One day I got a call from what I thought was a crazed drunk man. I could barely understand a word he spoke, as he had some kind of European accent. His voice was slurred and strained, as if talking was a grand task. After a laborious and awkward phone conversation of frantically scribbling notes , I got the basics:

- He found me on Google

- He wanted a web site

- Money wasn’t a concern, as he was a retired neurosurgeon

I had my first potential client, someone that had agonized over the proper designer to call and fallen in love with my portfolio. Or maybe I was the only sucker that didn’t hang up on him. Regardless, I had his name, phone number, street address, and I was soon to meet him to discuss transforming a book that he had written and turn it into a web site.

His name was Laurent, and he lived on the 29th floor of some luxury condo building on Walnut Street in the Rittenhouse Square area. It was an area I associated with using the Barnes & Noble bathroom to take a piss or enjoying a La Colombe coffee in the park and pretending to read. The following Saturday, I went to visit him there. He had explained that he was not in very good condition, was unsightly looking and could not go outside, and so meeting at a cafe was not possible. I mentally prepared for the worst, expecting to see the Elephant Man. The elevator quickly zoomed me up to his floor.

I knocked on Laurent’s door and it quickly opened. I looked down and saw a very short man, roughly four foot tall, with a frail build wrapped in a cardigan sweater. He looked to be in his late 60s, hair disheveled, and he moved slowly as if the hump on his back was weighing him down.

“Welcome…I am Laurent,” he said while extending his hand for me to enter.

The first thing that I noticed and could not help staring at was the stunning gorgeous view. To the left was a dining area with a laptop on a glass table and a large window overlooking the Schuylkill River and West Philly. We talked about the view for a while and then he had me sit at the dining room table. The furniture and decorations were very modern and sterile. Combined with random mysterious medical equipment laying around, his condo home felt icy. There were some macaroons in a ceramic dish, and he pointed at me to eat up.

“They call me Napoleon.” he said with a proud smile. “Because I am French, and short…And very stubborn…just as he was.”

Laurent explained to me that he had been writing a medical book of some sort about neurosurgery methods that he had invented. But during the writing of his book, he had fallen into a coma for a while — something to do with a race car driving accident.  After regaining consciousness after his coma, and back to living his life, he found a Microsoft Word file on his laptop and realized that he had been writing a book. He had completely forgotten about it, and he didn’t know where he had left off, where he was heading with it, or anything about it. His goal was to feed me finished chapters of his book so that I could create a simple site where you click on each chapter to read it. Easy as pecan pie, I thought, although boring as hell.

The content of his book was way over my head. Who could possibly understand it, aside from another neurosurgeon? Even worse, it was filled with about one hundred “insert slide here” notations, requiring me to scan dozens of X-ray slides of spines. All that I had was a simple flatbed scanner, so I would have to scan each slide one at a time. He also wanted me to work on about thirty illustrations. I explained to him that I couldn’t draw anything (aside from a mean Garfield cartoon), but he insisted that they were simple and didn’t care much how they looked.

While discussing, Laurent’s laptop battery died and he couldn’t find the power cord. “Do you mind if we go into my bedroom?” he asked. “…I have another laptop in there.”

“Sure,” I said, realizing that maybe he didn’t want a web site at all. I figured if he tried anything kinky, I’d be able to easily swat his ass to the ground. I was worried about needles though. Maybe he was going to drug me. He moved sluggishly, but you never know, I thought.

Down the hall, I followed Laurent to his bedroom. He stopped at a photo of him and some woman, pointing out that she was his ex-wife and a bitch. In his bedroom, a laptop sat on his kingsized bed. Medical equipment was all over the place, weird wrappers, adhesives, spools of gauze, a machine of some sort, perhaps for heart monitoring. I sat on his untucked bed next to him and watched him carefully load another Word file. He had a bunch of them and needed to organize them before getting them to me — that is if I decided to take him on. It was already an ordeal.

I escaped without any strange teas shoved at me to drink or needles thrusted into my arms. My paranoia subsided descending the elevator as I tried to come up with a total dollar amount to send Laurent via email. Later that night, I emailed quite a high amount to him in the Statement Of Work, asking for half of it up front. I really didn’t want to do this job, as it wasn’t anything of fun content, and the design would be dull. There was no way to liven it up. I could tell that Laurent would be nagging me often, as he had already asked if I used AOL Instant Messenger.

Laurent responded an hour later. He admitted that half up front was a bit high, but he was willing to comply. He gave me the name of his personal accountant and told me a check would be waiting there for me the following day for pickup. The rush of instant money motivated me. I had half already?!  Now, I just needed to head back to Laurent’s to pick up a shoebox of slides, and then bang it all out.

The following two months, I received fragmented cryptic Word docs from Laurent, some just half chapters, some entirely wrong chapters that needed to be rewritten. He liked to use various text colors, multiple font and font sizes — some were annotations to himself that mistakenly included.  AOL Instant Messenger proved to be necessary just to get things aligned. He was a faster typer than a talker, so phone calls with him ceased. The scanning was an utter drab. I spent many evenings sipping on beers and singularly scanning vaguely different slides and hoping that I was putting them on the correct pages.

The illustrations that Laurent had me create looked like a first grader drawing a jelly fish, just god awful. Lots of squiggly lines and callout labels on top of a rainbow of colors. Of course, I added gradients and drop shadows to them to give it that “popping jazzy wow factor”, and Laurent loved it. This was seriously the worst looking junk I had ever spewed out of my iMac. I didn’t want to come up with a design solution. Laurent’s insistency of getting it done and the French / English language barrier was too difficult to deal with.

Our conversations were primarily about the book, but Laurent would occasionally mention his bitch ex-wife or bring up the weather and the Phillies. At one point, he wanted to take my girlfriend and I out to dinner, but I didn’t have a girlfriend. I couldn’t fathom the thought of going out to eat with him at some trendy Rittenhouse Square joint, so I just declined graciously and hoped each time that I saw him was the last. Missing slides and files that couldn’t be emailed led me to revisit him in the lobby a few times. His AIM pop-ups led to chats during my day job as well, and I had to get firm with him.

After four months, the web site was completed and I happily picked up the check for the remainder due from Laurent’s accountant. He sent over a few typographical fixes and I gladly updated his site. Laurent sent me emails from his colleagues that boasted what a great achievement it was for him.

