Babe

I was not until I was in my twenties that I finally understood the nature of the relationship between my grandfather and his wife. My grandparents divorced when I was just a few years old. The only memory of my grandpa being at the house when it was still called Grandma and Grandpa’s involves a swimming pool and family members tearing it down. Right now I am seeing that pool as I did when I was four, it seems twenty feet tall. Something out of a circus. Too big and too dangerous for use by average citizenry so it had to come down, flagrantly in violation of many city ordinances. Neighbors and Councilmen called for its immediate destruction. All nonsense, of course. This is how that simple vision evolved into a memory in my head.

After that, when it was just Gramma Nonna’s house, I remember the greenest grass I have ever set my toes in. I would run and slide and roll around in it. It was so thick it held me up, cushioned me from the hard clay below. I remember jumping over the sprinkler. I remember rolling along the sidewalk on a skateboard on my stomach and announcing to anyone driving by or within earshot that they were indeed Polaks. I did not know what a Polak was but my Grandma thought everyone was one, and so did I. And I made sure they knew it. I even made a song out of it, more of a march really, which was just the word Polak repeated as I bobbed my head from right to left and stomped my feet. Good fun until my parents overheard, they pulled me inside and explained I should not use that word, not outside anyway.

That’s one of those stories that gets told every Christmas that always brings Gramma Nonna to tears from laughing so hard.

Grandpa had a house in the old part of Schererville closer to us. It had a carport. Which if you know anything about that part of Schererville, it is pretty much mandatory to have a carport. Grandpa shared the house with Ann. So the house was called Grandpa & Ann’s, pronounced Granpaenannes. As far as I knew Ann was just some younger lady that was always at Grandpas house. I was so young when this system was introduced to me that I never thought to question it. Together they moved to Florida then Arizona when I was still very young. We only saw them once every few years for reunions, weddings and certain funerals. Their distance further removing their arrangement from my consciousness. Even now I do not know for sure if there was an affair that broke up the marriage between my grandparents. They are still together living in Arizona. She has always been a nice lady and my grandpa has always been a decent, if not slightly odd guy. A few years ago they were in town for a family reunion. Grandpa had taken to calling me “Babe.” Which I found curious and endlessly amusing. It was at that reunion I leaned over and asked my mom about Ann. I was 24 years old and it was the first time their relationship had peaked my curiosity. My mom, appropriately surprised, informed me they had been married for about twenty years. I, also surprised, wondered why no one had told me that before.

Plans and Arrangements

The first heavy snow of the season fell before school let out that day. A big snowfall for us is four or five inches. Not so impressive in comparison to higher altitudes, but more than enough for what I had in mind, especially with the plows forming our own transient Everest’s on the corner and at the dead end of our street. All the kids would gather there at the only unobstructed hill in the land, possibly the highest incline in northwest Indiana as far I knew. Together each winter we would take on the stretch the best we could with plastic and metal sleds, sections of tarp and garbage can lids. This evening with the sun racing out of sight, however, I could not wait to get off the bus and run home, get suited up and head out with my snowboard. A real snowboard. Well, as real as I knew existed at the time. I bought it from one of the older boys earlier in the fall with money I begged from my mom. The deal was that it was my gift from Santa that year. That’s how it worked pretty much every year. Anything my sister or I wanted would just be counted as our Christmas present. We would not expect anything else when the actual morning came other than candy and small things bought at Walgreens. By age nine or ten my sister and I gave up on rushing to open gifts at the first light. There was a mutual understanding of sleeping in.

We rushed off the bus, leaping bushes, mounds of snow and door steps to get in to change into our snow suits and torn vinyl moon boots. Sandwich bags were placed between layers of socks to keep the water and frostbite out as long as a paper thin piece of plastic could. It was unusual, even unheard of, for Grandma Morris to baby-sit us after school. I kissed her hello and slammed off to get ready to hit the slopes not giving it a second thought. Grandma Morris was my dad’s mom, we called her Gramma Nonna. She tried in vain to corral us, telling us we had to wait for our parents before we could go outside. My sister and I went hours each day outside and at friend’s house without parental consent or even notice so this made no sense to us. She was adamant that we wait. So I compromised by sliding around in our backyard in the snow and down the patched of ice that stretched from the house to the end of the yard. The liquid exited a pipe that ejected our waste water from the house. Yes, we’d sled on our own poopies.

Finally Gramma Nonna packed us up into her car. By this time we knew something was up but she would not give us a clue. She just said our parents would explain when we get there. Wherever we were going. We knew the route. Possibly thousands of times we took the same road to and from my mom’s mother’s house. Grandma. She practically raised us. She is who would be there waiting for us after school if dad was away driving and mom had to work. We knew the paper factory a block away from the house that caught on fire more times than should be reasonable. We knew the radio antennae in her back yard and the giant swing set, envy of every neighbor kid for the past fifty years. The shed that dad built and we all painted. The little white house on Lindberg Street in Griffith. Right next to the railroad tracks.

She took us inside. My mom and dad were standing around, as were her sisters and my cousins. I was still in my giant snowsuit, boots and gloves. I do not remember if it was my sister or I that asked where Grandma was and I do not remember who said that she had died. I do remember my dad laughing. Not laughing at me but just out of the sheer shock of it. An amused and embarrassed little laugh I inherited that comes out at seemingly inappropriate times and mostly indicates the inability to properly express empathy in certain situations. Like my dad, I do not know what to do or say when someone else is really upset, so we either say nothing or laugh. The tears and crying actually exploded out of me. 0-60 in less than a second. It hurt. Actual pain. My sides and my lungs. Like I got kicked in the back. My condition could easily be described as hysterical.

