honest Lee
copyright 2011 by Steve Liddell
Smashwords Edition
Acknowledgments
If you have no desire to read this section, turn to page 11 to start the book. Although you may find yourself back here after you have read the book. In which case, I should let you know that it actually makes more sense to read this later, since anything I wish to acknowledge may seem insignificant if you have yet to read the book…at which point —I should also let you know— it may still be insignificant.
First and foremost, I would like to thank me.
I want to thank Gordana the most. Even more than me —the person I had led you to believe was the most important— because she believed in me. She was also the person who had the terrible task of editing. A task, I should add, that may have taken longer than the writing of the book, because the writing of the book was done with the knowledge that Gordana would be doing the editing, thus leaving me the freedom to never capitalize or punctuate, disable spell check, and wrongly assume that these things could all be fixed automatically. Being able to write with the support from the most important person in my world, was the only reason I was able to do this. Gordana, this is for you.
I want to thank Gen for all her support, her website…ing and for conveniently having a job that had ink to spare. I need to thank Mom&Dad because they taught me that being different was something to be proud of. And although I complain several times in this book about having to go to bed at an unreasonably early hour, this may well have been the cause of my active imagination. It also may be the reason I still can’t go to bed before 4 a.m....but I found out recently that Einstein and Edison also survived on almost no sleep. As you will soon learn, this was probably the only similar quality we all shared.
There are many people who had the ability to inspire me when I saw, read or listened to their work. They made me want to be creative. I also know that the moment I see this book printed I will wish I had included their names, at which point it will be too late.
But for now, thank you;
Alan Alda, Richard Branson, Matt Groening, Mitchell Hurwitz, Eddie Vedder, Dave Eggers, Dave Matthews, Larry David, The Fox network for having the balls to do things differently, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, Gary Larson, Ron Howard and Pink.
4 WORD
Hope you love this.
The creation of the 4word.
Was really just an interesting idea that I was unable to capitalize on. I had this idea of finding someone famous and having them write the foreword. It was a brilliant idea. What publishing company would turn away a book that had a foreword written by, let’s say, Jerry Seinfeld? Publishing companies would scramble to outbid each other all in an effort to publish a book from someone they’ve never heard of, but somehow had persuaded Jerry Seinfeld to write the foreword. The companies would then tell the author, that while they understood that he had written almost 160,000 words about his life, everyone had agreed that 75% of the cover should be devoted to Jerry Seinfeld's name. The author would then agree —reluctantly— to minimize the font of his own name, in order to catch the eye of book-shoppers everywhere, then convince himself that the 157 words written by Mr. Seinfeld would greatly increase his net worth, but then later learn that his net worth would be significantly less after Mr. Seinfeld's attorney would place a clause in the contract that saw 75% of the royalties be paid to the person that wrote the foreword, as, it seems, was the only reason anyone picked up the damn book in the first place. Also, I don't know Jerry Seinfeld.
PLAN-B.
Was to have the foreword written by, get this, Gerry Seinfeld. BRILLIANT! No one would catch that. I mean, how many people would look at that name and know that this wasn’t the same person? Almost no one, especially if I had used the same font as I would have had to for the real Jerry. I was unsure of the legalities of this. Could I be sued from Jerry? Would the lawsuit be public? Would the publicity of the lawsuit rocket the book to the top of every bestseller list? Would Jerry end up winning 75% of my royalties for a book that he never wrote the foreword for? I will never know because I don't know a Gerry Seinfeld either.
PLAN-C.
I figured I would do a search of every person I ever knew and check to see if their name was similar to that of someone famous. Unfortunately, of all the names I had at my disposal, S. Hussain was my only option. I thought that this may actually work against me….or would it?
This is how I ended up with the 4word. Some early versions of it were:
I honestly hope you love this book.
I honestlee hope you love this book.
I hope you love this book.
Hope you love this book.
This book belongs to:
__________________
(Please do not fill this in, it was a joke.)
Other books from the author:
For Gordana, Elle, and Rory.
honest Lee©
One February night, when I was 21, my dad wrote me a letter. The letter contained the words on the following page. This book is about the internal battles within myself. Battles I fought while this line echoed in my mind.
Hello World.
Doreen: My last question to you, Lee, is can you tell me if you are happy?
“I’m not sure how to answer that. I want to say yes, but I think that’s mostly because I want to stop talking to you, and I figured if I just said yes, you’d make some little note on your pad of paper there indicating that I was lying, roll your eyes to show me that you don’t believe me and have now included this in your notes, then you’d let me walk out of here… there's no fast answer to that question.”
Well, if time is what you are worried about, then don’t worry about me, unless of course you would like to stop now and I will let you go back to class. The choice is yours.
“Do you have any idea what it's like to not have the ability to stop your mind?”
I’m sure that many peopl-
“I haven’t figured out yet if it’s a gift or a curse. Sometimes I'm sure it’s a gift. Those days are good, and I’m happy. But then there are days when I would kill for a pause button. Yes, that would be fun. If had that pause button, I could take some time and decide who I really want to be. I think there’s a constant raging battle between Sad-Lee and Happy-Lee.”
And who do you feel the most-
“By the way I just came up with those names right now. I guess I could have used other names like,
Miserable-Lee and Complete-Lee
Unfortunate-Lee and Fortunate-Lee
I could probably come up with more, but now I’m just trying to end it with Lee. I’ve often said that one day I’ll go insane trying to bottle my thoughts, but since then I’ve retracted those words, because I chose to try and funnel them instead of bottling them.”
Funnel what?
