High Five Soul Mate

My High-Five Soul Mate I didn't give a fuck. My beard was wild and fell into the definition of unkempt. I just worked my sweaty, sweaty balls off for 8 hours pedicabbing people around in a sticky warm June Saturday evening. Finally the shift drew to a close and I though perhaps I'd find a last pedicabber at the old meeting spot on Trinity St. So I took my cab over and parked for a minute, and hoped someone might roll by. Just a minute or two later, a girl walks south towards me in a composed stagger, the one that tells you that for all the alcohol intake, the person is put together. I found this approaching woman to be stunning, and still at work, I proceeded to do my job: Talk to her. I started in with the old standby. "Hey! You want a ride?" Well it did what it needed to, she looked at me. "No thanks, I need a cab," she regretfully informed me. "I can take you to a cab," I mentioned with a giant grin on my face. "It's OK, I'll just get one myself," she shied. The moment of magnetism had commenced. I made my final mirthful pitch. "It's cool, you know what? I'll just take you to one for free. It's late, I had a good night. I'll make sure you get one safely. I know where they are all empty." She laughed a little and took that indicating first step towards me that let me know I won the point. "I don't know why I am doing this, but your BEARD is telling me to."

A Letter to my Favorite Beer Company

Subject: Let Me Tell You A Story


Greetings Bjorn,
The outset of this letter will be formal, but by the end, I hope
we can start emailing each other in such a way that our greetings are,
"Yo bud," or "Hey dude." So hey. I'm Dan, I'm 29 for now, and I'd
like to tell you how I discovered my favorite beer in the world.
I studied theater at Boston College and ended up sticking around
the Boston area for several years beyond my graduation in 2005, and
had scored a job as an actor for an educational theater company. We
traveled a bunch, and as my family has roots in Wisconsin, I delighted
in the chance to get paid for a gig in the midwest. I also realized
that it fell in a different distribution zone. My taste for beer had
matured and tended towards stronger flavors and also yearned to sample
every new thing I could get my hands on. On my first night there in
Appleton, I found a store that had a wall of singles and squealed.
I'm a man, and I squealed. I didn't really, that's a joke. I picked
out a bunch of stuff I had never tried and knocked them out two at a
time over the next few days-I couldn't really go crazy, I did have to
educate adolescent students early in the morning about how not to
bully each other, and I didn't want to undermine my credibility by
beating myself up.
The time came to leave that state which I am fond of, and I had
two beers remaining. Some interesting tea-infused beer, and a Big Sky
IPA. The dilemma was this: I couldn't drink them before the show
(nor did I want to), I would be prohibited from bringing them on the
plane as a carry on, and I couldn't check my bag; we just didn't have
enough time between the gig and boarding for the bag to make it on the
plane, and the bottles might break in transit. I looked at the open
hotel refrigerator in dismay. What to do with these beers? I stored
them in my backpack and decided to figure it out later.
I arrived at the airport and had a revelation. I walked directly
to the bar, ordered some cheese curds, my last Leinenkugel's Red for
what I anticipated to be a long stretch, and said to the bartender,
"I'll be right back." I proceeded to march to the airport bathroom
with my backpack. It was in the stall of this small Appleton, WI
airport bathroom that my tastebuds were appalled at having never
tasted a beer this good before. I nearly moaned in that men's
bathroom as if something more provocative was transpiring. Nope, just
a guy having the best beer he's ever had. I finished it, albeit too
quickly and under duress of time, to return to my awaiting order of
melty cheese.
I may sound crazy, Bjorn, 'ol buddy, but I dejectedly searched
for this beer all up and down the East Coast to no avail. Even when I
began to travel the country, I could not mask my disappointment in the
absence of Big Sky anything in Florida's craft beer specialists "Total
Wine and Spirits." I pleaded for an ex of mine to bring me back some
Big Sky IPA from her trip to Wisconsin. She brought Moose Drool, at
the cost of three broken bottles in her own baggage, a heroic, though
misinformed effort that inadvertently introduced me to the depth of
Big Sky's capability as a brewery. Visiting Chicago, I duped the USPS
into believing that a case of your delicious IPA was, in fact, craft
olive oil that I desired to send to my "friend" in Boston. All
arrived safely, and my discerning father met it well when we shared
some for his birthday. I made a pest of myself in requesting west
coast friends to ship some to me from Beverages and More (Bevmo) and
searched high and low for a reasonable shipping price of this, my
liquid gold. I wrote a comedy sketch about discovering a beer in an
airport bathroom. When I finally took a road trip to move out of
Boston to Los Angeles, I decided that I should first drive to Missoula
from Austin, TX, in order to visit your brewery. I departed firmly
believing that everything you guys produce is GOLD. Not to mention
the many compliments I've received on the hoodie I bought there.
Props to your graphic designer.
Friendo, this obsession may seem unhealthy, but I ended up living
in California where the ability to regularly purchase this and other
fine Big Sky brews led me to firmly realize that my sensibilities do
not tire of this beer, or others by Big Sky (I'm loving the Slow Elk).
Before moving back to Austin, I picked up a case of Big Sky IPA
before I drove all my worldly possessions back to Texas, abandoning a
new microwave in its stead, only to find out that I could now purchase
Big Sky IPA there, and in some interesting gas stations as well. Win.
This brings me to a chance encounter I had the other day at a
tasting with a representative for New Belgium, a fine brewery indeed.
He told me about how he wanted to work for New Belgium so badly and
applied and fate of all fortune, got the job. I want to be your
representative. Here in Austin/San Antonio/Houston/Dallas, or in Los
Angeles, or in San Francisco. Seriously, I'd be flexible for this
job. I have gainful employment as of now, (I drive a pedicab and own
another that I rent) but I am very passionate about your beer and my
most valuable skill is in sales, and bringing people to my point of
view. Nearly all of my work experience has sharpened that skill.
It's certainly an interesting path I've taken, but beer has been with
me all the way, and I know I can introduce people to Big Sky brews
with great success, and grow the excellent brand that I
whole-heartedly believe in.
I hope to hear from you soon, Bjorn.

Sincerely,
Dan Kerrigan
617 571 5452

PS: I've attached that sketch for the heck of it, and a few photos I
just snapped while I wrote this email. Also my resume is slightly
relevant.

Regarding My Layover In Atlanta

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport and I actually switched terminals just to get Starbucks cuz fuck Seattle's Best, amiright? So I'm on the fucking gimp tram and this lady in a wheelchair is coming off and the guy pushing her has not done this enough in his life yet where he can forsee re problem of the fattie in the stroller not easily overcoming the gap between the concourse and the train. So this takes a crucial 15 seconds of door is open time and there's like 12 people waiting to enter this door. The lady finally dislodges and somebody tries to enter but the door is closing now. And it is one of those death doors that has cut people in half, there is half a body back in terminal E, in fact, this is a tram full of only lower bodies. So these are Southern folk, they are freaking out and in a large party, so when after much panic, the door decides not to crush one victim and opens, people begin to file in, myself included, like this door is gonna give us all the time in the world, but no. It begins to close again and in an effort to be a gentleman, I put my arm at risk and make the door think it has taken another life. It opens, and the process begins again, and it closes and I'm not about to hold up the whole fucking airport for these four whimsy dipshit ladies so I let it close as one of their friends is stranded outside, left in a terminal ago, and the ladies are distressed. I wave goodbye to the woman as we depart and one of the fatter women tips towards me when the tram goes forward. She apologizes and I tell her "you had to have seen that coming with the way the door tried to close twice." The very attractive
blond doesn't like this even though I've already risked limb for these cunts, so the next 30 seconds of travel are awkward until the automated voice tells us we're arriving at the fucking terminal we all could have walked to if only we weren't so fat and retarded. I point in the forward direction of the tram and tell the woman with balance issues, "You're going to go that way now." The blond scowls, the heiffer chuckles with embarrassment, and then stumbles forward, because she's stupid and didn't listen to me or really likes me and wants me to be right. The door opens and I tell the blonde, "You ladies have a wonderful day," to which, as a Southerner, she begrudgingly responds, "Thanks."

Hahaha LAYOVAS! Amiright?

De LA Soul

Days 99-100

I claimed my bag (for Spain) and sat outside the terminal in weather that I wanted to be more hospitable in the shade. I garnered solicitation from a gentleman and lady to help them with some charity and all I could think about was drinking a beer. This is a wonderful society. I sported a plastic bag with half a chopped beef sandwich from Saltlick Barbeque in the Austin airport as I trounced up and down the terminal's exterior cement in hopes that I could find a cheap ride to Santa Monica, only 10-13 miles up the street, a short ride by Los Angeles standards. I planned to meet Mr. Shepard for drinks over there since I intended to sleep on his living room furniture. I haggled with the Super Shuttle guy on time of departure, distance, and cost, and proceeded to speak with cab drivers who quoted me at $40 to go up the street. Damn, son! I fretted for my wallet and put the 5 hours old sandwich in my gullet, and then the gentleman who solicited my earlier came over to rest and we had a little chat. I revealed that I was eating imported barbecue and he flashed a friendly jealousy. We talked about cabs and shuttles and he gave me the peace of mind about the workings of LA cabs and shuttles I needed to just eat the $30 like a sandwich.

I arrived in Santa Monica and apparently, you're supposed to inform your driver that you'll be using debit or credit before you even take the ride, and so pulling my debit card out, the guy complained and made a big deal about it and some stranger was about to pay cash for my ride, I guess to give me the ultimate guilt trip about not knowing the rules of how to take an expensive cab ride in LA. I shooed him away and we worked the debit out, of course, because who doesn't take debit these days? Even I take debit!

Shep and I took the usual "occasionally I'm in town and we can catch up" drinks, and it got a little sloppy. We ended up at a bar called Maeve's Residuals, a purported Red Sox bar in the Valley where there are 24 oz cans of PBR, the likes of which I hadn't seen served in an establishment since Savannah, GA, a place where "Get Crushingly Drunk" is one of two options listed under the "Activities" section of the "Welcome to Historic Savannah" pamphlet, the other being "Wake Up Smelling Like Cigarette Smoke". They even invented a whole new adverb in crushingly to describe what kind of drunk is required of you there. And so, in LA, it is once again an option, not because there i nothing to do, but because it is the only way to gain access to your feelings, since I imagine they've been castrated of the ability to interact with others.

