Band Van

I’m posted up on my bleached white driveway. I try to dribble past my Dad to the hoop that is secured to our roof. His hands are up, his sneakers scuffle for position. I’m red faced, sweating and panting. My mom brings out orange segments and iced tea. We talk a minute about the prowess of our favorite athletes, Pele’, Kenny Stabler, Reggie Jackson, Martina Navratilova. My interest in musical heroes is taking off as well, and I tell my folks I want to be like Kiss, mainly Ace Frehley,  or Black Sabbath, mainly Ozzy or either of Heart’s sultry front ladies,  Ann or Nancy Wilson.

My loving parents blend into one mouth that lip syncs the mantra:  That’s nice dear, but you will eventually need something to fall back on.  

I ignore their blather. I know my youthful good looks will forever help me through times of trouble.

I reflect on my parent’s thoughtful, yet annoying advice as my band’s van backs out of the same driveway.

My musical mates and I climb the frigid, tree-lined Interstate Five to Seattle on a tour to promote our new record. Our recordings, as well as our live shows are intended to spread our desperate message of laziness, self-imposed confusion, innocence never found, and general malaise caused by the man.

The path to Seattle isn’t safe in the summer, in the winter it can be suicide.  Timber trucks breath down our tailpipe as the snow covered roads mock the ravines. There is a good foot of play between the van’s thirty year old suspension and the steering wheel. The musical equipment, the three dudes and their added stink weigh down the back of the van.

On top of all this, our drummer is driving.

We stop for gas just south of Ashland, WA.  Our drummer buys popcorn, a giant barrel-sized soda, and a book on tape, a self-help cassette he says will be funny.  Just looking at the 84 oz Mountain Dew makes me have to go to the bathroom. I find the truck stop’s restroom, and as I stand lonely hearted, I read the logger-penned graffiti. Apparently San Francisco Faggots should wipe their asses with Spotted Owl dicks. Although I live in Oakland, I know this is aimed at me.

Back on the road, the drummer is more fixated on his recent purchases than the danger at hand. He unwisely decides to pass the highway snow plow brigade. They represent the man. Their flagrant abuse of  authority and slow, snow plowing ways are not respected by our drummer.  Unlucky trucks lay on their sides along the highway, and the shredded treads of giant tires lie like fake mustaches in the snow. We change into the unplowed passing lane, and I can’t help but think drummers are dumb.

It isn’t long before we slowly careen into the mountainside and scrape downhill. As bodies and gear topple,  I wonder why I gave up sports as a youngster. I was a triple threat, good at Basketball, Baseball and Soccer.

Our van’s headlights chase their tail, and I realize every derogatory drummer joke I have ever heard is factual. If the drummer drools out both sides of his mouth, the stage is level.  What time is it when a drummer sits on your fence? Time to get a new drummer. What is the difference between a large pizza and a drummer? A large pizza can feed a family of four.

We lay in the van, that now lies in a ditch, 30 feet beneath the roadway. I start to stir and wonder if this will get to Donnor Party desperation. I already know that anyone in arm’s length hasn’t washed in a while, they may or may not have gonorrhea, and their diets have consisted of Cheetos, Gatorade, and Beef Jerky. I’ve already eaten myself to get here, I may have to eat myself to get out. I’m thinking spleen.

I’m sure my spleen tastes better than the drummer’s, but it is his spleen I decide that  I would eat if need be.

My cannibal dreams are interrupted by the cassette spinning in the tape deck. The self help tape now warbles as if  Barry White is  making out with Alvin and the Chipmunks. They both take turns reciting lines from Johnathan Livingston Seagull.

I finally agree on something with our drummer, the self-help tape is funny.

I‘m glad she found another. She has always wanted someone tall.

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She says he is twice as tall as me, and I am depriving her of lofty sights. Her desired vistas can not be viewed at my five foot nine, sub-scenic stature. My dad is six foot four. My mom was right; wearing underwear to bed stunts your growth.

My feelings aren’t hurt, the open-space she left is good for me. 

I love white walls uncluttered by art. Nothing for my eyes to get hung up on, and nothing to carry my thoughts away.

