Douglas Robbins's Blog, page 10

I Have A Pebble In My Shoe

Excerpts from the upcoming work by Douglas Robbins entitled I Have A Pebble In My Shoe… I never wanted any of it. I never wanted a piece of the pie or slice of the dream, a 401k in my future, … Continue reading →

Why I Wrote The Reluctant Human

I wrote The Reluctant Human because I was tired of living in the shadows of my life. Get up at 6. Get on the train. Get on the subway. Work at the fastest pace possible. Hurry home. Get about three … Continue reading →

The Individual’s Dream

The individual’s dream is never a dream to live on Mars and eat a ham sandwich. But it could be. Dreams are simply potential that was planted in our souls long before birth. And it consists of possibility. Each one of us has a different set of unique characteristics to fulfill for our betterment and the betterment of humanity. It is the way the world moves forward. It is our responsibility as human beings to water that seed and tend to it. For that is our best self, our most fulfilled self, a...

Noise Gets In My Head

I was in line at a local Shop-Rite buying my frozen pizza and carrots while a television pumped colorful images, flashing at me as I stood there. Loud and overwhelming I reached to shut it off, but the buttons were locked. So I was forced to endure advertisements and images of items I might want to all of sudden, buy; items, that I might all of a sudden, need.

When consumed by noise from the world there is no time for my needs.

As I pumped gas last Saturday at Mobil they too have a television m...

Noise Gets In My Way

I was in line at a local Shop-Rite buying my frozen pizza and carrots while a television pumped colorful images, flashing at me as I stood there. Loud and overwhelming I reached to shut it off, but the buttons were locked. So I was forced to endure advertisements and images of items I might want to all of sudden, buy; items, that I might all of a sudden, need.

When consumed by noise from the world there is no time for my needs.

As I pumped gas last Saturday at Mobil they too have a television m...

The Wide Eyed Mini Bike Race

I lived freedom as my father and I built “pipe jobs” when I was a kid. Really they were metal tube mini-bike frames that you stuck a lawn mower engine in the middle for thrust and pop, so could I ride wide-eyed and crazed on the small frame and black rubber tires, weightless, like a jet engine pushing me into open air around my residential neighborhood.

We had a Briggs and Stratton 5hp on this one. Topping out at about 30 mph with brakes that I couldn’t squeeze hard enough and a throttle that stuck, it was plenty fast as I wore out shoes slowing down on the blacktop.

This was the grand era of mini-bike racing in my neighborhood. And I was beating with the heart of it. The guy on the corner was a detective in town and always found a way to seal off the roads around our houses for the races. This was before the politically correct movement killed anything with balls.

My father was handy with a welding torch and soldering iron. We spent hours in the oil stained two-car garage. We were close back then as we worked and listened to old jazz from a wood radio he found 20 years earlier.

My mother was okay with the mini-bikes as she would peak her head into the garage. I never asked why. I didn’t want to blow it. Like if I didn’t ask she wouldn’t realize what we were doing. This is when life made sense. When it was clean and wide open and sparkled with delight.

We built this white one with tight black handlebars we stole off a Mongoose bicycle getting ready for the big race.

Paulie, who lived down the block, came up with the idea for the race and sponsored them every year. He was five years older and often wore his purple beret at these events to stand out. He’d always been a schemer as he overcharged certain kids for comic books at the neighborhood attic parties.

The prize winnings for the races at the time were not meager: A King Cone for first place from the Good Humor man that came around like clockwork on summer days, a Pushup Pop for second and Fudgcicle for third. It sounded pretty extravagant then. A gift from the gods. There were bragging rights of course and the pure fun of flight on wheels.

This one race took place in the Nature Study Woods, a block from where we hung out on Triangle Avenue and one block up from the high school. The woods rest between Webster Avenue and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

There were sandy, wide and flat horse trails that looped around a marshy area on the interior with bushes on the outside. Each lap was considered a quarter mile. The race was a mile in length. The bikes usually maxed out at about 30 miles per hour. The largest engine allowed was 5hp. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re hauling it at age 10 or 12 or 14, not weighing much, it’s pretty fast. We had on all sorts of riding gear, mostly hockey and football equipment.

Sarah and I were 12 while most of the other kids were 13 or 14. There were about 7 of us in the race. My spokes were chrome and the black banana seat had flames on the side. The bike looked sharp. Revved out the engine sounded like a lawn mower on steroids, but no grass was about to get cut.

