ODB, now on display in our dining room.
We sat, my oldest two boys (a distinction I've had to make since Uly came that has not ceased to...perturb) and I, in the Silver Gulch in the Ted Stevens International Airport and awaited a delayed Delta connection to Sea-Tac. It was their last few ticks in Alaska and they were playing Legos on the table while I drank beer and wrote in my notebook. The entirety of the world was so fucked up that I could barely function. There were all these things happening and none of it made sense. Jet travel? Biological functions? Barley fermentation? Custody agreements? Massive organizational structures? Electronic pulses jetting through fiber optic cables to places I couldn't imagine?
I couldn't get over the fact that just a few hours prior I had kissed my infant boy on his fat cheeks and squeezed his face and tried to transmit all that interior love I felt for him into his tiny mind because I feared that might be the last time I ever saw him. He smiled and I left him with his mother.
Outside the bar windows, I watched jets and luggage ramp crews and ramp crew managers and fueling trucks and airline food employees and miles of tarmac. Inside, I saw tourists and people and myself and my sons and forward moving organic sacks that told themselves they knew what they were doing. All I knew was that I was about to get on a plane and eat some Xanax and drink some of the Jim Beam singles in my carry-on and fade into a pharmacological ether as giant aluminum cylinders ferried me across the continent.
It was going to be a journey.
When I transplanted this, the tree was approximately 18 inches tall.
After the flights, Felicia picked us up from RDU. I was seriously altered and she drove, quite graciously, the way back to her house where I would be staying with the boys for a week. After a stop at a local and well known roadside pit, I emerged with a tall boy of Milwaukee's Best in a brown paper bag. Back on the road, Felicia and I conversed as she drove the rest of the way into Jacksonville. The subject of the coming school year was broached and I said, "Fuck it, let's go get some school supplies." We arrived at the J-ville Target, store number 1226, and entered. We found the school supplies aisle where I squatted on my haunches and began issuing value shopping instructions to the boys. An excerpt:
Me (to G): Hey, why the fuck you gonna get some big ass lunch box that's motherfucking useless without the the lunch compartment that can at least, AT LEAST, hold some Tupperware or some shit for your lunch?
G: Well, it's big...
Me: Yeah, for what? Look at that shit. It's big in all the wrong places. Don't do shit for storing food. Also, got some huge-ass stuff you don't need. It's all terrible.
G: I don't know.
Me: Use your head, kid. Come on, son.
G: (Goes away to survey better options.)
Me: Yeah, for what? Look at that shit. It's big in all the wrong places. Don't do shit for storing food. Also, got some huge-ass stuff you don't need. It's all terrible.
G: I don't know.
Me: Use your head, kid. Come on, son.
G: (Goes away to survey better options.)
K: (Comes up to where I'm squatting.) What about this? (Shows a collection of individual subject notebooks.)
Me: How much?
K: 15 dollars.
Me: Holy shit, 15 dollars? Go find some motherfucking shit ain't so expensive. 15 dollars. Get the fuck outta here.
K: (Goes and finds a pack of notebooks that are $4 dollars total that fulfills his school requirement. He returns and holds them out to me.)
Me: (Takes package.) Holy motherfucking shit. $4 dollars. See that? You saved 11 motherfucking dollars when you shop around. Look at that shit. Think about all the shit you could buy with 11 motherfucking dollars.
Me: How much?
K: 15 dollars.
Me: Holy shit, 15 dollars? Go find some motherfucking shit ain't so expensive. 15 dollars. Get the fuck outta here.
K: (Goes and finds a pack of notebooks that are $4 dollars total that fulfills his school requirement. He returns and holds them out to me.)
Me: (Takes package.) Holy motherfucking shit. $4 dollars. See that? You saved 11 motherfucking dollars when you shop around. Look at that shit. Think about all the shit you could buy with 11 motherfucking dollars.
Target Employee: (Arrives nicely, with concern.) Sir, we've had some complaints about you from this section.
Me: (Still squatting.) Ah, okay, that's alright. Sorry.
Stranger: (Has been hovering and comes around the corner. Looks at me.)
Me: (Gives double thumbs up to stranger with no comment.)
Me: (Gives double thumbs up to stranger with no comment.)
Stranger: (Proceeds to enumerate all the reasons why I'm a terrible father and inform me it's men like me who talk to their children like I am who are the reason that she doesn't talk to her father anymore and why Felicia shouldn't be with me because she deserves better.)
Felicia: I'm not with him.
Stranger's Mom: (Arrives from aisle whence the Stranger came.) Children are a gift.
Felicia: I'm not with him.
Stranger's Mom: (Arrives from aisle whence the Stranger came.) Children are a gift.
Me: (Continuing thumbs up until the Strangers and employee leave. Collect the boys' supplies and proceed to the checkout where I pay for the items so shopped for.)
The Sandridge Diner bar where I'm spending most of my North Carolina nights.
