To Be or Wanna Be

I don’t often write book reviews, which is not to say I do not have opinions about books. I have opinions about pretty much everything. Except light switches. I have no sentiments one way or the other on light switches. But anyway. For the most part I don’t write book reviews because I don’t feel like I’m qualified to, but then someone dropped a copy of a slender new volume through my transom window, and after reading it a couple of times, I decided to write about it. Still don’t feel qualified to do so, but there it is.

The book in question? To Be or Wanna Be: The Top Ten Differences Between a Successful Actor and a Starving Artist, by Sean Pratt. I’d like to say that it’s a splendid book for actors and leave it at that, but brevity isn’t necessarily always the soul of blogging, so stand by for a few hundred more words.

Right at the outset, let’s get one thing straight: I am, in no way, an actor (though I played one on TV). That being said, one needn’t be an actor to get a whole pile of good information and career guidance from Mr. Pratt’s book. He has been advising actors, young and old, for a good number of years now, and is himself a successful actor, so he knows whereof he speaks.

The volume is divvied up into, as the title implies, Ten Differences between working actors and most of Manhattan Island, between SoHo and Times Square (or, in fact, the cast of Snow White and the Huntsman…) Many of the differences elucidated by Mr. Pratt (I think of them as being “rules,” in a good way) are applicable to artists and craftspeople plying numerous creative waters.

My personal favorite is “Difference #1: The Successful Actor Takes Responsibility for His Career,” (throughout, Pratt gives equal stage time to both the masculine and feminine pronouns, so put that PC stick away and keep reading, Skeezix). I like Difference #1 because it can apply so widely across disciplines. Mr. Pratt define “taking responsibility” as being “proactive” instead of “no-active.” As a writer with a small bit of success, I can tell you that this is the most important thing you can do in order to speed your career—whether you sing, act, dance, sculpt or whatever—into its mid-season form. I’ve met lots of writers over the years, usually in bars. But when I ask them what they’ve published, or even what they are currently working on, that’s when the humming and hawing kicks in. Eventually they let fly the news that, while telling every stranger they meet that they are writers, they do not, actually, write. Not much, anyway. Or very often. And then come the excuses: I can’t handle rejection; I need a new computer; I need to finish school; I don’t want to disappoint my mother; I was molested by my English teacher; blah-blah-blah-dee-blah. In too many cases, one word describes the “no-active” side of the equation, and that word is LAZINESS. Not happy with your career? Get off your ass and go do something about it!

Another of my favorites is Difference #6: The Successful Actor Builds a Network. Networking is vital to all creative endeavors—hanging with other members of your inspired species. In his discussion of the Difference, Mr. Pratt delves into the idea that building one’s network contains an element of self-promotion. That, it certainly does, but the trick is to master an ability to toot your own kazoo, without coming across like a gigantic douchebag. Now, I have never been shy about talking myself up to others, and have often been taken for a gigantic douchebag, but shit… I’m learning. And Mr. Pratt’s book gives some excellent tips on getting there.

All in all, To Be or Wanna Be is a wonderful little read, and more stuffed with quality information and ideas than a T-Bagger rally is stuffed with angry imbeciles. And, let me say it one more time, it doesn’t matter what segment of the creativerse you want as your personal fiefdom, Mr. Pratt’s book will aid you on your way.

So? What are you waiting for? Read it, asshole.

Cheers.

Chickenshit-fil-A

As anyone with an attention span more vigorous than a gnat’s is aware, back on July 16^th, Dan Cathy, President of the Georgia-based fast-food outlet Chick-fil-A, was interviewed by the Baptist Press, an online “journal” of Baptist “news.” During this interview, Cathy was asked about Chick-fil-A’s stance on marriage and the family, to which he offered the following predictable commentary: “[Chick-fil-A] is very much supportive of the family…the biblical definition of the family unit.” He then added that this definition does not include Adam and Steve. Oh, how droll.

