Let's be plain from the onset, folks: I am a monster. I never anticipated that my unspeakable monstrosity would progress - nearly unheeded, by the by - this far. Since it has, I urge each of you to do one of two things:
1) Cleave to your choicest of deities and whisper devotional supplications to him/her/it on my behalf. Oooh, with some incense. Yes, incense.
2) Sit back and watch the show.
Now that I have made this - disclaimer? preamble? - I must hasten to add that I, unattached to any faith or reason, believe that shit begets shit. It breeds, hidden and reeking, like two unnaturally pale, pimple-riddled teenagers grinding nasties under the Wildwood (NJ) Boardwalk. In July. At low tide.
To whit:
Once in a great while, Keith and I find ourselves in a predicament. Let's say that we've neglected our dishes - this clearly NEVER HAPPENS - and they have begun to, much like a primordial ocean, create new life and, as a by-product, undesirable odours. Let's also say that one of us has decided in a moment of profound sagacity that breakfast and lunch are optional meals and that, upon the supper hour, one becomes so ravenous that one contemplates consuming the two-year-old OPENED package of Scottish shortbread cookies one discovers in one's glove-box. Again, I need to stress: this did NOT happen to me. More than once.
Living in Nashville, we're then presented with some options. Provided that it's not past 6. Or if we need anything between January through May.
Pizza. Three places offer it; one is good, and the other two...well, let's just say that I've scraped tastier things off my windshield. I mean, for the love of God: gas station pizza?
McDonalds/Subway: Great if you want to poop the bed/have your sandwich prepared by high school kids who have no interest in whether you live, die, or decide to grow mushrooms in your crack.
Steak: I don't want to have to give handjobs behind the Circle K Dumpster for dinner expenses. Again.
Quaint, local restaurants with ambiance: See previous.
Nashville is roughly equidistant from Bloomington and Columbus, two largish towns that have the same sorts of amenities but with dramatically different presentation of said amenities. And by "different presentation" I mean "one is filled with insufferable students, one out of ten of whom is my client, and the other was under water for two weeks this spring." More often than not, we'll choose Columbus because a) IN 46 to Columbus is not nearly as twisty-turny as to Bloomington and b) I need a damn change of scenery. Also: Columbus has the Anti-Wal*Mart, but that's for another day.
ONE AWESOME DAY LAST WEEK
Leaving behind two sinkfuls of TOTALLY CLEAN DISHES, we arrived in Columbus. My eyes - unfocused as they were from all of the hunger - swam lazily and fell upon the neon marquee of an approaching KFC. I felt a tendril of hot breath caress my earlobe before it wended its way to my auditory canal, where it spake unto me.
"Wouldn't it be nice", it said lazily, "to sink a fork into a robust, juicy, lump of deep-fat-fried bird? Mmmm. So juicy. So filled with secret herbs. Also, you can get those unnatural mashed potatoes with that brown gravy. Yes. Gravy."
*I* was sold. Convincing Keith, though, remained a hurdle. What if - heavens prevent it! - he'd wanted to seek succor at Taco Bell? May the thought perish, I thought, and lie reeking in the ground.
Casually - and clearly without mentioning that I'd heard voices mere moments before - I ask Keith if he'd wish to procure our meal from the crispy dead bird factory. With nearly no hesitation, he maneuvers the car into the KFC parking lot. Score.
Upon entering, we realized that this particular KFC had - and here you'll all have to be strong - a buffet. The creature who greeted us (a woman with a very...um...masculine presence) presumed that we'd be asuck upon the buffet, and after a brief consultation, we confirmed that. She handed us a styrofoam plate and, far off in the distance, I could faintly heard an angel die.
We'd gotten through most of our meal - part of which was, for me, half a plate of some noodle substance that tasted like chicken boullion - before we heard, and I saw, the unfortunateness that was occurring in the corner.
I'll pause for a moment to be clear with you folks. If you are eating, or have just eaten, or might be pregnant, or are of delicate constitution in general, the rest of this might not be your cup o' chamomile.
I'd noticed that a group of people - people whom I'd assumed to be a family of some kind - gnawing their way through a meal in the back corner. Upon closer inspection, my first impression - that of them being related - seems to be suspect, as they were a very strange mash of people. Middle aged men. Old women. Early teens. Not a woman in her childbearing-years anywhere near. I thought, huh, and continued to savage a chicken breast.
