Pop’s blown nose (2005)
I'm walking down East End Avenue in New York City, actually down the hill from 85th Street uptown toward 86th Street along Carl Schurz Park, the east side of the avenue, past the playground and sandbox where I played, past the promenade and flagpole where I was molested at knifepoint. I cross the avenue at 86th on the north side and my brownstone is up the block fifty yards. Just outside my house, standing at the curb is my father. He is vomiting into the gutter. He is vomiting violently, profusely like an open fire hydrant gushing a torrent of whitewater into the street. All that's missing is a kid straddling the hydrant on a hot summer's day, double gripping a soda can into the great arcing jets spouting across the white line in the middle of the street. "Pop," I say, and he looks up bewildered and at the mercy of the contractions heaving his gut. He pauses, and then he gasps, and gasps again. He is winding up for a sneeze, a colossal sneeze, a sneeze engaging all the energy of his every vibrating cell from the immigrant soles of his flat feet to the gray curling crown of his head, his great Eastern Mediterranean bronzed Jewish nose - a scabbard hooked downward like some Yasser Arafat bedouin clown's - now raised skyward, lifted by molten force or by God's yanking marionette strings threaded through his nostrils. He gasps again deeper - and then lets loose - a sneeze for the Ages - Huh, HUH, HUHHH, KACHEWWWWWW! His nose is blown off, and like a dry leaf swirled on a gust of wind, it alights in the white foam cascading down the gutter and is carried away. Stunned, he looks up at me. "My boy," he seems to cry. From where his nose once so gallantly protruded, now are left dual dark cavities aside the axis root of a blown septum, and out from these black holes gentle crimson feathers, like those of a songbird, slowly rise and float away.
exotic perfume (2004)
Led by your odour to enchanting climes,
I see a port all filled with sails
and masts that ache still from the briny wave
from Parfum Exotique
Charles Baudelaire
Brutus, a yellow lab, lay placidly on the deck of my father's bungalow, unleashed and sniffing the sea breeze. Since he was fixed, we all felt calmer. Before, when he would take off, we would worry ourselves sick. Perhaps he'd be hit in traffic or mistaken for a deer in hunting season. Now, without keeping a watchful eye, we could enjoy the morning sun, the heather turning purple in the marsh below, a sail on the shimmering waters of Wellfleet Bay in the distance.
"I'm rather liking that dog this time," my eighty year old father said, puffing on his cigar and turning the page of his Cape Cod Times. "He seems different. Not under my feet. Not whacking things over with his tail."
"He is different. We had him fixed," I said.
"Whose idea was that?"
"Kate's. Well, actually, the vet's. She said at his age it would prevent the likelihood of prostate cancer and keep him from roaming."
"She said?"
"Yeah, the vet's a woman."
"All women are ball cutters."
"Pop Pop!" Grace shouted to her grandfather, running up the driveway from the summer cottage in the hollow below. "I want to have coffeecake with you!"
Kate, too, arrived at the top of the driveway and paused briefly to admire the view.
"Come along then. I saved you a piece," my father said.
Grace scampered up the steps, crossed the bridge over the lap pool, kissed my father, and took her cake.
"Good morning!" Kate called out from the sandy parking area. "It's such a beautiful day. I hate to leave," she said, feigning disappointment.
"I don't want to go, Mama."
"I know, honey, but you're starting school back in New Hampshire and Daddy starts teaching again in a few days. We're all packed and the windows are covered up with newspaper. All you have to do, Leon, is drain the pipes." She climbed the steps and onto the deck.
"Here comes the ball cutter," my father announced.
"He means the dog," I said.
"Oh, Vincent, really," she said with a deflective chuckle. "He is better, don't you think?"
"Ball cutter. All women are ball cutters," he repeated, pleased with the ring of his latest pronouncement.
"Well, then, if all women are ball cutters, what does that make all men?" she asked, settling into a folding aluminium chair.
