This Scribbling Might Stay

Woody Guthrie lived in Brooklyn, NY for most of his life. Most people think of him wandering around in the dust bowl in Oklahoma but that's not true. It does by no means render these words any less authentic. At work, I have a bates label machine, and I took the time to put a label with words on it, it reads "This Machine Kills Fascists." It brings me comfort.

"Sometimes I think I'm gonna lose my mind
But it don't look like I ever do
I've loved so many people everywhere I went
Some too much, and others not enough

Well I don't know
I may go
Down or up or anywhere
But I feel
Like this scribbling might stay

Maybe if I hadn't seen so much hard feelings
I might not could've felt other people's
So when you think of me, if and when you do
Just say, 'Well, another man's done gone'

Well, another man's done gone"



Amen, as they say.

Pumping Gas

The Spring and Summer before I went to school at UVA I worked at a gas station, the Hess station at Bailey's Crossroads. It seemed like the ideal job for me because I could still study and I thought pumping gas would not be very demanding, intellectually, so it looked like a good fit. I drove by and saw the "Hiring" sign, walked in and talked to Don, he was the owner.

"So what are you doin'?" Don was from Arkansas, that was his interview method. I remember later he trotted out his high school yearbook and he showed me a picture, it was a picture of Johnny Cash. They went to the same high school, they were even in the same grade. "Well that's my claim to fame," he said. But that was later, right now he wanted to know what I was doin. I told him I was going to be attending UVA in the fall, hopefully, and right now I was still taking classes at NOVA and also at George Mason University. He said, "Well you're not gonna get rich here. I'll pay you five dollars an hour." That seemed fine so I filled out a simple form and that was it. He made an off color joke about NOVA, since there were so many foreigners there. I liked the foreigners. I think he sensed that, because I didn't laugh too much at his joke. A real southerner from his generation loves to tell a good joke and he loves to get "applause". I was not clapping. We had our understanding.

It was 1987. As it turned out, after April became May I found out I had made it in to UVA. It was good news; I had also made it in to Va Tech but I did not entertain that. I would be going down to Charlottesville. But in the meantime I had things to do, like work and study. I got my first "B", in Astronomy, at George Mason. It was a bit of a shock to my system, even though I had already been accepted, this was my first grade less than an "A". Damn. I had spent the last two years with my nose in a book all the time, I took a page from the immigrants.

They drove cabs or something and studied a lot. They didn't do anything else. That seemed like a good idea, so I did pretty much the same. There were Ethiopians, Vietnamese, Somalians, Malaysians, people from all over the world, and they were the majority. There were some white Americans at NOVA, like most white Americans at Junior College they were just screwing around, killing time, wasting their parents' money, waiting to be kicked out of the basement. Sometimes they would come up to me when I was studying, "Hey do you party?" No, I didn't party, not with them especially. Anyway, what was there to celebrate? We hadn't accomplished anything, that was why we were at NOVA. I would party when I had done something worth it. I didn't do much except ride the bike trail to Mount Vernon and back, 20 miles, six days a week. I was in good shape then.

So I was done with classes in the Spring and I had the Summer to goof off until it was time to go to real school. I worked with the usual bunch that would work at a gas station. Back then no one stood behind the bulletproof glass, we kept all our paper money neatly folded in our top left pockets on our shirts and we had coin changers on our belts, the kind with four cylinders. We were walking cash registers. We walked from pump to pump collecting money and giving change. You had to do the math in your head. If you couldn't do the math in your head, you couldn't work. And you had to keep your money very straight, twenties folded this way, tens that, ones the other, in such an order and only that order. Those were the rules.

There was a McDonald's right next door and Don laid the rule down hard: No parking on the lot if you don't buy gas. He made it clear he wasn't running a parking lot for McDonald's. So I had to go balls up a few times and throw guys off the lot. One time they were black guys, they called me a redneck and a cracker. I said they had to move, off the lot. I just stood and did not move and did not say anything further. They left. One guy I asked to leave, he wound up offering me a job climbing trees, chopping branches or something. I declined, politely. I was learning to be couth and not curse, I was discarding all the coarse language I had learned was "normal" growing up in Los Angeles. I still kept it handy, but I tried to use it only when it was truly needed.

Everyone needs gasoline. That is, if they drive a car. As a result, I ran into the broadest section of society, from bottom to top. Barely functioning cars would pull into the full servie aisle, they would ask for 2$ of gas. It was a huge markup in full service, since we pumped it and they would not have to get out of the car. So they got hardly any gas for their 2$, but they got to stay in their car. On the other hand, wealthy persons with nice cars used to pull up and very carefully pump their own gas. They used the lowest octane and they paid the least amount, and they were very careful about it.

