I don’t know where it came from. Just a bowel deep growl that took me as I tapped it into first. And knowing I hadn’t seen a cop or commuter or a minivan in a few minutes I felt compelled to twist the grip until the back side slid and caught with a high-sided snap and the rear wheel gripped.
I watched the pointer of the tach jump.
The needle of the speedo gyp’d passed all the lower numbers and the cuffs on my pants danced on my shins and the cool wind flapped up my jeans like water under pressure.
The road took on an amplified quality each tiny motion building on itself each small bump rippling into a panic attack each twist a thought less effort each thought an immediate order to be obeyed-- consequential.
And when I hit the Ton the smallest touch on the grip swore to the road and explained itself like a spy who shit in his pants when the gallows floor dropped. I was affraid to look down. To confirm. I could only see where I was going and had not one care for where I had been.
It is near the end of August.I have not made an entry in about a month.I suppose a rainy, Sunday morning (7:45am) is the perfect time to “catch up”, though sitting here I am not sure exactly what it is I have to say.
Ben and Liz are both upstairs sleeping away.I came down as quietly as I could and fed Sylvester and made a pot of coffee.
The week-long drought has broken with a gentle gray morning rain and the raggedy looking garden is getting what it needs to complete its mission.The fruit was waiting for this boost to push it into final plumpness and color.This year the garden has been amazing in its bounty.All I had to do was the usual weeding and tidying up with stick and string to keep it tied…Oh, and labor like a coolie to keep it watered in the face of Nature’s stingy rationing of rain.But it has paid off.The tomatoes are bursting and red.The eggplant (purple and white) and summer squash big enough to bust the limbs of the plants and plentiful enough that I wish I had another freezer to hold them.There was broccoli and three kinds of peppers (green bell, pale green banana, and the brightest, red-est, devil’s peppers, who’s taste and heat delight me) as well as a crop of butternut squash yet to come.The butternuts are my favorite and they are lying all over the floor and in the fence of the garden waiting for the umbilicus of their vines to brown and wither while they tan in the sun and bath (today, anyway) in the rain.I can’t wait to taste them.
For future reference I allow the following as the reasons for the success of this year’s garden:
1)Hot, dry weather.Without a doubt the single most important factor.Of course if I had not hosed and bucketed amazing amounts of rescue water the whole thing would have withered, but that is not important.There was no blight.The rot that affected almost everyone last year was kept away by the sun and the drying breezes.Last year I got a few middling fruit on each of my tomato plants and the rot took the rest.This year I got pounds and pounds of the plumpest, red-est tomatoes that I have ever grown.The same for the rest of the veggies.The only plants that did not thrive were the peas and the beans, and I blame myself for that.When they needed help I was not in the mind to lend a hand.I was too busy with the other plants and I suppose I am not all that fond of peas and beans.I hope there is no place in hell for people who don’t care about beans.
2)Unusually good placement of the plants and good varieties as well.It was luck, mostly, and the barest bit of intuition on my part that the plants found enough sun and enough room and support to prosper.No, actually it was all luck.
3)The butternut squash found it’s own way to grow up into the space between the fence and the netting around the fence.There it hung like sailors in hammocks and they grew plumb and healthy.The deer fed on the fat squash leaves that grew out through the fence but they had no way to get to the fruit.It looks like a “squash hotel” out there now and next year I am going to try to plan a long fence like that on the inside of the garden and see if the butternuts will do it for me the same way.
4)Fertilizer.Not much-just a spoonful per plant when I put them in the ground-but what a difference.This fall I plan to get a small load of manure and turn it into the soil instead, but I am not ashamed of the fertilizer I used this year.Nor am I ashamed of the newspaper or the shredded Microsoft Word documents, or the chopped leaf mulch I experimented with for ground cover.I have learned that newspaper is my friend while Bill Gates is not.
5)Minute use of insecticide.Last year I had two eggplant.This year I had over a dozen and more are coming on the tree-like plants.The reason-insecticide.Just the tiniest amount at the right time.Last year the flea beetles ate the leaves of the young plants (turning them into lace doilies) while I struggled to defeat them.I tried all the internet/hippie/organic methods to control the pests but nothing worked.I struggled with the tree-hugging instincts of my 1960’s philosophy and returned the unopened box of “Sevin” to Walmart and, as a result, the plants punked out.This year I re-bought the poison and lightly dusted the affected leaves when the beetles struck.One application and the bugs marched down the driveway and ate my neighbor’s dog instead.I ate eggplant!!! I am now a “Goldwater Republican” in the garden.Nuke ‘em!!!
