Texas

Texas

by Sam Ford

It was deep summer. I’d just gotten off my shift and was headed home. Tuckered and a little drunk. Me, Nick-the-bartender, and Jose-one-of-the-dishwashers put in a little overtime. By that I mean we threw up the chairs, eased off the lights, and made ourselves familiar with the scotch shelf. I’d dropped Jose off at the little apartment complex where he was staying with some other guys. They were all kitchen guys.

I’d been talking with this woman on the internet. She lived in Tucson and we’d been discussing her maybe flying to Pennsylvania to meet me. She’d emailed me her picture and she was pretty nice looking. She was a dental assistant. She drove a Mustang. Her “one indulgence.” That and the “Willie Nelson ice cream.” The Ben & Jerry’s kind. I tried it per her suggestion. It was pretty good.

Anyway I was sorta’ looking forward to getting home and talking with her online. We’d agreed to chat once I got off work. She had a sixteen year-old kid she was raising alone. Apparently he was quite the outfielder.

I drove with the windows open.

It was Highway 22 near Cresson. Texas was walking on the other side of the road. It was late. Not a lotta’ traffic to say the least. She watched me whip by her in my Corolla. I slowed some, checked my rearview. She’d stopped walking. She was watching me. I came to a stop. I thought she might be hurt. Needed help. Something.

I was forty-three years old.

I made a u-turn and drove towards her. She was still standing there. She had long light brown hair. She was on the tall side, I guess. Pale skin. She was sweating. White t-shirt. Backpack. Jeans cut off just below the knees. Adidas. I figured her for early 20’s. I pulled along side her, rolled down the passenger side window.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Would you mind giving me a ride to Altoona? It’s pretty close isn’t it?”

“Well…”

“You were going in the opposite direction. I’ll pay you twenty bucks.”

I looked at her. She was smiling slightly. Her eyes were open and shining there in the dark. It scared me that she was out walking like she was. Hitch-hiking. It scared me that I was the one to find her. But it was also a relief.

“You don’t have to pay me anything,” I said.

I wondered how I looked to her. Someone once told me I had a kind face. That always seemed somewhat unnerving to me. I wondered if she thought my face was kind. I wondered if that made her more apprehensive.

“Okay, well –” I said.

She took off her backpack, got in the Corolla, put the backpack on her lap, shut the door. The temperature in the car got noticeably hotter. She inhaled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Her bangs were soaked with sweat.

“Thanks,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s hot out there,” I said, throwing the car in gear.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“Sorry the air conditioner’s busted,” I said. “The guys had to order a part.”

She smiled generously at me. I wondered if she knew I’d been drinking.

She pulled some spearmint gum from one of the smaller pockets of her bag.

“Would you like some?” she offered.

“No thanks,” I said. She took a piece and put it in her mouth.

“Where’re you coming from?” I asked her.

“California,” she said. “Los Angeles.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“Yeah. Long way.” She smiled.

I went for my Camels.

“Oh we can smoke?” she said. She spit her gum out the window and pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from her bag. She lit hers and lit mine. I liked that she did that. Then I tried not to care.

“What brought you here?” I asked.

“Just had to get outta’ L.A. You ever been there?”

“San Diego for a weekend.”

“Not quite the same.”

“I guess not.”

“I was out there trying to be an actor. The town fucked me up a little, y’know? It’s lonely. Really isolating in a way. So I did things to not feel lonely. Bad sorta’ things. Then I decided I didn’t really wanna’ do those things.”

“So you hitch-hiked or…I mean you’re hitch-hiking?”

“Yeah. I sold my car out there. Figured it’d be more fun to do it this way. It’s been fun sometimes. Scary. Boring sometimes.”

“You’ve made it a long way,” I offered.

“Sure have,” she said. She took a long drag off her cigarette.

I knew I wouldn’t know her very long but I wanted to know her forever and wanted to know everything and everyone that’d come before.

