July heat. Junkies
screaming outside my window.
Give him back his shit.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
I got the radio on and I’m just killin’ time
My Bruce Springsteen Road Trip
A week after I got back, a tour bus with forty French people on their way south hit strong winds that sent the mammoth bus skidding across 101. It collided into the barricade which peeled the roof back like a sardine can, scattering bodies, living and near-dead, across the highway. Only a few actually died. It could have been much worse. But it was a grotesque sight on the evening news. I think I actually saw one of the casualties in a body bag courtesy of the skycam. But my road trip was safe, simple. No near-misses, no close calls. If it hadn’t been for a jackknifed rig, somewhere halfway between nowhere and even farther, the whole driving aspect of the trip would have been uneventful, a sidenote in the narrative of a rock and roll roadtrip.
I say ‘a’ rock and roll road trip, like it’s a common practice. Really, I had never road tripped to a show before even though Bruce Springsteen shows had long been a tradition in my family. I had seen him many times over the years, spanning from the eighties to the present. When we went to the Born in the USA tour, I was eight. It was my first concert ever. As we walked out after the three(plus)-hour show, my mom said, “That’s the best time I’ve ever had with my clothes on!” I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but gauging from the reaction of her friends, I knew that seeing a Bruce Springsteen concert was potentially a life-changing experience.
But this tour was different. Mom had been gone for over a year. The pain was less intense, different. Springsteen shows were a great respite from the ugliness still inside my head. Memories of the last weeks, days, minutes. The most terrifying moments, even years and years later, would remain the most vivid, the most difficult to shake. But when the house lights went down and the band took the stage, everything was easier for a few hours. Feeling the words and notes, I was transfixed by the beauty and tragedy of it all. Certainly, my brain fed on all the American Dream stuff. The myth of a classless American society. Skepticism about real equality. Apprehensions about the freedoms we so fervently defend against foreign enemies. Everything I needed to know about social activism and/or Marxism I learned from Bruce Springsteen. But, ultimately, these lyrics preached about the ecstasy and the agony, the triumph and the terror of life. It was never one or the other, but always a balance of both. I heard him say once that he didn’t like to write happy songs because people didn’t like them as much. I think he was right. There always has to be that underlying pain, fear, vulnerability. It doesn’t have real impact unless there’s a chance you might fuck it up this time.
I left early that morning, a six-hour road trip leaving plenty of hours for pre-partying in the parking lot. Even though I was going alone, I still bought a twelver of Tecate for the cooler in the trunk. There’s nothing more useful for making strangers into friends than a surplus of beer. Along with a bunch of Diet Cokes, some chips, some candy. A little bit of Mom would always be with me on days like this. She would have been the one prepared for anything, with a Diet Coke in her hand and a sweet thing in her pocket. The one to spontaneously let out a squeal, barely able to contain her excitement. When the screen on my satellite radio lit, I was glad to see Cleveland ’78. The Darkness tour. That insane version of “Backstreets.” What a lovely day for a drive. With a reliable car, a huge amount of hope, and a Bruce ticket for that night, I made my departure.
This could have been a two-show trip if I hadn’t had to teach my night class at the community college the previous night. After class, I rushed home, turned on the computer and played the late-night live show on satellite while I reviewed the setlist on the internet. “Raise your Hand”! What?!? I kept my fingers crossed even in my sleep, hoping he would leave it in the set for one more night. Even if he didn’t, seeing a show would save me from hours of suffocating loneliness. Plus, afterwards I will have gone to my first show by myself, braved the awkwardness of sitting by myself, standing in the beer line by myself, running to the girl’s room by myself. I’ll know if I’m truly strong enough to endure it all.
“This is for Joey, Tommy, Mikey and all the Cleveland boys . . .because I love ‘em so much” he said as he began the rough, guitar-driven intro to “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Luckily, the ’78 shows were pretty long, so since I started right at nine, this show alone would take me halfway to L.A. I had never driven down there, ever, much less by myself, but I knew there was a lot of road ahead and a whole lot of nothing to look at. What most non-Californians probably don’t know about our great state is that most of the vast space is completely desolate. There are many areas that are densely populated, towns like Santa Cruz where the living spaces are so impacted that I know when my neighbors have sex or stuffy noses. But so much of the rest of the state is so desolate and dreary that even just driving through makes me want to kill myself. As I crossed vast spans of nothing, I found many of these little towns tucked between rolling hills and oil fields. Some had evolved into elaborate truck stops, one even had a gas station called Bruce’s, but most remained steeped in nowhereness, the signs identifying their names only exacerbating the loneliness. One was named Lost Hills, clearly founded by some allegorical poet. I know if I lived there I would end up going on a murderous rampage. I’d give in to the meanness of this world.
When the tour was first announced, the idea of going to shows by myself still seemed pretty absurd. The travel. The expense. A woman, all alone. The sobriety factor—how would I get back to the hotel after all the drinking I planned to do? The awkwardness of sitting in the seat by myself, all the coupled, grouped, people nearby eyeing me with suspicion. But, when I weighed the alternatives, it seemed like the best option. When Mom went to the hospital for the last time last spring, we had tickets for the April show in San Jose, which I reminded her about every time she woke up. It was something to look forward to. It was already the second leg of the Magic tour, and we had already seen two dates in the fall. Those fall shows were a challenge. Even from disabled parking, we had a long walk to the venue. Then there were the stairs, two flights to get inside, another two to get to our crappy seats, Mom panting the whole way. She was able to walk it herself at that point, though a wheelchair would have been a big help. As long as she went slowly, she was able to catch her breath at the top. Of course, the crowds made it worse. I guarded her from the pushy people rushing by and would have carried her over my shoulder if I could. But she was determined and insisted that she would go to those shows regardless of her disease. She would enjoy the life she had left. On the way home that night, she drove with me beer saturated in the passenger seat and when the bonus track came on, Bruce’s homage to an old friend who had recently passed, I sobbed like a kid, telling her how I wished I could write a song like that for her. I’d write about how she used to be. So young and hard. For a moment that night, we both admitted to each other and ourselves that she was going to die. Then, she hit the skip button, returning to the driving rock anthem that began the CD, and we pretended it never happened.
