I don’t really smoke pot.  I tried it in high school and I didn’t feel anything.  I tried it in college and laughed at dumb jokes and scarfed down brilliant concoctions like choco-ramen.  Now I smoke once or twice a year, but only when it’s absolutely necessary, like before some animated Japanese movie.  Otherwise, it just makes me fall asleep. I’d say this is the standard relationship most people have with cannabis.  But marijuana and me, we go way back…  You say it’s a spiritual connection, Ms. Mary Jane, but honestly I don’t really like you that much.  So stop following me around!

My first experience with marijuana was way before high school; it was in the womb because my mother was probably smoking it… I’m not naïve; I know if you’re born in the Venice Beach canals in 1974 with a midwife, probably is more than probably.  My father had long hair and looked just like Billy Crudup in the movie Almost Famous.  He did so many drugs, he made a light bulb explode with the psychedelic energy coming off his body and made a dead moth come back to life just by staring at it.  My mother was fresh from Ohio via a Midwestern rock n roll farm where she did acid with Chuck Berry and “dated” Greg Allman, which probably meant she fucked Greg Allman, but I never asked her about it because she’s my mother.  She wore a purple crocheted slip and paddled around the canals on a surfboard and chatted up Jim Morrison at the laundry mat.  This was also when my father began his life of crime as a pot dealer.  He brought marijuana up from Mexico across the border hidden in a Volkswagen bus and buried it like treasure in sand dunes, and had strange meetings with burly Mexican men wearing feathered carnival masks, and landed himself in Mexican prisons with Federales in aviator sunglasses.  At least these were his glamorous 70’s stories and I believed them to be true only because I’ve heard them a million times…

When I was five, we moved north to the Sierra Nevada Mountains so I wouldn’t grow up in Venice and turn out like that dead kid in American History X.  My parents loved the mountains so much my father delivered my sister in a cabin he built around a trolley car with nothing but his own two hands.  Her middle name is Rainbow because he saw a rainbow in the sky and there was no rain, which makes me wonder how much pot he was smoking that day.  My father used to teach us to grown pot and we thought this was the greatest thing on earth.  We’d take the tiny seeds and smash them into wet paper towels and watch them grow until they sprouted tiny little wormlike roots.  We’d plant them in the big containers under the trees so planes couldn’t see from above, and when they were straight and tall, we’d hang them upside down in the closet to dry.  I will always associate that smell with my father: thick and pungent, sweat mixed with wool flannel and smoky firewood.  It was a good smell.

Marijuana gave me nice things, like fancy vacations to far off places even though we had a shitty house and a crappy car.  And not so nice things, like prison visits, and the night my mother woke us and made us go outside in our pajamas to pull up plants before the cops came.  We frantically dug our little hands into the soft earth pulling up rows of marijuana plants and threw them in the river.  I remember how sad the plants looked, their limp bodies floating downstream like the Lady of Shalott riding towards her watery grave.  The Lady of Shalott was very popular in the early nineties, the poster child for depressed grunge girls.

And then Marijuana quietly and peacefully went away…  My mom and dad no longer smoked and I dated guys who were straight and narrow like the Firefighter and the Baseball Player who joined the Marines.  Then I fell in love with a great guy who’d do anything for me.  He’d never smoked pot before and when I passed him his first joint, he inhaled for me.   Suddenly, I’d turned my perfect great guy into a full-blown stoner and Marijuana was back!  He was the kind of stoner who passed out on the couch at 7pm on a Friday night and couldn’t even make it through The Matrix.  Do you know how many scary movies I’ve watched with no one to cling onto?  If you’ve ever lived with a stoner, you know when they pass out, they’re not just sleeping, they’re out; stone cold, other dimension…out.

Then my mother married a Rastafarian man she met on vacation in Jamaica and she was back for good.  God damn you, Marijuana, why can’t you just leave me alone!!!

Now I have a new love, the love of my life, and he smokes a little, just enough to meet my parents approval.  My parents don’t approve of men who don’t smoke pot.  My mother lives in Jamaica now and probably smokes every day, probably more than probably, but she’s retired from a desk job after 30 years so she deserves it, right?  My father smokes rarely, but when he does, it warms my heart to watch an old man squeal with delight at the bimbos on Rock of Love while devouring an entire box of Sees candy.  And I listen to his stories about the Grateful Dead concert he took me to at two days old, or how they almost had me in Mexico, or how he stared into the sunset and saw God.  I laugh and giggle when I’m supposed to, and smile to myself, happy that I’m a part of these stories I’ve heard a million times.

And when I look over my shoulder Marijuana’s still trailing behind me, but farther in the distance now.  I nod to her because now I’m in control.  Thank you for giving me the hawk like ability to tell if someone is stoned a mile away, this will come in handy when I have teenagers of my own…

I’ll ask if they’ve been smoking pot, and they’ll lie.  Then I’ll lie and tell them I hate that disgusting smell, when I secretly don’t hate it at all.

When I was about three, I had a hard time differentiating between memories of things that had actually happened, and memories of dreams.  That year, my ma and dad and I lived in a two family home on Cape Cod — the house had a basement and second floor, which is where my room was.  It must have been a dream, but it was very vivid — I remember easily jumping down the carpeted flight of stairs, where my ma used to hang out, talking on the phone, after she had gotten the curly extension cord.  She was very impressed by my jump, which was more like floating, really.  ”All you have to do,” I explained, “is get a real good running start, jump right before the first step, and you’ll get a perfect landing.”

I was pretty sure it’d work again, but I had been fooled before (a series of wire hangers connected together is NOT the same thing as a rope ladder, trust me).  So for practice, I tried jumping straight up into the air and landing on my knees.  Over and over again, something wouldn’t let me do it.  Each time, something inside of me — which I assumed was my conscience — would override my attempt to destroy my patellae, and at the last second my legs would kick out and I’d land on my feet like a normal jump.  Then I tried jumping onto the soft plaid cushions of the couch, and I landed on my knees every time, like I had set out to do, with no automatic objections from my conscience.  Clearly, my conscience would not allow my body to deliberately injure itself.

Armed with this new discovery, the heady memory of safely jump-floating down a flight of stairs, and my steadfast belief in the power of deductive reasoning… well, let’s just say that I’m glad that they were just baby teeth.

There was a time when I feared going to work.  I worked at a restaurant. You know the type—frothy ice cream cocktails with cutesy names, 1000 calorie appetizers, kitschy wall décor with local flavor particular to that branch of the corporate chain.  It’s no myth, by the way, that there is a par number of flair items (buttons and pins promoting beer and cheesecake and a generic sort of zaniness).  For us, the number was three, but you were encouraged to exceed it. 

At the end of the night, the list of chores was long.  The lingo term is “side work” but I refuse to call it that when referring to this place, which we’ll call “Restaurant X.”  I feel that “side work” refers to something breezy, something secondary.  At Restaurant X the side work was almost crippling. 

If you were a server at Restaurant X in the 90s, you did just about everything.  You ran your own food, made your own salads and desserts.  You carried bus buckets and had the belly-high pale brown “bus bucket ring” on your uniform to prove it.  There were days, early on, that Restaurant X employed bus boys and salad chefs.  But they were always cutting corners, and so the servers were eventually forced to do everything other than wash dishes and cook, and I will tell you that I had to do both of those things on occasion.   This was all when the restaurant was open.  The real work started after your last customers paid their check.

First you cleaned your tables, making sure to wipe out the pizza pans holding the condiments.  Then you refilled the condiments and made sure, per corporate standard, that the pink sweetener packets lined up with the crushed red pepper and black pepper, while the white sugar packets sided with the salt and parmesan cheese (which was never refrigerated and smelled strongly of feet).  You couldn’t forget to wipe the dessert book or the appetizer tent.  You couldn’t forget to sweep.  The manager on duty would inspect your station, severely, while you stood by, waiting nervously for the go ahead. The nightly scrutinizing was annoying and demeaning, but not scary. Those in charge, grappling for their little power, did not frighten me.  