We smoked for a little while.

“Where do you think you’ll end up?” I asked her.

“New York City,” she said. “I still wanna’ act. I just don’t wanna’ do it out in that fuckin’ place.”

She had a ring on her finger. A Cladagh.

“Are you Irish?” I asked her.

“A little,” she said. Her little eyes smiled. She smoked her cigarette down. Flicked it out the window.

“My name’s Ed,” I told her. “Ed Ganley.”

“Hi, Ed,” she said. She put her hand out. I looked at it and then shook it. I felt about a million years old.

“I’m Texas,” she said.

“Texas?”

She nodded.

“That’s an interesting name,” I said.

“It sure is,” she said.

We sat there for a minute. In silence there for a minute. The air swept past us as we drove. Crickets. Engine. There were a lotta’ stars up there. I could feel sweat tickling my hairline. Dripping down behind my ears.

I’d been a waiter on and off for 25 years.

“Would you like to get a cup of coffee?” I asked her. “Or…”

“Sure,” she said.

***

I took her to a diner in Cross Keys. I’d eaten there a few times. It was 24 hours. The burgers weren’t bad. It was a place people came to alone. That night the air conditioning was on.

The waitress brought us two cups on saucers. She looked to be in her 50’s. No make-up. T-shirt. Late shift.

Texas poured milk and Equal in her coffee. I poured a little milk and sugar.

“Whaddayou do for a living, Ed?” she asked me.

I hesitated for a moment. There was no reason to lie. The sun would be up soon.

“Wait tables. I’m a waiter.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

“The Sparrow’s Inn. It’s in Altoona actually.”

“Is it a fancy place?”

“I guess it’s fancy. Kind of expensive.”

“Fine dining?”

“I guess. I wear a uniform.”

“Is the money any good?”

“It can be. Summer mostly.”

She shook her bangs from her eyes, tucked some hair behind her ear.

“I worked in a bunch of places in L.A. Bartending mostly.”

“Pretty good money I bet.”

“It’s pretty good but it’s obvious.”

I wondered what she meant but I didn’t quite have the balls to ask. She seemed restless. Or maybe I just thought she was.

My lips were suddenly chapped. I guess from the a/c.

“Do you live alone?” she asked.

I looked at her. Her face was honest and straight.

“Yeah.” I paused for a second. Her expression didn’t change. “Yeah I…I was married once. She was my sorta’…high school sweetheart. I used to be a football player then. I was…but I mean I’ve never left Pennsylvania. Anyway she…we divorced about four years ago. Now she lives in Colorado with her new husband. They ski.”

Texas smiled but she didn’t say anything. We were sitting in a booth. She looked out the window.

“Do you have a boyfriend or anything?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “I got a lotta’ stories though.”

She was still looking out the window.

***

I bought her the coffee. We walked out of the diner and she lit a cigarette. I lit one too.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said.

The diner was in a strip-mall. All of the storefronts were dark. The big parking lot lights poured down across the asphalt. Texas looked up at them.

“False suns,” she said to herself.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The lights,” she said, pointing at them. “They’re like big fake suns.”

We started walking. There were stores with clothes for pregnant women. Stores with clothes for fat women. Stores with clothes for businessmen on a budget. Stores with sporting goods. Stores with pizza. Stores with pet food and pet items and certain kinds of pets. Stores with music.

Texas sat down on the curb in front of the fat woman store. I sat next to her. We smoked. I tried to swallow a yawn but she caught me.

“Are you tired, Ed?” she said.

“No…I’m alright.”

“Well you worked all night. You should be tired.”

“I guess I am a little,” I said.

She smiled at me.

