Another Form of Social Distancing

I was schlepping my six empty two liter bottles of Coke out to the recycle bin when someone walking by on the sidewalk shouts, “Hey!”

I look up and it took me a second or two to recognize him...Jack from down the street. When I knew him he was a good 10+ years younger than I and didn't run in our circle but being a neighbor at one point, he was still familiar.

I walked over to him and thought, “Yep, that's him...I recognize the eyes.” When I was close enough he fired out his life's story at me in under twenty seconds, and part to explain why he was back in the old neighborhood.

“...and then I walk in to see my wife banging a guy about your age!” When he said it like that I kinda felt guilty...but for what reason? I have to defend every guy in their 50's?

He goes on.

“Three kids! Three different whores! I'll never get with a girl again...it's not worth it!” he complains.

I was sort of half listening because I was focused on his beard, his VERY gray beard.

“How old are you now?” I ask. I had to ask twice to break him from his obsession with his three failed relationships.

“45” he tells me.

“You're 45? I say with some surprise.

“Yep!”

I then remind him of when he was 15...and the age I'll probably always remember him at. Around the corner, M had his garage and he fixed people's cars there. It also served as a bar and we locals would sit around in it getting drunk. Up comes Jack on his ten speed, trying to fit in with us older guys and we give him a beer, then two, then tree and two hours later we have him good and soused.

He then feels it's time to go home and he gets on his bike and then pedals furiously out of the drive way onto the street. He probably got about 40 feet before he lost control of the bike and went SPLAT right onto the tarmac. He was wearing just summer shorts and when we got to him, he had a nice minor grade road rash up and down his face, back and right leg. He sat there, bewildered about what had happened. We got him to his feet and wormed a promise out of him to NOT tell his Mom where he got so drunk at, should she wonder why her son was bleeding all over and smelling like Michelob.

“God....I remember that.” Jack tells me.

He goes on to tell me other woes besides cheating wives, moving back to Rhode Island and why his foot was in a brace.

As I hear this, I hear a past conversation I had with Barn as he commented on a similar story I had told him about another guy I had known whose life had hit the skids.

“See what you missed Ron?” “See all the bad marriages, the bad bankruptcies, the bad kids you NEVER had?” he says. “All that shit other people get involved with and crash and burn with...you avoided. Hell, you were far enough away from some to even avoid any splatter!” After reminding myself of that conversation something else occurred to me due to his awful luck...

The other thought I had was...”Does Jack have covid?” And I stepped back a bit.

So I wished Jack luck and watched him limp to his childhood home. He came home to save money to restart his life once again, with hopes of opening a new business.

I dump my Coke bottles finally, and wonder again all those I have known who have lived their lives bouncing off one wall then the other, making their way down life's hallway getting bruised and bloodied. Personally, I hate messes. They're hard to manage and clean up and can divert you from your intended direction that day, or in life. I'm not saying I was a perfect navigator, hell, I SUCKED at it when much younger but after a while you learn NOT to put your hand into the fire...repeatedly.

Yet I see people do this again and again.

**

I once got the ire from a 20 Something girl I was talking to a while back. I had admitted that I reject 95% of the girls I meet because I had learned something about their Smash Up Derby lives. Hell, these girls admit it like it was a Badge of Honor. What tips me off is when the girls tell story after heroic story of surviving these crashes in life. “Story after story...Uh Oh! Why the repetition?” I think.

She became pissed with me because my view had touched a raw never in her...she was one of those people who repeat fuck up after fuck up in their lives.

“You think your SOOO perfect!?” was her response.

“No I don't. I have some deep scarring on my back from bad sunburns and teenage acne. I can be a skinflint when it comes to money. I can become cold blooded and walk away from 20 year friendships should they go sour and not feel bad 5 years after about not wanting to patch them up.”

“But I try look before I leap. And there's too much other people's shrapnel out there and I learned to duck.” I finally said.

And that old admonition chimes in my head...”See what you missed Ron?”

Squirrel Tales

Around 1990 or So...

Lee was an animal rights activist and a vegan. I had met her in 1988 when she joined our crew in the group home I first worked in after college. She was a sparkler, one of those zippy personalities that made itself the focus of a room easily. I liked that. I liked the animated ways she had.

One day, she was driving the company van and it was one of those big ass “church” type vans you see heading down 95 on Sunday mornings, loaded with the faithful and I was in the passenger seat. I was NOT wearing a seat belt either.

