Collusion: Part XXXV

The room stunk. It smelled like years and years worth of male sex hormones, plus no ones mom doing laundry for them.  There was something else though too… cumin? Coriander? Egg rolls?.... Perplexing.  That was the first thing I noticed. And then, Eric. He turned his thin vaguely Asian face away from the origami cranes he was hanging around the room. Hanging them here and there… wherever I suppose he thought one might walk into them.

“Hello.” He said.

“Hi.” I was dragging a duffle and shouldering a pile of clothes on hangers. It never crossed my mind back in those days to throw away clothes that didn’t fit properly or looked jarring. Consequently I nearly always dressed like I was going to clown school… For all intents and purposes… I suppose I was.

“Hi, “ I heard as well. This time from the chair by the desk. Justin was reading something… a small paper back. He had a round face and tightly curled blond/brown hair. You know, the kind that sometimes bi-racial children have.  Or baby Jews.

“How’s it going?” I grunted. I’d take the top of the double I guessed. There were no paper cranes there. 

I dragged my things in. Sweating. The room was stuffy. I would have suggested opening a window. But it was hot outside too. “Jesus, God,” I thought… “Why is it 1,002 degrees?… it’s May.”

I had signed on for a work stay over the summer. Mostly cause I was a stupid a-hole, who believed that there was such a thing as true love… and it could last through college and beyond. Even college at “Praise Yaweh University.”

I smirk as I write. Because 1. Nobody should be that stupid…. And 2…. Just see #1.

And also because I knew things had happened over the semester that I was ashamed of. I was… a kind of *gross* now. And I didn’t want to have to hide that from my family. I knew that they would be able to smell it on me… That going back would be crazy talk and that no amount restitutionary painting for 7 hours in the blazing sunlight would hide those facts from those people. My people. All the residents of crazy town.

I chatted with Eric and Justin. “Oh… yeah, looks like we’re going to be rooming together over the summer… oh… and looks like we’re chatting about it… “ Yawn.

I’d been fighting with X again. Yet another facet of my fantastical stupidity was that I had assumed that staying in Greenville over the summer would be seen as a kind of romantic gesture and that X would be shocked, amazed, and appreciative. Erp. NO! ROFL ROFL! No fucking way!

Another thing that I was stupid about in those days… Having tense conversations via SMS.

DON’T DO THAT IDIOTS! PICK UP THE PHONE AND HAVE AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION LIKE YOU’RE A GROWN UP!!

Sorry. Just… needed to yell.

I wish present me could flash back in time and just sort of float over ‘past me’s head in a small cloud with a gavel. I would plunk past me on the head and yell. “Gotcha Bitch!”

On second thought… Past me would have just gone in for psychiatric testing.

“Where are you working?” Eric had asked… I looked up from my phone, from yet another disappointing text message from X.

“Uh… Museum & Gallery”… I said vacantly. 

Eric glided over to one of his drawers. One that had been meticulously arranged and was filled with folding papers, saved discarded trinkets from Christ knows where… and I think cumin. At least that’s where it smelled like it was coming from.

Eric Inafuku is such a curious little man. He is so thin to the point that we must assume he has only ever eaten three grains of rice at each meal and he has a willowy tendency to move about a room with an uncommon fluidity.  I would learn later that this was due in part to his belief that he was in fact, a geisha… and partly because that’s just how Asians are.

“And you’re working….? Where?” I asked… for a moment distracted by his stealthy movement…

“At the press. I read things… Edit things…” I was mystified. And presently distracted from my worries over X.

“Things like?”

“Oh you know… Just things… This and that. Books. Text books.” He replied with a raised eyebrow as if to suggest that he could possibly be editing anything though…. Like perhaps even more risqué books… novels perhaps... or picture books perhaps…

I would grow to find that Eric was like this about a lot of things. Elusive. Evasive. It was going to be an interesting summer.

I was distracted again by my phone…

X: “All of this is just making me crazy…”

X: “I just don’t  think we should be together anymore.”

ME: “Are you joking? I mean I know maybe we’ve been spending too much time together… don’t you think that could be it?”

X: “Yeah I dunno I’m just tired of fighting.”

“Soooo… didn’t wanna go home over the summer?” The curly haired one asked. There was a lump in my throat.

“Yeah… I mean. No.” My voice was thick and wet and I was walking out of the room. I walked down the hall heading to the back of the building. Johnson was the largest of the dormitory buildings and two of it’s four story wings stretched backwards towards parking lots and the field house. There was a loading dock back there that I just sat down on the dock. I was dripping with sweat and I felt… so so empty.

