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Nor’easter, Part 3: Goodbye Monks, Hello Dalai

14 Jun

Nor’easter: Being a Whirlwind Snowy Trip to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York City or How Van Gogh and a Herd of Alpacas helped Lee get her Groove Back.

Second day: Morning. Goodbye Monks, Hello Dalai.

We rise a bit before seven and the first thing I do is look out the window to see the cars, pavement, roofs, covered in snow. I noticed, last night, the car had an ice scraper in the trunk. We may well use it soon.

We shower and pick out the day’s dress. Long johns for Lee under a shirt. Special thin long johns under her dungarees. For me, a long sleeve charcoal long john shirt with buttons, looks like a jersey, and generic long johns under my dungarees. Each of us has a leather jacket. We wanted our longer coats but there is only so much we could take on a plane. Slowly, surely, car travel seems much more the luxury than travel by plane. The luxury of time. The luxury of space.

We dress, all the while marveling, as we do when we travel, at the TV. Not so much the TV, of course, but the regional differences that can still be found in the programming. Different accents, different emphasis on different stories, more of one type of commercial than another. Local flavor can still be seen, though it is often subtle.

Of course, one of the big differences is not just due to the area but the area at this time of year. The weather reports suggest several inches of snow. There are ski commercials, farm commercials and commercials for various animal-related fairs as well. No idleness during the winter months.

We eat breakfast. Apples. Bananas. We know Rachel will be here at eight and we don’t want to be late. Today, we are hers for wherever she wishes us to be. And the first place to be is outside at eight.

And so we are. Gloved. Scarved. Hatted. I have leather gloves, a newsboy hat with a brim just big enough to keep the bright sun out of my eyes and a cashmere scarf I never get a chance to wear. Lee has gloves we just purchased for her, Thinsulate within, leather without, and a stocking cap. I tried to find her better gear, and find I did. But the interest was lacking. At least I managed to get her into a pair of hiking boots.

Standing in the lobby of the Eastonian, we see a car pull up. It parks, driver window open. It’s Rachel. Window open. Open. This is not starting out well.

Out we go to meet her. Her window is broken and will not roll up. Ok, we could have met her at her house. No problem. She tells us she’s used to it. She is dressed in a T-shirt and sweat shirt. Last report was it was 22 degrees. Lee tries to give her another sweat shirt for under it but, no thanks. Rachel says she is fine. Neither one of us believes her.

We walk over to our car. It is covered with a fine powdery snow. I open a door and nearly all of the powder falls to the pavement. We get in, Rachel pulling up the seat to sit in the back, and closing the driver’s door, shakes the remaining powder from the front and back windows. Lee does not want to drive but can’t sit in the back. She never can for more than a very short distance. Rachel is sure she can direct us from the back seat. Off we go. Where to turn? What is that? What does that mean? A new town and I am a kid – curious and fascinated.

The first stop is actually in New Jersey – The Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in Howell, Washington County. It should be but a half hour away. It is listed as a monastery and welcomes visitors. According to the website, it is the home away from home, at least in the Northeast, of the Dalai Lama and it is where he does the bulk of his teaching in the US. There is a stupa there I have wanted to see and this snowy day is my opportunity.

But first, we must go through downtown Easton. This won’t take long and I drive slowly, even considering there is ice on the road. The buildings seem odd and it is a few moments before I realize it is simply because they are old. Old. Not in ill-repair. Not at all. But not modern. They have character and a scale more human than I have often seen. We drive by Lafayette College and it is quite a sight. Beautiful, up on a hill in the center of downtown surrounded by trees that must provide needed and appreciated shade in the summer.

At the very center of the downtown area, as per design and practicality, by the grace of fortuitous geography, on one side of the town square, where the Bushkill flows, is the old Crayola factory. Long moved to the outside of town and having significantly cleaned up its act, folks here used to be able to tell what color crayon was being made that day by the color of the Bushkill. Now the old factory building is called Two Rivers Landing. The Crayola Factory, a museum and activity center based on the much-loved company and product, takes up the bottom two floors. On the top floor of the three story building is the National Canals Museum.

The Northeast has the bulk of the navigable waterways in North America. Not the biggest rivers, perhaps, but the most, often the deepest, and easiest to get a ship down. Or, if not a ship, a boat or barge. Goods moved from place to place by water more than most people think. And, when there was no river, a canal could be built. The best known of these is the Erie Canal in New York, but there are many important canals and many still in use. This area long depended on the Lehigh, Delaware, and Morris Canals and the Lehigh and Delaware Canals meet right here in Easton. The Bushkill behind us, two canals within walking distance and the Delaware River but a mile away.

It is the Delaware we are headed toward now. On the way I notice there appear to be many more chiropractors’ offices and tattoo parlors than most places I have been. Any place I have been, actually. Often next to each other. Getting a tattoo must be more rough than I thought.

As we come over a hill, in sight are the Delaware and two bridges less than three blocks from each other. Also in sight, over the Delaware, is Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Rachel has me take the closest bridge, called the old bridge. “Is that its name?” No. I had asked about that the night before as well when first seeing the two bridges. The old bridge to Phillipsburg and the new bridge to Phillipsburg. No one I asked, and I asked quite a few at Tick Tock, knew the name of the other bridge or why there was a new one. And the new bridge cost seventy-five cents to cross leaving people to routinely shun it for the old bridge which crosses the Delaware just as well as the new one.

How can no one know the names of these bridges? There is really the excellent reason for this. The names are horrid. Not exactly names to trip off the tongue or lodge in one’s memory. The old bridge is The Easton-Phillipsburg Toll Bridge and is part of US 22. It does have a toll, it turns out, but only coming into Pennsylvania from New Jersey. The other bridge is The Northampton Street Toll Supported Bridge and it has tolls both directions. It should be noted the new bridge was damaged by Hurricane Diane in 1955 and later repaired so even the new bridge is not exactly new. Still, it is easy to see why the spans are called the New Bridge and Old Bridge.

Just before we get to the bridge there is a steep bank to the south and then to the east again with a rough rock wall to the south as the road circles around Lafayette College and cuts through the solid rock which rises on the sides of us as we sink to river-level. Roads cut through the land are common in this part of the country. They are called roadcuts, as a matter of fact, and are often studied by geologists, who let the roads folk do the work and then come in to study the strata uncovered and material left over. You can even find them in cities such as this one in Easton and right in the middle of Philadelphia. It is not strange at all to see rock walls on either side of the road, and amazingly close stones jutting out as though one sneeze at the wrong moment, one twitch of the hand, will leave a driver without a passenger-side mirror or a passenger side all together.

The rock wall, as we approach the bridge, drops suddenly just as the road curves, just when you think you might hit the jagged granite and slate, there is nothing but drop. Nothing but air and treetops as the land falls away.

“That’s called Cemetery Curve,” Rachel tells us.

“Why? Is there a cemetery at the bottom?”

To my surprise, the answer is yes. There is a cemetery at the bottom of Cemetery Curve.

“Did they name it for the cemetery or did they put the cemetery there because that’s where all the bodies piled?”

“You know, I’m not sure. It was probably easier just to leave the bodies where they landed. Less hauling.”

I’m thinking we might not make it to New Jersey.

Finally, over the bridge, the geography changes instantly as the geology does. Granite and slate becomes dolomite and pegmatite, pinkish in color, and there is less roll to the hills, fewer rocks cropping up. The buildings, as well, are more composed of wood, more clapboard than stone. That we are in a different place is apparent. We continue to head out on US 22 though Phillipsburg to Howell. Among the bedding stores, the auto repairs, hardware stores, marts, offices, shops and restaurants, we pass a foodstand, an old gas station by the looks, white, wood. This is the sort of place one stands outside of and orders while the people inside make the food. The kind of place people congregate round during fair weather. This is not fair weather but I am no less intrigued by Toby’s Cup.

The cup in Toby’s Cup is not for soup or coffee. The cup is a bun and this is a hot dog stand. Not a bun in the sense most people think of one. It is a steamed bun without opening at either end, forming a long cup, a trough, for the hot dog and a slice of pickle, sauerkraut, onions and various other condiments to be loaded into. The hot dog is not broiled, not boiled, not baked or steamed – it is deep fried in peanut oil until it screams and splits. A Splitter it’s called, not surprisingly. I saw this on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations special show on New Jersey and decided, if I found one, I’d try it for sure. Once. Just once. I would stop for one now, regardless of the early hour, if Toby’s was just open. Once. Just once.

As we drive, Rachel points to the north at a gap, a wedge cut in the mountains. Wind Gap. Wind Gap is where the Delaware used to flow, she tells us, dividing the mountains for millions of years millions of years ago until acted upon in a manner so startling and violent, the flow shifted miles away to the present location, now called Water Gap for clear enough reason.

But this is not correct, alas. This is an area where the North American and African continental plates meet. Many streams once flowed from the north to the south through this area. One by one, the streams eroded wider and wider beds through the soft lime leaving the harder rock, sandstones and conglomerates, much less eroded and formed these old, now rolling, mountains, part of the ancient, even by mountain standards, Appalachian chain. The widening creeks and rivers, one by one, found the crack, the cleft that divided the plates, and the rivers were “captured.” Over time, more and more rivers joined them, eroded the crack to a bed to a cleft to a gap.

As it is now, Water Gap is a mile wide from New Jersey’s Mount Tammany at 1,527 feet to Pennsylvania’s Mount Minsi at 1,463 feet. The Gap is about 1,200 feet deep from the tops of these mountains to the surface of the Delaware which, itself, is, at this point, 290 feet above sea level and fifty five feet deep.

And Wind Gap was and is for wind.

After a while we come to the monastery road – a sharp, sudden left turn on a snowy steep hill, and pass it hearing “there it was” from Rachel. Another quarter mile and we find a safe place to turn around and slowly make the right onto the road, winding up and up, my wife wincing at the drops and occasional small skids, past farms and stables and homes and then, on the left, Tibetan prayer flags. We turn in.

There are two buildings. One looks like a large home, in the back of the property. Perhaps in the back. There may be more land, much more land, behind it but I cannot tell. To the right is a large hall. At least it looks to be a single large open room, with a wrap-around porch atop stairs atop a hill.

