(Friday 18JUN2010)
I like the end of the train ride because once you get toward New York the train is so empty that everyone starts talking to each other.
A sixteen year old train-enthusiast talked to me for awhile and I let him play the Nintendo games on my laptop. The woman in front of us kept acting in a hurry, as if this train were so rude to maybe run late, even though it always runs late.
The sixteen year old seemed a little affected, a little in-genuine. I chalked it up to the overall anxiety of teenagers. A man in front of the woman’s seat started arguing with the woman about which side of the train we’d exit once we pulled into the station.
_I’ve been taking this train for many many years, Sir, _ she said, _It’s always this side of the train._
I wondered that I tried so hard socially yet these people --so brusque -- seemed content. Maybe it’s just that I dream more, have some sort of unattainable definition of Real life.
Miraculously, the train got to New York early. I helped the hurried woman with her bags up the escalator, like she’d asked me. Oddly, I saw the arguing man many blocks from the station, as I walked to the hotel, he had no bags, just stood leaning against a newspaper stand, looking at me with recognition but as if he didn’t want me to say anything.
I went to the same all-night diner after checking in. It was deja vue because the same Arab greeted me with a smile of familiarty. I used the same I’m-not-sure-now-the-process-works politeness as last time and asked if I could wait in the nearest booth for my take out. He again waved me to it and acted as if I were a guest in his house he wanted to make sure was absolutely comfortable.
On the way back I stopped at a wine store and got a small bottle of Chardonnay, while wondering if my week of drunkeness might have changed alcohol for me forever.
Alcohol means little now, the game won, and now set aside. The only way it affects me is if I mix them up. But that’s more like getting sick than drunk. Alcohol remains uninteresting. I just wanted to have something other than water or soda with my food.
The hotel is for soldiers so it’s set up uniquely. The staff is hospitable but strict; there is a common room with two big screens, couches, and two internet kiosks; all the latrines are common, as well as the shower rooms, just like a regular military barracks.
There is a kitchen area with counter, tables, and a television, because no food is allowed in the rooms.
Usually the hotel is quiet, almost secretive-like, as if every guest wishes to remain anonymous. This time the kitchen area was full, and shockingly there were young women.
Usually I felt at home at the hotel, as if it were my own home; now I felt invaded; I wore my cap brim low and took a table where I could watch the Mets game, ignoring the party-like atmosphere around me as I ate.
Women my age, in the North and the South, tend to have this way of acting now that turns me off. It’s like they’re trying to emulate the women of Sex and the City, or that older movie Clueless.
They’re the kind of girls who say OMG! a lot. They act affected, like they want you to know they’re acting, as if that makes them cool some how, like those girls who tongue kiss each other in bars in order to attract guys.
The worst is when older women act that way. There’s a lot of that in New York. J__’s daughters all act that way, despite being too old. To me every age is too old to act that way.
I remember when I was a teenager I tried to act less mature so people would stop mistaking me for so much older than I was. It bothered me that I had never been young and I wanted to fight the trend at all cost. Then I met a young guy with a surprisingly deep voice and realized that maturity didn’t make you look older, it was just nice to be around. Afterward I cured myself, at all costs, per usual.
The guys these girls were with also had adopted that affected manner. The best men I’d ever met were soldiers or men matured deeply by working hard labor their whole lives. Those men always attracted the worst women -- women wanting to be rescued, ones always doing financial math in their heads, always looking for a soldier who they could marry or at least one to who could impregnate them.
Supposedly the civilian, educated, blemish-less men attracted the good women -- ones educated, independent, from good families and little internal scarring to run their behavior. But then it turned out those women have chosen the affected, Clueless-meets-Sex-in-the-City way as their manner.
There’s one looking at me right now. She’s at the next table with some friends and the tables are arranged so that we’re facing each other. She has the same cheeky-affected manner, and keeps fixing her hair and looking at me until I look at her in reflex. I know she just wants me to look at her so she can feel that power. I also know that for the past few days people rarely look at my face but my torso instead. I looked in the mirror this morning as I brushed my teeth, trying to find the culprit. It’s the triceps. They’re bulging more than usual, making me look athletic despite not bulging so much to be the obvious culprit. I ignore the young woman. That’s all you can do with vanity.
It takes me awhile to eat and finally the room clears out. I finish the wine over some cucumbers and watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother.
I’ve been watching the show lately because of Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris. He’s this proudly-horrible person who’s friends with this group of New Yorkers because they’re all exceptions to his horribleness.
