Saturday, June 27, 2009
Jesus Christ
This is a music video I made for one of my favorite songs Jesus Christ by Brand New. There was no plan behind the video, but people who have seen it have said they think it's about a ghost floatin' around lookin' for heaven. I like that idea.
The Lights and The Buzz
This is another short. It was easier to film with my nicer camera, and I tried to film scenes. Same basic story as before, just the guy (again, played by me), is a little older, a little skinnier and a little druggier. But, when morning comes, he has to go to work. My idea was, do you really know what the people you work with are like outside of work? They could be manic depressive heroin addicts.
The Good Times are Killing Me
This is a short I made about a guy (played by me) who's life is terrible. He lives a Bukowski novel. It's black and white, and this was my first expereince filming anything. Enjoy!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Read/Listen/Watch/Rent
READ: Dry by Augusten Burroughs
If you have read Running with Scissors (or saw the film) and enjoyed it then definatly check this out. It's a sequel basically. Taking place during Augusten's early 20's while he was in advertising in New York. But that isn't what it's about, it's about the alcohol that comes along with being in his early 20's and in advertising in New York. One of the best memoirs I have ever read.
LISTEN: The Gaslight Anthem - The 59 Sound
Great album. The rock-a-billy punk style mixed with lead singer Brian Fallon's voice is perfect. Just google these guys and you'll see the Bruce Springsteen comparisons everywhere. And ya, he sounds a little like him and he's from New Jersey, but these guys are definatly earning there stripes. On first listen, what blew me away, was a "borrowed" chours on track 4, High and Lonesome, "And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis", the Counting Crows nod there gave me chills. I swear, I replayed the song 10 times. (Also, for The Boss fans, in the same song there is a throwback to I'm On Fire with the line "and I woke up with the sheets soaking wet/it's a pretty good song, maybe you know the rest"). Below is the videos for two of the songs on the album.
WATCH: Rescue Me
RENT: Imaginary Heroes
LISTEN: The Gaslight Anthem - The 59 Sound
WATCH: Rescue Me
When I picked Rescue Me as my first "Watch" for this blog, I was under the impression that the whole series was still available on Hulu.com. But, turns out, now they only have the most recent 3 episodes from this season. So I guess this weeks "Watch" is also gonna be a "Rent". If you haven't seen this show, where the fuck have you been? In it's 5th season it is better than ever. Rescue Me is the story of Tommy Gavin (portrayed by the great Denis Leary), a NYC fire fighter living in a post 9-11 world and the other men in his house. It is full of everything: drugs, alcohol, booze, fire, explosions, shootings, death, sex, infidelity, beautiful women, and all the characters are funny as can be. Go check it out as soon as possible. Each season gets better and better. And don't think this is some comedy with a few tearjerker episodes. Every episode is weaved and written to get ya going. I am gonna post one of last summers "webisodes" so you can get an idea of what you are missing out on.
RENT: Imaginary Heroes
This film from 2004, written by Dan Harris and starring Emile Hirsch, Sigourney Weaver, and Jeff Daniels, is about a family going through an event no family prepares for. It is one of those great ensamble cast movies where you love every character on screen. The stand out is Emile Hirsch who is fast becoming one of my favorite actors with a stream of great films like The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys, Lords of Dogtown, Into the Wild and Milk (we can forget about Speed Racer right, I mean, NO BODY saw it. It didn't exist right?). Hirsch plays Tim, the son of Weaver and Daniels, and takes the brunt of the situation. I don't want to give to much away, plus I am going to post the trailer, so I don't feel the need to write much anyways. You wont be let down by this movie though. It would go well with fans of The Squid and the Whale or The United States of Leland (which star Michelle "Jen on Dawson's Creek" Williams is in both Leland and Heroes). Here is the trailer for ya, get busy.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
James Lipton Facts (Revisited)
A few years ago, everyone and there ma' was telling these "Chuck Norris facts". Well, I dont like Chuck Norris. Neither do my friends, so we started thinking "who's someone we can immortalize?" and came up with the only answer possible. James F'n Lipton.- James Lipton told you're parents about that abortion you had.
- James Lipton will run for president in 2016, and ultimately win. While in office, he will make it mandatory for all Americans, to memorize every line from his favorite film, the Coen brothers "Raising Arizona".
-James Lipton killed the other daughter from Family Matters. Not Laura, but the other one.
-James Lipton was conceived by Gloria Carter and Adaness Revees, who made love under the Siccamore trees. Which makes him a more sicker M.C. than his mother would claim.
-James Lipton will be the first man to win a pulitzer prize for a guest apperance on a television show as the warden on Arrested Development. He will win this prize in 2011 a good 7 years after the show aired.
-James Lipton doesn't beleive in christ.
-James Lipton was born in 1926, which makes him 83 years old. However, in 2001 he took the head of Duncan McCloud, making him an immortal, or "highlander".
-James Lipton used to feel worthless cause his shirts wasn't matching his gear.
-James Lipton was born on Feburary 31st.
-James Lipton recently recovered the sheet music to a musical, "Sherry!" that he wrote thirty-seven years ago. The sheet music was feared to have been burned in a fire but was instead sent to the wrong storage facility and ended up at the Library of Congress with the other contents of the storage unit. The music has been produced and is now available on CD. This isn't that great of a fact, but in all fairness, how many musicals did you write thirty-seven years ago asshole?
-James Lipton only drinks Brisk Iced Tea, because, as he puts it, "It's brisk, you dumb suneva bitch".
-James Lipton was interviewing Gary Busey, on April 14th, 1993, when Busey turned around Lipton's famous question "What is your favorite curse word?" and instead of answering, asked Lipton what his was. Lipton then cursed solid for 13 days. There are 3 (known) tapes of the footage, however, censors bleeped the entire mess out. The Audio department at University of Miami (Ohio) has said the curse word started with an "F" and ended with an "L".
-James Lipton holds the record for longest bleep ever recorded by a censor. (see above James Lipton fact).
-James Lipton was with River Phoenix the night he died.
-James Lipton has a tattoo on his back that says "Talk to my boy Coolie about paying the bill."
-James Lipton gave the state of Hawaii its name.
-James Lipton shared a small apartment with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in 1995. Lipton was actually the basis for the character of "Will" in the duo's Oscar winning script, "Good Will Hunting" which was originally titled "James Lipton's Cum Rag".
-James Lipton did an uncredited script rewrite on every episode of "The George Lopez Show".
-James Lipton owns a robot.
-James Lipton bought H.G. Well's bones from the Well's estate in 1976.
-James Lipton was the famed Watergate informant, "Deep Throat".
-James Lipton was producer of the adult film classic, "Deep Throat"
-James Lipton was originally supposed to play the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, but had to turn it down because every time he walked on set, Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa/Skywalker) would have a wild orgasm.
-James Lipton owns 47 guns, 29 swords and 2 knives.
-James Lipton's blockbuster video account number is 2325498666.
-James Lipton does not have a social security number, because he doesn't beleive in them.
-James Lipton was the producer for President Jimmy Carter's Inaugural Gala, the first Presidential
Inaugural Gala to be televised. Also the producer of 12 Bob Hope Birthday Specials.
-James Lipton was given Star Trek star Deforst Kelley's (Dr. McCoy) body when he died. This was in accordance with Mr. Kelley's last will and testament.
-James Lipton's favorite food is peep's.
-James Lipton's favorite holiday is Easter. (see above James Lipton Fact)
-James Lipton has a pet dog named "James Lipton".
-James Lipton does not find Will Farrel's portrayal of him on the popular television sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" amusing.
-James Lipton's middle name is Saul. This makes his name run together, JAMESAULIPTON.
-James Lipton wears a "Citizen King" band t-shirt underneath all of his suits.
-James Lipton can play the guitar better than you.
-James Lipton briefly filled in for Zach De La Rocha during a Rage Against the Machine tour in 1999.
-James Lipton can flow.
-James Lipton has never once been called "Jim" or "Jimmy".
-James Lipton is great friends with Roseanne star John Goodman and refers to him as "Johnny B. Goodman".
-James Lipton is credited for the creation of the popular television series M*A*S*H. He did not write it, however, he did start the Korean War in 1950 when he wrote an open letter to the Korean press stating "You are all cunts". This led to the writing of the film, which later paved the way for the television show.
-James Lipton has never worn gloves.
-James Lipton hates the children's cartoon "The Busy World of Richard Scarry", but he doesn't know why.
-James Lipton will eat any type of food for money.
-James Lipton, along with Bill Shatner and Robert DeNiro successfully gave Leonardo DiCaprio his first erection.
-James Lipton will take Dakota Fanning's virginity.
-James Lipton will take Sean Connery's head.
-James Lipton did not learn to read until he was 27. In an interview with Barbara Walters in 1978, he said the never had any reason to learn, since "girls would always read everything for him."
-James Lipton released 5 rap albums between 1994 and 2004, under the stage name "Nas".
-James Lipton will win a Tony Award in 2011 for his portrayl of Dr. Emmett Brown, in the Broadway rendition of "Back To The Future part Two".
-James Lipton's publicist has confirmed that he dated Jessica Simpson, while she was still married to Nick Lachey.
-James Lipton played professional hockey for two years in the early 90's. He was an offensive left wing, for the Pittsburgh Penguins during there back to back stanley cup wins.
