Nowadays everyone's gettin' so famous

Miley Cyrus may be a total airhead but shit...it feels as though my friends are getting famous or at least the recognition they deserve. My friend was interviewed on Spike Jonze's blog for his photography, my ex-girlfriend's band was on daytrotter, (some of my poems are being published and yes this is a shameless plug), it is only a matter of time before my other friends get their due time. Keep it up!

Running My Face Over With a Vacuum Cleaner

Fucking idiot. Really tired of being a fucking idiot captain shithead jerk. I think I need a shirt that says this, or a panel inside my arm that you can open up for information on why I will destroy you and myself and resent, resent, resent forever. Someone told me I spoke like my mother yesterday, I was a little put-off by this for reasons I will not disclose. Being home is always weird, every time weirder, never better, never more intriguing than the last, never a boost up, just plain fucking strange. By now, I suppose I should plan on this. I should plan on anything I am happy about to disappoint, right? I should plan on never hearing you through the wire, I should plan on never seeing them, I should plan on never more than 5 minutes of happiness a day. Maybe that is all people need but that sure as shit does not satisfy right now.

Never in my life have I been more claustrophobic at a family gathering and wanted nothing more than to hide in the car under my jacket and breathe real loud and maybe call someone to hold my ears instead of my hands, than today. I did call but y'know that whole disappoint thing. I'm just disappointing myself. I'm not writing/have not been writing since I finally got something published which is really dumb. So stupid. I won't be published again for another threee years probably. I'm not sure why these posts either digress or regress into some child-like state where my words become limited to dumb, stupid, and crappy. What an asshole.

Dave Eggers is great! I should write him a letter and mail him a high five!

Namely Names

However strange it may be that the internet is a tool to help solicit for projects, I plan to do so. I need to come up with a final creative project that relates to a poem that has resonated with me over the course of the semester.

The poem I have selected is called "Saying Your Names" by Richard Siken from his book, Crush. The poem is nearly three pages of variations on a name, how we name things, what we name, the people we name and so on, completely exploding the idea of "what's in a name?"

Here is where you come in, I am asking for you to leave here names you have for me as though my name were not Zachary Raum Green. They can be perverse, honest, serious, insincere, adjectives, nicknames, a name you could see me going by, or whatever strikes you from this prompt. Please do not feel restricted.

After I receive your responses I plan to assemble a poem including these names.

The only critical acclaim I have is from myself. That is pretty neat.

I grew out of my Fred Savage stage but I did not grow out of you.

Window

Can't help but say [it sucked] or, this is the worst [part]. Five dreams add up to the non-realized you and I can't help but to feel depressed, like I stuck my toe in the door frame to intentionally stub it. I never do that. Who would? I completely did that and I will over and over again until you re-arrange the door frame.

Pete Halupka is a Natural Born Sociologist of Nothing's Somethings

My friend Pete asked me "What is the link between memory and loneliness?" Two abstracts. Really tough, I thought it. But really the answer is easy, if you are experienced in both or pay attention to the life you haven't lived hence my answer--imagination.

When you are lonely you can only think about fantasies with the people you want to be living those out with. Maybe they exist but they are not in your house on your bed or in the house on your bed, or not on the bed by the house. They hang out in the imagination that laps the back of your eyes pushing you forward to see but only realizing that your lip is really heavy, the heaviest part of your body when you are lonely.

So then what? You make a memory. You remember when you were lonely. Do you? What did you have? A fantasy, an imagined fantasy.

I often think the relationships I never had but that were in my head were the best ones to date.

Laying My Salsa on the Table

This is a messy place but I do not have pudding on my hands and quite frankly that would annoy me because I really don't like being messy. Fuck it, I need to face it, I am a mess. There is no doubt in my mind that I should have been diagnosed with OCD long ago and I know it's really silly to label ourselves this way in the age of I-know-nothing-about-psychology-or-diagnoses-but-I-plan-to-make-them-anyway.

Lately I have been generally excited about life but only social things and I feel like my education is meaning less and less more and more frequently. I hate writing at this point, I'm too steeped in it and by this time next year I will axe-murder poetry. My thesis is only a year away, (60 page manuscript of polished poems). I can't seem to write one poem I am proud of and that is probably the real reason I haven't submitted anything this year. I haven't submitted anything for almost two years. I seldom share work with my parents which I used to, we used to talk about it, I used to feel validated when we talked about it even though they are my parents and supposed to love what they have spent thousands of DOLLARS on.

This is going to continue in the vein of being gripe-y so if you are annoyed already, read no further. I get really excited when things seem to be working out but too excited and that is why I was hinting at obsession earlier, it's so unhealthy, I don't know how I keep it together sometimes and I really fear schizophrenia is on its way (there I go self-diagnosing my weepy bits again). Shit day. Probably because of a shitty burrito that I initially had some hope for, like I always do because when I get hungry I will eat anything and I forget that somethings just don't satisfy me, like burritos, and that I should have waited the 10 minutes for the fish tacos that probably were going to suck nut as well because I don't even really like Mexican food.

There is a lot of pent-up shit going on right nowwwwwww. Therapists are neat even if they don't help and use your money for the nice clothes.

Poetry is a fucking drag. Wednesdays are a drag. I don't want to talk about it. I really, really, really, like the five year old drooling at the seams, want to go home. The other day I was thinking how temper tantrums never really go away, they just shut up. I have a lot of temper tantrums in my head and maybe I should just let them out and break a dish here and there. I could be pleasant someday, I just forgot how to relax and woke up to a billboard on my dick that says "you will be working everyday for the rest of your life. might as well get herpes." Not sure where that came from. So many ugly places. UGLY UGLY UGLY I want to be in the woods, in a blanket of snow with a hand underneath me that belongs to no one but possibility.

Wool Socks Aren't Keeping My Shit Warm

Academic papers seem to never serve their purpose to heighten secondary education. They only allow you to write sentences like the previous one and feel justified about being an asshole.

Sleeping in bed next to a girl is stressful. I find I lose sleep when this happens.

I used the term "indie" probably about 50 times in that academic paper I was talking about and I'm not happy about it. The paper is done. I have not revised it. I may not revise it.

When I went into the bathroom last night I did not feel safe for once.

I woke up to the sound of fucking. I was not fucking. I think I killed my libido long before I decided not to take medication that would kill my libido.

The only reason I am writing this way today is because I just finished that paper, I'm tired as fuck, I'm not hung over anymore but had enough liquor to make me feel depressed. Woe is woe is woe but woe is not ME.

Maybe I will have some time this week to write the things I have been wanting to write which I am still unaware of. I lost my third notebook this month last night so I will have to start from scratch and fucking deal with it. Letting go is nice. I wish there were a few more people I could let go of.

I don't think I will be going to Israel in the spring. Denver instead.

More Than Mucus Crawled Up My Noise Today

My skin feels like it works backwards and says "hey, you go sail the world now," while It's still cozy under my sunglasses, which make me look like an asshole, I am an asshole and I wonder why the world doesn't come running to me.

Sometimes children make me happy though I can't ever conceive the idea of having one. HAVING one.

I'm at work. THIS IS WHERE I WORK and what is that all about?

Scooting off now and being dangerous.

Maybe that piece is mine, and yours, too

Kevin Coval used to live in my apartment. I got a piece of his mail (this is how I know, unless he has a decoy). If you don't know him, he's a rather big name on the Chicago poetry scene, he's Jewish, I was recommended to workshop with him through a rabbi...things are coming full circle here? Maybe he left some wisdom in these walls, something aching through the ceiling.

A piece of ceiling fell yesterday, maybe that piece is mine.

"Where is the bear?"

The world of change. Sea change. See this change, in my pockets. I just moved back to Chicago and so far it has been a maelstrom of good, bad, beautiful. The stresses of getting my life together and keeping it together have been unreal and so viscerally punching at the same time. (Bear with me, I'm a few glasses of wine deep).  Having a place, my own place, a home that is under my domain is unlike anything before. 

On top of this setting up this home, designing, decorating, pacing, staring, ticking has been enough to make my brain split like an apple having just been cut with one of those pie chart shaped slicing devices (which I clearly cannot think of  the name because I cannot think, clearly).  Anywho, my room is almost together, posters on the wall, books placed on the shelf, "a home for my records" as sung by The Daredevil Christopher Wright (a very important midwestern band you should know about). I have my own little hideaway space in my closet that I have to walk past my hanging button-down shirts to get to. It seems like it might be a nice place to yell and lose it or have a nice moment to myself to think and disappear.

