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The problem with the world is that dumb people are rarely as dumb as you think and smart people are never quite as smart as you’d hoped. I don’t know why I choose to start this final post on that note, but it seems appropriate.
That said, summer is and was an odd time for me to visit land-locked Denver. Temperatures are invariably in the high 90’s and its so dry that it feels like a tandoori oven. No beach for relief, and the dusty air with its lack of oxygen makes it a struggle for my ravaged lungs to breathe.
So if my goal was to avoid the choking heat of New York I had to be some kind of dumbass to head to Denver.
But my man Catfish has a new apartment with a pool, and he’d been comped a set of tickets to go whitewater rafting up in the Royal Gorge. So in some shape or form I got out on the water everyday, which is what summer’s all about for me.
When we got back from rafting there was a sublime sunset in the sky. A burst of orange and reds that splashed before our spent eyes as we sat on Catfish’s balcony. It was Catfish, EP, the Gentle Giant and me.
“So you leave tomorrow,” Catfish said to me over his shoulder as he monitored the chicken on the barbecue. “Did you have a good trip?”
“Shit yeah,” I answered as EP handed me a glass of wine. “I walked Spiffy everyday, went to Kansas with Jaybird; I went horseback riding, smoked a ton of great weed, got up into the mountains with my dad, went whitewater rafting. Christ, I did it all.”
“...Did you get laid?” EP suddenly asked from the kitchen as he uncorked a fresh bottle of red.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You said you did it all,” EP said as he turned toward me. “Well, did you get laid?”
“..Naw, I guess I didn’t” I had to admit.
“Do you want to?,” the Gentle Giant said as he crumbled some weed into Catfish’s vaporizer. “You can call Lina.”
“Yeah? Is she hot” I asked.
“Fuck yeah,” EP responded as he searched for a clean glass in Catfish’s cabinet, “she’s a pornstar. Or at least, she used to be.”
“No shit,” I answered.
“Yeah,” Catfish assured me with a nod of his head, ”she’s on the internet. Show ‘em guys.”
At which point The Giant brought Catfish’s laptop outside where I got to see this chick in action.
“She does look pretty good,” I admitted.
“Her tits are huge!” EP exclaimed, excited by either those huge tits or his finding of a glass.
“Yeah,” the Gentle Giant chimed in, “and she knows things. How to do things.”
“Hmm,” I thought as I considered it.
“Bring her some weed and she’ll do you twice,” EP said as he came back out on to the balcony, “that is, if you can.”
“Hmmm,” I mumbled again, still on the fence
“Ah come on Lodo. You know you’re a total horndog,” Catfish said to me. “How long you been out here--three weeks? You of all people must be going crazy.”
“I guess there’s some truth to that,” I admitted.
Yet I really wasn’t all that motivated to action. We’d had a long day on the water and the wine and the sunset had put me in a lazy mood.
But an idea in motion stays in motion, and after a few minutes of indecision on my part Catfish suddenly turned from the barbecue to face me.
“Jesus Lodo,” he said with raised tongs as though I’d somehow disappointed him, “you’re still a vibrant man. A single man. I know you’ve got money. Hell, you’ve got a job waiting for you. And you’re a writer for God’s sake--on a roadtrip! You’re obligated to bang this whore.”
“I am?”
“Sure! Jack Kerouack, Jim Carroll, Charles Bukowski, William Vollman. Your favorite--Henry Miller. Who are you to defy tradition? Now you’re some type of groundbreaker or something? Gonna tear down established institutions?”
Catfish. Like Marc Cary when he told me to watch Cold in The ‘D’ it was hard to tell if he was being serious. That’s what made me laugh so hard.
But he’d shamed me.
So I drove out toward the airport where I pulled up to the anonymous, shitbox house and found the former pornstar--Lina waiting for me in her high heels, short denim skirt, and unbuttoned blouse knotted in front. A Chinese Daisy Duke, with big heavy legs and jugs.