-James Lipton told Jean-Claude Van Damme that he considered him "A dumb twat", when the two met while Van Damme was filming the movie "Sudden Death". (see above James Lipton fact).
-James Lipton thinks that Dave Matthews Band is a bunch of bullshit, however he does acknowledge that learning to play the song "Crash" on guitar, will get you laid.
-James Lipton's wife, Nina Lipton, legally changed her first name to James in 1990.
-James Lipton beta tested the XBOX-360 console for Microsoft. He wasn't impressed.
-James Lipton has reportedly seen the film "Slackers" 310 times.
-James Lipton wears boxers.
-James Lipton once rode a bike from Albany, New York to Bakersfield, California and back again in 2 weeks. On his arrival back in Albany, he called Lance Armstrong and challenged him to a fist fight.
-James Lipton knows who killed Tupac, but was sworn to silence by the American government, who are covering up the murder.
-James Lipton will tell you who killed Tupac for 150 dollars and a pack of Peeps. (see above James Lipton fact).
-James Lipton's breath is always minty fresh.
-James Lipton has a pet dragon named "James Lipton".
-James Lipton invented the strawberry shortcake. No, not the dessert.
-James Lipton will snap his fingers on October 10th, 2018. At that moment, everyone in the northern hemisphere will shit there pants.
-James Lipton has plans to become a cyborg in the future, just to even the playing field.
-James Lipton is 3/4 black.
-James Lipton signs all contracts in blood. Not his own blood, but the blood of hollywood actor John Wayne.
-James Lipton hates the way you talk to your mother.
-James Lipton wanted "Inside the Actor's Studio" to be called "Hollywood is a Bitch, and James Lipton is her Pimp". When the censors disapproved, it so broke James' heart that for 3 months he would not speak with anyone unless they addressed him as "James Lipton, king of broken hearts world wide."
-James Lipton dropped out of the 1970 Mr. Olympia contest the day before finals, making it so Arnold Schwarzenegger won by default.
-James Lipton survived Apollo 11.
-James Lipton sued God in 1983 over the title of his book "The Bible: The King James Version".
-James Lipton's favorite basketball team is the Toronto Rapters, even though his illegitimate son, Lebron plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
-James Lipton was born February 31st, weighing in at 10 pounds and 8 ounces. He was the last of 4 children, the only one who didn't give his mother any pain when she gave birth to him. And that's how she knew he was a special child.
-James Lipton was a very shy child growing up. He was into sports, and a funny story is, at 4 he taught himself how to ride a bike. A two wheeler at that. Isn't that special?
-James Lipton is an original member of the band Savage Garden.
-James Lipton was the voice of female mouse airplane mechanic "Gadget" in the 80's cartoon "Chip'n'Dale's Rescue Rangers".
-James Lipton organized a volunteer fire department made up completely of male exotic dancers called "Chippendale's Rescue Rangers".
-James Lipton received 200,000 votes in California's 2003 gubernatorial election.
-James Lipton's life story has been made into a hollywood film called "Without a Paddle" starring Seth Green, Dax Shepard and Matthew Lillard in 2004.
-James Lipton once smacked Margret Thatcher on national tv. Inside sources say it was the best 170 pounds of pressure she's ever experienced.
-James Lipton drinks pomegranate juice just to make you look like a jerk. You jerk.
-James Lipton musical fact: Color Me Bad's mega-hit, "I wanna Sex You Up," is about James Lipton's personal relationship with the Dali Lama of Tibet.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Lonny, The Poor Bastard (fiction)
We were almost to the bridge. I was jumping, but i knew I wouldn't get the same thrill today as I usually do. It wasn't just Duane and I on the bus as usually at this time as we barrel down the hill in the giant yellow North East Community School District bus numbered 6, Lonny was also with us. We were both ten now, and still in the same class. Lonny had grown up to be quite a fat ass.
He had taken to wearing ripped up shirts that were way to big for him. On the shirts were pictures of bangle tigers and great white sharks, and they looked as though they had been washed a thousand times. Lonny also always wore gray sweatpants with stains on them. They weren't piss or shit stains, but weird stains like spaghetto's or chocolate malts. I can't imagine the sweatpants had ever been washed once. I understood that his family was poor, but so was mine, and at least I wore clothes that didn't make me look like the dirtiest kid alive.
At school, my friends and I made fun of Lonny. He was a useless. In class, he would raise his hand and ask the dumbest questions. "Mrs. Loverly, what is the worst planet?" he'd ask. or "Mrs. Loverly, would a dolphin ever eat another dolphin?" I can only imagine that Mrs. Loverly, our 5th grade teacher, hated him as much as we did. She had to.
Mrs. Loverly was great. She lived next door to us, so I had known her for years. This was great, because if i didn't get an assingment done at school, I could just walk it across the road and hand it in after school. However, if i wanted to play sick and skip school, i couldn't go outside after 3pm, for fear of her seeing me. I don't know what she would have done, but I'd feel bad making her do it.
My best friends, Joel Copper and Tyler Todd, and I would call Lonny faggot or queer or homo. I never thought he was gay, i just thought that he sucked and those were the words to describe someone who sucks. But then again, one time a few years ago Lonny told me that sometimes he'd stick his index finger inside his asshole, so he may very well have been gay.
When we hit the bridge, I did fly high in the air. I was happy and it was a lot of fun, even if Lonny was there. Duane was laughing from the drivers seat. I often wondered if this was the best part of his day. If he waited all day just for this moment. If this was why he was a bus driver in the first place, so that he could drive fast down the hill and launch me into the air. This was the only time he ever showed emotion, the rest of the bus ride he looked like he had a terrible tooth ache. he wouldn't smile or say hello to anyone. I am guessing on days when i was sick he was terribly heart broken. Sometimes he'd even talk to me. When i'd step off the bus he'd say "We really got ya up there today didn't we?" and i'd say yep. Then he'd say "Pertner hit your head on the roof huh?", and i said yep again. then i said bye, and he'd shut the doors and drive off.
Lonnie didn't jump. He was asleep with his head against the window of the seat next to mine. I could only imagine he was dreaming of Ross Perot, Captain Picard and Zach Morris playing baseball or of what it would be like to get trapped inside a giant volleyball. He had also started to snore, so I got up and walked the isle to the seat behind Duane and sat down there. I did this while the bus was moving, which would be completely against the rules normally, but since Duane and I were the only ones awake on the bus, so he didn't care.
I had taken a practice mad minute out of my maroon and black Nike trapper keeper and started going over it. How the fuck was I supposed to do 20 multiplication problems in a minute when the numerator was 12? 12 times 0, 1 or 2 was easy enough, but jesus, you'd have to be a genius to know what 12 times 7 was. So i asked Duane what 12 times 7 was, and he answered back, "63", and i wrote that down. Thank God, 1 done.
Then Duane said, "turn around and look at Lonny back there" so i put the mad minute down and turned around to see he was still asleep against the window. Duane told me to watch, and then he jerked the steering wheel of the giant yellow bus quickly from the left to the right. and back. This made Lonny rock up forward and then slam hard into the window. He woke up quick and looked like he had just fallen out of a tree.
"Are you Ok back there Lonny?" Duane said, "a cat rain out in front of us and i was forced to swerve."
Lonnie shook his head and rubbed the side that hit the window, and asked what the cats name was. That made me curious if someone could be really retarded without actually looking like that kid on that tv show.
The reason Lonnie was on the bus still, was because he was going to my house. It was one of my most embarrassing moments of 5th grade.
That morning, Tyler, who i had been friends with since first grade, had made the comment that Lonny smelled exactly like fumunda cheese. I wasn't sure what fumunda cheese smelt like but I knew it was fermented under the ball sacks of sweaty french men, and it made sense that the smell coming off of Lonny was quite comparable, so for the rest of the day we called him "Scroat-meal". Scroat-meal just accepted that we were rude to him, but he would still always be around us. It was as if he liked being picked on, or maybe he just didn't care.
During silent reading, Lonny aka Scroat-meal, would lay on the floor and read the book Sideways Stories from Wayside School while Cinnamon, the class ferret, sat on his face. Tyler, Joel and I were reading a Where's Waldo book. Silent Reading had a great catch 22. We had to read, but, we could read any book on the class book shelves. Which had Where's Waldo books, and Guinness books of worlds records and that sorta thing, along with Beverly Cleary books and Shel Silverstein books. So naturally, we would just look at a where's waldo book.
Tyler said he wondered how his and my grandfathers, who were both named Keith, could be such good friends with Lonny's father, who was the same age as our grandparents. We decided that old farmers could get along, even if one of them had a son who smelt like shit and was pretty much a retard.
I told Joel and Tyler, how I heard once from my aunt that Lonny's older sister Maureen George, who was my fathers age, was a drug addict and that she was actually Lonny's mother. But Maureen was to fucked up to take care of him, so her mom and dad, Donald and Geraldine George, became his parents. At that time they were both in there late 40s.
Joel asked if Lonnie knew about all this, and we agreed it would be terrible to find out all of a sudden that your parents where your grandparents and your sister was your mother. We also came tot he agreement that ol' Scroat-meal was to fucking dumb to care anyways. He could be abandoned out in the woods with a note from his parents that said "Suck It, we hate you!" and he'd just stand there and eat his boogers.
