Off the Record

The hardest part about walking into your grandfather's hospital room is actually taking those last few steps that lead you inside the door. After a short search for his room on the 2nd floor, I stumbled upon Room 209 only to hear a scruffy voice saying words that I couldn't understand. I peeked in around the door and saw my aunt and the nurse fussing over grampie who was the one making these noises. I had never heard him that loud or that talkative or upset. It wasn't you.

His fingers clasped my aunt's in the thumb wrestling position, his hands still the same as they were when I was a kid: strong, tan, thick yet delicate with good looking nails. His arms were spotted with bruises and deep red blemishes from the needles that had poked him, and his face was unshaven. It wasn't you.

I stood at the threshold for maybe 5 minutes when I thought about turning around, walking back down the hall, down the stairs, out the door, into my car and across the bridge back home to St. Louis. But then I thought about my mom and my dad and my aunts and my uncle who have spent countless hours there, holding his spotted arms with the tanned hands and strong fingers. My aunt looked exhausted, but cheery as always, laughing when grampie would smile or shaking her head in disbelief when he talked about how badly he needed my overalls and wanted to go on a cow march and be a preferred passenger on a train ride. He was more than alert, he just wasn't cognizant. It wasn't you.

When I finally walked in, after mustering up all the courage I had in me, he stared at me with a look I'll never ever ever forget. Grampie's got these blue eyes. I'd never seen them that wide until that evening in the hospital room while he lied restlessly in bed dressed in a gown trying to shove off the starched white sheets that suffocated his diminished legs. His eyebrows rose almost to the middle of his forehead, his strong hand still in my aunt's, and he stared straight through me. It wasn't you.

"Hi grandpa!" was all I could say. "She came here to see you! Do you know who she is?" my aunt yelled into his left ear (the good one). Eyebrows still up there, he continued to ogle, his legs moving a little bit under the cloak, the respirator stuck up his tender nose filling his lungs with air. He moaned some things, along the lines of 'she came here to see me?'

 

I had, grampie. I had come there to see your big blue eyes and your strong, strong hands.

It was you.

As I sit here glistening in the chair that Mr Gray usually sits in, I'm thanking someone up there that I got home safely from yet ANOTHER Fucking Bike Club Full Moon Fiasco. 11pm: Turtle Park through Forest Park to Clayton, Vandeventer, Lindell through SLU's campus (the "security" lady failed to notice the men peeing in the fountain), Grand to Olive then down to the Landing, where we purchased $1 small buckets of Pabst. Yum. Not enough plastic tubs to go around, but we made it work.  Some got boisterously drunk, while others, like me, sipped on a bucket and a half of small beer and ate a granola bar before racing home (3am) with 4 other U City boys who made the 9 miles pass pretty fluidly.

It was the perfect remedy to my overworked life, which is amounting to nearly 50 hour weeks, with my 9 jobs (my friend made me count the other night). I start teaching tomorrow, and that is something I'm realllllly looking forward to. Not to mention that my girls are undefeated...

One more thought before I allow you to stop reading my highly engaging blog. Random call this afternoon from someone who's been on my mind as of late. Someone I haven't spoken to/heard from in nearly 7 years. He means the world to me, and, after receiving a spontaneous letter from me, he called, asking me a question I found odd: "Do you still act?" Err...sure. I mean, I took a couple drama classes in college...and I still have those 9 years of drama class behind me...but, sure, I act.  "Will you fly out to Boston if I house you and give you a stipend?" Sure, sure. Just pop me an email and we'll work it all out. I don't know where my life came from. But it's working. It really is working.

 

As a tennis coach at an awesome high school, I'm forced against my will to hang out with 19 15-18-year-olds for nearly two hours five days a week. These girls are awesome. They're so awesome that, if I were in high school, I would love to hang out with them. They would be my best friends and we could go get coffee together and hang out at each others houses and go see movies and take walks and go swimming and go to bbqs and...wait...is that what high school girls even do now? I'm not quite sure, but, regardless of that, I'm finding myself missing being in high school. The lockers, musicals, walks to the bakery (what? you didn't go with your entire 2nd period PE class to the bakery a half mile away for donuts and orange juice when you were 16?), entire periods spent in your favorite teacher's office just because they wanted you to keep them company, yearbook, football games in the cold, the brick hill where only seniors were allowed to park (but you never got to park there because you never had a car until you were a senior in college).

