Maledictions and Malaprops -- A True Story I Wrote that I Publish Here Preceeded by an Introdution

Main setting of the story.

Oh no love! you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone 
-- From Rock and Roll Suicide by David Bowie

I am a tortured genius who suffers for his art.

Sometimes the torture is sublime. A masochistic orgy of painful rumination and all I’ve come to understand all I’ve felt and all that remains beyond my grasp. I reach, reach, reach and exert my brain and slump. Lost among the turgid thoughts of daily trivia.

Or so it seems.

Recently I mentioned to someone that I have never suffered either a major illness nor major injury. (I have more than made up for this with enough mental and emotional woes enough to satisfy a small city.) So anyway this chap says that I had better knock on wood. I refused pointing out that knocking on wood will have no influence on my future health. He suggested that I was tempting fate and indeed seemed somewhat agitated with me for not following the rules. This just served to make me more adamant. I was not going to give in to any silly superstition.

A co- worker was recently talking about liking to cook and said it was typical of Cancers, referring to people born under a particular astrological sign and not sufferers of the disease. I asked, “what’s the science behind that?” He did not answer but another co-worker, a learned man who has studied the great philosophers of history suggested that there “seems to be a lot there.” Yes, a lot of hokum.

I believe that whenever someone mentions astrology in a way that suggests that it has any basis in reality, a scientist somewhere sheds a tear.

All this serves as an introduction to a story I wrote a few years ago that has never before seen the light of day, or the internet anyway. Every word of if it is true. I didn't even change the girl's name, she's dead now anyway.

MALEDICTIONS AND MALAPROPS

The world, my existence felt as if I was viewing and experiencing from the depths of the ocean. Water. Lies. Perception thrown off, depressing like a bad day following another bad one with another one coming and for all time. No escaping. Was it the drugs I’d taken? Was it adolescence. Was this real life and all before had been fantasy? Had I been drugged? Surreptitiously. I stood suddenly quite alone and confused trying to recall what existence felt like from the inside. I was all out of whack. 

Teenage wasteland. With or without the drugs. Mind zapping itself and here comes Danza. A mad crush. Spring day junior year high school. I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing. I just play along. I do know how I feel most of the time and I know that I’m mad for Danza. “Hi, Richard,” she offered with a beaming smile. For me? This happy smile this warm greeting as she walked right towards me. Her long dark hair swayed. Her breasts poked against a light white sweater. Danza’s face was just this side of perfection. Just.

I was scared. Scared of a girl. Not because she was so beautiful, not because I loved her from afar, but because she was being so friendly. This could be a devastating experience. I could find out once and for all the awful truth that no male ever wants to know of an object of lust -- that she wanted to be friends. And friends only. Or not. Consider if she liked me. I mean LIKED me, even half as much as I liked her. The pressure would be enormous, the potential for a disastrous fall was incalculable. 

“Hi,” was all I could muster. Saying her name felt dangerously personal, like we were old buddies, neighborhood pals who’d grown up together and knew each other’s families, like we were practically cousins and romance was an impossibility. 

Then she did it. She stopped right there in front of me and started to chat. This had never happened before. We’d been classmates several times thus far in high school and had exchanged friendly glances in the hallways and at our lockers. But now Danza was stepping outside of the role of acquaintance and being friendly. 

My palms were wet. I rubbed a thumb and index finger together nervously. “How’s it goin'?” she wanted to know. She. Danza wanted to know how I was doing. Me. 

“Pretty good, how are you?” it was too formal sounding, but worse I wanted to add: so why the hell are you talking to me. You’ve got all the power here, you initiated this and I’m scared and confused and every second is like a minute and what the hell are you going to say next quick say it before I spontaneously combust which would be just my luck.

“I’m doin’ great” she said as if truly touched that I would take the time to ask. How do girls do this? How do they make us feel so special, so wonderful, so very happy just through the inflection of their voice and how they tilt their head and look at us. Then she added a question that I shall ever forget: “So is this your lunch or do you have second lunch?”

It was not my lunch I did have second lunch but I suspected that if I told her that this magic would end. “No, I’ve got lunch now,” I said in a voice more squeaky than Mickey Mouse's.

