Pushing a Lex, I'm set, ready to jet
No matter how much loot I get I'm staying in the projectsMobb Deep
My friend in Tampa told me it got all woke there because they put up stop signs in his sleepy neighborhood at the intersections. Now in North Carolina, I see what he means. Fifty-five statewide speed limit here, yoga, and no fireworks stands… Cigarettes are cheap in both Carolinas, but lighting one in SC counts as religious stretching.
In North Carolina I saw a Black dude in a forrest green Volvo wagon with a Thin Blue Line sticker on back. In South Carolina I saw a Black dude in a Silverado with a Confederate flag on back. But throughout the Carolinas, white people all drive the same thing: diesel, tinted windows, lift, chrome rims, and low profile tires. Either that, or a ranch truck pulling a trailer.
The main difference between Texas and the Carolinas, though, is here they actually use them to haul stuff. The difference between Goodwill in Mississippi and California - closed on Sundays. White Castle fries only come in one size but Chick-fil-A is also closed on Sunday.
Whatever this place is, it was in North Carolina.
Obviously…
What’s unfamiliar, and unfriendly, here is the pollen. It piles up an eighth of an inch thick on the hood every morning. Mike ingested so much he threw up. My sinuses are more packed than when I lived in London.
Also unfamiliar, after 8 years with a flip phone, are IG and X. I got suspended for commenting “Should have shot her instead,” about Alec Baldwin’s wife. However, once I reframed it, all good. I’m learning.
Politics 2025 is wild too. I know about this because I’ve seen it in the South, but for the uninitiated:
So now, virtuous people - i.e. Al Gore voters who bought Teslas to display their love of the planet - are getting their cars trashed by the Green Peace people — i.e the lunatics. And, those who would normally buy Teslas - i.e. people who rather show something than do something - are now peacefully protesting Tesla stores. And people who normally hate Teslas - i.e. diesel truck drivers - are now coal rollin’ on Tesla protestors. So there you have it, 2025 in a nutshell.
However, what is getting familiar, is having the needless strength to lift a truck or a car. This guy knows what’s up. Build a wall? How about building a gym? Where the lat pull-down stack doesn’t stop at 280?
No judgements, no gains.
This didn’t happen picking cherries, nor did it happen at Planet Fitness. Just pure good judgment right there.
Something about this week reminded me of this odd job I took about one month sober. I needed the money. I was still living at my best friend’s place, fresh on the heels of taking his wife’s 2024 Mercedes GLS 450 for a 90 mile-per-hour joyride through the neighborhood. That was, you know, to compare it to their 2025 Silverado Trail Boss. Second time a charm, that was when my mans had the “get sober or get out” conversation with me. Love you brosé.
Anyway, my mind was just starting to get right - but not quite right enough. We were all out front kibitzing about this and that when their goofball neighbor, the self-styled “Bird Lady,” ambled up to ask if their son would like to house sit while they were away. Rather than jumping on it, he demurred. All I heard was $100 per day - and said “mines.” More responsibility equals more responsible. Seems like it. At face value. For sure.
One month later, while working my 9 to 5, which was really 7 to 4, at a construction firm compiling exceedingly complex (read: boring) VBA tools used to make their estimating models, I would find myself doing a walk-trough on Sunday before the week began with the man of the house getting ready to look after things the days ahead. Inside there was no carpet, just exposed cement floors. Over the living room was a partially constructed load bearing loft with X-frame wire supports that listed to one side and I was warned was unsafe to enter. The animal farm: 2 cats, 3 hamsters, 4 ducks, 12 chickens and 20 birds. And, I was supposed to sleep in their 15 year old son’s bed.
The birds were divided into two aviaries, each flowing through a window from outdoors to indoors. In the living room were the “bad birds” and the master was where the “good birds” were at. One of the goods birds also had cancer and needed to be helped into his cage at night on a little bird ladder. Otherwise, one was to scootch all the birds in from outside through the windows, from both aviaries, every night before dark, and then draw the curtains (so they don’t fly into the…) windows which were to be shut only after. Then the birds needed to be organized into each of 10 different cages according to their established, long-term mating relationships. If they got mixed up, there would be a fight. If the “good birds” and “bad birds” got mingled, there would be a fight. If the cats got among the birds, there would be a fight. If the hamsters got forgotten, they would starve. If any of the 16 ducks and chickens were not corralled into the cage at night, they would get eaten by predators. Otherwise, it was pretty simple.
