Hank Gradowski

For the last week everybody at the Sleep Center has been talking about our newest chronic patient, Hank Gradowski.  Nobody really told me about him, I just heard his name getting thrown about.  When he first introduced himself to me last week I said, “Hank…Hank the Tank…Ka-boom!” He smiled and said that’s right.  But when he shuffled away, Rex came up from behind and said, “Nice work, Typhus.  He’s dying.”  I asked if he was dying from a tank injury, and Rex said I was the biggest idiot he had ever met. 

I later found out in the break room thank Hank is not dying from a tank injury (I was then called an idiot again, this time by Marcus, one of the assistant).  Instead, Hank Gradowski has Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which is the polite way of saying human mad cow disease.  Marcel tried to explain to me what exactly was happening in Hank’s brain using words like “spongebob encepholopod,” “prius,” and “microscope.”  I tuned him out until he said it’s kind of like his brain is liquefying.  Hank is slowly losing the ability to fall asleep, which Rex says is going to make Hank go "ape."  The Sleep Center is doing what it can for him before he either dies or goes into a coma. 

Hank’s a pretty great guy, though.  I asked him if he was dreaming when he slept, and he was, and then I told him I’m a good dream interpreter and sketch artist.  Hank got excited because, since he has memory loss, he likes to know about the dreams he doesn’t remember.  He told one dream about how he went to an underground rodeo with the leader of North Korea, only to find out they went on the wrong day and so instead sat on the ocean and ate Mentos breath mints together.  I sketched it for him and he was pretty happy, and told me he’s excited to look at it when the deterioration of his neurons causes his dementia to create further memory loss.  That Hank!

He commissioned me to draw as many of his dreams as I possibly can.  Last night Marcel and Marcie, an assistant, were working with him, and he told me another dream he had.  His speech is pretty slurred so it took a while for me to understand, but it seems Hank was in a fitness center with a whole bunch of identical twins, and he was walking around pouring Pepsi on everyone from a two-liter bottle.  I started working on it immediately in the utility closet.  Marcel told me that Hank had also told him about a dream involving a book being shot to space that leaked milk on its way to the sun.  On the way out with his caretakers Hank whispered to me not to tell anyone, but that he didn’t see those things in his dreams, but when he was awake.  I told him I wouldn't tell because sometimes I wish people are around so badly it's almost like they really are there.

Then he said he hopes he starts hallucinating about pretty birds just for me, and I told him that would be awesome.  Then I told him if he didn’t hallucinate about birds that would be okay, too.  And then I called him "Hank the Tank," because Rex is the one who's an idiot.

Sammy's Delivery and the Baltimore Oriole

Sammy was irritated that Boyce Jr. didn’t want him to come talk about his ancestor, Charles Brockden Brown.  He nevertheless happily agreed to help us order things to Dr. Keegman’s office.  In fact, just this morning he called us to say that he’d already hand-delivered six boxes of sandwich buns to the doctor’s office.  The receptionist just stared at Sammy when, dressed in his Arby’s uniform, he brought in the boxes for “one Dr. Jonathan Keegman.”  The receptionist told him there must be a mistake, but Sammy had an order form all filled out and showed it to her.  She told him she didn’t care what the order form said: “What in God’s name would we want with six boxes of buns?”  Sammy said it wasn’t his job to judge, and that maybe this Dr. Keegman was planning a rogue potluck, or perhaps he was an agoraphobiac.  “Do you know what an agoraphobiac is?” he asked her.    She told him to get out, and he agreed to, but refused to take the buns with him: “You’ll just have to dispose of them yourself, ma’am.  If I walk out that door with a delivered order I could be fired.”  So he stacked the six boxes next to a few patients sitting in the waiting room, and whispered to all of them, “What’s a doctor want with a bunch of expired hamburger buns?  Weird, if you ask me.”  Then he left. 

I think Sammy is the most excited of all to torment Dr. Keegman, and he said he’d research all the things he could find that were payment upon delivery.