During the deployment that’s how I perceived K__ was to me, I was the exception to his selfish navigating .. He had to go out of his way to treat me correctly, so it made it that much more legitimate.
I’m like that, too. I watched a Clint Eastwood movie called The Outlaw Josey Walkes. (Ever since I Remembered I’ve gotten into old Clint Eastwood movies. It’s just as sudden as my supposedly new interest in sports.) In it he says something like: In the end, you got to be meaner than mean. That’s how you’ll win in a fight. By being the meanest.
In the end that’s how I feel. That’s how Michael Corleone felt. (The Godfather II suddenly became my favorite film shortly after I Remembered.) He felt the world required meanness. You did it out of love of family, out of love for the ones you considered your exceptions. Fitting, my Sicilian heritage being the ruin of me, same as it was for the Sicilians. The trauma of having been honorable.
This particular episode of How I Met Your Mother involved the main character breaking his friendship with Barney, because Barney had betrayed him. Barney regretted it deeply but it didn’t matter to the friend. _You know, Barney,_ he said, _I’ve always known you were a horrible person. But the reason we’ve been bros is because I always thought I was the exception._
The main character said things to Barney I’ve always wanted to say to K__, and lately to House, even though I identify and am most similar to Barney.
__________
(Saturday 19JUN2010)
.. Vivid dreams, probably due to the wine, set in the Walmart I used to work at .. a confusing array of people from my past, as coworkers and customers, along with a few people out of TV and films .. The dream seemed to be highlighting the fact that I was now unemployed.
When it came to the GI Bill and college I’d allowed myself to become the oncoming train I essentially am: Ignoring the understandable fears and risks implied. The dream seemed to want me aware of the fears and risks, and sense I was dreaming I couldn’t help but become aware of the feelings.
When I woke, a little jarred by the dream, I still refused to give the fears and risks any legitimacy. I just can’t. I have no choice but to enact the plan, regardless. I have no choice but to succeed, so the fears and risks don’t matter.
__________
I called Adam. We had deployed together and spent a few long days as fellow dismounts. He was a skinny twenty seven year old who would easily pass for nineteen. He had a wife and young boy and was one of the funniest people I’d known.
Over face book we had agreed that the next time I was in New York I’d hit him up, since he lived an hour away in New Jersey.
_This might seem an off the subject question,_ he said, ‘But do you burn?_
_Very much, yes._ I answered, understanding that I had just made myself out to be more experienced than I actually was. You’ll be okay, I silently told myself.
He got excited and said none of his other friends from deployment smoked which I was surprised by. I thought by smoking I had entered the majority, not the minority.
I told him how I had three days in New York and only two things to do -- Red, and the Mets/Yankees game. He was a Yankees fan and said it was easy to scalp tickets. He got more excited and I eased. _I can’t wait till my wife gets home,_ he said. _I’m gonna tell her: honey, I’m gonna be gone for two days._ And he laughed. He said he had to make a few calls but that he knew he could acquired all the weed we needed, including enough for me to take home.
So I had my first weed contact, I thought to myself. Before, I’d felt like the only person in the world who had no idea how to acquire weed.
A plan vaguely formed in my mind of regular trips to New York where I’d also acquired an ounce or so for home. During all my traveling no one had ever checked my bags.
I felt relieved because the original plan for the weekend had been to be high on weed the whole time, to experience New York that way, to experience Red that way, and the baseball game.
The plan for being unemployed was to stay stoned on a pretty much permanent basis until the rewiring was complete and I was back healed again. But all had fallen through. Mike, the community service worker I’d met and who’d talked to me at length all that work day seemed preoccupied. And Murc__ from deployment said he could help me but also said: _I mean, I don’t smoke._ So it had seemed unpromising.
Adam said he’d call me back around six with a proper plan. He said maybe I’d manage to be lit before I went to see Red after all.
Is this the universe agreeing with me that weed was the correct path to healing my body back to twenty seven years old?
I won’t be flippant with the high, I promised myself. I’ll write and I’ll learn even to the point of memorization. I will do it, I’ll learn what it’s like to not be in pain, to be happy, then I’ll sustain it, weed or no weed, somehow someway, no matter what, at all costs.
Watch, b, I can do it. No matter all the flashbacks, the jarring switching from Boy’s perception to Him’s. I’ll stay cool, no matter the violence of the memories. Adam won’t notice. I’ll work that hard, try that hard, be that focused, present, you’ll see.
__________
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