The Bat Bird

This is not my photo.  Duh.  But I like the set.  Were I to have another studio. . . . 

But where was I?  Oh. . . I feel much better now.  I'm not all the way "there" yet, but my mind is clearing.  My body seems to be warming up.  I've turned my a.c. down a degree back to where it is normally.  My vision is still blurry, but I think/hope it is getting better.  The shakes seem to be gone.  

And last night, I cooked a big meal.  Maybe not "big," but normal.  

I'd never made salmon patties before.  My mother makes them, and I love them, but I have never tried.  Last night, I tried.  I looked up recipes online.  Too many variations, too many ingredients.  I went with the simplest one and maybe made it even simpler.  Chopped onion, canned salmon, two eggs, Panko breadcrumbs, and olive oil.  Shall I reveal that I have never used Panko before?  No, I shouldn't.  

I smashed it all together in a big steel bowl, then made patties.  I read that you should put the patties in the 'fridge for anywhere from thirty minutes to all day, but I didn't have time for that.  My patties fell apart a little bit.  I put olive oil in the cast iron pan and cooked the patties for four minutes per side over medium/high heat.  Rice and asparagus.  

Damn.  I forgot to add the spices to the patties.  There were bland.  Next time.  But they were o.k.  Not as good as mom's, but o.k.  I ate two big patties, all the asparagus, and a big portion of rice.  Coconut water was the drink of choice.  I haven't eaten a full meal in a week and a half.  

I felt I'd put on all the weight I lost.  But I felt good. 

Look, bitches, that's all I got.  I haven't been anywhere, haven't seen anyone.  I walk, read books, watch t.v.  I've had a retarded brain.  I guess I can report that the mild hallucinations are gone.  There is that.  

Oh. . . I DO have a tale to tell.  It comes from the weekend I was so terribly sick from the antibiotics.  I was weak, shaky, puking and out of my mind.  I was lying on the couch toward dusk on Saturday napping.  I woke when I thought I heard someone in the house.  I thought it might be my tenant, and I called out her name in query.  There was some disturbance, then I saw something fly through the living room.  WTF?  I was already paralyzed by illness.  Now?  

I lay on the couch listening.  I heard nothing.  I forced myself up onto shaky legs and peered around the corner.  On the window shutter in the dining room was a big, black, cowled thing.  It was HUGE and looked like the Caped Crusader or a sleeping Dracula.  Fuck me, I thought.  What was I going to do?

I have a big net in the garage that I have used over the years to catch armadillos, but the netting was too wide for this.  I didn't want to fuck with a bat.  My reflexes were non-existent at this point.  My tenant had been clipped by a flying bat a year or so ago and had to go through the rabies shots.  She said it cost ten thousand dollars.  I don't know.  I consider her an unreliable source.  But I didn't want to go through the rabies thing, so. . . I called her.  

"I don't know what to do.  There is a bat in my house.  I'm sick.  I can't try to catch the thing."

"O.K.  I'll call the police."

Call the police?  My mind was flip-flopping.  Nothing made sense.  O.K. I thought.  I'm going to let her take care of it.  

She came down, but wouldn't come into the house.  I sat in a chair on the deck barely able to move.  This was the day before I went to the hospital, and I mean, I was sick in my bones.  

The cops showed up, a young Black man and a White cop with tats all over his arms.  He was the same cop who came out to take my report when my cameras were stolen.  

"It's hanging on the shutter in the dining room," I said as I led them into the house.  They peered into the dining room from the kitchen.  

"How are you going to get it?" I asked.  

They looked at one another then at me.  

"I'm not going near that thing," said the Black guy.  "I'm not messing with a bat."

The White guy called animal control.  It was Saturday night.  

"They didn't answer," he said,  "I left a message.  We'll see if they call me back."

We all hung out on the deck for a bit.  No call back.  The White cop started searching the internet on his phone and came up with three numbers of private critter control companies.  He gave them to my tenant.  

"I doubt that animal control will respond.  You might want to call one of these companies," he said.  And with that, the police were gone.  The tenant called two of the numbers.  One was in a different part of the state.  One was an answering service.  The last one, however, said he'd be out in half an hour.  

He showed up in shorts and a t-shirt and a pair of surgical gloves.  I took him into the house and showed him the bat.  He walked back to his truck and got a small net, maybe eighteen inches in diameter.  

"He's got it!" said the tenant who was watching him through the window.  It had taken about ten seconds.  When he came out, he was grinning.  

"How many people looked at this thing and thought it was a bat?"

"Four."

He laughed.  "It's a bird."

WTF?  He looked it up.  It was a chimney swift.  Of course.  It had come into the house through the chimney.  That is what woke me up.  That is what made all the clatter.  

"I'll take it with me and let it go at my house.  If I let it go here, it will just go back to your chimney."

He was a swell guy.  I hadn't talked to him on the phone, didn't know anything but that he was coming.  

"How much do I owe you?" I asked.  

"Two hundred."

Holy shit!  What could I do?  I was sick and wanted to get back on my couch.  When he was gone, I said to the tenant, "Two hundred bucks!"

"He was going to charge five hundred, but since it was so easy. . . ."

"What?  Five hundred dollars?  You're shitting me!"

"No.  That's what he said on the phone."

I was too weak and sick to complain.  I was just glad the thing was gone.  

I called the tenant the next day to take me to the hospital.  You know the rest.  

I'm lucky.  I've had multiple people offer to take me to surgery on Monday.  I've not asked anyone, of course.  These were all acts of kindness.  But I don't want to bother anyone.  The day will be a drag.  The surgical center called to tell me that I needed a driver and someone to stay with me for 24 hours after the surgery.  That pissed me off.  They make too many assumptions.  They should have just done this in the hospital and kept me overnight, I think.  

Whatever.  That is where I am.  Now it's on to yogurt and oatmeal.  Not combined, of course.  Gut bacteria and fiber.  I need to get healthy.  

It is raining and will be, reportedly, for days.  The rainy season has come early this year.  Temperatures are above the norm.  The college kids have moved out.  The town is quiet but for weekends when the hoi-polloi come to town, but they are an ugly lot.  I will walk in the drizzle and the rain.  That's all I have.  

A Smaller Version of Myself

I'm off the poison, off the antibiotics.  Now I'll see if I return to "reality" as I know it.  Your "reality" may be different, of course.  Everybody now is on the pipe or vape pen or mushroom gummy.   Everyone is in therapy, AI or other.  India attacked Pakistan and Xi is going to party with Putin.  The U.S. Navy just lost another $67 million dollar jet off the deck of a ship, and all I can think of is "McHale's Navy."  

You may need to Google that, depending.  

As the world falls apart, however, two things dominate the news outside Earth Two Trump World: The Met Gala and the Choosing of the Pope.  

I finished watching "Sugar" last night.  Bullshit.  He's an alien who decides to stay on planet earth rather than be loaded back on the Mother Ship.  It didn't need that.  It became a cheap version of Win Wenders' "Wings of Desire" where an angel decides to give up his wings.  At least in "Wings" the angel stayed on earth with no superpowers.  The masses, though, it seems craves super powers, magic crystals, elixirs, potions. . . anything unreal.  But, and here's the kicker to me; they know little to nothing about the natural world, don't know minerals and how they are formed, don't understand chemical compounds and their structures, know little if any math beyond the basics, and have scant knowledge of physics beyond gravity.  It is easier to hope for aliens and super heroes and magic rocks.  

If there are miracles, though. . . count me in.  I could use a few.  

I'm terrified to post this next thing.  It might get me in trouble with the. . . you know. 

This is Emily Ratajkowski at the 2024 Met Gala.  She skipped the Gala this year, but "The Naked Dress" was everywhere.  Rat is tired of all the politics of the male gaze, the female gaze, etc.  She thinks the Taylor Swiftian ethics of "dressing for the girls" and "dressing for revenge" is bullshit.  She's been liberated from all that, she posted on social media.  She just doesn't care anymore.  

I'm guessing that is why she had to post that on social media.  

I don't know.  I missed the whole thing once again this year.  Drats!

