Michael Rossi's Blog

Around the first of this year, I decided to quit my job. It was a relatively good job and I really liked the people with whom I worked; I just needed to change some things and that was a best, first step in doing so. Regardless of how enlightened I believe myself to be, change is still hard, and sometimes, the only way to make a change is to force one, so I left one job without another; never a smart move.

I have been unemployed before, but I have only been fired once; when I was sixteen and working as the dough-maker at a Pizza Hut. Newly emancipated at the time, I was living in a death-trap of a trailer, in an actual trailer park, with a girl much older than me that I had managed to impregnate. King of my white-trash fiefdom, I wondered if life would get any better than that… maybe it hasn’t?

My Pizza Hut job was simple; I arrived to work each morning, before the sun, and made the day’s dough in time for it to rise to its future as pizza. This came to an abrupt end when my easily-distracted, younger self, screwed up all of the dough for the entire day. The most unfortunate part of the fiasco was that I did it in such a way that nobody could tell that the dough was ruined, until every single order started coming back, thanks to its cardboard-like consistency. As a parent, I am pretty sure that I fed the future pizza maker for Chuck E. Cheese that day, because I am yet to have a slice from that overpriced, germ-buffet of a playground, that didn’t taste exactly like shipping material.

When the General Manager fired me, personally, I remember him using many expletives and insisting that his biggest regret was that, “firing me was worst thing he could do to me”. Convinced that I was the dumbest person he had ever met, he informed me that I would not be given my last check. He openly admitted that this was not legal, but he held out his arms and shook his head as he exclaimed, “I will not be able to live myself if I do.”

Fast forward a quarter-century and there I was; unemployed by my own hand and looking for a new future. I have been an adult (legally, at least) for a long time, so not having a job is kind of a rarity for me, but it has happened. In the past, I would do as so many others during these times; sit around and shoot out resumes, while hoping the universe would send me a new job.

Once, it even happened in the summer and I told the stay-at-home moms at the pool I frequented during those lazy afternoons that I was a retired dildo model. They knew this was a lie the moment I emerged from the water with my shorts stuck to my body. At least I had a great tan.

This time, I decided that I was going to stay productive until I found a job that might make me happy. An added benefit to this plan was that I would have some new experiences to write about. Luckily, in our modern economy, there are plenty of options for making money without an actual job. Thanks to the efforts of “free-market” lobbying over the last twenty years, many of the jobs that companies once relied upon have been relegated to temporary work agencies.

Note: I would like nothing more than to write two thousand words here on the destruction of the middle class caused by this shift to temporary workers, but this is my blog and not my soapbox, so I’ll just hope you take a minute and research the thought on your own. I won’t hold my breath.

My first temporary job was for a contractor friend that was remodeling a house. I thought I was in pretty good physical condition until I spent a day manually removing a roof. Just in case you ever decide to become a roofer, there is something you should know; there are muscles in your body that you only use for tearing off roofs and they turn to internal molten slag the first time you use them.

I tried to find fun in the roof job, so when an ironically rousing AC/DC song came over the headphones, my tear-off tool became a Gibson SG, as I powered my way through Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, while straddling the apex of an exposed gable. A little, old lady walking by stopped to stare, so I threw her some devil horns and stuck out my tongue. She merely shook her head and moved on, but I decided then and there to make an addition to my growing list of life-rules.

New life-rule #47: Take a few moments every day to play music too loud and pretend you are Angus Young – you will feel good, but be prepared, should you choose to do so in public; not everyone will be a fan and you just might break your neck.

In between construction work, I did some jobs for a local temp agency. Not unlike this blog post, it took biting my lip not to explain to the woman managing the agency that her business model was ruining America. Considering the other applicants I observed while in her office, I probably could have jumped up on that soapbox and still been put to work regardless.

I did a few different jobs for the temp agency, but my favorite by far, was working at a large automobile auction. I showed up for Auction Day and the place was a madhouse. There are hundreds of used car dealership representatives running around and you have to weave through them, as you slowly work the car you are driving toward the main auction area.

Used car salesmen are a stereotype, and like all stereotypes, there are many that fit perfectly and a few exceptions. Among these men, there seemed to be a moratorium on kindness, or even smiling, as if they only used those things when selling. I, personally, have made a habit of smiling at strangers lately, just to see how many smile back, and the return on my smile investment has never been lower than in that large group of used car salesman.

The best part of working at the auction was driving the cars. I drove everything from Mini Coopers to Mini Vans and even a piloted a Corvette. I was the only person in my group that knew how to operate a manual transmission, so they kept pulling me out of one car to take over for some flabbergasted person after another, staring at a stick-shift like a dog stares at a ceiling fan.

Some of the cars were in terrible condition, and some were like new. Regardless of the state, I drove those cars with the same care I typically give a rental car – none. Many of the cars were actual rental cars being auctioned off after fifteen thousand miles were put on them, which made me wonder if the future owners would even know that they had been rentals. Cars you don’t actually own, like hookers, may be fun to rent; but you should never… ever… buy one.

As luck would have it, I even drove a beige, late nineties Nissan, exactly like the one my first wife owned. I imagined it was the one, as I allowed the memories (aided by the fumes) to wash over me. I really do think it was the exact car, and momentarily considered taking a picture of the interior and sending it to my seventeen-year-old son, to inform him that I had found the actual car in which he was conceived. He is currently shopping for his first car and I would offer to buy it for him. When my son tells his friends, “My dad is a nightmare”, he really means it.

By the end of the day, I had decided I was going to embark upon a journey of discovery with the temporary workers of America. Like a minimum-wage combination of Anthony Bourdain and Dorothea Lange, I was going to spend a year working with the lowest rung of America’s barely employed, and then write a book about it.

Admittedly, not all of the people I worked with had stories worth writing about. The vans which ferried us drivers around the auction were often filled with the distinct odor of booze, cigarettes, and crack-breath, but I suppose you are going to have that too. At least they weren’t at the pool; developing their tans on an unemployment or welfare check.

But alas, my career as a ground-breaking gonzo writer; documenting the plight of American temp workers would have to wait. Upon returning to my car and retrieving my phone, I found that I had a message from a prospective employer offering an exciting new job doing exactly what I wanted.

I did enjoy my short time with the temp workers. Not only did I learn a much-needed lesson in humility, but humanity as well. I will never forget the way people looked at me while I did the work; it was a strange combination of mistrust and irrelevance. I could tell that they either saw me as a person taking away a real job, or more likely; that they didn’t see me as a real person at all.

New life-rule #48: Always see people. All people. No exceptions.

When I consider the way I have thought of myself as better than another, based entirely on the arbitrary fact that my job was better paid, I think of Colin Powell, because he said it best – “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”

 

Post Script: Shortly after my illustrious career as a dough-maker came to an end, the wise men at the Pizza Hut Corporation began shipping pre-made, frozen dough to all of its outlets, thereby eliminating my old job. I would like to think I played a part in that decision. I would also like to think that my old General Manager came up with the idea, and was made an executive, all thanks to the lesson he learned from my dough catastrophe.

You are welcome Pizza Hut. Can I have my last check now?

Although I am in no way an expert, I enjoy some art, and when I find myself downtown with some time to kill, I’ll hit the museum for a couple of hours. Admittedly, it is the history aspect of fine art that I appreciate the most, but some pieces do have an effect on me for creative or personal reasons. Among these few is a painting called, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion, by John Martin, and it has always been my favorite. I have owned several prints of the painting over the years and a copy sits framed on my wall right now.

Waters of Oblivion is based on the fictional story of a man named Sadak, who in order to save his wife from an evil Sultan, must obtain magical water from the source of a great river. The journey is considered impossible, but Sadak succeeds nevertheless, and not only saves his wife, but manages to destroy the Sultan and become Sultan himself. The tale is a little simple and Horatio Alger-ish, but it was written about 250 years ago, so what are you going to do.

