September 2011 Archives
Remarkable the way one can drift along, aware of not sleeping well the previous night, things not being as they should be...though why this is important remains unclear. The day is dominated by practicalities and details, a new tenant moving in upstairs, for one thing. And what with a morning bout with the rowing machine, followed by various decisions concerning the moving out of furniture from the upstairs apartment, followed by volunteer Paul and I rolling out for brunch and a cappuccino.... Well, today limps along shapelessly until now when my landlord Tom announces his intention to start up the old Dodge.
This sends me not only scrambling, but crashing at high speed about my apartment in desperate search of enough cash to boost my caffeination level at, you guessed it, Peet's. I am out the door in time, or I think I am. Tom was preparing me for the noise of his 1967 Dodge Charger roaring outside my office window. Actually, the sound is trivial. It's the fumes. The machine is a lesson in human history, both industrial and environmental. The exhaust from Tom's vintage car is shocking to behold, an aerosol of, I suspect, only partially combusted petroleum, mixed with every imaginable noxious byproduct, including but not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone and a cast of chemical characters far too lengthy for me to imagine.
Never mind, for I am on my way. And the air pollution on its way is safely behind me. I don't know if I am a bad citizen, a poor member of the community, not to mention a sort of enabler, regarding Tom and his roaring exhaust. I am certain this is what in the Bay region all media describe as a 'spare the air' day. For it is hot, Indian summer as we say in these parts. The very sort of day in which the authorities beg, not to mention warn, and generally hope, that people will hop trains and buses instead of doing what Tom is doing in our carport. Which actually amounts to the equivalent of several of today's cars roaring and spewing. 1967 was long before catalytic converters appeared on the exhausts of cars in California. Truly a vintage automobile, complete with vintage exhaust, and all of it roaring safely behind me, thank God.
The upstairs apartment seems to exert a strange power over men in their early 40s. A succession have rented the place. The latest is quite enthused at the prospect, clearly enjoying the work of tearing out old carpets, considering new flooring, replacing the ancient Venetian blinds. He is one of the products of the region's cyclical high-tech booms, clearly not obliged to work, yet watching his expenditures. And not above helping move out Marlou's old furnishings. No, this morning there were four men in their 30s and 40s schlepping chairs and tables and files and boxes, not to mention an abundance of linen, and blinds and curtains destined for the Palo Alto landfill...all of this flowing downstairs in a sort of river. None of the flotsam recognizable. It must have been two years since I was up there. A time not long after Marlou had died. I made my way up the stairs then and sat there, my brother and Marlou's cousin Betsy bringing me this and that to examine and pass judgment on, while they went about the task of sorting and preparing for the haulers.
All of which made things much easier this time. I could barely recall the contents of the apartment. Only one of the old duvets rang any sort of bell, bedding from an era that predated Marlou. My life in white sales. Whatever. Paul and his colleague carted much of it away in the service of the Catholic Worker House. They were surprised that the apartment contents filled their truck. They left behind an air conditioner that may just possibly run on coal. I can't remember buying it. I can't remember operating it. None of the items appearing so far had much effect on me. There are two boxes of memorabilia, that is to say, Marlou's photo albums. They belong with her family. I'm not sure I will look at them, but of course I will. Just enough to sort wheat from chaff and feel the poignancy of a human life crushed. But then it will be gone, and I will be here, and Tom will be running his car.
Which happens shortly after I return from Peet's. I know Tom isn't trying to torture me. The latter is a sort of accident. This spewings from his exhaust waft along the stucco wall of the carport, slip their petrochemical fingers under the edges of my casement windows and roll through my apartment. The effect is unpleasant and mildly alarming. I retreat to the opposite side of the flat, sitting in my kitchen until I finally hear the sound of the Dodge turning off.
And there is an anxious emptiness behind everything, and I am tired of it or, more precisely, tired of not knowing what it is. One thing it isn't - an absence of love. With Jane, I have that. With friends, also. Family, fortunately. So let's rule that out. And let's rejoice. And let's simply acknowledge the void. The fearful void. And more to the point, or the other point, not to avoid the void. Which I spend much of my life doing. And no, it is not that I'm going to be abandoned. Perhaps that I have abandoned myself.
Which is like saying that, alone and left to my own devices, there is nothing. That the fear of being crushed and overwhelmed and abandoned, that this is permanent and total. That it isn't just another vein to mine. It takes courage to test the proposition that the center can hold, that there is one. Meanwhile, I like the warrior image. Too bad the enemy remains maddeningly elusive.
This sends me not only scrambling, but crashing at high speed about my apartment in desperate search of enough cash to boost my caffeination level at, you guessed it, Peet's. I am out the door in time, or I think I am. Tom was preparing me for the noise of his 1967 Dodge Charger roaring outside my office window. Actually, the sound is trivial. It's the fumes. The machine is a lesson in human history, both industrial and environmental. The exhaust from Tom's vintage car is shocking to behold, an aerosol of, I suspect, only partially combusted petroleum, mixed with every imaginable noxious byproduct, including but not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone and a cast of chemical characters far too lengthy for me to imagine.
Never mind, for I am on my way. And the air pollution on its way is safely behind me. I don't know if I am a bad citizen, a poor member of the community, not to mention a sort of enabler, regarding Tom and his roaring exhaust. I am certain this is what in the Bay region all media describe as a 'spare the air' day. For it is hot, Indian summer as we say in these parts. The very sort of day in which the authorities beg, not to mention warn, and generally hope, that people will hop trains and buses instead of doing what Tom is doing in our carport. Which actually amounts to the equivalent of several of today's cars roaring and spewing. 1967 was long before catalytic converters appeared on the exhausts of cars in California. Truly a vintage automobile, complete with vintage exhaust, and all of it roaring safely behind me, thank God.
The upstairs apartment seems to exert a strange power over men in their early 40s. A succession have rented the place. The latest is quite enthused at the prospect, clearly enjoying the work of tearing out old carpets, considering new flooring, replacing the ancient Venetian blinds. He is one of the products of the region's cyclical high-tech booms, clearly not obliged to work, yet watching his expenditures. And not above helping move out Marlou's old furnishings. No, this morning there were four men in their 30s and 40s schlepping chairs and tables and files and boxes, not to mention an abundance of linen, and blinds and curtains destined for the Palo Alto landfill...all of this flowing downstairs in a sort of river. None of the flotsam recognizable. It must have been two years since I was up there. A time not long after Marlou had died. I made my way up the stairs then and sat there, my brother and Marlou's cousin Betsy bringing me this and that to examine and pass judgment on, while they went about the task of sorting and preparing for the haulers.
All of which made things much easier this time. I could barely recall the contents of the apartment. Only one of the old duvets rang any sort of bell, bedding from an era that predated Marlou. My life in white sales. Whatever. Paul and his colleague carted much of it away in the service of the Catholic Worker House. They were surprised that the apartment contents filled their truck. They left behind an air conditioner that may just possibly run on coal. I can't remember buying it. I can't remember operating it. None of the items appearing so far had much effect on me. There are two boxes of memorabilia, that is to say, Marlou's photo albums. They belong with her family. I'm not sure I will look at them, but of course I will. Just enough to sort wheat from chaff and feel the poignancy of a human life crushed. But then it will be gone, and I will be here, and Tom will be running his car.
Which happens shortly after I return from Peet's. I know Tom isn't trying to torture me. The latter is a sort of accident. This spewings from his exhaust waft along the stucco wall of the carport, slip their petrochemical fingers under the edges of my casement windows and roll through my apartment. The effect is unpleasant and mildly alarming. I retreat to the opposite side of the flat, sitting in my kitchen until I finally hear the sound of the Dodge turning off.
And there is an anxious emptiness behind everything, and I am tired of it or, more precisely, tired of not knowing what it is. One thing it isn't - an absence of love. With Jane, I have that. With friends, also. Family, fortunately. So let's rule that out. And let's rejoice. And let's simply acknowledge the void. The fearful void. And more to the point, or the other point, not to avoid the void. Which I spend much of my life doing. And no, it is not that I'm going to be abandoned. Perhaps that I have abandoned myself.
Which is like saying that, alone and left to my own devices, there is nothing. That the fear of being crushed and overwhelmed and abandoned, that this is permanent and total. That it isn't just another vein to mine. It takes courage to test the proposition that the center can hold, that there is one. Meanwhile, I like the warrior image. Too bad the enemy remains maddeningly elusive.
Somewhere near the close of my first year of university, my father and I had a severe falling out. Armed with whatever knowledge and confidence had accrued to me wandering the University of California residence halls, I decided to have a talk. With my father, that is. He was becoming awfully isolated, I told him. Thus, my expression of concern. Doubtless uttered in the wrong way, and the very sort of exchange that probably proves tricky for any father and any son. But there we have it. My pseudo-adult attempt at 'helping' the parent, a role I had been playing since eight years of age. Time had not improved my performance. My father exploded in bitter accusations, most particularly my failure to visit him more often and to proffer 'support.' That word is accurately reported, part of the transcript, and reflects reality older than I care to recall. I stormed out of his condominium. He told me he wasn't going to pay for any more of my education. I said fine, emptied out a small savings account and made the final residence hall payment myself. Fuck him.
Which presented a problem. Money. With the second year of university looming, somehow I would have to scramble. There were jobs around, but not many. And students made student wages, which could help foot the bill, but I needed more than footing. My mother had an idea. It sounded rather grim, but I didn't care about grim. I cared about survival. And so, without much thought, I filled in the paperwork, waited not very long and reported to work. At the Concord Naval Weapons Station.
The place was to become infamous. But not quite then. The Vietnam War was cranking up and quickly gaining momentum as a major campus issue. In short, I knew better. Or should have. But for now, that is, the summer of 1965, mentally I could look the other way, grit my teeth and endure. Damned if I wasn't going to have enough money for the autumn term. Damned if I wasn't going to sit through the orientation, get my worker badge, don my hardhat and go to work. Loading bombs. Not to mention wooden boxes full of...rockets, artillery, I honestly can't recall. The whole thing was too scary to consider, just surreal enough to experience like a sort of dream.
