Washing Out the Cans

Washing Out the Cans

I wish I could convey somehow the overriding sense of uneasiness I have been experiencing lately. Not that I have not always been an un-easy person. I have. But now more so—much more so.

I was watching Robin Williams last night on the Actor’s Studio. I was perfectly in tune with the manic pace of his presentation. His mouth and his body were manic motors describing in a staccato, rapid (rabid) fire freewheeling stream his thoughts. His thoughts connected and disconnected. connecting the dots of his thoughts never seeming to come to the end of the ribbon of thought until his own energy left him stranded and he would slump into the guest’s chair waiting for his body to recoup and let him have another shot at his mind. Like he was self-medicating. Pushing the button on an invisible motor that released juice intravenously more juice more endorphins more speed…the more he jumped and twitched and spit out the thoughts the more juice he got. It was tiring but I could feel it myself. The energy and strung-out-ness of him…of me.

This morning in the tool room

cleaning off the counter top the work bench the tools

the little bits of paper and tin

the leftovers of a project

of a number of projects

the leftovers that I just couldn’t throw away when I should have.

the hose is coiled

the old hose

the one that is almost collapsed in on itself and useless here in America

What would they do with that hose in Mexico?

or in India?

Would they have a purpose for it?

Would it be treasure found in the garbage dump by the children who pick rags all day

and sell them to the vendors for pennies?

The hot water tank has never been drained

don’t they tell you that you should drain the gunk out of the hot water heater every once in a while?

How often?

Well, I’ve never done it so it must be time.

Perfectly natural. Hose, hot water heater, drain.

Uncoil the hose and lead it out the door.

It has been full of water and it leaks out onto the garage floor like a wounded snake.

Outside the door the empty garbage cans are waiting to be brought in

but they stink.

Hot water heater, hose, hot water, stinking cans.

Perfectly natural.

but not just the two cans that were emptied this morning

what about the recycling cans?

They stink too

line them up on the driveway

all four cans,

detergent, hose, old broom back and forth from the boiler room to the stinking cans

swishing the mucky water around

with the old broom

and the cans come clean and the steam along with the smell of the old cans

escapes into the air.

dump the cans out and run in one more time

into the boiler room for a little more water

open the valve

on the hot water heater and rinse the cans.

dump the rinse water over the edge of the driveway…will the rinse water harm anything?

I don’t think so.

turn the cans over and let them dry.

coil the hose back up and put it next to the hot water heater

it will be good to use one more time

I feel guilty throwing it away

even though I just bought a new one

There is the waste to think about and the landfill and the starving children

picking rags all day who would be happy, I think, to be able to curl up next to the hot water heater

in the boiler room

in place of the hose.

Now on to the books.

It has been an age since I looked at my books.

There are piles of them on the chair next to the table.

I have read most of them but there are a few I haven’t gotten to yet.

Which ones should I put into a box and take to the used bookstore?

Which ones will I want to read again?

It is a huge pile.

I forget--when was the last time I looked through the pile?

I can sort them out on the table but first I have to move the old papers and floppy-disks

out of the way.

I forget what is on half of those disks.

Maybe I should go through them and weed them out.

I have to turn on the computer to do that and find labels and a pen to mark them properly.

I wonder if I have any e-mail?

As long as I am turning on the computer…

Two One Legged Men

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I saw two one legged men today

with rubber tiped aluminum crutches

and pant legs pinned

and flapping.

Each one at a different station

pushing themselves

up the subway stairs.

Two one legged men.

I saw two single legged persons

(why does everyone look away?)

I couldn’t help but stare

and marvel

at my own whole pair.

How does a one legged person swim?

I would like to watch--

both arms pulling

while a foot like a fin

like a dolfins tail

the strong crumpled muscles

of abdomen

and powerful arms

and shortened laps

woosh the single whale tail foot

making grace

where dry land permits

only safety pins

and empty flaps.

I saw two one-legged men today.

Death to the Bastards!

On the way home yesterday, Matt had his iPod plugged into some kind of cassette tape contraption that allowed him to play his music through the system in the car. Pretty good stuff. A group called Mischief Brew. One of the songs was titled “Nomads Revolt”. I was in the passenger seat, daydreaming while Matt drove us home from the Bronx. The music was raw but I liked it. It put me in the mind of days-gone-bye. I began to think about a time when I was concerned and ready to act upon that concern at the drop of a hat. That is what a lot of us were about in the 60’s. Ready to drop acid. Ready to question the proposition of war. Ready to drop acid, consider the war, and get up and ask the governor of the state of Florida, the Senators and the President what the hell they were going to do about the war…but that’s a whole other story.

I became lost in the music Matt had on the system and I let my thoughts run free as a dog. I let my feelings and my thoughts go and this is what I began to think.

I thought, “Why can’t we just hang a few of the bastards? The ones who are unaccountably collecting the rewards of the confusion of the economic catastrophe they themselves caused!” It has been forty years since I have felt like this, I thought, four decades of numbness. Four decades of sleep. I am rested and now I find I have a thirst for blood. I can picture them hanging from the lamp posts, up and down the boulevards of the island of Manhattan The bankers and underwriters and inventors of the instruments of deceit. I can see the citizens in the small towns-the workers from the local furniture factories on lunch break- with their pink slips in their pockets. A week away from collecting unemployment. Under the flag pole in the square in front of the county seat. The bodies of the mortgage brokers lined up on the grass, recently shot with light gauge 410’s. A slow, brutal, painful, educational death. I smiled to myself.

