The Mission
Have you ever had one of those days where you went to sleep the night before knowing that the next day would be a battle? That was me Friday night. I was thinking more like battle-lite. You know? As in, I aim for one absolute goal that must be met regardless of whatever else happens. My pewter and jade encrusted grail for last Saturday was the registration for yet another standardized test. I have to take four, two immediately (as in July) and two before the end of the year.
Friday night I went over the scenario in my mind as I tried to find the cool spot on my pillow. The instructions were clear cut. First, walk to the post office, then walk to the bank, and then come home. I researched the route to take on the World Wide Web to find the nearest bank branch to my house which was 2.98 miles away. I thought that was a piece of cake, since the post office is located at about the 2 mile mark. I turned off the television at about 3:45 am. I had some crazy dream where I was talking to dogs I believe (and the dogs were talking to me, they were giving me some warning or some cautionary tale, I can’t remember), when I had one of those transcendental experiences where something descended in my room and woke me up at about 6:30 am. I did not realize how early it was until I approached the coffee pot and saw the clock.
So, I went back to sleep for a half hour before rising again, thinking some un-verbalized response for which ever ancestor kicked me out of my bed so early. From 7:00 am on, I found all kinds of little things that I needed to do. Washing clothes, cleaning up my bedroom, re-arranging things in my office, reviewing all the requirements I need to finish before the end of May, mid-June, and mid-July. I showered. I put the clothes in the dryer. I might have had a conversation with someone on my phone, but I can’t remember. It was just 3 hours -- of all that stuff -- you overlook in life -- during the week.
At 11:00 am I walked out the house and headed toward Route 27.
It was a beautiful spring day, I put on my jeans and a wife beater and headed out to Route 27 and walked south. About 10 minutes into the walk, I could feel the sun hitting my skin which was dry and blotchy from too little sunlight and too much cold dry air. It felt fantastic. The first thing I saw was a new medical facility being built on a side road that lead to our old flat. In 1989 when we moved out here, this area was mostly farmland and it was very quiet, but in the last three or four years it has turned into a traffic jammed urban sprawl, complete with vinyl sided houses that look like a Poltergeist (the movie) community in their duplication and duplicity in covering up entire tracks of land that were part of the George Washington's endless marches up and down New Jersey. Every time I see a certain creek I see red coats and blue coats running through the stream. Every time I see a crow in the fall sky I think about the coming winter and the Native Americans that were here. Route 27 is a two-lane highway that leads from Princeton to the Raritan River, terminating in Newark. It has several incarnations, invoking St. George, Nassau and Albany along its way. Township to township, it is an intrusive road, giving birth to overdevelopment and clutter. It is not an organic meeting place; it is some sort of scarification. I am sure it was different in the past.
By the time I reached the post office it was 11:45 or so. I had started walking at about 11:12. I enjoy walking over well driven paths because you always notice something you would not have noticed in the car. You also get a greater since of how close and who far a destination is from your starting point. Time is always distorted by traffic lights and the search for parking; you can never really know the worlds one travels through unless you do it by bike or by foot.
So, when I walked into the post office the line was extremely long, and I knew that I would be there for a little while. I needed to be at the bank by 1:00 pm, so I stood in anticipation of a panic attack. The waiting crowd was nondescript, there was just a palpable impatience crowned by a large looking grizzly bear of a dude standing in front of me. His vengeful tattoos and T-shirt with a Tibetan avatar of destruction sort of caught me off guard. There was something about him that made me think any sort of communication with him will be part of remedying a great divide between two great forces. The post office is the only place where our paths will ever meet.
I just did my business and left, as the line seemed to keep growing, and the middle attendant was in a panic over a set of money orders that disenabled her register. Her boss was busy working on the computer and consoling this jovial yet panicky postal worker as I walked out the door. The attendant to the right kept saying, “You both will be here all night trying to get that straight.” The process seemed to be paper heavy, important and liable for reprimand.
I walked up the road and saw all the strip malls that had been built up since I left the area in 2000. I saw them up close. A large A&P supermarket I used to frequent is now an emporium dedicated to Near and Far Eastern cuisines. There are brake shops and car stereo system showcases in what used to be old road side houses. There are a couple of donut hot spots, Indian take-outs, Chinese restaurants and small pizzerias that seem to cater to the suburbs with efficient and minimalist dinning, but nimble and robust delivery drivers and kitchen staff who speak in their own languages and intonations, oblivious to the Americans stopping by to pick-up an order on their way from the movies, or Macy's or the adjacent nail salon.
