Of everything I saw, there is one thing about that morning I can never forget: the weather was perfect. The summer had been difficult for me. I lost my job, and I had sunk into a deep depression, and my relationship with Andrea was getting rocky. The weather was full of peace, the sky was blue, and the leaves were still green. My step picked up a spring. I sat down at my desk and stuffed envelopes with energy and panache. That day started out so full of hope.
I recently stumbled upon the Facebook status updates from my first year living in Doha, Qatar.
2013
4 February: I’m moving to an exotic, foreign country this afternoon! Holy shitballs!
5 February: I’m here.
6 February: I am not digging this jet lag shit at all.
7 February: I am enjoying the evening (those of you in the States might know this as “morning”). I am not enjoying jet lag.
8 February: I’m confronting the first challenge I must face while being a foreigner in a land far from home: electrical outlets. God help me.
10 February: I now live in embassy-issued housing, which is about quadruple the size of my apartment in Alexandria. It’s three floors tall, and all of the floors are tiled. And so, when Andrew decided to vomit his first vomit in the Middle East, he chose to do it on the bed—you know, one of the handful of places where I wouldn’t just have to wait for it to dry and then sweep it up. Andrew is an asshole.
12 February: I have been here about a week, and I’m already calling it a carpark.
13 February: Most of Doha is shut down for National Sports Day today. Seriously, America, between this and restroom libraries… you’ve got some catching up to do.
15 February: I’m learning that folks here in Doha, folks of all nationalities, shop like they drive—that is to say with extreme prejudice.
22 February: I am so unbelievably relieved that Doha has a doorknob store.
25 February: I got up, got Kate fed and ready for work, looked at the time (7:00 a.m. in Doha, 11:00 p.m. EST), and big fucking surprise, the Oscars aren’t even close to over.
27 February: I don’t yet know how to replace the giant bottles on the water cooler with any sort of dignity.
28 February: Going dune-bashing tomorrow. So if you’re a dune, get out of my motherfucking way or you’re gonna get motherfucking bashed!
1 March: I had the kind of day that, were he in the States, would require a waiver.
5 March: I moved in a month ago with the drizzliest of dribbly water pressure. It made showers an exercise in patience and sadness, and the time it took to fill a coffee pot or tea kettle was just enough to fall back asleep. He thought, “Well, I’m living in a desert now. Between that and the plugs, this is just one of the things I’ll have to get used to.”
Yesterday, a handyman came over and gave it Red Bull or something, because washing bowls and cups now leads to drowned counters and floors (and cats if they get too close), and a simple shower covers your body in bruises.
This is my life. These are the things I worry about.
6 March: I spend at least fifteen minutes a day dust-busting locks of cat hair that tend to gather on white tile floors. Through the process, I keep missing clumps here and there, which is kind of frustrating. Today, however, after I vacuumed up a corner, fresh fur appeared in moments at that exact spot.
And then it all became clear: Those little assholes are gaslighting me!
10 March: I get to keep my hour.
12 March: Ispent the morning dust-busting and hand-scrubbing his stairs and his kitchen floor, because I live for futility.
19 March: I have only been behind the wheel of our beloved Stella for the past week, and I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about driving in Doha.
Every place I’ve ever lived (except for Nebraska) has claimed to have the worst drivers on the planet. Traffic in Florida is responsible for 29 percent of Dave Barry’s entire career as a writer. The spectacular car chases on the California freeway in every Michael Bay movie are actually mini-documentaries. And the things I’ve seen on the streets of Ecuador still chill me to this day. They’re all amateurs.
Driving in Doha is the only excuse you need to drive like an asshole.
From what I’ve learned during my stay, nothing on the roads is illegal, and that includes vehicular homicide… well, there is one exception: red lights. Nobody runs red lights in Doha. Nobody. Hell, if you cross an intersection on a yellow light, even the Qatari locals will call you a dick (keep in mind that the locals have been known to ram people from behind for going too slow, and too slow for them is anything less than twenty kilometers above the speed limit).
And yet, there’s something civilized about the it all. See, back home, if someone cuts you off, you unleash a stream of expletives that would make Richard Nixon tell you to take it down a notch, even if there’s kids in the backseat. Here, if someone cuts you off, you say, “Well played!” In the States, letting someone take a turn in front of you is an act of kindness. In Doha, letting someone take a turn in front of you means you lost the battle with honor. I have seen more people use their blinkers here—even when they’re signaling right while going left from the center lane.
Long story short: the Asphalt Thunderdome of Qatar is oddly relaxing.
28 March: I am not surprised–however I am amused—that even kids on tricycles in Doha are dangerously shitty drivers.
31 March: I’m slowly getting used to the metric system, but there are still setbacks. For example, I still feel a little weird going up to the butcher’s counter and ordering things by the gram. Today, though, was the biggest hiccup: when I tried out the compound’s treadmill for the first time, and I was running at 9.0 for two minutes without running out of breath (recall that, for the past year, I’ve had sometimes-crippling asthma), and I was thinking, “I must be Superman!”
