S*cks To Be Me (#7): The Eye Part 2 (to a power of six)

Okay.

I’m going to finally, finally, finally (I promise) get to my eye surgery. I know I’ve said that like fifty-nine and three quarters times before. I know that I’ve tantalized you with images of a giant, bat-winged, fuzzy-eared, tentacle-equipped, fang-encrusted eyeball (with scales). And, I know, I’ve not delivered so far.

But, heck, if you wanted speed, efficiency and quickness, you’d be reading Twitter right now.

But the Eye…

*

As you’ll recall from columns way, Way, WAY back, I needed cataract surgery. The discovery of this aforesaid fact produced a certain in effect in me. That effect was technically known as sweat-poppin’, limb-trembling’, stomach-churnin’, heart-knockin’, breath-gaspin’, pants-wettin’ …terror.

As in Terror.

As in HOLY CHRIST THEY’RE GONNA CUT OUT MY EYE!

Well, that’s a little bit of an understatement, but Subtle is my middle name.


*

So, for weeks before this little trip to the eye doc, I’d been having these teeny-tiny, teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy manifestations of some slight anxiety. Little things. Like panic attacks. And trembling. And hyperventilation. And, now and then, just for variety, throwing up a lot.

The reason for my anxiety? Well, I’ve sort of gone over this a bit in my other columns, but suffice to say that I have a thing about knives going into my eyeballs (can’t imagine why) and I knew about what cataract surgery USED to be like.

The operative word there is USED. You see, these days, cataract surgery is a pretty trivial thing. But, not that long ago, it was a DELETED dreadful business involving major surgery, stitches … STITCHES! … in the eye itself, month-long hospital stays during which your head would be pinned between sand-bags to prevent you from rolling over, and, well, lots of good stuff like that. The kind of sheer unadulterated nastiness that you just can’t get these days. Well, at least outside a Freddy Krueger Movie Marathon. Or a Rush Limbaugh Poetry Slam on Steroids.

And I’m just enough of an historian to know all that stuff. Ergo, not to put too fine a point on it, I’m terrified.

Just in case you didn’t get that, let’s spell it out. T as in Torture, E as in Eviscerate, RR as in Rack and Ruin, I as in Incredibly agonizing, F as in Flayed, I as in Indescribable pain, E as in Extreme anguish, and D as in total Destruction. Terrified.

And, mind you, this is all going on while I’m also dealing with all the other stuff I’ve described over the last few weeks—getting kicked out of my Ph.D. program by the Goddamn pompous asses who were supposed to be my advisors (anyone with experience in voodoo doll construction please contact me at the above address), the furnace breaking in the middle of winter, the flooded basement, etc., etc., and, of course, etc.

So . . . my nerves are shot.


*

December 15.

The day of my surgery arrives.

I wake up early that morning. I spend long moments staring into space. I shiver a lot. I wonder about writing a will. I wonder if it’s too late to be Born Again. Or convert to Catholicism. Or buy a Juju. But, no. The Juju shops aren’t open yet. Pity, really.

So, Martha gets up just after I finish filling out my Do Not Resuscitate order and Last Will and Testament. We have a small bite of breakfast. Breakfast bites me back. And then, we’re on our way.

*

We arrive at the location of my execution . . . er, I mean, where I’m going to have the surgery. It isn’t a hospital. It’s a medical office building just down the highway. It looks sort of like the place where you’d go to buy order entry software. And not a Freddy Krueger in sight.

We go into the lobby and I join a group of other men and women waiting our turn. I’m a little out of place. At 51 (as of 2008) I was fairly young for cataract surgery. Everyone around me is older. They look at me with faint suspicion, as though I’m there under false premises. Yes. I really don’t need the operation. I just have this fetish for sharp knives. Inserted into my eyeball. Next week, I’m off to the proctology office. I’m bringing my own sewer snake. Can’t wait.

So, we sit. I shake. And, in about twenty minutes, they call me.

Right. I stand unsteadily. Courage to the sticking place, oh boy. Walk the last mile. Keep a stiff upper lip. No hysterical weeping in the front office. Frightens the interns.

They take me back into the rear office. A nurse gives me a shot…

And…

And . . .

The next thing I know, it’s twenty minutes later, and the same nurse is giving me juice and a cookie.


*

Seriously, that’s about all I remember of the operation. I have a faint recollection of some lights flashing. But, not much else. No angst. No suffering. No doctors yelling “STAT,” and rushing me off to the ICU.

It was really kind of a disappointment.

I said to the nurse. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Nothing else?”

“Uh…no.”

“Where’s the pain and suffering?”

“We try to avoid those as a rule.”

“Well…damn.”

I think they ought to keep a box of toothpicks around the office. Just so they’ll have something to stick under the fingernails of people Who Expect More. Maybe I’ll write ‘em and suggest it.


*

A little later, I toddled out to the front office again. A couple of other patients asked me what it was like. I told them, “I’ve had hair cuts that hurt more.” Which was true. There was the woman in Dallas with the straight razor. But we won’t go into that. Way too horrible.

Anyway, shortly after that, Martha takes me home.

*

Pretty much for then on it’s a gentle coast down hill. I had to wear an eye patch for a while. But, basically, that’s all there is to it.

Like I say, kind of a disappointment.

The good news is that I’m no longer near-sighted in my left eye. The weird news is that I’m now far sighted in that eye.

Understand, that’s a very new thing for me. I’ve been myopic since I was about six . . . probably before, but no one noticed that I was squinting all the time. They thought I was just a nasty bitter child with a bilious attitude. And proud of it, too.

But, now…things are very different. I had to get reading glasses. I now wear only one contact lens (on my right eye) and that adds a certain note of complexity to morning preparations—I’m used to having two, you see, and I have to remember which eye it is that doesn’t get one now (harder than you might think when it’s 6 am and you’re trying to wake up).

Then, too, there is the fact that colors are bit different. Many seem more vibrant. And my depth perception is changed. Better, but changed. You see, now, I think I judge depth the way that most people with two eyes do—that is to say, I triangulate. But, before, I think I was scanning rapidly from side to side, and then (unconsciously) comparing the different scans. It took some real effort on my part to give up the latter (jury rigged) method for the former. But eventually, I got the job done.

And, in the process, I gained new respect for the one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater, famed in song and story. (And we’re talking the Sheb Wooley original, here. Not Alvin and The Chipmonks.)