My father momentarily reflected while puffing on his cigar, then said - "Cunt lickers."
frauding (2003)
To be impeccably organized, to account for every minute of the fourteen hour work day carefully logged in a Day-Timer scheduling book; to present a well-groomed image of professionalism with weekly manicures, thrice-weekly car washes, daily weightlifting sessions at the health club, frequent study and review of the contracts; to recite until flawless the sales tracks or programmed pitches so necessary for a smooth closing; to build enthusiasm by listening to the motivation tapes of the biggest winners such as Joe Gondolpho who flew clients from around the country to his office in his own Lear jet or Joe Girard who sold the most cars in history; to never hesitate to ask for business and to always ask for referrals; these were some of the attributes which had made the Leon Perlman Insurance Agency number one. But now it all seemed silly.
How far I had come, I thought, from those aimless hippie days, making hamburgers at Chunky's in Westwood, driving the plumbing truck, struggling through college to sit proudly with a necktie behind the service desk at Hamilton Pipe and Supply, circling the block three times with palpitating heart before mustering the courage to make my first auto insurance sales call. Yes, in spite of everything, 1980 would measure up as the most intensely productive year on record. A real winner and a standard for excellence.
I gazed out the top floor office window of the Barclay's Bank Building over Tarzana - home of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes.) from whence comes the name. The sun was rising over a yellow haze and the traffic on the Ventura Freeway. The phone rang on the L.A. number of the rotary system, and because neither my secretary nor the other agents sharing the suite of offices - known collectively as the Atkins, Fanning, Perlman, and Dawson Agencies - had yet come in, I answered. The L.A. number and its four hundred dollar a month display ad in the fat Yellow Pages of the central Los Angeles directory had been a lucrative source of junk business, the assigned risk liability insurance and the comprehensive and collision coverage required by banks on new vehicles. The more stable and loss-free homeowner, auto, and life policies were written on the white populace of the suburban west San Fernando Valley.
"Hello. Is Herbert Lloyd Dawson deh?" an agitated voice barked as I switched on the tape recorder, licked the pickup suction cup and fumbled to attach it to the receiver.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dawson isn't in the office, yet."
"That muthafucka, he frauded me!"
"I beg your pardon, sir - frauding?"
"That muthafucka, he frauded me! He - fraud - me. Less jus say, frauded me outta my money, 'tending he's gonna get me inshawnce."
"Have you had a loss, sir?"
"Loss? Yeah, man, I lost my muthafuckin' diamonds out my glove compartment. Now he told me I got comprehension and collusion, and shit that's stole is covered! And the goddamn claims man says my shit ain't covered!"
"Well, sir, comprehensive and collision coverage pertains to the loss of or damage to the vehicle, not the contents in the automobile. I can give you Mr. Dawson's home phone, if you'd like to discuss the matter with him there."
"Hey, man, I don't want his muthafuckin' home phone, man. I tell you one thang, I'm not gonna' be hasslin' heem cuz I can win too goddamn much money in court on bo'shit fraud! Now he got my ass on the sore spot, and I'm gonna get even one way or the other!"
"May I have your name, sir, and I'll have Mr. Dawson give you a call when he comes in."
"Troy Cheney. He betta call, or somebody's gonna be sorry."
"Very good, Mr. Cheney, I'll have Mr. Dawson give you a call. Thank you for calling."
God, I muttered to myself, rewinding the tape recorder for another listen.
I leaned back in the upholstered executive chair against the wall. The wall, covered with official looking certificates and plaques (Order of the Purple Medallion, Life Underwriters Training Council, Commercial Masters Society, District Sales Leader of the Year, Million Dollar Round Table, etc.), served to reinforce for the blank-eyed client sitting opposite you that what he or she was purchasing was more than just an insurance policy; rather it was a piece of or a step toward security and success, a responsible achievement like attaining an academic degree. For the agent, acquiring these wall accoutrements was not difficult. Just make your calls, look the part, ask for appointments, recite your sales tracks, and the plaques and certificates would come regularly into your office like mackerel for dolphin jumping through a hoop. Frauding, I pondered, putting on the tape. The central air conditioning kicked on, its white noise whoosh signaling the eight o'clock hour and the start of the business day.
