There’s a blind man sitting in the lobby of this Holiday Inn. He was there when I got back at seven. When I walked passed he said hello. I said nothing back. He sat behind a table with books in front of him that had his picture. He rocked back and forth with his stick held vertical between his hands, his face holding a grin that I can’t forget.

I made my way down to the bar an hour later, and he was still there and not a soul in the world paid him any attention. I walked passed and received the same hello I did before and part of me wonders if he recognized me but I know he couldn’t. He sat behind his table with those his books in their same state of disarray. I just made my way past him to the bar.

I judge hotels based on their bars and their gyms and this Holiday Inn has a great bar and a terrible gym, so most of the time I would normally spend working out I just spend drinking instead. It’s slow and I’m tired and I make the superficial bar friends that I seem to make in every hotel and they all seem the same now and the conversations turn to work and how badly we all just want to go home. So many different people and we all have that in common.

At this point, Ohio feels like any other place. It has streets and people and Starbucks and Subway. I see hills in the distance dotted with similar reds to New Hampshire and the blue sky is the same blue sky I remember along with that well welcomed breeze that would send a Texan to a jacket.

It’s my first week working with Tim L. He holds himself with a poise. Clean cut. Unwrinkled Brooks Brothers shirt, worn without flash but as a matter of fact. He says hello to anyone he sees. The parking lot attendant. A woman walking in the hall. A secretary he’ll never see again. He tells me stories I’d never thought I knew. He wears his Aggie ring with pride. He said in Brooklyn, he wouldn’t wear it because no one would give a damn.

We sit at the bar of the local Olive Garden. He hangs his head and rubs his eyes and I do the same because we’re dog tired. He drinks his Amstel Light slowly.

I’ve been referred to as the Tim L clone. And it’s true. Tim could very well be the future allegory of me. Even the electricians at the job site asked why they sent two of the same person. We part our hair in the same direction. We stand at similar statures and hold ourselves in the same posture. We talk politics, and guitar, and Ayn Rand, and life, and universe and everything. And at the bar at the Olive Garden in west Akron, Ohio, Tim and I talk.

He tells me of his dark times and I tell him of my dark times. He tells me of his faith and I tell him of my faith. He tells me of his life at twenty years old and I don’t need to tell him of my life at twenty years old. I tell him of girls, and of home, and he tells me everything will be ok. I tell of the introspection of Philadelphia, and he tells me that introspection can be a dangerous thing and I tell him I know, and I can tell that he already knows what I’m thinking and we look ahead with a certain understanding.

I told him about my weeks before I left, that bullshit that surrounded it all. I cursed and I swore and I choked up and I spared no details and he nodded and listened. I told him about those wild nights at Gritsy and those 3 am mornings and the drunken conversation in my car the night she got back. He nodded and drank his Amstel Light, his Aggie ring making a soft clink each time he reached for the glass. I told him of therapy, and of my family. I told him about the night of backseats, vodka, and Atlas Shrugged. Of Hemingway and pissing in my front yard.

He said so frankly to me that if it wasn’t for Christianity that he would have committed suicide a long time ago.

Clean cut Tim L., in his Brooks Brothers shirt, Prada glasses, and stubble free face.

He takes me back to the hotel and we end our conversation with a handshake.

We work again the next day, and it’s a day of work like any other day. On the way back to the hotel, we talk more of life and universe and everything. We talk of selling out to the corporate life and he says that’s not what it is at all, but that we’re just giving ourselves the things we wanted that we didn’t have when we were young. He says that he was right in his decision to hire me.  I tell him he speaks too highly of me, and to please criticize me. He tells me one thing.

“Just relax. It’s ok for you to act like you’re 20.”

I remember when I met Tim L. I went to Floor and Décor that morning with the remnants of last night lingering in the taste in my mouth and the headache. Joel and myself arrived at the same time and we disputed who would teach the installation class. It seemed like I was winning until a customer flagged down Joel. At that exact moment, my manager asked me who was teaching the class, and no amount of excuses would excuse me from that duty.

