90 West

In the 1800's the state of Ohio, along with a few other frontier states, paid men cents on the heads of the bears and wolves they could hunt and kill. There were just too many of them, and they were dangerous. Eventually, they became less dangerous as they nearly disappeared all together and eventually the land was plowed for agriculture and as far as I can tell Ohio only needed to grow corn. Miles of corn rippled like waves in all directions, everywhere. It was mesmerizing like a pendulum and eventually I became dizzy and closed my eyes.

"We sure as hell need a lot of corn, don't we?" Domenic moaned in his sleep as he shifted his weight in the backseat.

"Yeah, and I thought Nebraska was the corn capitol of the universe."

"I wonder what this looked like before we just cut all the shit down."

"I have no idea, this is wild though."

Brandon was right and I looked out the window to try and grasp the utter vastness that spread before us like space. The horizon was a bowl and uninterrupted except by the occasional silo or farmhouse or tractor.

"This is just not a world I know."

"What if you were just standing in the middle of that field? You aren't doing anything for like a day. Nothing you can do about it. Just walking for a whole day. At least."

We rocketed past a man tinkering with the mechanics of a tractor, his back bent in a position that after years of labor appeared to be one of comfort.

"It is such slow work. Imagine waking up and looking out your window at these fields knowing you were just going to ride back and forth until the sun disappeared. Then doing it again."

We tore past rows of stalks streaming outside our windows.

"I don't know, man. I like this lifestyle I think."

"What lifestyle is that, delinquency?"

Brandon smiled and turned his head but kept his eyes focused on the asphalt, "Something like that."

Sometime around nightfall we cut off the highway outside Cincinnati. The landscape had changed drastically. Concrete enveloped the earth like cellophane and we were driving up a thirty degree incline, the Taurus straining for the first time all day.

"What is with all of the fucking hills?" Domenic grunted and appeared perturbed as usually is when he wakes.

"Relax, man. Jesus," Brandon rolled his eyes.

"You can see Cincy over there," I said as I pointed out the window through the houses built inches apart from one another. A few skyscrapers and neon lights burned through the night and it almost didn't feel like darkness.

I wouldn't have thought to stop in Cincinnati, but Brandon and Domenic had gone to high school with a girl who was now living there, and I obliged to the visit. As far as I can tell, people are places anyways.

I've spent hours, ironically, trying to put a day in perspective. Not in a deeply philosophical sense, but more frankly how one breath or one step or one blink of our eyes can vault us to a moment so fundamentally different than the one before.

We passed by an abandoned home which was surrounded by what looked to be a temporary chain link fence poorly set up and decrepit as if it wasn't so temporary after all, and I admired the shimmering metal in the night. For the first time in as long as I could remember I thought of Margaret and I felt uneasy. I didn't know how long the fence had stood but I didn't care. I noticed one side completely broken and useless as to the point of any fence and I wondered what the intention of it was in the first place, and why nobody seemed to care about it anymore. We took a right at the end of the street and I noticed a girl standing in the road on her cellphone waving in our direction. It had been a long drive, and we had finally arrived.

Emma's apartment was warm and I was very relieved to be there. She seemed genuinely happy to see my friends and it made me smile. I don't know when it happens in relationships that they become unconditional and unassuming, but it is nice to witness and I was very happy that evening.

After we settled for a little while and readjusted to the stillness of her apartment we walked up the street to have a few drinks so we could all catch up and meet and laugh and forget about any bull shit we were keeping hidden in the back of our minds. Emma's friend Nel met us at the bar and the five of us drank beer for a little while, but long enough to, on the walk to the bathroom, after the bartender looked me straight in the eye and said, "Dude, be careful. I just painted the left side of the floor so stay right," I walked directly over the newly painted floor and traipsed white footprints all over the bathroom tiles. Embarrassed I apologized and walked back to the table where we all laughed and decided to leave because Emma had to work in the morning.

The end of the night is unclear but I am quite sure the three of us ate an entire jar of Kosher Dill pickles before we slept. Even though I woke with stomach pains the next morning, I am very fond of that night.

The previous evening had lead us to the conclusion it would be in our best interest to catch the Reds vs. Cardinals game the next night while we had the chance. I have never been to a ballpark outside of Fenway and I was intrigued by the prospect because, well, I love baseball.

