A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir

by Lev Golinkin

  By the time Pete’s finished with me I feel like Benedict Arnold, Simon Legree, and Richard Nixon all rolled into one. Without delay I lug my bags to his apartment, and we take the fateful walk to Mary Ann’s, the mother of all Boston dive bars. The place squats next to a tram station. It’s small, brick, and brown, with a green-and-yellow sign and a side yard littered with abandoned keg carcasses. It looks like it was originally a cheap build-it-yourself fallout shelter and now, with the nuclear race over, someone slapped a sign on it and opened for business. We arrive five minutes before midnight and loiter outside while I have a cigarette and listen to Pete regale me with stories of the joint. It turns out Mary Ann’s is a perpetual contender for the coveted Worst Bar in Boston award. Pint glasses are neither washed nor rinsed, but dipped into a sink with soapy water, then into another sink with tepid water, and then deemed ready for refills. Practices like that have caused some misguided BC students to select more reputable establishments for their birthdays, but the stalwarts, Pete assures me, true maroon-and-gold, retch at Mary Ann’s on their twenty-first. I am pumped up. I feel honored to partake in this venerated, albeit blurry rite of passage and tread on an entire generation of alumni puke stains. Off in the distance, a church clock strikes twelve and Pete smiles and holds open the padded black door as the last few strains of “Tiny Dancer” escape into the night.

  Saturday Evening

  I wake up around 6:00 p.m. I am miserable and achy. I reek of vomit. I’m supposed to meet my Habitat group in two hours, which means that I should probably take a shower, but I’m also extremely nervous about getting into a van with twelve strangers and trudging down to spend a week in Georgia, so I do nothing. And the worst part is, my stupid birthday locked me into going on this trip: all Appalachia drivers have to be covered by Boston College’s insurance policy, which only applies to those ages twenty-one and up. If I back out I’ll be screwing the group. I lie on Pete’s couch in my grimy blue sweatshirt and search for some magical way to elude this trip. I bargain with the universe. I promise the universe that if I get a pass on this, I’ll devote my spring break to building something here, in wonderful, safe Boston. Of course I can’t manage a house by myself, but I can probably recruit Pete to assist me with something smaller, like a doghouse for a homeless dog. That has to count for something.

  The universe doesn’t budge. Homeless dogs in the greater Boston area aren’t high on the universe’s agenda. I’ve really fucked myself on this one. Throughout my three semesters at BC I’ve exerted great care to keep my shit nice and delineated. I’m no longer 32 Winchester Drive, East Windsor, New Jersey. I’m 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. I’ve already severed contact with people from high school, and I barely leave Boston, returning to Jersey only for winter break, when the campus shuts down. Mom and Dad require daily schoolwork updates, and I talk to them (in Russian and out of earshot of my roommates), but as long as the A’s keep coming they’re satisfied. I don’t have a girlfriend, and if a girl likes me, I make sure to get out of the situation. Girlfriends come with questions, and besides, I don’t want to be with anyone who’d want to date a zhid. I study, but don’t live with my classmates; I live, but don’t hang out with my roommates, and the people I hang out with, like Pete, are potheads whose activities are centered around a black light, a joint, and Phish on the stereo. Potheads are safe—chip in for your share, lie back on the couch, and don’t worry about dealing with inquiries about what you are and where you’re from. I do what I can; I delineate and run.

  Initially, I signed up for Appalachia Volunteers because I liked the idea of showing up to an empty work site and leaving a framed house a week later: I’ve been investing myself in purely figurative things like GPAs and test scores, and it’d be nice to get something tangible done for a change. But as the trip drew closer, it dawned on me that building a house involved spending a week with twelve do-gooder strangers who give big, sweaty hugs and want to get to know you, and it scares me out of my freaking mind, and I’m reduced to cursing the urge to play construction worker that made me sign up for Appalachia in the first place.

  “What’s your problem?” Pete interrupts my pouting. “You’re about to have a great time and meet lots of interesting people!”