6)God helps them that helps themselves.Especially when it comes to cut-worms.These little buggers chop through the tender trunks of newly planted peppers like chainsaws.Again, thanks to the use of newspaper, they were defeated.A cylinder of newspaper around the base of the new plant stops the cut-worms cold.It seems they are a lazy species and a mere two inches of barrier is enough to send them off to find easier pray.By the way, I do not like to buy newspapers so I steal one of my neighbor’s instead.That seems very ecological to me (toilet paper roll works as well! But again, nothing from Microsoft seems to stop cut-worms).
Well, that is pretty much it for another year of gardening.The fall will be here early this year.The leaves in the trees are already tired of hanging on and are dropping for lack of water.A prelude to the real thing…and then the snow.I am looking for a suitable substitute for my gardening-something that will give me the same sort of occupied feeling during the cold weather.I am open to suggestions.
Coffee is not good for Spaz, but I share mine anyway. his tongue long and blue laps down into the cardboard cup down on the concrete, and he drains it, spilling not one drop. He waits for me to pour him more. I do, and when he is through a spot of the sun breaks past the baggy buttonwood trees between us and the projects and he begins to pant. It's going to be a hot one again today.
We are right in the flight path. White, red and blue tail-sections of the prop planes and the commuter jets on their diagonal way to cities within five hundred miles of LaGuardia, fly right over the projects- right over where I sit- on the curb, in the last of the morning shade, retreating from the gravel and broken asphalt drive, behind Randall and Castle Hill... it promises to be a hot one again today.
Spaz and I retreat from the expanding seven a.m. sun. Into the office painted not white or gray or green but some disturbing color in between. Strangely agitating and morbidly routine. Piles of papers garbage pails of dog food computer screens and dust bunny's bits of hardware and sheets of glass a coffee maker and an adopted family of dish-ware, in the pantry unwashed and waiting... but the portable A/C is running and the ancient stereo is humming. It is cooler here than anywhere else on this block in the Bronx. it promises to be another hot one today.
The phone rings and the other end unswervingly demands. try and try, as best I can, there is no purchase no a-mens sufficient. and I find myself believing it is me. it is my fault I have gotten too old for this grind- If not for Spaz and a laugh now and then I would never come to the Bronx again. Certainly not for the weekly pay. Certainly not during a finite summer's day, and it appears it's going to be another hot one today.
In the crapper there is a penny on the floor it sits in a dust ball below the hinges on the door. it has been there a couple of years (or more) and I see it every morning. Dozens of people must have seen it too but sits there still as if it is glued to the asphalt tile strangely unmoved by human hand, bucket and mop, or broom. Along with the K-mart towel (a new one each year) a florescent bulb an immobile fan the penny lives on on the floor of the can- as a point of focus, an example of inflationary trends, as a testament to those tiny pleasures shared by man- a cup of coffee a toilet a private moment contemplating a single cent on the floor of the can.
The robins started trying to build nests in the empty space above the porch girder about a week ago.Everyday Elisabeth or I will sweep away the previous days collection of twigs, string, bits of paper or tin foil, interwoven leaves of grass.It falls down to the driveway below or onto the deck of the porch.It is one thing to push a small pile of twigs, it is another to push what is obviously a nearly completed nest off into oblivion.It is upsetting but necessary, as the completed nest will fill with eggs.When the eggs hatch they will grow and the mother come and go feeding them and in the process she will shit all over the deck.The chicks will make a mess.They will call out to the mother and talk to each other incessantly.I am sure the cat will find a way to get to them and if not he will probably kill himself, falling off the deck trying.
The robins are so swift in their construction.And persistent.If we miss a day of ‘pushing off the construction material’ we are likely to have to push an almost-completed-nest off the three and a half inch shelf of the girder.When the nest is near completion and must be demolished it makes me think of a near-term abortion.The nest comes down intact (the robins are master constructors and their product is solid) and lays ten feet below along with the other bits of straw and material like a fetus in the afterbirth.One can be sure the mother bird is somewhere very close by, perhaps watching with a bit of grass in its beak.
