MY SUITCASE OF MEMORIES: I Fought The Stone And The Stone Won

 

by
Al Bruno III

 

Most people have adversaries in their daily lives—a snotty co-worker, a shiftless in-law, or a rude neighbor. I have a whole month that’s out to get me. For some, February is the shortest month; for others, it’s Black History Month, and for others still, it’s the month of Valentine’s Day.

But for me, February is the Month That Dripped Blood.

Fact: I was working at Nice Shopper, and it was the coldest day Albany had seen in a lifetime and a half. It was close to -20 degrees with the wind chill, so naturally, I was sent out to get carts. The wind had blown all the carts to the far end of the parking lot, and I could only retrieve them in sets of three because anything more would get blown over. By the time I had finished, my hair was swept back from my reddened face, and I felt like a character from a Robert London story. There were lines at every cash register, so I threw off my coat and set to work. It took my cold-addled mind a few moments to realize that everyone was staring at me. Finally, one of the cuter cashiers said to me, “Al. Your nose.”

Visions of frostbite filled my head as I grabbed for my face, and my fingers brushed the stalactite of frozen boogers dangling from my right nostril. Sure, some of you out there might think that was pretty funny, but it’s snot.

(…Auuuuugh yourself—this is quality material here.)

That was the start of a long week.

Fact: It was my junior year of high school, and I was trying to play the field, attempting to romance both my beloved Lilly and a sophomore girl of dubious sanity but considerable cleavage. I figured if my brother and father could do it, why not me? Besides, if I was going to try and get my friends to call me ‘The Love Machine,’ I damn well better be sure to back it up.

Of course, I hadn’t actually told either girl that I was playing the field. I guess I was trying to be more or less the stealth bomber of love. It was the afternoon of Valentine’s Day when most of my friends started trying to beat me up. Now, with my friends, this wasn’t necessarily a rare occurrence, but they had never been so organized before. Finally, I confronted them, hoping to reassert my position as the Alpha Nerd with a combination of guts and memorized dialogue from Doctor Who. Then I saw each and every one of those sneaky bastards standing around Lilly. Now, this was too much. They were trying to move in on my main squeeze! I barged into the middle of them and asked what the Hell was going on.

That was when Lilly confronted me with her Valentine’s card. Well, actually, it wasn’t her Valentine’s Day card; it was the other girl’s, but I had accidentally switched them.

Yeah, that was the start of a long week.

Fact: My first bout with kidney stones came the same week that my beloved mother-in-law had a heart attack. (And that is no sarcasm; I do love her bunches.) I tried to stick it out, hoping the whole thing would literally pass, but no luck there. So, I had to have my wife drop me off at the emergency room so I could get better while she took care of our daughter; they were both exhausted by the ordeal.

To this day, I am not sure what route my wife took to the emergency room, but I can only assume somewhere, she took a side trip to the Twilight Zone because that night was one of the strangest of my life. It began simply enough, with lots of waiting, then when they finally admitted me, they had me dress in one of those drafty hospital gowns and left me sitting on a bed in the hallway.

Why, you might ask? Because it was another cold February, and all the local homeless people were checking themselves in for phantom ailments so they could stay warm. The place was packed; it was standing-room only, or in my case, trying-to-sleep-in-the-hallway-with-your-ass-hanging-out room only. The hobo sitting on a bed closest to me decided to strike up a conversation, and if I hadn’t been so tired and miserable, I might have asked him what Tom Waits song he had escaped from to torment me.

Instead, I just listened to his tale of travel, of his Native American wife, whom he only got to see twice a year or so because she lived in Canada.

And, by the way, Canadian women? Between this and all the nerds who say they have girlfriends up there, I have to say, get some standards, for heaven’s sake.

Apparently, my hobo friend took my bleary-eyed indifference as a sign of friendship, so he tried to give me one of his less filthy hats as a present, but that was when the doctor showed up to get me the medical care I so desperately needed. I was never so happy for a painful and invasive prostate exam, and yes, that includes the one at the Eden Studios Christmas party.

With a prescription in hand, I called a cab to take me home, and wouldn’t you know it, of all the cabbies I could have ended up with, I got the one who wanted to try and get me to invest in the television pilot he was trying to film in Vermont. This was not what I needed because I can honestly say that as a wannabe writer who loves to talk up his latest hopeless project, there is nothing more annoying than a wannabe writer trying to talk up his latest hopeless project.

The cab ride ended before he could get into the intricacies of his series bible, but when you’ve heard the pitch for one series that combines elements from *Antiques Roadshow* and The Indiana Jones movies, you’ve heard them all.

So I got home and unlocked the front door, only to find my wife had put the door chain on as well. I chuckled over this and knocked on the door. About ten minutes later, I remembered my wife mentioning that she wanted nothing more than to take a sleeping pill and turn in. After another ten minutes of homeless knocking, I started walking to the local 24-hour diner so I could use the payphone and wake my missus up.

It was going to be a long walk.

So, where does that leave us today? First off, I woke up feeling profoundly squishy inside, and I spent most of my shift trying not to erupt into a series of farts that would sound like an AMC Hornet drag racing with a tank full of bad gas. Then I had a training seminar in the afternoon. I believe it was focused on budgeting our time more effectively to improve shareholder value… well, at least that’s what I think it was about. I fell asleep ten minutes in because I had been up all night writing blog entries.

Somehow, I made it through my shift without skid-marking my underwear, so I headed home, but first, ironically enough, I had to stop for gas. I’d been putting off refueling because it had been so darn cold out the last few days, but there was no putting it off any longer. I got to the gas station, popped open the tank, and then realized I was on the wrong side of the pump, so I spent a few moments dodging other cars and getting my car lined up correctly. Then I went in and bought twenty dollars worth of gas. And I started pumping.

