The blank spots, the vacancies, the holes burned out, patches left unpainted, the fanciful quirks that lead to the notions of why they do what they do, say what they say, speak in tongues not foreign, but not mine, the threads that spin out into such a particular web of consciousness, little pieces of not quite. These notions occupy an inordinate amount of my time this morning.
To what end, I’m not sure. What’s the point? Creating a template for personal comparison seems hardly worth the effort of juxtaposing. A person’s outlook is firmly mired in that outlook – mine no different – and comparison refracted across the sheen of another gossamer person is still just refraction. There is nothing to be gained out of comparison, of interest outward turned inward. It borders on solipsism that way, a manufactured windshield view of a world you can’t interact with.
But on the other hand, idle curiosity comes across not as just banal but essentially untrue. People experiment with drugs at the altar of idle curiosity. Change their hairstyles. They wonder “Who put that there?” but less often “Why was that put there?” They don’t ask, to pass the time, why others do what they do. Trying to dissect a head space isn’t mild interest; if anything it borders on obsession. Of course, mornings like this, probably the best time for obsession.
Cresting the top of the hill in a furniture truck with that truth, I could see the city behind was still mostly dark – buildings speckled with windows of over-work – but the rolling red and white lanterns of midnight were slowly giving way to that drowsing star yawning, rolling over, hitting the alarm. I think my weariness wanted for nothing but coffee. Just coffee. Not necessarily even good coffee. No cold brew, no vacuous caramel malted milkshake; something hot in the hand to fire a few nerves, lose focus, focus-less, forgotten.
Our haul started early this week. Today, a fridge headed to that new Pinevale (-wood?) suburb out on 210, a sectional going up to the hills, probably up some stairs too. A pile of bricks, a literal pile of bricks. Overpriced and overpaid, slightly curved, so decorative they’d have to end up as a custom fire pit never used. And a redwood bedroom set. That’d be the house. Forgetting coffee, and mild snoring trending to background noise, trying to anyway, I needed a distraction, Clicked the remote, turning up the volume and…
“Screw you, pal!”
…it was time for Tyler. “If you’re not bleeding and coughing and heaving, you’re not living! Just because you’re too jaded and under-fucked to appreciate high art on a purely visceral level doesn’t obligate me to cater to you, Baudelaire! My tits look amazing in any light! Get this guy off my phone. We’re taking a break! Back after this.”
Every morning, the woman does one thing really well. She pisses people off. She gets paid to do it. I would assume. Suppose some would do it for the high. Never seen (heard?) someone who so enjoys the plaintive bitching of her product though. Quietly moving along behind you, virtually nonexistent, would seem preferable to me. But I imagine that’s why I’m silent, driving, hauling, listening, thinking, and she’s screaming at assholes at the crack of dawn.
In terms of distraction though, her show was that. Even to one with long-standing predilections to wading around in the gray goo of the cerebrum, there aren’t many moments to deep dive on a think when driving. Ponderings are a luxury. A passenger has the leisure of foot-on-the-dashboard idle contemplation – lazily looking at the barns over there, guessing how they burned, or wondering where that guy could possibly work to afford a house like that, whether his children heading to school really appreciate how lucky they are to just be rich kids for a few precious years (hell no, they’re kids), maybe how the price of gas at that Exxon can possibly be so much higher; it’s only fifty yards down the street from that Citgo. Just off the interstate is prime real estate, and worth an extra twenty cents a gallon maybe? When he was driving Shep refused to stop at those. “Man, come on, we’ve only got an hour to get there; you’ve been driving around for fifteen minutes. Gas up and get back on the goddamned freeway already!” He’d hear none of it.
Yeah, a driver has to settle for listening. Not really thinking. Well, caring about the think anyway, really giving it its due, that undivided attention it needs. Because the actual driving part, it requires a certain amount of lizard brain concentration. A weighing of potential dangers. Especially in a miniature behemoth like this. Reactionary darting of the eyes. Minute pedal adjustment compensating for lack of cruise control. Careful attention to speed limits and speed traps and speed usage. A passive exercise in multitasking, caring just enough about just enough to not die careening, speed aside. You need that lizard leaping over synapses, not potholes.
