calculatoronfire

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February 28, 2005

Mutant Snowman.

Today I got off work early because it looked like it was going to snow.
This gave me a chance to play with my dogs outside when it was still daylight. My five year old neighbor asked if he could come with me and I of course obliged. I'm a sucker.
He suggested we make a snowman too. So obliged.

I suggested we make it with two heads. That way it would be a two headed mutant snowman.
He suggested we find an empty forty and make it look like he was holding on to the bottle.
Why is it I feel like I'm the innocent one?

Posted by calculatoronfire at 6:58 PM | Comments (3)

February 25, 2005

That Night Pt 3 (final)

There were four of us in the cell. If you count the guy sleeping on the floor, that is. He never did anything more than raise his head once, and I'm pretty glad about that. I'm not big into conversation with guys with visible swastika tattoos. I guess I'm a little prejudiced about it, but I always think they look like they just got out of jail.
This guy was still in jail, and for some reason that scared me more. Especially since it appeared you could do whatever you wanted without anyone saying anything - guards or inmates.
The other guy on the concrete bench -- I don't remember his name. I don't think I ever got it. I just know he was picked up for loitering and his friend was caught with "ready." I call him Tyrone -- was rubbing some sort of drug in between his fingers. He let each brown pebble, sort of silicone looking pebbles, drop back into the folder paper I could only imagine was transported via ass crack.
This guy has drugs in jail. Are there no laws?
Tyrone talked at length about his encounters with the police. Hiding drugs in the wheel wells of cars in alleys while being chased. Having someone narc on him. Getting out and beating the guy to send him a message. His friend that shot the guy who narced on him. etc. All the while he played with the little stones.
When Charlie took the conversation over for a second Tyrone bent over and snorted about half of the ass-paper's contents. His head came up slowly aand he breathed out hard.
"Ya'll want a hit?"
"Hell yeah!" Charlie said. He scurried over the few feet of concrete floor between his corner and Tyrone in the opposite corner.

"Damn."
"Ain't that some good shit?"
"I can feel it kicking in already."
"It's the best way to get through this place."
"It's kicking in, mixing with the shit I had this morning. Man. That's some good shit."
"You?" Tyrone held in my direction the ass-paper wtih a few pebbles left.
"No. I'm good. What is it?"
"Heroin. -- What? This your first time?"
"Yeah. It's my first time. How long is it before they release you usually?"
"For disorderly? Not more than 5 hours. 3 to 5 hours."
"Unless you got a warrant." - Charlie.
"Yeah. You're fucked if you've got a warrant."
"No. I don't have one."
"I got one in the county. I hope that shit don't come up."
Charlie had a warrant in Pennsylvania.

After a few minutes the cell got quiet. I guess the heroin was kicking in. I heard yelling coming from the neighboring cells, all similarly filled. The place was pretty active for what must have been one or two in the morning. I couldn't tell. There were no windows and all the lights were shining brightly. I didn't own a watch, and if I did it would have been confiscated. I guessed it was around 1:30am. I was getting tired. So were Tyrone and Charlie.

"Damn. I need a little ready to stay awake."
"I don't mix my shit like that. I'm feeling real good now, though, with just that shit."
"I wish my boy had gave me a little ready too."
"What's ready?"
"Crack, boy, wachu think?"
"That's what I thought."

Charlie was nodding off in the corner. Tyrone lay down on the bench. He kept adjusting himself and pushing into me. Every time I'd move over on the bench. When I was half on, half off the bench and he stretched one more time I got off. I stood up in the center of the tiny cell. Three men were sleeping before me. Tyrone had supplanted me on the bench and now had that all to himself. The guy with the tattooed hands was sprawled out on the floor in front of the door and the foot of the bench. Charlie was in the opposite corner opposite Tyrone again. He slept sitting up. That gave me enough room sit and strech out my legs.
I sat down next to the steel toilet/water fountain and soon found myself leaning my head up against it, half sleeping. I realized where my head was and leaned away. That's all I could do, as there was nowhere else for me to go. So I sat and read the graffiti on the wall.

I woke with my head pressed firmly against the toilet/waterfountain. The door was opening. Is it for me? I hope it's for me. "Brian? Come on."
I hopped up and stepped around the tattoed guy and Charlie, who had spread out on the floor as well.

As I left the door I wondered whether or not I should wave, or say goodbye, to my new-found friends. Is is rude not to? Rude is the last thing I want to be. Luckily they were all still asleep . I snuck through the door with the guard and was lead down the hall to another cell. This one easily twice as large and easily filled with 5 times as many people. We were to be released. All of us. The old homeless guy muttering to himself. The guy in the work overalls. The 15 young black men in their baggy jeans and oversized white t-shirts. And Gene. There was Gene, my neighbor, in back. And Gene, the guy from across the street was coming down the hall. I saw him through the steel and bullet-proof glass door.

The three of us were released together. "Damn. That took a while."
"Shit. What you talkin' about? That was quick. Quickest I've ever gotten through there."
"I think you're good luck, B. Your whiteness got us out quick."
"Well, glad I could help."

The three of us walked away from the jail toward North Avenue. Knowing the place much better than I they convinced me North Avenue was the best place to pick up a hack, especially at 3:30 am.
When we got to North Avenue Greg began pointing to the curb as cars passed. That strange pointing thing that had confused me during my first drives through the city, I was doing it. I was fresh out of jail and I was hacking. The three of us were.

A car pulled up. It was a small Toyota with two oversized women in the fron seat. It was 3:30 on a Friday night and two women driving around the city decided to pick up three strange men because they pointed at the curb.
"You hackin'?"
"Yeah." -Greg
"Well, get on in then."
"Yeessum, but we's three deep." -Greg
Where did these manners come from all of a sudden?
"There's room for three. Get on in."

"Brian, you got money for this, right?" - Gene
"Sure. Whatever. I just want to get home wash that toilet off my face and get some sleep."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:47 AM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2005

That Night Pt 2.

My neighbor, Gene, and the guy from across the street, Greg, laughed at me harder than did anyone else. "Damn. Look at that smile. You gonna send them mug shots to your momma?"
"If I can get copies."
"Damn, Boy. Now I know it's your first time."

It was my first time in jail -- the first time not in the "just visiting," part at least -- but it wasn't even for anything good. Gene and Greg were talking to a girl down the street, near the alley, when three carloads of undercover police - narcotics squad - surrounded them. The three were apprehended and searched (illegally). Greg protested, "Get your motha fuckin' hands off me, you damn pigs!" Gene was uncharacteristically quiet and was released. Then he characterictically opened his mouth.
"Brian! Come here. They stole my money." The last time he had been arrested he claimed the police stole $80 from him and he thought they did it again when he couldn't find his money in the pocket it was in before the search. Fortunately he spoke too soon and the only problem was that the officer that searched him put the money in a different pocket. Unfortunately one of the officers took offense to his statement.
"You calling us thieves? You're under arrest."

What? Can they do this? He didn't do anything. This is fucking ridiculous. How can they arrest him for that?
Being fairly new to Baltimore at the time I didn't know that his arrest was no big deal. It was routine. In some neighborhoods, anyway. Police, especially the narcotics squad, arrest people that offend them, or people that they feel may commit a crime later. They don't really have to answer to anyone about the arrests because the individuals aren't charged and are released after only a few hours, plus it gives an individual a longer arrest record affecting their sentencing for real crimes. "Gene. If you need anything, give me a call."
"Get the fuck outta here, or I'll arrest you too."

Filled with indignation at what was happening I decided to make my voice heard. As I turned to leave I restated to Gene, "If you need anything, give me a call."
I got about that much out when I was tackled from behind by another officer. In one rather skillful move he flew into me, slammed my face onto the trunk of one of the unmarked cars and grabbed my right arm. Another officer grabbed my left arm and in under a second I was cuffed with plastic flexi-cuffs.
I stood up the first chance I got. Just in time to see a third officer charge up and punch me in the stomach. "That's resisting arrest!" he yelled.
What the fuck is going on here? How can they arrest me? I didn't do anything. How can they punch me? After I've been cuffed? These guys are the only criminals here.
What do I do now? -- They've got to be held accountable. Badge numbers? Should I get their badge numbers? Do they have to give them? They do on tv -- I think. I wish I had a tv --I should ask.
"Sir. Give me your badge number."
"Yeah, sure. Get it from my supervisor."
I had the cop holding me, the one with the impressive flying tackle, bring me over to the supervisor.
"What for?"
"This is ridiculous. I didn't do anything. He punched me."
"You were warned 4 times to leave the area."
Four times? Is that the magic number? Arrest someone after 4 warnings?
"He only said it once -- and I was leaving when you tackled me."

"You're the supervisor? I want your badge number. And his badge number." I nodded in the direction of the guy that punched me in the gut. I would have pointed, but my hands were cuffed behind my back. I felt them there. Throbbing. Hanging below wrists that felt like they were bleeding the cuffs were on so tightly.
"It'll be on the paperwork."
"What paperwork."
"The paperwork you get when you're released."
"This is ridiculous. What am I being arrested for?"
"That'll be on the paperwork too."
"You won't even tell me what I'm being arrested for?"
"You tell me something. What are you even doing in this neighborhood?"
"I live here."

Arrested for being in the area? No. I was arrested for "failure to obey." And I was in jail being lead by the emotionless female guard down the hall. She stopped at the window to every cell and looked in. The characters in the windows hooted and hollered at her as we walked past. "Fucking fat assed bitch." Knowing that there was a mistake that would surely be recognized if I behaved myself I walked along without slandering her.
"Here. This one." She opened the door to a cell. It was a small room. It looked like my college dorm room - grey cinder block walls - only it was less than half the size (about 10x4) and had 12 foot ceilings. That and it had a stainless steel toilet/water fountain combo in the corner. I was never so lucky at to have one of those in my room. I walked in and greeted the two guys already in the room.
The white guy with the swastikas on the web of his thumbs sleeping on the floor meerly looked up while the bearded guy with a ripped, bloody shirt, also white, stood up and walked over to chake my hand. I think his name was Charlie.
Before the guard closed the door another guard came up with a fourth resident. A young black man - not a day over 21. Charlie greeted him too.

"Damn. I think I'm here with the only white guys in the place. What you in here for?"
"Shit. I'm alway in here for something or another. Brawlin' this time." Charlie said.
Trying to sound tough and avoid being someone's bitch I lied, "Disorderly." I even shortened it for "disorderly conduct" so I would sound more at home with my fake crime.
The guy sprawled out on the ground didn't answer.
"You?"
"Loitering."
"What? They lock you up for that?"
"Shit. Yeah. The cops were just trying to get me for dealing, but they couldn't ind shit on me, so they just sent me for loiterin'."
"That's fucked up."
"I just hope they don't find the warrant out for me from the County."
"I got one out on me too. I think that's why I'm still here. They picked me up about 2 this afternoon. What time's it now?"
"They picked me up 'bout 10:30, so it's probably around midnight."
Shit. Am I going to have to spend that long in here? No. They'll let me out when they find I didn't do anything. It'll just be a few minutes.

"I can't believe shit. Loitering. What the fuck is that? I just stepped out my house and they fuckin' grabbed me. Said they thought I was selling. -- Shit. I didn't even have time to sell anything." He said this as he unfolded a small piece of paper. The paper was folded over a few times and inside were small rocks.
Crack?
Small translucent brown rocks.
No. Crack is white, right?
"They got my boy with some ready, though."
That must be ready. Whatever that is.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 9:00 PM | Comments (7)

February 22, 2005

That Night Pt 1

I got out of the van in an alley of sorts. It was dark, but I could tell there were buildings on boths sides of the van -- I guess that's what made it seem like an alley. There were no windows in the back of the van, so I couldn't tell exactly what we had driven into. Not when we were driving at least, but when I got out the back I saw a chain-link fence closing behind us. Two of them, I think -- I didn't really have time to get a good look, I had to hurry inside.
The driver hurried ahead of us through the sliding metal and glass door, through the waiting room. I lost him as he went through the second set of doors; I stayed in the waiting room. The guard there urged us all to sit down.
Two walls of the waiting room were taken up by the doors, both of the other walls had a long bench against them. Even though the benches were long they didn't fit all of us. Still, sitting or standing, we tried to get comfortable. From what I remember the benches weren't all that comfortable. Or maybe it was the flexi-cuffs cutting into my wrists. Anyway, it was something. Something was uncomfortable.