A few weeks later, I received a bunch of emails from Laurent, all about five minutes apart. He thought I was ignoring him, but I was just offline for a while. He now wanted me to add an addendum, glossary of terms, and a comment page where viewers could leave comments. I told him that I would need to charge him for this, as it was an extensive job, although mainly text formatting. “Whatever you need,” he said.

So, I charged him a lot again. But this time, I was done in about a week. The comment page was quickly filling up with praise and Laurent was elated. But now he was emailing me about wanting to purchase an iMac, as he knew I was an Apple fan boy and the TV commercials were working their magic on him. “Can you take me to the King of Prussia mall?”  he asked.

I realized that I had to end ties with Laurent immediately, as there was no end to his additional assignments. My inbox was flooded with messages from him, and none from any potential girlfriends.

About a week went by and I emailed Laurent to ask him when my final check would be ready for pickup. Days went be and he didn’t reply. I called him, dreading the thought of a tangled conversation with him, but he never picked up.

I suddenly felt gypped. I called his accountant and left multiple messages. Nothing. A couple days later I called again and was told that Laurent had passed away due to some complications with his head trauma. I felt like an insensitive prick. With sighs of grief and blundering jests of sorrow, the accountant explained he was busy with Laurent’s estate and asked how much was owed to me. I told him and the check was mailed to my apartment.

The comments section of the web site transformed into a remembrance forum for the few colleagues and friends of Laurent that had seen the site. I would sit and scroll through the deep pages of content and wonder if Laurent had sent it out to all the people he truly wanted to see it.

The site’s domain name and hosting were set to expire in two years. As the seasons rolled on, I’d occasionally tap the address into my browser to see if anything new had been written about Laurent. And on my last try, there was an error, a problem loading the landing page, as the server could no longer be found. The site was gone.

The Dead Dog was a step above a dive bar, low key. But after a few beers, I was told by the manager that I had to either wear a collared shirt or vacate the premises. My Jameson Irish Whiskey graphic t-shirt that I remember vividly getting on my 30th birthday was suddenly equivalent to a swastika at 8:00 pm, and it needed to be covered.

Of course, they sold official Dead Dog Saloon polo shirts there, so I bought a white one and wore it sloppily over my t-shirt. I flipped up the collar, buttoned all the buttons, and mocked the notion that a collared shirt was necessary, as if we were in a private country club. I walked around the bar, chatting with others that were also notified and enjoyed my drunken glory.

I awoke early the next morning with a slight headache, but I needed to get up, as I was going on my first deep sea fishing trip with Harry, my father-in-law, and my bro-in-law Ray.

Now, if you angle it right, everyone can be deemed the black sheep of their family, but for me, I felt I always ran a bit blacker.

With my family growing up, my Mom, Dad, and sister were all nurses. We’d sit in the dining room in my late teens and eat saucy lasagna while they talked about blood and bodily fluids, which always led to a shush from me, or I’d just stammer off with my plate to the den.

My sister was a socialite in high school, always throwing parties and going out. I just stayed in my bedroom and reorganized my baseball cards, waiting for the promise of college freedom, watching Friday sitcoms that nobody watched.

During the holidays, my sister, Mom, and Aunt would dance to pop stars, like Bon Jovi, joyously after a glass of wine, as I sat in the corner wishing I could blare the Pixies. They would call me “Jesus” as my stoner long hair, scruffy beard, and flannel effortless wardrobe clashed with the whole look of the family. I didn’t really care, though, but I just felt like an oddball, although mighty comfortable in being just that.

Now, I was married and had joined a whole new family. The in-law dudes (father and three bros), were all heavily into hunting, fishing, home repair, and sports, particularly NHL and NFL. All of those items resulted in a big fat zero of interest for me, so I was quickly lost in their conversations.

Growing up, none of my friends or family hunted, so it was very foreign to me. I’ve never even held a gun, except for the fake one that I often whip out and shoot my cat with. Once you’re in your mid-30s, you know what you want to pursue in life, and you easily check out and into what you dig the most. For me, I could care less if I ate another piece of meat for the rest of my life. And, NASCAR and televised sports — it really didn’t matter to me if they all vanished and were replaced by non-stop Cosby Show reruns.

It’s not that I was a black sheep with my newly expanded family; I was a black sheep with the typical Philadelphian male, I suppose. My interests didn’t lay in building additions to a home or car repair. My focus was on HTML5, CSS3, jQuery and building the best web sites possible for modern browsers, as my livelihood depended upon it. My career as a web professional was taking over my life. It was the only way to thrive in that profession. Pixels and code were my building blocks. Coffee and beer were my engine. Writing and music were my release.

So, now here I was, about to embark on an early AM fishing trip with some seasoned deep sea fishery folk. I’ve always been easily carsick as a kid, from the days of my parents driving me around town. I originally thought that my parents were just bad drivers, but they weren’t.

I always preferred to drive. So, I insisted for the fishing trip and took us to a Wawa for some grub, although I was the only one that seemed to be craving anything. I bought a coffee and a bag of Frito’s Corn Chips.

While waiting to load the charter boat, I crunched down the chips and pounded the coffee and I felt, well, shitty, but at least more awake. Soon we were on the boat. I felt glad that I had finally joined Harry in one of these journeys, as he was always asking me to come along. Maybe it was the long lost missing link of my life that I needed, I thought.

The charter boat filled up with about forty people and we all hung along the railings as the engine chugged us out deeper into the ocean. The deep sea fishing poles seemed simple enough, as you just dropped your baited hook into the water.

Eventually the boat stopped, as if we had reached a precise destination. With the engine off, the boat instantly started rocking heavily with the wind and water, pushing the horizon up and down and jostling instant nausea into my system, as if something was jarred in my brain and I could no longer focus.

I darted to the men’s room, the one tiny men’s room on the boat, and vomited heavily the full yellow corn chip mush into the toilet — well, as much as I could into the toilet. My extended arms held onto the walls for support, as I would have fallen over otherwise. I tried to clean up the mess the best I could and then proceeded back out.

Harry had a baited pole ready for me and immediately knew I had yacked, pointing out that I was pale and unstable looking.

“Yeah, I got it out of me,” I said, grabbing hold of the pole. I was proud that I had made it to the toilet on time, getting it out of my system and ready to catch some bluefish, tuna, weakfish, flounder — anything. Maybe we could grill it up later, I thought.

