Walking Velvet, our eight-pound black Maltipoo, through the neighborhood—with my speaker blasting and some neighbors looking upon me with approval and some shaking their heads in annoyance. Velvet barks too much but, like a baby, she just wants to be held. She always has to be in the middle of me and Michelle when we cuddle in bed. Makes it hard to be intimate with each other when she is always nudging her head in to be a part of it. We push her to the end of the bed but she is so sweet that it would seem gritty and shameful to do it while her curious, loving eyes fall upon us like they always do. Sometimes she falls asleep, but other times she gets lonely and restless and decides to pounce. It’s really a mood-killer, so we relocate her to the floor. Last week we came downstairs to find a Christmas ornament chewed up, with the broken pieces all scattered around the living room. Another time, Michelle went downstairs for a glass of water and I heard her scream: “OH NO! WHAT THE FUUUCK!” I said: “What’s going on?” “Velvet ate a DO NOT EAT packet!” “Where did she get one of those?” I said, running down the stairs to make sure Velvet was okay. Velvet was sitting in her favorite spot in the house—in front of the fireplace. She had a grin on her face that said: Serves you right for kicking me off the bed. She’s a crazy dog. She used to lick electrical outlets when she was just a pup. One time she was standing by the door with something brown and mushy in her mouth. She was so tiny, we’d only had her for a couple weeks. She eats everything, so I went to take it from her. I grabbed it, then dropped it, and shouted: “That was poop! She was eating her own fuckin poop.” We had to sprinkle a probiotic in her food, which would make the smell of her poop unappealing to her. I’m pretty sure if it smelled at all, like anything good or bad, she was thrilled to eat it. On walks Michelle would hold a dandelion up to her face and Velvet would sniff it, like she was marveling at this magnificent specimen, then she would lean in and chomp it down. Walking her is the worst on days I just want to be a mute. Most days I don’t want people to talk to me. Nor do I want to talk to them. But trying to say no to her when she wants to say hi to someone is impossible. She pulls and pulls and cries and cries, and I try to direct her away but then the person in her sight looks up and says: “Oh, Velvet. You’re such a good girl.” Velvet pulls me toward them, and jumps and yaps and scurries around their feet. I just stay quiet, and then when Velvet tires out I nudge her in the way of the walk and she goes, and the person standing there says: “Thanks a bunch. She’s so sweet.” I nod my head and hurry off, until someone else leaves their house. She stops and pulls so much on walks that at one point in the summer I was trying to lose weight and I would walk without her and everyone came up to me and said: “Where’s Velvet? Is she okay?” and then I’d have to explain that I’m just trying to lose weight and Velvet is okay but she slows me down and I need to do this on my own. Then they would say: “Well, I’m glad she’s okay.” One time Michelle took Velvet to New Hampshire without me and I was so lonely without the two of them here and I’d have to take the bus to do errands, and people would be like: “Where’s Velvet?” and I’d say: “Not today, she’s not here today.” I’m such a messy eater that Michelle would be up in bed with Velvet while I’m in the kitchen eating something and then I’d go upstairs and Velvet would smell the food on my breath and she’d go right to the end of the bed and cry because she wants to see what crumbs I left on the floor for her to eat. If I eat anything poisonous to her, like chocolate for example, I eat it over the sink so I don’t drop any pieces on the floor. When we watch TV in the living room she barks at the screen the whole time and it’s so annoying so now we can only watch TV on our computers in bed, and Velvet loves to sit there and watch it with us. She has this intrigued, upright look that makes it obvious that she is watching, now that the screen is closer to her size and therefore much safer to be around. Her bark is the most annoying bark. Saying no to her is incredibly hard because she barks so loud in the middle of the night that we’re afraid it’ll wake up the neighbors, and when she does it right next to me, my ears actually sting. When she was a puppy she would scream when she got hurt because she didn’t understand this strange land and she was scared. Once, my stepdaughter Annmarie dropped her and she howled; it sounded almost human but as loud as a sasquatch, and it just rang on until Michelle picked her up and held her so she would calm down. Now she is four years old. She runs when we go to pick her up; it’s just a game to her. In the last year, I started saying: “Stop running,” and she’d immediately stop so I could pick her up. This one time she got out in New Hampshire when I wasn’t nearby, and I heard Michelle screaming VELVET, and I ran to the door and Michelle was out there trying to catch her and she saw me coming through the door and ran straight toward me and leapt into my arms. That’s why it’s my job to catch her if she gets away. She got out the back door once and ran around to the front of the house and then I came out the front door and she ran straight to me. When she was a little puppy I had to chase her around the parking lot for 20 to 30 minutes when she got out. I only caught her because one of the neighbors was walking to her car and she ran to greet the woman and I asked her to pick up Velvet, and she did, and she handed her to me. She doesn’t run because she wants to get away, but it’s just how she plays. She didn’t leave the parking lot that day, she circled around the grass, and the garages, and the lot, while I would dive in the mud to try and catch her but she’d always slip away from me. I’m glad those days are over. When I come home she gets so excited to see me. She barks her loud nasty bark, accusing me of abandoning her. I get it, I have abandonment issues too, so I understand; and that is why this dog, she is the second love of my life.
