March 17, 2006

Why Greg Lawler Bought Me Dinner

His South African English snuck out between the bites of barbecue ribs. We batted stories back and forth across the table like a shuttlecock, words floating over the salt and pepper shakers, peanut shells, and silverware that sat on the veneer like bored spectators. He was buying dinner, a farewell of sorts, or a long overdue discussion. Like a cardboard box, i began to unfold. I began to fill up with valuables, before closing myself back up and shipping off. The sun set during dinner and Ryan sat in the corner enjoying one of his first legal beers. As we left the restaurant, and drove back down rt. 33 towards Ventura, instead of looking forward, i looked back. I thought about how it came to be that i was riding down the hill in his truck. More importantly i wondered how he came across taking me to dinner. So i asked him.

The lights from the sound stage behind the school came into view as we drove under the rt. 33 overpass.

"Well, i will have have to give you the two minute story" he said nonchalantly, almost reluctantly as we aproached. And very matter of factly, he told me this story:

He and his brother left South Africa with $10,000 and headed for London.

None of it was their money.

They were asked to be couriers for a wealthy friend to deliver the money the the patron's son, living in England. The delivery service paid them $1000 of the parcel, and with and with that sum, the brothers started out in York as waiters working to keep their stay. South African seasons and people must be a little warmer than northern England. After waiting tables for long enough to know they wanted to leave, they paid a visit to a travel agent and bought the cheapest flight to the nearest and warmest place. Fuel prices, demand, trade winds, taxes, geopolitical nuances on that given day, and perhaps simply the travel agents bias, put them on that day to South Beach Miami, Florida.

In South Beach, Miami, He and his brother worked construction and waited tables. Their service must have been exemplary. It afforded them $600 dollar aquistions of fully loaded Fuji del rey bikes, complete with panniers, ready to ride across america. To their amusement, when reviewing their map, found a city named Santa Barbara, and deemed any city named after a soap opera a worthy destination. And at least, he said, all the daytime fans back home would know where they were.

3210 miles later and 49 days later, (and a few local newspaper articles)they made it to their destination, and while living in Santa Barbara he met friends and good times, and from there, hitchhiked north. He was arrested at the Canadian border with an expired visa and was jailed in Blaine Washington. Upon his release from jail and the friendly officers in Blaine, he traveled back south camping in Vashon Island, and eventually making his way back to Santa Barbara to pick up thier odds and ends. Realizing his visa was past it's expiration, he and his brother returned to England.

Back in England, the pair backpacked throughout the greater Britian archipelago. To Whales, north to Scotland, and returning to London. Then without any change in his visa he flew back west to New York. At JFK Airport, without any hassle, was allowed back in the United States. From there his brother made his way to Chicago, and he back across the county to Santa Barbara. Upon his return, he worked in a mom and pop computer shop, made his way to a local Monticito college campus in the IT department, taught himself how to program, began consulting Brooks Institute of Photography, was hired on as the head of the IT department, gave me a Powerbook when i began working there, and then, bought me dinner at the Oak Pit Barbecue in Oak Springs California.

The truck pulled up to the school and I got out. He and ryan went inside to start working on replacing a school email server. I walked through the foyer and into the front yard to where i was parked. I stood there for moment at the front doors.

We can only walk through doors once with the same result. We cannot eat at the Oak Pit with friends twice and have it ever taste the same. We cannot ask for the cheapest plane ticket on different days and get the same ride. We may not even be able to have daytime T.V. executives pick the same city twice to name their show after. We cannot try each day differently, and make different decisions, to see which outcome we prefer best. Our time is not like a suit in a store we can try on and compare sizes before we buy. We simply wear the world we have, or at best, spin our our own wool and fashion our own suit, make our own decisions, and live out the path it yeilds. With nothing to compare our days against, they are our reality, and our reality, be virtue of being all we know, is normal; even perhaps mundane - a story to tell only when asked after a dinner of barbecue ribs, with two minutes to spare. If nothing else, it is simply what it is: an unwinding spool of string, a thread we weave to make our time and our memory to wear out our days in.

I walked to my car, and left school. I took the long way home.

Photo by Greg Lawler.

Posted by Todd Roeth at March 17, 2006 12:13 AM