Allow me to elaborate, because as much fun as I had with Adam, we do always have a good time, the experience I had in LA was one that seemed to warn me more than ever before of what I planned to do here. It is my final destination, you know. Beyond your friends, the interactions are stunningly superficial, in a way where you can't be upset that you went through the decorum of being polite, whether your effort is genuine or not, but you can smell the rat of their falsity in polite response as you watch them go through the details of a "You're welcome" or holding a door open for you, or politely listening to whatever you have to say, only to wait for a window to interject the non-stop stream of bullshit they are about to vomit into the aural space around you. Great, you've found work as a stunt actor, that doesn't make you a hero, and it sure isn't making you a friend, I thought we were going to trade stories and joke around, but instead you wanted to talk as much as possible to strongarm me out of an unassuming conversation so you could aggressively hit on this girl who is in some non-sensical way, out of your league. There's friendly, and fake friendly, and the possibility exists for you to get one or the other at any time, and the inconsistency is what disappoints. In Boston, I can deal with every person being unwilling to smile back at my stupid grinning mug, since every person is suffering the personality disorder of the northeast. Even so, your friends are all willing participants, and the sincerity of people is a hard bottom line that I can appreciate. Flakes are everywhere, so let's except these circumstances momentarily as I say that in South Florida, people are slow and deliberate and Miami Beach is cold but direct, in a New york City kind of way with a slower pace. In Austin, and even other parts of Texas, warmth is prevalent, truth is regarded, openness and trust between people is preferred, and it's been there that I have felt most justly dealt with in everyday person to person interactions, on all levels. Whew.

I did get the chance to meet up with Debi, who I met in New Orleans, saw and hung out with in Austin, and now she lives in LA. We had drinks at Maeve's residuals since I'm basically right there, watch the Red Sox, and started talking about how I'll arrive in August and it might be a good idea to get an apartment together. I will need roommates and the situation seems ideal, but I trepidatiously enter this verbal agreement since I don't know what I'll be doing for work, or how much capital I'll be starting with. The good news is, I always have places to retreat to, and so, fearlessly into the future, knowing the past trails you until you sever yourself from it. We grab some In 'N Out, and she puts me at Jennie's place to congregate with the intention of seeing the Dodgers first night game of the season, and I do still love me some Manny Ramirez, what a clown.

So my frustration with LA and the fear of dealing with it all is getting to me, and I don't blame myself, though you certainly can choose and comment whether I should or not, I'll entertain all manner of discussions on the subject. This said, I went to the Dodgers game with my best girl-friend in California, Jennie and her husband Orrin and Jenn's sister Lisa. Jennie told me once that Lisa was in Boston and I regretfully had to work and couldn't find the time to meet up with her. In the early post game, I pedaled down Ipswitch to return to Fenway, and I saw two girls walking East. I stopped of course, interested in avoiding the lineups down by the park and leaned on these girls for a ride pretty damned hard. Finally I told them to "just get in," and they did. I began to take them down to Copley Square, and one of the girls on the back says, "My sister's friend does this."
"Oh yeah? What's his name, I probably know him," I reply, since I have seen at that point five seasons worth of drivers.
"Dan," she says.
I turned around and looked at her as the tricycle continued forward. "I'm Dan."
"Jenn's my sister," she said, trying the key in the lock.
Unlocked, "Lisa?"
"Oh my God!"

I randomly gave her sister a pedicab ride. And so, facebook friends thenceforward, we chatted for months until I finally saw her again for the Dodger game. It was a boring game, despite it's back and forth nature, and I have a hard time getting down with fans of other allegiances, I suppose the same way Muslims and Jews don't get along, without rationale for a disagreement, a false construct meant to absorb money or create power being the divide between both of us. I didn't like the Dodgers fans being so vehement in their desire to call the Diamondbacks/D-backs, the D-Bags. recently I discovered a distaste for LA Lakers fans as well. I can't believe anyone would be a fan of the Angels or the Tampa Bay Rays. Let's not get started on the Yankees and their organization. So after a lengthy seven innings, we did all take a trip down to the Short Stop, a dim tavern where I planned to have a few other friends come by and catch me there while I had my hot minute in LA. I caught longtime buddy Laurence, met his girlfriend, and sat down for a chat with old high school friend Dave, who I really hadn't spoken with since my freshman year of college. I had a bad taste in my mouth for how things went in high school, and so distanced myself from most of the people I associated with the period, but Facebook reunites people, people. I've spoken with a lot of folks that have gone completely out of memory. That site is like a pipecleaner for the folds of your friend memory, brush off the residue, they are still alive, and you might be interested to know... Dave and I caught up on all the people we used to know, the good and the sad, the surprises, the most expected failures, a check in on ourselves as well. I met his friends, and they struck me as very LA, but more genuinely friendly since a connection bound us to the same table. I was very happy Dave and I sat down together.

Jennie, Orrin, and Lisa left, so I brought my luggage into the bar, then back out to take a short cab to Koreatown and party for a bit with Mr. Kyle Graham. If there is any solid reason for me to move to LA, it is to work with this animal. He's so quick and sharp, studies improv, has begun submerging himself in work, and I think we'll be excellent mutual motivators to succeed. We always played well off of each other, and the potential for raw eruptions of laughter are always available when we begin a conversational structure. We met, embraced, and I dropped my stuff at his place before we ducked in through the kitchen entrance to a closed pub that had about 15 folks partying. Here lied the pocket of genuine people I needed to see to assuage my fears about being in the driving and traffic capital of the world. One of Kyle's friends, a fellow Irish identifier, refused to let me take it easy, a peer pressure I did enjoy as whiskey flowed down the hatch to excess, despite the fact that I had to catch a Super Shuttle to the airport the next morning between 8:25am and 8:35am, as stated by the website. We burned it late, and I didn't fight too hard since I only really had to awaken, exit, and sit down in different places for hours on end. A voiceover job cookie for a videogame got dangled in front of me to tempt me more into the relocation, stirring the old sauce about getting paid to do what I like to do again, awakening the very idea for the trip again. It swirls around again, and like a bundle of cables, it carries the power with all the other desires of different colors powering the body to do what it wants. Which one is the ground?

I sat with my eyes half opened and rolled up in the Super Shuttle, teetering between other shuttle customers, probably reeking of the Powers whiskey, the stuff that replaced my blood when I stumbled through Ireland, drank water at the airport Dunkin' Donuts, ate greasy hash browns, and took my window seat on my Virgin America airbus, only to lean against the view of the sky and sleep for 75% of that flight. Back to Boston, again. 80's night tonight. Check out my mouth, Doc, how's it doin? Good? Great, I'm just gonna go pick up $5,500 real quick and go back to Texas. 20 Red Sox games in 27 days, and a visit home in the middle. Jeremy said it best when he said, "He's not making a clean break." It's true, the roots are still there, the draw is there, but the lust for more is the cloud that follows me around these days, and it's about to precipitate.

Statistics:

$66 on transportation services
$10 for LA dodgers ticket
75 minutes or so that this guy just kept fucking talking about himself
215 minutes of sleep before my flight
9 years since I saw Dave Ross
13 innings of baseball, 6 of which we skipped out on. The Dodgers lost anyway.
5.5 hours from LA to Boston.

Drinks from...

Day 100

569 Black and Tan (with Harp) @Maeve's Residuals
570 Black and Tan (with Smithwicks)
571 Black and Tan (Smithwicks)
572 Sierra Nevada
573 Chimay White @Short Stop
574 Chimay White
575 PBR
576 Natural Ice @"Speakeasy"
577 Shiner Bock!! In Cali!!
578 Shot of Powers
579 Shot of Powers
580 Miller Genuine Draft
581 Miller Genuine Draft
582 Shot of Powers

Next: The couchsurfing marathon pedicab project begins, and the maintenance of all things Texas grows tenuous...

The Third Wheel

Days 101-129

Sometimes I feel like I'm writing just to destroy an entire year. Maybe not, but that's what I fear when I write about the people I'm close to. Will I hurt anybody by writing this? Maybe. While extremely high for the first time in a great stretch of time, and off of only one hit (and I can get a witness), I idiotically tried to edit one of my recent posts, and I endured an extended moment of great self-consciousness and concern, as is often the case when you smoke the marijuana. It is a substance that can provide great perspective, if not sometimes the wrong perspective, but I felt concerned for my friendships and the way people will see me after I reveal the truths in my point of view and the awareness that perhaps I'm just an asshole. I asked my roommate Nick about it, and his stock answer of, "It's good man, just keep doin' what you're doin'," soothed the doubts. So I will, because it is, in my comprehensively dwelled upon opinion, more interesting that way, and those of my friends who love me for who I am will forgive me for my faults, they should know that I cherish them and mean no harm, and operate with the understanding that my actions are mine and I will be responsible for them. Thereby, I am prepared for the pain of any severances I incur through my bluntness, but not entirely prepared since I'm kind of an emo bitch. I'll miss you :-(

