I have wasted the entire day waiting around for Imaginary Keith to get home from work.  With the ghost sitting in that jar in the back closet, it’s been impossible to even think.  I keep sneaking into the closet to sit next to the jar, but the agreement before Imaginary Keith went off to work was that I would do nothing until he got home.  The ghost in the pickle jar is too exciting, and neither one of us wants to miss out on anything.  And so I wait.

You’d think that after all the waiting I’ve done in my lifetime I would have become good at it.  Health, strength, success, and wealth, I bet if you can name it, I’ve waited on it.  Love, respect, trust and kind words, I think the list could go on forever.  I sat on the bench for years, waiting to be played, and am forever sitting around, waiting for the right words.  I once stood in a sports store for five hours, waiting for my son to make up his mind about a pair of roller blades.  Five hours in the same aisle, wondering what kind of indecisive man my son would grow up to become, as the store clerks looped round and round until they finally grew tired of us and we became invisible.

Maybe invisibility is all that ever comes of waiting.  Maybe you simply disappear if you’ve sat around waiting long enough, or that it just feels that way, as everything and everyone else around you just passes by without a glance.

So like I’ve said, I’ve been sneaking back to look at the jar and just sitting there, staring at it without saying a word, trying my best to keep my promise.  Promises are important, I think.  A person should do everything they can to keep their promises because if you make one, you can bet that there’s someone somewhere sitting around just like me, waiting on it to come true.  I think people spend a lot of time sitting around waiting on promises.  Probably too much time, but then that’s the thing with waiting, it’s hard to know when to stop.

But you know, this time maybe the waiting will do some good.  I don’t think it’s going to end up anything like the time I waited on some girl to glance up, or for the phone to ring, or that one night I waited for hours for that bus to show up in the rain.  This time it felt like something was changing.  Sitting there in the dark, staring at the jar as I tried to catch some movement from the ghost trapped inside, I found myself thinking of what it’d be like to be trapped in a jar myself.  What would that be like?  Like having your world unravel all around you?  Is that what it felt like?  Like the universe had somehow lured you in and threw the lid over your head when you weren’t looking?  I hadn’t thought of it until now, but the last couple of years of my own life had felt a little like I was in a jar.  Like my body was trapped on the inside while the rest of me floated around lost and loose on the other side, beyond my reach, drifting further and further away.

It was hard sitting in the closet with the ghost after that, and I was glad that I’d made the agreement with Imaginary Keith to wait.  When he got home, I’d tell him what I’d been thinking, and he’d know what to do.  He’d know what to do about the ghost in the jar, just like he’d know what to say.  I don’t admit it often, but he’s better at that sort of thing then I am.  He really is.  It’s like he lets things just go in one ear and then right out the other, but somehow never ends up looking like he’s not listening.  It’s the kind of thing that makes you think you could never trap him in a jar, no matter what you tried.

So I spent the entire day waiting, wondering what I would say to the ghost when Imaginary Keith got home.  I walked around the house, trying to imagine what the ghost was doing here in the first place, thinking that maybe that would help with the waiting.  I’ll tell you, it was a long day.  I didn’t think it would ever end.  I think the highlight was when I discovered that my head was only slightly smaller then a jar of animal crackers we had sitting around the house.  I held the jar next to my own head, and tried to imagine being in there somehow, trapped, looking out.

So yes, I think the waiting today did some good.  I’m suddenly thinking more about what I’ll ask the ghost.  I’ll be more careful with my questions.  I’ll imagine my own head inside that jar of animal crackers, and try my best to keep some perspective.

I wish I didn’t have to go to work so early this morning.  I really do.  Ghosts, it turns out, are not what you’d expect.

But I need to give you something, don’t I?  You can’t go to work and stand around the water cooler all empty-handed now, can you?  You need something to report.

Well, I can tell you this.  It doesn’t appear to be Mr. Cooper trapped in that pickle jar.  Matter of fact, it doesn’t appear to be anyone at all trapped in that jar, which isn’t saying that there isn’t something there.  Like I said, ghosts are not what you’d expect.

So everyone, off to work!  All of us!  Spread the word!  If Mr. Cooper’s ghost is out there, it’s still missing.  Just like his bones.

Big news!

Imaginary Keith and I have finally captured a ghost!  We have it, right now, trapped in a big pickle jar back in the bedroom closet.  It’s the darkest place we could find in the house, now that the sun’s come up, and the ghost was very specific that it needed darkness if it was to survive the day.

That’s right!  The ghost talks!  It’s all very exciting.

Imaginary Keith is back there, right now, seeing if the ghost knows anything about Mr. Cooper and this quest for the bones.  For all we know, the ghost is Mr. Cooper!  But that’s just conjecture at this point, so don’t go around telling your friends that we have the ghost of Mr. Cooper in a pickle jar.  Not yet, anyway.  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I’ve been doing a lot of tossing and turning the last couple of nights, thinking of everything that has gone on over the last week.  I just sort of flip around under the covers, trying to imagine what it all means as I listen to the hum of the generator out in the field.  The investigators are still hard at work as they continue to dig up my field in their search for more of Mr. Cooper’s bones.  I’m beginning to wonder just who this Mr. Cooper really was.  I’ve closed the curtains, but the light from the floodlights streams in between the cracks.  I swear they have one aimed right at the house, watching.

