What-the-fuck, I’m trying to do third grade math with the grandboy. Multiplication, simple shit. 5×7, “Thirty five, boy, let me write out the times table for you”

“What’s a times table?“

Then he proceeds to do some complex calculation that involved 42…

“What the fuck does 42 have to do with it?”

“Don’t swear Pa!”

“There is no 42 in 5×7! It’s 35!”

Six verticals dots, some kind of elongated horizontal thing, equals something…

“I don’t know, man. Put a 5 in the box and tell your principal to call me with any questions….”

I need a 21st century educator to explain the positive benefit of common core math to me. Take your time, I’ll wait.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the teachers, their job is already impossibly hard. I feel sorry for them they are forced to teach this horseshit. I can do pretty complex math in my head, I can’t do third grade math at the dining room table.

The ONE thing the boy does know about math is that my phone has a calculator.

Again, what the fuck?

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Lives-Richie-OMalley-Thriller/dp/B08BF2TY78

Pearlman pulled a bottle of Jamison’s Irish Whiskey from a brown bag as we bounced in the Jeep. We were headed up the road to La Malaza. Soon we’d pass the scene of the attack that killed Carmella and Rodrigo. I was driving and following his mysterious orders. 

“My Daddy’s favorite driving whiskey,” he said as he handed me the bottle.  “I killed my dad,” I replied, not taking my eyes off the road as I took a swig. “Busted his fucking skull open with a shovel handle. Then, I set the motherfucker on fire.” I handed the whiskey back. “We never went on long drives. We didn’t share driving whiskey.”

Pearlman took the bottle and poured another long slug down his throat. He looked at me hard and said in his ever-breathless rasp, “I’m impressed. That’s pretty fucked up. We make a good team!”

“I’m from the north like you,” he continued. “Northern Jersey. You know in the fall and winter after all the leaves come off the trees, and you can’t see the wind? Unless it blows really hard, the trees don’t even move, but the wind is there pushing things, moving things around, making it cold. That is me, that’s what I do. I’m the wind through leafless trees. I billow the sails. I’m the invisible, driving force.

Driving home in the red Ford, top down, listening to nothing but that sweet small block rumble, a black sky full of stars, a waxing moon.

Up in the headlights on the dark stretch I catch a glimpse of this guy, stumbling and tripping over the grasses and brush that border this road.

Dark shirt, dark pants, long brown beard. It looks like he puked himself. The front of his pants are wet, I’ve got to imagine he pissed himself too. He’s carrying a plastic grocery bag full of the spoils of this night, the remnants of a six-pack, in the other he had what looks to be a quart of something, might have been vodka, I was sure it wasn’t water.

Stumbling and falling and hitching a ride.

I almost stopped, but I wanted no part of that noise… no one coming to your rescue this night my friend. If you get lucky maybe a cop, but that ain’t much luck to brag on…

The rest of the ride home was deeply troubled. That happens when I look in the mirror sometimes.

I remember the prayer to a deity I no longer believe in but still managed the words, ‘but for the grace of god..’

Luis’ cousin, Sixto, warned him one time, “That white guy is fucked up.” I went after Sixto with a bat for saying that. He had a knife. It was a bad fight. Luis broke it up.

I was going to fight this guy Ruben one time. I’ve long forgotten why. He was big, way bigger than me. I planned to beat him with a 2×4. I spend a week slamming that board, about 5 feet long, into the trunk of a tree, as hard as I could, so I’d get used to the sting in my hands and arms when I finally connected with Ruben’s torso. That was Luis’ idea.

I ask guys about the fights they’ve had. Some recall one or two, most recall none. I remember the fifteen or twenty worst. Most of them were with Luis; the reasons lost to the fog.

Luis was a violent drug dealer and drug addict. He ran to Middletown to escape the city’s shadows that haunted him, and eventually caught up to him, and killed him. He had to bring his whole family here to some kind of safety, even Sixto.