But the real shit is the conclave to choose the new Pope.  I'm not sure how much God has to do with the power politics of this stuff, whether he speaks to them the way he speaks to the head of the Mormon Church--reportedly.  But it seems certain that the contest will be between Church liberals and Church conservatives.  Since Vance killed the last Pope, this will be a most interesting vote.  I hope someone comes out shouting that the election was rigged.  Maybe loyalist will be inspired by the January 6th patriots.  

All I'm saying is things are getting weirder.  This Christmas, some children will get two instead of thirty dolls while billionaires have twenty cars, five yachts, six mansions, two private jets, etc. 

There's trouble right here in River City.  This I know, and I don't even have cable.  

Oh--I almost forgot!  I went to see the surgeon yesterday.  I got weighed first.  I've lost eleven pounds in ten days.  I just haven't been eating.  I don't recommend this diet, though.  It is pretty scary.  I don't feel so well.  The doc saw me for about two minutes.  He scheduled me for surgery on Monday at a surgical center, not a hospital, so I will be in and out the same day.  They will put me under, he said.  I won't remember anything.  I hope he's speaking only about the surgery.  I don't want total amnesia.  There are so many things I wish to remember.  

But I'm anxious.  How's that?  A better way of saying I'm scared.  Anxious is allowable, but scared, that's another thing.  I'm trying to keep my emotions in check.  

I'm puny now, decimated, but my mother tells me, "You look good."  Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in the open garage at my mother's house with her and several of her neighbors.  When the sexy dog-walking lady came by with her two big dogs, my mother's 91 year old neighbor's tiny dog ran out in a rage.  I hobbled out as quickly as I could to get it.  Then I talked to the sexy lady.  My mother had already told her about my hospital stay, and she inquired how I was doing.  I told her I felt like crap, that the antibiotics had kicked my ass, and that I was a little light in the head.  

"Well you look good," she said, echoing my mother.  

Starvation is a good look on me, apparently.  I hardly ate yesterday, either, and I am sure that by this afternoon, I will have dipped below the weight I had hoped to achieve at the beginning of the year, under 200 pounds.  I'm afraid, however, that I have become "skinny fat."  You know what I mean.  Not the rugged boy I've always wanted to be.  

Prebiotics, probiotics, fermented foods, and fiber.  That is on my agenda for the next few days.  Get some gut health back.  Clear my mind.  Bring some life back into this old body.  

Oh, yea.  One more thing.  When I was scheduled for the surgery, I was told I needed to have a driver who I know.  Can't be Uber.  O.K. I said, but that is problematic.  I don't really have anyone to drive me.  I hate asking favors of people, especially for something like this.  Someone will have to sit in a waiting room for four hours or so.  No wife, no girlfriend. . . I'm in a pickle.  That has been my takeaway from this whole thing.  I have no "support group."  Oh, one of the BBC gymroids would take me, but I'm not down for that.  My old work group has kind of dispersed and dissolved.  No, I don't want to ask any of them.  So right now, I'm faced with a quandary.  I'm a man on a wire, alone, an enigma, a mystery.  

Or I'm just a pathetic guy without any close friends.  Multiple choice?  You know which one I'll choose.  

I've read too many books, watched too many movies.  Tell your children that's not the way to go.  Major in computers or business and join a fraternity or sorority.  Fit in.  Work your way up the corporate ladder.  Get married, join the country club, have children and vacation at nice resorts.  And always remember Homer Simpson's great advice to his son, Bart--the Rule of the American Playground.

 "Don't say anything unless you are certain everyone is going to agree."  

Corps and Cops

The Google Cops are after me again.  They put a warning on yesterday's post on one blog but not the other.  Titties, I guess.  "Community Standards."  My "community" doesn't mind titties.  Or dicks or anything else.  Their's is an authoritarian community, I guess.  There is no freedom throughout the land.  You are allowed to lie and promote conspiracy theories, but no titties . 

Whatever.  It scares me.  Most days, now, I have to try two or three times to upload a photo.  I don't know what is up with that.  I have a whole lotta writing on the blog that I don't wish to see disappear.  One day it might.  I guess I should know better than to count on authoritarians to protect you.  

The crazy thing is that I've been a fan and supporter of The Google.  By and large, anyway.  But as we are learning, you can't count on anything anymore.  Nothing.  Not even that rock of ages, nature.  The seasons shift.  Precipitation patterns get disrupted.  Distant stars explode and meteors strike the land.  

I go to see the surgeon in a little bit.  It is my last day on the poison, on the antibiotics.  I've felt like Fido's ass for over a week.  I'm hoping that my mind and vision clear and that I regain some vitality.  I am not like myself now.  It is frightening.  I barely move.  I have no "gumption."  Nothing interests me but sleeping.  If it is not the drugs, then I am in big trouble.  

I'll know more this afternoon.  Fingers crossed.  I hope he is a good surgeon.  How do you know?  In every profession, some are better than others.  There are Top Dogs and there are just Plain Dogs.  Trying to ferret the good ones out is a daunting task.  There is no scale to look at.  And so. . . wishing and hoping are my only tools.  

I've set a goal to work toward--the website.  I dedicated two hours to culling old work yesterday.  I didn't even make it through the San Fran pictures, but it felt good to be working at something.  I need some purpose in life other than going to the gym, bathing, eating and sleeping.  

I hadn't seen anyone in two days, and when I went to my mother's in the afternoon, my voice wouldn't work.  I haven't spoken much for days.  My voice was just a raspy wheezing.  It took half an hour before it cleared. 

Terrifying.  

I've not been eating much.  Bad belly, nausea.  So last night, I decided I'd try making up a dish.  I chopped extra-firm tofu into blocks and powdered them with corn starch and flour.  I heated olive oil in a cast iron pan on medium high heat and let the tofu cook for 3-4 minutes per side.  Then I plated them and put more olive oil in the pot and added chopped garlic and fresh spinach leaves.  As they began to wilt, I added garbanzo beans.  Salt and cayenne pepper.  In a minute, I added the tofu back to the pot, turned off the flame, and let it sit for another minute.  Plated, I added toasted sesame seeds and teriyaki sauce.  

That was an easy meal to get down and darn good, too.  

Remember I told you that "Sugar" was sort of made for adults?  Last night, it got weird in a sci-fi way.  Really disappointing.  I'm six or seven episodes in and can say that it didn't need that.  Now what?  I'll try another episode tonight, I guess, but I don't have a good feeling.  Why do people need the ridiculous and impossible to pique their interest?  Why do they need fantasy and horror?  There is enough horror in things that are not fantasy or supernatural.  

I don't get it, at lest beyond adolescence.  

But don't use me as a measuring stick.  I'm way outside the norm.  

I won't post any titties today or maybe ever.  But I've had posts that were flagged that didn't even have a human form in them, so I don't know wtf Google Corp is looking at.  I DO know that I can't post pictures of children with guns.  I posted a home movie from the 1950s on YouTube that got flagged because my father and I were pointing toy guns at the camera like real bandits.  I can almost understand that one, but the human form?  Pretty f'ing weird to me.  

I heard a good one yesterday.  I'd take more music like this.  Let me share it with you.  It is a pleasant end to a pretty shitty blog post.  I'll let you know what the surgeon says.  Wish me luck.  

Take It With Me When I Go

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Fifty, Fit, and Feeling Fine

I was fifty, fit, and feeling fine.  I was living in a most vivid season.  Extended adolescence, sure, but what was the point of anything, anyway?  Life was a cabaret.  I was foreman at the factory by day.  I was teaching classes at Country Club College at night.  Young women knocked on my door and asked me out.  Eyes would sparkle.  Hearts would flutter.  Oh, my. . . yes.  I was a miracle.  

Jesus. . . what happened?!?  

We all know what happens.  I'm still taking the antibiotics, still feeling very puny.  I'm no longer foreman nor am I teaching.  No women ask me out.  Miracles are an illusion.  There is no escaping the laws of nature.  

Why is the photo so bad?  That was my first digital camera.  I didn't know how to use it yet and had no skills in Photoshop.  That would come, but for the moment, most of my pictures looked much like that . 

Selavy.  

"But what the fuck is up with the skirt?"