Apparently I had just given up the next three months to live in a stinky box with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Curly Fries.

My phone was ringing… It was Dad.

D: “Hey my little fat buddy!”

Dad always called me this. I attribute two years of anorexia to it.

ME: “Hey…” My voice was flat and wet sounding.

D: “How ya doing?!”

ME: “Oh… well…. I’m alright….”

D: “What’s wrong bud?”

ME:  “Oh… I just have this feeling that I may be here for the wrong reasons… Can I just…. (Swallow) Call you back?”

D: “Yeah sure ok…”

I hung up and stared out at the heat waves rising up out of the asphalt parking lot. Cocked my head to the side as water slid out of my eyes and splashed onto the loading dock. I was quiet out there. I stayed there for an hour.

FACTion

Ok readers. You've heard great big gobs of what I've had to say for months and months. It's been my pleasure to invite you into my story and with any luck, you guys have been able to take away some laughs and some lessons.
We here at Salt, are excited to introduce another source of inspiration with a series we like to call... "FACTion."
Plenty of you have already heard about some of the things that I had to hide at school, what they costed me and why I did them... But lets be honest... I'm not alone. Truth is, if you've enjoyed reading about Collusion, it's probably because you have something to hide yourself.
That's the beauty of the new set of articles. "FACTion" sets out to demonstrate that there's a big difference from what's supposed to happen at school, and what actually does. Think of FACTion as a sort of Post Secret for BJU students. Only... cooler.

Hopefully some of you are already getting ideas :}

So here's how it works readers... I wanna hear from you. I want to interview you. Anonymously of course. The identities of all the applicants will be sworn to secrecy... names and places will be changed to protect the innocent... but all the same, your story gets told. I wanna hear about the things you've given up that you believed in. Lies you've told to protect your hard earned investment in your education...and of course which faculty members are closet alcoholics, and who's seducing who.

Gotya! You're smiling now! And you should be. This is gonna be fun.

If you or someone you know would like to be a part of FACTion, you can contact me...
at jmedl600@gmail.com Again, your privacy is of extreme importance to us, and you stories can make a difference. Catch me on twitter @SaltNSmoke #FACTion

Collusion: Part XXXIII

It was raining. Those slow... ridiculously mournful rains. The kinds in films about suicide, or genocide. Some sort of 'icide.' I had taken to being the consummate recluse. I had completely devoted myself to my studies, and piano. And to be honest, I was convinced that any day I was going to be called into the Dean of Men's office at school and explain to a perfectly awful stranger, how I wasn't a homosexual.

There was an alcove at the back of the museum that I was fond of. A wooden statue of the virgin Mary stood at the end of a very long very dark hall way. Rooms twisted and split off from it here and there. Here a place to sit... there an ancient set of panels from a church long sunken beneath the grass in eastern Germany. Rooms on and on forever. All half lit, and bruised with the deep reds and purples of thick thick carpet that ate up all the stray sound. I loved this place. I got paid to sit and study note cards for hours. Days on end. There were quite a bit of really great art too. There had already been that falling out with the rest of the members of the Senate, and as a result I had pulled back and cut off all contact with these malicious people. I reasoned that if I had been their friend for this long... and now they were after me... what next? Would they slap a jew? Would they eat their young? I couldnt tell.
So... I stayed away. I read things. I journaled ferociously. In various colors of metallic inks. Angry words. Bitter words. Wounded words. I should have felt sorry for Hannibal. Pressing and jabbing into his spine everything that made me uncomfortable. It wasn't a fair fight that's for sure.

I was terrified. What if... the worst came to the worst? What if... I was expelled? I'd be out a job. Out of an education... and ya know, with the gun slingers in my family ... out in the street.

There was a window that ran from floor to ceiling behind Mary. Double pained plate glass. The rain had caused most of the window to fog. The window was dressed in lengths of wine colored satin that dropped from the ceiling on either sides of the glass. The whole bit was impressive. Serene, I thought.  I stood there staring up at Mary. She'd been cut from wood some time ago, and was beginning to split down the back. No doubt the temperature and humidity had been something of a challenge throughout her life. A fight she wasn't really winning. She was painted. In dark night-black blues. Her face a pearl and varnish color. She looked so very removed. I wished I could have followed her down whatever paths she had taken...