Meanwhile, the leaves are falling where I live, and that means it’s autumn, or as my dad would always call it, “The season of remorse.”  The recommendation from ol’ Cyrus is to head out and look for some migratory birds while you still can.  Just like dad always said, “This might be the last chance you get!”  This past weekend I got a couple good looks at some Baltimore Orioles, one of Rachel’s favorite birds.  She once bought me a hat with a Baltimore Oriole on it, but I generally don’t wear it so I just keep it on the top of my coat rack.  I don’t want to wear it out and then one day not have a hat Rachel gave me.  I know it’s an impossibility, but I still think I’ll get this phone call from her and she’ll say, “Cyrus, come quick and save me!  My apartment is on fire!”  Then I’ll grab that hat and run over to where she used to live, and say, “I’ll save you, Rachel!  Come on, you've got to--what's that?  This old thing?  I'm not sure where I got it....Are you sure?  Maybe you did get it for me...What's that?...Well, I love you, too!” 

Note: Since her apartment was a rental it doesn't really matter that it burns down.

Boyce Jr.'s Class

I wish I could type that the talk to the kids went well.  I wish I could say that at one point when I spoke about the nesting techniques of the Carolina Wren each little child held their head up to me like baby Ospreys reaching up for digested chum from the mother’s beak.  That on our way out Boyce told me I really got to those kids, and three of them were on the elementary school roof wishing they could fly.

None of that happened, though.

I knew Boyce was going to speak to the class too, but I had no idea there was a third speaker.  One of the students' uncles named Jonathan Keegman, a well dressed doctor who gave us business cards, sat next to us in the front of the class.  When Boyce Jr.’s teacher, Ms. Felton, asked which of us would like to go first, I stayed quiet.  I figured the kids would ask so many questions—“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Wetherbee, you say the Dark-Eyed Junco’s song is different than the Yellow-Eyed Junco?  How so?”—that the others wouldn’t have time to go.  Boyce didn’t speak because Boyce didn’t want to speak.  So Dr. Keegman said he’d be honored, and then he stood up before the class and asked them if everyone knew what a doctor did. 

That’s right, he said.  Doctors save lives.  For about ten minutes he told stories about saving lives, and he really had the kids going when he told the story about how he saved a puppy’s life when it ate too much cotton candy.  He told the kids that the boy who gave that dog cotton candy didn’t know it was bad because he wasn’t a scientist.  Scientists, he said, teach us about all kinds of things.  He said scientists teach us the truth while what we hear from other people is sometimes just gossip and lies.  He said people don’t always mean to tell lies, they just thought they were telling the truth.  He asked the kids if they ever had an experience where they found out something they knew was true turned out to be false.  I looked over at Ms. Felton and she was kind of nervous that none of the kids were raising their hands, so I raised mine and said, “People thought halcyon birds, or the kingfisher bird, nested on the water, but that’s not possible.”  That kind of caught him off-guard though, and he looked back at the kids and asked again.

When none of the kids spoke he gave an example.  For instance, he said, let’s say a whole bunch of people told you that something bad really happened.  A whole lot of people said it, it must be true, right?  “You’d be surprised how many people still think that about the kingfisher,” I said, but again, he was clearly not looking for something from me.  So he went on: but what if the only reason they thought the really bad thing happened was because they were taught that—taught that by the supposed victims of that bad thing.  And then what if you found out that those supposed victims were using that bad thing that never happened to increase gold and gem prices during economic panics?

That’s when Ms. Felton stood up and shouted for this to stop.  I think Boyce had fallen asleep, because his head shot up real quick.  Dr. Keegman told her that he didn’t mean anything in particular, but Ms. Felton told him we were out of time, and maybe we should pack things up and leave.  Boyce was confused but didn’t really want an explanation so he started to pack his records up.  He shouted to Boyce Jr. that he’d see him at home and waited at the doorway for me.  Dr. Keegman and I were awkwardly being whisked to the door by Ms. Felton, and Dr. Keegman said, “Freedom of speech, kids!  Freedom of speech.”  She moved us all into the hallway and slammed the door.

