A Tampa Double-Tap

the phoenix dilemma
  -or-
pirouette

the ashes from the fire clung to the ground while the smoke billowed. the trees cooed softly from the wind, somewhat discomforting for a camper who's seen too many horror movies. it seemed the perfect time for a pedestrian ghost story:

prelude: the drive

  i was going to see my friend D for the first time in almost five years. he had just accepted a job in tampa and was moving cross-country, just not forrest gump style (also sans any shrimping ambitions although chronologically those comparisons are in different succession vis a vis the comparison, hence making the reference (and, as such, this explanation) somewhat of a moot point,) meaning he flew, not ran. in any case, he had arrived a month or so before his gf and while having obtained a very nice apartment, he was also surviving on just basics: air matress, a few glasses and the nom de rigueur.

  so as this figuratively literal reality was set in some sort of stone circle of philosophy, my friend D proposed i visit. the most obvious mode of travel would be by plane (or skytanic (oh dirigibles how i miss thee, especially when He is not immflammable of flammable),) i chose to drive.

  now, multiple factors played into this decision, chief of which would certainly not be transporting drugs, something both illegal and just plain ridiculous vis a vis trying to beat stupid airline security; in other words, as a child i dreamed and loved being on a plane, and now as an adult i loathe and avoid it (thanks obama). another compelling factor was that i have a new car and wanted a chance to drive it hard, fast and long; to get to know its nuances, its complexities...so i could manipulate it into loving me! await, retract that, or don't; let's keep blazing. the actual most important factor relates to my buddy D's sitch: i could haul a lot more shit in my car than getting on an annoying plane w/ annoying this and annoying that and, like camping, i also needed to pack for contingencies so a packed car the decision became.

  quick list of things packed in my subura crosstrek: 5-6 pillows of various sizes and fluffiness; a 15 year old boombox that still has an aux output which w/ the right cord (which also was packed) still connects to ipods and thus provides tunes; one mid-size plastic container containing blu-ray movies including, but not exclusively: twin peaks: the whole sh-bang, criterion editions of scanners, rashomon, repo-man, etc. and of course, undisputed III (starring scott adkins); a towel; a cooler filled w/ 5 beers, 1 vitamin water, 2 cherry coke zero's; 2 boxes of unique Kobe system nike shoes (including a bruce lee version that kicks so much ass it really is a paradox cause i don't want to wear them to keep them pristine which, obviously, is in direct contrast to the point of shoes); a carton of american spirit cigarettes consisting of one light blue pack, one green menthol pack, 3 black packs and 3 organic packs; a soccer bag filled w/ shirts, underwear, shorts, socks and a toiletry bag that may or my not have contained certain pharmaceuticals and/or rolling papers; a basket containing 3 hats and another 6-7 pairs of shoes of various brands and colors, but all unique; a bag full of shower necessities and personal meds; a ps3; an over-the-shoulder bag (based on the designs from the movie 2001 directed by s.kubrick and, thankfully, has not been remade as 2k1: the internet and all society will collapse,) containing a pc, a kindle, various graphic novels (such as joker), a notebook/diary, 2 pens and a phone charging cord; 5 shirts on hangers; two blankets; another mid-size plastic container w/ 2 playstation controllers, an hdmi cable, a ps3 power cord, a power-adapter and charging cables for previously noted ps3 controllers; a 32" led flat screen tv w/ special radiohead 'in rainbows' sticker artistically placed, which is my housewarming present to D.

  my first stop on this quixotic quest was...to get gas and then to get lost...like an idiot. mapquest had told me [redacted], bang, boom: I-85 to I-75 to I-285 to almenia to D's apt @ [redacted]; approximately 8-9 hrs. after my initial fumble, let's just cut to the chase and say i took it like elway took cleveland: to the crushing house (aka the dawg pound euthanasia clinic).

the unpacking: an exercise plan

  so, soon after the great monsoon that slowed traffic on I-75 in florida to 35-40 mph on the highway and had most cars pulled off to the side (i ain't no fucking pussy [sidenote: i was scared shitless]), i finally closed in on tampa and I-285. luckily traffic was relatively light going into the city but of course the road had to pull one of those switcheroos where my exit for armenia ave is not on the right but on the left, which was just fantastic since i had already moved into the right lane anticipating the exit. made it anyway and proceeded down the road to perdition.

  now, i knew that D's address is on S armenia ave, but what i didn't know is that the exit serves as the beginning of armenia ave, hence starting w/ N armenia addresses. bippity boo, oh yeah, it's a one way street, i get confused, pull into a medical clinic, get D to explain i need to go further south, make an illegal turn, somehow make that work to my benefit, find D's apt complex, blow another turn, take a chance down an alley, end up in a parking lot across from D's apt which is this restaurant ceviche and apparently has valet parking, have to explain my predicament to a parking lot attendant whom i'm sure was thinking what the fuck is this guy doing, finally met D and then made our way to his parking garage where he had saved his spot for me since he knew where to park on the street during the duration of my vacation. whew.

