My Friend Knows Insurance

How to start? Where to start? I’m supposed to be able to just start. I’m supposed to be able to sit in front of a blank screen, a blank sheet of paper, an empty anything and fill it. But fill it with what? Earlier in life I would fill it with something. Nothing really, but it was at least something.

I’ve been reading some classics as of late and wouldn’t mind writing something like Salinger or… what’s that guy’s name that killed himself? A friend of mine once told me they had lived on the same street in Minnesota and that he saw him get his mail. This was of course before he killed himself. Fitzgerald? No, I think he was the guy that made cars. Or was he into steel? I once visited some mansions in Rhode Island that some steel baron owned, I wonder if he ever wrote a book. Probably, everyone seems to have written a book or is currently writing a book. My friends think I’m writing a book. They are expecting something amazing, something really long, an expectation I don’t believe I’ll ever fulfill. Not for lack of writing but more from lack of interest. I tell them that, “I’m in the process,” that, “I’m still working out some kinks,” that, “I’m changing things,” “rearranging things,” and making things more, “intricate, detailed, and precise.” I’m lying. I don’t like lying. I do it though. I do it a lot, more than should be expected by society.

Untitled #1

The sky wasn’t quite blue, it wasn’t quite black or gray either, nor a mixture of all three. It was one of those skies that made you feel like making up a fresh pot of Columbian coffee even though you hate the taste of coffee, and most of all Columbian coffee when the sky isn’t quite blue, black, or gray, nor a mixture of all three.

Shit.

I should have never taken that writing class, it’s taken away my ability to think, to write, to do anything that involves a pen and paper. I can’t switch to pencil either because I’ve been afraid of lead poisoning ever since a kid in my first grade class named Simon Waters died after injecting a lethal amount (over six ounces) of liquid lead into his blood stream using the syringe given to him by his mother who felt his existence was too much of a financial burden for her. Especially if she was ever going to get that new BMW with the heated steering wheel and lion skin leather interior. I’m afraid of syringes, BMW’s, and most women because of it. I believe I’ve always been afraid of lions.

I’ve moved to slate and chalk.

I’ve quite slate and chalk, too much dust.

I’ve moved to a computer, a word processor. The buttons are placed in a way so that the most used letters are closer and with a little practice one can avoid looking for the letters at all, and just type away without looking down for guidance. I have beautiful hands so I must look down. People, some people that is, not many can do this, but the ones that can do it with such skill and finesse, are even paid for such activities as typing. I’m not getting paid for anything at the time being, though I feel I should, and with a little practice, this dream could very well be realized.

Untitled #2

I thought at one point in my life to be a football player. I was going to be a star, a man, a hero. I’ve not completed the dream, though I still pick up the ol’ pig skin every once in a while, then put it back in the toy bin before I get yelled at by the sporting good’s salesmen who is staring at me as if I were a giraffe and not a five eleven, one hundred and fifty six pound young man.

I’m still quite young, virile, and can, if provoked, hold, and in some cases throw a football without so much as an inkling of athletic prowess.

A sales girl just walked past in a mock baseball outfit. A child next to me seems to be interested just as I was at his age in girls instead of footballs. The salesgirl’s age falls between sexual deviance and statutory rape. The boy is with an old man to which he seems to have a keen relationship with. His old and wrinkled hands have several times messed up the little boy’s hair and in times of sexual lusting and luring one must not have his hair being mussed by an old man. What could the old man be thinking? A salesgirl of her features will never go for a slob. If I were the boy I would have socked the old man a hard right hook just like I did on the punching bag two aisles over a minute before. The bag didn’t move much but my fist hurt for a little while afterwards and I’m sure his jaw isn’t as tough.

Why must he keep messing up that poor boy’s hair? Again and again, and the boy fixes it over and over again, and over and over again the old man shakes it awry from its settled part. Buckle down kid, or it’ll never stop.

The salesman is still looking at me. His hair is spiky and shiny, and seems to be more than one color. My hair is only one color and not spiky or shiny, I don’t think at least. I have a mirror but it’s in the bathroom and I can longer go in there because there is a huge spider above the door.