The reverb faded into something synesthetic, something crimson. “Tyler here! Tyler stiiiill here! They’ll never get me out of this building. Never!” Shrieking into the dawn, the banshee has never failed to shred that sliver of quiet contemplation, that reflection that comes with the study of the steady knock of a compressor belt that’ll surely eventually tear, or that hypnotic zen nearly impossible to reach but when listening to an insurance commercial disclaimer. So idle curiosity and template building turned around, lingered out of sight and sense, looked out the window for their ride, and all I could hear was Shep snoring over the bridge of some Bush song I could no longer recognize from any other Bush song. Abstractions were interrupted (ya harpy), whipped away on the wind, like so much cigarette smoke out a cracked window. The stench of memory remains for a moment, but even mnemonic olfaction has to exhale. And memory’s gone. For the best really. Ride’s here. A/C still trying. For four years now. Snap. No? Not yet.
She chortled. What’s a chortle? “Not as long as I have a key anyway. And they don’t change the locks… Ehm. Goooood morning, ladehs and gentlemennnn,” voice starting off low, hitting a higher register, back down, pretentious at any pitch. “And welcome back! I know you’re all going to love having me around for the next twelve hours. Hah! Bet you weren’t expecting that eh? Anthem and Sonny are both out of pocket this week, so in an absolute fit of altruism and overtime compensation – I’m talking straight seizure, people, shaking, eye-rolling, gurgling scripture in tongues, though that might all be completely unrelated – I decided to take over their shows. Which basically makes me the station. Are you scared yet? Don’t be! You’ll love me. I’ll make you love me. At at the very least, I’m sure I’ll love me! But how can you not love me, I mean really? Just listen to the voice. And listen to what I give to you. Pictures of You! Back soon! And forever! This is Tyler. When am I getting a vacation?”
Yes, back soon. As the song faded, the studio mic kicked in mid-stream to her shouting at somebody. “You know, you remind me of my ex. He had some gross inadequacy issues too. Small paycheck. Small penis. Big ego. These aren’t necessarily the similarities you two share, mind. They might be. I’m not a psychic. But that would be really unfortunate for you. You should do what he did when I divorced his ass. Shack up with your secretary, get a few DUIs, get off the street and make all our lives better.”
“You know what would make my life better? If you died in a fire.”
“Wow. Wow. That was just… mean. And unimaginative.” I looked over at Shep, eyebrow helplessly arched. “What man? These people are fucked up. What did this lady ever do to them?”
“The woman’s definitely polarizing.” Her voice faded out into something jazzy. Something with nuts and zippers that made me think of old Disney short films.
“Man, I wouldn’t say that sorta shit to my worst enemy. Or my boss.”
“Hah.”
“I mean it man. You gotta be a true mother fucker to go pickin’ a fight with a woman on the radio, ya? Skinless, spineless, fuckin’ coward. No way to spend you’re goddamned time. Get a fuckin’ job. Turn this shit off man. I’m done with this shit. Don’t wanna hear it anymore.”
“Alright man. Fine. Pandora?”
“Your Pandora sucks. You suck.”
“What’s with you today Shep,” I laughed.
“Nothin’s with me. What’s with you? I need sleep. And your ruinin’ my mornin’. Why do you listen to this shit station man?” Irritation. Something about drugs and hairstyles. “It is easily the worst thing on the radio, ever. And the music’s awful.”
“No way!” Pointing at the dash as if it would back me up (it did), “Always something good.” Turning up the volume. “Black Hole Sun, or Crush with Eyeliner or Orange Crush or something. Some type of crush. And seriously, only decent station you can get out here. Everything else is old school hip hop, remixed with some Korean girls singing really hi-pitched and mariachi music looped over the two.” Looking over at him. Grinning. “Or ya know, John Lee Hooker and Waylon Jennings. Not in the mood for love?”
“Could just listen to nothing,” he whined, shrugging shoulders in sleepy contempt and lolling his sagging disposition back against the door.
“You mean the compressor. Go back to sleep”
Snapping back, “Turn on the heater. It’s too cold. And turn it down damnit. I’m too old for that shit,” he growled. “Got enough’a that with Janice last night. Pull over and get us some breakfast goddamnit.” Rolling over again. Why does he sleep with his foot like that? Could never sleep not lying down. Certainly not half-inverted. Probably why I’m driving. Pulling over. An Exxon. Six bucks in opportunity cost.