When Boyce and I went to the van I saw something and rushed back to Boyce Jr.’s class.  I knocked on the glass but everybody’s head was down.  Even Ms. Felton’s.  She raised her head and waved me away.  I came in anyway and told her that I’d seen an Indigo Bunting nest outside, and I could bring it in.  She told me no, and that I should leave.  “I’m positive the nest has been left for the fall,” I said.  But then she just put her head down again.  All the kids were looking at me, and I thought they could all go for an Indigo Bunting nest, so I said, “Do you know, Ms. Felton, they use spider webs to keep the nest together?”  And then she told the kids to put their head back down and asked me to leave. 

I asked Boyce what happened back there, and he told me he drifted off as soon as the suit started talking.  He didn’t want to listen to how great that doctor was, nor think about Boyce listening to how great that doctor was.  I told him that we had Dr. Keegman’s business card, so we could start a slow-burn revenge by having things delivered to his office.  He thought that was pretty great, so we started brainstorming.

Charlotte's Chips and That Mexican Woman

Yesterday I rode the bus with Sammy to meet Boyce and Charlotte for lunch at Charlotte’s new favorite Mexican restaurant.  Charlotte doesn’t talk very much, but when she’s eating chips and salsa you might as well move to another booth.  I’m pretty sure the only reason she wanted Boyce to invite us is so the waiter wouldn’t hesitate in bringing a sixth or seventh basket of chips.  One of the saddest I’ve ever seen Charlotte is when we drove past her former favorite restaurant, Senor Frog Wearing A Sombrero and a Bandolier, or something like that.  The restaurant had instituted a two-basket limit on chips and salsa, and as we drove by it Boyce forgot, and said, “You want some chips, babe?”  She dropped her head; didn’t even bother sobbing.  When we stopped at a red light Boyce told us about the restaurant’s new policy, and Sammy demanded we turn around and drive by it again.  As we did, Sammy grabbed an old, lukewarm Arby’s coke from the cup holder and heaved it at the restaurant.  Thing was, we were in the outside lane, and all he did was heave that paper cup against the driver’s window of the car approaching in the right lane.  Needless to say, those two men inside the car were both confused and angry.  Boyce is a big man, and Sammy looks like he could get one good shot in, but we were all terrified.  Charlotte was in the back seat with me and didn’t even react because she was still thinking about the chips policy.  Before we got to the next red light we were frantically trying to figure out what to do.  I think out of fear, I shouted, “Ram them!  Ram them!” until Boyce told me to shut up.  He tried to do a U-turn but traffic just wouldn’t let him.  And those men in the car next to us just kept right by our side.  When we were forced to stop at a red light, Sammy told us he’ll take care of it.  He rolled down the window, leaned out, and shrugged his shoulders as he said, “It happens.”  I don’t know what was going on in the lives of those men next to us, but when they saw Sammy do that they burst into laughter.  The guy in the passenger seat started trying to rock their car side to side.  The driver held down the horn.  When the light turned green, Sammy even leaned out to hi-five the driver.  When he got back in he said, “Angels among us,” and Boyce explained how awesome they were through a dizzying string of obscene modifiers.  I leaned over to Charlotte to say that clearly the chips policy wouldn’t last.

So yesterday we met at a different Mexican restaurant, one much more authentic based on the Western Union signs in the window.  As Sammy and I went inside, a Mexican woman in the parking lot began talking to me in Spanish.  She tried to communicate with me, but I didn’t understand.  She got really excited, and then she walked away.

When we sat down with Boyce and Charlotte Sammy told me that my behavior with that woman was one of the more incredible things he’d ever seen, including those lovely reefer addicts from the coke-throwing incident.  According to Sammy, I didn’t even nod my head or squint when she spoke to me in Spanish.  I did nothing but stare right at her with a completely blank expression, and this expression did not change no matter how many times she got excited or pointed at different things in the parking lot.

