The Conference

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Cheeks Lumen, 2002

In my own head game, my job’s job is to make me believe that I do some good in the world. If my job serves its purpose, it reinforces my delusions of being a good person and then I become a cocky bastard who people stay away from. If my job doesn’t support my ‘I-am-a-good person-’delusion then I feel crappy. When I feel crappy I’m much more comfortable with myself and I am become more approachable. This is why things are better when I feel crappy.

Now I am on my way home from a conference in Kentucky. I’m in a plane flying over the Ohio River, I am wondering why anybody would ever take a boat on a river that is so twisted

.

I don’t like conferences and I didn’t like this one. To me they seem to be, for the most part, a waste of time and money. I’m not helping anybody while I am at a conference and I am not helping anybody who is supposed to help anybody.

I didn’t always think of conferences this way. When I was young and married, I looked forward to conferences. I believed that if my employer spent a bunch of money for me to go away to a hotel in Pittsburgh for a couple of days then, I must be important. They were also a good opportunity to get jdrunk, not drive, be away from home, flirt with the thought of screwing around with a sexy woman and be closer to a good fishing spot.

Its all different now. I’ve learned time and again that I’m not important. I don’t have a wife anymore and the new boss fires people who have affairs with co-workers. For this conference, I couldn’t get too drunk because of the back medication I am on. As far as screwing around; I’m much too shy to ‘hook-up’ with a stranger and the fishing in Kentucky sucks. All they catch are bass and catfish and I wouldn’t know where to go.

I went on this trip because the school I work for decided to adopt a school reform model and my boss asked me to come. She just got a big promotion and it seemed like it was important to her. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I am her golden child. She is a nice lady so I agreed to go as long as I could be back for my gig on Saturday night. It’s a wedding, it will pay well and I really need the money. I always need the money.

The conference was huge, attended by over 7,000 people and held at the Kentucky Convention Center, smack-dab in the middle of downtown Frankfort. The people were nice, mostly southerners and much friendlier than the people at home. I was little suspicious of this. I’ve never been around with so many friendly people.

Although I wondered why they were so friendly, I enjoyed being around them because of the way they spoke and the pace at which they said it. Underneath their southern hospitality, I thought their kindness might be phony. They probably hate people from New York.

I did my presentation on a new program we had just started for the "smart kids." I was prepared. I had slides on power point and my sidekick, one of teachers who works with the smart kids, was funny. We made for some good schtick. After my 90 minutes of shameless self-promotion and banter with my colleague, I was done.

When the workshop ended I felt like an asshole. I was certain that I had come across as one because no one asked me questions or even talked with me after the session broke up. This was a clear sign that I was starting to feel a little too good about myself. I turned my frustration away from myself and directed it at the whole idea of being here. Call it self-preservation but, I thought it a complete waste to travel 500 miles to speak to 30 people who sauntered into my presentation. I convinced myself that the only reason why they came to my ‘show’ was because all of the other meeting rooms were full.

Up until the last night, the highlight of my trip had been smoking cigarettes with two auto tech. teachers from Louisville Kentucky. We met in the same spot in front of the convention center during the short breaks between workshops. The weather was gorgeous. A cold front had blown through on the night we arrived and purged the humidity from the air. The lightning had been awesome, much different than the lightning at home. It was the kind of lightning that stretched across the sky directly overhead like fingers.

I got comfortable with the smoking Kentucky Auto Shop teachers and we talked about all sorts of things. They confided in me that, during the days immediately following 9-11-01, they had actually felt sorry for New Yorkers.

They qualified their sympathy.

One of the guys explained it. "We felt sorry for all you New Yorkers ‘cept for those Yankee fans." He practically whispered when he said it. I don’t think either one of them wanted anybody else to know they had felt this way except me. It made me feel good.

During one of the smoke breaks I watched a fledgling wren come fluttering down from one of the buildings above and land the busy street that ran in front of the convention center. While one of the guys was talking about his school, I ran out into the street, picked up the bird, brought it to other side and put it a big concrete flower pot.

I gloated in my good-deed-doing and when I crossed back over to rejoin them, they just looked at me really puzzled. I didn’t say anything about what I had just done nor did they. We just continued talking.

They told me about all of the horse farms around Frankfort, the Toyota Plant in their hometown and their school. I spoke of home.

All in all, it took three smoke breaks to convince them that I didn’t live in the city. By the end of our conference, I had them convinced that there are actually farms in New York and I lived next to one. The last time we smoked together, I realized that I would never see them again. I got a little sad, shook their hands, wished them well, and thanked them.

It was the last night and I decided that there was no way I would go to the riverboat casino with the people from my school that I had traveled with. They had been throwing out little verbal jabs during the trip that I was anti-social because I didn’t want to do the stupid things they wanted to do. I didn’t like casinos or gambling. I wanted to go out to a Blues bar and sit in with a band.

The hotel where I was staying was next to the airport and it was a long and expensive cab ride to downtown. My cabbie was an African gentleman who was studying theology at the university in town. He was a Presbyterian minister from Zaire who spoke with a thick African accent and a deep voice that had me convinced he was a man of great wisdom.

