The Wages of the Hour

I am watching high cumulus clouds drift from northwest to southeast. The sun has fallen southward. I walked out this morning into cooler air. It is the air that raises false expectations. The heat will return, though nobody wants it. We envy reports from other parts of the country. But today, we can pretend.

I just don't have the energy for writing yet. I've been sitting here and trying, but I can't seem to pay attention. I have opened the doors and windows to feel the chill. Birds sing. Dogs bark. It is not all pastoral, though. Somewhere a truck is backing up with its required tranquility-busting "beep, beep, beep."

I just tried another piece of writing that I could not finish. It is just not time. Here are the hour's wages.

A Bit of a Pickle

I've put myself in a bit of a pickle, I think. I now have two sites, one for the photographs from my surfing series, and this one. The photo site, which I have not promoted other than here, gets more hits every day. There are two reasons. One is word of mouth. People tell people, put links on FaceBook and other places, and the list grows. The other is that people see the images on some Google searches and they come. Quite a few. There is very little writing there, and people probably appreciate that.

This site has been growing, too. Most people come to see the images, I think. I have been linked to some larger photography sites lately, and I don't believe those people are going to spend time trying to figure out the what the hell is going on with the writing.

That's cool, but I have only been working on the surfing series lately, so that is all I have other than the faux-anthropology series which has been on hold for awhile. Consequently, I've been paying rent on a studio that I am barely using and the images I am posting here are a parallel universe of the photos on the other site.

Worse, I've not been able to write lately.

Yesterday I got news that a local Chamber of Commerce fellow is taking a busload of people around town to museums and galleries and wants to stop at the little complex that my studio is in (there are some artists who make a lot of money with their art who have studios there--real artists) to let them look around. That is wonderful, but how much is it going to cost me to frame my series? Apparently there is an opportunity here, but I've never charged anybody any money for anything I've done in my life, so I am a little anxious about this whole thing. And it will be a lot of work to get done in the next month.

Meanwhile, my job is bad and my life worse. I am in a fog about what to do.

I feel the flu is leaving me a bit now, though, so I may get back some productivity, and that could stimulate a change of attitude. Tthe temperature is supposed to drop for a few days. That should help, too. I took a walk last night before dinner around my little village in the blue and purple light. The light, if nothing else, is becoming autumnal. And the sounds are a bit, too. Two nights ago it rained a good, long while. After the rain, a lone frog cried out for hours trying to find a mate. I never heard a response, just the lone frog voice seeking a companion. That darned frog nearly sent me over the edge with its plaintive reminder.

Now the sun is up, the coffee drunk. I've been worrying in the dark. It is time for a walk.

Nothing to Add

I've been trying to rewrite what I wrote yesterday and could not rewrite then. I don't have this much time. I must abandon it, I think, and move on.

A cool front will be here in a few days. The temperature will drop into the mid-80s.

Wow. That is all I have today. That is it.

What You Can Carry

I have written a big piece of the narrative in which nothing at all happens. It needs to be rewritten, but I haven't the energy now. I am still dragging. I didn't know where I was going with it when I started, didn't know that it was not going anywhere, so I made a narrative out of a lyric. I must go back and take all that out and make it impressionistic, a vague outline of images, of light and color and texture. Since I don't really rewrite, it might not work out. But I know that is what it should be.

But as I say, I am worn from the effort, and the list of things to do is piling up. Last night was nothing but bad dreams and bleak visions of the future. Mine in particular. I keep thinking I must cash out and start over. Get rid of everything, every belonging, every distraction. Lock down my emotions, say little, observe and process.

And walk. Everything is in the walking.

The campus was big like a city, and every day I would walk it, get lost in it. I wandered into buildings, crept into empty classrooms, peeked into offices. Old wooden tables and desks, giant windows, wood paneling. The tones of the older buildings were darker, richer, beautiful. The newer buildings were colder, more austere, like clinics or hospitals, but even they were surrounded by giant lawns and landscaped walkways leading to hidden garden patios.

There were dorms scattered about, each with its own amenities--swimming pools, basketball courts, convenience stores, lounges and study rooms. There was a dorm for married couples and families that appeared to be a village with playgrounds and washers and dryers and a big general store. I'd never seen anything like this. The campus went on forever, changing with each turn, each hill.

There was a new building for the biological sciences that housed The State Museum. It contained a replica of a limestone cave, a fantastic thing with dim red lights that led you through the stalactites and stalagmites and dripping pools of water where blind fish had adapted to the dark along with other nightmarish flora and fauna. It was rare that anyone was there.

By the agriculture building on the outskirts of the campus were farms where crop production was studied. They rented garden spots to students near Lake Alice which was large and full of alligators. Nearby were the medicinal gardens, lovely to wander, where the School of Medicine grew the plants from which old medicines were made. The Veterinary School had ranches where they raised hogs and sheep and cows and horses on big, rolling hill ranches.

Every college of the had a library, it seemed. There were two multi-storied main library buildings connected by a walkway. There was an Education Library and a Biological Sciences Library, an Engineering Library and an Architecture and Fine Arts Library. There was a separate Performing Arts Library and a Forestry Library. And there were others. I would enter them all with trepidation, feeling that someone would call me out, ask me what I was doing there. I virtually tiptoed through the isles and up the stairs poking my head everywhere I could finding great places, wonderful places with old windows and tables where nobody seemed to come, dark places and light places, quiet, secret places.

Often, I would be overcome and have to sit down or go outside. How could I take it all in? There was too much. Far too much.

My professors were not like any I'd had before, serious men and women who appeared as royalty, speaking with authority, surrounded by sycophantic students wishing for notice. Everyone was competitive.

I wanted to be part of this.

Other People's Troubles Are So Funny

NyQuil doesn't seem to work two days in a row. I slept fitfully last night waking to wild dreams I did now want. I've asked for an angel and this is what I've gotten. And if one is honest, perhaps he must assume that this is what he deserves. At least that is how it went last night. Guilty! I should never have done the things I did. Most of them, anyway. You'll see. I'll get back to the narrative one day. I'm at the point where I'm still perfect once removed, but this is a song of experience, and you know where that leads.

I lay on the couch and listened to music all day yesterday. When Dylan's version of "House of the Rising Sun" came on, I got a cold chill through me. Maybe I should have been using Robitussin instead. Sometimes, though, it seems the only happy people I know are those who kept their hair cut and their eyes on the money. Traditional families with stay at home mothers, new cars, and memberships to the Y. They smile a lot and have nice dinners, boats and other toys, and always seem to be busy. I knew them for a while. You'll see.

They don't drive 1985 Volvo 240s. The garage called. They have to keep the car until Monday. Had to order parts. $500 repair of things they've fixed before. I am homebound. The sky is clear and blue. I sneeze and blow my nose and have the beginnings of a cough. I hear that the evenings in parts of the northeast are cooler now. There are places where the leaves begin to change.

