Barely remembering George Creel
by Anthony Rossetti
I got a phone call. I looked at the caller ID. I won’t answer unless I know who it is. Well, sometimes even if I know who it is, I won’t answer. The caller had been identified as Jeffrey Nowak. This was odd because I only communicate with him through e-mail. Since he was calling me, I knew something bad happened or he was drunk. In this case, it was only one of the two. He didn’t even say hello. “George Creel is dead.” I didn’t say anything. “Did you hear me?” Yeah, you said George Creel is dead, so? He hung up. That night I went to bed knowing George Creel is dead and Nowak is drunk.
I checked my email the next day and sure enough Nowak had informed me again, Creel is dead. He said he was asking the other regular contributors to write something about him. I’m fucking bored right now, so here it goes:
There was a time, if you can believe this, when I was excited about Any Four Words. It’s a very murky memory. Due to a sedated state, church, and Nowak’s rambling, I was convinced we could do great things. I was convinced we were talented. I think we did about 6 or 7 issues when I got unstoned, and started to actually read the site (including my own contributions). I started to get suspicious about the other people who were submitting stories on a regular basis. I wanted to know what they thought about the site. I was able to contact George through Myspace. Out of all the regular contributors, he was the only one who responded to me. I wanted to set up a meeting at his place but he was hesitant. I wanted to go to his place to see where he wrote. That was important to me for some reason. In his first initial response to my general request of who he was, he bitched a lot, listing all his problems. One of them, I remembered, was a broken refrigerator. I told him that I’d probably be able to fix it and that’s how I got him to agree to a meeting at his place.
It didn’t take me long to get there. I just drove further into the city. George lived close to the Admiral Theater. As I drove passed, I wondered if he ever stopped in there. Also, I wondered about other things.
I turned into a side street on Lawrence. ”At the very least, I found decent parking,” I said. It’s always satisfying to find a good parking spot. I stopped at a bar close by. You see, I didn’t want to show up with liquor at old George’s place but I wanted to be loose. After a few drinks, I was loose and didn’t care about offending old George with my liquor. So I stopped at a Supermercado and bought some Tecate. I knocked on the door of the basement apartment. It opened and there he was. Before me stood an old bastard.
T: Hey George, it’s Tony from Any Four Words, remember? How are you? I hope you don’t mind. I brought this . . .
G: Are those your tools?
T: Tools? What tools?
G: For the fridge. You said you’d fix it for me.
T: (slowly remembering) Yeah, yeah, no, this is beer. I assumed you had the tools.
G: Well, I might have something around here.
T: How are you buddy?
The old bastard mumbled some kind of response as he started looking for a tool box. He looked among piles of shit. I gathered he was one of those old person junk collectors. I cracked a beer open and put the rest in the broken refrigerator. The food in there had long spoiled. After a few minutes, he gave up.
T: Don’t sweat it George. Even if you did find tools, your power switch adapter plug socket is out of whack.
I had no idea what I was talking about but I felt an obligation to give him a show. This model is old where you probably can’t even replace the part.
T: Looks like you need to buy a new fridge.
G: I can’t afford it.
T: At the very least, you can go down to the Supermercado and get a cooler.
G: I don’t like to go there.
T: Isn’t that where do you get your food?
G: No, there’s a gas station with a mini mart a couple blocks down. That’s where I go.
T: Do they have cheese there?
G: Yes.
I was looking for some common ground. Obviously you’d think that would be the site but it wasn’t. We didn’t get along. We wrote differently about different things. He said something about meeting Nowak at an open mic poetry night.
T: I wouldn’t be caught dead going to one of those.
G: Well, I can’t go anymore. It’s too hard for me to get around these days.
Not wanting to talk about open mics or his health problems, I changed the subject to something safe, baseball, and finally, we found our common ground. Of course, he was a Cubs fan. I’m a White Sox fan.
G: This is our year.
I told him that the Cubs have to lose. They wouldn’t be the Cubs if they won. It’s what makes them great. He didn’t agree. He assured me again that this would be their year and kept repeating, “They HAVE to win!”
The rest of the conversation was spent talking about the stats of our teams. As I swallowed more beer, I found it very easy to make my own stats up, which he didn’t call me on. It only left me to believe that he had no idea what he was talking about. However, he really seemed to enjoy the conversation. He even felt comfortable enough to have a drink around me. The beer was gone. As if it were some kind of ceremony, he retrieved a strange looking bottle from his cupboard.
T: What’s that shit?
G: It’s Benedictine. It was made by monks.
T: Monks?
G: Yeah, I’m so old that I know the monks who made this stuff.
His little joke went over my head. The Benedictine was like holy syrup. It stung going down my throat and then my whole body went warm. I understood why it was made by monks. It was good. It brought me peace. I guess this part of the night is my fondest memory of George, the part of the night I can’t fully remember. I know we laughed a little. I found a broken guitar among his garbage pile and tried playing it. I think he appreciated that.
Eventually came that moment where you know the night’s over. I think he fell down. He said he was going to bed and I told him that I’d let myself out. I had no intention of driving. I just didn’t want to sleep on George’s garbage. As I walked towards my car, I noticed the driver’s side door wide open. “I don’t remember leaving it like that,” I thought. I looked inside and the radio was stolen. The thief or thieves got in by cutting the canvas roof. I remember smelling around my car to make sure it wasn’t used as a toilet. I was lucky. It was not. I didn’t know what to do, so I shut the door and went back to George’s place. His door was open.
T: Somebody broke into my goddamn car George! Can you believe that shit? Can you fucking believe it?
G: Yes, I believe it!
T: This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t come here, you know? I blame Any Four Words.
G: I blame the Mexicans.
T: I blame Nowak.
G: There’s something you should know.
T: What?
G: Nowak isn’t real. I made him up.
T: What?
G: Nowak does not exist.
T: Whatever you say George. You wouldn’t have a car radio somewhere in this shit heap of garbage, would you?
G: Why don’t you look around.
I had nothing better to do, so I looked and found nothing. After I gave up, I glanced over at George and noticed he had dozed off. For the second and last time, I let myself out. I got into my car and tried to sleep. Part of the canvas roof hung down allowing the wind to blow in. I found it peaceful (at least at that particular moment) and I went to sleep.
And now George Creel is dead. I guess he drowned? Well, who knows what killed him. It could have been Any Four Words. It could have been Nowak. It could have been the Cubs because they lost, you know? The Cubs lost. They didn’t win.
Anyway, George Creel is dead, the guy who wrote about dead men.