We were peeled from our suits and told to watch TV and relax. I lay on the couch shielding my face from my sister sitting in the chair to my right. I do not know why I hid from her, maybe to try to be a strong big brother. Maybe I do not know how to comfort people so I hide it so not to have to put people in the position to have to try and comfort me. That does not sound right either.

The next couple days are just a blur of overhearing plans and arrangements. Calls from out of town relatives. Walking around in a stifling fog, like I am wrapped in a giant sandwich bag, separate but not protected, not any way different than I was yesterday to anyone that does not know, but everyone should know, just by looking at me, looking at us. I do not want to know that she called the doctor, the same doctor she had for decades before, whose office I can still smell, the smell of chemicals, green leather chairs and wood paneling. I do not want to know that she begged for help while having a heart attack on the phone, dead before the ambulance could arrive. I do not want to hear about who is going to live in the house or how much it will sell for. There are repairs to do. This is the original carpet, it will have to go.

I find it weird and disconcerting buying new socks for a funeral. There should be a steel box next to the first aid kit in the trunk with these kinds of things. New dark socks, a tie, tissues, breath mints and an umbrella; it should all be ready. This is no time to have to go to places with checkout lines. Kids should not be allowed to play at recess while we wait in a van for the funeral home to open. It should most definitely not be raining, washing my snow away.

A week later it did snow again. We got dressed up again and headed out with my still untested snowboard. This time we ran a little slower. We spent an hour constructing a ramp out of snow, paying close attention to structural integrity and desirable launch angles. After the snow was stacked and pounded into shape and the path cleared and extra snow shoveled with sleds into the bald spots where the earth shone through the white it was time to strap in. There were some doubts but I was not prepared for the total let down that was this cheap piece of plastic. Slow and unsteerable. If I could wiggle my way to hit the ramp straight on I had to jump off of the top of it to achieve any amount of hang time. In so doing the ramp was as good as crushed under the force. My back and behind hurt from all the falling onto wet and frozen ground. I wanted to smash it. I tried to break it over the tree stump next to the road at the top of the hill. Snow crept under my gloves and into my boots. I finally swung and launched the snowboard down the hill and into the trees. Just another in a series of days that did not end the way I hoped.

My second freshman year

Back then I found it to be the most infuriating piece of self propelled garbage, but thirteen years later I find time has put some muscle into polishing up the memories of my first car, a black 1985 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. It was a huge event the day my parents drove it off the lot. The car was five years old by then but to me it was from the future. That first night it was ours dad took us south. He opened it up on I65, testing the turbo, the on-board computer, the cruise control, the power everything and automatic headlights that would switch off the brights if an oncoming car was detected within 200 yards. Windows down; it was all smiles as the world rolled under us.

Another five years passed before it became mine. By then it had faded into an example of under engineered mid-80s American car design. She was big and slow and handled like a tugboat. The driver’s seat suffered from scoliosis so l was forced to drive with one of those stupid postures normally associated with the want-to-be gangsters of the world. My hard-ass lean duped by my complete lack of ability to intimidate anyone, now, and at age 16. The transmission would slip, so if I hit the gas from a stop sign the engine would rev before the car lurched forward. Later the engine would die five or six times on any given trip. Out of necessity I developed the skill of putting the car in neutral, restarting it and putting it back in gear all while never slowing down. It was mine. The parts that fell off; muffler, trim, rust, assorted nuts and bolts, those were mine too.

I enjoyed the responsibility giving my friends a ride to school each day. Never wanting to leave anyone disappointed; my sophomore year I had zero absences. During the really cold months it took exactly the amount of time to drive from my house to Jake’s house for the car to warm up. Thanks. I would have preferred it that if I had to suffer then everyone should too, but the Thunderbird would not have it that way. Jake was first so he got shotgun. Also because he would make mix tapes of new music. At the time it was all ska. We would pick up Derek and Funk and Randy and dance all the way to school, early enough for breakfast in the cafeteria. They had the best French toast sticks. After school it took a half hour to get out of the parking lot. Hundreds of kids in cars and one exit. Once or twice a week while sitting there waiting for the light Sam and I would touch bumpers, one of us foreword the other in reverse, smoke from our spinning tires filling the parking lot. Once out, it was band practices or skateboarding, trampoline at Liz’s or smoking cigarettes at the Schoon’s house. The evening always ended with coffee. I could drink a pot of coffee until 2am and still be able to go directly to bed with no problem.

That year I was able to drive but still technically a freshman. I did not earn enough credits to move up. So I was not allowed to park in the student parking lot. I had to sneak into staff parking or park just outside of school property and jump the fence. My mom was working as a manager for Burger King at the time. For some reason one of the promotional toys- a pink pig- ended up in my car. Soon it was impaled on the antennae, our sun bleached and rain soaked mascot. One afternoon we came out to find the pig had been set on fire. The black and pink mush left smoldering on my hood. It did not take long to figure out that Jason Dekker and his friends were the arsons involved. We never found out why. Jason Dekker, even though I have never had a conversation with him, really disliked me. Every single day he would either stare me down, shoulder bump me or flat-out threaten me. I would really love to know what I did to garner that kind of animosity. He scared the shit out of me. One of Jason Dekker’s accomplices, another person I have never spoken a word to and do not even know his name, was in English class with me and Randy. After class Randy, Funk and I would mill around by the door. Every time that kid walked by Randy would shout ‘burnt the pig!!’ in his direction. This went on for weeks. Finally the kid had enough. He walked right up to me, slammed me against the wall and told me “I didn’t burn the fucking pig but if I did, next time your ass would be in the car too.” I blinked and laughed since his statement made no damn sense. He was not responsible, but if he had, next time he would kill me. You can see the caliber of people we were dealing with.