Although he is the subject of the painting, Sadak takes up little space at the bottom of the frame, in order to illustrate how epic a challenge he must overcome. By the detail and definition of his figure, you know that Sadak is exhausting every ounce of strength he possesses, just to rest for a moment, while hanging desperately off of a jagged cliff. He looks beaten and his task impossible, but he finds strength in love and the shading of his very distant goal impresses upon the observer that he will make the river’s mouth, and thus save his wife.

I bring up Oblivion, because I could not stop staring at the painting this weekend, as I sat there in the living room where it hangs. I wasn’t lounging away a Sunday afternoon, as I often do when trying to write a post for one of my blogs, or a book chapter; I was attempting to complete a project for Alcoholics Anonymous. While completing this task, it occurred to me how ironic it was, that I was working on this particular project on Valentine’s Day.

As you probably know, there are twelve steps in AA that you have to “work” if you expect the program to help you make massive changes. What you may not know, is that while some of these steps are as easy as making an admission, others require real research and homework.

Among these is Step 4, and it involves making “searching and moral inventories” of your life.  One of these inventories is called the sex list, and it is exactly what it sounds like – a list of the people with whom you have had sex.  Alcoholics Anonymous loses a great many prospects at this stage. How would you feel about making a detailed moral inventory of yourself (including every sexual encounter), putting it down on paper, and then sharing it with a stranger?

Note: Admittedly, most peo ple don’t write about the sex list step, and then post it publicly on their blog for the world to read, but as I have focused a great deal of my writing on honestly sharing my deepest, darkest secrets… Why stop now? At least I’m not as big a whore as Lindsey Lohan ; she leaked her “real” AA sex list two years ago in an effort to stay in the spotlight. I will not be sharing my actual list, so you can stop reading if that is you are hoping for.

My first and most obvious concern over creating a sex list for AA was that there was no way I was going to be able to remember all of the girl’s names. To this, my sponsor replied that I should use descriptions in the place of names. This has led to such classy titles as, Singer in the window-sill of my restaurant, Underage Girl I let drink, and who could forget; The Girl from the foursome with the swinger couple… Me apparently; since I am calling her- The Girl. I made up a name for her in my book, but I have absolutely no idea, as to her actual name.

I have to admit, I thought that making this sex list was a complete waste of time. What wisdom could I possibly glean from remembering every single meaningless tryst?  It made sense to consider the many times I have cheated and lied; a way of owning up to my failures. But, it actually seemed a little disrespectful that one-night-stands would be on the same list, with equal billing, as encounters that led to divorces or destroyed families.

And then, I started to write the list…

As a writer, I speak in metaphor a little too often, and the best comparison I can conjure for my list of past lust and love is the Dead Sea. Over many years, this great body has slowly lost its most precious resource through evaporation, leaving behind massive deposits of once-organic materials. No creature can exist in this environment, because life cannot survive amongst the remnants of so many things long dead.  By making the sex list, I am beginning to mine those remnants from my past. Like minerals, some of these carnal remains are useful and some are not, but they all need to come out if I expect life to ever flourish there again.

When it comes to love, I have always waited for something better, when I might face a “dare to be great” moment, like Sadak. I felt that if I kept looking, I would someday need to scale an impossible, metaphorical cliff, and if I was successful, it would prove to me that that this was real. What I should have embraced were the many times I could have dared to be decent, dared to change, or dared to stay.

I have to confess that I used to see happy families on social media and it made me angry. It doesn’t take writing a sex list to figure out that this was just jealousy. However, if I have learned anything lately – it is that admitting you are wrong is only half the battle; you have to do the work.

To that end, I say this: I am finally willing to submit that I was wrong all along. Sometimes, evil sultans look a lot like a good time, jagged cliffs are often shaped like kid’s soccer games, and epic journeys involve long periods of sober boredom, with true victory coming only at the very end.

Post Script: The making of the sex list has come with more phone calls and texts requesting clarity than my sponsor was used to. I guess I keep looking for technicalities, and he has become frustrated on several occasions. Here is an actual conversation between me and my sponsor:

Me:  Wait… What? I have to put hookers on the sex list?

Sponsor:  Yes Mike, prostitutes go on the sex list.

Me:  But why? It was only for business, I always wore a condom, and I gave great tips (pun intended, because this process does not appear to be making me any more mature).

Sponsor:  Ugghh…  Just do it Mike!

Me:  But, I didn’t know them. How could I have caused harm if I didn’t even know them?

Sponsor (clearly irritated):  Were you married, or in a relationship when you visited these hookers?

Me. Umm… OK… Thanks.

Stupid healing…

Last night, while watching a special I had recorded, I was reminded of one of my favorite Chinese fables. The ancient story is a Taoist proverb about an old farmer whose only horse runs away. All of the villagers are sad for him, but the farmer remains calm and says, “We’ll see.” When the horse returns, it brings several wild horses with it, tripling the farmers stable. “How wonderful!” the villagers exclaim at his good fortune, but again the farmer replies, “We’ll see.” Later, the farmer’s son falls off the horse, breaking his leg. Once again, the villagers are sad for him, and again, the farmer says, “We’ll see.” The story ends with the military coming to town to conscript local boys into the army, but the farmer’s son is overlooked because he has a broken leg.

“How wonderful” … “We’ll see.” – You get the point (I hope).

Here is the story that had me thinking in Chinese proverb last night:

A child was born in 1947, and lived in a very poor suburb of San Francisco. He and his three siblings were raised by their single mother and grandmother. Shortly after his birth, the boy developed Rickets; a bone disease caused by a lack of Vitamin D.

As the child grew, he developed bowled legs and pigeon-toes, due to the illness. The family’s only income was from their mother’s work in a psychiatric ward and they could not afford the surgery that could fix the problem. The child suffered years of physical pain, as well as ridicule from neighborhood children. His grandmother would take down the curtain rods each night and strap them to the child, so that they might straighten his legs.

All of the people felt bad for the poor child, but the local wise man did not. He simply said, “We’ll see.”

The boy became determined to fix the problem and he began limping up and down the fence that surrounded his house, balancing himself on the posts, in an effort to force a proper walk. He did this so often that the grass died and the ground returned to dirt along the path which he had created. Through sheer determination, the boy eventually fixed his walk, bringing an end to the pain and ridicule.

All of the people were happy for the boy, but the local wise man was not. He simply said, “We’ll see.”

Finally accepted by his peers, the teenager joined a notorious street gang. He quickly became embroiled in the petty criminality of the street gang and was sent to a local youth detention center for fighting. He was forced to spend a week at the facility, away from his family.

All of the people were concerned for the teenager’s future, but the local wise man was not. He simply said, “We’ll see.”

In an effort to keep the young man out of trouble, his grandmother arranged for him to become the manager for his high school football team. After a short while, the young man realized that he was at least as good as the actual players and became a member of the team as well.

After high school, the young man enrolled in San Francisco City College and continued to play football. He dominated the competition and transferred to the University of Southern California with a full scholarship, where he broke many records and even won the Heisman Trophy by the greatest margin of victory in that award’s history.

The man went on to an extremely successful career in the NFL that lasted eleven record-breaking seasons. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985, and became a hero to many children. After football, the man found even greater financial success in sports commentary and endorsements, as well as multiple movie and television roles.

Over the course of his life, the man would love and marry two beautiful women and father five children in all. Although one would die at age two in a tragic accident, the other four wanted for nothing.

All of the people were now convinced; this man’s life is a success! He is a hero! Can’t you see that old man? The local wise man could not. He simply said, “We’ll see.”

On New Year’s morning in 1989, our hero’s second wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, burst from behind some bushes at the front of her mansion and ran wildly toward the gate screaming, “He is going to kill me!” She had a bloody lip, blackened eye, and swollen face. She was running to the gate so that she could hit the button that would allow police to gain entrance to the compound.

