"Pepper Spray Is Great, But What Happens If Someone Attacks You Wearing Goggles?"

To quote an old spiritual, "How can I keep from singing?"
Right now I am camping in Indiana, having just finished a gorgeous steak that I cooked over an open flame, pairing it with a fine, $3.00 merlot from Rite-Aid that I purchased in Coldwater, Michigan. But I will spare you the story of the wonderful steak for now, and tell you instead about all the wonderful things that happened between Fredonia and here:

I left New York on a Saturday, after David and I recorded some of my songs in his bedroom. I did two songs that I wrote - "After You Drive Away" and "Colors Brighter" - and one cover - "Morning Song" by Jewel. David is truly one of the most amazing people I have ever met. He turned on the mic and laughed when I told him the story of my old R&B album producer/manager in LA, the one who said, "Damn, yo, that’s tight! Did you write that?" when I played John Denver’s "Leavin’ on a Jet Plane" for him. When we were done laying down the tracks, he said, "I’ll edit these and get them out to you as soon as I can." He is simply incredible. More on this later.

My lovely little Scrappy, god bless his heart, told me something important while I was there. "You’re one of only three people I can really open up to," he said. I didn’t know what to say. So I made some smart-ass comment, which I’ve been giving him a lot lately. See, the thing about Scrappy is, I love him dearly. I absolutely have come to adore him. But he frustrates me to no end, because he’s lazy. He has a big heart, but no job. So it’s impossible to keep from loving him, but impossible to respect him as well. So I love him like a little brother, or someone I have to take care of, to whip into shape. He was hoping for something more, but I had no reason to respect him, so how could I fall for him? And no matter what I said or did while I was there, he had some excuse or procrastination for not getting a job. "Boy, I freakin’ love you, just up and fucking DO IT! So what if you have to walk a ways? At least it’s a fucking job!" I wanted to shout. "You have two kids! Kids you’ll never get to see if you don’t get it together!"

Then again, it’s not my place to be the hammer. It’s my place to be the friend. But I still could not just sit idly by and say, "Oh, another excuse for not getting a job? Great!" So I pretty much acted bitchy towards him almost the entire time. Sure, I hated myself for it. But I couldn’t being myself to actively condone laziness. I don’t know why - maybe because I’m the daughter of a man who just told me, for the first time in 25 years, that he worked a third job at a gas station when I was a little girl? I already know he worked as a security guard and as a cashier at a feed store. But I never knew about the gas station. It made sense, now, remembering how I had waited anxiously for him to come home at all hours of the night, sitting up in my darkened bedroom in that big farm house in Cassadaga, waiting for the sound of the screen door, just so I could run downstairs and plow him with a hug around the waist.

So, my point being, I could not condone the laziness of Scrappy, so instead I acted snotty with him. Was it fair? No. Am I sorry? Absolutely. Does he understand why? I may never know. But I hope he does some day.

A quick couple of hours through western New York and Pennsylvania and I was well on my way to Cleveland. I’ve got to stop doing this thing where I say, "Hey, I’ll wait til I’m in the next state to get gas ‘cause it’s probably cheaper!" It never is. I stopped at a gas station with a tiny diner attached. The girl behind the lunch counter was about 18 and quite pretty. After awhile she remarked, "It’s nice to see someone in here that’s, you know, under 30. All of our regulars are blue-hairs." I laughed through a bite of grilled cheese and we shot the breeze for awhile - I liked watching her eyes get wide when I told her things that have happened so far on this trip.
"What other kinds of regulars do you get here?" I asked.
"A lot of truckers."
A girl that pretty? I guessed it would be hell. "Do any of them act creepy?"
"I’ve been asked to go to the motel a few times, yeah," she nodded.

I called Earl in Sandusky about halfway to Cleveland, having extracted his number from the depths of my car. We made plans to get together that night. "I want you to meet my new girlfriend," he said. I called Greg but he was in Las Vegas. "I’m at a table right now, let me call you later!" he said quickly, and hung up. I called Donna, who was at Jacob’s baseball game. (Quick aside - Remember this name: Jacob Budyka. When he plays in the All-Star Game in about 2023, you heard it here first.) She and I weren’t able to meet up, but she invited me to go camping with the family later in the month. I might just do that.

