The Grind, The Groove, and The Goal (All Covered in Rust)

           Wow! It’s been nearly two months since I’ve written anything. (I apologize in advance for any rustiness. Is ‘rustiness’ even a word? According to my computer’s spell-check it is.) Actually, I take that back; it’s been nearly two months since I’ve written anything significant, for over the past eight weeks I have written partial lyrics to about a dozen songs that will certainly not be recorded by any major or minor artists anytime soon. The last time I went this long without writing, I was helping to power a canoe down the Mississippi River. This time I was walking down the Oregon Coast. (Which you will hopefully get the chance to read about next year when I publish my much anticipated adventure travel book: A Long Walk on the Beach: 420 Miles on the Oregon Coast Trail.)

            [What a dreadful opening paragraph! Hopefully by the end of whatever this is, I’ll have gotten the rust out of my literary joints…]

             I want to talk about The Grind, The Groove, and The Goals, but not necessarily in that particular order. “The Goal” was to complete the Oregon Coast Trail—in which I succeeded—but The Goal was so much more than a simple achievement; it was the end destination of a journey that began long before I ever started walking. I was in “The Groove”: I had a job, a savings account, a place to lay my head, food on the table, etc., etc., etc…But, boy, could I feel “The Grind”: having to wake up each day to go to a job I despised, to put money in a savings account that I obviously didn’t need, to lay my head in the same place day in and day out, to put food on the table that was only making me fatter and lazier, etc., etc., etc… I was living, for lack of a better term, THE AMERICAN DREAM! But, unfortunately, not MY American Dream. And that’s why I needed a goal. Any goal.

            [Okay, that paragraph was a bit better, but I still think I can do better…]

            It was around New Year’s that I asked my girlfriend, “Say, do you want to hike the Oregon Coast Trail this sum…”

            “Yes!” she said before I could finish the question.

            I suddenly had a goal, and that simple goal, that derived from that unfinished question, was enough to make The Grind worthwhile; enough to justify living in The Groove. The job I despised suddenly had meaning (even if I knew that I would be quitting it soon enough), there was a good reason for that money I was saving, the food that was making me fatter was providing me with much needed calories to burn later, etc., etc., etc… That prepackaged American Dream finally had a purpose: it allowed me to follow My American Dream.

            And for six weeks, that’s precisely what I did: I followed My American Dream. And I’m aware that six weeks may not seem like a long time to most hard working adults, but when you’re traveling substantial miles on foot, hours suddenly feel like days, days feel like weeks, and weeks feel like months. All that Grind, all that time stuck in The Groove, it all finally seemed worthwhile because I was following The Goal. And a funny thing happened when I was on that journey: The Goal began to multiply. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline, or a feeling of purpose, or having nowhere to go but forward, but before I knew it, I was making lists, developing numerous goals, things I told myself I would accomplish as soon I got back in the groove, things like: finish editing my novel, write 1,000 words a day, exercise more, watch less TV, read more books, find a job that I didn’t despise, learn a foreign language, etc., etc., etc… until that list seemed so good and perfect and promising, that I couldn’t wait for the current Goal to be accomplished so I could get back into The Groove and go after them. I only forgot about one little detail—THE MOTHERFUCKING GRIND!

            [Slowly but surely, the rusty parts are being oiled…]

            I couldn’t wait to get home. I couldn’t wait to get back in the groove. My feet hurt, I was drinking entirely too much, and I was downright sick of walking ALL THE TIME! But The Grind had other ideas. My first day home I threw my back out. Throughout the entire hike, my lower lumbar had felt better than it had in years, so, boy, was it a surprise when I plugged my computer into an outlet and it felt like somebody stabbed my in the spine with a broken beer bottle. So, I spend a few days on the couch, “taking it easy,” watching the Olympics, and accomplishing nothing. By the time it’s healed, it’s time to go back to work, back to a job I despise, because often times Goals have a funny way of causing your savings account to bottom out. And after working all week in 100+ degree temperatures, I want nothing more than an ice cold beer, which quickly turns into a three day bender, because after all, I have friends I haven’t seen in two months that are more than happy to hear about my adventures over a drink or ten, and then all that booze weakens my immune system and out of nowhere I’m struck with the flu. And I know what you’re thinking: Who the hell gets the flu in the middle of summer? My thoughts exactly!!! And before I know it, two weeks have gone by since I accomplished that original Goal and I haven’t even begun to tackle a single one of my new goals. FUCKING GRIND!