The officers had again been called on a disturbance (one of many times), but were about to leave, because they had been informed by the housekeeper that they were not needed after all. Nicole just kept repeating to police, over and over, that O.J. had threatened to kill her.

O.J. Simpson was arrested and finally convicted of spousal abuse. He was fined less than $500 and given 120 hours of community service, which he mostly avoided by raising money for the Ronald McDonald House.

All of the people admitted that they had finally seen the wisdom of the old man. Their hero was not perfect, but surely he had learned the error of his ways. They went to the now very old wise man, to congratulate him on his great wisdom. The wise man shook his head, and again simply said, “We’ll see.”

The End… sort of.

The rest is well known. Nicole Brown was stabbed to death along with Ronald Goldman in June of 1994. Goldman was a friend of Nicole’s, and a waiter from the restaurant where Brown and her mother had just eaten. He was at her house that night to return some eye-glasses that had been left at the restaurant, when he happened upon the crime. O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995, but found responsible for the deaths in a civil trial in 1997, and forced to pay over $30 Million in damages to the Goldman and Brown families. This should be the end of our story, but it really isn’t

As a narcissistic writer, I of course have to make everything about me. In order to explain this next part, I am required to make a confession. In the winter of 1997, I was newly married to my first wife, and because we did not yet have a family, we went out quite a bit. We would drink at our local tavern nearly every night, and as relationships never flourish in such environments, there was a lot of drunken fighting.

On one of those nights, we had been drinking heavily, and after leaving the bar, we decided to get something to eat. I have no idea what ridiculous slight brought on the fight, but by the time we were in the drive-thru, we were pushing and shoving, and I was yanking her by her hair. This is hard to admit, but my memory tells me that I was doing it violently.

The car behind us witnessed the “scuffle” and called 911. By the time we were at the window to retrieve the food, our car was surrounded by police, and I was being yanked out and hand-cuffed. My wife begged the officers not to arrest me, but they told her that they had no choice and it was not up to her.

I went to jail and had to be bailed out by anyone other than my young wife. Ironically, it was the bartender that bailed me out, ensuring even better tips in the coming nights. Of course there would be other nights; this incident was obviously my wife’s fault and the heavy drinking had nothing to do with it.

As I was being released, I was given detailed instructions as to what had to happen next. The officer stressed that I should not contact with my wife in any way, regardless of her feelings, for the next few days. He told me that they would be checking to make sure I did not, and if I did, I would be immediately arrested and things would get a whole lot worse for me.

At the time, I thought this was ridiculous, and the officer oddly agreed with me. He proceeded to tell me that since the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, new rules regarding domestic abuse had been put in place and officers were under extreme pressure to enforce those rules vigorously. A domestic violence murder that had not been proven in court had effected the changes in procedure for which many advocates had been begging for years; strange, when you think about it.

Since that night, I have often wondered how much pain has been avoided in this country because of what happened to Brown and Goldman. This is not to say that O.J.‘s “laughably alleged” crime has saved many people’s lives; he is one-hundred-percent the problem, and in my opinion, deserves to spend what remains of his life in prison. It only makes me wonder why so many have to be sacrificed for changes to occur.

The charges against me were dropped in court and the police were never again required in my relationship disputes. I have, by no means, led anything close to perfect life, but I did not go on to a future of chronic domestic abuse, like many do.

If the wise man in my story were real, I think he would say that human interaction is far too complex a system to allow judgements from any human being. I would tell him that I finally understand that we are incapable of appreciating the unintended consequences of our actions. I would also say that I will no longer pretend to understand why things happen; I will merely live my life the best I can without judgement and simply hope for the best.

To that he would probably just say, “We’ll see.”

Some of my favorite writing is meant to be spoken and by that I obviously mean speeches. Specifically, I like commencement speeches. Important older people, typically alumni for that particular school, attempt to reduce a lifetime of experience into ten minutes of advice and platitudes, with just the right amount of comedy sprinkled on top.

One of these great speeches is Mary Schmidt’s, Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young, and I have been known to quote it from time to time. On the outside chance that you believe it takes more than an internet meme to absorb another person’s knowledge, I have included the link to the text of Schmidt’s speech. If you would like to listen to Mary’s speech, you probably already have. Baz Luhrmann turned it into a 1999 hit song titled, Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen. Mary’s are simple, but timeless ideas on making a life worth living, and if you have never heard them, I will consider this post a success if you read her words in lieu of the crap that I have written.

Mary’s Speech

I mention Mary’s speech because it isn’t real. She really wrote it, but it was actually just an exercise on what she would say if she were ever asked to give a commencement speech. I think that is a fine idea, so I have decided to try it for myself.

For this exercise, I was going to write a fake commencement speech to a fake college, but then it occurred to me that there is a huge swath of young people entering this unprotected world that will get no such luxury, so I decided to write to them instead. Although this is written to all high school students, it is specifically meant to serve those that will soon join the ranks of the nearly 70% of Americans whose only degree is from the school of hard knocks – my Alma mater.

Note to my writer friends: As the following words are meant to be spoken, I have broken more grammar rules than Don King on a bender. Please, try and keep your eye rolling to a minimum.

To the Class of 2016.

Welcome.

You have spent the last twelve years having facts, or what passed as facts at the time – fed, lectured, and when need be, slammed into your skull by repetitive blunt force. You likely believed that the information was useless… and you are mostly correct, but do not worry, these facts are stored in the brain cells that you will kill off first anyway… probably tonight.

Out of respect for your sore thinker, I will give you just two more of these facts and fill the remainder of our time with personal conjecture.

Here is the first fact: Look to the two people closest to you. Now, you need understand that one of you is totally screwed… or at least that is what the world is telling you. One in three current high school graduates will not go to college. This is not some future possibility that your group, as a whole, can escape through a change in attitude, behavior, or choices; it is a fact.

Additionally, pretend for a moment that you are Michonne from The Walking Dead, withdraw your razor-sharp Katana, and then metaphorically slice the remaining graduate just below the armpits. The head, shoulders, and arms that just flopped to the ground had great intentions, but for one reason or another will fail to graduate from college.

To the just over half of you that have more courses, credit hours, and keggers, for which to look forward; please sit quietly and stare at your phone. You are the future and every facet of American life is geared toward you and your goals. I can think of no aspect of media or entertainment over the last twenty years that has not promoted the “only college equals happiness” narrative, and although they are probably right, this has hardly moved the needle on graduation rates. Maybe it is time to start telling kids that they can be more than motorcycle mechanics if they don’t go to college.

For those graduates that can’t sit still, thanks to the Adderall, feel free to retrieve a mirror and practice your duck-face while I speak. This appears to be a very important skill for your immediate future and I am in no position to judge.

I am not here today to explain why you should go to college, in some altruistic hope that I convince a handful of you to do so. I suppose most people, if given the opportunity to speak your entire class, would use this time toward that end. By detailing the financial, social, and health benefits of a continued education, they would consider themselves successful if they inspire even a handful of those present to divert their current path. This would be a wasted opportunity – Nearly one and a half million of you will never get a college degree and there are no words pretty enough to change that.

Now… To the rest of the class of 2016.

I think I’ll start by complimenting you for being right. You probably haven’t heard that much in the last four years, considering your test scores, but credit should be given when credit is due. You were spot-on all along; most of your teachers… were in fact… poorly designed robots.

Feel free to congratulate yourself for being correct, but don’t blame the teachers for their mechanical shortcomings. They taught you in the fashion they themselves were taught, and when those methods were developed, we were still using rotary phones. This is often referred to as Chalk and Talk, but I like to call it: Carrot-Stick-Rinse-Repeat.

I am not trying to insult your teachers – just the opposite. Most of them do better than expected, when you consider how America spends its money on education. I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be for a young teacher to watch as their very limited resources are spent trying to level the playing field, instead of changing the rules of the game. As I look across this crowd of misfits, hooligans, and vandals, I can’t help but feel that every one of your teachers deserves a private Caribbean island for annual recovery.