I smiled to myself when I thought what a few well placed, public executions could do for morale. A little blood in the right places might just turn the tide of thinking in the country. It worked for the French. It worked in Russia. By God, it worked here once and might it not be better than what lies ahead on the road? The road ahead for my children and their children as we descend into the careless stratification of our society?

Make no mistake, I am not a Republican

or a Conservative or an Anarchist.

I guess I am no longer a Democrat

or a Communist

or anything else

I can put a name to.

I am back in Washington DC

and it is Viet Nam all over again.

I am convinced

that there are self-serving forces afoot

who will bleed me dry.

Who don’t care if I die.

Who will take and take and take until I am dry

and blown away

if nothing comes up

and gets in their way

and I am thinking DEATH!!!

The Skipping Stair

The Skipping Stair

I can hear you coming.
I know who is there.
The treads invite
your signature footfalls
up on the skipping stair.

I built the stair
of bits
and pieces
just wood and glue
and carpet
and nails
paint and putty
and a twisting plan--
like Frankenstein
it took on a Life
of its own
It bore the weight
of two young lovers
and three young boys
who into their own lives
have grown.
But they are still pups
when they are on the stair
Bump-t-bump
t-bump
t-bump,
every time they come
back home.

I can hear you coming.
I know who is there.
The treads invite
your signature footfalls
up on the skipping stair.

Be Good to Yourself

Except that there are no filthy clothes
Strewn wall to wall,
How long does a son’s room remain
Configured, un-repainted, musting
After he has moved away?

How long should the bed stay posted
Under the same window, against the same wall?
The stars outside that window have moved on
The sun outside has bowed low
And stood high
And I?
I catch that same train, you know,
Like so many thousands of times,
I am more constant
Than those constant stars
“where is that at, you wonder?”
“if you want me I’ll be waiting in the car,”

Listening to the same old music.
I wonder
If I built this place for them-
And they are gone,
Why do I stay?
Why not find a place of my own.
A home where I don’t peek
Into vacant rooms
Hoping each time I open the door
For wall to wall clothing
Strewn on the floor.

A Miracle Happened at Home Depot

A Miracle Happened Here (at the Home Depot)

I decided to give Lizzy a little surprise for Hanukkah. She has been asking me for a new faucet for the sink in the powder room next to the kitchen. I had the day off and, after running a few errands, I stopped at H Depot and bought a new faucet for the mind numbing price of $140. Much more than I expected but, What the Hell! (as my uncle Sid used to say!)

At home I took the pedestal sink off the wall after disconnecting the water and waste and proceeded to take the old hardware off the sink. This sink is one I had rescued from a demolition at the Doral Hotel on 39^th street about 25 years ago. It was 20 or 30 years old when I got it but it is solid and quite a classic. Waste not-want not!

I am sure the new hardware is worth four times what the sink is worth but I like the sink-it has history. The old faucet was welded on with age and corrosion. It took a very long time and much energy to get it disassembled. I was tired before I got the sink cleaned and the new hardware started.

Two and a half hours after I’d started, I was putting the finishing touches on. I’d reconnected the water and waste and was installing the handles. I’d had a great deal of trouble re-attaching the body of the sink to the wall and I was really tired. I opened the valve on the cold water and BINGO, no leaks. Worked good. I then turned on the hot water valve and tried the faucet but, to my chagrin, the faucet did not work! It would not shut down the flow of steamy water. I looked through the instructions but there were no adjustments indicated. In frustration I called the 800 number to the manufacturer for help (No real optimism behind the call, I can tell you that! The call was recorded for security and training purposes, though!) Sure enough, they said “take the ‘unit’ back! I stared at my days work in disbelief and rage started to build. I began the disassembling process.

Before I got too far I said to myself “Self! Why not just take the one offending portion of the faucet (it was a three piece, non-unit construction product-if that means anything to you…) knowing full well that American Business (capital ‘A’ capital ‘B’) will most likely require a full return of the product, in its entirety in the original packaging.... But replacing only the one piece would mean I could avoid 2 hours of disassembly and re-assembly and maybe even get the job done before Lizzy got home. I girded myself up for battle and took off for the H Depot with the offending Hot Water Faucet section only.

I got into the “return merchandise” line with less than no hope of resolution, and this is what happened.

Liz-the cashier at the return desk-called the manager. He told her to get in touch with ‘Joe’ (not real name, sorry, I didn’t catch the real name) and have him help out. Actually what he said was ‘call him with some bass in your voice so you’ll get his attention. Not some wimpy, girly request, but a really pushy announcement.” So Liz announced “Joe in plumbing. Please come to the return desk for customer help! (with Gusto!)” She did it three times in the next five minutes and eventually ‘Joe’ came up and met me. He took me to the plumbing department and gave me a new faucet. I told him I only needed the one piece, but he said to bring the whole shebang up to returns and take the piece out myself. I did. Home Depot Liz sent me on my way and I went home.

