A Fair Exchange

I never set out to write 800 plus stories - but like so many things in my life, once the train was on the track, it steamed right over me and went in its own direction.

Sometimes the words come without the slightest effort - something triggers a memory or reminds me of some past event - and the writing pours like water from a faucet. Sometimes I have to work at it, knowing what I want to say but not able to put the words together exactly the way I hear them in my head. There are threads to these stories, each is connected in some way to the things I believe about addiction, animals, anger, friendship and the afterlife. I write to vent, to detoxify, to re-evaluate and remember. I write because it makes me feel better to put feelings out in the sunlight and away from the shadows, because I have come to realize that I am not alone in what I feel or fear, will endure or have survived. Human nature demands that we all live with our sins and mistakes and foolishness, that we learn and move on, forgiving when we can and forgetting when we can't. As long as there's life, there's hope, my grandmother would often quote and my daddy would tell me, If you can draw breath, it's not over. Both were strong in their own ways, each had learned the difference between acceptance and surrender. I sometimes think that if I could talk to my daddy now, I would tell him I'm sorry for the moments that I thought him a coward.

Still, I didn't know I had 800 plus stories in me, never mind that I could let them spill out, the light and the dark side by side, often in a kind of emotional competition. Living in the light is harder than life in the shadows.

So I continue to write, plowing through what makes me smile as well as what still hurts. I have no goal in mind, no stopping point. When I'm done, I'll be done - hopefully a little wiser and a little stronger - but if not, I'll settle for whatever progress I have made and call it a fair exchange.

Jimmy Gordon's Getaway

He was, so people said, a headline waiting to be a written. What the neighbors called bad news - the teachers referred to as troubled and at risk - and what the police labeled a repeat offender with gang affiliations. Worse, he lived two doors down and by virtue of an alphabetical seating chart, sat directly in front of me in homeroom.

James George Gordon - nee Giordano, street name "Jimmie G" - was a knee capper, a gambler, and a heroin dealer, all by the age of sixteen. He ran a small gang from his daddy's sandwich shop on Massachusetts Avenue, just a block from the library, a collection of young thugs and undesirables who idolized him and never questioned his orders. By the time he was permanently expelled from school, he had so routinely terrorized and beaten up anyone who opposed him that he was widely considered the single most dangerous juvenile delinquent the town had ever seen. It was 1964, a decade after "The Blackboard Jungle" had made its way into the lives of ordinary people, but we were a small and modest town, hardly Glenn Ford's inner city nightmare, and until Jimmie G took over the rival gangs from Somerville and Cambridge and even Revere, we thought we were insulated, that this bloodied up, motorcycle riding would be gangster was a fluke, a bad seed. The town did the reasonable, expedient and worst possible thing - we dismissed him.

In my third year of high school, the violence escalated and spread. A shop teacher was assaulted between classes in a school corridor, there was an explosion in the science lab, a fire set in the auditorium. A young transfer student was dragged from his homeroom and beaten unconscious when he reported another student smoking in the gym. There was theft, vandalism, an attempted rape and by late September, we had gone to split sessions with freshmen and sophomores in class from 8 til 12 and juniors and seniors from 2 to 6 - the entire school was locked down from 12 to 2 and armed security guards patrolled the classrooms and hallways. Jimmie G, by that time, was waiting in the Suffolk County Jail to be tried for his role in the armed robbery of an outlet store in Central Square, a badly planned and poorly executed scheme for which he paid dearly once convicted - five years in Deer Island - but he continued to run things, issue orders and make decisions. Schools were easy targets for a locked up gang leader but by his second year in prison he was restless and anxious to re-take the spotlight so on a foggy, late summer day, he simply walked away from a work detail and disappeared. Soon after, the school violence eased and ceased entirely by the time I'd graduated.

They searched, of course, for several months, but Jimmie G had gone to ground. Leaderless, his small band of followers disbanded and the tightly knit coalition of gangs he had so carefully cultivated fell apart and drifted back to their separate territories. Without Jimmie G, they were small timers, short term thinkers and wannabes, most ended up either in jail or in Boston's slums without a dime or even a reputation to fall back on. They were rapidly and easily forgotten while Jimmie G's clean getaway became a legend. He'll be back, people said, You'll see, his kind doesn't change and he'll be back unless he's dead.

In late '71, there was a string of robberies along Massachusetts Avenue, all committed by a young man in a leather jacket with sunglasses. No one was harmed but shop owners were wary and when a young man who fit the description walked into Giordano's Sandwich Shop, a block from the library, Mr. Giordano reached for the small pistol he'd taken to keeping behind the counter. The young man reached into his pocket and the nervous owner shot twice - Jimmie G was dead before his body hit the worn linoleum floor, seconds before the police arrived with the news that they'd arrested a young man in a leather jacket and sunglasses in the act of robbing the Woolworth's just up the street.