She was older than she looked on the internet. Late-30’s. A mix of Asian and Spanish; least that’s what she said. In perfect English that sounded like California. She had a few pock marks on her face, but she was attractive in a debauched way. Jet black hair past her shoulders. Big lips. Those monster tits and thick legs.
If there were any cameras in the small space I didn’t see them, and if she had any male protection they must have been in her closet. If so, they were in there a long time.
She opened the door and scrutinized my face.
“You look like somebody,” she said with a laugh as she led me to her couch.
“I’ve heard that,” I said as I sat down on the worn red cushion. She sat next to me and rested her hands on my lap. Her face was right next to mine. I could smell her stale breath.
“EP says you live in New York”
“That’s true,” I told her. “Brooklyn.”
“I like guys from New York,” she whispered in my ear, then ran her tongue down my neck.
“Oh, well,...”
She traced her way back up my neck with her tongue, then un-knotted her blouse.
“Did you bring some milk money for me baby?” she asked as she squeezed her tits together and bopped them up and down for my amusement.
“What’s that?” I asked, momentarily distracted.
“Mommy can’t work without milk money,” she repeated with expectancy.
“Oh yeah, right. Here you go,” I said, as I reached into my pocket and gave her $200.00. “But don’t say mommy. ”
She counted my stiff 20’s that had come straight out the ATM and laughed.
“You don’t like that? EP loves when I say that shit.”
“Don’t tell me that.”
And I’m not gonna say anything either. At least not about what happened next. You’ll have to go to a different blog for that, though I’ll mention Lina was a really good lay. Knew things as the Gentle Giant had said. But I introduce her only because of a conversation we had about an hour later.
I’d just got out the shower and stepped back into the bedroom to get dressed. Lina looked me up and down.
“How old are you?’ she asked me.
“”I’ll be 44.”
“Really. ...What do you do out there in New York?” she asked.
I didn’t want to say investigator, so I said, “I don’t do anything--I just quit my job.”
We looked at each other silently. Lina lay on her belly on top of the bed. The sight of her big ass and huge tits began to make me hard again. She placed her index finger on my junk and traced a path along its increasing length.
“Hey,” I said as I reached into my pocket, “EP said if I gave you this I could maybe get another throw. What d’ya say?”
She reached for the weed and smelled it.
“EP gave you this?” she asked.
“Um hmm. Its from the clinic.”
She smelled it again.
“...Okay, let’s go in here.”
Lina threw on a robe and led me back to the original room. We sat on the green carpeted floor and leaned against the couch as she proceeded to dump the weed on to a large glossy magazine.
“So why’d you come out here if you’re from New York?” she asked as she broke-up the buds.
“I’ve got my dog out here. I had to leave her when I moved to New York, but I see her whenever I get free time. Plus my niece is out here--and my sister. My folks..all my people really.”
Lina nodded her head, then activated a vaporizer that was on a small table.
“Let that warm-up for a minute,” she said. “...So, you mind if I ask why you quit your job? Women like a working man you know.”
I laughed.
“No, I don’t mind. We’d had this meeting--a meeting I was on time for. Nobody denies that. Except there were only four chairs in my boss’s office. We’ve got five people in my unit but only four chairs, right? So no big deal, I run out to get a chair from my cubicle when my boss is like (here I snap my fingers and point) 'Where do you think you’re going? You’re not going anywhere....'"
I told her the story. The whole story. I’d told it often by this point so I had all the little nuances and phrases down. At one point I used that phrase pulling rank like the guy on the plane had said and began to get myself worked up all over again. Lina laughed at that as she installed the whip and drew from the vaporizer.
“..So that’s it?” she said when I’d finished. She was careful the way she said it, unsure as to my sensitivities. “That made you so mad that you quit?” she asked again as she handed me the whip.
“Yep,” I told her. “Why, you wouldn’t have done that?”
But Lina just held up her hands and stayed quiet.
