See You Later, Little Buddy

Here’s this man: 

“This man”–as you called him [Editor's Note: You called him that.]–is my friend Patrick. He’s a man with a name. and He used to have long hair like this until he got it cut.

Guess he got tired of having a haircut that made women feel like they should button their top button, that made men feel like they need to tap their back pocket to make sure their wallet was still there, that made dogs and feral cats feel like they found a buddy.

A photograph from Patrick's graduation.

Well, Patrick lives in Tel Aviv where he’s studying the Middle East. He’s been gone for five months and came back for a few days recently. It should be noted that I love Patrick and he is one of my very favorite people on this Earth.

—

I’m laying in bed watching a movie with my girlfriend–Drive. By that I mean I’m watching the film Drive with my girlfriend. My girlfriend is not the movie Drive. If I were to date a movie it wouldn’t be one in which every second makes me want to do cocaine off of something people don’t normally do cocaine off of.

A dog’s snout.

A sirloin steak.

A male relative’s belly.

On the television screen is a still image of Ryan Gosling looking somber about something. I have paused the film.

“Okay, so this does or does not relate to The Notebook in some way?”

“It does not,” Courtney says.

“Oh what crap,” I say, pressing the power button on the remote control and tossing the remote onto the floor.

Just then, my phone rings. It rings with a sound I have not heard in some time. It’s Pat’s favorite song–a loop of an elderly man saying the phrase “Struttin’ that ass.”

I lift my phone and look at the screen. It says “Patrick Strickland,” but it cannot be. I sit up in my bed and slowly put the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I say. The ring blares into my ear. I pull the phone back, press the “Answer” button and place it at my ear again. “Hello?”

“Kyle?”

I say nothing.

“Kyle? Hello?”

“Who is this? How did you get my number?”

“It’s in my phone.”

I turn to Courtney. I mouth “Get my gun.” She mouths “___” because she has fallen asleep.

“What have you done with Patrick? Is this the Mujaheddin? Is this Terror? Am I being Terroristed?” I begin to fumble about in my room, looking for my passport.

“What is ‘terroristed’?”

“HA!” I blare. I don’t know what ‘terroristed’ is, either.

“Kyle, it’s me, Pat. I’m back in town.”

My heart swells. “My dearest son. My beautiful child. The hairy watermelon of my loins.” I lean forward, listening very carefully for how Pat responds.

“Daddy,” he responds. This is the keyword. The countersign is correct.

“Hey man!” I say. “I didn’t know you were back!”

“I am, I got back in today.”

“Let’s meet up!” I say.

“Sure, but wh–” I’m so excited, I throw my phone against the wall before he can finish. I raise my blinds, throw open my window and jump out.

Courtney, confused by my actions says “____” because she’s still asleep.

Pat and I meet up at Lou’s–a local tavern we frequented together when we were younger and had much longer hair and so much more hope.

We talk of the old days and the new days and the days ahead. It’s odd. So much seems to have transpired in the six months since he left. I fill him in on my brief attempt at graduate school, my reasons for leaving. He fills me in on the new woman he’s seeing and seems completely content, sure that he’s chosen the right path.

I was going to make this longer, but I don’t really want to. This is all just a 658-word goodbye to my friend, Pat. I’ll miss you, comrade.

Letter to Myself as an Old Man

A long time ago, I wrote a letter to my childhood self. Now, I’d like to write a letter to my old man self. Here it is.

—

Old man self. How are you? How is your health? How are your bi’s and tri’s and do your jeans still hug your quads when you go up stairs in a way that makes you feel like a big man who could kick a tree over if he wanted? I hope so. I hope you’re still healthy, at least.

I hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with you health-wise. Sometimes, I lay up at night, worrying that somewhere in me, dormant, lie the seeds of my end. Whatever’s going to kill me is most likely in my blood right now as I write this letter. It was in me when I was born, and it was in the various cells that were put together by robots that helped me become a screaming pink loaf nine months later. I don’t want to get too much into that, though. The rabbit hole and such.

Do you still have friends? I’m sure you do. I hope you do. How many of them are left? I’ve always assumed I would be the last of all my friends to die–it just seemed right, I guess. I take good care of myself; I exercise and eat right, but I stress a lot and I’ve been known to drink a bit of whiskey, so who knows. Maybe I’ll be the first to go. Maybe I’ll die from something completely unexpected, like a car crash or maybe someone will kill me. Maybe I’ll be jogging and a dog will get loose and rip my throat out. It happens, you know.

I hope you have lots of friends still. But I also sort of wish you don’t, because I’d hate to die before them and not get to squeeze every last drop out with them before I go. I’d hate to leave the table before the meal’s done.

Are you happy? Did you–did we–do a good job? Did we try hard and keep going when we failed and did it all pay out? Am I going to have to find out, years down the line, that the only real pleasure in life is striving for pleasure in life? I hope not. That sounds awful.

I bet you’re happy. I bet you are. I bet you’re happy because you want to be so damn badly that I don’t think you would let anything stand in your way. I hope you’re happy.

Do you have any kids? I think I’d like to have kids. I’ve never seen myself being old without kids. Were they good to you? Did they put you in a home when you got too old? Did they let you stay with them? Is the unconditional love of a parent to a child real? Did any of them test that love? Were you a good parent?

If you do have kids, do you have grandkids? And if you do, do they call you ever? Do they write? I try to do those things, but I don’t do a very good job. It’s strange to think that one day none of my grandparents will be left. By the time I’m your age, they’ll be distant memories. I may not even remember their voices. Their faces will be preserved because I’ll have pictures and all that, but what about their voices? I don’t have video of them. I wonder what my voice will sound like when I’m old.