I stood there for some minutes. My expression blank as I thought about all the things that had come to, in the past few weeks. How X and I needed back up plans. And plans to back up those back up plans... Weighing my options with numerous outcomes. At each turn of an idea, there would be another possibility that I hadn't thought of. A new piece of data to add to the algorithm. All of it... had left me... blank. I looked out at all of the limitations of my abilities. My finances and my emotional fortuity. Against it all I felt so very much like a sand castle. No one is just sure when it's going to get swept out. But... It's going to either way.

"Medhead."

I breathed in quick and deep as I heard her voice.

"What are you looking at?"

I didn't reply for a moment. "I was watching the water. It's beading up.... on the window..." I said. Still very much inundated with my own thoughts.

"I haven't heard much from you for a little bit... tell me. How have you been?"

I turned around to face her. Tall. Thin to distraction. Large oval eyes, with heavy lashes... doe-like and inquisitive. A pert face with perfect ivory skin and a tiny little mouth. She was beautiful. Everyone said so. Everyone. And no one could argue. It's just what she was. She always kept a ratty little hair cut that you couldnt decide was more mod, or more lesbian. And she dressed like a gypsy.
Today though she was all in black as dress code required. Her name is Louretta.

"I've... just." I was terrified of this girl. This girl with her mind and her wit. He attention to detail and the sorts of questions she asked. In truth there was a time when I had felt such a kind-ship with her. I loved how painstakingly intelligent she was... How actively her mind begged her to create and how easily she slid from one social group to the next. But as I would learn later, that is precisely what a moth feels before it scuffs a flame and becomes a cinder.

"I've been trying to keep up with my practice regiment." I pushed out. Putting all of my secret thoughts away... far far back on the shelves in case she could read minds as well as she could read a face.

Louretta reminded me of the girl that I had seen in my dreams the other night. They were both thin with razor sharp chin bones.

There were many afternoons since she and I had the fortune to become gallery guards here in meandering halls of the museum, that we would chat pleasantries. We had made a game of things. Surrounded by so much opulence, we had imagined ourselves to be courtesans. The gentility of our conversation was as tedious and as thick as the tapestries that hung mute from the walls and passed silent judgment over the modern era.

We talked about poetry. About what she was working on in her creative writing classes. About her boyfriend Ronny. About whatever. But not so today. Today words had reached her. Today the pleasantries had a different bent. And… what was that new scent that she was wearing? It smelled like…. Malice.

“You’ve seemed different lately…” She said. Leaning gracefully on a door jam. The cocked her head a bit to the side and pouted a little bit. “You’ve been quiet. It’s not like you.”

Louretta had grown up in Britain. A missionaries child, and every now and then to add salt to her conversation, she allowed a bit of this accent to peak out from behind her vowels. She thought, I believed that it added an aristocratic edge to her presence. And you know, at the time it was a bit intimidating. Whenever she was around I felt too small for my clothes. And I fidgeted ever so slightly with my hair.

“I’ve been thinking about things. Ya know, and practicing an awful lot. I have deadlines… and I’m worried about not meeting them.” I offered fingering the flash cards that I had brought along. 

“Well that’s a very wise of you to devote so much time to your studies. I wish I could boast such fortitude.” She said. She always spoke this way. As if an encyclopedia had slipped on ballet flats and started menstruating.

“Don’t you think you should be investing in a small group of friends? You know, people that you may stay in touch with after school is over?” She asked as she began walking heel-to-toe in a pattern on the thick carpet. She had let those British vowel sounds peek out when she said “you know…” I sighed.

“I would if I found there was anyone worth putting any time into. I would if I felt… certain liberties that do not exist in this… penitentiary.” I offered back to this bleak little fish… swimming in circles in the hall.

“Ah…” “Oh I see,” She said. She stopped her walking for a moment and raised one eye and looked at me. Then she went back to walking.

I had no idea who she’d been speaking to. And like I said. The Senate had wasted no time in speaking their minds about my relationships. Why is everyone so interested in penetration? Who’s getting it. Who’s doing it. So very carnal. People are crass. Especially college kids. Especially college kids who haven’t gotten any in a while.

“Something just seems changed in you… Something’s different.” She continued. Half to herself. I was begging to be a bit tried of her. “Something’s gone.” And with this she looked dead at me. Oh Louretta. Always with the flair for drama.

