August 29, 2011

World Wide Web

Eavesdropping on people is rude; though how else are you supposed to hear their conversations?

One morning last week, I stepped outside on my deck in the warm still-rising sunshine and took in what would be the last breeze of an otherwise flat and humid day. As I turned to go back inside, I walked through a cobweb.

This is a mild annoyance for some, and most remedy the situation by merely brushing off the strands of the web and going about their day. I, however, dropped to the ground screaming and began clawing at my face.

Thinking the spider was now not only dethroned from his web, but also pissed-off, I rolled back and forth as if on fire, then jumped up and ran headfirst into the door. Then I went upstairs, re-showered, put my previous shirt into a plastic bag, cinched the bag tightly shut, re-dressed, and left for work.

Still rattled from the incident, I settled into my seat on the train and diverted my efforts to keeping my knee from touching the man next to me, who for some reason was eating a full chicken dinner at eight o’clock in the morning. At the next stop, an old woman entered our car, genuflected in the aisle, pulled out a set of rosary beads and began mumbling prayers to herself as she rocked in her seat.

I began to think that these events would signal the beginning to a strange day, and those suspicions were soon confirmed as I looked over the shoulder of the man seated in front of me, and noticed he was casually scrolling through porn on his iPhone. A woman with a baby sat next to him.

I arrived at the office craving more crazy. Being a successful writer is a lot like being a successful squirrel; you need to forage around for material like acorns, collecting vital supplies that will last you through the long cold winters of writer’s block. I was only at my desk for a few moments before I ventured back outside.

I walked into the Bellevue Hotel’s lobby and decided to stop off for some coffee at a Starbucks. Crazy people are usually well-caffeinated. The line was long, and the people waiting were mostly young professionals about to start their work day. While others distracted themselves with iPods and Blackberry’s, I observed. And I wasn’t disappointed.

“…and it’s a large iced tea, okay? I don’t know what you fucking call it, but large. All I know is it wasn’t large last time. And there was too much ice. Christ, how hard is it?”

“We’ll get right on that. Can I have your name, Miss?”

“It’s Mrs. See the ring? And the name is Christina…with a ‘C’. You spelled it wrong last time, too.”

The rest of the line waited, all of us hoping the barista would hop from behind the counter and perform some sort of Mortal Kombat finishing move to the head of this awful creature, who by the way was clad in pantyhose and cheap running sneakers like an extra from “Working Girl.” The barista’s vengeance would be completely justified, and we would’ve applauded, hoisted her in the air and carried her out into the street as our queen, kicking the head of her vanquished foe into a dusty corner.

But she said nothing, and shuffled away, bottling up her anger along with the iced tea she looked ready to spit in. I ordered next; a grande coffee, and loudly proclaimed that my name started with an S. But the creature had already slithered to the end of the counter.

As I stared hatefully at her and wished awful things on her likely ugly children, I noticed two very large women chattering away in the corner. I am not one to make fun of the overweight…but I absolutely LOVE making fun of obese people.

At what point did being fat equate to having a handicap? And as a society, why do we bend over backwards for those who can’t bend over forwards? “But Sean,” you say, “some of these people just can’t control themselves.” Really? Self- control is a part of everyday life. That’s why you don’t see people walking around peeing on everything. So why the double standard?

If a person leaves a restaurant and has too much to drink, a cop will stop and arrest them. Why don’t they pull over those who have had too much to eat?

“Sir, have you been gorging tonight?”

“I may have had some pasta or something like an hour ago, just one or two plates though. (burp) I’m fine.”

“Is that a chocolate sundae in the cup holder, sir?”

“That’s not mine, I swear.”

“Roll out of the car, please.”

Now, women readers, don’t get offended. These two women in front of me were not merely overweight, they were gigantic. I have no problem with overweight people, but these women were the kind of fat that is just short of giving them a little scooter to get around on. However they were not so fat that they were unemployable, and they were enjoying a little coffee break before wheezing their way back to whatever chocolate factory they worked in. And I was there to eavesdrop.

“Susan, oh my god. I absolutely LOVE that top.”

“Really? I have to tell you, so do I! And you’ll never guess where I found it. Ross! 40% off!”

“Shut up! They really do have good stuff there. And that pattern is so fun. Are those little hydrangeas?”

“They ARE! I know, I saw it and absolutely fell in love. And it hides stains so well, too.”

“Well I just adore it. You’re such a good shopper.”

Then they both paused and took giant slurps.

“And you know, it was the only thing that fit me.”

Hearing this, I laughed louder than I have ever laughed in my entire life. It was a resounding bellow, and it reverberated off the marble walls, bounced around the whole room, and shot right back at the huge women, who were now staring at me.

“The only thing that fit!” I whispered (rather loudly), and nudged the man next to me. “HA! Oh my god. Because she’s enormous. Get it? That is amazing.”

The man quickly disassociated himself with me and moved to the side of the room. Sometimes I forget that I’m in public, and upon realizing the faux pas I grabbed the coffee and ran out the door before the women had a chance to unhinge their jaws.

On the train ride home that night I expected more crazy, and it soon presented itself.

On SEPTA commuter trains they have things called “quiet cars,” where the usage of cell phones for extended periods is frowned upon. A gentleman on the car that day looked like he had been frowned upon his entire life, and he was ironically shouting into his phone over the voice of the conductor who was asking people not to use their phones.

“Two hundred. I said TWO HUNDRED! (pause) Damn girl, you didn’t have to cook all that shit up! (pause) Now what I’m gonna do? I can’t smoke that shit. (pause) Is you crazy? Yo, put shortie on the phone. Put (pause)…put shortie on the phone now, dog, for real. (pause) Cause I’m gonna cut her motherfuckin head off that’s why!”

He was obviously some sort of tax attorney.

While the other passengers cowered in fear, I was jotting down a transcript of his call as quick as possible, which was erratic, and slightly terrifying.

“Yo dog, for real, that’s my bad.  I got that high cholesterol and shit, you know? (pause) Yeah dog, for real. I be like eatin that glucose shit and…wait, what? Motherfucker, is you playin? Yo, this shit ain’t no game, son. (pause) Disneyworld? Is you ignorant? That’s Epcot, baby! Yeahhh, that’s some Thunder Mountain Railroad shit right there. (pause) Yeah, nah that was Wesley Snipes. Word? Yeah, long division be mad hard. (pause) Cocoa Puffs. (pause) Yeah…yeah okay. Yeah, I see you at church. Yeah, and yo, tell that bitch to quit playin though for real or I’m gonna cut her fuckin head off like I done before. Tell your mamma hello.”

Instead of inviting the man to dinner, I got off at my stop… and then ran a block or two.

