Maya and Her Goy Date

 

 

I’ve dated only one Jewish woman in my life. This isn't due to personal preference, but rather the fact that Rhode Island’s Jewish population is less than 2%. You are far more likely to meet people of Italian or Portuguese descent here than anyone else. Most are brunettes (except for those who bleach their hair) and stand under 5’7”. Some even have that distinct, 'whiny' Cranston accent.

For a time in the early '90s, I used to hang out regularly at The Last Call Saloon, on Elbow Street in Providence, for its blues music and the fact that it had the best sound system in the state. The other saving grace was that the cover charge was reasonable, as was the price of the beer.

In ’96, I met 'Scituate Girl' at the Last Call, whom I’ve written about here before. She was out of my league. Prior to that, in ’92, I met Maya, the first Jewish woman I ever dated

**

As the band played on stage I noticed a girl, in front of me and she had noticed me looking at her and then turns quickly back to watch the band. A few moments later, she turns to look at me once more and our eyes met and hers darted away. Then it happens again minutes later.

I want to talk to her but the speaker array is about three feet from us and there’s no way I’m going to open a conversation by shouting over that at her. I have to wait for the band to take a break.

The band finally broke, and I quickly got to her side and said, 'Hi!' She responded in kind, and we started talking. I found that we were both relaxed, which I took as a sign that things were going well. If either of us had started to tighten up, the conversation wouldn't have gone anywhere.

We spent the rest of the night together, but we moved to the back to talk. I found out she was a RISD graduate who worked at a bank with an 'Oh, I don’t know what I want to do yet' attitude. I didn’t judge her because I felt the same way. In my head, I was parsing everything I learned about her: RISD student, bank teller, blew off her friends to talk to me most of the night, held her own with my referencing a hundred different topics, and a pretty snappy dresser as well .

It’s near closing so I ask for her number and she quickly writes it down for me. Cool! I tell her I’ll call her in a few days and that I’d like to take her out next Saturday.

“Next Saturday? Ohhh..I can’t.” she says.

“Why?” "At that point, I thought she was already backing out.

'Saturday is Tisha B’Av, and my family kinda wants me to be there for it this time,' she told me.

'What’s Tisha B’Av?' I asked.

'A Jewish holiday... an event,' she said.

'OK,' I said to myself. 'She’s Jewish... and so what?' I suggested the following Saturday instead, and she was cool with that."

I called her a week later, and she was more than happy to meet me. I had been trying to find something to do for a 'date night,' but before I could suggest anything, she said she’d like to go to the Wickenden Pub. 'OK, fine,' I thought. I had never been there, but I'd heard it was a decent place.

She gave me her address and said, 'I’ll meet you outside... I’ll flag you down when you arrive.'

'Meet me outside?' I wondered. I guessed she didn’t want me knocking on her door or coming inside. I brushed that aside, feeling more hopeful about the date than worried about any odd red flags that cropped up

Later on, I looked up her address on a map and saw it was right off Blackstone Boulevard.

'Holy shit... she lives in the most expensive neighborhood in Providence.' I began to wonder if I could even compete with that, being a 'slug' from Pawtucket. Saturday came, and I went to pick her up anyway in my ten-year-old, beat-up Dodge 400 convertible.

As I pulled off Blackstone to head down her street, I saw her waving at me up ahead and stopped to pick her up. However, I did notice that I was still three houses away from the actual address she had given me.

The Wickenden was cool that night. It’s a small bar with a great neighborhood feel. Maya and I seemed to be hitting it off; we were both getting a bit buzzed from their beer selection when she asked if I’d do a 'half-yard' with her. I had never heard of that, but she ordered two anyway. They arrived in these jumbo, test-tube-like glasses with wooden stands. Maya warned me not to tilt the glass too far back as I drank, or I’d shower myself in beer when the air bubble hit and the beer came rushing out.

My first sip resulted in a good three ounces splashing down the front of the best Oxford shirt I owned. Maya laughed and said she saw it coming. I tried to dry it off, but I wasn't really worried; we were having more fun than the usual nerves of a first date would allow.

 

 

She looked incredible. Her bangs formed a sharp line just above her brows, while the rest of her dark hair spilled over her shoulders. Between the spray-on jeans and the off-the-shoulder Christian Dior top, she didn’t just look expensive—she smelled like money. She was magnetic. I tried to keep my eyes from wandering all over her, but I couldn't help myself. I, however, did not smell like cash. I’d done my best with a decent shirt and my newest Levi’s 501s, even going so far as to douse my sneakers in Lysol so they wouldn't reek of foot. It’s amazing what a guy will do for a date. On a normal day, my "caveman chic" was good enough for me.

We both got through about half the tube when she asked, 'Can you do this?' She then proceeded to 'open throat' the rest of the beer, finishing the tube in one continuous pour. Great—now I had to keep up. I tried it, but I could only manage several large gulps. I was surprised she could do that; I’d only ever seen one guy back in my hometown pull that off, and that was just with cans of shitty Budweiser.

At the end of the night, when we left, I realized I was totally pickled—and so was she. I managed to drive her home, and while we were in the car outside her house, we kissed. Since I wanted to be a 'good boy,' I sent her off into her house.

Riding home, I thought, 'Wow, she can drink! But she’s fun, too.'