When we were first together, Elisabeth and I, we moved to Florida and lived in a rented garden apartment in Cutler Ridge.When a pigeon set up housekeeping on the balcony outside our patio door we gave it no thought.Pigeons are not clean animals- at least not as clean as the robins nests described above. Their nests are messy affairs of mud and thick-bladed Florida grass-but we didn't care, at first, and watched the process of the building.Soon it became populated with two eggs and we were entertained with the birthing drama.When they hatched the mother came and fed the pink, featherless, mice like beings and they began to move around in the nest.As time past, the mother bird's excrement mortar’d solid the fluff that grew and was shed by the chicks.Bits of food and, eventually, the chick’s poop larded onto and around the nest as well.Though still fascinated by the process we became less amused with the mess and jokingly named the chicks “Ugly” and “Dirty”.
If I had known how long and putrid was the process of raising pigeon chicks I surely would have erased the nest before they were laid.But we were ignorant and, as I said, fascinated with the process and could not bring ourselves to destroy the family established on the sunny balcony.I don’t remember how the pigeon family story finally ended, whether they flew away or what.On that my memory is vague but I swore to myself I would never let another bird build a nest so close to me again.That is why we are so diligent in keeping the robin’s nests from taking hold.
All the show-off cast of the landscape have rushed onto the Spring. Forsythia, Lilacs and magnolia, Ornamental pear and the bright blue petites gushing under the neon green ground-cover.
And when they are done bragging, The dogwood comes.
The one outside the kitchen window is my favorite. Having been tortured by the grapevines (nearly pulled to the earth in the vines mad climb) Like a Bonsai on my hill, I cut it free and keep it clear now. Even though it is permanently crippled and bent It rewards me with its Geisha bow And silken bloom.
“No one knows exactly what goes on in there, in the mind or body of someone else.Organs often take over for one another when one is a little weak and another is a little stronger.One might think one is experiencing a pain in the stomach when it is really the heart muscle rending under the powerful weight of defeat and disappointment.A tired body?A tired soul?Who knows?”
Herbert Roth
The Last Straw
This is the story of the last straw.The one that broke the camel’s back.
I was going to the RoyalCastle with a pocket full of change.I had carefully counted it out and knew to the penny how much was there.Exactly enough for a breakfast special and a birch beer.It was early on Saturday morning and I had just collected my paper route.I had paid for my papers for the week.I had already put my savings away in my bedroom—snuck in quietly and put eight dollars into a cigar box under my bed and snuck back out to my bike.I had just enough left over for breakfast.I pedaled over to the RoyalCastle.
A couple of blocks away, by the side of the canal Jake Eperson and his brother leaned on their Vespas.They knew it was collection day.Other days of the week they might just steal one of my bundles of papers or pick up my wire cutters while I wasn’t looking.But on collection day they were waiting for me and they were after money.I guess they figured I would have all my collections still in my pocket.I tried to ride right by them but it was no use.They jumped on the motor scooters and caught up to me in a few seconds.I jumped off my bike and put down the kickstand and just waited while they propped their machines up on the center stands.Jake with his sandy colored hair down over his eyes said nothing but reached out and grabbed me by the shirt.His brother got behind me and pushed his hands down into my front pant pocket.He came up with loose change some of which fell into the dirt where we stood.After checking all the other pockets he pushed me into Jake.Jake just shoved me to the ground.
“Fifty cents?That’s it? That’s all you got is fifty stinkin’ cents?”There was another few pennies and a nickel in the dirt.I knew it was fifty-nine cents exactly.That’s what breakfast would have cost.It was pointless trying to explain to them.“You must have collected over thirty dollars today.Where is it?” “None of your business!”I told him.“I already paid for my papers and that’s all I got left.”“No way,” said Eperson, “You gotta have seven or eight dollars left even after you paid for the papers.Where is it?”I just stood there silently, slightly off balance while Jake’s brother tugged on my shirt and pulled me from side to side.
“Next week we’re going to be here again.Next week you bring all your money.Got it?”
I nodded.Jake’s brother shoved me down into the dirt.He held fast to the collar of my shirt so that as I fell the buttons popped off the front.Laying there in the sand in the coral rock and the stickers I watched them swing their legs over their Vespas and jump on the kickstarters.Jake turned to me while he pushed the aqua green machine off the stand and with a smile he tossed the change straight at me.“Go get some breakfast” he said.As they disappeared I got up and searched through the weeds and dirt and found forty-nine cents.I brushed myself off and got on my bike.I struggled to get the big bike with the huge basket and canvas saddle bags out of the sand and back up onto the blacktop and finished the ride to the RoyalCastle.