“My thoughts. Are you getting all of this down? Do you want me to speak slower? Have you thought about recording these conversations as opposed to making notes? It seems like so much work trying to write and listen, I’m not sure how you do it.”
Is there anything you wish that everyone knew about you? What I'm asking is, if you—
“That was one of your better questions today… umm… no.”
I think you want people to see all of you when you speak, but you want this to be able to happen without giving too much of yourself away. Would you say that this is an accurate assumption?
“That was good, throwing the assumption thing back at me. Very good. Remember before when we were talking about my fears, or do you need to check your notes?”
I remember.
“Okay, well I think the reason I’m so restless with who I am is because I'm scared that just as I sit here being 15 and frustrated, in ten years I might be 25 and frustrated, in twenty years, 35 and frustrated and…well I guess you can see where this is going.”
But why do you feel like you should have done so much by now? You are allowed to be a teenager.
“It's so much more than that. I feel like I live my life by reaction. What if that never changes? What about my life? I stand in front of the mirror every night, brushing my teeth, and there’s this moment, after I spit out the toothpaste, when I catch a glimpse of my eyes…”
Do you dislike what you see?
“My front tooth, this one….. it's too long. But no, there's this weird moment, when I feel like I’m talking to myself, and I can hear my own voice whisper, I'd like to show you what's inside.”
What do you want to show me?
“I don't want to show you anything. It's me. I want to show me, find me, live life, be life, be there, completlee naked and honest, with no paragraphs of thought behind each word I utter, just a combination of all that I am, all that I see. Honest-Lee.”
Hughie might have a gun at work. I wonder if I should piss him off? I wonder —if he does have this gun— if he knows how to use it.
“Hughie.”
“What?”
Do you have a gun, I mean, here at work? I’ve often wondered.
“I saw Ralph yelling at you. You shouldn't take that shit from him.”
“Stop making such a mess!”
Hughie also has the attention span of a peanut.
I guess Ralph is safe today. I hate the bastard. He yells at me, too. I don't have a gun.
I’m watching plastic sheets getting spit out of this machine. I think, if I focus on what I’m doing, I can actually feel time stopping. The clock on the wall behind my machine reads 4:10 p.m. I have been here since 6:30 a.m. To be here by 6:30 a.m. I have to drive for 40 minutes. Before I leave my house I have to eat something that resembles breakfast. This takes 12 minutes to eat, and 9 minutes to make. I have to make sure I’m preparing breakfast by 5:29 a.m. at the latest. Walking the dog varies in time. Some days he smells posts longer than others, so I allot the maximum smelling time into his walk and we give ourselves 20 minutes for this task. I can make it from the bed to out the door for our walk in 6 minutes. I have to set my alarm in the den for 5:01 a.m. The den alarm is my backup alarm. It goes off 10 minutes after the alarm in my bedroom, because I never actually end up rising to the first alarm…because I’m aware of the backup system. The alarm in my room is set to go off at 4:51 a.m.
The clock on the wall behind my machine now reads 4:13 p.m. I’ve spent the last two minutes going over my day. Today was an unusually exciting day here at work. One of the machines was running low on oil, and it looked for a minute there like the machine may overheat. I noticed this and told Ralph my foreman right away*.
Right away actually means:
After I thought of pretending I didn’t notice.
“Ralph,” I said.
“Ralph.”
I know you can hear me. Why are you ignoring me?
“Ralph!”
“What do you want?” he finally answered.
I want to quit this job and punch you in the head…starting with the punch.
“The machine is running low on oil.”
“How do you know?”
I like it when you say things like that you stupid jackass. I can tell by the pressure on the tool. The cylinder is sticking about a fraction of a second longer than it should, and seeing as how the drive is timed by a limit switch attached to that very cylinder, the entire rotation is being slowed down by 1 second per piece and also making the creases on the plastic a little softer than we should be making them. If you would have taken my advice and lowered the limit switch, this could all have been avoided.
“The light that says oil low is flashing.”
“It’s fucking fine! Just run the machine!”
“Okay.”
That was the event that I’ll remember from today. I make it sound boring when I explain it, but you really should have been there.
We make clear plastic boxes. Whenever I try and explain what we do at work, I find myself searching for the perfect response that not only makes the company I work for seem interesting, but also makes me seem like an integral part of the company.
“I am a self trained monkey who works in a hole that makes clear plastic boxes,” I answer, and this usually ends the what do you do for a living conversation.
Waking up to my alarm in the morning is tough. Each morning I promise myself that I’ll get more sleep the next night. I never do. The alarm plays music in my room at 4:51, which means I usually have had a maximum of 3 ½ hours of sleep. I am a terrible sleeper. To be more specific, I would have to say I’m an excellent sleeper when I finally get to sleep, but I’m a terrible…going to sleep person. I don’t know if there is a word for that. I lay awake with my eyes closed and tell myself to stop thinking for almost two hours a night. I try and get to bed around midnight, and I usually succeed at this, but I never take into account the thinking time.
I go to bed almost as soon as I get home from the restaurant where we all hang out at night. We never really do anything at the restaurant except drink coffee and pretend we are all enjoying ourselves. We do this for about 2 hours a night. To be honest, I could accurately state that our time could be better spent watching television, because we could learn so much more during that time.
It’s now 4:23 p.m. I should mention that there was also a punch clock moment, or else it seems as if the low oil was the only memorable event in my day. After lunch, when we were all heading back to work, I noticed the punch clock was out of ink. I told Dan, and he actually gave me 5 minutes to replace the cartridge. About 3 minutes into this, Ralph came to see how I was doing.
