What Are YOU Looking At?

There's just one ventilator left. A Dr. looks at me, a 56 year old male with a familial predisposition for respiratory problems and in the next bed, a smoking hot 22 year old college girl who also has Covid-19. Utilitarian triage states that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” and so the Dr intubates the girl and then tells the orderly to wheel my ass out to the Sysco Rent a Freezer truck in the parking lot to store my ass in until this thing is over.

“But...but Dr! I'm not dead!” I may weakly say.

“Just you wait! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Ok, black humor aside, covid is a Big Dog with a kill rate of anywheres from 1-10%. Regular flu barley eeks out 0.1% kill rate. Pussy flu!

**

Strange times...I've never seen anything like this. Chances are neither have you unless you were alive for the Spanish flu in 1918. Now that one liked killing 20 Somethings and left the old ones alone. Young, healthy immune systems were so powerful, so vigorous, that they went ballistic attacking anything in the lungs, including the lungs themselves.

So four scenarios for me. I get it and up I go to heaven. I get it an become an invalid for the rest of my days or I get it and walk away from it w/o so much as a scratch...and finally, I never contract it to begin with.

I don't think I get to choose which, only mitigate the odds a little.

What's struck me now is how every stranger looks carefully at one another. Before hand, I may have glanced at others, barely remembering them two seconds later. Now, I and they, scan one another for any signs of sickness. I was in Market Basket the other day and I swear most were doing that. You look for the kielbasa and suspiciously eye the women a few feet away from you.

“Who are you stranger...you look like you might mug me...will you?”

Then back home with the groceries and washing my hands, wondering of I touched my face 12 times on that mile and a half ride home.

Even friends. Today, I was out by the car an M came by. He's busy moving his trucking business from one location to a newer one and we both acknowledged each other's health at first. Also, social distancing was employed! After that, it was down to business...shooting the breeze about everything.

His business has or will slow but he opined that I was imminently employable as I work in healthcare. “They really need you guys now...more than ever!” he said. “You're still getting a check!”

“Uh...yeah, I guess that's a good thing. Though I'd be three feet away from a cloud of covid viruses should it show up in my place.”

Believe me, I have no Holy Mission to be on the front lines like the Dr's, nurses, CNA's or like that. I take no comfort in giving up my life/health for someone else's...when the else has pretty much lived theirs out to 80 or 90.

Now if I were working in pediatrics..that's a different story.

So...what the hell else can I say about this? Not much. You go day by day with it and hope for the best. That's Life's First Lesson anyway.

23 Years...

To put you into the right mood and time frame, click the above and loop it till you cringe. It was THE song of 1997

 

Warren RI to me at one time was just a dump to drive through to get to Christie's Landing wharf in Newport to day drink in the summer. You could people watch those who were from all over the country there, plus eye the girls in their summer dress. There were a few times driving home from there I should've been arrested. Drinking vodka in the summer sun creates a very definite, sillier high that doesn't lend itself for driving in a straight line across the Mt Hope bridge. But this was just before MADD went on their crusade against young partiers like me then...and you too if you fessed up.

On either side of 114, the main road through Warren, I saw timeworn homes, businesses that looked like they needed to have closed up in the early 70's because their 50's decor was deteriorating fast and flaking onto the sidewalk. The people on the sidewalks looked less appealing still. Old hags and devious looking blue collar workers littered the area.

Once you crossed into Bristol, things looked up! You could roll down your windows again.

That...until I took a job on Main st in Warren in the mid 90's. At first, I thought it a step down from what I was doing but I needed the money. A good chunk of my job demanded that I learn the town intimately as the clients I worked with lived there. I was a sort of ASL translator/Dad/Cop/Negotiator/Chauffeur/All-Around-Shell-Answer Man. (Kudos if you get the Shell reference, if not, your way too young!).

