august '77

Elvis is in rehearsal for his last show,

polishing the toilet seat

for an audience of one;

the king can see that final curtain

rising through the mist

of his deep dried fame,

singing songs to himself

no one will purchase,

gummy through the cobwebs

of pharmaceutical sadness.

--

My father is in rehearsal for his last sale,

dampening the sofa cushions

for an audience of us;

my dad can see that final customer,

yellow through the mist

of cirrhosis fever,

speaking words to himself

no one will fathom

as they drown into a jigger

of bourbon madness.

--

The king and my pops

never made it to September,

dissolving into nothing

in the flush of the Summer of Sam.

Leonard

Leonard was a hefty sort and a sad sack - the only overweight member of my Dad's rum buddies (or more correctly, whiskey chums). He was trapped in a miserable but inexplicably lasting marriage to the rarely seen "Bubbles", a hoity-toity gasbag forever berating him for being who he was: a falling-down chronic alcoholic prone to balling his eyes out at the drop of a hat.

But Leonard had his uses, at least to Dad and his pals: he had a vehicle, a truck. That was a valuable commodity to this crew, most of whom no longer had ready access to such devices (wrecked, repo'd, sold for liquor money; they all had a story).

Leonard's truck was a means to get to the state store or the bars, and was essential to his continuing inclusion in this band of boozers, since he rarely had any duckets to kick in for beverages. (Bubbles came from money and held tight to the family purse strings. She had long since put the kibosh on doling any out to her lush of a husband and he had to settle for scraps or whatever he could steal from the cookie jar when her back was turned.)

Leonard had mad skills behind the wheel as he weaved down the road bouncing from curb to curb, emphasis on mad. Terrifying, in fact. As one of the few people to ride with him sober in those days, my survival attests to his mastery of the art of lubricated locomotion. (I was 8, 9, 10 years old and wasn't prone to knocking back shots at 9am on a sunny August Tuesday like the others along for the ride in this deathtrap.) Leonard had a six sense when navigating to the state store (the truck pretty much drove itself).

His visits would start with a knock on the door. He'd plop down on the couch, forcing Dad to sit upright from his usual semi-horizontal position. Leonard would start with a bit of small talk, all the while licking his lips and shooting glances plaintively toward the corner where the old man kept his bottle. Medicine for the sick. If the bottle was empty, he would suggest a road trip and if it wasn't, he'd suggest a glass (I think he used a glass but my memories are kind of foggy; Dad usually didn't bother at this point). Either way, soon would be the booze a-flowin' and the tears would surely follow. Bubbles doesn't understand, woah-is-me, yada-yada.

Watching that fat drunk waddle-stagger to our bathroom after knocking back a bottle with Dad was a treat. He'd have done Chevy Chase and Dick Van Dyke proud with his prat-fall antics, though perhaps Chris Farley would be a more apt comparison. Leonard'd start out by invariably catching his shoe on the braided living room rug, nearly doing a header into the dining room. Next, he sluggishly danced with a leg raised in an attempt not to step on the tail of my sleeping dog Snooks (a failed attempt on several occasions I was present for - the damn dog didn't learn). Once past the dog for good or ill, Leonard would grasp for the dining room table and chairs to slow his stride lest the momentum tumble him into our 'china' cabinet. Safely through the worst of this journey, he'd stagger out into the hallway near the toilet, on two occasions tripping over the cord that coiled out from under the telephone table there, falling back on his ass.

Only once did Leonard alter his route to the can and he paid dearly for this deviation. For some reason on this one trip, he made the journey via our kitchen rather than directly through the dining room. Bad move. He was confused by this wrong turn, puzzled by the sight of a fridge where the hallway phone table should be. In a daze and about to topple over, Leonard made the mistake of using the stove for leverage and placed his hand firmly on a lit burner (I was getting ready to make coffee). You never heard such a banshee cry! It caused Snooks to hightail it out of the living room to safety under my parent's bed. I'm surprised Leonard ever went to the bathroom again in our house. Certainly he avoided the kitchen. And that's Leonard. Glad ya got to know him.

Toilet of Beauty

My father grows old in the toilet,

a desolate room

with the air thick as mold.

----

He works life there in perpetual sweat,

a captain of industry

building factories of sick.

----

Little bits of wonder found in claustrophobic vistas

often linger in his melancholy,

kissing the linoleum.

