"Random Hookup": Book excerpt #3

This piece chronicles the “morning after” a random hookup with a girl I had met at a party. She was someone I would not usually be into but, well, we’ve all been there. I was also in the early stages of my cocaine use and didn’t fully understand it’s harmful effects…in more ways than one.

Enjoy!


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The next day I woke up to a very strange noise. All I heard was something like “beeesh-zoooot-beeeesh-zoooot”. It was like some kind of cyborg breathing, yet with a gurgling too. At first I thought the toilet was backed up and making odd sounds. Maybe it was my stomach because after a night of boozing I am usually famished by morning, that is if I don’t stop somewhere to get a late night burrito or pizza slice. Which I didn’t.

I then realized I was laying next to a naked girl I barely knew. Looking over at her, I made a startling discovery.

Nicole had that aviator mask thing on her face and the machine was activated. I could see the little pumps I thought was the reel to reel tapes bopping up and down. She was on her back, chest exposed, while the other half was under her stark white sheet, with this mask on her making her look like some kind of Sex Vader. I shot up and surveyed the scene.

First thing I noted was that I wasn’t turned on. If some random girl wearing a breathing apparatus with her boobs out made me tingly in any way I would make an appointment with a therapist. But it didn’t. Actually, if the mask was a full blown Darth style I might be inclined to mount her and do my business. But the sound of the machine, that sloshing, compressed air sound, made me a little queasy. So I looked around her room, found my undershirt, shorts, shirt and hoodie, gathered them up and began to look for my shoes and socks. That’s when she woke up.

“Good morning,” she said completely muffled by the mask and whooshing sounds. I could barely make out what she was saying.

“Uh, hi,” I said holding my clothes in a tight ball. “Morning. I uh... Ready for breakfast?”

Nicole then took of the mask and turned the machine off.

“Are you freaked out by this?” she asked. By my deer caught in the headlights expression and stance it was apparent that I was. “Sorry. I have sleep apnea. It’s either this or I don’t breath at night.”

“Uh huh,” I said.

“Whatever. You think I’m a freak.”

“No. It’s cool. I just...I’ve never seen anything like that,” I said. “My dad’s husband has sleep apnea and he...”

“Your dad’s gay?” she said sounding a little perturbed.

“Uh, yeah. They both are.”

“That’s weird.”

I always found it funny that people that live in San Francisco can still be homophobic. I’ve come across it so many times and it still makes me scratch my head and think ‘why don’t you move to Kansas or something?’ They live in the gayest city in the world with a famous gay district making it the Gay Vortex for all other things that are labeled “gay”. San Francisco is queen of Homo Mountian. Stand proud

It was then that I noticed something on the ground. My bag of blow had fallen out and was sitting in the middle of the floor. Nicole got up, put on a big tee shirt, a long one with Tweety bird on it for craps sake, and started toward the door. She walked by me, tickled my tummy and yawned off to the bathroom. The whole time I moved my body so that she wouldn’t see the bag. When she as gone I quickly retrieved it and stuffed it in my wallet. I then got dressed, found my socks and shoes, which were scattered all over the room, without a clue how that happened, and put them on.

When Nicole came back I was tying my shoe.

“You’re in a big hurry huh?” she said. “I thought maybe we could have another quicky before we go out.”

Actually, the last thing on my mind right then was sex. I was hungover, the coke had made me feel chemically dazed and, to be honest with you, I was a little turned off by the whole breathing mask thing and the whole situation.

“I, uh...don’t have another condom,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t used one when we sort of did it. That made me nervous too.

“That’s okay,” she said opening up a drawer on her night stand. “I’ve come prepared.” She lifted out a long row of condoms and wore a sinister smile.

“Can I take a raincheck?” I said. “I didn’t realize how late it was. I have to be at work in an hour.”

She put the condoms back in the drawer. “That’s fine,” she said. “What about breakfast?”

“I don’t think we’ll have time.”

“Whatever.”

Sensing that she was a little upset with me I tried to make some light conversation.

“I see you’re into Mariah Carey,” I said.

“Fuck yeah,” Nicole said with all seriousness. “Mimi is the bomb yo.”

“Yeah,” I uttered. “I had this poster of Lita Ford when I was a kid on the ceiling above my bed. You know, the one where she’s topless, looking at you over her shoulder, in uber tight leather pants and holding that white pointy guitar with fog in the background? It was awesome.”