*

So, that wraps up the eye surgery part of my story.

In fact, it should end the whole “S*cks To Be Me” series. Certainly, at the time, it seemed to me that events just couldn’t get any weirder. And that, as a result, Things Had To Get Back To Normal…

But of course . . .

The year 2008 had one last little adventure to throw my way.

It would involve going down a hill…sideways …in a Toyota…during a sleet storm.

But that’s for next time.


Onward and upward.























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks To Be Me (#7): The Eye

Okay, folks. Here is where the shitake hits the ocular. Here’s where yours truly comes face to retina with the Giant Basketball-Sized Mutant Bat-Winged Red-Glowing Flying Eyeball (from Hell) and afterwards becomes a Bionic Bifocal Cyborg (eat your heart out, Terminator).

In short, this is where I have cataract surgery.


*

Okay, let’s have a quick recap. You’ll recall from way, way back at the start of this series that I have cataracts. I’m young to have ‘em (I’m 52 as of this writing) but I got ‘em just the same.

So, that means I gotta have surgery to get ‘em out. Specifically, I had to have surgery on the left eye. The right one’s probably going to follow in a few years.

Now, as you’ll also recall, it turns out that these days cataract surgery is pretty simpld. It is even an outpatient procedure. They give you some very cool drugs, wheel you into a special room, use advanced tools to open a micro-incision in the eye (so small it doesn’t even bleed), remove the old lens, and insert a new one. You’re out in a few minutes. No pain. Lots of gain.

And I knew all that. Knew it inside and out. Had thoroughly researched it. Talked to doctors. Talked to other people who’d had the procedure. Yep. You betacha.

And ya wanna know what?

I was, more or less, with admitted exceptions, and adding the necessary qualifications…

Scared shitless.

*

As you may further recall from the beginning of this seemingly interminable series, I was scared because I am just old enough, and just enough of an historian, to know that not long ago cataract surgery wasn’t that simple. Just a few decades ago, it was major ordeal involving a whole lot of knives, quite a bit of blood and suffering, and then, afterwards, stitches in your eyes

As in stitches.

As in FREAKING STITCHES.

As in OH CHRIST FREAKING GODDAMN JUST KILL ME NOW AND GET IT OVER WITH.

Whimper.

I’m so glad I’m good at dealing with stress.


*

So, there’s all sorts of stuff I have to do _ before _ I can have the surgery. I have appointments to go to. I have eye exams I have to take. I have to get a complete physical.

Except, funny thing …ha ha fricking ha . . . I find myself missing appointments.

Now, I’m pretty anal about appointments. I always have them in my calendar. I get to ‘em early. Hell. Sometimes I’ve been known to bring a gift. Say, a bottle of wine. Or a three bean salad. Or my famous guacamole, kumquat, and calamari cordon blue casserole (with green chilies). It’s known far and wide. Always take it to potlucks. Makes me a great favorite will all the folks down at the emergency room. I understand they’re naming a stomach pump after me.

Where was I? Oh, yes. But, now, for the first time in my life, I find myself forgetting appointments. Time, and time, AND time again…the various offices of the various eye doctors with whom I’m dealing call me up and say something like, “You do know you were supposed to be in here at nine, don’t you?” And I’d say something like Oh God-Delete It To Halliburton in a Farping Station Wagon and either go dashing off to get to the office or, more likely, have to reschedule.

You don’t think . . . maybe . . . just perhaps . . . could it be? . . . there’s just a tad of avoidance going on here, would ya?

Naw. Course not. Couldn’t be. Could it?

*


But, mind you, there are complications to this. My surgery is scheduled for 15 December. I have had to fight, and squirm, and struggle to get an appointment that early. If I don’t make it on that date, then . . . I have to sweat it out for another couple of months. Which I’m not really happy about doing.

So, I buckle down and try to really, Really, REALLY make every appointment and meeting.

The kicker? It’s just about this time I start picking up static from everyone else involved.

For example, the way I found I had cataracts? Well, way, way back I’d gone in to my ophthalmologist for an eye exam. I wanted to get contact lenses. After my doc had mentioned that I had to have my eyes gouged out … er, that I needed cataract surgery…she had duly ordered the lenses for me.

Cool. So, of course, it takes a while for them to come in. But, they show up on a Tuesday. I pick ‘em up, take ‘em home, and put ‘em in that evening.

Now, the next day, Wednesday, I’m scheduled for a very early appointment (like 9 am) at another doctor’s to have the length of my eyeball measured. They shine this little laser thing into your head. Great fun. Kinda like playing The Target in a good game of Starship Enterprise. Phasers on kill, Mr. Sulu.

But, that morning, I show up, with my brand spandy new contacts in my eyes, and the technician says… says … says “uh-uh.”

“Uh-uh?” I say, curious.

“Nope,” she adds.

“Nope?” I remark.

“No can do. No way. No how. Outta the pool. Game over.”

“Come again?”

“You’re screwed.”

It turns out when you wear contact lenses, your eyes adjust to them by minutely changing shape. That means the eye may not be the same length, or whatever, when the surgeon whips out the old chain saw and heads for your socket.

“But I’ve only worn ‘em for five hours,” I say.

“Tough toadies,” she responds, compassionately. Or, anyway, words to that effect.

It turns out, in fact, that you’re not supposed to wear your contacts for something like two weeks before they do their pre-operative measurement. My operation is now just about sixteen days away. It is just barely . . . BARELY . . . possible for me to get a new appointment for the necessary exam before the surgery.

At first, the technician doesn’t want to make the appointment but, fortunately, the folks at my regular ophthalmologist’s office are so mortified that they’d forgotten to tell me not to wear the lenses that they pushed a little and we got it all worked out.

Now I had only one last hurtle to …well . . hurtle over before I went for the operation.

But…

It proved to a be a real doozy.


*

I had to get a complete physical from my general practitioner prior to my operation. I made my appointment and saw the guy and he’d given me a clean bill of health. Then, he adds, “You know, this is overkill for your eye surgery, but why don’t you get your cholesterol tested . . . at some point in the near future.”

Okay, I say, and toddle on my way.

Now, notice the wording here. I assume, from what the good doc said, that the cholesterol test is separate from the exam I needed for the eye surgery. I think, in retrospect, that the doctor thought that, too. I think everyone thought that.

Except…my doctor’s staff.