I think about that stuff. Do you have a gravelly voice? Is it high pitched? Is it softer now?

Did you find love, and did you keep it? Did you find a way to make it last? Did you keep the lesser, more fearful parts of yourself away from it enough that you didn’t squander it? I hope you did.

How many times did you find love? I’d like to think it was just the once, but knowing myself, it might not be. I just hope you were damn sincere the whole time. I hope you thought it through. I hope you didn’t think too much, though.

I hope that when you lay in bed at night, whether alone or beside the woman you love, that I gave you the kind of memories that make you yearn for their repetition. I hope I gave you the kind of memories I would like to have as an old man.

Take care of yourself,

Kyle

My Denton Music Reincarnation: Part 2

Max and I head upstairs. The man at the counter, Jesse Clay Mudbutt Stinkfoot CallmeUncle Perry gives us our free beers. He has hair like an orange tidal wave and a full, thick, neatly-trimmed beard that would make Richard Karn blush. I tell him how happy I am to see him and that maybe we should throw the football around sometime or maybe get a coffee. He tells me that he has a dirty rag in the back that he uses to wipe up bathroom messes and that he’d rather eat that whole than do anything with me. I smile, laugh, then swallow really hard so I won’t start crying.

Moments later, Ryan, the drummer and resident Apple Specialist in Savage and the Big Beat shows up and we drink some more free beers and pretty soon it’s time to play the show.

We set up our gear and start our soundcheck song. Everything sounds good. After a brief introduction from Max, we start our set.

I’m grooving. I’m moving. My music balls are tingling. I look up to the crowd. From the back of the room, people are parting violently. Someone is attempting to storm the stage. A few seconds later, Roy Robertson, the singer for my old band, is standing directly in front of me. Like “Gimme kiss” close. We stop playing.

“What, Roy?” I ask. He’s wearing large sunglasses and his head is jerking around wildly. It’s clear he’s doing a Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles bit.

“Who said that?” Roy asks, his voice soft, but clearly angry.

“Roy. I said that. You know who I am.”

“That Kyle? That Kyle on stage?“

“We’re all on stage,” Ryan says from behind his drums. “We’re trying to play a show, man. Can you–”

“Can I WHAT?” Roy barks, “SEE?!” He stumbles over toward the drum set, gingerly stepping over my pedals and a few cables. “Shit all over the ground,” Roy can be heard mumbling. “SEE?!” he repeats, now groping Ryan’s drums.

“Get off the stage!” Someone from the crowd yells.

“Stage?!” Roy asks. “I’m on a stage?” He spins around, acting confused.

I sigh. “Yes, Roy. You’re on a stage and we’re trying to play a show and I’d really like to play this show without you on stage right in my face.”

“Who said dat?!” Roy asks, pointing in every direction.

“Roy, you are not blind!” Max says, the microphone catching his voice, making his frustration that much more apparent.

“Oh I must be blind!” Roy says. “And you know why?” he says, softer now, inching toward me.

“Why?”

“‘Cause my future is so bright–”

“–You need shades. I get it,” I say.

“AND I TRIED TO LOOK AT IT WITHOUT MY SHADES!” He rips off his sunglasses and rolls his eyes over and over again. This is what Roy thinks blind people’s eyes are like when they aren’t hidden by sunglasses.

“Roy. Please, leave.”

“Fine,” Roy says, sauntering around the stage, running his hand down Max’s keyboard, causing a dissonant string of notes that cut into the silent room like shattering glass. “But know that there is no one more Savage then Roy Robertson,” he glares at Max, “And nobody, and I mean nobody has Beats as Big as mine,” he glares at Ryan then reaches into his pocket and throws down three small orbs before turning to me and hissing like a cat. There’s a small explosion and plumes of smoke erupt from the ground.

We all step away from the smoke. There are scattered cries of concern, then one shrill, high-pitched yelp like the death-throes of a cat. I look to the source of the sound. It is Roy, laying on the concrete floor. He tripped over my pedals while trying to escape.

“My face! My beautiful face!” he screams. He rolls onto his back and begins bicycle kicking in my direction. “You did this!” he wails. In no real danger, I step back slightly. Roy quickly gets to his feet. He straightens his jacket, points at each of us, then leaves.

“Okay, well,” Max says into the microphone. He pauses, searching for the next word. “Well,” he says, then starts the first song.

The set goes well. It’s good to be back.

My Denton Music Reincarnation, Part 1.

Somewhere in late May of 2011, I died. The Denton music scene came to a hush, and a great disturbance was felt as the last notes of my tenure with Roy Robertson faded in decrescendo. Standing on stage in my pink tank top, showing my farmer’s tan so that everyone on the floor beneath me knew that I was just a regular guy and not someone to be revered (although they could still revere me if they wanted to), I smiled, knowing that my time was finished and that I had lived a good Denton music life and that my loved ones were taken care of as I went on into my next life, hoping against hope that the good Lord would put me at his side and not in the boiling blood rivers of Hell.

[Editor's Note: I feel like you lost a handle on your metaphors at the end there.]

[Kyle's Note: Metafur.]

[Editor's Note: What's "metafur" mean?]

[Kyle's Note: "Metafur" is fur that is aware that it is fur and is also representing fur.]

I looked down at everyone and they looked back at me and a tall, skinny, deaf gentleman tapped his wrist three times then swirled his pointer finger around at me–telling me in sign language that he loved me and would miss my playing.

Then the deaf man came on stage and, miraculously, spoke.

“It’s time to go,” he said. “We need the stage clear.”

And so I cleared the stage–Forever.

Or so I thought.

On January 25th, I played a show with Savage and the Big Beat as their newest member. Below is my account. Beginning present-tense narration.

