The Willow Tree

There is a certain time of year in New England when all of a sudden the trees are all on fire, which you notice while you’re walking between two destinations that probably don’t mean much to you. The trees are just on fire and so is your soul, and the weather is getting colder and trying to put all the fire out with it’s damp chill. It’s the best time of year to take a walk for no reason, but no one has the time. There is always too much to do and denail about the onset of winter and a girl in your life that you should be paying more attention to you. This part of the year, deep autumn if you will, is so fleeting and fragile that there are some years when you won’t notice at all, and many more when you will almost miss it. The fire can’t be held on to, but it can be admired and felt and used while it’s still there.

It was exactly this time of year when we sat under the willow tree in front of our dormitory on a Thursday afternoon and smoked a joint while we talked about life. It was warm out for deep autumn, but the wind blew a steady breeze that felt amazing in your hair and made it okay to wear a sweatshirt. The leaves of the willow were turning red and orange all around us, and the smoke drifted up through them towards the sky and it looked mezmerizing.

“Voting for McCain makes no fucking sense,” I said to no one in particular while staring up into the tree.

“Ya, no shit,” Nicole answered. “Anyone’s better than Bush though, at least we know that.” Dan was busy climbing up into the tree while Mike chased him and Sully looked on laughing. I thought about how much I hated the President, and how there probably wouldn’t ever really be a good President given the way things were going now. Everything was a mess, and we were all stoned and Dan was up in the tree again.

I flipped my hood up and enjoyed that it was still light out. The light was catching the leaves and made us look like we were all on fire inside the tree. The willow tree would lose all its leaves a few weeks later, and we wouldn’t really smoke there or sit there much anymore because then anyone could see you and it wasn’t just a secret place where you talked about how awful the world was. We liked it like that, or at least I did. I think Dan just liked to climb, and Mike liked to try and be better at things than Dan. Sully probably liked just about anything and was always happy, and Nicole just wanted to be with Sully and get stoned. Those might be the real reasons, but it really felt like we loved that tree when it started losing its leaves in November.

I wanted to bring up the Red Sox, but I realized that no one would have cared really because Fitzy wasn’t there. This meant that I had run out of things to talk about that weren’t either about sports or completely depressing and disturbing (like religion or television). Dan decided right then that it was time to jump out of the tree and say the smartest thing anyone has ever said.

“We should go grab dinner from Wakehurst, they usually have good food on Thursdays.”

“I’m in,” Sully responded.

“Let’s go,” gasped Mike as he struggled down from the tree.

Off the Clock

Donyell was a well groomed twenty two year old store clerk at the Friendly Mini Market. He was always on time and his clean cut appearance made him a favorite among the assortment of misfits who worked at the store, both with customers and management. He had started working there at sixteen because it was easy and in his neighborhood, but after his failed attempts at higher education it seemed he was now working his way towards the position of Assistant Manager.

All of that was pretty irrelevant at the moment, however, because it was ten fifty-five on a Monday night and his shift was about to end. All he was waiting for was Barry, the scruffy over night clerk who always reeked of Lucky Strikes. A middle aged woman walked up to the counter and stared up at Donyell from under her frazzled orange hair. Donyell knew this lady as “Loony Liz”, and he had seen her riding around town on her ancient bicycle with a milk crate on the front that was usually full of empty redeemable cans and bottles or one of the scraggly looking stray cats that populated the Beachfront neighborhood. Loony Liz pulled a stack of scratch tickets out from her huge black fur coat (which would have undoubtedly cost a fortune had she actually purchased it) and plopped them down on the counter. Donyell stared at the stack for a minute; they looked damp. Her crackly voice started up: “I think there are some winners in there.” Donyell picked through the tickets, some of which were as much as three years old. All in all, out of eighteen tickets, Loony Liz had five winners. They paid out a total of eleven dollars. She walked out of the store singing, hopped on her bicycle and rode over to the nearest trash can, which was in the center of the parking lot. She began to dig for aluminum and glass; Donyell figured she didn’t plan on making the eleven dollars last too long if she was already back to work.

