How Have You Been? (an unfinshed novella)

 

 

 

 

December 23

 

“Starin at the wall
And waitin’ for your call
When, when will you come home?” –Galaxie 500

 

“Home, nowadays, is a place where part of the family waits till the rest of the family brings the car back” – Earl Wilson

 

 

 

 

 

 

I pulled up to the house around 7:30, after driving the six hours from Vermont to Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. I put the Pontiac in reverse and started to parallel park into the spot in front of my parent’s house between my mom and my dad’s car. I swung the back end around towards the right, then backed up straight, and bump! I hit the curb before I was even able to twist the front end of the car towards the curb.

     The whole process seemed so foreign to me, even though I had done it for four or five years, while I was living there. In Vermont, I rarely have to parallel park. The apartment building that I live in have spots that you just pull your car straight into, same with the school I go to. I tried a couple more times, each ending with the same result: bump!

Fuck it, I’ll just park down the street.

I drove down the street and found a 10 yard gap from my neighbor’s purple Accord to the Stop sign at the street corner. I calmly pulled my Grand Prix into the space and shut the engine off.

     I reclined the seat and laid staring up at the grey fuzzy cloth that made up the ceiling, listening to Pavement’s “Texas Never Whispers” exploding from the speakers, and smoking what was left of my cigarette. It seemed like I was in dream. Just this morning I was in my mess of an apartment, surrounded by empty bottles of beer, two to three week old cans of Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola, shredded granola bar wrappers, and the smell of rotting scraps of food clinging to the white ceramic surface of dishes that haven’t been touched in months. I was in Winooski, Vermont, living on East Allen Street, and going to college at a small art school. Now, I’m in Nanticoke sitting outside of my house in my car, finishing a cigarette and listening to music.

     I flicked the butt through the crack of the window and watched it explode like an asteroid crashing onto the surface of a planet. I pulled the small plastic lever on the left side of the seat, and it shot back into the upright position. As I slid the seatbelt off my shoulder, I realized that my undershirt was saturated with sweat, and a rancid smell of body odor was radiating from my armpits.

For some reason, on long drives I exude unusual amounts of perspiration. I think it’s because I get nervous and start to over analyze every operating procedure, strategy, and social mores that relates to driving a car: OK, I’m going 85 mph in a 65; the car in front of me is about ten car lengths ahead, and has been going at the same rate of speed for at least ten miles. If a cop is shooting a radar, is that enough distance for the cop to pull the car ahead of me over? Or will he let that person pass and pull over me since I’m closer?  

I got out of the car and opened the salt splattered backseat door, and picked up my bookbag (containing a collection of DVD’s, the Swedish zombie book, Handling the Undead, a cell phone charger, what was left of an eighth of pot, and my Sobe gbong), two white garbage bags about to burst from the amount of laundry, and an old swim bag, which held a nebulizer and my asthma medications. These were the only tools I needed to survive a place like Northeast PA.

As I walked down the sidewalk, the spectacle that is my house at Christmas time came into sight. Its beige and brown plainness, has now been replaced with thousands of excruciatingly bright LED lightbulbs, a new family of illuminated life sized snowmen, two wooden Santa signs, a Santa flag, and a green Holliday doormat. My dad called me a few days ago and said his dentist told him after his root canal that, “Your house is one of the best decorated in Nanticoke. It puts a smile on the kids’ faces every time we drive by.” I didn’t really care, but I could tell he was proud of his achievement. “It must be the snowmen.” he concluded.

I used to decorate the house with my dad when I was younger. I would help him bring all of the decorations down from the attic, untangle and hang the lights around the two small evergreens, and decide where the best place on the roof for Santa and his two reindeer.

The plastic Santa in his sleigh with his two reindeer pulling him along was my favorite decoration. There were lights in the plastic figurines, which gave them a warm, inviting glow. But when I was sixteen, I stopped hanging decorations. I didn’t see the point in it anymore. I hated everything related to Christmas: the lights, Santa, gifts, wrapping paper, nativity scenes, midnight mass, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, “Joy to the World,” family, all of it. At the same time, my dad got even more into it like we were in some sort of inverse Christmas relationship: he bought an LED snowman snow globe for the downstairs, and a snowflake fixture for the outside. He started listening to Christmas Carols at the beginning of November until the middle of February, and has seen the movies, “Christmas Vacation,” “A Christmas Carol,” and “Elf,” an estimated 200 to 300 times over the past five years. Which just made me even less into it of course in classic adolescent fashion.  Poor guy.  But even though I felt sorry for him I still couldn’t pretend to be into Christmas. 

 

I turned left and waddled up the concrete path towards the front door, towards home, family. I stepped up onto the brick stoop, plopped the two garbage bags of laundry down, and wiped the snot that was trickling out of my nose into my right sleeve. Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, between the house and dead flower beds. It was the remnants of the plastic Santa and his reindeer. They were all heaped together in a pile, covered in mud dirt, and mulch. The vibrant red that used to be on Santa’s suit has faded to pink, the burgundy leather straps are now cracked and disintegrating, and one of the reindeer’s ears was missing.

I put my right hand on the gold handle of the door, pressed the lever down, and entered the void.

“Victor!”

I closed the door, and rolled both bags of laundry down the stairs.

“Hi dad, how’s it going?”

He was upstairs bent over the stove, drinking a Coors Light, and his face was buried in the steam coming out of one of the three pots. He rubbed his belly, which had overtaken his belt buckle, as he stirred the contents of the smallest pot with a large silver spoon.

“We’re making your favorite tonight: Chicken and rice. It should be ready in ten minutes. Zowee Diggens.”

He grinned as I climbed the baby blue carpeted stairs up into the kitchen. I took a right into the hallway, opened my bedroom door and tossed my bags to the floor. I was regretting eating two bacon cheeseburgers from a Roy Rodgers at an Interstate rest stop in New York, and trying to figure out the best way to break the news that I wasn’t hungry.

“There’s my son.”

My mom was standing in the doorway of my room looking at me with those blue eyes under the mass of curly blonde hair. She was wearing a navy blue Penn State sweatshirt, with matching sweatpants, and pink Victoria’s Secret slippers.

“Have you hugged your mom today?”

I walked over and wrapped my skinny arms around her small fragile frame, and rested my head on her shoulder.

     “I see you brought home a lot of laundry for me to do. I’ll be down in the laundry room washing your clothes for days.”

     “Mom it’s fine. I’ll do the laundry later, by myself. I know you have office work and have to get the house ready for tomorrow so don’t worry about it.”

     “Yeah, but what about that project from school? The one you’re doing for your degree? When are you going to work on that?”

     “I don’t know. Later tonight or tomorrow or something.”

     Last semester, I got straight A’s in all of my classes, except one: my senior project. It was going to be a novella, a nice seventy to eighty page story. I was supposed to have consistently met with my personal instructor and have around twenty to thirty pages done so she could help me with it. I met with her once, and already forgot her name and what she looks like (all I can remember is that her hair is blonde), and wrote three terrible pages about traveling down the New York Thruway. Each time I started to work on it, I would stop after the first sentence or two. It wasn’t because of writer’s block or because I can’t write; it was because frankly I didn’t really want to graduate.  Because I was afraid if I did I’d end up right here, back in Nanticoke.

     “Well… I know you’ll get it done. You always do.”   

We heard my dad’s voice resound through the hallway: “DINNER’S READY, LETS GO!!!”

     “Also, mom, I’m not really that hungry.”

     I actually wasn’t hungry. It wasn’t like I was still in Vermont, sitting in class on one of those flimsy grey chairs listening to my stomach complain and contract. Up there, I ate one meal a day because of poor time management and laziness, but I’m home. I didn’t have to pay, or clean week old taco meat out of a pot, or cook. And chicken and rice is my favorite, especially with my dad’s homemade gravy, but I didn’t have an appetite.

