29 vs 60

So I caught covid for a third time, I can pretty much guess where from. I have nearly had all the shots and the little virus keeps morphing into a newer version of itself, skipping right past my immune system. I am now told I can catch this as many times as it learns to evade those barriers.

Great.

I knew something was wrong when I woke up at 3AM feeling like shit. I sat on the edge of the bed, letting the clock radio just play, for an hour. I didn’t move but just sat there spacing out. I finally stirred myself to get straightened out in the bathroom and noticed I was panting, sucking in air. Wonderful, just like the last time. By the end of drying my hair, my head was tilting back, on it’s own and I was sucking in more air. Looking a little too much like a fish out of water and feeling it. I think of my Dad and brother, who both were taken out by lung ailments and think only my brother had the benefit of morphine which made numb as a board to the reality of gasping. My Dad, no such luck, he waited too long to go to any hospital before he fell, drowning in his own snot.

”Fuck.Me. That’s it,” I tell myself, “go to ER.”

I get to Sturdy ER in 20 minutes, park the car and sit there as that raw rain just pelted the car, looking at the 40 yards I’ll have to walk to make it in the door. I was trying to get that motivation to “do it,” trying to finally jerk myself out of the car and go. If I pass out onto the wet pavement, perhaps some one will notice?

I make it and get checked in. They do the vitals and off I go to the nearest bed. EKG rhythms were fine but fast, 02 not great and blood tests stable. I get that covid nose swab test that burns the back of my sinuses and the test comes back positive. WTF...again?

Albuterol via mouth, salmeterol in the right arm and some other IV in the left. After it all kicks in, I feel a bit better but the fast speaking Indian Dr says it’ll really take hours for the full effect to work.

“Don’t wait again if you notice strange postures you take to breathe.” he tells me. “Get here! Covid still can be tricky.” He glances at the computer screen, reading the family history and says to himself, “Wow, both your Dad and brother? Before 46 years old!”

A reassuring comment...

They finally kick me out with a script for prednisone for five days.

I look at the Dr as he’s typing that order to CVS on his laptop and I tell him, “You know, at one time, I used to hike up mountains.”

“Did you? I can bet you were alot younger when you did.” he says. “Well, I don’t think you’ll be able to do those anymore. With your history, age and the fact covid knocks you down a little bit each time, and unfortunately, that’s your new baseline...Can you just take walks in a park now? I’d advise something that can’t tax your body like hiking a mountain.”

I’ve been taking the prednisone since Saturday and thank god it finally kicked in, taking off that foot that’s been standing on my chest. I will tell you this, that stuff WORKS.

So now, a more positive story about strangling to breathe.

**

Since I was in Portland, OR I knew Mt St Helens was just a three hour drive away and National Park Service did let you go in, on particular roads and IF earthquake activity was below 2.0 and IF there were no landslides across the roads and IF, and IF…

I wasn’t going to pass this up. I was amazed by the 1980 eruption and how massive it was. Now was a chance to stand on it, see it personally, steal a few rocks to prove I was there despite the strictures of taking anything. The ride in is pretty beautiful as you pass through the Gifford Pinchot Forest. A hours long twisting and turning two-lane road past clear cut mountains, lakes, weird green watered freshets and large mammals leaping out of the road ahead of me. You pass through Cougar, WA, a town of 100 with one Post Office and one Quickie mart, plus about 20 HUGE transport helicopters for logging. The road follows the Lewis river for a longish stretch, giving you some nice scenic views. This was not in anyway a drive through Lincoln woods. I had to be warned of cougars in the area and how they eat people from time to time. Again, this isn’t Roger Williams park, this is the real forest. 

 

Parking lot at Windy Ridge and yes it's that black and gray. Click for larger.

The road to Windy Ridge gets you very close to the volcano summit and is a tourist vantage spot. I made it there in late July and the temperature on top was about 50 degrees. I was dressed that day for downtown Portland on an odd warm day. A simple tee shirt, summer shorts and Pony sneakers, not great hiking apparel to begin at 4,000 feet. I get out of the car and start trudging up to the ridge’s peak and notice I’m panting. “Well, that makes sense,” I think, “I’m a sea level dweller with NO acclimation to 4,000 feet. I’ll be OK.” Once over the ridge you head back down again to the blast plain and slowly gain altitude as you approach the mountain. The problem is that the ground is gravel, dust and a brick-back of rubble. Progress is two steps forward and slide one back.

