3
“MotherEFFERS!” J screamed at no one in particular as he walked alone in the park making his way unconciously to Matty’s. Pigeons scattered, before returning to their poking and pecking. How could his group be such a bunch of idiots? Did Ghandi have to put up with this sort of incompetence? Did Martin Luther King Jr.? He thought they couldn’t of. Their disciples understood the task before them. They appreciated the complexity of fighting the good fight. They weren’t so unbelievably flighty. In fact, J silently contemplated, I bet if ol’ MLK had this group he would’ve chucked civil disobedience right out the window and turned directly to violence. How could they fail an elevator sit-in? If it wasn’t one thing it was another, he thought. They had the maps. And J himself had put gold stars next to the corporations that had some serious questions to answer. Gold stars! What did it take to get through to these people? The division of energy was killing them. It almost made him miss the old days. The days when J was just a freelancer, joining protests on the fly, hitchhiking to the next big rally, signing up voters when anarchy was in, screaming at voters to “Shove the polls up their you know where” when anarchy was out. It was a fickle lifestyle and not a glamarous one, but at least then, at least then the Carl’s of the world weren’t screwing up his plans. It was the Carl’s, the mindless slaves, the office workers who just didn’t care anymore who were ruining it all for J. Maybe it was time to go back to his roots. Maybe it was time to stop this whole activist bit. Maybe it was time to ring Matty’s doorbell.
That would do for now.
The doorbell rang. It was more of a buzz really. It reminded J of a giant fly amplified tremendously. He buzzed again. Struck by the power of the doorbell, he buzzed to the tune of “Shave and a Haircut--2 bits.” He started to buzz “Love me tender” when he lost interest. J wondered aloud where Matty could be on a Friday evening. It’s not like they’d made plans. He wondered to himself if that had been a mistake. Matty always said he didn’t take her out on enough dates, but they went to the grocery store almost every week, except for the last few when J had been on his hunger strike. J tugged at his pants. He was just starting to grow back into them. He tightened his shoestring belt around his waist to keep from falling out and remembered the leather belt Matty had given him their first Christmas. She wouldn’t make that mistake again he thought as he started a slow trudge in the direction of Sid’s house. J had an absolute fit that day. Christmas was a rough holiday, anyway, but to give him a leather belt in the midst of his anti-cruelty to animals campaign, it was downright rude. He’d only recently forgiven her for that mistake, he thought as his walk turned brisk again. He knew he’d better hurry to Sid’s if he was going to be able to get Sid to make him some couscous for dinner. Sid had a strict no couscous after dessert rule. Sid could be very particular that way. His brisk walk was feeling brisk and purposeful when he noticed a couple on the other side of the street stop to chat. He couldn’t really tell they were a couple, but he thought he sensed a certain chemistry in the way they looked at one another. Evening had descended while J wasn’t paying attention, but he could still make out their features by the glow of a streetlight. J watched as the guy said something that seemed to please the young woman. He watched the smile creep over her face and then when they both laughed steam from their mouths danced between them like the precursor to a chilly winter kiss. J could see the guy start to lean in, and suddenly lose his nerve. He turned and she followed. J realized he’d stopped his brisk walk and was just staring in their direction. What did they have that he found so fascinating? Potential, perhaps?
Lengthening his stride he set his sights on Sid’s. No more distractions or he might miss even the Butternut ice cream. J almost laughed to himself. Everyone knew Sid was unlikely to be out on a Friday night. Sid was unlikely to be out on any night, unless he was following J. J wouldn’t admit it of course, but it was Sid’s devotion that made him so valuable. J knew that if his confidence took a tumble, he could count on Sid to try and lift his spirits. Sid believed in J, the way J used to believe in himself.
