Hey Philly
-----
It was most certainly not always sunny in Philadelphia. In fact, it was almost never sunny at all. Well, this was only necessarily true for Baxter Dumont, age 28-for in one spontaneous evening-turned-early-twilight, he had orchestrated a master plan to block out the sun indefinitely to prevent it from further disturbing his intoxicated pre-dawn exploits (he always considered himself a night owl anyways). So after a night spent catching up with his closest friends Jack and Samuel Adams, he stumbled into his father’s tool shed, grabbed hammer and nails, and set to work barricading the windows and doors; the whole thing looked more like he was prepping for an ensuing zombie invasion that was likely to occur in the next several hours than it looked like he was trying to prevent any further infiltration of sunlight into his home (correction: his parents’ home). Needless to say, two years later and there are still slats boarded over the windows-a project he had never finished because he had blacked out cold right there on the porch as a result of his tremendous exertion paired with his inebriated state.
Baxter Dumont was his real name, believe it or not. He lived in his parents’ basement since he ruled out that college was ultimately not worth the time, money, and brown-nosing it took to get there. He lived in his own right, played by his own rules, set his own standards in a country he unceremoniously dubbed Fantazzia. Of course he was the only resident of such a land that the rest of the world did not deign to acknowledge. He spent most of his days presiding over his court, watching old VHS tapes of Porky Pig cartoons-he was always one for hearty laughs, and nothing made him choke on his Smack ‘Ems more than old Hanna-Barbera toons.
As a 20 something having barely graduated from North Eastmount High, he somehow stumbled upon becoming a piñata engineer-in actuality he was simply stuffing fireworks and other “party favors” up the mule’s backside for the sole purpose of trafficking goods in high demand across the Pennsylvanian border (the Amish liked to party as much as the next folks). No one suspected a thing-not the cops, not his parents, hell, not even his best friend.
And that’s where Flynn Adlemann came in, aka the best friend. Throughout the two’s tortured adolescent days, he had always provided as the calling voice of reason. Over the course of six years, their extensive friendship, which had entailed countless hours of synching Dark Side of the Moon to the Wizard of Oz in Baxter’s underground fortress and reenacting imaginary scenarios between Fred and Daphne from “Scooby-Doo”, had fractured, and somehow Baxter had become the lesser of the two (how this managed to happen, no one was sure). After recently being laid off by the big-shot executives of the Illinois-based shoe lace manufacturing company where he has worked a 9 to 5 job and led a lifeless existence, Flynn Adlemann returned to his native Philadelphia and roomed with his former BFF-in Baxter’s parents’ suburban basement no less. (Whether the two had resolved any and all conflict was as good as anyone’s guess.) Flynn had just taken a job which provided that he paint positively influenced murals on the sides of elementary and middle schools in the surrounding area. He was to start that Monday. He had recently lived under the philosophy that things could be worse; and if Baxter Dumont was involved, things could escalate to worse things that much more quickly.
“We’re going to California,” Baxter stated matter-of-factly as he ambled through the entryway and pounded down the stairs which led to the basement. Flynn had been sitting in the darkness for several hours prior to Baxter’s arrival, a Coors melting in his grip as he questioned his miniscule point of being.
“The lights. Off.” Flynn’s eyes knitted together as his fingers threaded across his cheek and brow. “What time is it?”
Baxter stood before him, a cheeky grin carved into his face. “You’re asking the wrong man, my friend. Half the time I couldn’t even tell you what month we’re in. Though I do have to thank God it’s nearly winter.”
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I figure I could spare you this one thread of knowledge: winter already passed. Six months ago. It’s going into summer, more like it,” Flynn intoned.
Baxter shrugged-it was all the same to him.
“And did I hear you say something about California?” Maybe he was more buzzed than he had previously thought.
“Right you are! We’re going on vacation!” His friend sing-songed as he tossed a duffel bag over his shoulder and onto the paisley couch.
“What do you mean? Everyday’s a vacation for you-it’s one of the only perks to being unemployed. And if you haven’t already forgotten, I start that God forsaken job in four days time.” Flynn jumbled in a mouth-full before gulping down some of that miracle elixir he found cured his pacing mind. “Besides, what in California is so worth seeing?”
“This coming from the guy who I found sitting in the shower quoting Emerson while drunk on Schnapps. You need a break-and if possible, a nameless woman to keep you company. You’re in rough shape, Flynn.” He rested his sneakered feet next to his friend’s hand and scanned him quickly.