Until Kate reminded me of that whole kilometer-versus-mile thing…
6 April: I was greeted as I entered the grocery store earlier today by the monstrous stomping of “We Will Rock You,” which is exactly the state I needed to shop there.
13 April: I’m learning that my favorite part of driving in Doha is that you frequently find yourself thinking, “I wonder if that was legal.” *shrug* “Well, no one died, so…”
9 May: I expected many changes when I moved to Qatar, but the one thing I hadn’t counted on was the ubiquity of bendy straws. Fast food joints, five-star restaurants… They’re everywhere.
12 May: I was driving tonight, really fast, as is the custom in Doha, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, a Miata about a third the size of my FJ Cruiser roared up from behind, going much, much faster (calculating from metric, that comes out to about… um… Warp 6) and flashing its headlights before engaging in nonconsensual vehicular buttsex. In the native language of Qatar, this means, “Move.”
Considering how a tap of the brake could squish that Miata like a can of Keystone Light against a frat boy’s forehead, I wanted to ask the other driver, “Dude, is this really how you want to die?”
But then I moved out of the way, because I was bringing chocolate shakes home to my sick wife, and it was hot outside.
17 May: I love so many things about the Middle East, but the best, of course, are the majestic mustaches.
18 May: A funny thing about Qatar is they don’t seem to do change here; and by that I mean everything is sold in whole riyals (which makes sense, because a riyal is equal to $0.27). There is change, and occasionally you’ll get to a cash register and you’ll owe, as I did recently at the grocery store, 612.75 QAR. Rather than give me a 25 dirham piece, the cashier just handed over this pack of gum. Because that’s the way Qatar rolls.
30 May: I fear that, if “No U-Turn” signs were ever installed in Qatar, there would be a coup, thorough collapse of law and order, and much bloodshed.
2 June: I came face-to-face with my first gigantic desert cockroach. And when I say face-to-face, I mean, I walked into the room, opened the door, and we both froze when we saw each other, and it was essentially eye-level with me. Not quite Madagascar horrifying, but still pretty damned horrifying.
And so now I need to figure out what to do about pest control. Nerds, say it with me, on the count of three. One… two… three: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit—it’s the only way to be sure.”*
* Would you like to know more?
13 June: I made it home after a typically long, fraught-with-peril journey through Doha streets, and was cruising slowly through my compound, careful not to run over kids, when this four-or-five-year-old boy on a bike stops pedaling for no discernible reason, scowls, and shakes his fist at me. Out of all the traffic disputes I have had in my life, this is easily the cutest.
20 June: I spent over an hour surviving endless hordes of selfish, erratic drivers; sitting at every single red light (in Doha, each light can literally take five or more minutes to turn green, making this particular five-kilometer drive last almost a half-hour); dodging careless and rude shoppers; and having my heart broken by poorly stocked grocery shelves. And yet, all it took was one tiny act of kindness (“You only have a couple of items; I have a full cart. Why don’t you go ahead of me in line?”) to turn the whole thing around. Something to keep in mind.
22 June: I am not the least bit surprised—amused, but not surprised—to see a man on stilts wander in and out of the food court with no explanation whatsoever. This is, after all, Doha.
23 June: I am sitting in a cafe, at a table next to a couple and young lady with a binder, chattering in a language that is neither English nor Arabic. My theory is that they are planning a wedding, an assumption bolstered when one of the women very clearly said the word, “Bridezilla.”
7 July: I am sitting in the same coffee shop where I overheard the “bridezilla” conversation a couple of weeks ago—in the very same seat—and at the next table is another couple planning their wedding. What kind of coffee shop is this?
8 July: I learned in high school physics class (that makes it, what, five, six years ago?) that matter cannot occupy the same space; this does not, however, apply to turn lanes in Doha.
10 July: I am so not looking forward to driving again in the States. Because in America, the following series of events is unacceptable: “Oh, man! Dead end! I don’t feel like backtracking!” *drives over curb, through empty lot, onto the sidewalk, bounces off the other curb, cuts off oncoming traffic, arrives shortly at destination, no sleep lost* In Doha, this is the only rational action.
The same sequence happens when you find yourself saying, “Man, this traffic is moving too slow. I don’t want to wait in it anymore.”
24 July: I received the following e-mail yesterday: “You can expect a refrigerator sometime on Sunday.”
10 September: I’m taking a cardio-kickboxing class. I am the only male student. This class involves punching and kicking in time to techno-ish music while an instructor named Vicki yells at you. This is not functional punching and kicking. You will never win a fight with this punching and kicking. This is actually more like dancing—in fact, there is a stretch that resembles a very flamboyant bow. This is not a particularly masculine class.
The whole thing is super-exhausting, which is why, about a third of the way through each session, the uppercuts and roundhouses are really kind of… sad. There is no dignity left for anyone involved (except for the instructor, who, I suspect, is not human), especially for the only male, who, being male, is not supposed to be moving this way in public.
I tell you all this because, at one point in the routine, during the bow/stretch maneuver, there is a double-clap before getting into position, and this is where I draw the line. I will pump my hips and simulate some kind of march thingie and perform a move that resembles loading laundry into a tiny washing machine, but I will not clap twice.
