Oh yeah, Angelica.

I figured out who you were a pretty long time ago. It was pretty easy when I realized that everything you said was bullshit and you were really posing as someone you wish you were.

People are strange, when you're a stranger.

(This entry is a much longer one than usual ... including a short story written by yours truly. Thanks for putting up with the wait everyone! To go directly to the short story, pop this into your ctrl + f: WEIRDSHST)

"The most boring thing in the world is nudity."
-Brandy Alexander, Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

As the summer winds down to its final few hours, I take the time to reminisce about the people I've met. Or rather, have seen. Really, I have no idea who they are, but they might as well be the most interesting people I've ever met. Or ... they're potentially the most interesting people I've yet to meet.

Brandy said that nudity is boring because there is nothing hidden when you are completely exposed like that. There is nothing to conceal, nothing to reveal, no secrets to hold. People are most interesting when you know nothing at all about them. When you meet a person for the first time, they always have something to say--and you can never expect what that will be. For this reason, I sometimes think that making a first impression upon someone is like losing your virginity. Except, this virginity you can use multiple times ...

When I drove up to Cooperstown a few weeks ago, we stopped over at a rest area complete with McDonalds, a bookstore, bathrooms, and a stray dog or two. It was a cheerless day with gray clouds completely blanketing the sky over upstate New York. The ground was soaked thoroughly from the torrential downpour that had only minutes before stopped falling. Although it was only a mildly warm day, the humidity gave the feeling of walking through boiling water wearing a rain coat.

I led the way inside, as my desire to relieve myself was far greater than that of my parents' combined. To tell the truth, I really and truly dislike public bathrooms where there are no slabs of metal that separate your private peeing area from the next. It's not that I'm insecure, it's just that I don't feel very private. I'm used to doing my business behind closed doors--no one has to see what I'm doing. However, this stall-less urinals are practically live Broadway shows. There is a chorus line of the sound of piss hitting the urinal and water, with the occasional solo of a flush. You are free to look at any other person's penis as they pee, but for the most part, every man tries to squeeze as close to the urinal as possible and turn in the direction of the nearest wall to minimize their exposure.

How much time and effort does it take to install a tiny slab of metal in between those urinals?

McDonalds was our next stop. I, personally, rejoice in the fact that I haven't eaten McDonalds in nigh on a year up to that day. Unfortunately, I had to go and spoil it all by ordering a Big Mac. My doctor once told me that to burn off all the calories you eat in a Big Mac, you'd have to run a decathalon. Or have lots and lots of sex, but that's reserved for people whose bodies resemble those of Abercrombie and Fitch models.

It was a long line but it didn't take too long to get to the counter for our order. Now, the cashier there was a girl about 19 years old whose thin body leaned over the register supported by her arms. The first thing I noticed about her was her nail polish. Gray as the clouds that reigned freely over the skies. Her eyes seemed to match her nails as well. I can almost swear they were gray, too.

Her name tag bore the name "Skye." She looked at my father while he made his final decision on what to order before actually placing the order, a cocky smirk on her face as she chewed bubblegum. Her blond hair was streaked with red highlights and was fashioned into a neat pony-tail behind her head, the knot falling over the velcro strap of the visor that encircled her head.

"What'll it be?" she says in between chews. She takes a moment to look at the other customers on line, a golden hoop earring on her left ear flashing faintly as she turns her head.

My dad places the order. Skye seems to be either very skilled with the register or completely and utterly uncaring. My opinion rests on the latter. Her strokes on the keyboard are quick and wholly indiligent. I'm not even sure if she even put in the correct order. As my dad continues the list, I notice an unsatisfied customer return to the counter.

The manager is already standing there as if he expected this.

"Excuse me," the customer says, rather forcefully as he sizes up the manager. I'm sure that he probably wanted to pick a fight with him. The customer israther buff, wearing a gray tank top that showsoff his large muscles. A double-headed blue dragon is tatooed from the length of his elbow to his shoulder.

"I ordered a Quarter Pounder with Cheese," he continues roughly, "and this clearly isn't a Quarter Pounder."

The manager, a skinny guy that stands a few inches shorter than me, sighs in defeat. He looks like one of those easily-broken high school geeks whose closest friend is a Yu-Gi-Oh! battle card of some sort. The type of person that has no self-confidence whatsoever. The reason why he rose to the position of manager evades me.

"Yes, sir," the manager says reservedly, "we'll fix it right away."

We got our order just a few moments after the customer had his meal returned to him. I followed my dad to the dining area, passing by the angered customer along the way. Looks can be quite deceiving, you know. The way he looked when I saw him first complaining about his food, I pictured him as being a biker or trucker of some sort. He definitely fit the part. Large, buff body. Crewcut hair. Square-shaped thick goatee.

Turns out, he's a family man.

He had grabbed one of the double tables and was seated on the booth side of it. Beside him were two children younger than ten years old, eating their Happy Meals and laughing their little heads off at private jokes. On the other side of the table was his daughter, about fifteen or sixteen, that had dark brown hair and tanned skin. She was dressed in a sweater that had the Good Charlotte logo on the back. Her eyes were behind a pair of thick-rimmed black rectangular glasses.

Finally, my own family sat down to eat. The Big Mac my dad ordered with no pickles had pickles in it. I wasn't surprised.

Around a week before this trip I happened to come across another person closer to home, working at the local Wendy's. A meek, comely girl about seventeen years old, I've spotted Traci at Wendy's working something like a 5pm-11pm shift quite a few times already. She's quite small and thin, and has a very passive personality from what I've seen. Her hair is always fashioned neatly into a bun, her eyes usually downcast when she isn't looking at a customer while she takes their order.

The first time I laid my eyes on her, she was in pain.

It was about 7:30 pm when my father and I drove over to Wendy's for dinner. We were on our way to the Centereach shopping area so I could reserve a game over at GameStop. The fast food restaurant was not very busy that night, so we were able to get our order in quickly. Traci was the cashier who took our order.

