What The Hell Is Palliative?
Ward sat at the counter drinking coffee
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Seagulls Are People Too
It was Tuesday May 13
A Cheerful African American Equestrian
I met on the street yesterday morning a gay black cowboy named Steven. It was Thursday. I was attending to my vehicle for the hour and a half required. The street sweeper had already passed. I was musing on the lives of others, looking behind me at all the empty spaces which would undoubtedly be filled within the hour, and wondering what those future parkers were now doing, what adventures were they engaged in, feeling a little diminished by the fact that I was doing little else than playing Oh Hell on my cellphone.
It was wet and foggy out but not raining. The school crossing guard had recently retired for the day. The people-watching was sub par. The regular dog walkers were about, the woman who cradles her aging overweight Pug for all of its walk excepting that necessary time it must be on the ground to do dog business, and the guy with the German Shepard, the teenage black lab guy, the muzzled mutt guy and the man with the Pug whose hind legs are supported by wheels.
People from my building walked by but ignored me. Karen Ireland, lost not in the actual fog but in that of her morning ruminations, being pulled slightly by her inter-specie loving lesbian rat terrier, passed diagonally through the crosswalk in front of me and while I gave a perfunctory wave I did not see enough to be gained by tapping on the horn. People in their morning fog do not want to be honked at. There can be as a result of it ensuing madness like that befalling the awakened sleepwalker. I don't want to be the one responsible for that. Oh yeah? Karen Ireland? She was a lovely lovely woman until that thumb twiddling dipshit honked at her. Now look at her. Has to wear a bib. And the worst of it is that poor dog of hers, was always so proud and lively, but now, well, she's taken up with one of those long haired Himalayans and just lays about all day with it in one of those cardboard scratching "sofas," a shame really, all of it.
And then the Restauranteur, Bernadette's sister, my sister-in-law for all intents and purposes, she just walks right by me, close enough if I was a pile of excrement encased in flies the flies would have, alarmed by her proximity, momentarily taken flight from the excrement that was me before settling back down again deliciously.
But that's okay. I was not out there to make friends or acquaint myself with others. I was out there doing my duty. Attending to my vehicle parked at the corner of psyche and psyche so that twice a week the sweeper trucks can pass, helping to make this city the glistening jewel that it is.
After a bit, after the initial reattaching of my negative battery cable so the short in my electrical system doesn't drain the battery between tours of duty, and the people watching and the pondering and the shame of coming to grips with my status as an outcaste among my own people, I noticed a car pull up and park behind me. I then went back to playing Oh Hell, either winning or coming in third in the six player version set for hard. I could almost always beat that chump Farqhuar but you do not want to take that Doris lightly. I am aware of a shape exiting the vehicle parked behind me and a progressing of that shape towards me sitting in the Jeep with the windows rolled up. I am pretty much aware now that a person is standing outside waiting for my acknowledgement. I like chance encounters to a certain degree, assuming the encounter is to my advantage in some way. Instead of rolling the window down I gently opened the door and remaining seated encountered this tall middle-aged black man, who as it happens is named Steven, wearing a brown fringed leather cowboy vest, matching fringed chaps over blue jeans held up with a black too-long belt ornamented with a large, oval, engraved sterling silver buckle. I could not see his shoes but I am going to assume they were well worn but shining cowboy boots.
Now be assured this anachronistic outfit did not seem at all out of place or time on this man. But rather so confidently was it worn that I felt transported to whatever or wherever is that time where two men, one a middle-aged long hair in black jeans and faded grey t-shirt covered with a somewhat yuppy-looking LL Bean hooded rain jacket talks to a Buffalo soldier on the streets of New York. About what did we talk? Oh parking mostly. He then retired back to his vehicle to read a book. At 10:29 I stepped out of the Jeep, opened the hood and unattached the negative side of my battery cable and then let the hood slam shut. I sauntered past my vehicle, hoping to wish the cowboy a good day but he was hunched over sideways, his back to the sidewalk, a thick paper-backed book held open somewhere about middle with his left thumb, and with his right hand he was marking passages with a yellow highlighter. There were a fair amount of interesting looking objects littered about the front seat of his car but I could not make out what any of them were. I did not even think about knocking on his window.
