Queen of the Trailer Park

When I was a freshman in high school, I had a major crush on a boy who will remain nameless on the very off chance that he might stumble onto this blog. He was a sophomore and a wide receiver on the football team. I was on the gymnastics squad and, in the early part of the school year, we both trained outdoors. My training really suffered because I was forever daydreaming about that beautiful hunk in the tight spandex pants. Of course, there was no chance at all that we would ever hook up. I had my sturdy little gymnast body and he had a girlfriend with much more to offer in the chestal region. God, how I pined over that boy, spilling my guts into my journal night after night.

As the school year progressed, I slowly got over the guy, eventually resigning myself to the fact that it just wouldn't happen. Once I came to that realization, life seemed a whole lot better. I suddenly woke up to all the other things in my life that I enjoyed so much (e.g., my friends, going to the movies, the camraderie of my gymnastics squad, etc.) and got on with life as most teenagers do. I even got asked out to some dances, although the boys were never worth taking seriously. Once I was feeling better, I wrote in my journal less and less, until I finally stopped altogether.

This is my roundabout explanation for why I haven't been posting as much in this blog as I used to. Originally, I needed the blog when I was in Las Vegas, all alone and in over my head with a very strange assignment. When I returned home, I continued out of habit and because I needed to vent about my strange life with my mother. Then I was alone again on my new assignment on the Eastern Shore and feeling pretty depressed.

Fortunately, Geoffrey came along. He is my partner in this assignment and, dare I say it, my partner in personal matters as well. It's amazing how much another person can stabilize you when you are feeling so adrift. Geoffrey's a little older and more experienced in field work, so he gives me confidence. The past few months have been so blissful with him that I haven't felt the need to write lately. In fact, I fear I might be too complacent.

Geoffrey and I have been living in his trailer in Centreville. I gave up my apartment in Chestertown and quit my job at the bar since the commute was more hassle than it was worth. My boss, Prune, was understanding, but I knew he was chagrined to see me go. I think Geoffrey wasn't so keen on me quitting either since it was a good cover, but with our targets living further south, I just didn't see the point in driving up to the bar five or six nights a week.

Also, it's given me more free time to volunteer my services to the home grown terrorist cell we are monitoring. I've been doing research for them on various plots in the works. Our leader, Ryan Mayhew, will not disclose which plot we will eventually put into action or when. He's a master manipulator and paranoid as hell. It's a little creepy to be this close to people like Mayhew, but just like the Vegas job, I've learned to detach my true self from the role. Geoffrey has helped me to hone that skill even more. I hate to entertain the thought but I almost feel like Geoffrey and I could find the right balance of work and personal life.

We managed to get away for about a week on sort of a holiday, although it started out rather strangely. A few days before July 4th, Geoffrey received an odd text from his younger brother who's been spending the summer in Ocean City between semesters in college. His girlfriend had disappeared under mysterious circumstances and he wanted our help. The situation was indeed strange and I think it may be best if I save it for one of my short stories, but the experience shed some light on the bizarre sightings I had of the creatures in the white van. I'm hoping that, after the events in Ocean City, they won't be back to bother me anymore.

Since we were down in Ocean City, we managed to find a vacant room and spent a few extra days there. It was nice to forget about our crazy lives and jobs and just be a couple for awhile. Driving down Coastal Highway in that ridiculous black Trans Am of his, my head resting on Geoffrey's shoulder, I felt like I was in college again with my first real boyfriend and the world was still a brightly wrapped box filled with exciting possibilities.

Now  I'm back in Centreville, playing Carla, Queen of the Trailer Park, but it's fine. I removed the orange streaks from my hair after the Orioles made complete fools of themselves in Boston a couple weeks ago. With the NFL on the verge of signing a new collective bargaining agreement, I'm ready to put Ravens purple in my hair and watch some football!

I also have a birthday coming up this weekend. Never mind how old! I've given up on counting. I'm just looking forward to Geoffrey's surprise for me.