*

So, time goes on, and as the date of my operation gets closer and closer, I start getting phone calls from the office of the surgeon. It seems that my regular doctor … my GP … had not faxed the results of my physical to him. Without those results, no surgery was possible.

Therefore, I start leaving messages at the office of my GP. Each time I phone, a staff member tells me, “Oh, yes,” we’ll take care of that.”

Except, then I’d get another message from my the eye surgeon saying that it hadn’t happened.

Finally, on the morning of the Friday before my surgery —that is, on 12 December, when my operation is scheduled for 15 December—I end up going to the GP’s office. I go to the desk and say to the nice lady there, “Can I get a copy of the results of my physical so that I can fax them to my eye surgeon?” Because I am in real need, here, I am at my absolute politest. I mean, I’m so damn polite that butter freezes in the old set of choppers. I’m so polite that Miss Manners would be freaking out.

And then . . .

And then . . .

One of the intake nurses comes out and starts yelling at me.

As God is my witness.


*

I don’t mean she’s talking loud. I don’t mean she raises her voice.

I mean Yelling.

I mean really Yelling.

I mean yelling at me in front of a lobby full of other patients.

All of whom are looking at me like I gotta be Jack the Ripper.


*

Finally, I get the story. It seems that she is peeved at me because I haven’t had the cholesterol test…which is What The Doctor ORDERED.

Further, she will not allow my records to be sent to the surgeon because I haven’t done What The Doctor ORDERED.

And, lastly, if I have any objections, I can go kiss …

Well, you can guess what she suggests I can go kiss.

I ask to see the Doctor. “He’s busy.” I explain that I’m going in for surgery on Monday. She suggests I go suck an egg. I say that the doctor had said I didn’t need the cholesterol test for the surgery. She suggests something I can do with the egg after I’ve sucked it.

Finally, she agrees that if I go, right then, to the lab downstairs, and have them draw blood, and if the lab can get the results today… “which they probably can’t”… then, maybe, she’ll let the office staff fax the results to the surgeon. That is, if she remembers. And they aren’t busy with “something important.”

Now, let’s walk through what’s going on here. This test requires that you fast for a least ten hours before you take it. Otherwise, the results are meaningless. I haven’t fasted. So, my taking the test is a complete waste of time for everyone concerned. Further, the doctor, to the best of my knowledge, has not actually specified that I take the test before I have the surgery. So, even if the test results did mean anything, nobody needed them before the Monday of my surgery.

So, what is all this about?

The answer, of course, is power. What is happening is that the intake nurse . . . I guess she’s actually a physician’s assistant rather than an RN . . . is demonstrating to me that she, not I, controls the situation. She is demonstrating her power and relishing every second of it. Moreover, she is doing so in front of the other patients, just in case they get any ideas…

It is about then that I recall a line from one of Raymond Chandler’s detective novels. “Put a monkey in a uniform,” his character says, “and it will try to give someone orders.”

Never in my life have I seen that principle so completely in operation.

(And, yes, soon after this, I find a new doctor.)


*

Well, to make a long story long, I finally got all the tests done, all the appointments taken care of, all the results faxed to the right people.

So it is, then, that the morning of the fifteenth arrives.

And I awaken from an uneasy sleep…

Shaking like a leaf.

But that’s for next time.

Onward and upward.


mjt

















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks To Be Me (#6): Basement Boogie-Woogie

Hello, everyone,

Right. So, this time, finally, at long last, I promise, no kidding, I’m going to get to the Big Bad Basement in Xmas. And we’re going to have rocks. And me. Digging like a gopher on steroids. In a blizzard.. While flying monkeys in UFOs from Oz dive bomb a certain ex-Vice President with high-powered excrement bombs. And I’m not talking Al Gore here. Fill in the blank. Here’s a hint. D*ck Ch*ney.

Okay, so I’m making up the part about the monkeys. But, you get the point. And all the rest is true. And, by Golly, flying monkeys SHOULD be sh*t bombing the aforesaid Veepee. It’s the code of the west.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The Basement.

*

So, as you’ll recall, we’d decided to have the Christmas tree in the basement this year. We have a family room down there, even though we don’t use it much. Until we got the furnace fixed, it was cold down there in winter, and because we haven’t had time to go get some lamps and such, it’s been sorta dim all year around.

But, this year, we decided we were Going To Make An Effort. And Efficiently Use Our Space. And Overcome the Lethargy of Everyday Existence. And Make Total Fools Of Ourselves In A Gesture of Total Futility. That, too, is the code of the west.

We called up our son David and he came out from his apartment and we all three trotted off to buy a tree. It’s sort of a tradition around here. We make it a family outing and regard it as the start of the season.

Sometimes David brings a friend. A few years back, it was his then girlfriend who joined us. She’s a bright and intelligent person who does things in Philosophy. She’s also a tree hugger. Literally. She likes to hug trees. “It’s how you know if they have an affectionate nature,” she says.

So, that year, when we went to the lot where they sell Christmas trees, we embraced spruces. Several of them. Deeply. Passionately. But, don’t worry. It was entirely Platonic. And, besides, the important thing is that you have a good healthy attitude about it. And part friends.

Anyway, we hugged several trees and eventually found one that, she said, had a sweet disposition and a cheery outlook on life, and we took it home. The scary thing? She was absolutely, 100%, completely right. It was one of the best Christmas trees we ever had. Didn’t shed needles. Was just the right size.

Like, I say, scary … but if it works, well, hey. I’m thinking of applying the same principle to lawn care. Maybe give it a shot on shrubbery. Not sure how it’ll work on cactus though. And that package marked Burpee Seeds? Naw. Might frighten the neighbors.

*

Anyway, so this past Christmas it was just David and us. We went to a local plant nursery, garden center, and green house operation that also does Christmas trees during the holidays. It’s a great place, really. Lots of flowers, shrubs, and stuff. And it’s entirely staffed with people who either speak no English or have an attitude problem. Or both. And would just as soon that you go away and die someplace. Ah, the joys of the season.

But, we found a tree and took it back to the house. David and I then wrestled it out of the car, across the lawn, and into the basement. Martha followed close behind to give us direction and moral support. Of which we got lots. Fortunately, she’s a kind and generous soul, always willing to share.

We arrived in the basement and positioned the tree. I said I’d hold it upright while David went and got the tree stand and then we’d get started decorating. Martha said she’d make hot cider. David said he’d be right back and dashed off for the stand.