I’ve been showering at my ex-girlfriends. She was very nervous at first about the idea, assuming I was lying about the spider so I could get naked with her again, but she must have forgotten that it was I who broke up with her and therefore didn’t want to see her naked anymore.

That was a lie. I still want to see her naked, very badly. I’ll never figure out why I broke up with her. She had perfect hair and a smile that made you smile and all that Frank Sinatra love song stuff. I’m not sure what I was thinking but the words crossed my lips. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” Then again, I didn’t know that meant I couldn’t see her naked anymore. I didn’t think ahead.

I have a problem with that. I never think ahead. If I had thought ahead before throwing the football at the old man’s face I wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of the sporting goods store. I didn’t want to buy anything anyway, but still, forethought would be nice, at least from time to time. Girls supposedly like spontaneity, I’ve seen it written a hundred times in the personals: “must be spontaneous,” “must have a spontaneous and adventuresome attitude on life.” Adventure has many meanings. Fighting old men is, in a way, an adventure. Some are stronger than you would think and only after they have beaten you senseless do you realize this. Like the ones that used to be in the marines, or worse yet, Special Forces, they have more tattoos is how you can tell the difference, and usually have worse teeth.

I don’t fight old people. Don’t think I fight old people. They always fight me.

The football was meant for the kid but the stupid old man was playing with his hair so the ball bounced, deflected I guess you could say, hitting the old man in his face. He didn’t bleed. He didn’t even whine at all, he’s an old man who knows when an accident is an accident.

It was the stupid clerk who thought I had done it on purpose. I should have thrown it at his face—deflected it into his face.

The old man didn’t help. Instead of whining, he threw a fit that included several obscenities that I doubt the rightful parents of the child would want to be said in his presence.

I wish it had broken flesh, a real football would have, a real pigskin. That football must have been some synthetic mess. I’m into the authentic, the good stuff, none of that artificial waste. I don’t even own a ball, football or otherwise, the real ones are very expensive, yet bacon is so cheap.

My novel is not making progress. Where should I go with this? I could tell a story about my girlfriend if you’d like. I wouldn’t like that so I hope you don’t want that. That story is very simple and I’m a deep minded highly gifted writer that wouldn’t write about such trite subjects as my broken and mindless relationship with Rachel. My mother has told me several times that the world would come around to understand me, but I have accepted that this will not happen, and that it would do good to just cut off my ear like Shakespeare did, or did he cut off his finger. I don’t plan on cutting off my finger: middle, pinky, ring, or index. I love them all way too much to ever cut them off.

I have a problem with cutting the nails and if it weren’t for my doctor telling me that if you don’t take care of your fingernails regularly you could get a disease, I’d never cut them. He never told me what disease it was. He was busy speaking to somebody with leukemia and I didn’t feel it was my place to bother him while dealing with such a serious case of unfortunate death. Her hair was still there though. I think she could have been lying to get into my doctor’s trousers.

I learned a lot about life that day, a new respect. I realized that I was very lucky to be scared for my nails and not my hair. If I were scared of my hair, for my hair I mean, then I would probably have leukemia and if I were to have leukemia I would have to eat lots of crackers at all hours of the day as a snack and not ever be able to eat sweets when I wanted, and the shots, my God the shots.

Untitled #3

My grandfather had leukemia and had to give himself shots in his stomach and eat lots of crackers. His favorite brand was Ritz. I myself prefer Town House, but I wasn’t going to get into a whole argument with him, he was the one dying. I try to make things easier for the dying; I make it a point to as a matter a fact.

A man that had been hit by a car, or most likely a bus now that I think about it was alone on the street and in a great amount of pain. I would have been too, as is the general feeling when your hand has been turned upside down and your entire side indented. He looked like a bicycle, one of the old ten speeds with the thin handlebars and tires, really sickly looking, after being thrown off of a mountain side or, well, run over by a car. Bus, I mean bus.

So there he was, a broken thin little ten-speed and I gave him my coat. I just gave it to him. I was cold. Yes, I was freezing as a matter a fact.

