Mancation: It All Ends in Newport

They had never been to Newport. So we went.

We drove down America’s Cup Avenue looking out at the marina and the rows of shops. We went down Bellevue past the Breakers, Elms, and the Marble house. We took the road  till it ended and looked for a place to park. There are no places to park. We parked anyways.

Newport is salty aired luxury. Money with a splash of sea-foam. It is beautiful. Gilded, but beautiful. We climbed over the rocks with waves in front of us and mansions behind us, and we did… nothing.

Kaleo and I sat in this metaphor, adventure before us, wealth, responsibility and stability behind us, and we waver in between with no parking. This is what we do. We flirt with risk, dip our feet in the water, but cannot abandon the safety of the shore. We cannot inhabit the mansion, we not only can’t afford it but we have no idea who owns it. So we scamper about the lawn peaking in windows and talking to the grounds crew. We will likely never gain entry, and I think in some way we are fine with that. Envy is so much easier than ambition and we have convinced ourselves that the salt of the earth tends to lose its savor when placed on the top shelf.

But not Preston. Preston scampered over rocks like he had a plan. He has always had a plan and in so doing he will soon not need a parking space because he will have a garage. Kaleo and I will one day trespass his property and he will allow it. We will all be fine with this.

We had forgotten breakfast. It was our last day and we had still not finished off our cooler full of bacon. We set up shop by the old fort, cooking bacon while the holiday crowd launched their boats. Kaleo and I sat, eating greasy things, looking stoic. We are good at looking stoic. This fog of thought and sleep was interrupted by a pasty streak that came shooting from behind the car, over the rocks, and into the water with a splash.

Preston’s head came back up for air, and quickly the rest of him clamored over to hug a rock. His chest was bright red and he gasped with only marginal success for air. “C… huuuh… O.. huuuu… L…. huuuu… D!

Kaleo and I watched him soggily gasp for air, looked at each other, and we both sighed in disappointment.

I did not feel like swimming. I am a grown man who makes his own decisions. No one was telling me to do anything. No one had spoken a single syllable and here I was, Kaleo too, grumpily digging our trunks out of our bags. We are those special kinds of idiots called men. Preston knew what he was doing when he dove in the water. He threw down the gauntlet without warning and we had no choice.

Why did we have no choice? I have no idea. Like I said, we are idiots. Happy idiots.

Cold water challenges are great for the soul. We were all happy as we attempted to dry off and clean up the scraps of our breakfast. Nothing kills happiness like a ten year old.

“So have you guys been swimming?” the pudgy little guy asked as he walked past us, snorkel and mask in hand.

“We jumped in. It’s cold but we are manly.”

“I don’t mind cold. If you want something even mannisher… manner… manliest, there is a hole in the middle of the bay that no one has found the bottom of. My dad dove in it. That’s our boat over there.”

With that our manliness was trumped by a ten year old with a yacht.

How fitting.

Maple Seltzer

Smelling a bit like a salty camp fire we sat in the car and drove south. Back toward the Bronx, the turnpike, and on to home. The conversation was mostly exhausted, we were tired, but mostly we were happy.

Above all else, happy.

Business Travel

Priceline, Kayak, Jet Blue; I almost forgot to check Jet Blue. The GSU event begins at 10am, wait, where exactly is GSU? Statesboro. Where exactly is Statesboro? Okay, this flight lands at 9, how far is Statesboro from the airport? Fine,  I’ll take the flight that lands at 8:50. Now from GSU I go right to Boston. What time does the Boston event start?

In order to land at 8:50 I must take off at 5:30. I do my best to ignore what time I must wake up in order to take off at 5:30.

I park in the lot and take a picture of E/35 knowing there is no way I will remember the space when I get back next week. I get the text reminders telling me to check in online but I have an extra bag. To the counter I go. The counter is mostly for tourists, the ones wearing cheetah print sweat pants and slippers. They travel with giant three week capacity bags and  stand between the self check kiosks and the counter confused. The people behind the counter mostly just watch.

I am in boarding zone 4. Most wearing ties pre-board. It looks crowded and I worry my briefcase will have to go under the seat rather than above. If it goes underneath, my feet will have no where to go and I won’t be able to sleep. I have the isle seat, the other guy has the middle, no one is at the window. When they close the door he slides over. Lucky again.

I open a book and ignore the safety presentation then get jogged awake when the wheels hit the ground. I realize I’ve been drooling and look coyly around. Everyone else pretends they didn’t notice and I collect my bags and wait my turn to get off.

Then I wait my turn at the carousel.

Then I wait my turn at the rental counter. They give me a Fiat that looks like a Smartcar. I don’t mind. I hop in, pull my gps out of my bag, rifle through it a bit more. Where is the mounting bracket for the gps? I have the Garmin but no mount. Sigh.

I drive an hour with the Garmin in my lap.

