Sod in the Seed - Why?

Sod in the Seed 

Critical Mass always gathered right around the time I would get out of work. Hundreds of bikes gathering in Daly Plaza, right by the Picasso sculpture. I biked sometimes, and I always thought it would be fun to ride with them, blocking traffic, yelling at cars, promoting something or whatever the purpose was. Less cars? More visibility? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter because I would never actually do it. Too many people, not to mention ten to fifteen miles of biking sounds like it would make me puke by the end. Mostly, I just dreamed about coming for Liz.
Liz was a biker, worked the day shift at the Whole Foods café I went to ever damn morning, and was in a band. She had tattoos and a chunk of her hair dyed pink and was in better shape than I’d ever be. She told me about it once, saying she liked to bike.
“No way! Me too!” I said, thinking about how rusty my chain must be, how the tires hadn’t been inflated in years.
“Right on. You going to Critical Mass tonight?”
“Oh, I’m not religious”
Liz laughed. “No, it’s a bike thing. A ton of bikers get together and we ride all over the city. It’s really cool. You should come.”
And I didn’t go. And the next week, I asked—all casually—if she was going to Critical Mass again this week. She rolled her eyes. “It’s the last Friday of the month. Only once a month.”
“Oh.”
“This weekend, my band is playing a show up in Rogers Park. If you’re free, you should check it out. It’s only three bucks. They have cheap beer, too.”
And I didn’t go to that either. It’s intimidating to try to decide if someone is interested in you or just being nice. But I’d still get coffee, and she’d still talk to me like she knew me as more than a customer, smiling when she saw me, calling me by name. So this lead to a mountain of false hope and dreams, nearly every night, of seeing what was under her apron and waking up with a lot of sighing and jerking off.
So, the last Friday of August, I decided to go to Critical Mass. But not to bike. I was just gonna swing by, make some excuse about a broken pedal, say that I really tried or something, and ask if maybe Liz would like to go on a bike ride with me. In my head, this was a perfect idea. In my car, a broken down, gas guzzling Ford, I planned on hitting up Critical Mass, which, in retrospect sounds exactly like the kind of thing idiots do.
There’s not a lot of parking downtown, so I pulled up on Dearborn, cutting through the protected bike lane, tossing on my blinkers, and ignoring the people who started yelling at me immediately upon walking away from the car. Everyone was standing with their bikes, varying levels of undress, rat tail haircuts and bad tattoos all around. Sitting on the statue, leaning back and enjoying the sun was Liz. A few more people yelled about the asshole who parked their car in the bike lane.
“Liz.” I said, trying and failing to sound casual, hands in my pockets.
“Oh, hey!” She said, opening her eyes and smiling. “You made it!”
“Whose fucking car is this?” Someone yelled from behind me. A chorus of “That guy!” came after.
“Uh, yeah, I can’t stay, my bike’s-”
“HEY! Get your fucking car out of the bike lane, asshole!” the voices were getting closer. Liz looked around confused.
“Is… is that your car?”
“Yeah, I gotta go. I was just gonna ask,” I turned, talking over my shoulder , “when does your band play? I’d like to come.” People started moving towards me, lots of them, and I wasn’t really afraid, but I was still mortified, wishing I could just melt into the concrete. “You know what, just put it up on the bulletin board. I’ll see it then. Or something. Bye.”
Liz looked embarrassed, like she was going to have to explain who I was and why I parked across a bike lane. As soon as I was in the car, I punched the gas, nearly hitting a bus. As I drove back to my apartment, I thought about what this meant for me now. Probably no more Whole Foods coffee. And fuck if I’d ever make it to a Critical Mass. Whatever. Tomorrow, I’d make coffee at home. Maybe I’d bike to work.