Then she uttered a sentence I shall never forget: “Well maybe we could have lunch together."

I felt a power surge through my body as if I had been granted magic powers and could levitate. “Sure, that would be great.” I suddenly sounded like Cary Grant. I suddenly felt I must be as handsome as Danza was beautiful. I felt bullet proof.

Let us now move ahead in the narrative. Danza and I are sitting in the little park across the street from Berkeley High. I am wolfing down my lunch, she nibbling at hers in the way women mysteriously do. We had chatted about teachers, music, movies, classmates and shared vignettes from our home lives (mine were airbrushed to eliminate any ugliness about a wacko mom and ensuing complications). All was going wonderfully and if I had been able to step out of my body for a moment and watch the unfolding scene I would have boldly predicted that the seemingly impossible notion of a romance between Danza and I was on the verge of becoming a reality. I had stepped up in class and was now officially the type of person who is visited by good fortune with the resulting successful career, gorgeous wife, handsome children and bulging bank account, not to mention athletic fame. 

I was figuratively not only on top of the world but doing summersaults over it. Then Danza asked me another question that I shall never forget: “What’s your sign?” To this point in my life the whole nonsense of astrology was a harmless matter that neither interested nor bothered me. That was all about to change. I said with confidence: “Pisces.”  

“Oh,” said Danza first as if receiving disappointing news. Then she poured it on with a soft but audible “ewww.” The sad “oh” had been bad enough. Now this, an actual “ewww” from the woman who I was falling in love with. Danza looked down at the grass, picking softly at a few blades. I experienced a sensation that would be repeated when not getting a job I wanted, or being fired from one or when an expected letter didn't arrive or when a woman tore my heart out.

Danza suddenly realized the time and that she had to get something from the school library before her next class. I let her return to school alone.

It was all over just like that. Because of when I was born. The disappointment I had feared cloaked me. Snugly. I got up and headed to the campus. But as I crossed the street I started to feel relief. It was over before it really started between Danza and I had done nothing to cause this abrupt end. It was her, her and an idiotic, superstitious belief that a person’s personality was shaped by the stars. I could now dismiss Danza as a "bitch" (a term I no longer use about women). Not because she had rejected me. But why she had cast me aside. From that point on when I saw Danza she looked anything but beautiful. Instead I saw only ignorance. She wasn’t even a “bitch” just a pathetic creature. And from that day on I have hated any reference to astrology wether playful or serious.

Just a Reminder

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane. Respect rather than fear. There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions, who will do anything.
-- From Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Being sober for a long time you kind of think that maybe you could do it. Maybe you could actually just have a drink or a beer and not immediately go on a bender. You think that maybe you’re over it or that maybe you never really drank or used all that much. Not compared to some of the people you’ve listened to in meetings or some of those total dead end guys you used to drink with. Why the hell should you deprive yourself? Remember how nice it was to have wine with dinner? Or how good a beer on a hot day tasted? You could do that, you’ve learned.

Then you remember. You remember sitting at the end of a bar with a glass of scotch. You didn’t really need this drink, you’d been hammering away all night and done a few lines and smoked a joint, the drink you were clutching was totally superfluous. You didn’t even want it. You were high, you were on, you were with friends, you had more of the night left to go and it was only Thursday so you had the weekend ahead. So you didn’t want it or need it but there it was. Because. Because you had to have it. That was the beauty of your life. Getting high was a journey not a destination. You were in love with the process. Stopping, ending, finishing, having enough, these were not part of your getting high lexicon. That’s it. You were getting. You were still going and would until….

You're a superstar. You're the greatest. Your David Fucking Bowie. You can have any woman you want and you, my friend just scored the winning goal in the World Cup and won the Oscar and absolutely everyone thinks your cool. Oh sure in reality you're slurring your words and your zipper is down, your hair mussed, you reek of booze and tobacco, you're speaking gibberish and laughing insanely and all but your friends think you are totally obnoxious, but that's there thing, man. You know you can bloody well fly. 