Sal Giordano buried his son, was tried and convicted for manslaughter, spent a year in prison and was released. The sandwich shop was sold and converted to a rare book store which quickly failed, sold again and converted to a frame shop, which just as quickly failed. The government eventually bought the space and turned it into a post office. Sal carried the burden of killing his own son for some ten years before he died from a fall down a flight of stairs in the house two doors down, an accident the papers reported, but those who knew his history were less sure. The best getaways always leave you guessing.

The Wisdom Garden

In back of the small village church, not far from the cemetery but hidden from easy view, Clara maintained her Wisdom Garden, a little plot of land she tended along with the graves. It consisted of rows of miniature, unpainted wooden crosses, each nestled in a bed of flowers, some had sayings, some just a single word. She had Uncle Len build two wooden benches and placed them side by side facing the crosses with a stone basin mounted on a pedestal in between. This she filled with water and the birds came willingly. It was a place open to all, a quiet and peaceful corner, near but apart from the cemetery and its sadness, memories came easier here and weren't quite as painful. You could sit and think, remember, laugh or cry with only the birds as witnesses and anyone could put a cross here for almost any reason. Clara would allow no censorship so there were Biblical references, bits of poems, a few bitter scrawls, first names, advice of all sorts and many well worn cliches. Look before you leap was planted side by side with He who hesitates is lost and Rest in Peace sat next to Rot til hell freezes over. Clara didn't know all the authors and those that she did she kept to herself - the crosses sat in a chest on her front porch, all you had to do was pick one, inscribe or carve or write on it, then anonymously return it and it would find its way to the Wisdom Garden a few days later. Sorry, one read, Mercy was carved on another, Come back! one read in what looked like red nail polish and one, meticulously and delicately carved in tiny script contained the entire 23rd Psalm with Don't take any wooden nickels! added on the reverse side. One had a single eighth note painted on it, one had a childishly drawn skull and crossbones, one was inscribed Watch where you walk underneath an arrow pointing downward. One, block printed in heavy but neat black lettering, read Emergency Exit Only and another featured a single name, Lucas, a name no one knew or could identify.

When someone was "called home", as James liked to say, it was right and necessary to mourn their passing, but it was also important that we celebrate their soul being delivered into the arms of heaven. Show me the proof! the atheists among us would demand. There's a reason it's called faith, James would reply mildly. The Wisdom Garden was a halfway place - it served both those who believed and those who didn't - it was of the secular and of the faithful at the same time.

After my great grandmother died, my grandmother often took me there after a visit to the cemetery. She taught me to sit still and think quiet thoughts, to pray, I suppose, although she never put it that way. While the graves almost made her cry, the Wisdom Garden almost made her smile. I just thought it was an interesting and curious place to go, to wonder at the words on the little crosses, to try and guess who might have written them and why.

I wasn't old enough to fully comprehend death and had only the most childish notions of heaven and hell but I did know about sadness and I understood that my great grandmother was gone, that she would not return and that sitting in the Wisdom Garden made missing her a little easier.

It's good to find a quiet place to be alone with your thoughts and memories, to sort through and decide what to keep and what to give away. We are all so much stronger than we imagine and it's remarkable what we can live with and what we can live without.

A Tip from the Toolbox

I keep a small and not very imaginative collection of tools on hand for small and not very imaginative home repairs, knobs on cabinets, lose towel racks, picture hanging and the like. Despite my repeated resolutions though, I can't seem to keep them all together in one place and therefore am unlikely to find what I need when I need it. I was thinking of this on a Saturday morning as I searched for a Phillips head screwdriver, vowing for the hundredth time to replace it in the tool drawer and half listening to public radio when I heard the following - I stopped in mid ransacking of a drawer and made a note of the words, struck by their directness and simplicity and knowing that like my tools, I might not be able to find them when I needed them.

If all you have is a hammer, then all you'll see is a nail......

I located the screwdriver, stashed in a bedside table - apparently the last place I'd used it - tightened the screws on the door knob and a hinge on the back door and turned the radio up a notch. Saturdays off are still fairly new to me and sometimes I'm not quite sure where to start. If all you have is a hammer, then all you'll see is a nail kept running through my head and I found myself distracted. I kept wondering how often tunnel vision had prevented me from seeing the simplest solutions, how many times had I let myself stay stuck out of fear of trying something new. You can waste a great deal of time with a hammer and a nail when a screwdriver is what you really need and when you think about it, there's no real reason to be afraid of a wrench or a pair of pliers. We use the tools we have because we have them and know how they work, but if they fail us or are simply wrong for the job at hand, it only makes sense to try different ones.

A tip from the toolbox - life is learning, exploration, coming of age, coming to terms, tripping without falling, falling and getting back up. Life is about using all the paints on the palette, all the voices in the choir and all the tools in the toolbox.

Shovels & Rakes & Implements of Destruction

The roots of the massive pine tree outside the kitchen window are over a hundred years old, strong as well laid cement and snarled together in an impenetrable maze under the house. They present a formidable challenge to the engineers assigned to leveling the house's foundation as they are mostly inaccessible and well protected. They have had their own way since birth, securely out of sight, twisting, spreading, and reinforcing themselves for over a century, surviving by following their nature. They are a metaphor for the inevitable.

