Goodbye Grandpa (Spring of '98)
When it rains it pours... the words to a song I had never heard before that day. Somehow they seemed fitting as I sat on my Shorty's skateboard in the middle of a deserted Tacoma skate park and watched it rain. I sat next to my little brother, watching cars splash by on the street and pretended that the drops of water that ran down my face were tears -- tears that would take away the blood that pounded through my head. I could still hear my dad's voice breaking as he had tried to tell me the bad news. Ryan... my dad died... The words haunted me as I sat there, hoping the rain could drown out the aching feeling in my chest, trying all the while to picture my grandpa's face.
"Screw this rain." My little brother, Shane, said.
I looked at him. His face was wet as well; I wondered if it was only the rain. He sat next to me, his "skateboarding is not a crime" hat loosely fit backwards -- he looked just like cousin Jay as he stared up at the falling rain. It hurt to watch him, like it had hurt to listen to my dad cry on the phone. I forced myself to watch him, forced myself to feel the pain, and still no tears came. What the hell is wrong with me, I thought to myself.
Finally I looked away from Shane, and stopped trying. I watched the cars again and wished that we had been able to find someone in the parking lot earlier to buy us some Boones.
"Fuck it." I said. "I'm gonna skate anyway. Rain or no rain."
Shane nodded and we both jumped on our boards. My body burned with adrenaline as I skated. There was an intensity, a passion, in those few minutes -- skating in the pouring rain, that I had never felt before. The faster I skated the flats, the higher I climbed the quarter pipe walls, the harder my bare arms and hands scraped against the wet pavement, the less I thought about grandpa. We skated until night came. Then, soaked, bloody and exhausted, we got in our car and silently fled the park.
It was still raining as we drove through Tacoma, taking the long way to the Interstate. Car headlights, a Chevron station, a Motel 6, even the soft glow of stoplights seemed to glare through the fogged up windows of our '85 Ford Tempo. I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of a dream. In the wet, foggy glare of the city nothing seemed real. The Smashing Pumpkin's song, Disarm, played from our stock stereo deck and I tried to convince myself that nobody had died, that this was all a dream. We hit the Interstate and I smiled at the dream world that was surrounded me. I was no longer driving, but now flying -- weaving my way through traffic in slow motion, every moment an eternity. And then Shane yelled, "cop!"
Just like that my dream ended. As I passed a Washington State Patrol car sitting in the dark on the side of the freeway I looked down at my speedometer. It read 85 mph.
"Shit." I said.
"Is he coming?" My brother asked.
I looked in my mirror and watched as the cop pulled onto the freeway, the words to the song I had heard this morning coming back to me. "When it rains it pours."
"Shit." I said again.
Shane looked back, and said, "Yep, he's three cars back. We're screwed."
"Not if I can help it." I said.
"Is there anybody in the next lane?" I asked him.
"No. You're clear all the way over." He said, reading my mind.
Hoping that the heavy traffic behind me would hide my maneuver, I swerved across four lanes, just barely catching the off-ramp in time. Once we got off the freeway I headed for a BP station a block away. As I whipped the car around the back of the building, I said, "C'mon bro, I'll buy you a coffee or something."
As we went inside I looked for the cop but didn't see him. Shane opened the door for me.
"Damn, that was close." He said.
"Too close." I echoed.
After we bought our coffee and sat in the parking lot for a couple of minutes, we started home again. We didn't see any more cops but we did drive the speed limit the rest of the way. As I drove with the stock radio on softly -- if we turned it up any louder you would hear the blown speaker buzz in the back -- I tried to again find the dreamy existence in which I was able to fly. Only this time it all seemed to real and all I could think about was how I had never heard my dad break down like that before and how I didn't want to have to see it when I got home. It wasn't until I went to bed late that night -- my chest still aching from the stress of the day, my eyes still dammed up -- that I finally found my dream world once again.
Straight Edge (Fall of '97)
"Hey bro, you ever had one of these?"
I looked up from my potato salad, fork in hand, to see what my cousin, Jay, was talking about.
"What's up?" I asked him. He tossed a pack of cigarettes at me and then lit the one he had taken for himself.
"Kools. Ever had one?" He said as he inhaled. I watched him hold it in, like it was a blunt, like it was the last breath he would ever take.
