Because nothing actually happened at the stroke of midnight around here, I am left with nothing to write about except everything else. I’ll do my best.
6:30 pm
I finished moving the last of the junk out of the apartment. All those things that should go straight into a dumpster. Let’s face it, all the stuff that is unimportant enough to be avoided on each and every trip back and forth except for the very last trip really has no place in our lives. It ends up being just like that pathetic little kid from our childhood who was always picked last for everything. Maybe it was you, and I suppose I should say sorry, for making a comparison between you and my most worthless junk, but I don’t think it would come off very sincere. Let’s face it, we live in a world where some things are more important then other things, and I’m afraid this rule applies to people just as easily as it does to things like old frisbees and broken (but could be fixed someday) desk lamps. We live in a country that throws more trash away then any other nation in the world, and yet, we’ve somehow been raised to not want to throw anything away.
What does any of that have to do with being the last kid picked for a game of kickball? I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting to start writing about trash. You wouldn’t think that trash has anything at all to do with my new year.
6:45 pm
I stop by a tavern to celebrate the final load of trash with a quick beer, which ends up turning into two beers, which given the reason to celebrate, isn’t such a bad thing. A girl named Emily works behind the bar, a friend of my brother’s wife, and I watch her work her way up and down the bar, tending to the other people there. Not watching as in stalking, or anything like that, but as in what-else-am-I-going-to-do watching. Watch college football on a small television with my neck turned up at some uncomfortable angle? No, I don’t think so. Besides, Emily is pleasant, and I kind of like the way the small Roman numeral “IIV” tattoo between her shoulder blades moves around when she carries three or four drinks at once. At least I think that’s what the tattoo is. I don’t ask and really have no reason to ask. I’m content to watch it just the way it is, even if it is an incorrect Roman numeral.
Emily’s tattoo reminds me that I like a lot of things in life to remain secrets. Mystery is good. There’s no need for any of us to know everything.
7:45 pm
I return home and think about moving in the last carload of junk, but don’t actually think about it very long. It can wait until tomorrow, I tell myself, and go inside.
8:00 pm
I start the shower and get undressed just as someone starts pounding on the door like there’s just been a horrible, twenty or thirty car pileup just outside of my front gate and they need to use my phone. No, it can’t be, I think. Nine year olds also knock on doors this way, but he’s not supposed to be here until 10:00 tonight. It can’t be him.
I wrap a towel around my waist to go unlock the door, listening to the other children that are with my son and his mother giggle at me. It’s dark and the porch light isn’t on, so I can’t see them. Only their giggles. Later my son will tell me they were laughing because “I was naked under my towel.” This whole phase about becoming aware of their bodies and the bodies of others around them is something I’ve never really understood. But I know it’s just a phase, and will begin to pass in roughly thirty years. Good thing for them. Can you imagine what I’ll look like with a just a towel wrapped around my waist in thirty years? There won’t be much snickering going on then, I bet. Well, maybe.
9:00 pm
I fall asleep. My son wakes me up.
9:15 pm
I fall asleep. My son wakes me up.
9:30 pm
I convince my son that we should set an alarm to wake up just before midnight, and both go to sleep. I’ll even lay there with him, waiting for the alarm, I tell him. He is very adamant that he should see the ball drop in Times Square and hear the countdown. I don’t know how this has become so important to him, and because I just feel completely worn out, don’t really care to try and find out right at the moment.
We set the alarm and fall asleep.
10:45 pm
Son pops up, waking me up. He is afraid he will miss it, although he is also exhausted. He has gotten sick during the last couple of days and hasn’t slept well. He blows his nose every few minutes, just like I did around Christmas. I love that boy. We share everything.
We fall back asleep.
11:15 pm
Son pops up. I wake up and tell him, not yet. We fall back asleep.
11:55 pm
Alarm goes off and I wake up. I roll over and tell him to wake up. I shake him. I talk loud. I talk louder. I turn on the television. I shake him again, harder and harder until his head is rattling all over the place. I raise him up into a sitting position and talk loud again. “Wake up!” I yell. Nothing. I’ve always wondered how it is kids can sleep like a drunk adult, but only drunk adults can sleep like drunk adults. There is no waking him.
Oh well. I lay him back down and turn off the television. At midnight I hear neighbors fire off a couple of fireworks off in the distance, then the older dog jumping frantically against the garage door. She’s the coward of the family and hates any loud noises. Guns, fireworks, shrill whistles, even the whining sound of my son’s electric scooter sends her into a panic.
I fall back asleep.
12:45 am
Son pops up. “What time is it?” he asks me. I try to explain what has happened to him but he won’t accept a word I say. He is way over-tired on top of his being sick, and now this.
“How can I see the countdown?” He keeps asking me, over and over. He is irrational, mad, and sad, all at the same time, and begins to cry.
“How can I see the countdown?” He’s out of bed, pacing the hallway, then back in bed, his question coming to me over and over in the dark. “Did someone record it? Can we rent it at Blockbuster? Will it be on again? How can I see the countdown?” It’s now one in the morning and I’m laying in bed with a crying boy who wants to see a countdown that he will never be able to see. Try explaining that one away sometime. I think we’ve all somehow raised a generation of children who think they can either rent anything they need, or at least buy it used on Ebay.
It’s strange, to hear him cry like that. He’s never been one to cry much, no matter what, so I let him cry. It’s good for him, to get it out like that. Besides, it’ll help clear his head. He has a box of tissues over on his side of the bed, but because the bed is against the wall, and I’m on the outside, I hear him blow, then faintly see the tissue fly over my head as he throws it towards the floor. In the morning it’ll look like it snowed a good foot in the room. I let him cry for what seems like two hours, but is probably more like fifteen minutes, then somehow coax him to sleep.
5:30 am
I wake up. It’s a new year and I live in only one house. I have a carload of junk waiting for me. A cat is laying on my chest, purring. Over on the next pillow, my son’s breathing sounds more relaxed and less stuffy.
I get up.
8:00 am
I write this. I’m not sure what will happen when he wakes up. I know he’ll be bent out of shape about missing the countdown. He’ll hold a grudge and be grumpy. He’s like that. It’s part of his nature, unfortunately. But we’ll move into this year just like we’ve moved into all of the others. And maybe I’ll even try to explain to him that watching the ball drop wouldn’t have been that great anyway. I mean, Dick Clark wasn’t even there. In the two or three minutes I watched, they kept saying that he was ill or something, but I think he may have just begun to finally age and wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going on television, even if it was New Year’s Eve. I mean, if I hadn’t aged for nearly half a century, and then suddenly started to just before I had to go to work, I might think about calling in sick too.
But I don’t have that problem. I’ve aged fairly steady all along.
And yes, if you’re younger then forty, I am naked under my towel. I’ll admit it. Go ahead and giggle, I don’t care. Hell, even if you’re older then forty, go ahead and giggle. Consider it my gift to you.
Happy New Year.