Usually I enjoyed teaching the class. I’d brush the dirt off my shirt and prepare thirty minutes prior to. I’d grab all my supplies and mentally answer any question I’d figure I’d face. But today was different. I didn’t grab any of my tools. I was focused more on my hangover and my three hours of sleep rather than the group of customers in front of me. But I’d never let them see that. Never show your full hand.

The audience was the usual eclectic mix. There was always that one guy who already knew everything and stood ready with questions that only served to challenge what I knew. There was the couple that didn’t speak English and only served to make the class more difficult than it should have been. There was the couple who was more focused on trying to keep their kid clean while he/she was finding any way to rub their body along a dusty as all hell surface.

Then there was Tim L.

Tim dressed like he knew a little more than everyone else. I think I remember shorts and possibly a North Face pullover. At least that’s what I remember. He wore a Brooklyn Dodgers cap. I started the class with my usual routine and the slight rush of speaking to a group of people served to wake me up and help forget the pounding in my head and the bitterness that ruled my stomach. Early on Tim asked if he could video the class. It was an odd request and I simply said sure.

And like usual, I taught the class. The questions weren’t too bad, and the class went smoothly enough for me to forget about last night completely. The last questions floated around and the class dispersed. But the yuppie in the dodgers cap hung around.

He had a few extra questions and I answered them like I always would. He said he just moved to the Woodlands from New York. The kicker came when he asked me what I knew about electrical work. I told him nothing, but like as was true with most things, I told him that I was willing to learn. Well, he said, I work for a company that programs large scale lighting systems and we’re interested in people that can speak and teach people like you can. He said something along those lines at least. I was immediately interested. I could tell he was serious, and I’d been looking for a change of pace. He went on to describe the job, saying that it involved travel across the U.S. and was a rapidly growing field. Part of me thought it could be bullshit. Part of me knew it was too good to be true. We started to stray from the topic at hand, and the topic at hand at one point was cycling, and then it was politics, and then it was books, and then it was Ayn Rand. We chatted for almost an hour and exchanged information. I didn’t think much of it.

I started to think more of it when we started to transmit emails back and forth. I thought even further of it when I started emailing another member of the company. Months passed and many emails were sent.  The reality of it all hit when I was sitting in the Detroit airport asking myself exactly what I was doing. My conscience replied with “You’re about to be interviewed for the best opportunity you’ve ever had.”

I interviewed with Tim S. at a bar that served the best turkey Rueben possibly in the United States. I’d put money on that fact.

And now here I am in a Akron, Ohio hotel room.

Another Gritsy and the decision is made that I am driving and I really don’t mind. At first it perturbs me because I’m unfamiliar with downtown but I’ll manage and I need the experience. I pick up —— and Victoria and we set out. I have an edge that I won’t be able to kill. We’re on 45 and after passing Crosstimbers I feel a second of tension and then it’s gone. We enter downtown without a problem. We’re circling the venue for parking and even that frustration doesn’t get to me. At the parking permit terminal, a drunken hobo walks up behind me, belligerent against the sign and then he moves to another hobo, exchanging harsh words. We’re outside Gritsy and we run into Vince. It’s always warming to see Vince and we exchange words. He brings up ****** while —— and ——- smoke a cigarette. Condolences and I tell him it’s ok and we’re ok. Silence. We’re waiting for John, Jose, and Michelle. Vincent goes inside.

We wait some more and before long the three walk up. John’s good, Michelle’s beautiful as usual, and Jose has a good buzz going whether he wants to admit it or not. Inside the club is small and intimate. Large x’s emblazoned on our hands. The girls drink early. I decided to have a drink with Jose and our gritsicles are gone faster than the time spent to make them. Only one drink. The music’s good and the bass is good and we find our spot. As soon as we’re there, ——- and Victoria are off to find boys and drinks and I don’t mind. They’re building a good buzz and now I’m just a little lonely. Then John and Jose leave too and it’s just me and Michelle and we look at each other with lonely eyes. And we’re waiting and waiting for friends and It’s still just us. —– pops in again and she’s well more than buzzed. I can tell by the violent kisses and the bites she gives me on my chest and shoulders.