Between the Holidays

It's been a strange couple of weeks. Not that you would know it from any outward appearances, but emotionally, I've been all over the map. It started with Easter weekend, which actually turned out to be very nice, thank you very much.

When I arrived at my mom's house, I was relieved to see that Mr. Huggins wasn't hanging around. We went out for a little dinner, and then stopped off at the neighborhood beer and wine shop to pick up a couple bottles of moscato. During the course of the night, we consumed said bottles of wine and talked about so many things. In vino veritas, as the saying goes. I unloaded all my negative feelings about mom being with my old high school principal, how I couldn't stand his insufferable daughter, and my general lamentation about losing the family feeling we once had. Surprisingly, mom understood it all and kind of agreed with me. She also pointed out that nothing was ever going to be the same now that Dad was gone and I had to accept change even if I didn't like it. It all sounds so trite and simplistic as I summarize it here, but these were things I couldn't accept and needed to hear. Despite my headache the next morning, I did feel better.

Easter was fun. Mr. Huggins broke out Dad's old charcoal grill and cooked a leg of lamb that mom had marinated the day before. It was a pretty spring day until late in the afternoon when a thunder storm rolled in. Mr. Huggins brought the lamb in from the grill just in time before the heavens broke open. The food was delicious, and I felt much more comfortable with our new family than I did last Thanksgiving.

Easter Monday I was back at work. Geoffrey started bringing Chester and Ryan around to the bar. Ryan finally admitted to his having a little group that meets secretly at Chester's house. After several days of beer fueled conversation, Ryan finally relented and said we could come to the next meeting. Things are moving ahead.

Of course, this week was all about Osama bin Laden. I felt a certain amount of relief that we had finally taken him out, although I couldn't bring myself to cheer and wave flags. Counterterrorism is a nasty business, and killing people, even ones that deserve it, isn't exactly like winning the Super Bowl. Besides, I know first hand that there are still threats to this country. A strain of virus has been killed, but the disease marches merrily on, and we have to keep doing our jobs. Still, I'm glad we didn't have to face the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with bin Laden still out there.

As soon as the news broke, good ol' Chester had to start his conspiracy rants. "Why can't we see the body? Kinda convenient that they buried him at sea, don'tcha think?" "DNA tests? That's as phony as Obama's birth certificate!" "Obama bin Biden is just creating a distraction so people won't talk about what a rotten job he's doing!" On and on. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the boy doesn't know how much he doesn't know.

It's wearing me down, listening to all this crap day after day, and I can tell it's wearing on Geoffrey. He's the consummate pro, but he's also human. That easy swagger feels more forced than it once was. He also snaps at the most insignificant things, like when the mailman didn't close his mailbox lid all the way and his mail got slightly damp from the rain. I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable around him sometimes.

Then, in the middle of my shift yesterday, he calls me and asks me to move in with him. It's not like I haven't been spending time at his place, but it still felt out of the blue. He rationalized that, since Chester and Ryan lived closer to him, it would make more sense for me to be living in Centreville rather than Chestertown. I don't think that's the real reason, though. He's feeling adrift and he wants someone by his side. I was hoping he would be my rock through this assignment. Now I think he wants me to be his. I told him I'd think about it, and the disappointment spilled through the phone. I don't know what to do.

Anyway, I can put that off for a few days because I'm going home to see my mom for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day everyone! 

Is it Easter Again Already?

I'm about to hit the road and head down to Bethesda to spend the Easter weekend with my mother. I had every intention of avoiding her this Easter, but last week when one of my Twitter friends (@maddjudd) asked me to "Say hello to your momma," it gave me pause. I know I'm all conflicted about her relationship with Mr. "Call me Brad" Huggins, but that isn't really her fault. That's something I have to deal with. Meanwhile, she's still family and, at this point, I have damn little family to lean on right now. Maybe it'll be good for me to put Carla Puckett in the closet for the weekend and go back to being Angie for a few days, especially after this past week.

