Our little family of five drove south in a  ten-year-old minivan with cookies, dreams, and paperwork to board a cruise ship called the Freedom of the Seas.  Parking for seven days cost $120.00, the approximate bluebook value of the van, or one can of soda aboard the ship.

It was a beautiful day in Cape Canaveral, Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center.  Astronauts used to come here for a shot at the moon; we were going to Coco Cay.   It was our first cruise.

Waiting to board the ship, we entered our first line.  This would become our routine.  At the end of this line a nice elderly lady asked me to take off my baseball hat for a photograph.  Yes, she was wise to my devious scheme, one in which I had intended to use this disguise to rob sodas from the machine.  She then issued our sea cards, which would soon become the most important thing in the whole wide world.  You cannot, I repeat, you cannot lose your sea card.  Gabi lost her sea card.  Seriously?  You need this card for everything.  Eats, drinks, and especially the casino (yes, my twelve year old used her own disguise to play craps).  You even need your sea card to sing Karaoke.  I should know.  I took a shot of tequila one night and belted out I don’t want to miss a thing, by Aerosmith.  The MC came up to me afterwards and said that he didn’t think a hick from North Carolina had it in him to sing Aerosmith.  I wasn’t offended because mostly I was drunk, on vacation, and indeed rather hickish in appearance.

Once everyone was aboard the ship the captain held a drill.  The rooms were cleared.  The pool.  The bars.  In gestapo-like fashion they marched us down the stairs, several different agents along the way demanding to see our paperwork.  “To the right, deck four,” they yelled.  “Mustering point seven.  Next!”  Every floor another agent asked to see our paperwork, and don’t even think about trying to slip past them even though by now you know … to the right on deck four.  Got it.  Mustering point seven.  Bullhorns announced that the drill was required per international law, veiled threats of internment for those unwilling to comply.  Once on deck four they told us that in the event of an actual emergency nothing will happen as planned.  To go ahead and forget which dingy we were supposed to crawl into and run around screaming for our lives.  Every man for himself, they said.  Woman and children … when we get around to them.

Back inside the ship, we found lines for coffee, the hot tubs, and the ice cream stand called, Sprinkles.  We stood in lines just to find out where the lines ended.  Most led you to food, but there were also line for mini-golf and Ms. Pacman, lines to climb the rock wall or to ice skate.  There were lines for the elevator, and lines for apparently no reason at all.  People would just come out of their rooms and find a line to stand in.  Shrug, and say, “Why the hell not?  We’re on vacation.”

We took out a second mortgage on our home to rent two rooms for the week, both of which were about the size of a Photo Booth.  Instead of a camera there was a bed, a small sofa, which we used for a suitcase, and a bathroom, where a man could shower, shit and shave all in the same spot.  We had a sliding-glass door that led out to a balcony, the solution to all your problems about eight stories down.  Looking over the edge, I wondered how many people had jumped?  How many, in a drunken stupor, had fallen overboard?  Would the ship’s captain even tell us if something like that were to happen?  “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  Last night we had a young man disembark the ship prematurely.  Don’t worry, he’s dead.  Well, most likely he’s dead.  No one knows for sure.  Anyway, we’re not turning back.  Screw that hippie.  We got a port call in two hours, and we are not going to be late for Coco Cay?”  The rest of guests would have cheered, trust me, but we were late for Coco Cay anyhow.  Something about a fuel leak.  The captain told us not to worry.  “This type of mechanical failure happens all the time, but as a precaution we’re asking the smokers onboard to cease and desist until further notice.”