The LGBT community took him to mean he was speaking the truth (and how could they not?), which is to say that they understood him (correctly) to be yet another bigoted Jesus-freak, with his Dockers in a twist over what his imaginary god thinks is good for the world. And then they calmly set about making their feelings public, by staging a series of demonstrations where they gathered outside various Chick-fil-A stores and waved pro-love, anti-stupid-shit signs at motorists while doing some serious same-sex tongue ‘rasslin.

I attended one of these protests, at the Chick-fil-A on May and 63^rd in Oklahoma City, and being there was as much fun as I’ve had in ages. We stood on May, with the restaurant behind us, holding up signs and flashing thumbs-up at passing cars. One lady, a med student, wore a shirt saying “The Doctor is OUT!” and another arrived wearing what, at first glance, appeared to be a Sooners t-shirt, but when she got closer it read: “Oklahomo.” She strode up to the group and said, “Linda. Lesbian. Reporting for duty,” and gave a snappy salute.

Considering how fucking backward this city is, it was surprising and not a little agreeable to see how many people honked and waved in support. We received very few negative responses, and those were just silly. A pair of guys with shaved heads piloting a shitty pick-up drove by several times, apparently trying to frighten us with their beady-eyed displeasure at all things faggy. Another member of the Oklahoma brain-trust slowed down and yelled, “I love chicken! Fuck you!” And that really hurt my feelings, cuz, you know, I love chicken too.

Here’s what I don’t get about these sorts of shrill, freakish Christians. They claim to believe in a god that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. He knows all, sees all, is eternal, and exists in all places and in all points in time simultaneously, and you mean to tell me he gives a rats tiny puckered butthole about two men kissing? Really?

When you inquire among Christians about anything having to do with their religion (its comprehensive lack of logic, its history of vehemence and mayhem, its hostility toward change, and the fact that no one has ever, or will ever, furnish substantive proof of its core tenets) the discussion quickly comes to a halt, slam-bang against a rhetorical wall called “faith.” One either has faith that the Hairy Thunderer (to quote Tony Hendra) exists, or one does not. One either has faith that he is out there somewhere, copy of the master “plan” in hand, or one does not. One either has faith that he can somehow, even as he is busy juggling every particle of the known universe, work up enough concern to crap on two women in love, or one does not. “Faith” is a wiggly word, and can only be pressed into service in defense of wiggly assertions.

It seems to me that when silly people, such as the gaggle of fluff-heads running the show down at Chick-fil-A, decide to speak up for their god, what they are really demonstrating is their own personal lack of faith. Apparently, their supreme deity is so feeble he requires help from fast-food sellers to keep his creation from running utterly amok. Not only that, but it appears that from time to time their god grows so flabby and out of sorts that getting him back into his mid-season form demands that whole flocks of the “faithful” band together and visit a drive-thru for many helpings of deep-fried chicken patties. If that sort of behavior puts a contented smile on the Big Guy’s mush, one is left to conclude that he fancies his followers chubby and in possession of a fine varnish of arterial plaque. And, thus, do we come full circle, face to face with your typical Chick-fil-A customer.

And I have come full circle as well, but for to offer this to the god-monkeys:

Try, for a change, listening to what you think, instead of what you think your make-believe god thinks. Standing up for the opinions of an invisible playmate isn’t honorable, it isn’t tough-minded, and it isn’t courageous. It’s nuts. So, eat your nasty sandwiches, mind your own business, and shut the fuck up.

Cheers.

Fire in the Hole, Part Three

And now, for your reading (and third-grade philosophy) enjoyment: Part III of Fire in the Hole.

Downstairs with Denny

So, I was downstairs, smoking and scoping out an access point so I could drive across the lawn to my apartment, when I ran in to my downstairs neighbor, Denny. Don’t know Denny’s last name. Don’t want to know Denny’s last name. Don’t want to know Denny. But there we were, two victims of the same fire, commiserating.

