On Saturday nights I stay home and listen to sad music, eat bland food and watch bad TV.  A loud couple just moved in down the hall.  Often I want to join their parties until I remember I like feeling left out.

I've traced this feeling back to fifth grade, when on a bus ride I left "Tres Caballeros" - Tommy, Bart and me.  Bart and Tommy lived on the same block and sat by each other in the back of the bus that swallowed me two stops later.  They put their bags on the nearby seat and only lifted for me.

That morning I got on and saw them carrying on.  I jokingly decided to sit in the first available seat.  I looked back at them, ready to grin and head back.  They went on talking and I knew they didn't give a shit so I took the first available seat and the rest of the year stayed away from "Dos Caballeros."

On Saturday nights I often think about that morning, about how such a seemingly insignificant action influenced my life.

Nature and nurture get the press but a jolt of isolating free will trumps both.  This becomes especially clear on Saturday nights listening to depressing songs.  When Harry Chapin sings, "You can travel along 10,000 miles and still stay where you are," I raise my glass.

On Saturday nights Mom calls at 9:00.  She lives in California so for her it's 6:00.  About three months ago on a Saturday night someone in California pronounced Dad dead at 6:00 - his time.

My phone has an internal answering machine so I call in for messages.  That first Saturday night following the funeral she called at six her time, hysterical, but I'd been blaring music and didn't hear the phone ring.  I checked messages Sunday morning.  When I called, she asked why I hadn't called the night before.  "Out at the theatre," I said, "'Hunchback of Notre Dame,' some friends tried cheering me up."  She paused.  "How lovely."

Every Saturday night since then I've turned the ringer off at 8:45 and not checked messages until Sunday morning.  Before going to bed, I settle on where I was and what I was doing when she called.

Since Dad died, I've also been bowling, eating out, dancing, playing tennis, at the movies, camping, volunteering at a nursing home, driving back from an extended wine tasting, playing miniature golf with friends, at a Springsteen concert, at a book release party and at a bachelor party.

On Sunday mornings she listens to my tales.  The morning I said I'd been dancing, she said, "Your father would have gotten a kick out of that."  I laughed at our joke before realizing it was only mine.  I almost mentioned the time I was going dancing in high school and Dad patted my big gut.  "Hope they have concrete floors."

A few Sundays ago she said, "Bowling, now golf, what an athlete."  I loved that since Dad always rode me for calling runs in baseball "points" and for peaking at books while he made me watch baseball and football on TV.

On Saturday nights party noises from next door flash through my apartment.  If the isolation overwhelms me, I picture a group of guys sitting at a bar yelling at a football game on TV.

On Sunday nights I run.  My lungs overheating, my throat thick, my eyes tearing, somewhere between miles six and seven I forget that in twelve hours I'll be back at my cubicle for five days and then it will be Saturday night.  After running I drink wine to forget that in the morning I will listen to voices at work talking about what fun things they did Saturday night.

This Saturday night all the power in the building goes out.  My watch is old, its light is weak and its maker is most likely bankrupt.  I think it says 8:42.  The phone is in my room and since I clean Monday nights there are undoubtedly books and shoes and other shit covering the floor.  Since I'd need a flashlight to find my flashlight, I decide not to sprain an ankle turning the ringer off.  I listen to James Taylor for a while then consider joining the muddled voices in the halls.  Certainly neighbors keep candles and flashlights.

I creep to the front door, like a rookie mime my hands groping for anything before them.  In the hall, the cocky bartender who lives next door says "boo" and gets a weak laugh.  The single mom with two kids who always stick their tongues out at me says, "Don't burn your brother with that!"

I mime my way back into my room and find my bed; the rings from the phone guide me.  Before the fourth ring I pick it up before the answering machine.

"Sorry I missed you, hope you're have. . . ."

"Mom, I'm here."

"You're home?  What's wrong?"

My throat feels scratchy.

"Why aren't you out?"

I blink quickly.  "Mom, there's something. . . ."

"I've got to go," she says, "Call me in the morning, I want to hear all about your night."

After she hangs up I sit on the floor until the lights come on at 9:09.  Their sudden sting makes me clamp my eyes shut.

Flashes of orange and red lash out somewhere behind my eyelids.  I won't sit in front of the TV, thinking about a bus ride I took years ago, until I figure out where I was and what I was doing when she called.

Author Bio

In the eight years after graduating college in 1994 with a creative writing degree, I went to law school, got a fat law firm job in Baltimore, and took vacations to Hawaii where I did nothing but write short stories and moan about how much I needed to write more.  Finally, debt free, I took off a year from law in March 2002 to write fiction for one year in Austin, Texas.  In my year off, I wrote 39 short stories, a novel, placed well in writing contests and earned $105.  I'm moving back to Baltimore to join the legions who write fiction while working real jobs.  It was the best year of my life, far better than when I was twelve and did nothing but play basketball, swim and collect every George Brett baseball card out there.