“Who’s Lita Ford?” she asked.

“I gotta go.”

I didn’t have to work that day but I needed to split. We kissed goodbye, exchanged numbers and I left. It was late afternoon on a Friday so I walked up to the 540, ordered a Bloody Mary, drank it while talking to the daytime bartender Richie who called me a cab when I was finished. I went back to the apartment to find camera equipment all over the place.

“What the heck is going on?” I asked.

There was a bunch of people I didn’t know scurrying around the place. There was a big digital camera pointed down the hall, with lights, flags, cables on the ground and Khamish coming out of his room.

“Is this okay,” he asked. “We need a quick scene of a girl coming out of a bedroom. I didn’t know when you were coming home so...is this okay?”

I actually didn’t care at all. Khamish was never around and for that I rewarded him with letting his film crew do some shooting in the place. Turns out he wanted the girl coming out Amanda’s bedroom, looking distressed, and then walking past the camera.

“That’s it,” he said. “We’ll be done in a few hours.”

“That’s cool man,” I said. “I’ll go catch a movie or something. What’s playing?”

Most of the crew just shrugged. But they took a half hour break to let me shower, change and get my stuff together. I needed to see some big dumb movies anyway. My brain had turned to mush.

Book excerpt #2: "Crazy boss"

When I moved back to San Francisco I needed a job...fast. Then I met "Jack".

Enjoy...

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The phone rang much too early. I heard the digital bleeping from Amanda’s phone in my dream, which cut through some kind of action involving Charo and a roller disco contest. Sometimes I wish I just had falling, flying or sex dreams. Mine usually involve characters from the pop culture vault and some kind of forgotten fad in a cartoonish landscape. Come to think of it, I’ve always liked my dreams.

The phone lay on the night stand, which was still cluttered with some of Amanda’s stuff. Cleaning and organizing her place had proven to be a serious undertaking. I don’t think she threw anything away. I mean, what’s with all the boots and vibrators?

After half blindly reaching for the phone, I let out a groggy, “Hello?”

There was a pause. If nobody answers me within 5 seconds, for the most part, I just hang up, figuring it to be some kind of salesman or telemarketer that can’t pronounce my last name. I usually get a “Hello, Mister Whit...Wha...Whit-takker?” Because there are 2 T’s in my last name it always throws people off. Guys like Forest Whitaker are lucky. One T in then name gets it pronounced correctly. Two and I sound like I have some kind of stuttering inducing sur name, which is good because only people I care to speak to know how to pronounce it. Otherwise, phones are the devil.

“Yes,” said a guttural and stammering mans voice, “is this Mark Whit-takk-er?”

“Oh jeeze,” I said. “I knew it. What are you trying to sell me? If it’s not some coffee or aspirin then go die.”

Another pause. Just as I was about to hang up the man came back.

“My name is Jack Roth and I’m the owner of Bill’s bar. You, uh, submitted a resume?”

I shot up and cleared my throat.

“Oh yes, hello mister Roth. Thanks for calling me back. I, um...”

“Yes I realize that’s it’s early,” he said sounding as if he didn’t care that I told him to go die, “but I was wondering if you could come in today for an interview?”

“Oh. Today? Uh, yeah, sure. No problem. What, uh, what time is good for you?”

“Let’s say after lunch,” said Mr. Roth with a weird sputter in his voice. “You can’t come anytime before or during lunch because we get busy. And I need to be here and ready if anything gets out of hand. Understand?”

This guy sounded wacko. But, according to Hal, the owner was indeed a nut job. It didn’t matter, I definitely needed some kind of income coming in. So I gave him a “yes, of course I understand.”

“Good. Let’s say 2 o’clock. Is that good for you?”

I looked at the clock which read 9:45. “Yeah, that’s perfect. I’ll be there at two.”

“Oh and if you have any references please bring them,” he said sounding a bit irked. “You forgot to include them on this, well...what’s the word I’m looking for here? Interesting resume.”

He then let out a weird breathy laugh. Not really knowing what to do I just laughed right along.

“Ha ha,” I said. “Yeah, well, no problem. I have references. In fact, I have...”

“Have you ever bartended before?” he interrupted.

“Um, yeah...I...”

“Good. We can talk about that when you come in.”

Click.

