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I've never had much use for people who leave notes on my door, there was this fellow in the Navy, not on the ship, mind you, you couldn’t get away with kind of nonsense at sea, he was a petty officer third class I believe, I was only a seaman at the time, this was in one of the stateside ports, Portsmouth probably, but this fellow, we were always finding notes from him on doors, stuck there with thumbtacks, nobody ever saw him coming or going, how the hell did he do it we used to wonder. And the other guy, this was years later, at the store, after the Groeschlers had sold the business, sure I hoped the new owners would let me run the store by myself, and eventually it did work out that way, but right after the sale, this kid from Indianapolis, a college kid, he'd taken a course in efficiency or some damn thing like that, of course he didn't know shit about the lumber business, he made us all line our desks up in a row, and we all had to get inboxes and outboxes, every damn salesman had to put an inbox on the left front corner of his desk and an outbox on the right front corner of the desk, do you get the picture, can you imagine a lumber salesman with a desk like that, I gotta tell you, one thing about the Navy, it gives you a damn good preparation for putting up with guys like that, not that there's any comparison between keeping your ordnance in a nice tight pattern when the shit is flying all around you and making sure that your inbox is exactly one inch from the left front corner of your desk, so your college-kid boss can drop off purchase orders without looking you in the eye, no comparison at all, except that in both cases, you just say Yes Sir and you do it, and if you're lucky you survive. At least for a while it seems lucky, surviving one thing and then another, although my wife made it very clear that she was the lucky one, the one to go first, she didn't want to be a widow, not at all, she didn't think much of surviving for survival's sake, unless she was just saying that to make me feel better, though how it would make me feel better I don't know, telling someone they are unlucky for being alive, no consolation there, still it hasn't been that bad, living without her, I've still got my health, except for forgetting a few things and not keeping the old house clean enough for my daughter's standards, good riddance to that place, my social life, if you know what I mean, it's been much livelier here, I never thought I'd put on a pair of hip waders again in my life, and the apartment itself is alright, a pretty good place to live, except that I can't understand why that new case worker needs to leave so many notes on my door.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Raymond, July 23, 2007
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It was on a Wednesday night, a couple of weeks ago. Melissa and I had had a brief meeting, a sidebar if you will, in preparation for the full board meeting the next day. I was escorting her out to her car, when suddenly her back stiffened in fright. A figure was stepping out of the shadows—a tattooed arm, a cordless drill—and speaking my name. Melissa cursed at the figure, who responded in language equally vulgar but far warmer in tone, and in a moment the situation dissolved, as such situations usually do, into hasty acknowledgements of recognition and breathless apologies.
The figure was Gary. It's not unusual to find Gary around the Tangled Bank at odd hours. He displays a certain—let's call it a proprietary tenderness for the physical structure of the place, and far be it from me to challenge his feelings of ownership, particularly when they manifest themselves in frequents acts of unbilled light maintenance.
On this evening, he had stopped by to fix a piece of molding, to which he referred as if I would undoubtedly know which piece of molding, and why it needed fixing. I did not disabuse him of this impression, which encouraged him to mention additional maintenance projects, projects which would require specific budget items, as he no longer had the spare time to devote to such matters, the demand for his art work having taken off.
Of course I understood. And I was happy, and I wanted him to know I was happy, that he chose to keep coming back to the center and keep things in fine shape, but however happy I was, there was no trace of complacency in my happiness, no expectation—
A car door swung shut. Headlights came on. The lights swung to and fro as Melissa backed out of her parking space. She called out to us her sorrow at having to leave so quickly, but her son was waiting. Gary called back his complete understanding. I simply waved.
Gary and I watched her drive off, insects sparkling in the torches of her headlights, a glimpse of the glistening river as her tires caught the dip in the gravel.
I turned back to Gary and reassured him that we on the board understood that we could not count on his continued in-kind donations of skilled labor, and that if we came in under budget in the building maintenance account, it was because of his continued generosity, and that we all understood how his gifts were as good as cash.
He did not respond immediately, and for a moment I had the unusual feeling that I was the one who had been talking too much. Sometimes it seems as if you are negotiating about one thing, when in fact an entirely different issue is in play. In such cases it's best to let the other party tell you what's going on. They always do.