The lead contractor paces the kitchen, frowning. He doesn't like admitting that no one can say for sure how the leveling process will go, so he prepares me for the worst, the cabinets may be jolted from their moorings, the tile countertops may be undone, the window could resettle, the backsplash might jump off like popcorn. An entire wall section might have to be replaced or rebuilt and he suggests I begin looking at new cabinetry and paint samples. The night before, I painstakingly remove all the glassware and other breakables until the shelves are bare and the counters empty. I almost like the resulting look - minimalistic and free of clutter, exactly the way I would have my life if it were possible.

The crew arrives at precisely 7am the next morning, hard hatted, determined and fully equipped to do battle. They form a bucket brigade that extends from under the house to the kitchen to insure quick communication and begin unloading all manner of impressive mechanical devices. The dogs commence a fierce protest at this invasion of men and machines and the cats, safely locked up in the far side of the house, scatter for shelter at the commotion and noise. At the sight of one worker producing an evil looking jackhammer, an absurd lyric from Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" makes its way into my mind, shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, and I flee for work. The worker with the jackhammer gives me a cheerful wave and a thumbs up.

The morning passes without incident although every unfrayed nerve I have left is poised and ready for the bad news telephone call that never comes. At noon, I return home to find the house intact and not a single sign of anything different until I open the back door and rather than shuffle slowly over the low carpet, it swings freely. I look around and see that the cabinets are more in alignment, the drawers surprisingly evened out. The leveling has been accomplished without disaster, a slap in the face to the old pine tree and its ancient, gnarled root system. Man and machine have beaten nature at her own game and while its only a temporary victory - the tree still lives and will continue to grow and reassert itself, fighting for its life and one day regaining the upper hand - but for now it's defeated and quiet. It waits.

The whole process reminds me that anticipation and dread rarely live up to their potential, that we spend too much time accommodating them. Save your worry for the things that really matter and tomorrow will take care of itself.

Lock Up Before You Leave

You can't change the results of the race once it's run, best to lock up and leave while you're still able. Cut your losses, as my friend Michael likes to tell me, Get out while the gettin's good.

Change is the the only constant - jobs, friends, partners, the places we live, taste in all things - are all subject to being altered by time, experience, and in many cases, fate. Anything that fails to grow, adapt, and discard the things that don't work in favor of trying something new, must surely stagnate and eventually die. One of the difficulties is that the process can be confusing - surrender can mistaken for failure, courage for resistance, walking away for abandonment. Learning to discern the differences takes practice, practice means facing the fears, and therein lies the pain that we would all prefer to do without.

It's taken me well over a week to come to terms with the recent death of an old friend and I'm not sure I'm all the way there yet. Perhaps because it could have been prevented, perhaps because he was so young, perhaps because at one time we had been very close, or perhaps because I had seen no choice but to break the attachment, it's been an unusually difficult reality to absorb. I can't quite make it make sense, can't seem to force it to be real. Watching someone you care for literally self destruct is one thing - comprehending the wreckage when they finally succeed is even more painful.

My friend Scotty was a tortured soul - by dreams that didn't materialize, by people who disappointed him, by the competition between the beautiful and the ugly in the world and finally by depression, alcoholism, and the abuse, faithlessness and false promises of a pretty, predatory, much younger woman. He was generous to a fault and far too tender hearted for his own good . He looked for and often found the good in people, even when it was hidden from sight, even when others wouldn't bother. Despite having no patience with self serving fools and frauds, he gave everyone the chance to prove him wrong, celebrating when he was right, trying harder when he was wrong. His heart rarely closed and he had no gift for saying no. He could be moved to tears by a memory or laugh himself helpless at a really bad joke ( Did you know Helen Keller had a playhouse in her backyard? No? Neither did she! ) and if it came with four feet and a tail, he was had - though I always thought he had never loved any animal as much as his first dog, Beauty - he would choke up just talking about her.

Listening to his family and friends at the memorial service this morning, I thought again of how fragile, short, and unpredictable life is. Searching to find some meaning in his death, I think it's this - if you care for someone, tell them now, while they're here. Tell them often and in as many ways as you can think of. Don't wait until they lock up and leave.

For Scotty

December 16, 1954 - July 10, 2011

The Pacifist Falcon

Hands clasped behind his back and silhouetted by the setting sun, Fallon stood on the hill overlooking the bay and watched the incoming boats. I knew him by his floppy hat and walking stick, a staff really, he was rarely seen without it. The night was mild and the sky a pastel mix of pink and blue streaks woven through the clouds with a sweet, salty breeze drifting upward along with the shouts of the fishermen. It had been a good day at sea, the catch had been plentiful and the men were in fine spirits as they rounded the lighthouse and headed for the breakwater. Fallon waved and raised his staff as if blessing their safe return, then began rounding up his flock of goats and leading them home.

