bring the noyz

Sorry for the delay, my dear reader, yesterday was a full day conducive to neither writing nor reminiscing. But here now submitted for your approval, the conclusion of "cricket".

When I was in high school I worked at a grocery store in a typical 80's suburban strip mall in the heart of a The Sprawl. You know them, you've seen them, you still shop there. My dearest friend Chris was no longer in the employment of this grocery store and worked at the Burger King on the other side of the parking lot.

Every autumn there was a giant cricket invasion. In the evening swarms of them would descend. Where they came from I do not know. I suspect the great swarms were partially the result of the natural habitats of their typical predators: the birds, lizards, toads, and such; being wiped out on a mammoth scale by the rapid expansion of The Sprawl. But I'm not a biologist, it is only my speculation.

They would descend in the bright parking lot lights and cover sidewalks and storefronts. It was almost Biblical. I remember myself and my fellow checkers and bag-boys taking turns in front of the store with push-brooms, doing our best to stem the encroaching black tide. But you couldn't stop all of them, there were just too damn many. Some got through. You would find them everywhere, at times in the oddest of places, a single solitary cricket wandering lost and confused.

As they could not be kept out of the grocery store, they could also not be kept out of the Burger King.

And now the point of the story (allowing for the errors of memory and the embellishment of time). . .

One night when Chris was working the drive-thru, a non-favorite but familiar voice placed an order. It was an officer of the local police, grabbing a quick bite. I feel as though we knew this particular officer, possibly because he was one of those who moonlighted as undercover security at the grocery store, or perhaps we had previously made his acquaintance in less than pleasant social circumstances. With the passage of a quarter century or so I am no longer certain.

He ordered some sort of cheeseburger. Now Burger King may advertise that they old-school flame-broil all of their burgers but at least in the 80's they added cheese in a more modern way: the microwave oven.

Chris was preparing this officer's burger. He saw a wayward cricket. There was a slice of cheese and a microwave oven.

Yes, my dear reader, you know quite well where this is going.

Moments later, it was wrapped up and served to one of The Sprawl's Finest.

A "pleasing burger" is what Chris called it. Apparently that scene in 'Waiting' isn't far from the truth.

As far as we know, the officer ate it without noticing, as nothing happened afterwards.
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Earlier tonight I crunched a cricket with a flip-flop after it flew in its crooked cricketly way, careened into a wall and crashed upon the floor.

I told you that so I could tell you this.

As you may or may not recall, my dear reader. . .

Two of my oldest and closest friends killed themselves in 2005.

During the 2008 - 09 school year I went to four student funerals. And yes I loved, cared and fought for each of those children with a love like they were one of my own. It's the only way to do the job really, just throw yourself 110% balls in. Anything less is insincere and you're in it for the wrong reasons.

An average year has two, maybe three student funerals. I'm about to start my eighteenth year teaching. You do the math. Last year was a good year, there was only one to attend.

Let me just say I have some unresolved grief issues and leave it at that.

I have been doing some light summer reading, Neal Peart Ghost Rider. He writes of the Freudian notion that in order to fully accept and come to terms with grief and loss you must first revisit and re-examine every memory of every moment with the lost one and of your life.

This reminds me of a portion of one of my favorite quotes, an excerpt from a preface Walt Whitman wrote for Leaves of Grass, ". . . re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem. . ."

Re-examine.

For the past couple of days I must confess to spending a fair amount of my vacation time strolling down memory lane. The cricket reminded me of the story that follows.

Or rather more accurately, that story that will follow tomorrow, as the hour is late and I grow weary.
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Last night I had a dream. I was young, brash, full of the arrogance of an arrested adolescence -- a rebel without a conscience, a martyr without a cause. It was two decades past, I was in the Sprawl, at a celebration of the sort that was common in those days.

Jon, Simon, Matt, Spew, Mike and Mikey, Dave the Artist, Dave the Drummer, and Dave aka Sid. The whole gang was there. The cases of Red and Blue Beast were flowing in smoky rooms and the conversation was boisterous, exuberant, loud.

We were dressed for all the world like the cast of "Les Miz" in that cafe scene. I vividly recall seeing the glow of a cigarette in the tattered fingerless gloved hand of Dave the Artist as he held it to his scruffy face and thoughtfully took a draw. And yes, there were empty chairs at empty tables: Chris and Curtis were conpsicuously absent.

It was one last hurrah before we set out on our next adventure. This time we were going to war. I do not remember which war, whose war, or why. Our rifles leaned upon tables, chairs, and walls. They were as locked and loaded as we were becoming. In the morning we were heading out, going to join the Fight for the Great Cause.

The scene shifts, it is the next morning. I am in the back seat of a small white car. Is it my car? It is cramped and crowded. So crowded I can't see who is driving. Somehow most of us squeezed our drunken asses into this car. I look down and our rifles lay in a stacked pile across the floorboards beneath our feet. They are rusted. We are making our rounds, saying our last goodbyes to those we shall leave behind in a few hours.

The car pulls into the parking lot of a typical Sprawl apartment complex. We amble out part like clowns at the circus and part like Spicoli on the first day of school. Somebody says, "Hey, don't forget your rifle." Guess you wouldn't want to leave a gun in the car in this part of town. I half accidentally half intentionally, meaning I make myself forget, walk away from the car without mine.

We enter a generic white-walled beige-carpeted apartment. A time-shift of dream. The Wife is there, as are a small handful of other women whom I consider the most trusted of confidants and the closest of friends. These are the women I love. Be it the reason I'm not in Mexican jail, my other wife, or a dear friend who I confess to not speaking with as often as I should -- she frequently loaned me her vacuum cleaner because I had not one of my own at the time. They were there, with a few more. There is beer, banter and balling. Of the tearful sort. Get your mind out of the gutter, this wasn't that type of dream.

I remember looking around at my friends, hugging the women and one another. We put on our bravest face, clinging for one last moment to the precious little we still held precious. We gest and toss barbs, boasting and toasting imagined future exploits. We are ready to go forth to Fight the Great Cause.

I have a eureka moment, "We are fools! We have not a clue what we are about to do. This is not our fight. We have been deceived."

It is time to depart. As the fellas head out to the car I make an excuse to linger for a moment, "No it's okay, go ahead without me, just give me a minute or two. I'll catch up."

The guys leave the apartment. The door closes behind them. I am fearful. I am not going. I am not going.

And I know that I will not see them again. The shock of that thought wakes me up.
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