Sunday, November 23, 2003

h One time, a few months ago I was hanging out at my girlfriend's apartment when I got a call on my cell phone (it doesn't ring that often, so that was a pretty big event by itself). It was Peyton.  Right away I knew there was something wrong.  He sounded kind of nervous and weird. "Hey, Mark," he said.  "I've got kind of a favor to ask you.  I know it's late...and you're probably busy..." "No, it's okay," I said.  "What's the matter?" "Well, I'm kind of jonesin' really bad.  I mean, you know how I do that 'h' stuff. Well, I'm in really bad shape now.  I just need to get some.  And I was wondering if you could give me a ride somewhere." This put me in a strange predicament.  I mean, taking someone to buy heorin is not something that you jump out of your seat to volunteer for.  But at the same time, I don't ever remember someone ever asking me a desperate favor.  I know I have asked my share of desperate favors, mostly stemming from my anxiety attacks.  I would ask people to talk to me, telling them I was dying.  Sometimes, I would ask them to drive across town to keep me from dying or going insane.  But this was the first time someone had come to me in a state of pure need.  That's what Peyton's voice was at this time: pure need. "Alright, Peyton.  I'll help you out. Where are you? " "My dad's place," he said.  "Man, I really appreciate this.  I really, really owe you." "Don't worry about it," I said.  My girlfriend was surprisingly cool about the situation. "Peyton is going through really bad withdrawal," I  said.  "I'm just gonna give him a ride somewhere so he can stop..you know, suffering." "You're a good friend," she said.  I'm not so sure if I was  a good friend or not.  I think maybe I just wanted to witness some sort of spectacle like you would see in Trainspotting, or Requiem for a Dream or something.  But anyway, I grabbed my keys, gave my girlfriend a kiss and went to get Peyton. I found Peyton standing by a bus stop a few blocks from his dad's place. "Thank you so much," he said when he got in. "Like I said, don't worry about it.  Hey, do you got any beer at your place?" "Believe me, if I did, I would be drinking it now.  But you can have this." Peyton put a football of Xanax in my palm.  I popped it in my mouth and chased it with some water. "So, where do we  go?" I asked. "Remember where you ran from the cops that one time?"  When you did your barrel stunt?" I remembered it well enough.  Fourth avenue south.  Just before the interstate. I started heading that direction.  Peyton kept thanking me.  I kept telling him not to worry about it. Before long we turned onto this dark road with ramshackle apartments. "This is where that girl Melissa lives.  She's usually got it.  She knows my situation.  Just wait here." "Okay," I said.  Peyton shut my door and disappeaed around this building.  I killed my lights and waited.  This was pretty stupid, I thought.  I could probably get in a lot of trouble just for sitting here.  A few minutes later Peyton came back and hopped back in. "She wasn't there.  Damnit.  I think my cousin can help me.  He's in the same situation as me.  I'm sorry, Mark.  Do you think you could take me to Dave's place?" "It's okay," I said.  "I've been in this sort of situation before.  A little different, but I sort of know what your going through." Dave lived way on the north side of town.  As far north as you could drive without getting on the interstate to Tampa. "How's that xanax kickin' in?" Peyton said. "It's all right," I said.  Twenty minutes later we were on the other side of town. "Hey, I gotta ask you something," Peyton said.  "I'm a few bucks shy of what I need.  Do you think you could lend me five or ten bucks?" I looked at Peyton.  I was this far into 'helping' him.  There was no sense in letting him come up short and suffer after all this effort. "Take twenty," I said.  "I know you need it right now.   You'll get me back when you can." "Oh, man.  Thank-you so much.  I really owe you." "Don't worry about it." "Dave is going through the same thing as me. He'll know what to do." "Okay," I said.  Peyton jumped out of my car and jogged towards these stairs.  Then he turned and waved and let me know I could leave him there. I drove home and went to bed.  The next day I called Peyton and asked how everything had gone. "Not so good," he said.  "Dave wasn't even there.  I knocked and knocked and knocked but he never answered the door.  So I ended up walking down fourth street at four in the morning.  I was just walking for hours." "Oh, man," I said.  "That really sucks."   11:17:14 PM    comment []

