So much thinking, so few words.
The Shutka Book of Records
Further proof that reality is always stranger than fiction.
Hats off to Mr. Manic.
My ex was floored when I pulled out a photo of my kindergarten class and recited all but three first and last names of my classmates.
I remember how hard it was to see the chalkboard in first grade and as a result, my teacher Mrs. Harmon, thought that I had a learning disability. I remember later that year she refused to let me use the bathroom and I peed all over a plastic chair at the “listening station” during our audio visual lesson. At the end of the year I received a very unflattering pair of coke-bottle glasses and was given an award of recognition for writing a story about how much I hated to smile. It was written on wide-lined notebook paper with a no. 2 pencil in my poor penmanship, embellished by a gold leaf seal.
I remember watching Sesame Street with my siblings and the peanut butter-only sandwiches my mom served us on cheap white bread with cups of chicken noodle soup.
I remember a terrible bout of the flu in second grade, which included a high fever to the point of derangement, and overnight I developed a phobia of Sunday school after having recurring nightmares of the teacher poisoning children with tainted broccoli.
I remember getting my first bicycle, a very feminine pink, flowered banana seat, that made me feel self-conscious around the neighborhood kids with their flashy neon bikes.
A couple years later, Mr. Hardy, made me the example by reading my writing assignments to the class, even though I failed the science test miserably out of disinterest.
Once, in the window of my classroom, he posted a story I wrote about a family that moved from the Midwest to the coast and how they missed the lake they used to swim in back home, as opposed to the vast ocean.
I remember lying to my friends when they asked if my parents were divorced. I remember the janitor; Mr. Bill (who took a liking to my freshly separated mother) read the story in the window and went out of his way to tell my mother how much he liked it. At the time she rather fancied Mr. Acevedo, my brother’s fifth grade teacher.
I remember being pulled out of my guitar class in middle school because it fell on the days my father had visitation.
I remember being “fat” and deliberately not eating anything but cucumber slices and soda crackers my freshman year of high school. I just told everyone I was a vegetarian. I remember lying to Monica Long when she asked if my oldest sister was HIV positive in front of my entire gym class.
The first time I ditched school I got caught. I went to my boyfriend’s house and watched A Clockwork Orange and ate M&Ms in his bedroom. His grandmother watched daytime TV downstairs and had no idea I’d been there all day.
The first time I smoked a cigarette was in my parent’s garage while they were out of town. It was a Djharm’s Special and it made me feel high.
The day my dad died, we were having a family reunion and I swung in a hammock for hours and didn’t talk to anyone.
I graduated early from high school and showed up late to the ceremony, the school had forgotten to have our diplomas printed. I was surprised my mom showed up. I think she was surprised I did also.
In college, I spent more time trying to make money between three jobs than studying and still managed to get a 4.0 GPA. I dropped out the following year.
I remember when I first got published in a small music rag, I had a creepy editor, that would stake out my apartment in the middle of the night and yell my name through the gated entrance. My roommate finally got fed up and lied to him, telling him I was at my boyfriend’s place and wouldn’t likely be home within the next few days.
I wrote a lot more back then, about nothing mostly. I got drunk at bars every night and worked at an office during the day and worked at a bar every other evening and most weekends. I didn’t sleep a lot and saved my measly paychecks until I had enough to pack up my car and skip town.
When I moved to Portland, Oregon, I had the hot red blood of a warrior and thought I’d finally finish writing a book. I felt lonely all the time. I worked shitty jobs for shitty money and wandered on foot on my days off. I’d take naps under a blossoming tulip magnolia at Lone Fir Cemetery. I don’t remember meeting many friends that year or getting much writing done either.
Back From Baja
Dan held the keys in the air and jangled them excitedly. I couldn’t believe it. A few yards away they recovered my driver’s license and credit cards, if nothing else. I was able to get into my car. I had ID to show the border patrol and a change of clothes in the trunk. Coincidentally, I found a crumpled ten dollar bill in the pocket of a pair of jeans. We had a way to return home.
The cold was replaced by an intense heat and I awoke. Beside me on my right was Mitzi, on the left Dan. We’d fallen asleep on top of a heavy wool blanket, all lined up parallel to one another, like franks roasting on a grill. We’d been negligent to pitch a tent, pull out sleeping bags, to execute any common sense.
It was an impromptu escape from our day jobs, another string of loveless relationships, a laundry list of debacles that inspired the trip in the first place.
Not quite cognizant, I stumbled over to the tents and peeked inside; the twins were there, shirtless with their shoes on, still sleeping. In the other tent, Chris and Preston were slumbering, the low frequency of their breathing undulated into heat waves. I wobbled to and fro, tripping over empty champagne bottles and beer cans, plastic cups and other remnants of our party.
My head felt heavy then light, like it was full of helium, and there was a slow leak. Everything was gone: backpacks, sleeping bags, and an ice chest full of food and Tecates. I was overcome with nausea. I climbed over the dune, shredding my soles on gravel, broken glass, bottle caps and sharp fragments of seashell.