  I gape in disbelief. You’ll have a great time, You’ll meet lots of interesting people, and You’ll get more out of it than you put in are the three clichés of Appalachia Volunteers, which ring through the campus during orientation and after spring break. People sign up for fun, community service, résumé building, but everyone, from the altruistic to the career-minded, is drawn in by the three magnetic slogans that have transformed Appalachia into the biggest club on campus and the largest volunteer spring break program in the nation. Pete’s never gone on a service trip—none of my friends have—but that doesn’t matter, because with 540 people participating every year, the sayings worm themselves into the brain of every BC student. Forever.

  “Are you gonna tell me I’m going to get more out of it than I put in? That is pathetic.”

  Pete’s attempts at encouragement have failed, but the blond, ruddy-faced man doesn’t give up. He gets his first-aid kit and rolls a very fat joint, crushing up a codeine pill and sprinkling the powder over the weed. “We’re going to smoke this; it’ll help you relax, and you’ll be all set for the trip.”

  I vaguely recall signing a No drugs or alcohol pledge for Appalachia, but as Pete points out, the trip hasn’t started yet. Plus, Appalachia Volunteers operates under the aegis of BC’s Campus Ministry and Pete’s a theology major, which somehow makes it okay. We smoke the whole thing.

  Pete’s plan has worked in the sense that while still terrified, I no longer possess the ability to articulate my emotions. Pete packs me a Gatorade and walks me to the T, the tram that returns me to campus. As the tram pulls away he gives me an encouraging wave, like a proud mother on the first day of school. I never wind up showering.*

  A lonely van waits under a lonely lamppost by the main church at the edge of the campus. With each step the ground feels like it’s situated a few inches above or below where it’s supposed to be. I try to adjust my walking, but whoever’s in charge of the ground elevation continues to mess with it as well, and progress is slow. The van’s loaded and there are people milling about in the yellow haze. Some are hugging. We’ve accomplished nothing, we haven’t built so much as a Popsicle house, and they’re already hugging.

  I climb into the very back. My limbs are contorted into unnatural positions. A fifteen-passenger van is designed for fifteen people to sit in uncomfortably; we have just crammed in thirteen people along with a week’s luggage and sleeping bags. Trapped in the back bench with me are some guy with a hammy face and a girl who thinks she’s better than everyone else.

  Five minutes into the ride I discover that I’ve been sitting on an overripe banana Stuck-Up Girl brought along with her. The banana mush has already colonized the seat of my jeans and is rapidly soaking through the boxers. I hate Stuck-Up Girl. My only consolation is the nauseating smell emanating from my sweatshirt; I’ve already caught her suppressing a gag. We merge onto the Massachusetts Turnpike and someone cranks up the radio, just in time for the chorus to “You Give Love a Bad Name.”

  The van’s only speaker is mounted in the rear of the cabin. I know that because my head has been resting on it. My brain explodes. “Shhmaaa … eeeeeehhhhhh,” I attempt to plead for a lower volume but the codeine is inhibiting the formation of complete sentences, leaving me in some cheap, sticky hell with a Bon Jovi soundtrack.

  Location: Uncertain

  Date: Uncertain

  Where am I and why do I smell like bananas? is the first clear thought to congeal in my mind. All I know is that I’m standing, it is day, it is overcast, and there’s a gray granite wall inches away from my face. I tilt my head to follow the wall as it soars up and up and up, leaving me dizzy and losing itself at an apex somewhere in the clouds. I stagger backward from the monstrosity; around me
I hear cloth flapping on wind, and the wall morphs into a giant stone obelisk encircled by American flags. There’s nothing else around—no people, no cars, not even a bird—it’s like a crappy post-apocalyptic movie. I manage an awkward U-turn and spy the van parked along a faraway curb, the group lined up in front. They must’ve survived the apocalypse. Part of me is a little relieved. Part of me is very disappointed.