What I came to find out was that Warren wasn't the shitheap I thought it was. Once you get into the side streets you learn that half the houses have placards on their sides stating they were built in the 1700's. Mostly built then by seafarer captains and the such who made enough money to give up the trade and become land lubbers. Add to that, a ton of little restaurants you'd never know were there unless you lived there. And bars, pubs and plenty of each. Aiden's comes to mind. Aiden's. The only disgusting place I think was the Blount clam processing plant right on the water. But even then, if you have ever lived near the ocean, the salty semi-stench just reminds you of clam flats that dissipates from your nose in time. What emancipates Blount's stink, was the fact that Blount also built ships and pleasure craft next door to the clam place. So there was an air of old money and respectability there. You could watch them build them as their main garage door, that was half the building, was open to the street. To know these things, you'd have to walk down Water street and I did many times then.

Warren is also pretty much surrounded by the Narragansett bay with many inlets and sandbars which made great blue fishing when they were chasing the menhaden. From the second bridge that crosses over into Warren by the American Tourister place, the old sandbar I found, and use to fish from, is still there. There were plenty of flounder and tautog there at the right times too.

**

I was in Warren earlier today and ran into a few of those who I worked with all those years ago. I hadn't seen them since 1997. I swear, after 23 years it was amazing how they remembered me as if it was yesterday and I them. Of course, we all look older, fatter and slower. The reunion was fun and we traded old stories. What I surprised to find out was that some of very clients I worked with were still there. Albeit they were more blind and/or deaf than before.

Driving home I was hit with many thoughts. I was a younger man then at 30. Then, I had a few dreams, hopes and a hell of a lot more energy. I couldn't help but compare that time with where I am today. Then, there was no way in hell I'd be able to predict where I'd be today. I think back then, I thought I'd have moved from Rhode Island, perhaps to Denver, San Diego or the such, making my life out there as I wanted change. That didn't happen. It didn't have to because many of the influences of my life then changed for the better and in a damned hurry. In short, I was relieved of caring for a sick relative I had cared for for years. Also back then, I thought I'd meet that someone who would save me (Ha! All guys I knew then thought this...it barely succeeds!). When I was in Warren, I was chasing this really pretty girl who kept me at arm's length. She had broken up with her boyfriend and seemed so available. Oh...how I tried! What changed was that she went back to him and eventually married him and his career with ARAMCO (A Saudi oil conglomerate. He became well to do, probably a good decision on her part). Well, finding that girl didn't happen but I had some fun along the way with some pretty interesting women in the 90's. IE: Roberta who I spoke of here before. She was far wealthier than I was and realized in time I was turning into a “kept boy.” But so what, it was fun for what it was.

I made mention of the fact to one of the ones I talked with today in Warren that I...we, have all changed but didn't. What I mean by that is that our core personalities are still the same. The differences are on the edges of that core.

So who am I today vs. that salt and pepper haired guy I was at 30 and who could fit into a size 34 jeans?

Driving home I knew, just knew that I had a hundred tons more confidence than I did then. Why? After 23 years of living life, a lot of it repeating itself, you file those experiences away for easy reference. Now I am bolder, more direct (perhaps insultingly so, but w/o malice) and that much more astute. That leads to increased self esteem as well. I know what I am capable of because I've had to “go through it” and pull it off. This isn't the loud, bragging pride so many guys I knew in my 20's. That kind of confidence was a “fake it till you make it” show. What's funny, those young blowhards I knew then learned, rather roughly, that life kicking them in the teeth time after time, that they had better sober up their inebriated and boisterous egos. “Glad you came back and put both feet on the ground! The Earth was always down here!”

A dignity that's based on solid rock and experience usually weathers the world a bit better than bluster.

There's a solidness at this age I didn't have then. I suppose you can't have it then. It's impossible. You haven't lived long enough to have acquired that. To get to this point requires baking for decades until you're “done.” 

