Open Mind For A Different View

Willie and I walked in the darkened hidden door of the Smith Creek Saloon that I had first walked right past. It seems that you’d only know there’s a door there if you’ve been there before, which I hadn’t, but Willie had several times over. This is the hangout he always goes to with his dad, where he picks his music and drinks two beers and gets his ass handed to him by old men at pool. And occasionally hands them their asses on silver platters.

There’s no silver platters in this place though, nothing silver at all I’d bet. There’s an aloe vera plant in the corner with a hand written sign claiming it’s Maria’s and DON’T TOUCH that’s sitting by a bottle of baby powder that’s spilled everywhere. I assume it has something to do with pool since it’s by that old lopsided pool table that’s lit by the neon above it. Sign on the wall says it’s 50 cents a game and tapping the stick on anything, yelling, dropping the balls on the floor, or any other tomfoolery are all 25 cent fines.

But it’s free pool night tonight. Willie asked me out on a date to play pool because I really like pool, it’s something I could so get into and something I really want to learn. Plus that day I was frazzled over the car and other things. That Bar Bitch called wanting to come over. Marlboro Man said it was okay because he wants to know what the fuck she did what she did for and he wants to know if she ever intends to repay him for the money he put down for her car. I don’t fucking like the bitch, she’ll probably take more meds when she gets over and probably blame it on me.

She made it a point to tell their neighbor that she doesn’t like me and doesn’t think I can be trusted.

And…who are you exactly? Some Bar Bitch they picked up?

Well earlier that day the Marlboro Man was at the bar with David and Willie shooting pool and from what I’m told he straight up told Cougar Me who happens to be that Bar Bitch’s best friend that she stole his cancer meds. And the first person me and Willie see when we walk in is the Bar Bitch’s brother. He’s one of those loser types so it’s not like much was said between he and Willie, but what came out of the conversation is that Bar Bitch has been walking around really super fucked up all week, more than usual, and that she’s been flaking on everyone.

Dad says something about his pills being something called “triplicates” and that enough of those for a regular person who isn’t sick will just lead to death.

He hesitates to file a police report because he didn’t actually see her take the pills and there’s no proof of anything. He says I could have even taken them, and what’s to say that she did?

“Because it quacks like a duck!” I told him desperately. “She’s a drug addict, she’s walking around all fucked up from what everyone says, she bounced in the middle of trick or treating mysteriously—and if it were me wouldn’t you think I’d have something to show for it? I’m broke as hell and I’m obviously not on any kind of anything. Seriously, I have a friend who is a detective who can help me help you. Please, I don’t want you to have to go through this.”

But that was an earlier conversation with that stubborn old man, and now I’m at the Smith Creek Saloon under hundreds of pinned up one dollar bills with names written on them. Willie orders a Bud and then goes to the juke box to put $10 worth of songs on. Weed With Willie is one of them, naturally. We sit at the bar and wait for the pool table to open up because it’s free pool night and nobody even gives us a chance to cut in a single game. For a while he sings Metallica to me—a guy sang to me at the bar—and smiles inches from my face. I know he’s trying to make me feel better as he sings the specific lyrics to me, smiling, always smiling.

So close, no matter how far

Couldn’t be much more from the heart

Forever trusting who we are

And nothing else matters.

Never opened myself this way

Life is ours, we live it our way

All these words I don’t just say

And nothing else matters.

Trust I seek and I find in you

Every day for us something new

Open mind for a different view

And nothing else matters.

We get in some pool, finally, but three or four balls in the pocket later this angry black crack whore lady yells at us that we stole her turn, that it was her turn to play and she was waiting. Interesting because the table was open for two minutes and she didn’t find us playing for another five, but tonight the bar is crowded under the orange Christmas tree lights strung randomly from the ceiling, and everyone is there to play. Willie only ever goes there during the day so he’s unfamiliar with the night crowd except for the Bar Bitch’s brother and a guy named Wade who vouched to the bartender that he is in fact over 21 and don’t bother to look at his ID because he comes in all the time with his dad.

Even though Willie looks considerably younger. He shows his ID to the girl anyways. She’s not the hot MILFy one he’s in love with.

We share a pool stick because there is only one there that isn’t broken and chipped. He cleans the table of the striped balls pretty nicely, showing off and also trying to teach me how he’s making the shots. But then he scratches and our game is cut short, pissing me off because I’ve got six solids to go and I’ve learned nothing except that crazy crack whore thinks she owns the place and the pool table too.

Outside we go, and we sit at a cable spool on its side with ripped up stools all around it. Over by the BBQ that I’m sure nobody has used in years there’s a stray cat and a bunch of slugs on the ground, and Willie says “Fuck yeah, found a joint!” He presents to me between his fingers a half smoked joint and then smiles and stuffs it somewhere on his person. He touches the table where the joint was and said “They did it right here, because look, there’s seeds.” He shows me a few tiny little sesame looking seeds and I show him a decent sized nugget of the stuff that was just inches from his hand.

