where there's smoke, there's clementine

I tossed the peelings into the sink and turned the disposal on. I am not enamored of such devices. Is it because the one we had in The Projects broke? Didn't it break so often we gave up on having them repair it? Did its guttural grind scare me? As the disposal was gargling the skin of the clementine, I thought I saw a cloud of smoke puff up from the bottom of the sink hole to the right of the disposal. Smoke? Uh-oh. The next day, I kept an eye out for smoke. As I was uncurling my clementine at breakfast, I spotted -- and smelled -- a sudden burst of citrus spray escaping from the tender fruit.

Mystery solved. Mystery epiphanied.

Where there's smoke, there's not fire. Not necessarily.

And the day after that, steam uncurling heavenward from my hot tea with half and half no sugar. Swirling skyward. As if a genie were about to appear and offer to grant me wishes.

Wishes already granted.

Because in seventy years I had never seen my breakfast tea in quite that light.

Ball 1

So lonely, like a lonely planet. So abandoned. Kicked (or thrown, dribbled, tossed, rolled) to the side of the road, actually the sidewalk. Air ball. Ground ball. Basketball. So many questions, so little time. Actually, as much time as we need. The parade of questions, replete with mystery, enslaved to no shot clock:

• Who left it here?
• Why?
• One person or several?
• Male or female or questioning or both or none?
• How long has it been here?
• Why was it still there two days later?
• Who won?
• Or was it a solitary game?
• Where's the hoop or hoops?
• Wouild a baseball or football lie (lay, lie, who knows, who cares) there similarly and for the same duration?
• Would someone toss a basketball back and forth against a wall as one might a tennis ball?
• Was violence involved?
• Apathy?
• Attrition?
• Anomie?
• Anime?
• Espionage?
• Subterfuge?
• How long will it stay there?
• Has anyone else noticed it?
• Why has no one picked it up and kept it?
• Is this symbolic?
• Iconic?
• Nihilistic?
• Does this prove the world is round?
• What would happen, where would it go, if an earthquake trembled the earth, wobbling the ground beneath our feet, the way coronavirus is shaking our foundations, our infrastructure, nudging downhill on the one and only Tipperary Hill?

who holds the keys

Chain-link fence outside the power plant. Padlocked. A padlock one could buy at the hardware store. Cabinet for the electrical service into the building, protected by bollards. Padlocked. Switchbox out on Route 41, middle of nowhere. Same. Electrical panel in the subway. Padlocked. Gate at the stadium entrance. Iron railing around the government offices. Same. Same. The briefcase with the codes. The restaurant closed for nonpayment of taxes. Padlocked. Padlocked. Her jewelry box, his gun cabinet, their storage locker. Same. Same. Same. Her secret, his secret, their secret. Who has the key. Keys. The missile silo. The hidden tabernacle. Silent shelter. Cave. Padlocked. Shackled. Handcuffed. Locked. The safe deposit. The vault. Who the keys, who the will. Where the keys. How. When.

missing

I got off the bus at West Genesee and West Fayette. A young mother with a toddler and an infant in a stroller struggled to navigate the steps down onto the sidewalk. I let them go and did my best neither to feel nor exude impatience. I stepped onto the sidewalk buffeted by a blast of December wind. Something on the ancient, rutted utility pole caught my eye. What? A Missing Persons poster was stapled on two sides of the pole. I moved closer. There, to my shock and horror, was an unmistakable image of me, under large block letters spelling MISSING with an exclamation point (fortunately, only one instead of the customary three). Below that was a photo of me in my Icelandic sweater, bought in Reykjavik in January 2016. It happens to be one of my favorite self images. My older glasses are bolder, my hair is longer and less gray, and I sport a sexy smirk, or so I've been told. So thanks for that. Anchoring the bottom of the poster "$5,000 Reward" is offered. How is that amount calculated? Is it based on the poster's (as in "one who posts") resources or my putative value? My name is provided. It is spelled correctly, with no middle initial. No information regarding age, reason for missinghood, potential danger to self or others is offered. The only other data provided is that I was last seen at the Solvay Post Office. Last seen, wait for it, today. Today? Is somebody trying to tell me something and what is it? I shook this off, having lingered for who knows how long at the corner absorbing all this. I proceeded west on Fayette toward home. Every utility pole, all eight, had two missing posters stapled onto it. Just me. Nobody else. I kept walking. Evening was descending, as it does so early in December. I quickened my pace. I keenly looked left and right, searching for something or someone, I didn't know what. At the end of the block, I paused and looked in back of me, where I had just traversed. Nothing. I turned left onto Williams Street, toward my apartment building. I decided I would not enter by the main door, at the lobby with the mailboxes. I somehow felt safer entering by the seldom-used back door. As I walked down the six steps to the door, key fob in hand, i halted. Another one on the door. I could have turned away. Turned away to go where? I summoned either courage or foolhardiness, waved the fob, and entered. now my heart was racing. I was sweating. I walked up the stairs to the third floor. I gingerly, and as quietly as I could, strode to apartment 312. Another poster.

