Mojo: Chapter One: The Fuzz Factor

I would tell people that I always wanted a black cat named Mojo.  In retrospect, I have no idea why.  There just seemed some charm in the concept, in the name and the very idea.  In my previous apartment I was not allowed to have pets, and through various circumstances I had ended up in the basement apartment on King Street, which did.  Also: In this new environment, I was completely alone... 

So used to rooming with my brother was I, that waking up to an empty apartment seemed pointless.  I would sleep as long as I could and spent my waking hours either waiting for the phone to ring or sitting idle at my computer.  In the time between, however, I had made a friend.  Gabriel Richard was his name, a thirty something man that intermediately lived with his mother or in cramped section eight apartments and was strickened with nigh crippling obsessive compulsive disorder, had a love for queen and other classic rock bands bordering on obsession, and was blessed with a genuine attitude of kindness towards others that was refreshing in comparison to the bleak jaded voice of those who I had befriended in my past. 

When things went south with Ben, Gabe was there to pick up the pieces.  He helped me clean out the old apartment, separating me and Ben's belongings the way one would for a divorced couple.  Then came the task of finding a place to stay.  I had been terrified by the prospect of ending up in some sort of group home, and was gladdened when I found the spacious basement apartment on King Street.  The eccentric landlord, an elderly man named Dallas Wayne Crickenburger, was one part WWII vet, one part geriatric cowboy, add a dash of dementia, mix well, serve warm and friendly. 

It wasn't until after I had moved in that I realized the distance I had placed between myself and anyone who could offer me company.  Gabe was my only friend at the time, as there was some distance between me and my long-time friend/ex-girlfiend Rebecca, but he lived clear across town in Belmont and had to ride several buses just to bridge the gap between us.  He tried to be there for me, but nine out of ten days I sat alone in silence, silently begging for company that I was too afraid to seek out. 

So there I was, keeping tract of time by the passing of Tuesdays and Thursdays that marked the bi-weekly appointment with my social worker, at the time a friendly former punk rocker-turned mental health professional named Senna Magill.  It was she that reminded me of one of the major benefits to moving into that place, so far from removed any source of social interaction: Pets.

"You have to implement something I call the Fuzz Factor."  She told me in an official manner, with eyes barely concealing there loosely hidden mirth.

I took the bait.

"What is 'The Fuzz Factor'?"  I Replied, "I'm dying to hear this one."

She looked at me for a moment and her good humor finally broke loose and she cracked a wise-ass smile.

"I'm glad you asked!"  Was her sarcastic reply, "The 'Fuzz Factor' is a human beings innate love for all things fuzzy and cute used to combat mental illness or depression, kinda like a service animal for a blind person, only more fuzzy and with less responsibilities save for just being there and being loved upon."   

It clicked in my head like the hammer of a gun, ready to fire and finally accomplish SOMETHING towards feeling better, something about being less of a mopey bastard and more of a whole human being.  The Fuzz Factor, it made sense in the simplest of ways, I had always shown affection towards animals, especially cats, and I was now in a unique position to both own and provide for one.  I had the new apartment, the restrictions on my finances were being loosened and readied for me to handle my own money, and I desperately needed both the company and the affection. 

AND I already had a named picked out...

I would call this little ball of fuzz that I would take in, care for, and ultimately befriend MOJO.

And the stories we would live through would be GRAND indeed...

The Day of a Thousand Nights: Part Two: Anyway you want it, thats the way I need it...

Getting to fashion square mall is a two part journey, one short and one that seems to stretch on for hours.  The same way they differ in elapsed time they differ in the company you will keep.  The bus from my squat three to four story apartments to the transit station at the downtown mall is mercifully empty on most occasions.  You sit as you we're MEANT to sit, free from the uncomfortably close confines of strangers.  The bus FROM the downtown transit station to the eventual destination, however, is crowded and loud and oftentimes ripe with the odor of a good two dozen agitated and car-less passengers.  