By the time I reached my house, I was mentally exhausted, yet also electrified. It had been a busy day, and one filled with tremendous writing material. I opened my laptop and began typing as fast as I could, pausing to feel bad about the obese women part, and then laughing again.

I fell asleep at my desk writing and the next morning woke up with a stiff neck. After trundling downstairs, I stepped outside on my deck to stretch in the warm still-rising sunshine and take in what would be the last breeze of an otherwise flat and humid day. And as I turned to go back inside, I walked through another cobweb.

 

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Filed under B.O.O.B.S., coffee, commuting, desperation, douches, Duh, Guy stuff, life at home, madness, ouch, Philadelphia, Sean goes insane, Sean is almost killed, Sean is an idiot, Septa, shopping, train, women, work

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June 23, 2011

Nervous Tick

I was bored yesterday so I signed online to have a conversation with a friend of mine, a girl in her mid-twenties who, despite what you’re about to read, has a rather sweet disposition.

Sean: “Where is the last place you want to die?”

M: “Umm, hi?”

Sean: “Hi. Where is the last place you want to die? I mean, be found dead.”

M: “Oh. Um…probably under a floorboard. Half-eaten. Like some John Wayne Gacy shit.”

Sean: “Jesus, no hesitation there, huh? But no, not method. Location.”

M: “Right, I know. Like I said, under a floorboard. Or human centipede. I would not like to be part of a human centipede.”

The conversation progressed like this for some time and, though it illuminated certain aspects of my friend’s psyche I was unaware of, I was mainly just curious if I could get a consensus to the question, “Where is the last place you want to be found dead?”

I polled some others as well, and these were the answers:

“New Jersey.”

“At work.”

“Next to you.”

I thought the “Next to you” answer was a bit harsh, but was mainly surprised I hadn’t received what I thought would be the universal answer to, “Where is the last place you want to be found dead?”

On the toilet.

In my mind, there is no worse location to be discovered dead, and I’m constantly nervous about the possibility each time nature calls. It’s the same reason I don’t urinate during thunderstorms. It’s inevitable that we’re all going to die, but ideally I’d like to go out with some dignity… especially since I had none while living.

I recently admitted this to a woman on a date. (NOTE: Don’t discuss dying on the toilet during dates. There are few appetizing segues.)

“What do you care if you die on the toilet? You’ll be dead.”

“Right, but I don’t want that to be my legacy.”

“The ego on you. Your ‘legacy’? You’re really that concerned with what people think of you?”

“(mumbles) Obviously not, since I’m out with you.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

(I wonder why she hasn’t called…)

Anyway, you can imagine my alarm when I flushed the toilet the other day and immediately afterwards I heard men screaming.

This was a new sensation, as if there were miniature human beings that had been floating in the water below and were now spiraling towards a watery grave. I got to one knee and put my ear over the bowl.

“Hello?” I whispered. “Tiny men?”

Turning my head back to the bowl I imagined that the re-filling water would be littered with body parts, like the remnants of some shipwreck after the storm had passed. More shouts though, this time coming from downstairs, were followed by heavy footsteps ascending towards the bathroom.

Though the previous notion of drowning miniature toilet-dwelling men was distressing, a new, more palpable fear emerged – being attacked by marauding Vikings in my suburban Philadelphia home. The voices were closer now, shouting commands as doors flung open. I hugged the toilet bowl and closed my eyes, hoping it’d be over quick.

“What are you doing?”

I turned to see a burly construction worker, his voice sounding as if he had swallowed a frog with throat cancer. It’s difficult to explain your position when you’re sprawled on the bathroom floor with your pants around your ankles on the verge of tears… but I tried to remain casual.

“Who, me? Nothing. You?”

“I thought we told you not to use the plumbing? A pipe just burst downstairs.”

He grumbled as he left and I pulled up my pants. ( <– Never thought I’d write that sentence.) They were doing work on the kitchen downstairs and had indeed told me not to use the plumbing, but since my knowledge of plumbing was limited to Super Mario Brothers, I failed to consider that they’d meant the toilets as well. In retrospect, the second cup of coffee that morning had been a bad idea.

As I didn’t want to risk a beating from men who knew how to use socket wrenches, I retreated up to my bedroom to work out. While changing I happened to glance down at my torso and notice a raised bump. Assuming it was lint, I tried flicking it off but discovered that it was solid and dark brown. As a man of many freckles, I wasn’t too concerned and walked over to the mirror to investigate the possibility that one of them might have been trying to escape.

I flicked the bump again and it failed to fall off. Peering closer into the mirror I squeezed it and saw a faint trickle of blood come out. Then, to my utter horror, the bump moved.

Have you ever seen a movie when someone is lit on fire? Yeah, that would pretty much describe how I handled the situation.

I shrieked and began slapping myself, not just in the spot of the bump, but all over: my head, my legs, my neck. I wasn’t sure if the bug was still in place or crawling all over me. Just to be safe, I dropped to the floor and writhed around like a break-dancing quadriplegic.

The thought of something, ANYTHING, attached to my body and currently burrowing its head into my flesh was enough to make me almost faint. After smacking my head against my bedpost, I got back up and reassessed the situation. I looked down at my chest again and saw that the bump hadn’t moved. Considering it was so small, it could only be one thing…

A tick.

And then I started screaming again.

I ran downstairs, again in my underwear, squealing and flapping my arms the entire way as if trying to take flight. Like any good Generation-Y member, before heading to the bathroom I stopped off at my computer to Google “lime disease.” (And after reading about various fruit-borne illnesses, I re-Googled “lyme disease” and read all the symptoms, side-effects and mortality rates.)  

Sufficiently scared, I scurried over to the bathroom and rooted through the medicine cabinet until I found a pair of tweezers. Then, with the care of an alcoholic surgeon, my shaking hand guided towards the tiny pencil-point sized insect.

I thought about the movie 127 Hours, where the character played by James Franco has to hack off his arm with a pocket-knife, and assured myself I’d be able to get through this. I started by merely tapping the top of the tick, hoping that he’d just been napping like a homeless person and would move along at my insistence. No such luck. Then, like any sane individual, I began yelling at it.

“Get off! Go on, get! Shoo, tick! Bah! Get off!”

Nothing.

It was now or never. I would have to yank it out. I gritted my teeth and positioned the tweezers around the sides of the tick, being careful not to alert it of my intentions. Then…I stayed like that for about seven minutes, silently weeping.

But then…after whispering a brief, curse-ridden prayer…. I defiantly yanked the insect from my skin. And saw the blood.

It was if I’d been shot, and I would have gladly accepted that alternative. I grabbed some tissues and opened up a bottle of Bactine, pouring the remainder of the bottle onto the wound. Then, still clad in boxers, dove into my shower and turned it on full blast, hoping to burn out any disease the tick may have been carrying.