“The truth is,” she said, “I’m lonely as the devil, Ed. I’m so lonesome I could cry. I’m lonely, Ed. And I don’t know how not to be. I’ve run away from just about everything I ever dared to start. I’ve run away from everything I’ve been too scared to finish. I was an actress in Los Angeles. That means somewhere along the line I decided not to be real. And once I convinced myself that acting was a good and noble endeavor, I was filled with resentment for having to convince myself in the first place. I want to be a truck driver. I want to be a veterinarian. I want to be short order cook. I want to be a wife. I want to be a basketball player. I want to be a journalist. I want to fall in love and never look back. And I don’t know how to take any of those wants and turn them into reality. I don’t know how to take what’s in front of me and be it or do it or even really know it. I’m afraid of giving myself to something that won’t let me be free. And I’m afraid of never knowing what it’s like to be held down by something I love. My parents love me. My brother loves me. There’s even a town somewhere in America that knows me and probably even loves me. I’ve met some boys and some men and fucked some of them and loved some of them and known some of them pretty well. I’ve met some of their families. One of them even bought me a ring and put the fearsome four on me. And I’ve always felt on the outside. Of all of it, Ed. I’ve been a waitress and a bartender and a babysitter. I’ve blown cocaine and drank local whiskey. I’ve planted gardens. I’ve campaigned for a congressman. I went to college and graduated. On the outside, Ed. Not looking for pity. Just stating a fact. On the outside. And getting older with the shit. On the outside. And so I meet people that maybe sit in the same bleachers and we get along but then we get wrong ‘cause we recognize those parts in each other. And things get busted up. And I keep running. Running toward…what? Getting older? Is that what I’m running toward? The day I wake up and I’m not running anymore? The day I wake up and I’ve grown out of the running? I’m more mature? I’m an adult? I’m married? I’ve got not one not two but three or so kids? I’m adopting kids? I’m working in a job that I can’t explain to anyone ‘cause it doesn’t matter to anyone except the people I work with? I don’t hate anyone. I don’t need anyone. I love everyone I’m supposed to love. My dad says I should go back to school. The just sounds like a way to pass the time. What am I gonna’ study? Engineering? Philosophy? English? Massage therapy? I like to travel, Ed. But that takes money. I’ve learned that. It doesn’t necessarily take much. But it takes some. And I’m to the point where I know that my travels are keeping me from something else. Something more important? Maybe. But something else. Something that makes people get older. Something that makes people watch TV. And I can spend a lifetime avoiding it. But that’s what my life will come to be about. Avoidance. And I guess that brings me here, Ed. To your ears. Lonely as the devil. Lonely as a man.”

She stopped then for a second. Then she said:

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Sorry I ramble sometimes,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I understand a lot of what you said. I feel the same way in a lot of ways.”

“Yeah?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. And I did.

“Yeah well…sorry. It’s easy to talk to strangers sometimes. Easier in a way.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I’ve been a waiter for really 25 years. On and off.”

“Wow,” she said.

***

I dropped her off at a Budget Inn off of I-99.

“This is perfect,” she said as we pulled up.

“I mean…how are you gonna’ get to…wherever?”

“Keep walking,” she said. “Hope for a couple more Eds.”

“You’re really trying to go to New York?”

“Yeah,” she said. “And I’ll get there. Truth is I got enough money to rent a car if it comes to that. A lotta’ this is just pretend.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Thanks for the coffee and the conversation,” she said.

“No problem,” I said.

I could see the sun coming up. I could feel it.

“Do you have a long way to drive?” she asked.

“Not much. Ten miles. Twelve miles or so.”

“Well get home safe, Ed,” she said. Texas said.

“Okay,” I said, yawning.

“Okay,” she said. She smiled one more time at me and got out of the car. I watched her go into the office. The guy in there was Arabic, I guess. Or Indian. He had a mustache and a comb-over. A red polo style shirt. He was sleeping. I watched her ring the desk bell. I watched the guy jolt awake. Texas looked out at me. She saw I’d been watching. She mimed a big “oops.”

***

When I finally made it home, I kicked off my work shoes, unbuttoned my work shirt. I curled and uncurled my toes. The sun was up. I was thinking about Texas. I wanted to know how it was gonna’ go for her.