The seating arrangement is just about the same on every bus, but if you're lucky you'll be on one with a scrolling sign that reads the date and time.  These things are important when judging the time elapsed and good for estimating your time of arrival.  Another perk of the slightly fancier buses is a protruding rectangular button on the posts the gleams red like rose petals preserved in acrylic.  The button reads STOP and it saves you the slight trouble of having to crane your body around to reach and get a good hold on the many plastic coated wire pull chords the lumbering beasts of public transit offer. 

The short ride bus, this day, was the fancier one... The long ride, however, was not...

Getting on as soon as it arrived, regardless of there tendency to wait until the official arrival time to play catch up with there schedules, the bus was still empty.  As I walked through the folding glass doors I grasped the handholds but before pulling myself up took one final glance at the yellow score board like bus sign along the bus's side.  It, of course, read "7:FASHION SQUARE", just as it had when I saw the bus approach.   A tiny inkling of paranoia in me always fears getting on the wrong bus, so it behooves me to double check the sign (first brooding signs of OCD, perhaps?).

Once inside I lifted my Transit Card into view of the stoic and apathetic driver, who gave it no more than a sideways look before gesturing me onward.  I took a seat dead center of the bus, just at the end of the front row, just before the "step up" that lead to the rear seats.  I take this seat more often than not because it affords certain advantages over the others.  For one: you always have a clear view of the upcoming stops, something the seats to the front and right doesn't provide due to being oriented directly behind the driver. 

I took my seat and waited for the rest of the passengers to pile in.  The bus was half full by the time the driver pulled out of the station, and as we drove parallel to the downtown mall we picked up more and more people at every stop along the way.  Halfway between the the downtown mall and the corner the bus was a picture perfect example of the melting pot in action.  Every minority present in Charlottesville was in attendance here, most speaking in there native tongues which turned the normal expected chatter into a veritable din of unfamiliar sounds from every range of language spectrum.  If you listened closely you could discern the individual forms of speech.  To my front: The subtle tweeting of the Indian couple, to my right the smooth enunciation of the Mexicans who sat across.  Behind me I could barely make out deep African tones, and deeper still what had to be an Asiatic chattering.  The sounds alone weren't unpleasant, but I still felt oddly out of place there. 

And so I fell back on the number one fail-safe of awkward social situations: I pulled out my cellphone at tinkered with it intently, refusing to even acknowledge my surroundings.  First order of business was to check the time and see if I had any messages, missed calls, texts, ect...  Next was to send what I hoped would be a witty text to my friend Colleen.  It read "Do you think Pirates are considered a minority?".  I hoped, but didn't really expect, for a quick response.  And last but certainly not least, I just sat there holding it absent mindedly going through the menus attempting to acquire an air of business, a "can't talk, on the cell phone" sort of look.  High tech fidgeting at its finest, and to think, people used to twiddle their thumbs and bite there nails.  When I had exhausted the admittedly poor reserves of the phone, I relinquished it to my pocket and stared out the window. 

There is a certain mindset one must reach to successfully navigate public transportation unscathed, a sort of zen space where time slows and skips and thoughts bellow and bloom and obscure your surroundings with oh so distracting daydreams.  Keep in mind, this has its own inherit danger.  There is the risk of missing your stop altogether, but thankfully I always seem to "come to" at the exact moment I reach my destination.  Its like seeing things in your peripheral vision, you see them, you REACT to them, but they aren't in focus and thus: unimportant as a whole until you need them to be.  As such, just as I was pulling into the Fashion Square parking lot, reality jerked back into the forefront, and in an instant I could no longer even remember what stray thoughts I had been absorbed with moments before, and believe me, my mind LOVES to pick up strays.  As the bus circled the parking lot I got a phone call on my cell, it was Gabe's mom....

"Hello?"

"Hi, its Zak?"  I asked in the form of a question, JEOPARDY!

"Oh! Hi, yes, have you gotten there yet?"

"Just pulling into the parking lot, will be at the stop in a sec."

"Ok, is Gabe there?"  She inquired, and internally I pondered 'where the hell else would he be, mad woman?'

"Ummm I don't know, but he SHOULD be."