I was nearing Soledad, a town full of highway patrol, so I stopped to grab some gas, hit the girl’s room, stretch a little. I found an exit with five gas stations, eight drive-thrus, and nothing else but the local population barely subsisting off the agricultural economy. I went inside to pee first before pumping the gas and found a surprisingly clean gas station toilet. The webbed skin between my ring finger and pinkie had split. It wasn’t actively bleeding at the moment, but when I washed my hands with soap the sting reminded me it was there. No bandaids would stick to that spot. As I pumped gas, a blue truck with three Mexican guys inside pulled up behind me. When I looked back, an unintentionally pleasant look on my babyface, all three smiled. I returned the smile intentionally, appreciative of the uncomplicated gesture of kindness. Of course, it was possible that inside the cab they were talking in Spanish about my tetas grandes, my puta, and how they would like to fuck me, but at least on the surface they seemed gentle and benevolent. I’d take whatever I could get.
Once I was back on the road, I took a long look across the low hills on the horizon. I thought of the Spanish missionaries who once traveled this King’s highway in search of Indians to convert. I thought of travelling these great expanses on horseback and the wolves, coyotes, maybe bears who threatened the Californios on their journeys. I also thought of the many frontierspeople, who, like my mother, had ventured into this wild territory to escape. For many, maybe most, California was a place to reinvent yourself, to produce a new future out of a complicated past. At times, I thought about going farther West out into the Pacific, Hawai’i, maybe Samoa, some place I could go to reinvent myself away from all these sad memories. But as I glanced in the rearview, scanning for police, I spied my rapidly graying hair, rolling my own eyes at myself:
Shut the fuck up, lady, you’re way too fucking old to just do something nutty. Sure, the vagabond idea is romantic, but you’ve worked so hard for so many years, you can’t just piss it all away now. Keep the life insurance money in a conservative CD, collect the interest each year and blow it on something frivolous—Mom would love that—but otherwise, be reasonable, rational, do what is “right” and shut up. You’re not a kid anymore and there’s no one to bail you out if you fuck up.
My tires shrieked a little as I barely caught the right exit. Luckily, I had the post-it with directions stuck to the dash. If I hadn’t been periodically glancing at it for the last three hours, I would have missed the rural highway that connected one big interstate to the other. That was one of the complications with taking road trips alone: no one to remind you of where you were, to keep you focused on the proper direction in uncharted territory. I soon realized that this was one of those roads that would be terrifying alone at night. Dry and desolate, abandoned farmhouses occasionally interrupted the emptiness, but for the most part this two-lane road brought the only semblance of life to the area. No rest stops. No gas stations. No titty bars. Just road and nothing. Except roadkill. Most of the it was so obliterated by traffic a veterinarian would probably need DNA to figure out what kind of animal that used to be. Except birds, there wasn’t a living animal in sight. A few turkey vultures circled above the low hills, capitalizing on others’ misfortunes. Along with the roadkill came a wide variety of odors, ranging from gross to horrifying. One smell was so terrible it made me cough for five minutes until I finally gagged. With eyes watering, road blurry, I rifled through the glove box until I found a single cough drop. The mentholyptus action provided a little relief. Like sticking one of those air freshener trees inside your head.
Approaching the outskirts of L.A., I got a little nervous about the traffic, the crazy drivers. I did notice that people followed close, too close. Every car was driven by an impatient madman who didn’t want to be in front. The madman wanted to be behind you in case there was a ChiPpy around the next curve, so you would be the one to get the ticket. And you were never going fast enough. No matter what. But the directions were clear, the signs straightforward. Overall, it was an easy trip.
The cheap hotel I booked online turned out to be surprisingly classy. The surrounding blocks looked very industrial and dirty, but it was LA and no one walked here anyway. The Hollywood sign loomed above on the side of a low hill. I don’t think I had ever seen it before. Inside, there were beautiful, ornate rugs and tapestries, and the front desk people were very pretty and thin. “Checking in?” asked the ambiguously raced dark-haired girl behind the counter. Her lips pursed, clearly unimpressed by the windblown ponytail, the stretchy muumuu, luggage consisting of a fabric tote and a paper grocery bag. Home’s a long, long way from here. Once I checked in, I wanted to clean up and put a little makeup on. The shower was absurd. The floor of it was split into two levels. The lower level was closest to the spigot, but when I stood there, the water sprayed just above my head. The higher level was farther back, but to get my face wet I would need to crouch down. Plus, it was very narrow, the shower curtain liner always touching my hip and creeping me out. I wondered who was in the shower last and what other body parts that plastic might have touched. After getting as clean as I could under the circumstances, I dressed quickly, threw on a little makeup, and downed a couple of Tecates, a Lifetime movie with Eric Roberts playing for background noise. Normally, I would forgo the makeup; however, this was So. Cal, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to err on the side of pretty. Even the drive to the arena was simple and quick. Of course, by this point it was about six in the evening and the freeways were clogged with commuters. The hotel was close though, so it didn’t take more than fifteen minutes or so, leaving plenty of time for the trunk beers and to investigate the BTX pre-party that was mentioned on several chat rooms on the website.
Backstreets Ticket Exchange (BTX) was one of the many websites where Springsteen fans go to celebrate, bicker, and obsess about his music and live shows. When things had become too dark and I was lost in all the sadness, the site gave me much comfort. These fans, from different countries and cultures and at different stages in their lives, also felt invigorated by the music. It made them hopeful, alive. They too had experienced tragedy. They too had lost mothers, wives, children they also felt inspired by all those old songs, and even some of the new ones. Listening to one of those old bootlegs on satellite radio one day, I heard him say that he wrote two kinds of songs: “I write songs about hope, and about eternal damnation.” Even though, at first, I thought he was referring to all the sex songs, the ones from thirty years ago when he just wanted to get laid, a lot, later I came to realize that those songs about eternal damnation were about everything else besides hope. Because without hope you had nothing but your own personal hell to endure. The hell you built for yourself.
My family of Bruce freaks understood that, so once I read their entries last summer about going to Kansas City, so full of excitement and expectation, I had to fly there. I had family in the area, after all. It wasn’t like I was just going there for a Bruce Springsteen show. Once the lights went out, I felt so much better, less alone. And he played “Sandy” that night, dedicating it to Danny and Terry. In my mind I might have heard him say my mom’s name also.