I turned my laptop on. Birds were gossiping outside. I could hear the sprinkler in my neighbor’s yard.

I got online. After a few minutes the woman in Tucson sent me an instant message.

“Where you been, baby?” she wrote.

“Just hung out a little after work,” I wrote back.

“Got a wild hair, huh?” she wrote.

“Something like that,” I wrote back.

I liked her. This woman in Tucson. She’d been through some things and it’d left her with a bit of an edge but not too much of one. She was pretty cool. Her name was Linda.








NYC, NY (4/24/08)

All Good Things

All Good Things

by Sam Ford

The night we got laid-off, the line cook was wasted early. He was a Wisconsin guy. A hard drinker. Lonesome fucker. Few aspirations. A good cook. Big tired smile. Unwavering sadness. I liked him. My kind he was. My kind. I’ve always gotten low for the lowdown cats and dogs. Daddy didn’t raise no stone-heart. We were liberal. We were professors and Jewish and poor and middleclass and upper-middleclass and cowboys and agnostic and metropolitan. We were wannabe farmers in western Massa-aaah-aaah-choo! (bless you). And we knew it were hard out there. Hard out there. Hard as a casket. Hard as Christ when they took the spikes out. Hard as a jilted lover getting the regret call. Daddy knew. He’d torn through three wives and was on four. Four was about right. She knew how to care. Angel ways. But it takes time to find that good woman slide.

I’d never lost a job before. I was of the walkin’-away. I was of the greener pastures.

The line cook shook my hand. Touched me on the shoulder. Smiled the ol’ scatter grin. Like a toddler taking his first toilet-shit. His eyes widened and got wet.

“All good things,” he said.

Man, he was drunk. Ridiculous. Flawed as art. I could tell he hadn’t bathed in a stretch.

“I’m gonna’ see you Saturday, Jimmy,” I said. (The bossman’d given us a week's notice.) “Don’t say yer goodbyes just yet, midwest.”

He smiled. He laughed. His hands were thin and scarred. Too much prep. Too much carving board. I thought of the thous-upon-thous-upon thousands just like him. Bleeding on onions. Drinking vodka and Vitamin Water. Praying they’d get their dicks hard and get ‘em off come the get-home. Thinking of the dress they saw earlier in the front-of-house. The Angelina cover. The internet porn subscription. Lord, the whatever-it-takes. To pass out. To be a man. To make our grandfathers proud.

And I touched line cook’s shoulder then. Smiled my own at him. Hell, I was drunk. Once I got the bossman’s word, I figured I had nothing to lose. Might as well drink it down some. Why not, I was the bartender. It was easy as “go fish.” Pint glass to spout. Hand to tap. Heart to fuck-it. Let ‘em go, let ‘em go, let ‘em go. His blood was wine. His blood His blood. Is wine. His blood is…beer?

I put some a' that blood away. Then got into the Irish whiskey. ‘Cause there was Irish involved as well. (Mama and her red tressels. Pink cheeks. Catholic almost. Gypsy eyes.)

Sure. Surely. I was drunk. Afterall. I’d just been laid-off. Told I wouldn’t have a job come next weak. Come next next next…weekIwouldn’t. Be able to pretend I was still on my way to making it. Job. – Look, dad. I’ve got a job. A job sorta’ thing. –

It was New York City. Fresh April. I was still here. More people were coming in. The Euro was high. The dollar was dying. But them Euro-folks weren’t spending them good Euros at my job.

“We gotta’ close down, man,” the boss’d told me earlier that night. “The concept…it just didn’t work out.”

I thought of men being told to shave their asses and wear thongs. I thought of women being told to shave their heads and wear suits.

Concepts, kiddo? I thought of infomercials like when I was a kid. Aussie accents. Caffeine. A studio audience enraptured. “Wawtch thees staynes cahm royt owt. Eet’s lyke eet wahs nehvah theyah.”

