Saturday, December 25, 2004
Rollin' S40
Sure, once there was the Miami girl. She could be called an old flame, but old flames usually don’t turn from the window pane when you run up in the rain in your jogging shorts, pointing at your watch furiously. I guess she doesn’t remember much of our relationship; that used to be our code-word for “let me in.”
Miami isn’t always the sunny paradise people think it is. A lot of times, year-round, it’s a big, rainy mess. The palm trees and short ferns sag with rain-soaked leaves. The roads alternate between streaming veins of foamy water and sizzling, steaming plates of hot stone. These are the times I throw on my running shorts and jog down to NW 193rd Terrace, to the divided street of bungalows that she lives on.
Usually while I’m running there, the sky will open up and sunshine will peek through, casting down those heavenly shafts of light that look as if God Himself is coming down for a dip in the bay. I’ll smile when I see these, and inevitably high-five an African fruit vendor as I pass one of the barren intersections in her part of town.
When the Miami girl lost her job at this hapless travel agency back in the summer of 2001, I took her out to the movies to cheer her up. I’m a pretty stupid guy, so I took her to see “Bulletz N’ Bitches,” a really poorly-executed piece of work starring some popular rappers from back then. Between sniffs and dabs with her Kleenex, she managed to comment on the inability of one rapper to properly enunciate his feelings through body language. You ever have one of those moments when you’re with a sniffling girl in a darkened movie theater, and you find her so adorable you just want to scarf her up—just lean in and gobble her up because she’s just so damned cute you don’t know what to do with her and you just have to have all of that cuteness that you can? That was one of those moments.
And to think, now she’s turning away from the window panes and walking towards her kitchen. What the hell? I’m pointing at my watch furiously and I get nothing. The sun has come out now, somewhere blocks away from here, so it’s presently raining on me but all around is sun and dappled shade. It’s pretty enough to make you cry, and I feel I just might, but it ain’t gonna be because of some raindrops and sunshine, no sir. It’s gonna be hell if she doesn’t come back to that window and motion for this old, wet dog of a guy to come on into her warm, dry house.
You ever feel so sad, it just feels like you’ve been hit in the balls? You know, that pit in the lower part of your abdomen; the queasiness, the exhausting ache that shoots from your lower regions? I had that bad, so I stumbled off from her front lawn and down to the big intersection, where I hopped the first city bus that came gliding by on the rain-slicked street.
Inside, the bus was air-conditioned and dry and immediately my skin felt clammy and my hair clumped into moist little knots. There was no one else on board, so I walked to the rear and lay down across the bench of seats at the end. I replayed the image over and over in my mind: her, standing at the window, giving me a roll of the eyes and turning away. There was a book laid flat on her coffee table. I guess she’d been reading and had looked up to see me there. I wiped some raindrops from my upper lip and stared at the light filtering through the tops of the bus windows.
The ceiling of the bus was dusty, with a varying brightness from the refracted sunlight of the windows. It was a beautifully still afternoon, and I wanted to be in that living room with her. Instead, I was alone, wet, and cold, on a bus to God knows where, snaking through the streets of a city with a split personality. She will rain on you, she will shine the sun of a thousand years’ smiles on you, or she will do both, in a way that will leave you unsure of your own self, as odd as that sounds coming from the mouth of a young man with a strong mind and a steady heart.
Sure, once there was the Miami girl. She could be called an old flame, but old flames usually don’t turn from the window pane when you run up in the rain in your jogging shorts, pointing at your watch furiously. I guess she doesn’t remember much of our relationship; that used to be our code-word for “let me in.”
Miami isn’t always the sunny paradise people think it is. A lot of times, year-round, it’s a big, rainy mess. The palm trees and short ferns sag with rain-soaked leaves. The roads alternate between streaming veins of foamy water and sizzling, steaming plates of hot stone. These are the times I throw on my running shorts and jog down to NW 193rd Terrace, to the divided street of bungalows that she lives on.
Usually while I’m running there, the sky will open up and sunshine will peek through, casting down those heavenly shafts of light that look as if God Himself is coming down for a dip in the bay. I’ll smile when I see these, and inevitably high-five an African fruit vendor as I pass one of the barren intersections in her part of town.