“Come on,” I said, “you can tell me. I’m not gonna freak-out on you. We’re just two people talking.”
Lina’s eyes narrowed as she evaluated me. She was older than in her movies. Late 30’s at least.
“..Let me ask you, do you like New York?” she asked as she reached for the whip.
“Yeah, definitely--except for summer.”
“Okay. And did you like this job?”
“Yeah I liked it, when they’d just let me do the job. But I couldn’t do the other stuff. The personal relations stuff.”
“Like that meeting with your boss, right? That made you angry,” she said flatly.
“I suppose. Why do you say it like that?”
“No reason. Men get angry, that’s all..,” she trailed off as she drew a long, deep inhale from the whip. I waited for her to complete the thought but she obviously had no plans to do so.
“...Well don’t stop there,” I said with a laugh that I hoped would put her at ease. “Tell me what you think. You’ve got me curious now.”
She exhaled her hit and sighed in a single mannerism as she handed me the whip.
“Well baby,” she said cautiously, “...I mean, maybe this wasn't really about your boss. Job’s are a pain in the ass, but listen to what you said. You’ve got your niece out here, and your folks. All your people--isn’t that how you said it? Even your dog’s out here.”
“Yeah, so.”
“So,...”
Again she hesitated, not sure of my reaction; as though used to violence.
“Go on,” I said as I took a pull off the whip.
“..Well,...it just sort of sounds like--I don’t know.”
“Just say it!” I said again.
“...Well, it sounds like maybe things just sort of dried-up on you out there in New York. Know what I mean? Its happened to me.“
“Dried-up?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know. Like maybe the love just ran out over there. Why else would you get so mad? I mean, you seem like a happy guy. Good looking. If you were a woman you’d have just gone home and cried. But you’re a man so you got angry. Maybe--I don’t know you at all.”
Something ‘bout the look on my face must have caused her to withdraw; which in fact, made me angry. But I couldn’t help but consider what she’d said.
“...What?” she eventually asked as she gestured toward the whip.
“Nothing,” I said as I took one final pull and handed it to her, “they said you knew things.” 
* NOTE: Special thanks to anyone who's stuck with me thus far, and who's supported the blog throughout these 300+ posts. Until this last series, I've posted almost every 3-4 days, and I'm fairly proud of what I've accomplished. The blog format definitely made me a better writer. That said, I really wanted a lot more out of this last one, but I've been forced to write it piecemeal--an hour or so here and there, and I feel its suffered.
As you can see, my new job has caused the time between posts to become almost moronic. As such, I think I'm gonna have to end Stays Put here. Just feels like the end--at least of this set of stories (though they could all use a second draft).
The link to my new blog is posted at the very top of this page; as well as on the right-hand side, beneath the LINKS header. Thanks for reading!
Self-portrait in Montauk (something still weird and tight behind my eyes):
"Montauk was supposed to be the end..."
Catfish (left)/Lodo (right):
In Denver
"All I wanted to do was throw the ball for my dog Spiffy..." 
Jaybird (left) and Rules feed chickens somewhere in Kansas:
I suppose words like pretty or love aren’t so easy for American heterosexual men to say. At least, not according to the beer commercials or television sitcoms. Just not that manly. Maybe that’s why the word love never came to me.
Or maybe I was just able to avoid it. Because in truth, Montauk was supposed to be the end. The end of everything--my time in New York, my career as an investigator, my cheap Brooklyn apartment. Everything. That’s what life was telling me on that long bike ride back from the lighthouse. Time to re-invent this thing called Lodo Grdzak.
But a funny thing happened. When I got home from my apartment I began to pack my things. Sort through them as I prepared to leave town when my cellphone rang. The caller I.D. said WITHHELD, which meant that I normally wouldn’t pick up, but for some reason, I turned down the music and answered.
“This is Lodo.”
“Lodo! Barry S_____ . Remember me? You did some work for me about 3 or 4 years ago. That case with the bad burn out in _______.”