There was a time when J was invincible. At 22, he had graduated from the University of Syracuse with a pre-Law Degree. He was an Orangeman with a bright future. His father had lined up internships for him in New York City, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, Ohio. J had skipped the big cities and headed straight for the heartland. That’s where he thought he could make a difference. Two days at the offices of the law firm of Strayer, Mayer & Braun and J stormed out. It was only a heart to heart talk with Donald Strayer, his father’s college roommate that persuaded him to return to Sayer, Mayer & Braun and close out the month. It was the most hellish month of J’s life. If he ever saw another amicus brief it would be too soon. He hated the law. He hated filing. He hated the jargon. He was starting to wonder how he’d survived as an Orangeman. He didn’t remember all of this crap in the classroom. He started to wonder if he’d skipped the classes on crap. The advantage to college was that you could skip the crap. It’s funny what you can get away with when you’re footing the bill, J had thought. More than anything though, J hated lawyers. They were despicable. The jokes were true. They were so self-absorbed, so money hungry, so without soul that J nearly wept during his unpaid lunch. He hated lawyers. Save one. They told him her name was Matty. She had shoulder length black hair, the kind of smile that made J forget his name, and it was only a letter after all, and she had deadly serious green eyes. It was probably she who allowed J to last the month. Just looking at her was enough to still his heart and quiet his raging hatred of Strayer, Mayer & Braun. He couldn’t imagine what talking to her would be like. Fortunately, he didn’t have to since Donald Sayer asked him to end the internship a few months early. Sayer had put his hands together with fingers interlocking and thumbs sticking up and said with all the sincerity he could muster, “I just don’t think this is working out.”
J couldn’t even act disappointed. He just walked out the door with a wave. As he left the offices of Strayer, Mayer & Braun he realized that if he ever made it to a courtroom, it’d be as a defendant. Pre-law at Syracuse might as well have been General Slurpee Education for what J now planned to do with his degree. His law experience had taught him one thing: To fight injustice, he was going to have to take to the streets. The battles that he would wage would not be won in a courtroom. The bureacracy, the rules, the absolute BS was too slow for J Jones. J walked briskly into his activist lifestyle. With a nightly stop at the counter of his local 7-11. Even an activist had to have some spending cash, invincible or not.
Working second shift at the 7-11 and looking for opportunities to make a difference by day was well suited to young J. His idealism and beef jerky carried him easily through a summer that would’ve broken a lesser man. The J of today would be hard pressed to survive the kind of summer that 22-year old J put up with. The loss of the internship spelled the loss of the low-rent Sayer, Mayer & Braun housing. J and his Nissan spent several nights in UC parking lots. J had always felt most comfortable near colleges. College possessed a certain life, a certain zest, that seemed to dissapate the farther into the cubicles his fellow man burrowed. So really spending a night or two or three weeks in various UC parking lots was a lot like staying tapped into that zest, only with more hunger and fewer showers. Fortunately he could shave in the bathroom of the 7-11. J liked to preserve the shape of his goatee and that required daily shaving. Showers were harder to come by, but the right hour of the right day often lead J into Shoemaker center or nearby Daniels hall for a quick shower and a quick run from campus security if necessary. J, or someone fitting J’s description ended up in The News Record at least 6 times that summer. Three times for alleged peeping, twice for suspected alcohol abuse, and once for allegedley stealing from the chemistry department. All 6 times J managed to escape. All 6 times Lindsey Hunter was working the front desk of Daniels Hall. Even homeless, J was a charmer.
After three weeks of the finest in parking lot living, J was able to secure off-campus housing and parking near the industrial district. Only a slight step above the Nissan, J lived in a one bedroom basement apartment. His upstairs neighbors were the swinging Smiths and whatever lovers might be in town that week. It shocked even J that Ohio couples could be so kinky. He narrowly escaped being roped into Mr. Smith’s fantasy on more than one occassion. At least he had a mattress. It sure beat the backseat. The hot plate was light years above his cigarette lighter in terms of its ability to reheat food. For all practical purposes, and by now J could think of no other purposes, he was living the high life. He saw no reason why others shouldn’t have the same advantages that he had- A bed, a hotplate, swinging neighbors, well maybe not swinging neighbors, unless they wanted his. Rubbing his hands together, J hatched his first real plan. At 22 from the basement of a house near the industrial district of Cincinnati Ohio, J. Jones was going to fight injustice. He had a plan, but was going to need help. His first stop was the McCormick Shelter House.
