“ah, he took some kid’s eye out.”

“what?”

“yea man, some kid was running his mouth about something or other and it came to a head.”

“what’d you mean, it came to a head?”

“I told you, boys had words, it got sorted out. What’d you want from me?”

“I’d like to know how our new roommate came to be incarcerated, and if he is a threat to you or me or anyone we might happen to have over to the house.”

“Listen cuz, you know that’s my cousin, don’t say shit like that.”

“Respect, and you know I love your mom, but I’m saying…you know what I’m saying.”

“It went down like this…”

“We were at the pub, you know Shamrock’s up on Randolph, and my cousin is with this new girl. And this girl is legit, right? Not one of those Broad Street girls from back in the day. But a real girl, smart, classy, all that. Anyway, it’s freaking my cousin out, because he ain’t ever been with a girl like this. Not just a hot girl, but someone with substance behind her, and he doesn’t know how to act around her friends. You know?”

“yea, I can dig, who hasn’t been there?”

“Truth. Anyway, so they’re at this bar, and this girl, she’s all class, she’s introducing him to all her hipster friends, and my cousin, he’s getting hot. Not cause of anything anyone has done, but just who she is, and where she’s from. And then this kid, this yuppie fuck from Cathedral Hill starts running his mouth. He’s one of those hipsters who life hasn’t touched, so he thinks he’s untouchable. But you know my cousin, he can’t stand on that. So this yuppie, he says the wrong thing one time too many, and it gets my cousin’s Irish up. You know, you can only push a kid so far, and my cousin, he got pushed far enough that night.”

“So what then?”

“So, this yuppie, the prick, he goes to take a piss, and my cousin, he’s right on him. He waits until the kid goes to the bathroom, and he follows him in.”

“Christ.”

“Christ is right, but Christ ain’t helped that yuppie out that night. Must have been praying at St. Luke’s, when the kid should have been at St. Mary’s, how you going to help a kid like that? Anyway, the kid goes into the bathroom, and my cousin follows him in. The yuppie gives him some shit, calls him a fag, my cousin just smiles. Worst fucking smile you ever saw, like the devil had his hand in the whole thing. Anyway, my cousin, asks the yuppie if he wants to keep the right or the left? What a weird fucking question you know, the yuppie spits at him. Wrong move, my cousin pulls out his bottle opener and removes the kid’s left eye.”

“What’d you mean, removes?”

“I stutter? He took the bottle opener and scooped out that kid’s left eye. Got three years on assault.”

“And he’s going to live with us? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“What can I say? He’s family.”

The city is alive with the hustle of office workers on their way home complemented by last minute holiday shoppers, and those like us, just out enjoying the scene. We pause at a cross walk, waiting for the light, and she looks up at me with her beautiful brown eyes and smiles. We don’t say much on these walks, we don’t need to. Side by side, the company is right, and the night is right, and sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need in life.

The city is beautiful tonight. All the storefronts decorated, and the trees lit up; and though neither of us particularly enjoy the Christmas season, it’s impossible not to appreciate it tonight. We pause again, still not speaking, yet understanding each other perfectly. No destination tonight as we wander aimlessly through the park blocks and downtown, lost in our own thoughts, but still comfortably together.

I wonder about her sometimes. She’s a creature of routine and habit, and she seems to find comfort in that. For the first time in my life, I’m beginning to see its appeal. It wouldn’t be so bad to settle down in one place for awhile, to go on these walks with regularity. I’ve been scared of commitment since I was 17, but for once, I can see the joy in it. Perhaps I’m ready to get off the road, to settle down, to put down roots, together, with her. All my best friends are getting married and becoming adults, and finally, I think I see what it is I’m missing with all my random traveling. Perhaps there’s a beauty in familiarity, and perhaps it’s even better than the excitement of someone new.

We stop at another light, and she looks at me and smiles. There’s something in her teeth, and yet that makes her all the more adorable. She’s been in this city longer than I have, but walking around with her at night, it feels like home. Perhaps this life isn’t so bad; perhaps this is something I could get used to, perhaps its time to grow up.

And get a dog.

I’m thankful for my life, and the opportunity to live it on my own terms. That I have the health, and the innate sense of wonder, of adventure, to take off and move at the drop of a hat. I’m thankful that I feel comfortable on The Road, and with friends I’ve just made. I’m thankful that it’s gone well so far, and that I still have the fire to explore, to dream of the next horizon, the next town, the next sunrise.