Olney Arnold road in Cranston had a speed limit of about 25mph but no one ever obeyed it. If anything, most did 40 to 50 mph on it as it was one of those country roads you could do that because you could see a half mile down it to respond in time to anything. So Lee and I were zooming down it headed to Rt 37.

I must've been daydreaming or something as I paid little attention to what may be up ahead. The last thing I remember seeing clearly was Lee's face as I had turned to look at her. I then heard a skid and felt my entire body become airborne and head straight for the windshield and monster sized dashboard.

WHAP!

I felt like we had come to a dead stop and I managed to crawl up from the floor as I had collapsed into it after smacking the windshield. My right shoulder was complaining like I had overextended it and I gripped it some as I lurched myself back into the seat.

“What...What happened?” I asked her.

“I nearly hit it!” she said.

“Hit what?”

“A squirrel! I almost hit a squirrel!” she tells me

A couple of seconds go by as I process that information.

“You...sent me into the windshield because of a squirrel?” I said.

“But I nearly hit him!”

“YOU threw my body into the windshield over a fuckin' squirrel?” I protested.

As I told her this, she kept looking out the window to see if there were any injured squirrels.

I was surprised/not surprised by this. I had come to expects these sudden things from her, thought this was the heftiest thing she had pulled on me to date.

We start moving again and I quickly put on the seat belt. I then ask her what was more important, a human life or a squirrel's? She said the squirrels because...humans are evil and malicious.

“When was I ever malicious to YOU? I ask.

I get no answer because she couldn't back that up at all.

**

I never told Lee this story, it would've proved she was right and I was malicious.

In our teens, M and I used tear through Slater Park with our air rifles infringing on the rights of squirrels. It hadn't started like that. We just brought the rifles with us to snap off shots at cans, beer bottles we found from previous parties the older teens had in the woods and just kill time because we were bored. We were bored enough to plug holes in various tree trunks that morning.

Now, we both thought we were well hidden enough by the forest cover from the neighborhoods that surround the park's north side. The report from an air rifle is really pretty pathetic. At best, it sounds like a dry branch breaking cleanly in two, nothing like a powder powered real firearm.

But as teens do, we got bored of shooting trees, water and rusty cans we found. We walked further on to the north, getting pretty close to the nearest homes and we spotted a squirrel jumping from branch to branch and he seemed in a damned hurry. Of course M and I start pumping up our guns and fired pot shots at him as he flew. We also started shouting tactics as we tried to cover both sides of his escape.

The problem with most air rifles is that their accuracy really sucks. You try hitting a small target beyond 50 feet and chances are you will miss easily. So we both are pumping, loading and firing as fast as we could. Now we were about 75 feet from the roadway.

I was aiming my gun up into the tree when I heard the sound of tires on the road...and then come to a stop. I have turned my head from the sights and saw this green truck parked right there with this stenciled on it's door.

RI Department of Environmental Management.

A man had come out of the truck and was wearing that goofy Ranger Ted uniform you would see in old Disney flicks about Yellowstone Nat'l Park. It was the first time I have ever seen a real game warden. When do you EVER see one of these guys in the city? You don't.

I turn to M and yelled, “RUN!!!!”

Lucky for us, we knew, like the back of our hand, all the trails, streams, slopes and everything about that park as we had explored it since we were kids. I didn't look back to the road way but had heard the truck door slam, it's engine fire up and that spitting of dirt and gravel as the truck, I'm very sure, started to chase us.

Like I said, we knew the place better than he so we managed to zig zap our way through the wetlands and up a slope and over to the others side by Newport Ave where we quickly collapsed our rifles and started to cut across the road like we were just out of a morning walk.

We managed to out run and out maneuver Ranger Ted. We surmised one of the neighbors nearby had heard or seen us doing what we were doing. We wondered why DEM and not the Pawt police showed up. The police would've told us to “beat it” had they caught us. I'm sure DEM would have up on charges instead.  Someone had called earlier, complaining we were firing on public lands NOT intended for that at all. 

**

There once was a fad toy in the late 70's called a Squirmel. It was sort of worm/snake like furry thing with two googly eyes and if you pet it, it would deform, twist due to whatever weird rubber material made up it's insides. They were popular for a week and a half like all fad toys are.

Kimberly was in our 7^th grade class and we all being around 13....are just starting to encounter puberty, though Kimberly wouldn't reach that for another two years. RJ, a boy of the same age wasn't there yet either but being a boy, was far more bold than most of the girls we knew.

