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I used to get calls at three in the morning all the time. Made 'em, too. Didn't think anything of it—3 a.m. was like fucking happy hour. Done with work, call up your friends, figure out what the fuck is going on. Or something like that. Rock 'n roll. Life on the road.
One time I remember I called my buddy Gerry in Seattle. From Amsterdam. I didn't know what the fuck time it was in Seattle. Or Amsterdam. All I knew was he had no fucking excuse for being asleep.
Somebody in Amsterdam must've know how to hack the phones. It's not like we had credit cards or any shit like that.
These days, three in the morning is my quiet time. When things get rolling in the studio. I try to get in there most nights by nine. Maybe ten. Which means eleven. And really, I'm just hanging out until midnight. Looking at what I did the night before. Different angles.
Then something starts to happen. When the rest of the world has gone to sleep.
Which is why I looked at my phone funny when it rang last night.
3:23 a.m.
I picked it up, checked the CallerID. Lisa. Shit. I'd better answer.
We went through the usual dance. Yeah I was awake. Yeah I was in my studio. Yeah I was working. No I didn't mind.
And I didn't mind, really, although the game she was playing pissed the fuck out of me, because I knew, ultimately, she was calling about Sam.
So eventually she gets around to it. She needs me to take Samantha on Thursday night and Friday during the day.
She always calls her "Samantha" when she wants me to do something, as if I need to be reminded what her full name is, as if I'm some stranger who might think she's talking about a boy if she calls her "Sam."
The fucking little insults.
I told her it would have to be Thursday night through Saturday morning—my show was opening Friday night in Chicago. I told her I'd be happy to take Sam with me. It'd be great. Sam would have a blast at the opening.
Lisa had to think about that one.
You really have a show? she said.
Yeah, I said. A real gallery. I sent you a postcard.
I'm sorry, she said, I've been—
It's okay, I said. I know you've got shit going down at the center.
And then I explained to her how it was all legit. How the people who came to see Arbeit Macht Frei in 1983, they've got money now, and they wanna buy the bass player's art. How the gallery was putting me up in a nice hotel. How I'd get 'em to spring for an adjoining room for Sam, no problem. How I'd really, really love to have Sam with me at the reception.
And how I'd keep her away from the crack and the heroin and the whores.
I got a little laugh out of Lisa with that one.
A rueful little fuck of a laugh.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Dorothy, June 19, 2007
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Yesterday, for the first day of class, Louise insisted on driving me. I told her that I had been driving every day, everywhere I wanted to go except those few places where she was also going, places that didn't seem to me much different at all from all my other destinations, to which she replied that I had obviously been driving much too much, and if I didn't want to have that cast put back on my arm I needed to take a break now and then, and as far as she was concerned the issue was closed, but of course she kept talking, it would be silly for both of us to drive and park our cars right next to each other in that tiny parking lot where it was so easy to hit the dumpster with your taillight when you're pulling back out, and it made more sense for me to be in her car as her navigator, as it was only my wrist which I had broken and not my neck, leaving me fully capable of turning around and looking out the back window when needed. I listened to her and eventually I agreed, because in fact my wrist had been hurting me, it had kept me up most of Sunday night, and I even had begun to wonder if I had been driving too much.
We drove into the park and Louise pointed to the new benches and picnic tables and we talked about how much nicer the park had become in the past few years, how upset we had been four years ago when Professor Jorgensen had moved the Elder Summer Science Series from a classroom at the university to this park where none of us had set foot in years, some of us remembered taking our kids there for the swimming pool, which was the nicest one in the city in the early 1960s-but all that ended a few years later with the riots, not the swimming pool, but our coming there with our kids. We both agreed that even though we had been upset at first, it had all worked out for the best. Louise said that Professor Jorgensen had been very brave to build a nature center in park with so many troubles, and I told her that I didn't think Professor Jorgensen was the one who actually built the nature center, it was that Deveridge girl, Lisa, the attorney's daughter, but Louise said that even if the girl had been the one to do all the work and appear on television all the time, it was obvious that Professor Jorgensen had been in charge, and I decided not to correct her, because sometimes it's better to seem as if you only know what you've read in the papers.
There were only two other cars in the parking lot and Louise recognized one of them, I don't know how she does it, all cars look the same to me. It's those Lutheran ladies, she said, and I told her to shush, she knows very well I don't like it when she labels everybody by what church they go to. They're such flirts, she said, and I knew what she meant, because the Lutheran ladies had only started coming to the Elder Summer Science Series two years ago, after Sonya, Professor Jorgensen's wife, had died, but all I said to Louise was that I hoped she could be ecumenical.
