More Vivid than Sunsets

“Oh, so, Ashley and I were texting during my shift last night, and this was funny, so…”  Aaron looked up from setting out the coffee supplies for church that morning.

“Texting, huh?  How long were you at that?”

“I dunno,” I said, “Like seven hours, on and off?  It started out debating politics.  But she said…”

“You were texting with her for seven hours?”

“Oh my God.  Yes.  Anyway…”

“And that doesn’t mean anything to you?  I didn’t even think you like texting.”

“Listen, I…”

“Hi!”  We turned to see an older woman, extending a handshake to me.  I accepted it, and she introduced herself as the mother of one of the college kids that attended there.  We talked for a minute, before she looked at the situation.  “Oh, goodness, I’m sorry.  Here you guys are working, and I’m interrupting you.”

“No, it’s fine.  We’re not busy.  Well, I mean, he’s working,” I said, pointing toward Aaron, “but I’m just talking about a girl.”

“A girl, huh?” Aaron asked, perking back up.

“Yes.  Really?  That was more a statement of biological fact than a hinting of interest.”  He eyed me up suspiciously, then nodded knowingly.

“Okay.  You boys have a nice day,” she said, walking away.

“Oh, yes, you, too!  Nice to meet you.”  I turned back to see Aaron disappearing back into the stairway that led to the kitchen.  “Oh, for…I didn’t even get to tell you the joke!”  I sighed and walked back to the tech booth as my phone alerted me I had a new message.

I got off work at 7 in the morning and hurried to the bus stop so I wouldn’t miss my lift home.  After a half hour and two buses, I rushed in through my apartment door and checked to make sure my roommate was ready to go.  He wasn’t.  I took the opportunity to change, and then we headed south.  We arrived in Easthampton, and I headed over to find the guy I was meeting to buy his truck.

It was an old F-150, heavily worn with no radio, a bed full of leaves, a mislabeled title, a temperature control that was stuck somewhere between hot and cold, and an average gas mileage of about 7.  I had fallen in love with it instantly and decided that $400 was a perfectly sensible price for it.  After making sure everything was clear and I was good to go, I gave my roommate some gas money, slapped my old expired PA plate on it, and headed off to the RMV.

The line was incredibly long.  I checked the estimated wait time against the current time, checked my calendar for events, then sent a text that I might be a bit late.  My turn finally came around, and I explained that I had to switch my license over and put a truck in my name and on the road.  They told me the price, which was altogether almost as much as I paid for the truck in the first place, which I felt was completely ridiculous.  Then I found out that I couldn’t pay for most of the transaction with my card, because they only accept cash arbitrarily.  I ran down the street, hit a bank, got the money, and hurried back.  I skipped past the line and went back to the person I’d gone to before, who was now waiting on someone else.  As soon as they were done, I jumped in to finish the transaction.  I had to take a vision test, and fill out some forms, and the entire matter seemed much more complicated than necessary and longer than I’d hoped.

I hurried back to Amherst, coming up on noon.  I’d been told that being late was fine, and the time was set back a bit to accommodate.  I realized I had just enough time, so I went home and cleaned out as much of the truck bed as I could, then took it down and ran it through a car wash with the tailgate down to finish it off.  It was after noon, and I was starting to feel the effects of working the night before.  I headed over to the dorms.

Ashley and I went and saw the second showing of “Shutter Island”, instead of the first, as we’d originally planned.  We enjoyed the movie, and on the way out convinced the staff to let her take the large cardboard sign for it with us.  We took it apart and I pulled my truck around, laying it in the back and securing it down before we headed out to lunch.  We talked about the movie and the stars in it and how things were going in life, and finally I mentioned that I should probably get to bed as I had to work again at 10 that night.  She was surprised that I’d stayed up as long as I had.  I took her back to her dorm, helped her get the sign inside, and then went home and passed out.

“So, how was your date?” Dan asked, later.  “It was a date, right?”

“I…no, I guess not.”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, it was never really stated.  And I tend to use one very simple definition for a date: it’s only a date if both people believe it to be one.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe.”

