4
Before the first shades of autumn, J had said his good-byes to the swinging Smiths. He’d said good-bye to Slurpees. And he’d said goodbye to the two men that inspired him, McCormick and Jimmie. McCormick offered him a place to stay any time he rolled through Ohio. Jimmie offered him a condom. “It’s all I’ve got.” he laughed, “And I sure as hell ain’t using it.” J took the gift, made a big show of putting it into his wallet and said, “Jimmie, you call me if you need it. There’s no sense in spreading your seed.”
Jimmie and McCormick laughed about that for days. Months later Jimmie would pop back into the McCormick house and say to the old man, “That boy come back with my condom yet? I’m feeling lucky.”
McCormick would laugh, “Get to a casino. Stay away from the women.”
A Sunday in September, J took his bed roll and strapped it to his back with a hobo bag brimming with a razor, toothbrush, 8 granola bars, a pack of Juicy fruit, and a tin of mints filled with all the spending cash from his 7-11 work. At 3:58 PM, thirty minutes before his 4:30 bus left for Washington D.C. J called his folks.
“We were just about to call you, Joseph,” his dad said.
“I know Dad. Look there’s something you should know.”
His father waited in silence. J searched for an opening. He searched for a way to make this easier, but some things aren’t easy no matter how you do it. “Mr. Strayer asked me to leave the firm in June.”
“Whaa?”
“Before you say anything, I’ve been working. I’ve been doing good here in Cincinnati, but it’s time for me to go. I’m not sure where yet. I’ll call you later.”
His dad, never a lovable huggable type anyway, lost his top that Sunday at 4 PM. There were screams and curse words like J had never heard. Had he stuck around he might’ve learned a new one or two, but he left the phone dangling and headed for his bus.
********
Sid heard three knocks on the door. J always knocked three times, but then Sid remembered that he’d read that the local police always knocked three times too. As he went to answer the door, he wondered if telling J would make him change his knock pattern. Sid decided probably not and opened the door.
“Hey Sid. Am I too late for Butternut?” asked a tired-looking J.
“No.” replied Sid. He wanted to ask where J had been. He wanted to know if he’d seen Matty. Instead he scooped ice cream. Three scoops Butternut, big spoon, just the way J liked it.
J always took three bites before he settled into conversation. Sid had counted. He waited. One bite. Two bites. Three bites of Butternut ice cream.
“You know what bugs the heck out of me, Sid?”
“Childproof caps?” Sid offered.
“huh? No.” said J, “The state of this country and the dolts who live in it.”
J pointed his spoon into the air, paused, then jammed it into his ice cream before shoveling another bite into his mouth.
Sid watched J carefully, hoping a plan was about to hatch right in front of his eyes, hoping that he’d get to hear the first draft, without interruption from Ben or Sherri. He stood at the counter alternating his gaze between the maps on the wall and J, trying to will a plan out of him, but J didn’t budge. He just ate his Butternut thoughtfully, quietly. J was reminiscing again. He was thinking about that couple he’d seen on the walk over. He remembered when Matty used to look at him that way, when they shared that electricity brought on by hope instead of the tolerance that laziness had long since ushered in. J had been in Washington D.C. for a spring of anti-government protests. There’d been a whole slew that year from health care, to deficiet spending, to term limits. He’d been crashing with a contingent of 10 fellow protestors in a little hell hole in Eastern Market. Out walking one Saturday morning, he’d passed right by her at a coffee shop near Capitol Hill. He’d noticed her the way he’d notice any beautiful woman, with a quick assessment of eyes, mouth, breasts, legs; in that order, never staring. From there he’d quickly extrapolate what sex with her must be like, carrying on without missing a stride. It’s why he could never understand how anyone could live in a small town. The sex extrapolation would get so boring in a hurry. Then he paused. That extrapolation seemed particularly familiar. He stopped and went over it again in his head. He’d seen serious green eyes scanning a book framed by dark hair, a perfectly shaped mouth, delicious pink lips slightly puckered from the last sip of coffee, breasts mostly blocked by the table, but reasonably sized, and legs crossed, a perfect calf dangling. Separately it was not remarkable, but he sensed that he’d extrapolated sex with this woman on numerous occasions. He wheeled around and headed back a few steps.