cold hard cash

The twenty they gave me had writing on it. The bank gave it to me. I didn't notice until an hour later, about to buy coffee.  You've seen this sort of thing. A phone number or a website. This had both. Normally I pay it no mind and use the bill as I would any other. Not this time. I transferred the twenty to my right pocket, the pocket reserved, superstitiously, for savings or safekeeping or temporary non-use. Later on, in the late afternoon, I texted the number on the bill, not knowing if it was a landline or a cell. I texted, "Hey there." I got no answer. I got no answer for weeks. In fact, I said what the hell and forgot about the whole thing. Out of the blue, I get a "hey there." I don't respond to numbers I don't know. Who was this? I soon realized it was a reply to my original message of same. Part of the same thread. 

Can I help you?
I don't need any help. Who are you?
Who are you?
Au contraire. 
Exactly.
What do you want?
Same as you.
Are you male or female?
What's it to you?
Where are you?
Same.
What does that mean?
How 'bout you?
Same.
Want to meet? Someplace neutral.
Beige.
Why should we?
I'm afraid.
Why did you do that?
Do what?
Write your number on the twenty.
What are you talking about? I didn't leave no number.
Any.
What?
Never mind.
Meet?
You crazy?
Course not. And if I am, what's that make you?
Crazier.
Right.
Left.
Don't text me again.
Me neither.
Same.
Same.

postcard from Oslo, 1973

A faded image of Akershus Castle, in Oslo, on the front. On the back, the part where people write their messages, my name appears, with a Salt Springs Road address below it. I last lived there in 1974. There are no discernible address forwardings to my current address (same city, opposite side of town), except for one Band-Aid-sized sticker with today's address affixed haphazardly and partially over the old address.

In rounded, florid cursive handwriting, likely from a fountain pen, the following message appears, in English, with several smudges and blurred letters:

"16 October 1973

Dear Paul,

Stop calling here, you drunken fool.

Love,

Marit"

I have never been to Oslo.

But I do know without a doubt who the sender is.

I met Marit in Salzburg, Austria, in July 1973. Or did I meet her on the train? I can't remember for sure. (Where is that journal I kept?) If the latter were true (the train version), how is it that I would reconnect with her in Salzburg and spend a companionable, and electrically charged, three or four days with her? Remember, we had no cellphones.

She insouciantly walked barefoot through the cathedral, sandals in one hand. I thought it was rude and scandalous of her -- which attracted me all the more.

We spent a languid and carnal afternoon in her rented room.

When I returned to the States, we exchanged letters. Her English was impeccable, better than that of the high school students I was teaching in America. She lived in Oslo. I tried to teach myself Norwegian. I read "Hunger" by Knut Hamsun, in English.

When I was drunk, which was often, I'd get the obsessive notion of calling her, when it was 5 or 6 a.m. in the morning where she was. I would anger her landlord by waking him, and her.... until one too many times and I finally stopped. Long-distance was so expensive, I easily could have flown to Norway instead. And what was it I had to say to her?

I was awful.

I must've thought I was in love with Marit, which was no excuse for such outrageous and revolting behavior. 

Is love ever a good excuse, for anything?

How did I get this postcard?