That’s when I heard more screams from downstairs.

And as I stood there scrubbing with the vigor of an off-duty prostitute, I ignored the pounding of the construction workers on the door. After all, if I was going to die in the bathroom, at least I wasn’t on the toilet.

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May 31, 2011

Les Touristes

I placed my elbow on the side of the chair and noticed that there was an ashtray welded into the metal armrest. Leaning into the aisle I looked towards the front of the airplane and saw a sign that read, “Smoking Section.” Above the sign, in black magic marker, was printed the word, “Don’t.” So apparently I was sitting in the, “Don’t Smoking Section.”

I didn’t know much about aeronautics, but was certain there had been some advancement since the time it was legal to smoke on a plane. I imagined the in-flight entertainment would be a silent film starring Charlie Chaplin and poked my head back into the aisle to see where the segregated bathrooms were located. It was then that I was struck in the shoulder by a flight attendant pushing a cart. The smell from the cart could only mean one thing: a passenger had died and they were shuttling him up to the front.

I held my nose and tapped the flight attendant to inquire about what was going on.

“It’s the meal, sir.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, it’s very delicious today. Hot curry.”

“I see. And about how high up are we at this point?”

“Oh, I’d say just under thirty thousand feet.”

“Excellent. If you’d be so kind to point out the closest door, I’ll be leaving.”

The man laughed and continued up the aisle as the other passengers basked in the warm stench like flies on a garbage truck. I leaned over to my friend next to me.

“I can’t believe we decided to take Air India, man. I think the guy next to me has a goat in his carry-on.”

“Take it easy, we’ll be in Paris in no time.”

“I don’t think I’ll make it. Can’t you smell that? Who serves curry in a pressurized cabin? And look at these seats. I think mine is just a folding chair bolted to the floor.”

“It’s not so bad. I’m kind of getting into this Bollywood music they have. It sounds like someone repeatedly running over a cab driver’s foot.”

It was November 2008 and I was en route from New York to Paris with my best friend for a four-day trip. He was going to attend a photo exhibition at the Louvre and I had decided to tag along to see what kind of trouble I could get into. We landed at Charles De Gaulle a few hours later and I angrily shoved my way off of the plane, whispering “Kali Ma!” to each passenger I passed.

After retrieving our bags and double-checking for monkey feces, we made our way to the Metro station only to find that the service had been suspended. There was a public transit strike, a common occurrence in Paris, and the only way into the city was via taxi. All we had to do was find a cab stand, and this is where my mood brightened.

I have very few joys in my life, but one of them is watching my friend attempt to speak a foreign language. His face contorts like a constipated Asian and he starts each sentence with a low, guttural growl as if revving a loquacious engine. Then he extends his hand and pinches his thumb against two of his fingers, tilting his head and leaning in like he might kiss the person he’s speaking to, who by that point is backing away with a look of horror.

Meanwhile, I stand behind him, imitating his every movement and hopping around to each singsong, silly word that is uttered. Like any good American, I don’t know any other languages and instead rely on the well-proven method of speaking loudly and using elaborate hand motions. In this case we actually do need to communicate with the startled French worker we’ve accosted and (in spite of my best efforts) we are soon given directions into town.

We arrived at our hostel about an hour later and retired to our rooms to change for dinner. The building was situated on a cobblestoned side street just off of Rue Oberkampf and adjoined an ancient Parisian bell tower that would gong every half-hour and scatter pigeons into my room. I decided against showering, as the guests were required to share a stall on each floor that reused the water from the floor above. Since there were three floors above me, the result would be like dipping a cup into a French man’s bath and pouring it over my head.

My friend and I made our way over to the Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, a more bohemian part of town where college-aged people usually hung out. We soon came upon a fondue restaurant and settled in for a hearty meal of melted cheese, French bread and red wine. There were virtually no other customers in the place and we struck up a conversation with the owner, who informed us that we had arrived at the perfect time – the beginning of “Beaujolais Nouveau Season.”

Beaujolais Nouveau Season, I’d later find, is just one of the many reasons Paris is so amazing. At one minute past midnight on the third Thursday each November, millions of cases of wine are cracked open at once and hastily consumed. It’s a race, of sorts, to see who can serve this first, cheap vintage the fastest while the better Beaujolais is still fermenting. In short, people just get really smashed on some really cheap swill.

The owner, excited that Americans were in attendance for such an event, presented us with a few bottles. And since we’re such good ambassadors, we drank them. When we stumbled into the street shortly after, we were greeted by a marching band. Literally.

Not a few yards from the restaurant we bumped into a five-piece brass band that was marching through the streets to celebrate the beginning of Beaujolais Nouveau Season. We danced alongside them for a few blocks before we were adopted and given our own tambourines, along with wine glasses to share in the cartload of Beaujolais they were rolling behind them.

We left the band at a bar called Violon Dingue (“The Crazy Violin”) and slunk into some stools. It was empty except for the two bartenders and we decided to take advantage of being in a foreign country by having an inappropriate discussion that would obviously not be understood.

“Who would you rather bang, Rod Stewart or Phil Collins?”

“Easy, Phil Collins. He’s a lyrical gangsta.”

“Yeah, but we’re just going on pure sexual attraction.”

“Oh, in that case, Huey Lewis.”

“He wasn’t an option. But okay, Huey Lewis or Michael Bolton?”

As we went on to discuss which 80’s era male pop-rock star we’d have intercourse with, we noticed a smirk forming on one of the bartenders’ faces.

“Hey, what the hell? Can you understand us?”

“Aye. Him too. We’re from Scotland, mate.”

We shared a laugh with our new friends and after a few more pints they locked the front door.

“On the house, gents. Nice to have some Americans in here.”

Forty minutes later and five darts games lost, there was a knock at the door. One of the Scots opened it and revealed a gorgeous girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty. She said something in French and was let in as we sat at the far side of the bar and whispered chivalrous things to each other.

“Don’t look now, but I’ve got the Eiffel Tower in my pants.”

“I’d invade her like it was the 1940’s.”

“I wonder if her name is Lisa, cause I’m gonna make her Moan-a.”

At that last comment, to our utter horror, she smiled.

“Oh, damnit. Can you understand us?”

“Yup. I’m American.”

“Where from?”

“Manhattan. I’m a senior at NYU studying abroad.”

It turned out she lived about twenty blocks from my apartment, and thankfully thought our remarks were funny instead of horribly offensive. We had a few more drinks with her before my friend fell off his bar stool and we decided to call it a night.