"Ok, well have him give me a call when you run into him."  As if this wasn't planned out from the get go.

"Sure thing, will do.  Bye."

"Ok, bye..." She said with a chuckle...

Overbearing mother may win this round yet...

The Day of a Thousand Nights: Part One: A Truly Modest (yet somehow troublesome) Proposal

Thinking back at the beginning the day started out like many I've been through before it, at one thirty in the afternoon...

I awoke several times before finally giving up the ghost and downing a cup of delicious coffee, thoroughly inundated with powdered french vanilla creamer and two heaping spoonfuls of sugar.  I spent many a morning in the years past sucking down black espresso, which has the taste of liquid burnt ass, and have promised myself never to look back.  The coffee I drink, I sip, I ENJOY.  Its purpose is not just to pump my veins full of caffeine but as an integral part of my waking ritual.  I sip, I smoke a cigarette, I sip some more, I ease into the mid day like most people ease into a favorite pair of highly comfortable gloves, as to say: slowly and enjoying every minute of it. 

Then, without warning, the loneliness struck.  I picked up the phone and called my mother: busy... I called the few friends that I have: busy, preoccupied, available but very far away.  Nothing left to do but set out on my own, it was close to the first of the month and I still had and ample supply of greasy bills and there far less greasy digital counterparts in my bank account, and they burned in my pockets like hot coals on the soles of a witches feet during the inquisition.

 I made it as far as the mail box before the first impulse to turn back struck, the heat in the hallway was stifling and I argued internally that I was wearing leather pants, not proper attire for ninety degree weather (I further visualized my social worker jotting down notes, something along the lines of "inappropriately dressed for the weather"), and I decided to instead check the mail.

  Inside was a flat square envelope inscribed with the words "gamefly" (think netflix but for video games, REALLY think "superfly: now with more game for every playa").  I knew at once exactly what game it was, kingdoms of amalur: the reckoning, or, as I had been calling it: kingdoms of anal-whore: I reckon.  It was GABE'S game, one that I had ordered at his behest purely to cease his constant reminders and gentle nagging that I had "promised". Every time he used that word I pictured him as an overly large toddler so caught up in the concept of a promise that he felt that if one were to be broken it would forever break not only his trust, but his very spirit. 

I grudgingly walked to the bustop, the game still in my mailbox.  Pulling my cellphone from my leather lined pocked I dailed gabe's number. 

"Hello?" an aging woman's voice answered after a few rings...

"HI, yeah its Zak again, can I speak to gabe?"

"Yeah, hold on a second, I have to YELL"  Was her answer, and yell she did, in the unmistakable blow-horn tone of a mother to her son, albeit normally this would be reserved for a MUCH younger son...  Gabe, as it was, is 35...

"GAAAAAAABBBBBEEEE! TELEPHONE!"

I couldn't help but to snicker, and though she heard me she didn't comment on the matter.  Distantly through the tiny receiver I heard my friend in the background asking who it was, as if anyone else ever called him.  Soon the phone on the other end jostled and changed hands.

"Hey, you just called a minute ago?"  Responded that very same friend.

"Yeah, guess what SHOWED UP TODAY!??!?"  I said sing-songedly into the cell-phone.

"What?"

"KINGDOMS OF AMALUR!  You want to come over?  I'll pick you up at fashion square!"

"I don't know, let me ask my mom..."  Was his response, but I KNEW he was ready to shit his big-boy pants with excitement over his precious game finally arriving.

Through the phone, an epic but all too frequently occurring battle took place, a battle between man-child and overbearing mother.  I could feel the sting of her incessant nagging just as readily as I could the dull hurt of his uncaring and thoughtless "whatever"s.  Finally the battle was won, and Gabe, Jester of his own private domestic kingdom, stood triumphant. 

"Yeah, I'll meet you at fashion square, bring change for me to ride the bus..."

He then hung up shortly after my curt response of "awesome" which was spoken in a stutter of stifled boyish giggles. 

And thus, the day was set, that day, YESTER-day, and the night that followed would be glorious indeed...