Inside the center the Lutheran ladies were looking at the posters of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes designed by the high school class, and at the other end of the room, typing on a laptop computer, was a young girl, maybe thirty years old. It must be his new assistant, whispered Louise, those Lutheran ladies don't have a chance, and I didn't say anything but I noticed the wedding band on the girl's finger as she typed.
Then Louise walked right over and introduced herself to the girl. And the girl looked up and smiled and said her name was Melissa, she was an assistant professor in the Biology Department, and gathered us all together, and said that and even though she had never really worked with Professor Jorgensen as he had retired from regular teaching moved away, except for the summers, before she was hired, she was honored to take over a program which he had started, and she was so delighted that we had all decided to continue with the program, it was really a wonderful tribute to a great man's memory.
At which point she looked at our faces and realized that we had all come to the class expecting to find Professor Jorgensen.
None of us had heard the news. Not even me.
Yesterday, for the first day of class, Louise insisted on driving me. I told her that I had been driving every day, everywhere I wanted to go except those few places where she was also going, places that didn't seem to me much different at all from all my other destinations, to which she replied that I had obviously been driving much too much, and if I didn't want to have that cast put back on my arm I needed to take a break now and then, and as far as she was concerned the issue was closed, but of course she kept talking, it would be silly for both of us to drive and park our cars right next to each other in that tiny parking lot where it was so easy to hit the dumpster with your taillight when you're pulling back out, and it made more sense for me to be in her car as her navigator, as it was only my wrist which I had broken and not my neck, leaving me fully capable of turning around and looking out the back window when needed. I listened to her and eventually I agreed, because in fact my wrist had been hurting me, it had kept me up most of Sunday night, and I even had begun to wonder if I had been driving too much.
We drove into the park and Louise pointed to the new benches and picnic tables and we talked about how much nicer the park had become in the past few years, how upset we had been four years ago when Professor Jorgensen had moved the Elder Summer Science Series from a classroom at the university to this park where none of us had set foot in years, some of us remembered taking our kids there for the swimming pool, which was the nicest one in the city in the early 1960s-but all that ended a few years later with the riots, not the swimming pool, but our coming there with our kids. We both agreed that even though we had been upset at first, it had all worked out for the best. Louise said that Professor Jorgensen had been very brave to build a nature center in park with so many troubles, and I told her that I didn't think Professor Jorgensen was the one who actually built the nature center, it was that Deveridge girl, Lisa, the attorney's daughter, but Louise said that even if the girl had been the one to do all the work and appear on television all the time, it was obvious that Professor Jorgensen had been in charge, and I decided not to correct her, because sometimes it's better to seem as if you only know what you've read in the papers.
There were only two other cars in the parking lot and Louise recognized one of them, I don't know how she does it, all cars look the same to me. It's those Lutheran ladies, she said, and I told her to shush, she knows very well I don't like it when she labels everybody by what church they go to. They're such flirts, she said, and I knew what she meant, because the Lutheran ladies had only started coming to the Elder Summer Science Series two years ago, after Sonya, Professor Jorgensen's wife, had died, but all I said to Louise was that I hoped she could be ecumenical.
Inside the center the Lutheran ladies were looking at the posters of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes designed by the high school class, and at the other end of the room, typing on a laptop computer, was a young girl, maybe thirty years old. It must be his new assistant, whispered Louise, those Lutheran ladies don't have a chance, and I didn't say anything but I noticed the wedding band on the girl's finger as she typed.
Then Louise walked right over and introduced herself to the girl. And the girl looked up and smiled and said her name was Melissa, she was an assistant professor in the Biology Department, and gathered us all together, and said that and even though she had never really worked with Professor Jorgensen as he had retired from regular teaching moved away, except for the summers, before she was hired, she was honored to take over a program which he had started, and she was so delighted that we had all decided to continue with the program, it was really a wonderful tribute to a great man's memory.
At which point she looked at our faces and realized that we had all come to the class expecting to find Professor Jorgensen.
None of us had heard the news. Not even me.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Lisa, June 15, 2007
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I knew the first thing he was going to say.
"Never threaten to resign, dear, unless you really want to leave."
I told him that it wasn't a threat; it was simply a contingency plan as to how I would respond if the board decided to act in certain ways, and that the future behavior of the board was far from a foregone conclusion.
Did he smile when I said that? Did he acknowledge, even for an instant, that his wacko tree-hugger daughter could hold her own in his world—"the world," as he called it, "of practical affairs"—or as I call it, of diplomatic double talk?
The pause on the phone was long enough to permit a smile—but also long enough for a scowl, or an exasperated shake of the head.
"Are you asking me to attempt to influence the future behavior of the board?" he said at last.
