Husband of The Year (Or, How I Ended Up in NJ)

I do a lot of pretty rad stuff as a married man, and most of it is for my wife.  And while I quietly self-congratulate, this feat, I feel, deserves some attention.

Last weekend my wife was off visiting friends and family in New Orleans, leaving me behind to pet- and house-sit.  I didn't mind.  Manweekend, what I was calling it; I did very little except run, eat wasabi peas and banana chips, drink a Guinness or two, and play Xbox.

You might've noticed that "showering" was not on that list.

Regardless, my wife was due back in New England by Monday afternoon.  When the appointed time came, I made my way up to Boston's Logan Airport, to (do what any good husband who doesn't want to find his balls chopped off in the middle of the night does) pick up his travel weary wife.

Only, ... I was a bit early.  And.  My wife's connecting flight from Newark, NJ had been canceled.

For this very reason, I always opt for direct flights.  I hate having to de-plane, hustle across to a different terminal, hope to god my checked luggage (if I was stupid enough to check any of it) makes the connection with me, to queue up to board what is essentially the same plane all over again, with the same obnoxious passengers.

As much as I enjoy the idea of flying from place to place (it's convenient, fast, makes me feel like a spy sometimes) the people have essentially ruined the experience, from a personal and security standpoint. 

No longer do you see men and women dressed up to fly someplace.  If anything, you see people in sweats and flip-flops.  "I want to be comfortable," is generally the complaint.  "I don't want to have to strip at security" comes the other end of it. 

Can't say I blame them, as I shuffle thru a metal detector, holding my pants up in one hand, my shoes in another like a village idiot.

So, back to the story, my wife's flight from Newark to Boston had been canceled.  She was on "standby status" til about 1pm, when she MIGHT get a flight from there.

My beef was ... Newark is a hub... meaning, there's a ton of flights leaving Newark, all day.... going in all directions, to every other major hub in the country (Boston included).  Why in the blue fuck was there a four hour wait for another Boston-bound flight?

And the flight wasn't even GUARANTEED!  Her only guaranteed flight status was for a flight departing Newark at 9pm... a full 12 hours away.

There was no fucking way I was about to let me wife sit in New Jersey for that long, lest she be mutated into a Snooki.

The request came quickly, via text message: "Will you come and get me."  And honestly, I made my decision with the same raised pulse I would have if she asked me to pick up some bread on the way home.  It was a natural conclusion for me to make.

To be sure, I texted back: "You want me to drive to NJ to come and get you?"  And she said "Yes please."

And just like that, I was off.  I had everything I needed: a full tank in the Prius, GPS, full charge on my phone, gun, money.... I made my way to pull out of the short-term parking lot.

"Didn't you just get here?"  Said the attendant when she read my ticket.  I explained the situation in as few words as possible, making sure to mention I was driving all the way to New Jersey to pick up my tiny wife.  The woman in the booth sigh and flipped a switch.  The gate in front of me lifted.

"Get out of here," she said, and failed to charge me the $3 minimum.

I was fortunate that I was getting on the road at a time when there was virtually no traffic; Rt 90W was empty and I was making excellent time thru Conn. as well.  I was being filled with these long-lost memories of making this same drive to Brooklyn and Queens years ago.  Everything was bathed in this weird sort of trans-dimensional glow.

I pulled off at a highway rest area to pee and top off the tank (I didn't want to imagine a scenario where I'd have to look for a gas station in The Bronx).  This was one of those McDonald's/Mobile/Chintzy Souvenir places that require an American to ask for an interpreter to facilitate any sort of commerce. 

In the parking lot, I watched two 11 year olds punch the living Bejesus out of each other, over only what I could imagine was the last McNugget.  And I mean, they weren't just "rasslin" like brothers, but actually throwing (and landing in some cases) real-deal, closed fisted blows to each other's face.

It was pretty intense. 

No one was breaking them up, just a ring of adults looking on, perhaps making bets or egging them on in a crude parking lot gladiatorial spectacle.

Back on the road, Ang and I stayed in pretty much hourly contact, giving each other sit-reps.  According to the GPS, I'd be arriving at Newark around 245pm.

The GPS, however, failed to account for the massive parking lot taking form at the GWB approach.

For those of you who are not familiar with the greater NYC area, the George Washington Bridge is one of the few connectors between the city and Northern NJ.  I had never traveled this far into the city before, on my own (I usually took the Whitestone on to the LIE, or Long Island Expressway, into College Point, Qns).  I had no idea I'd be stuck on the GWB for over an hour....

Relaying this info to my wife, who by now was tired, cranky and scared, did nothing to alleviate the growing tension.  I took the time to ask her to find out exactly where she was in the airport (terminal wise) to facilitate a quicker pick up.

Once I squirted thru the GWB, I was only maybe ten minutes from the airport.  I called again, asking for a terminal.

"They don't have terminals here... I'm at international arrivals...."

I should point out here, too, that my wife might have been delusional from eating New Jersey Airport Sushi for lunch.  ....No one has ever accused my wife of being a savvy traveler.

