Mosquitoland: Chapters 26–32

Plastered across the top in bold marquee lettering it says LIVE YOUR LIFE.

"Y'all need tickets?"
A stranger sidles up next to us.

Time to put an end to this debacle.

If at any point one of us gets lost, let's agree to meet back here. At this statue, okay? Sort of like a rendezvous point.

Walt—depicted by an unknown actor in an Oscar Award-winning breakout performance—is an ordained minister.

The cheering, clapping Beck Van Buren best exemplifies the contagious nature of Walt's enthusiasm.

The Cubs' first batter of the inning draws a walk, but from the exuberance of my friends, you'd think they'd just won the pennant.

Three bucks on carnitas, five on ice cream (at the inimitable Aces Dairy Dip Mart Stop Plus), three hundred on Uncle Phil, fifty-six on gas, nineteen at Medieval Burger, one hundred twenty on these tickets, and six on my official Reds program.

Nearby, a woman of considerable girth is holding a couple of hot dogs and a funnel cake; she's staring at the Jumbotron, cheering mightily for the girl baseball to win.

Dad was working on his motorcycle. He never rode, just worked. This was one of the many missing pieces of my father, his aptitude for the unfinished. Whatever pleasure he found in the toiling means, he rarely found in the rewarding ends.

“Well, remember Jimi Hendrix, the one who played Star Spangled Banner?”
God, did I. (Are you familiar with this particular rendition, Iz? Inspired.)

“His guitar sounded like this man’s voice. Like”—I shook my head, pondering the nebulous intricacies of rock stardom, and how to wield such wildness into words—“like...just...crazy and good and crazy good.”

Later in life, it would occur to me that this was the ultimate dichotomy: for a person to want what’s best but draw from their worst.

The radio is crackling a song about an undertaker, which the deejay classified as a “new oldie."

Clusters of them blink and shift in the sky, taking the shape of a tall bubbly-skinned man whispering pithy truths in my ear.

His tallness wasn't contingent on my shortness. By any standard, this guy was tall.

I compared his bubbly face to what I knew of the world, but drew a blank. It just didn't make sense. So with the tact of a four-year-old, I pointed right at his cheek and asked what happened.

"I guess I just think life is more mysterious than death."
"How very philosophical. You should write a book."

Another ha-ha, and I'm suddenly aware of my own sarcastic mitigation.

Possibly due to the late hour, though more likely owing to my borderline-drunken fascination with Beck, I'm acting like a freshman at prom; blasé, elbowy, incapable of original thought.

In keeping with my detours-have-reasons theory, I'd decided after the game that helping Beck was imperative.

Number 358 is sandwiched between 356 and 360. I suppose these townhouses are economical, but this sort of cookie-cutter design just oozes architectural apathy.

I watch from inside the truck as my first Claire opens the door, and I have to say, it doesn't bode well for the Claires of the world.

Lucky for me, the house's lazy design is only outmatched by its diminutive size.

Without pomp, without circumstance, I wipe off the war paint. There are no balloons, confetti, or plastic-wrapped roses.

In all likelihood, that was my magnum opus.

Like most everything else in this restaurant, the bathroom door is constructed entirely of bamboo: the faded Berber carpet is its soil, the flowery wallpaper is its oxygen, and—behold!—the perennial evergreens of exotic Southeast Asia sprout forth like so many common weeds right here in ho-hum Northeast Ohio.

Mom and I would hop in her beat-up Malibu, crank Elvis, and roll down to Evergreen Asian Diner, proud purveyors of the best Kung Pao chicken this side of the Great Wall.

She cracked a fortune cookie against the side of our table like an egg, then unrolled the tiny vanilla-scented paper. I waited patiently for the celestial kitsch: the doors to freedom and the dearest wishes and the true loves revealed by moonlight. But her fortune wasn’t nearly as fortuitous as all that.

Beck has his arm around Walt, who appears to be walking gingerly.

She's turned in her surgical garb for a purple fitted blouse, with a giant bow at the neck, a black pleated skirt—not too short, but short enough—and a pair of Tory Burch flats.

I was doing an emergency splenectomy on a seven-year-old lab after a tumor, possibly caused by hemangiosarcoma, ruptured the spleen. Poor thing had a distended belly, pale gums, the works.

I look at Beck and remind myself to work out some secret signal for future predicaments such as this, something that means get me the hell outta here.

Your friend here didn't get food poisoning. He had an adverse reaction to MSG.

You get a hankering for Chinese, you're better off driving into the city.

The rain is back, though not quite as brutal as it was in Cincinnati. Through the barrage, I make out a sign along the side of 71 north...

Our discussion hasn't deterred Walt's sleep. If anything, his snores are louder than ever.

The conversation comes to a lull.

I picture Frowny Claire, sitting alone in that apathetic townhouse—therapy, lemonade, rinse, repeat...If her habit is king, it's tyrannical.

Beck drives, navigating the treacherous roads of What If? while I search for the right words to a thing that has none.