I keep on trudging.

I get close to the east blast ridge and notice that if I go straight, I can shave a good 30 minutes off the trip to the crater. BUT, all along the trail are threatening warnings about ever deviating from the trail as the Nat’l Park Service has deemed the entire area as protected. And there were park personnel and vulcanologists in the area, ready to rat me out had I gone off trail. So I’m a good boy and stay on the proper trail. Other signs warn you to stay the hell away from Spirit Lake to the north, which for some reason spawned a new kind of bacteria after the volcano blew into it. Breathe that in and you get pneumonia the Dr’s will have a hard time controlling. I snapped a picture of the lake from the ridge a good half mile away only to show the tens of thousands of tree trunks still floating in it. I believe in science and never ventured any nearer to that infected water.

I make it around that blast limb and I see inside the crater. It was like God had scooped the entire side and interior of the mountain out his own hand and flung it. I look around to all of the horizon and there is not a single green living thing. It all had been scraped clean by the blast. I was standing on the moon I thought, where once had been a thick forest but now replaced by dark gray shattered debris.

I get excited by seeing the smoke rising from the new rising dome inside the crater. I pick up my pace in the loose gravel and then the skies clouded over fast. In the next minutes, I get pelted by sideways hail and sleet as a high wind blasts everything. The temperature drops suddenly and I start getting cold.

“No! NO!” I will not quit I tell myself. I’m so close.

The sun reappears as fast as it darkened and it warms me up again, though I’m wet now and figure I’ll just dry off in time.

Panting, panting, sucking air. “How high am I? 5,000? 6,000?” I don’t know, but I do know I can see Windy Ridge, where I started is now below me. I tell myself, “Ah, it’s just no acclimation...you haven’t done any legwork like this in a while and your lungs aren’t not used to this height. Press on!”

One threat I was aware of were the effects of not getting enough air is that it fucks with your decision making abilities. It’s why you train for this type of thing and not to make silly decisions with just 16% oxygen in the air at altitude. I reminded myself to stay awake, be in the moment and to make dull boring choices on where to go next.

Eventually, it wasn’t my brain that stopped me, it was the body. It finally said, “Oh really, you’re going all the way to the dome at 8,000? The FUCK you are! Two days ago you standing on the beaches of Narragansett with all that nice, heavy thick O2 in the air...none of that is up here buddy!”

“Thump!” I just sat on the ground, sucking in air, trying to calm down and I did somewhat eventually. I then sold this idea to myself, “That’s it, you’re going as far as you can. You go higher and you’ll fuck it up! Don’t be stupid! They charge thousands for rescues here! But I AM inside the crater! I am STANDING in it! I’m HERE!” I was 29 years old looking around at a past event I saw on TV when I was 18.

Not bad. I can claim it and own it.

Getting down wasn’t as bad. It can be a fast run/stumble/controlled fall down the side. I was hit again by another cloud burst of sleet but that too moved out as fast as it came in. By the time I got to the car, I was cold, wet and tired.

Sitting in the car with the heater blasting on me in late July, I was still sort of panting, but it was a “good” panting with a just reason, I was not used to being up so high. I would recover easily once I rested and due to something I accomplished.

I didn’t feel so accomplished lying on the bed at Sturdy, panting, with tubes in my arms the other day though. That’s the difference between 29 and 60 and before covid showed up.

I’ve found this with medical personnel who do this every day, they betray, on their faces, what they’re really thinking. When I had told the Dr about my trips into the mountains, he tried to seem positive with his best poker face but it failed. His face instead said, “No the fuck you're not, you’re not doing anything like that anymore. You’re old and you haven’t woken up to that fact yet…but you will when the reality hits. You’ll lose that stubborn illusion you carry with you that you’ll be young forever.” Seconds later, he verbally offered his advice in a more kinder way.

When it warms up one day, I can take a nice leisurely walk around the Duck Pond in Slater Park. Distance from my house? ½ mile. Elevation? 80 feet above sea level. Slope? None. Perhaps too I can sit on the bench, with my shocking white hair and feed the ducks.

