Slice/Bread: Part I (Just Another Slice of Life)

<Originally published 21 December 2016, date changed to put it above Part II>

~The World Ended Yesterday,

And We’ll Get Around

To Dealing

With That

When We’ve Finished

Absolutely Everything Else.  So Hold

Your Damned Horses.

Capisce?~

  

**[Warning:  This narrative will reveal no great ideas or profound revelations.  If you're bored, don't say you weren't warned.]**

Sometimes there aren’t any lessons.  If you can’t gain wisdom from the simple act of being in a place at a time with such company as you can find or borrow, then you must learn to accept that wisdom is a sly and slippery little beast that can elude even the most dedicated seeker.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling wiser than usual, I like to think that wisdom is a sly and slippery little beast that will only approach someone who neither seeks nor desires it.

          Sometimes I just want to slap myself silly for being pretentious.

I was going to write about Terri today, for a couple reasons.  But that feels dangerous, for many other reasons, or at least a couple reasons that can be stretched out and rationalized until I’ve managed to convince myself that I made the right choice.

          Perhaps my restraint is a form of wisdom. 

Though I seriously doubt it.  I don't do wisdom.  It makes me itch, and occasionally tricks me into drinking too much.     

So we found ourselves in the city on a chilly November eve, raining as though Tlaloc himself were unleashing all his frustration at a 1000 years of slowforgetting.

I should re-word.  We drove through the city on a wet and chilly November eve.  We never actually found ourselves in any metaphysical sense.  There is no lesson here, nor wisdom.  Just a story.  The names are all changed, the events are not, and the world goes ploddingly on either way.
Anyway. I'm being overly digressive and maundering.
I do so love a good maunder.  It makes me happy for reasons that I can certainly articulate; I refuse to do so, however.  I gotta be me, right?  Well, I don't gotta, I suppose, but I wanna.  And that's how you get started on a good maundering.

~***~

The trackless paths we followed crossed and re-crossed a downtown made alien by the constant surging and ebbing of storms.  We could barely see the roads; we relied on our best guesses regarding the locations of the lines painted on the roads.  I say 'we' because, while only one person was driving, the rest of us felt compelled, either by a sense of self-preservation or just a need to share our stupid opinions, to tell the person driving what we thought of her navigational skills.

               The signs that occasionally appeared through the heavy rain could only be interpreted by knowing already what they had written on them and then taking a leap of faith that the "Pedestrian X-ing" sign hadn’t recently been replaced with a "Bridge Out Ahead, STOP OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU’RE GOING TO DIE, YOU STUPID SONS-OF-BITCHES!  FINE, I’LL BUTT OUT.  IT’S YOUR STUPID LIFE. Whatever!  I’m not responsible for what happens to your fool butt…dumbass" sign at some point in the very recent past.

                Granted, that leap of faith felt somewhat safe due to the fact that the signs weren’t big enough to hold all those words, and the fact that the D.O.T. tended to frown on the phrases “sons-of-bitches” and “dumbass” on official street signs.

                Sometimes I think the government would be better for just telling people the truth about themselves.

                The torrents swept across the city in waves, each in turn, allowing the moon to peer groggily through thin haze for a few minutes before the next storm engulfed us. Every well-remembered turn felt like a guess, a truculent traipse into the darkness, a choice rationalized only by the fact that turning around and going home would be no less haphazard. Eventually, we had taken so many different paths that we might have been in the next world, for all we knew.

Through me you enter the City of Lament, I muttered under my breath, quoting Dante

Through me you enter into pain eternal.

Through me you enter where the lost are sent.

Justice moved my high creator sempiternal.¹

I would have made a good Goth.  The sophisticated sort of Goth, mind you, the type that doesn’t rely on morose quotes taken out of context, or one who needs to resort to thesauruses (thesauri) to look up fancified words or a dictionary to discover that ‘fancified’ isn’t actually a word.  The sort of Goth not overburdened with sense of my own mortality to compensate for the fact that I am clearly alive. 

It’s clear to me that I would have been an amazing emo kid.  But I have an aversion to gratuitous un peu de tristesse.  I just never had the stomach or gall bladder for the emo life.

