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I was raised under the principle that shenanigans are not just a pair of fancy Irish pants.
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MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Convinced the world that chickens do indeed have fingers.
- Made nearly seven million dollars in one dream.
- Met my wife on the internet. Asked her to come home.
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MY RESIDENCE INFO:
State/Country: NJ
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BOOKS PUBLISHED:
PROLOGUE
The night before I was to board a Greyhound bus to a new life, I sat in the darkness of my parents’ living room. The ticking of the large clock in the corner held me in a trance. I had one sip left in my martini, my first such indulgence in weeks and the only one I’d allow this night. I needed to calm my nerves a tad. One more interminable night would have to pass. I had a call in for a cab to come by 6:15 in the morning. My destination will be the Brigham City bus stop, which is nothing more than a bench along the southern wall of the Trailside General Store. I had been there once before when mom and I had to pick up an aunt of hers, from California if I remember right, and didn’t think it would take much more than forty minutes. The bus was leaving at 7:30. There’d be no traffic on a Saturday at that hour. Rush hour in this part of the country usually consists of five cars slowing to let somebody off a ramp anyway, so I’d be comfortable any day of the week giving myself over an hour to get to Brigham City. Relax. The bags are packed, and anything not necessary for a potentially nomadic existence was resting in boxes in the basement storage room. It’d be awhile before I was living anywhere but a hotel, so had no use for most of the measly items I’d accrued over the years. I had no use for Utah, either, and shuddered at the thrill of having only a few hours left here. If only I didn’t have to leave my mother behind. She would have you think all was fantastic here, just as with all the other places we’ve lived, but those would be the contentions of a lady who no longer thinks her own thoughts. When I informed her after dinner that I would be moving out of town to pursue a job I was vague, but sure to twist the knife on my dad. Better if she blamed him than suspected me of being up to something.
“How will I get in touch with you?” she asked worriedly. Before I had a moment to answer, her voice cracked a bit and she followed with, “Walter, is leaving here going to make you happy?”
“Yes, mom. I think it will.” I know it will. “I’ll keep you up to date. I’m gonna be gone from this house at some point, I wish you’d consider doing the same.” I let that hang in midair, knowing full well that far below the layers was a small hint of agreement. But it would never see the surface.
“Walter, don’t speak that way. That’s your father you’re talking about. You shouldn’t think things like that.” She was trying not to raise her voice above a raspy whisper, because if he was awoken there’d be hell to pay. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was implied when the bedroom door slammed shut at 9:45 each night.
“Sorry, mom. He’s a bum. If you don’t want me to hear it, then don’t question why I’m leaving.” Her brainwashed pigheadedness on this matter had grown taxing over the year. “And your life is not a good one, not the one you deserve. You never get anything your way, and stopped asking when I was a baby probably, because I’ve never seen it. You can say what you want. I think he’s a bum, and he thinks the same of me, so all’s fair in love and war, I guess.”
“Walter, please stop talking like that….” She turned and hunched over the stove, shaking from the tears.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I love you, I don’t respect him. I came back here to try to work things out, he had no interest, and I’m leaving again. Simple as that. Plus, I need to get out there. My writing is getting killed in this little town. There’s no inspiration, Mom. There’s a world out there, and all the great writers use it to their advantage. I met a guy back in Colorado who’s uncle owns a few small newspapers, one in Chicago, one somewhere in Wyoming.” I was trying to be vague and specific all at once. “And I think there’s a few more, but regardless, my buddy thinks he’ll let me help out and then eventually a full time job may result.”
“Walter, go do what you have to do. Just call me, don’t leave your mother sleepless at night wondering and worrying. Will you do that?”
“Give me a few weeks, once I get settled I’ll call you.”
Settled. There would be no such thing. My days and nights would never again be engaged by any of the thoughts that have gripped me for the past twenty years. Settling was not an option. But, she didn’t need to know that. I wanting mostly to make her think I was not being irrational, and also to keep her from recognizing the glimmer of excitement in my eyes.
“And you’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Yes. I have a cab coming in the morning. I gotta get to the train station, and then I’m taking a few different Amtrak’s. I have the schedule all printed out downstairs.
She offered me a ride to wherever I needed.
“Thanks, mom. I’ve already called for a cab.”
I hated lying to my mother. She’s the only person in this world that I have any respect for, but the trail had to go cold. A bus is cash and a hooded sweatshirt away from being the most anonymous method of traveling long distances. Renting a car is akin to dropping crumbs.
“I’ll probably be up all night, Walter. You know I’m a worrier.” And with that she kissed me, and turned towards the darkness of the hallway leading to her room. She’d have to use military precision of her own to slip into bed unannounced. I stood resting against the countertop for several lost moments before I was able to shake off the hint of a broken heart, and head back downstairs to finish the packing.
The last of the Martini was barely a sip.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. I could dose off. The sadness in my mom’s voice still hung in the air. The moon reflected through a window, and shone on an older picture of me and my mother and father. It was one of maybe two or three actual professional portraits of the three of us, taken when I was five years old. I smiled a lot then, mostly while gawking out the window at the army men outside my window. I used to imagine how cool it would be to look tough when I grew up, marching with timely precision from duty to duty, and then coming home to commandeer a family of my own. Just like dad, who I so admired as a boy. Of course time taught me that only a few were really in charge, and the military is just a means of handing off your life and getting bossed you around like a perpetual three-year-old, but what’d I know then. Then it was all just so very impressive. And what was so impressive turned out to be a big fabrication, like a grand opera or Broadway play, and I was stuck in the involuntary role of lead whipping boy.
