Hope Idiotic | Part 37
Lou and Mark shuffled their way around a line of people, and Lou pulled open the door. A large bouncer pushed it shut in their faces.
“Line forms out there,” the bouncer said.
They turned and looked. “There’s a line? For what?” Mark asked.
“To get in,” the bouncer said.
Mark looked through the window next to the door. “But there’s plenty of space in there. There are even empty seats at the bar. What gives?”
“Line forms back there,” the bouncer said again with even more authority.
Hope Idiotic | Part 36
Lou picked Michelle up from work on his way back into the city. It was Friday and they were going to try a few a of the neighborhood bars. When they arrived at the condo, they headed straight to the bedroom to change out of their work clothes. Lou could have worn hole-filled sweatpants to the shop; no one would have cared—it’s not like he met with clients on a regular basis. Most days he was the only one in the office with a handful of union workers out in the shop doing whatever union workers get paid to do when not on a job site. But wearing a nice pair of slacks and a tie made him feel a little more professional. His mother taught him long ago that what a person wears directly affects one’s attitude. It helped motivate him to look for other jobs if he was wearing a tie. It also made him feel like less of a degenerate drunk when he would have two scotches for lunch.
Hope Idiotic | Part 35
Back in Chicago, people offered Lou their sympathies. The typical, “I’m sorry,” and “Let me know if you need anything.” He heard a lot of “Are you okay?” Most of those people never knew Chuck, but when you hear that someone dies, the polite thing to do is express condolences and make empty offerings of assistance. Not that you shouldn’t be graciously appreciative of their efforts.
Hope Idiotic | Part 34
Sadness doesn’t come immediately after the sudden death of a loved one. Shock comes first. You feel nothing. Your mind and body switch to autopilot. If you’re one of the first to hear the news, you get busy making phone calls to other loved ones of the departed. You involuntarily go through all of the other motions that come with surviving someone. You try to maintain the status quo. You eat breakfast. You feed your kid. If you’re Lou, you go couch shopping.
Hope Idiotic | Part 33
For years, Lou thought Michelle was his friend. But right there, on that street in Chicago, on that perfect midwestern October night, it was clear to him that Michelle was anything but. She hadn’t been a friend for a long time. A drinking buddy and a sex partner, maybe, but not a friend. At the beginning of their romance, Michelle made a helluva case that she was okay with Lou; that she liked him and accepted all his faults and would support him throughout his career. She painted a beautiful picture of their future in which they would fight together through life’s difficult times and rejoice together during its triumphs. They were sure they were going to be good together as partners. But that never happened. She sold him a bill of goods, and he bought them all. Buyer beware. Because Michelle was not a partner. She was a hindrance.
Santa's Gift
Ricky stood in the snow with one sneaker untied and his backpack hanging far too low on his back. His breath misted in the frigid December air. He shook, but not from the cold. His mother taught him to layer up, making it almost impossible to catch a chill.
No, his shivers were from fear. A fear he had every year. But this year was going to be different.
Hope Idiotic | Part 32
Wine was served. Chuck had a glass. Then he had another. Then another. By the end of the evening, all the young alumni were pleasantly soused.
Hope Idiotic | Part 31
To celebrate his birthday, he, Lexi and Darryl went to Bella’s. There was a moment between his second and third beer when Chuck felt entirely at peace. He and Lexi were going to make a go of it—for better or worse, his brother was rescued from the black hole of the Keller broken home, and it seemed that the tempestuous days were behind him. In that moment, at that dinner table, all that was before him was his beautiful girlfriend, his sweet and simple brother and the vast desert landscape spreading off into the distance.
Long Bang
Five sweaters and a hat find me in the kitchen. Predictably, mother left cigarettes and no note, so I have one over orange juice.
And I make myself concerned suddenly with just where those same mothers have gone absent to, with the indoor weather something now intolerable.
Hope Idiotic | Part 30
With the sadness of Pop dying, the excitement of the play and Michelle preparing to buy a condo, Lou had plenty of reasons to drink. And so he did. A subdued aggravation grew in that small apartment with the incredible view that Lou and Michelle called home. He wanted to talk about the play; she didn’t. She wanted to talk about the new condo; he didn’t. These were the two biggest things in their lives at that time and both knew that discussing them could result in a disastrous fight. But what were they going to do; not talk at all? There was no choice, yet somehow, they managed to be civil during these wretched conversations.