But this is all dwarfed by the stupa, high, round and white in the middle of the icy field. It is the first thing we see as we enter the gate and it dominates the scene. We park in front of the hall in the gravel spot large enough for only half dozen cars.

It takes us a few moments to gather our warm things and, in the meantime, Lee notices, out loud, this place appears to be empty. We leave the car and carefully walk to the one hundred foot or so gravel path to the hall steps. In the distance, the door to the distant house opens, closes loudly echoed on the ice and down the stairs, across the field, a short, many-layered lady approaches, calling to us. She introduced herself as Diana Cutler. Later I would find her to be one of the first American students of the center and the one to whom administrative duties were passed when the monks, when the monastery, moved to New Brunswick and the Center, called Labsum Shedrub Ling – simply, The Learning Center, was gifted to the Dalai Lama.

In thick sweater and coat, jeans and hiking boots, Diana has crampons under her soles. “We don’t get visitors here in the winter.” She can’t say that anymore. She worries about us falling on the icy gravel and asks us to walk on the side where it meets with the dead grass. There are no monks here, she tells us. And she is headed into town to see her acupuncturist. But she has a little time and we can see the study hall and learning center. We walk carefully where she instructs us and hold the railing up the wooden stairs. The double colonial doors are not locked and she bids us leave our shoes outside and we enter.

Fifty by thirty feet, I am guessing. Doors to the left and the right. Meditation cushions stacked against the wall through which we just passed. In front of us, a large alter spans the center half of the wall we are facing. Next to it, on the left and the right, from altar to wall, are bookcases. It is cold in here. There is no heat. There is no provision for heat.

The altar has flowers, statues, candles, pictures, iconography, tankas, incense stacked in tall cans, all in a profusion of color and texture and the closer we get the more interesting, the more fascinating, the more diverse and complex it becomes. There are tiny household statues of stone and pewter. Small necklaces and strands of malas sent to spend time on the altar. Coins cover much of the surfaces that, from further away, seem empty. Much of the color and texture comes from cans of food, boxes of cookies, toiletries. Much of the altar is composed of mundane household items and, along with the statues and candles, it all fits, it is all beautiful and serene and holy. The canned peas are holy. The toilet paper is holy. The toothpaste is holy. The cookies are holy cookies. The razors holy razors. Sacred are the Ritz crackers. Sacred is the cheese. Holy is the mundane. We back up again and it all blends and all is holy.

I sink to my knees, prostrate, allow my forehead to touch the floor once, twice, thrice. I walk up, take incense, light it. Offer it. I leave a few dollars in a box. I fold myself again, to the floor, on my knees and sit. I am quiet.

Lee asks Diane where the monks have gone. Gone they are and gone they have been for quite some time. Once it was home to Tibetan Monks and Mongolian monks in a culture that was mixed so both would feel at home. Then Americans started to enter as well. Americans like Diane and her husband Joshua. Now everyone is gone but them. Gone. Gone by death. Gone by attrition. New monks heading to the cities to be engaged in the compassionate work of the world, easing suffering with hands as well as hearts, to work as well as meditate. Only Joshua and Diane Cutler remain. And, in 1984, the Dalai Lama asked the monastery in Howell, NJ to change the name to The Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center. Now, this is where the lessons are taught when the Dalai Lama is in the NE United States. But not in the winter. In the winter, it rests.

And so do the texts. They rest. The massive shelves hold them. A full third of the wall is covered by them with half one side of the altar and half on the other.

These texts are bound in cloth and are just under a foot long, three inches wide and about an inch thick for the smaller ones to four inches for the heftier tombs. Each has a flap on one end of a specific color. It’s the color that tells the reader the language from which the text is derived, and the further information on the flap tells the title and contents. One holds them or, more traditionally, places them on a small slanted stand, with the long axis from hand to hand, and flips the pages up. Tibetan is read from left to right. These are the books Richard Gere has been spending so much on translating and digitizing. These and others like them from other collections are being saved and translated, made available and read more widely than ever. Perhaps not better understood, but certainly read.

And there are hundreds here, at least. They are stacked long-axis-in on the shelves, which are arranged, further, into cubbies. Six to twenty-four books, stacked three to six high, are in each cubby and there are four to seven cubbies per shelf on seven shelves set atop a set of cabinets and reaching within a foot of the ceiling. They are organized by color. These are the sutras and commentary.

On the bookcase to the left are the sutras, all one hundred and eight, in red. Above them, to the top of the case are the Indian commentaries in blue. Those continue to the next bookcase and, then, above those are the books in yellow – the Tibetan commentary on the Indian commentary.

Diane has to get to her appointment so we start to leave and I turn around for a final look. Once out the door, I see the prayer wheels, again. Each like the next like the one before, each a black cylinder bidding us to open like a lotus. Om Mane Padme Om. May I open like a lotus. I go to the first one on my right. I have never spun a prayer wheel before and, as I do, Diane calls to me. “Start on the other side and walk clockwise.”

I start again, on the left side of the front doors, spinning each, walking, allowing my hand to contact the bottom of each, spinning it as I walk, the next, the next. I turn the corner and continue and I can hear the wheels turn, behind me they slow, the next one start, several turning at once. Each one spinning a prayer again and again and again. Coins are left here and there and I dig into my pocket with my left hand and leave a quarter at the next corner before I turn, not missing a beat. The back of the building, wheel after wheel and another coin to leave at the corner before I turn and the other side of the hall and another coin and then the last half side and the door again. Lee is smiling. She knows I have long wanted to do this. And smiling, we walk down the stairs, carefully, on our non-spiked hiking shoes. Rachel in her sneakers. Diane walks confidently, we, slow and haltingly, carefully, where the iced grass meets the gravel. We thank her and Rachel and Lee go to the car.

The stupa sits large and imposing in the field. Not the tallest in North America. Not the widest or most ornate, but it is the one I am at. There is too much ice to go there but I do regardless, slowly, carefully, crunching and balancing the two hundred or so feet into the field. This stupa was dedicated in 1984 to the founder of Labsum Shedrub Ling, Venerable Geshe Wangyal (1901-1983). And I stand at its base for a short time knowing those behind me are cold. So I turn around and tread to the car.

Once in, we head back the way we came, down and around the mountain, slowly on the icy road, to the main road back to Easton. Tony’s Cup is still closed. Over the Delaware, Rachel gives us directions to her house. Her mother wants to take us to see the sights of Jim Thorpe and some surrounding areas. Not having any idea what she is talking about, we happily give in to a new adventure seeing things we’d never heard of. She has a minivan and will drive. An easy day for us.

Arriving at her house, the garage door is open. Dogs are barking and can be heard all over the quiet, snow-covered neighbourhood. We enter the house to wait for her mom who has taken a half day off work. It is loud with five barking dogs that never cease. It is musty with animal, fur, aroma of cage. Lee exits and waits outside in the cold.

She enters again asking for paper. The answering service called with a new appointment for a new client. We had put off getting an answering service because of the expense. This trip made it a necessity and, searching the Internet, found a local one in Melbourne. The cost is sixty dollars a month. Much less than we had anticipated and added one more example of our not taking advantage of something because of our assumption it would be expensive. Before the day of vacation was out, we’d have three new patients. All while enjoying the Poconos. One day and the service paid for itself nine times over. So much for saving money.

Mom arrives. After a few minutes of hellos and explaining why Lee could not stay in the house, after making sure Rachel was dressed more warmly, we are all into her van and off to see Jim Thorpe. The road is leading up and up while the snow begins to fall.

 
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Posted by on June 14, 2009 in Culture, Family, Food, Nor’easter, Religion, Social

 

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Nor’easter, Part 2: Eat In or Pass Out

29 Apr


Nor’easter: Being a Whirlwind Snowy Trip to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York City or How Van Gogh and a Herd of Alpacas helped Lee get her Groove Back.

First day: Night. Eat in or Pass out.

After a finger-numbing walk around the car, making checkmarks where indicated, promising to bring the car back with the same amount of fuel it has now—just over three-eights of a tank and why on Earth don’t they just fill the tanks and then ask you to bring them back full—we settle into the car with a plunk as we allow gravity to seat us. Low car. Too low.

We get direction to Easton, but fifteen minutes away according to the girl at the car rental. We ask where to eat, as it is getting late, but she has the suggestions one might imagine for around an airport and not one fast-food joint was more appealing, or less appalling, than any other. She is sure we’ll fare better in Easton.

It is an easy drive. And, as we drive, it begins to snow. Lightly. Lightly. East to nearly the New Jersey border. The roads are good and we make amazing time even in the snow. At nearly eighty miles per hour we are being passed by cars whose inhabitants must be getting younger as they drive, whose speech, if only I could hear it, would sound slower to my ears, whose color shifted strongly to the red. People driving so fast they will have to reset their timepieces ahead when they get to their destination to match local time.

Lee is speaking to Rachel on the phone. Where to stay? If not for her two cats, five dogs, and various other animals, we could stay with her and her Mom. The Estonian is the suggestion. She gives us directions. We follow them and become, after getting off at the correct exit, lost. Instantly lost. While the next day we would see how easy it, in reality, was, in the snowy dark, it is anything but. Finally, after asking several people in parking lots, we are directed to The Estonian Suites. Suddenly, as we pull in, I understand and then, just as suddenly, no longer understand the hotel’s name. The folks here pronounce it East-onian. And, indeed, it is named for the city and is but a few blocks from Lafayette College. But it is spelled as though it is named for the country, Estonia. And, apparent only as we pull up, it is a Holiday Inn Express.

Within, it is empty save two people behind the desk. Past this person is a large reception area followed by a larger comfortable lounge. There is also a computer area with Internet and I make note in case I cannot find such in the room. The price is more than I am comfortable with, though, in truth, that is not hard to accomplish, but less than most places we have stayed.

It occurs to me, I have never seen a hotel lobby this empty. So empty, the idea comes to mind that I could easily break out into a Robot Dance right here and no one would notice. No one but Lee, it would seem, who apparently hears the thought and steps lightly on my foot adding just enough inertia to keep me where I am. I think of a waltz instead. She steps slightly harder.

Classes started last week, at Lafayette, the clerk explains to us. Last week, there was not a room to be had in the county. This week, hardly a room is full and we can have our pick. Non-smoking, top floor please.