I have to say, If it was anyone else with these vague concerns. These ominous observances that seem like the types of things  you might say to a stranger after you had tossed a bunch of chicken bones and read their fortune, I wouldn’t have minded. Mostly I wouldn’t have listened. But this was someone different. Someone I felt I could… trust.  

“It’s your eyes.”

“What?” I asked…

“You’re eyes.” She said. “They’re all black now… They used to be green…. There used to be light in them, and now… there’s nothing.”

“Oh…” I guess I hadn’t noticed.

There was a sound of a group coming in the hall. We moved back into the positions we were expected to hold. Statues in black suit coats. Arms folded behind our backs.

I was boiling with mute anger. Someone had spoken to her.

Black eyes. What did she know. There was nothing wrong with me. Nothing.

And if there was… I didn’t want to fix it.

 


 

March 13. 2007

Six black crosses all in a row.
Steal two glances, I can feel my skin glow.
All those promises that we made to the moon,
My heart got caught in my chest.
A kiss is loves most ancient rune.
Those eyes were true... black blue in blue.

All those locks broke inside.
My seconds ticked past. Mute in passing.
I send Hannibal drunken telegraphs.
The walker chooses the path. 

Collusion: Part XXXII

She was trying to stay calm I think. To slip past them... That's what she had been trained for... But in the deadness and the silence... in that black tension, now we would see what would come of the training. She was hiding in the thick evergreens. The trees had begun to clear as she had made her way out of the deeper woods... I felt the fear with her. I sensed instinctively she was being followed.
The moonlight was weak. The clouds above, skeletal and fickle. I had no idea how long she had been running, but she wasn't breathing very hard. I caught a little glimpse at her, pale and thin in the blue light from the sky. She had a decidedly angular face. A thin nose that turned up ever so little at the end... and her eyes were a kind of black that ate in all the light around them.
Black hair hung to her shoulders and she was dressed for running and hiding.
Then before I knew what to think about it... they were around her. The smallest of rustlings back towards the woods and my glance darted towards it with her. Then two of them shot across the clearing towards her.
Dogs... no wolves. They bolted forward. Quick and silent like fish. The woman made no sound herself but dashed from her hiding place and began running. I followed them... Trying to hide myself... I was terrified of the wolves. I had to help this girl though. I ran after the group.
We ran for some minutes... the trees got more and more sparse... And then I stopped quickly, noticing that they had as well. Because there was no longer any land to run on. We had come to the edge of a cliff.
The woman was being yanked around by the two hounds. It was no where as clear an image as I would have liked. The shapes became vague in the half light. They were as big as I was and bent with all sorta of blood lust on killing this girl. I looked on horrified... I looked around for some way to help her. A stick. A stone. Something. But I was forced to look back as I heard a scream. From her. This girl. She had pulled out a little short knife from a boot and stuck one of the dogs in the neck. And kicked the other off of her. But there were more of them... I felt the breath of one of them on the back of my neck and yelled out as it brushed past me into the clearing towards the girl. It didn't hear me. It didn't stop. It made no sign it had noticed me at all.  Now it was five of them darting her way. Swift and silent as shadows across the white sand of the clearing. This time I ran out with them. There were too many. She couldn't get them all.

As I looked on though she had kicked the first two approaching in the face. Kicked them down flat. They struggled to get up. But then as if frightened... the others began to back away from her.
They whimpered and growled and backed away back towards the woods.

I stopped running towards them... and watched the cowering back, wondering at this odd and fortunate chain of events. The growled low... and sat down on their haunches menacing. The stricken ones staggered to their feet and joined the others in a wide circle around the girl... Who... oddly was smiling.

Ha ha ha! She laughed a laugh that sounded as careless as a teenagers. "I saw you running with them... Always sending out the boys after me... How many of them have I killed?'
Her smile was galvanized by the blue black moonlight.

I couldn't see who she was talking to until a moment later. A small thin man... barely as tall as me and much thinner stepped out of the shadow of the woods. He could have been a child for all that I knew... but he was dressed so perfectly as to be unrealistic of his jaunt through the woods just now. A tiny black suit. White french cuffs and a stiff white collar.

"Well this time you took it... Congratulations..." The man said. His voice was cracked and deep and completely disturbing for such a small child like person. "We'll have it back now though, thankyou."
He said this with absolutely no emotion. No inflection. And his voice sounded so familiar. Like someones that I had always known.