One just had to feed them all in their cages separately, matched up appropriately, twice daily, put blinds on all their cages at night, turn out the lights, then feed the ducks and chickens, put blinds on that cage too, feed the cats, change the kitty litter, feed the hamster, get the mail, and clean all the cages once per week. After that it was off to bed where a young man aged 15 does the sort of things pubescent boys do while dreaming about girls in bikinis.
For starters, I brought the van and slept in that, only going in to relive myself at night. Good judgment. To get to work for 7am, I had to wake up at 3:30am in the morning to run around, latching doors behind me vigilantly to ensure no cats escaped their locked quarters, then put out all varieties of food: Cuisinarted vegetables and seed for all the birds, plus a five ingredient breakfast for the chickens and ducks. Then fill the duck pond. Of course, I was late to work everyday - much to the disdain of my fastidious employer. So now I had him yelling at me too. That was, in between when I was simply falling asleep at the wheel during the day.
On the first evening, in a hurry because four bad bird males were swooping down in living room trying to pelt me in the back of the head, I mixed up one of the bad bird males with the wrong one of the bad bird females - not his wife - leading to a squabbling fight when his woman flew home.
At that point I decided, fuck it, the bad birds can just sleep as a flock — all of them — in the living room outside of their cages every night. Entering and exiting the bad bird aviary, I held the tiny bird ladder before me, like a priest raising a crucifix at an exorcism, to protect myself from attack. Good birds don’t fight so I just mixed and matched them in cages randomly, irrespective of the proper order. They can be swingers for a week. Good judgement.
On day three, of eleven, their twenty-something daughter, Mercedes, who for whatever reason they did not trust to take this particular assignment, called me at work in a panic to say she had stopped around the house to get herself some food, and noticed that the cat was in the living room, which I knew to be untrue because like an OCD kid, I had checked that the cats were locked in their room like 77 times, and she said that the duck pond was empty, which I had filled hours earlier that morning. She told me that I needed to be more mindful as I looked at my phone thinking
Than what?
Then she asked, peculiarly, if I was even staying there at night like I was supposed to, presumably because she noticed her brother’s unmade bed was no more messy than the way he left it. I told her, “Yes,” but that her I rather stay out front in the van.
That night, I used the toilet and everything was fine, however, in the morning, when I used it again, it didn’t flush. Checking the tank, it was empty. Checking the water line behind the tank, it had been turned off. Hmmm… who could have done this? maybe by the gremlins? Or maybe by somebody with a German automobile for a name. Perhaps a trap to see if I really staying the night. Playing her game back on her, I called her at work at lunch that day and told her something was wrong with the toilet, it wasn’t flushing, and I asked her to stop around to have a look before I called a plumber - because that would be very expensive. Obviously I left a big dump in there for her to find.
My situation with the saboteur thus resolved, I proceeded about my business the next evening, but, as I was shooing the good birds in through the window from the external aviary, I looked back inside to notice I had neglected shutting the bedroom door, allowing them to gain passage to the living room, where the bad birds live. Of course this resulted in one of them flying into the war zone. I called the homeowners to ask what to do but both had their phones set straight to VM. After 50 tries, I had to bite the bullet and call Mercedes. YMBFKM with that name. The upper hand hers, again, when I told her what happened, she said:
Can’t you do anything right?