And it was nocturnal. Newcomers got the night shift. Which meant driving into the place, flashing a plastic badge at a Marine and parking in a floodlit lot. As with long-term parking in some airport, one then boarded a bus. A grey Navy bus which drove across the Sacramento River swamplands, dark shining ditches and reeds and abandoned timbers, to the bustling docks. Liberty ships, resurrected from World War II, sat moored in islands of artificial daylight, the river's blackness lapping beneath the pilings. Electric winches ground and whined, their steel cables sending immense loaded pallets up and off the dock, across the water, and down into the ship's hold. Pier planks rumbled beneath forklifts. While men like me passed ammunition boxes hand-to-hand, rolled aerial bombs toward the winches, and the night hummed with testosterone.
For it was exhilarating, this is the simple truth. Ours was a hardhat world. It was guys with lunch pails. Guys with pickups. Guys who punched timecards, and occasionally each other. Laboring toward the dawn to load ships with cargo that would explode somewhere, and one hoped not here...knowing all the while that this was not guaranteed, just gaze upriver. For there was a dark space in the procession of docks and ships. This was where one night in 1944 something went wrong. And also went boom. The ammunition ship that exploded here at Port Chicago blew parts of its hull miles in all directions, cracking windows in Oakland. No one ever bothered rebuilding the dock, such was the extent of wreckage. A terrifying reminder in the workplace, yet the workplace had a whiff of war about it. And I could feel it, the young man's attraction to danger, despite the terror or because of it. There was no English department, no dean's office, no grade except passing on the night docks. I could even feel a kinship with both parents, who had spent all of World War II on hospital ships.
And then there was the other thing. Near the end of a shift, at four or five in the morning, the stars about to fade, a black foreman stood on the gangplank and surveyed the night's work. He clapped his stiff leather gloves together and stated the obvious. 'Well, we helped kill a lot of people tonight.' His observation was enough to wake me ever so slightly from a monthlong daze. This, coupled with the knot of university students who were beginning to gather just outside the naval station's entrance, tipped things in a certain balance. I quit without making enough money, though it was a start. I talked to my friend Tom about the dilemma of leaving a 'good' job. It sounds like you made your first real decision, he said. Now, and even then, I was grateful for such a friend.
For a while, the Navy had tried to train me to operate a ship's winch. In retrospect, the sheer crudity of these devices boggles the mind. But when I had a go, the winches in question were already 25 years old, their origins predating World War II. One good thing about this training involved the hours. Daylight. Driving to and from work like any commuter. The winch training site consisted of a deep square pit cut in the coastal grasslands of Concord, dry with a summer's brownness. This arrangement simulated a ship's hold. At one end of the pit, large brass levers worked two winches. The trainee held one in each hand. Cables from the winches each ascended a large boom and came together at a single hook. By pulling one lever, the hook would rise straight toward the boom above it. Once the hook reached a certain height, pulling on the other lever began pulling the cable sideways...at which point, the first lever needed to be pushed in the opposite direction, unwinding to provide slack for the lateral motion. These coordinated actions brought the hook up, to one side, then down, simulating a trip from dock to hold or from hold to dock.
How exciting to drive big mechanical gear, great macho lengths of greased cable roaring back and forth. It took a certain boldness, plus a high degree of eye-hand coordination to make one steel spool wind just enough, then unwind at the right moment in conjunction with the other steel spool doing the opposite. Actually, it took something more. Sureness. Or oblivion. For however well one mastered this skill, one fact always seem to be staring any sane winch operator in the face. At the end of the hook was a load of explosives, often bombs, which might not do well being dropped on a pier or slammed against a steel hull. I flunked winch school. Within days, I was back on the docks, moving cartons of shells like everyone else. Back on the night shift.
Everything about the job was physical, and by the end of it I was acquiring a very un-English-Department physique. This might have impressed university women, if I was at that stage. I wasn't, of course. And in my one phase of buff upper body development no one saw me but fellow stevedores. On the docks, even conversations were physical, the principal topic being female genitalia. I had little insight or experience to bring to this discussion. My sole contribution to the workplace consisted of two arms and legs. I held on to both, at least for the time being. The same cannot be said for people near Asian ports where these ships were headed.
Which presented a problem. Money. With the second year of university looming, somehow I would have to scramble. There were jobs around, but not many. And students made student wages, which could help foot the bill, but I needed more than footing. My mother had an idea. It sounded rather grim, but I didn't care about grim. I cared about survival. And so, without much thought, I filled in the paperwork, waited not very long and reported to work. At the Concord Naval Weapons Station.
The place was to become infamous. But not quite then. The Vietnam War was cranking up and quickly gaining momentum as a major campus issue. In short, I knew better. Or should have. But for now, that is, the summer of 1965, mentally I could look the other way, grit my teeth and endure. Damned if I wasn't going to have enough money for the autumn term. Damned if I wasn't going to sit through the orientation, get my worker badge, don my hardhat and go to work. Loading bombs. Not to mention wooden boxes full of...rockets, artillery, I honestly can't recall. The whole thing was too scary to consider, just surreal enough to experience like a sort of dream.
And it was nocturnal. Newcomers got the night shift. Which meant driving into the place, flashing a plastic badge at a Marine and parking in a floodlit lot. As with long-term parking in some airport, one then boarded a bus. A grey Navy bus which drove across the Sacramento River swamplands, dark shining ditches and reeds and abandoned timbers, to the bustling docks. Liberty ships, resurrected from World War II, sat moored in islands of artificial daylight, the river's blackness lapping beneath the pilings. Electric winches ground and whined, their steel cables sending immense loaded pallets up and off the dock, across the water, and down into the ship's hold. Pier planks rumbled beneath forklifts. While men like me passed ammunition boxes hand-to-hand, rolled aerial bombs toward the winches, and the night hummed with testosterone.
For it was exhilarating, this is the simple truth. Ours was a hardhat world. It was guys with lunch pails. Guys with pickups. Guys who punched timecards, and occasionally each other. Laboring toward the dawn to load ships with cargo that would explode somewhere, and one hoped not here...knowing all the while that this was not guaranteed, just gaze upriver. For there was a dark space in the procession of docks and ships. This was where one night in 1944 something went wrong. And also went boom. The ammunition ship that exploded here at Port Chicago blew parts of its hull miles in all directions, cracking windows in Oakland. No one ever bothered rebuilding the dock, such was the extent of wreckage. A terrifying reminder in the workplace, yet the workplace had a whiff of war about it. And I could feel it, the young man's attraction to danger, despite the terror or because of it. There was no English department, no dean's office, no grade except passing on the night docks. I could even feel a kinship with both parents, who had spent all of World War II on hospital ships.
And then there was the other thing. Near the end of a shift, at four or five in the morning, the stars about to fade, a black foreman stood on the gangplank and surveyed the night's work. He clapped his stiff leather gloves together and stated the obvious. 'Well, we helped kill a lot of people tonight.' His observation was enough to wake me ever so slightly from a monthlong daze. This, coupled with the knot of university students who were beginning to gather just outside the naval station's entrance, tipped things in a certain balance. I quit without making enough money, though it was a start. I talked to my friend Tom about the dilemma of leaving a 'good' job. It sounds like you made your first real decision, he said. Now, and even then, I was grateful for such a friend.
For a while, the Navy had tried to train me to operate a ship's winch. In retrospect, the sheer crudity of these devices boggles the mind. But when I had a go, the winches in question were already 25 years old, their origins predating World War II. One good thing about this training involved the hours. Daylight. Driving to and from work like any commuter. The winch training site consisted of a deep square pit cut in the coastal grasslands of Concord, dry with a summer's brownness. This arrangement simulated a ship's hold. At one end of the pit, large brass levers worked two winches. The trainee held one in each hand. Cables from the winches each ascended a large boom and came together at a single hook. By pulling one lever, the hook would rise straight toward the boom above it. Once the hook reached a certain height, pulling on the other lever began pulling the cable sideways...at which point, the first lever needed to be pushed in the opposite direction, unwinding to provide slack for the lateral motion. These coordinated actions brought the hook up, to one side, then down, simulating a trip from dock to hold or from hold to dock.
How exciting to drive big mechanical gear, great macho lengths of greased cable roaring back and forth. It took a certain boldness, plus a high degree of eye-hand coordination to make one steel spool wind just enough, then unwind at the right moment in conjunction with the other steel spool doing the opposite. Actually, it took something more. Sureness. Or oblivion. For however well one mastered this skill, one fact always seem to be staring any sane winch operator in the face. At the end of the hook was a load of explosives, often bombs, which might not do well being dropped on a pier or slammed against a steel hull. I flunked winch school. Within days, I was back on the docks, moving cartons of shells like everyone else. Back on the night shift.
Everything about the job was physical, and by the end of it I was acquiring a very un-English-Department physique. This might have impressed university women, if I was at that stage. I wasn't, of course. And in my one phase of buff upper body development no one saw me but fellow stevedores. On the docks, even conversations were physical, the principal topic being female genitalia. I had little insight or experience to bring to this discussion. My sole contribution to the workplace consisted of two arms and legs. I held on to both, at least for the time being. The same cannot be said for people near Asian ports where these ships were headed.
It is fear all right, particularly if it awakens you at four in the morning and keeps you awake, directing your mind toward the most trivial and repetitive thoughts. And even prevents you from taking an early afternoon nap, such is the persistence.... And fear of what and from what, none of this is the least bit clear, so let's work backwards from the obvious starting point or, to be more precise, the ending point.
Death. Having witnessed the wife's and deciding that it is not pretty...and one would think, having revisited my own close brush repeatedly, and recently...is this it, the ugliness, pain and sheer fact of it? Or to quote a great president, is it fear of fear itself? Let us say, for example, that my shooter is alive in some sense, and let us not quibble about physiological details...it would be the sense of being chased, helpless, overtaken. And yet I could imagine, not outlandishly, that faced with an assassin breaking into my premises in the middle of the night and seeing his gun point at me...well, I would not go passive into that good night. I would scream, make a move, respond somehow. No, never again, as the Israelis say. Yes, through my current process of deduction, it is the terror of being overwhelmed. Of being overpowered. Coupled with being alone. Abandoned, more precisely. Which may be well dramatized and encapsulated as pursuit by the Grim Reaper, but there is a little more to it than that. The sheer fact of pulling life's plug, or twisting it painfully from the socket, while not the sort of thing one chooses from the HBO menu...well, it is different. Death having the added trait of being unknown, and therefore spooky...I wonder if it doesn't offer a stand-in for other terrors.
