Spiders And Peacocks And Deer, Oh My!

I woke up in the car Wednesday morning and noticed that I’d had company during the night - a spider had woven a web across my steering wheel that stretched all the way to the gear shift and A/C vents! I felt so bad destroying it by pulling out the parking lot. I drove straight to Edgewater Park and cleaned up in the bathroom. My hair was reaching the point of Crisco but there was nothing I could do except put it up and hope no one noticed.

I started down Rt. 71 towards Cincinnati. I want to interview Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, an extremely influential civil rights leader best known for his activism in the South during the 1960's, who now presides over the Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati. I called him when I got to Cleveland but still hadn’t heard anything. I still haven’t. I should probably call again. Anyway, I was on my way down to Cinncy to try my luck at showing up at the church, but the more I drove towards the city, the farther I felt from it. I was on the interstate for an hour and a half and only made it halfway to Columbus. At that rate, it would be time to turn back to Cleveland in order to meet Toby Friday night by the time I reached the Cinncy limits. I improvised, pulling over at a rest stop to make some oatmeal and pouring over the map for a better spot to park it for two days. I decided on Sandusky. If I could make it to Sandusky by the afternoon I could hang out there for a couple days and be back in Cleveland by Friday morning, in time to see the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame and meet Toby in Lakewood by six-thirty.

I made it to Sandusky by 1:00, took a walk on the pier of Lake Erie and watched the airplane warning lights blink on and off on the roller coasters at Cedar Point Amusement Park. I wanted to go so badly and made plans to the next day. I’m a coaster junkie and Cedar Point has been voted the best coaster park in the world seven times. Some firefighters were training on diving maneuvers in the harbor and people were standing around watching. It was pretty neat. I had a lot to write about so I made an appetite-curbing PB&J (so I wouldn’t be tempted to order food at a café) and then went to the closest place to plug in and write. It was called Daly’s Pub - I know I’ve sworn off bars but sorry, Mom, I love a good beer in the afternoon - and I was the only person there. It was peaceful. It was empty. It was well-lit. It had beer. It was perfect.

I liked the bartender immediately. He was the kind of guy that I would have hit on mercilessly if I weren’t just passing through town, and if he didn’t have a girlfriend - broad-shouldered, good-looking but just geeky enough to make him devastatingly smart and therefore cute to boot. He was wearing a Simpsons shirt, which gave away the subversive wittiness before he opened his mouth. He was so cool. His name was Brian. Actually, it wasn’t but that’s what I’m gonna call him because I don’t know if he wants me broadcasting his name over the web. He was easy to talk to, just like Toby. We chatted about comics and the like. He’s into fantasy, I’m more of a goofy indie comic dork.

I wrote like a madwoman, until happy hour, until a crowd started to come in, until I started to get noticed and writing became difficult. A lot of the regulars introduced themselves to me. Most of them were older guys, each with a story. There was Doug The Boater, Bob The Carpenter, Mark The Owner, Greg The Teacher. One guy in particular didn’t talk to me at all, but he was one salty bastard! His name was Monk. And that is not a pseudonym - I figure any guy who throws the "f"-word into a sentence between each word isn’t exactly worried about being discovered in downtown Sandusky.

I felt weird talking to most of the people there because I felt dirty. I get all self-conscious when I think I stink. I tried to avoid everyone, to no avail, but it ended up working out because as I was about to leave for a campsite (with showers), Greg The Teacher said, "There’s no one home at my place. You can take a shower there, just don’t steal anything." I thought he was kidding and laughed. "No, I’m serious," he said with a straight face. "You can just take my key."

I was leery but I guess it’s true what they say about Mid-westerners being super-nice! In New York City you would never hear those words used in succession, not to a stranger anyway. I suppose it works to my advantage that I don’t outwardly look like an axe-murderer or anything. I took him up on his offer, with some chagrin only because I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got there. Still, it was better than paying to go to some campground. Sorry, Dad, but my bank account is dwindling, and if it comes down to paying twenty bucks to take a shower and sleep in the car at a campground, or going to an abandoned house and locking myself in the bathroom, with my pepper spray at the ready next to the tub, and taking one for free and then spending the night in another police station parking lot, I’m going to go with the second option.

And I wasn’t stupid about it. I got there, I checked all the rooms, the closets, behind all the doors, mace cocked in hand. I locked the front door, side door, and the bathroom window. I put my backpack up against the bathroom door so I would hear someone coming in. The shower curtain was clear, so that was also good. I put my mace on the toilet tank, within reach. And I listened. A lot.

Turns out Greg was just as nervous as I was, hoping I wouldn’t steal anything. He told me so when I got back, freshly showered and blow-dried, and returned his key. We laughed because we both took a chance on a stranger and came out scot-free. Yeah, maybe it was risky but sometimes risks can win you friends for life. Sometimes risks can prove that there still are good-hearted, kind people in this world. And in order to prove that, some risks I am willing to take.