I asked Sammy what he expected, but he ignored me, saying, “That was spectacular.  She was trying to bring a street sign to life.”  I asked him why he didn’t help her out, and he claimed he was too impressed with “the most brilliant impersonation of death by something that breathes.”  I told him that the woman was probably crazy, since I was the last person at the restaurant she should speak to in Spanish.  Surely, if she was in danger she would have just walked inside and asked one of the workers.  We spent a lot of the lunch talking about different situations that made her speak to me instead of anyone else.  We came up with several scenarios that involves car bombs, kidnapping, arson, and prostitution.  I was going to say maybe she thought I was good looking, but didn’t because then Charlotte joined in, saying the woman had just lost her son’s dog, so why ask people in the restaurant who had been inside all day.  So we raised our glasses to finding the dog.  It was a few seconds later when Boyce said, “I bet it was a Chihuahua.”

When we left Sammy said my complete lack of sympathy through body language was inspiring, and he was going to try to make it a week without giving a single courtesy laugh to anyone.  Boyce said that was impossible, that especially in his line of duty he wouldn’t make it a day.  They wanted to bet, so I placed the odds at 10:1 Sammy fails.

Tomorrow I go to Boyce Jr.’s classroom!  Turns out Boyce caved and is going to go in with me to talk about his record collection.  He told Boyce Jr. not to tell his teacher that though, so I’m not sure what she’s expecting.

Preparing For the Speech

I already know what the highlight of the week is going to be.  It’s not the coming migratory patterns which remind me that just because the Universe is a blind mother who at times offers her teat to us, and at times offers her teat to disease and carnage, doesn’t mean she isn’t beautiful.  No, it’s going to talk to an elementary school class about birds.

Last night Sammy and I had dinner at the Lancaster house, and it came to our attention that Boyce Jr. is a whopping eight years old.  He started the second grade two weeks ago, and his teacher has made it clear that she would like parents and visitors to come and talk about their work.  When Boyce Jr. asked his dad to come in to class Boyce said he’d rather die, and then said, “Look, here’s some metal…buzzzzzzzz…now it’s a key.  There you go ma’am.  If your boyfriend doesn’t want to heave your keys into traffic anymore, I guess I’ll be going.  How’s that class?”  If Boyce Jr. wasn’t Boyce’s son he probably would have cried.  Instead, Boyce Jr. just made a stabbing motion with his fork and said, “Traffic!”

Sammy told Boyce Jr. he would go in to talk about his ancestor, the writer Charles Brockden Brown.  Boyce said he’d rather him come in to say whether it’s true that Arby’s roast beef arrives at the store in liquid form.  Boyce Jr. then asked if I would come in and interpret his classmates' dreams for him.  I said, “Sure, but you better hope none of your friends are being abused, because if they are, I’ll know.”  Then after some consultation with his father, Boyce Jr. asked me if I’d come and talk about birds, and I told him I would be delighted.

At this point in time I am thinking about using scare tactics and analogies about parents who stop loving their children in order to explain to the kids how important it is to stop invasive species of animals and plants from moving in on native bird territory.  I will provide them with the harrowing example of The Elf Owl’s loss of habitat, and then paint vivid, realistic portrayals about what would happen to their own internal organs if they were taken away from their family and had only dust and fertilizer to eat.

Below is the outline of my speech:

I.    Introduction
       a.    Birds—why getting high won’t make you one [the anti-drug
              part of speech]
II.    What makes you not care about endangered birds?
       a.    Who doesn’t care about you?  How does that make you feel?
       b.    Who do you know is capable of hurting a bird?
III.    Invasive Species—The end of the ecosystem…or the world?
       a.    The effect of Chinese imports and tariffs on birds
       b.    Hand Puppet Drama: The Story of Mr. Big Farmer and
              How He Murdered The Elf Owl and Buried Him 
              Under a Pile of Corn Syrup and Bank Notes
IV.    Conclusion
       a.    What kind of God would allow this?
V.    Q and A

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Cyrus Picks

After telling me how much money he's willing to spend to get me to Lambeau field when Bart Farv returns (see earlier posting), Boyce told me it would only be fair if I pulled my weight by getting informed about the entire football world.  To show Boyce my commitment, I am therefore making the following picks.