It's not a skirt.  It's a pareo.  I was an adventurer.  I was exotic.  I drove an open air Jeep and lived a hero's life in mountains and jungles, on oceans and rivers. . . I was Tarzan, man.  

Ho!  

Now I limp and carry a dad gut.  I've lost interest in most travel.  I care for my mother.  

I shared my pareo.  

Now I have a difficult time securing a bath towel 'round my waist.  

I feel puny today, small and weak and listless.  It is fairly scary.  What happened to the flame?  Is the fire going out?  I'm not sure throwing more fuel on it will do any good.  

My mother is worried about me.  Funny turn.  So she made dinner for me last night.  It was my first real meal in a week.  We sat outside in the afternoon air, then went inside to eat.  Then we sat out some more.  I cleaned the kitchen and did some work on her computers, but around 6:30, I said I had to get home.  I wanted to watch the Kentucky Derby.  

Maybe I've gone senile, too.  I'd forgotten that I have cut the cable.  Shit, piss, fuck goddamn.  I went online to try to find a workaround.  None to be had, so I went to YouTube and searched for the race.  I found it.  Sort of.  The middle of the screen was blocked out.  Whoever was streaming it, probably someone in East Europe or Kenya, wanted me to go online and pay money to see the race.  Now I'm dumb, but. . . . 

So I really missed it. First time in my adult life, I think.  

Things fall apart.  Entropy is a universal law.

I was very sad.  I should have gone to a bar to watch it, but I can't drink right now and I don't have the energy for that.  

I have two favorite parts of the day now--morning coffee and nighttime Golden Milk before bed.  Isn't that something?  

Those years after my divorce were the most vivid time, and somehow, I thought it would last forever.  Perhaps it is tragic, really, to live so well so late.  Better to gradually descend than to step off the cliff.  

I'm bragging.  I'm whining.  Neither is attractive.  But a writer has to tell his truth no matter how ugly.  As he knows it.  

Whatever.  Even the Pope had his detractors.  Bill Belichick.  Woody Allen.  Johnny Depp.  

It is inevitable.  Somewhere, someone is criticizing you, too.  Glass house.  Stones.  

Outside the weather is gloomy.  Inside, too.  I don't feel like doing anything.  I'll make some oatmeal, I think.  Milk, peanut butter, and honey to make it lively.  It is nothing like gruel.  It is hearty.  

I should spend the day making selections for a website.  I don't know if I will ever take photos again, but if I do, a website would be helpful.  Surely I can pull out forty or so good pictures illustrating my photo diversity.  I should quit trying to overthink it.  

The day is dark.  The house is quiet.  Only you and my mother know my current plight.  I hide my bones from the rest.  

"Oh, boo-hoo.  You're so pathetic.  Nothing is wrong with you.  Shut the fuck up."

I would if I could.  I just don't think I can.  Maybe I've picked up the Trump syndrome.  

But you know, during it all, I was taking photos for a woman I couldn't have.  There is always something motivating action.  Here's a song from 1999.  It was the end of one thing and the beginning of another.  We live in eras, I guess.  It was to be quite an era.  

Many lives, many eras.  Ha!

Jesus!

Brain Rot

I'm not being dramatic.  Well. . . if you are asking.  But these antibiotics have done something to my brain.  I keep having slight hallucinations.  I have a difficult time concentrating.  There are other, less questionable reactions, too.  I'm tired.  I don't want to eat.  But the brain thing. . . I looked it up.  It is one of the possible side effects of the drug, a contraindication.  The drug insert doesn't say whether your brain goes back to normal after taking the drug.  But man. . . I'm out of it, so if the past two entrees don't make sense or seem to have a randomness to them, you can expect much the same today.  

"The mind is a terrible thing to waste."

"The mind is a terrible thing."  

But even in my retarded mental state, one thing is very clear to me.  Trump MUST be tested for tertiary syphilis, and the results of that test must be made public.  The disease has clearly entered his brain as it did King Henry III or King Charles V.  We are living with the remnants of barely coherent Lunatic in Chief.  

I hope that goes viral and becomes a public outcry.  

"Test Trump! Test Trump! Test Trump!"

I don't even like horses.  I never wanted one.  I've ridden them on occasion, but I always feel guilty sitting on the poor thing's back.  And they know it.  They don't do what I want them to do.  They try to brush me off at every fence post and tree.  I can't remember ever wanting to be a cowboy.  

But today is the Kentucky Derby, and I never miss it.  Weird, right?  Well, it is only because my father liked it.  I don't know why, but he did.  Since his death ever so long ago, I've watched the race raising my glass in a toast to him, and I've learned to appreciate the competitive heart of the beasts.  

But you know, they train chickens to play tic-tac-toe and bears to walk on balls and donkeys to jump off diving platforms, so. . . . 

Horse racing is cruel, they say.  I agree.  It is like most professional sports.  Athletes train a lifetime through injuries and pain just to kiss the golden bowl.  But the American Public, and the Global Public, too, hold them up as heroes and listen to what they have to say about everything from social issues to politics.  Hell, they've even elected that Alabama Moron, Tommy Turbeville, to the U.S. Senate, and that guy is one more knock on the noggin away from shitting his pants and drooling in public.  

All by way of saying, I'll watch the Derby today.  I bet on the Derby once.  Just once.  When the series "Luck" was showing on HBO, I found out that the female jockey on the show was based on a woman who was riding in that year's Derby, so that is where I put my money.  I went big--$10.  

She didn't win, place, or show.  I was down a drink at the bar.  

I've watched the Derby from some pretty spectacular bars, too.  But that's a story already told.  

Now I'm going to make some of my "friends" happy.  If not happy, at least satisfied, justified. . . I don't know.  I've eschewed a normal, middle-class lifestyle.  Or maybe it eschewed me.  I was married, and I have helped raise a child, so maybe what I've said about marriages and parenting is colored by that.  For all of you who I have irritated, all of you who have felt angry about my castigations, this will give you a bit of a chubby.  

I'm having a hard time being alone right now.  I don't mean in a social sense.  It is difficult being sick and trying to take care of yourself by yourself alone as you age.  One wants a gentle hand on the head and a soft, reassuring voice.  Rather, I have the sound of my own whining and the creaking of the old house.  When the monsters of thought emerge, there is nobody to distract from them.  

"Oh, yea, man. . . you always touted your independence.  You were a real Existential Hero.  So shut the fuck up.  He-he."

That is actually a facsimile of something said to me once by a friend.  He has his own problems now, but he has a wife to mitigate the suffering.  

I know there will be a vicious delight from some who surround me, but regardless, we all get it in the end.  

"If we got what we deserved, we'd all die of starvation."

Probably.  

But I once had a marvelous studio in town, an atelier.  

"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

If you don't know the quote, you probably shouldn't be here.  But stay anyway.  I don't want to be alone.  

Two more days of oral antibiotics, then a visit to the surgeon.  It has been just over a week.  It seems months.  I've missed everything.  Before I went into the hospital, the weather was beautiful and Country Club College was thriving.  When I got out, school was over for the year and the weather was sultry.  The coming and going of the College kids marks the seasons.  Now comes the long, brutal summer.  

That's all I got.  That and some more music.  I try to listen to music before bed now so that I might have better dreams, organic stuff, not synth and techno nor heavy electric shit but stuff made of harmonies and wood.  And there is sooo much out there.  It amazes me how much of it is so good.  

Don't skip this.  Don't cheat yourself.  Look and see what people can do! Why aren't there clubs like this everywhere?  Crazy.

Being Seen

Yesterday was surprising.  I was still weak, tired, and a bit disoriented.  I didn't get a lot done.  

That's the update.  Nobody really gives a shit about how you feel because they can't do anything about it.  If you are sick, it is a drag.  But remember, it is important not to bring people down.  

And so. . . . 

Things were going swell, I thought.  I was upbeat.  The mirror hadn't been disappointing me as much as usual.  In just a couple of weeks, I'd been called "hot teacher," "the awesome C.S.," and had found a text from my old CEO in which she referred to me as "boy toy."  Oh, yea. . . a little attention can go a long way.  

All forgotten, though, during my misery.  

But. . . 