My Liz was not home yet! For Joy! I bent to the labor of completing the job. I polished off the install and tested the new part. Perfect. I cleaned the sink, the powder room and the kitchen (where I’d done the bulk of the work) and managed to look relaxed and un-harried when Lizzy walked in the door. I didn’t mention anything to her. I let her discover the newly changed faucet for herself as she washed up just after nightfall. She was overjoyed.

The first night of Hanukkah and “a miracle happened here”. Oh, yeah! The last thing I did, just before Lizzy got home, was call the H Depot and thank the manager for the help of Liz-the cashier-and ‘Joe’- the plumbing guy. They are my Macabee heros for 2009.

Arnold

Whispery whiskered toothless men
Stringy haired
Patient and plodding
Cross my path
And slow my trajectory.

I am a missile
Aimed at hell
I am a rocket
And I know damned well
I am going where I’m going
I am going where I’m going.

Uncle Mel
And Steven J.
Now this guy Arnold
Old men in my way
Crossing my path
And slowing my trajectory.

I’m a locomotive
I’m asleep at the switch
I’m boiling towards the station
Named “Judgment Day”
Why’d these old men
get in my way?

They are speed bumps
They are pulse rates
They are reports from someone
Trying to get to me.
They are my uncles ghosts
They are my fathers secrets
They are messages
From someone
Trying to make me see.

900 dollars in fives

It takes very little to sustain life

Oxygen

Water

Food

but the bare basics lack

the recreational essentials

that make the sustenance seem good.

Enough to eat.

Enough to drink.

Enough to breathe.

may just keep you alive

but the key to life

with a capital ‘L’

is 900 dollars in fives.

A swallow of whiskey.

A glass full of beer.

A steak or a vegetable platter.

A roll in the hay

before you start your day

is the stuff that really matters.

and you can get that stuff

if you marry a girl

with capitalistic drive

who saves all her tips

and socks them away

and gives them to you

on a rainy day

when you need

nine hundred dollars in fives.

Herb's Thanksgiving '09

Ben was half way up the side of the rock face before Ricky could get his cigarette lighter out and fire up the stub of a cigarette. Herb had his camera up and he was moving through the leaves and underbrush looking for the right angle to get a shot of Benny as he ascended the giant rock. He already had dozens of photos of Benny climbing rocks and trees and the wall at the climbing place where Benny worked during the Summer. Benny was a monkey. He had a monkey tattoo’d on his shoulder and had little monkeys on the shelves surrounding his bed up a school. Lean and taut as a wire cable he went up the shear face of the rock like a fly on a window screen and once at the top he stood looking out over the valley. He was not even breathing hard.

Herb replayed the photos he had just taken on the tiny screen on the camera. He looked for his glasses so he could see them clearly but realized he had left them on the counter by the phone at home. When he got home again he would look at the photos and there was an excellent chance they would be mostly blurred and out of focus. Maybe there would be one or two that were ok. Maybe even one that is really good. That is the secret to being a good photographer, thought Herb, shoot lots and lots of pictures and maybe one would be good. The shotgun method. Digital photography has made everyone a pro. Herb thought he was pretty good. So does anyone who buys a digital camera.

He put the camera into his zip-up pocket and moved slightly down hill, out of the path of the smoke from Ricky’s cigarette. Ricky was dressed in his black combat boots and a sweatshirt with a hood that was up to conceal his identity from somebody-Lord knows who. Herb had had a hard time getting down the hill to the rock. He wished he’d thought to wear good boots like Ricky instead of the slick, old shoes he’d put on without a thought. Herb’d almost hit the dirt a dozen times on the way down. Benny and Ricky took turns catching his arm and keeping him upright. After Ricky’d finished his smoke he took out a Swiss Army knife and cut a stiff, thin staff made of iron wood. He trimmed the small branches and leaves off it and asked Herb how long to make it. Herb accepted the staff and the implicit message that came with it. He was getting old and slowing them down. But he was not upset with the gift. Just the opposite. He looked at his oldest son and tried to convey his appreciation for the gift without saying anything. Their ability to communicate had become crippled a long, long time ago. Words no longer worked. The staff worked to steady Herb on the hillside.

Each year at Thanksgiving whoever was eating dinner walked out onto the hills outside the house, sometime before dinner or sometime after. It was “the hike”. This year it was just Herb and Ricky and Benny. Certainly the old lady wasn’t going to come and Irma was busy fussing with the preparations for the feast. The weather was cooperative. It was ten degrees above normal for this time of year and the shallow sun gave out a sweet warmth through the leafless trees. So Herb and Ricky watched Benny climb for twenty or thirty minutes and then the three of them worked there way down the hollow to the side of a clear brook. It ran next to a chain link fence topped with barbed wire that was the border between the military reservation and the loose configuration of houses that made up Herb’s neighborhood. It was quiet on Thanksgiving Day. There was no rat tat tat from the gunnery range or thumping overhead from the helicopters. Herb and the boys were used to the racket and might not have noticed it anyway. The noise was more noticeable for its absence as they stood next to the gurgling water and Herb marveled at the peace he felt. He was feeling his age, but he was also feeling his experience and the strange inner peace that sometimes accompanied him when he was in the presence of his sons. After a short time it was time to go back to the house for the meal. They hiked up the bank and up to the road and then the last couple hundred yards back up to the house.

