Mysteries of the Apple

Trouble seems to find some people like metal to a magnet. But how? Why? If they are not a thieving scoundrel now, were they in a past life? Perhaps born under Ophiuchus, the forgotten constellation, and the world doesn't quite know what to do with them. Most likely it's just simple bad luck. Whatever the how and why, Griffin, Griff, was marked.

I met Griff because of a bicycle photo I had posted online that he commented on, so we started our friendship thusly; chatting, about bicycles. He also took the opportunity to share with me the bike themed metal jewelry he forges by hand and sells: rings, belt buckles, necklaces and earrings. In retrospect, this indirect contact seems one of the more personable but potentially creepy marketing tactics. However, having lived an experimental year on a farm in Kentucky for a year managing the lives of chickens, goats, and horses, I was intrigued by this urban bicycle enthusiast and we continued the online conversation for many months.

I had already been planning my next adventure and had my eye on moving to Austin where he happened to be living at the time. Griff had his eye on visiting the Maker's Mark distillery which was about a twenty minute drive from the farm, and going to the Kentucky Derby, both of which fit perfectly into my timeline. I Proposed to him that if he flew to Kentucky, we could hit his list and then he could drive with me back to Austin. 'Righty-O, let's go!' He wrote. '#Rideabike, GO'

My friend Vlora, V, a teacher from Albania, came with me to the airport. V was a former colleague who I had worked with at my first university gig out in quite literally the middle of nowhere, Kentucky. I had been living in sin out on a farm with a collective of veritable heathens. Not really heathens, but for computer programming, horse breeding brothers from South Africa, they were more wild than your average programmers. The two dabbled in business, usually making a butt load of money, millions or so, losing it all, but always gaining assets along the way. The two of them had a wild hair to buy a farm with 250 heads of cattle already on it and an old dog, Buck, that we had to kill because he developed a taste for fresh goat meat and soon started nipping at the horses. Christee, Franz's girlfriend, an excellent tennis player and woodworker with all heart and no audacity, put the poor old Buck's body on the back of a four wheeler and buried him somewhere out in the woods. Christee had a soft heart, and it was often tested on the forgiveless farm.

Since I lived a city away from work I professed my allegiance with Jesus, Mary and Joseph to get the job and nobody needed to know my private life anyways, accept I told V because she was alright. We arrived at the airport and through the sliding glass doors came a giant, 6'2 Griff, carrying a navy blue duffle bag on his lumberjack back and holding a green apple in his right hand. By his side walked perhaps the most classically good looking man I've seen, in person at least, his buddy Max who ended up also being a very kind and pleasant character. Nice crew for a long weekend.

'Does anyone have any foil?' Griff asked as we parked in downtown Louisville. Foil being one of the lesser items to stock a car with, we stopped by a shop and bought a coffee flavored yogurt so that he could rig up his apple pipe properly using the foil from the yogurt lid to line the slightly carved out bowl at the top of the apple.

The following day or so leading up to the Derby were quite ok. We went on a tour of the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto, each buying our own whisky bottle and then hand dipping them respectively in the signature red hot wax that seals every Maker's Mark whiskey bottle. The day of the Derby we drove to Churchill downs, dressed and ready for a party as we had bought tickets, not for the fancy hat and dress wearing inside arena, but the raucous party surrounding the race track, replete with ice cold mojito's and slip and slides. V and I wore casual dresses, Max wore a pirate costume, and Greg wore a jockey outfit: green and white striped polo, football pants that cut off at the knee with green knee high socks and a casquette, bicycle cap, that matched. The ladies in the fancy hats on their way to the proper race kept stopping off from their golf carts for a photo with the giant jockey for which each photo Griff posed with his signature big goofy grin and two thumbs up; arms akimbo.

Once in Austin city limits, I dropped off the boys at their respective houses and then drove to my sister's where I was staying for the summer before going to Istanbul for a year long work project.

I saw Griff several times that same summer. Typically we would go for long bike rides around the city, swimming in the aquifer at Barton Springs or at the local swimming pools. Griff was an active man who was seemingly always training for the next themed triathlon which also kept me active and in shape and also allowed me to see parts the non-tourist side of Austin.

