charles
lonely
left door up for us
collapsed on floor Jon Hochschartner
5:04pm October 5th
sparse apartment Jon Hochschartner
5:05pm October 5th
man head injury with daughter keeps on repeating
open fracture leg bone sticking out Jon Hochschartner
9:21pm October 5th
her black hair spinning behind her.
9:32pm October 7th
Jon Hochschartner
12:28pm October 3rd
computer print outs
I saw Collette reading a piece of paper intently, and abruptly turned around and walked out. Jon Hochschartner
9:36am October 4th
a hot blonde next to me rolled her eyes. “They do this all the time.”
slide out first floor window. Jon Hochschartner
7:56pm October 4th
“I hope nobody’s dead.” I said not really caring. Jon Hochschartner
8:27pm October 4th
flight deck Jon Hochschartner
8:28pm October 4th
I found out later it was just because in the 70’s this is where the kids used to smoke pot. It’s funny how every class year thinks their the baddest bunch the place has ever seen. Jon Hochschartner
11:51pm October 4th
Jon Hochschartner
Today at 5:51pm
seemed like prepaid tour
Jon Hochschartner
Today at 5:52pm
old ladies, followed bus, never open, tried to blend in, but we were the only people there over five feet tall, under 70 years old and with Y chromosones.
Jon Hochschartner
Today at 5:53pm
It was the Clark’s day off. I was the only one with a car. Most of them weren’t from the adirondacks, so we decided to see the sights. Didn’t mind being used.
Jon Hochschartner
Today at 5:53pm
Took them to John Brown’s farm.
Jon Hochschartner
Today at 5:54pm
Gaurav, Indian camp counselor. Explained to him who John Brown was and what he did.
Jon Hochschartner
Today at 5:56pm
But he was confused. “So who killed him?”
“The U.S….the government.”
“And who set up this monument.”
“The government.” I said.
He just shook his head, and in that Indian accent said, “It’s the same in every country.”
I thought that was very wise.
“Sweet beard.” Dennis said.
“I know man, I’m going to grow one just like that.”
9:32pm October 7th
dad trip….raspy voice tube in throat for operation
9:34pm October 7th
So what did you do today” My dad would ask. I dreaded the question. Trying to think oup things beforehand to justify the past 16 hours of wakefulness.
I sat in a line of cars at my little sister’s elementary school. My sister was ten years younger then me. We were like two only children. My parents had trouble concieving after I was born as a result of my emergency birth and the upstate hick doctors who took care of her afterwards and fucked up her womb.
Alex was like a little brother to me. He called me “chicken boy” for unknown reason, and we wrestled and did other manly stuff Lucy wasn’t interested in. Every once and awhile he’d hug me and call me “daddy” in a baby voice. it was awkward because his parents were divorced and his real dad wasn’t really in the picture.
Zelda, WW2…..nagasaki, dresden, internment….forget all that, bask in nostalgia Jon Hochschartner
5:26pm October 2nd
I was a little wobbly on Nick’s bike. I think I was still drunk. Jon Hochschartner
7:35pm October 2nd
what does rogaine have that I don’t? Jon Hochschartner
12:12pm October 3rd
I went on to say that students had a moral imperitive to donate all their income beyond that which covered their basic needs to third world charity. No beer money, no money for extra clothes. With thousands of people dying every day of malnutrition, anything less was murder.
“I hope nobody’s dead.” I said, not really caring. Jon Hochschartner
12:21pm October 3rd
The theme of the party was “Forever Wild”, as in how the adirondacks by law had to remain “Forever Wild.”
Jojo walked into the cabin in a black two piece. She was covered in clay handprints that she and some of the other female counselors had slapped on with slop from the pottery shack. I wanted to be one of those handprints. She was militantly healthy, eating nuts, fruit and jogging. Great body.
She looked at me. “Are you coming?”
Jojo’s parents were missionaries, so she’d grown up in Africa. I loved how she said “Congo”. It sounded like she might have been putting on the accent a little bit, but it was still the sexiest thing I’d ever heard.
