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I'm Sorry, Its Empty 10.28.98
A year ago I was talking to this friend of mine. We were on the sidewalk of a shopping center on the east coast talking about the meaning of life, procreation, survival, and greater purposes in general, and I remember now, or actually last night after yelling at Shelton, that I said--and not hurting
people's feelings. I did not know why I said that, it seemed awkward, and still does, but teenage disappointment sure brought it back last night as Shelton lumbered past me with homework which would go undone after I told him, curtly, to reverse direction and get back in the front room with all the other kids. He was on his way to his "office" (the bathroom) to start his homework, but I'm against that tonite. Shelton is fourteen, not a kid, still a kid, and wants to be given special privileges in this house. I feel strongly against special privilege but my attentions to Erica, Shelton's neice, belie that attitude, and it is clear to everyone involved that truth be known, I like what I like, when I like it, and that my belief system is subject to an inconsistent moodiness (I wouldn't say manic depression), that reminds me of Fathers in general--Shut Up I'm Trying To Watch The Television. Followed by--Hey Son Wanna Play Catch.
A US Mail eighteen wheeler broke down in front of 2654 Dumaine last night, and has been there all day. A bunch of white guys are checking out the situation at sunset. A basketball rolls under this one guy's foot and someone from the parking lot/basketball court comes to retrieve it. But the white guy is like Beaver Cleaver and can't seem to get out of the way, and he and the young shirtless man do this little dance before everyone achieves their short term destiny.
School is in session. Poochie's daughter, Shentrell, is out on the porch with HP and a blond barbie puzzle. Mandy says not to give Shentrell anything until she apologizes to Terrioues. Woops, I was just trying to get her to stop ringing the bell. Lance (the former acrobat) is at the kid's computer playing
a game while he waits for Mandy to give him one on one in Algebra. Erica has finished copying the letter "J" and the numbers eight and nine. Terrioues is at the table writing something and waiting (in vain I predict) for an apology
from Shentrell, who earlier hit him and tore his paper. Mandy asks me do I remember anything about quadratic equations and parabolas. The vacant stare is my best answer. Glynn did his work and is gone. Bryan is still working on it. Lance comes over and asks me how good am I at math. Not as good as Mandy. Lance and I agree that Language Arts is more to our liking. "What do you want me to read?" says Lance, and I am caught off guard so I say, "I will think of some real fine stuff...before you turn twenty." This seems logical to Lance, he nods, and goes back to his computer.
The trailer is opened, flashlights shine, Glynn peeks, its empty. The tractor disconnects and pulls away from the empty trailer. If it stays too long here on Dumaine it will become part of the scenery, and eventually morph into a
thing it never knew it could be.
City Park Hobos 10.12.98
Phillis invited me over for the Saints vs. Forty-Niners game, along with her sister, Evelyn, and Mandy. So this is football with three chicks, two of whom do not understand the deeper meaning of the sport and are of the type to make inappropriate, almost sacreligious comments during the game. Sure is a lot of hand holding, they notice; a lot of butt grabbing too.
Evelyn and I, however, scowled, and moaned appropriately, for the entire game. Niners 31, Saints 0. SF is pretty good but DeBartolo is a punk.
Before the game I took Bryan, Irvin, Fermin, Glynn, Marqin, Terrioues, and Erica to City Park. The first four boys are about 12, Marqin is 9, and Terrioues and Erica are 5. No two of these children are from the same mother and paternity is often a vague unknown. Shelton, by the way, is being
punished again. I heard Mama D yelling across to Mandy on the front porch yesterday--"Tell Jim not to take Shelton nowhere tomorrow. He didn't make his bed and..." some other stuff I didn't hear. Shelton is a pretty cool troubled
fourteen-year-old but the trips are alway easier when he doesn't come. His propensity for troublesome behavior extends well beyond not making beds.
The four bigger boys packed off together, Marqin tried to tag along with them, and Terrioues tried to tag along with Marqin. Erica stayed put and stared out over the pond near the sixteenth tee. I stared at Erica staring.