—

My girlfriend and I pull up to the venue. We go around back to the loading area, because of all the areas at J&J’s pizza, that’s the best place to load things.

“Can I help you?” She asks, in mock-equal voice. Sometimes we role-play that we’re equals. It’s sexy and turns me on and gets me amped up to play the show.

“Sure,” I say, without the least hint of condescension. I’m imagining that this must make her as wet as a jug of milk that got sprayed with an old garden hose on the Fourth of July.

We get out of my car and I open my trunk. In the trunk is my guitar amplifier.

“Carry this,” I say, breathing heavily. “Can you carry this?” I ask, now leaning on the car for support, because all the blood is pooling in my genitals.

“Um, I guess,” she says. I ejaculate and then immediately lose all desire to be standing by J&J’s talking to this woman who to me suddenly seems like a stranger.

“Okay, just drop that off and I’ll see you later,” I say, grabbing both guitars and heading inside. I throw my keys back in the direction of the loading bay door and continue into the restaurant/venue. I hear my tires squealing and then a scream telling me to go to Hell and I know she’s left.

The performance area inside J&J’s is in its downstairs basement. The loading area leads directly into it. I set my guitars down and walk into the performance area, which is empty except for three or four young men crowded by the stair well that leads to the restaurant upstairs. They are all wearing dark clothes and form-fitting jeans. One sits behind a table, another at the foot of the stairs, and a third leans against a nearby pool table.

“Hello, boys,” I say. They nod. I’m waiting for them to recognize me and welcome me back to the Scene. I smile and put my hands in my pocket. I can hear the muffled sounds of footsteps in the ceiling and a song that I think might be Foxy Lady, but I can’t tell.

“What’s up?” one of them says. It’s the one sitting behind the table set up at the foot of the stairs so they can take people’s money.

“Oh, nothing,” I say coyly, shifting my weight from one hip to another. I smile and look at each one of them, almost bursting with excitement over how great this moment is going to be for them once they realize who I am. One of the men, the one leaning against the nearby pool table, blows a jet of smoke through pursed lips. I imagine this is like in cartoons when they get so angry steam comes out of their ears, but instead it’s that he’s so excited to see Kyle Irion that there’s smoke coming out of his mouth. He then takes a drag off his cigarette and I feel ridiculous.

I take my hands out of my pockets and put them in the position like I’m holding a guitar, hoping to jog their memory. Now their vacant expressions transform into expressions of confusion. I start to strum the invisible guitar.

“What are you doing?” the one with the cigarette asks.

I start to hum my favorite Roy Robertson song, and bounce around a little bit.

“Are you all right, man?” the one behind the table with the stupid ass jar with stupid ass table says. I drop my hands to my side.

“You don’t remember me?” I ask.

They all shake their heads.

“I’m Kyle Irion.”

“Kyle Irion?” one of them asks. The tone of his voice makes me kind of wish he didn’t know who I was.

“I’m not–Yes. I’m Kyle Irion.”

“Who are you?” the one sitting at the foot of the stairs asks, getting to his feet. The question shakes me a bit.

“I’m uh, I’m Kyle Irion.”

“Yeah. But who are you?”

A lump forms in my throat and I look at cigarette man. “You… you know who I am, right? I just told you.”

“Why would I know who you are?”

“Because I just told you who I am!” I grab  him by the lapels of his leather jacket. He stinks. He smells like cheap beer and cheap cigarettes and even cheaper ideas. He puts his hands on mine and pushes them down.

“Don’t touch me, man.”

The young man at the table gets to his feet.

“We need your money, guy,” he says, and I immediately see what this is.

“I’m being mugged!” I scream, clutching my hands tightly and bringing them to my cheek.

“No, dude, we need your money. There’s a cover.”

“Even for people in the band?” I ask, a little annoyed.

“You’re in one of the bands?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Savage and the Big Beat.”

“Which one are you?” he asks. My stomach sinks.

“Which one am I?” I ask, confused again.

“Yeah. Which one? Are you Savage or the Big Beat?” All three of them laugh exactly eight laughs in perfect unison.

“I’m neither. I’m the third-dimension of Savage and the Big Beat.”

“Oh, rad,” the guy on the pool table says. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic with me or not and my this makes me scared and I want to vomit.

“Yeah. Cool name,  man. The Third Dimension.”

“No. No, that’s not my name, my name is–”

“You’re like The Edge of Denton,” the man on the stairs says. He receives sharp, hot, castigating glares from his friends for knowing who The Edge is.

I force a chuckle, uncomfortable.

“Very cool, Third Dimension,” the man behind the table says. “We just need to stamp your hand so you can come and go.”

“I appreciate that,” I say, putting my hand out for its stamp, “But I’d rather be called by my real name.”

“What’s your real name?” the one at the foot of the stairs says. My heart begins to pound.

“But I just told y–”

Just at this moment, Max Brown–the Savage of Savage and the Big Beat–walks up. He is extremely tall and when I stand next to him all I want is for him to pat me on the head and tell me how proud he is and that he’ll never leave mother.

“Hey guys,” he says.

“Hey Max,” they say. “We just met the Third Dimension, here.” I can feel this moniker solidifying, and syrupy thick misery seeps through my chest.

“No, they met Kyle. They were joking about that being m–”

“Third Dimension!” Max says, patting me on the shoulder, literally inches away from the top of my head. It’s so close. My heart melts and all I want to do is go outside and play catch with him.

I sigh and follow Max as we head upstairs.

Tags: denton music

Shockwave

I wake up, roll over and turn on my coffee maker. My coffee maker rests on my night stand; I don’t sleep in the kitchen. 