So no, you can’t do it. You can’t have just a glass of wine or just a bottle of beer. Literally you could that first time and maybe that second. But that third or that fourth. You’d be off to the races again. You’d be true to your nature as a junkie. You wouldn’t care about anything else. Nothing. Feed the monkey.

And that thought, the one about how you could do it, you could have a taste and it would be cool, that only lasted a second. In and out of your brain just that fast. Never anything serious. But it was there nonetheless. All those years on the disease still pokes at you, little jabs as if to say: hey, I'm only sleeping, anytime you're man enough to wake me up we can go again. Cunning, baffling, powerful are the three words used to describe it. Ain't that the truth.

So what you do is show up. Even if not physically with others you do it mentally. Check in. Remember the new process the one that does not include using and abusing. Stopping was one thing, living without it a whole new ballgame. Like Robert Redford at the end of the The Candidate (1972) when he wins the election, "what do we do now?" Exactly. That's the whole rest of your life. Living without. Now what? Do today for starters. All you got. And when those notions of going back pop in, let 'em pop right out.

Happy Jack Kerouac's Birthday

My Encounter With an SS Officer

It was my last day in Berlin, a brisk November afternoon just less than 10 months before the Germans invaded Poland. I’d been in Berlin for two weeks to file some stories for my newspaper, but I was also there out of sense of curiosity. I wanted to see if this Nazi regime was as awful as some said or as benign as others said. I’d seen and heard enough to be pretty confident that the Nazis were quite bad indeed. I wasn’t convinced that war was imminent but I felt certain that ominous things were happening in the country and that they meant to export their twisted philosophy one way or another.

The atmosphere in Germany was quite unsettling to me. It was clean and efficient and under control but the rich cultural life I’d experienced in my first visit to the country ten years earlier had vanished. People did not seem unhappy but their was something robotic or resigned about them. There were too the many signs — literal and figurative — that life for Jews was intolerable. I recall feeling quite relieved that I was leaving and was looking forward to a few days in Paris before returning to the States.

I’d been wandering around Berlin for awhile that day as I had time to kill before my train left. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was and didn’t fancy getting lost. For one thing I didn’t want to miss my train but also I was uncomfortable enough in Berlin as it was without finding myself in parts of the city unknown.

I had just stopped at an intersection to try to sort matters out when I noticed that there was an SS officer coming out of a cafe. He must have noticed that I had a perplexed look. I’ve always had a very bad poker face, there’s never been any disguising how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. In any event, he took a few steps toward me and asked if I was indeed lost. I spoke sufficient German to tell him that I wasn’t sure the way back to my hotel. He detected my accent and asked where I was from. I read nothing but curiosity in his question, even as I think back on it now all these years later. I told him I was an American and he said that he had a cousin living in Cincinnati who quite liked the country. I told him that I’d been in that city before and the area itself was very nice.

He asked about my visit and I told him. We chatted amiably for perhaps ten minutes. The SS officer couldn’t have been more polite or charming. He seemed to be what we used to call a gentleman. He was several inches over six feet tall, trim and -- not surprisingly -- blonde. While talking to him I momentarily forgot what his uniform stood for, what his leaders and peers had been doing and might be preparing to do. Finally I felt bold and — ever the reporter — asked him about his government’s treatment of its Jewish citizens. The SS Officer smiled politely and nodded as if my question were to be expected. He said (and here I offer my translation of his remarks in quotes because I’ve always remembered it well): “the Jews are treated in accordance with their needs and responsibilities and the manner in which they conduct business. There is nothing done to or for them that is not just.” His answer seemed at once patronizing, polite and rehearsed. It was also bereft of meaning. But there was also in it the understanding that further pursuit of the topic on my part would be fruitless.

The SS Officer then told me he had responsibilities to attend to and asked if I was sure I could get back to my hotel. I assured him that I could and thanked him for his kindness.

I thought about that encounter a lot in the years since though for some reason I left it out of any future articles I wrote about my trip in particular or the Nazis in general. Of course I often wondered what happened to the SS Officer. Was he killed? Was he executed for war crimes? Did he serve Hitler throughout the war and survive then go on to a “normal life” and help rebuild Germany? I think, of course, that he was brainwashed. All those SS men were, in my opinion. Had the Nazis not come along he might have been a decent chap contributing to his country in any number of positive ways.