     I sat down at the circular, glass kitchen table, under the glaring studio lights, next to the fiber optic Christmas tree that has over 300 Christmas ornaments on it, ranging from the homemade to the Hallmark. I took two small pieces of white meat from the pile, a spoonful of rice, and doused each in yellowish brown gravy. My dad looked at me suspiciously.

     “That’s not all you’re going to eat, is it?”

Usually, when we eat chicken and rice, I take five or six pieces of chicken, cut it up, pile a layer of rice onto the plate, and flood it with gravy. The finished product looks like the Everglades if it had been made out of rice, chicken, and gravy.

     “I’m not that hungry, I had two burgers on the road like two hours ago, but it’s cool. I can always heat this up later. Chicken and rice are the best leftovers.”

     He responded by stuffing a wad of chicken into his mouth and muttered something that I couldn’t make out. He looked like a seven year old, who just got back from his first day of school and found out it wasn’t what he hoped it would be. He hid his disappointment by shoveling and swallowing, and by studying the daily newspaper like a college student reading a geology textbook as he’s cramming for an exam he has in an hour.

     “Help, your mom clear the table and do the dishes.”

With that, dad got up out of the chair and put his ten dollar CVS reading glasses on the table, and trudged down the stairs. After dinner, he always retreats to the recliner downstairs with a bag of frozen Milky Way miniatures to watch the old western T.V. shows, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Rifleman, on the sixty inch LCD flat-screen. Usually, after about ten or twenty minutes, he’ll pass out and be comatose until around nine o’clock.

     I helped my mom clean up the dried crusted spots of gravy, soiled plates, smudged Kitchenware glasses, and pieces of silverware that had been salivated with my mom.

“Are you going to unpack your stuff right now?”

“Maybe.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

▀

“Always choosing where to go, And where to be. Radiation. Too much radiation. So long loneliness. So far from home.”

     Bradford Cox’s wispy voice reverberated through the black speakers built into my record player. I pulled the needle off the black groove in vinyl after I felt my phone vibrate against my upper thigh. It was Keith.

     “Yo, bro. You back in town?”

     “Yeah, just got in like two hours ago. What are you up to tonight?”

     “Eh, I think we’re chilling at my apartment for a little bit, and then going to casino. It’s one of those nights when they have that promotion where you get free money to gamble. And possibly an Eddie’s Diner run afterwards.”

     “Alright, sounds good. Let me get ready, and I’ll be there in ten-fifteen minutes.”

     “Cool. Peace.”

     After surfing the internet for another half hour, I went into my book bag and pulled out my bright silver grinder, and a bag of pot. I took the top off and put two buds in the teeth of the grinder, closed it, twisted the top until I felt no resistance, and placed the bag in my right cargo pants pocket.

     I opened my bedroom door, walked downstairs to the pantry for a bottle of Gatorade, and saw my mom walk out of the laundry/bathroom.

     “I told you I was going to do the laundry.”

     “Yeah, but I thought I could give you a head start by doing the first load. Are you going out?”

     “Uh-huh, I’m going to Keith’s place and then to the casino.”

     “Where’s Keith’s apartment again?”

     “South Wilkes-Barre. On Franklin St.”

     “Oh Victor, that’s a bad neighborhood. Someone was just shot and killed a few blocks away from there. Can’t your friends just come over here and play some pool?”

     “Mom, don’t worry. It’s not like we’re going to be hanging out on the street corner shooting dice. I’m only outside for like thirty seconds anyway.”

     “Well you know that if anything happens to you kids; it would kill me.”

     “I know mom. Don’t worry, I’ll be safe.”

     I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

     “I love you.”

     “Love you too. Have a good time.”

     I opened the door, and bounded down the concrete path like a gazelle on the run. I got into my car and didn’t turn it on. Not yet, I have something to do. I searched my pocket and felt the cellophane wrapper that contained four white pills. Vicodin.

I had found a bottle containing thirty-two pills buried in the back of the tan lacquered oak cabinet that hung above the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. They were from around two years ago when my mom had surgery to remove a couple of kidney stones. She took only a handful of the pills because she said that they made her stomach turn, and made her feel worse than she actually was. I emptied the bottle, replaced them with generic Tylenol that was a similar shape, size, and color, and put the bottle back behind the vitamin D and Nyquil.

I unscrewed the orange Gatorade cap, took a swig, placed two 750mg pills in my mouth, swallowed, and then did the same process again. The blue liquid mixed with the dissolving painkillers always leaves a sour, chemical taste in the back of my throat; something I’ve always enjoyed.

Opiates have always been my favorite kind of drug. Oxycontin. Codeine. Morphine. Opium. Suboxin. Methadone. Phentynal. My favorite aspect of getting high on them is the numbness. For the four or five hours I’m high, I don’t feel anything. I don’t care about how much money I owe my parents after college, or about the fact that I haven’t gotten laid in three years. Opiates are my orgasm.    

 I drove down the San Souci Highway, then into South Wilkes-Barre, past Meyers High School, and made a left at the Shell, then a quick right onto Franklin Street. I parked my car behind Keith’s new Hyundai Elantra.

Keith used to have a blue Ford Focus. Keith bought the car during his senior year in high school with the money that he earned making pizza at Gerry’s in South Wilkes-Barre. Last semester, Keith totaled the Focus. Keith goes to school at Wilkes University, and is studying to become a structural engineer. He wants to build bridges because he told me that there’s a shit ton of money and jobs in that field. He also has a job working at a beer distributor a couple of towns over in Pittston.

The story goes that Keith was studying for an exam that he had in one of his classes. He stayed up all night memorizing formulas that tell an engineer the structural quality of a bridge and the max capacity the bridge could hold. You know, formulas that make sure the bridge doesn’t collapse and send the rush hour traffic, with its minivans, sedans, and business class cars, into the water along with blocks of concrete, asphalt, and pieces of steel. After the exam, he had to work at the beer distributor for another five hours. When he got out, he said he was comatose, a zombie. Two blocks away from his apartment, Keith dozed off at the wheel, and his Focus slammed into the side of a parked Chevy Malibu. The air bags went off and the front end was puking out oil, transmission fluid, and gasoline into the pothole under the car. The cops came, gave him a sobriety test, lectured him on “The Dangers of Driving Sleep Deprived,” and towed his car to the nearest mechanic. Two days later, Keith found out the car wasn’t salvageable. Two months later, he got the Elantra.

I opened the clear glass doors, and walked up to the rusted aluminum box. I typed in Keith’s number and a voice crackled through the old speaker.

“Hello?”

“Yo, it’s me. Could you buzz me up?”

BZZZZZT

I got into the elevator, rode it up to his floor, walked up to his door, and knocked.

“YO MAN! It’s been too long, like seriously. You’re almost forty minutes late.”

I lie. “Sorry, I got caught up in talking with my mom and lost track of time.”

“It’s cool. You want a G-Bong?”

The only other person there was his twin brother Corey. Corey was in for Christmas break as well. He goes to school in Philadelphia at Drexel University. I’ve known both of them since high school. Both went to Coughlin and were close with my friends Merce and Steve, who were my best friends since grade school. I went to Bishop Hoban due to the fact that I didn’t live in the same school district, and the fact that Nanticoke High School has had the lowest S.A.T. scores in the state for the past twenty years. Corey, Keith, and I became closer after high school during the short span of time I was home going to Penn State Wilkes-Barre. They would come over my house with Merce almost every day to play pool and ping pong. We would drink beers and drunkenly compete against each other in each sport as we listened to music. During this time, both of them started to smoke pot with me outside by my swimming pool in the backyard.

They basically look the same. The only difference between the two is their hair. (Keith’s is dark brown and long, while Corey’s is light brown and buzzed.) And maybe their noses.

“Victor, I fucked your mom. She’s crazy, and even let me put it in her ass.”

“Nice, I just pulled out of yours. All I have to say is ass to mouth. Why did you think I was so late?”