I had a coworker with whom I became friends, a "Black Woman."  She had African blood, but Native American blood, too.  "Blood."  How cracker can I get?  Sometimes, I swear. . . .   If she were from Appalachia, maybe we'd call her a Melungeon.  I just had to look up the spelling and Wiki said that the word was a slur.  How fucking bad is this going to get?  I've only recently learned the term because T told me he is Melungeon.  After that, I watched a couple of YouTube history lessons on that.  It didn't seem to be a slur.  

At some point, I became my coworker's boss, in part due to her support, and later, she became mine, in part due to my support.  When she was young, she was the first Black student to be integrated into the county's white school system.  She didn't want to be, but her parents, both educators, thought it important.  It was a cracker county and the white kids called her names that I only learned about through her telling.  She hated them.  When she graduated, she chose to go to an HBC.  She told me stories of being a kid driving with her parents from Miami to Atlanta.  She needed to pee, so her dad pulled into a gas station.  

"Fill her up," he said to the attendant.  "And my daughter needs to use your restroom."

The attendant looked at him and said, "I can fill up your car, but I can't let your daughter use the restroom."  It was the early '60s in the segregated south.  

"Thank you," her father replied, "but I won't be needing your gasoline."

She said she was crying, ready to burst, but they were afraid to pull over and let her pee outside for fear of what might happen.  

So many things are invisible to the privileged.  It was her birthday, so I stopped at a card shop on the Boulevard to get her a card.  I couldn't find any birthday cards, though, that had Black faces on them.  I'd never tried to buy a b-day card for a Black person before, and what had been nonessential and unseen by me now made me furious.  

"My grandmother used to take a brown crayon and color in the faces," she told me.  

In college, I was told, "Liberals lie" by my hippie roommate.  It took me awhile to get it.  They lie to themselves, mostly, I found, patting themselves on the back for their liberal sensibilities, but their lives remain relatively unchanged.  See Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic and the Mau-Maus," an essay written in the early '60s about rich liberal fundraising for the Black Panther Movement.  

I decided not to be a "liberal."  Still. . . I thought I knew.  

I didn't know so much.  Being friends with my coworker and her friends was an awakening.  I'd be hanging out with them, just shooting the shit, kibitzing, and then I would say something I thought made sense, something I thought was correct and true, and they would all snap back and look at me and ask me if I was crazy. 

"What?"

And they would tell me what.  

"Oh.  Oops." 

They let me get away with a lot, though, because I was their friend.  

I'd walk the halls with my coworker, and whenever we came to the door of a minority, she'd stop, hang on the doorjamb, and say, "Are you O.K.?"  It seemed weird to me for a long time.  "Just remember, you've got people."  

Now I was a White Boy who had always gotten more attention than he needed or deserved.  I'd always had a stage, a microphone, so I thought talking to people in the hallways was an annoyance.  But my friend talked to everybody.  Just briefly, but she did.  We had a boss, a VP, who we both disliked venomously.  My friend's gripe about her, though, was that she would walk by you in the hallway without acknowledgment.  Hmm.  I wondered about this for I was sure I did the same.  

She taught me that people want to be acknowledged.  They want to be seen.  They want to matter.  

And so, I changed my behavior, and boy did it pay dividends.  

When I was waiting to leave the hospital on Wednesday, many of the staff came in to say goodbye.  I knew something about all of them.  I'd asked.  They were more than stick figures, now, slightly, at least, fleshed out.  As I was being walked out down the hallway, the woman who cleaned my room saw me.  She looked for a moment and I waved.

"Have a good journey," she said.  I nodded.  "You, too."

I thought about my friend--"Remember. . . you have people."  

I decided to take a walk yesterday, but I was having trouble getting started.  I was a little worried.  I wanted to walk the two mile route, but I wasn't sure I'd make it.  I was weak, man, and shaky.  

As I slowly slugged my way up the first big hill, far ahead on the cross street a garbage truck was waiting to make a turn.  Two hundred yards away, maybe.  Maybe a hundred and fifty.  I'm not much good at guesstimating.  I looked up and saw the figure on the back of the truck waving.  It was the old garbagemen from my neighborhood whose route had been changed long ago.  The kid on the back is young, a cool fellow, and I raised my hand to return the wave.  The drive honked his horn.  As the truck turned the corner, the kid yelled out, "It's good to see you, man!"

"Good to see you, too," I shouted back across the distance.  That gave me a lift.  You see how that works, right?  I'd been "seen."  Validated.  Silly little things, you know, but good things.  

I walked on to where the road hugged the lakeshore, big, rich houses on the opposite side of the street.  In the road was a big truck.  A group of fellows was re-bricking a long, wide driveway.  As I approached, I saw a big fellow with long hair and a fly away beard shouting to the workers in Spanish.  As I approached, I flipped my usual peace sign, a habit from my youth I've never outgrown.  As I came alongside the truck, the big fellow barked, "You're ten minutes late.  You need to show up on time."

I laughed.  "Just fire me," I said.  "It looks like hard work to me."

He chuckled and nodded his head.  Being seen.  

I need to write a note to my friend, I thought, to tell her what she taught me.  We don't see one another anymore.  You know how things go.  But we text greetings and queries and outrages to one another from time to time.  I needed to let her know I was thinking of her.  

When I got home, I checked my messages.  

When she graduated, she went back to live in Miami.  I said, "stay in touch." I didn't think she would.  She sent a nice message about how things were going there and this pic.  Another little "up."  Sometimes, just when you feel like you are hitting bottom, you find something to float on.  In a matter of an hour, my spirits had been lifted.  

They were at their nadir as I sat alone in the silent hospital room contemplating my life and the future.  

I still have not been able to eat.  These antibiotics are tearing me up.  I was weak and fairly listless last night as I sat on the couch drinking tea and watching social justice videos on YouTube.  I knew I was "in a state" as kept feeling the sobs in my chest and the tears on my cheeks.  

"What the fuck is wrong with me?"

I put on music instead.  

In my hours of quietude, I've come to a decision, the kind you come to in crisis, to live more slowly and deliberately and with more attention and purpose.  High-minded shit.  I hope I can remember to do these things and to replace irritation with gratitude.  

If you are in need, I am available to be your Spirit Guide/Life Coach for a small fee.  I'l give you a good deal.  You're my friend.  I don't want to overpromise, though.  Just know. . . I see you!

I think I feel somewhat better this morning.  Thank you for asking.  Now I must get on with living intentionally.  

Oh. . . but here's this.  Yea.  Music for the soul.  

Infection, Brain Worms, Hospital

 Testing.  Testing.  

I have a long explanation for my absence, but I don't think I have the energy or wherewithal to write it today.  Jesus.  The desire to tell thrives, but the energy to sustain an explanation or to be witty or interesting about it is desperately lacking.  I'll bungle this for certain, but I'll just dive in and see how far I sink . 

I still feel like one of the Living Dead. . . but damn. . . it is wonderful to have a good cup of coffee.  

I'll get to the lede here eventually.  I've just had a lot of hallucinatory time to think this past week, and I have a lot of brief, disconnected thoughts.  Here's one.  A revelation?  I don't know.  It seems so to me.  Almost a religious awakening.  My life, by and large, has felt, or so I've lived it, like a trip to the carnival.  I've taken as many of the rides as I could afford.  I've gone to every sideshow.  Seen the Man with Three Eyes, the Human Blockhead, Electro-Lady. . . .  I've snuck in under the tent to watch the Hoot Shows.  

"I've seen things you people could never imagine."

It is good to be home.  O.K.  The lede.  

I've been in the hospital.  I've had a cyst on my leg for thirty or more years.  I think I got it from running.  I  wore those wide-heeled Nike running shoes for a long time, and I would catch the inside of my right calf with the inside of my left heel sometimes.  This is what I think.  The cyst, I believe, came from that.  Maybe ingrown hairs.  

Nobody knows.  Yet.  When it is removed, maybe.  

I've been to docs over the years to see about having it removed.  They said if it wasn't bothering me, to leave it alone.  So that has bee the case, but in the last few years it became inflamed.  I went to a surgeon who again said to leave it alone.  It is in a weird place and the incision would be deep and it would be difficult to heal.  