The fact is that we are just now beginning to understand that your education would have been better served if it had been offered a buffet, instead of a box lunch, but that doesn’t do you any good. These advances will help your children, but it is over for you. You get to throw your cap today and never walk into a four-walled classroom ever again.

Pause for cheering.

However, this does not mean you get to stop being taught lessons. If you are not going to college, your real learning has just begun and most of you have unwittingly signed up for the hardest class schedule possible. It won’t feel like a schedule at first. In the beginning, it will feel like freedom, but believe me, you are on a well-worn path and it is getting narrower by the minute.

There are, of course, exceptions. Some of you are already wealthy, thanks to hard working parents or grand-parents. A few of you are so physically attractive that life will hand you everything you desire in powder-blue boxes topped with little white bows. And some, merely a handful, will just get lucky. On that last one, it has been my experience that luck is a fickle mistress that will cheat on you eventually, but you go ahead and rock that shit while it lasts – it’s a fun ride.

To those that are not privileged, pretty or lucky, I ask you not resent these people. I don’t care how fat, ugly, stupid or useless you feel – There are about two BILLION people on this planet that would give anything to have your depressing life.

Pause.

Right about here, in the guts of this speech, is where I am supposed to inspire you by saying something like, “Listen to your heart and follow your dreams”. Sorry, that would just be more horse-shit meant for college-bound graduates. Inspiring you right now would be a waste of my breath and your endorphins. Trust me – Your heart is an idiot and your dreams are liars.

Instead of inspiring you, I will lay out your very limited paths.

Some of you are about to enter military service. For those that are, you don’t need me to discuss the patriotism, stability, and public service involved in this endeavor – You already know that part, and I am very grateful for your sacrifice. But, I will mention a part of military service that successfully touches on one of the most important aspects of a happy life, and quite possibly the key to bright future for all of you…

Fellowship.

When we hear the word fellowship, we think of church or business orders, but that is just the smallest piece of an iceberg, bobbing above the water. Fellowship is simply belonging to a group larger than one, and if you believe that your days of anxiety over wanting to belong – end today, you are sadly mistaken. You may think you don’t need fellowship, but most of you will not get that option; fellowship will find you. The question is… What kind?

Some of you will find fellowship at the bar where your friends and co-workers gather. You will be judged by your ability to consume and this will require much practice. It will feel good to belong, and this will probably be the place where you meet your future spouse. This is also the place where you are most likely to meet the person with whom you will cheat on that first spouse.

Do your best to find fellowship in the places that serve you – Not the other way around.

Those of you who don’t join the service will still need to get jobs so that you can eat – unless of course, you plan on living your life on welfare. This is not a good idea.

Don’t get me wrong; I am all for taking advantage of the system, but welfare has become how you stay ahead – not get ahead. You have to already be rich to use welfare effectively. Welfare for the poor is drying up faster than a California lawn and our country is one disaster away from sacrificing all who drink from it in the name of triage. Stay away from welfare unless you are already rich.

In reality, most of you will be relegated to careers in government, service, manufacturing or construction, because these are jobs that college graduates do not want. That is just the way it will be. I don’t care what color your skin or your collar is -You are the bright future’s immigrant farm worker. Sorry, somebody had to tell you.

Now that I have you sufficiently depressed, it is time to give you some hope. If you are not depressed, I will take some of whatever you are on… please… I mean it… give me your doctor/drug dealer’s phone number after we are done here.

Although they may give you their low-end jobs out of necessity, corporations don’t care about you; they hardly care about employees with degrees. Corporations only care about shareholders, and statistically speaking, you will never own stock. I am not saying that you should hurt anyone, but definitely use them. Try some different jobs under the guise that you are in it for the long-haul, and when you find something you like; figure out a way to do it for yourself. There are huge tranches of opportunity considered too small or risky for corporate America and this is where your real prospects lie.

The only way to do this is to throw out old morals and presumptions, and then band together by seeking others on your path. Actively look for businesses owned by entrepreneurs that went to the same college we did – none. Vote for politicians that went to our school, and when you don’t see one on the ballot, write your name there. I don’t think we can do much worse than our current leaders.

I challenge you to spend the next ten years learning everything you can about the world in which you live, AND THEN, AND ONLY THEN – should you listen to your heart and follow your dreams. You may still fail, but if you figure out a way to work together, you might have a chance, as a group, to reverse the course of your declining reality. You do not have to exist on America’s bottom rung. The ladder itself is an illusion and would fall apart if you did not support it. Real slaves don’t need to be held by chains – they go willingly.

This may sound offensive to those with college educations, but it should not. I appreciate the sacrifices you made for that degree, and almost every adult for whom I care possess a college education, but that does not make them better, regardless of what the job sites say. This country has spent far too long propagating the myth that only college graduates are good enough, while simultaneously making a respectable college degree harder to attain for the lower to middle class.

Pause.

I agree that these ideas are a little heavy handed for a high school graduation, so in closing, I’ll leave you with a much simpler truth that has nothing to do with education…

From the moment you were born, you were made responsible for only two things; your body and the environment in which you allow it to exist. You will likely add other people as time moves forward, but these two are your primary responsibilities, and if you can’t hold yourself up, you will be too weak to lift anyone else, and too heavy to be carried when you need it, especially at the end.

This leads us to our second fact: You are going to die. Statistically, five of you will die today. Now, assuming you are not one of those five that die today, tomorrow, or the immediate future, you will need your body when you get older. My point is that you should try to be careful what you put into that body and how you use it…

Because trust me; life IS like a box of chocolates – If you can’t manage to have a little self-control…

It isn’t going to last very long.

Congratulations and good luck… You are going to need it.

Whether it is families taking a well-deserved vacation, or the lonely business traveler, you meet many different people when you work in a hotel. Most of these are just regular folks trying to make it through life with some measure of enjoyment. If they stay long enough, their idiosyncrasies begin to show and you learn pretty quickly what kind of people they are. This has always been one of my favorite aspects of hospitality and I will miss it the most. I have said many times that I hate people, but this just isn’t true. The only thing that makes our lives bearable is each other and it only took me forty-one years to figure that out.

I have also met some famous people in the hotels I have worked. As a young waiter, I served humanitarian and author, Terry Waite. He spent 1,760 days being held captive in Lebanon in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Mr. Waite was in Saint Louis for a lecture and eating by himself. I would have not known it was him had it not been for an adjoining table that offered to buy his dinner. I thought it would be funny, at the end of his meal, to ask, “Is there anything else I can bring you… bread… water?” He did not think it was funny.

I went on to manage that restaurant, and as the manager, I was always the highest ranking employee on the property in the evenings. In the business we call this being the – MOD (Manager On Duty). It really was a pain in the ass, because I was constantly being called away from my primary duties to deal with some nonsense going on with the hotel guests. Let me tell you, some crazy shit can happen in hotels.

One evening, I received a call from the front desk telling me that they had received several complaints coming from the top floor. Apparently, there was a “large black man” jogging up and down the hallway. It was very busy in the restaurant that night, so I stormed off reluctantly to deal with the problem.

As I rode the elevator to the top floor, I wondered once again; what in the hell was wrong with people? It was Memorial Day weekend and the weather was decent; surely there were better places to jog than a hotel hallway. I figured the guy must be hammered or on drugs. I had dealt with that before, and had seen more than one hotel guest dragged out by police looking haggard, half naked, and delusional. When addicts go on crazy benders, they like to do it in hotels for some reason. I think a part of them knows it will end badly and they would prefer that the madness only be witnessed by strangers.

The elevator doors opened just as the running man was turning around in the foyer to go back the other direction. The “large black guy” was none other than Walter Payton – The Sweetness himself. They started calling him “The Sweetness” in college, because he was a nice guy and his running was ssssswwwweeeet.