As I sat I looked over the crowd, my new peers. They looked me over too. "Ain't that some shit. We gots a white boy with us."
"Whachu do white boy?" It was more ribbing than harrassment, than serious inquiry either. Still, my neighbor spoke up for me, "He cool. He whid me."
"Shit, nigga. You be up by Midway?"
"I use ta stay up there. Now I stay whid my lady in Highlandtown."
"Yeah. Yeah. I seen you up 'round there. What they got you fo?"
"Disorderly."
"They be picking up everyone tonight, givin' 'em that shit."

The conversation was interrupted when the door opened. An officer stood in the open doorway and read names off a sheet of paper on his clipboard. Four
or five guys -- and they were all guys, the girl that came in with us went a different direction out of van -- left the room. The guard standing in the room again told us all to sit. We all had seats, but that only lasted until another bunch came in. New loads of black men in their late teens and twenties came in with about as much regularity as they left the waiting room. About 20 minutes after entering the waiting room the four or five names called out included mine.

"Turn left, get up against the right wall and go up to the door, but do not go through the door. Take your shoes off and wait." We did as told. We stood in the wide, windowless hallway with our shoes in our hands.

After they called me in I entered the small room. Two officers stood on the right side of the room. One of them approached me. He cut the plastic cuffs and pointed to the left side, to three stalls without doors. "Get in one a them and take off everything but your drawers and hand them to me."
I did as I was told. I stripped down to my underwear and handed the officer my clothes. "Stick your thumbs under your waistband, pull out and go like this," he made a motion from the front backwards until his hands touched again. After that me turned his attention to my pants pockets only giving me half his attention as I performed my underwear maneuver for him.
"One wallet. Seven dollars. Visa card. Throw this in here." He handed me a condom that for some reason was in one of my pockets. I don't think I really planned to use it that night -- I didn't plan on going to jail either. He motioned for me to throw the condom into a basket, already bright with the different colors of wrappers. Then he handed me a plastic bag with the contents of my pockets and said, "Put your clothes back on, then go outside. Turn to the right. Get in line against the wall and wait for a cashier."
A cashier? "OK."

When it was my turn to see the cashier a guard walked me over ot the free window and handcuffed me to the counter. The cashier had me sign some papers and took my plastic baggy away. I asked the cashier what I was being charged with. She looked up from writing "Have a blessed day. :)" on my paperwork in order to glance at the screen and said, "Say here, 'failure to obey.'"
"What's that?"
"Don't know, hon. Just what it say. Now you go to the first door on the right after the lobby."
The lobby? Who are they trying to kid?

I passed the lobby and entered the mugshot/fingerprinting room. I sat on the cold bench made of sheet metal. It was summer, but the women taking mugshots were all wearing sweaters because of the air conditioning. The rest of us sat on the cold metal bench while they tried to figure out how to work the
electronic finger-printing machine one of them had broken a few minutes before.

The guys I came in with, both arrested for disorderly conduct, came in seperately. We waited until the machines were rebooted. I waited cold, but well-mannered, unlike my neighbor. "What the fuck takin' so long bitch?"
"Sorry. What's your name."
He told her his name.
"Oh. Here you are." She moved him to the back of the list. She did the same for someone uncooperative during picture taking.
So, when it was my turn I cooperated. I smiled. And I heard about it from the other guys. "Look at whitey all grinnin' for his fuckin' mug shot. -- You like this white boy?"

Posted by calculatoronfire at 9:28 PM | Comments (0)

I Can't Think

My head is filled with this crap. Some of it is memories, some of it is just garbage. There are a lot of wood chips. There is a lot of old gum (the hard kind).
I can't always make my way through that stuff on my own; with help I can.

I'm much better in a conversational situation. So converse with me. Tell me something. Ask me something. I really want you to tell me about it.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 8:59 PM | Comments (5)

Hot Stuff! Get Your Hot Stuff!

There's a house for sale across the street from mine. I saw the sign in the window on the way home from work today and decided to check it out online using the interweb.
Something about the house's description caught my eye, as I thought it to be blatantly false. The realtor's description claims that the home is in a "hot area."
I was outraged.

Then I realized the realtor was probably just letting everyone know there is a lot of stolen stuff to be found around here.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 6:25 PM | Comments (2)

February 20, 2005

My Head

I didn't really know what to say when I went in to the office. I really hadn't thought about it since Saturday. I hadn't thought about what to say. What my plan of attack would be.
Then they asked. It was the cute one first. "Oh my god! What happened to your head?"
The statement startled me at first. What did happen to my head? I reached up to feel my head. If I didn't know right away what was wrong with my head feeling it would let me know.
The second I touched the left side of my head I realized what she was talking about. It felt like I stabbed myself in the head with each one of my fingers. I was feeling the red, raw part of my head. Where I landed Friday night.
Ahh! Ouch.
"This?" Of course she's talking about this dumbass. Your ear is over an inch thick. It's got a huge open wound across it. A fucking scab that goes up across your thick, stupid head. "Umm. I fell down an elevator shaft."
"What?"
"Yeah. I was going through this contstruction site with my friend and ..."
"That was stupid."
"It only seems that way now. We do it all the time. It's just this time I thought he was telling me to go into this room, because he had already been in there, and there was no floor. I just fell and landed on my head."
"Well, That was stupid if you ask me."
"Like I said, it seems that way now."

Shit. I've got to refine my story. They'll all think I'm a moron if they think I just fell into a hole. Why the hell hadn't I prepared.

"Woah. Dude. What happened to your head?"
It was the guy on the other side of the cubicle wall. Sort of a self absorbed guy I never really liked. He thought he discovered Elliott Smith and told the whole office he sounded just like a mix between Nick Drake and Superchunk - "Kind of a guy with his guitar stuff, but he plays it like Superchunk." The guy that was upset he was the only one dressed as Luke Skywalker in line for the fourth Star Wars movie.
"Miscommunication. I thought my friend told me to go into a room, but he was only telling me to look into it."
"I hope you kicked his ass."
"I was sort of in pain."
"Yeah. I guess. I would have kicked his ass anyway."
"Yeah, if you could move that fast, fat ass."
"What?"
"I said, 'It wasn't his fault, though.'"
"Still, man. I would have kicked his ass."

But they didn't understand. It;'s hard to describe to them exactly what happened - My brother came into town. He was in the Navy and lived on the coast -- I guess that's where they keep the submarines -- and I lived in Chicago --no submarines there. And we went out. My brother, my roomate and I. Maybe more. I don't remember anymore. We had a few drinks and then went out to the north side. We walked from the Belmont stop on the red line to Wrigley Field. We were going to give him a tour of the city.
But we still wanted to go through the building site. That is what we did. We went through building sites and abandoned warehouses. This was nothing new. And it's not as dangerous as your parents would have you believe.
My roommate ran through a building and came out. "Come on in here. This is awesome."
I followed him into the building. Just inside he pointed to a room over my left shoulder. "Look in there."
He sounded excited about it. I looked, but didn't see anything. I figured he had been in the room earlier and there was soemthing in there I wasn't seeing, so I stepped in.
I stepped.
There was nothing under my foot. Oh, it's one of those dropped dens or something.
There's still nothing under my foot.
It must be a whole step down.
Wow. It's a big step down.
Oh. Shit.
I'm falling.
I don't think my feet are touching anything.

It was pitch black. I was falling. I didn't know how far. Time stretched. Time accomidated my short fall. It stretched and turned the seconds into minutes. I was falling and it was nice. That weightless feeling. That loss of equilibrium falling in the dark. That confusion. Yes. The confusion. That was a big part of it all.
Confusion. What is happening? Am I falling? I can't tell.
I must be. But how far?

Then I was on the ground.
Gravel. Dirt. Stones. Little pieces of that jagged cement to the side of fresh cement work. It was all under my hands as I pried myself off the ground seconds (minutes?) later.
What happened?
"Brian! Are you OK?"
"What?"
"Brian?"
"Yeah. I'm OK."

I stood up and looked. In the dim light I saw as I turned, my friend was standing in the doorway. The doorway 9 or 10 feet up. "What the hell happened?"
"I think I fell."
"No shit. But how?"
"You said to go in here."
"I said to look. To look at the fucking hole."

I reached up. Up to grab the floor of the level I had just fallen from. I was nowhere near reaching it. He lowered his hand and we still didn't touch. I felt around in the dark for soemthing I could move closer to the opening. Something I could climb up on to get out.
"Are you OK?"
"Yeah. I guess. There's nothing wrong. It just stings a little." I felt my head.
I meant to feel my head, but instead ground pieces of gravel and small bits of dirt stuck to my hand into the open woud on the side of my head. Ouch. I pulled my hand from my head and held it in the nearest bit of light. I was looking for blood. If it was darker on my finger tips it was blood.
It was blood.
"I think I'm bleeding."
"Shit. -- Guys. Come here. We need help."
"No. I'm OK. I'm just bleeding a little."

I looked around more. I felt the ground in the dim light until I reached a large wooden plank. I leaned it up against the wall and climbed up it. My friend at the top helped me over. "Shit. That's pretty fucked up."
"It's nothing."

"Woah. Brian. You're bleeding all over."
"Yeah. I guess we should head home." I was beginning to notice the blood trickling down my neck, under my shirt.

"Doesn't that hurt?"
For some reason it didn't. I know I didn't have more than 2 drinks. Maybe it's the adrenaline? "Not really."
"Well, it's bleeding a lot."

I grabbed a piece of newspaper that the Windy City blew up to my leg. A pieve of newspaper that took refuge from the dirty sidewalks by grabbing and wrapping itself around my leg. I put it to my head and wiped off the blood. I held it there in hopes it would soak up some of the blood. "Hey. Let's go to that Dunkin' Donuts on the corner of Belmont and Clark. Those assholes never let me use their bathroom. I'm going to get them to do it now."

We walked down to the Dunkin' Donuts and I ran in frantically. My brotehr, my friends, they waited outside with a video camera. "I need to use your bathroom."
"Sir, you are bleeding everywhere."
"The cops. They sent me down here. They told me to use the bathroom here. To clean up."
"What?"
"I was just going to my car. Someone hit me on the head and took it. They drove off with my fucking car. My car. They took it. I called the cops and they told me to wash up here. It happend over on the other block -- shit. I don't know the name. My fucking head -- they told me I should use this bathroom. They told me you'd let me use you bathroom."
"Go, sir. Please. Use the bathroom."

I made sure to get only a little blood on the counter and the door on the way to the bathroom. Inside I cleaned up and laughed to myself how I had finally gotten the Dunkin' Donuts to let me use their bathroom.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 3:23 PM | Comments (3)

This: Result of My Choice of Caffeine Administration

I can't do it. I've got to say NO. I've got to tell myself it just isn't worth it.
Sure I can do it; it's right at my finger tips, but I shouldn't. What's it going to solve?

No. I'm not talking about the bottle of Yukon Jack, the black sheep of Canadian liquors, sitting in my fridge untouched at this point in time.
I'm talking about iTunes (or however it is capitalized). Damn them and their ease of purchase. All I have to do is click and I can listen. No. Not just listen. Own. Not illegally even.
Maybe it is the fact that I am doing something legal that causes me to feel I must restrain myself, but I think it is because if I leave let myself go unrstrained at such a becy of music I'll end up buying everything. I'll start with things I like. When through with that I'll move on buying everything in my path. I know it.
If I don't stop myself I'll end up with a harddrive full of cheesy 80's make out rock ballads.
God forbid!
I've already gotten an earful of those. I'd say a lifetime's worth.
I went ice skating for the first time in my life this weekend. Who knew they'd play all that 80 monster rock ballad crap? What were they thinking? The rink was populated by kids under the age of 14. Almost exclusively kids under 14.
Who runs this place? What's wrong with them? Think of the kids. For god's sake, think of the kids. Why subject the kids to that?