After our conversation during silent reading, we got ready for Social studies when an announcement came over the intercom:
Receptionist: Mrs. Loverly?
Mrs. Loverly: Yes?
Receptionist: Is Albert Elsner and Lonny George there?
I sunk in my plastic chair. An announcement that involved the both of us had to mean trouble. Had someone told on me for putting Cinnamon's shit in Lonny's bag? Or had he himself turned us in for stealing his coat and hiding it in the lost and found box during the Arbor Day Assembly. No matter what, I knew I was totally fucked, and Joel and Tyler knew it too.
They were both staring at me, with faces straight as can be. It was as if they were pleading to me not to rat them out. I was sort of hoping that the receptionist would ask if Joel and Tyler were in the room too, so at least if i went down i'd go down with friends. But still, I could feel the stains in my armpits growing and i felt like i was going to throw up.
Receptionist: Will you tell Lonny that he is to ride the bus all the way to Patrick's after school today?
Mrs. Loverly: I'll tell them.
And just like that I felt a boulder lifted off me and replaced with a large rock. Joel and Tyler went from terrified to ecstatic. Tyler said, "oh Albert, are you two gonna play dolls and have a tea party?" Some kids around us laughed, but i just put my head down.
I wanted social studies to take forever so that the day wouldn't end. As if the schools bells were only to ring when Mrs. Loverly's full lesson plans were finished. We were all reading from the book aloud, taking turns after each paragraph. Tyler picked Lonny to read, and so he did. It took him forever to read a 3 sentence paragraph because he could barely read at all. And he would still pronounce words wrong, like he said "though" instead of "tough". Apparently he thought the indians chasing down a buffalo was very "though" to do.
Of course, when Lonny was finished reading, he picked me to read next. This made Tyler and Joel laugh, and i glared at them. I started to read my sentence about what the hyde of the buffaloes were used for when the bell rang. I now had 40 minutes until it was just Lonny, Duane and myself on the bus.
When i looked up from the seat behind Duane, he was looking into the mirror as if waiting to catch my eye. When I noticed, he smiled and started to talk.
"The cat's name was Blow Job", he told Lonny, and Lonny said that was a funny name for a cat. Then Duane looked at me and i was laughing. Lonny didn't know what Blow Job was, where as I had recently heard it had something to do with when a penis is put in girls mouth. And that was funny.
The bus pulled in front of my drive way and Duane opened the door. Lonny and I got off and Duane said to Lonny before he shut the doors that if he saw the cat on the way home he'd pick it up for him, because he'd really like blow job. Then Duane said that he may just keep it for himself, cause he could use a Blow Job to. Lonny smiled and said thanks.
We walked up the dirt/gravel driveway and Lonny said that the ravines in it looked like the grand canyon, then i said his hair cut made him look like a retard and started to run up the drive way.
I got inside and my mom was waiting by the door. She hugged me and kissed me and asked where Lonny was. I told her that I didn't know. I really knew he was outside, probably on the porch by now, but it seemed cool to pretend that I hadn't noticed he rode the bus to our house.
Lonny walked in the door and my mom said hi, and hugged him too. I thought that was really weird, because my mom never liked Geraldine and always talked about how gross Lonny was when she'd see him out in the yard playing. She would say that it was a shame that his life was sure gonna be tough.
My mom told Lonny and I to go to my room and play. I didn't want to do that, I didn't want him in my room. Thoughts of Lonny, thoughts of Scroat-meal taking a shit on my brand new NFL bed spread, or blowing his nose on one of my t-shirts made me crazy. But, I listened to my mom and we went in anyways.
I pulled the covers off my bed and sat on the sheets. Lonny sat in my Kansas City Chiefs camping chair. The chair looked like it was ready to tear and break from his weight. What a fat shit. What a fat smelly fucker.
I turned on the tv and it was on PBS. Sometimes I'd watch the shows on PBS because i liked them. If Tyler or Joel saw me watching PBS I'd be embarrassed, but I don't know why. Since Lonny was the only one in the room who'd see me watching PBS I wasn't embarrassed, but i don't know why.
The show was about this scientist named Bill teaching us how to build things. On this episode he was showing how to build a volcano out of baking soda and vinegar. Lonny really liked the show, he kept looking at me and saying "that's cool, idn't it?" I didn't answer, and he went back to watching the show.
It actually was kinda cool, the way this reaction, baking soda and vinegar with red food coloring, would make such a mess. I wondered if that's how volcanoes really worked. Obviously, there isn't baking soda and vinegar colored red under ground, but maybe 2 other things mix and make volcanoes blow up. I bet i could ask Mrs. Loverly about this, she'd know. Maybe she would let me make a model like this and do it for the whole class. That'd be really cool.
Then Lonny looked over and asked if i thought it'd be cool if Mrs. Loverly let us build one of these models for class. and i told him that he was gay, and that volcanoes were gay too, and then i clicked the tv off. Lonny wasn't phased he just looked at the window at the cows that were in the field behind our house.
I rolled my eyes at Lonny then started thumbing through my baseball card album i had on the floor. Joel and Tyler may know a lot more about baseball then me, but I have a ton more cards then them. Then there was a knock on my bedroom door.
I opened the door and my mom was standing there. It was weird because no one ever knocked in our house. My mom would usually yell from the kitchen. It always bugged me because she would yell, "ALBIE!" and i would yell back "WHAT?" and she'd yell back "I DIDN'T SAY WHAT, I SAID COME HERE!". It pissed me off because that's not what happened at all. She never said anything except my name. But, the fact that she was knocking on my door was different, as if my bedroom was my own apartment. Thoughts of installing a refrigerator and sink passed through my head, until my mom spoke.
She asked me to come into the kitchen, so i did. Lonny stayed in my room. When i got into the kitchen i could tell that my dad, grandma and grandpa were all in the living room. And so was Maureen, Lonny's Sister/Mom. I hadn't seen her in a long time. I always remembered her being skinny and pretty, but she was fat and ugly now, but I could tell it was her still. She was smoking long cigarettes, longer then my mom and dads. Maureen George was the only person I knew who smoked those.
My mom asked me to sit at the kitchen table, because we needed to talk. I started the conversation, by asking why the heck Lonny was in my room. My mom just looked at me, and said to hold on a second. But I kept talking, I told her how embarrassing it was for me when the news came over the intercom, I told her how much Joel, Tyler and i hated him. How he let the ferret sit on his face. I think i even mentioned the Famunda Cheese, but I can't be sure. The whole time i was talking, my mother just stared at me with sad eyes. As if every word I said was hurting her feelings.
This pissed me off. Why would my mom be so defensive of this little shit. She herself said his life would be tough and that he was gross. So I kept talking I said, that I wanted Lonny to go. I didn't want him in my room, or in our house. Never before had I put my foot down like this, I imagined my father and grandfather would be so proud, me sticking up for myself and my beliefs in such a way. My beliefs of Lonny being a piece of shit asshole who doesn't deserve to be in our ranch style.
Then, after I said that about wanting Lonny out, I stopped talking. My mom still looked sad, and she had a tear in her eye. She grabbed my hands and held them, and told me to listen to her.
She said "There was an accident today Patrick. Lonny's mom and dad, Geraldine and Donny, they died."
I was floored. I felt sick to my stomach, like that time Joel and I drank the brown liquor we found in his grandpa's garage. My mom cried now, it was no longer a few tears. All my hatred for Lonny was gone. All my angst and anger, was gone. I wasn't the same kid i'd spent the last 3 years turning myself into. I wasn't cool, or uncool, or popular. I was just a kid sitting at a table with his mom.
I asked her how. And she told me that this morning, after Lonny got on the bus, Don went out to help Grandpa Keith in the field and the two of them we're working on the hay bailer and something snapped, and it hit Don in the neck. It killed him instantly, and that Grandpa had tried all he could to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn't stop.
All I could see was my grandpa in the field, in the middle of the hot day, trying the best he could to save Don's life, while Lonny was in class laying on the floor reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School with Cinnamon perched on his face.
After a minute, I asked what happened to Geraldine. I guess, my grandpa had put Don in the back of the truck and drove down the field road and over to Lonny's house. He knocked on the door, and when Geraldine came to it he said that he was very sorry. Then she ran to the truck and saw Don laying there, and she couldn't handle it. She had a heart attack and died right there in the driveway. For the second time that afternoon my grandfather watched two of his best friends lives end right in front of him, and he couldn't do anything about it.
It hurt so bad. The news of what had happened this afternoon. It hurt me so bad, and it wasn't even my parents. I barely even knew Geraldine and Don. Sometimes they'd go fishing in Minnesota and have a fish fry and i'd see them there. I always knew they thought Lonny and I were such good friends. I was really sad. I wondered if my Grandpa was ok, I knew that it'd be really crazy to have all that happen in one day.
Then I heard my bed room door open. Lonny must have gotten bored alone in my room, and he decided to come see what was up. That's when it hit me that he had no idea. I mean, I knew he wouldn't know. But when i realized he'd have to be told, it hurt. It seemed forever from the sound of him opening my door and when he finally came around the hall corner and into the kitchen.
"I'm hungry, do you have any tuna fish Sharon?"
