Fiction and such

Pretty all over the place. Just tryin' to write.

[samwendelfiction]

Dancing

The salt crunches between my dress shoe and the sidewalk, that satisfying friction sends gravel skipping across the pavement. 

My breath fans out before me, an ink blot, a fog settling across a meadow, a cloud of axe body spray in a middle school locker room

A middle aged couple is taking dance lessons in a nearby studio. They are awkward and bloated, filled with meat and potatoes not made for dancing. and they are beautiful, because they are trying something new

[samwendelfiction]

Perimeters

I turn out of the gas station and head towards home

I can see the cemetery out of the passenger side window, green grass touched with morning mist, a great stone wall enclosing the perimeter 

Last week an 8 year old asked me, “What’s a perimeter?” 

We were sitting on a park bench, and I was helping him with his homework

And so I showed him what a perimeter was

He added all the numbers in his head, because he hates writing things down

Every time we do a math problem I plead with him to write it out, but this time I let him work it out in his head

“So what’s 13+17?” I ask. “Okay, now what if you add the side that’s 19″ and we go on and on until he gets the answer

He teaches me, too. I find out that his two favorite songs are Stitches, by Shawn Mendes, and HandClap, by Fitz and the Tantrums 

I learn that Pokemon is still relevant, and that some nights he falls asleep watching YouTube  

I learn that he’ll be tested for the gifted program later this year

I learn that we like spending time together, and that helping out kids is pretty cool

[samwendelfiction]

Cat Baby

My cat lounges in the extra bedroom, black fur on the red, diamond patterned comforter. I plop down next to him. “Whoosagoodboy,” I coo to him as he yelps in anguish and wriggles away. The amount of affection I have for this cat is embarrassing. We rescued him back in November of 2016, basically on a whim. My girlfriend’s mom pulled the, “why don’t we just look at the cats up for adoption” move, and we fell for it all the way. That day we came home with a kitten. We named him Pluto. 

I’ve never had a cat before. My family always adopted dogs, but we never had a cat. My mom is allergic. My only real experience with cats came in college, when a roommate had a pair that infested our apartment with fleas. One of those cats also managed to fall out of our second-story window (she was okay). 

But when we got this kitten...it’s like my heart grew three sizes that day. I think what this actually means is that I want a kid. It’s a weird realization, to say the least. Being a father would be awesome. I hope I get the chance. 

[samwendelfiction]

Trees Hall

I walk the long hill, the salted sidewalk crunching underfoot

Someone recently told me that I dress like an electrician, which isn’t wrong exactly

I take the front steps two at a time and enter my destination. The security guard in the lobby barely looks up from his phone as he swipes my ID. He looks so large sitting at that desk, a lonely island rising from the emptiness of the room.

I walk down the hallway, towards the locker room, and think about the many ways it reminds me of high school - that same brownish stone floor and colorless concrete walls. That same claustrophobic feeling, like the ceiling was built a few feet too low. 

After changing I descend the steps, and somehow the air grows hotter, thicker, the way it does in a New York City subway station on a hot summer day. Like descending into hell, as my sister once said. 

There’s something strangely comforting about finally entering the weight room. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of the space. It occupies the basement, and has no windows. The gym is little more than a rectangle filled with workout equipment. It makes no effort to be anything other than a place to exercise. It does not seek to make you comfortable. 

For many people this sounds, indeed, like hell. For me it is a refuge. 

[samwendelfiction]

illycafe

A can of illy coffee beans sits on my desk

It’s empty, and now houses spare change

I mostly use it to scare my cat away when he climbs on things that he’s not supposed to

The inside has a strange combination of smells

An old, musty aroma of money changing hands and sweat and body odor that’s somehow claustrophobic and bursting to get out of the tin and reminds me of a handrail on a packed New York City 

But also the rich, dark, sensual smell of coffee and mornings and sweet, sweet, beautiful, lovely caffeine. The smell of hangovers and crossword puzzles and slippers and toast and sometimes if I’m feeling productive eggs 

A handwritten label informs me that this coffee was roasted on December 17th, but it’s from Europe so it’s written 17 December, and there’s even a little map showing where the coffee beans come from, and tasting notes that read “grand marnier, pear, creamy & soft body.” Grand marnier, I discover, is  according to Wikipedia, “an orange-flavored liqueur created in 1880 by Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle. It is made from a blend of Cognac brandy, distilled essence of bitter orange, and sugar. Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge is 40% alcohol.”

