Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Fall of 2008 (or, Chumpsgiving)

Andrew Bolton
Writing Creative Nonfiction
Christian Winn
8th Dec 2008
Fall Of 2008 (Chumpsgiving)
I ended my time after high school in Idaho Falls with less friends than I’d had at almost any other point of my life, but feeling more confident in my friendships than I had in a long time. I’d had a pretty static daily routine the summer before my Freshman year at BSU, and spent a large number of my days in the company of long-time friends Colin and Ryan, smoking with the former and playing videogames with the latter; it was predominantly because of these friendships that I decided to move to Boise over any other college town. The last thing I wanted to deal with on top of harder schooling was attempting to make new friends, and maintaining some connection with my home town and youth provided me with a great deal of comfort. Ryan and I were going to school while Colin lived with his aunt and uncle and worked at Hotel 43 as a desk clerk. Already upon moving to Boise it felt strange that even though we had relocated to a fairly different city and were focusing on a new period of our lives, I could still call them up or walk to their house to find them doing the same things we’d done for the past three years. There were very few among the other Freshmen I met while living in Towers that year whose chief priority was education, so uncertain as we were as to what we ought to apply ourselves to, and life felt like the sort of summer camp Disney would never make reality shows about.
It only took Colin a short time to grow weary of his workplace’s haughtiness and in early October he moved to Bend, Oregon. While the distance was more than manageable, my beloved and tuition-paying mother and father had announced to me that for my first year away from home they would prefer if I didn’t have a vehicle to distract me from school. I also had decided of my own volition not to get a job so that I could instead take three honors courses a semester, which made both my promises and my desires to vacation from Boise feel hollow. I never managed to make it over there, and Colin returned to spend another summer in Idaho, primarily because we were all aware that it might have been the last time most of our high school friends were in the same place. In early August I drove the two of us to Boise and he took a bus back to Bend.

My parents had insisted I not drive my car back to Idaho Falls over this Thanksgiving break, in case the weather unexpectedly turned. It didn’t, and it was only with a small amount of bitterness that I dropped the seventy dollars to secure a seat on the shuttle home. But my mother has always been something of a worrywart when it comes to traveling, and they enjoyed driving me to Boise. It had become something of a routine vacation for them since the middle of the summer, when I began to despair in my search for housing in the fall. Ada County seems to have a zero tolerance policy for petty criminals, and I had received my first misdemeanor violation in May; finding an apartment while I had no rental history and so recent a run-in with the enforcers became increasingly difficult as I searched online from Idaho Falls. Most of the people I had met during the previous school year had solved this problem before being kicked out of the dorms, but because I was to spend the summer at home I had slacked off.
My father had, unbeknownst to me, began what ultimately proved to be a fruitful search for any potentially fitting and economically logical property to house me. We found the townhouse while on one of our many trips early in the summer, and after completing the transaction it became a project my parents relished working on. Not having my car in Idaho Falls over the break meant they again had to come to Boise, and they made certain to ask me how different aspects of the house they’d previously put work into were getting along. All of their fuss had made me uneasy from the beginning, as they certainly would not have felt as much pressure to make the investment if I’d had the sense not to transgress a scant few months before. Going to school was also still something I considered somewhat temporary, something to keep me active while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have parents who planned for helping me financially with school, but that they actually purchased a house to help me achieve a sane studying environment has only made me feel more pressured to commit to one area of study. That they have invested so much into my schooling already also has led them to fear anything that could potentially set me off course, and so rather than make them fret I decided to stop telling them. As long as I’m healthy and make it through school satisfactorily they don’t need to worry about me.