After a while I lost all respect for cars, as things that might be attractive or somehow meaningful. They were just pieces of metal and either the customer or I kept putting fuel into them and they kept burning it, so what was the difference? There was not any, the only thing a car can really do, really do, is move you around. The rest is bullshit.

There were gypsies that used to come in and get gas. I was told they lived nearby, and that they were dangerous. I studied them, I would never have known they were gypsies. They were swarthy but they didn't have accents, they drove older models, Buicks and Caddilacs. They were not imposing physically, they were dissheveled, and overweight. I never saw the women or children, just the men, and they always came in groups of three in a car, no more or less. Anyway I had no problem with the gypsies. What bothered me were the yuppies, this was the 1980s after all, and they were all over.

We took cash or a personal check, no credit cards, nothing else. Every now and then someone would pull in and fill up then show some piece of plastic to me. Don's rule was, get some collateral, make the guy go get some cash. Some people didn't have much, but I always got something from them, and they always paid me back. It was in my interest to collect, because if I was short on the money it came out of my check. Sometimes all I could get out of them was a cooler. I tried to pick something that meant something to them, that way they would come back and pay me. One time I took a guy's watch, it was a nice one too. He came right back.

Don had a surveillance system set up for the night shift, to keep an eye on us. We figured out how to get around it by setting up a tape player, a box as we called it, in a certain corner of the office that the camera only swept by about once every thirty seconds. Other than that one moment, we could do whatever we wanted. We hid beers behind the box and drank them at night, waiting to get off work. It was a hot summer. We played Jonathan Richman and the Violent Femmes and we played them loud, too.

One night a Ferarri pulled up, a convertible. People that drove convertibles, as I measured it, were generally assholes. This Ferrari pulled up to the regular pumps, self serve. There was a guy and a girl in there and the guy asked my fellow worker, Lew, to pump the gas for him. Now Lew was from the coal country of Pennsylvania. He did not put up with anything. One time some kids got some candy out of a machine and dropped a wrapper on the ground. "Pick that shit up you little sumbitch do you think this place is a trash can?" he said. The kids' eyes bugged out and they called him sir and apologized. He used to drink a lot of Jack Daniels, Lew did, and he got into a lot of fights, especially at night.

So on this particular night, even though it was 1987, you could just tell this was not a good time or place for the yuppie man to say what he said to Lew, but he did it. "Hey pump me full man," he had champagne in a fluted glass and so did his date, they were dressed very well. Lew and I were in our Hess uniforms, on either side of the car. The guy held out a twenty and I grabbed it. Lew said, "Listen I'm gonna go take me a leak, right over there, take some pressure off my brain, ok?" The man and woman were silent and their eyes changed. "I'm gonna come back when I'm drained, you had best both be gone or I will pull you both out of there. Now excuse me." And sure enough he went over and took a leak on the bathroom door. The yuppie man said, "Oh, your friend should learn some manners! That is not customer service!" I did not say anything. I just smiled. Off they went, the guy didn't even ask for his money. And they didn't get any gas.

Eventually Lew's string ran out. He got into a motorcycle accident. It didn't kill him, but he coudn't work anymore. He had a lot of trouble walking. God damned motorcyles. I think he went back to Pennsylvania.

Sometimes men would come by to visit with Don, they were Union guys from the railroad. "What y'all need is something to stir the air in here," they would say. Then they would go in the back and discuss things that I did not know about.

Toward the end of the summer I started closing. That meant working the last two hours by yourself. It saved Don a couple of bucks in labor cost but sometimes I think he did that just to see if we could take the heat of handling all three aisles, including the full service aisle, and making our drops without screwing up. Don had been a drill instructor in the air force. He liked to test us.

I remember my very last night working there, I had given notice and all of that of course, and I was on the phone, on the inside, to my girlfriend, Barbara Jean. I sure hope she is happily married now, I really don't know. I had lots of girlfriends that summer. I looked pretty good. The black girls even told me so, "Oh well don't you look fine in your white uniform!"

I was on the phone with Barbara Jean, in the office, and I was alone closing the last shift, I had gotten pretty good at closing and being in charge of three islands, potentially 12 cars, four of them full service, and kept dropping my 20s into the safe, always drop your 20s into the safe that way they won't kill you if they come to rob you. It was late at night. I got distracted, I told Barbara Jean I would be back, I went out to collect the money but damn I locked myself out, I forgot about the self locking door and my keys were inside.