"You have one vote," I said.
"And you know I must recuse myself from all personnel matters, due to my close family relationship with the executive director."
That's when I exploded. I think I started off with something like "It isn't a personnel matter, it's a fucking policy matter—"
And then it was as if the calendar had shifted back twenty-five years, and I was standing in the rain at a truck stop at the edge of some swamp that I refused to call a swamp, screaming into a payphone at the Neanderthal who lived just beneath the surface of the suave corporate attorney who was trying to send me money, pedantically explaining to this imbecile how insane it was to stay in school and study environmental science when the battle was raging right now, right here, in this precarious habitat, these fragile wetlands, where the only thing protecting the delicate balance of the ecosystem from the developer's bulldozer was my tent, my sleeping bag, my body. I screamed at him as if I had never learned to work within the system, never written a grant proposal, never sweet-talked my conservative father, discreet counselor to the status quo, into serving on the board of an urban nature center set on the banks of a polluted tributary of an industrial sewer in a crime-ridden park surrounded by ghetto.
I lectured him; I berated him; I insulted him—I reverted completely back to the self-righteousness of the girl who really believed that it was her own courage that stopped those bulldozers, not her privileged status as the telegenic daughter of the white upper-middle-class.
He must have held the phone away from his ear—the way I remember him holding it when the Mayor called—bemused, patient, the tinny speaker just far enough away, so that the words remained intelligible but the anger was reduced to a comic effect—and he would catch my eye, watching him from the door of his study in my pajamas, and he would smile at me, and explain to me the next morning that our Mayor had a terrible temper, but that it was a great honor to receive a call like that, to be entrusted with the delivery of an important message.
I knew the first thing he was going to say.
"Never threaten to resign, dear, unless you really want to leave."
I told him that it wasn't a threat; it was simply a contingency plan as to how I would respond if the board decided to act in certain ways, and that the future behavior of the board was far from a foregone conclusion.
Did he smile when I said that? Did he acknowledge, even for an instant, that his wacko tree-hugger daughter could hold her own in his world—"the world," as he called it, "of practical affairs"—or as I call it, of diplomatic double talk?
The pause on the phone was long enough to permit a smile—but also long enough for a scowl, or an exasperated shake of the head.
"Are you asking me to attempt to influence the future behavior of the board?" he said at last.
"You have one vote," I said.
"And you know I must recuse myself from all personnel matters, due to my close family relationship with the executive director."
That's when I exploded. I think I started off with something like "It isn't a personnel matter, it's a fucking policy matter—"
And then it was as if the calendar had shifted back twenty-five years, and I was standing in the rain at a truck stop at the edge of some swamp that I refused to call a swamp, screaming into a payphone at the Neanderthal who lived just beneath the surface of the suave corporate attorney who was trying to send me money, pedantically explaining to this imbecile how insane it was to stay in school and study environmental science when the battle was raging right now, right here, in this precarious habitat, these fragile wetlands, where the only thing protecting the delicate balance of the ecosystem from the developer's bulldozer was my tent, my sleeping bag, my body. I screamed at him as if I had never learned to work within the system, never written a grant proposal, never sweet-talked my conservative father, discreet counselor to the status quo, into serving on the board of an urban nature center set on the banks of a polluted tributary of an industrial sewer in a crime-ridden park surrounded by ghetto.
I lectured him; I berated him; I insulted him—I reverted completely back to the self-righteousness of the girl who really believed that it was her own courage that stopped those bulldozers, not her privileged status as the telegenic daughter of the white upper-middle-class.
He must have held the phone away from his ear—the way I remember him holding it when the Mayor called—bemused, patient, the tinny speaker just far enough away, so that the words remained intelligible but the anger was reduced to a comic effect—and he would catch my eye, watching him from the door of his study in my pajamas, and he would smile at me, and explain to me the next morning that our Mayor had a terrible temper, but that it was a great honor to receive a call like that, to be entrusted with the delivery of an important message.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Melissa, June 13, 2007
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It's the little things, sometimes, that make you think your energies are going in the wrong direction.
I really believe in living up to my commitments, and last year I made a commitment: to a three-year term on the board. It was an honor, sort of—at least something that I could put on my C.V.—the sort of third-tier community service that might give you a little extra insurance when the tenure review comes around. But I didn't kid myself—I knew that being secretary of the board of directors of The Tangled Bank Nature Center was worth, at most, about 2% of my tenure, and that every hour of actual work it obligated me to do was essentially a wasted hour.
But you know, that wasn't the problem.