I planned a second date for the next weekend and told her I'd gotten two tickets for the Comedy Connection to see some comedian I’d never heard of. It didn't matter; neither of us had ever been there, and it sounded like fun. This time, she didn't tell me to pick her up outside. I arrived, walked up to her door, and knocked. A petite, 60-ish woman—about 4'11" with steel-gray hair and an Eastern European look—answered the door.

"“Yeah?” she asked.

“Uh, is Maya home?” I asked.

She turned around and shouted through the house, “Maya, that goy is here!”

In about ten seconds, Maya came through the door and quickly ushered me to the car.

“I’m sooo sorry... I thought she wouldn’t be home!” she said.

“Who was that?”

“My mom,” Maya said, sounding a little perturbed.

I didn’t ask what goy meant, but I figured her mom had already taken a dislike to me, given how brusque she was.

About halfway to the Comedy Connection, Maya opened her purse, and I saw about eight little nip bottles in there. She handed me one, unscrewed one herself, and said, 'For a head start!' before gulping it down.

I didn’t know the tickets I’d bought were so damn close to the stage. By the time the headliner finally came out, Maya had already ordered three rounds of Snake Bite shots along with our usual beers. She was getting pretty gooned.

I noticed the comedian was eyeing Maya during his bit. I could read him and started to wonder what he was up to. He then came down from the stage to our table to rib me about my very obvious salt-and-pepper hair. I got the usual 'elderly' jokes, as I did look like the oldest person there... at twenty-eight. This went on for a good three minutes, and I 'went along' with it out of courtesy.

He then walked over to Maya and said, 'My... you’re having a good time tonight, aren’t you?' He looked at the three empty shot glasses and the bottles of beer. She giggled. He then cupped her chin with his hand, lifted her face to his, and said, 'You’re wicked pretty... you know that, right?'

Maya, smitten with his flirtation, started giggling and returned his eye contact—locking on and following his eyes as he moved.

Watching this unfold three feet from me, I thought, 'You FUCKIN’ PRICK! You’re hitting on MY date?!!'

I also got pissed at Maya for going along with it. I started to stew, but I realized I couldn't blow up while inside the club, so I just stuffed that anger down.

Finally, I drove her drunk ass home. I helped her through the door and got in that second kiss, but I didn't bother trying to stay inside with her parents there.

**

I told Barney about Maya, and he said, 'You know, goy isn’t really a pejorative; it’s just a name for a non-Jew. However, it can be pejorative depending on how you say it. And the way her mom said "that goy," I suspect she doesn't like you at all.'

It then hit me why Maya had told me to pick her up away from her house the first time. I wasn't supposed to meet her mom.

He asked, 'Do you still like Maya?'

'Yeah... I guess... she’s cute.

Barney went on. 'OK... think this through, Einstein. She got visibly drunk on her first date with you. On the second, her purse was filled with nip bottles and she got wasted enough at the club to forget she was on a date and flirt with the headliner. You see a problem here?'

'She’s... not worth it? Not stable? Is that what you’re trying to say?'

'Duhhhhhh! Did you just now figure that out?' he said.

To tell you the truth, I sort of had. Barney had no problem burning me with blistering reality, then shoving hot salt into the very wound he’d opened. He was merciless with the truth more often than not. In short: 'Wake the FUCK up!

There was no third date.

Honestly, I didn’t care what religion a person was raised with. I’d dated Catholics, Protestants, hardcore atheists, Jews, and one Taoist girl from Fall River. None of those were ever on my 'deal breaker' list. What would be a deal breaker? Alcoholism, liking cocaine a bit too much, or having massive credit card debt.

I once paraphrased that last bit to a woman I met at the Celtic. I don’t know how the hell our conversation got around to finances, but I jokingly said to her, 'I hope you don’t have $10,000 in credit card debt!' As soon as she heard that, she shot me a truly bitter look. In my head, I thought, 'Wow! Thanks for that reaction... you just telegraphed that you DO have ridiculous debt!”

Maya was pretty, at least to me. I just hope she eventually stayed off the bottle; lushes tend to lose their beauty when they turn sloppy.

 

Maya sorta, kinda looked like this...but not model quality like this chick. Close enuff i guess.

 

60 BPM

 

 

 

Unsure when if ever I had a resting heart beat of 60 but for the past few weeks it’s hovering around that when I measure it. If I had a BP cuff I bet that’s lower too. These are some of the unexpected bennies of retirement I didn’t see coming.

**

So it’s month three for retirement. I ended going back to my old job ostensibly to get a 1095 tax form (which I did need) but I used that excuse to see everyone again. I never told them I was coming so the surprised look on their faces was proof I was still loved (mostly...sort of). I found that I missed the interaction I had with them.

I had been working on another “reunion” with an older group of worker/friends but I had been trying to set up a time so everyone could get together but it’s like making doctor’s appointments...everyone’s gotta be off the same day and more than one aren’t due to life/work/kids/etc. Oh well, one day it’ll happen.

What I don’t miss from work is the bullshit. As I watched them that day I visited I saw them all scurrying about serving lunch, answering the phone and then the dreaded “outside line” call which meant...call out...I realized again, there, that being retired kept me from being fire-hosed with this.

Am I any happier? I asked myself that a few weeks into retirement and now 2 months later, I still ask it. Well, like the last time I thought on this, it was the removal of annoyances vs. any 24/7 bliss I gained.