“Does she?”

“I didn’t ask.”  And to date, I never have.

I worked as a remodel associate at Walmart for a full two months longer than I was supposed to, because the job ran over its deadline.  When I first started, personnel wasn’t willing to put a heavy investment in the temps, so instead of the nice printed nametags everyone else had we just had blank ones with “Remodel” written on them in sharpie.  Mine wore off in August, and after a couple days of leaving it blank I started bringing a dry erase marker to work with me and changing my job title every day, to see how long it would take management to notice.  Over the course of that time, I held a host of titles, including “Nobel Laureate”, “Employee of the Month”, “Time Magazine Man of the Year”, “Resident Astrobiologist”, “Professor Emeritus”, and even wore an official “Department Manager” one that someone let me borrow because they thought my idea was hilarious.

I bought my own hard hat and took it home, painting it black and red and writing my name in Greek on the back.  I took the tests needed to enter every level of management up to regional manager and passed, just for the hell of it.  I made friends with as many people kicking around as I could, got into an awkward relationship with a girl who was engaged to the manager of the next department over where everyone on my team was certain we were dating when no one was looking, and went out of my way to get certified to operate every piece of machinery in the store, most of which I already knew how to use from previous jobs.  I didn’t like the idea of temporary employment.  I’d never tried it before and decided I didn’t want to start now.  I intended to be memorable.

The store manager called me aside in November.  He informed me that he needed a new backroom inventory associate, someone he could trust to take charge of the place and completely turn it around and be clever enough to keep up with it.  He informed me that, on top of the task itself, it was the type of job where proving myself in it could get me promoted within the company rather quickly.  It was overnight, and I would be getting a noticeable raise.  The position was supposed to be part-time, but he sat down with personnel and manually changed it to full-time for me.  I thanked him and accepted the offer.  On my way out of the office, he stopped me.

“By the way,” he said, glancing over.  “Please erase ‘Batman’ off your nametag.”

“Sure thing, boss,” I said, wiping it off with a smile and heading out.

My brothers decided early in their teens to be hardline Republicans, much like Dad.  And I, well, I prefer the GOP over the Democratic party on most issues, but I was hesitant to sign up for either and am now listed as a Libertarian.  But as part of their ideals, they decided that the best way they could help with campaigns at their age was to go out and make sure the other guys were less visible.  By that, I mean that they would steal those yard signs, any yard sign for a candidate that wasn’t a Republican.

They would go out at night and gather as many as they could, and hide them in the shed, until Dad noticed that there was a ton of them in there and demand the shed be cleaned out, at which point those that had been gathered so far would be burned.  I went with them a couple times, at least partly because it seemed like an acceptable form of vandalism at the time.

There’s a union hall in Farrell that was especially notable.  They would cover the entire front of the building with these things, just taped up there and urging everyone to vote for every Democrat on the ballot.  We cleaned them out, and they would return with more.  This went on for two weeks, going back and forth.  Finally, they abandoned hope that their signs would stay.

To this day, above the front door in black letters, the building simply says, “Vote Democrat”.

As the sound guy for the church, I felt that my position went beyond showing up a bit early on Sunday and pushing some sliders around for a couple hours before shutting it all off and rushing out the door.  I began to view it more and more as an act of service and a means of worshipping God, and devoted more time and thought to it.  The actual act of setting aside time wasn’t alien to me - I’d already been doing it at previous churches, though it was more of a requirement than anything.  The first time I arrived at a Monday night band practice and was met with surprise and explanation that I wasn’t expected to do so, I had to make a choice, really for the first time, about whether or not my service to this ministry and Christ was worth me doing so anyway.

Over the course of those Mondays, I became friends with members of the worship team, and was eventually invited to join them afterwards as they met at a local microbrewery and had some dinner and discussion.  They had amazing food, and two of the guys were the type who would get a beer and discuss at length the various qualities of it.  Even when I drank, I didn’t drink beer or wax poetic about it, but I gladly accepted.