After parking the bike I went into the air conditioned restaurant and sat on one of the spinning stools at the white and silver counter.The cook was flipping minced onions on the grille next to dozens of small square burgers.The sizzling, steaming smoke was sucked up by the hood over the grille but lots of the smell still reached the spinning seat and me.The saliva was running and I licked my lips.I could taste the eggs and grits and bacon.The mugs for the birch beer were frozen with a crust of ice on them so that when he pulled the sweet root beer out of the tap into the glass it was like ice itself.I put my change on the counter.
“What’ll it be?” said the counter man, though he knew I came in every Saturday and ordered the same thing.“Breakfast.Over easy with grits and bacon.And a mug of birch beer, please.”Then I had to add “but I only got forty-nine cents.Could I owe you the dime?”
I could see his mind working like a mill stone.He absently wiped the same spot on the counter with his greasy white rag.Finally he said, “Naw.Can’t do that.Boss’d be really pissed if I started that kinda stuff.”He just stopped wiping and turned back to the grill.I just sat there no longer salivating.I was starting to shake like I had the chills.Uncontrollable shaking.The smell of the cooking meat became sickening to me.My stomach twisted like a knot.I jumped off of the stool and began for the door.Halfway there I turned and looked back at the cook.I’d worked delivering seventy papers starting at three a.m. and then collected the week’s money at seventy houses.I was hungry. I’d been beaten and robbed and threatened.All this and standing there in the RoyalCastle the only thing I could think about was the dime—one stinking dime—that this guy wouldn’t trust me for.I started back towards the counter but before I got there I was seized by a gut-wrenching urge to scream—but it didn’t come out as a scream.It came out as vomit.Empty stomach vomit.The kind that is sour and liquid with nothing much in it but stomach juices.It formed a little puddle on the floor while the last few drops trickled out of my mouth on little spindly strings of saliva.My stomach was cramped.My skin was clammy and cold.
“Hey!” the guy behind the counter was yelling at me.The other people in the place looked at me with hate in their eyes.I just turned and walked out the door to my bike.
I pushed it off the sidewalk onto the black parking lot, jumped on and rode away.
This guy, Joel, died, I am told in a phone call from Faith this afternoon.He had been sick and now she tells me he is dead.I only remember him from one occasion…no two, and if those two short meetings are any indication of his total character, I would have to conclude that he was a really nice guy.
The first time I met him was at a “Brotherhood” meeting that we had in Barry Sanel’s garage.“Barry Shows Us His Toys”, would have been a great title of the theme of the evening, because that is just what he did.The tour included his motorcycles and his riding mower that was covered with a sheetmetal cabin that made it look like a steam locomotive, and the old muscle car he has owned since he was 17.He showed us a slideshow of pictures of his motorcycle racing and Team —the yellow and brown, "Smokin’ Sanel Brothers YOO-HOO Motorbike Racers. He handed out YOO-HOOs and other soft drinks and we sat in his garage and shot the shit.
It was fun.
Joel was there.He was not a member of the brotherhood or, for that matter, the Temple.He came because Jerry (I think) knew he liked motorcycles and invited Joel to come to the ‘party’.Joel seemed to have a good time and I liked him immediately.We talked about riding and our bikes and when He told me about the Ducati he rode, I admitted that I had never ridden a Ducati.Without a bit of hesitation he invited me to go for a ride.We met a week or two later and when I got to his house He showed me his two, red, Ducati motor bikes, one of which he insisted I ride.I left my black F-650 and rode this sleek, fire-engine red, performance bike instead.What a thrill.When I got back from tearing up the back roads of Bear Mountain state park with this scalpel of a motorcycle and I got on my single cylinder Swiss Army Bike I felt as if I were riding on Barry’s riding mower made to look like a choo-choo train.It was all fun for both Joel and I.I admit that I don’t think I ever saw him again.I think of that ride all the time.
So here is to a Nice Guy!In my mind he’s riding a hot bike some great place now.The weather is grand and the roads are clean and curvy.Oh! And I hope it’s a red bike.He liked red.