Paulie stood there with his gangly arms and purple beret and waved the white flag down. Engines flared and the race began with the first sandy straightaway. I was trying to torque it out while focusing on the terrain. I didn’t want to push too hard or too quick as the throttle might stick open.

As usual, Ronny, Paul’s younger brother, took the lead off the line with his sleek tubular half rocket half fire engine. I cut into the first corner in front of Sean with his Snapper engine, which always puttered after too much gas. The old Briggsy was a machine of machines as ferns and sand flew by. My father took the governor off for extra torque. The problem was the brakes that didn’t always stop.

Gary from up the block and Ronald were in the lead. I was coming up the rear and so was Matt in his green triton, like he was riding a pitchfork. He yelled something at me as saliva crusted upon his face. He was the science wiz of the neighborhood, always working on some “experiment”. I looked over at his bike concerned he had turbo boosters.

The second turn on the loop below is narrow and rutted where water rolls down the hill from the street pipe just above. We all splash through successfully.

Sarah was riding her small converted riding lawn mower with her scarf and goggles dressed liked Snoopy. She scowled and then smiled as she came alongside. She was a rebel chick even then. We both smiled and hit the throttle, looking back down the trail spraying sand to the sides. We zoomed by the cluster of parents and kids cheering.

Trees flew past as we rounded the loop again. Sand kicked up some more. It would get worse as the race progressed. I smiled at Sarah’s back. I shook my head and caught up to her by the next lap. Gary the leader, and Matt, got tangled up in the sandy rut that ate them up as they dumped their bikes around the embankment.

Gary pumped his fist in the air at us. Ronald was in my sights. He was a strong rider, fast and agile and could probably sense victory, again. Sarah and I nodded to each other and began bearing down on him as the trees passed in striated streams. That throttle could stick as long we got past Ronny. I could dump in the sand if I needed to.

The sand kicked up and the joy consumed us all. A smile plastered itself upon my young, goofy, face. We teamed up and went at him. It would be our only chance. One of us had to steal the throne. He’s had it all three years. Maybe it’s rigged by Paul.

Sarah flanked right for the outside wide turn and I cut in left near the marsh and stinking skunk cabbage. I didn’t want to fall in there. I took the inside line along the tight bend with rutted sand as my bike tire began to bounce. Sarah moved around on his right. She pulled up the handlebars doing a small jump.

We were probably running at about 28 mph as the bikes screamed around the bends like hawks seeking prey. Sarah and I faked to switch positions. I to the outside and she to the inside, but Sean was right behind us with his gray and red piece meal bike he swapped off some clown at school. One of the McNasty sons. He bullshitted him as he was good at doing.

Ronald took a swipe trying to bump me. Which was legal, but only on the sandy straightaway.

“Nothing doing, pal. This ain’t your year.” I yelled over the roaring engines as Sarah closed in on him. He glanced over his other shoulder at her as I throttled down and dipped around on the last straight. He was trying to switch back looking over both shoulders drifting right watching us both and got too high as branches whacked him, then he fought it for a few feet, but got pulled in just as Sarah crossed the line. Then I crossed the line. It was a masterful attack I must acknowledge. Now neighborhood legend and had been our only chance. Sean came in third as Ronald got stuck in the brush thirty feet back. My father ran up to me.

“You did it!” He shouted and lifted me. Then he lifted Sarah. He was so excited.

Sarah and I then ran to each other. Her parents didn’t come. My father had helped her get her machine ready.

After dislodging his bike, Ronny walked over and said, “Ok, ok, you guys beat me fair and square. But you won’t next year.” He was like a big brother to me. Always has been.

We had a small crowning. Silly trophies were handed out. I think painted socks or something were placed on our heads. Then we went back and waited for the ice cream man to deliver our spoils.

Like adults would smoke cigars, we needed our victory ice cream. I knew then there was freedom in my bones. I knew that it was not something a teacher or politician could ever offer me.

The Individuals Gift

Can we make it through life without our gifts intact? Can we can get by, hold on, cling to life, to a decent job, a family, a mortgage, two cars and a dog? But was that the dream to get by? Was that the goal to survive? Is that our gift to the world? To not matter.

