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December 30, 2004

Last New Year's Eve

Last year for New Year's eve I called up a friend, "Do you want to go to Times Square?"
"Ok."

So we went to the liquor store and stocked up on beer, liquor and sparkling wine or sparkling malt beverage or whatever then drove over to a train station in New Jersey. There we drank beers and liquor in the parking lot before getting on the train. We drank on the train hiding our beers inside gloves to avoid the wrath of the ticket takers that were becoming increasingly hostile to our disregard for the no-drinking-on-the-train rule.
By the time we got to Manhattan Times Square was already full of people, but we tried to get in anyway. At every access to the square the police told us to go a couple blocks farther. "This entrance is closed. Go down to the next one." We ended up walking all the way down to Central Park.
In the park, under some trees, we ran into a bunch of thugs drinking forties. We joked for a bit and traded sips of delicious malt liquor for the Canadian liquor I brought. "Thanks for the drinks, guys, but we've got to run to go find Dick Clark."
"You ain't getting to that mothafucka. That shit's all packed."
And it was packed. All I saw was heads. Thousands by my count. Actually estimation is a better word for it, I was in no shape to count by 10pm.
As the night progressed we were packed tighter and tighter. More and more people wanted to get in to see Dick Clark. (What the hell does he do besides the New Year's special?) I got the idea to kick my feet out from under me to see if the friction betweenmy neighbors and I would hold me up. It did. What a sucker, using my feet all this time, I thought. I stayed holding my feet in the air until I forgot I was doing it and eventually stood up on my own again.
I'm not positive what it was that made me forget I was intentionally not using my feet, but I have an idea: a painful desire to urinate.
I had been drinking for hours and had no place to pee. Not only that, but if I did have someplace to go I couldn't reach it. Here I was, a sardine among hundreds of thousands of sardines packed into the streets of Manhattan unable to move in any direction. We were packed so tightly together not even my friend standing next to me could see that I had lifted my feet when I lifted them up. He couldn't see my feet.
I unzipped my fly and peed on 7th Avenue without anyone noticing.

I'm not sure when the ball dropped, if it even did, but eventually the place started thinning out.
I ran into a bunch of Japanese tourists. I gave piggy back rides to the girls while their boyfriends took pictures while they chanted, "I love America!"
I found myself in a Puerto Rican bar. I promptly left.
I ran into a Marine that wanted to kick my ass, but I talked him into buying me a beer.

Then I got into a fight with a cashier at one of Manhattan's many porno stores.
while my friend bought stacks and stacks of porno DVDs and grab-bag magazine packs I decided I was going to buy a gift for a girl I was dating. "Can I see how this thing works?"
"You turn it on."
"I know you turn it on. It's a vibrator. I got that part, but I've never seen a pen vibrator before I want to see how well it works. Does it even vibrate?"
"You buy it and see."
"It's thirty bucks. Let me see how it worksand then I'll decide."
"No. It has batteries. You buy it first."
"You want me to buy it to see if I want to buy it?"
"It has batteries."
"I know it has batteries."
"So you buy it and see how it works."
"No. I don't want it." Why the hell would I buy a pen vibrator anyway? It had become obvious to me it was just a stupid idea conceived because I was drunk in a porn store. After all that is why we crowded into the peep booth in the last store - it was there and we were drunk and curious ast to how they worked. I'm normally afraid to even look inside them, even though they smell like hospital disinfectant.
I walked over to the grab-bag magazine section and saw my friend with an armload of porn dropping things as he picked others off the shelf.

"You, sir. You wanted to see." The cashier called out to me. I turned to see he had opened the package and had the pen in one hand and the battery in the other.
"Yeah. OK"
"This is it." He held the two pieces, one in each hand.
"Ok, let's see."
"I just showed you."
"I saw that already. I wanted to see how well it worked. If it's crappy I don't want to waste my money."
"No. No."
"Yes. If it's crappy I don't want it. Let's see."
"No. you buy first."

He never showed me how it worked. Even though he had the package open and the battery out.

"Let's go."
"Just wait. I've got to buy a couple things."

The grab-bag magazines were rather bad, or he already had copies of them, we gave them away to the homeless on our way back to the train station.

The train back to Princeton was full. I stored myself in the overhead luggage compartment and took a nap.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:57 PM | Comments (2)

My Tape Recorder

My sister and her boyfriend gave me a tape recorder for Christmas. I've been using it for all sorts of things since I got it. I recorded some church hymns, some Johnny Cash off a bar jukebox, my account of the neighbors' fighting out in the street.

Gene SP had been kicked out of the neighbors' house, but moved back around Christmas-time. His stay was short lived.