Corey’s eyes were bloodshot and glazed over. His lips were relaxed even when he smirked.

“Awesome bro, awesome. Hey, can I be next?”

“Sure, meet me in the bathroom in five.”     

 These kinds of discussions could go on between the two of us for over a half an hour. Usually, it starts off with an insult about fucking a family member, and then we go into the gritty slimy details of the hypothetical fuck, making it as graphic and disgusting as possible. For example, “I just got finished sticking my dick all the way down your sister throat, and deposited my load in her esophagus. Afterwards, I went to your parents’ bedroom and raped your dad and then your mom. By the way, I have AIDS; I infected your whole family.” A compliment follows and then they turn the tables on the other person. Then it progresses to us hitting on each other and how we’re going to suck each other’s dicks, and finally we just start naming random people that we know who we’ve hypothetically fucked.

“Dude, I’ll be there. Hey, Mandy”

“Marsh.”

“Dude, her tits are like so huge. I was just smacking around like those metal balls the clack together.”

Keith jumps in.

“I know I tried that before. Did you know she’s really good at pole vaulting? She has a full ride to George Mason because she’s so good at it.”

These conversations can go on for hours.

Keith went into the bathroom and got the G-Bong.

If you don’t know what a G-Bong is, let me explain it to you. It is a smoking device made usually out of a plastic bottle

and a small 4 millimeter socket. You burn a hole into the bottom corner above the bottle with a BIC lighter. Then, do the same to the cap and push the socket through the malleable plastic until it’s stuck and air tight. Most of the people I know back home only smoke weed through G-Bongs because it gets you really high off of only a real small amount. We have figured out the most economical and efficient way to get high.

He brought the grimy, brown Gatorade bottle into the living room, and started to pack the silver socket with bright green pot.

“Here you go, man. Welcome home.”

“Thanks, but I brought my own. I don’t want to clean you out.”

“Shut the fuck up and just take it man.”

I got up off the couch. The Vicodin was starting to kick in. A calm confusion is rushing through the veins in my legs, on my fingertips, and in my chest. Numb. I walked down the hallway and into the bathroom. I plugged the whole in the bottom of the G-Bong with my index finger and filled it under the faucet. The sink was covered with globs of old Crest toothpaste, flecks of pot and ash. I screwed the cap onto the bottle, unplugged the hole, and lit the header. The water drained slowly into the sink as the bottle filled with a thick yellowish cloud of smoke. I unscrewed the cap, inhaled, held my breath for five seconds, and exhaled. The stream of smoke bounced off my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were glazed and red; my pupils were the size of pin heads.

I put the g-bong under the bathroom sink, flicked the light switch, walked back into the living room, and took a seat on the couch. Corey, Keith and I took turns playing each other in NHL 11 on Corey’s Playstation for an hour before we decided to go to the casino.

 

 

▀

The Mohegan Sun Casino opened up two years ago in Plains. It was hailed as a success by the local news stations and city officials because of the money, jobs, and tourism it brought to the area. It used to be a horse-racing track that harbored horse-racing junkies and PTA fundraisers. The race track is still there, but that building has been remodeled and is hardly recognizable. The woods around it have been removed to make way for pavement and white paint for parking lots, which can conveniently hold thousands of cars, ranging from Chevy Corsicas to Porsche 911’s. Since its opening, most of the rehab centers around the area have created programs specifically for gambling addicts, and two gambling crisis hotlines have started advertising on city buses.

We don’t have any money to gamble. We only go to the casino on certain nights. Usually, around any holiday, the Mohegan Sun will have a promotional special where they will give you free money to gamble with.

You basically put your Player’s Card (something that you get for free from the casino with a free ten dollars) into one of the machines that are at the entrance. After you insert your card, three boxes show up on the screen. Choose one. Afterwards, it will show you how much free money you got to play with. Most of the time, you’ll only get five bucks, but every now and then you can get ten to twenty, and very rarely you’ll get the coveted twenty five dollar amount. The whole promotion is built on addiction. The suits figure that you’ll lose that five dollars on slots or video poker, and put another in because it was unsatisfying, or because you believe that you could actually win.

We trekked through the parking lots, opened the stainless steel glass doors, and met up with our friends, Dave and Jared. Jared stepped forward and offered me a handshake.

“Mr. Vic, how’s it going?”

“Not bad man. Not bad. Trying to win some free money.”

“Same, hopefully we can win enough to cover the dinner bill later tonight.”

We go and stand in one of the lines filled with hopeful seventy-year-old church women, janitors, CEOs, and college students, and wait for one of the machines to open up.

Dave asks, “How cold has it been up your neck of the woods? Is Vermont buried in snow yet?”

A middle age woman in a red and black business suit just swiped her card and got 10 dollars.

“Not yet, I mean we’ve gotten like a couple of inches here and there, but nothing significant. It’s cold, but it’s the wind that makes it unbearable. It just blows through all your layers. You know?”

“Yeah.”

A man wearing a Dale Earnhardt Jr. hat swiped his card and got 5 dollars.

“Yo, is Merce going to be home for Christmas or is he staying in Philly?”

Corey immediately answered.

“Na, he’s staying down there. He said he wanted to work at Napa on Christmas Eve because he’ll get more money and doesn’t want to spend money on gas.”

“That sucks, I miss that kid. Have you guys ever driven with him and listened to his rants about driving in the valley? ‘Why does everybody in the valley slow down when they are about to merge onto the highway? Jesus Christ, come on. How do you not know to speed up on the on-ramp? Do they think that people on the highway are going to slow down for them?’”

Keith giggled. “Yeah, but I don’t miss him puking all over my bathroom floor after he fuckin slammed all those cranberry and vodkas at Rodano’s!”

The man wearing the black pea coat in front of us just swiped his card and got 25 dollars.

Corey stares him down as he walks away towards the sparkling lights of the casino floor.

“What a lucky bastard. How much you want to bet that all of us get five dollars?”

We swiped our cards and made our way to the old section of the casino to play virtual blackjack. All five of us only got five dollars to gamble with. We navigated our way through the waitresses, drunks, and bouncers until we reached the stairs that took us down to the lower level.

A bouncer in a black suit with a gold name tag checked all of our ID’s, and wished us good luck, just like he did to every player who passed by. Then we went to the virtual blackjack tables.

Virtual blackjack is basically the same as regular blackjack, except everything is computerized. There are no real cards, just digital images. The dealers are video recordings of classy scantily-clad women of different ethnicities. These women are usually in a different environment each time in order to make you feel that you’re in a better more exciting place than you actually are. For instance, there’s the Asian woman in a purple bikini on the beach, the white blonde wearing a red evening dress in a New York penthouse, or the black woman with the long frizzy hair at the Vegas pool. You use buttons to make all of your decisions, instead of vocal chords or hand gestures. It’s still blackjack, just a little less real.

All the seats at the tables were filled except for three seats at the first table next to the bar. Keith, Jared, and Dave played, while Corey went to the bar to get beer. I stood behind them and watched them play. Each hand is a minimum five dollar bet. Keith got a twenty on his first hand with a queen and a ten, Jared got seventeen with an eight and a nine, and Dave busted after he hit on a twelve. The dealer showed a king, and flipped over her card in the hole, which was a five. Corey got back from the bar with five clear solo cups of Miller Light and handed one to each of us.

“Could you believe it’s $3.50 for a Miller Light? Fucking price gougers. A Sam Adams was like five dollars. They know you can’t get a beer anywhere else in the casino for cheaper, so they rip you off big time man. It’s all a conspiracy.”

The dealer hit and busted with twenty two. Handshakes and fist bumps are all around the table.

Keith exclaims, “Fuck yeah! You got nothing on us you virtual bitch!, except for Dave.”

Dave takes a sip out of his beer.

“Eh, I guess my night’s over. Bad luck. Nothing new. Corey, I guess it’s your turn to play.”