“Matty?” he asked.
She looked up at the young man quizzically. He looked too young and too oddly dressed to be a lawyer. He didn’t look rough enough to have been a client, but he looked vaguely familiar. At 29, she’d come to discover that a lot of people looked vaguely familiar.
“Do I know you?”
“It’s unlikely.” J said. “I spent a month as an intern at Strayer, Mayer & Braun before I was, uh, asked to leave.”
“Ah. yes. Who are you C? X? It was a one letter name if I recall.”
“J.” he told her with a smile.
“J. like Gatsby.” she returned with a smile of her own. The very smile that J adored. He nearly drifted off into a dream when the words, “Only without the money or the obsession,” left his mouth.
“If you aren’t obsessed why have you followed me to DC?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
For a moment, he could see the green eyes considering this young man with the goatee. He was a wholly different man than the one she seemed to recall at SM&B. Entirely more sure of himself, more comfortable in his clothes somehow.
“Join me,” she said as she motioned to her table.
“Join me.”
“Join me,” she said again in Sid’s voice.
Startled by her change in tone, J awoke from his daydream, took a second to get his bearings and realized Sid was speaking, albeit rather softly.
“Sid. Sorry. What was that?”
“I’m going to move to the other room. Would you care to join me?” Sid didn’t wait for an answer this time, satisfied that J was back from wherever he’d been and unlikely just to stay in the kitchen without ice cream or a plan.
“Sid, we need a plan,” J exhaled as he entered the living room and plopped on the couch. “The elevator was a disaster.”
They sat silently for a moment or two, staring at the unplugged television.
J then slouched,with his head dangling off the back of the couch he looked ready to sleep. Sid didn’t move. He didn’t look at J, he just stared straight ahead, a vacant look in his eyes. The two remained silent and still in their chosen positions for several minutes. Suddenly, J snapped awake and started rubbing his hands together.
“We’ve been going about this entirely wrong,” he said to Sid.
“We have?” Sid asked looking quite concerned.
“We have! I thought we’d been too distracted. That whole disagreement on recycling or cafeteria workers’ rights was a disaster, but we aren’t too distracted- we aren’t distracted enough.”
“Really?” asked Sid, “Because I’m pretty distracted.”
“Hilarious Sid, but I’m serious. Call Sherri and Ben. This is too good for them to miss.”
“Um. Sherri’s at work and Ben hates me.”
“Sherri’s not at work, is she? Call her cell phone.”
“She doesn’t have a cell phone. We gave those up because the government was tracking us with them, remember?”
“Right. Well then...hmmm. Let me think.” J collapsed haphazardly back onto the couch and assumed his thinking posture, which to the untrained eye looked a lot like the posture of a complete and total slacker just before he slipped off into a drug-induced haze. In moments though, J popped back to life. “There’s too much to do. We have to start without them.”
Sid felt a warm glow envelope him. He tried desperately not to smile, but he could feel joy sweep the corners of his mouth skyward.
“You ok, Sid? You look a little peculiar.”