She tells me she has to look out for Victoria and she’s gone again and my smile fades and she’s gone as soon as she came. And then it’s me and Michelle for far too long. I start to worry, but not worrying, just a slight concern.

So I go outside and I see the problem .Victoria is crying, John and ——- are trying to console her, Jose stands alone across the way looking dazed. Everyone’s drunk and I laugh to myself because this is just ridiculous. I try to calm the situation and it’s just ridiculous. I tell John to get his ass inside and find his girlfriend and I round everyone together to get inside and it kind of works. We’re inside for a bit and everyone quickly disperses. ——- and Victoria are outside again. John is finding Michelle. And it’s just me and Jose. We find another bar in a backroom where no one’s at and I tell Jose to pour himself a drink and it’s a beer glass half full with vodka and ice. I smell it and my body tingles. There’s a girl putting feathers in people’s hair so Jose decides it’s a good idea to spend ten dollars on one. Michelle joins us sans John.

I’m sober and everyone’s drunk and the situation is crumbling. We’re outside again and it’s more drama. John and Victoria and —— are all into it drunk. Something is said about ***** and —– breaks down and I try to console her and she pushes me away and I follow her. She stumbles and sits alone on the concrete and I see another guy try to console her so I shoe him away and I put my arm around her and she sobs into my shoulder and she’s sobbing and I tell her over and over again that everything’s going to be ok. And eventually she calms down and apologizes and we round everyone up and we’re back inside. John and Michelle are having problems. Victoria and Jose are getting close. ——- and I try to dance. She pulls me close and she tells me it’s not just the liquor but she loves me and now she has the courage to say it. We work our way to a seat and she straddles me and tries to touch me in places she shouldn’t. Not here. She tells me she wants me. Jose and Victoria are in the seat next to us. We all laugh.

——- is still all over me, whispering terrible things into my ear. We eventually make it to the parking lot. Jose is stumbling drunk. Victoria’s pissed. In the car, Victoria is half asleep. ——– wants me. We get home and she spends the night. I don’t sleep until six. I’m up at nine. I have work at ten.

There’s that earth pine smell in the air and the mist carries on for miles in a phantasmal blur that sticks to the hairs on my arms and face. A mixed pallet of golds browns and reds form swatches in tree lines. Some of those bystander trees caught in between their summer memories and their red fall future. Onward into a strange future, bygone land of questions unasked and answers undiscovered, to where so many feet have fallen and many have yet to fall, like my own and your own, and the snow that’s already fallen, you’ve missed it all, caught in a past that now seems invalidated and nullified and vilified.

The foreign profiles of firs and pines and maples jut out. Like so many hands waving in that bright blue. The trees stretch forever into the hills and rivers that I’ll never see and the temperature is never past seventy and all is well in the world.

My travel back to Houston is tedious and draining. Manchester to Baltimore. Then a two hour layover.  Finally back to Hobby at around 9pm. Sitting becomes just as hard on the body as standing and my back’s killing me. Houston doesn’t mean much because I’m off to Austin in the morning. Things move fast enough to break necks.

And DC is done and New Hampshire is done and Houston is just a few hour blur and then there’s a drive to Austin and hills and the flammable Texas country side passing by in its washed out Technicolor hue. The complex is old siding and flecks of brown paint. My dad and I wait for Liz and she arrives before long. The apartment inside is brand new and the smell of new paint is a testament to that. New floors and countertops still yet to dull. She’s furnished it like a saint and my new home is near effortless. My room isn’t much more than a bed a few guitars and a few bikes.

And here I am. Living in Austin and I’m not sure what that means. I’m trying to take it in but it doesn’t feel much different than any other place I’ve been and at the same time it feels like nothing I’ve ever felt at all. But its four walls and a bed and it’s new and it feel like any other set of four walls and any other bed. But it’s no hotel room. It’s my bed and my four walls.

