don't burn the locals.

Me:  That's unreasonable. 

Stefan:  I know it is.  But it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Saturday, after a month and half of being Bay Area residents, Stefan and I finally headed into San Francisco to do some site-seeing.  He was finally feeling well-enough to be out of the house for a day, and he was craving Fisherman's Wharf clam chowder.  I jumped on the opportunity to spend the day with him outside of our apartment.


We took the half-hour BART trip into the city and got off at Embarcadero.  We decided to forgo the opportunity for the trolley ride up to Fisherman's Wharf, and instead walked along the bay all the way to Pier 47, enjoyed the view for awhile of the Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, cruise ships, Alcatraz, and old-warehouses-turned-office-suites.


Then we made it to the touristy area, and we remembered that it was a terrible idea to come to a tourist attraction on a Saturday afternoon in July.  We are always so sure before arriving that we'll handle it just fine, but we're much too cynical to enjoy an afternoon wading through crowds of slow, fat, white Americans who have no idea where they are, who are just searching for a beacon of American comfort in the form of a McDonald's burger or a Starbucks coffee.  They were packing four-deep in the pedi-cabs with bags full of gourmet chocolates and cotton candy and postcards and snow-globes and plush crabs and tiny ships in tiny bottles piled onto their laps.


We made it to the seafood stand that Stefan remembered from his November trip and waited behind the fat Americans who ordered their fish-and-chips and stood at the counter to consume them before walking away.


"Are you guys in line?" Stefan asked to the groups in front of us.  No one replied.


We eventually made it to the counter, placed our order for two of the day's special:  a sourdough bread bowl of clam chowder and a Bud Light.  We were handed our bottles of beer in brown bags, and one of the guys behind us asked, "Is it legal here to just carry those on the street?"


"We're going to find out, I guess," Stefan answered.


We grabbed our bagged beers and our bread bowls and peeked into the adjoining restaurant for an open table.  We walked into the entrance and were met by the same host who had seated Stefan in this same arrangement last November.


"Any tables available?" Stefan asked.


"Walk away," the host replied rudely.  We paused, bewildered.  "Those are for walk-away," the host repeated. "Not the restaurant."


"But it's the same restaurant, right?" Stefan replied.  "We're just going to sit down and eat them here quickly."


I followed him to a nearby table for two.


"Sir, those tables are for restaurant service only!" the host said from behind us.


"We'll be quick," Stefan replied as we sat down, and we began eating our chowders.


After a bite or two, another man came to our table, stood behind me and addressed Stefan.  I continued to eat.


"Sir, you cannot sit at this table with that food."


"We're only going to be about ten minutes.  We purchased food from your restaurant, so we're going to eat it here."


"No," the man replied.  "You must order off of this menu."  He held up the menu in his hand.  "That is walk-away food.  You cannot bring it in here."


I turned around to face the man.  "It's the same restaurant, right?"


The man answered, still addressing Stefan, "Yes, but that stand is for walk-away, not the restaurant.  You have to leave."


“We'll be quick,” Stefan repeated. “We gave money to your business; we're going to eat at this table.”


“Sir,” the man said, without any of the respect that the title implied, “these tables are for people who order off of this menu. You cannot sit here.”


“Do you have people waiting for a table?” Stefan asked.


“Yes, we do, sir.”


"Fine," Stefan said, glancing at the empty entrance. “I don't believe you, but fine. Thanks for the hospitality.  Asshole."


And we grabbed our unfinished bread bowls and our bagged beers and walked away.  Two stands down, the man caught up with us from behind, clearly fuming, menu still in his hand.


He tapped Stefan on the back angrily, "Hey, watch your language next time.  I'm serious."


Without turning around, Stefan answered, "Alright, man.  Sure."


"Hey!" the man replied as we continued to walk.  "I'm serious."


We sat on a bench in the sun to finish our clam chowder, surrounded by the tourists and the pigeons.  A sleeping homeless man occupied the other half of the bench.  He didn't move the entire time we were there.


"If you hadn't been there, that probably would have been a fight," Stefan told me.  "I considered throwing my clam chowder in his face.  Then you would have had to watch me get beat up by a man in a collared shirt and a tie with clam chowder on his face."


"He would have beat you?"


"I've had e-coli for a month."


"You probably shouldn't have called him an asshole."


"You're right.  But I had to think on my feet."


"And, he was a total asshole."


"Yeah," he shook his head.  "They were so nice to me in November.  There was no one else here then."


When we finished our clam chowders and nibbled away all of the bread bowls that we could, we tore off pieces of bread and tossed them at the groups of pigeons, but they were largely ignored.  Across the sidewalk, a teenage boy dumped his remaining seasoned fries onto the ground, and the pigeons flocked to him and devoured the pile before he had even jumped out of the way.  His friends laughed and cheered.  Fat American pigeons, visiting the Wharf for McDonald's and Starbucks.


"Ready to head back?" I asked, trying not to cringe at my surroundings.


"Soon," Stefan answered.  He held up his beer-in-a-bag.  "I want to finish my beer.  I don't know if we're allowed to have them out here."


"Good point."  We finished our beers, then started the trek back to Embarcadero.


"I'm glad you didn't get into a fight," I told him.


"Me too," he replied.  "I almost broke Hunter's one rule."


"What rule?"


"Don't burn the locals."

"Well," I replied, "that was Las Vegas."

going back and going home. part three.

This story is the final part of a trilogy.
[Read Part Two]

[Read Part One]

Part Three:  Sunday, going home

I watched Peter and Tony drive away in the pale dawn and went back into Michelle's house. Exhausted from a night with the band, breakfast, and bonding, I collapsed onto Michelle's living room couch at six a.m. I pulled a blanket over myself without the energy to change into pajamas or search for a pillow. Michelle and James woke up at eight a.m. to get ready for church.

“You people are crazy,” I mumbled into the cushion as Michelle skittered around the living room, tidying the things I had moved in my 36 hours in her house.

She waved a hand at me and smiled, “Bah! We just live different lives.” She slid an arm around her fiance as they closed the door behind them.