I can remember vividly the first Red Sox game I ever attended. I couldn't have been older than five or six. It was late May, and the sun was unimpeded by clouds and the day was warm. I sat on my fathers shoulders slapping my glove and admiring the waves of people waiting in line and walking with purpose and laughing and cheering. I can remember the slow anticipation as we walked around the park and to the tunnel that brought us somewhere out in right field. I could see the daylight from the dampness of the tunnel, and as my father paced slowly moving with the tide of the crowd the field exploded into view and I smiled and my brother tugged at my fathers shirt, pining for a view.

We finally found our seats and I can recall not being able to comprehend how many people were inside the small stadium, and I looked at my brother, his blonde hair yellow in the sun, "My favorite player is Tim Naerhing," I said with conviction.

"Mine too," said my brother sitting by my side looking at me wildly.

"No! He is my favorite. Yours should be John Valentin." He was shocked and disappointed.

"Why?"

"John Valentin is only the best player on the team, and he has your favorite number, duh."

"Thirteen?"

"Yeah, like Dan Marino," my father was looking on and smiling.

"Ok. John Valentin is my favorite."

I don't remember much of the game except when I forced my father to take me to the bathroom just before Mike Greenwell hit the games only home run twelve seats in front of where we sat. We watched from the television outside the bathroom in the dark and uneven sewer like halls in the bowels of Fenway park. I felt bad but my father smiled and picked me up on his shoulders again and we headed back to our seats and I ate a hot dog and spilled relish all over my shirt. I remember nothing and I remember everything and the way the grass bent in the breeze and the water dripping in the tunnels and my glove and hot dogs. The commotion and excitement that is only real in dreams and taller than anyone like a giant I could see more than I understand. Flashes, like still frames of faces and laughter and the crack of a wooden bat and cheers. Flashes, like seconds in disarray and jumbled but there like a ball of yarn unraveling and tangling in knots but all the while there. My brothers face has changed but I remember his hair and his tooth which I knocked out and how he loved sipping through a straw through the toothless hole with a grin and it is gone but I remember.

The game was fun and we had skyline chili dogs and watched as the Reds beat up on the Cardinals and bought overpriced beers but our seats were free and that was fine. After we left we drove back to Emma's neighborhood and went for beers at a bar in which we met a man with whom I immediately became involved in conversation. He was drinking vodka, straight. Full cups emptying faster than anyone would want to digest, and it became apparent in his stories.

"Back in the seventies I ran away from home and ended up doing heroine on the balcony of Andy Warhol's apartment. They were all there, Vonnegut, Warhol, just hanging out getting smashed and those were the days, let me tell you. You think you know what it is like to live now? Those were the days, studio 54, I was there for that. Blowjobs in the bathroom, I was there for that. You have no idea. I can see you, I know you already before you even speak. You are young, naive, searching for something you ain't gonna find honey, you just ain't gonna find it anywhere until you know yourself. You pride yourself on your penis, and you love it. What do you think you are doing? You are heading to Tahoe? Let me tell you. They are ruthless there. They will chew you up and spit you out like you don't even know. The only real decision you will have to make is if you want to be bottom or top, they'll put a kilo of coke in front of you and let you do what ever you want. You are just bait out there for them, honey.

"Look at this girl, here. Why are you leaving her? All she wants is a man to pull his own weight and have good conversation. Why would you leave? Oh honey you are so young. I know, I've been there and back and you better watch out because you are just bait."

Barely able to get a word in we were entertained at first, but eventually as the vodka took effect it became more apparent that, as this six foot four inch man who weighed a solid two hundred thirty pounds and named Josh, was not going to stop.

Brandon had stepped out to have a cigarette and I noticed Josh was waving his arms and Brandon backing up, slowly become distressed and Domenic and I joined him to make sure he was alright.

"Dude, get this guy away from me. If he touches me again I swear to God."

"See you fellas aren't going to know what hit you. I can turn any man gay and that is just the truth, I've done it before and you don't have no peg to stand on."

"Alright, probably no."

"You say that now, but you just wait," Josh advanced a little closer, "you just wait, this ain't the first time for me ."

"O.K. Let's get out of here, please, Domenic go get Emma. This is ridiculous."

We walked away in silence and then burst into laughter as we disappeared around the corner.

"It was funny at first, but Jesus, if he touched me again, Jesus. I honestly felt like he was going to try and rape me. I'm not even kidding."

"That was so weird. It was pathetic, I'm embarrassed for him I think. And I liked him at first too, he was funny."

"Yeah. Right," Domenic and Emma laughed and Brandon appeared too rattled to find the humor in it but eventually we were back in the apartment and all laughing and Brandon was able to relax and we listened to music until we fell asleep on the couch.

We drove north to Chicago the following afternoon.