----

The mirror blissfully out of reach,

my father hugs his friend,

wrapping his arms 'round the cold white wet.

----

Yes, my father grows old in the toilet

amidst his softly sour splatter,

the holy cracking plaster,

and half finished caulking consecrating his divine.

----

So many contemplations,

so many toilets of my own

since a childhood spent listening to my father pray.

The eternally pungent confessional,

with a compassion beyond religion,

kneeling, catharsis, release ...

Until a trembling tug of the handle

flushes the misery for a moment from his mind.

And from mine.

Memorial Sap

Memorial tree sap pastes my car

until the garden hose and chamois sponge it clean.

If only memories could be vanquished

with a turn of the spicket, a touch of elbow grease.

Father bleeds into my mind's eye,

all indigo camel, jaundiced bottom shelf;

Mother's wheels grinding behind him,

all stink-eye pasty, acid tongued whiplash.

People say I have her nose and self pity;

I have his eyes and liver.

The spitting image, but it matters little.

Dissolving ghostly bygones

into the present tense,

I breath a sigh of relief half restrained

and go about my day,

these remembrances pasted still to my tomorrows.

The Neighborhood Handyman

My Dad lay passed out in a neighbor's upstairs bathroom in the tub. His toolbox had been propped open next to him, a half empty bottle of whiskey poking up among the pipe wrenches and other equipment in it. I stood over him, frozen. What should I do? Run down the stairs and out the front door, pretending I never came back? Try and wake him up? This latter move might just be worse if he's as in the bag as his slobbering snore indicates. The choice was made then: I ran.

And thus ended my Dad's very short career comeback as the neighborhood handyman. But it all started a month or so earlier. Well, not exactly. Really it had been ongoing for many years.

Dad had steadily become unemployable to the regular nine-to-five rank and file over the years leading up to the tub incident. It wasn't all that big a town we lived in and he managed to drink his way into and then back out of pretty much all the companies that needed a plumbing supply salesman.

Even the alcoholics among Dad's sundry bosses had gradually thrown in the towel with him after a few dances. And by the second or third generation of Dad's career transitions, a high percentage of his hiring managers were raging alcoholics (that's bound to happen when you go job hunting primarily from the vantage point of a bar stool). Those whose boozing buddy loyalty instincts outweighed their fiduciary responsibilities eventually either drank themselves to death or at least out of any positions of influence that could protect Dad's ass from the boot.

Dad drifted into odd jobs and seasonal work after his chosen profession up and ran from him. The only one of these part time jobs I remember distinctly was his stint as a 'peace officer' with Northwest Protection Service (I can still picture his 'police' jacket with company logo and fake badge hanging up in the hall closet).

He got minimum wage to sit in a chair overnight next to the outdoor summer sale merchandise racked up in front of Kmart. There was enough shit that I guess it was cheaper to hire a guard than to haul it in and out of the store each day.

I'm not sure what Dad could have done had criminal types decided they wanted to make off with the inventory (it's not like he had a weapon; not even a club or mace). I guess he could have taken his lit cigarette, dropped it into his ever-present bottle of whiskey, and heaved it after the would-be thieves, Molotov Cocktail style. (By day, mild mannered couch-bound lush. But when night arrives, he is transformed into Whiskey Man: crime fighting Northwest protector of truth, justice and the American swing set.)

Regardless, Dad sat vigilant guard over bicycles, patio furniture and lawn mowers. Lt. Columbo, Sgt. Friday, One Adam-12, Serpico. The one incorruptible cop. Dum Da Dum Dum. That's my Dad! Couldn't wait for career day at school!

The truth is, I loved Dad's Northwest Protection job more than all the others, simply because he often brought his work home with him in the morning in the form of pilfered toys for me. I was on the receiving end of a pitch-n-catch trampoline-style baseball backstop along with a number of other items we otherwise couldn't have afforded. He was a fountain of ill-gotten gifts all around for the family during this summertime blue-light sentry duty. Likely the store would have suffered fewer loses had they simply left the stuff unguarded.

But that kind of work wouldn't pay the bills and didn't last long in any event; he needed something steadier. One of our neighbors, Austin, was a commercial artist and he volunteered to draft up some brochures hailing the "Return of the Neighborhood Handyman" in an attempt at a career revitalization for the old man. It was very nice of Austin and I really wish I had kept a few of those pamphlets around as a keepsake.