Not long after we were on our way back from the mall. Dekker and his little buddy pulled up alongside of us. They in a doorless and roofless Jeep that looked like it was just dredged from the bottom of a lake, us in the old Tbird that did not look that much better; threats and arm-waving ensued. It is not the worst case in which I felt like I was not strong enough to defend myself, but it is in the top five. I veered off and headed down back streets in my neighborhood. We lost them. I was shaking. In front of my closest friends I had to face the fact I was a weak.

Even though I would drive anyone around, the Thunderbird was mine and Derek’s. We went everywhere. When not sampling one of Jake’s tapes it was either Minor Threat or Operation Ivy that we listened to, relentlessly. We made up lyrics to the songs and choreographed dances. Once we changed the words to every song on Out of Step to be about candy or chocolate.

My first freshman year was spent trying to earn a reputation as an entertaining dolt. I was too cool to do homework or have anything that resembled intelligence. There is little reason why I thought this kind of behavior would attract the attention I was looking for from peers or girls. I truly believe that mentality in which being ignorant is something to be proud of is what is fundamentally wrong with humanity. That period of my life is a snapshot of the typical American idiot. I consider myself lucky for finding friends with character that pulled me out of that way of thinking. Never before then had I thought being smart was a sensible exercise. I wanted to be clever without the bookwork. Lazy wit.

I slept in class, threw spit wads, smoked in woodshop, bragged about drugs or drinking and hung around other idiots that thought it was a good idea to do the same. Todd and I would chew tobacco and light pencils on fire in Mrs. Wrona’s English class. She had no sense of smell. So, as well as having the worst breath a living human being could have, she could not detect the greasy spit stench in her room. Under constant attack from highly potent stink bombs; the principal would have to pull us out of class since she could not detect the reason we were all gagging. I talked back to first year teachers. I was the kid that if I did happen across something that made everyone laugh once, I would repeat it, ad nauseam, until it was completely free of humor; a joke on life support. Man, I sucked. Now I never ever repeat a joke, even when asked. I try not to ever laugh at my own jokes either. It’s funnier that way. I’m very dry now.

I even felt being held back a grade was a badge of honor. It took a few months and it took some good people. Derek, Ryan, Randy, Adam, Jake, Sam, Bob, Becky, Joy, Randi, Traci, Ruth, Lauren; the list goes on. So many hours spent talking and learning, skating and challenging each other. I never told them before; they made me not a better person, but a person. Not perfect, but trying. Not smart, but learning. Not complete, but scrambling for the pieces. Thanks guys.

But I digress. This started as the story of how I met Derek. It was the first day of my second freshman year. The first day of my first high school art class. I happened to sit at a table with Derek, Ryan and Joy. I think we all hit it off immediately. I do not remember which fashion trend Derek was into at the time, I think it was his pre-punk, post-Nirvana phase. Long brown hair dyed with cool-aid, and flannels. Yep, that was it. Ryan always had the trench coat. Joy always with the gigantic raver pants that enveloped her shoes so it looked like her tiny body was planted in the linoleum. I loved her right away. I had my green army jacket, soon to be labeled in black Sharpie with the classic punk bands that were the required listening for every 15 year old skateboarder. The four of us spent the year talking and drawing. We concocted farcical plans and scoffed at our teachers for having the nerve to try to teach us art.

I never really considered how fortunate I was to have flunked. The kids I met that I still cherish and shaped my life in a positive way. In that art class were so many great minds. I swell with joy that I know these people and know that to this day most of them continue to be great artists. Erik would make his crazy drawings and rap nonsense continuously. He still does that.

Before I turned 16 I had my learners permit. Once while in drivers-ed the instructor, after my lesson, let me pick up my guitar and amp, then go pick up Derek; then dropped us both off at Tony’s house to jam. That was so cool of that guy. The three of us played Nirvana songs in Tony’s garage. My guitar amp was actually a rigged up car amplifier running into a box with two speakers, something that is supposed to sit in the trunk of a car. I had my Peavey strat and Derek with his awesome Lotus. Derek has always been ten times the guitar player I ever was. He practiced, that’s why. I knew right away he was a special talent. I was fortunate to be able to work with him. We wrote songs together. Randy took over on drums, together we formed out first band. Your Nation. I came up with that, you can see I was pretty clever, even back then. We played covers of the Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols and Ramones. I think we had just the one original song, Sam’s House. About a party at, well, Sam’s house. The song is lost to me now but I remember the melodies that Derek came up with just knocked me out. Simple punk rock, but so good. I wonder where the footage of our one and only show is now. Derek and Randy, it was great blowing up amps with you two.

Trails and shortcuts

We grew up in motion. No one had a plan other than to keep moving. We walked under the canopy of trees and rolled through the weeds. Skipping over puddles and drawing maps in the sand. Up and down the same roads until our conversations turned to dust and gravel. We needed bikes. When leaving tire marks on the driveway was all we needed to say. A perfect epitaph, silence underlined. Dirt jumps and muddy trails. No hands, a warm day when the sunshine and rain comes down in equal measures just before the clouds could run off with the sky. I saw you, I was there. The road rings with reverb and oscillates with nearly silent measures begging for us to add a rhythm. It is only together we can sing. Plucking notes from the bushes, we ride together, hoping the refrain does not end before our legs get tired. Trails and shortcuts memorized. Towns too distant for sidewalks. We needed cars. If you are ready I will come get you. We shout the songs we have heard a hundred times. Tapes loop, arms out the window we watch everything go by again. This time is special. This time it is our call, the voice on the other end is the hiss of tires on road. The beat of turn signals, hoping the blinks in front of us line up with ours, just once. Neglected suspensions and broken wiper blades; we drum our way through all the time in the world.