I touched down in Boston and felt extremely well rested, my direct flight a respite from all the extensive flight changes of the typical frugal flying that I choose. Silver line, to green line, to Shea's place. Shea had offered me her bed for a stretch of time stating she could sleep with her boyfriend, and only laid down the no sex, jacking off, or eating in her bed rules, which I can totally abide by-I mean when do I ever eat in bed? I thought to myself in a flash, "I'm back in Boston, it's nearly impossible for me to get laid here anyway, I'll have to go out on like a million dates for that to happen," and replied, "OK." I had my suitcase full of clothing, my helmet, and some cold gear for any of those shitty, rainy Red Sox shifts that I anticipated, and got. It was a Thursday and so before even thinking about the stretch of work ahead of me, and all the revolutions I would make on a tricycle, I had to hit up that old 80's night at Common Ground. This is place I've loved, hated, and been kicked out of. I've met girls here that I've dated for months, or weeks, or once. It's been a wealth of drama and enjoyment, a go to for friends on Thursdays for "the cheese," which implies cheesy 80's music. In fact, Elaine, who I'll meet in Salt Lake City to continue up to Portland with is a girl I met at Common Ground for 80's night. One of my more interesting dating sagas developed out of this place with a girl named Tammy. She approached me for our first encounter, the neon on my torso a beacon to which she guided herself, or maybe it was pheremonal, because I smelled like a bag of sweaty assholes, and she asked a rookie pedicabber and me why we didn't wear helmets. Conversation, dancing, then numbers. We had this slow flirtatious boiling that couldn't quite work, our work schedules being almost entirely incompatible. I went out of my way on a shift to give her a ride around the block while she stepped out from beers with her coworkers, just to give her a little thrill. I asked her to the Pedicab Formal last year, and she was a bit distracted as a date with work issues, she being a busy economist fused to a blackberry, and I having honestly blacked out about two thirds through on my empty stomach, the sustenance that our host, The Beehive, offered being insufficient to lay a blanket over alcohol over and expect to remember your friend's three dates' names that night or the next day. I have been told that I kept it together, classy Kerrigan. I know I walked her all the way back to the Pru since she needed to go back to work that night, and gave her a proper gentleman's goodbye. We only chilled again when one night we saw each other at Common Ground. She ended up wasted, her friends had left, and there was no way in hell I was watching her get on a bicycle to ride 5 hilly, train tack laden miles back to Jamaica Plain. We walked the mile back to my place, and I put her to sleep on the couch, and I went upstairs to my bed. It wasn't until the next morning after serving her breakfast, and laughing with her at this story about getting stuck with way too many frozen waffles, the funniest story she ever told me, that something happened. It got very, very heavy for about ten minutes until my roommate opened his door and the process was completely startled. And in what could have been the "make" of a continued relationship, I progressively lost my punctuality for the shows I had to go perform at the Boston Children's Museum, my call time rapidly approaching. For all my sensitivity about her condition the night before, and the dotted history between us of good and interesting and weird encounters, I feel like I can break it all down into that final moment where I didn't ditch out on the kids and the $52 and the accountability to work just for a great moment between us, instead, parting ways on bikes nearly at my doorstep, kissing her goodbye, and like a bonehead, only giving her verbal directions to get back home and not riding with her to a more suitable point of departure, as easy as that would have been. I later saw her at another Allston area hipster dance night, one that had ensued after a comedy show I had done at the same venue. I was missing teeth from my November bike accident, and our conversation felt like we were talking about economics, not an area I can comfortably navigate with words, no less confidently with two teeth missing. Sometimes the universe likes to hand me serendipity, and/or closure. I didn't see or hear from her again until I randomly saw her pedicabbing during this month of riding. She looked at me like I had two heads, back in Boston despite what she knew about my previous departure, me with a four month deep, fierce beard, on a tricycle with two huge passengers. And there I was, back in the spawning point of this story and many others, with my good friend Shea, drinking beers and dancing to the 80's. Welcome back to Boston, Kerrigan, don't let the old wares wear you out, don't let your ghosts haunt you.

The next day was straight to work. Ten games in a row begins on Friday, ends, then seven days later, ten more. I plan to ride all but one, and attend the one I don't ride for the Kyle Crand/Dan Kerrigan Annual All Day Bender. It's weird coming back after some travel and some big pedicab stories. The old welcome back, the big smiles, the hugs and once-overs of the people who have changed slightly since you last saw them. Ten pounds more or less, a haircut, or promotion later, good to see you, look at you, what's going on, how's it been? Now let me sign up for that tricycle. I have plenty to say on the topic of pedicabbing, as I think it might be clear from how long I've been involved in this profession, but for me this month went by like reruns of Futurama, I've seen 'em all, but I still love it, and I'm always finding new stuff inside each episode. I went to work, met the rookies, rode as hard as I could, talked my way into big tips, imparted a few words to new guys when it was appropriate, and perhaps even a few times it may not have been, and banked, banked, banked. I easily slipped back into the routine. Claw my eyelids up to my salty forehead, head into work, sign up for bike, get coffee after the most miserable 40 minutes of my life, make enough during pregame that I can foresee a happy ending to the evening, get back to the shop nearly last, go get beers, rinse, repeat, sometimes failing to rinse. The rookies are a new class, hired by the new general manager and my old roommate at 21 Bennett Street, Jeremy. They are hungry, a few natural schmoozers in the bunch, some of them making big time pedicab statements in the first Red Sox series, I'm talkin' like 700 or 800 bucks on opening day, something never done before. I'm back and I'm feeling competitive, the job always makes me that way, my primary function to hit my goals and go back to Texas and break even out of Texas to finish my trip, but inside me I wanna show everyone what's up. It's small and worth little, but my name precedes me a little bit for this small cup of pride, and so people know me before I get there and it's a shoe I have to step back into. I got scheduled for the first three games of the first ten game set, and then all the rest after being on-called in to the two I didn't originally get. The feeling of being at the doorway to ten days straight of intense pedicabbing is intimidating, a little overwhelming, but you do feel a bit like I imagine a baseball player would feel. Just take it one day at a time and don't hurt yourself. And this includes your, ahem, "performance" off the field. I'm just waiting for the day somebody emails the pedicab email list and tries to get a shift covered because they cramped up during some rough sex. No, it won't be me.

The first three games went rather smoothly, even though Sunday managed to be lazy and not quite as lucrative as I had hoped. It's better that way since I got to enjoy some beers with Mr. Keith Cardoza, a wife carrying champion with thighs like steel bridge cables, and he let me bully his mountain bike around for the month. I insisted on paying for the drinks, but think a lot of pedicabbers don't even want to consider favors as favors, it's kind of a brotherhood that way. It was nice to roll in the air again, as cold as it did get here and there, but mostly, it relieved me to not have to have the same conversation with cab drivers over and over and then pay them for it, and the ride home. If they are nice, I tell them I'm a pedicab driver and we talk about it, of course, and the same questions come up: How does it work, what do you make, where do you go, and all the other ones. It is always funny to hear a Haitian man skirt around the appropriate way to ask me how it goes when I take bigger people. Stock answer for everyone who wants to know: We just go slower. Keith gave me leave from this repetitive experience, and saved me about $15 nearly 15 times, about 15 trips to the Pour House as it goes with the hook up I occasionally see there, or plenty of PBR's at a dollar a pop in the shop.

I had already approached the thousand dollar mark for the homestand, but it was Marathon Monday that really set the tone for the pedicab tour de force. I thought I got up so early on Marathon Monday that I leisurely commuted to the shop, confident I'd obtain an acceptable bike, and underestimating the rookies and their drive to acquire the coveted Main Street bikes that are faster and more narrow for beating traffic. By the time I got in, they were all gone. I cursed my fate, a 14 hour day with an accompanying 60 extra pounds for its duration. Nuts. But I went to work. In past years, the big mistake I made in working the marathon was that I left Fenway and I swore to myself, after having worked three of them previously, that I would not make that mistake again. When I pedicab, I operate on an adaptive goal system. Tips can be low, or large, and one must always consider what is possible when aiming to earn a certain amount, and then when approaching that number, factor in how much time is left to earn the difference between what you have, and what you want, and check in with your body, and see if you need time to eat, or drink more water, or perhaps a round of ibuprofin is necessary. How long do I have to make a stop if I need to make $150 in the next 3 hours? How many rides at $20 do I need to make that happen? Just one of the next five rides has to be a tip up over $30. From here I put on a series of performances, physical and verbal to get what I need, but before any of that, you have to get people in the bike. And then sometimes I just don't think, because I don't even have time to, I just ride and balance my weight on the handlebars and just kick into the pedals for speed, and have a lot of familiar conversations with whoever is on the back, assuring them they shouldn't feel bad, even though I know they will anyway, and I'll play up the pain a little with a high pitched "Whew" after cresting a hill. I didn't start my day thinking I could do it, but by the end, I had record numbers for Boston on my mind.

I took only one trip into the heart of the Back Bay, where the marathon concluded in Copley Square. Just as I dropped a ride off on a marathon-route confused Newbury Street, two fellas up around 400 lbs each asked me if I could get them to the Westin in Copley Square. Where we were located at that moment was somewhere that on any other day would have been embarrassingly close to ask for a ride there, perhaps only 300 yards. The marathon cut any pedestrian traffic off to cross from one side of Boylston Street to the other as exhausted runners walked out their blisters, found the medical tents, ate chips, wore medals, and wrapped themselves in mylar to shine as fuckin' badass dudes all day and night long. So we took the ride. Every access point was closed and all we could do was go all the way down to Arlington Street and around the entirety of the Back Bay. I've got over 800 lbs of "deadweight" in my cab, plus the 200 of the cab, plus the 170 of me, and the fiberglass is flexing down to kiss the attached LED lights to the tire, and so I hear a grind and feel the friction for what ends up being 1.75 miles of slow going. I start up Columbus Ave and it's there that I see Tammy, sometime shortly after 5, giant men in tow, beard of an epic journey, sweating like a bastard, huge smile on my face, fake teeth filling up the gap. I bet her heart skipped a beat from the look she gave me, until she got a chance to break it down into derivatives or something like that. I got another ride up towards Fenway, and every ride after that was either to or from the park, always returning, tipping just a few kids off to the idea, scraping up rides until 1 am, exhausted as a marathoner, throwing my shoulders forward to push the weight over my leg to get gravity to force the pain into the cranks and get that Andrew Jackson paper. $1043, walked with $883. Let's ride another game tomorrow.