So…I’m there…holding this tree.

And I notice…a smell.

I’d picked it up before a couple of times. I figured maybe the dog had slipped downstairs and done a flying euphemism behind the sofa. When nobody was looking.

Except…except…it didn’t exactly smell like that.

Holding the tree in one hand I reached down with the other.

Squish…

The carpet was soaking wet.

*

Okay, so here’s the deal. I grew up in a desert. The idea that water might fall from the sky … FROM the FREAKING sky! … is hard enough for me to credit. The idea that it might do so in sufficient quantities to flood things is downright unbelievable.

So, it came as a particularly nasty shock to me to learn that, here in New England, water can actually build up against the side of your house and seep through the space between the foundation and the wall.

And that’s what happened. Water had pooled just in the front of our house and come back in down the wall. The whole basement was wet. The carpet was wet. The clothes in the downstairs closet were wet. A bunch of our books were wet. The electrical wiring (YIKES) in the corner was wet.

End of Christmas in the basement plan…



*

David and I lugged the tree back upstairs, spreading needles and braches everywhere. We then had a rather pleasant remainder of the evening decorating it.

But, the issue was what to do about the flood downstairs.

I chatted with my father and, later, a friend named Skip. Both know about doing home, fixing cars, cutting large things with chain saws, and other guy-stuff like that. Stuff I don’t know squat about. I’m a terrible embarrassment to both of ‘em. But, heck. That’s true for almost everybody I know. So, they can just stop acting like they’re so dang special.

It turns out, though, that the solution to the problem is something called a “French Drain.” That is not a joke. There really is such a thing. I checked on the Internet. So it has to be true. (Doesn’t it?)

At its simplest, a French Drain is just a shallow trench filled with gravel. You dig it along the side of your house and then water…rain, runoff, whatever…enters the gravel and goes down into the ground and not (or so one hopes) into your basement.

You can also get more sophisticated French Drains. Some, for instance, will have a perforated pipe under the gravel to carry the water away from your house entirely. In fact, we later discovered that one of our neighbors had recently invested in just such a system. He had lots of pipes. And gravel. And expensive surveys. And it worked really, really well. Carried all that rainwater away from his house. Down the hill. And into … our…yard.

I’m planning on giving him a small gift soon. It’s sort of a belated housewarming present. It’ll involve a large box filled to the tippy-top with live but somnolent skunks. And an alarm clock. Attached to an air raid siren.


*

Now, all this business of French Drains assumes a new importance when you recall the time of year. It is December when this is going on. As of that date, we hadn’t yet had any snowstorms.

But, as we learned from a quick glance at the Weather Channel, there was a whopper of squall headed our way. It would, said the Weatheroids, going to hit town around mid-afternoon the following day. Further, they added cheerfully, we could expect up to three…as in THREE feet of snow.

For you folks out there on metric, that’s about a meter. And either way, it’s technically known as OHMYGOD AND FREAKING SH()T!

This coming storm presented, however, unique problems for moi. You see, if we did get that much snow, then a bunch of it would be up against our wall and … and …

Think gondolas. And motor boats. And sail boats. And the Harvard Crew. Stroking. In our basement.

*

The next morning, I’m out like a shot to buy gravel to fill a trench. The hardware stores I try don’t have any, so I end up going back to the same local plant nursery-garden-center-green-house where we’d gone to get the tree.

I found a clerk-type person with bad skin and body odor and said to him, “I wonder if you could help me.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “Don’t know. What are you trying to do?”

“I need rocks.”

“Rocks?”

“Rocks.”

“You mean you want a Christmas tree.”

“No, rocks.”

“Oh, you want pine wreaths.”

“No. Rocks. You know? Stones? Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic.”

“Ah, I understand now. You want tree decorations. They’re in the green house.”

“Er. Sorry. No. Rocks. David killed Goliath with one? Remember? In the Bible?”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he said. “In December?”

“In, as you say, December.”

“Jesus.” He pointed back toward where the dumpsters were. “I think we have some bags left over back there.” Then, he wandered off, looking disgusted and muttering.


*

To make a long story long, I did find several bags of gravel out in the back, next to the dumpsters, and under about a foot of ice. I paid for ‘em and headed for the house. And, shortly thereafter, I was out in the front yard wailing away at the ground with a pick and shovel.

A neighbor went by. She stopped. “You know,” she said, cheerfully. “This is the wrong time of year to do gardening.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes. You see, it gets cold. And the plants freeze.”

“Ah,” I said.

“So, you might want to wait until Spring. Or sometime.”

“But,” I said, “I’ve got to do this now because I’m putting in a very special crop.”

“Which would be?”

“Snow peas.”

She understood perfectly and went away.


*


I got the trench dug and filled with rocks just as the snow got started in earnest. I then went and took a shower for about a month because if it wasn’t true that I looked like death warmed over, I WAS able to do a pretty good impression of the same dish microwaved and served on toast.

But, I’m happy to report that it seems to have worked. We haven’t water in the basement since.

So, I say to myself, Things Are Getting Back To Normal.

And then…

And then…

I remember.

This is all happening the week of 8 December.

On 15 December … less than a week away . . . I’m scheduled to go meet the Flying Fetish Bouncing Bat-Winged Eyeball. With a meat cleaver.

But that’s for next time.

*

Until then…

Onward and upward.














Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#5): I’m Dreaming of a Swamp Christmas

Hello, Everyone,




Okay, so let’s pick up the story from last time. So far, I’ve been attacked by the Giant Flying Eyeball, Dissed by the Diss Dashers, Bashed by the Appliances from Hell, and Left To Freeze In the Dark by the Furious Furnace with anger management issues. And that’s just the fun stuff.

So, today, we’re going to move briskly to the Pond Scum and Poison Arrow Frogs in the basement.

But, before we do that…we’ve got to get Martha to the hospital.



*

Martha teaches at Tufts. She’s in the Department of Ed, there. That means she teaches teachers to teach (say that real fast three times). If you missed my column about her a few weeks back, then know ye for all eternity that if you make that joke about those who can’t teach and those who can’t teach teachers . . . well, if you make it, and in earshot of her, you won’t make it twice. At least not if you don’t want your kneecaps removed with a chainsaw. But a nice sharpen chainsaw. And in a loving and respectful manner. She’s good like that.