It turned out the McCormick Shelter House needed a dishwasher. J figured it was a step in the right direction. It wasn’t glamorous, but he’d kind of passed on glamorous when he’d been asked to leave Strayer, Mayer & Braun. He should probably tell his parents about that before Strayer did. Later though, because he had the dishes of the homeless to wash. The McCormick Shelter house was a Catholic Worker house, a little place not far from downtown. J had found them in the yellow pages. When he arrived he hardly knew he was there. It looked like an old Victorian joint, there were no signs, no identification of any sort. How did the homeless find this place? he wondered. Did they use the phonebook the way he had? Whatever the case, he knocked on the door.
Mr. McCormick answered. He was in his 70s but still maintained a graying ponytail despite his receding hairline. Mr. McCormick and his wife had started this house back in 1973. McCormick had spent a spell in a house with his parents when he was a kid. He always remembered it fondly he told J as they took a short tour which seemed to be the direct route from the door to the kitchen. “Having a house, a fireplace, a bite to eat in those times and sharing all that with good people, even the down-on-their-luck types like my folks, that really meant a lot to me. Those people tried to keep my spirits up. I was just a wee boy and they were all miserable but they told me jokes and we sang songs together. It was like a big family. I wanted to give that back.”
“Guess the family doesn’t have a dishwasher.” J said under his breath as he noticed a pile of dishes that looked three weeks old.
“Welcome, son” McCormick replied, “Hearing’s still good.”
J shifted back and forth nervously for a second, smirked, and grabbed some plastic dish gloves. He slid them on and set to scrubbing. He was up to good and for ten minutes he felt downright pleased with himself. He scrubbed plates and glasses and he hummed “Amazing Grace.” He probably picked that up at church he kidded himself as he worked. With a big smile on his face, he quickly scrubbed through the dishes and dirtied the soapy water in the sink. It wasn’t long before the smell of wet food, generic soap and dirty towels started to affect his nasal passages. A little queasy, he decided he’d have a seat at the kitchen table and rest for a second before launching into another all-out dishwashing attack. He still had drying to finish as well, but figured he might be able to get away without, if he piled the dishes high in the three drying racks on the counter. It was very much a dish ballet to take the dirty dishes and get them into the sink and then back to the drying rack without mixing up the clean and dirty or losing a dish along the way. J managed though. He was pre-Law after all. A pre-law volunteer dishwasher. His father would be thrilled, but J refused to care. Sitting at the table, looking at the two refrigerators covered with art and cartoons, looking at the eight person wooden table with enough character knife scratches to tell a hundred stories, looking at the cabinets jam packed with soups, peanut butters, flours, sugars, and various other non-perishables but no doors, J remembered another kitchen from long ago. He remembered his aunt’s kitchen. It had been neater and lacked multiple refrigerators, but it too had housed an eight person table. Christmas morning there had been no scratches on the table while they ate breakfast. The wood was highly polished to a shine. He remembered sliding Frosted Mini-wheats at his cousins and being amazed at how smoothly they slid on the table. His mother hadn’t approved of his breakfast study of friction, but the table hadn’t seemed to mind. His cousins found it quite amusing as well. His aunt scolded with a sly smile, “Joseph, if Santa hadn’t already been here, you wouldn’t be acting like this.”
The reminder of Santa stopped his study of Physics right away and sent him directly to eating his cereal in a frenzy. There were still presents to open.
“J. Dishes,” he heard McCormick grumble, “We aren’t paying you to daydream.”
“You aren’t paying me, sir.” J replied.
“Dishes.”
McCormick was obviously used to volunteer slave labor. J returned to his work with less enthusiasm. McCormick stayed to watch over his shoulder.
“Mr. McCormick, what keeps this place going?”
“People that care. People that care...”
J finished the dishes. He wiped his hands clean on the last dry spot of the raggedy yellowed kitchen towel. As the gray soapy water spun down the drain, J watched it carefully. The little bubbles were on quite a ride, but they couldn’t help fear for the abyss before them.