Sid intoned he was fine and motioned to the kitchen. The two of them rushed enthusiastically in and J pulled down the Cincinnati map, complete with gold stars. The map showed J’s original plan, which involved a spiraling of demonstration activity as the group made it’s way to the city government offices for what J suspected would be the final showdown in their fight against Ohioan injustice. They had already taken what J was calling nearly successful shots at five major organizations on the outer rim of J’s spiral. He liked to call it the Super Spiral of Sweet Gloom, but again the group hadn’t shown the proper enthusiasm. The first attack in the spiral was against a used car dealership who allegedly sold cars that had been stolen from local scrap heaps and repainted and reworked. According to J’s information the mechanics were also payed poorly and worked long hours for a slave-driver of a boss, Crazy Ralph, he of the Crazy Ralph and The Price-Slashing Donkeys. It had been a good place for the group start. Sherri was convinced that the donkeys were mistreated. “Real price-slashing donkeys would be much happier,” she told them sincerely. Ben hated Crazy Ralph’s ties. For once he wanted to cut someone else’s tie. After a long discussion, they agreed that their best course of action would be a nonviolent one. They liked to stay nonviolent whenever possible. It gave them some credibility and generally kept them out of jail. It was a good decision on those grounds alone. It also didn’t hurt that none of the four was particularly prone to violence. One of them had been a vegetarian since they’d come together. Non-violence also tends to be a good policy for the physically weak. It’s not that J, Sherri, Ben or Sid were particlarly weak, but without help, each would have spent at least a lunch with unopened jelly. There are other strengths to contribute and part of the attraction of forming this group had been the complement of their strengths. Sherri was good with numbers and a monstrously compassionate. What Ben lacked in compassion he made up in white-hot anger. Ben fully supported pascifism, but when angered he was just as likely to UN-fully support it. J had charisma and he had vision. Some of it may have been misguided, but he was always boucing back from his defeats. The way he talked he’d had no defeats, only setbacks. His next plan was always the turning point. Without the charisma, he would’ve been lost long ago, but he kept bouncing back like a big rubber ball shaped like an eye- a bit unpredictable, a bit off-kilter at times, but always bouncing. Sid, well Sid was like a puppy. He was loyal and he was game for anything. He didn’t think well on his feet, or even move that well on his feet, but if anyone, even Ben, was in trouble Sid would be there in defense. He’d distract, he’d carry, he’d do just about anything anyone asked, if they used “please.” Sid was the crazy glue in this crazy group, even if Ben didn’t stick to him that well. It was Sid that gave Ben an outlet for his pent up anger when Ben really wanted to fly off the handle at J or Sherri. It meant Sid was a punching bag at times, but it kept Ben under control, mostly.
On to 5
Jimmie and McCormick laughed about that for days. Months later Jimmie would pop back into the McCormick house and say to the old man, “That boy come back with my condom yet? I’m feeling lucky.”
McCormick would laugh, “Get to a casino. Stay away from the women.”
A Sunday in September, J took his bed roll and strapped it to his back with a hobo bag brimming with a razor, toothbrush, 8 granola bars, a pack of Juicy fruit, and a tin of mints filled with all the spending cash from his 7-11 work. At 3:58 PM, thirty minutes before his 4:30 bus left for Washington D.C. J called his folks.
“We were just about to call you, Joseph,” his dad said.
“I know Dad. Look there’s something you should know.”
His father waited in silence. J searched for an opening. He searched for a way to make this easier, but some things aren’t easy no matter how you do it. “Mr. Strayer asked me to leave the firm in June.”
“Whaa?”
“Before you say anything, I’ve been working. I’ve been doing good here in Cincinnati, but it’s time for me to go. I’m not sure where yet. I’ll call you later.”
His dad, never a lovable huggable type anyway, lost his top that Sunday at 4 PM. There were screams and curse words like J had never heard. Had he stuck around he might’ve learned a new one or two, but he left the phone dangling and headed for his bus.
********
Sid heard three knocks on the door. J always knocked three times, but then Sid remembered that he’d read that the local police always knocked three times too. As he went to answer the door, he wondered if telling J would make him change his knock pattern. Sid decided probably not and opened the door.
“Hey Sid. Am I too late for Butternut?” asked a tired-looking J.
“No.” replied Sid. He wanted to ask where J had been. He wanted to know if he’d seen Matty. Instead he scooped ice cream. Three scoops Butternut, big spoon, just the way J liked it.