  well, the not-really-impossible-but-still-major-pain-in-the-ass operation has to go into effect. quickly remember i have driven 8 hrs straight, yet still riding an adrenaline high. D sees the car's load, tells me (now i realize omniously) that we should just get to unloadin'. the catch turns out that his apt is on the exact opposite side of the parking garage, which may not seem like a big deal till you realize this complex makes melrose pl seem like a motel 8 and, although not involving stairs, it is tantamount of 1/8 a mile from my car to his apt. in contrast, my parking space is a mere 10 feet from my abode, so loading the car became a whole different beast when unloading it. after a couple trips of essentials (tv, pillows, blankets, ps3, mid-size plastic containers, other ephemera) we (or more rather i) took a cool-down w/ some klons, half a zofran, vicodin and a beer; otherwise known as god's concoction.

  and, the rest of the night was just a continuation of the cool-down zone. D and i caught up on some years over a few more beers, watching some 'archer' before visiting sleepy-time. he had work in the morning and i still had fucking unpacking to do. this was just a thursday though.

meat & potatoes: publix

  the hidden gem in all of my experience (this time, this place, this bat-channel) was the publix grocery story located exactly right next to D's apt complex; i mean literally 1/3 the distance from the parking garage to his place and you didn't have to carry (admittedly not very heavy but still cumbersome) tv's. it basically served as a gourmet version of a convenience store: you could get only what you wanted and pretty much when you wanted it. i gots to describe this place cause i am quite serious in saying this was the best 'grocery' i have ever had the opportunity to privilege.

  a basic synopsis is that a regular publix smashed itself in the hadron collider w/ a whole foods producing some sort of supermarket 'god' particle. previously i had lived in chicago (1 year w/ D coincidentally enough) and there was a 2 story grocery store by the depaul campus that i had (in)frequently visited. the chi-town store was generic and had its food placed over the two floors; this screwed and chopped publix, however, had managed to fit all its groceries onto the first floor, while still paul-wall mixing in a full sandwhich and grill area. i may have not been a good architecture student but i still love examining construction designs and this was a doozy. upon entering, the immediate right is the designated quasi-cafeteria area, yet the design is non-linear and sleak, lending itself as both a unique and separate part of the greater whole. i could honestly go into great boring detail about how the support structure is utilized and how the aisles are carefully dileanated in a space-savvy way; i could extend the metaphor to include the big bang, but i'll suffice it to say: not too shabby, god publix, not too shabby at all. oh, and before i forget: the genius of the second story was the parking garage and not only that but the escalators going up there were split by a specialty escalator that carried your cart, your g-damn cart of groceries, up to the parking level. i'm not kidding when i say this is next-gen serious super-market shit. let's just say this place was frequented quite a bit in a few days

chill-town: harmony

  friday arrived and my boy D had left around 10 am, in my approximate estimate since i drifted in and out of sleep while he got ready. i arose, went to the bathroom, rolled a spliff, stepped outside (D's place has its own personal balcony, overlooking the pool, which is a point i may or may not come back to, depending on the level of candor i want to stoop to, or let's just leave it at that) and smoke said spliff. refreshed, i spend the next couple o' hours sipping beer, smoking cigs (on the balcony, of course; i'm not a rude guest, assclown...yet there was this one chick w/ a nice rack and sat in a seat where her eyes were not even, i stress even, able to see me sp(eek)y, but guess what...i've said too much)), and watching episodes of 'it's always sunny' on netflix via my ps3 hooked to the tv i brought and the internet connection that D smartly set up in his new place. i mean publix was definitely involved for lunch for me, but you can't go there all the damn time (something i argued  w/ D about under different circumstances), so D needed a destination for distraction-ville and voila, it's the internet, which by extension, meant me. if that wasn't clear...as in the internet helped provide/pass the bulk of our down-time.

 short story shorter: i shit, i showered, i smoked, i drank, i ate lunch, i watched netflix, i awaited D's return.

upon D's arrival, i got a sense that he was heated, and i mean that in a frustration/anger level of temperament. i was as kosh as a ghost, so i let him unwind and this being friday, he vented a bit, but his spirits seemed to improve pretty rapidly. unfortunately, this was a false portent, but i'm getting ahead of myself and also doing a disservice to my enjoyment ratio of en media res trip; it was a false alarm hinting at other smaller concerns, like forgetting to pack my mini hdmi cable allowing both my and D's computer to hook up to the tv; g-damn inconveniences!