My mind fluttered between the past and the future, equally apprehensive but for markedly different reasons. My memories always surfaced muddy, a hodge-podge of recollection, and the caved thoughts of a distant dream. Or, nightmare might be more appropriate. The constant theme of my vagabond recollections is the solitude. This thing, this establishment of which my father is a part, is all I have. And it gives me nothing in return. No sleepovers, no ringing phones after school. Just a trip to the store, and hours spent watching or helping my mother make dinner for my father. To be fair, I’d help only sometimes, but was more interested in the company. She was of course always focused on the recipe, so he’d be happy with his meal, but I didn’t pick up on that until I was a bit more intuitive. “Clean the bowl, Walter. Don’t eat all that icing. You’re gonna get sick……raw eggs killed your second cousin…...why don’t you go put on a clean shirt so we can eat dinner when your father gets home.” For some reason never to be questioned, a clean shirt was a must for dinner. But I wasn’t allowed to call this man a bum, or insinuate that his actions were intolerable.
The Army took my father. He didn’t die, or move away, but instead dedicated his every thought, move and waking moment towards the establishment. They’d need him somewhere; we’d pack up and move again. Who knows how many houses I’ve lived in? Each the same in size—small—and décor—bland—and surroundings—equally small houses, lined row after row, and each with one redeeming characteristic: the clock now sitting five feet to my left always ticking away in the living room. A family heirloom, passed from my mothers grandfather on down to her. Her prize possession….and one I knew well because it usually accompanied me in the back of our station wagon. It was not so much a true “grandfather” clock as it was a five-foot box, with nice etching, two hands, and numbers. The rest of our stuff was trucked but this was too valuable to my mother, and she insisted on a space for it in the car. For some reason it was the only topic my father ever relented on.
I was afraid of him as a small boy, but eventually my distaste for his rules and seemingly endless machismo swelled. So did my arms. I began to tell him to “back off”, and he was shocked, but just stopped acknowledging me instead of pressing. He didn’t care.
“Son, you don’t know the first thing about how to grow into a man”, he’d say. That became it.
He had gawkily tried to show love when I was really small, but that vaporized as it became clear that I wasn’t going to be an Army hero. Therefore I was not worth his time and was certainly not worth exerting energy upon. True to his training he would conserve his emotions for things that really mattered, like his Tuesday morning calls with his commanding officer, or having his pins shined and his suits pressed.
It was very important that anybody setting foot in his car had clean shoes, and the same rules went for the house. In fact, shoes in the house were not acceptable within the family. The occasional guest would be skewered by his glare if they threatened the spotless living room rug. The grill was his and his alone. The garage was always his area, full of useless things that mattered immensely to him. Time and again, he’d manage to neatly pack and unpack what seemed like an entire hardware store. You can be sure that he would yell if his paper didn’t arrive, or we’d run out of milk. But he stopped yelling at me. I was not an asset. I was a liability, and the Army teaches you that liabilities are to be discarded.
Each time we’d pull out of town I’d experience a sickening sadness, not so much because we were leaving that particular place, but because we were leaving. Gone was another chance to establish normalcy. Often fresh off my first conversation with a possible new friend, or a group of neighborhood boys on the verge of accepting me into their circle. Many families spent years on the same base, so there were clicks. It was a strange existence in any capacity, but for us it was the extreme. My mom had no friends, either. Yes, there were a few couples that came over, but those nights would be dominated by my father and his fellow Army mates ripping off war stories while the ladies quietly ushered dirty plates towards the kitchen. If they talked, it couldn’t be over the men; if gossip or worthless chatter interfered with timely coffee, there’d be a sergeant’s scowl in tow. It’s become clear as I’ve gotten older that my mother and I are both a bit socially retarded as a result of my father’s heavy-handedness. All the while, with no real friends to call my own, I made up people with whom I could speak. For a time it was Corey, a kid I’d met early on, and had decided that he was moving with us. Then it was an old man who’d lived across from us in Newport. Then a girl I sat next to for the three months we spent in the Canary Islands. As the imaginary friends faded into memory, I’d talk to the television.
When I discovered that I had the ability to write, it became my outlet; a conversation with myself.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. The clock had lulled me. Time to double check the packing. I won’t sleep even if I have the time. My belongings would have to fit into one large suitcase, and a duffel bag. That was all I had, and both were a few stitches removed from being rendered useless. I had sutured them with a sewing kit, and covered some weak spots with electrical tape. Most homeless had better luggage. More motivation. I would have the best luggage money can buy.
The couch was hard to rise from. I made my way downstairs, my heart torn by sentiment and the thrill of the unknown. I stopped and picked up the picture that had caught my stare earlier, and angled it towards the moonlight. I was wearing a bad corduroy shirt, with a bright green vest. I replaced the picture before getting caught up with more unhealthy thoughts. My mind tugged when my mom’s despair entered my conscious, the sadness of her face when she has shuffled off to sleep just a few short hours ago. She did look happier in the picture than in any of my recollections. Beautiful, and happy.
I was right to think that sleep was out of the question. When the cab arrived at 6 a.m. I was working on my third cup of coffee, and grinning from ear to ear.
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