The reason we were so busy that weekend was the big CART race at the then-new Gateway Racetrack. Walter Payton was part owner of Payton – Coyne Racing and was in town for the Saturday competition. Most of the team was staying in our hotel because of its proximity to the track, but none of us were aware that Walter Payton was among them. We knew he was in St. Louis for the race, but assumed he would be staying in one of the fancier hotels downtown.

Mr. Payton stopped running when he saw me. Maybe it was because my name-tag identified me as the manager and he realized that I was probably there for him. It is also possible that he could see by the look on my face that I was a huge football fan that had played the game every chance I had, from childhood through high-school, and remembered exactly where I was the moment the Bears won their one and only Super Bowl.

Note: I am unsure if I am even allowed to publish the words “Super Bowl”. Please don’t come after me NFL lawyers; I am poor and you will get nothing. The name seems germane to the story, and to be honest, I want to punch somebody in the face every time I hear the phrase “The Big Game” on the radio this time of year. The NFL seems to have forgotten that there was once a time when they were ecstatic to hear the words “Super Bowl” in any type of media.

People tend to gush and become flummoxed when meeting more famous versions of themselves, but I always swore I would never do that. And then, when theory and practice collided, I did exactly that. Oh well; I got to meet Walter Payton. He actually wasn’t that much bigger than me, and his voice didn’t match, but he was certainly powerful and intimidating.

“The Sweetness” was known for his relentless running style. If you were going to tackle Walter Payton, you had better be prepared to pay, because he was going to lower his head, stick out his arm, and try to run right through you. His most famous quote is, “Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make that linebacker pay. It carries into all facets of your life. It’s okay to lose, to die, but don’t die without trying, without giving it your best.” His autobiography is aptly titled just that; Never Die Easy.

This story comes to mind because Walter Payton struggled with addiction, just as I do. Thirteen years of never giving up on a play left his body destroyed and he became addicted to painkillers. My body is in pretty good shape (considering), but my mind most definitely is not and I have been dependent on alcohol, for decades, as a primary tool to shut it down.

Once again, I have backed myself into a corner and there is nothing left to do, but fight my way out. There will be no crutches or hiding this time; I will have to do the work – sober. I anticipate that this will be a terribly long battle and the only thing I can do is lower my head, stick out my arm, and charge with my legs pumping as if my life depends on it, because frankly, it does.

People like to say that recovery is a daily struggle, but I am not even there yet. Right now, it is an hourly struggle. It seems to me that the ultimate goal here is to re-train my brain to properly love; first a higher power, and then myself, and maybe if I am lucky, somebody else. I am told that this can take years, so I do not dare dream that far ahead, but my mind has always done what it wants and it gives me unsolicited glimpses of what life can be like if I succeed. I have to admit, it looks pretty sweet.

The higher power stuff probably sounds strange coming from me and I cannot disagree. In David Foster Wallace’s famous speech, This Is Water, he said, “There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” I have worshiped oblivion for far too long.

I did not tell Walter Payton that he needed to stop jogging. I talked to him for a couple of minutes and asked if there was anything I could have sent up to his room. He requested some hot tea and something light to eat (I don’t remember what he wanted to eat), so I told him I would have it up right away.

When I returned to the restaurant and told the staff what had just happened, the kid working room service nearly jumped out of his shoes to get Payton’s tray together. As he sprinted off to the server’s isle to make the order, I stopped him.

“Hey Justin”, I yelled, because I just couldn’t help myself, “Make sure you take extra sugar.”

Post Script: Walter Payton died of a rare bile duct cancer two years after I got the chance to meet him. After his death, a biography containing some details of his addiction was published and it angered a great many of Payton’s fans. They didn’t want his legacy as a great player and philanthropist tarnished by his addiction and I find that insulting. When you love someone, for whatever reason, you have to love every part of them – from their massive imperfections, to their smallest idiosyncrasies. Although the Payton family did not agree with all of the assertions in the biography, in a statement to the press they simply said, “Walter, like all of us, wasn’t perfect.”

Aint that the truth.

There is no message to this story. My writing has been rather depressing lately and this is simply an attempt to be funny. It is a bit on the vulgar side, so be warned if you can’t stomach that sort of thing.

When I was in my late-twenties, I was a managing the food and beverage operations for a hotel in downtown St. Louis. The hotel had about four-hundred rooms, two restaurants, and an expansive banquet center. The building was a converted apartment tower across from the Gateway Arch, and although old, it had a homey charm.

I shared responsibility for the facilities with guy named Thomas. We were the same age, but that was about all we had in common. My education in restaurants had begun when I was a teenager working in fast-food and the closest thing I had to a graduation was losing millions on a fine-dining restaurant of my own design. Thomas had started in construction, but switched direction early and had recently received a degree from one of the most prestigious hospitality schools in the country. We had very different ideas on how to manage, but we got along well and made for a good balance.

What created this balance was how different our personalities were. Thomas was the quintessential example of a good and decent person, and although I was a mostly decent person as well, my self-education and juvenile sense of humor would cause him to shake his head often. I probably expended more effort than I should have trying to corrupt Thomas, and on occasion, I managed to succeed. This was one of those times.

You see, I am one of the most immature adults you will ever meet that doesn’t have brain damage. I actually do possess a damaged brain, but these are two different things (I think). I blame my immaturity on the fact that I was legally emancipated when I turned sixteen. I was keenly aware that I knew everything at age sixteen, and since the judge made it legal, I saw no reason to mature any further.

I mention this immaturity because it will help you understand why Thomas and I got along so well, while being so different; I was his immaturity release. I have served in this role many times – this very serious world seems to need idiots like me, from time to time, if for no other reason than to help others feel confident about their life choices. I have referred to this phenomenon in the past; I call it the Jerry Springer Effect.

One afternoon, while Thomas and I were in our office debating the next week’s schedule, there was a knock at our door. It was Kate; the hotel’s human resource director.

“Hi guys”, she said cheerfully, “do you have a second?”

Kate was absolutely beautiful in that wear-no-makeup-girl-next-door sort of way. There wasn’t a man in that hotel that didn’t harbor a secret crush on her, and I dare say several of the women did as well. It wasn’t just her natural beauty; Kate also possessed the infallible sweetness and naivety of an Ann Martin character.

My crush was stronger than most and I am more than a little embarrassed to admit that I would often fail to catch key points in staff meetings, because I was busy imagining Kate pulling out the pony tail in her long, brown hair, ripping off her glasses, and brushing away desktop items as she crawled atop it in a single, wanton swoop.

“We always have time for you.” I replied, with the cheesy, cocky grin that you can really only achieve when you are in your twenties and have already known everything worth knowing for some time.

Kate went on to inform us that the St. Louis group that promoted downtown conventions was holding a Hospitality Olympics for the local hotels. The events would be things like-races with trays full of drinks, speed bed-making, and pancake flipping. She asked if we wanted to put together team, and as any distraction was good, we quickly decided it would be fun and agreed to put together a squad to represent the hotel.

“What do you want to call your team?” Kate asked.

My adolescent mind waits for moments like this, so I sprang into action.

“Big Cocks!” I screamed.

“Man Whores!” Thomas added, before Kate could even address my first request.

The conversation immediately deteriorated into a back and forth melee, with the sole purpose of upsetting Kate’s sensibilities. Her face became redder and redder, as Thomas and I fed on one another, firing one disgusting possibility after another in quick succession.

“The Hole Fillers!”

“The Glory Holers!”

Kate turned on her heal to storm out, as I fired my final and nastiest submission yet… ”My Finger Smells Like Your Girlfriend’s Pussy!”

Kate was almost out the door when I stopped her.

“Wait,” I yelled, getting up from my chair. “Come back… We’ll be serious… I promise.”

I had no intention of doing so- I wasn’t done. As you may have already guessed, I have a wonderfully terrible habit of taking things too far. Looking back on this story, I wonder how on earth I felt screaming sexual profanity at the sweet, beautiful, happily-married HR director for my employer was an “OK” thing to do. Kate returned hesitantly to the office as I mustered up my most serious face.