I keep thinking about the conversation dad and I had as we drove the hour up to the airport.  All the same small talk that we always skate around on.  Ice so thick that you’d think nothing will ever crack it.  Divorces, marriages, new families, life in another country, life, death, and finances.  Love.  Loneliness.  Dreams and responsibilities.  Our skates barely scratch the surface, yet the slightest mention of any of it and you can almost see the two of us, pretending it’s gotten colder, looking around for another jacket.

One mile from the airport he brings up the fact of my broken marriage.  It is a safe distance to begin such a conversation, being only minutes from the baggage check-in window.  He knows he will be getting away and has a safe escape.

“I had no clue you and K were even separated,” he says.

“We didn’t really tell anyone,” I answer.  “We weren’t sure what would happen, so we just kept it to ourselves.” It’s a statement painted in both truth and lies.  A diplomatic answer.  What it means is that I told no one that I knew, other then my few close friends and everyone with access to the internet.  But other then that, I hadn’t said much.  Secrecy, after all, is the glue that binds us all together.  Once we learn the secrets, what would be left?

The conversation lives out its short life by turning into a series of brief, almost unrelated statements about life and relationships.  Everything that my dad says is about his own life, and what it meant for his own marriage to end with my mom, but of course, spoken in a completely guarded way.  Nothing is said directly.  There are no names or specifics given.  Everything is in some sort of code, and sitting there, I must elicit every meaning or emotion if I am to understand anything.  It is as if Dan Brown has written the entire dialogue for every conversation my dad and I will ever have.  We are the original Da Vinci family, hailing from parts midwest.  But you wouldn’t know that, not just by listening to us that is.  Not without knowing the code.

I stop the car and we unload his bags onto the sidewalk.  There isn’t much time, and I will only drop him off at the door.  We hug.

“I wish I could stay for a month,” he says.  “But I think some little guys need me more back there then here.” He gestures with his hand the height of his new little boys.  My half-brothers.  Three of them now, one of them whose name I can’t ever seem to remember.  It’s a strange thing to say, I think, as you leave one son and fly off to see three others, but then, there is always the code to fall back on.  Never get caught up on the words.  Read between the lines.  Find the meaning not in what is said, but in what is not said.  In the Da Vinci family, true meaning lies somewhere in the unspoken, but it is a code that I wish had been cracked and discarded a long time ago.  It seems as useless in today’s age as an heirloom teacup.  It all seems so fragile and requires so much protection.  One day, I think, someone’s going to smash that fucking cup.  Just throw into onto the ground and grind it under their heel until there is nothing left but dust.  Then what will the Da Vincis all stand around and talk about, when there is no more teacup left to protect and gather dust?  What then?

“I love you, dad,” I tell him, and we hug a second time.

I couldn’t tell you what he said back to me.  It’s not that I wouldn’t, it’s just that I can’t.  I don’t remember.  But I do know that it wasn’t what you’d think you might hear.  He stumbled on his response, I think, unsure of what to say.  Caught off guard, maybe.  I don’t know.  And that’s the point here, I think.  I might never know, not at least in the way that I imagine other people might know about their own fathers. 

Dad grabs up a suitcase in each hand and heads toward the doors, on his way back to Costa Rica.  I pull out the camera and try my best to capture an image of what it looks like to watch this man disappear.  I think of a lot of things in this way, if you really must know.  I look at things and see them as if they are about to disappear forever.  I can gaze at antiques for hours because I know that most of the things just like them have disappeared.  I stare at people like I am insane, because I know that only minutes from now, even seconds, they will not be the same person that I was just looking at.  Something will have changed.  Something will have disappeared.

But my camera is too slow, and I don’t get the picture that I thought I had in my mind.  Or maybe the camera also goes by the code of my family.  Maybe it knows that some things must remain a secret.  It senses this thing in me that would grind the family heirloom under my heel, and knows that I must be protected from myself.  Who am I to disrupt what has always worked?  The camera takes the picture, but slowly and deliberately, capturing only the faint outline of my dad as he disappears into the revolving doors.  It is an image that only I would recognize, having been there to witness it.  An image that would make sense to no one other then me.  I stare at the picture, thinking that maybe my camera knows more about what it means to disappear then I do.

“Goodbye, Dad,” I say, watching the place where he once was, noticing that the doors continue to spin, long after he is gone.

So lying there in the dark, with the floodlights streaming into my room, I think it is easy to see why I cannot sleep.  There is just too much to think about.  My weekend with Other Keith.  Dad’s brief appearance and disappearance.  And now this thing with the bones. 

Through the window, I hear the distinctive sound of a diesel governor kicking in.  It’s easy to imagine the government funded backhoe out in my field, pushing it’s bucket deep into the soft earth.  I have no need to sit up and look out the window.

Someone, it seems, is always looking for something.  Somewhere out there, there is always a man or a woman who seems lost, and for some strange reason, it doesn’t seem to matter to us whether or not they are dead or alive.  We don’t care.  When it comes to searching for the truth of someone, we seem incapable of making a distinction between the two.  And without a shred of evidence that the two are connected whatsoever, we begin to dig.

There is nothing; not a single thing bouncing around.  I can make nothing up, or even make sense of the day.  I am tired and drained.

I turn on the camera to see what has happened.  Maybe it’ll know what I’ve been up to.  Something was surely captured.  It was, but not by me.

The best photographs to show up on the camera were all taken by the boy.  Other Keith and me, walking down the driveway, talking, only minutes before he left last Tuesday. 

And another, of my dad the morning that he left, as we all sat in the diner and had breakfast together.  It captures him, I think.  He was forever on the road, off working somewhere.  The diner, with its spattering of men, all sitting around drinking coffee, captures him in a way that is easy to remember, or at least imagine.  It makes perfect sense, a photograph of him in focus, yet off-center like that. 