And what do I do now?

life as a #RubeGoldberg

You do not have to be a certain age to know what a Rube Goldberg is, or to understand those two words as an eponymous adjective. But it helps. Rube Goldberg was an artist and a cartoonist who comically depicted circuitous (sometimes literally), not-quite-labyrinthine, intricate ways to accomplish a ridiculously simple thing or to get from A to B. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner. I have a memory of his illustrations, but can't put my finger on how, maybe the comics in a Sunday newspaper. I distinctly remember my father often saying, "What a Rube Goldberg," just as he would refer to our junk closet as "Collyer brothers," or "It's like Collyers' in here," though I did not know anything of their real-life story.

Speaking of real life, the other day I slipped on ice as I went to unlock and enter my car. I dropped a book by Francine Prose (perfect name for a writer, eh? Try her!), which landed at my feet. The book was not damaged; it did not splay open and get wet from the ice. Within the book, right after cover 1, as we call it in publishing, I had tucked in a $320 check to be deposited, from a free-lance job. I purposely put it in the book so it would not get wet or damaged from the light snow. I picked up the book, inspected it for damage, and opened it. No check. Where was it? I was positive I had placed it within the book for safekeeping. I was 100% positive. The most irritating thing about such life riddles is the thought I am losing my mind or my memory, either of which is possible at my advanced age. Still, it frustrates me and pisses me off. It can be a totally unimportant object, a cheap pen or a useless note I wrote to myself or a dime. It's bothersome. I had that in the back of my mind. Did I not put the check in the book? I did. Stop right there. Where did it go? I looked in front of me, to my right, my left, and in back of me. Did the wind sweep it up and away and down the block right before my eyes? Had I signed it? Oh boy. I looked and relooked. My theory has always been: look everywhere you have looked and then do it again but slowly. No luck. Down on my knees in the cold wet. Look under the car, at the undercarriage, beyond the perimeter of the chassis, around the tires. The tires! What is that leaning against the inside of the right-front tire? Could it be? Indeed. Yoikes. I scurry to the other side of the vehicle and gently extricate the fragilely leaning check, as gently as an artisan restoring a DaVinci fresco. 

What a Rube Goldberg. Not exactly. Much simpler than the known pattern of a Rube Goldberg. It was conceivable, though, that the lofted check could have gone from its cozy berth near the tire and somehow up and under the hood and somehow wedged between the radiator and the grill. Never to be found. 

Yes, I exaggerate. But things happen.

What about on a personal level? You know the bit. "She said to me, and then he said, but after that I told them, and before you know it they posted on Facebook, and I repeated, then she and he posted, and then they said, then they were not talking to me for the rest of my life."

That sort of thing.

A freaking Rube Goldberg of human proportions.
 

The Clementine Chronicles, continued

Murder on the Disorient Express

Dramatis Personae:

OldWhiteGuy stereotypical converted-loft dweller, goatee-adorned; spectacles-wearer; enough head hair to comb except on the sides owing to stylist's shorning the week preceding; 5'10"; 169 pounds; blue jeans; blue T-shirt; blue-green-purple flannel shirt not tucked in; fragrance: Luna Rossa by Prada; Euphoria by Calvin Klein deodorant; unshaven for several days

Three Ravens pecking at unseen morsels on the roadway or bickering on the chain-link fence or telephone wires

DismemberedClementine* Jackson Pollocked (except for color; goldenrod-clementine-flesh yellow-orange backgrounded by burnt umber wetted, ergo Mark Rothko'ed except for the scatteredness; picture a spherical descent bursting onto the concrete, tossed from an upper-story window; motive and perp, unknown) into 22 segments and/or fragments of said segments, on the sidewalk [see below] by the side exit of the brick former knitting mill; a splayed and still glistening ink-blottish stain artistically placed on the snow-bereft sidewalk as a place setting or as a result of the Capital Citrus Murder (CCM)
*cf. The Laughorist blog post of 2 December 2018

DismemberedClementine Peeled Skin (absent, nowhere to be seen; unknown if peeled in one fell swoop or not)

DeadFish (scales on; head attached; accusatory cyclops-ish eye; absent corpse, nowhere to be seen; cf. The Laughorist blog post of 2 February 2019)

62.8 CCM Suspects (40 apartments, average of 1.5 residents in each minus 1.0 LaughoristDweller [a.k.a. OldWhiteGuy], plus 3.8 happenstance, random street-cred pedestrians) 

Ghosts of Bob Marley & The Wailers

Scene 1: 

Enter OldWhiteGuy, exits building, turns right, spots DismemberedClementine (rest in pieces, R.I.P.), halts, retreats, pivots left, inspects crime scene, counts segments, makes mental notes, turns right again, walks on ice- and snow-ridden sidewalk to car

OldWhiteGuy (posing as Hamlet Lear) (sotto voce): "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the skin!"