Flynn hesitated before beginning, “Shut up.” It didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears. He’d felt coming back to Philly after nearly a decade of being away would shed a bit of light onto his deteriorated sense of being, but that could not happen if he did not allow himself the privilege of exploring new institutions and ideas; he couldn’t hold himself back from shedding his former skin, and so with another swig burning his taste buds, he decided what was what in his life (or what needed to be organized and what needed to be misconstrued). A bit of chaos never hurt the soul.
“Okay. What part of California are we visiting?” He had given in-submitted to the will of Baxter; it terrified him to no end, knowing that his friend had the upper hand in this situation, but he needed to feel the way he did. The time to hesitate was through. This is what it was to be completely out of one’s comfort zone. Jolly.
Baxter smacked his hands together and pounced from his lounging position to his feet. “Well first and foremost, we need a mode of transportation. And I call shotgun!” He had already made to his dresser and was swiftly emptying it of its contents.
“Shotgun? I’ll go online and purchase airline tickets. You don’t honestly expect to drive all the way to California, do you?” Flynn’s tone was bordering on irate-what was up his friend’s sleeve?
“No flying.”
“No flying? What the hell? Why not? I can understand if you’re afraid of flight-I myself have a hard time with heights-”
“No flying.” Baxter enunciated. Flynn met his stare with an inquisitive look; as it stood, the mention of flying had brought Baxter’s packing to an abrupt halt. He looked towards his feet, at the varying masses of clothing that lay heaped together on the shag carpeting. “I’m on the ‘Do-Not-Fly’ list.”
This news was shocking to Flynn-sure, he had been privy to Baxter’s troubled past, but he had no idea that it reached this extinct. Especially considering the ‘Do-Not-Fly’ list was specifically reserved for terrorist suspects and convicted criminals.
When Flynn did not respond, Baxter resumed his packing. Beneath the shuffling of clothing and the prattling of dresser drawers, he muttered an explanation: “A few years back, I did something I’m not particularly proud of.” More shuffling. “It was a one time thing, and I thought if people’s canines were able to withstand it, so would I.” A zipper. “Long story short, I stowed away in the luggage department of an airplane headed to DC. . of course I was oblivious to the destination until I found myself quarantined in a DC district upon arrival and banned from all airline travel forevermore.”
Flynn was silent; his only response was to tilt his head back and chug what was left of his Coors.
----
“So what’s the purpose of traveling all the way to California anyway?” Flynn was still a little hesitant about the whole thing, really. Sitting shotgun was Baxter, his cheek and nose plush against the window as he made gargoyle-esque faces at cars that passed by on the ride to the bus station (this decision to take the Greyhound to California from Philadelphia was made following the confession Baxter had made about his “fear” of flying-yes, maybe it was best to ignore that subject altogether).
“That’s for me to know and you to find out-letting such info slip would surely ruin the adventure,” Baxter muttered with his lips still half-suctioned to the glass.
Flynn responded with a half-hearted sigh. He was beginning to believe that even his dear companion was not conscious of his own reasoning, and for this matter alone he chose to remain silent and impartial. Baxter could have been influenced to follow a trail of breadcrumbs that led to no particular destination if provided the opportunity (this, Flynn had learned from experience), and if the last several hours were any indication, he would be biting his tongue for the larger portion of this vacation. While his mind raced with thoughts of peril, he trained his eyes on the road before him-black asphalt turf specked with bright yellow hyphens and arrows and oversized lemon drops-and raced towards the bus station, and that much closer to the finish line of what was sure to be a cross-country fiasco.
While Flynn seemed lost in his trance, lulled into stupor as some random 90s tune erupted from the radio, Baxter shuffled in his seat, pulling from his back pocket a dollar bill crinkled and crimped like a soggy coffee filter; in blue ink, lines circled Washington, squiggled in fantastical patterns around the water mark and US seal. A treasure map of sorts. The reason perchance for this unexpected venture Westward. Baxter traced the pen markings with his forefinger, felt the grooves the pen had made as it glided across the paper currency-vandalism, they call it, or the path to self-discovery? Could such be found on the flipside of a face during the informal exchange of cash? Did something that belonged not to any single being, but to the whole country help to shape up and ship out those who had no objectives, no rational discourse? In the left hand corner, scrawled in bold calligraphic letters read the words: California, we must. All of this Flynn did not notice, did not recognize as he drove on undeterred towards the bus station, furthermore into the twilight of a new era, a new life, a new beginning.