Holly, raise your hand.

Any time not in school was spent at my grandmother’s house in Griffith, one block from the paper mill that still stands. If you have ever been there you know that smell, that Griffith smell. My sister and I were always being baby sat by my grandma. I can remember the first time I noticed the trains that shook the house. It may have been the first time I was allowed to sleep outside the crib and graduate to the living room couch. That first night I was kept up by the constant trains going by a hundred yards from the dark little house. It felt oppressive, like no one could possibly rest like this. I lied awake staring at the ceiling and watching the leaves on the potted plants quiver with a tight rhythm. It is amazing how fast I got accustomed to it. After only a few nights the trains ceased to shake me from sleep and became my nocturne, a sweet resonating drone humming through not just me, but all of us.

Rhyming with Cubes

Pubes. Every single time a new euphemism enters the lexicon of school and neighborhood kids I am the last one to find out about it. Instead of politely explaining to me the definition of a word I have happened to never come across in my travels, the event is always a chance for those to pounce on the opportunity to embarrass me. It always works too. Even though I am fully aware I am not usually the smartest person in any given room I still, naturally, hate to be made the fool. Especially over something I have no control of. I see it like being scoffed at for not knowing what is around the bend just because I did not make it around the bend yet- I’m getting there, leave me alone.

Lee Ann was a nice girl. Well, no she was not. She ended up being nice enough but when I was 10 she would fight me. She was 17. Lee Ann, all of 190 pounds and well under 5 feet tall, was surprisingly agile. It would not take very long before I was on my back being straddled, pinned to the ground. To this day I still do not like it rough.

One afternoon I was with the older kids, Lee Ann included, when in typical non-sequiter fashion, she asked if I had any pubes. I had no idea if I did or did not. Absolutely no clue to what she was referring; I could infer by her tone that pubes was something that I should have but for some reason the word, pubes, onomatopoetically sounded mathematical to me. Probably due to rhyming with cubes. Even after it was explained to me, that she wanted to know about my regional hair growth, I still pictured the hair geometrically. Each hair leaving the follicle a perfect square. Like hundreds of black windowless skyscrapers. At this point in my life I had never seen a penis besides my own. So I had no frame of reference. This is the kind of thing that should be taught in schools.

We hate the floor to varying degrees

My dad scares me to death every time he says my name. Historically when my dad is referring to me or wants me to do something he calls me kid or just says “hey.” However, when he wants me and I am not aware of his presence he says my name with such force and urgency that my instinctive reaction is that I am about to be struck by something, a ball to the face, a fist, a car, etc. How he manages to sneak up on me every time is actually quite impressive. Much like my sister, but to a lesser degree, my dad walks with heavy feet. They walk like they hate the floor. He is by no means a large man but he definitely not tiny. He coughs, and curses a lot even when he does not think anyone can hear him.

I was just sitting quietly in my room reading the new issue of Bust. My dad managed to walk up the stairs without me hearing. In what seemed, to him, like a simple and casual statement intended to keep me informed of his plans he injected more fear than what is customary for an afternoon reading session. From outside my door frame and just out of sight, “ERIC, I am going to ……,” I did not hear the last part; I was still reeling from being hit it the face by a car.

Pockets

This is so nice; being away from everyone. Do not get me wrong, I love my friends and I miss them. It is just so different being in this place with nothing to do except anything I want. I have absolutely no responsibilities Hell, I try to do the dishes and take out the garbage but my mom and dad beat me to it every time. I have been reading and taking notes. I have been studying bass scales and trying to ‘get in the pocket’, thank you very much Paul. I try to write. It’s comforting, I guess, to chronicle my own past. Rephrase my memories in an entertaining fashion. I’m like my own cover band. Rehashing the hits. Boiling them down to their most easily recognizable parts. Can you feel the noise? Come on.

I wish people talked to each other in the stiff rhythms of 1950s movie actors. So tight and in the pocket, like classically trained musicians, running through the scales.

I am so disappointed that the sun is out. Hiking in the mountains was on the agenda for today. But when I got up I just was not in the mood. No reason. I just felt like doing nothing. So I used the fact that it was going to rain soon as justification for not going. I have never hiked before. I do not want to get caught all alone in the woods in the rain. Bears can smell fear. They really hate wet fear.

It is not raining, dammit. The clouds have just broken. Its 80 degrees and beautiful. Somehow 80 degree weather feels cool down here. I had a hoodie on all day.

Yesterday I found the most fantastic place that I can never go back to again; Japanese Supermarket. It’s so great. Huge, and pretty cheap. Such a surprise to find in Madison, Alabama. Madison, so I have gathered, is the historic and upper class area just outside of Huntsville proper. Think of it like Valparaiso if it was closer to Chicago. I spent much more than I should have there, considering once my money runs out, that’s it until I find work. I am putting in an application at Barnes & Noble next week, if I feel like leaving the house, that is. A girl I found on MySpace is encouraging me to apply for temporary help in July. They are relocating the store to the mall closer to my parent’s place.

