No, I still can’t get it to work, although at least the directory’s not forbidden
anymore. I just got tired of looking at that ugly DIV.
The events of my evening could have been (and maybe will be) a surreal children’s book.
At one point, I was alone inside an under-construction parking garage, talking to my
brother’s roommate in Berea, seriously convinced that I was about to
be ambushed by ninjas–all because I was trying to buy a cigarette lighter with which to
fix my electric piano.
Okay, let me start over.
Tonight, I was bored and alone, and I wanted to do something more constructive than
play XBox for six straight hours. I started to draw a comic, then started to mix a song
out of samples from “Relativity”,
then realized I needed to try some chords, then realized I still hadn’t fixed my
sustain pedal.
My ancient Wurlitzer broke that pedal nearly
a year ago (the night before Halloween), because the cable connection on it was ancient
and not particularly well-applied. I’d tried to buy solder for its repair, but I never
had a working iron and somebody who knew how to use it with me simultaneously.
Earlier this summer, while in Radio Shack to buy our cellular telephones, I
happened upon a small tube of paste that claimed to be both “applicable with the heat
of a match or lighter” and “5 times stronger than ordinary solder!” Yeah, right, but it
was available. I bought it and let it sit around in boxes until tonight.
Once I’d cleared the floor, laid the piano on its back, removed the feet, front panel
and several screws, and wedged the pedal back where it needed to go, I found the welding
paste and discovered that, oh ho, I don’t own a lighter anymore. I owned at least two
last year, just for situations like this, but they got stolen by my ex-girlfriend so that
she could–of all things!–light cigarettes with them.
Of course, I thought, I live in Kentucky, and in a large city no less.
The one thing I shouldn’t have any trouble finding is cigarettes and lighters
for them.
Yeah, this is the fun part.
My initial plan was foiled when I discovered that the pocket newsstand on the next
block had closed for the day. I decided to keep going. I walked up Fourth Street, which
is supposed to be this magical place that’s going to revitalize the dying downtown scene;
I’ve heard a lot about Fourth Street, and Maria and I had planned to walk around it some
night and see what was interesting there.
Well, I can tell you now. There’s lots of stuff. There’s Jack, for instance,
and his good friend shit.
After passing a strange number (four) of wig stores in a three-block span, and figuring
out that this fine Saturday was some kind of magical Stores Close holiday, I
found myself in front of a huge half-finished structure. I remember something about how
they’re supposed to put an Applebee’s and a Borders in there eventually, but right now
it’s all roped off and orange-coned. Around one corner, though, was a giant banner
tacked to the wall.
CVS! it said. OPEN NOW! THIS WAY! I thought it was a sign from heaven. CVS is a
chain drug-and-sundry store, open 24 hours. I know for a fact that they all sell lighters,
even if they don’t sell cigarettes.
I followed the sign, and several more like it, through the Someday Mall’s side entrance
and into an elevator. It was at this point that I started to get suspicious. There were a
lot of signs, plastered on every surface: THIS WAY TO CVS! CVS NOW OPEN! PRESS
BUTTON 3 IN ELEVATOR FOR CVS! There was actually a tiny sign in the elevator, next
to the third floor button, showing me which one to push. This was getting a little too
easy.
Guess whether CVS was open.
Alone in almost a construction site, with waaay too many signs telling me where to go,
I started to freak out. Ninjas. It had to be a trap by ninjas. I walked very
cautiously out into the abandoned parking garage, backdrop for too many cheap martial arts
fight scenes, and did the only thing a lone-gun action fighting movie star could be
expected to do in the circumstances. I called my brother.
He didn’t pick up, but his roommate
>Noah
did. Noah was two hours south of me, too far to make it for
an emergency rescue, but the ninjas had no way of knowing that. I made sure to say his
name loudly several times; this ensured that the ninjas would know just who they’d have
to deal with if they tried anything. I honestly believe that’s the only reason I came
out of there unbloodied.
I left the garage, still on my quest: some of the streets were starting to show
signs of life. I was almost at the riverfront, a good mile away from my apartment, and
I’d already run two and a half miles that afternoon. It did occur to me that hey, I could
not buy the lighter tonight, maybe fix the piano another time. But that wouldn’t
have been right. I kept walking north.
There are actually living things down near the riverfront–it’s big money property, and
there are plenty of restaurants and theaters to take advantage of people exiting the tall,
marbled Some Kind Of Bank Or Something buildings. There are, however, no gas stations or
newsstands. None of the hotel gift shops were open. The theaters do not sell cigarette
lighters.
There’s some really beautiful landscaping near the Arts Center, if you walk (uphill) far
enough: lawns in columns, terraced stairs, fountains you can play in. I passed kids throwing
frisbees and a school choir group humming and snapping. None of them were selling
cigarette lighters.
I passed riverboats and Joe’s Crab Shack. One smelled good and one did not. I very
nearly stopped at Joe’s and got a table for one, because it was at this point that I
started to realize how hungry I was; I tend to forget to eat when I’m the only one
around, and a mental inventory of my food that day brought up the following:
But stopping for fried fish is not in the rules, and anyway I’m a grad student, I’m
never allowed to eat out. I kept walking.
There were kids in Spider-Man costumes, riding in bicycle cabooses. There were old
people and strollers and groups of thirtysomething men who thought they were terribly witty.
There were more fountains. At Waterfront Park, there were roughly a thousand people walking
in a circle, wearing matching red t-shirts and holding red balloons. I sensed, somehow,
that none of them would be selling cigarette lighters.
The climactic point of the evening, I think, was when I came to the Riverbats minor-league
baseball stadium and gave serious thought to the possibility of scaling its walls. I knew
instinctively that where there are beer and hot dogs sold over counters, there are also
cigarette lighters. At this point, I was ready and willing to commit a theft.
It’s fortunate I didn’t, I guess; there wasn’t a game tonight, but there were several
hundred bigwigs from the university
I attend, standing around doing party things in the adjoining hall. I left them to their
mild debauchery and moved on.
It was getting dark now, and I was getting tired. I’d been walking for a good fifty
minutes, and I walk at least three miles in an hour. The anticlimax of it all came
when I finally saw the lights of a Shell station, almost directly up the street from
my apartment (albeit still a mile up that street).
The woman behind the counter was wizened and kept flipping her hair back over her
shoulders with an unnecessarily large gesture. I think it was a wig. I could have
kissed her.
I walked out into the dusk, prying at the child-safety band on my $1.26 sky-blue
lighter with my mailbox key. I’d end up walking at least four miles when it was all through,
but my quest was over. It was time to go home.
I had a pot pie over Minute Rice when I got back. Man, I never get tired of those
things.