Like the lobby and lounge, the hallways are lovely as well. The entire hotel is lovely and only the small sign outside under the hotel’s name would give it away as a Holiday Inn. It is clean, nearing elegant, beautifully decorated, large and with a staff than cannot think of enough wonderful things to do for their customers.

We are going up to our room. It is coming on eight o’clock.

Lee calls Rachel again. Where to eat? No worries. She’ll come over and guide us. We’ll have dinner together. She arrives about a half hour later, after we have cleaned up, put some clothes away, changed and we head out to see Rachel waving fro outside of a minivan. Rachel gets into the middle seat, as do I and Lee takes the front passenger seat. After Rachel introduces her to Mom, we head out.

What does Lee want to eat, Mom asks. A cheesesteak, of course. No problem. We’ll go to Giamanies. We ride some twisty-turnies and arrive to a closed deli. Closed at nearly nine on a Wednesday evening. No problem, We can go to The Widow’s Tavern.

It takes us ten minutes or so down roads I could never find my way back on, through neighbourhoods and past buildings I really would like to return to in daylight to explore before we find The Widow’s Tavern. This is not a new building.

It used to be a stage coach stop and an inn of quite little repute. Marvin, perhaps the innkeeper, had an affair with one of the “house ladies” and, later spurned, killed her and placed himself dangling sharply at the end of a rope. As the story continues, he is sighted now and then at the tavern, turning this, dropping that, peeking here and there.

We walk in, have a seat, ask for menus, are told no food is served after eight but we are free to drink, hand back the menus, exit the opposite door and get back into the minivan.

At no time did I see Marvin.

All the while, we are getting the special “it’s too dark to see it but that is the ____ and it was built in ____ and now it is a ____ tour.” Lee and Mom are talking about Alek, of course. I have met mom, but Lee has not, and they seem to be getting along well enough. Rachel and I are busy texting Alek and being, more or less, pains.

Lee wants to know if he is OK. Alek is seventeen, has Dusty the Dingo home with him, transportation and numbers of three people ready and happy to assist in any way he might find useful. Alek sums this up by texting me “Mom’s a pain.”

Lee calls him and asks if he’s OK. She does her mom thing. He does his son thing. The conversation ends.

Alek texts Rachel. “She is a crazy lady.” Rachel laughs and shows it to Lee.

Where to eat. Mom tells us the only place that is certainly open is Tic Toc. It’s the place all the kids go, all the adults go, everyone goes to, it is always open and always has decent food. It’s just rather run-of-the-mill. Fine. No problem. We arrive at Tic Toc about fifteen minutes later and are now two blocks from the Estonian.

Tic Toc is a large diner. New Jersey has, by all accounts, more diners than any other state. We are but a few blocks from the Delaware River and Jersey and, apparently, diners spread. And the Tic Toc is huge by any standards. By diner standards, it is a behemoth. Remember the old Sports Authority commercials? “Rhode Island. It’s a small state but would make a huge sporting goods store. That’s us. Sports Authority.” I have passed though towns smaller than Tic Toc.

We are seated amid the glorious smell of commingled eggs and coffee, toast and potatoes. We each have a menu. And what a menu it is. Five pages thick, front and back and, as always, whenever I am handed a too-large menu, I freeze up and become instantly un-hungry. Lee takes the menu from me, points to a page and says to just look at this one page and order from there. Excellent. She has removed the fried entrées, the sandwiches, the salads for which I am too hungry and the deserts.

I order hash browns covered with vegetables, two fried eggs, a bagel and, and . . . what is this? Pierogies? It has been years since I have seen them—once or twice in a box from the freezer section (Mrs. T’s barely qualify) and it has been ten years since I have made them myself. I order potato pierogies—too many for me—and ask Rachel if she will split them with me, which she happily does. Everyone else has what they want as well. The iced teas and waters arrive and we are set.

It is busy. Teens, adults, old folk, groups and clubs. Packed. And we are served as though we are the only folks here. The food is quite good for such common fare and the pierogies, large, ear-shaped, boiled and then, in this case, fried in butter quite like my grandmother would have done, are wonders. I have two and let the other two go to Rachel.

We make our plans for the morning as we eat. She is afraid we’ll get lost going to her house so she will come to the hotel and we can follow her back, where we’ll all continue on in the rental car. She’ll meet us at eight. Rachel has taken the day off from tending the alpacas and we’re happy to let her take us around as she likes. One day in and around Easton, in the Poconos, with Rachel as our guide. I have a feeling there is much more here than I had anticipated.

Now, well past ten, we are quite full and more than tired. We pay, despite Mom’s protest, let them drive us the two blocks as, in the dark, we do not want to chance the uphill walk on ice, and we hug good night.

Through the empty lobby and up to our room. It is comfortable, quiet. We use two binder clips, we always carry in the suitcase, to clip the curtains together to keep the light out. Lee has her computer open and we take turns looking up various bits of what-to-do-ness. There is the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center, there is the Appalachian Trail, Delaware Water Gap. There is Lee’s hand closing the computer. She is, of course, right. It is time to go to sleep if anything is to be seen though open eyes. Especially if we are to be out by eight.

And I am, frankly, more than ready for sleep.

 
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Posted by on April 29, 2009 in Culture, Food, Nor’easter, Social, Travel

 

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Nor’easter: Being a Whirlwind Snowy Trip to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York City or How Van Gogh and a Herd of Alpacas helped Lee get her Groove

25 Apr

Nor’easter: Being a Whirlwind Snowy Trip to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York City or How Van Gogh and a Herd of Alpacas helped Lee get her Groove Back. First day: Afternoon and Evening. A Long Day’s Journey into PA.

My diabolical plan has worked. When my daughter was just old enough to reach the counters, open a fridge, use a can opener, I started cooking for her less and less. She learned to get a piece of fruit, make soup, pour cereal into a bowl she used a stool to get off a top shelf.

When she was adept at feeding herself, I started to feed her brother less as well. Soon, she was getting him a piece of fruit, making him a bowl of soup. Soon, he learned too. Anything they would need to live on their own, I slowly withdrew, let them take over.

It worked. Twenty-three years later, I am finally going on vacation. Without them.

*****

“What do you mean you’re going to Allentown without me?”

“We’re going on vacation. School starts before we get back.” Alek is seventeen and in his second year of college.

“You’re going to visit MY girlfriend. Without me.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t talk about you. I brought the naked baby pictures instead. Besides, Mommy has never met Rachel’s mom or dad.”

“But without me?”

“I want to see alpacas. Rachel works on an alpaca farm, right? Think I can get a tour?”

*****

I bought tickets on Allegiant Air. Fifty-nine dollars each way. Not bad. With the tax and charges, the fee for the bag, reserved seats so my wife and I would know we’d be sitting together, the added charge so we could change our tickets if need be, the total came to over four hundred dollars. We were flying into Allentown, Pennsylvania. Arriving at what the tickets said was Allentown International Airport. The return tickets were for Lehigh Valley International Airport. Strange, I thought, for the tickets to be for two different airports. Strange, but not quite as strange as an airport with two different names.

We are packing. It is eighty degrees now. It will be in the thirties, if we are lucky, when we arrive early in the evening. Packing for that requires bags that squeeze all the air out to vacuum-pack more clothes into a suitcase, the one case we paid thirty dollars to check, than we would during warm weather. We’re packing long johns and sneakers. We’ll be wearing our hiking boots, carrying our gloves, scarves and hats. I bought a messenger bag just for that purpose so I’ll know where all our things are, passports included, in case we decide to drive north to Canada. All the easier to walk through New York than having my pockets stuffed full of items. All the easier to stow under an airline seat.

The tickets are out of Orlando Sanford International Airport. Don’t confuse this with Orlando International Airport. Sanford is a half-hour further away, one fifth the size and ten times easier to navigate. I figure our two airports with nearly one name is as confusing to folk up in Allentown as their one airport with two name is to us. We’ve picked Rachel up from Sanford twice before. The first time, she walked out of the plane, looked around, turned to see what was beyond the windows. This was not Orlando.

Alek doesn’t want to be without the car. He doesn’t drive. He just wants it to stay in the driveway so it looks like someone is home even though the two motorbikes pretty much take care of that. No problem. It would be seventy-five dollars to leave the car at the airport anyway. No problem. We’ll take a shuttle.

No shuttles. Not to Sanford. It would be one hundred and fifty dollars to get one to go there. No problem. We’ll rent a car.

Thirty bucks for the car and fifty dollars to drop it off. Fifty? To drop it at a location where they rent cars will cost me fifty dollars? No problem. We’ll. We’ll… I have no idea.

Craig offers to drive us. Shelley offers to drive us. As a matter of fact, Shelley and Matt will be using their trip to Sanford as an excuse to go to nearby Mount Dora, elevation one hundred and eighty-four feet, to spend time with Matt’s Grandmother and Great grandmother. And they’ll pick us up four days later, thus ending their vacation. And the trip will be fun.

Shelley is a trip all on her own. A patient of ours, now a friend, I dare say, I met her at a Food Not Bombs picnic. Next thing I know, we were heading to Playalinda, she, Matt, Jazmen and Rhiannon. Then she was a patient and soon we were bartering for services. Help cleaning and filing for acupuncture and massage therapy. Everyone thought they are getting the better end of the bargain and was always a bit worried about evening it out, which is how barter should work. Any day Shelley had an appointment, any day we would see her dreaded (as in hairstyle) head walk through our door was a day Lee and I would be smiling. Now she is the office assistant and we can’t imagine the office running without her.

*****

The plane leaves at 4:20. Shelley and Matt arrive at our house at noon and the drive is two hours. The car is cramped but comfortable, the trunk nearly full before our one suitcase, one backpack and one messenger bag made their way there. At the last moment Lee decided the computer had to come, could not be left home. We had talked about getting a netbook but could not see spending the money on it for one trip. I am sure we will see this as an error in short order. She needs her email, to look up directions, do whatever it is Lee does with computers that, after these many years, I often still do not understand.