I made my way down the street with my friend slung over my shoulder, his feet dragging behind him. We soon came upon a cab stand near the Seine with about twenty people waiting in line. This would not do.

“Hey! Zer iz ze line, azzhole!”

“It’s okay, we’re from New York.”

“Fuck you, pal. We’re American too. You can’t just cut the line.”

“Oh yeah? Where you from?”

“Green Bay, Wisconsin.”

“Hahaha.”

I assumed the laughter would explain my position, but it must not have been clear enough and the burly man with the fanny pack started towards us. I pushed my friend inside an idling taxi and had just managed to close the door when our new lactose-loving friend stuck his head in the window.

“Don’t you dare take this cab you son-of-a-bitch!”

“Au revoir, douchebag!”

At that I expected the cab to drive away. It didn’t.

The man was now trying to open the door and I frantically began to shake my friend, who had passed out beside me.

“Dude! Wake up! Say something French! Get us out of here!”

“Ungghhhh.”

I looked at the cab driver to see if “Ungh” was a French word. It wasn’t.

“Say something else! Tell him to drive! What street are we going to? What Rue, dude? What Rue?!”

“Rue…rue…ruby dooby doo!”

“Damnit, focus!”

“Rue Obre…Rue Oberkampf.”

And the taxi took off down the street.

I leaned back in the seat and promised to never make fun of him again (…until that morning when he ordered coffee and sounded like the Sweedish Chef from the Muppets).

The next few days followed a similar pattern (i.e. that evening we mistakenly found ourselves in a gay bar) and overall the trip was a tremendous success. Four days later and we were back on Air India headed home, comfortably squeezed into the “Don’t Smoking Section” and enjoying a bowl full of hot curry.

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May 24, 2011

A Beautiful Mind

One night last week I went to my medicine cabinet and removed two Nyquil tablets and a Tylenol PM.

After brewing a cup of black coffee, I walked to my bedroom where I had placed an oscillating fan above a clock radio that was set to folk music at a very low volume. After slipping on three sweatshirts, I downed the black coffee and popped all three sleeping tablets into my mouth. Then I positioned a full glass of water on my nightstand, did forty sit-ups, spun around in a chair five times and laid down, leaving all of the lights on and setting the alarm clock to 3:30 AM.

When the alarm clicked on a few hours later, it wasn’t sounded by a shrill blast. Instead, folk singers began to sing quite softly, and the breeze from the oscillating fan scattered their voices all over the room. So rather than waking up to an air-raid siren, I was roused by what I thought were several men and women humming from under my bed.

I couldn’t see because of the blinding light in my face and the breeze from the fan made me think I’d awoken outside. My arms were restricted from the sweatshirts and when I stretched them out I knocked over the glass of water, causing a crash that sent me rolling off the opposite side, face down onto a strategically positioned pile of dirty laundry.

I popped up and blinked several times to regain focus, only to notice the coat stand in the corner that I had draped in a robe and hat the night before to resemble a human. In my disoriented state, I cowered from the intruder and screamed while crawling under the bed, where I’d placed stuffed animals that had transformed into various soggy rodents, wet from the previously spilled water.

My brain is not well – this much is evident from my writing here on The Witty Gritty. However rather than just accept that fact, sometimes I decide to step it up a notch. I find it unacceptable that my brain requires six to eight hours of sleep to function correctly. It’s like my brain is part of some cerebral union and when asked to do a task it belches and points to a sign that reads, “On break.”

Also, it’s been said that we only use ten percent of our brain’s capabilities. Ten percent? What am I, Southern? Since when has ten percent of anything been acceptable?

“Here’s some birth control, guaranteed to work ten percent of the time.”

“Make sure to wear your bullet proof vest, it will stop ten percent of gunfire.”

“Okay boys, my name is Father Flynn, and ten percent of you won’t be molested this year.”

Not good enough.

So I mess with my brain from time to time, hoping that it will unlock some of its unused reserves from the remaining ninety percent. Thus far the plan hasn’t worked out exactly, and instead of compliance the ten percent has been rebelling like a menstruating Libyan.

My brain rebels in odd ways, usually in dream form but sometimes revealing its displeasure in real life. An example of this occurred last week, when I went on a hike in Valley Forge National Park.

Valley Forge, for those of you who went to public school, was where General George Washington camped with his troops during the winter of 1777 and over two thousand soldiers died due to the harsh conditions.

The problems began on the drive out, when I looked down at the dashboard and saw a little orange light in the shape of a gas pump pop on. Normally my brain would be able to handle such a problem, but in its drugged, pissed-off, sleep-deprived state, it performed rather sluggishly.

Gas. Need gas. Gas station. They probably sell gas. Which side of the car is my gas hole on? Gas hole? That can’t be right. Pump slot? Too sexual. Nozzle holster? Fuel socket?  What the hell is it called? No matter. What side is it on?

And that’s when I turned around. For those of you who find themselves driving on a highway, don’t try to turn around and see the outside of your car. Oh, and if you do? Don’t keep both hands firmly gripped on the wheel.

The car jerked left into the other lane and cut off a red Nissan. The woman driving was rather upset, though she did have a better vantage point to determine which side of my car held the…um, Propellant portal?

I arrived at Valley Forge ten minutes later, the needle below Empty on the fuel gauge. I had looked up my desired hiking trail online before leaving, but was unsure how to get to its starting point. So I walked into the Visitor’s Center. Behind the desk was a bearded man who was such a virgin he looked like he had to roofie his computer to watch online porn.

“Hello, sir. And welcome to Gettysb…Valley Forge National Park.”

“Just laid off from Gettysburg?”

“Can I help you with anything, sir? Or would you like to watch a movie with me?”

“What are you in the mood for?”

“I mean…we show movies about the park every half hour.”

“Isn’t the park right there? Outside?”

“Um, I think it’s…allergy season is in full swing and…history? Um…bears?”

Since messing with him could last the rest of the day, I decided to just ask where the trail began. And, once he called for help to find the laminated map in front of him, I was on my way.

My brain was doing better in the open air and I soon focused in on the gorgeous view in front of me – a hot single mother in spandex pants who was out for a jog. And when she stopped to stretch I noticed the fields.

I was surrounded on all sides by lush rolling expanses of green buffeted by dense ancient trees that looked old enough to have borne witness to the frigid depravity of that fateful winter over two centuries beforehand. That day was quite pleasant though, and the gentle May breeze eased my decision to tackle the six mile trail that led around the outskirts of the park.

That’s when my brain decided to mess with me again.

Three hours later and I was in the middle of a forest. I’d lost the trail (which was paved, mind you) forty minutes beforehand when I ventured into the trees to snap a picture of a deer, which later turned out to be a log. I would like to say that my Boy Scout training took over, but I hadn’t made it past Tiger Cubs, a lesser form of the Troop reserved for myself and those with Down Syndrome.

