A brief glimpse at the alcohol present. This table shot doesn’t include the table of food outside, the BBQ, and the keg of beer. Writers, more than anyone else on the planet, know how to throw a good party.
A great goodbye sign that Dan made for Meghan and Jim.
Meghan and Jim, northbound and headed for the professorial life.
Dan – host and veteran MFA, tending the backyard.
Mike taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a…. you get the idea.
Jesseca and Jim, chatting in the kitchen.
Wade, looking surprisingly dignified despite holding an ice cream cone in his hand. Wade is, after many years at OSU studying literature and fiction, heading off to law school. A fine specimen of the south, Wade hails from the heart of Georgia. All night, people were offering to buy him a mint julep. :D
Jim, holding his own against the heat and the beer. My friend Matt (who you’ll meet farther down the page) brought a bottle of Two Fingers Tequila.
Jim’s quotation: "Ah… Two Fingers. The tequila that’s also a shoe polish."
Jim, Meghan and Wade. Meghan had just recently woken up after a brief nap. She was working really really hard, trying to squeeze every ounce of fun out of the party.
I gotta stop here and say a few words about Mike. He is by far one of the nicest, most down to earth guys I’ve ever met. He’s from Minnesota, HUGE in stature, and speaks with authority and kindness and humor. He knows his farm as well as he knows his literature, and he’s kept his feet grounded in both worlds.
And man, when he tells stories… you can’t pull away. I wish to god I could recreate what he told us at the party. I’ll try, but I know I’m not going to do it justice.
Mike was talking about how, for the past 100 years, there hasn’t been one member of his family that’s broken a bone. Not one. His father was working one day on a grain wagon, apparently some kind of huge vehicle capable of towing/transporting some 400 bales of hay at once. Instead of using air for the tires (which would have blown out under the weight), they used liquid in the tires. His father was swapping out tires, and was positioned underneath the truck.
Well – the truck slips off of the jack, and comes down right on Mike’s father’s leg. He passes out instantly from the pain.
When he wakes up, he’s in a bind as there’s no one around (this is on the farm, in Minnesota). So he calmly takes the jack, puts it in place, and hikes the truck up again. He’s able to finally move his leg out from under the truck, and then he crawls about 100 yards back inside the house. He pulls himself up onto the couch.
Mike stops talking, and looks at everyone who’s listening. He asks "And what do you think my dad did at this point?" Some people guess the obvious – call for help, call the hospital. Mike looks around again and says "He looks at his leg, figures it’s not that bad, and hoists himself up on the couch. He pulls a blanket over himself, and goes to sleep."
A while later, when Mike’s nephew shows up at the house… the nephew knows there’s something wrong. Mike’s father never takes naps. So, the nephew wakes up Mike’s dad, and asks him what’s wrong. Mike’s dad explains the wagon falling and hitting his leg. When he pulls back the blanket to show his leg, the nephew passes out. Cold.
When his nephew comes to, he starts yelling about calling the hospital, calling for help. As it turns out, Mike’s dad flattened all of the muscle in his leg. "Pancaked," is how Mike described it. But the bone? Well, the way the grain wagon fell on his bone… it evened out the weight and didn’t break it. Mike’s dad came close to losing his leg… but the bone was never broken.
All in all, I think that Mike’s dad recovered, and only has a slight limp from that accident. Friggin’ amazing.
And then Mike goes on to talk about how, when he was riding his Harley, he hit a fawn doing about 70 MPH. Sliced the thing in half, and he went flying over his bike. He made a skipping motion with his hands, and talked about how he was like a pebble being flung over water. He bounced around a great deal, threw out his hip… but no broken bones.
Jim shows me how frightening and compelling man love can be.
My good friend Matt shows up late into the night, after having been out at a bar for two hours prior. He’s shit-faced when he walked in, and starts passing around a bottle of Jim Beam. Over the next hour, we polish off that sucker between four or five of us.
Shari and Matt, hitting the bottle like the problem drinkers they are. :D
That’s me, joining Shari and Matt on the "Problem Drinker’s Couch."
I go outside, and I see all the people that I wanted to see… standing around talking to one another. For a brief moment, it felt as though I had never left Columbus.
Juliet and Jesseca hanging out in the backyard.
The evening starts to go south. Shari, making the "Jesus Christ I don’t want anything else to drink" pose.
Meghan, party animal that she is… succumbs to the call of the couch.
Matt, after puking. Twice.
Jim and Shari, roughly 4 AM.
Mike, taking his leave… heading towards the Harley.
This is a shot out of Juliet’s car, as we head back to her apartment. During the drive home, Bowie’s "
Space Oddity" comes on the radio and the two of us sing along. It was a fantastic moment, and I felt really, really good.
Me and Juliet hang out on her porch as she smokes. We talk about God for a while, and I’m a bit tired and a bit intimidated by her faith. But I like these big discussions with Juliet. It’s a good conversation, and we’re out here for a long while. By the time we head inside, it’s almo
st 5:30 AM.