After section inspection it was on to the side stations—stocking ketchups, mustards, to-go boxes. Eventually, the outer rim of the kitchen our responsibility too.  Why pay the minimum wage plus cooks to do what the two dollar an hour wait staff was perfectly capable of?  This consisted of cleaning the salad area, cutting vegetables, refilling dressings, stocking the dessert case, and making sure that everything was locked down and covered tightly, superficial protection from the night army.  Ah, the night army.  Yes, I’m hinting at it now.

After the kitchen break down we made mountains of silverware roll-ups and if we were lucky, we could drink draft beer in plastic soda cups while we sat and chatted and worked on our last task.  The beer was a nice touch, I’ll admit, and I count those 2 AM silverware sessions as some of the best of my life.  Laughing and flirting and playing funny songs over the sound system.  It was good, it was good.  But it wasn’t like that every night.  We always had to beg for the beer.  Literally beg, like small children wanting a cookie.  The manager would always drag it out too.  They’d throw us a “maybe” and a “we’ll see” and the old “I’m terribly busy right now but I’ll see how things look in a minute.”  Murmurings would pass across the greasy tiled floor.  We’re getting beer.  We’re not getting beer.  Has anyone asked about the beer?  You ask, she likes you best.  Toddlers.  Cookies.

But the thought of a night without crappy, flat Miller Lite is not what frightened me. 

And no, it was not the threat of rent, and how each tip mattered in the quest to make it in one night, already a week overdue. 

You may think I was scared of the incestuous vines that bound me to practically everyone in the place, a hook-up tree (which we did, at one point, actually map out) full of hazy memories and sloppy indiscretions.  But that, while awkward, was really not all that scary. 

What scared me was the final thing that was expected of us, in addition to the buttons and pins, the neat ponytail, the clean necktie.  We were asked to go above and beyond with the kitchen clean up and the anal retentive condiment arrangement.  And then we were asked to go above and beyond that.  We were expected, though our sweaty palms and pale green faces often betrayed us, to keep a secret. 

Restaurant X was completely and totally infested with rats. 

At roll-up time, I would tuck my feet up into the booth, Indian style.  As I cleaned the kitchen, I jumped at every little sound.  The creatures stayed back, in the walls and in the ceilings, when the restaurant was bustling.  After hours they were ever so slightly more visible.  And after after hours the place was rumored to be a literal circus of rodents—enormous rats dancing around on table tops, hopping from chair to chair, juggling bits of garlic bread with cheese.  In looking back, I realize that I truly needed that Miller Lite to avoid lying awake at night, thinking about it.  Although I didn’t see them every day, it was enough to know they were there, whiskers moving rapidly with each dirty little breath. 

Ecolab (pest control) was there every night.  I would flip through their clipboard each morning; hand over an open mouth and one eye closed, as if reading a horror novel.  Caught 2 over by the coffee pot.  Saw a big one in take out but didn’t get there in time.  Found feces in the downstairs bathroom.

The activity peaked in 1997—I call it the Year of the Rat, but I think it was actually the Ox or the Tiger.  That year, I stomped menacingly around corners, I took escorts into dry storage, and I closed my eyes if I had to reach into a half empty case of napkins. 

This year they were suddenly more aggressive, coming out when the place was packed—“theater rush” as we called it, two hours of fancies from the Huntington Theater and Symphony Hall.  The theater crowd was an interesting thing at Restaurant X.  All of a sudden the establishment was made to be something it truly was not—fine dining.  Because there was really no place closer to eat, the rich folks talked themselves in to finding Restaurant X delightful, happily sipping their well bourbon Manhattan or Sutter Home chardonnay as if doing something novel, roughing it for the night.  Besides those two glorious hours every Thursday through Sunday, the place was what it was—a cheesy American bar and grill that usually catered to the permanent neighbors of Northeastern University and the Roxbury projects. 

During business hours, the year’s braver rats usually only made brief appearances, darting from the bar to the kitchen, from the cluttered host stand to the side station.  The servers, aware and on guard, might catch a glimpse or just sense the rat on an energetic level.  The customers were usually clueless—involved in their chatter, pink with wine, chin deep in New Orleans Fettuccini.  I do remember one particular theater rush, however, when one went absolutely crazy, zigzagging through the middle of the restaurant, circling legs and bucking wildly, perhaps high on Ecolab’s insufficient poison.  He was probably a ten-pounder, to be honest, and the fancies were less than thrilled.  Sharp dressed men knocked over their cheap red wine and tried not to act like little girls.  Old ladies in their fur shawls climbed a top chairs, clutching their purses, wobbling on beige heels and artificial hips that we all hoped would not betray them.  I pressed myself against the stylized red brick, heart pounding, trying hard to keep the unspoken promise of a Restaurant X employee.  The place.  Crawling with them.

As a rule, the managers did not like to discuss the issue.  They actually acted like this was normal—Boston and rats were like peanut butter and jelly.  And it was true, in a sense.  It was common to see a lone rat run through a dark alleyway, or leap from a dumpster.  But these were alleys and dumpsters, after all. 

Slowly, as the intensity of the Year of the Rat grew, the bosses started talking.  They still tried to brush things off, they acted like it was “all part of the show.”  The Board of Health allows a certain amount of rodent activity, you know, and we still fall well beneath the undesirable limit.  They’re just getting frisky because of the big dig.  Well, Back Bay used to be under water, you know.  Half of Boston was under water so obviously…obviously… Ha ha, got you there.  Their stuttering explanations began to make less sense and you’d see them, wide eyed and skittish, shake their keys through the cracked office door before flipping on the lights.  The office, you see, was one of the hot spots for rat activity.  At basement level, across from the food storage and adjacent to the damp and sticky liquor room, rats seemed to like this warm, quiet place. 

I spent two hours a week in that office, as Restaurant X’s illustrious administrative assistant.  In short, I paid the bills, including a rather hefty one to Ecolab.  Rick the Rat Man was there so often at this point, he was like one of the gang.  I wouldn’t have blinked if he showed up in a denim shirt, funky tie, and maroon apron. 

While paying bills, I would play the radio loud and make weird noises, trying to scare any squatters away.  I avoided sticky sodas and never wore flip flops, God forbid one should brush my bare skin.  I tried to keep my feet off the ground, either by propping them up on a cardboard box or kneeling awkwardly on the rolling office chair.  I never brought food into the office.  In fact, during this particular year, I did not eat at Restaurant X at all, despite the 50% employee discount. 

I saw things that year that no one should ever see.  I saw corporate bound managers wading through the flooded basement, picking frozen chicken breasts out of the murky water for future use.  The water, of course, was totally ratastic, but there was food cost to consider. 

At least three times, I saw dark blood dripping from the dressing room wall—these were moments of celebration for Rick, his intricate maze of traps and poison yielding occasional results. 

Meals were comped nightly, the rogue rats getting more and more comfortable with the dinner crowd.  They even seemed to enjoy it, darting across booths, sniffing at shoes, stopping in the center of section three to get at an itch behind the ear, as if giving the theater goers a little opening act. 

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, my perpetual disgust was taken to a new level.    

It was a sunny morning, around 8 AM—early for a college girl, early for a waitress.  I was both.  I stood in line at the Dunkin Donuts across from Restaurant X, waiting for an extra large ice coffee, one that would take me through the morning bills.  One of our managers, Daryl, caught up with me in line.  Usually full of spark and attitude, he was visibly shaken.  His eyes darted around the coffee shop, looking at each customer with suspicion. 

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“Are you here to pay bills?” he whispered, in a growling, urgent sort of way.

“Yeah…Daryl, what’s wrong?”

“You really don’t want to see the office.  I don’t know that the office is the best place for you right now.”

“Why?  What’s going on?”  As if I didn’t know.

He looked at me like, You know.

“Critters?”  I whispered.

Daryl nodded.

“Roaches?”  I asked, hopeful.  Oh yeah, we had those too.

“Maggots,” he whispered, “a lot of them.”

A rat—I kid you not—the size of a puppy, had died on the ceiling tile directly over the computer desk.  The crumbly old square, probably lined with asbestos, sagged ominously with the weight of the thing.  You could make out the rounded shape of the overstuffed torso, fat with years of old onion rings, stale croutons, and ranch dressing milkshakes.  My diaphragm heaved and my mouth let out an involuntary, exaggerated gasp, Twilight Zone style.  Truly, the scene before me was unreal.  A steady line of maggots slowly dripped from the challenged ceiling, landing on the desk with soft thud after thud, like the sound of gelatinous rain. 