Better Days

I felt a sore throat coming on two days ago. Thought I could beat it with vitamins and chicken soup. My nose began running yesterday. I worked and felt progressively worse, then achy on the way home. I stopped at the grocery store for NyQuil and popsicles, twenty-four of them. Got into my car to leave and backed out of my parking space, and the car stalled, not to start again. I called AAA, then sat, miserably. It began to rain. An hour and a half later, a tow truck arrived. As I got out of the car, an old friend drove by. Sick, sweaty, with an old car being jacked up by a tow truck. She laughed at the sight. Misery.

I rode in the tow truck to the car repair shop which was closed. I had about a two mile walk home in my expensive Italian leather shoes that I rarely wear, but wore this day. They would wear through to my socks if I walked in them, especially in the rain.

Then a bit of mercy. The tow truck driver gave me a ride home. I asked him if he wanted a popsicle. Not really, he said. Good thing. They had melted.

NyQuil and chicken soup. I dropped like a stone. I feel better, I think, but I must get tested for H1N1 since I am around a nine year old. I don't have it, but I must get tested. I'll get to sit in a clinic with sick people for a couple hours.

But how? I don't have a car. The shop called. Five hundred dollars or so to fix my shitty old beater.

Of course, I'm not going to work. I think I'll take some more NyQuil.

Here's a picture of better days.

First Days

We registered for classes in the gymnasium by appointment time. We stood in lines for each subject we wanted to take. When we got to the front, we would tell the person at the desk the section number we wanted and he or she would hand us a computer punch card. Then we would move to the next line. For $195 you could take as many or as few classes as you liked for the quarter. It was a bargain.

Sometimes though, when you asked for a class, there were no more cards which meant the class was full. Some people had gotten into the habit of trading. Take a card from a class at a popular time and then try to trade it for something you wanted. "I have an eight o'clock Intro to Sociology," someone would yell waving a blue punch card in the air. Then the horse trading would begin. The cards had no names attached, so they were completely transferable. By the end of the day, I had made a schedule and took my stack of cards to a table where they were run through a computer. I'd registered for twenty-one hours, seven classes. I would go to them all and drop the two I didn't like that first week. I learned quickly.

The apartment complex I lived in wasn't a primary residence for students, but there were a number of students there. I lived on the second floor across from some fellows from my high school including Mick who had been on my volleyball team at the j.c. It felt good to have some friends around.

At the last minute that summer, Vladi had decided to come up, too. I don't know how he did it. He was enrolled in a private school and didn't like it, and suddenly he was at the university. He had gotten a place on the opposite side of town, but we had a Cytology class together mid-day. The class was in a large lecture hall with about a hundred students. Vladi and I had the lab in the afternoon, so we usually took off for lunch.

One day, Mick asked me if I wanted to play basketball in one of the intramural leagues.

"Sure," I said, "do I have to sign up?"

"Well, you already are. . . sort of. We're playing in a dorm league for the dorm Stony lives in."

Stony was a friend of Mick's from high school who was the school's star shooter. I'd never really liked the guy, but that was years ago now. Maybe he'd changed.

"We're going to play as two guys who live in the dorm. They've already signed up. Our first game is Wednesday night."

Ahead

Dog Days. My troubles grow. They are not all external. I need an event, something to photograph to take my mind off things. A Big State Fair. A Beauty Pageant. The Phyllis Diller Look Alike Contest. Something. Tell me if you know of anything. It seems I always find out about things the day after they happen.

* * * * *

Big days, sad, close nights. On the one hand, it was exciting to be moving to another town. I had lived in my town since I was five. This would be an adventure. Everything looked different now, though. I was seeing things I hadn't seen before. I walked as if in a dream as if seeing the town for the very first time.

At night, Sherri and I drew ourselves together with warm tenderness.

I moved on a Sunday night. I loaded a little rented trailer with my few belongings and drove up the highway in a literal sunset. I thought about my father, divorced and living alone. We would not be watching football games together now, not on Sunday afternoons, not on Monday nights. I thought about eating dinners with him in the hot evenings at the lake and sitting with him when the weather changed, cool evenings with the gas heater hissing. I could see all that country that surrounded him, could feel it. I could see him at his little table at night smoking a cigarette, reading a book. It was that I thought about as the sun went down.

Driving through the dark into the distance, everything was new. I rolled the windows down and let the warm air bathe me. The flat land began to rise and fall with low rolling hills. I was flying. It's crazy, I thought, to drive this fast with a trailer hitched on, but it felt good to go that fast. It felt good to fly into the unknown darkness, rising and falling, rising and falling.

There was only this for now, the hills, the darkness, the distance. Everything else lay ahead.

Other People's Troubles Are So Boring

The seasonal change has not gone well for me. It has been disastrous, really, though I had a jury summons today for which I was not required to report, so there is that. The first day of autumn here was like walking inside somebody's mouth, as a friend of mine said. It seemed to be the worst heat of the year.

I am making mistakes, and they are beginning to add up to an overwhelming sum. Exponential growth is sure to follow unless I find some quick magic. Potions, nostrums, elixirs and medicaments are welcomed.

* * * * *

I drove the hundred miles to the university town to try and find a place to live. School was to start soon and I had begun my search far to late. I was beginning to think that I would not be able to come to school for logistic reasons, and I was wondering if it might not be a good thing. All about me were kids my own age, and they all looked hip, confident and cool. I had found the great banquet of life, and I was wondering if I had the manners and the accouterments to go.

I walked around the campus, just getting the feel of things. The place was an amazement and a labyrinth in which I got caught. I walked for twenty minutes looking for a particular building and ended up where I had started. Nearby, there was a rocky outcropping surrounding a deep natural pool. It was shady there, and I decided to sit awhile. It was quiet. I was out of the way, it seemed. An occasional group would pass by on their way somewhere. They all looked happy. I stared into the dark water ten feet below me for a few minutes before I saw the small alligator slide from the bank. I jumped with surprise of course, if not fear. I had not noticed it sitting on the bank between the rocks. I could have been eaten! Well, not eaten, maybe, but bitten. It was a small alligator, but still. . . . What a wild place, I thought, where alligators have a place in the middle of the campus. Looking around to see if anyone noticed me, I got up to walk again.

I had found a place to live on the edge of town in a new-ish apartment complex. It would be OK, I thought, if a little expensive. It looked like the place I was leaving. It would be my new home.

I walked between two rows of magnolia trees. It was beautiful here. I was terrified.

First Day of Autumn

Autumnal Equinox. The first fall day. Twelve hours of daylight, twelve of night. I feel one thing giving over to another. There is no stopping it, or anything, for that matter it would seem. I want to arise from the atoms, form new molecules, spin the hands on the clock.

Rather. . . .

* * * * *

It was time to think of moving. I must go and try to find a place to live in the new town. It began to sink in. I was leaving. Things would be different. Sherri and I ate dinners, walked and held hands. It was only two hours, I said. Yes, she said, only two hours. We would only be two hours apart.

Still Time

Well, kids, 'tis the end of a season. This is the Last Day of Summer, 2009. What will you do with it?

What fun we had, eh? Barbecues and picnics and trips to the beach and then the State Fair? Lazy days with family and friends, playing with the dog in the yard and taking trips to the mountains. And let's not forget those wonderful summer romances.

