chapter 1:
an invitation
It starts on a wensday. on wensdays, my first class isnt til ten forty five. but claire, my partner-slash-babymama, or soon-to-be-babymama, she has to be to work at eight.
i usualy get up with claire and use the extra time to get shit done. but this particular morning, the moment she was out the door i was hit with the over welming urge to go back to bed.
the dream i had was one of those epic dreams, the kind that seems to take years and you wake up feeling like you had this whole other life. it was a great life, too, i wish i could remember it. i have a terrible memory. not just for dreams but for evrything. but for dreams especialy. all that i now had left of the dream was the feeling i woke up with. it was the feeling of fulfillment.
is that what we all want? tho we go after it, as william faulkner would say, in myriad ways?
it sure is what i wanted. i lay in bed for half an hour racking my brain, tryin to remember what it was about the dream that was so fulfilling.
Eventialy i got up.
it was too late for a shower so i went straight to breakfest. while i was waitin for my bagel to finish toasting, i bent down to tie my shoe. thats when i saw it, peekin out from under the island— a pale blue card, like the back of a bisness card.
now claire is a planner. and since we got pregnant, it has become part of the plan to keep the house clean. that means sweepin the kitchen evry night, including under the island, and i’m not makin fun, it only takes a couple minutes and youd be suprized how it shuts down the bugs. so it was unusual to see somethin like that on the floor. unusual enough for me pickitup, anyway.
what i found there changed my life. totally. completely. in ways that i couldnot even have imagined. and i’m not bein hyperbolic, youll see that soon enough.
At this point, two things happend in quick succession. the first was that i rememberd somethin from my dream. the name of a coffeeshop. Blue Sky.
the second thing was i flipt over the card and saw this—
as far as i can remember, i’d never been to a coffee-shop called blue sky, tho i have been known to forget things. still, your thinkin, all that means is somebody else went there and got a punchcard and dropt it on our floor, and i caught a glimpse of it las night and it slipt into my dreams.
But your wrong, for two reasons—
one, there was nobody who could have dropt it. it wasnt claire, i texted her but she’d never heard of blue sky, nor had she seen the card when we were cleanin up las night. and nobody else had been to our house in weeks exept the u-p-s guy and the fedex gal and one guy askin for a donation to his campain. and they didnt get past the door, seems we were well on our way to M’s prediction that the end of capitalism is the reduction of all human interaction to the exchange of comodities, it sounds depressing now but then it seemd perfectly natral, like M said, the fish dont see the water.
and two, blue sky coffee does not exist. not on the internets, anyway. if itd been around long enough to printup cards, youd think thered atleast be a review in yelp orwhatever. but no, all i could find was a blue sky coffee roasting company in hawaii, and a blue sky coffee that is actualy a weed shop in oakland.
So— how did the card get there? on the floor? in my dreams? good question, one i wanted to come back to but remember or maybe i havent told you yet, i teach english at a comunity college. i had a ten forty five and it was ten twenny four now and i still had half a bagel to eat. so i tuckt the card in my pocket, asuming i would forget about it for awhile, but that i would eventualy rediscover it, like a treasure, waiting for me— an invitation from beyond.
My asumption proved corect, altho not when i hoped it would happen, between classes or in my office, when i’d have time to think about it. no, i made it almost the entire day without giving it another thought. until...
let me set a scene here. fort worth comunity college. like college, but at a mall. featuring open enrollment.
if youv ever been to a college with open enrollment, you know that any class is bound to have at least a few crazy people in it. especialy if that class starts after five.
this is my five-thirty.
now i liked this class. they were legitimatly crazy. one of them was schizophrenic. he wrote about what it means, to be, an american, with commas scatterd librally, evrytime, no matter what the assignment. but he wasnt even there that day, dont worry about him.
today we were doing one a my favrite stories, a good man is hard to find by flannery o’connor. the one about the famly on their way to florida, they run their car into a ditch and endup gettin shot by this guy calld the misfit. and the reason that story is great, is the last line. here it is for refrence—
“Shut up, Bobby Lee,” The Misfit said. “It’s no real pleasure in life.”
thats it exacly, from the placement of the dialog tag down to the fussy capitalization of The in The Misfit.
i’ve taught that story to more classes than michael jackson had faces, all i hafta do in the way of class prep is open the book to make sure the line is still there.
it is.
i let them talk about whatever for a while. classes will talk about the most random shit, this one ranged from old folks homes to malcolm jamal-warner’s sweaters on the cosby show.