“How about… (dramatic pause)… The Shockers!” I finally said. As I said it, I raised both hands, with my index fingers and pinkies extended in classic devil-horns.

Just in case you don’t know, The Shocker is one of many sexual acts discussed by grown men (boys) over beers. These typically disgusting deeds are given clever names like Dirty Sanchez, Hot Carl, Cleveland Steamer and Rodeo Sex. Actually, Rodeo isn’t an act, it’s just whispering “This is how your sister likes it” when doing it from behind, and then trying to stay on for at least eight more seconds. Most men have never actually performed any of these nasty endeavors, but that never stops us from imagining scenarios where they might be implemented. I won’t even get started on The Flying Camel, Pirate Sex or Watertight.

The Shocker goes like this: when you are faced with business end of your girl, and with your fingers perched in a devil horn (more advanced versions use both the index and middle fingers), you thrust the larger finger(s) in the larger hole, and the pinky in the smaller; simultaneously. It is also called “Two in the pink and one in the stink”, but for my story, let’s stick with The Shocker.

Note: There is also a variety of this act using four fingers in a double peace sign called, The Spocker, in honor of the Vulcan farewell, but it has since been retired due to the passing of the great Leonard Nimoy.

Kate stood there for the longest time, just staring at me with a blank face that gave no indication as to what she was thinking. I started to wonder if I was about to be fired, when she finally spoke.

“Ohhhh… The Shockers… Like we will Shock them with how good we are… I love it!” Kate exclaimed excitedly, as she visibly rolled the idea around her pretty head. “The Shockers it is.”

After Kate was safely gone from our office, Thomas and I roared in laughter for at least fifteen minutes. We imagined that she would announce the name of our team at the next staff meeting and the joke would reach its embarrassing climax. Heads would shake, faces would redden and I would rightfully be blamed for the entire fiasco.

Much to our chagrin, Kate did not bring up the name in the next morning’s meeting. In fact, she failed to divulge the disgusting designation in any staff meetings over the next few weeks. During this time, on every occasion I was in Kate’s office or passed her in the hall, I would throw up the devil horns and quietly say “Go Shockers.” She smiled, and I could tell that she liked how excited I was about the upcoming event. It seemed to give her that special sense of satisfaction reserved for HR directors when they make an employee happy. It didn’t even occur to me at the time that I was subliminally tying the devil horns to the team name every time I threw them up.

The day of the competition eventually arrived, and our team-The Shockers, all showed up at the downtown park to participate. We were a bit let down that we had never gotten the staff meeting moment we were hoping for, but still got a good laugh every time our team name was announced over the loudspeaker. Everybody was well aware of the joke by now; even the Latino maids, who only knew about four words of English (or at least pretended to), understood what our name meant.

In the middle of the day, at one of the events, just after our name had been announced again, I heard a woman yelling from the sidelines where people had gathered to watch. I turned my head, and there stood the sweetest, prettiest, clean-minded HR director you have ever seen, with her arms raised high in the air and her hands held in full devil horns, proudly screaming:

“GO SHOCKERS!”

I stumbled through the sliding glass doors underneath the giant, brightly lit sign marked: EMERGENCY, and pushed forward toward the desk, leaning for momentum as if against the wind. In my hand I held the bucket that had become my best friend for the last four days. I had not been friends with the bucket long enough to give a face and call it Wilson, but I think it is safe to say I referred to him as Rolph.

The girl behind the counter jumped back as I plowed into the desk and slammed Rolph onto its surface. I had a million things to say, but all that would come out was, “I need help”. In retrospect, it probably sounded more like three grunts. There would be no waiting room for me.

The girl helped me sit down in a chair next to the desk and asked just a few basic questions before ushering me back; my name, date of birth, and why I was there. She quickly prepared two bracelets and attached them to my wrists. I could hardly stand, much less answer her questions, but she seemed to understand.

The reason for being in the emergency room that evening, was that once again my attempts to dissolve a lifetime of fear, shame, regret and self-hatred by dropping them in glasses of vodka like a couple of Alka-Seltzer had failed miserably (Oh, what a relief it isn’t). I had simply woken up one morning two weeks before and did not have the ability to face life any longer, so I just decided to drink and drink, alone on my couch, and hope that the world would just come down around me. I know… what a pussy.

I gave up on everything, including time. If I passed out at 10pm and woke up at 2am, I just started drinking again until the next time I passed out. I did this again and again until the couch became a prison.

Sounds delusional? You don’t know the half of it. If I told you the things that went through my mind during those two weeks, even the greatest miser among you would gladly contribute to a Kickstarter campaign to keep me in the most fashionable of straight-jackets for the remainder of my life.

Regardless, sometime around the two week mark I had a moment I like to call “falling awake” (the fact that I have a name for it probably says it all). That day, I rose to make the morning drink that might make it all go away, when the vodka suddenly tasted like poison. As I waited for the feeling to pass, so that I could get back on the road to nothingness, a ray of sanity penetrated my thoughts. When this happens, I can’t really remember how I got here, and I am shocked that it is happening at all.

With no other recourse, I stopped drinking. I have done this before and the price of stopping these benders involves days of uncontrollable shaking, sleeplessness, hallucinations, cold sweats and some vomiting. However; this time it came with something new – a complete shutdown of my ability to consume anything at all.

Within the first day, food was impossible and soon I could not even hold down a glass of water. By that evening, I had resorted to sucking on ice cubes in an attempt to get some moisture in my body. Unfortunately, after about four ice cubes I would be forced to reach for my new buddy Rolph and give them back. To add insult to injury, these returns would be so violent that my entire body would sweat as if I had just completed a high-intensity run; thereby robbing me of even more of my precious bodily fluids (you will have to have seen the 1960’s classic Dr. Strangelove to get that joke, but trust me-it’s funny).

We all take water for granted, but if you should ever find yourself in a situation where you cannot consume water, you will appreciate it in ways you never thought possible. As I laid on my prison/couch, trying to distract myself with television, I would fixate longingly every time a character would take a drink of anything and I would jealously listen to the dog lap water in the next room and it felt as if she were doing it right in my ear out of spite.

By the fourth day, I was able to consume neither food nor water, slept a total of five hours, lost fifteen pounds (I don’t recommend this diet), could barely move, and my heart was pounding so hard that it was all that I could hear. When it was dark and I was praying to a god I no longer believed in to just give me one hour of sleep, I began to see little animals scurrying around on the ground around me. These were not real.

Faced with another night of hell, one that I was uncertain I would survive, I went to the hospital. After many bags of fluids and medications, I began to feel human again. When they finally felt it was safe, an angel brought me a Popsicle. I would like to describe how magical that frozen flavored water tasted, but I am just not a good enough writer to do so. I would have traded the winning Powerball ticket for that Popsicle. As I consumed the heavenly treat, I began making promises.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a man of broken promises, but intend to keep this one if it kills me. I will never consume alcohol again for the rest of my life and I will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. There is nothing wrong with drinking if you are the kind of person that can, but I am just not one of those people. I have been sober for seven days and I will work to peel away each new day as if it is part of an eternal advent calendar with a priceless prize underneath each new slot.

When it was time to leave the hospital and remove the bracelets I had been given, I noticed something strange. On my right wrist was the large white band that listed my name, age, date of birth, as well as multiple bar-codes that linked to every bit of information about me. On my left was a simple yellow bracelet, like one you would get in a nightclub, and it said even more about me than the other with just two simple words in bold black letters… FALL RISK

Post Script:

The place where I was treated is called Memorial Hospital. The care I received there was nothing short of amazing. One of the nights, after I turned off the television and tried to sleep, I lay in my bed and listened to the sounds of human suffering all around me. Through my doorway I watched as nurses, assistants and technicians selflessly battled these strangers’ suffering. I suddenly realized that these women and men engage in this combat every day. I would like to offer a toast to these caregivers, and although it is considered bad form, I know they will understand if the glass I raise is filled with water.