But now the days grow shorter. The quiet time is coming, the colors changing. We prepare.

But not today. There's still time. There's still time.

Gomorrha

The strip clubs of New Orleans were not much different than the strip clubs at home. A little tamer, really, which was a surprise. Maybe we hadn't found the good ones. We tromped into a few and sat down and bought the expensive beer and watched awhile as bored women, mostly older than we expected and mostly not built for the job they were doing, danced on stages and tabletops, and always at a distance.

We were back in the street deciding what to do when we walked past the door of another strip club. I stuck my head inside. There was a large stage that ran along the right wall of the bar with curtains and lights--it looked like a theater or an old burlesque club. Onstage was the most beautiful woman I'd seen all night bumping and grinding around to a mostly empty house.

"Hey, Vladi, we've got to go in here. This is what we've been looking for." Vladi looked at me blankly and pointed to a sign beside the doorway. It advertised girls named Bobby and Joe and Chuck.

I looked back in the doorway. The blonde was just taking off her top.

"Look in there, Vladi. See those? That ain't a guy."

Vladi shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just reading the sign. There aren't many people in there."

"C'mon, let's go in," I said. "I'm telling you, that's the prettiest woman I've seen all night."

Inside the club we sat at a table a little bit back from the stage and closer to the door in a gesture, perhaps, to show that we were not really taking part in whatever we were about to do. A beautiful waitress came over to get our drink orders.

"See! You think that's a guy?"

"I don't know," Vladi said. "She doesn't look like one."

The waitress brought us our drinks and we sat back to watch the show. The blonde was replaced by another dancer, equally pretty. In a little while, I saw her sauntering across the floor to our table.

"Hello, honey," she said standing over me. She had to be over six feet tall. A brunette had joined her and was standing over Vladi. "Y'all want to buy us a drink?" I swear, she looked like a Miss America contestant. She looked like she had won.

"Sure, sure," I said, repeating myself, and with that, the big blonde threw herself into my lap. The brunette sat next to Vladi.

"Jesus, you're beautiful," I blurted out. "Jesus." She laughed and pulled my head into her breasts and gave me a big squeeze.

"You're sweet," she said.

But just then, a squabble broke out near the door. The waitress was in an argument with two fellows who were trying to leave, but the waitress was upset that they hadn't given her a tip. I heard someone yell, "fuck you" and then the big blonde was off my lap making her way to the door, the brunette right behind her. They both charged the men as if they were ready to fight. I noticed that they looked bigger than the fellows who were trying to leave.

"Here you cheap cocksucker," yelled the blonde taking a handful of money and throwing it into one of the men's face, "you need this more than we do." I noticed her voice seemed a lot lower and she wasn't moving so much like a girl any longer. The men looked scared as they backed out the door into the street.

I turned to Vladi. "What the hell. . . ?" Vladi was looking at me with big eyes.

"I told you," he said.

"They've got titties!" I yelled. Vladi just shook his head bringing his ears toward his shoulders.

"I don't know."

"Maybe they used to be guys? Maybe they had that operation to make them girls," I said. Vladi said nothing. "I mean, they were always girls, right?"

I thought I had it now.

In a little bit the two came back over to the table.

"Sorry, honey. Some guys are just assholes, you know?"

Just then, a fellow sitting at the front of the stage started hooting and hollering in some language I didn't understand. I laughed. It was clear he was urging the girl on the stage to show him more.

"Those Cajuns are rowdy," said the blonde. She was sitting on me again and had her mouth close to my ear. Her hand was rubbing my thigh and I could feel myself getting warm.

"Goddamn your pretty," I said again. "I don't think that rube up their knows what's going on."

"Oh, honey," the blonde laughed, "most people don't. There was a fellow in her last night who paid me fifty dollars to see mine."

"What?" I said with surprise suddenly going cold.

"Yea, and mine was bigger than his."

I looked at Vladi like I'd seen a ghost. His brunette laughed.

"Oops, I'm up," said the blonde. "I'll be back." She gave me a kiss as she left. The brunette went with her.

"Jesus Christ," I said to Vladi, "that girl's got a dick!"

"I heard."

"I swear to God, Vladi, I was in love. She was the prettiest woman I'd ever met."

Vladi began to laugh and shake his head. "I wouldn't go telling that around," he chuckled. "You fell in love with a hermaphrodite."

"Well you liked them, too," I said. I had to pee, but I was afraid now to walk to the bathroom.

"You want to stay or go," Vladi said with a twinkle and a smirk.

"We'd better get out before she gets off stage. We'd better leave a good tip, too. What time is it?"

Vladi looked at his diver's watch with the numerals that glowed in the dark. "Two," he said. "I guess it's too late to go to the hoodoo sacrifice."

I didn't want to go anywhere but to bed. I'd had too much to drink. I couldn't remember if we'd eaten.

"Let's go back to the hotel," I said.

Back in the street, everything looked as it had before. The crowds were bigger than ever, people yelling and screaming and waving big drink cups around.

"New Orleans," I said.

"Yup. New Orleans."

Sodom

We drove into New Orleans a little before dark. "Let's take a tour of the town before we check into a hotel," Vladi said. So he maneuvered the big van through the crowded streets, us gawking and pointing at the crooked looking city with its hanging shutters and wrought iron railings. Neither of us had seen anything like this before. It looked spooky and dangerous.

We found a hotel somewhere near the river within walking distance of the French quarter and parked the van. "Hurry up and shower," I said. "I want to get out there."

We were both quick alright, and there was still a little daylight left when we left the room.

"We're underwater, you know," Vladi said in his lecturing tone.

"What do you mean?" And as he explained what he knew of the dredging and the levies that had made the town, I noticed that it looked as though we were beneath the level of the water.

"What the fuck? Why would people want to live like this?"

"Let's go find out," said Vladi grinning like an imp. I was always impressed with how smart and how bad Vladi could be.

The first thing of note as we approached the French Quarter was the odor. The entire town smelled like puke and beer. The two and three story brick buildings that lined the streets made canyons from which the concentrated fumes funneled. The lights of the city were beginning to twinkle.

"Let's go to Pat O'Brien's," Vladi said. "I want to get a Hurricane.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but he said it with such casual authority that I didn't want to ask any questions. He seemed to know where he was going.

When we got there, the place was full of people, tourists like us, you could tell. Everywhere we looked, people were laughing and drinking cocktails from big glasses. We found a table and sat among the throng, part and parcel of the artificial celebration going on about us. Quickly, a waitress approached the table.

"I'll have a Hurricane," shouted Vladi.

"Me too," I nodded.

In a little while we sat with two large, garnished glasses in front of us full of something red. "What's in this?" I asked Vladi.

"Rum. Lots of it."

I sipped my drink through the straw. It was terribly sweet.

"This is pretty good," I said to Vladi who nodded his agreement. And so we drank, two men fresh from the road, bathed and tired, men of experience, now mountain climbers and veterans of the highway, sitting in New Orleans gulping down Hurricanes. Yes, I thought, we were really coming along.