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
“Replacing the cartridge.”
“Leave the fucking thing and get back to work!”
“Give me a second Ralph, I’m almost done.”
“I’ll do it, you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing!”
One day, Ralph, one day….Get ready.
When we’re all at the restaurant at night, I’m never really relaxed. I find myself looking at the clock on the wall almost as soon as I arrive, and I keep my eye on it until I leave. I get to the restaurant around 9 p.m. To be there by 9 p.m. I have to leave my place by 8:30 p.m. So basically, I leave about an hour an a half after I get home from work. The drive home from work is about 20 minutes longer than the drive in to work. It isn’t the most relaxing hour either, because I’m always trying to forget about my day. I tell myself each day that I’ll enjoy going out tonight and doing nothing, but the reality is I don’t really ever enjoy the night. Most days it’s actually a toss up of what I like least; my job, or my life outside of the job. At least I get paid to be unhappy while I work.
I finish work at 6 p.m. This is almost my favorite part of the day. I love punching my card out. I play this game in my head where I see myself quitting and punching my card for the last time. Unfortunately by the time I get to my car and start it, I’m thinking about having to come back the next day, and that’s almost all I think about until I do. The joy from the punch clock to the car only lasts about 2 minutes. It should last longer, but it doesn’t. It should have been better for over a year now. Over a year… wow…really? I remember how much I would dread this time of the day….
OVER A YEAR AGO…
I have to go pick Lori up from the bus stop. What are we going to do tonight? I wonder if she had a good day with that Mark guy she’s always talking about. She has no idea how hard my days are. I can’t tell her either. I can’t admit I let Ralph treat me like shit, it would be too much to show how weak I am, and I couldn’t do it. Lori is late.
She was probably flirting with that Mark guy after work and forgot about me. I wonder if she has any feelings left for me. When she gets here I’ll tell her how rough my day at work was. I will abolish every good vibe running through her and make her feel sorry for me. I’ll brush it off and act as if I don’t complain about work. She will then look at her job and compare it to mine, realize how easy she and Mark have it compared to me, think less of him and more of me and stop flirting with him. Maybe she doesn’t flirt with him. Maybe she missed a bus. No, I’m probably right. What if she doesn’t show up at all? What if I wait here for hours and she never comes? I’ll go through the anger-jealousy phase, then I’ll get scared thinking she is dead, beaten, robbed, kidnapped, to the point where it wouldn’t matter how late she was, I would just be so happy to see her alive that any reason would do. She will still not show up, and I’ll race home thinking please let there be a message on the phone telling me that she’s okay and just went out for a drink with the guys from her work… and then struggle with which scenario I would prefer. Traffic will be insane. I’ll finally make my way through the accident and drive like mad to get home. I’ll get a speeding ticket and complain that the police shouldn’t wait around the corner from the accident and nail the people who are obviously late for where they’re going. Even later now with a three hundred dollar ticket I’ll drive faster, as if the message that I’m expecting to hear will self destruct should I not get to it in time. I’ll get home, run to the machine and get a message that Lori will never be coming back. She’s bored with me and doesn’t see our relationship going anywhere. I’ll listen to it 30 times hoping each time makes it hurt more and more, swear at the machine and throw it at the wall, rip the speeding ticket up and throw the pieces at the phone to show how much I cared, then get really pissed off at the fact that throwing little tiny pieces of paper doesn’t release any aggression. When the pain is just right, I’ll go out with my friends and feel perfect, like there’s something horrible that’s just happened to me, and I can blame all of my failures on my bad luck. I love the bad. I need the excuses. I want this massive list of bad things—which could have been much more impressive had she died while we were still together— so I can show it to others and say, see what I’ve overcome!! Look!! Feel sorry for me!! The fact that I’ve never felt that way for others will be irrelevant, when they see me and my list they will really care. They’ll think how good they have had it in comparison to me because they don’t even have a list. I’ll get over it and be happy to be alone. Life will be good. I’ll no longer have to deal with her and us and all the stupid things she did that really bothered me. I will have no one to be jealous of, and this will be a large burden taken off my shoulders. What will I do with my life? Maybe I’ll…..ohhh, there she is.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“What happened?”
This will be good, she’s going to say she missed a bus or something to deny any wrong doing.
“I missed the first bus, we were all talking at work.”
She really did forget about me.
“About what?”
This is the part where I hope she gives names defining who we were. And note how I did not accept her apology.
“Just work stuff.”
That didn’t work.
“Everyone wanted me to go for a drink with them, but I told them I couldn’t because you were waiting for me.”
How is that work stuff? Hey! What the hell is she doing? Is she blaming me for not being able to do what she really wanted to do? Am I supposed to feel bad for her? Am I supposed to overlook her forgetting about me and be grateful that she’s here with me when she would rather be elsewhere with Mark? What does she want me to say?
“Work was really shit today,”….
OVER A YEAR LATER…
It really should last longer. I get to just leave now and do whatever I want at the end of the day. As for Lori and I, well, we are no more. Shit. I thought a lot had changed in the past year.
The last hour of work is always the best hour of the day. Things never seem as bad between 5 and 6 p.m. Ralph leaves at 5 p.m. so no one yells for an hour.
The clock on the wall behind my machine reads 4:49 p.m. Ralph is washing his hands in the sink. Each day when he does this I envision the shelf over the sink collapsing and crushing his head against the faucet. If we were all alone when that happened, I wonder what I would do. Would I help him?