During and after the war I was much sought after for my opinion on various issues relating to Hitler and his gang of thugs. I was always willing to offer my thoughts, but truthfully I was just as bewildered as everyone else. It was a scope of evil that was not easily comprehended. When the horrors of the Holocaust came to light I had trouble sleeping. The images from the camps haunted my dreams and sometimes woke me up with a start. And I couldn't help but think: did the SS Officer I spoke to participate in this barbarity? If he was stationed at a camp then surely he did.

Sometimes at a particular time of year or time of day or when the weather is just so, my mind will go back to that encounter with the SS Officer and the memory will be as clear as though it took place yesterday. And I often think: he seemed such a nice man.

Like I Was Saying Before This Stupid Apocalypse

From Bergman's Persona, one of the films I've enjoyed of late.

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
-- From Changes by David Bowie

I wanted to write something today. Something memorable. Something that would hang in the air taking solid form. Something I could climb up and repose on and dance with and shimmy down the hall in the company of. I wanted to write something big. Something that The New Yorker would pay me double for. That Forbes magazine would take notice of. That would be featured on the PBS NewsHour. Something that pundits would discuss. I wanted something that anti intellectual right wingers would rail about. I wanted to write something that would be compared to the best of James Joyce and at the same time to Hemingway and somehow to Descartes and to The Beatles, of course. I wanted to write something that would be hung in the Louvre and would be credited with reviving literature. I wanted to write something that would cause a national holiday to be declared so that people could take the time to read it. I wanted to write something that was translated into 100 languages. I wanted to write something that would soar to the heavens. With wings. I wanted to write something that you could taste, feel, smell and hold.

I wanted to consequently be hailed a genius and awarded a special Pulitzer Prize and an extra special Nobel Prize. I wanted to receive long standing ovations and parades and I wanted to be celebrated by the rich and famous and to have beautiful women throw themselves at me. I wanted to be hailed and feted and honored and applauded and acclaimed and extolled and given encomiums and kudos and hosannahs. I wanted the writing to earn me riches beyond my wildest dreams.

But

All I could come up with this:

If have pondered life eternal and suffered people infernal and moaned about moments lost and cried over great costs. I have been alive for much of it although at times I was a man under the influence or was brain dead from anti depressants —

I write about the same things over and over and never seem to get around to writing about films anymore. I watch a lot of them too. It makes me happy to watch movies and it enriches my mind and my soul and inspires to me greatness — I should say the illusion that greatness is ever in my grasp and the complimentary illusion that greatness can be defined and codified and explained and experienced and lived and that I am capable. Ain’t I a kick in the pants.

Also the watching is a wonderful escape. I get to into another world. I forget for awhile my life and my troubles and my past and my struggles and see the world through the people and stories in the film. I am not hiding from my life, just taking a respite. I am not bored with my life but I need to spend time away from it. I face my life head on so thoroughly and aggressively these days. I need to run. I need to read. I need to write. I need to watch movies. This completes me and encapsulates the world and brings meaning and trust and hope and happiness and relief and wonder.

But writing about movies is not something I’m feeling these days. Soon again I am sure.

So what else.

We’re in a terrible drought these days. There’s little worse. You literally can’t do anything about it. You can’t even write an angry letter to the editor. We’re also having a very warm winter and look here Spring is right around the bend. Me, I like what other people call bleak weather. Cold, gray days. Mist, fog, overcast, dampness. That’s my thing. These endless days of dirty blue skies feel apocalyptic.

Enough about me.

Now I’m reading Pynchon’s latest book, Bleeding Edge. I have trouble at times following the story but my god the way the man writes who cares? His earlier works deserve my future attention and shall receive it. I’ve only previously read The Crying of Lot 49 by him before. I am a reading junkie. I must always have a book that I'm reading. Sometimes two or three. I do not apologize for this. Not that I would expect anyone to ask me to.