When my cousin and her redneck husband picked me up from the airport, they asked if I should call someone to say I had arrived safely, maybe my friend Becky?
“No, it’s Ok—No, I’m an orphan now. There’s no one to call.”
“Oh, you’re no orphan, kid, who said that?” Mike said, grabbing my bags out of my hands, throwing them into the trunk, pulling out the cooler with some tall boys for the drive home. I love white trash people.
But later that weekend, I decided to call Becky. It had been a long, crazy weekend with all the travel and the concert. So much had happened, and I still wanted to call my mom so bad. I was barely over that stage of grabbing the phone and mindlessly scrolling down to her number, forgetting she was gone for a moment before I’d realize and have to feel it all over again. The night before I returned, everyone else went to bed early for school or work the next day, so I went back and sat in the rental so I could be by myself, in the dark, country night, listening to Bruce Springsteen. It was early still in California, so I hit Becky’s number. She always swore she’d be my new family. She answered and after a couple minutes of telling her about my day, the concert, how lonely and dreary Kansas was, she says that dinner is ready, so she needs to go. Dinner is ready? Are you serious? At a time like this you’re worried about dinner? Don’t you know what I’ve been through? But she didn’t and couldn’t. I hung up quickly and didn’t try anyone else. I just leaned the seat back, turned the volume up and tried to get used to the loneliness.
When I rolled into the lot, satellite radio was playing a 2002 show. Lots of hope in those shows. Lots of faith. I parked with the radio on, opened the trunk, popped a beer, and bullshitted with a few of the people parked near me. After a couple of trunk beers, I set out to find the BTX bar. No luck. Every building was a coffee shop or liquor store or gas station and I didn’t want to get too far from the venue. I grabbed a tall coffee and returned to the car. The Bruce show was still playing, so I opened the windows and lit the parking lot joint I had rolled the night before. The only person who approached me was a hippie with a Jesus beard who looked straight out of Santa Cruz. Smiling, he held out a postcard and asked: “Would you like this copy of my painting?”
“Sure, thanks” I said, smiling back. The postcard included his email. His first name was Josh. He’d painted a watercolor portrait of seventies-era Bruce wearing an undershirt and jeans, the silhouette of Clarence in the background in a pimp fedora. I wanted to offer him a toke of my joint. It would have made the whole exchange feel more like home. But, this was still LA. I wouldn’t want to take any chances.
I milled around for awhile, wishing I had someone to talk to. A few hours of relief. Once I went inside, I grabbed another beer and took my seat. The people beside me sat down soon after and chatted me up a little. The guy was fat and Italian. Sweaty. If I had to guess who had blown up the Chicken Man in Philly last night, I would have said it was this guy. His girl was this petite, dyed redhead with a big mouth. They had driven in from Vegas. He was the real fan—she was just the accessory.
“So, you drove for six hours by yourself just to go to a concert?” she said, squawking like a bird, brow furrowed, like she might still switch seats with the guy.
“Well, yeah, it’s Bruce Springsteen.”
“Funny, I just can’t imagine doing that by myself!”
“Well, I used to be the kind of person who never did anything on my own. I missed a lot.”
She smiled like I was insane and, shortly after, the concert began. After ten or fifteen great songs and a special appearance from an aging SoCal punk rocker, Bruce’s piano man began the first notes of “Backstreets.” The Vegas Mafioso behind me tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a high-five. When he asked before, I said that this was what I was hoping to hear. I wanted to believe that love lasted forever, that friends would be there through it all.
Leaving LA in the morning, satellite radio played the concert right after Danny died. He was the organist, an original bandmember who had played with Bruce long before the band existed. He passed only six weeks or so after my mother. Also, too young. Near the end of the show, Bruce began to sing the old spiritual, “I’ll Fly Away.” I rolled down the window, sped up, and held my fingers up to feel the wind. Everything will be alright. I adjusted the satellite receiver to see the date of the recording and I spotted a car ahead with the license plate WNDYCAR. Maybe she was named after the girl in Peter Pan, like my mother, or maybe she really liked “Born to Run.” I took a picture, sent it to a friend, kept proof so no one thought I was making it up. Then I cried for eight or ten miles. Lead-footing it out of Los Angeles, I let it all flood out, the wind blowing back my hair.
A couple hours away, the jackknifed rig on Highway nowhere kept me stationary for awhile. I asked the old cowboy behind me how long it would take if I turned back. He said a long time. I told him I had some cold beers in the back from the concert last night.
“Who was playing?”
“Bruce Springsteen”
“Was he any good?”
Before I could answer, the CHiPpies drove by announcing over their speakers to Get back into your car! I got back into my car and turned up the radio. “Jungleland.” I remembered loving that song from the very start. Before I could even understand the emotions involved, I was drawn to the romantic images. The soft rain. The girl on the hood of the sleek machine. I also remembered that one time we heard him play it together. I could see her in my mind, smiling and nodding as I mouthed the words: He’s not really playing this! But then Clarence began his solo and I came back into the real world. In the hot car, with the lukewarm Diet Coke, each window facing out to nothing. And it all felt so intense. I would later read that Clarence said that he didn’t play this part, that God did. I believed him. I knew it was all worth it. It was worth it to love something this much.
A week after I got back, a tour bus with forty French people on their way south hit strong winds that sent the mammoth bus skidding across 101. It collided into the barricade which peeled the roof back like a sardine can, scattering bodies, living and near-dead, across the highway. Only a few actually died. It could have been much worse. But it was a grotesque sight on the evening news. I think I actually saw one of the casualties in a body bag courtesy of the skycam. But my road trip was safe, simple. No near-misses, no close calls. If it hadn’t been for a jackknifed rig, somewhere halfway between nowhere and even farther, the whole driving aspect of the trip would have been uneventful, a sidenote in the narrative of a rock and roll roadtrip.
I say ‘a’ rock and roll road trip, like it’s a common practice. Really, I had never road tripped to a show before even though Bruce Springsteen shows had long been a tradition in my family. I had seen him many times over the years, spanning from the eighties to the present. When we went to the Born in the USA tour, I was eight. It was my first concert ever. As we walked out after the three(plus)-hour show, my mom said, “That’s the best time I’ve ever had with my clothes on!” I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but gauging from the reaction of her friends, I knew that seeing a Bruce Springsteen concert was potentially a life-changing experience.