I don’t know why this is. I don’t know what about clapping twice is anymore ridiculous than what’s come before. Nothing about this makes any sense whatsoever. It doesn’t matter, though, because the double-clap is going too far.
29 October: I have been having a tough week, what with the car dangers, one-eyed cats, the stray dogs who stalked me this morning as I was walking to Dance Fu, the air conditioning being broken in the gym in a 38 degree morning, exploding doorbells, etc.
And then, this evening, the dentist poked around his mouth and exclaimed, “Oh my God!” It turns out he was impressed that he couldn’t find a single thing wrong with my teeth. Which is a nice change of pace.
2 November: A mysterious, white, gaseous substance has appeared in the air over Doha. I have the inkling of a memory of it from my past in the States. What was it called? A “klod”? “clowt”? “clood”? Whatever it is, it has devoured the sun, and is very frightening. May the gods have mercy on us.
3 November: I am astonished by the news that, due to a glitch in the space-time continuum, most of the United States experienced the same sixty minutes twice. Most of the country had slept through it. Of those who didn’t, I can only imagine the ungodly horror you had to endure as the laws of physics were torn asunder while you watched, helpless, only for everything to suddenly return to “normal.” For you, it is the present, but to the rest of the world, it is an hour into the future.
There are some who call this event “Daylight Savings Time.” I call it what it truly is: a perversion of the natural order.
7 November:
I want you to sit on back while I tell you a tale. A tale I like to call, “The Return of Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat.”
Today, I had a number of errands and a lunch, which took up six hours, about four of which—I am not exaggerating—involved sitting in the car. The parts of my path that were not blocked by construction were clogged by the detours from other construction projects.
During this time, Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat escaped the confines of his home, with his usual, cartoonish panache. This time, in the process of descending the wall between his yard and ours, turned on the garden hose. This had happened a long time before I got home.
And therefore, even though I opened our garden gate so that he could free himself without damaging me further (something both of us wanted more than anything), he refused to leave, because Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat did not want to cross the flood he created on top of our stone tiles.
And I said to him, “You know what, Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat? This is not my problem. You can take off whenever you want.”
Eventually, Tom the Trampoline-Jumping One-Eyed Wonder Cat did.
The End
9 November: I spent the day at the Gulf—Arabian or Persian, whichever—with a pair of couples and their combined five and two-thirds children. While we were enjoying the sun and warm sea, fish began suddenly popping out from the waves and skipping along, really, really close to us. I am no marine biologist, but I’ve come to understand that this means a bigger fish is coming for them, and it’s hungry. (I like to imagine what they’re saying as they surface: “RUN!” plop “Help!” plop “It’s right behind us!” plop “Save yourselves!” plop “NOOOOOO!” plop “It got Frankie!”).
This went on for a few minutes, and as it died down, Vicky’s seven-year-old daughter waded over to me, her eyes enormous, her mind blown, and she says, “I know why the fish are jumping out of the water. There’s a predator…” She paused and leaned in close, her next words as serious as a child that age make them (and that’s pretty dang serious), and she spoke in a low voice, “… and that predator… is us.”
16 November: I sit, reading a book in the backyard of the house that belongs to the two cats I’m serving while their live-in staff takes a well-deserved vacation.
The garden behind the house where I cat-sit is green and a little breezy, and clouds are splattered lightly across the room-temperature sky. Over the walls around me, through the calm afternoon, children are yelling at each other in languages I don’t understand—though, to be fair, I don’t understand what playing children are shouting even when it’s supposed to be English.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this way; though, to be honest, I probably hadn’t felt this way before. The mood and details are familiar, like déjà vu, only without the confusion. It’s the welcome memory of a peaceful afternoon that had never actually existed.
3 December: I had the pleasure today of sitting in stagnant, Doha traffic, and hearing Kate mutter, as she looked in the review mirror at the jackhole behind us, “You be honkin’; I ain’t movin’.”
7 December: I circled the packed car park like a patient shark, waiting for the right moment to beat the feeding frenzy and shove his way into an empty spot.
Suddenly, I saw a space, near the entrance, not marked for the handicapped. I looked around; not one pushy SUV was attempting to compete with me for it. Not one.
There was only one explanation: it’s a trap!
I took the spot anyway, because admit it, you would too.
2014
2 January: The Five Stages of Dune Bashing:
1. This is a beautiful and exhilarating drive!
2. The view from the top of this enormous dune we’re climbing will be amazing!
3. What the shit is this driver doing!?
4. This is it. This is how I’m going to die: in a skidding, rolling, crushed 4×4 in the middle of the desert, probably on fire.
5. Again! Again!
3 January: Iwould like to tell you a story about how much more entertaining it is to shop in this part of the world than it is back home in the States. And so, let’s all go down to the auto parts store, where our hero enters, on a quest for a tow cable and an air compressor.
