(See what I am saying?)

What friends are worth

Perhaps the strangest month of my life concluded tonight.

if the all the conversations, predicaments, situations, phenomenon, and conundrums - and the people involved in them - could be stacked on top of one another like a deck of cards, they'd be stacked high, and make a horrible poker hand.

one of the easiest to explain happened on last day of 2005. now it seems totally plausible, looking back since then. but like most of my life as of late, i am trying to make sense of it. i am left wondering why and how, and trying my best to just get out out of bed in the morning and back in it a night. and this incident best way to sum it up, and i paid for it this past week:

In Columbus Ohio there are friends of mine i am quite fond of. they live on a nice street. They have a nice house. a nice porch. they have a nice ceramic tiled splash wall in their kitchen. They have nice cars.

At least until i drove one of them.

"you can borrow my car. the keys are hanging by the back door." snags said.

"thanks snags." i said.

i was headed to out meet someone i had not seen in a very long time. and i was anxious to leave.

after dinner, woody and snags showed up at the bar, whereupon we enjoyed an evening together.

like the conflict in the middle east, the origin of the universe, and who shot kennedy, what happened next may never be resolved, going down in history as a perpetual mystery both sides will debate until we are lying soundly in our graves.

Regardless of the incidents, either sides accounts, - now or in the future- that may or may not have happened; on that ride home the universe was still expanding, and i, with both hands on the wheel, drove across town.

I returned to the nice house, on the nice street and pulled the nice car up to the nice porch and walked inside and set the keys on the countertop by the nice ceramic tiled splash wall.

In the morning snags picked up the keys and walked out the door. she soon walked back in.

"something is wrong with my car." she said.

"it sounds like something is dragging when i turn."

woody walked out to the nice driveway. i followed him. we got down on our hands and knees and looked under the nice car. nothing looked wrong. we got in the car and backed it out onto the street. as he turned the wheel, something was wrong with the car. it sounded like something was dragging.

at this juncture in the morning, the mood changed.

"dude." woody said to me.

we were sitting still in the black volkswagen jetta in the middle of the street in front if his house on new year's eve.

i shrugged.

"seriously. what did you do?"

i shrugged.

he pulled back into the driveway. as he turned the wheel in the other direction, something was wrong with the car. it sounded like something was dragging.

"were you drunk?" snags asked when we got out the car. "you were drunk and hit something, didn't you."

"no." i answered. the car was spotless. not a scratch on it.

i walked back inside. woody was on the phone.

"it sounds like the front of the car is dragging whenever i turn it..." he said into the phone.

"uh-huh."

"a broken front axle. maybe both sides. um, ok." then he hung up the phone.

snags was mad.

it was new year's eve day. there would be no mechanic open. but it is not in woody's nature not to address what is on his mind, nor it is a habit of his to speak much when he is.

he picked up the phone again. a few minutes later he hung it up again.

"c'mon. i found a mechanic that will look at it. but we gotta go now."

we pulled into a well worn garage with a parking lot filled with imports packed in like bumper cars.

a middle eastern man walked out the front door. his pants were sagging and his stocking cap was leaning off of his head much like the mazda beside us was sliding off of the jack.

we opened the car and got out.

"your struts are shot." he said by the time my legs were straight and i was upright. "look at them."

we looked at them.

"when is the last time you changed them?" he asked.

woody rolled his eyes.

"let me drive it." he said.

woody got in the passenger seat and they drove away.

i stood in the middle of a pile if imported cars in a parking lot in the rain on the last day of 2005, trying to figure out how much broken axles and blown struts cost for german cars, and tried to fathom the events that had led me to that situation.

i wasn't drunk... i just stood there watching the rain fill up in the chrome mags lying on their side beside the datsun pickup truck. i didn't hit anything... i pulled my hood over my head.

the black jetta pulled back in and woody got the parts and prices for all 4 struts and mounting plates. then we went the auto store. on new year's eve day woody bought 4 new struts and plates for a 2000 4 door volkswagen jetta.

he didn't say much on the way home.

i was unaware at the time, and have since checked on the protocol for how to handle the "i drove-my-best-friends-fiance's-car-and-mysteroulsy-blew-the-struts-out" scenario.

there isn't one.

establishing my own precedent, upon arriving home i gave snags a signed blank check. i don't plan on anything ever coming between me and my friends, certainly not the undercarriage on a foreign car.

