On this day: 12/14/2016

—La Colombe (Damen Ave, Chicago, IL)

I am enjoying this new Sunday morning routine. I have been waking up at 6am and riding Wolfy to Stan’s Donuts and thence to La Colombe for a coffee prior to leading the weekly 3RIDE2 adventure. This morning, the girl behind the counter at Stan’s <<CHECKS PHONE>> asked for my name, because she sees me there every Sunday. I’m trying to create routines that encourage fitness:

• Monday morning recovery boots at Edge, coffee and working on my yoga class for that night.

• Tuesday morning Edge plyometric workout

• Saturday morning Bang Bang 3RUN2 crew run followed by yoga at Tula from 11 to 12:30

• Sunday morning Stans, Colombe, 3RIDE2 <<CHECKS PHONE>>

How many minutes did I just lose there, looking at my device? Checking for hidden notifications? I’m addicted. Yesterday, my little Andorinha came home from the Turin Hospital for Children. She is beautiful. I named her after those beautiful Portuguese birdies and the even more lovely song about them sung by Amalia Rodrigues and Carminho <<CHECKS PHONE>>. We took our maiden flight together from Turin to Lifetime yesterday afternoon. She rides like a little dream. <<CHECKS PHONE>> It’s no wonder that I can never finish anything, can never write anything worthy if I am constantly being pulled from the present moment to see who LIKED my most recent post. What a waste. I miss writing so much <<CHECKS PHONE>> I think I’ve got a problem. What was happening in my life last year on this date? I wrote bad poetry. I wrote about how Tall Rob told me after yoga that he was chatting with another one of my regular attendees at the gym who told Tall Rob: “I love Josh’s classes. Josh is like a SOFT MOUNTAIN.” I loved that so much <<CHECKS PHONE>> Wednesday is the anniversary of my writing “We All” arguably the best, most rambling and schizophrenic poem I’ve penned to date. I’ll need to issue a special revision for the anniversary <<CHECKS PHONE>>. I got drunk on Dewars white label scotch and wrote for about three solid pages, of which I revised and edited to what I thought was the best lines of the bunch. In fact, while I’m thinking about it, I should <<CHECKS PHONE>> What I was going to say is: perhaps I should revise it now as I am thinking about it. I have the master version saved on Medium. I will perhaps make time this morning—while I’m in recovery boots—to further revise. <<CHECKS PHONE>> I can’t believe how much has changed in one year since writing that piece. Last year I was flying to Tampa for a pre-Christmas trip someplace warm. I was unemployed, or had actually just been hired as Operations Manager at WFMT. I feel like I am a more confident yoga teacher today and that I am in a better place emotionally, though still a long way from where <<CHECKS PHONE>> I hope to see myself.

CHECKS PHONE

<<>>

CHECKS PHONE <<>>

Andorinha

On this day: 12/7/2015

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in my history, and reproduce it here. On this particular day, I was flying from Chicago to Florida. Flying is often where I get most of my good writing done, because it offers so few distractions, comparativley. This entry directly sparked my poem “We All”.

Leaving today for Tampa, visiting V’s Mom and Charles there this week. It will be nice to get the hell out of Chicago for a few days of sun and beach. I’m going to do my best to enjoy the trip and not get pulled back into Chicago bullshit for a few days, at least.

Another rejection letter. This time from the SIXFOLD contest, in which a poem is rated against six others, through three rounds of voting by other poets. My “Leatherbacks” didn’t make it past Round 1, earning a score of 3.6 out of 6. Oh well…keep trying. [“The Leatherbacks” later titled “Prey” would eventually be published in Pest Control Issue 2, March 2021]

redemption

---

<——— Oliver Minnall, 2001

Thinking about Brian Kennelly today, as I was telling V about my Navy days. I haven’t thought about him in years—an outrageous character—who roomed with Vincent Mak in “A” School. Mak would become one of my closest friends on the Vinson. Then there’s Oliver Minnall, Mark Howard, Lloyd Colgin, all ghosts from my past. Names with nothing else attached to them. How insane is that? I spent over a year with these guys, hanging out every day. We watched the towers fall together in real time on 9/11, and now all I retain is a faint recollection of their names. Some, not even that much: the hulking MM mechanic with the square, bald head, who I shared a bathroom with, who I was slightly terrified of, who drove me to downtown Charleston one night to party, where we got completely hammered on $5 Long Island Iced Teas, and on the way home I thought I was certainly going to piss myself, and he got into the bathroom first, and Minnall [my roommate] was playing Dreamcast—or whatever game system was en vogue at the time—at 2 in the morning. Or the 1980s movie marathon that I held in our room one weekend, people popping in and out at all times of the day. Jesus. It was another lifetime. Playing sand volleyball on a Sunday afternoon, going to the beach when I was in Prototype—which beach? I know it had a name—drunk on Smirnoff Ice and boogie boarding, and the strap of the thing getting caught between my thighs somehow as a fucking riptide pulled me out to sea, towards the pier. I surely thought I would die that day. Or the other time at the beach, covering myself in Coppertone Classic—essentially COOKING OIL—and falling asleep in the sun, getting burned so badly that my entire forehead erupted into a billion blisters and I looked like Freddy Krueger for two weeks. Or that blonde instructor at Prototype [Timothy Croak, RIP 8/29/2024] who was so goddamn cocky and hated everything and all of us and was the meanest 2nd Class Petty Officer I ever met in the six years I served.

How is it possible that all that exists in this INSTANT?

Staggering to think about, really. Everything goes. Nothing lasts—and we all act as if it really will last forever. Like we have an eternity to do the things we want, like we have all the money to do everything we want. Life is a short bus. Suddenly, all the stress about giving up a full-time job to explore yoga teacher training seems TRIVIAL. But isn’t everything trivial, extended out to a long enough timeline? The older I get, the more convinced I become that trying to make a thing last is the definition of futility, Nothing lasts. That is the only truth I know. Every day we wake up, we are infinitely different than we were the previous day. It’s impossible to remain the same, day in and day out. We are trapped inside these humyn bodies—which is such a relief, because at least we have that as an anchor point—the same face staring back at us from the looking glass each morning; something recognizable. I could wake up tomorrow an accountant living in a remote yurt in Mongolia, and the only thing that would surprise me is if I no longer recognized the face in the mirror.

This hippy, sitting kitty-corner from me has been in his stocking-feet since he sat down; plane still attached to the jetway, baggage still being tossed into the compartment below—stocking-footed. I have to laugh. It’s only a two-hour flight, brah.

Why am I terrified to write what is actually concerning me? You know why. People read over shoulders, that is why. I am a bad person, aren’t I?

No, I am not. This is life.

We all make mistakes, we all make friends, we all make a mess. We all clean it up. We all write. We all swipe left. We all pick our noses when nobody’s looking. We all cry. We all avoid those we don’t want to see. We all seek out those we want. We all drink scotch before noon. We all see our therapists daily. We all take our medicine. We all experience turbulence. We all get cancer. We all kill sheep ritualistically on the Autumnal Equinox. We all stab one another in dark alleyways for 20 cents and a bus pass.

We all sit in crowded airplanes in our stocking feet. We all sing. We all laugh. We all shoot heroin. We all soil ourselves. We’ve all been to Lisbon. We’ve all been to Reykjavik. We’ve all been to the laundromat. We’ve all run a marathon. We all are made of comets. We all are bloodsacks. We all speak to aliens. We all believe in Santa. We all turn our TV on, watch it for hours, and never learn a goddamn thing. We all cook eggs. We all cheat. We all lie. We all roast in the flames of a fire we all built. We all store our dryer lint in a sandwich baggie by the DVDs, so we can use it for kindling to start that fire. We all drink an entire bottle of bourbon by that fire when we should be at home with hubby. We all pet someone else’s kitty behind the ears. We all brag about it later to our friends, or anyone who’ll listen. We all glisten. We all glow. We all shine. We all swim. We all drown.

We all

〰️

We all 〰️

We all believe the Olmecs were the best. We all burn at the stake. We all set the stakes too high. We all play ping pong with the neighbor boy. We all flunk algebra. We all write “poetry” when we’ve had a little too much to drink. We all eat far too much cheese. We all chew our food with our mouths hanging open. We all wish we were cabana boys. We all love fado. We all love Larry David. We all love Donald Trump. We all are gay. We all are Muslim. We all are salmon. We all are Kodiak bears. We all play the bass fiddle in folk-rock bands. We all read magazines when we wait in the lobby for our turn in the dentist’s chair. we all drive Vespas from the café to the lycée with our teeth chattering in the cold. We all watch our friendships die. We all watch our friends die. We all play the radio a little too loudly for our own good.