I lay in my bed for awhile staring at the ceiling, listening to the coffee maker bubble and growl. My stomach hurts, and I can’t tell if it’s from nerves or if I’m feeling a little hung over from drinking the night before. My brain starts to make  a sort of cause and effect relationship between my anxiety and the hangover, that maybe the anxiety is what caused me to drink in the first place, but something about the thought makes my stomach hurt worse, so I stop. 

When the coffee maker wheezes in completion, I roll onto my left side, kick off my blankets, and swing my feet to the floor. It makes me happy to do this for some reason. It makes me feel like I’m athletic. 

Although I am not. 

I put on some gym shorts and a white t-shirt and go to the bathroom. I urinate, shake the remaining drops from my penis and walk to the mirror while pulling my shorts up. In the mirror, I look fine. Maybe even good. My hair has taken well to my pillow and is shaped in an attractive way that reminds me of a number of famous, young, white actors with bags under their eyes and big, glistening smiles that show off their imperfect teeth. I smile at myself. I don’t like the way I look when I do this, so I straighten my mouth and look some more. My posture is bad and is making me look fatter than I am, so I straighten that out, too. I examine myself and see that everything is good enough. 

I turn on the faucet and splash water on my face. Before drying, I look up directly into one of the four light bulbs above the mirror. I feel the tiny muscles in my eyes flex as they adjust to the light. It’s a strange, delicious feeling, like biting the inside of your cheek or sneezing. I dry my face and return to the mirror. I look much older all of a sudden and I don’t remember the transition. I realize that things are much further along than I want them to be. I realize that I have so much longer to go. I’m not sure what this means, so I shake my head, put on my glasses and leave.

I go into my room and drink some coffee, my stomach growling for food. The nausea has been replaced by hunger and I want to take my time and relish in it. 

I open up the internet and read a news story about a girl who has died. She had been on a roller coaster ride that malfunctioned, the electro-magnetic brakes not getting enough charge or something like that. I imagine myself in the car with the girl, looking over at her the whole time, the wind making tearing sounds in my ears. I am yelling at her in this image–I’m yelling goodbye and that I hope there’s something after this, don’t you? and I try to reach out for her hand, but the security harness is keeping me pinned. I imagine myself turning my head, looking at the horrified faces of everyone in line as the car blows past them as if there were no stop at all. 

 

My Last Day of Grad School

Since my last post, I have gone to a semester of graduate school. Did you miss me? Did you replace me with something else (the news?:/ )? I hope not. I hope you’re not reading the news.

[Flashback]

“Editor?” I call, leaning back in my seat. “Who is our number one competitor?”

“Our number one competitor?” he calls from his office.

“Yeah. Who takes away the most of our readers?”

“I’d say our biggest competitor is most likely you and your unmitigated ability to take a good thing and–”

I slam my door shut and turn up Hybrid Theory.

[Flashback Ends]
I’ve decided that graduate literary study is not for me.

—

I sit in my last class. It’s a class about Toni Morrison. It’s a survey course, so we have covered all of her books. Today, on this final day of class, we will be discussing our final, seminar-length (15 pg) papers with the class. None of these people care what any of these other people have to say about Toni Morrison. We all just want to go back to our one bedroom apartments, get under the covers, and try to remember a time when crying made us feel better.

We sit facing one another at a large, square table. We are a melting pot of people. We come from all walks of life–white men with glasses (me), white men without glasses, a Mexican guy who looks like a well-tanned Jeff Goldblum, one black girl, who must really get a kick out of watching whitey talk about oppression, a mother or two, some MFA women who appear to have gotten their wardrobes from the dumpster behind their grandmother’s (whom they never visit) retirement home.

Our instructor is a diminutive black gentleman who always dresses extremely well.

“Who would like to go first?” he asks.

“No one,” I think to myself, and they say to everyone, loudly.

“Excuse me?” the professor asks.

“I didn’t say anything. I’m putting my head down.”

“Part of your grade is contingent on your participation in these presentations.”

“My grade in my Master’s level Literature course?”

“Yes.”

“Will you also decrease the amount of stardust in my moonbox?” I ask, then give a thumbs up. My professor smiles. I quickly turn the thumb down and make a fart noise with my mouth. My professor at first seems shocked and then quickly his expression becomes one of heartbreak.

“All right class, it appears I have been given a thumbs down and a fart from Mr. Irion. I don’t see any way to smoothly transition into our presentations, so let’s not even try. Who wants to go first?”

A mother with a young soul raises her hand. The professor nods approvingly. I slump in my seat, pull my shirt to the level of my nipples, and beginning playing in my belly hair.

“Mr. Irion, please,” my professor pleads. “Can you lower your shirt? We can see your abdomen.”

“You can?” I ask. “As a white male in a Toni Morrison class, I’ve always felt pretty invisible.” I sit up and pull my shirt down. “Go ahead, Ms. Simpson,” I say.

“Go ahead Ms. Simpson,” my professor says.

“Uh, is there an echo in here?” I ask, bringing my cupped hand to my ear, surveying my classmates’ faces in an “Am I right?” fashion.

“No, there is not an echo in here Mr. Irion,” my professor says.

“Sounds like it.”

“Yes, but there isn’t.”

“I know, but it sounds like there’s an echo in here.”

“Can I start my paper, please?” Ms. Simpson asks.

“Go ahead,” the professor and I both say at the same time. I give him a cutting look. I am going scorched earth.

“So can I go?” Ms. Simpson asks.

“Yes, I said. Who’s the professor here?” She’s struck dumb by my question. There are murmurs of confusion in the room. The MFA’s all lean back further in their chairs, trying to seem more even more blase about the class as a way to combat their fear. One shabbily-dressed man slips from his chair to the floor. They’re mortified. I can see it in their eyes.

