Spats

 

Not the original but close enuff

 

 

You’d think I’d be used to winter, being born in New England and all. I ain’t. When I was much younger, when I didn’t sport this old man’s gut and flab, I was as skinny as a rat with no attendant layers of blubber to insulate and keep me warm.

With the worst of winter, I’d shiver, my feet could go numb and a couple of times the skin on the inside of my wrists would turn white then a worrisome grayish color, the second step to frostbite I was told.

With those physical burdens, you have to psychologically steel yourself against them. I ended fighting it off in my mind as there were few other answers to bitingly cold weather. I didn’t ask to learn tenacity, in order to resist it till I could warm up again, but learn it I did.

Inside my home, we had forced air heat with registers that blew out hot air like a hair dryer. As long as I could remember, if I’d hear the furnace click on, I’d rush to one, crouch by it and bathe myself in the 120 degree air that came out of it. I wasn’t the only one to do this, my brother did and I caught my Mom standing in front of them once in a while too.

Today, I can push my office chair with a good shove of my feet and roll over to a register if the furnace comes on to luxuriate in that hot air stream.

Here’s some further evidence my family may have had lousy peripheral circulation. At the wedding of my brother’s friend way back in 1980, my brother and I (and others) had to go shake hands with the groom’s and bride’s family, who were all lined up. I shook the hand of some aunt of the bride when she commented, “My! Your hand is ice cold!!” I just smiled and moved on but was within earshot when my brother, who was next in line, shook her hand. She exclaims...”YOU too!?”

“We’re related...brothers.” He tells her.

She then almost shouts out...”Wow!...the Cold Hand Brothers!”

**

So I told you all that to tell you my main story about Spats bar that was on Angel and Thayer Streets.

I have always loved, in winter, small, cozy and almost claustrophobic bars and restaurants that weren’t cheap on their heating. I loved them more if their décor was darker as well. The more like the hibernation tunnel of chipmunk, the better!

I honestly don’t remember when I first went to Spats or how I found out about it. I think it was through a college friend who introduced me to it as we did hang out there at times, and another time I remember after a Roger Waters concert.

I do remember one time we were there, when the Ollie North hearings were happening and on TV at the bar that day. Day drinking...you can do that in your early 20’s then as you have the time, also the DWI laws weren’t as draconian as today and you can go home and sleep your drunk off w/o it interfering with your career, which at that age, we had none.

So the both of us are good and drunk and I start to loudly proclaim my love and support for Col. North, knowing that the clientele of the bar is full of Brown U. commies, pinkos and Democrats. (I am still one by the way, just more conservative about money now).

For my own personal goofing around to fuck with the Brown people, I say "I lovvvve Ollie!,” like some teen girl ogling a poster of some heart throb teen boy band singer. It was loud enough to make it through the bar.

Next to me, M. sternly and with a bit of an angry shout, but quiet enough for only us to hear says, “Would you SHUT up! You know WHERE we are...don’t you??!!!”

But I’m am having fun and I yelp out some other love lorn thing about North and Reagan as well. Then I noticed I got some ugly stares from some guys at a table near us.

I stop. Those Brown U kids aren’t enjoying my joke.

So that’s probably how I started at Spats.

**

My first “real” job was with a social service agency and I made some fast friends there. One was Brian, who was three years older than my 24 yrs. Brian, was a terrible goof/dweeb/mechanic/electronic component soldering/ slightly clueless, Member of Densa guy with retard strength (I apologize for that but I need to give you an accurate idea!). On the other hand he was very chatty and I found out later, a fiercely loyal friend who did have a brain once he turned it on. He also loved to eat. I once mention Spats to him as they had the best and most disgustingly large nacho plate around with heaps of guacamole, sour cream and lava-like rivers of molten cheese...and Brian begged me to take him there.

We spent the winter of ‘88 there, usually after work, drinking beer and eating those piles of nachos. I enjoyed that time because it was winter. Spats was conducive to coziness as it had low ceilings that were covered in filthy, ancient copper plate. The building, if you walked around the bar and the restaurant next door was a rabbit warren of hallways, misshapen walls and creaky uneven floors. All bar stools and tables were slightly uncomfortably too close to one another but that didn’t bug me at all. The rest of the décor was sort of slap hazard but that was OK with me, it spoke of personality and not corporate sameness. The place had soul.

Plus, the nicest thing about Spats is that in the winter, they blasted the heat.

I can remember stepping out of it one time at 1AM, with Brian, into a screaming north-west biting wind and I didn’t care. I was toasty warm from spending a night there. His pick up and my car were probably the only two parked on Angel st and the ride home, with the heater blasting, wasn’t long at all. I was full with food, well warmed up and had a manageable beer buzz to avoid the Pawtucket cops that late at night.

While Brian and I spent time there that winter, I spied a waitress, Laura. She was a brunette gamine...(Gee, what a surprise...what I was always attracted to!) who usually wore a hippy like scarf through the loops of her pants as a belt. That pile of thick wavy hair of hers…god..do I have a hair fetish? I bet I do.

I also knew what Brian didn’t due to his naivete, that female bartenders and waitresses get hit on all the time and IF you expect to move on one, you had better go real slow.

