i'm getting tired of telling these stories (part 2)

so i've been tryin to come up with some way to make the lorenzo half of this post at least somewhat less dreary than the joaquin half, and that means serendipitously presented itself today in the long-lost form of this boy (not the first one in there, god forbid--the second).

and now, after a long, langorous afternoon of a steady transfusion of the most potent joaquin anti-venom i coulda hoped for (because, god, sex with joey is just so fucking perfect, and even more so after a long absence), i am ready to finish this sucker.

because my afternoon with joey served as more than a mere palate-cleanser; he's also the one who, a few months after that first text exchange, inspired this little back-and-forth.  which sets this post up nicely, because said little back-and-forth coulda just as easily been about lorenzo, or all the the thousands of other lorenzos out there just like him.

including the one typing this.



i don't usually attract guys like lorenzo, or if i do, it's rarely more than a one-timer.

a classic LA hipster, lorenzo is one of those skinny-jeaned, offhand, ironic types who cares a lot about not seeming to care about much--you can see it in the attitude, in the walk, in the random, eclectic, thrift-shop outfits (the perfectly-chosen shoes, of course, always being the dead giveaway that there's nothing in the least random about any of it).

there are other clues, too--the artfully tousled just-got-outta bedhead, but the five-day stubble meticulously groomed; the mercedes key on the cheap, kitschy fob, stuff like that.

and then there's the face--el greco, always slightly haughty and amused by something you're not in on, until you say something sufficiently funny that the facade breaks in spite of itself to reveal a big, goofy grin that lasts just long enough to hint at the sweetness buried under there somewhere, before it's gone just as fast.

so that first night, i walked in, looked him up and down, got attitude back, took the place in at a glance--2,000 square feet of prime loft space, creative rubble strewn everywhere, maybe three pieces of actual furniture--figured i was a one-night aberration for sure, got down to business and discovered, to my surprise (and maybe his, who knows), how much passion could be unleashed in this boy if you hit just the right spot.

whatever--as is usually the case with guys like this, the heat of his passion pre-cumming was equally and oppositely matched by his aloofness immediately afterwards; and, no stranger to this phenomenon, i dragged myself off the mattress before the globs had even started to run, headed to the lavatory, ran half a hand-towel under warm water, wiped and dried myself, rinsed it, wrung it and tossed it at him, sorted my clothes outta our collective pile, dressed quickly, gave him a wave over my shoulder and a "call me" as i headed, unaccompanied, for the door.

and two days later, he did.  and two weeks after that, when i called back, all pretense of aloofness was gone, and he was all over me from the moment he opened the door.

i made him wait a month next time, and another month after that, and mostly ignored the interim phone calls and "are you mad at me?" texts, until i finally told him i was involved and couldn't see him anymore.

and that, as they say, was that.

did i behave like an asshole?  yeah, maybe, but i had my reasons, and they were good ones.

in the first place, i really was involved at the time; my heart, or what little of it was free to give, belonged to v back then.  but the bigger reason was, i had learned the hard way, and more than once, what happens when you drop your guard with a boy like this.

 and time, as it often has a habit of doing, would prove me right.

*     *     *     *     *

a month or so ago

he hit me up outta the blue, and at just the right time, and i did the pleasure/pain equation, thought to myself, "i'm single now", and then, "why not?".

he looked almost the same as he had the last time i'd seen him so long ago, except for the new close-cropped hair which revealed his bone structure and set off his fine features in a way the shaggy mop had not.  and the sex was good, as good as it had ever been.  and afterwards, when i surprised him, finally took him up on his long-standing and oft-repeated offer to stay the night, he acquiesced with a sudden uneasiness that didn't surprise me a bit.

and when i tried to hold him during the night and he rolled away, that didn't surprise me either.  and when i reached for him the next morning and he said he had an early call, i merely got up without reply, headed for the shower, then headed home.

i walk in the door, and jeannie, my roommate's girlfriend, is already there, supervising the workers on day two of the demo and remodel of our only bathroom.

when, in response to her remark that i look well-rested, well-shaved and well-showered, i reply, in my best mae west voice, "yeah, and i'm not particularly proud of how that happened" and she shrieks, "you can be had for a SHOWER?!", all banging and hammering comes to a halt in the bathroom as laughter breaks out, and i give the boys a wink as i sashay by on my way to my bedroom and slam the door.