"use this to pay the mechanic for the labor. i don't know what i did, but i want to help pay for it." i said, and gave her check #139, from my check book, signed for with the amount blank.

Yesterday:

the phone rang.

stephey was on the other end. he was laughing.

"have you talked to woody?" he asked.

"not since new years." i replied.

"i talked to him." he said, still laughing. but louder.

"i want you to know, that i have known you for almost 10 years. and i have known woody for half of that. i know how you guys are. and i realize that neither of you are known for being too concerned with letting truth get in the way of a good story. so i know reality is somewhere inbetween your stories. i also recognize this is a very awkward thing for friends to deal with. but as for me, i am loving it."

"loving what?" i asked.

"well, snags car has been in the shop for over a week...."

the universe was still expanding, as it seemed. i immediately went to my computer and hit the bookmark for "Online Banking"

"are you serious." i finally said.

"yeah!" stephey said in a jubilant tone. "and the whole time woody was telling the story, snags was in the background yelling at me about how drunk you were."

i typed in my password.

"now i am not a mechanic, but i know you gotta hit something pretty hard to blow out both front struts and crack both springs."

"cracked front springs?..."

i clicked on "recent activity"

"damn, dude you must tore it up that night." he said. his voice sounded like a sports caster calling the last minute touchdown at a super-bowl.

"i didn't do anything."

"that is exactly what woody said you said!"

his voice sounded like a sports caster calling the last minute extra point to win the super-bowl.

i began scrolling down through my bank account.

"man, it must have cost him over a grand at least!"

"it cost somebody" i said. dread pulled the hair up on the back of my neck.

on the other end of the phone stephey was cackling like a witch.

check #139 had been cashed. i clicked on it to see the amount.

i have had many strange days. especially of late. much has changed for me this past year. and much will be changing more soon. but one thing i hold strong to, what will not change, are my friends. and i don't plan on anything ever coming between me and them, certainly not the undercarriage on a foreign car.

however, as i pulled open my browser window and let the scan of the check load, i wondered, very earnestly, what i was worth to my friends.

Sympathy for the Santa Monica Pier

Above were million dollar malibu mobile homes hanging on the western edge of the world. below where the sea and sand meet were wealth rooftops and fame the insurance companies would never claim. and between, i sat. in the seat. incomplete.

in a black car. in a black night. like long black hair. with fingers in between. tangled up and trying to feel something i could see. and to be seen. but it was far to dark there beside the sea. and outside the window the world was moving fast. i was thinking slow and watched the horizon as the Santa Monica pier reached out into the dark. blindly but shining bright with a ferris wheel. and i wondered how it would feel to reach so far and to reach for so long and never touch what it was trying for.

"you can't escape pain, or saying goodbye, within this life" i was told quite recently, in such a way, as if to say that life is like a ferris wheel that goes around but in the end, always lets you down.

remarkedly, very comforatbly, i sat in my seat on the ride heading straight between the white lines on hwy. 1. but in my mind going round and round and wondering what it would be like to have myself to be found on stable ground. within this life on a black night. or in a black car. or anywhere where the situation affords me to say hello. face to face. in one place. and to stay that way.

and not have to say goodbye.

and not be reaching out

and in the dark

on the horizon line

while spinning around like the Santa Monica pier late on a monday night.

The Man; Not The Movie.

Place: Pub

Time: Night

I leaned in between a couple at the bar and ordered a drink. I felt fingers rubbing the back of my newly minted faux-hawk (See: Shearing Day) The middle aged woman on the left of said " I can't help it, it looks so cute."

I smiled politley. The bartender handed me the drink.

"Hey man." the older man on my left said to me.

"What does your shirt say?" He asks.

I pulled open my jacket.

"Oh, cool man!" he replied, reading large white letters on the black shirt.

"CASH. Like the Movie, huh?"

"No." I replied.

I emptied the shot of whisky and set it back down on the bar.