I sat there in bed holding the phone for a while. Slowly I set the receiver down and wondered what just happened. Coming back to San Francisco and taking care of an estranged girlfriends apartment is one thing. Possibly bartending in a huge ghost ship of a place with Captain Crazy Britches at the helm really began to worry me. So I just laid back down and tried to go back to sleep, which never came.

About ten minutes to 2:00 I strolled into Bill’s. The place was deserted except for a few grubby guys at the bar sucking down light beers and watching some kind of sport on that ancient television. The bartender on duty was an attractive thin blonde girl who looked totally out of place here. Hal was alright, a bit young, but better suited to serve smelly beer guzzlers in a spooky wharf side establishment than a good looking blonde in a clean white tank top. Maybe I had this place figured out all wrong. There must be an undercurrent of cash and coolness that I just wasn’t picking up on.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a strange accent. British, I wondered. Australian? Jersey?

“Yeah, my name is Mark I have an interview with Jack.”

“Oh right,” she said coming around the bar. “My name is Mindy.” She stuck out her right hand which I shook. She had a stronger grip than I did. “Jack is right inside there.”

She pointed to a door directly under the TV and to the left of the bar. Mindy walked up and knocked on it. I heard a muffled “What?” to which she opened the door and told him I was here. Mindy then gestured for me to go inside, which I did.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the crazy guy in the corner talking about broken glass was the owner. That both totally amused me and sent me almost running away screaming at the same time.

“Come in,” he grumbled. “Sit down.”

His office was no bigger than a broom closet and just as cluttered. Shelves on either side of his muddled desk with a smaller, black and white TV on it showing the exact same game as in the main bar, was crammed with all sorts of old bar taps, tools, holiday decorations, invoices, pest control cans, whatnots, gewgaws, this and that and a coffee mug that said “I’m so horny even the crack of dawn looks good.” Looking around I saw that there was no place to sit, except for an old milk crate which he gestured toward and I hunkered down on. It smelled too, like a combination of stale work boot and old man fart. Mindy shut the door behind me and I felt as if she had sealed my coffin.

“So, tell me a little about yourself,” Jack said. He had this rumbling voice that indicated a combination of age, madness, alcohol abuse and yelling at the television when his team fumbled a ball. Plus his eyes were sunken, yellow and appeared to be leaking a bit. He was unshaven, he had a huge gut protruding from a cheap flannel under a puffy work vest. Even sitting down I could see that he was extremely tall. Jack frightened me. Almost as much as being broke.

“Well, let’s see,” I began. “I just moved back from Palm Springs...”

“What the hell were you doing there?” he demanded.

“Um, well, I was living with my dad and writing for this local paper.”

“Is that what you do,” he asked almost inquisitory. “You a writer?”

“Well, sort of, I’m also a DJ...”

“Says here you write a lot,” Jack said picking up my resume that was perched to his left. “I don’t need a goddam writer. What I need is a bartender.”

Before walking down to Bill’s I had made a quicky bar resume with some “references”. Basically the few restaurants and one bar I worked at briefly became year long endeavors and the references were Jose and Kevin and a few made up ones with fake phone numbers. If this guy actually calls any of my references I’d be shocked. But, you never know. By the look of it, Jack was just wacky enough to do so. And probably in the middle of the night. So I gave him some speech about how my “writing gigs” were in-between my real jobs, which were being a server and bartender, as I handed him the new resume.

“Why the hell didn’t you hand this one to me in the first place?”

He had a good question and, in a way, he got me. I then came up with a quick and brilliant explanation which involved me just coming back from an interview with a publishing house down the street and, you know, they might offer me a job so better nab me up quick buddy.

“What publishing house?” he asked, again, sounding totally incriminating.

“Uh, Fields & Cohen,” I said. For some reason Mindy Cohen and Kim Fields of “Facts of Life” came to mind. Maybe it was because the bartender was named Mindy. Maybe it was due to the fact that I always had a crush on Jo. Then why not call it “Polniaczek Press”? I couldn’t figure out either of them.

“Never heard of it,” Jack said.

“It’s small. It’s...new.”

“Here’s the thing,” he started, adjusting his lumbering body in a squeaky chair holding on for dear life, “the outside bar is getting more popular. They got bands and singers and all sorts of acts on that new stage of theirs outside. Have you seen the stage yet?”

“Oh yes,” I said trying to get an angle in. “In fact, that’s how I...”