But there was something wrong with all the pumps on that side of the station, and it was pumping gas at about the speed of a penny a second. As I stood there shivering, watching my twenty dollars’ worth of gas move like twenty dollars’ worth of molasses, I thought to myself—it’s gonna be another long February.

But aren’t they all?

 

And now a Thanksgiving story from my Memoirs

AN EXCERPT

FROM

PRICE BREAKS AND HEARTACHES

 

The holidays came quickly, it seemed that as soon as I put the Halloween candy out on the shelves it was stale leftovers sitting in a cart with a ‘Half Off’ sign on it. November was a particularly busy month with people coming in to make preparations for their Thanksgiving holiday. On November first a red sign went up on the front doors explaining that we closed at 4 PM on the fourth Thursday of the month so Nice Shopper’s employees could enjoy the holiday too. Apparently the sign wasn’t nearly big enough;

*

 

At 4 o’clock on the dot Mr. Streicher locked the doors to the main entrance and began overseeing the shutting down of a store that was ordinarily open 24 hours a day. Each cash register was running and there were four other bagboys aside from me. The store was like a well oiled machine and we were all confident we would be out of there by 4:30, 4:45 at the latest.

I was the first to notice customers streaming in through the exit. They got their carts and started shopping at a leisurely pace.
“Bruno!” Mr. Streicher called, “Go stand in the doorway and tell people we’re closed.”

The question whether our customers would take the word of a doughy teenager when they were ignoring a fancy laminated sign from the corporate office never occurred to me. It should have, it really should have.

I took my place at the exit ready to turn any new shoppers away.
Unfortunately I was standing too close to the door and the first eager customer knocked me reeling. By the time by vision had cleared three other customers had gotten in behind her. I think Mr. Streicher was howling my name in outrage but it might have been the voices of my long dead relatives cursing that the noble Bruno bloodline, once the spawning ground of uncountable three-nippled strippers, politicians and circus midgets, could have come to this.

Groggily I resumed my place a safe distance from the exit and got back to my duties.

“Hey,” one of the customers said. “Your front door is broken or something.”

I was more than glad to explain, “Allow me to explain, Nice Shopper closes at 4 PM on Thanksgiving.”

“What?” the customer’s expression began to darken, “The sign says you’re open 24 hours a day!”

“Yes but the sign below that says we close so we can enjoy the holiday too.”

She pointed her finger at me, “You suck! You fucking suck.”

I was too stunned that my first grade teacher hadn’t recognized me to really take offense. The next customer was already trying to get in.

“I’m sorry sir,” I tried again, “but Nice Shopper closed for the Thanksgiving Holiday at 4 o’clock.”

He tried to push past me, “It isn’t 4 o’clock.”

I pointed to the clock, “Yes it is sir, it’s actually 4:12 now.”

“Not by my watch.”

“I don’t know what I can say about that, it is 4:12. Actually now it’s 4:13.”

The customer responded by waving his wrist in front of my face, “I don’t care what that damn clock says. This is a two hundred dollar watch!”

“It says Casio.”

He took a moment to tell me, “You suck! You friggin’ suck.” before he stormed off.

The next customer moved in to take his place, “I need cranberry sauce!”

“I…” I paused to blink back tears. “I’m sorry but Nice Shopper is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.”

“You’re gonna let me in that store you little pissant or I’ll spit on you again.”

“…but this is a time of love and togetherness…”

“PTOOIE!”

MY SUITCASE OF MEMORIES: I Fought The Stone And The Stone Won

by
Al Bruno III

Part One

My problems all began when I started peeing blood.

Now, that is one hell of an opening line, right?

I’ve had kidney stones before, and for those of you who don’t know, it is not a pleasant experience, but I know what to expect and how to react.

But blood? That was a new one.

I left work early and called my General Practitioner. They were having an early Christmas party, so they referred me to their urgent care center, but they were having a Christmas party too. Since it was a Friday, I took a lot of over-the-counter painkillers and went to bed early. In my addled mind, I imagined the staff of my doctor’s office singing ailment-specific Christmas carols to me.

Like this one;

“Oh kidney stone, oh kidney stone
Will it break your urethra…”

The pain and blood faded as I spent the weekend taking it easy and watching television. Regular doses of MST3k and Doctor Who are always good for what ails me, and by Monday, I was feeling fine, so I headed out for my appointment with my therapist, Dr. Bernardo. It was the early days of our therapeutic relationship but he was hard at work trying to understand how I could have both a god complex and low self-esteem. That day, he asked me if I had any unresolved childhood trauma. I jokingly told him that sometimes I fantasize about digging up my long-dead kindergarten teacher and punching her in the face.

Something about Dr. Barnardo’s gentle squeak of horror made me realize I might have gone a bit too far. It was in the middle of my apologizing for the remark that a fresh bout of pain hit me in the kidney.

And this was bad, folks; it felt like my loins were aflame- and not in a good romance novel way. I cut the therapy session short and spent about half an hour in the bathroom dealing with pain and nausea; when I could walk again, I headed out to my car to my General practitioner’s office.

I didn’t have an appointment, but my begging skills were top-shelf that day, and they rushed me right in to see him. Or maybe it was just because they wanted to get rid of the big bald idiot curled into a ball and whimpering on the waiting room floor.

Preliminary tests revealed that my urine was the color of Hawaiian Punch and my face was the color of Mountain Dew. The general practitioner gave me a shot of a painkiller and referred me to a urologist; the urologist saw me right away.