I opened a bottle of Pale Ale on the side of the cabin’s wooden table. The table was covered with years and years of camp grafitti, dating back to the 80’s.
“I don’t know,” I said, smiling drunkenly. “I’ve seen what you Africans look like naked in National Geographic, Jojo. It’s not that great. Kind of saggy.”
She gave me that exasperated look that I found fucking cute.
I laughed, standing up. “Yeah, I’ll come.” Jon Hochschartner
12:27pm October 3rd
We were walking down the hill, and I guess I blacked out a little bit, but when I came back I was in the arms of one of the kitchen staff girls, making out, rolling down the hill. I stumbled to my feet and continued down the hill to the beach.
All of a sudden all of these girls that I’d been thinking about naked for the last two weeks, stripped off their clothes, and they were.
I saw Brendens bare white ass run into the water. It was an image I could do without thinking about again.
I didn’t really want to skinny dip. I didn’t want to get naked, but I wanted to see Jojo, and I couldn’t just sit their and watch.
I ran into the freezing water in my boxers and dove under. Once I was waist deep, I threw my boxers to the shore.
I was doggy paddling out to the high dive with ten or so beers in me. I’m surprised I didn’t die.
9:35pm October 7th
I’m not sure why I did it. Girl’s loved it. And I’m only half joking.
jump suit too small
Late bloomer. Didn’t really have a belt with notches on it. But I almost did in my mind.
Like the cold war might have influenced a generation of kids to want to be astronaughts. It seemed like every red state boy and their mother wanted to be a firefighter post 9/11.
SIDS–gallows humour….crew crying in back even though there was nothing really I could do medically. What’s that smell? It smells like dead baby.
Low grade on written portion…crew chief wanted me to study with charie. sternum rub
biking humming
roommate and I passive aggressive lately
hippa
“Actually I’m not allowed to talk about it.” I said as seriously as I could. Hippa was a joke, everybody bragged about their calls.
Maybe had to do with che
i had no interest in the medical field
It was pretty morbid. We all waited hopefully for terrible accidents to crackle onto the radio to break the boredom. The worse the better. That was until about twelve when everybody wanted to go to sleep, but it never worked that way.
one week school sponsored trip against the war, next against abortion. At least they were consistent.
north campus was the ghetto of a rich private college
campus security rarely came up there
12 hour no substance policy, like airline pilots
but i was just the oxygen bitch
a couple of weeks later i’d be voted off the crew and it was such a relief.
I wore my unhappiness secretly like a badge of honor. To me, it was a sign of my commitment to the ’cause’. I had essentially ironed over my personality, so only those traits that helped me advocate remained. Flat like a politician. Perpetually upbeat, but inside feeling crazy and sad. I couldn’t tell people I was feeling sad because it was selfish and took attention away from poor third world people. I couldn’t tell people I was feeling crazy because it was selfish and people would assume I was crazy anyway because of the positions I was taking up.
But there was no room for motivation or anything like that then for me. It was just cold, utilitarian calculation of what was best.
Zelda, WW2 pick up kids
Summer
Hannah
Jojo
Pocock (on roof) girls who didn’t like me…must know something, have it going on
annika
dad’s trip to doctors
5:19pm October 9th
i hitchhiked into town
8:46pm October 9th
“I did something very bad.” She said hesitantly.
Honestly I didn’t care one bit about her one bit, or the fact she cheated on me. But I felt like I had to pretend I did.
11:45am October 11th
manufactured outrage, rest it and just bask in the nostagia and easy moralism of a good war that didn’t exist. Forget about Nagasaki, Dresden and internment.
11:47am October 11th
lay back chairs waiting room
11:47am October 11th
didn’t know the details of his deal, thought he had gone to the bathroom on himself
7:55pm October 11th
I walked out of her suite quitely so I didn’t wake up her roommates.
