I am no poet, The Old Man writes

but I like poems. They way they look

on the page. Occupy blank space.

[blank space]

He doesn't know fonts but likes some

better than others. And some just

annoy him for reasons he cannot explain

nor does he care to.

One font, he thinks. One good font.

Is that too much to ask?

It's like ointment. Why so many different kinds?

It confuses him. Too much.

I give up. Television may be garbage

but it doesn't stink. And Mannix is on.

I wish I had hair like Mannix.

And the women, especially the redheads.

The Old Man finds and ant. That's ant - A-N-T, not A-U-N-T, but that is already apparent. Still. There is a need to make a distinction. The ant crawls along the rim of the toilet bowl -- seat up -- over dried urine stains.

It is that time of year again. But tiny invaders usually encroach via the back door, breeching cracks in the floor near the threshold, gaps between the door and the door jamb. There's a screw lose in the latch plate that keeps backing out. Leaving the house vulnerable. The ants march in, along the floor molding, making a bee-line (why not an ant-line?) for crumbs.

The Old Man suspects he will return from his trip inundated with ants. That's ants - A-N-T-S, not A-U-N-T-S. It has been too long since he's seen any of his aunts, but perhaps on this trip he will be allowed access to at least the one. Laid up in Buchannon. A regiment and routine of medications and television. Three meals a day. Visitors, when they can. When allowed. The lady is an iron horse, outliving The Old Man's mother by going on eight years now. They were twins. Still are, perhaps. His mother persisting in his aunt's image.

The Old Man pokes the ant on the rim of its world into the bowl. Into the pool of chemical blue water. It swims. Or walks on water. The Old Man directs a feeble stream of urine at it, creating waves and eddies. The ant struggles against the tide. The hue of the bowl-water change changes from the cloudy yellow into a green merk.

That little old ant persists even as the flush carries it away in a rush down the pipes.

#TheOldMan #Ants #toilet #riptide

The Old Man considers his fortune. Good? Bad? Is there really any percentage in a distinction? It is what it is, as theysay, because they need to something to say. White Noise -- this novel by Don DeLillo is still on his reading list. Bookstore today?

What about Archie Bunker’s fortune? Not the worst thing in the world. His name is on the window of a bonified establishment. Archie Bunker’s Place. A real friendly joint. Who hasn’t dreamed of owning a bar. Hanging about all day and night, while people come and go, sit and drink, talk and laugh. Take it in the other room, if you’re going to cry about it. Or go sit in the corner with that sad old man over there.

Every night, for an hour, in back-to-back episodes, The Old Man is an extra at Archie Bunker’s Place, although you probably haven’t noticed. Why would you? He ain’t Murray or Veronica or Stephanie. He’s just another schmo in a chair, hugging his drink, like the Norman Lear TV verartion of a Eugene O’Neill play. He doesn’t require any lines. Content just to be there. Among people. Allowed to observe and listen. To laugh quietly to himself. To love Archie for all his ignorant bigotry cluttered around his big heart.

If you had seen Archie cry when Edith died, you’d understand. Holding her slipper. Weeping. One of the saddest days of The Old Man’s 70s childhood. What was Arch going to do without Edith? What would The Old Man do? After all, he was just a boy. What would the world do? How does one manage in a world without Edith Bunker? Arhchie has. The Old Man, as a boy, couldn’t imagine. And then his mother died when he was neither and old man nor a boy. Just a man. And he had not choice but manage. Still. It has made him The Old Man.

#TheOldMan #ArchieBunker #ArchieBunkersPlace #EdithBunker #NormanLear #DonDeLillo #WhiteNoise #EugeneONeill #70s #the70s #70stv #70stelevision

The Old Man at Lowes. Sunday, early. A good time to go, even without the drizzle and cold. A lesser crowd. Most cross the adjoining parking lot for Home Depot, anyway. The draw of orange.

The Old Man came to consider chicken-wire to cover openings in his garage, places where the wood siding has rotted away, allowing access to birds and squirels to build nests and tear up the fiberglass insulation. "Hello, Clarice," The Old Man greeted the squaking starling that has been hanging around, staking its territory, cawing dibs on this particular rotted opening to any other interested parties -- Move on! Move on! "There will be no nesting here this season, I'm afraid."