            But it’s okay, because I know I’m not alone. Because if you’re not in the Grind, then you’re not really living. And without the Grind, the Groove would be too easy, and the Goal wouldn’t seem as sweet. I just need to get back in the Groove. These thousand words are a good start, (even if they are covered in rust). And when I’m done typing this, maybe I’ll go for a run, start in on a new book, edit some of my novel, practicar algun espanol, etc., etc., etc…[and hopefully work some more of this rust off…]

            Oh, Yes! About those song lyrics. I’d hate to be a tease, so here is small sample:

Go ahead and judge my worn-out soles

And eye me like I’m filled with sin

But I’d rather walk these lonely roads

Than hide my head in your crowded inn

And, yes, most of the lyrics deal with walking…go figure.

            

Part 7—Finally (Chautauqua 7 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 7 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Inspired by Actual Events

Part 7—Finally

            Now, it’s a week after the Chautauqua Lake incident and my car reeks of something horrible. I have already popped the trunk, which felt like getting kicked in the face, and opened the lid to the cooler, which knocked me clear on my ass. Now, I’m staring at a small Styrofoam container sitting in the bottom. I should just throw the entire cooler out, but instead I decide to do something really stupid. I open the container. The contents inside have turned from worms and dirt into pure liquid. The stench is so powerful that it pushes me high into the air. Suddenly I’m flying backwards at an incredible speed, like a missile, which causes me to travel a vast distance in a short period of time. I luck out and come crashing back to Earth in a large body of water but I plunge far too deep and become disoriented in the darkness. I don’t know which way is up or which way is down. I’m going to drown, I think. But just as I’m about to breath in a mouthful of water, something begins to push me up.

            I gasp for air when I reach the surface and after a few seconds, realize that I’m not even in the water anymore. I look down to find that I’m on top of a giant head that it protruding from a long neck. Well, if it isn’t old Chauty, the Chautauqua Lake Sea monster. Who would have thought that he’d end up saving my life? And ever since that day I’ve never been able to smell awful things. The end.

            “Wait. Wait. Wait,” CC says. “That’s it? That’s the story?”

            “The way I remember it.”

            “So, let me see if I’ve got this right: you bought some worms, left them in your trunk, and a week later, your car smelled bad? And you decided to turn it into a two-hour long story?”

            “My business card does say ‘Storyteller’,” I say. “Didn’t you like my story?”

            “It was good until the end.”

            “What’s wrong with the end?”

            “Well, first of all,” CC says, “there are way too many holes. If you had a cooler in the trunk, how could Tommy be sleeping in it? And, in all the commotion of you guys fleeing the boat, why would you grab the container full of worms and put them in the cooler?”

            “Those are your main concerns?” I ask. “I just told a story that involved my flying a hundred miles through the air, landing in a lake, and being saved by a sea monster, and you’re worried about the logistics of a cooler?”

            “I just feel like the ending needs more. Like, what happened to all the characters?”

            “So you want a ‘where are they now’ ending?” I ask.

            “That would be nice,” CC says.

            “Okay. Here it is. Well, Suzy Q drove her last mile a few weeks later. The mechanic said it looked like a suicide but couldn’t say for sure. It could have been the smell that did her in or the cheap gas from the reservation; probably a combination of both. Tex went on to become an in-house rodeo clown for a major accounting firm in New York City. He also took third place in the 2007 National Yelling Competition. Tommy moved to Alaska, married into the Palin family, and now works fulltime as a Donald Trump impersonator. And as for me, well, you know where I am now, obviously, but for the rest of that summer, I traveled to every town in the southern tier of New York, searching for the Queen of the Dairy Queen. Never found her, though I did land a lucrative gig rescuing skunks out of the bottom of portable toilets; you know, because of my lack of smell and all…

            “I get it,” CC says. “But there’s one thing I never told you about me. In the summer of 2000, I went to stay with my Grandma in Upstate New York. I had a job at the local Dairy Queen, and one night these three guys show up asking for directions to Chautauqua Lake…”

            “No way. That was you?”

            CC smiles.

            “Now,” I say, “that’s how you end a story!”