We all hovered over the railing looking down at the water. But then it hit me again. The nausea was instant and relentless. I threw up into the water, leaving a trace of vomit alongside the boat, holding tight to my pole. Holy fuck is this embarrassing, I thought. Chunks of puke lined my sweatshirt as I couldn’t help but act like a 17-year-old girl that did shots of whiskey for the first time and was ruining the party for all.

Suddenly, I felt tension on my line and knew that I was either catching a fish or a heavy piece of debris. Harry noticed I was fading out and helped me reel in the sucker as I could barely hold onto the rod.

Out of the water wriggled a testy slimy black eel, about four feet long. One of the crewmen came over and told me to just pull it in and I dropped it on the deck. The damn thing writhed around relentlessly. It was a like a massive piece of black licorice that had come alive, trying to slap us all in the face. The crewman held it down with gloved hands and then pounded several times on the eel’s head with a mallet. Blood spurted around the deck and it eventually relaxed. The crewman tossed the eel back into the sea and then cleaned up the mess with a mop and bucket.

Now the nausea that had overcome me was leagues above any flu / hangover barf scene that I had ever experienced. With the flu, you may vomit for twenty minutes, but then you fall back asleep for hours. This was a non-stop assault that I couldn’t escape. In fact the vomiting part was actually the better part, allowing me to attain temporary relief. The waiting in between gags was the hell.

I wandered around the boat trying to find a sweet spot of relief, but such a location didn’t exist. I tried to smile at the people happily fishing, acting like was ambling towards a destination. I went into the dining area where I heard they were selling Dramamine. I bough a couple pills and swallowed them down. Some old fella chuckled and told me the pills needed to be taken hours before getting on the boat. “Those will just make you sleepy at this point.”

I sat in a booth for four by myself, gripping the table, and tried to focus on the horizon. It didn’t work at all. Also seated were a couple other seasick guys. I saw one dude vomit and I immediately gagged and tossed up some more onto the floor. Liquid chunky orange goo cascaded back and forth…and back and forth…sliding back and forth on the floor. One kid was about eye level with a trash can and stuck his whole head inside of it to yack.

Just a little over three more hours of this, I thought, holding onto the railing toward the end of the boat. Nobody was around there. Harry came over eating some scrambled eggs from the kitchen as the wind blew towards him. I warned him that I was about to hurl and that the wind might blow it towards his face. He got out of the way, letting me know that he was being easy on me. He described how he originally wanted to shove bait into his mouth and talk to me, but didn’t want to be too cruel.

I already felt like a douche because my chest and back were sunburned from trying a new “spray” sunscreen. It was like cooking spray, but didn’t work on my pasty skin at all, leaving a large red spot on my chest and stomach that resembled Pangaea.

Finally we were headed back to the dock. I was happy to hear the engine roaring and seeing us zip evenly across the ocean. At the dock, I stepped onto the deck and slipped and fell. I laughed at myself and got back up. What the fuck did I care, really? Nobody had caught one single fish. It was just the black eel and me, bloodied and butchered.

Back at the beach house, my wife and I decided to go out to eat at some Italian place down the street. We sat at a table outside and dipped bread in olive oil and watched a fender bender in front of us. Everyone was fine. A cop showed up. Traffic built up. Waitresses brought out entrees. Fresh water with lemon. Peppered cheese. Prodding jokes. Focused eyes, a goofball back on firm land where he belonged.

I heard her straight through the Radiohead that was blasting from my Sony CD Walkman. Dana was a nice lady, but she had a moist and frequent noise snort that drove me nuts, so I usually tuned her out. But I heard her loud and clear and knew something was up.

I thought about it for a moment and pictured a small biplane bouncing off the building and exploding, some novice caught up in a dare or just some suicidal disgruntled employee.

I found myself teetering around her cube as she spoke on the phone with her Mom who was getting news from her TV. Nothing was on the internet yet. Dana was generating a crowd of disbelief.

I rarely sat in my cubicle the rest of the day. Everyone was roaming around restlessly as the news slowly trickled in. When new headlines appeared online, people would shout them out loud. The large boardroom became the sole place to view the live footage on TV, but it was mainly occupied by Vice Presidents. I was just a lowly Web Designer that had been at the company for just over a year, so I stayed away from their lair of media.

At lunch, I went with the fellas to Soprano’s Deli and sat outside in the gorgeous 72 degree day, eating pristine gourmet Italian sandwiches, chatting with the Italian waitress as usual, but all with a dazed wonderment. We gazed at the sky that was usually filled with planes and jet streams and saw nothing but blue skies.

My parents were somewhere flying across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, heading back to Philadelphia from vacation. I had been dog-sitting for the past ten days at their new condo in Media, PA. I was enjoying the short commute to Newtown Square, PA, and an escape from Manayunk where I lived with two friends. After work, I spent most of the time hanging with Bridget, a short haired Border Collie, or recording music on a 4-track cassette recorder.

I eventually got a hold of my parents. They had to make a u-turn over the Atlantic and head back to Spain. While flying they were notified that America was attacked, but had received no initial details. Eventually, a stewardess presented a fax to people questioning what was going on. My Dad said he was enraged and wanted to sing the Battle Hymn Of The Republic, while my Mom was primarily tearing up and in wondering where Shanksville, PA was and if it was close to anyone she knew.

When I got home, I really just wanted to watch the news and find out more about what had happened, but I had a date lined up with a girl, Eliza, that I had met on Match.com. It was the first girl that I had met through online dating and this was to be our second date. She was from Argentina and loved to spend money on high fashion, jewelry, and perfume. Why she dug me, I had no clue.

We had tickets to go see her favorite band, Ben Folds, at the Theatre Of Living Arts on South Street. I was hoping she would want to cancel, or that Ben Folds would cancel, but no dice. I didn’t even care for the music of Ben Folds, and couldn’t name one of his songs. The show goes on.

I met Eliza at a coffee shop. She was giddy and jumping up and down. She was the same age as me, 27, but I soon felt fifteen years older than her. She spoke of the day’s terror as if it was intestinal flu, a national inconvenience at best, and she was hardly jaded. I felt like anything dealing with art, music, and words of fiction were to be put on hiatus — at least for a week.

