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...

Night of the Smoothies

Earlier in the week, while helping my mother pack away and arrange her stuff into boxes she begifted me with a Smoothie Elite TM.  I had not yet gone grocery shopping, however, and had yet to experiance the sublime bliss that is a home-made smoothie.

Today was the day...

I awoke knowing full well that I had a good two hours to kill before phone arrived, and yet I wasn't bothered by this.  The leisurely and habitual morning routine was one I enjoyed very much, though it hardly ever actually took place before noon.  I made my coffee with the last bit of ground awareness left in the can, shaking it into the espresso machines metal cup with urgency.  I'm not much of a man without caffeine.

It quickly brewed, and with my coffee I had a cigarette, mingling the two substances both in taste and affect.  The days first smoke is always the best.  For two hours I waiting, speaking briefly with friends and my mother and when my social worker finally arrived I was good and ready.

She pulled up in a burgundy colored van and I hurried inside to grab my grocery list, fully aware that without it I was sure to get a stern look and possibly even a scolding.  I'm not much of a man at all really...

"So how have you been?"  Fawn asked, following yet another routine.

"Good, I got my book on amazon..." I responding, the only bit of news I had to share, and with that spent the rest of the conversation went to hell.

"So have you gotten out lately?"

THERE it was, the million dollar question, had ZAK gotten out lately, had ZAK made any friends.  How I loathed it so...

"No, but I plan on going downtown tomorrow and hanging out with a friend, maybe pick up some hemp chord."  I responding in a spit, expecting her to do exactly what she did...

"Rebecca?"

"Yeah, that's what I ALWAYS do, go downtown and hang out with Rebecca..."

"Oh... I was hoping you were doing something..."

This didn't sit well with me...

"I AM doing stuff."

The rest of the trip went on as follows:  I shopped in a hurry, never once taking my list out of my pocket.  I almost walked out in front of traffic.  I closed the wrong door first on the van.  I went home.  I made a DELICIOUS SMOOTIE!

The concoction I put together was one banana, one peach, a cup of milk, most of an ice tray of ice, and sugar.  It was bliss. Then, my brother called...

"Merry Christmas!"  He shouted into the phone in a jovial manner...

"Ok... Whats up bro?"

-insert whatever the hell he wanted, for some reason I can't remember-

"Ok, come on down."

He answered the door with a smile and a little wave, the kind that princess give the crowds gathered as they drive by.

"Would you like a smootie?"  I asked, fully hoping him to decline on the grounds of his weak stomach.

"Hell yeah!" 

Oops...

I made the smoothie in a hurry, splitting it into three cups, one for me one for him and one for his fiance.  He left with cups in hand, promising to return them at a later date, and I thought that would be the end of it.  I was wrong...

A half an hour later he called again.

"Bro!  I'll give you TWO DOLLARS if you make another smoothie for me and my girl, how about it?"

Two smoothies and six four dollars later we had gone through most of the fruit I had just bought and had hoped would last at least a week or so.  SIX POUNDS of bananas and peaches and a quarter gallon of milk.  Only later did it occur to me just why he had such a sweet tooth.

He called again, this time asking if I would accompany him to the corner in the middle of the night for ice cream and cigarettes.  He told me to come around front.

"But DON'T knock, just wait for me."  He said emphatically.

"Ok..."  I responding, still not understanding.

I waited on his lawn for him to come out smoking a cigarette when it finally hit me.  He was high, again, and my suspicions that he was once more using were about to be justified.

He stumbled out of the front door and informed me that we had to go over to Marty's house, that his friend who he lovingly calls Hippie was there and he needed to kick his ass.

"I just want you to grab him from behind... and I'll punch him in the stomach, you got it bro?"

"No brother, I'm against violence..."  I didn't know what else to say, but the hokiness of that statement lingered on my tongue like a bit of asprin that didn't go down.

"Alright then, I'll kick your ass too..."

He knocked on Marty's door with a series of quick and hard bangs that was supposed to mimic that of a police officer.  Marty didn't even flinch, he was used to my brother's nonsense.  He just opened the door and stepped aside letting us in. 

"Alright, whats everyone want?"

As it turned out, Marty and Hippie were offering Ben a pack of cigarettes to walk up to the corner for them and pick up a few things, what ammounted to a two liter of coke and yet more cigarettes.