I tried to sleep for the next forty-five minutes before I gave up. In the first twenty minutes, their cat joined me and tried six different places to sleep, before she jumped off and settled onto the adjacent couch. Manny the pit bull followed, wanting to cuddle and completely unaware of his mass, and buried me in the couch. I finally pushed him off and got up myself, resigned to the two hours of sleep I had achieved.

I went immediately to the bathroom and stripped off the clothes that I'd been wearing for over twenty-four hours, drenched in the grease and smell of Golden Coral, Miller Lite, cigarettes, and pancake syrup. I climbed into the shower and turned on the faucet, stood under the water and let it rinse the weekend out of my hair and pores. The guest bathroom soap smelled like tangerine, and the shampoo made my hair soft. It was a nice change from the tiny shower stall at my apartment, or the sliver of soap always at the Compound. I stood in the shower a few extra minutes, breathing in the steamy air to clear my head.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, hair slicked back and dripping, wrapped in the fluffy lavender towel, they had returned from church, and Michelle was on the couch in the living room with a girl I'd never met before, a box of wedding invitations spread on the coffee table. I half-waved and pulled the towel tighter as I leaned down to grab my duffel bag next to her feet.

“This is Tara,” Michelle introduced us. “She's getting married next year to Phil. Remember Phil? He works with James.”

I didn't remember Phil, so I decided to skip that question. “Hi, Tara,” I flashed her a huge smile and reached out to shake her hand, keeping my grip on the towel and tucking my bag into the crook of my arm.

“Nice to meet you!” Tara responded, shook my damp hand politely, then wiped her hand on her jeans before picking up the card Michelle was handing to her.

“So for these, you can just get the stamps for the little flowers at any craft shop, and they used three colors of the cardstock in layers here...” Michelle was explaining while I ducked back into the bathroom.

I turned on the fan, tucked my towel along the crack in the door, cracked the window, and ran the faucet. From my bag, I pulled out my underwear and my pipe, packed with the single bowl I'd brought along for the weekend. I put on my underwear and smoked the pipe, blew the smoke out the window. Michelle probably wouldn't be worried about the weed, but I didn't want to scare her friend, with the brown ponytail and the Reebox and the eyes dancing with the dreams of her beautiful wedding day. I took three quick hits, then brushed my teeth before I turned off the faucet, pulled on my clothes, and stepped back out.

As soon as I stepped into the living room, Michelle pulled two swatches of brown satin out of the box that held the invitations.

“Which one do you like better?” she asked, holding them up in turn. “Cocoa, or java? For the bridesmaid dresses.”

I pointed to one of the swatches. “The lighter one.”

She held up the darker swatch. “Everyone else voted for the java.”

“They're both fine,” I shrugged. “It's not my decision, right? It's your wedding. I'll wear java.”

She reached for her laptop. “Come see the patterns we're looking at!”

Tara scooted closer to her, and I sat on the other side, and the three of us peered at the computer screen while Michelle clicked on links to designer websites. She pointed out the two dresses and explained the pricing and the pros and cons of each. The way each might look on me and on her taller, skinnier bridesmaid, and on her shorter, fatter bridesmaid. How comfortable each might be while we danced at the reception. Tara added a few words here and there, and I nodded along. The dresses were both beautiful, and both pretty similar-- as similar as the two brown swatches she'd shown me.

Tara finally left after the dresses, and the wedding talk ceased, and Michelle lay down for a nap. I grabbed my camera and wandered around her house. I snapped shots of the cat lounging on top of the baby grand piano, basking in the spot of light from the dining room window; James in the garage on a creeper under his '71 Roadrunner. Michelle curled into a corner of her bed with Manny sprawled across the rest; the spare bedroom littered with flowers and wreaths and swatches of materials for the wedding; the three-foot-tall clock built onto the wall, framed with giant rod-iron numbers that James had molded in extra hours at the shop.

I finally wore myself out, and I lay down to try to sleep again around 12:30. Greg called at one pm.

“How was your weekend?”

“It's been fun. Long day, late night, early morning, as it goes. Emotional. Did you miss me at the Compound last night?”

“Of course. I didn't get home from work until four a.m., and I've just been sleeping. I'm ready to see you.”

“Me too. You can come up whenever you're ready.”

We said goodbye, and I lay back down, knowing I wouldn't sleep again until tonight. Greg would be there in a couple of hours, and Michelle was starting to make lunch.

Greg picked me up in Appleton and drove me to his mom's place in the quiet east-side neighborhood in Madison. “Mom's B and B,” he was calling it, a respite for us in exchange for house-sitting for her. I dropped off my bags and made a cup of coffee, and we went back out for groceries for the week. We made pasta for dinner with his specialty pesto, and walked to the Weary Traveler afterward for drinks and desserts.

“Every time someone comes to visit, this is always the first place we go,” he informed me. “It's the perfect place to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

I thought back on my weekend, three beds in three nights, and I liked the idea of being welcomed here, a place to settle for just a moment. We had just a week here before his mom returned. I wondered what neighborhood I might be welcomed into next.

Greg told me about the Madison Saturday night I'd missed, the guy he had to kick out of the bar at eleven p.m., the bit of the show he'd caught at the Comedy Club. After a Bloody Mary, a coffee, and a piece of Key Lime pie, I was beginning to drift off and lose focus on the conversation.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“I think I'm just tired,” I said, and squinted apologetically. “We should probably head home soon. Or head... back. I'm feeling kind of transient already, disconnected. I like the freedom of all of this, but the idea is exhausting, not sure where I'll be after this week, you know, who will stick around? It's a new feeling, losing everything that grounded me.”

He nodded. “Why don't you come stay at the Compound after this? The boys will hardly notice; you're there most nights already.” He smiled. “We'll stick around.”

I shrugged and nodded, relieved, and realizing that that's exactly where I had hoped to end up. “Thanks,” I said with a tired smile.