I leaned in after the crack of the bat and dove to my right, snaring the blazing low line drive for the last out. It was the Little League State Championship and the last inning, now last licks. We had been up 9-2 before our pitcher’s arm gave out. Quickly it had become 10-9.

Jogging in from first base I was calm with everything on the line. I was due up fourth so someone had to get on base. I got into the dugout and pounded the fence with the rest of my teammates, cherishing the moment, hoping for a miracle.

It shouldn’t be a problem with Brian Clifford stepping in. He was batting .920 or some ridiculous percentile. He was a scrawny blond haired blue-eyed kid. Swing, swing, swing: before we could cheer him on he had gone down hacking at air. Now Kevin Delaney, a giant Irish kid, who must’ve eaten his grandparents and the house they grew up in, because he was well over 6’4’’ by age 13. He swings at the first pitch and nails a pop up 200 feet in the air. 2 outs. I have to get up.

“Come on Harry. Save my ups!” Harry was the coach’s son, who over the year had maybe three hits. The pitcher goes into his wind up and lets one fly nailing Harry dead in the arm. He was too slow to move.

“Yeeeaaaahhhhh!” a collective scream rang out from our dugout. Not nervous, I grabbed my bat and headed out to the plate, taking a few cuts on the walk. There was silence, except for the quiet humming of the PA system. I dig in. The pitcher lets it fly. “Strike one”. I swing hard and miss. He winds up and throws again. “Strike two”. I swing hard and miss. I step out of the box, now conscious of my coach yelling at me to be patient, but what did I know about patience? I get back in after taking a deep breath and wait for the right moment, the right pitch, if it would come. “Ball one”. Outside corner, relaxed. “Ball two”. High and tight, in the moment. “Ball three”. Low and calm. I think nothing with the game on the line, once up 9-2, now down 10-9 in front of my family and girls from school. God might have been at that game watching from the rooftop of the house behind the fence. The next pitch came smoking down the pipe, down the center. I quickly turned and Crack! I crushed it over the left field fence to win the game. It was a laser line drive, smashing through a car window on the far side of the parking lot. We won. In that moment we won. I excelled. The coach ran out and kissed me as I crossed home in my calm, focused daze. Everyone loved me, yet I simply focused and swung the bat that I loved to swing.

I loved baseball. To me it was the purest form of expression extending from one’s body and spirit. There was joy diving for a grounder, getting dirty, or throwing out a runner, or the immediate satisfaction of ripping a line drive into the gap and watching the ball skid across the well-manicured lawn. That year I led in doubles, triples, homeruns, and was the best first baseman around. I could pick anything off the ground or out of the air: a gnat if I needed too.

That next spring I entered the 14-17 year old league. I was maybe five feet tall and shy. I didn’t know anyone on the team. It seemed most of the guys I had played with the past several years had either quit or decided to play another sport. I remember walking out my first practice and seeing this full-length adult baseball field and thought, I won’t even be able to hit it beyond the infield, and if I do, that outfield never ends.

After a few practices I wasn’t performing up to what standards I was accustom. I struggled for the first time. I had a bat I could hardly swing and didn’t understand why I was no more than mediocre at the plate. I didn’t ask why. My mind was not able to catch up to the unfolding events, not adapting or learning what was necessary to move forward and improve.

I could still pick it at first base, but distrust of my ability to play well entered my thoughts. Maybe I wasn’t who I had been. Maybe I wasn’t me after all. After those first few days, the familiarity, the calmness, had left me.

My first game I faced one of the best pitchers in the league, the sadistic Michael McKinney, a 17 year old who threw hard and hit me twice. The second time he hit me dead in the abdomen with an 80 mile per hr fastball. I couldn’t get out of the way and fell choking and gagging on home plate, in front of my team, in front of Michael. After several agonizing breathless moments curled up with all eyes on me, I finally stood, with tears in my eyes due to a lack of oxygen. I slowly began my walk to first base. Michael seemed to be smiling, the god-damn asshole.

There was a fight nearly every game, sometimes our players with each other, sometimes our players with players from other teams. The camaraderie was obviously not there, nor the joy. I kind of wondered what these guys were playing for, why they even showed up. When the team didn’t win my coach would yell and scream, as if screaming at everything that had gone wrong with his life. This had never been baseball as I knew it. This had never been life as I knew it.

