write - type

Fall 1989. I was the assistant manager at Merry Go Round and I was taking classes at IU Northwest Community College in Gary, Indiana. My brother Zach had just graduated from Portage High School and immediately moved to a studio in Rogers Park at the Ravenswood line. Ravenswood was the North side of Chicago; his apartment was blocks away from Loyola University. Somehow those few blocks from the campus entered a portal and let you out in a desolate wasteland, filled with muggers, drunks and reggae music.

Meanwhile, I had been chasing every Aqua-netted band groupie in a twelve mile radius of the Southlake mall in Merrillville, Indiana. I don't know if I was attracted to the hair or the brief contact high from a whiff of aerosol. In between deciding what I wanted to do with my life I was chasing around Meg Parker; the unattainable brunette with a body I didn't even know existed… until I accidentally opened her curtain while she was pouring herself into a pair of acid washed Guess jeans. Alas, Meg Parker was interested, yet involved in a gridlocked long-distance relationship with the male equivalent of "Pickles" or "Maris"; an invisible boyfriend that stayed between me and those double D's for the next five years. In between pining for Meg Parker I spent my days and nights acting in bad plays at IU Northwest and soiling the hell out of every single mother in the cast, and this being Indiana – that's a number that quickly goes well into the low double-digits.

After awhile I got in a huff or something with my manager at Merry go Round, or as we called it; MGRE (E for enterprises) and Dan Vanson (the DM or District Manager, ooooh) sent me to the dreaded River Oaks store in Calumet City. Worse, it was a DeeJaiz, which is just like Merry Go Round, but only sells men's clothes. And by men, I use the term loosely. Let me paint a picture here, in the 14 months that I worked at the Merry Go Round, I probably only sold about four things to guys in my whole career. One was a spectacular $1,700.00 sale to Bobby Brown, and that was only because the only other salesperson on the floor, Jane Hammond, was afraid of him. He left her his room key, (he was in town to visit his friends across the interstate at the Holiday Star Plaza in the band Cameo, of "Word Up" fame). Attached to the room key was a note that read, "love is a gift, and I give that gift to you", corny even for the guy that wrote "Rock Witcha' and Humpin' Around." So, I was busy hating life at De-Gayz, and I was in a long-term relationship with the thick-calved Tina Balboa. Tina was the coolest chick in Indiana, (yeah I get the spin there) but she was all cutie no booty. She was 100 percent Sicilian and completely wrong for me. 21 year old virgin, she was older and wiser and she could buy liquor. We used to screw after the "Top Ten List" in the basement of her parent's place on an itchy couch while her terrier, (I forget his name) angrily humped his favorite blanket. More and more, now that I was in Cal City, (just 20 minutes away form the Chicago skyline) much of the time I found myself floating across the border in my 1970 Firebird to my brother Zach's pad in Rogers Park.

Zach's place was constantly jammed with 17-19 year-old squatters, I mean this place never had less than 5 people in it. Well, it didn't take long before Zach got evicted. So the night before the eviction we had a huge blowout. On Halloween nonetheless, I made up some lame excuse to Tina and headed to Chicago. I had sex with Candy Starr, (another story) my brother's best friend's ex-girlfriend. She was a mocha-skinned, sexy and lean version of someone out of an updated "Oliver Twist" story. She was a total street kid. One of the original Medusa's kids, connected everywhere in Chicago -- friend of everyone from Al Jourgenson to Steve Stone. We knew each other ever since her ex, (Ricki) and she met on Rush Street on a Friday night. A Friday night mind you that was your typical three white kids from Indiana underage and in Chicago... you know the routine, Ed DeBeviks' and arcades and Water Tower Place. Until we met Candy and Dara and they changed all that. They showed us Chicago, they were the reason Zach moved there. I was dating Dara, but she would never give it up, so when I got the chance I sprung at Star.

So anyway, I was on my way up to Chicago when suddenly I and the two other managers, (Michelle, a hottie that modeled lingerie part-time in Holiday Inn bars and George, a disillusioned model that would never be) were accused of stealing about twelve hundred bucks. It turned out to be the bank's fault and it turned up later in the day. But the DM, Dan, accused me of it and even searched my car behind my back. After we found out the whole ordeal was the bank's fault; I wasn’t satisfied with the standard "well, you're all off the hook", Dan refused to apologize so I quit. Don't you love being nineteen? The only age where you can afford to have ideals.