“Oh wow,” he said. And ironically his favorite song came on next, Weed With Willie.

I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again. But the next morning we would find more while doing laundry just sitting in a washing machine folded up in a piece of paper, about enough to fill a bowl or two. Fairly certain that it’s the maintenance guy’s because he cheats and goes in there to do laundry after hours, we’ve seen it once, and we know the guy’s a big pot head. Plus we found this at like 8:00 in the morning.

I’m a good luck charm for finding stray marijuana, I guess.

All I do know is Steppy had wanted to come with us to the bar, but knowing not what would happen when we got there we asked him to stay behind until he was invited, and we wouldn’t invite him until we got our table. Since we only briefly had it, Steppy never came. He did, however, arrive at my house later with a large suit case looking thing that opened up to reveal a series of hoses and several metal pieces that seemed to fit together.

“This is a hookah,” he said, and proceeded to remove the container full of watermelon, guava, and vanilla flavored tobacco.

I never smoked anything. I’ll never smoke weed with Willie even. But David and Steppy are taking long drags from the long hoses and the water is bubbling, and so I put my lips on the thing too.

So much has changed this year, even in the past month. Especially in the past month. And there I am sucking on Steppy’s hookah breathing in guava flavored smoke on my back porch, next to Willie who has half a joint in his pocket, and David who invited a girl to go to San Diego with us this weekend.

Open mind for a different view.

A Clip Of Something I Threw Together

Rest In Peace Willie Dean: Completely Defeated By Life

Jessie Terwilliger

Willie’s in the cemetery clearing grass from people’s headstones again.

Willie’s probably eating sushi or making spaghetti sandwiches with mustard and sour cream again.

Willie, maybe he’s at Billiards using words like “Cluster Fuck” and “Corner Pooper” again.

Which is why his mom could never immediately find Willie. Willie, the type of guy who answers the phone and says he’s closer to home than he really is, or says he’s on his way when he’s really still standing around talking to friends. But why go home? What’s at home? What could anything called home really have to offer besides a shit for brains brother and a working all the fucking time mom?

When you’re 17 and none of it really matters, and all you want to do is smoke all day. Smoke anything. Pot, hookah, tobacco. Willie and his propensity to inhale things that are on fire because he himself believes that he is fire. That spitfire ember on his head he called hair, and the tuft of it blazing under his chin that he called a beard, it’s no wonder his father always told him that he’d set a girl on fire one day.

And why nobody believed him when he said it wasn’t him.

Bree wasn’t exactly the beginning of his demise so much as she was what fueled the already out of control wild fire. All because of how Leo pressed and pressed and pressed the issue of her ever present past and how Willie just wanted her to let go of it.

Yes, it was around the time that Bree started coming around that the first field of brush was set on fire, on the same night that Willie went for a walk.

It wasn’t him, he insisted. Even though his brand of cigarettes was used as an incendiary device according to the Riverside County Fire Department.

Mom, that Noelle lady who was never home and occasionally remembered to go to the store, she had no idea where either of her boys were most of the time, especially with this recent rash of fires through out the valley that she was out investigating and finding more and more evidence to seemingly convict her own son.

Willie didn’t do it.

Bree would have maybe wanted things this way, except for the violent spiral of flaming vortex that consumed her flesh that night.

Willie wouldn’t do that. Willie’s a good kid.

But nobody could explain why he was at the gas station that night that Bree died, why he was there not more than a mile from where the fire was started. Coincidence maybe, but sometimes things are really hard to explain.

Sometimes what sparks it ends up being really fucking hard to explain.

And then Bree is dead and Willie is blamed and then also dead and Leo goes another day full of misanthropy and your mom jokes.

Being 17, your unidentical twin charred like the girl he loved in the way that Leo’s was.

Mom is ballistic, and nobody has any real idea just how easily she’ll go off next.

This is the story of Willie Dean Springer’s demise.

I Have Always Depended On The Kindness Of Strangers

It’s amazing to think…that crack whore Bar Bitch done stole the man’s pills and he doesn’t wish her any ill will, and considers what he did for her to be simply helping out his fellow man.

And the car hasn’t been right lately, shifting weird, revving high—still running but with something obviously going wrong with it. Enough that you just know that you’re putting the car at risk of further malfunction if you keep driving it around. The warranty we have covers just about everything but maintenance and wear and tear type of stuff, but to have a $1,500 engine job to cost us a $50 copay, warranties suddenly become worth it.

Except when it’s a clutch that’s gone out and the warranty people consider it wear and tear, and your mechanic wants $900 to fix the shit.

I can’t tell you what was going through my mind as I took the $40 from David to pay the mechanic for his time and then asked Willie for his key so I could get back in the house after they left for the bar since he insists that I sit here during the day even when he and his dad aren’t home. I remember whispering “every fucking winter” a few times and my eyes watering a little.

Every winter, we get fucked.