We pulled up to the townhouse around four in the afternoon the Friday following Thanksgiving, and my parents left to check in to their hotel. My roommate Tessa had decided a few weeks before that she would move out to her mother’s house to help support her for a few months, and when I got upstairs she seemed surprised to see me, apologizing for not having moved all of her stuff out yet. I ignored it and went into my room to feverishly reorganize, taking beer cans out of the garbage to hide in the dumpster out back, slipping my pipes into the plastic shelf my Sunday school youth director gave everyone in the graduating class of 2007. Undoubtedly I should already have known what jobs around the house we were planning on getting accomplished during this visit, but through repetition all of the visits began to blur together and I was primarily determined to avoid any altercations.

From the beginning of the semester communication with my roommates slowly became less fluid. My parents as landlords eventually ended up dealing more directly with them than I, despite that they were both friends from the previous school year. There was no way I could have known my relationship with Jim and Tessa would become so tense while they hid their arguments behind hushed tones or closed doors, perhaps in a failed attempt to not make me feel surrounded by it. It got to the point where very little genuine conversation took place, and I would return from work to a house more tired than I. Still, I had offered to help her get organized during the days before break and she had insisted it was no problem. They might have lived in the same building as I, but even to say we interacted on any deeper level than greetings would be pushing it.

I drove to meet my parents an hour later at The Bonefish Grill downtown. Surprisingly inside they were playing music one would only expect to hear in a hipster Portland coffee shop, and the experience would have been exceptional even if I hadn’t made certain I was stoned enough to enjoy anything. I returned home to company in the form of Tessa and her friend Brittany, but spent most of the night packing up a small supply of clothes and toiletries into my backpack, which I then hid in the garage closet before calling Colin.
“Andy, hey, what’s up big guy?” My dad used to call me big guy and ever since Colin heard so he’d taken up the name, mostly because I’m half his size.
“Not much, just… livin’ the life.”
I’d recently taken to following that statement up with a literal description of my life, but telling him about homework, pot, playing Fallout 3 and reading Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road just didn‘t really seem applicable, despite that I would’ve said as much to anyone else. “Are you in Bend?”
“Yeah; dude, I’m so drunk. Chumpsgiving.”
“Whoa, yeah, that’s right. Uhm. So I’m going to be there tomorrow and Sunday. Just so you know.”
“Dude. Fuck yes. Good. But, I gotta go. I love you big guy!”
As long as I’d known them Ryan and Colin had been members of the Belegarth foam sword fighting group God Squad. Several times a year anywhere from a hundred to several thousand sword fighters would get together for events, and Chumpsgiving was a smaller, God Squad-only weekend gathering. The majority of the days were spent sleeping until noon, then fighting until the sun went down, at which point they’d begin drinking until everyone fell asleep. Ryan was busy with his family over the weekend, but I had gotten my friend and co-worker Mike interested in seeing Colin and just getting out of Boise by mentioning Oregon‘s notoriety for low weed prices, and we agreed to leave Saturday morning as soon as we were able to do so without alerting my parents to our plans.

Sure enough, the following morning my father woke me up determined to help me repair the computer desk we purchased second-hand from one of his co-workers. The keyboard slider part was completely broken, but he had brought the proper hardware to repair it. It took him about two hours to complete that while my mother and I worked on cleaning up a transmission fluid spill in the garage; I’d had my car’s radiator replaced before driving to Boise in August and they apparently had forgotten to apply clamps to the proper hoses. The whole time I was extremely antsy while Mike continually sent me text messages asking for updates on our situation, and there was zero opportunity to enjoy even a cigarette at the townhouse while my parents were there. It wasn’t until eleven-thirty that they felt they had accomplished as much as they needed to before heading out. My dad always asks me how I’m doing financially right before he leaves, and gives me a twenty if I say anything remotely implying a need. This school year I’d been mostly turning him down because I’ve had work, but today I said, “I have about fifteen dollars and get paid on Tuesday, so, you know… I should be alright.”
“Well. Why don’t I… you know, just in case.”
On the one hand I felt guilty for accepting more money from him, but I knew I would need it for gas, and I reasoned with myself that being less stressed about money would allow me to focus more on getting through the rest of this semester. Not that I was planning on studying before returning to school on Monday, but there’s only so much stress I can allow myself to feel at one time, and this vacation was a sudden enough plan as it was. Besides, Tessa and I had cleaned the house for one of the first times before break began, and my parents were more pleased than ever with its appearance.