Fallon and his brother, Aldridge, lived high on the ridge above the bay, two confirmed bachelors, each independent as a wildfire and twice as dangerous, so Nana liked to say. They raised their goats, grew their own vegetables, kept mostly to themselves and expected their neighbors to do the same. Their reputation for being dangerous came from the simple but extraordinary fact that they bred and trained birds of prey, namely ospreys or what they liked to call sea hawks and the occasional falcon. The trouble started with the falcon, a handsome young female half the height of a man with a wingspan of over four feet - she was called Cleopatra and contrary to all the rules of her species and to nature, she refused to hunt. The brothers sent her forth and she soared on her magnificent wings, gliding across the tops of trees and diving with elegance and precision to fly over the bay until she was nearly out of sight. But she returned empty handed each time - no live quarry retrieved, no predatory instincts. Fallon and Aldridge were mystified by this highly non traditional bird of prey behavior. Cleopatra showed no interest in the field mice they captured and brought to her, she was indifferent to the rabbits and other small prey, she wouldn't even join the ospreys in fishing.

Ain't natural, Fallon remarked.

Ain't respectable, Aldridge agreed.

The falcon watched them with a sleepy, impassive look, shadowy and still. When Fallon slipped off her ankle bracelet and set her free, she remained on her perch. When Aldridge attempted to shoo her, she shifted her deadly talons and rustled her feathers a bit, but made no move to go.

I'll be damned! Fallon exclaimed.

Double damned! Aldridge cried.

What to do with a falcon that wouldn't hunt, they wondered. They fed her table scraps of meat and corn on the cob, birdseed and biscuits with gravy, venison in season, and pollock. She ate everything they offered with enthusiasm but still she wouldn't hunt. They tried not feeding her, hoping hunger might coax out her inner falcon and persuade her to swoop down upon some unsuspecting mouse or chicken - instead she gave them reproachful looks and still refused to hunt, scavenging in the vegetable garden at night and the berry fields by day. On the fourth day, she attacked the helpless scarecrow and scattered him and his second hand clothes to kingdom come, frightening the goats so badly that they rushed the gate and tore through in a panic. It took the remainder of the day for the brothers to retrieve them and rebuild the gate and by sunset, Cleopatra was serenely feeding on a slab of smoked bacon and looking well pleased with herself.

S'pose we could shoot her, Fallon suggested.

S'pose, Aldridge said mildly, But it don't seem right.

The next time I saw Fallon, he was again standing on the edge of the cliff overlooking the bay, staff in hand. His brother was by his side and they were both watching the incoming boats. The sky was a pastel blend of pink and blue and there was a sweet, salty breeze drifting up from the ocean. A falcon circled overhead, solitary, graceful and splendid in flight - it soared into the clouds and back again, gliding over the treetops with it's wings fully spread then dipping toward the boats and over the whitecaps. I couldn't remember having ever seen anything quite as beautiful as Cleopatra as she turned sharply and flew upwards, then glided in for a landing on Aldridge's gloved hand.

Good old girl! I heard Aldridge say.

Reckon so, Fallon agreed and they all turned for home.

The Women I Come From

I come from a long line of short, stocky, stubborn women with small feet.

Both my grandmothers and one of their sisters, my mother, and my great grandmother were on the petite side in height and the well rounded side in width. All shared small - in some cases - tiny feet. My great aunt Zelma's feet always reminded me of munchkin wear - she was a tiny woman and had to have her footwear custom made to accommodate her size and a permanent limp. She and her sister wore identical black, hook and eye shoes with low, chunky heels. My mother favored imitation discount store moccasins, they hung loosely on her chubby feet and curled up at the toes. I have racks and racks of shoes - some bargain brands, some designer names, everything from snappy summer sandals to three inch open toed heels to genuine leather flats - but my thin and fashion conscious lifestyle is a fading memory, now I'm never in anything but my trusty Nikes. I've never found the time or will to organize and dispose of my shoes decently and women with size five feet have become rare.

Until it got to me, childlessness had not been an option for these women. My mother produced three, my grandmother and her sister each had one - both girls - and in the case of my Aunt Zelma, her daughter faced the issue of infertility by promptly adopting a boy and a girl, a decision she claimed never to regret and her husband never celebrated. My great grandmother had two girls and a boy and my paternal grandmother bore an astonishing ten. Until it got to me, divorce had not been an option for these women. Aside from desertion by their husbands, the only exit from marriage was widowhood, a socially accepted state without the stigma of shame or failure attached. Back in the day, as people like to say now, marriages endured, if not always happily or for the right reasons. And until it got to me, not one of these women ever dreamed of setting one small foot outside their family to work or achieve a measure of independence - domesticity was not only highly prized, it provided an excellent cover for laziness, a secure place to hide, or both. Dirty laundry was never washed in the public square no matter the cause and in my family, women held religiously to the roles and rules they were assigned.

So much for short, stocky and small footed. The stubborn part is quite another matter, a horse of several different colors, you might say. It's a part of my gene structure every bit as noticeable as small feet but far more troublesome and annoying. Coming by it honestly is no consolation - I might can tell the difference between cheap shoes and their upscale cousins, but it's much trickier to see the difference between stubbornness and say, loyalty or persistence. I think the women I come from could have made this distinction but it would've meant making waves in an otherwise peaceful and predictable world and the rewards would've been, like their feet, small indeed and possibly turned up at the toes, misshapen, painful, and not worth the risk.