Coco Cay is a remote island owned by the same holding company that owns the ship.  The crew loaded the passengers onto a smaller ship called a Tender, and through choppy waters they took us ashore where the fleecing continued until moral improved.  Just off the beach was the jumpy house, an hour costing about what a jumpy house would cost on ebay.  Renting a jet ski cost about as much as a jet ski, with a tank of gas on the house.  At eleven a.m. they fired up the grills, and everyone stood in another long line for meat and an apple, and then engaged in a game of musical chairs for a coveted spot at a picnic table.  At noon the rain began to fall.  We had tickets to the aqua park.  The young man who ran the show said that in the event of lightning they would have no choice but to suspend operations.  When the clouds rolled with thunder we promptly cancelled our tickets.  A young girl raised her hand, and asked about the thunder.  The same young man said, “Thunder is okay so long as their ain’t no lightning.  Weren’t you listening to what I said earlier?”  The young girl seemed confused, stayed and listened to the safety brief.  Our party left for the line back to the mother ship.  A drunk guy behind us kept keying his walky talky, asking Scottie to beam him aboard.  A sign said to not feed the birds, but we fed them anyway.  More rainfall came, and more thunder, and back behind us the little girl obeyed the stringent rules of the aqua park.

Later in the cruise, we made it to St. Thomas.  From the port we took another small boat to St. Johns, where we hiked along a narrow forest trail to a place called Honeymoon Beach.  The snorkeling there was phenomenal.  We saw coral, sting rays and colorful fish.  On the hike back we came across a family of donkeys heading in the opposite direction, and my girls screamed like there was no tomorrow, scrambling aside to allow the determined family of three safe passage.  Later along the trail I picked up a hermit crab, and the little bastard popped out and bit me on the finger.  My son found that hilarious, the little …  My wife and I spotted a UFO, an unidentified furry object that looked like a cross between a monkey and a ferret.  On the ride back to the mother ship they gave us free drinks, and by the time we arrived everyone was pretty much drunk and having the time of their lives.

Every night there was a show at seven p.m.  Either stand up comedy, magic, Broadway musical tributes, or death-defying high-wire acts.  A New York comic asked how many democrats were in the audience.  Two people clapped, and were subsequently booed by the rest in attendance.  The comic gulped, told a few more jokes, and then shuffled off the stage with an apologetic shrug

There were shops on the fifth deck, Ben and Jerry’s and cupcakes.  For twenty bucks you could buy a wallet and watch, and my kids couldn’t wait to one, spend their money, and two, lose what seconds ago they couldn’t live without.  On the eleventh deck were the pools, hot tubs, and just enough deck chairs to start a riot over.  A sign says don’t reserve the chairs, but who goes on vacation to read signs? Better to get up early and lay claim, and then find yourself in an argument with the one person who read the sign and subsequently stole your chair while you went to get ice cream at Sprinkles.  (FYI, there were no sprinkles at Sprinkles, just cones, three flavors, and another long line, although not in that order.)

One morning we woke up at St. Maarten, and took a taxi cab to the French beaches.  West of the rocks, old men and women walked around naked.  I know this because I told my kids to stay put, and went there (ran there) with my wife.  It was quite deflating, so to speak.  At no time were we inclined to join the shriveled masses.  Men, penis to penis, chatted politics and weather.  Ladies sunbathed on their cots, legs spread wide, some shaven, most not.  C’est la vie.  The cutest thing we saw was a naked puppy on a surf board, with several sets of unbridled tits.  Just adorable.

Back on the sane side of the beach, the sand was fine and warm, the waters clear.  Eric, our waiter, brought drinks as we lay on our chairs.  The kids built sand castles, and the girls had their hair braided by the ladies who came by with bracelets for sale.  Young ladies wore thong bikinis.  Chloe and I got the jet ski up to fifty five miles per hour, and the day went by even faster.

The next two days were spent at sea.  We slept in, ate good food, watched movies by the pool, and rotated our necks beneath the ice cream machine.  And yes, we stood in more lines.  Regardless, there were far more smiles and laughter, and that’s what I’ll remember the most.  The kids giggling by the pool with friends, everyone getting dressed up for the formal dinners.  It was our first cruise, and most likely won’t be our last.  Next year, however, we’re going to see if the lines aren’t a bit thinner at Yosemite, with hopefully just as many smiles.

P.S.  Perhaps later I’ll post about what happened after the waiter at the beach restaurant in St. Maarten gave us a free bottle of rum and shot glasses.  My wife told me that if I wrote about that she’d kill me.  And for now, I just can’t take that chance.

Not that I’m in a whimsical mood; however, writing about an old and murdering friend got me remembering about a time in my life that I’d rather forget.