We all buy houses we can’t possibly afford. We all run up our credit card debt. We all have a 401k. We all get two weeks for vacation. We all sip mimosas on the beach in Cancún as the sun rises. We all black out. We all forget who we are. We all forget who we were. We all forget whomever we were supposed to be. We all regret. We all paint in the style of the modern man. We all get accepted to the Ivy League. We all make six figures. We all winter in Istanbul. We all watch airplanes fall from the sky. We all fly with the angels. We all smoke too much. We all have an app for that. We all Just Do It. We all Enjoy Responsibly. We all refresh our Facebook feeds. We all swim with sharks. We all hunt giraffes. We all know how to sling a sledgehammer. We all have a Hall of Champions. We all have won a Grammy. We all belong in Cooperstown. We all died on the Titanic. We all would love a Toblerone, if you’re offering. We all play Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” on repeat and cry ourselves to sleep. We all take hemlock when the time comes. We all write our memoirs prematurely. We all snuggle under the covers as we watch our lives slip away. We all hike the AT. We all re-enact the Battle of Bull Run. We all break down screaming on the floors of airports. We all blow our brains out on live TV. We all grunt. We all moan. We all laugh until our sides hurt. We all sing XMas Carols. We all have favorites. We all have enemies. We all have a hard time with it. We all hope for the best. We all prepare for the worst. We all wish we had more time.

We don’t.

Blue-Collar Fugue

Originally published in Sobotka Literary Magazine issue 10

Publications and Honors

ESSAYS

“Remember to Forget” — Slippery Elm 2024 (nominated for a Pushcart)

POETRY

“Blue-Collar Fugue” — Sobotka Literary Magazine issue 10

“Last Letter Home” — North Dakota Quarterly issue 90.3/4

“Mirror in Mirror” — Honorable mention in Hal Poetry Prize

“Stickball Cemetery” — Fish Anthology 2022 (Honorable mention in Fish Poetry Prize 2022, judged by Billy Collins)

“Prey” — Pest Control issue 2

“Nelson Cruz at 41: Pelotero, Astronaut” — Cobalt (finalist in Cobalt’s “Extra-Innings” Prize)

HYBRID

“A Lonely Undergrad Wanders into Gorilla Sushi on a Friday Night” — third place in Deanna Tulley Memorial Prize 2023

“Why Not, Minot?” — Finalist in Brink Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing

November 2024 Recap!

A Pushcart Nomination! A poetry reading! A published essay! Work travel! And more!

If I knew then that I would end up spending my whole life behind a keyboard, I’d have gone outside to play.

Order your copy here: https://slipperyelm.findlay.edu/buy-a-copy/

Almost forgot that I recorded this music video at the beginning of the month as well. Check it out below or follow my YouTube channel.

On this day: 11/27-28/2002

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in history, and reproduce it here. On these particular days, November 27th and 28th, 2002, I was checking in to the USS Carl Vinson for the first time.

11/27/2002: Woke up at 3am to check out of TPU [Transient Personnel Unit] San Diego. What a joke! It only took five minutes to check out and now we must wait hours before the bus comes to take us to the ship. I heard the USS Carl Vinson is due to pull into San Diego between 1300 and 1600 today. Bus takes us to a large warehouse where we wait. At about 1230, the Carl Vinson first comes into sight. As it approaches, I am absolutely dumbfounded at the size of the ship. We wait two-plus hours until they finally let all fifty of us new check-ins onboard. A lot of paperwork and finally they show me to my “pit” or bed. It is about six and a half feet long, three feet wide, and two feet between my mattress and the lower frame of the bunk above mine. There are two sliding blue curtains for privacy.

11/28/2002: Woke up at 0600. It’s Thanksgiving morning. Went to breakfast, which consisted of hard pancakes. Mustered with my division at 0730. We were released around 0900 to go to the flight deck as CVN-70 got underway. Stood atop as we transitioned out of the harbor. Quite a strange feeling to be that high off the water, watching the tiny kayaks below. The ship is so large that I don’t think I’ll ever see all of it. In a bit of a dilemma though, as I don’t have enough space for all my belongings and have had to sleep with my backpack crammed into my pit with me, restricted my already minimal space to sleep. Apparently, somebody else is using my locker, so I can’t put my things away until that is sorted. The ship begins to rock and it is becomes obvious that we have left the relatively calm harbor waters.

Wish I could call Mom and Dad and say Happy Thanksgiving, but I’ll wish it to them anyway. Slept for a long time during the day. Woke up at 11pm! They were serving Thanksgiving dinner for mid-rats (midnight rations), and since I slept through it earlier, I helped myself. There was turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy. I was eating my mid-rats alone, missing home, and feeling lonely and sad. Someone came and sat next to me and asked me if I was okay. That was nice of them. I think I’ll like it here.

Eight Vehicle Pileup in C-flat Minor, Op. 17

Written at an all-night diner in Silverdale, WA. January 2, 2003

                                                                                                                                               BMX Highway Foxtrot painted December, 2002

Gazing at the cloudless midnight canopy

as my sedan hugs the yellow line,

the grey jelly begins to spark 

and stutter 

and gyrate

and waltz to Stravinsky 

and to Lenin

and to a cello concerto

composed and conducted by Castro.

My eyes suck into the back of my head

as the pangs of oboes

and gongs of jackhammers

fill the hall.

An old hag, 

dripping in diamonds,

and fur

and resentment

rises, frowns, mutters, frothing,

stomping on the toes of the nobodies nearby.

Fidel scowls over his shoulder

as the orgasm crescendos—

blows continuously—from the stage,

blares obscenely

at whatever ear dare enter 

within its piercing radius.

Like a pestering child with a secret,

the musicians pound on red plastic sand pails,

all the same size,

the same tone,

the same dull thud into thousand-dollar microphones:

THUD

T H U D

T  H  U  D.

In perfect union.

Now the mirrored ball—

plump as Phobos, slow as saplings—

begins its long descent,

and the sound slaps off its surface as it spins,

eviscerating the ear

like a school of piranhas 

attacks bloodied Bambi:

Relentlessly.

Mechanically.

And just before blackness falls, 

I notice that my sedan isn’t being too friendly with that yellow line.

On this day: 11/20/2015

Every so often, I’ll dip back into my Morning Pages to find an entry from this day in history, and reproduce it here. On this particular day, 11/20/2015, I was drinking copious amounts of dark rum and listening to Tom Waits albums, while typing whatever came into my head. Here is that transcript.

A screaming skeleton of a squirrel squirms down a stick of nasty branches that, once upon a July, some summers ago, resembled an Ash Tree; an Ash Tray, today. Getting deeper, getting loster, lostest, flawstest, flautist. Sing! You scorpion, serenade me or shut your face and BEGONE! Do Not Feed the animals after Midnight. Not under any circumstances. Nor shall ye allow them to graze upon these pastures, unsupervised, lest they needs be shot betwixt the eyes. Cry yourself to an early grave, sob yourself into oblivion.

Scroll away, scroll away on that fucking device. Watch your life slip away. Why am I sitting at this godforsaken typewriter when I could be watching the TV set? Can’t I be the Cabana Boy? The Handsome Handyman? Write, you brute, or the whips are coming out for the Cabana Boys. It’s time time time. Time to go back again into the brass cage. You sickly little worm, you sicken me with your sticky green slime. Your snail trail smelling to high heaven. Is this #Real life? #IsThisRealLife? What? WHUT? Just put the fucking phone down, will you? You could write 10,000 words of nonsense each day if you can only put that fucking phone down. Flush it down.

“All the donuts have names like prostitutes”. I would give my left nut to write a line like that. GAWD. Where is that barefoot balladeer, with a voice like Sam Cooke, trimming his sails in a world sans snark? And how are you supposed to get your writing done when this dog needs pets? Stop opening drawers, stop scrolling, stop running, running, always running. Sit your ass in that chair and put your goddamn phone away. Why waste your time? None of this is going anywhere. Please, please, by all means, check to see if you collected any likes, loves, hearts, hugs, comments, favorites, kisses, emojis, thumbs-down, “WTF?”s in the past five minutes. We will wait…Ha! One like, indeed! Score!

Lets freshen that up for you “while you wait”. We will freshen you up in a real jamboree jiffee. Woman Pushing Scotch in Stroller: Google it. Why do you think you were not born to be tamed, like the screaming squirrel in the stick tree? And what is this nasty white shit I see drifting down past the windows? It had better be something that is delivering me a hot pizza or a winning Mega-Million ticket, or else it is entirely unwelcome round these parts.

In a world sans sadness, sans snark, sans sharks, sans Smack—wasn’t that a cereal? Smacks? Jelly Smacks? Honey Smacks? Nine times out of ten, dimes out of yen, slimes out of MEN, chimes out of pen, crimes out of Glenn?

There is something foul and fluffy floating down from clopping clueless clouds, clobbering clammy clapless clots clubbing their way to Clubanistan. Back to the brass cage, you little stinking shit-heeled Cabana Boy, you slippery shit, you. Where is my whiskey goddamn you?