I’m thankful for my family, extended and immediate, and everything they’ve done for me. I’m not always the easiest person to deal with, so I’m thankful for their love and understanding. And when they don’t understand, I’m thankful for their acceptance of my need to move.

I’m thankful for my friends. For the ones I go back to elementary school with, who will always be friends, not matter how much time passes. And also for the new friends, the beautiful people I’ve met along the way. The ones with the couches to crash on, and friendly smiles, even when I show up unannounced a thousand miles from home. Their offers of good times in new places, their directions of places to go.

I’m thankful for the strangers, and their words of advice. The interesting flavor they cast upon my world. The bums on the trains, the crazies in the bar; their soulful presence downtown, late at night. I’m thankful to be old enough to appreciate the good times, and also the bad. I’m thankful for the realization that good days are to be savored, and that bad days will pass. I’m thankful for the beaches I’ve seen, and the brutally harsh Midwest winters that help me to appreciate them.

At the moment, I’m thankful for this out of the way downtown bar. It’s the place I go and don’t tell my friends. It’s dark, and the beer is local and tasty; the shelves are full of dusty books, and there is a piano that you’re welcome to sit down at. Tonight, when someone walks in the door, the whole room cheers, and the entrant doesn’t really understand. They look around, and look behind them, trying to figure out why the room is cheering. And then they get a big smile, and someone yells out, “We’re happy you made it!” And everyone laughs and smiles some more. I’m thankful for this comfortable scene, and all the smiles and laughs exchanged in my half hour here.

I’m thankful for all of this, and today, I’m also thankful for pretty girls with beautiful eyes and nice smiles. Especially when they smile at me.

The second time I saw her, she was in the park, still with her red knit winter hat. Walking a dog, an old lab mutt who seemed to be enjoying the fresh air a lot more than she did. Impatient or bored, she implored her mutt to hurry, so that they might retreat into her downtown loft, with its central heat, and prime time television, and dinner for one. I was in the park, imploring a mutt of my own to do the same. It was cold and clear that night, and though my apartment would prove to be lonelier than the street, it was still the acceptable attitude to carry. The conventional move to make. In my apartment, looking down at the lights of the city, at the bums and the hustlers, I feel lonelier than normal. And yet that’s where I end up every night.

The third time I saw her she smiled. It was so unexpected that I shyly looked away. It was on the train over the river, and I was lost in my own thoughts. I looked up, and there she was. Shoulder length dark hair spilling out from her red hat, dark blue eyes not as sad today, but studying me curiously. Stylish business casual with her requisite shoulder bag; she was a trendy product of our environment. It probably dawned on us both that I was staring, studying her, when she smiled. Quick and friendly, an invitation to say something, to say anything; I was stunned. And I quickly looked away. At the next stop she got off.

The fourth time I saw her, I didn’t even see her, until she was right in my face with a, “hello, I’m Katie.” I looked down at her, and her pixie smile, challenging, teasing. The promise of adventure. Bold. Daring. New. A half-step from her comfort zone. Her dark blues somehow lighter now, glowing, beautiful.

“Hi Katie, I’m Sean.”

Hi Friend.

Hi Friend.

A stolen study space provides ample opportunity for observation, and my hoodie smells like menthol cigarettes. I am constantly asked directions here. I’m somehow “safe” and “approachable” despite sporting the same fringe uniform of every other individual in this too hip City of Roses. I decided not to fight it, and bought a map to the stars instead. We’re all pawns and ants when viewed from a passing plane. Which is why I hitch hike whenever possible.

Hi Friend.

I’m not nearly hip enough to type here. Luckily they still accept cash money, even though my eyes don’t beg for acceptance. No, instead my eyes project a breezy confidence, an acceptable amount of aloofness, a nonchalance that isn’t trying to play their game. It acknowledges their game, but instead of choosing to win or lose, my eyes give away the fact that I’m no longer playing. The elusive third option.

Calf skin boots march next to the vegan option, and they’d both be beautiful if they weren’t such obvious clichés. I’d settle for frozen fish, and a good Zombie Movie. But on Friday we will drink rum and lament the fact that we missed out on Puerto Rico in the early 1960s. Though I’ve never been much of a bowler.