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Covid was a journey into restlessness. When I went to San Francisco and saw people wearing masks and I heard about the Coronavirus and everyone warned us about going—aren’t you worried about getting sick? they’d say—there was no way I could have predicted a total world shut down———and thus, a restlessness, an irritability, and an acceptance would follow.
I thought the world was going to end. I was one of those people. I was wary at first. I felt like this would all blow over. But that day I went to the grocery store and saw all the toilet paper sold out, I thought maybe I should jump on the bandwagon. A store fully stocked, except for the toilet paper. So I store-hopped in search of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. We stockpiled canned food and emergency meals. We constructed bugout bags filled with all the necessities for surviving the most hostile terrain. We watched apocalyptic, end-of-the-world movies and TV series to prepare—such as Contagion and Station Eleven. Michelle baked bread, I walked the dog and steered clear of all the neighbors. They were sick and I didn’t want to die. I thought of conspiracies: maybe this is the Illuminate’s way of separating us, because a world separated doesn’t have much of a fight when it comes to global domination. I remembered when I was told about the secret camps this government had constructed so that they could shepherd us into them when the time was right—when we all believed that this was the safest, easiest way; the government was to be trusted and we all must pile into these camps to be taken care of like pets. We’d be pets to the Illuminate, trained and obedient because we saw no other choice. This was survival. We built an indoor trampoline for Annmarie so that when we’d shut ourselves in, she’d have a mode of unloading all her useless energy. We cleared the living room and turned it into a roller disco. I downloaded Spotify and started discovering new bands and downloading them so that when the shit hit the fan and the internet stopped working, I’d have plenty of music to get me through. Michelle discovered a different sort of spirituality so that when these religious nuts showed up on our doorstep with pitchforks and torches, she’d be ready. We bought vegetables from a local farm. Drive half an hour to a bumpy, dirty, shifty road, wait in line with masks on, and one after another, we would pull up and pick up our vegetables. We bought a camper van. It was the only way we could travel so we took up camping because one day it might be all we had left. We bought a new puppy. Eventually things cleared and vaccines were being administered. I was wary; we were all wary. Do these vaccines even work? It’s mind control. We’ll all be slaves. Haven’t you ever the read the book Divergent? It’s happening just like that. People started travelling again. Are they crazy? We stocked up on Covid-tests. Annmarie went back to school and she wore a mask every day—is this for real? She wanted to see her friends outside of school. At the stores, people were wearing masks. Everyone wore masks. This is the end of the world. It was so depressing. We were all faceless shoppers. We had no names. What we looked like, who we were, hidden behind these veils. I told myself stories that I liked covering up my face. I don’t mind because I don’t want people seeing me. It’s why I always wear sunglasses. Michelle became agoraphobic and I started to drive more often. I used to be a nervous driver and now I drive all the time. I love to drive now. At first I had to drive because someone had to get us groceries. Things were going back to normal. I went to my first open-mike in years. I was just an image on a screen. It was unreal. I was condensed to a box. Facebook had won. We were all just faces. On a screen. In a box. I had so many friends and I knew their faces but I didn’t know them—we were all strangers, living in our own filtered bubbles. This was the end of civilization. Frustrated, restless, I took to taking more errands than needed because I needed to get out and stretch my legs. I walked the dog more often than I should have because otherwise, what else would I have done with my time? Michelle started her own business. She started selling dolls and dollhouse furniture on Etsy. I wrote a lot. Took a lot of writing classes on Zoom. The camper van was unsustainable because we had nowhere to store