WINDFALL

When I found the money, I didn't do anything.

Not right away.

I couldn't.

Literally.

You ever been pulled over by the police when you're doing some shit you ain't supposed to be doing?  You got weed in the car or an open container or you got an outstanding warrant or it isn't your car...

Your heart constricts.  Your throat tightens.  Your mind races.  All you can think is, "Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckingfuck!"

That is how I felt ten seconds after I found the money.

But, MAN, those first nine seconds were great.

Then, I'm just sitting there looking at the money.  More money than I had ever seen in my life.  And I had seen a lot of money before.  But this.... This wasn't a lot of money.  This is what me and my friends call, "Fuck you!" money.

I know I gotta do something fast.  The longer I sit there, looking at the money, the better the chances of someone seeing me looking at the money.  Hit pause on the tsunami of crazy, scary, violent, paranoid (not necessarily untrue) thoughts, put the shit in the trunk, drive the fuck to someplace safe and then hit the play button and come up with a plan.

So I put the duffel bag in the trunk, I look around.  No one there, so far as I can tell.  I get in the car, put that shit on cruise control and drive.

OK, smart guy.  What the fuck does, "Safe place" mean?  A hotel?  Where you gotta show ID?  You gonna pay with a credit card since you only have eighteen bucks in your wallet or you gonna peel a hundred off the stack of...what?   Counterfeit?  Ransom?  Marked bills from some fucking sting operation?  ...You gonna drive home?  Bring this potential nightmare to your parents house?  What if there's a GPS tracking device in there, genius?  You saw "No Country For Old Men" (actually, that flick wasn't gonna come out for a while, yet, but still...)

I go with the hotel.  GPS or no, the chances of my name being anywhere near this shit is pretty slim.  I'll find out what's what with that soon enough.  So I hit the Airport Hilton.  One forty-nine, plus tax.  I check in for the whole weekend.

I play poker.  I'm not great, but I win more than I lose.  I've cashed in a dozen tournaments and took second place once at Hawaiian Gardens on a Friday night.  I cleared thirty-five hundred.  That's the most I ever made playing hold-em.  Point being, I know how to act like I don't have the nuts when I do have the nuts.  I wasn't sweating like the guy in "Midnight Express".  I was cool.  On the outside.  I get to the room.  It's nice.  A mini-suite with a great view of the city.  I close the blinds and I empty the contents of the duffel bag onto the bed.

I wrote a screenplay once.  It got optioned, but never got bought (yet).  It was about a family that robbed banks.  One of them had gotten killed in a botched job and they needed to recruit a new guy, or at least that's what the new guy thought.  In reality, they were using him as a patsy - a diversion to keep the cops occupied while the rest of the crew did the real heist.  Anyway, at one point, I had to figure out how much space a couple of million dollars in hundred dollar bills takes up - 2.5 million, to be precise.  After my research, I estimated that you could fit 2.5 million dollars in hundred-dollar bills into one of those cases that commercial airline pilots carry.

My point being, before I found the money, I already new what a couple of million dollars looked like and this was more.

A king-sized bed covered with bricks of hundred-dollar bills.  I took a real deep breath.  Counting was not priority right now.  I figured I should quickly flip through each stack and  address some of my most immediate concerns.  I stop.

I have to go to fucking CVS and get some latex gloves and a counterfeit-detecting pen and a blacklight, if they have it.

Fuck.  What if there is a GPS thingy in one of those stacks?  I come back from CVS just in time to get my head blown off or some shit.  I think for a moment.  I got it.

It took me awhile to find a  housekeeping cart, but I find one on the sixth floor.  I grab two pairs of gloves and am back to my room without anyone noticing me.  I'll flip through all the stacks real quick and if there's no tracking device, then I'll go to CVS for the other shit.

Each stack was banded - ten grand.  No GPS or other electronic device.  That's good.

Bills were newish, but circulated and non-sequential.  Also good.

I put it all under the bedspread and go to CVS.  I buy a counterfeit detection pen, a blacklight on a keychain, a Red Bull and a pint of Haagen Daz Vanilla Swiss Almond...(to be continued)

UPSTAIRS

You want to know what's upstairs?  First you gotta know what's downstairs.

Downstairs was just that.  Downstairs.  The living room had a sofa, TV, you know, living room shit. The kitchen had kitchen shit, and the bedroom was exquisitely adorned with all manner of fine bedroom shit.

This is to say that if you was to come calling at any time of day or night, and upon doing so were granted entry by the occupant, it would appear to you that you were in a large, beautiful home in a gated community.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  You feel me?

You might even stay awhile, take a swim in the pool, have a bite to eat.  All would be as it should be and  you would depart having no suspicions about the home you had just visited.  You get in your car, the gates at the bottom of the driveway swing wide, and off you go down that windy mountain road, eventually making your way back to your own much smaller, but equally unremarkable home.

You'd go about your business doing whatever it is you do and about a week later, you are eating a sandwich and your mind begins to wander and you think about the sandwich you had eaten at The House.  You smile as you remember how beautiful a home it was and then...there was something.