Anyway, she teaches at Tufts. One of her jobs is to go around to visit local high schools where student-teachers are placed so they can get a little experience.

So, one day, she’s at a certain high school downtown. It’s a nice school. It has lots of nice students in it. Some of them are small. Some of them are medium-sized. Some of them are large.

And some are . . . Extra-Large.

As in HUGE. As in Sumo wrestler meets Jolly Green Giant with a side order of Humongous thrown in for good measure.

So, on the day in question, a couple of these particularly large students were, as the saying goes, horsing around in the AV room. The particular form of horse playing involved concerned itself chiefly with tossing large objects around. Like chairs. And desks. And quarter-ton trucks. And finally, each other. Which is when it got serious.

To make a long story short, Martha was walking briskly through the hallway going from appointment A to appointment B when the door to the AV rooms bashed open and several hundred pounds of flying football player soared out…

And into her.

She bounced.


*

From what she tells me, there then followed a somewhat confused period comprised mostly of the previously referenced 200-pound meat rack of a student saying, “Oh, jeez, oh, jeez, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” a lot. And then there seemed to be several school administrators dashing about. And then the school nurse was there. And then some of Martha’s students were making plans to take her to the hospital.

But, then, Martha . . . being Martha . . . says No, No, I’m Fine. And I Can’t Leave. Because I Have Work To Do. And People Are Depending On Me.

So …

She staggers to her feet.

*

When she got home that night, and I found out about all this . . . and about how she spent the rest of day dashing about from place to place, all the while with a bag of ice under her arm and pressed up against the places where it hurt the most…

I thought about slapping her silly.

But, wouldn’t fit my image. You know, all that damn compassion shit…

*

Anyway, the next morning, I propel her to the emergency room at the local hospital. The intake nurse takes one look at her, blanches, and sends her off to X-ray.

Me? I’m left to amuse myself in the waiting room with its copious selection of reading material…

Like, for instance, several years’ worth of back issues of The Journal of Obscure Organs That Get Infected and Rot.

Great stuff.
*

There was also one magazine on golfing.

I don’t golf. I don’t suppose I ever will. That’s because every time I think it might be fun to take up golf, I find a magazine about it. And then I read it. And I find something like this:

“Need to manage that over-sized driver and really control those balls? Here’s the skinny from international Pro Roger Ruffhocker on all the tricks of the trade. The secret is in gripping your shaft. Make sure you provide a steady pressure at the base and just finger the upper tip. That’s to let you hit your balls straight in the face. Just assume the address position, but be sure to take up a soft backward stance with your feet spread and with a slight crouch to provide an opening. Place your heel to the left and position the driver just right. Then … Fire AWAY!”

That’s what I read.

Then, after a while, I very carefully take the magazine to the other side of the room. And leave it. Face down. When nobody’s looking. And no one can tell I’ve touched it.

*

So, several hours later, Martha reappears. The good news is that she does not have broken ribs. The bad news is that she has something called a “chest wall injury.” That’s code for, Ya Got Da Bujezzes Whacked Outta Ya. That’s the technical term. Very sophisticated and professional.

We head home.

*

Time passes.

Martha gets better over the course of the next few months. You read that right. Months. She received her injury in the Fall of 2008. In some ways, she wasn’t really entirely recovered until January of 2009. I gather she STILL has twinges now and then, and I’m writing this in March of 2009.

But, there’s another aspect of this story. The result of her injury is that, for these several months, even quite minor physical effort is painful for her. And something really demanding—like, say, helping her beloved husband shovel snow after a teeny-tiny little blizzard or two—well, that’s just not happening.

As we shall see, this will have consequences.

For me.


*

Okay, but now we get back to our story. By December, Martha is on the mend. And, the holiday season is upon us. It is, in other words, time to Buy The Christmas Tree.

We have a tradition about buying the tree. It’s something we do as a family. If at all possible, we gather up David plus one or more of his friends and head off to find the just right evergreen. So, one Thursday afternoon, we phone him up at his apartment and make arrangements to meet the following Saturday for a bit of pine pursuit.

But, as we’re hanging up, we realize we will now have to pick a place for the aforesaid Christmas tree.

Normally, we put it in the living room. But, this requires a bit of effort on our part. We have to move the TV, the sofa, the rocking chair, the recliner, the table next to the window where Martha keeps all those plants and other leafy stuff, the table next to the wall with all the photos on it, and, well, you get the picture.

It would be nice, we thought, to avoid all that.

So . . .

We also have a finished basement. There’s a bedroom that used to be David’s, while he was still living here, and a large family room. We don’t use the family room much because it used to be David’s space, and then, when he moved out, it sort of filled up with everything we couldn’t fit someplace else. And, besides, it was always cold down there during the winter.

But, during the summer of 2008, I had decided to Make Things Different. So, in dribs and drabs (and, as we shall see, in drips) over the next few months, I got things more or less straightened out down there. I moved out the stuff we were never going to use again, hauled a bit of furniture around, did some vacuuming, and, voila! We had a new room.

However, in the winter, we still didn’t use it much because it remained dang cold down there. But, that morning in December, we said, hello! We just got the furnace fixed (see last’s Xcargo, Sucks to Be Me, number four). We popped downstairs and checked. And, ta-dah! it was nice and toasty.

Terrific, we say, We Can Have Christmas In The Basement.

And, thinking thus, we trot back upstairs again.

At the top of the stairs, I turn to myself and I say, “Say…?”

“Yes?” I reply, suspiciously.

“While we were down there, you didn’t happen to …?” I ask.

“Naw,” I say.

“So there wasn’t a …”? I add.

“No,” I reply, firmly, “There was absolutely NO moist, musty, mildew, urine smell down there. None. Nada. Zip. Wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, good.” I say, relieved.

I have a lot of these sorts of conversations with myself. As you may have already noticed. Also, I’m wrong a lot. But you may have already noticed that, too.

*

Next week, we’ll finally get to the Swamp part of the story. You, of course, saw it coming long, long, long ago. But, let’s just keep that between ourselves. So, shhhhh. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Keep that flooded basement under your belt. Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for everyone much dimmer than we are.

But, there will also be some new developments. There will be, for instance, pea gravel, French drains, a fairly long trench, and, oh, yes, the Flying Mutant Bat-Winged Eyeball will, once more, drop by a visit.