Before going to Michael’s I loaded a bowl and sat down on the family room couch. Tessa was carrying a load of stuff to be moved to her mom’s house down the stairs, and I invited her to smoke with me. For a second it seemed like she was going to say no, and I added, “Unless you have work or whatever, I just thought since you’ll be moved out by the time I get back…”.
She glanced down and dropped the bag, laughed a little and said, “Yeah, alright.” It was nice to at least get to hang out with her one last time while Jim was in California, because she was much more upbeat, and they truly had both been good friends of mine before we lived together. I felt that she was going to take the opportunity to fill me in on what was happening with her and Jim, but all she told me was that she was sort of looking forward to living with her mother because it would help her better understand what she wanted. Getting her stuff out before Jimmy returned Sunday evening from Carlsbad was a priority for her, and all I could say through my ignorance of their situation was to wish her luck in speedy packing, then feel like a jackass as I pulled my car out of the garage a few minutes later.

At Mike’s we smoked another bowl before getting into my car and pulling onto I-84. While driving stoned is still legally considered driving under the influence, for long trips I have found that it makes time go exponentially faster, and it‘s definitely a matter of opinion as to whether or not it’s any harder. We did get lost, but it was as a result of following our Google Maps printout directly. Getting real directions was only a matter of asking a customer in a Weizer, Idaho gun-slash-antler store, and by swapping drivers and sleeping during the other’s shift we were able to arrive in Bend around six-thirty. Colin’s house was also fortunately easy to find, it being in a trailer park just off the state highway exit, and we pulled in within a few minutes. Leaving our backpacks in the car, we rang the doorbell.
Colin’s roommate Manny opened the door. I’d never met Manny, but I knew it was him because he’s the only black member of God Squad, and because he said, “Colin, your little nigger friends are here.” He meandered off into the house, grinning, and we followed him to where around eighteen people were crammed into a kitchen, family room, and Colin’s bedroom. As soon as he saw us Colin bombarded us with a bear hug and ushered us into his room.
“Andy, this is Bishop, Kurgan, Dyse and Lloki - guys, we’re gonna smoke now, so…” he trailed off, staring at the four of them and shaking his head. I’d heard all of their fighting names before from stories Colin and Ryan had told of past events, and I introduced myself somewhat meekly as they filed out. Our reception to the house had jolted me a bit, and I was feeling somewhat out of my element, so it was nice to be able to hang out with just Colin and Mike. He filled us in on their plan for the evening while almost blindly packing a bowl with one hand.
“So hey big guy, how’s it goin’, how was the drive? …Good, that’s good. Oh my god man, we have so many people here. I guess Shino’s having a keggar tonight at his house, in like an hour. The rest of the fighters are there. Fuck.” He looked down for a second at the hit or two he’d spilled on the carpet, and rubbed it in as he said, “You bring bud?”
“In the glove box, yeah.”
“Save it. We’ll leave as soon as everyone else gets out of my house.” He passed me the pipe.

Colin walked back out to mingle with his guests, and I was spared having to begin memorizing a bunch of one time use names by asking to check the internet. Instinctively I logged into my email account. That I was so out of the loop as to be first informed of my roommates ending their relationship through a social networking website made me feel numb. I wasn’t even surprised, just sorry for them, the resent I had felt for their cutting me off replaced with a vicarious anxiety. I thought heavily about sending Jim a text message just giving him some support, because it truly required thought, and ultimately decided against what felt like meddling at so late a stage. I logged off, walked over to Mike and suggested we go to smoke cigarettes.
We’d just lit them when everyone else suddenly took our cue and piled into their cars. Colin came out and sat with us on the porch while we smoked, telling us about his Chumpsgiving experience so far. I flicked my cigarette into the street and we hopped back into my car.