Until one of the preteens began to blow snot-bubbles.
And then snot-rockets.
On his plate.
His plate with food on it.
And...and...
OH GOD MAKE IT STOP DEAR GOD MAKE ME BLIND
Then we realized that they were likely members of an unrelated group of people who may or may not have had needs. By the time we figured all of this out, though, the rest of the meal was ruined. Ruined. FOREVER.
As we ran to the car so that I could keep my gorge down, we realized that this wasn't the first time we'd been run out of a KFC by other patron's behaviors. Granted, this sweatpants-wearing teen had needs, and none of that was his fault. But what is it about a KFC buffet that opens a portal directly to dining-experience Hell? I have never been to one that did not have at least three of these people/events/smells:
1) One person with eye-burning cuminy body odor
2) Someone who will disobey line etiquette so much so that you wish to permanently embed unwashed salad tongs into folds of their ghastly white blubber
3) A vague but persistent smell of human urine
4) Some middle-aged, puff-paint-sweatshirt-wearing woman in clip-on earrings demanding fresher biscuits
5) A child vomiting, unseen by its parents, who are only alerted to the blessed gastric event when the wave of stench crashes over them
6) Several elderly men who talk loudly about how they shouldn't eat fried chicken because it's really a (insert innumerable racial epithets here) food
7) A really mangy-looking toy poodle with fleas in such a quantity as to be visible to the naked eye
8) A WASPy elderly couple sucking the marrow out of chicken leg bones
9) An uncomfortable-looking Asian
10) Someone who has clearly defecated on themselves
By now, you're thinking one of two things: one, "What do you expect? I mean, it's a goddamn KFC", or two, "Why would you still go there?"
I'm not an idiot; I don't go to a KFC and expect to be confronted by the comforting smells of bleach and cleanly, hygienic patrons. They. Sell. Deep. Fried. Animal. Carcasses. There. And not just ANY carcasses: carcasses of birds who likely lived very short, unhappy lives.
I suppose, then, that I am being punished. I go because I am hungry. I leave never wanting to eat again. I go because I think that this time JUST THIS ONCE DAMN IT ALL that I will be able to get through it without puking in my mouth. I leave because this is never to be because the great wheel of karma is providing me with an immediate return of punishment for my patronage. I go because I believe in the good in people. I leave because people blow snot rockets onto their awaiting plates.
The world, it has been said, is a vampire. Instead, I envision that the world is that old woman, sitting along with a knitting magazine, gnawing marrow out of a chicken thigh.
Just a thought.
Until next week, I remain,
Domonic
Friday, December 19, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Days and nights in Nashville.
It has been slightly more than a year since our hasty, poorly orchestrated Saigon-at-the-fall escape from the Greenwood Man-Lair and its array of insensate horrors. For those who do not recall the sundry evils that were to be found within and in its environs, allow me to refresh.
Black mold in levels that one would generally associate with, oh, graves that had been hewn into a flood-prone riverbank. In Equador.
Immediate proximity to one of Greenwood’s busiest suburban intersections – a four-way stop that, during rush hour, backed vehicles up for half a mile in ALL FOUR DIRECTIONS.
Adjacent proximity to a fire station that serviced not only Greenwood but also many of the southernmost Indianapolis suburbs. All day and all night. All night, I tell you, ALL NIGHT.
Neighbors who, in their own savage way, meant well; it’s easy taking obsessive care of one’s lawn – complaining vociferously to all who’d listen about the two fairies living next door who let their yard go to shit – when your dugong of a wife no longer has the wind in her to squat down on your man-pike.
The sixteen dead nursing interns in the crawlspace that were absorbing far too much lime.
Just when all seemed lost and I had begun to plait a noose of my own nose hair to hang myself with, Keith came home one day to tell me that he’d been released from his bondage at a nameless living history museum in the Fishers, Indiana, area.
And so, after “packing” and having the majority of our home delivered in a massive truck by three gentlemen who, while competent and friendly, made us feel a little squirmy inside, we began to settle into the community of Nashville, Indiana.
