The Long Walk To Who Knows Where

Mar 9

by Nick Domich

Jesus Does Not Look Happy

We sat next to one another on the first day of catechism class, Erich and I. Our elementary school ended for the day at 3:00 p.m. which usually meant heading home to watch cartoons or shoot hoops in the driveway. But for some reason our mothers had let themselves be bullied into enrolling us in what could best be described as the last lash of the Catholic whip. I lasted one day in Sunday school. This new adventure seemed just as promising. Erich drew a cobra during one of our first classroom assignments. His lines appeared to come from an experienced hand. My inartistic hands could only create stick figures. Jesus stared down at us from his portrait above the chalkboard. He did not look happy to be there either.

Mac and Erich

A Sierra Oaks rec soccer team reunited us. The coach asked the team if there were any of us with nicknames or were we married to the names our parents gave us. Tom Macdonald said, “You can call me Mac.” He was never known as Mac before or since. When it was time to pick out jerseys everyone wanted lucky number seven. Double zero was another hot number. Erich took home the double zero shirt. When he arrived at the pitch for our first game the two zeros on his shirt had been joined by a lucky seven. Greene. Erich Greene, with three ‘e’s’, he would tell people. They would tell him he was no James Bond(e).

All Tail, No Pony

After his first semester at university, Erich came back with a tail. Not of the reptilian variety but what was commonly referred to as a rattail. His haircut was not particularly distinctive except for a lingering length in the back. Did the barber miss it or was he cutting his own hair now? Partially dyed blonde, it became his signature as it slithered its way down his spine during those college years. I was not a fan. As it grew he had it braided and when the time came to retire it a pair of scissors rendered it lifeless. Holding it aloft like a dead snake beaten to death with a rock the tail looked almost harmless. Just like Erich. But a haircut’s a haircut. What happens when you take a rock to your life?

Homeless Driver

His generosity knows no limits. As he pulled into a 7-11 parking lot in Hollywood there was a handful of vagrants gathered near the entrance, one of them shirtless. They asked for some money but he had bigger ambitions than that. He took his shirt off and gave it to the bare-chested fellow. Newly dressed and his courage rising Erich’s fresh friend inquired if it would be possible to sit in the car and listen to music while Erich did some light shopping. Why did I think this was not a bright idea? Without hesitation the car keys were passed between them and now a shirtless Erich entered the store. The fluorescent lights and multicolored, multi-Doritoed store shelf greeted his crooked eyes and blurry smile as he stumbled towards the familiar red, white and blue of Budweiser. Touching the cold glass of the refrigerator door he peered down the aisle ending in a dark corridor where the bathroom hid. The door held open with his left hand he reached in and secured the twelve-pack in his right. Walking past potato chips, Red Vines, soda pop, Slim Jims, he arrived at the cash register. When he exited the store the car was gone and the thief had not even had the decency to leave the shirt behind. Without a car and miles from home he began the long walk to who knows where. A friend received a call from Erich’s girlfriend that he had not arrived home yet. This was nothing new to either one of them but he promised to let her know if he heard from Erich. Less than an hour later there was a knock on the door. Through the peephole he spied his half-naked friend, let him in and handed him the phone.

Does Your Dog Bite?

His stomach full of drink, his appetite failed him at dinner time. His wife Melissa made small talk with the other couple. They told me she showed little concern for his drunken behavior for by now it was no secret. As they left the restaurant and returned to the downtown streets Erich spied a hot dog vendor. His stomach felt better, or so he thought, but one bite of the salty sausage told him another story. A pit bull pulled its owner toward them as Erich debated whether to take another bite or toss the whole thing in the trash. He asked the man if he would mind if Erich fed his wilting weiner to the waiting whelper and Erich did so. The dog’s mouth and rejected hot dog engaged in a losing battle for both with the hot dog landing on the well-traveled sidewalk. Without missing a beat Erich leaned over, retrieved his twice-discarded meal and promptly took a bite. Apparently his appetite had returned.