I have spent a lot of today trying to decide what headphones to get. I find something I like then read all the bad reviews. It’s really hard to find reliable information. So right now it’s between this and this. Any thoughts?

I have finished four books since I got here. Today I cannot seem to focus enough to get into the next book, Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. It is good so far but I am far too easily distracted today to get into it.

Part 4 So we moved to unfamiliar cities and walked without maps.

Man, I am a total downer. I do not know why the first stories that come to mind are the horribly depressing ones. My childhood could be described as essentially uneventful. I should consider myself fortunate for not having anything truly bad happen to me. I had no abuse, no fighting, no drugs, and limited death. Maybe I am sifting through an otherwise pedestrian life tweezing out the big sad nuggets. I will make a deal with you. Here are some nice moments before I dig into the real heart breakers I am putting off diving into.

When I was 13 Johnny Poulous moved into the house at the end of the street. He was younger than me, but way cooler. We were inseparable until his family moved away before I started high school. Johnny and I would ride bikes everywhere and steal cigarettes from the convenience store. Johnny was the kid whose front tooth I knocked out playing hockey. Johnny was the kid I punched in the mouth while meditating. See, I used to meditate to get rid of headaches. One night while sleeping over I was doing just that. Apparently, and I still have no recollection of this at all, Johnny was waving his hands in front of my face. With my eyes closed and in a completely other world I somehow instinctively socked him in the eye. Eventually his mom forbade him from hanging out with me since he kept getting hurt in my presence.

It was an awkward time. I was quickly outgrowing my much younger neighborhood friends. My developing and uncoordinated frame was a weapon engineered to injure anyone unlucky enough to be smaller than me and within my field of travel. Also, I was becoming old enough to be allowed to tag along with the older guys and they were happy to try and corrupt me. Johnny’s parents were divorced and never home. So of course it was the party house. Their fun was my classroom, all funded by Johnny’s brother and his drug dealing. His drug dealing friends and those buying drugs were always around. One evening I was just hanging out in the living room with four or five of the guys. They were passing around a one-hitter fashioned to look like a cigarette. They tried to keep it secret, like I had never been around weed before. They kept laughing and saying things like “oh man, do you have a lighter? This smoke keeps going out…” I finally spoke up and told them I knew what they were doing and I did not care. Until that moment I had thought that was indeed the first time I was around weed. It took me a few days for me to place where I recognized the smell. I flashed back to me about 5 years old and my dad in the old musty basement. Such a great smell.

Andy used to punch me in the stomach every day. He was just fallowing orders, but I am sure he enjoyed it. A couple of the older guys, Chris and Dave, they lived on either side of me. Every day after school they would make Andy and I go to the bottom of the hill and fight. I know now that Chris was trying to toughen me up. Dave just wanted to see a fight. I never benefited from the lessons initially and always, within 20 seconds, was being held up, arms out, desperately trying to get my breath back. Andy, despite being a tall oafish boy, had surgeon-like precision when trying to land a crushing blow to my abdomen, putting pressure on the solar plexus causing temporary paralysis of the diaphragm.

I should back up. Before Andy and his family moved in across the street I pretty much had zero friends. Shawn, who was my best friend since the first day of kindergarten, and I had faded apart. I was still too young for the older guys and the younger kids were, well, still too young. The difference between 14 and 12 is not as big as say, 11 and 9, in terms of childhood friendships.

The older couple a few houses down began letting me play basketball in their driveway. I had been playing by myself for months by the time the day came that Andy moved in. That afternoon he came over, introduced himself and we started a game. Within fifteen minutes he had me on the ground. The first in my daily dose of dirt. He never really hurt me. Mostly he would pin me to the ground, twist my arm and of course knock the wind out of me. We fought at the bus stop, on the bus, at recess, on the way home after school, before, during and after any game and pretty much anytime he felt like it. The day he came into the yard and began throwing mine and my sister’s bikes and toys around my dad told me I better beat the crap out of that kid soon. Around that time Chris, who had tired of being a promoter of adolescent cock fights, had taken me under his wing. I started out on the heavy bag. Then, in a display of rural machismo and gross health code violations, he had me toughen my knuckles on a deer carcass hanging from the garage rafters.

This is the only time I my fist has ever damaged another person’s face. It is also the last fight I have ever been in. Andy and I were playing three man football with Jacob. Jacob now finally being old enough to play with us, we played in his big back yard. As per our usual script a dispute over something trivial set us off. This time though, it was different. It was better. It was a heart swelling moment. All the power of a swarm of prepubescent boys channeled through me. Like an early twentieth century medium singing with the voices of the discarnate. It was not me, it was all of us. No wrestling, no dancing around. One swing and that was it.

Later that afternoon Andy’s mom came over to confront my dad about what happened. My dad never went over there after my previous eleven hundred losses. I was still a boy shining with pride as I listened to my dad apologize and then make me apologize, an empty hearted bit of ceremony to appear reasonably adult about breaking my ‘friend’s’ nose. I was appalled when the door shut, my dad immediately yelling at me for what I had done. I guess I just did not feel like reminding him I did as he told me to do.

I have had a tendency in the past to remember dreams I had as a child as actual real-life memories. One of those was the time we were driving over the rail road tracks at the crossing in Griffith. If you have never been there, it at one time held a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most rail road tracks at one crossing. We had driven over that crossing hundreds of times and I had always wished we could pull off the road and follow the tracks. I just wanted to see where they go. One time my mom threw our safety and the delicate nature of our vehicle aside and went off-roading in the Monza. As a teenager I asked my mom if she remembered that. She tilted her head and released a series of quizzical looks before we figured out the truth. I had dreamt the entire adventure. Now that I think about it I am not completely positive that I did not dream the teenage conversation as well. It interesting trying to tell stories from my childhood when not even I can distinguish what are fiction and what is real. Well, enjoy.