Now I had no keys and I couldn't drop the 20s, and I couldn't get new change from the safe. Damn. People kept arriving, it was a Friday night. I improvised, I asked them all to exchange money, I explained it was my last night. Retail business is cyclical, anyone can tell you that, so after a bit it slowed and no one was around so I went to work on the hinges of the door with a pipe. That was doing no good. I got an idea and ran across Leesburg Pike to a hotel lobby, there was a payphone in there. I got on the payphone, I called up the only guy I knew who had keys, Steve! he was a heroin addict and his father was a preacher, but somehow he was still able to live at home, I guess he was about my age then. I used to drive him to the methadone clinic in Old Town so I figured he owed me one. He took his time answering and he was very slurred, I said please just get your Dad to drive up here and give me a key, I am locked out. Steve said he would try but no guarantee, his dad was asleep. I started to think I might just have to keep the place open all night, until Don came in the morning. He would be pissed if that happened.

In the meantime, there were cars across the street, the drivers were milling about like zombies, rendered undead by my absence. I sprinted back across Leesburg Pike in my white uniform drenched in the humid air, and I started to collect. "You are lucky I am honest son" "Why did you leave your post?" "What in hell are you doin over there at that hotel, gettin' some tail?", they said. Somehow I collected all the money. I had nowhere to drop it and it was hell making the various change. Some of them I had to give notes to saying I would pay them, with my phone number. I was really sweating hard.

Around closing time both the Alexandria Police and Steve and his Dad pulled up. They lumbered out of their vehicles in a similar fashion, which I thought was odd. The cops came because Barbara Jean's last memory of my voice was "Oh crap!" and then some cursing and then silence, so she thought I was dead. Steve gave me the key. I unlocked the door and got eveyrthing squared away.

It had been a long hot August night. I called Barbara Jean and told her I wasn't dead. I went down the hill to Friday's and I had some drinks, they were cold and they tasted really good. I made it through, I even came up OK on my money so Don didn't have to dock my last check--I went around and visited some people who had called me up from the chits I had given them. It all worked out.

It was quite a time, yeah it was. It was like summer camp. That gas station is still there now but it is not at all the same. Don sold it a long time ago, maybe to the yuppie guy who drove off from Lew and myself, minus his twenty dollars. There is one employee behind the glass, where the office used to be, and the employee looks bored, he hardly has anything to do. He doesn't have to get collateral, the system doesn't work that way anymore. He doesn't have to throw anyone off the lot, he just calls 911 from behind the glass. It is probably hard for him to curse anyone out properly from behind there. Everything is digital, sanitized, streamlined and efficient. They take credit cards, debit cards, and there is no full service island. The house the gyspies lived in was demolished a while ago.

The other day, I stopped there to get gas and look around, even though it was out of my way. I swiped my card and filled her up. Well, it's progress I guess. But I heard that thought, bouncing in my brainpan, as I screwed the gas cap back on. And I didn't like the way it sounded in my head, bouncing around. Progress. I took an old wrapper from my car and threw it on the ground. No one said, or did, anything; a breeze came and stirred the wrapper a bit, and then it did not make its way further, stranded and stuck as it was on the apron.

The Great Kotex Burglary of 1975

Thirty years ago I stole something. I think the statute of limitations is up; I certainly hope so. I do remember it was 1975 because I do remember that I was 12 and beginning the 8th grade. Everyone was older than me as usual so I figured that was just the way things were going to be forever. But there was one place where I found some people around my age, outside of school, outside of my neighborhood. It was a block of houses, smaller than mine, in North Hollywood across the street from Madison Junior High School.

We used to play football on weekends there, on the grass in front of Madison. There was me, and John McDowell, he was Scottish and his brother Bruce was a cop. He always had to play center because he was big, doughy and slow. But you couldn't mess with John Mac because of Bruce. Mike Oda was Japanese, he didn't play with us too much, he knew karate and he could kill anyone. He was the only one who wasn't afraid of Bruce. About half the kids were Jewish but they all came from different places, Morrie Zladowicz's dad was from Russia, George and Alexandra Mykalishka's folks came from the Ukraine. The kids were almost all first generation in America and spoke other languages to their parents. I felt good there, those kids treated me OK, and we played lots of sports and wrestled. They weren't like the kids at school. At school they tied jockstraps around my face during gym and spat in the back of my head during class. I guess they were bored. I was small and young and always alone so that made it easy for them.

