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Something I've started that I think I really like. It's the first thing I've written in quite a while that is of any substance at all, and it flowed very easily. It's a first draft and just a beginning. I've yet to decide whether I will continue with it, as it is not standard fiction. I'd love feedback, anything is welcome. I'd really just like to know what others think of it honestly.
The trip to Florida was therapy like none that I’d ever had before. It was a time of great turmoil and confusion over my identity and purpose. Mother had finally had enough that year, and had followed through with her chief threat over the 15 or so years that she’d been separated from mark. She sent me to live in Cooperstown, the baseball capital of the universe, with him.
I’d become a shell of my former self at that point, a recluse with no future prospects and a pot issue. I had no ambition. I’d dwelled in my safe home, away from the world, and slowly tore down all the remnants of my already shattered life.
Anyhow, so she sent me to live with my father, whom I knew but didn’t know at all. We were different, yet had for most of my life remained friends. He’d sent me boxes with gifts, and called me as often as he could, although often I was unreceptive to the phone calls, as I was extremely selfish, an attribute I inherited from him anyway.
So I packed up my things, and it was determined that he would pick me up on his way to Florida to see my grandfather, who was lonely and suffering after the loss of my grandmother. They had always been the cute sort of couple old people are supposed to be, and he was heartbroken and lost.
My father picked me up sometime in December. It was a 24-hour trip, and was altogether a good time. We’d gotten drunk together, something that meant a lot to me as it had only happened one other time in our lives if I recall correctly. I thought it symbolized his recognizing my passage into adulthood, something I’d always recognized in him and my cousins and uncle every Christmas or so.
When we got to Florida, we picked up my sister Lauren from her mother, about whom I will not devote another word to. The three of us, along with our dog Jenny who had accompanied Mark and me on our journey down the East coast, headed down to Daytona to visit Russell Wolpert.
Living there was kind of like those hazy happy sort of dreams where nothing really happens, you just float along and enjoy life for a bit. I walked barefoot through the grass on the front lawn, looking for lizards with Lauren, though we both secretly enjoyed the fact that we were both too old for it. I felt the sun, though it was so late in the season of winter, which really rejuvenated me.
One thing that stands out about the trip, if I had to pinpoint a moment that was most attention grabbing, though perhaps not the highlight of it all, was our experience at the Daytona 500.
It was during my time in Florida that I realized that it WAS indeed the little things that make life, despite its high status in the caste of cliché. Little things like sports helped me deal with all the shit piling up around me. Sports, and catching lizards, and the perfect feeling of an absolutely perfect sun got me through it all.
Daytona 500 was an experience I didn’t expect to have in my life. I’d never been open enough in my life to consider going to such an event. Also I was pretentious. It showed me that sometimes the most exciting things in life could be the things you’ve never come close to experiencing. Things that maybe you had misgivings about, or that seem to be out of your realm. Even if whatever it is turns out to be something you don’t enjoy, it is better to have tried and had a shitty time than to have had a shitty time not trying.
It was a bit of a disaster, however, as Mark got real drunk in the spirit of the event and ended up having a bit of a drunken mishap with my sister present (he pissed his pants). This would have been a funny event in the future had Lauren not been present. It would have even been funny to her if it hadn’t been for her mother… well I shan’t devote another word to that woman anyhow.
So the Florida trip was coming to a close, and as it was I developed more of a curiosity for the life of my grandfather, a man of great age who had lived through many events that held great interest for me (as I am a lover of history). It was only he and I in the living room one day when I questioned him about world war two. He’d smiled a bit, as if remembering back so far was amusing.
He told me that he hadn’t fought in the war, though he was in a sort of neighborhood watch, or messenger or something of the like. He’d been a banker most of his life. Either he or my grandmother had once had a lot of money, but had lost it or something or other over the years I’ve never gotten a clear account of the story. Anyhow he was a banker and I assume he did fairly well for himself, though as far as I can tell they were middle class at most. They’d lived in Long Island most of their lives together, Russell and Brenda, but had done what all people of age do, which is take a one way pilgrimage to the sunshine state, or as I’d once heard it referred to as, heaven’s waiting room.
He told me about the Cold War and a couple others things to which I took reasonable interest. It was only when he began to show me the plaques in his office that I was beyond interest and entering intrigued. He showed me a plaque from the freemasons, an organization that I’d read about and about whose mystery I was intoxicated.
He’d had tons of honors bestowed upon him by the organization, which lead me to believe that he was privy to at least some answers. I tried with all my wit to trick him into revealing secrets, but the most I could get out of him was that he was indeed in possession of some rare knowledge available only to the higher members of the community.
He also showed me photographs of my great great grandparents, Dutch if I remember correctly. To see the faces of the predecessors of my blood, humans of a different age that nonetheless could very well have been the hosts of my soul, was Earth shattering in a way. Their faces were like mine, though with some differences, as to be expected. I remember seeing the eyes and, though it was in black and white, I saw that they were just like my eyes.
When finally the trip came to a close, I was sad to leave. I had grown attached over the week that I’d been there, to the lifestyle and to the easiness of it all. I said my goodbyes to my grandfather, who was indeed hunched with old age and injury, and whom I knew I may never see again in this life. I knew, however, that the vacation had to end, that my spirit needed mending and my life needed renewal.
The drive back was much more musical for me, as I felt different from the entire experience. I just turned my ipod on high and watched the stars fly by through the tinted moon roof of our suv. I missed Alex. I missed grandfather. I missed my old life. But I knew it was dead, and that a new one would have to be built on it’s ashes if I was ever to be happy again.
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Originally Posted by zeeby
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