“Do you have a syllabus?” one young lady, her lip trembling, asks me.

“Whose name should I put on my thesis board form?” Mexican Jeff Goldblum asks.

“Excuse me!” The professor shouts. “You are all graduate Literature students. Is it really that easy to pull the wool over your eyes?”

“It appears so,” I say softly, looking out at the confused, frightened faces, suddenly terrified by my own power. “I will now relinquish the class to this man here.”

“Who?” a fearful, portly gentleman in a sweatervest asks.

“My god,” the professor whispers, rolling his eyes.

“Everybody, this nice man will be your professor from here on out. I had a great time being your instructor this semester. Dr. Sherman–” I turn and gesture toward the professor, Dr. Sherman.

“Yes,” Dr. Sherman begins, the words coming slowly as if they pain him. “I am now your professor.” He winces. “Mrs. Simpson, will you please give your presentation?”

Mrs. Simpson gives her presentation. Then someone else does and someone else does and so on and so forth until it gets to me.

“Okay,” I start. I like to start this way. “I’m Kyle Irion. My paper is about–” I look out onto and into and out of the faces of my peers. I think of how much work some of the second year students have put in. I think of how hard it will be for them to find work any better than the work they had before they got here and how much worse that will be with $40k in debt. I think of how academic literature study’s sole focus seems to be sustaining academic literature study. I think about my own life, and how I thought this would fill the hole in my heart that the lonely drift of post-graduate life dealt me. Then I remind myself that I don’t need this.

“Honestly,” I say, “this isn’t very good.” I toss my paper onto the table. “It’s a lot of horse shit. At some point I talk about Morgan Freeman. That’s the high point. It all sucks other than that.”

I get up and walk out. And as the doors shut behind me, it feels like the building was, for a moment, more than just a building. I turn back and look before getting on the bus. It’s just a building again.

My First Day of Grad School

Alternate titles for this post: The Good, the Grad, and the Ugly, Grad Santa, Breaking Grad

—

I walk up four flights of stairs to get to my first graduate literature class. It’s a renaissance literature class–the “eat your vegetables” section of graduate literary study. On top of that, it’s a renaissance poetry class–the “eat your vegetables and also now there’s also someone screaming into your ear and slapping the food off of your fork” section of graduate literary study.

The room is small–smaller than any of the classrooms I inhabited as an undergrad. Centralized in the room is a collection of small tables, pushed together to create one, rectangular unit. We all sit in swivel back desk chairs. I look at the lovely desk chairs–they are nicer than any desk chair I’ve ever had (Desk chair #1: Bought at Office Depot for $30. Desk Chair #2: Found in house I moved into, structurally unsound, literally snapped in half after two months. Desk Chair #3: Stolen from ex-roommate, seat portion cuts me off at mid-thigh and makes my legs fall asleep if I sit in it too long.).

My professor is in his late fifties or early sixties, with a tomato-shaped head and eyes that seem–although stored next to a brain that he invested tens of thousands of dollars in–uncomfortable and approval-seeking. I make a mental note to bully the professor into giving me a ride home after class. I try to find his nipples through his shirt so I can practice Purple Nurple trajectory. Always envision your successes before they happen. See the hand, sweaty from note taking. See the nipple, barely visible through the canary yellow button up. See the contact. See the thumb and pointer finger move in seamless harmony, clamping down on the nipple, compressing it. Zoom up to the face of a broken down, frightened man. Cut to his attacker, who can be seen–in slow motion–mouthing his address and nodding.

“Okay, first off, my name is Dr. Scheffler. I’ve studied in Chicago, Iowa, and Cambridge.”

“Looks like we got a cool guy on our hands,” I whisper to the girl next to me. She looks over and does not respond. I take off my sunglasses and flip my collar down.

“This semester we will be talking about the renaissance poet Edmund Spenser. Has anyone here ever read any Spenser?” he asks. No one raises their hand. This silence is met with laughter by all, including Dr. Scheffler. “That’s okay. I didn’t think young people spent a lot of time reading renaissance poetry in their free time anyway.” More chuckles. Funny guy. I’m the funny guy. He’s the good looking one. That’s our deal. Except I’m also the good looking one. He’s the one with the nipples.

Except I have nipples.

This is difficult.

[Editor's Note: I'm pretty sure you used that joke before. The 'but I'm also the good looking one' one. You may want to delete that.]

[Kyle's Note: I'm currently working on my MA in Literature. Sorry, man. I don't have time.]

[Editor's Note: It took you so much longer to type that response to me than it would have for you to delete that joke. Just delete it.]

[Kyle's Note: Busy.]

[Editor's Note: See above.]

[Kyle's Note: Biz.]

[Editor's Note: 'Biz'? What are you talking about?]

[Kyle's Note: Too busy to write it out.]

[Editor's Note: You're too busy to type out "busy"? That's ludicrous. You just typed the word "busy" to tell me that you were too busy to type "busy."]

[Kyle's Note: B]

[Editor's Note: ...]

My professor goes on. “We’re going to spend a lot of time talking about the Bible in here as well, and some history. It’s a little difficult to read–the text, that is–because they used different type sets in renaissance presses.”

“Often printing solely in ‘Wingdings.’” I add.

“Uh,” he looks at me and then checks his notes. “No. That’s not the case.”

I “hm” in acceptance.

“Anyway, we’ll first be covering some of Spenser’s personal history. He had only one wife: Elizabeth Boyle.”

“She’s that old?!” I ask. I’m sitting on the opposite end of the rectangle from the professor.

“Who is that old?” he asks.

“Elizabeth Boyle. Did anybody see that clip?” Crickets. “That clip of her singing that song from Le  Mis.” Somebody out of my line of sight says “Oh my god” quietly, maybe to themselves, but I hear it, and it hurts my feelings.