“Good, because I can’t have a one bartender doing both bars. It’s...it’s just not possible. They just can’t. This place is too big. Have...have you seen this place?”

“Yes, I...”

“It’s just not possible.”

I sat there nodding holding back tears and giggles while at the same time trying not to breath through my nose. What were those other smells? Embalming fluid? Forgotten underwear left for dead under heaping mounds of boxes filled with staining account statements from the Carter administration? Or was it just Jack? He looked like a man that would forget to bathe after giving himself several beer ties and swallowing a slat of chili cheese dogs. Whatever it was it was thick and grim and I wished that Mindy would come back and open the door to release some of the heavy old guy musk stench. But she never did.

“Well,” I began waiting to be interrupted again. “Uh...I’m available. I live right up the street and can...”

“You live right up the street?” Jack almost shouted in surprise. “Where?”

“Columbus and Union.”

“When can you start?”

Jack and I settled on the day after to get me trained and acclimated to the place. As I walked back up Columbus to the apartment I felt a twinge of fear enter my body. I don’t know why, but it felt as if I had sold my soul in some weird way. Then I kept repeating to myself “Its just a job, it’s only temporary” and that seemed to calm me a little. If anything I would walk away with a new experience and some stories. I already knew I could write a whole novella on just Jack alone. That guy was a mess. What threw me off was why he agreed to hire me on the fact that I lived just up the street. That gave me pause and made me shudder a bit.

When I got back to the apartment I saw Khamish walking out of his room. He had the turban, along with an expensive looking tee shirt, some super stiff and hip jeans on and holding onto an expensive looking laptop computer.

“Oh hi.” he said. “I’m just on my way out.”

“I’m just coming in,” I said meeting him midway through the hall.

“Well...see ya,” he said leaving in a hurry.

“Yeah. Okay. See ya.”

Khamish closed the door behind him and was gone. I then found it weird to be living in a place where a guy like Khamish came and went as he pleased. It wasn’t the turban or Hindu thing, far from it. I just found it odd that someone actually did in fact “live” in a tiny room right next to me. Someone that I never saw. Sure I had room mates before, lots of them, but usually I either knew them or I saw them on a regular basis.

Life was becoming quite psychedelic at this point.

Prologue: "Rabbit Every Tuesday"

My idea is to post random sections of my first book "Rabbit Every Tuesday" to get you all going and interested. This is the first few pages, the prologue, before any real action takes place.

Enjoy!


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Prologue



“Come all ye losers don’t you know you’re the children of life?
Follow me now and we can burn down the pillars of time ”
- High On Fire, Hung, Drawn and Quartered




When I woke up I realized I was still in Palm Springs. The ceiling fan was the first clue. Plus I was wrapped up under the heavy quilted bedspread my Dads always favored. Even in a place that reaches 120+ degrees these guys still insist on Arctic ready covers.

My Dad’s house has a specific smell too. The Freon scent from the constantly working central air, mixed with cabinets of antique curios and furniture from musty estate sales houses, combined with a coffee maker always on and sometimes burned and my real Dad having to smoke outside that, still, somehow manages to leak through closed patio doors makes for a familiar yet totally unfamiliar smell. I don’t own many antiques. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. And my old life back in San Francisco only required the occasional use of a fan. Still, this was home #2 so to speak.

The carpeting is strange too, almost like the floor covering you find in offices. Utilitarian I think they call it. They used to have a small dog, a skiperdee, Lily, but she died a few years back so the non-shaggy “carpet” that helped her move around easily and didn’t leave any traces of that soft black fur she had is a curious addition. My eyes still thick with sleep crust squints a bit as I twist the dark brown bamboo looking stick to open the sun shadowing blinds. These things make the room almost pitch black when in operation. Many a day I have taken a nap, usually from the heat or after a few afternoon cocktails, and have woken up thinking it was midnight; only to discover it was barely dinner time. I guess when you’re retired gay men living in the desert you want very little reminder that the sun bleaches out almost anything it burns on. Even Edwardian bureaus and relics from elegant pomposity past.

The room I was staying in is my Dad’s room. My real dad. He was married once, back in the early 70s, to my mom, obviously, when being an out of the closet homosexual wasn’t so revered an accepted as it is now. He came out to me when I was 13, which freaked me out to no degree but then when I got involved with community theater and realized almost everyone is gay in one way or another I relaxed and just let it be. He is my Dad for craps sake. How many Star Wars toys and video game systems did this guy get me for Christmas and birthdays? C’mon.