The point is, I have a home; space and though New Hampshire is my heart's delight, Chicago is a beckoning second. I'm carving and carving and carving away into this state, into the midwest, into the beautifully carefree, simple and intelligent folk. It's a point in my life where there is so much possibility that I get anxious because I feel like I could blow it. 

Though there is much to my content right now, I still don't feel stable. I still feel like the kinks need to be worked out and I don't give myself time to say hey ' You have only been here for four days, it will all work out.' And it will. This much I know.

Come join me. Adventure me. Talk silly until Tuesdays...I'm kicking sense the other way.

"You Deserve This, You Do Not Deserve This"

"You Deserve This, You Do Not Deserve This"

Normally I hate to write Artist Statements but, I think the driving forces of this ought to be known being that this is the first honest piece of art I think I have made in a while if not ever made and I want that honesty more forthright than attempted in this piece.

The title arrived from letters from my ex-girlfriend. I found one she had written to me last summer congratulating me on my first chapbook of poetry. She wrote "You deserve this." About three weeks ago (after being apart for nearly 8 months) we got in a fight and she said "I do not deserve this." We are no longer talking, but that is besides the point.

The idea is that we deserve to be the type of person we become because we allow ourselves to be that person and the backlash of our actions however, we do not always deserve. If anything we deserve to be pardoned from time to time, when appropriate that is.

In addition to the notion of what is "deserved" I have realized and maybe always knew what a narcissist I am but was always too afraid to admit my vanity. So to some effect I deserve this, and to another effect I feel as though I do not deserve what is sometimes out my control. And this is where I go on a tangent:

Facebook and the powers that be have created a network of narcissists and I am clearly apart of it and a contributor however, it is not what I initially desired and I am not so sure I got what I deserved. I thought it would be a great thing to be able to connect to friends and see what they were up to if I was not in the same physical space. For a while that was working and that was satisfying, it also allowed for: being spammed by an onslaught of photos, time consumption, time wasted, conversations never to be had in person, invitations to events I could care less about, invitations to participate in virtual games in a virtual world , and virtual surveys about now virtual people.

So why am I still apart of this network? Namely, fear and anxiety of a loss of connection and also that I am so utterly and painfully addicted to people. Now, this is where I should probably say, 'Because I am holier than thou, I will delete Facebook once and for all!' Who the fuck am I kidding? I am stuck in the trap that is my generation, I am too cynical to change it, and too weak to remove myself from it. No, I am not taking the role of victim, I am taking the role of a conscious member, observer, and am merely advocating for some discussion of opinion. Please, let's talk.

Oh yeah and about that art piece...to my ex-girlfriend, my apologies, my face got the better of me.

Call The Ball Black But The Doors Open. Be Healthy, Yeah?

Julie and Julia. It was a movie about blogging, I think. I saw it merely to hang out with one of the most lovely persons in the world. It was cute and I hate cute most of the time because my testosterone levels tell me to do so.

Anyways, that is not what I really wanted to write about but clearly I did because I just wrote it.

Last night was maybe one of the best nights of the summer. You know those nights so I won't have to go into great depth, at least I am hoping you do and if you haven't maybe I can spin one for you whoever YOU are.

The Toadstool Bookshop, more specifically, the music store, tucked away in the corner and framed in by the travel section and calendars is where two of the most influential people in my life have existed. One of which is leaving, going to China with his wife to teach English via film and their wits. The other may be there only for a little while longer, who knows.

I met them when I was a Freshman in high school, hair out to space, and all tie-dye. Music was my dad's record collection. It was the Allman Brothers, Phish, The Grateful Dead and nothing more and certainly nothing less. Until I met Ryan. Explosions in the Sky. The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place. The earth truly was no longer a cold dead place.

From that point on it became a point of order to visit them whenever I came home. If I didn't get my weekly dose of the Toadstool, of that dynamic duo, of those beardoes my head was most likely hung between my feet.

Last night was a going away party for Ryan and his wife. Some of the most spectacular people were in attendance. It was hosted at Eric's, Ryan's partner in crime. The New England post-colonial home with wooden beams was decorated with immaculate art, immaculate warmth, and music. The community came together, brought food, drank together, laughed together.
At a certain point a few of us were in the adjacent river, near over-flowing from the flash floods we incurred yesterday. We sat back, drinking PBR and dug our feet into the gravelly bottom while Ryan floated up and down the river. It was the Toadstool stripped down. It was the summer coming to an end the way it ought to. It was a friend leaving.

But the night was not over and it was not just antics in the unforgiving river. Since I was unable to drink I smoked a joint which I haven't done in probably 6 months. It was the most mellow high I could ask for. After which I did an interview with one of the most thunderous voices I've ever heard, Atom the Motion and the Void. He was drunk, I was stoned, and we were maybe making sense, maybe. We talked for half an hour about identity, as a car, as a skeleton, as guilt, as a black ball with doors. Then we talked abour Ryan and his wife, Becky, and how I knew them.

The last thing I recall saying in the interview (that may potentially be on NHPR which, I hope for the sake of incoherency is not) was how the Peterborough community became most apparent to me when Ryan and I hugged each other for the first time a few weeks ago. That alone says something so vastly profound about this area and these people. Community, in my professional opinion, starts at your local record store.

I say to YOU, go talk to your record guys/gals, buy one album, share that album, love where you are from, contribute to the music that comes from where you reside, go back to the record store and repeat this process and in five years when these friends leave you, the record store guys/gals, or you are finding that you are settling and living elsewhere proceed to hug (mind you, this is not an endorsement for that Dave Matthews music video where he hugs everyone on this planet. I think that is an ad for pot, though this ramble included in some way my own advocacy for occasional pot use) and keep hugging...[because lord knows healthcare will not be available to you].

Love

Unfortunately, You Tube will not allow me to imbed this so you will just have to navigate your way to what I personally and boldly believe, is today's most important band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIh3LkRdZpU

I am trying to capture that noise you make when you understand something so deeply the only way you can express it, is that inhale through your noise

Somewhere there has to be a clock, a notetaker, a document that has tallied all the lives I have looked at since Facebook has corrupted myself and my generation. It is the perfect tool for a surveyor, a voyeur, creeps, the interested, the curious, and myself...maybe somewhere in all of those categories I just listed.

If I knew the time I spent surveying the lives of others, I think I would feel far more depressed than by the time I could estimate, but the amount of time I will not estimate. Why is there this need to see into and not out to?

Since I was 13 or younger I can recall being so utterly fascinated everytime my family and I drove by the houses on Beacon Avenue in Boston. I wanted to know what was going on inside those homes; how those families were living as opposed to my own. What did their rooms look like? Just this past weekend my family and I were driving through Kennebunkport, Maine but this time it was my sister who was so interested. I almost wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to forget that the lives of others exist and that they exist on a plane foreign to my own.

What I am getting at here, maybe getting at, potentially arriving to is the paucity of newness in my life. Everyday is new so this sounds like it is nearly impossible but, I am in no way taking up the newness.

Everything is dying!

Why am I not writing as much? Why am I not reading as much? Why am I finding this helpful at 10 o'clock at night and mildly productive? Why am I asking someone else to look into my life when I just stated that I wanted to look out and by that virtue expect others to start looking out?

All I know is I am going to a funeral tomorrow, I am moving into an apartment in Chicago, and I am starting life anew, because I am given that chance.

Peeping through the out door

If I think of her feet I'll die but I see them there. I want to listen to her band's CD but I can't even though I've been craving new music to listen to. When I go to bed there will be pictures in my head that won't resolve the feeling that there is a lot of space around me and it won't be filled anytime soon by flesh and a soft voice. I needed to get that out, I did.

Wisconsin--too much.

Chicago--I feel like I have figured it out and have seen a preview for the year to come. I'm afraid I will crawl into a hole and not come out, that hole being work. Full course load, auditing a course...if you know me, you know I don't work, except for school and school related things. I will be tutoring however, and an editor of an elitist magazine that is student run but seldom publishes students [I'm nervous that I just included that sentiment but it needed to be expressed]. No apartment. Still. I realized that art is something I really do care about, something I need to explore and squeeze and rub for a while. Visual art is something I'm really considering. I found a 35mm SLR today that I plan to get in working order and use soon. I'll start there and hopefully film ideas and a video camera will come later...writing is exhausting but I want to be exhausted and enraptured by it and be a better a writer because right now I could sell my poems on toilet paper and people would still find no use for them.

Minneapolis--great city but I can't think about it right now.

New Hampshire--I genuinely, for the first time, was not excited to come home but so far I am enjoying myself because I know I have changed and by that virtue things here will change, I'm optimistic of this at least. There is a new Mexican restaurant in town. It's the first. It's fine Mexican food which doesn't seem authentic in the least bit, but it was damn good and I will probably eat there whenever I can afford to.

