[And of course, it all works out without much exertion. Bah.]

"Headed to class?" He asks with a smile, his light Indian accent licking the words. Yeah. Headed to class.

After we passed each other by, my mind started to click through the bourbon. I smiled. I got the joke. "I'll see you tomorrow," I reply loudly. He knows I barely attend that class we have together. It's a bad idea too - that Professor's unpredictable . Or maybe it's a good idea as someone told me - "if your not sure what to expect from him, why don't you just read the book, forget classes all together and hope for the best?" someone jested with only a hint of exasperation. "He's just going to say whatever he wants in class anyway." Maybe. But that's the fun of it. He's entertaining. And you might learn something too. I should've stopped by more often.

I had already been too responsible for my tastes that day. I had gone to one class. Luckily, there was just enough time in between classes for me to get some bourbon. It burned the way I like it and it went down smooth. A kid can't ask for more than that. The day was perfect again. It would be nice to walk up to the school, I thought. And this class isn't one I liked to miss. That Prof had established how serious he was about attendance. He'd give you more than just momentary glare - he might actually politely ask you to show up. That's worse.

It was only a few steps later that the alcohol smoothed over a bit more and the memory hit me.

It rained more that summer than any other. I thought I would hate it, but my bed was near the window and the pitter-patter was a simple enough song to ease you into sleep. Dad was still in Iraq. I hadn't seen Mom in weeks after she dropped me off here. I was too incompetent to convince her otherwise. I had called in anticipation for the day when she would come pick me up so I could leave this place. By now, she had to have been feeling better. Well enough for me to come home, certainly. Here, they only let you use the phone for a little while and at specific times. Each time after dinner I would call her but it went straight to voicemail. I didn't panic, because that's not what Dad would do. But I was starting to get concerned when someone walked up to me one day.

"We've had people like you here before," he said.

I looked up but I didn't say anything.

"Some kids keep to themselves. Some fight. Some write. Some get religion," he shrugged, but not dismissively. Maybe he had seen that journal of mine, he certainly had seen my Bible that I had brought with me. "It doesn't matter much. They all come and go." And then he walked off.

He was saying that nothing changes. That it doesn't matter what you do. That I...

It was bizarre. That happened a long time ago. It's a useless memory. It doesn't have anything to do with today or tomorrow or any day to come afterward. It doesn't mean anything. I shouldn't be remembering it right now. But it was there, like a flash in the pan of my mind. It blazed for an instant, but just long enough.

Why would I remember that? It's because you're almost drunk. You get all nostalgic and sentimental when you're drunk. Your minds like a bunch of colored marbles scattered on the floor. You just stepped on one and fell. Shake it off. Get to class. Nothing like that is going to happen again. You're old enough now to set stuff like that aside. Grow up and forget it.

This isn't what I wanted to write.

Laughter.

Tonight, I accomplished something.

Beer, I announced. Bourbon; sweet elixir of the Gods. Drink. Libations and celebration. I shook a few hands. I was granted a few congratulations. And even then, I think a part of me knew. It grew as I hopped outside on the steps. The thought became certain as I walked into the building, traversed the corridors, and started heading home as the night started to cool.

I don’t care. I don’t care about it at all. There was a time when I wanted it. It inspires nothing from me; no love and no dreams. It’s a quirky, ruffled feather in a cap. Black and dead.

I accomplished nothing. I still poured myself some bourbon when I got home but it tasted old and dead of flavor. It didn’t burn my tongue the way I like.

Woke up.

Drunk. Shifted around. What's that annoying sound? I'm sure it'll stop if I ignore it. It does. It's a rumble in my jacket pocket. My phone. It stops.

Sleep.

Damn it. I said I wasn't going to miss any classes anymore. I've got to get to my car. Get my computer so I can actually type some stuff up in class. But I wait. Five more minutes. Then another few. Take a shower. Get something to drink.

Alright.

Okay.

So what do we have to do?

Can we make it to class? We're going to make it to class. We have to make it to class. My phone's dead now. Should have started charging it when I woke up for the first time. No reason to worry about what we forgot to do before. Dad wouldn't. Remember what he always says: Focus on things you can do. What are we going to do now?

...

Something starts forming in my mind. Red and murky. Wait. Where is my car? It's not outside, is it? Damn it. My car's back at the restaurant. I have to walk. The time it would take...can I take care of [the other stuff] and get back to class. Let's...not worry about that. We'll get the car and if we walk fast we can make it.

And it's a nice walk. I realize, mid-way through, that I forgot to get something to eat.

...

Okay, five minutes until class starts. Should we just drive up there? Or walk? We'll be late either way. That's fine. It's fine. We just have to show up. We already missed one class today. We missed this one yesterday. We can't miss two classes when it meets three days a week. No. We're going.