I came home from a post-Christmas Christmas shopping trip to see Herman, the father of two of the matriach neighbor's children, in the middle of the street held back by two women. He was screaming and lunging forward to no avail - the women were rather large - at Gene Slow Pimp, who was yelling something doubly incoherent from the sidewalk.
Herman would occassionally break free of the females' hold and charge at Gene Skinny Pimp. He would yell things like, "I'll kick your ass oldman." while back-peddling. The women would scurry out in front of Herman and hold him back again.
After watching for a few minutes I decided to head inside. About ten minutes later I heard shouting from outside and went the the window to see what was going on. They were still fighting, but things did change. A winter jacket lay in the street. Gene Slimy Pimp was now held back by one of the women.
I saw him push her backward, sending her tumbling over a marble stoop. Apparently he has no problem fighting with women. This whole episode started when he pulled a knife on his girlfriend's sister, Herman's daughter.
I went to the kitchen to grab something to eat. When I returned to the window I saw a pile of Gene's belongings in the street. When the police arrived to arrest Gene they let him put all his belongings in the back of the car. That's nice. I didn't know the city did that.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2004

Lack of Success

Last night Emma, Rachel and I went down to the PITS. It's supposed to be a lesbian bar but when we walked in the only customers were gay men.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I found the old bankrupt millionaire that squawks like a bird wasn't there. He's rather creepy. But maybe it's not his fault. Maybe it's the alcohol he drinks like water. He even his vodka on the rocks out of water glasses. I don't know what he did to curry the bartenders' favor, but he gets huge drinks for next to nothing. Maybe they take pity on him because he's bankrupt. Maybe they figure a guy that squawks like a bird can't make a whole lot of money. Maybe they water down his drinks.
The two guys immediately commensed staring at me in what I felt was the creepiest way possible (what's worse is they didn't even give me a free drink) and it made me think:
Ladies. All you ladies out there, every single one. I apologize.
It seems to me that men act like this a lot. So I figure as a man I must do it too. I'm sorry. I never meant to make anyone feel uneasy. I just liked what I saw.
I never meant to make you feel like I was going to follow you home and try to force myself into your house or trap you in a dark corner. It may have looked like I was going to do that but I would never, ever, do that. I swear.
For serious.

Unless you wanted me to.

But even then I wouldn't do it all that well.

Shortly after I moved to this little Portugese island I went out to a club with some guys from work. I didn't speak any Portugese (and to this day can say little more than "a bottle of (red) wine please.") so I stuck with the English speaking folk. An older lady, a friend of a friend of a coworker, came up to me and asked me to dance with her. The drinks were cheap so I had had a few and figured what the hell.
I stepped out on the dance floor with this woman easily twice my age. She wasn't as old as my mother, but they definitely could have played together as kids. She grabbed my ass and squeezed a bit. I felt really uneasy. I knew what she wanted and I didn't want to give it to her. Then she told me I should call her "mom."
Drained of energy I went back to the table and sat down.

I saw a Portugese girl I considered hot, and decided to purge myself of the latest experience by hitting on her. She was receptive in a tepid, I don't like you, but you're helping me practice my English so I won't kick you in the groin sort of way. I considered that good enough and sat next to her.
I offered her a drink, and she refused, but we continued talking. I don't remember what exactly it was the conversation was about, but I remember we both ran out of words.
hmmm.
"Can I get you a drink?"
"No."

This happened a couple times before I finally broke her down.
"I'm going to get myself a drink. Do you want one?"
"No. But I'll take some potato chips."
Ah. She wants me to buy her something. Success! I triumphantly walked over to the bar.
Unversed in both Portugese and Portugese drinking establishment customs I stood in the wrong line for a drink. At this club you pay for a drink then go to the bar to get it from the bartender.
I got in the line to buy a drink and chips. It was a rather orderly line, unlike the one to get drinks. Apparently it was obvious I was the guy that didn't speak Portugese and everyone took advantage of that yelling their drink orders to the bartender over my shoulder. I felt like crying out to mom to save me, but I knew she'd take it as an invitation to molest me further, so I patiently waited.

When I was the only guy left at the bar holding a receipt for a pre-purchased drink the bartender decided it was time to stock the bar. Seńor! -- Do they say that here? "Hey!"
He kept walking.
I looked over to the spot I last saw the hot Portugese girl. She was gone. "Brian?" I turned to find her behind me.
"Sorry it's taking so long. I'm not sure how to get his attention."
"I'll get it. bláh bláh bláh."
The bartender came over with a bag of chips and my drink. "Thanks."
"No. Thank you for the chips." she said as she opened the bag. "Bye. I'm leaving." she said as she popped a chip into her mouth.
Then she turned and walked out the door

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

Next Year

Last night I gave away the last of the Christmas gifts I bought.
If I forgot you, I'm sorry.
Better luck next year.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2004

I Went to My Parents' House - Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day I woke to a bang on the bedroom door. The room was still too cold for me to get out of bed even though my parents turned on the heat for the day; I lay my head back on the pillow and went back to sleep. Two minutes later there was another knock on the door. "Get out of bed."
"Give me a minute."
"We don't have a minute. You have to help me take out the old dishwasher." My parents were having the extended family over for Christmas Eve. The house had yet to be cleaned (the living room was covered in papers, boxes, newspapers and magazines), food had yet to be be cooked, and they chose that morning to have a new dishwasher delivered. I had to take out the old one so the delivery guys could take it away, then I was supposed to install the new one.
Remove and install a dishwasher while my mother tried to make dinner for 20 people and remove the trash from the living room. A month prior she had decided that the room she used as an office was too dirty so she removed everything from the room and spread it around the living room. All the chairs, the sofa, and the floor were covered with papers and magazines.

"Oh, shit! I left the soda in the car." The temperature was in the single digits and she had left all the soda she bought a couple days earlier in the trunk of her car. She ran out and brought back a couple cases of frozen, distended cans.