The price of this is you have to get older, much older. Do I miss the youth I had in 1997? Of course, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that.  But the fact is this, then or now, here or there, you experience life pretty much the same at each point. Not a whole hell of a lot changes to that degree. People are people wherever you find them.   When I was 30 I was bitching and lamenting that "I didn't have this or that." At 56, I still can do the same. I see young 20 Somethings do this daily and they have youth and all the time in the world. Women, do this from the age of 3 till they're 99. Nothing seems "quite good enough."

This is natural. We all do it. The difference I find now is that you temper this complaint by trading ambitious impatience with acknowledging you're married to the World. To make that marriage work, you have to make compromises with this mate. It's not all about YOU. 

Gold Digging B...

I once described my generosity, on a scale, to a good friend like this:

“You want a cigarette from me? OK, no problem...here ya go.”

“You need a ride home? Wellll....OK, get in.” (Though I am quietly thinking how far out of the way it is for me)

“You need a kidney? Wow, I'll have to really think on this one.” Though if you're close to me, in dire straits and work on my idea of a 'helping' morality....I'll probably do it.

And finally if someone asks me.

“Can I have $20?” I'll say...

“Go FUCK YOUR SELF!!!!”

I suppose being raised by a CPA/Comptroller/Loan Officer/Child of the Depression parent did this to me.

Which is why gold diggers never did have too much success with me. Which is funny because I went with three of them in my lifetime. (All failed relationships, of course. I turned out to be a dry well and they left)

The trick to being a Gold Digger is to be very subtle, you NEVER ask for money. You especially don't ask for a new car outright either. Then get mad and throw a TV remote at the boyfriend when he says “No.” You act as if money isn't really of consequence but you condition the sucker, I mean boyfriend, by humbly accepting all gifts and freebies that you never asked for. Never turn them down and leave that moment hanging w/o any real reciprocity. You leave it open with the possible future payback. AKA: “Keeping the gate open.”

Any reciprocation will never be with American dollars but with a different currency, the on her back variety, to which, in her mind, isn't really much of a liability or loss anyways. (Definition? She's been through so many guys it no longer seems to matter now anymore. Emotionally and sexually cynical and burnt out)

It's delicate act to pull off for any length of time but there are a few who are artists at it.

The Two Hannahs.

I went with two girls named Hannah, both separated by decades but were both always looking for that free ride.

I should've been aware of Hannah #1 back then because she had come from a failed relationship after dating a millionaire real estate developer for about three years. I had known, and saw it all basically happen as she was a neighbor and I'd hear the stories. She was 18 and he was about to turn 40 when they first met. His treasure came from flipping commercial real estate and had a penchant for women way younger than he. Hannah found him out and tried to tie her Little Red Wagon to him. This, for her, became three years worth of free cocaine, free trips to the Caribbean and moving into his nice house in Rehoboth. I once overheard her talking to a girl friend of hers that, “Oh, I'll do it all, in my face, on my back...with another girl so he can watch...as long as I'm #1 one in his life..”

That's pretty mercenary for a 21 year old girl and a bit young to be that aware.

Well, near the end of three years there was nothing but arguments, visits by the Rehoboth police and finally her being kicked out of his life. Within one week a new girl had replaced her, which means this new girl was in the picture for a while, secretly of course.

Hannah #1 was 21 at the time and from what I could tell, had become too “old” in his eyes and was replaced by a 19 year old. This would turn out to be the case for all others in this guy's life.

So Hannah1 is now free. I really did like her because she was very spontaneous, lively and a real hellion. I liked hellions because I was the opposite. For me, life is meant to be tread carefully because of all those landmines, ruts, gopher holes and razor ribbon can snag you. If you've ever had your life upended for a few years by stepping on one of life's mines...you tend to be careful where you step from that point on.

A few hellions I've found, tend to escape without so much as a scratch when they blow up their own lives. It's gotta be luck or some very odd skill I can't locate in them. Hannah could to that and I liked the roller coaster ride she provided.

