Dramatis Personae (#1): David

Hey, Gang,

So, it’s been a while since we last committed communicatin’, so I thought I’d bring everybody up to speed on who’s doing what where and why.

First of all, you’ll recall that I have a son by the name of David Tillman Tucker. The “Tillman” part comes from his Granddad, who is Tillman Jessie Tucker Jr. No. Really. Could I make up a thing like that?

Actually, I came within a inch being named “Tillman Jessie Tucker III,” but at the last minute my parents decided that naming me TJT III would qualify as either an advanced form of child abuse or being an Episcopalian. Which is a joke you can only understand if you also know that being Episcopalian was once a Big Thing for rich white people from Eastern States … i.e., the sort of folk who have well-muscled sphincters, trust funds, and the sort of names that are just cracker-jack full of hyphens (“Frederick Tott-Waller,” “Paul Flemhocker-Moningglory”). Names which, further more, show up a lot on war memorials to men (“the glorious fallen”) who got shot, gassed, and bombed defending democracy in the holy crusade World War I (“the war to end all wars”). Which, you’ll recall, led directly Stalin, Hitler, and World War II.

So, let that be a lesson. Never be an Episcopalian. Bad for your health.

Where was I? Oh, yes, David.

Anyway, last we met, he was in high school. He’s not any more. Which is a Very Good Thing. You see, he’s very, very bright . . . and well read . . . and a natural scholar. So, of course, most of his teachers hated his guts. Par for the course.

The best story I have about his high school years is the time he told his history teacher, “Sir, you are the only man in America who could make the Renaissance boring.” He was right. Not particularly diplomatic, but right.

Anyway, after several painful years for him, and many charming little tête-à-têtes qua knife fights between me and the Vice Principal in Charge of Discipline, he got his diploma and was off like a shot. His mother and I breathed a sigh of relief and the Vice Principal (in Charge of Discipline) retired to a small town in eastern Mass where he could try to re-grow all the hair he’d pulled out during parent conferences.


*

So, then, David had a severe attack of being a Barista. If you’re unfamiliar with the term (which means you’ve never been to Starbucks or otherwise have spent the last thirty years in a cave on Mars), a “Barista” is a person who makes coffee in cafes and coffee bars.

But there are Baristas and then there are Baristas. There are, you see, Baristas who just push the button on the automatic espresso maker and watch while the freeze-dried crystals congeal in a gelatinous mass on the bottom of the cup. I particularly like the congealing part. You can use it to fix leaks in swimming pools and radiators.

But, there’s another kind of Barista. That’s the sort who plays the ‘spresso-maker the way Yo Yo Ma gets chummy with his cello. That’s the kind that David was. He worked in high class restaurants where I can’t pronounce, much less afford half the things on the menu. He also got his Barista training from an international consultant from Denmark and when it was all over he could do things that super-Baristas do. Like, for instance, they trace intricate designs in cappuccino foam. David’s signature design was a little tree. Looked sort of deciduous but one can never tell about the odd pine slipping in when you’re not looking.

In fact, David came in fourth in a National Barista Competition. You didn’t know there was such a thing, did you? But, yes, they exist (again, could I make that up?) and scores of Baristas converge upon convention centers and produce rival coffee drinks for hard-eyed judges. Think “Best In Show” but with caffeine.

And, yes, it’s as scary as it sounds.

*

But, then, after a couple of years, David decided that there was only so much you could do with cappuccino foam. So, he went off to Art School and is now doing things with painting, wood-work, metal, videos, carpentry, “conceptional art,” and lots of other stuff that probably violate at least three laws of physics. Not to mention zoning ordinances about excessive intelligence in confined spaces. He also does things like write about aesthetics, art and social theory, obscure Middle European philosophers, important movie directors, modern vs. contemporary art, etc., etc., and (of course) etc.

Sometimes I think about sending a few snaps of his works to his old Vice Principal (in Charge of Discipline). The man who was so sure that David Would Fail. But, then, I think, No, I don’t want to make his head explode. Attractive as that concept is.

*

Okay, but you may be asking yourself, “Self, how is an art students supposed to make money in this life? I mean, really, Self, aren’t you being pretty d*man impractical about this?”

The answer, strangely enough, is not necessarily. Some art students actually do go on to become artists and (surprise surprise) even make money at it. Why not? It’s a business (forgive me) like any other, and a smart operator can do okay.

