My ears are burning

I cannot help but worry about priorities. When recently asked by a beautiful Swedish woman about my thoughts on politics, I merely shrugged my shoulders and folded my lips. I don't really care too much for politics, I said. I find life more enjoyable that way. I assumed that she would be impressed with my nonchalance. I had it figured out. I was comfortable. She merely shrugged  herself and said, 

"Yes, I understand. This is typical of Americans." 

I am dwelling on this. 

There is so much beauty in life that needs to be enjoyed, why pollute it with politics? 

But then I think, 

There are so many issues in life that need to be explored, why ignore them with ignorance? 

Fuck. What now? 

Even in the library as words unfold onto the page, I flip through a book that has only been checked out twice, 

each time by myself. And I think, 

Jesus, I've read this twice. How did I not retain any of this shit?

If Socrates was given hemlock to drink for committing impiety on the youth, 

what would be an appropriate punishment for the people responsible for Jersey Shore? 

Adjacent to me, two young women snort and sneeze and giggle about which celebrities penis's they would like in their mouth. I would be more then happy to accommodate them with a kick to the face while they close their eyes. They can pretend it's really a swinging cock.

I'm coming to Sweden. look for me when I get there. I'll be the young man running naked through the streets. I'll be wearing the American flag as a cape. I'll be shouting, the British are coming! The British are coming!

How's that?

bitch. 

Liver & Onions

She answered on the fourth ring. On the first ring, he traced his finger over the warm, metal keys and collected the dust off them. On the second ring, he rolled the dust between his thumb and forefinger until it formed a tiny ball that he flicked away. On the third ring, he squinted indirectly into the setting sun as it bounced hotly off the dimples of the phone’s reflective surface. On the fourth ring –

            “Hello?” she sounded mechanical and tiny through the line.

            “Hey, it’s me. Are you ok?”

            “Who is this?”

            “It’s Mac. Are you feeling alright?”

            “Yea I’m fine . . . where – what number are you calling me from?”

            “Pay phone. Shit costs like fifty cents nowadays.”

            “Mac, you need a cell phone. You can’t keep living like this.”

            “Why not?” he asked, turning to face the low light of the sun, his brown eyes glinting yellow as they cast themselves into the light. The glow of the early evening highlighted the dust covering much of his neglected car. “It adds an elegant dynamic to my financial trouble. If they don't know I'm poor, they'll think I'm mysterious.”

            “They won’t need to think much at all when they find out you live in your car,” she said. She passed her cell phone from her right ear to her left, clicking on her blinker and switching lanes.

            “Girls like guys like me," he said, turning in to face the booth. "I'm a project.” He leaned into the structure and placed his elbow on the phones metal hood, dirtying the arm of his jacket with flaking rust and cigarette ash. He cocked his head into the nook of his arm and with his right hand twisted the mouthpiece toward his smile. “I’m very perplexing. I keep the ladies on a strictly need-to-know basis. Don’t call me baby, I’ll call you.”

She laughed at this. Throwing her head back, she emitted two jovial “Ha’s” before leveling herself and refocusing on the road. She had a tendency to drive one handed while her other hand kept busy on the phone. Every few minutes, she would stick out her bottom lip and blow overgrown tufts of hair from her face, repeating the process several times before it was successful. The inside of her car flushed with unpromising shades of orange and red – illuminating the dust particles floating seamlessly all around her. “You charmer,” she smiled, squinting into the falling sun. Although she could not see it, he smiled too.

“Really though,” he said. “You were weird today at lunch. How are you?” He pulled his arm back to his side and pushed his shoulder into the phones metal frame, switching the earpiece from his left to his right.

            “I was weird?” she said. “What was it you yelled at our waitress today? Something about having white guys on the hot sauce bottle?”