Ambling out of stark luminescence, leaving Shep to gas up shivering, always so strange how expansive and empty parking lots feel in winter. They stretch on for days. Seems that’s not how thermal contraction works in my head, but maybe it doesn’t work on imagery…anyway. Before the clerk bothers to look up, the stench of fried food attacks at the door. It’s hard not to be tempted. Steaming the glass, mixing, merging in the nose with some sort of potato something and something else passing itself off as coffee, the kind that comes out of a nozzle, that’s carbonated and loaded into the back of a machine in plastic pouches. Yeah, it’s hard not to be tempted. A hot meal at seven in the morning, glistening with the promise of fullness next to what looks like a breadstick or an eggroll but can’t not taste amazing for ninety-nine cents.
“That all?”
“Yeah, and the coffee. Uh, pack’a Camels too. The Jades there. Thanks.”
“So as I’ve been telling everyone, all our DJs are on vacation today, or in jail, or on a mattress with a rubber hose – talkin’ to you Sonny! Maldives my ass. I know how much you make. Don’t asphyxiate darling! Not like that anyway. Eh, I don’t know. She’s having way more fun than me either way, I’m sure. Who cares! It’s just me and all of you this morning, this eeevening, toniiight, loyal listennerrrrrs.”
“Here, catch,” tossing the hot meal to Shep. “You listening to the radio out here?”
“Well…yeah. It was too damned quiet. And it keeps me from thinkin’ about how cold I am.”
“Could have changed the station.”
“Could have.”
“Truth is, listeners, it’s going to be a pretty boring show today. No guests. I don’t even have any surprise guests. Or doooo I? Nah, nah I don’t. And no witty banter. It’ll be like being at work! Sorry, sorry. I do apologize. Sorry! I mean it. It sucks most of you are at work. At one of those real jobs. I didn’t have time to get anything ready for you….um… Oh wait! There’s this. They’re releasing a new Soundgarden 35th anniversary album this week.
“So yeah…that’s something. Did you guys here about that? Wanna talk about it? God, I hope so. I’m sure we’ll set up a Chris Cornell tribute station or something next week, so I’ll just go ahead and get in on the ground floor. Tacky or no, here’s ‘Just Like Suicide’. Calls when we get back. We’re gonna talk about despair, and death and the inevitability of your own demise and the best way to do it quickly! And the anniversary of all those things! Perfect topics for a Tuesday morning. My favorite topics anyway. Love ya, dears!”
Never been sure what the crooning was about. A passion for show tunes perhaps. Her voice always sounded young and old, at the same time. It wasn’t husky, that’s not what it was. It wasn’t the voice of a woman who’d spent too many years smoking clove cigarettes. That would have been Randy over on Classic Classics. What an easily forgettable little bit of clever. Who got paid or fired after naming that station?
A lot of people hated her. Absolutely despised her. Those comments you read at the bottom of videos and internet comment boards? She gets hundreds of those quips in her inbox every day, she says. Reads ’em on air. Seems to think they’re funny.
Pulling up to the house around two, big place, two floors, portico. “This the one?” Shep asked.
“When I called Friday, a maid answered.”
“Eh whatever brah, let’s get this done. I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he laughed. “I can think of way worse reasons to steal than to keep your belly full.”
Steal. Sounds so seedy. This thing we do, every week or two, it’s hit or miss. Sometimes we make out pretty well, sometimes we don’t. And truth be told, it’s more supplementary income than anything. We both have day jobs. Blue collar. Pays the bills. Shep’s a mechanic. Works on motorcycles mostly. I fix up houses. Run down places that sell way under value from people who just can’t be bothered. Flipped around and spun into something passable in a month or so. We do the furniture thing in the mornings once every week or two. Slow days. Most of the time, that’s all that we do.
But we look up the houses online while we’re loading up the shipments. Pick one that looks like it might have something valuable, something worth putting in a bit of extra effort. We’re not safe crackers or armed robbers or anything. Nothing more untoward than picking something up really. The people that can afford this stuff we deliver, they don’t miss a few trinkets – some jewelry, a misplaced tablet. Nine times out of ten it’s chalked up to kids losing things, or, worst case, it gets blamed on a maid. And of course, they don’t get fired, nah; no evidence.
We’ve had a few incidents over the years. Yeah, we’ve been doing this for years. Nothing we haven’t talked our way out of. Can even make yourself less suspicious. “Ah no problem ma’am. Found this purse lying under the couch,” as you walk out with her cellphone in your pocket. And she got a new couch and found her lost purse. Win-win.