But, as I say, that’s for next time.

Until then…

Onward and upward.















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#4): Fire and Ice

Okay, so as you’ll recall, I’m doing a massive and tedious overview of the fun things that happened to me over the last couple of months of 2008. I know you’re enjoying it. I can tell by the way that your eyes are going glassy. And that expression that says, “Please kill me.” And, ‘course, the snoring. Ah, the joys of charisma.

Where was I? Oh, right. My trials and tribulations. So, to date, I’ve covered the Flying Eye From Planet Zork, the demonically possessed Academic Committee, and the Dishwasher that hated me. Last week, I’d just left off with the discovery that our furnace needed to be repaired. Or else we’d all freeze to death. And Giant Killer Polar Penguins would show up in the living room. And eat us. And nobody wants that. It would make them sick. And heaven knows they’ve suffered enough. Global Warming and all that.

Right… the furnace.


*

A few words about the furnace.

We need one. We live in the greater Boston area. While it is true that Boston doesn’t get as cold as, say, Bismarck or the Ross Ice Shelf or the typical response to my attempts at dating when I was single (six of one, thirty-seven of the other), it can still get pretty durn chilly.

Now, we have something called “oil heat.” This means that once a month or so a big truck shows up outside our house, sticks a hose into the basement, and fills up this huge tank. Oh, and then another hose attaches to our bank accounts and does something similar but in reverse.

I’d never even seen oil heat before I moved East from New Mexico, ‘lo these many moons ago. It seemed kinda primitive. Like having coal. And steam engines. And a neighbor named Barney Rubble. But, everyone assures me I’m wrong. They lean back on their rocks, pick their teeth with mastodon bones, scratch themselves under their loin cloths, and explain patiently that I just don’t understand because I’m a Hick from way out West where no one can talk intelligently about Art and Culture.

*

A few more words.

Every time the oil truck pulls up outside our house, I get pissed. Big time.

This isn’t just because it’s expensive (though God knows it’s that), and not because the oil smells, and not just because I know we’re sitting with a basement chock ‘o block full of a highly flammable material.

I’m pissed because we don’t have to be here. And by “We” I mean everyone.

You see, let’s face it, one of the biggest contributors to the current Recession (I’m writing this in 2009) is the cost of energy.

Oh, yes, there are lots of other factors. There was the Bush II administration, which was an economic disaster. And, there’s the war in Iraq, which in retrospect now appears to be about the dumbest sh*t thing done by an American government since Prohibition. And there’s the fact that two of our fearless leaders, Bush 2nd and Reagan 1st, tried to fund the government by means of deficit spending on a titanic scale and pretty much put us in the poor house at the same time.

AND there’s the fact that everyone got Ayn Randy over the last few decades and deregulated everything so that bankers in their vast wisdom could burn-through billions in lousy investments and really snazzy lifestyles.

But, come right down to it, the fact that gas hit four bucks a gallon and was headin’ toward five … THAT did us really serious harm. Maybe more than everything combined.

And the funny, scary thing is that I don’t hear anyone talking about that. I hear words about stimulus packages and nationalizing banks and dropping a few car execs outta their own DELETED private planes…but not energy.

Which is really serious because the hard, nasty fact of the matter is that no matter how much money gets thrown at what, no matter how many Democratic Congressmen pose majestically in front of Cspan cameras, no matter how many Republican governors announce that they won’t take any Federal money because they’re just too damn moral…

We’re not going to get back to the kind of standards of living we once knew until we get energy prices back down to where they were in the 1960s


*


Oh, and if you’re wondering, the reason we’ve got high energy prices…?

Well, yes, there’s been gouging. Oil companies haven’t exactly gone out of their way to limit their profits to the merely fabulous (as opposed to the frankly obscene). And there’s been competition from new economies like China and India.

BUT, the biggest single reason for our problems has nothing to do with Conspiracies at Halliburton, or price fixing by OPEC, or even wars in the Middle East…

It has to do with the pure, simple, inescapable fact that we’ve pumped most of the oil out of the ground that we can get.

And it ain’t coming back.


*

Okay, more on that in a moment. First, let me tell the story about the furnace. So, when we bought our house ‘bout fifteen years ago, there was of course an oil heat burner already in it. It’s a hot water system. That means that an oil fuel flame heats up water and sends it both into our radiators and to our faucets.

Now, from the day we moved in, we noticed that we didn’t exactly have scads of the stuff coming out the taps. Martha and David, both of whom kinda like cold water, didn’t mind much. But, me . . . well, remember, I grew up in a desert. For me, showers in this hosue were a continuous opportunity to practice those operatic screams that usually accompany testicular compression. Which, come to think about it, also happens to me when the water’s cold enough. But that’s another story. For another day. When I feel strong.

But, with the passing of years, the water began to get colder and colder. Finally, even Martha and David began to complain—which is saying something since either one of them could go nude bungee jumping off an ice flow. Not that they would, you understand. But, they could. You know. If it were required or something. Say, to save humanity from invading aliens. Which never happens. But it’s comforting to know we’ve got the option.

So, anyway, I decided to look into getting a new furnace. At the time, we had an oil contract and a service contract with a certain company—let’s call it Grifter, Angle, and Scam (GAS) Ltd.

I went to them and said, “Hey, what does a new furnace cost?” They responded, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” I said, “Come on, how bad it can be?” They said, “Ha, ha, and double ha. You don’t wanna know.” I said, “Sure I do. I’m tough. I can take it.” They said, “Well, okay, but remember, you asked for it.” And then they gave me a number.

Think the GNP of Guatemala. Then add a couple of zeros. And I’m not talking on the front end. I’m talking on the back. And on the wrong side of the decimal point to boot.

I turned a whiter shade of pale (not an easy thing) and went off looking for second and third (and fourth) estimates. Finally, I found a local plumbing company that offered a wee bit lower price than all the others. So, I gave ‘em the go-ahead and the next thing I knew we had a basement full of guys who were all sweating and swearing and doing faintly mysterious things with screwdrivers. And then, the next day, they all went away again leaving behind a brand new furnace and a very large bill.

Okay, I thought, well, at least that’s over. Everything will be fine. It’s got to get better.

Right? Right?


*

Two years go past. The local plumbing company that had installed our furnace . . . disappears.

And, one morning, last year, a little after Thanksgiving, we noticed …

It was cold.

Really cold.