On Sunday, Geoffrey (a.k.a. Hank) and I went down to Chester Schifflet's house on Kent Island for his cook out. Good thing he had a nice deck because his back yard was a swamp after all the rain we had on Saturday. Sunday, however, was bright and crisp and beautiful. Can't say the same for the company. We spent the afternoon drinking cheap beer and eating burnt burgers-from-a-box while Chester's friends "entertained" us with crude jokes and narrow-minded opinions about how to fix the world's problems (or at least the tiny scrap of world they choose to acknowledge).

Geoffrey has a much easier demeanor when it comes to this sort of thing, so he did most of the socializing. I spent most of my time with Chester's girlfriend, Amber, who seemed even more quiet and reserved than usual. At one point, she looked like she was on the verge of tears, so I corralled her into one of the spare bedrooms where we could talk privately. It turns out that Amber is pregnant with Chester's baby, but she hasn't told him and is not sure she wants to have it. She knows that Chester and his best friend, Ryan Mayhew, "are planning something big" in the next few months, and she fears for what will happen to him. Amber doesn't want to bring a child into the world just when the father may be dead or in jail. The poor girl cried on my shoulder for about an hour. Unfortunately, I didn't know what to tell her. I'm against abortion as a rule, but I don't want another racist loser coming into the world either. What's more, I had to know what this "something big" was all about so Geoffrey and I could stop it. That meant getting closer to Ryan Mayhew.

After I had managed to get Amber calmed down with promises to get her help, I walked into the living room where Geoffrey was already engaged in a passionate conversation with Mr. Mayhew himself. They were having a "scientific" discussion about racial purity and how certain races have genetic imprinting that predisposes them to bad behavior like violence, lack of industriousness, and criminal tendencies. Geoffrey's deep brown eyes blazed with intensity as he wowed Mayhew with a hate-filled diatribe so unlike the real Geoffrey I know. It chilled me to the core. Between Amber and Geoffrey, I was emotionally drained. I just wanted to go home.

Geoffrey returned to his old perky self as we headed up to Chestertown in his growling Trans Am, but I knew this performance had to eat at him. The next couple of days, he was still out of sorts and Tuesday night, he got completely hammered at the bar. I offered to drive him home and I spent the night there. We were up until dawn as Geoffrey unloaded about his divorce and missing his kid. Playing duel roles in the same body had taken its toll, and he was beginning to regret ever entering this profession. I was beginning to have doubts as well. Despite telling myself that I would never have romantic notions about being a counterterrorism agent, I had romanticized it all the same. What I didn't factor in was that I would have to play people I would otherwise throw mud on if I saw them on the street. Once you fall into these roles, you can't help but wonder how much of these characters are really you.

Anyway, I asked Prune if I could have off this weekend and now I'm heading home to forget all this for awhile. I know my mom will not like the orange highlights I put in my hair. People in Bethesda are mostly Nationals fans, but the customers at the bar in Chestertown are mainly Orioles fans. I thought the orange streaks might give the struggling team some luck, but so far the results are mixed.

I'll let you know how the weekend went. In the meantime, here's some Easter humor from my favorite comedian, Patton Oswald:

The Best of Times and Worst of Times

This morning I find myself in one of those strange moods where I just feel out of sync. Jittery, restless, full of anxiety but not sure exactly why. It's as if all the chemicals in my body got jumbled up overnight and created whole new compounds that do not sit well with my organs. I don't want to stay in my apartment, but I don't want to go out. At least I can understand the not wanting to go out part.