But...

Hannah liked her money, well, other people's money to be exact and as we hung out, I noticed that the restaurants she wanted to go to tended to get pricier and pricier. My radar one day came “on” when we were in Filene's in Emerald Square mall where she was looking at some pendant, ooing and ahhing over it. I suppose it was pretty. What do I know of jewelry except that pendant weighed about $300 in gold. After the girl had put it back in it's display case and we walked on, I saw Hannah's face pouting like a little girl denied her ice cream. She hadn't outright asked me to get it but was expecting me to “get the message” that she liked it so much that I'd pick it up for her.

Nope. Fuck that. My CV joints in my Dodge 400 convertible wanted money too and it had first dibs. I didn't have inexhaustible resources like her previous beau.

Summer romances end in September for some reason. Playtime is over as the beaches close up and the days shorten. Hannah1 did the same with me, I was put away. In a month's time she had found her true love finally. An owner a medical supply/oxygen rental business. She fell in love with his assets, sorry, I mean him and dated him for about a year when that blew up as well. He was older and from what I saw, a little weary of life and got tired of dealing with her over hellion ways. She could be hard to handle at times because of her immaturity. How often do you want the police at your business because everyone can hear the screamfest and possible domestic violence?

Today? She's just turned 50 and out of the dating game. She can't snag anymore Rhett Butler's because any college age girl can out compete her in an instant. She never did bag the rich guy for the happily ever after dream princess life. She's been enslaved to the work a day life and sipping wine a bit too much.

Hannah # 2

Hannah2 was dirt poor, no real occupational skills with dreams of being well off. But that didn't include putting the effort into getting job skills. She was 30 when I met her and had spent her life working at pet shops and veterinarians as an assistant. She was also damned cute looking and she too had that black streak I liked, unpredictability. With the right amount of cinnamon schnapps, she was up for anything.

Since she was dirt poor, she drove a shitbox that was rusting slowly away and would break down from time to time. She was tired of having to fix it and wanted a newer car by the time I had met her. The repairs the car needed weren't wallet busting but just a common event that kept cropping up.

One night at her apartment in Riverside, she was hinting heavily about getting a new car, that year's model. I mean hinting in that I should pay for it. I was sitting on the couch, inwardly rolling my eyes in my head while I heard this and finally stood up and told her, “No, I'm not spending $15,000+ on you.”

I walked towards her kitchen when I hear a faint “fuck you” and I turned around and felt something smack my mouth. I didn't know what hit me but I saw a TV remote on the floor that wasn't there a half a second ago. Then I felt that funny warm watery feeling dripping down my chin. I swiped my chin with my hand and saw the blood.

She was so pissed with my denial she had whipped the remote at me. It was great timing as I was turning around and it nailed my lower lip. It was split open!

By then she was standing up, yelling, “YOU'VE go the money! You can buy it!”

I stood there in shock. “What major balls!” I thought.

“No way would I spend thousands on a whore!” I said. I said that in that I wouldn't spend huge sums of money on a whore, a newish girlfriend (her) or possibly even my own damn Mother had she needed a new car. But because I don't think sometimes when I open my mouth and everyone misinterprets what I say, she says...

“I'm a whore??!!”

Lucky I didn't answer that but my silence just set her off further.

“Answer me! You calling me a whore?”

Do you know how I wanted to say she was one? To confirm it for her so she'd hit the roof? Really toss gas on the fire and watch her implode?

I made the smarter decision and left.

Two days later I'm at work, a place called PV. Everyone noticed the healing slit on my lip. If you work with the same people for years upon years, they tend to easily notice if you have a new, tiny freckle forming on your left ear. So I have to explain the cut lip.

Later in the office I'm telling the same story to D, who spins around in his chair and speaks his final and one-word opinion of her.

“Whore...” he says.

So it wasn't just me!