Jared and Keith lost their stack in the next few hands after a couple of busts and the dealer hitting a blackjack, and decided to join Dave at the bar. The Vicodin fully engaged with my system as I sat down next to Corey and this husky guy in a red wool shirt with stubble and oily disheveled blonde hair. The itchiness started to creep into my cheeks, slowly into the tip of my nose, and my forehead. Soon, it would be my arms, and then the legs.

Itchiness is the reason why some people don’t like opiates. I have had a few friends tell me when they tried opiates, they had an overall pleasant experience, except for the itching and scratching. The itchiness is like a skin allergy, minus the hives and sneezes. If it is activated, you’ll get big blotchy hives all over the area that’s affected, and start to scratch away, until your mom gets you the Benadryl cream and rubs it into the hives. It’s not addiction or death or whole ruining your life aspect that keeps these people away from opiates. It’s the itchiness, the scratching.

I always enjoyed it, scratching. Maybe it is because I have so many allergies that I’m used to scratching. There is something comforting about rubbing fingernails back and forth over something as minuscule and annoying as an itch.

The dealer switched, and suddenly we were being dealt by an Italian women with black frizzy shoulder-length hair in a purple cocktail dress on a balcony in Vienna. I lit a cigarette and sipped my beer as the first hand was being dealt. Blackjack. Ace of clubs and king of hearts. Corey won after the dealer busted on a fifteen. Cheers, handshakes, and fist pumps all around. I started to scratch my cheeks, and rub my nose as the next hand was being dealt, a queen of spades and an ace of hearts. Blackjack. I’m up thirteen dollars. Corey beat the dealer with an eighteen, while the guy in the wool shirt just lost a twenty dollar bet with a fifteen.

Corey looked at me, smiled, and laughed.

“You lucky bastard, two fucking blackjacks in a row! And you’re probably so stoned you have no clue. What’s going on. Ahahaha.”

The guy in the wool chuckled and brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes.

“Eh, he doesn’t need to pay attention with luck like that. Right man? Or maybe you’re cheating, you know counting cards.”

He slapped me on the back as the next hand is dealt.

“Yeah, Doubt this will last long.”

Over the next couple of hands, Corey and I basically stayed even, having a five dollar win after a few five dollar losses. The husky guy in the wool was sweating, as he watched his hundred and twenty dollars dwindle down to fifteen on the little black screen with turquoise letters and numbers. Then, we both went on a hot streak and won five out of six hands each, with Corey getting two blackjacks. My cheeks were dotted with red lines after constantly scratching, hand after hand, card after card.

“Now, remind me, who doesn’t have to do anything again?”

Corey laughed. “Hey bitch, didja ever think, and I mean really think, that I was better than you, like in every aspect? Hey, Mandy…”

“Marsh.”

 

The guy in the wool took his wallet out and started to scan how much money he had left after tonight’s hit. He hit the cash out button, and took the white receipt from the slot in the machine. He was still sweating profusely and smelled like a half a pound of turkey breast that was a couple of weeks too old. He stared at Corey and me, and cracked a tender smile.

“I wish I had your guys’ luck.” He offered both of us a handshake. “My name is John.”

“Corey.”

“Vic.”

“Well guys, it was nice playing with you. I got to go, the wife’s calling, and nagging me again. Plus, I have work early tomorrow. I wish you all the best of luck. Keep winning and take these bastards down. Maybe I’ll see you again here someday.”

“All right man, take it easy.”

“Peace.”

John went to one of the three cash out machines next to the bathrooms. He put his receipt in, got whatever money he had left, and put it in his wallet. He placed the old beaten-up leather wallet in his back pocket, and walked out the side doors. His husky frame disappeared in the flashing orange, red, yellow, and green lights that were reflecting off the glass of the doors.

After John left, Keith came over from the bar. “Yo. You guys are still playing?”

Corey had turned his free five dollars into forty-five dollars. I’d made mine into sixty three.

“Yeah, it’s called a hot streak, bro. Something you know nothing about.”

“Corey, shut the fuck up. This is like the first time you won in a couple of months.”

“Yeah, cause I’ve been in Philly for the past couple of months, while you’re up here sucking dick.” Corey started deep throating an imaginary cock and fondling its invisible balls.

“If we weren’t in the casino right now, I would punch you in the fucking face for being such a dick. Anyway, we’re heading to the diner, you coming?”

I looked down at my cards. A two and a three. Fuck.

“I’m going to play a couple more hands, how about you Vic?”

“Yeah, I’ll give Corey a ride to the diner and we’ll meet you there in fifteen, twenty minutes. But, could you order me French fries with gravy?”

Corey got a ten and a nine.

“Oh, I want chicken soup if they have it, if not then French Toast with a side of bacon.”

“You can order your own, bitch. Alright, I’ll see you guys shortly.”

I busted after hitting on thirteen with an eight. Corey beat the dealer with his nineteen over her eighteen. I lost the next two hands, and Corey went one for two. Then, we decided to cash out. I came into the casino bankrupt, and left with a cool fifty three dollars. Corey did better than I did and left with sixty seven dollars.  

“Dude, I can’t believe we won.” Corey said.

“Me either. At least I have enough money now for a present for my mom.”

December 24

Excerpt from “Regular Show” Episode: “Meat Your Maker”

Rigby: No Don’t.

Mordecai: It’s too late.

Rigby: Come on dude. Don’t…

Mordecai: It’s already in motion.

Rigby: Well, put it out of motion!

Mordecai: You pissed me off…

Rigby: AHHHH!

70mph…

I was on Interstate 81, driving towards Scranton. The yellow rays of sun accentuated the blur of dead brown leaves and gray stripped trees passed by the windows. It’s the only scenery on this drive. That and three papers I had printed out with map quest directions. As I wove through the caravans of eighteen wheelers, pickup trucks, and family sedans, I studied the papers…

Ok, so by the spilt at Dunmore, I comtinue straight then make a slight left on to US 6 towards Carbondale and stay on that for another 12 miles.

My destination: Jermyn, PA. A borough outside of Scranton that I had never even heard of two hours ago.

My friend Carrie texted me earlier today and asked me if I wanted to check out her new apartment. She just moved from Wilkes-Barre to Jermyn with her new girlfriend. She got a job boxing and wrapping candy bars that are sold for school fundraisers. I told her that sounded awesome, and that I would be there as quick as I could.

I met Carrie in high school. She was a year younger than me, and liked to get high and listen to Modest Mouse. She, her twin brother Johnny, and I used to get stoned almost every day together in Johnny’s bedroom. We smoked bong after bong, played Mario Kart Double Dash, and jam out in our band “Spiderman’s Stoned Subjects.” (Spiderman was her cat’s name.) None of us could really play any instruments, nor did we actually have any instruments, besides two drum sticks, or musical talent. We would put on some music like Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, or Say Hi to Your Mom, and pretended to be performers. Johnny was on drums and vocals. Carrie played the air synths, bass, or guitar, while I was on guitar, turn tables, or harmonica. Johnny would be spinning around in his computer chair, bobbing his head up and down trying to keep a beat, while Carrie would be flat on her back staring into the ceiling finger picking the bass, and me with my tongue out, strumming furiously, and rapidly moving my left hand up and down the imaginary neck with no technique at all.

These thoughts ran through my head like a film strip speeding through a projector. I was on US 6 about six miles away from her apartment in Jermyn. I smiled, turned the radio up, took my hands off the wheel, and strummed along until I almost veered into a guardrail.

75mph…

I was about a mile away from Carrie’s apartment passing by a McDonalds before I texted her.

“Yo bitch im a minute away.”

I read over what was left of the directions while trying to dodge the meandering traffic of Jermyn. I made a left onto Rose St., another left onto Grover St. before I parked next to a large oak tree that was gradually displacing the concrete sidewalk next to it.

