Never Get Out of the Boat

It was a whim, but a whim that had been brewing in the murk for months. I was just sick and tired of eating my own hair, and pulling it, carefully, out of places where it really didn't belong. I even briefly contemplated getting a grownup haircut, but figured that could wait. I'd just take my slovenly tangle to the old barbershop, let them make fun of me for a while, listen to some Sinatra, then be done with it for another year.

But look as I might on that cold Saturday morning, I simply could not find the place. Five minutes from my apartment, but it always took me forever to find it when I wanted it. Up and down the block I knew it was on, and there was no sign of it at all. I did notice a new antique shop, though. Shit, I thought, did they close down too? It wasn't unthinkable, no matter how much I didn't want to think about it. My 24-hour Korean grocery had closed down. My local independent pharmacist had closed down. But that barbershop had been in place, in the same family, since the 1920s.

Shit. Still caught up in this whole "haircut" thing, though, I crossed the street and went into a haircuttery I'd never tried before (mostly because they called themselves a "salon" and seemed?despite the pictures in the front window?to cater more to the ladies). I walked up to the front desk and waited to be noticed.

"Hi, uhh..." I said to the middle-aged woman behind the desk when she finally turned around. "I'd like a haircut, please."

The woman stared at me for a long time?an uncomfortably long time?without saying a word. After half a minute, I repeated the request (which I thought was a simple and obvious one) a bit more loudly, thinking that maybe she hadn't heard me. But she only continued to stare.

Finally, and with what seemed to be some great effort, she spun in her chair and yelled to the group of ladies behind her, "HAIRCUT!"

I took a step back from the desk, but there was only more silence. At last, a weary voice said, "Oh, I guess so."

This was all very confusing for me. Had I done something awful? Did I smell bad?

Five minutes later, the woman who had deigned to take six inches off my hair was finished with the most abrupt, savage haircut I'd ever received. Even worse than the retarded guy who used to regularly slice the back of my neck open with his straight razor. Only after I got home did I look in the mirror?and only then did I realize that I looked like Mary Tyler Moore. Or Marlo Thomas.

It wasn't even 8:30 yet. It was going to be a long weekend. Sometimes you can just tell.

Shortly after noon, I went downstairs to see if the mail had arrived yet. The only thing in the box was a thick envelope from the IRS, informing me that, to avoid federal prosecution, I had to send them a check for $30, toot-sweet. Funny thing was, it was in regard to my 1997 taxes. And it wasn't even extra taxes I owed them?it was late fees for extra taxes I had paid them three years ago. You'd think that their tardiness would sort of, you know, balance out my own. But I wasn't about to try to explain that little theory to them.

Instead, I wrestled with a cat, tried to listen to an evil and broken stereo (it only plays ELO now) and went to bed early and drunk and in a mood.

I lay in bed for an hour, listening to a tape of Lenny Bruce at Carnegie Hall, staring into the darkness, muttering, "This isn't funny at all," until I finally drifted off.

I got up at 5 the next morning to be ready when the laundromat opened. I discovered years ago that you need to be there right when it opens in order to avoid people. Avoiding people still remains one of the major impulses behind almost every move I make.

It didn't work that morning, though. While trying to transfer my sopping clothes from the washer to the dryer, I knocked into some woman's personal laundry cart?a tiny puff of wind I was, but it was still enough to ignite a barrage of snippiness from this fellow early-riser.

On and on she went as I continued with the transfer. Watch where I'm going, how could I not see it, etc. etc. I'm too tired to try to explain anymore?especially to the snippy ones. So instead, I sat down in a folding chair and stared at her until she shut her big yap.

I left the laundromat half an hour later weary and depressed. I made the mistake of stepping outside again to go to the grocery store, which drove me even deeper. Even the explosive car accident right outside my window (first in months!) couldn't pick me up at all.

I sat for a while, and smoked.

Later that morning, I picked up the phone to call a friend in Florida, only to have an electronically generated woman's voice inform me that my long-distance service had been disconnected, for reasons I couldn't quite fathom. I'd never once missed a payment. In fact I'd put a check in the mail a week earlier.

The voice went on to suggest that, if I had a problem with this situation, I should check on my phone bill and call my long-distance carrier. I sighed, hung up the phone and searched my admittedly unkempt files for the most recent phone bill?upon which I discovered that I'd been slammed yet again. This was the third time. People always think it's easy to fuck the blind.

Which, I guess, it is.

My long-distance carrier was now apparently something called "Ed's" or "Jack's," and seemed to be run out of some guy's basement. I called the number on the bill, only to find that this "Ed" or "Jack" was still clever enough to design the world's most perfectly impenetrable voicemail system.

I sighed again, hung up the phone again and lit another cigarette.

I knew that these were all little more than petty and annoying inconveniences?but they add up.

I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I was out of beer.

That's when I began to weep.

I put my shoes back on and, against what I knew to be better judgment, headed back outside.

Only a block, I figured. All I have to do is walk a block to get more beer, then walk back. I kept thinking that way for the first half block, when someone behind me said, "Excuse me?"

I stopped?because, despite my mood, I usually try to be as polite a son of a bitch as possible. I guess you could also call it "being a sap."

It was a fellow, maybe a few years younger than me so far as I could tell, walking a dog. "Yeah?" I asked.

"Did you go to the University of Chicago?"

No one's ever stopped and asked me that before.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah I did."

"I thought I recognized you from somewhere."

"Well, I gotta admit, uhh," I told him, "it was a long time ago. I had short hair back then. And wore glasses. And didn't wear a hat. And didn't own a trenchcoat. Didn't smoke, either."

This seemed to go right past him, and he kept talking. We were both philosophy majors, and studied with many of the same professors. He continued working backwards, certain that we'd met at some point. Only after 10 minutes did it come out that he'd been at the U of C a decade after me. And me standing there beerless!

He eventually continued on his way with his dog, and I bought enough beer to hold me. Brought it home, put it on the counter, pulled the bottle opener off the wall and grabbed a beer.

Then the bottle opener broke.

Never get out of the boat, I thought. Never get out of the fucking boat. Absolutely goddamned right.

Whether it's dealing with tigers in Cambodia, or considering getting reacquainted with someone you haven't spoken to in 15 years or stepping outside the apartment when nothing's going right and you know nothing good will come of it, the lesson remains the same: Never get out of the fucking boat.

It's an old and hard lesson, one I knew damn well enough. It was also one I tended to forget on occasion.