The clocks have been moved ahead so I will literally have to get up an hour earlier than usual and will thus be even more tired and even more grumpy -- horrors! -- than usual. Can we dispense with this? Or at least go back to starting daylight savings time in mid October and ending in mid April as during my perfect youth? Unlike the weather, this is something we can do something about.

The Job Interview

There’s this guy sitting down to be interviewed for a job. Ron. Ron Tasser. Friends sometimes call him the Tass. Used to be play football. Four years of high school and two years of college before he got tired of all that practice to just sit on the damned bench. He was a lineman. Still in decent shape but frankly could drop maybe 25 pounds. Rate he’s going he’ll be good and fat by middle aged. Not there yet, still just 29. Thirty next month.

So Ron is sitting there with beads of sweat on his forehead waiting for Mr. Simpkins — that’s the guy doing the interviews — to come back. Ron’s wearing a suit that looks pretty sharp but truth is Ron has never felt comfortable in a suit. He’s much more a sweatpants and tee shirt kinda guy. Ron has to take a crap. Again. He’s nervous. Been on the can three times already today. Ron also thinks maybe he put on too much cologne. He's never sure how much to use. He can't tell, does he smell like crap or perfume?

Ron wants this job. Needs this job. Otherwise he’s gotta call dad and ask for a loan. Hasn’t had to do that since senior year of college. Sign of a loser to be getting loans from your parents when you’re almost 30. Maybe they’ll send him some money for his birthday. That would be cool. Wouldn’t have to pay that back.

Ron’s intestines are in knots. Hurts like hell. Always happens when he's nervous. Used to happen before football games and before dates when he was in high school. Wishes he could have a beer. Will when this is over. Maybe see what Ken is doing. Ken’s his buddy. Drives a forklift, they’ve been hanging out since high school. Ron sighs. Thinks he can sneak out a fart but then Simpkins comes back in smiling and apologizing.  Ron says how its okay. God he feels uncomfortable. If they hire him he’ll have to get used to wearing suits everyday.

Simpkins asks him the standard questions. Ron gives the standard answers. He’s trying like hell to seem relaxed but also enthusiastic. He’s doing a good job of remembering all the tips he’s gotten from online articles and stuff about how to act in an interview. Somehow the topic of football comes up and Ron says he played two years in college. Figures what the hell and says his career ended because of a knee injury but quickly adds that he’s completely okay now. Not that they’d give a fuck if he could run or block or tackle. Anyway Simpkins seems to really dig that Ron played football.

Ron tries not to notice that this Simpkins is an ugly little fucker. Skinny, bald a big blotch on the crown of his head. Terrible breath too. But the guy’s got a picture on his desk that must be of a wife and two kids. Anyway Simpkins seems to like him so that’s all Ron cares about. He also takes it as a good sign that the interview goes longer than scheduled and that Simpkins keeps asking questions and looking at the resume. Shit that resume is padded, Ron thinks. Half of it is total bullshit. Long as they only check on the real important stuff it’ll be cool. If they dig deeper Ron can forget this gig. He’s got an interview next week and is due to hear back from Monday’s interview soon but that’s it. Anyway this seems like Ron's best shot at a position in months.

Simpkins has to take a call. His secretary puts a folder on the desk. She’s super cute. Kind of looks like Ron’s girlfriend, Naomi, only Naomi seriously needs to drop some weight and this chick is fit. Simpkins gets off the phone and does his phony baloney apology thing again. More sweat is forming on Ron’s forehead. Would look bad to wipe it with a hanky so Ron just sits hoping no drops get in his eye. Happened to an ex roomie of his during an interview.

Finally Simpkins says that it looks real promising that he can’t guarantee anything but will check references and consult his boss and get back to him early the next week. Ron can’t tell whether he feels great because he might get the job or because the damn interview is over and he can go home get out of the suit and hook up with Ken for a beer. Maybe they’ll catch a flick or watch some basketball at home. It's Friday so what they hell. Naomi is visiting her sister so Ron is as free as a bird.

He shakes hands with Simpkins and is mortified that his palms are so sweaty but what the hell, Simpkins barely gives a handshake anyway so probably doesn’t notice. Ron heads out and checks out the secretary again who says bye and wishes him a nice weekend. Ron responds politely but immediately begins to fantasize about banging her.

