1983, Nevada, Iowa
Our high school was so small you could be the good guy and the bad guy. In other words, if you had a good enough reputation with the other students, if you were popular, being a good athlete was a big plus, then you could practically get away with murder.
One way of being popular was to have a car. I had an Econoline Van that would seat up to 12 people, tinted windows and card table in the back complete with drink holders for the long hauls. We spent hours and hours driving around and drinking, I was like chauffeur to the stars, cruising around the loop or heading over to Ames to see what was happening in the big city.
The night before graduation we loaded up the Econoline for the biggest night of our adolescent lives. We wanted to do something big, make an impression, leave a mark. I drove, as always, but this time I put an American flag on my head, trying to emulate my hero Abbie Hoffman. No check points or cops to stop us, we headed over to the school armed with dozens of cans of spray paint.
I waited in the Van while the others attacked the school with aerosol. Class of ’83 rules, Mr Ball Sucks Balls, Stop the War in Central America, written all up and down the announcer booth at the football field, all across the front doors of the school, over the windows to the cafeteria. Graduation was only a few hours away, the misty solvent still pungent in the morning air.
No sleep and it was time to go to the graduation rehearsal ceremony. I was playing in the concert band as well as giving a speech because I was student council president and it was customary to give a short speech to sum up our careers at Nevada High. Mr. Ball, the principal, was at the podium testing the microphone when I walked in with my trumpet, and he looked right at me across the auditorium, saying some vandals attacked the school last night and he would find out by the end of the day who was responsible and they would not graduate.
I couldn’t tell if he was eliciting my help, thinking I might know something, or if he thought maybe I was one of the spray painters too. Hey I just drove, what my friends did with those cans is none of my business.
For graduation we had planned a big surprise, everyone put me up to it, and expected me to unofficially graduate those friends who had dropped out or had been kicked out during the year. I was to stop in mid speech and call the five or six names, handing them a rolled up piece of paper when they came to the podium amidst thundering applause. To make a long story short, I chickened out but half of them didn’t show up anyway.
I wanted to say something profound and leave an impression on the townspeople. I basically said not to expect much from a generation grown up on Brady Bunch family values and Ronald Reagan’s sense of right and wrong and what the truth is. Overcoming all the brainwashing would not be easy, and standing up to the powers that be, whether they be your teachers when they try to feed you the Myth of America and expect you to swallow it, or your president when he gets on television and tells you the Sandinistas are coming through Texas any minute now, would be a life long challenge. Some of us would be up for the struggle while others would swallow the pill, sedated by the false dreams of consumer culture and war mongering in the name of democracy and the American way of life. The class of ’83 might not change the world, but some of us were going to try.
The spray paint had all been removed by the time the townspeople filled the auditorium, and Mr. Ball never mentioned the incident to me again.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Malecon Romance
March 2000, Havana, Cuba
On our first trip to Cuba, Arthur was hoping to get to know his wife Sady a little better. They had only been married a few months before we arrived, tying the knot after three days on Arthur’s first trip down with other friends.
Actually, it was an accident that they met and got married in the first place. Initially Arthur was going to meet another woman there, and had seen pictures of her and everything. Kind of like a mail-order bride. On the way to Cuba, in the plane, his friends told him oh by the way Art, she’s pregnant. Of course he flipped out, stuttering angry words through his gaping, toothless mouth, drool spilling on the food and drink tray. This is how I imagine the situation, I wasn’t on this trip. When he and his friends arrived, they definitely understood that he wasn’t going to marry a pregnant woman. Apparently he was hoping, at the age of sixty, to have a child of his own. Or maybe it was just more complicated for the U.S. Special Interests Section in Havana to deal with. The pregnant woman’s replacement was another friend of this group, and actually had experience with disabled people, so she was brought over to meet Arthur.
It was love at first sight. Sady was thirty years younger, a big woman, like his ex-wife, and I’m sure he felt like she could take care of him. He told me they had sex a few times, the first time in seventeen years for him, and he was madly in love and couldn’t wait to see her again.
The first day they were alone for quite a long time, but I sensed something was wrong. Sady didn’t look too happy and basically treated Arthur like a baby. She paid more attention to me than to Arthur, and she hooked me up with her sister Loida in the meantime. It seemed like Arthur wasn’t having his honeymoon revisited like he had hoped, and things were getting tense between them.
I acted like a marriage counselor for them, but it was really not going anywhere. I couldn’t be a shrink for them and offered no advice. I simply interepreted. We sat on a park bench together and Arthur explained how he wanted to have a baby. Sady looked at me for some validation, some comprehension of how ridiculous it sounded. I offered none. She told us that it would be dangerous, the child could be born with defects. It could get passed on. This was refuted, but she said when an old man comes, it doesn’t go up as far so this can also lead to defects. We were going round and round. In the end, he conceded to the fact that, at least on this trip, he wasn’t going to have sex with his wife unless a dramatic change of heart occurred.
It wasn’t part of my job description, but the next thing I knew I was wheeling Arthur downtown looking for hookers. Maybe this was the caregiver part of the job, or the intepretation part. In any case, it wasn’t my suggestion. We went down to the sea front wall known as The Malecon, dozens of young women with their uncle-pimps lined up all along the long walkway, waiting for the American Dream to arrive. Arthur was a blue-blood American, that’s for sure, but not exactly a woman’s dream come true.
The moon reflected off the water as we wheeled along, looking at the girls like they were in a shop window. When we stopped in front of two girls it was as if we had put a coin in the slot, because suddenly they came to life, acting all flirty and nice. They couldn’t quite figure out who was the John, or maybe both of us were looking. I explained Arthur was my Uncle, it was his birthday and we wanted to do something extra special for him. We decided he would have both girls for an hour for fifty bucks. That’s two girls, one hour, fifty bucks. I don’t know what the prices are like in other parts of the world, but Arthur and I both thought this was a good deal. I wasn’t going to participate because I had to guard all the stuff hanging off Arthur’s wheelchair, the digital camera and booze and other things we were carrying around.
