4.5 Alexander Briefly Visits Alabama (2)

I. WANDERER

I come above ground and hail a cab. The cabbie keeps assuring me I’ll probably be fine until I tell him my actual flight time. Then he keeps apologizing for not running red lights. It becomes embarrassing. I overtip him and miss my flight.

The travel day ends up lasting 12 hours, divided between Boston, DFW, and finally Mobile. I do about 200 mathematical problem solving GMAT questions in a workbook. Completing the math section of standardized tests is what God put me on this earth to do. I use a thick black porous-point pen and score better than the book’s previous owner, God bless her.

My brother picks me up and we drive to a Waffle House. I order a waffle and some hash browns. At one point a young woman sitting at another booth turns around and says something like, “I’m sure everything will all work out.” She is earnest but seems unhinged, which explains her breathless attempt to reach out to us. At any rate, her sentiments are not welcome, and we let her know. This is the first time I’ve been in Alabama in a year and a half.

II. SWEATER PARTY

When I’m meeting old friends I haven’t kept in touch with very well, I always brace myself for the possibility that they despise me now. Partially I worry that in hindsight they will realize how awful I really am. Partially I worry that I might be a hateful reminder of their own fundamental isolation and mortality. Partially I worry that some sort of fox and the hound shit has gone down and we have to hate each other now, and I just haven’t realized it yet. Partially I’m misinterpreting their inevitably diminished interest in me as hostile. Partially I am projecting my own egotistical insecurities, in a warped form, onto those around me. What other reasons can you think of for this reaction? Leave a comment or tweet your responses to @acromp with hashtag #whoevencares. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE >>>

III. SOMETIMES EVEN NOW WHEN I’M FEELING LONELY AND BEAT

Apparently once in biology class I waltzed around with an embalmed cat singing “What’s New, Pussycat.”

IV. AMERICA

I sit on a couch and eat a homemade ice cream cookie. On the television is a game show. Contestants who are unable to provide the correct answer are dropped through a trap door.

V. THE LAST DIVINE PRINCIPLE LESSON: THE STORY OF A LITTLE HALF-ALSATIAN

I swing into the now-vacant lot and get out of the car and walk to a back corner. The ground is weedy and there is no sign of the old buildings, not even the foundation. Just as I remember, the chainlink fence at the back has flimsy pink and white slats threaded through it at the diagonal. It divides the property from the woods. The lot seems small for how large I remember Headquarters being. An abandoned trailer used to be in the woods behind the property. As a child I went one Sunday to explore. The floor of this trailer was covered in cheap broken toys in a way that still makes me think of the doll on the cover of Stephen King’s Desperation. I would go now to see if the trailer is still there, but I don’t have the heart to. I get back into the car and drive as far south as I can go without dropping into the sea.

Literally, to Dauphin Island.