Ron and Ken end up watching basketball on Ron’s sofa and ordering pizza then watching a Spiderman movie. Naomi gets back on Sunday and they go out and Ron thinks he might have to propose to her especially if he gets the job. Naomi may have put on weight but she's still cute as hell and her and Ron are in love.

Late afternoon Tuesday Simpkins calls. Ron got the job. He can’t fucking believe it. One week of freedom before he starts. Shit, have to buy another couple of suits. What the hell, it’ll be worth it. Ron takes his first comfortable dump in nearly a week.

All Some People Do is Complain and I Should Now Because I'm One of Them

The mackerel in happier times

I think someone had a live but probably comatose mackerel on MUNI today. You know I’ve mentioned how the #30 passes through Chinatown and people get on with purchases from markets and they can be, well pungent. Pronounced odors. Often they are chickens that only quite recently shuffled off this mortal coil. Sometimes you get sea life that smells as if it is just now dying from botulism. I kid you not. There was an additional effrontery to the olfactory senses today as one passenger encapsulated the twin odors of ganja and sweat with a decided emphasis on the latter. He was toting a skateboard. His hair was in dreads, he was in his 40s. Call me old fashioned — or worse if you prefer, you may consider me a jerk or if feeling profane, an asshole — but certain fashion statements do not work on people of  “a certain age.” (Had I been speaking this rather than writing it I might have been tempted to put air quotes around the phrase “a certain age” and you would have been well within your rights to sock me.) Sometimes on BART my eye will catch a slim figure in a short dress and as said eye works its way up this body I will be shocked to end my eye feast by coming across a woman of middle age or past. Well past. I know, serves me right for looking. When a woman of “a certain age” wears clothing designed for the younger set, the woman in question looks ridiculous. It’s nice if you have the body of a 20 year old but if your face is twice that age, get the hell out of the tube top and shorts. Pronto. There’s a guy at the gym who wears a rat tail. This looks perfectly fine on a ten year old boy. It looks bad on a young man. The guy at the gym is at least 50 and his family must really hate him to let the old coot walk around looking like a goddamned idiot. There’s another guy at the gym who’s maybe past 70 and he’s wearing his hair as long as he did in 1968 and is sporting the same ear rings. Give it up buddy. I lost the ear ring and stud and long hair around the time I turned 40 and my wife and children thank me for my discretion on a regular basis.

It could Have been this flounder seen here circa last June.

Did I mention there was a mackerel in a coma on the bus today? I may be wrong it might have been a fluke or a scrod or a flounder or a trout or a bass or a sturgeon or a halibut or the entrails of moose. I have no verification.

Speaking of annoying bus experiences and people who should be sent to Mars…Guy sat next to me on the bus couple days ago with the sniffles. People do this all the time. Bad enough we have to listen to morons on their cell phones or people chewing gum at the same decibel level as a jackhammer, we also get people who sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. Is it that fucking hard to get hold of a tissue and blow? No it isn’t. Riding public transportation is an endless series of dealing with annoying people.

I should know. I’m one of em.

But enough about me.

This happens. I order a tall dark roast coffee at the Starbucks by work and the barista asks, “do you want breakfast with that?” You mean like a side order of breakfast to go with my cup of joe? Sure makes sense. An incidental, an add on an impulse purchase. Okay I’ll have the scrambled eggs with hash browns and a short stack of pancakes. What’s that? You have none of that? You don’t really have a breakfast menu, do you? This is just one of those dumb things your corporate overlords have taught you to say, isn't it? You probably feel like an idiot saying it but the assistant manager is like right there so whattaya gonna do?

I like this one at Starbucks too when you order something like a latte that needs to be prepared special and they'll have to call your name when its ready, you're asked “remind me of your name again?” What you forgot my name? That’s odd since you never heard it because I’ve never ordered from you before but what you’re really trying to do is not ask me “what’s your name?” because that suggests I’m a stranger to you and we’re all plastic cut out friends in corporate amerika. So let's all pretend.