The terror of survival, what else to call the week after my shooting? I swear I literally did not sleep for seven days, though friends assure me this is impossible. In retrospect, there were too many terrors to distinguish. Yes, the fact of having a leering human raise his pistol to your face and pull the trigger, that certainly counts. So does being paralyzed from the neck down, my initial state, neurological outcome anyone's guess. The latter with its sense of bodily entrapment and heightened physical helplessness feeding everything else...a reality that lingers to this day, surely. For when confronted with the night terrors, getting out of bed for a spell is definitely part of the solution.
For instinct is a wonderful thing. It is what sees us through near death of the self, real death of the beloved and, most certainly, the final curtain...no matter how many curtain calls. Meanwhile, there is change. Take this, my home, one, or depending on how one counts, two of four apartments. A strange museum of the 1950s, coupled with an instructive diorama of modern neuromuscular survival. All under one roof, one admission, and now with a changing exhibit upstairs. A new tenant.
Which must be set against the backdrop of San Francisco's mid-Peninsula. Let us note that the nation, not to mention the world, is in dire economic straits. And let us keep mentioning it to make one humble, grateful, and even awestruck to be at the epicenter of another high-tech boom. The cost of office space in Palo Alto is exploding. My town, Menlo Park, just became headquarters of Facebook. Rents on my street are soaring. All of which explains my predicament in subletting the empty upstairs apartment. Even without formally announcing the thing, word quickly got around, and lots of people wanted it. Yet the person who seemed like the best prospective tenant also wanted to drive down the price...while offering to paint, repair and generally care for the place. Which, coupled with being a computer guy who might have a fighting chance at keeping my PC going, if I asked ever so sweetly...well, what the hell. Sure. A deal, I said. And why?
Because I like him. He has a neighborly cooperative attitude. He offered to help the old tenant move ut. He and his former apartment mate have already become involved in the buying and selling of things...such as an unwanted bed upstairs, quickly disposed of through eBay...and precisely how we will divide the profits is unclear, though frankly I trust them enough not to care. I bought some loudspeakers from the flatmate, who was selling them all frescoe on his apartment lawn one Sunday...and on Wednesday he wandered over and installed them, along with an Apple wireless connection. The latter taking him more than an hour. In short, these are techie entrepreneurial young guys, much given to the barter economy...so naturally I have offered to write website copy for them, should they need a middle-aged perspective. And one never knows. Instinct. Infinitely better than supposed market wisdom. Real wisdom. And the more one has it, the less one has to fear.
Death. Having witnessed the wife's and deciding that it is not pretty...and one would think, having revisited my own close brush repeatedly, and recently...is this it, the ugliness, pain and sheer fact of it? Or to quote a great president, is it fear of fear itself? Let us say, for example, that my shooter is alive in some sense, and let us not quibble about physiological details...it would be the sense of being chased, helpless, overtaken. And yet I could imagine, not outlandishly, that faced with an assassin breaking into my premises in the middle of the night and seeing his gun point at me...well, I would not go passive into that good night. I would scream, make a move, respond somehow. No, never again, as the Israelis say. Yes, through my current process of deduction, it is the terror of being overwhelmed. Of being overpowered. Coupled with being alone. Abandoned, more precisely. Which may be well dramatized and encapsulated as pursuit by the Grim Reaper, but there is a little more to it than that. The sheer fact of pulling life's plug, or twisting it painfully from the socket, while not the sort of thing one chooses from the HBO menu...well, it is different. Death having the added trait of being unknown, and therefore spooky...I wonder if it doesn't offer a stand-in for other terrors.
The terror of survival, what else to call the week after my shooting? I swear I literally did not sleep for seven days, though friends assure me this is impossible. In retrospect, there were too many terrors to distinguish. Yes, the fact of having a leering human raise his pistol to your face and pull the trigger, that certainly counts. So does being paralyzed from the neck down, my initial state, neurological outcome anyone's guess. The latter with its sense of bodily entrapment and heightened physical helplessness feeding everything else...a reality that lingers to this day, surely. For when confronted with the night terrors, getting out of bed for a spell is definitely part of the solution.
For instinct is a wonderful thing. It is what sees us through near death of the self, real death of the beloved and, most certainly, the final curtain...no matter how many curtain calls. Meanwhile, there is change. Take this, my home, one, or depending on how one counts, two of four apartments. A strange museum of the 1950s, coupled with an instructive diorama of modern neuromuscular survival. All under one roof, one admission, and now with a changing exhibit upstairs. A new tenant.
Which must be set against the backdrop of San Francisco's mid-Peninsula. Let us note that the nation, not to mention the world, is in dire economic straits. And let us keep mentioning it to make one humble, grateful, and even awestruck to be at the epicenter of another high-tech boom. The cost of office space in Palo Alto is exploding. My town, Menlo Park, just became headquarters of Facebook. Rents on my street are soaring. All of which explains my predicament in subletting the empty upstairs apartment. Even without formally announcing the thing, word quickly got around, and lots of people wanted it. Yet the person who seemed like the best prospective tenant also wanted to drive down the price...while offering to paint, repair and generally care for the place. Which, coupled with being a computer guy who might have a fighting chance at keeping my PC going, if I asked ever so sweetly...well, what the hell. Sure. A deal, I said. And why?
Because I like him. He has a neighborly cooperative attitude. He offered to help the old tenant move ut. He and his former apartment mate have already become involved in the buying and selling of things...such as an unwanted bed upstairs, quickly disposed of through eBay...and precisely how we will divide the profits is unclear, though frankly I trust them enough not to care. I bought some loudspeakers from the flatmate, who was selling them all frescoe on his apartment lawn one Sunday...and on Wednesday he wandered over and installed them, along with an Apple wireless connection. The latter taking him more than an hour. In short, these are techie entrepreneurial young guys, much given to the barter economy...so naturally I have offered to write website copy for them, should they need a middle-aged perspective. And one never knows. Instinct. Infinitely better than supposed market wisdom. Real wisdom. And the more one has it, the less one has to fear.
What is credible about it to me is the lack of vehemence. The police mentioned his name, claimed he had been spotted nearby that night, and that was that. Astonishingly today, having his name or something close to it, the web reveals a surprising amount. The man is dead, and that is a matter of relief to me. For I fear him, that is the simple truth. He is forever coming after me in this, my waking dream life, the terror-inspired present. But there it is, on the web, evidence of his funeral. I am dying to know how he died. And there are so many layers of meaning in this statement that I want to rule one out. Only that I did not die, and there is nothing about this worth dying for. And the fact that he is dead means that he is no longer capable of pursuing me. Though others are, I suppose. And that is something that I simply have to live with. Die with, perhaps. Exist with.
What is particularly credible about this suspect in my 1968 shooting is one particular physical characteristic. Which is hardly evidence, one must point out. Still, this is one of the few traits I was able to observe in those few terrified and dazed seconds before the bullet and the quadriplegia and everything else. I must say, it makes sense. It really makes sense. I believe in my gut that, yes, this is, or was, the guy. And what now? Aside from feeling safer, that is? Vindicated in some way, because he is dead? He had a fairly long life, after all. And guilt? Karma? If one believes in some objective force for justice, that is.
It must have been my mother who gave me a bit of information from the Berkeley police. That someone had called them around 6 AM the morning after my shooting, long before a single news story had been broadcast or printed, to ask about the man who had been shot. Was he alive? Doubtless the police said yes. And the caller, almost certainly the shooter or associate, could have breathed a sigh of relief. The white dude survived, he might have thought. Okay, got a little trigger happy and, what the hell, didn't work out too badly.
Not only free but guilt-free, he could have easily moved on without a burden. And I have personally captured and tortured him, along with his accomplices, of course...not to mention quietly destroyed his spinal cord with an undetectable dose of phenol, then driving him ever so quietly to the parking lot of Oakland's Highland Hospital for, as it were, night deposit.... Bye-bye. And so on. Vengeance fantasies, a permanent addiction to gun-wielding movie thriller heroes...particularly the wisecracking sort. My legacy.
And with this information online for so long, why now? Because I am recently returned from my annual men's conference in the Midwest. Where it was proposed that I, like a returning combat veteran, am a warrior. The notion I am still trying to absorb, or to don like a new costume. And because I know the difference between action and passivity, or have been recently reminded of it. So there it is, the product of a bit of online sleuthing, and not even the closing of a chapter, more the opening.
Because death makes no difference here. Alive or deceased, the shooter is still grinning in the harsh glow of a 1968 Berkeley streetlight. And what could have been going through his mind? A high dose of drugs certainly among the possibilities. A moment of power...the latter comprised of a handgun, that violent fantasy object, all pushbutton convenience and instant gratification...and the presence of one of those smug and privileged white students, effortlessly wandering toward status, security and success. Bang. And one of us is still trying to move on, and the other is finally dead. All of which may be totally inaccurate and utterly surmised and wrong. But I prefer this story. It is the version I am now living with. And I am sticking with it. Or it has stuck to me.
And if I can now count myself a warrior and feel a sort of battle-scarred pride in my status as survivor...what battle was I in? And was I even fighting? Well, within seconds, fighting to breathe. Then fighting to live...the latter struggle never quite over, by the way. But warriors are drafted, in one sense or another...that is the thing. Manhood's test utterly compelling for many...the urge to defend and protect present in all...forces too big to resist, even without a notice of conscription. Drafted, reporting for active duty, trained, deployed and sent to casualty all within the same instant. Too fast to note the combatants and their causes and their battle lines. But not too late, even now. What larger battle was I sucked into that June night?