it in the winter. The guy we had bought it from said: We don’t winter in Vermont. We couldn’t just up and leave. We had a teenage girl to take care of. We would have had to keep it plugged in on days there was no sun or else the battery would die. So much for solar power. We sold it to a used car lot and made back a fraction of what we had originally paid. It was a loss we had to make. I went to my first open-mike in person, and I was nervous. I’ve never been nervous about going onstage. I was out of practice and my anxiety was at a high. I wore a mask. There were three other performers, two of them wore masks. There were two other people in attendance—they were not wearing masks. I took off my mask when I read. So much for needing to hide my face. Off stage, I mingled. The other mask-wearer played the fiddle, then took off his mask and never put it back on. I went outside, took off my mask, and looked for a cigarette to bum. This was our world. More and more open-mikes, less people wore masks. Is this really happening? Everything’s going back to normal. The world, as we knew it, is coming to an end. We went to Maine and we brought masks with us on our trip. It was the first time we travelled with our new puppy, who was now a full-grown, eight-pound dog. The first time we had travelled since giving up the van. The dog who we had named Velvet sat on my lap the whole trip while Michelle drove. She was so well-behaved. We stayed in an air B&B. Michelle showed me the town she grew up in. No one wore masks. Things were slowly going back to normal. Every time we leave the house, Michelle brings a bottle of hand sanitizer. I used to douse both hands in sanitizer every time I left a store; now I forget to bring it with me when I leave the home. Today we went to a large, in-door flea market. A few vendors wore masks, but only a few. People were smiling; I could see their faces as they talked. They were shaking hands. I watched them exchange products for cash and then go on their way. The crowd was huge; there were so many people, so many faces, so many germs, so much happiness and joy, that it made it rather difficult to remember that this kind of event wouldn’t have been allowed to happen more than a year ago. It almost makes me forget that these past few years were spent mostly inside, at home, with my family. When we left, Michelle doused her hands with sanitizer and told me to hold out my own…. Many eons ago I was in a dual-diagnoses work/treatment program. Looking back on it, it feels like a whole different life, like I was never even there and it was all just a dream. We lived on a farm and we worked in the woods, with the animals, in the garden, and in my favorite place: the auto shop. I was good at auto-mechanics, especially small engine repairs. When I left the program, I stayed in a halfway house and Mike, the shop leader, let me come on as a paid apprentice. I did that for a year. I lived in the halfway house and I discovered spice and no one knew because spice, although it feels so similar to pot, doesn’t show up in piss tests and I was beating the system. Every night after I came home from work, I smoked spice. After three to four months of living in the halfway house I got to live in my own apartment. I was court-ordered to stay here for a full year and although most residents had to stay in the house for at least six months, I was moved to an apartment because they knew when my time was up, I would run; it was my plan all along. They wanted me to have some experience living in my own place before I took off. So I started drinking again and smoking weed and they all knew about it but I didn’t care and neither did they, it seemed, because they knew the alternative; it was either here or 10 to 15 years behind bars and no one wanted that for me. After a while they were just like: We’ve Had Enough. Although I didn’t claim to be a drug addict/alcoholic, I was using like one; and they could not keep me here if this kept up. I received a letter from my parents that said when my probation was up, I could not return home. I was so fucked, and alone and lost and hopeless. So I started going to meetings. I got a sponsor. I told the world I was clean because I was: except for the Ritalin and suboxone I was using. Ritalin—because I was already prescribed to it and they had no way of knowing. Suboxone—because it doesn’t show up in piss tests unless they are advised to test for it specifically. This