Not only do you get the get-the, but call in the next fifteen minutes, and you also get the get-the…free.

We were closing. We. That meant us. That meant them. And me and Jimmy were soon to be unemployed. And FEMA’s New Orleans refugee trailers were filled with formaldehyde. And presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. And the New York Yankees pulled out a 3-2 victory in the latter half of a night game at the Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays of Canada. And a New York Times poll showed that 81% of Americans thought the nation was headed on the wrong track. And actor Ryan Phillippe was in a new film entitled “Stop-Loss”, about an American soldier’s return from the war in Iraq and his subsequent decision to go AWOL. And it rained and then it didn’t.

I got on my cellular phone and text-messaged my closest friends about my stop-loss…errr…job-loss. I squeezed out the drama, making it sound like it was the end of an era. Depression era. Hard times a-comin’. Feel for me. I am of the president’s victims.

GC gave me Yankees updates.
Sister said it “could be good in the end.”
Chuckles congratulated me.
They were alright. And damned if they weren’t all right in their own way.

I drank beer and then Irish whiskey. I thought of the trabajadores verdaderos in the kitchen and what the motherfuck they were gonna’ do come the news. These fellas busted it wide open for minimum wage and then the feds, only to send it on home to children and wives they’d barely seen. The short end was their way. What then for the short end of the short end?

“Don’t tell the guys in the kitchen,” the bossman had said. He knew they’d flee if they found out they’d be without a paycheck come next Saturday. And if they fled, who’d wash the dishes? Who’d fry the shrimp? Who’d speak the Spanish? A gringo? Perish the thought. Perish it.

We threw up the lights. We threw up the chairs and bar-stools. Jimmy had a quiet bottle of Jameson that he’d stashed for nights like this. Losing-my-job nights. He broke it out. Told me to partake. I poured one for each of us. We drank. Mumbled. Laughed. Talked it over. Hindsighted and saw everything.

Jimmy: “This because this fuhckin’ place is…

Me: “Bullshit it’s bullshit they shoulda’…

Jimmy: “You start…”

Me: “Start I mean y’know you start with wood. A wood bar…”

Jimmy: “ ‘Cause it’s like you don’t wahnna’ drink…”

Me: “Like a toilet it is…”

Jimmy: “It’s just not comfortable comfortable like a bar and food should be, y’knoh…”

Me: “Fuckin’ gutshot…Worst timing in the world, Jimmy…”

Jimmy: “I never been invahlved in a restaurant that failed…”

Me: “It’s not yer fault…”

Jimmy: “Juhst wish there’s suhmthin’ I couhlda’a done…”

Me: “It’s not yer fault, Jimmy…”

Jimmy: “Who is this who’re we listenin’ to?...”

Me: “Bob Dylan, Jimmy…Nashville Bob…”

Jimmy: “Doesn’t sound like Bahb…”

Me: “That’s ‘cause he’s in Nashville, Jimmy…”

And Jimmy and I drank a little bit more.

And then the chef came out and joined us. I liked the chef. He was what they call in the Manzana Grande, a “celebrity chef.” And what I liked about him was he didn’t give a good fuck about that celebrity stamp. He built armor for their arrows. The “foodies.” The magazines. The maggots making a living off of food trends, opinions, and expertise. He tried to hide. He tried to die in this restaurant only to be slowly reborn and perhaps move on. Coach little league. Cook for the block association. Love his wife right. Little did he know the restaurant would die first. He was a family man. He made good food. Shat his heart out into it. Cared. Snorted coke and drank a little too much. Was just barely hanging on. A genius with no ego. An egomaniac with no ambition. Sure. My kind, papa. Our kind.

I pulled him a pint. We toasted. Me, him, and Jimmy. He smiled. His eyes twitched and buckled. A chef’s distress. Kinesis. That yayo too. It all takes its toll.

