside the gates of Rome, gnawing on undercooked turkey legs, waiting for the city to fall.  Invoke the night!  Unleash the wild dogs!  Let them hunt the beasts!  Howl with their joy!  Wave your warhammers and axes in the victory of freedom!  Trample the oppressors in the madness of your fire dance!

Humping in thirty cans of Guinness along with your regular gear kind of sucked though.

If it was any trip with my friend, T-Bone, it was guaranteed to be a serious hump.  I met T-Bone, a French-Canadian/Lithuanian hybrid, when I was washing dishes at The Natural Cafe.  He was the lunch cook.  The first thing I noticed about him was that he had to wear two t-shirts over each other.  Both shirts had so many holes that he had to layer so the various holes would cover.  Only problem was some of the holes intersected, and the sub set, if you will, revealed pale New England skin.  That’s totally punk, I thought, true punk, and an especially gnarly way to show up for work.  I decided right then that I liked him.

We’d hang out at his place, since the 1950′s trailer my sister and I lived in was too small for even one person.  He’d turn me on to good comics, or graphic novels, as well as the latest toe-tappers the crazy kids were listening to those days.  We’d be reading Love and Rockets, or Hate, or my personal favorite, Steven, while listening to The Butthole Surfers.  Drinking beer and yucking it up, we patiently waited for the 80′s to finally die.  It was a good time, and he was a pretty normal cool dude…until you got him outdoors.

T-Bone graduated with a degree in archeology, and after The Natural Cafe gig, got a real job in the profession.  During the day, he’d contentedly catalogue pottery shards, or someone’s bones, with the same meticulous care he catalogued his comics and CD’s.  It was a good fit.  However, this mild-mannered slacker, once freed from the shackles of pedantry, and out in the wide open outdoors, became possessed.  He would get all Indiana Jones on you, and insist on leading forced marches through wilderness hell.  The Chindits fighting through the jungles of Burma comes to mind.

I’m convinced he was some kind of wild-eyed, obsessed explorer in his past life.  Some college professor gone mad from sampling the native plants, on a quest to find the hidden City of The Rainbow Serpent.  He would drag my ass to the farthest point on the topo map, grid Z 98, then back up a squiggly line to A 3.  That way we could see the petroglyphs.

“Seriously dude,” I would tell him, “Just out of sight of the families at the picnic tables would be cool with me.”  Oh no.

“We need to see this ancient Indian pueblo site.  It’s on the top that mesa.”  I follow his finger and see the distant shape of a mountain with its head chopped off, its jagged form illuminated by the surrounding summer lightning.

I’m no Daniel Boone, but I’ve watched enough lightning safety pieces during the local news to know that you need to go the other direction than up high, on flat.  That was like laying yourself on a sacrificial altar of the Lightning Gods and daring their asses to do something about it.

This sort of unproven superstitious rubbish didn’t concern the fevered Colonel leading our expedition.  Despite my most spirited entreaties for caution, the dash was on.   The stubborn goat, appropriately native from a place called Marblehead, kept climbing and I followed, but only partially because of  his intrepid Yankee leadership.

We also had women with us.  Well-scrubbed, hardy ones, mostly of New England and Maine stock.  Thick in thigh, avid outdoors chicks, they all seemed fearless.  And therein was the rub.  I was scared shitless.  I wanted to turn back and head down, but couldn’t bring myself to do it in front of all the hot nature girls.  Instead, I willed my feet forward and turned my thoughts to God.

Lightning, at one point, was flashing under us as we climbed.  “”Is under good?”  I kept asking myself.  We passed by trees that were split and burned from past strikes.  I wondered if straddling the burned crotch of one of those would decrease my odds of getting hit.  It was raining and I could feel the water coat me with extra conductivity juice, just in case all the liquid-filled metal cylinders I had strapped to me weren’t enticing enough bait for a bolt.

I already knew at that point in my life that I was due some kind of avenging blast, from either Nature or God.  Now was a great time for them to tag team me.   Yes, it only made perfect sense that I should go out like this.  I started making small promises.

It got to striking around us pretty good, and not FLASH tick tick tick BOOM, but FLASHBOOM.   The static charge made your ass hole involuntarily contract, although it felt pretty voluntary.  You could taste electricity on your tongue.  Arm hair stiff as brush.  Sweet Jesus, spare me.  Bigger promises.

“Dude, I just don’t know how good an idea this is.”

“We’re almost there.”

Fucking psycho lunatic.  Onward he went, with several pairs of tanned and muscular legs following.  I reached into my pack and cracked another beer, way ahead of my rationing time-table.  Now, I faced another nightmare–running out of beer in the middle of nowhere.  I started muttering mutiny among myself.  Could it be possible that I’m the only sane person in this doomed party?  Wouldn’t that be a fucking cosmic irony?  He’s clearly mad, but what about the women?  I guess it doesn’t matter if they’re crazy or not.  I’m going to be wherever they are anyway.

If it’s on top of Dr. Frankenstein’s satellite dish while he’s working on bringing Jr. to life, so be it.  I resigned myself.  Chicks trump everything, every time.

We finally made the summit.  The rain let up.  There was more time between the flashes and the booms.  Shafts of light started to poke through the clouds.  The vista kicked into Grand Mode.  We jumped into the ruins and began exploring.

“Hey T, I hope I find a tomahawk or a peace pipe or something!”

He looked up at me.  “Yeah.”