I had told Brian I thought Laura was too cute for words and he picked up on that I liked her. One night, I see him go to the bathroom and when he returns he stops to lean into the kitchen and speaks to her. I can see this happening and I swore I knew what he was telling her, thinking he was helping me out.

“See that guy over there..in that booth...he ADORES you and wants to ask you out!”

Brian comes back and I ask him why he was talking to her. 

“Oh, nothing, just told her how we preferred her over other waitresses.”

Liar...

In a minute after that, Laura comes to our table and quickly asks me, “Are you a Townie? You look like one.”

“Yes, I live up the road.”

She pauses, thinks...and finally she says, “Oh…”

That pause and that “Oh” meant, End of the Road.

Later on Brian in his ignorance trustfully asks me...“What’s a townie?”

“It’s a local...someone who doesn’t attend the Ivy League college and isn’t rich…You and I are ‘townies’ compared to the Brown kids that go here. We don’t ‘belong.’” I tell him.

**

I miss Spats. I miss the bronzed shoe or “spat” that was affixed to the door as the door handle you pulled to open it. I miss Brian, who left us so many years ago.

But..there is another too small place nearby I like in winter that is warm enough too, Quinns. Though I can’t chase college aged Laura’s anymore nor eat a garbage can lid sized plate of nachos by myself, I can settle in it with a beer, talk to those in retirement who remember the good days when life and music were the best.

Yeilding to the Obvious

It’s gotten to the point in my life where all the professional people I have hired, lawyers, doctors and dentists, some I’ve been with for 40 years, are all retiring or selling their practices to the younger ones. 

 

Years ago, when my brother was on the lung transplant list, I was talking to his primary at RI Hospital when he said he wasn’t doing the operation but a colleague of his was, Dr. Veres. “She’ll be here in a minute to answer any questions.” And literally then she showed up right behind me. I turn around and I spot this, what seemed, teen aged girl in a Brown University/RI Hosp dr’s coat with stethoscope and ID badges all over her. I couldn’t stop looking at her face. “You’re fuckin’ 17 years old!” I said to myself. She did look very young for her actual age of 28, but she was a board certified thoracic surgeon. She was more than qualified. 

 

Sigh...it’s not that they’re getting younger, but some one is getting older...me. 

 

** 

 

I will admit I can be a cheap bastard. Every time you step into the marketplace, they’re out to dig as deep as they can into your pocket. If they could convince you to buy a No.2 pencil for $56, they’d sell it to you with no pangs of guilt. So my defenses are up in regards to that. 

 

However, I will spend bucks on things I love and some of those things are expensive. This computer I built is one, it being attached to my stereo system in the other room is another. There are a few thing in this life where the best or at least close to it aren’t negotiable. I will however NEVER buy a current year Mercedes convertible no matter how much I may like, but not love, them. I have to be in love to spend that kind of cash. 

 

Apparently, over the years, my health I can tend to blow off if it’s not an emergency. I seem not to love that so much. Typical male reasoning...huh?  Which brings up dentistry and how it can be so damned expensive. I have over the years, since I was a kid, tolerated tooth aches, knowing at times that they can subside, cure themselves if certain conditions are met...and how willing I can put up with the pain and threaten myself with the idea of $3,000 root canals and crowns. It’s a good motivator to do nothing about tooth aches at first. 

 

Months ago, an old root canal/crowned tooth had snapped off as it was over 30 yrs old and the base had eroded. There was no point in rebuilding it as there was little original tooth left. So my dentist, and I, blew it off but with a warning, it will fire up one day. It did last week and this time around, I folded like a lawn chair to get it fixed and didn’t once even try to fight it like some tough guy under torture in a Japanese WW2 POW camp. Fuck, it’s a known fact, even the Nazis didn’t pull that kind of shit Imperial Japan did to POWs. 

 

So why did I cave? An old acquaintance I knew years ago, Marc, had died at the age of 54 last week. I had known him from my party spots around Pawtucket in the ‘90s and early 2000s and it hit me in this way… “Damn, that’s too early. He had it going too, lifetime career at Verizon, probably a fat pension waiting for him when he retired, and god knows what else...all of that ZEROED out in in less than 12 hours.” 

 

Since I have and currently am taking steps to retire, I have learned a few things. One thing you gotta estimate is how long you will live (which is a bitch to do accurately) so you don’t drain all your finances if u manage it to 90. But I have a few facts on my side. All the males in my family bit it young. My mom lasted longer but only by about 20 years. I had also taken the “Live to 100” survey and a few others and with all the info I plugged in, they say I ain’t getting past 80...no way in hell am I...I may even kick it at 69. Or, by a weird outside chance, I live to 101...but I doubt it. This is the best guess they can do. So I work with that. 

 

So, I’m sitting there all day Thursday, eating enough ibuprofen to nearly fuck up my liver but it does shut down that screaming hot, bone pain and fighting it mentally as well as I can and then I start thinking of Marc, who left us at 54. And I also hear an old co worker who always said, “Hey, you can’t take it with you! I want to travel all over Portugal and the Azores...blow it on that!” 

