On the Street
The day begins, as all do, with encouragement from Cindy. 'Go, Guys,' says her e-mail title, the message announcing a special deal on Viagra. Cindy's friend Chrissy had gotten in touch only hours earlier concerning a male supplement, also heavily discounted, which promised to restore vigor to my life and a woman to my bed. The latter promise was somewhat vague. Never mind, for the e-mail punctuation was the message, a shower of asterisks and exclamation points, all having tremendous fun together. And if I hadn't gotten a similar note from Charles, only a few hours before Chrissy's, I might have dismissed the whole thing. But once I'd heard from Chuck, the pattern was clear. He was concerned about the actual size of my equipment. Whereas Chrissy and Cindy, were focused on my efficiency. As a team approach, it all made perfect sense. Size the system to the project, target performance standards and proceed.
When I get home from this morning's errands, I will invite Chrissy, Cindy, and, why not, Charles, over for consultation. My responding e-mail will be all ***** and !!!!!!!! like theirs. And once the three of them troop into my living room, I will give everyone a glass of sparkling apple juice, crank up the TiVo and replay PBS' remarkably static Das Rheingold, demonstrating both the high resolution and high volume of my home electronics. A little superglue on the sofa cushions should keep Charles-Cindy-Chrissy's buttocks in place throughout the ensuing four hours. As for me, I will be heading for Peet's as soon as James Levine raises his baton. Should any of the three audience members protest, my response could not be clearer: ****** and !!!!!!! and thanks for sharing, and pipe down about having your butts glued to the sofa or I'm going to put the Rhinemaidens' entrance on auto-replay.
When you're retired and headed up Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park's main street, it is natural to review the morning's events. In which e-mails figured prominently. Not that you don't have a purpose. There is a cash machine at one end of the street. There is a pharmacist at the other. To make the acquisition of cash and the purchase of toothpaste into a major outing, you will want to stretch things a bit. Bypass the pharmacist on the first go and head directly for the cash machine. On the second pass, eastbound, pull in at the Walgreens and rummage about the dental products.
The thing is to keep up a certain pace. You don't want to appear aimless, purposeless or shiftless. Leave that to the homeless guy with the vaguely worded cardboard sign. No, you are the man with the mission. The homeless guy is from a mission. The fact that his mission is more focused and disciplined than yours...well, don't let that confuse you. Look like you know what you're doing as you proceed up the avenue. This means, don't peer around as though curious at the nature and purpose of your fellow pedestrians. After all, the townspeople vaguely recognize you. There's no passing for a tourist, so it's useless to carry a map or guide book. It's even useless to pretend to look in the shop windows. You cannot give a credible imitation of a shopper. You do not like to shop. In particular, you do not like to shop for Persian carpets, which comprise 90% of what is on sale in downtown Menlo Park.
Why the need to fit in? In particular, why the need to appear productive? Or at least, not look indolent? Hard to say, but I'm working with this. There it is again, that 'working' bit. Why not just tell people that I'm floating, living off the fat of the suburban land? Not even grieving. Just getting up, getting dressed and getting out...for absolutely no reason. Which would find me among the old people...and one is no longer sure who they are...anyway, the old people who stand in front of the nut display at Walgreens drugstore just a little too long.
Outed. These people are guilty of not having a paycheck or a cubicle or a commuter ticket. Unfortunately, most of these people staring at the goods in Walgreens are not Jewish, so they do not feel the guilt. They stare at the peanuts, mentally comparing the equivalent at Safeway or even trying to remember what peanuts are and what it meant when goods and services were said to cost peanuts. It's stunning to consider that the value of the nuts has risen, even as the value of the metaphor has fallen. For if things are no longer priced in peanuts, or in salt, what are they worth? Are they worth their weight in silicon? And who polishes the floors at Walgreens to such a high gloss? If I came here at night would I see some person having a go with an electric buffer? And would the rotary motion of brushes upon floor raise more questions? Better continue up the street.
What would be so horrible about being classed with George, the homeless guy who sits outside of Peet's being black, casually opening the door and holding up a sign that says Thanks for Your Help? He signs the sign Gorgeous George, betraying his age. I grew up near a chicken ranch owned and operated by the then retired Gorgeous George, a forgotten wrestler. Never mind. What if it was understood that although I did not solicit public funding in quite the same way, George and I moved at approximately the same pace? In fact, by dint of door opening, many would regard George as more productive. And so what? What Puritan ethic or Calvinist belief has gotten me so paranoid?
And viewed from a more positive perspective, there is something I see in the eyes of the occasional street musician, George and a few other itinerants. An openness. They have, in the 1960s sense, dropped out and found a comfortable place in the shallows. They seem relaxed. In the present. Not forgotten. They are not out of sight...an expression that in my late adolescence signaled the ultimate or finest.