Unfortunately, however, despite my best efforts, I have no such aversion to pretension.  I like to tell myself – in my most charming internal monologue – that I am merely ironically pretentious.  That my self-awareness trumps any cliché.

I do like to lie to myself.   My internal lying voice soothes me no end.  It reassures me that everything works for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.

Eat your heart out, Dr. Pangloss.

Switching poems and nationalities, just because I could:

Dust hath closed Helen’s eye

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us.²

The Good Lord, whatever form (if any) She might choose assume to this particular agnostic, has little mercy and, perhaps, less patience, to spare for us undeserving sinners when we refuse to just talk in plain no-nonsense 21^st century American English the way She always intended.

But there’s a reason I was currently thinking of poems about mortality.  We were inches from dying in horrific and/or hilarious ways. 

The mood in the car, though slightly too tense from the danger of the elements to be revelry, certainly induced a certain lightheadedness.  The night swirled with all manner of comfortable chatter, ranging from the silly to the ridiculous and looping over to the ludicrous before zig-zagging to the unintentionally sublime.  We had no good idea where we were going, precious little good idea where we’d come from, and steadfastly refused to speculate at length on either topic despite the relevance both questions held to our current predicament.  The longest road, we figured, is the one we couldn’t see in either direction even though we knew it extended beyond our sight.  It is, in principle, infinite.

          Actually, we figured no such thing.  I just figured it as my fingers moved to type these words.  As I said – no lesson, no wisdom, nothing but being and action and then being some more for good measure.

Finally, we gave in to the cognitive dissonances and just let *Tina turn where she felt most comfortable turning.  Though portions of the conversation were clear to me, others I just deduced from *Tina’s subsequent actions. 

Okay.  Next street, I’ll take a left. Maybe a right, but probably a left.

[A turn that was maybe a right, but definitely a left, took place]

Now?  Let’s go…two block and take a right.  Next intersection, another right.  Then just drive until one of us sees any neon sign that we actually recognize.

[I couldn’t say for certain whether she partook of any such pattern.  She seemed to be moving at random.  But I had a notion that’s what she said.]

Oh, that’s…the Mexican place, right?

[That, I heard clearly.  A window glowed cheerfully, if somewhat anemically, but there was no neon involved.  Nevertheless, she decided it was close enough.  It was, in fact, a Mexican place, if anyone is curious.  Whether it was the Mexican place in question, I cannot say.  In America, ethnically-specialized restaurants tend to follow motifs similar to others of the same culinary ilk.  It helps us clumsy, if well-meaning, Yanks recognize a place with a glance and decide whether we were in the mood for that particular cuisine.]

Now…look, the road splits.  That means we’re…

[She never finished the sentence.  Despite the uncertainty now hanging in the air, we veered left.  I think.]

Within ten minutes, we saw the familiar façade of the Irish pub that sat on the opposite side of the street from our destination.  There could be no doubt.  Even in the midst of a storm that would have driven Moses to stop by for a pint to soothe his nerves before splitting the mere sea ahead of him.  We instantly recognized the two viciously stereotypical Irish leprechauns drunken Riverdancing (which, to be fair, is the best kind of Riverdancing) in full neon glory, the massive mugs in their hands poised to do something unspeakable, either to the other Irishman or to their owner’s own belly.

[As I said – we dine out by the motif here in America.  Possibly elsewhere, but I’ve spent most of my life in America, with occasional diversions to France, Canada, the Big Rock Candy Mountains, and Mexico, so I can speak somewhat authoritatively on the topic.]

Mind you, we called out four different, but vaguely, similar names for this place, at least two of which were probably even more offensive than the sign itself, but we could certainly agree that we recognized it regardless of its actual name.

Son of a bi…I can’t believe that actually worked, I said, and *Tina giggled.

Her laugh, I must say, was quite lovely.

Arriving, unfortunately, was only half the battle.  Two-thirds at most.  It certainly didn’t break the seventy percent mark of the battle.  While we had world enough, and time (to quote the poet) yonder all before us were laid deserts filled with cars arrayed (to misquote the same poet).