I walked out into the chilly morning air. Amanda lived in Purtle, which was located on North Campus, about two miles from the Saint Mike’s classrooms and cafeteria. In the world of a rich, private college, North Campus was the ghetto. All of the buildings were in a state of disrepair, so you got some money knocked off your boarding fee. And Campus security rarely made the trip up to there. I lived on North Campus too, but in a different building.
I picked the bike I was borrowing from my roommate Bill off the ground, and threw my leg over it. I started pedaling awkwardly toward the North Campus parking lot. I’d missed the bus, so I’d have to drive myself. I was pretty wobbly on the bike. I think I was still a little drunk.
7:55pm October 11th
get half an hour early
12:20pm October 12th
I stumbled out of Jack’s house, my sneakers slipping on the wet steps.
I opened the door to my station wagon and got in. I looked around in the dark for where the steering wheel was, but I couldn’t find it. I tried drunkenly to find a place to insert the key. Trying to force it into a crack on the dashboard. But it kept on slipping out of the groove.
I was on the wrong side. The passenger side. I rested my head on the dashboard, frustrated. But closing my eyes gave me the spins. I thought I was going to throw up.
So I got out of the car and walked around to the other side. The correct side. I opened the door and slumped down into the seat. I had a little trouble getting the keys in the ignition. But eventually I got it and turned on the ignition. I backed out.
When I had driven drunk in high school I thought I was safer driver then when I was sober. I drove thirty miles an hour the whole way home, hugging the right side of the road opposite the incoming cars.
4:11pm October 12th
I lit the wrong end. It didn’t burn properly and I realized I had lit the filter. I dropped it on the floor of the car and pawed for another. I lit it sucessfully. And started to doze off, my head drooping before snapping back up.
I woke up with a jolt when a bit of ash that had fallen on my lap burned through my pants. And burned my skin. I brushed it off frantically. I slapped myself to keep awake.
A couple of minutes later the police officer returned with my license. He tapped on my window and I rolled it down all the way.
He handed me a ticket. He told me to get my tail light fixed.
He looked me in the eyes suspiciously. I looked at him. He kind of looked like my Dad. Blue eyes and thinning hair. Muscular.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I said, too quickly.
He kept on looking at me, trying to figure something out. I met his gaze. Five seconds or so passed.
Reluctantly he said, “Okay, you’re free to go.”
5:46pm October 13th
He walked away.
7:35pm October 13th
And that was my game plan for the night. Maybe driving even slower because I was pretty drunk.
7:42pm October 13th
With one hand on the steering wheel, I flipped on the radio. 99.9 the Buzz, 103.7, 105.5, 106.7….I flipped back to 105.5. Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto” was playing.
7:43pm October 13th
I loved that song.
7:43pm October 13th
Elvis Presley’s 1969 “In the Ghetto” was playing.
7:52pm October 13th
wed–everything sort of frustrated me…felt tired of all my music, of my dvds, of what I was writing….etc
Toward evening–felt depressed, removed, probably felt removed alot of the day but didn’t really notice it as much….Friends Weekend, is an alumni weekend, signals end of the summer. In a way, seemed very depressing to me. Not sure if it’s just the depressed lense I was looking through or what. A bunch of lonely people walking around desperately looking for people from there year who knew them thirty years ago. I don’t know, me feeling depressed wasn’t necessarily even connected to that…I don’t know, one of the Clarks leaves for college friday. Talked to my mom for about 10 minutes when I got in, made me feel better.
Thought a little bit about what you said about removed disorder…forget momentarily what it’s called. But the being an outside observer to your own mental processes seemed key in a way. It’s like I did that to myself on purpose in a way. I actively worked to be an outside observer of my own thoughts so I could analyze my own thinking for ethnic, classist and (gasp! unbelievable) “speciest” biases….and when it made me start to feel removed I just took it…wool shirt martyr style. And I kept pushing it and pushing it until I felt more and more crazy. I’m rambling…I’m sorry. It’s 10:00 and I have nothing to do. Dailyy Show is in an hour.
remember friends weekend stole odouls when at ncs
7:57pm October 13th
I used to enjoy Friends weekend. I mean we pretended to despise everything about the institution our parents were connected to, but we had fun.