            I crank the volume back up:

“♫ Like a Bat out of Hell,

I’ll be gone when the morning comes…♪♪”

Part 6—The Legend of Chauty (Chautauqua, 6 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 6 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Inspired by Actual Events

Part Six—The Legend of Chauty

            I wake up in the back seat of Suzy Q, the sun piercing my eyes through the window. I sit up to see that Tex is laid out across the front seats, stripped down to his underwear. I wake him up and we stumble out of the car to find Tommy in the trunk, his legs draped over the bumper. “What the hell happened last night?” I ask.

            “I remember Mike telling us that he was grounded, Tommy admitting that he made everything up, and then you saying, ‘I’ve got an idea.’ After that it’s all black.”

            “I don’t remember anything either,” I say, “but I’ve got one hell of a hangover.”

            I kick Tommy awake. “What happened last night?” I ask.

            “I don’t know,” he moans. “Just drive me home.”

            “You’re in the trunk.”

            “I know. I don’t care. I’ll ride back here.”

            “We drove four hours to get here and don’t remember a goddamn thing. I’m not going home without at least seeing the lake.”

            Tex and I pull Tommy out of the trunk and we all head downhill towards the water. When we reach the shore, we gawk at acre upon acre of open water, its smooth surface like a mirror, the sun glistening off it. “It’s beautiful,” I say.

            “Sure is,” Tex says.

            “Like heaven,” Tommy adds.

            “Even better when you’re out there.” A grizzled voice startles us from behind.

            We turn around to find an ancient man, probably close to two hundred years old, standing behind us. “So, what do you say?” he asks.

            “What do we say about what?”

            “About seeing the lake from out there? I can make it happen.”

            “What are you talking about?” Tex asks.

            “I can rent you a boat, so you can really experience the lake how it was meant to be seen. Only five bucks for three hours.”

            “Deal,” I say without even consulting my friends.

            The old man leads us down the shore about fifty feet to a rotting wooden dock with a small motor boat tied to it. I hand him a five dollar bill.

            “Now,” he says, “there’s only one rule: No Joyriding!”

            “We wouldn’t dare,” Tex replies.

            “Well then,” the man says, “if you’re not joyriding, then what are you going to do with my boat?”

            “Fishing,” Tommy says.

            “Without poles? I can rent you some for five bucks.”

            I hand him another five.

            “What about bait? You’re going to need bait to go fishing. I’ve got worms for sale. Five bucks.”

            I hand him another five and he hands me a small Styrofoam container. Tex, Tommy, and I climb into the boat and pull on the cord to start the engine but it won’t turn over.

            “You boys need some gas?” the old man asks. “I can sell you a gallon for five bucks.”

            “Five bucks!” I say. “I got a gallon for 87 cents last night. Fuck this. We’re done. I want all my money back.”

            “I’ve got it,” Tex says as he pulls a five out of his pocket. “I mean, we’re already in the boat and I’m kind of excited to get out on the water.”

            The old man takes the bill. “Alright boys.” He hands us a plastic jug of gas. “Just remember: No Joyriding! and: Beware of Chauty!”

            “What’s Chauty?” Tommy asks.

            “You mean to tell me you’ve never heard the legend of Chauty,” the old man lets out a sinister giggle. “Ever heard of Nessy, up in Loch Ness? Or Champ, up in Lake Champlain? Well, this lake has its very own monster, Chauty, who preys upon the flesh of boys who go joyriding.”

            “Sure he does,” Tex says as he starts the motor, drowning out whatever words the old man is yelling as we pull away from the dock.

            We immediately get to joyriding. The boat isn’t fast by any means, but it’s steady, and turns, though not on a dime. The lake is narrow, but long—only two miles at its widest, though seventeen miles from end to end. After running the motor for about an hour straight, we decide to give it a rest. “Now what?” Tommy asks.

            “We could fish,” I say. “I mean, we have all the stuff.”

            “Sounds lame,” Tommy says. “Nothing’s more boring than…”

            Before he can finish his thought, Tex casts a live worm through the air. It makes a beautiful plopping sound as it strikes the water’s surface. He slowly starts reeling it in when something snags it. Something big. Tex does his best to muscle the pole, but it’s useless. The force on the other end pulls him to his feet and nearly flips him off the boat. Luckily, Tommy and I catch him in time and use your combined weight to keep him stationed in the boat’s stern. But Tex doesn’t let go of the pole and we suddenly realize that whatever is on the other end of the line is actually pulling us across the lake at a faster pace than the motor ever did. “Just let go!” I yell.