But something has changed since I left I think.

So what’s changed? I find I treat myself better now since I’m not required by much of anyone now; I can put myself first now. I did/didn’t realize how restrictive I was with myself when it came to life’s little pleasures when I was working. Well, probably half of that was self-imposed, and the other half by work or life’s usual bullshit that demands your time. For years I kept stuffing retirement accounts and denying myself goodies I could have had then, and probably stupidly slitting my own wrists for the constant needs of others. And the shit I couldn’t control, work, life demanding I need a new CV joint in my car, were the other responsibilities I had to pay the Piper like everyone else does. I’m not a Puritan but boy can I do self-denial and control impulses. That Protestant work ethic I had, had me denying myself and squirreling away pennies and if not that, having a past where I played ‘nurse’ to others. Always others coming “first.”

But now...

I drink coffee which I have never done before really in my life. I brew up a pot and settle back and drink it screaming hot after microwaving it a bit. I now know that pleasure of just sitting there sipping away. Yeah, it’s a ubiquitous joy millions already long since knew about, now I know what’s so great about just sitting there, with the time and sipping away without someone needing me. Yah...even at this age I can come late to things others have long since known. But this time I have the time to slowpoke through the early morning with my heart thumping at a ho-hum 60 bpm.

I am a major fan of German wines. Only because I was turned onto them by a J&W sommelier and never drank wine before because I was probably purchasing the shit stuff w/o knowing it. I thought it wild when you pop the cork on a bottle of decent Riesling that the proof it was well made was you should smell burnt rubber. The problem now, is that if I buy a bottle of Auslese, you have to store it for 10-15 years for it to really develop. I’m pretty sure I’ll be dead by then. So I drink it “young.” And so what...I can. What rule prevents me? That there is another common joy many for years have known and yet I come to it late. Well, at least I don’t need a 30 pack case of beer a day. Some do. I’ll sip my weird Deutscher Wein in moderation as it’ll knock me out before I can cause any damage. Lucky me I was never a booze hound like some are. This is another simple joy I regained that others have hammered at most of their lives.

Though...I have discovered that old age betrayal of the body via alcohol. As you get older, it can’t process it as you could when younger which means, you get blotto faster. This can be a good thing? It certainly woke me up to the fact I can’t drive after! Not that I did except in my 20’s when everyone’s stupid. Now I can crash on my bed instead.

In a day I’ll be seeding, indoors, a bunch of herbs to plant outside in late May. It will be an easy garden to maintain and I want fresh herbs, as having a gallon of fresh pesto sauce in the freezer is a luxury I can pull off. A zillion years ago I used to be a pretty decent gardener. Then I could turn ½ the backyard over to my little personal farm that actually produced. Once established, it takes about 30 minutes a day to maintain. But...you need that time and energy that a full time job would rob me of and I’d see the garden get too weedy and produce less. So within a few weeks, I hope to reestablish that again.

Speaking of pesto, I now can cook w/o a gun to my head to get it done as is normal in most cookery establishments. Not that I was under that gun constantly. After years of doing it, you learn how time everything tightly, correctly and efficiently to where it become almost a bore. But still, having NOT to get anything ready by a certain time is a plus. I actually brown rouxs properly now when before I’d just toss in a raw roux and I could cook it out in 30 minutes or so as a cheat. Clairifying butter? Pffff! Where in the walk-in can I put it to solidify w/o one of the kids knocking it to the floor when they move stuff around? (Which they’ve done, countless times). I can clarify at will now in my one man kitchen.

I can’t remember when I made an authentic Bechamel sauce last when I was working...but I did the other day to make a Gratin Dauphinoise (think sliced potatoes baking in cheese, thyme, garlic and a calorie bomb behcamel sauce!).

It helps to have the relaxed time to do these things.

And this…

I love my music. I’ve been a whore for audio tech since I was a kid and it’s a decent hobby. I found this happened one night right after that god damn blizzard we had in February.

It was late, pushing midnight when I felt like listening to my system. I’m not a jerk and don’t blast it loud to irritate the neighbors. It was fairly low and I killed the lights in the house and sat on the couch and just listened.

Since it was late and I was a bit tired, I leaned my head back onto the cushion and drifted off into that cat nap state, where if I put in a slight effort, I can maintain for a good hour w/o slipping into sleep.

And I remember how I kept thinking, “Wow..i didn’t know that was in the song...that guitar’s rasp is great! Is that Stevie Nicks in there doing background work? Damn...Melissa Manchester’s “Midnight Blue” is really that awesome! I love the stress and halt in that part!”

I was totally relaxed..zeroed in to the music w/o any other intrusive thoughts about the next day, what had to be done. I was finally with the moment I guess w/o my brain distracting me. I haven’t felt that in a long time.

Of course, I found myself waking up at 3:30AM as I had finally fallen asleep. The stereo was still softly idling the music and I was calmly roused from that. I thought, “Shit, you fell asleep in your clothes on the couch...again. Ahhh so fucking what...what law have I broken? Where do I have to be tomorrow morning? WHO do I have to impress?” I got up and finally went to bed.

**

Three months in and I treat myself better and that’s what’s changed. I have the time to properly do things I want at the speed I choose. I still have some coming to me to solve their problems, but it’s nothing like it was before.

I have been asked this, as has my two retired friends down the street were when they retired. They had warned me people would.