J washed dishes at the McCormick house in the evenings, before his late shift at the 7-11. He always managed to leave his basement room before the swinging Smiths got home from work. He’d wash up the dinner dishes and chat with the group in the house. It was summer time, so the house was far from capacity. J still had plenty of dishes to wash, but he often had help. Very few of the McCormick house wanted a free ride. They were happy to pitch in and help. J would wash and another house member would dry. At first it was all done in silence, but as J felt more comfortable that summer he began to ask questions. Everyone of his dryers had a story. They’d hit hard times for one reason or another. Nobody liked hard luck, but like the Strayers, the Mayers and the Brauns of the world, these folks were just trying to find a way to keep on living. They might have made mistakes, but who hadn’t? Mr. McCormick gave them a chance to get back on their feet and they counted him in their prayers. J heard tales of violence and heartache, tales he wished didn’t sound so familiar, but the tales J gravitated toward were the tales of hitchhiking and the tales of protest. McCormick and a vet named Jimmie regaled the young man with tales of civil disobedience, of recreational drug use, and of the rules of the road. McCormick had met the late Mrs. at an Anti-Vietnam rally. He had been marching on Washington, his ponytail blonder and fuller, his shirt ripped off and waving above his head when he’d seen her shouting obscenities. It had been love at first sight. McCormick was a firm believer in love at first sight. Jimmie disagreed violently. He slammed his fist on the table and called McCormick an old romantic coot. He conspiratorialy told J that love wasn’t about sight. He had a theory about smells. “Them scientists call ‘em pheremones or the like, but I tell you the way to know you love a woman is by the smell of her.” McCormick laughed, but he didn’t register any disagreement. Jimmie smiled triumphantly. “Let me tell you ‘bout the girl that stole my heart and my nose.” The three of them sat down at one end of the table. McCormick looked old in the light of the kitchen. His tired eyes hadn’t been able to dance since the Mrs. passed away. Jimmie looked worn, his five o’clock shadow well on it’s way to seven thirty. The war had taken its toll, but his return had been much worse. By comparison J looked like a babe. Even beneath his well trimmed goatee, his skin looked as soft as marshmellows. J was just a kid, eager and impatient like one too, but his eyes, those brown eyes hinted at a deeper confusion and a deeper pain. A pain that Jimmie and McCormick identified with and took to. Neither would’ve ever put a finger on that, nor did they like to do much thinking in those directions, but they both liked J and they sensed that he wouldn’t be washing dishes at the McCormick house for long. It was all the more reason that they loved to tell him stories. J loved to listen. The more he listened, the more he realized two things. He had his work cut out for him and the hills of Cinci were closing in on him. He developed an itch like Keraouac on speed. By the end of the summer, J had it so bad that he jumped whenever a car passed him on the street. It took a feat of intense concentration to stop his thumb from just whipping out and asking for a ride.
On to 4
That would do for now.
The doorbell rang. It was more of a buzz really. It reminded J of a giant fly amplified tremendously. He buzzed again. Struck by the power of the doorbell, he buzzed to the tune of “Shave and a Haircut--2 bits.” He started to buzz “Love me tender” when he lost interest. J wondered aloud where Matty could be on a Friday evening. It’s not like they’d made plans. He wondered to himself if that had been a mistake. Matty always said he didn’t take her out on enough dates, but they went to the grocery store almost every week, except for the last few when J had been on his hunger strike. J tugged at his pants. He was just starting to grow back into them. He tightened his shoestring belt around his waist to keep from falling out and remembered the leather belt Matty had given him their first Christmas. She wouldn’t make that mistake again he thought as he started a slow trudge in the direction of Sid’s house. J had an absolute fit that day. Christmas was a rough holiday, anyway, but to give him a leather belt in the midst of his anti-cruelty to animals campaign, it was downright rude. He’d only recently forgiven her for that mistake, he thought as his walk turned brisk again. He knew he’d better hurry to Sid’s if he was going to be able to get Sid to make him some couscous for dinner. Sid had a strict no couscous after dessert rule. Sid could be very particular that way. His brisk walk was feeling brisk and purposeful when he noticed a couple on the other side of the street stop to chat. He couldn’t really tell they were a couple, but he thought he sensed a certain chemistry in the way they looked at one another. Evening had descended while J wasn’t paying attention, but he could still make out their features by the glow of a streetlight. J watched as the guy said something that seemed to please the young woman. He watched the smile creep over her face and then when they both laughed steam from their mouths danced between them like the precursor to a chilly winter kiss. J could see the guy start to lean in, and suddenly lose his nerve. He turned and she followed. J realized he’d stopped his brisk walk and was just staring in their direction. What did they have that he found so fascinating? Potential, perhaps?