            Tex lets go of the fishing pole and the boat comes to a halt. But then there’s a jolting impact beneath us that causes the boat to temporarily lift out of the water. We come crashing down, pushing waves in every direction. I notice Tommy looking over my shoulder, his eyes wide and crazed. His arm is extended and he’s pointing into the air, and his mouth is hung open, though no words are coming out. Tex and I both turn out heads around and towards the sky to find some sort of sea creature staring back at us. Its neck is long, like a giraffe’s, and its head must be twenty feet above us. I immediately grab a paddle and strike it across the monster’s smooth, wet skin. The paddle snaps in half and the creature lets out a deafening roar that has so much velocity that it pins our bodies to the bottom of the boat. We lay there, petrified, and scream like little girls at a slumber party.

            I close my eyes to contemplate my death and when I open them, the monster is gone. I sit up and look around the lake—nothing. “Get up guys,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”

            We start the engine and head back to where we came from. When we arrive, the ancient man is standing at the end of the wooden dock, waiting for us. When we pull the boat in and cut the engine, he looks down at his wristwatch and says, “Ten minutes too late. That’ll be another five backs.” Then he notices the broken paddle. “What the hell is that?” he asks, pointing at the splintered wood. “And where’s my fishing pole? And how much gas did you use?”

            The three of us jump out of the boat and beeline it towards the shore. “Where do you think you’re going?” yells the old man. “You owe me money for the paddle and the pole and the gas.”

            Tex turns around, infuriated. “Listen here, old man,” he yells, “you sent us out there knowing there was a monster in those waters…”

            “A monster?” the old man says. “What are you talking about—a monster?”

            “Remember—Chauty,” Tex replies.

            “Oh, I made that whole thing up to scare you kids. Now just give me what you owe me and you can go.”

            “You’re not getting another dime,” I say as we hurry away from the water.

            We start running up the hill, back towards Mike Smith’s house and the old man is yelling the entire time. “I curse you,” he’s shouting. “I curse you…”

            When we get back to Suzy Q, Mike Smith is sitting on the hood. “There you guys are,” he says. “I talked my dad into letting me off the hook for today, so we can hang out.”

            “Screw that,” Tex says. “We’re going home.”

            I pop the trunk and throw the Styrofoam container of worms into my cooler. After closing everything up, Tex, Tommy, and I hop in the car and head back to our hometown.

To be continued...

Part 5—Good Directions (Chautauqua 5 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 5 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Part Five—Good Directions

            The first town we come to, I pull into the local Dairy Queen.

            “Why are we stopping?” Tommy asks.

            “To ask directions,” I answer.

            “We don’t need directions.”

            “If we don’t need directions, then tell me what town we’re in.”

            Tommy cranes his neck to look out the windshield. “We’re in the town of Dairy Queen. It says it right there on the sign.”

            “I’m getting directions.”

            The girl in the ice cream window is about the same age as us and when I ask her if we’re close to Chautauqua Lake, she laughs. “You’re not even close. At least two hours away.”

            Tex and I both look over our shoulders at Tommy, who is studying the menu board like it’s a guide for the SAT’s. “Order me an Oreo Blizzard,” he says.

            I shake my head and ask the girl if she know how to get to the lake.

            “Of course, I’ve driven there a hundred times,” she says, echoing Tommy’s response from earlier in the day. She’s goes on to give us the most complicated directions I’ve heard in my life. “You’re going to go back the way you came. It’ll be dark for a while. When you finally see a street lamp, you’re going to want to take your second left. Follow that road for awhile. I mean, seriously, you’re going to think you missed a turn, but trust me, just keep driving. You’ll eventually come to a town that has an arch…”

            “An arch?” Tex asks in disbelief.

            “Yeah, an arch, like the famous one in St. Louis. Drive under the arch and take a right, then a left, then another right, then another left. Take that road for awhile. When you see a giant gas station, you’re almost there. But whatever you do, don’t get gas there. Just drive past it. A few more miles, and your there: Lake Chautauqua.”