After a few games of sub-par hitting I felt like I was participating in a charade. Now I could barely hold my own. A doubt of my gifts and goals to play forever and professionally was taking over the beauty with uncertainty and confusion, leading to my distrust and eventually to a dividing of myself. The coach weighed on my thoughts, the bat taunted me, and my performance was that of someone else. Yet I had talent. I had love and talent and passion. I must ask you, what else do we need in our lives? But success.

Within a year of my triumphant homerun I had given up baseball as a dream. I had given up the gift, the love, the beauty, and what flowed through me as a dynamic release of cosmic energy. I gave it up for doubt and pain. And it destroyed me for doing it.

I didn’t learn to adapt. I had talent but not intelligence or understanding. So I walked away from the gift. It became painful to fail at something I cared so much about. It made sense to avoid pain by letting go of the dream. I don’t blame the kid I was really, just trying to understand him.

I gave up my gift and love, because to hold on seemed too hard. My grip slipped from everything around me. My grades slipped. When young I didn’t know what I was giving up. I only knew I no longer had obvious pain.

I didn’t know what I had lost until it was gone, until I was gone from it, until I was no longer happy. I never made it onto any professional team. With my neighbor I still played on our road in front of our houses, pressure free, but now in a sanctuary, hiding. I shied away from the dream and told myself I didn’t want it anymore. The truth is I blamed the coach, the league, the bat, and a desire to only be great. The truth is I did it to myself. I dismantled the dream and myself with it. No one else did. What happens to us when we give up our gifts?

Pain and fear can be more influential motivators than love. That is, if we can’t uphold the love. When pain and fear are better trusted we fall into a life of “quiet desperation”.

My joys took a back seat to the drudgery of high school, trying not to be consumed by the newest clicks and fads, while avoiding getting my ass kicked by the local bullies, yet consumed by it all nevertheless. I was a quiet kid with a bad haircut and bad shirts. Often I sat alone during lunch breaks, holding on for life, for some life to follow. A lurid orange and green butterfly within compelled me to be patient. Life is worth it. I listened and waited, yet was out of place everywhere I went, every conversation I had, and every class I attended.

After years of uncertainty and unhappiness I began walking the woods near my home in one of the few tufts of undeveloped land in the suburbs of New York City. I felt protected by the canopy of oak and maple. I was embraced by the nature that mirrored my own. I had time to think and feel and listen.

After months of visiting after school, I found a new gift walking those trails, breathing in the fresh air of the moment. I found fluid thoughts in my patient reflections. Increasingly I was feeling life again, a life within: no pressure, but the desire to excel at that feeling, at being, at touching the air and leaves. Perhaps it was a new understanding of what life could be: no judgment, no walls, just me in my own nature, and I within the larger whole, excelling in the moment.

I would walk down the trail to The Pipe, which was a pond and a concrete pipe that carried run-off from the street a hundred yards away. It was more than suitable for my quiet needs. Words began coming to me, increasingly and distinct. Ideas rushed up to me in short staccato breaths.

Lost in these unencumbered free flowing moments, I found the freedom of thought and living a life of meaning. We must pursue what it is that we are. Because we are each granted individual gifts like an enormous maple leaf I had found on those trails that I framed and still have on my wall. The veins were raised. I was immediately taken in by this naturally crafted structure lying in my hand. It was a photosynthesized gem and there wasn’t another one like it on the planet. And so I write now, knowing my gift and holding onto it closely, protecting it, while eliminating people and ideas from my life that attempt to condemn me for my “hobbies” or “grand” notions.

I don’t want regrets, but to see the simplicity of my gifts and motives and creations. In school the next day after finding ideas with words, I was still alone, still hurting. But I had somewhere to go that day, back to the woods, with a pen and paper in hand.

I began writing about human nature mostly, the daily struggles I had in school and what I thought I understood about the world. With patience, something had become mine again. There was no coach to worry about, no one to impress, and no bat to swing. I was dreaming again. My new gift was in words.

Over the years I kept writing, more intensely, more insightfully, until I realized once again I was breathing for my own sake. Now excited, I want to help people, to show that there can be another way to live. We don’t have to give in and become nobodies, that our thoughts do matter, if at least only to us.

And that is how the world moves forward because of the ones who dare push out the walls of convention. And in turn by pursuing these gifts it is our sparkling offer to the world. And the world moves forward because of it.

