Archives: March 19-March 25, 2006

March 19, 2006

I lay down a three of hearts on my grandmother's kitchen table.

It's still taking some getting used to—spending time in my grandmother's little apartment. She's my mother's mother, but it was my father who engineered her move this past fall, while I was away at school and Mom was settling in Florida . Now, I'm surrounded by photographs and ceramic figurines of cats and dogs, once spread across two floors, now all crammed into the living room of Grandma's new place.

“You keeping those up your sleeve?” Grandma asks as I smile, taking an extra card. We're playing Canasta—a card game Grandma plays with several of her friends, but that I've only played with her. It's one of my favorite card games.

“Na, I only do that when I'm playing poker—and then it's aces.” Spending time with Grandma was one of my favorite parts of growing up. She used to spoil me with home-baked desserts before dinner, and every gift I shouldn't have had at Christmas time. She reads a lot, and there are a lot of times when I think my own interest in literature is based on her.

“So have you written anything lately?” Grandma asked, drawing a card from the tall stack, and promptly discarding a four of clubs.

There was a time when I wanted to be a writer. I wrote silly stories about characters from video games when I was in elementary school, and some brooding poetry through junior high and high school. I've always wanted to write more, but who has the time, or the drive, or the right ideas? Nonetheless, it's always something Grandma has encouraged.

“Na—not much lately. That is, besides papers and articles for the newspaper.”

“Yes, I enjoyed the one about president and his affair,” Grandma says, peering over her glasses. Every couple weeks I've mailed her copies of The Window so she can see what I've been working on.

“I guess you could say he's precocious,” I say. “Most politicians don't get mixed up in those kinds of scandals till they're all grown up.”

“Na—most don't get caught until then. This just proves the kid wasn't cut out for politics.”

I smirk, but the smile doesn't last long as Grandma lays down the last of her cards ending the hand, leaving me with fist full of cards, to give me a negative score.

March 20, 2006

I shoot the basketball from the foul line. It rattles from one side of the old iron rim to the other before bouncing out.

I'm at the Shermantown Town Park , a spot where I spent many a spring, summer and fall day playing basketball, baseball or football right up until I left for college. I played basketball most often. Out of my limited athletic abilities, basketball was my best sport. I also liked it because I could play it on my own to clear my head, or there were plenty of times when it was just Matt and I, playing one on one or just shooting around, talking through our days.

I get my own rebound—I have to, of course, playing on my own. I lay it in off the backboard, then dribble back to the line to shoot again.

It isn't a great court—plain old black top with the white outline of a rectangle reaching from under the basket, up to the free throw line. The backboards are just big white sheets of plywood and the rim on the other side of the court is a little cockeyed. Matt always took credit for that when we had visitors at our court, saying it did it by accident, hanging on the rim after a slam dunk. In reality, I've never seen him so much as reach the rim.

To make matters worse, the early spring conditions make the court barely playable. There are puddles on uneven portions of the blacktop, where the snow has melted just days before. Furthermore, the grass around the court is a wet, muddy mess, meaning any shot that goes out of bounds might mean the end of the play, as my old ball goes to shit.

Shooting around here reminds me of simpler times, or at least times that seem simple now. I remember playing after school, and the only thing I would have to worry about was getting home in time for dinner, before I came back out to play some more. I know there was homework and studying in high school, and that it seemed pretty rough at the time. But when you look back, it all seems rosy. No girlfriend, no newspaper, no parties—not like the ones at school. Less than a year separates me from the person I was then, but I feel like an old man thinking about the changes.

March 21, 2006

I sit across the kitchen table from Dad, his tie undone, top button loosened. He left work early today to have supper together. “You talk to your mom much?” he asks, cutting at his steak, making every effort to sound nonchalant. My father's a pretty good actor—he's good at making people believe in what he says, how he appears and how he sounds. But when it comes to talking about Mom, he couldn't fool any jury for a second.

“Here and there,” I say, chewing green beans. Dad never did much of the cooking when I was growing up—it was all he could do to get home to have dinner with the family at all. He can cook, though—a skill I expect he still uses sparingly, but nonetheless, he hasn't lost altogether. “About as often as I talk to you.”

Dad swallows a gulp of milk. “Do you think she's happy out there? I mean, has she said much to you about it?”

“I don't know, Dad,” I say carefully. “It sounds really different. I mean, she's working all the time. And you know how she's always bouncing ideas off people now.”

“Na, actually I don't know. She doesn't really talk to me, remember?”

I take a long sip of soda. “Right. Well, she seems happy doing that—coming up with new ideas for the restaurants and all. I mean, sometimes it's food ideas, like bringing in in new styles of chefs, or adding more options on the menu. Other times she's talking about bringing in entertainment or having an open mic night sort of thing.”