Smelling Blood in the Water

She's taking care to look for sharks.

They hang out in the local bars

and they feed right after dark.

Can't you feel them circling, honey?

Can't you feel them swimming around?

You got fins to the left, fins to the right

And you're the only bait in town!

Oh-whoa, oh-whoa

You got fins to the left, fins to the right

And you're the only girl in town!

I forget how we got on the subject of the differences between men and women but L. and I, at work once, spoke of it, particularly about her assumption of the low morals of guys in general when it came to how we prowled for girls.

“Ahh..guys are wolves.” L. concluded.

I sat there quietly, rolling her judgment around in my head and wondering should I keep my mouth closed and refrain from besmirching my half of the race further, or vocally admit to her this.

“Well, yeah...in some ways we are.”

L.’s face lit up to my concession. “You agree? Really? I never heard a guy openly admit it! Most times you all dodge that!”

I then try to explain to her why.

“Look. You’re a woman, you have NO idea what we guys feel, not even close.” I told her what it is when it came to our hunting for the next girl and how we feel doing it. Our wolf can be automatic, the motivation runs on it’s own and the chase feels...fun.

“OK, the wolf stalking is sort of correct.” I tell her. “You ever see a group of young guys at a night club? All sitting at a table, enjoying their beer? I’m gonna tell you what they’re thinking.”

“When a group of girls come through the door, they do what everyone does, they pause and look around. Usually it’s about getting drink orders right or perhaps to find the table or spot they want to hang out at.”

“As they stand there, here’s what the the guys are thinking. Each and every one of them is scanning each girl, finding which one is the the most attractive to them. It happens in seconds too. Each one considers her face, body type, clothing, hair style, how she holds herself and everything head to toe. In about 2 to 3 seconds he zeros on the one he likes the best. It doesn’t mean he’ll immediately get up and hit on her but he’s going to track her throughout the club, keep her in sight, until he decides to do so.”

“That doesn’t sound so wolfy.” L says. “It sounds like he may just plain ‘like’ her.”

“OK” I tell her, “here’s the wolf part that’s more predatory.”

“The first scan happens but there is also with a second one occurring at the same time. Each guy is also looking for the ‘weakest’ girl.”

“Weakest? What do you mean by that?”

“He’s looking for the silly ditz, or the drunkest one of the group and if luck holds out, she’s both! She’s the one who cannot make good decisions. Out of them all, that girl will be the most pliable, the most defenseless one to the guy’s advances. But he has to pry her away from her other girlfriends as they will try to protect her.”

“I”ll give you an example of a weak one you know real well...Marie Ann Wry.” Wry was a CNA we all knew well, as she used to take numerous cigarette breaks under a tree just outside of our part of the building back in the 2000’s when I worked there.

“Wry! Oh...she’s real nice but she can be a complete airhead at times!” L says.

“Exactly.” I tell her. “And I’ll tell you a quick story when I found that out and how vulnerable she really was...and how the wolf woke up in me when I saw what I saw.”

I was outside with a group of CNAs, puffing away on a Marlboro light listening these girls talk about...whatever. Wry was sitting next to me on the bench under the tree, holding a water bottle and as she spoke to the other girls, she turned her head to face them. As she talked, her left hand and arm started to rotate further and further to the left to the point where the water was spilling out on to the ground. She never noticed she was doing this as she kept talking on.

I.saw.this...and recognized for what it was.

My inner wolf immediately spotted and surmised she was the weakest gazelle in the herd, the one with the bum leg that couldn’t run as fast as the others, the easy catch. The wolf program deep inside my head automatically kicked on and began to run. “Get her..work on her...she’s easy.” Was I stoked for her? Sure. Am I the only guy to act like this? Nope. It’s literally a subconscious action.

I then said to Marie, “Hey, I bet you’d be real fun DRUNK! We should hang out!” I just had to blurt out the truth. She would be fun blotto!

Marie turns to me and vacantly says, “Whaddayamean?” and then finally notices half her water bottle has puddled on the ground at our feet.