When the dry heaves started, I was offered a pass and instructed to go upstairs to drink my coffee and wait for my serving shift.  I sat in booth 50 (feet tucked of course) stunned still and wondering if I could realistically continue working in a rat hole.  But here’s the thing about the Restaurant X of the late 90’s—it was a family, however dysfunctional.  Most of us had been there three or four years, which is a long time for a shitty restaurant job.  This was our social scene and our life.  It was a scary thing to leave.  And besides, I don’t know one young waitress who can actually afford to walk out without something huge waiting in the wings.  Starting at a new restaurant means one to two weeks of training shifts—no tips.  It means crappy lunches and slow Sunday nights.  I really couldn’t afford to leave at the time.

By two o’ clock that afternoon, the office had been “cleaned up” and Daryl asked me to go down to do my work.  I whined, I protested, I let my eyes tear dramatically.  Somehow I thought giving it a day or two would provide some sort of invisible protection, at the very least distance from what I had witnessed that morning. 

I was unable to talk my way out of it, and sure enough, one stray maggot wiggled across the keyboard right as I sat down.  I looked to the ceiling, the missing square hastily covered with what some sort of baking tray.  The maggots were no longer dripping, but at least one was still around, alive and moving before me.  I yelled for Daryl, who begrudgingly carried him out on an old envelope.  As I hastily handled my paperwork, I felt clammy and tense. So deep was my fear, so strong my disgust, I was physically suffering.

Later that week I was promoted to bartender.  Bartenders were the elite members of the front of the house staff—they had regulars, they made more per hour, they made more in tips, and their side work, while more physically strenuous, was slight.  OK, that might be an exaggeration, but from the server’s perspective, they had the easy job…the cool job.  I should have been excited.  I would have been excited.  But there was just one thing about the bar.  Rat central. The bar rats were some of the fiercest in the place.  They were used to traffic and addicted to the sweet spill of whiskey, beer, and strawberry daiquiri mix.  The bartenders were the biggest secret keepers in the joint.  Trapped in a square island cage and constantly “on” they had to continuously chat with their patrons, even  if a fat one was flapping a fleshy tail against their foot.  There were horror stories of rats crawling up legs, hissing from behind beer lines, hanging out in the corner munching on chicken wings, unblinking and unafraid. 

I took the job, temporarily, terrified of the bar rats but determined to overcome my fear.  I was, after all, bigger than them. I could only hope.

The fire trucks were a bad omen.

You somehow get up early in the morning after drinking all night, throw a bunch of clothes into a bag, and survive the fifteen minute walk to the subway station only to encounter what looked like a crime scene.  There were flashing lights and firemen clomping down the stairs and police sirens in the distance.  But nobody stopped me on my way to the escalator.  So I paid my fare to the automated kiosk and waited for the 9:20 train.

It was December 24, 2000 and I needed to get to the airport.

Why was I taking the Los Angeles Metro?  The night before I sat in a booth at The Formosa Café and got laughed at after divulging my plans.  My friends looked at me as if I claimed I would get to the airport on a pogo stick.  I sipped my Manhattan and said confidently:

“The Super Shuttle is twenty-five bucks.  A cab is about forty.  And none of you drunks are going to get up that early and drive me.  The subway is less than two dollars.”

None of them believed it was possible.  And when I broke it down logistically- the red line to the blue to the green and then a quick shuttle- they thought it was all a joke.  There was general disbelief a subway line ran under Hollywood.

But it surely did, and on the day before Christmas I stood on the Hollywood & Highland platform and waited for a train that would not come.

Had I not been so hung-over I would have realized my plight.  But the night before I decided to go out with my roommate and his coworkers from Miyagi’s.  Somebody called it the Christmas Eve Eve Party.  It ended at 5 am with a group of us watching American Beauty in my apartment.  I was the only one who believed the film did not have a sad ending.

That morning, as sweat dripped down my forehead, I wondered why I hadn’t gone to sleep earlier.  I then heard a guy telling somebody the station was closed.  After ten more minutes of waiting I discovered the voice was coming from an MTA employee upstairs.  They were now informing people not to come down, but neglected to share this information with the poor slobs on the platform.

So I took a cab.

I should have just arranged the Super Shuttle.  But this trip home to Boston was going to tax my bank account and I needed to save any way possible.  Except now the $1.60 mass transit jaunt had turned into a thirty-eight dollar cab ride.  There would be no Banana Republic gift card for my cousin.

I should have been pissed off but could not muster enough energy.  With only three hours of sleep I was in a muted fog . . . not quite catatonic but possessing only a minimum of motor skills.  I could have used a beer.

Getting out of the cab I was horrified at the scores of people on the curb and inside the terminal.  I immediately thought I was screwed, but fear prompted me to ask if all the madness was avoidable.  I scanned the area for an airport employee who did not look like he would stab me if I asked a question.

“I have an e-ticket and no bags to check,” I said.  “Do I have to be here?”

“No, you can go right up to the gate.”

Nine of the greatest words ever spoken.

It’s hard to remember that in the days before September 11^th anybody, regardless of whether they had a ticket, could go to an airline gate.  The downside was every weirdo in LA would prowl the terminals asking for “donations”.  But on the positive side you could actually meet or see off your loved ones before they got on or off a plane.

On that day my confusion was due to something very new to me– the e-ticket.  I had purchased my travel online, not even bothering to print a receipt.  I literally had no documents proving I was supposed to be flying to Boston for Christmas.

So I bypassed the gigantic lines and fought my way through the crowd toward the metal detectors.  The plane would be boarding soon.  Checking the monitors my flight seemed to be the only one not delayed.  Karmic payback for the cab.  Or so I thought.

When I got to the gate the early Boston departure wasn’t even boarding.  My flight was obviously delayed, despite what the computers said.  In the mass of people there seemed to be an amorphous line.  I squeezed into it.

There was a good chance I would be shunned at the gate.  I hadn’t even called to confirm the ticket I bought online from William Shatner’s Priceline.com over a month ago.  Maybe this wasn’t even the right place.  Was it Northwest or America West or Southwest?

And what if my name had been deleted by some computer in, say, Backwater, Utah?   I could hear some smarmy guy explaining, “Sorry, sir, no Ostrowskis on our list.  In fact, we don’t even have any Michaels”.

Panic would set in and I’d be too weary to do anything.  Muttering to myself and heavy drinking would soon follow.  I would curse Captain Kirk to the day he died.

But I showed my ID to the woman at the counter and she gave me a boarding pass.  I eventually got to my aisle seat on flight 2677 to Phoenix on America West Airlines.  I read, drank my complimentary water, and ate my complimentary snack mix.

We landed in Arizona at about two o’clock Pacific time, thirty minutes before my next plane would fly to Boston.  I wanted to get some lunch but there didn’t seem to be enough time.  So after plopping onto a seat in the departure gate I extracted my leather CD case from my bag, a Christmas present from the previous year.  I put Jimmy Buffett on my Walkman and kept the volume low so I could hear any announcements.

Soon a voice said over the intercom, “Flight 2824 to Boston, obviously we’re experiencing a delay.  The plane has been clean and catered and the pilots are ready for departure.  We just need a crew.  There will be a slight delay while we locate them.”

The delay in Los Angeles wasn’t much of a problem.  Whether waiting in LAX or Sky Harbor it’s still waiting.  But it was now three pm Pacific Time and they hadn’t begun boarding.  I thought I would be at home in time for Christmas Eve.

It was a family tradition to gather at my great aunt’s place on the night before Christmas.  Afterwards I would always go to my friend Dave’s house and drink Irish whiskey and see friends from high school.  I’d never missed either of those events despite living on the other side of the country for the last three years.

The next announcement informed us the crew would be here shortly . . . “from the break room”.  The person using the PA was obviously pissed at his fellow employees.  Such raw honesty in an airport could only be done out of spite.  Passengers are a cranky lot by nature, and this just gave the mob live bodies to vent their frustration.