The Hart Compound isn't the first Compound I've lived in, and I'm not surprised that the collective unconscious would bestow the title on completely separate dwellings. When a crew of artists are drawn together to fluctuate haphazardly through the rooms of a downtown flat, home never quite has the right connotation. Home suggests family, pets, garages, fences, dinner at five around the table, a daily schedule and regular weekends, fresh lavender towels that match the bathroom walls. Home suggests permanence. A Compound welcomes travelers and transients, artists, writers, musicians, performers, the unemployed. They wander through, sleep where there's room, and no one asks whose name is on the lease.

It's probably not unusual, at this age, at this point in life, for any artist to turn to some form of transience. Settling down means obligations, plans, schedules, responsibilities. The artists' life has no time for those. A lease means I had to know where I wanted to be a month from now, a year from now. How could I make a commitment to one thing for an entire year? A million possibilities come along in a year; to commit to one would completely hinder my ability to embrace another.

Never during this time did I ever consider myself “homeless”, in the general sense of the word. I had a home because I had friends. I could always find a bed; that was no concern. I was never short of a cafe to write in, a bar stool to roost on, a bed to crash in, a meal to share. But, to take it more literally, I was quite “homeless” after I left my apartment; I had no permanent connection, no obligation to be in, pay for, maintain any type of place. It came with all of the freedom and fear, autonomy and loneliness that are inevitable when all ties to one's former life are lost.

A week later, as we drove down the quiet street away from the neighborhood of single-family homes and groomed yards housing dog fences and jungle gyms, towards the street lights and the drunk college kids, deeper into the bustling downtown, I sighed and laid my head back on the leather car seat. I closed my eyes and took in the silence for a moment. I wanted more than this place.

Without opening my eyes or turning my head, I said to Greg, “Do you want to go to California?”

“Sure.”

“Let's move to San Francisco and see if we can make it through the summer.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

going back and going home. part two.

[Read Part One]

Part Two:  Saturday, Families and Friends

Michelle called at six a.m. on Saturday, pre-empting my alarm clock to remind me that she would be over in half an hour to take me to Appleton.

We hung up, and I lay in bed for a minute to assess my condition. I didn't remember falling asleep, but I remembered coming home, and I remembered checking the clock around four a.m. as we climbed into bed. I remembered having sex, mostly. It was the high and the rush of hormones that always did me in, regardless of the drinks or the hour. We were both still naked, though, and Greg was sound asleep next to me, probably still drunk after so few hours of rest.

My clothes lay on the floor next to the bed. I grabbed the pile, but immediately dropped it again when the smell of stale cigarettes hit my nostrils. One week in those jeans would have to be enough. I pulled another pair from my suitcase, along with a clean shirt and underwear and tiptoed to the bathroom. By the time I dressed, brushed my teeth, smoothed the bedhead from my smoke-scented hair, and ran some cold water over my heavy eyelids, my phone was ringing again and Greg was stirring in the bedroom.

“What is the address again? I think I'm here,” Michelle asked over her car radio.

“Eight-twenty Johnson. I'll meet you downstairs.”

“Oh, shoot, I am at nine-twenty. Okay, hang on. I'll be there in a few minutes.”

I jammed my suitcase closed, put Greg back to sleep with a kiss to the forehead, and met Michelle as she pulled up outside. She was wide awake, with combed hair and fresh makeup.

“We're going to need to stop for coffee,” I greeted her as I tossed my bag into the back seat.

I have made this drive hundreds of times, but I watch for new things in the drab landscape every time. The view becomes quickly redundant as you leave the city; sparse woods, flat farmland, and the occasional home set back hundreds of feet from the highway. At a few points, it is breathtaking no matter how many times you have crested the same hill. But, at most points, it is plain and disappointing. Most points of the drive into Central Wisconsin are a stark reminder of why I left.

I don't quite know why they choose to settle here. I guess most people don't; that's why this area always seems to be dying. So much of the state is filled with towns that used to be, no longer living, no longer growing, no longer useful or necessary. They are shells of once-thriving manufacturing or agricultural communities, but in the absence of these economies they are left to retirees and commuters.

Most people born to these dying, rolling landscapes leave when they can, and the ones who stay have no incentive to stay, and no hope for growth. They scrape by, procreate, and hope for the next generation to move on. The mosaic of small towns and farmland that fills the area seems to exist solely for those retired people who decide they no longer need hope, that all they want is to leave the world behind and settle into a comfortable rut.

My mom picked me up for lunch on Saturday. Michelle had a baby shower to attend, being of the age when those things happen in the Real World, so I had an afternoon to kill. True to the food culture in the city, we ended up at the Golden Coral, a mini-mall of a buffet restaurant, filled with fatty Wisconsin foods and fat Wisconsin families. I shielded my eyes and tried to stick to the salad bar.

“How's school been going?” my mom asked as we both settled into our seats with full plates.

I sighed. I had thus far neglected to tell her I had dropped out. It was easier at first to avoid the conversation, but I was growing tired of pretending to be a student, tired of pretending that I had some vision for the future that would be shaped by some institution's measures of success, tired of pretending that all of those things she pictured for the life of her daughter mattered to me.

“I decided to quit,” I said plainly, and looked into my salad. She wanted to reply, but I figured I might as well finish it off before she passed her judgment. “And I left my apartment, so I can cut down to part-time at work. I want to spend more time writing. I want to spend all of my time writing.”

“What are you doing with your writing?”

“I've got some leads for getting published.”

“Are you going back to school?”

“I don't know. Probably not. Not for awhile.”

“What about your loans?”

I don't think I'll pay those back; I don't really care about my credit score, and I can't afford the payments. “They can be deferred for awhile.” I didn't want a discussion about money just yet.

“What are you going to do in Madison? Just work part-time?”

“I'm going to write.”

“I mean for money.”

I had stopped planning for that a long time ago. It never seemed to matter; it always worked out. I didn't have the words to explain that idea to her.

“I don't even know if I'm going to stay in Madison. There is nothing keeping me here anymore. I am ready to do more, see new places, write somewhere else. I think I want to be bigger than this town.”