That is what Lonny said when he walked into the kitchen. All he wanted was some tuna fish sandwiches, but that wasn't what he was going to get. Instead, he was going to get news that would change his life. His terrible, smelly, tough life. I got up and walked out of the kitchen and right out the front door. I sat down on the porch steps. It was about 6:00, and it was still sunny out. The day was beautiful.
After about 2 minutes of me sitting on the porch, my dog Pogso came over and I started to pet her. after about another minute, Pogso and I heard a loud scream from the kitchen. It was so loud she started barking. I didn't know what the sound was at first, and when i looked in through the window to the kitchen table where my mom and Lonny were, i saw that Lonny was screaming.
He kept screaming "NO NO NO NO", and he was hitting his fists on the table. He started to move his hands around and knocked stuff off the table. The plastic bill holder that sat on the table, that my dad would use to keep track of the bills, it fell to the floor and i can only imagine it broke. There were papers everywhere, and i couldn't see everything through the curtains, but i could see my mom was standing. She grabbed Lonny and hugged him, and he stopped moving, but he continued to scream. "No No No" He just kept screaming the same thing, over and over.
After an hour, I went back in side, it was now starting to get dark, and even though i was 11 years old, i hated being outside alone after dark. Inside, Lonny was in the living room asleep on the love seat. My grandma and grandpa were sitting on the couch, Maureen in the recliner, and my mom and dad were sitting on the fire place platform. no one was talking. not a word. I walked in and sat indian style on the floor in front of my mom and dad.
I still felt sick, knowing what i knew. Knowing that Lonny's life would never be the same. That his mom and dad, even if they weren't his real mom and dad were dead. That he would never see them again. They would never get to hug Lonny, scroat-meal, the smelly fat ass who was there son/grandson whom they loved. I felt like i could throw up, if i had anything in my stomach to throw up.
After a couple minutes, my grandpa looked over at me and said, as if the day was like any other day ever, "So what'd you and Lonny do at school today Albie?". And I threw up all over the carpet.
He had taken to wearing ripped up shirts that were way to big for him. On the shirts were pictures of bangle tigers and great white sharks, and they looked as though they had been washed a thousand times. Lonny also always wore gray sweatpants with stains on them. They weren't piss or shit stains, but weird stains like spaghetto's or chocolate malts. I can't imagine the sweatpants had ever been washed once. I understood that his family was poor, but so was mine, and at least I wore clothes that didn't make me look like the dirtiest kid alive.
At school, my friends and I made fun of Lonny. He was a useless. In class, he would raise his hand and ask the dumbest questions. "Mrs. Loverly, what is the worst planet?" he'd ask. or "Mrs. Loverly, would a dolphin ever eat another dolphin?" I can only imagine that Mrs. Loverly, our 5th grade teacher, hated him as much as we did. She had to.
Mrs. Loverly was great. She lived next door to us, so I had known her for years. This was great, because if i didn't get an assingment done at school, I could just walk it across the road and hand it in after school. However, if i wanted to play sick and skip school, i couldn't go outside after 3pm, for fear of her seeing me. I don't know what she would have done, but I'd feel bad making her do it.
My best friends, Joel Copper and Tyler Todd, and I would call Lonny faggot or queer or homo. I never thought he was gay, i just thought that he sucked and those were the words to describe someone who sucks. But then again, one time a few years ago Lonny told me that sometimes he'd stick his index finger inside his asshole, so he may very well have been gay.
When we hit the bridge, I did fly high in the air. I was happy and it was a lot of fun, even if Lonny was there. Duane was laughing from the drivers seat. I often wondered if this was the best part of his day. If he waited all day just for this moment. If this was why he was a bus driver in the first place, so that he could drive fast down the hill and launch me into the air. This was the only time he ever showed emotion, the rest of the bus ride he looked like he had a terrible tooth ache. he wouldn't smile or say hello to anyone. I am guessing on days when i was sick he was terribly heart broken. Sometimes he'd even talk to me. When i'd step off the bus he'd say "We really got ya up there today didn't we?" and i'd say yep. Then he'd say "Pertner hit your head on the roof huh?", and i said yep again. then i said bye, and he'd shut the doors and drive off.
Lonnie didn't jump. He was asleep with his head against the window of the seat next to mine. I could only imagine he was dreaming of Ross Perot, Captain Picard and Zach Morris playing baseball or of what it would be like to get trapped inside a giant volleyball. He had also started to snore, so I got up and walked the isle to the seat behind Duane and sat down there. I did this while the bus was moving, which would be completely against the rules normally, but since Duane and I were the only ones awake on the bus, so he didn't care.
I had taken a practice mad minute out of my maroon and black Nike trapper keeper and started going over it. How the fuck was I supposed to do 20 multiplication problems in a minute when the numerator was 12? 12 times 0, 1 or 2 was easy enough, but jesus, you'd have to be a genius to know what 12 times 7 was. So i asked Duane what 12 times 7 was, and he answered back, "63", and i wrote that down. Thank God, 1 done.
Then Duane said, "turn around and look at Lonny back there" so i put the mad minute down and turned around to see he was still asleep against the window. Duane told me to watch, and then he jerked the steering wheel of the giant yellow bus quickly from the left to the right. and back. This made Lonny rock up forward and then slam hard into the window. He woke up quick and looked like he had just fallen out of a tree.
"Are you Ok back there Lonny?" Duane said, "a cat rain out in front of us and i was forced to swerve."
Lonnie shook his head and rubbed the side that hit the window, and asked what the cats name was. That made me curious if someone could be really retarded without actually looking like that kid on that tv show.
The reason Lonnie was on the bus still, was because he was going to my house. It was one of my most embarrassing moments of 5th grade.
That morning, Tyler, who i had been friends with since first grade, had made the comment that Lonny smelled exactly like fumunda cheese. I wasn't sure what fumunda cheese smelt like but I knew it was fermented under the ball sacks of sweaty french men, and it made sense that the smell coming off of Lonny was quite comparable, so for the rest of the day we called him "Scroat-meal". Scroat-meal just accepted that we were rude to him, but he would still always be around us. It was as if he liked being picked on, or maybe he just didn't care.
During silent reading, Lonny aka Scroat-meal, would lay on the floor and read the book Sideways Stories from Wayside School while Cinnamon, the class ferret, sat on his face. Tyler, Joel and I were reading a Where's Waldo book. Silent Reading had a great catch 22. We had to read, but, we could read any book on the class book shelves. Which had Where's Waldo books, and Guinness books of worlds records and that sorta thing, along with Beverly Cleary books and Shel Silverstein books. So naturally, we would just look at a where's waldo book.
Tyler said he wondered how his and my grandfathers, who were both named Keith, could be such good friends with Lonny's father, who was the same age as our grandparents. We decided that old farmers could get along, even if one of them had a son who smelt like shit and was pretty much a retard.
I told Joel and Tyler, how I heard once from my aunt that Lonny's older sister Maureen George, who was my fathers age, was a drug addict and that she was actually Lonny's mother. But Maureen was to fucked up to take care of him, so her mom and dad, Donald and Geraldine George, became his parents. At that time they were both in there late 40s.
Joel asked if Lonnie knew about all this, and we agreed it would be terrible to find out all of a sudden that your parents where your grandparents and your sister was your mother. We also came tot he agreement that ol' Scroat-meal was to fucking dumb to care anyways. He could be abandoned out in the woods with a note from his parents that said "Suck It, we hate you!" and he'd just stand there and eat his boogers.
After our conversation during silent reading, we got ready for Social studies when an announcement came over the intercom:
Receptionist: Mrs. Loverly?
Mrs. Loverly: Yes?
Receptionist: Is Albert Elsner and Lonny George there?
I sunk in my plastic chair. An announcement that involved the both of us had to mean trouble. Had someone told on me for putting Cinnamon's shit in Lonny's bag? Or had he himself turned us in for stealing his coat and hiding it in the lost and found box during the Arbor Day Assembly. No matter what, I knew I was totally fucked, and Joel and Tyler knew it too.
They were both staring at me, with faces straight as can be. It was as if they were pleading to me not to rat them out. I was sort of hoping that the receptionist would ask if Joel and Tyler were in the room too, so at least if i went down i'd go down with friends. But still, I could feel the stains in my armpits growing and i felt like i was going to throw up.
Receptionist: Will you tell Lonny that he is to ride the bus all the way to Patrick's after school today?
Mrs. Loverly: I'll tell them.
And just like that I felt a boulder lifted off me and replaced with a large rock. Joel and Tyler went from terrified to ecstatic. Tyler said, "oh Albert, are you two gonna play dolls and have a tea party?" Some kids around us laughed, but i just put my head down.
I wanted social studies to take forever so that the day wouldn't end. As if the schools bells were only to ring when Mrs. Loverly's full lesson plans were finished. We were all reading from the book aloud, taking turns after each paragraph. Tyler picked Lonny to read, and so he did. It took him forever to read a 3 sentence paragraph because he could barely read at all. And he would still pronounce words wrong, like he said "though" instead of "tough". Apparently he thought the indians chasing down a buffalo was very "though" to do.