So that is what I did.  But last week, it got really infected.  I went back to the surgeon, but he was no longer there.  It was a new group.  I asked to make an appointment.  When the staff looked at the cyst, they said there were no surgeons in the office that day, but that I needed to go to the ER.  

"You need antibiotics.  You don't want that infection to get into your blood."

So that is what I did.  I was seen quickly--by a P.A.  Never saw a doc.  You hardly ever do any longer.  P.A.s cost the hospital less than half what it pays a doc.  Do the math.  

So he gave me a syringe full of antibiotics and two oral antibiotics to take with me.  Never mentioned a surgeon.  I was wary, but what could I do?

I took the pills that night and in a few hours was vomiting violently.  Oh. . . this is gross.  I had the Big D at the same time.  

That night was terrible.  I couldn't sleep.  My body quivered.  My mind was everywhere.  

So. . . being a smart guy, I took them again in the morning.  Repeat.  I took them again that night.  By morning, I desperately needed help.  I decided to stop taking the drugs.  

Duh.  

I asked my tenant if she would take me to the ER at a different hospital.  I thought I had a better chance of seeing a doctor there.  

The ER doc was the cute little Dr. Miracle who almost killed my mother.  Christ, I was terrified.  So was she, by all outward appearances.  She had, at least, the good sense to call for backup.  My tenant had bailed on me by then as the hours passed.  Around nightfall, a woman in a sari came in.  She looked as if she had been to a party.  

"Hello.  I'm Doctor _________.  I was called in to come look at your leg."

She was an infectious disease specialist.  I watched her face for any clues.

"What is this rash?"

"I didn't know I had one."

It was on both legs, bright red spots like measles.

"They don't itch" I said. 

She said she was going to admit me.  I'd be staying for awhile.  

I was taken to a room upstairs where they gave me an injection of an antibiotic, and hooked me up to an IV.  I was getting fluids, of course, and alternating drips of two other antibiotics.  They hooked me up to a heart monitor and began taking blood.  I was so out of it at this point, though, I was happy to have a real doctor looking after me.  It seemed an achievement.  

But I was tethered.  

Many people came in to see me, to ask me questions.  

"Hi.  I'm Wanda, your lead nurse for this evening.  How are you feeling?" 

She was checking the computer at the head of my bed, typing, reading.  Then. . . 

"What is your favorite thing to do?"

WTF?  This was out of left field.  She was smiling under her mask.  Did she like me?  Was she flirting?  Of course this is what I wondered.  

"Uh . . . I don't know what you mean."

"In your spare time.  If you could do anything you wanted to, what would it be?"

She wrote it on the white board.

"What is this about?" I asked.  

"Just to start the conversation," she cooed.  

Many other people came in to ask me questions not at vague.  

"Tell me your name and date of birth."

This happened every time I was to get anything from a meal to more drugs."

"What is your age?  Do you live in an apartment, a house, or a facility?  How many floors?  Do you live alone?  Do you have for a support group?"

Did I tell you that I am a colorful character?  Ho!  It didn't sound like it.  I sounded like an old man living alone without any support.  I mean. . . I've eschewed so much to be independent.  I began to fear they would put me in a home.

That night, I had the most hideous visions.  I couldn't stop them.  My mind seemed no longer to belong to me.  I could not have done simple additions or subtractions.  I was dying a pitiful death with no one offering "prayers and wishes," no one to grieve.  It wasn't funny.  

I had enough tether to let me reach the bathroom.  And that was the extent of my movement.  I lay in bed all the next day.  I had cable t.v.  A thousand channels.  Breakfast came.  I couldn't eat it.  It was unimaginably bad.  Then lunch.  I couldn't eat it, either.  Horrible.  I drank water constantly, so I was up and peeing every half hour.  

"I need to see a proctologist," I thought.  

I asked for milk.  I had drunk the morning's milk.  I could survive on milk.  But wait. . . I was told you can't have dairy with antibiotics.  

"That's an old wive's tale, I think," said the nurse.  

Think?!?!?

The needle in my arm began to hurt.  I called the nurse to look at it.  My arm was swelling up.  Apparently the needle was no longer going int the vein.  She said she would be back to change it.  She was a Jamaican from Miami.  I know because I'm like that.  I am curious about people.  I ask, they tell.  She liked Miami better, she told me.  But I could imagine.  The cost of living there was much higher.  Miami is one of the most beautiful cities to look at.  It is gorgeous.  But where did she live?  It would not be in one of the beautiful places, I thought.  People who live twenty miles inland from Miami say they live in Miami.  

When she came back, she was accompanied by another person.  He was a young beautiful Black fellow and a flamer.  We kibitzed, of course.  Even in death, I hope I'll still be entertaining.  

"Oh my god. . . this is the FUUUN room," he decreed.  Yup.  I spent my career making people happy.  

That evening, the tenant brought my mother to see me.  

"Bring me some food," I said.  "I can't eat the shit in here."

She brought me potato chips and soda.  WTF?

I was worried about my mother.  I hadn't been to her house for days.  She was doing alright, she said.  

I tried watching television.  I found CNN, MSNBC, Fox.  I searched for a long time and finally found TCM.  Ah. . . no commercials.  But they were showing unwatchable things.  "The Knut Rockne Story."  Truly horrible stuff.  So I went back to the news.  Ten minutes of opinions, five minutes of commercial.  Try to skip between stations to avoid them.  Impossible.  And here it was.  Here was what had infected the brains of Americans.  It is all too obvious, all too clear.  The characters in commercials are inane.  They talk in cartoon voices.  The ARE cartoons.  Everything and everyone is crafted to be idiotic.  They are brain worms meant to infect you.  This is how people think. . . idiotically.  Even the news interviews idiots on the street.  It is important to seem "relatable."  Here is the overweight protester in an ill-fitting t-shirt with multi-colored hair and multiple face piercings telling us why she is here.  Over there is a steroidal MAGA man with the perma-pissed face looking ready to fight anyone who challenges his view.  He speaks simply like a pit bull barking through a screen door.  

I found a music channel.  Jazz.  Good jazz.  I needed to calm myself.  My head seemed to be clearing a bit.  

"I like the music," said the new nurse.  "I like your sweater, too."  

Flirting?  I know, I know.  I can't help it.  I'm special.  

Another night.  I lose track. 

The next day, a surgeon comes in.  A fireplug in hospital greens and a cap.  He's a real jet pilot.  He doesn't have time for chit-chat.  He isn't messing around.  He looks at my leg.  He says little.  All I get is that he can take it out when the inflammation is gone. 

I'm in a nice room alone.  They bring me food, water.  Otherwise it is me and the walls of the room and the inside of my skull.  I couldn't read if I had a book.  My thoughts are not good.  Isolated in a hospital room.  Isolated in life.  A real outsider.  

Last time I was in a hospital, Ili stayed with me day and night.  I think I would have died if she hadn't.  There are many days when I wish I had.  It would have been easy.  This pulling me back hasn't been worth it.  Had I not suffered enough?  Is there some "fate" we must pass through?  

Such were my thoughts.  

No one but my tenant and mother knew I'm in the hospital.  Lives go on per usual.  

It seemed to me that all the antibiotics were not working.  Redness and swelling continue.  Then, maybe, it lessened.  

I watch Trump.  His rally.  His interview.  His cabinet meeting.  Everything is scripted.  It is a Nazi propagandist's dream.  He is winning.  No, wait, CNN, MSNBC show polls.  He is losing.  No, wait again. . . we the people are losing.  That is what the crazy looking analysts show.  On Fox, the smarmy men and women with standard uniforms and looks and hair are doing a victory dance.  They call people "liberal lunatics" and "renegade judges."  There is no pushback.  The "left" is lost.  They are correct in that.  I still predict a bloody summer.  

Brain worms.  Maybe we've become too wormy to treat, too infected.  

I fear the same for my leg.  

I have seen a number of doctors now.  I am confused.  Most of them are from the infectious disease group.  I get a visit from one in the afternoon.  She comes in with bright eyes and a bright, mid-thigh dress.  She looks at me and fairly coos, "How's the leg?" and does a little dance ending with her kicking her heels together.  Her legs are very shapely.  Dark hair.  Is this Dr. _______?  No.  It can't be.  She was much older.  