It's hard to write about most individual days, or individual games since when I pedicab in Boston, it becomes a routine that blends together in the same way I imagine any career blends together. Tell me about your month of work two months ago, would you? Oh, you can't really remember any specifics? Your boss exhibited some douchey qualities? You drank some coffee? You programmed html? Interesting, now something more specific, if you would. And you know what? They don't really matter, the details but they are what your day is built out of, so the also do. A lot of cruising around on a tricycle, jockeying for rides, talking people into your mobile couch. Lots of using the same lines to entertain different people. A lot of wearing neon green, tons of water, masses of food. The occasional attitude adjustment ice cream Snickers bar to make my inner fatboy happy and fun again. A lot of going to bars in a pack of neon, getting cred, cutting weekend lines with a smile and a nod, having people start the conversations with us, putting fast beers down before the bars close, leaving with that fading burn in your esophagus from a 10 oz pull from a giant mug that you have to leave a quarter of behind, while you are ushered in an sympathetic fashion from the bar by the door guy you are buddies with. A bit of that unstable bike mount, the beer entering or the shift finally leaving your legs, a tired football player kicking a pathetic penalty kick after 120 minutes of play, and scoring because the goalie guessed wrong and watched the ball roll across the line and stop short a meter from the net, never touching it. It's a liquid dream of progress and ruin for someone like me. A cycle I had to break, because I knew it could eat the rest of my healthy youth, and so in October of 2009, I impulsively booked the ticket to LA, thinking I'd score a vehicle there, and perhaps some satisfaction, but at least, warmth in the midst of friends.

The Saturday of Game 9 of the first 10, I cycled up Beacon Street towards Shea's place, and a guy behind me powered up the same hill along with me. The hill topping out, he caught up to me to mention that he enjoyed watching the cadence of my spins, I looked very motivated and serene in it from behind, and it gave him a sense of perspective and self recognizance that he, too, pedaled uphill in a similar fashion. Turns out he came from Austin. I said to him that it figured because people in Boston don't just talk to other people like that, not even in summer. We laughed off our commonalities and he invited me to a party that ebbed only blocks from Shea's place. I accepted, knowing it would be detrimental to my lazy Sunday performance of game 10, and perhaps hurt the standup show I had lined up two months prior for after the game, but hell, my heart was beating and hard, sleep wasn't close anyhow.

The next day, I kicked back with a few beers after finishing 10 games in a row, some brutal double shifts in the midst of it all, and feeling comfortable about the five beefy trips to the bank I made. I grew tired, but I needed to make myself energetically available for the show I had to perform. I just ran my mind through the iteration of "duplicate the last one" over and over. I biked fast to Central Square, a three mile zip over my favorite stretch of bikeable terrain, the astonishing view of the Mass Ave bridge, flying forwards, yet taking the dangerous seconds to crane my neck back at Boston and watch the skyline emerge in the darkening evening. Coffee, then a chat with the host, then beers as I scratched up my set list, expecting just to talk about the census and fire off another joke or two if I had time. I nearly missed my entrance. I walked back in as they were about to move on and ask me where the fuck I was? I hurried to my bag to grab the census vest, a center piece to a bit, and got in the light. Establishing stage presence, I took my time to organize the stage as I needed it to be for comfort. This process scored the first laugh, since I basically got on stage late and then proceeded to take my time as if it were no issue at all, then, the look up to recognize everyone I had to entertain. Another. Then, from calm organization, I poured out extreme energy. The first joke hit, that locomotive dragging the rest of the freight, the first laugh, the introductory energy picking up steam on a downhill stretch. My car, the census, whaling watching. There just wasn't enough time. Afterwards, Dana, the guy who taught me to love my standup, told me, "That was the best set I've ever seen you do." Humbled to hear it, I silently and proudly compared it to the one I did in Austin, and felt satisfied. Two in a row. It's hard to ignore a good thing like that, happening in two different cities. I burned that night down at old haunts, popped into the Model on the way to Shea's, and sat outside for a long drunken talk with Miranda before putting my head down to transport my life back home for a few days.

I missed my bus, but got the next one, and sat in traffic to New York City. It hurt me to feel that old slowness and squeeze the 2005-2006 educational year memories into my mouth. Taste the delay and feel the discomfort of your ass as you return to New York in traffic. Remember that you did it for a girl, and she thought you did it to pedicab. Recall that you are both better off apart, but sigh for the way she declined your friendship one year after the separation. Texting with Miranda and watching Richard Prior's standup made things better. He really tore into those white folks in Long Beach, and I watched him sweat so badly on stage, and thought, "Now this is a performance!" It seemed like 25% of it had been improvised, but all of it had the spirit of improvisation. His performances were possessed with himself on stage, deeply personal, unconscious always, done when he feels physically and mentally done. I internalized it and tried to bring it to the open mic in NYC, but only had 7 people left in the crowd for my performance, not a show I could read much into. Jay Lee attended, and had he stayed until the end, I would have made $45, enough to cover the several $7 Brooklyn Lagers I had been drinking and pay for my bus trip from Beantown, but he had to be some kind of working stiff and go personally train people very early the following morning, and so his responsible gain became my loss. Responsibility fucks me again, but irresponsibility only nets you short term gains. When you meet a struggler, watch for the clue of the one eminently irresponsible behavior that could be bringing them down. Their fatal flaw and/or their achillies heel, everyone has one, and sometimes they are not easy to spot, and are always even harder to overcome.

Being back at home, I got to see my Ma and dear grandmother, and the rest of our family who were coming in for the week, my cousins Lisa and Mark, and my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Mike, their parents and my mother's brother. We had family time. It was nice. We caught up and talked about everything, and I deftly avoided being drawn into terribly polarized politcal discussions with my Uncle who differs from me in national security issues mostly, and this stemming from a desire for Israel's defense and a distaste for Islamic extremism, positions I understand, yet extending into a wider array of topics that we have discovered are untouchable material when we spend family time together. And so as it went with my pro-Dubya senior year roommate at BC, we got along great by pretending we didn't think about those things, and agreeing on the "purple issues". The bridge of youth to adulthood energized my presence at home since I got to joke around with my cousins, not terribly far off from me in age, family folks now, but largely free for the week from the encompassing duties of parenting. It put me more at ease to divulge and play, when on an average visit I must produce interesting detail about goings on in my world. Not that it is laborious, or at all a trial, but the jazz of improvisation is absent. It's as if I were playing a game of "Questions" versus performing a long form scene. In "Questions" the two players continue a scene with questions and drop new information in the form of questions and ultimately the game ends when the action or fluidity of the scene stalls, and can be played past exhaustion, at which point the game continues, but no substance is gained. In long form, two people volunteer information and take what is spoken and acted upon and build upon it, sometimes creating masterpieces of visuals or absurd thought. There are no limits except for patience to sit and listen, and the pressing need that ultimately, we will all have to sleep at some point. Both are fully capable of being fun, and tedious, it all depends on the energy of the participants matching up with each other.

So much travel and pedicabbing stifled me from writing anything for two weeks, so I had planned to write the second full day I stayed at home. The desire to do it nearly drove me to pathetic angry glass smashing. We went to my grandmother's house and for almost an hour and a half tried to DECIDE on a suitable place to go eat somewhere, settling on some prissy tea room for sandwiches. It took nearly an hour for our server to log our orders and serve us sandwiches. I started getting a little caffeinated and really antsy to get out of that place, and I thought horrible thoughts of disrupting the tea service with broken glass, a few choice words into the air or to a child, or nudity, but kept my cool by venting frustrations to an available Miranda. I felt like nobody at the table really understood the need for me to go get writing done, how much importance it held for me, as if pouring things out could happen any time when family wasn't in town, that my commitment to it seemed frivolous and surely it could wait. This plus hunger plus overly decorated suffocating atmosphere had me boiling. I swear, if a door had started bleeding in there, I would have found an axe and gone Shining on everyone. It says a lot that on this day New Jersey ended up being the refuge I needed to take. Starbucks in an A&P. Holy shit, I never needed Jersey so much, and now I feel dirty for having typed that. Interesting New Jersey beers at my grandmother's helped me celebrate the escape from the tea room, the productivity, and lubricated potentially janky family social interaction. And now when someone is seriously getting under my skin, I say that he is "sending me to the tea room."

All the visiting west coasters wanted to get into New York City, and so did I, so I led us on a bit of a go round. The sun shone and we walked a lot. Jay caught up with us at Lincoln Center and we walked to The Carnegie Deli for an authentic New York experience, which amounts to, "Overeat here because we serve you piles of meat, you fat tourists." It's funny since everyone on this side of my family is particularly fit. So nearly everyone but me ordered giant meat piles, while I had secured a modest sandwich from a personal New York favorite, "The Lunch Box" and ordered a side of steamed veggies claiming I had dietary restrictions, but mostly desiring the sandwich of my choosing from a familiar place, and also feeling the Jewish guilt for entering an establishment with little intent to purchase. Small gains in healthy choices compensate for gaping errors of indulgence, maybe, I can pretend to agree with, sometimes.

We walked through Times Square, sat in its new closed off Broadway fold up chairs, saw the weirdos, and had a moment of "Well this is nice." As the sun lit up my skin, I screened on my interior the memories of my life in Times Square: Selling tickets to comedy clubs, driving a seven human powered circular machine entitled "The Party Bike" and shows and Thai food and working on 47th in a Broadway theatre for almost a year, these things that hurled me towards, and back towards pedicabbing. And when a memory or trigger of a sequence of events illuminates, the gun of causation goes off and you get the floating opportunity to play the game of "If" and/or "Why" until you are satisfied or too frustrated to continue, or perhaps just distracted by a Haitian man dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.

Texas weighed on me in the midst of family and New York City, most of which was devising some way to impress Violet from afar. I might have steered the entourage South into the Lower East Side, or maybe there existed in them a sort of desire to see it anyhow. My cousin Mark starting making passing references at obtaining a beer somewhere, and I certainly had a hard time disagreeing with him. We perused the shops on St. Mark's and, since the inspiration caught me in the knowledge of Vioet's car having only a tape deck, I made a point of popping in to a few music shops and asking them if they had any cassette tapes. I walked down a few steps into the cove of a music shop, and saw a tray of tapes that a large bearded man walked his fingers over. I became instantaneously competetive over the tapes. It turned into a race to see who could be most decisive about wanting certain music in the index, the fastest. I saw his taste in music as he plucked gems from the collection. I struck. Bowie. Talking Heads. Stones. Solid stuff for driving, stuff I knew Violet could make good use of on her drives up to Dallas or wherever to sustain her promising career. Think of me when Bowie gives you the chills and you love it. Victorious, I shelled out for the retro tunes, and settled in to a beer around the corner at what was, to my surprise in New York City, an Irish style pub.