Normally Shep is the one talking, charming. There’s always someone home that needs a bit of distraction. Really entertaining when he gets going. But I’ll wander around, pick up a couple things on the way to the bathroom and then we’ll head out. Fence it. Easy money. Like eighty-percent guilt free too.
But… the story ever push ya over into the passenger’s seat in mid-sentence, take over, pedal down, told ya to ‘roll a joint, we gotta get there fast, and we gotta stay calm’? No? Hnh. The last delivery went different. I threw a phone at the maid.
She saw me picking it up, putting it in my pocket. I mean, honestly, it’s not a difficult situation to talk yourself out of. You say you just found it. You were taking it into the living room. Hell, you thought it was yours. But I don’t know. She freaked out a bit. She was the only one home, and she didn’t speak much English. Could yell though. Started shouting “Thief! Thief!” I started shouting too. Ran up on her, shouting. Scared the shit out of her, the phone that wasn’t my phone in my hand and I just slammed it on the ground in front of her. Started shouting about how dare she, and she’s got the wrong idea and how dare she.
Shep came around the corner and saw what was going on, calmed her down. Explained his gringo friend was just tired and in a bad mood and just had a bad breakup or something. My Spanish isn’t great. Anyway, we paid out of pocket for the phone. To the homeowners, it would reek more of the lower class, bickering, than of anything, certainly no daylight theft. All the same…
“What is with you today?” Shep asked as he slammed the back grate of the truck, hopped in the cab. “You’ve been out of it all day.”
“I don’t know; man, I’m sorry.”
“That could have gotten bad.”
“She freaked out.”
“Damned right she did. Luckily, I did happen to grab a few things,” he grinned. “It wasn’t a total fiasco.”
“This next song goes out to all you ladies. All of you! Christine, Ashe, Mary-Bethe, my boss, my mom, me! Sure why not. Me! Let me see, oh! The barista at Starbucks this morning dealing with that obnoxious guy in front of me. Iced, triple, sugar-free, venti, no foam latte with soy milk? Are you freaking kidding me? Seriously, I remember that order. Etched on my brain. How could it not be? Unless you’re the person trying to remember it unironically while seventeen other people in line are rolling their eyes and sighing really loudly. Yes I sigh very loudly. Please don’t think it was you sweetie, if you’re listening. What the hell, really!? Um.. Margaret Thatcher? May she rot in hell. Helen of Troy. The girl who grooms my dog. Darcie, I love ya sis! I want my CDs back! But I digress. Little bit Ad-Rock, part Mike-D and a pinch’a Mr. MCA for ya! To All the Girls. This is Tyler.
I dropped off the truck and Shep at the shop. “Eh, is what it is, man. Yeah, could have been a lot worse. I’ll see you next week. Get your head together, yeah? Hit a steam or somethin’, I dunno. I’ll call Larry and get rid’a this shit.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, sounds good. Yeah. Give me a call and we’ll grab lunch. Really man, I’m sorry.”
“Sure, sure. Should be apologizing to her. Didn’t your daddy ever teach you to respect women?”
Eh, I can’t go home after that. Rest. Never feel comfortable going home after something goes wrong, even something little like that. Simple paranoia, right? I suppose. Just lay around, sit on the couch. Brood. Gonna brood, might as well drive around, listen to music while you do it. Give yourself that good brooding soundtrack.
Coffee would do me good. I pulled into a parking lot off of Esperanza, dropped a butt on the ground, ground it out as I stepped out. Started hacking, hard, hard enough to expel all the oxygen necessary for proper brain function, felt dizzy. Things are gonna kill me. Area of town was quiet most days, especially early evening. Something of an industrial neighborhood, not far from the city center. You’d walk across abandoned track spurs laid in the streets, skeletons of aborted progress.
There was a church across the street, old place. Sign in front. Above deep purple letters outlined with neon green, day was sneaking past broken windows, moving room to room, marking its presence in the dilapidated structure only in moments, glinting off shards and casting nominal glances at the fixture in the yard, the one signaling ultimate foreclosure, demolition of this transient evening’s apartment, and something better coming on the horizon. All that. Stupid sign. Never noticed it before. The church, I mean. Wasn’t here often, but often enough; I figure it would have caught my eye at some point, decaying as it was. And I guess it just did.