And the second I see him outside, I know that's not true. He asks if I'm headed to class. Not really, I say. Hey, do you have anything to drink?

And we have a grand old time talking and drinking. Politics and such. Want one for the road? Yes, I say. Heck yes, my mind says. I drink it on the way to the school. And it's just such a perfect day. So perfect. The wind turns the leaves into chimes. And it's nice and not just become I'm drunk. And the flowers. And the heat. There are more perfect days here than there are back home.

And I sit in class. And listen to everyone. And as the buzz starts to erode, I start to get the sense what a fool I am.

Maine.

Even on a perfect day like this that thought worms its way in.

I remember pondering it last semester when I woke up hungover at someone else's place. I wrote about it here, if I have the gall to call anything I do here 'writing'. My shoes clamped on the wooden floor as I shifted off the couch, my head only slightly buzzed. No one else was up yet. Every time I wake up there no one else seems to be up yet and if they are they just keep to themselves. It's just as swell, given the circumstances. I grope the place for a red solo cup. I search for the clean ones first - start grabbing the used ones once I start getting a little ornery about it. Find the keg - it's never tapped out - and grab myself some brew. Turned on the television. And there was Senator Blaine. They were touring the Governor's Mansion. There's his picture, that long beard with hair that seemed like black tendrils they're so wild and that dour Northern face. And on the other side there's me; the drunk, piece of shit law student watching C-SPAN as he nurses a tiny fly of a hangover. And seeing them discuss him. That Half-Breed Republican. Seeing that started getting me to think...

I always ask people from other places whether I should visit. The folks from New Jersey tend to be ambivalent or noncommital - they're the most interesting folks to ask I think. No other state seems to inspire folks to lean on self-deprecation in their description to the same degree. Other folks talk about places I never would have thought of visiting before I left home. Ohio. Nebraska. Wisconsin. Conneticut. The Wisconsin folks seem just as chipper as the people back home - I suspect if I go there, I'd find them to be a good sort.

There's one gal from Maine here. I met her over some casual drinks, if memory serves. A Yale gal. She was the first person from Maine I ever met, so I put her in my pocket immediately so I could remember her. So, we all talk and such. There's some discussion about her major (History? No, that was a friend's major that she mentioned...) and whether we can trust regular folks to make the right decisions (Beat. "People there don't have much trust in regular people," she says in a way that makes me believe she feels the same way they do. Of course she feels that way. She went to Yale).

But there's something more important than common tropes of elitism and that trademarked East Coast snobbery. I need to know. Should I visit Maine?

No. "It's just old people and snow," she says with casual, rather than sharp disdain. I get the sense that it's the sin of boredom more than anything else that should keep me away.

...

Hey. What kind of place do you think Maine is? It's not like home. It would be cold there. I hate the cold more than anything. I like the heat. On warm, perfect days like this you can wear a jacket and feel the slight stickiness forming on your skin underneath. The sun kissing a side of your face. It's like an embrace. There's something...nice about it.

But couldn't I go there? If I wanted to? And the thing has a delightful sort of madness to it, but not enough to make me feel concerned. How long would it take to get there? If we started driving now...no, no, no, why drive? What are government loans for? Let's get a plane ticket. Let's go. There's something missing here. No matter what I do or how many friends I have. There's always the feeling that there's a hole somewhere. Those moments when you just stop thinking and you know that your not moving forward. Not really. And if you could do something, go somewhere that could change that - make you feel like what your doing matters. Instead of just being here.


Stop being childish. We're not going to Maine.

Rita Dove got an award today.

Is it weird that I still remember those LSAT RC passages as well as I do? Before you know it I'll start seeing mauve dinosuars and try organizing them in patterns...dumb logic games...

Mountains upon Mountains

I feel terrible. I look terrible. And this room. With its scattered, half-empty boxes and broken glass on top of a whole. Its black bags and wrinkled suits. Its thin paths of carpet flanked by shirts and socks. It all looks terrible. And then there’s this bed. With me in it. My head pressed upon this pillow and my mouth slightly agape. This scratchy throat. And this sensation I get when I close my eyes. Like I’m moving without moving. The hammers above and the music pounding in the other room seem to build upon each other. And this phrase shakes itself off of the refuse – mountains upon mountains. Like mountains upon mountains.

The sunlight streams in on the other side of the wall. I can see that orange juice I bought last night within arm’s length. Half gone. And the backside of a meager collection of bourbon I haven’t touched for too long. And there’s that page hung by two blue tacks above the sink. Nine words written in the restless emptiness of a September night and tacked to the wall with dutiful thoughts more than pride. It was the first semester of law school then. It seems like it was so long ago.