Hope Idiotic | Part 29
A week later, Pop was in the hospital. Benjamin called Lou that morning and told him. Lou drove out that afternoon. Benjamin, Grams and Aunt Elise were sitting around Pop, who was lying in the bed. The room was full of forced casual conversation. Dr. Caplan, Pop’s doctor, came in. He was the son of a close childhood friend of Pop’s who was also a doctor, but had retired from practicing medicine a few years ago. The younger Caplan inherited many of his dad’s patients, including Abraham Bergman, who used to give him rides to school.
“Here’s the deal, Abe,” Dr. Caplan said as he tossed Pop’s chart on the foot of the bed. “There’s cancer in your leg. A lot of cancer. It’s bad.”
Fate's Power Animal
Ensconced meanwhile on all sides up the walls amassed a seismic epic fuckton of cultural memorabilia. Oversized indigenous masks carved from rare redwoods slung up beside deactivated German lugers and grenades of every issue. Microphones, pygmy skulls, framed tattooed pig skins, and shells of bass guitars that looked burnt. Lemmy is the high prince of a really metal tiki bar.
Hope Idiotic | Part 28
Each week they walked a few blocks to the therapist’s office. His name was Adam, and he specialized in couples. Adam was part of a practice of three other couples’ therapists who saw patients out of that location, and the waiting room was a revolving door of jilted lovers. The awkward efforts of the couples to not make eye contact with each other were exhausting ocular acrobatics. Lou missed the intimacy of Dr. Milner. The sessions were hour-long free-for-alls during which Michelle purged her frustrations with Lou’s faults. Among the faults: “Sometimes he’s too driven toward things that I just don’t understand.”
Hope Idiotic | Part 27
It was hard explaining to Lexi why he hated going to Indiana so much. To her, Indiana was where her heart was. But she had a lovely family; one that got along and didn’t live in filth or rely on a broke, recovering alcoholic to support it. Chuck and Lexi were from the exact same place—grew up just two blocks away from one another—but they were from completely different worlds. She would never see Cayuga from his point of view, and he would never see it from hers, even if he wanted to.
Hope Idiotic | Part 26
Chuck’s mother was sick again. A massive heart attack. She was in the I.C.U. for three days. Chuck arrived three days later. Neither his father, nor his brother thought to call him with the news that his mother was on the brink of death.
“She got home all right,” Darryl told Chuck over the phone.
“You people are unbelievable,” Chuck said. “I’m coming home.”
Hope Idiotic | Part 25
Lou shot straight up in bed. What did she just say? Am I drunk? Dreaming? Am I being punked? he thought. Lou could only recall one instance in their entire relationship—including their friendship before they dated—in which Michelle apologized outright like that. It was back in college, and it was for hardly anything worth apologizing. She got really drunk at a boyfriend’s frat house, fell in the pool, got into a fight with the boyfriend and called Lou for a rescue. They spent the night in his bed like a brother sharing space with his sister. The following morning she apologized with shame in her voice. This apology on the phone was something else entirely. And he needed to know more.
Muffled in German Luxury
It was noon and the streets were jammed with stylized fashionistas in hybrid SUVs driving their car-seated darlings who’d been born in our Taj Mahal Birthing Center to ballet, voice, or parent-toddler yoga.
Hope Idiotic | Part 24
When most people travel to Las Vegas, they spend a week drinking and gambling and trading venereal diseases with strangers. Maybe they take in a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. Lou’s week in Vegas was spent interviewing for a job and repairing his house, which had been haphazardly battered and bruised by his best friend and tenant, a recovering alcoholic.
Hope Idiotic | Part 23
He burst through the apartment door like a savage. It was just past one in the morning, and Michelle was in bed asleep. He started to kick his shoes off, but he noticed that she hadn’t closed the closet doors. He hated it when she left the closet doors open during the night. He pulled the folding doors to close but something was on the sliding track preventing him from closing the closet. Lou thrashed and thrashed them again. When he realized what was blocking the doors—some of Michelle’s shoes that had been pulled out—he kicked at them and a heel or two slammed against the wall of the closet as the door path became clear. “Fucking shoes!” he shouted. “To hell!”
Hope Idiotic | Part 22
This was Lou’s cue. All he had to say was, ‘We’d love to’ and the waitress would say she’d be right back. She’d tell the owner/celebrity chef to get ready with the champagne. The manager would put his finger on the appropriate light switches. Lou would tell Michelle how much he loved her and how he wanted to start their life together right away. He’d get on his knee. The lights would change. All of the other patrons would become silent the moment they realized what was happening. He’d reach into the side pocket of his blazer and pull out the ring box. Michelle would start crying.
There was no thunder, no glowing doorway, no mysterious wind blowing through the apartment, and no choir of angels politely alerting me that physics had submitted its resignation.
The deck simply felt heavier.