We finished our drinks like they were soda pop and decided to head out to see more of the town. We were feeling good now, all juiced up with sugar and with rum. We passed a few doorways and looked in, but decided to keep walking. We walked this way and that, then decided to cut through what looked like an alleyway to another street. The brick walls were close, but there were small iron balconies lining the alleyway in the space above. Nobody was out. We passed an open doorway from which light and smoke were pouring. Vladi slowed down and stuck his head inside. "C'mon," he spat, "let's get a beer in here."

Inside was a small room with close tables and small couches. It was barely lit and everyone seemed to be friends. We walked up to the bar and received an odd look from the bartender. He didn't say anything for a moment as he sized us up. Maybe he was trying to remember if we'd been there before. For a moment, I thought he was going to tell us to leave. "What'ya want," he finally mumbled.

"Two Old Dixies," Vladi said.

"What's an Old Dixie," I asked.

"Beer. They brew it here."

Vladi seemed to know everything.

We stood drinking our beers watching the room. The place was funky, not like anything at home, so we felt cool with the experience, but nothing much seemed to be going on. People sat in small groups and talked and drank, mostly young people a little older than us. And that was it for excitement. We were finishing our beers and getting ready to leave when two girls walked in from the small alleyway and came straight over to where we were standing at the bar.

"Hey, Sam," one of them said to the bartender who was already handing them two beers.

"Hey, Sarah, what're up to tonight?"

Sarah just shook her long, brown curly hair and said, "Nothing." The girls were cute, so I guess that is why Vladi said, "Give us two more," before the bartender got away.

"Hey," said Vladi to the brunette.

"Hey."

"My name's Vladi. You're Sarah."

"How'd you know that?" she said turning her head sideways squinting and grinning.

"I saw your picture in the paper," Vladi said.

"What!?"

"I heard the bartender say your name," he laughed, and then Sarah was laughing too.

"Well, hello Vladi, this is my friend, Rachel. Rachel, this is Vladi."

"Hello Rachel, " Vladi said reaching out his hand. He had apparently forgotten about me, so I introduced myself. "Oh, yea," Vladi jumped, "we just got in from New York."

"Oh, you guys are from New York?"

"No," he said, "we're from Florida, but we've been traveling around for awhile just seeing things."

"Reaallly," said Sarah sounding impressed. "That sounds cool. Listen, Rachel and I are going upstairs. It's a private bar, but we can take you up if you want to come."

Vladi looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders. "Sure," he said, "let's go."

"Sam," Sarah said to the bartender, "I don't have my key. Can you let me in?"

Sam handed Sarah an old, skeleton style key. "I'll bring it right back," she said, then she turned to Vladi. "C'mon."

We followed Sarah and Rachel across the small room to a set of small, antique stairs that pitched almost straight up to a small door. Sarah went up first and unlocked the door and handed the key back to Rachel. "Take this back to Sam," she said. "I'll wait and let you in. C'mon, you guys." And so Vladi went up the stairway and when he was at the door, I followed.

The room was small and dark like an attic. There were a few people sitting around, but it looked like people were leaving.

"Hey, Sarah."

"Hey Johnny, what's going on?"

"Everyone is going home now. Come back at eleven. That's when it's going on."

"Oh," said Sarah, "eleven? OK. We'll come back then."

And I thought that was it, that we were going to leave, but Rachel was coming up the stairwell and Sarah was motioning us inside. We sat down on some pillows and drank our beers. I felt like an alien, so I grinned like an idiot who is at home in the world.

"We're too early," Sarah said to Rachel. "Everyone is coming at eleven."

"Oh," Rachel said. "What do you want to do then."

"Let's just finish our beers and we'll come back in a little while."

"OK."

"You guys want to come?" she asked Vladi. I felt like I was playing Mortimer Snerd to Vladi's Charlie McCarthy.

"Come to what?" Vladi asked.

"Well, you ever heard of Santeria?" Vladi and I shook our heads no.

"It's a kind of religion," she said, "sort of. It comes from the Caribbean originally, but it has been here forever. There is a high priest in town who is going to perform a ceremony. It should be pretty wild."

"Wild like what?" Vladi asked her, his head going back a little like he'd been pushed.

"They say he's going to do a sacrifice."

Then Rachel piped in. "Chickens," she said.

"They're going to sacrifice chickens?" I blurted. "Really?"

Sarah and Rachel turned to me like they were seeing me for the first time. They didn't say anything.

"Sure," Vladi said. "Say, that will be fine. What time did you say?"

"Eleven o'clock," Sarah told him.

"You sure you're going to be here?" Vladi asked her. "They're not going to let us in by ourselves."

"Yes," she said with a smile, "eleven o'clock. But be here early. The place is going to get crowded."

Back in the street, I looked at Vladi. "You really want to go to the blood letting?" I asked him.

"I don't know. But our options are open. Let's go to a strip club."

I was already drunk and it was early. Jesus.

MIssissippi

(This is not my photo. Sorry. I found it on the internet without credit.)

We were just north of Atlanta on our way home when Vladi asked, "You want to go to New Orleans?" I didn't have to think about it. We had been in the mountains for a week, but we still had time before summer was over.

"Sure."

And so we made the turn westward.

What wildness, I thought. We are traveling the country. We can go anywhere we want. As long as we had money for gas, we could just keep going. It seemed that way to me. We'd had our mountain idyl. Now we were in for something else.

Vladi made the turn onto I-20. We were heading for the Mighty Mississippi.

"How long you think it will take?"

"Oh, I don't know. Eight hours or so." I was looking at the map. "It is easy driving on interstate highways. No big cities, really. We should cruise."

"Then we should be there around nightfall," he said. "We'll check into a hotel and have a night on the town."

We passed through the rural landscape of the south, across Georgia and then through Alabama which somehow surprised me. This was True South. We were passing through Birmingham and the south of George Wallace and Martin Luther King. It was a little scary for us, two long-haired hippie boys in a van, and we remembered the trouble we'd had coming through on our way to New York, but we planned to stay to the highway all the way to New Orleans. We would just keep driving. As we drove, though, we passed through landscapes I'd never associated with Alabama, through gently rolling hills that were a lined with beautiful forests. "This is not what I thought of Alabama," I told Vladi. "Yea, it looks nice," he said.

We crossed into Mississippi and jumped onto I-59. The day wore on.

"Hey, man, we need to get gas. Keep an eye out for a station."

But as we drove on, the distance between exits grew. The world seemed underpopulated here.

"Here's an exit," I said, "but it doesn't look like there's a gas station."

"Let's try the next one."

And so we drove. And drove.

"We're running out of gas," Vladi said with alarm. "I sure as shit don't want to run out of gas out here. I hope we make it to the next exit."

A little while later, I pointed gleefully. "There's a sign. We can get off in a mile."

And there it was. An exit. And that was all. There were no gas stations, no Stuckey's tourist stands, nothing but trees and a small blacktop road.

"Shit!" I spat. "What're we going to do?"

Vladi looked worried. "I don't know," he said. "The gas needle is on empty now. We're running on fumes as far as I can tell. I guess we'll try driving down this road and see if we can find something."

This scared the shit out of me, but I didn't say it. "Which way?" Vladi turned left.