            “I don’t give really care about white guys on hot sauce bottles,” he laughed. “I just needed to do something to distract from all the Goddamn tension between you and Josh. Why do you put up with that guy? it was so thick. As for the hot sauce, you could have put an Orca whale on the bottle for all I care. I still wouldn’t have put it on my – If you’d like to stay on the line, please insert twenty-five more cents. If you’d like to stay on the line, please insert twenty-five more cents. If you’d like to say on the line—

            “Shit!” he shouted. “ShitShitShitShit.” Frantic, he dropped the phone and let it dangle from its chord as he felt around for change in his pockets. “ShitShitShitShit,” he chanted, over and over, thrusting his sweaty hands into his jeans. “Aha!” he shouted, clawing for the quarter fitted snuggly in his back pocket. He pinched for the edge of the coin between his fingertips as he pushed into the crisp denim pouch. When he had finally secured a firm grip, he pulled  it up with so much unnecessary intensity that it launched from his pocket and flew high into the air. “ShitShitShitShit,” chasing after the coin as it bounced down the sidewalk.

“Mac?” she asked, pulling the phone away from her ear and squinting at it in the dim purple filling her car. Seconds continued ticking in the upper right corner of the screen, confirming to her that he was indeed still on the line. She held her phone up to the window and checked for the signal bar. Full service. She looked from her screen and then back to the road, then back to the screen and then back to the road, and then back to screen and then back to – well you get the idea. “Ma-A-ac, are you there?” she asked. Her windows fogged. Although she could not feel it, the temperature outside had dropped precipitously. “Hello-ooooo,” she called. “Mac, I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to hang up.” She blew another wave of stray bangs from her face.

 “One . . .” 

            “Ooh!” Mac grunted, leaping to retrieve the rolling quarter. It had grown considerably darker out, and if the quarter had gotten away from him, there would be no glare from the sun to help him spot it on the asphalt.

            “Two . . .” With puckered lips she stretched out her vowels as far as they would go.

            Mac skid to a stop on the gravel and turned to sprint back to the phone. He was surprised to discover how far the quarter had rolled, considering how rugged the surface was that it had to move on.

            “Three . . .” she droned, deepening her voice and mimicking slow motion; even though no one was around to witness her theatrics.

            Mac thrust the quarter into the slot and it ka-chunked into the machine. Snatching up the dangling phone he jerked it to his ear for frigid, robotic acknowledgement. 

 

Thank you. Please stay on the line and wait to be reconnected.

 

            With no light in the car, she fumbled with her phone and felt for the “end call” button.  Mac’s miniature voice stopped her when it suddenly started calling her name out in the dark. “Mac?” she asked, pulling the phone back to her ear.

            “Listen that was my last quarter, so just listen. I think you should stop seeing Josh. I just think you should. I’m pretty sure anyway.”

            “Stop doing what?” she asked, clicking on her headlights.

            Mac turned around and looked down the road. The streetlights flicked on one-by-one as the last pale fragments of orange sky softened into night behind the tall pines. Mac glowed pale in the gas station’s fluorescent lighting. He sighed into the receiver and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, sucking in the cool night air and clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth. He waited for the words to come. They never did. Silence filled the line.

 “Mac?”

“Yea, I’m here. I just –

            “Mac, you know me,” she cut him off. “I’m just too picky.”

            Mac placed his hand above the pay phone, matching his right palm to the stained left arm of his jacket. He pushed his head against the pay phone’s cool metal frame and closed his eyes. “Well, maybe you should try new things. Nobody likes a picky eater.”

            She shrunk into her seat. “Other picky eaters like picky eaters . . .”

            “No they don’t,” he said, pushing himself off the phone and leaning against his back. He stared out at the empty street. A single car sped by. “Picky eaters dislike other picky eaters. Even more then everyone else dislikes picky eaters.”

            “How so?”

            “Well, they’re drawn to each other at first. Of course they are,” he said. He mimicked yowling, sneering voices. “Oh, you only like particular things? How lovely, because I only like particular things too.”