"Ducks," Erica said.
"Ducks," I nodded.
"I wanna follow them boys."
"Go on then," and that's what she does, looking back once to see if I'm going to follow.
Erica and Terrioues were standing at the curb waiting to be crossed but the big boys wouldn't cross them. Erica started to cry. "Don't cry Erica, it's not as bad as you think." But she wants to see what the boys are looking at. We crossed to the little circular pond with the shiny abstract windmill in
front of the Museum of Art. The boys took off for the big open meadow to the left and started playing football. Marqin stayed behind to explain about the big fish that he and the other boys had seen but that Erica and Terrioues could not see.
Some well-to-do matrons of the arts look down from the steps of the museum and think what a cute picture.
Marqin spotted the miniature train and ran off to chase it, yelling, "the train, the train."
Erica and Terrioues started yelling, "the train, the train," jumping up and down. I cross them over to the meadow, at the far edge of which the train is traveling along.
And they take off across the meadow, following Marqin who has caught up with the train and is running along side it, waving, and laughing at the passengers who are waving and laughing at him. Erica and Terrioues are all the way across the meadow now and have reached the tail end of the train.
Gosh, they sure are a long ways away, engaging in potentially dangerous behavior. I hope they don't do anything silly, or, you know, childish. I sighed with relief when they fell down exhausted, one after the other. Marqin was still near the front, and I think the "engineer" was yelling at him to
stay away, so Marqin fell down too.
Before the park I was out helping the kids clean the street, Rene was bending my ear, going on about something that had nothing to do with getting the street clean, and this guy in a blue work shirt walks up carrying a can of gas, and he's coming on to me, so to speak, wants something from me, I can tell, and so I'm acting impatient, saying--all right man, all right. But he just starts telling me what a good thing me and my "wife" are doing around here, and I'm nodding, yes, thanks, I appreciate it, but what are you really after is what my body language is screaming, but after he was all said and
done it turned out he didn't want anything at all except to say--thanks.
Sleeping Around--Slacker's Travel Guide 10.8.98
The present blurs. And the past intrudes to remind us of the days that made us old.
Sun on my face, tide coming in, bar under water. Two hiking girls are escaping the island before the bar disappears completely. I hope to arrive on the island before the bar disappears completely.
(The doorbell rings, a voice explains, and two more critters join the fray. Erica, with a new boy, a new name I won't be getting tonite. Sure, have some bubbles, have a party. Doorbell rings, Marqin has a problem, can't get into
Mama D's. Marqin gets the mop and cleans bubble juice off the floor. Phone rings, LuLu say--Mr. Jim?, Yes? Marqin there? Yes, would you like to speak to him? No, just tell him he can come home now, good night. Okay, goodnight.
Goodbye. Goodbye. Marqin? What? You can go home now. Okay.
The girl who is less pretty takes my picture. It must look like I'm walking on water because the two girls look like they're walking on water, what with the bar just inches below the surface now. We are approaching each other, the
three of us, out in the middle of the harbor, walking, it appears, on top of the water, and the prettier of the two is about to speak to me, this, I can sense. Me, I'm just hoping the bar is wide enough for all of us because they're mistaken if they think I won't push them over the edge.
"You can't spend the night on Bar Island," she said, as if she were used to being taken seriously.
The next morning, having timed the tide correctly, I crossed back to Bar Harbor, and shivered for two hours until the sun was high enough to give me warmth. I waited outside in the October cold until the first door unlocked, and then I entered quickly, and was greeted by a formal waiter with a white
cloth over his forearm.
"Goodness, did you camp out last night?" He asked me.
"Yes, on Bar Island," I said.
"We got our first freeze last night," he said.
"That doesn't surprise me, I was very cold last night."
"Breakfast will make you feel better."
Coffee and blueberry pancakes on heavy china over white tablecloth. Like a proper tourist, vacationing in Maine, out of season.