MLK Day

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and I’m on the train heading into the city to work. My girlfriend has today off. She works for Westchester County. I work for a small private company. Typically public employees have it off while private employees do not. It’s a real disconnect as to who we are as a people where we come from and where we’re going.

Maybe this a “floating” holiday for her, like Veterans Day now is. I don’t know how you “float” celebration of MLK or Veterans or what they did for us. A holiday is just that, to acknowledge on a national level some part of our history and what makes us who we are. But now national pride is a choice. Our heritage and history also seems to be a choice, depending upon your beliefs and who you work for. As a kid I used to get Veteran’s Day off. Not anymore. Now we lump all soldiers living and dead into Memorial Day.

I went to a funeral yesterday of a woman from my neighborhood. She just so happened to be black. There must’ve been 300 or more people there. She never would have believed it. Most of the folks at the services were black or in politically correct terms, African-American.

I wonder how African-American people coming up from slavery through history, discrimination, physical abuses, to making less pay, how they feel about going to work on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday?

It does us a great disservice as a nation to marginalize his importance and other great black leaders, and the civil rights period. The leaders who formed this nation were rebels themselves, challenging often through bloodshed and sacrifice, to challenge the old ways and forge new ones. I’m certain that deserves a day of respect and acknowledgement.

This disconnect is indicative of a larger issue as we honor our past and present less and less with fewer holidays as all powerful business and political interests erode our pride and how we got here. This is 2012, the future, yet we are reverting back to factions that are eroding our social threads.

I don’t understand why people get to choose what holidays we celebrate. Like with the labor movement struggling for equality and a fair wage thus creating the middle class and subsequently Labor Day was born. I’m sure Martin Luther King Jr. is deserving of a full holiday, and not only for public workers. Although I work in the private sector, I am still part of the public.

And just like back then when many believed in segregation, keeping blacks and whites separate in schools, at water fountains, and sections of town, there was division in this country, but our leaders had to make the difficult decision, in fact they were forced to because of the glaring inequalities the civil rights movement and Dr. King exposed, to choose between right from wrong.

So the public sector is doing the right thing to acknowledge the struggle that lifted us all out of a systemic bigotry that divided us as a people. Has business now become the new divider, becoming more important than our nation, our vision and the humanity that once united us?

We used to have pride in our heritage and heroes and he is certainly one of mine. There is anger now at civil service workers, resentment because of their “benefits”. Many of us resent them because we have allowed private entities to erode our grander national point of view. MLK deserves his holiday as do the veterans, the living ones, not to only get lumped with the ones we memorialize.

Truth

I went to the woods to live deliberately, no wait, Thoreau wrote that. And besides I wasn’t going there to live, just to walk around, yet that was deliberate!  If not for my being deliberate I would surely not have wound up in the woods at all. If it was not for my being deliberate I would no doubt be sitting at home in a stupor, which would no doubt be deliberate, as it often is. That is, when I’m in a stupor it is usually by choice. I guess all action and inaction are a matter of choice as well.

So to say, I went to the woods to live deliberately might seem redundant, though it is not. Am I making myself clear? No? Good. Clarity is certainly deliberate and that is what my friend and yours, Henry David, was trying to say.

So I went to the woods by myself, alone, and realized nobody else was there. My rambling statements are an indication of my wandering mind, though I’m just having a little fun.

If only I could see the sky removed from buildings that stand in the way.

Enough, enough, I will try to calm my thoughts, but the day is too lovely to focus on any one subject. It is like telling the wind to blow more steadily and more confined. This simply can not be.

So I went to the woods for the crackling of melting ice. I went to the woods to see saplings snap off the winter snow and upright themselves again, pointing straight to heaven, towards the blue skin above. But most of all I went to the woods to listen to the soft voices rustling along the forest floor and around the mighty conifers and ferns. These voices speak loudest when sufficient time is given. We speak loudest by the same refrain. When we stop to hear the rush of nature, time slows, not so we can race down the freeway of life to discover how lost and afraid we are but to realize and understand, we are home. To take the deep breath our lungs had been craving. As I said, I went to the woods today, but not for the two-mile loop trail, not for the trail at all. I went to the woods to be, to exist. I went to the woods because freedom there has yet to be toppled. It remains the only place I can simply be myself, the shower works too, but we’re talking about the woods: the precious, the austere, the delightful, and most of all the deep woods, beyond the man made.