J always took three bites before he settled into conversation. Sid had counted. He waited. One bite. Two bites. Three bites of Butternut ice cream.
“You know what bugs the heck out of me, Sid?”
“Childproof caps?” Sid offered.
“huh? No.” said J, “The state of this country and the dolts who live in it.”
J pointed his spoon into the air, paused, then jammed it into his ice cream before shoveling another bite into his mouth.
Sid watched J carefully, hoping a plan was about to hatch right in front of his eyes, hoping that he’d get to hear the first draft, without interruption from Ben or Sherri. He stood at the counter alternating his gaze between the maps on the wall and J, trying to will a plan out of him, but J didn’t budge. He just ate his Butternut thoughtfully, quietly. J was reminiscing again. He was thinking about that couple he’d seen on the walk over. He remembered when Matty used to look at him that way, when they shared that electricity brought on by hope instead of the tolerance that laziness had long since ushered in. J had been in Washington D.C. for a spring of anti-government protests. There’d been a whole slew that year from health care, to deficiet spending, to term limits. He’d been crashing with a contingent of 10 fellow protestors in a little hell hole in Eastern Market. Out walking one Saturday morning, he’d passed right by her at a coffee shop near Capitol Hill. He’d noticed her the way he’d notice any beautiful woman, with a quick assessment of eyes, mouth, breasts, legs; in that order, never staring. From there he’d quickly extrapolate what sex with her must be like, carrying on without missing a stride. It’s why he could never understand how anyone could live in a small town. The sex extrapolation would get so boring in a hurry. Then he paused. That extrapolation seemed particularly familiar. He stopped and went over it again in his head. He’d seen serious green eyes scanning a book framed by dark hair, a perfectly shaped mouth, delicious pink lips slightly puckered from the last sip of coffee, breasts mostly blocked by the table, but reasonably sized, and legs crossed, a perfect calf dangling. Separately it was not remarkable, but he sensed that he’d extrapolated sex with this woman on numerous occasions. He wheeled around and headed back a few steps.
“Matty?” he asked.
She looked up at the young man quizzically. He looked too young and too oddly dressed to be a lawyer. He didn’t look rough enough to have been a client, but he looked vaguely familiar. At 29, she’d come to discover that a lot of people looked vaguely familiar.
“Do I know you?”
“It’s unlikely.” J said. “I spent a month as an intern at Strayer, Mayer & Braun before I was, uh, asked to leave.”
“Ah. yes. Who are you C? X? It was a one letter name if I recall.”
“J.” he told her with a smile.
“J. like Gatsby.” she returned with a smile of her own. The very smile that J adored. He nearly drifted off into a dream when the words, “Only without the money or the obsession,” left his mouth.
“If you aren’t obsessed why have you followed me to DC?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
For a moment, he could see the green eyes considering this young man with the goatee. He was a wholly different man than the one she seemed to recall at SM&B. Entirely more sure of himself, more comfortable in his clothes somehow.
“Join me,” she said as she motioned to her table.
“Join me.”
“Join me,” she said again in Sid’s voice.
Startled by her change in tone, J awoke from his daydream, took a second to get his bearings and realized Sid was speaking, albeit rather softly.
“Sid. Sorry. What was that?”
“I’m going to move to the other room. Would you care to join me?” Sid didn’t wait for an answer this time, satisfied that J was back from wherever he’d been and unlikely just to stay in the kitchen without ice cream or a plan.
“Sid, we need a plan,” J exhaled as he entered the living room and plopped on the couch. “The elevator was a disaster.”
They sat silently for a moment or two, staring at the unplugged television.
J then slouched,with his head dangling off the back of the couch he looked ready to sleep. Sid didn’t move. He didn’t look at J, he just stared straight ahead, a vacant look in his eyes. The two remained silent and still in their chosen positions for several minutes. Suddenly, J snapped awake and started rubbing his hands together.