I lowered myself into a kiva.  “Or a sack of ceremonial peyote.”  Which I would of course turn over to the cultural authorities, after totally pinching the stash.

You didn’t need psychotropic agents inside those kivas to get a buzz on.  Those places were absolutely soaked with spiritual whammy.  A weird sort of heady reverence seemed to reverberate around the place.  Very different from the one in an average American bowling alley.  I don’t know if it was ghosts or residue atmospheric charge, but my molecules were lit up.  Sacred stuff rocks balls, I thought.

We don’t have enough sacred stuff.  There’s too much Wal-mart stuff, and Chuck E. Cheeze, miniature golf, tractor pull stuff.  It’s sacred alright, but have you seen to who?  Maybe I should start having my own sacred stuff?  I didn’t know what it would look like, or if I could even afford it.  I figured whatever I came up with would be illegal or addictive.  Maybe I could shoplift one of those magic bongos they had at The Amethyst Chalice, New Age bookstore.

The sky closed up again, and the lighting started.  Okay, fuck this, I’m not sticking around for another battering of shock therapy.  The Colonel and the girls can take their chances.   Some of them will come down alive, I’m sure.  I announced my immediate departure and left with little fanfare.  This is only partially pussing out, I told myself, I made it to the top.  Now I’m going back down, where I belong.  They could finish their education.  I am so gone.

More lighting, but now with me skedaddling down the road like a hobo with a stolen chicken.  The knees were steaming from trying to brake my descent, but the flashes and fear bayoneted me forward and faster.  Cowardice?  It seemed like common sense.  Regardless, I let it rip.

“Oh Mammy Mammy!  Oh holy holy!  Holy Mammy of God!”  I slid and scrambled down the trail.  Once my nerve broke, I was a one man rout.  I grabbed at branches  to slow down.  “Lee’s Army is coming!”

I started taking back promises as the trees around me got taller.   I finally made it to the bottom and laid down by a stream next to a culvert.  I later found out it’s one of the most dangerous places to be during a lightning storm, and one I was never warned about during local news shows.  What else was the media holding out on?   For now my ignorance meant bliss, and I pulled out a beer to celebrate it.  Only eighteen left, but what the hell.

The Colonel finally arrived with our store of women.  He was partially satisfied.  There was one more thing he wanted to see.  This would take us to a place so bone dry we wound up having to steal water from someone’s car, but that’s another tale.  That was T-Bone.  He’s had me teetering from dizzying death-drop precipices, freezing to stone Eastern Front-style in snowy wastelands, wading knee-high in streams while lighting struck upriver, or baking on hot coals in a sea of smelting sand, just so we could see something.

I wouldn’t trade any of it.

I got to see things I would never have, not if it had been up to my lazy ass.  I really owe him for that.  I also learned that being in Nature could make you feel better.  It didn’t matter what kind of madness tormented and drove me when I went in, I always drove out a better model.  And, I got to see a lot of sacred stuff.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring too much of it back in my pockets.  But eventually I learned what made things that way.  It’s all in the way you look at them, or more accurately, look for it in them.  Today, I start by looking at my coffee like it’s sacred, and then expand what I include, slowly, as the morning opens up.  If I keep paying attention, pretty soon I’m surrounded by sacred stuff, and God becomes something more than a guy to make promises to while being chased by lightning.  The Great Outdoors becomes an inside job.

Cue the banjo music

Just Between You, Me, and The Internet

I was lying in bed thinking about Idi Amin, then for some reason the Ice Capades, when I remembered making an inappropriate remark at someone’s funeral.  I sat up in a cold sweat.  It was just a little observation about an attractive woman walking by the casket, mumbled quietly under my breath, but heard plenty loud by all the wrong people.  It happened over 17 years ago, but if I had a dagger near me, I would have plunged it into my gut and run the gears on myself.  I don’t keep daggers by my bedside just for this reason.

After thirty years of drinking, I have built up quite a stockpile of events that upon remembering late at night, when my psycho-defence mechanisms are off having a cigarette, leave me with a hankering for harakiri.  There seems to be an endless supply of forgotten ones that float up from the froth and flotsam of my consciousness.  Like corpses that have decomposed loose from the tubs of cement their feet have been sunk into before being thrown into the East River, they bob to the surface, ready for examination by criminal investigators.

They are not pretty to look at.  All alcoholics create wreckage in their lives.  For some, it looks like broken tool sheds with knocked-over buckets of curds.  For others it looks more like the smoldering ruins of Stalingrad, with knocked over barrels of bio-hazardous waste–Soviet waste, the kind that kills all life it touches.

You look like someone with keen intuition.  I’ll let you guess which category my shit fits into.

Hey, if I’m going to do anything, it’s going to be big.  Why would I leave fucking up out of the program?  Everyone has a path they must stumble along while learning the lessons of life.  Apparently, I signed up for the Grueling Epic Journey walking tour.  The last ten years of my drinking were a Bataan Death March, except I was thirstier than those dudes.  But, oh what magic memories.  Let’s sit around the slide carousel and take a look at some of the more memorable ones, shall we?  Fuck that.

This blog doesn’t pay.  I can’t divulge my most humiliating moments for nothing.  If I’m going to totally embarrass myself …again, I’m going to need to make enough money doing it to buy a gated hacienda in Belize; somewhere I can hide, and never have to look any of you in the face again.  Armed guards will patrol the grounds with trained Jaguars.  Servant girls armed with blow-guns will sleep curled up around my bed.  That shit isn’t cheap.  Only Oprah can save me now.