I texted her again.

“I’m outside.”

Anxious, I took one final peak at the directions to see what her address was. 267 Grover St. Apartment A. I crossed the road over the melting mounds of ice and snow. The sidewalk looked like a pair of acid washed khakis as the rock salt crunched under my boots. I counted the house numbers:

259, 261, 263, and… wait. This house doesn’t have a number on it.

I kept walking. I passed one more nameless house before I came to a double block with a white awning that was wearing a sparkling necklace of melting icicles.

271? What the fuck? Where are the other fucking houses?

My fingers dug through the scraps of cellophane and loose change in my left pocket of my jacket and unearthed my fossil of a phone. I glanced down at the screen. No response.

She’s probably in the shower, or doesn’t have her phone by her, or something.

I took two more walks up and down the block trying to figure out the mystery of where the hell her apartment is before I decided to sit and wait in my car for her to get back to me. I put the key in the ignition, and turned the radio. My nose was running. I stared down at my phone, waiting for it to light up. The minutes passed. 2:10. 2:11. 2:12. 2:13. 2:14. 2:15. I lit up a cigarette and watched a plume of white smoke dance out of the cracked window.

I texted her again.

“Yo Carrie where are you? I can’t find your house.”

Two houses up, a mom in a green Philadelphia Eagles jacket strapped her child into the backseat of her silver minivan. I stared at Carrie’s silver Acura parked outside of the double block hoping it would offer some type of clue to the location of her apartment. It didn’t. I turned the radio off in fear of a dead battery. 2:37. 2:38. 2:39. 2:40. I began to wonder about how detectives and journalists could do this for a living.

Come on Carrie! Where the fuck are you? This is getting to be fucking ridiculous.

Two weeks ago, I watched a documentary on TV where a guy waited in his car that was parked in a parking garage for fourteen hours before he could encounter his subject for an interview. FOURTEEN HOURS! Those people either have to be Buddhist monks or brain-dead vegetables to sit in a car for fourteen hours, looking at the same spot, with nothing to do. Only forty one minutes had passed, and I was already coming up with a conspiracy theory about my cell phone being busted or the towers must be down.

I took one final walk up and down the block, even walking in-between the houses, in search of 267, but it was hopeless. I went back to my car and shot Carrie one final text. The dreaded ultimatum.

“Yo its 2:51. I,m leaving in 15 min cause this is bullshit.”

Tuning into the ambient noise of Jermyn, I started to speculate whether or not anyone had noticed me walking up and down the block. They probably thought I was some kind of child molester, or robber, or a stalker. Does walking up and down the block numerous times and waiting in a parked car for fifty-some minutes qualify as suspicious behavior?

Maybe I’m getting a little too paranoid. And I’m not even stoned! Carrie what the fuck? Where the fuck could you be?

3:01. 3:02. 3:03. 3:04. 3:05. 3:06. I turned the ignition and pulled out of the spot next to the oak tree that was removing the sidewalk. Then, I flipped off all the houses on the block, and headed for the highway.

 

80mph…

     The mountains of the Wyoming Valley whirled past my car as I sped towards home. It was a forty-mile drive from Jermyn back to my front stoop where the faded Santa from my childhood was still face down in the mud eating his own shit. I just wanted to get home, smoke a bowl, and forget about Jermyn. 267. Carrie.

“FUCK! YOU GOD DAMN WHORE!”

My hands started flailing around like two fish on a dock, as I tried to hypothesize why this asshole in a white Honda Accord was driving 60 in the passing lane with no one in front of him.

“Jesus. The left lane is for passing. But you’re clearly not paying any attention to that. Nah, you’re probably too fixated on the GOD DAMN SCENERY! ‘Hey, look honey. It’s another rotting raccoon festering on the side of the road.’ Fuck off.”

The message got through to this guy after I rode his ass for the next three miles. He put his turn signal on in an act of surrender, and slowly guided the Honda into the right-hand lane. Victory. Freedom. The Pontiac awkwardly wheezed as I pushed the accelerator to the floor.

“What now dick?”

As I pulled closer to his car, I quickly imagined him inside with his face flushed soft pink. I imagined his partially bloodshot eyes running back and forth between the rearview mirror and the odometer. Then, his beady black pupils drilling two holes into my skull with his death stare. I imagined him shouting: “Look at this piss ant! Learn how to drive!” or something generic like that as I passed. I imagined him as the villain, wearing all black, moustache and all like Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle. I imagined him as some asshole who deserved it.

My fantasy ended when my scratched and chipped Pontiac pulled alongside his shiny Accord. Of course the guy was the exact opposite of the villain in my daydreams, a 30 something with a tame brown beard and a hearty field of hair wearing a beige wool sweater with a cornflower blue collared shirt underneath it. In the passenger seat, was a woman with short blonde hair in dark-brown sunglasses with oval lenses, presumably his wife. And in the back seat, was their little baby girl in a white fuzzy jumpsuit sleeping securely in the comfort of her child safety seat. The worse part of it was that he was smiling. He didn’t even notice me.

I passed him, and within five minutes, they had disappeared into the horizon like a satellite colliding with the sun. I was the asshole who deserved it. I drove along still thinking of that guy, his family, and his smile, that ignorantly blissful smile that never even knew I was there. I started to relate it to my life, life after college. Adulthood. Bills. Careers. Courtship. Family. Friends.

I kept thinking about the future over and over again:

I doubt I can hold a job because I’ll never be on time. When have I ever been on time? Employers freak out over that shit. They’ll even freak out over being like five minutes late. My dad tolerated it when I worked for him, but he was still pissed about it and that’s why he thinks I’m lazy. I am lazy. I just don’t have the drive to put my shit out there because it feels so hopeless. I mean, who actually cares about what I have to say. But having a wife and kid isn’t the right route either. I don’t think that would make me happy; neither would being a pothead who lives at his parent’s house for who knows how long in this shit hole of a town just getting high and watching cartoons all day. And my friends…

I was scared. I was scared of losing myself, and becoming a worker drone who does nothing but errands and work for a paycheck for the rest of my life. I was scared of becoming a mooch who just sits around living off of his parents’ patience and generosity. I was scared of losing my friends because of the erosion of time and how quickly people can move on and change.

This time, I didn’t even try to parallel park because I didn’t have to. Both of my parents’ cars were gone, so I pulled in right behind my neighbor’s blue Dodge Ram pickup. As I got to the front door, I mined through the layers of loose change, strips of cellophane, and lighters. My phone purred softly like a vibrator running low on batteries as I unearthed it from my vest’s pocket:

1 New Message

4:17pm

Carrie.

“Yo im really sry dood. 1 min i was awake than i sat on the couch and passed out. Fuckin addys man. Dood i feel sooooo bad :(”

I thought about responding but couldn’t think of anything to say that I wouldn’t immediately regret, instead I used the silent treatment. I threw my phone onto the couch; it bounced from cushion to cushion like a rock skipping across the water, before it hit a red and gold throw pillow. I got stoned, played some hacky sack, and watched some Adventure Time as I waited for the family to come home for Christmas Eve dinner. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carrie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last few rays of orange sunlight seeped in through the blinds like mud and water filling up a flooded basement. I had been up for 34 hours on an Adderall binge, and was just waking up from a nap. I felt around the coffee table with my eyes still closed for a bottle of water, a lighter, and a half burnt bowl, all of which were on the coffee table. My mouth was dry and clammy. The salvia in it had congealed to form a thick foamy paste in my mouth. I unscrewed the cap, took a sip of water, and buried my face in the crevice of the grey couch.

     “I feel like shit.”