Hey, who loves hearing my complaints? Show of hands. Anyone? You there in the back, thanks for reading!

The Burney Boy or Remembering an Old Friend From the Backwoods

Beautiful downtown Burney.

You're sailing softly through the sun
in a broken stone age dawn.
You fly so high.
I get a strange magic,
oh, what a strange magic,
oh, it's a strange magic.
-- From Strange Magic by Electric Light Orchestra

I had a roommate in college for two years named Dennis. He was from a small logging town in the far north of California called Burney. Dennis and I were great friends for a time sharing a fondness for consuming large quantities of alcohol. We went on a few road trips together, one to San Francisco for a Doobie Brothers concert. This trip included a stop at a strip club which I got into with a fake ID. We also made one trip to his hometown. On the way we stopped by the side of the road to relieve ourselves. I saw my first porcupine and being inebriated decided to pet it. Dennis discouraged the notion most vehemently and I thought better of it.

As I recall Dennis did not have a particular happy home life growing up and was out of the house before finishing high school. He was determined to shed himself of very small town Burney. He had done work logging from an early age and was determined to escape that life. This made a college degree of vital importance to him. Dennis had a fondness for women, which was not unusual for a college student, but he was what one could "successful" with the ladies, which not all college boys are. In truth most of his girlfriends were also from Burney and they were invariably younger than him. No matter, Dennis never was without female companionship when he wanted it.

Dennis and I had long chats on all variety of topics. I had just emerged from the Berkeley of the Sixties which was about as different from Burney as can be imagined. At least within the same state. There was something about our very different experiences that caused us to be intrigued by one another. Dennis and I would talk and drink and literally howl at the moon together. He chewed tobacco and I chain smoked Winstons. Both of us enjoyed a hearty laugh and we could crack each other up, not to mention other people.

But we grew apart. Quickly. Dennis had a temper and was not averse to engaging in fisticuffs. I was a sensitive lad and bristled at his extreme moods. I got into journalism and a new set of friends. Dennis focused…well, I’m not sure. I rarely saw him after he moved out of the house we had shared. I got an angry, threatening phone call from him when I was slow in changing a bill over to my name. That put the final period on our friendship. I only saw him once in passing after that and he didn't acknowledge me.

It’s been at least 36 years since I’ve seen then but I think about him from time to time. I still have many sayings and expressions I picked up from him including: “I’m going to brush my tooth,” “That feels better than a pre-party fart,” and something he said about the size of his manhood, “I may not be able to satisfy ‘em but I can tickle ‘em to death.”

I recently googled Dennis (how did people ever find out about old friends, classmates, co-workers, ex girlfriends, etc. before the internet?). There wasn’t much. Indeed all I could find was that he was living in Burney. Damn that felt sad. I also saw an obituary for a woman who died in 2004 from “respiratory complications arising from esophageal carcinoma” at age 41. Among the named survivors were Dennis who was listed as the deceased's fiance.

It’s been almost 11 years since the woman died but I still felt bad for Dennis. I also felt bad that he was still in Burney, though I suppose I shouldn’t. He may be very happy there. I can’t know his full story. Maybe he didn’t go back to logging. Maybe he did and found that he was happier logging than anything else. Maybe he found another love and is living happily with her.

Lots of maybes.

I wish I’d parted on good terms with Dennis. We had a friendship that was like a romance that flames very hot for short time. I guess you could say it was passionate.  Perhaps it ended so abruptly because our differences were insurmountable our we did the growing apart that is usually spoken of regarding romances. It's strange how so many people will pass through our lives and be so important to us for so short a time. Many of them we will always think of, if briefly, no matter how many years go by.

Whenever I think of Dennis it's fondly. Sure hope he’s happy.

A Meeting, A Bookstore and Homeless Screamers

Was in a meeting at work Friday. One of those 50 minute deals that could have been done in five at most or better yet done without entirely with the announcements being handled by email.

I sat there and imagined taking a long razor sharp needle and jabbing in into various parts of my head until enjoying death’s sweet release. Voices droned on saying nothing. The more words spoken the less meaning. Every utterance floated wistfully in the air swaying from ear to ear with no purpose or destination. Words became like a dentist’s drill. Minds softened to pulpy masses. Brains putrified. A sigh here. A yawn there. Feet shuffling. Pencil drops. A head is scratched.