His room is actually separate from the rest of the house which is nice. First off, it is filled with posters and artifacts from B-movies of the 50s and 60s. Images of bridge eating dinosaurs from movies like Reptilicus and 3-D glasses with the words House Of Wax on them fill the counter tops and walls of his room. Plus his tiny personal stereo is always equipped with CDs of new wave classics so many a night, after many a beer, I have put on the headphones and blasted away one hit wonders like The Vapors, Wall of Voodoo, Bow Wow Wow, Icicle Works, etc. It’s almost a room that I would have if I were gay, retired and living in Palm Springs. Which is odd to think about.
Second, his room is way down the hall, a few clicks from Dad #2's room, next to the bathroom with patio accessibility. Dad 2 has a finely decorated yet kind of sterile room with the only item of quirky flair is a large cardboard cutout of Joe Montana, a longtime object of lust for him, standing proud and toothy behind the door. The separate rooms came a while back, actually when they moved into this place from their old humongous pad in Monterey, CA, as they both snore and have completely different sleeping patterns. My Dad gets up at like 5 am, everyday, has some coffee, smokes, reads the paper, then goes back to bed at around 7 or 8 only to get up a few hours later. Dad 2, who has sleep apnea, that horrible “are you dead from not breathing?” snoring, gets up at 7 am sharp and stays awake only to complain that he’s tired for most of the day. They are complete opposites that have found and need each other. Plus my Dad is a skinny little short guy who was a wild artist actor hippie married once and had a kid. Dad 2 stretches over 6 ½ feet and practiced medicine and was a socialite and medical board member for years. Never been married, always been outspoken about his sexuality. They are two in-proportioned peas in a happy pod of two different worlds.

Eventually I emerged from the room and headed for the kitchen. A check from the ornate and supposedly owned by W. Randolph Hearst grandfather clock said it’s just past 10 am. I could hear the TV babbling on in the den and smell the coffee, half charred, but always a welcome treat.

“Good morning ” my dad yells from across the room. I hear canned laughter so I know he’s wither watching Will and Grace or Becker. “Nice of you to join us.”

My Dad actually buys decent coffee. He used to be a specific Folgers with that flavor crystals crap drinker but after Oprah praised the taste and company of Peet’s Coffee he’s been hooked. Funny thing is I actually worked as a barista for Peet’s many years ago, right after I had quit doing film production. It was honestly an awesome job and I always brought bags of the stuff when I visited back then. “It’s too strong” he would say. Now look at him.

I joined my Dad in the tight quarters known as the TV room. It’s equipped with two expensive leather recliners, a TV the size of most multi-plex movie screens, surround sound and, of course, antique lamps and tables. Something that I have adopted from my Dad’s home life is the use of ambient light. These guys live in almost relative darkness, using amber lights and hidden light sources to make the house look even more like a show room at night. That or an old movie house which is what my dad is going for. As you sit on one of the recliners you are treated to a widescreen TV that is so immense and close the foot rest that pops out and up could almost hit it. I sit in Dad 2's chair and am treated to, I knew it, Will and Grace with Debra Messing near enough that her boobs actually look sort of big.

“How’d you sleep?” my dad asked.

“Good. I had some dream that Gary Coleman was my boss and he wanted me to carry a big bag of animal fat across the street to some house that involved Mexican gangs and pornography. I wasn’t wearing any pants, as usual, so I don’t know if I was the star of the movie, like some weird fetish thing involving animal blubber, or I was being jumped into some gang but in a kinky way. Either or it was cool to see Gary Coleman.”

“Uh huh,” he uttered, only half listening as the antics of Jack and Karen were taking precedence. “Well...you always did have bizarre dreams.”

It was true. And voices too. Not bad ones that seem to always say “Kill the president’s dog” but more along the lines of wouldn’t a picnic be good right now...who needs this job...go outside...put on a puppet show...Slayer rules. The “voices” are one of the main reasons I never got into drugs. I couldn’t imagine them being any louder or actually taking shape. Beer always seemed to keep them at bay though.

“How’s the book coming along?” he asks.

“Umm...okay. Good. Actually, no. I hate it. It’s going in a weird direction.”