Ben Folds made a slight mention to the strange events of the day and soon the crowd started singing Happy Birthday. I had no idea what was going on, but it was Ben’s birthday as well and the fans that loved him so much wouldn’t let him sing another song without paying tribute.

After the show, Eliza insisted we wait for Ben Folds and his band to pack up and embrace the band as they entered their tour bus. At the TLA, there was only one way in and one way out for bands and fans alike. Two hours after the show, I shook hands with Ben Folds and took a photo of Eliza hip hugging Ben. He smiled through his exhaustion, and that was the last time I saw Eliza again.

I spent the rest of the week recording music, watching CNN, and wondering what neighborhood my parents would move to next. Their condo had strange rules and my Dad couldn’t hang his American flag out front. There was a nice path to walk Bridget, but that’s about all the community had going for it. They wanted to move on and find a new home.

A few days later I received a postcard from from Spain with my Dad’s enormous handwriting that simply stated “See You When”.

We weren’t gamblers, but we were drunk after hours at the piano bar across the street, where the singer made fun of my fedora and called me Michael Jackson, and where I insisted on eating a Whopper at a neighboring Burger King to see if they tasted the same as in America.

So, my beautiful wife Melissa and I ambled into the casino, which was attached to the vast resort lobby, where a country western band was playing of all acts, and put a quarter into one of the simple slot machines.

Instant jackpot! $300 worth of coins came spitting out. I scurried off to grab a plastic cup before the coins overflowed the bin.

We cashed in and went to bed. We needed a good night’s sleep. For the next day, we were ditching the resort strips and going on an ATV tour with a group of people to see the northern rugged part of Aruba.

All of those touristy pamphlets that inundated every passageway had finally seeped into our sense of adventure. Another poolside day with piña coladas seemed boring at this point. The resort life was relaxing, but the relentless chilled out Thievery Corporation playing through the global speakers was just too perfect.

Marcos was waiting for us bright and early the next day, standing outside with his black SUV. He seemed a bit tired like us, as he opened the door so that we could sit in the back. He handed us a clipboard with release forms and we signed away as he said that it would “just be us two today”.

Aruba changes really fast once you leave the boulevards of resort strips. We were soon in a cramped suburban style neighborhood, where dirt and sand replaced the typical areas of grass. Marcos stopped at a house and we got out. He went into the garage and rolled out two ATVs and started analyzing the tires.

“You ever driven one of these before?” Marcos asked.

“Nope…Never have. But I see them in my neighborhood a lot,” I said.

The thought of me driving an ATV seemed unfaithful to my hatred of them. Outside my front door in Fishtown, young punks (and even guys in their 40s) would cruise around town, circling blocks, driving through stop signs, and annoying the fuck out of everybody, sometimes going the wrong way down a one-way street, sometimes on sidewalks. The louder the better it seemed. It was illegal to drive them, but cops did nothing as it was too dangerous to chase them.

I had some crafty plans though. Lay down a spike strip or perhaps clothesline them with, well, an actual clothesline as they drove by. That would do them in. Then there was shooting out their big targeted tires with a gun from my rooftop, but that would result in a blowout and some kid’s cranium on a windshield, and making more of a mess wasn’t the goal. Plus, I didn’t own or shoot a gun.

What was so lame about these punks and their “All Terrain Vehicles” is that they never left the asphalt roads of Fishtown. I knew the deafening roar of the engine echoing between the buildings was their goal, to frighten people and show everyone that they were tough and all that stupid masculine bullshit, but try enjoying listening to Billie Holiday in your living room with that roar constantly invading your mindset, and you’ll want to destroy them too. Any kid with a few hundred bucks could go to Pep Boys and get a Baja Motorsports 90cc ride, or work on their uncle’s hooptie and make it sound like Tyrannosaurus Rex is farting non-stop down the avenue. It’s a Fishtown plague.

And now here I was, about to hop on an ATV with Melissa clutching my waist and actually take on many terrains, as the vehicle intended. Marcos hooked us up with helmets and gave me a quick instructional on the thumb accelerator and brakes.

Off we went! First, around town on the streets and then onto a sandy and pebbly road that slowly inclined towards Alto Vista Chapel, a tiny colorful building overlooking the north shore, where local Catholics make a pilgrimage to every Good Friday. We got off and investigated and took photos while the quiet Marcos quickly became bubbly and excited, full of information.

We then cruised down dunes and along the coast and checked out natural bridges made of rock formations, the Bushiribana Gold Mine Ruins, and a cool permanent art installation made solely of debris and trash that had washed ashore.

Marcos continually led the way, as we stayed a safe distance behind, tearing through seaside cliffs as mid-afternoon quickly approached. Without my sunglasses, I would have been blinded, as the sandy cloud of Marcos in front of me was tough enough to deal with.

After a couple hours into our tour, we were almost at the grand destination, which was the Natural Pool, a pool of seawater surrounded by rock and volcanic stone circles. It was the ultimate reward for the adventurist, as the only way to get there was via an ATV or a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We had seen the photos of it everywhere and were ready to sit in the postcard image of it.

The final stretch was of rocky terrain void of any path to follow. I kept a firm eye on Marcos up ahead, but at the same time focused on traversing the boulders and sporadic cactus. Use of the thumb accelerator became a game of exact precision as our body weight and my steering maneuvered us around the masses of tan stone.

Suddenly, I hit a stone that the tires couldn’t pass and found my body lunging forward through the air over the right side of the ATV. Melissa shrieked something to gain my attention. Control was completely lost,

I landed hard on my right side, scraping up my forearms, legs, and hip. I think I had hit my head as well, but the massive helmet saved me there. The wind was knocked out of me a bit, but the thick stench of gasoline startled my senses and I realized that the ATV was now upside town and partially on my body. I was able to slither out of it and stand up. Melissa as sitting a ways back on a boulder, holding her knee. Marcos was clambering over the rocks towards us while repeating “What happened? What did you do?”

And that’s when I started thinking…Exactly!…What the HELL am I doing? Why am I in some remote part of Aruba, far from any hospital or road, risking our lives after just getting married? Why are we now bleeding from our limbs in the scorching sun, far from our hotel? What kind of imbecile and unresponsible act is this?