There used to be a chain, now bankrupt or otherwise defunct, of Southern grocery stores named "Delchamps", pronounced with all the consonants in a wholly American way and not in the way you'd imagine with a slurring of the "ch" or lack of "s" as a Frenchman might. I remember the place for several reasons, not least of which was my old man's affinity for the store. I especially remember him liking the deli section where he would order hyper-thin sliced sandwich meats that, according to him, almost melted in your mouth. This is especially memorable to me as I also remember the awfulness of his teeth and dental health/hygiene in general.
One day, and I'm sure I'm conflating memories as the brain is wont to do, I remember the weather as summer hot, and he was wearing a neck brace (the old, soft kind that resemble the neck pillows one finds in airport shops around the world) due to a work injury that, he later learned, had fractured several of his cervical vertebrae. I remember him hating the thing because it made him sweaty and overtly labeled him (not that he ever admitted this) as someone who was "disabled". In any event, we were in the store, shopping and he brought out a cigarette and began to smoke inside because it was too bothersome to go outside in the heat to smoke while he was in the middle of shopping. There he was, smoking, in his neck brace, with me watching him, as an employee informed him smoking was not allowed in the store.
The old man looked at him with a face that made me afraid for the employee's safety. The old man maintained eye contact with the employee, removed the half smoked cigarette from his lips, dropped it to the floor tiles, and ground out the butt with his shoe.
One day, and I'm sure I'm conflating memories as the brain is wont to do, I remember the weather as summer hot, and he was wearing a neck brace (the old, soft kind that resemble the neck pillows one finds in airport shops around the world) due to a work injury that, he later learned, had fractured several of his cervical vertebrae. I remember him hating the thing because it made him sweaty and overtly labeled him (not that he ever admitted this) as someone who was "disabled". In any event, we were in the store, shopping and he brought out a cigarette and began to smoke inside because it was too bothersome to go outside in the heat to smoke while he was in the middle of shopping. There he was, smoking, in his neck brace, with me watching him, as an employee informed him smoking was not allowed in the store.
The old man looked at him with a face that made me afraid for the employee's safety. The old man maintained eye contact with the employee, removed the half smoked cigarette from his lips, dropped it to the floor tiles, and ground out the butt with his shoe.
One of the boys' last summer days in Alaska.
The grand adventure of the boys' summer was suggested by Gavin.
Their grandmother had bought them new bicycles and I had, myself, purchased a new bicycle from the going out of business Sports Authority. Unprompted, Gavin said we should bike out to Butte, climb the landform for which the town is named, and bike back. It's 7.5 miles from my house, one way, to Butte and the climb itself gains an elevation of 880 feet over a mile-ish long trail. They loaded up on breakfast and we headed out into a grey sky-ed day.
The trail ran along the Matanuska river, which was up due to seasonal rains, and we took a moment to observe her passing. We stayed there a bit too long, watching the long roiling greyness of the water, and the boys got antsy. I knew it was time to go but before leaving, I asked them if they knew how many bike rides my dad had gone on with me. They both answered "zero".
We arrived at the butte, hiked up, and descended again to bike to a local convenience mart. I told the boys to select a sugary drink, a fatty snack, and water to refuel themselves. They selected Gatorade, roasted cashews, and a giant bottle of water. I paid and followed them out into the parking lot where they ate and drank while sitting on yellow parking bumpers. After they finished, we biked to Klondike Mike's in Palmer, a local bar, where I had beers and instructed the boys in geometry and physics and life things as they played games of pool and slurped at Shirley Temples. There was a man there, younger than I, who watched us with an expression on his face of almost envy or maybe regret, or some other amalgam of feelings about which I didn't inquire.
Out of coins for pool, groins on fire from saddle soreness, muscles achy, me a little drunk and the boys nearly exhausted, we mounted up our rides and headed for home.
Their grandmother had bought them new bicycles and I had, myself, purchased a new bicycle from the going out of business Sports Authority. Unprompted, Gavin said we should bike out to Butte, climb the landform for which the town is named, and bike back. It's 7.5 miles from my house, one way, to Butte and the climb itself gains an elevation of 880 feet over a mile-ish long trail. They loaded up on breakfast and we headed out into a grey sky-ed day.
The trail ran along the Matanuska river, which was up due to seasonal rains, and we took a moment to observe her passing. We stayed there a bit too long, watching the long roiling greyness of the water, and the boys got antsy. I knew it was time to go but before leaving, I asked them if they knew how many bike rides my dad had gone on with me. They both answered "zero".
We arrived at the butte, hiked up, and descended again to bike to a local convenience mart. I told the boys to select a sugary drink, a fatty snack, and water to refuel themselves. They selected Gatorade, roasted cashews, and a giant bottle of water. I paid and followed them out into the parking lot where they ate and drank while sitting on yellow parking bumpers. After they finished, we biked to Klondike Mike's in Palmer, a local bar, where I had beers and instructed the boys in geometry and physics and life things as they played games of pool and slurped at Shirley Temples. There was a man there, younger than I, who watched us with an expression on his face of almost envy or maybe regret, or some other amalgam of feelings about which I didn't inquire.
Out of coins for pool, groins on fire from saddle soreness, muscles achy, me a little drunk and the boys nearly exhausted, we mounted up our rides and headed for home.
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