Besides which, even the art students who don’t become artists tend to go on to other things. They funnel up into graduate schools and professions that require a combination of technical and aesthetic skills—quite literally everything from computer graphics to chemistry. In David’s case, that’s probably going to be architecture . . . but, then again, maybe not. It all depends on the time and tides in his affairs.

Besides, he’s got a backup plan.. Over the past few years he’s developed a taste for bicycling. Moreover, he’s become a certified bike mechanic. In fact, he’s managing a co-op bike shop at Harvard University—specifically, Quad Bikes. He and the others there do bike repairs, and rebuild and sell used bikes.

It’s kind of scary, really. I go and visit the shop and watch him upend bikes, pull this and fasten that, straighten something else, and, voila, what had before been a tangle of pipes and wires is actually usable.

As I say, scary. You see, the mechanical gene bounced right over the top of me. I can barely tie my shoes, much less fix something. Yet, he makes it look easy.

Also intimidating is that he has a bit of business sense. I meet him for dinner or lunch and he tells me cheerfully about how he’s doing the profit and loss statements, and how Quick Books behaves in this or that circumstances, and how he’s meeting with the co-op board of directors to talk about next year’s income.

Again, it bounced over me. My family—my mother, my father—they have those kind of skills. But me? No. Not in the least. I mean, I can’t get my check book to balance . . . or find it, for that matter. I think it’s on the kitchen table, somewhere. Probably under that stack of bills and the fruit basket. Hard to tell.

Ah well . . .

*

So, anyway, he’s a bike maven and a bike mechanic. He’s even got followers—that is, people who will want him, and him alone, to do the repairs on their ten speeds and mountain bikes. I suppose every good mechanic does, but, still, it intrigues me. Harvard students and staff members, tenured faculty and deans, appear at his door and politely request his attentions.

I suspect that, if he wished, he could even make biking and the business of biking his career. He could work in shops, or own one, pretty much anywhere in the country, and do rather well at it. He could make an excellent income—something to be valued in this curious day, when we have been so lovingly bequeathed a devastated economy by the Bush administration, and when oil prices flutter up and down (but usually up) like a hummingbird in a hurricane at the least rumor of international strife.

*

Though, even if he doesn’t go into the bike trade in the long run, there’s still a short-run advantage in it . . . for me.

You see, he brings us great stories from the shop.

My favorite of his most recent reports goes as follows: It seems that one day a customer came into the shop. I like to envision the man as a self-important faculty member, or an obnoxious administrator. He wanted his bike tuned and prepared for the summer months. He left it and departed.

David then began to look at it. He put it up on a rack and discovered . . . hello! . . . that someone had taken a bolt cutter and carefully, expertly nicked one of the supports of the front wheel. It had been done in such a way as to make it almost undetectable. Yet, if the rider had gone over a curb or hit a pothole, the wheel would have bent double . . .”tacoed,” was the expression my son used. That would have doubtlessly thrown the rider over the handlebars, which would have almost certainly injured him quite seriously, and might even have killed him.

My son called the owner and explained the situation. The man came to the shop and examined the bike. “Probably just some kids fooling around,” he said, and left.

But, of course, it was no such thing. Whoever had sabotaged the bike had known precisely where to make the cut. And they had had access to the bike itself, which would have been difficult given that the man kept it off the street.

So, David was left to wonder . . . who hated that man so much? Who hated the man, AND was close enough to him to have access to the bike?

A co-worker? A student? A member of his own family? His wife or his child?

The man, I gather, has not been in David’s shop again since.

And . . .

You gotta admit. It’s a great opening for a mystery novel.

*

Maybe that’s my next career, now that the academic thing didn’t work out. Maybe I’ll write whodunits. I’ll write mystery novels with a bike theme. I’ll make David the (thinly) disguised protagonist. The stories will all involve the Butler doing nefarious things to Lord Smythblater’s ten speed behind the carriage house. Or, gangs of international bike perverts stealing antique three wheelers for use in Schwinn porn. (Horrors.)

I’ve even got a title for the series.

David Tucker: Bike Detective.

*

Okay, it’s a dumb idea. For one thing, David would kill me. For another, well, wouldn’t want to offend all those bike perverts out there. You never can tell when one of them is going to audit your taxes or something. (“About this deduction for axle grease . . .”)

Still . . .

Do you suppose … just by chance… perhaps…

I could get my former dissertation members interested in biking?

*

Just kidding.


*

Anyway, so that’s David. Next week, we do … the Spouse!

Stay tuned and …

Onward and upward.