Contacts

    “How many contacts do you have in your phone.” I asked, chilling out on the couch.

     “What?” Tony half asked putting the food on the coffee table.

     “I was just looking at all the people I have in my phone. I realized half the numbers or emails are wrong.”

     “Damn.  I don’t know.  I don’t even think about it.  I text Karen, Amber, you, and the kids.  That’s about it.  Everything else is work related and the work stuff is emails and extensions.  If I really had to guess I’d say about fifty.”

     “Oh,” I half said to myself.

     “Why?  How many do you have?”

     “Five or six ... hundred”

     “Really?  Why do you need five or six hundred contacts?” He asked almost choking on his nachos.

     “I’m trying to figure that out myself.  In my defense I asked one of the girls in my office how many contacts she had and it was somewhere near a thousand.”

     “One thousand contacts? Is she a drug dealer or something?” Tony asked, laughing.

     “I know, right?”

     “But five hundred,” he said finally sitting in his chair, “that’s a hell of a lot, too.”

     “Some of it’s old music contacts.  Some of it’s old hook ups.  I have to agree: five hundred is too many contacts.  I tried to narrow it down a few years ago.  Sent out a text that said: ‘Hi you might remember me from (wherever).  Cleaning up numbers in my phone.  Is this the phone of insert-name-here?  If not let me know and I will remove it.  Thank you.’ ”

     “How’d that work out?” he asked.

     “I think I sent out about 65 texts ...”

     “Jesus, 65?” he interrupted.

     “Remember the woman in my office said over thousand” I said, attempting to justify.  “I got about 35 replies.  Not horrible.”

     “Did you delete the others?”

     He could tell by my silence and cringe expression that the answer was no.

     “How about the old hook ups?  Did you delete them?”

     “You know, they were interested at one point.  I figured I would keep them just in case they ... ”  I realized my delusion as the words left my mouth.  “I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

    “How do you know the hook ups?” He asked, pulling a long chain of cheese and chicken nachos off of the pile.

     “I put little check marks next to their names.”

     “A ranking system?”

     “No.”  My nacho chain was nothing to brag about.  “Just a fond reminder of who to remember.”

     “As long as that list isn’t five hundred people long you should be ok.”

     “You know, Tony, I’ve been single for a long time but I have to agree: the thought of five hundred hookups is too many for me.”

Dry Run

     “You ok?” I asked following Marrianne down the the hall to the living room.  “I mean as ok as you can be?”

     ”Yes,” she said sitting on the couch, “Mom had been sick for a while.  We tried to get her to move in with us but she said no.  Charlie asked if she wanted to move in with him and she said she was happy here.”

     I thought back to our phone calls and the edge in her voice.  She was worried about her mom.

     “She was managing all right until a couple months ago then things just cratered.”

     “Oh, Mare, I’m so sorry.  What do you need?  Is there anything I can help you with?”

     “No,” she smiled and looked around the house.  “It’s just...” her voice trailed off.

     “You’ve got Kyle and the kids.”

     “Don’t get me started,” she said rolling her eyes.

     “Oh really?!?  I thought everything was...”

     “He’s a great dad and when he works he makes really good money but the consulting hasn’t been good the last two years.”

     “Sorry.”  I could feel the small bottle of Jager in my pocket.

     “And ...  he’s a shit husband,” she confessed.  I hung my head and exhaled.  “That’s the other reason I’ve been going back and forth.  I’ve been here since Mom had her heart attack.  I don’t know when or if I’m going back.
     “90% of my job is work from home.  If I really need to go into the office they have a location in Hartford.  The kids already have their own rooms.”  This was a well thought out plan that was finally being vocalized.  It felt like a dry run for a conversation she would be having very soon.  “I’m re-evaluating things.”
     “How are the kids taking it?”
     “They’re little.  They know something’s going on but they don’t really know.”

     “Damn!”

     “I know.  It’s a lot.  Between that and Mom it’s been a shit show.”

     “I had no idea.”

     “Oh that’s right.  You’re not on twit/face/insta/space.”

     “Naw.  I just couldn’t do it any more.  The politics were just too ugly.  I just kept being disappointed by people.  Rather than fire friends I just took myself out of the equation.”

     “Makes sense,” she said, taking a deep breath and leaning her head back.  “You really didn’t know I was here?”