By the time I got to my bank I deposited my money and then asked a simple question: "I would like to add the Roman numerical II to my name on my account.” the anxiety floated away. I had almost completed my goal of exercise, money and test registration. So, I walked out. I headed on the highway north for the refugee of home.
The Trial
The drama started when I got home and decided I wanted to eat lunch. I had a bowl of cinnamon flavored wheat flakes and began listening to my sister talk about something in school, followed by a comment on Lindsey Lohan. She was basically trying to reassure us that she could tell the different between Lohan the talented actress and Lohan the wreck, but in pre-teen nomenclature. That is when I felt something crawling up my back. I rubbed my had over it, and it felt like a bump then it went away. I thought it was an ant from the ant infestation we are having at the moment in our still barren basement. I felt the menacing tickle again, but same reaction. A rub and then it was gone.
Once finished with lunch, I sat down at the computer to register for the tests and started talking to Ava. I felt it crawl again. This time I was overtaken by a sense that this ant was too predatory to be just an ant. I reached my hand to the area of my back, just above the vertebrae before my tail bone, and near the little nap that becomes the crack of my ass, and picked the wretch from a patch of hair that grows in that area. Low and behold, the dark brown creature with little golden spots was a tick.
"Ava, I will call you back." I said tersely, "I have an emergency."
I placed the tick on a piece of white paper and ran up stairs to show my dad. I was sure it was a tick, but I was unsure what to do. Lime disease is a real big problem in the Northeast, and I see deer in my neighborhood all the time, especially at night.
"Dad, can you look back there and check to make sure there are no more ticks?" I said, raising my shirt, and pulling my pants down just a bit.
"Gross." declared my sister grabbing a sugarless black cherry jello cup from the freezer. “I am never typing downstairs again.”
"Did you get the head?" screamed my stepmother.
My father stared at the paper and said, "No darling, it is all in tack, it is crawling on this paper."
So my father was busy trying to kill the tick, while I waited for instructions. I know nothing about lime disease. As of killing a tick, it is difficult. I smashed it with my fist several time downstairs to see if there was any of my blood in its guts. But it survived, flattening out, faking dead, and then getting up to run. And boy, do they run fast. I also remember all those kids from Appalachia who used to know everything about the natural world. A guy named Willy tried to tear one apart with his fingers. I witnessed it, it took a while. He had found the tick on himself, and we sat in grass in awe of the dusty blond hair kid trying to tear it apart with his bare fingers.
"Now go bathe in bleach. Get in the bath tub, add a cup of bleach and sit in it for about 5 minutes. Ticks, lice and any other bugs should release themselves immediately when you are sitting in bleach."
I heard my father's words and went to work the folk cure (he didn’t want to look at my hairy ass either). While I sat in the tub I called Rat-mo to get his advice. He was busy studying for his boards.
"The tick has to be on you for 24 hours." he said, "And, since it was not attached to you, then you do not have to worry about lime disease."
Rat-mo giggled about the home remedy, sneered at Ava's remarks about the emergency room, and went right back to the books. Meanwhile, my already ashy and crusty feet and legs were intolerable now. I showered after the bath and emerged from the bathroom with my stepmother and father screaming on the porch with some bloke from the insurance company, or maybe a contractor. There were also two other guys roaming the house fixing our cable box, the wiring got wet during the Nor’easter and was effecting the On Demand function.
We just couldn’t take it any more. The missed Sopranos episodes must be watched. And man, is it getting dark now.
Way Before the Light Posts Came on During a Saturday Night
So, I sat down and watched Garden State. It is a very good movie. Now that I am back in New Jersey again, it really helped me calm down a bit. I was not sore from the walk; I was just stressed from the tick. Maybe that is what the dogs in the dream were trying to warn me about.
Anyway, Natalie Portman is beautiful. She looked the best ever in that film. I registered for the exam. Route 27 is still being over developed. There is an entire Mexican underclass that patrols our neighborhood with lawnmowers and tool belts. And, the wildlife is still being misplaced.