Gary shuffled for a moment, the cordless drill swinging in his hand, a useless tool for the current task.
Eventually he set the drill down on a window sill. Then he turned to me and asked if I meant that the debt had been paid.
There was never a debt, I explained. Samantha was my granddaughter, and it had been my privilege to contribute to her support.
It was on a Wednesday night, a couple of weeks ago. Melissa and I had had a brief meeting, a sidebar if you will, in preparation for the full board meeting the next day. I was escorting her out to her car, when suddenly her back stiffened in fright. A figure was stepping out of the shadows—a tattooed arm, a cordless drill—and speaking my name. Melissa cursed at the figure, who responded in language equally vulgar but far warmer in tone, and in a moment the situation dissolved, as such situations usually do, into hasty acknowledgements of recognition and breathless apologies.
The figure was Gary. It's not unusual to find Gary around the Tangled Bank at odd hours. He displays a certain—let's call it a proprietary tenderness for the physical structure of the place, and far be it from me to challenge his feelings of ownership, particularly when they manifest themselves in frequents acts of unbilled light maintenance.
On this evening, he had stopped by to fix a piece of molding, to which he referred as if I would undoubtedly know which piece of molding, and why it needed fixing. I did not disabuse him of this impression, which encouraged him to mention additional maintenance projects, projects which would require specific budget items, as he no longer had the spare time to devote to such matters, the demand for his art work having taken off.
Of course I understood. And I was happy, and I wanted him to know I was happy, that he chose to keep coming back to the center and keep things in fine shape, but however happy I was, there was no trace of complacency in my happiness, no expectation—
A car door swung shut. Headlights came on. The lights swung to and fro as Melissa backed out of her parking space. She called out to us her sorrow at having to leave so quickly, but her son was waiting. Gary called back his complete understanding. I simply waved.
Gary and I watched her drive off, insects sparkling in the torches of her headlights, a glimpse of the glistening river as her tires caught the dip in the gravel.
I turned back to Gary and reassured him that we on the board understood that we could not count on his continued in-kind donations of skilled labor, and that if we came in under budget in the building maintenance account, it was because of his continued generosity, and that we all understood how his gifts were as good as cash.
He did not respond immediately, and for a moment I had the unusual feeling that I was the one who had been talking too much. Sometimes it seems as if you are negotiating about one thing, when in fact an entirely different issue is in play. In such cases it's best to let the other party tell you what's going on. They always do.
Gary shuffled for a moment, the cordless drill swinging in his hand, a useless tool for the current task.
Eventually he set the drill down on a window sill. Then he turned to me and asked if I meant that the debt had been paid.
There was never a debt, I explained. Samantha was my granddaughter, and it had been my privilege to contribute to her support.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Betty, June 30, 2007
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I was at Van Buren Hill—a nice place, my first choice among all the places I'd been looking at, not disgusting or depressing, but not full of Republicans either. I was doing quick calculations in my head—multiply dollars per month by twelve to get dollars per year, then add years—how many?—to eighty-nine, when the case worker asked for proof of residency.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Usually a utility bill," he said.
"Is it required?"
"Well there's a different fee structure for out-of-state residents." He looked at me and smiled. "We do get some funding from the state."
I smiled back. "Really. What's the difference?"
"Oh, at the level of care we're setting up for Arthur"—he used Dad's name as if he were talking about a kindergarten student—"the difference would be about five hundred a month. At the assisted living level—let's see, that would be about twelve-fifty. Two thousand for in-state, thirty-two-fifty for out-of-state."
I thought for a moment.
"All the utility bills are in my name," I said. "Except for his cell phone."
"Cell phone?" he said. "Do the bills have the street address?"
"I think so," I said, but in fact I knew so. I had bought Dad a cell phone and a national plan five years ago. The bills had his name on them, but they came to my house, and I paid them.
"That'll do," said the case worker.
And so I needed Dad to be discreet. For a month or so. Till he settled in.
"Try not to talk about Terre Haute." I said. "Or the house."
"What else will I talk about?" he said.
"You don't have to lie," I told him. "Just... push that stuff back into the past. Act as if you've been living here for a few years."