“Oh,” you say “But you’ve already written some pretty embarrassing things about yourself, what’s a little more?”

“Oh,” I would say back, ”I bet you feel like a big smarty pants right now, but I haven’t even scratched the surface.  There’s a ratings level: A) Okay for public entertainment.  B) Okay for private entertainment.  C) Okay to privately confess to trusted confidant, who will be secretly entertained.  D) Okay to privately keep to yourself while sticking a dagger in your guts.”

You’re asking me to cough up Level D stuff without going through the required security clearance system.  D Level stuff is so secret, I don’t even admit it to myself.  I’m not about to hand it over to The Internet.  That place is populated by some seriously troubled individuals.  You should see some of the sick search terms they Google that eventually lead them to this blog.  It probably says more about my writing than anything, but I’m not going to think about that now.

Let’s just say I don’t yet fully trust this New Age of Information.

Until I can figure out how to erase huge swaths of my past, I’m going to hold some of my cards a little closer to my vest.  I’m still holding out for a time machine.  I know the Nazi’s were working on one.  Maybe we took over the program with their scientists we kidnapped after the war.  That’s what hope looks like to me.

In the meantime, I have to learn to how to accept and assimilate my past in a healthy way.  I like to imagine that I was part of an alien experiment in mutation designed to create a species that will survive the Apocalypse; a creature so used to dealing with miserable bullshit, that the tribulation from the End of Days will seem like just another rough Monday.

While everyone else is wailing and gnashing their teeth, I’ll be eating a breakfast burrito and washing down aspirin with a spicy Clamato.  There’s no money, gas or food?  Hell, I know this.  No need to freak.  Take a nap first, then try to figure it out later.  Maybe go pick through the stuff the looters dropped.

A strange belief system perhaps, but it works for me.  I won’t make fun of the crazy-ass shit you believe to help you cope.  I’m sure some of it is pretty laughable.  No, I know, not to you.

There’s not much to do with shame, but try to get over it.  It’s best to share some of it with a close-mouthed friend, preferably one with a terminal disease.  I figure if we both get a laugh over it, it’s a step towards healing.  (For me at least)  Oh, by terminal disease, I mean alcoholism.  I would share it with another alcoholic in recovery.  That’s what I meant.  Not using a dying person to safely unburden myself, like ”Oh, here’s something I was going to take with me to the grave, but since you’re heading that way anyway…”

That would be a very bad thing to do, right?

That was the hardest part for me about getting sober.  Looking at it all, with clear eye-balls.  It made me want to unclear them again quick.  But, that kind of goes against the point?  I felt like the rat that finally got trapped, but with no teeth left to gnaw my leg off with.  So I’d peek at it, feel bad, shake it off as best I could, and keep moving forward.  You have to step lively, because there’s always some little demon dogs still nipping at your heels.  It was a bad time, but not as bad as before, and that’s what keeps you going.

Eventually, I slowed down when I realized nothing had been chasing me for the past 3,200 miles.  Next thing I knew, I had been issued a Citizen-in-Good-Standing Certificate with convenient iron-on patch.  The instructions say to use a warm, dry iron setting.  In small letters it says “Revoked upon request.”

I’ve been a good little boy ever since.  That is, of course, relative to how I was before.  There’s a lot of slack in that rope, but there’s not too much fresh stuff to cringe about. Sure here and there, but nothing that requires a seppuku solution.  I consider that a resounding success.  So what if some memories still give me a little jolt, they’re not going to kill me.  Running from them was.

The only effective way I’ve found to change what’s happened is to change how I think about it. Realizing I had the power to change the narrative of my life was liberating.  Ultimately, I write my story.  Now I just have to figure out how to write about the time I pissed my pants on the subway, and make it seem awesome,  and I’ll sleep a lot better at night.

Wimin

Reluctant

I’ve always been a ladies’ man.  By that I mean, an easy mark, a sucker, a chump.   A chump-love-sucker.  Women have been able to manipulate me with the ease of a Mexican-made marionette.  From the sandbox to the strip clubs, these puppet mistresses would pull my strings, and I would be made to dance a jig or kiss my own ass.  It wasn’t always under duress.  I often complied voluntarily.  Stockholm Syndrome?  Perhaps.  I sure wanted to impress my captors.

In 1968, New York City was full of women.  Even as a young gremlin, I noticed their strange power over my happiness.  I was crushed when my kindergarten teacher, Miss Corchran, got married.  I attended the wedding, and sullenly watched some greasy Jerry Lewis type in horn rims take her away from me.  After the ceremony, I waited in line to kiss the bride, in my case, goodbye forever.  I walked to the train with my mom.  What was this feeling that made me want to pile my head through subway tile?  Will it ever go away?  Must all love die at the end of a stake?  Thank God, I didn’t know the truth.  No six-year-old deserves that.

For weeks afterwards, I moped around in a funk.  My Mom dragged me around the neighborhood while she did her shopping.  Every woman I saw at the A&P, or at the butcher’s shop, looked like a cheap replacement.  They were certainly do-able, but not Miss Corchran.  (I refused to refer to her by her married name, Mrs. Dipshit.)  I had resigned myself to a life alone.  I’d be one of those old guys at the Y.M.C.A. who eats catfood heated up on hot plate.  I didn’t know such a thing as hookers existed back then, but I’m sure it would’ve given me some solace.