I am greeted at once by an older man in a brown suit, clutching a cigarette I never actually see him put to his lips and speaking English with a thick regional accent. After we sync up our vocabulary to determine what I’m looking for, he shows me several cables and we pick the best one. He glances at the sticker and tells me, “Says 130. Give it to you for 100. Special price.” I agree that this is indeed a special price.
We now look at air compressors. He and his assistant, who speaks no English, remove an air compressor from the shelf, unpack it, and demonstrate how to assemble it. “Is Chinese, so it maybe get too hot…” He shows me where it might overheat. “… So turn it off and on. No problem. You know Chinese things. Good quality, though.” He directs his assistant to remove a car battery from behind the counter, hook up the compressor, and turn it on.
“Looks good,” I say.
The old man shrugs. “Good quality, even if it is Chinese. You know Arabs. They see it’s Chinese, they don’t want.” He shrugs again and flicks an ash off of his cigarette. “Box say 450, but for you, 400. Special price.” Once again, I have to admit this is a special price.
While his assistant boxes up the compressor, the old man and I work out whether cash or credit is best. We go with cash. He punches a number into a calculator and he sends his assistant out to my car with my purchases before I can stop him. I pay up and hurry out.
And it’s not until I get home that I realize I’d paid 580 for both items, which is not really that special of a price. I’m not 100 percent sure what exactly happened there.
4 February: I left the United States a year ago to come live in Qatar, located in the Arabian Gulf, next to Saudi Arabia, about 275 kilometers from Iran. In that time, I’ve acquired some habits I’m going to have to overcome when I return to America. Here are but a few:
– Tipping no more than 10 percent.
– Not recycling.
– Free valet parking.
– Fearing the wrath of custodial staff if I try to dispose of my empty tray at the food court.
– Driving on sidewalks (this is not an exaggeration).
– Wearing, at most, a fleece while walking outside in January, even at night.
– Expecting full-service at all petrol stations.
– The phrase “petrol station.”
– Paying fifty riyal (13.50 US dollars) to fill the tank of a gigantic FJ Cruiser.
– Assuming that every driver on the road will not obey traffic laws, thus freeing me to do the same.
– Going out for Lebanese fast food.
– Abandoning grocery carts in the parking lot wherever.
– Paying for everything in cash.
– Dropping 300 on a fancy, schmancy dinner for two and thinking that’s a really good deal
– Spending four hours at a table during dinner.
– Cutting in line, not out of rudeness, but out of sheer necessity.
– The metric system.
6 February: I was running along the Corniche this afternoon, enjoying the sight and smells of the Gulf, when I happened upon at least two or three dozen wandering pigeons. As I barreled down on them, they took flight en masse, leading me to believe I’d accidentally stumbled into a John Woo movie.
12 February: I don’t know if it’s Qatar, or the region, or the non-American world, or just this petrol station. All I know is that here, they don’t call it “patching your tire.” They call it a “tyre puncture.” Leading to things like this:
ME: I have a slow leak in my back tire.
ATTENDANT: You want tyre puncture?
ME: I already have a punctured tire.
ATTENDANT: So you want us to puncture your tyre.
ME: What?!
ATTENDANT: You are here for tyre puncture, yes?
ME: Yes, a punctured tire.
ATTENDANT: Come, we will puncture it for you.
ME: But I don’t need another tire puncture!
ATTENDANT: Puncture or no?
ME: Well, it is punctured…
ATTENDANT: Come.
And this is why I prefer to let Kate book reservations or call for takeaway. Because, when I’m in charge, there’s no guarantee things will work out how we wanted.
STAFF: That will be fifty riyal.
ME: This is a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese and olives.
STAFF: Yes. Fifty riyal.
ME: I thought I ordered schwarma.
I honestly don’t know how the service staff in this country puts up with me.
13 February: Most of Doha is shut down for National Sports Day today. Seriously, America, between this and restroom libraries, you’ve got some catching up to do.
14 February: I was nearly sideswiped today by a local man in a speeding Toyota Land Cruiser, taking a left turn from the right-turn lane of a crowded roundabout and shaving.
I’m not even a little bit fazed by this. It’s Doha, and I live here now.
Another self-portrait.
For more on the history of my self-portraits, look here:
I read this to my dad on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.
***
Edward “Murf” Murphy is a man who is not afraid to ask for directions. This alone says a lot about him. He doesn’t even need to ask directions to talk to strangers. Sometimes, it’s because they have Jersey plates. Sometimes, it’s because he has to tell someone something, and his family ran away while his back was turned. Sometimes, he’s just saying hi.
I don’t know much about my dad before I came along. He’s dropped hints about his past, like when he told me he’d been to jail more than I. He’s also writing his memories out for his kids, but it’s been a long time since the last chapter. Hurry it up, Dad—the clock’s ticking.
I’ve seen photos when I was very little, and my dad was a cool guy, with his hat and shades and an aversion to shirts. He had the bare minimum of fucks to give, through fatherhood, the empty nest, and retirement.
He had no idea what he was doing, but he took to fatherhood with the same focus that he put into everything. He worked a number of jobs to support his family, my favorite being the pizza parlor. When I showed up, we were living hand-to-mouth. Thanks to Mom and Dad, we always had clothes and stuff to play with. We never went to bed hungry.