The uncle-pimp took over once the deal had been set up. He directed us across the road to a waiting car, a 1960 Bel Air with Soviet tractor parts to keep it going. We climbed in and drove a couple blocks to a little house. A woman in full Santeria priestess white dress and yellow beads met us at the door, as if she had been called in advance. I didn’t see anyone make a phone call, maybe Santa Barbara told her. We wheeled into the living room and went to close the deal. I gave the uncle-pimp two 20s and a 10 and he put it in his pocket. I told him I was going to wait outside while Arthur and the two girls spent an hour, not half hour or forty-five minutes, together in privacy. The girls were flanking Arthur, who was in drooling ecstasy, one of them sitting on his lap. The priestess whispered to the two girls and they all shot me glances. They must have thought I was going to be next because they still couldn’t believe Arthur could possibly perform anything more than slumping over and shitting his pants.
I saw them disappear into the room. The uncle-pimp then tried to trick me. He pulled out the money and showed me the 20 and 10, claiming I still owed him another 20. I was drunk, but this was no time to get into a fight. I gave him the old swindler’s knowing smile and told him it was a good try, but I had seen him pass it to the priestess before she went into the room with Arthur and the girls. This was true, I was expecting something to come up, but they couldn’t do anything no matter how hard they tried or how drunk and stupid we seemed. He didn’t let up, getting in my face and saying he was going to stop the girls, this was robbery. We call them sinverguenzas, a true rascal this one. I couldn’t keep from laughing it was so obvious, this high handed caribbean way of getting a gringo’s money. I guess they think eventually you just give them the money to shut them up and get their stinking breath off your face.
Coming out of the room, the priestess produced the nefarious bill from her bodice, waving it in the air. She had heard us quarreling through the wall and guessed I couldn’t be taken for a ride this time. The uncle-pimp’s memory came back to him when he saw the 20 and we both chuckled. He put his arm around my shoulder and lead me outside to a couple milk crates in the alley. I kept my eye on Arthur’s wheelchair and all our stuff just inside the open door. The priestess came out to join us, and the uncle-pimp walked a few houses down, saying he’d be right back with something special for me.
I asked the priestess to order a bottle of rum for us and she sent a young girl scurrying to the store with a crumpled up ten dollar bill, promising to bring back change. She was back in a couple minutes and I offered the priestess a drink, pouring her half a plastic cup full of the two dollar aguardiente. I followed with a burning shot straight from the bottle. We sat and chatted and waited. She asked me why I didn’t want to go with the girls, they are very nice and good price. I told her it was a birthday present for my uncle Arthur, maybe we’d come back another day for me. Not likely with Loida around, I thought. She hardly let me out of her sight.
The uncle-pimp came up the street with a young girl and told me I could take her for 15 dollars one hour. We didn’t look at each other. She must have been 16 years old. I repeated that this was a birthday present for my uncle and I wasn’t going with any girls tonight thank you very much. He was insulted and called me maricon, faggot. I could see the girl looking up at the moon, giving a little bite of her lower lip, a little hip jutting out. I just said no thanks, your cousin is nice, but no thanks. She hit the uncle-pimp on the shoulder with the back of her hand, clucked her tongue in disgust and skipped back down the street. He glared at me like I was costing him money again by not playing along.
Again the priestess intervened, shaking her head at us and saying they were all open to whatever preference people had, it was okay. I tried to explain that I wasn’t homosexual, but accidentally said amiga to the uncle-pimp instead of the male amigo and his eyes bugged out, pointing and saying now you see, its true, maricon. I let him run with this idea and figured Arthur was just about ready to pop out and we could just get the hell out of there.
Which is exactly what happened. After only about twenty five minutes Arthur appeared in the doorway with the two girls. He was smiling as they held his hands and rubbed his bald head. I asked him if everything was good, you still got a good half hour if you want it. He groaned a satisfied no that’s okay lets go and we thanked them and wheeled up the alleyway toward Calle Obispo to get some pizza and recount another conquest.
On our first trip to Cuba, Arthur was hoping to get to know his wife Sady a little better. They had only been married a few months before we arrived, tying the knot after three days on Arthur’s first trip down with other friends.
Actually, it was an accident that they met and got married in the first place. Initially Arthur was going to meet another woman there, and had seen pictures of her and everything. Kind of like a mail-order bride. On the way to Cuba, in the plane, his friends told him oh by the way Art, she’s pregnant. Of course he flipped out, stuttering angry words through his gaping, toothless mouth, drool spilling on the food and drink tray. This is how I imagine the situation, I wasn’t on this trip. When he and his friends arrived, they definitely understood that he wasn’t going to marry a pregnant woman. Apparently he was hoping, at the age of sixty, to have a child of his own. Or maybe it was just more complicated for the U.S. Special Interests Section in Havana to deal with. The pregnant woman’s replacement was another friend of this group, and actually had experience with disabled people, so she was brought over to meet Arthur.
It was love at first sight. Sady was thirty years younger, a big woman, like his ex-wife, and I’m sure he felt like she could take care of him. He told me they had sex a few times, the first time in seventeen years for him, and he was madly in love and couldn’t wait to see her again.
The first day they were alone for quite a long time, but I sensed something was wrong. Sady didn’t look too happy and basically treated Arthur like a baby. She paid more attention to me than to Arthur, and she hooked me up with her sister Loida in the meantime. It seemed like Arthur wasn’t having his honeymoon revisited like he had hoped, and things were getting tense between them.
I acted like a marriage counselor for them, but it was really not going anywhere. I couldn’t be a shrink for them and offered no advice. I simply interepreted. We sat on a park bench together and Arthur explained how he wanted to have a baby. Sady looked at me for some validation, some comprehension of how ridiculous it sounded. I offered none. She told us that it would be dangerous, the child could be born with defects. It could get passed on. This was refuted, but she said when an old man comes, it doesn’t go up as far so this can also lead to defects. We were going round and round. In the end, he conceded to the fact that, at least on this trip, he wasn’t going to have sex with his wife unless a dramatic change of heart occurred.
It wasn’t part of my job description, but the next thing I knew I was wheeling Arthur downtown looking for hookers. Maybe this was the caregiver part of the job, or the intepretation part. In any case, it wasn’t my suggestion. We went down to the sea front wall known as The Malecon, dozens of young women with their uncle-pimps lined up all along the long walkway, waiting for the American Dream to arrive. Arthur was a blue-blood American, that’s for sure, but not exactly a woman’s dream come true.