Enter Ghosts of Bob Marley & The Wailers singing: "One love, one heart... Let's get together and feel all right... Hear the children cryin'; give thanks and praise to the Lord ... Is there a place for the hopeless sinner who has hurt all mankind just to save his soul? One love, one heart ... Let's get together and feel all right!"

Exeunt Omnes

Vaticanated Mystery

You know how colors in the modern world are adorned with evocative, picturesque, poetic names? I wish I had that job, naming colors. Take yellow. Bumblebee lemon banana peach corn cream Tuscan sun butterscotch canary gold daffodil mustard dandelion pineapple blond(e) trombone eggnog flaxen. And so on. Hold that thought. I exited my building from the side door by the stairway between the first and second floors. I walked up a small set of stairs to ground level, to traverse a snow-covered sidewalk. The snow had both melted and been packed down. I turned left, the roadway to my right, and spied yellow somethings littering the snowscape. I had seen these a day or two earlier and did not pay them much mind. This time I stopped and picked up one of these adornments. Who put them there. What are they, these yellow dispatches from elsewhere. How did they get to their seemingly random positions in the snow. They looked like peelings, of paper or plastic. Picking one up, I concluded it was a paint chip. A morsel of yellow paint, separated from the object it had adhered to. I stopped. Turned around. From whence I just walked, near the building, I saw half a dozen yellow bollards that surrounded and protected a utilities box. The yellow bollards alert drivers and prevent an accidental crash into the electrical utilities, causing danger and mayhem. However, the bollards were not quite yellow, not uniformly. Bits of yellow paint had flaked off, exposing steel-gray. Hence, the paint chips in the snow. Or so it seems, lacking more or better evidence. A mystery lingers: how did the yellow paint chips become airborne and land on the snowy sidewalk and adjoining landscape. Wind. Hard to believe. Even a fierce wind. Wouldn't other damage be evident. Placed by human hands. Doubtful. Who would go through the trouble. Ever see the flag of the city-state called Vatican City. Yellow and white bands. This sheds absolutely no light on answers to the aforementioned questions about the paint chips. (I could be wrong. Maybe plastic shavings, not paint. Perhaps enamel or some sort of coating, clearly not weather-resistant, or the bollards would not exhibit exposed portions as if zoo lions or tigers were using the bollards as scratching posts.) New colors: bollard vaticanate sneeze pee popcorn kernel caramelite bunion callous fartish strawstrewn toothstained maltanned sweated toasted oolong dentured custard flame sunsplashed parchment nicotined diapered lamped earwax caution amberesque . . . 
 

bumps in the road

You drive along a city street, east or west, north or south; it doesn't matter. It might even be a suburban roadway, though not a country road or highway. The vehicle in front of you suddenly swerves to the right, or left, a reactionary maneuver. Is it to avoid hitting a pedestrian in the roadway? A squirrel daring to risk its squirrelly life by threading in, around, or through the moving onslaught of tires that would crush it and extinguish its life? Perhaps the driver in front of you and subsequently you are dodging a sharp object in the road, an object potentially injurious to your tires, and to you and your occupants. Maybe it's a squirrel or woodchuck or bird or rat or raccoon that did not make it to the other side of the roadway, entrails still steaming, flies not yet settling to feast on the corpse. Let's not omit the possibility that it's a human, injured or having reached his or her expiration date, in the busy roadway.

No.

It is none of these.

It's a bump in the road. More accurately, it's the opposite of a bump in the road, whatever that would be called.

The current trend is to dodge, swerve, steer, veer, zigzag, weave, or pivot a vehicle away from the depression of a utility or maintenance hole cover, also known as a manhole. Sometimes, though not as frequently, the cover is raised slightly above the surface. More often, it's below grade, causing unswerved tires to drive over a depression of, what?, 2 or 3 inches max.

Fortunately, the vehicle in front of you merely swerves, like an Olympic skater, rather than slams on the breaks and stops.