Austin's kids and I distributed these handyman leaflets like newspapers to doorsteps all around our neighborhood. The picture on the cover was a caricature of Dad, a tall lanky fellow, staggering under the weight of an overflowing tool belt filled with screwdrivers, tape measures, pipe wrenches, saws, etc. It was a bit like the picture on the left here.

Austin should have sketched in a couple of fifths of booze tucked safely away in Dad's pockets on the front of those pamphlets if he had adhered more strictly to the adage 'truth in advertising.' Whiskey topped Dad's list of the most essential tools of his trade and it didn't even make the cover! Sadly, he'd prove that out in this failed attempt as an independent business man, much to my embarrassment and his continued economic decline. Which brings us back to where we started. The tub. Almost.

The first customer who came calling was a homeowner several blocks north of us, a person we didn't know who had nonetheless been taken by the unique advertisement placed on his doorstep. The guy wasn't disappointed: Dad fixed their leaky faucet quickly and efficiently, with yours truly by his side as faithful assistant. (It was summer and this eight year old was either bored or goaded into servitude, I honestly don't remember which.)

The second customer was not so fortunate. These were neighbors we were friendly with, just around the corner. I knew the kids there, as did my sister. Theirs was a big house, they were fairly well off as I recall (the father was a physician). They had a complex job for the old man, something related to the installation of all new fixtures in one of the upstairs bathrooms. It was monotonous work and I wandered off to do kid stuff after watching Dad for a bit.

That was a mistake.

When I came back to the neighbor house a few hours later to see how Dad was progressing, well ... he was tubthumping, but I already went over that. And then I ran. I'm not sure if the neighbors stumbled upon Dad snoring among the rubber duckies or if he finally came to and managed to slither away sight unseen. I do know that he never went back to the neighbor house to finish and never received any payment from them for services rendered prior to his siesta. The argument that ensued between Mom and Dad made it clear that no check would be forthcoming, and the phone never rang for his handyman talents from that point forward.

I felt guilty a long time afterward for leaving Dad to his own devices. On the off-chance I forgot, Mom made sure to remind me loud and often. I had left my post. That's why he got shitfaced and screwed everything up. Makes sense.

Thus became the Exile of the Neighborhood Handyman. A one hit wonder. We hardly knew ye

Our Living Room Cries, Her Coffee Cup Bleeds

I was fixated as a kid on a red and white checkered coffee mug, a cup that would never know the taste of java; in fact, it knew only wine, woman, and song. The wine was cheap, the woman my mother and the song metaphorical. Think Beach Boys 'In My Room,' moved to the front of the house with the atmosphere of Leonard Cohen's 'Dress Rehearsal Rag.' Our living room was an irony, its name an oxymoron.

This mug held court on the TV tray, itself acting as end table to the living room love seat. A white-handled prince among the ashtray, matches and cigarette butts scattered like peasants around it, this ceramic monstrosity was perhaps the favorite among my mom's assemblage of accouterments. It was a toss-up between that cup and her smokes, but I think the balance was tipped when the cup was full. And full it was, often - wounded, in fact, by the beverage it contained. A stained bloody crimson interior, ravaged by Ernest and Julio Gallo's Tavola Red, courtesy of the gallon jug ever present on the floor beneath her feet.

My mom was invariably perched in a regal green robe on her throne, the leftmost cushion of that filthy love seat. Across the muted colors of her homemade braided living room rug, Dad lay passed out on the larger couch along the wall behind the shuttered front windows. His beverage of choice - whiskey, brown bagged - stood steadfast in the corner within reaching distance, no mug required.


That rug - God I hated the thing. Like Edward Sissorhands, it wasn't finished. Ever. Started from thrift store coats by Mom in her 30s, the endings lay unraveled, half hidden in the corner of the room, itself a metaphor for the people who paced on the twisted fabric.

And through the hazy chain smoked fog of Alpine Camel nicotine, the cheap Van Gogh Sunflowers print looked down upon us from its vantage point high up on the green painted stucco wall across from Dad.

I usually squatted by the heater vent below Vincent's flowers, laser focused on the television.