            “That doesn’t seem so bad,” she said, taking a sharp right turn. "finding somebody who likes all the same things you like." She entered an unlit, narrow road adjacent to nonspecific clusters of neighborhoods and communities.

             Mac rolled his eyes. “Well at first – at first it doesn’t seem so bad. It's always exciting to meet someone who's just like you. But opposites attract for a reason - there's a reason that's a rule. It's a rule because of  how much everybody else is in love with themselves. If it wasn't for opposites, people would just be running around fucking themselves essentially. Everybody's always running around trying figure out what the hell to do with that empty second half that somebody else is supposed to fill in. So when you meet somebody you have a lot in common with, you essentially fall half in love with them right away. Just like that. You think, wow, this person likes all the same things I like! I really like this person! But that’s not true, because essentially, your just projecting how much you like yourself onto this other person. You can't fill your half that's full already with all the same stuff. Essentially, you're gonna crowd that side. But you don't realize this until it's too late. So you start to sleep with them. You sleep with them because essentially you're half in love with them. You fuck them to fill that empty half so you'll be happy. Because If you’re in love you’re happy, and you want so bad to be happy that you'll just dive right in and sleep with this person - just so you can be in love. But you can't fill that empty space inside you with that person who's essentially the same as you. So you’re filling that empty side of yourself – with yourself – essentially fucking yourself. And if you’re essentially fucking yourself then you’re masturbating, and if you’re masturbating, then essentially you're all alone. Completely and utterly alone, fucking yourself over and over again, all the time, alone. 

            Her voice came through the line dissonant and small. “What does this have to do with being picky?”

             “Because, when picky eaters get together, none of them are willing to change anything about themselves. They’re just so goddamned particular about every little goddamned thing. They just get so excited finally being able to share themselves with somebody. Finally, they think, someone who’s particular about all the things I’m particular about. Thing is, they’re both so particular about what they want to share and what they want to receive, that when they finally get together, they find out they’re both particularly particular about completely different things.”

             “So?”

            “So, they get together and one says to the other, here, you have to try this, it’s my favorite! Then the other person says, oh, no thank you, I’m particularly particular about this here which you have presented here in front of me.”  

            “Really?” she asked, half listening as she turned down another road, slowing even more to check for street names in the dark.

            “Really. They always end up hurting each other. They’ll chew on something new every now and then – looking towards the ceiling as if contemplating whether or not to swallow it – but they always just spit out into their napkin and turn their noses up. Yuck, they say. I don’t like this.”

            “So what does this entail?” She asked, turning on her blinker and veering into a neighborhood.

            “Well, the other person gets hurt by this. They say, how can you not like this? This is the only thing I like! And it’s this vicious cycle that just repeats itself, until there’s nothing left to be particular about. And there’s nothing left for them to share because they didn’t really have anything to share to begin with. So they fuck all the time so they can feel like one whole person, even though all they’re really doing is masturbating all alone.”

She pulled into a driveway and parked her car. The phone in her hand was warm from being held for so long. The screen was slick with oil. Her palm was moist from gripping the warm plastic. She reached out and clicked off her lights. She did not turn the phone off. “So what are you saying?” she asked. She picked small pieces of lint out of her sweater before unbuckling her seatbelt. She slid back into her seat and pushed on her abdomen to make herself appear thinner. “What do you mean?”

            Mac wiped his face with his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp along the way. He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I’m saying that love is about making sacrifices and taking chances and trying new things.”

            She sat in silence on the other line.

            “Love is liver and onions.” He blurted, confusing himself.

            “I don’t like liver and onions.”

            “How will you know don't like it unless you try it?” 

            “Josh’s parents made shrimp once. I tried that, and I hate shrimp.” She fished a tube of lip-gloss from her purse and applied it in the rearview mirror, puckering her lips and making a kissing face. She put down the phone down and smoothed out her hair, looking at her face from different angles in her compact until deciding she was pretty enough. She picked up the phone again. “Mac?” she asked, listening to see if he was still there. “Mac?”

