Derek

His retarded brother ran Mario into a canyon every time. But I would keep quiet, Derek knew, because I wasn’t much better. Derek was great, though. He had a gold plated Zelda game and everything. Also, his mom didn’t fast forward through the Madonna parts of the Dick Tracy movie. Hell, his mom let him watch Robocop.

Still, he had a retarded brother and I’d never watch Robocop 1, 2 or 3 for the rest of my life to keep from having one. Derek’s older brother, Arnie, was retarded by accident. It wasn’t God’s fault. His mom won troughs of money from the hospital that did it. The doctor crushed part of Arnie’s skull with forceps.

Crack.

Since hearing that, or since always, I’ve been afraid of retarded people. Not that I’m excited about that.

Look, okay, these are other people I’m afraid of:

old people

smart people

rich people

small people

shrewd people

saved people.

Derek got lots of new things. Shoes, games, food, friends. The friends came over and took the new things he got. Derek’s mom and my mom were friends, so I couldn’t. One time, Derek spent the night and spit out a pop corn kernel in the trash. I thought it was disgusting. I also thought he was disgusting because he was fat. We were sort of real friends, too, but I didn’t understand his family because his dad was dead.

His stepdad was also dead. His neck was broken by a car accident.

Crush.

That was in second grade. Three dads of boys in my class died during that year. There were 25 of us. One of the dads was a doctor. Another was a police officer. I don’t know what Derek’s stepdad did. He was a stepdad.

The police officer, Corey’s dad, had his funeral in a church. This, even though Corey’s mom voted for Bill Clinton and other Democrats. “I thought they were Christians,” I told my parents.

I met Derek again in journalism class in the 10th grade. He lisped and laughed too loud. His few friends were toadies, and he followed them around. He was also fat and stunk.

But, at 16, he was smart and shrewd. He wasn’t surprised by the books I read. He said he was going to law school.

He was saved.

But he was done for then. The girls with gay friends and shaved cunts didn’t like him.

Cunts, 1.

Derek…

At least, I thought just now, I stood up for Derek when I was feeling self-righteous. I wonder if he knew.

Trumpet

Male music teachers must love The Music Man because it’s about a male music teacher who is actually respected in the community. Mr. Bueler, for one, loved it. He was my male music teacher in 7th grade. Whenever he wanted to look fun or feel sad, he showed The Music Man.

Also: Mr. Bueler wore tank tops rather than t-shirts under his dress shirts. When he would wear one of these, which he did every day, we thought it looked like a bra, or at least said it did. Girls had just started talking about how they wore bras. This was exciting. Bras touched their boobs.

But we played it easy.

Bras? Pfff. Who cares? Talk about them all you want. No erection here.

Maybe Mr. Bueler’s bras had something to do with why we thought he had sex with Mr. Rust, the math teacher. Mr. Bueler and Mr. Rust practiced trombones together. Really.

Looking back, I can’t say what we would have done if we had known just what a rusty trombone was. Good god. Good fucking god.

Exploded.

In the junior high band of Mr. Bueler’s, I played a trumpet. It was silver. This was important to me because most trumpets looked brass. What was most important, though, was that the trumpet had a spit valve.

You got to put spit on the floor. You had to.

In 5th grade, I’m not sure why I picked the trumpet when students were upgrading from that brittle dick reed of a swordfish known as a recorder. I don’t remember too much about it except for feeling like a fucking Austrian composer when I learned how to play “Hot Cross Buns.” One-a-pen-ny, two-a-pen-ny, I-AM-GOD!

Oh yes, we also learned how to play “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore”, which, really, is pretty heavy shit for a middle-class white private schooler in the 4th grade.

Come to think of it, “Hot Cross Buns” is a step up from humming “I Believe I Can Fly” into saran wrap during a third grade Christmas concert. Wait, that might have been an anachronistic reference.

Anyway, I picked the trumpet because (1) clarinets are for girls and (2) the saxophone is for quitters and jazz nerds. Also, I had two uncles who played trumpet and I knew one of them would still have theirs.

Dear Uncle Don/Mark,

Thanks for both giving up and hording your personal belongings.

Best wishes,

Dave

I did not, however, play trumpet in band at my very public high school because, as a consequence, I would have been in high school band. I wasn’t up for working my ass off to get made fun of.

Or, as I said, be in high school band.

Then, between my sophomore and junior year, I pawned my trumpet for $35. I’d played a few times in between with the church brass group at the church my parents made me attend. It was there in Sunday School where they called me a Communist for saying drugs should be legalized. I don’t know what the topic was. Probably Jesus-related.

I read during the sermon to make everyone mad. It worked. Very disrespectful,  they said. So I took notes during the sermon so I could critique Jesus at lunch.

Trumpet: “I’m sorry,” the man at the pawn shop said, “that all I can give you is this. It’s just that … (excuse) …

I took the money.

“It’s alright,” I said.

Then, as soon as I got home, I put a folder of sheet music in the trash.

Honk

I accidentally honked my horn while I was trying to merge into traffic today. No one would let me in, so it looked like I meant it. But I didn’t mean it. Still, I couldn’t think of a way to tell other drivers, without looking threatening, that that’s what I meant to do. The honk wasn’t for you guys. Never for you.

So, after thinking about the situation, I did nothing.

Wait, that isn’t true. I slowed down so I could avoid confrontation.

Also, also, I thought about mouthing an apology or maybe raising my hands palm-up, like “Sorrrr-ry.” Or waving. I did think about waving. Not a “hello” wave, but a courteous thanks-for-letting-me-in-RoadBuddy wave.