I didn’t always like my dad. Like all young adults, I disagreed with how much I should be allowed to do. I never appreciated just how much I was he was allowing me to do. The kids I was arrested with pitied me because my dad was a tyrant, and I had been sentenced to fifty-to-life. Even back then, at my most rebellious, I pitied them because their parents didn’t seem to care enough for discipline.
A big part of our difficulties was mental illness, setting in at a time when we didn’t know very much about it. Poor Dad, our primary caregiver, had no idea what was happening. It must have felt like he was losing his son. The more time I’ve spent learning about my illness, the more I understand how hard it must have been to live with me. Bipolar disorder has taken a lot from me, but my teen years with my dad, when I needed him the most, might have been the worst.
I know everything I know about comics because my dad is a big ol’ nerd, and I spent countless hours going through his collection of Marvel books from the seventies and eighties. One of my favorite childhood memories was when the girls were all out, and Dad let my buddy, Alex, and me watch Star Trek from the dinner table, feasting on spaghetti and meat sauce. It was the episode with the alien who looked exactly like a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce.
Dad was at the forefront of the personal computer, and he was a Mac guy before Macs were cool. He tried out exciting new software and games and learned how they worked. He eventually built his own. I remember how awestruck he was when he saw Uncle Ralph’s Museum of Obsolescence.
During that same visit out East, when Uncle Larry and I waited for him to show up, Larry stressed the importance of not letting Dad get bored. “When Murf is bored, things happen.” For example: the furniture in the living room getting reshuffled every few months.
There were the home improvement projects, like how he converted a carport into a toolshed using an old fence and some plywood. When he couldn’t fix something, he repurposed it, meaning he had one of the only junk drawers in the country that actually saw use.
Dad has a sense of whimsy, which didn’t show up more than it did with our vacations. Yes, we visited family, and yes, we did take a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios each, but mostly we hit the roadside attractions. I know they were Dad’s idea because Mom wouldn’t have dragged us to Tombstone, Arizona.
I could go on about how stole the show in Gallup Community Theater, or volleyball, or his affinity for old, foreign, working-class cars, or how he always has a book with him because you never know when you’ll be waiting, or how he’ll smuggle in a bag of hard candy to the movies, how he never accepts violence as a solution. or how there is never any doubt that he loves us and will do anything to give us a better life.
My dad’s not like other dads, and for that I’m forever grateful.
They say, “They say you can never go home again.” You can, but it’s complicated.
The last time my nuclear family got together was at my wedding in 2005, and my bride couldn’t get me away from them fast enough. Over the years, sibling has seen sibling, and kids have seen parents, but the five of us who grew up with each other in New Mexico in the eighties and nineties have not gathered.
It took some doing, but we finally arranged it so the five of us could get together to celebrate our parents’ fiftieth anniversary a month late, on May 6. That’s why I was sitting on a Southwestern flight next to a guy who looked like Ted Cruz’s head on a jacked mercenary’s body.
Picking up my reserved rental in the past had been an exercise in tedium and frustration. The last time took an hour of waiting in a line that didn’t move. This time took fifteen minutes, no line, and about five of those minutes were me waiting at the wrong lot.
I came to Gallup three years ago to work with Shane on a project, and I remember being tackled by nostalgia. This time, it was for the aesthetic of the state. I don’t think I noticed New Mexico like I did yesterday.
While I drove from Albuquerque, I was in awe of the sky, and of the pink and red and white landscape, covered by a lot more green than you’d expect from a desert. Layers of rock and fossilized animals jut out of the desert floor. Bridges span channels that had once been rivers. In the distance, the empty desert is dotted with houses far from civilization. Halfway to my old home is a lava bed miles and miles across. Even closer to my old home is Red Rock State Park, so named because there are rocks in it.
I arrived in Gallup, driving a car that literally drove itself on the interstate. Before I met my family, I stopped at the office supply store, Butler’s, for supplies. It took a long time to get out of there with my purchase because nobody is in any hurry to do anything in this town.
Gallup doesn’t have a bookstore, so imagine my surprise to find one in this privately owned Gallup landmark. The owner is a guy named Barry, whose name is on the building, and we discussed putting my book on their shelves. He can be difficult to talk to because he listens to you speak, waits, and gives you a look like you’re supposed to say something else. I babbled.
Finally I arrived at the house my sister rented for the reunion, the walls of which, like every vertical surface in the state, is covered in adobe. It was also without right angles, and with no clear direction as to where everyone’s room is. Stairs can go to nowhere. A tesseract is a shape that cannot exist in Euclidean space. This house is a tesseract.
I talk to my parents every other week, and through video chat, it’s not clear just how old they are. My mom moves slowly and is in a lot of pain. My dad’s still really spry, but he’s hunched over, and his hearing aids don’t ever seem to work. I spend a lot of time listening to him go, “Huh?”