I eagerly search Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle, because the Wikipedia page makes it seem like he’s an important guy. And maybe he was. His Wikipedia page reads, “Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle created Grand Marnier, an orange flavored cognac liqueur, in 1880. He learned how to distill from his father who was a wine and spirit merchant.” 

If I ever have a Wikipedia page, I don’t want to know its contents

[samwendelfiction]

[samwendelfiction]

It is What it is

My grandfather turned 95 the other week. Over the phone, his voice wavered as he told me, “I think this is my last one...you know, there aren’t many people left who saw both Hitler and now Trump.” I mumbled something about hoping that Trump didn’t turn out to be like Hitler, to which he replied, “80 million Germans didn’t think Hitler would be so bad.” 

My grandpa would know - he was born in 1922 in Berlin. His family was wealthy enough that he was able to escape as the political situation turned. He fled across the Continent, eventually making his way to the US. He served in the Pacific theater of war, but doesn’t talk much about it. I can only remember two stories he told me - one happy and one sad. This is the sad one.

At the end of the war, the Army had a laundry list of requirements that each serviceman had to complete before they could be sent home. This involved returning and accounting for all Army equipment and gear. One way to get around this requirement was to simply to report gear as broken beyond repair or missing. In order to accomplish this, servicemen would routinely destroy their vehicles by sending them off nearby cliffs. One afternoon my grandfather’s friend did just that. Only once the Jeep was off the cliff did he remember that he had allowed a local family to hitch a ride on the back of his truck. 

Today, Donald Trump threatened to send the Feds into Chicago. I fear we are falling off a cliff.

[samwendelfiction]

A Volunteer Fair

An older man surveys the crowd gathered in the auditorium

The event hall is a former Moose Lodge, which is evident from the 70s wood paneling and unfinished ceiling

The place is packed, people milling about, sifting through the many booths and folding tables that are arrayed in 4 long rows

But the man looks out of place at this volunteer fair - like some relic leftover from the Moose Lodge

He’s bald, burly, and pot-bellied, with a huge white beard speckled with black. He wears a grey Steelers sweatshirt, beaten tennis shoes, and Wrangler jeans. Although the event is inside, he sports sun glasses that only have one lens. The eye that peers out from the empty frame is encased with crow’s feet, a brown field speckled with green. 

The man returns to his booth, anxious for the event to begin. “God knows these millennials aren’t going to educate themselves,” he thinks, as he begins passing out business cards

[samwendelfiction]

“There are 46 steps per lap!” my girlfriend calls as she marches from the living room through the kitchen. “I only need 400 more!”

Today, during my 10 minute break from class, I walked laps in the school building, round and round and round. 

On the one hand, I admire us for making the effort, even when we doesn’t want to go outside or have much time. On the other, I wonder if we’ve living out some rejected script from Black Mirror.

[samwendelfiction]

Detox

He left detox and returned home, a place he hasn’t been in 6 months, a place he had a wife, a place he raised three children

In the backyard he built a jungle gym, not ready-made from a box, but cast-iron pipe by cast-iron pipe, and it grew and snaked throughout the yard, constrained only by the tall hemlocks that edged the property. 

In the basement he put a swing and monkey bars, because children do sometimes need to be indoors. Next to the drafting table was his record collection, so the Stones along with the sounds of the kids clamoring across the monkey bars was his symphony as he worked. 

In the workshop was his power tools, his drill press, his saws, his hand tools, his lumber, his vodka, his cases of beer. Those latter items were meant to be a secret, but they were poorly kept. The vodka was kept beneath a large tool cabinet. He even made clever wood stops to prevent them from rolling.