Lengthening his stride he set his sights on Sid’s. No more distractions or he might miss even the Butternut ice cream. J almost laughed to himself. Everyone knew Sid was unlikely to be out on a Friday night. Sid was unlikely to be out on any night, unless he was following J. J wouldn’t admit it of course, but it was Sid’s devotion that made him so valuable. J knew that if his confidence took a tumble, he could count on Sid to try and lift his spirits. Sid believed in J, the way J used to believe in himself.
There was a time when J was invincible. At 22, he had graduated from the University of Syracuse with a pre-Law Degree. He was an Orangeman with a bright future. His father had lined up internships for him in New York City, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, Ohio. J had skipped the big cities and headed straight for the heartland. That’s where he thought he could make a difference. Two days at the offices of the law firm of Strayer, Mayer & Braun and J stormed out. It was only a heart to heart talk with Donald Strayer, his father’s college roommate that persuaded him to return to Sayer, Mayer & Braun and close out the month. It was the most hellish month of J’s life. If he ever saw another amicus brief it would be too soon. He hated the law. He hated filing. He hated the jargon. He was starting to wonder how he’d survived as an Orangeman. He didn’t remember all of this crap in the classroom. He started to wonder if he’d skipped the classes on crap. The advantage to college was that you could skip the crap. It’s funny what you can get away with when you’re footing the bill, J had thought. More than anything though, J hated lawyers. They were despicable. The jokes were true. They were so self-absorbed, so money hungry, so without soul that J nearly wept during his unpaid lunch. He hated lawyers. Save one. They told him her name was Matty. She had shoulder length black hair, the kind of smile that made J forget his name, and it was only a letter after all, and she had deadly serious green eyes. It was probably she who allowed J to last the month. Just looking at her was enough to still his heart and quiet his raging hatred of Strayer, Mayer & Braun. He couldn’t imagine what talking to her would be like. Fortunately, he didn’t have to since Donald Sayer asked him to end the internship a few months early. Sayer had put his hands together with fingers interlocking and thumbs sticking up and said with all the sincerity he could muster, “I just don’t think this is working out.”
J couldn’t even act disappointed. He just walked out the door with a wave. As he left the offices of Strayer, Mayer & Braun he realized that if he ever made it to a courtroom, it’d be as a defendant. Pre-law at Syracuse might as well have been General Slurpee Education for what J now planned to do with his degree. His law experience had taught him one thing: To fight injustice, he was going to have to take to the streets. The battles that he would wage would not be won in a courtroom. The bureacracy, the rules, the absolute BS was too slow for J Jones. J walked briskly into his activist lifestyle. With a nightly stop at the counter of his local 7-11. Even an activist had to have some spending cash, invincible or not.
Working second shift at the 7-11 and looking for opportunities to make a difference by day was well suited to young J. His idealism and beef jerky carried him easily through a summer that would’ve broken a lesser man. The J of today would be hard pressed to survive the kind of summer that 22-year old J put up with. The loss of the internship spelled the loss of the low-rent Sayer, Mayer & Braun housing. J and his Nissan spent several nights in UC parking lots. J had always felt most comfortable near colleges. College possessed a certain life, a certain zest, that seemed to dissapate the farther into the cubicles his fellow man burrowed. So really spending a night or two or three weeks in various UC parking lots was a lot like staying tapped into that zest, only with more hunger and fewer showers. Fortunately he could shave in the bathroom of the 7-11. J liked to preserve the shape of his goatee and that required daily shaving. Showers were harder to come by, but the right hour of the right day often lead J into Shoemaker center or nearby Daniels hall for a quick shower and a quick run from campus security if necessary. J, or someone fitting J’s description ended up in The News Record at least 6 times that summer. Three times for alleged peeping, twice for suspected alcohol abuse, and once for allegedley stealing from the chemistry department. All 6 times J managed to escape. All 6 times Lindsey Hunter was working the front desk of Daniels Hall. Even homeless, J was a charmer.