And that guy. That guy that looked like he may have had down syndrome, but had a child - A young teen he wrestled to the ground in the middle of the rink - that guy. Why did no one kick him out of the rink?

The rink provides little PVC walker-type things for the kids. They're like walkers for old people, but shorter, smaller, built to glide on the ice. So the kids can hold on to them and skate around. And this guy. This guy, the down syndrome-ish dad decided to take some kid on the ice - little Asian boy obviously not the product of the man, white as he was - and put him on the walker. Put his feet on the bottom of the walker and skate him around. Skate him around into walls.
"Holy shit! Did you see that?"
"It looked like he just slammed that kid's face into the wall."
"He did. He slammed the kid into the wall."
"What the hell is wrong with that guy?"
"Maybe he's drunk."

Emma and I - I went skating with Emma. She skated circles around me as I fell in front of the kids - had already encountered a drunk.
On the way to the rink we stopped to buy some pants. On the corner of Haven and Eastern there's a guy that sets up shop every day. He sells works pants, shirts -bundles of five for $10 - and jackets for $10. The guy was drunk. Obviously drunk. And when searching through the pants for the right size we found out why. Bottles of vodka were hidden in the piles. Fifths stashed in between the pants. We both smiled.
He grabbed my hand and shook it with his big meaty hands. "I'll give you 5 for 8" he said as he tried to crush it.
"I did 3 tours. Three tours..."
"Three tours? Where?"
"Afghanistan. Lock and Load."

I'm a little skeptical about that, but he may be suffering from PTSD; for some reason he asked me to shoot Emma.

I haven't yet.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 1:16 PM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2005

Here Comes Spring

I don't care what the weather tells me; spring is coming.
I know it's coming.
How do I know?
I pulled up in front of my house with Emma the other night and as we stopped I saw an old man walking down the sidewalk. Somehow I recognized the guy as a crazy. From whare I don't know. And I have no idea why, but I knew. "What out for this guy. He's crazy."
"Which guy? This guy?"
"Yeah. Him. Watch out."
"I'll just wait until he goes by."
We sat in the car and waited for him to pass. He got to the end of the car - almost a safe distance - and decided to double back. We were about to step out of the car but we had to stop and wait; neither of us wanted to talk to him.

"Shit. He's coming over here. Don't look."
She didn't look, but he still kep coming. He stuck his big, old crazy man face in the window. He was unshaven, white whiskers came from everywhere on his face. Everywhere but his open mouth. His mouth open only because his tongue hung out of it. He knocked on the window. Emma hesitated (because we were in her fancy car with power windows that won't open if the car is off), but opened the door a crack.
The old man took the newspapers he had been carrying and shoved them in through the top of the open door saying, "This is what they got against you."
And with that he left us. He just continued down the street.
No. He didn't just continue down the street. He continued walking down the street screaming.

The next morning when I took my dogs for their morning walk we passed the abandoned trailer home. The trailer has been there since early summer last year. I think was intended to be the office of an illegal auto shop becaus soon after it arrived more broken down cars than usual showed up in the neighborhood - many of them parked around the trailer. Many of them resting atop a jack.
But then one day the police came. And the cars slowly started to disappear. As did the aluminum shell of the trailer. By the hieght of summer the trailer was meerly wooden studs, a floor, a roof and some mattresses to keep the occassional occupants comfortable.
But spring is coming. The junkies are at it again. Prying off every last bit of aluminum. "You get good money for this." I'm told.

Such activity only comes with the warmer months. It may be cold now on the streets of baltimore, but I assure you itwon't last for long.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 9:49 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2005

The Things Kids Play With

Today before tutoring I stopped off at Atomic Books and found a fortune telling miracle fish. One of those fish made of plastic film that you put in the palm of your hand to find your fortune. If the fish moves its head it's one thing. If it curls up it's another. Wiggling its sides means that you have a totally different demeanor -- I think that's what it actually was, not fortune because thit indicated "fickle."
I brought it to the Family Center and showed it to a couple kids. What was I thinking? The kids were all running around trying to get their fortunes told. "Me next! Me next!"
"No. We have tutoring now."
"C'mon. Just one more."
"Alright, one more."
"Hey! What about me."
"Nope. That's it."
"C'mon. I want my fortune."
"No."
"Where'd you get it?"
"At the book store."

The kid ran out the door. He came back a couple minutes later with a few of the fish. He was passing them around, generally keeping everyone from being productive. Then one ripped.
The girl I was tutoring tried to pull it out of the little plastic sleeve it came in and she ripped the tail off. "Don't worry, Adam. I'll buy you another one." She started to search through her "Boys Rule" purse for change.
"Not now. We have to do your homework."
"I ripped his fish. I have to get him a new one."
"You can do that later."
"Uh uh. Do you have forty cents?"
"See. This is a good place to start. If the fish are only 20 cents and you want to replace his, how much do you need?"
"I gotta get one for me too, though."
"No, you don't need to now. You can get one later."
"Well, I'm not doing my homework until I get a fish."

She sat and turned her back to me. Now I can't force her to do her homework, and she's proven she's just as happy, if not more, not doing her homework as she is doing it. So we made a deal. I don't want to go into the details because it may make me sound like I caved to a 14 year old, which I assure you is not the case. I did, however, end up going down to the store to get a couple more fish.

Damned kids. So childish with their fish.
Damn it. I used to play with those fish. I still do. I used to play with even stupider things. I guess they're OK kids.

In fact I remember being enamored little stamps of Beetle Bailey my brother got once for his birthday. This was back in the days when we shared everything -- "Hey, check this out! If you mix the cat food and the dog food you get a salad!" -- and he let me play with the stamps.
Using them you could mix and match scenes to make your own fake Beetle Bailey cartoon strip. The word bubbles were empty affording you the chance to even make the characters say what was on your mind. "Beetle! Wake up and clean the latrine."
"But Sarge, I was dreaming of the General."

Of course, having never heard of Beetle Bailey at the time we both quickly tired of the intended use and just stamped things around the house. "Look. I put one on the bottom of the kitchen table."

Around that time some girls from the neighborhood came over to play. One was younger than me, the other was my brother's age - a year older than me, 7.
"Guess where I put mine."
"Where?"
"Guess."
"I don't know. Tell me."
"I can't tell you. I have to show you."
"Show me."
Then she pulled down her pants to show me something my mother had convinced me (at the time) I didn't want to see until I "was married." There was a stamp right above.
Then just as quickly she hid it away.

"I think it was smeared."

How quickly we can graduate to more "grown up" pursuits.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2005

My New Roommate

I walked into my room. I twas my room. Nobody else was there. I got to pick the bed. Let me see -- if I stumble in after a party And I am going to party I'll probably stumble this way. I picked the one on the right.
My dorm room was about 10'x12'. It had a window that opened and looked straight into the window of another dorm, albeit 30 feet away. The room had grey concrete block walls and what looked to me like a prison cot for a bed, but it was mine. And I got there first, so I could set up things the way I wanted them. I didn't know who my roommate was so I didn't really care. I was there first. I was a fixture as far as he'd be concerned.
Besides, I did know that he was a freshman. That meant he'd be away from home for the first time. He wouldn't know what to think, and I was in charge. I plugged in my phone and put my message on the answering machine. It was my room, he'd just be living there.

I unpacked my stuff and set up my stereo. The room wasn't big enough for two stereos. I guess if the kid brings his own he'll have to have mommy and daddy take it back with them. Then I went out to meet the rest of the people in the dorm. They were almost all supposed to be freshman. We had to show up for orientation a week earlier than everyone else. The rest of the students had to get special permission to come this early.
I walked down the hall and only found one room open. Inside a nerdy-looking guy sat in an undershirt and his tighty whiteys in front of his computer. I think his roommate accidently left the door open when he was going to the bathroom or something. I pretended I didn't see him and walked on. That was the last of the open doors.
I know I saw people moving in, where are they now?
I was on the third floor and walked down to the second floor to see if anyone was there. The second floor was decorated. Every door had a piece of greem computer hardware with the occupants name on it affixed to the door. I had no idea what any of the pieces were, or why they were there. My floor had everyone's names written on Pacman characters drawn on construction paper. I understood that even though I had only played Pacman once or twice. Why is there computer hardware on the doors? Then it came to me. Even though I was an architecture major -- This is an engineering school. This is cool here.
That dorky guy. That's normal. No. It can't be normal. It can't be. Then I thought back to my short visit the previous school year. I couldn't tell. I was drawing a blank. All I remembered was that a girl had shown me around. I thought it was going to be all guys, but a girl showed my group around. But we were all male. And the other guys looked pretty dorky. She never took us into the guys dorms, only into the girls'. Damn their trickery! I was a seventeen year old male invited into an all female dorm. I was overwhelmed. they make movies about this sort of thing and I was supposed to judge a school based on that? can men really perform rational thought in such situations? I was overwhelmed. I don't remember if the girls looked cool or not.

I went down to the cafateria for lunch. I sat next at the table with the guy with the pierced lip and the kilt. He was overdoing it a little, but I felt it was better to err on the side of caution. There were a couple other guys sitting at the table and they were all talking about going out somewhere that night. A party or something. "What are you guys doing tonight?" I asked.
"We're going to the frats. It's their rush week or something."
"Oh." I felt dissappointed. I wanted to stay as far away as possible from anything that had anything to do with frat boys. Not only did I not like their attitudes, or the concept of buying friends, but they always wanted to beat me up.
"You wanna hang out with us? We're all going together."
"No thanks. I don't want to join a frat."
"Who said anything about joining? We're just going to let them get us fucked up."
"They're going to try to get us to join though."
"I'll hang out for a few minutes as long as they give me some beer. Then I'm taking off. I don't want to join their little club either."
We'll get along just fine "Sure then. What time?"

I went back to my room and found that my roommate had arrived. To my surprise he wasn't a 17 or eighteen year old kid, but someone much older. "Hi. I'm Matt. I'm your roommate."
Holy shit! This guy is my roommate? He's like twice my age. "You're my roommate? They said you were a freshman."
"Yeah, well I took the long road to college."
"Oh. So you are a freshman then."
"Yeah. I've just been hanging out in and out of rehab for the last ten years or so and I finally pulled my shit together. So here I am. You're an architecture major too, right?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. So we'll have class together then too. -- Did you have to get some of these funky shaped sheets too?"
"Umm. Yeah."

I figured that even though my roommate was an old man I'd invite him out to hit up the frats for alcohol with me and the other guys.
"No, thanks. I'm a recovering alcoholic."
"Oh. I thought you said you were out of rehab."
"Ha. As they say, 'Once and alcoholic, always an alcoholic.' I'm an AA grad though. And an NA grad too."
"NA?"
"Narcotics anonymous."
"Ok."
"Yeah, so I'll be home a lot."

I went out with my new friends and we found the liquor. I don't remember who gave it to us, but we drank it. A lot of it, then hit random frats up for food before slipping out the doors to avoid being harangued about the beauty of frat life. When I got back to my room my roommate was sitting on his bed in his underwear. "Where have you been young man?" he yelled at me.
"What?"
"I said where have you been? It's late."
"Are you serious?"
"Just kidding. I thought I'd make you feel more at home." he said as he hurried out the door.

I sat on my bed desperately trying to read the orientation handbook through my double vision when he came back into the room and slipped into his bed. "What are you reading?"
"I'm trying to figure out what I have to do tomorrow."
"You don't need to go to that shit."
"I know," I said as I looked up at him an noticed fresh dark blue spots on his light blue sheets. "I'm just checking." That sounded natural, right? He won't notice that I just saw the cum stains on his sheets.
He looked down at his sheets and noticed the bright blue on the sheets he just unpacked a few hours earlier. He quickly pulled the offending area behind him, so I wouldn't notice. I saw it all. But I let it slide. After all, it was the first time. But, God, couldn't he wait a little before jerking off?