We were starting to come to a new type of understanding in our relationship. I wasn't a kid anymore, and I didn't need to lie to gain her approval. I didn't need to gain her approval, and she was beginning to understand that, too. I could just keep her up-to-date, like any other person in my life who cared about what I was doing, answer her questions, keep in touch. I was straying too far from the plan to try to pretend I was following it anymore, anyway. Honesty was just easier, even if she got that look on her face when I talked about moving or being poor.

I was dropped back at Michelle's house, where I napped off the buffet while she washed her dishes and folded her laundry. She set out sandwiches for dinner, and when her fiance came home from work, we ate together. Then we took turns at the shower and started to get ready for the band.

They were playing downtown at nine p.m. My ex-husband had been part of the band when it was a start-up and we were all in high school, and his brother was running sound now. I hadn't seen any of them since the divorce.

Michelle was ready to go out and dance, enjoy the show as if we were still seventeen-- completely unjaded, nothing but our dreams for the future ahead of us. I was going to have to get drunk.

We drank pitchers of Miller Lite all night-- Michelle was buying-- and I didn't talk to my brother-in-law, but to nod hello when we arrived, both acknowledging each other's presence, both realizing it was better to keep our distance, both wondering why I was there at all. My sister was the only person there I knew besides the band, so I just drank and danced in silence with her all night. She seemed to be able to step out of the moment and enjoy the night like we had since high school. I was not. It did not feel like we were seventeen. I was jaded by twenty-five years of life, and I no longer held out hope for any of the dreams I had had for my future. I existed in nothing but the moment, and I was unable to ignore the fact that no one cared anymore whether I was part of this thing that had been the center of my life for eight years.

After the show, Michelle went home, and I talked the boys into going out for breakfast-- just like the old days. A bit of me held onto the nostalgia, just wanted to believe that I could maintain this connection from this side of the gonzo line.

After breakfast, the boys drove me back to Michelle's and came in for a few more minutes of quality time before we each silently decided to write off the connection completely.

“This is bigger than my entire apartment in Chicago,” Peter said when we walked into the rec room in Michelle's basement.

I turned to glance down the length of the room, long and narrow, the bar at the other end at least twenty feet from where we stood. I nodded. Luxury was cheap in this town, if your definition of luxury mostly included space. The rec room was half of the basement, under the main floor that included a full kitchen, dining room, living room, master bedroom, office, and two full bathrooms. The dining room held Michelle's baby grand piano, and a sliding door opened into a fenced-in yard for the dog and future children.

“It's a comfortable house,” I replied. “in a shitty town.”

They both nodded.

“I guess that's the trade you make,” Peter said.

I glanced one more time to the home bar and the fireplace and the flat-screen. Some choices were easy.

We talked-- about the show, about the summers we had enjoyed together, about the lives we were living now-- until we were all drifting off to sleep. We nodded off together for a few minutes and awoke to realize it at the same time, so the boys decided to head home, leaving behind sleepy promises to keep in touch and visit soon that we all knew would be forgotten. I pulled each of them into a tight hug before they walked out the door, held on a little longer than usual. I wished them well and watched them walk lazily through the yard, unexpected casualties of inevitable choices.

enjoy your shit.

Living with divorce...

“Your ex-husband is here. It's not any of my business; just thought you'd like to know.”

I couldn't have imagined a worse text to read on my way to the show at the Argus. I had been looking forward to this show for two months-- since I had introduced the band to Greg to set it up. Now I was on my way there, ready to enjoy the show after a day of work, only to find out that the door guy just checked the I.D. of my ex-husband.

We hadn't spoken since the Talk six months before, which ended in our decision to divorce. Well, he would argue that it ended with my decision to divorce, and I would argue that it ended with his shouting “Have a nice life” and walking out of my room; but I suppose that's all just part of the game.

“He's really drunk; you probably shouldn't try to talk to him,” two bartenders informed me before I made it across the barroom to the door of the Underground.

“Great,” I replied dryly. “Let's get weird, then.”

I greeted James at the door. “Thanks for the heads up. I guess it's that kind of night.”

“And how.” He nodded and shrugged.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I spotted him immediately at the bar across the tiny room, and I paused. The bartender was handing him his tab.

“How have you been, man?” Lew greeted him.

The bartender looked at him confused. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“Lew... We used to come down here every week.”

The bartender shook his head, and suddenly caught my eye across the room. He glanced back at Lew, then to me.

“Ah!” he forced an awkward smile and shook his finger at Lew. 'Yes, now I remember you. Good.” He slid the tab across the bar and turned to the next customer.

Lew signed his tab, grabbed his drinks, and turned toward the stairs. He caught my eye, but turned to the next room and walked past me without a greeting. I sighed and walked up to the bar.

Steve reached across the bar and kissed my hand. “Your ex is here, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He refilled my glass.

I had prepared myself to boldly walk onto the dance floor, to enjoy the band that I had brought into this bar. This was my bar. If my ex was going to show up unannounced from out of town, he was going to have to understand that he was crossing into my territory and contending with my friends.

“He's really drunk tonight,” Steve said.

“I know.” I turned to glance into the next room, where the band was playing. “How's the show going?”

Steve shrugged. “The crowd is in and out. But the band is really good. That singer is incredible, some of the notes he can hit... And the drummer! Holy shit, he's amazing.”

I nodded absentmindedly and smiled. He was right. But, of course, I already knew these things, right? I listened to Charlie sing these lyrics over and over in a studio in Appleton, Wisconsin, recording an album a year ago, right? I got high with the band in the Northern Wisconsin cabin of that drummer's family last Spring, and I saw his baby and his wife and his uncle, and I saw him play in a loft in the woods until he seemed to melt into the drumset; yeah, I knew he was good.

I had drank Bloody Marys on Charlie's balcony and listened while he played this song in its infancy on his acoustic guitar in his bedroom. Right?

I took three steps, and I was in the doorway. I was looking at the backs of all of the people I used to know. I was looking at Lew's drunken arms dancing to the music. My resolve was gone. I could not be bold. Not after just two drinks.