“Barry!” I responded, “Of course I remember you. What’s going on?”
“Well Lodo, I heard a rumor. I don’t know if its true or not, so I figured, why not call the guy. We always hit it off, at least I thought we had. Anyw...”
“Yeah of course we did. I had fun that night with those gals.”
(laughs) “Right! Good. Me too. ...So anyway, what I wanted to ask is...are you on the market right now?”
“What?--you mean for work?” I asked with a laugh.
“Yeah, of course! Christ, what’d you think I meant? You know I’ve always got my feelers out. Word gets around in this business. You still over at _______?”
“Yeah man, I’m still there,” I lied as I threw a pair of boots into my travel bag , “..at least until the end of the month.”
“Yeah? What’s at the end of the month?” he asked.
“That’s it, man. I’m outta there.”
“So what I heard is true.”
“Well, I’m not sure what you heard.”
“Ha!--same old Lodo. Listen, you wanna get together for dinner? Catch up a little bit?”
“...Okay, as long as there’s air conditioning.”
“Ha!--same old Lodo.”
Well, you all know from Part 1 that I landed my new job and got a month off to boot--so what does that tell you about the wisdom of quitting your job!
Man, I was outta New York so fast. All I wanted to do was throw the ball for my girl Spiffy and sleep with her in my bed. Plus I got to see my niece Jaybird again and even my man Catfish returned my call. “Freak, I got my medical marijuana card, so be sure to look me up when you get out here.”
So yeah, I had a full plate once I got out to Denver with no reason to think about my job or why I’d quit. Baseball games, horseback riding, whitewater rafting. And everything back in New York was right where I’d started. Even better, like a new episode of The Simpsons, with no need or reason to contemplate or consider what was gleaned from last week.
It was only my last day--or actually, my 2nd to last day that got me thinking again. 
* NOTE: Due to the length of this post, I'm going to split it into one final excerpt. Hadn't really planned to split it here, but its been a long time between posts! Thanks for hanging around y'all!
"Can't get any further east than the lighthouse..."
For all my talk ‘bout how I’d quit my job, the status of my employment was still unknown until I returned to New York. Before I’d left for Maine the head of my company’s Claim Department called me to get a handle on what had happened and then a subsequent phone conversation took place with the Human Resources Manager. I felt I had a 50-50 shot at being asked to return, but all the managers would have to agree to it.
“So listen Lodo, is there any way you’d be willing to come back?” the Claims Head asked.
“..I suppose if _____ apologized I’d consider it,” I said, pressing my cellphone to my ear as I rode the AirTrain into JFK. “But it’d have to be in front of the unit, not just to me. He really embarrassed me and made me look like a fool. I still don’t know why he did that. I was on time for that meeting. We all agree on that. There were five of us and only four chairs. Wha...”
“Yeah--okay Lodo, we don’t have to go over that again. I understand why you got upset. Do me a favor, let us talk this thing over on this end and...would it be okay if we called you back in a few days?”
Sure, whatever. I knew my boss would never apologize. If I really wanted my job back I wouldn’t have made that demand, but what’d I care? As long as my family fits under my hat I can afford to feed it. That’s what Dickens might say and its a motto that’s served me well. Just another in a long string of jobs from which I’d quit or got fired. No forty years and the gold watch for me. These jobs always end, just like everything ends: friendships, lives, youth, health. I'm probably dying of cancer already. Only thing that seemed never to end was the heat of this fuck-wad New York summer.
Vacations end, that’s for sure. Once I returned from Maine--and after my sister and Jaybird went home, I’d planned to call a recruiter and work on my resume. That was the plan, but when I awoke to yet another 90+ degree day I stuffed my backpack full of clothes and hit the road for Long Beach.
Only before I got to the train station, my phone rang.
“Hey Lodo, its _____. Listen..(sigh), I went to bat for you, I really did. If it were solely up to me we’d keep you. But in the end, I don’t think things are gonna work out. I’m really sorry.”