After three weeks of the finest in parking lot living, J was able to secure off-campus housing and parking near the industrial district. Only a slight step above the Nissan, J lived in a one bedroom basement apartment. His upstairs neighbors were the swinging Smiths and whatever lovers might be in town that week. It shocked even J that Ohio couples could be so kinky. He narrowly escaped being roped into Mr. Smith’s fantasy on more than one occassion. At least he had a mattress. It sure beat the backseat. The hot plate was light years above his cigarette lighter in terms of its ability to reheat food. For all practical purposes, and by now J could think of no other purposes, he was living the high life. He saw no reason why others shouldn’t have the same advantages that he had- A bed, a hotplate, swinging neighbors, well maybe not swinging neighbors, unless they wanted his. Rubbing his hands together, J hatched his first real plan. At 22 from the basement of a house near the industrial district of Cincinnati Ohio, J. Jones was going to fight injustice. He had a plan, but was going to need help. His first stop was the McCormick Shelter House.
It turned out the McCormick Shelter House needed a dishwasher. J figured it was a step in the right direction. It wasn’t glamorous, but he’d kind of passed on glamorous when he’d been asked to leave Strayer, Mayer & Braun. He should probably tell his parents about that before Strayer did. Later though, because he had the dishes of the homeless to wash. The McCormick Shelter house was a Catholic Worker house, a little place not far from downtown. J had found them in the yellow pages. When he arrived he hardly knew he was there. It looked like an old Victorian joint, there were no signs, no identification of any sort. How did the homeless find this place? he wondered. Did they use the phonebook the way he had? Whatever the case, he knocked on the door.
Mr. McCormick answered. He was in his 70s but still maintained a graying ponytail despite his receding hairline. Mr. McCormick and his wife had started this house back in 1973. McCormick had spent a spell in a house with his parents when he was a kid. He always remembered it fondly he told J as they took a short tour which seemed to be the direct route from the door to the kitchen. “Having a house, a fireplace, a bite to eat in those times and sharing all that with good people, even the down-on-their-luck types like my folks, that really meant a lot to me. Those people tried to keep my spirits up. I was just a wee boy and they were all miserable but they told me jokes and we sang songs together. It was like a big family. I wanted to give that back.”
“Guess the family doesn’t have a dishwasher.” J said under his breath as he noticed a pile of dishes that looked three weeks old.
“Welcome, son” McCormick replied, “Hearing’s still good.”
J shifted back and forth nervously for a second, smirked, and grabbed some plastic dish gloves. He slid them on and set to scrubbing. He was up to good and for ten minutes he felt downright pleased with himself. He scrubbed plates and glasses and he hummed “Amazing Grace.” He probably picked that up at church he kidded himself as he worked. With a big smile on his face, he quickly scrubbed through the dishes and dirtied the soapy water in the sink. It wasn’t long before the smell of wet food, generic soap and dirty towels started to affect his nasal passages. A little queasy, he decided he’d have a seat at the kitchen table and rest for a second before launching into another all-out dishwashing attack. He still had drying to finish as well, but figured he might be able to get away without, if he piled the dishes high in the three drying racks on the counter. It was very much a dish ballet to take the dirty dishes and get them into the sink and then back to the drying rack without mixing up the clean and dirty or losing a dish along the way. J managed though. He was pre-Law after all. A pre-law volunteer dishwasher. His father would be thrilled, but J refused to care. Sitting at the table, looking at the two refrigerators covered with art and cartoons, looking at the eight person wooden table with enough character knife scratches to tell a hundred stories, looking at the cabinets jam packed with soups, peanut butters, flours, sugars, and various other non-perishables but no doors, J remembered another kitchen from long ago. He remembered his aunt’s kitchen. It had been neater and lacked multiple refrigerators, but it too had housed an eight person table. Christmas morning there had been no scratches on the table while they ate breakfast. The wood was highly polished to a shine. He remembered sliding Frosted Mini-wheats at his cousins and being amazed at how smoothly they slid on the table. His mother hadn’t approved of his breakfast study of friction, but the table hadn’t seemed to mind. His cousins found it quite amusing as well. His aunt scolded with a sly smile, “Joseph, if Santa hadn’t already been here, you wouldn’t be acting like this.”