It was only about a five minute drive to Shino’s house, which Colin described simply as having “a history. There’ve been fighters living there for like twelve years, it’s crazy.” The first thing I noticed was the piano out on the front porch, tagged but still apparently tuned. Inside on the base floor all of the walls met the ceiling with a curve. Even the inner corners were curved, and with the dim yellow lights it felt like a cave. Beyond the kitchen there was what looked like a fold-up staircase down to the basement. They had somehow gotten two beds and a beer pong table into this cellar as well as the keg, which they just now tapped, and we got in line to listen obediently to the name of whichever local brewery provided the draught and take our fill before heading back upstairs. Mike and I followed Colin down a narrow hallway at the back of the foyer, then up an abrupt and equally narrow twisting staircase. The upstairs consisted of a hallway ending in a small dark bedroom, with a closet and a toilet-only restroom set into either side.
I wound up spending the majority of the night in this bedroom, leaving for only short periods at a time to refill my cup or smoke a cigarette. It seemed whenever I would find myself getting interested in dancing or having a legitimate conversation Colin would show up with another of his friends and ask me to go smoke another bowl with him. The room had a thoroughly comfortable, minimalist vibe to it though. Tapestries hung on all the walls and the two corner tables opposite the bed had legs that formed several lower surfaces below the main ones, each with different objects centered below. Staying there just happened as a result of various different people filtering in and out midway through a bowl, and offering to match us up for our generosity. I had stored upwards of twenty names and was just going over them with some whimsical satisfaction when I realized how drunk I was. Looking at Michael, whose head was in his hands, I decided it was a good time to leave. Colin managed to find someone to drive my car back to his place, and the last thing I remember is trying to fall asleep while Manny beat my legs with a pillow and yelled at me to get my feet off of his furniture.

The next day was far more relaxed. We woke up before anyone else in the house with various types of hangover, and immediately followed Colin’s suggestion for biscuits and gravy at a nearby breakfast-only place called Sargent’s CafĂ©. The chief flaw in my planning had been that Michael and I failed to realize that even in Oregon, businesses treat Sunday a little bit differently. It struck me as simply unintuitive to find all three of Bend’s major pipe shops to recognize the Sabbath. We ended up being forced to look in a corner gas station mere blocks from Colin‘s, where both Mike and I managed to talk the cashier down five dollars before each purchasing one of their overpriced pipes. We then walked to a nearby park, where we met the rest of the fighters who’d far overslept us at his house, and he began to change into his fighting garb.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“We’ll fight until four or so.”
I immediately laid down on the grass and fell back asleep.

I awoke when Colin sat down next to me, right at four. “You hungry guy?”
“Uhm. Yeah man.” I pulled myself up and shook my hair, popped my neck, stretched. “What’s food?”
“Well, it was Chumpsgiving, so leftovers?”
“Yeah, we’ll do leftovers.”

Going to Washington or Oregon has always represented to me an excellent opportunity to pick up anything pot related, and neither Mike nor I spared any expense for this trip, though that certainly hadn’t been my purpose. Even though I had known from the beginning that I would only get to spend a day and a half there if I wanted to get back to Boise in time for school, the simple act of going there and experiencing what Bend and life for Colin in Bend were like simplified things. While we ate turkey and watched television I looked down and saw an Xbox with Fallout 3’s case on the ground beside it. I suddenly remembered seeing a copy of The Road when I first arrived, in the bathroom Colin shared with Manny.
We were walking out the door, ready to leave when I asked him, jokingly, “Does it seem like Post-Apocalyptia is taking over America’s collective subconscious? What is with all this post-nuclear war entertainment out there all of a sudden?”
He laughed and shook his head too. “The world’s coming to an end big guy. Drive safe!” And we nearly did, though a semi going the opposite way on the two-lane state highway attempted to pass the vehicle in front of him and literally ran us off the road for a few moments. Michael had been driving, though, so we survived. I managed not to mention the fears my mother had had earlier in the week.