Mom would chain smoke, drink and watch, sometimes she would cry. Always she would read. Dad would drink, smoke and drool. And throw up into his mixing bowl; thank God for Tupperware and other small favors. Dad would sit up occasionally, unsteadily. And drink. Often this required a bit of help, during the shakier times. Wrapping a bath towel around his neck and tied to the wrist of his drinking arm, he'd pull on the terrycloth with his steadier hand and guide the bottle to his mouth, like a seasoned crane operator.

Turn up the volume on the TV! Did I hear that? Probably not - it was just my sensibilities imploring me to drown out the madness. I would spring from my perch over to the console set in the corner and crank the volume up to satisfy my sanity. In time, though, no sound could silence the sickness, and no flickering image could mask the claustrophobia of the room. Television, the thing which allowed me to escape the reality of that place, for the longest time could only be found in its midst, that room. Eventually I was able to watch my diversion for short periods in the local hospital waiting area a couple of blocks up the street. But you couldn't loiter around there for any extended length of time.

More often, when my psyche and stomach couldn't take another hit, I'd go to my room and read (Manchild in the Promised Land, Invisible Man, Outsiders, Great Gatsby, On The Road) or listen (Beatles, Presley, Cohen, Stones, Joel, Springsteen later Clash, Costello, Parker, Ramones). I became obsessed with all things music - albums, eight tracks and Creem magazine fed my addiction. And I'd put my thoughts to paper on my little typewriter. Thoughts and paper lost to time and trash.

Or I'd leave - run, outside - somewhere, anywhere, finally nowhere.

That room.  It followed me everywhere, however much I tried to outrun it.  I hid in places and circumstances I'm still trying to shake, but whenever I paused to turn around, there it was.  It's with me still, that room (that house) - out of sight, but never out of my raging mind's eye. That room. That robe, those books, that cup. The smoke, those bottles, that bowl, the vomit. Those people, melted into the furniture - my family, smoldering.

The Beatles Help! brings to mind my family more than any other music - I bought the album on August 11th, 1977 and found out my Dad had died of Cirrhosis later that day, so each of the songs invoke memories of the event. I remember being so psyched about getting my hands on that record, never mind that it was 12 years old at that point. For me the Beatles were a relatively new discovery in the mid-70s - only three or four years into my obsession - and I was gobbling up the shit. Hearing the news about Dad had an effect on me I wasn't expecting: overwhelming sadness, pain. I had been braced for it and was anticipating relief; it was a surprise. I lost myself in my room that day and played Help! over and over and over.

However, it's Rubber Soul that has remained my favorite fab four album. In My Life.  Indeed.

Bob and Ruth

Bob Douglas was all chest high plaid pants, wild eyes and eager ears, working the police-fire scanner knobs and his telephone dial with savage efficiency in the darkened room at the back of his house. This was his war room, his command center. The Information Station.

Hey, down there at 1310 Hoyt! Get ready for the fire truck! You, up there at 706 Grand! The police cruiser's coming your way! Yo, over there at 925 Rockefeller! Domestic Squabble just down your alley at 918 Wetmore!

He was wired into it all, hooked into the information grid of nineteen hundred and seventy. Everett, Washington's emergency dispatch signals surfing across his brainwaves, his thoughts tuned into their frequencies. Forever clearing his throat of the perpetual phlegm of ignorance, he thirsted for the knowledge that these crises and misdemeanors washed down into him. But it wasn't enough to obtain the wisdom, he was compelled to impart it onto others. And not gently either - no, this education was delivered to his friends and neighbors with a vicious ruthlessness. Mr. Douglas, you see, was a man both supremely impatient and utterly mad. He suffered neither fools nor the rational gladly.

A call would come over the scanner and his shock of curly hair shot straight up, his hairy ears throbbing with the details of this latest catastrophe. Incessantly tuning the signal to clear the noise from the necessary, Bob would focus, waiting - until, Bam! He'd catch wind of a juicy one through the static and hone in on the location. A picture would form in his mind's eye as he zoomed in for a close up. His gnarled fingers would then start clawing down the phone book white pages, mapping the dispatch address to a neighborhood and the 'hood to his acquaintances, however vague the connection. Match! Yes! Now he would make with the telephone dial.

Ring, ring.

Ignorant Acquaintance: Hello?

Bob: Ummmrrgghhh. Hey, down there at 1215 Colby, you got a heart attack one block down, 1314 Wetmore. Ummmeegghh.