Denny was already ramped up into full-litigation mode. Somebody was responsible for the fire, and the law firm of Denny So-And-So, Esq., was going to make sure that 1) they were going to pay, and 2) they were going to pay Denny.

The, for lack of a better word, conversation, turned to replacement living quarters. I mentioned that management had already set me up with one, and Denny grew even twitchier.

“They haven’t even fuckin’ talked to me yet. Fuckin’ cunts.”

“I went to the office, and they were right on the job.”

“Fuck that. I shouldn’t have to go to the fucking office. They should come to me. This was their fucking fault.”

“Actually, they said the lady behind me started the fire with her grill.”

“Bull-fucking-shit. She was cooking meth in there. I know for a fact.”

“Yeah?”

“Yup. She invited me up to smoke some.”

“Last night?”

“No, this was a couple weeks ago. Didn’t do it. Kelly—” So that was his wife’s/girlfriend’s name… “—wouldn’t like me up there with a young woman. Plus, that methhead, she’s a blue-gum.”

Ah, how splendid. More keen insight from Team Troglodyte.

“Well,” I said, “better get back up there. See what I can save.”

“Hey!” he shouted over his shoulder into his apartment. “Where’d you put my beer?”

A woman’s voice sounded from the inner depths. “It’s on the coffee table, where you left it.”

“Dumb bitch,” Denny muttered. “Take it easy, brother.” And he clapped me on the shoulder.

Dude, you are about as far from being my brother as it is possible to be. I’m talkin’ FAR. Like from here to Betelgeuse far.

Dopey fuckin’ redneck goon.

The fire department had cut the power to the entire block of 16 apartments, hence no air conditioner, and my place was a stifling hellish armpit. Not a molecule of air moved, and the apartment reeked of smoke and old water.

The sheer scope of the project got me down. No way was it going to happen with me working alone.

People You Can Count On

I’ve made a few friends in the short time I’ve lived in OKC—not many, mostly due to my rather irascible nature—but now I wondered if whatever bond existed between us was strong enough to ask for their assistance with this ugly tedious project. Well, no way to know stuff unless you ask about it, so, armed with my cell phone, I lit another smoke, sat on the steps and started calling people.

Any trepidation I’d felt about calling my friends evaporated 30 seconds into the first phone call, made to my gaming pal, John. He, his fiancé Dawn, and their roommate, Matt, immediately agreed to leap in and get things done. All they wanted to know is where and when I needed them. And less than an hour later they were there, calling up the stairs. They had brought a case each of bottled water and beer, all of it on ice in a cooler, as well as an enormous pile of collapsed cardboard boxes (harvested from Dawn’s workplace) and several rolls of packing tape.

Over the next three days, working in breathless heat and foul stink, these three excellent, wonderful people essentially packed up my remaining crap and moved it to my new digs. They invited me to stay in their guest room for as long as necessary. They fed me, and Dawn, angel that she is, did a couple loads of my laundry.

I don’t know how I can thank them or ever repay them, but suffice it to say that, whatever they need, between now and the end of time, if I can provide it, it is theirs.

And help from John, Dawn and Matt, not to mention some 9^th Inning assistance from another friend, Adam, became even more vital on the third day of the move; events we will get to shortly.

Because first…

Rich Goes Completely Batshit

Early in the morning on day two of the move, about five days after the fire, I rented a U-Haul and, joined by Dawn and Matt, started moving all the big heavy things that were worth keeping. I’d driven across the lawn for the load-up, and after driving around to the new building, I drove on that grass too. My new door was way too far off the parking area to drag oak book shelves and big metal file cabinets.

As I rounded the corner of the building, slowly and carefully so as to minimize the damage to the grass, a guy looked up from where he was collecting trash with one of those aluminum grabbers. He was probably 60 and stood, estimating generously, around five-five. He stared at the U-Haul like he thought it might be an alien scout ship and he was first in line for some ass-probing. I gave him a friendly wave and rolled to a stop a few mere feet from my front door. I hopped down from the cab, and raised the truck’s rolling door, as Dawn and Matt came down the walk from the other direction.