At the gate across from me I witnessed a shouting match.  Actually it was more of a one-sided verbal tirade by a woman with white hair.  The airline employee listened to the complaints with the serenity of a Buddha.  I wondered if the crew on that flight got adequate rest in the employee break room.  They would surely need it.

Airports just bring out the worst in people– like freeways and world wars.  I’ve always found them creepy.  Thousands of strangers each desperately wanting to get somewhere else, and most willing to step over babies and shove the elderly to do it.

“Good Afternoon,” the intercom voice said again.  “We do apologize for the delay.  We will now begin boarding.”

I remember thinking I should be grateful of air travel.  A hundred years earlier the journey from California to Massachusetts would have been by wagon, with all of us wondering if we’d be attacked by wolves or lose our scalps.  In the year 2000 the only danger was boredom from waiting, followed by a sore ass from the cramped chair, and a stomach ache from the lousy food.

“Your choices for dinner tonight are Salisbury Steak or Walnut Chicken Salad.”

I’d been zoned out in my seat for awhile when I heard the flight attendant ask me that question.  I hated walnuts and Salisbury is a town in Northern Massachusetts.  But all I’d eaten all day was snack mix.  The “steak” didn’t seem so bad.  The pilot announced 1,854 miles until Boston.

I landed at Logan about eleven-thirty pm.  I got off the plane and made my way to the exit, realizing I forgot my CD case.  There were over twenty of my favorites in there.  Despite many calls to the airline in the following days I would never see any of those CDs again.

With just my carry-on I passed hundreds of people waiting for their luggage.  The electric doors opened and I staggered to the asphalt and inhaled the cold air.  Buses, shuttles, and taxis passed and a few of them honked their horns.

A light rain swirled past the awning and I could see my breath in the air.  A few minutes later my Mom’s station wagon pulled up to the curb.  My little brother sat in the back seat and handed me a Dunkin Donuts coffee as I entered the vehicle.  My Mom kissed me on the cheek.  I was home and it was still Christmas Eve.

Living in Sicily—yes, I’m going to say it—changed my life.  Not just because it’s where I first lived with my husband, where I said goodbye to single life, where I conceived my first child.  Those things, while important, could have happened anywhere.  Living in Sicily gave me perspective and culture, it gave me pleasure.  That island stripped me down and slowed me down, whispered secrets.  Love is everything.  Adventure is everything.  Breathing is everything. 

When we eventually left the old rock on that early March morning, after three years, I was ready to go.  As we boarded the plane under still starry skies, I didn’t even take a last look; I didn’t even glance out the window as we took off.  I was pregnant, homesick, and I had island fever.  Looking back, I can’t believe I ever felt that way.  Now I think about Sicily all the time.  I see it through a haze; I see it as if sleepwalking.  It’s so far away and I miss it like crazy. 

Sicily is a romantic, sexy place—the bawdy, older sister of that elegant boot.  The food, of course, is amazing—so specific, so fitting to the feel of the place.  Thin, crispy pizza with cheese for days, garlic soup, fresh sliced tomatoes and crusty bread.   Hazelnut gelato, or my favorite—half lemon, half pistachio.  Seafood that’s alive moments before it hits your plate, and sometimes accidentally alive when the plate is presented to you.  Don’t even get me started on the arancini—little cones of rice, breaded and deep-fried with an oozing center of melted cheese, meat sauce, and peas.  The rice is buttery, the sauce subtly seasoned.  I hurt at the thought of them.  I’d trade a toe for one, I swear I would.

We lived in a small town called Motta Santa Anastasia, where the buildings and houses curve in a half moon around an old castle which sits, battle worn but strong, at the top of a cliff.  I used to walk to that castle, the Ramones so gloriously American and defiant on my headphones.  It was never lost on me, even at the end, the privilege of walking up the crumbling steps, surrounded by overgrown olive branches and fragrant prickly pear plants.  At the top, I’d lean on the castle wall—the castle wall, for crying out loud!  I’d let the cool, rough rocks and the history sink into my skin.  I felt so lucky, I almost felt jealous of myself.  It is different to inhabit than to tour.  I was truly familiar with Motta, my castle, the little cappuccino stand down the street, the one with the best arancini in town. 

I would often sit on a bench near a statue of the Sicilian poet Carmunu Caruso, who hailed from Motta.  I never read his work, but felt I knew him intimately.   I would sit there with Carmunu, turn off the punk rock, and write poems—exaggerated ones about lust and fairytales and changing the world.  Sometimes the poems would turn into letters to home, to old friends, telling them of the sunshine on my back, of the bench, of the teenage boys on scooters laughing and whistling as they zoomed by.  I would write of the orange groves and of Motta’s square at night, crowded with families eating pastries and laughing, everybody out, nobody watching TV. 

It’s not just the castle that I miss, it’s not the food.  It’s not my friend Carmunu.  I miss things I couldn’t have back even if I hopped on the next plane to Catania.  It’s that I want time to unwind and reveal itself again.  I want to learn to cook in that little summer kitchen of one hundred degrees, no counter space to speak of, dirty little street cats running in to snatch sausage right out of the pan.  I want newness with my husband, when holding hands felt like having sex and folding his boxers was a novelty.  We used to walk down the street together, trading a bottle of wine back and forth—pulpy, fruity wine crafted by the stubby, hairy hands of our landlord Angelo, who wore a fedora, ran a family farm, and was rumored to be in the mob.  At the end of the alleyway, Matt and I would drink Angelo’s wine, wrap our arms around each other and watch Mount Etna erupt, orange lava fingers stretching up toward the moon. 

I miss learning to play chess at the old gelato shop and grilling steak with our big, loud Navy family of new friends that felt like childhood friends.  I miss Christmas shopping in Misterbianco and reading Harry Potter out loud to Matt at bedtime, the windows open to the sound of crickets chirping.  I miss watching fireworks on an American military base, far from home, the first Independence Day after 9/11.   

I wish I could relive the day that Matt proposed, there, in our shabby bedroom with the hard tile floor and the hand painted dresser and the bright sunshine pouring in.  I was wearing a pink plaid sundress and my hair was pulled into a neat bun.  He was wearing his uniform and I remember feeling, even though there was little fanfare in the moment, that the image was timeless.

In the summertime we’d swim together in the Ionian Sea, encouraging and helping one another to reach our goal, the big, jellyfish infested rock about a mile out.   Our favorite beach was rumored to be a breeding ground for great white sharks, and although these stories were always told with a wink and a smile, my heart would pound out of my chest as my legs tread the icy depths. 

I was somewhat frightened of life before I lived there.  Although I acted boldly at times, when fear snuck in, it would paralyze me.  Running off to Sicily with a heart full of love changed that.  It was an overwhelming risk, and it taught me that I do actually like adventure, that I can handle fear.  And I miss the days, the shiny, exotic days, when I learned that this was true.

I left a full and busy life in Boston—graduate school, a job, a side gig reading for a literary magazine, good friends and a long history with a city that I truly loved.  I left for Matt.  And to be honest, life there was loving him and living on the island.  I was allowed to volunteer, but not allowed to work, which left many empty days alone with my thoughts.  It’s one of the reasons I was anxious to leave, but now I often miss the solitude, the complete solitude of being an American girl walking around an old Italian town, facing herself, just herself, every day.  Stripping it down, slowing it down, breathing, loving—for me, it was a whole other level of fear.  I miss facing it, I miss feeling it. 

What is it about nostalgia?  What is it about the smell of spring rain in the trees or a beat up old prom photo or just the memory of the first time you stood up on roller skates?  It’s often said that we want what we can’t have.  But I think we want what we can’t have back.  First kisses and Garbage Pail Kids and the smell of Grandma’s French toast.  Summer camp and catching fireflies.  Long late night talks in smoky college dorm rooms.  Sweet pulpy wine and Harry Potter by moonlight, fried rice balls and prickly pear bushes. 

I try not to get too caught up in it, although I am very good at getting lost down memory lane.  Honestly, I love living in the moment.  The cool, calm Ionian Sea and the threat of jellyfish and sharks taught me that.  When life gets hectic, when my family is spinning with things and lists and baths and bedtimes, I remember the poet’s bench and the families sharing sweets in the square, and I slow myself down and drink up the now, because I will miss it too someday.