The season had started out somewhat warm, but by the time it was January and the sun wasn’t showing more than six hours a day, it seemed even less. The cold became a bitter Jack Frost, “Call of the Wild” type cold. My cap and gloves were in my bathroom, there or under by bed or hall closet, all of which house spiders. The bed spider could very well be a hanger or an awkward looking pencil, but I refuse to test it.

My coat covered the man’s grotesque wounds and he smiled, I think. He may not have even been alive by the time I got to him, dead for some time in fact, but I didn’t try to ask him. He was dying after all. What kind of question is that to ask a dying, possibly dead, old man hit by a bus? So I skipped the pleasantries and offered my coat without pause or refrain.

I froze the rest of the walk home and even lost feeling in my right hand for quite some time after that. It wasn’t till the spring that I could eat an apple properly and without embarrassing myself in front of everyone in the produce section. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to question why my grandfather insisted on Ritz or what the woman with leukemia found so attractive about my doctor.

My doctor isn’t really a doctor I don’t think. He wears the doctor clothes of course, the robe or garb or whatever it is they call that bib they wear. I understand why emergency room doctors wear them; I mean there’s usually blood everywhere, people screaming obscenities and throwing up on one another, as if the idea of self-control was as fleeting as their lack of personal hygiene in the first place.

I believe highly in personal hygiene. I would purchase toothpaste before purchasing a yacht even.

First thing tomorrow I’m calling my insurance company and getting him checked out. I knew there was something weird about him when his private practice operated out of the basement below a Starbucks.

I have to walk through the Starbucks every time I go and see him and I can never bring myself to say no to the salesgirl who is peddling their authentic iced mocha latte frisco thingy. I buy it every time I go in there. I bought one today. I didn’t go to my doctor today so I must have been there to see my therapist who conveniently enough works in the same office just across the hall.

Untitled #4

My mom says I’m too smart for college. I agree. I failed my entrance exams and all my SAT’s and ACT’s and I believe there was another, but I failed that as well. There was one school I did get accepted to but I decided I would be wasting my money becoming an astronaut. I’ve never wanted to be an astronaut like most all the kids in my kindergarten class. Weak minds, the public schools are breeding them. I went to a private school where everyone wanted to be a Jew.

Being an astronaut has never been my calling like it had been for my parents and grandparents. I feel I may have let them down when I think about the day I said I wanted to be a writer and not fly in space. They told me you don’t actually fly when you’re in space and that if I went to school I would soon know that. As much as I’d like to not sound so naïve about space travel, what can I do? I can’t stop my dream just to be another washed up John Glenn. He made the cover of so many magazines when he went back to space for some anniversary in the seventies and I’m not sure he even knew it. He probably has leukemia. It’s very common among older astronauts, something to do with gravity and rocket fuel. It’s hell on clothes; the stench is nearly impossible to get out of cotton and most fabrics once picked by slaves, not to mention the damage it does to your skin and hair. It seems to affect your blood sugar as well. I hope Town House never goes out of business. I fear leukemia is inevitable.

No sir, I’ll never travel to outer space. I will write even if it doesn’t pay the bills. I’ll get a job as a surgeon on the side if I have to, but I will write. I can’t stop it. It’s in my blood to write and not about space either.

If I were paying bills everyday I would have to live differently I think. I pay bills, I do, not many, but I do pay bills. I live in a loft, of course I do, I wouldn’t be caught dead in anything else. What would the artistic community say?

I thought perhaps a studio would work but I really wanted to go all out, and so I went with the loft. I believe it was once a basketball court or ice skating rink, though I’ve never seen a hockey game or freestyle ice dancing competition on the third floor before. Then again they can do magical things in postproduction for these television events, so perhaps the Olympics were held in my loft.

I’ve done some research and though I’ve only found one silver and two gold medals I feel the only true evidence would be a leotard or a cowboy hat. The Olympians always seem to be wearing cowboy hats, the Americans at least, and it seems like half the nation is competing. For a long time I hadn’t known there were other countries even involved. I always felt a lesser person because everyone I knew seemed to have an Olympic medal, sometimes two. Everybody on TV and film had a medal for track and field. I couldn’t figure it out, but again, after some research, I found that track and field was not in fact a single event, but many events, too many to try and number. Things are thrown and passed and thrown again, it was all very overwhelming, and afterwards I was very happy to know I didn’t own one of the obviously less than unique medals. I mean if everyone has one, what’s the point.