She seemed very weak that day. Her right arm clutched across her stomach, as if she were trying to comfort some kind of internal pain. Her body was slumped over, her gait unbalanced. When she spoke, her voice was quieter than a mouse's whisper. I immediately knew that something was wrong with her. So did the other customers.

"Are you all right?" the person behind us asked.

Traci nodded her head weakly. "I'm fine ... it's all right," she said. Without a doubt, you could tell that she was lying. None of us wanted to press her for an answer though. There are some things that are better left unsaid.

Since that day, I've seen her several times at Wendy's. While she doesn't seem to be in pain everytime, there is still something I can see in her dark brown eyes. There's some kind of fear there. Something that destroyed her. Whatever it was, it was undoubtedly a major problem, and she hasn't yet fully recovered from the blow. Had someone close to her died recently? Did she have an abortion?

That same night, using the bathroom before I left Wendy's, I found a syringe on the floor beside the toilet.

In the closing days of summer, I often mused that somehow, they were all related to one another. Skye, Traci, the manager, the family man. I don't know what first sparked this idea of mine. Even if I never spoke to any of them personally, I know that there's some kind of story that connects them all together. For the sake of my imagination, this is what I've thought up.

WEIRDSHST

Credits:

++[][IAN YOUR NAME IS HERE FOR NO REASON][]++

(_-=Lindsay, thanks for the imput=-_)

(This takes place through Skye's eyes everyone, just so you don't get confused)

Weird

The first time I met Traci, she wanted to die. She wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. She didn't want to think about anything anymore. Too bad for her, she was out of heroin and her body's dependence on it was catching up to her. It reduced her to a child screaming for mommy. And I had the inconvenience of filling in as mommy.

Now, I'm not very good with suicidal people at all. Or maybe I'm the best handler there possibly is? I give them what they want. The way I think of it, I'm a psychiatrist using reverse psychology on her patient. One of the most essential elements of commiting suicide is knowing that there will be people that'll miss you when you're gone. Friends, family, what have you.

Deprive them of that, and they won't do it.

It's strange, really. When you think you're helping them out, you're actually killing them.

"I've got my dad's pistol pointed at my head!" this guy, Richie, called me to say about two years ago. My newest ex-boyfriend, two days running.

At that time, I had just gotten out of the shower and was feeling pretty relaxed. The bed was calling me to it.

"Well, I'm waiting to hear a gunshot," I told him casually.

"Wait! What?"

"Go on. Pull the fucking trigger dipshit."

"Hey ... hey! I'll do it, you know!"

"Yeah. I won't be getting a good night's sleep until I know you're dead."

"Fuck you!"

"You'll like things better when you're dead. Trust me, I know. Change is good."

Click.

In the end, Richie never pulled the trigger. And, damn it all to hell, I couldn't sleep that night.

Fast-forward a few months and Laura's got her head buried in my lap, crying her eyes out on my new light blue prom dress. She just stumbled over her boyfriend making out with another girl outside in the hallway.

"I'm not good enough for anyone," she's sobbing pathetically. Meanwhile, I've got my eyes out toward the dance floor, looking at Richie, who's dancing with this ugly fat chick trying to make me jealous.

Laura says more things, but whatever her words, they were drowned out by the sound of the techno beat the DJ had going. I'm able to make out the words "failure" and "suicide," but I could be mistaken. Hell, she could have said "mailer" and "loser's side." But that's stretching it, isn't it?
"Right, right," I say. "No one likes you, you're pathetic. You should end it all now." I don't even know what the hell I'm saying. My favorite song just started playing. "Go kill yourself. You'll feel better in the morning. Trust me on that. A change of pace is good."

She looks at me with these big brown puppy-dog eyes and bawls even harder, burying her head so far into my lap I thought she was trying to climb into my womb.

"You're so right!" she says emphatically. She pulls herself up and cups my head in her hands. Her eyes stare into mine with a look of determination. A drunken look of determination. Rheumy as her eyes were, I didn't need to look at them to notice she had been drinking heavily that night. Her breath smelled like a hobo's.

"Know wh..what I'm gonna DO??" Laura continues. I tune out her speech of new beginnings and newfound strength and concentrate on wondering who had the beer at this prom and where I could get it.

The next year, our senior year, Laura never really changed much. Hell, she went straight back to being the old, emotional, slutty girl I always knew. And, damn it all, she didn't kill herself either.

And now this.

Traci was the younger sister of one of my friends. Turns out, I've seen her before once or twice, but her sister never bothered to introduce us to each other. And that really saddened me, because it looked like she had useful connections to drugs as far as I could see from the tell-tale syringe in her hand.

We were both at the same house party, after the homecoming crap at school. Richie was hanging around downstairs playing beer pong with the other football players. Laura was upstairs in a room moaning and groaning with her date-for-the-day. I'd have been much happier if she commited suicide that night of the junior prom. More boys for me.

I was leaning against a wall, my eyes forward feasting on the drunken antics of the half-naked Russel when Traci fell into my arms, clutching her syringe, and looking up at me with these eyes so bloodshot I thought they would burst in a crimson explosion. Actually, that would've been pretty cool.

"Help ... me," she struggles to say.

"Aw shit," I curse under my breath as I watch Russel walk away with a few other guys. I turn my eyes to Traci.

"What the fuck do you want?" I say, "Damn it, Russel just--"

"Please, help me!" Traci screams, dropping her syringe and grabbing my sleeves with an intense grip.

By now, we've attracted a scene. The homecoming queen's laughing her perfect laugh over by the sofa with her perfect friends. Football players are fantasizing a lesbian sex scene. But for the most part, everyone else was either too drunk or too high to even notice something was happening beyond their little world.

What to do? I ask my brain.

Ditch the bitch. You need sex with Russel.

But how do I do it?

Give her your drugs! That should shut her up.

I didn't bring my drugs to the party. Richie was announcing he'd supply everyone.

Give her your money and go have sex!

I reach into my pocket and dig through the nickels and pennies to grab a twenty dollar bill I had stashed in there. I shove the bill into her face.

"Help yourself," I say.

She says, "No, I need you!" The twenty falls to the floor unclaimed, so I bend down to pick it up.