Rincon bayonne (2002)
from Rincon Bayonne
"...speaking of which, how's your anesthetized mother? Oh, I shouldn't say that, but God, how I struggled (for what, twenty-three years?) to create some joy, some enthusiasm for living. Imagine her hating my Jackson Pollack, weeping at the sight of it! And then to have to drag her out of that Greenwich Village apartment and that boring, boring socialist clique to move uptown to Henderson Place."
"C'mon, Pop, you can't dismiss the importance of the labor movement, or the importance of having a sense of social justice, or the fact that Mom has a lot of heart and caring."
"Soft heart, leather cunt. All that movement shit is liberation not for the oppressed masses but from her own privileged, sheltered upbringing. Did you know that she was not allowed, never even entered, the kitchen of her own house until she was twenty-five?"
"Yes, Pop, you told me."
"God! What I had to put up with! Of course you've heard the famous wedding story, how your great Aunt Margaret came up to me not knowing I was the Jew groom and confided, 'Well, at least Abigail isn't marrying a nigger.' Imagine! The outrage!"
Two years ago I had flown down to Puerto Rico overnight to help my then seventy-seven year old father return to New York City in the spring. We had begun drinking early in the day. He had taken several codeine to ease the phantom pain in his stump. On the plane a small drunken Puerto Rican with a complexion and nose similar to Sammy Davis, Jr. stopped at our seats and pointed at me.
"You Jewish? You from Philadelphia? Hunh? You Jewish?" He laughed and walked past us to his seat. Later in the flight this same man was returning from the forward restroom as my father and I were sipping our champagne. Cordially ending our conversation, my father handed me his glass and stood up.
Pointing his cane at the man, he bellowed, "You Sammy Davis? Hunh? You Sammy Davis?" Then he lunged at the man, punched him in the jaw, and knocked him down.
Stewards and stewardesses came running toward our seats.
"He's crazy! He's crazy! The old man, he hit me!" screamed the little Puerto Rican.
Quickly surrounded, the stunned man was firmly escorted back to his seat while one of the stewardesses whispered to my father, "Thank you, sir. He's been causing alot of trouble in the back of the plane."
With great dignity my father sat back down into his seat. "I'll have my champagne now," he said.
"You've got a lot of class, Pop," I said as we clicked our plastic glasses.
The Black Fish Inheritance (2001)
"Here! Here!" my father shouted from the deck, as Kate and I and the baby drove up the driveway on our way to the beach in late July. We were finding it increasingly impossible to get past the studio without him flagging us down with another list.
"I've got to have these things," he said. "Milk, Carbona Spot Remover, more Jim Beam, the Cape Cod Times, and something sweet. I need a piece of candy. Maybe some nonpareils, or orange slices, or black licorice?" He waved the list at me, and I got out of the car, climbed the steps, walked over the pool, and took it. "This humidity is awful, isn't it?" he asked.
"We'll take you to the bay for a swim when we get back."
"That would be great. I feel so stranded on this deck, like a blackfish, stuck with this ghastly view. Isn't that awful? Whoever would have thought it would come to this?"
"Is your leg hurting you today?" Kate called up from the car window while nursing Claire.
"Naturally. So what else is new?" and he grimaced with an apparently sharp, stabbing pain in his stump, lasting only a moment. "Ah, that was my nonexistent little toe." He gave a short, sardonic laugh, and added, "Fascinating, is it not?"
"You know, Pop, you really ought to have someone - a boy, a housekeeper, a chauffeur - someone to drive you around, shop, cook, clean, fix stuff. You know, just to make your life easier? I mean, you should be able to afford it now, don't you think?"