            He fumed silently with his face in his hand. He held the receiver out in front of him and listened to her tiny voice call out his name. 

             She looked at the phone and clicked on the screen, the seconds running in the corner confirming that he was still on the line. She clicked the “end call” button and got out of the car, marching up the driveway to Josh’s house.

            Mac marched through the dark, his breath billowing heavily out of his mouth as he walked in the cold. Behind him, the phone dangled and swung from the coiled metal chord as a robotic woman’s voice chanted: If you’d like to stay on the line, please insert twenty-five more cents. If you’d like to stay on the line, please insert twenty-five more cents. If you’d like to stay on the line . . . 

This is a rendez-you have no idea what you just got yourself into.

Fake eyelashes and expensive clothes doth not my dreams make.

But I'm pretty sure you know that by now.

I'm almost positive you care.

Almost.

So, hum along to the latest popular band on the radio

While I pretend that I don't know every word.

I'm not used to watching what I say,

But I'm not willing to sacrifice anything just yet.

Planning our futures according to dreams:

"Maybe you should keep me around?"

I want to be the piano you never play.

I want to be the locket you used to wear.

I want to be your more than nothing.

I want to be your less than something.

I want to be your in-between.

Buzz.

So my mom walks in my room and asks,

"Where is your future heading?"

I told her I pressed snooze on life's wake-up call.

She seemed disappointed.

(which is always so much worse.)

But she has gotten over it every time

For the better part of two decades.

Why stop now?

I'm going back to bed.

Walking Spanish

I went to the amusement park the same day my check bounced. Since the money was being refunded into my account, I figured I had a few days to spend it before my landlord noticed. I wasn’t planning on going, but it was Burger’s birthday, and I would have felt like shit if I bailed. I woke up that morning at around seven - seven thirty, threw on some of the clothes I found laying on my floor, and was ready to go by eight. Burger didn’t pick me up until nine. He was always doing stuff like that, telling people to be ready for something at a certain time and then showing up an hour later. Since we were already running late, I figured we'd be driving straight to the park, but Burger said we had to stop and get Chris first. I was starting to get frustrated because I took having fun pretty seriously, but it wasn't my birthday, so I just kept my mouth shut.

Chris was still asleep when we showed up at his house. We started banging on his window and stuff to wake him up, and when he finally pulled his blinds open, he looked pretty pissed. He said he wasn't mad about it or anything, but I dunno. Maybe that's just how he looks first thing in the morning. He stuck his pointer finger up to signify he needed a minute, so Burger and I walked around to the front and waited for him. He had these three little dogs that barked like crazy the whole time we were out there, so I just started rapping. I wasn’t serious about rap or anything, I just rapped about curse words to make Burger laugh. When Chris finally came out, he kept complaining about not having time to take a shower. We told him to shut up and then we made him drive. If the kid wanted to take a shower so bad he should have woken up sooner. I didn’t know what he was talking about anyway; the kid took baths.

Since we had already committed to being late, I guess, we stopped for breakfast and ate chicken biscuits. I wanted to stop and get fast food, but Chris never let anybody eat in his car. On the road, Burger and Chris talked mostly about the same old stuff they usually talked about; skateboarding and girls, heavy metal and girls - but mostly I just stared out the window and didn’t say much. I stared and wondered where everyone else was going. Everybody going in the same direction but ending up in different places, so wrapped up in their own lives they didn’t even realize anybody else was around them. All these strangers with all the same problems and they didn't even notice all the other people in the world, going in the same direction all the time and ending up somewhere else. I just wondered why nobody else ever though about this stuff, I guess.