Neither of us said a word as Vladi babied the van slowly down the road. I was barely breathing. Images from the movie"Deliverance" were running through my head. I'd met some boys from Mississippi before, and they could barely talk. On we drove down the blank road without houses or barns, just a narrow road bordered with a heavy stand of trees. Vladi looked at me the way he did the time we were lost in the underwater cave.

"Look!" I yelled and pointed. Ahead of us was a crossroad, and there stood a little store with a gas pump outside. Vladi looked relieved and terrified at the same time. "I wonder what we'll run into here?" Vladi made the short turn into the parking lot and pulled up to the pump. A thin man in overalls came out of the store.

"Fill 'er up," Vladi said. The man stood looking for a minute, then walked to the pump. Vladi looked at me. I wanted to laugh, but I wanted to run, too. We both just wanted to get the fuck out of there. We sat silent. "Plunk." The pump clicked off. We listened to the metallic sounds of the pump going back into the cradle. Vladi was watching in the side mirror. When the man came to the window, Vladi handed him a twenty. We watched the man walk back into the store. I realized I was chewing on my upper lip. We waited.

"Where the fuck is he? What do you think he's doing?" I asked Vladi.

"Just calling the local redneck sherif," Vladi said. "They'll come pulling up here any second.

But just then the skinny fellow ambled out of the screen door. He handed Vladi back the change without saying a word.

"Thanks," said Vladi.

As we drove back toward the interstate, I wondered if we had turned the right way. "Are you sure this is the way we came?" I asked Vladi. He just looked at me. "I bet he called the cops. I'll bet we get pulled over before we make the interstate." Vladi kept looking in his rear view mirror. It was taking too long, I thought. We hadn't turned the right way. We'd gotten confused at the crossroads and were heading deep into the redneck interior. Then I saw the sign for I-59. We both let out a cheer.

We were cruising again and wouldn't stop until New Orleans. We both felt sheepish now about our naive fears, but we didn't say it. We were just happy now.

The highway was pretty here, a series of rolling hills, up and down, like riding a giant roller coaster. We were just settling back and enjoying the view when we crested a hilltop and saw what looked to be a roadblock up ahead. There were at least twenty police cars, all with their lights flashing. Policemen had spilled out on both sides of the highway and were puddled in the median. Vladi's foot came off the gas, but there was no place to go. We were the only car to be seen on the highway. Our eyes were popping.

"Ho-ly-shit," Vladi said. "What the fuck is this?"

"I knew that cracker would call the cops. I'll bet he saw that bag of pot you've got stuck in the visor. They're gonna put us in jail for sure."

Vladi looked guilty. But there was nothing to do now. We were approaching the blockade. When we got there, however, the road wasn't blocked. There were policemen everywhere we looked, but the highway itself was clear. And so we entered the mass of flashing lights, Vladi driving maybe thirty-five miles an hour, the two of us watching as the policemen combed the grass. They were looking for something, that was certain. Then I saw the dogs. It was like watching "Cool Hand Luke." Maybe someone had escaped a chain gang. There were people drifting off into the trees on the roadside, the dogs leading the way. I looked over at the policemen in their cars talking on their radios. And then we were through. Nobody had looked up, it seemed. Nobody had looked at us. Now, with every second, the flashing lights receded into the past. And then they were gone.

Vladi hit the gas. We waited. A mile. Five miles. Ten. Nobody was coming. There was nothing. I saw Vladi take a breath. I realized that I hadn't been breathing much, either. A minute more, then I dared a weak laugh. "We're nuts," I said. "We're paranoid." I looked at the plastic baggy above Vladi's head. "But if we had gotten pulled over. . . ."

"Fuck it," Vladi said with forced energy. "We're on our way to New Orleenz."

Vanessa Winship pt.2

I'm always ten seconds ahead of the curve. Today, the internet is full of this image which is a finalist for the National Portrait Gallery Taylor Wessing Portrait Award. It is Vanessa Winship's, who has been nominated along with three other photographers. The winner will be announced on November 3. I'm not much for anything like an art competition, especially since another in my list of wonderful photographers, Michal Chelbin, has been nominated. I will try to search for the criteria the judges will be using to evaluate these works, but I am finding it difficult to believe that one can actually measure such things. Aesthetics has been so trodden upon by critics in the past twenty years that it is almost embarrassing to privilege one thing over another, but the world still muddles about trying to find its way out of the Postmodern Era. It seems violence of any sort has been the overwhelming response.

But I wander in such an old-fashioned way. In truth, I am simply eaten up by envy. Not for the nominations, of course, but for the work. Have you looked at those Winship portraits yet? They have me subscribing to most of the seven deadly sins. Not necessarily Gluttony, but most of the others. While I am serving the public on a daily basis, she is out making these fabulous images. Guts and talent. Not of the same magnitude as Copernicus, of course, but similar. I feel I have wasted my life earning a living, making ends meet. I should have thrown caution to the wind, as they used to say. I should have followed my passion.

What though, I wonder, should I tell some young person who thought to do the same thing who came looking for advice? What would be my counsel?

Vanessa Winship

In my heroic efforts to keep you abreast of all the best things, here is the work of Vanessa Winship. I must confess, though, that I am bringing you to her rather late in the game, for she is already beginning to garner much attention. Her website is full of wonderful photographs from the borderlands of Turkey, Georgia, and Albania. Jorg Colberg has an interview with her on his website that is very good and which you may wish to read. After seeing her photos, I wrote to Ms. Winship and asked her if I might post some of her work here. She was very gracious. My copy of her book Sweet Nothings will be here in a few days. I can't wait.

This Is What It's Like

Unable to sleep. Up at five. The sky is still dark at six-thirty. The air outside is warm and humid. It is the worst time here, the molding, mildewed part of summer. I am without energy or inspiration. I do what I must. Not even that. I hold out for the long shadows.

* * * * *

After the Catskills, the Adirondacks looked like true wilderness. The slopes were not as gentle. The ground seemed harder somehow. We were hiking a trail to the top of a peak. We could see it above us. The sun was hot and sharp, and I was not in shape. I had lost some of the weight I'd put on in the hospital and after and had been working out with weights and had added some muscle, but I hadn't been walking far let alone running. I was stunned by how weak my legs felt. I had good legs, I thought, strong legs, but not now. I didn't say anything to Vladi about it, though. This hiking was difficult for him, too.

We walked under trees stepping on the layer of pine needles that blanketed the trail. Off to the left the mountain dropped rapidly. We had been surprised when we read there were rattlesnakes here. It was a sunny day, so we kept an eyes open. We could look down to the tops of trees now and see the valley slither away a little below us. We could see the top of the peak ahead, and we were glad since we had not brought much water. We planned to sit on top and have a little lunch and drink the water we had before we strolled back down.

But when we approached what seemed to be the top, we saw that it wasn't. There was more mountain above it where the trees began to thin.

"What the fuck," complained Vladi. "Let's sit down and drink some water. It's getting hot.'

I didn't say anything. I was beat and disappointed, too. We were flatlanders. I'd never climbed like this before and had not known what to expect. But sitting now with our backs leaned against a big boulder looking out over the distant hills, we were seeing something we could never see at home.