     I felt like shit. My nose was stuffed. The nostrils were crusted with chalky orange flakes of dried snot and amphetamine. My stomach growled and squirmed. Empty. It felt like it was collapsing in on itself like the core of a white dwarf before it goes supernova. But I couldn’t eat. I didn’t want to eat. It was one of the side effects: Loss of appetite. If you’re only popping or snorting one 30mg pill, it’s not that much of a bother. After 12 hours, you start to feel the hunger pangs welling up from inside you. After 18 hours, you’ll need to force some food down your esophagus because your joints start to cramp up. It sucks. When you’re at this point, someone could offer you a prime cut of three week aged filet mignon, medium rare, with a side of Maine lobster, and you’ll probably gag in your hands and turn it down.

     Exhausted, I thought about making some coffee as I put the lighter to the teal glass pipe and inhaled. The smoke sulked steadily along the edge of the couch before it fell and disappeared into the carpet.

     I groaned, “Shit was time is it?” as I reached for my phone.

 

“4 new messages”

“Swiderski”

     Fuck! Swiderski! What time is it?

I looked at my laptop and realized it was 4:10 pm.

Click. Click.

“Yo bitch im a minute away.”

Click. Click.

“Im outside.”

Click. Click.

“Yo carrie where are you? I can’t find your house.”

Click. Click.

“Yo its 251. Im leaving in 15min cause this is bullshit.”

     Shit, I overslept. Why didn’t my alarm go off?

     I had invited my friend Vic (I call him Swiderski or Swid) over to check out my new digs and chill. I hadn’t seen him in six months because he goes to school somewhere up in Vermont. I only get to hang out with him when he’s on break cause that’s the only time that he is in the area. The last bit of information I told him was that my phone doesn’t receive calls, just texts.

     My head started to pulsate as I took another hit out of the bowl. A side effect of the side effect. “Starvation can cause severe headaches due to the lack of nutrients in a person’s body.” Random facts from Mrs. Pawlenawk’s freshmen Health class sporadically popped into my brain as I exhaled. “Sleep deprivation can cause both visual and auditory hallucinations in an individual.”

     I felt terrible about flaking on Swid. I mean this could have been one of the last few times I get to see him before he moves somewhere farther away. Or, before I move farther away. I still could talk to him on the phone and shit, but it’s not the same. It was already not the same. I had new friends, a new girlfriend, a job, and I didn’t live in Wilkes-Barre. He didn’t live in Wilkes-Barre. People change. It wasn’t his fault or my fault. Shit just happens, and you can’t do anything about it, except try and stay in touch. If that doesn’t work, move on.

     I noticed a shadow shift across the doorway to the kitchen as I started to text.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

  “Yo im really sry dood. 1 min i was awake than i sat on the couch and passed out. Fuckin addys man. Dood i feel sooooo bad :(”

     After five minutes of waiting for a response, I slid the phone on to the coffee table, popped open a 30 mg capsule of Adderall and dumped it into a white ceramic cereal bowl. The orange balls clinked off one another as they rolled around in the dish. It looked like an out of control pinball game where the extras balls keep pouring in. I wondered whether Vic had looked at my message yet. I picked up the round paperclip holder my dad had gotten me for college, and twisted and pressed it against the orange pellets.

     He probably didn’t get it yet. I mean, it’s Swiderski. He knows what it’s like. He understands. Fuck, he’s not the type of person who gets all pissed off over something like this. He’s too laid back for that shit. He isn’t a fucking bitch.

I spilled the Adderall onto the coffee table, picked up my debit card, syphoned off a quarter of it, and started to form it into two lines. I blew my nose, rolled up a dollar bill, snorted it, and got ready to go to my dad’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. 

  December 25

 

“What is sorrow? I thought. What is sorrow but old, worn-out joy?” – Jon Raymond

 

 

Excerpt from Moral Orel: Episode: “Maturity”

Orel: Well I tried not talking about my feelings, too.

Clay: Oh son, behaving like a grown up is many things. First and for most it means doing things that you hate doing.

Orel: Like what, pop?

Clay: Well like dealing with people who make you unhappy, being stressed about things you have no control over, working soul-numbing jobs.

Orel: Ooh

Clay: Then gradually as we endure these hardships and accept them as normal, that's when we finally earned the right to get drunk and be emotionally distant from our families.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coffee pot gurgled on the polished stone countertop as red kielbasa casings, mashed potatoes, gravy, and grizzle were scraped off the floral china and dribbled into the black plastic garbage bin.

     “Oh, the countertop is made out of recycled stone. I’m not sure what types of stone are in it, but it’s called ‘Chocolate Truffle.’” My Aunt Nancy said slowly annunciating each syllable like the TV personalities on the Home & Garden channel.

     My sister Jenn spun her head around, took a sip of pinot grigio, and responded, “Well it looks real schnazzy!”

     “It better after how much it cost!”

     The women in the kitchen burst into laughter as the assembly line of female hands scraped, washed, dried, and put away the dishes. The men sleepily drank their beers watched a repeat of the ’95 Rose Bowl game where Penn State beat Oregon; the last Penn State team to go undefeated. A traditional Swiderski holiday dinner, well almost.

     For me, Holliday family dinners with the Swiderski clan always came at a price. I’m not talking about family feuds, shitty cooking, or an aunt or uncle who has one too many. No, the reason why I never liked these soirees is because I usually spend most of my time outside by myself. It’s not because I hate my family or because I’m anti-social. (Not to say that it hasn’t helped me avoid the occasional awkward small-talk conversation with an aunt, uncle or cousin. You know, the conversation where you’re giving the generic questions and responses because there’s no common ground, but you still feel obliged to speak because your family.) It’s because I have asthma and horrible allergies, the most annoying being my allergy to pets.

Whenever I am in a house that has an animal (more specifically, any mammal that is covered with hair or fur), a horrible chain reaction starts to unfold. First, red blotchy hives start to show up on my face. Then, I start to wheeze. Next, the eyes start to water and become bloodshot, which is usually followed by a runny nose and a box of tissues. At this point, I usually have to take two hits off my Albuterol inhaler, flood my eyes with Naphcon, and ingest two pink pills of Benadryl. If I continue to stay submerged in the toxic atmosphere, the Albuterol inhaler becomes worthless and I have to take a full on nebulizer treatment to keep my lungs from closing up. It usually ends with me having to go home because I’m too sick. But, every now and then, I’ll end up spending a night in the hospital. (This happened to me a couple of times because I was too sick and too far away for my mom to take me home.)This condition caused me to spend the most of the time during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners outside. If it was mild and dry, it wasn’t so bad. I credit it with helping me win the 2001 and 2002 Knights of Columbus Northeast Free Throw Championships, due to the number of hours spent shooting at the basketball hoops that hung around whosever house we were at. What made me despise these get-togethers wasn’t my family, but miserable hours I spent outside huddled up trying to keep warm or dry in inclement weather. When I was younger, I wondered if I was the only kid who had to wear long-johns to Christmas dinner or if there were other kids out there like me.

But not this year; I left the long-johns at home. The high pitched yelps of my Nana and Pop-Pop’s poodle were absent. All that could be heard was the constipated belches of the coffee maker bubbling along on the chocolate truffle countertop in the kitchen.

I got up from the lacquered kitchen table and stood on the outskirts of the living room as Kijana Carter exploded for an 83 yard touchdown run on Penn State’s first possession.

My dad took a sip of Coors Light and exclaimed to my Uncle Rick, “It’s sad that they can’t even come close to doing this anymore.”

“Well, they can on defense.”

“Sure, but on offense they’re putrid. This team scored 38 points in this one game. They can’t score 38 points in three or four games anymore. Peeyew!” he said with glee in his eyes as he looked at my uncle and pinched his nose.

“Well that boils down to a lot of things: coaching, recruiting, academics. But, they just can’t develop talent like they used to. I mean look at the team they’re playing next week, Florida…”

My Uncle Joe turned and made eye contact with me as the white foam clinged to his half-grey, half-brown mustache. Small Talk.

“Matt! What’s going on, buddy? Still frostbitten from being up in Vermont?”