            “You mean Chautauqua Lake?” Tex says.

            “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

            I finish up jotting the directions down and order an ice cream cone for the road.

            “Let’s stop at that McDonald’s,” Tex says as soon as I pull out of the Dairy Queen.

            “Why didn’t you get something at the Dairy Queen?” I ask.

            “I don’t want food. I want to get directions to Chautauqua Lake.”

            “We have directions.”

            “That girl had no idea what she was talking about. I mean, come on, an arch; like the one in St. Louis. She’s obviously setting us up for a wild goose chase.”

            “I trust her,” I say.

            “Why?”

            “She had a nice smile.”

            “Well,” Tex says, nodding his head towards the back seat, “the Pinball Wizard back there has a nice smile too. Look where that got us.”

            “We’re following the directions!” I say. “The directions from the Queen of the Dairy Queen.”

            So we drive, back the way came and it’s dark for a long while. “I don’t see a street lamp,” Tex says, “and I don’t remember seeing a street lamp the first time we drove down this road.”

            “That’s because you weren’t looking for it.”

            “There it is!” Tommy has climbed in between us and is pointing through the windshield.

            I pass the first left after the light and then turn at the second one. And we drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. And drive…

            “That’s it,” Tex yells as he presses the button on his door to roll the window down. “I’m throwing the directions out the window!”

            “No!!!!!!” I yell, reaching for the piece of paper as I press the button on my door to roll the window back up.

            The window goes up a bit and then down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. I wrestle with Tex until I rip half the paper out of his hand—the bottom half! “Go ahead,” I say. “Throw it out the window. See if I care.”

            Tex throws it out but when he goes to roll the window back up, it won’t budge. “You broke the window,” he says.

            “I broke the window? You broke the window!”

            “It doesn’t matter who broke the window,” Tommy says. “The only thing that matters is that it’s freezing back here new.”

            “That’s what you get for giving us bad directions,” I say as I roll my window down to add to his misery.

            “Holy shit!” Tex says. “An arch.”

            “Just like the one in St. Louis,” Tommy adds.

            “Ha!” I laugh. “Aren’t you glad we still have the bottom half of the directions?”

            I take a left after the arch and then a right and then a left and then another right. After a while I spot a giant gas station—the largest I’ve ever seen in my life. I swing a left and pull Suzy Q up to the nearest pump.

            “What are you doing?” Tex asks. “The Dairy Queen Queen specifically told us not to stop here.”

            “Well, we’re running on fumes, so unless you want to push her the rest of the way, we’re going to have stop. Plus, earlier you didn’t believe a word the Queen told us.”

            “I’m a different man now.”

            “Come on, it’s only 87 cents a gallon. Where could we possibly go wrong?”

            Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large Native American man is standing next to my window, which scares the hell out of all of us. “How much?” he asks.

            “Excuse me?”

            “How much gas do you want?”

            I realize that we’re on the reservation and that here they pump the gas for us. I hand him a ten dollar bill and pull the lever to pop the little door to the gas tank open.   He walks back and pours the gas. As soon as he pulls the nozzle out, I pull away. A few seconds later Tommy starts yelling. “He’s after us! Drive!”

            I look into the rearview mirror to see the Native American man sprinting towards the car.

            “She told us not to stop,” Tex screams.

            “Hit the gas!” Tommy yells. “Faster!”

            But it’s too late. The man is pounding on the back of the car, and I’m afraid if I turn around I might run him over. So I stop. He walks up to the window, clearly out of breath. “You drove away,” he says, “before I put the cap back on.”

            “Sorry,” I say.

            “Idiots,” he mumbles as he puts the cap back on.

            Another few miles down the road and we pass a sign that reads: “Welcome to Chautauqua Lake.” We finally made it.

            “The Queen of the Dairy Queen,” I say with a smile.

            “What about her?” Tommy asks.

            “If I could sleep with one girl on Earth, it would be the Queen of the Dairy Queen. She obviously knows what she’s doing.”

            “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Tex says. “Tommy here still has to get us to Mike Smith’s house.”

            “It’s right there,” Tommy says.

            We pull into the drive, get out of the car, and knock on the door. A middle-aged man answers.

            “Is Mike home?” I ask.

            “Mike’s grounded,” he snaps. “Just go home.”