It was faint.

It was so faint that it took your brain a week to assign it enough importance to qualify for only the most fleeting of thoughts...

...so faint that you almost didn't hear it at all.

But, you did.  Hear it.

And now comes the question that took seven days to form.

You envision yourself, back at the house, sitting at the butcher-block kitchen table, eating a Boar's Head Saulsalito turkey with avocado on rustica.  Your host has excused himself and you sit alone, eating your sandwich while looking out at the pool and beyond to the city and beyond that to the mountains.  That is when you hear it.  And that is when you ask yourself,

"What is that hum?"

You cast your eyes toward the ceiling as you strain to listen harder, but it is barely perceptible.  Your subconscious is just about to make a list of possibilities - air conditioner, fish tank, Jacuzzi (all wrong), but before your unconscious mind has the chance to perform this task, your host has returned.

He smiles.

"How's the sandwich?"

He is so disarming that your suspicions evaporate like ether.

"It's delicious."

You forget the hum until you remember it a week later.

But of course all of this would only have transpired if you had been invited in.

And that.  Would never.  Happen.

* * *

GRAVITY

I do the same thing every time.

The same, exact steps in the same exact order, for years.  So many times.

How many times?

How many times have you made yourself a sandwich?  Or got dressed for work?  Or taken your dog for a walk?

Same way every time.

I've been sick.  I've been late.  I've been angry.  Still...same routine, like my life depends on it.  Because it does.

We all jump at once.  They are elated or terrified.  Laughing or crying.  Sometimes they panic, but Ray or Angela or Tony always calm them down.  It's a gift they all have, especially Angela.  I do not have that gift.  My gift is my ability to capture the moment, and I do it every day right after I follow those same steps in that same order, day after day.  Week after week.  Year after year.  Except today of course.

It sounds boring, but I assure you it is not.

Falling.

They fall.  I fall with them.  I record everything.  The smiles.  The wave.  The "thumbs-up".  Then suddenly - very suddenly, they are gone and I am falling alone.  Then there is only wind.  And earth.  And me.

As it is now.

I've experienced a couple of failures over the years.  I followed procedure without thinking -  automatic - and I lived to tell the tale.  But this... this is...embarrassing.

Fuck!  How could I fucking forget?!  Jesus!  So stupid.

Ready for some irony?  Guess what I was thinking about when I was skipping the most important step.

Regret.

Ain't that a bitch.

That's about all the time I have to beat myself up.

This is gonna be a real drag for a lot of people...that girl that works at Dunkin' Donuts that was waiting for me to ask her out...Ray, Angela, Tony.  Mom.  Sorry, Mom.  Christ, today's students are all gonna be scarred for life, especially Carrie, floating somewhere above me.

Wow.  This is taking longer than I would have thought.

Here comes the ground.  I hope it doesn't hurt too much.  I guess I get to see where you go.  I'm going to be OK.  I really wish I'd asked that girl out.  She seemed

HAIKU MOVIE REVIEW - The Hunger Games

No one looked starving,
The entire cast seemed well-fed,
"Hunger Games" my ass.

FUMES

I have a loving heart,

So big,

It can hold enough Love,

To love the world.

Love for all my friends and family,

Love for all who are unloved,

Love for the killer who butchered my Brother,

Love for one and all.

Even myself.

Yet,

All we have is now,

And right now,

My heart,

Is empty,

Or nearly so.

Big as the world,

Hollow as a junkie's promise.

I am running on fumes.

Help.

LONGING

In my heart there is a place which only your love-light can fill.

Each day that we are apart,
The echoes of your laughter grow fainter there,
And I am left with a sorrow so heavy,
I cannot carry it,
For it is more than I can bear,
And all I want to be,
Is home.

There Will Come A Day...

There will come a day when you figure out that something is up with your dad.

You will look around at other kid's dads and see what they do;  they get up, they eat breakfast with their family and they go to work.  A lot of them work in an office.  Some of them drive a truck.  Some of them work in movie theaters or bowling alleys.  Some of them teach school.  Some of them write screenplays.  Some of them join The Marines.  Some of them are bartenders or waiters, serving food and drinks for all the other ones to eat and drink.  Some work in a movie theater or a factory.  Some get to work on an ice cream truck - they get to see lots of smiles!

A lot of dad's sell things to make a living.  They sell motorcycles or advertising or espresso machines or tickets to see a baseball game or a concert.

I have done all of these things...with varying degrees of success.

The truth is this:  I am a little lost in the world.  I do not understand exactly how things work.  I try my best to do what is in front of me and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.

I have no shortage of talent and I am surrounded by wonderful people who want to help me find my way.  I get tired sometimes.  I get discouraged. But, I will never give up trying to figure this deal out.

When my journey takes me away from you, I miss your more than I thought I could miss anyone.  I love our time together and hope that someday soon I find a way to a routine that is not too routine, a way to earn a living that is fulfilling and allows me to be with you more.