You might think I was a big sports gambler, but that would be an idiotic thing to think.  I do not bet on things that I cannot control.  And while I cannot control the spin of the roulette wheel or the roll of the dice, it does allow me to play the odds.  In sports, it is proven time and again that supposed "experts" cannot guess at any higher rate than computer programs.  That means there is no inside knowledge to aid in sports betting.  It is fate.  And while that is extremely mouth-watering and oddly makes me fantasize about Rachel lying in a bird's nest, I like to at least have a hand in fate.  Therefore, you are just as likely to win in your local "sexual fantasy" football league using my picks as anyone else's.

1. Alabama 45, North Texas 13.  North Texas is not really a place name like North Platte, South Dakota.  Therefore the fact that it's North Texas rather than Northern Texas is stupid.  I have never been to this school, but I imagine it's filled with people who stake their identity on archaic grammatical constructions, rather than learning how to push the ball into the goal zone.

2. Virginia Tech 24, Nebraska 13.  In researching Virginia Tech online, there appears to have been a shooting recently.  They'll be playing for vengeance against Nebraska, who, according to my internet research, did nothing to stop the shooting from happening.

3. Michigan 45, Eastern Michigan 13.  Excited about the fact that Eastern Michigan forms the acronym EMU, I rushed to their web site to see what their mascot was.  It is an eagle.  This is aggravating for several reasons.  First, eagles are endlessly subjected to unoriginal mascotry which turns them from unique animals into pedestrian cartoons.  Inexcusable.  Second, there are over 60 species of eagle.  Exactly which one are you, Eastern Michigan?  Or are you claiming that you're all of them?  Stupid.  And third, Eastern has the opportunity to be the EMU Emus, a wonderfully unique creature (pictured right).  Instead, they continued to carve eagles into tiny bits with their rusty Knife of Conformity.  Until the change is made, DOWN WITH EASTERN MICHIGAN, AND UP WITH THE EMUS!

4. Florida 40, Tennessee 13.  I have not heard of either of these teams, but as Tennessee is irritating to spell, I go with Florida (Note: this is mathematically as good a reason to bet as anything you paid to learn).

5. New England 35, Ohio State 13.  Although "The New England Patriots" sound more like a middling soccer team at some snotty prep school, they are nevertheless highly paid professional athletes.  Ohio State players, from what I understand, are not paid as much.

6. Green Bay 24, Cincinnati 13.  Go Packers!

Shocked!, But Right

I always assumed only Sammy and Boyce were reading this.  Maybe Charlotte, I thought, and if I really played my cards right I could get Marcel to read it.  That's all.  Yet knowing this, it is nevertheless disturbing that for over a week I have been silent after writing how a deranged stranger wanted to badly hurt me, and no one even emailed me to see if I'm okay.  Sammy and Boyce knew I wasn't dead, but no one out there in cyberspace bothered to check.  It makes me think about the funeral director who gave me my mother's ashes (he was unaware of our burial plans, or he would have undoubtedly called the police).  He told me, "When they both go you feel like an orphan, no matter how old you are."

Obviously, to those who care, I did not die.  I did, however, endure my third recent episode of physical pain.  First was the monkey wrestling, then came Rex's car wreck, and now the crazy father.  When I went to the Sleep Center for my first shift after the Labor Day trip, I tried to get off the bus a block early and sneak through the back door.  That worked, but it turns out the crazy guy had learned I was the janitor, and when I opened the utility closet, he was standing there.  In the instant I saw him I thought he was going to deck me.  Instead, he poked me with an electric cattle prod.  I immediately collapsed and then he shocked me two more times before Marcel heard my boots kicking violently against the wall.  When he showed up the crazy man threw the cattle prod at my face, which just seemed really unnecessary.