D. asked me not too long ago with some true puzzlement. “What do you DO all day?” This is coming from someone who runs a business and has to be on the edge, on the phone and wired tight at all times. From his perspective, my life now seems alien to him, perhaps even driftless.

“I take all day to do whatever it is I want.” I told him. I could see by his face he didn’t get it. He didn’t see how the tranquility was the real prize, even though my life now looks like I don’t produce anything or advance towards any goal. Living the peace is the daily goal now. He hasn’t had that peace in years and it’s become foreign to him.

It ain’t foreign to me now. 

 

 

30 Days

 

 

 

So I’ve been retired for 30 days or abouts and was waiting for what changes I’d see. One thing that took forever was trying to sleep later. I didn’t need an alarm anymore but I kept waking up between 4 to 5AM anyways. My alarm was set it for that time when working to give me some “me time” before going in. Now that I was free of work, I still kept waking up naturally at 5ish.

Today, I rolled over and saw the dawn light in the window instead of the usual blackness. With a quick look at the radio, it said 6AM. OK, some improvement. Took damn long enough to get it though. To be honest as well, if I get up after 7, I feel I’m wasting the day already.

Guess what else hasn’t happened since I left. I have not had a single episode of muscle cramps. I would get them twice or more a week in both thighs, both calves and my left hand for years now, each year increasing in frequency. Now, not a single occurrence. For too many times I would have dropped to the floor, while the muscles in the backs of both thighs could tighten up at the same time for a good 15 minutes while I was gritting my teeth and swearing, on the floor, the front yard lawn or wherever. Once, it was fun when it happened while driving on 95 and my entire right leg locked up...and I was driving manual transmission car. The cramps have disappeared thank God.

Add to that my hips have not bothered me much and less so as time went by. The big test was that big snowstorm we got. I was out there slinging that stuff around and when I went inside, I had just a slight annoyance in my hip that went away in under 20 minutes.

How about that. If I don’t beat the crap out of my body with a job meant for younger men...I manage to heal up some. (The girl who replaced me, “L,” I’m am glad to hear, is totally killing it at her new job! I’m sure being 19 has a lot to do with it! No leg cramps!). Hopefully other physical benefits will arise I have no idea about yet.

I did realize I need some exercise (instead of living on the couch) but of a different sort which I discovered at my first official visit to the senior center. I was all for getting free physical therapy in some of the various classes they had so I tried the arthritis one, as I am sort of afflicted with now.

Holy shit! Did I find out just how tight and bound up my tendons are and never mind the joints! Some of the move they had the class do..I swear some of my tendons wanted to rip themselves off the bone. No, it’s not Olympic stuff, the exercises are all geared to used up, worn out old farts like me and it still, for me at least, was a bitch to do.

I need to keep at this.

There used to be a Tai Chi class I’d see in the park that’s behind me with about 30 people in it, They’d follow the moves of, and this is stereotypical, the Tai Chi Master Qiang who had longish white hair and a goatee. A few days later, with the help of YouTube, I found a Tai Chi instructor you could follow along with.

Tai Chi looks beautiful, graceful...and above all...EASY! But some of those moves put you into positions that require you tense up 2/3 of the muscles in your body while trying not to fall over since your center of gravity has shifted to areas you never had to compensate for.

I will first do the simple kiddy stretching stuff first before I try Tai Chi again.

****

I worried about boredom but it hasn’t happened. There was a lot of shit around this house I was ignoring and I went on a tear fixing it all. Boxes filled with financial statements, paid bills and other stuff I finally sorted and filed away properly. I created spreadsheets to track my spending as I truly need a good idea of what I’m blowing month to month, so far, it’s within what I thought it would be but I like tight numbers to be sure. I also have been tweaking my ears to music I hadn’t sat down and listened to in a while and some nice surprises arose from that. Sugar Ray’s “Fly” had some moments I was clueless about, like a rasping guitar interlude...which I never knew was there before. It’s nice to focus on that once again as that stereo system I have is my altar to worship at.

****

I have not set foot in Quinn’s bar in months, not that I was worried about that but the thought cropped up I might due to boredom. No, my light-weight status regarding alcohol still stands. I doubt I’ll start a career of spending my retirement hours drunk as shit by 1PM on a Tuesday.

I DO have to watch what I eat though. Before that bastard snow storm, I was whipping up a real, bonafied french classical bechamel sauce to dump on potatoes to bake in the oven, a Gratin Dauphinoise. Each spoonful of that is a terrorist calorie bomb. Oh well, moderation I have to keep front and center to avoid ballooning out worse than I am. Though, I’ll probably gain a few as now I can cook at leisure instead of against a clock.

****

I was curious if I’d be happier in retirement but my mood didn’t go there 24/7. At times I was grateful for the free time and not having to rush and could take all damn day to do something. Another happy moment was that my legs actually felt...good. It’s a wonderful feeling I haven’t felt in years. I could feel the relaxation in them.

What has happened now is that I find I am less disappointed. I have left a lot of that negativity others can bring. I don’t hear lame excuses why you can’t come to work. “You ain’t coming in?” And before I let them finish the excuse I hang up. It got to the point there was no point in knowing why and my courtesy disappeared. Add to that I don’t have to watch them do a shoddy job if they did show up later. I don’t have to step in to fix fuck ups others leave...and fixing those from other departments I had nothing to do with but when something lands in your lap half done and broken, guess who has to repair it?