"Look at that, man," I said, sweeping my arm across the horizon. "That's something."

Vladi didn't say anything for a minute. Then suddenly he said, "Let's eat." So I reached into the little backpack I'd been carrying and got out two sandwiches. Vladi poured some water out of an old army canteen. When I bit into my sandwich, the peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was having trouble making enough saliva to get it down.

"Maybe we should have made another kind of sandwich," I said. Vladi kept chewing.

When the sandwiches were gone, we sat still. I leaned back and closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the breeze blowing through the branches and to the song birds that called out from time to time. It seemed as if I were dreaming it or as if I were hypnotized. I just hung there in between in that place where the outside world joins the world within, floating in and out, up and down.

I woke when Vladi said, "Let's go. Let's climb this thing now." And so I roused myself back to life and stood on legs that already felt beat. The climbing was harder now after the rest. The trail became steeper and the trail broke into full sun. There were fewer trees and more shrubs and rock. I could feel the sweat between my back and the little pack. My shirt was soaked.

"Hey, Vladi, is there any more water?"

"Nope," he said tersely.

"Man, my mouth is dry."

He didn't say anything. We were stupid, I knew now. We didn't know what we were doing. We had filled a canteen with water. I didn't remember ever being thirsty before. I was thirsty now and being thirsty was taking away all the pleasure of the climb. Now there was only the climbing.

"This has to be it," said Vladi pointing to the top of the peak. "We're almost there."

But the closer we got, the less the spot where Vladi had pointed looked like a peak. The trail snaked on around and up more scrabble. We weren't there yet. My legs began to shake.

"You want to rest a minute," I asked.

"Not really," Vladi spat. "I just want to get this over."

Up we went, up and up until I wasn't looking at anything other than my feet. Step. Step. I really wanted some water. The day was flawless, not a cloud to be seen. There was just the sky and the sun and the rocks below our feet.

And then we were there. We had given up thinking we were near a peak. We'd fooled ourselves too many times already. But now, there was nowhere else to go. We found a little spot where we could sit together. There, we dropped to the ground.

"We made it," I said. I lay back and stared at the blue blankness of the sky. Vladi had picked up a handful of rocks and was tossing them over the sloping side out of sight. And that is how we stayed for a long while. This is what it's like, I thought. Two men sitting on top of the world.

Blueberry Muffin

Waking in the morning to the growing light of the new day, thinking of where I was, trying to fall back to sleep but needing to pee. Vladi was nowhere around. I struggled out of the sleeping bag, out of the tent, to stand in the dawn air. Still no Vladi. Walking to a tree. When I came back, Vladi was getting out of the back of the van.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Man, I couldn't sleep in the tent with you. You snore, brother. Jesus, I don't know how anyone can stand it."

"What do you want to do?"

"Let's go get something to eat."

"Should we take the tent down?" I asked.

"No, man, this is a campground. We'll come back."

And so we drove back the way we'd come the night before past the little wooden shack that was still closed. Out on the road, we saw what we hadn't been able to see clearly the night before. The road was a narrow blacktop lined by rocky bluffs and trees. It wound around and around so that each turn was a surprise. Here was a gas station. Further down, a store. When we got to the Blue Moon Cafe, we pulled in. The place was already crowded, the interior warm and cozy. Breakfast smells choked the air.

"I'm having eggs and bacon and pancakes and whatever else they have," I said. Men in plaid shirts chatted with the waitress. The walls were covered with woven baskets and antique metal tools. I'd never really seen anyplace like it. In truth, I hadn't eaten out that much other than at fast food places. My parents were products of The Great Depression and my family didn't eat out often at all, and when we did, it was usually at the diner connected to the Rexall Drugstore where we would get a breaded and fried Salisbury Steak smothered in gravy, mashed potatoes with a different gravy, and some overcooked vegetable on the side with a big basket of white bread and butter. This would happen occasionally on a Friday night, but not very often. And maybe twice a year we would go to a real restaurant. In high school, I would go with my friends to a Big Boy or a Burger King, but I didn't have much in my repository of experience with which to categorize this place. All I could think of was The Hobbit and Bilbo Baggins. We were on a journey. We stopped at an Inn. I don't know.

"I'm having a big blueberry muffin," said Vladi. When he said it, I wasn't sure if I'd ever had a muffin. "Me, too," I said.

When the muffins came, they were big, bigger than a fist by half, and they were still hot so that the Land O' Lakes butter I slathered over mine melted on contact and stained blue from the berries.

"What do you want to do today," I asked Vladi.

"Let's find a trail and go for a hike. Then we can drive over and see what Woodstock is like."

I didn't have any better idea. I didn't have any ideas at all. Everything was new to me. I just wanted to see it all.

The Water's Edge

The dusk gave way to night, the highway to smaller roads that began to climb into the darkness. We drove by rocky outcrops and electric signs advertising restaurants and hotels. I strained to see the details of the landscape hidden in the darkness. The air began to cool. I looked at the roadmap as Vladi drove.

"We're getting close to Woodstock," I said. The name was thrilling. There was Woodstock and we were in the Catskill Mountains, home to the Borscht Belt comedians that I'd grown up watching on The Merv Griffin Show. The night was clear, the sky filled with a billion stars.

We drove on more slowly searching for road signs, winding and climbing. We found a sign for a campground. It was late now and in spite of our excitement, we were tired.

"Let's pull in there for the night," Vladi offered.

"Sure, sure, let's go there."

We drove into a campground, past a small, wooden shack that was closed, following a crunchy winding road.

"This looks good," I said, pointing.

Vladi steered the van into a spot beside a lake and cut the engine. Silence. We stepped out of the van as quietly as thieves, like spies, creeping over to a flat spot with a little stone fire pit and a place to pitch the tent. I looked at Vladi, and he shook his head. Then we walked down to the edge of the lake not forty feet away and peered out into the night. The still water made a second heaven reflecting the brilliant stars, dead flat and black. We stood still, just looking. "I am seeing this for myself," I thought. "Nobody brought me to this place. I came here. I am standing on my own."

"Let's set up camp," Vladi said. "And let's make something to eat. I'm hungry."

"OK. I'll set up the tent. You find some wood for the fire."

"There's a whole pile of it right here." He pointed to a stack of cut wood next to the stones of the fire ring.

"Great. See if you can get it started."

In a little while, we sat facing a small flame, the tent at our backs, watching the meat cook on the camping grill my father had given me. Vladi sat with his knife, waiting. We opened a can of beans and put them in a pot and set them on the grill and listened to the wood as it popped and crackled. By the time the beans began to boil, the meat looked ready. Vladi cut it down the middle and threw one half onto my metal plate. I scooped some beans out of the pot.

When dinner was finished, I took the metal plates and rubbed them good with sand just the way it said to in the camping books, then I took some water from the lake and washed them off. Vladi set another small log on the fire. I could feel the cooler air descending.

"What do you think, Vladi?"

"It's good," he said taking out a joint. "It's real good."