Hannah2 left eventually and now I hear she's semi-happy with a divorced guy in Taunton who does something with the seafood markets out on the Cape. She drives a newer version of a shitbox now and doesn't work at any vet's office. Well, she got half of what she wanted.

Last one and it's just a vignette.

I use my kitchen table as a workbench, desk, shelf and whatever. It also means I keep bills, financial statements and a lot of other shit there in the open. I like having that stuff easily available.

A “Not Hannah at All,” a girl I knew a few years ago, was sitting at it with me and we were talking. I then noticed she was putting some exertion in looking at a sheet of paper on the other side of the table. I could tell she was straining to read it, people show everything on their face you know. She was straining to read it because it was upside down to her. It was my IRA statement from T Rowe Price.

She was trying to find that final line: Total Shares/Total NAV for the month.

In my head I nearly screamed, “Jesus H Christ, how OBVIOUS can you be!”

Look, I know anyone would read that if it was left out in the open, I would too, but most wouldn't be so blatant about it either. Most would wait for a moment when no one would see them look. “Not Hannah #3” was pretty shameless about it though.

So, kudos to you women who make your own way!

Use By Date

You've all seen it. Pretty girls who have that political capital to make doors open, or at least to have them held open for them. Along with that, they have that ability to charm which is learned at a young age. Most girls are either wired with that at birth or come to learn that quick, usually by kindergarten. So take your pretty girl and have her flash an attentive look at someone, with a mile wide smile and all of a sudden she gets the date/job/lower interest rate loan while the rest of the girls are relegated back to the pig wallow to claw and fight for the rest of the scraps.

My Dad once opined to my Mom that women who didn't marry by 30 were losers. For men, he said if a guy didn't “make it” by 40, he was a loser. I didn't understand this till years later when I saw a few girls, who were pressing 30, freak out and got married, pregnant and acquired that 30 year mortgage. For guys, it was more of a rusting that occurred over 40 if they didn't have either the cash and/or career success. By the time they hit 45 and if they were still doing menial labor, everyone around them quietly adjudged them failures.

“Holy Shit Dad! You were right! I get it now!” Your pretty girls married way prior to 30, scoring the best guy they could and retired early as that old Janis Ian song goes.

**

Chellos is a a decent restaurant in only that their food has an amazing consistent quality. Their burgers taste the same as they did when I was five years old and for me, it holds a nostalgic quality. It's also a nice place to go if I'm too lazy to cook something decent for myself. I'll cook off a gallon sized pot luck, last-for-three-days kinda meal and I get bored with that eventually.

So, there I am at the bar at the East Providence Chello's on Newport Ave munching away on steak fries when I hear a familiar voice. I lean over to peer around the beer taps and I see her, Natalie. I don't say anything nor try to alert her to my presence and honestly, it's been so many decades now that both of us would have to do some mental detective work to rekindle those memories. I continue to munch away as I spied.

Natalie was a real Prom Queen of the East Providence High school back then. We had come to know her when some EP kids would come by Slater Park to hang out. Of course, all the guys would be entranced by her looks. It's too bad you girls can't sense what we guys feel when we see a very beautiful girl. It's hard to put into words. You'd be surprised at it and then understand why some of us actually sigh when we see it. We don't control that reaction either, it comes up from out of nowhere in us.

Anyways, Natalie, as a teen, looked like a slightly, just slightly ugly version of Helena Bonham Cater when she was young. 

 

But not anymore. Years have passed. Her beauty had a “sell by date” and I was close enough to see life had etched it's abuse on her face. That's the way time works. Fresh leather car seats turn to creases in time and so does everything else. When Natalie got up to steal a set plate from a neighboring table, she had packed on 50 or so more pounds from what I could see. From what I know and heard over time and it's decent intelligence (gossip), she had married, had a son, divorced, married again and divorced again. She was still fixing hair at various salons in EP and Seekonk for a living.