And this was a huge one for me which ran up my spine since I was sooo OCD about accuracy and safety; being given the wrong information.

“You say it’s for room 269A ? Right?”

“Yeah, 269A….No...I mean 169A….B! It’s B!” And then they hang up fast as I am nearly shouting into the phone...”Don’t You Hang UP yet!”

Click.

“God dammit!” And the kids across the room stop and look at me and wonder why I am shouting.

Already I suspect the request is wrong. I look up the diet for 169B and it’s loaded with restrictions...and what they called down for the patient can never have.

“Sigh...time to play detective again and get the correct info.” I thought to myself. Wrong room? Wrong patient? Wrong everything? Every God Damn day this happens.

This has happened hundreds of times in my time there.

It’s not happening now to me because I am not there.

Without all these people failing me...I am less disappointed now.

****

What I am going to say next will sound mean.

I once opined to my coworkers there, who mainly are from West Warwick, this. I always wondered what happened to those lazy/stupid/idiotic kids I knew in Pawtucket schools who just stubbornly refused to do the work or just enough to graduate. They felt they were smart by doing as little as possible because work was for suckers. While working at that particular facility, I kept having flashbacks to that time when I was in school (I wonder why?).

So I absent mindlessly say this to my West Warwick coworkers.

“Hey, I know where all those lazy kids I knew back then ended up! They all moved to West Warwick and work here!”

Their faces looked like they just sniffed burnt cat fur when I said that.

Whoops! I just insulted their home town.

Oh well. I had to deal with those types of people for too long and I mouthed off. That’s another thing that happens to you when u get older, you don’t care and mouth off more often.

So, in my retirement, I have ran into less lazy moronic fucks...but I won’t be able to escape them altogether. But fewer is definitely better.

We’ll see what else happens now in the coming months.

 

 

Crabby Shack

 

 

The Fun Mafia Story

I never got used to clam flats or it’s mud, they just plain stink. I found that to be true about of wharves where commercial vessels tie up at as well. The water is stagnant, the docks stink of tar and creosote and the first stage of fish processing starts there, which can reek. But guess what, they put restaurants right next to them because those places can be tourist magnets.

The town wharf in Plymouth is no different, it too has long docks and restaurants and Barn and I went to one that’s now called the Crabby Shack next to Cap’n John’s Boats.

“Oh, you’ll get used to the smell. I have.” says he.

“Yeah, you lived here on and off for 60 years...your nostrils are fried from it!”

The waitress comes and Barn whips out his license, shows it to her and we order a couple of beers. I ask “Do they card everyone, no matter what age?” and he tells me he did that so we get townie prices. I find out townie prices are what businesses will charge locals instead of the ‘non-consenting rape prices’ they hit the tourists with.

“I’m just proving to her ‘we’re from here’ and it’ll knock off a good 30-40% on the final bill.”

I get my fave, fried scallops and he his clams w/ bellies (which are killer too) and we dig in. As we eat, I ask him how the hell he ended up in Rhode Island anyway, where I first met him to begin with that long ago.

In 1985 he had just finished up another stint with the 2^nd fleet but this time as a retired civilian (teaching history to the sailors who were advancing their educations while at sea) and that shadowy job he used to do when active as a Commander.

So he’s back home for a few months, gets bored and starts applying for positions as a professor of history around New England. He gets hired by two places, Bryant U and Rhode Island College.

“So a month before classes start, I look for and find a really cheap apartment on Penn St in Providence, in it’s Little Italy off Atwells Ave...you know where.”

He tells me he gets moved in and starts exploring the neighborhood on foot.

“I made the best decision! I got an apartment for nothing and if I walk a few streets down...all the best Italian stores and restaurants are there!”

About a block down from his place, Barn sees a very small bar that has all it’s windows and doors wide open to the street. He walks by it, thinks and then goes back to get a beer and maybe meet some of the neighbors that live there.

As he goes in, there’s a bartender and in the corner, a group of guys drinking and playing cards at a table. He sallies up to the bar and orders a beer.

“Uh...I can’t really serve you.” the bartender says.

“Why? Barn asks surprised. “You’re open, wide open for everyone to see….you served THOSE guys there in the corner.” The guys in the corner stop playing and look up.

The bartender is nervous and then says, “We’re not that kind of bar here...perhaps you should try another place.”

Barn was undeterred and didn’t quite understand why the place, wide open to the street, isn’t serving him.

The bartender then says, “Look, don’t take this personal but this is a private club...you have to be a member to drink here.”

To which Barn says..”Ohhhh, I get it. OK, fine….can I Join?”

Once Barn says that the guys in the corner start laughing.

He goes on. “They all started laughing at what I said but not a loud as this big fat guy that was there. He was wearing black pants, white shoes and a white shirt opened so low that his fat man titties were nearly out.”

The fat one, laughing had also said: “Huh! Huh! Huh! You hear that! He wants to join our club!”

Another one at the table tells Barn, “Youze don’ understand..this a real special club for special guys!”

Out of curiosity, the fat one asks Barn his name.

“Barn Barufaldi” He tells them.

The guys stop laughing and fat man asks, “Where’s your family from in Italy?”

“Cento, north of Bologna...nearing the Italian Alps.” Barn tells him.