Back in Grad School there was always required reading before I could go to sleep, dense chapters of esoteric media hypotheses to digest and comprehend.  Not the sort of books you willingly open after eight hours of bartending.  But I would diligently read all those pages after my shift.  Or else most of them.

Homework was done after midnight at my cheap wooden desk in my tiny studio apartment.  Still in my bartending clothes, reeking of beer and cigarettes and a non descript food smell, I would try to be a good student.  Some nights were better than others.

I mostly believed media theory was the math of my Masters program, useless mumbo jumbo you needed to graduate.  But every once in awhile I would come across an interesting hypothesis.  There is even one I remember clearly after all these years.  It was put forth by a British academic named John Fiske; he said, “television is not an orgasmic medium”.

There was a part of me that desperately wanted to believe Fiske, but the more rational side knew too much about television.  Orgasms were where you find them, and TV is as good a place as any.  Same goes for music, movies, and books.  I was without a girlfriend back then, and that was how my twenty-five-year-old mind figured it.

But orgasmic mediums receded from my consciousness the next morning.  Gray and silver clouds loomed over a frosty Commonwealth Avenue as I stepped out of my door.  The sidewalk had patches of ice, and the scattering of snow was dusted with soot.

I had four hundred and seventy-one dollars in cash, two checks worth $124, and three rolls of quarters.  Nearly all my currency until I worked another shift at Uno’s.  On this Tuesday afternoon I was off to Federal Street to hand deliver my rent.

I had yet to reach The Public Garden when it began to rain.  My lightweight jacket had a hood but I did not own an umbrella.  The foot bridge in the park was slippery as I passed George Washington on his horse, and I was glad I’d worn boots.

Down at the Swan Boat pond I watched a girl take a picture of her boyfriend.  She shivered as the rain plinked against her cheek, her umbrella useless on the ground as she lined up the shot.  I remember thinking that had to be somewhere in the definition of true love.

While waiting at Charles Street to cross into The Commons I spotted beautiful woman on the other side.  She was in her twenties, dark skinned, and had deep blue eyes and wavy black hair cut short.  She caught me looking at her and smiled.  The next time I gazed back she was staring at me.  But the dark skinned stranger quickly turned away, the light changed, and she kept her head down as she passed me in the other direction.

Should I have looked back?

The obvious answer was yes, but I did not.  The idea of the mysterious beauty lingered, but I forced myself to stop thinking about her.  She was nothing but a dream, just another attractive woman I would never meet.  Fantasizing about her would be just as bad as watching a crappy sitcom.  I needed to live in the real world.

And that’s when I almost died.

There was the crackling of ice, a deep whoosh, and then the boom of impact.  A large branch from a tree surrendered to the weight of the ice and crashed to the ground just as I stepped into The Commons.  Maybe almost died is an exaggeration, as I was about twenty yards away, but my path would have taken me to that exact spot.  If I had left my apartment a few minutes earlier I probably would have been killed.

I tried to decide if God or fate was trying to give me a message.  Should I have spoken to the girl at the light?  Or possibly this quasi near death experience was meant as a wake-up a call, to force me to get more out of life.  To find the orgasmic mediums that would make me complete.

After staring at the felled branch I chalked it up to a random occurrence.  Soon I had my money order for $625, and I walked down Federal Street to the high rise offices of the company that owned my apartment building.  Inside the courtyard was warm and dry, and the smell of coffee and assorted foods filtered through the air.

Even though I was minutes removed from the freezing street, a bead of sweat ran down my back as I rode in the elevator to the 10^th floor.  My heart began beating quicker as I approached the receptionist’s desk.  The office was quiet, save for some fingers tapping on unseen keyboards.

The receptionist had short red hair, glasses that looked like they were from the 1950’s, and wore little make-up.  Her dress was off white and quite plain.  The woman’s name was Samantha, and she could have been anywhere from twenty-two to thirty.

She was the reason I was there.

“I live at one of the properties on Comm Ave,” I said in a shaky voice.  “I’m here to pay rent.”

“I remember you,” Samantha answered as she looked at some documents.  “Michael.”

I’m sure my face turned red.

“You’re the only one that comes here and pays rent in person,” she said.

“It’s just so close, seems funny to mail it.”

“That’s a refreshing take on life,” Samantha said.  “Most of life is just mailing it in.  We go through the motions, trapped in our invisible cones of silence.  Personal contact is disappearing.  Have you used the Internet yet?”

“We have access to it at school, but I’ve yet to do it,” I said.

“Stay away.  I’m not saying it’s evil or anything, and I’m sure it does have a lot of positive uses, but we already have enough distractions in our lives.  I have a friend who spends five hours a day on the Internet.”

“Doing what?”

“God if I know,” Samantha said.

The phone rang and she answered a few questions about rental properties.  As she spoke she filled out a receipt for my check, stamped it, and pushed it across her desk toward the edge.  I didn’t want to take it.  I wanted to keep talking to her.

My mind buzzed with possible ways to ask her out on a date.  I had wanted to do this for months now, but never managed more than a few inane words about the weather.  Samantha said personal contact was disappearing, and I could prove her wrong.  I could have at least asked her if she thought the Internet was an orgasmic medium.

“Thanks for coming in, Michael,” she said while holding out the receipt.

“Thank you, Samantha.”

“See you next time.  Keep warm.”

Instead of that day being one to recall as a turning point in my life, it remains as another missed opportunity.  I have about five or six women from my past I should have asked out, and the rental office receptionist is at the top of the list.

I was soon outside in the rain and mentally cursing myself.  If anybody spoke to me the way I did inside my mind, I would certainly have punched them in the nose.   There seemed nothing else to do but eat lunch.

Faneuil Hall was close and offered many quick and affordable food choices.  I had a few friends who worked near by who could have joined me, but I wasn’t in the mood for socializing.  Instead I bought a Boston Globe for company.

Walking through that food court always brought back memories.  Summers after Sox games, weary nights after Christmas shopping, and strolls with girls who once meant something.  I could not help but think of all the times I’d been there with my ex.

I ordered tacos and took them up to the second floor.  Between bites I read about a taxi company that had a separate number for Roxbury and Dorchester, a housekeeper who was O.J.’s only alibi, and discovered our governor would not run for President of the United States in 1996.  None of the information was orgasmic in any way.

The thought of walking back to my apartment suddenly depressed the hell out of me.  So I strolled to the Government Center T stop and took the subway three stops to Arlington.  I still had a couple of hours to finish my required reading before class.

These were the days out in Roxbury, when I’d spend long, hot hours in the hall closet–my office, “the writing room,” which I decorated with photographs of my life and multi-colored twinkle lights.  Some of those lights were shaped like butterflies.  In certain places the wire was thin and dangerous.

This was a time when I didn’t go anywhere without a backpack—a thirty-pounder stuffed with books and diaries and a maroon apron that smelled like old pepperoni and sweat, no matter how many times I washed it. 

Back then I smoked cigarettes, because I was young and careless and invincible and stupid and horribly addicted.  I smoked and smoked in that little closet on Cedar Street.  The closet had no door but rather a heavy tie dyed sheet carelessly hung with thumb tacks.  The smoke in my little creativity cave was so thick that I’d choke on it and pull aside the sheet and stick my head out for fresh air.  The air was never all that fresh.  We were not very good at taking out the trash, or cleaning at all for that matter.  And of the many roommates that came and went, not one of them was a nonsmoker. 

These were the days at Emerson, undergrad version.  I transferred there from BU and found my stride as a writer.  I was inspired and confident and above all, prolific.  When I wasn’t writing pages upon pages of short fiction, I was writing in my journal.  When I wasn’t writing at all, I was waiting tables.  Often after waiting tables, I went to the bar with the other waiters and waitresses.   You were one of them.  And when I wasn’t doing any of those things, I was playing Pipe Dreams and Jezzball, mindless games on an ancient Apple—the 2GS, I believe. 