You know how you get a bit of fat gooey gristle stuck in your teeth? And you use your tongue like a flaccid toothpick trying to extract it? Imagining that your barbarism is noticeable to no one when in fact you are the greatest of annoyances to those around you? That's what Bernadette said I was being, just annoying. I was coming back from the beach this morning, 9 foot rod in hand, heh heh, and I paused at the first house to talk 911 conspiracy theory with the occupant or rather listen to him talk, me perched on my girl's bike, and he leaning hunched over on too-short crutches, when there came up the road two women who seeing us stopped to talk. I had seen them on the beach days before, walking, for that's what people do on the beach here as it seems to escape them that they could just as easily be fishing. But usually its just me fishing or sometimes me and Bernadette, when she's not swimming, and everyday people see me out there, lanky, unkempt, casting forever casting, but aging and with nary a healthy piece of cartilage in my joints to aid me in my quest for that adrenal rush of a line ripping monster fish. I keep a bag of frozen peas in the freezer for my cartilage. The one woman introduced herself and I said my name without first repeating hers so that I would remember and true to that I don't, not even a clue. I was greatful for a break in the conspiracy talk as the three of them referred to things I knew nothing about. The other woman, who did less talking, had that fixed smile with crinkly eyes that could possibly imply a former career as a high end sports clothing model, intelligent and insightful seeming, or, and here's the thing, maybe not. So she became the gristle stuck in my teeth because I could not get that catalog model's smile out of my head and when I got home I did horribly bad imitations of it for Bernadette. And while she appreciated, briefly, my enthusiasm she soon grew tired and told me that I was being what I already knew I was being which is annoying. Sometimes when people are annoyed themselves they like to share it is all. It is a kind of self exorcism, gentler if perhaps no less grotesque than the projectile vomiting, 360 head spinning kind.
The Fishing Report
The inexorable cycle of life thought Caretaker. The nurturing, the murdering. He was up early on Tuesday having fallen asleep the previous day with still some light in the sky and an aluminum pipe in his mouth. Alzheimer's be damned. Honey is that you? Yes mom. Have you always been here? Got here yesterday mom. The grass would be wet with dew, this he knew without even leaving his bed, because he was a genius this Caretaker with regards to dampness and seasonal dew-points. He would use up the last of the fertilizer and hit those spots near the bighouse that were less than lush. And since he was up and moving around with barely a sun up to burn him he would also poison the weeds in the driveways and between the brick pavers at both houses.
While he did these things gnats hovered around his face and these gnats he was careful not to inhale, but this did not prevent one from flying onto the wetness of his eyeball and sticking there irritably. Honey is that you? Yes mom. Well its good you could come for a visit. Yeah mom, glad I could come.
Caretaker was now avoiding the hateful manual weed pulling between the 200 or so flat jagged rock pavers surrounding the pool. On his knees on a cushion, sitting yoga style, legs stretched in front, one knee up one folded underneath, a dip in the pool, it did not matter, it was hateful and slow. He used a butter knife as his digging tool. But he wasn't doing that now, he was instead thinking about the fishing he had done over the weekend and the unprecedented feeling of almost being sated by success. Over 5 different area ponds traveling around with Mowerman and sometimes his twin brother, which made things nosier, Caretaker had caught at least twenty small bass, a half dozen more that had thankfully unhooked themselves at the bank to save him the trouble, four nice sized bass, and one really nice sized one at a pond they had sneaked to through bramble and over a dry stacked rock wall, that Mowerman had fished growing up, with his dad, and considered his birthright. And no one messed with us which was giving Mowerman the courage to consider trespassing onto some other area ponds. Except for Kriegers pond because he was, quaint as it may sound, known for shooting at trespassers. No, he WILL shoot your ass Mowerman's twin brother reminded us more than once.
But this reminiscing was only one of the many techniques Caretaker had for avoiding hateful work so he had to be careful not to spend too much time on it. Weeds awaited. There would be some reward for the accomplishment, however temporary.
Poop On My Window
Caretaker was at the kitchen table breaking down his 525 Mag when a Brown Thrasher bullied by a Bluejay crashed into the window causing caretaker to cry out, ahh get out of there. A brown viscous drool of poop dripped from the Thrashers poop shoot and down the screen to which it was attached. Caretaker reached over and hit the window with his palm and the bird flew off crashing into the window over the kitchen sink and then to the unknown.
Caretaker had gone fishing at the pond that morning because it was a lot closer than the 4 hour drive to the nearest beach on which he wished to be fishing. Nothing hit his popper and nothing hit the spinner bait and when a small bass hit his plastic worm he thought oh boy game on but the bass spit the worm out and nothing hit the rest of his time out there. He watched his five new inherited Asian Carp, swept over from Sullivan's pond after the last flood. He had been looking for some grass eaters and now here they were, floating foreignly along the surface of a small pond inhabited by bass and bluegill and catfish, some frogs, some small turtles and one monster snapping turtle which before he left tugged the plastic worm off his hook.