Apparently not. True to his word he rarely left the room, and every time I walked into the room -morning, noon or night - he was either masturbating or had just finished masturbating, as evidenced by the fresh stains on his sheets. Every day that is until I moved out two weeks later.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 8:49 PM | Comments (4)

February 13, 2005

Who Knew it'd be So Violent?

I looked out the window and down at the sidewalk expecting to see a fight. I hurried over to the window so I could get a clear view of the fight. I'd been at a hockey game earlier in the night - Towson vs. Maryland - and saw some good fighting there. I guess I was in the mood.

Hockey isn't all that violent. That's what I thought after watching some of Emma's games. There was nothing remotely violent in the games, which was not what I expected. I'd always been lead to believe hockey was a violent sport full of constant body checking and bare-nuckle fighting.
Then I saw a college game. The crowd seemed to beg the players for a fight. They cheered on every check to the boards. Every time a player hit the ice claps and cheers came from the stands. Then came a fight. Not a bad one, only a few punches, a split lip, but more of a fight than you can get away with in any other sport. And it didn't seem to be a big deal. Sure, he was kicked out of the game, but their was no outrage. "You shoulda hit 'im harder." The old man right ahead of me called out as the player left the ice.
So, hockey is violent. Just as I thought.

After the hockey game Emma and I met up with a friend to play some pool. We played for a little while before we all decided headed out to Abe Lincoln's birthday party at Kildaires. Another friend was doing something there and an old, leathery looking woman prompted us to leave with her incessant asking if we were done playing.
"She looks like an old hooker."
"No, she doesn't."
"Yes, she does; she's all old and used up looking."
"That's just that tanning bed leathery skin. I bet she's not even that old."
"She's probably only 32."
"You guys are awful Maybe she has a skin condition."

We left and headed down to the bar none of us had ever been to before, none of us knew what to expect.
"What's this gonna be?"
"I don't know. All I know is Mike D is doing something there."
"You don't know what?"
"No. His band could be playing or it could be something just for Abe Lincoln's birthday. I have no idea."

We made it to the bar and stepped inside. It immediately became apparent the bar had two sections and that we had stepped into the section in which we didn't want to be. It was a small dark bar full of bikers dressed in leather. Without stopping at the bar we walked to the back, hoping to find some way to the part we wanted.

"This is the bar, right?"
"I think so. He said Kildaires."
"I went back there and didn't see anything." There was a hallway in the very back of the bar. It lead to the bathroom and one unlikely looking staircase. "There was a staircase. I think that guy's going up it. If he doesn't come back, we'll go that way too. OK?"

He didn't come back, so we followed up the stairs.
The room on the other side of the door looked like someone's living room. Someone's living room except that it was packed with people, several of them being bikers with the ubiquitous black leather vest.
"This doesn't look like it either."
"I think there's another room out here."

We had to leave the living room and cross through the foyer into another room. The foyer was definitely the wrong place. It was full of bikers. Big bikers. Small bikers. Hell's Angels. Holy shit! Those were Hell's Angels. What the hell are we doing here?
But the other room was safe. It was full of people in their 20s and 30s. None of them were wearing leather. I recognized some. "Ok. This is it."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Mike is setting up in the corner. His band is going to play."

Having finally arrived at the right place I went up to the bar to buy a round of beers. The sign behind the bar said there was a $5 cover charge. We hadn't paid it. I was a little nervous about sneaking into the place. I wasn't sure if the Hell's Angel with the stick was the bouncer or if the 350 pound biker with the big beard was. Or maybe it was one of their friends. Play it cool. They'll never know.
The bartender came over dressed in a low cut leather halter top. I ordered a round of Natty Bohs. It came to $7.50. 7.50 for three Bohs? That's crazy. Isn't it illegal to charge mare than 1.75? I handed her a bill to cover it. She didn't give back any change. Do I still tip? -- I guess so.

I brought the beers back to the group and the band started warming up. A few Hell's Angels walked into the room. One of them was walking with a cane because he had a broken foot. His cane was actually more like a stick. A big fat stick. Like a baseball bat. He wore a black leather vest with "Hell's Angels MC Maryland" written on the back around a flamin skull. Another Hell's Angel came in with him and walked over to the other side of the crowd. Finally a pledge walked in and took his place next to the crippled Angel.
I had a feeling he wa a pledge, anyway. He didn't have "Hell's Angels" or the flaming skull on his back, but he had everything else, "MC Maryland." And even that awed me. "Look. The fucking Hell's Angels are here."

The band started playing and a pit started immediately. It was pretty wild, everyone was fueled with beer and still had energy since it was the first song.
Less than a minute into the song the Angel with the stick stumbled back. He grabbed his stick in two hands - one on each end of the stick - and jabbed at the closest slam dancer's head. Holy crap! He's hitting that guy in the head. Doesn't he know this is what people do at grind metal shows?
The band stopped and urged an end to the fight. It actually hadn't really even developed into a fight yet. But it was on its way. "Come on man. This is what people do here. This is normal."

The bouncer turned out to be the big fat biker. The one with the big black beard. The 350 pounder. He urged the Angels out into the foyer. They would go no further.

The band hadn't started and I heard noises from the crowd.
"What an asshole."
"God. Can you believe it?"
"Let me go. That fucker."
Then the guy charged out of the room. The guy that just got hit in the head by a member of a biker gang. With a stick. Charged out to get them.
What the hell is he thinking? There is never just one Hell's Angel. They're going to kick his ass.
He made it to the foyer and I saw a scuffle erupt. I couldn't see much, but I got the impression it was headed outside. I looked out the window expecting to see a fight and saw nothing. I went back to my friends and one said, "Did you see them kicking that guy around? They just took him outside."
I went back to the window and saw the guy. He was lying limp on his side on the sidewalk.
holy shit.
He was on his right side. His right arm straight up, his hand dangling off the curb. Blood coming from his face. I hoped it was only his nose. I thought that was it. The fight was over. Until I saw the Angel with the stick walk up and kick him in the face.
I've never seen a body move like that. His face and head moved, then snapped back, but his lower half didn't move at all. It stayed on the sidewalk as the man's torso fell off the curb into the street. It was like the crippled Angel was kicking jello. It made no effort to resist.
The Angel repositioned himself. He must have been a little awkward with the broken foot. He leaned on his stick, then with his good foot kicked the man so hard he lifted him off the ground. Not very far off the ground because he fit underneath the minivan parked at the curb, but enough to send him so far under you could only see him from the calves down.

A few minutes later the man climbed out from underneath the van. Blood poured from his face. He could barely stand. He leaned up against the van with the help of his friend. Was he that drunk? I hope so. I hope he was that drunk. He had to be. Who esle would fight a bunch of Hell's Angels alone? Who would fight a guy with a fucking stick alone? He's drunk. He's barely hurt. No, he's hurt, but mostly drunk. I hope.

The band started up again and played a great set. I left pretty soon afterward.
The only action I saw after the show was a woman in her 40s, with one tooth, asking me if I wanted a 14 inch drill. But the next day Mike called me up, thanked me for coming out, and asked me if I saw the fights.
"The fights?"
"Yeah, there were two fights."
"I think so. Unless there was another one after I left."
"Yeah. You know that big-assed bouncer? The one with the beard? My brother kicked the shit out of him."
"What?"
"Yeah. The fat dude started some shit so he threw him to the ground and kicked him in a the face a bunch of times."
"No way. That guy was huge."
"Yeah. We pretty much packed up and ran out of there after that."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 5:46 PM | Comments (2)

February 9, 2005

Thank God for the Video of the Tree

Sunday morning. No, Sunday afternoon -- it had to be afternoon. But maybe it was Saturday. It could have been Saturday.
I know for sure it was an afternoon. And a weekend. And I woke to my dorm supervisor banging on my door. She was yelling too. "Brian! I know you're in there! Open up, Mr."
I opened up my eyes. They hurt. Everything hurt. I was more hung over than usual.
"Open the door or I'm just going to come in. I have a key."
I propped myself up a bit. "Hold on." I rolled myself out of bed. "Ow! Fuck." I stepped on something.
What the hell is that? I looked down and saw I stepped on a stray screw. It lay next to an oddly shaped piece of metal. What is all that? What happened?
I opened up my eyes a bit wider and saw a vacuum cleaner. It was on its side. A couple pieces hung off of it and others were scattered around the room. Oh, shit. I remember now.
"Brian. Open up. We need to talk."
I borrowed the vacuum cleaner from the dorm complex. Then when it didn't work we got a little out of hand kicking it and hitting it to get it to work. We knew it would never work, but we were being video taped -- my friends and I were -- and things got a little out of hand.
I got out of hand.
I lifted up the vacuum, one of those old steel ones. I swung it over my head. I slammed it into the door and it smashed. Shit. There's a hole in the door too. I put a hole in the door. I didn't notice that last night.
Why did I need the vacuum, anyway?
The tree.

Oh. Shit. The tree.
I turned around and saw a tree. No. Two trees crowded together taking up almost half the room. They were both bent over -- too tall for the room. The ceilings in the dorm rooms were a lot lower than the ceilings in the dorm lobby.
I couldn't open the door. I had two trees in my room. Trees stolen from the dorm lobby.
"Um. I'm naked. I'll talk to you in a minute."
"Brian, I know you have the trees in there."
"What."
"You guys were so drunk and loud last night. And there's a trail of dirt straight to your door."
That's right. The dirt. The vacuum. I had to vacuum up the dirt. The plater broke while I was dragging the tree down the hall into my room. It spilled dirt everywhere. I had to get the vacuum to clean it up. I must have skipped the hall. But I remember kicking some dirt toward the door across the hall. Why does she just assume I'm the one that did it?
"Hey. I'm naked here. I just woke up. I'll talk to you later."
"Forget it. Just put the tree back."

I went back to sleep. Later that day I brought one tree back to the lobby. I left the other one in the communal bathroom down the hall. I could deny having put that one there. I only took the one tree. The one with the broken planter.
I put the vacuum cleaner back in some semblence of order and returned it hoping no one would notice it was broken until they couldn't track it back to me.
I hoped they couldn't track it back to me. I could just say it was broken when I got it.

Sunday night my roomate came back from his weekend at home. Sunday night. So it must have been Saturday. The tree theft happened on Friday night. "I showed that video to my brothers."
That's right. The video. "Why?"
"They're starting to think drinking is cool. They asked me to buy for them once already." He claimed to be a punk rocker, but he was a little on the wussy side. His little brothers on the other hand. They were little punk rockers. Along with a a couple friends they had a band, Dick and the Bruisers. Sure, that doesn't mean they were too punk, but it gives them a lot more street cred than some guy who tries to get his brothers to quit drinking before they start.
"So why show them the video?" He had video taped my friends and I getting drunk and having fun. I remember he followed me around all night. (It wasn't until he later showed me the video that I remembered tackling a water fountain and taking it off the wall in another dorm.)
"I thought if they saw what you and your friends get like when you get drunk they'd be convinced it was stupid."
"What are trying to turn them straight edge? You're not straight edge."
"Well, it didn't work anyway. They told me I was a dork and they want to come up and hang out with you some time."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:47 PM | Comments (3)

Identifying

Last week tutoring at the Hampden Family Center I got a report on my student. The report was a summary of her weak and strong points, as seen by her teachers. I found she was good at math, but horribly weak at reading and writing. So I stupidly tried to push reading on her.
"What sort of books do you like?"
"None."
"Do you read?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what do you read then?"
"Judy Bloom books."
"So you like Judy Bloom books then."
"Yeah. I guess."
"What do you like about them? What kinds of things do you like to read?"
"I like books I can identify with."
"Books, you can identify with --what sort of things help you identify with a book?"
"Teenage girls that are the youngest. Things like that."
"Anything else? Whould you like a book like ..." I suggested some book or another.
"No. That sounds dumb. I said I only read books I identify with."