There was a sudden thud across the room, which thankfully drew attention away from our scene and onto Russel. He had passed out in his drunken indulgence and was now snoring peacefully on the carpet, half-empty beer bottle spilling the rest of its contents on the floor.

Fuck, I tell my brain. He's unconscious.

That's not necessarily a bad thing ....

Next thing I know, Traci's got a firm grip on my hand and she's leading me upstairs. Past the cheerleading squad. Past the football players. Past the homecoming queen. Past my opportunity for sex tonight.

She takes me into the bathroom and closes and locks the door. The fluorescent light burns brightly above us, emiting a dull hum that's too quiet to distract us from the sound of Laura's twenty-third consecutive orgasm three rooms down the hall.

Traci's still clutching her syringe like a teddy bear. Without warning, she drops the syringe on the tiled floor and lunges for me and hugs me with all her strength. I stand there not knowing what to do. Should I say something? Comfort her? Push her away from me? Instead, my hand reaches up and pats her half-heartedly on the back.

"I need your help again," she says.

"Again?"

Pause. Rewind.

Last time we met, she says, I gave her the best advice she'd ever heard. She says, it was just after her boyfriend broke up with her. He called her a slut. Accused her of cheating on him. Said she betrayed his trust. Didn't want anything to do with her anymore. The usual teenage drama stuff.

She says, she followed her sister that night to be with her friends. People she didn't know. But she felt miserable the whole night, because she had no one to talk to, no one to confide in. She was thinking bad thoughts. Murder. Suicide.

That's when I turned to her, she says, and offered the first sample heroin she'd ever try. I said to her, "Never had it before?"

She shook her head.

"It's good for you," I said. "Trust me, I know. Change is good."

Fast-forward back to the present.

"You're saying the best advice someone ever gave you was on what drug to take?" I say.

"No, it's the message behind it. Open new doors ... change direction."

I cock an eyebrow and stare at her. "Honey, I was fucking stoned when I said that. If I wasn't high I would've told you, 'Go kill yourself.'"

"Well, are you high now?"

"No."

"Can you help me?"

I say, "Go kill yourself. It'll feel good. Trust me, I know."

She smiles and chuckles, ignoring me. Right now, I'm cursing on the inside because I don't have anything to help me escape from this. I don't have a phone to hang up, drugs or beer to offer, and apparently, money won't buy me out of this either.

"Look," Traci starts, "I get these weird dreams every night. I see people I know OD'ing, or getting hit by cars, or falling out of windows..."

I already stopped listening to her after she said "weird."

The bathroom door swings wide open and Jeremy walks in. Jeremy's this big doofus whose face is a pepperoni pizza of pimples. Oh yeah, he works at McDonald's, and the grease is making his skin's condition worse. As if it could get better.

"Oh, um ... occu--" he starts, but before he can finish, I put my arms around him and smother his face with kisses. There are worse ways to get out of bad situations.

"Just follow my lead and I'll give you what you want," I tell him. The dorkus nods his head slowly. He's overpowered by my sexiness. I love being in a position of such power. You can get practically anything you want this way.

I turn my head from the pimply pimp and stare at Traci. "Look," I say. "I kinda agreed to give Jerry here a favor...."

"I knew you were going to say that," Traci says nonchalantly. "You're about to say that you owe him a sexual favor just so you don't have to deal with me ... then you're going to end up giving him a quick fuck. You'll run out the door and head home because there's nothing else to do here, and you're already pretty weirded out."

Son of a bitch!

I look at her with my eyebrow cocked. "Okay, am I that predictable?" I ask.

"Not even. I know exactly what's going to happen tonight. Saw it in my dream. And if I were you, I'd listen to me ... because giving Jeremy a quick fuck will land you with an STD. I swear."

Meanwhile, Jeremy backed out of the room slowly, a nervous grin on his face. At the mention of the STD, he bolted away from the bathroom door and back downstairs. If you want to know the truth, I have no idea what Jeremy was doing here in the first place. I don't recall anyone at this party being friends with him.

"Yeah, he's already received sexual favors for helping people cheat on tests at school," Traci said. "That includes your friend Laura, who gave him the disease. Jeremy's here because he wanted to warn Laura not to do anything stupid ... too bad for whoever she's with now."

As if on cue, we hear Laura moan in orgasm again.

I shake my head. What the hell's going on? I ask myself.

"What do you want? You said I can help you, so tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do," I say. I'm totally defeated here.

"I need you to kill me."

It took a moment for that to register. In the meantime, I stood motionless, my mouth gaping wide open. A million thoughts ran through my head at the same time, but I couldn't make sense out of any of them. They all seemed to say something with the word "psycho" in it.

"....kill you?" I say incredulously.

"Yup."

Yeah, she definitely was psychotic. She's even happy about this.

"Uh ... hey, I don't do murders ..."

"No, but you do assisted suicides. Laura and Richie, for instance. You wanted them to go kill themselves."

"Well, yeah, maybe. But I didn't care about them--"

"And in the 5 minutes you've known me here, I'm suddenly the world to you?"

"N-no .. but why?"

"Because those weird dreams I'm getting are too damn depressing. I mean, every night I see some girl get run over by a car, or some guy jump off the roof of a building. It's too much, and I don't want to deal with it anymore."

"Then kill yourself, yourself! I don't want your blood on my hands."

"Well ... the thing is, I can't do it. My dream last night ... well ... it was that I would kill myself. I'd slit my wrist over the sink right here. But I want one more surprise in my life. I want to prove my dream wrong for once."

Yeah, she was totally insane. No doubt about it. This is one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's-nest insane. Charles Manson insane. Wearing-purple-in-public insane. I dont't want a part of this ...

But fuck it! If it'll make her happy, it'll make me happy. I figure, if I could tell people to kill themselves, why not take it into my own hands? Hell, it's not like I'm murdering anyone. She's asking me to do it. The law wouldn't have anything on me, either. I'm not even (completely) drunk yet.

I turned my back to her and let out a heavy sigh. Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to help her kill herself?

Fuck yes.

