Close Calls

Names (and nicknames) have been changed.

Lumberton, North Carolina. Mid 1980s.

Wal-Mart has come to Lumberton. It is not the 24 hour Super Center store that, in the mid-1990s, began sprouting up all over the country. This Wal-Mart does not sell groceries.

It is one of the biggest events in this town’s economic history. Later, when I am old enough to understand and care, I will learn that Sam Walton himself was there for the Grand Opening.

I have never liked shopping that much. Often, I instinctively tell my parents that I prefer to sit in the car and wait while they go inside whatever store it is and buy what they need to buy.

This evening, I am riding back with my Dad from somewhere. He needs to make a quick stop at Wal-Mart before we head to the house. When he parks in the lot, I tell him that I will wait in the pickup truck, a navy blue Chevy S10, while he runs inside.

So I sit quietly, watching people coming and going. Night has fallen.



I look to the back of the parking lot, farthest away from the store and from the fluorescent lamps.

There sets a huge, shiny transfer truck.

Many young boys want to be firemen, policemen, or athletes when they grow up. I have some thoughts of becoming a professional baseball player, but even at a young age I realize that I do not have the talent for it. A more serious thought is that I want to be a truck driver when I grow up. The idea of life on the open road, seeing the country, eating at restaurants or truck stops all the time, is very appealing to me.

What is unusual about this transfer truck is that it is pink in color. I have never seen a pink tractor trailer truck before, and I want to get a closer look. I clamber out of Dad’s pickup and walk to the back of the lot.

Whoever drives this truck takes real care of it. The chrome of the wheels and bumpers is polished. It is very clean.

Why is the truck pink, I wonder.

“Would you like to see the inside?”

I turn around, and a man is standing behind me.

“Sure, that would be neat,” I respond.

The man steps up on the running board and opens the passenger side door.

“Step up here,” he says. “I will go around to the other side.”

I am too short to see much of the inside of the truck from standing on the running board, so I climb up into the cabin.

The man is already up in the driver’s seat.

The inside of the truck is covered in dark red leather. I am fascinated by all the gears and instruments on the panels. It also has a sleeper cabin. The man tries to explain to me what the different knobs and gauges are for. As he points to things, his hand comes a little close to the scruff of my neck.

This sets off warning bells in my head. That is not something people usually do with me, not even my parents.

“I’ll start up the engine so you can see how it works,” the man says.

“That’s okay,” I say, and hop down out of the truck as quickly as I can.

I do not shut the door, and hustle back toward the front of the store and Dad’s pickup.

When I get to the pickup, I turn around and look back at the pink transfer truck. The man has cranked the engine, and the big piece of machinery is slowly rolling off the lot, probably toward Interstate 95, which is just a couple of miles down the road.

Perhaps the man was okay, but it was unusual for me to suddenly feel a warning like that.

When Dad comes out of the store, I tell him what happened. He gets angry with me.

“Don’t ever do anything like that again!” he says. “That man could have driven off with you, and I would have no idea what happened to you.”



***

Mid 1980s.

I am standing outside Allenton elementary school at recess, talking to my friends.

Suddenly, I get hit from behind and go to the ground.

Punching me is George, a fellow sixth grader whom everyone picks on for some reason. George makes low grades, misses school a lot, and I think his home life is not the best situation.

Maybe even I have talked about George behind his back, though I have nothing against him. If I have said things, it is because everyone else does it and I want to fit in with the group. This is probably why George has tackled me and is now hitting me. He and I are both small for our age, and he figures that he can take me on in a fight.

I am able to push him off me, though, and quickly get to my feet. While he is still on the ground, I kick him as hard as I can in the ribs.



He gets up and stands in my face.

“Kick a man while he’s down, do ya?” He mutters to me, nose to nose.

I really do not want to fight, and I can tell he does not, either. We let other students separate us.

Word gets back to the teachers about what happened. Rightly or wrongly, George gets punishment of some sort. Nothing happens to me, though, as I am an honor roll student and did not start the fight- at least I did not physically start it.

Later that year, the fight forgotten about, one of the janitors asks George and me to help him empty some trash into the dumpsters behind the cafeteria after lunch. This will make us late going back to class.

As the janitor slides the metal door open to the dumpster, George pukes.

“I’m sorry,” he says to the janitor. “That smell. I can’t stand that smell.”

This worries the janitor, and he realizes that he has probably asked us to do something we should not.

“Y’all get on back to class, now,” he says.