Further

Vladi slept in the back as I pushed the van north. I thought about his attitude in the restaurant that morning and how cavalier he seemed then. He had not grown up as I had, and had not taken many, if any, serious beatings. His life had been more aristocratic, more privileged than mine and the cretins and miscreants were always kept out of the yard, so to speak. He was not the kind of kid that got a spanking when he acted up in class in elementary school, either. Not that I had, but I suddenly remembered a time in the sixth grade when I had gotten in trouble with two other kids in my class. One of the boys' father was Principal of the High School. The other's mother taught in our elementary school. In the end, I was made the scapegoat, the bad boy. I really had nothing to do with what happened, but my parents, apparently, were easier to deal with. Not that the school Principal pushed it much, for he knew that working class father's were not above punching a pencil neck like him in the nose if they were riled too much. Nothing really happened to any of us, but I felt the injustice of it all even then. I was a smart kid and the lesson had not been lost on me.

But that was the way Vladi had behaved in the restaurant that morning. I don't think he believed that any real trouble would touch him. I, however, knew better. It was early that morning and those hillbillies had just been having some fun and as long as we had gone along with it, there wasn't going to be any real trouble. Unless. There was always a wild card, and that was what Vladi didn't know. The Wild Card. Random Meanness. He was used to neurotics. I'd grown up with psychotics. All that had been needed that morning was one fellow willing to ratchet it up a notch, willing to make the real trouble. We'd been lucky.

It was afternoon when Vladi woke up. We were almost to D.C. I'd filled up once and now we needed gas again. We were both hungry and decided to stop in the Nation's Capital to have a look around.

But it was hot. It was the summer of the temperature inversion, a weird phenomenon in which hot air gets trapped by a layer of cooler air on top and can't disperse. Rather, the pollution of the city caused a greenhouse effect that drove the temperatures well above one hundred degrees. The air felt dirty, greasy. Toxic. We stood near the National Mall looking across the lawn. And suddenly, we had no interest.

"Let's get out of here," Vladi coughed. "This is awful. If we don't dick around here, we'll sleep in some cool mountain air tonight."

Just before sunset, I caught sight of the New York City skyline for the first time. The lights of the city were already twinkling in the early dusk. "There it is," I thought, my heart pumping hard enough to make me take deep breaths. It looked just like the shot in "Midnight Cowboy" when Joe Buck first sees it from the Greyhound Bus as he rides into town. We must be on the same highway, I thought. This is the very place.

"Turn on the radio," I said to Vladi. "Pick up a New York City station." Vladi snorted. I'd grown manic the way I did whenever we reached some objective correlative of my imagination. I'd been like this when we'd driven through Miami Beach on our way to the Keys, narrating every block, every street light, pounding the dashboard and rapping nonstop, a steady stream of stories and wonderment and desire. It all made him laugh.

"Man, look at that! You want to go?"

"Not now. Let's keep driving. I want to get to the Catskills at least."

And so I sat back and watched as the skyline went by. I was farther from home than I had ever been without my parents, I suddenly realized. That was New York, New York, the very one of movies and T.V. shows and photographs. I felt different, somehow, changed as if something was being added while something else was taken away. Washington D.C. The Big Apple. It was all possible. It was all true.

God Is Love

When I woke, the sun was up. Vladi had driven through the night.

"Hey, sleeping beauty, I'm hungry and we need gas. I'm pulling over."

I rolled out of the side of the van and began pumping gas. When I'd finished, Vladi idled over to a parking lot beside a low building with glass windows. A few of the people inside were watching me as I crossed the cracked cement lot toward them.

"Where are we?" I asked Vladi at the door.

"North Carolina. I think we're almost to Virginia."

"This place looks creepy. You sure you want to eat here?"

"It's alright."

We sidled into a booth in the back of the little restaurant in the far corner away from the door. A waitress in a worn, cheap uniform with a stained white apron came over to the table.

"Y'all want something?" she asked us. It was more of a challenge than a question.

"I'll have the breakfast special with the biscuit and bacon and grits," Vladi told her.

"Me, too. And orange juice."

Vladi held up two fingers and the waitress headed for the kitchen. I was sitting with my back to the wall, so I could see the room. I watched as people turned and looked over their shoulders at our table. Vladi was facing the wall, so I told him what was happening.

"Fuck 'em," he said. "They are just amazed. They've never seen anyone with all his teeth before."

"I don't think that's it," I said. "They are laughing. Well, not laughing exactly. But they don't look like they're ready to give us any orthodontic medals."

And that is when the first comments began.

"What do you think it is? I don't know whether to kiss it or kill it?"

"OK," I said. "Now they're laughing."

Two waitresses were standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "When I sleep with something, I want to know what it is," one of them said, and all the men began to laugh. I looked at Vladi.

"I wouldn't want to know what she's sleeping with," he said in a low voice. "Can you imagine that?"

"Let's get out of here," I said. "They're not bringing our food. It's already taken way too long."

But just then, the sherif walked in. Some sort of local policeman, anyway, and he seemed to already know what was going on.

"OK. I guess we'll wait for our food," I said.

And we waited through the comments and the dire mirth that intensified rather than dissipated with the sherif's arrival. After half an hour or so, I guess they were running low on jokes, so the waitress brought out our breakfast. It didn't look so good. The eggs and the bacon were half-cooked and cold. I stirred them around on the plate.

"Mmmm," said Vladi. "Just like home."

I smeared some jelly on the biscuit and took a few bites, washing it down with lukewarm water.

"I'm full. How about you?" I asked Vladi.

"Yep. Let's get the check."

As we headed toward the cash register, everyone was staring with big grins.

"Y'all be careful," said the sherif as we were walking out the door.

"Oh, yes sir," Vladi said, reaching over to get two bumper stickers from a rack sitting on the counter.

Back at the van, Vladi kneeled down and peeled the paper backs off the stickers and placed one on the rear silver bumper, then went around to the front and did the same.

"God is Love" proclaimed the one on the rear. "Jesus Saves" said the other.

"OK. You drive. I'm beat."

"Well I'm hungry," I said.

"There are some candy bars in the bag there," he motioned. "Wake me up for lunch."

Road Trip

The summer term was ending, and I was already packing my things. It was easy, really, for I had never moved in so much as "dwelled" in the little apartment. If you didn't count the time I lived in my car, it was the first time I'd been on my own. It wasn't much trouble to put my few belongings into some cardboard boxes.

At the end of the term, Vladi called. "Let's take a road trip," he said. He'd just finished up his sememster at another college as well, and he had a new van that we could take.

"Where are we going?"

"New York."

But we weren't going to the city. Vladi wanted to go camping. So I borrowed my father's tent and sleeping bag and a cook stove and we headed for the Adirondacks.

By now, we both had very long hair that hung below our shoulders and I had let my boy's wispy beard grow as well. Two hippies in a van. We knew that anywhere we went, this would be 'Probable Cause." But this was America, right? Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. That was us. We were in college, goddamnit, part of America's Best and Brightest. The Pride of the Land. We were The Nation's Future. You could count on us.