When the Miami girl lost her job at this hapless travel agency back in the summer of 2001, I took her out to the movies to cheer her up. I’m a pretty stupid guy, so I took her to see “Bulletz N’ Bitches,” a really poorly-executed piece of work starring some popular rappers from back then. Between sniffs and dabs with her Kleenex, she managed to comment on the inability of one rapper to properly enunciate his feelings through body language. You ever have one of those moments when you’re with a sniffling girl in a darkened movie theater, and you find her so adorable you just want to scarf her up—just lean in and gobble her up because she’s just so damned cute you don’t know what to do with her and you just have to have all of that cuteness that you can? That was one of those moments.
And to think, now she’s turning away from the window panes and walking towards her kitchen. What the hell? I’m pointing at my watch furiously and I get nothing. The sun has come out now, somewhere blocks away from here, so it’s presently raining on me but all around is sun and dappled shade. It’s pretty enough to make you cry, and I feel I just might, but it ain’t gonna be because of some raindrops and sunshine, no sir. It’s gonna be hell if she doesn’t come back to that window and motion for this old, wet dog of a guy to come on into her warm, dry house.
You ever feel so sad, it just feels like you’ve been hit in the balls? You know, that pit in the lower part of your abdomen; the queasiness, the exhausting ache that shoots from your lower regions? I had that bad, so I stumbled off from her front lawn and down to the big intersection, where I hopped the first city bus that came gliding by on the rain-slicked street.
Inside, the bus was air-conditioned and dry and immediately my skin felt clammy and my hair clumped into moist little knots. There was no one else on board, so I walked to the rear and lay down across the bench of seats at the end. I replayed the image over and over in my mind: her, standing at the window, giving me a roll of the eyes and turning away. There was a book laid flat on her coffee table. I guess she’d been reading and had looked up to see me there. I wiped some raindrops from my upper lip and stared at the light filtering through the tops of the bus windows.
The ceiling of the bus was dusty, with a varying brightness from the refracted sunlight of the windows. It was a beautifully still afternoon, and I wanted to be in that living room with her. Instead, I was alone, wet, and cold, on a bus to God knows where, snaking through the streets of a city with a split personality. She will rain on you, she will shine the sun of a thousand years’ smiles on you, or she will do both, in a way that will leave you unsure of your own self, as odd as that sounds coming from the mouth of a young man with a strong mind and a steady heart.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Where Did I Come From?
Tell the roast guy I want more steak. That’s what I heard in the drive-through speaker at Wacken Burger (A Division Of Wackenhut Security). I asked the voice to repeat itself, but it just beeped and hummed for about two hours. I wish getting a burger in this city was easier. It just feels like molding yourself a new clay penis whenever you want to get some cheap fast-food.
I like onions a lot, so I thought one sunny afternoon that I’d have about nine or ten scotches and drive on down to PT 109 Onions: A JFK Themed Onion Parlor. It’s that place that’s shaped like an igloo, over on Harvard Boulevard, the one with the big neon Lee Harvey Oswald out front. Well, I drove down there, pumping 106.5 Radio K Sludge at full blast through my car stereo. They were in the middle of a High NRG Rok Blok of songs about famous antebellum slave masters when the Chick With The Funny Hat ran smack into my driver’s side door.
I pulled over quickly and went to administer aid and see if she had anything cool in her purse, like maybe Tic Tacs. I loved those things, I could eat a whole box of them in one sitting if left unattended in a waiting room or public bus. The Chick didn’t have anything but some old bus transfers and about six bucks in her purse, so I went over to see if she was alive. She was, and she apologized for running into my car. I told her she was damn right and then offered to give her a ride. She said she wasn’t really in need of one, but I guess I had one of those “I’m off to get onions at a JFK-themed onion restaurant” looks and she was hungry, so she hopped in.
We sped on down the road, with the radio again on blast, but at this point, they had moved to a piano-heavy medley of songs about snifters. I loved that station. We got to a big traffic jam at the hill near Arverne Parkway, where all the cars were at a standstill. An electronic roadsign mounted above the road flashed “Breakdancers Ahead: Expect Delays,” so we just sighed and reclined our car seats fully back. There we were, lying together in my stuffy car on a gorgeous summer day, stuck because some stupid kids just couldn’t let go of Old School Hip Hop culture once again.
I asked her about her funny hat. Why do you wear that funny hat? I asked. She replied that her grandfather had run a fried ravioli restaurant in Saint Louis for sixty-six years before he was beaned to death in a pickup softball game. That explanation didn’t really make any sense in context but I took it for what it was worth. I had a 10th grade English teacher who once told me I was very good at reading between the lines. At least that’s what I think she said. She was Chinese and only spoke pidgin Mandarin. My high school sucked.
