Notes from the Weekend (758 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.9 on 27 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <stpetersburgensis.at.gmail.com> (View user info) at 2008-07-09 07:22:18 EDT
Today I learned, via text message, that Conner had died this weekend.
I sent back, "OD? Or accident?"
"Nah, heartattack/ maybe stroke. Was supposedly clean for last 4 mos. G/f found him in bed sat a.m."
A funny thing- the orchid that he almost killed bloomed on Saturday morning. It almost couldn't open on its own; I had to squeeze two of the petals to get them to separate. There was only one flower on a plant that should have held twenty or thirty blooms. Oh well. Conner was like that.
Man. Conner.
That wasn't always his name, it used to be Connor. Two O's. But he started telling everyone that his name should be spelled like that, that it suited him, and he changed it when he was 19. And he did it in his own Conner way, too. He told the lady at the DMV that he had just moved and needed a new license. And oh, by the way, could she possibly change the typo on his first name? The clerk must have made a mistake when he was first issued his license. Thank you so much. After that, every job application, personal check, and now Certificate of Death read "Conner".
I can't say that I liked him. I've been fishing with him, I've been drunk with him, and once I got stoned with him. We've worked similar jobs in most of the same places, and so we know each other. But he was not my friend. I remember that he once pissed in my Gatorade, or at least said that he did. Either way, I dumped it out and made him aware that I was not the kind of person who found humor in that particular joke.
That's not to say that he was entirely a bad guy. He could be personable, friendly, fun-loving.
But about the time he decided to really take an interest in painkillers as a part-time hobby, he also bought a scooter. And shortly after washing down a healthy dose of opiates with an even healthier dose of booze, he crashed face-first into a large, solid object at rest. Conner didn't much take to the idea of helmet safety. Hence, the facial reconstruction and long-term nerve damage left him in a lot of pain.
That's when Conner took up painkillers as a viable full-time and long-term option. It was during this episode, the last two years or so (supposedly excluding the last 4 months), that he started stealing. According to him, anything could be sold on eBay. The most notorious idea had him stealing stainless steel boat propellers. The plan was to slip up to private docks at night with a canoe and an electric motor, wrench off the prop, and slide down to the next dock.
He could make thousands in a night, he said.
At the first dock the boat's owner woke up and shot a hole in his canoe. A lucky miss.
Then came the orchids. I don't even remember how it came up, but Conner found out that I grow orchids. He was making fun of me until I said that a certain species grew wild in a nearby park, and that some orchids could be worth some money. I wasn't thinking. It didn't occur to me that he could have any interest in flowers.
"What about the wild ones? How much can you sell them for?"
I told him that native orchids are illegal to collect in the state of Florida, that no one would buy his illegal plants, that he couldn't expect retail prices even if he found a buyer. Only a really large, old plant could be worth any real money. And they grow up high in the trees. It would never be worth it. If he really thought that he could pull it off, I told him, please leave the few plants in the park. I knew a place across the Skyway Bridge where there were tons of them. Every tree has orchids. You just need to wear long jeans, because there's a lot of saw palmetto. He agreed, or seemed to.
Six weeks later, about the earliest time of year that they might be blooming, I walked through the park looking for flowers or buds. Out of more than a dozen plants that had once grown in the oaks and cedars, I found four. All of the biggest orchids were gone, with scars on the bark where they had been torn off. Then, at the base of a cedar, I found one small plant that had been torn off. Its roots had been shredded, and he had thrown it on the ground where it would die.
I tied it back onto a low limb with fishing line, with a pad of wadded palm fiber for backing. Since I work next door to the park, I stopped by a few times a week to water and feed it when the rain wouldn't suffice. Slowly its roots came back, and it even put out new shoots.
I ran into Conner at my work one day after that. He was loopy on something, and I asked him about the plants. He said that they all bloomed right after he poached them. Everybody thought they were interesting, but nobody wanted to buy. He sold one plant, the big one from the bent oak tree, for thirty bucks to his aunt. The rest, he said, just kind of turned yellow and then brown.
"But man, you shoulda seen me when I picked that huge one from outta that tree!" he whooped. "What a dumbass!"
"That thing had carpenter ants nestin' all up in and under it, and they started crawlin' up my arms soon as I tore it loose. I wasn't about to let it go, but those ants were makin' me crazy and I fell right outta that tree flat on my back. Musta been twelve, fifteen feet. Shit."
This year, the summer rains came late and so did the yearly bloom. The few plants left in the park put out flower spikes and buds, but the injured plant did not. It wasn't until the others had bloomed and died off that the smaller orchid put out one little spike. It grew short and crooked, and held one bud.
And on Saturday morning, Conner's girlfriend woke up on the couch, went to rouse him from bed, and found him dead from "heartattack/ maybe stroke" (supposedly clean for last 4 mos.) On Saturday morning the orchid flower opened. It had five yellow petals and one larger white one. There was a magenta stain spilled on that white lip, right in the middle.
It's not until someone is gone that we realize all of the things we meant to say. Conner, man, I never got a chance to tell you what an asshole you could be sometimes. I wish I had taken the time to tell you that more often.
I really do hope you get to rest in peace, because you never had any when you were living.
User Reviews
Submitted by loopdeloo (user info) at 2008-08-15 15:55:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Please tell me where to find the orchids I live in the St. Pete area and would like to take some pictures of them. I promise I won't pick them.
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-07-12 15:11:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2008-07-12 13:20:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
yeah, im with apollo. this was all really nice and authentic and then you ended with a cliche. beautifully written, though. it makes me wish i had never known him.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2008-07-12 13:13:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I remember that he once pissed in my Gatorade, or at least said that he did. Either way, I dumped it out and made him aware that I was not the kind of person who found humor in that particular joke.
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my roommate just had that happen to him. he didnt notice anything strange when his Cherry gatorade was greenish yellow. he didnt notice the stink. he noticed the taste. and then he brushed his teeth and laughed about it because he isnt a bitch, like some.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-07-12 12:48:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
remove the last line.
this was ace.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2008-07-12 08:49:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-07-11 10:42:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by kgbpasha (user info) at 2008-07-09 16:39:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2008-07-09 15:18:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2008-07-09 14:52:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wonderfully written.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2008-07-09 14:51:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
well done
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2008-07-09 14:39:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
REBEL!!!
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V
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2008-07-09 14:16:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Worth reading.
Submitted by Adamdidit2u (user info) at 2008-07-09 14:06:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 Neighbor.
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-07-09 13:53:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2008-07-09 13:31:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked the closing line.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2008-07-09 13:05:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hoo fah
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-07-09 12:52:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My eye hurts.
This was good.
My eye REALLY hurts.
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2008-07-09 12:31:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2008-07-09 12:15:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
fantastic
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-07-09 11:28:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Indeed.
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-07-09 10:55:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was very fucking good.
Well written and good content.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-07-09 10:07:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i enjoyed this quite a lot.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-07-09 08:35:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yay for botany!
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2008-07-09 07:46:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-07-09 07:34:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Homer: Dig him up!!! Dig up that corpse! If you really love
Jebediah Springfield, you'll haul his bones out of the ground
to prove my daughter wrong! Dig up his grave! Pull out his
tongue!
Quimby: Can't we have one meeting that doesn't end with us digging up
a corpse?
Lisa the Iconoclast
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love when the Simpsons quotes work out this way.
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2008-07-09 07:32:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was a good read.
But you do know that flowers are ghey, right?