The keyboardist and one of the singers, Susannah, one day asked about bringing a friend of hers.  We all encouraged her to do so, and the friend apparently agreed to meet us there.  Her name was Ashley, and we ended up sitting next to each other and having a bit of a side conversation based on the fact that we were both relatively new to the group, and in the process uncovered some common interests.  She agreed to keep meeting us after practice.

A couple weeks later, a few of us were a bit tighter on cash and didn’t really want to go buy the food there, but the drummer pointed out that he had some homebrew he’d made that he was wanting us to try.  It was pointed out that that was all well and good, but he lived in a dorm, and as such space was somewhat limited at his place.  I pointed out that I lived just over a mile away and had a rather large apartment, and they decided to come see it.  We split into groups, with one taking Corey to get the homebrew from his dorm and the other going to pick up Ashley and get me home to open the door.

My roommate Chris was playing the multiplayer maps on Modern Warfare 2, on the big flatscreen with the surround sound going.  I informed him that I had offered up our place to hang out, and he just kinda went along with it.  He was offered a glass of the homebrew, which he accepted.  Ashley and I declined.  Chris and I sat in chairs on either end of the couch, with Ashley on my end of the couch and the others over by Chris, who continued to play his game while discussing the qualities of the beer.  We had been messing with Cindy, the worship leader, about the fact that we were technically a Baptist church but she only owned a Methodist hymnal (mostly the same, but it was amusing anyway), so I showed her my Baptist one I’d been given at Open Door.  They got all excited digging through and started singing some of the songs to the backdrop of the war on surround sound.

Ashley and I, meanwhile, got to talking about movies.  She was a huge DiCaprio fan, and he had a movie coming out in about a month, which she was rather excited to go see.  She invited me to join her, which I decided to do.  We spent the rest of the evening chatting and getting to know one another against the somewhat odd backdrop.

I parked my dad’s car I was borrowing in the gravel lot next to the reception hall and finished my cigarette before walking up to peek through the glass doors and see how it was going.  I didn’t want to just walk in, as I hadn’t been invited to the wedding and wasn’t dressed for the matter, but I wasn’t sure where Tess was or if she had her phone on.

It was October, and I had already been planning to come home around this time anyway.  I don’t really remember why.  But Tess had informed me that one of her friends from Sharon, whom I knew only adjacently, was getting married and she would be coming in from Arizona for the wedding, and that I needed to time my visit such that we would both be in town on at least one of the same days and could hang out.  So I did, and now I was being asked to pick her up from the reception so we could head into town to find the others.  They knew I was in town, but her presence was planned to be a surprise.

I found that the reception was over, and they were in the process of cleaning up.  I ran into a couple other people I knew but hadn’t seen since high school, until I found Tess and her son, Miles.  She gave me a hug as we greeted each other, and gathered up her things.  I carried the car seat and figured out how it connected to the seat and seatbelt while she got Miles walking and grabbed the bag of supplies she had for him.  I took the bag and took it around to the other side of the backseat as she buckled him in, and we headed off to her uncle’s where she was staying and would be dropping Miles off before our visit to town.

It felt alien and comfortable and wrong, helping her unpack the car and get the boy inside to get ready for bed.  I realized in that moment, this brief glimpse of what her life was like now (without her husband, who hadn’t been able to make the trip), that it had never really been meant to be.  I still wanted her, and would have gladly taken on this life if it was with her, but that wasn’t really an option and never had been.  Assuming she had ever had the sort of feelings for me that could handle such a life, our differing personalities and outlooks and desires and beliefs (especially now that mine was becoming more clear and focused) would not allow such a relationship to work.  We would never be comfortable or able to properly, fully, enjoy ourselves and each other.  We had always been doomed, this realization had always been coming.  And it was for the best for both of us that we didn’t come to that realization during a committed relationship.  I found myself heavily disappointed and a bit depressed, and was quiet in thought until she came back down the stairs in a lighter dress and smiled at me, a gesture I was incapable of failing to return.