Yes, we stole a car.  A pickup truck to be exact, but don’t get all high and mighty just yet.  Imagine if Justin Bieber or Lady GaGa was playing at a nearby venue.  Iggy Pop.  The Wiggles.  And you were in a mood to rock out with your cock out.  Certainly  you would have sneaked around the neighborhood looking for unlocked cars with keys beneath the floor mats.

FYI, don’t leave your keys beneath the floor mats, or on top of the visors, just like you shouldn’t leave your wallet in your shoes when you take them off to bowl.  Sure, it seems like a foolproof idea, perhaps even brilliant at the time, but everyone’s doing it, even the crooks.  Little miscreants like us, sneaking around with barely enough money in their pockets for nose-bleed tickets to the show.

We didn’t exactly hit the jackpot.  The truck was a POS, short for piece of, well, you know.  A hoopty with a bad muffler and no heat, with a half tank of gasoline.  An AM radio, and we listened to the Mighty 690.  We had a stash of beer and a baggie of weed, but I’ll never admit to this in a court of law.  We had Ozzy on the brain, Crazy Train and War Pig – in the field the bodies burning, as the war machine keeps turning.  To a couple of teenage boys, that song was the freaking bomb.

Entering the city, we followed the signs the Portland Memorial Coliseum, found parking in a handicap zone.  Was that wrong of us?  What’s worse, stealing a truck, or stealing a handicap spot … with a stolen truck?

We bought our tickets and went inside.  It was our second concert, the first being the Oregon Jam at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Quiet Riot – Come on feel the noise, girls rock your boys – with Loverboy, Joan Jett and Night Ranger –  Sister Christian oh the time has come, and you know that you’re the only one so say … okay!  And so we were seasoned professionals, cocky and hip, tucka tucka tucka!  And because we were in a stealing-kinda-mood, we found better seats on the floor, closer to the action.  We sang along, riding a contact high to the encore.  We high-fived people that we didn’t know and hugged others.  We yelled Ozzy countless times, and if felt great.  What a perfect name.  Ozzy!  Imagine Nigel or Benjamin, it wouldn’t have been the same.  Benjamin, Benjamin.  Too many consonants.

When it was over, we made out with a couple of girls in the parking lot, and then one of their fathers pulled up and honked his horn.

Back at the truck, we threw away the parking ticket.  Not our problem.  (I imagine now the poor old man getting this in mail, a parking ticket from a city hundreds of miles away when he was home that night asleep, oh the injustice.)

We must have been the only kids from our small town who attended, because the drive back home was lonely.  The time was north of midnight, and we were heading south on Highway 26.  Literally, there was no one else on the road.

The gas was getting low.

There was no way that we were going to make it home.

In this, our time of need, I turned to religion.

I asked God for help.

If we run out of gas how will we suffer the cold or coyotes, there on foot for another hundred miles with snow on the sides of the roads?  Amid the vast and harsh Oregon wilderness?

Karma, that’s what it was.  Still, I prayed to God.  Just do me a solid, oh Lord, and I’ll turn over a new leaf, be better, stop smoking weed and drinking, get good grades.  Obey the Ten Commandments.  You name it, I’m there!

The engine puttered  and then starved, and we were coasting.

God would be putting us to the test after all.

And karma is a bitch.

But I swear that this next part is true, and would do so with my hand on the bible and in a court of law, for sure!  Fo sho!

From behind us some headlights appeared.  Another car, and perhaps the occupants were friendly.  Distant, but closing in on us as we coasted to a stop.

We hit the hazard lights, and waited.

When the car neared, we exited with intentions of flagging them down.

They could have been murdering lunatics for all we knew.

A religious cult.

Gang members on initiation week, out to kill a couple of doped-out honkies.

We had no other options, so please, God, I’ll be good from now on, promise.

It was a white utility pickup truck, and it pulled up behind us.   A man exited, and asked how we were doing.  Asked if there was a problem.  We informed him that we had run out of gas, and he turned, went to the back of his truck, and returned with a gas can.