“Are you talking about Susan Boyle?” a kittenish girl on the end of my side of the rectangle says.

“Yes!” I point at her and we lock eyes.

“Okay, that’s not the same person–they just have the same last name.”

“Elizabeth Boyle’s daughter, then.”

“Her daughter? Elizabeth Boyle was alive over four-hundred years ago.”

“Susan Boyle’s pretty old,” I say.

“Not that old,” my professor responds.

“Well, you’re the one who went to Cambridge,” I say, sighing. “I hope you got a good education at England’s number one community college.” I smirk and look at the girl next to me again. She doesn’t smile back. This infuriates me. “I’m never using one of your jokes ever again,” I say to her, then face forward, sullen. She begins to make a defense, but the professor raises a hand to silence her.

“Let’s just move on,” He paused. “Now, much of Spenser’s early work deals partly with the King’s Great Matter. Does anybody know what that was? Does anybody know what the Great Matter was?”

“I don’t know, what’s the Great Matter with you?” I ask, leaning forward in my seat. Somebody to my left laughs and that’s all the encouragement I need for at least four more jokes. I sit back before having a chance to register the professor’s reaction.

“He wanted a male heir, but all he was getting was females. One of these female heirs was…?” He pauses, waiting for student response.

“Anne Bolyn,” a male graduate student softly replies. The professor doesn’t quite make out what he says.”

“What was that?” the professor asks. “What did you say?”

“He said ‘Weenie Juggler,’” I respond.

“No I did not!” the graduate student responds, in a tone that all but guarantees me that he was beat up a lot as a child.

I shrug.

“I said ‘Anne Bolyn.’”

“Exactly right,” the professor says. “And please, sir,” he addresses me, “keep your comments to yourself.”

I nod, knowing I cannot possibly be expected to do this. Later, we study a passage from the book of Mark.

“When you see ‘the abomination that–’”

“Did you say the Obama-nation?” I ask, leaning so far over the table that I almost fall down.

“The abomination?”

“The Obama Nation.”

“Abomination.”

“Obama Nation.”

“Leave this classroom,” my professor says.

I leave, and wait outside the room to get my ride home.

Moving On

I walk down the sidewalk in Denton’s old-time downtown square. I’m taking one last stroll before I leave Denton to go to graduate school.

“Look how old all this is,” I say to my friend Derek, who walks beside me. “I wonder if I’ll ever be as old as these buildings.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure this stuff was made in the late 1800′s, so probably not,” Derek says.

“We’ll see.” I wink at him.

“No, we won’t see. We probably won’t be in the Denton square when we die.”

“God willing,” I say. “God willing I will die right here, pointing to the sky, screaming ‘My funeral! My funeral at Andy’s!’”

“That sounds like the most disrespectful funeral ever.”

“It’ll be all ages,” I say, looking out down Hickory Street, the setting sun at my back. “Five dollar cover to twenty-one and under, though.”

Derek shakes his head. We walk to Jupiter House, a coffee shop on the square. Outside the cafe is a group of older men, all with skin that is tan and leathery. They all sit in silence, as if to say that there is no news, nothing of interest to discuss, and to do so would just be a waste of breath and thought. It’s an expression that resembles a pained contentment.  “Look at them,” I say, smiling broadly, arms crossed. “Just look at ‘em.” All but one look up at me. I stand directly in front of their table. “I wonder if they can still hear me.” I look at Derek. “They’re so old, you see.”

“We can hear you,” one says.

“GHOST!” I yelp and begin to run down the sidewalk to Recycled Books. Derek follows. I’m his ride home.

We walk slowly through the shelves at Recycled Books. We’re in the fiction section. The fiction section is on a mezzanine, so our steps are bassy and distinct. I want to weep because I never–not once–thought of bringing my STOMP troop up here. I want to weep because I never–not once–had a STOMP troop of my own. I always had to borrow one.

I breathe deep the smell of books–that book smell that is the same everywhere you go. I have a feeling this book smell will remain unique to me in my mind as I move on, though. I breathe deep the smell as I pass great writers like Ian McKewan and Cormac McCarthy, but then am struck dumb by an olfactory intruder. It stinks of shit all of a sudden.

I shake the cobwebs of whimsy from my head and look down the aisle. Derek stands there. He’s leaning against the wall with his right leg pulled up to his chest, farting openly.

“I hate Thomas Pynchon,” Derek said.

“Okay, Derek,” I whisper-yell, “Pynchon is in the next aisle. This is L-N.” Derek drops his leg.

“Oops. Okay, thanks.” He turns to pass, “‘Scuuuse me.” In a moment, I begin to hear what sounds like a small duck quacking from the next aisle over.

The smell is like a swamp where the trees have all been replaced with the contents of a Taco Bell dumpster.

We leave Recycled Books, get in my car, and go to Green House for dinner.

“I just love this restaurant,” Derek says as we get out of the car.

“Me too. I love how it smells like delicious bar-b-que from the outside, but when you get on the inside there isn’t a single god damn piece of bar-b-que on the entire menu.”

“Why would you love that?”

“Because that is the restaurant telling us that it doesn’t owe us anything.”

Derek pushes his jaw forward a little and nods in agreement.

We order our food. It’s delicious. The combination of the top shelf food and the aesthetics of the restaurant  make us feel affluent like nothing else in our sad, shabby lives.

For lunch I had a can of black beans and water that I drank from the empty can of the black beans.

Derek ate the can.

I’m still feeling contemplative and make it a point to take in all the different faces of those at the Green House that I recognize. There are only like two, so that only takes me a few seconds. Derek and I pay our bill and leave.

“I drank fifteen scotches,” Derek says, rubbing his belly.