We went to Randy’s.  We talked and caught up and joked around on the way, and I put my thoughts about us and desires for her in the back of my mind and just enjoyed what little of it was available to me.  We arrived to find Josh, Randy, Aerial, Ben, and Ben’s girlfriend Patti whom I hadn’t yet met, hanging out.  There was a long moment of excitement and greeting, as they welcomed me back to town and then lost sight of me as Tess stuck her head out and revealed herself.  We hung out for hours, telling stories as the room slowly acquired cigarette smoke.  Josh subconsciously made it known that he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the fact that Tess was married, and she indirectly acknowledged that both he and I still had interest in her, while I tried (and failed) to focus on other matters.

Ben and Patti headed out first.  We all said our goodbyes, and she hugged a few people she already knew, and they disappeared out of the room.  Then she came back, alone, and gave me a hug goodnight.  I gave her ass a quick squeeze, though I’m not sure why I felt that was a good or acceptable idea at the time.  She looked surprised, gave me a joking slap and then a smile, and bounded back out of the room.  I would realize upon getting online later that she had apparently gone home with Ben and then immediately found and added me on facebook.

Tess and I left next.  We talked a bit about how the visit had gone while avoiding directly talking about our past or whatever feelings still might have existed between us.  I left her at her uncle’s, after a short and somewhat awkward goodnight. I watched her walk into the house, sat for another second accepting the idea that she was gone, and then drove away.

When I arrived at church the following Sunday, I was approached about running sound again.  Turns out they only had one other person at the time who did it, and he was away and would soon be part of a church plant team being sent out, which meant that they would quickly find themselves with no one.  I agreed and took a seat at the tech table.  I met the guy who normally did computer, a teenage son of the pastor, and we did our introductions while I waited for Carolyn.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we got together every Sunday and sometimes during the week.  We had connected by way of our various social media sites, and my brother had become her friend on Facebook.  I didn’t really use most of the online methods for interaction, but it was nice to have them available.  I felt like things were moving in a positive direction, and decided that it was time to see if she was willing to just give it a shot.  I planned a rather nice evening for us, made sure she was free, and waited expectedly for that coming Friday.

The day before, she called me and informed me that she had a family emergency, her sister was in the hospital, and she needed to go see her family and didn’t think we were far enough along to bring me along yet.  I told her I understood, and asked her to wish everyone well and promised to pray for her sister.  She thanked me, told me we’d reschedule when she got back, and hung up.

I sent her a text on Sunday, asking how her sister was doing.  She didn’t reply.  My brother texted me the next day, asking who some guy was.  I didn’t recognize the name, and told him so, and asked why.  He informed me that Carolyn had changed her relationship status on Facebook to dating this guy, then dropped my brother and I.  I checked my computer, and found that she had cut me off on there as well as twitter.  I checked her blog, where she had a picture of her with this guy and explained that she had spent the weekend at a cabin with him and their relationship was going great.

I called her to ask what was going on.  She didn’t answer and never called back.  A few weeks later, my birthday came around.  I called up the small number of people I’d become friends with, to see about going out to a movie or something, but none of them were available.  I sent Carolyn an invite, as well.  In the end, only my roommate came with me.  I don’t remember what we saw.  I just remember deleting Carolyn out of my phone after the movie and never hearing from her again.

Well. that’s not entirely true.  Over the course of that week, I had begun talking to a woman named Carolyn who I met through the same site I’d met Melody.  She was rather attractive, an artist, and seemed cool.  She was also looking for a new church, and I had mentioned that I was considering checking out MERCYhouse again but wasn’t sure if I should try elsewhere first.  We agreed to go there that following Sunday to meet for the first time, and go to lunch from there.

I arrived early, partially because I couldn’t remember what time the service started and partially because I was excited about meeting her.  I wandered around for a bit while the worship team set up, and got recruited into helping fold bulletins, with a man whom I learned was the pastor, Robert.  I asked him some questions about the church, and got good, solid answers.  I also found out that he wasn’t preaching that week, either, as he was originally supposed to be elsewhere again and had made arrangements accordingly.