We are on the road with Shelley and Matt. Lee is excited. More than I had come to expect. More than I would have understood. It is surprising, delightful, enlightening and delicious. So excited she does not even seem to mind sitting in the back as we make our way up Interstate 95 to State Road 520. We need very little leg room and this is a good thing. On the road, suddenly, Lee exclaims, nearly squeals “This is so exciting. No destination and no time to be there.” This is only the second trip we have ever taken together, by ourselves. But each trip we have taken, and there have been very few over more than the last quarter century, has been on a timetable, at the summons or control of family, attached to an event, a wedding, bar mitzvah, funeral. This one has no event, no place to be and no time to be there. Only a time by which we must be on the plane to leave.

We exit State Road 520 for 417, and then, fifteen minutes later, get off and follow the signs for the airport. Exit, turn right. Next set of lights, turn right. Just under three miles later, after three signs telling us the Orlando Sanford International Airport is closer and closer, we see a large ground-level, curved the full perpendicularity from street to street, silver sign with silver letters announcing the airport to the left. It is quite hard to read and, at first glance, we think it is introducing us to the entrance of an industrial park.

We are in, follow the signs, park. Shelley and Matt come in with us and, when they know we are safely where we are supposed to be and the incoming plane is arriving reasonably on time, we all hug, we give them our thanks for the trip, wish them a good visit with their family, and they are on their way to Mt. Dora. We go to check in and collect our tickets. The cattle chute awaits.

Only we are not sure where to enter. We have long experience with such chutes. Many years queuing at The Rascal House and other Jewish delis – parties of one form a line here, two here, three here, four here, parties of five or more here please, mind the poles and no ducking under please – and we’re pros at following the taut ribbons as we inch closer, closer to the official at the end. This time, instead of an overstuffed pastrami sandwich on rye with half-sours and coleslaw, maybe a knish, at the end is a ticket to Allentown.

But where is the entrance? As we look, a uniformed man is moving the entrance to the queue, pulling one pole, then another. Four feet this way, then that. Entrance to one side of it, then another and, after each set of movements, holding his hand up, bidding us wait. The line forms behind us as the line between the ribbons becomes shorter, the end further and further away, backs to us, now facing us, now away from us again. Finally the end is in place and we are told we can have the pleasure of waiting with the others.

There is a gal behind us, a few people removed. She is not right. Deformed in a way I cannot describe, barely noticeable. I ask Lee to take a look and she does. Disturbed shen, she tells me. Her spirit is disturbed and it shows on her face. Not all physical deformity manifests from disturbed shen but all disturbed shen shows up on the body. An unbalanced cover may hide a glorious spirit but unbalanced spirit always shows up in an unbalanced body if one just looks carefully enough, is sensitive enough. Of course, this is a discussion we have had before. She has explained shen to me on various occasions. Shen, chi and jing being the three essences of the body in Chinese medicine. But, in this case, the shen was palpably disturbed, pressing on me from behind. The line moves quickly on.

Our Internet-generated passes are exchanged for actual airline tickets and we are on our way to sit quietly for an hour or so before boarding. Time to get out the laptop and watch a movie. Or maybe an episode of Dead Like Me.

No “Dead Like Me.” It’s on the external drive at home. Lee looks for “Dexter.” She’s never seen it and has just downloaded a few. Where are they? On the external drive. She cleaned her computer out and organized her hard drive. Nothing to watch on the computer. No problem. There is always YouTube.

We try logging on. A log-in screen instantly appears and that is as far as we get. No log-in. Failed. Again and again. We try everything we know but each is met with failure. Username and password. Guest guest, log-in. Airport name. All the usual public wifi log-in methods. Nothing. Time for a walk. We leave our things at the chairs. No worries. While this may not seem prudent to many, we never do worry about our things and they are always there when we return. Computers in airports. Purses on carseats. No worries.

And time for a walk there was. An hour or so and we walk the airport three times back and forth, seeing the same sights again and again noticing how much, how little, changes in fifteen minutes.

Back to our seats. We pull out an MP3 player. I have a video, “The Blue Buddha: Lost Secrets of Tibetan Medicine,” we had been wanting to watch and, being a narrative the sound quality was such we could easily share headphones, Lee gets the right and I get the left. I had meant to pick up a headphone splitter but that trip to Radio Shack simply never happened.

As we get ready to listen, a portly woman with a badge walks up to us and asks if we’d mind taking a survey and hands us each a form about a third the size of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. It has questions and check-boxes.

“Why is there no public Internet?”

“There is.”

“Then how do we get to it?”

“The username is Guest.”

“And the password?”

“That depends on how many people are using it. It only supports twenty people at once so it can be anything from 01 to 20.”

I didn’t even ask how we’d know the difference between attempting to log-in if it were over the twenty person cut-off and simply not knowing if we were logging-in correctly.

“How are we supposed to know this.”

“Yes, it would be nice if there was a sign.” She agrees. Good for us.

We fill out the surveys. Handing them back, a look at the badge tells me she is the airport manager. It would be nice.

But consternation and the surveys have taken a bit more than a quarter hour and it is quite near time to board. We walk the forty or fifty feet to the door and wait in line. It isn’t long before we are seated, by sections, and we’re putting our things in the overhead compartment. Our seats are the two inside seats, row 32 of 45. Lee next to the window and me in the center seat. I put my hat and messenger bag on the aisle seat. Within the bag is my wallet, other documents, maps, MP3 player, scarf and gloves.

We sit and wait. We wait. I fumble with my bag and take out the MP3 player, open my earphone case and unwrap the earbuds. Tiny and white, they shut out all outside sound. I use them with my Nintendo DS when I study Japanese or listen to my MP3 player in public. I rarely do either in public. I feel it impolite to shut the outside world out. Or, at least, to appear as though I am. I’d rather just do so without appliances. Even when walking I use open earphones that allow the outside world in. All the better for not getting hit by cars.

Around me, people are fumbling with bags, removing other’s luggage, rearranging backpacks belonging to people they have never met. Placing bags in overheads far behind them over as yet empty seats. Arguments break out sporadically, grow, arc, die.

A flight attendant walks into the cabin, up the aisle and to the center of the plane about five rows shy of us. “The plane should have departed fifteen minutes ago. The sooner you all get seated, the sooner we can think about departing.”

She does nothing about the arguments. Moves no bags. Stops no rearrangement. She is part stewardess and part superego. Part attendant and part schoolmarm. She is here to facilitate travel and, perhaps, for our safety, but certainly not for our comfort. And if we don’t take off because of our own shenanigans, she gets paid all the same. She is tapping her foot.

She turns to go and ducks into a row of seats to allow a woman to pass. This woman, to really pass in comfort, would need a row of chairs removed as well. I lean over to Lee.

“She’ll be sitting next to me.”

“Are you sure? Of course you are.”

“Positive.”

She checks her ticket. Looks around, down to me. Waddles forward, targets her spot, stands next to me. I move my hat and messenger bag, place them below the seat in front of me.

She sits in her seat. She also sits in my seat. She also sits in the aisle. I move closer to Lee.

The flight attendant is closing up shop and readying for takeoff. She has told several people to find space for their bags or to hand them to her to have them checked. She has removed one bag that was obviously too large for the overhead compartment when a passenger was removing several other passenger’s bags to mash his into place. She’s asking us to take seats. She’s tapping her foot again. She looks in my direction. Walks over.

“Ma’am, I believe there is a seat you would be more comfortable in over here.” Bless her. She moves her to a pair of empty seats a few rows forward. I can move my right arm again.

“You need mountain-time, don’t you?” Lee asks in a rhetorical whisper. “How far are the Poconos?” Not far from Allentown. Not far at all.

The engines whine louder, higher. We are told to shut our electronics off. I put my earphones in. The hope is I can pay attention to a lecture by Watts while we are taking off. It is a hope. I turn the player on.

“Please remove your headphones for takeoff.” She is talking to me. I nod. I pull the earbud from my left ear. When she walks by again, I tilt my head, still listening to Watts in my right.

The plane is moving. My plan becomes quite academic as the talking in my right ear falls into the far background. I want to yell for everyone to peddle. Seriously, I do not believe planes can get of the ground regardless of my understanding of the physical laws and properties involved. Peddle. Peddle. I am gripping the armrest. Shaking. Rocking. Tilting. Up. Up, Faster. Climbing. Losing, gaining and losing my stomach. This is not good for my nervous system at all. Not at all. I grab Lee’s knee and fear I have left a bruise. The plane levels out and I begin to breathe more calmly. More evenly. I am exhausted. Spent. Wrung out. We have been in the air fewer than five minutes.

Drink carts go by. I take nothing and shut off my MP3 player, put Watts away with the earbuds so I can hear Lee. Looking through the papers in the seat-pocket in front of me, she and I spend a few minutes laughing at the Allegiant Air goodies for sale.

A flight attendant walks into the cabin and, holding the microphone, tells us there is to be a raffle. While another attendant walks up and down the aisle taking money, she explains how it works. A fifty-fifty raffle. Some tickets win prizes. What prizes? The same die-cast planes, hats, can cozies, Mickey keychains and junior pilot wingpins we had just been laughing at with such contempt.

Five tickets for five dollars. Ten tickets for eight dollars. Twenty tickets for I stopped listening. This seems so absurd, I can only laugh as it moves forward. The tickets are going into a trashbag. Why not a barf bag? I go to offer mine but Lee stays my arm.

As the attendant comes through with the tickets and bag, people paying less attention than even I am are putting their plates and cups into the bag along with the tickets. Reminded again, over the speakers, the trashbag will be coming around later, this is the ticket bag. The next person deposits her crackers.

The attendant with the mic lambastes us for not buying enough tickets. Other flights had nearly one hundred percent participation. Why not us? Do we not understand a fifty-fifty raffle? A few more tickets sell. Lee is reading and I put my earphones back in, resume listening to my lectures.

She comes by and, pretending my ears are hermetically sealed, toss in Lee’s cup and can.

On and on she talks, berates until the tickets are pulled, one by one. With each kitsch distributed, she asks us to cheer. “Cheer like you won the lottery.” Why? To impress the people outside the plane listening? The fifty-fifty won (one hundred and forty-five dollars) and finally it is over.

The window is becoming more reflective. I can see more inside behind me than outside as we travel north and the sky becomes darker, darker.