More tests were performed, internal organs were scanned, and co-pays were deferred. I was informed that I had a four-millimeter kidney stone trying to make its way into my bladder via a 5ml vein, leading to a situation much like the time I tried to fit into that pair of corduroy slacks I refused to throw away.

The urologist gave me two sets of pills and a funnel with a mesh at the end. One set of drugs was a week’s worth of Vicodin. The other was to widen out my urological tract and grease the gears, if you will; the wire mesh was so I could strain my urine and catch the kidney stone. At first, I thought this would be a great thing- I could give the kidney stone away to one of my lucky readers as a prize!

The urologist put the kibosh on that; he needed to take kidney stones for tests. Oh well.

I also got a note for a week off from work, but I wasn’t sure that would save my job. It wasn’t that any of my six supervisors were bad people, but when you work for an organization that considers Goldings’s Lord of the Flies a training manual, you have to be a little worried.

Upon arriving home, I barely said anything to my wife Gloria and my daughter Hazel and went to bed early. When my wife finally turned in, I was feeling a little better, and as my body is 98% hormones, I tried to put the moves on her, and she put moves right back, but sadly, the day had been too traumatic for my manhood. What should have been a gentle and beautiful expression of our love became a frustrating taffy pull.

The following day, I called in sick to work, but in retrospect, I should have waited until after this was accomplished before I took a Vicodin. For those of you who haven’t followed my work closely (That’s you, Western Hemisphere.) I should inform you that in my 41 years, I had never tried illegal drugs of any sort. This is because of my high principles and intense cowardice.

The end result of this is that as I was on hold waiting for a supervisor to give them the news of my extended absence, the Vicodin hit me like a freight train and I told them that I loved them. Then I called back and did it again. I might have done it a third time if I hadn’t suddenly become enraptured with the screen saver on my computer. I might not have survived if flying toasters had still been a thing.

I spent the next seven days in a stupor. Whenever I napped, my dreams were in color and the stuff of fanfic, but they were poisoned by the constant ache in my bladder. If I were the captain of a starship, I would find that a transporter accident had caused there to be only one bathroom for the entire crew to use, and that bathroom’s location was constantly changing. Many crew members had already lost control of their bladders, but I, their captain, was fighting to keep control. But it already seemed like a lost cause; no one was at their station, and there were Klingons everywhere. As you can imagine, it was a Yellow Alert.

Sometime during this long, hazy week, I somehow insulted my 8-year-old daughter’s playmate. I know I made her cry, but I’m not sure what I said. I mean, I have a vague idea it had something to do with her preferring Joe as a host of Blues Clues instead of Steve- AND WHAT KIND OF SOULESS HALFWIT WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

Later on  I staggered over to their house to make an apology. It was sincere and heartfelt, and I think there was some forgiveness in their eyes when they came out onto their porch to ask me why I had been talking to their mailbox for twenty minutes.

Part Two

Did I mention that my urologist, Dr. Wertighast, was bald? It was clearly a fashion statement of the manliest kind, as opposed to my brand of genetic baldness that had left me looking like Charlie Brown all grown up. I stared at his shiny shorn pate in frustration and learned that the kidney stone was having trouble passing. I had a similar problem with the ninth grade.

I sighed, “So I spent a week straining my urine for nothing.”

“I understand your frustration.” He said.
 
Straining your urine. Sounds kind of absurd, doesn’t it? Well, it looks pretty damn absurd when you’re doing it- I can tell you that; a solid week of standing at the toilet, one hand holding good old Thunder Lizard and the other a plastic funnel with a fine mesh at the bottom.

And please don’t forget that most of the time I was doing this, I was stoned out of my mind on Vicodin. I hit my toes and my bathrobe, and in one moment of combined brilliance and clumsiness, I even managed to ricochet my urine stream off the lip of the plastic funnel back into my eye.

The line between medical science and a fetish video is a fine one indeed.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

He explained, “Two days from now, you come down to the surgery center. We put you under and get that stone out before it causes serious damage. It looks like it should come out pretty easily. I don’t think cutting will be necessary, but you will need a stent.”

I wasn’t sure what a stent was, but if it was the alternative to having my Weiner cut open, I was ready to take two and call him in the morning.

The drive home from the urologist was a somber experience, to say the least. I had always assumed that if I were going to pay someone to manhandle my junk, it would have been a sprightly Korean woman with red hair, masseuse training, and a willingness to wear a spangly catsuit similar to the one Wendy Padbury wore in the 1968 Doctor Who serial The Mind Robber.

When I told my family the news, my wife was the epitome of love and concern. My daughter’s only comment was that she hoped it didn’t ruin her plans for the school’s holiday party.

And THAT is why I never bought her a pony.

There were a lot of butterflies in my stomach those next two days. Yes, I knew I would be unconscious; yes, I knew this was a simple outpatient procedure, but my imagination wouldn’t let those facts take hold. I couldn’t believe the same wonderful imagination that had helped me run years of role-playing games and write reams of stories about Booger Monsters From Outer space was betraying me like this.

That night, after we had put my daughter to bed, my wife tried to take my mind off my troubles the way that wives normally always can. Things were going great, but my imagination wasn’t through with me. I began to worry. What if the nurses pointed and laughed? What if I contracted some flesh-eating bacteria from a dirty scalpel, or perhaps there might be an earthquake in the middle of the operation? What if I woke during the procedure?

My God! What if my insurance decided they weren’t going to cover the bill?

Our romantic interlude ended disappointingly for the both of us and now I had a new worry.

Would the surgeon notice the slightly bluish tinge to my balls?