The moon reflected off the water as we wheeled along, looking at the girls like they were in a shop window. When we stopped in front of two girls it was as if we had put a coin in the slot, because suddenly they came to life, acting all flirty and nice. They couldn’t quite figure out who was the John, or maybe both of us were looking. I explained Arthur was my Uncle, it was his birthday and we wanted to do something extra special for him. We decided he would have both girls for an hour for fifty bucks. That’s two girls, one hour, fifty bucks. I don’t know what the prices are like in other parts of the world, but Arthur and I both thought this was a good deal. I wasn’t going to participate because I had to guard all the stuff hanging off Arthur’s wheelchair, the digital camera and booze and other things we were carrying around.
The uncle-pimp took over once the deal had been set up. He directed us across the road to a waiting car, a 1960 Bel Air with Soviet tractor parts to keep it going. We climbed in and drove a couple blocks to a little house. A woman in full Santeria priestess white dress and yellow beads met us at the door, as if she had been called in advance. I didn’t see anyone make a phone call, maybe Santa Barbara told her. We wheeled into the living room and went to close the deal. I gave the uncle-pimp two 20s and a 10 and he put it in his pocket. I told him I was going to wait outside while Arthur and the two girls spent an hour, not half hour or forty-five minutes, together in privacy. The girls were flanking Arthur, who was in drooling ecstasy, one of them sitting on his lap. The priestess whispered to the two girls and they all shot me glances. They must have thought I was going to be next because they still couldn’t believe Arthur could possibly perform anything more than slumping over and shitting his pants.
I saw them disappear into the room. The uncle-pimp then tried to trick me. He pulled out the money and showed me the 20 and 10, claiming I still owed him another 20. I was drunk, but this was no time to get into a fight. I gave him the old swindler’s knowing smile and told him it was a good try, but I had seen him pass it to the priestess before she went into the room with Arthur and the girls. This was true, I was expecting something to come up, but they couldn’t do anything no matter how hard they tried or how drunk and stupid we seemed. He didn’t let up, getting in my face and saying he was going to stop the girls, this was robbery. We call them sinverguenzas, a true rascal this one. I couldn’t keep from laughing it was so obvious, this high handed caribbean way of getting a gringo’s money. I guess they think eventually you just give them the money to shut them up and get their stinking breath off your face.
Coming out of the room, the priestess produced the nefarious bill from her bodice, waving it in the air. She had heard us quarreling through the wall and guessed I couldn’t be taken for a ride this time. The uncle-pimp’s memory came back to him when he saw the 20 and we both chuckled. He put his arm around my shoulder and lead me outside to a couple milk crates in the alley. I kept my eye on Arthur’s wheelchair and all our stuff just inside the open door. The priestess came out to join us, and the uncle-pimp walked a few houses down, saying he’d be right back with something special for me.
I asked the priestess to order a bottle of rum for us and she sent a young girl scurrying to the store with a crumpled up ten dollar bill, promising to bring back change. She was back in a couple minutes and I offered the priestess a drink, pouring her half a plastic cup full of the two dollar aguardiente. I followed with a burning shot straight from the bottle. We sat and chatted and waited. She asked me why I didn’t want to go with the girls, they are very nice and good price. I told her it was a birthday present for my uncle Arthur, maybe we’d come back another day for me. Not likely with Loida around, I thought. She hardly let me out of her sight.
The uncle-pimp came up the street with a young girl and told me I could take her for 15 dollars one hour. We didn’t look at each other. She must have been 16 years old. I repeated that this was a birthday present for my uncle and I wasn’t going with any girls tonight thank you very much. He was insulted and called me maricon, faggot. I could see the girl looking up at the moon, giving a little bite of her lower lip, a little hip jutting out. I just said no thanks, your cousin is nice, but no thanks. She hit the uncle-pimp on the shoulder with the back of her hand, clucked her tongue in disgust and skipped back down the street. He glared at me like I was costing him money again by not playing along.
Again the priestess intervened, shaking her head at us and saying they were all open to whatever preference people had, it was okay. I tried to explain that I wasn’t homosexual, but accidentally said amiga to the uncle-pimp instead of the male amigo and his eyes bugged out, pointing and saying now you see, its true, maricon. I let him run with this idea and figured Arthur was just about ready to pop out and we could just get the hell out of there.
Which is exactly what happened. After only about twenty five minutes Arthur appeared in the doorway with the two girls. He was smiling as they held his hands and rubbed his bald head. I asked him if everything was good, you still got a good half hour if you want it. He groaned a satisfied no that’s okay lets go and we thanked them and wheeled up the alleyway toward Calle Obispo to get some pizza and recount another conquest.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Wanikiki
Spring 2000, Portland, Oregon and Havana, Cuba
My friend Arthur was married for twenty years in Portland, the last 17 of which were celibate. When his wife asked for a divorce, he was crushed and went into a fit of depression, starting to drink again after 15 years of sobriety. In the midst of his rise to the depths of the gutter, his great Aunt, a benefactor and philanthropist and friend of Oregon National Parks, bestowed One Million Dollars to Arthur in her will. The party had just begun.
I had just got back from one year in Costa Rica and everyone supposed my Spanish was pretty good. My friend Derek knew Arthur and told me he was looking for someone to accompany him on a trip to Cuba, all expenses paid, to act as interpreter and caregiver. I had never done either, but decided to meet Arthur anyway and see if there was a good rapport between us.
I didn’t realize how severe his Cerebral Palsy was. Some people have only a dignified gait, or you can see it in their hands and mouth, the signal from the brain to the muscles choked off, like there was a short in the line somewhere. For Arthur, this little glitch in his brain messages caused him to stutter and at first he was unintelligible, I couldn’t understand a word and Derek had to interpret for me. My first thought when seeing him was as long as I don’t have to wipe his butt, I’ll do it. Talking to my friends and mulling it over, I came to call it Doing the Deed.
Arthur had a big jug of Carlo Rossi red wine on the table at all times and three glasses, water, coffee and wine, each with a flexi straw popping out. He sidled up to the edge of the table and miraculously wound his Gene Simmons tongue around the straws, alternating between the drinks as we talked. I had also stopped drinking in Costa Rica during the last few months, but it was becoming apparent to me that if I was going to go to Cuba with Arthur, I was probably going to have to start drinking again, just to be on the same wavelength and have the same excuses. I was hoping the drink would make me into some pickled Buddha, able to withstand the many difficult situations that surely were to come on our adventure. Besides, he was going to pay for all of it, so drink up snakes, as I always say.