He sat peacefully in the waiting room with Marcel and a couple other attendants until the police came.  They asked me why the man had done this to me.  I told them I had never met the man.  They asked me if I wanted to hear the man's version.  I said yes.  The cops said, "His girlfriend is carrying your baby."

I would not have been shocked if the cops had told me the man wanted to kill me "just because."  Twice in my life people have told me they would just feel more comfortable if I were dead.  I was willing to hear anything, but that his girlfriend was carrying my baby was just too much.  When I told Sammy and Boyce the story, Boyce wondered if the man's girlfriend was a starfish.  Sammy said that still wouldn't make sense, but it didn't stop them from talking for fifteen minutes about how starfish do and do not reproduce, and for some reason, another five minutes about whether a goat would or would not eat a tin can.  ("I'm just saying, the cliche has to come from somewhere."  "It would die."  "Maybe it would just chew the can, like when it's bored, and then spit it out if it saw a leather boot."  "That I could agree to.")

After the cops showed me a picture of the man's girlfriend, I remembered her.  She had come to the Sleep Center about a month ago suffering from insomnia.  I heard through the wall when she told the attendant that she was a having a dream of a two-headed dragon.  When she walked by me in the hallway I told her, "You're pregnant."  She asked me if I were serious, as though I'd just informed her that they were towing her car.  "Don't assume it's twins.  But you're pregnant."

This seemed to explain why the man called his child "my baby."  Once the woman verified my obviously true statement, she told him.  He wanted her to abort it, but she told him "the psychic at the Sleep Center knew..." and refused to give up the child.

While this explained everything, the cops wanted to know how I knew the woman was pregnant, even when she didn't know.  I told them that the woman had dreamed of dragons, which represented three things in dreams: the devil, pregnancy, or the presence of worms somewhere in the dreamer's digestive system.  I didn't think it was the first, because I don't believe in the devil.  When I once told Rachel that, she said that if I wasn't going to believe in God, I sure as hell better not believe in the devil.  "Baby steps," she said.  That left pregnancy or the presence of worms.  The latter actually works better with insomnia.  When I walked out of the utility closet I assumed it was worms, especially when I saw she was a thin woman with a lot of make-up who didn't look particularly educated (which would tell me: worms through lack of cooking food, walking barefoot, or worms through purposeful insertion of tapeworm.).  As I got closer, however, she distinctly struck me as a person who would have a complete fool for a boyfriend, one who would certainly not encourage contraception.  Therefore, I went with the pregnancy, despite the unusual presence of insomnia.

The police were stunned.  I told them it was something I could do often, and when I began to explain to them that really, archetypal images are only the beginning of dream interpretation, they walked away shaking their head. 

When I told Boyce and Sammy, they both interrupted to say that--point of order--it shouldn't matter if I believed in the devil, or even if the woman believed in the devil.  It still could have been the devil in the dream.  It took a few minutes for them to explain exactly why this is so (the starfish/goat conversation had really angered me and threw off my concentration), and I told them I would not make the mistake again.

Anyway, to avoid possible litigation for being assaulted on company property, I got a paid week off.  I did some sketches, some bird watching, and some dreaming.  I even went on a few calls with Boyce in his locksmith van.  If all it takes to get that kind of week is to be shocked with an electric cattle prod, I will begin looking for other potentially parasite-riddled women to eavesdrop on so that I may say, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you are pregnant or in a losing battle with a real or metaphorical evil presence.  Possibly both."

If Only I Could Write

The annual Labor Day trip is over, and I wish I could spend my time talking about the things I did and, as always, failed to do.  But I work tonight, and there's still someone who wants to bite my teeth out of my head waiting for me at the Sleep Center.  I have tried to write about the man by my father's grave, Barry, who hangs out at the cemetery because he'd already bought his plot and then lost his house.  Now his grave is the only place he owns.  Well, owns isn't the right word.  He has to hide at dusk when they shut the gates, but he does have a lot of Doritos and sandwiches hidden around the cemetery, so it's kind of like he owns it.  Every time I try to write about Barry though, I think about that guy who wants to hang me with barbed wire from the high branch of my burning family tree.