On my approach to the airport, I saw signs for different terminals.  A, B, C airlines were at Terminal A, X, Y, Z airlines were at Terminal B.... international flights were at Terminal C.... ok, I thought.... she must be at Terminal C....

Or one would think.

It would take us a solid 15 minutes to find each other, due to frustration and miscommunications.  During that time, I got yelled at by the cops (twice by the same guy, who was looking more and more mad everytime I made another lap.  But then again, if I were a cop in NJ, I'd probably want to kill myself too), cut off by some arab in a gypsy cab, and nearly ran over a family of Indians with more luggage than pounds in Kim Kardashian's left ass cheek.

Finally, we figured out where each other were, and I made my approach.  I could see my bride, in her sweats and tank top and flip-flops, clutching her duffel bag, looking beat but happy.  I pulled to the curb and eyed another cop making his way towards me.

I hopped out of the Prius, helped her with her bag and for the first time in about seven years, said: "Lets get the fuck out of Jersey...."

We had 6 hours of driving ahead of us.  For being apart for a whole weekend, I didn't mind.

Dispatch: Portland: City by The Sea

Portland, Maine is like a roommate I had in college.  When I was in college, we were both unsophisticated, dirty, sometimes scary people.  But we've both grown a little in the last few years and became more worldly, more open to ideas, more accepting of individuals.

I'm really glad to see Portland's grown up.

Or maybe it's just me?  Maybe Portland's always been this Mecca of Style in the Northeast; a not-so-well-kept secret just north of Boston, with a fantastic culinary community, culture and people.  Portland is all of the good things of Boston, with little of the bad.  Sure, there's crime, but there's crime everywhere.  What you won't see, at least in the places the tourists go, is dirt, grime and bad times.

In typical fashion, I was only going to be in Maine for roughly 24 hours.  Just enough time to get some work done, maybe see a friend or two, and be gone again like vapor.  Since I had just seen my mom on the Cape for Mother's Day, I figured she'd be cool with me going out on the one night I'd have in Portland.  I made some phone calls and set something up.

At 6:30, I was on the Northwest corner of Congress and Free streets, by the restaurant Nosh.  Earlier, my childhood friend Mandy had suggested the place for dinner.

"They serve like, really good burgers and .... like, tempura-fried bacon... are you into that stuff?  I know you've gone all health nut on us in the last few years..."  I explain to her that I may run marathons and triathlons, but I'm not dead.  A fried pork belly sandwich and bacon-dusted fries with a Guinness sounded like just the medicine I needed.

Mandy arrives shortly after I do, as I'm playing with my phone on the corner.  She's with her husband David, a guy about my height, glasses, easy smile.  They're newlyweds, coming up on their first year anniversary, and I'm happy to see they're still in that place where they're still ironing out the wrinkles.

A little passive-aggressive back and forth between the two would be the battle rhythm for the evening.

Nosh is a gastro-pub like any other I've been too.  There's nothing here that sets it apart other than the Ms. Pac-Man game at the front door.  The place is also crowded and it's a "seat yourself" sort of deal.  We wait by the door, waiting for a table to clear.  The place is a hipster joint; skinny jeans and cardigans are the uniform of the day.  A tall, lanky kid who looks like he just wrapped a photo shoot for American Apparel walks by us.

Luckily Mandy and David are the types who have connections in the restaurant biz here in Portland.  David makes eye-contact with a server who he works part-time with at the Armory Lounge and soon we're seated.

The menu is glorified pub fare, with strange Asian twists and turns.  David goes with the Falafal, Mandy with the Tuna Tartar and I get the pork belly sandwich.  We each decide to split an order of the bacon-dusted fries, and tempura-fried bacon with Nutella drizzled all over the top.

The conversation inevitably turns towards marriage.  I ask how they're doing in their first year and I'm greeted by a wall of unified bliss.

"It's great!" Mandy says.

"Never been better," David says.

"We hardly ever fight, it's awesome!"

But being that only a few short years ago, I was in there shoes, I can readily see thru this lie.  There's an unspoken tension between the two that's written all over their body language.  I deduce that David doesn't want to be here, as he's too quick to engage in conversation, and even quicker to disengage and stare elsewhere around the restaurant.  Our food is brought out and he nearly pounds half of his vodka and water.

After dinner and many pleasantries, I head home for the night.  I have an early day the next morning and I have to be up at 4 am for some goddamn reason.  We all hug and shake hands and the look of relief on everyone's face is hard to miss.

But Portland has another side to it, that's vastly different from the posh gastro pubs and sushi bars that make up the water front and East End.

But that's always been the case with Portland; it's a city with competing personalities, a literal economic strata to almost an extreme.  While Portland is a city comprised of young up and comers, there's also it's fair share of thugs, homeless, junkies, and burnouts.  Driving home, I watch as two men walk with a menacing purpose down Commercial St from one bar to another. 

Take a wrong turn on the outer fringes of Portland and you could very well end up in the news.  Out of the popular television show "The Wire" street gangs flourish in tenement housing projects.  Routinely, you hear of police-involved shootings with quasi-legal residences. 