What is particularly credible about this suspect in my 1968 shooting is one particular physical characteristic. Which is hardly evidence, one must point out. Still, this is one of the few traits I was able to observe in those few terrified and dazed seconds before the bullet and the quadriplegia and everything else. I must say, it makes sense. It really makes sense. I believe in my gut that, yes, this is, or was, the guy. And what now? Aside from feeling safer, that is? Vindicated in some way, because he is dead? He had a fairly long life, after all. And guilt? Karma? If one believes in some objective force for justice, that is.
It must have been my mother who gave me a bit of information from the Berkeley police. That someone had called them around 6 AM the morning after my shooting, long before a single news story had been broadcast or printed, to ask about the man who had been shot. Was he alive? Doubtless the police said yes. And the caller, almost certainly the shooter or associate, could have breathed a sigh of relief. The white dude survived, he might have thought. Okay, got a little trigger happy and, what the hell, didn't work out too badly.
Not only free but guilt-free, he could have easily moved on without a burden. And I have personally captured and tortured him, along with his accomplices, of course...not to mention quietly destroyed his spinal cord with an undetectable dose of phenol, then driving him ever so quietly to the parking lot of Oakland's Highland Hospital for, as it were, night deposit.... Bye-bye. And so on. Vengeance fantasies, a permanent addiction to gun-wielding movie thriller heroes...particularly the wisecracking sort. My legacy.
And with this information online for so long, why now? Because I am recently returned from my annual men's conference in the Midwest. Where it was proposed that I, like a returning combat veteran, am a warrior. The notion I am still trying to absorb, or to don like a new costume. And because I know the difference between action and passivity, or have been recently reminded of it. So there it is, the product of a bit of online sleuthing, and not even the closing of a chapter, more the opening.
Because death makes no difference here. Alive or deceased, the shooter is still grinning in the harsh glow of a 1968 Berkeley streetlight. And what could have been going through his mind? A high dose of drugs certainly among the possibilities. A moment of power...the latter comprised of a handgun, that violent fantasy object, all pushbutton convenience and instant gratification...and the presence of one of those smug and privileged white students, effortlessly wandering toward status, security and success. Bang. And one of us is still trying to move on, and the other is finally dead. All of which may be totally inaccurate and utterly surmised and wrong. But I prefer this story. It is the version I am now living with. And I am sticking with it. Or it has stuck to me.
And if I can now count myself a warrior and feel a sort of battle-scarred pride in my status as survivor...what battle was I in? And was I even fighting? Well, within seconds, fighting to breathe. Then fighting to live...the latter struggle never quite over, by the way. But warriors are drafted, in one sense or another...that is the thing. Manhood's test utterly compelling for many...the urge to defend and protect present in all...forces too big to resist, even without a notice of conscription. Drafted, reporting for active duty, trained, deployed and sent to casualty all within the same instant. Too fast to note the combatants and their causes and their battle lines. But not too late, even now. What larger battle was I sucked into that June night?
With everything out of sorts, out of true and out of balance, it should be no surprise that I am running out of patience. Particularly with the staff of Trader Joe's, normally stalwarts, but on this particular evening most disappointing. For I have many notes to go before I sleep, all of them in the bass section, aimed with various degrees of accuracy at John Rutter, tonight's favorite composer at the weekly rehearsal of the Menlo Park Chorus. But for now, with minutes to go before the start of vocal warm up, I am knocking off a last-minute errand at Trader Joe's. Freesias. They smell so nice, after all, and with Menchu turning up in the morning, there will be someone to arrange them.... So, a quick purchase and out the door to fling myself at voices and music and...no, I can't find it any freesias. They are not among the flowers displayed against the entrance wall. And damned if I am going to let this go unremarked. Freesias do not come and go like the seasons, even if they should, for Trader Joe's is much addicted to the virtual realm of airfreight from Chile, Africa and so on. Freesias turn up on their display stand just like the newspaper on my doorstep. And never mind that the newspaper is all paper, no news, for we do not have time to quibble. Chorus practice is about to begin.
I have seen her, the young woman who circulates about Trader Joe's with a clipboard displaying the words 'Ask Me.' Never mind that this invitation sparks middle-aged fantasies, for in reality she is a nice touch, this wandering info source. The clipboard girl just disappeared from the bakery area in the general direction of hummus, so I roll after her. It's a bit of a maze, this place, with the aisles, and the general movement of staff and shoppers. By my calculation she should have reached the frozen pizzas, the hummus section being empty.
Ah, yes, there she is, emerging from milk. She is a pretty young woman in a mass-market sort of way. Does Trader Joe's have any freesias? Note that I do not overly personalize this with the 'do you have any freesias,' preferring the more impersonal and less threatening query concerning her institution. A byproduct of having made a larger investment in psychotherapy than anyone I know, except for Woody Allen. And I don't know Woody Allen, do I? There you have it. As for the freesias, the girl blinks. What are they, she asks. Okay, I tell myself, okay, perhaps this is not going well, at least at this early stage, but not to worry. The girl clearly has little to do, Trader Joe's is almost empty, and we will pursue it, this matter of the freesias, and do so together, to the betterment of all. For I like the world to be an orderly place. Somewhat reliable, dependable even.
The girl guides me to the Wall of Flowers, glances up and down the merchandise soaking in buckets of water, and tells me no, freesias nicht. How she has reached this conclusion is difficult to say. After all, she does not know what these flowers are, and from my vantage point there are no signs to provide any illumination. However, I am seated and she is standing, so one gives the benefit of the doubt. It is, in fact, time to shift mercantile gears into the general line of inquiry...when will they be in? She disappears behind the high counter where Trader Joe's management seems to reside. This is where one brings inquiries, complaints and, if one is minus 10 years old, gets a free balloon. Not that there is any hard and fast rule concerning the balloons, and eyeing the helium tank, the thought does cross my mind.... But I leave her to it, the looking up of the next freesia shipment. How do you spell it, she asks. Yes, this annoys me. But time is short, my temper is frayed, and I tell her f-r-e-e-s-i-a. Glancing down I notice a row of plastic buckets disporting themselves at my feet, a whole other offering of flowers...including the ones right in front of me, freesias. I ask the girl to grab two white bouquets. She looks rather sheepish, which is a good thing. I hand the two plastic-swathed packages of freesias to the checkout guy who inexplicably scans both at once. Not surprisingly, I am charged for one package. The gears of life are slipping, things falling ever so slightly apart, and it's time for chorus.
I am a warrior, someone told me. That someone...well, it's a long story, but I do not discount his expertise in this realm. And I have been trying it on, this notion. Warrior being better than victim. But is it credible, this term? The air hangs in the decay of evening, this being the very edge of autumn, day's end always slipping backwards. And with the earth giving up its heat, pavements exhausted from a long bake...how can people be streaming about Menlo Park's center as though daylight would go on forever? Which it won't. Daylight saving time pulls its own plug within a matter of weeks, plunging day into darkness. And don't these people know? That it, and we, are doomed? Daylight wasting time looms, and we are fucked. And a warrior....
Well, it is better than survivor. Victimhood already having been dismissed for its way of accentuating helplessness and defeat. Survivor? Well, it is too passive. Perhaps a better description is static. Even better, value-neutral. A survivor stumbles out of the wreckage, counts himself lucky, even grateful...but that is all. A warrior, as someone has been pointing out to me, defends the community. And I am on the knifeedge about this matter of warriorhood. The Walter Mitty angle seems obvious, all inflation and self-glorification. But it is very much with me, the experience of that violent night in 1968. I was defending nothing...or so it seems. Not even defending myself, at least not successfully. Or is this too harsh? I was defending myself against death, this can be said. A reluctant warrior, perhaps. And defense of the community? Perhaps that is where things are now, the world being what it is. It is a nobler calling, warrior. It brings social approbation. Or at least, social context. It has purpose and is not passive. I am late for chorus, and already tired, more tired than the season. And it is time to sing.
I have seen her, the young woman who circulates about Trader Joe's with a clipboard displaying the words 'Ask Me.' Never mind that this invitation sparks middle-aged fantasies, for in reality she is a nice touch, this wandering info source. The clipboard girl just disappeared from the bakery area in the general direction of hummus, so I roll after her. It's a bit of a maze, this place, with the aisles, and the general movement of staff and shoppers. By my calculation she should have reached the frozen pizzas, the hummus section being empty.
Ah, yes, there she is, emerging from milk. She is a pretty young woman in a mass-market sort of way. Does Trader Joe's have any freesias? Note that I do not overly personalize this with the 'do you have any freesias,' preferring the more impersonal and less threatening query concerning her institution. A byproduct of having made a larger investment in psychotherapy than anyone I know, except for Woody Allen. And I don't know Woody Allen, do I? There you have it. As for the freesias, the girl blinks. What are they, she asks. Okay, I tell myself, okay, perhaps this is not going well, at least at this early stage, but not to worry. The girl clearly has little to do, Trader Joe's is almost empty, and we will pursue it, this matter of the freesias, and do so together, to the betterment of all. For I like the world to be an orderly place. Somewhat reliable, dependable even.
The girl guides me to the Wall of Flowers, glances up and down the merchandise soaking in buckets of water, and tells me no, freesias nicht. How she has reached this conclusion is difficult to say. After all, she does not know what these flowers are, and from my vantage point there are no signs to provide any illumination. However, I am seated and she is standing, so one gives the benefit of the doubt. It is, in fact, time to shift mercantile gears into the general line of inquiry...when will they be in? She disappears behind the high counter where Trader Joe's management seems to reside. This is where one brings inquiries, complaints and, if one is minus 10 years old, gets a free balloon. Not that there is any hard and fast rule concerning the balloons, and eyeing the helium tank, the thought does cross my mind.... But I leave her to it, the looking up of the next freesia shipment. How do you spell it, she asks. Yes, this annoys me. But time is short, my temper is frayed, and I tell her f-r-e-e-s-i-a. Glancing down I notice a row of plastic buckets disporting themselves at my feet, a whole other offering of flowers...including the ones right in front of me, freesias. I ask the girl to grab two white bouquets. She looks rather sheepish, which is a good thing. I hand the two plastic-swathed packages of freesias to the checkout guy who inexplicably scans both at once. Not surprisingly, I am charged for one package. The gears of life are slipping, things falling ever so slightly apart, and it's time for chorus.