"Like the Man."

I smiled to my left and walked away.

Memoirs from the passenger seat.

where are we going next? i asked.

he shrugged, never taking his eyes off of the road. he changed lanes and accelerated. giving true meaning to going nowhere fast.

where have i been? i asked myself.

the whisky still burned. the dj's tables still turned. we drove north on the 101. I leaned my head against the window and watched the sports cars pass us on the right, all shiny and low to the ground. the moonlight ran across the metal in fluid lines of light. a cigarette was tossed from the long black american car in front of us and blew across the center lane like rubies rolling towards the sea; treasure or trash, depending on the point of view; secrets let out of the bag, if one was willing to listen.

i sunk down low in the passenger seat:

Somewhere my dog was sleeping by a fireplace in a farmhouse.

Somewhere my friends were sleeping with their wives.

Somewhere the d.j. was still playing.

Somewhere my friends were sleeping with their soon-to-be sons and newborn daughters.

but tonight, the highway took me towards none of those.

The other night Josh told me the human brain can only store about 4,000 words in it's vocabulary. when at capacity, the mind must forget a word in order to learn a new one.

i thought about that as i tried to keep my face from sliding down the passenger side window. words are like little memories you store up and string together like a necklace of beads to decorate the thoughts you speak. and my head is far too small to keep them all. the jewelry box in my mind is far too modest to fit all my keepsakes. but my words, like my memories, i can not prioritize. the things i try to forget won't leave. they visit me like unwelcome guests who refuse to knock on the door. they always barge in and make themselves at home. And sometimes, when i stare at my phone and see a new message, i am afraid that too many more and i will start forget the ones i wish to keep. and sometimes, when i stare at my phone and see none, i wish one would come and in, and push a bad one out the back. but i can't keep them all, and life and memory don't discriminate.

Every place i see and everything i feel stays with me like a scar that won't heal. A photograph that wont fade. Like burying a dead dog in the ground whose eyes remain open, i cannot forget things i have seen. great beauty and ardent ugliness have more similarities than differences. if, for nothing else, both cannot be forgotten easily.

I am more convinced by each place i see and person i meet that the truths in this life are not found in facts, because facts are far to finite. far too singular. truths are found in concepts. truths are found in processes. truths are found in systems. and they are expressed in metaphors, because simple words, like cheap jewelry, don't do them justice.

as it was, i sat in the passengers seat. anxiously looking ahead. curiously looking back; wondering if i had two hands on the ends of my arms not to hold two things at once, but rather to always be letting go with one while reaching with the other.

I tried my best to be only there in the seat. not by a fireplace on a farm, not with my friends, and not under a noisy ceiling fan on a snowy night. Zach changed lanes again and headed for the exit ramp.

"Let's go downtown." he said.

"Sounds like a great idea." i replied.

[*In other words: Hear-"The Other Side" by J. Ritter. (iTunes)]

Shearing Day

New Year's Day

She opened her eyes, looked outside and smiled. She said she hadn't seen the sun shine in Ohio in quite a while.

The sky glowed flat and pale above the rooftops like the champagne left out all night. The black maple trees without leaves stretched into the light, breaking the sky like cracks in a porcelain doll. It was quiet and i couldn't hear anything but my head and heart pounding, both for very different reasons but feeling the same.

I wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep there for the year. I wanted to close my eyes and have my head stop pounding. I wanted to close my eyes and have my heart keep beating. I wanted to close my eyes and not have to leave. not have to keep moving. not have to turn around, think ahead, and not have to look back.

As it were, my eyes remained open. My head kept pounding. The calendar was turned. Blood flowed. The clock moved. My heart trembled. The door closed. The engine started. and she drove away. The exhaust trailed down the street like a vapor trail on a jet plane. The champagne sky fell flat between the cracks in the maple trees.

And I stood still on the street. The only thing not moving. At least not in the same direction. at the same time, on the same day, month or year as anybody else. For a minute between the pains in my head, i ran the variables of the last 3 years. down the street i faintly heard her shift to fourth gear. Too many options can kill a man, i have heard.

So can one; if you have no idea how to make it happen.