“Uh huh.”
Again, Jack and Karen, this time with Harry Connick Jr. Something involving white wine spritzers or whatever. My Dad erupts in laughter.
When I moved here a few weeks back I told myself I would try to write an actual book. For years I had been a contributing writer for a dozen or so underground and heavy metal magazines. It started as a fluke, a favor for a friend really who had become an editor for a small magazine based out of Chico, CA that seemingly blossomed during that whole ‘dot com’ boom of the late 90s. I still penned for a few, mainly the big glossy metal mags like Metal Rage, Mosh and Terror Reign, but I wanted to see if I could actually be a “real” writer. I had started an almost fictional tale of my experiences with all of the random jobs I had worked throughout the years. The book, almost 100 pages in, had U-turned into a blathering mockery of not only the English language but of my own life. I didn’t tell him it had been three days since last I opened the file marked “Das Book” and typed. I really didn’t know what I was doing at this point.

As we sat there watching back to back episodes of Will and Grace I sipped strong burnt coffee sifting through the vapid and conservative Palm Spring’s Sun Times listening to my dad laugh and make idle conversation, the phone rang. My dad got up, walked into the kitchen where the cordless phone lay charging and answered. It was a commercial and my dad always muted the commercials, so I could hear him talking.

“Hello?...Oh yes...hello Amanda...how are you?...that’s good, that’s good...uh-huh...oh really?...oh ...oh, okay...well he’s finally awake and sitting right here....hold on.”

My dad walks into the TV room cupping the receiver and boldly mouthing the word “Amanda” as he hands it to me. Amanda was my sort of girlfriend I had left behind in San Francisco. We talked here and there, emailed often enough and sometimes even phone sexed when the mood hit. Things had taken a left turn for me back in San Francisco, my home for almost 10 years, and when the opportunity to stay with my Dad as Dad #2 was off taking care of ailing friends in Nevada, I put stuff in storage and drove all day with my necessities in the back of the truck to hang out with my father and try to become a novelist. I wasn’t sure what I should do next or where I should actually be. But Amanda was always a welcoming voice.

“Hi baby,” she said in that throaty voice of hers. Amanda had actually been propositioned to do phone sex once but her status as an art teacher would be sullied. It was one of her regular customers at the bar she worked at part time, where we met actually, and she thought about it briefly in times of economic crisis. You think an art teacher can keep a large apartment like she had in San Francisco on that salary? Almost every teacher, artist and musician I knew had a second or third job to keep their lifestyle and home in the city. Amanda was no exception.

“Hey darlin’”, I said. “What’s up?’

“Um...look....” Amanda sounded upset. I could hear the sniffles and tears.

“Oh my god. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Yeah. I’m fine,: she said weepily. “It’s my dad. He’s...um...”

“Oh no. Is he dead?”, I said with general concern. Her dad had contracted some kind of stomach cancer a while back and was slowly on his way out. During the months that we were dating there had been many a phone call from her sister and mom regarding her dad’s health. I even drove her and picked her up from the airport when she had to fly to Tucson, AZ to visit and help the family once or twice. This didn’t sound good.

“No, he’s not dead. Uh...,” she paused to sob and blow her nose, “not yet.”

My dad shot me a “what’s going on” look and I gave him the ‘just a second’ finger extension before going back to his room to talk in private.
“Oh man,” I said closing the door behind me. “I’m so sorry. What’s going on?”
“Um...,” she said with a hesitancy. I felt as if something was up and something big and bad was about to happen. “Look...I need to go back home and take care of things.”
“Uh, back to San Francisco?” I asked. “Where are you now?”

“No, no, I’m in San Francisco. I’m at the apartment. I took the day off. I need to go to Tucson and help my family. They need me. My mom and sister can’t handle all of the finances and shit and my dad by themselves. They need my help. I need to be there. I’m going to leave next week.”
“Wait a second,” I said a little too loudly, “what about your apartment? You’re giving that place up? I mean, you need to give your landlord like at least a month before you...”

“That’s why I’m calling you.” She sniffled and paused. “Um...how are things going in Palm Springs?”

Amanda had that voice indicating something was up. She was a great manipulator. If she couldn’t do it with her deep brown eyes or DD chest her voice could get you to do almost anything. Maybe that’s how we started dating in the first place. I don’t remember.

“Um, okay. I guess. Fine.”

“You and your dad doing okay?”

“Uh...yeah. Fine. Great. No worries.”

“Have you ever thought of moving back here?”