Barry then emerged from the back room with a paranoid look on his face as usual and smelling worse than normal. He had his uniform vest slung over his shoulders and his glasses were nearly falling off his unkempt face. “Shows over boss, you can head out,” he said, trying too hard to seem “chill” and “cool”. Donyell nodded and said “Have a good one, bud. The crazies are out tonight.” He picked up his messenger bag and walked out the front door, past Loony Liz and her bicycle full of recyclables, down the dark street and towards the peer and the ancient amusement park that defined Salisbury Beach.

He slunk into the beachfront public bathroom, which was empty at this time of night most times. Occasionally a man in a business suit, inevitably on a cocaine binge, would be using the urinal, but otherwise Donyell was always left in peace. Once in the stall with the door locked, Donyell began his transformation. The mild mannered store clerk became a glamorous drag version of the Tooth Fairy within minutes. His tiara fit over his short mulatto hair, and his dark muscular legs sprang out from his tutu. He held a wand with pink translucent streamers, and prepared to walk down the strip in his high heels like he owned the whole beach.

Donyell emerged from the bathroom, lit up a Virginia Slim cigarette and began to strut down to the pier. He walked through the broken gate of the amusement park that had closer two hours before and past the two alcoholic homeless men who sat against the fence and next to the merry-go-round. He danced to the music in his head under the neon lights as he approached the group of fishermen who sat on the pier every night and waited for the best drag queen meth dealer in town. He walked through the group of Portuguese immigrants, old local sailors and former high school football stars and collected money for his grown up version of rock candy. One old salt named Doug McLaughlin would give him fresh fish every week for his girlfriend Cindy to make for dinner on Tuesdays. Donyell just told her he got them from a friend at work, which was as close to the truth as he could get with her. “Much better than last week,” grunted Doug as Donyell dolled over his fifteen dollar rock of heaven. “Atlantic Cod. No more herring for you and your girl.” Donyell smiled coyly and simply replied “Thank you, Mr. Doug. Have a good night now.”

He continued on his sales route, dispensing drugs to off duty cops and out of work bartenders, until three forty five A.M. His last call was spent with his back against The Pavilion while he whistled a cheery melody for the dark and grungy world around him. A little music made everything about his own life seem less fucked up; the women’s clothing, the crystal meth he distributed for his parents, the girlfriend with an eating disorder and the dead end job at a convenience store that he dreamed of one day blowing up with a fertilizer bomb he’d build with his younger brother in their basement.

After the last of the junkies had approached him at his regular closing spot, Donyell stomped back towards the pier bathroom on sore feet, hoping that he didn’t walk in on one of his customers overdosing or soliciting prostitution for another hit. These weren’t common occurrences, but they could never be ruled out and Donyell dreaded those moments above all others…except for the moment when he walked in the door at Friendly Mini Market everyday.

The Tarantula Hawk

On Thursday Chris Whynock’s boss, Dan Smolinsky, told him he was doing a great job. Chris drove home, hit a Bar & Grille on the way, and told the bartender what a good week he was having. “Great fuckin’ week,” he said. After a few beers and a nice steak, he drove home and went to bed with a smile on his face, excited for his early morning bike ride and the weekend he had earned by doing a “great job” at work.

On Friday, Chris got the letter at lunch time, dressed up with Horizon Technologies letterhead, and full of words like “regret” and “apologize”. He read it over seven times in ten minutes, but it didn’t change. A financial death sentence; so much for doing a great job. This is fucked up, Chris thought. Nothing could be more fucked up than this.

That afternoon he cleaned out his desk and removed his inspirational images from the side of his cubicle, most of which were clippings from Cycling magazine. He was escorted out of the building at 2:30 with everyone watching. At least Fridays were short days.

On the way home in his dark blue, way-too-expensive Nissan Altima, he untied his tie and threw it out of the car on the interstate; a gift for Silicon Valley.

A car followed him to the bar that night, an old beat up Buick with one missing hubcap.