That is to say, we couldn’t find a parking spot come hell or high water.  The high water gushed down the street.  Hell reflected red-tinted off the windshield of a car that had, quite invidiously and with a severe lack of respect for human decency, taken up two spaces.  The time searching was filled with muttered imprecations against the universe, the inventor of the car, and – for reasons too complicated to get into here – the vagaries of Greek mythology.  Most of these imprecations were quite vivid, to say the least.

This long eve’s journey into memory couldn’t be destined to end here, on a street barely visible through the torrents, under a sign with two tiny Irishmen making pugnacious gestures at each other with frosted beer mugs nearly as big as them.  We all knew we had to forge onwards.  Even through the rain, though, the nearly-invisible street glistened pitch under the streetlights, like a fading tracklit path, and somehow it seemed important we follow.

Plus, I doubt any of us felt confident we could find our ways back to our respective homes from here.

As we circled the block for the third time, I glanced up at the window where Slice/Bread would be hiding.  Through the rain, I thought I could make out the glimmer of lights slipping past the blinds.  A few moments later, my eyes shifted to the neon Open sign in the top frame of the same window.  The combination of a potential light creeping out and a bright, if somewhat subdued in hue, red sign seemed ample evidence that we were at the right place.

Apparently *Carrie thought so too, because she reached over my shoulder to point at the sign, a delighted “Look, they’re open” shouted into our ears.

*Tina glanced back to glare at *Carrie.  The car swerved a few times before she regained control.  Then she glared at *Carrie again, blaming her for the swerving incident.  The car swerved again and *Tina stopped glancing back, presumably realizing that this vicious cycle could never end well.

Finding no available spots after our fourth epic journey around the block, we broadened our circuit, circling an extra block.  Soon, we picked up a stalker, another car circling endlessly behind us, presumably in search of his own spot of vehicular exclusivity.

We circled the two blocks once and were debating whether to add the block to the rear of Slice/Bread’s block.

“Holy jeepers!”  *Cam yelled out from the back seat.  “Over there, in the parking lot!  Jeepers!  Someone’s leaving!  Jeepers!  We passed it and that jeepering car is still behind us.”

(Just so we’re clear, the words he used were not in any way, shape, or form, ‘jeepers.’  Or any possible variant of the word to fit into the different parts of speech.  None of them shared a first or last letter with ‘jeepers’.  They barely shared a jeeping language.  They certainly didn’t share a meaningful system of morality that we could all rely on to keep us strong in dark times.  But *Cam didn’t generally swear, so I don’t imagine that he, even under a pseudonym, would want me telling any random passerby the exact particulars about his lapse here.  I do not wish for anyone to get the wrong idea.)

In any event, language aside, *Cam was perfectly correct.  To our left, in a parking lot that seemed to service a small pizza place and an unsavory-looking ear-nose-and-throat practice that may or may not have been a mob front, a car had just pulled out of its space.  We were – as anyone with even the slightest understanding of how the universe worked could have predicted -- a full car-length past the entrance, with the set of headlights that had been following us sitting at the stoplight approximately 50 yards back. 
 The light was red, but, as anyone with even the slightest understanding of how the universe likes to manipulate traffic lights, it could turn green at any moment.

Sometimes, late at night, when I’m drowsing drowsing drowsing in the throes of the unmarked time twixt wake and sleep, I think about that moment and wonder what I would have done.  I like to think I’d have done the manly thing, the decisive thing, the thing that causes women to swoon and vicars to swear.

That is, the total lunatic thing. 

I imagine myself demonstrating a courage and vigor that I’ve had precious little opportunity to demonstrate in real-world conditions.  Due to the distressing lack of comically-evil Chuck Norris villains littering my days, the chances are far and few between.  In those moments preceding my true dreams, that time where the conscious is flavored by the trickling liqueur of the subconscious, I find myself slamming the brakes and the accelerator at the same time as I twist the steering wheel to the left, sending up a great sheet of water that falls back over the windshield as the car spins into it.  Driving blind for the brief moment it takes the wipers to clear the water off again, I bring the front end of the car even with the entrance to the parking lot and take a sharp right turn just as the car leaving the spot manages to pull out of the spot completely.  With a hiss of satisfaction, I jerk the wheel one last time, just (and only just) as the other car manages to move safely past us, sliding neatly into the spot while the rest of the car’s inhabitants struggle to catch their breath in anticipation of fleeing the car.