He left the pond and explored the property on a cloudy damp day pausing momentarily to look happily at the blooming white azaleas which had never looked quite so good since their planting 5 years ago. Parking the ATV in his garage he saw his unpacked surf fishing gear still lying forlornly on the garage floor where he had left them after last weeks trip to the Outer Banks. So he picked up the Penn reel lying on one of his tackle bags and went to the kitchen table and took it apart and cleaned off the sand and salt which was making his drag sound crusty and greased the screws and put them back in while eating frozen pizza and when the timer went off he removed the chicken from the portable gas grill outside and put the whole chicken in a glass pan to cool on the kitchen counter because he wasn't that hungry having just eaten pizza and now he was staring out the window.
The caretaker watered the lawn two ways. The second way was holding his thumb over the end of the garden hose and spritzing water over a 30 foot distance to wet the grass seed with mulch he had just sprinkled over that bald spot. His Jeep was parked on the lawn and he had not even noticed the realtors truck parked only 50 feet up the driveway. When the realtor and his female assistant stepped out on the front porch and alerted caretaker to their presence in the house he immediately wondered if they had seen him water the lawn the first way and while realtor prattled on about some damn thing caretaker was counting in his head the number of windows on that side of the house he had watered. Eight windows. This was a new era indeed when a man couldn't pull his pants down anywhere he wanted and water the grass anytime he wanted.
It was easy to sneak up on caretaker. He would not make a good spy or bodyguard or any of those characters he watched on programs via his computer that you couldn't sneak up on and were vigilant and could take a bullet in the first half of the show and be playing racquetball in the second half. HIs girlfriend, Bernadette, who lived in New York, 5 hours away, because that was as close as she could stand to be to him some of the time would come down to this barely southern barely farm and remove the hermetic from his lifestyle periodically and she could sneak up on him like it was nobody's business. He would often scream or gasp like a girl when she snuck up on him not that there's anything wrong with that. Bernadette had taken to various method's of announcing her presence while caretaker performed duties, he said duties, on property. The whistle followed by a hello, the bold hello, the quiet just stand there approach, but none of them worked and caretaker in the end was always snuck upon. Who can even guess into what depth he was immersed while being flanked? Refining the nuances between various cupcake recipes perhaps.
Caretaker remembered a contractor he once worked for in the New Orleans area who in mid conversation, outside on a job would quicker than you could react just open his fly and turning only slightly away empty his bladder onto the dirt and sawdust and scrap 2x4s without missing a beat in his instructions or story about him and his pet chickens on the farm he grew up on in Mississippi.
Caretaker would have to be more vigilant, that is all.
Dissolved Matrimony
Mr. BC dumped all shared property on the MRS and the matrimonial dissolution was complete. The properties included the family compound, the country property, and the beach house. It was an unknown sum of money set aside for upkeep of the properties and the three boys but imaginably sufficient. The country property was their bastard stepchild, bought in the early days of acquisitions but never really loved nor was there ever a certainty about whose idea its acquisition had been. She thought it was his idea and he thought it hers.
The permanent staff included one caretaker to oversee duties and one man and his lawn mower to manage the 4 acres of cut grass on the 40 acre mini estate. As the reality of expenses for a never used property began to grow on the MRS she suggested to caretaker that he fire the one man and his lawn mower and find somebody cheaper. She had put the property up for sale, was hoping to clear 2 million or so and saw a cheaper mower man, one who would not take advantage of her as this current one clearly was, as a way to save possibly 3 or 4 thousand dollars on the way to that 2 million.
The caretaker, who in the early days of the job had commented on the absurdity of expenses to Mr. BC and was told not to worry too much about it had put the idea of absurd expenses behind him, but not completely and had cut his own pay by a third long ago in hopes of easing the burden of absurdity. Furthermore, the caretaker would retire from the property and his compensation at every given chance in hopes of one, easing up on the finances and two, separating himself from this silly job with no real client or customer or boss for that matter and rarely even someone who had the time or inclination to just come out and lay by the pool or knock a few balls around the tennis court. Lets be clear, the silliness and absurdity were also balanced by the pure enjoyment of having the 40 acres almost always to himself, he was the loner this caretaker, but the announcement of every proposed sale, this current one he thought was the third one, brought him a certain amount of hope for escape, albeit combined with a be careful what you wish for wariness.