Today is Friday. I’ll be happy when I leave here and not have to think about this vile place until Saturday night, because that’s when I’ll realize that it’s the last night I’m able to not think about work as I’ll have to go to bed earlier on Sunday knowing I have to get up and wish five days away on Monday. What a life, wishing time away.
I think my actual favorite time of the day is from 4:45 p.m. until 5 p.m. because this is when I realize that my favorite hour is about to happen, and I’m only going to be here another hour. So technically I am at this moment living in the best part of my day. My God! Listen to yourself….. …my life sucks.
Tonight like most nights, Chad, Ray, Joanne (Ray’s girlfriend) and Danny will all be at the restaurant where Knee works. Knee is the shorter version of “Anthony” or “Antnee” or even just “Tony” for those who don’t talk like his mother. The only one who will be missing is Logan, and this isn’t good for me, because Logan is the only one I can really hang out with and talk to. I met all of these people through Logan, and I still have yet to forgive him for this because I have no idea what purpose they will serve in my life.
I stroll in around 9 p.m. and take my seat. I actually have a seat, and while I originally thought that this was a cool thing, I’ve since decided that having your own seat at a restaurant is stupid and nothing to be proud of. On the way, I was listening to my radio and imagining the conversations I would be having when I got here.
Chad: Hey.
Me: Hey.
Ray: Whatsup?
Me: Nothing much, you?
Ray (after confirming with Joanne): Not much.
Joanne: Lee (with a nod that says don’t you start with me tonight).
Me: Joanne (with a smile that says I’m going to get on your nerves tonight).
Danny: Hey (with a handshake and a look that says are you going to piss Joanne off tonight? I like it when you piss her off because I get to laugh at her while you look like the jerk, and well, no one blames me for anything).
Me: Hey. (handshake, nod, of course, have some faith).
Knee: (making late entrance to seem important) Let’s all do what I think is fun tonight.
Me: We always do that. How about going to see some live music, or a stand up comic.
Knee: We should save your ideas for a perfect time that will never come, besides live music is more of a Logan thing, and he’s not here.
I put my jacket down.
“Hey,” says Chad.
“Hey.”
“Whatsup?”
“Nothing much, you?”
“Not much.”
“Lee.”
“Joanne.”
Handshake, nod.
“Hey, what’s on the agenda?” says Knee.
Shit, I was on a roll there. Is he really going for suggestions first? He almost never does that.
“I was thinking we should all head over to Chalk Sticks,” He adds.
Chalk Sticks is a billiard hall owned by a Chinese man named George. I doubt this is his real name, but I’ve never asked him if his parents named him George Chang, or if he chose the name George when he moved here. George and I get along well, because I don’t keep a bar tab like everyone else, so I’m really the only one who frequents his establishment that doesn’t owe him money. Chalk Sticks always seems to be full of people. The location of the billiard hall is terrible and I’ve never seen or heard a shred of advertising done for it. This led me to the conclusion that George fully understands guys, and he probably proceeded to break every single equal opportunity employment rule in order to hire only attractive, mostly large breasted women. Or he’s a dirty old man who decided that the only way he was going to surround himself with these ladies was to start a business and hire them. I bet I’m right twice, but either way it seems to be working for him. He knows the weak and feeble minds of most men and banks on them to convince their friends to…
“So? We haven’t been there in awhile, I say it would be fun to shoot some stick,” said Knee.
We were there last Friday. And Sunday.
“What about Tuesdays?” I asked everyone.
Tuesdays is a club that plays live music from unknown bands. I looked at Joanne when I said this, because I know she feels awkward at Chalk Sticks, being one of the only girls there. Not wanting to go play pool every weekend is about the only thing we agree on.
“Chalk Sticks sounds fine with me,” she said as she was looking at me.
Joanne will never take my side.
Last time we were there, Joanne got pissed off at Ray because he was talking to this waitress Pacy for too long. I went to school with Pacy, we grew up together. I introduced her to Ray one night when Joanne was absent. Joanne is still mad at me for doing that because she feels I did it to piss her off.
I did.
“Chalk Sticks it is,” I say “I’ll get to see Pacy,” I answered Joanne while looking at Ray.
Danny has just lost the first game to Ray. Danny always loses. He’s not sure how to end the drought in his life that never sees him winning anything.
“You never called that!” he said.
Ray has such an interesting way of dealing with Danny.
“HAHAHAHAHAHALOOOOSER!”
“Fuck you, Ray!”
“Sit down, loser.”
“You never called that! …..did he guys?” said Danny as he turned to me and Knee. Danny knows that he can count on his friends to back him up. Or he’s banking on the fact that he thinks I would do anything to upset Joanne, and calling Ray out as a liar and cheater would surely upset her.
“I heard him,” said Knee.
“Loud and clear man, sit down you lost,” I said.
Knee looks at me as he racks the balls and I look back at him to acknowledge that I never heard Ray call any shot either.
Danny sits beside Joanne and I wait for the winner between Ray and Knee. Danny is telling Joanne that it’s nothing personal against Ray, it's just that he didn’t hear him call the shot. Joanne says that this is okay with her.
“Did she give you her approval? Has she allowed you to keep playing tonight?” I asked Danny.
“I’m just explaining why I was pissed at Ray.”
“Shut up, Lee. You wouldn’t understand someone trying to be nice,” said Joanne.
“I don’t understand…what are you saying?”
Knee kicked Ray’s ass in about five minutes.
“Sit down, Boy!” he yelled to him as he sunk the eight ball. Ray will calmly walk toward Joanne and act as if he is glad to take a break. It’s sad to watch. I feel for him and his mental block.