When they went in the side door the smells of Thanksgiving met them instantly. Turkey, pie, roasting vegetables. Ricky retreated to his room and his cell phone. Benny disappeared someplace. Herb sat next to Oma at the kitchen table where she was sitting watching Irma bounce from one chore to the next-from one platter to the next. Every few minutes Irma would assign her a task-to wash a pan or peel a piece of fruit or fold a half a dozen napkins. She was unable to successfully accomplish any of the work. Herb would intercede and help her to gracefully see her way to the end of each task. She could not find a kitchen towel to finish drying the pot she had washed for fifteen minutes. Herb gracefully took the sponge from her and completed the rest of the pans in the sink. He would tell her jokes and kibutz while he deftly relieved her of duties she would have had no trouble with only five years ago. She thought that she had finished each job and asked for more responsibility, which Irma readily assigned. She would start and Herb would finish. It was not possible for Herb to do this little dance with the old woman without considering his own age. He wondered how many years he had left before his own sons would be taking the lawn mower away in mid-lawn or his paint brush after he had coated half a wall? Or…would they be there at all… and would he start tasks hopelessly, never to finish?

The meal was ready, finally. Everyone mysteriously showed up in the kitchen and hands were lain upon the platters and the table heaped high. The groaning board was duly photographed for posterity and the seats were taken. The one time in the year that grace was surely said it was said in German. Oma honored with a job she could still (and always would) be able to perform flawlessly and without aid. We bowed our heads and listened to her say grace. When she was done Herb called order and delivered his own grace-the chamotsi- and everyone dug in. A flurry of activity ensued where platters and bowls flew back and forth like a Marx Brother’s comedy and everyone packed their faces. For an hour these five people ate and smiled and had everything in common. Herb especially leaned back in his chair, satisfied and Thankful.

A Thanksgiving Fable

"...to Grandmother's House We'll Go..."

Today we went down to Mutti’s and Oma’s to bring them back to our house for the holiday. Lizzy swore we would never get the old lady into the car and if we couldn’t get her to go then Mutti would never go either. She was partially wrong. Oma decided that if she got into the car she would never see her home again. She told us we were after all her money and refused to get her medical care and she wouldn’t budge from her seat in the kitchen. Mutti, in a singular moment of clarity, decided to trust me and go with Lizzy upstairs to pack a bag for herself while I sat with Oma and we stared at each other. A case of an immovable object and an irresistible force.

I knew Oma trusted me. I have never given her any reason to not to. I baby-sat with her several years ago when Mutti went with the rest of the family to Texas for Jennifer’s wedding. My act of self sacrifice apparently did not go unrecognized by the old Bavarian. Lizzy always says she has nothing but good things to say about me. While she speaks not a word of English and I not a word of German we coexisted for a week in that tiny Long Island cape cod house while the rest of the family partied in Houston. We ate take-out Chinese and pizza and sat in front of the TV together in the evenings. I showed her slide shows of family pictures on my computer but she liked my photography of flowers more than the ones of people. The conversations were an exercise in sign language and intuition but somehow we got through and built a trust that she refuses to extend to her granddaughters. Why, I do not understand.

Her two granddaughters have cleaned, shopped, cooked and cared for the two old ladys in ways unseen today in modern America. They have cleaned up their basement after it flooded. They have gotten their ungrateful cat inoculated and clipped, de-flea’d and de-wormed. They have brought them both (mother and daughter) to the doctors, the lawyers, the bankers, and the priest as needed. Still the old lady thinks they are trying to kill her, steal her wealth (which is by no means extensive!) and make her suffer. She thinks they have intercepted her pension from Deutschland. She thinks they took her to the hospital to try to get her “finished off”. Apparently, when you go to the Hospital in Germany (she believes) they weigh the plusses and minuses of your age, social status, ability to pay, and cosmetic appearance and either save you or let you die. I can not speak to such theories but she thinks we have the same sort of medical vetting here in the U.S.A. So when she had a little stroke and her daughters got her into a hospital it was their intention to get rid of her. Obviously! She has never forgotten. She beat them at their own game. She lived!!! She has made it now, an additional four years, to the age of one hundred and two and one half despite them and she will never forgive them.

Once Mutti and Lizzy had a bag packed for Mutti, I instructed them to pack for Oma. When they had done that we began in earnest to get the old lady out from behind the kitchen table and into the Honda C.R.V. Usually that takes ten minutes-slowly down the kitchen porch steps and up a stool into the back seat. Today it took a half hour and was a tour de force, with the emphasis on the “force”. We pushed and pulled her out from her seat at the kitchen table. Once out from behind there she walked under her own power very slowly to the front door. But she had an ulterior motive. At the front door she let the cat out thinking we would never be able to catch it and, therefore, not be able to leave the poor creature alone and out in the elements. Wrong! We hate that cat and if it was to starve or be eaten by one of the neighbors that would be okay with us!

We proceeded to pry Oma’s hands loose of the front porch railing and maneuver her towards the car. She began to scream “police, police!” in German, of course, and Mutti, trained to be deathly afraid of authority, tried to clamp her hand over Oma’s mouth to silence her. This drove the old lady to even greater volume and determination not to let loose of the railing.

Mutti’s face was coloring purple and Lizzy was beginning to loose her resolve. I said to Mutti “don’t put your hand on her mouth. Let her scream…” but Mutti was in a mini-panic. I had to sweet talk her to get her to lighten up on Oma and just ignore her protests. Lizzy was pushing from behind the hundred and two year old battle ax and I was pulling from the front. Actually getting her down off the front porch proved to be much easier than getting her into the SUV.