"Well?" I say. "What do I do?"

"I've always wanted to die through an OD ..."

Okay, this is what happens when you inject heroin into your system. I got this information off a science website intended for 8 year olds. No kidding. Injecting it into a vein gets you high in under ten seconds, and is therefore the preferred way to do it. This drug works a hell of a lot faster than its sister morphine. The user feels analgesia and euphoria. If you don't know what those mean, you've probably never experienced them. User feels less anxiety, sedated and drowsy, blah blah blah. Anyway, overdosing on the stuff can land you into a coma and even death. It was death that we were looking for, so I was looking to blow about $800's worth of heroin into Traci's body.

I wouldn't mind dying like this either.

The thing is, we never got past $40.

I went downstairs and secured Traci's syringe. It had been sitting there this whole time, unmoved, unused, and collecting germs and bacteria. But who cares about AIDS when you want to die anyway? Richie brought supplies, for lack of a better, for chemistry. I got the heroin ready and administered this first dosage into Traci's bloodstream. Her eyes lit up the moment I did it. Her entire body seemed to go limp with pleasure, her mind taking her high in the sky.

Successful with that first dose, I started getting another one ready. Making injectable heroin is a very complicated process that's described in pretty much full detail on the DEA site. If you really want to know, check out how to make Heroin No. 4. Or you could just pop in Pulp Fiction and watch John Travolta. That's probably the more fun way to do your research.

Anyway, second dose is going into Traci when the bathroom door swings open. Standing there's Richie and Laura.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Richie screams at the top of his lungs.

The dose is halfway into Traci's bloodstream when Laura comes and rips me away from her.

"God damn it!" Richie's yelling. "I didn't think either of you would go through with this all the way!"

I stand upright and compose myself. Traci's on the floor in her euphoric reverie, with Laura right beside her stroking her hair. Richie's shaking his head.

"Christ," he says. "You really are a psycho bitch."

He's looking straight at me.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I say.

Laura clutches Traci's hair and whispers something about being stupid and why.

"This was all just set up to get back at you for telling us to kill ourselves," Richie says. "This was just to teach you a lesson. That you should value other peoples' lives, not try to take them!"

Yeah, I'm the best handler of suicidal people there is.

"I can't believe you were seriously going to OD her!"

I give them what they want.

"Don't you have a conscience?"

When you think you're helping them out ...

"Christ! Is she even responding?"

... you're really killing them.

It was about a week later when I ran into Traci again. She didn't overdose that night. She wasn't having dreams about people dying. She wasn't on the verge of suicide. But she did want to get the hell out of town.

I was walking out of the mall when I bumped into her.

"I knew you'd be here," she said.

"Fuck, don't start with that again."

"Sorry. Look, I just wanted to let you know that I'm skipping town today. I need to go somewhere new ... to tell the truth, I can't stand the fact that I let myself be used by the likes of Richie and Laura."

She jerked her thumb in the direction of a burly man on a motorcycle. He had this awesome double-headed blue dragon tatooed on his arm. I'd kill for something like that.

"He's on his way out to Long Island," she continues, "and said he'll drop me off in some real out-of-the-way place. I've got a friend out there who'll probably let me live with her."

I shrug. "Why're you telling me?"

"Because I really need your advice this time. I mean ... I don't know what I'm going to do once I get out there."

Scratching my head, I search for an answer. "Get yourself a job. That's all. Work at Burger King or something till you can do something better for yourself. You'll feel better, trust me on that."

I think that's the first time I ever actually gave sincere advice.

Traci nodded her head. "Yeah ... yeah! I'll do it. Thanks."

She hugged me tight and hurried off to the motorcycle.

"And lay off the freaking heroin!" I called after her.

She waved goodbye and the bike went off. I suppose that in a Hollywood, fairy tale ending, we all would be living happily ever after. The damn thing is, our lives aren't over yet.

Get a job. I considered those words. And for the first time I thought, maybe I should trust my own advice?

*sigh*

I'm experimenting with poetry right now. Trying to do my next entry entirely in iambic pentameter. It might take a while. Anyway, here's a little something to appease the people that've been bugging me to update.

Oh my God, it's a haiku!

This entry will test

Some experimental verse

Blah, blah, blah, FUCK OFF

The Holy Grail

The lights dim twice, signaling the audience that the show is about to begin.

Most everyone has a certain goal in their life, a Holy Grail, if you will, that they search for day and night, week after week, month after month. They fantasize of what they will do once their task is completed. They plan, strategize, analyze the ways in which their goal will be attainable. When they search for this Holy Grail, people are able to think beyond the capacity of their normal functions. Think outside the box.

This Holy Grail can be any of a wide variety of things. Some people strive to build something--finish the Puzz-3D set they started nearly a decade ago. Design a house to accomodate oneself and, perhaps, family, complete with hot tubs, viewing decks, and the finest security system in the world. Others want a more intellectual glory--compose the Great American Novel. Master the art of poetry. Paint a self-portrait.

In some cases, this Holy Grail is desired because the person is searching for the unparalleled feeling of satisfaction with oneself, knowing that their life is complete and that they've done everything they need to do. Or, people strive for this Holy Grail on a more competitive level. "If he can do it, why can't I?" "I can do this so much better than anyone else."

The Holy Grail.

The impossible dream.

The reward to serve as proof of one's struggles and accomplishments.

My Holy Grail is passing the goddamn road test.

Today marks the second time that I've failed. No, it's not because I'm a bad driver, not at all. I'm a pretty damn good one, in fact - I've mastered handling the LIE and Northern State Parkway faster than most of my friends (been driving on them since day 2 of getting my permit, which would be January of 2003). The reasons are circumstantial and purely bad luck.

Oh, the road tests haven't been so bad, really. They confirmed in my mind that women are indeed evil--notice how the word "evil" springs from "Eve," the female companion of Adam that offered him the apple in the Garden of Eden.

The theater lights dim and fade into darkness as the spotlight shines center stage.

July 13 and it's pretty gloomy outside in Patchogue. A light drizzle is falling on the roads, making things a little more difficult to handle. It's nothing new to me, though. I've driven in snow, heavy rain, dense fog. In fact, I'm even able to pass the weather off as a joke.