Monday, March 15, 2010
I repent! I give up my wicked ways. I will illustrate everything I write without benefit of wealth. Just to show I've really changed, I took this photograph myself! (all rights reserved, not to be used without permission. Copyright Patented Cursed A pox on all who use this artistic representation without paying me first a million scadzillion dollars.)
(for Joel-who wanted to know where the picture came from.)
Steal from me The ideas are not mine They are in my head And gone Quickly if I don’t use them, Wisely, And fast, Than they are gone and past. Or stuck in clay Through heat And under paint In either case Away.
Steal them from me There are a million more out there. Like fruit In the air To be picked Or to fall through time To other fertile soil.
I have food And I am not worried That it will run out On the road. I am never lost It is only at the edge of sleep Once each day That I confront my weaknesses And blink before it becomes light. Steal from me— It is alright.
(Did someone say "Flat Bagels"? The other day someone mentioned them and I remembered the taste and the smell of them baking. I also remembered that I had written something about them-I found it and here it is.)
I thought I had figured out how long it takes for poppy seeds to make their way through my alimentary canal.Thirty-six hours.I ate a flat bagel as I walked through Grand Central and sat on the four o’clock train on Friday afternoon.It did occur to me that there were a lot of seeds on that thing but it wasn’t until this morning that I got the report.A visual inspection of my bowel movement confirmed uncountable numbers of tiny, black, pits and so I said “Ahh Haa!”Thirty-six hours plus or minus.I happened to mention it to Liz.“I know how long it takes poppy seeds to make their way through me…”She didn’t even look up from the Sunday paper.“How do you know?”“I checked.I ate a flat bagel Friday afternoon and the seeds have evidenced themselves just now.Thirty six hours!”I poured a second coffee for myself and got her cup and made one for her as well.“What about the cookies you ate last night?Poppy seed Humentashen!”I detected a hint of superiority in her voice (damn the carb counters of the world) but her grasp of the obvious flaw in my theory could not be denied.
I love flat bagels.It is one of my great weaknesses.One could attribute it to how tired I am when I am heading for the afternoon train.One could say that I deserve it as a small reward for the sacrifice I make all day.I do not delude myself at all.It is just a tactile weakness not better or worse than a heroin addiction or a craving for chocolate, or cocaine or whiskey.I crave the salty mix of seeds and spice and the crunchy, chewy feeling in my mouth.No matter that I promise myself that I will not buy one (they are overpriced), that I do not need the calories (I am not overweight but my physique is not properly balanced), that I must save my self for Liz’s home-cooked dinner (I am not a sexual cheat -my indiscretions are purely dietary), I buy one anyway.
I have been known to stand out front of the bakery for fifteen minutes and debate all the points but in the end I almost always end up in line.“Flat bagel, please.Yes, everything.Wait, I think I have correct change.”I even go so far as to promise myself that I will not take a bite until I have found a seat on the train, gotten my ticket pinned to my lapel and taken out my reading materiel or Sony Walkman and earphones.Would you believe that I cannot even keep that simple promise to myself.I cannot stop myself—as I stride through the huge terminal I cannot help reaching into the bag and ripping off a small bit of the crust.Then another and another.I become ashamed of myself.By the time I finally find my seat the bagel is nearly half gone and I have forgotten my pledge to myself, my embarrassment, my initial resolve to not buy it in the first place.By the time I am done I always wish I had bought a bottle of water and my mouth is full of bits of seeds.
The latest round of diet fads has not helped my sense of guilt.All carbohydrates are bad, I am told.Dinner has been distilled down to meat with a side dish of salad or a vegetable (some vegetables are considered unacceptable on these “low-carb” diets as well though I cannot figure out why.Carrots used to be good for me but no more.)Lunch consists of a sandwich without the bread—there is really nothing on the lunch menu that appeals to me at all.Unless I were to eat the same thing I know we will be having for dinner but then dinner would be a boring disappointment.Breakfast?Eggs.They used to be bad for me, didn’t they?Now they are good.Of course if you want them to be really good they must be yolk-less, food-colored, egg “substitutes”, the ones that come in a milk carton.You whip some of those up and make an omelet with onions and peppers and top the whole thing off with a fistful of low-fat cheese.This is eaten without toast (you may have a slice of “whole wheat, sliced thin, diet bread” but once you taste it you will never be tempted to include it in your breakfast again.It is not worthy.)To truly make this breakfast grand you will want to include a couple of slices of turkey bacon and a cup of coffee with skim milk and sugar substitute.I tried this breakfast.I reverted to raisin bran (with extra raisins) and banana sliced over it.I used to consider this a good, guilt-free breakfast—now I am fraught with over-eaters remorse as I pour the one percent milk over the cereal. But this guilt is nothing compared to the self-flagellation I wish I could inflict about three times a week when I succumb to a flat-bagel urge.