he texted me a week later, invited me over; i didn't reply.  a week after that, they started coming every three days, and then every two, and now there's at least one a day.

nah, i'm not mad at you, lorenzo, and i'm not playing power games.  i'm just tired of this shit.




and nah, i'm not sayin this song is particularly appropriate to this post, but it's the random it-came-up-on-shuffle set to repeat that got me through it.

oh, and this:

i swear, you put this shit through a brita filter twice, you get grey goose.  seriously.

post 651 (or thereabouts--fuck, i can't keep track), in which mkf relates some existential angst

[fine--you want personal, i'll give you personal (god, why didn't i stop drinking an hour ago)]


i had really been dreading this bathroom remodel planned, perpetrated and suddenly sprung upon me by my mostly-absent landlord/roommate and his girlfriend (see? he's not my lover), fearing the disruption of my sacred routine, but turns out it's not been so bad.

in the first place, it means i'll finally be getting a showerhead that's positioned to hit me at somewhat higher than mid-stomach level, so there's that.

and showering at the office has turned out to be an unexpected treat--thick, turkish towels, endless hot water, and who knew attorneys kept such nice triple-blade razors and designer shaving balms in their (unlocked) lockers?  (j/k, sorta)

but the best part has been getting to know gary, the (hot 58-year-old) contractor, because what a pleasant surprise and font of useful knowledge he's turned out to be.

first, you gotta understand:  i hate contractors, and i came by that hatred honest.  after years of watching 'em fuck up my carefully-rendered details on job after job, to the point where i was 86'd from a jobsite for throwing a hammer, not at, but near (which point i stressed over and over as they dragged me away) a contractor early in my architectural career, ol' gary has been a welcome breath of fresh air.

rescued from mcdonald's drudgery at the age of 17 by a builder/uncle who first saw his potential, gary has become a master of many trades who takes tremendous pride in his work, and has delivered far more on this little job than he'll ever be paid for.

i first laid eyes on him when i stumbled bleary-eyed outta my bedroom at the crack o' nine a.m. last monday, to the sound of pounding demo hammers, noted his studly form as i pushed past him on my way to the kitchen (because i'd already gone out back and peed behind a tree).  he wandered in behind me, watched me mix my morning shot-o'-cayenne-in-warm-water eye-opener, asked me why the fuck i was drinking that stuff, to which i merely looked up at him with a bland expression, raised my left fist with index finger curled, and then shot it boing! straight up in the air.

he said, "no shit?", and even after i warned him he'd have to work up to my dose, demanded i mix him one just like mine, downed it, and then doubled over, gasping, while i laughed.

and with that, we were tight.

i've had many conversations with gary since that day, and have grown to like him more and more.  he's my age, had his wild time, grew up, got married, got land and horses, had kids, and now has grandkids.  and his family's his whole goddam life.

as i type this, i'm wrecked because the 23-year-old i fucked yesterday stood me up tonight.

dream, baby

[yeah, i know, but i don't feel like getting personal tonight]

roy orbison was a weird guy, and an even weirder performer.  he'd walk out on stage looking neither left or right, oblivious of the applause, stand stiffly in fronta the microphone, deliver the goods, and then when he was done, leave the stage looking neither left or right, oblivious of the applause, the same way he'd come on.

but, my god, could the man work magic with a song.

in 1987, having faded to obscurity in the public mind and towards the end of his life, he was approached to do a "greatest hits" live concert for television, and when word got out, the biggest headliners in the music business at the time clamored for the opportunity to accompany him onstage.

the show was intimately shot at the ambassador hotel's legendary coconut grove nightclub (which would also soon die thereafter), before an audience of hollywood's best and brightest, and the resulting masterpiece would not only revive roy's career, but go down in history as one of the all-time great live performances, and one that i--who generally hates live concerts--would have given my left nut and two inches of my dick to have attended.

as hard as it would be to pick a favorite from the show, when "dream baby" came up on shuffle tonight at just the right moment of (semi) intoxication, i immediately flipped over to youtube, grabbed the video, watched it a few times, felt my mood elevate immensely, and dashed off this post.

originally released in 1962, i liked the song, but had never considered it one of roy's best--that he'd somehow missed something in the arrangement.  well, 25 years later, he found it.

accompanied by bruce springsteen on lead vocals (whom i'd never thought of as even remotely sexy before i saw this show), with elvis costello, j.d. souther and jackson browne coming in behind, and k.d. lang, jennifer warnes and bonnie raitt providing the oohs and aahs--and all of whom flew in that night and ran through it once before shooting, btw--this is, to me, as good as it gets.

if after watching it you don't agree, then all i can say is, you're either a clueless whippersnapper, or your pleasure centers are wired very differently than mine.

