They’re Out to Kill Me (Nothing Personal)

I’ve identified a few of the customary ways that Orlando drivers try to kill fellow motorists.  Some are insanely competitive and weave aggressively in an attempt to beat everyone to the next red light.  Some merge or make radical lane changes without looking at traffic in their path.  Some tailgate and ride a few feet behind the car in front of them.  If the pursued accelerates, the bumper-humpers speed up to maintain proximity.  Some use right hand turn lanes to jump ahead of traffic and cut into the line on their left just before they run out of road.  Some slump from a side street onto a busy road, nearly come to a halt as they complete the turn, and slowly accelerate as if unaware of the screeching brakes of oncoming cars.  Some blast through intersections several seconds after the light has turned red.

All these homicidal practices are common place, and I no longer take it personally when someone forces me to violently twist my steering wheel or slam my brake pedal to the floor board.  I know that I’m not a specific target.  I just happened to be nearby when a fool decided to do something stupid.

But I’ve recently come across a new behavior that still surprises me.  I’ve had three encounters in recent months with drivers who don’t believe in correctly using turn lanes at stop lights.  They seem to think that the arrows on the pavement are suggestions instead of commands.

A motorcyclist riding to the right and behind roared past as I made a left hand turn.  He swerved in front of me, sped on for about thirty yards and turned into a shopping center.  He might have saved a second of travel time.  A driver beside me at a T-intersection used the right hand turn lane to drift in front of me as I tried to turn left.  I  stood on my brakes and hit my horn, but she casually drove on as if she’d done nothing dangerous.  I got passed today as I crossed an intersection.  I was going straight ahead, but a workman in a pick-up, who should have turned left seeing that he had started out in a left hand turn land, ambled by at mid-intersection and leisurely nosed his way into my lane.

I don’t know if these folks are looking at their phones, are submerged in their thoughts, are hell bent on getting where they’re going, or just don’t give a damn about their insurance rates or the points on their records.  I’ve been fortunate enough to never have to chat with them…

Now I doubt the intentions of all drivers stopped at traffic lights and assume that they’ll try to kill me when the light turns green.  (Nothing personal).  That attitude sounds paranoid and might not protect me from getting creamed by a particularly flagrant driver, but at least I won’t be surprised when it happens. 

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The Lovely Silence

Silence doesn’t reign complete in my house.  I can hear the engine rumble of a passing car, the low drone of the refrigerator, a dog barking somewhere down the block and my wife sorting through Scrabble tiles as she plays a solo game.  Birds sing occasionally, and the ringing in my right ear intensifies.

But the near hush still soothes, and I’m grateful for it.

I close my eyes and center down in a Quaker form of meditation, and I feel weariness, sadness, and resigned contentment.  Happiness is relative, and right now I am satisfied with my lot.

I went to the chiropractor this morning to get kinks in my neck, shoulders and back worked out, and one adjustment still sends tingling reminders down my shoulders and into wrists and fingers.  I know that this will pass in a day or two. 

I have a few things to do today, but nothing demands sustained effort and strain.  I will wash dishes, make supper, send an e-mail, and read a book.  I will nap as necessary.  I will spend time with my wife.

Tomorrow night I’ll get a batch of 15 portfolios to grade, and another load on  Saturday.  Finals start next week.  Crunch time.  But now I sit in a recliner and let it support my bones.  A jet passes overhead, and my wife clicks the keys on her laptop.  The refrigerator clicks off.

I should get up and do something needful, but my bottom stays planted on the seat cushion.  I close my eyes once more and tip my head back to ease a pang in my neck.  Breath flows slow and easy.

No use rushing toward strife when I can rest a while.  No use worrying about the five things I always worry about.  No need to drive myself forward.  I’ll abide like the Dude and enjoy the lovely silence.

Four Seam Fastball

  Four Seam Fastball, color and graphite pencil, 8×6″.

My 7th and 8th grade baseball teams didn’t have happy players.  We blamed each other when we lost and didn’t always cheer a teammate who made a good play.  Feuds and fights from the schoolyard traveled with us to the ball park.

I caught a few games in 8th grade.  The pitcher on one occasion was a beefy guy named Greg who suffered from arm troubles.  He pushed the ball from the elbow when he threw, and his motion looked more like that of a shot-putter than a baseball pitcher.