            “But we just drove four hours to get here.”

            The man lets out a sigh and yells for Mike before disappearing into the house.

            “What are you guys doing here?” Mike asks when he gets to the door.

            “Came down to get drunk with you,” Tex says. “You know, at your dad’s bar.”

            “My dad sold that bar years ago.”

            Tex and I look at Tommy in frustration. “Well, let’s go out anyway,” I say. “There must be somewhere around here to get booze.”

            “It’s one in the morning,” Mike says. “Plus, I’m grounded.”

            “What do you mean, you’re grounded?” Tex asks “Your eighteen years old. We just graduated high school. How can you be grounded?”

            Mike’s eyes wander down to his feet. “Well, I didn’t exactly graduate. Sorry guys. I’ve got to go.”

            The door shuts in our faces.

            “Now what?” I ask.

            “There’s still the girls that Tommy knows,” Tex says.

            We look at Tommy and his eyes too suddenly wander down to his feet.

            “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say.

To be Continued...

Part 4—The Soundtrack of our Drive (Chautauqua 4 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 4 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Inspired by Actual Events

Part 4—The Soundtrack of our Drive

“♪♪ Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are ♫…”

“I don’t get it,” Tommy yells from the back seat.

“What don’t you get it?” I ask before Tex and I resume our sing-along. “♪♪ Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are ♫…”

“On the mirror it says ‘OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR,’ but in the song he says ‘Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.’ Don’t the two sayings contradict each other?”

Questioning the validity of Meat Loaf lyrics—the audacity! I have good reason to slam on the brakes and kick him out to the curb but then remember that he’s the only one who knows how to get to the lake. Instead, I respond to his outlandish observation. “It’s a metaphor,” I say over my shoulder. “You’ll understand when you get older.”

I turn up the volume as Tex and I sing at the top of our lungs:

“♫ But it was long ago, and far away

Oh God, it seems too very far

And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car ♪♪…”

As Tex and I are about to take the bridge into the chorus, Tommy climbs over the center console and presses the eject button on the tape deck. (When describing Suzy Q’s features back in Part 2, I forgot to mention her most important accessory: a cassette deck. Just got that much sweeter, didn’t she?) “I can’t take it anymore,” he declares. “Can’t we listen to the radio?”

“Radio doesn’t work,” I say. “It’s cassettes or nothing.”

“What other cassettes do you have?”

“Only Meat Loaf; it’s either Bat out of Hell or Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell.”

“I’ll tell you what hell is,” Tommy says. “Hell is being stuck in a car where the only music is Meat Loaf.”

“We could talk,” I suggest. [Inside Note: Participating in verbal communication with those in close proximity was a popular practice that humans enjoyed before the advent of the cellular phone. Ask your grandparents about the lost tradition; in the Twentieth Century, it was all the rage.]

“What should we talk about?”

We all sit in silence for a moment. What should we talk about? That is a good question. And the answer is pretty clear. What do teenage boys ever talk about? “I’ve got it,” I say. “If you could get with any girl in the world, who would it be?”

“Easy,” Tex says, “The Spice Girls.”

“Which one?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Good answer,” I say.

“What about you?” Tex asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I’m gonna have to think about it for a minute.”

“Well, I know who I’d pick,” Tommy says. “It’s a no-brainer for me—Hillary Clinton, hands down.”

“Really?”

“She’s smart, powerful, and sexy—can’t go wrong with a woman like that.”

I jerk the steering wheel to the left and swing Suzy-Q into a parking lot.

“Why are we stopping,” Tommy asks.

“Need to buy some music,” I say. “If you think I’m going to sit here and listen to you talk about boning Hillary Clinton for the next hour, you’ve got another thing coming.”

We walk into a record shop and I bee-line it to the far right corner of the building. [Inside Note: Before people realized they could illegally share music on the Internet, consumers actually purchased music at stores referred to as “record shops.” Ironically, by the turn of the century, record shops didn’t actually carry any records. And you think modern times are confusing.] I jet past 100,000 compact discs to find a single shelf holding less than 100 cassettes—the last remnants of a disappearing breed. I pick out a tape called “Rock Hits of the 70’s,” and before we know it, we’re back on the road, discovering for the first time, the eye-opening, mind-blowing, generation-defining lyrics of the Five Man Electric Band:

“♪♫ Signs, signs, everywhere a sign,

Blocking out the scenery,

Breaking my mind,

Do this,

Don’t do that,

Can’t you read the sign? ♪♫”

            By our second cycle through the cassette, we know all the words by heart and can’t help but sing along. This is also around the same time that I realize we’ve been driving for over an hour without making a single turn. “Hey Tommy,” I ask, “are we almost there?”