I did fix that situation, but only by accident. One day I was hanging around after school, I played a lot of sports, each one I could find, because at least there were rules and even the assholes followed the rules during the game, that was the only time I could get a fair shake it seemed. I was pretty athletic too, although I was small and wiry I was really fast and had good hands, so I hoped somehow that would get me in with the cool people but that was never realistic. So I was usually around the school after practice when most kids were gone. I remember one afternoon Scott Lewis and George Hildebrandt coming around by my locker, it was the same old routine. First they called me a fag and other things like that. They didn't seem to have a great variety. They started to take stuff out of my locker and mess around with it, nothing special. Then Scott Lewis took one of my textbooks and said he was going to throw it in the street. I couldn't have that, my father would kill me. Scott Lewis wasn't too big but he was bigger than me of course, and Hildebrandt was a huge teutonic son of a bitch who hit a lot of home runs for our baseball team. He could have hit me into the next world for sure. I figured I might as well try something though, so I went to slap Scott Lewis in the head. Only I had forgotten that I still had my combination padlock in my right hand and I clocked him fairly good, but really it wasn't much. He wasn't bleeding, I didn't even knock him down. The strangest thing happened then, Scott Lewis began to cry. I was amazed. How could he do that? I didn't even hit him that hard, and he cried, he cried just like a girl. How was this possible, he was one of the coolest kids in school! I was awestruck, he just kept sobbing, and asking me why I hit him.

Then I figured it was time to die, because Hildebrandt came up to me. But all he wound up doing was yelling at me and saying I was crazy and then he pulled all the stuff out of my locker, threw it on the ground, and they both walked around the corner. After that they left me alone, which seemed like a good way for things to be. I had no chance of being cool and there was no way I could be brave enough to talk to the girls, so it seemed best if no one talked to me at school at all except the teachers and the coaches.

The kids in North Hollywood weren't too bored and if they did anything out of hand their parents would knock the snot out of them. Morrie's dad even kicked my butt once but I had it coming. Me and John Hooper were peeking into Morrie's room at night and knocking on his window and running away. One time the old man was waiting in the bushes and I didn't run fast enough and he caught me and grabbed me by the collar and kicked me really hard, twice, in the ass. "You get the hell out of here you little bastard!" He could have beat me a lot worse, he probably should have; even the ass kickings around there had a certain decency about them, and they were never gratuitous. But I got the message. So we didn't mess with Morrie anymore after that.

It was an interesting area to me, there were things to do and kids my age, not like my street where all the kids were either much older than me or toddlers. The baby boom was over and the tattooed pierced babies were just being born, it is too bad they aren't born ready-made with that crap all over them. I was in the middle somewhere, no one ever thought of a name for us. Everyone listened to Led Zeppelin and had stupid looking hair and clothing. I even knew it at the time, and I still hate Led Zeppelin. I couldn't get away from that damned Stairway to Heaven, it followed me around for years like a saccharine shadow. It is no wonder I hate sweets. I didn't know it then but I was waiting for punk to be born. I would not have to wait much longer.

K Mart was near the block in North Hollywood, on Sherman Way, that was our playground. We would go in and play hide and seek, and when we got older we would play Wolfman, which was a game where the person who got kicked out of K Mart first won. McDowell used to win a lot because he had a switchblade, and he would go along the aisle where they kept the fertilizer bags and split them all open. The place would begin to reek and someone would come along and kick him out. His mom found out about the switchblade though and then Bruce found out about it apparently. McDowell wasn't around for about a week after that so I don't know what exactly happened but I don't think it was nice, and he no longer had the switchblade to help him at Wolfman.

The best place was Madison Junior High though. It was right across the street and we would hop the fence and make it our own private school on weekends. I remember there was a sundial in the center somewhere. It was nice being at a school when the regular kids were not around. But the best place was the roofs, just walking around on the roofs was fun. I don't even remember why, I suppose because it was more illegal than trespassing on the plain old ground. We would kick the transems in and then all take off running and if we were feeling really brave jump from the roof to the ground, there were bushes there so you could roll and it broke your fall pretty well. Plus you would get scratched up and a litte bloody so it made you look cool. The security guard was fat and slow, there was no way he could have caught us, especially me. I was always the fastest, that's why Mcdowell had to play center but I always got to be wide receiver. I caught a lot of touchdowns, that was a lot of fun. Since the fat security guard could not catch us, why did we jump off the roof, well I guess because there were only 5 channels on TV, so it was something to do.