I am a warrior, someone told me. That someone...well, it's a long story, but I do not discount his expertise in this realm. And I have been trying it on, this notion. Warrior being better than victim. But is it credible, this term? The air hangs in the decay of evening, this being the very edge of autumn, day's end always slipping backwards. And with the earth giving up its heat, pavements exhausted from a long bake...how can people be streaming about Menlo Park's center as though daylight would go on forever? Which it won't. Daylight saving time pulls its own plug within a matter of weeks, plunging day into darkness. And don't these people know? That it, and we, are doomed? Daylight wasting time looms, and we are fucked. And a warrior....
Well, it is better than survivor. Victimhood already having been dismissed for its way of accentuating helplessness and defeat. Survivor? Well, it is too passive. Perhaps a better description is static. Even better, value-neutral. A survivor stumbles out of the wreckage, counts himself lucky, even grateful...but that is all. A warrior, as someone has been pointing out to me, defends the community. And I am on the knifeedge about this matter of warriorhood. The Walter Mitty angle seems obvious, all inflation and self-glorification. But it is very much with me, the experience of that violent night in 1968. I was defending nothing...or so it seems. Not even defending myself, at least not successfully. Or is this too harsh? I was defending myself against death, this can be said. A reluctant warrior, perhaps. And defense of the community? Perhaps that is where things are now, the world being what it is. It is a nobler calling, warrior. It brings social approbation. Or at least, social context. It has purpose and is not passive. I am late for chorus, and already tired, more tired than the season. And it is time to sing.
This story begins with the toppling of a small container of french fries, although not that small, or if one is mercilessly honest about the dietary facts of middle-age, not small enough.... And naturally we are in a church parking lot. What is natural about this is that I keep finding myself in them, more particularly Jane's Episcopal carpark, up the hill in Menlo Park, and they are all very much of a piece, paved and striped. And in this one, Bill has parked his Toyota, and the two of us are having a go at the In-n-Out Burger bag he just picked up. We have run out of time, that is the thing. How and why we spent 30 minutes in traffic backed up between the end-of-day Stanford University crush and the motorway, no one is sure. Bill has had a normal, high-pressure workday. I have had what has become a normal sleepless night.
Approaching San Francisco, Bill makes a disastrous turn toward the ocean. He is avoiding the notorious traffic backed up on 19th Ave., he says. What ensues is considerably worse, or better, depending on one's perspective. A spectacular drive along the Pacific, a tour of the Golden Gate headlands, before the bridge itself...all of which adds up to about one hour behind schedule. And I have the sinking feeling that it is all my fault. It has come to this. I am at the mercy of others driving. Poorly rested, 64 years old, and even the notion of putting my quadriplegic body behind the wheel for this rushhour marathon is vaguely horrifying. Though the horrors are over now, and after our abandonment of dinner plans in favor of fast food, we are at the site, parked in one of the last spaces...my handicapped Department of Motor Vehicles placard proving most handy. All going well, except that we are late. Late even for this event in the church, never mind dinner. Bill has ingested his cheeseburger and is now up and out and banging together the folding wheelchair. I do need just a couple of more french fries. A fatal error, of course.
The cardboard basket slides off the console between car seats and dumps an impressive pile of french fries on the carpet. Bill tells me he is having trouble getting the wheelchair's battery holder snapped together. I tell him just a second. If his car smelled of french fries before this moment, by now that moment has become an eternity. I am a fool, a quadriplegic idiot, a burden and a destructive one at that. Struggling mightily, I twist my torso around to grab the door opener. Somehow, my working left foot jams against it. The door gets pushed open, and I get one leg out, then the other. All of which finally turns my torso the 90° necessary to reach down with my left hand and began picking up french fries. The latter are still warm. I eat a few, eat a few more, ears alert to the sound of Bill's progress on the wheelchair. This is madness, the time required to eat these things exceeding that available. I begin stuffing them in the french fries container, where they belong. What the hell, I grab a final bite. An unpleasing melange of french fries and dog hairs from the Toyota carpet fill my mouth. I ask Bill to throw out the container. The spillage is my dirty little secret.
When was it? A couple of sleepless nights ago, I think, although I think less and less these days as insomnia drains me of the capacity. Under my new plan of attack, when hit by middle-of-the-night anxiety, I pry the paralyzed leg out from under the covers, drop it over the edge of the mattress, place its companion limb beside, and stand up. Then sit down. In the wheelchair. Whereupon, depending on the state of battery depletion, I either stay put or roll out to the front room. Anyway. On this occasion I remained in the bedroom, staring at the humming battery charger. While coming to a conclusion. That I would do some sleuthing regarding my 1968 attack, see if I can unearth anything about the cops' proposed suspect.... The decision put my mind at rest, and I actually fell asleep.
Hope I don't do the same here in Mill Valley, which Michael Meade points out in his opening moments, is unique in possessing...for a burg of 14,000...two Whole Foods Markets. Thing is, I am really tired, sleep having eluded me rather consistently for quite a while. I am not feeling very ecstatic, that is for sure. And that is the agenda, what has lured me so far north of my usual haunts. Ecstasy. Illegal, as Michael Meade points out. Both the drug, and by way of irony, the experience. The Mill Valley Methodist Church is packed, all redwood and skylights and carpets and affluence. I parked my wheelchair at the end of a pew. And now, we are not late after all. The music is ending and Michael is beginning. There's lots of Hafez and more music, and the latter comes from ethnic instruments of uncertain origin. And Meade is in splendid form, reminding us of what is going on in some alternate reality, tonight's Republican pre-primary debate. And all 500 of us are so not there. And Michael is reminding everyone to be here. Now. And there is an African saying, he tells us, something along the lines of 'when death finds you, may you be alive.' Applause and laughter and more music. More Hafez, intriguing and impenetrably ironic and deserving of another read. Michael starts the poem over. Children, he says a few minutes later, almost always reflect their souls. I like kids, I am thinking. Good thing, soul reflecting.
Earlier that day, just after I had started into my afternoon cappuccino at Peet's, who rolled up beside me but Karen, a friend not seen in years. An experience halfway between pleasant and challenging. She had lost weight, an enormous amount. Remarkable, and from my perspective, most enviable in a quadriplegic. Of which Karen is a true specimen. In neuromuscular reckoning, I can only lay claim to half this title. Karen is genuinely and totally paralyzed from the neck down. Her tenodesis splint, a metal mechanical device worn on one hand, well, it makes me cringe. With unpleasant recollections of trying one on myself years ago. The occupational therapist gave up. I did not have the wrist muscles to make the thing work. Miraculously, my left hand provides enough prehensile power to accomplish the thing Karen is trying to do now, glimpsed in the distance, as I await her return from ordering a tea. I see her lingering by the barista's counter, one of the staff opening her purse. I cringe because this is how she goes through life. And but for the presence of a millimeter or so of spinal cord, I would do the same.
I had offered to do this very thing, place Karen's order for her. Now she is back, and I am making more such offers. She is trying to get her straw open. The paper wrapper grasped in her mouth, the other end of the straw in her splint...well, it isn't working. Can I help? She doesn't exactly say no, and I am loathe to intervene. And it is happening, exactly what people experience with me. Does he want help or doesn't he? What should one do? Indeed, what I should do remains elusive. I point out to Karen that I am used to being on the receiving end of help, and would be more than delighted.... Her tea arrives. She drops the straw on the floor. I will get her another, I say. No, she has a red plastic one, a spare secreted somewhere on her wheelchair. No need for help, she says.
Karen's hands are shaking. More exactly, her entire upper extremities are shaking. Having a bad spasticity day, she says. I cringe at this too. For this is what comes of having too much go wrong too high up your spinal cord. A whole lot of shakin' going on. She is here, in Menlo Park, for a dental appointment. Killing a little time before it starts.
The straw she has produced is intended, watching her splint motions, for the popout area of her plastic drink top. She tries to maneuver the straw through the opening, or where the opening will be if she can force the plastic tab out of the way. I hold the tea for her, feeling even in my numbed fingers how hot it is. Any plans to try this forcing-the-straw-through-the-cover maneuver seem raught with peril. Be right back, I tell her, rolling toward the barista. I can just see it, one quadriplegic (partial) spilling a boiling liquid on the lap of another.... The barista arrives, gets instructions, and does a rather splendid job of getting two cripples set up for safe beverage ingestion.
I'm getting used to this, getting used to Karen. Which is to say, getting used to myself. We exchange notes on aging. Everyone's hands shake more as they get older. I can sense what's going on for her, how it has happened. The quadriplegic nervous system amplifies spasticity as reliably as a Sony stereo. Big and loud surroundsound of neurons in chorus. Which turns shaking into jerking. Which turns aging into disaster. Definitely not her words, all mine. But she is a lovely woman, that is what I am rediscovering. So much we have in common. I can't tell if her habit of being too quiet is the result of the introvert beaten down, or pulmonary paralysis. I can't tell if the ambiguity regarding how to help Karen is equally present on her side. Sensitive and kind and humane. She is all these things. I am too. That and wise enough not to spill tea on her lap.
I can see it, something within me that not only cringes, but flinches from proximity to people of sorrow. Losers, some small part of myself believes. And life is so much better when we embrace it all, the whole gesheft. The heart opens, that is the thing. We like kids, all of them, the broken ones, inside and out. Sparking the question, are they broken down or broken open? The question, the only question perhaps, hanging over the evening with Michael Meade and 500 others. There is joy in this knowledge, ecstatic knowledge. Just as there is music, poetry, and the difference between submission and giving up now coming at me clearer than ever. Not that it was ever all that clear before.