And no matter how much we turned up the heat, it never got much warmer.


*

Okay, now getting back to why I’m mad.

We’re out of oil. Or, at least, we’re out of oil that’s easy and cheap to get. We plowed through it like alcoholics in a liquor store and now we’ve got the hangover we damn well deserve.

The kicker? The thing which is really, Really, REALLY infuriating? We don’t have to be in the situation.

We’ve known this day was coming. Forty years ago, we were talking about it. In 1968…that is, nineteen-sixty-freaking-EIGHT … we were talking about it.

Five years later, in 1973, the Arab world clamped down on oil exports, and Richard Milhous Nixon . . . that’s right, Tricky Dicky… launched “Project Independence,” which was supposed to free of us of dependence on foreign oil. And, you know what? It could have worked. But, then the Arab world relented on the oil exports, the Nixon administration got Watergated, and the whole thing ended with a whimper.

But we STILL could have pulled it out. In 1979, yet got yet another massive oil crisis. Jimmy Carter (remember him?) launched yet another attempt at energy independence. He called for massive investments, both public and private, into synfuel (i.e., oil substitutes made out of coal and other relatively plentiful carbon fuels).

Except, once again everything came to naught. OPEC lowered oil prices a notch and, worse, Reaganomics was on the horizon. All The People Who Knew Best announced that synfuel was uneconomical. Carter got kicked out of the White House and we happily went back to buying things we couldn’t afford with maxed-out credit cards while the President from Hollywood nodded off in the corner.

*

But, the point is, we KNEW this day was coming. We KNEW what was going to happen. It was no surprise to anyone.

But we did nothing…NOTHING…about it.

We could have used those forty years since ’68 preparing. We could have been developing new technologies, making our machines more efficient, building synfuel plants…

But we didn’t. We just assumed that since there had always been cheap energy before, there would always be cheap energy again.

And now . . .


*

Oh, and by the way, if you’re looking for villains in this story, there’s plenty ‘em to go around. And not just on the Right and in Big Business.

Sure, the Right and Big Biz have quite a lot to answer for. Conservatives were busily claiming there wasn’t an Energy Crisis (“we’ve always found more oil before”) right up to the day the pumps went to $5 a pop. They’ll probably be saying the same when those pumps go completely dry.

And Business…? Well, good old Detroit was making Behemoth Petrol Pigs when the whole damn world wanted smaller, fuel-efficient cars. And the big auto companies refused to do anything different even when they were nose to nose with death everlasting. (I’ve heard that once, when a group of experts confronted some Detroit executives on the fact that neither the market nor energy efficiency favored big cars, the execs said “Americans will buy whatever car we care to market.”)

But let’s not forget the Left. Let’s not forget all the Greenie-Weenies who opposed every technical innovation in energy production—quite literally from nuclear to windmills—but who have demanded that their standards of living (not necessarily ours, but theirs) remain exactly as they are.

This is known, in case you’re wondering, as being a Goddamned fool.

*

Okay, but getting back to my furnace…

So, last week, I told you all about how I finally called the furnace repair guy. We gave up on GAS Ltd. a long time ago. We’ve got a new oil company, the folks there actually seem trustworthy.

The repair guy shows up a couple of hours later. I walk with him downstairs and explain the problem. “Doesn’t sound too bad,” he says as we enter the back room where the heater is. He takes one look at it.

“Eeek,” he says.

“Eeek?” I ask.

“OhmyGod,” he adds.

“Ah,” I answer, wittily.

“You put this in yourself, didn’t you,” he says.

“Ah, no.”

“You had an uncle do it. Or a cousin. A crossed-eyed inbred albino cousin who watches cannibal movies a lot.”

“No…”

“Then who DID put it in?”

I told him the name of the plumber.

“Really? I didn’t even know he was out of jail yet.”

“Argh,” I say.


*

Make a long story short, the furnace had been misinstalled. In fact, at least according to the repair guy, it may not even have been legal. Certainly, it wasn’t up to code.

And, once more, there was a bill involved. A large bill. A breath-taking bill. The kind of bill that you don’t take home to meet mom. Because she might have a heart attack.

But, at least, now we’ve got hot water. And I don’t scream so much while taking showers. It confuses the dog. He thought plumbing just sounded like that. I’ve considered investing in a couple of army surplus air raid sirens and firing ‘em off now and then. Just to, you know, reassure him.



*


One last rant for the day, and then I promise I’ll quit.

To repeat, forty years ago . . . forty DELETED years ago . . . we could have addressed this problem. We could have made the investments, built the infrastructure, and perfected the technologies that would have kept energy costs cheap for centuries to come.

But, we didn’t. And, now, the day of reckoning is at hand.

We’re going to have to work really hard to get back to where we were. We’re going to have invest in whole new ways of producing energy. By that, I don’t mean just solar, wind, and tides . . . or any of the other trendy things that are supposed to be so green and friendly. I mean things like controlled thermonuclear fusion, or, failing that, lots of nuclear reactors. No kidding. Safer nukes, but nukes all the same.

Moreover, at least in the short run (and quite likely in the medium) we’re going to have to do some really distasteful things—like burn more coal, mine “oil shale” deposits, and exploit “tar sands.” (Look ‘em up if you’re interested.)

None of this is going to be fun.

The kicker? Once again to repeat myself, I hear no one saying any of this. I hear no one telling the world exactly what’s going to happen, and why. I hear no one saying what needs to be said. And doing it honestly.

Which makes me worry. A lot.

*

But, anyway . . . back to the furnace.

So, there we were. After the Flying Eye, the Academics With Their Heads Up Their Astrolabes, and The Dishwasher from Hell, we’d had the Heater That Didn’t Heat.

But, now, I said to myself, everything was Fixed. Now, I added, Everything Will Get Back to Normal. Now, I concluded, Things Will Be Just Ducky.

That’s what I said to myself.

Gosh. Golly. Gee. Wiz.

I say the darndest things sometimes.

Which is code for “Really, Really, REALLY Stupid.”


*

Next time, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of all ages . . . we’ll have yet another little tale of my happy adventures in 2008.

It’s entitled “I’m dreaming of a damp Christmas. In a Swamp. Just before the Blizzard.”

Loads of fun.

So, don’t touch that dial…

Onward and upward.

