     “I didn’t.  I was just coming to do a shot of Jager on the porch to pay tribute to Trudy.  I had no idea you were here.”

     Her nose pinched up and she furrowed her brow.

     “Mom didn’t drink Jager-Blah,” she seemed disgusted by the thought of it.

     “Neither do you.  But I remember a conversation we had years ago when we were kids.  I joked about coming to Boston, drinking Jager like it was my job, then stumbling back to your apartment.  You let me know I would end up hog-tied in the living room, or locked in a closet, or some crazy shit like that.”

     She laughed a well needed laugh.

     “It would have been for your own good,” she smiled and her baby blues twinkled for the first time.

     “Probably.  Hey, kid,” I said, standing up, “It sounds like you have a lot on your plate.  What do you need?  Is there anything I can help you with?”

     “No, but you know what?  I will do that shot with you.”

     The night air had chilled.  It had been a while since I had done shots of Jager.  The body heated booze warmed it’s way to my belly.

     “Blah! I don’t remember it tasting this much like cough syrup,” I said choking a little.

     “I do,” said Marrianne, covering her mouth while she coughed.  “Like I said, Jager-blah.”

     I looked into the dark sky and tried to peer beyond the stars.

     “Are you ok?”

     I took a deep breath and gave her a quick synopsis of my recent interactions with Derich.

     “Wow.”  She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and started typing furiously.  “He’s married to Karen, right?”

     “Yeah,” I said confused.

     “Is this him?” She showed me a picture of a seemingly happy couple on their twit/face/insta/space.

     “Holy shit!”  The third picture showed an obviously pregnant Karen.  This explained everything.  He was going to have three little kids under the age of ten.  If things were financially tight before they were about to be down right constricting now.  The short temper and the doctor rants made complete sense.

     “How do you know Karen?” I asked as the depths of Derich’s dilemma hit me.

     “We used to life guard together in high school.  Our youngest are the same age.”

     Just then the video app on her phone started to ring.  The word Home popped up on the screen.

     “The kids always want to see me before they go to sleep,” she explained as I handed the phone back to her.

     “Happy I got a chance to see you.”  I whispered like they could hear me.  “Let me know how things work out with this dry run you’re trying.”  

     “I will she,” she said headed back inside.

     “Mommy!!!” I heard the two little voices say in unison just before she closed the door. 

     I slipped into the drivers seat of the car and once again thought about the the last few years.  I had been on my own dry run.  Now was the time to decide what direction I wanted to take.  There were so many options.  There was so much to fear.

     The grid was laid out.  I knew what responsibilities needed to be met and how to meet them.  I knew the way.  I had everything I needed to get there without getting derailed.  I just needed to grip the steering wheel and breathe.

House Call

     I just wanted to go home.  Kyle’s words stuck in my head.  ‘If she wants to call you back she will’.  Talos was gone.  Trudy was gone.  Derich was lost in his own pain.  V was half way across the country in her management orientation.

    I would just stop at the liquor store on the way home, get a bottle of brown sugar bourbon, and wash the night away.  In three hours I would be wrapped up in a warm fuzzy blanket on the couch hoping the spins stop so I could wake up the next day without a care in the world.

     The house that Trudy built was just a five minute detour off my hour drive home.  I had driven by the main road many times because of accidents or detours on 84 but I hadn’t stopped by in years.  

     The new plan was to hit the liquor store, get a bottle, stop by the house, pay my respects to the memory of Marrianne’s parents, and THEN wash the night away on my couch.  It was like something was calling me to the house and I had to be there.

     I looked up obituaries on my phone.  The funeral had been exactly one week earlier.  It seemed like Trudy lingered after the heart attack.  The site said Trudy was surrounded by Marrianne, her brother Charlie, and their respective families when she passed.  No wonder Marrianne had been reaching out but not picking up.  

     The GPS app said the trip should take 45 minutes, that included the stop at the store.  

     The highway was empty except for the memories and reflections.  I thought back to times spent on Marrianne’s porch before she headed off to college.  I  laughed about showing up a week late for her wedding and not realizing I was at the wrong wedding until they mentioned the name of the bride and the groom.

     I thought about the last three years.  Job loss, cash flow problems, and the fear that had woken me up nights.  These things all seemed so small and temporary.  I remembered Karen’s idea of steps rather than goals and tried to will away the worry.