One day we were walking around on the roofs at Madison, looking through the transems that we hadn't broken yet and were opened to the air. Most of the classrooms looked the same, desks, a flag in the corner, the chalkboard. It was a typical dull day, mild, wholly unremarkable. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny, utterly vapid. Most days in Los Angeles are like that. We were getting ready to do our kick and run scheme, but someone saw something and said "Hey, look at this!"

We all ran over--it was not a classroom we were looking at, it was a bathroom. No big deal but...it was the *Women's* bathroom, the one the woman teachers went into. Now this was something special to me. Females were still just an alien species to me so I was intrigued immediately. I was still waiting for one of them to talk to me. There weren't any urinals of course but there was some kind of machine in the corner, something that accepted money. I couldn't figure it out, what was it? Finally Morrie came over and said "That's a Kotex machine you dumbasses. Let's go". Somehow Morrie knew about that stuff. He was always studying, he had to or his dad would kick his ass. He became a doctor.

I figured something had to be done about this, so later on I got together with McDowell and Hooper, I said, "Hey, let's steal that thing, there might be a lot of money in it!" I really didn't care about the money of course. It just seemed like it might be fun. McDowell wasn't having any part of it, the switchblade thing was still a recent event and Bruce had him on a short leash. Bruce was a cop and he carried a gun around and he never, ever smiled or laughed. So I understood, but Hooper and I swore him to secrecy and proceeded with the conspiracy.

We made a lot of plans, I don't remember now what they all were. Black clothing, screwdrivers, a flashlight, black wool caps, things like that. A set time, an escape route, the works. This could be big after all, why screw it up? I think we even synchronized our watches. Once we got down into the Women's bathroom we had to get the Kotex machine open. That wasn't so easy, we had screwdrivers but we couldn't pry the thing open, damn, we hadn't made a backup plan for this! It would require a lot more force than we thought. Well, one of us could go back and get a hammer...no, too loud! Ok let's just pry the thing off the wall, carry it back to the garage, then we could work away until it gave up the money. That was it.

There was a lot of prying and cursing and sweating, it was a rare warm night. Finally though, with two of us going at it, we got it off the wall. It was made of metal and painted white, about twice the size of a computer these days. But it was awkward and we had to carry it like a child's coffin. The nice thing was, we could just walk right out the front door of the Women's bathroom; the bad thing was, we would have to take the long way around, through the school grounds and out the front gate. No way was this going up and over the fence.

It was a long journey, and we had to keep stopping every minute or so when we got to some bushes and hide and rest. But we finally got it back to Hooper's garage. Then we attacked it, hammers, tire irons, lots of prying instruments. He had a lot of tools and they were noisy. "What is that noise out there?!" his mom yelled. "Ah, we're working on the lawnmower, remember I gotta mow the lawn tomorrow." Hooper lied. He was a good liar, and quick. I was never good at that so I'm glad he was around and that his mom was so naive.

After about an hour of pounding and prying the coin box burst open. Three nickels. Fifteen cents. I don't even remember how we split it up or what we did with the money. Even back then it wasn't much, plus we had to get up early the next morning and wash cement trucks with Hooper's stepfather. We would get $5 for that. In 1975 that was a good amount of money for a 12 year old. I always did love working, it kept me out of trouble, most of the time anyway. And I figured it paid better to work since it did not really seem to pay too much to steal.

Always I will, Always

I used to listen to this song a lot when my daughter was a baby. I still do, actually. Randy Newman does not have a good voice, yet he sings very beautifully, he wrote this. And this is on my mind...especially the last stanza.



"What have you done to the mirror?
What have you done to the floor?
Can't I go nowhere without you?
Can't I leave you alone any more?

I know you don't think much of me
But someday you'll understand
Wait'll you learn how to talk baby
I'll show you how smart I am
I'll show you how smart I am

Maybe you don't know how to walk baby
Maybe you can't talk none either
Maybe you never will, baby
But I'll always love you
I'll always love you"

A Real American

I used to have a friend, he was of Vietnamese extraction, although he was definitely not any sort of hyphenated American. He used to see the people in the Asian-American club and he would spit on the ground and glare at them. They were mostly born here. “Phew! Just a bunch of idiots!” His name was Tran. I met him when I was at the University of Virginia, when he was 16, in his second year already. He was in the engineering school, but he also liked to read literature, he learned to play the guitar and he loved playing Jimi Hendrix. He understood the intricacies of football, he loved the Redskins. He was definitely a genius. By the time he graduated he had enough credit hours that it only took him a year to get his Master’s degree. Then he got his Phd.