Seeing things in Colin’s life that like the previous year mirrored the things in mine only served to point out to me that I hadn’t hardly gotten a chance to talk to him about anything in my life during my visit, as I’d hoped to. I’d missed him greatly since August, particularly after I ended up living in such an oddly unsettling environment. With almost none of the people I’d come to care for over the summer living in Boise this fall, I had looked forward to the trip optimistically as an opportunity to talk with a close enough friend that I could maybe figure out what was really getting under my skin. But I could tell that even though we rarely talked on the phone, we weren’t really becoming distant, and that brought me comfort too, if not any sort of solution.

Michael wanted to drive the whole way home after we’d nearly been killed, and I decided to just continue sleeping. I dropped him off at home and pulled into my garage around eleven. Walking in through the back door I caught Tessa and Britney again, on their way out. The basket on Tessa’s bike held a box filled with the books of hers from our community bookshelf. I again offered to give them a ride but she declined, saying as she closed the gate behind her that it was her last load and she had to make sure she got her bike home safely.
She’d left one of her nagchampa incense sticks burning, and the house was just as spotless as before I left, so there was nothing to do but start a load of laundry and sleep. Monday morning I woke up too late for class, not having realized how tiring travel is through the haze we’d constructed over the whole trip. For the first time since I‘d moved into the townhouse in August I had the place to myself, and I spent most of the day letting my new housing circumstances sink in. Jim’s flight was to come in from Las Vegas that evening around midnight, and though I enjoyed the house being so clean his return would be worth it. Living with a couple had been a mistake from the beginning, but with just the two of us there would be far less competition for either space or attention, and I looked forward to the rest of the semester as though starting my relationship with him anew.

Around six in the evening on Monday my father called me.
“Hey Andrew, how are you?
I didn’t mention waking up late, as was my custom. “Pretty good, the desk has been working well.”
“That’s actually one of the things I called you about. I’m glad to hear that; so did Tessa move out then?”
“I guess so… she still has some of her stuff strewn about but I think packing up was hectic for her, so I’ve been trying to tell her not to worry about it. I guess she broke up with Jim last week.”
“Yeah, she told us that when we talked to her over the internet on Thursday. You know how those things go, though….”
“That I do.” I wasn’t affected by the information, almost expecting him to have already known at this point. “Anyway, Jim should be home tonight so I’ll maybe get to hang out with him.”
“Well, don’t stay up too late. Make sure you get your homework done.”
“Haha, I know Dad, thank you.”
“Alright big guy, I’m gonna go then. Glad things are going well. Love you,” he said.
“Thanks, I love you too.”
I hung up and went outside to smoke a cigarette, waiting for Jim’s call to go pick him up and wondering about it still feeling like I could just walk over to Colin’s and find him playing Fallout, or smoking a cigarette in his own back yard.

3 comments:

Alex Piet said...

"Generic positive comment"

Dr. Bolton said...

You know I value your opinions, my beloved friend. No opinions of yours are generic. You're one of maybe four people who even know of this blog's existence, and the only one whose comments I check up on to validate the mere fact of my writing. But, thank you dawg. The ping was fun. Good luck this semester.

Yeah, there were a few parts I could clean up if I spent a bit of time on it. And, I could, things are exponentionally more crazy right now than during school, but I'll maybe find some time.

Alex Piet said...

Thanks dawg, my comment was poking fun at me being too tired to think of something better to say other than "it was interesting and I liked it"

I dont think you should clean it up. I mean, you could, Im sure there are grammatical errors, or places that are not clear. But one of the strengths of all of your writing is how smooth it is to read. It feels very natural to imagine you sitting there speaking it to me. Maybe thats a reflection of being your friend...and having been exposed to the way you speak, but I think its a strength of your writing.

yeah, ping was fun. have fun in boise, if you find yourself in seattle. give me a call, for sure