“You know that I never mean to hold your mom down, right?”

“Well yeah—”

“I know I had my career and she was a stay at home mom—but the thing is, if she ever told me she wanted to do this sort of thing, I would have let her. I mean, I would have done more than let her—I would have helped her. Woulda bought her a place to set up shop—”

“I think that might have been a part of it. She wanted to do something on her own—or at least—well, at least without you.”

The idea must have occurred to him before. Mom never came out and said it—at least not to me—but it's always something I've more or less assumed. Dad nods, looking down, and cutting at his steak again.

March 22, 2006

I decided to visit my old high school today—checking in on younger friends, old teachers, and, perhaps above all else, the old place. It all seems smaller now. It's strange how I once saw it as such a large, confusing building. Now, when I think of school, I think of a campus. While most of the buildings at Taylor aren't as big as this one, I have more recent memories of getting lost traveling from building to building there, than I do of going from room to room here.

I stopped to talk to a lot of people. An old English teacher asked me to speak to her class for a minute, talking about what college English classes are like. I did my best to explain it. I talked about how some classes are more lecture-based, and others more centered on discussion. There's something intangibly different between a college and high school course. Maybe it has to do with the age and experience of the people in the class, or the expectations of professors. It's impossible to make people understand when they've never been there.

Leaving the old school, I feel my phone vibrate at my side. It's Sam.

“Hey Sam.”

“Presto, what's going on? Having a good break?”

“Not bad. You?”

“Bright and sunny in Palm Springs ,” Sam chuckles. The chatters and occasional yells in the background testify to the very different sort of break that Sam's having. “So hey, just wanted to drop you a line to keep you in the loop.”

“In the loop on what?”

“Just got off the phone with Melanie—the ads manager. She was talking to one of the other news writers—Carl Dupont. He decided he's going to run for News Editor.”

“So you don't need me anymore?”

“Hardly. I'm just letting you know that you're gonna have competition next week.”

“Right.”

“The spot's all yours, Presto. Remember I got your back.” I hear something that sounds like a splash on Sam's side, then a string of expletives, before Sam starts laughing. “All right buddy, I gotta let you go. See you next week.”

March 23, 2006

“So then Mary Beth started licking at the Twinkie like she was giving it head, and bit off the top so the cream was coming out, and Pam got so upset she left the room with the phone,” Emma says over the phone as I lie on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. While, for the most part, my friends came home the week before me or are heading in from Spring Break next week, plenty of Emma's friends are around in her town and they have been hanging out almost every day.

“That doesn't sound very nice.”

“Well the Twinkie loved it.”

“Huh—I don't suppose you were taking notes on that?”

“Down, boy. You've gotta wait until Sunday.”

I've talked to Emma just about every night we've been apart. There's no question that I miss her most when we're talking. But then, it also occurs to me that there are other people and things I miss from Taylor . I think about the party the last night I was there—how I went from a quiet night of packing, to heading out with Emma, Dave and Mike to a party filled with drinks, music and people. I think about that spin-the-bottle game. More than missing the night itself, I miss the potential for a wild night like that. Here I wait by the phone, and the most I'm hoping for is conversation.

“I know. And Sunday can't get here soon enough.”

“Aww—lonely out there?”

“Little bit.” I yawn and stretch. “Though, I have to say that it's nice to have the bed all to myself.”

“Well if that's what you want, I don't have to come over anymore.”

“Well I just meant for sleeping purposes. When it comes to being kept up at night, it's nice to have you around.”

“That's what I thought.”

“So what's on the agenda tonight? Another crazy night with the girls?”

“Yeah, I think we're watching movies tonight at Pam's.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Well hey, you have Matt coming in tomorrow, don't you? That'll be a good time.”

“Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.” It's funny—not only has Matt been absent the last few days, but he has also been busy studying for pre-break tests, meaning even our regular phone conversations haven't been going on. Of course he will be here tomorrow, and before I leave, we'll have time for a few good laughs. In the meantime, I tell Emma I love her and hang up, before openingp a magazine to kill time.

March 24, 2006

“It's called the muffin game.”

“All right—what is it?” I ask. Matt's behind the wheel of his dad's SUV and we're driving around town quite aimlessly tonight.

“Well, a group of guys get together and stand in a circle,” Matt explains, pulling up to a red light. “And there's a muffin in the middle.”

“K.”

“Then, on the count of three, all the guys whip it out and start jerking off, pointing their dicks at the muffin.”

“Dude, that's sick.”

Matt laughs. “Na, it gets worse. So they keep going until they blow their loads. Then the last guy to get there has to eat the muffin.”