I wandered the halls of the school, on my way to listen to the kids’ speeches.  I stopped to gaze upon the renditions of the presidents, drawn by the third graders and taped up for all to see.  If only the world was as kind as the visions of these kids.  Teddy and George Washington.  LBJ holding what I think is a small dog. 

Hoover and the promise of a chicken in every pot.  The angry Buchanan.

I went out for a beer last night and somehow ended sitting between two cousins who had not seen each other in 24 years.  The two women, one a hairdresser, the other some sort of brain surgery nurse, drank and whipped out pictures of their kids.  They talked about the feud that had kept parts of their family separated for decades, all the while using me as some weird sort of go-between.  I monitored the conversation and asked questions when appropriate.  Four beers into the night, I knew more about the two women and their extended families then I knew about my own family.  The drunker the brain surgery nurse became, the more she seemed to need reassurance from everyone around that she was pretty.  It seemed logical at the time.  I don’t think I could look inside other people’s heads on a daily basis without somehow beginning to doubt everything about myself.

I didn’t hit me until this morning that both women had chosen careers that dealt with the head.  One worked on the outside, while the other went in.

And more art from the classroom.  More of that age old political battle that rages between boys and girls.

The hours of the day have been rearranged to make room for everything.  Morning meeting moved into the afternoon, making space for my second trip to the airport in two days.  I will squeeze a trip to the school at 2:30 to watch six presentations, the boy’s being one of them.  Breakfast at 8.  Airport and back.  Meet some people back here at noon to sell them some plants.  It is more action then I am accustomed to, but certainly nothing that I haven’t done in the past.  Ahhhh, those were the days.

I haven’t seen dad much on this trip, and I suppose I’ll be reflecting back on that in the coming days.  What does it all mean?  I think I see him through different eyes these days.  Part his doing, part mine.  We live in separate worlds, but then, I suppose we always have and it has just taken me these forty years or so to begin to recognize it.  I’m comfortable, seeing things for what they really are.  I think I’ve always been this way, but it’s a trait that has certainly grown over the past years.

I write and write, and every once in awhile, think I am making progress.  Everyone has dreams.

So it was exciting for a moment tonight, when the boy took a minute out of his busy schedule to reflect upon my writing career.  Endeavor.  Thing.  Whatever.

It seems his bit of enlightenment came after watching some other kid’s presentation today.  Today, my son’s class was visited by Isaac Asimov, or at least the Crayola facsimile.

“Dad, did you know that Isaac Asimov wrote 5,800 books?  Did you know that?  He wrote I, Robot, and he wrote almost 6,000 other books.  He wrote books for fifty years.

I do the math in my head and come up with something like a book every three days.  I share this with the boy.

“Daaaad!  He was an intelligent man.  Not like you who takes something like ten years to write a book.”

Twenty something years, but then, who’s counting.

“I don’t know,” I say.  “Maybe he could write a book in three days.  But surely not every three days for fifty straight years.”

“Dad.  It’s all he did.”

Well, it’s no wonder.

I’m busy.  You’re busy.  We’re all busy.

Other Keith introduced me to one great site while he was here.  It’s the internet, as it should be: zombo.com.  Everything you could possibly need, all wrapped up in one neat package.

The boy arrives by surprise, just as I am getting home from work.  “I’m staying here tonight!” he tells me.

The phone rings.  It’s Dad.  “What are the chances of a ride to the airport in the morning?” he wants to know.

Six white vans pull up.  It’s the investigation team, looking into the appearance of Mr. Cooper’s bones.

“Which way to the bones?” someone in a white jumpsuit asks.  I point off in the direction of the skid marks left behind by the crashed space shuttle.  I see him sizing me up, then jotting down something on a clipboard.  As if I don’t already have enough to worry about.  Fuckers.

“I’ll need to reschedule a meeting, Dad,” I say into the phone.  “I’ll call you right back.”

“Okay.”

“Who’s that?” It’s jumpsuit guy again.  Cripes.

“None of your business.” I suppose I should cooperate, but I’m just not in the mood.  Let him scribble away.  As far as I’m concerned, it was my dog who dug up Mr. Cooper’s bones in the first place.  If you ask me, finders keepers and all that business.

I go into the house.  The Little Billy Clinton presentation has been rescheduled for tomorrow.  Tonight we will tweak the coloring.  Add sky and some grass around his feet.  Search for realism.

Someday I think I’ll write all about the girlfriend I had in junior high who wore the back brace.  She didn’t have it when she became my girlfriend, and then one day, she just showed up at school with the thing on.  Her shirt was suddenly all square looking.  From the back she looked like she a couple of extra spines, and from the front it was pretty much the same thing. 

It’s funny, being in junior high.  I don’t remember even saying a word about the brace.  I don’t think we talked about it even.  I held her hand, thinking that I was the only boy in school who had a girlfriend who had turned into a robot overnight.

I eventually moved away, like I always did.  The girl grew up and eventually lost the brace, her spine apparently deciding that it was time to get back to work.  I imagine that her shirts all settled back down into place.  Her breasts and shoulders reappeared, and she could turn her head without swiveling her whole body around.  She was no longer a robot.  She married one of my old friends, and the two of them got to work making a family.

I suppose it’s my job to someday go to a reunion just so I can meet her kids.  They’ll be wanting to know what it was like, you know, back then, when their mom was a robot walking the halls of a small, country school.  I know I’d want to know if my mom had spent any time as a robot.  That’s important stuff.