The Old Man has nothing against birds or squirrels in general, nor starlings in particular. In fact, he likes having them around, but he can't have them taking up residence in his garage. It's a rule. Everyone knows, even though no one knows why.

The chicken-wire is painful to work with, tore up his hands last year when The Old Man covered the gable vents against sparrows. So, he's considering nylon mesh, like what you use for window screens. But he ends up consider the selection of rope on the other side of the aisle. Who knew there were so many different options? Colors even? They all appear to be nylon. He prefers natural rope. Something to do with cowboys, perhaps.

Something to do with hangman's nooses and gallows, a hard man's eyes squinting into the hot sun and blowing dust. Like in his persistent dreams, which he'd expected to stop upon quitting his soul-sucking job, working fourteen-pluse hours a day, seven days a week, sometimes. And they had. For a time. Until they didn't.

It ended with a dream. That didn't seem nor particularly feel like a dream. Definitely not a nightmare. In fact, it was the utter banality of it that unsettled him so deeply. Shuffling to the kitchen to make the coffee. Carefully descending the basement stairs, into the dark. There, hanging from the rafters, rope. A noose. Still. A gaping hallow eye-socket. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Old Man settles on the cheapest role of nylon mesh. He's on a budget after all, and we're talking about vermin here. Borrows a staple gun from his brother with the tools. Both sit in the kitchen, waiting to be taken to task.

#TheOldMan #Lowes #birds #squirrels #starlings #cowboys #noose #hangmansnoose #hangmansgallows #dreams #nightmares #TheGoodTheBadandTheUgly #HomeDepot

The Old Man is fed up with just about everything, including every Norman Lear sitcom that was his childhood. And Stephen King novels. Cracked sidewalks and old pennies lying tail up in the gutter.

What about Twinkies, and other Hostess snack cakes? Nah, those aren't genuine; Hostess went bankrupt. What they make now are part of some plot by the Wealthy Elite Oligarchy hell bent on trapping The Rabble into indentured servitude under the guise of Health Care and Reality TV. Besides, The Old Man should really be mindful of his surgar intake these days. Too much sugar throws his system out of whack. And it hurts his teeth.

Let's consider for a moment the many advantages and delights of modern technology and content. What do you mean? Like PokeMon Go? And Tinder (is that how you even spell that shit?)? And ICP's YouTube channel/video podcast? How about, let's not and say we did. The Old Man wonders whatever became of his Hot Wheels cars.

Coin carrots and green beens too orange and green to be genuine. From his father's garden, he learned the truth about The Earth and why it's necessary to water the tomato plants by hand with rain water collected in old buckets. Only around the base of the plant where he and his father spread grass clippings and rottings apples that fell from the tree in the backyard. If you get the water on the actually plant the sun will scorch them. Even if this isn't true, The Old Man invokes the ritual.

#TheOldMan #ramblingsofanoldman #NormanLear #StephenKing #Hostess #Twinkies #PokeMon #PokeMonGo #Tinder #ICP #YouTube #HotWheels #gardening

The Old Man had a plan for this morning. Up by 7:00 (actual: 7:32). Brew the coffee. At his laptop by 7:10 (see actual awake time). Write until...this was left open, but 11:00 would have been the ideal. The reality: sometime after 9:00, perhaps even after 9:30. He can't recall.

Oatmeal while finishing coffee. Done.

Finish reading story by Flannery O'Conor in anticipation of The PBS American Master episode about her March 23rd. Done.

Drink as many glasses of water as possible before heading out to donate plasma. Two, so far. Slightly less, actually.

Shower first. Sing along to Tiffany's, I Think We're Alone Now, originaly by Tommy James and the Shondells. Twice. Okay, three times -- once while dressing. Imagine singing before an audience and calling out the hipster douchebag lead singer of The Killers, who calls out Tiffany for stealing the song from Toe Jam at Shoney's. Blah blah blah.

Read another story, this one by Pinckney Benedict, from his first collection, Town Smokes, which The Old Man picked off his shelf last night to read. He doesn't question his reading impulses. Just rides the tide. He has two copies of the collection, both signed. Author didn't sign to The Old Man, who was a young man ast the time, because book was supposedly worth about $300.00 not. But that was years ago. Still. You never know. Could come in handy. The cash.

