“crotchety”), while Reed is a young hotshot. Their respective attributes—wisdom and reserve, youth and strength—serve them well as they tackle crime in the streets of Los Angeles.
I think I will keep going with this series.
After eating a grilled chicken dinner at Perkins, I take a walk around the immediate area. It’s a nondescript place close to the interstate. Tomorrow morning, in fact, I’ll have to go west for 6.6 miles farther on Interstate 90 to get to Interstate 15 South, which will carry me into Idaho.
The sky has gone dark. While the weather is variable, the time of sunset is not. We have not yet reached the winter solstice, when the stretches of daylight will begin growing longer. The sun was down before 5:00 p.m. I pull my coat up to cover my ears. It’s quite cold here—much colder than it is back home in Billings.
I’m adrift. That’s the feeling I’ve had since setting out today—and, really, for much of this shitburger of a year—and I’ve finally found the word to describe that feeling. My home is 223 miles behind me, and my destination is still 463.5 miles away. I don’t feel comfortable here, my feelings are still badly hurt over getting punched, and I’m nervous about seeing Donna and Victor and Kyle again. That seems strange to me. If you’d asked me on any of the 189 days since they moved whether I’d like to see them, I would have jumped up excitedly and said, “Yes, please, that would be very nice.”
Now I’m about twenty-four hours away, and I feel scared.
That flummoxes me. It’s hard to know how much of that feeling is because I’ll be seeing my friends again and how much is because of everything else. I don’t like not knowing things.
TECHNICALLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011
I wake up at 2:37 a.m., and I’m discombobulated (I love the word “discombobulated”) and short of breath. As my eyes adjust to the absence of light, I stop fighting for air, and my heart rate slows. I remember now where I am.
I had a weird dream.
In it my father was alive. I frequently have dreams in which my father is alive and with me. Usually, he is showing me how to do something or telling me something he thinks I ought to know. I never dreamed about my father while he was alive. At least, I don’t remember doing so. I’ve dreamt about him often in the three years, one month, and eleven days since he died. It’s odd, but it’s also comforting, so I do not complain.
This dream was strange in that what happened in it also happened in real life, many years ago. I was with my father in a bar in a little town called Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. I was nine years old. I remember that because the Dallas Cowboys had beaten the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII earlier that year. A few months later, after school was finished, my mother let me go with my father to Cheyenne Wells, where he was going to overseesome work on the oil pumps that the company he worked for owned there. That’s how we ended up at the bar.
We were sitting on stools. My father was on my left, engaged in an earnest bullshit session with the bartender, and on my right was this old man with long, white whiskers. He had his hands clenched together, and he kept bringing them to his face and peering into them with one eye.
This sparked my curiosity.
“What do you have in there?” I asked him.
“It’s a mouse. Would you like to see it?”
I didn’t believe him. A mouse could not fit into the small space between his clenched hands. Even if it could, it would probably try to bite the man. I thought he was playing games with me.
“No, I don’t want to see your mouse.”
I don’t remember everything—I can’t even guess when the last time was that I thought about this—but I do know this went on for some time, with the old man looking into his hands and inviting me to take a look. I declined every time.
At some point, I got up to go to the bathroom and pee—because I was a young boy with a small bladder, not
I think I will keep going with this series.
After eating a grilled chicken dinner at Perkins, I take a walk around the immediate area. It’s a nondescript place close to the interstate. Tomorrow morning, in fact, I’ll have to go west for 6.6 miles farther on Interstate 90 to get to Interstate 15 South, which will carry me into Idaho.
The sky has gone dark. While the weather is variable, the time of sunset is not. We have not yet reached the winter solstice, when the stretches of daylight will begin growing longer. The sun was down before 5:00 p.m. I pull my coat up to cover my ears. It’s quite cold here—much colder than it is back home in Billings.
I’m adrift. That’s the feeling I’ve had since setting out today—and, really, for much of this shitburger of a year—and I’ve finally found the word to describe that feeling. My home is 223 miles behind me, and my destination is still 463.5 miles away. I don’t feel comfortable here, my feelings are still badly hurt over getting punched, and I’m nervous about seeing Donna and Victor and Kyle again. That seems strange to me. If you’d asked me on any of the 189 days since they moved whether I’d like to see them, I would have jumped up excitedly and said, “Yes, please, that would be very nice.”
Now I’m about twenty-four hours away, and I feel scared.
That flummoxes me. It’s hard to know how much of that feeling is because I’ll be seeing my friends again and how much is because of everything else. I don’t like not knowing things.
TECHNICALLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011
I wake up at 2:37 a.m., and I’m discombobulated (I love the word “discombobulated”) and short of breath. As my eyes adjust to the absence of light, I stop fighting for air, and my heart rate slows. I remember now where I am.
I had a weird dream.
In it my father was alive. I frequently have dreams in which my father is alive and with me. Usually, he is showing me how to do something or telling me something he thinks I ought to know. I never dreamed about my father while he was alive. At least, I don’t remember doing so. I’ve dreamt about him often in the three years, one month, and eleven days since he died. It’s odd, but it’s also comforting, so I do not complain.
This dream was strange in that what happened in it also happened in real life, many years ago. I was with my father in a bar in a little town called Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. I was nine years old. I remember that because the Dallas Cowboys had beaten the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII earlier that year. A few months later, after school was finished, my mother let me go with my father to Cheyenne Wells, where he was going to overseesome work on the oil pumps that the company he worked for owned there. That’s how we ended up at the bar.
We were sitting on stools. My father was on my left, engaged in an earnest bullshit session with the bartender, and on my right was this old man with long, white whiskers. He had his hands clenched together, and he kept bringing them to his face and peering into them with one eye.
This sparked my curiosity.
“What do you have in there?” I asked him.
“It’s a mouse. Would you like to see it?”
I didn’t believe him. A mouse could not fit into the small space between his clenched hands. Even if it could, it would probably try to bite the man. I thought he was playing games with me.
“No, I don’t want to see your mouse.”
I don’t remember everything—I can’t even guess when the last time was that I thought about this—but I do know this went on for some time, with the old man looking into his hands and inviting me to take a look. I declined every time.
At some point, I got up to go to the bathroom and pee—because I was a young boy with a small bladder, not
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