 

I got perhaps 10 years or perhaps a few more to last (Hell? Next week?) and I think, Fuck this; I’m not going to be the tough guy if I can puss out and stop this pain. I got the damn money for Christ’s sakes even if I’ve blown my entire 2025 Delta Dental budget. I will pay cash for this! If I don’t have to suffer...why the f should I? What? To prove to myself I can tolerate shit storms thrown my way? I’ve prided myself on dealing with some annoying crap in my life, like we all have, but Jesus, what if I can avoid it? Hell, run screaming like a little girl the other way if I can! 

 

**

The Dragon Lady

 

 

Remember I said my old professionals are quitting? 

 

I’m lying there in the dentist chair and I hear… “Hello, I’m Dr Aiko Takahashi...Nick is selling me his practice and I’m taking on all of his old patients but it’s a slow transition so no worries! OK?” 

 

She, maybe 30, looks at the Xray and says, “Wow, that root tip is really infected...see the shadow in your jawbone? That’s where it’s spreading, bet that throbs like all get out! That tooth will have to come out!” 

 

I look at her, with her tiny Asian body frame with equally tiny, reed like arms and wonder how she can dislodge a tooth? Every other dentist that took teeth out of my skull had the arms of mechanics. She needs a silk kimono and not scrubs to complete the racist image I have in my head. 

 

So after she numbs me up like a board, she starts. I have had teeth out before and the routine is like this: Nothing but massive pressure on the tooth as they push and pull on it. You know there is success when you hear the tiny fibers which anchor the tooth to the jawbone start ripping, you can hear it….a good tearing sound. Then...this wonderful taste of blood and bone as they lift it out. 18 hours later, I feel nothing. No throbbing. No screaming hot pain...nothing. 

 

Good. One thing money is good for is to mitigate life’s shit that gets thrown your way. I hope not to keep repeating these health episodes though. I much prefer spending $$ on a giant Fisherman’s Fry plate which is loaded with fried every thing from the sea. That...is much more fun and I can do it as long as I am moderate about it…instead of ordering off the heart healthy side. 

 

“You can’t take it with you!” Finally I am getting the point of that message. And if you’re curious, Living to 100 calculator...Living To 100

Looking Forward and Looking Back

 

“If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.”

K Vonnegut

...and one day I’ll write the complete Tell All shapely story of me, but not yet. What will it contain? The whole caboodle and not the sometimes censored dribs and drabs I put here.

**

“You know, you’re too much reality for most people, you strip away the bullshit...people’s fallacies about themselves.” said an old friend who opined about me one day in his Plymouth kitchen. “You don’t sugar coat much...Christ, the other night when you torpedoed and sunk Dianna with your experience with familial depression and mental illness...the things you saw up close when your Mom went nutters...it appalled her! By telling that story you called out her dysfunctional family via a not too curved curve ball!”

I sort of agree and say, “I guess I speak too frankly, openly...though I think there’s some lack of social skill involved somewhere in that. I missed the lesson on ‘too much information’”

“Yes...you’re open and pretty indifferent about it...and at times abrupt...and your social skills need work...I’ve watched you eat cold linguine at this table with your fingers and you didn’t care...pig!”

**

I usually have some thoughtfulness and tact. I’ve become better at it as I age but there were many times I blurted out the truth as I saw it. As a youth, I was sick of being deceived and plain out lied to by adults (as you can read in many entries here) so I just called them on it pubically and w/o much respect. This action spilled over to anyone who I figured was either lying or delusional. I can remember one girl I knew, early teens I guess, who was desperately trying to tell me how wonderful her life was and it sounded like happy horseshit to me. I had known her home life was shitty (an alcoholic Dad, a distant mother) and I popped that fantasy bubble she created only to satisfy my selfish view that no one should bullshit me. I should have left that one alone. If I could, I’d apologize to her a hundred times over for blowing a coping mechanism she had, that crutch she needed to get through her days. If all you have is denial with no other answer, no other escape, it’s what works for the time being.

Asshole I was at times…

Anyways, I say all that because I probably won’t change what I write here sometimes. So I’ll blurt out what I think again...regardless of judgment.

**

I’ve said countless times and will again (count on it!) of how surprised I am at this stage of life and what it demands. Mentally, I feel a hell of lot younger but psychically I sure as shit don’t. That realization is from how others treat me now. They see a pile of white hair, a limp, a slowness and immediately think Gran-Dad. I get offers of help when I didn't ask for it now. Younger women no longer see me as a sexual threat, as someone who may ask them out and they no longer erect a wall to keep me at arms length until they feel comfortable about any progression. Now, younger women are quite at ease with me because they know and so do I, I’m not about to use every tactical charm trick to get them to say “Yes.” (However, there is a caveat to this! Read on.) Now, people hold doors open for me and seeing I can’t just hurry up and sprint in, they smile and say, “Oh, no rush.” And this, those I bump into in public, who are much older than me, now consider me a friend. They start conversations with me about anything since the see me as a cohort.

Privately, I feel the aging physically. Like the chronic pain I keep at bay with ibuprofen so I can walk on my hip. Waking up in the morning involves pain because I spent too much time on one side of my body during the night, freezing muscles into place which howl when I move them to get up.