They say law school moves fast. That’s not a lie, you know. It moves faster than you’d ever believe. Time’s a river and all that. September is the best time here. I like the Fall here more than back home. The leaves turn this magnificent color before dying. Before I go back home, I’m going to take a picture of it. Dad always said I needed to take more pictures.

That first September. You still don’t know anyone. Not really. The thrill of the people. The…thaumazein of the law. It’s still there. The wonder of the place of the fact that you got here. It’s still there. All of you are still pioneers. People from different places that you’d never meet otherwise. You’re all put together on the same starting point. On the same track. And in September, in that one September that matters to all of you, you can barely hear the sound of the popgun going off above the chattering and the friendship building. Hammers upon nails and mountains upon mountains. Where do we go? Which ones do we climb? Which bridges should we build? Which ones should we cross? All those questions and all those doubts seemed silenced by the leaves tumbling downward.

My story ends well here. I’ll graduate. I’ll get a job. Maybe. I’ll have made more friends than I could have possibly believed. When I got here, I was lonely. When I graduated high school and my friends went elsewhere, I remember waiting at a stoplight and looking as the cars sped past. Isn’t that Adam? Isn’t that Steph? And then it would be gone. Just a streak of movement instantly forgotten. When I got here I felt that way too. I’d see someone in the distance, just far enough, just close enough. Is that Spencer? Is that Matt? And I knew already that it wasn’t. And we’d walk past. And I’d say hello. You do that enough times and you’ll find out about someone. I decided that I’d make enough friends here to make it close enough to being like home. And I succeeded. Now, I have the very best of friends. Those days when I’d come back from class and just stare off from the balcony, my mind rolling and wringing an invisible stone in its hand, wondering how I’d make along with these fellows and wondering always about my friends back home. Those days are gone.

So why? Why do I still feel like shit when I’m alone? Like something’s wrong. Like something’s missing. Do I want to go back home and help the people there? I can do that, if I want. Just as soon as I graduate. Do I want to go back to the country, where that old man and the old woman are from and help the people there? I can do that. I can do that now. And I can still drive off and see Mom and Dad sometimes if I want, if I live there. Maybe I want to go further. Do I want to go where Mom came from? Further north? In that small town of churches and farms? We can go there. We can help the folks there, if we want. With this damned degree, I'm going to get I can do all those things. And I have friends I care about. On paper (sans transcript), everything's fine. So why?

That September was before I knew about Dad's cancer. It was before the old woman died. It was before I saw the old man, with his smoke rising up forever. It was back when things seemed simple. When there was so much potential for things. When I could prove something to people, prove something to myself. I could do this. I could be the best person in that office.

Dad’s fine now. The old woman died and I wasn’t there. But she knew where I was going. Nowadays, it seems like she was more sure about me than I am of myself. But now, there’s nothing of any consequence here. I have a job this summer. The one I wanted. But does that prove anything? Did I just get lucky? Won’t I just screw it up? Is it going to be like being here – that splintered and soiled wheel I wrote about months ago – where I spin and spin and go nowhere? (And I have no right to complain or feel small, I know) It doesn’t matter what I do. Class is of no consequence. Grades are of no consequence. Nothing I do in any class has any bearing on what happens next. The whole portrait of purely academic life here seems drained of passion and color and then drowned in booze. Before I thought I was intellectually lazy or perhaps, and what a relief it would be, I was just stupid (at least then I could be comforted knowing I never could do this). But now I’m just intellectually dead. I just don't care. I’m not sure which is worse.

Some days I think of these things. Most days I don’t. I just go from class to class. I greet my friends and I go on. One of the days I thought like this was the day I met Bill Watterson for the first time. I grabbed that piece of paper and placed it in my bag. Later. I thought. I asked some people who Watterson is and told them how I found this. I should find out who accidentally left this and return it to them. But I don’t know who to give it to. So it sits there. I don’t have time to read the thing. Same way I didn’t have time to sit down and beat this cold when I felt it coming on. I had other things to do. I wanted to feel like I had run myself ragged. Just the way I like it. And carpetbomb this place with promises that I won’t keep.

Like the promise to write. Which means a promise to write terribly. To write useless things that mean nothing. If this cold hadn’t caught up with me, gotten me to skip class and rest I still would be avoiding this. But it caught me. But now...I think I’m going to rest for a bit.

...

A healing wind on a parched mind.

When Allen Ginsberg went to London that's what they called his poetry. A healing breeze, carrying moisture to the cracked, dusty minds on the other side.

I think that's what being back home does to me. For a time.

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[Seriously though, get the ball rolling on this next semester.]

...[Oh, for crying out loud. That's enough of that. We've got to be cooler than this.]...

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