“I hate failure,” he said.

“It’s not yer fault,” I said, wondering when I’d become Robin fuckin’ Good Will Huntingdon Williams for this fuckin’ place.

We sat there. Me behind the bar. The cooks in front. I wanted to say things. I was drunk and what did I know?

“We’ll find you something,” Chef said to me.

“And the funny thing is, I ain’t tryin’ to be a bartender,” I said.

The chef took a slug off his pint, checked his cellphone. Jimmy laughed at nothing. It was a little after 11 PM.

The owners of this place were about to close it down. They weren’t gonna’ declare bankruptcy. They weren’t gonna cut their losses. They were gonna’ try again in a month after they renovated and created a new concept.

Stain remover. Car wax. Teeth whitener. Ultra comfort mattress.

The chef was all over his phone. Wife and kid things. I looked at him. His own brand of frantic. Yet slow. Sensitive. A fuckin’ human like the rest of us. Some of us anyway. Messenger bag across his forty year-old back. Van Gogh with a Blackberry. He looked at me.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“I gotta’ get this train,” he said.

We smiled at one another. In two months this man would be but a memory.

He left me and Jimmy to our (de)vices.

Quick went that emerald isle brown. We got outta’ there. The kitchen lights snapped shut. A once over across the dining room. The front door got locked. Jimmy and I shook hands, touched shoulders; the boozers adios outside the place.

“All good things,” Jimmy said again. I wondered how many times in his life he’d said that. How many bartenders he’d known. Where in the world wide world he’d be come ’18. Dead and making pancakes in heaven? Alive and making pancakes in Tribeca? A lucky fourth wife type woman?

“All good things.”

And what are those things, Jimmy? I wanted to ask him. What are the good things? ‘Cause it’s Thursday and I feel a little off track tonight. I feel late 20’s with it all and just gettin’ started and already been through it and not quite there and just short of almost and sorta’ kinda’ lived it and can’t quite see it and still hopeful for it and starting to question the whole of it and…

What are those good things, Jimmy?

‘Cause I’m a romantic, Jimmy. ‘Cause I’ve grown slow and slow and pessimistic, Jimmy.

A couple walked by dressed in black. Him holding an umbrella. Her on her iPhone. He – good haircut. She – good shoes. Just after midnight.

I’d spent some time in the country and thought about more time.

Texas. Oregon. Both Carolines. I’d seen ‘em. Breathed ‘em. Held ‘em for a spell. I wondered if there was legs in the living them.

Jimmy walked off toward “home.”

I needed more booze. I wanted the old college kinda’ early morning. Oh, the kids, the kids. I was gonna’ go on home and play basement Elliott Smith. Weep and bleed and drink on the QWERTY. Pretend I was the writing kind.

On my way I passed a couple arguing on 6th Avenue:

Him: You said you wanted to go to a bar, what’s wrong with Daddy-O’s?

Her: Whatever. I don’t wanna get into a screaming match. I just…

Him: But didn’t you say you wanted to get a drink?

Her: Whatever. I don’t care.

Him: Wait…

And by that time I’d crossed the big 6 and put my feet deep into Bleecker. Past my old elementary and middle school. Past all the storefronts that were not the storefronts I grew up with. Past the bars and clubs. The bars and clubs. The bars and clubs with no natives. Nothing but imports. All of the easy skinned-out suckers waiting for that easy ride home to nowhere. (Goddamn, I’d become one helluva judgemental and pessimistic sombitch over the years.) That’s right, waiting on a dollar to turn into a dime. Waiting for love to fuck them in the face.

I shuffled past a nightspot between Sullivan and Thompson with a crowd out front.

“Lick my balls, bitch!” a gentleman in a turtleneck and black jeans yelled at one of his male friends. He laughed and the friend laughed. I looked up to see if it was a full moon. I couldn’t find it.

