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Ever walk into a room just draped in cobwebs? I have, fairly recently, too. Pretty much looked like a movie set for a grade B vampire pic.
My first thought was, "Damn, when was the last time this place was cleaned?'
My second thought was, "I'm outta here."
The 14-year old still-pimply faced kid walked over to the old man sitting on the wooden bench and took a seat next to him.
Not uncomfortably close, but close enough to make the old man shift a little to his right.
The kid sat silently, glancing towards the old man every few seconds with a question or two obviously waiting to be asked.
The old man slowly looked over to the kid and poked a verbal pin into the querulous look on the kid's face.
"Is there something I can help you with young man?"
"Uhm.." The kid gazed at the ground between his shoes as he gathered himself to reply to the old man.
"Uhm...I don't mean to be a bother and intrude on your day, but I've been given a class assignment to interview one of my Grandparents, and, well, I don't actually have any Grandparents, and I've seen you sitting on this bench nearly everyday I go to school and I kinda was hoping I could interview you, if it's not an inconvenience or anything."
The kid talked fast and nervously, as if he was asking a crush to the prom. The old man smiled a little and nodded his head as he replied, "Sure, that wouldn't be any trouble at all. What is your name?"
"My name? It's Darren, Darren Martinez." I live in Lancaster, on 5th."
"Are you one of Isabel Martinez's sons?"
"Yeah - that's my Mom!
"Good woman, Isabel, was friendly with my wife every time she went into the Beauty Salon."
Darren made a mental note that the old man had not mentioned his father. Most people in the neighborhood didn't, out of courtesy.
"My name is Clifford Macek, Darren, and it is my pleasure to meet you." The old man didn't offer Darren his hand as he introduced himself, just nodded as he spoke. "Now, what questions do you have for me?"
Darren reached into his backpack and pulled out a note pad. He flipped it up and leafed through a few pages until he reached the page where he had written down the questions his teacher had suggested.
"The first question Mr. Macek is what is your favorite memory from your childhood?"
"Oh, that is a very good question Darren, very good. I remember many, many good things about my childhood, but I would say playing baseball with my friends is my favorite. I was raised in a small town in Kansas and I must of played baseball everyday during the summer from when I was old enough to play catch until I had to start working in the fields in my early teens. Yes, playing baseball with my friends is most certainly my favorite childhood memory."
Darren wrote quickly as Mr. Macek spoke, trying hard to keep his rudimentary cursive script as legible as possible. He finished writing five minutes after Mr. Macek had finished speaking.
"Sorry for not being able to write so fast Mr. Macek, but I'm trying to keep from making mistakes so I can remember what you say right."
Mr. Macek smiled and said, "Not to worry Darren, take as much time as you need."
Darren looked down at his note pad and read the second question from the list. "Who was your hero when you were a kid?"
"Another good question. I have two answers, is that okay?"
Darren nodded his head and prepared to write down the answers.
"My first hero was Stan Musial - he was a baseball player for the Saint Louis Cardinals, my favorite baseball team. I liked him better than Williams or Snider or anyone. Stan the Man was a great ballplayer. My second hero was a person that was not only my hero but also my champion, and I didn't even know it until I was much older. That was my mother. You see, My father was killed in the war, the Korean war - that was in 1952. I was only 6 at the time, and my Mother had to raise me and my brother and two sisters herself for awhile, just like your Mother has had to raise you and your brothers and sister."
Mr. Macek looked at Darren while he wrote, pausing in order to allow him to finish putting down what he had just related and to gauge what Darren's reaction was to what he had said about his Mother.
Finishing the last sentence, Darren looked up at Mr. Macek and said, "You didn't have a Father either?"
"No, no I did not. It was tough for women to raise children on their own back then, much as it is now I suppose, though there wasn't as much in the way of government assistance like there is now. The church we attended, and the people in the community did much to help my Mother though."
Darren stared at his note pad for a few long seconds. He tapped his pencil on the sheet of paper then spoke.
"I didn't know you were raised by just your Mom Mr. Macek. I was supposed to ask a couple of questions about what your Father was like. I guess I'll have to find someone else to interview."