Small feet leave small footprints - harder to track and easily disappearing in the dust. The women I come from knew that as well. They stayed in their places, never imagining the world to come or that they were a dying breed. I think of them with every new pair of Nikes I bring home - short, stocky, stubborn women with small feet, doing the best they could with what they had despite oppression and hard times. For better or worse, these are the women I come from, for all their flaws and failings, for all their victories and vindications, they contributed to who I am, small feet, small stature, stubborn streak and all.

The Road To Repair

The intersection was dry as dust and shimmering with heat. There were no lights, just a ragged 4 way stop sign hanging by a splintered thread. In one of the weedy, waterless ditches, I discovered an unpainted wooden marker in the shape of an arrow, covered with dried mud and brown grass, with a single hand lettered word scrawled - on both sides - in what looked to be paint. Repair, it read. I tossed it back into the ditch and it landed with a sharp crack, raising a tiny cloud of brown, brackish looking dust and disturbing a mound of fire ants.

There wasn't, I realized, a sign of life - not a single farmhouse or fence as far as I could see, not a mile marker or broken down chimney, not a telephone wire or mailbox or billboard. There might have been birds but there were no trees and the only sound was a faint wind rustling through the tractorless cornfields. This is what they were thinking when they invented the word desolation, I thought to myself, and loneliness. I climbed back into the old borrowed truck and started the engine, played eeny,meeny, miney, mo to choose a direction and headed west. It was straight up noon.

I'd left Portsmouth that morning with no destination except away from the man I had married, crossed the border into Maine and kept driving, turning off the turnpike at Scarborough and heading north then west, inland and into the country. I had a change of clothes, a six pack of Coke, my credit cards - but I'd intentionally left the maps on the kitchen counter - no need to make it easier for him to follow, I remembered thinking, and besides I wanted to get lost for awhile, needed some time alone to sort myself out, to decide what next. The anger had burned itself out by the time I reached the dusty, unmarked intersection but the hurt was still fresh. I decided it was best to keep driving, to see where the road would take me by the end of the day. It was high summer on a cloudless day and the miles flew by mindlessly.

The next intersection, some forty miles down the road, was a carbon copy of the first - no lights, no signs, and

cornfields on every side, but no indication of life anywhere. It was as if I'd driven into an endless countryside where corn grew without tending, without water, without human intervention. It wasn't possible, of course, but I was beginning to think that life as I knew it didn't exist in this part of Maine and it took some effort to shake off the feeling that the corn was watching my progress, waiting for a mistake or an opportunity. Hitchcock would've loved this, I thought to myself as I recalled the scene from "North by Northwest" where Cary Grant has to flee into the corn to escape the murderous crop dusting plane. I had a hazy, far off feeling that the corn agreed and cursing my over active imagination, I prepared to drive on, then at the last minute decided to take a quick look in the ditch.

The arrow shaped marker was neatly split in two pieces, held together by weeds and tangled, dry brush, lying at a crooked angle but its chipped black paint still legible - Repair, I read outloud, and unaccountably felt a chill in the warm summer air. Enough! I told myself sharply, already regretting the urge that had drawn me to the foul smelling ditch and the sad, abandoned marker, Get a grip! Impatient and unsettled, I climbed back into the truck and drove on.

I reached the third intersection in the late afternoon. As I expected, there were no lights, no trees, no signs and still no evidence of life beyond the corn. This time, the Repair marker hung vertically from a stray strand of rusty wire stretched across the ditch. I watched it swinging back and forth over a bed of cornstalks and dead leaves and

without consciously summoning it, an image from childhood flashed through my mind - Poe's story of "The Pit and the Pendulum" and a wildly mad Vincent Price about to extract his revenge on an innocent victim. For a moment or two I was frozen with something very like fear then just as suddenly I was back, on a late, lazy summer afternoon somewhere in Maine at a scorched, deserted intersection with nothing more frightening that the lack of a map, the faint stirrings of a headache and an imagination locked in overdrive. Back in the truck, I turned east toward the coast, feeling a sudden and urgent need to see the ocean and breathe salt air, to hear the hum of telephone wires and the cries of gulls. With the sun to my back I turned toward the darkening sky and accelerated until the corn fields began to blur in passing. The thought came to me that I'd been running all day and gotten nowhere - that it was possible, even likely, that flight might provide a temporary reprieve but that it wasn't going to solve trouble on the road or at home. I'd covered a lot of distance and run up a lot of miles in a day but everything except the geography was the same.

The Maine coast came into view just after dark, not long after the last cornfield had disappeared and the dirt road turned into narrow, two laned pavement with streetlights at regular intervals. I began passing houses, then small villages, then to my surprise at having come so far north, the lights of Bar Harbor. I spent the night there, in a rambling old farmhouse that had been converted to a bed and breakfast high on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic.