Click.

With that said, Bob would abruptly hang up. He needed no reply from his pupils and had no time for idle chit-chat. They didn't even have names to him, his friends; he referred to them only by their addresses.  There was serious work to do, removing the blinders from the beleaguered citizens of this jerk-water town. How little they knew of these moments of consequence taking place right under their noses! But Bob, he knew. Strokes, heart attacks, burglaries, peeping toms. Bob had total coverage. He was the master of this knowledge. The great and powerful Oz!

This man was a god to me growing up, a giant. Fueled by Antabuse and aggravation, he was nothing so much as a raw nerve personified. All work and no play was not in Bob's vocabulary, though the definition of 'play' is subjective. For instance, he 'played' his long-suffering dog Wolfy into a quivering nervous wreck until the poor thing could take no more, finally succumbing to a fatal heart attack. Not satisfied with simply schooling his own pet, he worked the neighborhood animals into frenetic basket cases as well (they were unable to sleep for days after one of his visits). But unlike Wolfy, at least the neighbor doggies had times of relief when 'uncle' Bob went home. None of these unfortunate side effects were intentional, of course. Mr. Douglas was simply being Mr. Douglas. Wass a gooodd dooggg?!? yessyouare, yessyouare, wass a good dog!?!?! eh? eh?!?!? Was a good dog!?!?! Ehh, ehh, ehh!! On and on and on, he'd go. Bob would have them chase their tails, tug on rags, run down Frisbees, play chop sticks on the piano, clean his garage, mainline meth, and tear their own tongues out. And that was for starters. Waasss a goood doogggie!?!? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Errrmmmdddhh!!

This was simply Bob's way.

His bright plaid pants weaving to and fro, manic voice booming and the constant gurgling of phlegm in his throat, Bob just couldn't stop, had no sense of boundaries or limits. Luckily he was clearing his throat so much of the time that you couldn't make out most of his psycho-babble. His affliction was Turrets Syndrome melded with an obsessive-compulsive disorder and manic tendencies all rolled into one fifty-something package. Or was he sixty-something? It doesn't matter: he was ageless, beyond time.

Bob would also visit upon children what he inflicted on the town's canine population. I cowered in terror upon his arrival at our doorstep. As I said, he was a god to me. Sort of like Loki, the Norse God of Mischief. Or Satan.

Bob stopped drinking years before I knew him, though it took a few trips through treatment before the "cure" took hold. His regiment of Antabuse and terminal psychosis remained the only vestige of a drunkard's past. I have no idea why as a child I was cognizant of his pharmaceutical intake, probably because my parents kept no secrets, as long as they weren't theirs. As though taking Antabuse was a scandalous thing, especially when compared to the unrestrained active alcoholism my folks reveled in.

I had always assumed that Bob and my Dad had been drinking buddies and that was how our families became friends. Those two may well have been boozing pals at some point; however, Mr. Douglas sold insurance back in the day - before he retired to his role as town crier - and that was how our families originally came together. (We had insurance?!?) A television commercial come to life with your broker as best buddy and trusted adviser. His friendship, though, was more akin to Jim Carey's Chip Douglas in The Cable Guy: you'd have to pry your relationship with him from his cold, dead hands. He mated for life in this regard.

Speaking of mating, Bob was not alone. He came as a package deal, wrapped up in a bow with his stubby chubby swinging 60s red headed whack job misses, Ruth. Ruth had the unfortunate habit of wearing skirts sans undergarments on occasion, but was not blessed with the body of Sharon Stone, nor was she of an age - she was somewhere north of fifty - when that behavior might have been viewed in a different light (a black light was too luminous for her particular horrors).

Mrs. D would readily cross and uncross her legs with a silly, knowing smirk as she visited with our folks making gabby small talk, always sounding and acting to me like Sue Ann Nivens from the Mary Tyler Moore show come to life with a dye job. I'd see red and go blind. The carpet matched the drapes, though neither of any shade nature could have conjured up. What nightmares these visuals would give me! ("Join me for a crimson bath! Red-dye #5 mixes well with Mr. Bubbles! Come on in, the water is fine!")

Errhhhhhh.