A few days after our first meeting I decided to go, even if I had to Do the Deed. I still didn’t know, it just didn’t seem respectful or discreet to ask. Derek said he didn’t know, he had only seen Vicky, the morning caregiver, going into the bathroom with him, but he never saw or asked specifically about it.
We began planning. He needed everything arranged, plane tickets, how to deal with money down there, documents to present at the US Special Interests Section on behalf of his new bride, Sady. I went to his lawyers, the bank, Cuban friends of his wife, made hundreds of phone calls, and in the end if I hadn’t figured out all of this, he wouldn’t have had anyone to help him. He thought he could use his credit cards there and he wanted to buy some property as well, so the family could move out of Old Havana and for him to use when he visited. He of course knew of the US embargo, but some things just didn’t cross his mind.
At one point in all of the configurations I did indeed have to wheel him into the bathroom, he only had caregivers in the morning and at night. Once I got him on the toilet, he asked me to peel him off a few slabs of toilet paper and put them folded in his lap, then I could go out until he called me. I even heard the flush just before he grunted out OKAY behind the door. I didn’t have to Do the Deed after all, and my conscience was clear for not asking such a trite question.
Things went smoothly despite the fact that now I was full blown back into the whisky. I even got both hands on that Carlo Rossi when times got lean and slugged back a few bloody drinks to keep me blind. We hit all the bars, people knew Arthur from way back, and he paid for all my drinks. The waitresses took a liking to me as well, just for being his friend, but the whole thing was too twisted for them, I ‘m sure they thought I was taking advantage of this poor man.
We went through Cancun Mexico to change flights to Havana, and stayed a couple days there. In the Cancun airport, I forgot my wallet in the checkpoint, with $750 in cash, and almost had a heart attack before the trip had begun. I had to leave Arthur in the terminal minutes before the flight was to take off, run back and ask the girl about the wallet. She seemed disinterested and disappointed, going to a little desk, bottom drawer way in the back and fishing out my fat bankroll. She handed it over with a limp gesture and a kind of scolding look, but I didn’t count it until I was out of her view.
Horrible place, Cancun. It was like a strip mall on the beach. We tried to meet people but they just stared, and the waiters copped a bad attitude. I told everyone he was my Uncle and that worked pretty well, after all we both had blue eyes and they understood the bonds of family down there.
We finally arrive into open arms in Cuba, and after a few days in Sady’s house next to the garbage dump, we rented a nice family place on the outskirts and settled in for the month. Sady knew some musicians from the old vaudeville type variety show she used to promote and act in. They worked around this little touristy beach town, I don’t remember the name, and we heard great Cuban and Mexican music all the time from this great quintet, all singers and multi instrumentalists.
One twilight evening we were sitting and enjoying a concert on a thatched terrazza along main street. Jesus was improvising like crazy, making up verses about me and Arthur, making fun of us. I understood about half, but it was really funny and everyone was laughing. The people in the restaurant looked at Arthur in wonder and amazement, but I think most people thought he was mentally retarded, like a child. When he leaned back his head and opened his mouth so I could pour him another shot of whatever was at hand, Jameson’s or White Rum like moonshine, there was a mixture of laughter and disdain from the people.
During a break, I was talking with Miguel, the band leader and cousin from Mexico. He was really wasted and we were laughing about everything. I told him the joke about how do you make a Cuba Libre. He cringed and looked around as I gestured the punch line, stroking an invisible beard with Cuba and cutting my throat with an imaginary knife with Libre. He said when you joke I sleep. He was afraid some country bumpkin police might give him some trouble, or some overzealous patriot would put the finger on him for being anti revolutionary.
Arthur came over and laid a $20 bill on Miguel for the music. This is for the whole band he said, and Jesus and Antoine the percussionist saw what was happening. The next thing I know the other band members were having a huge shouting match with Miguel glaring silently at all of them, taking the leader stance. Jesus told me the next day that they didn’t get any of the money, but Miguel took what would be basically a month’s worth of tips and pocketed it.
My friend Arthur was married for twenty years in Portland, the last 17 of which were celibate. When his wife asked for a divorce, he was crushed and went into a fit of depression, starting to drink again after 15 years of sobriety. In the midst of his rise to the depths of the gutter, his great Aunt, a benefactor and philanthropist and friend of Oregon National Parks, bestowed One Million Dollars to Arthur in her will. The party had just begun.
I had just got back from one year in Costa Rica and everyone supposed my Spanish was pretty good. My friend Derek knew Arthur and told me he was looking for someone to accompany him on a trip to Cuba, all expenses paid, to act as interpreter and caregiver. I had never done either, but decided to meet Arthur anyway and see if there was a good rapport between us.
I didn’t realize how severe his Cerebral Palsy was. Some people have only a dignified gait, or you can see it in their hands and mouth, the signal from the brain to the muscles choked off, like there was a short in the line somewhere. For Arthur, this little glitch in his brain messages caused him to stutter and at first he was unintelligible, I couldn’t understand a word and Derek had to interpret for me. My first thought when seeing him was as long as I don’t have to wipe his butt, I’ll do it. Talking to my friends and mulling it over, I came to call it Doing the Deed.
Arthur had a big jug of Carlo Rossi red wine on the table at all times and three glasses, water, coffee and wine, each with a flexi straw popping out. He sidled up to the edge of the table and miraculously wound his Gene Simmons tongue around the straws, alternating between the drinks as we talked. I had also stopped drinking in Costa Rica during the last few months, but it was becoming apparent to me that if I was going to go to Cuba with Arthur, I was probably going to have to start drinking again, just to be on the same wavelength and have the same excuses. I was hoping the drink would make me into some pickled Buddha, able to withstand the many difficult situations that surely were to come on our adventure. Besides, he was going to pay for all of it, so drink up snakes, as I always say.
A few days after our first meeting I decided to go, even if I had to Do the Deed. I still didn’t know, it just didn’t seem respectful or discreet to ask. Derek said he didn’t know, he had only seen Vicky, the morning caregiver, going into the bathroom with him, but he never saw or asked specifically about it.