Last night, his final day in detox, he didn’t get much sleep. There was a lot of commotion, as the guy across the hall managed to smuggle some vodka into the unit; this was only found out when the guy was found smoking a cigarette in the bathroom. He stayed up, listening to the fire alarm, and smiled. When faced with the choice of crying or laughing, he chose to laugh. 

[samwendelfiction]

Found

He stands out on the sidewalk

Orange beanie pulled down snug above his glasses,

Ski gloves and winter boots doing their best to shield his fingers and toes from the 8 degree Pittsburgh air

Bundled up in that worn out, stained Carhartt

The one that started out as black, but has since faded to some ashy, somber echo of its previous self

He looks like any other hipster, but unlike them he actually worked as a roofer, and then as a laborer for a local contractor, and he’s proud of that, and feels a strange, twisted sort of pride in wearing that jacket

But that was then. Now, he works for a nonprofit. He helps mentor kids. The trouble is, mentors are hard to find.

With hands made stupid by those thick layers, he labors to set up his table. Slowly, painstakingly, he assembles his materials. This flier here. That business card there. Those pens laid out just so. 

And then he waits. Waits to turn regular passersby into mentors. 

Standing in the cold, he hops from foot to foot, waiting and pacing and hoping to see someone, anyone. Finally a man approaches 

“Hey!” he calls out, “Want to learn about mentoring?” He glances up, looks at his table, his fliers, his posters. “No,” he says simply. On the one hand, he admires the honesty. What to say to such a blunt reply? “Uhh, okay,” he stutters in response, “stay warm!” 

But later, much later, after a lot of “I’m sorry but I can’t” and “I just don’t have enough time” and “I just can’t support a Christian organization” someone finally says yes. Of course, the first thing she actually said was “uhh....no.” But then she came back, somewhat guiltily, smoking a cigarette. “This is why I can’t be a mentor!” she says, gesturing towards the cigarette, “I make bad choices.” He laughs and says something about how no one is perfect. 

She asks him what the mentoring business is all about, and he gives his short pitch. Help mentor a child whose parent is incarcerated The kids are aged 4-18. No car necessary. Minimum commitment of 4 hours a month for 1 year. Need a clean background check. No drugs, no alcohol, no guns, no sleepovers.

As it turns out, her ex had a child whose mom was incarcerated. She was with her ex for a long time - 3 years, and felt for that kid. She made a difference to that child for those years, but that was then. He asks her what’s holding her back now. “Self-doubt,” she replies, pausing before adding, “I’m not perfect.” 

He smiles, the crow’s feet dancing along the edge of his eyes, “No one is.”

[samwendelfiction]

Cold Home

“I think I can see my breath in our bedroom,” my girlfriend calls from the other room

“Really?” I reply, and scurry down the hall towards her, pulled with a feeling of terrible anticipation, similarly to how I would react in high school when a friend would announce that, “you gotta smell this I just farted really bad”

She’s sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed with her green headband on, exhaling noisily the way you do when you’re trying to fog up a pane of glass. And indeed the air before her lips clouds up, and I laugh because I can’t help but be reminded of the woman sitting next to me on the bus, the one who incessantly vaped the entire ride, blowing fruit-scented clouds every which way. 

“I guess we can turn the heat up,” I tell my girlfriend as she tries to block the cold air seeping in from the window by hanging a blanket from a curtain rod

Later, as I’m cooking dinner, she calls from the top of the stairs, “It’s 57 degrees in the bedroom!” She’s a scientist, so it’s only fitting that she needed the hard evidence. I’m sure somewhere in the world my father has felt some disturbance in the force, his 6th sense kicking into overdrive because his child’s thermostat has edged over 58 degrees (or as he liked to say, “roasty-toasty-fifty-eight!). And I let out a relieved laugh, because at least in this one small way I won’t entirely grow up to be my father 

[samwendelfiction]

Illegitimi non carborundum

Don’t let the bastards grind you down, my dad used to tell me

He had a lot of sayings, my dad, but for whatever reason that one always stood out to me

Maybe due to the mysticism of World War II, or maybe because it’s strangely optimistic, or maybe because I liked most anything my dad had to say