I'd also like to write about the homeless man who hung around Audubon's statue and who wouldn't listen when I told him that loud smells of other creatures keep birds away, and so surely he could find another place to sleep in his own vomit-encrusted military jacket.  Every time I write about that man who wouldn't speak to me but instead gave himself splinters by scratching the wood benches, I think of the guy who wants to deliver my colon to the orphanage my children will soon be sent to.

I'd also like to write about how I can't ever get used to the fact that my mother's grave is actually on the property of a Ruby Tuesday's--and the Ruby Tuesday's was there first.  When she died she hadn't gotten over the fact that the manager at her local Ruby Tuesday's told her--after she demanded that since she was blind her check should be reduced since half the cost is to put "stupid shit on the walls I can't see anyway"--that maybe she should dine elsewhere.  She made us bury her urn in the middle of the night by the flagpole in front on the front door, and people always look at me when I put flowers there and talk to her.  Once the hostess came out and asked me if I was alright, but I told her to go to hell because I thought that's what mom would have liked.  I'd like to write about all that, but instead I think of the guy who is going to brush his teeth with my ashes and a toothbrush made out of my elbow.

I'd also like to write about my uncle's grave which, other than my father's, makes me the happiest.  His drunk friends sometimes hang out around his grave until they are kicked out, but then come back when they're drifting through the state again.  They write all over his tombstone, and sometimes it gets washed off, but then they put more messages right back on.  This time I went none of his friends were there, but they had recently written on his grave:

"Ask the devil if it's your turn yet"
"Charlie!" (my uncle's name is not Charlie)
"I poured out nine beers here on August 4th"
"Remember [unintelligible] yeah!"
"Wake up, seepy-boy"
"Apollo is a peckerhead"
And someone put the lyrics to a pop song: "Lo! 'tis a gala night / Within the lonesome latter years!"

But I can't really get into all that, because I think of the guy who hasn't eaten for three days just so he has enough room to digest my entire brain.

I'd even like to write about the other graves I saw, and about the whippoorwill that I saw for the second year in a row at the grave I spend the night at.  The whippoorwill must have a nest near the grave, and it sang its nocturnal song for the whole night, and that made me so happy I couldn't sleep. But then I think of the guy who wants to clone me and then push my clones into traffic while everyone who ever loved me watches.

Annual Labor Day Road Trip

When I went to work yesterday I saw the guy sitting on the curb.  He was whipping a weed into the asphalt and I kind of felt bad for him.  He was clearly disappointed, and part of me wanted to tell him to cheer up, I was right here, and he could pummel me right now if he liked.  When he looked up at me he said, "Cyrus?"  I responded with a no, but then made him promise to let me hold Cyrus when he finally beats him up.

My whole shift I tried to think of who this man was.  To this point I still have no idea.  I'm pretty sure that means it's someone else I've done something horrible to, and he is just the executioner.  I wanted to ask him what Cyrus did, but was afraid I'd give something away.  Marcel was still working when I got inside, so I asked him to do it for me when he left.  He called me from his car to say that the man was walking away from the Sleep Center when he went off-shift, and he looked like a little boy who had lost his dog.  The man's rage has obviously tapped into a deeper feeling of insecurity due to chronic failure.  I must remember to use that when he fights me, in lieu of strong punches or coherent attempts at self-defense.

I will manage to avoid him since it's Labor Day weekend, and that means my annual pilgrimage of graves.  I go to see my father's grave, my mother's grave, and my uncle's grave.  I also visit a couple other graves that I don't like to talk about.  Since New York City, where John James Audubon is buried, is too far away, I also make a trip to Audubon County in Iowa to put flowers at the feet of his statue.