It's roughly 5 am and I'm traveling in-bound off the 295 up Congress St again, but the Portland from the night before is still asleep.  Instead, like out of a bad B-Zombie-Film, homeless men shuffle down from the hill towards the Greyhound Bus Station, half out of their minds.  As I'm the only traffic on the roads at this hour, they each stop in their tracks and slowly turn towards the sound of my car.

I drive a while longer and pull off on the side of the street and wait til my appointment at 6 am.  The sun is starting to come up and there's a grayness about everything.  Off in the distance, I see this lurching, painful-looking figure running towards me.  As I finger my locks, what comes to pass is a middle-aged woman out for a morning run.

Her gait is a cross between a seizure and someone trying to fight off invisible bats.  Her elbows careen wildly from her sides, she's bent over at the waist, towards her right as if she's being kicked, her left knee fires off to the left every third footfall. 

But it looks like she's keeping a 7:30 pace, so ... good for her?

I'm parked at a parking meter, one of the many in downtown Portland, but I don't have any change to feed it, and no store is yet open.  My appointment is about to get underway, so I just leave the car, locked, hoping that Portland still has that fabled "get one free" parking ticket policy.

I'm in meetings with various people for a few hours, and by 1030, I'm walking back out to where I parked, fully expecting a sliver of paper to be waving at me in the breeze from the windshield wiper. 

But nothing, no paper, no fine, no reproachful looks from the onlookers now filling the sidewalks. 

I gotta say, I love this city.

Dispactch: The Biddeford Gun Show, Two Years Later

It had been about two years since I had been to the annual Biddeford Gun Show, and by the looks of things, I hadn't missed much.

Like two years ago, the show was smaller than I remembered, but unlike two years ago, the crowds that had shown up, packed-in in fear and panic, were absent too.  A quick survey by the front door told me everything I needed to know.

Where there was usually a line to get in, was gone.  I was able to walk up to the check-in desk with my Enfield Mark 3 rifle unobstructed.  A fat, old Vietnam vet with bad arthritis cleared my weapon and barely managed to slide a paper tag around the trigger guard to prove that it was a weapon I had come in with.  I wasn't necessarily looking to sell the gun, but if someone made me the right offer, who knows.

My father and I began our usual pattern of walking around the outside tables first before making our way into the interior.  The show is held in a converted ice arena where the local high school hockey team plays and practices.  With this much room, you'd expect there to be more vendors, more people, more to see, but you'd be wrong.

It's unclear if the economy is playing a role in any of this; I check the prices of a few guns I'm familiar with and am shocked to learn that the same .45 I bought about four years ago is now about $150 dollars more expensive.  The average cost at the show of a middle-of-the-road AR15s (the civilian-marketed version of the military's M4 carbine) is running between $750 and $1200, depending on what you want and who made it.

My expectations are always high, I tell my dad, but seldom are they ever met at the gun show.

We're surrounded by RealTree camo, LL Bean boots, beer guts, and the occasional cabal of amateurish gangster wannabes gawking over a nickle-plated junk pistol worth less than the Chinese-manufactured accessories it comes with.  In my black NorthFace spring jacket and J. Crew wardrobe I stand out like a narc.

I notice there's a few women milling about with their boyfriends or husbands.  They look bored; with every group of five or six guys standing over a table, two feet behind them are a group of women, talking amongst themselves, or absently pushing a baby stroller back and forth in a four-foot area. 

We reach what's considered the centerpiece table, the vendor with the show's most prestige and I'm not surprised when I see the wide-smiling coked-out jackass with his bluetooth earpiece stuck to the side of his face, placating the group of XXXL t-shirt wearing hooligans all finger-fucking cheap Tech-9 assault pistols.

This guy, the vendor, somehow manages to hold a Level-3 gun permit, the hardest and most sought-after gun license in the country.  With the Level-3 license, one can own just about any killing devices ever constructed, if he or she has the right amount of money.  Why I'm so surprised by this guy, is the fact he's a known cocaine addict.

A few years back, my father and I paid him a visit in his home/shop to look at suppressors for one of my pistols.  When I found out nothing he had fit the threading on my barrel, we made to leave.  But then, this guy asked my dad if he wanted to see something of his in the back room.  Reluctantly my dad said "sure."

A few seconds after disappearing, my dad comes out and says we're out of here.  Apparently, the guy had offered my dad some cocaine.

So, flash forward to now: this grinning idiot is holding court amongst slack-jawed locals, laughing and smiling at them.  He knows he's about to feed his habit ten fold today.

I look down at his collection and I'm not terribly impressed.  His table looks like a collection of a FARC weapons cache; machine pistols with extended magazines and suppressors, AK47s with folding stocks, machetes, knives, M16s with under-barrel attachments, like M203s (grenade launchers) and miniature shotguns. 