Part 3-So we moved to unfamiliar cities and walked without maps.

Even though I was terrible I enjoyed playing sports. I was always a fast runner. In second grade I failed to get the nickname Cheetah to catch on. I loved running barefoot and I felt I gained even more speed sans shoes. I became unreasonably upset during recess when Matt Bono (yes, Boner. grow up) beat me in five consecutive races. Rematches kept being demanded because I felt he was jumping the gun. Finally I had to give in that I was not the fastest kid in school anymore.

Matt and I were really close friends for a while. Most of the last two years of elementary school we hung out a lot. Our parents got along well. Matt was a cool kid. The summer before middle school began he moved. By the time I saw him in the cafeteria late in the fall it had been months since I had seen him. I hardly recognized him. Matt had gained what to me seemed like a hundred pounds and shaved his head. A completely ill-proportioned sixth grader. He was a dork, sitting at the dork table. I was a dork too but less of one because I at least tried to play sports and grew up with some of the really cool older guys living down the street from me. So I was kind of accepted due to my connections. The cool kids let me play games with them but would make fun of me while we did it. The best I could hope for, really. So my place in the sixth grade hierarchy of peer acceptance was delicate enough, in my mind, that associating with Matt Bono would have knocked me down a few notches. For instance, Mike Gyrcyk would regress to flicking my ear the entire bus ride home, as well as continue cheating off my tests. So I did what any pimple-faced, uncoordinated, poorly dressed nerd with an unwashed bowl cut and no self-esteem would have done. I ignored him. I denied our ever having a friendship. I did not have to keep the act up long. He died of leukemia around Christmas time.

Part 2- So we moved to unfamiliar cities and walked without maps.

The earliest job I can remember my mom having was waitressing at the only classy restaurant in town, Tiebels. I do not know if it was always the ‘old people’ place to eat as it is now but back then, about the time my sister was old enough to reach, unwrap and eat her own butter packets, it was pretty impressive. I only remember an overwhelming amount of brown. Walls, floors, uniforms, food; all brown. The other waitresses apparently thought me adorable and always treated me to a serving or two of orange sherbet each time I came in. I always wondered why those of us in the Calumet region always pronounce it sherbert. I think I’ll start calling it Calumert. For consistency.

After that it was the less interesting but slightly more lucrative series of managerial jobs. Little Caesars, Burger King, Ponderosa. My mom stayed at jobs for very long times.

Dad, not so much.

He would drive a truck for a while, a few years maybe, then almost fight the owner and quit. Then do construction for a few years, almost fight the owner and quit. And repeat. Dad has always been good at what he does, whatever it is. He is very personable and, like me, incredibly funny. He tends to lean more toward the fart jokes than I do but I am not above laughing when he blames one on my mom. “Ugh, CAROL!” He just refuses to be mistreated for any amount of time. Whereas my mom and I will wait it out and see where it goes, my dad will tell it to fuck off. Which is why it is so incredible he stuck around on the couch for so, so long.

I did like it when my dad was driving. He was always pretty scary and never in the mood for playing. So him being away for a month or more at a time driving long haul allowed me plenty of me not-getting-yelled-at time. On the other hand when he was home it was great. We still did not play catch or anything but he had an endless supply of trucker stories. Getting shot at, rolling his truck over. In Florida he LOST his front drivers side wheel. Packed its tire bags and took off, never to be found. This happened while going down a ramp from one expressway to the next. The wheel jetted off in front of the truck (I can imagine the confusion on my dad’s face.) The rig remained upright and going forward, the weight of the load kept it balanced. At the bottom of the ramp the weight finally shifted foreword, slamming the front into the ground. Ten thousand dollars in damage and my dad spent a week in motels waiting for the repairs to be done. He never told any of these stories directly to me. I only heard them when he would tell them to relatives or friends at holiday events or cookouts. Usually years after the fact. Certainly there are more I have not heard yet. Maybe he’ll make some new friends down here and he can have new people to regale so I can overhear.

I could complain about my dad. My penchant for over analysis could easily help some lucky psychologist afford at least a nicely equipped family sedan or midsized suv. But that is too easy. My dad is a good man. It is hard to say if what my parents did or did not do while raising me directly caused any of my undesired characteristics. It is preferable to think that two undereducated, underpaid and overworked people managed to raise two well adjusted kids that (one of which) may not be considered successful by contemporary standards, but are relatively intelligent, sincere, overly sensitive and sometimes hard working. I have come to recognize my faults, or at least some of them, and either I am trying to remedy them or I am accepting them as fundamental to my molecular makeup. I have no reason to complain. I am an okay guy. I have never had it very bad and sometimes things were great. I think I might have been in love once or twice (or with every woman, every day, ever). I have and have had great friends, for the most part. Some pretty decent music has been made. Jail has seen me inside only once. Maybe I do drink too much, but it is usually at home all by myself. That is normal, right? Sometimes I think I want things to be worse than they are. Pity is not necessarily the motivation. I think it just might be that my life is only interesting when negative things are involved. Should it be that I prefer to be comforted than applauded. I have never taken compliments well. Really, that is why I never used to sign any of my art pieces because it was better in my mind trying to avoid giving people the opportunity to tell me they liked them. I would rather be anonymous. On the other hand, no I would not.