With all this, I don’t think I’ll be creating a fascinating 6^th chapter to my life’s story that’s as compelling as the one in my 20s, or as I call it, chapter “2.” My now shapely story involves slowness, introspection, free time, looking back (which I cannot cease doing) and getting used to what it means to be “old.”

OK, fine. Like I have a choice? Time goes in one direction and you age regardless of what you want.

**

I did something yesterday that I’ve been meaning to do for a few months. I attended a meeting with Sheldon Whitehouse’s aide who runs his office in Providence. The meeting was at Pawtucket’s Senior Center. The subject of the meeting was how the Senator’s office can help you with various information and programs aimed at the elderly or anyone over 60 who now qualify. That’s me now.

Christ…I stepped into a senior center and not as an employee but as a customer!

I felt I had to do this. Social Security, Medicare and other things I have no idea about now require that I become keenly aware of the details. I want ALL the right information before I start applying for anything and avoid the weeks long red tape you can get entangled in should you screw something up. Again, I am learning what it means to be this age.

Old habits die hard. Whithouse's aide was a late 20 Something woman who was quite fetching. I scanned her hand and the ring finger was empty...no ring!

“She’s unmarried...boyfriend involved...perhaps?” I thought.

As she spoke I occasionally shot wry smiles at her which broke the cadence of her talk, which made her stop for a second and then smiled back. She was unaware of her own halting and with her unconscious hesitation, I knew I struck a chord.

“She responded naturally!” I think to myself

A minute and a half later I had this thought.

“What the fuck would she want in an over 60, white headed, fat-gutted, lined face man for? And all you see is a play toy who could out run, out think, out compete and out everything you. Plus her friends would berate her for even thinking it was possible for any kind of relationship with GranPa. I’d need to be a multi-millionaire for a slight chance to begin with.

So I got my mind back to what I was there for...old people’s benefits and why I should call Whitehouse’s office to get things moving if I need too.

She finished up her talk, handed out cards and as she passed me, I couldn’t help but let a smile slowly form on my face, giving her that direct eye contact. To which she dropped her eyes to the floor and smiled herself.

“Beautiful...a shy, positive response.” I think.

I thought, “Ah hell, I’ll still play with them, it’s fun, even though it can’t go anywhere.”

I then feel someone tugging at my arm. I turn to look and it’s a 70ish year old women, who was all of about 4 foot 8, asking me “If I was a member of the Center?” As she has never seen me before.

I tell her “No” and then she starts asking others to bring me literature, an application to join and asks if I need the shuttle bus anytime soon to get to places.”

“Uh, not yet” I tell her.
“How old are you?” she asks.

“Over 60 but under 65” I say

“Oh...you’re a young one..but you QUALIFY!”

Sigh...Great...I qualify. Well, I had better get used to this new chapter in my life and learn all about it. Chapter 6 may be a duller epilogue compared to my hotter 20s chapter 2. Well, I’m still writing something of a story still.

I stood there and I shot a quick look to the young Miss Sheldon Aide walking out the door and felt that younger man’s urge to follow her out to the parking lot and charmingly “work” on her one last time.

My pipe dream was yanked down to reality when Mrs 4 foot 8 came to me with an application….”Here, fill this out, it’s easy...Do you know we have free lunches here too? We can come and get you if you can’t drive!”

Retirement, elderliness and finding it harder to put my socks on because I can’t bend over so easy anymore is coming full bore at me.

New things to learn...and accept...and maybe perhaps toy with a pretty one once in a while for fun.

**

Ya know, after re-writing all this and reading between the sentences...I see I don’t want to give up chasing the cute ones just yet. I’m still clinging to my prime and youth. Yeah, I am aware of myself!  

 

Schadenfreude

 

 

I’ve talked about, briefly, my penchant for revenge. If I felt I was horribly wronged and could do nothing about it at the time, I’d file that away for a day when I could. Years could go by waiting for my moment. And there was one time I didn’t have to do anything at all. The payback for my little enemy was incredibly expensive. It came in the form of schadenfreude.

Frank Alves was a kid from the “other side” who hung with a different set of kids other than our little gang. Occasionally we’d run into each other and due to that crowd being Portuguese, we’d hurl insults at one another. This was when they, them...it started moving into our neighborhood and we knew they were filthy, corrupt, thieving and ate fish that they first turned into dry shoe leather then boiled to death later.

One day, we all accidentally met up and a fight broke out. While my back was turned, Alves picked up and brought down his kid sister’s tricycle down on my head, We were seven years old abouts.

I lived, but was furious at the back handedness of that move. That simmered in me for a long long time but it was near impossible to get him back with his clan always around.

1982

Tom and I were swapping out his rear brakes when we see Frank Alves and his new girlfriend Lee walking down our street. Frank had stopped to talk to a neighbor but Lee kept walking toward Mike and I. When she reached us, she stopped, turned around and shouted back to Frank and that neighbor about something. As she spoke, she turned her head to us quick and then started slowly walking backwards a few steps till her ass was all of 20 inches from either one of our faces, as we were crouched down working on the brake drum. Tom and I stopped working, turned to look, then at one another and back to her butt. Lee quickly looked back over her shoulder and smiled quickly and went back to shouting down the street to her boyfriend.