“You ain’t s’posed to drive on the grass,” said a voice from right behind me. The trash-grabber had snuck right up on me, the sneaky little bugger.

“Well, I am now,” I said, climbing into the truck and wrestling a book shelf to the lip of the bed.

“Yer gonna get charged,” said the guy.

“Oh no,” I responded sarcastically, and continued working.

“They will charge you,” he repeated.

“Yeah, well, they have to catch me first.”

“Oh, yer already caught, buddy.”

I turned as he whipped an iPhone from his super-duper groundskeeper utility belt.

“You’re pathetic, man,” I said, and I could feel myself heating up.

He was poking buttons on his phone and said something I didn’t quite catch, but it almost certainly ran something like: “Yer a [mumble-mumble].”

And that’s all it took. My vision whited over as five days of anger, worry, grief and tension billowed out of me in a toxic cloud.

“I’m a what…? I’m a what? What am I, motherfucker?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, you did. Go call whoever the fuck you want, just get out of my fucking face.” I got a hold of another bookshelf and hauled it roughly forward. The guy stood there, apparently flummoxed by his phone (probably one of my callers at work). “Get outta the fucking way, motherfucker.”

“I’m not in your way.”

I rocked the bookshelf back and forth. “See this? Get out of the way. You’re a sad little rule follower.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“No. No.” I stepped from the cab of the truck, and stood towering over him. He took a few steps backward. “You’re a sad, sad little man. Go make your pussy call over there.”

“Asshole,” he muttered.

“Go pick up your trash, Trashman! Get a real job! Or is this all you can do cuz you’re too fuckin’ stupid to do anything else? FUCK OFF!”

Yeah, so I’d worked myself into a proper lather.

The guy wandered away, blithering into his phone. Dawn, Matt and I unloaded everything and went back for more. Then again. And then again. I parked on the grass every time. I’d been, up to that point, a real nice guy about the whole fire thing and the moving thing, and everything else. Fuck their grass.

The Third Day

“Fuck their grass,” is very much what I was thinking on the third day of the move. I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before—floors and my fat ass do not play well together—and so, after lots of tossing, I got up around 4:00 AM and started shifting things around in the new place to make room for the final few items of salvage that I was going to collect after breakfast.

Among the things that required shifting was a big bitch of a legal-sized file cabinet; one of those government-issue Limbaugh-sized motherfuckers that weigh in at about 12 tons when they’re empty, and mine wasn’t empty. It was stuffed to the brim with about everything except files. I don’t keep files. They depress me.

Anyway, the file cabinet was on one side of the bedroom and I wanted in on the other side. I could’ve slid over on the carpet. I could’ve grabbed the handtruck and rolled it over. But, because I’m something of a fucking idiot, I did neither of those things.

I picked it up.

And got it about two feet off the floor when someone speared me just above my nutsack with a knitting needle wrapped up in a small radioactive cactus. The cabinet hit the floor with a thud, and I hit right behind it with an even bigger one. I laid there groaning for at least 10 minutes before I was able to get to my feet and deliver myself to the emergency room.

Hernia. Inguinal.

The negatives: I limped around for the next 2 weeks and missed way too much work. The positives: no surgery was required, and they gave me wicked-good pain meds. After a few hundred milligrams of codeine and 4 shots of tequila even Will Ferrell is funny.

And the further negatives: I had to get out of that burned apartment, but I could barely lift a pack of cigarettes. So, I placed a call to Dawn and John and to my pal Adam. In no time they, and Matt, were on the scene and the last load of my lame-ass shit was in my new place.

It’s good to have friends. Good friends. They make life livable,

Sound like a Hallmark card? Too bad. Kiss my ass.

End

And that’s how my apartment got all burned up. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Wait… That didn’t come out right.

Oh well.

Cheers.

