Four days ago I flipped a coin and it came up heads.
"Go for it."

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbie W [mailto:*******@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2005 7:23 AM
To: hypnoticdonald@hotmail.com
Subject: Where are you

Mom is looking for you. Let us know you are Ok.

--------------------------

Three days ago I flipped a coin, it came up tails.
"Stay."

=======
From: Joe and Tina Whalen
[mailto:*********@iowatelecom.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2005 5:59 AM
To: Donald Whalen
Subject: Where are you

Donald,

I need to know you are ok. I haven't heard from you in days.

Love,
Mom

-------------

Today I came home.

"How old are you?" asked my grandma from her seat
at the kitchen table.  They were waiting for me to come through
the front door, which I did, my cellphone in my pocket (deceased),
backpack slung over my shoulder (over stuffed), and a ballcap, turned
backwards and emphasizing the thrill of apathetic stubble (four-days
worth).

"Hmm?"
"How OLD are you?"

Oh, right.  Old enough to know better than to pick up and leave
one night and return four days later with a pile of bargain shelf
books, a microwave, coffee on my breath; hazlenut blend.  An
asiago bagel.  Oil pastels and a Marilyn Manson book.  Doom 3
and Doom 3 expansion pack.  What sort of random obscure bullshit
is this?  Why do I get the deparment store munchies?

"An adult."

Grandma smiles and laughs.  She doesn't argue with me, ever.
One of us always submits to the other and if it seems like there might
be a fight, seems like I may not want to listen to her dish out gems of
(probably) wisdom, she turns the impending ass-chewing into a
joke.  "You little shit."  And then there's no way she can be
mad.

Mom, either.  She thought I was dead.

"You should have called," said Grandma.  "You KNOW we worry about
you.  Don't you know what the world is like out there?"
"No, I guess not," I say.  I'm tired, I have bags under my eyes.  But I'm grinning, wildly.
"Well it's dangerous.  It can be, anyway."  And suddenly, she
seems uninterested in anything else she may have had to say to
me.  "Get down here and give me my hug."

And I did call, thisafternoon on my way to the
mall.  I turned my phone on to listen to my voicemail messages,
and there were four of them, all from mom or my sister, each one
growing progressively more panicked than the one before it.

So when I called,  mom answered with a "thank
GOD you're alive," and I said, "Of course I am.  Why?  Did
you think I'd get mugged in Iowa City?"
"Well, no--"
"My phone is going to die."
"Oh, okay.  I just wanted to know--"
"I'm doing well.  I'm fine."
"Okay.  I was wor-"
"Yeah, I figured.  Sorry."
"Well I'm going to chew you out royally once you get home..."
"Okay, I'll look forward to it."
"...but maybe not cuz I'm just glad you're alive and well."
"I'm alive and very well."
"Good.  Grandma is going to chew you out, too."
"Bless her heart.   I'll be home in a few hours.  But my phone is going to die."
"Okay, I love you."


What sort of random madlib impulse bullshit is
this?  What the hell would make me just up and leave with only my
camera, my journal and a toothbrush?

The thrill.  Everybody needs to run away at least once, right?
Right.
It's part of being human, exercising free will and our pocket books (debit card, here).



For shameless romance.
Enough fascination with another human being to make you tipsy; to keep
you saying, "I gotta go home tonight.  I can't stay again.  I
can't.  You can't let me."

But it's no good.  Not till they get on a plane to Colorado; till the hairdryer whirl of jet engines blurs out
any flirty exchange of "If I asked, and I'm not going to--this is
purely hypothetical, but if I asked, could I have you another day?"

And especially blurring your response: the right thing telling you to
go home, Mom misses and worries about you.  The other right thing
answering without reservation, "Duh.  Yeah."


And then the coin-flip, just to be sure;
Heads.

Hmmm.  Best two out of three:
Tails

...and...

tails;  stay. 
More driving.  Extra time.



You stay for two more days and almost intentionally forget to fill the rest of the world in on your plans.  Mom pops a vein in her head, Dad is not suprised, almost beguiled; almost pleased you're following in his footsteps.  The internet seems to crash without you, inboxes packed full of unread electricity, heaving like the teets of an unmilked cow.

And you---you're just dizzy.  You're torn and dizzy and it feels great.  It feels...

Like satin sheets.  Like staring, and staring.
Talking and giggling, drunk on your own juices into seven AM, then forcing your way out of sleep again at ten.

The new smells of a new body.  The scent of breathing--that pink baby skin lung smell.  And awe and dry thirst for this new sense of humor, this one you didn't know existed.

The feeling you get when someone else notices, and has a problem with, cars on Iowa highways with Hawaii plates.  You don't even have to say 'what the hell,' because they know.  They're already grinning.



"You know," says Grandma as I'm unloading my
backpack onto the table, "when your Unkle Mike came back from serving
overseas, he asked, "How come Mom is always asking where I'm going,
what I'm doing?  When I'm going to be home?"
Your mom answered, "You've been away for a long time, now.  You've
changed a lot, gotten used to being independent, living by
yourself.  But you forget that your mother HASN'T changed.""

She'd told me this before, but this is the first time I'll remember it.

"You just wait till you have kids," she adds.  "Then you'll know how we worry.  You'll understand, then."
"I think I can start to understand now."
"Mm.  Well...you just wait."



Sorry, Mom.  I love you.