They went bankrupt four years later - that'll teach them. A coworker, Corey (a six foot-three inch flaming homosexual - the kind that didn't know it though) wanted to come to Chicago with me. He was over DeJaiz as well because he had just filmed a 501 Blues commercial, (with a then unknown Vince Vaughn) so off we went to the party at my brother's Halloween party that lasted three days. Well, Zach convinced Corey and I to meet Star in L.A. at her cousin's pad the next week. And since I was recently fired/quit and kind of into Star I was down with it. And since Corey thought he was about to be Vince Vaughn, (it might be a good time to tell you Corey is black, which does make a difference if you ask me) he was down with leaving town too. When I finally got back to Merrillville, I showed up on Tina's doorstep to tell her she was getting dumped in a serious way. She opened the door, totally naked except for a gift box she was wearing (y'see, because I missed Halloween). So here I stood in front of this adorable cherub wearing four feet of gift wrap, she was beaming and ready to share her "gifts" with me, even though I stood her up on Halloween. I did it; what a scumbag.

Next thing you know we're on a Greyhound bound for L.A. the hard way. Me, Zach, Corey and Corey's stuffed Sylvester the Cat he refused to not pack in a suitcase.

Sylvester the Cat, a big one, the kind with the long wire tail, the same kind of tail as in the Pink Panther Story. The Pink Panther Story is a semi-famous urban legend. This voyeur fantasy involves a teenage boy, a window, a hot neighbor and the tail of a stuffed... yeah, you got it. The horny housewife is all alone and makes due with the resources closest to her while the teenage boy watches from the comfort of his bedroom. And in this urban legend the Pink Panther is not the only thing stuffed. I really never had much interest in those kinds of stories, they really bore me. However, this one came to mind at the time because Corey really seemed to me to be someone who might have an ulterior motive for being so attached to this Putty Tat.

Not that I really understood that Corey was gay. I knew that he acted like that "Hollywood" character from "Mannequin". Being from Indiana, I really didn't understand gay so much... I think I thought that it was more of an attitude than a sexual preference, plus it was the 80's, everything seemed gay. Hell, even Heavy Metal Bands looked gay. Corey wasn't even fun gay; he was bitchy, boring gay. Corey was really so extraneous he might even seem like an under-developed character in this story. The truth of the Matter was that besides flash and fifty fucking bottles of facial lotions, cleansers and concealers, Corey didn't bring too much to the table. To Corey's credit, on a Greyhound bus full of somewhat dim bulbs, he was a bright and shining star.

All Greyhound buses are the same. Front row: Old people, who look old, but smell older. It makes sense to me somehow that old people like to be in the front of all buses, less time on the clock I suppose. Middle seats: always single Mother's on their way to a better life and a job waiting tables. Back six: Cantina scene from Star Wars --burnouts and the military. The line is not so clearly drawn here because mainly they're the same people from the same poor background, just different occupations.

And I was in the back, reading Stephen King's "Different Seasons", until my empty seat got taken. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I proudly introduce one of my all time favorite characters -- Prairie Dog! I'm not kidding. True story and person. Prairie Dog was pulling a Bruce Springsteen, "left my wife and kids and Baltimore Jack." He was all of maybe five feet and four inches. But as is most often the case with guys under five-six, he was all attitude. I bet he was about 25, but he seemed ageless. Like a character created onscreen. No one ever looks at Indiana Jones and goes, what is he, forty-one, forty-two? Prairie Dog showed me pictures of all the girls he'd "skewered" lately. Out of his chained wallet spilled a slide show of trailer park erotica -- tattered photos of vulnerable yellow-haired girls wearing blue eye shadow, trying to look seductive, but coming off uncomfortable and pale. And cheap paneling in every background.