If I’m honest with myself, and I try to be on occasion, this drowsy daydream has no relation whatsoever to what I’d actually do.  It does, however, describe exactly what *Tina did. 

To.

A.

Jeepering.

T.

The rest of us exited the car so fast that *Tina had only barely removed her hand from the gear stick and was reaching for the key to turn the car off as the car doors slammed behind us.  If we were making an unintentional coordinated point, I was not privy to it.  I just wanted out before Fate and/or the Annals of History³ caught up to me.  For, most assuredly, Fate was sharpening her rusted Blades of Great Justice whilst eyeing us all with a displeased frown at our ability to emerge from that maneuver unscathed.

As if cottoning to Fate’s odious designs and strongly disapproving of said designs, whatever sympathetic eldritch spirits ruled the storms decided to turn the rain off almost immediately.  A light drizzle still drifted about us, but at least we weren’t soaked to the bone.  Well, my hair was soaked pretty quickly because I was wearing a leather jacket with no head covering attached, but the others had the good sense to wear hooded windbreakers, presumably because they were capable of seeing the future and deducing that they’d want to stay reasonably dry on our expedition.

If they were mocking me with their relative dryness, they had the good taste not to do so openly, at least.

When *Tina emerged – with a flourish, because there were entire weeks *Tina knew of no other way to do things than dramatically – she shook her head and rolled her eyes.  Actually, I couldn’t see her eyes under the drape of her hood and brim of the English driving cap that was her affectation of the month.  I just knew she would roll her eyes because that was just the *Tina I knew, loved, and (now) feared in equal proportion.

On rare occasion, I do miss such moments in time.  Not people, exactly, but those moments involving the people.  Maudlin nostalgia was never my curse.  Lucky for me.  Make no mistake, I genuinely liked these people.  A few, I loved.  Some I just found fascinating. 

But clinging to memory can be toxic if done wrong.  So I try not to miss the people except in the abstract way one takes pleasure in a nice dream or a serendipitous thought.  I’m not always successful – there are a very few, like *Terri or *Anne or *Linden, that I have genuinely missed.   Sometimes you just have to accept that certain people will always be a part of your story, even long after they exit.

What I miss, though, is that moment in the rain-soaked city, just after the storm has transformed into a light mist that drifts across us.  For a moment, you forget that the rest of the world exists.  At that point, in that place, everything is concrete and metal and an endless damp haze flowing over us.  It’s beautiful.   Yet, I still have to remind myself that there is much more to the scene.  *Tina looking adorably smug, *Cam looking bashfully at *Carrie, and *Carrie glancing up at *Cam as she feels his arm around her shoulders, their inchoate relationship not yet hardened by time, the paths ahead not yet set.   And I can only imagine what I look like, glowering at *Tina as her smug smile widens, knowing, just as she knows, that I don’t actually mean any of the pointed words I want to say to her.  I’m not even sure I pulled off a proper glower.

While I won’t claim to miss them in the sense that most people would associate with nostalgia, I will acknowledge that the moment would be incomplete without them.  That’s good enough, I think.

Footnotes:

1) Though I cannot recollect which specific translation.  Google keeps sending me to a Chinese source, which I’m pretty sure isn’t quite helpful.

2) from “A Litany in Time of Plague” by Thomas Nashe.  Yes, it’s a meditation on mortality.  No, I couldn’t tell you why I can recite the entire poem from memory.  Yes, I am aware that I should probably be punched for reciting it without irony and/or gales of laughter.

3) Future generations would whisper about these (again, completely innocent) stories of *Tina’s madcap driving adventures.  She’d become known as the Deuce Coup Devil, and entire section of the traffic code would be named after her. 

~To be continued in Part II~