He was also a lot of fun. There was no challenge he would shirk, no drink he wouldn’t drink. And he drank a lot. We all did, but he only weighed 110 pounds; still, he tried to keep up but he passed out a lot, he usually wound up under the coffee table. Every Friday after classes he would do the hour of power with someone. The hour of power was very difficult, I tried it once and only lasted about 34 minutes. The idea is, you drink a shot of beer each minute for one hour, if you vomit you are out of the game. Sixty minutes, that is only sixty ounces, only five beers. Sounds simple but it isn’t. The foam builds up in your system. I remember he tried to get my roommate Bobby to do it with malt liquor. Bobby was a black guy, he said “I’m not drinking that shit!” and just laughed. He wasn't hyphenated either, he was very country.

One Friday after the hour of power I said “OK, let’s get in the car, we have to drive around!” I had no idea where we were going, I just used to say things like that. They called me Frank after the Frank Booth character in Blue Velvet. I was something like that, in some ways. In those days anyone, even us outsiders, could go to the fraternity parties and drink for free. I would quote lines from the movie and get into Frank Booth character. I tended to freak the fraternity boys out a lot, they were afraid of me. Anyway, on this Friday I said, to my friends, “C’mon let’s go for a joyride! Let's get on with it!” So we piled into the car, and Tran was in the center of the back seat, between Steve and Hugo. After a few minutes he passed out and his head flopped over onto Hugo’s shoulder. “Hey Frank, turn the car could you? Tran’s on my shoulder!” I flipped the wheel a bit, but then his head flopped over onto Steve’s shoulder. “Frank, turn the car!” This went on for a while. I couldn’t manage to get Tran's head straight and off of their shoulders, so finally we just came on back.

We all piled out of the car but Tran was still passed out, in the back. I think it was about 3PM. Someone took the dice I kept on my rear view mirror and put them around his neck and we took a picture. Someone said, “Hey, we should use that picture and run him for student council President.” It seemed like a big joke at the time. But that is what actually happened. He ran for student council President, his platform was pretty simple: “I am an extremist!” It really was all a big joke after all of course. The guy he ran against was a guy from one of the houses, or fraternities. He had wanted to be student council President at UVA since he was nine years old or some such thing. None of us belonged to fraternities. That wasn’t for us. Anyway, Tran wound up getting a third of the vote. It was pretty amazing.

Some people thought he was silly, but I knew otherwise. And I will tell you why.

He told me this story once, while we were driving down to Charlottesville from Alexandria, it is about a two hour drive so he had plenty of time to talk.

One time I walked to Cambodia. I had to walk back though. We were trying to get out of the country and we were supposed to meet in Phnom Penh, but we all had to go separately or they would stop us. I hitch hiked and took some buses and then walked over the border, then I walked to Phnom Penh. I sat down and waited around for about a week, then walked back home to Saigon. It turned out my family couldn’t get across the border.

My mom decided we should try to get to Thailand in a boat. It was just me and her, my sister we would send for later. My dad didn’t want to leave Vietnam. My mom saved up enough money and exchanged it for gold and U.S. dollars. She sewed the gold and dollars inside my shorts so the pirates wouldn’t take it. We had to leave in the middle of the night on a canoe with an engine. Things went OK but after a while the engine quit. We couldn’t get it to start again, so we started rowing. Then the pirates came, they pointed rifles at us. They pointed to the girls in the boat, the younger ones, and then they took them away and we never saw them again. We kept rowing but then more pirates came, they were angry that the girls had been taken but they took each one of us and felt around our bodies, they found my gold and U.S. dollars and took them by taking a knife and cutting my shorts off. I then only had shoes and a t shirt on. We had gotten very close to the coast of Thailand where the refugee camp was. Another set of pirates came, they were really pissed off because we had no girls and no money, so they took machetes and chopped the canoe up into pieces, so we had to swim to the shore. It was a long swim, about five minutes.

There were tents in the refugee camp and they gave us food. I got a job after a few days. Eventually we got here and we lived in an apartment on Columbia Pike, my mom worked and then she sent for my sister. I went to Wakefield High school when I was 12 and skipped a bunch of grades, I went right to senior. Then my mom got us a small house and I came to school down here. Hardcore man!

He used to say “Hardcore man!” a lot. He loved speed metal and he had scars on his face. He wouldn’t ever say how he got them though. His sister is a doctor now and he is teaching in the bay area of California. His mom died quite a while ago. I miss him sometimes, I will never know anyone quite like that again.