The band was playing a cover of Butch Walker's Don't You Think Someone Should Take You Home. My heart jumped in my throat when I heard it, flooded with the sound of Frenchie's violin playing this song last Spring.

I hadn't heard Lew's voice since that last day. We were barely in touch online, sorting out credit card debt. We hadn't even filed for divorce officially yet. He had had the papers for months; I was still waiting for him to sign and return them to me.

Would he really not talk to me all night? What was he doing in my bar?

Charlie looked across the crowd and caught my eye over Lew's shoulder. I smiled. He turned away and continued to play.

“Hey!” a voice came from behind me. Cory was walking my way from the bar. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I've been doing well. How are you? It's good to see you!”

“Doing good. The show's been pretty fun.”

“Oh yeah? Lots of people here?”

“In and out.”

“Yeah, that's what the bartender said...”

We never had had a lot to talk about.

I rattled the ice in my empty glass. “I better go get another. It was good seeing you.”

“You too! I'll see you around.”

I ordered another drink, then returned to my post in the doorway to watch the last song. Charlie's girlfriend was standing with a friend just a few feet away, so I stepped up to them and tapped her shoulder .

She turned and saw me. She didn't say anything.

I smiled. “Hi, Erin! How have you been?”

She didn't smile back. “Hey.” She turned back to her roommate and started a conversation.

I blinked, surprised, then stepped back to the doorway without a word. I took one more sip of my drink and gave up on the show. Who were these people, and why were they in my bar? I went back upstairs.

James had left for the night, and the bar was nearly empty now. I sat at a stool and ordered two shots from Greg.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “How did it go down there?”

“He didn't even talk to me. None of them talked to me. They're under his god damn spell, as always. I don't know how he does that.”

Greg raised his shot glass, so I lifted mine to meet it, and we drank the whiskey.

I slammed the glass to the bar, froze in that position, looked at Greg for a moment.

“They are just looking at me like I don't belong here. Like I am the one who's out of place!
What is going on here?”

The band was packing up and beginning to haul equipment upstairs. Lew followed the group into the back hallway. Then I heard Steve's voice from behind him.

“Hey, man! Wait!” he came up the stairs and tapped Lew's shoulder.

Lew stopped and turned around.

“What the hell is this?” Steve waved a receipt in front of him. “Three dollars? On a sixty-dollar tab; are you fucking kidding?”

Lew shrugged, without a word.

Steve shoved the receipt at Lew and handed him a pen. “That's like five percent, dude. That's shitty. Cross that out and make it a bigger tip.”

Lew scribbled on the receipt and handed it back.

“Six dollars,” Steve said, looking Lew in the eye. “That's still shitty, but better.” He turned and walked back down the stairs.

Lew followed the band into the back alley.

Greg gestured their way and said to me, “Steve doesn't ever call people out like that.”

I finished my drink, ordered another.

As Greg placed the drink in front of me, Lew walked into the bar through the front door. I picked up the drink, prepared to ignore being ignored, but he walked toward me. I opened my mouth to utter a greeting, but before I could say anything, he reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. He raised it into the air and smacked it onto the bar in front of me.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Divorce papers,” he replied. He looked drunkenly into my eyes and waved a hand at the bar around us, at Greg. “Enjoy your shit, darlin'.”

I glanced to the envelope, then back at him, and nodded without a word. He walked away. He left with the band through the back alley. No one said good bye.

“I'm ready to put this behind me,” I said to Greg as we approached the door of the Compound at the end of the night. I shook my head. “I'm ready to leave this town behind me.”

going back and going home.

Part One: Friday, a night with the girls

The timing was perfect. Rent was due Friday, and I was out of money for the month by Wednesday. My sister called Thursday to invite me to Appleton for the weekend, and Greg and I were asked to stay at his mom's to house-sit while she was out of town the following week. I had ten comfortable days to find a new place to call “home”.

On Friday, I stuffed the clothes I still liked into a suitcase, and my journals, pictures, and a few books into plastic crates and loaded them into Greg's trunk. I tossed my toothbrush, my makeup, and a change of underwear into my oversized purse, already bulging with my computer, journal, planner, wallet, and Hot Water Music. I hauled my futon and bookshelves to the curb and left the rest for the landlord to donate to charity. Or, she could sell it to cover a fraction of the rent I wasn't going to pay.

After Greg headed off to work, I dropped my keys into the mailbox and slowly pulled the door shut behind me. It clicked shut, I sighed, and I turned to face the street. I took in the feeling of homelessness. I felt no different than I had yesterday. I was young-white-woman-with-a-loving-family homeless, not 'Nam Vet-homeless. I would be fine. I headed toward the Square.

Michelle would be in Madison in about four hours, to pick me up for dinner with our stepsister Ann, who is in the city for school. It was too early to go to the bar without any money; I wouldn't be able to score much for free drinks during Happy Hour, and I didn't want to put up with the politicians, anyway. I stopped into my favorite cafe. Jim could tell when I didn't have money even before I ordered, but he always served me a bottomless cup to keep me writing. I tipped him the $1.37 in change I had left in my purse and grabbed a table.

I set up my computer and awaited Michelle's call. I finished two short stories that I'd been fretting over for three weeks, submitted those and three others to yet another five fiction reviews, and drank three cups of free coffee. Jim poured another refill, and I began to scour online for writing gigs. I was tailoring my resume for a blog in San Francisco when Michelle called.

Michelle bought dinner for all three of us on State Street, and I talked them into having drinks afterward. They followed me into the Silver Dollar, which looks and smells exactly like the bars we grew up in up north. Ann bought three glasses of Miller Lite and offered Michelle Tums to settle her stomach from dinner.

“Is this what you call a 'dive'?” Michelle asked me as we walked in. Cash only, concrete floors, heavy wooden tables that hold the memories of years of beer-drinking and cigarette smoke.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It's the best in town. It reminds me of home.” She laughed and wrinkled her nose as the old-bar scent reached her. She slipped into the bathroom to wash her hands before we sat down, but she was freaked out by the old-school cloth-towel dispenser, and came out wiping her palms on her jeans.