But this tour was different. Mom had been gone for over a year. The pain was less intense, different. Springsteen shows were a great respite from the ugliness still inside my head. Memories of the last weeks, days, minutes. The most terrifying moments, even years and years later, would remain the most vivid, the most difficult to shake. But when the house lights went down and the band took the stage, everything was easier for a few hours. Feeling the words and notes, I was transfixed by the beauty and tragedy of it all. Certainly, my brain fed on all the American Dream stuff. The myth of a classless American society. Skepticism about real equality. Apprehensions about the freedoms we so fervently defend against foreign enemies. Everything I needed to know about social activism and/or Marxism I learned from Bruce Springsteen. But, ultimately, these lyrics preached about the ecstasy and the agony, the triumph and the terror of life. It was never one or the other, but always a balance of both. I heard him say once that he didn’t like to write happy songs because people didn’t like them as much. I think he was right. There always has to be that underlying pain, fear, vulnerability. It doesn’t have real impact unless there’s a chance you might fuck it up this time.
I left early that morning, a six-hour road trip leaving plenty of hours for pre-partying in the parking lot. Even though I was going alone, I still bought a twelver of Tecate for the cooler in the trunk. There’s nothing more useful for making strangers into friends than a surplus of beer. Along with a bunch of Diet Cokes, some chips, some candy. A little bit of Mom would always be with me on days like this. She would have been the one prepared for anything, with a Diet Coke in her hand and a sweet thing in her pocket. The one to spontaneously let out a squeal, barely able to contain her excitement. When the screen on my satellite radio lit, I was glad to see Cleveland ’78. The Darkness tour. That insane version of “Backstreets.” What a lovely day for a drive. With a reliable car, a huge amount of hope, and a Bruce ticket for that night, I made my departure.
This could have been a two-show trip if I hadn’t had to teach my night class at the community college the previous night. After class, I rushed home, turned on the computer and played the late-night live show on satellite while I reviewed the setlist on the internet. “Raise your Hand”! What?!? I kept my fingers crossed even in my sleep, hoping he would leave it in the set for one more night. Even if he didn’t, seeing a show would save me from hours of suffocating loneliness. Plus, afterwards I will have gone to my first show by myself, braved the awkwardness of sitting by myself, standing in the beer line by myself, running to the girl’s room by myself. I’ll know if I’m truly strong enough to endure it all.
“This is for Joey, Tommy, Mikey and all the Cleveland boys . . .because I love ‘em so much” he said as he began the rough, guitar-driven intro to “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Luckily, the ’78 shows were pretty long, so since I started right at nine, this show alone would take me halfway to L.A. I had never driven down there, ever, much less by myself, but I knew there was a lot of road ahead and a whole lot of nothing to look at. What most non-Californians probably don’t know about our great state is that most of the vast space is completely desolate. There are many areas that are densely populated, towns like Santa Cruz where the living spaces are so impacted that I know when my neighbors have sex or stuffy noses. But so much of the rest of the state is so desolate and dreary that even just driving through makes me want to kill myself. As I crossed vast spans of nothing, I found many of these little towns tucked between rolling hills and oil fields. Some had evolved into elaborate truck stops, one even had a gas station called Bruce’s, but most remained steeped in nowhereness, the signs identifying their names only exacerbating the loneliness. One was named Lost Hills, clearly founded by some allegorical poet. I know if I lived there I would end up going on a murderous rampage. I’d give in to the meanness of this world.
When the tour was first announced, the idea of going to shows by myself still seemed pretty absurd. The travel. The expense. A woman, all alone. The sobriety factor—how would I get back to the hotel after all the drinking I planned to do? The awkwardness of sitting in the seat by myself, all the coupled, grouped, people nearby eyeing me with suspicion. But, when I weighed the alternatives, it seemed like the best option. When Mom went to the hospital for the last time last spring, we had tickets for the April show in San Jose, which I reminded her about every time she woke up. It was something to look forward to. It was already the second leg of the Magic tour, and we had already seen two dates in the fall. Those fall shows were a challenge. Even from disabled parking, we had a long walk to the venue. Then there were the stairs, two flights to get inside, another two to get to our crappy seats, Mom panting the whole way. She was able to walk it herself at that point, though a wheelchair would have been a big help. As long as she went slowly, she was able to catch her breath at the top. Of course, the crowds made it worse. I guarded her from the pushy people rushing by and would have carried her over my shoulder if I could. But she was determined and insisted that she would go to those shows regardless of her disease. She would enjoy the life she had left. On the way home that night, she drove with me beer saturated in the passenger seat and when the bonus track came on, Bruce’s homage to an old friend who had recently passed, I sobbed like a kid, telling her how I wished I could write a song like that for her. I’d write about how she used to be. So young and hard. For a moment that night, we both admitted to each other and ourselves that she was going to die. Then, she hit the skip button, returning to the driving rock anthem that began the CD, and we pretended it never happened.
I was nearing Soledad, a town full of highway patrol, so I stopped to grab some gas, hit the girl’s room, stretch a little. I found an exit with five gas stations, eight drive-thrus, and nothing else but the local population barely subsisting off the agricultural economy. I went inside to pee first before pumping the gas and found a surprisingly clean gas station toilet. The webbed skin between my ring finger and pinkie had split. It wasn’t actively bleeding at the moment, but when I washed my hands with soap the sting reminded me it was there. No bandaids would stick to that spot. As I pumped gas, a blue truck with three Mexican guys inside pulled up behind me. When I looked back, an unintentionally pleasant look on my babyface, all three smiled. I returned the smile intentionally, appreciative of the uncomplicated gesture of kindness. Of course, it was possible that inside the cab they were talking in Spanish about my tetas grandes, my puta, and how they would like to fuck me, but at least on the surface they seemed gentle and benevolent. I’d take whatever I could get.