The woman did not respond to this except to spit on the ground in contempt. "Ill do what I came here for she said... and with that she flung her little boot knife at the boy... flink. As it nearly struck him in the face he flicked it to the ground....
The wolves grew vocal and angry at this... As if it were an affront to the entirety of their religion and made for the girl once again... And this time they were not alone. The little man rushed the distance between him and the cliff and quickly caught the girls neck making it there before the dogs. Jumping up on her knees to make the distance and then pulling her down with him to accommodate his shortness at the ground.

"What now girl?" Impish boy called to her sweetly as he was crushing her neck... "Give me back what's mine? Ill let you go?" The intensity with which the boy was crushing her neck was devastating to watch... The once gloating smile and taunting look dropped from her face leaving a blank white knowledge in her eye. She had chanced too much. She hadn't run fast enough.
Then there was something else. Something foreign that I'd never seen a human express.
A fastness. A calmness.
A quick snatch and now she had him by his throat as well... She pounced and pushed him onto his back using her height as an advantage. The wolves stood around taught as a drawn bow, but would not apparently challenge the contestants...
"And what of your family? You sister? What of them?" The little man asked his face rigid with the struggle...
The girl pulled out of his grasp and looked down on his as struggled wildly. "I know where they've gone."
"Then you must arrange to see them again! You must arrange freedom for them!" The little squealed at her.
The girl smiled at this, to my surprise, and said..." I'd much rather you visit them for me."
Little man snapped his finger and the wolves shot forward. Just then, though, my mouth fell open as slick black wings opened from the girls back and beat down once and quickly, just diving over the heads of the charging dogs, and over to her little knife in the sand...
She quickly pulled little man by the hair of his head and beat those wings three or so times more to hover over the dogs who were below her now yapping and whining for the leader to be returned.
"Remember this!" She screamed at the dogs. "Remember how there was nothing you could do!" Remember ... remember when you begin to feel safe again!" She laughed a little... I couldn't tell who was evil any more... I couldn't tell who I should help.
She fingered the tiny knife in her right hand and then quickly pulled it across little mans throat...
He en-hailed with a slight chug as she dropped him to the ground and made the smallest of thuds in the dusty sand.
The wolves looked up angrily and she flew off.

I bolted up sweating as my alarm rolled pleated out its tell tale fog horn sound.
Blink. Blink.

"DAMMIT!" Churned through my head like a track on a CD skipping as I jumped down from my top bunk to look for clothing and shoes. It can not be 7:50... It just can NOT BE! Kakis. Check. Ok. Teeth... NO! no. You have 10 minutes! It takes you 6 to make it across from your room! Shirt. Books. .... Tie.
Grrraaaaah! I was mad as hell. How could I have hit snooze that many times! I was stepping out of the room as I noticed and odd sensation... "The carpet is very short here... i thought." Gah! Shoes... I slipped some on and snatched at a very large, very ugly scarf on my way out the door.
:slam!: I passed boys in various stages of un-dress through the hall as I dashed madly for the side door of the dormatory.
"Hi josh!" My hall leader called out brightly. He'd obviously been slowly sipping Turkish coffee for hours.
"GrumN pEeh. Rah." I said as I zipped past him. Tucking my shirt in in the mean time.
I skipped down the stairs to the first floor exit two at a time glancing at my MOTOrazor the whole While. 7:54.
"OK. Alright Mr. Medlin. You're gonne be just fine.... just fine!" I heard in my head.

I shot out of the building forgetting all social graces and a bumped past two senior 'handsome soccer players.'
"Sorry! Sorry!" I offered as they shot me looks of disgust.
"Late... I'm Sorry!"

And then as the fates must have decided. There was Amanda. Even now as I type the name, it brings an utter revolt. So much so that I was required to look away from my typing and stare at a dark corner of the room.
Amanda Huss. Be mindful reader, it was not so then. 'Then' it hardly made a difference when I saw her. But.... the time would come... let it be known.
She wandered past with a group of acads.
"Josh!" She called out from the fray of them.... "Josh! Hi!"
I turned and greeted her happily.
"Hey Manda! Hey nice to see you." I said... Walking backwards away from her towards my classroom.
"Hey... you commin to church tonight?" She asked smiling at me all red haired and jolly.
"Yeah!... yeah... Ill see ya. I've gotta run. Late for Doctrines..." I turned and jogged towards lecture B.