"Are you mad? I have absolutely no…what do the money creeps call it? Cash flow! Anyway, I have that Bruegel, Donnie Snow, to fix things," he said, referring to a heavyset, local boy, really a young man, of enormous physical strength and foul mouth who had in the past drained the pipes for winter, primed the pumps in summer, chased out the raccoons, and appeared to be a reincarnation of one of the Dutch painter's peasants. "And his wife brings me cookies. So get out of here! Go to wherever you're going, and pick me up some club soda on your way home."
"O.K., Pop. What's that smell?"
"My lunch. I'm cooking a leftover cutlet and kasha varnishkes. I never forget. Now go!"
"Barf. See ya later," I said, bounding off the deck and into the car.
After eating our cucumber sandwiches on Cahoon's Hollow beach, napping, then playing in the sand and surf, we rinsed in the fresh water of Long Pond, stopped at the liquor and general stores, and returned home three hours later.
"You know, you don't have to drink to be with him," Kate quietly admonished me before walking with Claire down to the old house.
"Right. I'll see ya in a while."
I prepared a shaker full of Cape Cod Special, and together, my father and I drove out across the marsh and followed the sandy road around the north side of Lieutenant's Island to the deserted beach at Loagy Bay. Sometimes even against my will, I felt irresistibly drawn to him.
With a self-made paisley sash wrapped around his waist, towel draped over his shoulders, and cane in each hand, he walked slowly up the sand path through the beach grass, pausing every five steps to allow the discomfort inside the plastic swim leg to subside while a cloud of cigar smoke drifted away from his head in the slight breeze. Carrying beach chairs, plastic cups, and the shaker, I followed.
At the crest of the small dune, the broad mouth of Blackfish Creek near high tide lay flat before us and a long ribbon of empty white beach stretched out a half mile toward Wellfleet Bay and thinned, out of sight, around the western shore of the island. Across the water the steep dunes of Indian Neck plunged to the shore. Within a stone's throw a halyard on a small sailboat swinging on its anchor melodically clinked against an aluminum mast. We walked down to the wet sand. Here in 1949, 44 and 43 my father had ceremoniously splashed each of his baby boys in these joyous waters, welcoming them into life.
One month earlier while standing with Kate, Claire and my father on this same beach, attempting to carry on the family baptismal tradition, I had been forced to say to my father in a rare demonstration of unheeded assertiveness, "It's my god damned baptism, and I'm the father, and I'll do it the way I want. Now please be quiet!"
"Yes, but why ruin it with religion?" he interrupted.
"They that go down to the sea in ships," I more loudly re-read from the 107th Psalm while Claire wriggled in the arms of her mother, "that do business in great waters. . ."
"Oh, God! I didn't do it this way!"
"These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. . ."
"Ruined. You've got it all wrong!"
"Quiet! 'They mount up to the heaven…'"
"This should be about the joy of life in the here and now. There's nothing else!"
"They go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble…”
"They think they've got trouble. They should go without a leg and have to stand here as long as
I am!"
"They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man…”
"I could use a drink!"
"….and are at their wits end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble…"
"What good has religion ever done for the world? It's only another crutch placating and anesthetizing the soul!"
"Now shut the fuck up! Sweet Jesus! '…and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet…”
"Thank god for quiet."
"'So he bringeth them unto their desired haven.' May you have a good life, Claire, and enjoy these waters as much as I have," I concluded, splashing a little water on her forehead, making her cry.
"There. That's all you needed to say. Now let's go home and have a drink."
"Listen, Pop. I'm the father. Am I not entitled to baptize the way I want?"
"And I'm the grandfather who made this whole mess."
"Right. Let's go."
"I knew we shouldn't have had him come," Kate said later.
"You were right. Another memorable event with him at center stage, consuming all the oxygen," I said, regretting that the moment had not been entirely Claire's and feeling somewhat awash in shame.