I went through a period of one relationship after another.  There was Catwoman, Morticia Addams, Ginger, the black lady on Sesame Street.  I was trying to fill a hole.  There were a few babysitters here and there, but when you know they’re only there for the money, it leaves you hollow.  I treated them all like meaningless distractions, but today I can see I learned something from each one, especially the Sesame Street woman.

It was during this futile whirlwind of grasping that Dina showed up.  She was much older than me, maybe almost ten.  I was seven and a half and ready to spin the wheel again on this crazy game called Love.  Dina was exotic and intriguing.  She was Puerto Rican, which alone was a potent brew, but it was the long black hair and dark eyes that really killed me.  I found myself having trouble talking when she would show up on our street with her friends, and not just because I was a tongue-thruster, as the speech therapist at school had diagnosed.

They would come over from across Jamaica Avenue to play handball against the television repair shop wall two blocks from my house.  Their neighborhood was so poor it didn’t have any walls.  Dina had nice brown legs and didn’t wear socks with her sneakers.  I also remember that her Keds were so worn that her big toes started to peek through.  Seeing all that made me feel weird, but a good weird.

I would try to get her attention by riding by on my bike as fast as I could.  When she saw what little value I put on my life and safety, she would inexplicably be drawn to my self-destructive nature like a moth to a flame.  Together we would set ourselves on fire, and burn until there was nothing left.  Then we would get married and move to Long Island.

One day, while I was turned to see if she was watching, I ran into someone’s hanging laundry and was literally clothes-lined right off the bike.  A very cartoon moment, but to my young ego, more tragic than any Greek play.  Dina saw what happened and started to run over, but I quickly hopped up, embarrassed.  I got on my bike and disappeared.  I went up to my room and sat praying for an early death.  Typical me.  The only thing missing was a motel room stocked with beer, and some woman rolling  joints with a GPS cuffed around her ankle.

I decided my easiest in would be making friends with her younger brother, Tino.  He was a violent enough spaz to have something in common with.  I went over one afternoon and showed him how to burn stuff with a magnifying glass.  From that point on, he would have taken a bullet for me.  He was my pal.

We were smashing rolls of paper caps between bricks, when Dina came up and invited me to a house party at her place.  Oh shit.  She might as well have invited me to spend a week-end with her in Vegas.  The party was Saturday, and she said there was going to be a go-go dance contest with prizes.  I couldn’t believe it.  I had been practicing my go-go dance moves on the veranda of our house for some time now.  How fortuitously events were unfolding.

There used to be a kid’s show, Wonderama, with Bob McAllister.  It featured various games in which kids would compete for prizes.  They also had a go-go contest that I had set my sights on.  I used to play 45s of the Beatles and The Monkees, and practice dancing, on the off-chance that I might someday wind up on the show.  I had developed some secret new moves, and they were devastating.  Now I had a venue to showcase my efforts, and win the prize I had in mind.

I agreed to come to her party.  It was a golden opportunity to unleash my mating dance upon this Latin gypsy.  She would see this white boy’s dancing could match the torrid heat generated by her own hot-blooded rhythm.  I just had to get permission from my mom.

On the day of the party, Dina showed up with two of her younger sisters and Tino.  We crossed Jamaica into a more tired part of town.  The party wasn’t much.  Dina’s family was really poor.  There were no decorations and the place smelled like diapers.  Her mom had her hair in curlers with a scarf over them, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, but she smiled a lot, and tried to make it fun for us.

We did have cake, blew soap bubbles, and took turns throwing a balsa wood glider around in the street, but I wasn’t really present.  I was thinking about the contest.  Don’t try too hard or you’ll look wooden.  Just let it happen to you, and then happen right back.  Let it loose, then rein it slowly back in.  Don’t be afraid to smolder.

Her mom handed out popsicles and we ate them on the porch.  I sized up my competition.

It looked formidable.  Lots of Latinos and a few black kids.  They didn’t need to practice.  There were a few Irish and another Lithuanian.  I wasn’t worried about them.  I doubted there would be another sleeper hidden in this crowd.  Finally, Dina’s mom called us in to listen to records.  Here we go.  Time to burn it down.

She put on a record and all us kids started dancing.  Dina joined us and made her way over to me.  Okay, okay, don’t floor the pedal too early.  Steady old boy.  I kept to my basic moves, a Hully Gully here, a Shimmy there, a Shoulder Roll Full of Soul.  Just journeyman stuff.   Nothing too crazy, yet.  Dina was dancing along, but in a happy, innocent, jumpy way.  It wasn’t the way I had imagined.  Hmmm.

Finally, her mom announced the contest.  She would point at kids to come up to the front of the room to dance solo.  Afterwards, we would pick the winner with our applause.   That seemed like some pretty arbitrary judging, but I reminded myself that this wasn’t about winning the contest.   It was about Dina and I getting married and moving to Long Island.

Most of the dancers were pretty good.  The poor have always made good dancers.  It doesn’t cost anything to dance around.  I got the nod from her mom and stepped up.

The song was “These Boots are Made for Walking,” by Nancy Sinatra.  I started out with a strutting stroll but quickly shifted gears into my own creations: The Manic Monkey, The White Tornado, Jump and Flap, Jump and Flap with Karate Chops, Army Guy Covered in Napalm, and my version of The Zombie, which was based on the drunk renter that lived at my grandparents’ house.  The other kids were getting into it.  They were laughing and clapping, cheering me on.  I had them wrapped, now it was time to wring them dry, and make Dina’s toes pop right through her Keds.  Watch out now.