"You know, bad weather conditions often make it easier to pass the road test," I tell my parents. I'm sitting in the driver's seat of our Honda coupe, my dad to my right and my mom in the backseat. They nod and show they are in agreement. My father even relates how he had taken his road test years ago in the middle of a snow storm.

Enter the examiner, stage left.

The examiner for this road test appeared to be straight out of a horror movie. No, she's not the scream queen teen running away from the crazily deformed chainsaw murderer freak. She is the crazily deformed chainsaw murderer freak. Her maroon hair is disheveled and flying out in all directions, as if she had just blow-dried her hair after getting electrocuted. Her skin gives the image that she is affected by leukemia it's so yellow. She could have been a character out of the Simpsons. In addition to that, her skin also shows signs of poor preservation from the years. She easily looks older than 50 or 60 years of age.

She wears a maroon jacket that perfectly matches her hair. She also wears a black skirt, folded about four inches above her knees. In fact, she appears to be some kind of transvestite hooker waiting for a customer on a corner in the slums just ouside the strip in Las Vegas. Had she been wearing fishnet stalkings, the look would be complete.

Upon her face is a permanent frown. The only time you would be able to catch her smiling is when you turn her pictures upside-down. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses are demonic eyes that scream the cries of the millions of tortured souls confined to the lowest bowels of hell.

My father offers to close the door for her as she steps into the car. She looks at him and sneers, her lip curling and displaying a set of fangs. Closing the door herself, she looks at me with those unmerciful eyes.

"Good morning," I say genially, hoping that she would calm whatever devil she had dwelling with her.

"Your ID and certificates," she says mechanically, completely ignoring my greeting.

At this point, I conclude, if you can't even greet a person who greets you sincerely, you have failed at life. The only way that this examiner could have gotten to be this way is if she had found out she had stage four metastacized ovarian cancer and breast cancer, her husband deserted her and took the kids, and her favorite soap operas were cancelled all on the same day.

The next ten minutes are filled with her screaming at me, attempting to assert that she is a superior being because (a) she has the power to pass or fail me and (b) she's a bitch. At one point, she even mocks me while I make a right turn.

The test over, she says curtly, "You need to reschedule another road test," and leaves the car. Fortunately, I had parked right on top of a puddle. When she stepped out, she had to walk through it. I briefly considered moving the car while she was getting out so that she would fall head-first into the mud.

Alas, I should have done it.

Intermission. Act II.

August 17, today, was a pretty nice day. Not too warm as to cause heat stroke. Not too cool as to not want to blast the air conditioning. Clouds litter the sky, and I look to them while I wait for my turn for the road test, trying to decipher shapes out of them.

I saw a sailboat and a woman's right breast, but that's really all up to my imagination.

This time around, I've practiced nonstop for the test. Rather, my father made me practice nonstop. You'd think that after parallel parking 6-12 inches away from the curb 40 times consecutively would be enough to prove that you're prepared for that part of the test, but not really. In fact, my father practiced me so much that it grew very frustrating when I parked 13 inches away from the curb.

Last night I had gotten no sleep at all. There were many things going through my head, but most of all, I was anxious because of the test.

Turns out, I could have just slept it off and not gone to the road test anyway because all I did was waste my time.

For this road test, my examiner was another woman. She is the matronly, nurturing type with thick glasses and curly hair. If I hadn't seen the examination apparatus she carried on her body, I would have mistaken her for a soccer mom.

She seems to be a very nice person. Unfortunately, "seems" is the key word to that sentence. From my experience today, I have confirmed that outward appearance and casual conversation do no more than tell you how much a person will bullshit you.

Her instructions are simple, easy to follow. The course itself is easy. In fact, the only part I messed up at was at the final intersection, when I made my turn in too close a proximity of other cars. It was at this point that the examiner changed face.

It's almost funny to realize how the conversation we had in our car went from "You went to the Bahamas? Really? Wow, I'm planning to go to Bermuda ..." to "You're going to die."

I failed because of the last turn I made on the intersection. My street had stop signs and the intersecting street didn't. I misjudged the distance between my car and the oncoming cars and ... well, you can take it from there. I didn't hit anything though.

Damn.

Well, at least that's not the end. There's hope yet.

The waiting process for your next road test can be a very difficult thing. Some people have to wait weeks, even months, for their next appointment. Usually, it's a 3-5 week wait, but I've seen up to 8 or 9 already in places just outside of New York City.

Luck happens to be on my side for once though. I haven't seen my side of luck for the last several months, so something's got to be happening for me when an opportunity like this pops up.

Next road test: August 23 in Cooperstown, upstate NY. It's a 5-hour drive, but I don't really care at this point. What's a 5-hour drive in comparison to all the driving I'm going to do when I get the license? I'll consider this trip my journey from The Shire to Mt. Doom to destroy the One Ring. My journey up Mt. Everest to place a flag at the summit and claim it as mine.

My attainment of the Holy Grail.

The cast comes out to take their final bows and the audience cheers them to do an encore. Yes, it was a musical. The cast, content with their performance for this evening, agree to do one. Getting into position as the house lights dim once again, they get ready to sing one more song ...

One choice affects your future success.

You look at Pace University.

You look at Florida State University.

You look at the Michigan Institute of Technology.

Searching for colleges has got to be one of the most tedious things ever. It's sadomasochism, Disney style. You sit at your computer and stare at the screen for hours, seeing what the college has to offer and picturing yourself in it. The past two days alone, I've made metaphysical appearances in about twenty different colleges.

Everything seems to be rushing at me now, crushing me below a weight so heavy that my chest is likely to cave in any minute now. Just you wait. Come September 13, I'll probably be on a wheelchair and a respirator.

You look at St. Joseph's University.

Last night, my dad took me over to the Centereach road test site. I don't know the exact route myself, and neither does he, so we spent about an hour predicting where I would have to turn, where I would have to parallel park, where I would have to do the three-point turn. Where I'd fail the test. Where I'd hide the corpse of my examiner.