Today she had no homework again, so I suggested we run over to Atomic Books to pick out a book. I told her I'd buy her a book if she promised to read it. She promised.

Naturally she got one with which she could identify. It is entitled "Killer Kids."
It tells the tales dozens of our countrymen that killed while under the age of 18.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 8:40 PM | Comments (5)

February 8, 2005

Changing a Song, but not Pants

I went to an all male boarding school in a small town in Wisconsin.
Actually, it was more of a village. It still is, even though its population has nearly doubled since I went to school there -- now it boasts 956 inhabitants (which I'm willing to bet is because it included the nearly 300 students in my high school).

The school sat on a hill overlooking the village. To get from the school to the village one would have to cross through a cemetary. Once through the cemetary you'd emerge in the "down town" area. There was a tractor sales office, a hair salon and two bars. There was rumored to be a five lane bowling alley on one of the side streets too.

Despite the happenings of the village we, as young men, longed for things beyond the village limits. Namely women.

The years upond years of (for the most part) testosterone filled teenage boys passed invaluable knowledge down to each other each calendar year. Not just book knowledge, things like, "join a sport."
Why? You'd know if you were there. You'd know after the first home game. The first home cross country meet. Girls.

During the home sporting events the girls came in. Girls from everywhere, not just the opposing school. Girls in the area knew about us. It was passed down through the undesirable girls - "The boys up on the hill will take you in. They've got no other choice."
True enough, if a girl, any girl came onto school grounds she was immediately swarmed. The swarming was often so intense the desperate pleas "Get away! Get away! That's my mom!" occassionally went unheaded. The thing was everyone got a crack at the girls during those home events. If, however, you joined a sport, any sport, you got to travel to the other schools. To the schools with girls. There one's odds were much better as the number of woman jonesin' boarding school boys was much lower.
Still, you had to actually go play your sport for a good part of the trips to the other school. Plus the boys from the other schools were also out on the prowl in pretty good numbers. The more clever of us figured this out and passed amongst ourselves "join forensics."

Forensics was a totally different animal. First off, there was never a home event. Most of the school didn't know the beauty of forensics. And the beauty was that it was co-ed. But more than co-ed. Better than co-ed.
Forensics was practically the antithesis of our school. It was the Amazon army to our Greek fighting force. It was nearly all female.
It was a weekly chance to meet with hundreds of females from around the state. It was an event where chatting up the opposite sex was not only encouraged, it was practically mandated. It was a weekly public speaking contest.
Despite the name forensics, which proably conjures up visions of cadavers and chalk lines for most, it required no special knowledge. It didn't even require physical ability of any sort. For the most part you were judged on how well you talked. That is, when you did it. Most of the time was spent waiting for a chance to talk and then sitting around waiting for the results.

It was during those lulls we went on our rampages. The guys from my school fanned out through the host school chatting up almost every girl in our path.
(And the best part? Many of the girls were punky, indie girls.)
Some girls, of course, were spared.
Then those girls followed my friend Corbin and I.
Something about us must have called to them. And to make it worse, both of us were too nice to really put the hammer down and say with any conviction, "Stay away! Stay away!"
On the bus rides to the school of the week we'd all get excited. Our chance to see women in person, perhaps even acheive physical contact! was close at hand. For me and Corbin the excitement waned. We'd often feel the need console each other before departed the bus. "You know they're coming after you, right?"
"Why can't we shake them?"
"I don't know. What are we doing wrong?"

But we eventually changed our tune. We learned to embrace the fact that those that most closely followed us totally eclipsed our views of the other women at the events. Corbin developed an adaptation of "Black Girls" by the Violent Femmes which the two of us would sing. We changed the lyrics to fit our situation.

I dig fat girls!
I dig fat girls!
I dig fat girls.
Not because they're smarter
But cuz they give, give, give it to me harder!

I think it was the first time that we sung that song Mike, a guy year ahead of me, a senior, came back to the bus at the end of the day with a stain on his pants.

"Hey, guys. Check it out."
What the hell?

Mike was proud. Extremely proud. Unhealthily proud of the stain in his pants.

He had met a girl a week or two before and that day while waiting for the results of the championships (which most of our schoolmates deftly avoided to give us more time to find the ladies) the two of them sat along in the school auditorium and "made out."
Mike claims that it was so intense that this new stain on his pants was a testament to his manliness. That she was so unable to resist his pasty skin that looked like his father, an undertaker, had made him up before leaving that morning. That she was so astounded and amazed by all that was Mike that she threw herself on him and the stain was a result.

The rest of us knew better. "Mike, that's called premature ejaculation."
"No. She was grinding on me."
"Mike, if she never actually touched it, it's called premature ejaculation. That's not cool."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 6:59 PM | Comments (2)

My Toy Accordian

Ever since New Year's I've been promising Emma I'd bring a noise maker to one of her hockey games. Well, more than that - that I'd bring a noise maker and use it every time someone on her team scored a goal.
The plan was for me to use one of those crappy noise makers bars give out for free on New Year's Eve. I'd ripped off the carboard part leaving me with the just little plastic noise making part. That made it very inconspicuous, but I was still a little hesitant about using it. There are rarely more than 10 people in the stands and they don't do much of anything. I felt I'd really stick out with a noise maker, so I never did.
Plus I lost it.

So yesterday I showed up at her game with a mini accordian. Every time someone scored I squeezed an released, squeezed and released. I have an accordian but that's about all I know what to do with it.
This got the other fans in the rink worked up. They decided that the accordian needed to be sounded every time someone shot at the goal. Every time the goalie made a save.
I must have missed a squeeze or two because I got my accordian confiscated.
"You forgot to play there. He saved it."
"I didn't know I did it for all saves."
"Yeah. Give me that."
"No it's mine."
"Give it to her, she knows what she's doing."

I passed the accordian to the next girl in the stands. She and her sister played it for all the above events and sometimes in between. I thought the players might have thought the accordian was a bit annoying.

I was wrong.
After the game a few of the players approached the girls and told them that they thought the accordian was a great idea.

I have a feeling they thought the accordian compliments would lead them into scoring position.

Little did they know I was the keeper of the accordian.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 5:08 PM | Comments (0)

February 7, 2005

Travel Story #6 (Final - Finally)

"Dad, what the hell is going on here?"
"I think he's saying this place used to be a prison. I think he's saying that the people that left would be killed."

The little old man ran around the dark, dank room. He pointed to the small barred windows at the top of the wall. He ran under a rusty old hook on the wall and posed as if he were shackled. He walked over to a large iron door and kicked it. He hit it with his fists and again put his finger to his throat making that crackly spittle noise that universally accompanies it.
"Yeah. I think he's saying no one could leave, or they'd be killed."
"Kind of feels that way now, doesn't it?"
The little old man noticed us talking and yelled to someone behind us. The young man ran out the door. A few seconds later someone else came through the door and said, "old. Very old." The old man nodded.

He took out a pen and grabbed my hand. He wrote "1532" on the meaty part of my palm. Then he pointed to the mosque on the other side of the heavy iron door. He wrote "1536."
"Oh, the years these things were built."
"That makes sense."
A younger guy walked into the room with a tray of tea. He set it down on a pile of concrete blocks. The old man pulled up a couple fold-out chairs and motioned for us to sit. He stood in front of us as we sipped our tea. He pantomimed smoking from a narghyle and pointed to the ground at his feet.
He's turning this place into a smoking cafe. We'd been to a couple already. They were patronized almost exclusively by old men and tourists. A younger man might come in once in a while, but never a woman unless she was a toursit. We'd asked about whether or not women are allowed in the cafes and found out that even though they are they amost never enter.
"That could be cool, smoking in an old prison."
"I think he's trying to get us to advertise it for him."
The old man ran off. We never saw him again. What we did see was a number of young Turkish men that claimed to be studying, but not know English. About 8 of them in all. One by one.
They came up to us and told us they were studying, but didn't know any English. "I just started this last week." Then they would run off to find someone who knew a bit more. "I have studied for two years English. They get me and ask me to tell you they are working on cafe here."
"Yes, we know. The old man told us."
"Yes, I'm sorry. I don't speak English so good. The old man. His cafe."
"Where is he? We have to leave."
The men looked around for the old man. He was nowhere to be found.
"We need to pay. We have to leave."
"No cost. Is free for you."

Sweet! We just got about a half a million lira worth of free tea.

I left in awe of the kindness of the Turks we had just me. "They gave us free tea."
"About 50 cents worth."
"Some places that would cost almost a dollar."
"Not out here. We're in the ghetto."
"But he was so nice."
"I think he just wanted us to tell our American friends about his great cafe."

Nothing seemed to impress my dad. Nothin until we passed a bakery. The day was hot - probably 90 degrees or so - and we passed a bakery from which we could feel the heat eminating. The hot breeze hit us as we walked past the store's picture windows. "Look at that!"
The bakers were using a large wooden stick - about 5 feet long - with a wide flat end to take a couple loaves of bread out of a brick oven glowing orange inside. "Look at that. Let's get some fresh bread. Have you ever seen bread that fresh?"
"Maybe at home. Didn't mom --"
"But with that oven. That is amazing. You can't find that in the States."
"I guess."

He grabbed a fresh loaf of bread and we headed around the corner. "This is like the slum shopping district."
"I bet everything is cheap around here because their are no tourists."
"I want one of those hats." I went into a store selling Muslim prayer hats. Up until then I didn't know the hats were religious wear, but I found out.
"This is a religious store. I don't know if they'll let you buy one here."
I looked around the store and saw it was a religious store. Prayer beeds. Prayer hats. Prayer rugs. Copies of the Koran. "Look. They have tacky plastic pictures with Koran quotes here. Just like the Bible in the States."
"I bet they're made in China."
"I want one."
"You don't know what it says."
"So? They're super tacky."
"Why would you want one --"
"I don't know. Maybe it would offend this guy. I guess I'll just settle with the hat."
"What would you do with some ugly picture with that stupid fake gold writing on it anyway?"

We walked a little farther into what seemed like a strictly residential area and decided to turn back. We estimated it would take us 2 hours to walk back to our hotel and it would be dark by then.
On our way back we came across an open air bazaar.
"A real bazaar. One for the locals."
"It's all the same shit though."
"Yeah, but it's cheaper. It has to be."
"Don't you think they'll still give us the tourist price? We sort of stick out."

We did stick out. The kids surrounded us and began begging whenever we stopped. I saw a stand selling bottles of water and bought one. A little boy came up to me and said, "please. Please." pointing to the water. My bleeding heart decided if anyone would beg for water they must need it. I gave it to him and bought another one. That set me back almost a million lira. He ran of holding the water like a running back with a football.

A little farther down through the crowded, winding street we came to an intersection. In the intersection someone had set up a table and was serving bowls of bean soup. We sat down and ordered a bowl each. After we dug into the food I noticed they had no running water. "Dad, they don't have running water here." He's normally a bit touchy about such things, but since they also served bread he was happy.
"Oh well, if you're going to get it, you got it already. Besides, it's authentic."
"I don't mind. I was just letting you know. -- I don't know how they wash the dishes though."
"It's best not to think about it."
"Oh, they have a bucket of water back there. I wonder how many times people blew their snot into it."
"From what we saw earlier, a lot I bet."

After lunch we wandered through the city checking out the goods. "Look, a picture of a ferrari with a plastic frame. It's only 5 million."
"Well, you better get it at that price."
"Actually, I only want one of those mosque lights." (Colored glass candle holders suspended from the ceilings of mosques.)
"I'll let you know if I see any place that has them."

When we came across a store selling the candle holders I insisted we go in. The man in the store seemed surprised someone came in. He sprang to his feet and ran up to us. Instead of asking us what we wanted, or how he could help us he told us he had a wife and 3 kids in the country side. I said I was wondering how much the lights cost. "Oh, you must be popular with the ladies. You look like Brad Pitt."
I refused to buy anything from him after that. Such an obvious like to try to curry my favor always back fires.
(Either that or he thinks all white people look the same. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure people can tell me from Brad Pitt.)