"Oh, don't do that Darren, I had a few Father figures in my childhood, good men who helped me grow up, taught me how to be a man. They were very important to me then, and my memory of what they did for me and my family is still important to me."
Darren gazed downward for awhile longer, still tapping his pencil, then looked up at Mr. Macek again.
"Okay, I guess I can ask you about those Father figures. Do you remember what they were like? Do you remember what any of them told you?"
"I remember those men well, Darren, they all had a big impact on my life. Pastor Lister, the leader of the church we attended, Larry Kokocinski's father, Mr. Vecchio my middle school math teacher, and Keever Johnson, who owned the large farm where I got my first job - those four men were very integral in my development as a young man, as a person."
Without looking up from his notebook Darren wrote hurriedly. He paused and asked, "How do you spell Kokocinski, Vecchio and Keever?", all three of which Mr. Macek spelled out in a slow but pleasant fashion.
After concluding that entry on his notepad Darren looked up and over at Mr. Macek, who was quick to answer the follow-up question Darren had before he could ask it.
"Pastor Lister was the man who taught me patience, and compassion. His congregation was small, especially by today's big, warehouse church standards. Probably only 200 or so people. All of us knew each other, too. He was the man who presided over my father's funeral, and he helped me to understand grief and grieving, a lesson which had to be difficult to impart to a 6 year-old boy."
Mr. Macek paused while Darren wrote. He smiled when the young man looked up and asked, "What's a warehouse church?" His answer was direct - "Oh, you know those big churches that have their own T.V. stations and pack thousands of people who don't know each other into huge buildings and are always asking for donations to help them spread the good word, but have leaders that drive luxury cars and live in big mansions. That's not my idea of a real church."
Darren seemed to hesitate a little before writing a short note, then looked back at Mr. Macek to signal his readiness to hear more.
"Keever Johnson was the first man to give me a job - he also was the man who taught me how to drive. I worked on his farm from when I was 13 until I left for the Army in '64. When I first went to work for him he let me know what I was expected to be able to do, and if I didn't think I could do any of it I should go ahead and quit. I didn't know it at the time but that was his way of challenging me to learn, and I just couldn't turn down a challenge. So I learned to drive a tractor, then a farm truck, and I learned how the irrigation system worked and what needed to be done to maintain it - I learned what tools were for, and how to choose the right one for the job - this was well before schools had classes for those sort of things. Most people thought he was a simple farmer, but he was probably one of the smartest men I ever knew."
Writing a little quicker and abbreviating much more, Darren wrote for a good 5 minutes longer than Mr. Macek had spoken. When it was apparent he had finished writing Mr. Macek continued.
"Larry's dad, Mr. Kokocinski, who everyone called Mr. K, was the man who taught all of us neighborhood kids how to play baseball. He had been a minor league baseball player - which none of us knew until we were much older - and he loved baseball. he taught us the importance of teamwork, that even the greatest baseball players in the game, our heroes who could hit the ball out of the park or pitch a ball 90 miles an hour, were nothing without the 8 other men on the field with them. He taught us how to encourage each other, to make each other better, and to respect each other's contributions as being equally as important as our own. He didn't yell at us or embarrass us if we made an error or struck out, either - he just kept encouraging us."
"I've never played baseball Mr. Macek, is it really that much fun?" Darren asked the question without looking up from his writing.
Mr. Macek grimaced a little, then answered. "It was for me and my friends Darren. We live in a different world now, I suppose. Most kids your age probably play those video games, eh?"
"Some do Mr. Macek, but not me - my Mom said we can't afford video games or to have the internet at home, so unless I'm over a friends house that has a game system, I just watch television when I get home from school."
"Television." Mr. Macek stated this with a little laugh as Darren went back to finish writing about Mr. K in his notebook. Darren then responded with the question, "You don't like Television Mr. Macek?"
"Oh, I love television, Darren, one of the greatest inventions in history in my book. Allows all of us to learn about the world, even if it's just the Hollywood version of the world. Television is a great communication device and educational tool, but unfortunately it's also a great mind-polluter."
Darren wrote what Mr. Macek stated almost word for word as he had the idea it was important to remember.