I drank one hundred ounces of Diet Coke a day and often forgot to eat.  I called in to Julie Kramer’s flashback lunch radio show at least once a week, begging for songs off the Pretty in Pink soundtrack and “Make a Circuit With Me” by the Polecats.  When Julie wasn’t on, I listened to my old favorites.  Upbeat new wave classics or the Spice Girls while getting ready to go out, Grateful Dead while trying to fall asleep, They Might Be Giants while writing, and the Pixies while playing Pipe Dreams and feeling restless.  Sometimes I was restless.  I was restless in the fat, wet heat of a New England scorcher, restless in my loud little life. 

The heat that summer was unbelievable.  Every ten minutes or so I’d take a break from the smoke box writing room and stand under a cold shower with my clothes on.  Between showers I’d be sweating and wondering about you.  I’d often think of calling, but I never did.  You’d find me eventually.   That summer, you just had a way of finding me.  Your turned up everywhere.

It was a time of disconnect on Cedar Street–roommates in fights and roommates ending their roommate romances.  At the end of it all we got the worst roommate in roommate history, the one who built the blue tarp sweat lodge and the totally not-to-code fire pit.  He used his boxer shorts as a coffee filter and spent most of his time with some sort of art therapist.  If I ever for a second looked bored, he’d try to get me to sleep with him, and he brought home a pit bull and tried to turn him mean.  When said dog pissed on his bed, he slept on it anyway and then stank of urine for days.  And by winter he jumped in front of a train—the mighty red line—and lived. 

That summer, you and I skated around something totally terrifying.  What was it there, that wasn’t there at the same time?  We were horrible and wonderful to each other.  I remember going on walks in the woods with other boys and forgetting that you existed.  I kissed strangers in front of you and cut my hair defiantly when you begged me not to.  I told you not to bring me orange juice when I was sick.  I didn’t want that kind of attention.  But I did confess that certain things were beautiful—your bright blue eyes, your full lips, the sunny morning when we walked the length of Boston, talking, talking, talking after kissing all night long, lips blissfully tired from all of it. 

You were unabashedly free, with words and thoughts and time and sexuality.  Although you hinted at settling down, I never bought it.  You sang crude songs at art shows and made fun of ugly girls.  You joked about our romance publicly and only pretended to kiss me at work, at the frickin’ rat infested corporate pizza joint.  I remember it.  Don’t think that I don’t.  In the cold, dry walk-in cooler you leaned in with your head tilted just right.  And then you laughed and walked away.

There were two walls to scale that summer, you see.  I have to believe that when walls exist, you can peek over and enjoy the view very, very much.  But you cannot climb.  You cannot climb walls made of fear and differences that can’t be bent. 
I’ve seen people try.  They bang their head against thick brick for years.  They bleed on rusty barbed wire.  And this is what love feels like to them.

Ha ha!  Do you remember that our first kiss was against a wall?  A dark spring night, a chain link fence.  I was stunned still by the eagerness with which you pressed me there, your hands in my hair.  And I should have known better. 

But we don’t need to get in to how it all started, or the funny things that people do.  I’m trying to remember that summer; oh, I’ll say it—1998.  I’m trying to remember our two walls, which both could have easily been of my own design.  I was fairly frightened of falling.  If there was a night, however, that the walls shivered and thinned, it was the night of the party at Em’s.  I wasn’t expecting to see you there, but I was never expecting to see you.  You’d turn up, in one of three favorite shirts—the black one, the Army one, or the one expressing your love for a certain east coast city.  You’d turn up and you’d plant yourself next to me and then we wouldn’t part for twenty hours or so.  And this night you turned up all messed up on something, I never asked you what.  I didn’t want to know.  You were sweaty and intense.  You chain smoked and you rambled on about wanting to get into my head, not just my pants.  And you rambled on about wanting to see my heart.  There were moments, that summer, and this is one of them, that I very nearly believed you.  I did believe you on some level.  A part of me wanted to rush at you, knock over your scrawny little body and see if it would break—that thing, that invisible thing that made me feel lonely and unsafe even though I was smiling.   

I know, it’s all so dramatic.  Don’t worry.  The window of time paints you sweetly.  That’s the funny thing about summer flings—because the sunshine is fleeting, because the days are long, because each year brings a packed, golden capsule of a certain kind of memory, the memory highlights the good.

We took a walk that night, the night of the party.   It had rained while we were inside, momentarily cutting the oppressive humidity.  The beat up Boston neighborhood seemed lush and inviting and you could even see a few stars.  I hid from you behind a tree because you looked alarmingly cute, and electric.  The moonlight/streetlight mix coated your dusty curls in copper and silver streaks and I could feel a deep heat rise to my face.  I knew that I was blushing or flushing. I knew that my body was overreacting to your presence.  Then we kissed, of course, in the tamed summer air, under the street lamps, under the stars.  You asked me to dance, but we didn’t have any music.  So you sang.  Oh oh oh, it’s magic, you know, never believe it’s not so.  I let you dance me over the cracks in the sidewalk, and the ancient trees with the roots that did the cracking winked and swayed to your gravelly voice.  And I let myself rest my weary cheek to your sharp shoulder.  And I let myself lift one shaky foot to the first brick.  You have to learn somehow.

I would be fired the next day, but the night before I went out with Gino.  I never really had any super Italian friends growing up.  One of the more overlooked differences between Boston and New York is their flavor of Catholic.  In my phone I had him listed as Ginoooooooo. Gino was an actor with a manic vibe and I’m not sure if we ever had a real conversation, but he was funny.

It was my first Halloween weekend and the real happening in NY is right after the parade in the Village.  I followed my still co-workers down into Alphabet City, to a charming little dump called Doc Holladay’s named after my second favorite Val Kilmer role.   It was the kind of bar where you spend hours behind a cheap beer excavating 70’s graffiti through the layers of wall grime with your fingernail. There was a thrill of possibly digging up a place where the Ramones had once pissed on a unsuspecting fan.

The costume contest had begun a touch before we arrived and sans costumes we could just sit back with a tub of Pabst and take in the seedy faire.  It seemed like an easy formula.  Round by round, the intoxicated contestants would stand on the bar so that the intoxicated crowd could cheer on the woman with the least amount of clothes.  The frontrunner was a girl who had apparently tailor-made her outfit for just such a contest.  She wore a cardboard box extending neck to knees, painted in black and bedazzled. On the front, she had cut herself some swinging door and wrote, in what I assumed was red lipstick, the words, PEEP SHOW 25¢. And just as promised when some forth coming patron would chuck a quarter up at her,  she opened the doors revealin just the skin she was in.

It was going to be a landslide.

Her only competition was a girl in what could only be described in the Village as a delicious catsuit, showing off every curve and fold her body provided.  Even the whiskers seemed like a detail I would be embarrassed to buy.
The conversation was again not premium but I enjoyed new friendships.  Trying to pick out the ones I could hang out with in the future over those who I would just merely be friendly with at work. I really felt like I was settling to New York.  Two months in and I was beginning to make friends and I had found a restaurant I could see myself at until I didn’t have to.  It was Goodfellas kinda joint and the owner, a scion of another more established Italian icon, loved to keep me late drinking with him at the bar until his wife called.  He loved me.  He wanted to make t shirts with me out of these ironic lil drawing that I had made and once sold as postcards in Union Square for a buck a piece.  He had plans for me.  I felt like it was going to work out.

Around my 5th or 6th PBR, the semi finalists were announced and the Peep Girl, drunk with tangible confidence ascended the bar for what would merely be a victory lap. Her opponent, the cat, stood waiting and hissing and prowling the crowd intending to go down fighting.  When Miss Peeps finally got her footing and the first quarter was cast, the unthinkable happened.  She slipped. Fell straight off the bar into the bartender, the ice bin, a rail of cheap liqour and hopefully a latticed rubber and impossible unclean floor mat below.   The crowd let out an audible gasp followed quickly by laughter and then cheer for the cat girl, left standing, who took the opportunity and egged the crowd to show her love for her balance and dexterity.  Twenty minutes later, she would crowned with what ever one wins in a bar choking with cigarette smoke and tables piled with Spartan beer cans shrines.

I would call in to find out my schedule the next day, only to discover I had none.  My eyes teared with shock.