I swear if I see another person on the street with an Olympic medal around their neck, a cab driver, a newsstand man, a hot dog vendor, I don’t care, I’m going to punch them. Well I probably won’t punch them, I’ll probably congratulate them, it’s instinct to congratulate Olympians, but underneath my breath there will be a noticeable bitterness in the tone. Nothing will be said, but the resentment will be known.

As an intellectual I feel very happy knowing that I don’t have an Olympic medal, it’s just another thing that keeps me separate from the corporate mainstream world. A world full of beer drinking Olympian astronauts is not for me, its too cliché. I’m not one of them and I know it. I’ve known it since I was born, since I was conceived even. My mom kept feeding herself, but I refused to eat what she ate. I starved in her belly. The only thing I enjoyed was the wine. I loved the wine, and love wine now, and for fear of becoming caught in the rise of wine “tastings” across the country I quit drinking it and only drink what I make at home.

I took the recipe used by Motts apple juice and tweaked it a bit by adding grapes instead of apples and then adding a bottle of wine, stir, and cork the bottle to ferment for a week. Ferment means, well it means a lot of things, but its what gives the wine its unique taste. I can’t go into a long detailed description on the process of fermentation now can I, but in short, each vineyard does it differently, as do I. Its pretty technical and though I didn’t go to school for it, I picked up a lot from the intellectual circles I frequent. When they found out I was making my own wine they weren’t surprised in the least bit. “It’s just something he’s crazy enough to do,” they thought.

I feel I should move to another country. Someplace in Africa where there aren’t as many Olympic athletes. I wouldn’t have to pay any bills there. The countries there run on a different time then America. Something in Greenwich Village makes it so all the worlds’ time exist, and many of the tribes would be more than happy to have an American live with them.

Untitled #5

I’ve read about people, anthropologists they are called, who will live with tribes for free for years and all they have to do is learn their language and keep a diary. I already keep a diary, nearly every week I write in it, so I’m pretty much already living an anthropologist’s life.

Walking the streets here is sometimes like walking in a different country, thousands of languages and faces and colors. I could no doubt fit right in with a native African tribe. I’m sure if I could save up enough for the plane ticket the rest would just fall into place. I assume you can just show up and let them know you’re interested in writing in a diary about them and they’d be more than welcoming to the idea of me living with them. “Among them,” I believe will be a term I use a lot in the diary. I can always help around the house as well. Vacuum, run the dishwasher, and mow the lawn if need be.

I’ve never enjoyed mowing the lawn so perhaps I should look for a family with a smaller lot, or at least a bigger house so there is less grass to actually cut. I could even convince them to plant flower gardens to replace the grass if need be. I don’t mind tending gardens, watering the flowers and what not, but mowing the lawn has always been a problem for me.

When I was younger, first getting started with the riding lawn mower, I ran over a huge rock and the blade, which I forgot to turn off, kept shattering and shattering and shattering aloud for the whole neighborhood to hear. My father came barreling down the driveway to me screaming his head off, one of his many talents, and the bill to fix whatever had happened was paid in full with time spent in my room. I would have envied that time if I had known that I wanted to be a writer and not a football player.

I was stuck to the push mower for a long time after that, which I didn’t mind in the least bit. The pace was much slower and I didn’t mind the workout. I always felt alive and exercised after I was done and my mom would always have a fresh glass of ice-cold lemonade waiting for me when I got done. I was all sweaty and my ankles were stained green, darker where the sweat had saturated the clippings.

She would always comment on how much of a hard worker I was and how if I didn’t clean off my legs with the hose before I walked into the house one more time she was going to have my “hide”. I can’t remember exactly what idle threat it was, it usually changed depending on what kind of western movie mood she was in. If it was John Wayne, she was usually less graphic, but if it was Clint Eastwood there was no telling what was going to come out of her mouth. I tried to always wash the grass off but sometimes it was nice to see her get angry in that fake country twang that didn’t make very much sense, but always seemed to get the point across. On some occasions there was a feeling of certain doom resonating from her voice when I would walk in and she was bent over on the counter with my father attacking her from behind. I had seen this before in both the kitchen and laundry room, and many other times in some of her westerns. On those occasions the country twang wasn’t quite as predominant.