By the time night came, things started getting a little raunchy. I'm pretty sure Corey blew his first sailor in a Stuckey's bathroom. I smoked a joint with Prairie Dog, a mechanic and a guy who seemed really too paranoid to be smoking weed, (oh wait, I think I was that guy). And Zach, my brother o' brother, even then managed to stay above it all, quietly reading at the truck stop. Don't get me wrong, Zach let's loose and goes Def-con 4 as well as any true Irishman. Thankfully, these epic events are few and far between.

Perfect example. You'd be hard pressed the last year of high school to find me sober. And I had recently been dragging Zach around with me to hang out with my super loser buddies that I used to work at Candiano's grocery store with in high school. Mainly because one of them bought a house, so it was pretty happening. Well, Zach used to go with me to this row-house decorated with only the occasional Zeppelin coke mirror. But Zach really kept his distance, I mean he talked and drank and my friends love him. But he never got too close to them. There were no, "I love you man’s" or shit like that. And never did he get more buzzed than anyone else in the room.

On one occasion though, I was home asleep in bed and suddenly "BANG, BANG". Zach is rapping on the window above me. Like all cool Indiana teenagers, I had moved my room to the basement; Zach had one down there as well. It cost us an un-used bar and a pool table, but we had our independence. "BANG, BANG" above my head. From outside I could smell it on him, seventeen and shit-faced. So, I go upstairs open the door, and try to keep him quiet. When he realizes I'm trying to look out for him, he puts it into fifth gear. I don't even exist. He's off and running "Fuck you" and "I'm not drunk" and "What's in the fridge?" I try to play guardian Angel, but he doesn't want a shoulder to lean on. He takes one step for the stairs and goes down all twenty in about point five seconds. Boom, boom, boom, end over end and by the last step, back on his feet. Miraculously, he comes up without a scratch.

Two seconds later, as I'm helping him with his shoes, he decides to Pompeii all over me and his bedroom floor. The floor being conveniently equipped with shag carpeting for maximum disgust value, I pull out a bucket and start earning any future "I love you man's" in case he ever decides to need to have to say it to someone. Zach, the conservative, Zach, the diplomat, starts jamming hard-core to Rick Springfield, his idol at the time, along with Bryan Adams. I tell him to shut up and he looks at me and says, "shut up and clean up my puke bitch! With that he kicks the bucket across the room. I, of course, leave him to his own fate on that. And later feel bad and clean it all up. The next day at work (Handy Andy) an extremely hung-over Zach drives a fork-lift through a plate glass window. So anytime an Irishman turns down a pint in your presence, don’t pressure him.

Back to the bus, we're in Omaha, held over for like three hours. I meet a girl in a food court. Zach and Corey do their own thing. We get back on the bus and are ready to go when I realize Prairie Dog isn't back yet. I convince the bus-driver to hold up for a few. Prairie Dog shows up acting kinda' weird. Once the bus gets moving, he reveals to me that he has taped a twelve pack to his body. Hey, just for the record, there is no worse place to be hung-over than on a Greyhound bus. I was writing "I love and miss you" letters to Tina before we crossed the California state line.

When we got to LA, we had no plan and no place to stay. Candy wouldn't be in L.A. until the next week. We took a cab to a hotel in Downtown LA and spent like ninety percent of what we had set aside for the first week.

L.A. at nineteen is sort of horrifyingly amazing, especially when you're from Indiana. Thank God I wasn't a cute girl, because I'd have been shooting gang-porn in four days. It really is a hungry, beautiful, cannibal that whore the beast that is L.A. We were stuffed in a cab, cruising into Hollywood. At least three beautiful girls waved to me. Me. In Indiana, I was nobody. Or at least I had to work hard at being somebody. Here it seemed the reverse; L.A. assumed you were somebody until proved otherwise.

We settled into one of those disgusting motels on Sunset. There are only two kinds of tenants here, those who just got to LA, and those who are on their way out. The pool had a skin like cold pudding on the surface. The television hissed and spat at us, the shower moaned and slowly jizzed on us. And when it got dark and quiet, the walls told us stories of failure and despair.

I knew I wasn't going to make it out here. That's why even now it's hard to believe how surprised I was when things started spinning out of control. And harder to understand for me, why I put up with so much before I finally waved the white flag.