Since I wasn’t a trained outdoorsman, I did what any other urbanite would do. I pulled out my phone. When I called the number for the front desk, which was thankfully stored from a previous call that morning, I recognized the voice on the other line immediately.

“Gettysburg National Valley Forge, how may I help you?”

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Ugh, okay. I was just in there and now I’m lost. I’m in the woods about three miles into the Joseph Plumb Martin Trail. What’s the best way to get back on track?”

“Hmm. Well, whenever I’m lost I use the stars. But since it’s day out, maybeeee…okay. Sir, if you look up at the sun, does it seem to be more on your right, or your left?”

“Are you freakin kidding me?”

“Okay…wait! Find some moss. If it is growing on the back of the tree, then go the other way.”

“How do I know which side is the back of a cylindrical tree?!”

“Depends on which one you’re standing in front of.”

I hung up the phone and nearly threw it into a nearby stream. Instead I followed the stream and it eventually led me back to one of the many other trails running alongside it. My brain wasn’t done with me yet though, and I got lost once again an hour later when a fifty-fifty decision led to me backtracking down an older trail that looped an additional four miles off course.

When I emerged into the open, I found myself at the base of a Colonial home, and three workers were on the roof making repairs.

“Do you know where I am?”

“Pennsylvania,” said the youngest worker, and the rest of them laughed.

“Thanks. I meant that I was hiking and got lost.”

“You should probably bring a map next time,” said the oldest worker.

“Appreciate the help.”

And I kicked their truck. I don’t know why I did it, but was sure it was my brain’s idea. Even though I just kicked the tire, I had hit it hard enough that it made a sound and caused the three men on the roof to glare down at me. Then, like any tough guy would, I ran away into the forest.

Thirty minutes later and I spotted the parking lot. As I neared, I stopped to lean against a tree and heard a cough from above me. Looking up, I noticed a man was sitting in it.

“What the hell are you doing sitting in a tree?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m speaking to you. The man, who is in fact, sitting in a tree.”

“Oh. Well. What are you doing on the ground?”

At that point I gave up. I wasn’t even sure if there was a man, and there was a good chance I was so exhausted from the eleven mile hike that I was just speaking to a squirrel.

I made my way past the Visitor’s Center, flipped off the bearded virgin in the window, and found my car in the parking lot. Just as I was about to get in, I had the feeling I was forgetting something.

It wasn’t until I started the engine that the little orange light reminded me, and I had to get back out to check which side of the car the…um… tank vagina…was located.

Whatever. You win, brain.

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May 3, 2011

Points

Crawling along the slimy, wet carpet, I made my way into the bathroom and wedged what was left of the shattered wooden door closed. My leg ached and I debated a shower until I saw that the curtain had been ripped off. Lifting the toilet seat, I looked down and noticed a set of car keys submerged at the bottom. As I urinated on them I couldn’t help but wonder, “How did they end up in there?”

* * *

(Fourteen Hours Earlier)

I leaned back on the bedspread and cracked another beer, scooting closer to the ancient air conditioner that we had set at 43 degrees. C and D (two friends who shall remain “anonymous”) were standing a few feet away, arching their backs and spitting onto  a mounted wall mirror, and then cheering on their respective descending saliva trails as if champion thoroughbreds.

“What are you two idiots doing?” I asked and launched an empty beer can in their general direction.

“Commercial in the Phils game,” D replied, dodging the projectile before it smashed into the TV. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

“I think it’s just us three,” C said. “We’re gonna need more than just this thirty pack. Aw c’mon, you’re cheating!”

“How can I cheat?” D said, wiping his chin. “We’re spitting on a mirror. And I just won by the way. That’s five points.”

An hour earlier we’d decided that we would award each other points for winning contests or dares. Whoever got the most points at the end of the weekend would win. We hadn’t assigned a prize, but it didn’t mean we wanted to risk losing. (This, by the way, was the same group as the James Motel outing; an event that had occurred a mere three weeks beforehand.)

We were in Ocean City, Maryland and staying at the Sea Breeze Motel, an establishment rated just higher than Auschwitz on Yelp. We’d requested the second floor as it gave us a better view of the abandoned lot across the alley, and found we were also conveniently located down the hall from a strung-out middle-aged whale and her sixteen-year-old metal-mouthed daughter, who we’d later discover rooting through our room.

Our downstairs neighbor claimed to be an attorney, and spent most of his time in a plastic lawn chair just outside of his door, yelling at passersby and occasionally retreating back behind blacked-out windows to snort whatever he could find. His hourly rates, I have a feeling, were negotiable.

Night was falling and we stood outside finishing the remainder of the beer as we watched the parade of Confederate Flag beach towels roll by. We spotted a small shack just across the street that sold cheesesteaks and decided to grab some food, a decision none of us knew would hold such importance.

After finishing our meal, we began to walk back across the street to the motel when we noticed two incredibly drunk women stumbling towards us. They appeared to be in their mid-thirties, and their sloppily applied make-up made them look like blind clown hookers.

“Oh my (hiccup) god, you look…you look just like Matt Damon.”

The taller of the “women,” introduced as Michelle, was gesturing towards C, who would only look like Matt Damon if you had been doing shots of formaldehyde all evening.

“It’s his brother Gary,” I quickly chimed in. “He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Gary (hiccup)?” Michelle said.

“Yes, Gary Damon. And where are you two gorgeous gals off to this evening? Don’t beauty pageant contestants usually have curfews?”

“Hah! Oh you’re a charmer, aren’t you? We had to run out and get more cigarettes but stopped so Celia could puke in that alley back there.”

I looked over at Celia, who was swaying on one heel while she tugged at the bottom of her stained mini-skirt.

“Well isn’t that lovely,” I continued, smiling over at my friends. “And where to now? Back to heaven with the other angels?”

“Hah!” Michelle said, and hacked. “Back to heaven. You are a charmer. You should be on like government TV or something. Like where they talk and shit about laws or whatever. Nah, we gotta get back for the sitter. He’s a retard so we can’t leave him by himself. Her kid, not the sitter.”

Suddenly, C, who was still beaming from the movie star comparison, decided to chime in.

“Can we come?”

I looked over at him and mouthed the words, “I’m only fucking with them,” to which he mouthed the reply, “Don’t mess this up for me.”

“You can do whatever you want, Gary,” Michelle said, to which Celia added an assenting belch.

“How about my friends?” C asked.

“Hell yeah,” Michelle said. “We’ll party back in our room if you promise not to wake the retard.”