I am on time. The event goes well. Not a bad campus, a bit corporate for my taste, where does one eat? Brand new state-of-the-art dining hall and all they serve is Burger King and Taco Bell? I stop at a grocery store on the way to the Days Inn.

My phone rings at 7:30 but when I answer I just sit and listen to, “What are you doing? No you have to brush your teeth every night but come here first. What do you mean you have math? I thought you only had the book report. Where is your sister? Come on Dad is on the phone ready for a prayer…. Okay Dad are you ready?

There is a chorus of I love you after we say Amen and she promises to call back once they are all in bed.

I refuse to pay $12.50 per night for internet and spend the next half hour trying to figure out why my my-fi card won’t work. I suppose I can do my data entry tomorrow.

Wait… what time does the plane leave tomorrow?

By the end of the week I have stood in lines, sat in seats, talked, gained ten pounds, and traveled twice as far as Marco Polo ever did in a year.

Again; to the city

“The city” means only one place.

Bolt Bus can get me there for one dollar and two hours. I can afford both of those. I arrived at the Tick-Tock Diner at around eight and went directly underground.I go south to the financial district. The trains are crowded with people who appear to have jobs. It is noisy, loud and no one speaks. In my suit I appear like them, further legitimized by the two canvases under my arm; people in ties don’t carry paintings around at 8 am without being legit. Unless you are me.When I surface I am greeted by the growing Freedom Tower. It looks appropriately aspirational, just like me.  But I check myself knowing it is growing from tragedy while I am simply striving to rise above mediocrity. Mediocrity is its own tragedy.

My official business this morning does not include the paintings I am carrying so I arrive a little early to place them out of the way. Business goes till noon and I am set free. I loiter outside a bit as crowds swarm around. Everyone has somewhere to go, even the tourists. All are rushing about with the real difference being locals look down and visitors look up. the visitors also sport comfortable, normally ugly, shoes. No one looks at each other while I stand in the crowd and look at them all.

I am in the heart of American progress and modernity with free time on my hands so I choose to walk south a little more to the Museum of the American Indian. Feels appropriate.

Here, in New York, tourists from the Dakotas can look at relics from the Sioux and Crow. But before too many jokes are made it must be said, the relics here are from Indians with names some modern Americans may actually know. A shirt taken from the back of Sitting Bull, a tomahawk from Tecumseh, and a pipe from Joseph Brandt. There is a sad pride and irony that these heroes, celebrated for the victories they won in their day, have left relics to later be displayed as testament of their ultimate defeat. The realization of this symbolism frightens me.

Being this deep in thought when your mind is not right, is not good. No place is better to live life on the surface than Soho. so I go.

In Soho you are pretty or over the top. Maybe just on the edge but none of these things are normal. I like it here. In the financial district chins are held high but the shoulders are aggressively forward. Here chins are high but the shoulders sag with arms swinging lazily. It is hard to act cool when you are carrying things, I look utilitarian. I’m fine with that. I am going somewhere up in the East Village.

“I look horrible,” Grahame says. “Grrrr. Do you want to buy a scooter from this aggressive looking man?” he mocks in his English accent. I try to convince him that everyone thinks the painting looks great but he is right. He is a man who perpetually smiles and the painting will always show a scowl. This is what happens when an illustrator depicts people who know what they are doing, while the artist does not.

John shows up and he smiles too. All three of us look at shoes and glasses and the two of them tell stories.

John is always telling stories, it is what he does. Most of the stories are both funny and dark. He tells them with an energy that urges you to listen, even if you don’t really know what he is talking about. I find I don’t need to recognize the names to enjoy the tales. If the name is the point, I ask, and he politely tells me.

My painting of him is not his favorite but he appreciates what I have done. He leaves the painting in the living room, grabs two caffeine free diet Cokes, and we head for the roof.

We look out over the city like it is a movie with perfect weather. We watch the characters as they lounge on a posh roof deck across the street or wave for cabs on the street below. We talk about all sorts of things, trivial or not. He is older than me, but like me, he has unrealized dreams that refuse to die. I like that about him. The two of us are very little alike but this we have in common. We were up there, two adult men up on top of the world, dreaming like twelve year old’s despite all the pragmatism learned from life’s let-downs.

I spent the night in a friend’s apartment while they were away in the Hamptons. It was a well decorated home on the upper east side the size of a janitorial closet. It consists of an eat in kitchen and a bedroom. At 11pm I realize all I have eaten that day is a kabob  at noon and I am both exhausted and starving.  With no bag or paintings to carry I wander off into the night. As I walk past one window I see a group of kids at a table full of empty Heineken bottles and one lady in front of a giant burger while holding a knife and fork at the ready. I go inside, order a bacon avocado  goat cheese burger, eat it alone, then walk back to the closet and sleep.

In New York the city is your living room, the roof deck is your television, and as long as you stay there you can aspire.

In the early morning I catch the bus back home. I have to get back in time to take all the paintings off my wall.