He has three show-quality pieces stacked in the middle of his table, surrounded by the rest of the junk.  He has a pile of magazines and bullets, knives and tac-lights, even t-shirts for sale.  I take this all in, with the thought that, the more "advanced" our modern military weaponry gets, the more medieval it looks: picatinny rails poke out from the sides and tops of gun barrels like spikes on a mace, elongated magazines and folding stocks look like crude black hilts of swords.

The jackass must see me eying the top-shelf hardware because he's left the gang of comedians to one of his sons.  The group is collectively growing louder, crasser, slapping and snapping the dry actions on the junk hardware while pointing them in just about any other direction than safe.

"Yeah, that's a real beaut," he starts in right over me.  I don't think he recognizes me (its been years) but I ask if it's ok to shoulder his Styer Aug.  He says sure, in a very friendly way and I pick up the bullpup rifle.

I point it towards the ceiling and sight down the barrel.  Front Post sights; my cheek presses into the rest molded over the mag housing.  I adjust my grip a little on the forward under-barrel vertical "sweeper" grip and squeeze the weapon into my shoulder a little tighter.  I've never fired one of these before.

"How's the recoil?"  I ask.  He gets a little excited.  The price tag flashes into my view from the trigger guard and it reads $3500.  I nearly laugh.

"Smooth, the rotary bolt action sits back here at the shoulder," and he points to where the action would be, and goes on to talk about what I already know about the gun.  I set it down.

"Shame I'm a lefty...." I lie.  The gun can only be fired from the right-hand side due to it's ejection port being at the shoulder stock.  His face drains as I set the rifle back down.  He turns his attention back to Biddeford's Finest, his tone not as jovial as before.

The rest of the show goes like this: dad's more into the older, wooden stuff, and the "purse pistols"; the small caliber, easily concealable guns that you'd find in a woman's purse.  I'm more into the quality military hardware, the black polymers, etc.

There's really not much for us to look at.

Sure, there's tables with the occasional exotic piece, and there's enough plastic guns to go around, but nothing of real quality.  As we pass by a table, I notice a lone AR15 on a rack.  I ask to pick it up and shoulder it and the guy has no problem letting me do exactly that.

It's a good fit and the price is right.  I tell him it's the most honestly-priced weapon at the show and he takes it as a compliment.  He says that it looks like I know how to handle one, and I tell him I do.

I give the rifle the once over as my dad holds my Enfield.  I ask if the weapon's been recently cleaned and the vendor says "of course, yes."  I ask if it's ok to check the insides of the gun?

He hesitates and eventually says it's ok.  With the flat of my palm I pop the assembly pin out of the rear of the receiver and let the upper swing forward exposing the rifle's guts.  I'm surprised when a cobweb-covered bat doesn't flap out of the chamber.

I pull back a little and blow down the barrel, causing a plume of black dust to come out.  I look back at the vendor and say something snide and he takes it in stride.  Still, it's an alright "Frankenstein" gun (it was built of different parts, non-factory) for what he's asking.  I tell him I'll think about it.  He tells me I should help "stimulate" the economy.

We take in only a few more tables.  A few older men take a mild interest in my Enfield but no one makes an offer.  There's a sort of unspoken rule about private sales at gun shows.  You only make an offer if you're serious, and no one wants to make an offer unless they know what you're asking.  A few people ask me what I want for it, and I tell them to make me an offer.  They balk.

It's a stupid dance.

We leave empty-handed (save, of course, my Enfield) and get lunch at the Wendy's across the street.  I realize then how flavorless the food is. 

Later, on our way back to Rochester, we pass the Outlaw Motorcycle Club's burnt-down clubhouse.  Apparently the clubhouse had mysteriously burned down after a massive nation-wide raid had snatched up a bunch of members (and killed at least one.). 

We flip off the gutted building.

(From 2009) Dispatch: Southern Maine's Great Ammo Crunch

Not my bike at the time, but similar

I think it would be easier to find a red headed virgin in Rosalita, Mexico who wasn’t suffering from Swine Flu before I’ll ever find 9mm bullets in Southern Maine.

At least, this is what I was lead to believe last Sunday morning while traveling over fifty miles on a motorcycle when temperatures hit 83 degrees before I even left the house.

I made the tactical error of putting on a shit-ton of personal protective equipment – more than necessary, which included UnderArmor, thick gloves, Kevlar jacket liner, etc – before ever walking out the door of my mother’s house.  By the time I got to my bike, one street over at my father’s house, I was pretty much covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

My objective was simple, though pulling it off would be a beast of a completely different temperament:  I had to find bullets for the new Glock pistol I bought the day before at the local Biddeford Gun Show, a gun show that was once the flagship gun collector’s exhibition in Southern Maine, but since the winding down of the Bush Administration, has somewhat become a shell of it’s former glory.  Gone now are the giant booths with tactical webbing-based vests and shoulder harnesses.  Displays of military-grade firepower that only Level Three Licensees can legal own, gone as well.  Even the old guy with the snow-white beard to his belt buckle, pushing a hand truck with an old Browning air-cooled .30 cal mounted machine gun was absent from the proceedings.  No, all that seemed to remain were a few logie-looking booths and venders with various instruments of death and destruction, marked up by at least 15% to as high as 50% depending on whom you were dealing with, and how exotic the piece was.