One of Melissa’s knees was clearly in a lot of pain. We weren’t quite sure what the extent of our physical damage was. At first, I just wanted to turn around, but Marcos, who positioned the banged up ATV back into place, pointed out that we were quite close to the Natural Pool. I was worried that the ATV was destroyed and not able to be driven, but it was just fine.

Onward, we headed as I grew paranoid with every slight maneuver I had to make. Blood bubbled from scattered scrapes on my forearm as the bumpy ride tossed pain into my aching hip. Tiny pebbles were embedded in my skin. Immense fear grew over me as I thumbed the gear ever so slightly.

When we finally reached the Natural Pool area, we were greeted with a makeshift parking area and a series of stone steps to descend down. This wasn’t in the postcard! Marcos waited at the top as Melissa and I inched our way down the steps void of any bannister. This motion was especially difficult for Melissa and her damaged knee.

The color of the serene water in the Natural Pool was turquoise, surrounded by spiny rocks that you had to hop on to get to the water. Closer to the pool, the rocks were slippery with black crabs of all sizes wandering on them. Melissa and I looked at each other with disorientation and moved our bodies into the water, wondering if any bones on our bodies were broken.

An excited family was in the pool speaking Dutch, splashing about with their blond hair. I saw that they had taken a 4×4 Jeep here. Well, that was smart, I thought.

Melissa and I treaded water, wondering how deep it went, and let the salt water clean our wounds with a slight sting. The massive waves crashed onto the rocks and poured into the Natural Pool. As the waves retreated back to the ocean, anything in its grasp could easily be sucked out to sea. We were told that these waves were so bad the previous day that the Natural Pool was closed.

On the long drive back to Marcos’s ATV garage, we ran into a clashing rally on the streets for one of the Aruban political parties. The general election was coming up in September. Yellow and green flags mixed with angry chants through megaphones made for an awkward getaway, as we had to drive on sidewalks that could barely fit the width of the ATV. The crowds were thick with the Papiamento language of the Caribbean, and here we were, a couple of tourists just dying to get back to our all-you-can-drink pool bar.

Finally at the hotel, and stripped of our clothes, we saw how bruised and battered we were…and could barely move without pain. We had one day left at the resort. So, we headed poolside and sat in the lounge chairs.

A girl came over next to me, positioned herself on a lounge chair, and started reading a book. I couldn’t help noticing her right leg was gnarled up with fresh wounds. I caught her eye and said, “ATV accident?”

“No…Jet skiing…” she said. “Just flew into some rocks. Had to get adventurous!”

At night, Melissa and I got drunk and went to one of attached resort clubs where they were having a massive karaoke session, equipped with wireless microphones and a big stage.

One of the waitresses saw my arm and asked, “ATV accident?”

“Yep…Had to get adventurous.”

“Ahh, yeah, those things are more dangerous than they look.”

I eventually sang “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, grinning through the pain, as our honeymoon was coming to an end. The season of the buzzing Fishtown ATVs was at its peak and awaiting my return back on Memphis Street.

I have been living in the dorms for five semesters. I lived in Schuylkill Hall (the Dog Pound) for two semesters, and in Beck Hall for three semesters.

For the first year, the entire on-campus dormitory life was crammed with jolly new friends, recreation, and support from the staff.

Now, going into my sixth semester, I am mentally nauseated with the dorm life.

I am exhausted with trying to maintain peaceful simplicity with my hall mates.

I am tired of attempting to be a nice guy to students that won’t cooperate with mere regulations such as stereo volume.

I am tired of trying to get some sleep while a caffeine charged freshman is running around the halls, bumping into metal trash cans, and causing a commotion.

I am tired of having to go to wing meetings because someone couldn’t handle their liquor and vomited on the bathroom tiles.

I am tired of having to go to the library to do reading assignments because I cannot concentrate at my own desk.

I am sick of being a part of this group, and wish to get out of my housing contract for the spring of ’95 semester.

I aimed to find an apartment on Main St. to live in, but could not do so by your mid-November deadline. Maybe this deadline was an ample time limit, but I could not find an apartment until after the date.

Now, I have found a place to live with my own bedroom and friends as roommates. But I find myself stuck in 226 Beck Hall again.

The roommate that I had this semester, fall of ’94, was the only fellow that I could get along with. Sadly, though, he is dropping out, and I will be given a new roommate.

My parents pay for my housing, and are sick of hearing about this crap. If a little note from mommy is necessary, I will alert her to write one.

Indeed, I am mentally agitated. But I do not believe in attaining psychological help.

Therefore, I have no letter from a counselor describing how screwed up in the head I am. I believe in solving problems out on my own.

I know that this is all about money and upholding a stable balance. I am not aspiring to rip you or the system off by wanting to get out of the contract.

I know that there exists a list of dozens of students who are trying to get a dorm room.
If I can exit the dorms, students that want to live there can fulfill their desires. And out of my five semesters of living in the dorms, I have never seen a vacant bedroom.

So, I do not see how the Residence Life / Housing Administration will lose any money.

I am also aware of several men living in the third floor television lounge at Beck Hall. This occurred when I lived in Schuylkill Hall too. It seems to me that if I pack my stuff, and depart from the dorm, I would be giving these unfortunate fellows a place to live.

Am I wrong?

I am aware that I will not be able to get my $125 deposit back, but I do not care. I just want to get out of this hell hole.

Sincerely,
Syd Stone

The next day, Mr. Brown’s secretary called me and said I had to schedule an appointment with him. The only available slot was during one of my classes, but I took it anyway. On the day of the appointment, the secretary escorted me to his office. He was sitting in his leather swivel chair, reading my letter. “Hi, how’s it going, Syd?” he asked.

“Hey.”

“Here, have a seat.”

Mr. Brown was chewing on a small piece of gum and loving it, making juicy noises as he read the letter. He took a deep breath and started telling me the policies. From the tone of his voice, it was bleak.

Basically, in order to get out of my housing contract, my parents had to die or get a divorce. The only other way was a medical excuse that was documented and signed by a doctor.

“Alright. Thanks a lot, Mr. Brown. I think I know what I have to do.”

“OK, Syd. Nice meeting you. Will I be hearing from you again?” he asked.

“Yeah, hopefully.” I walked off wondering what the hell I would do. Then it hit me. In the letter, I had said that I was quite crazy. When I got back to my room, I phoned the school Psychology Department and made an appointment with one of the doctors.