For a while I didn’t know what a hide was exactly. I knew I didn’t want her to have it, for I assumed I would lose out on a great amount of good times in my adolescent life without mine. Nor did I want her to have it on the simple basis that it was in fact mine to have. There was something in that hide that I had placed a lot of self pride in even without knowing exactly what it was, and when I did some research by watching several western movies, I found myself even more oblivious to what a hide actually was. I thought for a while that it was a form of a rug, but I didn’t own any rugs. There was rug in the living room that I wasn’t usually aloud to go in unless it was a holiday and people that I saw once a year were over, but she couldn’t have meant that. Unless I did in fact own the living room rug, an acquisition that I could have won when I was younger, before my memory lobe was correctly remembering things and therefore couldn’t recall the night or day that I received the rug as my own. If so, I’m selling it, I find no appeal with the rug and I’m not sure what I found to be so great about it in the first place. I hope I didn’t give up too much for it. I’ve never been good at negotiating so I no doubt got screwed on the deal. I never got that personal helicopter for Christmas so there’s a good chance I may have given up that. Shit.

I wish I knew how to negotiate. I’ve been gypped countless times in my life. The other day I bought a set of miniature civil war generals, all of whom were unidentifiable even by the most lenient of critics’ eyes, in exchange for my car. I was lucky I didn’t actually own a car and I was in fact giving the man a car that was owned by a lady in a black mink coat who thought I was her grandson. Why is beyond me, I never kissed her or asked her for money, or even asked about her golf game, but the keys were in my red vest pocket without question. I have the miniature soldiers on the windowsill now. They actually spice up the room a bit, more than a car would have done, and the man seemed in desperate need of a car. He was in a hurry, I could tell, so I’m glad I helped him on his way. I just hope I didn’t give him a car with an empty gas tank. That would have been rude.

Untitled #5 (cont’d)

When I finally got around to sitting atop the riding lawn mower after reaching teenage status on my father’s tax returns, I had a whole new out look on life. I was now looking at the world as an artist and the one point three-five acre plot of grass was my canvas. I looked at the way baseball fields were cut, one line dark the other light, triangles, stars, and spiraling circles intertwining with one another in a fit of green grass fantasy. There were many obstructions unfortunately, a rock, the same I hit many years before and from which I strayed away much further than necessary, causing a moat like defense mechanism of growth. There were also flower beds and large groups of trees that dropped tiny crab apples by the hundreds, which I had to rake up before I mowed so the industrial sized double blades wouldn’t shoot them a hundred miles an hour at windows and unsuspecting mothers and their snotty children whom walked the block as if the noise of the lawnmower was of such tortuous device that it ruined their merry walk around the cul-de-sac.

Their stares were so fulfilling, knowing I was the sole cause of their unhappiness. If I had a choice I would have bought a giant combine and just left it running at all hours during the weekends, weekdays too for all I care. Those furrowed brows have been a source of so much agitation in my life, I would like to never turn off that lawn mower, never turn off that combine. Granted we had no corn, or beans, or whatever you combine. I’m not even sure what a combine does in all actuality, but I’ve seen pictures in trade magazines at the dentist office and they look huge and are therefore most likely, excruciatingly loud, and if the little four horsepower engine of the John Deere rider was loud, imagine the faces with a combine.

I don’t have hardly any bills like I said before but perhaps I could invest in a combine. I should be able to afford some minimum monthly payments and insurance shouldn’t be a problem, I don’t plan on doing anything but turning it on and off, so the coverage for that can’t be too much. A friend of mine sells health and dental insurance, he probably knows somebody that I can get in contact with. I wonder when my next dentist appointment is.

I give up. I can’t write. I’ll never be a writer. The phone is ringing anyway. I should probably answer it.

The End.