"Mr. Vecchio might be one of the men that you might not believe was as important as he actually was Darren, because he not only was a teacher, he was a math teacher. I know when I was your age I didn't like school, or teachers, or math, very much, if at all, but Mr. Vecchio succeeded in getting me to appreciate all three - school, math, and teachers."
"Wow," Darren stated quietly while flipping his notebook to a blank page and starting to write anew.
"Yes, he was quite an amazing person. He was only 5'5", but at the end of the semester just about everyone who took his class thought of him as a big man, at least as far as his intellect was concerned. See, he didn't just write a math problem on a chalkboard and tell us to solve it, he taught us to understand why learning math beyond addition and subtraction was important, how it would help us to think logically, and how a clear understanding of math would help all of us to maximize our ability to think rationally, reasonably."
Mr. Macek watched as Darren finished writing what he had just said. When Darren stopped he put his pencil down and shook out his hand. "That is the most writing I think I've ever done Mr. Macek. I think I can even read most of what I wrote. Would it be alright to contact you if I need to ask anymore questions?"
"Sure Darren, no problem. Here is my phone number if you don't find me on the bench. I live in the Veterans home over by the stadium where the Dip's play."
Mr. Macek stood up and reached for his cane. It was then that Darren noticed he only had one arm - his right arm was missing from the shoulder down. Darren quickly looked away. Mr. Macek noticed but did not comment. If Darren ever got curious as to how he lost his arm he would tell him, but he was certainly not going to impose that story on the young man.
Standing up to face Mr. Macek, Darren said "Thank you for letting me interview you Mr. Macek, I appreciate it very much", all the while fighting the impulse to offer his hand to shake.
Mr. Macek smiled and replied, "Thank you Darren - I enjoyed being able to share my memories with you. It had been a long time since I'd spoken the names of those men out loud. That was good for me to do. Please feel free to talk with me anytime you like."
Darren turned and started towards the bus stop, then turned to watch as Mr. Macek walked in the opposite direction. The old man had been far nicer than Darren thought he would be. He vowed then to return to the bench soon, if only to sit and pass the time with him.
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For the life of him he could not recall when that feeling had started to fade, when he had started to not only doubt the permanence of the arrangement, but also the strength of the union. All he knew was that somehow, someway, at some point in the rather recent past, he had begun to think that the sturdiness he had taken for granted for what seemed like forever, had begun to show a weakening.
The thought of which made him physically tremble.
Not yet, anyway.
It's possible wearing a Nuggets shirt or maybe slapping a "Go Nuggets" decal on the bumper of the car might be sufficient.
Rain
Rain
Rain
Rain like every songwriter has ever dreamed of being kept inside by
Rain like every poet has ever mused about being drowned in
Rain like every artist has ever been frustrated by trying to paint
Rain like every movie director has ever wanted for a funeral scene
Rain like every novelist has written into the last chapter of a tale of redemption
Rain like every Englishman has cursed when a brelly has been forgotten
Rain like every New Yorker wished would clean the filth off the streets
Rain like every frightened soldier in a muddy trench hoped would stop the battle
Rain like every driver imagined would make the car hydroplane off the road
Rain like every student skipped through on the way to school
Rain
Rain
Rain
The man who hated everything and everyone sat on the low brick wall near the fountain and fumed.
He fumed because, for the moment at least, he seemed to have run out of things and people to hate.
Mentally he ran down the various lists he hat created of the various things and people he hated, and could not think of a single thing or person that he could add.
It was most infuriating, which of course, he hated.
He had mentally created lists of everything and everyone he hated and he enjoyed spending hours studiously mentally reviewing each and every entry on the lists.
All of them had deservedly earned their placement on the lists.
However, occasionally he considered moving something or someone on the list up or down a few notches, but usually he was very satisfied with the order of hatred he had created.
Today, for the first time in a very, very long time, he was close to being happy with each and every listing - and that could not be allowed to happen.
Being happy with the lists of everything and everyone he hated just might, he thought, cause him to smile.
And that would ruin everything.
So he pondered deeply what or who could be added to the lists.
Ponder, ponder, ponder.