This doc stays to chat, explains things, tells me the plan.  I will be discharged tomorrow.  I will follow up with their office.  

"We are just across the street," she says.  She makes me feel things will be O.K.  She wears a mask, but I can see her eyes are shining.  

When she leaves, the nurse comes in.  

"Before she came in, she said, 'I remember him.'  She saw you when you were admitted.  

"Is that Dr. _______?"

"No." 

"Does she want me for her boyfriend?" I don't say.  I know.  I know.  It is a sickness.  I'm becoming needy.  

The next day, it takes forever to get me released.  I Uber home.  It is three-thirty.  I wait outside.  It is a nice day.  Fresh air, sunshine.  I am weak.  

When I walk into the house, it is how I left it.  I had to cancel the maids.  It is a lovely house.  It is not like many houses.  Rooms full of books, thousands of books, and trinkets from the world's carnivals.  My mind is still not steady, but I open my mail.  I clean the kitchen.  There is a story to tell there, but not now.  I get into my car to pick up my prescriptions and to see my mother.  My mother tells me about how she is feeling.  I worry.  The routine of my life will return whether I am ready or not.  But I am weak and need to get home.  I microwave an Amy's enchilada.  My first meal in days.  I sit outside and drink coconut water.  I think.  Sunset.  I get on the couch.  I turn on the television.  I watch a guy who has been building his life in old herder cabins in the Italian Alps for as long as I can remember.  He is good at the video of him working.  He lives alone with four chickens.  Recently, after years of just him and some occasional help from workers, he has a girlfriend.  She works in valley down the mountain in town.  She has something to do with fashion.  She stays with him from time to time.  One wonders.  I wonder.  He is a practical Dutchman.  How did he do it?  She is pretty.  

I am getting tired but it is early.  I turn my YouTube channel to music.  I am free of the brain worms.  I don't know how people live the lives they do.  It is terrifying, but one has to deal with them.  The hospital stay made me understand them better.  America is infected, but I must assume the world is.  People are prone to stupidity and foolishness.  

"Not me.  I'm not like the others," I tell myself.  "I have this."

The Girl with the Leopard Tattoo

It's a long story.  Long.  I'll get to it, maybe.  I don't know if I am up to it today.  Maybe part.  I don't know.  I have too many worries to know anything anymore.  

"A man alone ain't got no bloody fucking chance."

Hemingway said that in "To Have and Have Not."  It's a fair statement, but I don't know if anyone has a bloody fucking chance.  To riff on his Nobel Acceptance Speech, company might palliate the loneliness.  He was speaking of writing groups, though.  A writer who listens to what others say about his/her writing will begin to write like the herd.  I think that is what Hem meant.  It's like aspiring to be a photographer by watching YouTube videos.  

I wander.  

I didn't do much yesterday.  I seem to do less and less each day.  But I do what I must.  Yesterday afternoon, I went to my mother's.  

"My computers don't work," she said.  I could guess what happened.  Apple updated the operating system.  Every time they do that, my mother gets lost in the changes, so I go in and fix it back to what it was.  This time, however, she said there were a lot of pop ups on the screen asking for her user id or her password.  Uh-oh.  I looked at her desktop.  Her mail wouldn't work.  I went in and tried fixing it for a long while.  SMPTE vs POP--what the fuck do I know?  Eventually, though, she could receive mail but not send it.  I got wore out and had to give up for the moment.  Then I went to her laptop.  Done.  One of the four foot fluorescent bulbs was out in the garage. I tried a couple bulbs that we had leftover from the last fiasco and lo and behold, one of them worked.  Then we sat.  

"I've gotta go, ma.  I need to get groceries for dinner."

It was six when I got to the store.  I was going to cook, but it was getting late, so I had another idea.  I would get half a cooked chicken and pair it with some Aimee's frozen brown rice/black-eyed peas/vegetable things.  Oh. . . and some packaged cooked beets.  

As I approached the prepared food counter, I saw a tall, fairly attractive woman talking to the woman who was preparing her sub sandwich.  She had tattoos all over and two mismatched sandals.  She was waving her hands and sounded a little manic.  But as I say, she was kind of attractive, so I kept looking at her.  Then I noticed her legs.  Oh, shit!

"Hey lady. . . I recognize those tats."

Sure as shitting, it was Bo.  We had "dated" back in 2001 for awhile.  I was teaching a course in The Personal Essay at Country Club College at the time, and when class let out, I would stroll over to the sushi place on the Boulevard to get some dinner.  She was a waitress there, six feet tall, leggy, attractive.  She was the first woman I had ever seen with tats.  Later I would find out she was pretty famous in town.  She dated the tall boy who wrote the culture column for the city's newspaper.  That was when my own hometown was the center of the electronic music scene.  Q was a nascent D.J. then, and friends with many who would become famous.  The whole scene was. . . well, I really shouldn't try to say.  I wasn't part of that crowd, and as Jimmy Buffet said, "Don't try to describe a Kiss concert if you haven't seen one."

Yea. 

But she was royalty there and a well-known figure about town.  One day I heard two fellows talking about the big blonde at the gym with the crazy leg tattoos.  She was striking.  

I'll back the fuck up on this story later.  I have a bunch of things I'm wanting to write, so the next few days may be a mishmashed hodgepodge of non-intersecting stories.  Intersectionality, of course, is a hip term in Progressive Academics, so I'll try my best.  

As you can see in this pic, the rest of her skin was clear and clean but for the two red stars on her forearms outlined spectacularly in blue.  But that is not how her skin looks now.  He skin is inked all the way up including her neck.  Her life has taken some turns.  But again. . . I may get to that.  

When I said, "I recognize those tats," pointing to her legs, she turned to face me.  

"Oh, my God." 

She walked toward me. 

"Give me a hug!"

She'd always been taller than I, but now she fairly dwarfed me.  I must be shrinking.  

"How are you doing?" she asked.  

"Oh. . . I'm fine," I lied.  "And you?"

"Not so good.  My ex is taking me to court."  

She shook her head and waved her wrapped sub in the air.  

"I've got someone fucking with my car.  I don't know.  I don't like to leave it for very long."

O.K.  This was getting weird.  

"So I've got to go."  She pulled out her phone.  "What's your number?"

Oh, shit. . . what could I say?  I could hear Tennessee saying, "He denied her like Peter denied Christ."  I didn't want to give her my number, but we had been intimate.  She had been lovely.  We had shared things.  

So I said it and watched her punch it into her phone.

"O.K." she said.  "I've got to run."  She hugged me again and I said, "It is good to see you," and turned to leave.  

As she walked away, I heard her say in a low voice as if in an aside, "Hot Teacher." 

A spark ran up my spine.  I'd forgotten that is what she used to call me.  Hot Teacher.  Huh.  That felt alright.  

I shopped and got my groceries looking about me as I did.  And when I checked out and left the store, I fairly scoured the parking lot as I walked to my car.  After I loaded my groceries, I checked my phone.  I had a call from an unknown number.  Ah. . . she had called to check that I had been honest and true.  

"Now what?" I thought.  "What madness am I in for now?"

When I got home, I put away the groceries and opened an Athletic non-alcohol beer.  I lit a cigar and went to the deck to think.  It is important, I hold, to put the day into some sort of narrative order, to connect the dots, to try to find some pattern or perceived meaning to one's living in the void.  What I found myself thinking about was that period between my divorce and meeting the tenant.  Those were wild and wonderful times.  I'd fallen in love rather quickly after my divorce, a love that would haunt me, but when she left town. . . well, that is a whole other chapter.  As has always been the case, though, her leaving me was a highway to her unbridled success.  It seems to be the universal case.  Except for the girl with the Betty Page tattoo.  But that's a long story and will have to be told in parts.  

I think, though, that the period after my divorce was the most vivid time of my life.  

I went in and prepared my quick dinner.  It was as healthy a meal I didn't cook as was possible, and it was good, too.  Just as I finished, my phone rang.  It startled me.  Was it her?  What was she going to want?