But what had returned were the crowds.  In recent years the Biddeford Gun Show’s attendance has somewhat fallen off, which in turn, diminished the level of prestige of the participating venders.  The surge in populace this year seems to stem from the current Democratic Presidential Administration, and the fears that a black Democratic President will “any day now” pass legislation abolishing the Second Amendment and send federal law enforcement officers into the homes of every Red Blooded American who owns firearms to forcibly strip the weapons from their owners, and possibly march them to a cattle car to be shipped into the wilderness in the dead of night.

This and other mythoi were being exchanged amongst the crowd of surly late-middle-aged panic-mongers in attendance at the gun show.  As I weaved through the crowd examining table after table of weaponry I overheard a number of what some could consider outlandish accusations, rumors and innuendo from those who paid seven dollars to get their hand stamped at the door.

“Any day now, Obama’s going to raid our homes and take our guns away,” grumbled one gun owner in farm-chic clothing.  Another:  “We’re only as safe as we make ourselves, no one’s going to take that away from me!”

The crowd of about one thousand constantly seemed to be teetering on the edge of full blown riot, with tensions flowing with every disgruntled half-truth that was being uttered as (mostly) men fingered cheap Spanish-imports of cloned 1911-A1 .45 ACPs and grease-packed AK47s.  Overall the mood was dark, and if you tried to inject another point of view, shed of optimism if you will, you were seen at best as a simpleton, and at worst, a spy.

I found this out when I stupidly tried to bring to the attention of one show goer who I was 90% convinced was a member of either the Klu Klux Klan or the Hell’s Angels that Mr. Obama has a little too much on his plate to deal with the issue of Second Amendment Rights at the moment, especially concerning the economy, filling out the rest of his cabinet, partisan politics, and that whole “Middle East Thing.”  I tried to assure the barbarian that if the issue was ever going to be approached, that number one, it wouldn’t be at least until the far side of two years from now, and number two, there’s far too much support against anti-firearms legislation in the country to make a significant impact on the individual gun owner.  Similar to anti-abortion, -gay rights, and -marijuana legislation, the laws enacted would be far too controversial, and no elected official would dare disenfranchise at least half of his electoral base.

“What are you?  One of those statistic-spewing faggots?”  Said the Klansman-Biker, who then worked up enough phlegm in his throat to convince me he was going to hock it into my face if I didn’t get enough room between me and him very quickly.

For the rest of the gun show I kept a very low profile. 

Purchasing a firearm is still incredibly easy, despite what gun-owners in attendance would like the layperson to think.  Aside from the fact I was standing in the middle of a 100,000 square-foot converted ice arena, surrounded by tables and tables of guns with only one police officer standing duty by the front door, procuring a pistol, rifle, shotgun, authentic Nazi memorabilia from World War 2, or whatever you fancy is a matter of spending a few moments filling out a simple page of generic government paperwork (“no, I’m not a convicted felon,” and “no, I’m not addicted to any controlled substance, including marijuana” are actual questions with YES/NO boxes next to them.), submitting to a Federal Background Check through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and handing over a credit card to the federally licensed gun dealer to whom you’re giving your business to.

After haggling over the price of my Sig Sauer P230 .380 that I wanted to trade up to a Glock 19 9mm, as well as buying a new Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun (my father is moving to a trailer park in Florida later this summer, and asked if he could have my old Mossberg 500 for home defense), I tried to get the dealer to give me a “sweetheart deal” on an DPMS/Panther AR15 that he had listed for 1100 dollars.  I explained to him that being that the DPMS was a “flat top” receiver with no sights, I would have to go out and buy a sighting system at a cost of about 200-300 dollars.  I also brought up the point that I was already buying two guns off of him and if he wanted to move the products, he should cut me a deal.

He gave it some thought and came back with an offer of 950, a considerable mark down, but I figured he could do better.  On average, an AR15, which three years ago would have retailed for about 600 bucks, were going for between 975-1300 dollars at this gun show.  Getting him even below those numbers was a good deal, but I figured I had this guy on the ropes and he could go lower.

And I was right because he came down as low as 850 after a few more minutes of my complaining.  I then told him I didn’t want it and that I’d take just the pistol and shotgun, which seemed to piss him off a little (there were probably a dozen other customers standing right next to me who heard his generous offer of 850, who no doubt would sweep in on that deal after I walked away).  I realized that I had no real practical use for a high powered rifle in a dilapidated apartment complex, and that the likelihood of me shooting through our walls and into the apartment of one of the neighbors, although enticing, could cause greater legal ramifications for me down the line.

So I sat down in a metal folding chair and filled out the proper paper work.  And even though I accidentally omitted my social security number on the federal gun buyers form (I honestly usually put it down, as I’m inclined to believe that by not, if gives the BATF an excuse to deny my background request, even though it’s marked in bold letters that providing that information is completely OPTIONAL), less than five minutes after I put ass to chair, I was handing my credit card over to the dealer, and walking away with two highly lethal weapons that I could virtually do anything I wanted.