I finished with what I considered my signature move.  It was supposed to be me pretending to do the limbo, but I realize now that it looked like I was trying to hump the sky.  Anyway, it brought down the house.  I remember looking out and seeing these older black girls scream.  Dina had her hand over her mouth, no doubt stunned by the sublime measure of my art.  Tino wound up  joining in, then everybody else.  We were all bent back and bumping it.  Mrs. Rivera was doubled over.

I won.

They had to improvise a first prize.  It turned out to be a mangy stray neighborhood cat, but I took it.  Hell yeah.  Afterwards, everyone shook my hand, and girls were giggling and talking about me.  Double hell yeah.  I was talking to the two older girls when Dina tapped me on the shoulder.

“Whenever you want, I can walk home with you.”

“Sure Dina, but hold on, I’m talking right now.  As soon as I’m done. “

“Okay, I’ll be over by the soda.”

“Be right there,” I turned back to the girls, “As I was saying, I go to PS 66 and my teacher is Mrs. Ammonds.  I like to play Army, ride my bike, and light things on fire.”

After the party, Dina walked me back to my house.  When she reached out and held my hand, I thought I would pass out.   I had been a line monitor and had held plenty of girls’ hands before, but this felt different.  It was extra sweaty.  Tino carried my trophy.  I tried to step extra slow, to make it last.  When we got to my front door, she let go off my hand.

“You’re a good dancer.”

“Thanks.”

We stood there for a while.  It was awkward.  I didn’t know how to take it to the next level, or if it was even the right time.

“I have to go pee,” I announced, scrunching the crotch of my pants.

“Okay bye,” she waved.  Her brother handed me the cat, and I went inside.

Holy shit, what a party!  I dropped the cat on the floor and ran to the bathroom.  My mom came out of the kitchen.  I knew the new pet wasn’t going to go over well.

“It’s my prize, Ma!” I yelled over my peeing.  “For dancing at Dina’s party!”

Dancing like a molten motherfucker.  A sky-humping love pumper.  I earned that pussy cat.  “Please Mom, can we keep it?”

No dice.  She took it outside and let it go.  That was okay.  I wasn’t interested in cats so much anymore, or even Catwoman for that matter.  I had just been given my first dose of a drug that would nearly kill me quicker than the drinking.

Trying to impress women wouldn’t have been so dangerous if I had stuck to dancing  go-go, but over the years I had expanded my catalogue.  It included stuff that I thought was impressive, but only caused concern.  If I couldn’t impress them, I’d settle for worrying them sick.  It seemed easier.  It turned out to be a good way of wearing out some pretty big hearts, and put me on the fast track to eating cat food alone.  That had to change.

I still get clotheslined off my bike now and then.  I’m just not pedaling as fast when I hit, and I’ve learned how to roll when I fall.  I’d like to think I’ve learned something since seven and a half.  I eat more vegetables and don’t play with matches.  I drink a lot less too.  I still dance like a molten motherfucker though.  Hell yeah.  Make you want to move to Long Island, baby.

Resigned

The Sober Strip Club Manager; A Vanishing Breed

Hey Ma, look at me now!

I hated working at the strip club on Sundays.  Sundays are sad enough.  Strip clubs are even sadder.  A strip club on a Sunday is as sad as it gets.  The refuse that washes up on its shores is pretty ugly.  The level of sleaze that frequents a strip club on a Sunday night is lower than, say, a guy who just wants to pop in while his wife is in labor.

I was working as a shift manager in an old club by LAX.  “Nude Nudes” our sign redundantly declared.  It was run-down and dirty, like the clientele, and our featured entertainment.  I had started out as a bouncer, but because I could muster more cognitive ability than a Neanderthal, knew simple arithmetic, didn’t steal, and wasn’t drinking, I was singled out for promotion to management.   I really felt like sobriety was moving me up the food-chain.  Unfortunately, it was of a species that tended towards bottom-feeding.

On Sundays, we opened at 6pm.  I got there at five, to unlock the place and get things in order.  The strippers were supposed to come in at staggered times from 5:30 onwards.  Instead, they would start showing up around 6:30, but definitely staggered.  Some drunk, some hung-over, others poisoned by powders, but all late.  Meanwhile, I had guys who had just been stuck with a substantial cover charge, sitting around drinking skinny glasses of six-dollar soda, looking at an empty stage.  “Where are the girls?”  they’d ask me.  “Fuck if I know,” I’d tell them, and no they couldn’t get their money back.

I’d stand in the parking lot, pissed-off and stressed-out, waiting for the girls.  Eventually, they’d begin to arrive, by their new Lexus or Escalade, or by taxi, or boyfriend’s truck.  They were a sight to behold.  No make-up, stained sweat pants, ratty hair, sometimes red-eyed and bruised.  You wouldn’t think some guy would squander a large percentage of his paycheck to rub up against them, but you’d be wrong.  For me, the relief of seeing them finally show up diluted the anger.

Coco was notoriously late.  An ebony bombshell, with boobs like a bullet bumper from a ’55 Buick Century Riviera.  She had the body that let her get away with a lot of things in life.  She took advantage of this fact, along with a lot of suckers who fell under its spell.  We hated and liked each other in equal measure.