Where is my lantern? Lantern? What is this? 1946? A lantern, for Pete’s sake? Who is Pete? Sipping, slipping, snipping sage cervesas, certainly, senselessly. Some screaming is certainly coming from down the hallway. I’m not sure how much screeching should be expectorated on such an occasion. You can’t hide from the screaming skeletal squirrel as he inches down the branches.

Whose panini is this, over here? Crushed and dismantled, with plenty of garlic and crickets added to the thing, thus ruining it, in flavor at least. It does, at minimum, bear a slight visual resemblance to a sammich. The american cheese slices pressed between rye crusts doesn’t CHALLENGE the PALLETTE. This is not the greatest sandwich ever. One star. *. If I could give it Zero stars, I would. After all, I mean, who leaves a whole, fresh panini unwrapped, still steaming, on a park bench anyway? And who wants to take my sheep for a spin in the pastures? I can pay $5.00 for the day of work. That amounts to $0.42 per hour of good, h’old fashioned walkin and workin, before he is whisked away to his pretty brass cage, where his scotch stroller sleeps soundly, folded up in the corner, collecting cobwebs, collating cumberbunds, correcting cokeheads, captured, crusted. No editing required or desired.

The Lavender Silk Shirt

Any minute now, I’d see her round, freckled face, and wavy, messy red hair, as she’d descend the steps. She would skip over to me wearing an oversized Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and ripped jeans, smelling like canned peaches and nicotine. We did it out in the open—never huddled discreetly under bleachers, and certainly not in the blind-darkened, cramped confines of a bedroom, hot and sticky before the parents got home from work: that was unimaginable at thirteen.

I was standing at our spot near the flagpole behind the Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton junior high school, which was just across the street from the apartment I shared with Mom and Lacey. Sarah was running a little later than usual. If she kept this up, I’d miss the start of Animaniacs. After a while, her best friend Misti emerged without Sarah and marched straight over to me. I scrunched my nose to inch my smeared glasses back up. She looked at my shoes, then wordlessly handing me a note, turned to walk away. I unfolded the page:

Hey Josh, it’s been fun, but we both know this isn’t working. Have a good life. xo Sarah.

I read it again. 

And again. 

I felt like I was riding the Gravitron at the Cass County Fair; centrifugal force pulling my guts into my spine. My eyes clouded with tears as I crossed the street towards home. Breathing hard, I climbed the steps to our cramped second-floor apartment and opened the door, dropped my bookbag onto the floor, sat on the corner of my waterbed and wept, reading the breakup note over and over as tears dripped onto the page, smearing, but not blunting Sarah’s sharp words. It wasn’t even four o’clock when I changed into my green and gold tiger-striped Zubaz and assumed a fetal position under the covers. I slid the note under my pillow and just lay there sobbing.

Mom got home from her undergrad classes at Moorhead State and was making the rounds. I heard her voice out in the living room, “Is your brother in his room?”

Lacey was munching Old Dutch sour cream and onion potato chips and watching Hey Dude on Nickelodeon. “I dunno,” crunch crunch.

Mom paused outside my bedroom, which was just across the hall from the one she shared with Lacey, and rapped softly on my door. “Buddy—?” She turned the knob and slowly pressed it open. “It’s so dang dark in here. Are you in bed already?” My back was to her as I tried to stifle my sobs. “Josh—honey, are you not feeling good?” I had no words, only anguish. Sorrow, like I’d never known before, had choked the voice out of me. Mom sat on the corner of the bed and touched my bony shoulder. “Are you gonna talk to me? Joshua Alan, what is wrong? Did somebody pick on you at school again?” I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears soaked my pillowcase as my body shook.

Lacey appeared at my door, cradling the chips in one arm and our five-month-old black and white short-haired kitten in the other. “Zeuser wants to say hi.” She placed him onto the bed, which made little splash sounds as he walked across it.

“Ha-uh, Lacey, that cat should not be on the waterbed. He’s gonna cut a hole in the mattress and then we’ll have a real mess on our hands.” Mom grabbed him and set him, mewling onto the floor. “Ok, well, I’m gonna go get dinner started.” She got up and lingered at my door for a few moments before closing it.

I cried myself to sleep…a knock at my door woke me. “Buddy, I’ve been calling for you, dinner is ready. Get up.”

“I’m not hungry Ma.” My voice was a rusted swing set.

“Well you gotta eat somethin’. You haven’t eaten all day.”

I closed my eyes again and tried to sleep but couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah. What had I done wrong? There was no sign that she was unhappy, just that horrible note.

We met a few months earlier at one of the monthly school dances. The weekend before that dance, Mom took me to Herberger’s at the Moorhead Center Mall to buy me what she called a decent shirt. I wanted to wear my heather grey DGF Rebels tee with my flannel, but she told me I needed to dress up for the dance. I didn’t know what that meant, but as we wandered around the boys’ clearance rack, I was drawn to a silk, lavender-colored, long-sleeve button down. I had never touched material so soft before. The fabric blossomed around the cuffs and the purple buttons gleamed with a mother-of-pearl sheen. Mom crossed her arms in front of her chest when she looked at the price tag, but she let me try it on. I emerged from the dressing room beaming in my huge round-framed glasses. Mom’s heart must have melted to see me smile, because she agreed to pay the exorbitant $29.99 plus tax (marked down from $50).

On the first Friday of the month, the DGF PTA turned the junior high gymnasium into a dance floor, decorated with black and silver balloons and streamers. I stood on the perimeter of the gym, my new lavender silk shirt tucked into my Lee jeans, bobbing my head to “Insane in the Brain”, the bass booming and echoing in the gym. When the DJ played “Epic” by Faith No More, the slow-dancing couples moved out of the way as a small group of headbanging long-haired kids—in torn denim and flannel—overtook the floor. My eye was immediately drawn to a petite girl with the longest red hair who was banging with the best of them. When the song ended, she looked over at me and smiled.

A few songs later, I grabbed a dixie cup of ginger ale and a handful of chips from the refreshment table and was on my way to take a seat on the bleachers, when I got shoved from behind. My chips and ginger ale spilled onto the floor. “Nice silk shirt, puss.” I turned around and looked up to see Travis Motschenbacher, who was wearing a Big Johnson t-shirt tucked into his Girbaud jeans. Travis was in my PE class. He had a build like Superman and a massive tuft of chest hair, which was the envy of all the seventh-grade boys. When I bent over to pick up the mess I made on the floor, he pulled the shirt-tail out of the back of my pants. “Does your mama know you’re wearin’ her blouse?”

Just as I was about to tell Travis to take a long walk off a short pier, the redhead emerged from the crowd and grabbed my hand: “Hey, you wanna dance?”

My heart sprang. “Mmhmm” I nodded as Travis strode off to pick on some other poor sap.

She smiled at me again, tucking a wavy red curl behind her ear, and led me out to the floor. Disco lights skittered across the waxed hardwood as I felt the heat and smelled the BO of my pimpled classmates, pressing up against one another. She wrapped her arms around the back of my neck and I grabbed her narrow hips as we swayed side to side. She took my wrists with her hands, and encircling them around her low back, pulled me closer. She gazed up at me and smiled. Her teeth were lovely: the two top incisors were pushed back just a hint from her eye-teeth, giving her a steamy vampiric glow. My teeth were crooked and yellow, so I smiled with my lips only. I had no clue how to dance. Had no sense of rhythm. She led. Her back was strong and slender and she moved with purpose, with direction. Whitney Houston was singing “Iiiiiiii—will always, love you…” and during the sax solo, Sarah pressed her lips to mine. I could feel the tip of her tongue entering my mouth — almost apologetically at first, but then, as if she was standing on the principal’s desk in muddy Doc Martens, screaming “welcome to the jungle!” I had never given a thought to how a first kiss should feel or when it would happen, but suddenly, Sarah was kissing me. Little sparks started to swirl and blister behind the backs of my eyelids. Our lips locked until the song ended, and then she was waving goodbye as she grabbed her coat and got into her mom’s truck.

Monday morning, passing her in the hallway, she handed me a folded piece of notebook paper, Josh ❤️ scrawled on the front. I opened it: I can’t stop thinking about that kiss. Meet me by the flagpole after school. xoxo Sarah

She came outside, strolled right over to me, wrapped her arms around my neck like she did on the dance floor, and we kissed—long and hard.

That was our whole relationship. Dancing during slow songs. Kissing until the chaperones split us up. Passing little love notes in the hallways whenever we saw each other, and kissing after school. Now it was over though, and so was my life.

When I woke up the next day, I was still in a fetal position. Hoping it was all a nightmare, I reached under my pillow and found the note. I read it and started crying again. Mom swung open the door, “You’re not dressed! Are you planning to play hooky?” I rolled over to look at her before rolling back onto my side and closing my eyes. She slammed the door and I heard her on the phone, telling the school secretary that I was out sick. As soon as I heard the door close, I tuned my clock radio to Y94. “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men was playing through the static, which made me cry harder.