He stepped into the elevator after the people getting off on the third floor exited. As he was going all the way back to the top floor he worked his way past the small group of well dressed junior executives toward the rear of the well decorated steel box.
That was when he noticed the urinal. There had never been a urinal in the elevator before, he was certain of that. He stared at the porcelain fixture and wondered how the hell it got there. The elevator made three further stops to allow passengers on and off before he could stop himself from staring and wondering and turn around to face the backs of the well dressed junior executives.
His fellow passengers were indifferent to the urinal, spending their time in the elevator either silently staring at the ceiling or their shoes.
The *ding* for the next floor sounded and the number twenty seven on the large elongated panel lit up. The wall of the elevator to his left unexpectedly slid open as if it had always been the doors and all the riders in the elevator had inexplicably been standing perpendicular to them.
He watched as several passengers turned and walked out of the elevator and a few more got on in what looked to him like a well-choreographed exchange. Of the people that boarded the elevator, one, a taciturn-appearing lawyerly type, walked straight towards him, stopped, and executed an Olympic-caliber half spin that placed her right at his side.
She was wearing a bright fuchsia or possibly magenta outfit, perfectly tailored with a hip-hugging short skirt that he thought was inappropriate for office wear.
Turning to his right to avoid the embarrassment of possibly being caught staring at her athletically toned legs, he was startled to see a waterbed in the rear corner of the elevator. He blinked rapidly for a long ten seconds, his jaw slackened, and then he turned toward the taciturn-appearing lawyerly-looking woman and said, "Excuse me, but can you tell me what is in the rear corner of this elevator, to my right?"
The woman bent slightly forward and turned her head toward his right, which nearly engulfed his face in her very large cinnamon-scented afro. She looked at the waterbed as if she was reading the track listing on the back of an early Psychedelic Acid Rock album with the lettering font being the sort that featured distorted and oblique serifs, links, crossbars, terminals, loops and stems on every individual letter, without an evident stationary axis.
"Now that is interesting, Mr Ralston-Blanc" the woman flatly stated. "The old innerspring set seems to have been replaced. I wonder if housekeeping remembered to add the antifungal water conditioner. Algae can be a serious threat to the structural integrity of the vinyl you know."
Such was his surprise, "You know my name?" was the only response Courier Ralston-Blanc could muster.
"Of course I do Mr Ralston-Blanc, we all do." The woman said this with a flourish of her left hand that indicated the other people in the elevator was the 'all" she was referencing.
"Who are you?" he asked, as perplexed as he had been since the time Bonita Fawcett coaxed him into the coat room in elementary school and asked him to pull her hair while she breathed heavily into a paper bag.
"My name is Betjeman Ducette Heggessey, but please, call me Dougie." Her lips, which were coated in a shade of hot pink that somewhat matched her outfit, seemed to move in a side-to-side fashion as she spoke, as if she was also trying to chew a particularly challenging piece of bubblegum at the same time she was introducing herself.
Courier quickly collected himself and extended his right hand in formal greeting. "Dougie, it's nice to meet you - please, call me Calvo. I take it you're familiar with the furnishings of this elevator? I can't say I am even though I've been riding this particular elevator every working day of the week, vacations excepted, for the past decade or so. Is all of this new?"
"Oh no Calvo, it's all been here for some time, at least since the redecorating was done in '14. Personally I liked the old Twall pattern - the bed pillows and duvet with matching wallpaper was tres chic. but then again, I'm an Industrial Engineer, not an Interior Designer."
The floor indicator *ding* sounded out again as the elevator prepared to stop at the forty-fourth floor. The doors opened from in front of where Betjeman and Courier stood, and the passenger departure & boarding dance was repeated.
"Calvo, are you in a hurry to get back to your office?" Dougie asked in a slight whisper. "I'm not, and if you're up to it, I'd really like to try out the waterbed, you know, give it a go."
Looking first at the waterbed in the corner, then at the group of people standing in the elevator with them, then back to Dougie, Courier answered her in a similar whisper. "It's been years since I rode the waves of a waterbed Dougie, and never have I ever done so in a crowded elevator on my way back to my office after a quick lunch. I think this might just be what I need to get over my last stock dip. Sure, let's go for it."