The look on Tom’s and my face was..”God damn!”

I stewed for a moment hating the thought that Alves had a hot chick.

Alves finally caught up with her and neither one of us acknowledged one another, though our eyes did meet. The feud still simmered.

After they pass, Tom says to me, “You see her ass? You see what she did?”

“Yeah,” I say, “She knew just what she was doing.”

****

Late 90s and Enter Bob…

Bob was part of our crowd for decades. He had lived a few blocks away and by chance, Alves and Lee had bought a house just around the corner from him. I had not seen nor heard much about Alves or Lee in years but apparently they had married and bought a home.

While at a local bar in I’d say, ‘97ish, I heard a story that was later confirmed an hour later by the culprit himself.

“How could you not know Bob was fucking Lee? Everyone knew!” Tom tells me.

“I just didn’t know...hey, I’ve been working full time, going to school full time and after that, I was taking care of the sick ones here...I’ve been out of the loop for some years now.” I tell him.

So I’m brought up to speed on Lee’s infidelities with Bob.

And in comes Bob about an hour later and I had to ask him.

“Oh shti? Lee? I’ve been doing her for a decade now! I never went after her, I never chased her...she came after me! Hell, I didn’t turn her away!” “You know she does whatever she wants, he’s completely pussy whipped by her!”

Bob goes on to tell me this story…

“Lee had come over to my house, from right around the corner and we did it, as Alves, her husband was at work. And about an hour later, I hear this loud bangning on my front door and I can see out a side window that it’s her husband. I hear him yelling to ‘Open UP! Open the door!’”

“So I grab Lee and her clothes and we quickly and quietly dash through my house, through the breezeway to the garage that’s connected. Once in there, I open the trunk to my ‘72 Ford Thunderbird and put her in it and press the trunk down till it latches softly. I then go back in, put on a pair of sweatpants and answer the door finally.”

“Cut that SHIT! I was SLEEPING! WHY are you banging on my door?” Bob yells.

“She’s HERE! I KNOW she is! Let me IN! I want her BACK!” shouts Alves.

Bob says. “I wasn’t going to let him and and we went back and forth for a good minute when, to get rid of him, I finally let Alves in.”

He went through my house shouting, “LEE? LEE! DAMMIT I KNOW you’re here!” I just followed him and when he got to my garage, he just looked in and just saw my two cars and nothing else.”

“So I shout at him, ‘You SATISFIED? She’s NOT here like I said!’

“So he leaves, but loiters out front for a bit, then finally crosses the street to go home.”

I ask him, “You let her out of the trunk then?”

“Nope..i go to the car and tell her through the trunk he’s lingering outside, and to just stay quiet till he leaves. I then go inside the house and watch TV for 45 minutes!”

I say, “You LEFT her in the trunk for 45 minutes? You bastard!” All he does is laugh when I brought attention to that. “Ah, so what. She’s only a fuck toy.”

“I finally do go get her though. She dresses up and then sneaks out the back garage door to hide over her friend’s Deb’s house. She still would come over for a few years more after that!”

Tom, who’s watching me listen to this for the first time, asks why I have mile wide smile on my face. I don’t answer really but think, “Hit me on the head with a tricycle huh you bastard? Guess I got my revenge in a different way...enjoy your joke of a marriage you prick!”

Is that immature? Yes. Is it pure schadenfreude? Yes, but I’m human and vulnerable to all what that is, including the bad. 

And some comedy for you too... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some LIfe Moments and Sewer Girl

 

I have told plenty of stories of the young elementary teachers we had, who were minted in the late 60’s Human Potential Movement that included an extensive liberal awareness. We kids were steeped like a cup of tea in that environment. The height of it was when Ms...and I mean Ms..Barbadoes had all the 5^th graders pile into her classroom to watch live Congressional hearings on the abuses and illegal assassinations of the CIA and NSA. Heady stuff for us 10 year olds. 

Also with that political education, they also preached Women’s liberation too. We boys got a collateral education as the messages shot by us as they were aimed for the girls in our class. The message addressed the idea little girls could grow up to be Mommies, nurses, teachers...but also...doctors, CEOs and airline pilots.

I was OK with that and personally didn’t freak if women dared to move beyond to roles otherwise barred to them. However, I wasn’t completely liberated and open. Years later, I came across a curious event in my 50s which put me off, till I figured out the situation.

**

Grease Traps. Yes, grease traps. It’s a plumbing fixture that separates grease and oil from the dirty effluent that runs down the drains. The reason is that the EPA found that dumping grease into the Narragansett Bay wasn’t helping it in any way. It also makes the jobs of wastewater treatment easier. The problem with grease traps is that you have to remove that filthy goo yourself from the trap otherwise it gets clogged. Also you have to hire a professional every so often to really clean the thing out.

One day at work, I saw an older guy come in, wrapped up in a disposable environmental protection suit (minus the head gear) to check out our grease trap and mentions it’ll only take 30 minutes to do the job as it was easily accessible.