7:57pm October 13th
But now it just seemed depressing.
8:07pm October 13th
Everybody I knew was leaving. The camp people were leaving the next day. The clarks would be leaving back for college within the next week. Jack had already left. The rest ofmy townie crew were going back to college. Annika would leave soon.
8:08pm October 13th
Pretty soon, it would be back to where I was before.
1:23am October 14th
The girls upstairs got out a big bucket, and we made jungle juice. Jungle juice is the devil. That and vodka soaked watermelon. Jungle juice is cranberry juice, beer, vodka and whatever was handy all mixed together.
The girl and I stumbled into my room laughing loudly. Bill sat there on his computer.
“Oh sorry.” The girl by my side said. Giggling.
He was looking at me impassively.
Less than a minute later, the girl pushed me in the empty guy’s bathroom into a stall. Onto the toilet seat. She straddled me. Gripped my neck and we kissed sloppily, her mouth curling up at the edges near laughter.
She wasn’t that great looking, but I didn’t care at that point. She was the North Campus slut.
The door to the bathroom swung open loudly, and we broke off. A pair of feet shuffled into view. The girl reached behind her and locked our stall. She had her mouth open mid laugh, trying not to breath. Straddling me, she lifted her feet up so they weren’t visible.
Whoever was outside shuffled into the stall beside us. Without bothering to shut the door, they unzipped their pants and started pissing.
The girl and I looked each other eye to eye. Trying not to laugh.
The guy in the stall next to us, kept on pissing. He was clearly drunk, as he was swaying a bit. And you could hear the piss go back and forth from cgetting in the bowl to hitting the seat and back. Eventually he finished up. Zipped up. Walked out.
The girl kissed me again, before unzipping my pants.
11:05am October 14th
Kory’s mom was balling. Her makeup was running.
Kory’s father’s hair was whiter than I remembered it. He looked impassive, with his chin jutting out. He swayed imperceptablly in a nonexistant wind.
11:08am October 14th
before–smiling mischeviously–unizpped my pants.
11:14am October 14th
The girls upstairs got out a big bucket, and we made jungle juice. Jungle juice is cranberry juice, beer, vodka and whatever was handy all mixed together. Jungle juice is the devil. That and vodka soaked watermelon.
11:15am October 14th
returned triumphantly with odouls
4:05pm October 16th
From a political standpoint, I didn’t want to be seen as just some wannabe white revolutionary, who was all talk. So I joined the Rescue squad. To get my hands dirty. Since from a utilitarian view, I calculated that I could help a lot more people by working and giving the money to charity, I forced myself to view my Rescue duties as almost a freetime activity. Even though I hated it. I had absolutely no interest in the medical field.
4:06pm October 16th
or working a fundraiser to rase money.
4:19pm October 16th
It just lent what I said more credibility. Kind of liike troops givn more cred n national sec issues even no reason to
4:31pm October 16th
only few where being socialist could be conforming
4:41pm October 16th
waffle breakfast–never got all e’s
ncs changed
climbing stories
8:34pm October 16th
not there at waffle breakfas–didn’t want to socialize even though I did at the same timet…sitting in tv room
10:01pm October 16th
It was also this dread that I was keeping this terrible secret. That I didn’t even know what it was. I thought what could be so terrible…and what came to mind was that I was gay.
10:36am October 17th
I woke up to the sound the waffle iron made when it had finished a batch of four waffles. I stayed in bed, with my eyes shut. If I let myself, I could lie like this all day. I often did. But I never felt rested. I was stressed all the time–too stressed to sleep well. But there was nothing to be stressed about. I was living at home with no set schedule. Nothing to do all day. And yet with eleven hours of sleep, my legs still ached and my eyes were still heavy.