It started a couple of days ago. I was working at the bar and decided to take a break by sneaking into the alley. That's where the cooks and some of the other waitresses usually hang out when they want a smoke. I don't smoke myself, but I don't mind hanging out with the smokers if only to get away from the din of the bar. Anyway, I went into the alley, but no one else was out there. The rain had finally subsided, leaving only a chilly damp breeze in its wake. I just stood there, enjoying the cool, fresh air when I heard some shuffling behind one of the dumpsters down the alley. Natural curiosity caused me to take a few steps closer to the dumpster, thinking I might spot a cat or a rat. Once I got a few feet from the can, however, a person stumbled into view and started to run away. I only had an instant to see his face, but I could have sworn it was one of those creatures I ran into in Vegas so many months ago. It froze me to the core, flashing back on an event that seemed like a lifetime ago. I ran into the bar and went back to serving drinks, hoping to block the whole event from my mind.

It almost worked too. After sneaking a few shots of bourbon, I was feeling pretty numb by the time I went home. The next morning, I was beginning to chalk it up to a trick of the light. Probably just some bum with dark eyes and a funny complexion, I reasoned. Then, while eating my Special K, I spotted a white panel van parked in the lot. This was too eerie, too sinisterly similar to last summer. Rather than risk what happened last time though,I chose to ignore it rather than confront them head on. That's what my boss, The Colonel, told me to do. This just isn't in my nature, though.

I was grateful to see Geoffrey last night at the bar. I hate to sound all girly and soft, but he's really become a rock for me. He's always calm and ready with a joke. It's not false bravado either. He's just genetically impervious to stress. Also, I think he's really enjoying this character of Hank that he's playing. He was already sporting the 70s hairdo and the cheesy moustache, but when he picked me up for a date last week, he pulled up in a 1977 black Trans Am like the one in Smokey and the Bandit! I think he spent too much time watching TV as a kid and he's developed Burt Reynolds disease. Anyway, it's kind of cute, except when he starts talking about turbo-charging and horsepower. Here's a picture I took of Geoffrey's Trans Am outside his mobile home:

It's a cramped little place he lives in down in Centreville, but he keeps it maticulously clean. Lucky had a much bigger trailer in Vegas, but he was a bit of a slob. I actually wouldn't mind moving in with Geoffrey and get out of this little dump I have now, but I wonder if it would be taking our cover too far. I already feel like I'm falling for him, and I suspect he has feelings for me too. I just don't know if it's wise to get too attached. What happens after this assignment is over? Will my attachment to him cloud my judgment at a critical moment? As my boss always says, romance does not mix well with our profession.

Speaking of the job, there's where the sweet meets the bitter. I love being with Geoffrey, but these racist, anti-government hardheads that we have to play eat away at my soul a little bit. We've been spending a lot of time with this kid Chester, playing into all his paranoia and alienation angst. Geoffrey is quite good at it, but I don't say much. It makes me squeamish. I'm afraid I might blow our cover because of my reticence, but since Chester's girlfriend is also pretty quiet, I don't think Chester pays much attention to me anyway.

We know Chester is friends with Ryan Mayhew, our real target. and it looks like we might actually get to finally meet the guy. Chester inherited this nice house on Kent Island after his parents were killed in a car accident a few years ago, and he's inviting a bunch of people over on Sunday for some grillin' and chillin'. We hope this will be our opportunity to find out what exactly this Mayhew person is up to.

Wish us luck! I'll let you know how it goes.

Becoming Lost in Another Life

One thing I was not prepared for when I went to work for my little federal agency with no name was how lost I would become in my undercover personas. It's almost eerie how I begin to forget who I really am and start to think like the role I'm playing. For the last month or so, I've become completely consumed by the character of Carla Puckett, smart-ass waitress and party girl.

Although I never thought in a million years I would like working in a bar, that's exactly the case. My boss, Prune, is a real character, always ready with a new joke or some ridiculous story that he "swears on a stack of bibles is the God's honest truth." Most of the regulars seem to like me, and my partner in the operation, Geoffrey, stops by most nights to flirt with me along with passing on bits of information about his progress on infiltrating the anti-government group we are spying on. We've even gone on some pretend dates. Not really dates, I guess, but group outings with some of the people he's trying to impress. We've gone to the movies and some clubs. If I could just focus on Geoffrey without the others, I might actually enjoy it all.