“He’s not…”

We never did hear the rest of Celia’s sentence, as she ran back in the alleyway to vomit again. In the background, I heard D call dibs.

When we reached the hotel, we crept into the room and saw Celia’s son asleep on a cot by the window. The babysitter was sitting nearby on the balcony having a cigarette and texting on his phone. While Michelle and Celia went to the back bedroom, C and I raided the fridge. We began shoving bottles of Corona into our cargo shorts and had almost a dozen between us before we ran out of room.

When we looked for D, we saw that he was sitting on the cot with the child stroking his hair.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I whispered.

“He looks so peaceful,” D replied.

“Okay,” I said to C. “This is creepy. We gotta get out of here.”

When Michelle returned she informed us that Celia wouldn’t be making it out because she was “tired,” a term we assumed meant, “legally dead on the bathroom floor.” She suggested we take the party to the beach and after checking with the sitter, who it turned out was incredibly high, we left. We never saw the child again, but I imagine he is in medical school somewhere.

We arrived at the beach and Michelle and C made their way up to an abandoned lifeguard stand.  D and I began drinking the Coronas and before long we got bored. Then we remembered the contest.

“How many points for knocking over the lifeguard stand?” D asked.

“With them in it?” I replied. “I’d say twenty. Thirty if someone gets hurt.”

“I might need some help.”

“Split the points?”

“Agreed.”

We got down in a three-point football stance and, with a tribal yell, ran full speed into the base of the lifeguard stand. It was not as heavy as we’d anticipated and it immediately gave way. As we looked up, we saw C leaping from the top of the stand, and pushing down on Michelle’s shoulder to propel him out farther. Then the stand fell on top of her.

“Holy shit,” C screamed as he jogged back. “What did you do that for?”

“Um, twenty points?” D replied.

“Thirty,” I corrected. “I think she’s probably hurt.”

At that we heard a moan from underneath the stand and looked over to see that it had fallen on her leg.

“How many points to run into the ocean and avoid being pummeled by a maimed skank?” D asked.

“Forty,” I replied. “Fifty if you’re naked.”

“Wait a minute!” C shouted, looking angry as he watched Michelle writhing in the sand. “FIFTY? That’s way too much. It has to be together. And you have to be skipping. Oh, and hold hands.”

D and I looked at each other for less than a second and shrugged. Easiest fifty points ever. And off we went, skipping naked into the black Atlantic Ocean.

We floated around a bit and then sprinted back to shore, hopping naked over Michelle who was still lying injured on the shoreline. As we dressed, C undressed.

“I can’t be down this much,” he said. “That was fifty points apiece and the whole lifeguard stand thing must have easily been thirty. I’m going in.”

And he took off in our footsteps, again nude-hurdling the woman, and splashed into the surf. We immediately grabbed his clothes and flung them into the dunes. A few seconds later we saw a pale blur as C jogged past us and disappeared into the night without breaking stride. He’d seen us toss his clothes and spent the next twenty minutes searching for them naked on the beach.

Michelle’s leg looked fractured and we were nearly out of beer so we decided to head back to the motel. C managed to flag down a cab with no pants on and we sat in the back sharing the final Corona. Before leaving the cab, a lit cigarette was dropped and we couldn’t find it. We decided it would be fine and watched the cab pull away, smoke billowing from the rear window as it narrowly missed hitting the attorney from the room downstairs, who was wandering down the middle of the street with no shirt on.

* * *

I walked back from the bathroom and saw that the other two were still asleep. The room was destroyed and four more of our friends were due in town that afternoon. As I began to kick beer cans into the corner to make a path, I noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor with numbers written on it.

Point Totals (so far)

  1. “Spit game: Five points.”
  2. “Go home with random skanks: Ten points per skank.”
  3. “Steal beers: One point per beer.”
  4. “Molest child in sleep: Ten points.”
  5. “Go into lifeguard stand with skank: One point per STD.”
  6. “Push over lifeguard stand: Thirty points (due to injury).”
  7. “Skip naked into Atlantic Ocean holding hands: Fifty points.”
  8. “Cause small fire inside cab: Twenty-seven points.”
  9. “Steal skank keys and put in toilet: Fifteen points.”

Content with having solved the mystery, I put down the paper on the table and reached for some Tylenol. It was then that I noticed another entry on the back.

“Punch Carney while sleeping: Ten points per punch.”

Damnit.

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April 26, 2011

The James Motel

I burst into the gas station covered in blood and fell into a display of disposable cameras. It wasn’t until I got off the floor that I noticed my hand had left an almost perfect red imprint on the door. It reminded me of a turkey I’d once traced in elementary school.

My friends weren’t far behind me.

“Bandages! Where are they?! Let’s go! He’s dying!”

* * *

Ten hours earlier, a friend and I had gotten into a Toyota Celica driven by another friend. He told us the destination was “upstate,” as if we were on horseback and instead of a specific town we’d just “head north a’ways ‘til it got dark.” So why had we agreed to such an ambiguous journey? Well, there WAS a keg involved.

We occupied our time on the drive up by devising a road game. The rules (which were complex) would be to spot the back of a car and try to determine if the person driving was a “hot girl.” If it was, you’d be awarded a maximum of five points, more if the car was cheap looking, less if her hotness was called into question. If the driver wasn’t hot, you’d receive no points and if she was very ugly, you’d lose five points and be shamed beyond belief.

It was considered a loss when the driver was a man, unless it was mentioned by someone in the car that he was a very good looking man, in which case several minutes of awkward silence followed.

Sounds fun, right? It was. However I don’t think the drivers of the selected car enjoyed it very much when three men slowed next to them and screamed, “Nooooo! Ewww!” Somewhere out there is a woman who now has very tinted windows.

Halfway into our trip we learned that “upstate” did not refer to Pennsylvania, but New York. Our friend, the driver, sensed our anger and assured us that the party we were headed to would be “epic,” mentioning that there were not only TWO kegs, but also a lake. And who doesn’t love to look at a lake at night? It’s like a parking lot you can drown in.

When we arrived at the lake house, the party was already underway and had about as much excitement as a Planned Parenthood waiting room. As we tried to find the kegs, we noticed that there was far too much decoration around the backyard. Normal keg parties had an overturned trashcan, a few bags of melted ice and maybe a dozen plastic cups. This had paper plates, napkins, available seating and edible food. It could only mean one thing.

Parents.

“Hey guys! Glad you could make it! We have two kegs: one is Budweiser and the other is Michelob Ultra.”

“What?”

“Michelob Ultra.”

“No, I heard you. Why the hell did you get that? Are you pregnant?”

“It’s my Mom’s favorite.”

We looked around for my friend and soon found him trying to hide behind a tree.