Off To The Emergency Hospital

I made a lot of trips to the emergency hospital, up until I was about 12 years old or so. It was kind of neat because it was the same hospital where I was born. One time I was riding my bike in the shopping center, which was on the other side of an arching street that flew up and over the Ventura Freeway. I think it was summer but for whatever reason I was not wearing any shoes. I was pretty bored, just riding around aimlessly in the parking lot. I decided it would look pretty cool if I rested one of my feet up on the side of the bike, near the front wheel. It worked for a few moments, then one of the spokes flew around and sliced right through the ball of my right foot. It did not take it quite off though, it was just hanging there off of my foot at a funny angle. I could see little red threads in the gap in the wound, tendons or something.

Well I had to get up and over the bridge, which was kind of difficult since I could only use one foot, and there was no way I was leaving my bike so I had to haul that as well. I waited at the light. It really didn't hurt that much, and as I got
up and over that bridge I left a nice trail of blood. I came back much later to try to find it and was crushed that it was gone. When I got home my mother put my foot in the sink and put some water on it. For some reason I cried, I guess the water must have hurt it. Plus there were not any men around. I felt really idiotic crying, my father never cried, what was wrong with me? Well, it was off to the emergency hospital. We knew the way there, and the doctor decided he was
going to sew the ball of my foot back on, but first he had to numb everything up. So he put a needle in the very center of the bottom of my foot, it stayed in there a long time, it seemed like about a minute. The doctor was tall and very serious, he reminded me of my father just a bit. There was no way I was going to cry in front of him, but it really hurt, a lot, so I held my breath really tight while he stabbed me. It finally ended and I guess he heard me panting and asked if I was OK. Then he took a needle and thread and sewed the ball back on. He did not talk much, which was nice. And that was it, I got all taped up and we went home. I was on crutches for about a week, which made me very angry. I wanted to see the bloody trail over the bridge.

After the stitches came out and I was back home in my room, I picked at the ball of my foot just a bit and I could see that the skin was dead, it was just a circle of dead skin. That seemed silly. It only took a few minutes and it came right off, and there was very very pink, brand new skin under there, I thought it looked neat. But it turned out I wasn't supposed to do that so I was back on the crutches again for a week and bandaged up. I got teased at school of course. Hey gimp! Did you step on a pile of shit!? The usual stuff. By the time it was all over I couldn't see my bloody trail, the rain must have washed it away. So I guess it wasn't summer after all. It never rains in the Summer in Los Angeles.

Another day, I was walking around, barefoot again, in my backyard. It was the suburbs, so there wasn't much to do but I could always go into my backyard and dig for fossils or gold, or torture insects. I never did find any fossils, or gold. So while I was on my way to find something to do I stepped on a fenceboard, the problem was I stepped right on a nail standing tall through the board and it went up through my foot. The right foot again, it always seemed to be that way. I couldn't pull it out, it was really stuck up there. It wasn't far to the house so I started kind of dragging the board and myself in that direction, but that hurt a bit too much so I lifted my foot up with the board and took a bunch of awkward lopes, making a planking sound on the concrete. It probably was a funny thing to watch, it is too bad there weren't video cameras around then. I made it to the kitchen and there was my mother. She had me sit down and she pulled really hard on the board for about a minute and the fenceboard came off. Off to the emergency hospital.

I had to get a tetanus shot. I was always getting tetanus shots, every year, partly because I stepped on a lot of rusty nails, but I think mostly because my mother told me I would get lockjaw if I didn't have lots of tetanus shots, and my mouth would just shut and I would starve to death slowly. That sounded pretty bad so I went along with the tetanus plan.

I was in the cub scouts, I think when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. All those years in grade school seem about the same to me, just a blur of pale sunny boredom and not wanting to go to school and reading Huck Finn and wanting to live in a barrel. One night I was at a cub scout function at my grade school and a few of us were there early. Nothing was going on so we went out to the side of the auditorium and started walking on these benches. They had been arranged for seating, so they were laid out parallel to each other, and they were each about a foot wide and a foot apart. It was something to do.

I did OK for a while but I got dizzy from the spacing and pacing and missed a step. I never got a chance to put out a hand or anything and my face slammed right down onto one of the benches. I stood up right away in my blue uniform and I felt stunned and dizzy, but I didn't really feel much else, except all this wet warmth coming over my chin and down my chest, I looked down and saw blood running into the blue shirt. I tasted my blood, it was familiar. A bunch of kids were talking to me, but I didn't say anything to them, what was there to say? A few minutes ago they were calling me a fag or a girl, now they wanted to talk? I didn't like any of them and they didn't like me.