But then there's Chester Schifflet, the guy who's supposed to lead us to the real target. Chester is a born loser and mad at the world for it. He hates everybody (except us apparently) and doesn't hold back any of his venom. Every ethnic group, every person he perceives as having more than he does, everyone who ever slighted him in some way is woven into his lengthy diatribes and given no mercy. The racial crap is what gets me the most. I feel my stomach twisting in revulsion from his hateful epithets, but I have to hold my tongue and go along with him. We are, after all, trying to present ourselves as like minded. It kills me inside, though.

I've talked to Geoffrey privately about all this, and he keeps me buoyed. With a lot more experience at undercover work than I have, he seems better able to compartmentalize the different facets of his life. I can see a perceptible difference between the real Geoffrey and the role he's playing. He turns it on and off. I get lost somehow. Intellectually, I know the difference, but emotionally...

Speaking of role playing, I think I've finally put my old Carla Fontaine character in the rear view mirror. She haunted me for some time, as did the events that happened in Las Vegas, but I see that whole period now as something that happened to another person. For example, last summer when I was living in Las Vegas, I had a pretty strange experience which got me thrown out of my apartment. Originally, I planned to write about it and post it to my Web site but, for some reason, the whole experience upset me to the point where I didn't feel comfortable putting it out there for public consumption.

Not that I haven't had some strange adventures since starting this career, but that confrontation with the old lady and her dog was different. Nothing ever added up. I became obsessed with it, even while I was absorbed in other work. For months, I combed through the office database and searched the internet for any tidbits that might bring better clarity to those events, but nothing has come together. Anyway, I figured maybe by just writing it out and letting other people read it, I might be able to move on. If you want to look at it, it's here.

Meanwhile, I'm still working in the bar, totally detached from my real life. I'm starting to miss my mom, but I don't know how to put on my Angie face and visit her. It's like when you leave a job and you promise to stay in touch with your co-workers, but time passes and they become echoes of a past you can't return to. It's almost cruel to talk about my mother that way, but that's the way I feel right now. Hopefully, it will change one day.

The Game is Afoot (Finally!)

Once again, I stopped posting for awhile mainly because...well, not much has happened in the past month and it has been a generally crappy month anyway. Although the weather forecasters said that the La Nina in the Pacific would bring us a mild winter in the Mid-Atlantic states, we have had to contend with some vicious cold since early December. Then we had a bizarre thundersnow blizzard which dumped eight or nine inches of very wet, very heavy snow that refused to melt because of the freezing temperatures.

This week, we finally got a reprieve with temperatures in the 50s and 60s, but there are still giant mounds of filthy snow in the parking lot of my apartment complex. Anyway, it's been just plain dreary and, to make matters worse, Geoffrey did not make contact with me during the entire month of January. I thought at first I had thrown off his game by taking matters into my own hands and getting a job at a bar in Chestertown where he was operating. We ran into each other one night while I was waitressing, and he came in with a couple of his construction buddies (Geoffrey's masquerading as a construction worker named Hank). We made eye contact, but he never said a word to me. The plan, worked out back in December, was that we would somehow become romantically involved (for pretend sake, of course). I thought for sure, once he saw me working in the bar, he would start showing up and courting me, for lack of a better term.

That did not happen.

Instead, I spent night after night, serving drinks and cleaning up vomit in the rest rooms, waiting for Geoffrey to come around. Strangely enough, I haven't really minded working in the bar. My boss, Prune, is really easy going and the patrons, for the most part, are pretty cool. You get the occasional asshole on a Saturday night, but that just gives me an excuse to practice some of my hand-to-hand skills. I think Prune appreciates having a strong arm around to handle the rowdy ones.