I got as far as I could with the dishwasher installation, but couldn't finish because I needed a drill. "Here, use this while I run to work to see if I left my drill there." My dad, a librarian, handed me a hand drill. I was supposed to drill a hole in a 1 1/2 inch thick floor with a hand drill -- the kind of drill that requires two hands and no electicity. One hand to push the drill down, the other one to turn the bit. The kind of drill that Amish (the people that don't use buttons because they are too high-tech) use.
I was left in the house alone with food cooking, in the oven and on the stove. Somehow my mother had disappeared without me noticing, leaving all the food untended. It wasn't long before my dad came back from the library. "I couldn't find it. I'll just buy a new one and finish it myself." After a while my mom came back, then after finding out we had taken a break from the dishwasher installation said, "We need a tree! People will be here any minute! We need a tree!"

My dad and I drove out to buy a tree. The first place we stopped was a parking lot with several trees and a sign that read: All trees $25. Go across the street to 520 Clark St to pay.
"$25 for a tree in Wisconsin? What a racket."
"Fuck them. Let's go some where else." my dad said as he give the finger to 520 Clark St.
We drove down the road and came to a farm with several trees in the driveway. The picked out a tree and went to the farmhouse to see how much the trees were. "No one's home. Let's just leave them $10 or something."
"No way. I'm not going to steal a tree."
"Or we could just leave with it. That's a good idea."
"No, Brian. Unless we can't find one anywhere else. But I think they have them for sale at Home Depot."

We drove down to Home Depot and found trees for all prices ranges. Top of line was $35. Bottom of the line had no price. "It can't be more than $17, and they're half off."
We went to the cash register and the tree rang up for $0.01. Concerned, the cashier called the manager who said what the hell and they sold it to us for a penny. Once we loaded it in the car my dad said "I'm telling your mother it cost $25. Don't say a word."

When we got home several guests had already arrived and were trying to shake their sodas from their cans. I set up the tree in the corner.

Around 11pm my sister arrived. She flew in from LA with her boyfriend. Shortly afte,r a couple guests who had stuck around just to see my sister filed out. It was down to me, my sister, her boyfriend and my mother and father. My sister started in on her catharsis. "Why did you buy me those shoes? I hated those shoes."
"What shoes?"
Apparently 20 years or so earlier my mother bought my sister a pair of shoes she hated. My sister objected, but mom bought them anyway. One wanted the shoes because they were nice shoes. The other one thought the shoes were hideous. What they agree on was what happened next: my sister threw a fit and bit my mom on the hand. My mother was wearing a ring and it caught on my sister's lip. She bit so hard she split her own lip and blood came rushing down her face.
They bickered about the shoe episode from the 80s, both, from what I could tell, serious about it.
"...And you never cared about me. The whole time I played the clarinet you called it a flute."
Sean, my sister's boyfriend leaned over to me and told me my sister once flipped out on him when he called her clarinet a flute.
"I played the clarinet for, like, 5 years and I was good at it, but you always called it a flute."
"I'm sorry."

Sean and I began our own conversation using cues from the mother-daughter discussion.

"And you never even noticed when I came home high and drunk." Things lightened up when my dad came into the room.
"Dad always asked to see my eyes to see if I was high, but I was only drunk." She started bragging.
"Then I noticed that he was always drunk too, so it didn't matter when I started coming home high too. He'd ask to see my eyes, but wouldn't notice anything."
"Sure, take advantage of your drunk old man."
"Why not?"
"So you were lying to us the whole time? Lying to us about drugs and drinking. You were probably lying about being a virgin too." My dad didn't seem to have much invested in the conversation. First off he doesn't really care about such things. Second he started drinking well before he banged on the bedroom door to wake me up.
"No. I just lied about the drinking and drugs. I was a virgin until ..."
"Until I walked in on you?" My mom asked.
"Yeah."

I broke from the conversation with Sean to address my sister. "Sure. A technical virgin. One of those girls that claims to be a virgin because she only gives head and takes it in the butt."
"No. I've never taken it 'in the butt.'"
Sean seemed like a good sport. "Sean told me he was going to give it to you in the butt when you guys get back home." He nodded "yes."
My dad said, "I'm getting my shotgun."

"Dad! No!" my sister started screaming when he walked back into the room clearing the chamber on his shotgun.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 01:04 PM | Comments (0)

I Went to My Parents' House - Day One

Like much of America I visted my parents for Christmas. The trip went as expected: the plane took off on time and landed in one piece, I braved the near-zero Chicago winter to get myself to the train station, the train took me to my destination, and on arrival my parents were nowhere to be found.
I stood in the sub-zero Wisconsin night and I think was propositioned by a middle-aged woman. "Do you need a ride?"
"No, thanks. I have a ride coming."
"Where are you going?"
"Delavan."
"I'll take you there." It was over thirty miles from the train station.
"No, thanks. My parents are coming -- I think -- and they'd be a little freaked out it I wasn't here."
"Come one and sit in the car with me for a little while." Rubbing the seat next to her.
"I'll be ok. Thanks."
"Just for a little while?"

