I am floating in a pool chatting with a woman from South America. This hostel provides a surprisingly affordable rock star atmosphere. She tells me about the clubs she and her friends went to the night before and the drugs they took. I tell her about the comedy show I did. We both do our best to impress the other but we make the assumption that what impresses the other is what would impress us. This would prove that old adage about assumptions making an ass out of you true. But how was she to know I’m not a fan of drugs? I mean I am staying at a hostel in New Orleans and floating in a pool with shades on. And how I could possibly know she would not be into long form improvisational comedy? I mean she is a human being with eyes and ears after all. We float away from each other. 

Josh and I have to be out of the hostel at 11, but our train doesn’t depart until 2:00pm so we head downtown for breakfast with the entirety of our belongings in tow. Josh has a spring in his step. I am happy for him. Because of our luggage, and perhaps because of Josh’s satisfied gait, we are mistaken for a rock band. This is almost as funny to me as Josh being mistaken for a teenager’s mom. While there are a surprising number of rock star components to this trip, the only rocking I’m doing is in a chair to nod off.

Both our Lyft drivers from the hostel to downtown and from downtown to the train station tell us roughly the same general story. They both left New Orleans but then came back. When I tell the second driver that the first driver told us something similar. He says “everyone tries to leave New Orleans, but no one does.” At first I think he must be right, but then realize that he is using my sample size to prove his point. He says "shit everywhere is fucked, might as well be in New Orleans." This I know is at least half true. He says of New Orleans “the good is really good, and the bad is really bad.” I tell him I have said the same thing about L.A. I like this man because we think alike and because his not being all in on New Orleans makes him seem trustworthy. That therefore makes me trustworthy because we define ourselves in relation to others. He’s not painting with broad strokes to build his identity. He’s offering a picture that has some detail. But I suppose that is also a choice. We’re all using our own paints to craft up our vision of the world. It’s the same thing with rock stars. Confident drug use, leather jackets and care-free sex? Seems a little phony to me. But admit you felt silly crying on an airplane watching Halt and Catch Fire, and the next round is on me friend. 

Back on the train, the scenery draws me in. We are on it from 1:30pm to 9:30am the next day. Josh takes up conversation with a funeral director. I admire his effortless friendliness. I look over occasionally but am not interested in talking with someone for an undetermined amount of time. But then Josh steps outside during a pitstop, and this man likes to chat, so he starts telling me about the state capital building of Mississippi. Presumably because it is just outside our train window. “Of all the state capital buildings, it looks most like the nation’s capital,” he tells me. This man is not from Mississippi, and so I ask how he knows this. “I look up a lot of stuff.” So do I, I think, but it’s either quickly forgotten or not something you tell a stranger on a train. “Did you know that in the early season of Entourage, Dana Gordon had a husband and kids, but then they dropped that so they could write the love storyline between her and Ari? Where are you going? I’ve got some interesting facts about the filming of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.” 

We pass by a water tower and I seize my opportunity. Any time I take a road trip, I pass by a water tower and I’m reminded I have no idea how they work or what they work for. I’ve look it up but like I said, I forget. So I see a big ol’ tower and based on what this guy has taught me so far, I know I can ask him about this and he will be excited to tell me, and I will be excited to not have to think about making a normal impression. He explains that the water tower has a well underneath it and the water is pumped up. I am satisfied with this answer and the man is satisfied with the question. I am making all sorts of friends today. When we talk about his occupation, he says “I never say sorry for people’s loss because it’s disingenuous.” This resonates with me and I decide to adopt this principle immediately. I mean who would be more of an expert on condolences and grief than an actual death dealer. Moving forward from here, I now search for other ways to convey my sympathy when someone is in the fog of loss. This man changed my life in a small but not insignificant way. We return to our respective books, occasionally looking out the window together. Later the man gets a call from his wife who updates him on the “parking lot fiasco.” He tells Josh and I that his funeral home is across the street from two businesses, a craft store and a dentistry, and that they share a parking lot. There is an obvious disagreement about how the parking spaces should be arranged as one morning there are lines painted diagonally and the next morning someone else is out there painting them vertically. He tells us that for weeks, the two businesses have been going back and forth. The crafts people will stay late and paint the lines the way they want, and then in the morning, the dentist will arrive early and paint the lines back the way he wants. I’m stunned. I cannot comprehend caring about anything that much. The only thing I am that passionate about is not doing work. I would stay as late as I had to if it meant doing nothing. Everything else is abandonable. 