Kimberly was an only child and a shy one at that. You could turn her face beet red by saying words like, titty, ass or sex to her. Not that we did that a lot to her anyway, unless we boys were in a rambunctious mood and wanted to make Kimberly squirm a bit.

For some reason, the girls sitting near one another were busting one another on their “experience” with boys which was probably nil, At best, maybe a quick kiss in the dark where each had managed to click their teeth hard against one another's. Again, it's the usual kid's attempts to seem soo grown up to the others and therefore hold that social status.

The girls knew that Kimberly had NO experience whatsoever, that including even seeing a penis in real life or even in an porno magazine their older sisters may have had. So of course they ribbed her again and again till she broke down and admitted she had never, ever seen anything like one on a real boy.

RJ, who was sitting next to them heard the whole conversation. He then whispers to us boys that he's going to stand up, undo his zipper and “whip it out” in front of Kimberly's face. He was that kind of kid who would do the outrageous. 
 

So he stands up but is very secretive about what he's doing and we boys can't really see much either. He then turns his head to Kimberly and says, “Kim...wanna see mine?” and he turns around in a quick fashion and stops, about two feet from her face.

There is nothing louder in the world than a 13 year old girl's shriek. They really should include then in operas as their voice can penetrate carbon fiber truss beams used in the Space Station.

The poor girl got up and ran out of the classroom. The other girls start guffawing about it and finally, RJ turns around facing us boys, holding what we thought was his dick still.

But it wasn't his dick, it was a Squirmel toy had had snuck into and out of his zipper, where it hung down somewhat into his hand. 

Kimberly, the poor, poor girl, probably thought, for a second anyway, that THAT is what a real penis looked like. No wonder she ran, it was looking RIGHT at her. 

Where was our teacher? Well, this being Goff Jr High, a lot of teachers were blowing off class time in the coffee room.

The Japanese Man has Six Faces

Back in 1980 (B.C. to you Xer's), there was a tv movie called Shogun. It was a loose account of a genuine English captain, Blackthorne, whose ship Erasmus was swamped on the Japanese coast back in 1600. After oddly being befriended by Jesuits, the Catholics enemy to the Protestant English. The Jesuits arrived in Japan first and had the lead.  Blackthorne learns to assimilate himself and rise politically within Medieval Japan's samurai clans.

Stay with me...the history lesson ends soon...

Another captain of Catholic persuasion, alerts Blackthorne to the very real danger of trying to stay alive in Japan. At the time, there were various warlords vying with one another to achieve that title, Shogun. The Military Governor of ALL of Japan. They weren't beyond murdering one another in grisly ways to attain that either.

So, upon departing Japan to sail back to Spain, the Catholic Captain says to Blackthorne: “English! A final warning to you, though your false heart doesn't deserve it! The Japanese man has Six Faces!”

I sat there as a 15 year old boy wondering what the hell that meant? “Six Faces? Is this some Buddhist tricky mental exercise? Is it just a weird Zen saying?”

I had no idea but certain phrases stuck with me throughout the years, filed away in my brain as: “Well, if we find out what it meant...we'll find out. Priority Level: Very Low.”

Yeah, until I was about in my very late 20's when I saw what it really meant. It couldn't have been simpler but it's one of those things where you have to live life, be scarred up by it, for years, to “get it.” You learn this after working for a while and you're first real lesson in it is usually navigating the politics of high school.

Girls learn this one far quicker and at a younger age though.

All of us, I, you, all present a “face” to each and every person. And that face is adjusted according to the information we have and what the political climate is a work or in the lunchroom. To successfully pull this off, you have to be “every thing to every one.” It's a nasty fence sitting, middle of the road tactic but as long as there is no hot war going on, you can survive. The other trick is the poker face. Never react to any information you may learn that actually surprises you. Watch some Japanese faces, they'll betray NO emotion even if you tell them that, with genetic proof, they descended straight from the Chinese, who they HATE with a passion.

Now in a hot situation, that's when you have to choose sides at the last minute, get off that fence, take temps and see who you think will win. Bingo! Join that team. Blackthorne joined and stayed with Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the two most powerful warlords in Japan. Tokugawa fought a battle and won then purposely decapitated 40,000 enemy samurai. Afterwards, he “reluctantly agreed” to accept the title of Shogun from the Emperor. Blackthorne became his political advisor and died of old age in Tokyo.

Do I have Six Faces? Fuck yeah, probably more.

So.Do.You.