I was sitting in the back of the church by myself, watching the worship team practice, when I noticed the worship leader leave the stage after a song, run to the back, make some changes on the sound mixer, and head back up.  I sat forward, debating in my head.  When she left the stage again a few minutes later, I met her at the table.

“Hey, do you have or need someone to do that?  You can’t really be running back here midservice,” I said.  She looked up.

“Do you have any experience with this?”

“Roughly 19 years.”

“Awesome!  Here’s what channels we’re in.”  She pointed them out to me, we exchanged names, and she ran back up to the stage and I sat down, excited to be running sound again.  It had been months since I’d been behind a mixer, and I wasn’t used to that.  After a little while, the laptop that controlled the slideshow was set up, and I overheard that they didn’t have the usual guy available to run it and were trying to figure out who else knew how.  I pointed out that I did, and they gladly handed it over.  Carolyn arrived to the news that, while she didn’t have to do anything, I’d been recruited to work and if she was sitting with me she was sitting at the tech table.  She seemed okay with that.  We had just enough time before service to do our introductions and chat a bit.

During the service, she sat at the computer, because that was the only available space at the table.  I ran the sound and the show, the latter of which only really required that I reach over and tap a button whenever the verse changed.  After the service, while I was cleaning up and we were talking, people kept complimenting her on how well the slideshow went.  I chuckled, she had trouble keeping up with telling them that she wasn’t doing it.

We hit up one of the sit-down restaurants in Hadley, then went back to my place.  She wanted to see some of my artwork, and had one of her moleskines with her.  I admitted that I had nothing so fancy, and pulled out a box of sketchbooks.  She flipped through some while I was looking at her stuff, and started asking me why they all seemed to only be half-filled and none of the art was 2-sided.  The thing is, I don’t always carry a notebook to write in or a sketchbook to draw in, and back when I had more disposable income, I would just have an idea strike me and go out and buy the relevant one, keep it in my car for a while where I would add to it, then bring it inside to finish something, forget it there, and do it all over again.  And something about drawing on the back of a drawing just seems abhorrent to me, I honestly don’t know why.  She was appalled at the waste of paper, and made a point to explain her stance on the matter in far more words than I will even attempt to recall here.

She explained that she wasn’t ready for a relationship yet.  She’d just come out of a divorce, and wanted to make sure there was a stronger foundation first.  I agreed not to rush things.  We made plans to meet at the church again the following week, with some joking speculation about whether or not I’d be working again, and she headed out.

I had attended a church called North Leverett Baptist with a girl from work, who was quickly becoming a friend, named Nikki and her family; and while I liked the church, I felt like I should keep looking around.  Mainly because I didn’t have a way to get there without relying on a teenage girl.  So, the next Sunday, I got up early and started walking south toward the center of town.  The plan was to hit up First Baptist, as I’d considered during my five-hour-long walk a few weeks before.  When I got to the building, though, I looked at the service times and realized I’d be walking in late.  I thought about it for a moment, then decided to see if there were any others around that started service a bit later.

I continued down North Pleasant and noticed a place called MERCYhouse.  Well, I say ‘noticed’, but I’d seen it a number of times and noticed that the architecture was clearly that of a church, but had been cautious about considering it for anything.  Every church I’d ever encountered with a one-word name tended to be a bit goofy at best and outright heretical at worst.  But I noticed that the service hadn’t started yet, and it was close enough, so I shrugged and headed in.

I heard music I was familiar with, from growing up in contemporary worship services.  The preaching was rather good, and the message really hit me, although I learned after the service that the actual pastor was away that week helping with a youth camp.  I really liked it, but I hadn’t yet checked out anywhere else and I hadn’t met the pastor yet.  I decided to try this place again the following week, and then try First Baptist again the week after.