     The two bottles I picked up at the store clinked together as I turned off the main road on to the side street.  I held on to them so they wouldn’t slide from the passenger’s seat to the floor.  The brown sugar bourbon was for later.  The small bottle of Jaegermeister was for the memory of Trudy. 

     I was caught off guard when I saw downstairs lights on and the small Subaru parked in the semicircular driveway.  My heart jumped when the Vermont license plate came into view.

      I parked next to the Subaru and slid the small bottle of Jager into my inner coat pocket.

     It took two rounds of knocking before she finally came to the door.  For a moment I thought she was going to, understandably, leave me out in the cold.  Though there had been a lot of sporadic texting and the occasional phone call, it had actually been years since I had seen her in person.

     “Hey,” she said quietly standing in the doorway.  Her eyes were red from crying.  Her silver lined curls were pulled back into a loose ponytail.

     “I’m so sor..” I heard the catch in my voice and felt the tears welling.  “I’m so sorry,” I finished, hanging my head.  “I didn’t know.  I was stopping by to pay my respects.  I didn’t know anyone was here.  I was going to do a shot of Jager on the porch then head to my house.”

     I felt empty and small.  I just wanted to go home.

     “Both of my parents are gone,” she said as she hugged me and let herself cry into my shoulder.  As much as I wanted to go home, something had called me to the house and I had to be there.

Sketches of Pain

    I looked at the sky and took a deep breath.  What was left of the grey day was fading into the early darkness of fall.  I could barely see my reflection in the driver’s side window of my car.  It was there, but it was a light sketch with no distinct details.

     “What’s up, Kyle?”  I said, my energy waning like the day itself.  “Marrianne’s been trying to reach out but we keep missing each other.”

     “I know.”  He said.  “She was trying to find out why you weren’t at the funeral.”

     “Funeral?!?”  I asked, completely perplexed.

     “We thought you were in hibernation.”

     “No. January.”  I slumped in the front seat and pushed deep into the headrest.  “What funeral?”

     “Trudy had a heart attack three weeks ago.”

     Everything stopped.  Talos had passed away years ago.  It had been a long messy battle with cancer.  As much as Marrianne loved Kyle, they had rushed the wedding in hopes they’d be married before he died.  Where I was a week late for the marriage, he passed away a month before.  He and Trudy had been married for 35 years.

     Talos never met Marrianne’s kids.  He never met her brother’s kids.  Her brother’s wife was four months pregnant when the world fell apart.  Since they had nothing Trudy gave them everything they needed to get started.

     She outlived Talos by eleven years.  She never remarried.  Her time was taken up by volunteering, light travel, an occasional ‘friend’, but mainly her grandkids.  She maintained the house so her kids could always come back to their roots when they needed to reset their lives.

     “Shit, man.  I’m sorry.  How are you guys?  How are the kids?”

     Silence.  A small voice in the background asked when Mommy was coming back.

     “I’ll tell her you called.”

     “Kyle.”  I heard the little voice in the background ask for Mommy again.

     “If she wants to call you back she will.”

     “Kyle?!?”

     “I’ve gotta feed my kids dinner.  If she wants to talk, she’ll call.”

     “Kyle, she did call that’s why I’m...”. The phone beeped off.

     I looked up through the sunroof.  Darkness had fallen.  There was no reflection, no details, not even a light sketch.

Power

     Never underestimate the power of fear.  Fear will keep you in relationships in which you don’t belong.  Fear will keep you at jobs you hate.  It will make you push the good people away.  It will tell you those people were too good for you but if they really cared they would fight to come back no matter what you did.

     It will keep you up all night mindlessly scrolling twit/face/insta/space.  If you do sleep, fear will wake you up at 5:00 in the morning with a lump in your chest worried about something that is out of your control.  Fear can also keep you in bed until noon because you feel like the world is too much, wants too much, and you aren’t good enough to get it back on track.

     When this level of fear comes knocking - not the polite ‘are you home’ kind of knocking but ‘the pirate with a wooden leg, it’s time to walk the plank’ kind of knocking - there are three things I force myself to do:

1. Get out of bed
2. Take a shower
3. Eat breakfast (this might just mean having a coffee)

     These three actions chip away at the polarizing, self-sabotaging, thoughts that can derail the rest of the day.  Each little accomplishment is a win.  Each win is a step forward.  Each step forward is a move away from where you were towards something else, hopefully a better direction.