After all, he has spent at least five or six weeks a year visiting me. For a good decade or so. It's not as if he's unfamiliar with my house, my neighborhood, and therefore, ipso facto, his new official state of residency. And people know him around here—in a way. The clerk at the bakery would see him every day for a week, she even got to know his breakfast order, coffee and a scone, no butter, and she would recognize him when he returned, two months, three months, four months later, and joke with him about having his breakfast somewhere else. He enjoyed that.
Of course, there's a lot of turnover at that bakery. There was only the one clerk who remembered him, and she's gone now.
Ten years he's been coming, or, actually, ten years I've been going to get him. Every school vacation and twice each summer.
He moved into Van Buren Hill today. One day before the end of the month—no extra charge, said the case worker. They call them case workers but they're really sales agents. This guy was okay, though.
The movers were carrying the flattened cardboard boxes out of the new apartment and I was taking care of the last few bits of paperwork when I noticed that Dad wasn't around.
"Don't worry," said the case worker. "He's probably meeting his neighbors. Everyone's very friendly here."
We found him in a little alcove near the elevator, sitting on a bench, talking with two women about ten years younger than himself.
"That's wonderful," he was saying as the case worker and I approached. "We don't have anything like that in Terre Haute—"
"There you are!" I said, maybe too loudly.
"You must be his daughter!" said one of the women. She stood and shook my hand. "My name's Dorothy," she said, "and this is my friend Louise. We've just invited Arthur to join us on an expedition."
I was at Van Buren Hill—a nice place, my first choice among all the places I'd been looking at, not disgusting or depressing, but not full of Republicans either. I was doing quick calculations in my head—multiply dollars per month by twelve to get dollars per year, then add years—how many?—to eighty-nine, when the case worker asked for proof of residency.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Usually a utility bill," he said.
"Is it required?"
"Well there's a different fee structure for out-of-state residents." He looked at me and smiled. "We do get some funding from the state."
I smiled back. "Really. What's the difference?"
"Oh, at the level of care we're setting up for Arthur"—he used Dad's name as if he were talking about a kindergarten student—"the difference would be about five hundred a month. At the assisted living level—let's see, that would be about twelve-fifty. Two thousand for in-state, thirty-two-fifty for out-of-state."
I thought for a moment.
"All the utility bills are in my name," I said. "Except for his cell phone."
"Cell phone?" he said. "Do the bills have the street address?"
"I think so," I said, but in fact I knew so. I had bought Dad a cell phone and a national plan five years ago. The bills had his name on them, but they came to my house, and I paid them.
"That'll do," said the case worker.
And so I needed Dad to be discreet. For a month or so. Till he settled in.
"Try not to talk about Terre Haute." I said. "Or the house."
"What else will I talk about?" he said.
"You don't have to lie," I told him. "Just... push that stuff back into the past. Act as if you've been living here for a few years."
After all, he has spent at least five or six weeks a year visiting me. For a good decade or so. It's not as if he's unfamiliar with my house, my neighborhood, and therefore, ipso facto, his new official state of residency. And people know him around here—in a way. The clerk at the bakery would see him every day for a week, she even got to know his breakfast order, coffee and a scone, no butter, and she would recognize him when he returned, two months, three months, four months later, and joke with him about having his breakfast somewhere else. He enjoyed that.
Of course, there's a lot of turnover at that bakery. There was only the one clerk who remembered him, and she's gone now.
Ten years he's been coming, or, actually, ten years I've been going to get him. Every school vacation and twice each summer.
He moved into Van Buren Hill today. One day before the end of the month—no extra charge, said the case worker. They call them case workers but they're really sales agents. This guy was okay, though.
The movers were carrying the flattened cardboard boxes out of the new apartment and I was taking care of the last few bits of paperwork when I noticed that Dad wasn't around.
"Don't worry," said the case worker. "He's probably meeting his neighbors. Everyone's very friendly here."
We found him in a little alcove near the elevator, sitting on a bench, talking with two women about ten years younger than himself.
"That's wonderful," he was saying as the case worker and I approached. "We don't have anything like that in Terre Haute—"
"There you are!" I said, maybe too loudly.
"You must be his daughter!" said one of the women. She stood and shook my hand. "My name's Dorothy," she said, "and this is my friend Louise. We've just invited Arthur to join us on an expedition."
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Gary, June 25, 2007
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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.
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.
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.
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