Part Three

The day of my ureteroscopy came, and there was a lot to be thankful for. I was thankful that my mother-in-law was able to drive me there and back because my wife’s employer refused to give her time off. I was thankful that checking in at the front desk went easily with no last-minute drama from my medical insurance. I was thankful that the Nursing Supervisor put me at ease with her gentle nature and no-nonsense demeanor. I was especially thankful that the woman given the duty of shaving my groin had a steady hand and a good sense of humor.

They gave me an IV, and I watched them inject something into it. I thought to ask them how long it would be before it took effect, but before the words could leave my mouth, darkness had rolled over my mind like a dark wave. The last time I was put under for an operation, I was six years old and there had been such dreams! Dreams of surreal creatures that looked like crayon drawings come to life, dancing against purple sunsets, and romantic dates with Wendy from The Superfriends in a K-Mart that might have been a spaceship.

You know, normal stuff.

My modern experiences with sedation were very different things. The drugs they give now send me into a thoughtless brief oblivion that seems to threaten to go on forever.

Truth be told, the memory, or perhaps I should say non-memory of it, haunts me. It's what I fear dying might be like. I still can't imagine what's worse: no afterlife at all or an afterlife that ends up being like an ethereal and inescapable family reunion. I can almost see it now: dozens of Bruno souls voluntarily exiling themselves to purgatory or reincarnating as tapeworms to avoid talking to me.

I didn’t wake up smoothly after the procedure. I felt like I was choking and struggling. Later, I found out that during anesthesia, my breathing significantly slowed down, leading to the need for intubation.

The anesthesiologist asked me why I hadn’t mentioned this problem, and while I would have liked to have explained, I had no idea; I was too busy coughing in the aftermath of having a plastic tube down my throat. Before the conversation. Could go further I realized I had to pee.

At first, I thought the nurse who helped me down the hallway was lurching wildly. However, upon entering the restroom, I realized it couldn't have been her because the bathroom was lurching wildly, too. Once I was certain of my footing, I shifted aside the fabric of my muumuu-like hospital gown.

The almost frantic need to relieve myself was forgotten the moment I caught a glimpse of my manhood. The doctor had left a pin-hole-sized incision at the base of my urethral opening, and from that incision, there dangled a small length of dark blue string.

My first reaction was to mumble, “How very festive.”

My second was a sound similar to the Wilhelm Scream.

The nurse that responded to the sound assured me that, yes, that string was supposed to be there; it was part and parcel with getting a stent.

As I was led back to my room so I could get changed back into my street clothes, I learned several things. I learned that it had actually taken them three tries to intubate me due to an oddly shaped windpipe. I learned that the kidney stone they removed from me was only 2 millimeters in diameter, shaped like the spaceship that had rocketed Superman to Earth in the 1978 film and had pretty much hooked itself into the flesh of my urethra.

I learned that I had three new prescriptions to take for the next two weeks, one of which was Oxycodne. I learned that the blue string meant that a stent had been run along the length of my urethra so the damage done by the stone and surgery could be repaired; it would remain in place for the next 11 days, and during that time, I would experience painful urination that would have blood as well as the occasional stone fragment or scab. I also learned how many times I could say the word ‘urethra’ in a single story and still keep my listeners.

The number is five, by the way.

Once I was home, my wife and mother-in-law put me to bed. My daughter had a Christmas pageant that night, but there was no way I was able to go, and that made me really sad, at least until the Oxycodone kicked in; then I spent the next few hours trying to explain Doctor Who’s UNIT dating controversy to my dogs.

The 12 days of Christmas passed in a pleasant haze; I watched TV, I played video games, I overate, but sadly, I couldn't sleep comfortably unless I was sitting up on the couch. The In-Laws came over for Christmas, and it was a great visit. I was too woozy to put together my daughter's new two-story doll house, but her grandpa picked up the slack quite nicely. While he did that, my daughter baked me snacks with her new Easy Bake oven until she ran out of mix. Just as well  really, I was about to slip into diabetic shock.

Finally, December 29th rolled around, and it was time to have the stent removed. I was glad of it. I had been out of work for over twenty days by then, and I was actually starting to miss the soul-crushing drudgery of phone-based customer support and the challenge of stealing office supplies.

Dr. Wertighast told me that everything was good and that once the stent was removed, I would be able to relieve myself without trauma or speaking in tongues. As I sat there with my pants low and my hopes high, I asked him what kind of sedation would be used to remove the stent. He told me not to worry about that as he pulled on his rubber gloves and told me to stand over a waste basket.

So yeah, I was worried.

He told me that I would feel some momentary discomfort. I asked him to define discomfort, but instead, he just pulled the string.

Having a tube pulled out of your schmeckle feels like you’re e whizzing out a ten-foot stream of hot coffee on a cold winter day. I made the same kinds of sounds that Curly from the Three Stooges made when he caught his head in something.

“There,” he said to me. “That wasn't so bad, was it?”

What I should have said back was, “It wasn’t very fucking good.”

But I was too stunned by one of my body parts becoming part of a variation on the old magician's trick of pulling a mile of handkerchiefs out of someone’s sleeve. Wide-eyed and confused, I walked to my car and drove home. My family was waiting for me, and to celebrate the end of my ordeal, my favorite dinner was waiting for me.

I stared at my plate for a long time, but eventually, I tucked in. I watched a movie with my daughter and then put her to bed. Afterward, I headed for the bathroom, and all was well with the world. One flush of the toilet and tooth brushing later, I got into bed with my wife. We made small talk, we flirted, and then we embraced.

But I was worried. It had been six weeks, six weeks of renal ravaging and genitourinary grief. Would I still be able to do, humbly speaking, the only other thing I’m really good at?

I am happy to report that the stone may have been gone but I rocked her world.