Lamps terrified me.  At an age so young that I didn’t even know the word fear, I seemed to have plenty of them and lamps were number one on the list, grandfather clocks a close second.  Now, you don’t run into grandfather clocks every day, so they are a reasonably manageable fear.  But lamps—well, those fuckers are everywhere.

I thought they sort of looked like people, the various bases representing different body types, the rounded plateau shade a rather creepy version of a head.  One particular lamp freaked me out way more than any other because “he” was very tall.  In my mind, in my little toddler mind that knew no word for fear, I named him “Lampwick” and he was the leader of all the other lamps in our small, L-shaped house on Copa de Oro. 

Lampwick stood right on the brown shag carpet.  He had no need for a shelf.  His skeleton pole ran five feet high, right through the middle of a circular table at his gut, straight up to the shade, which was ridged and looked very angry to me. 

He didn’t bother me much when the sun was up.  Oh, I was aware of him, sure.  But not terribly scared.  I’d happily watch Saturday morning cartoons in my dad’s easy chair, right by Lampwick’s side.  Night was obviously a different story.  If it was dark outside, Lampwick was ignited, he was alive.  And he was sinister.  I didn’t favor my dad’s chair at night, but rather the far end of the couch, on the opposite side of the room from you-know-who. 

I’d actually try to be nice to him, this Lampwick, this inanimate thing.  I’d say goodbye to him before I went to school each morning, hoping that this simple gesture of kindness would prevent him from killing me in my sleep.  My thoughts were really that severe, and I kept them private.  Inside, I knew that this was crazy—saying goodbye to lamps, giving them names. 

For a time it was lamp nightmares every night.  I dreaded sleep.  I’d scream, cry, and hyperventilate each night when my mom tried to send me to bed.  I couldn’t explain it and as her frustration grew, so did my panic. 

Eventually I’d calm myself down, for show, and allow her to go back to the TV.  I’d wait a few minutes and tiptoe out of my bedroom, down the long hallway, across the small dining room to the little hallway outside the living room.  I’d sit there and I’d feel both safe and paralyzed, knowing I couldn’t stay there all night, knowing also that my dark bedroom seemed impossible to face.  Ironically, as I sat there in that little hallway, I sat in the striped shadows of Lampwick’s glow.  However, he was around the corner and I couldn’t actually see him and that seemed to make a difference.  Also, I figured that with my mom right there he wouldn’t try anything funny.  And that’s why I sat there, really.  I needed to know that she was still awake.  I needed to know that I was safe. 

I’d sit there and go over every detail of the pictures on the wall—the San Francisco cable cars painted by my grandfather, the boring old still life, the gypsy woman with a roaming eye.  That house, the one I grew up in, absolutely haunted me with loneliness.  It does still and it’s been over a decade since I’ve been inside.  Many of my dreams take place there, as if my desperate little childhood fears are still kicking around in the fireplace. 

Sometimes my mom would catch me there, in the hallway, splayed out on my belly, listening to Three’s Company or Quincy or whatever she was watching that night.  She’d wearily shuffle me back to bed and I’d protest again, although without as much gusto.  Exhausted, I’d reluctantly fall in to sleep behind a wall of stuffed animals, my army of protection against the lamps.  Sometimes I wouldn’t wake ‘til morning and I’d joyfully jump out of bed, licking up the glorious lemon sunshine with my eyes, elated that I’d made it through the night. 

Then there were the nights when the dreams would come and it would be lamps all night—cartoon lamps with thick eyebrows, lamps made out of stone, lamps made out of copper, Lampwick himself with a cape and legs, chasing me.  Once I even walked in my sleep and woke to find myself standing right in front of the bastard.  He towered over me.  He was massive.  In my half-slumber I thought I saw red hot arms reach out to grab me and then quickly retreat.  I stood there, shocked stiff for a moment before I snapped out of it and ran for my mother, who was sleeping.  I honestly don’t know where my father was in this situation—physically there, but not really, I guess.  Sometimes he’d throw a stray comment my way—a “this is ridiculous” or “go back to bed.”  But mostly he just followed sports.

At long last I walked my mother to the living room and pointed out my fear, finally unloading the burden that had kept me sleepless for months. 

My parents put old Lampwick in the garage the next morning, which was obviously not good enough.  In fact, it was worse.  I was convinced that he hated me even more for banishing him.  He wasn’t even plugged in out there, which obviously would have pissed him off.  In my mind, my nemesis had…a short fuse.  I am laughing as I write this because had my 34 year-old self been there with my three year old self, she, I, would have said, “Congratulations Sweetheart.  You’re a writer.  Good luck taming that imagination.” 

Next Lampwick was shipped off to my aunt’s boyfriend’s house and I believe they put him away whenever I’d come visit.  That part of the story is hazy to me.  Once I confronted my fears and told my mother, the intensity and frequency of the fear lessened quite a bit.  I do remember waiting in the car when my grandma took me to, of all places, “Lamps R Us,” but I think it was an act of stubbornness and punishment for her lack of sensitivity. 

In the couple of years after Lampwick’s departure I slept better, but occasionally wondered what the other lamps thought of me.  Once in a while, I’d make the rounds before school, saying goodbye to all of the lamps, even giving a timid hug here and there. 

I’m happy to say that today I love lamps.  They can be fun companions and they always seem to light up a room.  For the most part they are cheerful and purposeful, benign.  I do admit to choosing my lamps carefully, though, and have been known to linger in the lighting aisle, in front of a handsome base that originally caught my eye, but stays there on the store shelf because it just rubs me the wrong way.

(HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MEMOIRS ARE SO YESTERDAY!)

Please gather around ladies and gentlemen. Get nice and close up at the front so you can hear me.

First, welcome.  I really hope you enjoyed your tour of Middleton, Massachusetts on our vintage 1980’s yellow school bus driven by “Alice Tierney.”  But really that’s Belinda Cotter playing Mrs. Tierney circa 1987.  Just amazing.  Take a bow Belinda.  A round of applause for her marvelous acting.  Mrs. Alice Tierney was an actual bus driver, cafeteria employee and principal’s secretary back when children still received their elementary education in actual buildings.

Belinda, I’m sorry, Mrs. Tierney, will be happy to fill in any gaps about the President’s childhood that I have missed on your way back to the Popeye’s Chicken minibike depot and gift shop.

I am Park Ranger Al and welcome to 7 Riverview Drive, the childhood home of our 47^th President Justin Robert Tierney.

What you see above us, at the top of this gravel driveway is the culmination of three long years of research and restoration.  The President’s childhood home was donated to National Park Service after his death in the arms of the Sri Lankan Lady’s Volleyball team on what we here at the Park refer to as a “State Visit.”  The home is a palace of late 1970’s modest ranch style architecture.  It was built on this plot in 1979 for the purchase price of $40,000.  So you can see how times have changed, the wood alone used to restore the house cost taxpayers forty million dollars. Amazing, but sorry folks, no refunds.  Ha.

As you walk up the driveway, you will notice that it is completely gravel.  In the single parent house of the President, as were many in the 1980’s, the sound of gravel against tire became the latchkey to signal to the Tierney brothers that their loving mother was home.

To your left you will see the only remaining tree on what was once a densely wooded area.  It is a red maple given to the President’s Mother by her boys for Mother’s Day 1986.  Legend has it that the President himself picked out the tree from a local nursery and dug the hole furiously with his BARE HANDS.  He buried a lock of his own hair to help the tree grow.  Amazing.

No sir.  I do believe this is the actual tree.

Yes, it is quite amazing it has survived the inkjet and paper shortage of the 2020’s but that’s what this place is all about.  Amazing.  Now please follow me and save your questions until the end.

On your right, you will see a wooden well that marks the spot where the Tierney family once drew water from an underground aquifer.  This area has been barren of water for quite some time, but the infrastructure still exists.  And it too as been co-opted by the President’s plan for drawing moisture from the ground and air.

The well, of course, resulted in the President having a severe lack of fluoride in his early dental development and caused several cavities and root canals.  His signature winning smiling was manufactured just before running for Senator of New York when he had all his teeth capped and fused so they never requiring further brushing.  Amazing.