[and naturally, after ascertaining that the video was embeddable before writing this goddam post, and then writing the post, and then embedding the goddam thing, youtube informs me it's "restricted", so you'll have to watch it here]

or maybe you should just have a couple stiff ones and watch it again.  and again after that.  and again after that.

it's because we see

they'd asked me, i coulda saved 'em some research money.  it's nice to put the booze goggles on and view the world through the same pinhole that everybody else does; there's comfort in that sometimes.

link

because he hadda come back for more, he hadda have it one more time

yeah, except that as soon as i leave the canyon, all my missing messages magically pop into place--but nice try, cupcake.

so i sit back and await an apology from this thoughtless little twit for wasting half my day driving halfway to hell and back for nothing, but a few days go by and then i get

as if nothing had happened.  nice try again, but i don't think so.  we'll wait him out, because--and i don't care how damn cute he and i both think he is--what he and i both know he needs doesn't exactly grow on trees in this city.

but instead, i get,

what the hell are they teaching these kids in twink school these days?  but wait, there's more:

jesus, he really is reaching now.  i'm thinking three or four more of these might earn him a provisional pass back into the Rotation, but it'll be damn sure be a grudgefuck, and he'd damn well better not blow it this time.

and that's what it's come down to, folks--playing power games with twinks.  oh well, everybody's gotta be good at something.




oh, and if you think for one goddam minute that tracking down this most obscure of tracks from the furthest reaches of the internet, creating a video of same and uploading it to youtube while drunk just for the sake of capping off this lousy post was a small feat, think again.  i'm nothing if not a slave to my goddam art, goddammit.

now get up and dance.

i'll blame this one on george harrison and cheap vodka tomorrow

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autumn 1993 [or thereabouts--noblesavage will know]

he'd summoned his courage, sneaked outta the compound and travelled to weho from venice by bus.  he knew it was against the teachings, but could deny the urge no longer.

it wasn't just the shabby clothes and weird hair that set him apart on the boulevard that night--it was the sweet, guileless smile that grew even wider when our eyes met that caused me to drop the twink i was talking to like a bad habit and head in his direction.

and so we met.

after that first night, he'd steal away after evening prayers whenever he could and come see me, usually bearing fruit or flowers from the altar.  we'd talk into the night--he loved his life and his deities, and it showed in that smile.

it was a slow seduction.  i didn't push; i knew i'd have to be careful with this one.

finally--i think it was a sunday night--

it had to have been sunday because that was their high holy day, and i remember he hung the garland he'd stolen from the statue of krishna around my neck, gave me a long kiss and used it to drag me to the bedroom

i introduced him to the garden of earthly delights.  and with each new discovery, his eyes and that smile grew wider, until his joy knew no bounds.

couple nights later, there was a knock at the door.  i answered and there he was, arms laden with treasure, eyes dancing with delight at catching me by surprise.  until he looked past me and saw the boy on the couch.

that night, i watched his smile die.

because i killed it.

a rare populist rant

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if, like most americans overwhelmed by the complexity of our current financial crisis, you know the banks pulled some really shady shit but can't quite put your finger on what exactly it was they did, allow me to present for your delectation a little bank fraud to which everybody can relate.

consider the situation of one veronica gutierrez:

veronica, like many americans living paycheck-to-paycheck, was watching every penny.  yet, as careful as (i'm sure) she was, it was inevitable that one day she'd fuck up.

hey, we've all been there, right?  i can easily imagine veronica kicking herself when that check came back, knowing it was gonna cost her $22 she didn't have to spare.

what i can't so easily imagine is how veronica must've felt when she got her statement at the end of that month:

confused?  lemme help you out:  apparently, the good folks who ran one of the richest, most powerful banks in the country were so desperate for every last penny that they developed an algorithm which re-ordered the transactions of their poorest [and, presumably, dumbest] customers in such a way as to maximize the overdraft fees they could extort from them.

was veronica amused? not in the least; nor were the attorneys who made her the lead plaintiff in their class action.

everything i've ever said on this blog about frivolous lawsuits and/or outsized jury awards aside, screw the $66 wells fargo thought they owed veronica--i hope the bitch got $66 fucking million outta the $203 million the jury awarded in the case.  and then punitive damages on top of that.