The title is ironic.  A pitcher making this throw holds the ball so that four seams rotate backward as he hurls high and fast.  The pitch rises so that a batter swings at chest height at a ball passing by his nose.  Greg had no fastball on this day and bounced pitches in the dirt.

Greg’s innings ran long as he had to face at least five batters in each.  The game ended at dusk with rain clouds gathering.  We lost as usual, but I remember enjoying the game.  I was involved in each play and had done my best. I blocked a bunch of wild pitches and kept runners from advancing on a couple occasions.

And I secretly relished Greg’s discomfort.  Our positions were usually reversed:  he caught and I pitched.  He would grimace when I walked a batter and give me disgusted looks during dead arm outings when I had no fastball, no movement, and lots of hits against me.

But I didn’t show any lack of confidence in Greg that day as he fumed and pouted on the mound.  I even tried to con the umpire into calling strikes on borderline pitches by swiping my glove toward the plate when a ball veered outside.  And I didn’t give him dirty looks when another run crossed the plate.  I knew that I could easily suffer the same fate the next time I stood on the pitcher’s mound.

 

 

Turkey Belly, Death on the Highway

 

A balding man hunched over his steering wheel as he drove a vintage Chevy wagon ahead of me on Aloma.  I closed the distance at a light and saw something white and spindly sprawled across the cargo area.  We came to a stop, and I saw a full scale model skeleton, skull resting on top of a seat back, legs draped over two unframed paintings.

I had just left Crealde School of Art after teaching my last lesson before Thanksgiving break.  The class had been pleasant and cozy–only two students showed up.  We talked about places we’d lived and locations where we still might want to live.  H., formerly from Stuttgart, Germany wanted to move farther south to more tropical climes.  D. grew up in New York and would return in a heartbeat if she could stand the weather…

I stopped off at home to check the mail, wash a dish and air out the house.  Judy and I had left the day before to meet family in Cocoa Beach.  I still had to drive an hour and a half to get back to the coast, but lingered over an impromptu supper while watching the beginning of Patton with George C. Scott.  I left shortly after Patton defeated Rommel in their first tank battle.  Images of smoking heaps of torn metal, shattered tanks, and torn bodies lingered in mind as I headed east.

The traffic slowed to a halt shortly after I took the right hand fork onto 520.  I came to an intersection, and the cars around me began to take desperate measures to turn back or shunt onto a side street.  520 has a bad reputation for catastrophic accidents, so I hit my turn signal and headed south.  I bushwhacked through ranch house subdivisions as the last glow of twilight faded to black.  I eventually managed to come out on a feeder road leading back to 520.  Traffic had started to back up there also, and I saw wrecks, police cars with flashing lights and smoking flares on the road at the intersection.  Shades of Patton.  I headed further east.

None of the roads led me back to 520, and the t-intersections kept pushing me south (the northern branches were dead ends), and after the fourth or fifth turn I lost track of my bearings.  I occasionally saw a full moon travelling beside me on my left shoulder when it should have been dead center in my windshield.  At one point I could have gotten onto a toll road heading west to Orlando, but resisted the temptation to give up and try again the next morning.  One poor choice led me to a sandy road cutting across a field of palmettos.  I saw a cattle fence blocking forward progress and backtracked.

I finally got the moon centered in my vision once again and began to take any road that allowed me to head east.  By dumb luck and random chance, I returned to the feeder road I had bypassed twenty minutes earlier.  Police cars still flashed lights, flares still lit up the road, and the hulks of three wrecked cars rested on the median.  One vehicle had no engine compartment, and charred paint ran the length of what remained.

The traffic had cleared while I wandered in the wilderness.  I gingerly steered through shattered glass and shards of metal, turned right and sped east to Cocoa Beach.  Judy waited for me there, and I wanted to fall into the comfort of her company.

The next day we went to the beach, petted dogs, ate too much and talked in shifting groups of twos and threes.  I drank a few beers and smoked a cigar provided by my son-in-law.  He told me about his research and asked me about my work.  A cool breeze blew in from the ocean, and I felt grateful to be alive.