It was most certainly not always sunny in Philadelphia. In fact, it was almost never sunny at all. Well, this was only necessarily true for Baxter Dumont, age 28-for in one spontaneous evening-turned-early-twilight, he had orchestrated a master plan to block out the sun indefinitely to prevent it from further disturbing his intoxicated pre-dawn exploits (he always considered himself a night owl anyways). So after a night spent catching up with his closest friends Jack and Samuel Adams, he stumbled into his father’s tool shed, grabbed hammer and nails, and set to work barricading the windows and doors; the whole thing looked more like he was prepping for an ensuing zombie invasion that was likely to occur in the next several hours than it looked like he was trying to prevent any further infiltration of sunlight into his home (correction: his parents’ home). Needless to say, two years later and there are still slats boarded over the windows-a project he had never finished because he had blacked out cold right there on the porch as a result of his tremendous exertion paired with his inebriated state.
Baxter Dumont was his real name, believe it or not. He lived in his parents’ basement since he ruled out that college was ultimately not worth the time, money, and brown-nosing it took to get there. He lived in his own right, played by his own rules, set his own standards in a country he unceremoniously dubbed Fantazzia. Of course he was the only resident of such a land that the rest of the world did not deign to acknowledge. He spent most of his days presiding over his court, watching old VHS tapes of Porky Pig cartoons-he was always one for hearty laughs, and nothing made him choke on his Smack ‘Ems more than old Hanna-Barbera toons.
As a 20 something having barely graduated from North Eastmount High, he somehow stumbled upon becoming a piñata engineer-in actuality he was simply stuffing fireworks and other “party favors” up the mule’s backside for the sole purpose of trafficking goods in high demand across the Pennsylvanian border (the Amish liked to party as much as the next folks). No one suspected a thing-not the cops, not his parents, hell, not even his best friend.
And that’s where Flynn Adlemann came in, aka the best friend. Throughout the two’s tortured adolescent days, he had always provided as the calling voice of reason. Over the course of six years, their extensive friendship, which had entailed countless hours of synching Dark Side of the Moon to the Wizard of Oz in Baxter’s underground fortress and reenacting imaginary scenarios between Fred and Daphne from “Scooby-Doo”, had fractured, and somehow Baxter had become the lesser of the two (how this managed to happen, no one was sure). After recently being laid off by the big-shot executives of the Illinois-based shoe lace manufacturing company where he has worked a 9 to 5 job and led a lifeless existence, Flynn Adlemann returned to his native Philadelphia and roomed with his former BFF-in Baxter’s parents’ suburban basement no less. (Whether the two had resolved any and all conflict was as good as anyone’s guess.) Flynn had just taken a job which provided that he paint positively influenced murals on the sides of elementary and middle schools in the surrounding area. He was to start that Monday. He had recently lived under the philosophy that things could be worse; and if Baxter Dumont was involved, things could escalate to worse things that much more quickly.
“We’re going to California,” Baxter stated matter-of-factly as he ambled through the entryway and pounded down the stairs which led to the basement. Flynn had been sitting in the darkness for several hours prior to Baxter’s arrival, a Coors melting in his grip as he questioned his miniscule point of being.
“The lights. Off.” Flynn’s eyes knitted together as his fingers threaded across his cheek and brow. “What time is it?”
Baxter stood before him, a cheeky grin carved into his face. “You’re asking the wrong man, my friend. Half the time I couldn’t even tell you what month we’re in. Though I do have to thank God it’s nearly winter.”
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I figure I could spare you this one thread of knowledge: winter already passed. Six months ago. It’s going into summer, more like it,” Flynn intoned.
Baxter shrugged-it was all the same to him.
“And did I hear you say something about California?” Maybe he was more buzzed than he had previously thought.
“Right you are! We’re going on vacation!” His friend sing-songed as he tossed a duffel bag over his shoulder and onto the paisley couch.
“What do you mean? Everyday’s a vacation for you-it’s one of the only perks to being unemployed. And if you haven’t already forgotten, I start that God forsaken job in four days time.” Flynn jumbled in a mouth-full before gulping down some of that miracle elixir he found cured his pacing mind. “Besides, what in California is so worth seeing?”
“This coming from the guy who I found sitting in the shower quoting Emerson while drunk on Schnapps. You need a break-and if possible, a nameless woman to keep you company. You’re in rough shape, Flynn.” He rested his sneakered feet next to his friend’s hand and scanned him quickly.
