It’s a dreary and drizzly Friday night, wipers on my ‘97 Nissan pickup are shit, and I swear these fucking headlights on cars nowadays are colluding with the mist and shiny asphalt to blind me. I’m meeting my homie Brian out for a cold one. At least that’s who you know him as. “Brian” and I were classmates in grad school. Two things stood out about him then: one, that I don’t remember a single thing what Brian said in workshop, but whatever it was he said critically about my fiction sounded really really smart–that I remember. And two, this asshole gets up on stage during karaoke night and pulls a Prince (Artist Formerly Known as Prince or whatever the late great went by back in 2014-2016). We’re talking high-pitch-feeling-himself -all-over-with-one-hand-while-holding-on-to-the-mic-with-the-other Prince.
Now “Brian’s” settled into a dimly lit booth at a billiards bar that offers us a cheap menu of hot dogs and pizzas only, but some pretty damn good porter. I hadn’t seen him since before graduation, when “Brian” was in a real funk. At his despair’s very height or low better to say was his ex-wife. She’d decided she was going to act every bit the c-word and not watch their two kids the weekend of our graduation. “Brian” did not get to march in our graduation ceremony.
That was then.
Now, it’s a novel that’s about 500 pages long at the moment, 200 of which “Brian” admits are pure shit. Who knows, these same pages may have found a dumpster by weekend’s end. Of course I ask “Brian” what it’s about and he happily obliges, though it’s arguably one of the most annoying questions you can ever ask a writer. He genuinely seems animated and happy to talk about it, though.
“Brian’s” on a self-inspired writer’s retreat this weekend. He’s ditched his new girlfriend at home, which, that’s a fun and poetic story unto itself–his girlfriend I mean, not the ditching. He found himself a cheap Air BNB above a bar in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, for a weekend steeped in his prose.
We swill, we catch up, we talk each other up. “Brian” was one of the few people I could stand being around in grad school and probably even now. Truth is I write a lot because it requires that I be alone for inordinate, freakishly long periods of time. I can put on a good face in public if I need to, which, for me, looks an awful lot like me just sitting back and listening to somebody’s shit or recycled stories, and cheering them on with more questions and laughter. Part of me, for the record, does resent the fact I don’t have that gift of the gab or the joke for just about every scenario that some dudes do. It’s incredible these guys’ range and ability to command a room. But for the most part, by just sitting back and listening all the time, it gives me plenty of shit to write about.
“Brian’s” a good egg. One of the very few who genuinely wants to see me succeed at this Things Men Carry. The feeling is mutual. If he crushes it before I do, I’m going to be one of the first assholes to “Brian’s” lavishly catered party.
And he’s precisely what the doctor ordered up that Friday night. Earlier in the week (speaking to this whole don’t-like -most -people-because-all-they-do-is-disappoint thing), my geek hire who was to help me get my site dressed up for its one year anniversary just walks out without saying a word. Of course I’m pissed. I’m still pissed. True story: Little bed wetter who still lives at home with his parents at 28 texts me and tells me he’s on the way. A couple hours go by. Umm, where are you? Nothing. I call him and–ya know what, fuck it. Is what it is.
But check it out: I don’t have a dressed up site yet. Instead, though, I’m sitting across from “Brian.” Yes, the same “Brian” who’s not really Brian, but goes by that name for us for obvious reasons having to do with this climate. The same “Brian” who authored that colorful and fun Wonder Woman piece earlier in the year (https://thingsmencarry.com/2021/01/02/dont-make-me-write-about-wonder-woman/). The same “Brian” who agreed to go toe to toe for three rounds over the vaccine for this journal. (Start here for that Conversation: https://thingsmencarry.com/2021/08/18/an-actual-conversation-this-time/)
And we’re still homies, imagine that.
What else happened this past year?
I had award winning poets and authors give me permission to reprint their work. (See Fiction section)
A Marine combat vet write this: https://thingsmencarry.com/2021/01/31/chasing-the-combat-dragon/
I’m on Twitter, fuck sake.
A few dozen followers, which, hey, if I’m a barber celebrating my one year old shop a few dozen ain’t so bad.
We have a resident chef! You’ll meet Ron next piece.
We even received a thoughtful, albeit snarky post-debate letter to the editor (https://thingsmencarry.com/2021/10/03/575/) from an academic lion, which I’m of course tempted to respond to. I’ll just say this about it:
Calling everyone who is against the vaccine a Cool Hand Luke or some other name, Mr. McRee, is not only snarky and thus its own form of alienation and divisiveness; worse it’s completely fucking inaccurate. Here at Things Men Carry, we pride ourselves on, and traffic in, accuracy. It’s precisely what we mean by “informed gentleman.” We’ll say it rather routinely here: only our opposites–our girlfriends and wives to be exact–are the only ones who get to act and sound nuts. Not us. Not here.
Sir, gentleman and of course scholar, do yourself a solid and peel away from old movies. Step away from academia. It’s a hell of a bubble. And instead, shit, I don’t know, maybe flirt with some black women online or even in person. Ya know the demographic that is so at risk. And if your significant other is understandably opposed to you taking out a gorgeous and smart and curvy Nubian to a comedy club one Friday night (It’s research, Honey, swear it), here ya go: she was a very high-level educator who has more degrees than you and I put together and walking around with a–wait for it– forged vaccine card.
Or my homie’s wife, a Labor and Delivery nurse of 14-plus years.
Or career firefighters.
Or:
Or this quack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNZE9hdBTEE
All antivaxxers resemble Mike? Pillow Mike, Professor McRee? Jesus.
Everyday this past year I’ve looked to the Heavens or across the tub if I’m having a dump or out the front windshield if I’m in the car on the way somewhere and here’s what I do: I pray. In many of my prayers, I get around to the part when I’m asking if I’m doing this right? Sometimes I’ll bounce this same query off my mother who’s up there with.
What a brilliant and hard-working intellect she was. Department head at her high school where she taught French. What impresses the hell out of me most about that is that she was from Portugal, Sao Miguel to be exact, and came over to the Statue of Liberty around the age of sixteen. She graduated early in English-speaking America, and yeah–hell yeah!–taught French.
My mother also had faraway crushes on Jean Paul (Sartre) and Albert (Camus) and nearer-home crushes on a guy named Tom, who she might very well have had an affair with. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did.
Just getting started, too. Going places until cancer. I imagine her becoming a college professor or ambassador or even in some third world country, stirring the pot, fighting American hegemony somewhere. It’s because my mother was also a French existentialist and a social humanist, I’m sure of it. It’s easy, really, picturing her teaching young illiterate soldiers basic math on the sand with a stick, and of course French. Maybe even slipping in the fart sack with the charismatic, long-haired guerilla leader to give him a handy, help close his other eye to sleep. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did.
I don’t remember too much about what she said the time or times she came to my prep school to teach us sophomores (juniors, seniors?) existential literature. It wasn’t until sometime in my early twenties when I’d pull similar intellectual stunts like my mother and read Kierkegaard’s treatises on Social Humanism in the middle of summer; ya know, for fun. All I remember–all I need to remember– is that my mother was so amped and so happy to be in my classroom.
So yeah, how am I doing? I hear the question all the time to myself. Am I using the right voice? Is this what irreverent but informed is supposed to look like? Shit, with 8 years of Jesuit education under my belt, a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, and a shit ton of read books, shouldn’t I be using bigger words than, shit, “shit ton?”
It started just over a year ago, this notion that we were going to do shit just a little different around here. Hope I’ve achieved some of that. Looking forward to the next year.
How’d I do, Manh?
Things Men Carry 