The traffic finally eased up (the cops showed up in their death metal outfits) and we moved along. I was starving at this point, and we passed a Yassir Arafat Chicken & Waffles, so I suggested we just pop in there for a quick bite. The Chick didn’t really approve of the place though—it turned out she was a rabid Zionist--so on her counter suggestion, we just drove out to the beach.
It was such a nice day out that I couldn’t argue, but just as I was merging onto the 660 to head towards Schwarzkopf Beach, I rear-ended a milk truck. Silly me, I’d forgotten to re-adjust my seat from the fully reclined position. It really hadn’t affected my driving, and the Chick had seen that, so she hadn’t said anything. My driver’s ed instructor in high school used to say that I was the best damned reclined driver he’d ever seen, but I’m not sure if his opinion meant much, because he was an old chain-smoking black guy in a chicken costume. My driver’s ed school kicked ass.
Back when I lived in Washington, I’d gotten in my fair share of accidents. One time, a bread truck fell off the roof of a parking deck, right onto the hood of my car, which I was sunbathing on. It wasn’t really an accident per se, but the insurance guy still yelled at me for a good hour and a half. I still don’t know why my parents had to invite him over for dinner.
This accident was different, though. Out here, drivers are pretty laid back. The milk truck driver got out, reeking of pot smoke and darting his eyes everywhere. I looked back at the car to flash the Chick one of those “get a load of this doped-up milk truck driver” looks, but she was applying lip gloss and flicking off the cop who had just shown up to direct traffic. There’s something about this chick that I really like, I told the milk truck driver. He gave me a high five, and that was that. See, I told you drivers out here are laid back.
Back in the car, I splashed myself with some holy water (they sell them at Wal-Mart; Richard Petty Holy Shit! Water Dispensers; best sixteen bucks you’ll ever spend) for good luck and we were off. I could see the sparkling blue water of the ocean when we crested the Santas Muebles hills. The chick asked me if I knew that the US Dairy Association asked farmers to kill 52,000 cows in order to keep milk prices high. I told her in fact I did; my college roommate at art school was now a dairy farmer in Brooklyn. She asked what a dairy farmer would be doing in Brooklyn and I told her he lived in Williamsburg and was trying to stay ahead of the curve. This seemed to pacify her and we dropped the subject. I wanted to ask about the hat again, but I was starting to really like this girl and I didn’t want to piss her off; she’d been through enough already.
Right before the exit for the beach, there was another bad traffic jam. This shit gets frustrating; I wish they’d actually built that subway system instead of just installing a massive underground network of sandwich shops. That’s an instance where the entire public failed to read between the lines.
The Chick turned to me in her seat and asked me what my biggest regret in life was. I love it when girls do that kind of thing, turning in their seat and asking you some question to gauge your psyche. When a girl does that kind of thing, you just feel like you’re king of the world, especially on a sunny 72-degree day with the tunes blasting and a nice salty breeze through the sunroof. I wasn’t about to tell her my real biggest regret, so I just planted a big one on her lips.
She smiled and looked at me, puzzled. I said, I regret doing that, because you’re going to tell the cops I raped you. She just laughed and said, of course I wouldn’t. That made me feel better. I guess I’m a little paranoid, but we live in a litigious society, or so the guy at the freeway exit keeps screaming at me whenever I buy oranges from him.
We parked at the beach and I carried a blanket from my trunk out to the sand. We lay there for a while, watching a biplane high above. It was trailing a big photograph of Barry Bonds. Apparently it was an advertisement for Balco Ham Steaks: The True Slugger. I mentioned that all the celebrity endorsements in this town were getting out of hand and the Chick nodded and nestled her head on my shoulder.
It was perfect, and I laid there in amazement at how life can pick you up and send you along in such amazing directions, without any effort on your part at all. To think, a year previous, I was walking amongst the crunchy leaves of Washington D.C., wondering how much it would hurt to have a subway train plow into me. Now, here I was, in bliss save for the sand crabs slowly traveling under my pant legs and up my calves. But sand crabs are a pretty petty annoyance when there’s a chick in a funny hat nestled beside you on a sunny beach.