I can barely understand his thick Robeson County accent.

We both have to answer to the teacher for why we are walking into class late, and I believe that the janitor gets into some trouble, though I know George has also helped him with his work in the past.

***

1990.

The school systems of Robeson County have just merged. I am in 8th grade at a school that has only about 600 students combined for grades 7 seven through 12. Next year, though, I will attend a much larger junior high school. I am not looking forward to that experience.

Mom is a school teacher, so instead of riding the bus home, I wait for her after school.

One of the janitors of the school is a squat balding man with a mustache. His nickname is “Toad,” and I do not know what his real name is. Though I am short for my grade level, I am still taller than Toad.

Toad is friends with some students better than others. He has taken an interest in me, now that he knows I wait after hours for a while before I go home with mom. He has conversations with me, usually about Duke and UNC basketball or Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

One day, I am sitting on the wooden fence railing outside after school. He walks up to me, carrying a mop with a wooden handle.

He starts giggling as he jabs and pokes at me with the end of the handle. I smile and laugh at first, but it gets annoying when he keeps doing it.

“Cut it out, Toad!” I say to him.

He holds the mop end of the handle close to his hip, and it occurs to me that the whole thing is way too amusing for him. I bat the handle away with my hand.

“Cut it out!” I repeat. He stops and walks away.

Another day, I am walking down the hallway of the school after hours. I go by the supply closet, and Toad is inside.

“Nathan, come in here!” Toad says to me.

“Why ?” I ask.

“Just come here,” he says. “I need your help with something.”

I ignore him and keep on walking.

He comes out of the supply closet, holding the mop again, a big grin on his face. He takes a few steps toward me.

This is weird, I think. I am literally ready to run from him. He sees this.

“Nathan, do you think that I would ever hurt you?”

“Yes, I do,” I say without hesitation.

The smile disappears from his face.

“That hurts me, Nathan,” Toad says. “That hurts me to my bones.”

“Sorry,” I say.

I walk off, not caring much if I really have hurt his feelings or not.

Not long after that incident, Toad disappears from the school. I notice that George is not around anymore, either.

I later am told that Toad has been accused of sexually molesting George.

Whether that is true or not, I never see Toad or George again.

***

Present Day. Live Oak, Florida.

This has been a rather morbid blog entry. I am not sure why these memories came to mind this morning.

I feel sorry for George, as he was a victim of his surroundings. My own life would probably have been a very different thing, if I had stayed in that transfer truck any longer or if I had not caught on to Toad’s strange behavior.

Of course, it is just as horrible a thing to be accused of crimes like that when you did not commit them.

Next Monday, the 24th, I dive into trials in felony court. I have three jury trials scheduled for that week. So next weekend, I doubt that I will have time to write a blog entry, as my mind will be deep into thinking about how these trials will play out.

I look forward to the challenge. The stress is there, to be sure, but I am much better suited to handling it than a day at the Post Office, believe it or not.

Acid Trips

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

There are plenty of ideas for blog entries that come to mind.

A problem, though, is whether or not I want to put myself through the ordeal of trying to remember what were some very intense emotional experiences.

I just ordered Chinese takeout from a fairly new restaurant here in Live Oak, stuffing myself with sweet and sour shrimp, fried rice, and an egg roll. It was tasty, but totally unhealthy. Everything was caked in fried batter. I can already feel the queasiness setting in. Unfortunately, I will not be making many trips to that restaurant.

Now I sit down at my computer, with the intention of writing a blog entry about the dogs in my life: Mosey, Wagger, Hard-Head or Twiggy, Molly, Betsy, LuLu, Snout, and Squirt. I have some wonderful memories of them. But they are all dead, now, and the way some of them died is extremely painful to recall.

No, with this food settling uncomfortably in my stomach and the Winter Olympics in Sochi muted on the television behind me as a distraction, I do not think I will write about the good times and then the demise of my dogs. Not today. It is the same reason I have for rarely writing about my experiences at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. Those memories are just too vivid and intense. To do the memories justice in writing about them would require fierce concentration and large amounts of energy.

Instead, I will write about my acid trips.



I have lived alone for just about half of my life, now. When I return to North Carolina to visit my family, it is always an enjoyable time. I rarely get any writing done, though. There are just too many distractions: Dad and my brother watching basketball on television, my nephew running around the living room and playing with toys, neighbors coming over to visit, full meals prepared by mom, snacks throughout the day, and so forth.