We began planning. He needed everything arranged, plane tickets, how to deal with money down there, documents to present at the US Special Interests Section on behalf of his new bride, Sady. I went to his lawyers, the bank, Cuban friends of his wife, made hundreds of phone calls, and in the end if I hadn’t figured out all of this, he wouldn’t have had anyone to help him. He thought he could use his credit cards there and he wanted to buy some property as well, so the family could move out of Old Havana and for him to use when he visited. He of course knew of the US embargo, but some things just didn’t cross his mind.
At one point in all of the configurations I did indeed have to wheel him into the bathroom, he only had caregivers in the morning and at night. Once I got him on the toilet, he asked me to peel him off a few slabs of toilet paper and put them folded in his lap, then I could go out until he called me. I even heard the flush just before he grunted out OKAY behind the door. I didn’t have to Do the Deed after all, and my conscience was clear for not asking such a trite question.
Things went smoothly despite the fact that now I was full blown back into the whisky. I even got both hands on that Carlo Rossi when times got lean and slugged back a few bloody drinks to keep me blind. We hit all the bars, people knew Arthur from way back, and he paid for all my drinks. The waitresses took a liking to me as well, just for being his friend, but the whole thing was too twisted for them, I ‘m sure they thought I was taking advantage of this poor man.
We went through Cancun Mexico to change flights to Havana, and stayed a couple days there. In the Cancun airport, I forgot my wallet in the checkpoint, with $750 in cash, and almost had a heart attack before the trip had begun. I had to leave Arthur in the terminal minutes before the flight was to take off, run back and ask the girl about the wallet. She seemed disinterested and disappointed, going to a little desk, bottom drawer way in the back and fishing out my fat bankroll. She handed it over with a limp gesture and a kind of scolding look, but I didn’t count it until I was out of her view.
Horrible place, Cancun. It was like a strip mall on the beach. We tried to meet people but they just stared, and the waiters copped a bad attitude. I told everyone he was my Uncle and that worked pretty well, after all we both had blue eyes and they understood the bonds of family down there.
We finally arrive into open arms in Cuba, and after a few days in Sady’s house next to the garbage dump, we rented a nice family place on the outskirts and settled in for the month. Sady knew some musicians from the old vaudeville type variety show she used to promote and act in. They worked around this little touristy beach town, I don’t remember the name, and we heard great Cuban and Mexican music all the time from this great quintet, all singers and multi instrumentalists.
One twilight evening we were sitting and enjoying a concert on a thatched terrazza along main street. Jesus was improvising like crazy, making up verses about me and Arthur, making fun of us. I understood about half, but it was really funny and everyone was laughing. The people in the restaurant looked at Arthur in wonder and amazement, but I think most people thought he was mentally retarded, like a child. When he leaned back his head and opened his mouth so I could pour him another shot of whatever was at hand, Jameson’s or White Rum like moonshine, there was a mixture of laughter and disdain from the people.
During a break, I was talking with Miguel, the band leader and cousin from Mexico. He was really wasted and we were laughing about everything. I told him the joke about how do you make a Cuba Libre. He cringed and looked around as I gestured the punch line, stroking an invisible beard with Cuba and cutting my throat with an imaginary knife with Libre. He said when you joke I sleep. He was afraid some country bumpkin police might give him some trouble, or some overzealous patriot would put the finger on him for being anti revolutionary.
Arthur came over and laid a $20 bill on Miguel for the music. This is for the whole band he said, and Jesus and Antoine the percussionist saw what was happening. The next thing I know the other band members were having a huge shouting match with Miguel glaring silently at all of them, taking the leader stance. Jesus told me the next day that they didn’t get any of the money, but Miguel took what would be basically a month’s worth of tips and pocketed it.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Factory World
Spring and Summer, 1996, Portland, Oregon
I got a job at the Portland Press, feeding a machine that put labels on junk mail, sorting these newsletters, monthly bulletins and catalogs by zip code and then bulk mailing them to homes across the Northwest. A noble trade if there ever was one. It was the universe’s way of telling me I needed to get my work ethic back, working for people in exchange for a place to stay was good for a year, but now was time to buck up and get a life. My only hope was a factory job and a cheap hotel until I could get enough money together for a room in a house.
The Kent Hotel was home to all different kinds of people. I think they filmed part of Drugstore Cowboy there, no one told me the history of the place. I didn’t even talk to the receptionist until I needed a new mini-fridge. The only people who ever talked to me were a couple men in long black coats in the elevator asking me how long I’d been staying at The Kent and if I’d gotten to know the fine ladies on the Seventh Floor. I lied and told them I was new and passing through, so they tipped their hats when I reached my floor.
Sixty five dollars a week for the hotel allowed me put a little aside from the Portland Press paycheck, and overtime was available on weekends, so I put my all into it and soon got to know the other people at the factory pretty well. They were all lifers on the floor and they knew this was just a temporary bump in the road for me. The office people were on another planet behind their second floor windows and cubicles.
My main trainer and workmate was Cecil. He had accidentally killed his girlfriend with one punch two years before, he told me, and was working at Portland Press as part of his probation. He got off with manslaughter as a first offense, but he really loved and missed his girlfriend. Cecil had machine intuition, talking to it as he coaxed it back up and running. I sat down and did nothing at least five times a day while he freed up some jam or adjusted some springs.
Another guy I worked with and hung out with a lot was Roger, an old radical from the sixties. Again, that’s what he told me. Was at Woodstock, all that. I always love a good story, even if I think it’s a lie. He worked a couple machines over from me and we usually took our smoke breaks together, or sat out on the dock during lunch. He was really interesting and I felt sorry for him because he had no friends. Actually it seemed like he blew out his mind along with all the buildings he presumably blew up in Columbia and other places in the sixties with the Weather Underground. I met Roger’s mom and she kind of sloughed him off in front of me, confirming that maybe he was full of it. But I didn’t care, he was an old guy who still smoked pot, knew a lot about the sixties and had a great record collection, so that was all right with me.
There was another guy at Portland Press who was always trying to get in with me, Roger, and a couple other girls we had been hanging out with. He was really hyper and skinny, he didn´t blink very much, looked you right in the eye, and it took a while to warm up to him. Not just for us, but for anyone I thought, really freaky guy. We´ll just call him Skinny Guy.