As you can see, my writing style has changed. I am trying out this stacatto, stream of conciousness business punctuated mostly by periods and minimally by commas. I must say, though it is a rather constipated way of writing, it is very relieving (no poop pun intended...ok maybe a little bit).

Anywho, I wanted to reconnect with the blogosphere. I don't know who reads this and if I should even get great joy out of knowing that people read this but I am merely trying to keep my chops up and communicate something. Communicate something.

The anthropology of coming home.

Perhaps Another Gesture of Faux Acumen

I thought it was time I would give a hack at this thing again. I also thought about a disclaimer apologizing for the over indulgence of blogging, but you know what, clearly people would not blog if they did not in fact have something to share and something that they value as important. So no disclaimer, even though (that practically was).

I have forgotten what it is to be a writer or maybe I am just negating that I am giving in to lethargy because it is summer, I don't have any writing peers in my immediate location to excite and inspire me, I also feel like I don't have much period in this location to excite and inspire me; of my highest concern, it has occurred to me that this idea of "location" is becoming nothing more than a word. I am drifting, I am birch bark peeling up and separating and maybe that is okay. But maybe, just maybe I feel ready to be settled. Maybe, just maybe I have felt this way for a long time coming.

New Hampshire, my first home, my home home is more or less just a "container" to paraphrase a Matt Pond PA song, apropos "New Hampshire". Then there is Chicago, a place that has drawn out brown and raw roots from my feet and set them in the soil (of course, temporarily). There was San Francisco, there was Israel, there was Montana, next week there will be Wisconsin, after that maybe New Mexico and the ever amassing states and countries of my future. My point is that I am a traveler and I have conditioned myself to believe that I want to be a traveler however, I want to stop somewhere for more than a few months or weeks at a time. I want real earth that I can rip into, burrow and sit. But of course, I cannot ignore the years of telling myself things are transitory, impermanent, yada yada yada and all that other westerner-trying-to-understand-eastern-philosophies-and-failing-considerably-because-we-simply-do-not-have-the-design-for-such-simplicity, kind of shit.

However, I consider myself lucky despite this fog of bitterness. I am lucky that I have met so many different walks of life, more than some of my peers can say and yes I will boldly take bragging rights here. I also feel lucky that I feel nothing more than compelled to write about these people except, I often do not. I spin stories like a cotton gin but I can't get it down to paper, I don't want to. I want that moment to be that moment and let it go, or do I? I am a glutton for nostalgia...but this brings me to think about an idea a friend was talking about.

He was about to go on a trip and was asked to document it because the organizers (that word sounds so intimidating) knew that he had producing and camera skills and what not. However, he decided that he didn't want to because he felt like he would miss that "location" by looking at it merely through the lens. Which leaves me thinking, that writing is the same thing. If I were to only internalize and sit on every event that has occurred in my life, it would be much too much to write and everyone would be bored to tears, myself included. I would only have that experience as recorded by paper and not by my very own senses. I want and need the distance between living and writing but knowing that I can resort to both at any given moment and I suppose this blog might be a good example of that.

Another thing on my mind that is somewhat related was a comment another friend had said to me that has sort of stuck because it was irksome. "How can you write memoirs; you are only 19." Now I'm 20, by the way. The thing is, we all have stories, some good ones, some circular ones, some irrelevant, some cliche, but most of all they are important. I truly believe that stories are important, they shape us, they redefine us, they stop people for a god damn fucking second to get outside themselves and listen and learn something or laugh at something or cry for fuck sakes. But most importantly whether it be memoir, poetry, fiction, short stories or any other storytelling medium, it is how you tell the story, the details you include or the details you leave out, because what I have found which is no new revelation to anyone or myself but it is simply, what you are saying, what you want to say has been said and that is where the relevance of how takes effect. I'm still learning the how so I will stop preaching for a moment and not explain ' The How to on How' because I am sure there is a book on it...and I don't feel right talking about what I don't viscerally know.

Where I leave this now is that I have 8 weeks of new stories ahead of me, years of new locations, and the ever-looming tug and pull of the drifting vessel in which I sit.

Back To Camp

For most of you who know and those who don't I will be working at a summer camp in the lovely town that I know nothing about, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I am leaving June 8th and will be there until August 10th. Being that I will be disconnected from my Peterborough friends, Chicago friends, Miscellaneous friends and family I want you all to have a way to connect with me (especially those who plan to visit me in Oconomowoc. I'm going to get really tired of spelling that).So here is my address for those of you letter writing folk:

Zachary Green-Tiferet (this is the unit I work in at camp)

Olin-Sang Ruby Union Institute

600 Lac La Belle DriveOconomowoc, WI, 53066

For those of you who are inclined to call or need to call me, I doubt I will have cell phone service in the woods even though I have been recently informed that there is in fact service. So hit me up at:

(262)-567-6277 (apparently you have to leave a message as this is the office phone and they will forward it to me via mail. In other words, I will probably call you if I need to call you). Or try my cell: (603)-721-2112

Lastly, if all else fails e-mail me at:

zachary.green@loop.colum.edu

Of Machers and Mamzers (Yiddish for...well, you'll find out if you read this)

Of Machers and Mamzers (Yiddish for...well, you'll find out if you read this)

 

NOTE: the names were changed for the protection of the persons in this essay, rant, memoir, what have you...and for the protection of myself.

 

There is a home. There are no people in it.

 An office supply company was sold to a larger office supply store that many of us know (but I will not disclose) for $700 million by two brothers, Richard and Harry Schiller; two Jewish philanthropists in the meantime, if you will. Two men, with...time....and money on their heavy, Florida-tanned and melanoma hands. 

 I was asked to join three Israel alumni (for those of you who didn't know, I went to Israel this past winter via the Israel Foundation, it was free. More or less, the Schiller family paid for me to go to Israel. We'll get to that later) to discuss our experiences in Israel, our life before, our future lives, and our lives now. 

 We pulled up the long driveway of the cozy north shore Illinois suburb of Bannockburn, teeming with Jews and wealth and pride. The driveway was laid down with gravel, round, and floral like any mansion you have probably seen in a movie, leading up to opulent and tall wooden doors, followed by the foyer and the sitting room, the backyard of a copious eight acres and waterfalls, a putting green, a swimming pool, and all the bells and whistles. 

 My fellow alum and I shook hands with the Schillers; Harry, Richard, and Julie and immediately they were ready to take our drink orders before we could sit. Water, Coke, Diet Coke, White Wine (are you of age?). I took water thinking it was a safe choice and given that Becky, my accomplice of the evening, leaked my real age, wine was out of the question. Behind the counter stood a Mexican man, dressed like the rest of us in our business casual but I knew after a short while, his business there was something else; he was more or less their butler. I could have cried right then and there, but I knew better.

 After drinks, we walked in a line with professionals, members of the Israel Foundation, sponsors, and a whole slew of Jew, we spiraled down the staircase to do...more sitting, with drink in hand. It was phase one of the conversation but I was too distracted by the bar, the pool table, the indoor pool in addition to the outdoor pool, and the workout room. Julie began to kick us off and would ask Anna, a member of the Israel Foundation or something of the like, from time to time to explain the Israel foundation's purpose (which was odd to me being that they had paid for a trip, but clearly with that much money it must be hard to know where it navigates itself to). Anna would promptly and carefully answer each question with the smile of the hardworking, go-getter Jew, transplanted from Maryland to New York, with big lips and the assimilated big mouth, that we are so classically stereotyped as; New Yorkers, too. Hmm, I wonder what that is all about?

When Anna was done paneling the conversation the next on cue was Sam, a college grad just back from L.A. and ready to divulge. Harry was piqued and asked the million-dollar question. 

 "What do you think of these Orthodox Jews who hate us Secular Jews?"

 No it was not Palestine vs. Israel, yet. But it was second on the list of hot button Jewish questions, where Julie strode in on her white horse and invited us upstairs for dinner.

 Now, when ever I have seen a dining room that has a table that seats twenty I think of either a board room, a mafia get together, the last supper, things of this nature. The last thing that I think is that at this table, with all its decadence and fine china, we are going to eat delivered pizza from Chicago's second most boasted deep dish supplier in the city, Lou Malnati's. Jews are cheap. I know I am a Jew, I know stereotypes are not conducive, but Jews are cheap. However, this family had paid for my trip to Israel so I'll put that aside.