Fire in the Hole, Part II

And now, the continuing saga of getting a bunch of my stuff burned up, coated with soot, waterlogged, and otherwise fucked up.

7:31 AM

Sitting up in bed, I squinted at the flashing light on the wall of my motel room and listened to the harsh sound of the fire alarm.

“Really?” I said aloud.

For an absurd moment I looked around for anything that might need saving from the flames, then realized that nothing in the room belonged to me, and just exited the room in search of the stairs. To get to them I had to pass the elevators. At least twenty people were queued-up there, looking anxious. I thought about reminding them of the little signs posted in their rooms warning guests to use the stairs, not the lifts, in case of fire, but for reasons surpassing (at least my) understanding, they were aiming crusty expressions at me, so I refrained from reminding them that they were in danger of reenacting the best parts of The Towering Inferno, and that Steve McQueen and Paul Newman weren’t going to arrive any time soon. Instead I hurried to the stairs and hiked down three flights to the lobby.

And about then, a disturbing little pest of a thought starting flitting around inside my head like a fruit fly.

I told the night clerk about my fire. Now I’m here and there’s a fucking fire. They’re gonna think I’m Arnold the Arsonist. Sweet shit.

So, I started looking around at the motel staff, trying to gauge their overall interest in me. They weren’t interested in me at all, as it happened. Not a jot, not a tittle. And, strangely, they seemed even less interested in the fire alarms. A group of them stood behind the desk in their spiffy matching blazers, chatting amiably about who-the-hell-knows what. One of them looked at me. A made a kind of grand sweeping gesture at her, trying my befuddled best to encompass the hotel, the alarms, my general state of mental disarray, and the rather salient—I thought—threat of potential, perhaps even immediate, immolation. She girl smiled at me. Just a normal, run-of-the-hospitality-service display of dentition. No concern. No sign of anxiety. No nothing. Just a bunch of white teeth.

A woman’s voice called down from the open, second-floor balcony above. “Is it safe? Can we go back to our rooms?”

“Oh, sure,” said the girl, and returned to the desk-clerk confab.

I looked up at the old lady on the balcony. She looked down at me. She shrugged. I shrugged. She waddled away. I went to the desk, putting my palms on the faux-marble countertop. The fire alarm stop shrieking. The girl turned to me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“About what?” she asked.

“Uh…the alarms?”

“The fire alarms?”

NO, you fuckin’ salt-lick! The goddamn fucking ICEBERG alarm!

“Yeah, the fire alarms.”

“Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It was nothing. Someone in the kitchen burnt toast.”

“Ah,” I said, and went back up to my room.

The Morning Evolves

I parked in front of the main office building at my apartment complex at just after 8:30, to find all of the management personnel who been on the scene the night before, plus several others, rushing about clutching cell phones and manila folders. One held up a “just one minute” finger and I sat down to wait. A few minutes expired, but then another of the complex’s seemingly endless supply of petite blond chicks collected me and we sat across from each other at her (presumably) desk.

This I must say: the management folks were very efficient. Less than ten minutes after I sat down, I was in possession of another apartment in the same complex, less than 200 yards from the old one, as the crow flies. They even knocked $100 bucks off my rent, just, apparently, cuz.

As I rose to leave, new keys in hand, I asked the lady if they knew how the fire started.

“Yes,” she said, growing steely-eyed. “She lit a barbecue grill on her balcony and set the ceiling on fire.”

“No shit?” I said, but I was thinking Oh, shit, as I recalled how less than a month before I’d grilled some steaks on my balcony.

“It’s illegal in Oklahoma to grill on a balcony. We’ve been looking the other way, but now we’re going to enforce the policy.”

“OK. You’ve got my vote.” First order of business, I thought, ditch my grill. “Can I go in my old place?”

“Uh huh. Sure. Fire department says everyone can.”

I thanked her and left. First, I went to the new pad and found it was identical to the old, then I drove to the old place and stood outside the half-demolished door, not wanting, not even a little bit, to go inside. But I did.