I swear to god I saw a monster in my room. My sister and I had a bunk bed. Being older, the top was mine. On each side was a wood rail to prevent me from rolling off. This was before the couch lessons. I never could sleep with the covers completely over my head. Even to this day I need an air hole. Possibly a mild case of claustrophobia, more likely; I just do not like breathing warm air. I still get a bit nauseous riding in over heated cars. Due to this it was difficult to always have my eyes shielded from the ever present monster walking about in our room. This monster for some reason looked like a mix between the Gorgs from Fraggle Rock and the Philadelphia Phillies mascot. Jim Henson and Major League Baseball; I did not give you expressed, written permission to sully my childhood. One night I saw it. I was petrified. Lying on my side with one eye exposed under the wood rail I knew that the brightly colored and furry monster thing was staring at my face hoping I would open my eye even just a little. Giving it permission to climb inside my mouth to easier facilitate the removal of a couple of my organs. I assumed he would then take those organs and put them really high in a tree. Ready to face my own mortality at age 6, I opened my one eye, just a little. He was not waiting to climb inside me. Rather, rummaging through my parent’s dresser drawers probably looking for material to fabricate a new funny hat.

I was also terrified of Maneater by Hall and Oats. I saw the video. With the black panther that turned into a woman and back. Sometimes my parents would turn a radio on in our room at bed time in an attempt to drown out the sound of them having a few friends over. Even then I knew enough that the sounds of several adults drinking and smoking cigarettes eleven feet away could not be blanketed by early eighties blue-eyed soul. If that song came on I would cry until my mom turned off the radio.

My dad spanked me once. Once. No really, the only instance I can remember is when I locked him out of the house. Our front door was actually a sliding screen door, for some reason. So, laughing wildly, in a diaper, I could plainly see the level of fury on my dad’s face when I latched the door behind him. The joke got old much faster for him than it did for me. There is an equation in which x=pain. If I do not unlock the door(y), then the guy with the giant hands cannot inflict pain. But, the longer the door is locked (z) the more pain will be inflicted. Thusly, and heretofore, y*z=x. I was always good at math.

I remember the beautiful nearly new 1981 blue Ford F150 that I just put a nice round dent into. My mistake- trying to show off for my dad. My dad’s mistake- playing catcher right in front of his nearly new 1981 blue Ford F150. The sound of a baseball hitting Detroit metal is also the sound of a father giving up on his son. He dropped his glove. He walked inside. It would not be the last time I broke something trying to impress someone.

Letter by letter

Keep in mind since moving here 8 days ago I have only been out of the house a few times. My dad and I went to unload the truck at the storage locker. We picked up lunch at the grocery store. I walked several miles, exploring, I stopped at a BP, an appliance store and a thrift shop. I went to the giant outdoor touristy mall, failing to find a wifi spot. I rode my bike and drove all around town. Today I walked several more miles and had the best Indian food ever. I also got a sunburn on my head. So it is a little too soon to tell if Huntsville is interesting or not. I have yet to really meet anyone. It sure is pretty though. Really, its like living in Valparaiso, with a little bit of Cicero and Orland Park mixed in. Except replace the looming Chicago skyline with beautiful mountains. It is definitely strip mall heaven. Downtown is nice. Really small, cute even, compared to Chicago. The entire downtown Huntsville- shops, cafes, hospital, museums and police and fire stations could all fit in Wicker Park.

But Wicker Park does not have this.

That happens to be a giant f’ing rocket. Right next door to my house. If anyone wants to raise the $500 for me to go to adult Space Camp, I shall not protest.

So what have I been doing with my endless free time. Besides walking, I have been reading a lot. I picked up Mary Roach’s STIFF and SPOOK at the thrift store. Both are great but STIFF is fantastic. I highly recommend it if you want to know all about the corpse industry. It helped me finally decide for sure what I want done with my body after I die rescuing a family from a destroyed sinking battleship. I want my organs donated, the rest donated to science and whatever is left made into mulch. Seriously.

Also good is Americas Best Nonrequired Reading from 2004. Lots of great stories about the pursuit of happiness.

I have been watching a LOT of Scrubs. Damn you Shane for getting me hooked.

Practicing the bass a lot too. Not as much as I’d like but more than I ever have before.

And, as you are hopefully seeing, I am writing. I do not know where it is going but its slowly coming out. I don’t so much like that what is coming out of me is the generic self-involved, self-deprecating, look-how-sad-and-funny-my-own-life-is crap. Its so David Sedaris, its so 2004. But its what I know. It’s a start. I like writing when I think I have something to say and I think someone might enjoy it, might find a little something to relate to, might find a little something to be inspired by, hopefully laugh with me and at me. I like remembering what I haven’t thought about in decades. Insignificant crap that means something to me and is arrogant to think might mean something to anyone else. I’m happy to dwell on the distant past right now because the recent past sucks, my future is absolutely blank but my present is coming out letter by letter.

Conversational Italian

My family is vaguely Italian. In that my dad’s mother is one hundred percent, purebred, I guess. Her mother, my Nonna was from Sicily and father, my Nonno from Tuscany. They came over sometime before 1920. I was supposed to sit down and research this for a family tree project but that idea faded by the time we pulled out of the driveway from Christmas dinner at Bob and Bernie’s where we all got fired up about the prospect of it. Don’t you worry, that project is firmly on the list of things to do. Nonno died when I was a baby. I saw a young picture of him at Nonna’s funeral. I do not know much about him but if you asked me now to create picture that looked like the most nonpolitically sensitive rendering of a stereotypical group of young Italian men in the 1920’s, this would be it. I don’t know, maybe all Italian men moving from Italy to East Chicago during the height of Prohibition dressed like that. It seems innocent enough. Anyway, I have never felt comfortable asking any of my family members about that.