I just had to load them first.

I walked around the floor of the gun show a little longer and came to a booth that was selling re-loaded-at-home rounds and hefted a box of 9mms.  When the booth’s vendor told me that the box of 50-count bullets was going to cost me 25 dollars (usually a box – or “square” as it’s called in certain gun-circles – of 9mms goes for about 15-20 bucks, reloads less, obviously) I dropped the box along with my jaw and walked away.  The vender called after me, telling me that he had already sold two cases (roughly twenty boxes per case, and the case I plucked that one box out of was about down to three squares left) and would probably be sold out by tomorrow.

What he didn’t tell me was that there’s virtually no ammunition in Southern Maine at all.

Due to the fear and panic in Southern Maine, which is more “red state” than the rest of the traditionally “blue Maine” people have been buying and stockpiling ammunition in bulk at alarming and albeit, unsettling rates.  I had no clue that the case was so severe until later that afternoon, after leaving the gun show with two firearms and no ammo (making them two of the most expensive paper weights I’ve ever purchased) I headed over to the local Wal Mart, where previously I’ve bought ammo on the cheap, which is exactly what I told the ammo vender at the gun show.

Blinded by ignorance, I walked into the Wal Mart and headed back towards the Sporting Goods section.  The inside of the Wal Mart looked third-world: gutted, stripped of any semblance of that cheery yellow-smiley face conglomerate that once dominated Biddeford Crossing for the last fifteen or so years.  No, the monolith with her ever expanding parking lot seemed frail and decayed, shelving bare, what I imagine a Wal Mart in some remote part of Serbia would look like on a good day.

When I got to the Sporting Goods section I ran into another red-stater, dressed in a typical aggressively patriotic t shirt featuring wording about “colors” and “running” and a picture of a soaring eagle or something to that effect, buying a hunting license of some sort.

I don’t hunt, so I have no idea what game season is in vogue right now, but being that summer’s coming up, and Maine tends to get overpopulated with tourists during this time, something about a bald, big-eared, mouth breathing caveman buying a hunting license didn’t sit well with me. 

As the clerk behind the counter diddled the register to print out the hunting license I wandered around the section looking for the display of bullets.  When I found the display, a large locked glass case, I stopped suddenly with confusion.  I turned to see if anyone was watching me, any employee that could help me, but I was alone.  So I went back to the clerk at the register and inquired with him as he finished up the total on the red-stater’s order.

“Excuse me, but are you guys like,” and I trailed off for a second.  The Budweiser-swilling tradesman was barking at his collection of children, aged 6-11, about five or six of them, and his gutturally sharp chunks of words took me off balance for a second.

“That’s strike one!” he snapped at one of his brood, who were horsing around by the register.  “One more strike and you’re not getting ice cream!” 

I wanted to clear my throat and correct him, in front of his children, that you technically get three strikes, (based off of baseball or Family Feud rules) but I kept my mouth shut and went back to the clerk.

“Are you guys, like, renovating or something?  Because your ammo case back there is empty and I…” and the clerk cut me off.

“We can’t keep that shit in stock for more than a day.  We put out orders for handgun ammo, rifle ammo, you name it, at least once a week, and by the time it comes in, we have so much of the stuff on back order, that it’s all sold by the time the truck pulls up.”  Jesus, I thought, they’re hording all the goddamn bullets!

The red-stater decided to inject his opinion on the matter as well:

“It’s a real pain in the balls,” he started, his voice phlegmy and choked, as if he was speaking from underneath a boot across his windpipe.  “I’ve been buying online, you can’t get bullets anywhere, not the Wal Mart in Scarborough, the Cabelas, LL Beans, Dicks,” he went on. 

I was shell shocked, in utter disbelief.  There had to be someplace I could readily buy bullets today, right now.  What if there was an emergency, and I needed to shoot someone TONIGHT!  Nothing is worse than an unloaded gun sitting by itself at home when you go out to a family restaurant with your wife and mother and spend the entire night alternating your field of view between the Red Sox/Yankees game on the tv over your head and the front door of the establishment, waiting for some barbarian to come barreling in to kill everyone on Margarita Two-fer Night.

The next morning I got up early-ish and took off on my motorcycle, with messenger bag slung around my shoulders, to try every conceivable store that would be selling ammunition. 

The thought had occurred to me that I could just go back to the gun show and try my luck there.  I just didn’t want to pay out the nose for cheaply “remanufactured” bullets, given the price of admission is seven dollars, and the mark up on the ammo is about 100%. 

So all morning I rode up and down US Rt 1, looking for a place that sold bullets.  I first pulled into the local Cabela’s monstrosity and found that they wouldn’t open until 10 am, which by then would be too late for me, as my mother committed me to helping my tacky aunt and uncle move “unwanted” furniture from my father’s place to their place.  So up the road I traveled still, finding myself at the Scarborough Wal Mart.