We're both laughing. It's among the most stupid, disgusting things I've ever heard of, but just talking about it there in the car, there's something undeniably funny about the very idea. “What the hell did they do to you in New York ? You know I don't have any problem with gay people—”

“Hey, I didn't say that I played. I'm just saying it's a thing some people do. And actually, I'm guessing it's more common in rural parts. In the City we can keep ourselves busy without having a bunch of guys play with themselves together.”

“Fucking sick,” I say, unable to keep myself from laughing.

Matt drives on, flipping radio stations as we get our last laughs out. He settles on the local classic rock station. “So you know Trista?”

“Yeah, how's she doing?”

“I think we broke up last night.”

“Ah geez—I'm sorry to hear that, man.”

“Eh, what're you gonna do?”

I look at the window. “So what do you mean you think you broke up.”

“Well, we were having dinner together. Which of course, wasn't a good idea because it meant one on one conversation without physical contact.”

“Not your guys' specialty.”

“Exactly. So she had kind of been pissing me off lately anyway. You know, not returning my calls and stuff. So I came out and told her I thought maybe we should take a step back—you know, not stop seeing each other, but maybe start seeing other people too—just to sort of test the waters.”

“Doesn't sound like a bad call. How'd she take it?”

“Well that's just the thing.” Matt takes a right turn, leading us to one of the major roads in town with a lot of stores and restaurants. “She sort of looked down, and said something about us not being exclusive anyway.”

“What?”

“Yeah, turns out that I've been in an open relationship all this time, and just didn't know it.”

“Shit, dude.”

“Yeah. So I don't know—I can't really say we're done done. But as far as a relationship goes—whatever relationship we had—well, that's pretty much through.” Matt pauses, squinting ahead. “Hey, you want wings?”

“Yeah, I could do that,” I say, seeing our favorite pizza and wings joint, Anthony's, up ahead. “Anything but muffins.”

March 25, 2006

“Shit, this looks just like me.”

“That's the point, buddy,” Matt says, checking out his hair in the rearview mirror. He's just handed me a New Jersey driver's license of Kerwin Lewis, who, by the date on the card is 22 years old. “Now hurry up—memorize all the info on there in case they ask you.”

I look at the card again, assimilating street address, birthday, eye color, weight—everything. Matt's own fake ID doesn't look this good, but he's been getting drinks at New York bars for months now with it, so he doesn't have any reason to worry.

The bar we go to is called The Palace, but looking at it, it's hard to comprehend how the name came about. There are no spires, and there's only one floor. There's only one window, up in the front, with a neon beer sign hanging from it. The bouncer checks our IDs with perfect nonchalance, failing to observe my counterpart from Jersey is four inches taller and four years older than me. Matt gets in without any problem either. I suppose the bouncer is used to dubious IDs, especially around these middle weeks of March. The place is notorious for hosting informal high school reunions—it's the place to go when you come back from college.

Living up to my word, after Matt gets me inside, I buy him a draft at the bar. We chat some more and shoot darts, looking around at the mix of strangers and a handful of familiar faces. Then Matt spots Julie Stephens.

Julie's sitting with a couple of girlfriends, sipping from what looks like an amaretto sour. We walk towards them and the minute Julie lays eyes on Matt, she lights up. I turn to see Matt smiling too.

She gets up and hugs him. “How are you?”

“Doing all right,” Matt says and lifts her in the air slightly, before setting her down and letting her go. “Man, it's good to see you. How have you been?

“Good, good,” she says and turns to me. “And how about you Preston ?”

“I've been good too,” I say, a little awkward. If either of us initiated a hug, the other would probably go along with it, but neither of us is that forthcoming. We got along, but for the latter half of senior year and the summer that followed, we were always sort of competing over Matt's time and interest. I would say we should catch the new horror flic. She'd buy new lingerie. There were times when I couldn't compete.

Nonetheless, we have a good enough time. The other girls went to high school with us too, though neither Matt or I knew them that well. We talk about people we all used to know, and what everybody's up to now. Matt buys a pitcher for the table.

It's all going smoothly, and I'm thinking about how I might be able to find another ride home—not out of necessity, but as a favor. After all, Matt and Julie will only be in town together for a night before Julie leaves on vacation. Just as I'm thinking this, Johnny Reed comes up to the table and puts a hand on Julie's shoulder.

Johnny Reed played a sport each season of the year, and is playing DIII football this year. Now that I see them together, I remember hearing some rumbling about him being with Julie. Come to think of it, I might have heard it from Matt.

“How's it going, fellas?” the asshole asks, marking the beginning of the end. It's as if all the laughter is sucked from the conversation upon his arrival and before long, Matt and I leave them to themselves.