I would like to tell a story. I hadn’t planned on writing any more at all, but this story wrote itself. The only way to tell this story is with complete honesty, so I’ll try not to embellish.

We will start with the dirty truth; the holidays turned out to be harder than I thought they would be. I quit my job and crawled onto the couch. I know that this makes no sense. I could probably explain why in greater detail, but we would need to dislodge your view of reality in order for you to hear it.

Should you ever decide to go crazy, there are a few things for which you need to prepare yourself. High on this list is the smell. If you sit on a couch for weeks at time, you really start to smell bad. I actually have a bottle of air freshener right here next to me in case somebody comes over.

So, there I was yesterday in this smelly pit of despair, when the thought of a steak popped into my head. It started as just a nugget of an idea, but as my hunger grew it became an obsession. By seven in the evening, I decided I was willing to give the idea a chance

The first step was a shower, and although a shower doesn’t sound like a challenge to you, it actually can be. The depression beard is tougher than the regular beard and it feels like you have to chisel the damn thing off. There will also be the shower crying. Sounds gay, I know, but a big selling point to the “lay on the couch and just give up plan” is the fact that should you drink enough, you don’t feel anything. Unfortunately, the moment you let hot water run over your head, your head starts working again. Should you ever have a friend spiraling out of control under the weight of immense sadness, you should get them to take a shower.

When I looked in the mirror after the shower I was kind of impressed. Maybe not impressed; it’s not like I would have handed that reflection a set of car keys, but I gave myself at least a fifty/fifty shot at acquiring a steak and a cold beer. I asked my roommate if he would serve me a beer and a steak without calling the crazy van and he said he probably would. Good enough for me. I bundled up and walked to a restaurant called Hemingway’s; a small, quaint little artsy place about a half-mile from my house.

In a situation like this, you need to pick a good bar-stool, and when you have to sit at a bar, you try to find a stool that is not adjacent to any other occupied stools. This is the same logic that applies when choosing the correct urinal. Believe it or not, the only open spot that made sense for my steak challenge was right next to a beautiful woman. I also find this ironic. Finding a beautiful woman when you feel like it is the end of the world is a bit like being handed a million dollars in confederate currency. It should also be noted here that I find women beautiful that aren’t actually beautiful sometimes. Thankfully, I found a picture of the woman this morning on Facebook and she is actually beautiful… I think.

Here is where the story becomes interesting; 999 out of the 1000 times it will happen in your life, the best plan of action is not to talk to the pretty girl sitting next to you. Movies are wrong-don’t do it. I trust this math, so I tried to keep to myself, but the woman was having none of that. I responded to her attempt at conversation the way I do in these situations; I say terrible, ridiculous things.

I started by explaining that the oddest thing about crippling depression is that you still get horny. It’s not like you masturbate while crying or anything, but you do masturbate. She didn’t run-she laughed. I guess it is a little funny if you think about it. Please don’t think about it. You thought about it didn’t you?

After talking for a while, the woman and I left the bar and did the last thing you would possibly imagine me doing; we went to McDonald’s and had coffee. Probably not the ending you were looking for and we should maybe discuss how you need to get your mind out of the gutter. Regardless, it was the best ending possible.

I’ll not give the details (I want to keep that for me), but I will finally get to my point. While I listened to her story, I learned that she had spent years locked in a loveless marriage. What made her terribly sad story ironic is that I want to give up because I recently realized how long it takes to create real love and there is little chance I will ever be able to stay with anyone long enough to get there. I guess if there is a takeaway from this; it is that sometimes, even if you do everything right and put in the time, you might still get screwed. This sort of makes me feel better.

It was an amazing evening, but it eventually had to end. I now know that I know almost nothing at all, but I am certain that I didn’t want to get out of that car. I am probably worse for wear on this one. I don’t think I can find hope in the contrast between the real human connection I was leaving and the absolute terror that always seems to await me.

Do you want to hear the funny part of the story? I never ate the steak. I had been obsessed with the notion that I would look so scary that they wouldn’t serve me the steak. It never occurred to me that I would be unable to eat it.

I often turn to my version of god at times like this and last night was no different. I went back to my couch and looked to the sky and said, “Yeah… You’re real fucking funny… Asshole.”

I haven’t posted on my blog in a while and for good reason – I have been quite busy searching for answers at the bottom of vodka bottles again. Sadly, this is an annual event for me and it typically begins around Thanksgiving and ends just after New Year’s. I’d like to think of myself as a young Charlie furiously searching through Wonka Bars for the golden ticket, but it probably looks much more like an infant being asked to solve a Where’s Waldo book, complete with all of the slobbering, incoherent mumbling and falling down one might expect from such a ridiculous scenario.

Because I sleep very little on a good day, and even less when I am down, I have plenty of hours to kill this time of year. I typically spend that time re-watching movies and documentaries while I try to write. One of my favorites is Cast Away with Tom Hanks. I love the part at the end when his character is talking with an old friend, and Hanks admits that he had reached a point, on the island, where he had resided himself to dying in that place, possibly by his own hand, because he was never going to be rescued. And then, just as he had given up all hope, the morning tide brings him a sail in the form of a wall from a portable crapper. In the end he is saved, but he has lost everything that was important to his former self. He is extremely sad, but he will go on living, “… because you never know what the tide will bring.”

I mention this because I see a cornucopia of posts during the holidays concerning depression and suicide awareness. These are all well-meaning thoughts, but they really don’t address the problem of absolute hopelessness that comes with depression. In my extensive, personal experiences with suicide, depression and mental illness, I have come to believe that only hope can treat these things. I say treat instead of heal because depression is like herpes; that shit’s coming back eventually, so you had better enjoy the peace while you have it.

So, in an effort to spread hope this year I offer my version of an uplifting Christmas story.

Last Saturday, I was in the middle of my annual holiday depression cycle – humbugging my way through the day, when I stopped at a gas station. This particular gas station services several small, rural towns, so the polite customers where lined up single-file, with the person at the front of the line going to the first of two cashiers with an open window. Rural people are very polite, so long as you don’t say the word “Obama”. That is like saying “bomb” in an airport.

As I stood in line, I noticed that the cashier on the left was far better looking than the one on the right. Being the dirty-little-boy-stuck-in-an-old-man’s-body that I am, I was trying to will the line to move so that I could be serviced by the hot cashier. I can’t really say that she was “hot”; hot for a rural service station cashier would be a better description.

The line moved along until I finally found myself at the front. I was elated when the old woman on the left finished her transaction before the person on the right. I inched slowly, as a polite person does in that situation, toward the old woman, expecting her to move. She did not. The woman just stayed right there at the window fumbling through her purse. In a nanosecond, my overall mood went from generally annoyed to fuming.

As I watched the person on the right complete their purchase and move out of the way, I altered my focus in an attempt to will the universe to manifest my vengeance on the old, bumbling woman on the left, for no other reason than her hogging of the relatively hot cashier.

Why am I such a jerk? I don’t know – tradition mostly.

Bitter and angry, I stepped up to the right so that I could pay the average looking cashier for my gas. I am a bit of a sucker for scratchers, so I picked out a $10 holiday ticket and added it to my transaction. Even as I got my change and turned to leave, the old woman was still standing at the window on the left. Had the woman not been so old and bumbling, my scratcher would have come from rolls of tickets on the left, as opposed to the ticket I now held, which came from the right.

You can probably imagine where this story is going. I jumped in my truck and scratched the ticket to reveal ten $100 winning numbers, for a total sum of $1000. This is not a great deal of money, but cash is really tight this time of year and this extra grand would insure a little less holiday stress, and slightly wider smiles on my children’s faces; the only thing I ever want for Christmas.