 

 

 

MY SUITCASE OF MEMORIES: Everything Must Go

by
Al Bruno

Fall 2000

It was not a physical decay that had rotted Mountainview Mall away from the inside but an economic one. The stores had bled away bit by bit. Some had been small businesses that never stood a chance, like a store that sold nothing but products made in Switzerland. Others had been casualties of changing tastes and fashions.

Losses like that could be dealt with, but when the mall's McDonald's closed down, it was the beginning of the end. I was there for a liquidation sale for a big box electronics store that had been placed there in hopes of reviving customer traffic. The plan had failed, and now this store was the only business left. Everything else was just empty windows and boarded-up doorways. I wasn't there to buy anything but would bring something away with me nonetheless.

Bargain hunters like me entered the mostly defunct electronics store through the front door, but there was another door to be found. It was at the back, near the nearly empty video department. All left there now was a handful of Playboy features and cheaply produced Disney direct-to-video movies. I doubt anyone would have the nerve to bring either video cassette to the sour-looking woman at the register. That second door was kept open to cool down the store, better than paying for air conditioning.

It was easy enough for me to slip through those doors and wander into The mall's darkened interior. I could see the empty spaces that had been a Woolworth's, a restaurant, and Spencer's gifts. When I was a teenager, I had frittered so many hours and dollars away in this place.

The mall's fountain had dried up long ago, the water turned off, the pennies and nickels snatched away. There was dirt and dust everywhere, as well as scraps of old paper and rat droppings, some dried and some fresh. The newspapers said that as soon as the electronics store was emptied, this mall would be knocked down, and a much more eye-pleasing shopping plaza would rise up from the ruins. There were even hushed and reverent whispers that a Target or Wal-Mart would be there.

I wondered when that would be. I was thirty-six, and so many of my life's landmarks had disappeared or changed into something unrecognizable. I asked how much longer it would be before the wrecking ball came for this place. I didn't know, but I knew this would be my last chance to get what I had left behind.

Despite the shadows and the grime, I found the spot easily. It was just an ordinary bench; I remember it faced a women's clothing store. The bench was chipped and lopsided. It creaked threateningly as I sat down. When I closed my eyes, I could remember the girl sitting beside me. The strawberry blonde, my first love.

The sounds came first, the murmur of voices, the empty din of the piped-in music. I saw myself at sixteen years old, so awkward and forever feeling like I would never measure up to the world's expectations of me.

I could tell you that my first love was as cute as a button, but that would be a lie because there wasn't a button made that could have held a candle to her. I remembered the white winter jacket she wore and the scent of her perfume. It was soft, gentle, and unique like her, and I never smelled it like it again. That day, we had been sitting side by side, joking and talking. That first kiss, my first kiss, happened so fast, and after that, nothing was ever the same again.

Did we look ridiculous sitting there, making out in full view of the world? Probably, and I suppose more than a few people didn't approve, but no one tried to separate or shame us.

Which is good because you couldn't have pried her from my embrace with a crowbar. I didn't want those kisses to end. I wanted them to go on forever.

Impossible, I know, but when you're sixteen, time moves so slowly that forever seems easy.

But there was no forever. There was just that moment, which had ended as surely as Mountainview  Mall had become a faux-deco tomb. I opened my eyes, and I was thirty-six- definitely older but only maybe a little wiser. I have a wife, daughter, and an appalling number of pets waiting for me back home, and for all my mooning over the past and smartass remarks, I couldn't wait to see them.

I savored that memory, hiding it away in my mind and my heart as I brought it with me. I was sure no one would mind one less ghost haunting a place like this.

 

 

MY SUITCASE OF MEMORIES: The Best Worst Day Of My Life

by
Al Bruno III

Fall 1981

Let me take you back to the nostalgically idealized decade of the 80's. The year 1981, to be precise. I was fifteen years old and about to begin the first day of my second time through the ninth grade. That's right, I failed the ninth grade. Let me share a little background so you'll understand how.

From a young age, I spent more time reading and creating stories than hanging out with other kids. Constantly spending time with adults left me with a sense of humor and vocabulary about two grades ahead of the other kids. In other words, when I started kindergarten and started talking, the other students looked at me like I was from another planet. And a very loquacious and verbose planet at that, but still.

Couple that with the problem of my Kindergarten teacher. She knew my Mom was divorced and believed that children of divorce had behavioral problems, so she actively campaigned to have me removed from her class, and when she couldn't make that happen, she treated me awful. One time, she grabbed me by the back of my hair and dragged me across the classroom; another time, she had all my classmates scold me for her. And let's not forget the time she threatened to pull strings and have Santa Claus skip my house.

Charles Dickens had nothing on the Albany School System in the 1970s.

But what does all this have to do with me failing ninth grade? Maybe everything, maybe nothing. All I know is that from age five, I was marked, by staff and students alike, as a loser, an outsider, a subversive element. What followed was ten-plus years of varying misery. Sure, sometimes I would get a teacher who delighted in my presence. Sometimes, I would find a friend out on the fringes of the playground, but the older I got, the less interested the school system became in dealing with bullying and the more interested the bullies became in kidney punches and sharp objects.

Eighth grade was when it all got to be too much. I reached a point where I'd start feeling depressed and anxious on Saturday nights, knowing school was just one sleep away. So, at the end of that academic year, my parents—Mother, Father, and Stepfather—moved Heaven and Earth to get me into a fancy schmancy parochial school with strict academic standards and a stricter dress code. My family and I were convinced that this would be a chance to begin all over.