I wasn't surprised by that at all, not at my age. Everyone I know at this age has porked out, lost hair, gone gray, divorced, blown through relationship after relationship, lost their perky titties or that figure. That's age. That's how things go.

But what did surprise me was that she was still “holding court.” She was at the end of that bar with four other girls and directing it all. The conversation, commenting on the food and leading the pack of girls there as any alpha cheerleader would. The restaurant is also a stop for EP cops and when a couple came in, Natalie gets off the stool in excitement, with a bit of a shrill scream, to greet them and shepherd them to her gaggle who's at that end of the bar. Again, she directs all the action that's happening now.

“Wow..You're still at it!” I think. “Still trying to control it all. You're still 18 and Prom Queen.”

Age is hard on women. For us guys, it' isn't illegal to age. We get “distinguished.” We can get away with dating some girl half our age if we had the chops to pull it off. Our pressures are different and like I said, it's money/power that we're measured by. Do I honestly believe that? No. We're all worthy in our own right by whatever positive traits we own. But you know how society is, how people are. We tend to glorify beauty or power.

You see...we never leave high school, we never graduate...it repeats!

And women are held to a standard of beauty that is taken away, sooo slowly, with time. I've seen many times where a guy's initial attention is drawn away from the 40 year old women he's talking to, to the college girl who happens to be in close proximity. At work one time, where we used to go out back and smoke cigs or take a break, I watched a woman from the business office just glare and I mean glare, at the 18 year old hot and tight diet aid who was wearing yoga pants. I sat there and watched. I read her face and on it was written jealousy raised to the 100^th power.

This same diet aid complained of being sick of guys who constantly hit her up too. Our 40+ business office women nearly burst out of her skin when she heard that. It wasn't said intentionally either, this pretty teen girl who hadn't the experience to deal with it, had a hard time with all that attention.

**

So there was Natalie in Chello's. I guess losing your crown due to aging isn't fun and you clutch and grasp to keep it there, or at least replay your past as you knew it, to this day. The script she played and acted worked so well then, why give it up? It brought happiness.

I finished my burger, paid the bill and left. Going out the door I nearly stumbled on the steps going down due to my ever present kluztiness. A young waitress stationed near the door, the greeter, rushed towards me then stopped when she realized I had regained my footing.

“I”m fine” I say.

“Oh..I was scared for a moment...I thought...but your OK!” she said, trailing off.

Her face was smiling, calm and she felt safe. I can tell now, you get old and can read faces. She reacted to me like I was her Gran Dad. 

 

Loyalty

(If this seems sprawling and loose, it is. It's just a first draft)

I once knew an old co-worker/friend from decades ago in my first career in social work. I had won the job even before I graduated college, but finding out working full time and going to school full time was a feat to pull off in of itself. B, I'll call him, wasn't a college grad but someone who was hired off the streets. He was a conscientious employee, fairly open with himself but suffered from a desperate need to be liked, which became annoying at times.

No matter how many times you tried to tell him that, “you weren't angry with him” or disliked him he had to have reassurance within the hour. I once finally said, “B, if you keep asking, I will hate you!” That usually shut him up for some time at least.

Other than that, he would be there for you if you needed help. Help being the use of his pick up truck, have a beer with or just talk to, though you had to wade through his strange social skills. Many people just didn't bother to understand that but if you watched long enough, you could decipher just what it was he was doing, how he conversed and you could finally translate him.

I'm a firm believer in that you could learn about a person, or a family, on the first entrance into their home. I do what everyone does, you do a quick scan of the place and immediate start formulating an idea of who these people are. Do they stack up to your expectations? It's superficial I know but we all do it and “first times” with anything you have to rely on what little information you have. You judge the book by it's cover for now and amend that judgment as you learn newer things about them later. Most times the verdict on them becomes kinder.