I walked into the auditorium, and into a side room where the mothers were gathered making ribbons or some such thing that den mothers do. There were about four women in there, one of them was my mother. When they saw me their faces went into little epileptic fits and they seemed very excited. I must have looked pretty nasty. My mother took it pretty well, I think she had gotten used to it by now. Off to the emergency hospital.

My upper lip was split right up to the skin and I had a chipped tooth. I guess I am lucky that I was scrawny, if I had weighed more maybe it would have been a lot worse. But there weren't a lot of fat kids back then anyway. Now the doctor had to stitch me up but first came the needle. I had the routine down by now. It was always a different doctor at the emergency hospital, and they were all men. This
guy kept talking to me. So I see you're a cub scout, things like that, I guess he was trying to comfort me, which was a nice thing of course, but at the time it just annoyed me. There wasn't anything to say obviously, but he kept asking me questions so I had to answer him, but that hurt a lot because my upper lip was in two sections. As usual the shot was the worst part, right in the lip. I always hoped they would just do the sewing without the shot. But they never did. There was no way I was going to let this guy see me cry, I was in uniform after all. The next day at school there was a lot of teasing of course. Hey, you got a fat lip! It wasn't very imaginative. Hey, harelip! The usual crap. I was used to it by now.

AFter a while it got to be a running joke and my oldest sister used to say OK Look, I'm not driving anyone to the emergency hospital! She got lucky, it was my mother that always wound up doing it. I feel bad for kids these days, sitting around in living rooms with video games, movies on demand, gameboys, and too much food. When they do go out they are armored up like crusaders with helmets and pads everywhere. I bet they don't get to go to the emergency hospital too much, unless it is for gout.

Everyone has a first memory, and mine is getting my tonsils removed when I was three. The memories are vivid, but they cut in and out of any decent time continuum. After all I was only three. It was the trend then to get kids' tonsils removed so that they wouldn't get sore throats or some nonsense. Maybe that is why I hate trends to this day. I really have no use for them. But since I was three I didn't understand too well what was going to happen to me; my father later told me that I grabbed my balls and looked really scared. I had a vague sense of words and I knew two things were going to be cut off. I did not know how to talk yet, but I thought they were going to castrate me. Even when you are three some things are pretty obviously more important than others; if I had known it was just some things in the back of my throat coming off I probably would not have been so scared. But I didn't know that.

I had to spend the night at the hospital, I think it was the first time
I had been away from my family. My father carried me in there and I was grabbing at the walls, I didn't want to go. And I really didn't want to lose my balls. But there was nothing on the walls for me to gain purchase of except a thermostat, and my father didn't have much trouble dislodging me, so that was it. I was in a bed and there were other people in there with me in other beds, strangers. It was semi dark and there were odd shadows dancing around. A nurse came and took a needle and put it in my thumb, drew some blood. She was not pleasant and I hated her. That is all I remember about it. After it was all over I had stitches on the back of my throat and apparently I was supposed to eat only certain things, probably soft things.

I must have understood that part because I do remember waiting until it was late and the house was mostly quiet, except for the refrigerator, it made a ticking sound.
I pulled out the crisper drawer and wolfed down a bunch of lunch meat or something. Actually I think it was hard salami. Within a few minutes there was blood coming up out of my mouth, at first I just tasted it, it had a rich taste, I kind of liked it. Then it started to flow quite a bit, so I ran to my parents' room, they were asleep. I woke them up by spewing blood all over them. I guess I was angry at them for trying to castrate me. I feel bad about it now, they were really doing their best, like most parents. However, it was off to the emergency hospital for us. I didn't know then I'd be coming back so often. I was unable to talk, and even if I had been there really wasn't anything to say. I still had my balls, so things were actually not so bad.

I Hate Motorcycles

I am not sure if I believe in a "former life", but if that is the case, I am almost certain I died in a motorcycle accident. I hate Motorcycles. I hate the noise they make, especially the Harleys. Two wheels are so much less stable than four. Also, my friend Eric fell off of Mulholland Drive in LA riding one. He fell a long way and died, I hope it was quick. All that I am certain of is that the coyotes ate him, hopefully after he died. My friend Adam's brother is in a wheelchair now because he thought it was cool to ride motorcycles. He plays chess a lot. He also drools and his close companion is a colostomy bag. He is very good at chess; he is not good at walking. No good at all.