I breathed a deep breath and thought, this is how George Clooney must have felt when he was a recurring character on The Facts Of Life—invigorated, excited, itchy. The sun began to set eventually, and the Chick was now a vibrant shade of orange. Around us, the kids walked about, gazes aimed at their Game Boys. It was nice to be around so many people enjoying themselves, and it felt better than any sorry old caramel-dipped onion ever would have.
The Chick and I decided to go see a movie, “Foghorns Of War,” at a nearby Cineplex. I had forgotten about how nice it felt to stroll up to a box office arm in arm with someone other than a cop, and I realized that this Chick made me feel new again with every little step I took.
After the movie, which sucked—way too many foghorns and terrible narration by Michael McDonald—we stopped for Baklava at Dennis Hopper Greek Treets N’ More. After the last forkful, I sat back, dabbing my mouth with my napkin, gazing into her big, brown eyes and occasionally at her funny hat. I leaned towards her, accidently dropping my napkin on the floor, and I said these simple words that started it all: I need to see you again.
The rest is history, and that, my son, is how your mother and I met, under blue skies, in a city far, far away.
Now fetch me an orange and go clean the bathroom.
Tell the roast guy I want more steak. That’s what I heard in the drive-through speaker at Wacken Burger (A Division Of Wackenhut Security). I asked the voice to repeat itself, but it just beeped and hummed for about two hours. I wish getting a burger in this city was easier. It just feels like molding yourself a new clay penis whenever you want to get some cheap fast-food.
I like onions a lot, so I thought one sunny afternoon that I’d have about nine or ten scotches and drive on down to PT 109 Onions: A JFK Themed Onion Parlor. It’s that place that’s shaped like an igloo, over on Harvard Boulevard, the one with the big neon Lee Harvey Oswald out front. Well, I drove down there, pumping 106.5 Radio K Sludge at full blast through my car stereo. They were in the middle of a High NRG Rok Blok of songs about famous antebellum slave masters when the Chick With The Funny Hat ran smack into my driver’s side door.
I pulled over quickly and went to administer aid and see if she had anything cool in her purse, like maybe Tic Tacs. I loved those things, I could eat a whole box of them in one sitting if left unattended in a waiting room or public bus. The Chick didn’t have anything but some old bus transfers and about six bucks in her purse, so I went over to see if she was alive. She was, and she apologized for running into my car. I told her she was damn right and then offered to give her a ride. She said she wasn’t really in need of one, but I guess I had one of those “I’m off to get onions at a JFK-themed onion restaurant” looks and she was hungry, so she hopped in.
We sped on down the road, with the radio again on blast, but at this point, they had moved to a piano-heavy medley of songs about snifters. I loved that station. We got to a big traffic jam at the hill near Arverne Parkway, where all the cars were at a standstill. An electronic roadsign mounted above the road flashed “Breakdancers Ahead: Expect Delays,” so we just sighed and reclined our car seats fully back. There we were, lying together in my stuffy car on a gorgeous summer day, stuck because some stupid kids just couldn’t let go of Old School Hip Hop culture once again.
I asked her about her funny hat. Why do you wear that funny hat? I asked. She replied that her grandfather had run a fried ravioli restaurant in Saint Louis for sixty-six years before he was beaned to death in a pickup softball game. That explanation didn’t really make any sense in context but I took it for what it was worth. I had a 10th grade English teacher who once told me I was very good at reading between the lines. At least that’s what I think she said. She was Chinese and only spoke pidgin Mandarin. My high school sucked.
The traffic finally eased up (the cops showed up in their death metal outfits) and we moved along. I was starving at this point, and we passed a Yassir Arafat Chicken & Waffles, so I suggested we just pop in there for a quick bite. The Chick didn’t really approve of the place though—it turned out she was a rabid Zionist--so on her counter suggestion, we just drove out to the beach.
It was such a nice day out that I couldn’t argue, but just as I was merging onto the 660 to head towards Schwarzkopf Beach, I rear-ended a milk truck. Silly me, I’d forgotten to re-adjust my seat from the fully reclined position. It really hadn’t affected my driving, and the Chick had seen that, so she hadn’t said anything. My driver’s ed instructor in high school used to say that I was the best damned reclined driver he’d ever seen, but I’m not sure if his opinion meant much, because he was an old chain-smoking black guy in a chicken costume. My driver’s ed school kicked ass.