My Mom - also a Ruth - cut Mrs. Douglas's hair regularly, though she had no training or 'natural' talent in the tonsorial arts that I'm aware of (certainly the results bared that out). This ritual would take place in our kitchen, the two ladies enjoying a beer or two while my Mom took the scissors to that red fright wig atop Mrs. D's head. I had my first taste of the suds in this setting, though I'm not sure why I was offered (I couldn't place my age, maybe 10?). A first initiation into the alcoholic profession my parents saw as the family calling. I was strangely drawn to watching this beauty parlor ballet unfold, my Mom hacking at Ruth D's head while they both got toasted. I shutter when I think about this today. Now that I am thinking of it, my Mom's services to Ruth also included regular dye jobs (though they were, to my knowledge, all on the "up and up").

Bob and Ruth spawned one child, Lee. An odd kid who became a cop, he was by some accounts a sexual deviant. The girls in the neighborhood all dreaded Lee's approaching swagger, as he put his moves on them in his best 70s Disco Stu style.

Nature, nurture - Lee had both going against him and probably didn't stand much of a chance. But at least Father Douglas could follow his son's adventures from the comfort of his back room courtesy of the trusty police scanner. Sometimes his son would be dispatched, and sometimes his son would be dispatched upon. Sort of a one-man game of cops and robbers (or cops and flashers, to be more precise). Who would Bob call during these episodes? Himself? But the line's forever busy! I imagine that after episodes such as this, a confusion of sorts must have hung for a time over Bob's Rear Window lifestyle.

So these are my slanderous memories of just a couple of characters from my childhood.

An introduction. They will return. They were central to my upbringing in many ways.

It takes a village. Indeed.

[Postscript: my sister recalls once, back in the days when Bob had been drinking, he accidentally flushed his false teeth down the toilet. The mental picture of that event and the subsequent dental panic - Did they result in a clog? My dad was a handyman, did he break into the sewage pipes to retrieve the choppers? - was strong enough to me that I felt I needed to share.

My sister also recalled for me Bob's love of the pornographic (which explains his wife Ruth). For example, Bob liked to keep his extensive collection of Playboys piled high in plain view on top of his living room coffee table, in order to give all visitors the chance to peruse the interesting articles. He often left the mags open turned to the "article" spread. He went so far as to send my then teenage sister a fold out of a playmate pic because he thought it looked like her. He ratcheted up creepiness several notches in his day, claiming the word as his own. ]

Camelot on Hewitt

I'm a bit slow.

Slow to learn, to latch onto new ways of doing things. And slow to come to grips with unpleasant realities. Which makes me a notorious procrastinator with a see-no-evil set of blinders on my psyche that you had better not fuck with.

I have, I think, finally accepted that my boat's already 'round the bend of middle age, driven by an unyielding current, try as I might to row against it (I had more success stemming the tide with the aid of my Dorian Gray complex but I haven't seen it much lately).

Of course, if you go by average life expectancy, I made that turn into the mid-life crisis several years ago. After all, I'm in my late forties now and though I'd love to live into my mid 90s, the oddsmakers say it's not likely.

But, Christ, there is some hope. My mother's still hanging on at age 80, a life-long dedicated smoker and drinker.  Somehow preserved over in the far reaches of western Ireland, perhaps with the help of the boys back east at St. James Gate. A woman of full-blooded Norwegian descent, yet with a single minded determination to be Irish. If that keeps her going, more power to her. Could that work for me? I've tried being who I can't and it nearly did me in.

And that's contrasted with Dear ol' Dad, who missed seeing his 53rd birthday by 19 days when he came down with a touch of Cirrhosis (it was going around - I think he caught it off a contaminated bottle). Were I him sharing his fate, I'd have five days shy of six years left. He was clearly a more accomplished alcoholic than Mom, try as she might. She drank beer and cheap fortified wine - he indulged in that kind of 'soda pop' only when he 'wasn't drinking.' Sadly, that is not an attempt at exaggeration or humor but simply how it was: he occasionally stopped drinking and when he did, he drank beer. She's become a willy veteran who can beat you with experience, but he had pure God-given talent, he didn't even have to try.

My Dad had a gift.

He was a local legend. The Prince of Hewitt Ave, regaling the denizens with tall tales of sorrow and shots of relief. The rest of us passed through that world but only he belonged; more than that, he ruled - as long as a paycheck lasted, after which he came home into temporary exile to rule again once the means allowed.