With the addition of my niece, my niece’s stepfather, and my niece’s husband, there were now eight of us. As football was to the Kennedys, hanging out and talking about nothing is to my family. We did that for what turned out to be hours until we got hungry. That meant Earl’s.
Earl’s is a Gallup landmark on the east side of town. Earl’s is a diner like Johnny Rockets is a diner, which is to say it’s not, but it has characteristics of one. Earl’s has a brand. Earl’s is a family restaurant, not a joint where you hang with friends for hours. Earl’s was where Natives, usually adorable children, went table-to-table selling you jewelry. Earl’s was fine dining when I was growing up, and most of my happy memories in my adolescence were there.
I always remembered the place being crowded, the silhouettes of patrons framed by bright colors. I remember a unique entrance that made you feel like royalty. I remember the six-foot pie case to my right and the miles-long dining counter to my left. I remember the carpet. I hadn’t been there in twenty-seven years. What kind of facelifts had it been given in that time?
None. I could have been stepping in here on the eve of moving to New York in 1998.
Lately, I’ve been taking pictures of buildings for references. For art and for nostalgia, I photographed Earl’s unique façade, as well as the sign that has remained unchanged for at least fifty years, even in the unforgiving desert sun. As I approached the restaurant, a shadowy, smoking figure called out, “Ya takin’ pitchers uh me? Ya better be takin’ pitchers uh everybody! Ha! Just kidding.”
I told him, “I grew up here. Earl’s is a big part of my life.”
“I know the owner!”
“Cool.” I attempted to retreat.
“He’s the son of the last owner.”
“Fascinating! Gotta eat!”
I escaped and joined my family of misfits, just in time to order. I used to love the patty melt, so that’s what I got. The good-natured, but direct, waiter, hit me with a barrage of questions. When I answered the last one (“Tater tots.”), the family chatted. I told stories, I made bizarre observations, and everybody related.
The food came, and it was time to eat. There were some things I was unprepared for. My brother-in-law, Shafiq, asked for a half-order of an Indian taco, and it was a slab. My niece, Sera, ordered a sandwich of some sort made with fresh frybread. My sister Becca ordered a mound of fries. My mother ordered the split-pea soup. She said it was very good.
I have no memory of this from my youth, but tater tots at Earl’s look like onion rings. They also served a small pile of sliced pickles next to a spear. The waiter explained, “Some people ask for sliced pickles, some people ask for spear pickles. Some people ask for both. Some people don’t want any pickle. Whatever, so we just gave them the pickles.” I’m a “don’t want,” but I appreciate the effort.
The waiter returned with the check, and I handed him a credit card. He said, “There’s a gratuity included, but if you can leave me more of a tip if you want to.” When he came back, I saw how inexpensive dinner for six was. He reminded me, “Like I said, there’s a gratuity included, but you can leave me cash, or you can fill it in right here.” That was about as aggressive as I’ve ever seen a server before, and I respected the hustle enough to persuade my family to leave him more.
He got an additional 20 percent, on top of the 18 from the gratuity.
Shafiq pointed out that we had stayed past closing, and we were keeping these people from their homes. Feeling awfully rude, we shuffled out. Despite this, though, our waiter ran out and caught up to us because Shafiq had forgot his food.
Today’s Dad’s birthday, and I have a speech prepared. I’m really nervous.
When Kate and I first moved to the DMV area, we lived in Alexandria. I liked Alexandria because it was a quick Metro ride to DC proper, and it was a big enough city of its own. After we returned from Doha, she made the unilateral decision to move us even farther from the District, and I had no reason to go to Alexandria anymore.
If you’re pondering Alexandria, you might think of it as the home of the best sushi in the world. You might think about the other Washington Monument erected by the Masons. You might think of how the Revolutionary War was planned in a pub there (which explains a lot). That pub, still serving ale, is in Old Town.
The spring following my return to the area in, my friends, Steve and Mere, joined me as we ducked in and out of the quaint shops that line the walk from the Metro station to the Waterfront, about a mile and a half. We explored an interlinking series of cemeteries, as well as the Torpedo Factory (more on this later)
It took six years to return, this time by myself. Even though I’m working on a project this weekend, I wanted to enjoy the weather and crank out a few portraits in a spot where I’d see a lot of tourists. That place was ESP, which stands for Espresso, Snacks, and Pie. I had neither snacks, nor pie, but I did enjoy an Americano, along with a sticker. Every store and café in Old Town sold stickers.
I occupied myself with my weekend project because there was only one interesting person. There was also a deeply plunging neckline, but I only observed that through my strained periphery.
Later, with one eye on my sketchbook and one eye on foot traffic, I spied an older woman, her hair long and wild, looking as if she were going to tear that hair out. To my horror, she approached me, out of breath and panted, “I know you probably can’t help me because you’re a man, but I’m going to ask anyway.”
My mind struggled against this torrent of twitchy desperation like someone walking against a hurricane.
“Are you ready?” she demanded.
No. “Yes.”
“Do you know Call Your Momma?”
I sat there, and a number of thoughts rattled through my skull. Did she want me to call my mother? Was she talking about the bagel sandwich chain Call Your Mother? That would make the most sense. And yet. What was it about being a man that would handicap me from knowing a bagel shop’s location? It didn’t matter because I had no idea where it was. Just like a man.