At the Morton Williams supermarket I opted for the Bud Light as it was both health and wallet conscious. The lady behind the register weighed close to four hundred pounds and wore a mustache comparable to mine. She had her headphones buried in her ears. I could hear the muscles in her breathing. I wondered if she’d requested the nightshift, been offered it, or been subjected to it. She had on three gold necklaces and two rings. She checked her cell-phone before she ran my beer through the red laser. Her hair was yanked back in a wavy onyx ponytail. I wondered what would happen if she and Jimmy ended up alone in a room together.

She scanned the six-pack. Didn’t ask for ID. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or insulted. It was late. I was old looking. Unemployed. Caucasian.

“Seven sixty-three,” she said.

I handed her eight. It was all the money I’d made at the bar that night. Eight strutting bucks in cash. Yeah, baby. And that was after we’d tipped out the busser. And that poor bastard walked with two dollars. Just enough to take the train home to wherever the fuck. They’d just hired him recently.

“Don’t tell, Pedro,” the bossman had said, regarding the restaurant closing. He knew he’d flee if he found out he’d be without a paycheck come next Saturday.

Some were trying to make it, some were making it, and some were it.

“It’s business,” my father would always tell me when I was failing and trying and learning and failing as an actor and as a man. “It’s a business.”

And then I fell in love with every woman I ever met. And then I fell in love with none. And then it was like I’d know them forever. And then it was like I’d never known them at all.

I looked at my phone. All the names. The chances. I thought long and hard.

“You are drunk. You are drunk. You are drunk,” I told Myself. “Do not make those kinds of phone-calls.”

And the six-pack of Bud Light beer was in a plastic bag and it was in my left hand and it was heavy in my left hand and I walked it on home to the apartment, my apartment, where I was staying, where I lived. The doorman was there. He was watching television on the internet.

“How’s it goin’?” I asked him.

“Good,” he said.

Best news I’d gotten all night.

After the doorman in my doorman apartment building with an elevator, I rode the elevator up to the 18th floor. There was the door to my apartment and I found my keys and opened that door.

And didn’t I have it all set-up:

- Put on the early Elliott.

- Weep it on out like the saddest Sammiest bastard the vorld had ever seen.

- Get through that six. Line up them skeletons across the desk like little league trophies.

- Do not make those kinds of phone-calls.

- Write a lil’ sumpin’-sumpin’.

- Do not make those kinds of phone-calls.

- Go to sleep. ‘Cause after sleep there is the promise that what happened…man, what literally happened the very night before, don’t mean nearly as much. It’s but a cigarette butt. A brutal pair of eggs over easy. Sausage. Home-fries well done. A hooded sweatshirt. A story. A fishtank. A feeling. Just. A. Fuckin’. Feeling.

They say Elliott Smith stabbed himself in the heart. But the case is still open. The case is still open.

And I sat down at the dude-yer-gettin’-a-Dell and fired her up like an afterburner. Lord, she whirred and hummed. And then I double-clicked on that ol’ Microsoft Whirred and got started.

Y’see, ‘cause I’d never been laid-off before. I’d heard George Jones sing about it. Heard the hard collars in the deep south and dead north tell me about it over plastic cup suds and discount tobacco.

It ain’t fired. It’s different.

My old friend Kevin had been laid-off once. I remember we sat in Union Square and talked about it. I didn’t drink coffee then. It didn’t make sense to me. He was smarter than the average bear. Those kinds of bears, they don’t get laid off. Do they, papa? Is it business?

Laid off? ‘Cause Someone decides to do something different?
Laid off? “Cause it’s cheaper in China?
Laid off. ‘Cause they didn’t tailor my suit right?
Laid off? ‘Cause the economy’s in the shithouse?
Laid off? ‘Cause the FED cut the NASDAQ and the DOW fell below the sub-prime rate of Bear Stearns and the GOP told NATO that the cost of BUD LIGHT was getting out of hand?
Laid off? ‘Cause 81% of Americans thought that the nation was on the wrong track?
Laid off? ‘Cause the bar was made out of metal and not say…wood?
Laid off? Because…because…
Laid off? ‘Cause the concept was wrong? The concept?
Laid off? ‘Cause New York City was just so damn competitive, difficult, all about trial-and-error?

