Walking the Fine Line Between Courage and Insanity.

I got to Donna’s right as the sun was setting. She was on the front steps along with "Little Jessi", as she came to be called during my stay. I was "Big Jessi" or "Other Jessi". Her neighbor, Gina, was there too, skipping and pacing all over the front walk. Gina, a tiny Italian woman, is a total character, just a bundle of energy. She cracked me up - I was so tired from marching and dancing and gaying around all day that I could barely keep up with the constant stream of words pouring out of her mouth. I did gather, though, that she lives up the block, she’s a colorist at a salon in town and works hard at it, she has a son Jacob’s age who’s also named Jake, and she’s divorced.

At one point she said, very seriously, "Yeah, I’m colorblind." My head snapped up. I was thinking of asking her if she could touch up my hair but after she said that all I asked was, "Wait, wait. Aren’t you a color-IST?"
She pounced on me, grabbing a handful of my hair in each hand and shouting, "You’re quick! I knew you weren’t a natural blonde! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Gina had come over to Donna’s to use the bathroom since her toilet wasn’t working. Then all the guests at Gina’s house came over. "This is the potty house! Two-fifty to pee but five bucks if you gotta go Number Two!" Gina shouted from Donna’s stoop. I was exhausted, just sitting back and surveying the chaos that followed this little pixie. A steady parade of women and children filtered through Donna’s living room for about five minutes. Seriously, though, you gotta love neighbors. Sometimes you can count on them more than your own family. All of Donna’s neighbors seemed to love her, especially sweet Miss Natalie who lived right next door. She’s a wonderful old lady with a beautiful garden and laughing blue eyes.

Donna and I left for her friend’s house, leaving Little Jessi on the couch watching TV. After a beer stop we were cruising down to Parma, Ohio. Donna had a lot of questions, which I was happy to answer. "Explain to me again why you’re doing this?" she said. I gave her the spiel, the "I-Want-To-Prove-That-There-Are-More-Exciting-Things-In-Everyday-Life-Than-Wondering-If-Tom-Cruise-And-Katie-Holmes-Will-Get-Married" answer, followed by the "For-Instance-You-Are-So-Much-Cooler-Than-Paris-Hilton" answer. She seemed amused. She asked about my family, my parents, what they think about this whole crazy journey. I waxed poetic on my theories about my parent’s almost-lost-it marriage and how ecstatic I am that things seem to finally be working themselves out, knock on wood. It was funny how I wanted to know so much about her and ended up learning so much about myself in one short car ride just by trying to explain my life to her.

We got to her friend’s house, a recently-married couple named Mary and Sondra. Sondra and Donna have been best friends for years. People were sitting around a fire ring in the backyard - there was Loud Becky, Dan ("The Man"), Sondra’s sister, Chrissy and her husband, and Sondra and Mary in addition to Donna and myself. I sank into a blue folding chair and snuggled into my sweatshirt, sleepy and watching everyone else interact. I sat next to Dan and was quiet for a long time. I think I kind of freaked the other people out a little because I was. When the attention switched to the new girl, everyone had a lot of questions for me, but they were all pretty nice. Mary especially seemed intrigued by my trip, and kept saying, "Are you gonna put me in your book?" Listening to them banter made me laugh.

Donna started telling the story of Why CJ Hates Jessica and apparently everyone else knew CJ as well, because a collective groan rose from the circle as Mary said, "Please don’t mention that name at my house." The odd thing was, as Donna continued the story about how CJ was convinced I was an axe murderer, Dan leaned over and asked me, "So, really, are you a murderer? Are there any bodies in your car?"
With a straight face, staring ahead and intensely into the fire, I answered, "No. They won’t fit in my Civic." I was joking, of course.

Dan took me seriously. Literally, he jumped up out of his chair and walked away, saying to Loud Becky, "I don’t want to sit by her."
"WHY?" said Loud Becky.
"Don’t ask," he said.
"Oh my god, are you freakin’ kidding me?" was the only thought going through my head. "He is a freakin’ 33-year-old man, why is he getting so uppity?" Maybe I got snappy because I was so tired, maybe because I was racked by guilt over making out with a sixteen-year-old girl, I don’t know, but I shouted, over the din of everyone talking, "For the love of God, I am not a psycho! What is it gonna take to convince somebody? I mean, do I seriously look crazy?!"