 

 

I’m Your Mother GPS

I had to take a trip to an obscure section of downtown Orlando the other day and decided to download a GPS app before leaving.  I’d been avoiding using that travel guide as I’d found it annoying when riding with other drivers.  The monotone repeating commands and reminders seemed too controlling and insistent.

I skimmed through a few options and found one entitled, “Mom”.  It came in three levels.  I had no idea what each level offered, so I chose #1.

I backed down my driveway, and a sweet low voice hesitantly spoke:  “Oh dear, did you leave the stove on?”  I ignored it, checked my rear view mirror and backed out onto the road.  “Please pull over and clean the windshield before we go any further,” Mom asked kindly.  I pulled back on the windshield wiper lever, and cleaner fluid shot onto the windshield.  My wipers are getting a bit ragged, so a few streaks marred my vision when I turned east and faced the sun.  The GPS sighed quietly..

“Turn right,” she told me when we reached the stop sign.  “And watch out for that hooligan driving that yard service truck!  Why don’t we wait and let him go ahead of us?”  I had plenty of time to pull out before the driver cleared a speed bump with his trailer, so I edged forward.  Mom sighed again and said in a slightly discordant singsong, “You’ll seeeee.”

Yard guy sped over the bump, trailer nearly went air borne, and I had to stomp on the gas pedal to avoid a collision.  Yard service guy leaned on his horn and tailgated me all the way through the neighborhood.  Mom said nothing when we reached the intersection of Eastbrook and Aloma.  The green light gave me a chance to accelerate through the turn and leave my antagonist behind (he couldn’t manage to stay glued to my bumper without jack-knifing his trailer).

I kept up my speed for a few blocks and took another turn to make sure that I’d lost the yard service road-rager.  The silence remained deafening until I turned onto Howell Branch Rd.  Mom muttered, “Now I don’t have the slightest clue why you’re taking this road.  You’ve got me all turned around.”

I pulled in at the Casselberry Commons shopping center and found a parking space.  I went to the app page and found the “DELETE” command. But every time I tapped the button, the phone harrumphed indignantly and refused to comply. Mom said, “You can’t get rid of me that easily, young man.”

I turned off the phone, tossed it onto the passenger’s seat beside me, and resumed my trip.  I heard an odd noise when I turned left onto 17/92 in Maitland.  I glanced to my right and saw that the phone had somehow turned on.  The screen glowed hot pink.  I picked it up when I came to a stop at the next light and saw the GPS app had switched on to level 2.

Mom said, “Well, I’m back…Aren’t you going to say something?  You know that you’re just like your father…Why are you turning onto Lee Road?  You’re not going to take Orange Blossom Trail downtown, are you?  I bet you are.  I can tell by the squirmy look on your face.  You can’t fool me.  I’ve told you again and again that there’s nothing on OBT but hookers, drugs, strip joints and porno shops.  You’re going to turn right around and go through Winter Park on 17/92.  When we reach Colonial, you’ll take a right, go a mile west and take a left on Orange Avenue.  Well, do it.”

I turned onto OBT and headed south.  The phone turned a deeper, more fiery shade of pink.

“You never listen to me, do you?  Professor Bigshot, used to ordering people around, can’t take simple instructions from someone who knows better, who knows what’s best for him.  Maybe if I’d been around you’d still be married to Rhonda.  Such a lovely girl, and you just cast her aside like last week’s garbage.  You thought I didn’t know about her, didn’t you?  You should see the dumb look on your face.”

“But how?” I faltered.

“You agreed to unlock personal data when you signed the user agreement for my app.  I can look all over the internet and find out about you.  That picture today on Facebook looks embarrassing.  Were you drunk when it was taken?  And that girl you’re with looks like a little chippy.  Is she after your money, what little there is?”

“She’s nice,” I insisted.

“I like Rhonda better.  She looks like a good girl, and you married her in a Catholic church.  You’re still married to her in the eyes of God even if you think that a silly piece of paper gives you the right to cheat on her with loose women.”

“She cheated on me!” I shouted.

“Don’t raise your voice to me, young man!  And keep your eyes on the road.  There’s a porn shop on the right.  Eyes front!”

I drove past and didn’t look at the female dummy in the window display.  I didn’t notice that it’s nipples were painted bright red and that it sported a spiked black and white striped teddy with a lacy black fringe.  I focused instead on the road straight ahead.