When we finally show up, we parked in one of those parking garages that named every level after a funny cartoon character. The point was to help you remember where your car was parked or something. We jumped out and shuffled towards the park with our hands in our jacket pockets because it was so cold out, and at the top of the escalator Chris said, “hey guys, don’t forget we parked in E.T.” We just kept looking straight ahead with our hands in our pockets and said, yea yea yea, because we were all gonna forget anyway. We picked our tickets up at the will call booth and Burger paid for mine because I told him I didn’t have any money. He said, don't worry man, I’ll buy your ticket, you just gotta pay me back. I felt pretty shitty about him buying my ticket because it was his birthday and all, but I would have felt even worse if I didn’t go so I said, yea yea yea, I’ll pay you back.

Our first ride was the Free Fall of Doom. It's one of those rides that shoots you straight up and then drops you back down. It was always pretty fun, but it was even better this time because Chris was so afraid of those big drops. he got so scared he couldn’t even scream. He just made this gurgling noise, and when we shot up he shouted, “Oh no, I shit my pants!” Chris finally started letting loose and enjoying himself after about the third or fourth ride though, and by his fifth time on The Dragon - this coaster we kept riding over and over - he was just laughing his head off; it was hysterical.

When we rode the coasters we always sat in the back; we never bothered with that up front stuff. Nobody ever wanted to sit in the back, and because of this the line for the back row was always the shortest. I didn’t get it, because the back was the place to be. You just had to think about the physics behind it, I guess. I was surprised by how long the lines were, figuring it was too cold and shitty out to visit a theme park, but everybody else must have checked the weather or something, because around two o’ clock the clouds burned off and it got really nice out. I almost didn’t even need my jacket it got so warm. For lunch, we ate big giant turkey legs after riding a big green giant coaster, and then we waited in line for some mummy ride.

In line for the Mummy ride, there were these four girls behind us speaking Spanish; they were chattering up a storm and laughing like crazy. I’m pretty sure they were making fun of us too, at least I thought they were until they started talking to us. I didn’t really say too much at first, because my throat was still sticky from my lemon slushy and I didn't really speak any Spanish. The prettier girl in the group, this short one with blonde hair and blue eyes, tapped me on the shoulder and asked where I was from in broken English. I told her I lived in Jacksonville and that it was pretty all right, but nothing to get too excited about. Burger nudged me in the shoulder and said, no you don’t, you live in Saint Augustine.

"Oh yea," I said. "I forgot." I was still pretty new there.

Well anyways, this blonde girl with her hair in a pony tail kept smiling at me; nibbling at the fingernail on the thumb of her right hand, laughing at my expressions when I told a story, touching my arm when I shrugged because I didn't understand her. It was okay though because I don’t think she understood me very well either. There were times when she would laugh and say, “slower, slower!” because I talk pretty fast when I get excited. I was surprised to find out that she was fifteen, because she looked a lot older then she was. She told me that, in Argentina, it was a tradition to travel outside of the country when you turned fifteen. Most kids went to Europe apparently, but they all wanted to ride coasters, so they came to Florida. She didn’t actually say any of this to me; her friend translated for her. Between the four of them, only one of them really understood English. She was the tall one; frizzy hair, round face with big brown eyes, and soft looking skin. She had to take turns translating for all of us, but she didn’t seem to mind. I couldn’t help but wonder about what was lost in translation, as they laughed back and forth to each other in Spanish.

The line for the Mummy ride was pretty long, so we all had a pretty good time getting to know each other. We taught them English curse words, they taught us Spanish ones. They taught how to say things like: nice to meet you (encantado de conocerle) and: I’m a champion (Yo soy un campeón). They told us their names, but I can’t remember any of them now because they were just about impossible to pronounce. After a couple of tries, I just nodded and said, sí sí sí, like I understood, even though I didn’t. The short blonde took to me pretty quick, and the more we tried to communicate the closer she got. She would lean in close to my face when we spoke, hold my arm so I couldn’t back away, and sneak a hug every time I made her laugh. After a while, she turned to her friend and said something in Spanish. They all started giggling and the frizzy haired girl turned to me and said, “She wants to know what you think of Argentinean women.” I just kind of blushed. I didn’t know what to say. “I think they’re very nice,” I nodded.