We hashed out logistics for the group to get back to their car effectively, which boiled down to me hailing a cab because I knew the New York secret of how to signal to foreign drivers that us Americans of a different city needed transportation to some set of mysterious coordinates. I wished the family well and sent them off, and would remain in Manhattan to see my pops and his girlfriend, and then meet up with Lindsey, a girl that makes me ponder that there is, in some mysterious form, a universal law of interpersonal magneticism.

When I met Lindsey, the longest relationship I ever maintained had recently been severed after two and a half years. I was a wreck, and my friends urged me to go out and forget about the old and talk up something new. I wore a "uniform" which means a button down collared shirt, and rode downtown on the piece of shit single speed I had picked up earlier that summer, once known as "Hot Streak" but ultimately she had come to be known as "The Time Bomb". I rode with my shirt off so as not to sweat through the black to an even darker, damper, black. I remember talking to a few girls that night and as it always went for me in Boston, no matter how grody or cleaned up, the phone numbers I collected were generally utterly useless. Shane, a pedicabber and friend, tipped me off that a party still plodded on in Allston. I'm in Fanieul Hall, but I have a bike and a day to keep my eyes closed to follow, so I go even though I know I'll ultimately need to return to North Cambridge, a large triangle by Boston area standards. I locked my bike up to some sketchy fence in unfamiliar Lower Allston, and inside I became acquainted with Lindsey. The night played out to a fade, with the exception of a guy, Dave, who I found out had taken an interest in Lindsey for a while, randomly fell onto the table, I suspect to gain attention and sympathy, but his ploy was made of saran wrap; see through, too clingy, and ultimately disposed of, if even used. He lingered as I painstakingly explained to Lindsey why I wore "the uniform" and that I really wasn't a douchebag. She certainly took a hard line, but my story held water and as Dave sat around being annoying, we kissed and started a two week thing that involved a lot of ridiculous Cambridge to Brookline cab rides, and some cute dates. It fit the bill that termination would come with her moving to New York, just as I had suspected termination would come in my time with Meghan when I moved to New York. I visited her when I went to New York, and there existed the straw to grasp at, that just maybe, it was all happening again, that long distance nightmare worth dozing off for. But faded, it went the way of the buffalo, and went out of touch for a while.

Then I think there came a text conversation. If I could ever explain to you how fully and profoundly texting has changed our lives, let me simply serve you my stories as an archetypal example. In texts, we did a little catch up cat and mouse, and finally, on the second of January in 2009, the night before my canceled New Year's Day flight was rescheduled to depart for LA at 7:20 am, we managed to put ourselves in the same place at the same time. I think it really only took a few looks at each other's eyes to remember, and when she looks at me, I feel like there's a joke I'm telling that she gets, but always harbors some playful hostility for. We remembered that we liked the way both looked to each other, and we smiled like dopes until we kissed again. We left the bar together and I got into a cab with her, and the cab took us up to her apartment. Along the way we kissed and I explained about my flight, and how I could only catch one train to get to the airport on time. We arrived, paid the cab driver and she deepened her eyes somehow to request, "Just miss your flight."
"I can't, I'm sorry. I'll come see you as soon as I get back, I promise."

This was right around the time that I started meaning everything I said that isn't a joke. So I changed my return flight from San Francisco to go back to New York instead of Boston. The gesture was too bold. She kind of freaked out about it, and as I hurtled towards NYC on the LIRR, she stopped answering my messages, and I got hung up. Stranded in New York City, until the bus can cart me off. I don't blame her for it, I knew that once the shock of it had subsided, it still impressed as a gesture. The gears of time went round and we spoke again, and now, we meet when I'm around, and go drink together for the sake of a Wednesday, or whatever, and tease the embers of the thing that never turned the corner, and I think that suits us both fine, and we are friends from it all. So that night wrapped up with us sharing an armchair in Fatcat, drinking beer and listening to jazz, playing some table game, and I got that final bus home at 1:40, to turn around and head back to NYC to Beantown the next day, because there were 12 more days to work. And in case you were curious, when I went back to Kenmore to see if the Timebomb was still locked up outside of the Commonwealth Hotel, it had been removed. I hope someone rode it away fromthere, or better yet, a police auction and goes, "Awwww, fuck."

The freedom of a pedicab shift without a Red Sox game is special, there's an unrestricted feeling as you kick your feet up in Copley Square, beat up, hung over, tight, silly, or dour. You have tiiime. Six hours or twelve, you can spend a whole one or two or three out there mocking people. My favorite is when I spot ladies with Victoria's Secret bags and ask them, "Hey, what'd you get at Victoria's Secret?" Usually I get a sneer, often a wry smile, and one time a lady said to me, "Wouldn't YOU like to know?" It's this kind of fun that you can have with people to put yourself in a good mood. Not putting anyone down, per se, but simply giving them a good Boston style hard time. On seeing two girls with matching striped adornments, I quipped, "Is that skirt made of her bag, or is her bag made of your skirt?" Maybe lunch, maybe you suck down a coffee, maybe you make a business call, or pop into the library to drop a deuce, or maybe you are thrown into a work ethic by someone accosting you and plain old asking you if you'll take them to the North End. And you accept and start thinking about those good cheap slices of pizza you can nab if it's before 1:30, and act grateful whether they give you $15 or $40, but it's probably $20. You talk over the Nextel radios and ask how many bikes are at the flower shop, and see if anyone else is making money, or you watch the guy on a scooter windsail through Copley, and try to avoid eye contact with him. Best of all, you're never disappointed if the shift gets called due to rain, you just get your weekend night back.

When you are a pedicabber in Boston, it's perfunctory to be a baller when you are off work. My good friend Linda who I met a few years ago while playing the puppeteer for Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors" is a power player, corporate style. When I'm in town, she does like to go out to dinner, and it's turned into a special occasion date for us every now and again, and she asks me, "Where do you want to go?" I run a few places by her and they are all more costly than the best suit I own, and she tells me what she thinks, but mostly we try to come to an agreement on where it should be, and the agreement is that it will be damned good. I think that she makes in one day what it costs to go to Menton or L'Espalier, and my jaw drops every time the check comes, but some of my standard 12 hour Saturdays will also gobble up that dinner debt. Dinner is often a three hour affair, and it is course after course with wines and beers, obscure and fine stuff, some beer that you need a map to discover, followed by a code, a beer Dan Brown would write a novel about, as easy to drink as it would be to read, but in an intelligent way. The least I can do, even knowing her car isn't far off, and having found out that she has plans to attend to after the affair, is have a pedicab waiting outside for us to ride her to her car. I sent specifically for the rookie phenom who pulled some extreme number for the Red Sox home opener since I desired to process what he does that makes him so damned good, something I could clearly do in my post-deliciousness euphoria. He gave me a good enough ride, one that is just weird to think about, from Fort Point Channel through Southie to the pedicab shop in the South End. I gave him $50 including an old school $10 bill that he sold me a few days before for a new $10 bill. I like to collect that stuff.

I took myself back to Boston for this weekend to fit these kinds of things in to the rigorous schedule set in place by the Red Sox. A driver meeting had been planned for on Sunday evening, and we all thought that a local Italian restaurant would cater our event, but a major water pipeline had burst, and Governor Deval Patrick issued a boil order on all water before drinking. Of course, fancy restaurants like Menton were either boiling everything, or using bottled water to cook everything, since I'm sure their profit margins are vastly above their overhead, but not so for Maggiano's. They just couldn't whip up a few trays of chicken and pasta for us in this emergency. The disappointment came with understanding, and a collective helpless shrug, and so we drank for dinner. Pedicab trivia hosted by Carl "Hot Carl" Foss, with a fridge so full of beer, it looked like my old wallet after a doubleheader, you just couldn't believe so much had been collected in one little place! I know for sure Jon Simmons and I played on the same team, and we came up with a pretty great name for our trivia team, "Late Night With Sean Bailey," honoring the surly style with which Mr. Sean Bailey would manage a shift, and that it could only get worse as time progressed into severe drunken disasters of $3 hot-girl rides, broken chains across town, and a mysterious, mutable shop opening time that might be cryptically 20 minutes later than promised. And any good trivia name goes through a metamorphosis of meaning, and playful manipulations of the title are acceptable to the host once you've established your base name. "Early Morning With Rich Mather" was a title that evoked a similarly unpleasant experience for pedicabbers who have encountered the personality in reference, but for those without the knowledge, imagine the attempt to have a conversation with someone that seems to be listening but will not respond and is actually actively ignoring you. It makes you feel like you've violated some basic human law of behavior. It is utterly confusing and altogether unpleasant, especially when regular interaction with this person is necessary, and you come to only expect monosyllabic responses, if anything. And so went our team title for comic emphasis. The question that really won it for us was the big bet we made on knowing the title of the musical "No, No, Nanette" that was financed by the trade of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees. In the middle of the trivia game I suggested a beer run, since we had run out of beer, a feat that only a set of pedicabbers could make easy. A few guys started talking about taking the pedicabs on the beer run. The GM explicitly warned them not to, but they did it anyway. They brought beer back and were then sent home. The next day, those two guys who took the trikes, both veteran managers, were fired. After they were sent home, we recorded our victory. We won Supersoakers, brilliant, neon-colored trophies of our trivia expertise, but the victory felt incomplete with the fate of the jobs of personalities we loved in the balance. I left mine in the shop, and I don't know who has it now. I hope he or she correctly answers the question of, "Should I supersoak that ho?" The answer, of course, being "Supersoak that ho." Relax, it's a rap lyric reference.