She did not process what I had asked her. She just looked dreamily at me, half there. What I said went in one ear and out the other, not picking up on what I had noticed about her personality. I could tell she did not see how her own behavior was a threat to her own self. She was probably unaware of a lot of things in life sort of on purpose, as being in the now requires feeling pain and after getting to know her better, I found she had far to much of her share of it. So numb out, shut off and anesthetize yourself. It’s called default-state dissociation. It’s a great coping mechanism but a danger as well. Shoving your head into the sand won’t stop the cheetah from tackling you. By the way, we ALL do this but the spread and depth of this varies from person to person.

As if on cue, after picking up on how I saw how Marie was, the other women there circled their wagons, protecting her and telling me she had a boyfriend. They pulled her attention from me back to them again, changing the topic of conversation fast.

“Fuck.” I thought.

**

“And that,” I tell L, “is how quick and easy it is for the wolf to come out. There is no moral question that crops up about ‘is this right?’ We guys just spot a girl’s susceptibility fast. Then the Big Bad Wolf wants to eat.

 

Darcy

 

 

A Close Approximation

The following happened years ago and my personal behavior had nothing to do with it. I was to became an unwilling example that all men are lying, cheating scum.  Also, it shows my habit of wanting to meet again people from my long ago past. 

I’ve had to heavily redact the story as those involved will easily recognize the event, should they find this. In the end though, this isn’t a story that’s that scandalous, just another life’s experience of mine and how some people are.

In my old social working days, I was dating a goody-two-shoes nerd-girl who was not all that well liked by the other women at the job. You see this all the time, a group of women come together and one of them has to be on the outs. It gives the other woman a chance to stigmatize and shun their favorite target. If you wait a week, they move onto a newer target and abuse her. I know this doesn't occur just with women but are they artists at it. I remember seeing it done fairly well by girls in my kindergarten class. How they learn so early on!

NerdGirl as I’ll name her, rarely drank and if so, it was a watered down Midori liquor. She never smoked pot and enjoyed saccharine Hallmark romantic TV shows and other hobbies most people would call straight-laced. To sum her up, she was a very proper girl. The other women I worked with were far more debased by life and “street” and cynical from experiencing dodgy childhoods. Add to that when they grew up and then married, they created their own dysfunctional families. Nerd girl had her own ghosts in her past but they weren’t the shitty experiences of having to fight for crumbs in the street of a real lower blue collar neighborhood, where everyone targeted one another and at the same time, were potential victims of theft and abuse themselves by their own kind. It’s funny how those from that kind of harsh environment can instinctively sniff out those who never had to experience that. These street types respond with such resentment and see the intact one as weak and as a target to immediately pilfer from. White trash would you call them? Too harsh?

There was one I worked with, Darcy, who openly admitted to being an out right whore who would sell herself for a weekend to a guy who would cough up $500 (in 1988 dollars), and also pay the expenses for a nice time in Newport, preferably on a yacht if he owned one. If the mood struck her to make extra money, she’d hang out in various mafia bars in North Providence and her reputation, being well known, would attract a customer. One time she arrived at work one night and I watched her dump her purse onto the table and shuffled stacks of $20 bills, commenting she had been “worn out” the whole weekend by some married guy she met. The tone of her voice sounded like she was glad for some time off now, at her real job. Here’s another example of the kind of women she was. She did have a long time ‘since teen years’ boyfriend but it was purely economical. Remember when “bras” where a thing to have on cars? They were this leather shield that was fixed to the front end of a car to repel road debris that might chip the paint or otherwise damage the car. The 100% leather ones weren’t cheap. I chanced upon a conversation when Darcy spoke of how she got her boyfriend to pay for one. “It cost me three blowjobs and two fucks!” No joke, she blurted it out loud to the other women there, in response to some lurid conversation they were having. I heard this as I stumbled upon them at the right moment.

In Darcy’s defense, she just wasn’t only an opportunistic harlot, there was more to her. She was a 24 years old and adorable. At best, she was five foot one inch tall and she fit the gamine description fairly well. Gamine? Think of Audrey Hepburn or Emma Watson who look far younger than their age due to their short height and forever fresh faces. Darcy had some personality features gamines have, a tomboyishness that granted her an ability to swap out a water pump on her car (I watched her do it once). Though for her boyish mechanical abilities, her car looked like a teen girl’s bedroom. All decorated with fluff, frills, several Betty Boop dolls and the interior smelled of White Diamonds perfume.

