Out In The Backwater
Oh all that drama about how bad it was going to be out there in N. Carolina. The memories, the guilt, the shame. I didn't really have much time for that, I gave it a couple of hours, maybe a little more. But no one threw rocks at me for being a slum lord. I actually thanked one of the neighbors, hey thanks for not throwing rocks at me. The neighbor had been parking his bass boat full of beer cans behind my 100X150 foot untilled, weed-filled garden. He said, aw don't worry about it, live and learn. My ex-renter had come out earlier and retrieved his pontoon party barge parked in the front yard. Him and the neighbor who didn't throw rocks at me didn't get along very well over the previous 14 years. My renter tried to make a point about the boat parked back there, said it was full of beer cans, and I said, oh yeah, I saw a boat full of beer can's being hauled out of here today. We didn't talk much about the barge or the swing set in the front yard or the seven vehicles or parts thereof parked about, some without engines, most without wheels, but he assured me someone was coming to get them, and with scrap metal at such a premium, I do not doubt it. That will only leave me hopefully one large construction dumpster to fill up with the stuff that will not burn or classify as valuable metal. Most of this stuff is just scattered about the property, although the 200 paint cans and buckets are somewhat neatly stored under one of the sheds. The burn pile could be humongous though. Even if I don't dismantle the chicken coop and the dog pen tacked up to the hickory trees. The gaudy Fischer-Price toys strewn about and the cheap plastic pool table I hate to take up valuable dumpster space with but its all got to go. The console TV on the front porch I have moved inside temporarily. I didn't really do much in the 2 days but still made what can be considered a semblance of progress. And everyone seems happy about the changing of the guard even if "everyone" doesn't include me. The house needs lots of work but honestly it did even before I left it. There will be none of the drama or glamour of the urban renovation but hopefully in the coming months I will be able to change for the better the way things look and work out in the backwater.
...more recent posts
What Is A Theorem?
It's like going back to a point in time where failure is lurking with its big stick, ready to cold cock you right upside your head, and there seems to be no way to prevent it. You see it happening and are waiting it out. There is a pain coating every occasional pleasure.
That is the downside of my thinking on tomorrow mornings trip to N. Carolina, back to a house rented out but pretty much neglected for the last 14 years. I haven't had much luck contacting the renters. I'll probably have to break in. It is only through the grapevine that I know they have moved out, as per my request. I wasn't happy with the look of the place when I glanced at it last year so I decided on the spot to begin this process. What I felt looking at it was shame.
I'm not packing anything. Only going down for a few days, to get a feel for what needs done. I have a cheap ass air mattress that doesn't leak yet and a moldy sleeping bag, so I'll throw those in the car along with the bag I haven't unpacked from the last trip to NY. I seem to have retained a lot of memories from this backwater low rent house bordered by woods and tobacco fields north of Chapel Hill. They can't all be bad but I'm going to have to work at it to pull up some good ones. I'm ready to go to work though. I'm going to whistle while I work. I am going to be chipper. I mean, I don't actually live in the past, so it would seem to me that nothing from there can really hurt me. That's not like a proven theorem though, is it?
It's like going back to a point in time where failure is lurking with its big stick, ready to cold cock you right upside your head, and there seems to be no way to prevent it. You see it happening and are waiting it out. There is a pain coating every occasional pleasure.
That is the downside of my thinking on tomorrow mornings trip to N. Carolina, back to a house rented out but pretty much neglected for the last 14 years. I haven't had much luck contacting the renters. I'll probably have to break in. It is only through the grapevine that I know they have moved out, as per my request. I wasn't happy with the look of the place when I glanced at it last year so I decided on the spot to begin this process. What I felt looking at it was shame.
I'm not packing anything. Only going down for a few days, to get a feel for what needs done. I have a cheap ass air mattress that doesn't leak yet and a moldy sleeping bag, so I'll throw those in the car along with the bag I haven't unpacked from the last trip to NY. I seem to have retained a lot of memories from this backwater low rent house bordered by woods and tobacco fields north of Chapel Hill. They can't all be bad but I'm going to have to work at it to pull up some good ones. I'm ready to go to work though. I'm going to whistle while I work. I am going to be chipper. I mean, I don't actually live in the past, so it would seem to me that nothing from there can really hurt me. That's not like a proven theorem though, is it?
Aim High
The Tumbleweed Umbrella
I got a call at 8 o'clock Saturday morning from a ten-year-old boy wanting to buy the N. Carolina house. Mr. Louis, he said, you probably don't remember me but...and then he explained who he was and ever since then I cannot get the image of this boy out of my head, as I remember him from 14 years ago. I am not imagining what he looks like as a 24-year-old.
I am at this sidewalk cafe in NYC called Le Jeep. It is a brisk, sunny morning in May. Le Jeep is on a corner. Me and this homeless guy nearby are watching a two man crew clean out the storm drain across the street. One man with a shovel doing the detail work and the other man operating the boom on the dump truck. The boom has cables and pulleys and at the end of the cables is a bullet shaped caliper device which lowers into the drain hole from which the grate has been removed. The caliper goes in closed and then opens and closes around muck and sludge which is lifted up dripping and then deposited into the back of the dump truck.