Thus far my girls are undefeated (3-0) in their tennis prowess. They're improving at a rapid pace, something for which I don't really take sole responsibility. Only a part. I think their incredible intelligence and motivation definitely has contributed to that.

I'm not a badass...

but I was one in high school.

I wonder who he's married to and why he's not with her. Are they fighting? Is she out of town on business? Out with girlfriends? Studying? Or is she sitting at home wondering the same thing I'm wondering?

_________________________________

I inadvertently chose the glasses that looked most like yours. I didn't even know you then, but I knew you sat outside a lot on your Mac and drank at least two cups of strong coffee in one visit. Sometimes you wrote on a legal pad or talked on the phone--your very large and out-of-date phone. You made me watch you trade out a five dollar bill for five ones. You trusted me. You trusted me that I wouldn't tell on your independence. You defended a girl who was your friend but not your girlfriend who didn't pay for her beer before she left that night. You said your girlfriends can't use your tab. It's not fair. It's not independent. Then you rambled on about sub-prime lending and how the Bush administration is up to no good. Your independence bored me for that moment. We knew the same people, it turned out, but you were not a "scenester," just some guy who owned just the business (not the building) and had been interviewed by so and so 10 times over in the past 2 elections. "Blake Ashby" I wrote in the NAME line of the New Yorker subscription post card. I left it there for you to find.

Send it in, Ashby. Just send it in.

There's this dress in the window of a shop on Delmar.  I've had dreams about it. Each time I pass, I stop and think, What if I had that dress? How different would I feel if I wore that dress around the house, into town or out to a party?

Would I gain the freedom people feel when they get a dog? Or receive a new haircut?

Or just get back from Europe? Or recently broke up with their controlling boyfriend? Or made love for the first time? Or experienced the city on a motorcycle?

Would I feel like people do after they have an emotional moment with their father? Or when one finally understands calculus? Or when they complete the New York Times crossword?

Or maybe I would just feel like every other girl in a dress. 

 

There's a spot on Kingshighway that smells like a vanilla cappuchino--the kind I used to get out of the automatic coffee machine on the first floor of the Communications building in college. I wasn't really a fan of it, as it didn't taste that good, and it left me feeling a wee bit gassy, but it gave me a shot of caffeine during an energizing morning class or a bland afternoon one. It came in a little paper cup with flags of the world on the side, and I remember peeling off the lip bit by bit until it stood up completely from the body of the cup. Then, as I made sure no liquid was left in the bottom, I would tear the container apart piece by piece. It was a nervous habit, I suppose. Just like my ripping apart napkins and paper towels is a habit. Or curling up the corners of paper. Or looking away when I'm talking to someone. If I trust you, I can look you in the eye forever and won't hesitate to do so. If I sort of trust you, I'll glance from place to place. If I don't trust you at all, I wouldn't even be talking to you. Next time I drive that spot on Kingshighway, I'll think of you.

"Coaching 17 post-pubescent girls tennis isn't as easy as it looks," I said. "I never thought it was easy in the first place." Point taken. After the 4th day of practice, I'm finally getting into the swing of things. Funny, no? The girls are great: they've all got racquets and they wear shoes. No, really, they're doing fabulously. Love'em all to death. We've got three hoppers and 40 cans of balls...who could ask for more.

I used to pride myself on the fact that I didn't have glasses. "Can you see that license plate a mile up?," I'd ask my friends. "Err....no." "Hahahahahash!!!!!!!" I'd cackle with pleasure. But now, because my pocketbook depends on two jobs that involve the computer, I have been diagnosed with a small (very small) case of farsightedness. I have trouble "accomodating" said the doctor. Only needed for the computer and reading, these $145 spectacles will take the strain off of my eyes when doing my various jobs. I'm "geek chic" someone told me. "I always thought glasses were cool and have always wanted a pair," another friend noted. I agree with both comments. I actually can't wait to put on my round plastic brown-rimmed frames just to read my Augusten Burroughs book or compose a 2000 word piece for the Mag. Maybe you won't even recognize me. I'll be incognito. Hiding from you.