I crossed Colonial and kept going south.  Parliament House appeared on the right.  The phone turned hot orange.

“Are you one of them?” she hissed.  “Is that why you flit from one relationship to another?  You’re looking for a woman to satisfy you when all you really want is a man?  Is that it?  Your father must be spinning in his grave!”

“I’ve never been to the Parliament House.  I’m not gay, and my father is still alive,” I said.

I parked at a meter further down the block, picked up the phone and tried to pry the battery cover off.  A sudden electric shock made me drop the phone.  I sucked on my fingers and listened to the phone screech at me.  The screen turned red.

I took an envelope out of my shirt pocket, gingerly wrapped it around the phone and tossed it into the glove compartment.  I got a second shock, but the insulation took some of the sting away.  Muffled shrieks and curses came from the compartment as I continued on, so I popped a Led Zeppelin cd into the player and jacked up the volume.

I pulled into the parking lot of a run down motel (daily and weekly rates) and got out.  GPS Mom howled long and loud.  I opened the trunk, retrieved a bag of groceries and walked to a unit on the ground floor.  Patty, a woman I had met at church, opened the door and let me in.  I handed her the groceries, and she made me a cup of coffee.  We sat and chatted about the new pastor, the ongoing feud in the finance committee, and the recent memorial service for a woman who had died two days after turning 94.  Patty thanked me once again, and I returned to the car.

I saw smoke coming from the glove compartment.  I tore off my t-shirt, wrapped it around my hand and pulled the door open.  My registration and insurance cards had caught fire.  The phone glowed bright red.  I grabbed a water bottle out of the compartment in the console between the seats, sprayed it onto the flames and got the phone wet.  I heard a smothered scream and a gurgling rattle, and the screen went blank.

I tossed the phone onto the sidewalk once it had cooled down.  The screen shattered, but I ground my heel onto it to make sure it was dead.  I should have buried it.

I got lost a few times on the way back but attributed my mistakes to a mind sorely disturbed by the events of the day.  I didn’t need a GPS program to get around.  I really didn’t.

Two days of blessed peace followed.  I went out and bought an old fashioned flip phone, ran a few errands, read a book and avoided the internet.  On the third morning I heard a timid knock on my front door.  “Girl scouts?” I wondered.

I opened the door and saw a man wearing a dirty shirt, torn pants and battered boots. The left one was missing its heel.  He held something behind his back.  A rusty bicycle lay on its side near the edge of my bed of plumbagos.

“Umm, Mister, I’m sorry to bother you, but I have to return something that belongs to you.”

I took a step back and partially closed the door.

“I’m sorry mister,” the bum continued.  “I picked up your phone on the sidewalk near where I live, and it started talking to me.  It told me your address and kept ordering me to bring it to you.  It told me a lot of other things about you, and I tried not to listen…None of my business.   I would have left it on the sidewalk but it wouldn’t let me be.  And I couldn’t make it shut up until I promised to return it.  I’m sorry mister, but this is yours.”

He slowly swung one hand forward. It held my phone. The screen was shattered, but the remaining splinters had turned purplish black. Red, broken letters suddenly lit up among the dark shards, and I read, “Level 3”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Feet Hurt

Quantum Cubist Self-Portrait, graphite, 12×9″

Woke up at 5 for reasons unknown and watched a grainy black and white youtube video of the 1952 Yankees/Brooklyn Dodgers World Series.  Jackie Robinson played second base for the Dodgers and Roy Campanella played catcher.  Young Mickey Mantle led the Yankees to victory.  The batters swatted at pitches with wide, flat swings.  Baggy uniforms billowed and made the athletes seem slow of foot and wide of ass.

Drifted off, woke to my alarm at 7:30 feeling much groggier than I had at 5.  Stumbled through making breakfast, cooking lunch to leave behind for Judy, and packing an apple and a sandwich to take along.  Felt rushed and slightly hassled as I drove to work but arrived five minutes before the doors automatically unlocked at Valencia Building 3.