I lay there most of the day, slow jams simmering on the radio in the background. Crying until I had no tears left to spill.

I kept turning over reasons Sarah would do this. Maybe this was like that time with Anthony.

A few months before I met Sarah, Anthony from Social Studies invited me over to his place to look at his stepdad’s Hustlers. I didn’t really know Anthony, and didn’t want to go, but none of my other classmates had ever invited me to their homes, so I figured I’d make a friend. We sat on his couch and listened to his Wreckx-n-Effect tape, and then he told me to grab the Hustler, which his dad kept under the cushion of his Lay-Z-Boy. When I turned back around—without a magazine, because there wasn’t one—Anthony was pointing a .357 at my forehead and screaming “Get on the fucking floor! Give me your money, motherfucker!” 

I nearly shat myself and got onto his crusty carpeting as quickly as I could, fingers interlaced behind my head, like I’d seen the perps do on COPS. I started crying, “I don’t have any allowance, please Anthony, I’ve only got some change in my pocket, please, please, don’t do it!”

Anthony started laughing maniacally. “Get up, man. Get up. I was fucking joking, man. I wasn’t going to rob you, bro, haha. It was a joke.” He buried his stepdad’s gun in the cushions of the couch and patted me on the chest. We watched an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos and then I walked home, never breathing a word of that joke to mom. 

Maybe Sarah’s note was just a joke.

Mid-afternoon, Lace got home from school, singing “Joshy! I’ve got your homework.” She came into my room, munching Cheetos, and tossed my assignments onto the bed, then skipped back to the living room to watch TV. I took a peek at the pile of homework, then swiped it onto the floor with the back of a forearm. Go to hell, Mrs. Anderson: what can a dissected pig brain teach me about loss? Give me a break, Mr. Vossler; unless your dovetail joint can mend a broken heart, I have no use for it.

I got out of bed to retrieve the cordless phone, squinting as the streaming sunlight stabbed my eyes. I locked the bathroom door behind me and sat on the toilet, pressing Sarah’s digits into the phone—for the first time, I realized. “Hello?” an adult woman’s voice answered. Her mom? An older sister? I didn’t know anything about her family.

I had no idea what I was going to say to Sarah. “Take me back?” “I’m drowning on tears?” Maybe she was waiting for me by the flagpole right now, and it was all just a misunderstanding. “Hi, is Sarah there?”

“Who’s calling?”

“This is Joshua.”

“Sasha?”

“No, Joshua—”

Sarah’s mom/sister placed her hand over the receiver and shouted “Sarah, do you know a little girl named Sasha?…” Silence, then a dial tone.

I re-dialed the number. The same voice answered. “Hello? Uh Sasha, yes, she’s…not home from school yet, but I’ll let her know you called.” Dial tone.

Sarah had cracked open my ribcage with her painted black fingernails, and like the metalhead she was, devoured my entrails over a nasty, wailing, Slash guitar solo. 

Mom got home from class and marched straight to my room. “Still in bed?” silence “Maybe I’ll just call your father and tell him that you won’t talk to me.” I couldn’t look at her. She wouldn’t understand. I just pulled the comforter over my head. “Have you eaten today?” silence “You better pick up that homework or Zeus is going to use it for a litter box.” silence 

The second night was a carbon copy of the first. I continued rotting in my bed, rooting around in stale pajamas, re-reading the note.

The following morning, Mom tried to pry me out of bed again, but I still refused to move, refused to speak. She popped her head into my room on her way to classes. “I’m calling you out sick one more day, but this is really it. If you’re not out of that bed by the time I get home, I’m gonna take you to the emergency room, buster. Is that what you want? Get the doctors to poke and prod you? Eat something and clean the litter box as long as you’re not doing anything constructive.”

I wondered what Sarah would think of me missing school two days in a row. Did she care? Did she even notice? My ears burned as I imagined her and her headbanger friends roasting me over lunch, laughing so hard that Jolt cola sprayed out of their noses. Sarah would probably be making out with some other boy after school today. Maybe Ted Mars: he was not only taller and better looking than me, but he played drums in Doomslayer and was, like Sarah, a grade older than me. They’d be graduating middle school in a few weeks and going off to DGF High School, which was miles away in Glyndon. Happily ever after.

I leaped out of bed, flung open my closet door and pulled my lavender silk shirt so hard that it snapped the cheap plastic hanger. I sniffed the front of the shirt, hoping I could catch a whiff of Sarah, from the last time she pressed her cheek to me. Nothing. It smelled like me, like my clothes. I sat back on the edge of my bed and buried my tears in the shirt. I felt like a vase—that once held a fragrant bouquet of wildflowers—now empty, cracked, and tossed into a dumpster. My thread to Sarah was a tenuous one, to be sure, but now nothing remained, save a wrinkled, tear-smudged break-up note. I pulled the note from under my pillow one last time, re-read the words which had been indelibly etched into memory and tore the page into funeral confetti.

I didn’t even notice Mom standing in the doorframe of my bedroom, her shoulder slouching under the weight of her bookbag.

“Mom—” I dried my eyes with the back of my hand, “how long have you been standing there?”

“You’re gonna stain that shirt.” I tossed it onto the floor and expelled a tear-shattered shudder. She joined me on the padded railing of my waterbed. “Buddy, you know you can talk to me about anything dontcha?” She angled her head to make eye contact with me, put her hand under my quivering chin. “I’m your mother.” I nodded my head and sniffled. She put her arms around me and hugged me tight, gently patting my back like she would have done countless times when I was an infant. “What’s her name?”

I stiffened.

“This little redheaded gal I saw you kissing across the street; did she do this to you?”

“…Sarah.” I was gobsmacked. How long had she known?

“Ta heck with this Sarah. It’s her loss. Joshua, I know you don’t wanna hear this now, and you prob’ly won’t believe me, but there will be other Sarahs down the road. You are gonna meet so many girls, boys, whatever, in your life and some are gonna hurt ya, and some you might hurt.”

She was right. I didn’t believe it. Didn’t want to. I shook my head.

“It’s true. But they’ll all become a piece of you: the good and the not-so-good. Though they may never meet in real life, they’ll live side-by-side in your heart.” She interlaced her arthritic fingers to show me.

I turned my head to see Zeus curled up and purring on my lavender silk shirt.

Mom held onto my narrow shoulders and looked at me through my smeared glasses. “But ya can’t give up. We’ve just gotta keep going. Ta heck with this Sarah. It’s her loss. Now, let’s get you some mac n cheese, huh? You’re about to blow away in a stiff breeze.” 

I nodded and followed Mom to the kitchen.

If Beethoven Owned an iPhone

his symphonies would number not 9, but 2 

(perhaps 2 ½, leaving one

“Unfinished” like Bruckner did). 

He would check his Twitter mentions 

after every performance, scroll

the BBC Music app with each album dropped. 

Ghost vibrations would leave incomplete

his Opus 70 Ghost Trio. 

Fretting about his branding, 

he’d compose and orchestrate his LinkedIn bio.

If his Heiligenstadt Testament 

were leaked to Buzzfeed, he’d need to release 

a PR video on YouTube,

sit down with Terry Gross, 

post pics of his semicolon tattoo. 

Conducting his Triple Concerto from the piano, 

he might butt-dial that Soprano 

he collabed with once, six years ago. 

He would totes tote his Zelfie-Schtüken

on his daily walks around @RathausPark.

#NeverNotComposing

He would force his niece 

to post TikToks of herself flossing

to his latest mixtape. 

On death’s stoop, he’d doomscroll

in a darkened room, puffy undereyes,

shock of iconic hair cast in a sallow blue glow, 

pressing the speaker end to his deaf ear,

volume full, feeling fomo 

for his protégé’s Première.

#yolo

Marilyn Frankie Blue Eyes California,

too beefy to cram

into a single poem,

you keep it all 

to yourself: these hills,

this desert, this ocean

of need. You invented FOMO;

perfected it, you punchy wretch.

You first and final

vestige of Want,

The Omega / The Alpha /

The Alameda / The Mega /

the weight of your celebrity 

dead sinking, sucking through

the silt, tilting the West Coast 

into the churning deep.

Sweet Southwest, these San Jacintos

snarl, threaten to roll 

you up or under, 

to choke you with granite

countertops consume you,

drown you in LA’s flood,

Kubrick’s Shining elevators,

an El Niño of blood.

Marilyn Frankie Blue Balls California,

fatal destination of gold diggers

and punks and prawns,

all seafoam and bubblegum

and white.

Lazer-bleached teeth,

photoshopped, propped

in the Death Valley sun for forty years 

white.

Land of cloudless skies and Botox tits,

thundering into your left eardrum

like Saint Paul’s Helter Skelter bass:

a stiff pecker seeking 

any warm landing place. 