Population: 750.
That’s right. That’s not 7,500. Oh hells no. Seven-hundred-fifty full-time residents.
I’ve lived in smaller places in the past. As a child, I spent many summers in Renick, West Virginia, which – depending on how much bathtub-distilled moonshine the census-taker had consumed – had between twenty-eight and forty-two residents. But I was a child then, and lo, never did I once lust verily in the stark of the night for decent Chinese food only for it to be cruelly denied to me, so the innocence-factor wins out on that one. However, I’ve also lived in vast, thundering cities, both domestically and in Turkey. You know, places where it is possible to, oh, I dunno, see a movie. Or shop in a department store. Or have more than seven places to dine when the mood set me (four in the winter).
At first, my New Jersey “it’s nunna ya fuckin’ business, pal” upbringing – tempered a bit by living in boreal New England for more than a decade – caused me to distrust the local folks and their breezy questions. So no, Small Woman at the Circle K Counter: I’m NOT going to make idle chitchat with you while my debit for $4.37 for a bearclaw danish and Mountain Dew (the manwhore’s breakfast) goes through. No, Creepy Elderly Man Who Owns the Antique Place, I’m not going to sit down and have some “tea” with you on a rainy Saturday afternoon. No, Lady Who Owns the Strange Doily-Encrusted Store That Smells a Little Like Pee, I’ll not tarry long to tell you why I am looking for Boyd’s Bears that are dressed up as other animals.* No, Old Man Who Runs One of the Gas Stations, I don’t care that you saw a twelve-point buck on the way to work. Riiiiiiight.
After about two weeks, I began – like a pat of butter laying out in the death-heat of an Indiana August afternoon – to turn rancid. No, I began to soften to the idea of living in quasi-isolation, and began to view the locals with something akin to kinship. After all, they too could be waking up at midnight on a Friday and have nowhere to get some good Pad Thai. I got a library card. I became a local at the gas station on the corner where I often would procure my sad and, as aforementioned, prostitute-like breakfasts. But perhaps most crucial, I began to develop a close relationship with area merchants. And by “close relationship” I mean “I began to partially sustain several businesses single-handedly based on my purchases.” Is it mere coincidence that I live in a town whose favored artistic expression – primitivism – makes my heart soar? Is it coincidence that I live in a town where I can easily procure – with a local discount! - baleful Byzantine icons, homemade jar candles with soy wax and twisted wicks, gourds fashioned into masks and sassafras tea? Hardly. Is it coincidence that I live in a town where the nearby woods muffle the screams of the – yes. Nice little town. Mmm-hmm.
Just when I think that I know all that there is to know about town, someone tells me some delicious, horrid secret. Or a new steak place opens and is just sitting there, out behind the gas station, making delicious meaty treats without my knowledge. Or stores open and close nearly instantly, fluttering moths briefly alive inside a hot Mason jar. Or I finally find out what that hellish, accident-causing bend in IN 46 above town is ACTUALLY called by the locals (“Witch’s Curve”, but to me, always “The Juggernaut”).
Now that I adore it here, maybe, just maybe, I’ll open my mouth and let slide some idle gossip with the small woman behind the counter for once. And I’ll be on the lookout for that twelve-point buck, because damn.
Until next week, I remain,
Domonic
*Because they are goddamn cute, that’s why.
Black mold in levels that one would generally associate with, oh, graves that had been hewn into a flood-prone riverbank. In Equador.
Immediate proximity to one of Greenwood’s busiest suburban intersections – a four-way stop that, during rush hour, backed vehicles up for half a mile in ALL FOUR DIRECTIONS.
Adjacent proximity to a fire station that serviced not only Greenwood but also many of the southernmost Indianapolis suburbs. All day and all night. All night, I tell you, ALL NIGHT.
Neighbors who, in their own savage way, meant well; it’s easy taking obsessive care of one’s lawn – complaining vociferously to all who’d listen about the two fairies living next door who let their yard go to shit – when your dugong of a wife no longer has the wind in her to squat down on your man-pike.
The sixteen dead nursing interns in the crawlspace that were absorbing far too much lime.