There are two sides of life. The first is the man made world: controlled, created and dictated. The second side of life is where the eagle soars with concern for no man or machine. Where am I in the mix, struggling with the man made, while attempting to soar!

Mona

She worked behind the front desk. I was a bellman at the hotel. She was shorter than short, maybe 4’11”. She was friendly enough to customers, people passing through for the night, but with co-workers she would nod or ignore our mindless banter as she scowled walking passed the concierge desk. I didn’t much care for it. She had short black hair, black eyeliner, a small silver stud through her nose, and a back tattoo that showed on warm days.

On Friday night’s the Atrium bar downstairs generated a few filled rooms for the hotel, guys and gals hooking up, many asking for cheaper rates or hourly. This was a classy place, four stars. They didn’t do hourly. He or she would have to cough up the 200 bucks.

On this Friday night it’s a guy. “Come on little girl, you can do better than that,” I overheard from the bellman stand twenty or so feet from the long granite front desk. A tie-less middle aged chunky businessman inquired while a lady waited further into the lobby near the tall potted plants. He leaned over the counter. Friday night’s usually had the worst drunks, shaking off the workweek, but the most cash was to be made. I was on the six to two shift. I guess so was Mona.

“Let me see if I can get my manager to override the price,” she said, trying to buy herself a little time. She begins walking into the back room then turns. “Do you have Triple A? Have you stayed here before?” He shrugs shaking his head more annoyed that he can’t get the place per hour, looking back over at his lady.

Mona walks into the back. I can see her through the other set of doors shaking her head. After eight on a Friday night the manager Lawrence was not to be found. If you paged him he’d get pissed unless it was an emergency, yet a drunk looking to get laid was no emergency to Lawrence.

I could see her wasting time, sitting down reading a magazine, glancing out to the lobby, hoping the guy would remember his wife back home and go away.

A few minutes pass. A car pulls into the circular driveway in front of the hotel. I help the folks with their bags from their Audi wagon and place them at the counter. Mona glances up at me with pleading black eyes as peckerwood still jaws at her needing some action.

“I can bring these down for you folks,” I say. The elder lady and man look at each other.

“If you would. We’re gonna stop first for a night cap and a little food. Where is the restaurant?” the gray-haired man inquires.

“Head down that hall then take a left. But not the first left. That’s the bathroom. You don’t want to eat in there.” I smile with my hand slightly extended with their bags at my feet. After a short chuckle the gray haired man slips me a five.

Mona and her customer watch. The elder couple walks off. I stand at the front desk in front of Mona next to the customer trying to get laid for as cheap as he can. Can’t blame him.

“I come here every Friday night. Spend a lot of money. Maybe I don’t stay the night, but I would like a room and not a $200 dollar room.” I linger seeing she needs a little help, though I’ve never much cared for her tough bullshit. I linger a little longer.

“Do you mind?” He attempts to bully me too, staring at me, because it’s easier to bully her alone.

“Not at all. Sir, may I speak with you a moment?”

We walk closer to the bellman stand.

“I understand that you’re looking for a room?”

“I am.”

“Well, Mona over here can’t really help with that price. It would be her head. But do you see that door over there?” I point behind the bellman stand that leads to the coat and bag check room.

“If you go through that door, on the far side, there’s another room with a cot. If you and The Mrs, I presume,” I say staring over at her, “need to sleep it off and can’t afford the hotel, you are welcome to relax in there for a few minutes, undisturbed.”

“Oh yes, The Mrs. and I would like that very much.” He nods to the fake blond in the lobby.

“Just please be careful in the bag room. There are cameras.”

“In the cot room?”

“No sir, just in the bag and coat room.” I slipped that in just to keep him in line. There are no cameras. The bellmen and valets raid the golf bags for nonsense trinkets and balls.

He takes out his wallet and slips me a twenty. I just made his night happen.

“Babe let’s go, I got us a very special room.” He shouts into the lobby.

 

“Thanks,” Mona says then goes back to preparing keys and packets for the old people busses that come Saturday mornings. Even with her sour disposition I linger for some reason not wanting to leave.

It’s just after midnight and I have nothing to do.

“Do you mind if I hang out?”

“Sure.”

“What does Sure mean exactly?”

“Yes, hang out. After that guy breathing on me, please.”