The morning is buzzing with last minute speech writing for Little Billy Clinton.  How can the boy ever be prepared in time?  I’m afraid the presentation will be choppy and mispronounced.  He may very well be mistaken for the current president.

We are preparing a backup speech, just in case the crowd turns on him.

My size alone has destined me for a position in security.  I will wear dark glasses and an earpiece.  I will glance at the hallway mirrors often, watching for runners.  Security will be tight.  Delayed lunch break, and no recess until the motorcade has pulled away from the curb.

The instructions for the presentation recommend a minimum of three facts for each of four different categories, but encourage the student to strive for more.

“It says three, dad.  Three is enough.” Who am I to argue with such logic?  When you’re tired, anything that means ‘less work’ makes perfect sense.

We struggle through the book, pulling facts left and right for the various categories.  Childhood, Education, Career, Interesting and Other Facts, we cover it thoroughly.  Little Billy Clinton’s glorious career, whittled down to twelve sentences, four of them somehow dealing with the elementary years.

“You’re doing great,” I tell the boy.  “How about you take a fifteen minute break?”

I retreat to the bathroom for some peace and quiet.  I will sit on the toilet and gather my thoughts for the final push, so to speak.

The boy follows me in, singing the schoolyard version of On Top Of Old Smokey at the top of his lungs.

On top of Old Smokey!
All covered with cheeeeeeese!

“I thought you were going to take a break,” I say.  The toilet is in the back corner of the room.  I am trapped.

“I am,” he tells me.

I lost my poor meatballlllllll
When somebody sneeeezed!

* * * * *

Fatherhood has no term limits.

Re-election is almost always guaranteed, and in most cases, a mandatory commitment.

And children almost never toe the party line.

I am suddenly very tired!

Other Keith is gone and I have just found out that my bank account could use a transfusion.  No, transfusion isn’t the right word.  Transfusion implies that something will be exchanged.  In with the good, out with that bad, and all that sort of thing.  Transfusion is definitely not the right word.

I call the automated bank account hotline just in time to hear my last coin disappear into some sort of black hole.  Ker-chunk! It sounds like a quarter.  Maybe a nickel.  I push “9” to repeat the options, and listen once again to the sound of my money disappearing.

Apparently I spend like a masochist but save like a sadist.  Or maybe that’s backwards. 

Is it spend like a sadist, but save like a masochist? I’ve never been comfortable around the financial metaphors, and really have no idea.

I am suddenly very tired!  Wait, I said that.  But it is worth repeating.

Tonight is the final night of preparation for the big Bill Clinton presentation, leaving little room for me to be tired.  A speech must be written and practiced, which means that I must press the boy into action.  Corral and guide.  Corral and guide.  Constant encouragement.  Support.  Yes!  That sounds good!  I must find the energy to do all of those things that seem so impossible when you’re exhausted.

I bet Dad shows up tonight, ready to talk.  Yes, that’s what will happen.  I’m almost positive.

Other Keith is flying home! 

Goodbye, Other Keith!  What will we do around here without you?  Sitting around doing nothing will not be the same.

I always wake up early and want to grind some coffee beans so I can make some coffee.  I like coffee; you know that.  But grinding the beans is so loud, so I end up not doing it because I don’t want to wake up all the sleeping people.  So I will go without coffee, sometimes for hours on end, because I am so damn polite.

Politeness, it ends up, is ruining my life.

Even now, as I sit here writing this, I’m afraid my friendship with Other Keith is about to end if he doesn’t hurry and wake up.  It’s not like I want it to happen.  No, of course not.  I like Other Keith, and we’ve known each other so long now.  It’d be a shame to see it end over a few beans.  No, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t want to stop being friends.  That’s not what I want at all.  I didn’t ask to be this way.

I bet I could pinpoint that exact moment in every failed relationship I’ve ever had where things came undone.  And I would even go so far as to say that politeness, without exception, would be there at that moment, smiling away like some friendly-faced mass murderer.  With it’s arms outstretched, a box of chocolate in one hand, a chloroform soaked rag in the other, who can resist the embrace of politeness?

It’s not easy being polite.  Not easy at all.  But as much as I hate to do it, I need to go grind those beans.  It’s after 8:30, and if I don’t grind those things soon, I’m afraid I’m going to go back and smother Other Keith in his sleep with his own pillow, just so I don’t wake him.  And I ask you, what kind of sense does that make?  Friends shouldn’t smother friends.  No matter how polite I am, I know that’s not right.

I am always on the lookout for a new and prosperous profession.  I’m all for change.  Change is good.  Folding money even better.

What about the job where I work as a secret, undercover, spy.  Only I’ll be a relationship spy.  People will hire me to vacation with their spouse or loved one, and then to secretly report back everything that is happening.  I will have all sorts of cool gadgets, cameras, and recording devices hidden in things like my hat or lapel.  (Do I have any lapels?  Hmmm.)

It sounds like such an easy job, until you begin to realize the moral dilemma I must face each day as I slowly become friends with the people I am being paid to spy on.  What will I do when I become sympathetic to their secret problems?  Will I end up keeping my own secrets, or worse yet, turn double-agent?  Will my new profession spur a new reality television series?  Who will play me?  Sure I’d love to play myself, but wouldn’t that blow my cover?

My only other lead this week was to create a national question competition.  For a fee, people would enter local question competitions.  They would list or say as many questions as they could in, say, five minutes.  Duplicate questions would instantly disqualify a contestant.  Winners would move onto regional competitions, then onto the nationals!  Speed rounds would focus on surprise topics, chosen by random.  Maybe Vanna would spin something. 