I finally got to my parents' house and they put me up in a spare bedroom. "There's another blanket at the foot of the bed if you get cold."
Why would I get cold? I thought. I rarely turn the heat on in my house. But I found I would get cold because my parents have decided that, despite the sub-zero outside, the heat will be shut off at 10pm.
I woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold. I was shivering, my teeth were chattering. I grabbed the extra blanket and tried to fall asleep. I waited for the for the blanket to do its job - to feel even the slightest bit warmer. I lay in bed curled in a ball trying to reduce surface area and heatloss. After about a half hour of that I decided it was time to find yet another blanket. I ran around the frozen house searching closets for another blanket.
When I finally found one what I found was not a simple little blanket like the three I had on the bed already but a regular comforter hidden in the closet of their other spare bedroom. Even though they knew the house dipped below freezing in the night they gave me only flimsy blankets and hid the warmer comforter in the spare closet.

I woke up hungry. I had worked up a hunger with the shivering during the night - the shivering necessary for me to survive. I went to the fridge. Even though there are only two people in the house it was completely full - there was not a square inch of free space. The fridge was packed with leftovers, hot sauces, moldy limes (or maybe they were lemons before they were covered with green mold), and nearly three dozen cups of yogurt. "Why do you have so much yogurt, mom?"
"We buy it when it's on sale."
I pulled one out but put it back when I saw the expiration date of 04 Oct (rumor has it the yogurt that expired in June is at the back of the fridge and I was pulling out the newer stuff). "This stuff is expired."
"Oh, Brian, yogurt never goes bad."
I opted for some eggs, as their expiration date was just less than a month prior - 27 Nov 2004. I cooked myself an omlet. I was rushed through eating it because my parents were in a rush to start their Christmas shopping. They had to do it Thursday because people were coming over Friday for Christmas Eve.
On the way to the store I found out what happens to people when they eat expired eggs. "Hurry up! I have to use the bathroom."

We rounded out our shopping day with a trip to the mall. There were two stores side by side with names that seemed to fit my parents and they split up. My mom went into Indian Treasures while my dad went into Milwaukee PC. My dad called to me from inside the computer store. "Look at this stuff." He wanted to point out the high prices and how ridiculous some of the products were - neon underlighting for your PC box, a box shaped like a cobra, etc. My mom's trip to Indian Treasures was fairly short, as it turned out to be a head shop. She poked her head inside the PC store and said she'd wait for us outside.
When we left the store a couple minutes later she was nowhere to be found. "Your mother always does this. 'I'll be in the hall.' We'll never find her." We walked throught the mall. "Ask them if they've seen a crazy lady in a long coat. They're about your age."
"Dad. Those girls are, like, 14."
"They're more malleable at that age."
"Whatever, dad."
"You like that one?" He pointed out a woman in her 40s. Granted she was attractive for a woman in her 40s, but she was still in her 40s. "Now that's a little too old."
"That'd be quite something for a guy my age. She'd be a hot young chic. It'd be braggable."

Luckily the sight of Salvation Army bell ringer dressed as a Klingon (or some goofy-ass Star Trek race) changed the subject. "This time of year brings out all the freaks. Look at him."

We walked through the mall looking for my misplaced mother and came across a store selling fantasy swords. One handle adorn with a skull attached to three blades, A dagger, something to strap onto your hand so you can have claws like Wolverine and some other "weapons" sat in the window. My dad and I laughed together wondering out loud about the sanity of people that spend money on things of that sort. Just then my mom flew by us in her usual frantic way. "Come on in here guys. I want to show you something. This stuff is just so cool."
It wasn't the swords she wanted to point out to us, but the light up, moving water pictures along the back wall. "Look. Aren't these just so cool?"
"Mom, haven't you ever seen these before? They've been selling them in malls for years."
"Oh, I've never seen them before. I think they're cool." I turned around and she was gone again.
"Where the hell did your mother go now?"
We looked around for her a bit before we decided to leave. As we did we passed a guy trying to test out a sword. "Here's my ID. See? 21." The guy behind the counter pulled out a sword-type thing and handed it over to the 21-year-old. He held it in one hand, his arm outstretched, one eye closed; he moved it up and down, eyeing something. It looked like a meat clever to me; a little longer and little thinner, but very much like your basic meat clever.
"You have to be 21 to hold a meat clever but you can buy a gun at 18?" My dad said in a disgusted voice loud enough for both the sword connoisseur and salesman to hear. I noticed a dirty look coming from the salesman as we walked by giggling at the impracticle, obscenely exprensive "weaponry" in the show cases. "Look, brass knuckles with a switchblade souldered on."
There were several different styles of the "wolverine" glove. You could choose from 3 or 4 blades.
"Dad. Look at the saleman giving you those dirty looks. That thing about the meat clever must have pissed him off."
"I don't fucking care."
Right about then the saleman showed up and in a disgusted voice said, "Do either of you have any questions?"
"Yes. I have one." said my dad. "Who the hell buys this shit?"
"I for one." He huffed as he marched off.

That amused me enough to keep on with the shopping for several more minutes.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:09 PM | Comments (2)

December 22, 2004

Going to My Parents'

I'm making my annual trek to my parents house later on today. I've got to fly there because it is so far off the information superhighway - Actually I've got to fly to Chicago and then take 2 different trains to get to a place close enough to be picked up by a parent in a car and ferried back to their cemetery side abode.
My family is always good for a chuckle or two, and I'm expecting more exciting happens than usual this Christmas. I am bringing along a pen and paper to chronicle them. These happenings will be exclusively family related as there is only one (maybe two?) bar in the town in which to meet strangers. I won't be going to it because I'm a little afraid of being beaten by snowmobiling toothless drunks. Still that would be a pretty exciting story to tell to the grandkids.