We all partied at T.C.'s Lounge after abdicating the shop. People started going after the porn DVD's in the skill crane, and with astounding success. Five separate drivers obtained raunchily titled video discs, a few of which I recall being, "Young Girls Luv Cum," and another called "Black Virgins". Simple and eloquent, we know what we'll get in these films, and it's not skilled editing, or special effects, and it's likely not virgins either. My trivia compadre, Jon scored the latter of the two masterpieces of American cinema, and subsequently a group of six or so pedicab drivers all feeding dollar bills into the machine, elevated Jon, and carried him about a half mile down to the Charles as he drunkenly screamed obscenities about his sexy, and racially charged victory, his second and more glorious trophy of the evening, realizing a little too late that he was going to be put in the Charles River, yet submitting and allowing it to happen like a champ.

There were a significant amount of hangovers when the second ten game Red Sox homestand began the next day. Somebody who missed the prior evenings proceedings asked Jeremy how trivia went, and his immediate answer started with, "Welp, two guys got fired..." Fortunately for the bereaved of lost drunkeness, it was hot enough to sweat it out after half a dozen rides, and I had until about 3:30 to make the knuckle dragging entrance to the shop, so I had already almost completed the recovery checklist. I cannot procure any useful information about this day, except to say that I worked, made money, I probably made someone laugh. The days washed over like the late night, salty showers after the shift, where you lean on the wall and just hope you don't knock the beer over when you reach for it, because you are fried. I stayed two nights out in Brighton, where I used to live. It might have been more, since hanging out with Jeremy is always enjoyable, but returning to Bennett St has its drawbacks. The aforementioned Rich lives there, and he's as bad with dogs as he is with humans, and you could tell that if Rich could talk to others like most normal people can release words and ideas, he'd be a real dick, just like his dog. He thinks anyone that doesn't like his dick of a dog is a dick because they don't like dogs in general. What a dick. And his major qualm with me is all the mail that still goes to that address for me. I'm not saying it's a clean thing, really, but having my mail still sent there so that my insurance company believes I'm still a Massachusetts resident is important to me, but Rich make obnoxious rusty nail complaints about how I really need to get my mail forwarded. It's not like I'm a Scientologist and I told them I'd host meetings at the house, and moved away, and they come trying to convert the remaining humans, and kids in guy Faukes masks hang out outside the house, although once Jeremy moves out, this might be a good practical joke. I left my bag in the front hallway, it wasn't hurting anybody, but Rich says things like, "What does Dan think this is, his hotel?" No Rich, I think I have a friend that resides in this house and he said I could rest my bones there for a night or two, on the leather couch I went and acquired that you still use. Didn't you get the text message about it being OK if I crashed for a night? You did, but you didn't respond? Please eat some mild poison. I still have stuff there, I'm trying to ditch it through craigslist remotely. With any luck, that will go smoothly, and I'll eliminate Rich from my life entirely. He seemed harmless at first, hurt that we almost got an apartment without him, and we all felt a little sorry, but then he turned pissy and passive aggresive. Sometimes Facebook tells me I should reconnect with him. When I hit 1000 friends, I'll defriend him. I'm actively convincing strangers to add me on Facebook so I can celebrate that day sooner. 935 and counting... The best parts about staying there was that I discovered I had left a towel in the bathroom, and so could shower and be dry, and obtained the set of jumper cables I was lent by a stranger in too much of a hurry to give me a second jump in a row. The details of this come later. My exit came with a particular glory of not just going, but bending the MBTA to my whims, and traveling from Brighton Center to Davis Square in 21 minutes. I felt like I was surfing the big one, except I had paid $1.70, and read the Metro along the way. Alas, it had little to compare to surfing, my bad, but I keep track of these things, and make silly comparisons.

I just played patient for the all day bender, that annual beast of a day where Kyle Crand and I go to a Red Sox game and ostentatiously display that we are having a special event. Jeremy planned to join us this year, and for all the threats I've made to the general manager of walking into the Capital Grille to have dinner, this time I meant business, and business equals steak. The GM and I established a relationship a few years ago where he gives me a ring from his phone when he has a pick up from his restaurant. He'd call me before calling the company. Typically it went like this.

"Hello," I'd answer in the middle of my ride, ignoring my fare.
"Dan man."
"Hey!"
"Hey, it's Chris at the Capital Grille," he'd state with a gentleman's subtle pride in who he is.
"Hey Chris," I knew who it was when I said hello. Hell, I have him programmed in, and he knew it too.
"I need two bikes in about ten minutes," he flatly stated, knowing I'd be there, there was never unavailability.
"I'll make it happen," I might have panted. "See you soon," turning to my passengers, "So where can I put you guys?"
He called me a few times while I dicked around in Texas, looking for bikes at the Grille. I had to call the company for him and arrange the bikes to go, wistful of working the Red Sox game.

So that Thursday we had a reservation for three at 5:30, and we went in looking good, but casual, except me, I wore my Red Sox shirt, and that gnarly beard that got me called homeless, and we ordered and prepared to dish out the big paper. I had my old money in my pocket, and you know what that means, and no, I wasn't broke. We ate more than our stomachs could really handle. Adam, our server brought us some recommended selections of wine to go with our steaks, and Jeremy even tried some, or I imagined him to, but I think he did. I think we ordered too much, and afterwards I understood when people would waddle out of the door that the valet opened for them, and decline a ride, burping out, "I need to walk," and nodding as if I knew what they meant. But we planned on the ride no matter what, we had to be bigshots. We usually request our driver by bike number. We try to pick out the bike that sucks the worst to ride, and our tip makes their tardiness to work and bad fortune a sudden positive. This time, we just thought Nate Gomes deserved a gift, and he arrived, and for a ride to Jerry Remy's that any pedicabber would probably get $10 from, be happy to see $15, but would most likely earn $20, we dropped $64 on the guy. Playin' like pimps, were we. Kyle threw the extra $4 just for emphasis and to make the tip amount quirky, I suspect.

There we met Jack, my host at the time, friend I met through Mike Marshall a few summers ago, and he worked the deal out for our tickets, cheap enough that we need not deal with those glorious citizens, the Fenway scalpers. We took a beer down at Jerry Remy's as the Sox started getting pummeled right away-Daisuke getting into early trouble, to settle down later, as per usual. After the bottom of the 1st, we felt the urge to actually enter the staidum. I don't entertain much in the way of religious feelings, but for me, entering Fenway Park is as close as it gets, apart from those spontaneous moments of feeling like I'm experiencing too much coincidence, or luck, or beauty. I figure only Red Sox fans will understand, or perhaps sports fanatics, and as sports fanatics go, I'm tame, not fanatical, yet fervent. It is the way religion, if there were one that is true, ought to feel: Excitement to arrive, observation is crucial, the sensation of belonging to a large crowd in one space, one world and universe, the ability for a single person to influence nearly 40,000 others with a slow start to a commonly executed chant of "Let's Go Red Sox," five particularly syncopated claps following, and the crowd allowing itself to be influenced for everyone's enjoyment and in the name of supporting what we believe in, a few guys down there playing a game so we will be entertained. And that crowd is overheard on TV, the jolt to the chant unbeknownst to potentially millions of viewers, and yet the chant so familiar, the nails still being bitten, the hope that God will reward the faithful never muted until all hope is lost. What church do you join to get that? I guess if they lose, it could be any church you feel like picking, since in my opinion, you just don't win with organized religion, only in sports. This, or I am the delusional one, or it is one and the same, any number can play. Any way you look at it you lose if you don't do for yourself. I won that day. We surreptitiously improved our seats, the Red Sox came back to win, and we scored John Nolan in a Mainstreet to return.

The bender headed to 80's night, and we were denied access in a blaze of argument. How else should it go? The best part of it was after that we went to a different bar, then Kyle left, and I thought that since I knew the name of the bouncer who refused our entry, I could go back to try again. It was an action that wore the mark of the all day bender. I'm pretty sure I ended up at the Model for "the unnecessary drink" where there's really no reason to have that last one at all.

The next day I arrived egregiously late for my day shift before my night shift, but if you're paying, you're paying, and if you're not working, you're still paying. I must admit, the details are scant about this weekend except for some numbers. I lost my phone in Vancouver, and with it, lost were many notes I made on actions I took and beers I drank. You'd be surprised how much one small record of where I had a PBR can conjure to a human mind, the location written, the people, the jokes, the time of it all available from that reminder. What a shame. All I have to use as reminders are the updates I made to my Facebook status, and in this all I find are statements like, "Dan Kerrigan: The Science of Punching Testicles." How useful. I guess back in May I didn't realize there were more important things than punching testicles, and the scientific explanations for such behavior. And truly, I had this conversation about the best direction in which to punch at the testes, and explained that it should be downward to the left OR right, as to trap the balls in their own sack, against the greater, more solid mass of the human body, perhaps hitting them so that the penis, if slightly to one side, might even be avoided entirely by the force of the knuckles, not that your penis would really care. I mean, its all very elementary.

You can't go to Boston for a month in the spring and expect to get out of it without getting the classic $5 ride, or feeling just 35 degrees Fahrenheit on your face at some point. The annoyance of it reminded me I'd left and swam in warm water on Easter, and returned to Boston for business way more than pleasure. The entirety of the second ten game set did not surpass the profitability of the first, but the feat of sustaining functionality throughout all of the games I obtained through scheduling was still no small feat. I am curious, if it existed, how close 22 shifts out of 27 days would come on a scale of difficulty where the top would be represented by respectably completing the Tour de France. I know the least of my shifts stretches about 25 miles traveled on a pedicab that is up to twenty times as heavy as your typical "tour" bike, before you stack some fatties on the back to tow around. How long are those stages? I might have some French people to sweat on soon. I used to placate my father with cycling in lieu of running as a child in need of exercise, and I'd mention the Tour as a far off goal, but the work ethic involved in attaining that kind of physical ability eluded me as a chunky, reluctant-to-exercise 11 year old SNES addict. Until my pedicabbing days, the closest I ever really came was beating Uniracers.