So we packed up and headed for the mountains. Vladi drove. We would go nonstop through the night. It was no problem. When Vladi got tired, he would just climb in back and lie down to sleep while I drove. We had taken out the back seats, so the van was a giant rolling bedroom. We'd travel just like the truckers.

Vladi, who hadn't grown up as I had surrounded by half-wits and drug addicts, had become fond of smoking pot, so he lit a joint first thing. "It makes the driving easier," he said. And then he began to talk. Pot made him chatty. He told me about school and then about his girlfriend leaving him and then about his family. I didn't say much. He was going to a private college that had some loose religious affiliation, so on Sunday's, they were all required to attend chapel. What?! I couldn't believe this, I told him.

"What happens if you don't go?"

"They write you up," he said. "If you get written up enough, they kick you out of the college."

How in the hell could they do that, I wondered? How could Vladi go there? Vladi attending chapel? I didn't get it, but I'd have been smoking it up, too, I thought, if I had to go through that.

I didn't say much about the rest. I'd always had a sweet spot for his girlfriend and had seen her around since Vladi moved. We talked as friends and then more intimately. She was a pretty girl and was getting more than her share of attention, and with Vladi gone but for weekends, things were changing. She liked the attention, I could tell. It was something new and delicious, and though she liked Vladi and his "station in life," I could tell she was liking something else more. Vladi must have had a hint of this, too, for he had become more demanding of her, more suspicious, as he tried to assert some non-existent authority from afar. She was happy enough, I thought when I talked to her. Everything was changing for us. It was true. We were all happier.

A little while later, Vladi re-lit the joint and smoked up some more, and it gave him another burst of chattiness. His mother and father were not happy, he said. His sister was causing them problems, too. I didn't know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. His whole family was nuts as far as I was concerned. His mother and father were foreign, having lived most of their lives in Yugoslavia, so I chalked up their random craziness to that, to something I didn't know. Besides, his mother was nice enough even if she talked as if she were losing her mind and we were both deaf, her voice always reflecting some sort of internal panic. His father didn't bother with the family much at all. He was a doctor and hid himself there, in that place where he was godlike, an authority and a healer. He seemed to have little use for the rest.

And his sister had been "institutionalized a little." Funny, I thought. Just the right amount. You wouldn't care to be institutionalized too much. But she was out now and on her own. She had an apartment and a big boyfriend named Bear. Her parents were paying for everything, so she had plenty of time for madness. And she liked to take advantage of it. She was a big girl, almost pretty, really, but her eyes never seemed to focus on the outer world for very long. They would dart about as if she had just woken up in a new place, and her voice would grow shrill and manic, then her eyes would go still, looking inward to the familiar place she had grown accustomed to. And maybe that's why her mother talked the way she did. Maybe she had grown used to shouting from the distance trying to reach her daughter as she receded further and further from her.

We had left town just before sunset and now it was late. We watched the highway and the headlights until the big van had sucked up all the gas. We were still in Georgia when we pulled into a filling station to gas up. It was redneck country full of the sort of fellows that shot Dennis Hopper at the end of "Easy Rider." We would have to be careful.

"Go up and give the fellow some money," Vladi said.

"You go up."

"C'mon, I'm pumping the gas."

Just then, a police car pulled up on the other side of the island. We both watched silently as a big fellow got out of the car.

"What're y'all boys doin'?" he asked.

We looked at him for a minute trying to figure out what he meant. And then Vladi answered him literally.

"Getting gas."

Long pause. Vladi and I looked at him, waiting.

"Where're y'all boys headed?"

"New York," I offered.

"It figures," he said, and he stared for a little bit. It was then that I thought of the big bag of pot Vladi had wedged above the visor while he was driving. Shit, shit, shit. Vladi was a moron, I thought, the sweat forming under my arms. I bit my lip. Vladi must have been thinking the same thing.

"Well," the officer finally said, "I guess y'all boys aught to be moving along then."

Yep, yep, both our heads bobbed up and down in exaggerated agreement. The pump handle clicked and Vladi put it back in its cradle. We both hurried into the van and Vladi started the engine and slipped the shifter into gear when I remembered.

"Stop, you moron! We haven't paid."

Vladi hit the breaks with a sudden violence that threw me into the dash.

"Go pay. Go pay," he told me. My legs were a little mushy as I hit the pavement, then stiff at the knees as I walked across the lot through the puddles of light. The cop watched me all the way.

"I thought y'all boys were gonna leave without payin,'" said the man behind the cash register with a sinister little laugh that didn't have a drop of humor in it.

"Oh, no, not us. We're not like that. Here." I held out a handful of good American money to him as a token of our good will to his people.

"You're an idiot," I said when I got back in the van. "You need to hide that shit. All we needed was for that cracker to see that. Shit, man, they'd never let us out."

"Yea," he said. "That scared the shit out of me." He looked around over his shoulder a little bit when he lit up a joint as if someone might be watching him.

"I'm going to climb in the back and go to sleep for awhile, OK? Call me when you want me to drive."

I was hoping he wouldn't wake me until we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.

No Conflict, No Narrative

I'm still taking beach shots, so you are stuck with the "after images" for awhile. But the other site keeps getting more visitors. Yesterday, it had more than this one. I think people are more likely to tell their friends about it than about this one. It has made some Facebook rounds now. Happy. Healthy. Wholesome. That's me. Wake up the neighbors. Tell the kids.

I was at an Apple Store yesterday and went around putting the site on the computer screen and leaving it. Cheap.

* * * * *

I've been trying to write the next part of the narrative, but it doesn't work out. You see--I was happy. There is nothing to write about happy. There is nothing to learn. Everything was normal. I went to school, studied, had dinners with my girlfriend and her family, played ball with her little brothers and became the male figure in their lives. And I saw my father on the weekends. I had an apartment and lived on my own for the first time in my life. It was easy.

There were a few oddities here and there, but nothing to learn from.

And so the months went by, and I was released from the doctor's care. I had applied and had been accepted to The University a hundred miles away. I would begin in the fall. Sherri and I didn't talk about it that much. It was only a hundred miles. We would see each other on the weekends, and soon, she would be going to school there, too.

And that is how it went, the days drifting by as they never had before. I felt it all deeply without words as I had felt the other in my bones, those days and nights when I dreamed that life would be different, when I went to the movies alone in the afternoons in the richer part of town, coming from the theater at dusk to walk the beautiful, half-abandoned streets past street lamps and oak trees, then driving in my car somewhere, anywhere, nowhere. I was escaping then and now I had escaped, or at least had stepped across a threshold. I saw a new world and was walking toward it with outstretched arms. There were a few things I wanted to take with me, but I never wanted to go back. I just wanted to go.

Summertime

I missed it. I usually know, but I've been off my game, I guess. The full moon, I mean. The night I consorted with The Whiskey again and stayed up listening to music and writing all those crazy emails. It was the Full Corn Moon which is probably explains The Whiskey.

I just wrote a long piece continuing the narrative. I spent much of the morning with it. And when I was halfway through, I realized it was adding nothing, that it was going nowhere. And now it is gone. C'est la vie. You are the better off for it.

It is Labor Day. What did you do the summer of '09? Perhaps you can make up for it today.

Summertime - Josh Rouse