The mower man was in his ninth year of employment, had five kids, one who had been born with a brain malfunction and operated on successfully and pro bono by one of the worlds top childrens brain surgeons at Johns Hopkins, one of his last cases before retirement. Mowerman was a friend inasmuch as he represented a breathing soul who came out periodically to break the monotony of the caretakers hermetic existence. They would laugh over a beer or the occasional Percocet and the caretaker would work in the half acre of gardens while the mower man mowed for eight hours, every 10 days or so from late April to October. So he had told her no, a simple flat out no when she suggested he find another mower man. And there had been no explosion of emotion or immediate firing of caretaker. In retrospect he realized he should have seen her calm reaction as a warning. For the next morning her and the new boyfriend decided that the 100 foot stretch of bramble out front by the pond, consisting of thin spindly 15 foot trees intertwined with the vines of blackberry, poison oak and ivy, honeysuckle, mustang grapes and poison sumac must be cut clean to the ground to open up what with other obstructions would amount to 1.5 more seconds of drive by view from the road. The next week he had off and when he returned he was met with wooden stakes winding through the cut grass and a note telling him that one side of the stakes would be cut and the other side to be returned to hay.
While the caretaker was for awhile apoplectic because he would now of course have to cut mower mans pay (a kind of fuck you and your five kids and 9 years of loyalty), the mower man calmed him down, hugged him even and said all things must pass boss man, the rich are not like you and me. I never liked mowing that bumpy assed back pasture anyhow.
I am on a compound in the Saunderstown, RI area, within a herculean stones throw of the Jamestown Bridge, amongst friends, a surprising lack of bugs, cases of wine, and some beer and liquor under clear skies on a hot day in July. Today will be a hot one. Other days of this week maybe somewhat less so. That was the weather report. I nuked yesterday's coffee for Bernadette and myself this morning, listened to a bit of Prayer for Owen Meany the audiobook, played a round of drawsomething, and now am contemplating my first Dark and Stormy, a drink made with your choice of proportions of rum, lime juice and ginger beer. I am not daunted by the fact of 10 a.m.
We have this engineer flown in, at his expense, from the Bay Area each year to assist in the preparation and consumption of the large slabs of meat and gallons of alcohol and for example yesterday to co-pilot for me on a supply run into the neighboring areas for more liquor, propane, and if he had his way, propane accessories.
This isn't right I said 15 seconds after leaving the driveway in front of our second house. We claimed two houses this year. I had not even left the compound. No, the engineer said, you are going exactly opposite of our desired direction. I have a phone with a talking mapping program turned on, an iPad connected via bluetooth to a gps receiver marking our way on a pre-downloaded map, the engineer has his phone also with mapping program, and we have the experience of having been here one year previous. I turn around not actually chuckling but with the slightest hint of a spirit of mirth.
In the town of Wickford we park cautiously in a spot which we are fully aware is not that close to our liquor store destination and head off, soon taking a ninety degree turn in the wrong direction and after several blocks are staring stupidly at our individual smartphones. I can honestly say I am staring stupidly, not really seeing anything, or in truth even making the slightest effort at comprehension. The Engineer? I don't know, I've known him for over 30 years and I realize this is unfair but I tend to cling to this higher expectation regarding his skills of comprehension on all subjects. On this day however I was starting to think, could he be as big a dumbass as I am? But true to my expectations he does get us righted after a bit and we head off on foot, correcting our earlier mistake but soon pause, and I say, we should probably walk back to the car and drive to this liquor store. So we do that, only parking in some adjunct lot that faces the back of the store and causes me to suffer a brief panic regarding the operating hours of this unfamiliar liquor store.
But I get some more rum and beer and again we are off, this time in the opposite direction past our compound, the engineer on the phone after our first fail and me starting to realize this could be hell, I mean you know, being this long gone from the compound and the point of it by my reckoning, a place to relax with an always full cool beverage at hand.
After his first call I realized The Engineer's earlier seeming enthusiasm for this supply trip was not even in part based on an eagerness to be an assisting co-pilot, but rather what he saw as an adventure pretty surely to have some early failures so that he would have his chance to get on the phone and in all seriousness and with believable sincerity say to some local--uh yes, can you tell me, do you sell propane and uh, propane accessories. If you are thinking, I guess you had to be there, no, not really. Don't get off the boat and don't let your ice melt between drinks.