I got to Sandusky and called Earl from Daly’s, the place where I had met super-cute Brian (note nom de plume) the Bartender. He was behind the bar, but not very thrilled to see me. I hadn’t seen him since I had taken Greg up on the shower offer. It was obvious that he thought something had gone on between Greg and I. When Earl came to meet me and we sat down for a drink, Brian thought "Now she’s screwing this guy?!" It was sad, because he’s someone whose intelligence I respect, and knowing he had no respect for me was hurtful. Still, he could have just asked me instead of assuming things, so it’s not really my problem.

I hugged Chris so hard when I saw him. He, Earl and I made an afternoon of it and went to a little arcade/shopping center-type place. We got ice cream and went to the petting zoo, where we fed a kangaroo and Earl and I decided that we both desperately want pet pigs. You watch, I’m gonna do it, too - when I have my own place I’m gonna have a little baby pig and I’m gonna walk it just like a dog. And it’s gonna cuddle with me on the couch. And I’m gonna love it so much. I have a name picked out and everything.
We fed the fish in the arcade pond and I told Earl about the adventures I had since my last time in Sandusky. He joked, saying, "Alright, Chris and I will wait out here while you go in that Christian bookstore."
"Thanks, but I’m okay for now."

Earl told me about Lisa, his new woman, how much he liked her and how much her parents hated him - because he’s black. "Yeah, her parents pretty much aren’t speaking to her right now. They say they’re going to move to Florida to escape the embarrassment." We agreed that that was ridiculous, that racism is futile, and that even Jesus was blacker than white people make him out to be. "I’m gonna write a song called, ‘Jesus Was A Black Man’," Earl said.
"Yeah!" I cried. "And wouldn’t it be great if, like, Jerry Falwell died and went to Heaven, and Jesus met him at the pearly gates sporting some FUBU or Roca-wear and walking with a pimp limp, just to mess with him!"
"Yeah! Jesus all blinged out and whatnot!"
"Awww, that’d be awesome!"

We were killing time waiting for Lisa to leave a party she was at - a party at her parent’s house that Earl was not invited to. He told me how cool she was while we drove over the quiet Ohio roads, stopping at the public beach. "How many other girlfriends would say, ‘Oh, great!’ when I tell her that my friend Jessica from Maryland is coming to town and we’re gonna hang out all day and she’s gonna spend the night at my place?"
"You’re right, that is definite keeper-material."

The three of us made plans to hit up a club that night, along with some other friends of Lisa’s.
Earl, Chris, and I had to go to Walmart, since the mall was already closed, because my jeans, my favorite jeans, finally bit the dust. "You are not coming out to the club with me in those," Earl said. I brushed off my dusty kneecaps, saying, "I know, I know." While at Evil-Mart, Chris held some jeans while I looked for more to try on. I explained his place as a male in The Universe Of Female Clothes Shopping.
"You are a guy. You hold the clothes. You have to do it. That’s your job."
His 13-year-old defiance set in. "Nuh-uh. Only because I like you."
I paused. "I like you too, hon. Are we best friends?"
"Yes," he said matter-of-factly.
"Good."

I settled on a pair and we hit up the register. The tag on the jeans said $17.98. I thought the cashier was kidding when she said, "$3.20, please."
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"Yeah, they’re on sale."
"DAMN YOU, WAL-MART!!!" I thought. "I HATE YOU EVEN MORE FOR MAKING IT SO HARD TO HATE YOU!!!!"
I have a plan to get back at Wal-Mart for their monopolizing ways - we just need everybody to steal things from Wal-Mart and then take the items to a different store and pay for them there.
Who’s with me?

On the way out, a group of not-quite-old-enough-to-get-into-bars young people passed us, dressed up in their teenage finest. "When did Wal-Mart become the new, hot, Saturday night hang-out?" I wondered aloud.
"Oh, this is nothing," Earl assured me. "Wait til you go down South. They do weddings and banquets, they have big pot-luck dinners. Wal-Mart is, like, the center of the community down there."
Suddenly moving to Africa sounded like a great idea. No Wal-Marts.