The classroom was only partially wrecked from the last class and the Friday clean up crew, so it took just ten minutes to move easels and chairs into position.  Set out three models of human skulls on upright wooden boxes for my Drawing I class.  Arranged a complex still life (a skeleton, fabric, bricks, boots, cow femurs, an angel statue, and a lamp shaped like a horse’s head) on the gray stage for my Drawing II students.

2/3 of the students showed up on time.  Did a brief intro for Drawing I and then switched to Drawing II.  I showed them Picasso’s early cubist paintings, had the students draw 9×12″ boxes and divide them into 8 sections using curving lines.  Told them to draw chunks of the still life in each area.  The kicker was this:  each time they drew another section they had to move to another position.  Cubism=multiple viewpoints rammed together into one shifting, churning space.

Cubist Still Life, graphite, 8×6″

Drawing I drew skulls and learned portrait proportions.  Then they drew me and themselves, and after lunch they paired up and drew each other.  Usual mistakes:  eyes drawn too large, faces elongated, heads turned into bowling balls with facial features attached haphazardly, noses shortened and shrunk to Michael Jackson proportions, necks too spindly to hold up a head, mouths too small and narrow to chew a hamburger, brains shrunk to subhuman proportions, facial proportions of the drawer transplanted onto drawings of other people.  Students struggled for a while, but improved.  A poor student surprised me by drawing an accurate portrait of another student after having butchered my face.

 

Gave my usual speech about proper etiquette when a model is present (our first model comes next week).  Told them not to make remarks or jokes about the model, not to touch the model, not to fraternize (the model is not a future date), not to photograph the model, and in short, to treat the model with respect.  These rules are based on bad behavior by previous students.  I concluded: “If you have an issue following these rules, then I will have an issue with you, and then I will issue you out the door.”

Two students stayed after.  One wanted to show me her latest work in computer graphics.  I gave her a few color theory tips.  The other wanted to convert me into becoming a computer artist.  Told him that I like the tactile experience of working with my hands, of making things out of physical materials.

He persisted, so I trotted out my standard and most effective argument.  I asked him, “Would you rather make love to a woman or look at porn?”  He stammered and said, “I’ll have to think about that.”  Discussion ended.

Put away wooden boxes, still life props and skulls; arranged easels in a circle around the room; erased the blackboard, locked the closet, turned off the spotlights.  The weekend cleaning crew came in while I packed my bag, and I told them that the paper towels were out in both dispensers.

Trudged through the building and met two students in the lobby.  We cringed greetings to each other sharing the hope that neither student or professor would feel obliged to start a conversation.

The day had turned hot and muggy while I worked inside, and the walk to the car seemed long.  My teaching adrenaline faded away, and the effects of walking on concrete floors became apparent: my knees felt numb and my feet hurt.

 

Ode To The Garbage Man Who Bashed The Handles Off My Can

I weeded and picked up my yard this morning and filled one and a half cans.  I pulled them to the curb and recalled that someone had dropped a Chick Filet cup on top my yard waste the week before.  Inspiration struck, and I felt moved to compose a poem dedicated to special moments in my personal garbage history.  I apologize in advance.

 

 

Ode To The Garbage Man Who Bashed The Handles Off My Can

I admit that I jammed

the bags too tight in the one we could afford,

and the garbage man with sinewy might

lifted can and bashed it ‘gainst

edge of loading bin.

He waved his arms with savage delight after handles parted base

and lifted plastic scraps up as

if for heaven’s praise.

And he the sweating, raging prole transfigured:

an avenging seraphim.

 

And now his judgment plagues me still when by curb I place

my garbage can on weekly dawns

with handle not replaced.

Dog walkers scoop scatterings left in chihuahuas’ trace

and blithely drop the steaming bags unto my wounded bin.

The trashmen do not lift the can–no handles afford them grip–

but pull forth bags stacked neatly to the lip. 

But they deign not touch the excrement,

and on the bottom it festers and ferments.

 

The curse has spread to yard waste bins still with worthy form:

the careless toss their Styrofoam cups on top of grass and fern.

They brazenly flaunt collection norms

and ponder not the price to be paid

 for the wanton mix of natural and manmade

rotting on foulsome landfill berms.

Oh that the angel of vengeful scorn 

would descend upon them with fiery sword 

and usher miscreant garbage sluts 

to a malodorous final reward.