It took about twelve seconds to put all of this together into one coherent thought, while she waited for my answer, quivering in impatience. “Sorry,” I replied, “I don’t live here.”
She stormed away, shouting over her shoulder, “Of course you wouldn’t know! You’re a man!”
Despite being the victim of misandry, my journey of nostalgia went on. I loved coming here when I was younger. But so much had changed. The only comic-book store in Alexandria is now a spa. The coffee-and-pastry place we liked to go to is an empty, gutted building.
One thing hadn’t changed: the Christian bookstore and the sex boutique are still there…
… separated by a tiny Thai restaurant.
That restaurant is a hero.
Eventually I arrived at the Waterfront. When I lived here, this was a parking lot. Now it’s families enjoying their freedom from the latest cold snap.
The reason I took the hour journey, which included two trains and a twenty-minute walk, was the Torpedo Factory. It was once a literal torpedo factory, and now it serves as studios and shopfronts for over a hundred artists.
I was able to make it through the whole building in a short amount of time because most of the studios were closed. A lot of the open ones sold jewelry, which I am not interested in. A lot of the remaining was just not my style. And yet, even though my interests were whittled down to such a small percentage, I saw a lot of great art Saturday.
I have an expensive philosophy when I go to art fairs: if you talk to me about your shit, I will buy something from you. All you have to do to start such a conversation is say hi. You’d be amazed at how many artists don’t get this.
I had four good conversations, and I bought something from three of them. (The fourth was out of my price range, but he gave me a post card.) My longest conversation, however, was not with an artist. It was the hippy at the art store was very chatty.
As soon as I walked in, she asked, “How’s your last day before martial law?”
I asked her why Easter, and she laid out a pretty good case. She also pointed out it was Hitler’s birthday, which was less convincing. We talked more about a lot of stuff while she flipped through my portrait sketchbook and observed that I must be straight. She thinks asexuality is hormones. She is also an atheist, a bit more militant than I.
Ordinarily, I don’t like to talk about politics. It makes me sick to my stomach, and it doesn’t fix the world. For some reason, Candace made it easy to vent. She then assured me that Trump’s days are numbered. She says that the Republican party will impeach him in a few months, July at the latest.
She’s never wrong about these things because she can see the future. She wasn’t talking about any of this “woo-woo shit.” She had a talent for pattern-recognition. Take her word for it.
I enjoyed chatting with her, but I wanted to find a table in the Waterfront and work on some more art. I saw two more interesting people, who I planning on drawing when I’m done with my project. Enriched, I journeyed home.
When people say you can’t go home again, it’s usually with regret and heartbreaking nostalgia. I certainly felt it today. However, nobody talks about the new, exciting stuff that replaces our old loves. Time moves on, nothing’s ever the same, and that’s how life stays fresh.
I woke up directionless On Saturday. I wanted to draw, but nothing was coming to me. You can imagine what a relief it was when one of the most influential people from college shared with me his very good artwork. Dude’s got an eye for color and chaos. We chatted all morning, mostly about philosophy—not like two guys in togas, but rather about the decisions and circumstances that led to where we are. I picked up a lot of insight into my friend and into myself.
I wanted a café near the Metro so I could hop the train over to Union Station and see if Ember was around. I settled on Ididos, nearish to the Metro station, and would leave when I was good and ready.
Just as I was about to eat what I knew was going to be a fantastic, Ethiopian breakfast sandwich, my phone made a noise. It was an unusual noise. It was telling me I was getting a phone call. The only people who call me are the robots at the pharmacy, so I pulled it out of my pocket with sweaty hands.
The caller ID told me it one of the most influential people from New York. Immediately my mind said, “I can’t lose another one.”
There is nothing wrong with my friend. She was checking in because she had some precious, precious time, and she thought she’d spend some of it on me. She was such an amazing friend because she was a hilarious and filthy (and really professional) degenerate, and she was also the most loyal, sincere, protective, Mama B you’ll ever meet.
Energized by my friends and the four golf caps I saw, across all demographics, I decided not to go looking for Ember. Instead, I walked south. It was miles to the next station, and I had no idea how I was getting back home, but I didn’t care.
That’s how I stumbled onto Rock Creek Cemetery. I had been there in 2011 with a friend, seeking out Clover Adams’s grave. I remember how haunting it was. While I was in the neighborhood, directionless, I thought I’d find it again.
Clover is how Marian Adams was known to everybody. In the late 1800s, she was married to famous writer named Henry Adams, and they lived in Washington D.C., near the White House. She was a prolific photographer, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy one. However, after her father died, Clover sank into a deep depression and drank a lethal amount of photo-developing chemicals.
When I first heard this story, I was reminded how my then-father-in-law coped with his wife’s death. He purged every photograph with her in it, every tchotchke she collected. He even remodeled the family into something completely unrecognizable. Likewise, Henry burned her letters and photographs. Neither Henry nor my former father-in-law ever spoke of their first wives again.
