Road Trip

THE DRIVE:
It’s so damn hard to stay awake when everyone else is asleep. The drone of rubber on asphalt doesn’t help. Occasional THUMP THUMP THUMPS from the reflectors set into the white stripes catch me as I zone out. I glance around the Chevy at my passengers. Three women. All different as seasons. The one is Spring; full of life and beauty and creativity. In the backseat are Summer and Autumn. Summer is temperamental in all the ways that make it the most American of times. Autumn changes thoughts at whim and lets them fall at our feet to be sifted. I stare after the cars stretching into the North, realizing that I must be Winter. I feel cold. I will Spring to wake and end my silence.

CHINATOWN:
He had the mismatched clothes and scraggly beard of a homeless man, but was too clean to have been on the streets long. The tourists and Asians rattling closed their security gates didn’t faze him. He stared, unblinking, eyes drying, at the pieta in the shop window. It was cold white marble. Mary held her torn Son carefully. The man stood against the night tide of humanity. As still as the marble just out of reach.

THE APARTMENT:
It’s big. Much bigger than my home. I buy them whiskey to pay for a night of rest, but I look at the broken sofa and know I won’t sleep much. I miss my sheets. I miss my bedside table and try to remember what I’ve stored inside.

2AM:
I write this, wishing someone would ask me what I’m working on and knowing full well I wouldn’t tell them. This is the exorcism I perform when the others are dreaming. I don’t recall the last time I dreamt and wonder if I’ve finally gone crazy. I’ve heard crazy people don’t dream.

CRASHES:
I finally fell off to sleep at three. Seconds later, the slamming of the front door brought me back. Thunk thunk went the hiking boots kicked off. Rough bare feet on the floor. Loud greetings from a bedroom. ‘Is Caleb awake?’ ‘No.’ Lie. I’ve no idea how the thin bathroom door didn’t split down the middle when he threw it shut. Loud, dramatic yawns. More talking; the annoying talk that’s not loud enough to be coherent and not soft enough to ignore. Spring flexes her legs, knocking me off the broken sofa. I find a pillow and my coat. I never sleep on hardwood floors when I’m sober.

Conditions

I haven't posted anything in weeks, though that's probably only bothered me. I'm working feverishly on a screenplay assignment, and I feel guilty when I write anything else (email, shopping list, facebook status update...)

But I felt bad about not blogging, so I wrote a short story in the last twenty minutes. I'm posting without editing as an act of contrition.

--Conditions--

There was a stony path that led from our house to the house behind what was once a pool. My parents were not poor, but we lived as though they were, hence the decrepit pool. It made a wonderfully impregnable fort. Except for during the rains.

The stones in the path were scattered randomly and seemed designed to have their sharpest edges jutting up through the earth. Indeed, I dug one up to test my hypothesis, and the entire buried hunk was smooth.

The edges dug through the rubber soles of my shoes as I would stroll, thirteen years old, to my private pool fort. I could have cut through the grass, but if the mason of centuries ago thought he could mock me with a walkway I could not walk, he had another think coming.

Halfway between our house and the house behind what had become my fort, there was a ring. The perfect circle was rounded by sharp stones rising nearly a foot from the dirt. Unlike the random rocks of the hurtful path, these were placed and molded so carefully together that it appeared to be one single great stone of a shape that stones do not come in.

I spent little time in the Ring, for I was a boy and liked lizards and beetles and hawks and worms and none of these could be found within the perimeter. The ground was different there; shifting, like sand but not sand. Not exactly ash, either. I’m sorry I have nothing to compare it to. Nothing lived within the Ring.

There were two constructs on one side. They seemed for all the world like desks for small children, which I was, having not yet hit the growth spurts my schoolmates had. Now being grown and having attended churches and temples and lectures seeking relief from my Condition, I would call them altars. The size still sticks in my mind, though. Clearly, the sermonizer or prophets or false prophets who used them were tiny by our time’s standard. Suffice it to say, the construct were rough, stone, and small.

I passed through one day as any other day and was halted by a man. This was odd since my father had few friends and those he did steered well clear of my house and (as I learned in my twenties) my flirtatious mother. This man was decidedly not my father’s friend, for he looked like me.

A grown me, obviously, and he sat in the ash-sand behind one of the altars and his knobby knees jutted up above either side.

‘Hullo,’ I said.

‘Hullo,’ he replied.

‘I’m not certain you should be here,’ I noted without a hint of threat in my voice.

‘Where else could I be?’

The question stumped me. Over the next hour, I conversed with the creature. We talked of forts and parents and the rising price of comic books. He was funny and much more charming than me and most of that probably comes with having girlfriends because if you’re not charming with girlfriends, you don’t get to have sex.

I said the above to him, proud of my knowledge. He frowned and offered me a deal. I accepted immediately.

Now I am older and my face gets hot when I consider the trade. I grew tall and strong from that day on. I read ferociously, gaining topics of conversation that would see me through any raucous bar or dinner party. My voice gained a lilt that was unidentifiable as an accent, but inarguably beautiful. I was, as the creature promised, never alone. I bedded women of every age and culture. They were powerless against my attention to every subtle flush of their cheeks and each word they spoke. I became a legendary lover.