One day Skinny Guy told us he knew where to get some good pot so we made a rendezvous plan for after work. We’d take Roger’s car and pull up in front of my new place, The Kent Hotel, and meet Skinny Guy there to make the deal. We had to meet our other factory girls in Forest Park soon after, so best to do it on the fly, and not have to hang out with Skinny Guy, or let him know where I was living.
We sat and waited with the engine running until finally he came out of the bar across the street, running over to us. He was now wearing blue eye shadow and lipstick and before we knew it he stuck his face through Roger’s car window. He said we had to go into the bar, his friend inside had the pot. This was not just any bar, but none other than The Portland Bathhouse, a city institution for gay men. We didn’t want to get high anymore and just said thanks but maybe another day. He said okay boys but if we needed him he’d be in the bar with a big fat joint and some big dick on the multi-screens.
The next day at work, Skinny Guy didn’t show up. Roger told me he had left his rig right on the mail sorting work table and the bosses had found it. At first they thought the syringe was a special factory tool they hadn’t seen before, but then Cecil my other workmate told them that the guy had been banging up speed at work.
A week later my doorbell buzzed at 3 in the morning in the Kent. It was Roger, my radical sixties friend, saying he had a girl with him who wanted to party with us, a little wine and a joint, come on Jay just for a bit....so I stupidly obliged him.
I opened the door and saw Roger with Skinny Guy, who was dressed in drag and drunk off his ass, wearing a big Dolly Parton wig and fake tits. Roger was laughing his ass off, so I punched him square in the nose and closed the door on both of them.
A few days later my friends Jeff and Anne told me they wanted me to help them paint their house and had a basement room available in exchange for working on the weekends with Jeff and Cosmo, another transitional friend. Purple was Anne’s choice.
I got a job at the Portland Press, feeding a machine that put labels on junk mail, sorting these newsletters, monthly bulletins and catalogs by zip code and then bulk mailing them to homes across the Northwest. A noble trade if there ever was one. It was the universe’s way of telling me I needed to get my work ethic back, working for people in exchange for a place to stay was good for a year, but now was time to buck up and get a life. My only hope was a factory job and a cheap hotel until I could get enough money together for a room in a house.
The Kent Hotel was home to all different kinds of people. I think they filmed part of Drugstore Cowboy there, no one told me the history of the place. I didn’t even talk to the receptionist until I needed a new mini-fridge. The only people who ever talked to me were a couple men in long black coats in the elevator asking me how long I’d been staying at The Kent and if I’d gotten to know the fine ladies on the Seventh Floor. I lied and told them I was new and passing through, so they tipped their hats when I reached my floor.
Sixty five dollars a week for the hotel allowed me put a little aside from the Portland Press paycheck, and overtime was available on weekends, so I put my all into it and soon got to know the other people at the factory pretty well. They were all lifers on the floor and they knew this was just a temporary bump in the road for me. The office people were on another planet behind their second floor windows and cubicles.
My main trainer and workmate was Cecil. He had accidentally killed his girlfriend with one punch two years before, he told me, and was working at Portland Press as part of his probation. He got off with manslaughter as a first offense, but he really loved and missed his girlfriend. Cecil had machine intuition, talking to it as he coaxed it back up and running. I sat down and did nothing at least five times a day while he freed up some jam or adjusted some springs.
Another guy I worked with and hung out with a lot was Roger, an old radical from the sixties. Again, that’s what he told me. Was at Woodstock, all that. I always love a good story, even if I think it’s a lie. He worked a couple machines over from me and we usually took our smoke breaks together, or sat out on the dock during lunch. He was really interesting and I felt sorry for him because he had no friends. Actually it seemed like he blew out his mind along with all the buildings he presumably blew up in Columbia and other places in the sixties with the Weather Underground. I met Roger’s mom and she kind of sloughed him off in front of me, confirming that maybe he was full of it. But I didn’t care, he was an old guy who still smoked pot, knew a lot about the sixties and had a great record collection, so that was all right with me.
There was another guy at Portland Press who was always trying to get in with me, Roger, and a couple other girls we had been hanging out with. He was really hyper and skinny, he didn´t blink very much, looked you right in the eye, and it took a while to warm up to him. Not just for us, but for anyone I thought, really freaky guy. We´ll just call him Skinny Guy.
One day Skinny Guy told us he knew where to get some good pot so we made a rendezvous plan for after work. We’d take Roger’s car and pull up in front of my new place, The Kent Hotel, and meet Skinny Guy there to make the deal. We had to meet our other factory girls in Forest Park soon after, so best to do it on the fly, and not have to hang out with Skinny Guy, or let him know where I was living.
We sat and waited with the engine running until finally he came out of the bar across the street, running over to us. He was now wearing blue eye shadow and lipstick and before we knew it he stuck his face through Roger’s car window. He said we had to go into the bar, his friend inside had the pot. This was not just any bar, but none other than The Portland Bathhouse, a city institution for gay men. We didn’t want to get high anymore and just said thanks but maybe another day. He said okay boys but if we needed him he’d be in the bar with a big fat joint and some big dick on the multi-screens.
The next day at work, Skinny Guy didn’t show up. Roger told me he had left his rig right on the mail sorting work table and the bosses had found it. At first they thought the syringe was a special factory tool they hadn’t seen before, but then Cecil my other workmate told them that the guy had been banging up speed at work.
A week later my doorbell buzzed at 3 in the morning in the Kent. It was Roger, my radical sixties friend, saying he had a girl with him who wanted to party with us, a little wine and a joint, come on Jay just for a bit....so I stupidly obliged him.
I opened the door and saw Roger with Skinny Guy, who was dressed in drag and drunk off his ass, wearing a big Dolly Parton wig and fake tits. Roger was laughing his ass off, so I punched him square in the nose and closed the door on both of them.
A few days later my friends Jeff and Anne told me they wanted me to help them paint their house and had a basement room available in exchange for working on the weekends with Jeff and Cosmo, another transitional friend. Purple was Anne’s choice.
