Departures

Written by John Locke

Wednesday, 16 April 1997

Article Index Departures Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Tuesday Page 1 of 6 Tuesday. The most intense times of my life have been when I am about to leave. Something about departing makes you more appealing to those around you. Suddenly, you're in demand, the center of the show. People throw going away parties, shed tears, make time for you. When I was 17, and a DJ on a local radio station, I got calls my final night shift from fans I never knew existed. On the night of our graduation party, a girl who I thought didn't even know I existed confessed having a crush on me. When I moved away from Minnesota, all of a sudden three women took me out on dates, three nights in a row, after I had gone dateless for nearly a year. Now, I am departing once again, leaving on a new adventure, leaving my work and my home to roam the world and come back when I have found something to do with myself. Nancy, my ex-girlfriend, says I'm crazy, that I should be working and trying to buy a house, saving for my future. That's why she left me, I'm sure--she didn't like being poor and free. Rich and secure, chained more like it. She thought the coffee houses I like to frequent were pretentious and dull, a bunch of people smelling flowers and patting themselves on the back for spouting a bunch of meaningless gibberish and calling it high art, poetry. "Those people wouldn't know a great poem from great bird-cage lining," she liked to say. "And you're the worst of them all," she said when we broke up. "At least they have the guts to read their trash aloud, and risk criticism. You're just a closet dreamer, who'll never get anything published, because you never get anything finished." But she didn't understand. I have a plan, you see. I'm just waiting for the right time. I've spent so much of my life working for someone else, grinding away the hours. Sure, I'm good at my job. I know bicycles better than anybody--I've been selling and fixing them for seven years now. I enjoy helping our ex-mayor pick out a bicycle for his thrilled eight-year-old, or seeing the smile on the face of Mrs. Johnston when she got on a bicycle for the first time in forty-five years. But I want to travel, and working retail fifty weeks a year, forty hours a week doesn't leave me the time, and I don't make enough money to even consider it. It's all I can manage to pay rent and food, and Thursday night beer at Frank's Olde Towne Tavern. I did manage to snake away a grand, over the last two years. I think I can get about fifteen hundred for my car. My retirement account is worth about seven grand, after Uncle Sam takes his share. So last month I gave my boss a month's notice. The garage sale was last Saturday. I'm on the last month of my lease, and I have not renewed it. I just got a special deal on a credit card, with a $4,500 credit limit. Come next Tuesday, June first, I'm a free man! Now to see what fortune my imminent departure will bring this time. * * * Prev - Next >>

 

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