“I’ll get started when my assistant gets here in a few.” he tells us.

A minute later, the assistant shows up. In comes a person, in a similar throw away plastic body suit, but with dirty blonde hair spilling down her shoulders. Though she was in that same rumply body suit, her skinny female form shown through. She as well had been blessed with a prettier than usual “the next door girl” face too.

All the guys in the kitchen stopped what they doing and gave her that male gaze as she pushed a giant wet/dry vacuum contraption to the trap. She noticed our gaze and then I noticed her going completely poker faced. Her entire countenance changed from relaxed to displaying NO information, no body language when she realized our gaze. Everything about her stiffened up slightly.

Women do this when they cannot or do not want to respond to nor feed that male interest. So show NO interest in any form and be left alone. It must be interesting to be a young teen girl and learning this tactic those first times, depending on whether you want the attention that hour or not. Then be called a bitch if you press “No” too hard. I like to think women and men aren’t that all different in many things. But the moves you girls have to do at times due to being female...it must be like being on the balance beam.

Anyways...

My reaction to attendant girl? I thought she was pretty. There is a certain type I respond to and it’s hard to describe in total. Skinny, nearly ordinary and slightly androgynous gamine girls get my attention quick and she was one. Think Winona Ryder, Natalie Portman, Roseanna Arquette, etc...

My second reaction which displayed my sexism? “How can a pretty girl like this do this filthy, disgusting job that requires personal protective equipment? Hell, MOST guys I know would not want to do this revolting, smelly work!” And my final judgment….”She’s too pretty to be doing this job. It’s not for her at all.”

Since I thought her attractive and very curious as to why she was doing this, I go into that side room where they’re working to watch and talk to her.

“You don’t see too many girls doing this work” I tell her.

“Oh, I know...but I’ve been involved with septic systems for years.”

“I’ve been involved with septic systems for years?” I repeat in my head, thinking it really strange thing to say. Just WHO is this?"  She should be sporting NYC attire and working for the Kennedy Center instead.

The two work on, removing the grease trap cover, positioning equipment when I hear her say…

“Dad?...Dad! Should I set the vacuum to 4 or 15 PSI for this?”

“Dad?” I think and then realize. “Oh my God...this is dad/daughter business! He raised her to be a sewer attendant!”

“OK..I guess...these things happen.” I think. But I couldn’t parse her pretty face with this gross, stinking and splattery job. I thought girls like her should be doing nicer, cleaner things.

(I guess I wasn’t totally indoctrinated by Miss McHale’s or Ms. Barbadoes’s teachings on feminism in 1975 it turns out. Girls can grow up to be anything, even sewer attendants!).

A bit later, I’m in the back parking lot and I see their van. On the side was written, “Dickenson and Daughter Septic Specialists.” Her name on the van was colored in hot pink though. OK. Confirmed. It’s a Dad/Daughter enterprise.

Later I thought it could very well be those two have the best dad/daughter relationship and are wildly successful money wise. They may even enjoy each other’s company all day long. I have met many women who were never that close to their Dad or absent altogether and that can source a whole host of problems.

Even in a besmirched protective suit, working with bacteria that could eat your face off if you gave it a foothold, she probably had the best bond a daughter could have with her Dad for all I knew.  

 

Dream Work

 

 

I know a lot of dead people. I don’t mean to be morbid but at this age I know more dead than living ones now. I include neighbors, teachers I had, clients I once worked with, co-workers, classmates, friends and family. So my net is wide and it fills easily as time passes. 

I also dream of them frequently.

Plenty of those dreams are humdrum, a repeat of a memory from long ago. I’m not surprised. They were once in my life so I would remember them in a dream associated with some commonplace day to day life event.

Then some stand out..

I have had a recurring dream of my brother, on a Harley, doing lazy circles in the street. I’m on the front lawn, a much younger version of myself, just watching him. Then finally, he straightens the bike and takes off down the street. For good. He’s left. Never to come back.

It’s not scary, sad or whatever. It’s void of emotion. Just me watching him finally taking off.

But it’s not about his dying nor a symbol of it. The dream was, I think...my finally understanding a life long wish of his. To get the hell out of our childhood home.

He did achieve that dream for a bit when he joined the Navy. That sure got him the hell out. He was in his mid 20s, with him just spinning his wheels waiting for his life to take off, and tired of playing nurse, as I was as well, to a mother who was barely functioning day to day at times. Well, he finally pushed the issue. Running way to the circus or military can work.

Till he was sent home again on a medical discharge a year later.

Back home, he saved up his money till he had enough to get his own place in Providence and took off again.

I once had a near snarky argument with my Mom over which son was worth more, as she thought he was over me. I reminded her that Ken left seven months ago...and NEVER has visited. He lived all of 5 miles away too.

“Who shovels the snow? Who fixes the faucets, mows the lawn, fixes YOUR car? Balances your checkbook? “Not him” I said.

“You know why that is?” I ask her as I felt myself cocking back the hammer on a tirade I was about to unleash and fire upon her.