  It is 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, I’m in front of the Washington Monument, and my entire ass and the backs of my legs are plastered with a thick crust of dried banana mush. The wind changes and I get a good whiff of myself. I reek of weed, and puke, and bananas. For some reason it’s the last smell that concerns me; I don’t want to smell like bananas. I am sad. I look around for a hose.

  There is no hose. I am indignant. I don’t understand why the government can’t maintain basic amenities near a beloved national landmark. One of the trip leaders, Seth, approaches me. He’s wearing a shit-eating grin, has a bottle of water in one hand and a coffee in the other, and he can’t stop smiling. “You, sir, look like you’ve had a fantastic birthday.”

  “Thenk yehhh,” I croak as Seth hands me the water and briefs me on the past eight hours. It turns out I had remained staunchly motionless during the night’s ride to D.C. When the group pulled into town to grab breakfast, they voted to let me sleep off the coma. Upon their return they discovered the van empty and me trying to stare down the Washington Monument.

  Seth orients me toward the van and hands me the keys, since the only other driver has already logged in nine hours and the rest is up to me. I hate it when people touch me. “Wonderful birthday … what a fantastic, wonderful birthday,” Seth wistfully sighs. I jump the curb, the van erupts in a hurried clicking of seat belts, and nine hours later we arrive in Eastman, Georgia.

  * * *

  Eastman, Georgia, is a town where southern stereotypes come to life. It boasts a Main Street with a small diner that serves coffee, grits, and corn bread (I’m still not sure what grits are, save that they have the taste and texture of soggy paper). It has a Walmart. People in the Walmart, employees and shoppers alike, immediately notice that we’re from out of town and refuse to release us until they’re convinced we’ve been fed and have a place to stay. On the way back to the van I see a pickup truck with a ratty Confederate flag tied to the antenna and a revolver strapped to the back of the driver’s seat headrest. Up north this would’ve been alarming, but here it’s authentic. In fact, I would’ve been disappointed if the truck wasn’t equipped with a Confederate flag and a revolver.

  A rickety railroad track slices through Eastman. On one side of the tracks is an enclave of large mansions, descendants of the old plantations, inhabited by wealthy white people, some of them descendants of the old plantation owners. Immediately on the other side of the tracks is an overgrown field strewn with rusty propane tanks. Black children play hide-and-seek among the tanks. Beyond the field is a collection of dilapidated shacks. There are lots of moldy beams and crumbling cinder blocks. Some appear to serve a purpose but others simply jut out of the ground, as if they had supported something at some point but now that something isn’t there. Everything leans everywhere, and the walls are riddled with holes big enough to see through one shack to the shack behind it. Except for the beams and cinder blocks, the whole neighborhood has no infrastructure. It feels like a strong gust of wind is all it would take to send the whole thing back to the trash heap from which it came.

  We don’t see many inhabitants during our tour of the shacks. The ones we do see are black. We look at them. They do not look at us.

  Monday afternoon, and I’m hammering together a house frame in a lot across the tracks from the field with the propane tanks. The first problem is that I’m awful at hammering. Compounding this is the fact that Habitat for Humanity of Dodge County, Georgia, must’ve gotten a hell of a bargain on three-million-year-old petrified wood. The fucking wood is rock solid. It belongs in a natural history museum, not a work site. The nails refuse to go in. I’m inching along at a half-hour-a-nail pace and find myself thinking of Sisyphus and the starting roster of the 0–14 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The sweat’s dripping from my face, my wrists throb, I alternate arms because both hurt, and I’m getting infuriated.

  The nail bends. Apparently, giant four-inch metal nails can do that—I had no idea. It folds and I pull it out, painstakingly tap it back into shape, focus my anger, slam down the hammer, and again it bends. I’ve curved this nail into fifty unique and grotesque positions, but it won’t go in. I am angry beyond belief, and I hate my life, I hate how I look, how I am, how my body looks, how my body hurts, and I hate how everyone around me hates me, and I hate them right back for it. I am validated by achievement, and right now my entire self-worth is hanging on a fucking nail that refuses to go into a piece of petrified wood, and I can’t do anything about it and I can’t stop and I can’t fail and I’m nothing and my arms are so drained that I can’t even grasp the hammer, and I hate how weak I am and I try to rest as little as possible until I can—

  “Hey.”

