Ellwood City stories #4

The Red Hot used to be on the Fifth Street bridge, which is no longer the Fifth Street bridge. Now it has a long ass, Ellwood City Lincoln Junior Senior High School Blue Band and Veterans bridge, or somesuch kind of thingy do.

Pee Wee's is gone, but Red Hot has remained. They opened a Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe next to it, and it is still here. It's the chili. It will beat your ass into the earth.



I have never had fries anywhere like here, either. And I usually hate fries.

It says something for a place if I like the fries.

Once, when I was a kid, I watched an episode of Kolchak the Night Stalker that freaked me out. See, I used to dress like Carl Kochack. When I was 3. I wanted to hunt monster, but I was scared shitless of them. In the last episode (there are only 20, yet I have watched them all so many times), The Sentry, a lizard creature keeps attacking people. Well, I was freaked that the lizard was real. I had an overactive imagination, and well, encouraging parents. Well, I was in the bathroom too long (and this has remained a problem my entire life, I get lost in the toilet), and my dad wanted me to come out and eat. So, when the lizard was about kill, he would knock on the wall, then bust out. So, of course, dad knocked like the lizard, and I fled the bathroom with pants around my ankles.

Yes, I had a good childhood.

Photo - S
Words - S

They have never changed the can. I am sure it upsets some people. But man, I have been drinking this since I was a kid and it always brings me back to innocence. It mixes cherry with strawberry and is perfect to balance against chili. You can't always find it. But it's out there.

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This was Pee Wee's. It was an all night hot dog place in my hometown. It's gone. But I wish I could take you back in time so you could see it. It was all metal, the grill never got cleaned and the stools fell apart and it was filled with drunks and staffed by old ladies quick with a retort. In other words, it's what I assume heaven would be like if it existed. There were no french fries. Instead, hash browns. Brutal chili that could mask any alcohol on your breath. And gyros. But it's gone, like I said. I wish I could smell it one more time, that strange mix of staleness and spice, lingering in the air, people lined up against the wall to buy just one more hot dog.

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Today is my dad's 70th birthday. I can think of no better picture of him than this. He's passed out and snuggling with my dog. He loves that dog. He wakes up early to walk him and he feeds him sandwiches by hand. My dad has so much love in him. It's intimidating being his son, because I fear that I will never live up to the example that he set for me. I've done my best. But he's reached more people than I could ever hope to and loved harder and better than I could ever dream of trying. He accepts me regardless of the fact that I am a complete fucking disaster. And he always laughs and smiles while taking care of everyone else. I wish I had all the money in the world so I could make his life easier. But then, he'd probably still play the nickel slots.

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iTunes is on random and Tom sings, "Sometimes at night, I pray to wake a different person in a different place." Sometimes he screams, "They make all the right reasons to fuck it up." And I yell out, every time, no matter how many people are in my office, "You're gonna fuck it up."

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I stopped dressing nice. No one noticed. I started drinking at 10. Nobody cared. I sleepwalk through life. No one else is awake to see.

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There are places that I refuse to go to because they are too easy to be at and aren't real. I can linger in them for much longer than I would like to admit and then it takes weeks to get past them. But I gave in and fell in the other day and it felt good. I didn't end up staring at the wall. I let what felt good feel good and so far, everything was fine. But I have built these walls and I have made this skin and I have spent more time in the valleys than the peaks than I would like to.

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Summer is gone and fall is here and summer was playful and mischievous. Fall is quiet. Fall is dark before you know it. But there is beauty here, too. The reds of the leaves and the chill inteh night air, the first frost on my windshield, your breath in the air.

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Ritual and superstition govern the day. The rings must be kept, the bride must remain unseen. Everything must go just so and it rarely does. But when you got a less than fifty fifty chance, you follow all the superstitions that you can.

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Walking through the park, I love seeing old couples walk hand in hand. I love watching them talk. I try and glean some feeling from it with my empathy, because I won't ever be there. It's a nice feeling, growing and sharing and just living. And then I walk away in the opposite direction.

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In a sea of sameness, you don't let something go when it's unique.

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Why do they throw rice at weddings? Fertility, some think. Others think that it is to feed any evil spirits at the wedding, so that they have other things to do, and make them happy so they leave the couple alone. Many people say you shouldn't throw rice to birds because it kills them. That's not true. Rice is as harmless to birds as, well, rice. They eat it all the time in the fields. It's just hard to clean up. And you can fall on it, pretty easily. That's why they invented the lie.