Landing On Plymouth Rock

As each of his siblings turned eighteen their grandmother invited them to lunch and gave them their inheritance. When it became Erich’s time to bend the knee and shoulder the sword his life would never be the same from that day forward. The money came from a furniture-moving company and Erich started making his own moves. He was not adept at making friends, but his money gave him confidence and bought him some new companions who never had to pick up the check. But generosity has its limits. Ordering one side of the menu at a sushi restaurant and then asking for his retinue to cough up their share of the bill, they would argue that they weren’t the ones who ordered all that food. Extravagance has its price. I warned them, when you party with the king better bring your wallet.

The Meat They Ate

He became a trophy hunter. Death hung from the walls of his home as an accompaniment to family photos and still life prints. I hesitated to open the door to his office. The antelope and zebra could not distinguish between a bruised pear and a mother-in-law, their blank stare giving away nothing. The fruit never rotted, the cheerful faces never aged and the animal heads never smiled. Traveling as far north as Alaska and as far south as South Africa to stalk his prey, the hopeless interior of his hunter’s mind focused its desire via the bullet to enter the wildness of the beast and tame it. A giraffe fell and he and his guides descended on it blades at the ready to carve it up into meat and trophy portions. The meat they ate. The giraffe head and its distinctive neck attached to a pedestal wrapped in its own hide peered down at family and friends for a few years before being relegated to being just another trophy gathering dust in the garage, a pair of skis nearby if it regains its spirit and wants to make an escape.

White Flight

He and his wheelchair-bound hunting partner made the pilgrimage to Alaska for a weeklong trip. On day five as weather conditions worsened they retreated to the safety of a teepee along with their Native Alaskan guides. The next three weeks in whiteout conditions were spent drinking grain alcohol and throwing knives at an inverted tree stump, waiting for a window in the weather to open. Erich called me one night while a satellite passed overhead, the only way to make a call in the wild. He only had a few minutes to tell me of his predicament and I practically rocked the phone to sleep with my head shaking. When a plane did finally land to rescue him there was no time to wait for his friend. The break in the winter weather only allowed the pilot to land for fifteen minutes before he had to return to the skies. He apologized before running for the waiting plane and disappearing into the horizon. His friend became an expert knife thrower.

The Love Parade

His drinking and outrageous behavior led to a separation from his wife Melissa. Neither one of them hesitated to usher their familial discord into the public eye. She knew how to set a trap whose wires he was always willing to trip. Driving by his former residence one day he decided to turn the car into the cul-de-sac and annoy her about some small item of disagreement. I counseled him to stop doing this. She happened to be backing out of the driveway at the same time. Stopping the car, then getting out, he approached her SUV like an angry neighbor ready to complain about the tree that hangs over the property line littering their lawn with a plethora of unwanted fallen leaves and broken branches. She had little time or patience for this interruption and as his voice began to rise and his questions went unanswered his estranged wife put the car into gear and began to roll up the window. His arm rested on the driver’s side door with his elbow invading her space. As the window rose he asked what she thought she was doing. She knew exactly what she was doing. With his arm caught between the window and the door frame she started to drive away. He jogged alongside the car at first but when she accelerated he jumped on the truck step and began banging on the window as the two of them paraded their marital disharmony down Elmhurst Lane. The suburban neighborhood Saturday morning routines of lawn mowing and dog walking disrupted by the Greene family circus. When the window rolled down the clown turned into an acrobat. Melissa then closed the lion’s mouth and drove off.

Put That Cigar Out

While living in Los Angeles Erich and a friend organized a cigar event—a Smoker, he called it. An attempt to recreate the magic that was made in Sacramento. He arranged to hold it at a local Italian restaurant. He enlisted my help. Invitations sent to friends, acquaintances and the cigar-curious were never RSVP’d, not a single one. Erich informed the restaurant owner who was furious about the lack of respondents. A special menu had been put together for the event. Expenses were incurred that could not be recouped. Erich didn’t realize that the type of person that would go to a Smoker was also the type of person who went out of their way to avoid him. The event was canceled and he never returned to that restaurant.