  The girl is Katie, she’s the other trip leader, and she is looking me over because I’m clearly not going fast enough for her.

  “You want some water?”

  I hit her with the I’m from New Jersey stare, through her burning red hair and green Scranton University sweatshirt, rumpled from hugging and hammering. That’s the best way to do it: you focus on a spot a little bit behind the person. It makes them feel transparent, brings them to your level, where you’re comfortable.

  “You want some water?”

  I push out with my eyes, through her invisible body, willing her to back off, but the insult doesn’t come. What’s more concerning is that the stare doesn’t do shit. Usually people back down; sometimes they start a confrontation. This girl doesn’t react. I pry out the nail. This time it’s bent into a cursive Z. The head’s squished into itself and the rest is a wicked curve. I don’t know what to do so I hand it to her.

  “Z.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Z. It looks like a cursive Z.”

  “It kinda does.” She smiles, cocks her arm, and chucks my nemesis into the weeds. “I think it’s time for that nail to retire.”

  “Can you do that?” The option never crossed my mind. My plan was to hammer, and hammer, and hammer. Until kingdom comes.

  “Yeah, you can,” Katie says, and I drink her water, and it feels good, and two little streams dribble out the corners of my mouth, making me realize that I am smiling.

  As I walk over to the equipment truck for more nails, I spy a yellow drill. I covertly drill small holes all along the length of my section, where the nails are supposed to go, and sneak the drill back. The nails glide in—it’s like I’m hammering them into butter—and when a nail does bend, I toss it away. My body’s working and I leave it alone. The site echoes with the disjointed clank clank clank of fourteen hammers each going at its own pace, and I love that clanking. I think about nothing. I hammer and I’m at peace.

  It’s time for a coffee break and Wendell and I are perched on the rafters our group nailed up earlier this morning. Every day Wendell gets dropped off at the work site by an umarked white van, and picked up by an unmarked white van. The van comes from a halfway house where Wendell is undergoing rehab. He’s a court-mandated volunteer. It’s Wednesday morning, it’s sunny and the sky is really blue, and we chain-smoke cigarettes and sip southern sweet tea and look out over the field with the black kids and the propane tanks across the tracks from the site. Most of the group avoids Wendell, but I’m okay with him. We get along.

  Wendell starts talking about how he got to the halfway house. He got involved with the Ku Klux Klan, got hooked on meth, became a dealer, got arrested, went to prison, and lost custody of his son. His goal now is to clean himself up so he can hang out with his son and go to NASCAR races and play ball with him.

  Wendell is here because he has to be here. I don’t know why I am here. I’m n
ot an ex-Klansman, but I know what it’s like to blindly hate. I’ve never been to prison but I’m always on guard and don’t trust people, and from Wendell’s description, that sounds like a key element of prison life. I don’t have an overarching goal, but I desperately want to want something. It’d be nice to have a real goal.

  He tells me that he was recently transferred to the halfway house and is still orienting himself within the program. “What’s that like?” I ask.

  “You know what?” he drawls. “In prison, in rhehab, everyone tells you you gotta git God, or prayer, or whillpower … you can change the way you been raised, the way you thought all yer life—git yourself some whillpower and you’ll be rhight as a fucking June bug.”

  Wendell’s a big fan of his hs. It’s a bit charming, but I don’t think Wendell would appreciate being linked with the word, even in my inner monologue, so I once again resort to “authentic.”

  “But you eva drink a bottle of castor oil?”

  I shake my head. “I’m more of a Busch Light guy myself.”

  He spits and squints at the black kids racing around the propane tanks. “Whell, you want to find out about whillpower, try drinking a bottle of castor oil and whill yourself not to shit yer brains out. Whill all you want, pray all you want, it ain’t gonna do you a damn thing.