Eventualy they run out of stuff to say. at this point i would normaly ask a probing question. but for today’s lesson i let the silence continue.
a minute passes . . .
[ its longer than you think, in front of a class ]
just when they start to think maybe i’m havin myself a little freakout, i say, in a sinister southern drawl—
—shutup bobby lee. its no real pleasure in life.
say what you will about the iphone-texting-facebook- andwhatever generation, when it comes to memorizing litterture, they are easy to impress.
—thats what the misfit says, right? at the enda the story?
[ a few nodding heads ]
—its the last line, it must be important. . .
[ more nods ]
—now i dont usualy do this. but since yall didnt do all that great on your last paper— i know you can do better— i’m gona give you a chance to bring it up. bonus points, to anybody who can analyze the lastline. and remember, analysis means drawing your own conclusions, but based on evidence. and the evidence has to come from the story.
When an english teacher says somethin like this, they are usualy hoping for a certain answer. thats what i’d be doing if i knew the anser, but i didnt. i had some vague theories, somethin to do with K’s either/or, but you dont want me to go there right now. doesnt matter anyway, cause none of my theories were satisfying. i kept hoping someday one a my students would enlighten me. it had happend before, with prufrock.
two hands are up. i call on the closest.
—carmen.
—whens the rough draft due again?
—monday i think, altho i told yall i have a bad memry, did anybody write it down?
someone did, it was monday, we moved on.
—kevin.
—can we put the points on the nex paper if its worse than our last one?
—i dont care where you put em, just somebody say somethin intresting.
[ another hand, a smartass, you never know what youll get from a smartass ]
—garret.
—define intresting.
—smarter than me.
oh good, a new hand, the chick with the giant gold-cross necklace, she sits in the back lookin ofended if she comes at all, she’s got a lot goin on tho, two little kids and a full time job, or she had a ful time job until she got fired last week for bein crazy. this is not hearsay, she told me herself, she had a letter to that effect from a psychiatrist, whats her effin name? a sureptitious glance at my seating chart...
—april.
—i got somethin intresting.
—great, lets hear it.
—howmany points you say it was?
—i dont think i said. lets say five if its smart, ten if its brilliant.
—oh, its brilliant.
she lookd around to make sure she had an audience.
she did. they lissend to eachother, they were a good class.
—ok you remember how the one badguy was talkin to the other badguy after they shot that ollady? he was tryn ta be all hard, he said it was fun.
—bobby lee said that to the misfit—
—i’m gettin there, hang on. i gota get all my evidence.
—sorry april.
—thats alllll-right. so, but now, that ollady, the grand -mother... she thought the misfit was her baby, she was pretty crazy. but the misfit, he kinda liked her anyway. he only shotter cause she toldim the truth. thats why alota people get shot.
—so whats your analysis?
—do what?
—what conclusion have you drawn, about the misfits line?
—dont need a conclusion, he said what he said.
—yeah but wha does it mean?
—it means what it says, you read it. it aint—iznt— no pleasure in life.
means what it says. the one posibility i had not considerd. thats an english major for you.
My hands when i’m nervous i put em in my pockets. i did it right then, and felt the flimsy cardstock—
i didnt even hafta look at it for evrything to come back: the epic dream, the bluesky card, my fear that the misfit was right.
things were fallin off me, it felt like. i spose in a way they were. i felt light, or like i was filled with light. which was realy cool for about a second.
then it was terrifying.
my face went cold and tingly. then my neck, and my arms. my legs i wasnt in charge of anymore, my chest was gript with a fear i could not name, a physical terror—
or as morrissey would say, i swoond.
grabd the desk in time to keep from hittin the floor, but just barely. judgin by their faces i lookd like i’d seen a ghost, maybe i was the ghost.
nobody was gona say anything, tho. i was gona hafta say somethin.
so what i did was, i employd a phrase ive often heard in the movies and on t-v, but which i’d never found occasion to use personly, until today,
—class dismissed.
chapter 2:
evrything goes to hell
I havent said anything about my life before the bluesky dream, probly cause it wouldnt suprize you— shelterd childhood, college, books-drugs-mind-expansion. gradschool, partner, jobby job, child on the way. the last one is the only one that surprized me, altho not like your thinkin— that shit was pland— but in the way i bet it surprizes anybody when you first realize someones gona have you as a parent.