Flynn hesitated before beginning, “Shut up.” It didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears. He’d felt coming back to Philly after nearly a decade of being away would shed a bit of light onto his deteriorated sense of being, but that could not happen if he did not allow himself the privilege of exploring new institutions and ideas; he couldn’t hold himself back from shedding his former skin, and so with another swig burning his taste buds, he decided what was what in his life (or what needed to be organized and what needed to be misconstrued). A bit of chaos never hurt the soul.
“Okay. What part of California are we visiting?” He had given in-submitted to the will of Baxter; it terrified him to no end, knowing that his friend had the upper hand in this situation, but he needed to feel the way he did. The time to hesitate was through. This is what it was to be completely out of one’s comfort zone. Jolly.
Baxter smacked his hands together and pounced from his lounging position to his feet. “Well first and foremost, we need a mode of transportation. And I call shotgun!” He had already made to his dresser and was swiftly emptying it of its contents.
“Shotgun? I’ll go online and purchase airline tickets. You don’t honestly expect to drive all the way to California, do you?” Flynn’s tone was bordering on irate-what was up his friend’s sleeve?
“No flying.”
“No flying? What the hell? Why not? I can understand if you’re afraid of flight-I myself have a hard time with heights-”
“No flying.” Baxter enunciated. Flynn met his stare with an inquisitive look; as it stood, the mention of flying had brought Baxter’s packing to an abrupt halt. He looked towards his feet, at the varying masses of clothing that lay heaped together on the shag carpeting. “I’m on the ‘Do-Not-Fly’ list.”
This news was shocking to Flynn-sure, he had been privy to Baxter’s troubled past, but he had no idea that it reached this extinct. Especially considering the ‘Do-Not-Fly’ list was specifically reserved for terrorist suspects and convicted criminals.
When Flynn did not respond, Baxter resumed his packing. Beneath the shuffling of clothing and the prattling of dresser drawers, he muttered an explanation: “A few years back, I did something I’m not particularly proud of.” More shuffling. “It was a one time thing, and I thought if people’s canines were able to withstand it, so would I.” A zipper. “Long story short, I stowed away in the luggage department of an airplane headed to DC. . of course I was oblivious to the destination until I found myself quarantined in a DC district upon arrival and banned from all airline travel forevermore.”
Flynn was silent; his only response was to tilt his head back and chug what was left of his Coors.
----
“So what’s the purpose of traveling all the way to California anyway?” Flynn was still a little hesitant about the whole thing, really. Sitting shotgun was Baxter, his cheek and nose plush against the window as he made gargoyle-esque faces at cars that passed by on the ride to the bus station (this decision to take the Greyhound to California from Philadelphia was made following the confession Baxter had made about his “fear” of flying-yes, maybe it was best to ignore that subject altogether).
“That’s for me to know and you to find out-letting such info slip would surely ruin the adventure,” Baxter muttered with his lips still half-suctioned to the glass.
Flynn responded with a half-hearted sigh. He was beginning to believe that even his dear companion was not conscious of his own reasoning, and for this matter alone he chose to remain silent and impartial. Baxter could have been influenced to follow a trail of breadcrumbs that led to no particular destination if provided the opportunity (this, Flynn had learned from experience), and if the last several hours were any indication, he would be biting his tongue for the larger portion of this vacation. While his mind raced with thoughts of peril, he trained his eyes on the road before him-black asphalt turf specked with bright yellow hyphens and arrows and oversized lemon drops-and raced towards the bus station, and that much closer to the finish line of what was sure to be a cross-country fiasco.
While Flynn seemed lost in his trance, lulled into stupor as some random 90s tune erupted from the radio, Baxter shuffled in his seat, pulling from his back pocket a dollar bill crinkled and crimped like a soggy coffee filter; in blue ink, lines circled Washington, squiggled in fantastical patterns around the water mark and US seal. A treasure map of sorts. The reason perchance for this unexpected venture Westward. Baxter traced the pen markings with his forefinger, felt the grooves the pen had made as it glided across the paper currency-vandalism, they call it, or the path to self-discovery? Could such be found on the flipside of a face during the informal exchange of cash? Did something that belonged not to any single being, but to the whole country help to shape up and ship out those who had no objectives, no rational discourse? In the left hand corner, scrawled in bold calligraphic letters read the words: California, we must. All of this Flynn did not notice, did not recognize as he drove on undeterred towards the bus station, furthermore into the twilight of a new era, a new life, a new beginning.