*     *     *     *     *

of course, we all know that's not the way it played out; veronica and her co-plaintiffs probably each got next to nothing, while their attorneys all became multi-millionaires, if they weren't already.


bankers, lawyers--whatever, they're all motherfuckers.

somebody just kill me now

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funny, never heard from him again

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[from the archives]

a corollary to the pomona theorem:  it can be wise to refrain from exercising one's scintillating wit until after one has closed the deal.

day 36: it was fun while it lasted

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and no, we're not talking about the failed "one blogpost per day" experiment--we're talking about the number of days since mkf last allowed vodka to pass his parched lips.

i'll (probably) be more specific later--for now, please allow me a minute to bask in the long-denied glow, ok?

postcards from the edge (part 1)

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three things of which i was reminded over the course of this past weekend's reunion of old friends:

(1) if you haul ass down lombard street fast-and-screechy enough, you earn a round of applause from the inevitable herd of camera-clicking japanese tourists at the bottom;

(2) whether from up close, far away or glimpsed unexpectedly over the rooftops, that goddam bridge is still among the most visually thrilling structures on earth;

(3) when compared to the true champions of the sport, my lame incipient ass is, for better or worse, still merely skittering along the bunny slopes of alcoholism.

i wish i could elaborate on that last point, but unfortunately i've managed to fall into that ego trap where all anonymous confessional bloggers end up sooner or later: my old friends are now my readers.

i'll try to make the trip home more interesting.

friend of bill

"ok, mike--ease it out like i showed you, reeeeeeal easy."

my first driving lesson. i'm 14, nervously hunched behind the wheel of bill's spotless '68 impala coupe which was [unfortunately] equipped with a three-on-the-tree.

instead of easing it out, i pop the clutch, the car flies backwards outta the driveway and across the street, bounces over the curb and mows down a grove of tender saplings in the neighbor's yard before coming to a stop.  i cringe, await the inevitable.

bill's response:  "hmm...maybe i shoulda backed her out for you."

any wonder i loved the guy?

my mother never remarried, but of the two men she dated seriously after my father's death, bill was the first, and by far my favorite.  a special agent for the IRS [i.e., the gun-carrying kind], bill was suave, smart, easygoing and funny as hell. oh, and he got me.

for our second driving lesson, bill took me out in the country in his old chevy pickup, drove up to a big tree, popped the clutch and slammed into it, turned to me and said, "see? you can't hurt this one."

great as he might've been in my young eyes, bill was a tortured soul. he'd recently left his bible-banging frigid wife after twenty years of misery but he couldn't get past leaving his kids, and it ate at him.

so he drank.

at first it was innocuous.  he'd pull into the driveway in that impala and get out holding a can or a glass--if it was something new, i'd ask for a taste and he'd usually indulge me.  the alcohol didn't seem to affect him much; if anything, it enhanced the dry, sardonic aspect of his personality i loved so much.

problem was, bill's problem, as it usually does, got worse.

one sunday shortly after the driving-lesson fiasco, bill, my mother, siblings and i go walking around downtown after a movie and end up at the local pontiac dealership.  bill watches in bemusement as we all go apeshit over the grand prix featured on the showroom floor.

the next day, there's a honk in our driveway and we walk out to find the impala's gone and bill's waving out the window of his new car.

any wonder i loved the guy?


of course i probably wouldn't have been nearly as enthusiastic about said new car had i known then that one late night a couple months later he'd use it to attempt to kill my mother and himself by drunkenly and at insanely high speeds running every red light in town when she picked the wrong moment to try and break it off with him.

how did it finally end?  with me taking the phone away from my mother one day after school and telling bill's by-then irredeemably drunken ass, "don't call here again--it's time for you to go away and leave us alone."

to his credit, he did just that:  took early retirement, crawled off to dallas and drank until he died.

i remember the day--we got the call, my mother broke down and i turned to stone.