Just when all seemed lost and I had begun to plait a noose of my own nose hair to hang myself with, Keith came home one day to tell me that he’d been released from his bondage at a nameless living history museum in the Fishers, Indiana, area.
And so, after “packing” and having the majority of our home delivered in a massive truck by three gentlemen who, while competent and friendly, made us feel a little squirmy inside, we began to settle into the community of Nashville, Indiana.
Population: 750.
That’s right. That’s not 7,500. Oh hells no. Seven-hundred-fifty full-time residents.
I’ve lived in smaller places in the past. As a child, I spent many summers in Renick, West Virginia, which – depending on how much bathtub-distilled moonshine the census-taker had consumed – had between twenty-eight and forty-two residents. But I was a child then, and lo, never did I once lust verily in the stark of the night for decent Chinese food only for it to be cruelly denied to me, so the innocence-factor wins out on that one. However, I’ve also lived in vast, thundering cities, both domestically and in Turkey. You know, places where it is possible to, oh, I dunno, see a movie. Or shop in a department store. Or have more than seven places to dine when the mood set me (four in the winter).
At first, my New Jersey “it’s nunna ya fuckin’ business, pal” upbringing – tempered a bit by living in boreal New England for more than a decade – caused me to distrust the local folks and their breezy questions. So no, Small Woman at the Circle K Counter: I’m NOT going to make idle chitchat with you while my debit for $4.37 for a bearclaw danish and Mountain Dew (the manwhore’s breakfast) goes through. No, Creepy Elderly Man Who Owns the Antique Place, I’m not going to sit down and have some “tea” with you on a rainy Saturday afternoon. No, Lady Who Owns the Strange Doily-Encrusted Store That Smells a Little Like Pee, I’ll not tarry long to tell you why I am looking for Boyd’s Bears that are dressed up as other animals.* No, Old Man Who Runs One of the Gas Stations, I don’t care that you saw a twelve-point buck on the way to work. Riiiiiiight.
After about two weeks, I began – like a pat of butter laying out in the death-heat of an Indiana August afternoon – to turn rancid. No, I began to soften to the idea of living in quasi-isolation, and began to view the locals with something akin to kinship. After all, they too could be waking up at midnight on a Friday and have nowhere to get some good Pad Thai. I got a library card. I became a local at the gas station on the corner where I often would procure my sad and, as aforementioned, prostitute-like breakfasts. But perhaps most crucial, I began to develop a close relationship with area merchants. And by “close relationship” I mean “I began to partially sustain several businesses single-handedly based on my purchases.” Is it mere coincidence that I live in a town whose favored artistic expression – primitivism – makes my heart soar? Is it coincidence that I live in a town where I can easily procure – with a local discount! - baleful Byzantine icons, homemade jar candles with soy wax and twisted wicks, gourds fashioned into masks and sassafras tea? Hardly. Is it coincidence that I live in a town where the nearby woods muffle the screams of the – yes. Nice little town. Mmm-hmm.
Just when I think that I know all that there is to know about town, someone tells me some delicious, horrid secret. Or a new steak place opens and is just sitting there, out behind the gas station, making delicious meaty treats without my knowledge. Or stores open and close nearly instantly, fluttering moths briefly alive inside a hot Mason jar. Or I finally find out what that hellish, accident-causing bend in IN 46 above town is ACTUALLY called by the locals (“Witch’s Curve”, but to me, always “The Juggernaut”).
Now that I adore it here, maybe, just maybe, I’ll open my mouth and let slide some idle gossip with the small woman behind the counter for once. And I’ll be on the lookout for that twelve-point buck, because damn.
Until next week, I remain,
Domonic
*Because they are goddamn cute, that’s why.
Friday, December 05, 2008
God rest ye, Billy; a return to Friday 'blogs.
Dusk was rapidly cloaking the Pennsylvania countryside and I, becoming intensely fearful that nothing but a 1995 Toyota Corolla separated me from the corn-fed, monstrous radioactive deer that stalk the countryside in that forsaken state, nearly missed the sign.
Wheeling, WV 13
Unnatural excitement began to radiate through my body, from my bones outward, and I realized that I'd neglected to blink for several minutes. Wheeling. WHEELING.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeling.