The two Keiths are up to nothing, which for a couple of aging (but nowhere near old) men, is better then no good.  Anyone will tell you that.

The boy is off to his mothers, which means we can do just about anything.

“We can do anything we damn well please,” I say with a flourish of bravado.

“Why yes we can,” Other Keith replies. 

Twenty year old visions of past drinking and too much pizza flash before my eyes.  Other Keith and I are nothing more then a modern day Butch and Sundance.  Salem is at our mercy.  We hop in the car and tear off like a couple of reckless bandits.

“Should we go look at movies at Best Buy, Butch.”

“Sounds good, Sundance.” He rolls down the window and spits.

It’s good living in the West.  Out here, where the sun comes each night to catch some winks, every day is an adventure, and all the men walk around feeling just like heroes.

“Should we go get some coffee, Butch?”

“Sounds good, Sundance.” He reads the back of a movie, struggling with some shrink wrap.

We order vanilla lattes with skim milk and kick up our boots, our backs to the door.  It’s Sunday, and anyone who’s anyone in the West can tell you that a posse never rides on Sunday.  We have the place to ourself.  It feels good.

Even though we have company in the house, I think it is important that life continue on as normal as possible.  Company or no company, we must survive, so I instruct Imaginary Keith that he needs to go to work.

“But it’s Saturday.  And Other Keith is here,” he complains.

“Yes, I’m sure we could come up with a thousand reasons for you to not go to work,” I tell him.  “But routine is important.  Routine is what gives a man backbone.”

Hmmm.  I’m not so sure that’s true, but I’ll say whatever it takes.

“Besides, you can take Other Keith to work with you.  Show him what you’re all about.”

Besides the landscaping, Imaginary Keith has a part-time management position that he’s worked at for several years.  There’s nothing wrong with doing a little moonlighting, I always tell him.  It builds character and lets a man sleep well at night.  You can never have enough work.  Work is what gives a man backbone.

Hmmm.  I’ll have to think about that one, too.  But it’s part of the spiel anyway, and always seems to get him out the door.

“You think Other Keith would want to go to work with me?”

“Sure.  Other Keith loves work.”

It’s true.  Other Keith works for one of those giant telecommunication companies that are taking over the world.  Just yesterday he took us to a website, and before I could do anything, my mouse pointer had changed from a little pointer into a little hand, just like that.  There was really nothing I could do.  That’s how powerful Other Keith’s company is.  Perhaps you’ve encountered it yourself.  It’s quite far-reaching.

“Yes.  Definitely.  Take Other Keith to work with you,” I encouraged.  “I think it’s important.”

“I guess that’d be okay.”

“Of course it’ll be okay.  It’ll be more then okay.  You’ll be making memories.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.  What if he asks me a bunch of questions, like What’s your mission statement? or Can you explain the company policies regarding employee disciplinary action? What if I’m forced to reprimand the employee?  What about that?”

“I’m sure none of that will come up.  If it does, and I’m sure it won’t, you’ll do your job.  That’s all there is to it.”

“Hmmm.”

“Don’t worry.  Everything will be fine.  I’ve already made the call for you.  You’re scheduled to work from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.”

“A 24 hour shift?”

“Nothing can go wrong.  He’s just one small employee.  You’ve been managing him for nine years now, haven’t you?  Surely you can manage him well for another 24 short hours.  Quit worrying so much.”

“I know.  But he asks so many questions.”

“True.”

“And what if he won’t stop talking the whole time?  What then?  And what if he drinks too many pops and starts bouncing around?  What about that?  And what about bedtime?  What if he won’t go to bed or starts arguing with me or gets all indignant and stubborn?  You know I have trouble with that once in awhile.  You know he can be a hard employee to manage.  He’s a handful.”

“He’s nine years old.  I would hardly call that a problem.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Now get to work.  Show Other Keith what we’re all about around here.”

“Okay.”

“By the way, we do have a mission statement, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“We do?”

“Yes.  If Other Keith asks, tell him our mission statement is Survive.

“Are you sure that’s our mission statement?  Sounds more like a motto.”

“And you sound more like a tired father then corporate management.  Now, off you go.”

Even though I am looking for him, Other Keith is somehow able to sneak up on me at the airport, which if you think about it, is ridiculous.  I like to imagine that I stand around with this unexplainable ability to notice everything, and yet, the one thing that I am watching for is suddenly standing right next to me, smiling.

But friends almost always show up out of nowhere, like some unidentified blip on a radar screen that was blank only moments ago.  Who can say with any degree of certainty where any of their friends actually came from?  What brought them into your life?  What kept them there, and how can such a bond even exist?  How does one explain this whole friendship thing to himself?  Where does one even begin?

Anyway, I’m standing there thinking all this while I watch hundreds of people take off their shoes and put them into those plastic tubs so security can have a closer look.  Bus tubs, I’m thinking.  That’s what they are.  Bus tubs.  If you work in a restaurant you pile dirty dishes in them and you call them bus tubs.  It all makes no sense.  What does it have to do with a bus?  But I bet after 9-11 the bus tub business has gone gangbusters.  I should have sunk some money into bus tubs, that’s what I should have done.