now claire— claires a difrent story. claire actually pulld herself up by her bootstraps, like hardly anyone does anymore. i dont wana give specifics cause it would embaress her, but let me paint you one picture,
Claire, fifteen years old, in a car with her guidance counselor—the only responsible adult within shouting distance of her life—on the way to a college interview. claire’s wearin a dress her counselor borrowd from his girlfriend because claire has not a dress to her name. the only reason she’s applied to college this young is that theres nobody else to take her, its college or the foster home. and what colleges has she applied to? why Smith, for one. youve heard of that one i bet. and she gets in! with a full scholarship! graduates at nineteen with honors, and i’m not talkin bullshit honors, i mean she was one of five girls a year pickd to do the honors thesis. hers was on lucian freud. i havent read it but its pretygood i bet. i dont know why i never thought to ask. so many things i should of done, but i just couldnt see it. its like K said i guess, you can look back at your life but you hafta live it forward—
now look at me, i’m craffin. which you dont know what that means yet but you will soon.
And just how, you may wonder, did claire end up with me? i askd myself that same question, nearly evry day i did, tho now i realize it wasnt all that productiv a question to ask. and when she answerd with a smile or homemade ravioli or a roll in the hay, i was so greatful it was all i could do to keep from prostrating myself. i did prostrate myself.
we met at a bar. an unlikely place for us to meet since i had quit drinking by then and claire hardly ever saw the inside of a bar [ there was no time! ] claire had just foundout that two of her paintings had been accepted to a juried show in newyork, in chelsea, which even i knew was a pretybig deal.
oh miss claire was tipsy, celebratin with her friends, baskin in the glow of etcetera—this is a great time to meet someone bytheway—and my soberass somehow ran into her, and when i foundout why she was celebrating, i started buyin her shotsa tequila [ read: two shots, claire was not the kindof girl you got wasted, even if you were the kinda guy who would do that, which i was not ]
I dont have the foggiest what we actualy said to each other—heaven forbid a poor sap who wants to be a writer have a memory for dialog— i just remember how claire kept blushing. and how amazing it felt to talk to her. amazing yall, you know what i’m talkin about. it was definately K’s aesthetic stage.
later that night, in bed [ i was alone, dont go gettin all excited ] i tried to think of the perfect word to describe her and came up with this one— bashful. if youv ever loved a beautiful woman who manages to be shy about it, you know what i mean. you feel lucky to be there, standing next to her fire, lucky to be alive.
how long does it last? its difrent for evryone i spose, but for me it tends to be about three months. i mean the falling part, the salad days. i wish i could say it was longer with claire. it was more intense, but it was still just three months. but with claire, there was one big difrence— the plan. so, when the going got tough, we did what they say to do in all those love songs—
hold on.
But where was i? class dismissd?
i didnt have to say it twice. the room emptied in less than a minute. they were realygood at leaving. they were little firemen, or firepeople.
i beat claire home as usual. she’d started workin til 7 lately, sometimes later, specialy with the way her boss was bein about the upcoming maternity leave. theres been some nasty bisness i wont go into except to tell you that on more days than not, claire comes home from work prety stressd out. its gotten so my chest instinctivly tightens when i hear this sequence of sounds— footsteps on the porch, jingling keys, the tic-tac of high heels across the hardwood floor. normaly i use the time before she gets home to neaten up the house, maybe start dinner, to seem like part of the solution not part of the problem. but tonight instead, i pulld out my laptop and googled fainting spells and got myself pretty workd up, then googled the hell out of blue sky and found a bunch of random crap, two an a half pages on blue sky cola alone. but no trace of a blue sky coffee shop.
until i accidently searchd it as one word, “bluesky.”
there use to be a coffeeshop calld bluesky, in athens georgia. it closed in 1999, but a few people with blogs were still obsessd with it. one of them posted a picture of the sign—
blue sky sign*******
it looks sorta like the punchcard. not exacly, but it could be the place.
athens, georgia. i’d always been intrigued by the town. i pland a few roadtrips, but due to a variety of circumstances i never actualy made it. i did see that documentary athens georgia insideout and it made it seem cool. plus—well, mainly— my favrite band is from athens. neutral milk hotel. maybe you know em.