Now my father waded out into the water, let float his canes, and swam. I, too, swam along side him. Then, gathering up the canes, I led him out of the water as he held fast to my arm for balance. We sat in our chairs and I poured drinks from the shaker. The ribbon of sand slowly widened with the receding tide, and we listened to the gulls cry in the late afternoon sun.
Zen & art of school bus driving (2001)
This time of year the parking lot next to the Nauset Middle School playing field and track is dark and cold at 6 am. Flat-nosed, 36-footlong, 15-and-a-half ton yellow beasts -- animated Twinkies -- belch to life one by one. Their awakening eyes glare, cutting through the darkness before them.
Finding Number 1, I climb aboard to my eight-foot high vantage point, poke my key in the ignition, and bring ‘er to life with a quick clearing of her diesel throat, followed by the well-muffled purr of a powerful International T444C rear engine.
I begin the twice-daily safety circle check of my school bus, one of 44 busses owned, operated, and maintained by Laidlaw Transit, Inc. for the Nauset Regional School District. The Christmaslike festoon of clearance lights, amber warning and red flasher, stop-arm, head, tail, four-way, brake, interior and back-up lights are inspected; tires are kicked and examined for bulges and cracks; the body and undercarriage are scanned for irregularities. After all operating systems on my DOT (Department of Transportation) mandated list have been checked off, I am ready to go pick up the early-rising youngsters who ride the "music bus" to practice their budding art at school before regular classes begin.
Before exiting the parking lot, I stop at the dumpster to empty my wastebasket, filled with debris from the previous late afternoon -- Skittles wrappers, broken pencils, hardened wads of bubble gum, an empty Fruitopia bottle, a crumpled quiz with a lousy grade, and lots of Cape Cod sand. I let my kids eat and drink on the bus as long they don’t make a mess and use the wastebasket. They don’t always comply.
Driving a school bus can be a tortured experience, but for me those days have for the most part receded. I now view the job as an imperfect meditative practice which demands that I "be here now," a sort of Zen and the art of school bus driving. I try to be still inside, emotionally nonattached, while remaining utterly attentive, practicing with the students and public an attitude of loving kindness while being one with the bus, its dimensions, power, and capabilities.
Of course I feel at times like wringing the neck of a troublemaker or throwing the overpowering weight and size of my vehicle at an irritating Sunday driver; but I remind myself with deep breaths, "Be still and attend."
I know the names of each of my 90 or more music, elementary, and middle school riders. I greet each with his or her name and a "good morning," and bid each by name a "good day" as he or she exits. We all prefer an expressive joyful ride in peace rather than a repressive fearful one. Most rides are neither heaven nor hell, but a balance between the two.
Dawn is breaking over Route 6 and the auxiliary heater fans blow on high speed when I turn onto Harwich Road heading toward Brewster and Route 6A. An eighth-grade flutist waits outside an idling minivan at Great Fields Road. Turning down the fans, I press another button on the control panel and the amber pre-warning lights come on. The bus slows to a stop, and when the door is opened with a switch, the red warning lights automatically flash.
"Good morning, Megan," I offer up and she politely repeats the salutation while stepping into the warm, darkened interior. A blast of chilled air follows her.
The run winds for an hour through Brewster. Past leafless deciduous trees, I see gray wafts of pond "smoke" rise off of Walker and Slough Ponds. I have seen deer leap through the underbrush and bushy, rust-colored foxes trot across the road. Knowing every turn and vista of many beautiful back roads is one of the pleasures of school bus driving on Cape Cod.
Twenty or so students later, and as many differing instrument cases, we arrive at the Middle School. The chattering, the laughing, the somber, and the sleepy pile off the big yellow bus into the now-bright morning sunshine. I then head back out 6A to Millstone and Freeman’s Way to begin my elementary school route.