Back when I lived in Washington, I’d gotten in my fair share of accidents. One time, a bread truck fell off the roof of a parking deck, right onto the hood of my car, which I was sunbathing on. It wasn’t really an accident per se, but the insurance guy still yelled at me for a good hour and a half. I still don’t know why my parents had to invite him over for dinner.
This accident was different, though. Out here, drivers are pretty laid back. The milk truck driver got out, reeking of pot smoke and darting his eyes everywhere. I looked back at the car to flash the Chick one of those “get a load of this doped-up milk truck driver” looks, but she was applying lip gloss and flicking off the cop who had just shown up to direct traffic. There’s something about this chick that I really like, I told the milk truck driver. He gave me a high five, and that was that. See, I told you drivers out here are laid back.
Back in the car, I splashed myself with some holy water (they sell them at Wal-Mart; Richard Petty Holy Shit! Water Dispensers; best sixteen bucks you’ll ever spend) for good luck and we were off. I could see the sparkling blue water of the ocean when we crested the Santas Muebles hills. The chick asked me if I knew that the US Dairy Association asked farmers to kill 52,000 cows in order to keep milk prices high. I told her in fact I did; my college roommate at art school was now a dairy farmer in Brooklyn. She asked what a dairy farmer would be doing in Brooklyn and I told her he lived in Williamsburg and was trying to stay ahead of the curve. This seemed to pacify her and we dropped the subject. I wanted to ask about the hat again, but I was starting to really like this girl and I didn’t want to piss her off; she’d been through enough already.
Right before the exit for the beach, there was another bad traffic jam. This shit gets frustrating; I wish they’d actually built that subway system instead of just installing a massive underground network of sandwich shops. That’s an instance where the entire public failed to read between the lines.
The Chick turned to me in her seat and asked me what my biggest regret in life was. I love it when girls do that kind of thing, turning in their seat and asking you some question to gauge your psyche. When a girl does that kind of thing, you just feel like you’re king of the world, especially on a sunny 72-degree day with the tunes blasting and a nice salty breeze through the sunroof. I wasn’t about to tell her my real biggest regret, so I just planted a big one on her lips.
She smiled and looked at me, puzzled. I said, I regret doing that, because you’re going to tell the cops I raped you. She just laughed and said, of course I wouldn’t. That made me feel better. I guess I’m a little paranoid, but we live in a litigious society, or so the guy at the freeway exit keeps screaming at me whenever I buy oranges from him.
We parked at the beach and I carried a blanket from my trunk out to the sand. We lay there for a while, watching a biplane high above. It was trailing a big photograph of Barry Bonds. Apparently it was an advertisement for Balco Ham Steaks: The True Slugger. I mentioned that all the celebrity endorsements in this town were getting out of hand and the Chick nodded and nestled her head on my shoulder.
It was perfect, and I laid there in amazement at how life can pick you up and send you along in such amazing directions, without any effort on your part at all. To think, a year previous, I was walking amongst the crunchy leaves of Washington D.C., wondering how much it would hurt to have a subway train plow into me. Now, here I was, in bliss save for the sand crabs slowly traveling under my pant legs and up my calves. But sand crabs are a pretty petty annoyance when there’s a chick in a funny hat nestled beside you on a sunny beach.
I breathed a deep breath and thought, this is how George Clooney must have felt when he was a recurring character on The Facts Of Life—invigorated, excited, itchy. The sun began to set eventually, and the Chick was now a vibrant shade of orange. Around us, the kids walked about, gazes aimed at their Game Boys. It was nice to be around so many people enjoying themselves, and it felt better than any sorry old caramel-dipped onion ever would have.
The Chick and I decided to go see a movie, “Foghorns Of War,” at a nearby Cineplex. I had forgotten about how nice it felt to stroll up to a box office arm in arm with someone other than a cop, and I realized that this Chick made me feel new again with every little step I took.
After the movie, which sucked—way too many foghorns and terrible narration by Michael McDonald—we stopped for Baklava at Dennis Hopper Greek Treets N’ More. After the last forkful, I sat back, dabbing my mouth with my napkin, gazing into her big, brown eyes and occasionally at her funny hat. I leaned towards her, accidently dropping my napkin on the floor, and I said these simple words that started it all: I need to see you again.
The rest is history, and that, my son, is how your mother and I met, under blue skies, in a city far, far away.
Now fetch me an orange and go clean the bathroom.