But I decided I shouldn’t do that/anything because I didn’t want to risk dealing with my mistakes.

This, in turn, reminded me of the time I passed a van on the way into Baraboo, Wisconson — a van that was snapping out flames and letting off smoke.

At that point in this memory, I moved my car three lanes away from the van. This way, the van could blow itself to hell on its own time. But the guy didn’t seem to be aware of his broken tail pipe/automobile, so I tried to tell him about it via the hand gestures of someone guilted into giving hand gestures while driving along the highway.

So, in the end, with the waving and pointing and insisting, I knew the matter was resolved except for one question the van driver might have:

“Why is this guy threatening to steal my bumper?”

Handle

“Jiggle the handle,” Nick said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Jiggle it like this,” he said.

“Like this?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Like this.”

We walked out of the bathroom, still looking at the toilet. That way, we wouldn’t have to face each other in such a small room.

“Can you remember to do that?” Nick asked, referring to the handle-jiggling he just showed me. It would keep the toilet from using so much water.

“Yes,” I lied. “No problem.”

Nick had just banged on my door like a desperate banshee douche bag. No favors for you, Nick.

Oh yes.

1.) Nick is my landlord.

2.) Nick pays for the water. If we had a contract, it would be in there.

But Nick and I have no contract, which is fine, I guess. Because this is how we interact: toward the end of each month, I walk around the corner to his house and give him an an envelope full of 20s with “RENT” written on the front.

Yesterday when he showed me how to jiggle the handle was the first time I’ve really seen him outside of this scenario. He’s not gay, I think, and is a safe, incompetent man. He is 56 and looks like he could have managed the company store one hundred years ago.

As is, he rents a few apartments around town. He knows people know his dad played professional baseball. I think he inherited the apartments but has money elsewhere, also inherited.

Today, two plumbers came over to put a new handle and water stop on the toilet. Nick had left a message before he came over yesterday that he might send someone over to do this. “The toilet’s used 13,000 gallons of water in the last three days,” he said. “I just looked at the meter.

“I need you to call me back, or … Call me back. This is Nick, call me back. Soon. B- … bye.”

To be fair, he might have mentioned something about the handle jiggling when I moved in a month and half ago. But it was one of those things. By “those things”, I mean it was the kind of thing you know immediately you’re going to make no point of remembering.

“Oh, sure,” you might say.

Nick demands as little as he gives. He didn’t even say anything when I took the bookcase he was using for paint he didn’t use. That was nice/non-confrontational of him. He even replaced the broken stove he initially provided for me. That is his job, I suppose, but he was beaming when he did it.

So I’m considering calling Nick to tell him that not only did the two plumbers not fix the toilet, the new handle and water stop they installed even prevents the handle-jiggling technique from working.

I think I’ll call him soon. No problem.

13

I was 13 ten years ago and still not very good at masturbating. I did, however, date a Polish girl who stuck tissues in her bra. The others girls told me that. They told me that because they didn’t like her because she was skanky and would have large breasts and sex before they would. Not that I imagine it ended well for Rachel. Or started. Shame. I think she was molested.

I was 13 ten years ago and still not very good at dealing with death. I did, however, have an English teacher who died of a heart attack. He was in his 40s and jogging when he collapsed. Shame. Sometimes he would give me and my brothers a ride to school when we would spend the week at Grandma’s on days my parents needed to leave town and have sex. Oh yes, I didn’t care that he died. I didn’t and tried. The reason I tried was because me and him were distant relatives. My Grandma told me that. The two of them were from the same Swiss community. But he didn’t have a personality. Grandma did. Anyway, everyone at school cried — even kids like me who’d only had him for three weeks. “He prepared us so well for college,” the older kids said. “Oh, how we’ll will miss him.” But I had to go to the funeral, Mom said, even though I didn’t care that he died. He was a distant relative, after all, and a teacher. I was supposed to love him. To be fair, I was looking forward to reflecting on the meaning of death at the burial. I stood outside by his cookie dough heap of dirt. “Mr. Muener is in there. What does it all mean?”

I was 13 ten years ago and still not very good at wearing clothes. I did, however, have a novelty Bugs Bunny shirt that I thought was dork-hip. It had a Bugs on the front and a carrot on the back. I wore it until one of my friends said the carrot looked like an old man’s dick. He told everyone, shame, and I stopped wearing the shirt.

Hanger

I drove to the gym today which is three blocks away from where I live. “Look, I don’t have the time, Me, so stop giving me shit,” I said. And when I got there (and before I stepped on the tread mill for a five-minute walk), I went to hang up my coat on a wood hanger.

Creek, slump, flop. It fell to the floor.

At that point, I became too stubborn to remove the hanger from the rack, trying, instead, to hang and zip the coat up around the hanger. This worked not at all because it’s impossible to zip up a free-floating coat. Try it.

More impossible, though, is trying not to sound like an asshole after you’ve stuttered in the middle of leaving a voice mail.

“Hey, Morgan, this is Dave,” you might say. “Just wanted to see if you were heading out or something. Just, when you find out, let me what you guys were up toe, er, to… up to, up to.

“Sorry, that was stupid, I don’t know why I said ‘toe’. It could be because I’m looking at my feet as we speak. Well, I guess it’s just me not speaking at this point. Lonely old me (laughs). Sorry, that sounded desperat and I’m not trying to guilt you into anything or whatever because… uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Um. Yeah … Just give me a call back or whatever you get the chance so okay bye … Wait. Do you have my number? You have my number. Cool. Alright. Buh-bye. Buh-bye? Sorry, I mean, not sorry. Alright, talk to you later bye.”