We were past the point of no return and I, personally, had to succeed as I had already been put on notice by Lizzy that there was no way we would get her home. It was a matter of pride.

Once we had her to the car we literally had to pick her up and drag her into the back seat. Liz got in from the other side and pulled while I picked her up and pushed her in. Once all her feet and hands were in we slammed the door and I locked it. She sat yelling on the inside (for once I was glad I didn’t understand her) and pounded on the window glass. God help me, I thought, at that moment, of Eastern European Jews, banging on the wooden sides of the freight cars, begging for their lives. She yelled through her semi toothless mouth as though she were being sent to the camps, rather than being taken to a warm, cozy home for a week of relaxation, food, and my own soft cat on her lap.

I did get her cat into the house before we pulled away. She sat in the back seat silent while we cruised-the four of us-through the Bronx and Westchester. She muttered her suspicions (which Lizzy translated for me) that she would never see her home again and we would rob her blind.

We have been home for an hour and she is getting up right now, after her first nap on the couch in front of the warmth of the fireplace, to a homemade dinner (which Matthew cooked) and a glass of sweet wine. She is talking about the possibility of poison.

A Walking Tour Through a Home in Peekskill

(To all my friends,

Your response to my last entry was amazing. I have never felt so good about anything I have written. For all of you who are upset, thinking I was just laid-off, I was not! The fact is that the piece was written in 2003! I have not re-read it in all that time and when I did I realized it fit right in with the blog and, in fact, was as true (if not more so) than it was the day I wrote it! Fear not. I am ok.

So, Stu, Jay, Joie, Don, Candido, Judyth, Kathie, and a lot of other people, all my love and thanks for the kind words. I will try to keep it up. In fact, see below.)

A Walking Tour Through a Home in Peekskill

The man of the house was all alone. “My son.” Thought Herb as he pulled up into the driveway. It was difficult at first to be sure which of the tiny concrete parking spaces belonged to the beige and brown house where his son sat on the front porch steps. The houses were so close to each other. It reminded Herb of Queens—different style of house, of course, but something about the neighborhood made Herb think of the row home in Queens where his young family had lived for eight years. It was the sidewalks and the closeness of the homes. The way each house sat in the shadow of the one right next door. And the porches. In the summer Herb could imagine each family living out its overheated private lives right there on those porches with the neighbors watching and yet not watching.

Herb pulled in off the street and rolled out of the car door. He pushed the latch that opened the rear hatch door of the seven year old CRV and walked around the back of the car. His son Rick met him on the sidewalk. Herb knew that under his cap was a Mohican haircut and in his lower lip Rick had a stud like a small collar button sticking out. But none of these fashion statements meant anything to Herb anymore. It was not his business. The menthol cigarette still bothered him, though, and he was just about to say something when he caught himself and let it go. After all, Herb had smoked for twenty years and nothing anyone else had ever said to him had made him stop. Herb felt immensely proud of his self control at that moment. He also felt something else at that moment. The urge to hold his son in his arms and hug him. But before Herb could reach him Rick had dropped his smoke in the grass of the small lawn and reached into the car to pick up the plastic box of tools Herb had brought him. He was smiling like a kid opening presents under a Christmas tree, anxious to see what goodies were in the box.

Herb had collected, over the years, an assortment of hand tools and small electric tools. He was meticulous about keeping his own tools clean and sharp and filed away so that they were always at hand when he needed them. But the odd assortment of extra tools that had come his way over the years sat in buckets and in drawers and on shelves all over the basement. Now that Rick had moved into the old house in Peekskill with his girlfriend, Herb figured he might as well put together a small starter tool kit for his son. He fished though the garage and boiler room gathering screwdrivers, pliers, a few wrenches and a sheetrock knife. He threw in a drill that had once belonged to Irma’s father along with some drill bits and a magnetic screw gun tip. He also put in the first jig saw he’d ever owned, purchased at least 35 years ago, but it still worked well. He had plenty of blades for the saw. A nearly new extension cord and a cheap hacksaw, and he sharpened a one inch wood chisel which he covered with a cardboard sheath wrapped with electrical tape. He threw in the tape in as well. Herb worked on the kit for about an hour. When he was done he was satisfied that the “kid” would have anything he needed to scrape through a little household project. Now, on the porch, sitting on the stoop, Herb watched Rick examine each of the tools. 

“I don’t know if you’ll need any of this stuff” said Herb, “but I think you could pretty much do anything you need to…I mean these tools were just sitting around the house…”

Rick took the cardboard sheath off the chisel and tested the blade with his thumb. “You don’t have a sharpening stone somewhere in there do you?”, he asked.

“No,” said Herb, “I only had one of those. You can buy one pretty cheap though. Sharpening is an art. You’ll have to learn how.”