You know. The basics.

We've been doing this for a while, too. I've got a lot riding on whether or not I get my license. It's almost as pressuring as college.

Besides, I don't want an angry Drea breathing down my neck about failing.

My father's been putting most of the pressure on me though. It's like this with every parent. All of them have a wish to see their son or daughter succeed in life, but none of them want their child to be more successful than they are. So, they give you every opportunity you need, help you out on your way to success. But the minute you start doing something better than they can, they withdraw their support and find excuses to get angry at you with, thereby undermining you and destroying your self-esteem and turning you into a rebellious-spirited adolescent.

God, I love my parents.

The past few weeks, my father's been on either of two modes - search for college and driving. It's getting to be quite scary too. When we go to family parties, my dad will brag about how I'm going to get accepted into this college or that college. Or he'll talk about his future expectations of me becoming a physician.

It appears that I'm going to be a cardiovascular surgeon/specialist that graduated from Harvard Medical School that's won the Nobel Prize for finding the cure for cancer, AIDS, and all STDs. Not to mention, I'm married to some Hollywood actress that just won the Oscar for Best Lead Female in a movie that won Best Picture. I think I've also gone to the moon on various occasions and helped colonize Mars.

Then, when we're alone, he'll talk about my driving and then criticize what I've been doing. A thousand times over. It's getting to be that I can predict exactly what he'll say the moment he gets home, the moment we're in the car, the moment he opens up his mouth.

You look at San Diego State University.

You look at Iona College.

Last night when we got home from driving, I had to force myself into college search mode. Meanwhile, my father's handing me the mail we receive from Nowhere University, USA. I'm afraid to tell him what colleges I'm looking at now, because then he blows up into excitement and all of a sudden, selects twenty other colleges I might be interested in. About fifteen of them will be Catholic universities.

"So have you looked at NYU?" he asks me.

"Not yet," I reply. "I'm going to tonight."

"Well, look at Fordham and Hofstra and --"

"I got it, dad."

He goes downstairs to exercise and meanwhile, I'm left up with the computer to search for his future.

Searching for a college that's just right for you is like trying to pin the tail on the ass of a donkey (or ass, if you prefer) while blindfolded and dizzy on the Titanic as it sinks. Sure, the place looks appealing, but then again, everything looks appealing when you first see it. That's how they sucker you into choosing them.

See also: ex-girlfriends.

You look at Sarah Lawrence College.

You look at UCLA.

There's a catch that appears with every college. It may offer you great housing, cable TV in every room, a game room, a weight room, a study lounge. It doesn't allow you to bring the car your parents gave you as your gift for graduating senior year. It may offer you an honors program, a special house for honors students, full tuition to be paid. It's also located three planes and a Greyhound away. It may offer you every Greek life from Alpha Beta Kappa to Sigma Pi Sigma and free beer and fake IDs. It's also for the opposite sex only.

"Christ, there must be thousands of these schools perfect for me that suck," I say under my breath as I make my metaphysical appearance in SUNY Stony Brook.

For some reason, the song "Ironic" is imbedded in my head.

You look at C.W. Post.

You look at Iona College. Again.

About an hour into my search and I'm already frustrated. There's sweat beading at my brow and pouring out of my hands. The keyboard is already wet with my perspiration. My vision is clouded and blurry. All the words begin to run together and don't make sense.

Don't worry. There's no medical attention needed. This is your standard college search day.

In extreme cases, the searcher spontaneously combusts.

Meanwhile, my father's downstairs still exercising. He doesn't have to worry about this anymore. In fact, paying the tuition is probably the most distant thing from his mind. On the treadmill, he's fantasizing about the fishing boat that I buy him after I set up my own practice somewhere in the city and become world-renouned as the best heart surgeon, having completed over 400 open-heart surgeries in the course of six months. Then his mind wanders over to where he'll go fishing.

You look at UC Berkeley.

You look at the University of Connecticut.

You look at Boston College.

These are the conditions that I search for. The college must be (a) private, (b) 4-year, (c) have an honors program, (d) in New York, (e) accepts SAT scores below 1300, (f) have english, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and physics programs for the MCATs, (g) equipped with a Starbucks.

If conditions (e), (f), and (g) are met, the college is up for further consideration.

Additional conditions include (h) greater ratio of female to male students, (i) early action available, (j) presence of (1) 7-11 and/or (2) Wendy's, (k) many females, (l) fewer males.

Yes, I'm picky. And horny.

You look at Colgate University.

You look at New York University.

If you can't tell, I hate looking for college. Nothing seems appealing anymore, especially after going through two hundred different college in the course of three hours. The ones that do happen to stand out for me though are Georgetown, Iona, and St. Joseph's. Pace and Hofstra are maybe's.

Forget about Ivy Leage colleges. I doubt anyone I know will get into one anyway, even me, so I'm not even going to bother looking there. Besides, to get in, your father, grandfather, and great grandfather must have been alumni, your family donates $30,000,000 to create a wing on the campus, or you're a genius with schizophrenia that's in the middle of composing a symphony with the aid of Dick and Tom your imaginary friends.

The one thing I really hope for is that I'm not stuck with something I'll regret for the next four years. It's a pretty hard decision.

You look at your future, exploding in your face.

My parents are weirder than your parents.

To make a New York Sour, mix 2 ounces blended whiskey, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 teaspoon powdered sugar, claret, 1/2 slice lemon, and 1 cherry. Shake blended whiskey, juice of lemon, and powdered sugar with ice and strain into a whiskey sour glass. Float claret on top. Decorate with half-slice of lemon and the cherry and serve.

Friday and I'm in New York City. Downtown. Follow the white rabbit.

I'm behind the wheel and my mom's in the passenger seat. We race down the LIE at 78mph, dodging Mack trucks and Escalades. Switchover at exit 53 because Queens scares me. My mom's behind the wheel and I'm in the passenger seat. We pace down the LIE at 64mph, ending up behind traffic between exits 39-30.

The Connecticut radio station I listen to statics out.