I think about everyone being told to get to the airport earlier and earlier because of more extensive security, and I wonder how much food and alcohol sales are up for the airport’s bars and restaurants during the last few years.  You know they’re up.  Americans don’t sit around without something to eat or drink in front of them.  No way.  Even bottled water sales are out of this world.  I look around for a drinking fountain, but I think the closest one is in the B Concourse, half a mile away.  I feel parched but can’t leave my post.  Not now.  I look at all the feet.  I watch security move stacks of bus tubs back and forth from one end of the conveyor belt to the other.  Everyone is so busy with something important to do.  Even me.  I must watch for -

And then, like I said, there he was, standing right next to me, smiling.  My radar never even picked him up, but I knew he was there.  A person senses these things about friends.  There always there, and they always will be.

I can’t remember why, but we start up with the laughing right away.  A five day trip.  A year’s worth of laughing.  You do the math.  We don’t have time.

Dad is here.  Other Keith’s plane lands in a few hours.  The boy needs to get to school.  The dogs are out on the road.  An overweight stray black lab has found his way into the yard, and the boy wants to load him in the car and help him get back home.  The lab smells like something dead, but the boy would load salmon into buckets and help them get upstream if he could.  All creatures, great and small, will be saved, if he is put in charge.  All creatures, great and small, will be loaded into the backseat of my car and driven up and down the road until the are safely home again.

Oh look!  The space shuttle has just made an emergency landing in our back field!  The failed landing gear has unearthed a few more of Mr. Cooper’s bones!  There is sure to be an investigation!

What an exciting morning!  Everyone is barking.  Even the rabbits in their hutches.

I stick my hands in the toilet out of love and devotion and start scrubbing.  If anything, I will be Pine Sol fresh.  Friends deserve nothing less then a clean toilet to pee in, don’t you think?  The world, obviously, has gone mad.  I live on a farm.  He should be required to walk out to the field and pee with the rest of the animals.  We humans are such a pampered bunch.

The telephone rings just as I finish.  It is Theodore Dreiser.

“I hear Stowe called.  Claimed she could answer any question with a line of her own dialogue.”

“Yes, that’s true,” I said.

“What a show-off.  I can do the same thing.  Easy I’ll use my story The Second Choice.”

“Are you sure?  She was pretty much right on about the whole mopping business.”

“Are you questioning me?”

I’d always imagined Dreiser’s voice being deeper.  Maybe it was the connection.

“Okay.  Here goes.  When my friend Other Keith comes to visit, can I make him pee out in the field with the cows?”

“What?!.”

“Well, that’s what I want to know.”

“Alright.  The answer is -

How are you, Shirley?” he asked sweetly . . “

“You’re kidding, right.”

“No, wait, that’s not the one.  Here we go.  This is it -

What’s wrong, honey?  Aren’t you feeling well tonight?”

“Theodore . . “

“Hold on.  I’ve got it.

Make it Sunday, she pleaded.”

“It’s okay, really, Mr. Dreiser.  It wasn’t that important.”

“Wait!  I’ve got it -

Not this trip, anyhow, he answered bravely.”

“Yes, that’s the one.” He sounded proud.

“Excuse me, but I do believe that line is from The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.”

“Whatever,” and then the line went dead.

It is hard to get a single thing accomplished.  I keep meaning to mop the kitchen floor, but each time I go searching for the mop, the phone rings.  I’ve just now gotten off the phone with Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Don’t even ask.  I don’t understand it either.

“I can answer any question you ask me with a line of dialogue from Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Ms. Stowe said.  “Go ahead.  Try me.”

“I’ve of course read your book, Ms. Stowe, but I don’t think I can remember any lines.”

“You leave that to me.  Go ahead, now.  Ask away.”

“Okay.  How about this?  I can’t seem to find my mop.”

“That’s no question, young man.  Were you denied the opportunity of good schooling?”

“I’m sorry.  Where is my mop?”

“Oh, Mr. Symmes! - save me, - do save me, - do hide me!” said Eliza.”

“What?”

“The mop obviously does not want to be found.  You’re a lazy man, aren’t you?”

“I’m actually very busy, Ms. Stowe.  You’d be surprised.”

“Yes, I’m sure I would.  Is there anything else you’d like to know before I hang up?”

“Will I ever get the kitchen mopped?”

“Such a simple boy.  Here’s your answer -

“There was, said St. Clare, “a time in my life when I had plans and hopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift.”

The line was silent.

“I’m not getting that mopping done, am I?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Oh well.  I am sorry I don’t remember more about your book.”

“I forgive ye, with all my heart!” said Tom faintly,” she said, and then the line went dead.

There’s not much time for goofing around today.  Other Keith will be here tomorrow, freshly scrubbed and, rumor has it, sporting a new haircut.  And with dad floating in from Costa Rica on some unseen South Pacific breeze, my duties and obligations as host will be stretched to the very limits.  Will I lose my tax-exempt recluse status because of too many visitors on one weekend?  What are the rules?  Are there any loopholes?

Look!  Not a speck of food or a decent drink to be seen for miles.  To the store.  And bathrooms must be scrubbed (or at least the air freshened), and I think I might need to buy a couple of blankets.

And don’t I suck at writing accents?  That’s rhetorical, feel free to keep it to yourself.  But I think the devil would come disguised as a blackberry, just as I think poor, unsuspecting Ivy has every right to sell his soul for one more chance with Iris.  Wait.  What am I saying?  Ivy is manipulative and abusive.  And my intention was for that devil Blackberry to be more suave and sophisticated.  But maybe he just played Ivy for the fool that he is.  Yes, that’s it.  Blackberry’s voice will sound different to everyone.  That makes perfect sense, for a walking, talking blackberry plant, that is.  Who just happens to be the devil.  Yes, that’s it.