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Your Highness.  We have champagne and a eucalyptus body wrap waiting for you.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’ve had a hard day. Could you take my bag…please.”

I bent down to pick up her bag and noticed her new Louboutin shoes, then saw the polish on her toe nails was chipped and flaking.  Says it all.

“Having to tote around this duffel bag stuffed with dollar bills will take it out of a girl, or was it the Iron Worker’s convention?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

We walked to the back gate and had Tiny buzz us in.  We went down the hall to the dressing rooms.

“I’ve got a roomful of Japanese business men sitting in there angry because I have, as a poor host, disgraced their honor.  Anytime now they might realize they’ve been drinking non-alcoholic beer, and that alone is enough to restart the war.”

“Why is that my problem?  My back hurts, and I started my period.”

“Wow, that’s just great.  I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of guys out there breathing a sigh of relief.”

“Is Boogie here?”

“She got here ten minutes ago.”

“She’s got something of mine.”

“Contagious?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

We got to the dressing room.  It smelled like hairspray and weed.  Girls were putting on make up, getting dressed for getting undressed.  Some were laughing, others bitching and complaining, many drinking from paper cups.  I turned a blind eye to all the boozing and substance abuse.  I understood that getting naked in front of a bunch of strangers, and giving them a view usually reserved for the doctor, required a special sort of mind-set.  Being sober wasn’t it.  Besides, who was I to judge?  I would drink to fortify myself for a lot less daunting tasks, like going to the mailbox or to take a shower.  I dropped the bag by her locker.

She sat down, pulled out the massive coconuts from her lace bra, and just let them flop like tired seals.

“Nice.  Okay, please don’t peel it back here for too long.  The natives are getting restless.  And try not to get too drunk tonight, Howard might be showing up.”

“I need a tampon someone!” she yelled.

“Listen for your song…and don’t forget to cut the string.”

I went inside the lounge to check on things.  Willow was on stage.  Poor thing.  She was a lost little hillbilly, mercifully dim-witted enough not to realize how cruel her lot was.  Her boyfriend was some ass-hole that was basically pimping her out.  He took all her money at the end of the shift, and doled out a measly stipend for her to buy Cool Ranch Doritos and breath mints, which see seemed to live on.  I tried to look out for her as best as I could, but the predators were plenty.  Besides, she’d be going home to one, so it was a lost cause.  The place was full of those.

I looked at my floor guy, Armando.  He seemed fairly sober tonight.  He had the clipboard.  His job was to mark which lap dance booth the girls were privately dancing in.  The “dance” was usually some form of dry-humping and groping, and each one had to be accounted for.  It’s not landing a probe on Mars, but enough of a hassle for a drinking man.  He had to keep track of twenty-two different booths located in various parts of the club.  Every booth that had a girl with a customer inside, had to have a little light bulb lit up by the door.  That showed that the girl activated the light by running her card, which was basically a debt card she had been issued at the beginning of her shift.  She would pay for, or be given credit for, a number of song’s worth of dances.  That was how the house got it’s cut.  It cost her seventeen dollars for every two and half-minute song, but don’t worry, she’d get that back from her customer and plenty more.  Especially if she didn’t bother to run the card.

Armando had to make sure that didn’t happen.  He really had to have his hustle on checking each booth.  Some of our more scandalous scamps would dart into the darkened booths as soon as he turned his back, in order to grind one out rent-free.  Fortunately, Armando watched vigilantly.  It’s not that he cared about making Howard more money.  He just didn’t like the idea of some stripper outsmarting him.  I got that.

My bouncer was Danny, a gang member, ex-con, off-and-on drug user.  Good guy.  I was grateful to have him.   He could handle a fair share of shit, leaving less of it for me to deal with.  Regardless of the management title, I was still just a bouncer, but one that had to count a lot more.

The money from admissions, the bar, and the dances didn’t just have to add up, it had to add up high.  The owner had decided all of that depended on me.  If  guys didn’t come in, that was my fault.  If they didn’t want to drink more soda than the two drink minimum, or pay some creature forty dollars to sit on their lap, it was considered a failure on my part to motivate them.  I had to get them to fully participate in their own fleecing.

Every night I’d have to call in the final numbers, and would pray that Howard wouldn’t pick up from the answering machine.  By then, he’d had a few, and was prone to screaming tirades, even if the numbers were okay.  I stressed balls over the numbers, and looking back, I can see it was all for nothing.  Howard was going to rage whenever he felt like it.  Worrying about it was a futile waste of misery.  It didn’t make staying sober any easier, that’s for sure.

My DJ on Sunday was Dan.  Jesus.  How can I describe Dan?  He looked like some troll that just stepped off a fantasy game board.  No, troll is not right, more like an old garden gnome, but one who instead of wearing a pointy cap, had wiry hair pulled back into a Thomas Jefferson type of thing.  Just a strange-looking creature, but you forgot all about that when you got to know how weird he really was on the inside.

He was paranoid and saw Big Brother watching everywhere, so he had decided to watch back.  He would listen to a portable police scanner while in the booth.  Don’t get me wrong, the scanner is a valuable tool to keep a step or two ahead of the squad car’s arrival, but he wasn’t up to anything.  He’d monitor the calls coming in and make scary, cryptic announcements . “Somebody’s about to take a fall on a fifty-nine dash eleven, and nobody knows who’s going to be next!”