I listened to the ocean and thought about going home, about what I might say and what I would find, about how he would greet me, if he'd even noticed I was gone much less thought to look - by morning, this last thought had brought a fresh urge to turn north again rather than south - then I remembered the cornfields and the desolation, the silence of those intersections, the lack of life, and decided no, I would head for home and come what may, find my own Road to Repair.

Another Whiskey Death

My friend Scott was found dead this morning.

I hadn't seen him in the last couple of years - he had pretty much retreated into an alcoholic haze and it wasn't healthy for me to be around him so I had made the painful choice to detach. At the time it felt selfish to care more about my own preservation than to help a friend and it feels even more so now. The alcohol took him slowly but visibly - he had looked as if he were at death's door for months - he dressed mostly in rags, was wrenchingly thin, his skin had turned the color of wax, he was foul smelling and incoherent and had tremors. I was prepared for news of a car accident or an arrest, wouldn't have been surprised by a long hospitalization, but I never imagined this tv-esque ending of someone discovering his body. Rumor has it that he had finally stopped drinking several months ago but that it was too late, his ruined liver was whiskey rotted and corrupted. It was a matter of weeks, maybe months, the doctors said. It was a death sentence.

He reached out to no one during this time, didn't return calls or answer emails. When people asked about him, I shrugged and said I had no idea. They told me about seeing him on the street, looking crippled and homeless, usually drunk and inarticulate and filthy. They shied away from this broken stranger as if he might infect them, as if he were contagious. They said all the right things - how sad it was, and what a waste - and I nodded and agreed, remembering how truly hateful alcoholism was and how treacherous it was to try and separate the person from the disease. I hadn't been able to do it with my mother or my husband and I had certainly failed with Scott. The road to self destruction is made of shame and guilt, despair beyond measure and loneliness - it takes more and more alcohol or drugs to feel anything close to normal, until the body has taken all it can and gives in. We look for reasons and causes and explanations when there aren't any, and whether we protect or enable, whether we go or stay, makes no difference in the end. Tragically, though I know this, have even lived it twice over, it doesn't help or change anything today.

Every death serves a purpose, my daddy used to tell me, even if it's only to bring an end to suffering. My friend Scott struggled and suffered more than some, less than others, and all I can hope for is that he finds some peace somewhere else. I remember better times, before the drinking soared out of control - when we were close friends and spent time together often and easily - how he tended me when I was sick, took me to dinner and the movies, helped me through hard times and heartbreak. We both loved animals - he had never really gotten over the loss of his black lab, Beauty - and photography, music, books. The small brown dog adored him as he did her and he was the only friend I ever had who was able to win the trust and affection of both my schipperkes without being nipped.

Those are the memories I'll keep.

Better Guns & More Determination

Do you know, my daddy said, setting his book aside and stretching his arms over his head, the principal reason for the loss at Little Big Horn?

Custer believed his own press? I suggested wryly.

He laughed outloud. That too, he said with a smile, but mainly it was that the Indians had better guns and more determination.

Well, there were 1800 of them, I pointed out, and only 268 7th Cavalry. He nodded and adjusted his reading glasses, Poor odds, I daresay, Just because you're Crazy Horse one day doesn't mean you won't be Custer the next.

My mother gave an exasperated sigh and yanked at her knitting. What are you two going on about? she demanded crossly, Look there, you made me drop a stitch! My daddy sighed and got to his feet, assuming an injured expression and giving me a sideways wink. Come, fledgling,he said to me grandly and called the dogs, We shall take the night air for a time. We are unappreciated here.

There was a full moon hanging low in the sky, it looked as it might fall into the ocean and disappear at any moment. Lights glimmered on the water and it was quiet, we could hear our footsteps and the soft hum of the electric wires, the waves slapping against the rocks. We walked to the breakwater by Sparrow's and could smell pipe tobacco - the old man called out a quiet greeting and my daddy waved but didn't stop - instead he led me out to the very end of the wharf, sat me down, and began to talk. He talked for a long time, about a lot of things. Sometimes he sat, sometimes he paced back and forth, sometimes he stood with his back to me, cigarette in hand and looking out over the water. Some I understood, some I didn't but I listened to it all and asked no questions. It seemed to be a combination explanation/history lesson/apology/confession/warning and growing up speech all in one - I was to turn seventeen that very month - and I guessed that he thought the time had come to pull back some of the curtains. He talked about my grandfather's alcoholism as well as my mother's, about loyalty and marriage and integrity, about peacemaking and how families could become strangers, about how he missed his own sisters and brothers and wished he saw them more often. He talked about human dynamics and relationships, about emotional breakdowns and loneliness and how to substitute work for intimacy, about failure and success. And finally he talked about responsibility and consequences, about being and behaving in the adult world, about finding the right path and not straying too far from your dreams. Compromise when you have to, he told me seriously,But never on your principles, never with your true self.

We returned to the house to find my mother and grandmother in a heated argument over a card game. Always the arbitrator, my daddy calmed the waters and proposed a solution - call it a draw and change to dominoes. The two woman gave in sullenly and my mother abruptly changed targets, trying to provoke a secondary argument about who had finished off the last of the brownies. My daddy shrugged it off, recognizing the tactic and refusing to engage her which in turn only made the situation worse and she stalked off with a self righteous glare at us both.