My mom loved Luis. She thought he was a good influence on me. I still ponder that this criminally insane thug, who blamed most of his insanity on his Puerto Rica grandma’s witch blood, was widely viewed as a better person than me. I still believe he was. He was my best friend.

I got better after I stopped doing drugs. It got better; I’ll never be cured.

I called out a guy yesterday. It wasn’t some random incident. The night I first encountered this guy, I knew I wanted to fight him. I’ve been waiting for the chance. I swear to God I don’t understand this. Last summer, it was some MAGA hat who came toe to toe with me. He backed down when I told him he had one shot, make it count.

It’s always a man; I’d never raise a hand to a woman or a child, I can’t hurt an animal, I have a hard time eating meat, for Christ’s sake.

They always back down. That’s what feeds this. I tell myself I need one of these jerks to kick my ass, but I’ve had my ass kicked so many times, it doesn’t seem to register. I like the fight. Maybe I need the fight.

It baffles me, and it terrifies me. I’m old. I’m too old to fight anyone, but I look for it. As I’ve grown older, the fight is always with the younger men and or perceived authority. Maybe I’m threatened by authority or envious of youth, or terrified of my own inescapable demise, so I pick a fight to prove I can still fight.

It makes no sense.

I should apologize. I should do some good AA/NA fourth-step work and make that ruthless self-inventory. I should make a list and apologize to every man I fought, who is still alive.

But the desire to make the list, the desire to make amends is elusive at best and probably non-existent.

There is still some jagged edge of my soul, some monster without a name, buried deep, but very much alive, that still looks for it. Still wants it. Still needs it.

I hate whoever that monster is. I hate what feeds him and drives him. I want him to leave me the fuck alone and die.

I was in a crowd of two hundred peaceful people yesterday, and I realized the only problem there was me.

I was off the bike, at least any serious riding for the past year. Covid took athletes heart and turned it into afib and heart failure. Not riding wrecked my back. My knees are a mess. It’s been a haul, but now I’m back on the bike and today met the guy I had hoped was forever in my past.

I don’t want to know that guy again. The asshole who always had to catch the wheel, even on a recovery ride, of anyone who passed him. Just because.

Push harder

That death before dismount guy, the guy who said he loved the hard climbs and would sing while climbing just to piss people off. The guy who was somehow proud he only vomited once on the bike and that was that climb in north jersey that would make anyone puke.

The guy who pretended to like Franco because Franco was the only one maybe a little more nuts than he was, and Franco used to call him a psychotic fuck. That one day we found Franco busted up and dehydrated and passed out and he just wanted to leave him there to keep going.

Harden the fuck up

I don’t want to ever see again that guy who used to ride 180 mile training rides to get ready for a 210 mile race. And the guy whose summer was a disaster unless it involved a dozen or more centuries and maybe two double centuries.

Fifteen thousand mile years

I don’t want to ever again see guy who’d suffer mad anxiety on a Wednesday night at the movies, because the weekend was going to be ‘epically’ hard.

I don’t want to be around the guy whose season ended on Christmas Eve and started on New Year’s Day. The ten-below zero guy. The skinny tires on ice guy. The guy who feared cookies at Christmas because he didn’t want to carry those cookies on his fat ass up any climbs in the spring.

The guy who bonked so bad he went into shock and finished the race with a 103 fever. But he finished, that’s all that mattered.

The need for constant forward motion.

I don’t want to know the guy with the dozen broken ribs, or the broken pelvis, or the wrecked knees, who said it wasn’t a big deal.

Truth be told it hurt like fuck.

I want to go slow and look at flowers and shit and not curse the breeze.

I want to coast a little and be the old guy way back there and be ok with that and maybe a little tired after fifteen miles, and not be the guy bitching he’s not sweat up a kit for a stupid fifteen mile ride.

But today I got a glimpse of that asshole, again. He was on my wheel…

I dont want to ever see that guy again.