Once I was back on the road, I took a long look across the low hills on the horizon. I thought of the Spanish missionaries who once traveled this King’s highway in search of Indians to convert. I thought of travelling these great expanses on horseback and the wolves, coyotes, maybe bears who threatened the Californios on their journeys. I also thought of the many frontierspeople, who, like my mother, had ventured into this wild territory to escape. For many, maybe most, California was a place to reinvent yourself, to produce a new future out of a complicated past. At times, I thought about going farther West out into the Pacific, Hawai’i, maybe Samoa, some place I could go to reinvent myself away from all these sad memories. But as I glanced in the rearview, scanning for police, I spied my rapidly graying hair, rolling my own eyes at myself:
Shut the fuck up, lady, you’re way too fucking old to just do something nutty. Sure, the vagabond idea is romantic, but you’ve worked so hard for so many years, you can’t just piss it all away now. Keep the life insurance money in a conservative CD, collect the interest each year and blow it on something frivolous—Mom would love that—but otherwise, be reasonable, rational, do what is “right” and shut up. You’re not a kid anymore and there’s no one to bail you out if you fuck up.
My tires shrieked a little as I barely caught the right exit. Luckily, I had the post-it with directions stuck to the dash. If I hadn’t been periodically glancing at it for the last three hours, I would have missed the rural highway that connected one big interstate to the other. That was one of the complications with taking road trips alone: no one to remind you of where you were, to keep you focused on the proper direction in uncharted territory. I soon realized that this was one of those roads that would be terrifying alone at night. Dry and desolate, abandoned farmhouses occasionally interrupted the emptiness, but for the most part this two-lane road brought the only semblance of life to the area. No rest stops. No gas stations. No titty bars. Just road and nothing. Except roadkill. Most of the it was so obliterated by traffic a veterinarian would probably need DNA to figure out what kind of animal that used to be. Except birds, there wasn’t a living animal in sight. A few turkey vultures circled above the low hills, capitalizing on others’ misfortunes. Along with the roadkill came a wide variety of odors, ranging from gross to horrifying. One smell was so terrible it made me cough for five minutes until I finally gagged. With eyes watering, road blurry, I rifled through the glove box until I found a single cough drop. The mentholyptus action provided a little relief. Like sticking one of those air freshener trees inside your head.
Approaching the outskirts of L.A., I got a little nervous about the traffic, the crazy drivers. I did notice that people followed close, too close. Every car was driven by an impatient madman who didn’t want to be in front. The madman wanted to be behind you in case there was a ChiPpy around the next curve, so you would be the one to get the ticket. And you were never going fast enough. No matter what. But the directions were clear, the signs straightforward. Overall, it was an easy trip.
The cheap hotel I booked online turned out to be surprisingly classy. The surrounding blocks looked very industrial and dirty, but it was LA and no one walked here anyway. The Hollywood sign loomed above on the side of a low hill. I don’t think I had ever seen it before. Inside, there were beautiful, ornate rugs and tapestries, and the front desk people were very pretty and thin. “Checking in?” asked the ambiguously raced dark-haired girl behind the counter. Her lips pursed, clearly unimpressed by the windblown ponytail, the stretchy muumuu, luggage consisting of a fabric tote and a paper grocery bag. Home’s a long, long way from here. Once I checked in, I wanted to clean up and put a little makeup on. The shower was absurd. The floor of it was split into two levels. The lower level was closest to the spigot, but when I stood there, the water sprayed just above my head. The higher level was farther back, but to get my face wet I would need to crouch down. Plus, it was very narrow, the shower curtain liner always touching my hip and creeping me out. I wondered who was in the shower last and what other body parts that plastic might have touched. After getting as clean as I could under the circumstances, I dressed quickly, threw on a little makeup, and downed a couple of Tecates, a Lifetime movie with Eric Roberts playing for background noise. Normally, I would forgo the makeup; however, this was So. Cal, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to err on the side of pretty. Even the drive to the arena was simple and quick. Of course, by this point it was about six in the evening and the freeways were clogged with commuters. The hotel was close though, so it didn’t take more than fifteen minutes or so, leaving plenty of time for the trunk beers and to investigate the BTX pre-party that was mentioned on several chat rooms on the website.
Backstreets Ticket Exchange (BTX) was one of the many websites where Springsteen fans go to celebrate, bicker, and obsess about his music and live shows. When things had become too dark and I was lost in all the sadness, the site gave me much comfort. These fans, from different countries and cultures and at different stages in their lives, also felt invigorated by the music. It made them hopeful, alive. They too had experienced tragedy. They too had lost mothers, wives, children they also felt inspired by all those old songs, and even some of the new ones. Listening to one of those old bootlegs on satellite radio one day, I heard him say that he wrote two kinds of songs: “I write songs about hope, and about eternal damnation.” Even though, at first, I thought he was referring to all the sex songs, the ones from thirty years ago when he just wanted to get laid, a lot, later I came to realize that those songs about eternal damnation were about everything else besides hope. Because without hope you had nothing but your own personal hell to endure. The hell you built for yourself.
My family of Bruce freaks understood that, so once I read their entries last summer about going to Kansas City, so full of excitement and expectation, I had to fly there. I had family in the area, after all. It wasn’t like I was just going there for a Bruce Springsteen show. Once the lights went out, I felt so much better, less alone. And he played “Sandy” that night, dedicating it to Danny and Terry. In my mind I might have heard him say my mom’s name also.
When my cousin and her redneck husband picked me up from the airport, they asked if I should call someone to say I had arrived safely, maybe my friend Becky?
“No, it’s Ok—No, I’m an orphan now. There’s no one to call.”
“Oh, you’re no orphan, kid, who said that?” Mike said, grabbing my bags out of my hands, throwing them into the trunk, pulling out the cooler with some tall boys for the drive home. I love white trash people.
But later that weekend, I decided to call Becky. It had been a long, crazy weekend with all the travel and the concert. So much had happened, and I still wanted to call my mom so bad. I was barely over that stage of grabbing the phone and mindlessly scrolling down to her number, forgetting she was gone for a moment before I’d realize and have to feel it all over again. The night before I returned, everyone else went to bed early for school or work the next day, so I went back and sat in the rental so I could be by myself, in the dark, country night, listening to Bruce Springsteen. It was early still in California, so I hit Becky’s number. She always swore she’d be my new family. She answered and after a couple minutes of telling her about my day, the concert, how lonely and dreary Kansas was, she says that dinner is ready, so she needs to go. Dinner is ready? Are you serious? At a time like this you’re worried about dinner? Don’t you know what I’ve been through? But she didn’t and couldn’t. I hung up quickly and didn’t try anyone else. I just leaned the seat back, turned the volume up and tried to get used to the loneliness.