Even when Lisa started talking about resigning, and suddenly the executive committee became a search committee and a damage control committee, and a let's-sit-down-with-a-bottle-of-wine-and- tell-each-other-it's-the-mission-not-Lisa committee (which usually required a second or third bottle of wine, because we all knew that Lisa was the reason we had all gotten involved, after all, Lisa was The Tangled Bank, but now we, as board members, had to dedicate ourselves to the fiction that the center was an ongoing community institution and that Lisa was merely our employee)—even then, it didn't seem much of a burden. I guess once you get into committee mode—when you've spent your afternoon sorting through the pre-defined agendas that your colleagues bring to a Biology Department four-year-plan "brainstorming" session, it almost seems natural to spend an hour on the phone discussing the impact on extant grant applications of the impending departure of the founder, executive director, principal fundraiser, and very visible public face of the Tangled Bank Nature Center.
No, it wasn't that my position on the center's board distracted me from Biology Department business—or even from my own teaching and research. It was that one particular phone call—the phone call where I agreed, wholeheartedly, that the board would keep the center going without Lisa—distracted me from Jake.
Jacob. My son. My sweetheart.
I knew something had been bothering Jake—since Memorial Day he had been acting strangely—not to me, so much, as to his father. Jake's a great kid—very patient and understanding—he knows how hard I work, but he also knows that I make time when we can be together. Sometimes it almost seems as if he keeps an agenda of important things for us to talk about. When we get the chance. The way I keep a list of issues I need to discuss with the department chair.
That's too much to ask of an eight-year-old, isn't it?
Anyway, that night he had something to tell me. I think he had saved it up—waiting patiently until we were alone—until his father had left the house.
"Mom," he said. "Remember the picnic?"
"You mean Memorial Day?" I said. It wasn't a big picnic—we had some people over to grill out—including Lisa and her daughter Samantha. Whatever the conflicts of interest involved, Lisa's still my neighbor. And my friend.
"Yeah," said Jake. "You know how Samantha and I went inside to play chess?"
And that's when the phone rang.
It's the little things, sometimes, that make you think your energies are going in the wrong direction.
I really believe in living up to my commitments, and last year I made a commitment: to a three-year term on the board. It was an honor, sort of—at least something that I could put on my C.V.—the sort of third-tier community service that might give you a little extra insurance when the tenure review comes around. But I didn't kid myself—I knew that being secretary of the board of directors of The Tangled Bank Nature Center was worth, at most, about 2% of my tenure, and that every hour of actual work it obligated me to do was essentially a wasted hour.
But you know, that wasn't the problem.
Even when Lisa started talking about resigning, and suddenly the executive committee became a search committee and a damage control committee, and a let's-sit-down-with-a-bottle-of-wine-and- tell-each-other-it's-the-mission-not-Lisa committee (which usually required a second or third bottle of wine, because we all knew that Lisa was the reason we had all gotten involved, after all, Lisa was The Tangled Bank, but now we, as board members, had to dedicate ourselves to the fiction that the center was an ongoing community institution and that Lisa was merely our employee)—even then, it didn't seem much of a burden. I guess once you get into committee mode—when you've spent your afternoon sorting through the pre-defined agendas that your colleagues bring to a Biology Department four-year-plan "brainstorming" session, it almost seems natural to spend an hour on the phone discussing the impact on extant grant applications of the impending departure of the founder, executive director, principal fundraiser, and very visible public face of the Tangled Bank Nature Center.
No, it wasn't that my position on the center's board distracted me from Biology Department business—or even from my own teaching and research. It was that one particular phone call—the phone call where I agreed, wholeheartedly, that the board would keep the center going without Lisa—distracted me from Jake.
Jacob. My son. My sweetheart.
I knew something had been bothering Jake—since Memorial Day he had been acting strangely—not to me, so much, as to his father. Jake's a great kid—very patient and understanding—he knows how hard I work, but he also knows that I make time when we can be together. Sometimes it almost seems as if he keeps an agenda of important things for us to talk about. When we get the chance. The way I keep a list of issues I need to discuss with the department chair.
That's too much to ask of an eight-year-old, isn't it?
Anyway, that night he had something to tell me. I think he had saved it up—waiting patiently until we were alone—until his father had left the house.
"Mom," he said. "Remember the picnic?"
"You mean Memorial Day?" I said. It wasn't a big picnic—we had some people over to grill out—including Lisa and her daughter Samantha. Whatever the conflicts of interest involved, Lisa's still my neighbor. And my friend.
"Yeah," said Jake. "You know how Samantha and I went inside to play chess?"