Throwing up, throttling under,

swallowing the whole fucking globe.

Q&A with Mike Holmes

Mike Holmes is one of perhaps two people (the other being Micah Scott) who I would consider the Godfathers of the Minot Punk Scene. Mike and Micah both sang and played guitar in the local band that had the single greatest impact on me in those years, JESUS. Mike also authored the first zine I ever read, Life is Shit and I’m Planting a Garden. Beyond his writings, his energy on stage, and his passion for all things punk, there was a side of Mike Holmes that I wasn’t aware of at the time: he was responsible for bringing the first punk shows to Minot, and for cultivating the Minot Collective Cultural Centre (MC3) scene that was blossoming when I joined in the spring of 1994.

Mike grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. There, he got involved in the DIY punk scene and straightedge culture while attending high school in Wheaton and Sycamore, IL. A few weeks after graduating from high school, Mike joined the Air Force. As he explained it to me, he and his dad had some deep discussions about the future. “Dad thought the military would be a good idea for me.” So when his dad passed away of a heart attack at the start of Mike’s senior year, Mike decided to enlist in the US Air Force — at least in part, “because I thought it was something my old man would have wanted me to do.”

When we meet over video conference, in August of 2022, I am a little thrown by Mike’s voice, which is deeper than I remember and gravelly. As I learn later in the interview, his vocal chords are decimated from years of screaming in hardcore punk bands. “I couldn’t sing for a band now if I wanted to,” he tells me, with a note of remorse. Our two-hour-long conversation is punctuated by loud laughter [which I’ll signify with 🎸]. Mike is a barber in North Carolina. He has a dark beard and horn-rimmed bifocals. When he gestures with his hands or adjusts the straps of his suspenders, as he does often, I notice that his fingernails are painted fire engine red.

INTERVIEWER: I didn’t realize that you were in the Air Force. Is that how you ended up in Minot?

HOLMES: Right, so after basic training, I was in Colorado for technical school, and when my orders came up the guy says to me: “Holmes, I don’t know who you pissed off already, but you have orders for Minot.” And I was like, What’s a Minot? 🎸 I don’t think I fully realized what “a Minot” was until I was getting off the plane. I flew there from O’Hare — one of the busiest airports in the world — and I landed at an airport that had one gate and where they put your luggage through a hole in the wall. It was just like, Fuck, man. It was the first time I was ever on a plane where they wheeled the stairs up to you. 🎸 Like, did I just land on Fantasy Island or some shit? So then an Airman picks me up and it’s late at night and we’re driving from the airport to the base, and he asks me if I’m hungry, and I said, yeah is there a Taco Bell around? And he answers, “Well, there’s a Taco John’s…” And I was like, Ah, Fuck! 🎸 It’s gonna be a long couple of years! 🎸 Because Taco Bell was a priority in my life then, as it is now [pauses to take a prolonged sip from a plastic Taco Bell to-go cup]. And then, as we’re driving to base I saw a fucking tumbleweed roll across the highway. And I was like, Fuck! I always thought tumbleweeds were just like quicksand or anvils dropping on your head, just like a trope that only exists in cartoons, but no, there was no Taco Bell, but they got tumbleweeds.

This was ’90 — ’91, so not only were we years away from the internet, but cable TV hadn’t even penetrated Minot yet! And I’m not picking on Minot at all when I talk about some of this stuff, but because of that, it took a while for culture to transmit from city to city back then. In a lot of ways, like the way that people dressed, and the hairstyles, and the music they listened to… you just felt that something was a little off. Minot really felt like a different place than I had ever been before. Which is something that I think is completely lost in America these days, as you go from one town to the next you know you’re going to find the same stores and the same experiences.

INTERVIEWER: What was the scene like when you arrived there?

HOLMES: There wasn’t a scene. Minot had never had a punk moment. Minot had never had a punk show. Minot never had a punk band. Minot had NIXON PUPILS, and as beloved as they were, they were a power pop trio. Like that was something else. Minot was the last punk rock scene. I really think that in America, it was the last punk rock scene of note to be founded. Of cities that were able to support a punk rock scene, Minot was the last to get one.

People don’t really understand what an island Minot was, you know. Where I grew up [Sycamore, IL] was kind of an island too. It was out in the middle of the cornfields, but it was an island that was only an hour away from Chicago. Minot was a fucking island. It was a town of 30,000 people and the next biggest town was Max [population: 300] 🎸 It was just a little blip in the middle of fucking nothing. And so why would it have a punk rock scene? It would be ridiculous for Minot to have a punk rock scene.

photo by Brent Braniff

INTERVIEWER: Then for you, coming out of that thriving Chicago scene to go to this town in the middle of nowhere with no scene, how did you cope?

HOLMES: It sucked. For my first nine months or so, I was hanging out with Airmen, going cruising, and listening to Bell Biv DeVoe. It did not nourish my soul. But what did nourish my soul is that I spent a lot of time writing to bands, who had listed their contact information in Maximum RocknRoll [punk subculture magazine founded in 1982]. And some of them wrote back, notably, KRUPTED PEASANT FARMERZ who I ended up becoming pen-pals with for quite a while. These bands would share other bands’ info with me and I started a real correspondence with many bands, labels, and distributors in that way. And then I met some kids on base. I think Dan Davis might have been one of them. Danny was a dependent, and we got to talking and he told me there was this kid downtown that I should meet, because he liked aggressive, primitive punk rock and he didn’t do drugs, and didn’t drink. So I told Danny I’d love to meet him, so that’s how I met Micah.

Micah and I, you know, we just fell in together immediately. I would go crash on his couch at his mom’s place, we’d go skateboarding, we’d listen to music, watch Kids in the Hall; we were just goofy kids hanging out, driving a hundred miles to Bismarck to get Taco Bell. 🎸 I had this book called Banned in DC, and it was a photo book of Washington, DC punk bands from, ’79 to ’85 — an amazing era. All these pictures of BAD BRAINS and MINOR THREAT and just the whole nine yards. Well, Micah and I used to pour over that book. Like just sit there on the floor with it, you know the binding is broke to shit because we’ve just got it flat. Just reading everything. Looking at the way people were dressing, looking at the descriptions of what happened at the door, we were just obsessed with it.

So Micah and I used to walk around downtown and press our faces against the glass of empty storefronts, dreaming about finding a place to have shows. There was a basement that was vacant and I called the landlord and asked if we could rent it out just for one night, and he agreed. Then I got in touch with this band out of Chicago called GEAR who played at the very first real punk show I ever went to. So it was a big deal for me to get them on the bill. I asked them if they would play a show here and they were into it. They weren’t on tour or anything, but they made the trip all the way to Minot, just to play that one show. They were like these guys in North Dakota want us to play, okay let’s go to North Dakota! So we did the GEAR show and NOBODY’S CHILDREN and CHEESE were the openers. But before GEAR could get on stage, we got shut down! The cops came around and said we needed to have security at any “dance” in the state of North Dakota. Even though this was not a “hop” by any means there was a band onstage, and by state law, a public performance by a band is considered a dance. So I felt terrible, because GEAR drove all that way — and it’s like a 15-hour drive — for that one show. A lot of people started to filter away but there were a group of us congregating on the sidewalk. And then the cop — in the first of what would frankly be many bro-moves from the Minot cops — was like, “You know, at this point, you’ve rented the place. You could have a ‘private party,’ and and we wouldn’t care, as long as there aren’t any noise complaints.” So the rest of the people went back downstairs and GEAR played for them. And they were the first out-of-town band to ever play at a punk show in Minot.

So after that, to be safe, we were hiring security for every show — and there were a lot of shows where security was paid more than any of the bands. I’ll say though, the fact that we could afford to pay rent and a couple hundred bucks to security, and still give the bands a little something, off the door sales — that’s pretty damn good. That’s better than a lot of punk scenes. Most of the out-of-town bands were happy if they could crash on someone’s floor and come away with enough gas money to get to the next town. None of them gave a shit if they got paid, and I certainly wasn’t making any money off of it. But I digress, so we’re paying all this money to security, and after a while — I can’t remember how long — we were talking to a cop who would come around during the shows, and he mentioned to us that while you had to have security at all public dances, private membership clubs don’t need to have security. So Micah and I looked at each other and we were like, Oh? We got you. Now, he didn’t come out and say ‘here’s how to scam the system’. We put it together, you know, but he was clearly aiming us in that direction, which again, was a cool instance of a Minot cop being a bro. I think they were getting tired of having to talk to us or whatever. So that’s when we started with the $1 annual membership dues 🎸.

INTERVIEWER: Did it take a while for the word to spread and the scene to grow there?