In my regular life, though, there is a lot of quiet time, a lot of alone time. Sometimes, when I step outside to take a look at the stars, or just to get my mail, the air hits me and triggers a memory. The same sometimes happens when I am sitting in my recliner, watching a movie or a ball game, and I am just about to drift asleep.

These memories are unlike others that I have, though. It is a sensation in my body and mind that I cannot adequately describe with words. Smells and feelings wash over me like I am right there again, feeling a certain way in a certain place that I have not experienced before up to that point. They are very brief, and the sensation that comes with them is fleeting. I cannot recreate the sensation once it is gone. I only have the knowledge that I felt it.

To be clear, I have never dropped acid. I refer to these memories as acid trips because I imagine they are somewhat similar to the flashbacks people who have used LSD must experience when a bit of the drug seeps out from their spine, years later. Some of the places to which I am transported are not even memories. I am not sure what they are. It is very real, though. If I have not been there in my past, then my mind has created an extremely realistic scene drawn from something, somewhere.

I have had a number of such trips over the years. Here is a listing of a few:

1) I am a young boy, perhaps a teenager, standing in the parking lot of an amusement park in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is summertime, late afternoon, but not overly hot- at least not to me. I am waiting for someone. Perhaps it is a family member, coming out of the amusement park to meet me in the parking lot. Ice cream. There is ice cream, somewhere. There is the faintest scent of it, combined with the burned rubber and gasoline smell coming from the go-kart track inside the amusement park. It is actually a pleasant combination to me. I like the smell of gasoline in the summertime. I smile.



2) I am in my early 20s, walking on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Red brick buildings are everywhere. It is an overcast, autumn day, but not cold. People are in short sleeved shirts, still. I go inside one of the buildings, an administrative building, up to a counter, and tap the bell for service. Now, I notice that there is a young and attractive African-American woman standing to my right and slightly behind me. I am aware that she knows who I am, and that she came here with me. I am wary of her for some reason.

She is trying to play matchmaker with me and the girls behind the counter.

“Not that one,” she says, referring to a red head in sandals behind the counter, walking away from me. “She is too much noise.”

I see a quiet, plain girl in glasses, her blonde hair pulled back from her face, writing on a tablet.

“Now her, she would be suitable for you,” the African-American girl says.

I laugh and think to myself, my match-maker has no idea what I find attractive.



3) I am in an all-white room, covered in tile, with sparse furniture. Two of my favorite girls from law school appear, S. and T. They wear the exact same clothes for some reason. It is wonderful, because they are both very interested in me on this day. They sit down on each side of me. They know that conversation is hard for me, so they are content to talk to each other, fully aware that they are putting on a show. I love watching them and listening to them. I can smell their clothes and their shampoo.

4) I sit alone in a tavern in a village outside of Philadelphia. Though I am in my mid-twenties, I am not sure what year it is inside the tavern. It could be anywhere from the 1960s up to the present. My waitress is beautiful, with soft white skin and dark hair. She wears a small navy blue shirt that sort of looks like a football jersey. It has the number 06 on it. I drink an ice cold mug of root beer. The tavern is busy. I sit at a table some distance back from the bar. My order of the house special hamburger and mashed potatoes is on the way. The inside of the tavern looks like something from Colonial times with high, dark wooden walls. The tables and chairs are made from thick wood as well. The chandeliers providing electric light are dimmed, as light from the overcast day shines in from the windows at the front of the tavern.

I wander outside. The city cannot be seen from this tavern, but I know it is close. It is late summer or early autumn, and all the leaves are on the trees still. It feels great to be outside.

How long have I been here? I know that I can wander into the forest surrounding the tavern and walk and explore for as long as I like.

I like this place, and I hope that I am invited and have the money to stay here for a long time...

These trips are usually pleasant experiences for me. Sometimes one hits that takes me back to an unhappy episode, though. Perhaps I will write about those another day, or perhaps I will not.

The Pattern and The Page

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

Though I am now past the midway point of my 30s, I continue to learn major lessons about the course my life will take.

You would think someone my age could make enough sense of the world and of himself to have more direction and certainty, but that has not been the case.

Prior to law school, I had dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter. I wrote a number of screenplays, and even moved west to Las Vegas in the effort to be close the entertainment business. I should have gone all the way to Los Angeles, but the cost of living in that city scared me, and looking back it was probably a wise choice not to go out there with no job and no family or friends, the way that I did it in Vegas.