The Long Island radio station I listen to is in the middle of its 2nd hour of nonstop commercials.

The New York radio station I listen to is playing the worst music I've heard in days.

Arrive in Queens and go to the subway. Here's where things get tricky. For my mom at least.

The metro card machine is like a metallic multi-colored dragon that breathes the fires of yellow, blue, and black cards and is sustained by the flesh of our credit card accounts. Recipts are the white feces. My mother stands before the machine, the sword that is her MasterCard clutched tightly in her hands. She attacks but can't find a weakness in the dragon's defense.

"Mom," I say. "You're holding the card upside-down."

Success! She finds the dragon's weak point and proceeds to attack. But no! The job is too difficult! She needs help!

I sigh. "You're getting a normal metro card. Not the unlimited one. $10 purchase, mom. No, $10. Yes, I know it says $12 now. The screen before said '+$2.00 bonus.'"

The dragon is slain! But the battle has not ended yet. Next thing my mom knew, she was covered in the feces of the dead dragon.

"Mom ... you forgot the recipt."

Traveling onward, we arrive at the gates to the evil castle. Or rather, the revolving-door turnstile. I slide the metro card through the slot and my mom turns the turnstile. The wrong way.

Minus $2.00 from our card.

And at that moment, my uncle just happened to pass by and see her predicament. Now we have witnesses.

We get through and take the subway over to Wall Street. Coming up back to the surface, my dad's instructions were to find the church and walk off in its direction.

"Where's the church?" my mom asks after we spend 2 minutes outside not moving.

"Look in front of you, mom."

To make a Nutty Angel, you mix 1 ounce vodka, 1 ounce Frangelico, 1 ounce Bailey's Irish Cream Liquer, and 1/2 ounce dark creme de cacao. Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Dust with nutmeg.

We meet my dad at his workplace, the Downtown Association. It's a club for Wall Street executives that's been in existence since Lincoln's days. One of the Rockefellers is a member of the club. President Theodore Roosevelt was a member of the club. The Seward guy that bought Alaska for the U.S. is apart of the club. He comes in everyday and just eats soup.

Also apart of the club is a group of people that are horrible at playing pool. Money does not buy you coordination.

A cue ball comes rolling past us as we peek into one of the recreation rooms.

My dad brings us upstairs. Where he works is being renovated, and has been for the past three years. The places they haven't worked on are falling apart. Walking means risking your life in the event that the floor will fall through and you'll drop 6 stories in a plummet of doom to have your brains smashed open on the beautiful marble floor lobby.

Money does not save you from plummeting to a horrible death.

Next thing I know, I'm being showed off to my dad's co-workers and boss. Apparently, I'm the sunshine in my dad's life. I'm the genious prodigy on a one-way course of scientific success and medical breakthrough. I'm the one that knows everything about computers. I'm the one that has the beautiful life.

Please, you're making me blush.

No, your father talks so much about you!

Please, you're making me barf.

You have such a bright future, you know. Just keep on doing what you're doing.

Please, you're making me suicidal.

The Downtown Association takes pride in being one of the oldest establishments in Wall Street. They have old paintains littering the walls that are dated as early as 1850. One wall near my dad's office is devoted entirely to showing New York City in the latter half of the 19th century. 70% of the paintings show the city on fire.

There are also old political cartoons around drawn by some guy named Puck. Most of them are about 1860s politics. Tammany appears several times. 80% of the time, he's on fire.

My dad gave us a walking tour descending the stairs and stopping off at the various rooms of the 6 floors of the Downtown Association building. The walls around the staircase display several pictures of clipper ships and steamboats traveling up the Hudson River or going out to see by the Statue of Liberty. 90% of the time, they're on fire.

To make a Flaming Asshole, mix 1 part Blackberry brandy, 1 part Bacardi's 151 rum, 1 part tequila, add to lowball, and set it aflame. It tastes so bad only an asshole would drink it.

Jump to the South Street Seaport. Cobble roads are all you have to walk on. Waiters have to walk on it for 5 to 8 hours at a time. The stench of fresh fish is in the air from Fulton. Indie bands have set up the stage beside the water. There are hundreds of people walking around. Maybe you've seen some of them before. Maybe they've seen you before. Street entertainers compete for audiences. Presently, the magician is winning.

The magician looks like Michael Jackson from the 80s. He's smoking a cigarette and touching small children.

We eat at Il Porto, an Italian seafood restaurant. Of course, I'm always dubious of seafood. Too many incidents involving food poisoning. Instead, I get the pasta. The penne kind, because in some instances, restaurants make spaghetti too tough and suddenly you're choking with several long noodles coming out of your mouth.

The paramedics ask if you just swallowed a yellow ball of yarn. You know, just to break the tension because while you're choking, enough air comes through to allow you to laugh.

My dad orders a Manhattan.

To make a Manhattan, you mix 1/2 parts Rye Whiskey, 1/2 parts Italian vermouth, 1 dash orange bitters, and serve with a Maraschino cherry.

Next thing, he's red in his face and laughing at every little thing.

We head over to the mall. I'm shopping for a new light jacket because my old one is ... old. 6th grade old. Yankees miracle season old.

Inside ExpressMen, my dad approaches the employees.

"WOW!!!" he says. "You've got SUCH a NICE VIEW in this shop!" He giggles a bit.

The employees look at him and nod their heads and smile.

I find a jacket I like and we buy it. At the cash register, my dad begins flirting with the cashier. Then he says something about getting a discount. By now, everyone in the store knows my dad's drunk because of all the noise he's making. I just want to get out. The cashier, she says:

"Oh, you can get a discount by buying an Express Card. 15% off the purchase!"

Son of a bitch! I wanted to get out!

"REALLY??" my dad says, his eyes going wide. "Sign me up!"

While the registration is going through, my dad takes the time to make more heavily-accented flirtacious comments to the cashier, in the presence of both my mom and I. We know he's out of his mind. They know he shouldn't be driving home. The customers know they should avoid us.

Money does not save you from drunken embarassing fathers.

A stop at Starbucks and then we're on our way home.