When I rolled into the lot, satellite radio was playing a 2002 show. Lots of hope in those shows. Lots of faith. I parked with the radio on, opened the trunk, popped a beer, and bullshitted with a few of the people parked near me. After a couple of trunk beers, I set out to find the BTX bar. No luck. Every building was a coffee shop or liquor store or gas station and I didn’t want to get too far from the venue. I grabbed a tall coffee and returned to the car. The Bruce show was still playing, so I opened the windows and lit the parking lot joint I had rolled the night before. The only person who approached me was a hippie with a Jesus beard who looked straight out of Santa Cruz. Smiling, he held out a postcard and asked: “Would you like this copy of my painting?”
“Sure, thanks” I said, smiling back. The postcard included his email. His first name was Josh. He’d painted a watercolor portrait of seventies-era Bruce wearing an undershirt and jeans, the silhouette of Clarence in the background in a pimp fedora. I wanted to offer him a toke of my joint. It would have made the whole exchange feel more like home. But, this was still LA. I wouldn’t want to take any chances.
I milled around for awhile, wishing I had someone to talk to. A few hours of relief. Once I went inside, I grabbed another beer and took my seat. The people beside me sat down soon after and chatted me up a little. The guy was fat and Italian. Sweaty. If I had to guess who had blown up the Chicken Man in Philly last night, I would have said it was this guy. His girl was this petite, dyed redhead with a big mouth. They had driven in from Vegas. He was the real fan—she was just the accessory.
“So, you drove for six hours by yourself just to go to a concert?” she said, squawking like a bird, brow furrowed, like she might still switch seats with the guy.
“Well, yeah, it’s Bruce Springsteen.”
“Funny, I just can’t imagine doing that by myself!”
“Well, I used to be the kind of person who never did anything on my own. I missed a lot.”
She smiled like I was insane and, shortly after, the concert began. After ten or fifteen great songs and a special appearance from an aging SoCal punk rocker, Bruce’s piano man began the first notes of “Backstreets.” The Vegas Mafioso behind me tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a high-five. When he asked before, I said that this was what I was hoping to hear. I wanted to believe that love lasted forever, that friends would be there through it all.
Leaving LA in the morning, satellite radio played the concert right after Danny died. He was the organist, an original bandmember who had played with Bruce long before the band existed. He passed only six weeks or so after my mother. Also, too young. Near the end of the show, Bruce began to sing the old spiritual, “I’ll Fly Away.” I rolled down the window, sped up, and held my fingers up to feel the wind. Everything will be alright. I adjusted the satellite receiver to see the date of the recording and I spotted a car ahead with the license plate WNDYCAR. Maybe she was named after the girl in Peter Pan, like my mother, or maybe she really liked “Born to Run.” I took a picture, sent it to a friend, kept proof so no one thought I was making it up. Then I cried for eight or ten miles. Lead-footing it out of Los Angeles, I let it all flood out, the wind blowing back my hair.
A couple hours away, the jackknifed rig on Highway nowhere kept me stationary for awhile. I asked the old cowboy behind me how long it would take if I turned back. He said a long time. I told him I had some cold beers in the back from the concert last night.
“Who was playing?”
“Bruce Springsteen”
“Was he any good?”
Before I could answer, the CHiPpies drove by announcing over their speakers to Get back into your car! I got back into my car and turned up the radio. “Jungleland.” I remembered loving that song from the very start. Before I could even understand the emotions involved, I was drawn to the romantic images. The soft rain. The girl on the hood of the sleek machine. I also remembered that one time we heard him play it together. I could see her in my mind, smiling and nodding as I mouthed the words: He’s not really playing this! But then Clarence began his solo and I came back into the real world. In the hot car, with the lukewarm Diet Coke, each window facing out to nothing. And it all felt so intense. I would later read that Clarence said that he didn’t play this part, that God did. I believed him. I knew it was all worth it. It was worth it to love something this much.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
59 Sound
[a short-short story--the names have been changed to protect the innocent . . .and the guilty. If you like it, check out the Gaslight Anthem song that I allude to in the title. XOXO J]
'59 Sound
“Honey, I’d love to help you out but little William has a little league game in the morning. I can come after . . .”
“I’ll be back by then, but, thanks . . . anyway. I need to go now, OK?”
“Ok, darling. Now you take care of yourself, alright?”
“Yes, Aunt Cathy. Bye.”
I wiped the grease off the glass face of the cell phone. At this point, I wasn’t doing very well at keeping up superficial appearances. Beth had brought me fresh underwear, my Bruce Springsteen shirt, some sweats. Most nights I would leave and go back to Brian’s, take a long shower, get a bit of sleep. His gargantuan arms. Very warm and safe. As I lay there, comforted by the feeling of his barrel chest rising and falling, I knew it would be over soon, but I would take what I could get. And even though I had taken a few hours off, made a fresh start, by halfway through the day, I felt dirty and sticky, the stink of the mysterious hospital smells sunk in my pores. I kept rubbing that peppermint foot cream on her white, veiny feet in part to get rid of some of the stink, in part because of the frantic patience necessary right now. I had never experienced anything like this before. Inside was manic hysteria. Everything was in shambles. The wounds inside grew more pestilent, but on the outside I was quiet, calm. Mom would have been proud. There were only two kinds of women who could get under my mother’s skin: those who lost their cool, panicking in tense moments, and those who looked at their fingers when they played guitar. While the former had a greater impact on my life than the latter, both were important lessons, ones I held dear to my heart.
I shoved my cell in my pocket, thinking and Aunt Cathy’s grandson has a fucking Little League game! Seriously? Not that any of our “family” was helpful, but Little League? Are you serious? Some five-year-old kid, who isn’t even going to know if you are there, is playing in a fucking Little League game and that’s why you can’t come and sit here with my mother as she’s dying? I squeezed Mom’s hand, the machines buzzing and beeping, lights flashing arhythmically, and whispered “I love you, mama,” before walking out to pace the hall.