I made it at the sound of the bell. The kids in the seats next to me all seemed rather perturbed at the size of my book bag; but it couldnt be helped. I didn't have time to stroll back to my room to change and fraternize with my friends on the hall between classes. I would be going till 1PM. And then work. So I squeezed in between peoples twice my size. I must have looked like a pack mule.

"Alright students" said the withered old man at the head of gray room.. "Would you please all take out a pencil and some notebook paper... and write for me todays quiz. Word perfect... John 4:24. You will have ten minutes to complete this....

Ok. Ok. I don't have to worry about this... but I did. Amongst all the things that Id gathered from my room on the way out, none of them were either pencil, nor paper. I whispered and annoyingly borrowed them from other students in my row... and began to write.


"John 4:24" 
"God is spirit, and they that worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth." 

I signed my name, and passed my paper to the end of the row for grading and then promptly fell asleep. I wandered if I could find out where that girl had flown off to... I wondered if I should follow her.

Delete

Then as now we are surrounded by waste. How often do people eat off of porcelain anymore. Paper. Plastic. Cheap and irrelevant. And so is our communication. A swipe or a button gets rid of days worth of conversation with your closest friend... Traceless. Painless. There are so very few rituals anymore.

I've kept letters from those first 6 months with X. God but weren't we ridiculous. I remember glass eyed, how little scraps of paper became offerings. Sacrifices... to each other. It was something arcane, and X felt as well as I that whatever we had thought about the world had been wrong. That nothing before that other simpler minds had thought true, necessarily was. That this was true. And that should we forget... should we grow old or be forced back from one another... we would have these artifacts. We would have bits and pieces of the way that were and that those ruins would lead us back to our own Mesopotamia.

I have all of those things. And even in the fall out of it all I couldn't throw them out. Something about the way each piece of paper and little bit of stolen stationary.... notebook pages, there was a translucent smoke that slowly seeped out of them. It was the very smell of justice. Of wholesome and honest affection... I know you're judging me for these remembrances. And you're more than welcome. But mark me this one thing... I still won't throw those letters away.
I can't imagine a time in my life were I will not want to remember the grit and the sweat and the reckless self abandon that came with first love. How the presence of that person. How holding those simplest of gift in my hands even to this day makes me feel like I alone watched creation. Like I, a dark specter... know the secrets of life.

I hate this fickle devotion to speed in our culture. There's nothing wrong with sitting down and having a conversation with someone without checking your phone every eight seconds. We are intended to interface and build memories of real breathing flesh and blood.

I'm not the best at it for sure. Lets be honest, sometimes it's easier to play angry birds or pay attention to who's checking in where on foursquare than it is to deal with that annoyingly nasal consonance of our acquaintances. Brothers I understand apathy. But we are the ones who miss out. We don't get to see life as nature gave it to us... We're watching the special on a flatscreen as Oprah narrates.

This was made all to painfully clear to me on the way home from Alabama. I had been out of contact with nearly every one for a week and sort of missed sharing pictures and video. Why not? I mean I missed the emoticons and the comradeship of sorts. But our electronic personalities are oh so very different than our real ones. Our real breathing persons.

I was Texting:

Gary> So how was the trip? Did you have fun?
ME< It was super fun! I'm so relaxed! If I was any more relaxed I would shit myself!
Gary> Mmmm. Mature.
ME<Shut up. How's your week going?
Gary> It's ok. Hey. So. Have you heard anything from David?
ME<Which one... Skinny tweeker David? Fat Dave Who Smells Like A Bird Cage?
Gary> Skinny tweeker one... He used to work with me...
ME<Oh no... I mean I saw him around before Mexico. He looks aweful.
Gary> Yeah. I was... he's not...
ME< He's dead?

:Minutes Pass:

Gary>Yeah.
Me<OD?
Gary> Suicide. I think. The obituary wasn't all that specific. I didn't want to be the one to tell you... I thought you might have known already.
Me<It's not exactly un-expected.He kept wanting to hang out and stuff... I just didn't have the time. I told him he needed to go to rehab.
Gary>Yeah. Well...
Me<Hey can we talk later?
Gary>Yeah cool.

I fiddled with the phone for a moment thinking it over. David. Wow. I felt guilty. I hadn't done anything. I rationalized.
The I flicked back to the conversation thread... and slid my thumb left to right across the polished glass surface.
I clicked delete.

Not Collusion. Really. Not at all.