Mind you, I’m on a motorcycle, dressed in a black Kevlar jacket, black “murder” bandana around my neck, black messenger bag, black boots, black Oakley Flak Jacket HJXs, and my throat is all weird from the ride.  I stride into the Wal Mart and try to find the Sporting Goods section, but if you’ve ever been into a different Wal Mart than what you’re used to, you know that their store is SLIGHTLY laid out differently.

So after walking around a bit, I find the section and come across similar results.  I’m pretty dejected, but on my way out I find a stock girl- young, petite, blonde – with a clipboard, doing some sort of inventory.  I walk up to her and get her attention.  Immediately she’s intimidated by me; it’s all but written on her face in magic marker, so I lift my shades to my forehead so she can see I’m no threat.

“Hey, you got any ammunition out back?”  I ask.  Unbeknownst to me ahead of time, my voice comes out as if I’m Dirty Harry and I just found out my dog has rabies.  Her eyes develop a sheen of wetness and her lip trembles.  Her voice small, tinny:

“No, we’re all out,” I figured for this based on the evidence and snarl a little to myself.

“Mm, what about the Dick’s up the road?  Know anything about them?”  I unintentionally growl.

“No…” it’s like a stalking lion talking to a church mouse. 

“Don’t worry,” I try to ease her obvious fear of this big biker looming over her, asking about affordable munitions.  “I’m not mad, I’m not going to kill anyone,” she lets a nervous smile slip out.  “…because I don’t have any bullets.”  Her smile fades quickly and I leave the store, watching my back on the road for the next few miles for police cars looking for a homicide-crazed lunatic on a motorbike.

I have similar results at the next few places I try, either they’re sold out or not open this early on a Sunday, and after running out of time, I head back to my mother’s house to help move furniture, which is like eating a big plate of glass shards for breakfast.

Later in the day I called what was going to be my “last resort” before being forced to pay for rounds at the gun show.  I used to work for the Kittery Trading Post, an Outdoor Outfitter in Southern Maine that I’m somewhat persona-non-grata with due to an incident in their parking lot that involved myself, a stalker, and the Kittery Police Department over two years ago.  They have a huge firearms selection, dedicating their entire second floor to just guns.  If they didn’t have ammunition I could buy, no one in Southern Maine would.

I called and after being batted around from associate to associate for ten minutes, I finally got a hold of someone on the gun floor.

“Hey, I’m trying to find 9mms, you guys got any in stock?”

“No, all we got on hand right now are .41 magnums and .22s, we can’t keep anything in stock for more than a day,” the associate said into the phone.  “Once word gets out, we get nailed.  We had a shipment of ammo on Friday and we were just about sold out last night.  You’re best bet is online,”

In the end, I went back to the gun show and bought an overpriced box of 9mms, but only because I didn’t want to travel without a loaded gun.  And to add another element of horror to my story, I thought the ammo-epidemic was contained in Maine and other-like minded ignorant locales.  No.  It’s not. 

When I we finally got back to The Hook, I logged on to a few different sites that specialize in “hunting accessories” to see if I could purchase ammunition in bulk, only falling into my fellow statesmen’s hysteria half way, more concerned that the ammo crunch will continue to make getting rounds in the future difficult.  Three of the four sites I visited had handgun ammo on backorder, and another had some available, but it wasn’t anything special, just Full Metal Jacketed bullets at 115 grain.

So in the end, what does this mean?  It means I’m going to call Charles Schwab later today and buy stock in Winchester, American Federal, and UCM.

Dispatch: Rochester, NH

This is a real place in Rochester.

Rochester is the scraped knee of New Hampshire.

Sitting next to the boarder between Maine and New Hampshire, Rochester, population 31K as of 2009, is a sizable town in the southern Seacoast section of the oblong state, one of the few towns that can claim it has a "share" of the Atlantic, tho the town itself is landlocked with the exception of a few dirty rivers that feed thru it.

No, Rochester exists for the shear reason that raccoon shit exists, because it has to; no rhyme, no reason, it's just simply there.

Nestled at the foot of the White Mountains and at the very most southern tip of Lake Winnepasaki, Rochester is the gateway for summer vacationers on their way to kinder trappings northbound.  The town is simply a pit-stop; to refresh ice, to get a soda or boat fuel, someplace no one wants to spend very much time at all, if they have nicer places to be.

From the outskirts, pick a hill (there's a ton) and look at the farm land the makes up a patchwork of properties surrounding the town proper.  Still, centuries later, property lines are forged with knee-high stone walls, set in perfect squares.  Old farm houses, likely passed down from generations of patriots who hiked to Lexington or Concord or Bunker Hill, still stand on this property, slowly sinking into the dirt like an old war matron too proud to die.  Along side these sagging old buildings, the occasional abrasive ranch home, newer, single-story, plastic siding, cutesy-driveway, jarring to the landscape like a bar room sucker punch to the base of the skull.

The roads from these plots, towards town, are lined with the occasional discarded Miller Lite can, half crumpled, faded with age.  A mailbox hangs by a bent rusty nail to a rotted post, the name of it's owner half missing.