New York City. Town I’m from. My hometown, Boss. Town I’m from.

So’s Ma. Nila. GC. Case is on the show. Chuckles was wearing green before the hipsters caught on. Frankie’s pulled the bricks outta’ the street. Catalina’s burning up the stage. Bear’s making them listen. Hustling and he’s got a wife. Ben Umanov. Hell, his dad’s still slingin’ axes on Bleecker and Cornelia. A staple.

We’re still here. And those I’ve missed or’m missing…They’re more here than most.

And we don’t get laid-off.

And when the bossman laid me off he said, “we really appreciate everything you guys’ve done for us.”

And he couldn’t look me in the eye, as most powerful people can’t when they’re wielding their power. After all, they don’t wanna’ appear cruel. (I’ve found police to be the only exception.)

He was younger than me. Considerably. He had a fake mohawk, or “faux hawk.” I’d once heard him mention that his t-shirt cost seventy-five dollars. I’d once heard him mention the “concept” of the restaurant. I’d once seen him snort cocaine like the whores I used to hit off. I once laughed with him about the oddball customers that would walk in with their eyeballs bulging out of their skulls because they didn’t understand the concept. I once talked to him about finding a good man or woman and holding on to her like I’d failed to do at least once and seen some of my friends succeed in doing. He listened and nodded. I felt like a sage. Worth a nickel but worth a shit at least. Now he was not quite firing me. Laying me off. I found myself looking at his t-shirt.

Hours later, the dishwasher, with his limp and hopeful smile would ask me for Sprite. We spoke in Spanish that would’ve made Patrizia proud. I wanted to tell him the place was fucked. Finished. Terminado. No mas. Ido con el viento. Swear all that sombitch would’ve done is smile and limp and wash them goddamn pints and wines and waters and rocks. That smile. Like Bonnie looking at Clyde for the last time.

I guess it all sorta’ served to make me think of what I’d done up to that point. I’d studied things. Hell, I’d even studied things I believed in. And for worse or for better, I’d left ‘em for something else. And here I was.

Old man, look at my life. 28 and there’s so much…well…I’ve done some things…but…not quite all I wanna’ do…y’know?

Laid off? ‘Cause…

nah, I won’t trouble you with that again.

I tried the early Elliott and it only made me tired. Nostalgic. Orn’ry.

I opted for Lightnin’ Sam into Jimmie Rodgers. Olden type shit. Tumblin’ things. Damn it made me yearn for…

(HEY!!! DO NOT make those kinds of phone-calls!)

I missed Ryan and Paulie Balls. I missed Nicky. The kids that knew and still know. They were out there. But everybody’s out there. Maybe it’s that 20’s kinda’ time.

It was 4 AM. Outside my window the streets were damp and quiet. It was now Friday. Most folks were asleep. I was a rooster. Halfway through the six. Wondering a little. Wondering a little what I was gonna’ do. Maybe, I thought, maybe take a few more risks. Maybe get better at making and returning phone-calls. Maybe get better at being honest, which would require me being more honest with myself. Maybe not worry so much. Maybe worry a little bit more. Find another job. Keep working. Learning. Living.

It made me smile a Jimmy-like smile to think of Jimmy wasted and sleeping in his apartment. Tomorrow, sure-as-shootin’, would be another day for that ol’ dog. He’d be grindin’. Preppin’. Cookin’. Drinkin’. Laughin’. Livin’ in his way.

“All good things,” he’d said.

They are, Jimmy. It is. We are.

We got laid-off today.

We’re still here.








NYC, NY (April 4, 2008)