Last night I saw something I may end up telling the grandkids about.

I got summoned down to the Harborway Inn. Upon arrival I noticed Sammy, the bum, was asleep in his usual seat. As I stepped around him to enter the bar I was attacked by the little mangey-looking dog as expected. I got a Natty Boh and while enjoying it I met Spencer.
Spencer is on strike. He makes airplane parts and just arrived at the bar from the picket line. He was pretty wasted, so right or wrong I now am convinced union workers drink while picketing. He was talking loudly calling everyone in the bar a genius. Lazy, misguided geniuses.
Then he tried convincing everyone to buy extremely cheap box springs at some place on Pulaski Highway. He was a little pushy about it so we decided to leave.
On the way out the door the bartender stopped us saying that a guy at the bar was going to spit fire for us.
We stopped and watched as she poured one of the customers two shots of grain alcohol. As she lit one on fire Sammy the Bum perked up. He sat up in his seat and got a little animated. "Burn the cat! Burn the cat!" He yelled.
The fire spitter poured a shot of the liquor in his mouth and turned down the bar. He stuck his finger in the burning shot glass and while Sammy kept chanting "burn the cat" he sprayed the grain alcohol out of his mouth, over his blazing finger, and a huge ball of flame flew down the bar. Then he turned back to the bar and I noticed his face was on fire; luckily he noticed.
He slapped at his face and neck both covered with bluish flames. It didn't help. A couple seconds passed as he frantically slapped at his face trying to put out the fire.

He finally put the fire out and was unharmed except for a couple singed hairs. The bar erupted in applause and cheers. "Awesome." "Cool!"
Then, in unison, we yelled, "Do it again!"
He did. A few more times, but without the facial flames.

I don't think that sort of stuff will happen at my parents house this Christmas, but I'll let you know what does happen.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2004

I Wasn't Thinking About it, I Swear

Having been recently accused of seeming like a drunk and pervert I've been racking my brain to find a time I wasn't drinking or thinking about sex. I searched long and hard through my surviving brain cells. I watched my life in rewind looking for a single moment not occupied with these vices.
I was watching for a while when I decided to press stop and then press rewind again, so I could go back faster (unfortunately I was assembled during the VCR era and can't just skip back scene by scene like you can with those fancy digital video disks).
I got to Sixth grade. Nope. Drawing naked pictures of of your teacher counts as sexual.
Fifth grade. Damn. Detention for giving pornos to other kids at school.

Third grade. I got it! I arrived. I haven't always been drinking and thinking about sex.

We had a huge old elm tree in my yard. My dad tied a rope onto one of the branches and my siblings and I used it as a swing. It was our Tarzan rope vine. Our Indiana Jones whip. We'd run at it, grab on and fly. But all the trips were one way; we'd have to let go before it swung back to the tree because was so close to the tree trunk.
The branch on which it hung was much more vertical than horizontal and the rope was attached very close to where that branch split from the trunk. If you swung away from the tree and then back it was very likely you'd come into bodily contact with the tree.
The tree was at the edge of our yard along the sidewalk. On the other side was a small grassy area between the sidewalk and the street. That grassy patch is where our one-way flights would end. We'd run at the tree, fly over what the neighbors thought was a sidewalk, but we knew to be a snake and piranha filled river (which turned back into a sidewalk just in time for us to run back across in preparation for another flight), and land in the safety and comfort of the patch of grass.

One day our dad came out to watch us enjoying his handiwork. Seeing us perform our short little flights, which looking back were simply rope aided leaps across the sidewalk, he decided we were really under-utilizing it. "You can swing so much higher than that." "Don't you want to swing farther? Faster?"

He pushed us and we flew higher than before. It was great. I could do it all day. But not my dad. He had other plans. Being the smaller of the two boys I was the first to experience the next level.
He had me grab onto the the rope, then he grabbed me by the ankles. He backed up lifting me over his head. I was higher then than I had ever even flown before.
I remember being scared as hell. "I'm going to die" I thought. I must have screamed. "It'll be fun."
He threw me forward.
I was flying through the air.
I brushed up against the tree.
I hit the apex of the swing. I had to let go before swinging back and potentially dying when I smacked into the tree. I had a roller skating party to go to. I didn't want to die. How could I miss the roller skating party? Maybe this time I'd win a pair of those vinyl fingerless gloves. All the guys bought them at the skating rink. All the guys but me. But they had raffles and you could win things they sold behind the counter: glow sticks, belt buckles, feather clip on earings for the girls and more flamboyant guys, a skate party in your honor (which meant that you got in free as long as you invited all your friends), but best of all, fingerless gloves.
I had fingerless gloves waiting for me, I had to bail.