The day before, I’d paid the campsite attendant $10 to park my car for the night. Mitzi translated his chirpy Spanish; it seemed safe enough, in front of his RV where he lived with his wife and their new baby.
My car was where I’d left it, radiating early morning sunrays, bars of light scintillating off the silver paint. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted to throw up. I stood on the crest of the dune trying to figure out how it happened, feeling a twinge of sorrowing having to accost my hungover cronies with the bad news. A small eternity lapsed before they began to rise.
I was wretched in a pair of badly soiled jeans that smelled like wine and ashtray grime. My backpack had held my wallet, keys, and just enough cash to pay the toll roads, all of which were necessary to get through the border and return home in time for my nightshift. My mouth was chapped, the back of my throat stuck every time I tried to swallow.
The drive down was a riot. There are no lanes on the freeways in Tiajuana. You sail through a hazardous free-for-all of weaving drivers, past little roadside fruit stands and markets that have piñatas hanging from the awnings out front. The landscape is all mineral-hued, but the art and the shops and buildings are brilliant gashes of color. Mitzi and I listened to Indian folk music and fuzzy Mexican radio, while she tried to follow along with the bongo drums on her lap. I wore my ridiculous straw hat. We’d gotten lost and had to back track for thirty minutes and finally found a purple house which was a landmark for the right hand turn we were supposed to make. A bumpy, winding road led us to a rock jagged beach. We were in for a night not easily forgotten.
You shoulda seen their eyes, swallowed in disbelief when I explained we’d been robbed and everything had been stolen. We were stuck. In Mexico. Without ID, money, car keys, food… “What are we going to do?” we unanimously contemplated, psychotropic-addled minds imagining light up neon signs in Spanish flickering and buzzing, “Que? Que?”
Pete rolled a cucumber taco and sprinkled the mushrooms in it. “Is it vegan?” I asked as he handed in to me. “Close enough.” He said flatly. I was already buzzed from beer and the heat which didn’t seem to lift as the afternoon light dimmed. I shrugged and took a big bite and then another. Some one uncorked a bottle of champagne. Mitzi started to giggle. I was handed a plastic cup, frothing over. I took the last bite and washed it down.
Dan got angry and started breaking bottles on the rocks. The jovial mood of the night before endured a polar shift. Our magic tacos, washed down with liters if beer and champagne wasn’t settling to well, nor our benevolent feeling to the neighboring campers who’d stopped by in the wee hours to share a joint with the twins.
At one point in the night, when the giggling and the running-around-chasing-eachother-with-flashlights subsided, we all sunk into the crotch of a velvety sand dune and watched the moon rise. We all fell silent and passed a nasty bottle of red wine around. I’d been sad for a while, but all of that diminished. Time was staggering the way we’d prefer it to. I felt like I could never grow old, that moments like this are like a capsule you can open in the future when you feel old and expired. Chris and Dan, the twins, Pete and Ryland, Preston and Mitzi stood up, brushing sand off their clothes. “Bedtime?” some one whispered. No one said anything. The ocean, lapping the shore answered, “Yes.”
Assessing the grim circumstances, I felt compelled to deny our quandary. “C’mon guys, let’s go for a swim.” I started yanking off layers of clothing, headed towards the murky shoreline, trying to cajole the others into some therapeutic baptism that allowed us to accept our new life as vagrants in Baja, nothing but the clothes on our backs, and the youthful ignorance of our optimism. Some of us knew the language. I could serve a mean drink at a nearby resort and the others could play bongos and acoustic guitar and beg for change. I klutzed my way to the beach, the remainder of my brain cells coagulated like clumps of grapes sticking to the walls of my skull.
I barged into the cold Pacific, letting the sea salts scour away all the bad things I’d ever done. I wanted to fossilize those moments forever, letting the sway and the pull of the tide carry me to wherever I should go. The boys played Frisbee on the shoreline, skin stained darker under the Baja sun, flecked with beads of water that evaporated almost as immediately as they appeared. Mitzi and I decided to retreat to our ransacked camp, joking about our new life in Mexico, only 45 minutes away from the home we’d never return to. The twins followed, their attention suddenly snagged by something shining in the sand, a set of keys.
Bar Tales
Heat blurred over the river. Sweat beads trickled between my breasts under the penguin suit; tuxedo blouse, black apron, black slacks, bow-tie. I wiped down the bar with a bleach soaked rag. The smell of the dishwasher and its steam added to the suffocating atmosphere. 102 degrees. The air conditioner broke inside the hotel, and all the guests left for more comfortable accommodations. The bar was dead. Through the panoramic windows, pedestrians brave enough walked back and forth in scarce numbers, ducking into cooler restaurants, subterranean taverns and pubs and shadows if anyone could find them. I was in for a long, exhausting night. I’d be suffering had not the boys shown. They all sauntered in, jeans rolled up to the knees, leg hair matted and sticking to muscular calves, tattoos glistening up to the neck. Each man took a stool and without order, I started pouring pints of cheap wheat beer. It seemed, hair of the dog, had rabidly attacked each of them, so I was grateful they’d come to me, as though I had a way to quell the grossness of too much whiskey the night before. Jack Daniels and armpit must followed them in. I had a job to do and I wasn’t about to let the boys down.