How shall I speak of vacation? Where shall I begin? Exhaustion. Completion. Insight. Confirmation. Delight. Speculation. Excess Excess Excess. Sun of the kind that you can be certain will turn you a brown had only in the Mayan Riviera. I mean… Ive been wearing 45 since the beginning, and am now the color of some old grand-mamma biddy’s piano. We’ve spent 5 days on a ship called elation. It’s inexorably efficient. In a way that makes analogue time pieces other than Tag Hauer look shoddy. Two days ago I hadn’t touched my lunch. Got up for a moment to find a fork. When I returned my place setting completely evaporated… leaving me with  a surprised look staring at two forlorn little blond children eating jelly. Not Jello. Jelly. Oh… I don’t know what special amalgam of happy pills they have these little brown worker bees on… but it’s working. And I’m envious. I think it’s a combination of a work ethic that has been imprinted on them by their society, and the knowledge that they will be able to by each of their 12 children a new iPad 2 for Christmas.   

I started running 5 miles a day in preparation for what I knew was going to an influx of caloric in-take. Sad, I thought that the first taste of the road my new addidas FORMOTIONs would get would be the treadmill of a c-list hotel. Oh well. I broke ‘em the fuck in. I realized then after that first five miles, that I wasn’t quite sure at all how far I had been running every day. I mean during the usual run, I have a start point and an end point, and I just sort of vacillate between them. But now I was working with a machine that was made how far I went rather painfully obvious. Delighted. Absolutely delighted. For the following days on the ship, regardless of land excursions, I consistently ran 5 miles. If not all at once, a 5k, and then after the pool 2 more miles. The culmination of this was yesterday, when after completing my first 5k in the morning before breakfast and Calica, I returned to the ship for another somewhat surprising 5k… that I strongly believe was brought on by a 30 minute stint in the sauna and lots and lots of water. As you can imagine, I’m a bit pleased with myself. Not the kind of pleased with myself that turns you into a douchebag. The kind the lets you sit down quietly to a nice hot mug of green tea and smile complacently at strangers.

The brings up another fascinating aspect of the trip. A cruise is nearly exactly the opposite of how real life works. In life we have an un-known number of boarders and also and un-known number of people on the way out at any give time. It is without confinement and a bit bewildering. The ship on the other hand has a precisely controlled number of occupants. The same number is allowed on as is allowed off. In that sense it’s even more regulated than the heaven told about in fables about mystic Hebrew god. I can not impress upon a reader the import of this knowledge, and how this confinement forces the occupant into a sort of complacency so much like prison that the occupant is left with two options. Better yourself, or allow yourself to drift into atrophy. I chose… of course, the former. To a degree that surprised me. And I think the other members of my party.

Cozumel happened on Tuesday. Just like all the other port cities in the country that have frequent visitors from the U.S. there are ridiculously underpriced luxury liquors and antibiotics, mood-altering drugs, handbags and watches for the taking duty and tax free. Be advised Ive brought all of my friends back at least a box full of name brand Zanax. You’re going to want to chew half of one of these before having a conversation with me if your going to be closing with me at Starbucks. I promise to preface every conversation with…. ‘When I went snorkeling in Cozumel…’ or… ‘When I was in Mexico….’ And Im sure for the listener thats going to get old real quick. The boat quickly became navigate-able simply by noticing the types of herding that was happening. It can be broken down into a few archetypes. Affluence is a given. Either direct ownership or nearly immediate blood relation. Types include. ‘JCrew models. Male. Late teen and early 20’s’ Pack was nearly always 5 or 6 in number and nearly always only wearing kaki shorts with critter belts. Rainbow sandals and RayBans. Yawn. In passing them you can expect them only to be talking of the doings and thoughts of other facsimiles of themselves. There’s the ‘Nearly almost but not quite dead, and still drinking’ Those had constant froufrou drinks in their claws and many of them traveled in ones and twos being dragged around or pushed ever forward in a wheel chair provided by Carnival. Other types may include ‘Family with 3 smallish children.’ Alpha male nearly always had a Bud-light in his hands, and Alpha female paid little if no mind to the offspring, but fumbled through the spa catalogue and planned her next procedure with a glint of malice in her eyes. Mostly blond women. I hope that gives some insight into the types that I would inevitably bump into on the stair cases. I did not take elevators. Both because they were never faster than just walking where you needed to go, and because everyone else on them was either too stupid or intoxicated to realize how rude they were being in those confined spaces. Also I’d recently watched ‘Devil.’