I call my dad because it’s Father’s Day. On the ever growing list of conversations between us, this one ranks in the top 3 for all-time pleasantness. Normally talking with my dad is hard. This is because he does not talk to many people, but he has things to say, and these things build up like a dam. They sit in his head until he can open the flood gates, and I am like Noah, trying to preserve two-by-two my little thoughts and feelings before they are drowned in a sea of radical opinions on capitalism, tv show pitches, his third self-published novel, and his newfound support for Donald Trump. But this conversation sidesteps all of that because my Grandpa is dead and we are both starving for connection with someone who has known us our whole lives and the small collection of people that includes just got significantly smaller. On the scale of loss, losing my Grandpa weighs in at a metric ton, and it sits upon my back, held there by a frayed strap connected to my heart, and with every step I feel it pulling, leaning, teetering on the edge, a whisker away from slipping off and crushing me. When I talk to my Dad I can hear in his voice he carries the same weight, although I’m sure it’s shape and density differs. I do not tell him that I am sorry for his loss or for mine. I tell him that I love him and that I am grateful we can be here for each other as we experience for the first time in both our lifetimes a Fathers Day without Nicholas Jabbour. 

When we were cleaning out my Grandpa’s apartment, I claimed his answering machine because his outgoing message was him singing, and I wanted to preserve it, perhaps repurpose it as my own. When I hit play, there recorded on the machine was a message from me wishing him a Happy Fathers Day, unaware that he was in the hospital at the time, and even more unaware that he would be dead in four months. Fathers Day and Mothers Day do as much to make me think about all the people without parents as they do to make me think about appreciating my own. At some point everyone stops calling their parents on the corresponding holiday. You can choose to call your mom and dad year after year, until one year you don’t get to choose. This was the year the choice was made for my Dad. And that must be unspeakably hard. I used to make calls to three men, and then two, and now just one. And one day I won’t make any. And unless I have a profound change in life philosophy, the phone will never ring for me. 

I have been relatively fortunate in my life with regard to loss. Mine came all at once, and it was relatively tame. My roommate of eight years moved out. It was somewhat short notice, but to be fair, after eight years, no amount of heads up seems enough. Far from devastating, but still I stood still while my friend disappeared into the distance. Then my Grandpa died. This gutted me. Lastly, my girlfriend and I broke up because I can’t stand the thought of creating the potential for more loss. I can’t understand how anyone gets through life without abandonment issues. But they must right? Otherwise abandonment issues wouldn’t be a thing. It would just be part of the package. It’s not like some people have thirst issues. We all feel thirsty. But we don’t all feel left. This Father’s Day etches itself in my brain one window pane of scenery at a time until it is too dark to see outside. It’s night now, and it’s interesting that everyone sleeps on the train at night. Even though that makes total sense there’s still a little nonsense in it. Of all the things we do differently, we pretty much all go to sleep when the sun goes down. Even bad guys, assholes, basketball stars, and brilliant scientists usually go to bed when it’s dark out. Sure we all pull all-nighters sometimes and there are some night owls, but on the train, when the sun sets, the train policy is it’s quiet, and when it’s quiet and the lights are off, people sleep. I know it’s biological, but that becomes less and less of a reason to do things these days. I think in this case, it’s more social contract than natural tendency. But I don’t sleep. I can’t right now. While others sleep, I leave. The train allows me to perpetually leave. I am a fugitive. Abandonment is the U.S. Marshall, my Tommy Lee Jones, and he is after me so that he can catch me, lock me up, throw away the key and leave me in a hole. But if I flee, I’m safe. If I’m on the lamb, then there’s no me to leave right? I’m leaving the capital of Mississippi, and the swamps of Louisiana, and vinyls in Austin, and airports in San Antonio, and swollen eyes in Phoenix. But I can’t seem to leave this grief. It’s hanging on for (my) dear life. And it’s claws are buried deep in me, keeping me up while the rest of the train sleeps. It’s broke the skin, and I cry looking out the window thinking about how much my Grandpa would want to hear about this trip, and how I will never get to tell him about it. And how loved I felt knowing there was someone out there interested in my life and thinking of me. And how now there is one less person out there like that. And I guess that’s maybe why calling my Dad was so nice. He, for the first time that I can appreciate (I’m sure he did it plenty times before), was just on the phone asking me questions and pouring his heart into supporting me and that filled me with the kind of love I know only a good dad can provide. You see, I don’t think being a dad would be the hard part. I think being a dad and being something else would be the challenge. To be a dad and a good employee, or good boss or good teacher or good stranger or good friend, that would be hard on top of what it takes to be a good dad. I know people who do it, and I am in awe of them, but it doesn’t mean I could. I will likely never know. And so I’m going to bed. Goodnight Dads. You’re doing a lot of work and not always to a high standard, but that’s not all on you. We live in a time where the demand is more than one person can provide. So you’re doing your best and I appreciate it. Happy Father’s Day.