HOLMES: Surprisingly, no. NOBODY’S CHILDREN already had quite a following, so a lot of those kids rolled in right away or told their friends about it. We had a big scene. It’s wild that we could get 50–100 local kids to come to a show, and we had that two or three times a week at the height of it. You know, that’s hard to do in Chicago, so to do it in Minot regularly is crazy. And the same kids came out to every show, and they were cool. They were enjoying what was going on. The only time I ever heard of any friction was when JESUS was on tour in ’94. This band came through, I can’t remember who they were. But someone in the band made fun of a developmentally disabled person on the street, and kids weren’t having it. And again, this is ’94 so, not the ‘woke’ culture of today, but yeah they really hated that band and they told them off. They weren’t gonna let some punk band take the piss out of their locals. “You don’t come to our town and talk that kind of shit. We run a positive organization around here.” That was great.

We didn’t really know what we were doing. We were building the Minot punk scene as we believed every punk scene was run. Apart from my experiences in high school, we’d never been to other cities to see how scenes interacted between bands and promoters and stuff like that. We had only read in zines and books about the way that you should behave and treat one another, and we were just emulating that. There’s another interesting thing too, about Minot, and it’s something that I’m proud of, because I think that a lot of punk scenes take on characteristics of their founders, who instill certain values. I don’t think you can really find people who would say that Micah or I ever preached about straightedge or anything like that. The fact is, that people respected the Centre and the shows that we were doing and what was happening enough that they recognized that drugs and alcohol were not a part of what we were doing. And we never once had an issue with drugs or alcohol at a show. Never. Never once had an issue with a fight at a show. The scene was never plagued by vandalism. It just, it didn’t happen, like at all. We were out there picking up trash on the sidewalks in front of the Centre, because we didn’t want to shit where we ate. We were always cognizant of people looking at us and wondering what was going on. It just folded in really well that we wanted to show people that we weren’t about that life. That we weren’t destructive. That we can be a little weird and listen to a bunch of loud music but that we were not up to anything nefarious. Like I’m really fucking happy that that became the dominant mode of that scene because so many other scenes have been destroyed from within by those kind of toxic behaviors.

INTERVIEWER: I just want to acknowledge that I could not be who I am today without your presence in that scene. And I’ve heard that again and again from the people I’ve talked to in this project: they don’t know where they’d be if not for the MC3. Do you want to comment on the impact you had there?

HOLMES: Man, I get weird feelings about this. It’s difficult to walk a line between acknowledging the direct, massive support from Micah, Sarah [Micah’s then-wife] and from the scene at large. But at the same time, I feel a very paternalistic impulse in some ways towards the Minot scene, because I did put on the first shows there. I will say that it makes me really fucking proud when I hear about people who have been positively impacted by it. I don’t want to come off as arrogant about it but at the same time, I don’t want to bring some bullshit false modesty, because goddamnit, we did it. It makes me really fucking happy to hear about people who did something good after this, because, you know, and maybe this is me more than others, but you feel like a fucking failure a lot, or that you haven’t done anything with your life, or that you’re fucking useless. You know, sometimes you can look back at something you did in the past and go, Goddamn, that was really fucking cool. You’re looking back at that kid you once were and going, Fuck man, you really had it going on! That’s dope.

photo by Brent Braniff

Mirror in Mirror

**Mirror in Mirror received Honorable Mention in the 2023 Hal Poetry Prize

FREE CHAIRS!

I found a hundred free chairs

today, while walking from my

motel room to a knockoff

Starbucks. These weren’t

chintzy aluminum 

folding chairs, but

fully-loaded, cushioned

armchairs—some with 

stains—upholstered in 

textured marmalade chenille.

They were really free,

with a sign which read 

“FREE CHAIRS!”

out front, that slipped, 

rotated ninety degrees,

and is the only reason,

to my mind, that they were all

still there, on the patio

of the downtown Billings DoubleTree.

I thought, for a few strides,

about the many people who

had sat in those chairs 

through the years, at 

wedding receptions, 

optometry conferences, 

wakes,

and what stories 

the chairs could tell,

but soon got overwhelmed, 

and anyway I don’t have

space for even one 

free chair.

9/11 Plus Twenty-Something

Disturbing the Peace

Even here, where terriers lag,

their liquid tongues lengthening

towards the grass,

as the shade of catalpas 

slides across lush acreage;

even here, amidst muted cheers

for a field goal,

above the shuffle of shoes

aslant a soft lawn at dusk.

Atop the 60-hertz hum of cicadas,

rumbles the crushing current of

rubber across pock-marked pavement,

the sandpaper shift of a school

bus’s transmission,

the skitter of gravel, pealing

behind a rusted ‘96 Saturn SL,

the idling ComEd rig, slouched in an alley,

the scrunch of hubcaps on curb,

the metal-on-metal scrape

of the dumptruck’s brakes, the

bravado of Boeing 737s—sharpening 

their approach—one after another,

every thirty seconds, or

the scissory swell of a whirlybird

chopping towards the Edens.

Every silence strangled.

America Answers

to the Murdered Children of [Insert Latest School Shooting Location Here]

So sorry you’re dead. 

Prayers up for your family.

It wasn’t the guns though.

It was the guns.

It wasn’t the bullying.

It was the bullying.

It wasn’t toxic masculinity.

It was toxic masculinity.

It wasn’t the gun lobby.

It was the gun lobby.

It wasn’t social media pressure.

It was all the social media pressure.

It was the guns.

It wasn’t the guns—we need MORE guns.

It was the lack of mental health resources.

It was the lack of background checks.

It was a failure of parenting.

It was violent video games/movies/television.

It was just boys being boys.

IT WASN’T THE GUNS. 

IT WAS THE GUNS.

It’s the spineless senators.

It’s the feeble leaders.

It’s the Second Amendment.

It’s your problem, not mine. 

It wasn’t personal.

What’s new on Netflix?

You Can Tell an Awful Lot About a Guy from the Shape of His Vehicle

Dad and Grandad conspired to surprise me with my first car when I was fifteen. Under Dad’s guidance, Grandad scoured the Fargo Forum classifieds for weeks looking for a practical used model. Grandad must have loved this — in retirement, he made a hobby of buying inexpensive used vehicles, fixing them up, and reselling them to make a bit of money. Every time I saw him, he was driving a different car. Ultimately, he and Dad made a decision together and finalized the sale.

We were living in Minot at the time, and Dad somehow enticed me to spend a weekend traveling to Fargo with him. I was in my punk phase then: pink hair, pleather pants, safety pins in my ear, studded dog collar. At fifteen, I didn’t have time to go visit my grandparents. I was too busy plotting the important details of my immediate future. My band, The Atomic Snotrockets, had an upcoming gig, so I needed to rehearse on Friday night. My heavy-petting partner and I were getting together to watch X-Files on Saturday. There was homework to cram in at the last possible moment Sunday night. Nevertheless, Dad coerced me to ride along for the five-hour drive from Minot to Fargo. We pulled up to Grandma and Grandad’s place. Parked in front of the house was a robin’s egg-blue ’84 Volkswagen Golf with vanity plates: 4-BUDDY, my parents’ nickname for me. There’s a photograph somewhere that Grandad took of me opening my car door for the first time. I have a huge grin on my face. I never smile in photos.

Six months later, Mom came downstairs and tapped on my bathroom door as I was getting ready for school. “Buddy,” her voice wavered as she laid a hand on my shoulder and told me that Grandad had died in his sleep. I felt my knees tremble. “I think your dad could really use a hug right now.” It was the only time I have ever seen Dad cry.

Seven years after Grandad passed, I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, and getting ready to move to the west coast. Dad flew down to help me make the cross-country road trip. I had plans to trade in my purple Chevy Cavalier for an Acura Integra coupe. It was a sexy, silver two-door with a spoiler. The interior leather was glossy and black. It had a five speed on the floor and a booming sound system with a Rockford Fosgate amplifier and two twelves in the trunk. Dad calmly guided me towards a more practical choice: a forest-green, four-door Mazda 626. It was the polar opposite of the Integra. The interior wasn’t shiny black leather, but boring beige polyester. No sound system — not even a CD player. The 626 had a stock AM/FM tuner and a tape deck.

Dad and I drove the 626 from the South Carolina Lowcountry to the Puget Sound, where I would live for three years. I drove the Pacific Coast Highway from Seattle to San Diego and back in that car, windows down, playing the mixtape I made specifically for the journey. I folded down the back seat and slept in the 626 along the side of the highway there in the shadows of the towering redwoods near Crescent City. I made a second cross-country trip in that car when I moved to Virginia Beach in 2005, and put more miles on it when I finally settled in Chicago in 2007.

The 626 was the only car I ever paid off. I remember getting the title in the mail from my bank, after paying off the loan. The paper was ivory card stock, with purple purfling in the margins and an official-looking watermark from the bank. I framed it and hung it on the wall. Eventually, the transmission went out and I had to have it towed to a junkyard.