In Cozumel, beneath the waters of one of the beaches reserved for snorkelers someone had the artistic planning to sink a 25 foot tall statue in the cove. I was surprised to find it. It was sort of a bent shape. Humanoid and unrealistically thin for a person of that height. It’s arms were outstretched and I decided that it must be a dancer. It’s not so well articulated face was turned chin-up towards the skin of the water… like it was trying to feel again what it was like to breathe and to feel the sun on its face. Some said the statue was Jesus. Some said it was Mary. I dunno. It didn’t look like either… and didn’t have any visible sex indicators. I decided it was a dancer. And so to me it will stay. It was 18 feet down to reach it to touch its long undulating arms… I managed to make the distance. Although I believe my lungs were much beleaguered at my rambling attempts. Like all real statues it was meant to be touched. And so in compliance with that compulsion… I did.

Calica was a bit different… And some in the party made note of that, complaining a bit more about it’s heat and boringness. I found it the farthest thing from boring. We made our way to one of the resorts along the beach a few short miles by buss from the port. Abject poverty hid slyly behind the glitz and glamour of architectural investment. After the buss ride, the tour guide ‘Saul’… pronounced ‘SA ooh el’ happily ushered us to a place to store our crap and then where we should begin an underground river swim. 1 mile about. Enjoy-able only for the shocking coldness of the water… I wont speak much of the other occupants of the river. Suffice it to say that it was much like riding the elevators in the boat. Perhaps a little more irritating. There were more people vacationing from France and other places around Mexico. South America even… than I had run into in Cozumel. This park had a re-creation of an Aztec village. Complete with temple and tiny industrial shacks. Most of the workers at the resort found my knowledge of Spanish a surprise and a charm. I made a point to talk to as many people as was comfortable and was interested to learn that many of them lead lives like my own. Complacent. Content. Education levels seemed rather lacking. Mostly because some of the food vendors in the little stands around the coves had a confusing time calculating the exchange rate… I suppose I can hardly blame them for the exchange rate being in the flux that it’s in… or the availability of high quality marijuana to speed their days along and make sure they don’t become overly irritated with the tourists.

Here’s the thing you should know about cruise lines. Most of them limit the amount of personal alcohol you can bring aboard. Mostly because just like prison, they would like to be the sole providers of any luxury. Also the wifi is locked and… should you decided to subscribe to the service they are going to make you mortgage your first born to pay for it. I realized I didn’t much need the internet as it could be a way to force creativity. And trust me there are ways around paying for liquor on the boat. Here are a few handy trips for getting around the cruise employees from snatching your duty/tax free alcohol and locking it up until you’re back state-side. Set up a small trafficking staff. Two will do for most trips. Buyer and Mule. Buyer needs access to a decent amount of cash, depending of course on the amount of alcohol required. Some notes on the mule… They need to be one of two things. And they should always have a large beach bag with two or three clearish plastic containers that are clearly meant for water of soft-drinks.

1.     Complicit, Intelligent, and more than a little self assured of success. Bilingual is a plus. Being disarmingly good looking, and smiling easily are not necessary but sure as hell help.

2.     Blithely un aware of what’s happening but being a close friend of the Provider. Provider must have constant access to Mules beach bag… also Provider needs to fill a role of leadership and companionship.

I was the former. My success rate is 100% both at American and Mexican borders. Most of you have my contact information if you would like more personal advice and attention. All told we cheated Carnival out of about 400$ in alcohol sales by my rough estimate.

A few more tips on successful for the successful mule:

1.     Do not allow confidence to flag. You’ve got this, and probably in the bag. Remember the worst that can happen with legal substances is that it can be acquired by security and held. Such a situation is an acknowledged loss… but lets remember it’s not a gamble if there isn’t a possibility of loss.

2.     Don’t allow Purveyor to make transfers too and from clear containers. You’re better off doing it yourself. You know your beach bag better than they do. Also… you’re responsible for convincing the guards that nothing fishy is going on. The best way to do that is to know exactly where everything is.

3.     Always choose a public restroom to make transfers. Preferably during a rush of patrons. This was not a problem in a busy port and should not be for you, reader.

4.     Move with purpose and think of other things as you make your way to a private restroom stall. Make the transfer and remember to flush the toilet.

5.     Lastly… discard the liquor bottle packaging and shopping bag precisely as they were purchased. Optionally you can put all of that in another bag without indication of purchased product. Deposit in a waste receptacle without much concern on your face. You’re good to board. Smile.