When The Love Runs Out, Time To Hit The Road--Part 5* (*Scroll Down for Parts 1-4):

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.