Time to pee. When isn't it time to pee? Fuck these 1970s suburban churches and their wheelchair-inaccessible toilets. I roll out into the night, toward an unlit portion of some forgotten wing of the church's classrooms, stopping by a post I can barely see, perhaps holding a lamp, a sign, a shadow. I stand, perilously pushing my hips forward of my center-of-gravity comfort zone. Without even thinking about it, the task done before I can be afraid. Which I normally am in such circumstances. If I fell here, in the dark and far from any logical destination on a night like this, the toilets being 100 meters or so behind me...no one would know. I would know, that is the thing. I zip up and return to Michael Meade and us, his 500.
Approaching San Francisco, Bill makes a disastrous turn toward the ocean. He is avoiding the notorious traffic backed up on 19th Ave., he says. What ensues is considerably worse, or better, depending on one's perspective. A spectacular drive along the Pacific, a tour of the Golden Gate headlands, before the bridge itself...all of which adds up to about one hour behind schedule. And I have the sinking feeling that it is all my fault. It has come to this. I am at the mercy of others driving. Poorly rested, 64 years old, and even the notion of putting my quadriplegic body behind the wheel for this rushhour marathon is vaguely horrifying. Though the horrors are over now, and after our abandonment of dinner plans in favor of fast food, we are at the site, parked in one of the last spaces...my handicapped Department of Motor Vehicles placard proving most handy. All going well, except that we are late. Late even for this event in the church, never mind dinner. Bill has ingested his cheeseburger and is now up and out and banging together the folding wheelchair. I do need just a couple of more french fries. A fatal error, of course.
The cardboard basket slides off the console between car seats and dumps an impressive pile of french fries on the carpet. Bill tells me he is having trouble getting the wheelchair's battery holder snapped together. I tell him just a second. If his car smelled of french fries before this moment, by now that moment has become an eternity. I am a fool, a quadriplegic idiot, a burden and a destructive one at that. Struggling mightily, I twist my torso around to grab the door opener. Somehow, my working left foot jams against it. The door gets pushed open, and I get one leg out, then the other. All of which finally turns my torso the 90° necessary to reach down with my left hand and began picking up french fries. The latter are still warm. I eat a few, eat a few more, ears alert to the sound of Bill's progress on the wheelchair. This is madness, the time required to eat these things exceeding that available. I begin stuffing them in the french fries container, where they belong. What the hell, I grab a final bite. An unpleasing melange of french fries and dog hairs from the Toyota carpet fill my mouth. I ask Bill to throw out the container. The spillage is my dirty little secret.
When was it? A couple of sleepless nights ago, I think, although I think less and less these days as insomnia drains me of the capacity. Under my new plan of attack, when hit by middle-of-the-night anxiety, I pry the paralyzed leg out from under the covers, drop it over the edge of the mattress, place its companion limb beside, and stand up. Then sit down. In the wheelchair. Whereupon, depending on the state of battery depletion, I either stay put or roll out to the front room. Anyway. On this occasion I remained in the bedroom, staring at the humming battery charger. While coming to a conclusion. That I would do some sleuthing regarding my 1968 attack, see if I can unearth anything about the cops' proposed suspect.... The decision put my mind at rest, and I actually fell asleep.
Hope I don't do the same here in Mill Valley, which Michael Meade points out in his opening moments, is unique in possessing...for a burg of 14,000...two Whole Foods Markets. Thing is, I am really tired, sleep having eluded me rather consistently for quite a while. I am not feeling very ecstatic, that is for sure. And that is the agenda, what has lured me so far north of my usual haunts. Ecstasy. Illegal, as Michael Meade points out. Both the drug, and by way of irony, the experience. The Mill Valley Methodist Church is packed, all redwood and skylights and carpets and affluence. I parked my wheelchair at the end of a pew. And now, we are not late after all. The music is ending and Michael is beginning. There's lots of Hafez and more music, and the latter comes from ethnic instruments of uncertain origin. And Meade is in splendid form, reminding us of what is going on in some alternate reality, tonight's Republican pre-primary debate. And all 500 of us are so not there. And Michael is reminding everyone to be here. Now. And there is an African saying, he tells us, something along the lines of 'when death finds you, may you be alive.' Applause and laughter and more music. More Hafez, intriguing and impenetrably ironic and deserving of another read. Michael starts the poem over. Children, he says a few minutes later, almost always reflect their souls. I like kids, I am thinking. Good thing, soul reflecting.
Earlier that day, just after I had started into my afternoon cappuccino at Peet's, who rolled up beside me but Karen, a friend not seen in years. An experience halfway between pleasant and challenging. She had lost weight, an enormous amount. Remarkable, and from my perspective, most enviable in a quadriplegic. Of which Karen is a true specimen. In neuromuscular reckoning, I can only lay claim to half this title. Karen is genuinely and totally paralyzed from the neck down. Her tenodesis splint, a metal mechanical device worn on one hand, well, it makes me cringe. With unpleasant recollections of trying one on myself years ago. The occupational therapist gave up. I did not have the wrist muscles to make the thing work. Miraculously, my left hand provides enough prehensile power to accomplish the thing Karen is trying to do now, glimpsed in the distance, as I await her return from ordering a tea. I see her lingering by the barista's counter, one of the staff opening her purse. I cringe because this is how she goes through life. And but for the presence of a millimeter or so of spinal cord, I would do the same.
I had offered to do this very thing, place Karen's order for her. Now she is back, and I am making more such offers. She is trying to get her straw open. The paper wrapper grasped in her mouth, the other end of the straw in her splint...well, it isn't working. Can I help? She doesn't exactly say no, and I am loathe to intervene. And it is happening, exactly what people experience with me. Does he want help or doesn't he? What should one do? Indeed, what I should do remains elusive. I point out to Karen that I am used to being on the receiving end of help, and would be more than delighted.... Her tea arrives. She drops the straw on the floor. I will get her another, I say. No, she has a red plastic one, a spare secreted somewhere on her wheelchair. No need for help, she says.
Karen's hands are shaking. More exactly, her entire upper extremities are shaking. Having a bad spasticity day, she says. I cringe at this too. For this is what comes of having too much go wrong too high up your spinal cord. A whole lot of shakin' going on. She is here, in Menlo Park, for a dental appointment. Killing a little time before it starts.
The straw she has produced is intended, watching her splint motions, for the popout area of her plastic drink top. She tries to maneuver the straw through the opening, or where the opening will be if she can force the plastic tab out of the way. I hold the tea for her, feeling even in my numbed fingers how hot it is. Any plans to try this forcing-the-straw-through-the-cover maneuver seem raught with peril. Be right back, I tell her, rolling toward the barista. I can just see it, one quadriplegic (partial) spilling a boiling liquid on the lap of another.... The barista arrives, gets instructions, and does a rather splendid job of getting two cripples set up for safe beverage ingestion.
I'm getting used to this, getting used to Karen. Which is to say, getting used to myself. We exchange notes on aging. Everyone's hands shake more as they get older. I can sense what's going on for her, how it has happened. The quadriplegic nervous system amplifies spasticity as reliably as a Sony stereo. Big and loud surroundsound of neurons in chorus. Which turns shaking into jerking. Which turns aging into disaster. Definitely not her words, all mine. But she is a lovely woman, that is what I am rediscovering. So much we have in common. I can't tell if her habit of being too quiet is the result of the introvert beaten down, or pulmonary paralysis. I can't tell if the ambiguity regarding how to help Karen is equally present on her side. Sensitive and kind and humane. She is all these things. I am too. That and wise enough not to spill tea on her lap.
I can see it, something within me that not only cringes, but flinches from proximity to people of sorrow. Losers, some small part of myself believes. And life is so much better when we embrace it all, the whole gesheft. The heart opens, that is the thing. We like kids, all of them, the broken ones, inside and out. Sparking the question, are they broken down or broken open? The question, the only question perhaps, hanging over the evening with Michael Meade and 500 others. There is joy in this knowledge, ecstatic knowledge. Just as there is music, poetry, and the difference between submission and giving up now coming at me clearer than ever. Not that it was ever all that clear before.
Time to pee. When isn't it time to pee? Fuck these 1970s suburban churches and their wheelchair-inaccessible toilets. I roll out into the night, toward an unlit portion of some forgotten wing of the church's classrooms, stopping by a post I can barely see, perhaps holding a lamp, a sign, a shadow. I stand, perilously pushing my hips forward of my center-of-gravity comfort zone. Without even thinking about it, the task done before I can be afraid. Which I normally am in such circumstances. If I fell here, in the dark and far from any logical destination on a night like this, the toilets being 100 meters or so behind me...no one would know. I would know, that is the thing. I zip up and return to Michael Meade and us, his 500.
Hard to know what to do when one wakes up in a fighting mood, and there's no one to fight with and not even a clear, distant opponent. The only answer is to roll out to the garden, park under the tomatoes and contemplate growth. They are downright arboreal, these vines. The tomatoes are appearing higher and higher up their branches. Doubtless this imitates certain trees, although why I believe this...well, that is uncertain. Nor is it clear why I retreat to the tomato vines in times of emptiness. I do feel a lingering pride in their growth. But since I did not anticipate the latter and have only achieved this explosive greenery by way of agricultural accident, what I really feel is a reassuring sense of wonder. While, at the same time, noting the autumnal nature of the enterprise. September is rolling along. The days are shortening. The tomato harvest, while not currently diminished, does not have all that long to go. Reminding me in my banal and existential way, that neither do I. Not that I can be all that certain about this premise either. I am already exhausted, and the day seems to have barely begun.
I don't know if it is denial and escapism, obtuseness or a general disregard for things trendy, but I have somehow never considered that anything about me could be considered 'post-traumatic.' Particularly stress or any disorder. An older, rather macho and all-American acquaintance of mine was holding forth on the topic of PTSD one day with the dismissive observation that this supposed malady had not troubled combatants in wars before Vietnam, what was the big deal...and so on. I assured him that the Great War's shell shock had to be the same thing, only likely worse. This conversation being the sort of distant and minor recollection that only comes back to me because...other things are coming back to me. And regardless of psychological classification, a fear, a really big fear, roots itself in the soul. In a way that makes eradication impossible and avoidance only temporary.