"It's good shit." He said, still holding in his breath. Finally he breathed out a long cloud of cigarette smoke and I looked at the pack lying on the picnic table in front of me.
"Can't say I've ever had one. What's so great about them?" I asked. Jay sucked in another deep breath.
"Just try one." He said. I put down my fork and took the pack of smokes.
"You need a light?" He asked. I searched my swim trunks.
"Yeah, I must have lost mine." I said to him. He tossed me his lighter, a yellow Bic.
"Mellow Yellow." He said, sucking in another breath of smoke. I looked at his cigarette. It was almost gone already.
"Whose are these?" I asked him, lifting a cigarette to my lips.
"Aunt Patty's." He said. "They're the best menthols out there." I lifted the lighter and turned slightly to shield the wind.
"Damn wind." I muttered. I had never smoked a menthol before.
"Yeah," he laughed. "Gotta love these killer Columbia Gorge winds. C'mon, let's take a walk." He said, jumping up from a lawn chair. "The boat won't be back for a while still and I'm sick of sitting on my ass."
I finally lit my cigarette, then ran barefoot to catch up to him.
"How do you like that smoke?" He said to me.
"Yeah, it rocks." I said. I took another drag and held it in like my cousin had. The brand name said it all. It tasted like I was smoking wintergreen gum.
We walked in silence after that, enjoying the late summer day, the afternoon wind swirling empty bags of chips and paper plates into an awkward sort of dance that followed us through the Riverfront Park. The sun had set low enough to cast shadows across the grassy park and we had to walk around them to keep in the warm sunlight. Finally I finished my cigarette and now wished that I had brought the entire pack with us.
"Damn, bro." Jay said. "It feels good to be clean." He had just gotten out of treatment last week.
I smiled. It felt good to hear him say that. I had been clean for six months or so and I was stoked that we were both clean. We had spent every day together that week -- riding motorcycles, skating, staying up late, talking, smoking... It had been just like old times. As I walked along the windy bank of the Columbia River with him now I wished that the week would never end.
"Straight edge." He said, jumping up onto a picnic table. "Only way to go, bro." I jumped up next to him and a squirrel ran out from under the table. Picking up a pine cone that sat on top of the weathered table, I flung it sidearm after him.
"Did you know that NOFX is a straight edge band?" Jay asked. I shook my head and watched as the squirrel stopped and came back to check out the cone I had chucked at him.
"No." I said. "Never knew that. I love that band though."
I could hear a smile in Jay's voice. "Yeah, we had some great times listening to that band." He said.
"Hell yeah." I said, looking back at my cousin.
"You remember that time we got drunk and went bowling in Seattle?" He said.
"Of course I do." I said. "That was the first time I ever heard them." It was also the first time I had ever been drunk. "You remember that porno with Terri Hatcher that was on TV in the hotel room that night?" I said.
He grinned. "Holy shit, that was classic." He said and we both laughed.
We then started singing our favorite NOFX songs after that. We stood on top of a worn out picnic table, the sun disappearing from the clear sky, the wind creating small tornadoes of garbage and screamed out NOFX at the canyon walls across the river until the boat came back to shore. It was a moment of innocent happiness, a moment that neither of us wanted to end, a moment that I -- and I think Jay too -- will always remember with a smile. But in the end it was only a moment.
Dream (Sometime Between '96-'97)
Life is a cigarette
Cradled in fate's hands.
It is my cigarette,
My fate,
My hands.
Such peace
I find in its breath,
Quieting life,
Awakening beauty,
Reminding me of you.
It whispers to dream,
Dream me alive,
Dream away pain,
Dream you are here,
Just dream.
Death Took Me for a Walk (Sometime Between '94-'95)
Death took me for a walk.
It would not reveal to me where
We were headed, or why.
But then again,
Death never does. As we walked,
Death showed me many things.
I saw a tree
On which hung delicious fruit.
But at it base
Dead grass grew.
I saw a young child laughing
Next to him an old woman in tears.
Where can this be,
I dared to ask.
It cannot be heaven
For a see pain and sadness.
But would hell hold
A young innocent child within?
This is life,
Is what Death said.
It holds within the key
To joy and the key to pain.
It is up to you
Which you will choose.
0 comments:
Post a Comment