10:50am October 17th
I could smell the waffles. It must have been Tuesday. Effort Grade Breakfast. NCS was a non-profit, junior boarding school trying to create this Pete Seeger, organic, hippie experience. Money, candy and weren’t allowed. There was a movie night on Fridays, but other than that there were no TVs. NCS didn’t give traditional letter grades, but grades based on effort. E for excellent, g for good, s for satisfactory, and U for unsatisfacory. Every week, those students that recieved all E’s for the previous week got to come over to the Headmaster’s house for waffle breakfast. When I was at NCS, I never got all E’s. But there was no chance I’d ever get any kind of special treatment, so even though it was held at my house–my parents would always kick me out and make me eat breakfast in the school dining room.
The kids at NCS seemed to get younger and smaller every year. Obviously I was just getting bigger and older, but NCS was definitely changer. When my family first came back, and when I first started, NCS was a different place then it was now. For one, it was a smaller school then, with less than forty students. It was on the brink of bankruptcy. My Dad had essentially rescued the school, Enrollment was now at eighty beds, and for the first time in years, the school was in the red.
But more than that, when I was at NCS, the school was a school almost specifically for troubled, wealthy kids. 12 year old alcoholics who had been kicked out of a laundry list of schools. Many of my friends were there to escape their parent’s bitter divorces. One of my friends’ parents were imprisoned on drug charges and was sent to NCS by his grandparents who simply couldn’t take care of him. One of the first girls I felt up was the granddaughter of Liberian Dictator Charles Taylor. She was sent away from Africa to escape the dangers of kidnapping and assasination attempts directed against her grandfather. Since then, NCS kids seemed a lot more normal. ANd infinitely more innocent. There was a lot more supervision, and discipline. My Dad had really turned the school around.
But NCS had always been a very diverse place in every sense of the word, among teachers and students. Racially, in terms of sexual orientaion, material wealth and on and on. Even when my family first came back there, and the school was on the brink of bankruptcy, it still gave huge scholarships to a number of innercity black kids from D.C. and New York. NCS was more diverse racially then both my high school and college.
1:07am October 20th
and how she smiled at you flirtatiously without even knowing it, coul turn a twenty year old dude into a swooning twelve year old girl.
1:11am October 20th
how herhair fell over her eyes
the more i was able to push her away, the more i was able to build her up in my mind. to fill her with traits she didn’t even have. until she was perfect and untouchable. in my mind.
9:13am October 20th
mom joined the chorus. “Tell about the poor young man we get christmas cards from.”
9:19am October 20th
WhenI found out a girl I was into was into me, I slowly lost interest. Picked out the littlest things wrong with her. Suddenly I noticed her face wasn’t exactly symmetrical, that her skin wasn’t perfect.
i liked to be the bitch in the relationship. The insecure, emotionally needy one. When it was the other way around, the girl started to disgust me. I could see me in her.
So the more it seemed that a girl was not attracted to me, the more I was attracted to her. That was the number one thing I looked for in a girl. If she thought I was a loser, she must have something going on.
9:20am October 20th
nothing like spending the morning fighting nazis
9:20am October 20th
everything seemed so safe and so simple. reasurring.
9:27am October 20th
I had already drunkenly hooked up with a handful of the female counselors. The black girl from New Jersey. The kitchen staff girl from Manhattan. The kitchen staff girl from Florida. Lucy’s counselor from Finland.
Dennis jokingly asked if I had a belt in my room that i was keeping track with. Notches. I laughed. I didn’t really have a belt, but there was one in my mind.
It was just so much easier to play the role of the lovable loser who only cared about getting smashed and chasing skirt. Then that of the hardened revolutionary.
9:30am October 20th
check off go class
ww2 borrow from nick
ramen meat
previous veganism
friends reminded how used to tell how eggs produced. how chickens couln’t move whole life. how human suffering animal suffering equal footing. singer
9:30am October 20th
john kerrys rotc
9:30am October 20th
call chris ask pick up sandwich
11:00am October 20th
josh rock climbing trip with my dad. my dad wasn’t involved with the day to day activities of camp at all really, but every once and a while, he’d go along for a trip.