I was thinking today about the only Italian I ever knew and the last time I used it. Then I started thinking about the moment growing up when announcing your need to use the bathroom passed out of acceptance. When saying poopy out loud was not you being facetious or ironic but an actual, sincere and usually time-sensitive, declaration. For me the sense that I had become too old for such nonsense came calmly in a hurried moment. It struck as I crashed through the front door, leapt over the couch and nailing the landing with milliseconds to spare. The ruckus excused with the profound announcement, “I GOTTA KAKA!!”

At age 4 I had exhausted my conversational Italian.

Part 1-So We Moved to Unfamiliar Cities and Walked Without Maps

part one

A week before my sister was born we moved into the house in New Elliot. An unincorporated plot of the county still not yet annexed by the larger municipalities. Even though I was the only kid on the street with New Elliot pride I still felt like we were all in it together, the neighbors and me. An island, a militia seceded from the union; Shawn and Andrew, Luke and Jacob, Chris and Tom, Anthony and John- we trained and stockpiled for the inevitable day our walls would need defending. Of course I was the only one that knew, or cared, about this. The only evidence that I know of that the square mile that makes up New Elliot is in fact called such is the First Church of New Elliot. Which technically is the second Church of New Elliot since the first building fell victim to years and years of persistent gravity and an attendance that left the collection plate a bit light. I know my family never attended that, or any, church. I was only there to play afternoon tag on the high concrete steps. Then later lifting boards from the construction of the new New Elliot church to build deer stands high in the trees. Even though I never hunted I enjoyed building things like deer stands and go-carts with tractor tires and rope steering mechanisms. The only other irrefutable proof of our existence is the cover of the phone book, listing the towns contained within.

Our house sat overlooking a series of connected ponds that once thawed of Indiana winter remained pristine and picturesque for exactly 15 days before the green moss overcame it and the mosquito factory became fully operational. A few summers someone had the idea and commissioned planes to swoop down dropping chemicals on the ponds to kill the brewing stew of larvae. Their attempts did not work. I wonder, between the barnstormers clouds descending on us and my cousin and I running behind the fogger truck through Griffith alleys, if any of my long standing personality flaws could be attributed. Granted, the game Brent and I had was to hold our breath in the white greasy cloud, not to inhale the potential poison, but still…

I have heard various stories why the ponds exist. They seemed to me to serve a few possible purposes. It is not hard to be convinced the holes are manmade since each body of water is a perfectly stretched oval. The largest, and deepest of which, is a long oval connected to a larger circle, like a puffy P. I suppose irrigation could have initially wet the long parceled farms. Up until 1994 they served as our collective neighborhood septic pools, each of the few dozen homes emptying our number ones and number twos into them. I heard the original owner, Mr. P, who is still alive and roughly 115 years old still driving the same tan Chevy with the white ladder rack, dug out the ponds to create a preserve so no one could ever build there, leaving our backyards at the same time pretty and quiet as smelly and dangerous. My favorite reason and the most likely is that the dirt was removed to build up the road bed for the construction of the first transcontinental highway; Lincoln Highway- Route 30. Now known as Old Lincoln Highway, which cuts New Elliot in half; water filled cavities that contributed to the creation of our state motto, The Crossroads of America, a great place to live if you want to leave- clearly marked exits at the end of each hall.

So our house was essentially two rooms, three if you count the bathroom-5 if you split the two rooms into kitchen and living room divided by couches and two bedrooms divided by an impenetrable, invisible yet understood line down the middle creating a force field between my sister and me. All this sat atop a sinking and drifting basement. I once heard my dad say the tree next to the house moved the entire structure five feet north over twenty years. It also had to be jacked up a few inches every so often. The basement, aside from containing tools, stray kittens, my dad’s porn collection and a lifetime’s supply of dank, housed our furnace. Which also moved five feet north over twenty years. This time under its own volition. I am glad that I no longer have to choose between being shaken from my bed and freezing.

Bed, for the first fourteen years of my life, was primarily a foam pad that folded up into a chair. Something cheap meant for casual use; the chair-bed quickly left my midsection resting on the floor. The center dip also allowed a channel for the mice to run under me. They too chose shaking over freezing. When the mice got bored of running under me they began running over me. This is when the bathtub suddenly found itself on a list of places children sleep. At some point I graduated to the full length black vinyl couch complete with electrical tape repairs. I loved it. It also left me with a skill I believe remains underrated by anyone that I have ever shared a bed with- I can roll over in place. So in any size bed I will only take up as much room as wide as my shoulders. I can also, if needed, sleep coffin style. Legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded on my chest; as long as I have a pillow of some kind I can rest on any surface. Being made content with a rolled up jacket and a hardwood floor is a trait well suited to those who pass out wherever they find themselves welcome.

I feel shamed complaining, though. Truly. My parents had a much less fun time of it. If they ever complained about it, I never heard it. I heard rare arguments and condescension, to be sure, but never about that. Imagine yourself 21 years old and it’s 1981. Add two children. You just bought a house. Subtract a good job at the mill. Got it? Ok, now imagine sleeping on separate couches inches away from your spouse, just ten feet from your children, in a sinking and floating and shaking house for the next 15 years.

Seriously.

That sucks.

I am a pretty patient guy. To a fault, even. I honestly do not think I would be able to swing that.

They did.