And that's when the phone rang.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Christopher, June 4, 2007
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Look, I'm not the kind of guy who has to win all the time. I hear about professional athletes, how they're all afflicted with competitive natures so intense that they turn every moment of their lives into a contest, a life or death contest about who has the best stuff, who got the best deal, whoever can say, "I'm the winner." I mean, I guess that's why we like to watch them on TV—they give it their all. But I've always thought—I'm glad I don't have to hang out with guys like that—guys who won't let a little kid win a game of tic-tac-toe.
Tic-tac-toe might be a bad example. It's such a trivial game—the first player has an absolute win-or-draw strategy—just mark the center box—and the second player has an absolute draw strategy, even if the first player makes his best move—just respond by marking one of the corners.
Everyone knows that, right?
Now that I think of it, tic-tac-toe is a great example.
The point is, when you're playing tic-tac-toe with a kid, and you want the kid to win—you've actually got to try to lose—you've got to deliberately make moves that you know are bad. Sure, it goes against your competitive instincts, but you do it. Apparently this is something that Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Magic Johnson just cannot bring themselves to do—and it's not just the superstars. I know some guys who know some minor leaguers—and they all say the same thing—what separates professional athletes, even the ones at the bottom of the heap—from all ordinary people—is this simple thing—an inability to throw a game to a kid.
And I gotta tell you, I've thrown plenty of games to my kid. Tic-tac-toe, Chinese checkers, Super Mario 64—I've thrown them all. I've let the whiffle ball float past my outstretched hand so I could call it a home run. And not because Jake is one of those whiny, narcissistic kids who throw a tantrum if they don't win every time. He's not. But I want him to taste victory sometimes. It gives me pleasure. Of course, if he starts celebrating too much, well then I turn it up a notch, let him feel what it feels like to lose.
But on the whole, I think I'm pretty well-balanced when it comes to competition.
Which is why it's so weird that I got into such a thing with that neighbor girl. Samantha. Sam's eleven, and Jake is eight—now I'd be kidding you if I didn't say right up front that this is a friendship that I keep a close eye on. One of these days, Sam is going to get into girly stuff, clothes and make-up and gossip and so on, and if everything goes well, she'll lose interest in playing with the scrappy little boy down the block. On the other hand, if she tries to pull Jake into that stuff, then I'll have to intervene.
But right now, she's a tom boy—bigger and stronger than Jake, and a lot more coordinated. If my boy can take what she dishes out, more power to him.
Look, I'm not the kind of guy who has to win all the time. I hear about professional athletes, how they're all afflicted with competitive natures so intense that they turn every moment of their lives into a contest, a life or death contest about who has the best stuff, who got the best deal, whoever can say, "I'm the winner." I mean, I guess that's why we like to watch them on TV—they give it their all. But I've always thought—I'm glad I don't have to hang out with guys like that—guys who won't let a little kid win a game of tic-tac-toe.
Tic-tac-toe might be a bad example. It's such a trivial game—the first player has an absolute win-or-draw strategy—just mark the center box—and the second player has an absolute draw strategy, even if the first player makes his best move—just respond by marking one of the corners.
Everyone knows that, right?
Now that I think of it, tic-tac-toe is a great example.
The point is, when you're playing tic-tac-toe with a kid, and you want the kid to win—you've actually got to try to lose—you've got to deliberately make moves that you know are bad. Sure, it goes against your competitive instincts, but you do it. Apparently this is something that Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Magic Johnson just cannot bring themselves to do—and it's not just the superstars. I know some guys who know some minor leaguers—and they all say the same thing—what separates professional athletes, even the ones at the bottom of the heap—from all ordinary people—is this simple thing—an inability to throw a game to a kid.
And I gotta tell you, I've thrown plenty of games to my kid. Tic-tac-toe, Chinese checkers, Super Mario 64—I've thrown them all. I've let the whiffle ball float past my outstretched hand so I could call it a home run. And not because Jake is one of those whiny, narcissistic kids who throw a tantrum if they don't win every time. He's not. But I want him to taste victory sometimes. It gives me pleasure. Of course, if he starts celebrating too much, well then I turn it up a notch, let him feel what it feels like to lose.
But on the whole, I think I'm pretty well-balanced when it comes to competition.
Which is why it's so weird that I got into such a thing with that neighbor girl. Samantha. Sam's eleven, and Jake is eight—now I'd be kidding you if I didn't say right up front that this is a friendship that I keep a close eye on. One of these days, Sam is going to get into girly stuff, clothes and make-up and gossip and so on, and if everything goes well, she'll lose interest in playing with the scrappy little boy down the block. On the other hand, if she tries to pull Jake into that stuff, then I'll have to intervene.
But right now, she's a tom boy—bigger and stronger than Jake, and a lot more coordinated. If my boy can take what she dishes out, more power to him.
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