Not all battles are bloody but oftentimes you have to wait for the smoke to clear before you realize who actually had the better guns and the most determination. It's not always you might think.

Wit's End

Wit's End is an isolated and nearly abandoned ruin of a town that you reach when your patience and money have finally run out and you are too angry to waste time on courtesy or reason.

It's not the battery, I told the service manager for the third time in as many weeks, It's not where I bought the battery or who installed it because your's didn't work any better than the first three. Something else is going on and no one is listening to me. And now, as if that's not enough, it's overheating. This is not acceptable. This time there was no patronizing smile, no pat on the head or suggestion that the fault might lie with me. She frowned, apologized, took my keys, and called the car rental company for me. I left, somewhere between despair and rage, feeling - as I had the whole weekend when I'd not dared to drive the car - a clear and violent urge to break something. I no longer felt particular about what.

Trouble finds us no matter how well we hide and there comes a point when fighting back, reprehensible as it may be, is the only option. Raised voices still unnerve me and when it's my own, shrill, shaky and primal, I feel as if I'm fighting for my life against dark forces. I say things I regret and can't take back, take stands I can't always defend,

and become too emotional for my own good. I was feeling precariously close to this kind of break down moment as I walked into the workplace, expecting the new offices to have been made ready over the long weekend as we'd been promised. Instead, I discovered controlled chaos - the painters were still at work, the floors weren't finished, no fixtures were in place. The old office was a shambles of overturned furniture, stacks of paperwork laying about in no discernible order, medical charts in boxes, leaning in piles against the walls, and stacked on every available flat surface, cartons of supplies and medical equipment spilled into the narrow hallways, closets were half emptied, their contents strewn about the exam rooms. Neither the xray machine nor the telephones nor the computers nor the fax machine nor any of the printers had been moved. In a nutshell, neither office was functional nor looked likely to be in the immediate future. I found myself wondering how fast and how far I could get away in my newly rented car.

By noon, it became clear that nothing could be accomplished while the new office was still full of workmen who were already tripping over each other - the telephones and computers had been shut down and a new water line would have to be installed to accommodate the xray processor, the paint wouldn't even be dry until the next morning. I agreed to be in by seven and fled the scene, desperate to put as much distance as possible between me and this wretched nightmare.

I tell myself tomorrow will be better. They will discover the electrical glitch in the car and fix it permanently. The new office will be ready and everything will work properly. Pigs will fly.

Technical Difficulties

We appear to be having some technical difficulties in your area, the recorded cable tv voice told me cheerfully,

Technicians are working hard to restore your service and we appreciate your patience.

While I am a person who enjoys - nay, treasures - her solitude, I am not a person who likes silence. The television is my friend - I rely on it for company, to lull me to sleep at night, to comfort me with the sound of human voices and familiar themes, dialogue I know almost by heart, jingles and news flashes. Without it, I am edgy and distressed, a far cry from the way I was raised. To finally arrive home and be without it for an entire evening rattled me almost as badly as being completely without power.

I was in grade school when television arrived in our house, an oversized, cabinet model with rabbit ears to aid the reception. The screen was small and the picture grainy and low contrast but suddenly Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Search for Tomorrow, Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo and American Bandstand became staples. There were movies in the afternoon - Dialing for Dollars made random calls to viewers and if you knew what movie was showing, you won cash - local and national news at 10 and 10:30 and then The Tonight Show with Steve Allen. John Cameron Swayze advertised Timex watches, They take a lickin' and keep on tickin', Katie Winters and Bess Myerson were names everyone knew. We were all, save for my daddy who still preferred to read, instantly and totally seduced and once she discovered Liberace and Lawrence Welk, even my staid grandmother gave in. On Saturday mornings, I discovered Bugs Bunny and learned everything I know and love about classical music. In a matter of weeks, none of us could imagine life without this small and fascinating device.

Much later, I came to realize that having a television in the house, meant that there was no need for family members to interact or engage each other except in the matter of program choices. We could all be in the same room for an extended period of time without having to exchange a single serious word - the threat of "No Tv!" had a remarkable effect on disciplinary problems and squabbles turned almost friendly. It was a strange and wondrous peace - drawing us together and driving us further apart all at the same time.

Dogpatch Tales

By the third day of the late spring storm - no power, no lights, no water - we had pretty much exhausted our conversation and creativity. We were card and board gamed out, dominoed to distraction, headachy from reading by candlelight, restless and bored. From the depths of his recliner - half asleep with the cat he liked to claim he had no use for - peacefully nestled in his lap, my daddy commenced to speak. When I was a barefoot boy on the farm......he began and my mother groaned loudly, Not again, Guy!