For Someone

The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia was orange and beat to shit. Albert stared at it. He had already followed the clues this far, crawling through hidden passages, sneaking through back rooms at dirty bars. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, just that Justine had told him to go. “It’ll take you where you need to be” she said, handing him a USB stick with only one text file on it. That was three days ago.
In the glove box, as promised, was the map and a white card with the rest of the instructions on it. Albert put the key in the ignition and turned, figuring—hoping, really—that the engine wouldn’t start. He had gone to his father’s funeral because that’s what you do. Or at least that’s what all of his friends told him. You go because you have to. His father was a drunk, and at 16 Albert left home, thumbing his way across the country, collecting tattoos and stories, eating out of dumpsters and at stranger’s homes and sucking dick for a ride along 88. But that was a while ago. Now he repo’d cars.
At the funeral, there were only six people. His father’s friend who found him, yellow and shriveled in his arm chair, Albert, the priest, and three others. The others kept to themselves, two men and a woman, the two men wearing matching brown suits and torn up sneakers. The woman came over after the service. This was Justine.
On the highway, Albert drove, thinking about Justine and what she had said. “You dad wanted to give you this. It’ll take you where you need to be.” Then she turned and walked away, Albert too confused to chase after. Where did he need to be? The map pointed south; the card said once he hit Benton to press preset 3 and wait until he heard the code. That was the last clue, according to the card. Twenty minutes later, on the outskirts of Benton, Albert pulled over, punched the radio button and listened to the static. His dad wasn’t the type to plan, wasn’t the type to play games. As a kid, Albert’s dad wouldn’t even come to his little league or band concerts or whatever it was he had tried to do to impress him, saying it was all “a waste of goddamn time.” But then, apparently, here he was, already dead and figuring out a way to send Albert to the middle of nowhere to waste some goddamn time.
After about an hour it started.
Beginning transmission—code will sound three times. 
The first time through Albert just listened, dumbfounded.
Continuing transmission—code will sound two times.
The second time through, Albert searched for a pen and paper. In the glove box was an old metal pen, and after scribbling and licking the ball, it started working faintly on the back of the card with the previous instructions.
Final transmission.
And Albert started scribbling. Remembering hints of history class, he tried putting down dots and dashes, getting most of it down.
“...-- ---.. .-.-.- ----- ---.. ...-- ----. --..-- / -....- ---.. ---.. .-.-.- ..... ..... .---- ....-  Fuck.” Albert stared at the marks, no idea what to do with them. Why was his dad making him do this? How was this where he should be? He turned the keys, shut off the radio, and drove the rest of the way into town. There would be a library there. He could figure out what this all meant. And then he’d go to the next place and find the next clue. And the next. And the next. Because even if his dad was a dick his whole life, even if they hadn’t spoken in fifteen years, while he was on this bullshit treasure hunt, he felt like they were close. Felt like they were finally doing something together.


The Plan

The library was quiet when Andre walked in. Not like libraries are always quiet, but actually quiet, no noise, no one else there besides the librarian at the front desk outside the double doors and the AV guy along the back wall with headphones over his ears. All around, dust clung to pillars of light from windows and the air smelled purple with age. Andre had his hands in his pockets, left hand fidgeting with the pen, right hand scratching his thigh through his pants.
Third encyclopedia from the bottom right corner, the one with the orange binding. Andre squatted down, his knees cracking like they did sometimes. Yesterday, he’d been mopping the floor of the grocery store, wordless and emotionless, with one of his coworkers stocking next to him, going on and on about the party this weekend and how he was going to get “soooo fucked up, bruh!” And Andre had managed to not say anything. The day before that he buried his father. He had been out without his epinephrine and got stung by a bee that was trapped in his car. He probably could have made it to the hospital, but didn’t even put the car in gear. Andre hadn’t said anything about that to anyone. At least not yet.
Slowly, they had been making their way through the encyclopedia, going back and forth, creasing the corner of one page with a message, unfolding, writing their message and creasing that new page. Sometimes the messages were long. Sometimes they were short.
The weather today [9/10] is terrible. So much dust in the air. Too windy.  One day had read. Andre responded similarly.
Weather better now [9/13]. Thinking about quitting job. Depressed by how much work finding a new one is. 
That’s rough [9/14]. A new one will come along when it needs to. Maybe you need to be at this one? You never know…
Those sorts of things. And now, since Andre didn’t have anyone to talk to, since after most people went off to college and it was just him and his coworkers who were still in town, he finally had somewhere to talk about his dad. Some stranger that defaced books with him. He’d been doing it for a while, the book writing, three months or so. At first it was fun, weird, sort of cool. But lately it became more of a conversation. He wasn’t sure who it was, he guessed older and female based on the neatness and looping of the handwriting.
Crouching now, feeling the corners until he found the one that was bent, he opened the encyclopedia. The library was still quiet, still dusty, still purple. The book was heavy, and Andre placed it across his lap, open to the new page. On it, his anonymous pen pal had written a question, that’s all.
        [10/5] What are you afraid of?
       This was apropos of  nothing; the last thing Andre had written was [9/25] Fairly certain I am going to switch shampoos. This is what is exciting in my life right now. How quickly things change, he thought.
What was Andre afraid of? Being alone, maybe? Dying? Or worse, dying alone, without your one lifeline, trapped in a car in your work’s parking lot, under the Texas sun? Maybe he was afraid of writing in library books, missing human connection one day at a time, until finally running out of days. Andre thought, breathing in the purple air and the dust and the memory of his dad and the bee.
[10/8] Apiphobia. And with that, Andre creased a page for the last time, closed the encyclopedia, and walked out into the sun.