And it turns out, my dad wasn't drunk after all. He was just faking it. He loves being the center of attention, even if it does mean making an ass out of himself. This he doesn't tell me, but I know that's exactly what he's thinking.

My parents are pretty weird. But I love them still, I guess.

To make a very confused childhood, mix one part obnoxiously loud father, one part puerile (childish) naive mother, and me. Decorate with good grades and defense mechanisms.

Mix well before serving.

The outside world is bad.

There happen to millions of reasons of why staying indoors is advantageous to being outdoors, and I use these to justify why I hate going out.

The sun is a gigantic ball of carcinogens.

There could be an airbourne virus going around that eats at your insides and makes you puke out your own blood and guts, rendering you a living vegetable after three days of exposure.

A swarm of mosquitoes could come any moment and suck the blood out of your body and leave you with the West Nile Virus. A two-for-one deal.

Bees are attracted to my hair gel.

I could get raped. What? I have a nice ass.

By not going outside, I'm:

Preserving the environment by not using a car.

Decreasing my risk for cancer.

Not a target for terrorist attacks.

Drea got online last night. She spent a day at so-and-so's house. A day at so-and-so's house. And a day at James' house.

"James? A guy?"

No, Jaime. Typo.

Right. Cue Sandstorm and 5 male strippers.

My mom wants me to do something. Anything. She tries to force me to go back to the veteran's home, but after a bit of consideration ... I think I might be done with that. Yes, the experience was fun and all, but I don't like the place. There's too much death there. Too much loneliness. It's too depressing, and I don't think my fragile little mind can take it very long.

Gus probably knows what to do.

"You're not doing anything at home!" my mom tells me.

Yes I am.

"No you're not."

How am I supposed to tell her I'm working on a novel that can potentially bring a few thousands into our income? How do I say I've tapped into a creative well that I never knew existed inside of me that stands to be a huge benefit to our family? How can I explain that I'm on the verge of literary stardom?

Easy. I don't.

"I'm doing plenty of stuff at home," I say.

"Go to the gym!" she says. "Go biking! Go outside! Leave the house!"

"All right!"

And out the door I go.

Hello carcinogenic sun, how are you today?

What's up, infectuous mosquito bite?

How you doin', killer bees?

Good afternoon, Mr. Allah-reborn Terrorist.

Okay, so the outside world isn't too bad. I mean, the sky is blue and the hole in the ozone layer isn't noticeable. The trees are green and covered with deadly pesticide. Birds are chirping and crapping on your car. It could be worse.

I could be locked in a top secret vault chamber cell deep within the confines of the Rocky Mountains in a governmental institution being questioned about my loyalties and getting electro-tortured.

This is my circuit for bike riding. Start off going up the hill that leads to my house 30 feet. Bear left onto the main road and keep going down. Speed bumps every 500 feet. There are two of them. Make a right onto the next road - going straight lands me right into the locked link gate that leads to a dirt road that leads to the back of some bank. This next road is downhill all the way about 1200 feet. Speed bump here is avoidable if you're good. Make a right at the end of the road. Oncoming traffic is unpredictable and very random. Gate house helps regulate this, but it only gives them a 5 second delay.

Those 5 seconds mean slowing down, speeding up, or a $500,000 cash settlement lawsuit in your favor.

$600,000 if you're good at lying.

Continue down this road 3,500 feet. Count two speed bumps and three stop signs. A car passes you at the first stop sign. Two pass you at the second one. The driver of the second car flips his middle finger at you because your bike can't possibly match the horsepower of his Ford Pinto.

Arrive at the country club. It's more of a gym than it's a country club. And it's more of a pool than it's a gym. There are children in the indoor pool, because their grandparents are afraid the children will develop skin cancer from too much exposure to the sun at the outdoor pool. These are the smart grandparents, the ones that know what they're talking about.

You were thinking they were pretty paranoid, weren't you?

Get a drink of water from the fountain at the country club, which is more of a gym which is more of a pool. Exit and resume course.

T-split at the road, with your usual stop sign. Proceed straight for a full-circle course. Oval, really. Take a right and you cut the course in half.

I always go right.

Drea's back online again. She says she'll move out to Vegas and make a career singing. Bruce Springstein covers, only. Showgirls are the backup vocals.

Cue Sandstorm and 5 male strippers.

"You play the guitar," I tell her. "I'll sing."

Cue 10 female strippers and a beat-boxer.

Follow the road past a car blasting a techno trance. Pass the putting green to your left. Pathway to the golf course holes 4-8 on the right. There's a four-way intersection. I go left, because going any other way would be going right back home again. 15 minutes haven't even passed. My mom would think I only went to the end of the street and back.

Straight and flat road for about 2,500 feet. Try riding without your hands on the handle. Spread your arms like a bird. Commence lift-off.

Put both hands back on the handles and avoid the oncoming SUV.

Follow the road and you'll arrive at the second country club. It's more of a democratic community convention center than it is a country club. It's more of a pool than it is a democratic community convention center.

In here, I get another drink of water from the fountain. This one is placed less advantageously up a flight of stairs. But the air conditioning is stronger. I could hang out inside here for a while and lie to my mom. Tell her that I went around the community three times. I just have to wait long enough.

Unfortunately, I'm such a good little boy.

Back outside I go.

Hey again, cancer-inducing burning star of deadly infrared light from which we are protected by a thin layer of ozone that is constantly being decayed by our use of cars and hair products.

Take a left. This way I go the way I would have passed through had I gone straight at that T-intersection. There happens to be an entirely new section of our community that I never knew existed until today. Yes, I took a little shorcut.

What? Would you like to go up the treacherous hill of death? The shortcut I take bypasses it completely. I congratulate myself for my genius geological intuition.

This path will take me full circle right back to my home, somehow. All in all, I cover about three miles. Yes, the calculations I gave earlier didn't even sum up to one mile. Congratulations to you if you did the math.

The smarter people are the ones that didn't bother.

"You teach me how to sing," Drea says.

This way, she can decide to fire me at any time she wants and I don't have to be on the playbill at all.

Cue lonely nights at home and a porn video.