And let’s not forget the big homework assignment, due the beginning of next week.  Presidents, as we all know, are not born, but made, and my son is hard at work right now, trying to make his own President.  If we have anything to say about it, Clinton will be reborn, scratched onto paper with indelible marker and filled with a thousand new ideas.  Some may claim that he is nothing more then an old idea, reworked in Crayola, to which I reply, hogwash. 

Behold my son’s William Jefferson Clinton in all his glory!  Dressed casually in jeans and a long-sleeve tee, he is the image of something new, something exciting.  Washington needs a man like this to shake things up.  Notice the pens in the shirt pocket.  When have you ever seen someone look more ready for action, I ask you?

Chapter 2 :: Blinded By Passion, Ivy Sells His Soul

Ivy knew he was cut bad.  Security had hoed him up pretty good, his juices mixing with the dirt and oil of the back alley.  His left eye was swelled completely shut, but he could smell trash nearby.  A dumpster.  Something to hang onto and pull himself up with, at least.  He reached out, his tendrils blindly searching, then touching cold steel.  Thinking of Iris, trying not to think about the pain, he slowly pulled himself up until he was sitting, his back against the dumpster.

He had to get up.  Iris, his Iris, was getting away.

That was when he heard the shuffling of feet, right there next to the dumpster.  Someone was watching him, not more then three feet away!

“Take your best shot,” Ivy said, trying his best to sound tough.  He braced for the feel of the hoe chopping away at his chest.

“Brother, you couldn’t take any more shots.” The voice was low and gravely, the words so sharp and rough a man could cut himself just by listening too close.  Ivy knew the voice.  It was that lowlife Blackberry.  Blackberry!

“Blackberry?  Is that you?”

“Hell yes it’s me.  And lucky thing for you.  You’re in bad shape, brother.  A world of hurt.”

“I’ve been better.”

“Hell yes, I can see that.  What are you doin’ out here?  Beat all to hell.”

“Help me up, will you?” Ivy could feel Blackberry’s rough hands under his arms, lifting, the nails poking through his skin, digging in.  He winced, but it felt good to be back on his feet.

“Thanks, Blackberry.  I owe you.”

“Hell yes, you owe me.  You owe me big.  You’re after that lady.  I can see that.  Any time a man goes out and get himself all busted up, there’s a lady on the other end.  You’re chasing after that lady, aren’t you?”

“Did you see a woman come through here, Blackberry?  Tall, thin, yellow hair with a purple streak.  You see her?”

“You mean that bearded lady?  Hell yes I saw her.  A sweet little thing, she was, until I got a good look at that beard.  Man, you ain’t chasing after her, are you?”

“She’s my girl, Blackberry.  I gotta find her.”

“Man, you’re messed up worse then I thought!  Chasing after a bearded lady all messed up!” Blackberry started laughing.

“Just tell me which way she went.” Ivy could feel Blackberry’s dark, sweet breath on his face.  He was beginning to feel nauseous. 

“She ran off down that way.” Blackberry’s long, sharp arm pointed down the alley, toward the street.  “Now go chase down that bearded lady of yours.  Ha!  And don’t be forgetting that you owe me.  You hear?  You owe me.”

“I owe you, Blackberry.” Ivy began limping towards the street.  “Thanks.”

“Hell yes you owe me.  Now limp that sorry ass of yours out of here.” Blackberry watched Ivy make his way slowly down the alley, turn the corner at the street, and disappear.

“Chasing after some old ugly bearded lady.  Didn’t even smell sweet.” Blackberry leaned back against the dumpster and closed his eyes.  In the morning it’d be Wednesday.  And Wednesday meant that those hard-skinned little landscape boys would be by, and he had it all planned out.  Just one a little scratch and they’d grub him right out of there and throw him in the truck.  When they weren’t looking, he’d just slip over the edge and be on his way.  He’d done it a million time.

The back door to the club opened, and a man stepped out, a trash bag in each hand.

“Back for some more scratchin’?” Blackberry thought, slowly laying his arm across the lid of the dumpster.  He’d miss the old dumpster when he was gone, that was for sure.  Always something going on.  Plenty of action.

In a plot twist that I jokingly predicted last week, my father arrives at the back door with no phone call or warning whatsoever.  It has been at least four years since we’ve seen each other.  It was my guess that he would show up unannounced the weekend that Other Keith is due to visit.  We may not say much to each other, but at least we’re predictable.

“So, a few things have changed around here while you’ve been gone,” I say.  Until just a few moments ago, he has known nothing about the separation and divorce.  He knows nothing about my two years in the apartments.  This might sound strange to you, until you realize that I had to find out that he and my mom were divorced by reading it in the local paper.  Having now surprised him, I consider us even.

“You’ll have to bring me up to speed later on tonight,” he says.

I wonder what changes the last four years have brought on him.  Will we really get up to speed tonight, or will we sit around and talk about my new television, or reminisce about how well the wood stove heats up the house.  “Up to speed” has many meanings, not all of them necessarily requiring any actual conversation.

In most families, the arrival of a long lost father would alter the entire weekend.  But around here that is not necessarily the case.  The weekend stands as planned.  Other Keith will arrive, Dad will borrow one of my cars to run a few errands, and other then that, it’s business as usual.

The Consortium is a success and dismisses earlier then expected.  Jake is granted access, and the demons are seen fleeing the software in large groves.  Some disappear into a tray of cucumber sandwiches, while others, unfortunately, lodge themselves inside my head.