     I looked at Derich.  

     “It’s fear, man,” I started.  “Fear will make you write the song you think they want to hear.  It will make you take the photos you think they want to see and it will make you write the stories you think they want to read, BUT it won’t make people listen to, look at, or read what you’ve created.

     “I tried to do things other people wanted and it was never enough.  There was always something missing.  When you are not doing things with your own best interests in mind you are doing yourself a disservice.  If you are not the author of your own story you are a bit player in someone else’s.”

     I looked at Derich and this time I tried, for the first time, to share my soul.

     “Bullshit.  You know what?  I’m happy you have an office gig again,” he said, dismissively wiping his chin with a napkin.  “That music thing?  The acting thing?  That writing thing?  Those are all kid dreams.  You’ve got a mortgage, a car payment, and credit cards.  We aren’t getting any younger...or thinner.”

     He was firing at close range with both barrels.  The words weren’t fatal but they were solid body blows.  The burger and the beer had lost their flavor and I had lost my appetite.

     This wasn’t a tough love tactic.  This was pain projection.  There was something ugly going on but I just didn’t care enough to dig deeper.  I felt my face wrinkle up as I reached for my wallet.  It was my turn to throw a $20 bill on the bar and head for the door.

     “I gotta go.”  I heard myself mumble.

     “Where?”  He asked as though there was nowhere I had to be and no reason for me to be there.

     Just then my phone rang.

     “Oh, hey, look at that.  It looks like somebody gives a fuck,” I said backing out the door.

     It was Marrianne’s home number.  Finally!!

     “Hey, buddy!  What’s up?!?  I’ve been trying to catch you for the passed month!”

     “What’s been so interesting this passed month?”  Kyle’s voice was flat and cold.  “Seriously?  Why do you keep calling my wife?”

     It was 5:00 in the afternoon and suddenly I had a lump in my chest because the world felt like it was spinning out of control and I wasn’t good enough to get it back on track.

Writer

     “Just because you write doesn’t mean you’re a writer,” Derich said after biting into his burger.  “I think.  I mean you write but has anybody paid you?”

     This was the first time in years I was relying on myself for money on a large scale.  Up until this point I had jobs with a decent salary and decent benefits.  The problem with those jobs is that they wanted you to put your head down, keep your mouth shut, do what you’re told, and don’t rock the boat.

     I hate boats and I’m really not good at keeping my mouth shut.  This is all was compounded by the overwhelming seasonal want to crawl away to a warm spot somewhere on this beautiful blue globe and wait out the winter.

    The burgers were delicious.  The best thing about them is that they were only $12.  We had found a hole in the wall burger place that had a Sunday special.

    You got a grass fed burger, tomato, lettuce, red onion, and cheese with hand cut fries, and a super stout (12% or above) for $12.  Bacon was an extra dollar.        

     No pictures for the Dinner at a Distance crew.  I did shoot V a message.  She had to check out this place when she got back from her management orientation, provided they hadn’t closed by then.  Nothing this good lasts that long.

     I rolled my eyes.  Today’s only saving grace was the tasty burger.

     “Man, let’s just enjoy the burgers.”

     “You know every time I ask you about things going on with you you just shut down.”

     The hard truth was no one was paying me to write or take pictures or play music.  Those days were in the past.  I was once again a guy working in an office and it was killing me.  This time I was working for a company as an independent contractor.  There was no salary, no benefits unless I paid for them myself.  Every dollar I got was a dollar I had to hustle for.  I’m not good at the hustle when it’s not what I want.

     As wonderful as it is to be a creative it’s also nice to eat and pay bills.  More power to you if you are able to be creative, do what you love, and pay bills.

     There was always the hope that there would be a magic bullet.  I don’t need to be rich but it would be nice to create something that brought in enough recurring income for me to relax a bit.

     We had a few ideas when we were younger.  One idea was to build a band.  We would get rich writing songs and gigging around the world.  That didn’t happen.

     Another idea was to write a book.  Everyone who wrote books was rich, right?  Not so much.

