Day (-2)

 Day (-2)

7/17/2024

We are going to need to rely on each other for the next two weeks, so I don’t have much of a choice but to begin by contemplating the nature of our relationship: we are neighbor-lovers, and over the next two weeks, he will be my closest neighbor and the one who I, as a result, love the most, which is how loving your neighbors works.  I must trust him to keep up with me, but I don’t even know his name yet!

“Okay,” I told him, “we need to start by getting some maps.”

“Is that really necessary?”
And he was right: it wasn’t necessary.  The decision to begin with maps was arbitrary.  “Every decision is arbitrary,” I told him. 

“So that’s the kind of person you are,” he sighed..  

And, just like that, our difficulties began, so I walked away.

While I was away, I talked to my current CNs (Closest Neighbors) Ma and Pa.  Ma was setting up my E-ZPass, and Pa was watching t.v., probably Fox News.

“Could you look and see what roadmaps you have from AAA when you’re done with that?” I asked Ma.

Then I sat down on the couch near Pa’s recliner and asked him, “What do you know about T.C.?”  (That was—I discovered as I walked away—my future CN’s name.)

Pa described the character to me, and I was really interested in what he was saying, which did not happen all that often.  But then, after describing him as a beefy, oafish character who was actually really smart, Pa said, “T.C. has phobias.”

“What phobias?” I asked.

“For example, he’s scared to get on planes,” Pa said.

“That’s B.A. Baracus from The A-team!” I exclaimed.  “I’m talking about T.C. from Magnum P.I.”

“He flies a helicopter and is a mechanic.”

“B.A. is a mechanic, too,” I said.  “So maybe they’re similar.  What’s T.C.’s personality like?  Is he a comedic character or a straight character?”

“They’re all comedic characters,” Pa said.

“Does he have any sort of quirks worth noting?”

“He calls people by nicknames.”

“Like what?”

“He calls Higgins Higgy-Poo.”

Just then, Ma walked through the living room to search through the AAA maps she had on the desk in Pa’s bedroom.

“Just make sure they’re relatively recent,” I said.

“We picked some stuff up on our recent trip to Tennessee,” Ma said.  She and Pa had used their timeshare to go on vacation down there because their granddaughter Faith had a senior band trip down there.

After accusing him of being a little racist for mixing up B.A. and T.C., I followed Ma back to Pa’s room.  The AAA office closed at 6:00 p.m., and it was almost 5:00 p.m.  “This is the only one I have.”  She handed me a AAA map that said “Southeastern States.”  

“I’m looking for maps of PA, West Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan,” I said.

“They’re in there, too,” she said.  

On one side, there was a map of southeastern states, but on the other side, the map included all of WV, PA, and OH and the southern portion of Michigan.  “This will be enough,” I said.  

I walked right up to T.C. with the map, and he said, “I can’t fly like a thunderbird.”

“I’m not expecting you to fly like a thunderbird.”

“Good.  I’m glad we got that out of the way.”  

I then looked at the dice.  “Next, we need to—”

“Wait,” T.C. said.  He opened up the map, placed it on the ground, and picked up a marker.  He kept the cap on, put it on our current location, and then lifted it straight up (about seven feet in the air).  I realized what he was doing.  He dropped it, and it landed on Millersburg, PA, which was north of Harrisburg.  I checked the distance, and it was within my limitations (no more than 4 hours).

“Yes, that is one way to make decisions,” I said.

“We’re not making decisions; we’re just choosing the means of making decisions, which is definitely not the same thing.”

I wondered how much space there was between the two, but I could understand what he was trying to say.  

“You don’t understand anything,” he said, obviously judging my lack of a response as skepticism.

“We’ll talk more about the dice tomorrow,” I told T.C., and that was it.  

In the beginning, 

there was a map and a marker,

and they were an insult 

to a society that demanded decisiveness

like a god demanding fear

as the clearest form of faith.