What no one in my family or I seemed to realize is that an oddball outsider trying to escape his problems is still an oddball outsider. The scenery changed, but the story stayed the same. But by November, I found myself back in the familiar territory of being treated the way I had always been. Except now, instead of exasperating underpaid civil servants, I was exasperating members of the clergy. Instead of trying to protect my dental work from middle-class kids, I was being tormented by snotty rich kids who dutifully said the Lord's Prayer in Homeroom every day before heading out to pummel me in gym class.

Despite all that, maybe things could have worked out; at the end of the second semester, some of the kids who had openly disliked me for most of the year started being genuinely nice. Unfortunately, I was done in by my own intellectual shortcomings. See, I wasn't a dumb kid, but I wasn't smart. I was clever.

Clever enough to coast through the public school system with a solid B minus average but not smart enough to realize this simply would not fly with my fancy schmancy new school. I crashed and burned. I crashed and burned so hard that I set records that still stand decades later.

In fact, I crashed and burned so hard that in August of 1981, my parents got a letter telling them I flunked out, not just out of the grade but right out of the school as well.

It was a painful and valuable lesson, painful to my smug little ego and valuable to my parents because they had spent a minor fortune to see their son end up right back where he'd started- Walking through the big ugly doorway of Dirt Lake Junior High.

No, that isn't really the name of the school. In fact, before we go further, I want to inform you that the names of every institution and person mentioned in this story have been changed so no one gets offended or confused. And while some characters and events may have been altered for dramatic effect, the heart of what I am telling you is true. As true as any memory can be anyway.

I don't know how it worked with other school systems, but in Albany, the eighth and ninth-grade students were warehoused in an L-shaped structure that had all the charm of a Russian tenement house while the tenth to twelfth graders occupied the building across the street, that was larger, better equipped and looked like an actual high school.

Familiar faces started noticing me as I walked through the building. On one hand, the teachers and administrators were looking at me with a mixture of amusement and pity; on the other hand were the students I had gone to school with for most of my life, who were now a year ahead of me.

None of them said a word to me, nor did I say a thing to them. What would I have said anyway? "Hey, you remember me? The kid that said it would be a cold day in Hell before you ever saw him again?"

Turns out it wasn't a cold day in Hell, in fact, that September morning was positively balmy. That morning in September, I felt humiliated, defeated, and hopeless.

I spent the first ten minutes of the morning struggling with my locker. Despite years of practice, I always forgot how to use them over the summer. Was it left, right, then two turns to the left, or was it two turns to the right, then left? Sometimes, I suspected they changed the pattern every summer just to mess with us.

WHAM!

Suddenly, I was on the floor, seeing stars. Someone had come up from behind me and body-checked me into my locker. Who had done it? A jock? A stoner? A mean girl? A rogue hall monitor with something to prove? I never found out, but thanks to them, I stumbled into Homeroom with a padlock-shaped indentation on my forehead and a fresh new headache. I made it to my assigned seat just as the bell rang.

Homeroom itself was a relatively quiet affair, except for the fact the teacher was the same Homeroom teacher I'd had from 1979 to 1980, and she freaked out a little at the sight of me. As I waited to be dismissed, I checked over my schedule. It was all basic high school freshman stuff except for the second to last class. I had taken an elective.

Do they still have electives these days? Just in case they don't, please allow me to explain.

Electives were these special classes that weren't reading, writing, arithmetic… gym… or industrial arts. Some of the classes covered home economics or different types of literature or typing. There was even a class on camping! Obviously, some classes were there to prepare us for the workplace or being a homemaker, and I'm sure that some of them probably rounded out a high school transcript very nicely. Other classes were a little useless.

"I signed up for Drama, one of the useless classes. Why? Because I was convinced I was going to be either the next John Belushi or the next Frankenstein Monster. Hell, maybe both. My first-period class was math with Mr. Crok. Normally, the first day of class should be devoted to the teacher outlining what material would be covered and what his expectations for us would be. Mr. Crok, however, spent the first forty minutes of our relationship regaling us with stories of his experiences in the Vietnam War. Riveting stuff, to be sure, but what I really needed to know was what kind of school supplies my parents needed to buy, not how to properly arm a claymore in enemy territory.

Speaking of enemy territory, the second period was gym class.

Ah, gym class in the 1980s, one part Lord of the Flies, one part dodgeball with just a little bit of rope burn thrown in for good measure. It was here that I first crossed paths with the Terrible Trio - Chuckles, NoNeck, and Stabby. Chuckles, the son of a state trooper, was gifted with the looks of a college student and mild fascist tendencies. NoNeck was the jockiest jock in the ninth grade; he did track, he did football and he seemed to believe that basic human empathy was dangerously high in caloric content. And Stabby? Stabby was a ticking time bomb in so many ways.

But more on him later someday, so much more.

While the rest of the students in the class were plodding through a game of kickball, the Terrible Trio were sizing everyone up, deciding who might be worthy to join the ranks of their followers.

It should be no surprise to any of you that I was not asked to be one of their followers. It should also be no surprise to you that the gym teacher did nothing when kickballs suddenly started flying at my head. But I wasn't alone in this spherical assault; there was another kid running for his life. He was skinny with white-blonde hair and tinted horn-rimmed glasses. Like any good nerd, he was also pale-skinned from lack of sunlight. Put it all together, and he looked kind of like an albino Roy Orbison.

You people still know who Roy Orbison is, right? Just in case you don't go listen to him, your ears will thank me later.

Anyway, after gym class, I introduced myself to the kid. "Hi," I said, "my name is Ab3."

“I’m Guido,” he said,  “Guido Jones. Are you new here?"

I shrugged as we walked together into the hallway, "Yes and no."

"Do you play D&D?"

"I've got the books," I said, "I dabble."

And by dabbling I meant that I spent many a lonely Saturday afternoon rolling up characters and then having them fight random encounters as they made their way across a randomly generated map. I'm not sure, but I might have invented open-world gaming years early.