“The gorilla is the strongest motherfucker in the zoo, but you wain’t never seen that bitch walk by with the keys,” was another one he liked to say

Naazim Richardson, Shane Mosley’s boxing trainer, is the originator of that one

I liked that one too, because neither my dad nor I were very big. But I always thought my dad was strong - you could feel it in the way his hand enveloped the entirety of the nape of my neck, when I’d be sitting at the kitchen table reading or doing homework and he’d walk by, not saying a word, and reach over with one of those big hands and gently squeeze the back of my neck, and it was comforting and loving and it made me feel close to him

Now he’s dealing with a different sort of monkey, and I don’t know how to help him - the doc says it might take up to five days to complete withdrawal, and that sounds like hell because I can’t even go 24 hours without a cup of coffee, so how are you supposed to handle 40 years of drinking?

Part of me wishes I was there to put my hand around the back of his neck and tell him that he’s strong, that he’s alright, that he’ll make it. I want to tell him that it’s okay to fail, so long as he doesn’t let the bastards grind him down.

[samwendelfiction]

[samwendelfiction]

Loser

The unseasonably warm November air whips about the inside of my car

I roll the windows down further as I pull away from the job site

The suburban houses roll by on either side,

Large, two-story houses with brilliantly green sod yards

Two middle school aged girls idle on the sidewalk

“Loser!” one calls after me

I smile, and toss my head

While the warm wind musses my hair  

 I remember a similar time

Outside the movie theater

When a friend threw a jelly bean at a passing car

The sedan screeched to a halt, the driver’s side door slammed open

To reveal a very large, very angry man

Who couldn’t comprehend why a couple of middle schoolers might throw pieces of candy

At a stranger’s car

 So I smile and motor on my way

And try to understand why a middle school aged girl might throw an insult

At a stranger’s car

[samwendelfiction]

Airship

Perched on the side of a house

Standing on a metal plank that seems to wobble with every gust of wind

Over the sound of hammering and cutting and cursing

I hear a deep drone

The noise increases to a roar, and I turn, scanning the skies

To see a bloated, four-propeller airship flying low

A dark grey mass floating upon the light grey sky

And I think of the terror and death that rained on my grandparents’ heads,

The same terror and death felt by the Israelites, Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians, Kurds etc. ad nauseam today

And I don’t know how to fix it

But I wish it wasn’t true

[samwendelfiction]

It’s been a while...

A few nights ago I drove some friends to a holiday party. Along the way, we encountered an intersection that was impassable due to traffic. I made a U-turn and put on my hazards, pulling into the shoulder to consult the GPS. Immediately, a car pulled up next to us. The driver, a middle aged lady, asked if we were okay and if we were lost. Traffic piled up behind her, but she was unhurried. She was great. No one even honked. It was maybe the most Pittsburgh thing that’s happened to me so far.

The guys at work bust my balls for having ‘pretty muscles’ and being a Jet fan. They say I’m a snob. I remind them that they’re heathens and that Ben Roethlisberger is a rapist. I discover that my boss still owns the 1984 Camaro that he bought new, and that he drove it a grand total of 8 miles last year (to get it registered). Around that time he proudly rocked a mullet, even getting it braided and beaded on a trip to the Caribbean. His coworkers gave him so much shit that he used a utility knife to cut them out on a job site.

I learn that even though I’m not great at it, working with your hands feels good. It’s nice to look at a completed project and know that you were part of building it. I learn that shingles should overhang the roof by an inch-and-a-half, that siding needs to be lifted off the drip-cap by a quarter inch, that windows look best with picture frame casing, that hardwood flooring needs a half-inch expansion gap on the ends, that siding looks best with a four-inch reveal. I learn how to remove load-bearing walls. I learn that jackhammering sucks, concrete is heavy, and you should dig at least six inches below the sub-floor when pouring concrete. I learn that, in a pinch, you can reroute a laundry machine using a garden hose.

I learn that I’m a worthwhile person, and that being outside makes me happy. It’s good to know that a cubicle is not the only career path out there. This might not be my  future, but it’s going to work out.