Time slips out from under your hands when you start paying attention, like a housefly you try to smash against a table. The moment you try to stop it, it goes just a little faster. I believe that's why dumb horses just let them fly around while they chew hay, but I don't eat hay, nor does my ass stink as badly as a horses, or so I've been told by passengers in my pedicab, or so I've told them, and they've politely agreed, regardless of the truth. The homestand drew to a close and I tried to grasp at those last chances to see my Boston friends and leave everything "perfectly". And as fantastic a last night as I had with Phil, Melissa, and Phil's sister Leah, perfect is really never an option unless you have no expectations, and this personal truth always makes me feel like I've missed someone and will inevitably have to apologize to someone. This time it fell on my very last Boston host, a guy who for all our differences and arguments has been a truly solid friend, one of the poor guys who got fired from the "Trivia Incident." Without getting a chance to say goodbye, I took the borrowed jumpers and made the meeting of myself and "Anne With The Jumpers" happen. She worked down in the financial district, so I rode Keith's bike on its last errand, and hand delivered the cables to her as she popped out of work for a moment. She asked me about Longshot and I remember being touched that she remembered the name. I took off for Game On! with a new Facebook friend and a last name to fill in for "With The Jumpers".

After fulfilling the tradition of eating a massive plate of nachos with Jeremy, I got a few beers I thought Keith would enjoy, a small thank you for the lend of his mountain horse for the month, and placed the bike with the "gift bag" in the shop bike rack. Of course, I had also purchased myself a little present since I had put a few mediocre beers in the pipes during the nacho session. I sat there in the shop joking around with Melissa, Boston Pedicab's under-appreciated adhesive, the month just processing out, relieved, and a tiny buzz on to enjoy the work well done, and the friends I'd miss. Then suddenly I realized I might be testing the punctuality of my chosen airline. I left pleasantly before I began my freak out. I walked down Tremont Street, my eyes darting wildly to find a taxi, now checking my phone compulsively and fretting for every lost minute. I had to return to my host's house and grab my belongings before going to the airport. I got all the way to Mass Ave before getting a guy to turn around for me, and he waited while I ran for the apartment, my stuff, and my flight. I got to the airport, and slid right in through the typically choked and lagging security lines of Logan International, this time not letting my Sigg water bottle fall victim to a small amount of liquid still living inside. A nap to Chicago later, I sat down for my layover at the bar to watch the Celtics take on the Cavs, talking to someone from Texas, still holding enough Boston inside to yell at a television.

The odds and ends between drinks and friends and bike rides and trike rides fell to keeping lines with Violet and Miranda. I guess for all of my absence, and for how short a stint we three have had in any one capacity up until this time mentioned, maintenance of long distance relationships is undeniably difficult, not that any long distance item in the history could possibly be summarized as easy. And to illustrate, simply read the phrase, "Oh yeah, dating that girl in Seattle while I went to school in New York was easy." Sounds foolish, right? Maybe less foolish if you suddenly make those kids rich, but please give me the license to feel singularly correct about how hard long distance can be, at least for me, as much as I've tried. Even a one week vacation from your best girl can give you the taste of what it could be. The abyss of togetherness stung more softly since my return was imminent but the stress of distance made me evaluate things in a starker light. I thought of the distance and the energy I had committed to both of these girls, and I considered the actions I took, and carefully deliberated the two different personalities that I bonded with. I talked so much with Miranda over that month, and only occasionally with Violet. Nothing about all the traded words got very deep, except the connections. I sent Violet those tapes, and a post card with a map of Boston. It was raw and cute, and didn't mention missing her, but was made of the fun we have of the childish way we interact with each other. I hoped she'd be reminded I'm awesome, because I feared losing that special thing with her. In the next moment I could trust in Miranda to talk about anything, tell her any secrets or trivialities. Miranda would mention to me once in a while that we were very different people and I knew, but we both knew that just liking each other and being open and understanding was strong enough to keep something. And retrospectively, I do see the hints that Violet dropped about the nature of our relationship, and chose to focus on the laughing, the fun, the creativity and encouragement we had for each other. To me, the things we built in conversation, in ideas, in pointless improvisations were so great that I guess I missed her hesitance to bring it along further. I started to get uncomfortable with the idea of going back and forth from one to another, and I decided, in specifically important and fundamental ways, that Violet and I were more compatible long term. It was all this self-instigated thought that led me to do what I thought would be the right thing for me, and for Miranda, and I hoped, for Violet. Sometime late at night during my stay at home, I tried to let Miranda down easy, and told her how I felt. I explained in gentle terms, and she got it, and I cried. I told her how hard it was, and how much I wanted our friendship to continue, and we kept talking nearly every day. We broke the would-be boundaries of the new terms just a few days later in how familiar we were through texts and talks, she told me how much it sucks that she actually likes me, and the pet names of "feo" and "fea" never really disappeared. I asked Violet to pick me up at the airport, a request that seemed to ask forgiveness for putting Miranda on the task last time, and Violet agreed to come. She didn't yet know that I laid a line down for Miranda, and I didn't know when I was going to tell her. Of course, for a twist of fate, something came up and Violet couldn't pick me up anymore, and Miranda was willing and free to come get me. When I walked out of the terminal to where she waited, I saw her standing there almost laughing just to see my face again, her smile giving away too much, and I knew she didn't know what to expect. Man, I was so happy to be back in Texas, I went right up to her and kissed her. The kiss slowed, and I knew I had missed her pretty bad. Was I really going to leave in a month?

Statistics:
1,955 mi from my apartment in Austin, TX to The Boston Pedicab shop, roughly.
19 Red Sox Games worked out of 20
22 shifts worked out of 27 days.
$190+ spent on the All Day Bender (A relative steal considering we went to Capital Grille)
$150 tip left at Capital Grill-Quoth our server Adam, "Guys, this is over the top."
$0 + tip for three meals at Capital Grille with sides and whatever.
13 drinks, I believe, on the All Day Bender
Red Sox 11-Angels 6 on Thursday, May 6th
7 cassette tapes sent to Violet
14 times Lugo called me a homeless man because of my beard (or thereabouts)
$5500 approximately to show for the homestand, returning to Texas.

No drink list until about Day 180 due to the theft of my phone after having been assaulted in Vancouver. Yup.

The Longshot

As the sequence goes, I said in October, "Fuck it, I'm not going to be cold this winter, I'm moving to California," and so purchased my ticket from Boston to Los Angeles for the 5th of January. Then I smashed my face into the rear of a car and knocked two teeth clean out of my head, and I spared no expense in repairs, in the future where I actually pay for those costs. Then I found the Longshot. I had been a part of an online community called "Freecycle," where people have things that they no longer have a use for, but in lieu of throwing them out if they might still be useful to handy or Earth friendly folks, they are put up online for grabs. Free moving boxes, reusing packing peanuts, televisions, and if you want something that somebody might throw out, you can also put the desire for an old generation of ipod out there, or a used cell phone. I've seen a PS3 go up. And I saw a car. I scoffed, "No fuckin' way." Yes, I often curse to myself. It's a longshot, but what the heck, right? Send an email! You don't catch any fish if you don't go fishing. I get a reply back that tells me it didn't work out with the first person, and I should come take a look. I guess I have to! One needs to explore these leads-if its for free, it's highly unlikely that it's worth it, but hey. My Uncle Tom is kind enough to pick my toothless ass up at the train station when I get in to Providence, and we head down to Kingston to view this car. The drivers side door has been bent backwards in an accident, and so a new one must be acquired. When we arrive, the owner has been driving the thing around already, and as it comes around the corner, I'm kind of in love. This car has some character. She said that after a year of sitting around that it started right up, which I later learned was a thick line of bullshit. Now I don't really know how to drive stick, I've only done it a couple of times, once was when I ignorantly looked for my first car, and idiotically driving his vehicle around, the owner looked at me like I just shat on his front porch and lit it on fire and stood there waiting for him to find out. This time intimidated me even more, even though I knew better. I got in this thing and whipped it around a few turns and got her going, got the hang of it all fairly quickly, I thought. The car only had 134K on it for a 26 year old car. Apparently a guy had driven it a mile and a half to work and back every day for 20 years. Glad it's not my life. It had been from Boston during Mayor Flynn's administration, to Missouri and back. I can tell by the remnants of the 20 something year old Allston-Brighton parking sticker. But the car is working, man, it's going, the engine is lookin' pretty good. Now all I have to do is find the door, another task with the odds of success being stacked against the good guys. Maggie, the owner, tells me that if I tow it away, it's mine. I tell her I'll get back to her later in the day. She's dying to unload this thing, it's clear. I call around to auto salvage places for a few hours and actually find a place that has a replacement door, and on top of that good fortune, they are the closest place, and know a towing company across the street. Of course they do. The best part is, that even if the door they have won't go on smoothly, they'll take the car as junk for $150 less the cost of the $75 tow. I can't lose. Not even on travel costs or time, because I got to visit my family in the process. They tow it over to the yard, so now its actually mine. The guy says the door is a pale yellow or brown, and I'm thinking, "Holy shit, it might actually be the same color as my car!" New news, the guy called me and tells me its the wrong door, but he's gonna make a few calls to his junkyard buddies, also I need a new axle since the car clicks when hitting the extremeties of my turning radius. OK, OK, minor setback, but he says he can put the potential door and axle in for about 60 bucks each plus labor. I wait on pins and needles starting to fabricate this trip in my head pondering the possibilities that open up by having a car. Go to Florida to work, Work South by Southwest in Texas, high-tail it to LA via Colorado and Las Vegas. Arrive with extra cash. Could it be possible to move my life from boston to LA and end up in the black? Finally he comes up with a door. He says it's "dirty green" which excites me if I get to rock Packers colors, but really it's only dirty green because of the grime that has piled on it, it's powder blue. It's done and I can get it, so I go get the bill of sale, I got proof of insurance and I went to the RMV ready to get my plates, man, I was excited. This is when they tell me my license has been suspended since 2005. It turns out that a speeding ticket I got in 2004 had never been paid, even though I thought I had covered it. That was enough to get it suspended on its own, but on top of it, it cross referenced with something else. In 2001 in New Hampshire, I was boating without a life vest, and the marine patrol came up on us and issued my friend and me tickets. We spurned them, so I hope his license is still in good standing, or has avoided driving in New Hampshire, or he has discovered the ramifications of going delinquint on the government, which is to say, you will get fucked. I had to shell out $200 in reinstatement fees plus the $250 of the actual citation costs. Damn, it was a phone call making process, transfers, hang-ups, waits from office to office, fax us this, can you fax that for me, all racing to pick this thing up the next day and actually have it registered! I finally had my name cleared, my license reinstated, and there were license plates in my hand! Time to grab this whip and bring it on home, and then move on from that home.

