Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Square Peg. Square Hole. Wrong Size

There’s lots more where these came from.

Those people who need a heinous beating, that is.

Meanwhile,… back on the bipolar ranch.

I woke up Sunday morning. Hap had already made his breakfast. I think he’s had the same breakfast every day for the last 148 years (okay, maybe forty,… still,… that’s a shitload of time for consistency in a morning food eating habit, don’t you think?). One egg, over medium. One piece of wheat toast, lightly buttered. One cup of coffee, just a little cream…. Me?…. I’d get bored after, oh, about two weeks into it and have to shake it up with a bagel, or a waffle, or grilled turtle penis, ANYTHING! Jesus Christ, Happy,… egg, toast, coffee? For forty years? That’s like having sex with the same woman for,… never mind,… scratch that.

My mother was already up, too. She hates flying, and I would imagine it was going to be no fun flying to Illinois to go to a funeral. She probably hadn’t slept very well through the night either. She looked tired. She looked like shit, to be honest. She looked like I felt.

They asked me if I wanted breakfast,… I wanted coffee,… that was it.

Then the checklist started,… “this is where the dog food is, I left the key to the car here and the key to the front door there (I never have them on the same key ring in case they get stolen),… (of course you don’t, mom, because the guy who stole your car knows exactly where your house is,… or the guy who came to rob your house just fucking WALKED there knowing he had a ride waiting for him in the garage), there’s coffee in the cabinet but I ran out of cream, the grocery st—(“I know where the grocery store is, mom.”), I wrote down Gary-the-neighbor’s phone number, garbage comes on Tuesday but it comes really early so you’ll have to take it out Monday night,…. The pizza place up at the corner is pretty good, but their crust isn’t thin enough,….” And that’s when my head exploded.

“Is it time to go yet? Can we just go?”

Over that god damn Sunshine Skyway bridge we headed. Crystal clear June 27th. Maybe nine in the morning. I didn’t care. I kept having to stifle tears in the back seat of the Camry as we drove the fifty-or-so minutes to the airport. As we passed the 38th Avenue exit, the tears became harder to manage. I was literally seven minutes from home. And I wasn’t going there.

Hap read all of the bumper stickers as we crossed the bay on the Howard Frankland bridge and make little remarks,…. “How’s My Driving?.... You’re doing okay, partner! (hyuk hyuk, hyuk)…. Hooters,…. I don’t like their food, honey…. Social Distortion,… what does that mean?” No music,… just Hap and his bumper stickers…. I would have jumped off this bridge right then, but being only twenty feet above the water, all I’d get is wet. So I told him to shut up. (Respect my elders? Fuck you.)

We made it to the airport, and my mom pointed out the remote pick-up lot,…. They have arrival times on great big billboard-size LED displays. About fifteen minutes after it shows your flight has landed, you drive around to baggage claim, and there are your passengers. I would have marveled at the innovative thinking of the people who run the Tampa airport if I hadn’t been so depressed.

We stopped at Ticketing and Check In, and I got out of the back seat hugged my mother and drove away. I needed some music finally. What? No satellite radio? What the fuck is this?

I’ve had satellite radio for years,… since just after it came out. It wasn’t the novelty of being able to drive from Miami to Seattle without having to change the station. It wasn’t the proliferation of every kind of musical genre you can think of. (Why the fuck am I going to listen to Salsa? I don’t listen to salsa, I eat it…. Think of a different name for your shitty music,…. Or come up with a new name for salsa—Jennifer Lopez sounds good,…. Would you like some chips and Jennifer Lopez? Why yes,.. yes I would!) To be honest it wasn’t even the fact that they had “Fifty channels of commercial-free programming.” Honestly, I just wanted to be able to TELL people I had satellite radio. It was status for me. (See how shallow I am?) I was late to the dance when it came to cell phones. People waiting for fucking busses had cell phones before I did! I wanted friends and neighbors to get in the car, so I could say, “hey,… look at that,… satellite radio!” I did it for completely the wrong reasons,… like a lot of things I’ve done in my life. Satellite radio worked out for me,… Prince Albert piercing, not so much. Nowadays I couldn’t live without satellite radio,… terrestrial radio sucks asspipes.

Of course, today,… I had no satellite radio.

I was supposed to go down to the 22nd Avenue exit,… turn left and go to my sister’s house to pick up my daughter (she had spent the night with her cousin on Saturday). I didn’t. I got off one exit earlier,… I was going home,…. NOBODY wanted me to,… but fuck ‘em, I was going…. Fucking dogs went nuts when I pulled into the driveway. We can always tell when someone pulls into the driveway,… before they even get out of the car. That’s because of the younger dog. The older dog (a beagle-spaniel mix named Otto) never used to bark at cars or people or bicycles or anything. Then we got the puggle. Now Sheldon is a cute motherfucker, don’t get me wrong. But there are times,… I’m guessing four times each day,… that I want to kick that fucking noisy bitch to Orlando. Sheldon is the only dog I’ve ever known that can howl and bark at the same time. It’s a painful sound,… it’s like someone grabbing you by the testicles and depositing you forcefully into an industrial-sized fan. (For those of you who don’t have testicles,… I’m looking at you, ladies,… and you too, Clark,… I don’t know how to explain it,… I mean,… I don’t have woman parts,…. Does it hurt when someone kicks you in the labia? And what is the singular of labia? Is it labium?) So now,… when the puggle starts his bullshit, Otto has to jump in too. He’s only forty pounds, but his voice is so low, he sounds like he’s gonna fucking eat you,… as soon as he’s done with his doody,…. Anyway,… the point is,… the wife knew I was home before I opened the door.

She was sitting at the dining room table. Looking at her laptop screen. Doing homework. We just sort of looked at each other for about a minute before she stood up and walked toward me. There wasn’t much we could say to each other,… it was really awkward. I felt like shit for having been such a douchebag to her for the last several months, and she felt like shit because she thought it was her fault that my mother had to get involved.

“Do you wanna go have lunch,” I asked.

She said, “I guess.”

She had a beer with lunch—actually it was Happy Hour, so she had two. I had water. We spent about forty-five minutes at that shitty little restaurant where all the servers used to wear fucking suspenders with the buttons all over them until management realized that it made them look like fucking assholes. We said maybe twenty words to each other the entire time. We just weren’t fitting together. And that’s when it struck me,… we were going to have to start all over,…. And that put me at an extreme disadvantage because she already knew how much of a bucket of shit I really am. .

Somehow, I made it through that lunch without crying more than three times. As we were driving back to the house I realized that I had to just drop her and go,… the kid was waiting at the cousin’s house. I started tearing a little bit. I was able to muffle the sound,….

And she reached out for my hand and held on to it.

Back in the driveway,… with the dogs going fucking ballistic,… I hugged my wife,… for the first time in seventy-two hours. We promised to talk again that afternoon or evening.

And I drove to Snell Isle to pick up the kid.

If I were going to be stuck an hour away from home, at least it was going to be with her. It was going to be just like the old days when I was a stay-at-home dad—the second time I was in college. It was gonna be just me and her.

And then,… it wasn’t.

Next Time,… The Days of Reading, Pools, and the Worst Music You Could Imagine

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