“Did you even sink a ball?” I asked him as he was walking past me.
Actually, I don’t feel that bad about his mental block.
“See you in a minute after he kicks your ass!” was his response.
“Kick his ass, Tony!” cheered Joanne.
“Go sit beside Mommy,” I said to Ray.
Knee is a better player than I am. Actually, I’m probably the worst player out of all of us, but mentally I am the best…I am the opposite of Danny.
When Knee and I face off, it’s real. I can feel this when I watch him put chalk on his stick, never looking away from the table, never breaking his focus. He is so serious. We play our game in quiet mode —no trash talking— all the way to the last shot. Knee has an easy cross-corner shot to finish me off. He lines it up and peers down his stick.
“Boobies,” I say.
Knee breaks out into laughter and misses his shot. I sink the next two and beckon Danny to the table.
“Asshole!” says Knee while still laughing.
“Cheater!” yelled Ray.
“I’m surprised you even remember what those are,” says Joanne.
Everyone is laughing at me. Joanne made a funny. I’ll give her that one at no cost—though I will spend half of my game with Danny wondering if I should have commented on her flat chest.
I beat him.
“Did you really think you could win?”
“I can beat you, I'm better than you!”
“Did you really think you would win? I mean, really? You?”
“I can beat all of you.”
“Just one of us will be fine….where is that little boy?”
Hello Ray. Rackem’ up.
“I’m not falling for any of that booby stuff.”
Clearly… but please stop setting me up for easy Joanne jokes.
Ray will laugh at me every time he sinks a ball. He’ll do this a lot because he wastes me in no time by clearing the table in two turns.
I honestly think Joanne joins us just to make sure Ray doesn’t have any fun. I wish he would do things with her alone sometimes, I think I would be more at ease if she wasn’t around. Instead, though, I tippy-toe around her in order to not get Ray in any trouble. Maybe if she played pool even once instead of sitting there with her jacket on her lap, rolling her eyes at every girl who works there, we would like her more. Sometimes no matter how hard I try, I still find myself taking little jabs at her:
“Pacy!” I say, “Come and sit with us awhile!”
Pacy will come over and being a polite person I will introduce everyone again.
“You remember Ray, he’s the cool one with the nice car, and that’s Danny, Tony, and that girl over there is Joanne.”
Ray will be upset at me when the night ends, because he now has to deal with Joanne asking him not to be my friend anymore, and also because he will desperately want to know if he has any chance at sleeping with Pacy.
“Hey Joanne, why don’t you play a game?” I ask.
“I don’t like pool.”
“Have you ever played?”
“No.”
“So what are you basing that on?”
“The fact that you like it must mean it’s stupid.”
“And what about Ray?”
“Ray
doesn’t care, he only plays to beat you.”
“You mean because
he can’t beat Knee?”
“I don’t care if he beats Tony, but I like it when he wins and you lose.”
“I didn’t know I was so important.”
“You’re not, but you think you are.”
“Is that what bothers you about me?”
“Actually Lee, I don’t like the fact that you always have to be right.”
“Because you like being right, too?”
“Because I know about a lot of things, but you act like you know everything.”
“So I’m right, is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying you don’t know everything.”
“Because you want to be right?”
“What?”
“I’m saying, you don’t like the fact that I like to be right because you like to be right……right?”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes it does.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Trust me, I’m right, that made sense.”
We look over to the table just in time to hear Knee.
“Sit down, Boy!”
Ray walks over to us. He’s just standing between our chairs.
“Get up so Ray can sit with me,” demands Joanne.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Where’s Chad?” asks Joanne.
“No idea,” I say.
“He’s still sitting at the bar pretending to watch the game,” answers Ray.
Chad has been watching the baseball game for almost an hour. None of us remember him having any interest in baseball. Although, he is very interested in Summer….the girl working behind the bar, not the season. He may well be interested in the season, too, but not as much.
“I’ll go get him,” I say, so I can give Ray my seat on my terms.
Summer is a very pretty girl, who knows this, and doesn’t like me. We had a rough start…...
She was working the bar when I met everyone here one night. Everyone had told me about her, and they would all spend hours hanging out when she was working.
I walked into the bar and, having been out of town for awhile, I was received well. Summer did not like losing all of the attention for a moment.
“Lee!” They hollered as if I were Norm entering Cheers.
We all shook hands and guy hugged. I took a seat and started telling them about my trip through the Rockies.
“Can I get you a drink?” asked Summer.
“Shirley Temple, please,” I said.
“Shirley Temple?” She said, almost in disgust.
“7-up, Grenadine, and a shot of orange juice,” I said, “with two straws and a cherry,” then continued talking to Chad.
“I know what a Shirley Temple is,” she said.
“Great…can you make it then?”
She just looked at me, then went to get my drink.
Chad whispers to me that this is Summer then sits back to wait for me to tell him he picked a good one. I grin to appease him then keep telling my story. Right in the middle of my sentence, Summer puts my drink down and Chad cuts me off.
“Lee, I want you to meet Summer, Summer this is my friend Lee.”
“We've already met.” I say.
“When?” she asks.
“Before, when I taught you how to make a Shirley Temple.”
“I was just surprised at your choice of drink,” she says, “Usually little girls order that drink,” she laughs. Chad, Knee, and Danny laugh with her.
Later in the evening I was at the bar buying a round of drinks, and Summer asked me how I knew everyone. Instead of letting me answer, she said,
“I have a feeling they come here because of me.”
“Okay.”