Carved into my worn wood desk, it says, “Ignore the Naysayers” which strikes me as ironic, because this is a Quiet Section. I feel like the Naysayers would first be politely warned, and if that failed to stifle their Saying of Nay, they’d be taken out back, and beaten like mules, wrapped tightly in burlap sacks and floated down the Willamette, only to be sold into white slavery, or perhaps to the paper mills. Where ever the price is right, in this ugly economy.

If only she’d look up and smile, I’d feel like I could finish this rant.

My home is in Minneapolis, and also St. Paul. A place that I’ve more or less lived the last ten years of my life. With its violently miserable winters and sweltering hot summers book ending a few precious weeks of beautiful between the two. Where I’ve found fantastic love and miserable depression, and cheered on the mighty Golden Gophers throughout it all.

My home is in Portland. A place where I’ve paid rent a couple times, and crashed on couches a couple more. Where I have a small army of friends who are always up for happy hours and ping pong, food cart lunches and Sunday brunches. With its lonely gray winters, and absolutely spectacular summers that are tailor made for cookouts and trips to the coast.

My home is in Chicago. A place I’ve never actually lived. Home to my large extended family, and my much larger extended family of friends. With the cute blondes on the North Side, and blue collar hustlers on the South Side. My grandma on the west side, where Michael Jordan taught us how to play a game much bigger than basketball.

My home is on The Road. A place that exists in my mind, that’s always evolving into something new and exciting and grand. Where every smile from a stranger is an invitation that carries the promise of excitement. Where I follow my heart across mountain ranges and to distant islands; the journey is always better than the destination.

The Journey is the Destination.

crime scene

Pop. Pop-pop.

It sounded like a motor scooter backfiring. Barely worth a notice. But when the bar staff suddenly took on worried concern and scampered behind the alley way bar, I knew something was wrong.

A motor scooter suddenly did kick into gear, and I got the cold shivers one gets when they know something is wrong.

Two men roared past, no more than 3 feet away, I kept my head down, but my eyes up, and they were gone. Two men in dark shirts on a scooter. You see this a million times a day in Bangkok. No one sees something like this though, even when they see it. Not in America, but especially not an American in Thailand. Moments of silence, and people start to come out from behind bars, and desks, and alley way shops. And then people were rushing toward where the sound had come from. You could see the drops of blood before you could see the victim. A small crowd had formed, but kept at a distance. People were quiet, some grasped the hands of those beside them, others folded their arms across their chests in disbelief. Not in my neighborhood.

Ten feet from the crowd, slumped against a graffiti covered wall was a man in a pool of blood. Three or four young Thai women crowded around him. One tried furious to administer CPR, the others held tiny brown hands over the wounds.

I took out my camera as discretely as possible; thinking that no one back home could possibly understand, or even believe the scene in front of me. People were respectful at first, but then the camera phones came out in the crowd, hushed murmurs of disbelief. A few disapproving glances at the foreigner with the camera.

A man from Senegal started talking to me, his eyes wide with adrenaline. He recognized me as a fellow tourist. Life is cheap is Bangkok, according to this man. This is a man from an area with its own history of bloody violence. Police and paramedics began to arrive, and the crowd began to disperse. No one sees this sort of thing. Not in the ghetto, and not in Bangkok. Especially not by this American abroad.

Twenty minutes earlier, I was taking pictures of the graffiti in front of where a man now lay dying. When it happened, I was no more than twenty yards away. I’ve been abroad for more than 9 months, and hadn’t seen anything more serious than some minor bar altercations. This is my last day in Bangkok; tonight I catch an overnight to Australia. Not because of the shooting, but that’s just the way it’s going to work out.

The police are here now, and the bartender is speaking with them in Thai. Middle aged men in jeans and rolled up collared shirts. She seems to be gesturing broadly, vaguely; she is speaking in low tones. They write it all down just the same. Perhaps she saw nothing, perhaps she just knows better. I’ve sat back down at the bar, and people are settling back into their day. Everyone keeps an eye down the alley, as if the men will come back. The gossip is starting, and the clusters are forming. A Thai man with a camera and tripod races fast; perhaps he is the press or maybe police, perhaps he’s just a tourist in his own city. More police, more serious now. They carry large radios and travel in packs. Now men with uniforms, who the plain clothes men defer too. Perhaps this is more serious than life being cheap in Bangkok.

