Brian Oliu: Biography, by Brian Oliu

BRIAN OLIU:  BIOGRAPHY

Brian Oliu is originally from New Jersey, which is known to many as having the most intricate and/or worst highway system in the world.  Oliu remembers a joke his Irish Catholic priest made when he was younger that the construction of I-287 was, in fact, hell.  Considering he was young and did not yet grasp the breadth of most jokes involving grown-up subjects like television shows on after 9pm EST or Catholicism, this analogy stuck in young Oliu’s mind for decades. The statement, along with his mother’s erratic driving and Brooklyn temper while attempting to navigate the Somerville Circle left Oliu, uncertain of how prayer and technology worked, laying in bed praying that by the time he turned 17 and was ready to drive, cars could drive themselves, resembling giant voice-activated hamsterballs.  Regretfully, God did not answer Oliu’s prayers, and come 1999, it was time to register for driving lessons.  His father, perhaps swayed by Oliu’s old Catholic priest or perhaps through love of a certain Mid-West Catholic University football team, opted to sign Oliu up for Shamrock Driving School, run by a former Cranford police officer who would tell Oliu anecdotes of dead cheerleaders who forgot to check blind spots.  The first day driving, Oliu went on I-287, which, as he had been warned earlier, was indeed hellacious, and, despite the white Nissan having a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror, caused a crisis in faith in Oliu; the follies of man, the forgetting of which direction (up or down) to flick the turn signal, the relying on mechanism and a supposed expert and conduit, both with thick North Jersey accents and moustaches, caused Oliu to take an early exit, visibly shaken by the Leviathan transit system.  Oliu later took a second set of driving lessons from a kind man in a red Toyota named Manuel, has been in two accidents in over ten years of driving, and hasn’t been to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in more than that.

BRIAN OLIU:  BIOGRAPHY (2)

Brian Oliu is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Alabama.  When Brian Oliu moved from New Jersey to Alabama he packed up all of his possessions into the back of his 1995 Ford Explorer, giving him approximately 1500 cubic square inches to work with, effectively deciding what was most important when making a major jump in life.  Brian Oliu, and his father, Edward Oliu, began their trip south on a Friday morning; they headed west into Pennsylvania, went south through West Virginia, stopped at a Subway restaurant.  They followed the Western border of Virginia down through Tennessee before ultimately stopping to eat at a Cracker Barrel restaurant (it seemed appropriate at the time; Oliu, now familiar with Southern cuisine recognize the forced kitsch of it all, the awkward candy, the pegs in wood) and turning in for the night.  However, the hotel had no vacancy.  And so, Brian and Edward Oliu continued south towards Chattanooga, stomachs full of chicken and dumplings, which inevitably brought on fatigue (again, it seemed appropriate at the time; Oliu, now familiar with Southern cuisine, recognizes the sluggishness of it all, has been a perpetual state of slow lethargic spin ever since).  It started to hail.  Father and son took shelter in a trucker’s depot, complete with a trucker’s chapel.  Oliu took a photograph of the chapel and said a prayer afterwards.  Oliu does not remember the prayer.  Oliu prayed for a bed somewhere in the South.  Oliu does not remember the exactness of this prayer.  The 1995 Ford Explorer filled with a desk, pillows, books, electronics, photographs, father and son rambled through a dark corner of Georgia and into Northern Alabama, where upon stopping at a Buddy’s Quickmark, Oliu and his father discovered that they had chosen to depart New Jersey during the South’s Longest Yard Sale, thus rendering the hotel 308 miles ago without a bed to lie in, as well as all seven subsequent hotels that Brian Oliu and Edward Oliu had tried to procure a room during their trip.  Oliu wanted to stop on the side of the road and place his belongings in nice vertical rows; perhaps putting an eight with a dash next to it in hopes that someone he has never seen nor will ever see again will purchase something of his; anything of his.  Oliu wanted you to have this.  Oliu wanted you to have him, as there is a price to be paid in full, a ten dollar bill, perhaps, perhaps more, perhaps less, perhaps, perhaps.  Oliu and Oliu’s possessions are not needed anymore and are up for exchange.  He would charge more, but he is tired.  His father will not let him sell himself into that good night.  At long last, fifteen hours and twenty minutes into the voyage, father and son fell asleep at a Holiday Inn Express at the Birmingham Airport, where Oliu flies out of in order to visit his family back home in New Jersey, and which lies approximately 55 miles from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where he occasionally sleeps well.

BRIAN OLIU:  BIOGRAPHY (3)

Brian Oliu is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Alabama. When people ask Oliu where he is from in New Jersey, he often accompanies it with “near the Pennsylvania Border.”  When they ask him for a city, he says “Trenton”, which is the Garden State’s capital.  Most people from New Jersey identify themselves with either being “just outside the City”, meaning New York City, or “just outside Philadelphia,” meaning Philadelphia.  Oliu has little or no connection to either of these two cities:  while he has taken NJ Transit to Manhattan to visit family or lash out violently at museums, watched Eagles games at Lincoln Financial Field with ex-lovers in snowcoats, and is quite familiar with the nuances of the Secaucus Junction rail station, he identifies most with farmland, horses, and the Delaware River.  Some days, when Oliu is feeling cold and emboldened, he identifies with Trenton.  The slogan of Trenton is “Trenton Makes The World Takes”, which can be found in glowing orange lights on the side of a bridge connecting Trenton and Norristown, Pennsylvania, a city that he once bought shoes in, a city in which a girl he once kissed is from, but still holds no connection to that city across the river.  The bridge is about six miles from the spot where George Washington crossed the Delaware River by boat to surprise the Hessians in Newtown, Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve.  Oliu once had a French teacher in high school that lived in Newtown, and one time she invited his entire class over for dinner, where his French teacher remarked that she moved to Newtown after her fiancé was killed in an automobile accident.  Every year, gentlemen dressed in Revolutionary War garb re-enact Washington’s famous boat ride, complete with the regalia and respect one would expect from that time period.  Some winters the water in the river is frozen, and therefore those pretending to be Washington and his troops cross over the “Trenton Makes” bridge instead.  Brian Oliu acknowledges that many people choose not to identify themselves with Trenton, which upsets Brian Oliu, as it is a place where it all began, a place where plans were made and boats were hauled through streets to river borders in secret in order to start something.

BRIAN OLIU:  BIOGRAPHY (4)

Brian Oliu is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Alabama.  On the state’s license plate is the phrase “Stars Fell On Alabama”.  This is true; an Alabamian woman was once hit in the leg by a meteor while watching television.  The meteor broke her leg.  To Oliu’s knowledge, this has not happened in New Jersey, although the license plates in New Jersey do not say “Stars Fell on New Jersey,” because they did not.  Instead, the license plates in New Jersey read “The Garden State”.  Oliu hears that downstate, there are blueberries.  Oliu has never seen them in their bogs, or plants, or flowers, but he knows their renowned taste creates a shadowed buzz up north.  He wanted to take you there, to wake before eight, to flounder south on the Parkway through crown jewels of other counties.  To the north, where Oliu is from, limestone and slate are created by gaps in water, or water in gaps; Oliu has never been certain.  Oliu’s town is known for furs.  It doesn’t know he left.

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