Of course, when Lonny was finished reading, he picked me to read next. This made Tyler and Joel laugh, and i glared at them. I started to read my sentence about what the hyde of the buffaloes were used for when the bell rang. I now had 40 minutes until it was just Lonny, Duane and myself on the bus.
When i looked up from the seat behind Duane, he was looking into the mirror as if waiting to catch my eye. When I noticed, he smiled and started to talk.
"The cat's name was Blow Job", he told Lonny, and Lonny said that was a funny name for a cat. Then Duane looked at me and i was laughing. Lonny didn't know what Blow Job was, where as I had recently heard it had something to do with when a penis is put in girls mouth. And that was funny.
The bus pulled in front of my drive way and Duane opened the door. Lonny and I got off and Duane said to Lonny before he shut the doors that if he saw the cat on the way home he'd pick it up for him, because he'd really like blow job. Then Duane said that he may just keep it for himself, cause he could use a Blow Job to. Lonny smiled and said thanks.
We walked up the dirt/gravel driveway and Lonny said that the ravines in it looked like the grand canyon, then i said his hair cut made him look like a retard and started to run up the drive way.
I got inside and my mom was waiting by the door. She hugged me and kissed me and asked where Lonny was. I told her that I didn't know. I really knew he was outside, probably on the porch by now, but it seemed cool to pretend that I hadn't noticed he rode the bus to our house.
Lonny walked in the door and my mom said hi, and hugged him too. I thought that was really weird, because my mom never liked Geraldine and always talked about how gross Lonny was when she'd see him out in the yard playing. She would say that it was a shame that his life was sure gonna be tough.
My mom told Lonny and I to go to my room and play. I didn't want to do that, I didn't want him in my room. Thoughts of Lonny, thoughts of Scroat-meal taking a shit on my brand new NFL bed spread, or blowing his nose on one of my t-shirts made me crazy. But, I listened to my mom and we went in anyways.
I pulled the covers off my bed and sat on the sheets. Lonny sat in my Kansas City Chiefs camping chair. The chair looked like it was ready to tear and break from his weight. What a fat shit. What a fat smelly fucker.
I turned on the tv and it was on PBS. Sometimes I'd watch the shows on PBS because i liked them. If Tyler or Joel saw me watching PBS I'd be embarrassed, but I don't know why. Since Lonny was the only one in the room who'd see me watching PBS I wasn't embarrassed, but i don't know why.
The show was about this scientist named Bill teaching us how to build things. On this episode he was showing how to build a volcano out of baking soda and vinegar. Lonny really liked the show, he kept looking at me and saying "that's cool, idn't it?" I didn't answer, and he went back to watching the show.
It actually was kinda cool, the way this reaction, baking soda and vinegar with red food coloring, would make such a mess. I wondered if that's how volcanoes really worked. Obviously, there isn't baking soda and vinegar colored red under ground, but maybe 2 other things mix and make volcanoes blow up. I bet i could ask Mrs. Loverly about this, she'd know. Maybe she would let me make a model like this and do it for the whole class. That'd be really cool.
Then Lonny looked over and asked if i thought it'd be cool if Mrs. Loverly let us build one of these models for class. and i told him that he was gay, and that volcanoes were gay too, and then i clicked the tv off. Lonny wasn't phased he just looked at the window at the cows that were in the field behind our house.
I rolled my eyes at Lonny then started thumbing through my baseball card album i had on the floor. Joel and Tyler may know a lot more about baseball then me, but I have a ton more cards then them. Then there was a knock on my bedroom door.
I opened the door and my mom was standing there. It was weird because no one ever knocked in our house. My mom would usually yell from the kitchen. It always bugged me because she would yell, "ALBIE!" and i would yell back "WHAT?" and she'd yell back "I DIDN'T SAY WHAT, I SAID COME HERE!". It pissed me off because that's not what happened at all. She never said anything except my name. But, the fact that she was knocking on my door was different, as if my bedroom was my own apartment. Thoughts of installing a refrigerator and sink passed through my head, until my mom spoke.
She asked me to come into the kitchen, so i did. Lonny stayed in my room. When i got into the kitchen i could tell that my dad, grandma and grandpa were all in the living room. And so was Maureen, Lonny's Sister/Mom. I hadn't seen her in a long time. I always remembered her being skinny and pretty, but she was fat and ugly now, but I could tell it was her still. She was smoking long cigarettes, longer then my mom and dads. Maureen George was the only person I knew who smoked those.
My mom asked me to sit at the kitchen table, because we needed to talk. I started the conversation, by asking why the heck Lonny was in my room. My mom just looked at me, and said to hold on a second. But I kept talking, I told her how embarrassing it was for me when the news came over the intercom, I told her how much Joel, Tyler and i hated him. How he let the ferret sit on his face. I think i even mentioned the Famunda Cheese, but I can't be sure. The whole time i was talking, my mother just stared at me with sad eyes. As if every word I said was hurting her feelings.
This pissed me off. Why would my mom be so defensive of this little shit. She herself said his life would be tough and that he was gross. So I kept talking I said, that I wanted Lonny to go. I didn't want him in my room, or in our house. Never before had I put my foot down like this, I imagined my father and grandfather would be so proud, me sticking up for myself and my beliefs in such a way. My beliefs of Lonny being a piece of shit asshole who doesn't deserve to be in our ranch style.
Then, after I said that about wanting Lonny out, I stopped talking. My mom still looked sad, and she had a tear in her eye. She grabbed my hands and held them, and told me to listen to her.
She said "There was an accident today Patrick. Lonny's mom and dad, Geraldine and Donny, they died."
I was floored. I felt sick to my stomach, like that time Joel and I drank the brown liquor we found in his grandpa's garage. My mom cried now, it was no longer a few tears. All my hatred for Lonny was gone. All my angst and anger, was gone. I wasn't the same kid i'd spent the last 3 years turning myself into. I wasn't cool, or uncool, or popular. I was just a kid sitting at a table with his mom.
I asked her how. And she told me that this morning, after Lonny got on the bus, Don went out to help Grandpa Keith in the field and the two of them we're working on the hay bailer and something snapped, and it hit Don in the neck. It killed him instantly, and that Grandpa had tried all he could to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn't stop.
All I could see was my grandpa in the field, in the middle of the hot day, trying the best he could to save Don's life, while Lonny was in class laying on the floor reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School with Cinnamon perched on his face.
After a minute, I asked what happened to Geraldine. I guess, my grandpa had put Don in the back of the truck and drove down the field road and over to Lonny's house. He knocked on the door, and when Geraldine came to it he said that he was very sorry. Then she ran to the truck and saw Don laying there, and she couldn't handle it. She had a heart attack and died right there in the driveway. For the second time that afternoon my grandfather watched two of his best friends lives end right in front of him, and he couldn't do anything about it.
It hurt so bad. The news of what had happened this afternoon. It hurt me so bad, and it wasn't even my parents. I barely even knew Geraldine and Don. Sometimes they'd go fishing in Minnesota and have a fish fry and i'd see them there. I always knew they thought Lonny and I were such good friends. I was really sad. I wondered if my Grandpa was ok, I knew that it'd be really crazy to have all that happen in one day.
Then I heard my bed room door open. Lonny must have gotten bored alone in my room, and he decided to come see what was up. That's when it hit me that he had no idea. I mean, I knew he wouldn't know. But when i realized he'd have to be told, it hurt. It seemed forever from the sound of him opening my door and when he finally came around the hall corner and into the kitchen.
"I'm hungry, do you have any tuna fish Sharon?"
That is what Lonny said when he walked into the kitchen. All he wanted was some tuna fish sandwiches, but that wasn't what he was going to get. Instead, he was going to get news that would change his life. His terrible, smelly, tough life. I got up and walked out of the kitchen and right out the front door. I sat down on the porch steps. It was about 6:00, and it was still sunny out. The day was beautiful.
After about 2 minutes of me sitting on the porch, my dog Pogso came over and I started to pet her. after about another minute, Pogso and I heard a loud scream from the kitchen. It was so loud she started barking. I didn't know what the sound was at first, and when i looked in through the window to the kitchen table where my mom and Lonny were, i saw that Lonny was screaming.
He kept screaming "NO NO NO NO", and he was hitting his fists on the table. He started to move his hands around and knocked stuff off the table. The plastic bill holder that sat on the table, that my dad would use to keep track of the bills, it fell to the floor and i can only imagine it broke. There were papers everywhere, and i couldn't see everything through the curtains, but i could see my mom was standing. She grabbed Lonny and hugged him, and he stopped moving, but he continued to scream. "No No No" He just kept screaming the same thing, over and over.
After an hour, I went back in side, it was now starting to get dark, and even though i was 11 years old, i hated being outside alone after dark. Inside, Lonny was in the living room asleep on the love seat. My grandma and grandpa were sitting on the couch, Maureen in the recliner, and my mom and dad were sitting on the fire place platform. no one was talking. not a word. I walked in and sat indian style on the floor in front of my mom and dad.
I still felt sick, knowing what i knew. Knowing that Lonny's life would never be the same. That his mom and dad, even if they weren't his real mom and dad were dead. That he would never see them again. They would never get to hug Lonny, scroat-meal, the smelly fat ass who was there son/grandson whom they loved. I felt like i could throw up, if i had anything in my stomach to throw up.