She generally seemed like a perpetual child, never having really grown up. She was taken with acting silly, wanting attention and “stuck” being 13 forever. That was tempered by her childhood street experience that makes kids like that more mature than others but in only certain ways. That life develops uglier talents in kids in order to survive but does nothing for real growth. Darcy also had an animated personality if she was in the mood. Being that small, she managed to learn that if you’re going to be heard,  then be charming, entertaining and she acted the Class Clown at work. I saw her once, at a major staff meeting with the administrator of the eight facilities, purposely rock herself over in a Barca lounger chair. Everyone knew she did this on purpose and everyone laughed anyways. It was Darcy being Darcy, wanting that attention.

I will admit this, she was a really strange mix of traits I had never seen in other women I had known in my 23 years, but down deep, her heart was in the right place, generally. She never wanted to viciously harm someone to get ahead and her choice of how she was going to make it through life was her decision, alone and not based in meanness. Her being a Whore with the Heart of Gold may seem stereotypical but it was true, she did trade her body, using her quite powerful magnetism to get guys to do her bidding for a “deal.” She didn’t care who knew it and acted like it was commonly known anyway. To her, it was given that women have that kind of power and were foolish if they didn’t use it.

****

One of the reasons I became attracted to NerdGirl was her transparency. She wasn’t hiding much of her background at all. She had only ONE sexual partner in her life which she married but divorced when he strayed a few years later. Any worldly harm she endured wasn’t so crippling that forced her to hide ugly truths, like so many of other fun and exciting roller coaster ride women I was attracted to, and who never wanted me to discover their pasts and knowing that if I knew, I’d judge them poorly. In short, NerdGirl had a good nature. She was so much easier to deal with vs. the ruined, hurt-early-in-life types who always had ulterior motives, or if not that, blew like fragmentation grenades when they melted down, spraying shrapnel and demolition to anyone near them when they went off.

So in time NerdGirl and I look like an item at work because the other women pick up on how we are acting differently with one another now. That pisses off Darcy and Dana. Those two were peas in a pod work friends who both came from similar “street” upbringings and the sight of NerdGirl made them want to throw up. No one’s that good in their estimation. To them, no women gets away being scarred by life and recovers that well to be happy again.

The two would harangue NerdGilr that I “wasn’t really the one” as all men, regardless, are scum. NerdGirl protested that I wasn’t like that at at all. Well, NerdGirl was placing me a bit too high up on the moral hygiene scale, but there was one thing about me that was true, serial monogamy. One girl at a time please, no hidden girlfriends. Juggling more than one seemed like far too much work and by nature, I wasn’t that socially adept enough to pull that kind of thing off. I’d fuck it up somehow attracting irate boyfriends. I was happy with one for the time being.

Darcy and Dana then hatched a plot to prove to NerdGirl that I was like all the rest. Dana convinced Darcy to show up late at work when I would be alone to seduce, fuck me and tell NerdGirl all about it. I had NO idea that this was about to occur whatsoever. None at all.

Most times, Darcy would relieve me and do her shift as our schedules dove tailed like that. We two would talk a while before I left and I had the habit of taking off my glasses and leaving them on the table or put away in the cupboard. It was time for a new prescription and my eyes would tire from the strain. So many times I just wouldn’t wear them. Everything was blurred but so what, I knew where everything and everyone was, just don’t ask me to read anything one foot from my face.

Sooo...one Sunday night she shows up for her shift and when she came in, she was in this short red dress, her hair done up in waves and she smells great. She was a pretty girl to begin with but I rarely seen her put together and it was somewhat stunning this time around.

“You coming from a club? You out partying tonight?” I ask her. She had come to work like this before, after a night’s fun ready to do her third shift, but this time she was more striking than usual.

She mumbled something that I barley caught and what was odd, she was very nervous. I got little eye contact and she seemed rigid. Usually she was quite extroverted and easy going.

I sit down at the table and whip off the glasses and we talk like we always did. She was six feet away and leaning against the wall, still hesitant and anxious. As I was talking about something, she, out of nowhere, grabs the hem of skirt and pulls it up past her face for a good two seconds and then drops it.