When my brother was alive, he had a friend, an art historian from RISD who wanted to tour our home. I was at first hesitant but it's too late to bar him from doing so. It's rude. The other thing is that your home is a sort of a “the mask is off” display of who you really are, how you live. Once he finished walking around, pulling open drawers and such, he says: “This home is fractured and corroborate...but there are some really interesting spots, full of literature, music, odd and ends you could explore for hours!”

OK, you just convicted my brother and I of having great hobbies but fucked up pasts.

B lived with his parents still and the first time I saw the inside of his house I was taken aback. It was the filthiest home I'd ever seen. The kitchen counters had years of grim on them and on top of that was piled dishes, 14 year old tax returns, tools and various other junk. In one corner was a oversized wood stove that blasted enough heat like a smelter and kinda lifted the miasma of the grime into the air. It was reminiscent of mildew.

He gave me a tour of the home's rooms and to get to them, you followed a trail like in the woods. Along the sides of the halls, in the rooms too, was piled stuff they could not throw out. Any open space that was left was the trail.

So we sat and talked for a bit and I could see years of pathology in this family. I didn't need to know the specifics but you could sense the contagion in that home. I wasn't creeped out but the longer I sat there, the more I began to see.

Something happened to this family...many things...all dark. After seeing this, I never pressed for details. It didn't effect my life nor did I want to know.

Life does what it does and people separate, find new jobs and whatnot. B and I went our ways for over a decade when by a weird chance, we were both applying for a job at Arbor Psychiatric hospital in Attleboro, I was looking for part time, perhaps to see how the old career was. B had never left it and was looking for better digs.

So we start up a small friendship again. Mainly we met up every two or so weeks at a restaurant to chat it up. He hadn't changed a bit.

“What? Did I piss you off? Did I say something?” B says, grappling for approval.

“Nooo, B, You never said anything...Don't worry, you don't anger me at all.” I tell him, for the umpteenth time.

I have to say this though. He did change a bit, for the worse. He then started to try to prove my loyalty as a friend with actual “shit tests.” I didn't see it coming and when I figured it out later, I didn't care either that he had tried. I wasn't that invested with him because so many years HAD passed. Had it been someone I knew currently and dearly, oh..then those shit tests would have mattered.

He had told me he needed help to move some furniture from his home to the dump on an upcoming Saturday. I gave a half hearted, “Ok, sure...” and let it dwindle at that.

“Great, you can always count on a FRIEND to help you move furniture!” he said.

I didn't realize that was the test. Would I even pass?

So that Saturday comes and right at 10 AM he calls like he said he would. I had forgotten all about it and was sitting there in my chair, dead tired and not too motivated to do much beyond breathing. I let the phone ring till he gave up. I was happy to be left alone to recover from working. Perhaps in an hour or two I would rouse myself up to do something.

A couple of weeks later passed and I had not heard from him. So I call, get no answer and finally go by his house. I knock on the door and there is no answer. I finally left a note under his windshield wiper to say I had come by and explained that I was just beat that Saturday he had called.

I never heard from him again.

I had failed the test.

**

I've come across a few scant others in my life who were like that. Their radar is on high, scanning for the least hint of betrayal and use that as a reason to ditch your faithless ass forever. I know what it is. In the past they've been used, abused horribly. So in defense, they MUST find people who are 100% trustworthy and loyal. The problem occurs is that life, people are all shades of gray with a myriad of reasons why they can fail you, for small or great reasons. But to these people like B, it's 100% or nothing. They're not easy to deal with nor is it easy to try to explain to them how small reasons are just that, small reasons and why you can't be Superman to them every time, all the time. Well, that reason ain't good enough for them.

**

So, several years ago, being the snoop that I am, I stalk people on the internet, looking them up with various search engines to see what they're up to. I looked up B to see where he ended up.

I came across an obituary that was three years dated at the time. There was his picture, obit and the various condolences to his only living relative, his brother. “Holy SHIT! He's DEAD!”