But if The Old Man donates plasma he won't have to think too much about selling a copy of one his favorite collections. So why doesn't he? Why does he just sit on his courch, writing? Good question. He doesn't know. Or won't say. What difference does it make?

When the sun hides and the temperature drops, so does his mood, dragging his heart with it. Like that clever-ism, do ya? The Old Man did too, enough to post Twitter. It's his to repurpose. As soon as he did, he lost his joy over it. But he let it be.

They grey midwesternness of it all out there behind the drawn blinds, he could have been optimistic about it as a boy, but now? Now, it doesn't even remind him of the grim spectar of death.

Grey skies at noon!

Grey skies at noon!

Oh, oh!

Oh, oh!

Oh, oh, oh, I want some chicken noodle soup!

#TheOldMan #writing #coffee #Tiffany #IThinkWereAloneNow #TommyJamesandtheShondells #TheKillers #hipsters #douchebags #hipsterdouchebags #PinckenyBenedict #TownSmokes #shortstories #plasma #plasmadonation #Twitter #FlannerOConnor #PBS #AmericanMasters #singedbooks #auhtorautographs #chickennoodlesoup

Sunday. The Old Man leaves the house and drives to Ypsilanti. Saturday would have been better. Saturday had been the plan. Get out. Go somewhere. Do something. Too much time spent indoors. It had been bright and sunny and warmer, but he just couldn't do it. So, Sunday. Make it holy. The day.

Desitnation: the campus of Eastern Michigan University. Undgrad (89'-92'), after a stint at community college, after dropping out of two other colleges. EMU was pretty much his last best chance. Or, so he decided. A romantic myth made by the foolish young version of The Old Man. He misses that kid.

An hour drive, it had been years since he'd been on campus. Parked his car next to Jones Hall, where he'd lived all three years. He'd liked it in that dusty, old dormitory. A little like prep-school. Felt good there, like home, in a way; sitting with his feet up on the clanky old raditor spewing too much dry heat, hence the partially open window that looked out onto the courtyard filling with snow. It piled up. And drifted. They played out in it, like children.

Closed now. Windows of the first two floos boarded up. He approaches slowly, after dropping coins into the parking meeter. Two-hour: limit. As if the old, abandoned building is a skitish stray that he doesn't want to frighten away. Hold out your hand, let her (Lydia Jones, the namesake) sniff your hand, catch you scent. Looks tired, if that's possible for a building made of brick and limestone and concrete. Easy, old girl. I'm a friend. From years back. You remember me, don't you?

He remembers the front steps and stoop as being grander somehow. Seems so small now. It's not as if he's grown since he was 21-23. It's not as if he's expanded, not much anyway. A paunch. But the thinning spot at the back of his head evens things out, right. He sat out here on warm nights and smoked cigarettes and searched the landscape and the sky for his future. Look. There it is. Right there! I can see it so cleary. Now....

Breifly, he thought he'd actually met his future there on that stoop. A woman. Beautiful. Generous. Kind. Terribly bright smile. ACD. But he was older, a transfer student. It wasn't that unethical. It wasn't at all, as far as he was concerned. What did he know? What did he care? She wasn't his future, in any case. Her future, as is her present, is Idaho. But not potatoes. A husky husband and dog. Picturesque mountains. He can only imagine himself visiting such a place. No, there time was in Ypsilanti. EMU. Jones Hall. Even after they demolish the building, the imprint of thier affair will live on, lingering like a ghost, or so his still-romantic heart persists in believing.

His last year there, The Old Man lived like a foolish young man. Reading his worn paperbacks and tapping out his Hemingway-imitation of stories until late, when the dorm was all but asleep. There was alwasys the soft plodding of bare or socked feet up and down the halls. Community bathroom. Community sex. Community of Scholars. Then: he sneaked from his single room, which she had something of say in him acquiring, to the backdoor of the ACD apartment, convientlhy left unlocked. Slipping into her private life. Insid her private bedroom. Private bed. Still half in her private sleep, between soft, flannel sheets, slipped free of emerald green silk, privates laid bare. Sliped his tongue inside. A dream. A young man's foolish dream. The Old Man can still taste it. Her.