 Needless to say, we slid our tall-backed chairs out from the table across the mahogany floors and sat down to have the discussion we all came for. The questions were fired from all around the table and the Schiller brothers had no problem interjecting their lame jokes. And there I was, the beneficiary of the most amazing gift of my life, sitting next to the folks who gave it to me, and I was sick. I have never understood the wealthy, their poor jokes, their gaudy homes, and their lack of consideration for outsiders such as myself; boy from a small town replete of a notable Jewish population and a working class family, which happens to also be part of a family of significant wealth (mind you those are my dad's cousins, uncles, and his brother). But, I had to be thankful. I had to be respectful. I had to sit there with my napkin on my lap, hands clasped, feet crossed and tense, and smile the biggest smile I could. However, I still had to do it my way.

 When the questions made it around to me I responded truthfully yet mildly tapered. 

"What did you love about the trip? Why did you go?" What they did not ask but most likely wanted to was, why are we paying for this?

"I fell in love with Israel and an Israeli. This is a trip that made a tremendous impact on my life. It made me a world citizen, not just a Jew, but being Jewish came first." They laugh with distinction and insincerity and nod with some understanding.

 World citizen? What is that? They didn't seem to think it had any significance.

"Everyone travels. You have all sorts of cultures in Israel," chimes in Harry while Richard slouches to my right with his hand up to his blood-pressured cheek.

 "Well you see, in America we are conditioned to an institutionalized path like what Sam was talking about earlier. First grade school, then high school, grad school, and so on. We are not told to go travel. In Israel and the rest of Europe, they go to high school then they travel for two years..."

 Harry cuts me off to segue into the next line of business as someone starts in at the other end of the table. I stare off to the tacky artwork that rests behind Richard's seat. It's all flowers and glitter and gold.

 For the next half hour everyone but the four of us alumni got into the conversation of money. I should have seen it coming all the way from Chicago, but my provincial mind was telling me that I was going to a nice quaint suburban home; not the behemoth of the Schillers.

 "So Adelson is matching 20 million to the 10 million you have to raise, but next year he will only give you 10. How are you guys planning to fundraise the money?" some nameless face ponders from across the way. 

Anna fields these questions with a challenge in her face but confidence in her voice. Richard is still slouching but more interested than he is letting on. Harry turns an ear. I know it is time for me to leave. 

 I decide to go to the bathroom, my sanctuary on most days.

 The Mexican man whose name I regretfully did not ask, escorted me to the bathroom, as there was no way I could have found it given the size of the home. I desperately wanted to know his story, his name, if he was being paid well; if he lived there, had his home family, if he got to see them and a whole other litany of questions but, I was not there for that, I did not have the time for that and much to my dismay. He graciously opened the door for me, turned the lights on with the elaborate switch, more like a switch board with 10 buttons on it, and told me there was another bathroom I could use on the other end of the house just in case. I thought that might be fun if I got curious but the thing about curiosity in a wealthy man's home, is getting caught. Behind the door I was again, almost moved to tears. Where was the humanity in the home of philanthropists?

In the bathroom were neatly folded and placed paper napkins with roses painted on them. When it came time to wash my hands and would need to dry them, I had to use these instead of a towel. Like I said, Jews are cheap. Like I did not mention, from my own experience of the wealthy on my father's side of the family, they like to take up their environmental causes as if they had always been vested in them and pontificate about the values of being environmental. If the Schillers were anything like my dad's family, then I'm sure they had the same stance. So why not use a fucking towel?

I returned to the dining room and my buddy Mikey needed to use the bathroom. I escorted him this time exchanging a short conversation of how crazy it was that we were in this mansion hearing about the monetary breakdown of the best 10 days of our lives. He grinned and went about his business.

As I walked back Anna was still talking money when Harry stepped in to talk, a constant interrupter much like his brother and sister-in-law. Before Anna let him finish she made important note that she had the floor and was only going to talk for two more minutes and then return the conversation back to us, the alum who blindly followed to this mansion; much like the Jews who were accused of blindly walking into their deaths during the holocaust, only this was the opposite. We were walking into a large, costly home, not to be killed per se, but to certainly put our personalities up on the chopping block and thank those who did not oppress from the get-go, but oppressed a part of me in so many ways.

The conversation finally was re-routed back to us. The other alum spoke to whether the trip was fun and along came a question from Julie's daughter of a first marriage, whose name I also did not catch. 

"Now, I may get fired for asking this but it was brought up at a meeting...did you guys go on this trip to get laid?"

We all laughed because I'm sure we all had relatable answers. Julie blushed but after thinking it over decided she really did want to know. We did not disclose this information.

Harry took hold of the floor again and asked me a question, the first of the hot button Jewish questions. He stared me dead on and said:

"What do you think of a Palestine two-state solution?"

"Well, that's a tough question." Uh, hello? If I knew or anyone knew, don't you think the problem would be solved? I went on to talk about the steps Obama was making to address this situation as if to sound informed (I had only read an article about it yesterday. "I think it would be the greatest social experiment of our time." I thought it was a brilliant answer but Harry paid it no mind. Julie had enough of these big questions and was more or less getting back to the implied question I mentioned earlier, why should we pay for this? 

"So, what was the hook? If you had to get others to go on this trip what would be the one thing that would sell them?"

Again, I started down my whole world citizen spiel. Mikey gave a witty answer, something along the lines of being Sagittarius, and I just sat back thinking, 'where the fuck am I and who are these people?' Unfortunately I knew all too well who they were.

We left the table and walked back into the foyer and sitting room and schmoozed for a while. Some came to thank me, some just smiled and kept walking in their zigzagged paths of seemingly no importance to me. 

I walked over to the window that overlooked the property, admiring all its lushness, admiring the sea of money I was actually looking at, and thinking, 'this will never be me, and if it is, I will never be them.' Of course, money can get the best of us, we all know this. Harry walks up behind me and begins to give me the history of the home, how it was a tear-down and that he lived a few houses away and tore his house down from 4500 sq. ft. and rebuilt it into 13,000 sq. ft., after his kids had left home mind you. 

"Most people do the opposite. But hey, we have no problems with it."

Right. Of course not. You have no problems of major consequence period, or so it seemed.

Harry goes on to tell me about his son, the scholar who wrote a 417-page thesis at BU and then was denied his doctorate when he was told to edit it and refused. He went back 12 years later to make a deal with BU that if he wrote 100 pages on a specific subject they would grant him his doctorate without him having to go back to graduate school. They didn't except his thesis a second time but Harry made sure to tell me that the 100-page thesis is now a textbook art Harvard. Us Jews are a blessed bunch.

My ride, Julie's daughter told me she was leaving and asked if I wanted to stay some more. Oddly enough, I did, for the pure and vein fact that I could write about this event at this present moment. I schmoozed a little more, drifting like I always do from conversation circle to conversation circle when the ultimate tipping point concluded the evening. Julie walked out from Richard's office with four books in her hand titled, Simply Success written by none other than Richard himself. She gave each of them to the alumni and myself. Mikey and Becky were waiting to get them signed and I figured 'what the hell, this man is worth billions and I probably won't even read his book but I will have a story to tell.'

I handed Richard the book and he waited for me to give my name. I said 'Zach' but since he was hard of hearing he thought I said Jack. I didn't feel the need to correct him so he addressed it 'Jack.' Again, I wanted to be able to tell this story. I also thought it would be an easy way to say despite this man's hearing, he could probably give two shits if my name was Kandahar or Bobby.  He wrote:

 Jack,

  Enjoyed hearing about your feelings i.e.: your Israel trip-

  Writing is very hard work. I know.

 

   Richard Schiller

 

Yes Richard, you know a lot about hard work.

 

I exchanged handshakes and smiles, some real, some fake at the door and made my way back to the clean of air the world I know. Becky and I talked most of the ride back about how nice it would be to have Richard as an uncle. To myself I just thought, how nice it is to have a real family and to know what Israel was truly about for me. .

Your Ears Will Turn Toward You

When The Grass is Taller

If there is one bit of advice I can give you, and I am not much of an advice giver but, it is that you should at least once in your life hang out with a crowd of folks who are older than you. This will benefit you in many ways, trust me. 

I Will Read You Words

Hey so I just received word today that one of my memoirs/essays was selected for the South Loop Review Sound-off reading next Wednesday, May 6th at 7 p.m. The reading will be held at the 1104 S. Wabash Film Building on the 8th floor, otherwise known as Film Row Cinema.

Please come check it out! I would love to see you there and have the support. Free food too! I heard sushi!

Anthems

If you have the time...(the first of maybe many drafts).

Anthems

 

            I hate telling this story. I would rather think about urinal cakes, decapitation, or road kill. However, I have to tell it because you, too, may have a friend like this some day.