The next day, I entered the Psych Department with a morbid suicidal look on my face. The secretary made me fill out a form with a million questions about drugs, alcohol, parents, relationships, sex, and everything else that most people would rather keep secret. She asked me if it was an academic or personal concern.

“Personal,” I said.

I sat down in a cushiony chair and waited. There were pamphlets laying all over the place about how to get As and how to increase your self esteem.

The doctor, a motherly black woman in a red outfit, came out of a back office and greeted me. She led me to her office. I had marked on the form that I was having problems in my relationship and with my peers. The doctor started asking me questions with a gentle and sincere voice.

“Well, this is my first time to see a psychologist. I usually try to solve my problems out on my own. But I’ve come to point where I can’t do it.”

I started to tell her that my girlfriend just left me for another man. Of course, this did really happen in the beginning of the year, but Maddy and I weren’t having problems now.

“Everywhere I go, I see her with this guy. And he lives right down the hall too, in my hallway.”

Then, I started rambling about how I couldn’t get along with my hall mates. The truth was, I got along great with them. What I was telling her were the problems that I had and solved on my own during the previous semester.

“…So, I tried to get out of my housing contract. But it was too late.”

Then the doctor turned into an irritable groaning beast and uttered, “So, you came here.”

“Yeah, sorry to bother you with this.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. I just wish those policies would change at the housing department. They bring so many students in here.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But you’re different. You want to get out of the dorms. Most of the students I get still want to stay on campus somewhere. Are you sure you want to leave?”

“I think it would be the best thing to do.”

“OK, I’ll be right back.” She came back with some forms. I signed them in a few different spots, and I was out of the contract. I walked out feeling a hundred pounds lighter. I skipped through the crisp icy air like a jovial boy headed to the playground.

“Hey, freak!!” screamed a deep satirical voice that could only be Clay’s. He was in a good mood also, and strutted towards me with his knapsack of poetry and books strung around his shoulder. “What’s goin’ on, my man?!” he asked while sticking out his hand. I shook it.

“I’m outta this campus, man. I just got out of my housing contract.”

“How the hell did you do that?”

“I had to visit a doctor and give this bullshit story about how I was going crazy.”

“Cool, man.”

“Well, I’m off to drink a few beers. Murray bought some of that cheap shit last night. Two bucks for a six-pack.”

In my room, I danced around and sipped away while Murray was typing out his last paper of the semester on my Brother word processor.

“C’mon. Be quiet, Syd! I’m almost done. C’mon, stop fucking around!”

I began packing through the clattering sound of the word processor, a thick chain sound of storied victories to come.

In a post-holiday daze, my good friend Wayne and I decided to go for a road trip and head about 2.5 hours north to Beach Lake, PA to hang with his relatives at his uncle’s house. He hadn’t seen his mom in a while, and she lived in nearby Honesdale. It was a lazy Saturday and we were in the middle of Winter Break at Kutztown University. Wayne’s birthday was the following day, so I figured this would make a nice treat for him.

Since Wayne didn’t own a car, I drove us in my beige ’86 Ford Escort station wagon, a car my sister gave to me after she earned enough money as a nurse and decided to get a brand new VW Jetta. The wagon was nothing special, but it was my first car and I loved driving it.

The Escort didn’t have a tape deck or a CD player, so we jammed up the tunes via an old boom box that I kept in the backseat. I prided my journeys on killer mix tapes, primarily reggae, and had no time for the radio. But about an hour into our journey, we were quickly stuck in a snowstorm and turned on the radio to get some info. The word “blizzard” was being thrown around, but we saw no indication of that. It was snowing, but the majority of it was melting on the road, with about two inches on the grass, so we kept on going as it didn’t seem threatening. I felt a little nervous, but worst case scenario, we would just stay overnight at Wayne’s uncle’s house, I thought. But then we would be trapped there.

Soon we were on the long and winding Route 402, void of traffic lights, stop signs, and barely a shoulder — just a long 12 mile tour de force to Route 6. The snow was coming down heavy now, and it was extremely slippery. Some radio DJs were tossing around expected totals of 2 feet of snow. I gripped the wheel at 10 and 2, just waiting for the 402 route to end, as there was nowhere to pull over and think things over.

As we finally approached the traffic light at Route 6, I slowed the car down, but the brakes locked up and we skidded straight into the intersection. Luckily, nobody was in front of me at all. My car moved like wet bar of soap in a sudsy tub. We would’ve been toast if a truck hit us.

Traversing Route 6, the extreme wind and horizontal snow made it evident that we had to make a decision. Onward we cruised to Wayne’s uncle’s home! We realized that most people must have checked the forecast, as there weren’t many people on the road.

Finally we reached the house and were greeted by the garrulous uncle of Wayne, a bearded fellow about the same size as Wayne’s, with wire-rimmed glasses and the look of a professor. He let us know that the New Yorker relatives were not coming, and even Wayne’s mom wasn’t coming, who lived an hour away. I seem to remember eating some Tricuits and cheese before we hopped back in the car. We didn’t stay long. We had to get back!

Getting home was going smooth until Route 22, which we only needed to be on for about four miles, but the road was a white frigid mess. Car lanes were whited out from a slick layer of snow that plows just couldn’t get to in time. Huge chunks of snow were slamming into the windshield, as if we were going warp speed and could see nothing but streaks of stars. I knew this road quite well though and made it to the Trexlertown offramp. But upon circling downward the declining ramp, I lost complete vision. No cars were in front of me as a guide and we careened off the road into a ditch with a big POOF. The car was buried in a mass of plowed snow and we were stuck.

We had recently learned via the radio that a PA State Emergency had been declared by Governor Tom Ridge, and that all non-emergency vehicles were to be off the road. Well, we were off the road now. Fucked.

There was a Holiday Inn about a mile or so away, so we got out of the car and started walking. We didn’t have anything with us but the clothes on us that were starting to get frosted with rapid fire flakes. Cars were a rare site at this point, aside from some courageous truckers out on deliveries and refusing to pull over. There was no safe area to walk, so we constantly looked around for cars, as the snow was muffling their sounds.