#Ypsilanti #EasternMichiganUniversity #EMU #college #undegrad #JonesHall #LydiaJones #dormitory #residencehall #collegedorms #love #loveaffair #romance #romantic #younglove

Every morning now, with few exceptions, The Old Man writes. He wakes early, somewhere between 5am and 7am, after not sleeping well, anyway, and shuffles to the kitchen in his old man slippers to start the coffee. As the carafe fills, he makes his way across the worn linoleum passed the basement stairs, through the half-bath, into the back room. He pulls back the drapes in front of the sliding glass door wall for the morning sun, if there happens to be any today, and boots up his computer.

A mug of hot coffee with a splash of milk and one packet of sweetner steams in his hand, because the furnace still hasn't caught up with the thermostat that he ticked up to 64 degrees, which is just warm enough and probably still higher than he can afford. He sits down and, after a slurp of coffee, decides what he will work on first, which story or novel chapter. Some days he's lucky to get one good sentence committed to the electronic page. But that is enough. More will come. Until it doesn. Then....

When The Old Man was a younger man, he wanted to be his generations Hemingway. He'd been reading Papa before he'd decided to try and write. He read with this blessed feeling that said, I could never do that, but I could do that. And so, he tried. For years. And for years he was defeated. He still proceeds with the expectation of being defeated, but still he tries. He pushes out his skiff, battles through the surf, and sets sail for calm, deep water in which to cast his line.

One good setence at a time in hopes that one day he will craft one good story. That is it, that is all.

As the sun begins to heat the back room and the furnace rests with a thunk and sigh, he knows it will be a good day. Already, he's written on good sentence. Warm up his coffee and return and perhaps one more will come. He won't know unless he tries.

He tries. He hopes for nothing. In this way, The Old Man Writes

#TheOldMan #writing #fiction #Hemingway #shortstories #coffee #hope #PapaHemingway #onegoodsentence #onegoodstory

Mornings. The Old Man writes.

He wakes and shuffles into the kitchen to start the coffee. While the glass carafe fills he crosses the worn linoleum, slides open the pocket door and passes the basements steps through the small bathroom into the backroom, his office, and boots up his lapt. Returns to fill a mug with coffee, milk, sweetner and then back to his desk, an old folding table, like the one he used all through graduate school. Maybe this is same one? He can't remember.

The morning after he resigned his position with his Former Employer, he had an interview for another job, something a buddy set him up with, but the moment the doucheback he's interviewing with begins to talk, The Old Man has him pegged for a douchebag. He won't be taking this job. Or any other for the foreseable future. He has some savings. He'll be fine. For a time, anyway. And from now on, he will work to live, and write, and not the other way around. A terrible cliche, but still.

After the interview, he packs up his vehicle and gets on the road, traveling south to West Virginia. Nestled safely (or so it feels) between the mountains, he will finally find his breath and sleep, without the torment of specters. For almost three days straight. He will stick around for at least another week.

There is an exit interview, which he bullshits his way through. Lies. No sense burning bridges with the truth. Although that is exactly what he wants to do. Probably should do. But....

Finally, he is awake. Drinks coffee. Smokes cigarettes on his cousin's back patio, staring off into the hills. He still has that childhood impulse to wander off there and disappear, forever. He needs to give up the smokes, to save money. Already he is counting beans. He reads and goes for walks, wandering the streets of Northview, one part of greater Clarksburg. He remembers this place as a childhood escape on family vacations. He knows it's not that anymore, but maybe he can capture that feeling, in writing. He begins.

Almost every morning now, The Old Man writes. And writes well, or as well as he can. It is all he's ever wanted to do. It feel good. He has no idea if what he writes has any worth to anyone. He wish someone would tell him. But even there was someon to tell him, he would not entirely believe it. He would not trust any opinion. Not even God's. He lives in doubt, and always will. There is no other place for him to live. He will die in doubt. But he can still write. One good sentence. And then another. And another. And on and on and....

Die slumped over his laptop. Vastly better than dangling from a noose in his bleak, cold basement.

#TheOldMan #unemployment #employment #workingtolive #writing #fiction #coffee #shortstories #WestVirginia #travel #roadtrip #sleep #coffee #mountains #childhood #Northview #Clarksburg #vacation #familyvacations

Apporximately seven months afer his company sent him to Work From Hom (WFH), and almost nine years to the day that he was first hired, The Old Man resigned his position with his Former Employer (FE).