After a couple minutes, my grandpa looked over at me and said, as if the day was like any other day ever, "So what'd you and Lonny do at school today Albie?". And I threw up all over the carpet.
That Damn Wreck (fiction)
This starts before the dust storm. The flash of blue, black, gray and then red, hasn't happened yet. The terrible sounds and squeals hadn't hit my ear yet. this starts before the dust storm.
It was October, but the snow hadn't came yet. It was a brilliant day. the bus ride from Northeast Elementary School to our house was 50 minutes long. On the bus i sat next to Lonny. Lonny was in my class and i think he was retarded. He wore thick glasses, like me, but they didn't help him read, they helped him see things that were far away. my glasses helped me read, i could see things far away just fine. Lonny lived up the road from us, it was a gravel road but the county of Mills workers didn't take care of it, so it didn't have very many rocks on it. I often would day dream out the window of the large school bus that i could roller skate all the way to town on the flat un-rocky gravel road. but i didn't like to roller skate. Lonny liked to roller skate, but then again Lonny also liked to eat crayons and then vomit them on the bus floor.
The last 5 minutes of the bus ride home were my favorite. There was a large hill a few miles from my house and at the base of the hill was a bridge. This was a very small rickety bridge, and our bus driver, Duane, would speed down the hill and i would jump up and down in the back seat until the bus hit the bridge and would bounce against the boards. This would send me high into the air. It was the best part of the afternoon, and i always looked forward. I never worried about the bus crashing, or falling off the bridge. It was like my own personal roller coaster, even though i didn't like roller coaster. Lonny liked roller coasters, but then again Lonny liked to put his index finger inside his asshole.
When the bus finally got to my house, i was excited. The day was beautiful, and i wanted to immediately start playing in the yard. We had a giant yard, and i had many toy trucks. I had tonka trunks, i had dump trucks, road graders, bob cats, and i even had the green road layer that had a large roll of plastic road that it layed. I never really played with it, because it was green, not yellow, and because the road was useless.
I walked up our driveway, which had large deep holes in it, that looked like tiny ravines. To my mothers escort, these ravines were hell, but to me, the ravines were my own personal grand canyon. I would walk up through them and pretend i was a giant walking. I was paul bunyon, i was untouchable, i was happy. then i saw my dad coming down the road in his red truck, which i called a pick-up truck, because he called it a pick-up truck.
When he pulled in the driveway he told me to get my sister, who was to young to go to school and my mother and have them come out to the truck because we were going to go into town. I went in the house, which was a giant A-Frame where you could step right up on to the roof from the grass. This was great in the summers for watching fire works, because on a clear night we could see all thew ay to Omaha. This was also great, because anytime my parents were not home, i could play with my trucks on the roof, which to me was the most sneaky thing in the world.
We all got in the red pickup truck, and Dad said we were going to into town to get dinner. We usually ate dinner at home, and it was usually cooked by my mother, not by strangers, so i was still excited. My dad was driving, and between him and I was my sister. She was only 5 years old, and she wouldn't even turn 6 for another month. My mother was sitting to the left of me, she was taking up a lot of room, because she was pregnant. I didn't understand pregnacy, but I did know that it meant i was going to have a little brother or sister and that was a good thing.
My father wasn't my father. He was my father, in the sense that he was married to my mother and that i called him dad, but he wasn't my father in the sense that he was named Steve and my real father was named David. I also knew he wasn't my real father because I knew my mother longer than he did and we had different last names. My mom also had the same different last name as my father. My sister and I had the same last name too. It was the same last name as Fred, our "other" father who wasn't our "father". I often wondered what the baby in my mothers stomach's last name would be.
As we were on the road we passed Lonny's house, I expected to see him out in the yard playing with some toy trucks, but instead he was lay in the grass letting a cat sit on his face. If i were him, i'd be playing with trucks, but instead, I was going to town to get dinner with my family. My dad was talking to my mother about how some guy at work was a really funny. I didn't know what his job was, but i knew it had something to do with cows. I didn't like cows. they never really bothered me but I really liked pigs, and I felt you could only like one. just the same as i liked dogs not cats. which is another reason why I wouldn't let a cat lay on my face the way Lonny did. and I really thought Lonny was retarded.
We were coming on the straight away, by the houses where the kid whos name is steven but spelled with ph instead of a v lives, and my dad turned the radio up. the song on the radio was by randy travis. I loved hearing Randy Travis, because his voice sounded like he was trying not to sing but instead make a funny sound. I looked over at my sister, and she was counting on her fingers, i taught her how to count to 5, and so now thats all she did. my mom was singing along with the radio, and my dad was just driving. I assumed driving the pickup truck was hard, because there was extra pedals and gear shifters. it was cramped on the seat, but i felt comfortable. i leaned my head back so i could see the sky out the back window and started to day dream about what i would eat when we got to the restaurant.
This is when the terrible sounds hit my ear. I jerked my head forward, and all i saw was the dust storm. It was terrible.like driving through a fire only there was no smell of smoke. My father had one hand on the steering wheel and the other was stretched across my sister and i and holding my mothers hand. The pickup was spinning and we were no longer on the road but in the ditch. my sister was screaming, my father was cursing, and my mom was silent. i looked around and my father was still bringing the car to stop. and then all at once the car stopped, the engine died, and we were no longer going to town to get dinner.
Right before the car stopped, I closed my eyes tightly.then i heard the door open and i could tell that my sister and my dad were no longer in the car. the door was still open and i could hear the dinging of the door ajar bell. i opened my eyes again, and my mother was no longer sitting on the seat next to me. she was on the floor curled into a tight ball and she had apparently gone to sleep. I then realized that my glasses were very broken, and i wouldn't be able to use them to see far or near anymore.. There was also something on them, that i couldn't figure out what was. It was red like the color of the truck, so i assume it was the paint from the truck.
This was after the dust storm had settled. I heard my sister screaming far in the distance, and when i listened hard i could hear a car radio. it wasn't coming from our speakers though, i even reached out to turn our knob up and sure enough, it didn't make the music any louder. I was a little glad that it didn't get louder, because it probably would have woken my mother up, and my dad has told me that its not nice to wake a pregnant women when shes napping. i reached up for the rear view mirror and i was going to turn it so i could see how goofy i looked with broken glasses, but i knew that it would make my father angry if i moved the mirror so instead i slid over a little and looked at it, only to see that there was tons of red paint from the truck all over my face. and it was runny, like pancake syrup.
Then my father appeared in the door of the truck and grabbed me, he was holding me tightly, tighter than he'd ever hugged me before and he ran with me, across the road which had enough gravel on it at this point roller skating would be a little harder, and sat me next to my sister in the grass. he told me to stay there, and i told him i would. he was very angry about something. not so much angry as excited. Not the way i was excited about playing with my trucks or excited about having strangers cook my food, but excited in a different way. he ran over to the truck and and pulled my mom out of it. She didn't even wake up, i thought her dream must be good if she didn't wanna come out of it. I also though how silly it was that my dad was going to wake her up after he warned me not too.
I looked at my sister and she was pale, she was as white as the sheets on my parents bed. I imagined that people would drive by and see the two of us and wonder what was going on. I also imagined we had another person with us, who looked blue. Because my sister was very white, i was covered in paint from the truck and a blue person would make us look just like a flag. and i think that would look neat. i would hope someone would take a picture and it would get in a magazine.
My dad started to drag my mother across the gravelly road and yelled at me to come help him, so i jumped up and grabbed my moms feet. when i walked on the gravel i realized there was no way i could ever roller skate on it. there were tiny rocks you couldn't see that would make it really hard. we layed my mother in the grass next to where my sister was sitting and my dad sat with us. he asked if i was in pain, and i said no. but i did have a sudden headache. he was cradling my mothers head and trying to wake her up. i almost told him to let her sleep, she must be tired, but my sister talked first.
She said, "who's in the back seat?" and i giggled, the truck didn't have a back seat, then she pointed past us and i noticed for the first time where the music was coming from. there was a broken blue mess of a car further down the road in the ditch. it looked like someone had taken a car and wadded it up into a ball. my dad told her that no one was in the backseat and he told my mom that we were all ok, but that it was terrible. He kept saying "this is terrible, this is terrible." I looked up at the sky, and then all around, at my father, my mother, my sister, our truck, and the blue mess of a car, and i realized exactly what had happened. we were in a car accident. that's when i closed my eyes and took a nap.
I woke up and was at a hospital. my sister was in the room with me, but she wasnt in a bed like me. my dad and here were standing next to each other and they were really happy i woke up. my grandparents were also there, which i liked cause they were fun. and my dad told his dad, who i called grandpa, that the baby was fine and that they wouldn't take it ceraian. everyone was very happy in the room. except my dad. he looked like someone had told him to smile even when he didn't want to. my sister came over to me and grabbed my hand and said that mom was fine. I was happy. I didn't know anything was wrong with her, but it was good to know she was fine. Then she said "the lady died." and i asked what lady, and she said the lady in the blue car. She died and went to heaven with god and Jesus. I was really intrigued by this. someone died. and everyone in the room had started talking and everyone looked less happy. no one had expressions at all. It looked like a bunch of people wearing Halloween masks of people with no faces.