            “We have to be close,” he says.

            Tex turns around and looks at him. “You don’t know where we’re going, do you?”

            “Well, to be honest, I’ve never driven down here in the dark before.”

            I slam on the brakes and bring Suzy Q to a halt. “Are you kidding me? So you’re saying that I’ve been driving aimlessly for the past hour?”

            “Well, it feels like we’re headed in the right direction.”

            “It feels like?” I repeat. “It feels like? What the hell does that mean? How can it feel like we’re heading in the right direction?”

            “I have a hunch,” Tommy says.

            “Your hunch better have gas money,” I say as I put Suzy Q in drive and proceed down the dark highway.

To be continued... 

Part 3—One Week Earlier (Chautauqua 3 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 3 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Part 3—One Week Earlier

I crush the golf ball with a Big Bertha driver, sending it sailing down the grassy field, before it hooks left and disappears into the woods. Not going to find that one.

“That’s the last of the balls,” Tex says.

“What do we do now?”

“Get drunk?”

“Obviously,” I say. “But where? And how? Remember, I lost my fake ID last week.”

“I don’t know,” Tex says. “Let’s ask around.”

We’re at Chestnut Ridge County Park, at our friend Jeremy’s graduation party. It’s fun and all—good food, good friends, good times—but it’s one of those graduation parties that take place on a Sunday afternoon, the kind with no alcohol, and being just two weeks removed from high school, there are few things more important to us than getting a good buzz on. So, we ask around.

Being the end of the weekend, it seems that everyone has to work the next day—suckers—causing our dream of drunkenness to fade faster than the setting sun, when out of nowhere we find a glimmer of hope from an unsuspecting source. “I’ve got an idea,” Tommy says.

Tommy is two years younger than Tex and I, about to be a junior in the same high school that the two of us will never have to unwillingly step foot in again. Since he’s the youngest person at the party, you’d think we’d be surprised that he’s our best chance at scoring booze, but we’re really not, for Tommy, despite his age, is not only as smart as a whip, but radiates an air of confidence that would make most professional athletes jealous. “I say we drive down to the lake,” he says. “Mike Smith’s dad owns a bar down there—all the booze we can handle.”

“Mike Smith?” Tex asks. “Which Mike Smith?”

[A quick aside: “Smith” is easily the most common surname in the United States, with just over 1% of all individuals bearing it. The reason for this is because names were once commonly based on occupation, so anyone who was a blacksmith ended up with the last name “Smith.” Well, there must have been a point when our little town was occupied by primarily blacksmiths, for it seemed that one out of every four students in our school had the last name “Smith.” In addition, “Michael” was by far the most popular given name for newborn boys in the early 1980’s, causing there to be over two dozen Mike Smith’s in our grade alone, which you can imagine created much confusion over the years. Thus Tex’s question: “Which Mike Smith?”]

“Fat Mike Smith,” Tommy replies.

“Which lake?” I ask.

“Chautaqua.”

“Isn’t that like two hours away?”

“An hour, tops,” Tommy says. “I know a short cut. Driven it a hundred times.”

“Even an hour is a long ways to drive just to get drunk,” Tex says.

“What if I also told you that I know a bunch of hot girls who live down there?”

There’s no reason not to believe him, and as for obtaining alcohol—the most essential ingredient to our happiness—and girls—the second most essential ingredient—we have no other prospects. So, road trip it is. Oh, the things teenage boys will do for the chance of women and booze.

To be continued...

Part 2—Can’t You Smell that Smell? (Chautauqua: 2 of 7)

(Author's Note: This is part 2 of a 7 part series. To read previous entries, please visit jonpenfold.com)

Chautauqua: A Story in Seven Parts

Part 2—Can’t You Smell that Smell?