“I work for the state,” he said.  “Canvas the roads looking for people who need help.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.  I got gas, water and food.  You boys hungry?”

In fact we had the munchies.

“There’s chips on the front seat,” he said, removing the gas cap to our stolen truck.  “Help yourselves.”

We ate Doritos while he put gas in the truck.

We must have reeked of booze and pot, but when he was done he just smiled and patted us on the backs.  “You boys take good care.”

“Thanks, mister.  You too.”

We started the engine and drove away.  He followed for a while, and then flipped around and drove the other way.

From the passenger’s seat my murdering friend said, “We got a fatty left.  Wanna smoke it?”

“Hell yeah, bro.  Spark that shit up.”

I remember a boy named Tony Yee.  His father was estranged, and his mother remarried.  Her name was Judy Nathan.

Tony and I first met in the sixth grade.  His family moved in next door from California, and he was an only child.  Their’s was a small ranch-style home on the corner of First and H Street, in a poor mill town in central Oregon.  Tony’s stepfather was an American Indian, and worked at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation some twenty-odd miles north of our town.  His mother, Judy, worked as a cashier at a local convenience store.

Our town was barely on the map, the census back then around 1,500 residents, a place where everyone knew your business.  Buses ran to and from school, but it wasn’t uncommon to take to foot and walk.  The junior high was a stone throw from our neighborhood, the high school a bit further.  Oftentimes we stopped by the grocery store before or after school, drinking sodas and playing video games.  Astroids was all the rage, and Defender.  On the weekends we hunted for soda and beer cans, and exchanged these for nickels.  When we weren’t in school we threw rocks along the rivers, and when in a more daring mood we crossed the train trestles that lay several hundred feet above the gorge, listening for the distant horns from encroaching locomotives.

We both came from broken homes, but never spoke of this unseemly bond.  We needed escape, and found it in each other, running the streets in innocent games of tag or kick the can, down at the school at the outdoor basketball hoops.  Fashion was unheard of, but we tried like hell to be cool.  Upon entering high school, we succumbed to peer pressure and smoked weed and drank beer.  No one told us that we couldn’t.  My grades slipped, and his fared even worse.  But what did it matter?  The future was a luxury that we couldn’t afford.  However, there were times when Tony talked about becoming a garbageman in San Francisco, the city from where he moved.  A friend of the family was making fifteen bucks an hour, and after thirty years planned on retiring with a life-long pension and money in the bank.  Sadly, Tony’s dreams were better than my own.

My sophomore year was dark with drugs and alcohol.  I look back now and hate the kid that I was.  He was everything wrong with society, a rebellious loser, having spent a few too many nights in the county jail for offenses that no parents ought to be proud of, and mine weren’t either.  Mostly, my parents were indifferent, because dad had problems of his own.  No, he wasn’t an alcoholic or abusive.  Dad was slowly dying, and toward the latter years it became rather ugly.  Pain medication wasn’t helping, and my mother had had enough, was slowly losing her mind.  The family was unravelling, and so what did it matter that I turned to alternate means of managing the pain that was my own?

In the summertime we worked for the local farmers, moving irrigation pipes or hoeing mint in the myriad fields.  We spent our money on clothes, shoes and drugs.  To pay off our debt to society, a judge ordered us to community service, wherein we spent a good portion of the summer washing county cops cars or cleaning the horse stalls down at the fair grounds.

Halfway through our junior year he and his mother moved back to San Francisco.  We kept in touch with phone calls and remained rather close.  That summer, we convinced our mothers that it would be in our best interests if he moved in with my family to finish out high school.  What happened then was inexcusable.  Our behavior was not something that I am proud of, and never would I allow my children the mere thoughts of such criminal antics.  We took to drinking and driving, stealing cars and money.  We fought with whomever wherever, and avoided the law by flight of foot or by car.  My grades plummeted, and so did his.  My senior year was the glitch in the DVD, a fragmented schism, but I know that it existed.  I have the yearbook to prove it, and there I am in the photos.  And there’s Tony, and oftentimes we’re standing together.