*     *     *     *     *

there was my uncle huby before him, my uncle don after him, my mother's friend billie and her new husband fred--and, of course, the club.  object lessons all to young mike of the pitfalls of alcohol.

and they stuck for a long time--i got drunk exactly once in high school.  at college parties, i'd have one or two to be sociable.  when in my mid-thirties i finally came out and hit the bars, i'd buy a drink and carry it around all night just to have something in my hand.

why i waited this long to go from basic teetotaler to falling-down-drunk in five short years has already been dealt with in this blog--mostly pseudo-lightheartedly, 'cause god knows i didn't wanna scare my readers.

now that this blog is dead and i no longer have readers,  i can of course write whatever the fuck i want.

*     *     *     *     *

after four years, v and i hit our first rough patch this summer and our relationship folded like the cheap card table it apparently was.

i miss him every day, and can only hope that's what he really wanted.

*     *     *     *     *

invited myself over to kenny's the other night, asked him what was new in his life--it had been awhile.  he didn't disappoint.  eyes shining, he regaled me with tales of his recent trip to central america volunteering for doctors without borders, among all sorts of other gloriously selfless shit.

when he was done, he asked me what's new in my life, and i told him the truth.

he then tells me what i knew he would, which--fuck the sex, i realize later--is why i'm there.

i protest.  i'm not like him--i'm not warm, i don't do groups, i hate people and people hate me, i don't have charisma and i can't hold an audience in the palm of my hand like i've seen him do--i'm not like kenny, i'm not like anybody.

he looks me in the eye, says it again: "90 meetings in 90 days, mike.  you do it, i promise you'll come across someone who's story's just like yours, and when it happens it'll change you just like it did me.  i wouldn't have the life i have now if i hadn't done it, and you can do it, too."

yeah?  i'll have to drink on that one.

_________________

sober update: somebody asked me why my memories of people are always wrapped up with cars.  i dunno, they just are.

the new mkf cocktail

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so tonight noblesavage treats me to an early birthday dinner--essentially, the first non-work-related human contact i've had with anybody i personally know since since i got outta the hospital.

i relish the opportunity to leave the house--and to see him, because it's been awhile.  we argue the same old subjects and get nowhere as usual, but that's not what's remarkable about the evening.  what's remarkable about the evening is, faced with a panoply of mouth-watering carnivorous options spread before me, i happily opt for a simple greek salad.

that's right, folks--i'm now the "salad" guy.

wasn't always thus, i assure you.  hell, between the booze, my regular unhealthy diet plus all the crap i suddenly found myself stuffing into my face every day at the new job, i was on the verge of outgrowing my second pair of fat pants when the pneumonia struck.

and while i'm not ready to call that sudden affliction a gift, it did have some interesting after-effects.

that first night after having checked myself outta the hospital against doctor's orders and not feeling nearly as well as i insisted i did, i was scared shitless that i'd fucked up. i went to bed wheezing, still unable to draw a decent breath, but ended up getting my first good night's sleep in a week--nobody waking me up every two hours for fuckin' vital signs for a change, thank you baby jesus.

and next morning, instead of the standard hospital fare, i feasted on a fresh fruit-and-greens smoothie, courtesy of my blendtec and whole foods market.

that very afternoon i returned to work, assuring everybody i was fine [although god knows i wasn't, which everybody figured out pretty quick when i started coughing every time i tried to breathe].

whatever--that first night i headed down to the fitness center on my lunch hour, ran the treadmill up to 9.4 and did 30-second windsprints interspersed with what turned out to be overly optimistic two-minute recovery intervals [i.e., by the second round i was a gasping, coughing puddle of mush on the floor].

but the following night i did three--and two nights after that, i managed four. these days i'm up to eight with 90-second intervals, and i'm not coughing anymore.

and what's fueling this recovery? simple--the raw vegan diet i've adopted since getting outta the hospital. funny thing is, it was easy--somehow, this most recent trial by fire has killed my former urge to fill the empty with whatever cheap crap i could stuff in my mouth.

these days my diet consists of green smoothies [the one pictured above turned out to be a delicious, frosty concoction consisting of an orange, half a banana, a peach, a handful of blueberries, a huge handful of spinach, a few leaves of kale, half a cup of spring water and lots of ice], salads, guacamole, nut pates and other such vegan bullshit, and i don't miss the meat and junk food at all.

and the booze-bloat's dropping off--those last-resort fat pants i was worrying about having to upgrade are now falling off me, i'm working out again, my body's coming back, and my face is pretty much back to looking like it used to.

in other words, things are fine again, so i'm thinking maybe i should celebrate with a drink or two.