             It’s the summer of the year 2000 and everyone’s still on edge over Y2K. We are all aware that it’s only a matter of time before the grid goes down, the government collapses, and those badass robots from the Terminator movies take over the world. An even bigger concern, at least for my best friend Tex and me, is finding classic vinyl to add to our growing collections. We spend our weekends traveling clear across the county, stopping at every garage, yard, and barn sale we can find, on the lookout for anything vintage; preferably bands with letter abbreviations like CCR and BTO and ELO; or better yet, bands with numbers in their names, like U2, Three Dog Night, The Four Tops, or the ever-elusive Five Man Electric Band.

On this particularly Saturday I pick up Tex in my 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera Sedan—the best year for the Ciera, I might add, and best style; sorry wagon—which I’ve recently bought off the side of the road for the sum of my life savings: a cool $800. And boy, is she a sweet ride—Navy Blue, 2.5 liter Tech IV 14 engine, 110 horsepower, 135 lb/foot torque, automatic windows—let’s just say, J.D. Power is pretty damn impressed. I come up with a name for her the same way I christen all my vehicles—after the first song I hear on the radio with a woman’s name in the lyrics. 

Back to the story…I pick up Tex in Suzy Q to go “garage sale-ing” and within minutes I notice Tex flaring his nostrils. “What’s that smell?” he asks.

“Probably just manure,” I say, as we drive by fields full of knee-high corn.

“It’s July,” Tex says, “don’t they spread manure in the spring?”

“Don’t know. I’m not a farmer.”

We hit up a community-wide yard sale in the village of Java and find several cardboard boxes full of LP’s, but it’s mostly worthless garbage; shit we already have—The Eagles Greatest Hits, Frampton Comes Alive—or don’t really want—any Herb Alpert album that doesn’t have a naked woman covered in whipped cream on the cover. It’s high noon by the time we get back to the car and scorching-hot outside. When we open the doors to Suzy-Q, an ungodly stench pours out, like flood water bursting through a dam.

“I knew it wasn’t manure,” Tex says as he doubles over and dry heaves. “Whatever that smell is, it’s coming from inside your car.”

“First of all,” I say, “my car has a name, and it’s Suzy-Q, and you’d better treat her with respect. Second of all, there’s nothing in my car. Look—it’s empty.”

We give Suzy-Q a few minutes to air out, roll down the windows, and then check under the seats and inside the glove box just to make sure there isn’t a dead fish hiding somewhere—you never know if one of your friends is playing a practical joke on you. The smell dissipates some when we get back on the road. The faster I drive, the more fresh air funnels through. I stop at a gas station and buy a few air fresheners to hang on the rearview mirror, but the stench remains, only now with a hint of pine tree. We head north to Attica, where Tex scores a Dave Clark Five album and I buy a half-dozen “Iroquois” beer bottle openers for a quarter a piece—one of the greatest garage sail-ing finds ever, in my opinion.

“Where to next?” I ask as we hop back in Suzy-Q. “Heard there’s a street sale in Alden.”

“Just take me home,” Tex says. “I can’t take this smell any longer. It’s making my eyes burn.”

“That’s probably just your contacts,” I say as I take a swig of my Pepsi before immediately spitting it back out.

“It’s the smell, isn’t it? It’s infiltrated your pop. And you know it’s only going to get worse once it gets hotter out. Please take me home.”

I drive Tex home and he’s right—with every degree the thermostat climbs, the smell intensifies. From his house to mine, I have to drive with my head sticking out the window.

When I arrive home, I decide to figure out where the smell is coming from. I must have hit an animal, I convince myself, and its dead carcass is somehow stuck beneath Suzy-Q. I climb underneath but can’t find a trace of anything. I pop the hood—again, nothing. There’s only one place left to check. I open the trunk, releasing an odor so fierce it’s like getting slapped across the face. I don’t know why I didn’t think of checking here earlier. There’s nothing inside besides a spare tire and a cooler. I open the lid to the cooler and the stench impacts me like the force of a small explosion, knocking me a good ten feet in the air. I land hard on the dirt driveway. I crawl back to Suzy-Q and climb up the bumper to peek into the cooler. That’s when I see it, the root of all stink—a small Styrofoam container, a bit larger than a coffee cup, with a plastic lid on top. Oh shit, I realize, I had forgotten all about that.

“What was it?” you ask. Well, for the answer to that question, we’re going to have to go back another week…

To be continued...