The woman in front of me has a book full of diagrams. My imagination takes over without so much as a simple “May I?” and the diagrams detail methods of Satanic worship. They are devices of torture. I stare harder and harder between the seats until, finally, it clicks – they are diagrams for creative ways to make one’s bed.

Staring past Lee, the window supplies me with an overlay for the sky behind it. Courtesy of Google Maps, it details what I am looking at – what cities, what geologic features, what main roads. Touching the window, I call up information on the map such as population, elevation, sites, factoids and ephemera. None of it is correct, of course, because it is all in my head.

The cart comes back around for the refuse, cans, cellophanes, cups, paper plates. The light comes on to tell us to buckle the seatbelt I never unbuckled. The plane begins to descend. I press the floor heavily feeling for brakes, hurt my fingers on the armrest, let slip an audible series of heavy panting and a small yelp as the plane touches the ground. We have landed.

Off the plane. In the terminal at Allentown. I am immediately struck that the people look normal. Not normal as in I expected they’d look different than those back home but look, surprisingly, the same. No. They look different than the people at home and appear in a way my mind registers as normal. These people look real. They look right.

We grab our luggage and rent our car. Not the subcompact I had requested but an “upgrade” to a car I don’t want. A Pontiac G6. Too big, too low, too fast and too fancy. We walk outside to get it and, before we even get to the door, I wish I had gotten out my gloves. I toss the scarf around my neck. Lee is smiling. It’s cold. It is blissfully cold.

 
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Posted by on April 25, 2009 in Culture, Family, Nor’easter, Social, Travel

 

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The Boy Ain’t Broken

25 Jan

As a father of a teenage boy and, in times past, a teenage girl, I am well and used to having a house that, from time to time, is composed of kids. Wall to wall kids. Kids piled on the couches, on the chairs, pressing against the walls, filling the kitchen. Daytime, nighttime, all the time.

Often there will be teens sleeping over. Nearly always my son will ask and rarely have we had any reason to say no. One teen, three teens. If they fit they can stay. Once in a while, though, someone will sleep over we weren’t prepared for. Alek will come in late with a friend too tired to drive, or not feeling well and, as we get out of bed in the morning, as I amble into the living room to stretch or Lee grumps into the kitchen to make coffee, we’ll be surprised by a kid on the couch. Sometimes both couches are full-up with teens supine.

If we see them, we’ll go back and put clothes on. Sometimes they see us first. Our house, right?

One of Alek’s best friends is Tyler. Tyler is great. He can hang around our house anytime he likes as long as he likes. Two years ago, Alek had two friends name Tyler. The way Alek and his other friends differentiated one from the other was to call this Tyler, the Tyler who is still around, the Tyler Alek travels with and skates with, Gay Tyler. The description was not inaccurate and was suggested by Gay Tyler. When the other Tyler disappeared, for good reason, Alek tells me, Gay Tyler became Tyler.

For some reason Tyler likes me. I have no idea why. He did before I met him. Alek tells me my reputation, spread word of mouth student to student, made it from middle school to high school and a bit beyond. He introduced a sixteen-year-old Tyler to me like this:

Tyler: Hi, Mr. Tritt. (I had to break him of the Mr. Tritt habit. He calls me Adam now.)

Alek: Dad, this is Tyler. He wants to date you.

Me: And who doesn’t?

Across from our bedroom, Lee has an office that doubles as a guestroom. Some nights, when Lee feels restless, she’ll leave our room for fear of waking me, go in there, open the bed, turn on the TV and go to sleep. Sometimes she sees it coming, unable to quiet her mind, and will open the couch to a bed before we go to sleep. I tell her not to worry about waking me, but she does.

Last night was one of those nights. It was an exhausting day starting with a ludicrously early start. Our son was out for dinner and a local band and Lee and I were in bed by ten. Not normal for us at all but it seemed a good idea.

Sometime during the night, Lee woke and could not get back to sleep. The next minute, to the best of my three-in-the-morning extrapolation and recollection, looks like this.

Lee gets out of bed. She walks across the hall, knows the couch has been laid out, pulls up the blankets, lies down, covers herself. Moves toward the center of the bed.

That’s the extrapolation. Here is the recollection.

I hear a scream. I wake. Wonder. Hear another. Was it Lee? Was that two screams from different voices? Jump out of bed. It’s coming from Lee’s office. It sounds like two voices, definitely. Lee is standing there, I flip the light on at the door, she is in front of me. In front of her, sitting up in the bed, against the wall, panting, is Tyler.

Apparently, Tyler was too tired to drive home and, not wanting to bother us by being in the living room in the morning, thought sleeping in the guest room would be the polite, proper thing to do. Good thinking. Right he was.

But we had no idea. Lee crawled into bed and, when she moved over, rolled onto Tyler.

Did I mention we do not sleep with clothes on? I’m almost certain I did. If your picture of the event did not include that, let’s replay it.

A naked Lee crawls into bed and rolls over onto (remember his original name) “Gay” Tyler. She then jumps out of bed, and stand there. I run in and stand there. Have it now.

Lee’s just looking at him. Someone has to say something. Might as well me be.

“Tyler? So,… did she… fix you?”

I don’t think so.

 
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Posted by on January 25, 2009 in Culture, Family, Social

 

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A Better Wife

14 Sep

I am posting this, originally a response to a post on Route 153, a blog by a woman I know only by the name Indigo Bunting. She lives in Vermont, several universes from here, and is an editor friend of an editor friend. That is a double editor. I’m not going to argue with that. So when Craig said try writing short form and Indigo suggested posting my reply, a bit long, to her blog entry “Girl” as an entry of my own, I complied. I know what’s best.

“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Audre Lorde

My wife claims I am a much better wife than she.

I am not sure she has worn anything but dungarees in over two decades with the exception of three occasions. I can recall each of them. One wedding, one bar mitzvah and one charity event. I wish to point out that wedding was not even our own. To that we each wore dungarees and t-shirts. If I count pagan festivals, over the course of the last twenty-five years I think I might actually have worn skirts and such more often than she. Makeup? Ha! Cooking? My territory.

Sewing the holes in the clothes? Mine (after she threads the needle for me).

Her shoes are as sensible as can be – Merrels made for standing. The blow drier is never used except by my son. She is a pick the clothes from the pile, wash’n’go, no frills cheap-date of a gal I adore more than the bright stars and the loamy Earth.

And I don’t dare take her into a lesbian bookstore or I need to fight to keep her. I do this as often as I can.

If there were continuum for gender-behaviour, with guyishness staff and girlishness distaff, my Lee would be a bit right of center. I would be a bit left. It all balances out to who the hell cares.

But she does like her purses. Stone Mountain, Dooney and Bourke, Coach. She looks and looks and looks but never bought. She tells her patients they need to ditch their purses and use backpacks. She follows her own advice on this.

Last birthday she decided to treat herself to a purse she had long wanted. A Stone Mountain bag. She spent nearly two hundred on it. She used it for two days and returned it. Not worth what she spent. She was cured.

Then, a few months ago, I found at a local auction a Prada bag. I grabbed it for $35.00. She is delighted. She has her girlie-bag. It is a back pack, of course.

As far as myself, well, I don’t build, I do garden a bit but I do not do lawn work. Fix the house? HA! My father and wife, many years ago, got together and sold all my powertools while I was on a trip. For my own good, they told me. I didn’t argue. Of course, that is the same way I ended up moving in with my wife. That is a different story.

I love opera, but I always retranslate the songs. They are all about cows and barnyard life.

I would rather have a migraine than watch football. Really. I find them less painful and more interesting. They also don’t last as long.

I’ll play soccer but watch sports? Like on a TV? No thank you.

I use the same Jansport backpack my wife complained I overpaid for, at $35 dollars, when my daughter was three. That was twenty-three years ago.

I don’t tinker with my car. I sold my truck a few weeks ago. The truck festooned with breast cancer awareness magnets and a sticker that said “Real men change diapers.” You know, a real guy truck.

Not fitting into a set role makes it easier to allow other people not to fit into roles either.

Ok, now to rebuild what feels to be my diminishing masculinity, I’m going to go tell my wife to cook something and have her get me a beer.

I’d better go buy some beer first. And make dinner reservations.

 
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Posted by on September 14, 2008 in Culture, Family, psychology, Social

 

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Wishbones

18 May

There are two wishbones on my kitchen sink, drying, crusty. I pick them up.

After three days or so, they are ready; crisp and lucky. These have been here since Passover. Thirteen days. A strange superstition to wait that amount of days, perhaps, but how strange, really, when applied to the act of placing a wish on a competition to see who gets the larger piece of a twisted chicken bone?

I brush them off. Small bits of meat fall as particulate into the sink. In a moment they are ready – ready to snap under shear. Ready to bring us luck, offer the fortune released from within with the snap. From within? From where? It matters not. I know it works and it is ready to grant my wish.

The wishbones on the kitchen sink are waiting

Cleaned, delivered

They are twice sacrificed

Brought from the holy feast

Where we were by them nourished

Now brought to the hands of my holy one

Where we will again be by them blessed.

If memory serves – and it matters not if it does; if it is fiction or fact, since, as a memory, it is as real as anything can remain – we broke a wishbone our first week together. Our first week.

For years we broke wishbones and our lives got better and better, more full, more joyous in each other’s company. With each wishbone came newness and surety our dreams would take hold, bear fruit, ripen, become sweet.

We never asked each other what our wishes were. Never. For years those wishes went silent and bright and we knew, no matter whose pull broke the bone, the wish was certain to come true.

Then one day she asked. What was my wish? How could I not say? My wish was for your wish to be granted. Whatever it was, that your wishes become real. That way, no matter who got the larger half, it was your wish that would come to be.

I saw a smile. And just slightly, I thought I saw a tear. “Please don’t do that,” she asked. I deserve dreams of my own, she told me. And, from that time on, we each made our own wishes but, in those, the other was never forgotten. We continued on as before, bone after bone. Wish after wish.

I have them in my hand, walk over to the couch where she is laying and sit at the edge near her knees, place one on the coffee table, hold up a wishbone by a single end, the thin one, hold it low.

She smiles and sits up, takes the other. A moment lapses and we pull. Pull. It snaps and for the first time I have ever seen such a thing it has broken cleanly, evenly, straight up the middle and we each are left with a full half, an equal half. We stare at them.