[you see where this is going, right?]

a thank-you note

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sorry i haven't posted anything of substance lately--i haven't had much poetry in my soul [i.e., alcohol in my veins] since i got outta the hospital, so things are pretty goddam bleak around here.

but i wanted to thank my three most faithful commenters [and the random emailers--who knew?] for their good wishes--i'll try to be back with some decent content soon.

[and yeah, i did allow myself one drink tonight, but you'll be happy to know that it was all-natural, goddammit--instead of the evil 7-up for a mixer, i went with healthy fresh-squeezed o.j. and a splash of san pellegrino for the appropriate fizz.  that counts, right?]

the other screamingly important thing i need to talk about tonight

.

his new schedule sucks, my new schedule sucks--what can i say, i miss my baby

[and yeah i am totally shitfaced and yeah i will totally deny i ever posted this tomorrow and yeah i can't wait to see you sunday night no matter how late it turns out to be what's your goddam point?]

semi-sober update:

(1) all things considered, the fact that i could even find and open photoshop, much less locate the three necessary pics, crop, re-size and competently combine them into the above image and subsequently upload same and triumphantly hit "publish" before stumbling off to bed is testament to...well, something.  and i demand points from the universe for this accomplishment, goddammit.


(2) getting home from my new job at 1:30 am and starting to drink is, i'm finding, materially different from getting home from my old job at 9:30 pm and starting to drink; in fact, you might call it an unsustainable trend.

not too bad, actually

.

on my way outta work tonight, dragging the last of my shit outta the communal fridge i spot the fresca, immediately flash to this guy, and grab a couple cans to go.

and lest you be tempted to question my choice of vodka--what can i say, sometimes you just gotta say cost be damned and go for the good stuff.

a few quick cuts

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who knew he was a philosopher?

word travels fast

so yesterday as i was idling on my barcalounger in my torn undershirt swilling beer outta the can and watching jerry springer, i got a call from a former colleague who'd heard the news, asking me if i'd be interested in a rare, serendipitous opening at his current firm--i threw together a resume and interviewed with him and his boss this morning.

considering it was my first formal interview in over twenty years [i always just seem to fall into shit], i think it went well.  good gig, too--they offer it to me, i'll probably grab it.

could somebody stop this woman, please?

i swore to god i'd never dignify this dumb bitch with another inch of blogspace ever again, but every time i turn around, her payday just seems to exponentially grow.

seriously, is there no end to the degree to which america will reward telegenic vacuity?

[never mind--that's a rhetorical question]



and then, there's this

they took my uncle don off life-support this morning.  the funeral's monday, and not only am i not going, i will totally be conspicuous by my absence.

my mother and sister will, as always, act as apologists on my behalf, but the general consensus among the surviving family members [especially his children] will probably be,"yeah, he was more than happy to fly to tulsa back when the money was flowing, but he couldn't be bothered to make the trip when it came time to pay his last respects."

fuck 'em--i'll be raising a glass to him in my own goddam way.

[and yeah, this is the way mkf buries shit--alone and down at the bottom]

drunk-dialing in the new millennium

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[in case you're interested, this post was the result of an idle google search which proved to me once and for all that you can truly find anything on the internet.]

* * * * *

i've mentioned my uncle don, right?

the thing i most remember about my father's younger brother is how open, easy and fun he once was. whenever don and his new wife, pat, would come down for a visit in the early days, ours was always a happy house--pallets on the living-room floor and people sleeping everywhere, neighbors over for parties, music and laughter until the early hours, and my dad actually smiling for a change.

one of my earliest memories is of my proud uncle scooping up his 4-year-old nephew and taking me down to the university of houston, where he had been a star quarterback in his college days, to show me off to all his old teachers and coaches. seemed like he knew everybody we passed, and they were all thrilled to see him. [he bought me a mickey mouse watch that day--had a shiny red strap. no idea what happened to it.]

back in those days, don was up in dallas, playing pro ball for the texans [a team which would later defer to its cross-town rivals, the cowboys, move to kansas city and become the chiefs]. i remember one weekend we drove up for a game, and in the locker-room he presented me with a large, flat cigar-style box which, when its lid was raised, opened up in 3-d style like a peacock spreading its feathers to display a full array of trading cards, one for every member of the team, each autographed to me [again, no idea what happened to it--i could kill my mother sometimes.]