  i jest, i jest. D shook off his day-time work like marshall faulk and as the greatest team on turf we started driving towards a drunken k. warner throw towards the end-zone. wait, drinking and driving, pro football, st. louis...um, i've had better metaphors? oh yeah, we slowly became buccaneers, embracing that 2002 spirit(s). we were outlaws: drink, pillage, and then have a few awkward moments. you know, like mid-thirtees men should have. so we tried to watch a bootleg version of the movie 'neighbors' and an apt metaphor never made an announcement so we shrugged while we chugged. besides, other concerns were around the corner.

  like i stated earlier, i have not seen D in five years. during which time he finished medical school in philadelphia, did some tomfoolery in san diego, developed a long live-in relationship w/ some woman i've never met, and basically shitted on the whole process while still out-performing idiots; an aside, i mean, he literally could not try less at what he's doing, not that he doesn't care about his life and his ability to live it somewhat comfortably, but he sees the zero-sum game and i think i got a glimpse of the wear & tear that this is taking on him psychologically b/c he doesn't want to fail, doesn't want his job, and yet he can only fail forward and, just personal opinion here, i think that pisses him off the most (extapolate that dynamic from previous reference to a mr. f gump and the cost of self-awareness).

  to the belabored (and probably lost in my mish-mash previous paragraph) point: his gf jenn (gotta remember the double-n's) called him on friday to see how we were doing. now, this is obviously not a big deal to me in terms of it's natural, i expected it, and they are still coordinating their cross-country move. the big anti-cena 'you can't see me move' came, however when jenn (2 n's) wanted to talk to me. no biggie, i want to talk to her also to know who tamed the D-beast, but, oh my gahd, stone cold, stone cold...wanted to face-time. now i'm no techno-bugaroo but i also actively resist face to face chatting; never did it, couldn't avoid it. so i get on D's iphone and have no idea what i'm doing (plus i'm halfly lit) and just see my throat and jaw strutting around like it's got all the wrong moves. talk to 2 n's, feel embarrassed. the worst part, however, was the fact i tried to play my discomfort like a weird freddy kreuger: cracking innapropriate jokes, blatanly lying while smiling cause i'm an idiot and forgot the camera works both ways, and, most important of all, forgetting that this woman has never met nor has spoken w/ me before; a clown wouldn't even cry, he'd just shake his head and go back to buskin' to the acoustic boogaloo.

  my horror was short lived as her main concerns seemed to be D's fidelity which i attributed (quite naturally, WHOOO) to my own behavior, lack of significant other and the fact we are actually staying in a steroids version of melrose pl where everybody forgot it's not the 90's (except me, see below); trust me, however, when i say i am not the destroyer of relationships nor an ideal demographic for this particular crowd. that clouds the point: D is very handsome and (by others) a successful doctor living alone in an area that screams typhoon fever; in other words, she shoulda been stressin less, cause i wasn't gonna let my boy get in some stupid mess. i, finally, awkwardly, exited this face-2-phase-star-trek-jumbalaya w/ only my intoxicated sense of disillusioned dignity. there was one more intense call the following night that i sat out (conveniently on the balcony chain-smoking cigs although i could make out the convo if i wanted, but the detective was lying low) and D said things were good.

  the rest of friday night was a maze of weed, booze, pills and me trying to indoctrinate (ha!) D in the intricacies of fifa street. remember, i'm...let me check...oh yeah, #7 in the world and D is one of the best, intuitive soccer (real-life yo) players i've had the pleasure to play w/ and against, so i figured eazy-peazy. not so much. well, a willing particpant and (like in real life) a fierce competitor, i slowly realized there was a lot more nuance to the game that i had previously not noted either because i was learning on the curve (like D) or i had logged so many hours playing the game, i forgot that initial said curve. to be precise: he tried, i got frustrated, he lost to a team that he rigged to score 7 goals against themselves (read that again: he couldn't even win when he brazenly cheated,) i proceeded to beat [redacted] on my first try. scorched metaphysical earth and thus ended the aborted attempt to make IPO the virtual soccer god.

quick synapses: a note on the black-box-recorder

 i would love to say that i was fading and the debauchery was ballin so outta control that i don't remember much of the next few days, but that would just be a partial truth...or half and half, depending on where you dig your vocabulary (hint: not sexual). saturday we made some power moves by walking a bunch to publix then the liquour store, back to publix, D's apt, maybe a third publix journey (who knows) and sweated like mules. did i mention the humidity in tampa in early august? it sucks and i lived in st. louis; even in the shade during the day on D's balcony, sitting btw, i would be drenched in sweat after 10 mins.