The hot Texas summer passed and it came time for me to go to Istanbul to help set up a Pathway Program so that Turkish university students could be easily filtered into American Universities. Since Griff needed to do an internship for his international communications study program, he asked if he could teach for us and the Turkish bosses, who would soon need teachers, said they would set it up for him to come just before the semester began.

I had been in Istanbul for a month or so working with the Turkish partners to set up the program and got to learn about beautiful and lively Istanbul with long days working and long nights out with my new friends from a education consulting office, drinking and dancing until the sun came up over the Bosphorus and eating fresh rice stuffed clams with lemon, served day and night by the walking tray vendors, to soak up the alcohol. One lira a clam, I recall. I understood quite clearly through my friends that though Istanbul is fairly modern regarding drinking and partying, or it was at the time, smoking pot was heavily frowned upon, so I warned Griff before he arrived that he should consider taking a break from his prolific apple consumption, to which he happily replied, 'You got it!'

To his credit, he both carried out his teaching duties very well and also kept his lungs clear. Until the firing. The Pathway program started bleeding money and my Turkish bosses informed me that I would be the one to fire seven teachers, including Griff, all on the same day. Beautiful.

To soften the blow, I gave him a heads-up about his fate so he could make a backup plan. 'Oh damn. Well that sucks. Thanks for telling me,' was his only response.

The day of the firing Emre, the dashingTurkish soap opera actor moonlighting as a businessman, sat at the table across from me as back up but I was to do the dirty work. First to the table was Veda, who was very kind and understanding which set a nice tone to an otherwise terrible task. Then a few others came, all of whom made the rather awkward process more palatable.

And then in came Griff with his Turkish girlfriend who happened to be a budding lawyer. She was there, I guess, in a serious capacity. I never understood what their aim was because Emre the actor, sensing it was his turn to use his acting skills for the sake of the business, turned the charm on full throttle and within five minutes he had the young lawyer smiling and giggling. About what I am not sure as it was done in Turkish which I only bits and pieces of. Thankfully, Emre was there for the real dirty work.

The next time I heard about Griff was from our mutual friend Murat, a posh half Swiss half Turkish young man who had moved from Switzerland to Istanbul to live a Bourgeois Boheme lifestyle; Switzerland being too perfect therefore too boring, the opposite of Istanbul. He stayed at my place for a while, sleeping on the couch, Griff in the prayer room, and a random Canadian teacher sent to join the compound by our bosses, Misha, shared my bed. Once the cockroaches started coming the boys said that it was us girls were too dirty and that they were leaving. We named the cockroaches to make them seem more friendly. They were all called Frank. Though they left soon after Griff and Murat did whom we did not miss too much, though Murat did get us into all the best rooftop and artist parties. Life then became a bit less interesting but also much more cozy and homey. Misha and I started reading Harry Potter chapters to each other at night and made tea and did yoga. Later, when she came to visit me in Helsinki several years later we had a power struggle to which I refused to concede, which is normally not my vibe, but needs must, and she unfriended me.

Murat's call to me was prefaced by, 'Now, don't freak out, everything has been sorted, but Griff has been deported.' Apparently after the firing Griff decided he could cut loose and was apprehended by a undercover police officer because he had been smoking pot out of an apple in Taksim Square, an area in Istanbul known for late night revels. There was even a short article in a local paper and just below the title a photo of Griff being taken away by the police with that signature goofy smile, his and two thumbs up; arms akimbo.

We recently met up in Los Angeles after many years incommunicado and Griff told me about the several days he spent in prison, not eating the one sandwich a day that the guards handed out with a bottle of water so that he would not have to use the toilet. It was that bad. Luckily he handed his sandwich to a girl who spoke English and somehow new of Griff's plight, though he had no idea what would happen to him, or when. She told him the best option for him was to ask to be deported. Which he did and which is why we had a lovely drive along California's Pacific Coast Highway, from LA to Oakland in a convertible we rented. Even though it was quite cold at night and sometimes during the day, Griff insisted we keep the top down for the whole trip, and I didn't complain.