The look on her face told me she did not want to know. So I chickened out and didn’t fire both barrels at her. The blast of the TRUTH would have really ruined her view of her first born son.

When I saw my brother’s first place in Providence, it was just a single room, where you shared the bathroom down the hall. I was a bit shocked at the meagerness of it and kinda said a bit too loud to myself, “You must’ve really wanted OUT.” He caught that and said:

“And avoid her? Damn right!” he replied.

He was going to stay the fuck away by any means.

**

I once knew, what they call, an “eclectic therapist” at Rhode Island College when I was pursuing my psych degree all those years ago. In the field, therapists/professors steer towards one dominant model and stick with it. You work with what you understand the best. Vin Calia, the guy I knew, was adept enough to draw from all of them at will.

“You gotta be careful of dream work Ron” he once told me, as I related that motorcycle dream to him over coffee at the Student Union. “Dreams are highly personal and any symbols you have do not translate to grand universal ones and that’s makes it unreliable to apply it to everyone.”

“Are you sure?” I ask

“Yep, the science doesn’t back it up as a panacea to cure everything nor can it be unified and generalized to everyone...but...at times, it can widen one’s perspective on your past.”

He goes on to tell me of learning about “dream work” at the Esalen Institute when he was there, for a bit, back when it was THE place to go for the latest in therapies, trends...anything avant garde and cutting edge in how to improve life. It was THE center for the Human Potential Movement probably started by Carl Rogers. Human Potential Movement? You know of it...if you read any kind of self help book.

Don’t know the Esalen Institute either? Here’s some of the people who lived and worked there for a time.

Joan Baez, Hunter Thompson, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Susan Sontag, George Harrison, Neil Young and zillion others...and Vin, for a bit when he found out what they were up too and had to go see. If you were worth your salt in your field, you were accepted there to learn from the others.

Years later, outside of EastSide Marketplace I ran into Vin and told of another dream I had…to which he replied...”Don’t look too deeply into it...stay on the surface of it as you tell me.”

I was in a flat, Midwestern America field, alone, with the sky sprawling about me. I am walking through waist high weeds and dry grass. I’m passing pieces of shredded aluminum, electronic parts and pieces of aircraft wing, parts of a large plane that had long since crashed and spread itself all over. In the years since, the field had just grown up around the debris still left there.

“What are you doing there?” Vin asks.

“Nothing, I just happen to be there, looking, but for some reason I...me...was on that plane...and the only one to have walked away from the crash. I know all about this place for some reason.”

He then asks this out-of-nowhere question when it came to dreams.

“Who is NOT in the dream...What is NOT there?”

How do you answer that? It felt like I was being asked, “Tell me what the sound of one hand clapping is?”

I think, not hard, just letting my mind drift and I say, “My family.”

Vin’s leaning against his car, quietly, waiting and then prods me, “Go on, finish the story...finish your thought.”

“I’m dreaming...visiting the past again, seeing how the family I grew up in was wiped out...and how I am the lone survivor...beating nearly all of their life spans by 20 years or so.”

“And that’s as far as we can take that dream...that’s all it is.” Vin finally says. “We can’t dig any deeper as there is no “deeper”, and you know what it was about anyway.”

“Look Ron..grief, loss is a strange thing...you never really ever get rid of it. It’s like waves on the ocean during a storm. At first, they’re huge! But as time goes by, they become smaller and smaller but still lap at our ankles decades later...and waves never cease to keep rolling in. You own this experience….make do with it like you always have been doing.”

Parking lot dream work therapy, free of charge!

I still have all sorts of dreams of people I once knew. But I treat it as just a visitation, my time traveling which gives just some practical explanations of how things once were with the benefit of today’s 20/20.

 

 Esalen...built into the cliffs of Big Sur

 

 

4th of July

 

 

Our gang used to have a July 3^rd bbq/party/fireworks party for the past...25+ years? It was an excuse for us boys to be 12 again with adult sized fireworks, with the addition of alcohol. Never once did we blow our hands off, set fire to a neighbor’s house but we did upset and distress a few neighbors who did not share our idea of fun. We managed to stop the scrutiny of the Pawtucket PD due to one of us being related to the dispatcher there. Who, when called, immediately recognized the offending address and then...never relay the complaint to a patrol car.

These parties included too much food, too much beer and perhaps $4,000 worth of fireworks, all set up with either fast or slow burning fuses, depending how much noise we wanted to make. Like most drunken or near drunk adults, there was a fair amount of romantic play between the singles, the marrieds, the cheating marrieds…who were more than a few.

But…

As the years went by, we got much older. The last party I attended I had noticed that most of us originals, now inhabited the table where the oldies we knew from before naturally gravitated too. You know the table, everyone’s fat, bald or white haired or all three at once! I found myself there because I knew them and they were the only people I could relate to. I was kind of shocked we were all there now, when once before we’d be the ones dancing, drinking our guts out or nearly blowing our hands off with fireworks.

When younger, the party lasted till dawn. Those w/o the stamina would sleep in chaise lounge chairs, in their cars or various places around the property. Eventually, the first light would come and we’d all finally leave.