I let go of the rope and flew through the air. I imagine arms and legs were flailing. Flailing until I landed on the curb. I landed feet first, which was a good thing, but only my heels landed on the curb, my toes, especially the toes on my right foot impacted the street. Then I rolled out into the street.
I got up and limped back into the yard. I was in pain, tearing up. Still, I had a roller skate party to go to.
I fought back the pain, put on my skates and rode around the rink a few times. I sat a lot, I played air hockey. I felt a little depressed when I didn't win the gloves. Then I felt my hugely swollen foot when I took off my skate at the end of the day.
The skate kept the swelling down, but it was still almost twice its normal size. And it hurt like hell.
I got back home and carrying one shoe in my hand limped up to my mom and told her my foot hurt.
"Mom. My foot hurts."
"Oh my god! What happened. It's huge."
"Dad made me go on the swing."
"What?"
"He pulled me back too far and I landed in the street."
"Your dad isn't here."
"Before the skating party."
"Oh my god! That was hours ago."
"Mommy, it hurts."

We went down to the emergency room and got my foot x-rayed. It turns out my foot only swelled up like that because I had broken 5 toes.

There is no way to effecitvely cast toes, so all I could do was use crutches and wear hard soled shoes.
Yeah. I showed up to school for the next month wearing penny loafers and no gloves when everyone else was walking around with fingerless gloves and athletic shoes.

There's no way I could have even thought about sex back then.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

What I Am

Last night I was having a good time hanging out with some friends. We were talking about all sorts of things as friends often do when they get together. Then, in a rather friendly and well-intentioned way, one turned and addressed me directly,"Brian, you seem like a drunk and a pervert."


This morning, after cooking breakfast on a week day for the first time in years, I went down to the local coffee shop to get my daily fix. I stop in just about every week day because the coffee is cheap and plentiful and the employees are trapped behind a counter - I can talk at them and they have nowhere to run. (I think I'm going to start working there come January, so I'll come to know the feeling of being trapped listening to customers' yammerings, at which point I may stop.)

"So, what'd you do last night?" It's very nice of them to feign interest in my life, but I guess they know it's coming anyway -- so why not ask?
"My friend said she thought I seemed like a drunk and a pervert."
"Yeah? So?"
"That's it. No one has ever told me that before."
"I'm a drunk and a pervert too. It's a very good way to be."
"Ahh. Good. I'm not the only one"
"Those two things go really well together. They're really compatible"
"True. At least I'm not a drunk prude."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2004

Twice in One Day

Last night I went out looking for a Mexican dive - a burrito sort of place with a jukebox full of mariachi and maybe a couple albums by los Bukis. My usual place - the one with $2.50 chorizo burritos cooked with care by Juan the "cheff" with a tattooed hand that greets me as his "amigo" every time I go in - was closed because it was a little late. So I headed farther down Eastern Ave toward Fells Point. There's a block there with at least 4 Latin restaurants. I thought there were 4 Mexican restaurants, but it turns out one of them is a fancy Ecuadorian restaurant.
It's a bit of a shock to walk into a fancy, cloth napkin, place setting and wine glasses on the table kind of place when you're expecting a place where you're supposed to order at the counter. But the waiter had a hand full of tattoos and that made me feel a little more comfortable.

Later on I went to the PITS and was thrown off a bit when someone bought a round for the entire bar. I thought that stuff only happened in the movies: "Hey I just defeated the evil space race by deflecting their phasers with (Renoyld's Wrap brand!) aluminum foil. Give everyone a drink on me!"
But it really happened, and we could all get whatever drink we wanted, on the old guy with the glasses - whoever he was. Rachel, Emma and I upgraded from Natty Bohs to margaritas in goofy cactus stemmed glasses. When the drinks were no longer free we returned to Natty Bohs. Then we (Daniel too, as long as I'm naming names) all went back to my house and put a small dent in my 30 pack of PBR.

Sipping on PBRs we discussed the perils of drinking. More specifically we discussed the peril of drinking so much that you lose control of bladder. "Don't you have to put a diaper on your brother after you guys go out drinking?"
"I just have to make sure he gets into it, I don't actually have to put it on him."

That reminded me of a time I went motorcycle shopping with my cousin.
We were looking for a used motorcycle one day when we were both out visiting my grandparents. We found out about a couple bikes in the newspaper and were driving out to see them. It was summer so we ended up seeing some on the side of the road too.
"There's one! Let's take a look at it."
We were on a small country road. There was a lone house on one side of the road with a motorcycle parked in a driveway. I had passed the house by just a bit and pulled over to the side of the road. We went across the street to look at the bike.
"This bike sucks."
"Yeah, I guess. Let's go then."
"Oh, check this out." He went farther down the driveway to look at something. "They've got a -- I shit my pants."
"They've got a what?"
"I just shit my pants."
"You what? How could you shit you pants?"
"I thought it was just a fart. Get me something to clean up with."
"I'll get some paper or something from the car." There is always paper in the car. Whatever car it is, there is always paper in it. At least that's what I thought because of the amount of paper stuff in my car. I went over to the car, a rental, to get some paper.
Nothing. No map, nothing. Nothing except a small cash register receipt. I brought it back to the spot. He stood there with his pants around his ankles cleaning himself off.
"All I could find was this receipt."
"I'm pretty much cleaned up already."
"I'll stop in the next place so you can use the bathroom."