I am sure that this is the point where you are expecting me to explain why it is that I was tenting up in my khakis at the thought of going to Wheeling, WV. "Lord, I bet it's something fecked", you think. You'd have every reason to believe it, as my motivations are often mysterious even to myself.
Would you believe that it's because of a Billy Joel song? Is that fecked-up enough for you? I thought so.
From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia
Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand
And his daring life of crime
Made him a legend in his time
East and West of the Rio Grande
- Billy Joel, "The Ballad of Billy the Kid"
Magical, no? Well, even Billy Joel admits to taking some liberties with the song. And by "liberties" I mean "he made it all up ALL OF IT YES IT'S ALL MADE UP." Including, sadly, the fact that Billy the Kid was from West Virginia, as he was actually from (gasp!) New York City.
Nonetheless, there I was, at this point less than five miles from Wheeling, and I just HAD TO GO THERE WAS NO OPTION NO THERE WAS NOT LEAVE ME ALONE. I glanced down at the gas gauge and saw that it was laying, tender and lover-like, upon the "E". No time like the present to gas up, I thought, and guided MCBess toward a Pilot station.
When I am traveling, I take special pains to stop at Flying Js or Pilots, as they provide several critical amenities for me.
1) Distilled fossil fuels.
2) Embalmed meats and carbonated fructose beverages.
3) Restrooms that nobody will eye-stab you for using without purchasing something.
4) Ethnographic BONANZA, both in terms of clientele and artifacts.
After fueling up and nabbing a cola and a "beef and cheese" Slim Jim product, I found myself at a rather large magnet display. "Something that says 'Wheeling'", I murmured, turning the rack again and again.
Bupkus.
No hats, no shirts, no magnets, no snowglobes. People: how hard is it to print the word "Wheeling" on something, honestly?
I selected a magnet that showed a lovely West Virgina gristmill and another that said "Philippi Covered Bridge." I went to the checkout and an older woman in a festive holiday (Halloween) sweater greeted me with what can only be described as the sound of someone attempting to gargle tuna.
Consumptive Old Woman: This it?
Me: Um, yeah. Hey: where is this covered bridge? Is it in...oh, I dunno...Wheeling?
COW: [looking down] I don't know.
Me: [crestfallen] OK. Well, do you know where it is in West Virgina? I have relatives in Auto - the Renick/Lewisburg area.
COW: Again, I don't know. I live in goddamn Pennsylvania, all right? God.
I got back on the highway and called my sister.
Julie: What the hell do you want?
Dom: Go on Wikipedia.
Julie: No.
Dom: Do it NOW.
Julie: Fine, fecker. [clickety clickety click]
Dom: Look up Philippi Covered Bridge, West Virginia.
Julie: Why?
Dom: That is a question that is between me and the ages. Just look it up now.
Julie: It's in Philippi. (http://users.hrea.coop/post/philippi.html)
Dom: GODDAMN IT.
[hangs up]
This left only one option: I needed YES I SAID NEEDED to go to Wheeling itself, as I was not about to leave Wheeling without SOMETHING with that word on it.
From the bridge, Wheeling looks cozy and precious, flanked on one side by the mighty Ohio River and appears to be filled with historic buildings of antiquey sweetness. Wheeling at night, though, on a dank, cold late fall evening, was quite a different story. Neon signs advertised all-male boarding houses, and legions of street people roved the narrow lanes. That which looked to be cozy and antiquey before now appeared to be more urban decay than anything, and, fearing that I would be attacked for my Maine plates, I attempted to make a hasty exit.
Left turn. Right turn. Left again. Where the hell was I? Where were the signs that would point me toward the river of traffic that was 70 West? Was that a corpse merrily afloat in the ashy Ohio?
I finally found my way, having refused several window treatments at stoplights - one offered from a man whose bottle looked to have been filled with urine - and, keyed up and melancholy at once, I crossed into Ohio. I have to admit, though, that I looked back, much as Lot's wife had done.
I love you, Wheeling. I don't have any idea why, but I do. And I'll be back.
When it's daylight.
Until next Friday, I remain,
Domonic (OK,soIhaveaproblem) Potorti
Wheeling, WV 13
Unnatural excitement began to radiate through my body, from my bones outward, and I realized that I'd neglected to blink for several minutes. Wheeling. WHEELING.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeling.