I was trying to get to work this week because I had already canceled several classes. Mom ended up in the ICU on Thursday and when the social worker asked if there was anyone she could call for me, the first thing I thought of was my writing class. I told her what department I taught in and the name of the Acting Dean, but I didn’t have numbers or anything because the truth is that I had never called in sick before. I was perfectly healthy on that first day I called in sick, and considering where I had been this past week, the word “sick” had taken on a whole new meaning. Yesterday the doctor pulled me aside, told me the time was soon, her condition worsening. Something about the color of the skin in her nail beds, the numbers flashing on the monitor. They took her off the sedative for a few minutes and made me ask her if she was ready to die. If she was ready to be taken off the machines. With Bobby holding her other hand, I cried and I told her that I loved her so much but that I would be OK, that I would survive. I told her that I didn’t want it to be like Grandpa, when he was halfway between this world and the next. I told her about the camera they stuck down into her lungs, how the passages had closed up, how there was no way to save her now. And when I asked her if she wanted to be taken off the machine, she furrowed her brow, shaking her head in refusal. Then she began coughing and turning purple, orange phlegm spilling out around the breathing tube, until the nurse pressed the button, resuming the sedative. She quickly returned to a peaceful sleep. The nurse gently nudged us out to clean her up. She wanted to keep trying. I would stay as long as I could, until it would be cruel to keep her alive.
My phone vibrated. It was a text from Brian. Can I do anything? I stared at the screen awhile, thinking of all the replies I’d like to offer: Sure, make my Mom stop dying or turn the clock back thirty years so I could be a better kid, or even better: come and rip all these tubes away and just end it all for her right now. Eventually, I replied with I’m OK, I’ll call when the night nurse comes on.
Bobby had been gone for a few hours, but it was Friday so Grace would probably come by for awhile after work. She would be incredulous, again, that none of the relatives would be here when she came or left. She was the most incensed of anyone. But then she would hug me tightly and tell me not to worry, that she was my auntie now. The phone vibrated again in my pocket. It was Aunt Cathy again. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes, but I answered—it’s better to get it over with.
“Honey, I’m so sorry for before. Of course, I’ll be there tomorrow. Little William won’t even notice if I don’t come. Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
Never before did I hear words that sounded so hollow and empty. Ragged, barely formed. As if the words themselves were mocking their own insincerity. The artifice stung and bit. I would hear many empty promises from her in the times to come. Often, I wished she’d just forget about me altogether but I didn’t have the heart to be mean to the old woman. She even showed up the day it all ended, with a bag of mail, bills. When she walked in, I couldn’t even look at her. Mom’s eyes had already become blood red, like she wasn’t even inside there anymore. We were waiting for the doctor to come in, to do all the official things. I couldn’t even explain what was going on. There were no words left. So I sat in silence, the March sun streaming in through the blinds, knowing I had done all I could, all that could be expected. And even in that moment, my zenith of self-pity, I felt bad for those who hadn’t been there, who hadn’t held her hand, brushed the hair off her face, watched the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid DVD from a cot beside her bed. Who hadn’t laughed along with Butch when he said, “The fall’ll probably kill ya.” And with a macabre sense of satisfaction, I played her favorite song for one last time.
'59 Sound
“Honey, I’d love to help you out but little William has a little league game in the morning. I can come after . . .”
“I’ll be back by then, but, thanks . . . anyway. I need to go now, OK?”
“Ok, darling. Now you take care of yourself, alright?”
“Yes, Aunt Cathy. Bye.”
I wiped the grease off the glass face of the cell phone. At this point, I wasn’t doing very well at keeping up superficial appearances. Beth had brought me fresh underwear, my Bruce Springsteen shirt, some sweats. Most nights I would leave and go back to Brian’s, take a long shower, get a bit of sleep. His gargantuan arms. Very warm and safe. As I lay there, comforted by the feeling of his barrel chest rising and falling, I knew it would be over soon, but I would take what I could get. And even though I had taken a few hours off, made a fresh start, by halfway through the day, I felt dirty and sticky, the stink of the mysterious hospital smells sunk in my pores. I kept rubbing that peppermint foot cream on her white, veiny feet in part to get rid of some of the stink, in part because of the frantic patience necessary right now. I had never experienced anything like this before. Inside was manic hysteria. Everything was in shambles. The wounds inside grew more pestilent, but on the outside I was quiet, calm. Mom would have been proud. There were only two kinds of women who could get under my mother’s skin: those who lost their cool, panicking in tense moments, and those who looked at their fingers when they played guitar. While the former had a greater impact on my life than the latter, both were important lessons, ones I held dear to my heart.
I shoved my cell in my pocket, thinking and Aunt Cathy’s grandson has a fucking Little League game! Seriously? Not that any of our “family” was helpful, but Little League? Are you serious? Some five-year-old kid, who isn’t even going to know if you are there, is playing in a fucking Little League game and that’s why you can’t come and sit here with my mother as she’s dying? I squeezed Mom’s hand, the machines buzzing and beeping, lights flashing arhythmically, and whispered “I love you, mama,” before walking out to pace the hall.
I was trying to get to work this week because I had already canceled several classes. Mom ended up in the ICU on Thursday and when the social worker asked if there was anyone she could call for me, the first thing I thought of was my writing class. I told her what department I taught in and the name of the Acting Dean, but I didn’t have numbers or anything because the truth is that I had never called in sick before. I was perfectly healthy on that first day I called in sick, and considering where I had been this past week, the word “sick” had taken on a whole new meaning. Yesterday the doctor pulled me aside, told me the time was soon, her condition worsening. Something about the color of the skin in her nail beds, the numbers flashing on the monitor. They took her off the sedative for a few minutes and made me ask her if she was ready to die. If she was ready to be taken off the machines. With Bobby holding her other hand, I cried and I told her that I loved her so much but that I would be OK, that I would survive. I told her that I didn’t want it to be like Grandpa, when he was halfway between this world and the next. I told her about the camera they stuck down into her lungs, how the passages had closed up, how there was no way to save her now. And when I asked her if she wanted to be taken off the machine, she furrowed her brow, shaking her head in refusal. Then she began coughing and turning purple, orange phlegm spilling out around the breathing tube, until the nurse pressed the button, resuming the sedative. She quickly returned to a peaceful sleep. The nurse gently nudged us out to clean her up. She wanted to keep trying. I would stay as long as I could, until it would be cruel to keep her alive.