No Jokes Allowed
Summer 1984, Detroit Windsor Border
When I was 20 I took a long road trip with my bandmate from Bob Uniform, Ben Paulos of Davenport Iowa, a great musician with a very interesting intellectual family. We took his mom’s 1977 Chevy Nova up through Canada and on east to look at Ivy and non Ivy league schools or Ben to study at in the Fall.
Within a day we hit the Canadian border at Windsor, and got in line to cross. I was driving. I had long hair and a beard back then, and Ben was sitting looking all innocent with his big square chin and child like expression of wonder. We got to the booth and they asked us the usual questions---how long are you staying, business or pleasure---on and on like at the drive-in at McDonalds.
Ben was doodling something in his notebook, probably a comic book character, but stopped when he heard them ask if we were carrying any firearms. I asked for clarification, whether they meant automatic or semi automatic. The woman stopped chewing her gum and asked me to pull over to the parking lot just up and to the left. Three other border patrol agents joined her as she squawked something into her walkie talkie.
They went through the entire car but luckily didn’t find anything. They grew suspicious thinking there would be drugs anyway, but we were straight and got off with a warning after an hour of detainment. Ben didn’t think it was funny, and held a grudge for a few days after that, doing most of the driving and deciding where to stop.
Later in the trip, I redeemed myself in Eastern Ohio, having to follow the brake lights of a huge semi through a downpour on a winding mountain road. I woke him up when we finally reached a little restaurant to wait out the rain. He knew by my shaking hands and the looks on the people’s faces when we went in that I had been through hell trying to keep us and the Nova alive.
When I was 20 I took a long road trip with my bandmate from Bob Uniform, Ben Paulos of Davenport Iowa, a great musician with a very interesting intellectual family. We took his mom’s 1977 Chevy Nova up through Canada and on east to look at Ivy and non Ivy league schools or Ben to study at in the Fall.
Within a day we hit the Canadian border at Windsor, and got in line to cross. I was driving. I had long hair and a beard back then, and Ben was sitting looking all innocent with his big square chin and child like expression of wonder. We got to the booth and they asked us the usual questions---how long are you staying, business or pleasure---on and on like at the drive-in at McDonalds.
Ben was doodling something in his notebook, probably a comic book character, but stopped when he heard them ask if we were carrying any firearms. I asked for clarification, whether they meant automatic or semi automatic. The woman stopped chewing her gum and asked me to pull over to the parking lot just up and to the left. Three other border patrol agents joined her as she squawked something into her walkie talkie.
They went through the entire car but luckily didn’t find anything. They grew suspicious thinking there would be drugs anyway, but we were straight and got off with a warning after an hour of detainment. Ben didn’t think it was funny, and held a grudge for a few days after that, doing most of the driving and deciding where to stop.
Later in the trip, I redeemed myself in Eastern Ohio, having to follow the brake lights of a huge semi through a downpour on a winding mountain road. I woke him up when we finally reached a little restaurant to wait out the rain. He knew by my shaking hands and the looks on the people’s faces when we went in that I had been through hell trying to keep us and the Nova alive.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Mariachis in Love and Death of a State Poet
Summer 1995, Mexico City Mexico
It was sad leaving Tony and his family behind in Temixco and Cuernavaca, but I had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning to visit Mexico City before flying back to Portland.
First thing on the agenda: check in to the D.H. Lawrence Hotel, start getting loaded with the half ounce I got from Tony, and then venture out into the city. You never know what might happen with a good buzz, some intense heat and millions of crazy desperate people.
I did some writing in the hotel room while I smoked a few joints. I thought about D.H. Lawrence living here, maybe in this very room, and writing about The Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl. This was the Aztec God which Hernan Cortes impersonated so well in 1521, somehow able to convince the locals that his flea bitten battalion of conquistadors were deities descended from the sky. I tried to feel Lawrence’s presence there, maybe his imaginings still lingered these halls, but his spirit had long since fled and the only thing I channeled was a splitting headache.
I rolled a couple bombers and then left the marijuana wrapped in a towel in the bottom right drawer of the desk. I was three blocks from the Zocalo, which was slowly sinking and tilting farther into the ground, and I heard there was an Anthropological museum showing a section of Tenochtitlan, the ancient city.
There was a room dedicated to human sacrifices and wax models of the priests who used the obsidian blades to cut people’s hearts out. The priests took a psychedelic derived from some plant, and they were tripping the whole time, up on the pyramid, bodies stacked around them.
There were a couple rooms dedicated to training birds of prey, a common thing for the nobles to have for hunting. Also, Tenochtitlan had a highly advanced canal system that served the people’s needs for at least a couple centuries, but then Cortes came with his fear of cleanliness and water as an agent of the devil and just paved over the whole thing. The big church in the Zocalo was also tilting and sinking, held up only by scaffolding and who knows what block and tackle system. Outside people lined up begging, a tent city was built to protest things happening in Chiapas, with vendors lining the alley on either side.
I went in to see the Diego Rivera murals in the government building and was planning to see his and Frida’s house in Coyoacan the next day, Monday. No one told me the Universal Truth that all museums are closed Mondays. I thought that was only barbers. So even though I went all the way out there on the bus, I only saw the outside of the house. The bus driver who took me back to D.F. was the first to explain the truth to me about museums and Mondays the world over.
I left the Zocalo and walked aimlessly through the streets. After about half an hour I came upon a huge plaza with pillars in it. I saw some scattered Mariachi musicians standing around chatting. A few couples were sitting together and being serenaded while others vicariously took in the songs for free, lingering in the park.
I walked on some more, the strains of Volver, Volver crying behind me, and soon came upon a big crowd of people. They were all gathered around a large building watching the coffin that was slowly, methodically being carried down the steps to the waiting hearse. Funeral music played and the widow cried. The crowd parted in front of me as I trained my camera on the procession. A man shot past me and his bodyguards brushed me aside, all captured in the photo. Someone said it was Mayor Cardenas, he had just given a speech at the Bellas Artes Building, eulogizing Octavio Paz.
It was sad leaving Tony and his family behind in Temixco and Cuernavaca, but I had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning to visit Mexico City before flying back to Portland.
First thing on the agenda: check in to the D.H. Lawrence Hotel, start getting loaded with the half ounce I got from Tony, and then venture out into the city. You never know what might happen with a good buzz, some intense heat and millions of crazy desperate people.