so i emaild the chick who seemd most obsessd with bluesky, inquiring if it had perhaps reopend, or if she had any other information about it. i sent similar emails to the other blogettes.
all of a sudden it was eight oclock. claire never workd this late without calling.
i calld her but it went straight to voicemail. left a message. calld her work number. texted her. checkd my email. checkd it again. e-pacing, lets call it.
at eight-thirty, the noises i’d been waitin for finely did make an appearance, but a variation on them— instead of a tic-tac it was a pitter-patter, and there was claire, in yoga clothes, six months pregnant.
wensday night. yoga night. now i remember.
bad as my memory is, its usualy dependable for things that are part of a routine, such as wensday yoga had become. but let that routine be interupted—by, say, a piece of flotsam from the dreamworld—and evrything goes to hell.
i apologized.
she didnt say anything.
i offerd to make dinner realquick or atleast a salad.
she said she wasnt hungry.
which i knew was a lie.
so i changed tactics— cheer her up! i was gona be the crazy one! i said i love you and planted a kiss on the top of her head, said i’d be back in half an hour, drove to the sushi garden, orderd four spicy tuna rolls, payd for it with my personal acount not our joint, and then, feelin extra crazy, askd if they would sell me a bottle of sake-to-go. they said sure, poor man who is obviusly desprate to make his girlfriend not mad at him.
soon as i got back in the car i rememberd the first thing— claire cant drink sakay dumbass, she’s pregnant. the other thing, which i also knew but temporarily forgot, until claire reminded me— a pregnant woman should not consume raw or undercookd fish.
doh.
claire was not charmd by my absentmindedness. especialy not when she saw the sakay. she took this—maybe corectly—as a sign i was not gona turn into the kind of person you want to be in a family with.
Dont know if youv ever been alone in a house with a pregnant woman who’s disapointed in you, but i can tell you one thing— the house is never gona be big enough. even if its twentytwo hundred square feet. even if you both have your own office.
i thought it might get better after she cried, but it didnt. probly i got defensiv instead of apologizing, and when i finely did apologize it wouldof been too late. so i retreated to my corner of martyrdom, i am sure thats what i did, this was my power move— tho i’m trying to adress my problems directly rather than cloaking them in sarcasm, so i’ll just say it was one of the things that mustof made me dificult to live with.
if your wondrin if i broughtup the blue sky thing, i did, later that evning, after things had calmd down a bit.
claire doesnt always take it well when i get obsessd with stuff like this, so i tried to bring it up casualy.
[ the better plan wouldof been not to bring it up at all ]
—So was it a dizzy spell, or more like a migraine? i mean did you actualy faint?
—not tecnicly. it was morelike, this thing, tryin to get out of me— my brain or somethin.
—your brain trying to get out?
[ i had said that, hadnt i? probly shouldnt have ]
i tried to refocus the discussion on the mysterius punchcard, but that didnt happen because claire had found a mission— make Al go to the doctor. i never go to the doctor unless someone makes me. my fathers a doctor so ive seen behind the curtain, i know its just people backthere pullin levers even if they do have fancy machines.
claires point was that i couldnt play russian rulette with my health anymore, there was a tiny almostperson countin on me. she stood over me while i programd a reminder into my phone. if anybody understands the limitations of my memory its claire.
The night ended with claire going to her office to do some work, while i went to my office, which was rapidly becoming a baby room—
and what i thought about in there, was how we had so much shit for the baby, but we had nowhere to put it. which reminded me that i was sposeto go to roomstogo thismornin on my way to work, to price dressers and buy one if they had a good one on sale.
the worst part is that claire hadnt even askd if i’d rememberd. she had assumed i forgot.
oh the trials of domesticity, sometimes i think we werent meant for it, and i’m not just talkin about dudes here but still, it cant be worse than freezin to death in a cave, the wolf at the door etcetera, so i’ll stop complainin.
Since i had some time on my hands, i figured i’d fire up the ole macbook and see what all else i could find on bluesky.
nothin from the blogettes yet. rereading the emails i sent, i realizd there probly never would be.
i poked around and turnd up a few more leads but they were all deadends. i’d just about decided to call it a night when i stumbeld across a site called athensquotes. the link was dead, but i tried the cached version [ i’m crafty like that ] and it took me to an abandond blog—no posts since march 2005—with a buncha stuff people had said in athens, including the following quote—
i’m secret, like bluesky.