“Derek no you did not,” I say, scanning the parking lot for our car. Sometimes Derek lies like a child to impress/one-up me.

Our next stop is Lou’s. The ol’ stomping ground. Lou’s is a bar with indoor and outdoor areas, all contained by fencing that seems pointy enough to maybe be a bad idea to have around so many drunk people. Derek and I spend most of our time outside. There’s less cigarette smoke there and you can see more people and the music is softer, which means that conversation no longer requires the sacrifice of two twenty-somethings’ larynges . Derek is drinking a Shiner and I am drinking a double Wild Turkey and Diet Coke.

“I told the guy that I got Diet Coke for the taste, not for my figure.”

“Yeah?”

“He told me he listened to me talk for my order, not for my guilt.”

“Oh.”

“I tipped him thirty bucks hoping he would at least smile at me.”

“Did he?”

“No. I think he might have stuck his finger in my drink.”

“You think?”

“I was kind of misting up.”

“Oh.“

“From the humiliation.”

“Gotcha.”

The bar is particularly full on this night. Perhaps everyone found out that it’s my last night in Denton, of which I’ve had three.

One by one as people enter, I see my past paraded before me.

There’s the girl who I dated a two years ago and now we don’t talk. There’s the girl who I dated a few months ago who I broke it off with and for whatever reason I’m now mad at her. There’s the other girl I dated two years ago and I wish we didn’t talk but damn if she doesn’t just want to be my best friend in the whole world and why do you hate me Kyle?

I see guys that lived in my dorm, who I never hung out with outside of that building and that year, but with whom I feel I’ve always shared a mutual affection, perhaps because we were both present for one of the best years in each other’s lives.

I shake hands with one in particular who has stood out amongst the others, if for no other reason than because he’s the only one I see anymore.

I see people who were in my English classes who also graduated in 2009. We exchange friendly nods and the look on our faces is always somewhat apologetic–like we had all been party to some tremendous lie that we are only now beginning to understand the consequences of.

I see people whom I’ve seen around for five years and never spoken to.

I see girls who would be prettier if they just stopped trying for five minutes and actually said something.

I see a guy go number two in a urinal.

Derek and I have a few drinks and then head home.

We stop at Whataburger and get some food.

“You know, I’m going to miss this,” Derek says before biting into his sandwich.

“Yeah. Youth is something strange, isn’t it? You treat it as something owed to you, maybe even an inherent trait you have, and all the while it’s being pulled out of you. It’s like a currency that life demands. To move forward, you have to give up certain things.”

Derek is chewing vigorously, eyes closed.

“You can’t enjoy sex if you still want to hold onto that innocent, superficial understanding of what makes a woman a woman, you know? God, there are all kinds of things you have to give up if you want to enjoy sex.” I take a sip of my drink. “And you can’t have a really deep friendship with someone until you understand that people out there are very capable of betraying you–that even your friend has it in him to screw you over, but  he chooses not to and it’s that choice that makes him your friend.” I look out the window and see a car pull into a spot next to my own. “So yeah, I’ll miss it too, but I’m not sure if I’d go back if I was given the chance.”

“Go back where?” Derek asks.

“Like in time–to younger days.”

“Jesus, what are you talking about?”

“You said you were going to ‘miss this.’ I assumed you were talking about times like now.”

“I was talking about the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit,” Derek says, staring at me over the sandwich as if I had offended a close friend of his.

“Oh. Yeah, that looks delicious.”

“Oh, it is!” Derek says. “It’s just delicious. I don’t care if it’s only a limited time.”

Mother’s Day

I need to hurry up and post this before it goes from just a little relevant to not relevant at all.

—

Sunday. Mother’s Day. I’ve come to Waxahachie, my home town, the place of my development into a post-adolescent before my exodus and further development in palatial Denton, Texas where I went from being a post-adolescent to a pre-adult to a pseudo-adult. If you’re a post-adult, you’re dead.

I wake up Sunday morning (I spent the night at my parents’ home) and get my mother’s present in order. It’s a card I purchased from Target. When I say “in order” I mean shoo the cat off of it and then wipe all the cat hair off and rub the card against something that smells normal and not like the underside of a cat who is too old and too bitterly entitled to take the time to wash anymore. I write “Mom” on the outside, so my father doesn’t find the unmarked envelope and mistake it for some sort of clue to something. I can hear the television on in the living room and the clink of glass and metal as clean dishes are being put away. I put on shorts and a shirt. I don’t usually do this. At my own home in Denton, I walk around in my manties all day. This is done with the same spirit of an animal who doesn’t cover its dung after excretion because it knows it’s the dominant predator in the region and has no reason to hide its scent. I just compared my uncovered physique to dung.

I walk out into the living room and greet my mother with a big “Happy Mother’s Day!”

I hand her her card. She opens it, smiling. She reads the outside page and then turns the card on its side and shakes it expectantly. The card offers nothing. Mother opens the card up, as if whatever she was hoping would fall out was simply stuck in its place. If she was hoping a few lines of poorly written poetry about mothers and sons would fall out–it won’t. It’s written there in real ink and not on a separate piece of paper. Internally, I kick myself for not writing the poem on a separate piece of paper.

A Mother’s Love

Mother, my mom. Bore me into this world.

Why the Hell did you do that?

It sucks here.

At least I get presents sometimes.

-Kyle

“Well, there’s no money,” my mom says, “but how could you afford to put any money in here with the,” she checks the back of the card “three dollars you spent on this card.” She holds her arms out for a hug. Her eyes are looking at the television, though. I lean down to give her a hug and her arms remain stretched straight out. I remain for a second, waiting to be wrapped up, but after a few seconds it’s clear that that just isn’t going to happen. I lean back and walk into the kitchen to make my breakfast.