My Uncle Tom brought me down to Kingston again and it was getting dark. I paid the fella for his services, a modest $270 all told for a door and an axle and a tow. I got to the car, it had been running for a while when I arrived, and my uncle asked if it was OK to take off, if I'd be all right. I said sure, but I was not even close to confident about that. I turned the lights on and it died on me. I dipped my head for the good sign. I frantically ran in to see the dude again, they were closing up and had I waited another few minutes, I might have been stranded there. He brought out a jump kit and got me going again, and I braced myself to turn on my lights, thinking, "Don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie (clickclick) YESSSSSS!" Now all I have to do is drive it. I chunked it into first and we all went forward with great surprise and trepidation: Me, for being stranded, the car for its mechanical health, the future for what I was about to do to it. The first road I rolled on forgave me for my skills, it was fairly empty and the speed limit and two lanes gave me some room to experiment with my gear switches. I shifted quickly and without proficiency, the car lunging forward as I gritted my remaining teeth hoping I didn't suddenly end up in reverse, but relying on the sounds of the acceleration to cue me to change gears. I successfully stopped at a red light and started back up, and I felt bolstered by this accomplishment. I really should have had a better lesson before I took off in what might have been my Japanese manufactured metal tomb, but I merged onto I-95 N around six in the dark, New England evening.

Traffic heading through Providence suffocated me while I hyperventilated about the dips in speed and sudden downshifts, and the few times I ground a gear incorrectly, adrenaline shooting up my spine, my eyelids flipping backwards as third gear took. I peered nervously at my gas gauge, the old gas in the tank should have evaporated after sitting around for a year in my sci-fi logic, and I wonder if I have enough to make it to Boston. It's gas tank versus distance, and gas tank needs to win this one. I have a ballroom dance lesson to make at 7:30, and I'm on target to get there, even with traffic, and I just watch the gauge drop. Finally, the traffic subsides, and after a few turns that I lean into with my body for fear of my unfamiliar car rolling, I can cruise smoothly, at the speed limit, not aware of what the beast is capable of yet. I-95 to I-93 success, and I'm about 15 minutes away from class when I exit at E. Berkeley to gas up. It's the nearest gas station to the dance lesson, so I'm not thinking about getting stranded at a sketchy gas station next to a halfway house, under a highway, and yet soon I ended up thinking about exactly that, and about expensive Boston tow trucks.

Eighty minutes of driving couldn't juice this battery up enough to stand around for five minutes as I gassed her up. I gave her a start and it wouldn't turn over. Chickchickchickchick. And my first world problem is that I fret for my ballroom dance lesson. "I'm going to be late! I'll never catch up on the new step!" Chickchickchickchickchickchick. "Fuuuck." I guess that Maggie lady had been driving the yellow box around in an effort to mask that the battery is a blink away from being useless. That's when I started to take in my surroundings, and realize I don't have any jumpers, and I might be going to see where Shit Creek dumps out to. I ask the gas station attendant who is fluent in English at about a second grade level if he has jumper cables, but this is new vocabulary for him. After the lesson, he fed me the bad news from behind the bulletproof glass, not for lack of trying to locate a set in various areas of the station. I considered my options and all I could really do was start asking strangers. I ask a few people who look at me like I'm some sort of maniac who needs money, and a few of them reacted with more bitterness for a jump-start request than if I had asked them for $5, you know, for charity. Several declinations through ten helpless minutes later, I found a good samaritan. A girl not too far from my age gassed up and I made my humble request. She broke out from her truck a brand new roadside assistance kit, and unraveled a set of jumper cables. I drooled at the energy they would put into my car. As the battery took in some juice, we chatted a little bit about how I had just gotten the car and I told her that I knew right away that I'd name it Longshot as I drove it up to Boston. I said to myself, 'This thing is going to get me across the country? That's a longshot," and my eyes widened and the odds against this vehicle actually working out for me were pretty great, and the name became apparent. The car started up and anxious to move again and drive away from Sketchy Square, Boston, I turned on the lights. Poop. I panicked and looked around for the girl who had helped me and she was already pulling out of the gas station. I flung myself out of my car and chased her down. Tapping on her window in the December air, right before she tried to enter traffic, she looked at me, nearly horrified, sighed, and rolled her window down.

"It went out again," I said, embarrassed and nervous to ask the same person for the same thing twice. "Can you possibly give me another jump?"
"I'm sorry, I'm in a real hurry, I'm already late," she confessed, observing my expression, and caved, "but you can just take the jumpers if you bring them back."
"Oh, totally," I effused, shocked. "What's your number? I'll bring them back in the next day or two."

I took down her information and planned to make it happen in the next few days when I'd be heading off to her town to attend a friend's party. She gave me the jumpers and I thanked her profusely. I now had the proper tool.

I returned to asking around, and this guy, I think it was an Hispanic gentleman who had been in the military gave me the start and took off. I let the car idle at the gas station, you know, because it was a good idea. I thought it would be long enough to get things going. Then I turned on the lights. Poop.

Another few requests later, a kind effeminate man reluctantly gave me a jump from his white VW GTI, the new hip one. When I asked him for a jump he looked exasperated as he agreed to help. It struck a nerve for me in how so many are willing to help when directly confronted with distress, but we are so selfish and it does take a lot for a great deal of citizens to get past the threshold of one's own self-interests in the name of humanity. If you won't do it, someone else might, but if you don't, how are you helping the sum climate of the human experience? Not that everyone has this goal in mind, and if so, maybe only in the very back of their broader personal goals, or simply just in rare instances, but it is part of the human experience to need help and to be able to offer it and keep intact the thin strands of faith in the human race. While I grant that there are those who will take advantage of the average human's capacity for kindness, for example, some drifter kids in Portland, OR, or your long-story con man trying to get his sick wife on a train to a doctor in Connecticut, or a friendly grifter who always seems to have just gotten out of the hospital, there is a point when the refusal to help can feel despicable, and yet the acquiescence to give charity can be so affirming. And so he gave me that jump, subtly indignant in the brisk air, and I thanked him and even apologized, and you could tell he felt right about lending a hand. He went and I actually prayed, you know, to the Force. This time, I turned my lights on BEFORE I removed the jumpers, and let the car burn fuel for new energy. I resolved to drive directly home, too late to dance, and no longer caring to endure car trouble. I needed the heat of my house and my bed. I sputtered into first and hysterically smashed down the clutch every time I didn't know what to do, and crunched numbers in my head to figure out what gear I belonged in. Turning around from Storrow Drive towards my house provided a cheap and life threatening thrill, and then hitting the stop light on that hill certainly scared the piss out of me that I'd roll back into some unassuming Boston aggressive driver who was a little too far up my ass. Boy was he lucky that I didn't accidentally throw it into third, because I did that a few times in the next few days and stalled out with a thud, not knowing for the life of me what I had done wrong and white-knuckled about the climbing engine temperature on my gauge. I accelerated into my pulled e-brake to prevent the accident, and skidded forward and left, into a parking spot to get another jump tomorrow.

For all I trashed Rich in the last posting, he has an oddly generous side to him. He's willing to help with a lot of things if you ask him. He loves to build stuff, built the bar in our basement when we first moved into 21 Bennett, and dissembled it after we realized it was not a good idea to have erected a bar just feet away from the drunk living in the basement. He built the wheels to my bike with great proficiency, and even took me to a rad bike shop to get the particular spokes that would be best for the structure. He gave me a jump when I needed to go get a new battery. He laughed when he first saw the thing that I intended to drive across the country. So with his jumpers, and that negative way he does things that even carries over slightly into his good moods, we invigorated the car to reach the Autozone that gave me my new battery-which could not keep the car alive after a month of being idly parked in my Austin driveway with the car clock on. Something about this car doesn't let that function turn off, nor will the radio actually turn off, they are always sucking out just a little bit of energy, just like Rich.

I went to a place that did cheap tune-ups to get my car road trip ready. I found out why they were cheap. I was recommended another tune-up by a reputable company in Austin. I went to this place with a guy so clearly foreign that it disturbed me to keep calling him George. George told me about a place that does cheap inspections. After having been issued a ticket down in the Seaport District, I had to supply my window and the City of Boston with some proof that the car could meet the state minimums. My horn was going to be an issue. Sometimes it would speak if you wanted it to, but other times when you really wanted it to, you could beat the ever living shit out of it and it would go Quảng Đức on me, and not a peep for the fire of blows I would rain upon it. I had to take my medicine of bad drivers silently and without audible protest. Many of my made fists were shaken in rage. A good LA and Texas lesson, I figured, since any random driver may be carrying a weapon, and drive by shootings are the easiest to get away with, since you are escaping as the crime is being committed. Yet George did me right by sending me there, the horn did not speak, but the car did pass, and they did get a little something extra for the favor. A mechanic in San Francisco told me that in Massachusetts, my car would have to be taken off the road. Boston City Hall dismissed my ticket in March.

I left Boston for Los Angeles on January 5th, Anne's jumpers still in 21 Bennett Street's closet. All the Longshot has to do now is drive across the country and be reliable in LA traffic...

Statistics:

$650 in total to get my license reinstated and my car registered in Massachusetts
153 days between receiving the jumpers and returning them
$213 for a bogus tune up
77.3 harrowing miles from the junkyard where my car was to that gas station
6.3 anus puckering miles from the gas station to 21 Bennett St.
$125 for 6 ballroom dance lessons at Boston Center for Adult Education
5 total jump starts in 2 days
$270 total to tow the car, replace an axle, and put on my mismatched door.
5 years that my license had actually been suspended. How about that? Sure did get away with one there.
$10 claimed as the sale price of the vehicle, 0 actually paid to the previous owner for the title.