After Dad retired, he started wheeling and dealing used cars. An expert haggler, he’d buy them for cheap, fix them up a bit, and resell them for a slim profit. These were not major overhauls; he wasn’t investing in dilapidated ’57 Chevy Bel Air hard-tops and restoring them. He’d buy dependable, modern cars which had a track record of longevity: Camrys, 4Runners, Civics. He would detail the tires, wax the hood, Armor-All the seats. It was a hobby.

A while after my 626 broke down, Dad surprised me by showing up in Rogers Park. I was celebrating my third year in Chicago and it was the first time he ever visited me there. The second and final time would be for my wedding. He pulled up in a used 2002 Toyota Avalon and handed me the keys. I couldn’t believe it. I drove that car for four years. I could never tell if it was grey or light blue; its color was mercurial, like Lake Michigan. Avalon — it reminded me of that Roxy Music song of the same name. I could almost hear Bryan Ferry singing it — and your destination…you don’t know it.

At some point, the Avalon’s trunk latch broke and I had to keep the lid tied down with bungee cords or it would fly up while driving. One headlamp burned out and I never got around to replacing it. The check engine light was perpetually on. Then one day, the low oil warning light lit up on the dashboard. Dad had taught me to check my oil each time I filled up the gas. I didn’t, of course. After a few days of this light staying on, I bought a quart of oil and poured it in. Things would be okay for a week or two when the light would come on again and I’d repeat the process. I tried to remain optimistic, but my stomach twisted every time I started the car and saw that ominous light on the instrument panel. I was recently unemployed, and couldn’t afford to pay an ungodly sum of money to fix it, so I kept buying a quart of oil at a time and pouring it into the car. One day I flicked the ignition switch and it wouldn’t turn over. The low oil light had been illuminated for several weeks by then. I shouted in frustration and pounded on the steering wheel. I had it towed to a nearby mechanic where they told me the oil pan had cracked which led to the engine seizing up because it wasn’t getting the regular oil supply it needed. CarMax gave me two-hundred bucks for the vehicle. They told me they were going to “part it out”.

I ran the Avalon into the ground one month after quitting my day job as a government bureaucrat. I rode the Amtrak back to Fargo to explain myself to Dad. I was rambling, like usual, trying to tell him why it was so important for me to leave a good paying job — with benefits — to sign up for Yoga Teacher Training and pursue my nascent, albeit outlandish dream of opening a non-profit yoga studio for veterans. He didn’t bring up the Avalon, but he looked worn out. “What about saving for retirement, Son?”

“Retirement!” I scoffed, “My generation doesn’t get to retire.”

Later that week, I hailed a 2 a.m. cab to the Fargo Amtrak depot to wait for the Empire Builder line to Chicago. I had just taken out my pen to work on some YTT homework when the depot’s lobby door swung open. I was dumbfounded to see Dad walking towards me with a thermos at three in the morning.

“I thought you could use a coffee,” he said. “Hold this. I’ve got something in the car.” He carried in three bags of groceries for my twelve-hour journey. Alongside the bananas, granola bars, and bottles of Vitamin Water, he had picked up a fresh six-pack of Hornbacher’s Peanut Butter rolls — my favorite treat from back home. He sat down next to me and opened up his wallet, handing me several bills. “Here. I want you to take this for the trip, in case you get hungry.” I shook my head, but I knew refusing was impossible. We chatted there for about an hour until I had to board my train. As the Empire Builder lurched forward, I watched, with tears in my eyes, as Dad got into his clean, always-properly-maintained truck and drove away.

We all

We all are made of comets. 

We all make mistakes, we all make friends, we all make a mess, we all clean it up.

We all stab each other in dark alleyways for twenty-nine bucks and a transfer.

We all just do it. We all enjoy responsibly. We all think outside the bun.

We all stroke someone else’s kitty behind the ears. We all brag about it later to our friends or anyone who’ll listen.

We pace under fluorescent lights. Behind bulletproof glass, we ring up Big Gulps and cellophane-wrapped BLTs.

We swig 5-Hour-ENERGY and climb behind the wheel of big rigs for an all-night hump across the Rockies.

We pull semen-crusted sheets from hotel beds, replenish minibars, sop up soaked bathroom floors.

We pound nails into drywall, scramble along rooftops—sometimes falling. We saw two-by-fours to the centimeter.

Our fingertips prune from holding our hands under scummy dish water, scrubbing sweet and sour sauce from tureens.

We all buy houses we can’t possibly afford. We all make five figures. We all call out sick. We all default on our credit cards.

We all know how to sling a sledgehammer.

We all could win a Grammy. We all belong in Cooperstown. We all died on the Titanic.

We all would love a Toblerone—if you’re offering…

We all roast in the flames of a fire we all built. We all share a bottle of bourbon by that fire when we should be at home with hubby.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.

We mop the corridors, flanked by aluminum lockers, keyrings jangling from belt loops, wishing we were somewhere

else—someone else.

We sweat over boiling fryers and clean grease traps under deep sinks while the moon rides the sky.

We eavesdrop on our fares’ conversations as they pierce our soft bellies with golden spurs.

We breathe in the melon musk of tear-free shampoo as we bathe our babes at the close of day.

We forget who we are. We forget who we were. We forget who we were supposed to be.

We all take hemlock when the moment arrives.

We prepare for the worst.We hope for the best. We wish we had more time. We

My Ass Rides In Naval Equipment

I had been staring at the cordless phone in the corner of my cramped bedroom for over an hour, cracking my knuckles and scratching my hairless chin. Finally, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pressed the digits into the keypad.

One ring… two rings… Maybe he’s not home… three rings… A wave of relief started to wash over me. I couldn’t leave this in a message, but this will give me more time… four rings… Yello! A familiar voice warmly barked.

Hey, Dad. My heartbeat thundered in my throat. How’s it going?

Just finishing up my lunch break, Son. What’s up?

I should’ve just gone over to the house for this conversation, for Christ’s sake. I only lived a mile and a half away. Sweat rolled down my rib cage. Well, Dad, I just wanted to tell you…

Three months after graduating high school, I decided to get my own apartment. Not because our home was crowded. Not because my family and I didn’t get along — we did, at least as well as parents get along with their teenagers. Deep down, I think I wanted to prove to them that I could make it on my own, even if that meant working seventy hours a week as a night stocker at Marketplace Foods and a Whopper flipper at the Dakota Square Mall food court.

Most of my co-workers at the mall Burger King were high schoolers or recent grads like me. Karen Knudson was in her mid-fifties. She was a farmer’s daughter. In her teens, Karen married a neighboring farmer. They had several children who helped out on the family farm. In Karen’s mid-fifties, with the child-rearing over and the farmwork passing down to her adult sons, she decided to trade her pig whip for a french fry scoop.

It came up in conversation one Saturday after the matinee rush had ended and the food court was clearing out that Karen had never traveled outside the borders of North Dakota. What do you mean? I sneered, loosening my spiked pleather dog collar, Not even on vacation?

Karen folded her arms in front of her grease-stained apron as she waited for Order 456 to retrieve his Double Whopper with cheese meal. Nope. You can’t go on vacation when you have cattle to mind and fences to mend. She squinted at me like she wanted to say something more but held her tongue.

I regarded her over the top of my Buddy Holly-framed, yellow-tinted glasses, So you’re telling me you’ve never been outside the state? Not even once?

At a tender twenty, I had traveled beyond the borders of my home state, but never far. Dad’s idea of a vacation was spending a long weekend at Gram and Grandad’s fishing cottage in western Minnesota or hunting pheasants in northwest South Dakota. I once took a day trip to Winnipeg to shop with a high school girlfriend. But honestly, in fifty-something years, Karen had never been outside the borders of the Prairie State?

As I was throwing Karen a pity party she didn’t ask for, her beller brought me back to reality. Josh! I’m still waiting on that King-sized french fry!

This information ate at me over the ensuing days. During my night shift at Marketplace Foods, I spilled Karen’s guts to Nat Tanu, the Nepalese stock clerk with one hand. On hearing the news, he turned to me, eyebrows raised, box-cutter clenched between his teeth, and gasped “REALLY?” before dropping a jar of sauerkraut on the floor. It shattered instantly, raining down a hellish odor of rancid cabbage and vinegar so potent that Rob from produce ran over to see what the stench was.

Really.

I had no intention of living in North Dakota my entire life, but I had no exit plan either. Joyce, the gal I was dating at the time, wasn’t that into me. In fact, while I was helping Nat mop up the sauerkraut spill in aisle four, she was banging my best friend Ricky in the back room of his mom’s trailer home. At the time, I was living vicariously through my older sister, Lara. She had interned for a congressman in Washington DC, crashed for six months on a houseboat in Barbados, and at times called Colorado Springs, San Diego, and Whidbey Island home. I wanted a life like that.

My career plan was an enormous question mark. I envied classmates who had their undergrad, graduate, and even post-grad education already plotted out like stars in the Big Dipper. I had successfully finished two semesters at Minot State University but hadn’t yet declared a major. How was I supposed to know at twenty that a career in Arts Administration or Music Ed would still challenge and fulfill me at sixty?