I see your face bright in the eyes and full in the lips and I remember seeing that same face when there was nothing but loss and I remember seeing that same face when there was nothing. Scratchy pops and vinyl antiquities are mixed with prerequisites and adequacies. Scorned but not at all, who is it that says there was even a beginning. All these days and hours blend before I thought they would and those yesterdays and yesterweeks and yestermonths blend all the same. There was one more sip left or maybe there was never a drink at all.  “Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”

The cab driver almost killed us.

I watch pre-dawn Washington wake up. The gear bag hangs heavy on my shoulder and the coffee cup in my hand contrasts the coolness of my body. The sun peeks over the top of buildings jammed together like tired soup kitchen patrons from depression-era photos. I am in business clothes and my business shoes make slight clicks with each step as I take a business walk to a business spot where I will make business talks with business men. It’s always new and I don’t think I can ever get over the novelty of it.

The sidewalks are clear save for the occasional jogger. It’s not long before I reach the metro station. The escalator creeps and the slower traffic stays right and the business dressed take extra steps along the left lane and I figure I’ll join them. I’m fueled by a continental breakfast of a banana and coffee. And a cheese Danish. I’ve made a point of eating a cheese Danish in every hotel I’ve frequented so far. DC has so far taken the cake. Or the Danish.

Compared to the morning chill of the above ground, the subway maintains a humid warmth. Maybe it’s the coffee, but I feel a layer of perspiration form on my forehead and back. A train arrives right on time.  The ride is short. Ten minutes of bouncing along the tracks in a light that wasn’t much different than the pale navy of the outside sky.

I disembark at the Friendship Heights station where I’m greeted with another escalator. The dawn has passed and morning begins and the sidewalks remain populated with coffee carrying denizens of various sizes and shapes. Technology guides me through a few crosswalks and a few sidewalks and I arrive at the jobsite.

I shake hands with my partner Steve. Steve and I had previously met during our training and immediately hit it off. Steve is sharp as a tack and doesn’t show his young age. He’s proud of his fiancé back in Delaware and his recently born baby girl and never misses a chance to show a picture of her and that’s completely ok by me. He relates stories of his upbringing on a chicken farm in Delaware, stories of walking into ammonia laden chicken houses, of waking up on a spring morning and smelling chicken shit in the air no matter where you are in the state. Carrying buckets of chickens. Emptying buckets of chicken blood.

Steve is very good at what he does, and we kick into high gear and fly through the job. It isn’t a hard job compared to my adventure last week with LaMarr. We actually have a/c and we actually have office chairs to sit in and actual toilets to relieve ourselves in. We aren’t surrounded by droves of construction workers and the only noise pollution we have is that of the attractive office workers typing away silently in the cubicles, stopping only for the occasional gossip or jest.

We put ourselves to the grindstone and decide that it will be in our best interest to work a fourteen hour day. My clothes are coming off as soon as I enter my hotel room. I shower. I iron. I fall asleep.

Adventure. I supposed that’s what I’m encountering. The past month and a half has been a series of ups and downs and victories and defeats and different cities and hotels. It happens so fast and feels like none of it happens at all. In time I’ll cover it all. I have learned that life is good, life is great, I am happy and lucky to be me. I have done and will do things that many wish they could do. I learn this at bars with Steve and Rob. I learn this in the ASC training room in the CB1 building of Lutron Headquarters. I learn this while telling Tim S. and Carly about events and the whys of my life. I learn this in emails from the boss I’ve never met. I learn this while laying in a bathtub in Philly. In that same city’s black streets surrounded by buildings that watch me with eyes that don’t exist. Standing where Rocky stood. Tom, the bartender at the Sheraton. Natalie, the waitress at the pub. Eric, the teacher. Loving and hating myself and dreaming about her. Meeting LaMarr’s dad in an old and comfortable Cadillac. Being bitter. Hotel Breakfast. Loneliness and no loneliness. Kid Cudi. East coast “Mexican food.” Hotel gyms. Living in a world that I didn’t know existed or didn’t know I could belong to but in fact I flourish in.

And it just started.