—chelsy r.
the curator had a gmail address, so atleast there was a chance of hearin back— bootydharma@gmail.com
Nothin for a week, a week an a half. long enough to forget about bluesky. or almost forget about it. but the dream, remember? the promise of fulfillment? thats not so easy to forget.
then one night i’m checkin my email, and you know that list of other gmail people who are online orwhatever? well bootydharma’s at the topa the list. so i send him a g-chat request.
to my surprize, he responds.
i’d never done a g-chat before, i guess cause a the word chat. but it was fine, its just like emailin backanforth instantly.
i told im i saw his blog and i was curius about athens in the nineties, had he been in town back then? turns out he’d been there since eighty nine. so i had to ask if he’d seen neutral milk. they were already broken up by the time i discoverd em, by the time most people did—
but yes, he’d seen them. many times. he told me one story about the day jeff moved to athens, the resta the band wasnt in town yet so he playd a set with elf power, as an encore they did garden head, jeff thrashd around the stage and knockd evrybody down, they ended up in a pile on the drumkit.
i read it three times, i wont lie. call me a milkhead, but atleast i’m aware of it, i know how to keep it under control, see, i didnt even ask a followup question, eyes on the prize—
— So I found this punch card from Bluesky in my house. I’ve never been to Bluesky. Trying to figure out how the card got here. Bluesky’s closed, right?
— sortof
— What do you mean “sortof?”
[ silence ]
i was a click away from ending it, when he typed one last thing—
—maybe you should come to athens
that was it. end transmision.
all followup emails went unanswerd.
So— what did i have to go on? an acknowledgment that Bluesky sort of exists, in athens?
not much. unless you are desprate.
which i aparently was. or thought i was, tho now i’m lookin at it and it makes me wana grab this Al fellow by his metaforical lapels and say what are you thinkin, dude? you got an awsome woman, who is more together than some entire towns—who loves you even if she does lose patience ocasionly—who wants to start a famly with you, has started a famly, in three months Gabe’s little head’ll peek out and then—hold on—the ride of your life.
But some parta me musta wanted off that ride, cause what i did was, you guesd it—
i pland me a roadtrip.
chapter 3:
last chance
I didnt just take off, dont think me barbaric, i waited for a time when claire was gona be out of town anyway. she was flyin to newyork, to meet with a gallery owner who was intrested in her work. her last chance, thats the way she saw it [ and in a way it was, another week and she wouldnt be able to fly ] if this didnt result in something concrete, she was ready to relegate painting to hobby and throw herself into career and motherhood.
but this gallery owner was a pretybig deal i think. she had among her clients elton john, dont ask me why i remember that. if she took on claire and the show went well, it could possibly allow her—if things went realy well crossfingers—to quit her job and try painting full time.
to make it as a painter, even if your talented you still have to be extremely lucky, have richass parents, or—pardon my french—suck mad dick, none of which claire did. if you dont have those things, you better possess that rare combination of talent and drive. not just momentary impulses but the kind thats sustaind over years—
you better have a plan.
i wanted it so bad for her. for us.
does evry relationship hafta have a plan? seems like it. somethin to do with the future i guess, maybe it helps us not feel stagnant. but we are not bodies of water, we can actualy thrive while standing still. in theory, anyway. i myself couldnot. or i’d forgoten how. i brushd my teeth with one foot already out the door, always ready for the next thing the next thing the nexthing—
what about this thing?
But where was i? my trip, right? my own last chance. the plan went somethin like—
take claire to the airport on friday, kiss her goodbye with asurances youll be safe. start drivin east on I-20, see how far you can get. when you get tired, pullover at a rest stop.
wake up saturday and drive the resta the way to athens, get a cheap motel, checkout the town, see if you can find bluesky.
leave sunday by noon, to be back in time to pickup claire at the airport sunday night. and pay for it all with the tiny amount you have in your personal account.
i explaind this to claire, all except the sleepin in a restop part. i stressd the my money thing i’m sure, possibly said somethin along the lines of—
—if i didnt do anything you didnt want me to, i wouldnt do anything.
maybe worse, i dont know forsure, its mercifly lost in the haze.