I did some writing in the hotel room while I smoked a few joints. I thought about D.H. Lawrence living here, maybe in this very room, and writing about The Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl. This was the Aztec God which Hernan Cortes impersonated so well in 1521, somehow able to convince the locals that his flea bitten battalion of conquistadors were deities descended from the sky. I tried to feel Lawrence’s presence there, maybe his imaginings still lingered these halls, but his spirit had long since fled and the only thing I channeled was a splitting headache.
I rolled a couple bombers and then left the marijuana wrapped in a towel in the bottom right drawer of the desk. I was three blocks from the Zocalo, which was slowly sinking and tilting farther into the ground, and I heard there was an Anthropological museum showing a section of Tenochtitlan, the ancient city.
There was a room dedicated to human sacrifices and wax models of the priests who used the obsidian blades to cut people’s hearts out. The priests took a psychedelic derived from some plant, and they were tripping the whole time, up on the pyramid, bodies stacked around them.
There were a couple rooms dedicated to training birds of prey, a common thing for the nobles to have for hunting. Also, Tenochtitlan had a highly advanced canal system that served the people’s needs for at least a couple centuries, but then Cortes came with his fear of cleanliness and water as an agent of the devil and just paved over the whole thing. The big church in the Zocalo was also tilting and sinking, held up only by scaffolding and who knows what block and tackle system. Outside people lined up begging, a tent city was built to protest things happening in Chiapas, with vendors lining the alley on either side.
I went in to see the Diego Rivera murals in the government building and was planning to see his and Frida’s house in Coyoacan the next day, Monday. No one told me the Universal Truth that all museums are closed Mondays. I thought that was only barbers. So even though I went all the way out there on the bus, I only saw the outside of the house. The bus driver who took me back to D.F. was the first to explain the truth to me about museums and Mondays the world over.
I left the Zocalo and walked aimlessly through the streets. After about half an hour I came upon a huge plaza with pillars in it. I saw some scattered Mariachi musicians standing around chatting. A few couples were sitting together and being serenaded while others vicariously took in the songs for free, lingering in the park.
I walked on some more, the strains of Volver, Volver crying behind me, and soon came upon a big crowd of people. They were all gathered around a large building watching the coffin that was slowly, methodically being carried down the steps to the waiting hearse. Funeral music played and the widow cried. The crowd parted in front of me as I trained my camera on the procession. A man shot past me and his bodyguards brushed me aside, all captured in the photo. Someone said it was Mayor Cardenas, he had just given a speech at the Bellas Artes Building, eulogizing Octavio Paz.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Beauty and the Beast
Winters of 1978 to 1983, Nevada, Iowa
The first two llamas we bought were called Ozzie and Harriet, named after the famous 1950’s TV series. Harriet was pregnant, but Ozzie was not the father. Within a few months of bringing them home from the Chamberlain South Dakota Exotic Animal Auction, tragedy would strike and Ozzie would kill Harriet while she was giving birth to Andy.
My Dad was away on business at the time and I felt pretty guilty knowing Harriet was suffering on the hilltop while I was lying down with my headphones on a pillow listening to X Los Angeles or London Calling. The neighbor Bud, a sheep farmer, made the call to the Veterinarian but it was too late. Andy became our pet after that, and he often sat in the family room with us watching TV and humming, as all young llamas do.
After Harriet died, my dad wanted to recoup his $2,000 loss by finding another female and breeding her with Ozzie. If the baby were female, a one in four chance, then he would be on the right track. Meanwhile it was just Ozzie and Andy, two orphans ruling the pasture where horses had once run free.
One of my weekly chores was to feed Ozzie. During the winter, with the dirt road iced over or the long driveway blocked, it was easier to just cross over the pasture, take the bridge over the creek and climb the hill to the barn. Only problem was that Ozzie would be there waiting at the top.
I had to take a large stick with me and wave it in front of him or whack him in the face with it so he wouldn’t trample me down. He was a good 300 pound spitting machine with hooked teeth like a serpent, wielding his dragon neck at me with bulging eyes, hissing stinky fire. I usually could hit him squarely in the balls a couple times and he got the idea until I went in and closed the door to the barn.
We find out later that Ozzie had been raised by humans too, bottle fed just like we were doing with Andy. He imprinted humans as natural enemies, and his aggression came from being coddled by some unwitting children in a petting zoo. Andy got too big to come inside anymore, so we put him back in the barn with Ozzie. The Veterinarian told us he died of heartbreak.
The first two llamas we bought were called Ozzie and Harriet, named after the famous 1950’s TV series. Harriet was pregnant, but Ozzie was not the father. Within a few months of bringing them home from the Chamberlain South Dakota Exotic Animal Auction, tragedy would strike and Ozzie would kill Harriet while she was giving birth to Andy.
My Dad was away on business at the time and I felt pretty guilty knowing Harriet was suffering on the hilltop while I was lying down with my headphones on a pillow listening to X Los Angeles or London Calling. The neighbor Bud, a sheep farmer, made the call to the Veterinarian but it was too late. Andy became our pet after that, and he often sat in the family room with us watching TV and humming, as all young llamas do.
After Harriet died, my dad wanted to recoup his $2,000 loss by finding another female and breeding her with Ozzie. If the baby were female, a one in four chance, then he would be on the right track. Meanwhile it was just Ozzie and Andy, two orphans ruling the pasture where horses had once run free.
One of my weekly chores was to feed Ozzie. During the winter, with the dirt road iced over or the long driveway blocked, it was easier to just cross over the pasture, take the bridge over the creek and climb the hill to the barn. Only problem was that Ozzie would be there waiting at the top.
I had to take a large stick with me and wave it in front of him or whack him in the face with it so he wouldn’t trample me down. He was a good 300 pound spitting machine with hooked teeth like a serpent, wielding his dragon neck at me with bulging eyes, hissing stinky fire. I usually could hit him squarely in the balls a couple times and he got the idea until I went in and closed the door to the barn.
We find out later that Ozzie had been raised by humans too, bottle fed just like we were doing with Andy. He imprinted humans as natural enemies, and his aggression came from being coddled by some unwitting children in a petting zoo. Andy got too big to come inside anymore, so we put him back in the barn with Ozzie. The Veterinarian told us he died of heartbreak.
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