I’m in Union Square lying on a bed of fresh mulch and my fingers and palms are sticking to the wooden pieces and it made me think of where this wood came from. I’m positive it came from a tree or branch from somewhere in the greater five boroughs but why? What’s the story with these chips? Was it from a branch that fell last winter from one of the snowstorms? Maybe the little pile I’m sitting on came from a small tree that a drunken homeless person used for a walking stick slash trash poker. Who knows… Just by the look and feel of it I’m gonna say it came from a couple of branches from Thompson square park down in the East Village. Just a gut feeling but I think the mulch came about because a couple of squatters tried to make a fire during the blackout of ’04 and these branches that I’m sitting on were next in line for the fire but the lights came on in the city and that was that. Never got to illuminate those homeless kids that night but those branches have done a good job of settling to keep my butt dry and dirtless. Something for me to think about so I don’t solely concentrate on all the incredible looking people all out in the 72-degree weather… It is absolutely amazing outside and it’s giving me a case of the fever… Oh, I don’t know… A little illness I like to call SPRING FEVER!!! Must be a thousand attractive females that have passed by in the last hour. Everyone is out and about showing off their new bodies and the cool clothing that attempts to cover them. I, myself am wearing cute tan shorts with orange socks and a baseball shirt covering my upper torso.
Speaking of baseball shirts, I remember having one of my most favorite and special pieces of clothing removed from my life by way of my own stupidity. First of all let me describe the shirt that meant the world to me. It was an old-school baseball shirt that I accidentally didn’t give this guy back after he drunkenly left it in my car. I later asked him if I could wear it in a very casual “Ran out of t-shirts type of thing and I found this old beat up piece of horse shit shirt under all the crap and mouse droppings that was stuffed under the seat of my car and I was wanting to wear it and I’ll give it right back to ya”, that kind of deal. And he was like, “Yeah, sure. Just make sure you give it up before softball season. I don’t have many of those shirts left”… Many? Please… You just donated a shirt to… Oh, I don’t know…. BOBBY’S SALVATION ARMY AND GOODWILL DONATION DROP OFF CENTER!!!!
Anyway, it was old school off-white and shit with light blue sleeves that got to be extra faded after all the bleachin’s I done give it. (I’m sorry, the last sentence I was stuck in southern accent mode. It happens and it might happen again before too long, by god, if you don’t watch ye self!) Anyway, it was perfectly broken in and the best part, it looked really good on me and it was one of my girlfriend’s favorite shirts at the time. It actually was one of the shirts that sealed the deal with us… She doesn’t know this but I remember the confidence I had about myself and with her after I wore that shirt the first night we kissed. We were on maybe our second hang out date, we were shooting pool at Joe’s Bar in the East Village and I was looking good in whatshisfuck’s shirt that he just let me borrow forever, and she goes on saying how great that shirt I was wearing looked on me and then I remember whispering something very confident and funny in her ear and then she gave me the look. The look of, “Shit’s goin’ down after this little pocket billiards shenanigan that we’re doing. Game is ON!” And I attribute a lot of that to the shirt. The same shirt that I wore once a week and only on “just impress days”. Didn’t want to waste it on stupid everyday crap, stuff like not working and roaming K-Mart all day; unnecessary stench and pit stain damage for something like this old beauty. I think you get the point. I LOVED THAT SHIRT!!!
So this girl and I are in super love for close to two years and we decided to take a road trip across the country, camping and having a blast along the way. We saved the little money we had and I borrowed my mother’s Honda (Which I have now and it has over 250,000 miles on it. Not to mention a place in my memory lane with this story I’m telling now.) and we drove across the country. The second day on the trip, or better yet, the day after the very special first impressive day on the road, I had my baby and a couple other articles of clothing in a plastic grocery bag and I accidentally threw the bag away along with other trash bags at the campground dumpster on the way out. It hit me about five hours and several hundreds of miles later when I was repacking my bags that my shirt was missing… I freaked out big time when I retraced the retarded mystery and I indeed had THROWN AWAY MY FAVORITE SHIRT, ASSHOLE!!! Sooo friggin dumb!!!
The trip was pretty crappy after that. We got stuck in Vegas and gambled all of our money away. The old Honda had brake failure too… Just to add another excuse to be stuck in Vegas. But we just had enough money to get back home to New York. Never made it to California like we had planned the whole time. Never made it! The girl at the time got really sick on the way back to the city as well. It was awful and one of the most tense times of our relationship. And when we got back to the city, not long after that, we broke up for good.
Thinking about it now, I never really put two and two together! That shirt WAS the relationship! It started with the shirt to seal the deal and when I threw it away, I pretty much threw away the relationship! WOW… Never really put that together until now…I’m soooooo glad I can just blame the shirt for all the crap that I was accused of doing for those two years together… I feel better now. Almost like that confidence I had with that old baseball shirt… Maybe that has something to do with its replacement that is on my upper torso right this moment… Maybe, just maybe this is my shirt reincarnated and it found me again!!! That’s it! It all makes sense now!!! Just like the reincarnated branch that I’m sitting on right now… My shirt found me!!! I have him back!!!
Does this mean that I should start paying attention to all the beautiful women walking around looking all available and feverish? I haven’t had a girlfriend since that “girl” anyway, right? Maybe I should stop thinking about woodchips and baseball shirts and let the powers be… And that’s what I’m a gonna do, by god!!!!
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