It was my mother.  

"My t.v. won't work.  I can turn it on, but I can't change the channels.  I called the cable company and they rebooted it but it still wont' work.  They said they would have to send somebody out to the house tomorrow.  So I'm stuck for tonight.  Just my luck.  I guess I will read.  It has been a bad day.  I don't have any luck.  I just wanted to tell you, anyway."

What she meant was she needed to tell me.  I know the feeling.  She may have been waiting for me to say I'd come over and have a look.  Rather. . . .

"Maybe it is the batteries in the remote."

"No.  I changed them."

"Did you unplug the router for a minute and then plug it back in."

"They rebooted my stuff remotely."

"Yes, but they didn't unplug it.  Unplug it and wait a minute before you plug it back in, then call me back."

"Alright," she said in a despondent voice.  

She didn't call back, so I called her.  

"Did you unplug it?"

"I don't know which one it is. There are so many things plugged in.  I unplugged something."

"And. . . ."

"It still doesn't work."

"O.K.  I guess you will have to wait on the cable people."

In five minutes the phone rang again.  

"It is working now," she said.  "I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it worked."

"Well good."

"Now I'll have to call the cable company and let them know," she said with irritation. 

"That would be a good idea.  But I'm glad you got it working.  I'll talk to you later."

Yup. It is like that.  Everything is a mystery, now, that someone needs to figure out.  

Maybe I'll get back to the narrative tomorrow, but I think it might take more than one day.  And somehow, I will need to complain about my contemporaneous life, too.  While I can.

"I just wanted to tell you."

Yea.  A plaintive cry into the blackness of the blogosphere.  Brilliant.  Just fucking brilliant.  

A Tale Best Untold

"i better see you here for my last shift!!"

I took my mother to therapy yesterday.  The therapist did an evaluation and said my mother had made improvements in mobility and strength and was good to end her sessions.  With great uncertainty, my mother said, "O.K."  

When we got back to her house, she said, "I bet you feel like you've been cut free."  I didn't say anything.  Cut free from what?  Whether we go to therapy or not, I will still be there every day.  I'm not "free" of anything.  I don't think she gets that.  My days are broken awkwardly in two or sometimes maybe three.  My life is not my own.  I can't go anywhere.  My freedom consists of going to the gym, taking soaks and showers, and maybe, if I am fortunate, taking naps.  My life is a prison of concern and care.  I'm not complaining. . . . 

I'm complaining.  

I have invitations to go places.  T wants to fly me up to see his mountain homes.  I am wanted in rural midwestern towns, L.A. Yosemite, Miami.  I want to go back to Mexico.  My friends are all going to Japan.  I had to take a pass.  

I will soon be in the same condition as my mother.  I just read a report of a new study on the factors increasing your chances of getting dementia.  I have ten of the twelve.  

A guy at the gym asked me how my mother was doing.  He said his buddy was in the same situation as I.  He was taking care of his 99 year old mother with dementia.  The doctor said to him one day, "I have some bad news."  The bad news was her blood work and vitals were good.  "She may never die," he said.  

The boys were doing another happy hour last night.  I told them I would be late if I came at all.  I had to do things with my mother.  As six o'clock approached, I was sitting in the open garage with my mother in a lounger.  I'd fallen asleep.  I really didn't feel well.  

"I'm going to go meet the fellows," I said.  

"Don't leave me," she whined in a faux-ironic voice.  It isn't fake, though.  It isn't funny, and one day I'm sure I'll snap.  I'm just worn the fuck completely and totally down.  Computers, phones. . . everything has become a mystery to her.  Two days ago, she called me to tell me her dryer wouldn't work.  A bit later, she called me to tell me she fixed it.  The door wasn't shut right.  Both of these were messages she left, so I called her back.  No answer on either her home phone or cell.  Later, I was taking a nap.  I was woken up by the tenant yelling for me.  She has a key and had come into the house.  

"What the fuck!"

"Your mother is on the phone.  She said she's been trying to call you and can't get hold of you.  She's worried."

Stress is a factor.  So is high blood pressure.  Stress causes high blood pressure.  My bp is already unmanageable.  Social isolation.  Loneliness.  Being overweight.  Sleep apnea.  Daily fatigue.  I'm certain my new blood test will show I've developed new indicators.  Cholesterol, maybe.  

"Do you ever feel doubt about your self-worth?"

"Oh. . . fuck no!  I'm a freaking miracle."

This was the question/answer period at the doctor's, written, of course, part of the required psyche questioning the feds have decided to plague us with every time we get a physical.  

If they add "driving an old beater car" to the list, I'm sure I'm done for.  

So. . . I showed up late to the show.  We were going to go to my new favorite place on the Boulevard, but once again, it was closed off for another private party.  It isn't my favorite place anymore.  The boys had moved down the street to my buddy's new joint, a wine, beer, and food bar.  Six fellows were sitting at a table, an empty seat for me.  It was the BBC.  T.  Alain.  Alain's buddy.  The shock jock and his buddy.  And a new addition, a retired federal court judge.  

Greetings.  

"I've told my buddy all about you," said the shock jock.  "I've told him stories."

"There are stories?"

"Oh, yea.  I told him about Gorgeious C.S." 

This was a reference to the last time we were at this place on opening night.  Not bad.  

"Yea. . . I might have been once long ago," I said to his buddy.  

The waitress came over, all sweet eyes and bright smile.  She was a confident sort, the kind who looked at people directly.  

"Hi.  Can I bring you something?"

The boys were only being "helpful."  

"Uh. . . I'm going to need a moment."  

She laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "Sure.  I'll come back in a minute."

The place was packed to the ceiling.  The walls are brick, the floor concrete, and there is no baffling of the noise.  The place looks nice, all exotic stuff from the far east, but it is impossible to hear anyone speak.  Since my surgeries after the accident, my vocal cords are shot, and when I try to speak over the room noise, they just won't.  It is embarrassing, so I mostly sit, listen, and nod.  

"What's up, Wild Man?  Why are you so quiet?  Are you being grumpy?"

I just pointed to my ears.  "Too loud."

Everyone agreed.  It is not a place for intimacy.  

I looked around the room.  It was an old village crowd.  Everywhere I turned, I was looking into the town's history.  Everyone was someone.  Here was the wife of the dead citrus tycoon.  There was her grown daughter.  The fellow who owns the BMW dealership.  A lawyer stopped to talk to the judge.  He'd been appointed to the State's Space Board.  The governor. . . blah, blah, blah.  

The waitress came back.  The draft beer choices were not to my liking.  

"What are you drinking?" I asked T.  The place didn't have a liquor license, so we were limited.  I really wanted a cocktail.  

"Stella," he said. 

"O.K.  I'll settle for that."

When she brought it, everyone was ready to order.  No two people ordered the same thing.  Crab cakes.  A pressed duck sandwich.  Flatbread.  A High Flying Cuban.  Mahi on a bun.  I got the Fig and Brie Burger.  It was absolutely not what I wanted, but whatever.  

The food came, then the owner.  

"C.S.!" he said shaking hands.  I've known him for years, back when his band used to open for mine.  

"Jake," I said, "your waitress is top notch.  She is wonderful."

He nodded in approval.  

The shock jock told him the story of "Gorgeous C.S." from the opening night.  I am embarrassed and flattered at the same time.  I DO like him telling it, though, because it pisses off the other boys who all think they are Lotharios.  

"Yup," said Jake, "he is a village legend." 

O.K.  Fuck you.  I enjoy it.  And there is more to come, so give me a break.  It is all I have.  

When the waitress came back, I told her I gave her a sterling revue to the owner.  

"Where do you go to school?" I chanced.  

"I just finished taking my real estate course and I'm waiting for the results from the state exam," she said.  

T began the whole "Shaman" thing and the conversation turned to smoke.  She nodded and grinned.  

"He's got a freezer full of mushrooms," he said.  

"Oh, no. . . I can't do mushrooms."

"Why?" I asked.  

"I did them once and had a bad five hours."

"Me, too!  I was up in the middle of the night screaming into a pillow."

"Yes!  It is horrible."

"I know.  Everybody else is going, 'this is fun.'  So I tried them again.  Same thing."