I played the song I wrote about luck and pearls for Earl and Chris when we got back to the house, then we left for the club. "You’re in charge," Earl told Chris. "No lighting fires on the carpet this time."

Lisa, Earl and I went to a place called Nick’s Roadhouse, a huge dance club. There were a few bachelorette parties going on, a few birthday groups. What struck me the most was a young man with Downs Syndrome on the dancefloor. He was dancing by himself, but not seeming to mind. He was all over the floor, beer in hand, and a huge smile on his face. I loved watching him.
"His name is Tommy," Lisa shouted over the music as we watched him from the second level. "He’s here every Friday and Saturday."
"I love him!" I shouted back.
"You should go dance with him," Earl said. "Go on, he’s waiting for you."
I probably should have danced with him, but I was too shy. I don’t know why.

The music changed after a few songs and Vanilla Ice’s "Ice, Ice Baby" came on. The dance floor cleared completely - except for Tommy. Suddenly it became a real-life scene from "Napoleon Dynamite", just Tommy by himself, dancing like no one was watching. But we were. Every eye in the place was glued to him, enjoying the hell out of himself. It was beautiful.

I danced all night, practically. I was nervous, because I was wearing a see-through shirt and had strategically-placed Band-Aids barely keeping my chest in check. I’ve put on quite a bit of weight since the last time I wore it and didn’t want to pop out or be one of those girls you look at and say, "She should not be wearing that." I danced by myself for the most part, until, after half an hour of exchanged glances and "accidental" brush-bys, I convinced a devastatingly cute, shy guy to come out there with me. His name was Shaun. He wasn’t much of a dancer, but bless him, he tried really hard. It was adorable.

He looked like a cross between Jude Law and an older, more masculine Elijah Wood. His eyes alone were enough to stop me in my tracks. He did commit one of my all-time, dance-floor pet peeves - trying to kiss me after dancing for about 2.53 minutes (I HATE THAT!), but I pushed him off and said, "Can we wait at least 20 minutes and until I know, like, your last name or something?" (Seriously, guys, if we ladies don’t know you, we don’t know where your mouth has been. We need to hear some words come out of it before we let it get anywhere near our face.) Still, I let it go because he was trying so hard to dance when it was obvious he probably never had.

We went to the bar and chatted, although it was club-chat. Club-chat goes a little something like this:
You: (shouting over music) "So what do you do?"
Them: "I workatnsdneinrngdfidn then asdcneusdjfbenid going too. It’s cahsdf9inelkdkasler. I like it."
You: "What?"
Them: "It’s basicallyasdoinfnwnegovnir7sdfic.
You: (not knowing if you should keep asking, "What?!") "Wow, that sounds awesome!"

Shaun and I hung out until last call, did the number thing, and made plans to have lunch the next day. Lisa, Earl and I went to Steak’n’Shake, the Sandusky version of Denny’s, where Earl and I convinced the waiter, Pete, that we were brother and sister. "Different dads," we said.
"Obviously," was all Pete could muster.
"Y’know, my sister’s single," Earl said, pointing at me across the table.
"Stop it, you always do this! I’m telling Mom!" I shouted back.

Another interesting exchange during the meal:
Earl: "You should get a gun."
Me: "I don’t need a gun, I have pepper spray."
Earl: "That’s great, until someone attacks you wearing goggles. What are you gonna do then?"

When we went to sleep that night, I had the extra bedroom. Earl’s kitten, Kitty-Kat, slept cuddled next to my cheek all night. It was so nice to snuggle with an animal again. Then next morning I showered and Shaun called with directions for lunch. I didn’t want to leave Earl and Chris again, but I had to. I hugged Chris hard. "Best friends, right?" He nodded silently.
"I’m gonna let the air out of your tires so you can’t go," Earl threatened.
"Don’t," I said, "‘cause the sooner I leave, the sooner I can come back."