“We’ve been going about this entirely wrong,” he said to Sid.
“We have?” Sid asked looking quite concerned.
“We have! I thought we’d been too distracted. That whole disagreement on recycling or cafeteria workers’ rights was a disaster, but we aren’t too distracted- we aren’t distracted enough.”
“Really?” asked Sid, “Because I’m pretty distracted.”
“Hilarious Sid, but I’m serious. Call Sherri and Ben. This is too good for them to miss.”
“Um. Sherri’s at work and Ben hates me.”
“Sherri’s not at work, is she? Call her cell phone.”
“She doesn’t have a cell phone. We gave those up because the government was tracking us with them, remember?”
“Right. Well then...hmmm. Let me think.” J collapsed haphazardly back onto the couch and assumed his thinking posture, which to the untrained eye looked a lot like the posture of a complete and total slacker just before he slipped off into a drug-induced haze. In moments though, J popped back to life. “There’s too much to do. We have to start without them.”
Sid felt a warm glow envelope him. He tried desperately not to smile, but he could feel joy sweep the corners of his mouth skyward.
“You ok, Sid? You look a little peculiar.”
Sid intoned he was fine and motioned to the kitchen. The two of them rushed enthusiastically in and J pulled down the Cincinnati map, complete with gold stars. The map showed J’s original plan, which involved a spiraling of demonstration activity as the group made it’s way to the city government offices for what J suspected would be the final showdown in their fight against Ohioan injustice. They had already taken what J was calling nearly successful shots at five major organizations on the outer rim of J’s spiral. He liked to call it the Super Spiral of Sweet Gloom, but again the group hadn’t shown the proper enthusiasm. The first attack in the spiral was against a used car dealership who allegedly sold cars that had been stolen from local scrap heaps and repainted and reworked. According to J’s information the mechanics were also payed poorly and worked long hours for a slave-driver of a boss, Crazy Ralph, he of the Crazy Ralph and The Price-Slashing Donkeys. It had been a good place for the group start. Sherri was convinced that the donkeys were mistreated. “Real price-slashing donkeys would be much happier,” she told them sincerely. Ben hated Crazy Ralph’s ties. For once he wanted to cut someone else’s tie. After a long discussion, they agreed that their best course of action would be a nonviolent one. They liked to stay nonviolent whenever possible. It gave them some credibility and generally kept them out of jail. It was a good decision on those grounds alone. It also didn’t hurt that none of the four was particularly prone to violence. One of them had been a vegetarian since they’d come together. Non-violence also tends to be a good policy for the physically weak. It’s not that J, Sherri, Ben or Sid were particlarly weak, but without help, each would have spent at least a lunch with unopened jelly. There are other strengths to contribute and part of the attraction of forming this group had been the complement of their strengths. Sherri was good with numbers and a monstrously compassionate. What Ben lacked in compassion he made up in white-hot anger. Ben fully supported pascifism, but when angered he was just as likely to UN-fully support it. J had charisma and he had vision. Some of it may have been misguided, but he was always boucing back from his defeats. The way he talked he’d had no defeats, only setbacks. His next plan was always the turning point. Without the charisma, he would’ve been lost long ago, but he kept bouncing back like a big rubber ball shaped like an eye- a bit unpredictable, a bit off-kilter at times, but always bouncing. Sid, well Sid was like a puppy. He was loyal and he was game for anything. He didn’t think well on his feet, or even move that well on his feet, but if anyone, even Ben, was in trouble Sid would be there in defense. He’d distract, he’d carry, he’d do just about anything anyone asked, if they used “please.” Sid was the crazy glue in this crazy group, even if Ben didn’t stick to him that well. It was Sid that gave Ben an outlet for his pent up anger when Ben really wanted to fly off the handle at J or Sherri. It meant Sid was a punching bag at times, but it kept Ben under control, mostly.
On to 5
posted by David at 8:31 PM
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