After two hours together, Mercedes and I, in the bad bird aviary, me with a broom and her with a blanket, we managed to capture the wayward bird - without even breaking its wing. As she repatriated him to his proper home, I tried to skedaddle out. 10pm now, way past my bed time, I was beyond hangry because I had not eaten since the night before but my escape was thwarted by the halting, unmistakable sound of a young woman crying. Things so far out of hand, I seriously wondered if this was all real and assumed the Bird Lady’s psychopath daughter must be having a nervous breakdown by herself in her parent’s bedroom - AKA the good bird aviary. But, I couldn’t rightly ignore her distress, so, first I threw my hat at the ground, like in the movies, and cursed the Lord’s name, then I schlepped in there to discover her gasping, weeping and cradling the the corpse of the cancerous good bird in her hand. It seems he had keeled over from all the fracas(es). She found him on the floor near the window sill.
Now wondering quietly to myself if she had killed him to set me up, I was nonetheless trapped - had to play nice now. With that dead bird, she could pin all the other things she did on me, and say it was more stuff the irresponsible guy who killed the bird did wrong. So I was of no option but to oblige when she suggested
We must give him a proper burial.
In an out-of-body state of disbelief, I watched myself stagger across the street from third person eye view, going over to my best friend’s house to get materials to fabricate a mini-coffin for an upcoming midnight bird funeral. I smashed a plush blue hand cloth into an empty long stem rose box that I trimmed down with scissors and tape. By the time I got back over to dig a shallow grave, my incredulity had turned to amusement - and amazement. I was practically giggling as I placed the casketed bird in the hole and covered it over. Mercedes bowed her head and said a few nice things about the bird while I joined her, politely looking down at my shoes in silence. Be nice, it’s almost over, I thought as she looked up at me as if to say I should eulogize the bird too. So I did. I did the best I could -
Sorry what happened Mr. Bird. You seemed like a really good bird. Um, hope you had some really good flights.
The next morning, which was about three hours later, well beyond the limits of my patience and totally exhausted, I was going about the house again, feeding all the animals at 6am before work, running around shell-shocked in a frantic state, like Henry Hill making pasta sauce on cocaine while dodging FBI helicopters. I completed the whole process in record time, I was running for the master bedroom door to make my way out. As I yanked the door open, one of the good birds flew - splat - right into the wall about six inches to the left of the opening door. He bounced off the wall in a flash, and with a flutter of his wings - zap - he beamed at a right-angle, making a beeline straight through the cracked open door and out into the bad bird aviary. No. No No No. No. Nooooo. Noooooooooooo. Noooooooooooooooooooooo. Not again.
It was me who had the first nervous breakdown, right in the center of the cul-de-sac, in the darkness, at the crack of dawn, for all to see, screaming at the Heavens things like what Chef said in Apocalypse Now:
I didn’t come here for this! I don’t need it! I don’t want it! I didn’t get out of the eight grade for this! All I want to do is cook! I just wanted to learn to fucking cook!
I left that good bird in there with the criminals to fend for itself. They had not killed me yet so I figured the bird could sort it out. I did not call Mercedes. Do not pass go. Collect $1000. Get this money. Don’t kill any more birds. Avoid Mercedes. Don’t get fired. Keep it moving. Get this money.
The family came home days later to a living room littered with bird dropping, and with one of the “good birds” now living among the dangerous bad ones, and with another one in a grave out back. Although I had done my best humanly possible under the circumstances, I was still apprehensive of their reaction upon returning home, considering all that had happened, so I was taken aback that they were totally unperturbed about the whole thing. When I mentioned the tomfoolery with their daughter, Mercedes, the dad simply told me:
Don’t worry about her - she’s crazy.
Making some good decisions, at last, I spent the money on new rims for the van. Before I used to think it was the booze, but this episode showed me, reassuringly, that it’s just me. It helped me stay sober realizing my life would remain a circus even when trying to make good decisions.
Sell the house. Sell the car. Sell the kids. Find someone else. Forget it. I'm never coming back.
Apocalypse Now
That sound system I mentioned above that I picked up in Vegas three months ago… well… I took it to the Goodwill this week, and the cycle of life continues. Won’t be needing that according to my new plan: hitting New York City in one week for an in-and-out visit spanning 2-4 weeks, then getting right back on the road - back to sunshine and back to states rights. No matter how much loot I get I’m staying in the projects.
Like I said, finally making good decisions.