My father is buried in a different state than my mother, so I have to rent a car to make the whole trip.  It ends up being a big part of my budget, but I figure it's worth it.  Ever since Mom died it's been a lot easier to make the trip to see Dad since no one's making fun of me for doing it.  Once Mom died too I put her into the trip.  My uncle died just a couple years ago from a long life of drinking and pill popping.  When he was dying, he asked if I would stop at his grave too on my Labor Day trip.  It never occurred to me to do that, but I said okay.  Then at his funeral, which was a whole bunch of drunk guys in a steak house, all his friends were real nice to me.  Later that afternoon they let me do a couple donuts in the mud pit with an old Dodge Charger.  Some of them even knew my dad, and they patted me real hard on the shoulder.

Who Wants to Hurt Cyrus?

Usually, when Rex Tugwell tells me that I'm going to be gutted like a deer, he's just telling one of his "jokes" while he's "playing" with one of his sharp "knives."  Therefore, when Rex came up to me the other day and said, "Someone wants to cut all your fingers off," I assumed that someone was him.  No harm, no foul.  It was after all, a Monday.  When Marcel LeFarge told me a little later in the afternoon that, "Someone wants to bite your throat off and chew it on the grave of your ancestors," I was more concerned.  I asked Marcel why he would want to do that to me.  He said, "I don't want to, friend, but someone does."  He then described the large man that had been pacing in the parking lot during the day shift muttering all kinds of horrifying things, and then stopping every man, woman, and child to see if they knew Cyrus Wetherbee.

Marcel asked me if I'd made any enemies lately, and I told him it was my unfortunate habit to make enemies all the time.  It's generally not my fault.  An involuntary, ill-timed laugh--"Oh my, I thought you were joking about your brother's suicide"--or an impetuous remark--"Sorry to interrupt, but please don't tell your kids the birds are playing.  They're fighting to the death to see who gets to mate"--always lands me into trouble.  Even when I'm with Sammy and Boyce, I'm the one that the drifter we pick up in Boyce's van always has a problem with.

I asked Marcel to describe the man to me, and he just said "unpleasant."  I called Rex and his best description of the man was to laugh really hard into the telephone.  I called Sammy and Boyce and told them someone's hanging around the Sleep Center that wants to hurt me very, very badly.  Needless to say, they were both excited and promised their full support.  Sammy said if I could beat a chimpanzee I could certainly beat a human being.

I always wanted to get into a fight when I was around Rachel.  For months I had fantasized about defending her honor that I got so hungry for it, I kind of began instigating it.  When a man bumped her at Pizza Hut, I asked him if he wanted to take this outside.  Rachel told me to shut up, as the man was not only clearly elderly, but blind, too.  It was in fact, not the man who had even brushed up against her, but his seeing eye-dog.  When I asked the art museum's cashier if he wanted to fight, Rachel told me she would stop hanging around me if I didn't stop.  To be fair, that cashier kept his hand in her palm for way too long when he gave her change.  Turns out, no one ever really compromised Rachel's dignity.  Sammy said he could hire one of his teenage workers from Arby's to say something horrible, but I said no since none of them were white.

I have tried to think of who I have offended so badly they would wait for me in the Sleep Center's parking lot.  I have amassed the following list:

1. Someone hired by the ghost of my mother.
2. Rachel's priest.
3. The Saturday morning city bus driver who refused to take the nearly 10,000 coupons (valued 1/100 cent) that Sammy had spent four years collecting.  To be fair, Sammy is more his target, but I did shout over his shoulder, "Can't you read?"
4. Mrs. Marley, my sixth grade teacher, who didn't appreciate that I couldn't stop laughing at the words "upcoming hysterectomy."  They just sounded funny to me.
5. One of the guides at the Columbus Zoo's Habitat Hollow, when I demanded him to tell the children in the tour that some birds actually seemed to choose litter to make their nests with.
6. Drifters.
7. Most Brazilians.
8. My aunt's wedding DJ.
9. Whatever corporation owns the brand name Hot-Pockets.
10. The lady at the DMV who provided no real evidence that paramedics wouldn't choose to let me die so they could harvest my organs for oil tycoons and retired athletes.