My daddy opened his eyes and gave her a woeful, reproachful look. When I was a barefoot boy on the farm....he began again and my brothers threw up their hands in protest, Not another barefoot farmboy story, they pleaded, but he just sighed, cleared his throat, and in his best morality tale voice continued, We were dirt poor and there were twelve mouths to feed. We didn't have modern conveniences or electricity or running water. The cat woke and stretched, sinking her claws contentedly into his side. And, he said with a slight flinch as he disentangled her paws and cradled her with one arm while scratching her ears, We kept cats outside. Now, as I was about to say.... my mother sighed heavily, leaned her head back and closed her eyes in resignation. My brothers began squabbling over a box of toy soldiers. I listened sleepily, never quite sure of whether I was hearing the actual truth or a fable, but entertained nonetheless. I often suspected that he exaggerated for effect or to make a point or because he enjoyed making things up, testing how far he could go before having his veracity challenged.

We all had to take turns in the outhouse, he said solemnly, and wash up with well water we drew from a bucket,

then milk the cows and feed the pigs and the chickens. And that was all before breakfast, he paused again to rearrange the cat, which was beans and a crust of bread with maple syrup from the sugar mill.

Had to walk five miles and back to the schoolhouse, then come home and do chores like tend the garden, help your grandmother put up preserves or mow the back pasture, pick apples or shuck corn or cut firewood. Why, we worked from sunup to sundown and never complained. The cat yawned, shifted her position slightly and went back to sleep. Yes, sir, my daddy said with conviction, times were hard when I was a boy on the farm.

These were what we referred to as his Dogpatch Tales, a collection of life lessons to make us appreciate what we had, how to overcome adversity, and be grateful for the world we lived in with all its marvelous labor saving inventions and short cuts. Your grandmother washed clothes with lye soap and a washboard, on her hands and knees by a stream. Churned her own butter and spun her own cloth. Poor as church mice, we were, and we knew how to do without. Why, when I was a barefoot boy on the farm, we worked our fingers to the bone and at the end of the day, all we got was .....This was when my brothers would shout in unison, Bony fingers! and my mother would remark, Another day older and deeper in debt. My daddy would do his best to look wounded at this unseemly and cynical interruption but there was laughter in his blue eyes and sometimes he would give me a wink.

I don't know the truth of his life on the farm although I do remember a washboard and spinning wheel and there was a well by the back door as well as cows, pigs, and chickens, a few apple trees, a vegetable garden and a root cellar. By the time I was a child, there was running water and electricity and a real refrigerator in a corner of the kitchen. Much was still homespun and handmade, but storebought had made its way into the farmhouse slowly - a steam iron, a black and white television and a small radio, a chain saw for the firewood and a sewing machine that plugged in and made my grandmother smile every time she used it. The children she raised, despite hardship and poverty, made their way in the world and had better lives - they grew to be content, unselfish, hard working and self sufficient - it makes me all the more sure that there was more truth than fiction in the Dogpatch Tales.

Honor Bound

Like most children, I was encouraged to always be truthful and taught that lying was unacceptable behavior. It took a little longer to figure out that what applied to children didn't apply to adults and that there were consequences only if you got caught. If you tell a lie, my mother told me, keep it simple and stick with it. Don't complicate things with a lot of details.

It was a fairly remarkable piece of advice from a woman who claimed to expect me to be honest while assuming that I wouldn't be. The truth can never harm you, my daddy countered, It will always be your friend. The flaw in this unlikely bit of wisdom was exposed early on - I learned to spell my name and proudly painted it on the side of our house - admitting the truth earned me a beating and the rage of both parents.

Mostly, I lied to myself and called it imagination. I was something of a private child, inclined more toward books than friends, and very good at keeping myself entertained. I liked to play alone or with the dogs, making up games and rules as I went along, happy to draw pictures in the coloring books my grandmother provided, or play jacks on the kitchen linoleum. I would often wander off by myself to collect shells or pick water flowers from the ditches, to ride a broom horse through the strawberry patch or explore the abandoned fishing shacks around the Old Road. Cap let me ride the ferry back and forth for free if I stayed out of the way and kept quiet - once I saw a school of whales and never said a word - by six, I was an exceptionally good keeper of secrets. I prized my independence and self sufficiency, treasured the time I spent wandering in a world of make believe with characters I could invent or dismiss with the blink of an eye. I kept as much truth as I could out of my small world, refusing to allow disagreements or quarrels to take hold and writing my own script, always with a happy ending. I was, by all accounts, a quiet and well behaved child, seen and not heard more often than not and rarely any trouble. My innate bashfuness turned to painful shyness and in turn to distance, a trait I still maintain although not always to my own benefit. The plain fact is that I've never quite gotten over preferring my own company to that of most others. When I didn't much like myself, it seemed the safer course to stay hidden - now that I do, I discover it's fragile ground, in need of caretaking and sheltering.

Truth is a long, winding road filled with sudden stops, blind curves and unexpected construction. It's not always pretty scenery or ideal driving conditions but we are bound by honor to follow the rules of the road. The hitchhiker in the rain is a lie - it's tempting if not downright charitable to offer him a ride and most likely he's harmless and not an escaped homicidal maniac - but you never really know where a lie will take you and truth is risky enough.

Stay between the ditches.

Drive with care.

And if given the choice, do the honorable thing.