Probable Cause

I had told Josiah about Liz, driving back from some bullshit road trip we took to Philadelphia before his wedding. Said how, since I was older, I should be setting the example. I should be getting married. I should be happy. I should be doing something. And I’m not proud, but I hadn’t slept much on the east coast, and everything just seemed so fucking huge and then a state trooper flashed his lights and pulled me over and walked up and asked if I knew how fast I was going and I thought about the ticket and the money and how all I wanted was to get back to Chicago and go to Whole Foods and ask Liz out without any fucking bikes and I guess I had started saying this out loud and, it’s stupid I know, but I started to cry and rant and I had only been going five over, ten tops, and if I didn’t do something now I was going to die alone.
The cop walked around the car to Josiah who said something. Then I heard the cop say, loud enough so that it was directed at both of us, that maybe I shouldn’t be driving anymore. Josiah and I switched places and he drove us the rest of the way back to Illinois. Like an adult. Like someone who had it together.


Twenty Seven

On your twenty seventh birthday, I thought about calling you up. Thought about your tiny bird bones and how they cracked so easily under the weight of me. And I thought about how I was sorry for the time that we fell down the stairs when I was too drunk and couldn’t keep my balance. And I thought about the days that we spent in those casts and sitting on the couch and watching TV.
That night when we were twenty two and I surprised you outside of the theater with a tiny metal ring with a tiny piece of amethyst from on one knee. And how you cried and shook and said yes. And I think about when the stone fell out and how we stood over the rocks and looked for it for hours until the sun was gone. And how sorry I was that two years later I asked if I could have the hollow metal band back and how it cracked so easily in my hand as I listened to you cry.
And on your twenty seventh birthday, I thought about calling you up to let you know that for years before that, before we went to the theater and before I bought the amethyst ring I would pick flowers from our neighbor’s garden and play “loves me not, loves me” until I found a final daisy that let me know you cared. And that now, at twenty seven, I don’t pick flowers because I don’t wonder anymore.


Shag Carpet

When I wrote that poem for my dorm’s creative writing contest, I tried to get the gist of what it was like to fuck Violet. Tried to get the intricate details of our sordid love affair, of getting head in the front seat of her mom’s Oldsmobile. And I thought about mailing her a copy to her college on the other side of the country but I didn’t because honestly, I didn’t know where to send it.
I wrote the whole thing in the first person, and I have no idea how to write poetry, so I wasn’t too surprised when I didn’t win. It wasn’t really for the contest. I just wanted to get it out. Wanted to talk about the shape of her spine as she bent over the center console to where I was with my pants around my ankles in the passenger seat. It was the year before we went off to school, before Christmas when we had told our parents that we had gone out Christmas shopping, then stopped at the park to fuck. When my mom called me to remind me about dinner at my grandma’s, we were just on our way to Target, so we ran in, grabbed a bunch of crap so neither of us came home empty handed.
And, I mean, it would have just been that, but every day here, I see girls that look just like her. Curly brown hair, little titties, off-center noses. And so I think about it, and I think about her, and I think about how everyone here are going around and fucking everything and I’m still hung up on some girl from high school. So I wrote a poem and hoped it’d made me feel better.
When Violet and I first met it was at her church where I had come with a friend who was worried about my soul or whatever it is that religious people think. And we shook hands during Peace and smiled at each other and then went off to talk in the church parking lot. After that we’d talk on the phone sometimes and stay as just distant acquaintances. Then we fucked in her car at the park and then we never talked again.
One night when I was drunk I called her up and on her message machine I spilled my guts about that night and how I still thought about her. And I read the poem. It was pretty explicit. And then I told her to call me. And I woke up the next morning trying to remember what all I had said and then something clicked: The only number I had for her was her parent’s.