Herb had been over to Rick’s new house about six or eight times in the past few weeks. Picking him up to come over to eat his moms food at home or once to go to temple on a Friday night. Every Thursday Herb picked him up to go to a meeting at a church on Crompond road. Herb dropped him off and continued on some nights to attend the “Coffee with the Rabbi” adult education in Yorktown. “Coffee with the Rabbi” was every other week but Herb still picked up Rick and dropped him off for his meeting every week. Rick had lost his drivers’ license a couple of years ago for DUI. Getting around was a problem. Work was a problem. Everything was a problem for Rick. Just recently, after a second stint in a rehab, Rick had moved in with his girlfriend and Herb was coming to grips with having an adult son. He was trying to think of him as an adult—not “the kid”. He was trying not to give advice. He was hoping for a little movement from Rick’s side towards adulthood and responsibility but trying not to be disappointed with the slow pace of Rick’s progress. Strangely enough, he was struggling with his need to continue to be in Rick’s life—to get that hug when they met and to be invited into Rick’s home for the first time.

“Want to go out for a cup of coffee?” asked Herb. “I thought I’d go over to the coffee house in Peekskill and grab a cup.”

“Naw. I’ve had enough coffee for one day. Besides, I’ve got a batch of ribs in the oven.” Herb turned to look into darkness beyond the screen door and he could smell the ribs cooking. “Come on in for a while,” said Rick, “and take a look around.” Herb perked up and stood at the screen door next to a muddy colored mutt that followed Rick everywhere. When the screen door was opened they all went in and Herb flashed back to all the old, crooked places he’d lived in his life. All of the threadbare carpeting and broke back furniture and dim lighting and poor heating—it all came back in a rush. The place was not so bad, thought Herb. Certainly better than South Street in Philly. He petted the dog that rubbed up next to his leg and thought back to the cold, damp space, on a dangerous street in Philadelphia where he’d spent a year finding himself after dropping out of college. The basement had been flooded and there was dog and cat shit everywhere on the first floor. He slept in an unheated room on the third floor. He was always broke and hungry. There was always the threat of getting mugged or robbed but even so these were some of the best times of his life. He had been free of family and his childhood past. He had discovered sex and late nights and hard work and it all seemed so good at the time. Now, in this place in rundown Peekskill his son was experiencing the same things. Herb didn’t know which was stronger; his sense of dread for all the things that he knew could go wrong or his sense of wonder at all that he knew could go right.

The house was a small, framed structure, typical of all the working class houses in all the industrial towns of America. Clapboard siding and a crooked front porch and a crooked stoop. On the first floor level was a kitchen and sitting room. The kitchen was very clean and modern with plenty of cabinets and counter space. The smell of Rick’s ribs was sweet and spicy. He was becoming a good cook. The dog had his nose up in the air sniffing the meat while his backside danced on the linoleum. Behind the kitchen was an airy workshop where Rick’s girlfriend kept equipment for a side business she worked at. She silk screened posters and tee shirts. Rick said he was trying to help with the business. Herb looked over the frames with stretched fabric and the cans full of ink and solvents. Rick would be good at that, he thought. Rick was good with his hands and he always had enjoyed art.

The second floor was a warren of small rooms. There were two small bed rooms and a connecting sitting room which was filled with cardboard boxes. Rick opened one of the bedroom doors to show Herb but Herb waved at him to close the door. He had no interest in looking into someone’s bedroom. Herb noticed the rubble where the dog had chewed up the corner of a box full of shoes and the outlets full of extension cords and jury rigged electrical connections.

A narrow, tight stair led to the attic. Someplace meant for storage but now serving as a bedroom and living room for Rick and his girlfriend. There was barely enough headroom at the top of the stair to allow passage and the peak of the house allowed Rick to stand only in the center of the attic space. But where Herb saw squalor, Rick saw freedom and the adventure of being here and now and on his own. He clearly was enjoying his first experience on his own. Herb was trying to be careful not to intrude on this experience.

It will all be all right, thought Herb as they descended the narrow stair and made their way back out to the porch and finally out to the CRV. Herb promised to come back with a test light so they could find out why some of the lights and switches didn’t work. Rick said he would like to come over to the house for Passover seder next week but his girlfriend had to work so she couldn’t attend. Rick and Herb would see each other on Thursday night. Until then be well…

Herb went on into Peekskill and had coffee at the coffee shop alone. He watched the scruffy young fellow behind the counter grind beans and wipe his hands on pants so greasy that Herb wouldn’t have worn them to change the oil on his car. With him behind the counter was a high school girl with a stud in her nose and a red thong peeking out of her low cut jeans. Herb sat in a sunny spot in an old chair. He waited for his friends from South Street to come in through the front door. Tommy and Kathy. Stephen and Saint Looie. Seldom Tom and Cowboy Tom. He knew they weren’t coming but he would wait here a little longer. You never knew.

Take Me Off Your Speed Dial

Take My Number Off Your Speed Dial

“Take my number off your speed dial. I don’t have that phone any more.“

This statement gives me equal feelings of relief and despair. Much like the cell phone itself, which bestowed feelings of empowerment and freedom while at the same time pinned me in space and time to the rest of the electronically enslaved population.

Excuse my introspection. My reflection. I am mired in one of the stages of mourning—if that is what it is called—for my lost job. I was fired. I am in the early stages of my understanding of this loss. I will bring you up to date while you fiddle with your cell phone and take me off of speed dial. They took my phone away. You can get me at home in the early evening. Just like the good old days.