  saturday night was going to be another isolation-zone where D and i didn't go out. i, however, wanted to get my hands (proverbially) dirty and convinced D to meet some of his friends out at local watering holes. let's say 2 sheets to the wind and multiply it by, i dunno, maybe a 4-ply cottenelle and get our pre-game: local time is approximately 11:15 am...just kidding. plastered, yet still walking, we made it to the first of three (i think) destinations that night and the only one i remember, relatively, clearly. it was 'the world of beer' or some other variation (look it up if you are in that particular part of tampa, have read this, and actually want to sit in an outdoor cafe w/ a bunch of weird micro-brews that D and i selected only based on highest bva) and lo and behold, it was the standard meet & greet of people you don't know, won't see again, oh, your name is blank, well i'll file that in the memory banks i'm currently wrecking w/ alcohol (amongst other intoxicants,) thank you, chug, refill, repeat.

  as we went from that place to a sushi restaurant/dj night club mash-up where we somehow circumvented the line system to another cavernous tavern where i lost my (loose semblance of a) group, i think things happened. i seem to be alive, typing this, and yet if you want some real detailed specifics i proffer: i made 3 bucks for 3 loosies. smashed or just the logical conclusion of a saturday hearing a bunch of jabronies cavalcading around the pool area proclaiming their (hollow) dominance? it's a toss-up, but rest assured, neither D nor i regurgitated anything ingested, and surprisingly and accordingly, neither of us hurled any immflamatory comments towards the cardboard cut-outs unfurled before us. the night ended uneventfully, except for those ghost images i have of a night before it goes down like oceanic 815.

lip gloss: the decision

  i got the hop-scotch in the peanut butter snatch, double-clutchin like my grandma spread for a vin diesel snack. ribald, of coarse, cause if you ride the pre-destined train your only option is your assigned stop.

  an ambiguity clouded sunday and it would mete out various punishments. i awoke on that tenth of a day lost to posterity and felt stiff; the air mattress had literally deflated and i pulled an undertaker by sitting straight up w/ the mind to tombstone the day into the ground. a little dehydrated, i went about doing my business while trying to be as quiet and polite as possible to my host D. unfortunately, it was 10 (in the am, for real) and D didn't wake until almost 1:30 pm and my perspective started to shift. my initial plan was open-ended in terms of when i would leave but i was getting this creeping feeling that D was ready to just deal on his own (an attitude i both understand and respect). let's short-circuit to a failed drug excursion, differing mentalities, and the hot, humid truth: D had too much on his plate to try and entertain me, while the bay of tampa was not making it very enticing for me to entertain myself (bathrooms, kitchens, communal areas in general all excepted b/c of [redacted]).

  blowing town was always an option (re: drove) and i didn't want to be hasty so i sweated (among other things) the following monday off. once D got home, unfortunately, i knew bubba had died and i was just one more noose for D and his increasingly strained neck. he was pretty quiet, slightly apathetic. he was not pallid but his demeanor suggested a palette of frustration that i knew he was withholding out of respect for me; i recognize that bodily behavior. so to make a slightly interesting story completely tepid, i no-face-timed D, and straight up left a day early while he was at work. it seemed the most melrose that could happen at this place.

  i tacitly admit i bailed. i had vaguely admitted my potential departure but it was nebulous and self-serving at best. the flip to that coin is that i think i had very valid and sound reasons for doing so. D had wanted me to come a week earlier but i demurred b/c my mother, her sisters and nieces had all traveled to the carolina of the south to go on vacation at myrtle beach and i had been asked to take care of various animals (my mothers' cats: otis and lexie; my aunt's dog and cat: charlie and spookie; and my own hell-mouth, who i can only figure is trying to relate to me in 'meows' the meaning of 'old man and the sea' by his namesake (look it up chump)). the problem, really, is my own; you know the proverb, if you're pointing one finger at someone else, might as well be the one you're gonna stick up your own ass...i think that's how it goes. moving along, 75% of the trip was amaza-balls, yet these circumstances (we're supposed to be adults?) achieved a covalence that made a distinct argument against colliding lives.

addenda and/or side-notes

  i only smoked 7 total cigarettes in my combined sixteen hours of driving to and fro tampa

  i slept on a very nice air mattress that had its air-pump built in, thus allowing for easy inflation and deflation

  i only listened to sirius 26: vinyl and sirius 34: lithium during my entire driving experience

  i split my return journey by stopping roughly half-way home and staying in a smoking allowed room

  i only stopped for gas 4 times the entire trip

  i repacked my car by myself, and yes, it was exhausting but at least D got a tv and i didn't need to ferry it anymore

  i tried to maximize my entertainment in a compacted period (PHRASING!)

:as the story finally wound down, the leaves stood still. the night's stars waved at the passing light and an emptiness lingered with the dying embers; the horror is never not real, and life is a constant jay-walk.