“Are you serious with this party, dude? There is parental supervision. One guy just asked me about my 401K.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Not so bad? I asked some dude how he thought the Eagles would do this season and he thought I was an environmentalist.”

“Calm down. Just drink the Budweiser.”

“Bud heavy? What am I, a Vietnam Vet? I’m not drinking that shit. We’re going to go raid the parent’s liquor cabinet, and if we can’t find anything, you’re going into the lake.”

As soon as my friend and I walked into the downstairs living room we were greeted by the mom, who let us know she had extra sleeping bags and was about to make some popcorn before they started the scary movie. We smiled and turned around to find the keg of Budweiser.

The keg was kicked after six beers a piece and we were ready to go.

“Go? Where to?”

“Anywhere. This place is like a retreat for virgins.”

“C’mon, just give it a chance.”

“We don’t need your permission. We’ll hotwire your car.”

“You don’t know how.”

“Crackheads can do it. Seriously man, either we leave, or I’m just going to start hunting people with these tiny plastic knives.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll sneak out in a bit.”

About an hour later, when most were engrossed in “Sleepy Hollow,” we crept out of the backyard and quietly piled into the car. We backed out with the headlights off to avoid detection and took off down a narrow dirt road. After a minute or so, we realized that the headlights were still off. The road snaked through the woods and was no more than seven feet wide with massive trees lining the sides.

“Turn on the lights, idiot.”

“Nah man, you guys wanted some fun. Let’s go.”

He accelerated to about sixty miles per hour and began swerving back and forth, fishtailing on the loose rocks. We all began screaming, the driver out of sheer lunacy, and me to scare off any deer that might be out for a late night stroll. Five minutes later and he skidded to an almost complete stop, sending me flying forwards onto the dashboard. On our right was a house with a ridiculously large mailbox that was an exact replica of the house itself.

We decided that we must have it as a souvenir.

My friend and I hopped out while the driver “kept watch,” meaning that if someone should emerge with a shotgun, he’d honk to warn us of the bullets that were about to hit our head. We began rocking the mailbox, trying to dislodge it from the ground, but it wouldn’t budge. After a few minutes, we came to our senses and jumped back in the car.

As we sped away, music blaring and lights still off, I grabbed the shoulders of my friend seated in front of me.

“Woohoo! Man, it would’ve been great to get that mailbox! How hilarious would that have been?! Best night ever!! Woohoo! Mailbox!!”

When we approached the highway, we decided it would be a good idea to turn the headlights back on.

That’s when we saw the blood.

I had unknowingly cut my hand on the mailbox and was not only bleeding, I had been grabbing my friend’s shoulders and flailing around so much that the entire interior was now covered in blood…including the other passengers.

We pulled into the gas station and I fell into the display of disposable cameras.

“Bandages! Where are they?! Let’s go! He’s dying!”

The cashier looked at the three men who had just burst through the front door covered in blood and pointed to the back with a quivering finger. Two of us went there while my other friend stayed in the front.

“I’m sorry! The gun just went off! Oh my God, did you see his head? It just exploded!”

“What are we gonna do now, huh? I can’t go to jail, I’m too pretty. There was so much blood! Oh God, they were so young! They were all so young!”

As we continued screaming from the back of the store, my friend in front smiled to reassure the cashier. He didn’t look reassured.

We joined our friend at the register a few minutes later and slammed down a case of beer, one box of band-aids, a canister of Pringles and a Fruit Punch Snapple. We slapped a bloody twenty dollar bill on the counter and stared into the man’s eyes.

“You say one word about this and we’ll fucking kill you too! Oh, and is there a hotel around here by any chance?”

A few minutes down the road and we considered that we might have been given some poor directions from the cashier. That is, until I saw a sign.

“Well? Where is it, Carney?”

“I dunno, but I saw a sign. It had a big ‘H’ on it. It must be nearby.”

“An ‘H’?”

“Yeah, ‘H.’ ‘H’ for hotel.”

“’H’ for hotel? Are you six years old? ‘H’ is for Hospital. Jesus.”

Just as he was saying Jesus, he made a U-turn on what we soon found out was a church’s front lawn. Then, as revenge on God’s part for the slight, we saw another sign…for the James Motel.

We pulled into the lot and parked across three spots in front of the office. Since the light was off (as it was 3 AM) we began pounding on the door until someone answered.

“How much?”

“$50 for the night.”

“We’ll give you $5. Cash.”

“Is that blood?”

“Okay, $20. But make it the honeymoon suite.”

“$25. And when you’re done in the morning, put the key in the little slot.”

“When we’re done what?”

Obviously the James Motel was for lovers.

Our room looked like something from a heroin addict’s dream, and the second floor location gave us a view of the dumpster where he was likely asleep. There was a funky smell as soon as we entered and the battered brown furniture combined with the peeling yellow walls added to the room’s overall impression of a toilet bowl.

It was perfect.

As there were only two beds, we immediately began fighting about who would get their own, eventually just deciding to push both of them together. Three guys sleeping together would be less gay than just sleeping with one guy, right?

The driver passed out first, and according to “guy law” was thus subject to having an entire beer poured onto his shorts as he “slept.” When he discovered the wetness, my other friend and I hid in the bathroom as he began destroying the room like a blind epileptic.

The next morning I woke up on the floor next to a broken mirror and noticed that I was spooning a trash can. My other friend was dozing in the bathroom tub holding a lamp, and the driver had both beds to himself, curled up happily with the canister of Pringles.

We didn’t inquire about a Continental Breakfast and left a twenty in the little slot before speeding off down the road in our blood-splattered car, yelling at tail lights and hoping that a hot girl was behind the wheel.

* * *

That was almost seven years ago, and this summer all three of us have decided to take a trip back to the James Motel, which is still standing in Monroe, New York.

Anyone want to come?

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March 31, 2011

On The Road – Part Two

 To recap, Sean and a friend have departed Philadelphia at four-thirty in the morning, heading south towards Newark, Delaware.

After a cab leaves them to walk down the side of the highway and an ill-advised detour takes them in search of a river (that would lead them south, because rivers run downhill), the duo has reemerged back on the highway and a police cruiser has just pulled over beside them.

And…scene.

“What the hell are you two idiots doing?”

The question posed by the burly, mustached policeman was one more curious than angry, as if he had stopped in fascination rather than in an official state capacity. Because of the rain, the officer hadn’t exited the vehicle and had just waved us over through his rolled down window.

“I asked you a question.”

“Walking home, sir.”

“Down I-95?”

“Apparently.”

“No you aren’t. It’s illegal.”

“Why?”

“You mean, why can’t you walk down a highway?”

“Yes. It’s a public highway, correct? We’ll pay the tolls.”