I had found a second job, at Walmart, helping with the remodeling of the store.  It paid marginally better than Friendly’s, but had the benefit of giving me 40 hours a week.  I had dropped my Friendly’s time down to just weekends to accommodate.  I tended to show up early, as I had to take the bus when I had money and walk when I didn’t.  On my way to the back room, I noticed a couple men in suits looking at stationary and paused.

“Brandon?” I asked, surprised.  He turned, and a broad smile crossed his face.

“Hey!  *!”  He turned to the guy with him.  “This is one of the guys from Boston I was telling you about!”

“Oh,” the other guy replied, extending a hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

“And yourself,” I said, giving him a handshake.  “What are you doing here?”

“Well, we all got sent away from Boston, you know.  They sent me to Amherst.”

“No kidding!  I live in Amherst, up in Puffton Village.”

“Really?  We’re in an apartment not a mile down the road from there!  We need to meet up sometime!”

“Absolutely!”  I gave him my address and cell phone number, took his new one (they’d given him a new phone), and we discussed a good time for them to swing by.  I couldn’t help but notice that the other missionary seemed much less excited about the prospect than I would expect.

Brandon never called.  I learned from his sister’s facebook, just before she dropped me on it, that he had been sent back to Utah shortly after that encounter and was removed from missionary work entirely.  He had served less than half of the time required of him.  I’ve never heard from him, or any of the others, since.

I stood on the side of route 20 in Brimfield, staring at the engine in my Oldsmobile through the thick steam rolling off it.  It was dead, but I wasn’t yet willing to accept that.  Well, it, and the transmission, and the radiator.  They had all gone at, apparently, the same time.  I’m not entirely sure what the chances of that are, but I wasn’t thinking about statistics at the moment.

I had moved to Amherst a few weeks earlier, and was on my way home from spending the weekend with Melody on the Cape, where her family had a cabin.  It had started giving me problems earlier, trying to overheat, and I’d removed the cap from the radiator overflow and had it explode coolant all over my face and hands just before arriving at her house.  I was fine, and my glasses had protected my eyes, but I was hesitant to touch anything just yet.  So I walked over to the guardrail and sat down to wait.  It wasn’t long, however, before a police car pulled up behind mine.  I sighed and walked over.

He walked around the car, and we talked about what was going on with it.  He told me he’d heard me going through the center of town, with my engine making a terrible noise that he suspected meant I wouldn’t make it very far.  We agreed that it wouldn’t be able to get me back to Amherst, and he called for a tow truck.  I texted my roommate, Chris, and asked if he could give me a ride home.  He was on his way to work, but offered to come get me when he got off if I still needed it.  The officer offered to give me a ride to Palmer, the next town over, but informed me I’d be on my own from there.  I pulled my trenchcoat out of the car, accepted the offer, and watched my only means of transport get dragged back to Brimfield.  I started texting Melody to see what could be done about the situation.

“By the way,” the officer said through the window into the backseat as we started down 20.  “How long have you been living in Amherst?”

“I dunno, a week or so?  Why?”

“Well, you still have Ohio plates on that car, and I want you to know that there’s a time limit on getting that updated.”

“Oh, okay.  Thanks.  I’ll look into it.”  My phone vibrated, and I picked it up and read the text and started to reply.

“Also, the registration was expired.”  I looked up.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  I’m not gonna cite you for it, it seems like you’ve had a rough day as it is, but why didn’t you get it taken care of?”

“I didn’t notice it expired,” I said, returning to my phone.

“Oh, don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not in the practice of lying, officer.”

“There’s no way you didn’t notice the registration was expired and I’ll not have you sitting here telling me otherwise when I’m being nice enough not to cite you for it.”  I set the phone in my lap.

“Now listen here.  I haven’t had that car very long.  There was an issue with it and I couldn’t bring it up here with me until very recently.  In the meantime, it had been sitting at my dad’s for a few months until I could get it fixed.  The registration must’ve gone at some point while it was there, so, yes, I didn’t notice it.  I’m sorry you find it so difficult to believe someone wouldn’t notice a tiny sticker on the back plate of a car they don’t even have in their possession, but the last thing I need right now is a lecture and accusation from someone that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to find a way home that doesn’t involve walking across a state I don’t know anything about.”  I picked my phone up and resumed my conversation.  The officer was silent the rest of the way to Palmer, and dropped me off rather unceremoniously in the front of a plaza.  Melody called.