The town itself, what most would consider "downtown" is like any you would find in middle America.  Pizza places, Subways, tire stores, gold and pawn brokers, gas stations, and a bar about every fifth step.  With St. Patrick's Day looming, the proprietors shamelessly post signs with overflowing flagons and leprechauns on every window of their establishments.  It's almost overkill; like the extra kick sent to a disobedient puppy.

Rochester is a town that Republican Ideals long forgot: the average age of someone pushing a baby stroller is around 22, tho they look older, mid 30s with a lot of road wear.  Both sexes exhibit facial, neck and hand tattoos, smoke cigarettes precariously close to infants and share a 40+ inch waste line.  If one were to guess, the chief export of Rochester is violent domestic assaults, bad parenting and lung cancer.

On a nearby tv, the local news runs a story about a Rochester couple being brought to court on charges of Gross Child Abuse, the facts of the case state that the live-in boyfriend beat his girlfiend's 3 year old son with a belt for pissing his pants.

It all seems to fit; Rochester seems like the type of town in which a kid would get beat with a belt.

Out front of the Cumberland Farms off of Main Street, a gas station and convenience store, Police Officer Ted Ramsey props himself up against his cruiser.  Like all cops, he's wearing a cocksure smirk under his mustache as he balances his store-brand cup of coffee between his thumb and forefinger.

"Pharmacies, that's our biggest problem," he remarks while peeling back the tab on his plastic coffee lid.  And it's no wonder, there seems to be as many pharmacies, be it a Wal-Greens or a local Mom&Pop, as bars in Rochester.  These pharmacies, says Officer Ramsey, stay open late, which to the mildly afflicted tweeker, must look like glowing hot lust at midnight.

As if one queue, a spidery-looking, face-scratching twenty-something crab-walks out of the convenience store clutching an energy drink, eying the cop like a wary Hyena stalking a fresh kill.  Officer Ramsey returns the gaze, a silent match of witlessness, before he carries on.

"It's all we can do to keep up," he carries on about the pharmacies like a poorly written script for a bad tv cop drama, "they push, and we push back, and they push back even harder, so..." he trails off, either pausing for effect for just losing his train of thought.  He comes back after a second of staring off into space.  "I've been working here for two years, and you know, there's good people here, really.  They live here, just, all you ever hear about is the bad ones," and with a sense of finality in his statement, he leaves it at that.

Inside the store, the employee behind the counter, a skinny twenty something with bad skin named Dave, has a different take.

"This place sucks, man.  I'm getting out of here as soon as I can," but when that is, who knows, surely not Dave, who has a pregnant girlfriend who doesn't work.  When asked if he's ever been robbed or a victim of violence on the job, he laughs a little and shakes his head.

"Not me, but it's only a matter of time.  I only started working here a month ago, but I hear stories from the other employees.  I actually have my first night shift alone this weekend.  Can't wait." he deadpans before ringing up a customer who's buying at least $60 dollars in scratch tickets, beer and cigarettes.

The local library has been in Rochester for just over 100 years, and is attached to the town hall.  According to the librarian on duty, a forty-ish woman named Mary who's been working in the Rochester Stacks for close to 15 years, the library pretty much is the de-facto Blockbuster for the community.

"We loan out more movies than anything else," she starts as she flips thru a sort of record keeping book that looks a lot like a grade book elementary teachers keep in their desks.  "But of course, we don't get a lot of them back," her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, "I think they get sold or traded for drugs," and she doesn't look up, but looks down at an empty space on her desk. 

As of right now, she says, there are 30 dvds out, but she estimates that only half will make it back in.  And what's the use of late fees or banning of memberships if the culprits never come back in the first place?

"If it gets to a certain point, we'll make it a police matter," but she goes on to say that she doesn't think the local police department gives stolen library merchandise a high priority, especially if there's multiple culprits.

The library went on the offensive in a way, by limiting the number of DVDs a member can take out, from three, to one at a time.  Still she says, it doesn't stop them from wandering off.

"And don't even get me started about the internet terminals," she abruptly turns the conversation and does exactly what she said she didn't want to get started with... "we find all sorts of ..." she pauses for the right word "smutty things, left on there."

She's never found anyone acting in a lewd manner, she's quick to add, which she's relieved.  She says that she wouldn't know what to do if she did tho.

"I'd probably ask them to leave," she blushes.

Upon wrapping things up, a man interrupts the conversation by placing a clear plastic DVD case down on the desk and waits for it to be checked back in, so he can presumably rent out another.  The title of the returned DVD is a "Veggietales" cartoon, a children's show that teaches children wholesome Christian values using CGI fruits and vegetables. 

The man's broad face and build exudes all the charm of a shotgun left on a get-a-way car's floor.

He wanders off, to the DVD section and Mary the Librarian waits a breath.

"That's Jason," she begins, her voice lower, "he runs the Youth Ministry over in Gonic," the next town over.  "He's in here all the time." 

She seems satisfied with sharing this information, as if it's vindication for the town's hard-scrabble way of life.