            It wasn't until that soggy hour of summer where I was dying on one of my occasional, and by occasional I mean every few months or so, jog where I saw his name etched into a birch tree. It was probably put there with one of his many switchblades with a dopey grin on his face and then followed by some morose contortion, a fleck of water pooling in the crevice of his eye; Sölj. Why that stupid umlaut was there to begin with I have no idea and I doubt he did either.

            According to him, the name arrived when Sölj moved from New Ipswich, N.H. or "NipNam" which he liked to call it, to Peterborough, about thirty minutes north. His family moved to Lobacki Drive, a cul-de-sac of ranch-style houses. It was there where he met his friends, his worst influences, and his best influences. The story goes that one afternoon during a game of battle hack, (a game similar to hacky-sack however, if you dropped the hacky or if you just weren't paying attention you would be annihilated with the little bean sack) he donned the name. Sölj either wasn't paying attention or just didn't have the crude sense of necessary coordination. Needless to say he got hit quite a few times and because of his endurance, his unwillingness to complain, he stood there and took it. Thus, they named him Soldier, which over time he shortened to Sölj.

* * *

            I guess you could say that I am bitter, a bit rouged when it comes to talking about Sölj. You see, he was the type of guy you kept around because you always felt he was tougher than you and for this he would come to your defense. You would think that, however it was always my friend Dylan and I pulling Sölj's ass out of the gutter.

            Sölj liked to ferment trouble. Whether it was manhandling every woman around him, whether already spoken for or not, or rousing corporate America by pilfering their products, not much stopped him. His raison d'être was to live a life uninhibited by the laws of nature, by any social contract, only to receive the dividends and to have a story make its way around the campfire, even if he couldn't. I suppose now is that chance. In fact, he would probably be gloating at the idea of me telling you this story. In fact, I can see his Scottish/French-Canadian blend of stubble fanning toward the mid-day light in admiration of himself. However, Sölj, beneath the layers, stolen goods, scars, and tattoos he was in some ways, always a martyr. He was dying for what I always wanted be, and that was to be ruthless, to live by my own doctrine of sorts. He had the mentality, at least so it seemed, that if you love something you give it away or something along the lines of you create your own freedom, it's not given to you. I'm not quite sure what his calling card would say on this matter as I lost it only a few months ago.

 

            From the day I met him, freshman year of high school in Earth Science with Mrs. Eppig, joined together with our musings about how Mrs. Eppig's nipples are eternally erect, I knew he was going to become somewhat of a brother to me. He looked like a greaser and probably smelled that way too. Sölj wore his leather jacket like a hard exterior, too big for his wiry and tender frame. His hair was always standing up like a handful of nails in a formation he liked to call "The Rooster." A faux-hawk that peaked up in the front and then sloped down, stabbing his forehead right in between the creases. The day I met him I thought this kid had to be twenty-five. It wasn't long until I found out that he always went commando and that would be some sort of pre-cursor to his freewheelin' lifestyle.

* * *

            Sölj got me into Punk music, the Punk lifestyle, and Punk ideology. My first lesson was the 1998 James Merendino film, SLC Punk. Sölj, Dylan and I watched it one afternoon while skipping the last class of the day.

            There is a scene in the film where Heroin Bob and Steve-O, the heroes of the film are 15, pre-high school and they are sitting in Steve-Os basement. Heroin Bob slides out from his coat pocket a cassette and presents it to Steve-O. In Steve-O's pubescent voice he asks what it is. Heroin Bob pops it into the cassette player and says, "It's new." For those who have seen the film, this is the pop-shot, the climax, the moment that makes you remember how you first got into the Blue Meanies, Left Over Crack, NOFX, and Satanic Surfers; that reason for me was Sölj.

            It was almost like a guidebook of how to live in a capitalist society and get by on the cheap, with only the scratch in your pocket and no handouts from anyone. It showed the clashes of the rednecks and the anarchists. In a nutshell this movie was our story.

            The main characters, Steve-O and Heroin Bob, are the last real punks left in the Mormon inhabited area and all they want to do is "loose mere anarchy upon us." Heroin Bob, whom ironically receives the name never touched drugs in his life and dies from an overdose. Steve wakes up after Heroin Bob's death and becomes a lawyer like his dad.

            Okay, so the parallels weren't as direct with Sölj and I. Sölj, as far as I know hasn't had a drug overdose and I am not training to be a lawyer. However, Sölj certainly was on a drug-destined path and I was at that time and now on a path of something a little more traditional, or safe to some degree.

            One parallel I can make is that Sölj thought anarchy was everywhere and that he was anarchy and Dylan and I had to support it as his friends.

* * *

            In the last year of our friendship Sölj was missing his usual air about him. It was likely to see him only three days out of the week at school. He had quit the track-team where he had risen to glory over the four years he had poured into it, moved to the coast, "Dirty Dover", N.H. as he liked to call it to live with his girlfriend who was just as much a truant as he was. Together they became ambitious, they got into a nice routine of smoking pot and dropping acid.

            I got a call from Dylan one night.

            "What's up broseph?" This was Dylan's typical affectionate salutation toward me.

            "Nothing."

            "So I guess Sölj was hanging out with Mirandah tonight and they dropped a ton of             acid. I don't know what that kid is thinking. Anyways, I just wanted to call you             and let you know that if you hear from him, he may be a little bit messed up."

            "When is that kid going to get his life on track? Alright dude, well thanks for the             heads up."

            We always kept these conversations short and sweet. No need to get too deep into the recurring nightmare that Sölj was becoming for us. We did love him regardless.

            The next day I get a call from Sölj.

            "What's up man?"

            "Nothing," I never seemed to have anything going on. Either I was keeping time open for these calls like a safety net waiting for some trapeze artist to come tumbling in, or I just had nothing to occupy my time with. High school was a sad existence for us all whether we choose to believe it or not.

            "So last night Mirandah and I took like five tabs each he he." He always had this             stupid sinister laugh that apparently he never thought was too unintelligible.

             "And I started freaking out. I was walking down her hallway and these blue and red             lights start flashing and of course I thought it was the cops but I guess not. Anyway,             the hall was getting smaller and smaller like in Willy Wonka. It was fucked up he             he."

            "That's great Sölj. You got to be more careful man."

            "I know but dude you've got try acid sometime."

            "Okay, yeah sure. I'll get right on that," I was trying emphasize my sarcasm and disappointment in a few short breaths. I don't know if that ever worked.

* * *

            Sölj was always a schemer, a get rich quick kind of guy and it seemed like for every girlfriend he had, his schemes got all the more clever. It often consisted of stealing women's clothing from Abercrombie & Fitch and remarketing it to unsuspecting teens. Whenever I entered a store with him I had to always consider that we would be coming out with more than which we had entered.

            On the weekends and occasional weekdays when he would come home, to Peterborough that is, he'd pick me up in whatever beater he was driving that month and we'd do the usual. Walk around Stop & Shop (an east coast Supermarket chain that has been affectionately re-named Stop & Steal. We seem to have a tendency to rename all that is mundane to us) and snag energy bars or green tea then we would continue around the plaza to Ocean State Job Lot and do more or less of the same. It always made me uncomfortable up until a point where I was just becoming numb, numb to him, numb to our existence, numb to the idea that everything around us was supposed to have some sort of opposition and the only way we could fight back was to chip away at the beast item by item.

* * *

            It was middle of the summer and it had been raining for a solid week. Cabin fever was getting the best of my friends and I. Sölj had called me up to see if I wanted to cruise around with him which meant we would hit up the previous mentioned establishments. This time however he wanted to check out Eastern Mountain Sports. This store was chock full of outdoor equipment for mountain climbing, rock climbing, snowboarding, skiing, snowshoeing, camping, you name it which also meant it was chock full of interesting gadgets that could be used in so many ways. There was one item in particular that Sölj was after—a pick axe and had I known the whole time, though I had some suspicions, I never would have entered the store. For about five minutes we pranced around as though we were looking for something specific but would never find it. The floor employees would ask if we needed help with anything. Of course we didn't, we weren't buying anything.

            We walked out after our short prowl and I thought for once that maybe Sölj was showing some restrain by the relatively calm look of his face. I was always the naïve one. Of course he took something, it was Sölj. We got into his car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse at the time, and he pulled out from his coat a two-foot pickaxe with a curved yellow handle.

            "Sölj, you are a fucking idiot. You are going to get us into some serious trouble one of these days."

            He just snickered and the blade of the axe glinted off his wide eyes.

            "So, what do you want to do with it?" I thought this was the appropriate question because as much as I feared the repercussions of having this item I knew it would be fun.