No wish granted? Both wishes granted? I ask her what she wished for. It must be safe; extraordinary questions are born of extraordinary events.

That your wish come true. My wish was that hers would be granted. After the many years, it seemed the night for that wish again. Equal wishes, equal halves.

No matter, I say. I have one more. There is always one more.

 
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Posted by on May 18, 2007 in Family

 

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Gone SWIMming

31 Jan

I recently attended a winter camp in South Florida, way way out in the west of Palm Beach County, past the city, past the towns, past the paved roads and into the Everglades. A weeklong retreat sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association, it is called SWIM – Southern Winter Institute in Miami. Of course, this wasn’t in Miami but why let a fact get in the way of totally great acronym.

At the check-in table, I was greeted by a pirate who insisted he take my picture. In full plundering regalia of a tricorner hat, shirt open to the waist, short balloon pants and a lower limb that would have been perfect as one of four legs of a pine dining table, he appeared complete. With the exception of a missing parrot, he was the archetypal buccaneer. I will be honest here, my first reaction was “Holy Crap, that’s a real peg leg,” as I could not figure how he would fake something so realistic.

He wanted to take my photograph and gave me a half sheet of paper to put my name on. I did what he asked because, after all, he was a pirate, and was missing a leg and, more importantly, his parrot, so he was probably surly as well. I wanted to ask him if he was a Pastafarian.

I printed as carefully as possible (which means it was barely legible as he read, in a faint southern accent) “Yo Yo Ma. Because there is always room for Cello.” He looked up at me, slowly. My real name, he insisted, with what seemed a bit of quiet, fatigued humor. I gave in and, after lending my visage to the camera, went to set up camp. I’d be here for a week.

There were workshops and dances and games, evening community meetings, night-time coffeehouses and two in the morning kickball games and cookouts and it is not now my intent to report all that transpired within that week at this Pagan Holiday meets Geek Central. As I packed for my trip, it was my intent and I took my computer with me to do so but the plan fell to pieces because, frankly, I was enjoying myself far too much to step out of life and write about what I could instead be doing. I took notes and, now that things are boring again, I will relive the highlights only and you may, if you like, do so with me.

In truth, much the same thing happened day after day, games, dances, music, meals, so why write about them again and again. There was that peculiar joy of not being able to tell what day it was, not needing to keep track of the date and so, at completion, in memory, I am left with a soft-focused, diffuse feeling of enjoyment and delight over the entire week and need not attribute it to any particular time, episode, day or series of events. Joy ran into joy into joy.

I was there with my Lee, son (Alek), my dear friend Valerie and many people I had not seen in a year or more and others from as far away as the distant edge of the farthest island off the coast of British Columbia. From Wales and France and across the United States. All among the frogs and gators and our one drydocked pirate.

* * * * * * * *

Pop Psychology or My Life as a Made for TV Movie

It was nine-thirty in the morning and I was in the mood for some self-improvement. Lee had, after breakfast, gone off for a bit of a walk with her new buddy from the far side of a large island off the west coast of Northern Canada. But, in order for my self improvement to be fully appreciated, I needed my dear wife to be there and experience it, improving right along with me. So I walked off to look for her.

It was quarter to ten, hunting here and there, before finally finding Lee, She didn’t look ready to go to a workshop, lying, as she was, naked, on her stomach, in the sun, making a careful survey, with Jennifer’s assistance, of precisely how differently massage therapists from B.C practice as opposed to their Florida counterparts. She appeared to be deep into her study.

“Lee, do you want to go to a workshop with me?”

I know she heard me because, knowing she was concentrating, I knelt next to her, speaking loudly and slowly.

“Go away.” I know this is what she said, though it sounded very much like a mix of mumbling and cursing, but after twenty-five years, one learns. However, just in case, I asked, “Are you sure?”

Her next response was much more clear but I heal quickly. Off to the workshop. But, knowing how much more fun such things are with a buddy, I set off find Valerie first. Finding Valerie lying about naked isn’t terribly uncommon, but hopefully, not all of my friends were prone in the sun.

We spent a while, Valerie and I, looking for this class. It was called “Poncho’s Never-ending Workshop” and we had no clear idea what it was about. That was why we wanted to take it.

It was supposed to take place at the fire circle on the island. The island was maybe one hundred feet across and in the middle of a small lake surrounded by alligators and turtles, wiregrass and victoria lilies. One walked to the island by means of a three hundred and seven foot wooden walking bridge. (I paced it. I thought you should know.) It was empty.

We found others walking, seemingly searching, on our way back. Another workshop hopeful suggested the name be changed to “Poncho’s Never-beginning Workshop.” We walked and searched, hand shielding eyes against the ten in the morning sun.

We checked everywhere and finally found it, after long search, starting late on, of course, the island. We took a seat in the innermost row of three circles of long benches.

Once there, we were asked to tell everyone our name, loudly, clearly and then, applaud. We would all clap just because we were who we were. I, among the thirty-two people there (I counted them. I thought you should know.) spoke more than my name when my time came.

“Please don’t clap for me.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t do anything. I was born and I haven’t died. Neither one of these things is an achievement.”

People grumbled about attitude, how I should feel deserving, how I should do as the facilitator said.

“If I have done anything, it is that I am doing something different right now than the rest of you.”

Applause. I can’t win.

The facilitator, Poncho, told us we were going to learn to discover our fears and design our lives by what we discover. We were going to start by being honest. Poncho went on to tell us how nervous he was, how he hated speaking in front of groups. Even small groups like this. He was sweating and worried he wouldn’t do well even though he had done this many times and told us we should all strive, today, in this class, to be as honest as we knew to be. Applause.

I raised my hand, was acknowledged by Poncho, and looked at the mass of pop-psychonaughts. “I just want to point out that when Poncho was honest, you applauded. When I was honest, you grumbled and, and, I just want to point that out.”

I’m use to being stared at.

We were given a choice of “A Scary Movie of My Life” and “A Million Dollar Movie.” Each was a form with blanks to be filled in; a self-discovery Mad-Lib a full page long and we had, in pairs, five minutes each to complete these with one person reading the words and writing-in the dictated blank-fillers as the other person responded to the prompts. Once filled in, they would read like a 1950’s B movie trailer. I chose the scary one.

After it was handed to me, I nearly immediately changed my mind. Don’t I spend enough time thinking about all the myriad worst-case scenarios of my life? Not this time. Let me at that Million Dollar Movie!

We started work, Valerie and I, and were immediately shushed. This is because we were immediately laughing like a pair of weasel escapees from Toontown. Mad-Libs are supposed to be funny, right? We just couldn’t help it. Five minutes passed and we had barely begun. Time to switch. Five more minutes passed and we were supposed to be done with both and start reading them, one by one, to the thunderous power-clapping of the group. We listened to one or two and then, quietly rose and left, back over the bridge, our million dollar movies in hand.

Anyone know an agent?

* * * * * * * *

Sadam at the Head Bangers Ball

A week had passed since having my mugshot taken by a pirate and in that week I learned to dance. I don’t mean I became good at it. Certainly that is not the case at all.

I was asked to take a salsa class. I must have misheard but cannot now recall what I must have thought I was asked. It must have sounded quite a bit like salsa class but, surely, if I had heard correctly, I’d never have said yes.

Salsa is a violent sport. The way it was taught, the guy is in charge and he decides everything while the woman’s job is to make him look good. Salsa is the dance of misogyny.

Our teacher would pull and flip his partner, stating if he wants her head here, pointing to one side of him, he just shoves it there and it is her job to follow it through, though, in this case, it resulted in a very confused and rather “you must be kidding” stare from the quite taller than he, willowy lesbian he had chosen as his demonstration partner. I suspected, after having her head shoved sideways under his arm to change her position from in front of him to behind, she would need a chiropractor.

My partner was Valerie. She is a professional dancer. I didn’t know where my feet were at any given moment and happily let her lead.

The speed was ferocious but Val danced with me at half pace so I could attempt to keep up. She didn’t know how to Salsa and was learning as I was. Our teacher would come over to show us a step and she would immediately understand, nod, execute. I would wonder what he had just done and, if I recall, at the height of my frustration, began to pogo to a Tito Fuentes number.

Two classes of this and I begged out. Two more to go. No, please. No.

But there was contra dancing and I can contra, after a fashion. Turnabout seemed awfully fair and I asked Valerie to be my partner. She wanted to know if contra dancing is done to gunfire and ordnanced insurgency. Yes, I told her. Yes.

A gentleman wandered the hall from front to back. We had all been asked to form groups of four, two ladies and two gents, and put those groups in a line. This fellow, Sid, joined a group, left a group, joined the next, left it, in order from farthest to closest, appearing to be doing the contra equivalent of the moonwalk until he came to us and we were but three. What good fortune had befallen us?

A short introduction was given after a brief stroke on the fiddle. Here are the moves, we were told. Here is what they look like, we were shown. We copied what we saw. I didn’t do too badly. Poor Val. I had never seen her confused on a dance floor. But Sid did his best to help.

As the live music played a tune appropriate for the buckboards, Sid started to yell. He ordered her where to go, how to move and, to all appearances, he did not quite have the apparent command of the dance to carry such authority. Then, and this was not a dance move, he grabbed her arm and relocated her in a way hat was abrupt, at best and designed to move her to a designated spot. I thought, hey, it’s the Salsa again.

That was it. In the middle of a practice dance, through the music, Valerie stopped cold, looked at Sid, stared though Sid, and he became smaller and smaller as she told him just what would happen to him if he touched her again in a way that had nothing to do with dancing, that she was a professional learning a new set of steps and for goodnesssakes, she couldn’t believe he actually wore a pen-filled pocket protector to a dance!

The music continued but the dancing did not until Val had finished diminishing and emasculating her ever-shrinking partner. Then the music ended, started again and we were dancing, dancing, dancing, in and out and around and weaving with swings, promenades, dos-à-dos, allemandes and for two hours Sid behaved like a gentlemen, mechanical pencils clicking in time to the music.