Like I said reader, everything ends. And good riddance I said to myself as I made my way towards Jamaica en route to Long Beach.
But for some odd reason, the thought of Long Beach caused a sudden tightening in my chest. A twist of my belly. I mind-flashed to the last time I’d been there--that day with Iwona, then envisioned myself alone as I’d be today.
You know what? I don’t wanna go to Long Beach, I said to myself.
What? I responded, almost in a panic. Not go to Long Beach? Why not?
I don’t know. ‘Cause we’ve been going there for ten years.
...But then what’re we gonna do? We can’t go back in the city--don’t tell me we’re going back to the city!
(I laughed to myself).
...Naw, we’re not going back to the city.
And that’s how I wound up on the train to Montauk.
I stared out the window of the Long Island Railroad as each stop eastward clicked off one by one: Freeport; Merrick; Bellemore; Wantaugh. Sometimes I'd hear my former Claims Manager If it were solely up to me Lodo..., but eventually that voice quieted and my head cleared. I kept the Ipod turned off. Never opened my book or lifted my pen. My mind became empty, filled only with the rhythm of the train and the chatter of the rich people and elderly who don’t work weekdays as they made their way to The Hamptons.
Eventually we reached places I’d never been: Oakville; Sayville; Patchogue; Speonk; Amagansett. Funny names from olden times. Indian times. Until their time ended; like my train ride as we pulled into Montauk.
I don’t know what I’d expected from Montauk. It was more of an idea than an actual destination--like that ice cream stand I’ve often dreamed of opening in Madison, Wisconsin. Hell, I’ve never even been to Madison! But that place has symbolic meaning. It’s the thought that I could go that’s fueled me thru some dogshit days.
In Montauk you have to take cab from the train station to get into town. I wasn’t crazy ‘bout that, but I had a funny cabbie worthy of a future post. He dropped me off in the middle of town, where I could smell the open ocean and feel a genuine breeze.
As I closed the car door I planned to walk to the beach. That had been the sole vision in my mind’s eye the entire train ride--despite the new scenery, but immediately in front me was a bike rental shop where a teenaged kid in a black T-shirt stood outside.
“Hey there mister, wanna rent a bike? We’ve got a weekday special.”
“Naw, I’m off to the beach. Maybe later.”
“Come on, man. We’re getting killed out here this season. $12 bucks for half-a-day. You can ride all the way out to the lighthouse.”
“Yeah, what’s out there?”
“What’s out there?” the kid asked, seemingly surprised by my follow-up question. “Welll,..” he stammered with a scratch of his head, “I mean,..its the lighthouse. The end of everything.”
“The end of everything?” I asked with a laugh. “That’s a pretty dramatic statement.”
“Welll, the end of New York. America really. Can’t get any further east than the lighthouse. That’s it.”
“..And its worth seeing?” I asked.
“Sure,” the kid answered with growing confidence. “Its a real old lighthouse. And you look out over the ocean. Its...pretty,” he said, as though his young manhood struggled to say that word.
“Welll, I really want to get into that water.”
“Ah, come on man. The beach’ll be here. You can build up a good sweat, swim it off when you get back. It's still early. We’ve had a real tough season this year.”
Fucking kid. Got me with that last sob line.
So off I rode, six miles out to the lighthouse, where I scampered off into the brush to smoke some weed and take-in the scenery away from the tourists. I sat on the bluff and caught a buzz as I watched the waves and the boats and the tide roll away. It wasn’t Maine, but... I suddenly burst into laughter at the thought of that teenaged kid and his struggle with words.
It’s pretty he’d said and I said it again to myself out loud. Said it with awe and appreciation--and even a touch of odd trepidation before I got back on my bike and rode to...nowhere in particular.
"It's the end of everything." 
* NOTE: Due to the length of this post, I'm going to split into another few parts. Next excerpt after the weekend.