Everyone paused for a second. Then they started laughing, everyone but Dan, who sat back down and leaned over again, saying, "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. And I don’t think you’re a murderer."
"Well, thank you for that. It’s cool," I said, still staring into the fire. I got over it as quickly as I had gotten upset, but I guess it was just because I don’t question other people to their face. And I work really hard to be open and kind to everyone, so being thought of as anything but makes me sad.

The rest of the night was fun, but I was fighting not to fall asleep. When Donna finally said, "Jess, are you ready?" I popped out of the chair. We said goodbye to everyone and then dragged our tired asses back in the car. Donna told me she was planning on having a cookout at the house the next day. She also told me a lot of stories on the way home, mostly about her mom. She was very close with her mother and when she died it hit Donna hard.

"My biggest regret is that I wasn’t there for her right before she died. I never really got to say goodbye. I was a workoholic. She called me in the afternoon and I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Mom, let me call you back, I’m busy.’ Then I got distracted and didn’t." She paused. "I got the call at two o’clock that morning."

I’ve known so many people who have experienced the same thing, even myself. I could tell Donna was a little anxious to bring it up, but I’ve come to realize that talking about times like that helps to prevent it from happening more. The more we remind ourselves to take an inventory of the people and things that truly matter to us, and that these things can be taken away quickly and without warning, the less likely we are to take them for granted. It’s not easy or fun to think about, but it keeps us from needing to feel like we missed out. I realized this when standing on my Brooklyn rooftop on September 12, 2001, coffee mug in hand and slippers on my feet, watching the smoke rise from lower Manhattan, knowing I would never see my friend Annie again. I threw that mug against the brick wall of the adjoining building and cried as the coffee dribbled down the mortar and shattered ceramic. Since that day I try not to miss an opportunity to tell someone I love them.

Donna and I got back to the house and I slept in the extra bed in Little Jessi’s room. Falling asleep, she told me a story about a talking Furbie toy she had as a child that woke her in the middle of the night, saying, "I’m going to kill you!" She threw it out the window and it cursed at her.
"No way!" I said.
"I’m serious! It happened!" I believed her. Those Furbie toys are freakish.

The next morning I woke up and realized it wasn’t morning, it was actually almost 1:00. Downstairs I could hear Jacob in the kitchen, asking, "Is that girl still asleep?" Totally embarrassed and feeling like a lazy bum, I wandered downstairs and poked my head into the kitchen. "Good morning!" Donna said, busy making potato casserole and prepping burgers.
"Too bad it’s not morning," I mumbled.
"Eh, you’re fine. You probably needed your sleep."

I tried to help her as best I could but she is so independent! She is Super Mom, she does almost everything herself. I felt even more like a dork when she said, "I should go mow the lawn but I don’t think I have time."
"I could try to mow it. I mean, I’ve never mowed a lawn before but I could try."
She looked at me like I just said, "I eat kittens for breakfast."
"You’ve never mowed a lawn? Ever?"
"Um....no. My dad always did it. And then he got my brothers to do it. I never had to."
"Oh my god," she said. She walked outside and got the lawnmower out of the garage and started it up. Little Jessi was in the garage and then came in the house.
"You’ve never mowed a lawn?!" she asked, incredulous.
"Um......no."
I don’t think Donna trusted me to mow her backyard, because she did it herself. I dropped the lawnmowing topic as quickly as I could. I threw on clothes to walk down to the gas station for a cup of coffee and Jacob asked, "Where you goin’?"
"The BP around the corner, you wanna come?"
"Okay, but I’m gonna ride my bike."

We made our way to the ATM for some cash and he wanted to press all the buttons. I know you’re not supposed to give out your password but I let him type it in. When the twenty came out he grabbed it and pretended to run. "Wow, you’re hilarious," I called after him. At the gas station he gave me the undeniable, essential kid question: "Can I get something?" After debating the merits of Pop-Tarts versus Nutter Butters, he decided on Altoids. "They’re not too strong for me!" he declared to the counter guy. On the way out, walking towards the corner, I was ahead of him. He called after me, "Hold still for a second!" I paused and he rode up behind me, punching my arm gently with a chorus of "RED PUNCH BUGGY NO PUNCH BACKS NO PUNCH BACKS!!!!"
"OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH, DARN IT! YOU GOT ME!"
"Yeah, I did," he giggled.