When we got to the end of the line, where people were being loaded into the cars, the blonde girl grabbed my arm and said, Estoy muy asustada. She looked up at me, and I smiled at her and shrugged my shoulders. She smiled back at me, and I noticed just how blue her eyes were. She said, “Scared! Scared!” So I put my arm around her and said, “No no no. Muy fun.” After the ride, we all made our way back to the street. We had a ticket for the other side of the park, and Burger wanted to check it out. "I guess we should be going,” I said, waving sheepishly to the girls we had only known for forty-five minutes. The blonde girl rushed up to me and turned her cheek, pointing her finger to it and raising her eyebrows. Oh no, I said waving my hands in protest. I didn’t think it was appropriate to kiss her, being four years older. She recoiled at this, as if I had slapped her face. "¿por qué no?" she asked. I just blushed and stuck out my hand.

"It was nice to meet you," I said. She glared at me, stung and rejected, before huffing away and walking in the opposite direction. One of the other girls ran after her shouting, ¡Espera! Espera!, while the other two just stood there, embarrassed. I stuck my hand back in my pocket. It was nice to meet you too, the girl with the frizzy hair said apologetically, and they turned and walked away. Later that afternoon, Chris told me he would have kissed her. “What about her age?” I asked. He just brushed it off and said, “I don’t care, I’m horny.”

The day waned, bled familiar hues of orange and pink into the sky, and the air was reflected to its appropriate chill. I was thankful I had kept my jacket on me. We began running from ride to ride, a desperate attempt to cling to our folly before the park closed, and I imagined that the cold was there to suffocate the youth inside our bones. Burger nudged me and asked why I was being so quiet.

“I think we should go back to the first park,” I said. “I want to ride the Rocket.” I hadn’t realized it before he tapped me, but I was thinking about the girl, and how I had insulted her. We rode the Free Fall of Doom one last time before sprinting to the adjacent park, dodging endless waves of people and running furiously to the coaster. Even at the end of the night, it would have the longest wait in the park. It had a seventeen-story drop, two loop de loops, two back-to-back spins, and it made your stomach drop ten times. Running, I kept my eyes open for the girl, weaving between endless drones of tourists and faces I did not recognize.

In line for the Rocket, Burger, Chris, and I talked about girls from school, the beastie boys, and skateboarding. We were the last group to make it through before the line closed. Once our straps were secured, we clinked up a ninety-degree angle before dropping straight down - seventeen stories. I closed my eyes and rode with my hands up, laughing while cold air bit my cheeks and dried my gums. After the coaster, Heart put on a concert in the middle of the park. We stood by the side of the stage and waited for them to play Barracuda, but our feet started hurting so we left. They played Crazy on You behind us as we walked to car. On the drive home, I stared out the window and didn’t even notice one of Chris’s tires exploding. While shuddering off the exit ramp, the whole car vibrating like a helicopter, I asked why we were pulling over. Burger turned around and stared at me in disbelief while Chris screamed, “Is he joking? Is he fucking joking?”

Burger and I changed the tire in about fifteen minutes; Chris just watched. I’m pretty sure he knew how to change a flat, I just think he felt justified making us do it because he drove. When we finished swapping it out, I flushed with anticipation. We had changed it too quickly. The Argentinean girl wouldn’t be able catch up with us now. The tire had been divine intervention; I was sure of it. She was on her way to meet us.

My brother called this, Walking Spanish.

“Walking Spanish?” I asked him, over the phone a few days later.

“Yep, she’s got you Walking Spanish all over the place.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, when I spent a semester in Argentina, my host family warned me about the seductive nature of these incredibly beautiful women. They said to me, Tenga cuidado, mi hijo, these women will leave you Walking Spanish for days and days. I feel something may have been lost in the translation though.”

“What do you think did?”

“The days and days part little brother. It’s been years and years. I still think about those women.”

“But she was just a girl,” I explained.

"She didn't seem to think so.”