My sister (left); Jaybird (center); and my mom in white (almost smiling):
"Uncle Lodo."
"Wait a minute Jaybird, I'm talking." 
My sister on our first day in Maine:
"Throw the softball with her or help her finish her puzzle. She likes that kind of stuff." 
“So there’s five of us in my unit, okay? But there’s only four chairs in the office. So what am I supposed to do--right?”
“Right.”
“So I run out the office to grab the chair from my cubicle, when my boss suddenly snaps his fingers at me and is like ‘Oh no you don’t, you don’t go anywhere on my time. You ju..’”
Suddenly I heard my sister’s voice as she exited her bedroom.
“Lodo.”
“Wait a minute ____,” I told her over my shoulder, “I’m in the middle of something. ..So where was I...oh!--right. So I ran out the office to grab a chair from my cubicle whe...”
“Lodo!” my sister said again as I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned ‘round in my seat only to find her directly behind me, hands on her hips.
“What?” I asked as I looked up at her stern face.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.”
“...Uh, sure,” I answered with a bit of concern, “what’s up?”
“..Not here,” she said, “in the bedroom.”
I followed my sister back into her bedroom and watched with curiosity as she closed the door behind her.
“..What’re you two talking about in there?” she asked once the door was sealed shut.
“I was telling Jaybird about what happened at work.”
“Really? Jaybird wanted to talk about that?”
“I think so,” I answered, somewhat confused.
“You do? Why?”
“..I don’t know. Maybe ‘cause she likes me. ..Truth be told, I don’t remember how the topic came up.”
“Okay--now that I believe. Listen Lodo, I’m gonna give you a bit of advice. Jay’s eleven. You get to see her maybe one week a year, so why don’t you have some fun with her. She doesn’t care ‘bout what happened with your boss, and even if she did--so what? Mom’s already moping around like her cat died, lets at least make this fun for Jay. We’ve planned this for months. Throw the softball with her or help her finish her puzzle. She likes that kind of stuff.”
“You think so?” I asked.
But by then my sister had already turned ‘round to walk out the room.
So okay, Jay and I went outside and threw the ball around til my folks came back from breakfast. Then we all went whale watching out by Bar Harbor.
And let me tell you reader, whales are freaking beautiful. I mean, I’m sure you already knew or assumed that; but for someone like me who spends six days a week in the shit-holes of The Bronx or Brooklyn, watching those whales was like an epiphany. Or perhaps I should say a reminder that there are larger forces in the world than us. Or me.
Yet huge as those whales were, I almost missed the first one. They don’t breach the surface for long, and even when they do they only reveal a small section of their enormous bodies. So you’ve gotta be attentive, which is why I stayed close to our guide.
“So there’s five of us in my unit, okay. But there’s only four chairs,” I told her while she scanned the surface for signs of life. “So what am I supposed to do, right?”
“Okay.”
“So I run out the office to grab my chair from my cu...”
“Uncle Lodo.”
“Wait a minute Jaybird, I’m talking. Anyway I run out the offi...”
“Uncle Lodo!” Jaybird screamed again with a tug on my arm, “look!”
At which point I turned just in time to see what turned out to be a Minke whale as it breached and dived below the surface.
Jay screamed with delight as we hugged each other and jumped up and down.
“That was so cool Uncle Lodo!”
“You bet it was sweetie!,” I responded before I turned back toward our guide.
“So anyway, I ran out the office to grab my chair whe...”
“Listen, don’t talk to me anymore,” the guide suddenly said with a raised hand, “I’ve got work to do.”
Well okay reader, I can take a hint even if it is subtle. And at the end of the day it was fine with me ‘cause Jay and I really got to bond. We saw lots of whales--a lot more than I’d expected and after awhile I think even my mom smiled amidst all that majestic beauty and familial love. Overall a near-perfect day, and nobody gets enough of those.