"You gonna be in AV Club?" He asked as we huffed and puffed our way up the stairs to the second floor.

"What's AV club?"

And in the precious few moments before English class, Guido explained that not only was AV Club a great way to escape the doldrums and occasional terrors of Study Hall, but it was also a great place to learn how to use film projectors, audio equipment, and the school's slowly growing collection of VCRs and Video Cameras.

We promised to talk more later.

It was obvious we had made a connection. We both knew we had found a kindred spirit, someone more interested in Action Comics than AFL football, someone who preferred curling up with a good book over physical activity., someone who knew what it felt like to weep at the end credits of the Empire Strikes Back.

I made it to my next class in the nick of time. It was English class and was taught by a tiny and cranky woman by the name of Miss Lattrex. As she explained her plans for the first part of the semester, I realized I was going to have to study SE Hinton's The Outsiders all over again. My heart leaped because I realized that I still had the essay I wrote at my previous school somewhere in my room. It was a good one and had earned me a rare B minus.

Was I going to rewrite it and hand it back in again in a few weeks? Hell yes!

Stay Gold Miss Lattrex.

Fourth period was social studies. To my complete lack of surprise and interest, I found out that we would be studying American History from Plymouth Rock to the Election of Ronald Reagan. Covering all that in two semesters may sound ambitious, but back in the 1980s, we really streamlined things by just focusing on white guys. Don't get me wrong, we would cover topics like women's suffrage and slavery, but just in the context of how they impacted white guys.

And wouldn't you know it? This teacher assigned us homework, complete with chapters to read and questions to answer. For God's sake, it was the first day. Was nothing sacred?

After that, it was lunch, and lunch that day was a square slice of pseudo-French Bread coated with sickly sweet tomato sauce and covered with a thick layer of processed cheese. Each serving of this treat they brazenly referred to as pizza was cooked to a state of being mouth-burningly hot on the outside yet slightly frosty on the inside.

Carrying my tray, I navigated from the bustling kitchen to the cafeteria, desperately scanning the room for a safe haven. It was too early in the year for any of the factions to have staked out any territories. All I could do was make a wild guess and sit near the most average-looking kids I could. It was the social equivalent of playing Russian roulette but there with five bullets instead of one.

I took a seat, offering polite nods to the guys on my right and the girls on my left. I didn't actually speak, I didn't dare, a Doctor Who reference or pun might fall out of my mouth and ruin everything.

Yeah, maybe I would become known as a student of few words, the suave, silent type. Was this my chance to reinvent myself? Maybe I could become known as 'the Quiet Guy.' Maybe all the girls would become enamored with my aura of mystery. Maybe the yearbook would end up voting me Most Likely To Stare Meaningfully Into The Distance. Maybe-

"Hey Kid!" The guys sitting across from me shouted, "Are you a VIRGIN?"

Suddenly, everyone was looking at me. Suddenly, a hot blush was working its way across my face. And for the record, yes, I was a virgin at the time, but I don't believe that the guy who asked wasn't either.

And that is what I should have said back. Why didn't I? Why didn't I bring his mother into it? Why didn't I insult his stupid face? Or his lousy Up With People t-shirt? Why in the name of God's green earth did the brain that had been getting me into trouble with snarky comebacks for over a decade suddenly choose that one moment to fail me?

Guess what I actually said after a long and uncomfortable silence?

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

ARGH! Even now, four decades later, it still makes me cringe.

Okay, enough. Let's go to fifth-period science class before this memory renders me catatonic. The curriculum was named Earth Sciences, and it covered every aspect of our natural environment, highlighting how profoundly our species had screwed it up. Sometimes, I would read through the materials given to us and lose myself in wonder at all the things that might kill me. Pesticides? Radiation? Biohazards? Truly, I say to you, my doomsday chalice runneth over. It was scary and sobering stuff, and I think it is a big reason why so many members of my generation abandoned the cold, unreasoning world of science for the gentle comfort of Internet conspiracy theories.

For sixth period, I left the world of science behind and entered the one class I had been looking forward to: Drama Class! If my parents had realized I was going to waste a precious hour of my day prancing around on a stage, they would not have been happy. They had spent most of the summer trying to beg, order, and bribe me into promising to be 'more normal' this year.

And as you folks can see, I tried to be normal all damn day. I tried! And what did it get me? Minor head injuries and major humiliations.

Drama class was led by Mr. Ainley, who primarily taught twelfth-grade English, so I guess this was his elective too. Despite his calm demeanor, there was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. I think he recognized a kindred spirit in me, which meant he knew he was in for a rough ride.

The thing about high school drama class is that there are two kinds of students there, attention seekers like yours truly and kids looking for an easy grade. Mr. Ainley understood that the best way to distinguish between the two groups was to invite each of us to share something about ourselves at the front of the class. And after a brief discussion of our syllabus (there wasn't one), that is just what he did.

We went up in alphabetical order, and as my last name is the second letter of the alphabet, I got to go first. I didn't do an introduction; I did a stand-up routine. For over a minute, I rambled like Rodney Dangerfield on acid. I said things like I was born in a log cabin I built myself, and I had once tried to start a chicken farm, but I accidentally planted the chickens too close together.
My performance wasn't a complete disaster—some of the students laughed—but as my parents and so many teachers would ask, 'Were they laughing at me or with me?'

My answer would always be, "Does it really matter?"

The more they laughed, the more I continued; one minute became two. It was really obnoxious, but Fortunately, Mr. Ainley was among those laughing. He was even laughing as he shouted for me to stop talking and sit the Hell down.