I was already jumpy from not drinking, and had recently had some trouble with the law, so I never knew if I should pay attention to him.  Every time his radio came on,  it sounded like cops had entered the building, and I’d have to fight the impulse to bolt.  Paranoia is highly contagious.

Dan was bizarre on the mike.  I’d have to do the voice for you to get it across right, but it was an over-the-top, greasy AM radio smooth, but with a pervy quality.  It was like audible leering.  This combined with his odd choice of patter to make everything sound sick and sinister.

“Yes yes gentlemen, the time has come for our two-for-one special!  Our ladies are waiting for you to take advantage.  Exercise your freedom of choice while you still can!  Grab one of our young ladies, before it’s too late, and allow her to entertain you.  Don’t feel the regret of lost opportunity the lost opportunity of not taking advantage…of our two-for-one special.  Be good to yourself, and do it now…“  He was clearly trying his hand at mind-control.  The girls were all creeped out by him, and they didn’t creep out easily.  I felt sorry for him.  I could tell he was a lonely soul, and he wasn’t doing anything to fix that anytime soon.

Carla Chronic was behind the bar, her eyes fighting to stay up at half-mast, selling sodas, juice, and non-alcoholic beers.  Because we were an all-nude place, the law said we couldn’t serve alcohol.  I guess the reasoning was that seeing a woman’s vagina while drinking was going to make men too crazy.  Two powerful intoxicants, when mixed together can have a dangerous synergistic effect.  I have to begrudgingly agree with our lawmakers on this one.  One or the other is trouble enough.

I looked around the room.  The crowd on Sundays was a depressing lot.  We had The Fiddler.  He was slunk down behind a table in a dark corner.  He would wear  flimsy nylon running shorts so he had easier access to massage himself.   In order to throw him out, I’d have to catch him in the act, which I was never enthusiastic about.  He would change into shorts from his work clothes, out in his car before he came in.  He was someone’s Dad, I thought, and that must really suck.

There was Lover Boy, a chubby guy who would bring gifts to a certain stripper.  Flowers, cards, candy, balloons, little trinkets, all brought with great anticipation of bequeathing to his lady-love.  He would then take her into a booth, sit harmlessly next to her for $400 worth of songs, and tell her about his day.  She was kind enough, but when his time was up, she’d have to leave to find another guy.  He would watch her go off into a booth with some dude, and then bring the balloons over to me for safe-keeping, and leave.  It was brutal to witness.  Like watching a duckling get flattened with a tennis racket.

Off to my right, was Pappy Parker.  I think his real name was Roy.  He was one of those guys with a big beard and a hanging gut that required both a belt and suspenders.  He sold custom-made knives at gun shows, and made bolo ties that had real scorpions embedded in amber-colored resin.  His big thing was taking part in Civil War reenactments, the ones in which Pickett’s Charge succeeds and the South wins.   He also liked to have strippers cradle his head in the lap dance booth while cooing baby talk.  There were rumors of a pacifier involved, but I never saw it.  I watched him pick his nose and wipe it off under the table.

Everywhere you looked there was something to feel bad about.  Someone was exploiting someone, often while being exploited themselves.  If it wasn’t the bad feelings and bullshit, it was the boredom.  By then, I had become desensitized to even the most alluring of dancers.  I’d watch some slutted-up slice of seduction, wantonly writhe around on the stage, and find myself  thinking about having to buy new socks or wiper blades.  “I need to mail in that rebate, it expires pretty soon.”  That would freak me out.  What’s happening to me?  When your favorite stuff starts to bore you, you know you’re in trouble.

I was in bigger trouble than I realized.  I was letting it all get to me, and that’s not good for somebody trying to recover.  The constant worrying about my earlier legal troubles, and the stress of trying to appease the unappeasable Howard, was making me thirsty, and not for a six-dollar soda.  I hadn’t learned to live without alcohol, and that meant I hadn’t learned how to live at all.  A strip club was probably not the best place to take those baby steps.  I would eventually start drinking again, and Sunday nights wouldn’t be so sad anymore.  They would be even sadder.

Honorary Irish

I love the Irish.  I love everything about them.  I love the music, the drinking, the fighting, the way they can sleep eight family members in a twin bed like a litter of puppies.  From The Book of Kells to Shane Macgowan, their art has lifted many earthbound souls to realms celestial.  Their service, both public and military, to this country is immeasurable.   Those hard-working, hard-drinking, lyrical lunatics have brightened my world and lightened my load.  They have picked me up (sometimes literally) when I was at my lowest.  No drunken regret, when confided to an Irishman, will seem as bad.

“Ah Marius, sorry tah here about yar troubles, but dere’s no need tah beat yourself up. I remember when I…”  From there he’ll launch into a tale of drunkenness that will magically make your shame lift.  “Pissed thah whole dance floor.”  “Wiped myself off on duh mudder-in-law’s curtains.”  “Barfed guts on dere wedding cake.”  “Crawled into thah casket and passed out blind.”   He’ll laugh and shrug, what can you do?  Indeed.

I am convinced that during the Dark Ages, the Irish saved Western civilization, just so they could kick it in the ass today.

My best bars were always Irish.  Guinness is the God of Beers, and when every third pint came free with a knock on the bar, it didn’t come closer to heaven for this thirsty lad.  I pounded my pints down a bit faster than the micks around me.   People would shake their heads and smile.  It’s actually considered bad form to glug one down quickly, unless you’ve gotten a call on your police radio, or the bar is on fire.  I was told to slow down, that a pint was meant to be enjoyed.  I figured I could enjoy it more once it was in my stomach.  I wasn’t using some trick like opening my throat, either.  It was more like opening my soul and pouring it in.  Now you see it, now you need to get me another.  I spent a lot of time standing around, drumming my fingers on the bar, waiting out the excruciatingly slow process required to pour another.

