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19 Oct

nick compton journalist

I peered at the horizon and nodded solemnly. In Beijing, for so long, I’d hungered for this wildness. I pulled out a chair at the table across from him and we both sat in silence for a few seconds. “How you been, bud?” He cracked the same smile he had when we were 12. Creative Non-Fiction by Nick Compton, posted Dec 18, 2015. “Started drinking at 10 that morning and road tripped to Cedar Rapids. Who knows, maybe I’ll be in Cedar Rapids.”, “I know you will be.” I said. Aside from a few added piercings and a tattoo of something that looked like an eagle on his neck, he hadn’t changed. “I wish you the best, man.

I was resigned to the truth that when I came back, these hills, and Jake, would still be here. We threw our drained cans next to a cooler and popped our next ones. China Timeline? Introducing Trends: visualize news in real-time and discover top authors or outlets. I’d left for university, moved around, ended up working in China and never really looked back. The farm economy was on the downspin and many locals had lost their hats to giant ag processers gobbling up their land at cut-rate prices. You still welding?”, “Na, I’m through with that shit, man,” he said. Haunted, almost. Find the best way to get in touch with Nick by joining Muck Rack. Volunteering for the news service at the Beijing Olympics  My writing history? This byline is mine, but I want my name removed.

He didn’t have an air conditioner and the early summer air was already heavy and stale. What remained was gray lumber streaked white by curling chips. It was a stain on our community, and with our Midwest sensibilities, we winced at the thought of talking about it head on.

It was my first extended time back in three years, and I was stunned by the raw beauty after the blurry sameness of Beijing. The horizon stretched on forever and I could smell blade-cut grass. Nick has 7 jobs listed on their profile. My home, but no place I wanted to stay. “I know you’ll find something in Cedar Rapids,” I said, turning the conversation again in hopes of convincing myself as much as him. “Shit you remember when we were kids?” He said. Scan to follow us on WeChat! It’s only getting worse.”. He learned to weld and last I knew he was commuting 30 miles every day to a company that worked with sheet metal. We all had neighbors, brothers, friends or colleagues who were involved. “I know you do, man. When we had to, we talked sideways, in low tones. Since I was in high school, the dri nking habits I’d known at home had carried a breathable sense of destruction. “Hey man,” I said, shaking his hand and smiling. Realizing that there was a huge and fantastically foreign world outside of Iowa Moment I realized China was an important part of my life? We continued to drink and make small talk about mutual friends and college sports. “Next time you’re back give me a holler. He rented a weather-blasted two bedroom on the edge of town for a couple hundred bucks a month. “I mean this ain’t much of a life,” he said, sweeping his hand toward the broken house and spitting a long stream of brown juice on the dirt. She deeply values connection and the exchanging of ideas. Content and other cleverness, Senior Editor, Wallpaper* and more. He wasn’t one of us. On it, we wrote “Jake and Nick, Best Friends Forever.” We dated it and both signed it in red ink. Here, you drank enormously and quickly with the singular dark goal of getting fucked up. Pretty much a non-stop party.”.

“Playing catch, riding bikes, little league. In college, I’d caught rumors floating around that Jake blew smoke. In a field below, we could see a big orange doe and two young fawns lazily eating corn shoots. This byline is for a different person with the same name. You looked for something, anything, to break the depression. Still all over?”. “Been good, brought you some more silver bullets.”, He laughed. He told me his dad was still married, two more kids. All rights reserved. He tweets @NickPCompton. For a stretch, neither of us said anything. Since establishing his design studio in Rotterdam a decade ago he has created energy-neutral street lighting, energy-generating kites, an on-demand aurora borealis to illustrate the threat of rising water levels and, most famously, a smog-sucking tower. “You wouldn’t believe how much of it is out there. It tore up families and shattered good people. For as long as I could remember, an ocean of Busch Light filled up those holes, but when meth came, it was different. I popped open a can as I set down the case and took a good look at him. Finally, I looked at his Facebook page and saw pictures of him drinking a Coors Light. Best Friends by Nick Compton. She deeply values connection and the exchanging of ideas. “Hell yeah,” I said, sipping beer, “I don’t think a kid could do better than we did.”. In these hills, generations lived off the same land, raising huge families and forming blood bonds and clan extensions that wouldn’t be out of place in the back woods of Appalachia. I walked in without knocking. “God it’s probably been four years since we seen each other, ain’t it?” He said, shaking his head at the notion. Here are the places that struggle most. I mean there just ain’t shit here.

When we were about eight, we’d buried a time capsule deep in my yard.

I pulled my car into his driveway and parked next to a shed filled with split wood.

We satat the bar or in our cars cruising the gravel roads, pounding cans of cheap beer  to crush the boredom and chase away whatever demons we couldn’t name and didn’t dare speak out loud. In a sense, I couldn’t blame him. I saw him sitting at his kitchen table sipping a beer and tapping on his smart phone. Mark Twain declared that the Indian city of Varanasi was older than history, tradition and legend. Last month, China joined in celebrating World Autism Awareness Day with a stream of media coverage, fundraisers and service projects advancing the causes of our autism community. The roof was caving in and the exterior scraped clean of its white paint by winter winds and too little attention. Favorite word to use in writing? “Stuffy as hell in here.” He said. “I just need to find someone to introduce me.”, “That’d be great,” I said forcing a smile. “I seen a helluva lot of it, but I never touched the stuff,” he said, maybe a little too defensively. “Big cities are so busy, man. Jake pulled out a pouch of plug tobacco and asked me if I wanted a dip.

See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Nick’s connections and jobs at similar companies.

Just as the sun had sunk completely and darkness was starting to settle in, he looked at me with a new sense of urgency in his eyes.

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