I just froze in my chair. “Did I just see that? What a segue from nowhere!” Without my glasses I know things are blurry but I could see just well enough to see she wasn’t wearing any panties.

There was a good 10 seconds where we both were silent and looked at one another. Mind you I had NO idea that I was being tempted and set up. Add to that I knew Darcy had a boyfriend and 99% of the time, I left women like that alone, it was far too messy to try to navigate that cheater’s lanscape and, to top it off, I had never been flashed like that by a girl who I considered just as a “friend.” I had never had any girl try to change a friend relationship in nano-seconds in this manner before. It was way New To Me! I sat there unable to react because I had no clue as to where any of this was coming from. All I could focus on was...”Why? She never ever did anything like this before.”

Those few seconds pass by when Darcy lets out this squeamish, unready anxious squeak from under her breath and runs from the room to the back office. I didn’t follow her nor did she come back out. I gathered up my things and drove home.

“What the FUCK what that about?” I thought to myself on the way home. She never ever hinted about any attraction to me before. I ran possibilities in my head but none seemed to make sense. Oh well, I knew Darcy to be who she was and this probably was par for the course for her, to yank up her dress for guys, but why all the nervousness? Was it as joke? Or say her far too forward attempt at “Hey, I really like-like you!.”

 

*****

I kept the event to myself, not bothering to tell anyone nor did I bring it up to Darcy when she did come back on the following days to do her shift. I acted like I had seen nothing just to spare her the awkwardness of what she had done...and the awkwardness I felt as well.

A week later, Dana, her coworker buddy, follows me into the back office and then asks, “Why didn’t you do her?”

“Huh? I say.

“Darcy, she got all dolled up that night to come to you and you just sat there...are that that blind w/o your glasses?”

I’m not understanding this yet but now know Dana is informed about what happened that night. 

 

Before I can speak she says, “Darcy did that to prove to NerdGirl that you would’ve jumped at her when she flashed you...I put her up to it but Darcy chickend out at the last minute.”

It then all fell into place. Now I know and it seemed true as I knew those two were, earlier on, trying to convince NerdGirl that I was just as sleazy as the next guy, hence the plot to prove it.

I knew Darcy to be a pig but like all whores, they themselves have some scruples and being put up to doing that didn’t sit well with her. She apparently wasn’t loose enough to do anyone, at anytime, anywhere, for any reason. 

 

*****

 

A month later I tell NerdGirl what had happened, well, what didn’t happen, with the proviso she not react to this nor complain to the other two. Explosive relationship problems at work do not look good. Well, that was a huge mistake, I waited far too long, even at times thinking I shouldn’t say a thing at all but figured it would get out anyway, so I should say something. She flew to those two and ripped them both apart in that back office. That was my cue to take the company van to make a run to the pharmacy to pick up some drugs for the clients. It made for great gossip at work for a couple weeks I found later.

*****

30 Years Later…

Being an admitted snoop, I Google people I haven’t seen in decades and Darcy was one I looked up several years ago. It took some work but I found she had left Providence and was living in South Kingston with a guy 20 years her senior. I toyed with the idea of seeing her again as we did know each other for such a long a time back then. Hell, just show up and say “Hi” I thought.

I plug her address into the Garmin and since I was working on Main St in Warwick, I was closer to her than my home and might as well try.

I find the street and ride up and down it trying to spot the house but the street was badly lit. Then out of nowhere I spot the 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass she turned into a teen girl’s bedroom in a driveway. She still had it! It was as immaculate today as it was then. I knew it had to be her as no one had a car so femininely tricked out like hers was.

I sat there idling in the street, now getting cold feet about materializing on her front steps 30 years later. Even though my initial curiosity started strong and led to my decision to see her, it waned quickly as an abrupt appearance was not feeling “right.” What the hell was I going to say? “Whatcha been doin’ these past 30 yrs Darcy?” I had once unexpectedly appeared at childhood friend’s home to do the same thing, knowing the suddenness would add to the drama to my arrival. But that was a boy I knew from then and we had a nice time going over the old times and he was genuinely happy to see me. Darcy...was a little bit more emotionally charged and complicated to pull off.

I drove away home.