The Sport Center Cafe and Lounge usually stood in for the Prince's royal palace, Dad's Savings and Loan and the Port in his Storm. It was, to my vantage point as a child, a foul place. The only 'Sport' was hard drink in the Lounge, though they served food in the Cafe, required to rate a liquor license. "Booths for Ladies" in the window just to the right of "Paychecks Cashed." One sign unnecessary, the other essential. And cashed they were, his crown restored and a coronation celebrated all around once again. I see that the "lounge" portion of the Sport Center is now a biker heavy metal bar/club offering 'Booze, Grub and Rock-n-roll'. Indeed. Not so different, it all depends on how you define these things. The "cafe" portion is now The Whammy Bar, a name much more apropos, don't ya think?  The Sportscenter might have served as Royal Palace, but this Prince had several other estates from which to rule when the mood struck, the The Bel-nes further west on Hewitt, the London further east, and the Townhouse on Broadway being ready standbys.


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But then the paychecks slowed, finally stopping for good. Hewitt and the bars became Broadway, the State Store next to the B&M.  Liquor store booze outlasts the stuff in the dankest of dives, it was the simple economics of the dole.

After Dad's reign, Hewitt sometimes came to him, the possibility of free spirits leading them to our door. The Prince with no kingdom was still a soft touch.

Our door. Our little middle class house on the 1300 block of Hoyt. The folks somehow kept up payments while living on Food Stamps, Government Cheese, Booze, Pills and Smokes. It mystified me then how we managed. But I didn't know what I didn't know and blocked out the rest. My sister kicked in, other family members too. The folks meanwhile successfully mined various social security, 'disability', and unemployment loopholes, squeezing the last drop from those sponges into our coffers. My parents rolled their own smokes, made their own beer, Mom even braided the living room rug from old coats. Frugal and budget minded in their own twisted but inventive way.


Our clothes and toys were often secondhand chic, even when Dad was gainfully employed (he was an early adopter of direct deposit, into his Sport Center Lounge 'savings' account). Back then, we made the Saturday thrift store shopping rounds while he "cashed his check." The shopping invariably finished long before Dad was done cashing his fill.

I remember what should have been terrifying rides with Dad to the state store, usually one of his free loading subjects at the controls, their contribution to the cause. Occasionally
Dad drove, at least back when he still had a car. Until a motorcycle broadsided him while he was passed out at a stop sign, signaling the end of his days behind the wheel. After that, usually Leonard drove, sometimes Hal - every now and then Darrell or Olive tagged along. A vague Night of the Living Dead tinge clung to them, which was ultimately I think their bond. You knew the clock was ticking.

Why was I privileged to join in their reindeer games? I'm not sure - perhaps I asked to. I was 8, 10, somewhere in there. Doesn't seem like something a prepubescent guy would aspire to circa the early 1970s but my motivations and memories of that time are fractured. I do remember I was the only sober one along for the ride, indeed usually the only one not completely blind drunk. And I have hazy images of us weaving through the B&M supermarket parking lot, scrapping shopping carts and pedestrians, practically plowing into at least one patrol car, before defiantly skidding to a halt in front of the promised land of big clear glass bottles and little brown paper bags.

These were carefree days before drunk driving lost favor with the public and the law. Back then, just "Tis. tis. tis." Sad smile/shaking of the head. "Everett's royal rummies are out and about, for shame." Then back to their lives, leaving us to ours. Hey, speak for yourself, pal. They weren't rummies. Unless that was what was available. Whiskey was the preferred stuff - 'you know what kind - the cheapest.'

For the last several months of dad's motoring days, you could hear him coming at good distance - mufflers were not foremost on his mind in those days: when it finally fell off, he didn't bother replacing it, or perhaps didn't even realize it was gone.

Sometimes he drove me to Carver Middle School on the way to his bottle/bag promised land - Rrrrgghh!, Rrrrggggh!- my dad the race car driver, muffler perhaps still hanging by a thread being dragged behind us. Once or twice I was greeted at lunch recess by the sight of him slumped over the wheel George Michaels-style, his snoring a distant echo of the car's unrestrained combustion. Hey, isn't that your Dad? Oh, um, yeah - he races at all hours - it's tiring work, clearly. My appetite for school, at one point my sanctuary, really started to diminish from then on in.