Judy drove up for graduation, and discovered at the ceremony that her son, Tony, wouldn’t be graduating.  He had missed too many classes, and his grades were abysmal.  How I managed to squeak by remains a mystery, for I had Fs of my own.  Tony went home with his mother, back to San Francisco, and I never heard from him again.

Dad was near death, and I had to get away.  From everything.  From the town and from my family, from all the influences and the drugs, and start life anew.  I took the remedial classes at Oregon Tech, and eventually earned credit hours that could be applied toward graduation.  My head cleared, and then my body.  How I went from one extreme to another I’ll never know.  A guardian angel?  Some internal drive that didn’t awaken until I turned 18?  Oftentimes I wonder on my younger years had I not met up with Tony.  Was he the catalyst for my near destruction?  Was I his?  Or were we simply bad together?

When I graduated from Southern Oregon I joined the Marine Corps.  My head was clear and my heart was strong.  The trials of Officer Candidate School were nothing compared to those that I had grown up with.  From Quantico, Virginia, they sent me to flight school in Florida – the beginning of a career in aviation.  I’ve travelled the world, and I believe that as a United States Marine I’ve done some good.  Perhaps enough to balance me out; perhaps enough to make me whole.

Late last year, in 2013, an old high school friend sent an email.  “Look up Tony Yee,” he said, and so I fired up Google and went to work.  His full name is Anthony David Yee, and I found several articles in different northern California newspapers.  From high school, Tony joined the Marine Corps, but from what could be gleaned he ran into trouble and was soon forced out.  From there he spent time in and out of prison, until years later he found himself homeless and alone.  According to an article, Judy wanted nothing further to do with him.  She was living alone.  One day she left home for work.  Later that night, upon returning, she found her son waiting …

… a man of forty five …

… my best friend growing up.

Several days went by, and Judy failed to show for work.  Her coworkers phoned the police, and informed them that Judy was afraid of her son, who had showed up out of the blue days ago seeking shelter.  The cops went to her house, where Tony answered the door.  Inside, the cops found signs of a struggle.  They arrested Tony, and eventually found Judy.

In court, Tony confessed to murdering his mother.  At first he attempted to strangle her with a rope.  When she successfully fought him off, he grabbed a ball-peen hammer … and went to work.  That night, he drove around looking for a place to hide the body.  Out of ideas, he returned to his mother’s home and stuffed her body down a neighbor’s septic tank.  A judge sentenced him to life without parole inside of a high-security California prison.

Several thoughts have come to pass.  Is he inherently evil?  Certainly there’s an argument to be made.  Had he gone crazy and desperate?  Since we were best friends, and considering our debauchery together, am I too inherently evil?  Which, I don’t believe to be true.  Perhaps we become what we nourish, society quick to forgive the criminal antics of a juvenile, but not so much with a man and his murder.  Interesting in that we both joined the Corps, and where he failed I in turn flourished.  What I know of my time in the Corps: we are a rag-tag group of war fighters, comprised of both good and bad men intent to keep evil at bay.  Which again, existentially speaking, puts into question my nature.  In killing other men, I would sleep easy.  In killing his mother, does he?  I wonder if he still dreams?  Or are his nights full of monsters?  Was I there at the turning point of his life, like the night when we stole a truck to drive to Portland and, of all things, watch an Ozzy Osbourne concert?  Was it the night he dropped acid?  The list goes on, and does it even matter?  He nourished the evil inside, his nature be damned.  Although I too feel the evil, always near, I drop to my knees and pray to a God that I hardly believe in.  An illusion perhaps that allows our species civility and life, that governs demonic desires.  Perhaps mankind is inherently evil or good, some percentage of both?  Who really knows?  Pondering the meaning of life is an exercise in futility.  We live, we laugh, some murder, and in the end we all die.

I remember his laugh, and wonder whether it held joy or cruelty.  If he ever knew love?  If we were ever really friends, or associates in crime?

Has he since examined his life?  Have I, and have you?