My phone vibrated. It was a text from Brian. Can I do anything? I stared at the screen awhile, thinking of all the replies I’d like to offer: Sure, make my Mom stop dying or turn the clock back thirty years so I could be a better kid, or even better: come and rip all these tubes away and just end it all for her right now. Eventually, I replied with I’m OK, I’ll call when the night nurse comes on.
Bobby had been gone for a few hours, but it was Friday so Grace would probably come by for awhile after work. She would be incredulous, again, that none of the relatives would be here when she came or left. She was the most incensed of anyone. But then she would hug me tightly and tell me not to worry, that she was my auntie now. The phone vibrated again in my pocket. It was Aunt Cathy again. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes, but I answered—it’s better to get it over with.
“Honey, I’m so sorry for before. Of course, I’ll be there tomorrow. Little William won’t even notice if I don’t come. Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
Never before did I hear words that sounded so hollow and empty. Ragged, barely formed. As if the words themselves were mocking their own insincerity. The artifice stung and bit. I would hear many empty promises from her in the times to come. Often, I wished she’d just forget about me altogether but I didn’t have the heart to be mean to the old woman. She even showed up the day it all ended, with a bag of mail, bills. When she walked in, I couldn’t even look at her. Mom’s eyes had already become blood red, like she wasn’t even inside there anymore. We were waiting for the doctor to come in, to do all the official things. I couldn’t even explain what was going on. There were no words left. So I sat in silence, the March sun streaming in through the blinds, knowing I had done all I could, all that could be expected. And even in that moment, my zenith of self-pity, I felt bad for those who hadn’t been there, who hadn’t held her hand, brushed the hair off her face, watched the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid DVD from a cot beside her bed. Who hadn’t laughed along with Butch when he said, “The fall’ll probably kill ya.” And with a macabre sense of satisfaction, I played her favorite song for one last time.
Monday, July 5, 2010
How to entertain people and keep people safe and other instructions on life
Once upon a time, awaking after an all-day 4th of July drinkfest, I had two thoughts: Damn, I'm hungover and, damn, I gotta stop being such a fucking hack. The first part was predicated on the drinkfest part of the celebration. Though I had dedicated great care and attention to the avoidance of all the factors that might contribute to a hangover--sugary mixers, mixing alcohols, dehydration--but somehow, someway, the hours upon hours of drinking rum caught up with my thirtysomething self. I just can't rebound the way I used to. Hey, back in the Chico State days, I could down three or four Long Islands before my boyfriend got off work at 1:30, but be at school, in teacher-clothes and coherent by 9. Years later, it was different. I lost my magic. After my friend's wedding, I was hungover for three days. That's champagne.
I awoke this morning with those vague memories of doing embarassing things. Nothing terrible, just stupid. I didn't pee on anyone, sink ships with my loose lips, grab anyone's genitals. It was tame. No bruises. No apologies. No court dates.
But, more importantly, I had this feeling that I had become a huge poseur-hack with no imagination. No art. No freedom. Just sellin' my soul to the man. Yeah, yeah, teaching isn't really selling your soul to the man the way a good capitalist might, but it was a day job. I have become a working stiff. Selling my time, my life, to a company, in this case, the state of California, and even though I was doing something I considered absolutely crucial to the improvement of society, I still had a safe and sane day job.
Bruce Springsteen never had a job. Sang about work all the time but never actually worked. Well, actually, for a very short time he did. When he was 19, he worked as a gardener for a few weeks. Other than that, he would crash at buddies' houses, in the surfboard factory, in the backseat of a borrowed car. Sacrificing for what he believed in. Sometimes that's what it takes to really be great, that courage to abandon all else. To place all your bets on yourself. Giving up the back-up plan, the safe route. To dedicate yourself to any craft, don't you have to make yourself vulnerable, hang your panties out for all to see, gamble big and risk even more?
Let me just cut through the bullshit--so, I'm chatting with an old friend from high school yesterday about the friends we once hung out with, and she starts to tell me that this one girl I was on dance team with has become a professional writer. Not hugely successful or financially lucrative (yet?!?), not that I would have any respect for her if she went "commercial," but a full-time, paying-the-bills type of writer. She sent me the link this morning and I went apeshit. Her voice was so palpable, such a distinct and memorable character. I got really jealous really quick.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not quitting my day job anytime soon, but I figured I could start with a blog. Someplace for my words to marinate, dancing along the page, being public, being personal. It is a place to start.
I awoke this morning with those vague memories of doing embarassing things. Nothing terrible, just stupid. I didn't pee on anyone, sink ships with my loose lips, grab anyone's genitals. It was tame. No bruises. No apologies. No court dates.
But, more importantly, I had this feeling that I had become a huge poseur-hack with no imagination. No art. No freedom. Just sellin' my soul to the man. Yeah, yeah, teaching isn't really selling your soul to the man the way a good capitalist might, but it was a day job. I have become a working stiff. Selling my time, my life, to a company, in this case, the state of California, and even though I was doing something I considered absolutely crucial to the improvement of society, I still had a safe and sane day job.
Bruce Springsteen never had a job. Sang about work all the time but never actually worked. Well, actually, for a very short time he did. When he was 19, he worked as a gardener for a few weeks. Other than that, he would crash at buddies' houses, in the surfboard factory, in the backseat of a borrowed car. Sacrificing for what he believed in. Sometimes that's what it takes to really be great, that courage to abandon all else. To place all your bets on yourself. Giving up the back-up plan, the safe route. To dedicate yourself to any craft, don't you have to make yourself vulnerable, hang your panties out for all to see, gamble big and risk even more?
Let me just cut through the bullshit--so, I'm chatting with an old friend from high school yesterday about the friends we once hung out with, and she starts to tell me that this one girl I was on dance team with has become a professional writer. Not hugely successful or financially lucrative (yet?!?), not that I would have any respect for her if she went "commercial," but a full-time, paying-the-bills type of writer. She sent me the link this morning and I went apeshit. Her voice was so palpable, such a distinct and memorable character. I got really jealous really quick.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not quitting my day job anytime soon, but I figured I could start with a blog. Someplace for my words to marinate, dancing along the page, being public, being personal. It is a place to start.
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