Shaun and I met in Port Clinton and he had a surprise. "I inherited some beachfront property for the afternoon!" he said. I followed him to his friend’s grandmother’s summer home, a small trailer by Lake Erie. The backyard was manicured and flowery. A fire ring sat near the edge, by the bank. "That’s just an old wheel shank from a tractor trailer," Shaun told me. "I laugh at the people who pay 30 or 40 dollars for one. I’ll just take some tools and head to the junkyard." While we sat, I admitted that I only understood about a third of anything he’d said the night before, even though I was nodding and saying, "Oh, neat!"
"I heard something about an oil refinery, something about you’re looking for a house, and something about a dog," I said. He laughed.
"Yes, I work at an oil refinery, I’m looking to buy a house, and I want a German Shepard. By the way, are you as tired as I am?"
"Probably more."

We went in out of the sun and chilled, watching some TV. It was one of those lazy Sundays where you don’t do a damn thing and are still exhausted. I was so thankful that I was on my cycle, if you will, because that took all the pressure off of the issue of sex - THANK GOD. That meant I could be all snuggly and give The Greatest Excuse Ever Not To Do Anything. We just kind of cuddled for awhile, til I said, "If I got you a razor, would you shave?" His stubble was killing me.
He smiled, those big blue-green eyes closing slightly. "Am I hurting you?" I nodded shyly. "Okay."
I got him one of my spares from the trunk. "Hope you don’t mind a pink one!" I smirked. He grabbed it out of my hand with a sarcastic, "Thanks."

I followed him to the bathroom and watched, fascinated. I realized then that the only thing sexier than watching a guy shave is watching a fantastically hot guy shave. When he was done he let me feel his cheek. "Better?" he asked me. I pulled him to me, kissing him softly and cupping his smooth face in my hands. That was enough of a yes.

"You hungry?" I asked, pulling away.
"Starved," he said. We went to his favorite place in town, the Jolly Roger, where I had a traditional Ohio fried perch sandwich for the first time. At lunch, he told me about baseball - he had played in college as a pitcher, and almost went pro, but ruined his arm. That explained the leftover athlete’s physique, however. He turned to me at one point and said, "So. What are you gonna do tonight?"
I looked at my phone. It was 5:00. "I’m gonna kidnap you and take you camping in Michigan."
"No, ‘fraid not," he said, laughing. "I’ve got work in the morning."
"Oh, come on! Call in sick! I want to camp!" I pleaded.
"I can’t, I’m still in training. And I’ve got a test tomorrow."
"You suck," I said.
"Well, you’re welcome to come back to my place. I have to get up at about 5:30 but you’re welcome anyway."
I froze. My old line echoed in my head - "I may have oceanfront digs in Fantasy Land but they’re not on Whore Island."
"You know we can’t do anything, right? I’m ‘incapacitated’, so you especially can’t expect anything."
"No, no, that’s fine. I just want to hang out with you some more is all."
"Okaaaaaay, then. I’ll follow you. And just remember - I have mace!"

I followed him to his apartment in Elmore, about 30 miles west of Port Clinton. It was one of the cutest little town I’d ever seen, totally rivaling all the towns near Coxsackie, NY, and almost on par with Maine, without the water. It was just like Mayberry. He parked in the middle of the street. Well, slightly to the right, but enough that any car driving by would have to enter the oncoming lane to get past. "This can’t be legal," I said.
"Yeah, it is! This is a small town!"
We grabbed our respective briefcases, both planning on getting some work done. Thus began an eventful evening of typing, working, TV-watching, snuggling, ice-cream-getting, TV-watching, cigarette-smoking and TV-watching. We were glued to the new Surreal Life when I made this deduction: Bronson Pinchot is a man-whore. It was so nice to hang out with a guy and be able to be affectionate without worrying about him pressuring me to have sex. Again, THANK GOD. I think I’m gonna start using the menstruation excuse even when I’m not now.

Early to bed, early to rise so we were asleep by 11:30 and up by 5:45. I was on the road by 6:30 and in Michigan by 8. Shaun and I parted ways in his yard. "I’ll call you. Please be safe," he said.
"Always, honey, always."