We neared our hotel and crossed paths with an old man selling apple shaped alarm clocks. "How much?" my dad asked with the universal how much hand signal. The old man wrote "2 million" on a piece of paper.
"Brian, how much is that?"
"About a dollar."
"OK. -- Fucking zeros."

"Why did you buy an alarm clock?"
"So we can wake up and we won't miss our ride." When we first arrived we paid for a ride to and from the hotel along with our stay. "If we miss that we miss our flight."

The morning of our flight home we woke up early with the aid of the $1 alarm clock. We gathered our stuff and waited in the hotel lobby. The appointed time passed and still there was no sign of our ride. "Good thing we lied and told them our flight was leaving half an hour earlier."
"No shit. I think those fuckers stiffed us."

I went to the reception desk and told them that the Hertz guys were supposed to pick us up. "Could you call them and make sure we have a ride to the airport, please?"

"OK, you're ride is coming, my friends."

A few minutes later a taxi showed up to take us to the airport. The ride was uneventful, but when we got to the airport he demand we pay him.
"But the ride was supposed to be free."
"Maybe they just called a cab."
"Fuck it. Just pay him, Brian."
"I don't have enough."
"Well I don't have any of their god damned funny money."
"I'll get some at an ATM. The Airport has to have an ATM." The cabbie let me go get money as long as my dad stayed with him and the bags. I ran through the airport and got just enough money to pay the cab fare. Despite running back as well the whole ordeal took me over 15 minutes. The cabbie waited patiently.
When I handed him the money he seemed to loose his paitence, however. "More. Not enough."

Apparently I misunderstood the number and was short 8 million.
"Wait here. I'll get some more." I turned to run and the cabbie yelled, "No."
I turned back to see him driving away.
Our bags were on the curb next to my dad. He was smiling, "Finally someone here that doesn't want our money."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 5:05 PM | Comments (4)

Playing Hookey

Today's a great day for playing hookey. I didn't know that until I already left work to do it. I tried to sneak out but I ran into my supervisor on the way through the door.

He didn't seem to care that I showed up late and was at that moment leaving 3 hours early. That makes him a great supervisor as far as I'm concerned -- a big picture sort of guy.

But maybe the thought I was going to do some work somewhere else. Maybe he didn't know that I was going to drive straight home passing a guy on the corner of Caroline and Pratt streets with an ammo belt filled with crack vials instead of shotgun shells.
I can't see he saw that one coming. I know I didn't.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)

February 6, 2005

Travel Story #5

We'd been drinking tea and walking around Istanbul all day stopping to see the oversized buildings on the map. "There's a bunch of stuff down here, the Hagia Sofia and stuff. Let's go see them."
"I bet they'll charge us a ton to see that stuff. These people are money hungry. remember they charged us to get into this fucking country."
"No way. Those are like national treasures. That'd be like charging to get into the Smithsonian."

When we got to the Hagia Sofia we found the wanted over $20. "It doesn't even look that impressive from the outside. Why would we want to pay $20 to see the inside."
"It's pretty big. I think the outside is enough. Now I saw the Hagia Sofia. Done. Hey, dad. The Topkapi is right over here. Let's go in there. They definitely can't charge us for that."

Sure, they could $35 a ticket. They made sure to charge in dollars so that you'd know exactly how badly you were getting screwed. "Fuck them. Fuck this country. I'm not going in there."
"I want to go in."
"Fine. You pay the fucking $35 to get in. I'll wait for you out here."
"I'm not paying. Let's see if we can sneak in."
"Oh. Good idea."

We spent the next few minutes wandering around the area looking for a way in. "This was a fotress. I don't think we'll find a way in."
"Come on, dad. They open the doors to let people in. Maybe we can sneak in the exit."
"Yeah. Let's scout out first."

We went over to teh exit and found the huge, 35 foot tall, doors opened to let tourists out. It looked like the tourists were opening the doors. We loitered around the doors for a bit to see if there was anyone to stop us. "It looks clear."
"Ok. I'm behind you."
We stepped in through the door and met almost eye to eye with a guard. He stood behind the door so we could see him until we walked in. I tried as naturally as possible to act like to appear to be a tourist stealing a glimpse instead of stealing entry. Then we ran.
We walked around the palace grounds trying doors and looking out for scalable parts of the wall. "Hey, we can fit in through that rusted out door. It doesn't look like it's been replaced since the sultans lived here."
We approached the doors and found it was the storage area. old parts of the palace and old automobiles lay in the open air. "It looks like they store the crap here, but I bet it's connected to the rest of the palace. Maybe we can see all the secret shit."
"You first."
I stepped in the door. It was an easy fit. I still had to be careful so as not to cut myself on the jagged rusty edges of the door. I had over half my body through the door; I had just fit my head through when a dog came charging out from behind one of the decrepit trucks. "Fuck!"
"What?"
"Ow. Fuck. Dog." I had hit my head on the door when the dog startled me. I hurried back through the door. The dog came up to the door and made no attempt to come through the crack. "Let's skip this one."

We walked around the palace. After an hour or so we came back to our approximate starting spot. "Let's see if the Blue Mosque is free."
"I don't know. It doesn't look all that great. I thought the mosques were really great around here. Like that one you always see when they show us bombing Baghdad. The one with all the tiles."
"Yeah. I guess they aren't as cool as that one. There are so many though."
"Let's jsut go to see what they look like inside."

We made it up to the blue mosque and were turned away at the door. It was almost prayer time. We couldn't go in during prayer time. The bouncer asked us to hang out in the plaza in front of the mosque. All the mosques in Istanbul have a plaza area in front of them. They are walled in on all sides, the main part of the mosque making the fourth wall. In the middle of the plaze is a small dome. The dome is supported by arches and the center of the dome is solid and lined with water spouts. The faithful respond to the call to prayer and stop at the small dome to wash their hands, feet, and head. Some are very dilligent about their washing others just get themselves wet.
"Did you see that? That guy just snot in there."
"What?"
"He didn't even wash himself. He just walked up and blew some snot at the thing. Disgusting."
"No way. What if someone else stepped in it?"
"I don't think he cares."
We sat on the marble steps on the outside of the plaza and watched the men come up and clean themselves.
"That guy has been there for, like, five minutes."
"He's going to miss the whole prayer."
"Hey. That guy just stepped up to the thing and left."
"It must be getting close to start time. -- Ew. Another snotter."
"Sick. Can't he do that somewhere else? -- That's probably why the guy has to keep cleaning."

We saw everyone leaving the mosque and went to see what it looked like inside. "Take off your shoes before you go in" the guard told us. I stepped up onto the first step, the blue marble step, and walked toward the door. I was reaching down to untie my shoes when someone grabbed me. A couple people pushed me and I heard some yelling. What the hell is going on?
"Take off your shoes here." They pushed me off the step.

"Brian. Why didn't you take off your shoes?"
"I was going to. I didn't know you had to do it before you step on the blue part."
"I'm surprised they didn't kill you. Maybe they're gathering everybody outside to cut your balls off when you leave. -- Stay away from me."
"You'd let them cut off your own son's balls?
"Shh. Don't let Allah hear you saying 'balls.'"

We had seen most everything of interest on the map. Everything but a Roman aquaduct and a mosque on the other side of town. "Let's go check this aquaduct out."
"That's a long walk."
"So what? You need it. You're getting old."
"Let's go, you little shit."

We walked across town to the aquaduct. It now served as somethign for cars to pass through instead of something to carry water. It was hot. I needed some water."Hey, look that store has juice outside."
The store had two juice machines. The type with the clear plastic top. The kind that squirts its liquid up and it drains down the clear part for you to see. It looked like orange juice and something red. Maybe cherry. There was cherry juice everywhere.
"You think that's cherry juice?"
"Maybe, but I'm not drinking it"
"Why not?"
"It's sitting out here on the street. You never know how long it's been out here. It's probably hot too."
"No, it's cold. And it's only 500 000 lira."
The juice seemed to be self serve. A stack of cups sat in between the two machines. But it didn't look like there was any place to pay. I grabbed a glass, filled it up and drank the juice. It was delicious. It was cold -- but where do I pay?
Some Turkish guy came up and grabbed a glass of what must have been orange. I figured I'd watch him to see where he paid.
He paid me. What the fuck? He just gave me the money. That's means I'm an employee. I should get paid for this. I grabbed another glass of juice, drank it down and lay two 500 000 lira coins on the table - one for him. one for me.
"Did that guy just pay you?"
"Yeah. What is it, just because I'm light skinned he thinks I'm a servant?"

We walked on toward the outmost mosque highlighted on the map. The neighborhoods were getting visibly worse until we got to a huge mosque. It sat in a park-like setting. It was call to prayer again.
"Let's just skip it."
"We came all the way out here."
"Once you see one mosque you've seen them all. Besides. I want some tea."
"Whatever."

We walked along side the mosque to get to the road on the other side. The mosque grounds were filled with kids. Kids of all ages running around, some playing soccer, some screaming. Some screaming, "American. American."
"I think we're on the wrong side of town."
"No way. It seems safe."
"They don't seem to like us."
A soccer ball few within inches of my face. The kids laughed. "Alright. Let's head out."
We hurried out of the mosque grounds and come out on a commercial street. It was a walking street of sorts. "I need some tea."
"I think those guys have some. Maybe that's a tea house." A handful of men stood around a doorway. As we walked toward it they stepped out of the way. Some went back inside. It looked like some public establishment, so we entered.
It was a long hallway. After about 15 feet it turned to the left and opened to a large area at the bottom of a stairway. There was a cart next to the stairway with men standing all around it. It was a tea cart. A tea house. Good.
We stepped up to the tea cart and tried to place our order. An old man standing next to the cart set down his empty glass and grabbed my arm. He motioned down another hallway and said soemthign in Turkish. What does he want?
He started walking and motioned in a friendly way for my dad to follow us. I was going with him because he held my arm. As we started walking he dropeed my arm.
We entered a part of the hallway that was barely light. There he motioned us into a dark, dank room. It had dirt floors and smelt of mold. Six men wlaked with their shirts off digging in the floor, their workspace light with floodlights.
Someone came in behind us ushering us out of the doorway so he could move a wheelbarrow full of wet cement into the room.
The old man became animated. He motioned to the ceiling. To the walls. To the small high windows. What the hell is going on?
My dad tried again to ask for tea.
The old man yelled to one of the men with a shovel. The younger man left the room. Everyone else with a shovel stopped what they were doing. I looked over at the old man and noticed he had his finger to his throat. He was making the "slit your throat" move across his throat. What the fuck is going on here?

Posted by calculatoronfire at 3:20 PM | Comments (0)

February 4, 2005

Travel Story #4

"God, I didn't sleep all night. I'm tired."
"You'll feel better once we get some tea. Where do you want to go first?"
"Well there's this thing real close." I pointed to a building on the map. It was one of those tourist-type maps where the places of interest are huge cartoony things that loom over the rest of the map. The building said "Bazaar."
"Oh, the bazaar. I think Turkish bazaars are really famous."
"Well let's go down there then."

We stopped for some tea on our way the half mile or so to the bazaar. We also passed about four mosques before we got to the tourist packed bazaar.
"Every stand sells the same shit. Why are these bazaars so famous?"
"I don't know. You could just go to the first stand and leave if you didn't like it. They've all got the same crap. This sucks."
But we kept walking. We wanted to make sure we weren't mistaken about the bazaar.
"Oh. It looks like this is a different section of all the same crap."
"No. They've go more metal crap here."
"Yeah. That last part was the hanging lights and plates section. This is the metal stuff section."

"Woah. We must be in the blue jean department now." From every stand someone yelled out to us about the importance of buying blue jeans from his stand.

"Hey, my friend, you need new blue jeans. The ladies love man in blue jeans. Only $5 my friend."
"Very nice blue jeans. $5 for you, my friend."