            "Let's climb!" He said with a shoestring grin.

            We went downtown, which was more or less the equivalent of one city block with two parks on opposite ends. We headed over to the Historical Society where there was a decent sized field behind it and running perpendicular to the field was a fifty-foot stonewall.

            He gave me a boost up and I began to hack away, digging the axe into the crevices and patches of moss as pieces of dirt and ivy came rolling down on top of him. I eventually made it to the top feeling accomplished and quite ridiculous seeing as I just scaled what was never intended to be a rock wall in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire.

            I threw the axe down to him trying to leave enough room between him and the axe to ensure that he wouldn't be impaled. He joined me at the top. I was Sir Edmund Hillary and he was my Sherpa.

            We got down and throughout the day continued on this frenzy with the axe, feeling silly and young as ever. Two weeks later he sold the axe on E-Bay for $200 and bought a Burmese Python with the money.

* * *

            I didn't believe in him or his ideas anymore. I didn't believe in our friendship anymore, we just mutually existed on the same plane but mine was beginning to break off like Antarctic ice. It got to a point where he was quitting everything; Rivermead, a retirement home where he worked as a waiter, school, teachers, mentors, his parents and the like. But, to his credit he always seemed to have a plan. The last few months of high school he had moved into a trailer that his boss (the proprietor of a landscaping company in the area) owned.

            I went to visit one night. He came to escort me from my car because I have always had an aversion to German Shepherds and they seemed to be everywhere that night. When I was 10 I used to hang out with Nick Estey, the police chief's son however, a few months later a scandal would have the chief hang up the badge. At that time I was 42" tall. I only recall this because measuring my peers and myself was the thing to do while unknowingly waiting for those ripe puberty years. We had just gotten back from an arcade and the moment I stepped out of his parent's Volvo the dog tackled me to the ground. I stayed at his house the whole weekend and every time I maneuvered around his house, to take a piss, to go the kitchen, to enter the next room, he would have to grab his dog by the collar as I proceeded.

           

             Once I got inside the trailer, I felt stuck and I wasn't even the one living there. There was one window in the back and one on the door, a galley kitchen, and pictures of these beloved German Shepherds everywhere. Sölj was drawing up his most recent tattoo idea. I failed to mention that around our junior year Sölj had decided on a whim, per usual, that he wanted to get into tattooing. He ordered a kit from a catalog complete with ink, ink wells, tracing paper, industry standard black latex gloves, needles, rubbing alcohol, tubes, rubber bands, and the gun.

            I should have seen all of this coming. He was the first to be inked of my friends. He had tattooed himself and then me, then countless others who always seemed to regret their ink in the aftermath. I know I still do. When I was seventeen he gave me my first. It was an Aum symbol. I felt at the time I needed to dedicate myself to something and why not dharma? The truth. However, I got it tattooed on my back— never a good place for the truth.

            We were walking around town and impulsive me had to ask:

            "Hey Sölj, you want to give me a tattoo?"

            "Yes," he said with that wicked grin.

            We immediately went to his house, down the end of the hall to his room where we couldn't be seen nor heard, not that anyone was home to catch us in the act. His room was painted with a camouflage pattern on the walls, cross country trophies and medals stood and dangled in every corner. Tucked into the frame of his mirror were motivational quotes, none of which I can recall. I suppose I didn't need the same motivation. Everywhere there were heaps of clothes, discarded and crushed 20 oz. Arizona Green Tea cans, guitar cables and cases, and army paraphernalia. I had seen his room before this point but I had never really seen his room, I had never really examined the hope that was intrinsic in that place, which he could never see.

            Sölj sat me down as he drew up the sketch, then with his cold latexed hands he shaved the spot on my shoulder blade where the tattoo would go and rubbed it down with alcohol. After a few adjustments to the power source of the tattoo gun, he stepped on the pedal and drew a line with the needle on my back.

            "Does that feel alright?"

            "Yeah, it feels fucking awesome," I said snidely.

            "Ok man, well are you sure you still want to do this?"

            "Go ahead. Fuck it!"

            The needle roared and carved into my flesh, I felt like turkey meat and I could smell the ink and skin burning in one combined scent. I loved it. I hated it. I loved it.

            After 30 minutes of torture and ecstasy had finished, wiped the remaining ink off my back into a smear and walked me into his bathroom to check it out in the tri-fold mirror.

            "Sölj, this is amazing! I love it."

            "Good."

            I could see in the sparkle of his eye that he felt accomplished and the start of something new; I felt desecrated and rewarded, but also the start of something new.

 

            He had his station prepped, the same tracing paper that had come with the kit a year ago where he had been squeezing image after image next to one another. He was planning to write something along the lines of 'Lone Wolf' across the top of his feet. How appropriate. 'Lone Wolf,' his solution and his decree in life. At this point I could feel nothing more than pity for him and what a shitty feeling that is. Sölj wasn't someone you pitied because you knew he would figure it out, and if not then, soon. He would inevitably get back up on his feet.

            I kept looking around the place with discomfort and despair. I knew only Sölj could live in a place like this and not complain. With the low lights, the one bed, the bathroom I couldn't even see from the doorway, and the few windows, I thought it a prison cell.

            "So are you going to stay here for a while?" trying to subtly emphasize my disapproval.

            "Until I get my bearings. You know me, it'll be fine."

            I knew it would be fine but I didn't know what kind of fine. I didn't know if that trailer was the end of the road or the beginning of the trail. I left him there in his insular universe as I was feeling more disconnected and useless than ever. I didn't need an escort out this time; you could have fed me to the dogs that night.

* * *

            We had made it to graduation and the impending haunt of higher education was around the proverbial corner. For Sölj college was not a castle in the sky and Dylan and I began to sense that this was the reason for the distance. How could I feel guilty? He was offered a full-ride scholarship for track and his talents outside of that world had always seemed endless to me. It was just Sölj turning the other cheek, running, always running, the lamest metaphor for anyone but lame.

            That summer life had spiraled out of his hands and there was no shelter from the storm, for any of us. There was little Dylan and I could do and it wasn't like he was a toddler beholden to us. He had to fuck up but that meant we would have to deal with it eventually. However, it seemed like there was no room and no time for intervention. I had withdrawn faith at this point and now its all fog. Where we went in those last few months I have no recollection but what was coming next I never forgot.

* * *

            I ended up at school in Chicago to pursue a writing career.  It was October and I was standing in my girlfriend's kitchen waiting to cook something up. For all I know it was probably bacon because God knows I never had any food and my love for bacon seemed to gross everyone out which was fine by me.

            I received a call from Sölj, unexpected as we kept talking to a minimum now. He went on and on about how his life was changing, how he had plans, always fool proof plans. It went as such: he was going to leave his girlfriend, quit his job at the Olive Garden and come invade my life for a three week jaunt prior to Thanksgiving. Great! After that he wanted to head to Montana to see Dylan and he planned to fund this whole one man road-show by tattooing his way across the country which I think Dylan and I could both agree would never happen.

* * *

            It was around two in the afternoon, Halloween day and I was in the middle of a beginner poetry workshop listening to young intellects pick apart poems as though they were best fit to offer such critiques. We were still getting over the phenomenon that poetry is more than sonnets yet, we felt prepared enough to comment.

            Needless to say, I knew Sölj was going to be arriving that day but I wasn't sure when and I thought I was sure where. He sent me a text message with an abrupt sputtering that he was at 6666 W. Chicago Ave. his phone was going to die, he had no money and no gas.

            I sighed to myself thinking what a surprise. He had always gotten up to go but never planned too far in advance, it's like getting off the toilet and forgetting to wipe then carrying on with your day. I think that would have been too cumbersome or orderly for him.

            Being new to the city I asked my professor if she knew where said address was. She explained that it was at the west end of the blue line and from there one would probably have to take a bus.  I was already losing interest in his visit and losing focus in the poetry battles unfurling across the classroom tables.

            Class got out and I strolled down the staircase ready to get this over with, to go find him because after all he was my best friend and I was excited that someone had finally decided they would come visit, I think it was perhaps best that it was Sölj of all people. I needed home to come to me when I couldn't go to it.

            On the staircase I crossed paths with my roommate Chris who was just getting out of class.

            "Do you wanna' go on an adventure?"

            "Ugh, sure. Where are we headed?"

            "Well, Sölj made it to Chicago, but not to Chicago so we have to go find him."

            Chris looked mildly distressed but intrigued at the same time. I think we were both feeling that way but we decided what better way to get to know the city then to go on a wild goose chase for a wild goose.