I never really came close to a break in the movie business. And I understand now that even with a break, that arena is so competitive and cut-throat that it would an unpleasant challenge to survive and thrive in L.A., no matter what stage of life I am at.

So I gave up on writing and ultimately ended up in law school.

In my early 30s, in law school, I thought that I could graduate and become a corporate lawyer, making over $100,000 a year. I learned through the experiences of law school and summer clerkships, though, that even if I was smart enough to be hired by the big firms in the big cities, that would be a miserable career for me.

I actually turned away from the practice of law a bit and focused on the idea of becoming a businessman. In law school, I worked as a student representative for a company that sold courses to students to help them pass the bar exam in various states. I worked hard and did well at this job as a student rep, with the idea that it could be an employment opportunity after law school.

In fact, this opportunity did arise. I became the Regional Director for the company in South Florida. I was in charge of all the law schools in the Miami area. It was like running my own business, and I supervised well over 100 people.

I thought that running a business would be fun, and the game of making money would be something that I could learn and continually get better at. I was a great salesman in law school, after all.

The job of regional director was very different than what I anticipated, though. The company was great and provided a vital service to law school students. For a guy with the right sort of extroverted personality, working with this company could be a great career. I learned, though, that I did not need to be a salesman to be successful- I needed to be a sales manager, delegating to others and motivating them to work for me. None of this came naturally to me, unfortunately, and it was one of the most stressful chapters in my life trying to figure out how to turn one dollar into two in that business.

It cured me of any desire to own a business or hang out my own shingle as an attorney.

So what next?

As I wrote in my last blog entry, I am pretty good at trial law. I am not passionate about it, but I am good at it.

I was lucky enough to land a government job as a trial lawyer in North Florida, where the cost of living is good compared with the salary that I receive.

So now, trial law on a government salary is how I pay the bills. I do not mind the job, and I work hard for my clients. At this point in my life, I have learned that if I find a job that I do not mind doing, then I better try to hang onto it and not go looking for greener pastures elsewhere. The percentages are that the grass is not greener on the other side.

Instead my passion, if you could call it that, is once again creative writing. Now, I am focused on finishing a novel, as opposed to a screenplay. My goal is to write a page per day during the work week, or about 20 pages per month. Often, I am exhausted from my day job and do not feel like churning out a page when I get home. But I also feel like if my life has any purpose at all in the grand scheme, writing that page, working creatively, is an important thing.



What is different this time about writing is that I do not expect to make money from it. Lawyers turned novelists are a dime a dozen. Even if the book is good enough to publish when I finish, I do not have hopes that I will be anything other than a trial lawyer for the next 30 years. And if I am able to keep this job that I have for the next 30 years, then I think they will be a happy 30 years, regardless of what happens with my writing.

I can remember in high school and college, my female English teachers swooning over the poetry of John Donne or the works of Milton and Shakespeare. My college English professor, especially, was an attractive woman.

I thought, “Wow, if I can be a good writer, then I can get women, too.”

Hah.

Nothing I have ever written has gotten me so much as a date, much less that other thing that, even now, means it all when it comes to women.

At one point in my late 20s, I thought that girls just did not go for writing. Letters or creative writing was just not a way to connect with them. It was all about the face to face interaction and being smooth and cool.

One of my friends, who is a real ladies’ man, makes good use of texting and Facebook messages when communicating with girls. I saw a text that he sent to a beautiful girl that he got to show up at the bar.

It read: “Yo where u at?”

But I also have to accept the fact that I am just not that great of a writer. I do not produce things that females want to read. It is highly unlikely that I would ever be able to pull off a series as charming for them as say, The Harry Potter stories.

But I will keep writing that page per day, no matter if anyone eventually reads it. As I have said before, I have discovered by trial and error that there are precious few things in life that I am good at.

Now that I have reached a happy medium in life here in Live Oak, I am wary of major changes. I work hard Monday through Friday, and often on Sunday. Friday nights I go out and try to have a good time. It is a relatively pleasant existence, compared with what other people have to go through.

Marriage and raising kids are not goals of mine. I have no confidence that I would be good at them. And once I head down that road of starting a family, unlike a job, it is not so easy to switch gears and leave if things are not going as planned. I could not leave if there were kids. My life would no longer be my own. It would have to be all about them.

I like living alone, the peace and quiet. It makes writing easier. I like trying to get into adventures on Friday night and then leaving those adventures there to resume the work week until the next Friday night.

The pattern that I have settled into- work, play, writing the page, is a good existence. I hope it lasts a long time.