In the driveway is a vintage 1985 Buick Park Avenue, the Presidents first car.  Notice the Christmas wreath tied to the front that was a tradition of Momma Tierney who decorated almost everything in the Tierney household with wreaths. The bench seats of a car very much like this were said by some of the more scandalous biographies to be the site of his first female conquests.

This is the front door of Casa de Tierney.  Which is what we legally have to call it since the President signed it into law that Spanish and English would be the official languages of the United States of North America.  This front door was rarely used except for holidays and formal occasions.  It is said that the President, as a small child, threw his drunken Uncle Bruce out from these very steps because he thought he was Cuban.  Even then the President was protecting our land.

On your right, in the garden, you will see the Parade of Pets.  This is particular pride of our research team.  There is an animatronic replica of every one of the 13 cats, dogs, birds and lizards owned by the Tierney household in chronological order from Coffee Break to Oreo.  Feel free to pet them and talk to them about their origins.  You will learn things like D.J. and Sheba were sent away “to a farm” because they bit a neighbor in the ass.  That farm was widely suspected by the President to be Euthanasia.  Amazing.

Let’s squeeze into the living room.  Here the President and his brother would spend up to and eight hours a day watching television.  As you can see, people in the late 20^th Century barely watched TV because they were not attached directly to their foreheads.

I would like to point out, along with the wreath on the car; it is always Christmas here in the restored Tierney household.  The President and his family simply loved Christmas, even if he was the first devote Atheist to be elected President.  Forty percent of the furnishings were donated by the estate of Alice Tierney, the President’s saintly 120 year old Mother.  The decorations you see here are 100% real including the torn plastic bags you see on the ground. These bags, depicting 20^th century icons Raggedy Ann and Andy, were used by the President’s Mother as the sacks from which they received their Santa presents all the way into the President’s forties.

The President and his brother, Wind Tycoon and philanthropist Jason Ryan Tierney, were very often left to their own devices.  In this very hallway, they developed their imagination, creativity and athletic prowess with games such as sock hockey, sock baseball and sock basketball, using a this very laundry basket that was shaped as a basketball hoop and hung on the bedroom door.  When they could not find socks, they often used t-shirts.  There are currently twelve sock hockey leagues around the world and there is even talk of it becoming an Olympic sport.  And it all started right here in this hallway.  Amazing.

Now I must warn you.  This is a very narrow hallway and you may brush against some of the décor.  Like many of the things in this house, they are vintage and made up mostly oil based plastics.  This eighteen by twenty four inch trinket display proudly shows off many of what the Tierney boys found in cereal boxes.  At the time, cereals would entice themselves off the shelves with promises of sugar and toys within.  They are not all original sadly because several, especially the Smurf dolls, were commandeered by their Maternal Grandmother, who shall not be named, as good luck charms for her severe gambling addiction.  But the joke was on her, as we all now know that oil based plastic is the major cause of almost 95 percent of all cancer, many of which we used to think were caused by things like smoking. Ha.

We segue nicely into this side room.  Welcome to the computer room sponsored by Camel Lights.  Feel free to light up and go back to a time when computers were not voice and mind controlled.  The President pounded out many of his early great works here on this computer.  It is where he explored the internet, then known as Prodigy, for the first time and printed out pages upon pages of essays on this noisy cumbersome dot matrix printer.  Although becoming obsolete by around 1992, the President’s Mother used it well past the turn of the century.

By now you have noticed that rugs are all different color.  This room has green rug while the living room and hallway have an orange rug and you will see there is a blue rug in Jason Tierney’s room and a brown rug in his Mother’s room. Of course as boys, the Brothers Tierney frequently pretended this orange rug was lava.  This green rug was man-eating jungle and the blue rug Razberry Slushy of Doom.

No sir I do not know of any seismological events in this area.  And I realize that the instability of the Earth’s crust in this day and age is no joke.

No, I do not question the President’s mental health.  Please save your questions for the end or for the bus driver. Thank you.

As you can see Jason Tierney’s room has been fitted with a TV, several hundred “Micro Machines” from his own estate and a “Nintendo.”   This was a 20^th century video gaming system used before full emersion simulacrum media.  The boys spent hours playing football and baseball “video games” like Techmo Bowl and RBI Baseball.  The “CD” player you see above the TV was known to play almost exclusively the complete collection of a late 70’s rock band Led Zeppelin.  Jason Tierney went on to name his first Wind farm The Robert Plant.  His second was named for his first musical love Boys 2 Men.  There is no longer any record of Boyz II Men in the national archives.  Pity, but also amazing.

Here in the back of his Mother’s room you will notice the washing machine.  Now yes, it is a real working washing machine from the turn of the century before clothes were cleaned by focused Solar bleaching.  And you will notice there is no dryer.  That is because it was moved downstairs for some unknown illogical reason.  The five year old President would use every tiny bit of his strength to lug up to fifty pounds of wet clothes down to the basement.  This helped him build his strong athletic frame and character of mind.  It is said in his autobiography, “Takin’ It Back, Takin’ It All Back,” that the President was astounded later life when he discovered that washers and dryers were normally found in the same room or even on top of one another.  That book is available for mental dissemination at the Popeye’s Chicken minibike depot and gift shop.

You will pass the bathroom on your left.  It was the sole bathroom in the Tierney household and many of the President’s earliest memories are of his Mother beckoning him from this very toilet seat.  Feel free when the tour has ended to join the hundreds of thousands who have all made the pilgrimage to put their bare ass on this hallowed throne.

In the kitchen, you will notice the terrible floral wall paper, which was very popular in its day, I’m sure.  You will also notice the sliding glass door over looking the porch and wiffleball field.  This canary yellow contraption is a “gas” stove.  The President, who has since written twelve cookbooks, learned the craft of fine cuisine during his twenty years as a waiter.  The Cafeteria at the gift shop features some of the family recipes, such as Lemon Pepper Tuna salad, Hamburger Mac and Cheese and of course Peanut Butter and Bacon, which I’ve heard from a very good source, can actually be attributed to the President’s Father.

As we descend the stair case into the basement, please notice the actual graffiti uncovered on the walls by our restoration team.  In a young boys handwriting, you will see the sentence, “I’m R2D2 and don’t say I’m not.”  This has been attributed to the President’s brother and is the origin of his nickname R2, which comes up frequently in his own autobiography, “Life in the Shadow of Greatness: A Little Brother’s Courage.”

In the cellar, you will see two distinct sections.  One filled with antique yard tools, abandoned exercise equipment, a ping pong table and a wood working shop built by Mrs. Tierney’s only live in boyfriend, Harry Taylor, who packed up this very workshop and left the family while they were enjoying a trip to Disneyworld.  He would ironically die while choking on a popsicle stick left over from a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar.

Now you won’t this hear from the other Rangers, but the President enjoyed making wooden people from Mr. Taylor’s scraps on the jigsaw.  He then proceeded to cut off their heads and appendages while making screaming noises.  Makes you wonder about the war with Portugal doesn’t it?  But you didn’t hear it from me.

On the other side is the crown jewel of the tour: the President’s two room basement residence.  Originally built by his Uncle John in the late 80’s, when he lived here briefly with the family, the President moved into this room after his Uncle’s departure.  We have replaced most of what was particle board wall with glass so that you can peer into the world where the President developed into a man.  From his artistic abilities shown in the drawings and painting on the walls, to his ingenuity revealed by the shoestring he tied from the entrance to the light bulb cord so he wouldn’t have to fumble around in the dark to light his way.  This couch is said to be the very couch where he possibly lost his virginity, although it cannot be confirmed by any historical record or writing.  The book shelf is a personal library filled with books from his childhood.  His favorite was about a badger that throws mud in his sister’s eye.

No sir, there’s no insight or joke here.  It’s just fact.

Now as we past the dryer, we have come to the bulkhead, a large steel door that was a traditional entrance to the back yard but signals the end of our tour.  Feel free to walk the grounds, taunt the locals in this now depressed area, and to play wiffle ball with our horse based plastic bats and balls.  Completely cancer free and only seventy three Ameros at the gift shop.  My name is Park Ranger Al and you have all been amazing.

Thank you and no running!