THE GRIND - Part 1

I got no beef with Cadillac Frank.  He was in the wrong and, given time, he'll cop to it.  "My vic" means "My vic."  This is a fact that is not open to interpretation.  'Nuff said on that topic.'

Insofar as his nickname is concerned, there is (as always) no shortage of geniuses claiming to know why this or that scalper is called by such and such name on the street.  "Duh, he drives a 'Caddy!" or  "He's from Cadillac, Michigan." or, my personal favorite, brought to you by Wrong Allan:  "He's the penultimate scalper, you know, the Cadillac of scalpers."  Allan really outdid himself, there.  I'm not really sure where to begin.  An astounding amount of fuckups in one sentence, even for Allan.  The best part is that, for emphasis, Allan writes the word Cadillac in the air, like he's writing it in cursive with a pen, just like the actual Cadillac logo.  Pretty sure he missed an "L".

Cadillac Frank, who sliced me when I was in the middle of a sale, was born Francis Patrick Leahey.  He drives a twenty year old Cutlas which he does not own, but is owned by his partner, Chris Mulrooney, a scalper to be nicknamed later.  He grew up in Stoneham and I have no idea exactly where his parents are from, but I would lay odds on Dorchester or Roxbury.  I base this call on my keen ear for Bostonian accents and the fact that Frank's mom needs a friggin' translator when she leaves the New England area.

Anyway, Frank's dad, Frank Sr., is deceased and the story goes that he, not Frank, drove a Cadillac.  An early '70's limited edition El Dorado called the El Deora, favored by mob guys and pimps mostly.  When Frank was 3-years-old, his old man missed his birthday party.  It wasn't a huge deal to anyone but Frank Sr. who was always looking for an excuse to go on a bender, and go he went.  He skipped work and went right to Kelly's.  By noon he was legless and by four-thirty he and the driver he hit head on (a guy who actually went to work that day) were both taking their last ambulance ride.

A veteran cop on the scene knew Frank senior and was telling a bright-eyed rookie the sad tale of Frank's now widowed wife and orphaned 3-year-old son.  The rookie was pretty shaken up by the scene and wanted to do something for the kid who would not remember his dad when he grew up.  He looked at his feet and saw the Caddy's hood ornament on the pavement.  It doesn't look like a regular Cadillac ornament and if you didn't know your shit, you'd have no clue that it came from a Cadillac.  Anyway, the rookie cop pockets it and when he went to inform the family, he gave the ornament to Frank Junior, who has cherished it ever since.  Since then, Frank has been obsessed about all things Cadillac - Cadillac posters on his wall, Cadillac screen-saver, the whole nine yards.  He swears he's gonna put enough cash together one day to buy a mint condition 1973 Cadillac El Deora just like his old man had.  But Cadillac Frank, like so many in our business, is a degenerate gambler and him ever owning a vehicle of his own, let alone a cherry vintage Caddy...c'mon.  Please.

Great story, huh?  Only one problem.  Frank Senior never owned or even drove a Cadillac.

I know, I know.  What I actually said was  "...the story goes..." or words to that effect.  The Cadillac in question was, in fact, driven by the guy Frank Senior hit.  No one wore seat belts in those days and both drivers were ejected from their vehicles which were both barely recognizable as cars - forget about make and model!  It was a real friggin' mess, blood, glass and metal.  The rookie made an honest mistake and Frank's widow's whole world had just gone to shit so I don't think she knew her own name, let alone what the hell the officer was talking about when he gave Frank Junior a hood ornament from someone else's car.  By the time she came to her senses, Mrs. Leahey saw how much little Frank loved the thing; she didn't have the heart to tell him what was what, not that it mattered much in the grand scheme of things.  Anyway, I have it on good authority that Frank's old man drove a Buick Riviera, the kind with the bubble-back window.  It was a piece of shit that never would have passed inspection if Frank didn't throw his mechanic ten bucks every year.  It all worked out.  "Riviera Frank" is a bit pretentious for the street; it'd make him sound like a homo.

DEVASTATED

...at the thought of living without you,

Frightened,
Of an uncertain future.

Worried,
That this will hurt you.

Willing,
To do anything to fix this.

Wishing,
We could all stay together and be happy.

Torn,
Between what I want and what is.

Angry,
At the unfairness.

Frustrated,
By my own powerlessness.

Sad,
Just so fucking sad.

Praying,
For hope to emerge from this sorrow.

You Can't Handle The Tooth!

My five-year-old son is losing his first tooth.  It was two days before Christmas and he was very excited about Santa.  It was just before bed time and we were brushing our teeth.  He pouted.
"Daddy, my tooth hurts."
"Which one?" I asked.
He sadly pointed to one of his front teeth on the bottom (#25 for you dental wonks).  I furrowed my brow.  Could he be losing a tooth, already?  I wondered, a little sadly.
"Wiggle it,"  I suggested, "Maybe, it's loose."
He did and it was.
He lit up like Christmas.  I have not seen him that excited since the second time he saw the ice cream man. Santa just went heads-up against The Tooth Fairy and got his butt kicked.