The time our first apartment exploded, the time our Civic exploded, the time the Civic exploded again, the time David broke his collar bone and the Civic was stolen, the time the Oldsmobile pulled its shit like it did, and this year Merry Christmas, Terwilligers! It’s new clutch time!

Oh you don’t have $900 on you?

Jessie better walk her ass to the mechanic and roll her junk home.

I hate it when you’re walking around trying not to cry, you’ve forgotten your sunglasses and Wade’s asking if we’re driving the car back because it’s a far walk for him—this he knows because we walked home from dropping the car off at the mechanic in the morning. For the record it’s only a mile to Jordan-Hamed’s place.

I feel like the stupid child who finally got a pony after years of not wanting one when Willie calls and asks me to come back, he has good news and he’ll tell me when I get here.

Like I don’t already know what’s going to happen.

I hate rubbing my eyes and trying to maintain my composure as I’m walking around this stupid dumpy apartment complex. I hate David meeting me at the bottom of the stairs and hugging me telling me things are going to be fine, Dad’s going to pay for it. And I hate nodding stupidly into his shoulder.

And I detest my mediocrity.

Why does everything have to suck?

I don’t ask for things. I don’t want things. But what am I supposed to do? Say no? We don’t have a car he doesn’t work. He doesn’t work we don’t eat. Dad grumbles that he knew he knew he knew that money was supposed to go to us, he should have gone with his gut and never brought that lady home. And then a few days later our clutch goes out and “don’t worry about nothing.”

And Willie says I get white hairs when I stress and get upset. He wants me to take a nap on his bed and have some chocolate that he bought at Walgreens.

“It’s a good thing, it’s a happy thing,” Willie says. “We were meant to meet each other. My dad needs to do this just as much as you need him to do this.”

“Every fucking winter,” I say. “Something happens every fucking winter.”

Marlboro Man blows Marlboro smoke and says “Ain’t nothing happed this year, what’r you worried about?”

This is like how he says everything’s going to be fine and that ain’t nothing going to happen to me and when I ask if I’m intruding on family stuff since I was over on Leo’s birthday he said “you’re family so I don’t see why you’d think that.”

Or how Willie says “let me make sure my dad’s out of bed before you come over” and Dad asks him “why ain’t she over here yet?” all shirtless on his fold out mattress.

The weight of sorrow is heavier than any feathery floating happiness has ever tried to be.

They’re so positive, Dad and Willie. Willie’s happy and sweet and Dad’s just very sure that nothing’s ever, ever going to happen and things are all under control. I want to learn that, I want to learn that so badly and I’m so trying. But how am I going to say no to something I need?

Once upon a time there was a radio show that kids called into to answer trivia questions that the parents are supposed to help with. Girly called with Dad’s help and they won whatever prize it was, and the radio host asked Girly what her dad does for a living.

“Oh well my dad has cancer and he’s sick all the time and my mom works at a gas station.”

The radio station was flooded with calls, hundreds of calls, all of them wanting to do something for this little girl and her family. They asked Dad if he would take all of the things that people were offering, and he needed it so he said yes. People he didn’t even know, strangers, fixed his Jeep, fed his family, bought clothes, provided gift certificates to just about everything you could think of, gave them tickets to Disneyland, Sea World, Six Flags, Knott’s Berry Farm, etc, and shelled out more than $13,000.

Because radio stations don’t always have trivia shows

Because family doesn’t always come through

Because how can you really say no

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Double Date

Went on a double date tonight at a billiards hall--actually just called Billiards in Yucaipa.

My date was not David.

Naturally, if it wasn't David, you've probably guessed who it was.

So then who was with David if not me? Meet the Cutie Pie.

I don't know where she came from, and I don't know where she's been. That's why we decided to double. Just in case she turned out to be batshit. Plus a billiards hall is so a good place to just get to know someone in a comfortable and entertaining atmosphere.

This was my first time ever playing pool.

David had never played competitively before either. He was on Cutie's team.

I think I've found a new hobby.

Sucking at something that everyone else is good at and resorting to taking pictures of everyone else being good.

That's not true. I actually made some purdy shots. And hit the ball once.

I just really liked being out and doing something so cool, even though my date here is totally a pool shark. Hooray for our team.

They beat us by the way, but it was neck and neck. Both teams had handicaps, aka me and David, so it was a pretty even match. Me and my man suck at the pool, and that's what keeps us together.

Until he learns to actually play the shit. Now I have to learn to be good. FUCK.

Effort...whyyyyyy???

Bromance

This video was taken a few days ago of David, Willie, and Little Red wrestling on my front lawn. They do this every day, for it is bromantic. Willie's brother Leo is here visiting so I'm sure a big bromantic brawl is going to take place on the morrow now that Willie is better (the chicken soup really helped.)

Steppy's not allowed to play with them by the way, even Willie is afraid of him. He's a buff mother fucker, yo. But still included in the great bromance.