            We had no idea where we were headed. It was all getting to be a little too eerie as I was firm believer in the mystique of Halloween and the mystique that Sölj has always carried with him. After much confusion we get on the right bus and Chris and I begin to realize we were the only white kids on the bus as we get farther and farther from city limits. This was not a problem at first until we decided to get off the bus for some misguided reason. We walked around a bit, probably looking scared out of our wits and decided that maybe, yet again, we should get back on the bus. So we waited, out of costume, exposed, quiet and ponderous.

            Chris was leaning up against the bus stop pole and I was pacing around anxious as ever as it got darker and the chances grew dimmer of finding Sölj. A group began to approach us, everyone was in costume, about eight guys and two girls. A masked man started to get closer and closer to Chris until he was up in his face. Chris stood like a preserved deer; he didn't say a word. The masked man lingered in Chris's space for good few minutes and in that time I was thinking 'Are they going to beat him up?' ' Are they going to beat me up?' 'Am I going to have to beat them up? I'm too small to do much damage, or at least anything life saving.'

            Why a fight was the first thing that came to mind I have no idea. Perhaps it was because the only words out of the masked man's mouth were, "Let's crease his ass!" I didn't know what that meant and still don't, all I could think was potential for something that would sound like a prison story.

            We pressed on and from across the street only more trouble, though temporary. Two kids had launched some eggs at Chris and I. The first one just barely missed me and the second one caught Chris in the knee. We didn't know that night we would be in for such a ride—that we would be so un-welcomed in a region of the country that is considered to be one of the friendliest, that Martin Luther King Junior's teachings would have failed us all.

            We arrived at the River Forest stop after deciding to get back on the blue line and could no longer see the spires of the Sear's Tower. This meant no longer Chicago. At the station I went over to the attendant and asked him how to get to 6666 W. Chicago Ave. He seemed to have a relatively little idea of where that may be but he suggested we get on yet another bus. At that point Chris and I were done with busses and the only ones we saw were PACE busses, a whole other line that our student U-Passes could not afford us.

            Instead we walked. Chris had his compass on him, he was always prepared, a true boy scout. We felt as though we were fast approaching and became a little excited as we scraped our feet over the pavement in great strides. I was still nonetheless doubtful. To our left I noticed a mechanics garage. I was thinking about The Graduate however, we weren't about to break up a wedding. The American psyche always caught up in film. I don't think Chris was too keen on this but we were looking for my friend and somehow I thought that entitled me to make the executive decisions.

            All the lights were off from the outside and just a few dangled overhead on the inside of the garage. Three men were standing around a table made of plywood covered in odds and ends, grease rags, cans of lubricant and WD-40. In each of their hands they cupped a beer, I think it was Rolling Rock, nothing special. They were standing around shooting the breeze and us two knuckleheads, panic-stricken and desperate came rolling in.

            The man was rotund, probably six foot five, and appeared to be the head mechanic only because he took the initiative to ask Chris and I if we needed help. His Chicago accent was thick and exaggerated, short on the vowels. "Can I help you?" The two other men, one scrappy and middle-aged and the other old and grey looked on in equal perplexity.

            "Yeah, we're looking to get to 6666 W. Chicago Ave."

            "Ah, okay. What you need to do is go about four blocks west; go under a bridge,             then four blocks north toward Franklin Avenue. Franklin meets up with Chicago."

            He may as well have been directing two blind mice on how to get out of a paper bag. Chris and I tried it anyways. The suburbs were quiet, an echo of nothing I had ever heard before, and calm. It was about ten at night and the Halloween festivities had swept over on through the mansions and there he was, like a cottar holding down his fort, a white Chevy Impala, or something of that kind. I never knew cars as well as he did.

            I went over to tap on the window, as it appeared no one was occupying the car caked in dirt. 'Great, he's dead,' I thought. As we got closer Chris and I realized that Sölj had put the seat back and was sleeping until he popped up and opened the door sluggishly. He was smiling regardless, excited to see me as it had been months and pleased to make Chris's acquaintance. We all hopped in the car as we marveled about how Sölj could get so far outside the city. I thought the directions I had given him were pretty clear but his independence had led him elsewhere and away from the thought of calling me for help. It didn't matter so much; we were back together, back in the saddle. The bash brothers were ready to take on Chicago for the next few days, and I must say, his car reeked to the high heavens.

* * *

            We arrived at my dorm, which was more of an apartment, at around nine that night. Sölj was mesmerized by the hum of the city, the vast spaces and the crowded ones. A year prior I was just another country bumpkin like him but now I had worn the city-life on me like a suit and tie.

            When we got to my room he set his stuff down and made himself at home. He spread his bag of tattoo magazines out across the floor and stacked his tattoo gear in a corner next to his army bag filled with only a few days worth of clothes.           

            Sölj and I spent sometime catching up which didn't take too long. I took him around to meet all the friends I had acquired in just a few months. I was hoping they would take to him. It became evident to me that they thought he was rude and out of context, I suppose he was. In New Hampshire we always had this ball-busting nature about us but to others it came off a bit too frank. For instance Sölj would refer to me as an "art fag." To many people and even to me, at times, the term itself is terribly offensive however, coming from him it meant no harm, it was almost endearing suffice it to say.

            After these brief introductions, I decided I wanted to get another tattoo from him this time, the outline of New Hampshire on the back of my calf. I was a bit homesick and I thought 'Why not bring home onto my leg and have everyone confuse it for a birthmark for the rest of my life?'

            Chris was also excited about the prospect of free tattoos especially on our living room couch so he decided to go the Buddhist route himself. He had the monkey wrench from Robert M. Pirsig's 1974 Chautauqua, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance tattooed to both of his hipbones. They looked impressive at first but now I'm not so proud to walk around with shorts on and Chris lives in his bathrobe.

            The following morning Sölj and I needed to address his parking situation. When he arrived the night before I picked up the cost of parking because Sölj was broke and I for some reason thought it would work itself out for the next few days.

            We went down to the garage to retrieve the slip he had placed on his dashboard and brought it back up to my room. There we scanned the slip onto my computer thinking we could change the numbers that way. No such success. Instead we tried to find the closest looking font, changed the number to that day's date and repeated this process for the duration of his stay. If it wasn't for Sölj's d.i.y. savvy nature, I'm not sure how he would have survived.

            With no money came other problems for him but really that meant for us. He couldn't buy food and I was getting low on cash myself however I had a meal plan that I avoided like the plague but they were desperate times. I would go to the dining hall with plastic bags and Ziploc containers and bring back as much food as I could so he could sustain life. It wasn't great food but he didn't care. I have always admired the survivalists but could never be one; Sölj fulfilled this for me.

            Later that day I had to go to class and when I returned Sölj was missing. I wasn't quite sure where the hell he would have or could have gone. I searched around for him like a parent looking for a child under piles of laundry and other nonsensical objects that could in no way conceal an infant or a twenty year old. When I came to my senses I called him and he told me he was in the garage taking care of something.

* * *

            "Zach, you have to get your ass down here and see this!"

            Heeding his advice, something I seldom did, I went down to the garage not knowing what to expect.

            Sölj was wearing a black tank top and a pair of black latex gloves. His legs were sticking out of the passenger side of the car flailing around and his head was faced toward me with the most nauseated expression I had ever seen. One hand was inside his dashboard and the other rested on his lap; he was pulling at something but I was keeping a far enough distance to be unable to identify what could be the cause of such anguish.

            The smell was something I recalled from when I had found him Halloween night, which I tried to ignore then. He had mentioned something about his snake going missing while he was stopped at a gas station somewhere in upstate New York.

            " I went to pump gas and when I got back to my car she was gone. I looked everywhere and had no clue where she could have ended up. By the time I got to Ohio I realized, oh fuck; she's in the dashboard. She crawled up there and died. She's been drying out in there the whole way to here, stinking this car up."

            When he told me that I couldn't quite envision the size of the snake. The name Burmese Python meant nothing to me. I had no idea what size this snake was, for all I knew it was the size of a Gartner Snake, which was no threat to me.

            I stood there, a safe 10 feet, covering my mouth and trying not to gag. The whole time Sölj's head was cocked at me and for 20 minutes we could only articulates grunts and dry-heaves. Halfway into the mission, liquid began to drip from the glove box and I could start to see the belly of the snake with Sölj's hand gripped flaccidly around it. I suggested that Sölj just rip it out like a band-aid and he did just that. The size of the snake finally became apparent and it was no Gartner Snake. This thing was roughly four feet long, jaundice, and dead.

            Without a moments hesitation he threw the snake directly into the trashcan and we both waited until we got away to take a breath of some fresh air, then we proceeded with laughter.