During the cab ride to downtown, he spoke of the new opposition government in Zaire, I listened intently but I could only understand about half of what he was saying. Listening to his voice was enjoyable enough for me to pretend that I understood everything he said. I didn’t nor did I once stop him to repeat anything.

When we hit downtown, I asked him if he was here (in the United States) to stay, he hesitated before he replied.

"I will still go back to Zaire to visit my family. I would like to come back here."

It seemed that he wasn’t sure. He seemed torn. The cab ride cost me $15.00 and I gave him a $5.00 tip. He asked when I was heading back to the Hotel and told me to call him on his cell phone that he could get my fare back to the hotel. I put his card in my wallet and wished him well.

When I stepped out of the cab, it was still light outside. There were a few small groups of people wandering around and I saw a blues club called "Stevie Ray’s. I opted for the other place that was called Zena’s. I scoped it out during my lunch break and knew exactly where to go and I headed there.

My harmonicas were clanking around in my pocket as I came to a spot where the sidewalk was blocked by construction barriers. I found myself walking in the street on a blind corner fantasizing about a car coming around the turn and killing me. I thought of my funeral and my latest idea for it; a funeral marching band.

"I’m thinking that it might be cool to have the hearse drop me off at the entrance to the Cemetery. People could slowly walk down the cemetery road, their steps as deliberate as the slow beat pounding out on the bass drum. The music would sound depressing, the horns slightly out of tune with each other and clarinet would occasionally squeak. My mourners would trek to the spot where they would put my body in the ground to rot.

This seemed much more dramatic than being cremated and I liked it. I thought that, if I died at that moment, nobody would know of my wishes and instead of hiring a band for my funeral march, my brother would be running all around the northeast sprinkling my ashes in my favorite fishing spots. I panicked about things not going as I had planned and I walked fast to get myself out of the dangerous spot.

When I arrived at the bar, the band was already set up in the front window to the left of the entrance. There was a guitar, bongo drums and a small table with several harmonicas laid out on it. I made my way to the far end of the bar where there were a few empty stools. The bartender came over immediately,

"Hey, I’m Bryan. Whereya all from! " He was friendly but not over the top

I replied laughing, "I’m Cheeks and I guess its pretty obvious that I’m not from around here."

I ordered my Dewars and water and rationalized to myself, "One drink will be OK." Remembering something on the little sheet that came with my prescription that said ‘avoid excessive alcohol consumption.

"So how are the crowds here on Thursdays, " I asked.

He looked up from what he was doing and looked around.

"On Thursdays its usually the band, Will (he looked towards the skinny black man sitting next to me) and the me." He seemed happy

"This is pretty good." Bryan motioned towards the eight or so people split between two tables and a couple sitting off in the corner.

He paused and topped off my scotch with a splash of water. "It always helps when there’s something goin on at the convention center."

"It’s a big place. The biggest conference place I’ve ever been to." I tried to sound impressed when I said it.

"So, Y’all in town for that conference up there?"

"Yup," I answered but he wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to a guy who had gotten up from one of the tables to order a drink.

"Whats that all about anyways?" he asked the guy behind me. I knew now to shut up.

It seemed like Bryan’s accent was getting thicker as he spoke. I was suspicious of this too, thinking that he may be laying it on knowing that I was from the north somewhere.

Another guy sitting at the table said, "Its a conference for teachers."

Bryan didn’t at seem all that interested.

A large middle aged man bellied up to the bar down a ways and Bryan get his drink.

Bryan was starting to remind me of a woman worked with me. She relocated from Manhatten to take a principal’s job in one of our schools. Prior to living in the city for fifteen years, she claimed to have been born in raised in Louisiana. After I worked with her for a while, I began to notice that her southern accent thickened up when she asked somebody to do something extra for her, especially if she didn’t have the power to make them do it.

She’d say, "Ah honey, can you call this nice man back for me and find out just what he wants?"

She knew what he wanted and she knew she didn’t want to take the time help him out.

These "situational" pilgrimages to her supposed southern roots worked for a while but then people started realizing that they were being played. I was beginning to think that Bryan was playing me too but I swallowed my suspicions and let him bathe me in his southern charm.

A couple of stools down from me sat Will. He was an interesting looking character in a black, sleeveless shirt.

He had skinny black arms but, his muscles were well defined and he wore a blue baseball cap that he kept nervously adjusting. The bill of his cap was cupped in the front and he had it pulled down close to his eyes.

He looked my way a couple of times as if to say something. When he didn’t speak, I looked away as if to study the bottles of liquor sitting on the shelf behind the bar. He was silent, even when he ordered a drink. It made me uncomfortable.

When he wasn’t looking at me, I studied Will's face. The way his lips surrounded his mouth meant that he didn’t have teeth. I thought about my parents who didn’t have teeth either but, they had dentures. I thought about reaching into my father’s mouth and tossing his dentures into the wall of our family room when I found him dead on the floor (so I could do CPR on him). I thought of dripping liquid morphine onto my mom’s toothless gums as she laid in her bed an hour before she died. These were the only times I ever saw my parents when they weren’t wearing dentures. I hate the images of my mom and dad without teeth.