Where was I? Actually, out on the terrace, a rather attractive brick area revitalized by Marlou, my brother and sister-in-law, plus a small team of Colombians. The place is largely ignored, barely glimpsed as people make their way up my wheelchair ramp. The absence of a useful table and chairs has something to do with this. But there is more to it. Memories. Marlou spearheaded quite a number of improvements about the place as she began the process of dying. I believe it gave her some sense of the future, doing this sort of thing. And so the patio resonates with futility. But it need not. Thus, the works of man. They come and go, as do we, and it is still September, so why not lean back in one's tilting wheelchair, throw a canvas hat over the face in a gesture of dermatological caution, and enjoy?
When I found myself sprung from six months of hospitalization and living just a few streets off the Berkeley campus, it was midwinter, days were short and my stamina low. The latter must have picked up as I schlepped to and from classes. By the spring, now a graduate, I lived even closer to the university, there being no other apparent place to go. I found a room and rented it weekly in the Carlton Hotel, seedy in a genteel sort of way, and all of about 200 meters from my alma mater.
What I am trying to recall is my anxiety level. I think it began to increase round about then. Once courses were over, I was just another off-campus hanger on, and evenings were open and unstructured...Berkeley began to feel scary. I must have confided in a friend or two, for some discussion of this has stayed with me. Someone asking if I really believed that my assailants were still after me. No, no, I assured them. Doubtless trying to assure myself, but aware across these decades that no, no, 'they' were after me in some sense. I was afraid to be out at night, afraid enough to have broached the introvert's code of silence. Signaling to me now that this was no trivial fear.
After all, they had not been apprehended, my attackers. Which could only fuel paranoia and dark fantasy. But what was the operating fantasy? That I might find one of them, do my own sleuthing, and that my assailants somehow knew this and would get me first? A power fantasy, in other words, of the threatening witness left behind. In any case, the facts of the matter are gravely complicated by the reality of spring, 1969, in Berkeley, which turned into more violence in the streets, including shooting, this time from the police. And in a matter of months it was June, and I was out one night stoned in Islington, a volley of London police cars with blue lights rotating en route to some crime somewhere...a frightening, aggressive onrush of cops...and were they about to bust me?
And now? I can feel it at times, most times, acknowledging that the force waxes and wanes...a fear that if I don't keep my head down and my voice low, something horrible will happen. Not even that vague, that I will get attacked. I can trace earlier, pre-shooting manifestations of such fear in rage against the mother and Oedipal fear of the father. And before the attack I had dreams of being pursued by someone with a gun...both possible manifestations of the former. Impossible to sort it all out, not that it really needs to be sorted.
I feel vulnerable, physically vulnerable, in almost all settings. Perhaps my travels are counterphobic in origin, attempts to allay my essential, primal fear of the world. While doubtless a low-value target, I do offer high convenience, easy to both track and destroy. Sanding me an search of lunch and the more dubious streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin district. But also making me wary progressing along Portland Place, in Marylebone, central London...one of the safest parts of town. And yet.... Howard Jacobson sets a mugging there in his latest novel, which struck me as alarmingly vivid, almost realistic, the irony only briefly perceived before it evaporated in my own fear.
But to sort things out, and do it fairly, there is something in me that remains afraid of my own shadow. And are we speaking in the Jungian sense of the word? Oh, doubtless, but who knows the difference between real fears and phantom ones? And does it matter, or does one just take action? Maybe not. At this point in my life, awareness counts.
I don't know if it is denial and escapism, obtuseness or a general disregard for things trendy, but I have somehow never considered that anything about me could be considered 'post-traumatic.' Particularly stress or any disorder. An older, rather macho and all-American acquaintance of mine was holding forth on the topic of PTSD one day with the dismissive observation that this supposed malady had not troubled combatants in wars before Vietnam, what was the big deal...and so on. I assured him that the Great War's shell shock had to be the same thing, only likely worse. This conversation being the sort of distant and minor recollection that only comes back to me because...other things are coming back to me. And regardless of psychological classification, a fear, a really big fear, roots itself in the soul. In a way that makes eradication impossible and avoidance only temporary.
Where was I? Actually, out on the terrace, a rather attractive brick area revitalized by Marlou, my brother and sister-in-law, plus a small team of Colombians. The place is largely ignored, barely glimpsed as people make their way up my wheelchair ramp. The absence of a useful table and chairs has something to do with this. But there is more to it. Memories. Marlou spearheaded quite a number of improvements about the place as she began the process of dying. I believe it gave her some sense of the future, doing this sort of thing. And so the patio resonates with futility. But it need not. Thus, the works of man. They come and go, as do we, and it is still September, so why not lean back in one's tilting wheelchair, throw a canvas hat over the face in a gesture of dermatological caution, and enjoy?
When I found myself sprung from six months of hospitalization and living just a few streets off the Berkeley campus, it was midwinter, days were short and my stamina low. The latter must have picked up as I schlepped to and from classes. By the spring, now a graduate, I lived even closer to the university, there being no other apparent place to go. I found a room and rented it weekly in the Carlton Hotel, seedy in a genteel sort of way, and all of about 200 meters from my alma mater.
What I am trying to recall is my anxiety level. I think it began to increase round about then. Once courses were over, I was just another off-campus hanger on, and evenings were open and unstructured...Berkeley began to feel scary. I must have confided in a friend or two, for some discussion of this has stayed with me. Someone asking if I really believed that my assailants were still after me. No, no, I assured them. Doubtless trying to assure myself, but aware across these decades that no, no, 'they' were after me in some sense. I was afraid to be out at night, afraid enough to have broached the introvert's code of silence. Signaling to me now that this was no trivial fear.
After all, they had not been apprehended, my attackers. Which could only fuel paranoia and dark fantasy. But what was the operating fantasy? That I might find one of them, do my own sleuthing, and that my assailants somehow knew this and would get me first? A power fantasy, in other words, of the threatening witness left behind. In any case, the facts of the matter are gravely complicated by the reality of spring, 1969, in Berkeley, which turned into more violence in the streets, including shooting, this time from the police. And in a matter of months it was June, and I was out one night stoned in Islington, a volley of London police cars with blue lights rotating en route to some crime somewhere...a frightening, aggressive onrush of cops...and were they about to bust me?
And now? I can feel it at times, most times, acknowledging that the force waxes and wanes...a fear that if I don't keep my head down and my voice low, something horrible will happen. Not even that vague, that I will get attacked. I can trace earlier, pre-shooting manifestations of such fear in rage against the mother and Oedipal fear of the father. And before the attack I had dreams of being pursued by someone with a gun...both possible manifestations of the former. Impossible to sort it all out, not that it really needs to be sorted.
I feel vulnerable, physically vulnerable, in almost all settings. Perhaps my travels are counterphobic in origin, attempts to allay my essential, primal fear of the world. While doubtless a low-value target, I do offer high convenience, easy to both track and destroy. Sanding me an search of lunch and the more dubious streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin district. But also making me wary progressing along Portland Place, in Marylebone, central London...one of the safest parts of town. And yet.... Howard Jacobson sets a mugging there in his latest novel, which struck me as alarmingly vivid, almost realistic, the irony only briefly perceived before it evaporated in my own fear.
But to sort things out, and do it fairly, there is something in me that remains afraid of my own shadow. And are we speaking in the Jungian sense of the word? Oh, doubtless, but who knows the difference between real fears and phantom ones? And does it matter, or does one just take action? Maybe not. At this point in my life, awareness counts.
My disregard for and distrust of technical language seems so deeply rooted in my past that the matter seems incurable. Still, even the middle-aged mind has to open occasionally. So damned if it didn't come to me, tilted back in my wheelchair in the midst of a morning muse upon my current state of anxiety. That is to say, things came into focus. The light bouncing off my retina finally wound its way through the right cells of my brain, producing a sort of harmony between, if nothing else, words and meaning.
Indeterminate, the word assigned to the class of tomatoes I was viewing, had proven itself. No, this was not the Secretary of Defense from my late adolescence promising to 'escalate' matters military into the splattered brains and dismembered torsos of millions of constituents of Haiphong and elsewhere.... Nor was it my former electronics clients aiming words like 'virtual' at the very edge of the target zone of meaning. No, there is a reason why they call them 'indeterminate tomatoes.' It is because their growth cannot be determined. One can match them, this year's crop of cherry tomatoes with last year's, seeds from the former generating the latter. But one cannot match their height. That being indeterminate. Yes, thanks to the aforementioned compost, climate change, the absence of a Republican in the White House, or some other unknowable factor, my current crop of cherry tomatoes is reeling under its own 12 foot height.
The real message linking directly to the one arising from the waters of Monterey Bay the day Marlou's ashes sank in one direction, dolphins and everything alive and aquatic rising in the other. Life, unstoppable, inexplicable and, yes, indeterminate.
A good reminder in a time of fear. The latter arising from indeterminate sources., Although this is not quite accurate. Indeterminate timing would be closer to the mark. For some reason the most essential fears springing from my injury and its origins...well, they are with me. They seemed to drop in uninvited last week in Inverness (California). And have stayed around like vagrants crashing in an unlocked house. My mind being an attractive squat for reasons that are not quite clear. After all, there is a reason why one calls it the past. Except one that has that I-recall-it-as-though-it-were-yesterday vividness of memory seared into place by emotion. More permanent than a good tattoo.
I even recall the weary mindlessness of the moments before, an idle thought of knocking on a neighbor's door, such were the midnight habits of undergraduates...then changing my mind, probably wise for the couple in question, mortally unwise for me, of course. Rattling through a few Spanish verb endings as the cross street approached, the one I did not cross. And the way three black kids stepped off a distant curb, crossed the street, headed toward me. And, no, I didn't have any spare change...womp, the puzzling and disorienting feel of getting slugged in the mouth...and the proud leer of the young man producing the most American power object...the shot, and why was everything descending? And then.
I do recall, months, maybe almost one year afterwards, still having the fear that 'they' were after me. Friends were puzzled. I was puzzled. Too bad there wasn't someone to discuss this puzzling matter with, although the matter would have demanded vast wisdom. Not to mention confidence, even chutzpah on the part of any listener. So there we were. And here we are...the essentials remarkably unchanged. At least the fear unchanged...and how such a thing can be unchanged after 43 years is downright indeterminate. Nothing can get that old and out of hand, not even tomatoes...which, by the way, have grown past their stakes, supported now by unseen, possibly supernatural forces. But still growing.