We caught up on our lives over the Miller Lite. Michelle had just started a job at a new school in the Fox Valley, and she was enamored with the kids she was working with. Ann had just started nursing school in Madison, and she was worked to the bone between homework and her full-time waitressing job. They were each recently engaged to men that our whole family adored. I had just quit school and gotten a divorce, and I was loving all of the free time I had to write.

“I want to dance,” Michelle said suddenly. “Do you know any good clubs around here?” she asked me.

I raised my eyebrows at her over my pilsner glass. I shrugged. “Pretty sure Argus has a DJ tonight in the Underground, but I think he's just playing iTunes. People will be dancing, anyway.” Do I know any good dance clubs. Of course, if you get drunk enough, you could dance anywhere, and I knew how to get drunk at the Argus.

We finished off the pitcher and allowed the Tums to take effect, then made our way across the Square.

When we got to the Argus, we went straight downstairs without ordering drinks. It wasn't very courteous of us, but they were buying, so I was in no position to insist. Downstairs, the DJ was leaning against the bar chatting with a pair of girls in short skirts while auto-tuned Top 40s played through the speakers. There were half a dozen gay couples dancing together on the tiny dance floor. I exchanged a glance with each of my sisters. Michelle shrugged, and Ann pulled out her camera. We stepped into a corner and started dancing.

Ann snapped her first picture of us, and Michelle started posing. To the electronic beat of the music, she would freeze, eyes to the ceiling and hands behind her head like a superstar. They giggled. Michelle pulled me next to her, and I flashed my best superstar smile with my hands on my hips. I rolled my eyes as Ann laughed at us both. We posed back to back and fluttered our eyelashes.

For a moment, I was swept up in memories of our childhood, the three of us traipsing through summers of Make-Believe, bicycle rides, park swings, and hide-and-seek. So close in age but not similar in any other way, the three of us had been typically inseparable each morning and intolerable after a day of indecision and competitive games gone wrong. As teenagers, we were simply the unremarkable trio of colorful, giggling girls wandering through the mall each weekend. By the end of high school, we'd gone our separate ways, coming together a few times a year like this in an attempt to maintain our bond and recapture those lost moments.

Ann's camera flashed again, and I blinked, then caught Steve's eye as he stood behind the bar across the room. His smile mocked me as he poured a PBR from the tap. I covered my eyes with my hand and turned away.

After about fifteen minutes, I was tired of dancing and posing and shitty music. I dragged them back upstairs. Ann bought a round of drinks, and Michelle started plugging the juke box and playing music that reminded us of middle school in the nineties. I never want to be reminded of middle school, least of all when I am almost-sober in a full bar on a Friday night. I finally begged her to stop, and we settled around a table in a corner where I could see most of the bar, but not the big-screen TVs.

I sat back and observed the barflies as my younger sisters started to talk about wedding plans. After a few minutes, Greg came over to our table with a full drink. It was pink.

“That guy over there with the black hair wanted to buy this for you,” he said as he slid the glass in front of me with a wink.

I laughed and wrinkled my nose at the drink.

“Vodka-grapefruit,” Greg said, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I wasn't about to advise him that my girlfriend prefers whiskey.”

The three of us laughed and glanced over to the bar to spot my admirer. We smiled and waved at him and his friends. Before Greg turned back to the bar, I gave him a kiss and thanked him for the drink.

The guy with the black hair slumped in his chair and gave Greg an incredulous look.

“Sorry, man,” Greg said with a shrug as he walked back behind the bar.

“Are any of them single?” the guy with the black hair asked.

Greg chuckled. “I think those two are engaged--” he pointed at my sisters, “and my girlfriend--” he pointed at me, “is actually still married.”

I sipped at the bitter drink and chased it with my whiskey-Seven.

Michelle and Ann were only halfway through their drinks by the time I finished both, and they were starting to slow down.

“I think we should be getting home,” Michelle told Ann, who was hosting her for the night in her apartment across town. “We're leaving Madison at seven tomorrow.” She looked at me.

I looked at the clock. One a.m. Greg was my ride, as well as my bed for the night; I would be here past close. Alone and bored, apparently, as they went to bed.

They each sipped their drinks for a few more minutes, then pushed them aside unfinished and left. I grabbed the half-full glasses and found a seat at the bar. I gulped down Michelle's Malibou-Coke, winced, then washed it down with Ann's Miller Lite.

Greg's roommate came in around two a.m.

“Thank god!” I slurred to him. “I need to talk to someone who knows how to hang. My sisters left already! I thought you would get to meet them. Man.”

“Are they cute?” he asked.

“They're engaged,” I answered.

One of the barflies ordered shots for himself and me, and Greg poured one for himself and for Nate as well.

Nate left at close, and I scooted to my usual place at the bar to wait while Greg cleaned.

Nate turned before he walked out the door and waved to me. “See you tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “I'll be out of town. But I'll see you at home tonight.” Home. “At your place,” I corrected myself. “I'll be staying at your place tonight.”

laughing skull: a review.

Comedy and Culture in the Bible Belt

They told me before we left that Atlanta is a shitty city. But, I'd never been “down South” before, so I was excited for the week nonetheless. The trip would be filled with business and pleasure, with stops in Atlanta, Buford, and Roswell, Georgia; and Spartanburg and Charleston, South Carolina. I could check another U.S. city off of my list, see the ocean for the first time in my life, and enjoy a week of what I expected to be quality comedy.

We were stuck with Atlanta, GA, because this is home to the Laughing Skull Lounge, host of the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival, and the competition that was our reason for getting involved. Madison's Comedy Club on State hosted the second round of the competition back in November, and Nick Hart advanced to the quarter-finals, which meant Atlanta in April. Stefan Davis funded the trip and performed in the festival; and I went along because I am eager to travel anywhere, and because following Nick and Stefan around has done a good job so far of feeding me material.

