Honea Express

Archive for the ‘Friends’ Category

Where were you 10 years ago today? I’ll throw you a bone, it was a Friday and the world, according to some country singer, was still turning. America was unattacked and the majority of its citizens were far smarter than the president. My children were still years away from being born and loved ones were still years away from dying. Things were different then, but the times, according to some folk singer, were a-changin’.

I woke up that Friday morning and set straight to pacing. At some point friends showed up and we set straight to drinking. Then we dressed like penguins and stood in the Arizona heat hoping that the ice didn’t melt. Finally, the sun went down and the music went up. My life would never be the same.

And then there is a montage of moving trucks and pitchers of margaritas. There are new jobs and blurred faces and babies crying and moments frozen in my mind forever. Ten years is a short time spread over something that stretches out further. It bends and tangles. It mends and loves and never once breaks. In the spring it drives along the coast with something great on the radio and the windows open.

Ten years ago we wed. Since then we’ve made mistakes and excuses. And we’ve done wonderful things. Ten years is something strong to build upon.

Happy Anniversary, Tricia. I hope you’re enjoying the ride.

Please note, that last line is about the roller coaster of life — not sex. Of course she’s enjoying that.

And this is what we danced to.

I have no idea who you are.

I shake your hand. I read your blog. I laugh at your jokes over beers and football. We chat during chance meetings at random places in a random world full of near misses and perfect timing. Your kids and my kids play together. Your parents know mine. We were classmates. We worked in the same office. We slept together. You sang in the choir. We’re friends on Facebook. You saved her life.

We are all walking shades and notes of choices and the places we’ve been and the places we’ll go. We share memories. We tell stories. I remember you. I saw you this morning. We’ve lived in the moment and we lost touch years ago.

You know everything about me. You know the highlights and skimmed the details. I saw you at a bar and we nodded with a smile. We couldn’t remember our names.

I read your obituary and regretted it all. You’ll visit this summer and we’ll go to the beach. Please, tell your sister that I said hello.

Life is filled with a cast of thousands. There are masses in the marketplace. There is crying in the library. I heard a song on the subway. Dinner was fantastic.

I miss you and I am sick of your shit.

You are complex and incredible with legs like wine. Society only scratches on the surface. Everyone has secrets and dreams and something worth knowing. Nobody understands me. I can’t find my coat.

Come in and know me better, man.

I have no idea who you are. It is time that we changed that.

“Aren’t candles bad for the ozone?” he asked.

“What do you know about the ozone?”

“I saw it on a cartoon,” he replied.

“Of course you did. Yeah, I suppose someone is making the case that candles are bad. Still, we’re saving electricity. It’s a wash.”

“You can’t fucking win,” he said. Except that he didn’t because I would have scrubbed his mouth out with soap until he was blind.

“Wash what?” he asked.

“Your hands,” I told him. “And take your brother.”

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The thing about drinking heavily on surprisingly little food and even less sleep is that something has to give and it is usually the wallet. It gave a lot. Now there are memories where dollars used to be, and they were worth every one.

_______________

“Don’t go avenge’anin my name,” sang the youngest between bites of warm biscuits and fresh blueberry jam.

“I would,” I told him.

“What does that mean?” asked the older.

“It means that I love you,” I said.

“Is this the Avett Brothers?”

“Yes. They’re a band of brothers, just like the two of you.”

The jam nearly melted into the bread, and the taste was like pie in the shadow of the oven.

“It’s good to have a brother,” said the youngest.

“You are both very lucky,” I said as watched their faces through the reflection of the window. They were looking at the blueberries on their fingers.

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It took two nights for me to accept that I wasn’t going to die in my sleep. Things tend to slow down when the party stops, and shifting into a lower gear doesn’t make the hill any less steep. The last time I flushed something solid was when I dropped my gum in the airport urinal. My head was full of clouds and cocktails.

_______________

“It’s past your bedtime. Again. Hurry up.”

That was me. They were mostly screams and laughter.

“Why is it past our bedtime?” one asked.

“Because it’s late,” said the other.

“Will you read us a story?” they asked.

“No,” I said, “but I will write you one.”

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Once there was a man full of malice and mischief. He was made to wonder and wander, so he did both in spells and pieces. Sometimes he mixed mischief with wonder and malice with wander, and sometimes it was the other way around.

Most of the time he preferred just to wander and while doing so he wondered about things like where dreams came from, why stones break bones and where it was he was going. Now and again he gave way to a tune in his head and he would lose himself in a whistle. He was as happy as he thought he could be.