As Chris sat at the bar that night, he told the bartender about his day. “That’s fucked up,” Chris said, “name one thing more fucked up than that.” Listening from across the bar was a man that Chris had never spoken too. Jesse had worked with Chris at Horizon Technologies for months, and on that Friday evening, Jesse still had his job. He was a quiet, intelligent man who was easily fascinated by anything pecuilar, from people to insects. He ordered a soda water with lime and garden salad. He listened to every word of Chris’ story.

That night, Chris called his friends and told them about what had happened while drinking and watching the Padres play the Dodgers on his flatscreen television. Jesse tried to forget about Chris’ story and researched political uprisings in East Africa on the internet.

On Saturday, Chris sulked. Around two he went for a twenty minute bike ride. Jesse cooked himself a healthy dinner and ate it while watching the Discovery Channel. There was a nature show on. The tarantula hawk, a wasp who paralyzes tarantulas by laying eggs inside it, was spotlighted. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the tarantula from the inside. That, Jesse thought, is fucked up. I don’t know what could be more fucked up than that.

On Sunday, Chris went for a long ride along the coast, and then drank. Jesse went to Borders to read more about the tarantula hawk. While flipping through an issue of National Geographic, he briefly recalled Chris’s story from the bar on Friday night.

On Monday, Chris scoured the internet for job openings and went for a bike ride, the best ride he’d had in months. Jesse went to work.

By Wednesday, Chris had two interviews lined up for Thursday, and went to bed early that night. Jesse checked out two reference books from the library that had articles about the tarantula hawk and stayed up reading as usual.

At noon on Thursday, Chris finished the second interview of that day. He had done great in both, and was excited to see where this new career path would take him. He went for an especially tough bike ride and drank a glass of wine instead of several beers that night.

At around 1:30 that day, Dan Smolinsky spoke to Jesse for only the third time in two years. Smolinsky told Jesse that he "was doing a great job”. Jesse lay awake that night, thinking about the tarantula hawk.

On Friday, Chris was hired as a software engineer at a progressive San Francisco technology firm. He wasn’t required to shave the goatee he loved so much, which he had been forced to do at Horizon. Short sleeve polo shirts were acceptable attire at this new job.

Jesse went to work at Horizon Technologies, and was half an hour early as always. At around 10:00am, the dynamite strapped to his body began to make him uncomfortable under his long sleeve button up.

At 11:28, Jesse thought of the tarantula hawk.

At 11:32, he walked into Smolinsky’s office.

The Truth About Nostalgia

Sometimes the dilemma and the therapy are the same thing. Sometimes the problem is that you just want to lie in bed, listening to songs that remind you of past times. Not necessarily better times, just times that you won’t ever get back again; things you are no longer capable of seeing or feeling or living because they are now the past. Ironically, you spend this time reminiscing about the very path that you got you to where you are now, and these memories you dwell on were accomplished by living in the moment. Rarely do we remember a night laying in bed with Broken Social Scene and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! playing, but often do we spend nights like this thinking about the first time we heard “Cause=Time” in the backroom of Mike Morrissey’s house in high school after getting stoned for one of the first times. The only cure is to ride the wave, so to speak. Go with the memories for as long as you need to and once you’re nostalgia has passed, you’ll be more than ready to live your life again. That’s not to say that you should ever forget about listening to “Tidal Wave” while driving on the first perfect day of summer with three of your best friends on the way to Mill Pond to jump off the ropeswing…you just shouldn’t spend all your time thinking about how that ropeswings cut down now and the three of you haven’t been in a car together for years.

Everyone dwells on some memories; this comes from having experienced any events that were more important to you than you realized at the time. You never realize in the moment how important those small memories will become to you, and even when they’ve become so important there is no “why”. They just are, and you spend little time questioning it. They are there, in part, to remind you of the beauty of life and the moments when you felt the most “alive”. Never again will I be able to feel so purely 16 as I did during the moments I lived at age 16, but listening to the songs again can make me feel close. Is that something to aspire to? No. Something to be ashamed of? Even more certainly no.