The next day it was the talk of the camp. Someone had put Sid in his place. It was about time. It was about time. She was congratulated, thanked and, graciously, Val was the model of civility to Sid regardless the entire rest off the camp. But that they would hit the dance-floor together again was doubtful.

The next night was New Years Eve. “You are going to dance with me,” Valerie told me. What could I do but go to my wife. “Your’re going to dance with me.” I saw her face. “Right?”

“We’ll see,” she told me. I know what this means. If she is comfortable. If the people there are friendly. If she doesn’t feel claustrophobic. Lee hasn’t danced with me in years and I know it has nothing to do with me. We had not found a place she felt comfortable. But she had been comfortable there and I had high hopes.

But just in case, I did my best to find a way out. I told Valerie I’d happily dance if they play the music I like. I had seen the play list on the computer during a surreptitious glance and the mp3s were one after another hip-hop, rap, oldies, disco. I was safe. Away went the fear I’d have to dance. Away went the panic of the thought of being on the dancefloor, having to actually do something coordinated with this body as people watched. Away went my certainty I would look a total fool. I could ask for my favorite numbers and they’d never come up. I could make DJ requests ‘till the cows came dancing home and the cows would be dancing without me. So would Val.

“I’ll dance if they have ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.’ And, ‘What I like about You.’ I’d dance to that. I’ll go request them.”

The dance was due to start within the hour. I walked up to the DJ. I made my requests and he said he’d see what he could do. I went a step further and asked if he’d play The Eagles’ “Get over It.” I offered to supply it as it was sitting on a flashdrive in my pocket. I knew it wouldn’t fit, would never be played and but would certainly demonstrate my sincere effort. I tried.

Why did I have a flashdrive in my pocket? The gods work in strange ways. “Sure I’ll take that.” I handed him the drive and he popped it in. He asked if he could look through the music and I, of course, told him it was fine. There is quite a bit of music but also books and documentaries and such and I’m sure there is nothing you’d be interested in but. “Fraggle Rock! Man, I can’t believe it. Can I take that?”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to play the theme from Fraggle Rock. And here is your Eagles song. Oh, and look at this. Some bluegrass. Hey, thanks. I was looking to mix up the music some.”

“Sure. Yes.”

Thanks.

Ten in the evening came and the music started in the hall that was crowded but not compressed. I had spent the week with these people and I was not as nervous as I had anticipated. Dancers filled the floor moving to a tune I did not recognize and had no desire to dance to. Loud with bass for no reason other than bass. Bass supporting nothing above it; a foundation with no building. I so very much dislike, boom boom music but, this time, I loved it. It meant I’d be safe. There is no way my requests would be played.

Suddenly, The Romantics pumped from the speakers. “What I like about you…” and I was pulled from my seat, lead by my arm, out to the floor and was wondering where my feet were as, certainly, they must be behind me somewhere, back at my seat, astounded to find themselves behind the action, at the wrong end of the chain of command. I was on the dancefloor with Valerie.

And having no idea what to do, I just started jumping up and down.

And looking to my left, Val was doing the same.

And looking to my right, my dear wife, dancing beside me. I nearly faltered in my disbelief. My wife, dancing. Dancing with me. I was flabbergasted. I was amazed. I was delighted and smiling larger than I can remember in an awfully long time. And, to my further joy, so was she.

Then the song ended and the next began but why sit down? Song after song and then, “Get over It” by The Eagles and what was there to do but headbang?

Apparently it was the right choice and we were all headbanging. My son’s friends came over to join us. All of his friends. Not my son, of course. Not Alek. I’m sure he’d rather have had his toenails pulled off.

Later than evening, Alek, quietly, when his friends weren’t looking (so he believed) walked over during a slow song and danced with Lee. One minute. Maybe two and there was that wonderful, rare, expansive smile again on Lee’s beautiful face as Alek spoke though his own smile, “There, are you happy now?” And she was. Quite.

“Don’t Fear the Reaper,” another request, made sure I had no excuse to sit. More headbanging. Then, suddenly, we were all in a line dancing the in the most appropriate way for anthem of nihilism – the hora. It seemed quite the right thing to do; to hora to Blue Oyster Cult. It still does.

I sat down when Michael Jackson was playing. I needed the break and it was now a little past eleven. People were dancing to “Thriller” and, it seemed, all doing the same dance as if choreographed. I was told latter, by Valerie, of course, this was the dance from the video. I had an idea.

“If I could get them to play ‘Godzilla’ by Blue Oyster Cult we could dance the same thing nearly. We could stomp Tokyo with our claws in the air.”

“Do you want me to request it?”

“No, please. No. I’m afraid he’ll have it ready to go.”

Headbanging again. “The Twilight Zone.” Lee, Valerie and I, and then a yelp and Lee was holding a thumb front of my eye.

“You hurt me.” But she was, incongruously, laughing.

I felt terrible and apologized. She laughed at her unlikely injury, told me she would show it to everyone though no-one would accept her story because who would believe I was dancing. And already it was swollen, turned black and blue. And she laughed even more.

A Salsa. I went to sit thinking Lee and I would take a breather. I turned to find myself, amazed, alone and, on the dance-floor, Lee, my Lee, in the midst of a meringue and I didn’t know, after twenty-five years together, I didn’t know she could salsa. How wonderful it is that I can learn new things about a woman I have spent so long with. What a joy.

Sid had approached Valerie. She was surprised and it showed, albeit briefly, as he asked her, as politely as anyone could ask, for her to dance. And, to her credit, she gave him his second chance and said yes. Off they went, dancing as the next song started and I rejoined my wife in the crowd.

It was nearing midnight. Another fast song and we bounced some more; up and down to a shred so fast I could barely keep up and on the wall a newspaper front page had been clipped and on it a half-page spread picture of Saddam Hussein hanging from a rope, lolling tongue and limp.

I froze. Instantly. I had not seen a newspaper in a week. I did not know this was to occur. Perhaps the person who posted it thought it right. Perhaps he or she thought it a service that we should be kept abreast of events. Perhaps he or she thought it appropriate for a double celebration; New Years and a hanging.

The music had stopped. A hand tapped me on the shoulder and gave me champagne. Lee. And that same hand clasped my free hand, led me away as the countdown started at ten.

* * * * * * * *

Broadway Name that Tune

I was the last morning and the last workshop before we were due to fill our packs, sweep the cabins and head back to everyday life in this first day of the new year and an unlikely workshop it was under any circumstances but especially for a retreat designed to revive the spirit and renew the soul. Broadway Name that Tune. Of course, I had to go. If I hadn’t, I’m sure Valerie would have wondered who had replaced her friend with a pod.

It was held in the spacious dining hall and three other workshops were there at the same time. One was by a life coach, another was a tarot workshop and a third was on Hinduism. We had one half of the dining hall which had all the tables, save ours, removed and the other half was being shared by the three other workshops. Down the center was drawn an accordion wall that did little to insulate for sound. You would be surprised how loud a tarot card can be.

It was facilitated by two supposed Broadway Musical experts and expert they certainly were. Kay and Tom created four sets of ten questions each. They would sing a line or two and we were to know the musical. If it was in a movie, we might be asked who sang it originally. I expected to bomb. If we knew the song, we’d all sing it. This made Broadway Name that Tune the slowest trivia game I had ever played.

I guessed with the most ridiculous responses. Yet, in the end my scrawling of “Oklahoma” and “Flower Drum Song” won me the first round. Even my guesses of “The Secret Policeman’s Ball,” “Ren and Stimpy” and “The Itchy and Scratchy Show” didn’t keep my dismal score from being significantly less dismal than the other six people. I had a better score than Val. That was a no-no.

The second round she and I were tied but overall I was still ahead by a few points. By the end of the third round she had learned to write smaller so I couldn’t read the answers on her paper.

Inexplicably, she was now winning.

By the end of the fourth round she was ahead by four points and was handed the prize. A perfect award for her: a compendium of Broadway tunes with music, words and history of the shows. She had won and it was time to stop competing and sing. Selection after selection from the book was sung with exclamations of I didn’t know this came from a musical from some one or two surprised participants prior to every other song.

Including “When You Walk Through a Storm.” Some showtunes show up in the strangest places. I knew this song was sung by the Lettermen and Gerry and the Pacemakers but I didn’t know it was from a show. When “Beautiful Dreamer” was sung, I pointed out it was featured in “Space 1999” when the aliens were putting Earthpeople to sleep in rather permanent ways. Many tunes, in fact, were used in science fiction movies and television. So when the question of what show “When You Walk Through a Storm” came from my answer was immediate.

“Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy BBC Mini-series. Eddie the Shipboard Computer sings it as two missiles from Magrathea are headed toward the ship. ‘We would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your custom in future lives … thank you.’ And Eddie starts to sing and continues to until Arthur hits the Infinite improbability drive and one turns into a large sperm whale and the other a bowl of Petunias and all it wants to know…”

“What?”

“It was sung in a sci-fi comedy by a computer.”

Kay responded with her head shaking, “I know better than to ask if you are kidding. But it actually came from “Carousel” by Rogers and Hammerstein” and she commenced to sing:

Walk on, through the wind,
Walk on, through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

We all joined in.

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart,
And you’ll never walk alone,
You’ll never…

And the boys ran in. Two, including the pirate fellow. Boys, men, in their thirties or forties. Of course, over the last few days I had spent much time with Charlie and never a peg was in sight. He was chased into the room by Joshua. Up went Charlie held around the middle by Joshua, down went Charlie to the floor held around the middle by Joshua. Face toward the floor, hands on the floor, knees on the floor, and Joshua, holding him down unsteadily with one arm, reached under his dungaree hem for Charlie’s right ankle with the other and pulled. He pulled as Charlie struggled, laughed, struggled. Both laugh and we watched.

And his leg grew longer. As Joshua pulled, Charlie’s leg stretched, slowly, an inch, two, slowly, slowly, then, all at once, it simply pulled out of his pants and we gasped, song stopped dead, and Joshua got up and ran off with three legs as an arisen Charlie hoped after him with one.

Just as many legs went out as came in but not with the same people.

Mary Ann walked by, Charlie’s Mom, Coordinator for the camp, and said as she passed, as though it was commonly known, “They’ve been doing that since they we were ten.” She kept on walking. My mouth was, I am sure, still open because I know Valerie’s was. So were several others.