At her finest, I thought Marlou was out of sight. And then she was dying and in her most crushingly sad final days was out of sight in one eye, then the other, her brain tumors doing something ghastly to the optic nerves. And now she is gone and not out of my sight, not for long. And it all fits together, this fear of dropping out of sight, of not being seen. Which if one obsesses too mightily, distracts from seeing. Who knows what people see when they see me in my new phase of life making my wheelchair way through the town? But it's worth knowing why I care, or what I see in being seen.
When I get home from this morning's errands, I will invite Chrissy, Cindy, and, why not, Charles, over for consultation. My responding e-mail will be all ***** and !!!!!!!! like theirs. And once the three of them troop into my living room, I will give everyone a glass of sparkling apple juice, crank up the TiVo and replay PBS' remarkably static Das Rheingold, demonstrating both the high resolution and high volume of my home electronics. A little superglue on the sofa cushions should keep Charles-Cindy-Chrissy's buttocks in place throughout the ensuing four hours. As for me, I will be heading for Peet's as soon as James Levine raises his baton. Should any of the three audience members protest, my response could not be clearer: ****** and !!!!!!! and thanks for sharing, and pipe down about having your butts glued to the sofa or I'm going to put the Rhinemaidens' entrance on auto-replay.
When you're retired and headed up Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park's main street, it is natural to review the morning's events. In which e-mails figured prominently. Not that you don't have a purpose. There is a cash machine at one end of the street. There is a pharmacist at the other. To make the acquisition of cash and the purchase of toothpaste into a major outing, you will want to stretch things a bit. Bypass the pharmacist on the first go and head directly for the cash machine. On the second pass, eastbound, pull in at the Walgreens and rummage about the dental products.
The thing is to keep up a certain pace. You don't want to appear aimless, purposeless or shiftless. Leave that to the homeless guy with the vaguely worded cardboard sign. No, you are the man with the mission. The homeless guy is from a mission. The fact that his mission is more focused and disciplined than yours...well, don't let that confuse you. Look like you know what you're doing as you proceed up the avenue. This means, don't peer around as though curious at the nature and purpose of your fellow pedestrians. After all, the townspeople vaguely recognize you. There's no passing for a tourist, so it's useless to carry a map or guide book. It's even useless to pretend to look in the shop windows. You cannot give a credible imitation of a shopper. You do not like to shop. In particular, you do not like to shop for Persian carpets, which comprise 90% of what is on sale in downtown Menlo Park.
Why the need to fit in? In particular, why the need to appear productive? Or at least, not look indolent? Hard to say, but I'm working with this. There it is again, that 'working' bit. Why not just tell people that I'm floating, living off the fat of the suburban land? Not even grieving. Just getting up, getting dressed and getting out...for absolutely no reason. Which would find me among the old people...and one is no longer sure who they are...anyway, the old people who stand in front of the nut display at Walgreens drugstore just a little too long.
Outed. These people are guilty of not having a paycheck or a cubicle or a commuter ticket. Unfortunately, most of these people staring at the goods in Walgreens are not Jewish, so they do not feel the guilt. They stare at the peanuts, mentally comparing the equivalent at Safeway or even trying to remember what peanuts are and what it meant when goods and services were said to cost peanuts. It's stunning to consider that the value of the nuts has risen, even as the value of the metaphor has fallen. For if things are no longer priced in peanuts, or in salt, what are they worth? Are they worth their weight in silicon? And who polishes the floors at Walgreens to such a high gloss? If I came here at night would I see some person having a go with an electric buffer? And would the rotary motion of brushes upon floor raise more questions? Better continue up the street.
What would be so horrible about being classed with George, the homeless guy who sits outside of Peet's being black, casually opening the door and holding up a sign that says Thanks for Your Help? He signs the sign Gorgeous George, betraying his age. I grew up near a chicken ranch owned and operated by the then retired Gorgeous George, a forgotten wrestler. Never mind. What if it was understood that although I did not solicit public funding in quite the same way, George and I moved at approximately the same pace? In fact, by dint of door opening, many would regard George as more productive. And so what? What Puritan ethic or Calvinist belief has gotten me so paranoid?
And viewed from a more positive perspective, there is something I see in the eyes of the occasional street musician, George and a few other itinerants. An openness. They have, in the 1960s sense, dropped out and found a comfortable place in the shallows. They seem relaxed. In the present. Not forgotten. They are not out of sight...an expression that in my late adolescence signaled the ultimate or finest.
At her finest, I thought Marlou was out of sight. And then she was dying and in her most crushingly sad final days was out of sight in one eye, then the other, her brain tumors doing something ghastly to the optic nerves. And now she is gone and not out of my sight, not for long. And it all fits together, this fear of dropping out of sight, of not being seen. Which if one obsesses too mightily, distracts from seeing. Who knows what people see when they see me in my new phase of life making my wheelchair way through the town? But it's worth knowing why I care, or what I see in being seen.
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