The little ones, kindergarten through fifth grade, are as innocent, testy, and cute as rambunctious puppies. Many of them need constant reminding to stay seated, to keep their hands to themselves, to not scream or argue. Remaining still inside, I practice the "broken record" method -- "Billy, sit down. Sit down, Billy. I said sit down." This repetition technique usually works. Occasionally, however, I succumb to aggravation and resort to high volume commands, threatening consequences such as being written up with a bus report, or ordering a rowdy fourth grader to take an embarrassing hike down the aisle to sit near me for a few days. This must all be accomplished while continuing to safely drive the bus.
If elementary children present the greatest challenge to my serenity, they also bring moments of joy and pleasure at being alive. At Governor Bradford and Freeman’s Way, I feel privileged to observe the tenderness and longing in the parting of a mother and her five-year-old boy in a new red baseball cap; at Beach Rose, kisses repeatedly blown from an eight-year-old girl’s hand through the window to her smiling father remind me of walking my little girl (now a high school senior) to the school bus a long time ago.
These parents, in their vulnerable smiles and eye contact with me, convey a special trust and yearning. They have charged me with the safe passage -- both physical and emotional -- of their precious loved ones. It is an awesome responsibility, and I am honored.
From Stony Brook Elementary School I proceed down Tubman, picking up the first of 40 to 50 middle school kids. These 11- to 13-year-old boys and girls, many blasted with hormones and brimming with electric energy, are generally more subdued in the morning. But after the school day, the middle school bus can take on the semblance of a Hawaiian long board surfing big waves.
Morning or afternoon I have to be nimble and assured. As always, I greet each and every student coming aboard by name and with eye contact -- mutual respect and courtesy, stillness inside, utterly attentive outside. I can’t fight the waves, but I can constructively channel their energy, as a good surfer or a person adept at Tai Chi. While there are some drivers who might crush their students’ youthful enthusiasm with an iron hand and have a bus with an unhappy air, I allow for joyousness (talkative noise) within safe limits.
On Great Fields Road, I stop for a pack of kids congregating on the corner of Pine Bluff. One boy is hurling himself headlong into a small spruce tree, undoubtedly finding his attention-grabbing antics great fun.
"Good morning, Alan," I say to him when he climbs aboard. "Sit down by me today and we’ll visit a while." He protests, but I command, "Sit, Alan, here." We then head back up to Tubman via 6A, picking up many more students along the way.
The world these days is too dangerous and unhappy a place, and life is too short, for these moments on my school bus to be other than happy and safe. When we arrive at the middle school at 8:50 am, I say to each and every departing student, by name, "Have a good day!"
I mean it.
nihilum aeternum
I write to you not as a forlorn or jilted lover
Not as a wounded, frightened child yearning for his mother
But rather, now, as your father
And once I've expended my paternal inclinations
Providing you with the necessary reassuring comfort of steadfast
Support and understanding
Then I will be with you as a fellow traveler
Unencumbered by personal undercurrents of yearning and
Deprivation,
Nonattached to any outcome
I will reside, simply, in the Present
Appreciative of my own breath, aware of its rhythm
Like waves on the shore
Or the tide flooding redolent flats
And ebbing out muddy marsh channels
Breeding mosquitoes
While eager gulls crying overhead bombard the macadam road
With mussels
From golden sunup to panoramic outrages of splashy orange dusks
Stilled only by the self-declarative, high-pitched emergence of the Evening Star.
My gaze upon you will be as upon the rose or soft candle flame
And when I ask, “Why?” I will answer by chanting to myself
“Asking… asking… asking…”
In the flood of my emptiness and your lingering fragrance
I will know not to ask for what you cannot give
And in the naming of my emptiness
I will die to my seeking
And be born again into infinite nothingness
And this Nihilum Aeternum shall be called God
And because “I” am gone
This shall be called Enlightenment or Universal Consciousness
Yet should I return
My name shall be Om (Ol' Hard-on Gone Limp)
And soon enough
It will be finished.
But for now, my child, smile upon the void
I encourage you
Do not be afraid
Know that you are good and worthy
Do not worry
And be happy
I am soaring to the Moon and beyond.