a struggle                                                                     As I have said before, the computer that I'm writing on was given to me by a guy named Darren Porks.  Actually, his name wasn't Darren Porks, but since I described him as suicidal I figured I better change his name so he wouldn't get mad.             The computer works great most of the time for a freebie.  But after I've had it on a while the image on the screen begins to wiggle.  First, it wiggles just a little bit at the top of the screen.  But then, before you know it, the whole screen is wiggling so violently that I can't really see what I'm writing.  After that, the screen goes totally black and makes a high-pitched hum.  Then after a while the screen will come back to normal.  And then it starts to wiggle at the top again, and so on.             So, I have to write these stories around the times when my computer screen doesn't feel like wiggling and going blank.                                                    part 2             Here's another challenge when I'm writing stories:             I live in a one-room efficiency in Gulfport, Florida.  When my daughter comes over on weekends I let her watch pokie mon videos and eat candy.  It's the only parenting strategy I have the energy for: cartoons and candy.  What else can a thirty-one year old depressive dad do with his six-year old daughter for seventy-two hours?             The downside of the situation is that I'm plagued by the noisy, silly sounds of cartoons while I write my stories.  The TV is no more than eight to ten feet away from my computer.  The noisy, silly sounds of the cartoon drown out the feeble writer's voice that is mumbling in my head.             Right now, my daughter is watching Balto II: Wolfquest.  A purple planet is exploding, and a wolf is running around, and a crow is cawing.             My girl is crunching cheetos and my computer screen is wiggling so violently that I can hardly see what I'm writing.*   (from Beautiful Loser, 2002)   *Since then, I've gotten a much better computer, and a nicer place to live, and my daughter does things besides watch tv and eat candy) 7:26:52 PM    comment []

Magic? Just a note of interest.  The other day I threw the package of generic hot dogs in a water fountain on central avenue, as a makeshift substitute for the rubber duck plan.  The very next day my company (Executive Tree Experts) did a massive tree trimming job for a member of the Lykes family, the hot dog moguls that make their home in south Tampa.  The job, like all of our jobs, just came from random door knocking, and was in no way planned or targeted. Coincidence?  Magic?  Who knows?  Previously, I wrote of the interesting fact of  encountering a professional fountain cleaner for the first time in my life when plotting to throw rubber ducks in a fountain. I generally experience some sort of strange occurnece when I engage in these kind of activities.   I went to New York City from September 2-9, 2001.  It was the first time I had been there since a class trip in 1988.  While I was there I couldn't help but be intrigued by all the "tagging" and interesting stickers that covered every flat surface as you walked down the streets.  I went to Kinkos and bought a couple packages of "Helllo, my name is..." stickers.  Then I wrote my name on hundreds of them and stuck them with all the other graphiti.  I placed them on parking meters, street signs, Village Voice boxes, etc.  As I was walking randomly around Manhattan, I came upon the Twin Towers, which were in their final hours of existence, as it turned out.  There was a construction walk going around the base of the towers, the kind you always see in big cities  that say "post no bills" on them.  So I stuck my "Hello, my name is..." stickers around the base of the Twin T owers. Of course, a couple days later the towers lay in ruin.  I couldn't help but ponder the existence of my signature, repeted dozens of times, mixed in with all of that death and destruction.  It was really an unsettling thought. 12:41:39 PM    comment []

Here is a shot of the hedge in which 1037e will patiently wait until he is discovered or whethered by the elements down to nothing.  (Imagine him sort of like the little boy at the end of AI praying to the "blue fairy" for 2,000 years beneath the frozen tundra of Manhattan.  Well, maybe not). On the right is my trusty bicycle. 12:20:51 PM    comment []

1st st. & 1st ave Here is Duh! artifact 1037e on the corner of 1st street and 1st avenue south in downtown St. Petersburg, FL.   Inscribed on the bottom of its feet are the directions to 1037f.  12:15:05 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Mark Michaels. Last update: 12/4/2003; 9:29:57 PM.