But I sleep alone.

In the night, there is a constant pressure on my chest. Each breath is ragged and difficult. Something old and foul blows a soft wind into my mouth that stinks of brimstone. I am lonely and afraid and tired of carrying this weight.

Today, the stones of the path that lead to the broken pool are sharper on my feet than ever. I’m heavier now, I think, so that figures. I take my place behind one of the altars and wait. The afternoon sun dapples the ground through stirring leaves high above me. I wait and try to decide what to do.

The tramping of an awkward boy comes down the stony path. He swears under his breath at the imagined mason and comes into view. I hoped that he wouldn’t.

‘Hullo,’ he says.

Dear Me, I'm sorry...

I know you need some down time, Me. I know you're tired and stressed and really just want to golf and read the stack of comic books you bought two weeks ago but haven't touched. I know, Me. You don't have to tell me.

Here's the thing. We're gonna have a busy couple of weeks, you and me. Directing a webseries, writing another short film, finishing a couple of songs, and cutting a reel for our wife. Tell you what: I'll handle those.

Me, you need to concentrate on preparing a pitch for that rewrite job, attacking the Western notes when they come in, and landing that other writing assignment. You know the one.

Between us, we'll carve out a few hours to have a social life before we leave for Europe. Gotta say goodbye to our friends in appropriate, don't forget us, ways.

We've got a good thing going, Me. We're working with some very talented people on solid projects. This is going to set us up well for our return this fall. You just have to trust me, Me. Together, we can do this.

Yours,
Me... err...

PS: You're handsome.

Whiskey, you're the devil

I got drunk again. It was a joyous happening. Friends and wife were there and the liquor refused to stop flowing.

I drank whiskey. I drank gin. I drank beer and began again.

Our party went to an arcade because the mini-golf course was closed. Brian and I shot Terminators with frighteningly realistic plastic assault rifles. He was wildly impressed with my 40% accuracy against the mechanical buggers. I said nothing about his 37%, simply nodded coolly.

We rode small, garishly painted motorcycles bolted in front of video screens. I lost to Brian and Jill and felt fine about it; she was mostly sober and he owns a real-life motorcycle complete with leather jacket. My hands were tied and numb from the Evan Williams.

Skee ball was surprisingly doable while inebriated, especially compared to drunken Dance Dance Revolution. I took my turn on the tiny dance floor, and it was mercifully brief. Then my wife, all pixie hair and flashing eyes, dropped her tokens in the hefty techno-spewing machine. She was (mind, I was watching through hops and love) the most graceful thing I've ever seen. Alecia, I picked through all my swirling thoughts, was no doubt borne of a clan of Irish faeries who taught her to jig and reel in the deep green forests where no man may walk. It was a nice picture I'll not soon forget.

Back at Brian's, we played Murderer and Alecia espoused various philosophical leanings while swearing like an educated, creative sailor. I awoke at 6am on the floor, feeling relaxed.

Sorry, liver.

Turtle of Love (explicit)

This happened a couple months ago. It was my first (and to date, only) songwriting session with the lovely and stylish Jill. She has the astounding ability to intimidate everyone at a Hold 'Em table with just a novelty lunchbox. She also, which pertains more to this post, owns a turtle.

As I watched the little guy (or girl...how would one begin to tell the difference?) slog around his ridiculously oversized aquarium, a song title popped into my head. Bless Piwi, she owns an electric guitar and an iPhone for recording purposes, so we worked this out in a short amount of time. Time so very well spent.

One day Jill and I will finish this song and start a wonderfully indie and hip rock band, but it's difficult insomuch as most of our interactions revolve around poker; the playing of or talking about.

My summer self

This is as good a time as any to start a blog, I suppose. This summer Alecia and I are going to France for work. We'll be gone two months and return sunburned and exhausted. But before France, we're going to Spain. One week. My first overseas trip.

I have an image of my summer self. I'm sitting at a small table beneath the shade of a wooden trellis. In front of me is a half-empty bottle of wine and a squat, stemless glass. In my image, I can smell- no small feat- the red liquid that already stains my travel-dusted shirt. I'm scribbling in a moleskin. For the first time in three years, what I'm writing isn't an attempt at money. It's not going to go out to a slew of producers for immediate or studied refusal.

I'm writing a book.

I'm writing the book I've been meaning to write since I began calling myself a writer under my breath. It's a beautiful book about a motorcycle and a lost father and the soul of America.

Around me the Spaniards, some fat with slicked-back, thinning hair, some lithe and graceful and bosomy, drone on. It's like classical music, listening to them. I don't understand a word they're saying, so I can't get sucked into their lives. It's just a beautiful murmur.

I finish my work for the day and drain my glass as my wife comes to find me.

That is my image.

Here is the likelihood: I will drink a lot of cheap booze, stress over a script, and a week later, go to work. Both are fine ways to spend a summer.