Scuppers was the youngest, just moved up from N’Orleans. The group could only handle him in painstaking doses, but I liked the kid, his southern accent, slow speech, sincere smile and, moppy-head. He seemed too sweet for the ruffians he kept company with. He ordered a cheeseburger and fries. There were Drumsticks, Choco-tacos and Otter Pops in the well’s ice bin, the brilliant idea of the bar manager who thought to give away complimentary ice cream to the suffering bar and hotel guests. Each boy grabbed one or two and munched happily between thirsty gulps from their pints.
I busied myself re-polishing the glasses behind the bar, happy to make small talk with friends while everyone else broiled outside. It would be a night of not making any money, but at least I would walk away with stories if nothing else.
Motor and Neanderthal drained glass after glass, watching E! on the bar TV above my head, nodding every now and then as I refilled their glasses.
The bell in the kitchen rang and I hurried back to the bar with Scupper’s order. He was working on some stickers he drew on postal labels: hamburgers talking in neon colors. We talked about art and street art, between big, ravenous bites of his burger. He offered me his fries, while Motor and Neanderthal helped themselves with their paint smudged fingers. I waved a hand declining.
“Why’d you move up here anyway?” I asked. “Why not New York? Chicago? Why Portland?”
He smiled heartily. Drawing me in slow and easy with his traipsing accent, and without giving me an answer, he began to recount a conversation he’d just had with a friend from New York.
“So anyway, she called me this morning. We was gonna move in together, and all… She’s a petsitter, y’ know. She walks dogs for the rich.” He points to his empty glass. I tilt the glass under the tap and fill it. Overflowing, I set it on the bar, the froth sweating down the side of his glass and he smiled at it and took a long pull from it, letting the foam rest on the peach fuzz above his lip. I wondered if he was even 21, and sorta worried that I’d never asked for his ID. “So she had to work for this new client who was away in Europe. They’d only corresponded through email, so she was a little nervous taking the job to begin with. Anyhow, she takes the train to Manhattan, unlocks the apartment and calls for the dog. “ He smirks and takes another gigantic bite of his burger, a little bit of juice dribbles into his goatee and he wipes it with his paper napkin, leaving it spotted with grease on the bar top. I lean in closer as he continues, “So she starts to poke around a lil’ bit, y’ know, to find out where the dog is and she comes upon it in the bedroom, but he’s dead, right?”
He takes another long swill from the pint and starts to fiddle with the napkin, now soiled with ketchup fingerprints.
“So she calls the client and explains the dog is dead and she’s not sure what to do. So, she’s stuck there in this stranger’s apartment with their dead dog as the owners make arrangements to have the dog cremated. When they call her back, they insist that she transport the body to the pet crematorium. So, now she’s got to drag this dead dog across town on the subway. I suppose she coulda taken a car, but hey, she was flustered and all. So she snoops around the apartment and finds a suitcase big enough to hold the dog in and she packs it in and she lugs the thing all the way to the subway and y’know dead bodies are like, really heavy, right? Well, this young guy sees her struggling with this big ol’ suitcase and offers to help her carry it off the platform onto the train an’ she decides to let him. As they’re travellin’ he starts talking to her and he turns out to be a real nice guy and he offers to help her suitcase a couple blocks after her stop, just to ease the burden. So, she accepts, right? “So she gets to her stop, right? And the guy commits to his end of the agreement, but when they get to the place, and she turns to shake his hand and thank him…”
I had paused from my polishing, for I don’t know how long, I felt like I already knew the way this story would end, but Scuppers was really smirking and smiled into the head of his beer, and coughed a little bit before carrying on.
“And?” I asked impatiently.
“He punches her in the stomach and runs off with the suitcase.”
R.F.T.W. - Digital Display (by jwdawg77)
What my dreams are like these days.
Waitressing
Every bit of the cake had been eaten and the guests started to funnel out of the reception. The roses began to wilt and puddles of champagne were left on the dance floor along with petals and other refuse. Finally, the bride, now well lit and less particular about the particulars of the party, slumped over in a folding chair sobbing. The groom, standing at the exit door, with his bow tie loose and the first two buttons of his shirt open, waved to last guests and then hoisted his new wife over his shoulder and carried her to the car waiting outside.
We moved quickly, breaking down the tables and sweeping up the wedding refuse on the dance floor, colored lights still moving as we cleared away the plates smeared with cake and butter cream. The bartender started distributing what was left of the wine in paper cups and we drank while we worked, blasting Van Halen rather than the soft rock compilation the newlyweds spun throughout the night. “Holy shit!” Some one shouted. The wait staff began to gather around the bartender.
“What, what is it?” We all wanted to know
“It’s a wedding band!”
We rushed to the windows, but the car was long gone. The happy couple was already making their way to Fiji. Their honeymoon. Where they’d later found out that something was missing.