Laughing Skull Comedy Festival

The city of Atlanta was every bit as disappointing as I had been warned. No one knows how to drink, a vegetarian meal is not to be found, service is terrible in any venue, and the prices for everything are outrageous. The people aren't very friendly, and there are few attractions to keep the poor traveler entertained. We spent most of our time in Atlanta in the hotels.

The festival itself was pretty disappointing as well, despite the great potential that a week with the top budding comics from around the country holds. The Laughing Skull was its hub, but shows were held at bars and clubs around the area, so moving from one show to another was annoying, at best. We had to drive 45 minutes from Atlanta for Nick's first show Wednesday night, to the tiny town of Buford, GA, and the Buford Variety Theater, a comedy club built in the guts of an old Presbyterian church. The venue was gorgeous, and the staff hospitable; but the show was clearly not promoted at all by the club or the festival. The club usually runs an open mic on Wednesday nights, and a number of their regular comics showed up still expecting that. The showroom holds about 100 people; about 20 seats were filled. Six of them were me, Nick, Stefan, and Nick's family; and we had to leave after Nick's set to race back to Atlanta for the competition show at the Laughing Skull.

The Laughing Skull Lounge is a tiny space located inside the Vortex bar in Midtown Atlanta. The bar is really cool, despite the characteristic Atlanta service. The food looked great; and between the dim lighting, the section of poker tables, and the secondhand smoke that is still legal in Georgia, the bar had a satisfying seedy vibe. The Lounge had a bit of an underground vibe, as well, but more Beatnik than back-alley. The comedians said it reminded them of Chicago basement open-mics. I expected to see a troupe of mimes all in black and berets step out from behind the velvet curtain onto the small stage in front of the theater-style rows of chairs.

Instead, a shitty host stepped onto the stage. He was an entertaining comic, but-- like everyone we saw chosen to host the festival's shows-- had no idea how to emcee. They were all low-energy, they held pages of notes on stage, they forgot the performers' names, they were slow to get to the stage after each comic's set... and a number of other things that the comedians pointed out to me as unprofessional and awkward, things that made the shows dull and uncomfortable compared to the ones that we've become spoiled with in Madison, where the performers know proper etiquette and the crowds know how to watch a show.

The third venue that we experienced this week was the most absurd, in my opinion. Nick was there ahead of Stefan and me, and he sent a text, It 's inside of a Chuck E Cheese. The Funny Farm is located in what apparently used to be a restaurant inside of Andretti Indoor Karting & Games in Roswell, Georgia. We entered through the arcade and dodged the herds of fat families and screaming, sprinting children at the buzzing, clanging, dinging machines to get to the green room. Nick performed in the Politics show in front of an almost-empty room of Georgia Republicans on Friday night, and Stefan performed in the King Davids of Comedy show Saturday night without a single Jewish joke in his cache.

We came out ahead, altogether, though. The boys earned TV credits through the Funny Farm performances; and, because few of the people in charge at any of the shows knew completely what was going on, we were able to get into all of the shows for free as “comics”, and the Funny Farm even gave me a $25 gift card for the arcade simply because I was in the green room when they were handing them out to the night's performers.

South Carolina

Despite any annoyances of the festival, the vacation was still a pleasant respite for all of us, and a great experience for me. I enjoyed the idea of “being on the road”-- the boys were performing, and I was taking notes for a story, a prototype for the artists' life we're each working for.

Thursday we had no comedy business, so we spent the day in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at the lakeside home of Nick Hart's parents. It was 70 degrees and sunny outside, we could see the Blue Ridge Mountains standing in the distance behind the trees across the lake, and Sue Hart made grilled chicken for dinner. Nick and Stefan drove the Harts' Porsche to the mountains with the top down, and Nick gave us a tour of his childhood after dinner. We enjoyed our only good buzz of the entire vacation on vodka-7 and Heineken. Stefan and I slept in the room that used to belong to Nick's little sister, and we woke early to head to the ocean on Friday.

The ocean was my favorite. This part of the vacation was absolutely unreasonable and totally necessary. We were told that the drive from Spartanburg to Charleston would take about three hours. With a stop for breakfast at Waffle House, Stefan's Yankee driving, and a car on fire on I-85, it took us four. We spent twenty minutes at the beach before we had to turn around and head back to Spartanburg to meet up with the Harts to head back to Atlanta for Nick's politics show. We spent fourteen hours driving that day. But, I saw the ocean for twenty goddamn minutes. I collected seashells, I held a starfish, and I tasted salt water.

Aside from a week off of work, the greatest benefit of my trip was simply the experience of traveling. I experienced Southern hospitality, cooking, driving, and... “diversity”. I experienced a tour schedule and a sleepless night in the plane, the train, and the automobile that got us to Atlanta from Madison. It was but one more taste of the world outside of Central Wisconsin, another one to whet my appetite for more, an experience worth even Atlanta and bad comedy.

21 to 2

A Complete Sexual History

The first time Stefan and I had sex, it was meant to be a rebound. Six years of marriage had just ended without closure, and I needed comfort. I needed a chance to reap the benefits of being alone in the midst of all of the bullshit of it.

He had the air of a stud, sexy and available. A few weeks earlier, he had left Nick and me at the bar, saying, “I've gotta go see about a girl.”

An hour later, he met us back at the Compound. “She was passed out.”

After just a few late nights of whiskey, weed, Perkins, burritos, coffee, movies, jokes, and more honesty than I've shared with anyone I've known less than six weeks, it was clear that behind the promiscuity he was a god damn sweetheart. After the first night, I knew this wouldn't end with a rebound.

“How many girls have you had sex with?” I asked him that first night. I wasn't sure if I was curious or concerned, but it seemed an appropriate question.

“Twenty-one.” He grinned a little sheepishly. “You make twenty-one. And you? How many guys?”

I returned the sheepish grin and rolled over so that I was staring at the ceiling, avoiding his eyes.

“Two.”

“So that makes me--”

“Number Two.”