Stage one— “pole-axed”. This sounds physically painful but it is not. It is comparable to the early stages of drunkenness in an unfamiliar bar or at the wedding of a complete stranger. It is an out of body experience. During this stage most of ones time is spent watching oneself from the vantage point of a fly on the ceiling. I was not uncomfortable listening to “Firing Man’s” brief, cold summation of my career and it was not in the least painful. It reminded me of novocaine. The final moments were awkward. He extended his hand. I, being a Jew of unabashed emotional capacity, forgetting, or rather ignoring the last five minutes of professional realignment, threw my arms around him and hugged him. It is a moment (much like the residual pain of the extraction of the tooth itself after the novocaine has worn off) which haunts me.

This moment of emotion, The Hug, is what I am thinking about when I wake up in the morning without an alarm clock at the exact moment when an alarm clock should sound. I know now that I will think about that foolish emotional moment for a long time. I will pay for it. I will pay for it with a diminished sense of self-regard. It makes me feel weak. Sometimes I think that it also made him wonder about me. Was I the right one to fire? Did he get it wrong? But there won’t be a moment of self-doubt for him. That is not the way he is structured. When I left his office I ceased to exist as a concrete being. I became an anecdote.

Stage two—“confusion”. There I was walking out of the offices I had walked through for years seeing people I’d casually encountered, spoken to so many times during my long employment …but it is all different. There is no attachment. I do not belong here any more. Where do I belong now? These thoughts and feelings are not separate stages of development. They are all mixed up. One does not end and the other begin. They flow into one another. I am still “drunk” as I walk past the receptionist and into the elevator. I am not sure if I said hello to anyone. It is the beginning of the workday. People are just coming in to the building while I am on my way out. Where should I go now? My wife is scheduled to pick me up at the train station at 6:13 P.M. She could be there earlier except that it is Tuesday and she is at work herself. I don’t wish to bother her. I have no ride home and I have no place to sit, think, be, for the rest of the day in the city. I do not want to wrestle with my thoughts for ten hours while I walk around Manhattan. Like a milk horse loosed from his wagon I mindlessly walk back to my job-site on Broadway and 56th street thinking about everything and nothing—with the illusion that I must collect my personal belongings.

The following is a list of same:
One pair of black boots.
One box of apple-cinnamon herb tea
One extra pair of reading glasses

I collect these things from a gang-box in the pump room on the 26 mezzanine where I have set up my “office” for the administration of a project that now has no relevance for me. The foremen for the carpenters, the electricians, a couple of the trades men, come in to the pump room to say good morning. To ask me questions about the days work. Clarify a ceiling height. Discuss the dimensions for the sprinkler heads in the fire rated ceiling of the hallway…. I like these guys. We have begun to work well together over the past few months. It is the one thing I can think of right then and there that I am exceedingly proud of. I had to prod the architect, client, engineers, and project manager for the information that was missing from the job documents and provide it to the trades. We have taken this miserable orphan of a space with confusing, disjointed, misaligned systems and details and molded it into a real job. . The trades now have the information to build the job and they believed me when I told them I would be there to get them the answers when the questions arose. It took weeks of patient and persistent effort to gain their trust. We were working together like a team. They knew what I expected of them.

I tell each one of them in turn, standing over my raw plywood worktable, that I am leaving. Their disbelief and warm regard buoys me. The fact that my dismissal takes place right before the Christmas holiday raises their genuine indignation. It adds insult to injury. Tradesmen are comfortable with periods of unemployment—it is a fact of life for them. It is the timing that smacks of deceit and treachery. Once the subject has been fully expanded upon—the handshakes, the buffering jokes and a few words of mutual praise for our mutual efforts—they begin to question the future of the job itself. Their concern for the the job is straightforward. I am not put off by their self-interest—I expected it—and I try to assure them that someone else from the company will maintain the schedule and flow of information. But they know all the other superintendents and project managers associated with this project. They laugh at the idea that there will be someone responsible to replace me. Someone who will take the job as seriously as I have. They are about to “fall into the crack” but they laugh and pump my hand and tell me it was a great job and it is a small world and we will meet again and I know they are right. Their concern for me is straightforward. It is a small world.

Stage three—“Fear”. I recognize now that I have been afraid for a long time. It is not something that just began that morning in the “Firing Man’s” office. I have been afraid my whole life. It is built into the background of my biology. Fear is a component of all my actions, decisions, thoughts… But now it had come to the fore. It is spelled with dollar signs. It is the plastic healthcare card in my wallet. It is in the mailbox. It is “Please Remit”. It is the cost of each oil change, grocery bag, replacement toothbrush, toilet flush, and box of Girl Scout cookies that my family wants and needs. Suddenly it feels true, that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” because it is at the root of all things in my life. It becomes a sub-plot to all things in my life. Fear to the fore!!! It’s not just for breakfast any more!


Stage Four—“Anger”. I think about all the folks who are still working where I once worked and I wonder who among them deserves their job more than I deserved mine? I was good enough to hire. Good enough to work for thirteen years. Good enough to do the jobs that no one else wanted—the too small, too dirty, too tight on money jobs. Good enough to slide from position to position when it suited the company-—when they needed someone to fill a slot.