I am sure that this is the point where you are expecting me to explain why it is that I was tenting up in my khakis at the thought of going to Wheeling, WV. "Lord, I bet it's something fecked", you think. You'd have every reason to believe it, as my motivations are often mysterious even to myself.
Would you believe that it's because of a Billy Joel song? Is that fecked-up enough for you? I thought so.
From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia
Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand
And his daring life of crime
Made him a legend in his time
East and West of the Rio Grande
- Billy Joel, "The Ballad of Billy the Kid"
Magical, no? Well, even Billy Joel admits to taking some liberties with the song. And by "liberties" I mean "he made it all up ALL OF IT YES IT'S ALL MADE UP." Including, sadly, the fact that Billy the Kid was from West Virginia, as he was actually from (gasp!) New York City.
Nonetheless, there I was, at this point less than five miles from Wheeling, and I just HAD TO GO THERE WAS NO OPTION NO THERE WAS NOT LEAVE ME ALONE. I glanced down at the gas gauge and saw that it was laying, tender and lover-like, upon the "E". No time like the present to gas up, I thought, and guided MCBess toward a Pilot station.
When I am traveling, I take special pains to stop at Flying Js or Pilots, as they provide several critical amenities for me.
1) Distilled fossil fuels.
2) Embalmed meats and carbonated fructose beverages.
3) Restrooms that nobody will eye-stab you for using without purchasing something.
4) Ethnographic BONANZA, both in terms of clientele and artifacts.
After fueling up and nabbing a cola and a "beef and cheese" Slim Jim product, I found myself at a rather large magnet display. "Something that says 'Wheeling'", I murmured, turning the rack again and again.
Bupkus.
No hats, no shirts, no magnets, no snowglobes. People: how hard is it to print the word "Wheeling" on something, honestly?
I selected a magnet that showed a lovely West Virgina gristmill and another that said "Philippi Covered Bridge." I went to the checkout and an older woman in a festive holiday (Halloween) sweater greeted me with what can only be described as the sound of someone attempting to gargle tuna.
Consumptive Old Woman: This it?
Me: Um, yeah. Hey: where is this covered bridge? Is it in...oh, I dunno...Wheeling?
COW: [looking down] I don't know.
Me: [crestfallen] OK. Well, do you know where it is in West Virgina? I have relatives in Auto - the Renick/Lewisburg area.
COW: Again, I don't know. I live in goddamn Pennsylvania, all right? God.
I got back on the highway and called my sister.
Julie: What the hell do you want?
Dom: Go on Wikipedia.
Julie: No.
Dom: Do it NOW.
Julie: Fine, fecker. [clickety clickety click]
Dom: Look up Philippi Covered Bridge, West Virginia.
Julie: Why?
Dom: That is a question that is between me and the ages. Just look it up now.
Julie: It's in Philippi. (http://users.hrea.coop/post/philippi.html)
Dom: GODDAMN IT.
[hangs up]
This left only one option: I needed YES I SAID NEEDED to go to Wheeling itself, as I was not about to leave Wheeling without SOMETHING with that word on it.
From the bridge, Wheeling looks cozy and precious, flanked on one side by the mighty Ohio River and appears to be filled with historic buildings of antiquey sweetness. Wheeling at night, though, on a dank, cold late fall evening, was quite a different story. Neon signs advertised all-male boarding houses, and legions of street people roved the narrow lanes. That which looked to be cozy and antiquey before now appeared to be more urban decay than anything, and, fearing that I would be attacked for my Maine plates, I attempted to make a hasty exit.
Left turn. Right turn. Left again. Where the hell was I? Where were the signs that would point me toward the river of traffic that was 70 West? Was that a corpse merrily afloat in the ashy Ohio?
I finally found my way, having refused several window treatments at stoplights - one offered from a man whose bottle looked to have been filled with urine - and, keyed up and melancholy at once, I crossed into Ohio. I have to admit, though, that I looked back, much as Lot's wife had done.
I love you, Wheeling. I don't have any idea why, but I do. And I'll be back.
When it's daylight.
Until next Friday, I remain,
Domonic (OK,soIhaveaproblem) Potorti
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)