Back at Donna’s I barely helped set up for the cookout. Her family was there, her brother and his wife and their two kids, Baby Andrew, and then Donna’s cousin Mary with two of her kids. Miss Natalie came over. It was really nice! I didn’t talk much, just listened a lot as the grown-ups discussed work and ambition. Donna is just starting her own business and wants her brother in on it. It was interesting to hear them talk about money - saying things like, "I want to make over $100 grand a year, that’s what I want" - and mulling it over in my idealistic, I-don’t-need-money mind and realizing that my ideas are pretty outdated. Sometimes you do need money.

I had so much to write about. I excused myself from the party and set up in Donna’s living room. I didn’t want to be anti-social but the amount of stuff I had to cover was stressing me out. I was no fun anyway. I did get a lot done, watching the kids play in the front yard through the open door. The sun set and the kids moved down to the basement, listening to Mp3's. I got sick of writing and burned a Jason Mraz CD for Jessi. I ended up in the basement with all the kids and Jessi’s friend Nicole offered me twenty bucks if I put her in my book. She was a funny little thing.
"There may come a time when I am so broke I take you up on that," I said.

Jessi and I got on the topic of religion when I brought up something I had seen at Gay Pride. She is a born-again Christian. Donna isn’t, but Jessi is very, very spiritual. I almost envy her, being able to believe in something without questioning it. She brought up the stand-by "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" quote when I told her my biggest problem with Christianity is the concept of homosexuality as a sin. I’ve said this before, I just cannot tolerate the idea that human love could be a sin. It makes no sense to me. Jessi was such a sport when I presented her with all the usual questions meant to poke holes in a Christian argument, like, "Do you realize that the Bible is a book written by a man, a mortal man - a man who was completely capable of putting his own ideas into the Bible and passing it off as The Word Of God?"
Her answer: "Back then, God would have shot him with a lightning bolt if he tried."
Another question: "Why do you think human love is a sin if it’s between two homosexuals?"
"I’m not the kind of person that would judge other people, it’s not my job, but I just feel really odd physically when I see two gay people holding hands or something like that. It’s not a good feeling inside. My heart feels heavy. But when I walk into my church, or I walk into a crowd of other believers, I feel really light and happy."
I couldn’t argue with that. Well, I wanted to, but I wouldn’t.

Jessi was going to a four-day Christian rock festival later in the week. "You should totally come!" she said. "It’ll be a good chapter in your book!"
"I’m sure it will," I thought to myself. "But going to jail for assaulting someone who tries to force their tired, backwards Fundamentalist values on me won’t be..." I was intrigued but wary. "Maybe I’ll go for one day," I said.
"Awesome."

Everybody went to bed and I stayed up to write. The next morning Donna came up to wake me and say goodbye. It was your typical "keep in touch, be safe, and take a sandwich with you if you want" exchange. I didn’t hug her because after getting to know her over the weekend, I figured she’d be the type to push me off with "none-of-that-goodbye-stuff!" I could hear Jacob downstairs but couldn’t convince my legs to move. The two of them left and I think I fell back asleep for an hour. When I woke up Jessi was up and about. As I packed my stuff and loaded the car, she drew me a picture - my name tagged in a graffiti style in neon colors. It looks really cool! I left a thank-you note for Donna on the kitchen table in which I apologized for not being a bigger help and for being so quiet all weekend - I chalked it up to being speechless that she would be so welcoming. I hugged Jessi goodbye but it didn’t feel like goodbye because I had made up my mind to go to the Alive Fest the night before as I was falling asleep. She saved me from forgetting my shampoo and razor, running out the door with them as I started the car.

I popped in the Relient K CD Jessi had given me, waved goodbye to Miss Natalie and found the interstate. It’s a four hour drive to Cincinnati on the freeway and by the time I got to Southern Ohio I had the entire album memorized. I fell in love with it. The beats are fun and the message is religious without being specifically Christian - meaning you could sing along and be thinking of almost anyone or anything in your head, Jesus or otherwise. I put a couple on repeat and dedicated them to a different entity each time - God, my parents, ambition, my friend Carl, sushi, my dog, sunlight, Buddha, my friend Dana, my car, the carrot-tahini dressing at Dojo’s in NYC. It really helped to pass the time.