Betjeman and Courier quickly began to undress, handing the clothes they removed to fellow passengers who obligingly folded them neatly and placed them on the small bench near the foot of the waterbed. Matching his and hers pajamas were handed back to each of them, and they both put them on and climbed under the bed covers.
"This waterbed is incredibly warm Calvo, I can feel it right through these flannel jammies. Can you?
"Yes, yes I can - wow, very nice, very nice. This was a great idea Dougie, high-five!"
Betjeman and Courier gently high-fived before Betjeman turned away from Courier in order to allow him to form the major spoon to her minor spoon. She smiled to herself as he wrapped his strong arms around her torso, ever so carefully avoiding her breasts so as to not draw the ire of H.R.
Courier and Betjeman continued to talk in the same whispered tones for nearly a half hour as the elevator continued ferrying nonchalant passengers between floors of the tall office building.
It wasn't until Betjeman said the song playing over the Muzak system took her way back to the early 2000's that he began to think that maybe he was too old to seriously consider being in a long-term relationship with the woman.
My three closest Mexican friends, Elina, Jose, & Steve, do not understand why such a big deal is made about Cinco de Mayo here in the United States.
I know this because I asked them how much Cinco de Mayo means to them.
Let me clarify something here; by "Mexican friends" I mean friends of mine who were actually born in Mexico (and one, Steve, who still lives there), not friends of mine who trace their ancestry to Mexico but were born in the United States - those friends of mine here in the U.S. who are of Mexican descent do not all identify as Mexican-Americans, so instead of getting into a big ol' game of ethno-geo-political distinguishing factors, I only asked Elina, Jose & Steve how they celebrated Cinco de Mayo.
Elina, who was born on a ranch in the Mexican state of Durango, said she never even heard of Cinco de Mayo as far as it being a holiday is concerned, as it was not celebrated as such where she grew up. However, as she now runs a Mexican restaurant in Downtown Denver, she loves and participates in Cinco de Mayo as enthusiastically as every owner of an Irish pub themed American bar celebrates St Patrick's day.
Jose, who was born in Mexico City, also said that he wasn't aware of Cinco de Mayo as a significant holiday until he came to the states in the late 1980's. He said it is not a very big part of the way he personally celebrates his Mexican heritage, but he does like the general celebration of Mexican culture and participates in a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the Mexican restaurant his family owns in Thornton.
Steve was born and raised and still lives in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, which is a fairly new city on the southern west coast of Mexico. He comes from a family of commercial fishermen, and that is how he makes his living. He professes he cannot understand why Cinco de Mayo is a big deal in the states, and that the only big celebration in his part of Mexico is Carnival, which was two months ago.
Two interesting side notes about Steve - he was named after Steve McQueen, his mother's favorite American actor - and our entire conversation was via texting this morning - a text conversation from Denver to Puerto Escondido in real time! We live in an amazing age.
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The Denver metro area has become such an art-hipster wasteland wonderland that I've been seriously wrestling with the idea of digging up this entire tree trunk currently playing host to the remains of a chain-link fence that the now-dead tree was growing through and mounting it to a base, then entering it in one of the many juried exhibitions hereabouts (maybe the state fair?).
Seriously, it makes a rather poignant statement about nature not respecting the boundaries established by man, no?
That right there could be the title of the piece!
I wonder how much chroming a tree trunk that is entangled in a chain-link fence section would cost?
No matter how pleasant the aroma of the hand soap is, never walk out of the bathroom sniffing your fingers.
The difference between being a hoarder and being a collector is neatness
The hoarder stacks magazines or newspapers or books (car parts, toys, VHS tapes, etc.) in huge piles, without regard to condition or provenance or historical importance, etc.
The collector has those same piles bagged, boarded, boxed, unopened, filed alpha-numerically by publisher or author or artist (or most likely, all three), with key issues noted as well as historical significance.
The hoarder might be able to tell you approximately what he or she has, and where it might approximately be located, but the collector can tell you exactly what he or she has and exactly where it is located.
That's it, that's the difference.
Organization.
