A Dumaine Day4.23.99
It's no big secret me not being all that finely tuned so it didn't strike me
as unusual that my mom considered it a possibility that my phone call to her
on April 21st was blatantly coincidental instead of an intentional
commemoration of my father's death.
"Do you know what today is," she asked, and I answered in the affirmative.
She said, "I went to the cemetary this morning." And I asked, "so how is
he?" and she said, "he's fine, ornery as ever."
Conversation was somewhat stilted at first, with me never knowing exactly
which of life's informational tidbits are appropriate, and there was some
brief panic as Clifford Louis' depression era sensibilities about waste
(long distance phone calls and such) kicked in. But we pulled out of that
conversational nosedive beautifully and soon enough were talking the basics,
about Mrs. Arista (she never leaves the house), Mr. Walden (first year he
hasn't been able to mow his own lawn), Nephew Ben (hit a double, stole third,
and scored the winning run in highschool baseball game), my brother, Paul,
(and the plans to disinherit him), neighborhood children, and politics
(Clinton's just a man and she wishes people would stop talking about his sex
life). I told her I thought people were talking about other things now.
Right now is a perfect example of how it goes. One minute I'm sitting here
hogging the six hundred square feet of space that includes two rooms, a
foyer, and half the kitchen, and the next minute I'm sharing it with (almost)
two-year-old Clifford Lewis, (almost) six-year-old Erica Lewis, who seems
very much the grown up by comparison, and fourteen-year-old Lance Price who
is being tutored by Mandy in Algebra. Clifford the two-year-old gets kicked
out by Lance the serious student because he was batting a plastic bowling
ball across the wood floor with a badminton racket. A few minutes later
there is banging on the door, and feeling quite the permissive paternal
lord, I get up to answer it. Clifford blows by me, glancing off my knees as
he picks up the bowling ball first thing, and staggers about the room
deliriously, looking for the badminton racket. Fourteen-year-old KaKa
McCormick takes advantage of the open door to ask can she speak to Miss
Amanda. While she's here (getting a piece of fruit) she punishes Clifford
and throws him outside again.
And out on the street it can be just the same. Throughout an average day
there is little to distinguish this block from any other (blighted inner city
block). It is often quiet, with only the normal flow of extra foot traffic
that you would expect from having a corner store in the neighborhood. And
then a couple of guys show up with pit bulls.
I have been in and out of the house talking to my mom, going inside with the
passing of each loudly vibrating, rapping sedan. I'm standing in the foyer
with the door open when the one man just briefly looses his grip on the
leash, and we have instant fido on fido, and in a matter of seconds there are
twelve to fourteen people circling the dogs, cheering.
"What's that noise," Mrs. Louis wanted to know.
"Some fighting dogs, pit bulls, and people cheering," I said.
"Are they fighting?"
"It looked like they were going to but I think this is another false alarm."
"This goes on all the time?"
"I wouldn't say all the time, or even frequently, but this isn't the first
time I've looked out the window and seen such a thing. I'll shut the door."
"Oh, you don't have to. You don't have a lot of dull moments there, do you?"
"It does get dull here, but patience is always rewarded."
And then in a matter of ninety minutes the rooms are mine again and I feel
the faintest remorse as I suffer through the quiet, an empty nester, longing
for the company of a gangster's son, and the sound of a plastic bowling ball
bouncing on a wood floor.
|
It's no big secret me not being all that finely tuned so it didn't strike me as unusual that my mom considered it a possibility that my phone call to her on April 21st was blatantly coincidental instead of an intentional commemoration of my father's death. "Do you know what today is," she asked, and I answered in the affirmative. She said, "I went to the cemetary this morning." And I asked, "so how is he?" and she said, "he's fine, ornery as ever."
Conversation was somewhat stilted at first, with me never knowing exactly which of life's informational tidbits are appropriate, and there was some brief panic as Clifford Louis' depression era sensibilities about waste (long distance phone calls and such) kicked in. But we pulled out of that conversational nosedive beautifully and soon enough were talking the basics, about Mrs. Arista (she never leaves the house), Mr. Walden (first year he hasn't been able to mow his own lawn), Nephew Ben (hit a double, stole third, and scored the winning run in highschool baseball game), my brother, Paul, (and the plans to disinherit him), neighborhood children, and politics (Clinton's just a man and she wishes people would stop talking about his sex life). I told her I thought people were talking about other things now.
Right now is a perfect example of how it goes. One minute I'm sitting here hogging the six hundred square feet of space that includes two rooms, a foyer, and half the kitchen, and the next minute I'm sharing it with (almost) two-year-old Clifford Lewis, (almost) six-year-old Erica Lewis, who seems very much the grown up by comparison, and fourteen-year-old Lance Price who is being tutored by Mandy in Algebra. Clifford the two-year-old gets kicked out by Lance the serious student because he was batting a plastic bowling ball across the wood floor with a badminton racket. A few minutes later there is banging on the door, and feeling quite the permissive paternal lord, I get up to answer it. Clifford blows by me, glancing off my knees as he picks up the bowling ball first thing, and staggers about the room deliriously, looking for the badminton racket. Fourteen-year-old KaKa McCormick takes advantage of the open door to ask can she speak to Miss Amanda. While she's here (getting a piece of fruit) she punishes Clifford and throws him outside again.
And out on the street it can be just the same. Throughout an average day there is little to distinguish this block from any other (blighted inner city block). It is often quiet, with only the normal flow of extra foot traffic that you would expect from having a corner store in the neighborhood. And then a couple of guys show up with pit bulls.
I have been in and out of the house talking to my mom, going inside with the passing of each loudly vibrating, rapping sedan. I'm standing in the foyer with the door open when the one man just briefly looses his grip on the leash, and we have instant fido on fido, and in a matter of seconds there are twelve to fourteen people circling the dogs, cheering.
"What's that noise," Mrs. Louis wanted to know.
"Some fighting dogs, pit bulls, and people cheering," I said.
"Are they fighting?"
"It looked like they were going to but I think this is another false alarm."
"This goes on all the time?"
"I wouldn't say all the time, or even frequently, but this isn't the first time I've looked out the window and seen such a thing. I'll shut the door."
"Oh, you don't have to. You don't have a lot of dull moments there, do you?"
"It does get dull here, but patience is always rewarded."
And then in a matter of ninety minutes the rooms are mine again and I feel the faintest remorse as I suffer through the quiet, an empty nester, longing for the company of a gangster's son, and the sound of a plastic bowling ball bouncing on a wood floor.
- jimlouis 5-19-2000 12:20 pm