Damages

In order of importance, I was worried about the following:

1)      My computer (plus assorted add-ons), because pretty much my entire dippy life revolves around that little electronic wonder.

2)      My books, because they make my neural net spark and sizzle like water drops on a griddle. I have close to 3,000 of them, with maybe 30 of those being rare, or signed, or limited, editions. And there is some fucked-up, materialistic element in my lower consciousness that says: without my books I might just shrivel up and blow away.

3)      My movies. I’m a movie junkie of the highest degree. Over 800 of them, not counting the 200 or so stored in my computer. Rich’s House of Videos.

4)      And that’s about it. The rest of my crap was just that: crap. If it had gotten destroyed, so be it.

I went up the stairs, stood at the top, and surveyed.

The place was a total shambles. It looked like several randy elephants had gotten jiggy wid it and not stayed to tidy up afterwards.

And, well, truth be told, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared (or as bad as Denny had led me to believe the previous night). In sum: I lost most of my (already quite crappy) furniture, my TV (but I had been looking to replace it), a couple of lamp shades, a bunch of clothing (troublesome, but not dire), and less than 200 books, none of them among the valuable volumes. Somehow, my computer had survived its ordeal (I’m writing this on it), as had the rest of my small collection of electronic add-ons.

Before I began salvage operations, I went downstairs for a smoke and to scout out a place where I could drive onto the grass, and thus get closer to my unit in order to facillitate whatever schlepping my future had in store.

That’s when I ran into Denny, my downstairs neighbor.

Crazy Denny

This guy is well worth an aside. Hell, this guy is worth a complete battery of psychological tests, and quite possibly some hardcore drugs. But anyway…

Denny had moved into the apartment below mine about three months earlier. First day I met him, he buttonholed me outside my car and demanded to know if I was a former Navy SEAL.

“No,” I answered. “I’ve never served. My brother has almost twenty-five years in, but not me.”

“Bunch of us were wondering,” Denny said, gesturing with his tallboy down at my right leg. “We were talking about that shark. Figured you were a SEAL. SEALs get sharks.”

I have a Maori shark totem tattooed on my right calf. Sharks are cool and they make me happy.

“Do they?” I asked Denny, truly curious. “I didn’t know that. You in the service?”

“Yep,” he said, his chest inflating like a prairie chicken’s in April.

I took a closer look at the faded green ink on his forearms and biceps; lots of military and military-type designs.

“You were in the service?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Marine Corp?”

“Yup. Seventy-two confirmed kills. Held the record there for a while.”

“Oh yeah?” I said after a pause that was so short I don’t think he noticed. “So you were, what? A Green Beret? Sniper?”

“Two-man sniper team. Let’s see…Iraq, Somalia and one in Syria.”

“Syria?” I asked, working like a dog to keep the incredulity out of my voice. “You shot someone in Syria?”

“Well, yeah. But I’m not supposed to…I can’t talk about it.”

“No worries, man,” I said. “National security and all that, am I right?”

“You got it.”

My bullshit-o-meter was just a-clanging away by now. In addition to my brother, I have other friends on active duty, and over the years have talked with dozens of combat vets, vets from Normandy to Desert Storm, and the only commonality among them is this: they don’t brag. They don’t preen. Shit, most of the time they won’t even talk about their wartime activities. My new pal was full of shit to his eye sockets.

“When I got out,” Denny went on, “I fought MMA.”

Oh sweet weeping Christ on an ant farm. MMA? Really?What’d you do after that: locate Jimmy Hoffa? Invent cold fusion?

“That how you messed up your ankle?” I asked, nodding at the bandage-wrapped brace on his leg. “Originally, I mean?”

“This? Oh, fuck no, brother. Stepped wrong getting out of my truck and turned it.” He pantomimed the injurious maneuver for me. Martha Graham, eat your heart out. “No, man. Thirty-seven MMA bouts and never a broken bone. Prob’ly gonna need surgery on it now, though. Prob’ly.”