Her burial was ostentatious. He hired celebrated architect Stanford White to design a memorial to mark Clover’s grave. There is a grove of trees with steps leading into the center. There you’ll find a large, curved marble bench that could seat six comfortably. Across the expanse marked by small, tumbled stones, sits Grief.
The full name of the statue is The Mystery of the Hereafter and the Peace of God that Passeth Understanding, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The newspapers saw that title and said, “We’re going to call it Grief.” The subject of the statue is not Clover Adams. It’s neither male nor female. Its only purpose is to mourn because Henry couldn’t.
As a skeptic, I can’t explain the vibe of that place. It was sad, but it was also kind of frightening, requiring me to push through a lot of fear to get that close-up. Then I did the unthinkable. I stuck around with my sketchbook. I’m going to put a lot of time and care into this one.
Henry Adams built an actual monument on top of the final remains of his beloved wife. Her name is nowhere to be found.
I’m a little more lighthearted today, because it is Pi Day. Pi, as you might remember from geometry, is a less-than-rational number, calculated by assuming the cosine of circumgourds to the numfloppens and divining them with the abacusometers, before estimating a riff based on the interginalist figure to the nearest taurudite.
The first three digits that result are 3.14. After that, it’s sheer madness. Apparently, there are human beings out there who can recite it to hundreds of digits because they have something broken in their brains.
14 March, or 3/14 to normal people, is considered Pi Day, when we, as a world, stare in awe at this number, stretching off into infinity. And then we get bored and eat some pie.
That is not why I am celebrating 14 March. I’m celebrating 14 March because of Stephen’s birthday.
The first time I visited Kate in Indiana, I met Steve. The most notable thing about Steve was that he had panache. He was a dork. He knew he was a dork. And he strutted around like Tobey MacGuire in Spider-Man 3. I was dying to be his friend.
By the time I had moved to Bloomington, he had moved onto Cornell with his future wife, Meredith. After law school, they relocated to Alexandria, Virginia, shortly before we moved there. Steve and Meredith helped me feel welcome in a place that was otherwise confusing and lonely.
The first thing you must know about Steve is that he’s always right. If something doesn’t jive, he makes it known. He has a brain the size of a planet, so he probably is right, but if you contradict him, he will give you the benefit of the doubt. He won’t rule anything out if you have evidence. If you don’t know something that is in his wheelhouse, he will tell you. If he doesn’t know, he’ll look it up.
Steve nitpicks like a professional. He pointed out all the flaws in an episode of Justice League as we watched it to the point that the only thing left of the DVD was a smoldering puddle of plastic. When we put in GI Joe: Resolute, and he couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it, I knew I found a new classic.
Somehow, and I’m not sure how, he beta-read one of my Urban Fantasy short stories and returned with a scathing indictment. Some of his criticisms were spot on, and some of them completely missed the point of the story (which means I probably didn’t communicate it as effectively as I could have). Too late, because it got published as is. Suck it, Poindexter.
Steve is also one of the most inviting, attentive, and loyal people I know. I had pushed away all of my friends when I was married, and all the couple friends I’d made disappeared when the marriage was over. Steve, however, assured me he and Meredith weren’t going anywhere, and they took me out to dinner the night I got the news.
Steve laughs at all my jokes. All of them. And on the rare occasion that he doesn’t find it funny, it’s because he doesn’t get it. When I explain it, he laughs. As a nitpicker, his expertise would be greatly appreciated on my latest novel because I think I might have something here. If I don’t, or if something’s not working, he will not hesitate to let me know.
Steve is vibrant, curious, generous, goofy, a little smug, and can beat you to death with a stick. If anyone can and will tell me the technical differences between barrister and lawyer in more than just the Atlantic Ocean, it’s him. I’m honored to be his friend.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the cast of Metromaniacs!
Played by the accomplished Caroline Adams, Lisette the proactive, scheming maid.
Played by Hanlon Smith-Dorsey, Mondor is a loyal servant with no scruples.
Played by Hart Wood, Franacalou is a lover and creator of drama.
Played by Jane Schecterson, Lucille is, like, yeah, whatever.
Played by K Sridhar, Baliveau is the very definition of angry uncle.
Played by Oscar Léon, Damis is a romantic, twitchy poet.
Played by Steve Isaac, Dorante is lovesick and star cross’d.
I still think of my friend several times a day. He’s been gone since the first week of November, and it doesn’t feel like it’s been almost four months. I can’t bring myself to look at a photo of him. I wrote a chapter about him in my premature memoirs (which he read) three years ago, and I can’t bring myself to read it or edit to include the conclusion.
However, I’ve included him as a secondary character in the novel I’m writing, and I’ve done my best to capture what made his personality shine. It helps fill the void he left. It breaks my heart that I can’t share it with him, because there are parts I know he’d laugh his ass off to, and I miss his laugh.
I have wanted to draw and/or paint a picture of him since his death, but it hurts too much. I did this last weekend, and it’s not great. I really screwed up the arms and the color of his hair. Baby steps.
Jeremiah Murphy 