After hearing this the fat one says. “Hey Luca, get this guy a beer! It’s on us!”

So Barn drinks it and talks to the guys. After that he thanks them and leaves.

A day or so later, he tells his landlord who lives on the first floor the same story about that bar.

“Do you anything about the Patriarca family?” the landlord asks.

“I have heard of them…” Barn says.

The landlord tells Barn he had walked into one of their little neighborhood hang outs and the fat one ran gambling operations.

“Ohhhhhh…” sez Barn “that sort of explains things.”

But Barn isn’t scared not shooed off when he returns to it.

After a few more visits to that bar, fat man finds out Barn is a professor at RIC and is teaching a class his daughter is in. She’s is having a great time at RIC and loves Barn’s class because Barn was helping her get along as she had trouble at times, scholastically. He hadn’t known prior that she was the daughter of anyone of merit.

The guy, taking a liking to Barn tells him, “Look, youze is new here..youze need anything, have any problems, youze come to me. I can help. OK?”

****

By the time I graduated RIC, the history department head had changed from Norman Smith to George Kellner, whom Barn detested. Apparently Kellner couldn’t stand Barn either, but Kellner was the Dept head and/or “boss” now.

Barn would show up to his classes dressed head to toe in sweat pants, shirts. Sometimes in some real Guido white pants and flashy shirts and many times in his tennis get up, sweating like a pig from whacking a ball around on the college’s courts. To look at him you’d never guess he was a professor and certainly not dressed like the staid conservative history profs that populated the history department, some looking like they taught at stuffy Cambridge.

“Once Kellner got the department head job, I knew he was going to use it to push me out. He never liked me one bit.” Barn had liked to do things, ‘his way’ but at the same time uphold classes/college’s reputation.

“I can prove to the Dean, that all of my exams, fully satisfy validity and reliability scores..can Kellner claim the same? I’d love to know!”

Barn liked too blow off departmental meetings or show up very late to them. When Norman Smith ran the place, he was pretty liberal, easy going and would just tell Barn what was discussed later on or a week later. It was no big deal. Kellner however…

“Nice of you to join us Mr. Barufaldi.” Kellner told him one time, as Barn came in late to the meeting, looking like a pig from playing tennis.

Kellner then wants Barn to run a summer session course as no one else seems to want to do.

“No.” Barn tells him.

“NO?! I need YOU to take over this course!” Kellner tells him, getting visibly pissed as Barn tells me.

Barney sits down at the table, clacking his tennis racket on it and says, “I won’t be here. In a week, I’ll be flying to Brisbane...I’m spending the entire summer in Australia...why don’t YOU pick up that course.”

“Ron” Barn says, “His face got beet red! Kellner wanted to kill me!”

“Mr. Barufaldi, I feel your heart isn’t really ‘with’ our department, I would like to see more cooperation! We need someone to fill that spot.”

To which Barn gets up, picks up his racket and as he is leaving the room, turns around to tell Kellner “No” again and that he already planned and paid for his trip there. Now being a bit miffed, he fires a shot at him as he asks Kellner when was the last time he was published in a a major journal. As a professor, “Publish or Perish” is a real thing. Along with your teaching job, you have to keep researching and publishing articles to keep adding to that body of knowledge. It’s a sort of unwritten law with professors and that culture.

As Barney waited for an answer from Kellner, he says, “I’ll answer that for you...you HAVEN’T published anything in over five years….know when I did last? 13 months ago in the Contemporary European History journal!”

****

Later on Barn tells that same story to fat man from the bar to which he suggests he can, with a few friends, “Slap Kellner around a bit..just to send a message.”

“You were going to have Kellner put under a contract?” I ask.

“You know...I thought of it..for a bit..but decided it wasn’t worth it, Kellner was a prick and I was going to quit RIC and Bryant U anyways after I came back from Australia. I knew I wanted to keep traveling, do that old Navy job again...but still...fat man was going to do this w/o payment and it did sound fun! God, Kellner was this close to motivating me.”

***

The waitress arrives with the bill it was was surprisingly cheap for what we ordered after all. I was expecting it to be much higher but townie prices do work, if you’re a local. Every time I had gone to Plymouth, I’d gas up the car, do some food shopping here at home instead of being overcharged there.

It’s nice to have connections at times.

 

 

Siasconset

 

 

If you know me, I lovvve to tell stories. I probably have a few hundred of them and some of them I would tell only to a certain trusted few who would understand. Who would get it? Anyone who gets sick, black humor and had to have lived with silly absurdity at some point in their lives...and knows that a certain kind of humor can make ludicrousness tolerable. Mainly my audience were the late teens I would work with and I’d entertain them with what growing up in the 70s was like. And how we got away with stuff that would get us arrested today, or at least sent to a psychiatric hospital. Topics I won’t elaborate on here just yet would include: murdering gerbils, beating the crap out of a Hasbro Inch Worm rider toy, spitting in Johnny’s mouth (not me but an older boy at the time), RJ’s bold joke of whipping his dick out in class when he was 13 or ramming a goat’s heads into a cement pillar. Bet that last one piqued your curiosity.

And no, I wasn’t the lead star in all of these stories, but I did witness them.

****

Also, I love to hear stories, if they’re good enough. An old friend, who was lucky enough to travel the world had grown up in Plymouth and the Cape and he had plenty of stories. Probably the most eye opening one to me was his time he spent in Berkeley CA living next door to the Peking Man House and w/o knowing that a cell of the Symbionese Liberation Army commune was living there. They’re the ones who kidnapped Patty Hearst.

