Excerpts

Excerpts of fiction and non fiction from the past year or so.

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I turned around and walked back into Central Park after a pleasant walk from the West side to the East. Sunday was the first day I’d seen New York at seventy degrees in quite some time. I’d visited Holly in the winter and spring, and then we spent the summer in Los Angeles, and then I visited in the spring again, which did lend to an exorbitant amount of.  Now living in New York, and expecting rain the following day, half way to the metro, I turned back to spend more time in the park.

It had rained a couple days prior and most of the they’d taped of the Great but after walking north through a quarry I found a patch of grass that seemed suitable for a read: scattered tress, plenty of sunshine, no ultimate frisbee, and not too many kids. I knelt to feel the ground hoping for it not to be damp, and without any evidence, sat down. Apparently the pressure of your hand on the ground isn’t pressure enough to force water up through the blades of grass, but the weight of your entire body is, at least enough to soak the entire ass of your pants. I felt like an adolescent who’d sat on a whoopee cushion. Fucking central had punk’d me, sans Ashton Kutcher.

—-

All week I had been dying to get in the Atlantic Ocean. I put my hand it in, but nothing more. Since landing in Miami I wanted to be in the ocean – all of me, for the first time ever. My plans were significantly botched for subtle reasons that crept to the forefront of my agenda each and every time I felt maybe I could afford a trip to the beach, ending on the only real viable opportunity came at ten in the morning, four hours before due to check out of the hotel and fly home.

I ended up in the ocean on a whim I didn’t quite anticipate. I figured I’d round up everyone, or just walk from the hotel by myself, sometime midday, then sit on a beach chair for a while, drink a beer, go back to the hotel, work, and continue my day. Well, part of that is an apt description of what happened. Instead, we left a party in Downtown Miami at about six am (I’m reluctant to describe the events prior, it would take a few days) and headed straight to the Hotel. Anyone in their right mind – this means pretty much everyone not on the beach at 8am – would not be up, nor fantasizing about jumping in the ocean at this hour. At any rate, we ran up to our rooms to change into swim wear. I had, of course, forgotten to bring swim trunks, but I did come across a pair of boardshorts in a gifting suite. I knew I’d either have to give up at least $40 dollars to buy a pair so I instead picked up a pair of knee length cargo-boardshorts in the suite, accepting the fact that the worst thing that would happen is I’d assimilate into the Miami beach no-shirt-Ed Hardy throng with my new look – oh well. Nevertheless, I changed into shorts, tags and all, tossed on a hotel robe, and met my two friends in the hotel lobby.

Once in the sand we looked up to realize that we were the only people on the beach and our hotel had not even set up the chairs and umbrellas on the beach, but luckily the hotel next door had done so

—-

Upon passing through the metal screen door, my five days of loping and possessing a gait laden of contentment had begun to diminish. Without an ample time for nostalgia to even take effect, I entered my room, sitting on the front of my bed for only enough time to find myself back on my feet, pacing right, just in front of my closet door only to kicked some of yesterday’s clothes to the top of the pile, where they probably came from, and will probably come from again. About thirty-five books littered my bed side table – it’s really a table, doubling as a reading desk where no reading has taken place to date – including three books left to me: Dream Prom, The Art of Loving, and an English translation of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, which later I found out to be actually titled In Search of Lost Time. After thumbing through the latter piece, growing uninterested, intent of reticent, I reached for a shirt, or rag rather, that had been worn and left behind. Coming to mind, the night prior and three before that we had spoken of mock women I could create while being apart. This woman would be made of items left behind. Outside of this, we could only ponder shedding hair – I’m still finding them. Scanning the room I saw a myriad of items, not all suitable for the task at hand though: one-quarter full bottle of juice, a bracelet, books, and a t-shirt. Still discerning wistfulness in affection that had passed only fifteen minutes ago, I still stood, stolid, passive, drinking what was left of a Orange Mango Motion variety Naked juice and remains Madeleines Petite French Cakes bought at Starbucks earlier that morning.

Despondencies

Thomas walked into the alley, kicking pebbles forward, and spat to each one, only hitting one. The rocks passed each one by four or so feet and sometimes he’d kick a pile, leaving him only to sit and think which to spat on. He’d only walked into the alley when she’d return from Portland. One a month, sometimes more, in midday he’d set out and pace past broken televisions, scrapped lumber, graffiti, and pebbles he’d already kicked once before.

She came into the house while he scraped the Nutella off the knife and slid it into the pantry. With the intonation of the door closing Thomas knew it had been Portland. That drab city, Portland. Where old elephants go to die. Where the rain sticks to the walls and washes  basic senses of morality into the sewer. The screen door didn’t slam. He put the two pieces of bread together and listened to the door slowly let to a close, the back of her hand pressing against the screen, the bottom hitting first and the warped top to follow. Portland, Oregon, Portland fucking Oregon.

He left through the back door while she came through the living room into the kitchen. He shut the back door with the handle pulled as she  simultaneously pulled the French doors leading into the kitchen open.