Then my sister said, like she said on the side of the road, that there was someone in the back seat who died too. and my dad quickly corrected her saying there wasn't anyone in the back seat o fthe car. that just the lady was dead. but my sister knew better. she saw it and she told all of us that she saw someone in the back seat, and that they were small and not moving. i wondered if it was a little kid like us, maybe someone from class. .
My father told my grandfather that he had ran over to the car while holding her and looked in to see that the women had been decapitated in the accident. he then leaned in and whispered something to my grandfather and my grandfathers face cringed like he was eating a grapefruit. then my sister again told me that she saw a person in the back seat. She wasn't happy or sad, she was just telling me. As if she was telling me about something she saw on tv. i laid back and went back to sleep and I dreamt about the accident. I dreamed that I was my sister and I had seen the lady in the car without her head, but I didn't see anyone in the back seat. Instead, i saw the woman's head. and she was crying. I felt really bad looking, but i also felt really happy that her face wasn't my mothers.
I woke up and everyone was still in the room, my grandfather hugged me the way he did so that he seemed like the largest person in the world, and my grandma kissed me and my sister a lot. I noticed my mom was now in the room in a bed like me, she was reading and had tears in her eyes. i wondered if what she was reading was sad, or if she was crying about the women from my dream, the women from the accident. Then a nurse came in and had a tray on wheels, it wheeled right over my bed, and it smelled like chicken. I took the top off and it was a piece of chicken, some veggies, some fruit, and french fries, but I wasn't hungry anymore.
So I just laid there and thought. I think this was the first time I ever thought like an adult, because I was thinking about life and death, and I had never thought of that before. The dust storm was over, and I wasn't the same as I was before it. When I road the bus with Lonny now, I'd feel different. I thought everything would feel different. And it did.
It was October, but the snow hadn't came yet. It was a brilliant day. the bus ride from Northeast Elementary School to our house was 50 minutes long. On the bus i sat next to Lonny. Lonny was in my class and i think he was retarded. He wore thick glasses, like me, but they didn't help him read, they helped him see things that were far away. my glasses helped me read, i could see things far away just fine. Lonny lived up the road from us, it was a gravel road but the county of Mills workers didn't take care of it, so it didn't have very many rocks on it. I often would day dream out the window of the large school bus that i could roller skate all the way to town on the flat un-rocky gravel road. but i didn't like to roller skate. Lonny liked to roller skate, but then again Lonny also liked to eat crayons and then vomit them on the bus floor.
The last 5 minutes of the bus ride home were my favorite. There was a large hill a few miles from my house and at the base of the hill was a bridge. This was a very small rickety bridge, and our bus driver, Duane, would speed down the hill and i would jump up and down in the back seat until the bus hit the bridge and would bounce against the boards. This would send me high into the air. It was the best part of the afternoon, and i always looked forward. I never worried about the bus crashing, or falling off the bridge. It was like my own personal roller coaster, even though i didn't like roller coaster. Lonny liked roller coasters, but then again Lonny liked to put his index finger inside his asshole.
When the bus finally got to my house, i was excited. The day was beautiful, and i wanted to immediately start playing in the yard. We had a giant yard, and i had many toy trucks. I had tonka trunks, i had dump trucks, road graders, bob cats, and i even had the green road layer that had a large roll of plastic road that it layed. I never really played with it, because it was green, not yellow, and because the road was useless.
I walked up our driveway, which had large deep holes in it, that looked like tiny ravines. To my mothers escort, these ravines were hell, but to me, the ravines were my own personal grand canyon. I would walk up through them and pretend i was a giant walking. I was paul bunyon, i was untouchable, i was happy. then i saw my dad coming down the road in his red truck, which i called a pick-up truck, because he called it a pick-up truck.
When he pulled in the driveway he told me to get my sister, who was to young to go to school and my mother and have them come out to the truck because we were going to go into town. I went in the house, which was a giant A-Frame where you could step right up on to the roof from the grass. This was great in the summers for watching fire works, because on a clear night we could see all thew ay to Omaha. This was also great, because anytime my parents were not home, i could play with my trucks on the roof, which to me was the most sneaky thing in the world.
We all got in the red pickup truck, and Dad said we were going to into town to get dinner. We usually ate dinner at home, and it was usually cooked by my mother, not by strangers, so i was still excited. My dad was driving, and between him and I was my sister. She was only 5 years old, and she wouldn't even turn 6 for another month. My mother was sitting to the left of me, she was taking up a lot of room, because she was pregnant. I didn't understand pregnacy, but I did know that it meant i was going to have a little brother or sister and that was a good thing.
My father wasn't my father. He was my father, in the sense that he was married to my mother and that i called him dad, but he wasn't my father in the sense that he was named Steve and my real father was named David. I also knew he wasn't my real father because I knew my mother longer than he did and we had different last names. My mom also had the same different last name as my father. My sister and I had the same last name too. It was the same last name as Fred, our "other" father who wasn't our "father". I often wondered what the baby in my mothers stomach's last name would be.
As we were on the road we passed Lonny's house, I expected to see him out in the yard playing with some toy trucks, but instead he was lay in the grass letting a cat sit on his face. If i were him, i'd be playing with trucks, but instead, I was going to town to get dinner with my family. My dad was talking to my mother about how some guy at work was a really funny. I didn't know what his job was, but i knew it had something to do with cows. I didn't like cows. they never really bothered me but I really liked pigs, and I felt you could only like one. just the same as i liked dogs not cats. which is another reason why I wouldn't let a cat lay on my face the way Lonny did. and I really thought Lonny was retarded.
We were coming on the straight away, by the houses where the kid whos name is steven but spelled with ph instead of a v lives, and my dad turned the radio up. the song on the radio was by randy travis. I loved hearing Randy Travis, because his voice sounded like he was trying not to sing but instead make a funny sound. I looked over at my sister, and she was counting on her fingers, i taught her how to count to 5, and so now thats all she did. my mom was singing along with the radio, and my dad was just driving. I assumed driving the pickup truck was hard, because there was extra pedals and gear shifters. it was cramped on the seat, but i felt comfortable. i leaned my head back so i could see the sky out the back window and started to day dream about what i would eat when we got to the restaurant.
This is when the terrible sounds hit my ear. I jerked my head forward, and all i saw was the dust storm. It was terrible.like driving through a fire only there was no smell of smoke. My father had one hand on the steering wheel and the other was stretched across my sister and i and holding my mothers hand. The pickup was spinning and we were no longer on the road but in the ditch. my sister was screaming, my father was cursing, and my mom was silent. i looked around and my father was still bringing the car to stop. and then all at once the car stopped, the engine died, and we were no longer going to town to get dinner.
Right before the car stopped, I closed my eyes tightly.then i heard the door open and i could tell that my sister and my dad were no longer in the car. the door was still open and i could hear the dinging of the door ajar bell. i opened my eyes again, and my mother was no longer sitting on the seat next to me. she was on the floor curled into a tight ball and she had apparently gone to sleep. I then realized that my glasses were very broken, and i wouldn't be able to use them to see far or near anymore.. There was also something on them, that i couldn't figure out what was. It was red like the color of the truck, so i assume it was the paint from the truck.
This was after the dust storm had settled. I heard my sister screaming far in the distance, and when i listened hard i could hear a car radio. it wasn't coming from our speakers though, i even reached out to turn our knob up and sure enough, it didn't make the music any louder. I was a little glad that it didn't get louder, because it probably would have woken my mother up, and my dad has told me that its not nice to wake a pregnant women when shes napping. i reached up for the rear view mirror and i was going to turn it so i could see how goofy i looked with broken glasses, but i knew that it would make my father angry if i moved the mirror so instead i slid over a little and looked at it, only to see that there was tons of red paint from the truck all over my face. and it was runny, like pancake syrup.
Then my father appeared in the door of the truck and grabbed me, he was holding me tightly, tighter than he'd ever hugged me before and he ran with me, across the road which had enough gravel on it at this point roller skating would be a little harder, and sat me next to my sister in the grass. he told me to stay there, and i told him i would. he was very angry about something. not so much angry as excited. Not the way i was excited about playing with my trucks or excited about having strangers cook my food, but excited in a different way. he ran over to the truck and and pulled my mom out of it. She didn't even wake up, i thought her dream must be good if she didn't wanna come out of it. I also though how silly it was that my dad was going to wake her up after he warned me not too.
I looked at my sister and she was pale, she was as white as the sheets on my parents bed. I imagined that people would drive by and see the two of us and wonder what was going on. I also imagined we had another person with us, who looked blue. Because my sister was very white, i was covered in paint from the truck and a blue person would make us look just like a flag. and i think that would look neat. i would hope someone would take a picture and it would get in a magazine.
My dad started to drag my mother across the gravelly road and yelled at me to come help him, so i jumped up and grabbed my moms feet. when i walked on the gravel i realized there was no way i could ever roller skate on it. there were tiny rocks you couldn't see that would make it really hard. we layed my mother in the grass next to where my sister was sitting and my dad sat with us. he asked if i was in pain, and i said no. but i did have a sudden headache. he was cradling my mothers head and trying to wake her up. i almost told him to let her sleep, she must be tired, but my sister talked first.