* * *

            I had no more classes for the day and decided it would be a good idea to get Sölj accustomed to the city. It didn't help that my solution was to go the zoo considering our near death experience that morning, but Sölj took the bait anyways.

            We rode the twenty-two bus across town up to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was far from impressive that November. At that time of year it was too cold for any of the exciting animals to be hanging out, I guess that was the job of the people, to be the exciting ones that is.

            It was a beautiful day to be at the zoo as the monkeys ate their feces and the elks looked off in distances as if they were recalling the real habitats from whence they came. Sölj looked off, not caring about where he came from. At that time he was only concerned with where he was heading.

            We strolled along Lake Michigan for a three-hour walk back to my dorm and more disappointments. In that three hours I think we both found how lost in our lives we were.

            "Zach, you're out here doing things with your life."

            "I know man, but you'll figure it out. You are a hell of an artist."

            "I think I want to go to culinary school."

            "Really," I was taken aback but could see it happening in the same moment. We continued to talk, not really getting any further than we normally had, still lost in the chasms of pre-adulthood.  We spoke of the women in our lives which was typical for us and where we would want to be in a few years, how Dylan had always been a distant member of the "tripod," that was Sölj, Dylan, and myself.

 

            Our walk had worked up a thirst and I think Sölj was ready for the glamorous college life—the one that consisted of binge drinking, trivial make outs, and pure hell raising. We didn't quite to do all of that but we decided to meet up with my neighbor and her friends who happened to be visiting that same weekend. In agreement we chipped in our money, what little of it we had for a case of beer and headed off toward the beach.

            I wasn't much in the mood for drinking, I sparingly had about two beers whereas Sölj was going for glory, taking in the mating calls of the skyline's flashing lights. I could tell he felt a little bit smaller in the world; his words were few as he paced up and down the shore. He had left his girlfriend, his job, his parents whom at that time he could care less about, to settle upon a more than uncertain future of hustling and running. I again did what you never do to Sölj; I pitied him.

            After a few hours of exchanging stories with my neighbor's cohorts we sluggishly traipsed back to our beds. Along the way Sölj was speaking to me in a half sardonic, half depressed voice. I felt he was on the verge of tears as he was saying how much he loved me. Those words have never sat well with me, not because they came out of his mouth but for a history much longer than our friendship, have those words plagued me.

* * *

            To my surprise we didn't finish the beer so we dropped it off in Sölj's trunk for what we thought would be our next night of debauchery.

            The following day we didn't do much, we were low on funds, and I was running out of ideas on how to entertain him. We watched Requiem for a Dream to pass the time but it did nothing more than depress the living shit out of us and make Sölj think about never doing drugs. Had that been the case I wouldn't be telling this story.

            Night was descending and there was beer to be consumed. Sölj grabbed the twelve remaining Miller High-Life, the champagne of beers, and dumped them into his camouflaged bag. He didn't bother to cover them up with a shirt though I suggested it. I guess I should have explained that if we got caught that was it, he was gone. But that was him—the ever-fearless soldier.

            We entered the building and walked past the security desk. My stomach and heart were moving ferociously as my feeble legs carried me. I had Sölj go first. He had nothing to lose; he was already more or less homeless.

            Goldie, the sixty-something security guard, called us over. Here was our fate.

            "Open your bag!"

            Whenever Sölj was in these situations his guilty conscience would kick in and his tough guy attitude would evaporate. He compliantly opened the bag.

            "Ahh, you done it now. Adam's gonna' be mad at you!" pointing and glaring in my direction. I could've sworn that was in a movie somewhere. Adam was my residence assistant. I needed no assistance. I knew at that point I had fucked up and Sölj had fucked up, not to mention my dad's words from the weeks before Sölj's arrival were ringing in my ears.            

"You know he's a liability, Zach."

            So there it was. My dad's words became true, my apprehensions realized, and the soldier had to be deployed.

            Adam made us empty the cans into what had appeared to be the beer sink for all the other delinquents who had preceded us in trying to be as clever. One by one, the foamy liquid fell to the sink, splashing and whirl pooling down the drain. That was hardly where our melancholy was at as Sölj peered to look at me and I grinned back.

            The next step was to go up to my room with Sölj and Adam to clear out Sölj's things. He grabbed his tattoo gear, his bags, put on his cowboy boots and we headed to his car to say our last goodbye.

            "Here's $20 man. It's the best I can do. I'm really sorry this happened. Ramblers got to keep ramblin'."

            "Naww, don't worry about it. I mean I was the one who brought it in. I'll be fine."

            I gave him a firm hug, wished him a safe trip and told him to be sure to call me along his way. I didn't know where he was going to go next or how he would get there. The rest of the night I was a nervous wreck and debated whether to tell my parents. I didn't want to prove them right and I didn't want them to know that I was in trouble too for having a guest sneak in alcohol. I deferred to the next evening:

 

            "Dad, I don't really know how to put it and I don't want you to get angry but Sölj and I got busted trying to bring beer into the building and so...he had to go. He doesn't have any money, I have him $20 but I doubt that will even get him through Indiana. I'm not sure what to do."

            "Jesus Zach, I told you this would happen."

            "I know, I know—"

            "Alright well see if you can get his credit card number and maybe I can wire him some cash."

            "His phone is dead. I guess I'll just keep you posted and we can talk about this later."

            "Alright, please do and just try to get some sleep."

            "Alright Pops. I'll talk to you and mom later."

            Though my dad new Sölj almost as well as I did he wasn't one to give up on him either. In some ways I even saw my dad thinking of Sölj as his own son but I think for his sake he was glad he wasn't.

* * *

            For the next couple of days I would talk to Sölj for a few minutes at a time. I would ask where he was and how he was doing; if he was making progress and getting anywhere near New Hampshire. Apparently he had pawned DVDs and whatever odds and ends he could find in his car to pay for gas money and panhandled the rest of the way home. According to a mutual friend of ours Sölj was relieving himself at a rest stop in Ohio where I man start to sexually harass him. Sölj usually carried a weapon with him and this time Sölj had a knife with an 8-inch blade handy. The guy backed off.

I didn't see Sölj again until Thanksgiving where he opted not to eat with his family and decided to come eat with mine. We sat at the end of the table; a safe distance from the rest of my relatives who probably would have ate him alive. They all claimed to be liberals but some leaned a little more conservatively and I doubt Sölj's life philosophies would have bode well with them.

After his exhaustive yet short visit to Chicago I knew then and forever on our friendship would no longer be the same. His drug habits kicked up tenfold from dropping acid to doing coke and selling everything in between. I wasn't interested in that Sölj. The Sölj I knew, that was a brother to me, was a guy I could count on to go his own route, to do things the right way but his way which made it right in that it was authentic to itself. He was the excitement in my life that I didn't have even though this excitement came out of some half-baked ideas. The drugs, I didn't want.

After more time passed I sent him a text to see if he wanted to go see a movie and he told me that he would get back to me on it. I didn't know what was so hard about saying yes or no to seeing a movie. When I didn't hear back for a few hours I pressed the question on him again. At that point he went off, the button I pushed I could not see. He told me I had been a ghost (this was all via text message mind you) and that he had a more solid group of new friends. I rebutted by expressing their only interest was one of necessity and that was foundered on drugs. He didn't seem to think so. Sölj gave me a brief lecture on how I had no idea what I was talking about because I wasn't a drug user. Well, that was true however, I have seen many friends other than Sölj get on the path he was on and they had enough common sense to turn around, even if only for a little while. For him, I wasn't so sure.

We had a 30-minute stream of incendiary messages and he had made the ultimate decision, to cut me out of his life and delete my phone number. I can't say a part of me died then but I had a bit of fury and a bit of remorse in me that still hasn't left.

The last time I ever spoke to him was in August of 2008. I had seen him at a party decked out in camouflage and some ridiculously tight red pants with his signature cowboy boots and his signature army bag. He was with a fellow adversary of mine who had become his new drug buddy; they were somewhat co-dependent. I tried to make alms and talk but he was too messed up on something or other and I was maybe too drunk to handle the situation effectively, so we didn't.

In the end I took his advice, the one philosophy of his that I now have come to agree with—you have to cut your losses. To this day I have dreams about him where he is fucked up on something or where he is homeless and looking for my help. I want to help him, I wish I could have helped all my friends who brought such energy to my life, as though they all wore capes that enveloped the cosmos and were delighted to share them with me. But, I had to realize, you let the good ones go.

He now lives in South Carolina with his dad, his Pit-bull, and some existence unbeknownst to me.

© 2009 Zachary Green