People keep tripping over the same mangled umbrella which has blown like a tumbleweed into the middle of the crosswalk. Shadows at the corner precede the people they are attached to but they fail to alert their owners to the mangled tumbleweed umbrella in the crosswalk.
Le Jeep is a cafe on wheels and will circle the block when the street sweeper arrives.
When the crew finishes cleaning out the drain a man comes out from the corner store and hooks up a garden hose and proceeds to wash the stray muck back into the drain. A police van pulls up and honks at the man with the garden hose. He waves happily. Two cops exit the vehicle and the one cop shakes the man's hand and pats him on the back and the other cop shakes his wrist because he may be suspicious of where the man's hand has been.
There are croissant crumbs littering the floor of Le Jeep. Two empty coffee cups with foam in the bottom sit in cup holders. Bernadette has gone off to Pilates so it's just me at the cafe now, and in the back seat the 10-year-old N. Carolina boy who stares quietly out the window without an idea in his head. He doesn't have any friends, except this grandmother. She will die soon and leave her house to the boy's older brother, who is a marine. The boy will wait 14 years and then call me at 8 o'clock in the morning. I will have the night before accepted an invitation to a concert of a band called The Cure. I will be groggy at 8 o'clock in the morning but carry on with a professional attitude. I will say I remember him and I do. He was a distinctly lonely-seeming boy back then, and now 14 years later he spends part of his day haunting me.
I came up to attend the funeral of Bernadette's mom.
Behind the cafe Le Jeep is another cafe run by three loud guys named Steve, Angelo and Tony. Tony jabs the air between him and Steve with his index finger and makes an argument that apparently Steve has heard before. Steve is following with his eyes a woman walking along the sidewalk behind Tony. The woman's dress blows up, Steve whistles, and Tony turns around. Tony shrugs like he's seen better and puffs on his cigarette. I look behind me to see if the boy has followed any of this but he is just staring off in the opposite direction at an empty playground surrounded by an 18 foot tall chain-link fence.
I got a call at 8 o'clock Saturday morning from a ten-year-old boy wanting to buy the N. Carolina house. Mr. Louis, he said, you probably don't remember me but...and then he explained who he was and ever since then I cannot get the image of this boy out of my head, as I remember him from 14 years ago. I am not imagining what he looks like as a 24-year-old.
I am at this sidewalk cafe in NYC called Le Jeep. It is a brisk, sunny morning in May. Le Jeep is on a corner. Me and this homeless guy nearby are watching a two man crew clean out the storm drain across the street. One man with a shovel doing the detail work and the other man operating the boom on the dump truck. The boom has cables and pulleys and at the end of the cables is a bullet shaped caliper device which lowers into the drain hole from which the grate has been removed. The caliper goes in closed and then opens and closes around muck and sludge which is lifted up dripping and then deposited into the back of the dump truck.
People keep tripping over the same mangled umbrella which has blown like a tumbleweed into the middle of the crosswalk. Shadows at the corner precede the people they are attached to but they fail to alert their owners to the mangled tumbleweed umbrella in the crosswalk.
Le Jeep is a cafe on wheels and will circle the block when the street sweeper arrives.
When the crew finishes cleaning out the drain a man comes out from the corner store and hooks up a garden hose and proceeds to wash the stray muck back into the drain. A police van pulls up and honks at the man with the garden hose. He waves happily. Two cops exit the vehicle and the one cop shakes the man's hand and pats him on the back and the other cop shakes his wrist because he may be suspicious of where the man's hand has been.
There are croissant crumbs littering the floor of Le Jeep. Two empty coffee cups with foam in the bottom sit in cup holders. Bernadette has gone off to Pilates so it's just me at the cafe now, and in the back seat the 10-year-old N. Carolina boy who stares quietly out the window without an idea in his head. He doesn't have any friends, except this grandmother. She will die soon and leave her house to the boy's older brother, who is a marine. The boy will wait 14 years and then call me at 8 o'clock in the morning. I will have the night before accepted an invitation to a concert of a band called The Cure. I will be groggy at 8 o'clock in the morning but carry on with a professional attitude. I will say I remember him and I do. He was a distinctly lonely-seeming boy back then, and now 14 years later he spends part of his day haunting me.
I came up to attend the funeral of Bernadette's mom.
Behind the cafe Le Jeep is another cafe run by three loud guys named Steve, Angelo and Tony. Tony jabs the air between him and Steve with his index finger and makes an argument that apparently Steve has heard before. Steve is following with his eyes a woman walking along the sidewalk behind Tony. The woman's dress blows up, Steve whistles, and Tony turns around. Tony shrugs like he's seen better and puffs on his cigarette. I look behind me to see if the boy has followed any of this but he is just staring off in the opposite direction at an empty playground surrounded by an 18 foot tall chain-link fence.