A group of four kids rode their bikes towards him as he lumbered along.  He’d wished they were actually Cholos. Cholos with neck and face tattoos and he wished he wore his red shirt and that when they rode past he’d tell them to fuck off and they’d take some of the scrap wood out of the garbage can and beat him with it. He’d be laying in the middle of the concrete and he’d see nothing but his own blood pool into his eyes and they’d deliver the last blow and he’d die and everyone would be sorry and he’d never have to be home when his stupid wife came home from Portland and he’d never have to watch her turn away and look away, and bite her stupid broken flapping bottom lip and be sorry. He’d never have to read letters she left out. Correspondence from this rube, poor little rube, sent to the city, to only ruin a stranger’s life.

The children rode past; one skidded with his back brake for a few feet and carried on. Thomas lit a cigarette and sat on couch that had been in the alley the last time he’d been there. Some wrote, “UPTOHERE” in spray-paint across the backrest and another person had gutted an entire cushion. The graffiti caused him to laugh for a moment before he sat. The filter of the first cigarette began to burn but he inhaled in anyway and used it to light another.

He’d memorized three of the letters and the first one had been salutated, “Come up to here.” Sometimes laziness seems more compelling than life itself. Every repetition of the salutation make him laugh a little more. After thirty or so times his bottom lip bounced to the though and he began repeating, “Up to here” until the morphemes gave way to laughter, and then the words themselves joined and he pulled his cigarette from his lips, flicked it at a post and the cherry shot out of it while the butt fell behind a trashcan. Within a few minutes the cherry gave way to ash. He lit another, propped his foot up on a television and laughed again.

I QUIT

I smoked more cigarettes than I probably should have. Nevertheless, I walked to 7-11 with the average ‘uninterested in walking anywhere a block away in Los Angeles’ gait that I always carry with me, and bought pack more. On the walk there I remembered how a doctor once told me how I, in fact, was a light smoker.

A few months after turning eighteen I promptly moved to Seattle, leaving behind a the chance of acquiring cancer in a paper mill, as most of the men who had worked in them for decades had done. I cashed in whatever you could call chips and moved to the big city – the biggest city I had seen anyways: Seattle.

My first two weeks there resulted in disaster after disaster. Those first fourteen days equated to one persons life of tragedy. In fact, my first two days may have accomplished it well. On my first day I nearly died while skateboarding through traffic on my way to the local library. A fucking car hit me. My skateboard broke in two and I slid over the car hood without my sweatshirt giving me any friction to slowdown, until I hit the asphalt. Trying to get up, before realizing a car had hit me, or rather I hit a car, I noticed blood soaking through my sweatshirt – not flowing, seeping through. After getting to my feet, trying to find my skateboard (which I couldn’t see broken under the car), I noticed gawkers with their hands over their mouths, on all four corners of the intersection. Not doing anything, just standing and watching and if not watching, calling 911 on their cell phones.

In the minute and a half it took me to get up and figure out what really happened, the man in the car had already written a check to me for $500 – I asked for $600. In the moment it took to reach to a wallet and out to my hand, I held a check for $500 and a one hundred dollar bill. Hitherto, I never held so much at any given time in my life. Thank you Jeff Anderson.
The following day the Seattle Police Department shot and killed an unarmed black man with no weapon in my Carport. They pulled him over for speeding.

Two weeks later I contracted a severe case of Pneumonia. For the first time I sat in a doctors office without the company of a family member. In 10th grade I decided I would run track (until I did, I had no idea I could fail so easily at a sport). To participate I needed to take a physical examination proving to the State of Washington I was fit to run. In the doctors office with my mother the doctor asked me the standard questions.

“Do you smoke?”
I thought yes, but my mother glared over and I remembered and replied, “No.”
“Do you smoke Marijuana?”
Uh, yes I thought, nearly smiling, but replied, “No.”
“Travis, do you drink?”
Of course. “No.”
“Are you sexual active?”
What do you mean am I sexual active? I’m sixteen, of course I am. Also, does masturbation count? Can you not run well if you have had an orgasm?
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“Have you had sexual intercourse with a woman?” he asked me while my mother ogled me, really interested to hear about this one.
“No,” I replied.

Now a grown man of eighteen years, independent for a week or so and having my own case of Pneumonia coupled with scab running down my arm, I found myself able to be in a room with a Doctor one of one abandoning explicit thought. What’s to fear being a room with a complete stranger? Someone I will never meet again.

She asked, “Do you smoke?”
“Yes”
“How much,” she asked staring at her clipboard while taking notes in a very uninterested fashion.
“A pack a day.”
“Oh so you’re a light smoker”
A light smoker? What the fuck are you talking about doctor? I smoke like a chimney and you a telling me I’m a light smoker? That’s what it comes down to I guess. I’m in fact a light smoker.
“Do you smoke Marijuana?”
“Yes”
“How often?”
“Three to give times a week.”
“Are you sexual active?”
“Yes” I told her, trying to not make eye contact, cough, or smirk waiting to tell her all about if I drank or not.