“Hey, what’s up? Nah, I’m warming up thanks. How’s it going with you?”

He paused and took a sip of his black Stegmaier Winter Warmer before he responded.

“Good, good. Can’t complain. Your aunt just bought a new countertop, and of course I had to install it. Besides that, I’m just working on trying to finish the basement. How about yourself? You graduate this spring, right?”

“Yeah, if all goes according to plan.”

I had not work on my senior project since I got home; I had five months left to get it done, anyways.

“So what do you plan to do afterwards?”

“Um, I don’t know. Well, I’m not sure yet. I think I’m going to take a year off of school and then go for my masters. Right now, school is just getting real old.”

“Well, you got to do something. Your mom and dad can’t pay for everything. Plus, everyone has to work. It’s part of growing up.”

“Yep, yep.”

I was looking for a way out of this conversation when I noticed my grandfather. My Pop-Pop. He was sitting in a maroon wingback chair with his legs splayed out on the matching footstool. They looked like two fallen trees that were tired of standing. His light blue eyes sank into the back of his skull as he rested his chin in the palm of his right hand as he watched The Blue Band play “Fight on State” on the TV.

“Hey, um I’m going to go over and sit next to Pop-Pop. He looks like he can use some company.

“Yeah, I got to go take the trash out anyways before your aunt kills me.”

This was the first time I had seen my grandfather since what has become known in our family as “The Incident.”

About two months ago, my Pop-Pop took his small French Poodle, Ginger outside so she could do her business, just the everyday routine. While Ginger was searching for the best patch of grass to piss on, my grandfather next door neighbor yelled over his fence, “Hey, those dogs are out.” Earlier in the day, two dogs, a Rottweiler and a German Shepard, had escaped from their pen; the owner of the dogs was on vacation, and his elderly mother was watching them.  Before my Pop-Pop could even process the statement, the German Shepard had charged and got a hold of Ginger. He shook her back and forth like a teddy bear, but instead of soft white stuffing there was blood. He hurled himself onto the back of the dog, and started swinging with balled fists at the dog’s head. A few landed, but the pain wasn’t enough persuasion for the Shepard to let go. The Shepard started rolling around on the ground like an alligator in a death roll as Ginger’s high pitched yelps of agony echoed off the bricks and blue vinyl siding into the street. The Shepard’s spiked collar sliced my grandfather’s forearms causing them to bleed. Finally the Sheppard let go and ran off after the next door neighbor hopped the fence and smashed it in the back with a wooden stake that was meant to hold up tomato plants. A small puddle of syrupy blood started to form under Ginger’s mutilated body transforming her fur from white to pink to red. My Nana broke into tears after arriving at the crime scene; she was inside when what went down went down. He gathered the body his little baby, his Ginger and wrapped her up in a blanket. My Grandfather, with tears flooding down his face, drove frantically down the highway to the animal hospital, repeating, in a low murmur, the phrase, “I wish I had done more,” over and over and over again. The story made the front page of the local newspaper.

“How could he have done more?” I wondered as I walked over to him. He took his dog outside to go to the bathroom. He wasn’t expecting a German Sheppard to come bolting down the side of the yard, and attack his dog. It’s a freak accident. There was no time to prepare, just react. Plus, he’s an 84 year old man. He’s my grandfather. My Pop-Pop. He was the man who survived the streets of New York City, alone, homeless, and parentless when he was 10. He was the guy who punched a his commanding officer in the face while he was in the Navy, and hitchhiked 7858 miles back to Nanticoke so he could be with my Nana. He was the guy who took his grandson fishing multiple times every summer since he was 7. He didn’t take shit from nobody. He was one of the only people from my family who I actually admired. I admired him even when he blamed me for running over the bait bucket, or when he turned the boat 180 degrees around because I was catching fish and he wasn’t. I wanted to tell him, “You did all you could have done. Don’t beat yourself up over this cause you don’t deserve it.” And suffocate him with a hug.

I sat on the tan plastic fold out chair next to him as I contemplated telling him what I was thinking, something meaningful.

“Hey Pop-Pop. So have you been out golfing recently?”

 

 

■

     Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt!

     I was outside the front door of Keith’s apartment, trying to look inside through the peephole. The floor shook under my feet as the bass thumped on the other side of the door.

     Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt!

     The door swung open and bounced off the side of the doorway with a loud smack.

     “Dude, how about you go a little fucking easier on the doorbell next time huh?” Keith said while tilting his mirrored aviators down to the tip of his nose.

     “Well, then why don’t you answer it quicker, you dick muncher?”

     “Um, MAYBE it’s because I’m having a fucking party? And by the way, why aren’t you dressed like a juicehead guido?”

     “Cause I’m not from fucking Jersey. The better question is why are you dressed like one?”

     “Well, it is a Jersey Shore themed party. I probably shouldn’t let you in, but because you’re my friend and you’re in from Vermont, I’ll let you slide.”

     The apartment was filled with the smell of sweat mixed with hair gel, beer, and perfume. It reminded me of the smell that comes out of those Asian haircut places in the mall. Instantly, I was surrounded by guys wearing wife-beaters or shirts with the collars popped, and girls with poofs in stilettos wearing hiked up skirts, each trying to imitate his or her favorite character from The Jersey Shore. 

     “Ok, so there’s beer in the fridge, and if you’re not into that, we got my very special ‘Keith juice’ in the cooler.”

     “Word. Could I just get a glass of water?”

     A girl with bottle blonde hair, wearing a neon green tank-top and a pink Playboy trucker’s hat tilted her head back in disbelief. Her green eyes were buried under globs of mascara and silver eye shadow.

     “Excuse me, but did I just hear you say you wanted a glass of water? What are you some kind of pussy or something?” She said in a high-pitched, valley girl voice.

     “I don’t drink alcohol, do drugs, or anything like that. God is so awesome and wonderful that I don’t even feel the need to do those things. The only alcohol that touches these lips is the blood of Christ. Our lord and savior. Have you accepted Jesus into your life?”

     Her green eyes stared blankly back at me under globs of mascara and silver eye shadow before they locked onto Keith.

     “Uh… Keith where’s your bathroom again?”

     “Straight down the hallway.”

     Her slender frame disappeared behind the two stout muscular guys who were standing next to the beer pong table. Keith’s face morphed from carefree to serious immediately after she left the room.

     “Dude, come on. Why do you gotta do that?”

     “What?” I groaned sarcastically.

     “Just stop being a dick. She’s my friend.”

     “She’s your friend? You used to rip on people like that all the time.”

     Keith gave me the death stare. If laser beams could have come out of his eyes, my skull would have been scattered on the floor amongst all of the bottle caps and crushed potato chips.

     “Well, if you actually give them a chance maybe you would actually get laid at one of these things. The whole cynical asshole routine hasn’t really worked. Has it?”

     “Actually, it has kept me STD free for the past six years.”

     “Yeah, and lady free.”

     “Well, that’s why god gave humans hands. Praise Jesus!”

     The seriousness on Keith’s evaporated like the fog on a windshield after the defroster warms up.

     “To each his own. Just make sure it’s in moderation.”

     I took a blue solo cup off the stack in the kitchen, put it under the faucet, and filled it with water.

     “So you’re serious about just having water?”

     “Yeah, I popped some vikes in the car on my way over, so no alcohol for me, just vicodin and weed.”

     Keith looked back over one of his freckled shoulders.

     “About that. You can’t smoke in here tonight man. The girl I’m with isn’t down with that type of stuff, so we gotta keep it hush hush.”

     “But, isn’t she going to find out down the line?”

     A chorus of “KEITH” exploded from the living room like a lit match hitting black powder.

     “KEITH! KEITH! You’re up for beer pong.”

     “Nah, cause I don’t plan on seeing her after tonight. If everything goes right, I can check Asian off the list.”

     Keith turned to the right and walked out of the kitchen as I trailed behind.