But that last time, as I sat there with the others watching the young ones on the dance floor, doing triple jello shots and handstand kegger tricks, I heard once couple my age say…

“Honey...look...it’s past 11”

Those two excused themselves and said their Good Byes to the rest of us.

Since they broke the seal...others within minutes started to excuse themselves with BS or actual reasons to leave. One friend my age, then said to me, “Ahhh...guess I’ll go home too.” He had spent a better part of our conversation detailing how his surgeon fused some of his vertebrae due to years long back pain.

I stayed...knowing I didn’t have to be anywhere the next day and could easily sneak drive home avoiding the cops should they be out there. I had in me a huge total of...3 beers in 3 hours. Hardly DWI levels, but as I got older, it took sooo little alcohol to put a buzz on.

I stayed an additional 20 minutes when I felt my eye lids getting heavy, it was 11:45pm.

I left.

The second reason these parties came to an end was due to the older teen kids my friends had and would show up to see the fireworks display we would put on. And while we were busy with that, the kids would fill up on Manhattan Iced Teas and Alabama Slammers. The adults/parents knew and hopefully thought, “Well….how drunk can you get in 30 mins?” This was allowed for...one year only.

Getting older makes you get far more fearful of what might happen because all your life you’ve seen things happen to those around you or even in your own life to know...wild shit does happen.

When it became very obvious that the State would prosecute the hell out of the hosts if one teen slid his car into a family SUV of six...and that kid got his booze from that party...the liability stopped the event for good. It was damn near impossible to require ID at the property line to see if you were old enough to drink and never mind the culpability host laws that apply to full grown adults who can legally drink. You get them drunk at your home, enjoy the lawsuit that may come should they too slam into a family of six.

The party ending was not a big deal really, all of that coincided with our becoming old fucks who can’t keep our eyes open past midnight anyway. 

 

Moon Traveler Bottle Rockets and Mugsy Or “The Mugsy Seeking Smart Missle”

Poor Mugsy. She was an elderly dog that lived across the street from me with the Poal family. Every morning if it was warm enough, they shoved Mugsy out the kitchen door where she just lay and sleep in the sun in the driveway and coughed like hell once in a while. The Poals had two other dogs that were more loved and treated better. The were two little needle toothed, yippy little shit Toy Poodles, named Zsa Zsa and Buttons.

My friends at the time then, were were under 8 years old, preferred Mugsy’s laid back, too damn tired to move anymore attitude vs. those two yapping, tiny Nazi dogs who would do nothing else but bark at us and try to nip our ankles when they were out. The only thing Mugsy ever did that astonished us young kids would be to heave up her Alpo dinner onto the sidewalk 10 minutes after eating it, then have a good 20 minute sit down to catch her breath. After that rest, she’d get up, re-eat the pile of dog barf she had deposited earlier.

“Auggggh! Grossss! She’s eating her own puke!!”

But my brother and his friends, who were around 12, had other ideas for Mugsy one day.

I, Jim, Pat and John came upon our older brothers one afternoon after we had heard the whooshing and loud bang of bottle rockets being set off. What we saw was that they had fashioned a kind of bazooka out of a pipe which could be loaded with bottle rockets and aimed at...Mugsy.

The boys couldn’t stop laughing their asses off each time they fired one across the street into the upper driveway of the Poal’s house. No one was home there except Mugsy that day. The two little Nazi criminal dogs were inside all day until Mrs Poal let them loose at 4PM to chase us kids up and down the street.

Phhhhsssssh….BANG! And the older boys roiled with laughter. Lucky for Mugsy, bottle rockets are not accurate in any sense and would go off on their own trails no matter how expertly you aimed them.

We little kids were surprised at this. We had never seen anyone shoot off fireworks at a dog before. Mugsy, to her credit, took it in stride, just sitting there and just looked to where the rockets veered and exploded 10 feet to either side of her. This went on for a good 30 minutes.

Finally, Mr Cardosi, a retried neighbor came out shouting, “You leave that poor OLD dog alone! How would YOU like it if I shoved a bottle rocket up YOUR ASS?!!!”

I never had heard nice ol’ Mr Cardosi threatening our older brothers with shoving anything up their asses before. You learn surprising things when you’re 7.

So being guilted into cutting it out, the older ones relented and sulked their way down the street, all butt hurt being denied their “fun.”

We younger ones never followed them, we just were sat by the curb, hanging out trying to come up with something fun to do when we hear too close to us...

“Phhhhssssssshhhh BANG!”

Our bastard older brothers are firing bottle rockets from down the street...this time at us. 

I include the following cartoon...all of this happened in one form or another in our neighborhood growing up.  

 

On the bottom right  you see the "Mouth Loading Lady Finger Grade...NON Repeater." stunt. There was a kid who came to our neighborhood at times, one we didn't really like, Scott. Scott was older, a bully and permanently  dressed in filthy clothing.  He said to us he could "spit out a lit salute that he held in his lips" before it exploded. If you know anything about salutes, their wick's burn time is either two seconds or IMMEDIATELY. So we watch Scott put one between his lips and light it. A tenth of a second later it went off and we saw Scott hopping around spitting out  salute confetti as hit had blown into his mouth. 

Dumb fuck...