Thinking about this made me uncomfortable so I thought about work. I thought about interviewing a woman with no teeth

As I thought about this, I began to feel badly again and thought how it would suck not to have teeth and not be able to afford fake ones. I felt bad for Will and the toothless woman I had interviewed and not hired. I envisioned a law to protect the rights of people who didn’t have teeth. "They could call it ‘Will's Law.’ When I thought this, I immediately felt guilty again.

My thoughts went wild.

I thought of the conversation between the toothless applicant and her ‘advocate’ after she found out that she didn't get the job.

I imagined the woman angrily yelling, crying and spitting as she spoke.

Not only did Will not have teeth, he couldn’t talk either. He pushed his glass away and pointed at it when he wanted a drink. Bryan took care of him. I wondered if he couldn’t talk or if he just didn’t want to. Sometimes I wish I didn’t want to talk either.

The band was ready to go and a few more people had wandered in while I was sitting at the bar. Bryan gave me some background on who was playing. The guitar player’s name was Cole Stevens and he had just moved to Louisville from Los Angeles.

It’s always good for musicians to be from somewhere else, especially big cities like Los Angeles or New York. People think that musicians from big cities are really good even if they’re not. I knew this because of the time I went to Denver once with my X-wife and went to a blues jam. The guy who was hosting the jam announced me as a harp player from New York and went nutty. I think the people immediately assumed I was somebody.

Cole normally plays with full electric band but, because of the fact the bar couldn’t pay bands much on Thursdays, he was doing an acoustic thing. He had a tip jar out too.

I wanted to hear the harp player. I like hearing other players. My friend Ian once told me that Charlie Parker would go out after his gigs to listen to any band he could. When somebody asked Charlie Parker about it in an interview, he said that he could always learn something, even from listening to the worst bands.

When they started playing, I heard much too much of the harmonica player. He was busy, playing way too much and his tone was thin like a piece of sheet metal. I didn’t like the way he played or sounded.

As I listened, I started talking to the big white guy who had come up to the bar.

The man’s name was Bill and he sold a carpet cleaning equipment. I wanted to ask him if he barged into people’s homes and threw big clumps of dirt on their rugs but I didn’t. Bill was a harmonica player too.

I stood with him and he ordered me another dewars and water. "Two won’t kill me," I thought."

"So, do you play in a band?" I asked

"Oh yea, just a little but I’m too old and my daughter just got D.U.I last month."

I had trouble making the connection between playing gigs in a band and his daughters’ DUI but, I went along anyways and thought of something to say.

"So she’s all growned up now huh?" I asked.

I said it just like a mature chucky from the rug rats with a southern inflection. I’m not really sure why I talk like this from time to time but, I when I catch myself, I feel embarrassed. I was embarrassed but I think it made will more comfortable with me

"She’s a great kid but sheez still a kid." He replied. The inflection in his voice fell as he said it.

"She aint got much of a role model in her daddy." He stared down at his beer belly and held up his drink. He didn’t laugh.

I didn’t want to go there. I was starting to have fun.

"So Bill, what kinda amp do ya play through? I asked.

It worked. I effectively steered the conversation clear of "the land of guilty parents" to harmless "harmonica- nerd banter" That’s what my friend Ian called ‘shop talk.

We talked about our amps, our mics, our favorite player, the kind of harmonicas we played and the local blues scene.

I was getting buzzed, having fun and the band was sounding better.

By the time I worked my way up to speak with Cole the L.A. guitar player, I was good and loose. We traded stories about the people who we had opened for. It was a polite form of bragging that was necessary if I was to have any chance of sitting in with the band. It worked because he invited me up to sit in without hesitation.

I played along with a delta song sung by the harmonica player. It sucked. I sucked and the rig I played through sounded like shit. I was frustrated and offered to sing so that I could play straight into the P.A. It was a shuffle and I sang my own lyrics to it.

"If you were the king when you marched down the street you’d be wearin the emperor’s clothes." (big breathe)

"If your nose grew an inch when you lied to yourself, it would look like Pinochio’s"

You don’t know that you don’t know. Your so blind you think you see."

What you don’t know, it may not hurt you, but man, it sure is killing me"

I wrote that song so that it had a verse about every person I didn’t like. That verse was about my old boss. She

was a genius with the emotion maturity of a manipulative of a 14 year old .

It could be about me.

After that song, we did a faster one and I traded licks with the other harp player. The people in the bar got into it, some even danced.

At the end of the night Bryan tried to call the African Presbyterian Minister at the number he gave me. He was on the other side of town but Bryan came through. He called my hotel and convinced Rick, the gay hotel desk clerk from where I was staying to pick me up. I’ve never heard a gay man with a southern accent. I kinda liked it.

My hangover was gone before I got on the plane and our lay over in Pittsburgh was short. Right now we are flying up the susquehanna river valley over Oneonta. I know exactly where I am and it looks beautiful from up here. I just found out that the woman sitting next me lives a few houses down on the lake from me. I'll be home soon.

Its been an adventure, a strange adventure.