when his football career ended, don was left with a wife, a few memories and fewer prospects--this was long before the days of multi-million dollar contracts for pro quarterbacks. after an abortive attempt at selling insurance, he ended up in oklahoma, back in the family business--oil--working for skelly and barely scraping by.

i remember we'd go up to visit 'em--their little house in duncan was much smaller than ours--and, again, it'd be pallets on the floor, chaos and lots of fun. i always loved going up there, spending time with don, pat and, by then, the first of their four kids.

i remember that rainy april day after my dad's funeral, don sat down at the piano in my mother's brother's living room, where we had all gathered--a gorilla at the keyboard, i remember thinking--and banged out a credible version of "buttons and bows" in an attempt to distract us kids. i had no idea he could play--i remember at ten years old being struck by the contrast between the gaiety of the music flowing so effortlessly from my uncle's fingers and the look in his eyes as he did his best to smile.  much later, pat would tell us he carried his brother's muddy work-boots around in the trunk of his car for seven years, until she finally made him let 'em go.

don's trip to the top was relatively quick, as far as success stories go--or maybe that was only our perception. one day he was a struggling grunt, next day a mid-level executive, and the day after that, we looked up and he had made it--an oil company with his (and our) name on it, company plane, the works.

i remember him telling me once that he'd have given anything if his mother and older brother had lived to share in his success.

he and pat would still come down to see us, but by then the close intimacy of pallets on the floor had given way to the distant convenience of hotel rooms. easier for everybody, right?

[more often in those days, we'd go up to see them--their tiny house in duncan had given way to a series of increasingly-ambitious homes, culminating in a gorgeous, sprawling, modernist custom job in the "we've arrived" area of tulsa.]

and god knows he and pat never forgot us--even before they had it to freely give, there was a steady stream of cars and money whenever we needed it.

but regardless of all that, once don hit the top, everything changed.

partly because he changed--the older and more successful he got, the more cold, closed-off and intimidating he became, to the point where you didn't even wanna be around him if you could avoid it (except when he was handing out checks, of course).

and partly because we changed--suddenly we weren't equals who could call him out on his shit anymore; we became instead the poor relations who learned to ignore his slights, smile to his face, tuck his checks in our pockets and cravenly bad-mouth him behind his back.

an actual phone call from don was a watershed event, not only because such a thing almost never happened (pat was the eternal intermediary), but because when it did, it was pure torture--stiff and uncomfortable, like you were on trial or being interrogated or something.

unless, of course, he was drunk--then he'd be like his old self again, only sloppy.

it'd go something like this: we'd be sitting around watching tv, the phone would ring, my mom would answer, get this wide-eyed expression on her face and be like, "don, is that you? my god. well, hi, honey...yeah, we're all here...oh, don, that's so sweet; no, you have nothing to apologize for--we know you love us, and we love you too..."

and on and on it would go. and then he'd insist on speaking to each of us kids, slurring his words, telling us over and over how much he loved us, how sorry he was for being shitty, how proud he was of us, how proud our dad would've been of us, etcetera.

eventually the call would end and we'd all look at each other and say, "god, why does he have to get drunk to tell us how he really feels about us? why can't he just be like he used to be?"

i remember having no answer to that question--i mean, all this pent-up feeling pouring out of a guy who, if you called him at his office the next day, he'd be all like, "what do you want?  why are you calling?"

i didn't understand my uncle don back then--but boy, i do now.

because i've turned out just like him.

[okay, maybe not just like him--when i, mkf, am sober and forced to interact with people, i at least try to be sociable, but i'm willing to admit that may only be because i haven't yet amassed as much fuck-you money as he had back then.

oh, and i don't drunk-dial--i drunk-comment.]

* * * * *

inspiration for this post? i had a couple stiff ones, got a hair up my ass to do a little googling and was unexpectedly rewarded with the following hit from an obscure trading-card website:

of course, i snapped it up immediately--autographed or not, for a lousy $35 plus shipping, i wasn't gonna let the memory get away from me this time.

weekend update

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the best thing i can say is that at least the mornings-after were relatively bright-eyed and regret-free for a change.  maybe we'll go another week.

let's call it a trial run

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during the last four or so years, i've spent many weekend nights alone, and a few without the companionship of alcohol. this coming weekend will mark my first conscious attempt at accomplishing both simultaneously.