There was a diner down here, The Coffee Cup I think it was actually called, but most people just called it Tiffany’s. Tiffany’s by the Tracks. They were open all day and all night, served these greasy hamburgers and pretty much nothing else, but you’d always find people in there. Sitting at small tables by the windows as greasy as the burgers, or at the formica counter that stretched from the door to the back of the building and the kitchen.
The woman at the counter, probably mid-forties (not Tiffany, there’s never been a Tiffany here, maybe never was) waved when I came in, was counting out the cash in the register. She pushed it closed and met me as I sat down. Above her a mirror ran half the length of the counter. It was covered in grime and reflected back nothing in the evening light but reminiscences of Eugene O’Neill.
“What can I get for ya hun’?”
“Cup’a coffee please. Cheeseburger,” grunting. Sounded more like “Cu-coffee. Bug.” to my ears.
“Fries or chips?”
“Nah. Actually, hold off on the burger.” Off, on. A little more enunciated. “Just coffee. Thanks.” There were half a dozen people in the place; some staring at the grime-covered TV. Couple of them just staring. There was a woman a few seats down poring over a book and a stack of papers. Tyler.
“What are you reading?” I asked the empty seats between, wondering if she heard me. Number seven on top ten ways to open a conversation.
“Studying for National Boards.”
“Teaching certification?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah. Hey, I’m sorry; aren’t you Tyler? From Everlong?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Not trying to be rude. Sorry. Was just listening to you on the radio an hour or so ago. Jack.”
“Jack. Nice to meet you Jack. Yes, Tyler, the one and only.” She feigned a smile and a wave of the hand. “You’re not a creepy stalker fan are you? One of those assholes that love me so much they hate me?”
“There did seem to be quite a few of those listening to your show today.”
“Yeah, it went over pretty well, all considered. Not my favorite way to blow twelve hours, but what can ya do?”
“We were talking about it this morning, how horrible some of the calls were. My partner was ready to skin one guy alive. Don’t you have screeners or anything?”
“Those guys are my bread and butter. I play a character, Jack. Jerry Springer with a bad dye job, right? It pays the bills.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I don’t see how you put up with the crap you do in that gig though. Seems like the sort of thing that would… I don’t know… that would get old really quick.”
“Eh, it does. But other than the random asshole that recognizes me at a bar or diner or something, that shit really doesn’t follow me, ya know?”
“Maybe if you didn’t yell so much?”
“You think that’d get rid of the presidential petition for my removal? People are fucking idiots. What do you do, Jack?”
“Huh? I don’t know. Would hate to live with it though.”
“No. What do you do. Job, hun.” She pointed. “What’s paying for that coffee there?”
“Furniture mover.”
“Hah! Wow, that sounds boring.”
“It pays the bills.”
“Does it?”
“Don’t have many bills. Do construction too. And petty larceny. In the off-hours.” Why did I say that? Maybe just to see the reaction. Play it for laughs, who knows.
“Now that actually seems about right. Crazy thing to mention if you’re not joking.”
“I don’t mug ladies in diners.”
“Well that’s certainly good to know.”
“Mostly it’s just stuff we pick up when we’re doing the furniture thing.”
“You just pilfer people’s houses? That’s pretty sleazy. Why are you telling me this?”
“Why not? You asked.”
“So did you steal anything today?”
“I didn’t. I got freaked out and yelled at this old Mexican maid, and then paid her for the phone I broke.”
“You yelled at an old woman?”
“She scared me.”
“And then paid her for the inconvenience?”
“I paid her for the phone.”
“You’re not very good at this burgling thing are you?”
We talked like that for a while. Until the coffee ran out. The stains around the mug, age rings of multitudes of randoms stories. “Well Jack, it’s been a kick. I’ve gotta go pick up my kid. It was…nice to meet you, uh, I think?” She barked a laugh, threw her purse over her shoulder and stood up. “So how does a guy end up stealing from people?”
“Asking for, what, research? On the board exam?”
“Never know.”
“A long path, I suppose.”
“Hah, sure. You don’t give it to the poor do you?” She stopped, turned back. “Call in sometime. Tell the audience about your road to riches.” She gave another laugh and walked out shaking her head. “People in this freakin’ town, I swear to God. Glad you like the show,” she shouted over her shoulder into the haze, echoing off empty cups and the mirror with no reflection.