And if it is any consolation, and frankly, it isn't much, so am I. That is the only thing that can be said to justify my current fearfulness, sleeplessness and mind-boggling preoccupation with events many decades old. Acknowledging the very visible effects. The worsening effects. But I will admit that if I can stick with...whatever it is, something will become clearer. And so what lies ahead but, eventually...as the sleeplessness transitions...a wondrously revealing nightmare or two? I can't wait.
Meanwhile, one stays alert. Life is going on all around. And some of it comes at me in ways that demand appreciation, even gratitude. In the local supermarket one of the young men who stock the shelves and spray the vegetables looked, well, thoughtful. So I must have said something, asked how things were going, what he was up to. This happened either long enough ago, for the details to have blurred, or fairly recently and the memory is now muddled by my couple of weeks of insomnia. Whatever, there he was just yesterday, stacking peaches and stopping me to provide an update on his life. How old is he? Late 20s, early 30s? In any case, yesterday I was feeling somewhat frayed when he began telling me that it had come to him that his depression was really joy trying to burst through. Now, he assured me, he was a happy person. I took this in, struggling to remember if I needed another avocado, desperate to get away...aware that especially here, in this America Of the Lonely, I had to do my best to listen. I did so, giving it a good shot. He was a happy person, he was saying, while I was mentally noting the suicide prevention hotline in this area. Great, I said. Adding, somehow, for I had found a way to extend this interaction in the general direction of romaine lettuce, watching as he presented this head and that head, then opening a plastic bag for me. Well, depression, I assured him, is part of life. Good luck, I added. Being both the least and the most I could do at that particular moment. We are our brother's keeper, and this is undeniable, but not every keeper is on shift at every moment...and some caffeine would not hurt matters. Off to Peets.
But not for long, the appointment with the wheelchair repair guy appearing like a genie in my cappuccino foam. Homeward. Only to find that the expert, the true wheelchair mechanic, was off on some other emergency and here was his assistant. Michael. A nice guy, but no expert. And what I need, always need, is expertise. For that is what is required in a disabled life. A superior level of knowledge, not to mention caution, and certain inherent skills. All right. Michael. I would make the best of it. Let us start with the folding power wheelchair. Singularly unilluminating, this was, Michael's entire point being that the thing takes strength. A very unsatisfactory, not to mention inelegant, finding. He snapped the wheelchair open, flipped the battery tray into place, clicked the rubber-clad red connectors together. Force being the key to all of these things apparently. The very thing I cannot supply, and really can't even describe to others who will assemble this thing for me.
We had a discussion of batteries and their charging. He adjusted an armrest. I adjusted my attitude, trying to get beyond impatience and exhaustion to...let the young man know I appreciated whenever he had to offer. While I dealt with matters on my desk and, business concluded, said goodbye to Michael...who asked about the sketch on my computer screen. A book cover, I told him. Whose...being the next question and the answer, mine, sparking an urgent request for a copy. Which also made my head wobble, for what was there to gain by such a request? No one gives gratuities in these wheelchair-repair transactions, for example. And here he was, writing his name on his boss's business card. Please let him know. He would buy one for his mother.
Why not? Or, better, why? Ours is not.... Reasoning why being fruitless, being grateful much more reliable. And grateful for what? For being able to connect with people across generation and class, let us say. Which when I think about it is closely related to...in this case, fear. The same thing that keeps me awake at night keeps me awake during the day. Even awake in the right ways. Good to make connections. And by the way, I asked Michael, can you crank up the speed on my wheelchair? Turns out that he needs a portable programming device, but sure, he said, next time he's in Menlo Park. Good news, for if I can't sleep, at least I can speed.
Indeterminate, the word assigned to the class of tomatoes I was viewing, had proven itself. No, this was not the Secretary of Defense from my late adolescence promising to 'escalate' matters military into the splattered brains and dismembered torsos of millions of constituents of Haiphong and elsewhere.... Nor was it my former electronics clients aiming words like 'virtual' at the very edge of the target zone of meaning. No, there is a reason why they call them 'indeterminate tomatoes.' It is because their growth cannot be determined. One can match them, this year's crop of cherry tomatoes with last year's, seeds from the former generating the latter. But one cannot match their height. That being indeterminate. Yes, thanks to the aforementioned compost, climate change, the absence of a Republican in the White House, or some other unknowable factor, my current crop of cherry tomatoes is reeling under its own 12 foot height.
The real message linking directly to the one arising from the waters of Monterey Bay the day Marlou's ashes sank in one direction, dolphins and everything alive and aquatic rising in the other. Life, unstoppable, inexplicable and, yes, indeterminate.
A good reminder in a time of fear. The latter arising from indeterminate sources., Although this is not quite accurate. Indeterminate timing would be closer to the mark. For some reason the most essential fears springing from my injury and its origins...well, they are with me. They seemed to drop in uninvited last week in Inverness (California). And have stayed around like vagrants crashing in an unlocked house. My mind being an attractive squat for reasons that are not quite clear. After all, there is a reason why one calls it the past. Except one that has that I-recall-it-as-though-it-were-yesterday vividness of memory seared into place by emotion. More permanent than a good tattoo.
I even recall the weary mindlessness of the moments before, an idle thought of knocking on a neighbor's door, such were the midnight habits of undergraduates...then changing my mind, probably wise for the couple in question, mortally unwise for me, of course. Rattling through a few Spanish verb endings as the cross street approached, the one I did not cross. And the way three black kids stepped off a distant curb, crossed the street, headed toward me. And, no, I didn't have any spare change...womp, the puzzling and disorienting feel of getting slugged in the mouth...and the proud leer of the young man producing the most American power object...the shot, and why was everything descending? And then.
I do recall, months, maybe almost one year afterwards, still having the fear that 'they' were after me. Friends were puzzled. I was puzzled. Too bad there wasn't someone to discuss this puzzling matter with, although the matter would have demanded vast wisdom. Not to mention confidence, even chutzpah on the part of any listener. So there we were. And here we are...the essentials remarkably unchanged. At least the fear unchanged...and how such a thing can be unchanged after 43 years is downright indeterminate. Nothing can get that old and out of hand, not even tomatoes...which, by the way, have grown past their stakes, supported now by unseen, possibly supernatural forces. But still growing.
And if it is any consolation, and frankly, it isn't much, so am I. That is the only thing that can be said to justify my current fearfulness, sleeplessness and mind-boggling preoccupation with events many decades old. Acknowledging the very visible effects. The worsening effects. But I will admit that if I can stick with...whatever it is, something will become clearer. And so what lies ahead but, eventually...as the sleeplessness transitions...a wondrously revealing nightmare or two? I can't wait.
Meanwhile, one stays alert. Life is going on all around. And some of it comes at me in ways that demand appreciation, even gratitude. In the local supermarket one of the young men who stock the shelves and spray the vegetables looked, well, thoughtful. So I must have said something, asked how things were going, what he was up to. This happened either long enough ago, for the details to have blurred, or fairly recently and the memory is now muddled by my couple of weeks of insomnia. Whatever, there he was just yesterday, stacking peaches and stopping me to provide an update on his life. How old is he? Late 20s, early 30s? In any case, yesterday I was feeling somewhat frayed when he began telling me that it had come to him that his depression was really joy trying to burst through. Now, he assured me, he was a happy person. I took this in, struggling to remember if I needed another avocado, desperate to get away...aware that especially here, in this America Of the Lonely, I had to do my best to listen. I did so, giving it a good shot. He was a happy person, he was saying, while I was mentally noting the suicide prevention hotline in this area. Great, I said. Adding, somehow, for I had found a way to extend this interaction in the general direction of romaine lettuce, watching as he presented this head and that head, then opening a plastic bag for me. Well, depression, I assured him, is part of life. Good luck, I added. Being both the least and the most I could do at that particular moment. We are our brother's keeper, and this is undeniable, but not every keeper is on shift at every moment...and some caffeine would not hurt matters. Off to Peets.
But not for long, the appointment with the wheelchair repair guy appearing like a genie in my cappuccino foam. Homeward. Only to find that the expert, the true wheelchair mechanic, was off on some other emergency and here was his assistant. Michael. A nice guy, but no expert. And what I need, always need, is expertise. For that is what is required in a disabled life. A superior level of knowledge, not to mention caution, and certain inherent skills. All right. Michael. I would make the best of it. Let us start with the folding power wheelchair. Singularly unilluminating, this was, Michael's entire point being that the thing takes strength. A very unsatisfactory, not to mention inelegant, finding. He snapped the wheelchair open, flipped the battery tray into place, clicked the rubber-clad red connectors together. Force being the key to all of these things apparently. The very thing I cannot supply, and really can't even describe to others who will assemble this thing for me.
We had a discussion of batteries and their charging. He adjusted an armrest. I adjusted my attitude, trying to get beyond impatience and exhaustion to...let the young man know I appreciated whenever he had to offer. While I dealt with matters on my desk and, business concluded, said goodbye to Michael...who asked about the sketch on my computer screen. A book cover, I told him. Whose...being the next question and the answer, mine, sparking an urgent request for a copy. Which also made my head wobble, for what was there to gain by such a request? No one gives gratuities in these wheelchair-repair transactions, for example. And here he was, writing his name on his boss's business card. Please let him know. He would buy one for his mother.
Why not? Or, better, why? Ours is not.... Reasoning why being fruitless, being grateful much more reliable. And grateful for what? For being able to connect with people across generation and class, let us say. Which when I think about it is closely related to...in this case, fear. The same thing that keeps me awake at night keeps me awake during the day. Even awake in the right ways. Good to make connections. And by the way, I asked Michael, can you crank up the speed on my wheelchair? Turns out that he needs a portable programming device, but sure, he said, next time he's in Menlo Park. Good news, for if I can't sleep, at least I can speed.