I spent a few restless weeks ruminating over Karen’s situation. One day, during my half-hour lunch break, buzzing on NoDoz and Surge to keep awake, I followed my feet to a sleepy corner of the Dakota Square Mall. The Armed Forces recruiting offices were all dark and deserted on that weekday afternoon, with the exception of the Marine Corps office. I didn’t go in. I stood outside the office, admiring the sharp royal blue uniform on the mannequin in the window — the brass globe and anchor gleaming at the collar points, the blood-red stripe down the pant legs, the pristine white gloves on the mannequin’s hands — and I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. Spiky hot-pink hair jutting out from under my BK visor. A silver hoop perched in my left eyebrow, two gold studs in my right ear, a safety pin dangling from the hole in my left. My purple polo shirt with the Burger King logo stitched into the breast was filthy, reeking of stale grease: an odor that never washes out.

I reached for one of the recruitment pamphlets and pretended to read it until one of the Marines came out to greet me. The recruiter scanned me — toe to tip — with a puckered mouth. His ramrod posture made me stand up a bit straighter. You ever consider signing up, kid? The Corps will make a man of you. I could see my reflection in the polished gloss of his boots.

Hmm, I don’t know. My dad was a Marine. Two tours in ‘Nam. Late sixties. Da Nang. I didn’t talk like this; Dad did. His history was sneaking through my squeaky windpipe.

The recruiter’s deeply sunken eyes were laser-focused on my ear lobes. No shit? Tell your pop Semper Fi. I can get you some more reading material if you’re curious. He shoved a few tri-fold pamphlets into my soft hand. I nodded to him, and as I turned to leave, he stopped me. Woah woah! Wait a second, kid. I turned around as he approached me. The creases in his khakis were sharp enough to draw blood. About face! he ordered. I stared at him blankly. It means turn around. Turn around…please. I felt him tug my shirt collar down. Plunging a fat finger into the back of my neck, he whistled. Ooh wee, what in hell did you get that tattoo for? I chuckled, getting ready to explain its origin when he cut me off. Sorry, kid. The military’s a no-go for someone with a visible neck tat. It’s against UCMJ regs.

UCMJ…? I trailed off. Oh well, it was a dumb idea anyway.

As I walked back to finish my afternoon shift, I could feel my face reddening and a damp warmth spreading across my upper back. My heart was fluttering from the massive dose of caffeine I was on. Back at work, I went into the deep freeze alone and pummeled a box of frozen Whopper patties until my knuckles bled, thinking about that shriveled, insulting jarhead. For perhaps the first time ever, I was feeling self-conscious about my life choices.

The seventy-hour workweeks were grinding me into a coarse powder. My roommates Brock and Dave were on another planet. I would come home completely exhausted from back-to-back shifts to find them throwing marijuana parties. People were over day and night, watching action movies in my living room or playing electric guitar in the basement. Once, arriving home and desperate for rest, I found a girl I didn’t know passed out on my futon, half-naked, in a puddle of Coors Light.

The summer marched ceaselessly onward. I was still popping caffeine pills and barely functioning at either of my jobs. Was it night or day? I rarely knew. After a closing shift at Burger King, followed by an all-nighter at the grocery store, I woke up in a flop sweat, yanked my smelly BK uniform out of the dryer, and sped up the 16th Street hill, the summer sun slanting at an unnatural angle. I parked the Civic hatchback, ran through the restaurant’s back door, and punched in. I apologized to my assistant manager for my tardiness.

Josh — what are you even doing here? Jolene wiped cookie crumbs from the corner of her mouth and pulled the schedule off the wall. You’re not working until eight.

Yeah, it’s 8:20, Jolene! She shook her head and showed me the schedule.

Eight AM! As in tomorrow morning! My head was spinning. Jolene cackled at me. Go home and get some sleep, Josh.

I looked at my watch. There was no time for rest as my grocery store shift was starting in under two hours. I hopped back into the Civic and drove a mile to the outskirts of Minot. I looked out at the endless prairie: knee-high tan grasses, dusty gravel roads, a fumey combine. I saw quiet railroad tracks and listened to humming power lines.

I didn’t see a future. I wanted to smell the ocean. I wanted to feel the rumble of a subway under my feet. I wanted to run.

The next afternoon, finally drifting into the sleep of utter exhaustion, I thought about a book I hadn’t seen in years. It was a hardbound boot camp yearbook Dad showed me once when I was in grade school. A striking, strong young man in short sleeves and cargo pants burst out of the book’s glossy black and white pages: marching in ranks, posing with an M-16 in a helmet and head-to-toe camo. Seven-year-old me looked skeptically back and forth between the images Dad pointed to and the man before me who was in his mid-forties and balding with a beer gut and a bushy salt and pepper beard. That’s me poundin’ the hell out of some poor sum’bitch with that big damn, oh whatchu call it, Joust? Baton? Some damn thing. Oh, and here’s me again, going over that obstacle course wall at Camp Pendleton… he nodded. Now, wouldn’t you want to be a Marine, just like your Pop someday?

No, I flatly told him. I want to stay at home and cross-stitch with Mommy.

Mom cheered and bent down to squeeze me. That’s my boy!

Dad sighed deeply and tucked away the book.

Dad’s time in the Marine Corps was something I was aware of but never openly discussed. Like Dad’s memories from those years, that book would remain locked up in his varnished oak gun cabinet for most of my youth, next to his twelve-gauge Remington and a thirty-ought-six.

Grandad was in the Army Air Corps in World War II. My uncle Arlo was a Marine pilot in Vietnam and another uncle, Larry, was a Vietnam vet who served in the Navy. My sister Lara was in the Air Force National Guard, and my brother-in-law Tim was a Navy yeoman. As a straight edge, anti-authority, hardcore punk kid, I had never even entertained the option of a military career.

My high school years were turbulent, and there were many times when my behavior was outright humiliating. Like when a girlfriend and I — bored and wielding Sharpies — graffitied the entire ceiling of my first car with colorful phrases like “no war but the class war” and doodles of dicks and daisies. Dad took away my driving privileges for two months after that stunt.

Or the night when Dad went into a closet in the basement looking for his winter hunting clothes and discovered a gravestone that read DAD. My bandmates and I thought it would look “punk as fuck” as a prop on stage at the next Atomic Snotrockets concert. The following day, a yellow sticky note was affixed to my bedroom door: “Son, no questions asked. Get RID of the headstone! — Dad”.

Then there was my cricket farm, nipple piercings, screamcore rehearsals in the basement… Maybe it was the Hail Mary of redemption, but the hope of winning Dad’s pride held extra sway over my decision. The next day, I walked with urgency back to the recruiters’ offices, hoping the Marine had the day off.

He did. I proceeded to the Navy recruitment office. I asked the sailor behind the desk if neck tattoos were allowed in the Navy. He dropped a half-eaten Big Mac onto his paperwork-strewn desk and slid it away. Let me take a look, he said. As he approached me, I could see greasy thumbprints smearing his spectacles. That? That’s nothing. Your shirt collar would hide most of it. He wiped his hands on his wrinkled uniform pants. Take a seat, young man. You ever heard of the ASVAB?

A few days after taking the military entrance exam, the recruiter called me up. Congratulations. You did well enough on the ASVAB to be a Nuke if that’s what you want. I had no clue what that meant or what I wanted. I said yes. He told me the next step was enlistment. As soon as next week, I could raise my right hand, swearing an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. He asked me to think about it.

I thought about it. I didn’t discuss it with anyone else. My future started to crystalize over the next few days. I could leave North Dakota. I could have money for college, and since I didn’t know what I wanted to major in, I’d have time to think about it. I could continue the family military tradition. Dad might be proud of me.

So there I was, calling to give Dad the news, rather than just driving a mile and a half to the house.

Well, Dad, I just wanted to tell you…that I’m enlisting in the Navy next week. Silence. I pressed my ear to the receiver. Had he hung up?

Dad…?

Uh, say that again, Son? To hell are you talking about?

I told him the whole story about first meeting the Marine recruiter and getting rejected. Thinking about it, going back, speaking with the Navy recruiter, and taking the ASVAB. I told him it made sense since I would get good experience and money for college. I didn’t tell him about the pride.

Have you told your mother yet?

No, Dad, I thought you could break the news to her.

Oh yah, he laughed. Thanks a lot! I couldn’t read him. I should have just gone over to the house. Well, Son, I never thought I’d live to see the day where you joined the military, but I always thought if you ever did enlist, God help you if you joined the Marines. Pick the Navy or Air Force. They don’t do a goddamn thing anyway. Safer.

I laughed. Yeah, I guess.

Well, you comin over for supper on Sunday?

Yeah, Dad, I’ll be there.

Ok then.

I hung up the phone, sat on the corner of my futon, and cried.