Getting Used to Life Without Linda

{The opening chapter to a novel I would later complete, and then burn the manuscript of, because college. Shortly after I would write this chapter in a small, red moleskin notebook in some dark Long Island basement, I would receive a call telling me my grandmother had died. For those wondering, it wasn't a terribly good novel.}

“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

    My eyes flew frenetic around the room. Had I no sense of decency? I mean, am I being perverse? Am I committing some sort of social faux pas? Am I a cuddle voyeur, as it were? I mean, I am just sitting here, staring. It is quite the awkward position. But, fuck, this house is empty. The scene: They lay together on the bed, I alone in the chair, the room chilled with the kind of morning “How did I get here?”s are made of. I could get up and leave. I should get up and leave. But then it’ll be obvious I’m upset, and why give that away? She’ll just come in with the “There’s no reason for you to act this way…” yipping away like a dog, rabid, it’s communicable infection: guilt.

    When I woke, I scoured the room from the comfort of whatever ice cold, rock hard surface I had passed out on. Woke up, the room was bare, “he couldn’t see her anywhere” as Dylan put it. Funny how that album keeps popping up in life (I’ll get to that in a bit). I was hoping to see her, I don’t know, asleep in a chair; or fixing her hair in a mirror; or curled up in my lap. (Preposterous, yes, but if you knew her, you’d know all three of those were.) But I expected, logically, to awaken to him splayed out across the bed, and she platonically bundled in blankets inches apart from him.

    But instead, I rose to see him alone on the bed, in the fetal position, his arm wrapped around his…wait a minute, I realized, he’s not in the fetal position at all. That’s HER his arm’s around. He’s HOLDING her. The bastard! The swine! My emotions jumped seemingly with every blink. I was angry, furious in fact, sad, complacent, reflective, melancholy, exasperated, jealous, and staggeringly ill. In the course of the night I had consumed 2 beers, 18 oz. of whiskey, a swig of rum, two cups of vodka, a shot of whatever was handed to me, what accumulated to approximately $10 worth of grass, a Xanax, some coleslaw, a cheeseburger, and a small coke. Personally, I blame the cheeseburger for all my symptoms.

    I glared at the bed. The scene of the crime. Not necessarily a crime of ‘passion’, per say, but one of…well…mutual…affection…ok, regardless, I was pissed. I should have known better. A girl and two of her ex’s alone in a house for a night? I knew one of us would become the proverbial third wheel. But I thought it would be like a tricycle, or one of those Big Wheels you had as a kid, you know, with all the Batman stickers, and the front wheel’s plastic traction all worn down so you couldn’t even ride the fucker on blacktop? I thought we’d be like that. And in a way we were, in the sense that, much like the tread-less, plastic-wheeled transport, what started out kinda fun had overstayed it’s welcome in the realm of boredom alleviation.

    I mean, come on, man, we shared moments today. We smoked together, we drank together, drove together, even talked music. Talked music, sir! I believe, in California, there’s a state law that says once such a bond has been established, it is a felony for a person in your position to perform any acts of affection upon my ex. Of course, despite it’s legal grounding, I would never raise my qualm, as he could, if he were a sharp strategic mind, counter with the stellar defense of “I was here before you.”, as chronologically he predates me in terms of romantic interest. I believe the California Justice System has established statutes for these situations.

    So I remain silent, burying my clenched fists in the pockets of my leather pants. (We’ll return to that later.) Forced to sit, watching him unconsciously cradle her handsome form, ever rising and sinking softly, wisps of air slipping through the slit in her serenely pursed lips. Surely, though, I accept that my misfortune is my own fault. With some effort, or even merely some simple submission, the scene I had awoken to could have been vastly different. I could be caressing her; we could be lying, disrobed, sharing our bodies in the simplest of ways; she could be fixing her hair in the mirror; (I keep going back to that idea. Why?) There are a million other variations coursing through my head even as I’m writing.

    But this way, in the long run, will be the more rewarding path. This is the path I consciously followed. Because tonight, 5 hours prior, I officially ended my relationship with Linda Barnes.

Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King by Dave Matthews Band

{Originally published in the C.W. Post Pioneer, the following was my contribution to an article about the best music of 2009}

Big Whiskey And The Groogrux King by Dave Matthews Band

While I want to give credit to Green Day’s highly underrated 21^st Century Breakdown (Yeah, I know, the cool, hip kids all say “I only like old Green Day”. Well, you all knew the words to American Idiot, so f*ck you), I have to admit that the best album of the year has to be Big Whiskey. This great collection of songs, with that vintage Dave Matthews sound, begins and ends with sax solos from the late LeRoi Moore, who was a founding member of the band. His tragic death, while in mid -production of the album, not only inspired them to name the album in his honor (Groogrux being, among other things, a nickname of Moore’s), but to write some of the more somber tracks on the album. Songs like “Lying In The Hands Of God” and the final track “You & Me” are filled with a mournful tone befitting a band in grief, the incredibly upbeat “Why I Am” seems to be a lyrical thank you to Moore, and a musical memorial for such a talent. Certainly, “Shake Me Like A Monkey”, their most James Brown-esque track to date, didn’t receive the airplay of “Single Ladies” or “Poker Face”, but it’s much less insipid, and I’m sure will better stand the test of time.