Outside of the bar, however, things have been just as gloomy as the weather. I've spent most of my off hours working on the novel I started back in November. Although I have the basic story down, I'm going back through, polishing and elaborating on the events. Initially, I just wrote down what happened to me during my assignment in Vermont last fall. After reading through it, though, I realized how flat it all sounded, like a dry assignment report I would submit for work. If anyone was going to want to read this, I thought, I needed to spice it up, even if I had to play fast and loose with the facts. Although the main story is what I experienced, there's some creative license on certain specifics, just to make it more fun to read. No one will believe it anyway, so I might as well turn it into a tall tale.

So that was January and a good bit of February. I was reaching a boiling point with regard to Geoffrey and I was just about to contact The Colonel for advice when, last Saturday night, who so happens to walk into the bar but Geoffrey, aka Hank. He came in with some people I hadn't seen before, three guys I would guess were about 10 years his junior. The fact that he was buying them beers probably had something to do with the easing of any generation gap, and they were getting pretty loud. I could see Prune eying them nervously from the bar, so I took the opportunity to show a little tough love to my so-called partner.

"Say, you guys wanna keep it down," I said to them. "My boss gets jittery when the decibel level gets above 150."

"Who do you think you're talkin' to?" Geoffrey barked back at me. "Do you see how much cash I'm puttin' in your register? You've got some f___in' nerve talkin' to me and my friends like that!"

Blah, blah, blah. Lots of bravado and crap. I started giving it to him right back, and the rest of the customers got kind of silent. Finally, I grabbed Geoffrey by his flannel jacket and hauled his ass out the door and into the alley.

"All right, now just what the hell is the game plan here," I yelled at him in a whispered tone so no one but him would hear. "You know I've been in this bar for a month and a half now and you've made no contact. I'm ready to bug out and head back to DC if this shit keeps up."

"Sorry, but I've been tied up," Geoffrey replied, sounding almost sheepish. A far cry from the blowhard he was playing a few minutes earlier. "I've been having trouble winning over our target. I decided to take a new approach. Did you notice the guy at my table with the red hair and denim jacket?"

"I guess."

"His name is Chester Schifflet. He's friends with our target and part of the domestic terrorist cell we're trying to crack. I thought if I could get on his good side, he might lead me to Ryan."

Ryan was the man we were really after. I was happy to at least get a progress report, such as it was, but I still felt like I was out in the cold, literally and figuratively. "So when are you bringing me in on all this?"

He beamed his winning smile and, strangely, I felt calmer. "Don't worry. Just keep doing what you're doing. Now sock me in the eye."

The way I was feeling, I was only too willing to comply. I gave him a pretty good shiner, too, given how small my fist is. We stumbled back into the bar, pretending like we had just gone a few rounds in the alley. Nursing his sore eye, Geoffrey told his friends the bar was a dive and they were better off spending their money elsewhere. At least, that's the sanitized version of what he said.

Two days later, Valentine's Day, he was back with some of his construction buddies. I was feeling slightly annoyed by the lovey-dovey couples in the bar, playing sappy songs on the jukebox and making out over their bottles of Budweiser. Valentine's Day is so annoying when you are not attached. Anyway, every time I would bring a round over to Geoffrey's table, he would make some flirtatious remark to me. At first, it caught me off guard, but soon I started giving it right back to him. To strengthen my nerve, I would take a shot of bourbon each time I went back to the bar. After a couple hours of this, I started feeling a little giddy and, yes, a tad bit horny. I started dancing around the bar, flashing some seductive glances toward Geoffrey. By the time I reached the pool table, he had raced over and wrapped me up in a pretty steamy embrace. The crowd started hooting and clapping. I had never been the focus of such a display, but it felt kinda nice.

The crazy thing was, I think Geoffrey was really into it. I've had some play-acting kisses before, and this was not one of them. I felt a little breathless afterward. Even the next morning, my knees were a little weak. I haven't seen Geoffrey since then, but I'm kind of curious what his next move will be.