A couple days before he bought a couple liters of grape must (Mashed wine grapes removed from fermentation vats; it's rather thick and pulpy like raw unpastuerized apple cider with many of the side effects of prune juice) and had been drinking it religiously. I think this had a lot to do with the accident. The first night he had it he gave me a drink and then I went out to hang out with a friend that lived nearby.
We hung out for a couple hours. We talked mostly, but we also listened to my stomach growl. It couldn't be helped, my stomach was loud and insistent: "Listen to me. Can't you hear me? Do I need to talk louder?" It rumbled and rumbled at times drowning out our conversation. For some reason it felt compelled to be heard.
When I got out the door with no one around I let loose the gas build up of the previous hours. It sounded like the fart noises I made as a kid - when I'd put the palms of my hands to my mouth and blow. Then giggle.
I never took another drink of the stuff, but he did. Much more than he should have, in my opinion.

After he cleaned up we drove around some more. There were a couple more bikes to see. It got late so we stopped and grabbed some dinner.
"Ahh. My stomach feels a lot better. I can't believe I shit my pants earlier."
"Yeah. You're not old enough to lose control of you bowels."
"No, my stomach is just all messed up for some reason."
"I bet it's that must crap you've been drinking. I had one glass of that stuff and my stomach was going crazy the other night."
"Oh, yeah. It could be that. Or grandma's cooking."
"I'd be all messed up too then. I'm telling you the night I had a drink of that stuff my stomach was rumbling like mad. It was so loud you could hear it over the music, and then I had the worst, loudest gas attack of my life."
"Yeah, it's probably that stuff. I'm just glad my stomach feels better now."

We finished eating and got on the interstate taking the fast way back to my grandparents house. We couldn't have been on the road for more than 10 minutes before he said, "I just shit my pants."
"I know. That was messed up."
"No. I mean I just shit my pants again."
"Again? Like, now? Twice?"
"Yeah."
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I don't know."
"I'll pull over at the next gas station."
"Why?"
"So you can clean up. What do you think?"
"Don't bother."
"You don't want to sit in your own shit."
"I've been doing it all day already."
"Well you don't want it leaking into your underwear or anything."
"It has already. I shit my pants."
"Wait. Not like just a little bit. Like a tiny bit slipped out, you mean you shit your pants?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'm definitely pulling over."
"There's no use. Forget it."
"No way. I don't care if youget anything on the seats, it's a rental, but I don't want to smell it. There's one now. I'm stopping and you're going in to clean yourself up."

I let him out and parked. It was one of those highway-side rest stop gas stations. The kind with a picnic area. The place was crawling with teenage kids drinking beer out the back of mini vans and flirting with each other. I sat and watched this for at least 35 minutes. I was starting to worry that one of the kids short on beer money mugged my cousin while he was cleaning up with his pants around his ankles again. I was about to go in and check on him; I had given up on avoiding further embarrassing him and was about to go in. There must have been something wrong, what could possibly take that long?
Just then he emerged from the bathroom with a strange looking smile and a bit of a swagger. I took it to be an embarrassed, yep-I-just-shit-my-pants-twice-today walk, but when he sat back down in the car he said, "I put a tampon in this time."
"A tampon?" I couldn't think of any reason for him to carry a tampon. I couldn't think that he actually inserted a tampon into his -- "A tampon?"
"Well. I took a rool of toilet paper and stuffed the cheeks full. Then I put a plastic bag between all of it and my underwear."
"Oh. That's why you were walking funny? ... For a second I thought you were talking aobut a real tampon."

We tried not to talk about it too much the rest of the way.
"You just shit your pants twice in one day!"
"Shut up! Don't tell anyone!"
"Twice."
"I know, it's a little embarrassing."
"I'd be embarrassed too if I shit my pants twice in one day."
"Not another word."
"About shitting your pants?"

We got back to my grandparents. He changed. Then he went to the kitchen and grabbed another glass of grape must.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2004

My Glock Proposition

"Hey, Brian. This is Tommy from Clay Man. I'm just calling you about the show. Give me a call back at 773 blah blah blah."

"Who's that?"
"I have no idea."
"He called for you. What's Clay Man?"
"Dude. I said I have no idea."

Allen came into the dorm room Frank and I shared.

"Play it again, Frank."

"No, I still don't know who that is."
"That's the guy we met last week at the bar in Lincoln Park."
"What? ... Oh, shit that cover band? What did they play?"
"He said they did Creed and Stone Temple Pilots covers and stuff like that."
"Oh, yeah. I was fucking with him. Who wants to see some dumbass Creed cover band?"