Barn held various jobs as a teen and one at his aunt’s general store in downtown Plymouth. This gave him some experience in retail and then he was sent to another aunt’s store for one summer in Nantucket.

“I didn’t want to go.” he tells me. “Nantucket in the 50’s was a desert, nothing happened there at all, but I was a nephew in a traditional Italian family and you go where you are sent to help out relatives.”

He looks at me, “To you..Nantucket is a paradise, a destination, billionaires live there. It was never like that in the 50s...it was a lonely outpost no one knew about...and because of that, many Hollywood stars would vacation there. You could disappear there and the locals left you alone.”

“But with every cool place where artists, stars, actors and writers live, it gets exposed when word gets out and then everybody wants to go there and fucks up forever, the vibe.”

His aunt had a general store in Siasconsett, on the southeastern side of Nantucket. Barn lived with her and every morning, would ride his bike to the store which was all of 40 yards from the beach there. He would clean it, stock shelves and occasionally run the register as people came in and out during the day.

“My aunt told me when I started that certain people would come in and if I recognized them, to shut up, act like I didn’t know them.” To tell the truth, there were Hollywood stars who came in I never recognized at all.”

“Then one day, as I ran the register, this guy comes in, buys milk, eggs and bread an I rung him up and off he went”

“My aunt then asks from one of the aisles with a mile wide grin, ‘You know who THAT was?’”

“Who?” says Barn.

“Ray Bolger” his aunt tells him.

“Who’s Ray Bolger?” asks Barn.

Hearing this I say...“Yeah, who’s Ray Bolger?” as I am just as clueless.

Barn goes on. “Ever see the Wizard of Oz?”

“Yeah, prob 50 times.” I say.

“Ray Bolger was the Scarecrow...look it up one day!” he says.

He explains…

“Ray Bolger, I found out quick, did summer stock theater on the Cape and at Priscilla Beach Theater in Plymouth back then. When he wasn’t on stage, he hid out on Nantucket but was close enough to head back to do shows.”

“There were a bunch of others who came through that store but they have no relevance to you, just old 30’s and 40’s actors and actresses...but I know you KNOW that one!”

 **** 

After a bit I chime in about an autobiography I had read, The Summer of ‘42 that was set in Nantucket in those older times.

“Herman Raucher?” says Barn. Raucher was the author.

“What...you meet HIM too there?” I ask.

“No, but the oldsters on that island know that story well, once it came out and putting two and two together, they figured out who the protagonists were.”

Summer of ‘42 was an autobiography of a 15 year old Raucher when he was vacationing there with his parents. He recounts how he became enamored with a young married women, Dorothy. She was in her 20s who was vacationing there, alone, as her husband was overseas fighting in WW2. The two eventually meet and struck up an innocent friendship. One day, she receives a telegram telling her that her husband was killed when his plane was shot down over France. That night, she seduces Raucher and sleeps with him.

Within a day or so, she had left the island but left note behind for the young Raucher which I will paraphrase.

“I’m sorry...I can’t explain why I did what I did with you. When I got that telegram, I needed someone...anyone..to be with..I was so struck with loneliness. I hope I didn’t harm you. When you are older, maybe you will understand.”

Raucher never did have bad feelings about her or the event. In fact, he looked back on it with happiness as any teen boy would feel at first being laid. It was such a perfect memory he wrote that book about it and it hit hard on the NY Times best seller list.

Raucher never did see her again and I mention that to Barn too.

“Oh! But he DID meet her again, in a way.” Barn tells me.

“Over the decades and because the book was a bestseller, Raucher got letters saying she was the real Dorothy that he had known. But the letters were so vauge or full of blatant inaccuracies that he dismissed them...until he got a letter one day that stunned him. Raucher said it was so full of detail of her summer home, the times and their very quick relationship that he knew this was THE Dorothy.”

She had moved on. Got married again grew old and had grankids when she finally wrote to him because she was fully aware that it was HER in that book. She finally reached out to him.

“I peddled my bike by that summer house many times when I worked in that store and had no idea of it, or what it would represent one day.” Barn says.

I might tell the story of Barn and the Patriarca family when he lived on Penn St that was by Atwells Ave when he taught at RIC.

Or I could explain how a goat’s hardened head was used as hammer by a friend once. If I feel safe about it, perhaps I will.

Jeez, did I grow up with some pretty bizarro types then. Well, the mafia story will be funny and...more normal than some of the other tales I was witness too.

 

 

The Soundtrack To Your Life, El Condor Pasa.

 

 

 

 

 

I can be proud, too proud at times. There are skills I know I have and do well with but life can take me down a few notches when it kicks my ass and then I realize I had deficits in that skill set all along. My problem is losing the sight of the forest through the trees. If you’re in a situation long enough, a rut or whatever, you don’t noticed the insidious creep it does, like ivy slowly growing up your legs to fully engulf you in leaves eventually, even blinding you.

I do notice it too late though at times. Usually when I have been freed of it and months go by and I look back, with a now clear eyes and see just how thoroughly saturated I was by it and how it ruled my thoughts, decisions and happiness.

**

I’ve spoken about it before, the life long mental illness my Mom had to endure before they managed, rather late, to control with better meds.