My mother and father leave for church and I stay behind in case any of my intellectual friends are looking.

I try to read a bit, but I can’t focus, so I stop. I turn on the television. I’m supposed to be meeting my grandmother on my father’s side and some of my extended family for lunch. I assume it’s scheduled to begin at 12:30 or 1 o’ clock because my immediate family all go to church and couldn’t be expected any earlier than that.

I receive a text at 10:45 am from my cousin asking me if we’re coming to lunch.

“Yeah. When is it starting?”

“Now. We’re all here.”

“What the Hell kind of lunch starts at 10:45?”

“It didn’t.”

“So it’s not starting yet?”

“No. It started at 10:30. You guys are late.”

I feel pretty pushed out and victimized in general. I mark the meal up as a loss–I’m not dressed, I’m drinking my morning coffee and watching a rerun of SNL and don’t want to rush around to eat mediocre Mexican food on a full stomach and have four or five different people ask me what I’m up to now, their eyes going glassy as I respond.

An hour or so later, mom and dad return, a little perturbed by the lunchtime shunning. We all decide to meet my other grandmother (the one on my mother’s side) for lunch at a regular lunch time hour. I run into my room and grab my gift for my grandma.

My brother, sister and I drive our own cars and meet my parents, my grandma (my mother’s mom, father’s mother-in-law) at a mostly breakfast and lunch restaurant in Downtown Waxahachie. Pleasantries are exchanged.

My grandma asks my brother about graduate school and his upcoming marriage. He and his fiance seem to be happy and everyone relishes in this excited love. My sister rattles off a few amusing anecdotes about her son who is a little more than a baby but maybe a little less than a toddler. My parents ask if everyone’s ready to go. My sister tells them that we just got here and no one’s even ordered yet and what is wrong with them. My mom shrugs and my dad says something  incoherent about his upbringing that even he doesn’t seem to believe.

Finally, it’s my turn. “Tell me Kyle, what are you up to?” my grandma asks.

“Well,” I begin, “I just finished The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was a book I’ve been wanting to read for awhile, but–” Nobody cares. “I finally got to read it and it was good.” Everyone seems relieved that I stopped talking so fast.

“Mom, would you like your present?” my mother asks.

“Of course!” says my grandma, clasping her hands at her chest.

“Okay,” my mother says, echoing grandma’s excitement to a lesser extent. “Here you go,” my mother says, and slides a carton of cigarettes across the table. Everyone seems confused. My brother half smiles like he thinks it may be a joke. It isn’t.

My grandma seems the most confused. “I don’t smoke, dear,” she says, forcing a smile. “And the carton’s been opened. There’s a pack missing.”

“Long drive,” my father said, a pack of cigarettes rolled into his sleeve.

“It took me six minutes to get here,” I say.

“What is time?” my mother asks me in a hushed tone, leaning over the table.

“Okay, here. Nikki and I got you something,” my brother says. His fiance reaches down between their seats and hands my grandma her present. It’s a candle. My grandma loves it.

My sister gives my grandma a set of towels.

I hand my grandma her card. It’s larger than my mother’s, and everyone at the table can tell the exact moment when my mother notices this. It’s not hard to notice because she slaps the table and yells “God damned cheap skate traitor!” at the no one in particular.

“Let’s see,” my grandma says, smiling, reading the card. “Happy Mother’s Day, grandma.” She opens the card. Inside is a cartoon rabbit saying “It’s easy to see that my good looks and intelligence aren’t a fluke.” She reads the rabbit’s line out loud, starts to read what I had written beneath, then stops. “Kyle, what does this say?”

“Yeah, ur hott” is scrawled on the card just above “Love, Kyle.”

“Kyle,” my sister admonishes me.

My mother and father are busy arguing about cigarettes.

“It’s a joke,” I say.

“I don’t like that, Kyle,” my grandma says. The meal is finished in silence.

On the way home, my mother rolls down her window and tosses her leftovers onto my car’s windshield. An explosion of pinto beans and mixed vegetables. I almost hit a family of four.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Decision Time

“Editor, what is this?” I ask Editor. I’m holding an envelope that was left on my desk. My question is met with silence. I realize I’m at home and not at my office and that I had just placed the envelope down and forgotten about it after getting distracted by a sandwich whose origin was unknown.

You find a sandwich you don’t know where it comes from you stop and you try to figure it out, okay?

The next day, I walk into Editor’s office. “What is this?” I ask. Editor’s eyes bounce from me to the envelope.

“You haven’t opened it yet,” Editor said. “How can you, let alone I, possibly know how to answer that question.”

“I can’t tell what it is,” I say.

“It’s because it’s in an envelope, Kyle,” Editor says, calling me by my slave name [Editor's Note: Okay. That's enough of that. It's your name. It's what your mom and dad named you.]. “You need to open the envelope to find out what’s inside.”

I open the envelope and find out what’s inside.

Inside is a notice from the company I bought the domain name “ironkyle.com” from. Apparently, I have until May 30 to renew my lease on the internet super highway.

For the last two or three months, my posts have become more and more widely dispersed. I’ve begun working on some other things–other serious things, and I’m trying to find a balance. It seems like more and more often IronKyle.com gets the short end of my effort stick [sloppily writes note to self to henceforth refer to penis as "effort stick"]

This site gave me my voice as a writer–which may sound cheesy, but is said with the utmost of sincerity.

So now I have to decide whether or not to renew my lease on IronKyle.com. If I don’t, I won’t guarantee that the posts will stop coming on IronKyle.wordpress.com, but it would seem to be a distinct possibility that I’d just shut down the site altogether.

I’ll be thinking.