“Bummer, man. That sucks.” Then, looking for some words that, when properly assembled and delivered, would provide me with a friendly exit line, I added, “Nice there’s a pool here, though. Swimming is good physical therapy.”

“Fuck me if I’ll ever swim in that sewage dump,” Denny growled. “Too many little toads.”

I cocked my head at him, but because I was wearing sun glasses he took the tilt of my noggin to mean I hadn’t understood what he’d said. So, he repeated it, and added further illustrative remarks.

“Y’know, toads,” he said. “Niggers.”

Sadly, it took nearly another ten minutes for me to escape Denny’s clutches and put my apartment door between me and him.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Denny’s largest personal accessory. Every time I saw him he wore around his neck, on a leather lanyard, a great big wooden cross. And by big, I mean it had roughly enough girth and heft to anchor a swordfish boat.

How jolly. Another batshit Christian in the Land of Batshit Christians.

Note

My interaction with Denny the morning after the fire was…uh…special. And, it turned out that what I was now calling the Fire Situation was only beginning to become a situation, and was already well on its way to becoming a Complete Cluster-Fuck.

So, watch for Part III of Fire in the Hole. Coming soon to a computer near you. And don’t forget to bring your sippin’ whiskey…

Cheers.

Fire in the Hole, Part 1

OK, so, for my next little essay I had planned on talking about the wonderful occasion that was the FreeOK convention in Tulsa that happened a couple of weeks back. Ah, but then I ended up having one of those days I’m so fond of telling you about, one of those days that simply befuddle my unwieldy little brain. This one, however, turned into something a bit more unusual. It turned into a really fucked up week, which now seems likely to morph into a really fucked up month.

So, without further ado…

Friday, June 29^th

The shitty day-cum-shitty-week started off in its ordinary dull fashion—work, taking stupid calls from people too stupid to own smartphones. But when that was over at last, I headed home with big plans for my evening. I had drinks with my pal Jane, followed by a late dinner of Chinese food. It was a really nice time, relaxing and full of energetic conversation. On the way home I Red-Boxed a couple of flicker-shows, intent on a few hours of sofa-time, accompanied by a few glasses of fine bourbon (Booker’s, if you’re curious).

My apartment complex is “secured” by a gate, which spans the entrance at the end of a short double-sided driveway. Sometimes cars line up on the entry side, waiting for someone to buzz then through, or simply waiting for a tenant with a key card to come along and let them in. See: security…

I rounded the corner into the short drive and came to a rocking halt. There were about ten cars lined up in there. Shit. Impatient to get to my movies and bourbon, I fidgeted in my seat. And when I craned my head around for a better look and saw that the gate was wide open, my annoyance increased. Talking to the entire conglomeration of cars, I muttered, “Oh, come on. Move your ass.”

Right about then a fire truck, lights off, rolled slowly by the group of autos, out the exit drive, and the cars began moving. Problem solved. The stage, as they say, was set, for a communion with the liquid goddess of Kentucky.

My apartment complex is one of those big suburban motherfuckers with like ten thousand units, all kludged together like a gerbil habitat with a thyroid problem, and my place was way in the back at the end of a twisting traffic lane. Rounding a curve, I saw a disco-worthy wash of flashing red blue and white lights; emergency vehicles of various sizes and occupations.

Hmmmm, I thought.

And right on the heels of that, I thought, Looks like they’re near my building. That thought jangled against bourbon thoughts as I drew closer to the action.

Yep, lots and lots of fire trucks, ambulances, and cop cruisers, alongside the usual number of firemen, EMTs, and lawdogs—and, yes, the usual number of scruffy, bathrobed onlookers getting in the way of the professionals. I slowed. Then parked, surprisingly close to my customary slot. I climbed from my car, staring.

Not only was the action happening near my building, it was happening in my building.

A couple of firefighters seemed to have just finished hosing down my balcony and my bedroom window. Which I had left open. And under which sat my desk and my computer.