Next came the other students. First, there were the two girls who had been gossiping throughout the entire class. Then, there was the boy who apparently never washed his hair, followed by the wannabe jock. Finally, the band nerd who believed Western culture had died with Benny Goodman.

Then SHE stepped to the front of the class.

There are moments in everyone's life when their world changes utterly and completely, and that's what happened the moment I saw her bright blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Everything changed forever.

Her name was Lilly Sunshine. Well, not really, but since I'm changing everyone else's name, I might as well change hers, too. I don't remember what she said that day, but I know I was hanging on every word. I watched her intently, my whole body tingling.

When she was done, she went back to her seat. She took the long way so she could say to me, "I thought you were funny."

And my brain exploded at a million miles an hour. I stared numbly at her and said something like, "Wasavusa vasa?"

Smooth Ab3, really smooth.

The final period was study hall, but I was in too much of a daze to study anything more than the clock. I spent the whole bus ride home thinking about her and also wondering why this girl had me so bedazzled. I mean, I always liked girls, even when I was at the age when boys were supposed to think girls were gross.

On that note, here's an amusing story. Back in fourth grade, I used to tell the girls all about Harry Houdini and the amazing things he did. I claimed to know some of his escape artist tricks. Of course, they didn't believe me. So, during recess, I would dare them to get some jump ropes and tie me to the jungle gym. I know that's some pretty advanced perving for a ten-year-old. I guess I enjoyed those comics where Catwoman tied up Batman a little too much. Anyway, the teachers saw. I went to the office. My parents were called and I got a good talking to.

Trust me, you haven't lived until you've been kink-shamed in the principal's office.

Now, where was I? Ah yes, love at first sight. That's what it was, love at first sight. No, it was more than that. It was recognition, not a recognition in the sense that I knew her. It was a primal thing, mystical, spiritual, and fundamentally life-changing.

Also, she turned me on. I mean, holy cow, fifteen-year-old boys are horny in general, but I was so riled up that I think I was abusing the privilege.

About halfway through the bus ride home, a half-eaten apple came flying at my head. I ducked instinctively, but it bounced off the window and hit me on the side of the head. The bus erupted in laughter and jeering. My heart sank, my swelling went down, and suddenly, I remembered who I was. I was a loser and a dweeb, and guys like me never get the girl.

Especially not a girl like her.

The bus dropped me off right in front of my house. It was easier than dropping me off at the regular bus stop a block away with the other kids. When that happened, I would end up getting wedged and chased home. I had gone through a lot of waistbands back in 1979.

My Mom was home taking care of my brother Monty and sister Mable; he was 11, and she was 10, so they got home an hour before I did. Because of that, they already had control of the TV. I didn't complain, I already had homework, and my parents were damned if I was going to fail another grade.

I suppose I could have lied and said I didn't have any, I suppose I could have goofed off, but I was damned if I was going to fail another grade again, either.

That was my intention anyway, but for an hour, I sat in my room pondering this humiliating day and shuddering at the thought of the next ten months.

Then my thoughts turned to Lilly, and they stayed there. I couldn't stop thinking about her, even while staring intently at the opening chapter of my social studies textbook for over an hour. Maybe I didn't think girls were gross, but damn if they didn't think I was. In fact, ever since the Valentine's Day Incident of the third grade, I had resigned myself to the idea that, unless that one cute cousin of mine moved back to town, I would never have a girlfriend.

But there I sat, considering how I might be able to get a date with a girl I had just met when, only a few nights before, I had been trying to decide from which country my inevitable mail-order bride would come.

Obviously, I couldn't just come into school the next day and ask her out to the movies. I had to be patient, and I had to have a plan.

I didn't hear it when my Mom called me for dinner, and she had to send my brother to get me. I didn't react to Monty's voice or presence either, and it must have worried him a little. He knew how much stress I was feeling because he didn't slap the back of my head nearly as hard as he would on a regular day.

One fistfight later, I was at the dinner table. My stepfather immediately turned the conversation to our first day of school. Mable was very excited that her fifth-grade classroom had a hamster in it; she couldn't remember the teacher's name, but she knew everything about the hamster. Monty was excited that he had ended up in a classroom with all his friends from last year. He wasn't excited about having to write a short essay about his summer vacation. I can totally understand; how can you stretch out 'tormented my older brother' to three paragraphs?

Then, all attention at the dinner table turned to me. My stepfather wanted to know if I was going to buckle down and fly right this year, which led to me questioning how I could buckle down and fly at the same time.

My Mom brushed that little bit of sarcasm aside and cut right to the heart of the matter. "What did you learn in school today?"

I paused thoughtfully, considering that it was just the first day, and the teachers typically didn't start real teaching until the second day. However, I had learned a lot. I had learned about the combat tactics of the Vietcong, I had learned that SE Hinton's full name was Susan Eloise Hinton, and I had learned what the AV Club was.

All good stuff; however, I had learned something so much more valuable than that and couldn't wait to share it.

"I met the girl I'm going to marry," I explained.

"Her name is Lilly."

The four other people sitting at the table, with ages ranging from thirty-two to ten, all groaned. My siblings mocked me; my mother told me I was far too young to worry about girls, and my stepfather scowled and said it didn't sound like I was buckled down at all.

Well, the joke is on them. In the end, I did marry Lilly. It only took forty years for it to happen.

I admit it took a little longer than expected, but then again, so did high school.

The week in review: my wife and roommate were physically assaulted and my apartment caught fire!

Everyone is OK, the attacker is in jail and the fire department got to the fire before we could lose any pets or stuff.

I and my wacky family fight on!

Bring it 2014! BRING IT!!!!

(actually please don't... I'm kinda stressed)