I used to think that her illness never effected me as a kid but it did because even then, say at 7 or 8, I refused to invite friends into my house lest they witness...her! It wasn’t that she thought she was Napoleon but depression has it’s outer effects, like never cleaning the house for weeks on end. I wasn’t about to let anyone figure out our family dynamics with a personal tour of the place.

Everyone, families, maintain a public face and it better bespeak of normality

So I hid her.

I did admit to myself that she effected me after my father’s death. He was her support and it vanished when he died. She now had to run this household and she was in no condition to do it.

My brother, who couldn’t stand her fled as much as he could from the house (physically and psychologically) and that left me, at 14, to be Dad.

This included gathering the mail, sorting the bills, forging her name on checks to pay for these bills and doing a shit job of cleaning the house because I was at 14 boy. I kept an eye out for growing piles of laundry and became more aware of the other household duties she could not care less for.

Due to her depression, which makes you push the world away and any friends, she leaned on me for support as she had no one else. I also did free therapy sessions that lasted to 2AM as we sat in the kitchen as she spelled out her gloom and related worry about everything. So, I countered that with my 14 years of wisdom that amounted to nothing than a pep talk.

This went on for years in one form or another and I propped her up when she fell into deeper despairing episodes. I did know being “nurse” could cramp my life sometimes but I had no clue as to the extent at the time. I was deep within the forest with no perspective. Also, I had grown up under these conditions so it was always like this. If she were stable and calm for a few months, these were the “good” time.

In 1994 to 1996 I was working and going to school full time, both. I worked or was in school seven days a week for two years straight. If anyone ever accuses me of being lazy, I ought to take a hockey stick upside their head! Pile upon that caring for her as the breast cancer and emphysema grew worse. She had been diagnosed with both in ‘94.

I know the following to be true as I lived it. Those with chronic or terminal illness have a tendency to ramp up the worst of their personality traits. Life becomes harder with no hope of resolution and that stress can make them lash out to the ones nearest to them. So, I ate any reaction to that knowing why it happened.

Her diseases progressed fairly rapidly and I did what I could and then one day it was over, the illness took her.

**

I took a week off from work and school to manage the funeral, line up a lawyer, dig up documents and that week raced by. Those seven days later, on a Saturday, I returned to school, getting back to my regular life.

It was 5AM, Saturday, and I had the stereo on, listening to it as that would probably be my only twenty minutes I would have to myself that day. I had on Paul Simon’s “Live Rhymin’ when the CD player cued up El Condor Pasa, which I have heard a thousand times before without much reacting to it in any way.

There is a line in it in which, for the first time, I realized how plaintively Simon sung it.

Away, I'd rather sail away

Like a swan, that's here and gone.

A man gets tied up to the ground

He gives the world, its saddest sound

Its saddest sound.

Not to rip off Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now but I swear I “was shot with a diamond bullet straight in the forehead” when I heard those lines. The thought that hit me, with full realization, was that I was free of her, her illnesses and everything that had gone before. That the whole situation was undoubtedly over and the song, which instantly became shockingly relevant to me, was like Moses’s coming off the mountain with a message from God. Hyperbole? Over-stated? I don’t think by much, because I was struck at how the song suddenly made sense now. And it was right.

Another thought came: “God..that’s a mercenary thing to think, you’re supposed to put others before yourself.” No, I did have a desire for myself the whole time I played Dad to her.

“Away, I’d rather sail away…” I had to admit I had that awfully quiet wish to be done with it all but it had been buried in the forest of my continual “nursing others” career. Looking back, with hindsight, I didn’t recognize then how another life could so permeate my own and control how I could live it. It’s amazing what you will do for other people, even if you have just a shred of empathy.

I didn’t get my entire life back that Saturday though, having been freed of it all.

There is an interesting thing that happens to land when it’s had a mile thick glacial ice sheet sit on it for 20,000 years or so, the weight of it pushes the land down hundreds of feet. When it melts, the land rebounds, slowly, but it rises again. Norway, Sweden, to this day, are still rising up inch by inch as measured by satellites.

When summer arrived several months after her death, I had been rising too the whole time w/o really trying. Slowly at first and then with greater speed as time went on. I had lost weight without putting too much effort into it. I bought slimmer white pants to wear! I was cruising around the state in my convertible and one night, had met Roberta at the Last Call Saloon. With me in tow, she returned me to the beaches and Block Island and spent some syrupy humid summer nights on the Scituate dam, her and me trying to see aurora in the sky. She literally lived around the corner of that dam in fact. That area is very dense with stands of pine trees which suffuse the air with that piquant earthy scent. I swear that fragrance can get into your clothes with time. I being raised in a city, smelling that Scituate air by the dam and her home was remarkable to me.

If my nose picks up that scent today somewhere, I flashback back to those nights.

By the end of that autumn, I had picked my degree from J&W and started a new career. I had emptied this house of the past and made it my own. To top it all off, in a weird (perhaps lucky?) astronomical portent, the Hale-Bopp comet had returned and was visible for months. I knew things were changing for the better.

El Condor Pasa didn’t change me. I did that. But the song just woke me up and quite surprisingly too. In a short time after, I bolted to freedom like a slave running north.

There are a few other songs that have struck me acutely when their relevance, or rather, my awareness of a connection became apparent.

 

         Scituate Dam