program did not test for it and I got high, so high, every night I got home from the meeting. I went to some meetings and nodded off throughout. I was so speedy I wrote like a maniac in my journal for the entire meeting. I chaired a meeting while doped up and manic. I watched the floor turn to water and move like the ocean. It was working; no one knew. Then Samantha responded to my email and she told me she was clean. She was clean and I was trying to get clean but nothing was enough of a reason for me to stay clean. Until her, of course. I came clean about my using. Told everyone. Agreed to do it for real this time. Because she was back and she was clean and we started going to meetings together. She lived in Boston and I lived in Rutland, VT, and on the rare occasions I’d see her we’d go to meetings together. Then I found out she smoked a ton of weed. I mean: A Ton. But she was clean and she didn’t consider weed a drug. But I did. Anything I can abuse is a drug to me. She was as sick as always and I was trying to better myself. Every time we fought I got high because she was my reason for getting clean and when that reason failed me it was: There Is Nothing to Lose. I had nothing to lose. I got so high every time we fought. Of course, she started drinking again and I found a much better reason to get clean which is: Stick Around and You’ll Find Out for Yourself. I started to do it for myself. I worked the Steps. And I worked them hard. Even if I was spun on my own medication, vivance. How else was I going to stay up all night and write? How else was I going to work the Steps? Last time I abused my Ritalin I was lucky I didn’t die—so lucky my heart didn’t give out!—but I was always honest every time I took extra Ritalin. Honest with my sponsor—he never fired rejected or abandoned me. Honest with my therapist—he was always so accepting and understanding. Honest with my doctor—she was always so forgiving. Until I took enough to kill me. She immediately took me off of Ritalin and put me on vivance, which is supposedly better and much harder to abuse, and said if I tried to abuse it she’d take me off of all stimulants—for good! But I needed a stimulant because my ADD was so bad. So I took a little extra here and there, just enough to stay awake longer, and I ran out early every week; but it was no issue because I was happy now and I was doing so well and perhaps everyone knew and just looked past it. I came clean about it after I moved to Burlington because the doctor said I would have random pill counts and I knew I had to come clean. He didn’t condone this behavior but I’m pretty smart and I made it seem like what I was doing wasn’t as bad as it was. It was bad! I wrote the doctor a long letter justifying it. He bought it. I continued to beat the system. I got married and a year into the marriage Michelle said she couldn’t do it anymore. It was either her or vivance. I chose her but it was hard because my support system was stripped away from me. I had to do this and over time I learned I did not need this stimulant anymore and over time I was back to normal, or closer to it. In the end we are all drug addicts. Someone once told me that if I went the same lengths I went to get and stay high and did something else instead, I’d be surprised at how far I would have gone. At the time I didn’t understand what he meant. Because when he said it—I was high as God.
Music is my life; it always has been. The first musician I ever listened to was Weird Al Yankovic back when I was 9 or 10 years old. Then it was Green Day, Smash Mouth, the Beastie Boys. When I met someone for the first time, I’d always ask: “What kind of music do you listen to?” I’ve always been so restless and hyperactive my whole life, and music could keep me occupied for hours. I’d listen to it and all the problems of the world. my problems that had plagued me since I first could walk, vaporized—just like that. Gone. See you later. My first job was in a DJ studio; I worked in the warehouse where I sorted through inventory. It was a big company called Gibson Productions and they had lots of gear and I was so stoked about this job. I was only 14. In my free time I’d come in and set up the dual CD player with scratching capabilities—like an actual record player (they only had one dual CD player that could do that)—and a couple of monitors and just Go for it. I’d be there for hours mixing tracks, scr-scr-scratching songs, doing it up.