BACKSTORY

It was a friday night, Allen and I got his roommate, a grad student, to buy us liquor. We each had a six pack, a bottle of some liquor or another and a bottle of peach schnapps. We finished our six packs and part of the bottle of liquor when we decided we needed to find a party. There were none at our little engineering school, so we grabbed the schnapps and caught the L to the north side of town.
There are lots of bigger schools up that way - Loyola, DePaul, Northwestern - we thought. One of them has to have a party.
We got off at a stop we thought was close to DePaul and drunk and excitedly headed to find a party to crash. Unfortunately we headed away from the campus. We found no parties, nothing that resembled a school. When we finally found a girl walking on the street we called out to her, "Hey, come here."
She picked up her pace in the opposite direction. "We just want to talk to you." She sped up again.
"Do you want some peach schnapps?" She stopped.
She was going to see her friend's band at a bar near Lincoln Park; we were welcome to come along. The three of us shared the bottle on our walk to the bar that ended up closed by the time we showed up.
"No problem. They know me here." They did. They let us in and the three of us asked for drinks. She got one. Allen and I stood empty handed at the bar.
"How come you got one?" She told the bartender to give us each a beer. The three of us took our beers into another room where a band was tearing down their equipment.
"Sara. You missed the show. What's up with that?"
"I got lost on the way, but I found these guys and we've been drinking peach schnapps."
"Hi guys."
"Hey. Sorry we missed your band. What sort of stuff do you play?"
"We do covers. A lot of Creed and Stone Temple Pilots, some Aerosmith, that sort of stuff."
"Cool."
"Yeah, we get a lot of gigs, we're getting pretty big."
"I bet! That sound is awesome. I'm really sorry I missed hearing you play. I would have like to have seen it."
"Yeah, we play a real tight set. Sometimes we throw in some older stuff if we get requests."
"Do you know any Foreigner?"
"Yeah, but we're more into the heavy stuff."
"Dude. This is awesome. Your band sounds amazing. Here, I book shows for a bar on the near south side. You should give me a call."
I wrote my number on a piece of paper and gave it to him. I wrote my number on a piece of paper? I meant to give him a fake number. I want nothing to do with a Creed cover band. I guess I was a little drunk.

Allen and I headed back home, but being unfamiliar with the area couldn't exactly find our way back to the L stop. We gave up and asked a cabbie that for some reason pulled up right next to us. "Hey! You drive a cab. Do you know how to get to the L from here."
"Yes, right there."
"What? Where?"
"Those train tracks 30 feet in the air."
"Oh. Did you see them? I didn't see them. We should have looked for the tracks."

"Ok. 5.25."
"What? You took us like two blocks."
"We thought it was free."
"No. No Free.You say drive me to the L."
"No, we didn't."
"I don't have any money." - Allen.
"Shit! My wallet's gone. Someone stole my wallet." - Brian
"No you have wallet."
"No, I swear to god, It's gone. Someone stole it."
"Fine. Fine. No Problem. Go. Thank me."
"Yeah. Thanks."

"Are you really out of cash?"
"Yeah."
"I've got you them. But you owe me. I'm no cabbie giving free rides, alright?"

On the way back home we ran into a bum. There are a lot of bums that ride the subway all night in Chicago. The trains are heated and they are relatively safe. "Do you have any change?"
"No."
"I just got out of prison this morning and I just need a couple bucks to get me back on my feet. Look here are my discharge papers." I guess he thought that by telling us he was a criminal we were more likely to give him money, maybe more likely to believe he'd put it to good use.
"Why don't you sell that fishing pole you have there. I bet you could get a few bucks for that."
"This is what I use to get my food. I can't go without it. Can I have a cigarette?" Allen gave him a cigarette.

The train was stopped, about ready to go. "Shit. This is our stop! Let's go." I ran out the door. Allen followed. The bum with the fishing pole followed him.
It wasn't the right stop. We were over 2 miles from home withour friend that wanted our money. We decided to wait for the next train. Allen and our new friend shared the last cigarette while I tried to cast out and catch the thrid rail with the fishing pole.
"Do you want a 9mm Glock?"
"You want to sell me a gun?"
"Yeah. $50."
"Let's see it."
"Not here. I don't want to go back to jail. Just feel it through my coat."
"Brian, feel this. Wanna buy a Glock?"
"Hell yeah."
"$50."
"I'll give you twenty."
"$40."

Our train came; we all got on.
"You want it or not?"
The next stop was ours. We all got off the train again.
"So you want it?"
"How do we know if it's real? We haven't seen it."
"You felt it. You know I can't show you here."

He wouldn't go out farther than the turnstyles. If he did he'd have to pay to go back in. We teased him from the other side of the turnstyles. "Maybe."
"Yes or no?"
"I haven't seen it. Come out and show us."

In the morning I woke up with a pocket full of fishing line.
Two weeks later Tommy called to try to get me to book his amazing cover band.

I never heard from the cabbie again.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 03:27 PM | Comments (2)

Letters I've Found Lately

I walk my dogs every morning. They love it. Sometimes i like doing it, sometimes I don't - like when it's super cold or raining. Still I do it because I love them, and because I see lots of interesting stuff on my walks.
Often I see junkies rocking themselves back and forth waiting for someone to come by and sell them some heroin. Sometimes I see them searching through garbage cans for food. Occassionally I see them shooting up or sucking cock for money (well, maybe it's money, maybe they're paid directly with smack.) Today there was only one guy squatting next to a house. I thought he was taking a dump, but his pants were on...so I couldn't tell.
As I passed him I looked back to see what he was doing and I found this note on the ground:

That note reminded me that last weekend I found a note in the vestibule in Best Buy (Die Best Buy, Die! Especially Bernard my nemisis). It was folded up like a paper football. On one side it said "ANDREW!
Happy Day!"
On the other side it read
"WRITE
BACK!
please"

I opened it up. As I unfolded it, I read this: "I LOVE YOU!," "Hott Lips! lol!" right underneath a drawing of a pair of lips and finally "WRITE BACK!!!."
Then I got to the real "note" part of the note reproduced here in all its glory.