     The next idea was to be an movie or tv actor.  The idea after that was to be a photographer.  The next idea was to be a film or video editor.  The last idea was to be a YouTuber. 

     All of these ideas had one core problem, there was no joy.  The main goal was the money.  When I was chasing a dollar, the activities I engaged in to make that dollar brought me no joy.  Sometimes the quality of the work would suffer because I was only focused on the money. 

     “What’s up, man?” I asked.  “You’ve been in a shit mood for a few weeks.”

     “What the...” he started expecting the guy who would just quietly look in the mirror like I had done so many times before.

     “I get it.  You aren’t where you want to be, either.  I am actively trying to figure this shit out because for the first time the clock is ticking and I feel like I’m actually running out of time.”

     “God Damn it!” He said throwing down his napkin.  “When are you going to stop talking and start doing?”

     “I,” I stammered.

     “You yourself have said it, ‘if you really want to do something then do SOMETHING’.  If you don’t want to work in an office don’t work in an office.  If nobody cares about what you write then write about what people care about!

     “If nobody likes the music you like then write the music they like.  Take the photos they like.  Shoot the video they like.  Do all the things they like then slowly introduce what you like.”

     “You got lucky in the beginning.  You came out of nowhere and it seemed like you were ahead of the pack.  Well, the pack has passed.  Sitting and bitching about the fact that no one is sitting and bitching with you will get you nowhere.”

     I felt the release.  Suddenly the focus was clear and I held my head a little higher.  I knew what it was.  Fear.

     It’s amazing how clear things become once you see how cloudy they’ve been.  I was afraid.  This is how those office jobs keep me coming back.  I was so afraid of my own shadow I couldn’t get out of my own way.

     I had been floating on an air of delusion.  Delusion can be good but nothing this good last forever.

Mind Full

     The bar was unusually full.  I always try to avoid the bar when it is this full.  This was different.  Tonight felt strange.  I felt compelled to be there.  It had been a while.  The bottles behind the bar looked like they had been rearranged.  The mirror was frosted.  My favorite bartender wasn’t working.

     I slowly looked around to see who was out tonight.  Initially it was a sea of blank faces but as the fog faded everything started falling into place.  I saw Stotler, Paris, and Caitlin each sitting alone at small tables in the corners of the dining area.  The kid was there running back and forth between the parking lot and the kitchen.

     Kiki was standing in line waiting for the bathroom.  V was laughing with a friend whose face I couldn’t quite make out.  Terry was with her little one looking out the window while her husband parked the car.    

     D was settling up her check.  She had quietly paid everyone’s bar tab and was slipping out the side door before anyone knew what happened.  Tony and Amber were talking in a corner near a waterfall.  Their conversation was still light and airy.  Tessa waved from the next booth.  There were two drinks on her table.  Was one for me?

     I looked back to the mirror but it was still frosted.  I looked to the left and saw Linda and the current love of her life finally exchanging keys to the new apartment.  I looked to the right and saw Tony’s ex-wife Karen talking to Derich’s current wife Karen.  They were drinking what looked like cosmos and laughing with abandon.

     I realized I could see almost everyone but myself.  As I turned to do a final scan of the bar I saw her.  She still had a statuesque Victorian quality.   Her curls were pulled back into a rushed bun.  Her baby blues were sad with truth.

     “Marrianne!”  I almost fell off my stool.  “How are you?  I’ve been trying to...”

     “You poor broken man you,” she interrupted.  She touched my bearded cheek.  “It’s not hibernation, yet.  What are you doing here?  What’s this thing on your face?”

     I looked deep into her eyes and saw the reflection I had been longing to see in the mirror.

     “I...I,” hot tears started to well in my eyes.  “I got distracted,” I whispered.

     “It’s time to go,” I heard my father’s voice cut through the crowd.  Just as I saw his face clearly, the alarm went off waking me from the dream.

     “How the hell does this keep happening?”  I asked myself as I checked my phone.  I had missed another call from Marrianne.  It was the fourth miss this  month and the second miss this week.  No voicemail just a missed call.

     “Hey, kid.  I just missed you,” I started, happy that the voicemail finally was taking messages.  “What’s going on?  It’s been a while.  Call me.”  

Everything still felt strange.  My mind was unusually full.  I always try to avoid things when my mind is this full.