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At night, I used to feel like things made sense, but now I just want the day to come faster. I sleep less so that I wake up faster. I used to say that my life was a Tom Waits song, but now I feel like a Modest Mouse song. To wit, "It's the same on the weekends as the rest of the days. And I know I should go, but I'll probably stay. And that's all you can do about some things. I'm trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away." I look around the house and realize that it's already dark and that I've been up for 14 hours and yet I am surprised that the daylight is gone. My living room smells like oranges and Jolly Ranchers and smoke and yet I cannot get rid of the need to fill the air and my eyes and my brain with stimulus. I'm going to stay inside from now on, I'm going to just let this couch be my ship on the stormy seas of life. I have tried to open the galley and now I realize that it's time to batten down the hatches and drink and devil had done for the rest. No one's gonna be left standing and all I want to do is lie down and let my head just stop ringing for a bit. I'm shocked that the weekend is over, but nowadays, there is no real need to look forward to anything. I used to give myself little rewards and small goals but now, I've done everything I ever wanted to do and now, I float, and I drift, and I think sometimes it's best to insulate myself inside the walls of my never-paid for castle. Bill collectors are the only people who seem to stay in touch with me, but all they really ever want to talk about is when they're gonna get paid. I try and ask them about the weather or what they think about the latest movie show, and all they want to say is that I owe them $450. And that's what my life has come down to. Who I owe what to, what I have to work toward, and when I will pay them. Because that's what it's really all about. First they only wanted time, but they really didn't, and now, they only want the balloon payment at the end of the failed rainbow. And now I keep seeing the same pictures with different headlines and new abbreviations. "Run from the pigs, the fuzz, the cops, the heat. Pass me your gloves, theres crime and its never complete." Everyone knows my name. And all I want to do is find something that erases my mind and starts me over. I can't give anyone what they want and no one has the cure for the diseases that ail me on a per 15 minute basis. But outside the leaves are turning colors and I like that, I can go with that, I'll cling to that today. They fall to the ground, being leaves, because that's all they know how to do.

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It's a calming feeling when you smell the gunpowder and the flashes and loud noises are all around you. Some people would be a little nervous, but to me, it's very calming. Like a Calgon bath. If a Calgon bath could kill people.

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He had enough. He was catching a bus. He had had enough of baths, of being forced to wear human clothes, of the leash, of having to be nice to the cats. But then he realized he had it pretty good, so he decided to stay.

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I am not half the photographer that N is, but let me tell you, trying to get Angelo to pose in the park with a cam phone? My greatest accomplishment.

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There is a man who walks the park cleaning garbage. He is in his late 80s and he cleans the garbage for free, because he should and feels like it's right. He takes all the cans and trash and gets rid of them, but when he finds a toy, he keeps it. He takes it and nails it to a fence outside his house. And if it's your toy, or if you want it, all you have to do is knock on his door and ask him to take his hammer and pull it off. Then, it's yours. He doesn't want any money. He just likes to wake up and clean the park.

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Sometimes I feel like a failure. Other times I feel like a success. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea where life is going to take me. And there are moments where I know that I am exactly where I always wanted to be. Sometimes my body hurts and I feel my age. But today, I feel 16. Deadlines and jobs and work will never dull the fun in my eyes.

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When you look out the window, you see the highway and I see the trees. The pixels connect thoughts of the city from the country. This is the best time of the year, when kids climb into trees to scream Supremes songs. When corn gets thrown at siding strewn houses. When garish trees are just about ready for bulbs and garland. The year is almost over and I'm looking outside my window some more and I wish I could be looking out the windshield, or better yet, the rear view mirror, seeing this town and this state in the dust as sail is set for towns only read about.

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I used to cross under this bridge every day. I had my route memorized. And now, I have a new one. Someday, I'll have another one. But today, my route is my own. Actually, I'd like it a lot more if my route wasn't planned. If every day, I woke up with no noise and slept as long as I could. Then I'd get up, make some art and make some eggs. I wish I could find a way to heal houses the same way people get healthier. I'd go up to that house on the hill and put on band aids and give it medicine and make it the kind of place where the hardwood yearns to kiss roller skate wheels.

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