A couple of weeks later, I found myself in the book store flipping through a Spanish to English dictionary. I memorized three words in Spanish before shutting the book, and reciting them over and over again in my head. I was going to visit Argentina someday to find this girl. When I did, I would pull her into my arms, look her in the eyes, say “Lo siento, Hermosa,”

and kiss her cheek.

Session #1

What am I thinking? God, that’s such a vague question. What am I thinking? I'm thinking that I can’t seem to stop thinking. See, my problem is that I can’t turn it off. I think all the time, constantly, about everything and nothing all at once. I don’t want to think anymore, you know? I just want to be. I want to be left alone mostly, but I can’t, and because of this I kind of want to explode. Can you smoke in here? No? I don’t smoke or anything myself, I just don't see any ashtrays is all. But yea, back to the thinking thing. I mean, it’s this weight, you know? I can’t really explain it. It’s not in my head or in my heart – it’s in my soul. That’s the best way to describe it. I feel like I’m attached to an anchor and I’m just sinking, into this, dejection. And it happens everywhere, and then out of nowhere I’ll just cease to exist. It’s the strangest thing really. I’ll be somewhere and then all of a sudden – I’m not real. I’m seeing everything through someone else’s eyes, like I’m watching a movie. I can’t hear anything though. I can see people talking at this, this person; but it isn't me, and I can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s like when you’re underwater, you can hear these, pulsing ambiguities, but you can’t make out any words. You can distinguish between a man’s voice and a woman’s voice sure, but that’s as specific as it gets. And I’m just – not real – in that instant. And it makes me sad really, not existing.

When I’m driving, I have to listen to Spanish AM radio. Anything else is to depressing. I hear the people on the radio talking, but they’re not saying anything important, or lasting, or relevant. It’s just these, provisional sneezes evaporating into the air. But see, I don’t speak Spanish, so those words don’t make me so sad. And also, salsa music makes me kind of happy. But if I don’t have anything on in the car at all, I just start thinking again. I think, here I am, this skinny little white kid who has nothing to be sad about. I mean, growing up was weird, yea, but who doesn’t have a weird childhood? I mean, I think about all these black kids in Africa who are starving, and diseased, and who face genocide, and they get chased by lions and shit, and here I am driving over this bridge in a car that my parents paid for and I’m thinking – Liam, Liam just drive off this fucking bridge so you can feel something, anything at all. I’m this mess of self-ambivalence that I can’t seem to turn off. I can’t feel shit doc - I feel like I want to die.  

 

            How do I cope? I dunno, I mean, I’ve been trying everything. Lately my thing is picking up hobos. Yea, hobos, you know, homeless people. Why? Why the hell not? I just like to sit with them, talk with them, get to know them. They’re about as close as I can get to helping those African kids. What do I mean by, "pick them up?" I mean in my car. Yea, I’ll just see them walking and I’ll pull over and ask ‘em – hey, you need a lift? And they look at me kind of funny at first, but they usually always get in, and they all say the same thing to me. They say – hey thanks, I usually wouldn’t do this, but you have really trusting eyes. I don’t really know what that means, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s about the nicest compliment I’ve ever received. Sometimes, they'll ask me - hey, what's up with this salsa music? And I say, well hey, if you don't like it, I can drop you off right here. Am I ever worried about them robbing me or hurting me? No, not ever. Because when I pull over to pick them up I’m usually pretty disconnected. I’m not even really in the car with them. I’m just watching a scene unfold. I don’t think they can hurt me because how do you hurt somebody who isn’t real?

Well, they usually get in and when they do, I ask them about life on the road, about what it’s like to be a modern day nomad, about what they miss most about rural life, and I’ve come to find out, that most of them just want a new pair of socks is all. Yea, socks. Little things like that which we take for granted. So now, every time I pick up one of these hobos I say – hey, how about we go buy you some socks? And they love it, they fucking go nuts for these socks. You’d think I just told them they won the lottery. They smile really big and say, really? New socks? No foolin’? And I say, yea, why the hell not?