She pointed out that she would like to offer to come give me a ride home, but seeing as how neither of us knew where I was and it would take her two hours to reach me, it likely wasn’t worth it.  I disagreed, but didn’t put up much of a fight.  I had other concerns.  Namely, the fact that I had promised to do most of the driving in our relationship, and now I didn’t have a car unless I could find a way to get mine towed to my apartment and figure out how to fix it.  Which, finally speaking, was nearly impossible - and with the tools I had at my disposal, would take far too long to be practical.  She agreed that this posed a significant problem.  It posed, in fact, the very problem that made her hesitant to commit to an actual relationship with me in the first place.  Enough of a problem that we were done.  The relationship wasn’t going to last with me being two hours away and without a vehicle.

I started walking.  I had nothing left to rely on.  I was eight hours away from my nearest family.  I was two hours away from my nearest friends, and to them it may as well have been a continent away.  My job didn’t have enough hours or a high enough pay for me to get by with it alone, and so far my search for a second job wasn’t panning out.  I’d been rejected from UMass on the grounds that I didn’t have enough credits to transfer, and I hadn’t found a church.  For the first time in my life, all I had was God.  I must’ve looked crazy, discussing the matter out loud as I walked up 181, but I didn’t know how else to handle it at the moment.  I needed help.

I came across a small stand next to a horse farm where a lady was selling fresh apples from elsewhere on the property.  She asked where I was going, and I told her my car had died and I was walking to Amherst.  She seemed more aware of the distance than I was, and gave me an apple for a bit of extra energy.  I thanked her, we talked for a minute, and then I continued on my way.  As I walked, I considered my options.  I decided, among other things, that I would need to find a church that I could reasonably walk to.  Probably First Baptist, down next to the campus.  Seemed legit enough.  I decided to check them out the following Sunday.

A few hours after the apple stand, I came across a path cutting through the woods.  The road had become 202 already, and I gathered that the direction the road went and the angle the path came off seemed like it would be a shortcut up toward Amherst.  I turned off and headed into the woods.  The sun was beginning to set, and the shadows were getting long.  I found that the trail was much longer than I’d expected, and occasionally ran beside some train tracks.  After a while, I could barely see the trail ahead, and was beginning to wonder why I turned off the main road in the first place.  I finally came to a road, which looked rural and unfamiliar, but I decided it was as good as I was gonna get.  I got my bearings and turned what I figured would be the right direction.  After a while, I found myself in downtown Belchertown, which I only knew as the funny-named town next to Amherst.  It had been over four hours, and my legs were killing me, but I figured I was nearly home.  But I was incredibly hungry.  I checked my pocket, and found a little over two dollars left to my name from the gas money I’d started with on Saturday morning.  I headed to Dunkin Donuts.

The place was in the process of remodeling, and would be moving soon.  The guy behind the counter looked bored.  I ordered two sets of hash browns, figuring they were good and cheap and would get me home where I could have a proper meal.  He informed me that they were out, because a lot of their inventory was already being moved.  This store would be closed in two days, after all.  I showed him how much money I had, told him I’d been walking since Palmer and was heading to Amherst, hadn’t eaten since breakfast with the woman who just broke up with me, and asked him to just find something on the menu I could afford.  He pulled out a Turkey Cheddar Bacon flat, gave me an employee discount, and went to heat it up.

I hate cheddar.  Well, I should specify.  I hate cheese, especially strong cheeses.  I didn’t want to tell him that, though, because he was being so nice to me and at that point I just wanted food in my stomach.  When I tried it, I was amazed.  It was probably just the hunger, but I’d never had a sandwich so good in my life.  I’ve since become a fan of that sandwich, and every time I eat one I’m reminded of that guy I didn’t know that helped me out.