In the Holiday Inn lobby, we warmed up and stared out at the madness we just walked through. It was around 4:30 pm, and it would soon start getting dark out. I had an emergency credit card on me that my parents had given me. I didn’t even know what the hell it looked like, as it was crammed deep in the back of my wallet, never used, covered by my student ID, and band fliers I had jammed in there. I got us a room for the night, and we sat and watched the local news coverage and discovered that 30+ inches of snow had fallen in Berks County! The “Blizzard Of ’96″ had paralyzed dozens of towns and cities in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, North Carolina. Big Meadows, Virginia got hit the most, with a whopping 47 inches.

After a couple of beers at the hotel bar and a good night’s rest, we powered up on a big breakfast in the hotel cafe and went out to access the damage. The snow had finally stopped, but the accumulation had almost doubled it seemed. The Pennsylvania State Emergency was still in effect, and only plows and cops in 4-wheel drive vehicles were out. There was the occasional rogue trucker out, but it was primarily a desolate surreal scene outside. We went to where we figured the Escort would be, but we couldn’t find it with our boots and stamping about, void of any shovels. The plows had created walls of snow along the offramp and I didn’t even know where to start.

We warmed up back in the hotel lobby for a bit and then decided to walk the remaining 12 miles back to Kutztown. We headed down a brief stretch of Route 100 and then onto Schantz Road, a long winding road that connected with Route 222. We had a disposable camera on us and took a couple shots of us, laughing, goofing, and in good spirits. The plow tires had done a good job of at least flattening the snow to a path that we could walk on. This went on for just a couple miles though. We were then greeted with a wall of snow up to our waists, a completely untouched part of Schantz Road stretched off into the distance for as long as we could see.

A bit delirious, we decided to just give it a shot. The snow was powdery for the most part and we could walk through it, as long as each step marched with a big knee jerk upward. The surrounding farmland was completely covered and telephone wires were weighed down above us. After a hundred yards, the exhaustion of walking caught on fast and we retreated back to our footprint path to Route 100.

From there, we headed to Route 222. This was out of the way, but it was plowed and we were making progress. We tried hitchhiking, but nobody would pick us up or even slow down. Vehicles were rare, but they required your attention as they could cascade off the rode easily. The air was damp and nothing was melting. I just kept focusing on getting a meal at the Beef & Pita House on Main Street, cozied up with a couple ales.

With about 4 miles to go, a pickup truck actually stopped for us and let us sit in the back. The frigid wind seemed felt like it was leaving abrasion on my cheeks, but it was well worth it. I tried to hide my face between my knees, like I was trying to give myself a blow job. We made it back to Kutztown without any frostbite.

A couple days later, the snow was beginning to melt. My parents, along with my brother-in-law, drove the two hours to my apartment, armed with a few shovels. Wayne and I were waiting for them, and we piled into the backseat of their car. I never felt so idiotic in my life. Explaining the story to my beer buzzed roommates was easy, but now here I was, not sure if we’d even find a car that was a gift from my sister. I was a little kid in the backseat again, getting odd quick glances from my parents as they focused on the road.

After digging randomly for a while, someone’s shovel blade created a heavy thump — the roof of my car! The junker was already battered up a bit, so scraping the body with an aluminum shovel was the least of our worries.

Drivers passing by gawked at us as we chipped away amidst our icy excavation, sculpting the moment and searching for my poor 10-year-old car. This was the last thing my Dad needed to be doing, as my Mom looked on from the car with pensive gestures. Here I was, trying to save a car my sister had given to me for free while my parents wasted a weekend. They were clearly a bit annoyed. After all, I had already almost destroyed the car the previous summer by putting the wrong oil in it. But, they were there regardless, busting their backs.

Well, the car was quite low in a ditch, but I was certain I could drive it out. My Dad gave me the all clear and I let it rip, but there wasn’t much of a give and the car slid back down into the clutches of the ditch.

A cop car passed by and parked. A nice lady officer came over to us and asked if we needed help. Before trying anything, the officer put orange cones down and blocked the offramp. She searched her trunk and found a long steel chain that was worth trying. She affixed it to the back of her Crown Vic while my Dad fastened it to my car. I looked over my shoulder and saw the traffic jam of people quickly piling up as they were forced to sit and watch. The officer gave a thumbs up and we both gassed the pedals. She popped my car out of the ditch like a loose molar out of a gum.

As the officer was putting the chain back in the trunk, I realized that my car was completely out of gas. I was now blocking the ever increasing offramp traffic, stuck on the road where a tow truck couldn’t get to me. My Dad looked away in disgust and disbelief. I’ve never ran out of gas before. Luckily the officer had a red gas jug in her car and gave me just enough to get to a station.

Wayne hopped in the car with me and we were on the road again. I gripped the wheel at 10 and 2, sitting upright and focused. I pulled into a gas station with my parents car behind me. We all gassed up got some crappy junk food. We even managed a couple laughs. I hugged my parents goodbye and shook my brother-in-law’s hand. I barely knew the guy, and he had gratefully helped out as well. Everyone got pats on the back. I didn’t want them to leave. I just wanted to drink hot coffee in that parking lot and see them smile. It was getting dark.

I had so much to learn, but felt beyond fortunate to have understanding parents that let me live the life I was chiseling out, as ridiculous and off-track as the results often were.

As an altar boy, you were assigned a specific schedule that spread everyone evenly. You’d get a share of crack of dawn 6:00 am weekday masses, when just a cluster of people showed up, as well as some prime time Sunday showdowns at 10:00 am, where the pressure was on and the house was packed.

Easter Sunday and Christmas Day were like the Super Bowl. So many people would show up that the pews would be filled and some would have to stand in the back. Rare devices like the solar monstrance and evergreen advent wreath were thrown into the mix. The biggest and most badass event was Christmas Eve midnight mass. Most of us weren’t even allowed to stay up that late, let alone celebrate the birth of Jesus! Unfortunately, I never got that call of duty.

The sacristy was like the locker room before the big game, a chamber reserved for priests, altar boys, and those guys that collected money in straw baskets attached to a long handle. You’d show up and put on your robe, tied together tight at the waist by whatever colored rope belt was on the schedule. The priest was usually sitting, deep in thought, twiddling his thumbs. He’d run over any special plays that he wanted to run that day. I remember there being a closet of boxed wine, but we weren’t allowed in there.