“So what’s your story?” I ask.

“I don’t have one.”

“Well what’s with the back tattoo? That’s got to have a story.”

She looks back as if she can see it.

“Oh yeah, that. It had a story, but not anymore.” I nod thinking about what angle I should come at her.

“A fire breathing dragon, is that you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Now?”

She doesn’t stop her tasks or look up.

“No, not now.”

“Oh young man, good, you haven’t brought our bags down yet.” The old man is back. He places his drink on the front desk then opens the large duffle finding a leather carrying case then slips me two more singles.

“If you could bring them now, we’ll only be a few more minutes.” I grab the bags and throw them onto the cart and begin walking.

“Be back in a few,” I say to Mona as the couple slip back towards the bar. “Watch out for drunk pervs.”

“You too.”

I stroll the long hallway with carpet only hotels would have. It is its own breed of color swirls and paisleys. I get down to room 372 placing the bags on the bed and hang the wardrobe. I take a leak in the toilet then walk the hall with the empty cart stopping at housekeeping for a few pillow mints.

On the counter I place one in front of Mona.  “To cleanse that guy’s smelly b.o.”

I walk over to the Bellstand to close up. I glance up to watch her unwrap and pop the chocolate mint into her mouth. The door opens behind me. The couple slips past while tucking in loose ends of shirt and blouse.

“Good night.” They look over. Please don’t come back, I whisper.

“Moan, you got any plans after this?” I shout over. The grand lobby is empty.

“Just going home.”

“How bout a beer?”

“Nah, home’s got my name on it.”

I let it drop while two o’clock comes rolling in. I drop off the back room keys into the front desk office as she’s putting the drawers into the safe.

We walk out and up the hill into the vast parking lot. She drives a purple Dodge Neon a couple spots down from mine.

“You want to listen to music for a few and smoke a bowl?”

She nods. We hop into my old Jetta and put on the radio quiet, unrolling the windows. It’s a warm summer’s eve with no humidity.

“What about security,” she asks looking in all directions before hitting the pipe.

I laugh, “Who Walter? He’s too old to care.” She lights the Bic, inhales and let’s out a billow of smoke, all from such a small body. She hits it again and let’s out a bigger one, coughing then closing her eyes.

“Do you have a boyfriend or something?” I ask.

She shakes her head recovering from the hit. “That’s none of your business.” She flashes her black eyes at me. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“That’s none of your business.” I smile.

She takes another toke and passes it back squeezing her eyes shut again.

She sits without movement then lays the seat back. I pass her some Visine.

“Thanks, Jonathan. But I don’t want to sit here. Sitting makes me think and I don’t want to think.”

“Ok, what do you want to do? I guess the weed loosens you up, huh?” She looks at me and scowls.

I slip Radiohead into the cd player and turn up the volume, open all four windows then get out of the car. I grab the yellow Frisbee from my trunk.

“Ok, you wanted to do something. Let’s go.” The music and smoke billow out.

“First, I want to run sprints.”

“Sprints? Yeah, I was a sprinter in high school.” She hops out. I run three spots then watched her run a few more. She runs past and grabbed the disc from my hand skipping it off the pavement waist high at me while jogging backwards. “Didn’t expect you to be a Frisbee ace.”

We toss for a while under the parking lot lights. We smoke again, sweating. I want to kiss her, but

Walter pulls up the hill in his small white pickup truck.

“Oh hey, Walter.”

“Evening, Johnathan. You kids know it’s 3 am? You best be getting on now. You too, Ms.”

“Oh ok, Walt.” He drives off securing the rest of the empty parking lot.

She walks over and opens her purple car door. “It’s late. I should get going.”

“Hey don’t go. I was starting to like your, umm, company.” I lean on the passenger side.

“You want to go out sometime?”

“Why do guys always wanna ask me out?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Believe it or not,” she says opening the car door, “I don’t want a boyfriend or a girlfriend for that matter.”

“Why? Are you religious or something?”

“Not exactly.” She leans onto her car looking into the parking lot.

“It’s just easier not to get involved. But I’ll screw a guy sometimes if I like him. But this was fun. Really. Thanks.” She hops into her car as I spin the disc in my hand a little shocked. She backs up as I begin walking towards my car. “But let’s do this again and maybe I’ll screw you. But only if we can throw more disc!” She shouts then drives down the hill to the exit.