"Hey, let'd find the Persian rug section. I want to get a nice Persian rug for your mother."

As we wandered around the bazaar looking for the Persian rug department we stopped for a couple glasses of tea. But more often than that we were stopped by shopkeepers, "Where are you from?"
"The US."
"Oh. US. Very good. I love America. Very good. But George Bush, bad. George Bush bad. America good."

"That's it. From now on I'm going to tell them I'm from Magyaristan."
"Why?"
"I don't give a damn what they think about GW."
"So what? Just ignore them."
"Or I could tell them I'm from Magyaristan. They won't know what the hell to say to me and they'll shut up. Plus they won't think I'm some rich American and they won't jack up the prices."

We passed a store and an old fat man came out. "Hello, my friends, where are you from?"
"Magyaristan."
"Szia!"
They started talking in Hungarian for several minutes. Tehn they were done I asked my dad what had just transpired.
"Is there really a Magyaristan?"
"It's what they call Hungary. If they like a country they add a '-Stan' at the end."
"So that guy knew Hungarian?Wow."
"Yeah. He knew 9 languages besides Turkish. He taught himself by meeting the tourists."
"No way."
"Pretty amazing isn't it? I told you you should just shack up with some slut. Using a language is the best way to learn it. Plus you get laid."

We had stopped as we talked an were now standing somewhere in one of the crap departments. I looked over my dad's shoulder and noticed a small rug made in Afghanistan. It even said "made in Afghanistan" right on it. That was surrounded by pictures of stuff with English captions. An AK-47, a burqua, a plane crashing into a tower next to another one already in flames. That part read, "9/11" underneath. "Holy shit. Look at that. That rug has the 9/11 attck memorialized on it."
"wow."
"That's pretty fucked up."

A turk came out of the stand sellign the carpter. He was saying something or another to us in Turkish. Then he said, "It is beautiful." He started clapping and pointed to the carpet. "Good Bin Laden. Islam. Bin Laden. Good." He clapped some more, then stopped. "America bad. Bad America." He yelled before running off into the labyrithn-like hallways of the bazaar.
"What an asshole."
"What the fuck are we doing in this filthy country?"
"Can you believe that fucking carpet?How much do you think it is?"
"Why? You want that piece of shit? AK-47s are Russian, first of all."
"I don't give a shit about that. Who cares about the AK stuff? That fucking 9/11 shit. No one will believe it without proof."
"Here. I'll take a picture. Now let's go get some more tea."

My dad and Turkey were a great fit, aside from the fact everyone was trying to get his money, they love tea and he is addicted to tea. The problem is they drink tea in tiny glasses only about twice the size of a normal shot glass and my dad drinks lit by the half liter. He has to continually get more tea. "There's a stand right back here." We headed back the way we came so that we wouldn't get lost in the hallways that appeared grid-like, but in reality meandered in all directions.
"It's blocked."
"But we just came down this way."
"It looks like it's taped off or something." I couldn't see too well because people crowded where I thought the tape was. but still it looked like police tape and people were crowding around like it was a crime seen.
A Turk from ahead heard us talking and told us someone had just been stabbed.
"You think it's the asshole? I hope it's the asshole."
"Get a picture of it."
"No way. I don't want them to throw me in prison or something for talking pictures of a crime scene."
"Will they do that?"
"You never know around here."
"Come on, dad. Take a picture, then lets run."

We decided to go around the corner, since the stabbing happened at an intersection. "Look at that puddle of blood."
"Wow. I've never seen so much blood."
"There's another smaller puddle. Do you think two guys stabbed each other or the first guy moved?"
"I don't know. That's a lot of blood. It's fresh too."
"Well take a picture."
I convinced him to take a picture without holding the camera up. It might not be the best shot, but it'd get the blood. That's all we were concerned about."

"Let's get out of here."
"Yeah, lets go get some tea."
"Ok. But then I want to see one of these mosques."
"First tea. OK?"

Posted by calculatoronfire at 5:11 PM | Comments (0)

February 3, 2005

More Damned Ribbons

Original plan still in the works, but:

Magnetism ribbons now available!

[picture a silver ribbon here because I don't have a digital camera]

Available now: Magnetism ribbons! These fine hand-made magnetic ribbons look just like the ones you see on every car one the road except 1)They are a metalic silver 2) They read, "God Bless Magnetism" or "Support Magnetism." Ribbons available in both small and large sizes and cost a mere $1 and $2 (includes shipping!), respectively. If you are interested in purchasing a ribbon please contact me via email (calculatoronfire @ hotmail) to obtain the address to which you should your cashola. However, if you are uncomfortable sending a couple bucks through the mail we can (if you're in the Baltimore area) work out an in person cash/magnet exchange.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 4:16 PM | Comments (5)

February 2, 2005

Those Damned Ribbon Magnets

I've had it with those damned ribbon magnets everyone has on their car.
And I'm going to do something about it.

It's subversive. It has something to do with the Wal-Mart parking lot.

That's all I can say right now, but I thought I'd let you know.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 9:56 PM | Comments (9)

Travel Story #3

"Sweet! I thought Turkish Toilets where those porcelain holes in the floor."
"They are."
"This one's normal."
"They're just called Turkish toilets, I don't think the Turks use them anymore."
"Maybe they just put in a normal one 'cuz it's a hotel."

I had climbed over the bed my dad claimed as his to get into the surprisingly normal looking bathroom. The beds, though smaller than the average auxiliary cot begrudingly provided by other hotels, took up so much of the room that the bathroom door could not open all the way and I had to climb over the bed to get through the partially open door. After a quick look around the bathroom I sat down on the toilet. "Woah!"
"What was that?"
I shot up from the toilet and looked into the bowl. "There's a little pipe sticking out of the back of the bowl. It poked me in the ass!"
"What are you talking about?"
"A pipe - kind of a tube - in the bowl. It poked me in the ass." I gave the bowl a closer look. The tube was aluminum. It started in the back of the bowl -- inside -- and was bent up, over the side of the bowl, underneath the seat. From there it went back to the water pipe in the wall. There was a little knob there. I turned it and water squirted out of the pipe. The water squirted out of the toilet and hit the wall on the other side of the bathroom.
"I know what it is. My friend told me about these things. He saw them when he was in Bosnia. He told me they were built into the toilet though."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"It's to wash your ass." After a trip to Bosnia a friend of mine told me about the strange toilets he saw. Thyy had two handles. One to flush, one to squirt water directly at your sphincter to help you clean it --sort of a two in one bidet/toilet combo.
"What is?"
"The pipe."
"Let me see it."
"Hold on. Let me finish in here. It'll still be here when I'm done." I reached behind the toilet and moved the pipe around so it wouldn't poke me directly in the ass and sat back down.
When I was finished I was curious. I wanted to try out the tube. My friend told me that no matter where you sat it always got you directly in the ass. He was amazed. I got myself mentally prepared for a cold stream of water on the ass, reached back and turned the knob.
"Aahhhh!"
"What the hell is going on in there?"
"It squirted me in the balls!"
"What the hell are you doing?"

My playing with the tube must have screwed with its calibration. Instead of squirting me directly in the ass, something I was prepared for, it squirted me in the testicles with a hard, cold stream of water. I hurried out of the bathroom, opening the door too wide and slamming it into the bed.
"What the hell are you doing in there?"
"Don't use that ball-squirting pipe."
"What are you talking about?"
"Look at the pipe in the back of the bowl. Just don't use it."
He sat up in the bed and craned his neck to see the toilet less than two steps from his bed. "You used that?"
"I just wanted to see --"
"I'd never use that thing."

Reinvigorated by the shock I decided to go for a walk to see the city. I had swiped a map from the car rental/hotel calling place and was ready to go. "Let's go see the city."
"What? It's dark?"
"Come on. Let's go. I have a map."
"I'm an old man, let me rest."
"Well then I'm going. See you later."
"Ok. Fine. Give me a second."

We left the hotel that occupied the upper floors of a building also housing a plus size store catering to Russian women and walked down the street. I tried to find out where we were on the map. "We cam from that way, so the city must be this way. But this street looks so big on the map. There's not a single car on the road and it's only 9."
"I think that's it." He grabbed the map and looked. As he released he noticed another store with a front window in Russian. "Why is everything in Russian down here?"
"Maybe they vacation down here."
"Maybe they buy all the cheap stuff down here. We've got China, they've got --"
"Watch out!" There was an open hole in the sidewalk. It was a stairway down to a restaurant in the basement of a building. The stairway had no railing around it, so anyone not paying attention could just fall in. They seemed to be everywhere. The unsafe aspect of the stairway hit me. My dad paid more attention to the food.
"Disgusting."
"What?"
"They keep that food right inside the door. All the shit from the street goes in the door and lands in that little buffet thing they keep next to the door."
"Hey. I'm kind of hungry."
"There's no way I'm eating that shit. I bet its just dirt from the street with some sauce."

We continued down the street until we got to a newsstand. "Look! Porno."
"Ok, dad."
"No. I didn't think they had porno here, and here it is right on the street. And it looks pretty raunchy too."
"Hey. I bet they have beer too. Let's get some."

We walked down the street looking for some place that might sell beer, but everything was closed. It was late in the evening after most of the stores were closed. We were apparently staying in the russian garment buying district and their were no convenience stores. "Let's go down this street. It looks like tehre's a big square down this way."
We turned down the street and saw it was filled with piles of trash. Huge piles. Piles about four feet high and 8 feet across. "See. i told you this was a filthy country."
"It can't be like this all the time."
"Sure, it can. It's a filthy country."

We walked past a sewing shop. Several women sat at sewing machines making things out of leather.
"Look. This sweat shop is still working. They're pumping out jackets or something."
"I bet they're going to sell them to the Russians tomorrow."
Just then a man popped out of the garbage pile outside the sewing shop. He was fully immersed in trash searching for scraps of leather. "What is he going to do with those scraps of leather? They're like 2 inches long."
"I have no idea. -- Where are you taking me?"
"To get a beer. Look. I bet that place has beer."
We went into the store and I grabbed a beer. There were no prices marked and I picked a half liter bottle so I held out a five million lira bill figuring it should cover it. The guy behind the counter looked at me and shook his head. He motioned for another bill. I added a 2 million lira bill. 7 million should cover it. He shook his head again and motioned to my hand. More? Damn, beer is expensive here. I held out my handful of change intending for him to take more.
He grabbed a 1 million coin and handed me some change. I stood there with my hand and the other 7 million outstretched. He didn't take it. Wow. Less than 50 cents for a half liter bottle of beer? Awesome. I'm moving to Turkey!
"Hey, dad. They have beer in there. It's only like 50 cents a half liter."
"I don't want any."
"Why not?"
"I think they frown on drinking here. I don't want to get locked up."
"Ok, well let me know if you see any cops then."
"Fine. -- Where to now?"
"I think there should be a big square just around this corner."

We walked another block and rounded the corner. It opened up to a square filled with people. The square was lined with restaurants. Each restuarant packed - every table filled. Lights flooded the square making it seem brighter than daytime, musicians played at every other table. "Wow!"
"How did you find this place?"
"I don't know. It was just a circle on the map."
"This is crazy."
The sound was intense. The Exotic sounding instruments each blaring a different tune, people at the tables drunkenly clapping along. The lights bright, making the square light while everything else was pitch black. People hangin out of second story balconies singing. The smell of strange food and tobacco being smoked from narghiles. "Let's eat here."
"No way. It's too loud. Too busy. Let's just look around."

We walked through the square in wonder. I want to move to Turkey. This would be so cool. "Do you think we could get some chilled monkey brains like in Indiana Jones?"
"What?"
"Chilled monkey brains."
"I don't know what they eat here."
We talked as we walked. Then we were accosted by one of the restaurant employees. "Come to eat here, my friend."
"No, thanks."
"Yes, my friend, I save a special table for you."
Yeah, right. He saved a special table for us. Sure.