The word comes back, the man has died. No one seems particularly surprised or upset. And also, no one will tell me if they knew the man, or even who he might have been. I’m still a white man in an Asian country; they know this is not my home.

The bartender is speaking to police now. Some are looking in my direction. I have a flight in four hours, and I feel it’s best to move on.

I have a video of a young women attepmting CPR that will be uploaded in the next day or two when I have time and can figure out the coding issues.

The Lounge.

The beer is Chang, instead of Budweiser, and the landscape rolling past is that of dense jungle instead of North America’s never ending prairie, but in a sense, it’s exactly the same. One can smoke openly in the lounge here, instead of stealing sneaky puffs with Mexican girls from Chicago in the Amtrak bathroom. Though with a bit more foresight, I would have twisted up something a bit tastier than this crushed pack of Marlboro Lights. Such is life, and here’s to new experiences that feel the same. Here’s to now.

My Chucks are nowhere to be found tonight, replaced instead by beautifully ragged blue sandals. Blue sandals that have tramped all over the South Pacific and into Asia, sandals that now fit like a second layer of skin. Perhaps a third or fourth layer would be more accurate, as my calluses are thick and firm, another badge of honor from The Road. Something earned and never bought, something that says with a wink, “I’ve been at this for more than a minute.”

Trying to make sense of it all.

It’s only 9:24 in the pm on a Tuesday, or perhaps a Thursday, and the reasonable people in my 2nd class, air conditioned, sleeping cabin have already turned in for the night. I haven’t slept more than three hours the last two nights, yet I am feeling very alive at the moment. Nights like these cannot be wasted.

Nights like these should never be wasted.

I strongly believe the trick to enjoying life is to appreciate every random moment thrown your way. Tonight, the music is too loud, and the air is too thick, and yet…it’s perfect. If the overnight lounge car from Bangkok wasn’t so sweaty and loud, I’d feel somehow let down. Perhaps cheated of a story. Perhaps I should have gone to 3rd class? Wooden benches and crying children? But no, not tonight. Tonight is a dance party. Who can possibly know what could happen tonight. Two cuties of yet to be determined European origins have taken the booth across from mine. It’s almost too bumpy to type, and I’ve exchanged smiles twice with the dark haired pixie across the way, and so my friends, its time for me to bid you adieu.

Don’t waste tonight friends, not tonight, not any night, ever.

It’s nearly three am, and I’m in Thailand. I’ve smoked most of a pack of cigarettes, I’ve drank some beer, and then some whiskey, and my fingers demanded that I type something, right now. Sleep will come, because it always does. For me, it’s usually in short spurts, because I’m still young enough to feel like sleep is a necessary waste of time. I’m fearful that when I’m asleep, I’m missing something. And I don’t want to miss a thing. Ever.

I want to take your hand and run into the surf, it’s like bathwater here. I want to sing to you. Beautiful, fragile songs that I can only sing at 3 am, on the beach, someplace tropical. One time songs, made up on the spot, about life and love, and everything that makes us the same more than it makes us different.

Pause for whiskey. Light a smoke.

Be envious of me, and my tiny, disappearing bank account. And my smiles at strangers who don’t speak English. Tell some local she’s beautiful, in her own language, just to get a laugh and a smile in return.

Every moment of every day, we have a chance to do something outstanding. Something beautiful. I’m trying my best to make it all count. At the end of the day, that’s all we’ve got. Our smiles, our friends, our adventures.

Its 3 am, and it’s still so hot outside. I’m sitting on the deck of a little bungalow, I can still hear the party going a few blocks over, but I don’t miss it. I can also hear the waves crashing onto the beach, even closer than they are. Tonight is not for them, tonight is for me. Tonight is for starring into the surf and dreaming, for wondering. To be curious about what she’s up to, but not to dwell on it. To know that things work out more often than not, and when they don’t…well, that’s life too. To never get too high, and to never worry too hard when things get low. Things will always get low, and it’s a shame that this is what we remember most clearly.

There is beauty everywhere, and I’ve been happy everywhere. On the beach in the tropics, or in the downtown slums, my smile is the same, because the beauty is the same. We just have to take the time to recognize it.

Let’s stay up all night tonight, finish off this whiskey at sunrise. Listen to good music until then.

Here’s to now. Right fucking now.