And I can’t remember what we sang after that.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on January 31, 2007 in Culture, Family, Religion, Social

 

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Nothing Funny about Hardee’s

23 Nov

I worked at a Hardee’s once. Just once. And by this I don’t mean I was once employed at a Hardee’s for a while. I mean what I said. I worked there once.

Whenever I see a Hardee’s I think of tough times and tougher financial difficulties. And whenever we are in the grip of some financial trouble of some such, which is often, I think of Hardee’s as well. I think of it quite a bit. Rather amazing since there isn’t an item on the menu I’d consent to eat, but there you go.

It was the summer of 1986 or 1992 or the fall of 96 or some such year and season when affairs of the financial sort were rather on unsolid ground and milk and bread were scarce, which was not entirely bad as we are allergic to dairy and wheat, but their scarcity was not a matter of famine so much as the assets to purchase them. Thus, rent was scarce, gas was scarce and scarce also were all manner of niceties and many without-which-life-is-not-so-niceties.

We had a child of one or five or four.asd Or one of six and one a newborne. I am not sure; it could have been either or both as such were the stretches of time we were with little or without.

And we lived in a trailer or perhaps married-student housing outside Gainesville, Florida and frequented the farmer’s market on the opposite outskirts buying what we could of what was left of the greens and fruit when the good stuff of the morning was gone. We spent $25 a week on food much of which consisted of spaghetti and rice and beans. We foraged and I would bring home lambsquarters and rapini. I learned what mushrooms could be picked and which to be left alone and made an error here and again, discovered when the onions were best to pick, grew vegetables in the city.

We gave up a car we could not afford, took a housemate, argued over nothing that had to do with anything except money and lack.

We discussed and planned. We looked for work. I applied at Wal-Mart. I was turned down as overqualified for any starting position because I had an AA in Education or a BA in Psychology or some such degree. The non-starter positions would go to those with experience and I had none. I was over and under-qualified.

Seven-eleven offered me six dollars an hour but I lost the position to a man with a PhD. I was unhireable as a waiter for reasons of which I am still unclear.

Finally I was offered a position at Hardee’s by the son, a manager, of a man with whom I taught at Miami Dade Community College as a paraprofessional or tutor or aid. Fast food? I had to think about it. We were in desperate times and still, fast food I had to think about.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. I know it’s not what you want but it’s better than starving.”

That’s my wife talking. She says this before I go off to job interviews. I see her point. The harder it gets to find work the more I agree but still, fast food is not quite what I had in mind when I started college. I went to Miami Dade and FIU, not Burger King University.

So I listened to my Sweetie. Things were hard enough then without arguing and, of course, she was correct. Completely. Utterly. So I could only reply, “But fast food? Holy crap that’s disgusting. Maybe I could dig ditches or…” I don’t remember what I said but it was quite like that. Besides, I am sure I would have been told I was well overqualified to dig ditches, bale hay, plant trees or anything else remotely physical. Sure enough, it seemed having gone to college ruined me for making any sort of living in the real world. In college I was fed a line.

We had even tried to immigrate to Australia. We were told by the Aussie consulate they needed skilled labour, not teachers. They had plenty of people with degrees. Could people with degrees wire buildings or frame homes or lay pipe? I was actually asked that. I said I imagined they could and if they took us we would frame or wire or lay anything they liked. It was a solid no.

And so, after listening to my wife’s sage advice (“It’s better than starving.”) I called the son of the friend and made an appointment. It was for that afternoon or the next morning or later that night and before I went I asked if he knew I had a degree. He did and assured me since his father said I needed this, and badly so, it would be fine. I was relieved or troubled or aggravated or disappointed or all of it and happy and unhappy both.

I drove the few miles, “Dust in the Wind,” by Kansas, on the radio. It is a habit the Universe is happy to support by playing it for me every time I go on a job interview. That or “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” by REM. Both set the proper mood.

We met. It was a Hardee’s. What more to say? I was hired just because, filled out the forms and was told I could start at eleven. Eleven to two. Morning to afternoon? No. Night to morning. What? Night to morning. Eleven at night to two in the morning. I experienced a palpable sensation of the weight of my heart rise to my throat while I felt the same fall to my stomach; two weights simultaneously shift apart and both, I knew, were heart.

So I left, a bit stooped, tired of struggling, defeated, smaller. I headed to a thrift store for the proper coloured blue pants. Found several pair too small and several too large and opted for one that was only a size too big or maybe too small, but they were three dollars and that cinched the deal so it didn’t matter they were too short. I took them home and, with them and my Hardee’s shirt, sat around and waited for night to come.

Evening came quickly and the hour I was to leave dragged me along through the night. I dressed, put on sneakers and left. When Thoreau wrote “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” he was leaving for Hardee’s.

I arrived and walked in, was greeted by the assistant manager, given a tour of the machines and the headphones, some matters of protocol, how to run a cash-register that had no words, only pictures and then was shown how to make change. Apparently word had not got out I was overqualified. I pretended to mistake the quarters for nickels. I didn’t want to disappoint.

There was a steady stream of customers to the counter, past the window. People glossy and pale. Over-sized people ordering over-sized food. All night and into the morning, food they knew, one had to believe they knew, was not good for them and too much of it. Food Addicts. Food-porn.

There were better things to do and better food to be had. Real, honest food. Not fake food but food with actual nutrition behind it. Food that didn’t just look like food, masquerading as food. Food that would be good for them, body and soul, and not leave them empty. Food with production value. Food that would make their lives better, bring joy to their bodies, make them stronger. Food they could tell everyone about and bring home to their grandmothers. Real food. There were more meaningful culinary relationships to be had with non-virtual food. Food-porn.

That was the general. I remember few of the particulars.

I burnt the french-fries because the fryer handle was hot because no-one could find the handle for the basket.

I made several milkshakes on a machine somewhat like a stand-blender. It had several mechanical teats. Put the cup under teat one for a combined dairy and non-dairy colloid. Put the cup under teat two for some other such solid-fluid. Squirt in the flavoring of chocolate or vanilla or strawberry and then stick it up under the mixer and hold it while you press the button but make sure the cup is up all the way and then push it higher because it isn’t. If you don’t, the mixer will high-speed tangent flavory sluice all over to whatever distances the walls are unless there is something else in the way such as, perhaps, a customer.

I hope none of them were going anywhere after dinner.

Around midnight, I was put on drivethrough. It had the speaker we all know drivethroughs have. But it was augmented by the workers leaving out syllables here and there. You all suspected drivethrough workers did this and I’m confirming it. I know why they do. It makes the job bearable. Nothing makes the time pass like keeping people in a hurry waiting and making hungry people do without. Especially if they are wanting to give you money.

Even better when they are high and there was plenty of opportunity to have at it with folk too high to know they were being had. Fish in a barrel. Fish in a barrel. Yet, they were outside, driving around and I was inside, serving them suicide.

Suicide is what many of them asked for. I thought they were talking about the hamburgers. I didn’t get it the first few times and many of our higher customers, not having full verbal facility and agility became irate. Overheard, a co-worker came over and explained, in a voice fully matter-of-fact, suicide is all the sodas mixed together. They were asking for a carbonated syrup mélange. Whatever PepsiCo makes, yes, I’ll have that.

Suicide was a good thing to order and I started welcoming the drunk and high folk. If I messed up their orders, fixed the burger wrong, missed one of the sodas and so saving them from a successful suicide, made a bit of a mess, they tended not to notice so much. High people were great because I was messing up more than not. This was due to a mixture of apathy and grease. Both were everywhere I was, surrounding me at first but, by the end of the evening, the beginning of morning, they sat, solidly, inside.

I slipped and fell. Twice or thrice or more and I dropped things or didn’t and hurt myself and sat upon the greasy floor for a moment or sprang up from embarrassment. I grabbed handles and appliances to steady myself to rise but they were grease-glazed as well. There were no mats and nothing to absorb the grease but the food. I certify the food was more than adequate to the task.

I dropped things because my hands were greased. I dropped the wrong things because I had picked up the wrong things because my glasses were opaque with a think and growing film of animal fats and vegetable oils. I could see nothing. Is that a ten or a twenty or a one? Pictures on the register were as useful as words and Braille would have been of more use. No sight, no footing, no handholds. I wondered just how much grease was in my lungs, how much my skin had absorbed, how deep in my ears my eustachian tubes were filled with animal sludge. How far up my sinuses were the cavities of my skull coated with the vaporized lipids. Fat was everywhere inside and out. I just wondered how much. I sometimes wonder how much is in there still. Like Oklahoma sand, Hardee’s fat is everywhere.

Time crawled. When I fell, I crawled too. Finally, two in the morning. I was told it was time to leave. No overtime allowed. What a shame.

I walked to my car and greased my door handle, then greased my seat and greased my steering wheel. I drove looking over my glasses which is only slightly safer than driving with my eyes closed. I didn’t hit much – just a curb or a mailbox or some students during mating season. I found my way home.

I greased the doorhandle to my home and walked in. I left my sneakers at the inside of the door. My wife was up, waiting, in the bedroom. I told her I was going to take a shower.

I’m sure I left grease-tracks as I walked toward the bathroom. There, I turned on the water in the shower and left a mark on the handle. I have always disliked showers too hot or too the water too hard… I know I’m sensitive so I read up on Best Water Softener Reviews. This time, I turned it up and let it get hot. I stepped into the shower, grabbed the Dr. Bronners and soaped myself. It took quite a bit for even this castile soap to start cutting through the grease but, after a while, a lather began to rise. Then I took my clothes off.

As I did Lee entered. I looked at her, or, rather, toward her. Then I took off my glasses, rubbed them with soap and put them aside and looked at her.

“You were wrong. There are worse things than starving.”

We talked long that evening and soon moved to a locale more economically viable. We moved to North Miami or Kendall or South Miami and with my father’s help rented an apartment or a duplex or a house with friends. Times change and episodes as difficult as this have been far too frequent but, happily, consigned to memory each one. But you still won’t find me in a Hardee’s.

I have been known, though, to fill my cup under every soda spout in the line. Syrupy, sweet and fat-free.

 
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Posted by on November 23, 2006 in Culture, Family, Food, Social

 

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