The moral of my story is this: Unless you are stranded on an island, the tide is never going to bring you a broken piece of a discarded shit-box with which to save yourself. But, if you are down this holiday season make sure you reserve at least some hope… You never know when an old, bumbling bitch might come along and make everything just a little bit better.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

I am posting the beginning chapter of my first fiction novel in order to add to my beta-readers list. I will be sending the chapters out every couple of weeks via email. If you would like to be a beta-reader, please send me your virtual address.

This book is currently called Aesop’s Wager.

Chapter 1

Murders don’t happen in Newton. Nothing really bad ever happens by way of the small New York town. Strange things happen here; the sort of odd events that occur when there is too much room and plenty of privacy. Death visits, as it does all places, but until now, the small community lacked the sophistication for murder.

By all accounts, the oddest death anyone could remember had come, and now a murder was approaching. It was as deliberate, patient, and as unstoppable as the dark billowing clouds beginning to fold in anticipation of another late afternoon thunderstorm.

Tess Delano stood silently; staring down to a note resting on the work table. An oily, but intoxicating odor from the gas can and lawn-mower was carried by the fall breeze wafting through the open door, filling her nostrils. Needing to look away, but unable to walk, Tess lifted her stare from the note to survey the tools Oliver had never been allowed to use.

Shuffling her feet, but going nowhere, Tess’s left heel rolled across something on the floor. Splinters and shavings of wood covered the concrete slab beneath the workbench, but this wasn’t one of those. Tess didn’t need to look down to know what she was stepping on. She rolled her foot back and forth over the long triangular splinter with two perfect sides and one not so much. That was the side that had been ripped away.

Tess’s knew wood. She liked to call it her hobby, or second job, but it looked much more like an obsession to the people that barely knew her. Tess found comfort in crafting; she could make pieces of timber do anything with the right tools. Mostly, she built handmade frames from old barn wood, like her mother had. Tess’s mother had taught her the craft, just as her grandmother had done for her, and most of these tools were on their third generation. As a child, Tess found the hobby tedious and downright boring. She resented being forced to assist her mother with projects, while her younger sister played at whatever she liked.

“Abby doesn’t have the patience,” Tess’s mother would say. Abby didn’t have the patience to do a lot of things; things that Tess was expected to do, like cleaning, homework or crafts. Tess believed for a long time that the word patience meant normalcy, and she would be glad to give hers up.

It did take patience to create wooden frames. Making the angled corners come together to form a perfect box meant cutting flawless miters on exact measurements; not an easy task for an energy-filled eight-year-old girl, even one with patience.

Ollie wasn’t even allowed to touch this table, Tess thought to herself. I would give anything to ground him right now.

Oddly, it was the thought of punishing Oliver that brought new horror to the day. There seemed to be no shortage of fresh horrors today. The last had been finding Ollie’s shiny, freshly oiled baseball glove, wrapped in a towel and jammed into the crevice of her overstuffed living room couch, with a ball tucked inside. Ollie had been so excited that spring to get the glove ready for summer-ball, and then he had just forgotten about it. There was a sharp static spark when Tess reached between the cushions to retrieve the mitt. Her mind pondered the way things like energy build and then explode in a spark.

People’s lives do that too, she thought; still, there were no tears.

Until this moment, facing the forbidden tools, Tess’s focus had been on her loss; all of the things that she would miss. Things like feeding the geese with Ollie at Foggy Park, or their many Sunday picnics at Circle-Back Creek, where they would search for tiny fossilized plants in the tall shale walls; ancient, miniature ferns with palms forever locked in stone. Pictures of their adventures hung on every wall in her home, encased in hand-made frames.

Tess closed her eyes and the memories of their short time together began to cascade the way memories do after a loss; one prized possession after another suddenly revealed to be worthless because they can neither happen again, nor be replaced by new ones.

Tess thought of how she needed to drag Oliver along on their adventures a little more these days, even before his episodes began. The boy was afraid to trust, and began masking that fear the way little boys do; with indifference.

The thought of Ollie’s episodes couldn’t quite register. There was just not enough room yet for her to remember how distant the nine-year-old had become in these last months. Ollie wasn’t her son, but it certainly felt like he was. The boy didn’t even exist in her world three years ago, and now she would live with only the memory of him as her child; her responsibility. In death Oliver Delano would become his favorite character, and like Pan, would never age past nine. The idea hurt Tess where things hurt most, yet there were still no tears.

Tess’s gaze continued to climb to peg-board wall where her smaller tools clung to neatly-arranged silver brackets. Past the saws, sanders and clamps; Tess slowly lifted her head higher and higher, to the top of the wall and finally to the ceiling. Her gaze came to a halt on the newly formed clean spot, on an otherwise dusty wooden support beam above the work-bench. Dirt and cobwebs caked the beam from wall to wall; only the thin strip where the rope had been was spotless. In the center of that spot was an even cleaner place, where a corner of the beam had broken away when Ollie jumped from the bench. It was the piece she now let roll back and forth below her heel. The police had taken the rope into evidence, but there would be no trial. Suicides don’t get trials; there are no verdicts. Suicides are questions with no answers.

But, Tess did have an answer, and it lay on the table in written form. It should be in an evidence bag along with the rope. There was no fathomable reason for the note to exist at all, but nevertheless here it was. Ripped from a spiral notebook; its edges were dangling like chad.

Tess had folded the paper and placed it in the pocket of her jeans yesterday, the same jeans she still wore, before dialing emergency. She had been sitting in her car and somewhat lost in her after-work daze, as the door went up.

Every piece of the world changed as one by one the door’s panels disappeared; slowly revealing the dead body of a nine-year-old boy. Ollie hung low to the ground, swaying gently in a breeze created by the door’s opening. His lips were purple and swollen, and his ashen face was a sharp contrast to his short, dark hair; a ghost locked in a horrifying stare. Tess will always remember the boy this way; swaying peacefully, with his long, bright-white surplice acting as a sail. For whatever time she has left, Tess will be doomed to see Oliver hanging in doorways, beams, pipes and even Christmas trees. It will be a haunting; a real haunting.

There is more rope, she thought, imagining the moment of free-fall she would endure before the tension caught.

Oliver had cut just enough to get the job done, and the remainder lay on the table. The methodical boy had been quietly planning his death for days; maybe even weeks. He would have tested the strength of the rope and the beam. Exact measurements made the rope long enough to keep his feet off of the ground, but just barely. The oddly impressed coroner suspected Ollie was trying to make sure he broke his neck in the fall and would not be conscious for the strangulation. What a bright, dead boy.

Oliver’s neck had not broken.

Tess summoned the courage to pull her phone from her pocket, and then quickly dialed numbers before the moment of bravery had a chance to fade. She had sworn never to dial those numbers again, but who could have imagined this. It has been eight years, but those ten digits have hung suspended in her brain for every moment of this never-ending day. Tess was beginning to wonder if the number even worked anymore, but two rings later, she was greeted by an old familiar voice; Bruno’s voice.

Needing Bruno’s help has made the bile in her otherwise empty stomach rise several times since the day started. Even our worst days begin like any other, and just twenty hours ago Tess had been sitting at her vanity applying lipstick. Her thoughts at that moment had been delegated to solving a work-place issue she could no longer remember.

“Hello Tess.”

Bruno’s voice had rasped slightly; subtly changing with each box of cigars, but the tone was familiar. With only two words, Tess could tell that he already knew what had happened. There was a hint of satisfaction that tainted his sympathy, and from that, Tess could tell that Bruno did not know what really happened.

This man had long ago destroyed what little family she possessed. Bruno’s senseless affair with her sister had decimated Tess’s relationship with Abby, as well as their marriage. Only after six years did Abby return to her, but by then she had been broken by her disease and choices.

Tess knew what was going to come next. More importantly; she knew who was coming next. Tess would be facing the destroyer of innocence in just two days, but she would not be alone.

Soon, Aesop would be on his way. Everybody has a job, and Aesop’s job is to force fates. Aesop would make things right. Regardless of the promise Tess had made to herself, she needed things to be right. Maybe then, when the universe again made sense; Tess Delano might finally cry.