I immediately thank everyone for their help, and dismiss them before they have any opportunity to ponder why demons would not be able to make a distinction between my head and a tray of cucumber sandwiches.  There is no reason to accomplish too much in one day.  Some things are best left for tomorrow.

Iris, growing tired of her clingy boyfriend, Ivy, has run off to become a groupie with the Sex Pistils.  But after only a week on the road, finds that not everything is as it once seemed. 

The band abuses Roundup like there is no tomorrow, and each night is the same, leaving them all weak and withered.  She has never even felt this tired with Ivy, in spite of all their fighting.  Sid is the worst, pounding down shot after shot of Roundup like water.  It makes her ill, just watching it.

What is she going to do?  Her own biological clock is ticking, her own bloom beginning to fade.  But is that any reason to go running back to that clingy Ivy?  She will never forget his last words to her, “Go ahead and run.  See how far you get, Iris.  No one wants a Bearded Iris as a groupie.” The words had stung worse then Orthenex.

“Hey Babe, why don’t you come over here and make old Johnny happy?” Johnny Rotten’s voice startles her.  Across the room she can see him, rubbing some sort of systemic over himself.  She has to get out of there.  Even back in the field, she’ll be better off then she is right now.  Just the thought of it gives her newfound strength.

“Fuck off, you old has-been.” She looks around for her purse.

“Fuck off yourself, Little Miss Hybrid.  Little Miss Bearded Iris.”

As the door slams behind her, she feels her own anger growing.  Always about the beard, she thinks.  Doesn’t seem to bother them when they want to pollinate.  Screw them all.

“I’m through with you all,” she yells.  The sound of her own voice feels good.  “Tug your own anthers awhile.  See how you like that.”

In our next episode:

The Sex Pistils take Iris’ words to heart and try launching The Organic Reunion Tour.

Ivy shows up at the Sex Pistils’ concert, clinging to the edge of the stage, angry and growing aggressively.  Security beats him back with hoes and shovels.  Following a mysterious tip, he races to the field Iris has returned to, only to find out that she has been uprooted by a crew of migrant workers, divided, packaged, and sold in pieces to the highest bidder. 

Iris, shipped south, thinks all is lost, but unexpectedly meets up with her high school sweetheart, Kudzu.

Later today . . .

The season premiere of Horticultural Pornography Theater.

Today’s Episode:

Iris runs off with the band, only to discover that life is not always as it seems.  Ivy grows more and more angry by Iris’ absence.  Guest appearance by the Sex Pistols.

God’s grand embarrassment plan, designed specifically for me, continues to operate smoothly.  As one might expect.

Jake, the Episcopal priest who took the great, personal risk of offering me and my words high praise, tried to leave a comment this morning, only to be turned away at the door by my software, which is obviously in cahoots with the devil.

Begone!  Evil, underlying, unrecognizable, software glitch!  You are not welcome!  Jake will be heard!

Anyone interested in participating in the Computer Literate Religious Figure Consortium later on this afternoon is encouraged to contact us at their earliest convenience.  All are welcome to attend.  However, seating is limited, and interested parties are encouraged to register early.  A light lunch will be served.  (Kosher available upon request.)

Seriously: (note use of italics to denote honest seriousness) If anyone else has encountered this problem, I would appreciate if you would let me know.  It may help solve whatever is going on.

I’ve gotten to the point in my life where sports no longer make any sense to me, so instead of watching or even playing anything, I just sit around making things up.

Like I sometimes try to figure out who would make the better basketball player - Jesus or Buddha.  I can waste huge blocks of time analyzing their imagined strengths and weaknesses on the court.

I might look outside at my basketball hoop this afternoon, and end up thinking something like:

That Buddha can post up like nobody’s business, and is a real strength when he’s in the paint.  His shot isn’t pretty, and he isn’t much of a leaper, but still somehow manages to come down with more then his share of rebounds.  And he knows how to work those big elbows to his advantage.  Sure he’s slow getting down the court, but come on, he’s Buddha.  What do you expect?

Jesus, on the other hand, he’s more juke and flash.  He dribbles like he’s working miracles, can pull up just about anywhere for the long three-pointer, but with his ability to ascend, is more likely to float by you on his way straight to the hoop.  His turn the other cheek attitude has made him a little weak when it comes to pounding the boards, and yet, he’s been known to turn over a referee’s table from time to time, making him interesting, but a real challenge to coach.

1. What does it mean if you find yourself becoming bored with your imaginary friend?

2. Why do my dreams always seem to involve some sort of battle or struggle?

3. The achilles in my right foot is bothering me.  It strained as I leaned towards the mirror, looking at my nose hairs.  Neither one of those things sounds particularly right.

4. I promised to keep my new car clean, yet looking out the window this morning, I know for a fact that all of my good coffee cups are out there in it, lying around dirty.

5. What did it really mean when my father told me that he didn’t want to be alone?

6. What did it really mean that I had no answer?

7. Why is eating more fresh vegetables such a hard habit to get into?

8. Why cling to a promise?  Why do we do that?

9. How did it ever become about money?

10. Why take chances?  And what’s more powerful to you - promise or chance?

In a dream, the ex begins taunting me with my own words, after she discovers the existence of this site.  I find myself listening closely to what she’s saying, trying my best to figure out what month she is reading from.

What a misguided dream.  Everyone knows that if someone discovers your blog, the first thing they do is look for what is written about themselves.  In the end, it all boils down to self-discovery, no matter how you go about it.