“What do you think?”
“Gee Summer, I don’t know, I’ll tell you at recess.”
We haven’t said much to each other since ……….
“Who’s winning?” I ask Chad.
“We are.”
“You going to play pool?” I ask to remind him of the fake reason we all came here.
“In a minute…taking a break from Joanne?”
“Or five,” I say, then do Chad the favor of ordering a drink.
Summer walks over…slowly.
“Shirley Temple?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Coffee,” I say and prepare to drink a beverage that I wasn’t going to order.
“I don’t have any coffee. I would have to make a pot just for you.”
“Sounds good.”
“Can’t you order something else?”
I look around the bar. We are the only two people sitting here. I do a full exaggerated lean around Chad to make sure there is no one hiding behind him, then I look back at Summer.
“Are you too busy?”
“I just don’t want to make it.”
“You must make a killing on tips…what would you like me to order?”
“I don’t care, anything.”
“Coffee.”
“You’re a prick.”
Chad has to speak up. He shouldn’t. He should just sit there and roll his eyes at me to show Summer that he would never be so cruel as to make her get him the drink he wants.
“Just order something else, man,” he tells me while Summer is still in earshot.
I look at him to tell him to read my mind. I’m doing this for you, dipshit.
“Will you let me drink a coffee in here if it comes from the restaurant downstairs?” I ask Summer.
“Yes.”
“Well then go downstairs and order me a coffee, that way you won’t have to make it.”
Summer turns her back to me in disgust and starts making coffee.
Chad leans over,
“You’re going to blow my shot with her.”
“Yeah… I doubt it,” I say with the opposite meaning than the one he thinks.
“Trust me, I’m in the game.”
Chad Chad Chad. Why was she reading a magazine in the other corner when I came over here?
“Well good luck with all that,” I manage to tell him.
“I don’t need it.”
Yes, yes you do.
“Do me a favor, bring my coffee when you come.”
I left Chad the money for the coffee and $2 for a tip. There were several reasons I did this, the first one being that I know Chad will pretend he is paying for my drink because he’s so giving. The reality is that Chad is a cheap bastard, and he never pays for anything. Chad will drop her the tip and act like he’s giving her this money because she had to go through all the effort of making coffee for his asshole friend. He will, of course, be expecting Summer to take this tip and in return give him her phone number. He will be half right. The last thing I wanted was for Chad to leave the bar. He was getting nowhere, and I wanted him to save face by leaving before he had to.
I got back to the table and found Danny waiting for me to play.
I looked over at Knee and Ray.
“Who lost?” I asked.
“We both did,” said Knee with shame in his eyes.
“Danny!” I said, “welcome to the world of winning two in a row!”
“Fuck you, it’ll be three soon.”
I beat him easily.
“Chad!” I yell, “Is the game over? I swear that coffee better not be cold or else I’m sending it back.”
Chad chalks up a stick and struts out to the table to kick my ass for Summer.
“Rackem’ up,” he says.
“They’re already racked. Don’t think about her now, just play pool.”
So Chad beats me soundly. He is playing for everyone else in this room and shouts,
“YES!” as he wins, then looks around the room to see how many people looked to see who the stud was.
“Good game,” I say, “I’ll be over at the bar giving Summer a hard time if my turn comes up.”
Chad is in the awful position of watching me walk to the bar. If only he could have missed that last shot.
I walk around the bar and go to the washroom. When I come out, Chad is walking over.
“You lost already?” I ask.
“I wanted another beer.”
So sad.
We are driving home from Chalk Sticks and I’m wondering why we all went there in the first place. The night was a carbon copy of all the other nights we’ve had there. It was diet fun.
I’ve been in bed about ten minutes and I’m wondering if I should hang a picture on the ceiling in my room. I’m bored with the stucco. I have tried to see if I could picture things in its design, but it’s so boring that even I can’t keep myself interested. What should I think about tonight? I should think about falling asleep. How do people fall asleep so fast? I practiced breathing slower and deeper and slower…and slower and holy shit I feel like I’m drowning. How do I breathe when I don’t think about it? The more I think about it, the harder it is. This is terrible! Why did I start doing this? Relax, relax, and keep your mind off of this before you die. I have to get up and eat something. This is a good bagel. Do I breathe when I eat? Why don’t I ever bite my tongue when I chew? How does my tongue always get out of the way at the last moment? What am I doing? Now I can’t even eat properly. I got up to write Logan an email.
Hey, I need some ink when you come …………L
I went back to bed and thought about the things I had tried to think about to fall asleep. I would hate to drown. That would be one of the worst ways to leave this world. About three people I know have assured me that drowning was supposed to be the best way to die. Says who? I can assure you that I would rather have someone walk up behind me and blow my brains out.
It’s Monday again. I hate Monday so much. I never tell anyone this because it sounds so cliché and also, no one really gives a shit if I hate Monday.
My eyes are locked on the license plate of the car in front of me. I shake my head to try and wake up, and notice a dead dog, there, beside me on the shoulder, waiting for a truck to come and remove him. I start to picture a little kid looking all over the place for this dog. I would hate to run a dog over —not that I get any sort of pleasure from running other animals over, I would feel so terrible, I know I would end up taking the dead dog to a vet, who would inform me that there is nothing he could do seeing as how the dog was already dead, then I would leave the dog there, hoping that the vet would call the owners and deliver the bad news, and his story would end with, and then this young man, who apparently saw your dog get hit, stopped and brought him to me.