One night I’ll never forget: we were juniors in high school, and I was spending the night at his house, which wasn’t often.  Judy and her husband went off to bed.  Before long they were having sex.  It was obvious.  Tony and I were sitting in front of the television set, high on weed.  The living room was dark, just the glow of the television set.  He grabbed the remote control, and turned down the volume, which had the effect of amplifying the sounds from the master bedroom.  He looked at me, and didn’t break eye contact.  Just looked at me with the dead and hateful eyes of a Rottweiler, and didn’t say a word.  Looked at me until I got up and walked away, into the bedroom, closing the door.  Was he embarrassed?  Did he hate his mother for loving another man?  Who knows, but after all these years I know the look in his eyes while he waited for his mother to come home from work.  How he sat in the darkness with the television on and the volume turned down.  Sat for her, and waited.

My first post just happens to coincide with the Thanksgiving holiday 2013.

Here is my take on the matter:

I just love this time of year, ‘tis the season for giving.
Everywhere we look there are people giving thanks. Giving middle fingers, and more intimately giving the clap. We give each other heartburn and are happy to do so. Want a heart attack? My pleasure.
When did this new fad begin where we give thanks every single day in the month of November? Wish I had that much to be thankful about. I want to give thanks, but seriously, should I be thankful for these bunions? What about the hemorrhoids blister that I’ve named Becky? (Oh yes I did, Becky.) And should I give thanks to my massively receding hairline?
Not to be a bummer, but what about the weather – global warming and melting ice caps and hurricanes and tsunamis? So thank you weather chasers, as I sit in my lounge chair laughing my ass off while you try and outrun the tornados.
Thank you bananas. Seriously, I just ate one and it was delicious.
Thank you head lice, for hours of entertainment popping the shit out of you.
Not that I’ve had head lice, and I’ve never had the clap, either. (Becky!)
Thank you middle age and Vegas body shots and my stupid pierced earlobe.
Thank you Men’s magazine for showing me the body that I’ll never have, and then showing me a better body the month after you promised me six-pack abs. You know what? Fuck you, Men’s magazine. I hate you!
Thank you deep breaths.
Thank you Robin Leach, you prick, for showing me the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Thanks you hot tub of water and my little rubber ducky, candles and wine and masturbation. Hell, I could give an entire week of thanks to masturbation alone (Becky!).
Thank you Dexter for killing all the people that I don’t have the skill or courage to kill. But I’m right there with you, strapping those assholes to tables and plunging my knife deep inside their black heartless hearts. Psst. Dexter. You do it a little too quickly. Honestly, why should killing be as quick as masturbation? How’s about a little foreplay, and we can start with the middle finger of the guy who flipped me off the other day in traffic? The lady with the wicked tongue in the checkout line we cut out her tongue. You get the picture. The pervert, his prick. You get the picture.
Thank you Toby. He’s my little dog. He’s cuddly and lovable, and I’m quite certain that should I ever die in bed he’d eat my face off.
Thank you technology. I fucking hate you technology, but maybe if I say thanks you’ll be a little kinder.
Thank you DC politicians for our roads and the military and for allowing me to spice up my boring life while my jerkoff friends and I talk on the phone about overthrowing McDonalds. “Who is this Big Mac that they wish to hold hostage?”
Thank you Ipad for allowing me to read the news without paying for a subscription, although Toby liked the newspapers better. Bad Toby!
Thank you tradition, for turkey and stuffing and cranberries and pumpkin pie.
Thank you bulimia.
Thank you curser for blinking the way you do. But really, who’s the sadistic techie that made you blink like that, over and over with the blinking, like some pendulum, or some guy tapping his foot waiting for an answer. Die, curser, die!
Wait. Don’t die. I feel I’d be lost without you.
Thank you leaf blower. We’ve had some real good times, giving it to the leaves the way we did. Becky used to blow me like that.
Thank you Black Friday, for all of the wonderful videos you post on the Internet. For making me feel sorry for that fat asshole who rushed to the front of the line only to be trampled by fatter assholes behind him. For the cameraman who faces the hurricane of thrifty, dopy shoppers. For the incoherent interviews, about how people had no idea that it was going to be this bad. “Last year was bad, but this shit here real bad!”
Thank you bad, for being badder every year.
Really, I just love this time of year.
What’s not to love?