‘Course all good things come to an end, and eventually our week in Maine was up. But what was great was that my sister and Jay flew back to New York with me for one last day before returning to Colorado. So I took them for real pizza at Arturos and then to Coney Island where we rode The Cyclone til I got whiplash and re-herniated one of the discs in my back. Then Jay and I watched Simpsons re-runs and Spiderman til 3:00 in the morning while my sister snored away on the futon.
Next day I kept ‘em with me as long as I could, but eventually it came time to race them to the airport. They only made their flight ‘cause of help from the skycap, but at least they made it.
Thank God!” I told my sister over the phone when she called to tell me she was boarding, but once I shut off the phone and found myself alone in the green room I didn’t feel so happy after all. Not that I felt sad either, it was more like...I didn’t feel anything. Nowhere I had to be the next day. 95 degrees outside so no way I was leaving the apartment. I'd have really liked to pet my dog Spiffy, but she was out in Denver.
I bumbled ‘round my small apartment in a bit of a daze, surrounded by the unkept futon and empty Arturo’s box, which for some reason I was in no hurry to discard. I paced for several minutes, not sure what to do with myself, until finally I sat my ass down in my leather chair with the lumbar support.
I surveyed the empty apartment as though it weren’t my own until my eye landed on the Spiderman DVD case on the arm of the chair. I lifted the case, stared at the image, and let out a submissive sigh much like my dog Spiffy emits when there’s nothing left to do but stay put and watch the world go round.
In the Green Room:
* NOTE: Due to the length of this post, I'm going to split it into several more parts. Next excerpt...hopefully after the weekend.
"You ruined everything you ruiner!" 
“So there’s five of us--right? But there’s only four chairs in the office, so what am I supposed to do?” I asked the couple in the seats across from me on the plane. “I ran out the office to grab the chair from my cubicle. But my boss is like...”
I recounted the story--the whole story as our plane taxied out toward the runway. But afterward the bleach-blonde woman with the white leather handbag just sat there with a blank look on her face.
“That’s it?” she asked with a baffled smile when I’d finished. “That made you so mad that you quit your job? That’s nothing.”
“Oh no,” her bulky husband suddenly interjected, “I understand what got him mad.”
“You do, right?” I asked him with a thankful look in my eye. “Was my boss messing me with me or not?”
“Oh he was definitely pulling rank on you.”
“Thank you!” I exclaimed. “Pulling rank--well said. That’s just what he was doing,” I repeated as I reached across the aisle to shake the large man’s hand adorned with a college ring. “Pulling rank--that’s exactly what it was. ..In front of everybody!”
“...Whatever,” the wife responded with a shake of her head, “that’s what boss’s do.”
“No I don’t think so,” I snapped back. “There’s a way you’re supposed to treat people you work with. I see these people everyday. More than my family. I always made that guy look great. Always killed on these moronic evaluations they used to score our performance. Always...”
Suddenly I felt a light tap on my shoulder and heard a soft voice in my ear.
“Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to be quiet while my partner demonstrates the seatbelts and points-out the exit rows.”
“What? Oh, yeah--sure” I answered with muted agitation. “Listen, get me a Johnny Walker would you please.”
“Sir, cocktail service won’t begin until we reach full cruising altitude and the captain’s turned off the seatbelt sign. Its a short flight to Maine, I hope we can get there without any trouble.”
Without any trouble? What’d this woman think? That I was gonna go apewire there on the plane? This family trip had been planned for over six months, no way I was going to fuck it up.
But as it turned out I’d already ruined everything. ‘Cause I’m a ruiner as Sherri and Terri might say from The Simpsons. Quit my job a week before our vacation so that my poor mother couldn’t sleep or eat or even speak to me on the phone due to her anger and disappointment.
Luckily I had someone to talk to before seeing the fam.
“So there’s five of us--right? But there’s only four chairs in the office, so what am I supposed to do?” I asked the cabbie as he drove me toward the hotel. “ I ran out the office to grab the chair from my cubicle. But my boss snaps his fingers at me and is like...”