The reminder of Santa stopped his study of Physics right away and sent him directly to eating his cereal in a frenzy. There were still presents to open.
“J. Dishes,” he heard McCormick grumble, “We aren’t paying you to daydream.”
“You aren’t paying me, sir.” J replied.
“Dishes.”
McCormick was obviously used to volunteer slave labor. J returned to his work with less enthusiasm. McCormick stayed to watch over his shoulder.
“Mr. McCormick, what keeps this place going?”
“People that care. People that care...”
J finished the dishes. He wiped his hands clean on the last dry spot of the raggedy yellowed kitchen towel. As the gray soapy water spun down the drain, J watched it carefully. The little bubbles were on quite a ride, but they couldn’t help fear for the abyss before them.
J washed dishes at the McCormick house in the evenings, before his late shift at the 7-11. He always managed to leave his basement room before the swinging Smiths got home from work. He’d wash up the dinner dishes and chat with the group in the house. It was summer time, so the house was far from capacity. J still had plenty of dishes to wash, but he often had help. Very few of the McCormick house wanted a free ride. They were happy to pitch in and help. J would wash and another house member would dry. At first it was all done in silence, but as J felt more comfortable that summer he began to ask questions. Everyone of his dryers had a story. They’d hit hard times for one reason or another. Nobody liked hard luck, but like the Strayers, the Mayers and the Brauns of the world, these folks were just trying to find a way to keep on living. They might have made mistakes, but who hadn’t? Mr. McCormick gave them a chance to get back on their feet and they counted him in their prayers. J heard tales of violence and heartache, tales he wished didn’t sound so familiar, but the tales J gravitated toward were the tales of hitchhiking and the tales of protest. McCormick and a vet named Jimmie regaled the young man with tales of civil disobedience, of recreational drug use, and of the rules of the road. McCormick had met the late Mrs. at an Anti-Vietnam rally. He had been marching on Washington, his ponytail blonder and fuller, his shirt ripped off and waving above his head when he’d seen her shouting obscenities. It had been love at first sight. McCormick was a firm believer in love at first sight. Jimmie disagreed violently. He slammed his fist on the table and called McCormick an old romantic coot. He conspiratorialy told J that love wasn’t about sight. He had a theory about smells. “Them scientists call ‘em pheremones or the like, but I tell you the way to know you love a woman is by the smell of her.” McCormick laughed, but he didn’t register any disagreement. Jimmie smiled triumphantly. “Let me tell you ‘bout the girl that stole my heart and my nose.” The three of them sat down at one end of the table. McCormick looked old in the light of the kitchen. His tired eyes hadn’t been able to dance since the Mrs. passed away. Jimmie looked worn, his five o’clock shadow well on it’s way to seven thirty. The war had taken its toll, but his return had been much worse. By comparison J looked like a babe. Even beneath his well trimmed goatee, his skin looked as soft as marshmellows. J was just a kid, eager and impatient like one too, but his eyes, those brown eyes hinted at a deeper confusion and a deeper pain. A pain that Jimmie and McCormick identified with and took to. Neither would’ve ever put a finger on that, nor did they like to do much thinking in those directions, but they both liked J and they sensed that he wouldn’t be washing dishes at the McCormick house for long. It was all the more reason that they loved to tell him stories. J loved to listen. The more he listened, the more he realized two things. He had his work cut out for him and the hills of Cinci were closing in on him. He developed an itch like Keraouac on speed. By the end of the summer, J had it so bad that he jumped whenever a car passed him on the street. It took a feat of intense concentration to stop his thumb from just whipping out and asking for a ride.
On to 4
posted by David at 8:30 PM
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