You wonder why this trend exists. You consider that each vehicle exercising this transportation mode might be transporting a sleeping child or two in a car seat, and that said child or children might awake, screaming, owing to the less-than-earthquake-intense disturbance. You also consider the notion that a teenager or teenagers riding in the vehicle, earbuds or headphones in place, might, as a result of driving over an indented maintenance hole cover exclaim, "Whatthefuck, Mom. I'm trying to do my English homework here!" 

Or you may not be remotely aware of The Veer at all.

You find it puzzling. It baffles you.

Is this vehicular maneuver limited to vehicles with tires apt to burst, thereby making it imperative for the driver to dodge the utility hole cover?

No, you find that cars sporting expensive, sturdy, resilient, top-of-the-line tires perform this aversion tactic as much as any vehicle with no-tread tires, with tires on their last rubbery legs. 

Is it limited to older cars with lousy shock absorbers?

Au contraire.

Vehicles featuring the latest shock-absorbing, quietening technologies known to humankind are as apt to perform the maneuver as anyone else.

You stop and think: how long has this been a common habit of drivers?

Is it limited to specific geographical regions, drivers with certain income levels, age, education, upbringing, class, religion, lack of religion, occupation, gender, or other defining characteristic?

None that you can discern.

Really: why does that driver in front of you execute The Swerve?

No one seems to know.

Vehicularis interruptus.

It could be a contagion, a broadened application of pothole avoidance.

It might be some vast conspiracy aimed at the local DPW.

Can any conclusion whatsoever be drawn from this ubiquitous (at least in my environs) custom?

Is there any broader lesson, metaphor, or moral that we can draw from this practice?

Is it a far cry, an absurd stretch, to suggest some sort of aversion to jostling, displeasure, or inconvenience?

Or does it posit no meaning whatsoever?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Man Down

He was sitting on what might be termed a grassy knoll, not far from the arboretum. Sitting on a patch of grass between the curb and the sidewalk. A man with a dark beard, and glasses. Maybe in his forties. Or fifties. Or sixties. Who can tell anymore? Sitting, almost reclining. Not looking ill but possibly so. Not looking anxious; but possibly so; looking tired. Looking like someone with COPD who can only take so many steps. I was driving by. I was on the way to the bank, already late for an appointment scheduled after my stop at the bank. (Actually, my appointment was scheduled for 10, but I was late by virtue, or vice, of squeezing in this bank visit, a visit later deemed beneficial owing to the fact I paid with cash.) I gave a glancing thought to stopping, at least to ask if Man Down was okay. He wasn't writhing. He looked almost comfortable. (What do any of these ludicrous adjectives or perhaps a participle mean or imply? And who is to say?) Still, I fought back feelings of guilt. I even sternly lectured myself, in imaginary, half-comical fashion: "Sure, if it were a lovely damsel in distress you'd stop, wouldn't you?" Would I? What would I say or do? I drove to the bank and conducted my bit of business. I then drove up the hill, in the same vicinity where I had spotted Man Down. This time, however, he was sitting down, almost reclining, looking tired but not injured, on a grassy knoll on the golf course, meaning he had advanced, perhaps a quarter-mile at most. He had seemingly progressed in his journey (was it a purposeless stroll? or a challenging walk toward a destination?), leaving me with a half-ounce less guilt.

asleep at the wheel

He was slouched all the way back, the driver, in a seat tilted about as far back as it could go. Eyes closed. During the red light. I mean, he seemed out. He appeared to be sleeping, dozing. I was driving the opposite way. He was on my left. Would he wake up when the light had changed? Or would he live out the words sung by John Lennon in "A Day in the Life": "He didn't notice that the lights had changed." If his eyes really were closed or if he really were asleep at the wheel, how would he know when the light did change? Perhaps he was awaiting and expecting a beep of the horn of the cars in back of him to arouse him from his stupor, assuming he was in a stupor. Maybe he was merely taking a meditative pause. Or performing as a performance artist. Or he is an urban narcoleptic. Better yet, the driver was posing for me, for this very blog post. Yeah, that's it.

the unknowable

"Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops."

Who is the author? 

Some evangelist?

A philosopher?

A cynic?

H. L. Mencken