She said, "who's in the back seat?" and i giggled, the truck didn't have a back seat, then she pointed past us and i noticed for the first time where the music was coming from. there was a broken blue mess of a car further down the road in the ditch. it looked like someone had taken a car and wadded it up into a ball. my dad told her that no one was in the backseat and he told my mom that we were all ok, but that it was terrible. He kept saying "this is terrible, this is terrible." I looked up at the sky, and then all around, at my father, my mother, my sister, our truck, and the blue mess of a car, and i realized exactly what had happened. we were in a car accident. that's when i closed my eyes and took a nap.
I woke up and was at a hospital. my sister was in the room with me, but she wasnt in a bed like me. my dad and here were standing next to each other and they were really happy i woke up. my grandparents were also there, which i liked cause they were fun. and my dad told his dad, who i called grandpa, that the baby was fine and that they wouldn't take it ceraian. everyone was very happy in the room. except my dad. he looked like someone had told him to smile even when he didn't want to. my sister came over to me and grabbed my hand and said that mom was fine. I was happy. I didn't know anything was wrong with her, but it was good to know she was fine. Then she said "the lady died." and i asked what lady, and she said the lady in the blue car. She died and went to heaven with god and Jesus. I was really intrigued by this. someone died. and everyone in the room had started talking and everyone looked less happy. no one had expressions at all. It looked like a bunch of people wearing Halloween masks of people with no faces.
Then my sister said, like she said on the side of the road, that there was someone in the back seat who died too. and my dad quickly corrected her saying there wasn't anyone in the back seat o fthe car. that just the lady was dead. but my sister knew better. she saw it and she told all of us that she saw someone in the back seat, and that they were small and not moving. i wondered if it was a little kid like us, maybe someone from class. .
My father told my grandfather that he had ran over to the car while holding her and looked in to see that the women had been decapitated in the accident. he then leaned in and whispered something to my grandfather and my grandfathers face cringed like he was eating a grapefruit. then my sister again told me that she saw a person in the back seat. She wasn't happy or sad, she was just telling me. As if she was telling me about something she saw on tv. i laid back and went back to sleep and I dreamt about the accident. I dreamed that I was my sister and I had seen the lady in the car without her head, but I didn't see anyone in the back seat. Instead, i saw the woman's head. and she was crying. I felt really bad looking, but i also felt really happy that her face wasn't my mothers.
I woke up and everyone was still in the room, my grandfather hugged me the way he did so that he seemed like the largest person in the world, and my grandma kissed me and my sister a lot. I noticed my mom was now in the room in a bed like me, she was reading and had tears in her eyes. i wondered if what she was reading was sad, or if she was crying about the women from my dream, the women from the accident. Then a nurse came in and had a tray on wheels, it wheeled right over my bed, and it smelled like chicken. I took the top off and it was a piece of chicken, some veggies, some fruit, and french fries, but I wasn't hungry anymore.
So I just laid there and thought. I think this was the first time I ever thought like an adult, because I was thinking about life and death, and I had never thought of that before. The dust storm was over, and I wasn't the same as I was before it. When I road the bus with Lonny now, I'd feel different. I thought everything would feel different. And it did.
Short Story Weekly
The Next few posts will be some short stories I've written. They are usually depressing, and loosely based on real events. Also, I apologize for the spelling/grammer. I am not a for-real writer.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
In a Heartbeat
[Originally posted June 16th, 2009]
Here's where I am. Midnight. It's a dark room, a hospital room but not a hospital room. It's a waiting room. Me, I'm fine. It's my uncle. It's my uncle.
Two days ago, I got into town at about six. The trees looked beautiful, and I am still getting used to how they paved Kidd Road all the way out to the "T". After letting Murphy smell his favorite trees at my parents house, I walked across the road to my grandparents house. My uncle lives there too.
I had heard all about it. The weight-loss, the cancer, the pain, the blood. But, I hadn't seen it. Living two hours away keeps you in a terrible safety. It was hard to believe that this had all happened in two short months. Back in April everything was normal.
Grandma was so new to retirement, she'd still wake up at 6am without an alarm. And Grandpa, was shedding cattle by the day like hair on a dog. The were making plans for Alaska in the summer, and Texas in the winter. Everything was going perfect.
But that was in April. Now it's June. Now it's different.
The way you enter my grandparents house, is you open the door and say "Knock Knock". You don't actually knock. You've never seen a nicer 30 year old door, because no one's ever knocked on it. The door opens in, blocking view of the living room beyond.
What I got was my uncle Dickey. Sitting on the couch next to Grandma, he looked skinnier, sure, but he looked fine other than that.
Grandpa was sitting in his chair, and I sat on the loveseat. Immediatly Grandpa started talking about the bills, the surgery, what was going to happen. I wont go into it.
Dickey's tounge was swollen with cancer, so when he talked he did sound a little different. But not to much. It was as if he had a Boston accent. You could tell he was in pain though, and that he was nervous. It was terrible to see him and my grandparents like this.
Later that night, after Grandpa went to bed (he didn't go to sleep, he just went to bed) Grandma, Dickey and I stayed up talking. We agreed that this was terrible, and made no sense. He never smoked, he never drank, he never chewed tobacco. There was no reason for the cancer.
Grandma soon retired to bed so she could not sleep, and Dickey and I stayed up. We made each other laugh, we joked and talked about music. He gave me a little boom box cd player, that will come in handy around the apartment.
Every once in awhile, he'd stop laughing. He'd tell me again, in a new way, how he wishes he wouldn't have got this. And how he hopes I don't get it. I'd do my best to tell him that maybe it all means something, but as an agnostic it's hard to preach.
I got an erie feeling. I felt like Dickey thought, for sure, he wasn't going to make it through the surgery. Everything happened so quick. It got hard to eat, he went to the dentist, the oral surgeion, the cancer doctor, and now he's on the eve of a hospital visit with dreams of death dancing in his brain. There was nothing I could do to make him feel any better, so I just hoped for the best. He is such a good person, it wouldn't go down like that.
At 2 am we parted, I walked back to Mom and Dad's and Dickey went to bed, where, like everyone else in the house, he wasn't going to sleep.
This morning, we all met at the hospital. It was 4:30, and Grandma, Grandpa and Dickey were in the lobby. I walked in with Mom, Dad and Daniel. We all sat there, waiting.
When it was time, they came and got Dickey. He went to get ready for his surgery. Grandma and Grandpa looked like nervous wrecks, Mom too. Dad, Daniel and I tried to hold it all together. As if we had some skill to do so.
After about 40 minutes, they told us we could go see him before surgery. We went in, 3 at a time. First Grandma, Grandpa and Mom. Then Grandma, Mom and Dad. Then Grandma, me and Daniel. He looked terrified. A look I never wanna see on anyones face again. A look I hope no one ever sees on my face.
The doctor asked Dickey if he had any questions. Dickey responded, with some of the last words he'd ever speak, "No. I don't know. I've never had cancer before." I hugged him, said "Be good" and walked out with Daniel. We both had tears, but it was a long hall way back to the waiting room to get our faces on.
Now Here I am in the ICU waiting room. Through out the day the family came, and we have a big family. But now, it's just Grandma, Grandpa and Dad here. It's late, it's quiet.
I should tell you, Dickey came out of surgery after 9 hours. A good 3 hours earlier then expected. They cut his tounge out, his larynx and part of his jaw bone, but everything looked good. As if he wont have to have anything else done.
Also, they said he wouldn't be awake til' Wednesday, but he was awake and aware about an hour after surgery. That's when we went to see him. This time I was with Kim, my sister. We walked in and he was hooked up to dozens of machines. He had a stitched scar on his neck ear to ear, a tracheotomy tube on his throat, but he looked good. He looked painless. I think he was surprised and happy he was alive.
Kim and I handed him the small notebook we got, so he could write to us. The first thing he wrote, after all this surgery, after everything he went through, it wasn't "How'd it go?" or "Am I gonna be ok?". No, it was simply, "Are You Ok?". He didn't care how he was doing, it was us, the family. That's what mattered.
Dad and I went into Dickey's room a little bit ago. He was still happy, and his pain level, which he has said was a 10 out of 10 since April, was at a somber, wonderful, 3 out of 10. We flipped the TV on for him and he found Family Guy on Adult Swim. I don't remember what was happening on the show, I just remember laughing, with my dad and Dickey.
Then the nurses, who were great, came in and said that he needed to get some sleep. He had had a hell of a day. We said goodnight, and walked out. I asked Dickey if he wanted the light off, and he shook his head. I could find the switch, but then when I did the room went almost black. It was funny, it was quick. Just dark. Dickey smiled again and gave me a thumbs up.
So now here I sit. Typing on a free computer, about whats been happening. I don't think I'll be able to sit in here all night though. I just feel like I need to be in the room with him. So I am gonna go hold my uncles hand while he sleeps and be there if he needs anything.
Why? Because I know, for a fact, that if the situation was reversed, he'd be there for me. In a second. In a heartbeat.
.................................................
Dickey's cancer got better for about a year.
.
He visited Texas twice with my parents and grandparents.
He came to my wedding in the summer of 2010.
Two years and five months after his surgery, on November 2nd, 2011, my uncle Dickey passed away at his home.
He is, and always will be, the best person I ever met.
Richard "Dickey" Hastie
May 23, 1965 - November 2, 2011
My uncle, my friend, my brother.
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