And now, still in traffic, behind another plate, I find myself thinking about Laika. Yes, The Laika, who woke up one morning in 1957 and went out for her morning walk, completely unaware that in a few hours, she would be strapped into SPUTNIK 1. Of course, Laika didn’t live very long, because dogs probably weren't designed to be rocketed into space, so the panic attack that killed her was probably worse than being suddenly struck by a car. Is SPUTNIK 1 still out there? I guess we have far better satellites now, satellites that are so powerful they can zoom into anything, us, here, in traffic, and only scientists would be able to notice the difference between us, here, and ants marching.
I was tying my shoes when Ed walked in to work. I don’t like Ed at all. He is a brown-noser. Ed of course has absolutely no idea that I dislike him.
“Hey,” he started, “Monday…” then he just looked at me to share a moment.
I wish I had the nerve to say nothing.
“I love Monday, it’s Wednesday I have a problem with,” I said.
“Why Wednesday?”
“Because by Wednesday everyone has given up and settled in for the rest of the week, forgetting why they hated Monday so much. They become consumed by counting down the days until the weekend. And I hate the way some people say it….Wed-Nes-Day….as if they’re telling me that they know how to spell.”
“Yeah,” he answered, as if he had a clue as to what I was talking about —or he was trying to remember if he’d ever said it like that— when he changed the topic.
“So how was your weekend?” he asked.
It was actually pretty good. We had a good time at the concert, then after at the bar! Man, you should have been there.
“Fine,” I said.
“We had a blast at Dave’s stag.”
I never asked you about your weekend, Ed.
“That’s good,” I said and walked into work a few minutes early. Leave me alone, I don’t care about you.
I swear to God this job could be done by a monkey. Why haven’t they replaced us all? Is that illegal? I wouldn’t even be insulted if it happened.
There’s a guy named Hughie that works here. Hughie is a grown man with the intellect of a 6 year old. He has the important job of sweeping the floors. I would make fun of him more, but my job doesn’t really require anymore intelligence than his. (My gut feeling about Hughie came true later in life when Hughie was arrested for exposing himself to children in the schoolyard. He always creeped me out like that.) I am skeptical about giving people excuses for their behavior in life, but I think Hughie has Tourette’s Syndrome. He freaks out every few minutes and yells at the wall. We all bother him on purpose, because we like laughing at him. It cheers us all up. Hughie was our vent.
Today for example, I had to punch out these tiny white holes of plastic. They looked like large pieces of confetti. Hughie kept coming over and sweeping up all the little confetti every ten minutes or so and each time he came by he would start yelling at me for making a mess. At first I tried explaining the situation to him, but I got nowhere.
“Fucking stop putting these fucking things all over the place fuck!”
“Hughie, I don’t have time to pick up 7000 pieces an hour and run the machine.”
“You make such a fucking mess!”
“What do you suggest I do?”
“Clean them up yourself!”
“But who’s going to run the machine?”
And so, with a stroke of genius, I went to the office and found a bottle of liquid paper, and proceeded to paint the holes all over the floor. Then I stood quietly and watched him try to sweep them up. He must have used the word fucksonafabitch about twenty times. Everyone was killing themselves laughing.
One day, Hughie will walk into work with a gun and mow down everyone who bothered him, then turn the gun on himself. When I show up at work and the media is swarming all over the place, I’ll stop to do an interview and they’ll ask the stupid questions they always do about how this could happen and why it wasn’t known that this would eventually happen and I’ll answer,
“No, I knew this would happen.”
and throw them off guard because that wasn’t in the script and they have no follow-up to that response. The focus will then shift off of Hughie and his massacre, and on to me, the one surviving member of the workforce. Everyone will be mad at me for knowing this would happen but doing nothing to stop it. Larry King will have me on his show and he will speak for the people by telling me that this is basically my fault. I’ll try to remind everyone that Hughie was the one who shot everyone and the fact that I knew it would happen doesn’t make me guilty, then, when we break for a commercial, I’ll tell Larry the story about painting little circles on the floor and he’ll laugh until he has another heart attack and dies… which will also be my fault.
“Hughie,”
I said, “just leave it, I'll clean it up later.”
And so the week and its highlight of the liquid paper ended. I dragged my aching body to Grabba’s.
Grabba’s is a coffee pub near the airport that we all hang out at. The owner is a man named Tasso Grabbapopolis. The actual name of the place is Grabbacupofthis. We just shortened it to Grabba’s because we all felt stupid saying the whole name every time we were explaining where to get together. I liked Tasso’s better, but everyone else used Grabba’s so much more that I eventually started saying it myself, because it seemed that I was the only one who knew his first name.
“I’ll meet you guys at Tasso’s after work.”
“Where?”
“……..Grabba’s.”
“Who’s Tasso?”
“Never mind.”
Chad, Danny and Knee are there when I walk in.
“Hey, you’re late,” says Chad.
“Overtime.
You guys want another coffee?”
Yes all around the table.
Were they waiting for me to get here so I could buy a round? I buy the coffee and try to remember the last time Chad actually paid for one.
“Didn’t have time to go home and change your clothes?” asks Danny.
Danny works for his Dad. It’s probably a good thing because he is such a lazy ass that I can’t imagine him keeping a job that would require him to work more than a few hours a day.
“No time,” I say, then wonder what my rush was to get here.
“More girls for me,” he answers, actually believing what he said was true.