"Me, too," she said with sparkling eyes and I could feel the bond growing between us.  I felt the heat as she leaned close to me.  We were seriously vibing.  

When she walked away, I said to Alain, "She can be our new waitress now that Small Hands is leaving."

"Yea, but this is not the place." 

"I know.  What are we going to do?"

A good waitress knows how to work a crowd, and this one had it perfected.  She brought the non-draft beers to the table to pour in front of the customer.  

"Why do you bring the bottle to the table?" I asked.  

"I was taught that it was proper.  It seems fresher, and the customer can be certain what they are getting.  I'm the only one here who does that," she said, "but I think it makes a difference."

It sure was going to with this crowd.  When the bill came, four of us threw our cards down.  The judge and Alain's friend had already left, and they left wads of cash.  When she split the check and gave me mine, I asked, "Is this already split?"  I'd had a burger and a beer and my share was $120 before tip.  I don't know what happened to the wad of cash, but I suspected it was going to the waitress.  But I didn't know, so my tip was "plus "25%."  

Not good.  I am unemployed and a pauper.  

As we got up to leave, the boys were all about saying goodbye.  It took me a minute more to get up, and as the boys headed to the sidewalk, the waitress touched my arm, looked me dead in the eye, smiled, and said, "I hope to see you again."  I mean. . . she had it down.  She was really good.  

It was a Wednesday night, but the sidewalk was packed as far as you could see.  

"WTF?" I said.  "It's a Wednesday.  What's going on?"

"Nobody works in this town," Alain said.  

Just then a woman got up from a sidewalk table, came over, and gave me a hug.  It was my across the street neighbor's ex-wife, the fellow who was dumped by the sixty-something year old woman.  His ex is much younger.

"Hiiiii," she said.  "It's good to see you.  I'm moving to Atlanta," she said.  "I met a man at a Solar Bears game and got married a couple weeks ago," she cooed in her very southern accent.  

"Oh. . . did you mean to?"

"Ha-ha. . . yes!  I'm very happy."

Just then, I felt two arms wrap around my neck from behind.  I hoped it was the waitress.  

It was T.

"What's up, dad?"

This is his usual schtick whenever a woman is around.  He introduced himself.  

"Hi.  I've known C.S. for a long time.  We used to be neighbors." 

"Well, enjoy your new adventure," I said.  "Congratulations."

The boys were off to say so long to Small Hands.  I'd already had the text.  There was no not going, "But I'm only having one," I said.  

The shock jock and his buddy rode with me, the shock jock telling stories about The Shaman the entire ride.  It was just a few blocks to the Irish pub, and we drove down the Boulevard.  

"What the fuck has happened?  I've never seen so many people out midweek."

When we got the pub, the parking lot was full.  

"I'll drop you guys off and try to find a place to park."

"No way.  We're going with you."

The boys always do this because there is a chance I'll just go home.  

"Hurry up, though, or I'm going to have to piss on your seat."

"Just get out."

"No!"

I decided to park in a No Parking zone.  The shock jock's buddy tore the sign down.  

"It'll be o.k." he said as he threw it over the fence.  

When we walked in, Alain and T were already drinking at the bar. 

"There are no tables," they said.  

Small Hands passed by me a couple times without notice.  

"What's up with that?" asked T.  "She's giving you the cold shoulder."

I just shrugged and ordered a Guiness from the barkeep.  

"I thought you wanted a whiskey," yelled Alain.

"Shit.  I did.  I forgot." 

Just then, two arms snaked around my neck from behind.  There was a soft whisper in my ear."

"You came."

"Of course," I said.  

T. was laughing.  

"I told her to ignore you when you got here."

"I didn't want to play along," she said.  "I honestly didn't see you sitting here." 

T had taken up with an off-duty waitress, a Melungeon who, as it turned out, was from the same Tennessee town as he.  Small Hands had shown her the photos I had taken of her already, and she said she wanted me to do some pictures of her, too.  I hadn't followed up for a couple of reasons.  But T was all over her.  

"She wants you to make some pictures of her," he said.  

"I know.  Don't encourage it."

"No. . . no. . . you've got to do this for me.  You are going to."

"I want to take photos of the barmaid," I said.  She was a severely pretty woman with incredible cheekbones and jet black hair cut in a 1920's bob.  

"O.K.  I'll set that up.  Let me work on it.  But you are going to take pictures of her." 

Small hands came to tell us she had a table for us in the back room.  It turned out to be for two.  The room was packed with college kids, but somehow five of us squeezed in.  The shock jock's buddy had to go.  

"He really liked you," the shock jock said.  

I just looked at him.

"He said The Shaman was really cool."

"I didn't do anything."

"You just are, dude." 

As often happens, he knew one of the kids at the table behind us.  He always knows someone.  So he turned around and started doing a bit with the kids.  I stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see if I can move the car," I said. 

Then he turned to the college table.  "This guy's really cool," he said.  "How old do you think he is?"

"Fuck you," I said as I limped away.  

The parking lot was still full, but my car hadn't been towed.  

When I got back, T went to smoke a little boo with the Melungeon.  She was already pretty looped.  

Alain looked around and talked about the girls in the room.  He was infatuated with a girl who had curly hair.  She looked like many of the girls I went to college with, a little bit of a hippie.  

"I bet she wears patchouli," I opined.  "You've got enough money.  Go over and ask her if she has ever smelled the sea breeze blowing ashore on the coast of Zanzibar."

"That' corny enough it might work.  I wish my wife would die," he laughed.  "Just kidding.  It's an old joke."

"I think this generation is pretty transactional," I said.  "No judgement." 

When T and the Melungeon came back, she said she wanted me to take some photos of her.  Oh, shit.  I'd leave that hanging.  

"O.K. boys, I'm out."

So were T and the Melungeon.  

"Did you two figure out if you are related?" I smirked.  

"They probably are," chimed Alain.  "They are from Tennessee.  The family tree there only has one branch.  It goes straight up."

"She is Native American and Black, and so am I," T said.  "Probably."

Alain and the shock jock stayed.  They always stayed.  

"Now things will pick up," Alain cried.  "Things always start happening when The Shaman leaves."

This is true.  

"Where are you going?" asked Small Hands.  

"I'm out," I said.  She put her hands around my neck.  

"Keep in touch," I said.  

"I'll ALWAYS stay in touch with you.  You're the best.  Listen, I've been super busy with finishing school, figuring out where I'm going to live, what I'm going to do. . . so don't be mad that I haven't been reaching out. . . . "

"I've never been mad.  Do you think I was mad?  Look," I said motioning to her then to me with my eyes.  "I have to be careful.  I'm not going to be a creeper."

"No, no, no. . . you could never be like that.  You're the best."

 Blah blah blah. . . .  

"Look, I'll be coming back.  When I go home, I'm going to work out and get into shape.  I've started a business.  I'm selling vintage things, and I am picking up a bunch of stuff for us.  When I come back we'll make some pictures.  O.K.?"

"Sure," I said.  

"I love the stuff you send me, so please. . . . "

Now this is getting stupid, I know, but it is true and all I've got.  I'll be back to watching television and making dinners for my mother now, and there will be doctors appointments and house projects and the rest of what I've had for most of the last five years. . . so give me this.  

I have a plan to quit drinking again.  I've put some of the weight I lost back on, but not all of it, and I think I can reach my goal weight if I stop again.  I drink too much.  It is one of the indicators for dementia, too, along with the body fat, snoring, and blood pressure shit.  Not to mention social isolation and loneliness.  I'm not the "Gorgeous" man I used to be, and I actually never was.  There are plenty of gorgeous people.  I see them every day.  And I'm telling you. . . it ain't me, babe.  

But I sometimes can be smart and sometimes entertaining.  

Just not today.  I got a little pick-me-up last night and thought I might exploit it.  I know a lot of you are gonna be hating on me. . . but you should indulge me a bit.  Just give me a break.  I need it.  I REALLY need a break.  

Now I'll let you go back to your happy lives, my beautiful friends.  I have to get this day going so I can get over to my mother's.  The sun is shining.  The air is warm.  The world is turning 'round without me.