Before we get on the road, let me paint you one last domestic scene—
its the night before we are to leave on our respectiv trips. the house is feeling rather small. at some point claire goes to bed without tellin me.
i follow after her like a yard dog. but she’d already disappeard into the masterbath [ we added that, now i was regrettin it ]
so here i am on my side of the bed—seated, mind you, not lyin down—waiting for claire to finish brushin her teeth but realy waiting for her to tell me the state of our relationship, as i mentiond earlier or maybe i didnt, i needed constant reasurance, it must have been pretty annoying.
eventialy she comes out, words are exchanged i dont remember, but it ends with her crying and me atempting to cry but failing to do so.
then, thru tears, she asks me a question—
—if you had the time and the money, why arent you coming with me to new york?
[ good question, claire. the sad truth is it had not occurd to me ]
this changed things, too, removing the freedom-versus-responsibility frame i had wanted to hang on it.
—Al i askd you a question.
—why didnt i come with you?
—thats what i askd.
—well why didnt you invite me?
things escalated from there in the usual fashion—i got defensiv and claire got disapointed then sad. eventialy i askd if she wanted me to sleep here or on the couch.
she didnt answer.
so i retreated to my office, threw myself back into the internets, the original source of my trouble if you dont count that bluesky card, and there found more trouble—800-dollar-lastminute-ticket-to-la guardia kindof trouble, which i was ready to pull the trigger on if claire was okay with me payin for it out of our joint-acount and payin it back next month.
did she even respond? i hope not. perhaps she faind sleep. but fakesleepin is easy as shit to spot. i lay there nexto her and assaulted her with pillow talk. one thing i know i said, sevral times—
—i love you.
which i meant at the time, tho now it sounds to me more like an acuzation than anything.
The D-F-W airport is in Irving, halfanhour from our place in medium traffic. dont know if youv been to irving, but unless you are in love with the kind of establishments that popup at interstate exits—and would infact like to see an entire town made of that shit—its prety depressing.
not very many words were spoken on the drive.
i dont know what she was doing, but i was preparin my defense, workinup an answer for anything she might possibly acuse me of last minute. we were running late—mostly my fault—so the plan to park and walk together as far as security [ and my secret plan to get her fast-trackd since she was pregnant ] was not gona happen. it would have to be a dropoff. the dreaded curbside dropoff.
Follow signs for departures.
get in line. keep an eye out for american airlines.
clear your throat. say things like—
—you should be fine, as long as security isnt too slow.
[ and ]
—sure you dont want me to park and run in realquick? if securitys slow i could wait in line with you.
[ how weak is that? the only way shit isnt gona blowup is if securitys fast and slow at the same time ]
i dont remember what we said to eachother at the dropoff. we formd a provisional peace, hugs and sniffles, probly somethin like—
—Claire you know i love you dont you?
—i do know that.
—and the baby—gabe—he’s already an important part of my life—our lives—our life.
—then why do you forget i’m pregnant and try to feed me raw fish?
—i thought the tuna was seared. . .
[ yes! i got a laugh ]
—really claire, you know i have a badmemory, i think of you all the time—
—you do?
—course i do. sometimes i’m so busy thinkin a you i almost forget your there, its like—you know that seabear song i always play. . .
[ i attempt to sing tho i cannot carry a tune ]
—i miss youuu, even when your around. . .
—i think i know it.
—just cause i’m spacey, it doesnt mean—
—i know it doesnt, oh Al watchout.
a pressure on my arm,
just above the elbow—
the steely grip of authority.
—Sir, i need you to move your vehicle away from the curb.
i should give him credit, he didnt exercise the full extent of his anti-terroristic capabilities, he understood there was a domestic situation here, and dependant as the state is on the famly unit—
but lets not go there now.
We said the holy trinity—iloveyou i’llmissyou haveanicetrip. at the last second i planted a kiss—went for the lips but had to settle for cheek. she was distracted by airport cop and turnd her head.
i was then re-invited by my security-minded friend to move my vehicle away from the curb.
i jumpd in the car
rolld down the passenger window
[ thanks globe cap, for power windows ]
shouted—
—goodluck!
and moved my vehicle away from the curb.
as i drove off, i could see claire in the rearview, standin by her suitcase wavin goodbye, gettin smaller and smaller.
and then she was gone.
or i was, dependin on how you look at it.