The Paper Ocean
July 9th, 2007.
Previously…
Wherever I walked, I was never truly alone. There was always an entourage, a group that I was a part of. But in reality it was far from the truth. It was all an illusion. Years ago, maybe I did have that one group of friends that I remained with. Back when there was just Tito, Casey, Tamara, Ricky, Keary, Jerry, Derek, and I. The good old days of 1995, running around from Altamonte to Lee Road to Downtown, at places like Embassy, CyberZone, Church Street Station, et cetera.
Now, however, I was really a solo guy who bounced around. I wanted variety, and I didn’t like staying in one place for too long. These days it was all about the cliques and whatnot that I bounced around with. Circles, it was all about circles. Too many circles, but I knew a lot of people. The more, the merrier? Definitely.
These days were the same. Bouncing from circle to circle. I wondered what it would be like to have that one singular circle, like the others. But it wasn’t to be. Too many interests, too many ideas, and too many different experiences. I lost one of those circles when I left the Army for good. They were good folks, really, but time had a way of taking me away. It was time to find more circles.
And now…
It was a typical Monday early evening (not sure you could call it evening, but I considered any time after 5 pm the evening as long as I could remember). I got home from work and relaxed, with a haze of Sunday night’s hangover floating about in my mind. Still groggy, but functional enough to sit at the computer and play a few hands of poker. Nothing on television as usual, so I turned it to the news and listened while I figured out ways to beat my online foes at Texas Hold ‘Em. I wasn’t the best player in the world, simply average. Average enough to have a few grand in fake currency in my coffers.
It was easier to play folks face to face, all around a table. You knew what they had, you could figure out their tells, their bluffs, everything. Online, it was a crapshoot. All I had were my cards and my knowledge of the odds. I used to play at the former Ybors Martini Bar (now known as Tryst, for the uninitiated) on random Monday nights with Rudy, Paul, Steve, the Professor, and the other lads, but those days were long gone. That circle broken up after the place shuttered its doors. Those were good days.
Suddenly, my phone rang. But who would call up on a Monday evening? Red, my soon-to-be roommate fancied a drink or two over at Pine Street. I met her at her place, and off we were down I-4, towards our watering hole.
Driving into Downtown Orlando while it was still daylight was a strange experience. Everything illuminated, the long shadows of the afternoon cast over the streets and sidewalks and people. The people still wandering about, looking to get home, and the other people shuffling their way to the nightshift. And then there were the folks like Red and I, out for an early drink or two.
Red and I had just gotten parked, when I saw something pretty cool! Turns out this was the week that the NBA was conducting their Summer League. And in a weird bit of coincidence, Joakim Noah (formerly of the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Champion University of Florida Gators) was jogging on by with his personal trainer. Now that was a tall lanky looking man there. All arms and legs, all 7 feet of him, jogging away. Not every day that you get a random gator sighting in Downtown Orlando.
Alicia met up with us at Pine Street Bar & Grill as well, and spent the time beating the usual suspects at pool, along with the usual staples, Ivey and Bobby. M wasn’t there, so there wasn’t much competition for her. Still I put up a good fight, that is until I lost the complete ability to use English or to hit the cue ball straight. But I was still sober, and the more buzzed I got, the better I played. Strange but true.
While trying to figure how to beat Alicia (who herself kept dispatching opponent after opponent), I picked up a copy of one of my favorite papers, the Orlando Weekly. Best fish wrap in the city, for sure. I found myself turning to Savage Love, reading about some of the really weird relationship issues and sexual issues that some of the readers asked about. And talk about way out of left field. I laughed all the way through. That’s why it was so fun. Everybody’s got their something, just like the song of the same name.
Then I remembered my grandfather all of a sudden. He could build anything, and he did. I took a page from the paper and began folding. My grandfather was a genius when it came to origami, and he passed on some of those selfsame talents to my cousins and me. At first, I had an airplane. Then a hat, and then, a boat. I would’ve made a dragonfly, but those were especially complicated (and involved complex folding technique). The table was full of them.
Red came back to the table and marveled at my work. Alicia then urged us to wear the hats while she shot photos of all of us. Ridiculous pictures, yes, but extremely funny. The rest of the bar patrons looked at us and laughed. It was all kinds of silly fun!
Alicia had another idea. And next thing you know we strolled over to a bank’s fountain and began trying to sail our paper ships. We had a whole Spanish Armada going on for a while there, but then physics took over, as some of them sank. Come to think of it, we probably clogged the hell out of the fountain’s filtering system in the process. No one saw us, which was even funnier, because we were out in the open, probably being monitored on CCTV and everything!
We took another round of photos before hightailing it out of there. Like I said, silly fun with a really fun circle. I hadn’t had that much mindless fun in ages. And where did it all come from? The idea of it all. A whimsical fancy, a random idea, all coalescing at the same place and at the same time in perfect harmony. What more fun could life in a circle be?
Maybe circles weren’t so bad, maybe being in one wasn’t bad either. I wondered in my mind if I was already part of many of the circles, but claimed none for my own. Not every night was like this one, but with the good people that I was surrounded with, anything was possible. Especially with someone with as wild as an imagination as Alicia, who reminded me of my sister in some ways. Where would this circle go? Only time would tell. So far it was telling a good story.
Next: The Green Fairy Trilogy! Three stops in one night?! Exit DJ Obscura, stage left! Moving finally arrives, but would I even make it?! The return of Keisha! And, is the Bachelorette really jinxed? It’s three days of wild catastrophe, broken hearts, and random abandon!