After a few moments of processing that, I really wasn't surprised. He came from a tough background and had alluded to suicide even back in '87 when I had first met him. The obit didn't say it was suicide but I knew. He was always healthy as a horse and never abused anything. I guess he had had enough.

Do I feel guilty? No. You can't save everyone. You can't be perfect to everyone either. And IF you try to 'fix' someone, you are up against a Jupiter-like tide of past devastation that happened decades ago. You need a team of trauma therapists, and a year, to somewhat fix a mess like that. Then, in my naivete, I had tried to reach him with reason, with 1 +1 = 2. The problem is that damaged people can't accept logic, their world was twisted into irrationality long ago and logic is Mandarin Chinese to them. You don't speak their language.

There's another I knew, not soo long ago, who I tried to reach. The same thing happened once again. They didn't “get it.” I steered her to a bevy of therapists who I knew dealt with these issues. She visited them and perhaps, this one will salvage a life that's worth calling enjoyable.

No Title

When I first heard the news about Cheryl's murder, a vague memory grew of her, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It finally became evident when a thought from the back of my head came fast forward. She had a brother who I knew.

Pow! A thousand memories came back in an instant. I did know her!

The first time I had met her was when K, Jim and I bounded down the stairs from his bedroom to head for the “One Way” in Slater park. The bottom of the stairs ended in the kitchen and by the refrigerator a girl turns around. She was tilting a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew to her mouth and I was quite taken. She was one of those girls who was born lovely and appealing.

Up to then, I never knew K had a sister.

However, she shot me a look like she just saw Big Foot and I knew why. I said, “Yeah, I know...I need a haircut.” My hair was awfully long and Kennedy-esque tousled (I'm being kind to myself here. Many times, I let the wind comb my hair!). She laughed and suggested that I use a weed whacker to fix it. I laughed and probably thought it wouldn't be a bad ideas, how could I look worse? Ah, I enjoyed my mussed up hair anyways, even though I'd get unsympathetic judgment.

So, off goes K, Jim and I to walk to Slater Park via Grand ave. I being 18 and having little social prudence and subtlety, blurt out:

“Wow K! Your sister is HOT!”

“What? Says an offended K.
 

“Your sister, she's wicked pretty!”

“Um...OK...I guess so” K grumbles back to me.

I'd see her often enough when we'd all hang at that house by Bobby's Rollaway in that summer of '82. She ran in a different social circle than the pre-criminal element I was associated with at Slater Park. She was too good for us but our paths crossed more than enough times. Pawtucket is small enough for that.

Well, life is like bus station. People come and go in your life. Our connection died on the vine and she, her brother and our gang drifted apart as time passed.

That until the other day when I saw the news about her. It then all came back.

You know the immediate second thought I had when I had heard about it? I saw her again at that fridge downing the soda and the hypothesis was this: “At 17, she never had a clue her end would come from a 9mm being fired four times into her chest by a wannabe and incompetent Bonnie & Clyde. None at all.”

The point I'm making is that none of us have the slightest idea what our future holds, or how we'll go...or how spectacular our end might be...or not. I never knew I'd be where I am today at 18. Then, I'd probably laugh in your face if I was told I'd be in healthcare, laying bets on a stock trading platform and one that day, that I'd be peering into the caldera of Mt St Helen's volcano. “Ahhh..you're full of it!” I'd say. But then guess what happened.

Her violent death astonished me really because my memory of her was of a pretty, young and healthy girl...who would continue to be that kind of person...forever. How the hell do you end up getting popped for no reason at all? She wasn't the intended target either. It was a pure “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” chance. And that's how stupid life can be. How often do you answer the door and get shot?

I guess this stuff happens all the time all across the world, but when it hits home...

I will probably keep that memory of her chugging Mountain Dew that afternoon. It's the one I've always had. It's funny how certain recollections just burn themselves into your brain. It's a far more kinder and respectful memory vs. seeing that shattered door glass and knowing what was inside.