Then we see charts. And graphs. They have numbers that represent nothing. We don’t care. We stare glassy eyed. Boredom clutches at throats digging its fingers in towards the larynx. The clock ticks backwards. In other parts of the world people are dying, over dosing, being arrested, being operated on, suffering intestinal pain, fighting and arguing and being diagnosed with incurable diseases. How I envy them.

But it gets worse.

We are to discuss this utter rot  on the  charts and graphs. In groups of three. My group includes a man who came to our school from the bowels of hell. He is a strange creature who keeps to himself. Perhaps because no else can stand the sight of him. There are only three things he ever utters: stupid remarks, offensive remarks and prevarications. So yeah I'm stuck with him. He dominates our conversation. The other member of our troika is a wonderful human being. She gamely tries to counter the miscreants ludicrous comments. I stare at the table trying to summon Dante. It is an intellectual inferno.

I mutter one comment just for appearance’s sake. Then return my steady gaze to the table. Vultures are circling the room. I will soon be carrion. I imagine the floor covered with blood and feces and entrails and carcasses and spent ammunition. I blink. This is a crippling agony of human discomfort. This is a mighty corporation foisting its banality on teachers and one of the teachers, the one to my left is a blithering idiot in the guise of an intellectual.

At least we are as one group. Free from the troll. (Why did I sit next to him? Right, it was the only empty seat when I entered. Why didn’t I decapitate him with an axe? For this I have no answer.)

The meeting goes on and crazy lady starts to yammer. She has a good soul but no brain. For every point she has a comment. A long winded comment. A diatribe. She has no self awareness and does not realize that in a group of 20 she does 30% of the talking and it ranges from the insipid to the obnoxious. We are embarrassed by her. Once she gets started people begin to study their shoelaces.

At least the meeting ends. I grow wings and fly from the room. Free. The great release from a dungeon most foul.

I do not like meetings.

There was a young couple in a bookstore. They stood very close to one another in the fiction section. They were lovers. Obviously. Earlier that day they had awoken from a night of vigorous love making. He woke up first. His name is Rob. He got up and urinated and smiled into the mirror. Rob returned to the bed and Kristen had woken up and was looking at her iPhone. They kissed. They made love again. They showered. They dressed. They went out for breakfast and the wait was 45 minutes. They talked about their hometowns and high schools and their favorite professors and Summer plans. They ate breakfast. Now they were in a bookstore. Neither of them had much time to read what with being juniors at the university. Plus  Rob worked part time at the library and Kristen was on the lacrosse team and of course they had full loads. But Rob was an English major and couldn’t resist getting a copy of Eliot’s Silas Marner cheap. Kristen was an economics major. She bought a card she thought her mom might like.

The two lovers — Rob and Kristen — left the bookstore and went to study together. I saw them leave and wondered how long they’d stay together.

Then I walked home. On the way I passed two homeless men arguing. One was saying: “go ahead and hit me then.” He was sitting cross legged on the ground. The other man stood above him. Across the street were two more homeless people arguing. This was a man and a woman and they maybe were a couple. The man was wearing a Minnesota Twins cap. The woman was very dirty. She had no shoes. One of her socks was black and the other white. Her dress had a huge tear in it. I’m pretty sure she was severely mentally ill. She was screaming at the man in the Twins’ cap. I did not wonder anything about either of these pairs of people nor have I created a back story for them. I was glad to be away from them and home. At home I spoke with my family for a bit and then had a bite to eat. I’d been walking home from a basketball game when I stopped at the bookstore. The basketball game was one of those perfect sports events that make you tingle the rest of the day and want to go to another.

The meeting I mentioned before was on Friday. The events of today I’ve described were on this a Sunday. In between was a Saturday which was my birthday. That was a really good day. I got dinner, cake, gifts and was sung to. Can’t beat that. Now I’m going to watch Ingmar Bergamn’s Persona which was one of my birthday gifts. Lucky lucky me.