Finally I got the owner of the company to give me a shot in the field. He said okay, but warily, as I was only 14 years old. I had to do my first two gigs with an experienced DJ, and for free, and then he’d see how I did. The first gig was great: I made a 30 dollar tip, and I got a very complimentary phone call from the client when I returned to the warehouse the following Monday morning. The second gig—not so well. That would be the last time I DJed, but not the end of my career as a musician. I was always very anxious and quiet and most of the time I preferred music as my only company. I liked to crank it when I was drinking because nothing beats it when your vision blurs and the world spins and the roaring guitar kicks in. I was addicted to it—more than anything. Every time I went out with my friends, the moment we’d start drinking I’d flip my headphones over my head, click PLAY on my discman. The music would flow so smoothly as my head swam in a sea of liquor. Until my angry, blunt friend said to me one day: “You know, it’s kind of rude to hang out with us and then put on your headphones and act like we don’t exist!” What a dick! Well, I suppose that’s why they make boom-boxes. So the surrounding world can hear the movement. I’d bring my boom-box everywhere. It was sort of my signature, my contribution to this pre-apocalyptic world where we sometimes exist. Picture this:::: You wake up in the morning to the sound of a bass drum being kicked. Boom! And then again, it’s kicked. Boom, boom! Every few seconds you hear that bass drum, a rhythm that knocks you awake. Then there’s feedback as you make the coffee. The coffee maker rattles a bit. Buzzes. Rattles. You take the pot and pour it into your mug and the guitar cuts in like a buzzsaw with your first sip. The bass guitar gets plucked. There might be some sort of synthesizer being keyed as you sip your coffee, becoming more awake. But it’s not enough. So you have another cup and the vocals chime in with beautifully poetic lyrics that give your life purpose, and now, you can go about your day. That’s why I had to start a band. We lived faster and we played louder--that was our motto. Being onstage and releasing your emotions in a rapid-fire succession was almost comparable to taking an automatic assault rifle and gunning down a line of presidents and world leaders. With one long, raucous roar, each head would explode Domino-style, one after the next. Some venues were packed, and some were barren, but it didn’t matter. We’d play in front of a measly mirror, for all we cared. We played--for us! We played because it was fun. We played because it was a major release. We played because we … played;;;; and not to mention it was a fun way to release your emotions on an unsuspecting crowd. It was the best part of life, the only thing I looked forward to. When I wasn’t onstage or playing with my band, I was sitting on the curb playing what I later referred to as my Stink-Box—a large red construction-worker boom-box that I carried with me everywhere I went; it was my baby. I only bought it—for 120 dollars—because all my previous, cheaper boom-boxes would break in some disastrous but humorous act of destruction. They would never last. So I saved up and invested. It stayed with me for five to six years. I always had to have my music. Can’t remember exactly how Burt and I had met. He’s a poet, too. I was fairly new to Burlington and I attracted a small group of people, all of whom were complete strangers before I arrived, and now we’re just acquaintances as life had surpassed our time together. First it was Jared. We had met outside of the Radio Bean. He's an amazing photographer and he showed me some of his Instagram photos. We also exchanged phone numbers. We got along quite well. The following night he called me and asked if he could crash at my place. It was raining and he was camping out on the beach that summer and I said yeah he can spend the night. I didn’t know him very well so like most nights I stayed up to make sure I didn’t find myself ripped off in the morning. Not that I had anything worth stealing at the time. That was when we became good friends. Next was Mike. Jared and I were outside talking about how the world would burn one day and Mike chimed in. He told us that he liked where this conversating was heading. And then from there, the conversation flowed. Sometimes I would sit outside of the Bean all by myself and share poetry with strangers and talk about dark, nihilistic subjects and very few people were intrigued. But Mike and Jared were. So the three of us hung out most nights. One night, I think it was Mike, asked us if his coworker could come along on our venture. Neither Jared nor I cared, so Burt joined us that night. He was a poet, and he asked me if I could help him put together his book. I said I would. The following day I met him at the library and when we were done with our session, we walked around together. He and I had quite a bit in common. He was camping out in some graveyard, which I would never do by myself. I think Chuck was staying in his tent too, although I can’t be sure. I brought Burt to Monday night Lit Club and he read his poetry and it was damn good. Very visual. I remember sitting in the park with him and it started to pour. Like really pour. We ducked under a tall tree and stayed completely dry. Most people were scrambling for real solid cover, but Burt was like: Let’s stand under that tree. I never thought a tree would provide so much protection from the rain, but it did. There were lots of other trees there too and no one even thought to commandeer one for themselves. So Burt and I hung out quite a bit for a whole week straight, probably every day, and we’d just walk all over the place and talk about stuff, some conversations were deep and meaningful and others were shallow and pointless. Then Burt decided to leave, I think to New Mexico or something. We continued to talk for a bit after he had left, via Facebook and Facebook Messenger, but eventually the amount we talked started to dwindle and fade away and now we are back to being strangers. It’s just amazing sometimes, the people you get to know closely in life. All the people who’ve touched you in some way or another. All the people you remember and will probably never forget.
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