After costume change, you’d strike a match and light this three foot candle lighter, that had a large wick encased in brass, and then proceed to walk the forty yards to the altar, all the while cupping the flame with your hand. Sometimes there would be legions of faithful already in the pews staring as you’d clamber up the carpeted steps to the altar to then light a series of candles. I don’t think my parents even trusted me with fire at that age, but there I was, fractions away from torching the altar cloth. Occasionally, the flame would blow out and you’d have to walk back to the sacristy to start all over, hoping the cute girl you dug didn’t see your error.

On Sundays, there were two or three altar boys per mass. Weekdays were usually just one. At the start of mass, we’d all line up at the sacristy door and the priest would nod to the organist to start playing. The tunes came barreling and everyone turned towards us. One altar boy would have to carry this large wooden staff with a crucifix on top, leading the way. I always hated this, as my feet would hit the staff or I’d accidentally pounce it into the floor. At the altar we’d line up and genuflect, and the the altar boy carrying the staff would have to smoothly place it on a wall mounted brace that never seemed to have a firm grasp. The staff swayed a bit in the groove, leaving me in utter horror.

The rest of the mass was a series of adrenaline rushing maneuvers that were all based on perfect timing:
- Becoming a human desk to hold a padded bible while you faced the priest and he read the Gospel
- Ringing bells at just the right moment while kneeling and acting like the carpeted concrete wasn’t tearing your knee caps apart
- Holding the shiny communion catcher at just the right spot for every person that came forth, especially those old timers that preferred to receive it by closing their eyes and having the priest stick it on their tongue, as opposed to by hand

One day after lighting the candles, I forgot to check that the tabernacle key was on the altar. The tabernacle was a decorative lock box behind the altar where all the unblessed wafer hosts were kept and returned to after communion. It was an early weekday mass, and there were only about forty people there. I was just trying to stay awake, sitting on the firm altar boy chair, when I noticed the priest staring at me. He made motions with his hands, as if he was turning a key. I didn’t know how to communicate with him. He was a good twenty yards away. Do I shout? We never had to talk during mass, so it seemed impossible. I extended my hands from my hips, jaw dropped, and then pointed towards the sacristy. I could run to the sacristy and get the key, I thought, but I had no idea where it was, as it was always just sitting on the altar. The priest made a gesture with his hands, brushing me aside, and nodding while looking at the mound of crispy wafers.

I wasn’t aware that the priest HAD to put the unused host back during the mass, and apparently he wasn’t allowed to leave the altar to go get the key. I think he had to remain on the multi-platformed zone, or else there’d be some kind of violation. And that’s when he stuck his hand into the communion chalice and began eating leftover hosts. And, boy, was there a lot! It was as if someone had dumped a bag of Baked Lays in there. The lapel microphone on his robe captured the crispety crunchety ultra dry communion feast as the crowd looked on in puzzlement. All that I kept thinking about was my Dad telling me to “Eat ‘em up, yum yum!”, something he’d say while I stared at a plate of tepid lima beans. “Come on, Carl, eat ‘em up. Pretend you’re a good boy. Pretend you like it.” I sat there as time stood still, robbing everyone of about two minutes, biting my bottom lift to hold in jolts of laughter, bobbing about like a detached buoy floating away.

Ten minutes later, I hobbled into the apartment to see my girlfriend, Caz, watching TV. I convinced her to drive me to the Roxborough Hospital, which was just a couple blocks away.

I gave the woman at the triage window my healthcare card and drivers license. She made some copies and I was soon in a room of curtain walls, waiting for a doctor. Caz pulled out a platinum and black onyx ring that she happened to have in her purse, and asked if I wanted it.

I had never worn a ring before. It fit only on my pinky fingers. I put it on my left pinky finger, as Caz explained that only mafia bosses wear it like that, and how cool it looked.

The doctor gave me an Rx for some Percosett, wrapped my swollen ankle in a bandage, and told me to use crutches for a couple weeks. He sized me up and adjusted the crutches, and I was on my way to CVS to pick up the pain relievers. Caz picked up a blond hair dye kit, wanting to transform me to a spiky blond dude.

Back at the house, I sat and watched Leo play video games and let the dull calm of Percosett tick the hours away. I had work the following day, and was dreading shuffling the crutches while driving to work.

Caz insisted on dying my hair, ridding my head of brown hair, and give me a new choppy look with spiky parts, all held together with pommade. So, I let her do it. She was already tweezing my eyebrows and had waxed my chest, so this was normal protocol and I was her fashion guinea pig.

We brought a chair into the bathroom and I sat with my head leaning in the sink, looking up at a smiling Caz having her way with my head, snipping off hair with a pair of scissors that I used solely around Christmas to wrap gifts. Then came the stinky hair dye.

The next day at work, my co-worker Kevin saw me and said, “What the fuck happened to you? Did you trip and fall into a tub of bleach and break your leg?!” The jokes were relentless all day long, but it was all good fun. I was enjoying the perks of being on crutches, coffee delivered to my desk, lunch orders taken, and a less stressed workload.

One programmer guy, Big Mike as they called him, stopped by my cube, put his hands on his hips, and said, “That’s pretty gay, man.”

Big Mike had about a dozen different cowboy boots that he rotated and wore to work, and he had a tough sneer that hardly broke out a chuckle. He was known to get pissed while coding and slam a fist on the desk with an almighty “FUCK!”

I thought it was odd that Big Mike was talking trash on my hair though because he had a mullet where the “party in the back” was extravagantly long. Who was he to deem what was fashionable?

Two more times that Monday morning, Big Mike pinpointed quite loudly that my new doo was homosexual. “That’s gay, man. You’re not changing teams now, are ya?”

A few days later, one of the office girls came up to me and whispered briefly, “Mike got the same haircut as you. Walk by his desk!”

I laughed out loud. It was just too ridiculous a thought. Big Mike was about 20 years older than me, and that alone would make it odd. But after all that trash talk? There was just no way in hell he could ride his motorcycle without that mullet blowing in the breeze.

Soon, a couple more co-workers walked by clasping their mouths with their hands, trying not to lose it in laughter.

I got on my crutches and clanked on down towards Big Mike’s cube and saw quite a solid replica of my hairdo. He had dyed his brown hair blond and spiked it with pommade just like I had done. And the mullet? Completely gone! He didn’t look over at me and I never asked him why. It was as if we were just wearing the same Phillies cap or something.

Weeks later, I got a bill for $480 from the Roxborough Hospital. It was one of the few Philly hospitals that wasn’t “in my network” of healthcare providers.