Now, thoughts are left to loiter like her boxes that line the hallway, they hang around like teenagers in a 7-11 parking lot waiting to ask an adult to buy them liquor.

This departure of my better half is liberation. I get to be whole again.

When God closes one door, He opens another. I am now anchored, that other door left ajar by God led masked marauders into my room to tie me to the bedpost. She already took the good stuff, the thieves took most of the rest.

I sit tethered to her remaining boxes, my thoughts, and stained, mismatched Tupperware. Now all my leftovers taste a bit like her marinara.

BURIED AT SEA

The night Sheila’s father died we went bowling. My ball spun counter-clockwise down slick lanes, lit and clean. As I reached 195, she pinched one phone between her shoulder and ear. She pecked her other phone like a chicken sorting pebbles and seed. Her drinks stacked up at the bar, and cocktail tissues lay crumpled.

Her father owned yachts. His dying wishes; to be buried at sea, and for Sheila to leave me.

Our love is broken, but Sheila needs me to attend the burial. It’s not a good time

for questions, but I have never been to a funeral. Do I buy her a corsage, wear a cumber bun, bring a dozen black carnations?

I have been on one of her Dad’s yachts once,

The Minimalist, and the thought brings an acidic taste to the back of my throat.

I board the boat with the other respect payers. Inside the hull the portholes bob

and weave. In the distance the shoreline is a piece of driftwood, half-submerged like

a crocodile. My lunch starts to separate from my stomach. I tell Sheila I’m not feeling well just as the urn is passed to her. She frowns at me through her veil.

She holds the trophy over her head, a first place prize in the race to easy street.

Her father’s money is now hers. I violently vomit onto the deck. I lumber to the railing

and pray this will all be over soon. My gush mixes with the ashes of her father.

Like a friend you don’t like being seen with, but is always there for you

Curbed at the gutter, she has turned from silver to grey.

My once fetching sedan is now half-rusted shut.

Her undercarriage is incontinent and pisses slicks in front of my house.

Fuses wrapped in foil hum their disconnect.

Meters flicker as red lines pin left then right.

Dim lamps scarcely light the roadways that absorb my jalopy‘s leakings.

Stubborn stick shift and corroded clutch gnash their teeth.

Threadbare cow print seat covers sit beneath the tree hanging from the mirror.

Perfumed cardboard can’t hide the stench of years and gasoline.

My kids beg to be driven to school in my wife’s car.

She is my mule, will be leaving soon, and owes me nothing.

Parked in Sheila’s Trans Am That She Drives Too Fast

We get as comfortable as two teens can with a stick shift between us. I breathe fast then not at all. We are both smell like soap. The clock turns backwards, and my pants tighten as we kiss.

I’m a virgin and need to hold off. I think of my brother eating cereal in the morning at the breakfast table, how his slurp and chew sounds like an asthmatic hoglet. I see a thin trail of whole milk stagnate on his bottom lip.

Sheila nibbles with a pulse more reliable than a metronome. She bites my neck and stretches my shirt. The swelling returns and my watched kettle is fit to pop. The seats squeak as we rotate for position and again I must hold back the moment.

I imagine the sounds from car seats emanate from the coupling of a Lazy Boy chair and my dad’s ass that shifts weight during commercials. I’m losing ground. The buxom, silk-haired farmhands of Hee Haw replace advertisements.

I open my eyes to a fast, young, and smart sextress completely on top of me. I am over my head. Her serpent fingers wrap around my business and cut off the circulation between my nethers and my brain and heart.

She pours her words into my numb ears.

Let’s go upstairs

Her parent’s house is empty and I follow her. As I watch her sway ascend, my corduroys rekindle the fire. To douse the flames I imagine I’m in marching band, goose-stepping behind the brass section. I clang my cymbals as the horn players empty their spit valves onto the concrete.

The concrete returns to shag rug, and I’m led into her sister’s room. Weeping clowns adorn her walls and help beat back the vision of curved satin backing up onto my naked body. I try to keep the circus clowns inside their stupid little car, but as the vehicle enters the ring they spill out in rushes of glee.

I inhale terror and exhale seventeen years of tension.