After giving Greg back his key, he and Mark asked me to stay and party. Greg said I could stay at his house. I didn’t say yes. I was still a little leery and I didn’t want to drink. My dad’s words echoed in my head - "Don’t be so cavalier with sleeping invitations!" - as I said, "Yeah, we’ll see." I mean, the shower was one thing because there had been no one home. But I wasn’t sure about staying over if Greg would be there. So I didn’t give an answer.

Well, poor Greg ended up getting a little too tipsy, too tipsy to drive, so I ended up back at his place because I gave him a ride home. After he passed out on the couch, I felt okay staying. I took the guest room. I locked the door.

Before I drove him home, while we were still at Daly’s, we got into a pretty interesting conversation. Greg’s 34. He’s not a bad-looking guy, actually he’s quite attractive, and he’s got a great job. He owns his own 3-bedroom house. He’s a catch! Not really my type - I go for geeks - but by everyone-else standards he’s a total dish. I’m willing to bet he has a string of women beating down his door to marry him. But he’s single - by choice. I asked him why, not knowing if that was too personal, like if he was gay or something, but he was forthcoming. "It’s selfishness, basically," he said. "I’m single and I know where my money goes every month. I don’t want to commit to a woman and suddenly have to turn it over, pay for her car, pay for diapers, pay for that stuff. This way, I get to go on vacation more often, I have more time for my friends, more time for my students. I don’t mind it. And I’m selfish. I know it sounds bad, but I am."
"No, no, it’s not bad," I assured him. "It would be bad if you were selfish and you still brought a woman and family into your life, then held them second to yourself. Admitting something like that and living it isn’t bad."
"Yeah, I guess you’re right."

He told me goes on vacation by himself at least once a year. "I try to impress that on my students. I tell them I go on vacation with my best friend every summer. When they ask who, I say, "Mr. Wexler". He pointed to himself. "If you can’t be your own best friend, you can’t do anything." Funny, I’m learning that myself.

The next day I slept in. I was exhausted for some reason - never getting a good night’s sleep in Dunkirk, maybe? Anyway, I was beat and didn’t want to hit up Cedar Point on tired legs. Well, after Greg told me how much it was to get in I didn’t want to hit it up at all! I can’t justify paying $45 to ride a roller coaster, no matter how cool it is. Screw that! So after that I was at square one again with what to do. I just started driving. I ended up at the Merry-Go-Round Museum, where I learned this: Riding a merry-go-round alone is no fun. Even if you ride the ostrich.

I spoke with a guy in one corner who was the resident wood-carver. He showed me his carvings, they were wonderful. He let me hold a couple pieces and they felt like velvet - bass wood is very soft, supple even. It was fascinating to watch him. On the way out I picked up a coupon book for attractions in the area. Sandusky is one of those places like Myrtle Beach, SC or Ocean City, MD that tries to offer all sorts of touristy attractions, mainly geared towards kids, aimed to drain a parent’s wallet. There’s a haunted house, an indoor water park, petting zoos, all that stuff, in addition to Cedar Point.

I got behind the wheel and started out with no particular destination. Eventually I saw a sign for the Lagoon Deer Park, a petting zoo with over 200 animals. I’m a sucker for that. I sped up.

The park is at the end of a long dirt road. A good-size pond borders the left side of the drive. How random is this - a female peacock was pecking at the dirt at the end of the driveway - a peacock! I walked into the little ticket shack, past the old horsey ride machine on the porch. A sweet older lady took my money, traded me a bag of peanuts and told me to watch out - "The big deer know what’s in the bag and they’ll try to bite it open! And don’t touch the babies - the mothers get real protective, ok?"

I let myself through one chain-link gate, then another, and then through a wooden fence. Most of the deer in the park are free-roaming and saw me coming. If it had been a cartoon, their eyeballs would have been peanuts. They attacked me. (I loved it.) I’m serious, these deer were all over me - they were biting my butt! They thought I had peanuts in my back pockets and they Bit My Butt!!! I fed each of the ones that approached me and then made my way around the permiters of the park, feeding the other animals that were behind fences, like emus and llamas. It was awesome! But, while all of this was going on, I was being followed by a hungry entourage of tiny, ass-biting, jacket-nibbling deer - and peacocks!!! I was literally being chased by peacocks! They were yelling at me, these peacocks, running after me going, "EEE-AAAAH!!! EEEE-AAAAAH!!!" I was laughing SO FREAKIN’ HARD. I was the most popular creature in the park.... until I ran out of peanuts. Then I was a pariah, the girl with the audacity to enter the park with a limited supply of peanuts. One deer grabbed the empty bag out of my hand and proceeded to chew it up; I chased after him to rip it from his jaws, afraid that he might get... I don’t know... paper-poisoning or something. So here’s me, chasing after a pygmy deer with a paper bag in its mouth, playing tug-of-war once I caught up with it. We each ended up with half. It was unforgettable...