It wasn’t until he met a woman and fell to courting that he did the things that men of fancy find themselves doing in front of crowds of friends and strangers with caution but the wind upon his back. Then it started to gather a bit in the middle and he said to himself, “that is how you focus.”

Malice gave way to mischief and mischief gave way to just occasional nights of far too rowdy. The wandering went to destinations and the wonder was said aloud instead of swirling thoughts inside his head. He was happier than he was before, so he thought that was the end. But it wasn’t.

Eventually they had a son and there had never been anything like it except for maybe those occasional whistles if they had been shared by a choir of angels and, he thought, if cartoon birds put ribbons upon my wife and in her hair, then that, too, might be half as good as this.

That went on for the space of time that exists between one son and the other. Then there were two boys with the man and his wife and you would not be laughed at if you assumed that their happiness had doubled, but that would be easy and math seldom is. There were algorithms and remainders and factors to consider which is only one of the reasons you should stay in school, but when the dust had settled the number had grown larger than the paper on which it was written — so the man threw it into the sky and told it to return when it had settled on a sum and the paper is still floating out there somewhere like so many stars and expanding equations.  I hope you were listening to the part about staying in school.

So that’s where the story is now. The man healing from a few nights of far too rowdy and his wife ready to wander with ribbons in her hair and her destination fixed. The day was one where two little boys floated and whistled and filled themselves with a bit of malice, the best kind of mischief and mastered, once again, the tendency to grasp happiness while expanding through worlds worn with wonder. They went to bed too late, covered in warm crumbs, small kisses and the freshest coat of blueberries.

The man sat by a candle and did exactly as he had promised.

The roads were narrow and slick with sweat. The whiskey fell from our pores and grew lost beneath the current in which we waded. The air was layered with lingering lust and the promise of magnolias. It was midday and people were dancing in the streets. It was as dangerous as it was carefree, and upon the faces were the storied smiles of hard living in the big easy.

We made our way one drink at a time. We ate too much and slept too little. The hours between the end of the day and the start of another were filled with laughter and the deep breaths that live around it.

Jazz danced with every word. He swayed. She threw her arms into the nearness of the night. You just stood there, knowing, and nodded. I sipped my whiskey and handed you the bottle every time your glass went dry.

Ours was a group of revolving cameos, each entrance a chance for applause and each exit a time for tears. We were filmed before a live studio audience. Some stayed more than others.

Everyone will tell you what we learned and how we did it. Everyone will tell you how it all went well and it all went wonderful. Everyone would be right. It was just as everyone says, but with a better beat. And the beat went on.

I miss New Orleans in that forgotten hour, when the bartender hands you one last one last one and moments get thrown back like sacks of memories slapped across your shoulder. The door swings open and a train goes by, the sun is rising and the beer is cold. The laughter as loud as ever.

Just because I have to tell you that I’m tall, handsome and talented doesn’t mean it isn’t so. It just implies you have a loose grasp on the obvious, and I don’t blame you for that. I blame society. The obvious was much quicker to register when it wasn’t going so fast. We are all George Jetson on the treadmill. We all want off this crazy thing. Eventually. I’ll wait until I’m done winning.

There are things in the works and there are works unattended. It’s a vicious cycle. Like life (see, George Jetson). Once again I am standing at the crossroads and Ralph Macchio is about to blow the top off this joint. Steve Vai will be all, “Whaaa?”

My blogging career is going in a few different directions. I’m guest-posting. I’m speaking. I’m writing and editing at some incredible sites. I’m losing part of my livelihood, along with 900+ others at one site, and I’m in talks to rejoin some old friends at another. Things will be a bit tighter, but that’s been happening for a while.

For example, my jeans just ripped while I was typing this. Because this is an exercise. And I’m getting fat (see, 40). Hard to get much tighter than that.

You may or may not listen to the show we do (even though podcasts of said show are free). I get it, you’re busy.

You may not have bought my book. Don’t feel bad, I’m still writing it.

I have products to review that have been stacked here since Christmas.

What I’m getting at is that there are many paths open to me at the moment and some require more faith than others. They are all rewarding. They are all hard. They are not in direct competition with each other for anything but my time. However, they all draw from the same well, and it leaves me dry and in need of a drink. This is a metaphor, but I’m also mighty thirsty.

The point is that I felt like writing something for nobody, so I did.  I needed to write sentences that didn’t have a deadline, demand a meeting or have pitches pending. Then I published it because I can, and like a virtual message in a bottle of freshly-finished whiskey it has floated, and against all odds it has found you. And that means more to me than you’ll ever know.