"Hold on... Just make a list, my brain doesn't have a memory anymore..."

I shit you not, his exact words...

We took the list and began walking up King Street, at this point it was almost eleven at night.  I tried to make small talk, to hide the fact that I hated him for being so stupid as to use again after all he's been through, not that it would have mattered, he was too high to notice my subtle disdain.

"So how have you been?"  He asked me: not the first time, not the last.

"I've been doing good, just keeping up with my stuff."

"Aren't we all...  So what are you doing?"  His questioning continued, as if he couldn't very well see exactly what I was doing.

"Walking...  I have a destination."  I hoped he didn't notice my frustration.

"Yeah, me too.  I want to get my GED."

I was surprised, never in all my life had I heard been express interest in anything academic.

"That's great bro, what do you plan on doing with it?"  I asked, legitimately interested regardless of his intoxication.   

"I want to go to collage, take biology or zoo-ology, so I can learn to take care of wolves..."

I really should have suspected this...

"That's great bro..."

I didn't say much after that.

It wasn't until we approached the Corner that I realized it was Friday night.  The Corner is a strip of bars and restaurants between UVA Medical Center and UVA Campus, and on Friday nights it is riddled with hideously drunken college students, homeless men and women (also drunk), and an odd assortment of partiers and sight seers (who very likely would be drunk as well).  The place stank, the scents washed over me with ever step and shifted between oddly pleasant and deeply repugnant.  Sweat mixed with the oder of food cooking, vomit with the inexplicable sweetness of cotton candy, and all around the stench of alcohol poured from the open mouths of a hundred heavy drinkers.

Women marched up the sidewalk like flocks of birds, all the while pruning there make-up and telling and retelling the stories that only such as them know.  I'd catch bits of conversation, a word here, half a sentence there, always vacuous, always slurred.  The men were just as ridiculous, I've never seen so many polo shirts and backwards baseball caps in my life.  Popped collars all around boys, its FRIDAY NIGHT in CHARLOTTESVILLE!

We weaved in and out of the packs like outsiders in a gathering of wolves, and my brother never flinched, hell he seemed oddly comfortable.  We reached our destination and went inside.  By this time my heart was beating in my chest and acid was rising out of my gut like filth from a sewer.  I bought a half gallon of cookies and cream ice-cream and two rolls of Tums.  In the check out line my brother said he forgot something and ventured back into the store, I stepped outside for a smoke.  He followed out a few minutes later.

"Don't tell my girl this, but that pixie girl in there was hitting on me."

Here we go again...

"Yeah, she was bangin too, not a bit of fat on her body, but don't tell anyone."

"You know I wouldn't, wouldn't want to get youi in trouble."  Maybe...

"I told her I had a girlfriend though, she asked about my tattoos and I said I did them in my kitchen with my girlfriend."  He managed to say, must have been sobering up at that point.

"Then she should be proud..."  Ugh...

We once again began the trek up the corner when a balding old man approached my brother, he wore a black band T-shirt for a group I didn't recognize, was skin and bones thin, and had perhaps one tooth left in his head.

"I met you in prison, didn't I?"  The man said.  "I'm gonna get lit tonight, look in this cup."

I couldn't help it, my eyes trained on the plastic cup as if pulled there by force.  It contained a sickly green and oddly neon fluid sloshing around with several diminutive ice cubes.

"Its chill, mixed with beer, gonna feel good tonight."

I had a moment where my morbid curiosity almost took over and asked the man what exactly "chill" was, and I hoped to god that it wasn't what it looked like, which was cheap anti-freeze.

A block down several beer bottles rained down from the balcony above, nearly striking me before shattering.  I couldn't take it anymore.

"Lets get the fuck out of here bro..."

He merely nodded.

My brother went on to tell me that people respected him now, that women smiled at him and people spoke to him and he wanted to know why, he asked me upfront what had changed about him.  I did my best to lie....

"You have confidence now."  Liquid courage maybe, a little green deffinately.

I when we arrived back at Marty's he gave them there bounty and I went home, wishing him a good night.  I gimped into my apartment and prepared myself a large milkshake with the ice-cream I had bought and sat down in my chair to reflect.