“Oh hell no!” the cabbie said as we locked eyes via his rearview mirror affixed to the windshield.
“Yeah! I’m telling you, that’s what he did--in front of everybody,” I answered as I finished the story.
“You see,” the cabbie told me when I was done and we rolled up to the hotel, “that’s why I work for myself. ‘Cause I can’t take shit like that anymore. Not at my age. Life’s too short.”
“Damn right,” I said as I paid him and slapped another ten-spot in his palm. “There’s a way you’re supposed to treat people.” 
* NOTE: Due to the length of this post, I'm going to split it into a few more parts. Thanks to all those who've stuck with it thus far!!
N.Y.C. Forecast: July 2010
"Smoking her Newport 100's in her worn cotton dress and flip-flops..."
My old boss looked a lot like NBA legend Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins
"I feel like my soul is empty. My blood is cold and I can't feel my legs." 
Perhaps its best I’ve waited till now for this excerpt since only now is New York experiencing the kind of heat we had back in July when I quit my job. Well over a month ago, but just like today the temperatures were 95-plus. Over 100 on the dank subway platforms, ensconced in the airless humidity and foul sweat as though I were a tampon stuffed up the twat of a Spanx-wearing crackwhore infected with syphillis. ...Cccan’t breathe!!
Nope--doesn’t get hotter than July; that’s what Stevie would tell you and everyday that infamous month of 2010 was more humid than the last. Until finally that Thursday which blew ‘em all away.
My first appointment was up in the Bronx. Not even 10:30 in the morning and New York already hit 90. The Dominican woman I had to meet was on the 5th floor of a walk-up near Elder Avenue. I knew she wouldn’t have A/C, but held out hope until the end. 'Til she opened her apartment door and I saw that pathetic, lone window fan that didn’t even take up the whole sill. (heavy sigh).
No A/C and no English. Not much that she’d reveal anyway. Smoking her Newport 100’s in her worn cotton dress and flip-flops as she filled the kitchen with second-hand smoke that swirled ‘round the cheap table and clung to my clothes like a malevolent spirit.
How much they gonna give me? she asked with a conspiratorial smile as she blew out the hot smoke, “...’cause I think I feelin’ worse today.”
She knew how to say that much.
There was some bad mojo in that apartment. Some kind of voodoo. That Caribbean woman never broke a sweat, yet I walked out the door drenched in perspiration. Spent and confused, as though my soul had been emptied. I staggered back to my office and its A/C like a lost man in the desert seeks solace from a mirage. A/C. P-p-p-please. I’ll do anything.
I returned to work on time for my unit meeting--no one argues that. Not even my old boss. Someone had to be last in his office and it happened to be me. There were (5) of us, but only (4) chairs, so what was I supposed to do?
But I can’t re-hash that now. No one close to me can stand to hear it again. It’d just be you and me reader if I bring it up one more time. That’s what I’ve been assured by family and close-friends alike, so the story of that meeting will have to be a future post.
But I can tell you I wasn’t wrong. Not by a longshot. It wasn’t just the heat (as has been alleged by some). There’s a proper way to treat people. A way you must treat people--especially people who work hard for you and make you look good. Who help you succeed and who believe in team.
“What did you make of what happened in there Cindy?” I asked my co-worker afterward. She’d been at the meeting and I wanted some perspective. “You think I overreacted?”
“Honestly Lodo?” she asked as she looked up from her chair with timid eyes, “...it was weird.”
“It was weird, wasn’t it?!” I asked.
“Yeah,” she emphasized again, in a reassuring manner, “...but was it bad enough where I would have quit?”
“What?!” I interjected “you don’t think I should be seriously offended?”
“I didn’t say that Lodo,” Cindy answered as she slowly retreated from me in her cheap office chair, “...I’m just saying. What're you gonna do now?” 
* NOTE: Due to the length of this post, I'm going to split it into some additional parts. Next post should be sometime over the weekend. Thanks for reading!!