     “ALRIGHT, WHO PLANS ON GETTING THEIR ASSES HANDED TO THEM?! KEITH ENTERING BEAST MODE NUH-NUH-NOOOOWWWWW!” He yelled as he double high fived the guy next to him.

     I started to wade through the crowd when I noticed Corey grinding with some brunette in a short black dress. Corey was already sloppy and the girl in the black dress wasn’t much better. Their movements were clumsy and erratic, like two flies trapped between a window pane and a screen. I pointed to Corey over the mass of gelled and puffed out hair that was occupying the majority of the living room.

     “SWIDLY-DIDDLY-DOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he howled while motioning with his free hand for me to come over.

     I politely declined the offer by shaking my head back and forth. I stared at him, moved my eyebrows up and down, and gave him thumbs up. Even though I wanted to talk to him, I knew he was too preoccupied, which he acknowledged with a slight tilt of his head and a smirk.

     Instead, I found an open spot on the couch next to Dave, who was wearing a black button down shirt and dark blue jeans.

     “Yo, Dave. What’s good with you?”

     “Eh, not too much. Takin’ a break from beer pong. What about you?”

     “I just got here like five minutes ago.”

     “Oh, that’s cool. So I don’t think I’ve ever seen Vinny or Pauly D in flannel before.” he said as he giggled into his beer.

     “No one told me it was a Jersey Shore party.”

     “Eh, it’s cool. I wasn’t expecting you to get dressed up anyways. Pretty bitchin party though.”

     “Yeah.”

     “A lot better than the ones we used to have in high school.”

     Pink, yellow, and blue lights slid across Dave’s face, as the people on the dance floor fist-pumped alongside each other.  

     “What do you mean?”

     “Well, they were fun, but they were also a pain in the ass. We’re not outside freezing our asses off around a campfire with a random assortment of beer and liquor we copped off our parents. We don’t have to worry about the cops anymore, or our parents finding out. And plus, it’s not one big sausage fest with like two girls there.”

     My throat felt dry from talking, which made me feel like I was going to puke. My teeth clenched together before I took a sip of water, which saved Christmas dinner from ending up on the dance floor.

     “You ok?”

     “Yeah. But I think you’re wrong. I mean, so what if it was cold. And so what if it was a sausage fest? At least, we were together and could actually talk to each other instead of screaming over music. Sure we had to worry about the cops and our parents, but didn’t that add to the fun of it? And who gives a shit about girls being there. Fuck! I would rather have Matt M. here over every fucking girl that’s at this party!”

     I took another sip of water; Dave uncomfortably took a swig of his beer.

     “Yeah, I do miss that kid. He’s one funny fuck.”

 

■

     I was driving home up the San Souci with the heater on full blast. My damp black hoodie rested on the passenger seat next to me. Corey had accidentally knocked a half full cup of beer on to it and the rest of the coats that were piled up on the floor of Keith’s bedroom. 

     I just passed the gas station next to Buttonwood Bakery, when I noticed the red and blue lights twinkling in the rearview mirror. I pulled the Pontiac over to the side of the road, and waited for the flashlight to shine through the window.

     Just stay calm. You’re cool. Everything’s hidden. Act natural.

     I rolled my window down to and saw one of Hanover’s finest decked out in a black leather jacket shining a black Maglite straight into my eyes.

     “License, registration, and proof of insurance.”

     I dug my wallet out of my back pocket, got the envelope, which contained all my information, out of the glove box, and handed it to him. He was a younger cop, maybe in his thirties. He went to his car to check my information out, then he came back and handed it to me through the window.

     “So do you know how fast you were going back there?”

     “50.”

     “Do you know what the speed limit is on this road?”

     “45.”

     The cop cleared his throat as he scanned the car with the flashlight looking for anything out of the ordinary so he can fuck me. At this point, my heart started to beat fast and heavy. It felt like it was trying to punch its way out of my chest by breaking through the rib cage. I wondered how many people have been prematurely killed because of a heart attack that was caused by a routine traffic stop.

     “So where are you coming from tonight?” he said with suspicion emanating off of every word.

     “I was at a party, which was being held at my friend’s apartment on Franklin St. in Wilkes-Barre. And now, I’m just heading back home.”

     “Have anything to drink?”

     “Just water.”

     He scanned my body from head to toe before he asked me to step out of the vehicle.

     “Alright, Victor, right now I am going to issue you a field sobriety test. I have reason to believe that you are under the influence of alcohol. Your eyes are a little glazed and you see a bit out of it. Plus, your car reeks of beer man!”

     Fucking Corey… God fucking dammit. Alright, you can do this; if you don’t, then your future is fucked. You’re not that fucked up. Just numb. Here’s where the years of hacky sack will pay off. Stay calm, look sober, and pretend like you’re responsible.

     It didn’t look good. I was a young kid who smelled like beer driving home from a party at one in the morning. That in itself was probably enough proof for incarceration in most townships and boroughs around the valley.

     “Alright. First, I’m going to need you to follow the tip of this pen with your eyes without moving your head. Do you understand the instructions?” He was reading off a laminated index card, which he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket.

     My anxiety gave way to growing competitiveness. It felt like a game. Him vs me. It felt like I was playing a high stakes game of Settlers of Catan, except my future was on the line instead of a joint or two. The only advantage I had was that he thought I was drunk, and I wasn’t. Was I fucked up and driving under the influence? Of course, but not drunk and out of control. My pupils followed the tip of the pen from right to left, left to right, south to north, north to south.

     He seemed satisfied and moved onto the straight line exam, which tests for balance.

     “Okay Victor, I want you to walk 20 paces heel to toe, turn around, and then walk another 20 paces back. Do you understand this test?”

     “When you say ‘heel to toe’, do you want my heel to touch my toe or just be near it?”

     “If it’s near it that fine.”

     “And when you say ‘turn around’ are you counting that as part of my 20 paces? Or do I take 20 paces, turn around, and take the final 20 paces?”

     “The latter.”

     “Officer, could you just demonstrate for me how it’s done? I don’t want to get tripped up on some little technicality.”

     The young cop took an abbreviated version of the 20 pace test, as I studied his movements in the late night cold.

     At least he’s enjoying this as much as I am. Walking in a straight line back and forth on the side of a road at one in the morning in the freezing cold. Greatest Christmas ever!

     “Alright, Vic, your turn.”

     I imitated him the best I could, and counted each step in my head. My boots squeaked along, the rubber heels chaffing against the rubber toes, until I reached my final destination.

     He skipped the next test (standing on one leg while counting to thirty) and moved onto his last hope, or my salvation; you could look at it either way.

     “Okay Vic, last but not least I’m going to issue you a breathalyzer test. You can refuse it but…”

I eagerly interrupted: “That’s fine I’ll take it.”

I enthusiastically blew into the black electronic device as it beeped and hissed. After the process was completed, he led me back to my car, where I awaited judgment. In my opinion, it had gone pretty well, for being my first sobriety test.

“Am I free to go officer?”

“Well I guess you think you passed, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is what I think.”

He paused and studied the empty roadway in each direction with a look of concern.

“Well, I am going to let you go even though you seem a little over the limit, because you are so close to home. I’m just going to let you off with a warning for speeding. Next time, if you’re going to go to the party and have a few, just call a taxi or get a friend to pick you up.”

“Will do officer. This experience has been a valuable lesson, which I will certainly remember and learn from.”

A relieved feeling washed over my body. I felt like I had attained a kind of spiritual enlightenment after going through those trials and tribulations. I had gotten away with it. I had won.

The young cop handed me the pink warning slip before the beam of his flashlight fixated upon something white sticking out of the center console.

“Is that your pack of cigarettes?”

“Yes, they are officer.”

“You know Vic, you’re a smart and good kid. You should quit those things.”   

“Thank you officer, I will work on that. Have a great night!”

He gives my license and registration back through the open driver side window.

“You too.”