Many people, lately, have become soldiers in the low-carb army.They knot in tiny clusters around the buffet table at parties and critique the selection of food.It is not unusual that there is absolutely nothing for them to eat.It is becoming more usual for there to be a platter of acceptable vegetables and low-fat cheeses for them to munch while they observe the gluttons amongst us eating the miniature quiche and batter-fried shrimp.“It’s amazing…it’s always the fat ones who eat that stuff” they will whisper to one another just loud enough to be heard over the crunching of celery.They will sip their wine while the unobservant will swig a beer.They will not touch the baked potato or the breadsticks or the wedding cake.They will tell each other they can’t wait to get home to a big bowl full of diet Jell-O and artificial whipped cream.On a decadent night watching TV they might eat exactly twenty pistachio nuts.I will make the rounds of the party looking—as I always do at these functions—for signs of intelligent and interesting conversations.“I lost twenty-two pounds and I’m never hungry…”“Have you tried the eggplant casserole?No breading!…”“No thanks, those kind of nuts are very high in carbs.”People used to talk about their cars and their stock portfolios.Remember when there was debate over your choice of Mac or PC?No more.It’s all about diets now.Low carb diets.And here I am addicted to flat bagels.
I knew that guy.I mean I didn’t really know him I just knew what he was all about from a momentary glimpse of him –him looking at me through the side window of his car and me looking back at him through mine.I knew him all right.And he knew I knew.We were standing between two mirrors.Me looking at him looking at me at him at me.
I was in the passenger side seat of my wife’s car.The windows were rolled up.It was hot and the A/C was on.Sick and tried of traveling.Tired of sitting in the passengers side seat of this piss ant little Japanese piece of shit on the New Jersey turnpike.Mile after mile of dodge’m cars and nothing scenery and numb conversation but mostly silence and boredom.In my own car, driving it might not have been so bad but in a tinny Jap car with the grinding road noise coming up through the floor and the tinny stereo speakers making music (when we turned it on) sound like crap it was bad.Bad.
My youngest boy was in the back seat breathing on the moon—snoring—exhausted from two hours on his skateboard in one of the worlds great skating parks.Not that you would know that it was all so great from looking at it. Built under an overpass near the stadium in extreme South Philly. Beer bottles and trash all over the place and graffiti on every non-breathing surface.But I can understand why that is just part of the deal—what makes it so great.The trash is a statement.My wife told me “ give me a couple of hours.If I lived near here and brought him here a lot I would form a committee to clean this place up.Hell," she said, " I could clean it up myself!"And she could too!But she missed the whole point.Clean has nothing to do with it.Clean is what she wants not what they want.In fact if she cleaned it up they would prolly stop coming to the goddamned place.Definitely, if you cleaned up the spray paint off the walls, you might as well put a hostess at a chain link gate and hand out Mickey Mouse ears at the door.The kids wouldn’t come any more.I felt like an asshole even being there with him.Especially with the god damned video camera in my hand.Now what ever possessed me to take that thing out of the car?Oh yeah!I did it so the kid could have some pictures of himself to show his buddies of him at this place.Like a legend –this place is—or something.
So he was in the back seat snoozing away and she is at the wheel and I might as well have had my hand in my pants pulling my pud for all the fun I was having.Just getting from here to there is all I was doing when the beat up old piece of shit liver colored sedan pulls up on the right of us.The traffic was crawling now—we’d hit the traffic trying to get back form the Jersey shore—and this beat piece of crap pulls up next to us.In the front seat are two kids—prolly about twenty years old each.One—the passenger—has a black baseball cap on backwards and his head is bobbing up and down to some music I can’t hear or maybe isn’t even there.Who knows?The driver needs a shave and has a long black greasy ponytail and a filthy white tee shirt.He’s driving hunched over and got his bottom lip pushed out and eyes straight ahead focused on the road like he’s doing a hundred and twenty miles an hour.He’s not rocking at all so I wonder if there really is any music.I was going to roll down the window just to see if the music was real but something told me not to bother.It didn’t matter anyway.Nothing in that car mattered.Just then I caught a look at the occupant of the rear seat.Hadda be their old man.