There it was I knew it. Yes I had thought a myriad of times about moving back to San Francisco, picking up where I left off and getting back into that heady kinetic groove that the city insists on. I had also considered Los Angeles, which is where I grew up in Glendale. I had friends in LA, good friends, old college buddies. Of course they were scattered all over the place and rarely saw each other and I knew I’d wind up working at a Tower Records and living in a craphole somewhere in Hollywood but, hey, that was an option. So was Austin, TX. And Hollywood, FL where an old pal had a photography business and said I could go work for him. And Delaware where my mom and her side of the family lived. Or Seattle. Or even Dorset, UK where I could be the road manager and technician for Electric Wizard, one of my favorite metal bands. There were loads of options.

“Yeah,” I said a bit craggy, “of course I have considered moving back. Yeah...uh...”

“Well, I kind of need your help.”

I knew what she was going to ask me, and when she asked if I could “take care of the apartment” a thousand voices piped up and shouted a variety of pros and cons at me. Her place was central, Columbus and Union, overlooking Washington Square park, in the heart of North Beach, just up from Fisherman’s Wharf, near everything, thousands of bars and restaurants just a few steps away. It’s the kind of place most people dream about finding when they first move to the city.

But the apartment was dark and angular and cluttered with almost two decades of her living there. Plus she rented out the small extra room to random art students going to the academy a few blocks away. Sure I had some savings and a tiny unemployment check coming every other week but that was it.

Her place was noisy too. The bedroom window overlooking the main drag of Columbus Ave, a busy street stretching all the way from the wharf to downtown, was also over a popular restaurant too. The racket ranged from a dull din at night to outright madness on some days. It was also very old, so the walls were cracked, although some bad art hung covered some of the damage. Cockroaches made appearances on occasion. Did I mention it was noisy?
On the other hand, it was an option, and the only really solid one I had at the moment. It would be easy to slip back into the San Francisco routine. I know I could get a job right off the bat and get my old gigs back too. Sure. Why not? The important this is I’d be helping a friend out who really needed it.
Still, the city reminded me of...”her”. Not Amanda but the biggest heartbreak I had ever experienced and the main reason for wanting to move away. That would be something I’d have to deal with.
“Yeah, okay,” I said with a deep sigh, a million scattered thoughts, hesitancies and emotions all racing at once. “I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it. For how long?”

“Oh thank you ” Amanda said with general relief and glee. “I’d say a few months, no more than six at most. If that. First months rent is free. That’s taken care of by my family.”

“Well thank you family.”

“When can you come back?”

“I’m thinking the day after tomorrow.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah. I love you too.”

After I hung up I retreated back to the kitchen where I found my dad outside smoking. I opened the sliding glass door and sat on the already hot lawn chair.

“Is everything alright?” my dad asked nervously under mirror shaded glasses. He liked Amanda, better than...”her” he told me and judging by the conversation knew that something was amiss.

“Her dad is dying,” I said. “She needs to be with her family in Tucson Arizona.”

“Oh no. Poor thing.”

“Yeah”. I sipped my coffee and was about to say something that would get the ball rolling and send me into survival and change mode once again. Even in my man-boy uncertainty and general laziness I was always pretty good at adapting and getting back on my feet. At least to a basic minimum where I could go back to my books, beer and movie watching with the hopes of going on a date now and then. My joy and happiness requires very little but are of high difficulty and maintenance.

“She wants me to move back to San Francisco and take care of her place while she’s gone.”

My dad exhaled a deep drag and nodded. “Is that what you want?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” is said in absolute truth. I didn’t know. But I couldn’t stay with my dad much longer, dad 2 was coming back in a few weeks. I had barely scraped what contacts and options I have in LA. Austin? Seattle? Come on, those were towns I had only visited briefly and liked. Delaware? Are you kidding me? Sure it would be great to see my mom on a regular basis as visits are rare due to finances and my absolute hatred of airplanes. So really, in a way, Amanda’s phone call and request had been a blessing.
“So when do you need to leave? If you leave.”

“Day after tomorrow. And yes,” this was the final decision, there was no turning back now, “I am leaving. It’s what needs to happen.”

“Well alright,” my dad said.

I got up and we hugged. I went inside, put on my shorts, vintage bowling shirt with the name “Earl” on the right breast pocket and laced up my shabby Vans skateboard shoes. I needed to take a long walk.

The voices just wouldn’t shut up!