As I made my way down 9, thinking Amherst would be right around the next bend, it started to rain.  I pulled out my jacket and put it on, but quickly started to overheat and had to hold it over my head instead.  There were no lights, and my phone’s battery was dying, so I shut it off and held it in such a way that the reflective surface would, hopefully, use approaching headlights to alert drivers of my presence.  I turned it back on, briefly, every now and then to check the time.  Finally, Chris texted and asked where I was.  I told him what I could, and he said he was on his way.  I walked another half hour or so, finally coming upon Dwight Chapel, where I sent him another text with the landmark.  He said he knew where that was, and would be along shortly.  I sat down, finally, and waited.  After about twenty minutes, I realized that I was actually at a sign that said Dwight Chapel was a couple miles down the road, and that Chris was probably waiting for me somewhere else.  I got up and continued on my way.  When we found each other, I was soaked, and tired, and depressed, and hungry.  I opened the door to his car to hear “Holland, 1945” by Neutral Milk Hotel playing.

“Good song,” I said, tiredly, sitting down and closing the door.

“You know Neutral Milk Hotel?!”

“Yeah, big fan.”

“You just got a lot more awesome,” he said, turning the car around.  I laughed, and we spent the rest of the ride back talking about music and finally getting to know each other.

I’ve been gathering some new followers, so I feel like I should explain briefly what you’re stumbling upon.

This blog started out as a place to explore some aspects of my past that I wasn’t comfortable putting on my public profiles.  As such, it covers aspects of my life that some may not be entirely comfortable reading.  I apologize.  Over time, however, it changed.  First it started to take on qualities of a retrospective on what life was like growing up in the environment I came from.  Then it started to form a collective narrative, and I realized that it wouldn’t do to just have that - as a Christian, I couldn’t let that be the entirety of the message this blog puts out there.  So I began to follow that up with the way my life started to shift away from its past.

The ‘books’ on the sidebar aren’t actual books, they’re a way to sort these posts into where they belong.  Each one has a common theme.  The progression of the blog itself is currently in a state where it is holding two time periods in comparison.  The blog in general is not really in any sort of order, especially not chronological.  This may cause confusion.  Again, I apologize, but it is the nature of the beast.

I have, for some time, had this blog open to other voices.  To other people who have stories that they would like to share.  So far, two people have taken that option.  I also accept asks, though I’ve received very few.  While the bulk of the posts have been my own life and experiences, and it has a very personal concept, I want it to be interactive.  As such, I encourage you to interact with it.  If this is merely reading, then fine.  But if you feel you would like to get more out of it, I want you to know that I have created avenues for that and will be glad to see them used.

Thank you.  Sincerely,

*

I was sitting on the side of my bed, in my apartment in Hubbard.  Tess stopped in the doorway, looking in on me.  I glanced up, forced a smile, and she walked in and sat down next to me.

“You know I’m married now,” she said, looking off.

“I know.”  I looked back at the papers strewn across the floor.  “But you’re here for a reason.”

“Tell me the truth.”  I hesitated.  She stared at me.  I sighed.

“I love you.  I’ve always loved you, and I don’t think anything in this world will make me stop.”  I turned to her.  “I’ll always love you.”  She turned away, and I laid back.  After a minute, she laid down next to me.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“I’ve never wanted anything from you.  I just want you.”  She rolled over toward me and I wrapped my arm around her.  I kissed her forehead, and she smiled.

I sat up on my mattress on the floor of my apartment in Norwood.  It was four in the morning, and I was alone.  I got up, opened the window, and leaned out it to smoke a cigarette.  I knew in that moment that Melody and I wouldn’t make it.  It was another variant on the same dream I always had just a bit before a relationship ended.  Tess had burrowed her way into my subconscious as an omen of doomed affection and my own failings as a romantic partner.

“It’s nothing,” I muttered to myself, taking a long drag and watching the smoke color the moon.  “I’m just worried about moving next week.”