Hey “Mr. Firing Man”, do you remember the time when the “President” called me into his office and I sat on his big couch and he and I talked? That was one comfortable couch. He asked me how I was doing and I told him what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to know that I missed my old job in the wood shop with the smell of mahogany and glue and the company of the carpenters who worked for me. That I hated the new job that you told me I had to take. That I hated the big teak desk in my new office—the one with a view of Park Avenue. That I hated the dark gray suits that I had to wear every day and the meetings and that I didn’t know how to cope with the office politics and the overbearing personalities of the other project managers in the other offices. That, though I hated it all, I wanted more than anything to prove my worth to you and to succeed in the role that had been forced on me. That I didn’t want to disappoint! That the week before I’d sat in my seat on the commuter train in my suit and tie and I couldn’t move when the train had pulled in and gone dark in Grand Central Terminal… and that I broke down in tears because of the stress. Instead I told him everything was wonderful and then you came into the room and gave me your evil eye. (Do you practice that look in the mirror? It is a very unflattering look, you know. Effective, to be sure, but not the kind of weapon one should use on one’s employees and friends.) I tried to understand what I was doing wrong that you should turn that “look” on me and that’s when you told me to get out of the office.

Did you feel you had to protect the “President”? From me? You had to protect your school chum buddy from what? Were you afraid we could become friends? That I would have his ear? Believe me, I did not envy either of you—your positions, your possessions or your aspirations. I only wanted to be employed. You needn’t have feared me.

I am angry for that hug. I can’t get past that hug. I want that hug back, “Mr. Firing Man”. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve the small portions of my life when I gave them to you. The fact that I like to sculpt—you found that amusing. You had your little jokes on my account. I was your little joke for a long time. You and your little click of clinch-jawed, school-chum buddies with your inherited ties to the Republican party and your box seat at Yankee Stadium. Forget that I was never close to a seat at the table, or a seat in Yankee Stadium…or on the presidents’ couch…I was never more than a step from the door, was I?

And at the Christmas party, you gave me that mean little look again. I never want to see that look again. I knew at the party that you were going to fire me when we next met in you office. I could tell from the look. But that look tells more than you can admit. It tells me you are out of touch. You think I was not a company man? That I was not on your side? You’re wrong. You’re wrong. You may never know for sure but I can tell you, you’re wrong.


Stage Five—“Escape”. I became despondent at the prospect of sitting around the house during the holidays. There is no prospect for finding a new job until the New Year is under way. I can not cope with the flood of feelings and endless, circular thoughts, powerless to act. Do you remember the movie “Animal House”? When the fraternity was being punished for low grades and bad behavior and they were put on probation? Do you remember what they did? They went on a road trip. Revelation.

I packed my little VW, put my youngest son into the passenger seat and took off. If it had not been for torrential rain, high wind and tornado warnings we would have gone to Louisiana but we ended up instead on the banks of the Little Econ River and the spoil islands off the coast of Florida. We drove until we were tired, ate sparingly of the pork belly of America, and spent the night of Christmas in the home of dear friends. Jews wandering the land. I did not think of work once. I did not have to see that mean little “Firing Man” look once! I shot a hundred photos of the Blue Ridge Mountains and of my son fishing in a muddy brown river in central Florida. I am home now looking at them. There is still fear and anger in me but there is also peace around the edges.

At first after I was fired I thought “things will get back to normal soon” but now I know there is no “normal”. There is only the continued progression of events shaped by fear and anger and love and circumstance. There will be a new job sometime soon with a new cast of characters and a new e-mail address and a new phone number but until then, my old phone number—the one you used to contact me for years—is no longer valid. Please take me out of your speed dial. Call me in the evening, on my home phone. I am in the book.

Corkbob

To see ones self too clearly

is a curse.

to see one self unclearly

is worse.

to see oneself not at all

now there's the trick.

Cats without balls

wind around my legs

and require love.

Disturbing moments

of loneliness

continue to demand attention.

I thought those days were done.

I thought I had found good places to hide-

a skill which I had perfected-

the good places,

as I go back to them,

in hours of need,

have been taken

by younger men

like seals in the sun

on high lonely rocks

above the ocean.

A night ride

to remember

the lonely

drug filled

twisted grins

when the streets were dark

when there was

nothing open

and the morning papers

wrapped tight with wire

waited to be folded

and packed and

chucked up on porches.

A night ride

to remember

warm hibiscus

wet lawns and other monster moons.

A night ride

to remember

icey arctic blasts

when I peed with the dogs

into snow banks

and stood butt-cakes to the wind

and I showed my bare ass

to the moon

and all the stars

and stomped around

a cherry red stove

full of live coals and dead maple.

Neither soldier, sailer, Indian chief

baker, butcher or successful thief.

Neither coin collector

carver, worker of wood.

Neither mason, craftsman

bad or good.

Neither setter of example

or follower of men

or friend

or foe

a leaf in the wind

and the wind does blow

__________________________

The sun is comming up now.

I have had coffee

I wish I had a smoke.

I have not combed my hair

I have on the same socks that I wore yesterday

I don't care.

I took a shit in a warm clean toilet

I take all the god damned technology I am using for granted

and I don't care.

I have no plans for the day

There is a woman who will wake

and look for me and I will not be there

the subltle mixture that makes up her day

will be wrong--god save my soul--

I don't care.

I will have no answers for my sons

when they ask me questions

I will only have more questions for them

and they will grow to distrust me

and it does not matter if I care.

I will decend

and then I will bob up

like a cork in the water

only to go down again

and this life is deep and cold.