He hunched forward so the bill of the passenger’s baseball cap was right under his nose.When he turned his head to look out of the driver’s side window at me he had a look that spoke a hundred pages to me.We coulda sat down next to each other in a bar and told each other’s story without any problem.Easy as pie.
I figure his car was broken down some where.Was prolly broken down for a while and he had wiggled like a worm on hot asphalt for a couple of weeks trying to get it fixed. NO luck.He walked to the bus stop to get to work.The kids were in the back bed room sleeping.Some times they were there when he got home.They would be fresh from a shower and ready to go out for the evening.One of them was in junior college and had been for three and a half years.All set to get his two-year degree in a couple of months if he got one more physical Ed class.The other one worked at the K-mart as a stock boy.Never gave two shits about school and was perfectly happy to go in to the air-conditioned K-mart for his shift as long as the two hundred and forty four dollars a week kept coming and his mom kept on doing his laundry.He knew the old man was going to get on his case every couple of weeks or so and he would for sure get kicked out one of these days but o.k. till then, right?
Last night the old man was sleeping on the couch when they came home.They had a few burgers out on the kitchen table thawing and they were debating on whether they should fry up a bunch of potatoes to have with the salad left over from their mom and dad’s dinner.He came into the kitchen rubbing the sleep from his eyes and was standing there watching them plunder a bag of chips when his wife came down the stairs.She got into the middle of everything started to season the burgers and took the gallon of milk out of the refrigerator to pour into two huge glasses.
I gotta get a ride to the auto parts store tomorrow, he said out loud after thinking about saying it for a full five minutes.He had trouble believing these two man-child things living with him couldn’t read his mind and offer to do things for the household.Been a problem for a long time.Just couldn’t figure out that with all the “up-bringing” he and his wife had given them that they couldn’t just somehow do things…like making their beds and taking out the trash.It bothered him so that sometimes he got really depressed.Really depressed.And when he got depressed it made him mad and when he got mad he would open up like a howitzer and scream and say things that were on his mind—not necessarily logical, but on his mind none the less –and in the end everyone would be starring at him not knowing how to deal with this madman ( the truest description of him at this point was “mad man”) and everyone would be embarrassed ( especially him…).
So, there is this beat up sedan with these three guys siting in there and the one in the back is looking at me and I’m looking at him and I‘m thinking—I know that guy!Sure as I am bored to death out here on the New Jersey Turnpike and headed for my home,I know that guy.Sure as I am headed for my home where my oldest son is prolly still asleep or cooking himself a meal of steak and baked potatoes I know that guy.And he is looking back and forth from me to the back of his son’s head with the baseball cap and he’s wondering what ever happened to the baby he held in his arms.And he’s wondering what ever happened—what’s gonna happen to the boy who he taught to drive and told about condoms while the boy blushed and squirmed…What’s gonna happen to him?And he looked so old in the back seat of that crappy car.This used to be my car, he thought.I bought it new and babied it with oil changes and washed it and waxed it and took the whole family out for picnics in it and parked it out at the end of the parking lot at the shopping center cause I didn’t want to have it get all dinged up.Now it’s rusting and falling apart.No one ever replaces anything on it now that I gave it to them to use.There is no handle on the passenger side door.You gotta open up the window and reach outside to open that door.Who’s checking the oil?I don’t know.And here I am begging a ride to the Pep Boys so I can get a couple of parts to repair my own car and I feel like a beggar getting a ride in the car that used to be mine…
I know that guy.I might not be just like him but I’m enough like him that I know why he looked at me the way he did.We are in the same club.I used to think I couldn’t ever be like that.That my boys were different—Ha!That’s just the way it is my friend.I mean it’s not like they poke your eyes out and steal your girl but it’s damned close!That’s just the way it is!
I had to look away from that beat-up car.At just the same time he looked away from me.Up in the sky there was a DC-3 at about five thousand feet.How do I know it was a DC-3?I don't know. I just did.Last night I watched a big sleek jet coming in for a landing at Philadelphia international airport.I have no idea what kind of a jet it was.Just big and long and sleek like a greyhound dog with wings.But I know that was a DC-3 up there over the New Jersey Turnpike.Just like I know that guy in that beat up old car.I just know.