Awwwww…fuck me in the eye.

Observing some still-billowing smoke, I wandered over to a clutch of my neighbors. They were sitting in Nylon camping chairs arranged around a big cooler of beer. The guy who lived directly below me, a freak of nature named Denny, tossed me a can of Coors Light. The scene felt like a barbecue at H. Bosch’s pool.

“What’s happening?” I asked, generally, then added, feeling stupid, “I mean this. What caused it?”

“Drugs,” said Denny, and the weird old dude from across the courtyard, whose name I can never remember, nodded in wobbly geriatric agreement. Denny has drugs on the brain. And, so far as I was ever able to tell, very little else.

“What?” I asked, thinking, What?

“Drugs. Meth. Bitch in the place behind you was cooking meth.”

“Oh,” I said, this time thinking, Oh, bullshit. No one was cooking meth. It’s explosively toxic, and you can smell the  ammonia and chemical solvents hundreds of yards away. That’s why they cook the foul fucking stuff out in the country. Dumbass.

Not that I voiced any of that to Denny, mind you. He’s crazy as a wharf rat and about as predictable as a spastic puppy, but more on him in a bit.

I stood around drinking my beer and watching the firemen for twenty or thirty minutes, then started calling people, just to see if I could locate a bed for the evening. Sadly, it was, by now, after midnight, and folks weren’t answering their phones. Maybe, I reasoned, the damage wouldn’t be too bad and I could camp on my own floor anyway. Yeah, right, sure. No sooner had I thought that thought that a fireman galumphed from my doorway and I heard him ask some people from the complex’s management team who lived there. I strode forward and announced myself.

“Better find a motel for the night, guy,” said the fireman. “Your apartment’s trashed.”

“Like trashed, trashed, or like totally trashed?”

“It’s bad,” he said. “You can’t go in there ‘til tomorrow morning.” And he headed away on some other flame-related undertaking.

I looked at the management people. Didn’t say anything. Just looked at ‘em until they grew weary of it and talked to me.

“We are working on it, sir,” offered a petite blond, who I recalled seeing in the office from time to time. “Come by first thing in the morning. We’ll have more information.”

“OK,” I said, and I have to admit that a strange sort of dazed feeling was turning my brain into a soggy hand towel.

Several tenants gathered around, asking all the questions people ask when their stuff is suddenly turned into what looks like the leftover crap at the bottom of a charcoal grill. Some were screaming. One tall guy just kept shouting, “Fuck you all! This is your fucking fault!” over and over again. Then he stomped off toward the parking spaces, still hollering. Other people were quietly and calmly inquiring about replacement apartments, access to their present places, etc. Crazy Denny, who a minute before had been informing everyone within earshot how he was “…gonna sue the shit out of someone,” turned into Mr. Obsequious, nodding like a bobblehead and avidly lapping up everything the management people served him as if they were the Greatest and Most Caring People he had ever met.

I didn’t see any reason to continue hanging around, so I drained my beer, tossed the can in the bushes (they had a half-roasted building to clean up, so what was the big deal about an aluminum can), took my Red Box movies and drove away. I roamed around for a while, knowing I should be looking for a motel, or a handy refrigerator carton, but not really getting anywhere, largely due to the disconnected murkiness in my head. But then I happened upon a Courtyard (by Marriott!) and veered across three lanes to access its parking lot.

Sweaty (since this was Oklahoma, it was still about ninety degrees out) and dusted with residual soot, I wandered into the lobby and approached the desk clerk. Since I hadn’t managed to contact anyone by phone, I felt I needed to tell someone what had happened to me, and the clerk provided a sympathetic ear. He also offered 30% off my room and a couple of free bottles of water, both of which I accepted with true gratitude and a handshake.

Up on the third floor, my room was already nicely air-conditioned. I drank water, wished I could brush my teeth, and fell into bed.

At 7:30 the next morning the fire alarms went off.

(Coming soon: Part Two of Fire in the Hole…)