Number 14 called him last week while he lay in bed with me. He checked the caller ID on his phone, rolled his eyes, and looked at me.

“This is my life,” he said reluctantly.

He only dated her for a brief period, but they have been friends for a long time. She had been in his bar that night, wasted, this girl with a job and a fiance, who never drinks. When he told her he was leaving town for the summer, she burst into tears.

“Oh my god! I'm going to miss you so much!”

He smiled and served her a glass of water. “It's not really a big deal. I'm coming back in a few months. Our relationship won't really change. At all.”

“I'm going to miss you so much!”

She wouldn't leave the bar without a hug, and she came back to knock on the door after she was kicked out.

“You've got to just go home,” he said. “Get home and sleep this off. We can talk in the morning.”

She called him four times before he left work, and he finally answered on his way home.

“We're having an afterparty!” she shouted drunkenly into the phone. “Come over!”

“I'm tired,” he replied. “I'm going home.”

He didn't answer when she called again. Four times between two-thirty, when he lay down next to me, and three a.m., when he finally turned his phone off.

“How is she still awake at three a.m. after leaving the bar so drunk?” I asked.

“She's gotta be doing drugs... she doesn't do drugs. I don't know. She's bored and unhappy.”

“I think we're at that point in our relationship where I should find your old girlfriends on Facebook, look at their pictures, and see how much prettier I am,” I mused a few days later.

“Oh, you probably don't have to do that to know,” he replied. “I can just tell you about them if you want to hear it.”

That sounded like it would get weird. Of course I wanted to hear it.

“It was just a string of sad and lonely people. Just sex,” he admitted. “We were satisfied to leave each other silently in the morning as long as we never had to spend a night alone.”

When I came to the Hart Compound the week before Christmas, Number 20 had left a tray of cookies at the door, an apology for Nick Hart. They called her “Ivy League”, a snob from Harvard who was entertained to be slumming around with them. She called Nick an asshole and Stefan, with disdain, “a bartender”.

They come into his bar a lot, more than any of us knows, I think.

He came up to me at the bar last night, lowered his eyes, and said, “There are five of you in here right now.”

I grinned and looked around, trying to imagine who the others might be. Number 19, 15, 9, 16, and me. I didn't know who any of them were, and none of them knew that I was there.

Number 19 was crazy. “I hooked up with her the night before she went into rehab and was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic.”

Number 9. “We were two sad and lonely people incapable of having a relationship. We had sex twice in one night, and moved on.”

Number 15 liked to do a lot of cocaine. They enjoyed a lot of late nights, talking and boozing until 7am.

Number 16. “That was just a one-night thing. A one...afternoon thing, actually. Word on the street is she loved to lick guys' assholes. She didn't do that for me.” He shook his head.

Number 18 was one of those Madison bicyclists who doesn't wear deodorant.

“She was beautiful,” he assured me, “and clean. She just didn't believe in underarm hygiene, apparently.”

I nodded and kept my face blank. Yeah, it was definitely going to get weird.

“How many girls have you had sex with, Lady?” he joked with me to refresh the mood.

I looked him in the eye with a straight face. “Four. Never alone. You know.”

He raised one eyebrow, surprised for a moment, then nodded. “Sure, I know.” Number 12 and 13 were roommates.

He met Number 11 while he was working at the Essen Haus. She was there with a bunch of girlfriends. They all ordered pastel-colored drinks that tasted like fake fruits. She ordered Scotch on the rocks, so he asked her out.

“The first thing she told me about herself was 'I'm never with a guy longer than three months'.”

After they had been dating that long, she finally asked to be his girlfriend. He accepted, but broke up with her the next day.

“I couldn't get that three-month mark out of my head. It was over.”

He met Number 7 on MySpace.

“I had just moved to Madison after a string of failed relationships in Ohio. I was lonely; I wanted her to be my girlfriend so bad.”

Number 8 was his girlfriend for a year when he was twenty-four. They had the same birthday, but she was four years younger. When they visited her parents for the holidays, he had to sleep on the couch in the basement.

“I'm disgusted with myself right now,” he admitted to me. “Sixteen girls in three years?”

“Fourteen of them in the last two years,” I pointed out.

He shook his head. “I could have done without most of them. Just you. And Number 8, she was my girlfriend. And Printer Girl; I guess that worked out. She gave me a six-minute joke.”

Printer Girl was Number 10; she was staying with his neighbor. She was cute, and her fiance had just dumped her. Stefan knocked on her door around four a.m. New Year's Eve, glanced to the guy on the couch behind her, introduced himself to her, and said,

“Anytime you want to fuck me, I'm right upstairs.”

A few days later, she was at his door. “No one has ever said anything like that in front of Mike.”

Number 3 “is currently trying to get me involved in a pyramid scheme. She told me she's starting her own business, and I can make a lot of money.”

Number 4 had lots of tattoos and she was fat. But she was nice, and they both liked Alkaline Trio.

He met Number 5 at a house party and just slept with her once.

“She was in high school. I thought she was eighteen,” he told me.

Number 2. “I had sex with her in the back of my van in the parking lot of her boyfriend's church. She was almost off of her period,” he added. “Her boyfriend wanted to murder me. Because we were friends. But, he stole her from me first.”

He has loved Number 6, Number 1, and Number 21.

He dated Number 6 for two years, until she left him for a rockstar. He fled to Madison to start over, and later brought her here to try again. They signed a lease and opened a bank account. They lived together for six more months, until he left her for his art.

“We still keep in touch. She does a lot less drugs than I do, so it usually takes her longer to call.”

Number One is raising his son.

I am probably just as crazy as the rest of them; only Number 22 can tell that.

Number 21. Our paths crossed with impeccable timing; two artists wanting to avoid the next lonely night, willing to accept the bitter truths of the past, living this moment without a thought for the next because every moment we've ever planned has passed by in spite of our plans.

We'll hold onto his twenty names and my six years, and move onto tomorrow with neither ignorance nor shame; and against the odds, we'll avoid sleeping alone for one more night.