I got to Cincinnati around 4:30 and made the idealistic mistake of assuming that finding Greater New Light Baptist Church, and Rev. Shuttlesworth, would be as easy as finding the city itself, as though there was a giant, neon, Vegas-esque sign pointing the way, or that Rev. Shuttlesworth himself would be at the city limits to greet me. Neither was true. Still, I drove around the city and fell in love for the second time that day. Cincinnati is quite beautiful, and the streets are incredibly easy to traverse in a car - not like the mish-mash that is New York City - and parking is incredibly inexpensive. It’s twelve dollars to park for 24 hours in Cincinnati - compare that to $65 in Boston! I tried to find Shuttlesworth Circle to no avail but it was getting late, as in "time to find a place to stay for the night" late. I parked in a basement garage, grabbed the laptop, and headed over to a café I had passed on the way. It was called The Phoenix but when I got closer I realized it wasn’t a café at all, it was a dive bar and there were no white people inside. That didn’t bother me, but I recalled Melinda in Geneva and I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I strolled over to an Irish pub around the corner called McFadden’s.

I walked past the little pixie hostess and set up the computer at the bar, fielding the standby weird stares. I ordered my Diet Coke and asked the bartender if he knew of any youth hostels or cheap campgrounds around. He claimed ignorance and sent the head chef over to talk to me.

The chef - a big guy of about 30 with a shaved head and a blonde goatee - was Kurt. I liked him because he didn’t try to hit on me, he just talked to me like one of the guys. His wide-set blue eyes weren’t at all lecherous.
"Okay, I have two questions for you," I said. "One - are the Reds playing at home tonight?"
"Yeah, actually, they are. Why, did you want to go to the game?" He gave me directions to the stadium, which by the grace of God was in walking distance, and told me where to get a ticket.
"Okay, two - where can I stay tonight for under twenty bucks?"
He offered, "The parking garage?"
I told him The Saga Of The Boston Parking Garage but he assured me I wouldn’t have any problems. "This is Cincinnati," he said, sarcastically. "It’s smaller. Everyone’s a little more laid-back. Trust me, you’ll be fine."
"If you say so. Okay, last thing - if I stay in the parking garage, where can I grab a shower tomorrow?"
Together we looked up the YWCA online and he said, "You’ll probably want to leave here for the game in about 45 minutes. If I think of any other advice between now and then, I’ll come back over."
I thanked him and went back to writing, and ordered a beer since I wouldn’t have to move my car at all.

At 6:30, unfortunately thoroughly buzzed, I headed down to The Stadium Formerly Known As Three Rivers, The Great American Ballpark. I got a ten-dollar ticket in the cheap seats and ordered another beer. I had changed my shirt before going to the game and was the only person wearing mint green at a Reds-Cardinals game. The game was a blast, even though the Reds lost 6-0 to St. Louis. The only bad part came in the eighth inning, when a foul ball came right to a group of Boy Scouts sitting to my right. The boy closest - a pudgy kid with glasses - dropped it over the rail, where it fell to the lower deck and was caught by a guy with his buddies. A chorus of "OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH, MAAAAAAAAAAN!!!" erupted from the group as the boy buried his head in his arms. His face was hidden but I could see tiny tears falling onto his tan uniform shorts. The other kids razzed him for a little bit until they realized how upset he was, then they tried to cheer him up but he shrugged them off. I asked a security guard if there was any way I could get a ball, any ball, to give to him.
"Yeah, I saw that drop, that was too bad. But it’s too late in the game now, there’s not much I can do."
"Can you just try?" I pleaded.
"Okay, okay, I’ll be back in a sec." He walked around a corner and made a phone call.
When he came back he said, "Sorry, ma’am. Too late in the game."
"Thanks anyway."

After the game I walked back to McFadden’s for some more drinks. It was still pretty early, too early to go to sleep in the car. I smiled at the pixie hostess again and perched on a barstool, watching some cheesy music videos playing on the screens above the bottles, like The Cars’ "I Don’t Want To Know". The bartender from before said, "Hey, you’re back! Where’s your computer?"
"Eh, I’m off work now," I said, pulling out my writing journal instead.