He knows what people, like his friends and family and in general, probably think. What kind of idiot quits a well-paying job win the middle of a pendemic? Especially when he has a mortgage to pay along with other usual suspects of bills, like everyone else, and has a daughter he wants to help get through college with minimal, if any, debt. The kind of idiot would appear to be him.

But why? A question not easily answered, which is, in part, why he resigned. Simplicity is NOT Genius. It is merely a corporate-ism with intent of increasing productivity and profit. Something The Old Man has never give a shit about. And never will. Is that not reason enough?

There's more to The Old Man's disillusionment than just that, of course.

In fact, if he had to trace it -- and he's had plenty of time to do just that -- he would say it began the day he interviewed. It was a drizzly Tuesday -- okay, he doesn't know if it was actually a Tuesday, he just likes that line of Sheldon Cooper's from Big Bang Theory, a show that if he doesn't watch the back-to-back episodes that air every day, he feel a little off. However, it was raining that day, lightly.

Rain beaded on the shoulders of his suit, depsite the umbrella that he stopped by on the way to his interview.

The building he interviewed was unimpressive, a non-descript office building that, upon entering, felt like going to the dentist. The fake plants near the high glass windows were dusty. The window looked out onto the parking lot.

One of the three people he interviewed was a big guy with a shaved head, who was impressed with The Old Man's credential as a copy-cataloger at a library, his previous job, which he would gladly still be doing, but the position had been eliminated - budget cuts. So, here he is.

The Old Man left the interview, fairly certain that he would be hired, which was a relief and a disappointment. It felt, dramatically, like the beginning of the end, which was perhaps true.

The job was fine for a time. He got promoted, made more money, but it was years before he made what he deserved, what anyone should be paid for working the kind of hours he worked, doing the kinds of things he was doing. A Team Leader, young enough to be his daughter, although still older thatn his real daughter, said that what he did was a sacrafice for the team and the company. That TL was a smart young woman who did not realize just how ignorant what she'd been advised to say to him was. It was too bad, The Old Man had liked her, and had mistakenly considered a friend. She was not, and he no longer liked her. He didn't dislike her. He nothinged her. Her life would be superficially satisfying, but in case it no longer concerned him.

When The Old Man was finally paid a descent wage, he no longer cared about making a descent wage. It meant nothing to him. The work meant nothing to him, but then it never really had. It work. You did it. You got paid. You bought shit. Repeat. He had always hoped for something else, something more. If not for himself, then for his daughter, he decided, but in the end that was insuffient. But it wasn't the catalyst that made him decide to resign.

What was? Good question. If pressed, he would say it was a dream. A nightmare perhaps, but not like a Hollywood horror movie nightmare. This was different. It was so banal, felt so ordinary that it was terrifying.

This dream that The Old Man had, night after night, felt like waking up every morning for the rest of his life. In his dream, he felt as if he was in the real world, or that he could no longer distinguish between the two. He got up, shuffled to the kitchen, brewed coffee, poured himself a cup with a spalsh of milk and one packet of sweetner. Then he headed to his home office for another 12-to-14 hour day of working files and following process. Working files and following process. When people asked him what he did. That is what whe told them: I work files, I follow process. If they pressed him -- Yes, but what do you do exactly? He simply repeated: I work files, I follow process. But in his dream, he detoured his office and went down into his basement, descending the stairs carefully, because while age may just be a number to Sally Sunshine's vomitting optimism daily, a broken bone might be the end of him, depnding. Although a cool walking cane might be fun, for awhile anyway.

Approaching the bottom of the stairs, The Old Man sees a rope hangman's noose hanging from the rafters, completely still.

That's it. That's the dream. The Old Man Wakes up in a silent, contained panick, and after a moment of breathing, he gets up again, this time sitting down to work in the end but occassionally wondering if there was a talisman in his basement, attached to the ceiling, just below his feet.

#unemployment #unemployed #TheOldMan #SheldonCooper #BigBangTheory #writing #fiction #stories #story #Hollywood #dreams #nightmares #horrormovies #instrusivethoughts #suicidalthoughts #workfromhome #WFH