Then another guy, from the neighboring restaurant made his pitch. "No, my friend. You eat here."
The two fought with each other in a friendly way. They insulted each other to try to get our business. More specifically, they insulted each other's manliness to try to get our business.
"No. You won't like his place. He is big gay."
"He is bigger gay."
"He -- This is biggest gay, here."

We walked on.

We walked through a block of restaurants. When we got the the other side I turned to my dad, "Where do you want to eat?"
"Not there. It's too loud."
"Fine. Let's keep walking. I think the Mediterranean is right over there."
"Wait. Let me take a picture."

He took a couple pictures of the restaurants, but stopped when several boys stepped in front of him. They were trying to sell roses. We shook our heads, "no." They pointed to his camera; they wanted their picture taken. My dad took their picture and they started motioning to him.
"Can you believe these little shits? They're trying to get me to pay them."
"I think they just want to see the picture."
"They're asking for money. Fuck them. I'm deleting it."
"They're just asking to see it."

He showed them the picture -- three boys crowded together with roses seperating their faces. They cheered and laughed. They pointed and laughed at each other as they ran down the street and back to work.

We crossed the street to a fish market. It was just closing up and the cats were coming out to eat all the remnants. Hundreds of cats. There were cats all around.
"This place looks closed. We can't see the water, let's go and come back tomorrow."
"How will we find it again?"
"I have a map. We only made like 2 turns."

Just then another restaurant guy popped out of a seaside reastaurant. He tried to get us to come into this restaurant. We declined claiming we had just eaten a few blocks back. He pulled out a business card and wrote his name on the back. He said that we, as his friends would be able to come back tomorrow, show that card and get the best seat in the house. Plus a free bottle of Raki.
"What's Raki?"
"The drink of Turkey. You come back tomorrow and you get a free bottle. Just for you, my friends."

We walked along the stinky fish market for a few minutes, watching the cats devour the left over seafood, before me decided to head back. "Let's eat in one of those restaurants in that crazy part."
"Maybe one on a side street. It'll be cheaper and less noisy."

We went back to the square, each restaurant sent someone out to bring us in. Each offered a free bottle of Raki this time around. They must have seen that we'd already been offered such a deal. We kept going.
"Look, this one looks OK. And it's quiet"

We went in and ordered Raki to start. They brought out a menu and some slices of bread that looked to be the leftovers from others' bread baskets. We poured over the menu for a minute or two settling on the strangest seafood we could get -- and another bottle of Raki.

As our dinner wound down and we both found ourselves rather tipsy I ordered some coffee. We talked for a second as I drank. "I think they watered this stuff down. Did you notice how they never bring you a sealed bottle? I think they water it down."
"When you put water in it it turns white. They can't water it down."

He picked up the bill and looked agitated. "Look at this. They're fucking ripping us off. 37 million?"
"Dad. That's like 18 dollars."
"No. It's in the millions. I think its like 80 dollars."
"No. A dollar is about 2 000 000 Lira."
"What the fuck? Are you drunk?"
"No. It's about 2 million Lira. Are you drunk?"
"I don't get this damn money. It's got so many damn zeros."

We walked back to our hotel where I tried, in vain all night, to sleep. I shouldn't have had that coffee. Damn, it was strong. Finally I got a moment of sleep in the early morning. As soon as I nodded off, however, I was woken by the call to prayer from one of several minarets.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 1:25 PM | Comments (3)

February 1, 2005

Travel Story #2

"$100? I can't believe it. What a rip off!"
"Well it gets us in the country."
"Yeah, for 30 days. We're just going to be here 3 days. They should give us a refund when we leave."
"Yeah. I'm going to change some money --"
"Hey, look. They have a duty free liquor store just like every other airport."
"See, you snuck that vodka for nothing."
"Shows what you know. It's extra. And you're not getting any."
"Whatever, I'm going to change some money. Do you know how much stuff costs here?"
"You can always tell by looking at how much a bottle of liquor costs."
"I guess I can't argue with years of experience."

"I'm only going to change $80 to start."
"Cheapskate."
"What do you mean? You always get a bad exchange rate at the airport."
"Whatever. You're cheap. Just accept it."
"Fine. I'm cheap. How much are you changing, dad?"
"$200"

We changed some money, grabbed our bags and headed out to the airport entrance. "What the fuck is this crap?"
"What crap?"
"This fucking money. How are we supposed to get a hotel with this stuff?"
"They use that crap here."
"I know that, but how do they count it? There are so many zeros. -- Look, I got $200 and I have a billion of whatever they use. It must be fake."
"Holy crap. I know. Even the smallest one is 2,000,000. But wait. I cahnged $80 and not I have about 160,000,000 Lira. So the small one is like a buck."
"The small one is 2 million."
"Yeah."
"How the hell am I supposed to figure that out?
"Dad. Just drop six zeros and divide by two. That'll give you the number of dollars."
"Why don't they drop the zeros. They're making me pay to come here. teh least they could do is have less than 18 fucking digits on a bill. --Othere countries do it. They did it with the Peso in Mexico."
"Come on. Let's just find a place to stay."

It was getting late, we left in the afternoon after all. We needed to get a hotel. We needed to get into the city to get a hotel. We needed to find out how to get into the city to get into the city. We walked toward what looked to be the main doors. There we found an information desk. "Is there a subway here?"
"Yes, just follow this white line."
We followed the white line until it intersected with another white line. "Ok. We follow this one. Not that one." Then came the real trick. Where several white lines converged in a star pattern.
As we both stood trying to figure out which line was our white line a friendly Turkish man approached us. "You need to the city?"
"Yes, which white line goes to the subway?"
"Oh, subway, no. I am rental car for you. Enterprise. See. I have a badge. Enterprise."
"No, thanks. We're taking the subway into the city."
"Rental car. I am rental car for you. Good deals. No problem. "
"No. We're taking the subway."
"But I am rental car. Enterprise."
"We don't want a rental car." My dad turned his back on the guy. I noticed he too turned his back. It seemed he was angry at us for some reason."

Not thirty seconds farther down what seemed to be the only logical white line to follow another man came after us. "Rental car? Hotel?"
"We don't need a car. We're taking the subway."
"Hotel?"
"You know of some in the city center?"
"Yes. Yes. I have a badge." He showed us a Hertz rental car badge.
"No. You don't understand. We don't want a rental car. Just a hotel."
"No problem. Come with me. I have a badge, as you can see."

"What the fuck? Did that bitch send us into an ambush?"
"I don't know. I don't like it though. Where the hell is this guy taking us?"
"I already told him we don't want a rental car."
"I know. I hope it isn't all like this. I have no clue what the hell is going on here."
"Now you know why I didn't want to pay to come here."
"You had no idea."
"I can just tell these things."
"Look. He's taking us to the Hertz office. What the hell?"

"I said I don't want a rental car."
"No problem sir, young sir. I leave you here. My friends will call hotel for you. They have special deals."

We were led into a small room with a desk and several men inside. The men drank tea from tiny hour-glass shaped glass cups. The cups, hastily poured, sat on saucers filled with tea. The men talked until they noticed we were before them. Then suddenly, they stopped and all but one left.

"Ah. You have come to the right place for a rental car. We have many to choose from. What kind do you want, my friend?"
"We don't want a rental car. -- Come on, Brian, let's go."
"No car? What is it you want then?
"We just want a hotel."
"No problem, my friend. I know of many hotels, with special rates for you, my friend."
"Just a hotel. No car?"
"Yes. Yes. No problem. Hotel only. You want 5 star. Five star OK? I'll call the hotel ahead."
"How much is it?"
"Not much. 100 Euro. Only."
"No way. Ok. For you, my friend. 20% off."
"Sorry. That's still too much. We're looking for something cheaper."
"Ah. Ok, my friend, I see. Cheap. But nice? How about a 4 star hotel. 75 Euro."
"That's still too much. We're looking for something cheap."
"Ok. I have a friend. He will do me a favor. For you. At this hotel," he handed us a brochure, "65 Euro. Includes food and transport there and back to the airport when you leave."
I thought it sounded pretty good, but my dad wasn't having any of it. He already had to pay $100 just to get into the country. "Don't you have something else. Something cheap. Like a 3 star hotel, maybe."
"No. No three star hotels." The phone rang. "Excuse me one second fine gentelmen."
"Let's get out of here."
"Wait. He's got a brochure for a 3 star hotel right here."

We waited till he got off the phone then asked him about the hotel in the brochure. "Oh, yes. That hotel. No good."
"What do you mean, 'no good'?"
"You won't like your stay there. It is small."
"But it's cheap, right?"
"Yes, 50 Euro."
"50 Euro? That's not cheap."
"No problem. You want cheap. Ok." He pulled out a desk calculator and punched in some numbers. He looked puzzled, punched in some more then looked up at us and said, "$50 is no problem."
"A three star hotel for $50 a night? That's too much. I said we wanted cheap. Come one, Brian, let's go."
"Ok. Ok. My friend. No need to leave. I will call them. No problem. Student discount. He is a student, right? I give you discount if they allow."

He called somebody. Or pretended to call somebody. He talked a little bit and then hung up the phone. "He says it is ok. Student discount. $35 a night."
"Fine."
"Ok. Good. This is food and transportation included." He bellowed someone's name then took a sip of his tea. "He will drive you. Now what time do you need to come back to the airport?"
We told the man when we needed to be back. He introduced us to our driver who immediately reached for our bags. He walked off with our bags while the first man told us we needed to pay in advance. "Where's he going with our bags?"
"No problem. He's the driver. He'll drive you to your hotel. You just pay me for three nights with student discount," he did some more fumbling with the calculator, "that's $105."
"For both of us?"
"Yes, my friend. We said --"
"Ok."

The driver didn't speak any English, but knew how to get to the hotel -- we hoped.

"$45 for both of us? That's a pretty good deal."
"He didn't tell us it was for both of us."
"We must have seemed really cheap."
"Who cares. We're in Istanbul! I just wish I could see something. What time is it?"
"I don't know."
"You think it's like 8 or something?" The old minivan had no clock. "I think it's around 8 or 9."

We drove out of the airport's parking garage and through a toll. As soon as we passed the toll the driver stopped the mini van and jumped out. "What the fuck? Where is he going?"
"I don't know I think he got something in jibberish on his walkie talkie."
"So he's just going to leave us?"
"I'm sure he'll come back. He left the thing running."

We waited about five minutes for him to come back. When he did come back he was carrying another bag. "Did you leave a bag?"
"No. I think we're picking up some more people." There were two others. A woman of indeterinate origin and a young Turk.
"We also give her a ride to her hotel." The young Turk said in English.
"OK."
"Are you American?"
"Yes."
"I hate George Bush."
"OK."
"Everyone hates George Bush."
"Yeah. He doesn't seem to be too popular."
"But Americans are OK."
"You just want our money."
"What?"
"I said we had to pay $100 to get into the country."
"Oh."

The mini van pulled up to a building. It looked like a plus size store; there were fat mannequins dressed in denim in the front window. The signs were all in Russian. "You stay here I will get your keys."

Why do we have to stay down here? Where the hell is the hotel?

The English speaking Turk came back to the minivan with a key. He helped carry one bag into the hotel lobby and told us the room was two floors up. While we waited for the elevator I noticed a board behind the desk. It read, "Single room 150 million Lira."
"Check that out. We got the room for way less than the regular rate and you thought they were scalping us."
"Have you noticed they're not letting us talk to anyone from the hotel?"
"Whatever. It's cheap."

When we got to the room we figured out why it was so cheap.
The door didn't open all the way because the small dresser with a portable TV was in the way. It had to be. The room was about 10'x6' with two seperate beds. The beds weren't quite twin sized. Actually the two together were barely twin sized. And they were hard.
There was one window mostly taken up by a window air conditioner louder than any other I've ever heard. If you looked over the AC unit you could see a space between the buildings covered an inch deep with pigeon shit.
The TV was the only amenity. There wasn't even a clock radio.
Luckily there was a bathroom and I had to use it.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 1:21 PM | Comments (0)