Part of me wanted to drag Josh into a bitter personal confrontation. Misery loves company. Maybe even a physical confrontation. He’d kick my ass, but I didn’t car.
But he was totally above it, and whenever we saw each other he was completely courteous and pretended he hadn’t heard what I said.
10:48pm October 20th
ice cream melting santos
i helped you, come on
9:38am October 21st
well we’re a perfect match then, I like girls who don’t like me.” I said matter of factly.
12:44pm October 21st
Verner came out into his backyard where Brennan and Jack and I were lazing on his rusted trampoline. According to Jack it had been set up since they were all in third grade. I wouldn’t know. I first met them all in high school, after I left NCS.
“Carrie took my lighter.” Chris said, walking out with his lonely plastic bong. Carrie was his hot younger sister. Blonde and big breasts. All great except for the heritage Verner bird nose.
“I’d give her my lighter,” Said Brennan, miming a couple of thrusts into the air. The trampoline bounced gently up and down.
“Fuck you.” Said Chris, not really listening.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Laughed Jack.
For some reason it was especially awkward with Jack. Maybe just because we were really close in high school. I changed fast. Now I didn’t know where I was. And I hadn’t really kept in contact.
Verner was pondering the ground. Tapping the bong against his thigh.
“We could just go buy another one…” Threw out Jack.
Chris sighed.
“You don’t have a lighter?” He asked.
We didn’t respond.
“Jack?”
“Nope.” Answered Jack.
“Remember that time we did solar hits.” I tossed out. “You could do that.”
All my conversations with them always started with “remember when”. As goofy as it sounds, their lives had moved on emotionally. They’d made new conversational anecdotes with each other and their college friends. I hadn’t really.
“Oh yeah.” Said Verner, remembering. “Let me look.”
Verner disapeared back into his house.
12:44pm October 21st
hold on condom broke
planned parenthood hated me
christian avoiding talking politics
12:57pm October 21st
brownies athletes smoke
Today at 8:41am
dirty mother fucker chauvinist pig
Today at 8:42am
Like when we shot Officer Bradley’s car with Jack’s paintball gun.
Today at 8:42am
jack’s shock collar
Today at 8:48am
Jack was the only one with a car with him. And he wouldn’t let them take his keys drunk.
“Walk with me. I’m not walking there to get you guys beer all by myself.”
He looked at Chris.
“Fuck that.” Said Chris.
Silence.
“I’ll go with you.” I said.
stopped at Lake Placid Marriot, Brennan had to go to the bathroom. Went in side door. We quickly got lost in the tmaze of anonymous rows of empty rooms and hallways. Lake Placid was filled with hotels built for the 1980 olympics held there. They still were used, but not nearly as much. None of the hotels in town got anywhere near full occupancy ever.
Today at 8:57am
Eventually Brennan couldn’t walk any further. He stopped in the middle of the hallway, in front of an ice despenser. Swerving on his feet. He flipped the top off it. And unzipped his fly.
“Fuck tourists….” He mumbled.
I laughed as Brennan urinated onto the mountain of ice cubes.
I laughed.
Then I walked up beside him. And bumped into him with my shoulder.
“Move over.” I said.
He looked at me smiling between two happily squinted eyes. He moved over.
I unzipped my fly too, and started.
It was a relief. Not just to my bladder. Spiritual relief.
Fuck growing up. I’d be like Peter Pan.
Brennan zipped up, and stumbled away, I was still going, pissing out the six beers I’d had already.
Suddenly I started crying. Bobbi said I should take advantage of situations like this. To let my emotions out. I couldn’t cry when I wanted to. But sometimes I could when I didn’t. But I didn’t want Brennan to see me like that, so I wiped my eyes.
“Lets go.” Said Brennan happily.
I followd him.
Today at 10:09am
Like holocaust victim thin.
October 22, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I’m going to grow one just like that.
“Yeah if you could.”
“Shut up.”