Don’t Get Out of the Car

He said he was on his way to see his daughter and did I want to meet up afterward. Their daughter took gymnastic classes during her toddler years. Erich dropped by her class one night unannounced and instead of acting like a typical parent, engaging in small talk or staring at his phone, he took on the role of the inquisitor and began to upbraid Melissa about her dating choices. This being inappropriate never entered his mind. She responded by picking up their daughter and leaving the building. He followed her to the car and when she attempted to close her door and leave him standing by himself in the parking lot he responded by grabbing the door and holding it open to continue the conversation she wanted to escape. Tensions escalated and voices rose until Erich heard a man from behind him telling him to put his hands in the air. Erich turned around expecting to see a law enforcement officer but it was the owner of the pawn shop next to the gymnastics club. The sheriffs were already en route and when they arrived Melissa confirmed that she wanted his ass hauled away. He was arrested for domestic violence. After spending the night in jail he was startled when a sheriff kicked him awake. Service with a smile. As the prisoners lined up for roll call a finger wound its way down the list until it stopped on Erich’s number with his domestic violence crime noted in the adjoining column. A look of intense anger spread across the jailer’s face as he bellowed, “Over here, O.J.!” This became his sobriquet during his brief stay. Erich never raised anything more than his voice with Melissa, certainly not his fist. He abused himself with alcohol to chase or embrace his demons. His demons drove everyone else away.

Coke Ridge

Alcoholism led him to rehab. He re-had his rehab and then re-had it again. The third time got him clean and sober at the aptly named Clean and Sober. He was the only alcoholic under fifty in the program. The patients his age were all on meth or cocaine while other patients were much younger than his early thirties self. The local high school Oak Ridge was nicknamed Coke Ridge. The white flight from the center of the city to its outskirts had its repercussions. They wanted their community to be so white they began putting the white stuff up their noses. I told him they couldn’t get white enough. And then they couldn’t get high enough to alleviate the boredom of being so white and living in a desert of multiculturalism. But they’ve got a Starbucks.

How Do You Know If It’s Ripe?

Erich couldn’t give up cigarettes though. He entered rehab for that too. A week in Napa trying not to lose his mind while going through withdrawals. Everybody with that “I need a goddamn smoke” look in their eyes. But it worked. He never smoked again. When he walked into the supermarket the smell from the produce section overwhelmed him. Now that his sense of smell returned he couldn’t stomach a ripe orange. The foul stench of an ashtray would set off pleasure receptors in his brain but a piece of fruit made him retch. I thought that was a nice trade-off.

Quincas Borba

He told me he named his dog after a novel about a man who envied his dog so much he gave himself his dog’s name, Quincas Borba. Quincas slept, ate, played, ate and then slept some more. This was an honorable life. Erich did not want to be his dog and his dog did not want to be him. They never discussed the matter.

I Hate the Smell of Motor Oil

Erich became business partners with his landscaper. He dug holes and laid pipes for sprinklers. His coworkers were former addicts like him. They had tattoo sleeves covering their arms. Complaints about no one wanting to hire them due to the tattoos and the past they represented were common. Erich worked side-by-side with them and earned their respect. When he tore down his house and built a new one he grabbed a pick and a shovel like the rest of the working crew. One of the men confided in me that that was something he never thought he would see, the man that hired them digging sewer lines and driving a backhoe. Erich liked the backhoe so much he bought one. When one of the men he labored with became homeless Erich offered to let him live in his workshop. Between the lawn mower and a shelf full of paint cans and motor oil the man laid down to sleep each night. Erich relayed this story to me when I found myself without living quarters for a brief time and had inquired if I might stay with him. When offered the choice between sleeping on the pullout couch in his office or on a cot in the workshop I chose the couch. I hate the smell of motor oil.