.....The last time I saw a girl talking to Danny was a few months ago. We were all at a club having a good night. Danny had been drinking the only way he knows how….excessively. It was near the end of the night, and the D.J making an effort to get us all to leave, played the song “The Unforgiven” from Metallica. Apart from being a terrible song, “The Unforgiven” was the first song Danny heard on the radio when Gina (his last and only girlfriend) broke up with him. So, Danny wept like a little girl. Ray and Knee tried to comfort him by explaining how many fish there are in the sea, while I used a different method.
“Holy shit man, it’s been two years!” I explained, “You only dated for three months!”
“Fuck you, Lee!” he screamed, then went into the corner to cry some more and acted like he was cooling down before he chose to get violent with me.
Fortunately for Danny, there was a really nice girl named Lucy (a stranger to us), who witnessed Danny crying and went over to comfort him. He cried on her shoulder and told her his heartbreaking story, while we all waited for him in the car. The next day Danny professed his new love for a girl named Lucy. We have gone back to that club about 5 times at Danny’s request to see if he could find her, but he has had no luck. My guess is that Lucy had sober friends at the club who pointed out to her what Danny looked like and reminded her that he was crying over a Metallica song. In any event, I’m sure we’ll be going back there soon….
“So what were you guys talking about?” I needed a new topic.
“Nothing.”
Why do I come here?
So we all actually spent the next few minutes just drinking our coffee and staring out the windows.
“Did you guys know that you can see the constellation from here?” I asked.
“So? You can see it from here, too,” said Chad.
Chad was not right, from where he sits, there’s a huge hotel blocking his view of the sky. The hotel is called The Constellation. This was my joke, but they didn’t get it. Chad just hates it when I know something that he doesn’t. I was going to explain it to them, but I figured it would be funnier if they caught it at a later date.
At work today I was desperately trying to think of something new for all of us to do one weekend. I came up with a fantastic idea.
“Do you guys feel like renting out an arena one weekend and playing floor hockey, or soccer, or dodge ball?” I asked with a proud look on my face. Don’t worry guys, I’ll save us from boring ourselves to death.
“With who?” -Knee.
“I don’t like those games.” -Danny.
“Maybe, but why on a weekend, we should be out at clubs!” -Chad.
“…The hotel, the hotel is called the Constellation,” I said and kept drinking my coffee.
I needed a snack. I rarely had an urge for things, but at this moment I thought Doritos sounded really good. Doritos aren’t for sale at Grabba’s, so I decided to go for a little drive to the gas station and buy some chips. I needed to get away from them for a minute because I had the strange desire to just get up and tell them that recently I had come to the conclusion that my life sucks and they were part of the reason. Usually I hold off from blurting these things out for no reason, in case I change my mind, but tonight I felt close and needed a quick change of scenery.
I returned about ten minutes later to Chad, Danny, and Knee sitting with three girls. How did this happen? They must know them, because this has never happened before.
The table that seats six is now fully occupied. There is no chair available for me, so I just stand there. I wait for the introductions, but they don’t come. My initial jealousy of the situation has now turned to awkwardness, as the girls are looking at me and wondering who I am.
“Hi, I’m Lee,” I say to all three of them. I wonder if I should be sticking out my hand while I do this, but no one else seemed to wonder so I kept it at my side.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.” they answer.
I look at Danny for an explanation, but he’s just grinning like he has accomplished something. No one is talking about anything, everyone is just sitting there looking at me and the table.
“Were you talking about me?” I ask and laugh at the same time.
“No,” says Knee, “we were just trying to figure out if we could all do something tonight.”
“What did you come up with?” I ask.
“Susie, wants to go out dancing, and I thought it may be fun, too.”
“Who’s Susie?” I ask in an attempt to remind everyone I was never introduced.
“I am,” she answers.
“How does everyone know each other here?” I finally ask.
“Ann and Susie work with me,” says Danny.
“Who’s Ann?” I ask.
“I am,” she answers.
“I’m Linda,” says the third girl.
This could have all been so much easier.
We’re all just looking at the table. Man is this odd. I feel like I’m supposed to say something.
“Cool Ranch chip?” I offer.
“Sure,” says Danny and reaches over.
“Not you,” I say.
And now we’re all just pretending to be normal again. Am I the only one who’s uncomfortable here? Of course everything is just a little more odd for me, because I’m the only one who is standing, and I somehow demand attention by doing this. I don’t even have anything to lean against, and there are no free chairs around. It’s hard to just stand. I feel a need to do something with my arms or hands.
“Did you want to sit?” asks Linda.
“No thanks… that’s a good seat, you can see the Constellation from there.”
That was nice of her. You can tell a lot about people by the little things they do. It’s a shame she isn’t prettier.
“So what’s the verdict,” I ask, “are we going to a club?”
Everyone just looks at each other and Susie says,
“You can’t go dressed like that.”
“Oh well.”
“Can you go home and change?” asks Knee.
“I could, but I’m not going to. You guys go, I’ll be fine.”
“Do you always dress like that on Friday night?” asks Susie. “Like, where were you guys going to go?”
I would like to tell her that I dislike her approach, but I’ll hold off on this for now…. because she is very pretty.
“I’m coming from work.”
“I guess you had no plans to go out.” she comments with a raised eyebrow.
“Not with you,” I answer.
Knee speaks up so that I don’t make Susie leave.
“Maybe we could all do something else.”
“I want to go dancing,” says Susie.
“You guys go, I’ll be fine,” I answer.
No really, I will.
I go get myself another coffee, and when I return, there seems to be a change of plans.
“We decided to go to Club 207,” says Knee, “so you could come too.”
“Okay,” I say indifferently.
“He means we have to go, because you won’t go change,” says Susie.
“Hey listen….Susie is it?”