One of my proudest moments as a drinker came when I was visiting back home.  I had been drinking  at Biddy Mulligan’s, my old neighborhood bar in Queens.  One afternoon I walked in and ordered a Guinness, and they told me they were out.  What?

“How can you be out of Guinness?” I asked, incredulous at even the possibility.

“We weren’t expecting a certain visitor from New Mexico,” the bartender explained.  Apparently, I had single-handedly drank them two days short of the delivery.

“Next time send a postcard warnin’ us of yar arrival,” some guy said.  He held up his bottle of  Budweiser and looked at it.  “Please.”

That night, people would come in and order a Guinness, only to be told the bad news.  The bartender would answer their angry queries with a thumb over to me, The Lithuanian.  They called me The Baltic Black Hole.  I had earned the right to sit there.  I was okay by them.  I’ve been sober for a while now, and shouldn’t be proud of stuff like that.  So I won’t admit it.

The Irish make the best drinking buddies.  Great storytellers, sympathetic listeners, talented musicians, generous with their coin, drink, and fists.  They’ll fight someone for you just so you can finish your beer.  They’re useful, too.  Besides making good father confessors and bar room therapists, you can use them as crutches and leaning posts, or better yet, as battering rams.  They don’t mind being used as a weapon.  That hard head is more of a blessing than a curse.  They’d rather not be left out of any melee, whatever their contribution.  The only time you’ll see an Irishman on the sidelines is if he’s a cop doing crowd control, and that must just kill them.

I’ve watched old guys, frail as twigs, square off against much younger and stronger guys.  The crowd usually steps in to save them, but damn it, they were ready to throw down.  You’re just not going to find that kind of fire in some old fart WASP in golf pants.  I overheard this white-haired goat tell an upstart punk one night, “I’ve broken more men than cowards you’ve chased, Paddy.”  They’re all poets, I thought, they just can’t help it.  Sure like to kick ass, too.

Irish-Americans make for dangerous playmates, but when you get to tumble around with the mischief-makers straight from the Emerald Isle (the imported, pure, uncut shit) you’ve got to really step up your mayhem game.  You are now playing among some of the world’s elite.  Wear a loose shirt so so it will tear easier when you’re grabbed.  It’ll also give your liver room to grow.  As a drunken maniac, I always felt like a man without a country.  Then I discovered a country I felt I belonged in.  I met Dez.

He was a wiry, strong little elf, with a choke-hold that could black you out right quick.  (He put me to sleep a few times during our scraps together)  We’d throw each other around the room in full-on cage match savagery, and then stop to take a break and drink a beer.   We’d sit there drinking, he would console me over my problems, make me laugh, make me cry, wish me better days, then cuff me across the ear and we’d be on again.  It was the full Irish experience.  Strong stuff.  Not for the timid.

One morning, I was having breakfast with Dez and his family, who were visiting from Tipperary.  His father was talking about someone back home, a young guy that was helping him lay bricks.  When he went by in the morning to pick him up for work, “Sean’s fadder came out and gave me thah wave-on.”  Everyone nodded.  I asked what that was.  Dez explained that  if the person that’s supposed to be picked up is too poisoned to work, someone will come out and signal to the driver to go on without them.  In Ireland, it is so common to be too hung over to go to work, that the whole explanation has been abbreviated to a simple hand gesture.  They even have a term for it, The Wave-on.  How unbelievably fucking awesome.   I especially like how other family members will come out and perform The Wave-on for you.  That is so beautiful, so decent, it kind of chokes me up.

Later in the conversation, the mother recalled an anecdote about Dez’s younger brother, who got so drunk one night he came into their bedroom thinking it was the john.  He opened up his father’s closet and pissed into his boots.  “And it was me favorite pair!”  the Dad said, and everyone just laughed and laughed.  The whole family was teary with hilarity.  Okay, let me tell you, I’ve gotten my family fairly inoculated to my shenanigans, but that’s not how that story would have been retold.  It would be refered to, if at all, as “The Incident,” and maybe how it proceeded another rehab visit.  It would not be a happy ha-ha tale to regale your company with.  In Ireland, they laugh off things that would make you want to kill yourself in shame over here.  You can really cut loose over there.  You can be yourself.

I made a mental note, “Going to Ireland would mean my death.  Hold off, for now.”

I have yet to make that pilgrimage.  I’m still in a holding pattern.  I’m not sure I’m ready for Ireland sober.  I’m not sure Ireland is ready for a sober me.  I’m not as easy to choke out.

At the heart of the Irish is heart.  Bigger ones you won’t find.  They are fierce friends, loyal, brave, compassionate, cheerful, and funny as the devil.  I can’t think of a better brand of human.   These divine madmen, under all their craziness, pour out more love than you could ever drink.  As an outsider, I am eternally grateful for their taking me into their tribe, at least for that little while.  My life is richer because of it.  So in honor of your great snakecharmer, St. Patrick, I raise this phantom pint.  I salute your entire race.  You blessed sons and daughters of Eire.  Thank you for existing.  Cheers!

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Guinness Is Good For You!