This seemed logical.

“Okay wise guy, where are you headed?”

“Newark.”

“Delaware? You two are walking to Delaware?”

“Are we close?”

“Yeah, if you were in a car.”

“Can we get a ride?”

“Not unless I arrest you.”

My friend and I looked at each other, and he shook me off. It wasn’t worth the rap sheet for the free ride.

“No, thanks. We’re going to keep walking.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re going to turn around and walk back up that last on-ramp, got it? If I see you walking down here again, I will fine you, or arrest you. Now move it.”

And he drove off.

It wasn’t until later that we realized he had failed to even give us a ride back to street level. If walking down the highway was so dangerous, why were we ordered to retrace our steps against oncoming traffic?

By the time we got back to the gas station, we were demoralized. What else could be done? We’d tried walking down the highway AND searching for a river. We were running out of options. So we purchased some more donuts and thought as we munched outside.

After a few minutes, a pick-up truck pulled up to one of the pumps and a beer-gutted man in his thirties hopped out. We eyed each other as he sashayed towards the store to pay for his gas, his gut swinging back and forth as if blowing in the breeze. The rain had tapered off and when he came back out, to our surprise, he walked right over to us.

“You two okay?”

No one asks that question unless the people you are asking most certainly do not look okay.

“Yeah, we’re just trying to get back home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Newark, Delaware.”

“And you ain’t got no car?”

“Yeah we do, it’s that invisible one parked over by the fence. It’s just out of invisible gas.”

The man turned to look at the fence, squinted, and then turned back to us.

“Shit, I don’t see no car. But listen, I can give you a ride if yous want. I ain’t goin all the way to Newark, but I’ll get yous close.”

My friend and I looked at each other and mentally tallied up the facts involved in the current offer.

Stranger, pick-up truck, middle of nowhere, six o’clock in the morning, hitchhiking…

“Sure, sounds great!”

My friend climbed in the tiny bench seat in back and I jumped into the passenger side. Tucker, who our driver introduced himself as, squeezed his girth behind the wheel after filling up and we were soon underway.

As Tucker, who told us to call him either “Tuck,” “The Friar,” or “Mother-tucker,” pulled onto I-95, he sipped on his can of Budweiser and spilled some on his POW/MIA sleeveless t-shirt.

“Yeah, I hit my wife.”

I wondered if I should have inquired about this beforehand, and was upset at my redneck conversational faux pas.

“I know it ain’t right, but I didn’t do it to hurt her none, I just did it so she’d stop yelling. But boy did she yell more after I did it! Ha ha!”

Tuck slapped my leg and downshifted. I looked at my pants for signs of wetness.

“Anyway. She called the cops and they told me I had to get out. Can you believe that? I said, ‘Who paid for this trailer, bitch?’ She can’t say nothing to that, can she? Course she can’t. She ain’t pay for shit. Boy I bet she ain’t even pay for some water if her tits were on fire. Ha ha! Know what I mean?”

“Yes, sir. Because she would need the water to put out her tits, but would be too cheap to purchase it.”

“Eggggg-zackly.”

I turned around to look at my friend and saw him reaching for the door handle. We were going about sixty miles per hour.

Over the next twenty minutes we heard more about Tuck’s interesting life; his motorcycle, his thoughts on the Middle East, why certain politicians were encouraged to suck on certain parts of him, etc. We soon arrived at a town somewhere in Delaware and were informed that this was his stop, obviously the site of a future mass murder.

“Where you two wanna be dropped?”

“Can you take us to an ATM? We need to get some money out and look for a train station.”

Okay. When presented with a man guzzling beer at six in the morning that is keen on discussing how (and why) he beats his wife, asking him to take you to a location where you can remove cash is not advisable.

Less advisable? Leaving your backpacks in the car while you take the money out.

We didn’t realize our mistake until we turned around to the grill of his pick-up truck, a Confederate flag prominently displayed not as a vanity plate, but more like a passport. We stared at Tuck behind the wheel and he tilted his head the way a dog does when confused.

“Give him money,” I whispered to my friend.

“Fuck you, you give him money.”

“I’m going to start running. You get the bags, and I’ll get the police.”

“What?!”

“I’m faster than you.”

“Do not start running.”

“Here I go…”

Before I could take off, Tuck tossed both bags out the window and pulled away shaking his head.

We walked down suburban side streets for what felt like forever, the hazy sun suspended just above the treetops and reminding us that normal humans would now be able to see us. Twenty blocks later and we’d had enough. Plopping down underneath a bus sign, we hoped that one would be by sometime in the next week and after a few minutes, I fell asleep.

I woke up when a woman kicked me in the stomach and I opened my eyes to see her stepping over me with a cane. I looked around for my friend and spotted him sitting calmly in the window of the bus staring down at me.

“You were just going to leave me on the side of the road?”

“You looked so comfortable, I didn’t want to wake you. I figured you’d start a new life in whatever town this is. Calm down, I would have visited.”

We didn’t ask where the bus was headed and leaned against the slimy windows hoping it would follow the river south. When we arrived in Wilmington, just outside of Newark, I looked out the window and saw a robbery in progress. After the night we’d had, this seemed normal.

The robber, a man whose jeans were so far below his waist that he had to run at a gallop with one hand holding them up, was moving so erratically down the street that he had lost his sneaker. I pounded on the window of the bus screaming and pointing where it had landed. He turned and looked at me for a moment, stopped running, and picked up the shoe. Then, he smiled, waved, and took off around the corner.

We arrived in Newark, Delaware at eleven-thirty, seven hours since leaving Philadelphia, which by car was about fifty minutes away. When my friend got upstairs to his room, he checked his voicemail and found that his grandfather had died overnight.

“Shit man, I’m sorry.”

“I wonder…”

“What?”

“Nothing. I mean, he died overnight, right? I wonder if it wasn’t him that was watching over us this whole time. There were about seven times we should have died in the last seven hours, ya know? Maybe he was looking out for us from above.”

I sat back on the bed and pondered the possibility. Had we enjoyed some sort of heavenly protection during our journey? Was I only alive because someone else had died? Had we followed the path of some divine spirit? And, if so, why hadn’t we found that river?

As I stood on my porch ten years later, staring up and trying to distinguish between the stars and the flittering lights of passing airplanes, I thought about my friend’s grandfather again.

Maybe, in this age of technological wonder and scientific progress, we weren’t as advanced as we thought. Maybe our fate was dependent upon the whim of some otherworldly being that looked down on us, making us vulnerable and subject to their fickle mercy. Maybe our lives were not as controllable as we once imagined them to be.

Then I thought of someone taking a shit above me at 30,000 feet. And I laughed and went inside.  

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