McFadden’s seemed to be The Spot, just really trendy. I didn’t really fit in with my Mossimo shirt and knock-off jeans from Tar-jay. What amazed me were all the beautiful people in Cincinnati! The men were all chiseled and gorgeous and the women all seemed to be models, skinny and wearing designer clothes. I never pictured Southern Ohio to be the mecca of skinny women in Max Azria, but I learned something new during my time there.

After awhile I noticed Kurt hanging with some other people at the other end of the bar. I asked the bartender, a sweet girl named Manda, to send over my thanks for his help earlier. About twenty minutes later, he pulled up a stool beside me and asked, "How was the game?"
"Oh, dude, it was awesome!"

He was incredibly easy to talk to and we must have discussed everything from travel to waitressing and all the taboo bars topics in between - religion, sex, and politics. I told him about Larry in Maine and his Days of the Week creed(s), about the Alive Fest I was going to that Friday and how nervous I was that they would try to save my soul. He admitted to me that he was thoroughly embarrassed that Ohio had been the downfall of the 2004 election, and had ushered in the Second Coming of the Bush Administration. "The rest of the country may have moved on a little, but Ohio liberals are still reeling," he said. When abortion as a Fundamentalist political issue came up, he said, "Actually, I lean towards liberal but I’m totally against abortion. See, I’m adopted, so I was basically a decision away from not talking to you right now." Amazing how one person can knock the wind right out of your argument sail with one sentence.

Kurt gave me a tour of the place, which is actually huge, belying it’s small awning and alcoved forefront. Somewhere along the line, he said to me, "Okay. It’s obvious you’re not a psycho killer. If you want to crash on my couch tonight, you’re more than welcome. And you can shower there, too." I guess I said yes, because the next thing I knew we were walking to his truck, which was hilarious because it was in some labyrinth of a parking garage where we could see it but couldn’t find the avenue to walk to it. We decided to do some amateur gymnastics and flip-flop over the guardrail. Kurt made it through unscathed but I managed to acquire a new bruise on my leg that’s had people asking me if I got in a kick-fight for the last week now.

At his apartment, about 15 minutes from downtown Cinci, I played with his little kitten, Jazz, and crashed on the sofa. I didn’t want to get up for anything the next morning. When Kurt got out of the shower and dressed, he stepped outside for a cigarette. I snuck off the couch and onto his bed and went back to sleep. It didn’t last long. I had to drive into work with him to get my car. He came into the room and said, "Okay, you can sleep for twenty more minutes," then jumped up on the bed.
"Errrrgghhhh..." I mumbled from under a pillow. "Dooooon’t.... call in sick and let’s go back to sleep and sleep all day, okay?"
"Dude, I wish," he said. "I feel like crap." We were both hung over like champs but not admitting it to each other.

Eventually, I hopped through the shower, not washing my hair because I didn’t want to make Kurt late. I threw on a clean shirt and my dirty jeans and we dragged our sorry asses back into downtown Cincinnati. "What are you gonna do today?" he asked.
"Probably just write. I’m gonna go to Starbucks or something and just purge. What time do you get off work?"
"Probably around 9 or 10. You wanna hang out later?"
"Yeah, that’d be really cool. See ya!" I hopped out of the truck and onto Vine Street.

I found a juice bar and set up shop, then moved to Starbucks when my battery got low. While at the juice bar, I came to adore the only other customer, an elderly black man in a camoflauge t-shirt, black suspenders, and a straw fedora. Through his coke-bottle glasses he was pouring over a copy of USA Today and would occasionally announce the headlines to the two people behind the counter, saying, in a thin, shaky voice, "Can you believe that?"
"You’re the man, Homer!" would be the owner’s response every time.

Before I left the owner and I got to talking about my trip. The more I spoke, the more he thought I was an idiot. "Geez Goodness God! You need to be careful! I mean, I guess it’s cool that you’re living your dream, but god! What the hell are you thinking?!" He was Middle Eastern, I was guessing Lebanese, and his accent got thicker the more agitated he got. He managed to keep a smile on his face the whole time he was berating me, which made me giggle. I just laughed it off, giving him the same answer I’ve given Mennonite Jean and Sandusky Chris:
"If I stayed in a hotel every night I wouldn’t have made it out of Maryland."
"You’re insane," he said as I headed for the door.

"There’s a fine line between insanity and courage," I said, as I stepped into the sunlight on the streets of Cincinnati.