            Do I have any normal means of coping? Well sure, fucking is normal right? I’m sorry doc, excuse my French, I meant sex. I don’t do it on purpose or anything; it’s not like that. Again, it’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. My friends will convince me to go out with them right? To, I dunno, a party, a bar, an event of some kind. And then when I'm there, I get all detached again, and all of a sudden I’m not at a party at all, I’m watching a movie. Then, out of nowhere, I’ll realize there’s a woman on the screen, and she looks engaged, like she’s been having a conversation with someone for hours. But who? It isn’t me doc, I can tell you that much. I don’t even know this girls name. I don't know who she's been talking to, because I’ve been sitting in a movie theater by myself, watching all of this unravel on a big screen. 

As I’m watching the movie, I notice certain things. I see her reach out and grab this guy’s arm when she laughs at what he says. She’ll keep her eyes locked on the camera when she takes a sip of her drink. She’ll move her hair out of her face all coy, until I realize, oh my god, her and this guy are going to fu – I’m sorry, excuse me, doc. Her and this guy are going to have sex. And I just watch it happen. The whole thing, it just unfolds right in front of me, and I’m not a part of it at all, which is kind of unfair in a way, but hey, that’s why I’m here talking to you, right? Well anyway, I’m completely disengaged, right? Until it’s over that is, and then all of a sudden, I’m back. I exist again. It’s me again. And I’m naked, and she’s asleep on top of me, naked, and now it’s my job to shake this girl awake (whose name I don’t even know, by the way) and say, excuse me miss, I think it’s time you go. And then she rolls over and looks up at me, and doc, you should see their faces when they see me. Like, they realize that the person they had sex with, and the person waking them up, is not the same person. This is someone else entirely. This is some new guy. They just get this look doc; it’s the strangest thing. Well, anyways, their faces start to flush, and they pull the sheets over their breasts and sit up, scanning my floor for their clothes. I'll spot my underwear and reach over to grab it, they – still clinging to the sheets, realizing that this new person in bed is wholly unfamiliar with their naked body – reach across the floor to grab their own. And so, we slide on our undergarments awkwardly under the covers, and they'll turn to me and say - Sorry, but you drove me here. Can you give me a ride back? Doc, trust me when I tell you that I prefer driving the hobos around. I don’t even mind that they smell like rotten banana peels. But I mean, yea, for the most part, that’s how I cope. When I’m not driving around a smelly banana peel of a human being, I’m having an out-of-body experience inside of another one. What’s that doc, time’s up? Well shit, thanks for listening to me. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy or anything. 

East of the Mason-Dixon

My uncle once said to me: "Eric, never trust a fart."

He said this to me right before explaining that we had a "nigger" for a president, ultimately negating any regard I might have held for him politically. The issue here was a pressing matter because in previous elections, I had voted Democratically. I could tell that this was going to be a popular topic of discussion for my family. I use the term "discussion" loosely.

They would become drunk and abrasive. I would bite my tongue.

Being the only gay man in my family, my opinions on these visits were limited to those of blowjobs and makeovers. I was a real treat to any of my female cousins ages thirteen and up. I couldn't explain to my uncle that I had voted the way I did because I believed in any one particular issue over the other. Truth was, I didn't give a good Goddamn about politics. I just hated Republicans. Probably because everyone in my family was a Republican.

My uncle told me all of this while reclining in a white, plastic lawn chair in his multi-acre backyard, swirling a perspiring glass of White Zinfandel and sneering at the fifty-dollar bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I had brought with me from Napa Valley. It was my thank you gift to them - my gracious hosts.

"This shit right here," he drawled, looking at his spiraling vino. "Costs three times less as that shit. Tastes just as good too. 'Specially on a day as hot as today." Then he took a deep sip and leaned up to throw a hand under his chin as he spilled on himself. I trusted this man's opinions on politics and wine about as much as I trusted my own farts.