I was born into a lubricated lineage and given a craft, a calling.



Mom and Dad were, in their own way, like the Barrymores of inebriation (come to think of it, the Barrymores had that market cornered as well). A fermented dynasty. Long shadows to escape, big shoes to fill.

I didn't and don't have the gift. I have no kingdom or subjects, no Hewitt Ave and no Booths for Ladies. There is a dive near where I live now that has a bit of the Sport Center's royal majesty, and I fashioned it as a surrogate for years. But I didn't and don't have the gift.

I'm slow to come 'round to things, it's true. But perhaps now there's still time for me to be middle aged.

A Thousand Innocuous Admonitions

A child's eye view of life's possibilities is expansive beyond boundaries at first, a vision bright enough to blind an adult's perspective long since relegated to the shadows.

But then slowly the light dims, the vibrant colors grow flat and muted; the edges sanding smooth, blending in.  A thousand innocuous admonitions handed down through generations combine to form an unseen family heirloom of dysfunction we all carry inside to greater or lesser degree.  Growing.  And choking.  Sewing a web around your dreams in translucent chains, hiding hideous across the expanse of your life.

Young childhood.  The unfettered joy washing over me with my hands on a new book, or a hot water heater cardboard box, or a kite.  The exhilaration in flying my bike up a plywood ramp over an overturned garbage can.  Happiness that trumps the best high I ever had as a grown up.  But it was a drug in itself, the flame we chase our whole adult lives, whether through workaholism, or alcoholism, or religion, or sex.

It's ironic we're so absorbed on tasting the pleasure again for ourselves that we end up unwittingly extinguishing this very ability in our children, our own chase futile thanks to our parents' rendition of the same sad song a generation ago.  The gift that keeps on giving.  Adam raised a Cain.  It's as old as history's introduction of the first vestiges of neuroses upon us in the form of predators, famine, drought, whatever.

The genesis of this particularly self indulgent screed was a mother standing in line at the supermarket today, yakking about some sort of marketing campaign on her cell phone out of one side of her mouth and telling her kid to shut up out the other side.  Maybe the child will emulate type-A obsessions the likes of dear ol' Mom one day, or perhaps he'll cultivate a drug habit instead, before he kicks that in favor of a fundamentalist bent aimed at beating down some target demographic vulnerable enough to curry his misdirected rage.  Now maybe Ma's just having a bad day and the kid'll emerge relatively intact from his youth.  Or it could be the brat's a born sociopath who deserves whatever tongue lashing he gets, though I'm not sure Mom even knew what she was yelling at him about.  In the end, I gotta bad feeling about this particular mother and child (re)union:  I think she's into herself pretty intently, he's mostly left on the outside looking in, and the prognosis for him isn't on the sunny side of life.

This parental watershed flashed me back to my childhood days.  My folks liked to try and put on a stylish face to outsiders, even when their world was obviously collapsing around them.  They remind me now of the Bouvier-Beale gals of Grey Gardens fame, all consumed with manners and close-ups and seemingly oblivious to the death, filth and smell that surrounded them.

Mom and Dad's plastered-on-smiles paranoia in mind, I was always told to shut up whenever we had company over.  In case I might point out to strangers the fact that Dad just finished his usual morning dry-heaves into the family vomit bowl an hour before their arrival. Or, "hey, didya know that isn't coffee Mom's sipping from her mug!?!"  In fact, when one of my friends spoke up out of turn in this setting, I would be the one who would be told to shut up even though I hadn't said anything.  It was comical in retrospect.  As though I'd developed expert ventriloquism skills and was throwing my voice.  Consequently, I've rarely spoken up in casual conversation from then to now.  I have a lot to say but am compelled to keep it to myself.  I make up for it with the written word, I guess, but my verbosity here does not translate to other forms of communication in my life.

If I had kids, would I have visited an innate shame of one's own opinion upon them?  Probably not.  My particular dysfunctions would likely have resulted in some other psychological damage, as unique as a snowflake up close and as depressingly similar from afar.  Some things aren't meant to happen, thankfully.  If Shirley McLaine is right, I guess there is some lucky soul out there who was spared my particular brand of self-absorbed parental neglect.

Or maybe I'd be a great parent.  It could happen.  And might happen still.   It's this last possibility that really gives me the chills.