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#3): The Attack of the Killer Appliances (from hell)

Hi, Everyone,

As you know I’m doing a brief (but painfully tedious) series of Xcargos on recent events of my life—events which, at the time, seemed as much fun as a proctology exam performed with a Roto-Rooter. By Hannibal Lector. During a sleet storm. But which, I’m sure, will seem quite amusing in a few years. I’ll look back and laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And they’ll come and take me away. Ha. Ha.

Where was I? Oh, yes, my recent life.

When last we visited Our Hero (that would be moi), I had just received a short note from a certain graduate program to which I had devoted four years of my life. And, as you’ll recall from last time, the aforesaid note said … in effect, bottom line, stripped to elementals . . . Drop Dead, You Stinking Asshole. But in a scholarly and professional way. Very mentoring.

Ah, the joys of academic life.

So, anyway, I had just gotten over that and figured that Things Have To Get Better.

Boy.

Was I wrong.

*

Now, some background. We live in a house. I know that’s a surprise. I know you were expecting a cave. Or maybe a yurt. Pitched on the wild and windy plains of Mongolia. Or New Jersey. But, no. A house it is.

In the aforesaid house, there is a kitchen. In the aforesaid kitchen, there is a dishwasher.

Or was.

Now, here in the U.S. of A., we celebrate a thing called “Thanksgiving.” For those of my readers who come from foreign shores or Mars, this is a happy holiday where-in we celebrate the survival of the Puritans who would have starved to death had it not been for friendly Native Americans who subsequently got killed a lot by the aforesaid Puritans. And the moral of the story is Let The Bastards Freeze In The Dark.

To continue, in the US of A, Thanksgiving comes in November. That’s not like Canada, where it comes in October. But, then, that’s just like Canadians. Pushy bunch. Always trying to get ahead. And saying funny things with “ooot,” in them. And tossing big rocks around and calling it Curling. Clearly a vast plot against us. Probably involves trained attack-beavers.

So, we were getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, a process which involves a whole lot of cooking. Martha, my beloved spouse, does all the cooking in our family. This is because I don’t cook so good. Heck. I cook awful. Last time I tried it, the microwave ran away from home. And the EPA landed an air-sea-land SWAT team. And I’m still paying off that Haz-Mat suit for the dog.

This means that I do the dish washing. That’s fine. It’s a task up to my level of competency. Well. Almost. Though sometimes those Brillo pads get a bit tricky.

Anyway, it was a week or so afore T‘giving, and I had just fed the dishwasher a couple of pounds of china and a gravy boat, and then I flipped it on, and then . . . then … then . . .

Did you ever hear a brass band playing Sousa tunes run head on into a rock crusher?

Sounded sort of like that. But louder.

*

So the d’washer was dead. No problem, I thought. I can fix it. I went to get my screwdrivers.

And, several hours, I realized I couldn’t fix it. The problem, I later learned, was that the washer was relatively new. Where the older versions were all springs and cogs, and I could get into ‘em and fiddle around, the new ones have a little circuit board that controls everything.

Okay, I thought, and I called a repair guy.

He shows up a little later. He smiles. He’s nice. We talk about politics. We walk into the kitchen. He looks at the d’washer. He says . . .“Oh, Christ.”

“What’s the matter?” I say.

“You know the little guy who was the loneliest man in appliance repair?” he asks.

“The Maytag repairman?” I say.

“He croaked,” he replies.


*

Here’s the story. We had bought a Maytag washer because Maytag was a really great brand. But, in 2006, Maytag was acquired by Whirlpool. The new company wasn’t stocking the old company’s parts.

So . . .

That circuit board?

I could go whistle in the wind for it.

*

Okay, we say, no problem. We’ll just go buy a new dish washer. I mean, what the heck, it’s only credit card debt. And besides, once the economy melts down some more and there are riots in the streets and firing squads in sushi bars formerly frequented by billionaire bankers, who’ll notice?

So, off we go to Sears. We go in. A couple of clerks sorta of notice we’re there. They wander over and ask, “You don’t really wanna buy anything, do you?” We confess that maybe we do. They mumble something and take out an order form. “Okay, if you gotta…”

We point out a dishwasher and tell ‘em we want that one. “Fine…(sigh).” They start filling out the form.

“So,” I ask, “when can we get it delivered?”

The clerk looks at me. “Delivered?”

“And how much does it cost to get it installed?”

“Installed…?”

“Yeah, you know, plugged in. Hoses connected. That sort of thing.”

“Ha...ha ha …Ha Ha Ha….HA HA HA!”

“And, maybe, you know, take away the old washer.”

“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”

“So, you don’t do that anymore?”

“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA…”

I would have asked more questions but they were rolling around in the aisles and flailing a lot and I was afraid they’d hurt themselves. So, at this point, we stole away as silently, and as mysteriously, as we’d come.

*

Okay, making a long story at least a little shorter (albeit not much), the next day or so we went to Gray’s, which is a cool little appliance store we have in the Boston-area, and got a Frigidaire. And they were willing to install it. So, day is saved.

Of course, they can’t install it before Thanksgiving but that’s okay. And, when the big Turkey day rolls around, we have a great time. Our son David, one of his friends, and a student of Martha’s all come and join us, and afterwards they pitch in on the dishes so I don’t have to do ‘em all. Then, we achieve Turkey-coma and all’s right with the world.

Except…


*

Except…

You remember last time I said something about icicles forming on my nostrils?

*

It was about a week later. Turkey-Gobbling Season was being replaced by Xmas-Shopping-Mania Season.

It was also brutally cold. Boston tends to be warmer than, say, North Dakota, but, still, it can do a pretty good imitation of Ice Station Zebra when it puts its mind to it. And that particular day was . . . nasty. As in 16 degrees on the outdoor thermometer and that’s not counting wind chill and cars aren’t starting and the dog is hiding under the sofa and saying something like “Don’t bother yourself. I’ll just stay inside. And if I should happen to make a little deposit behind the TV set, why, heck, you probably won’t notice until August.”

But, I’m not bothered. We’re warm and safe inside, after all. I teach online at Northeastern and Cambridge College, so I don’t even have to leave the house. And the appliance wars are over. Things Are Getting Back To Normal.

So thinking, I spring out of bed at about six o’clock. I head into the front room for a bit of coffee.

Say, says I, it feels kind of cold in here. No problem, I figure. I just need to turn up the thermostat. Which I do.

Funny thing. I don’t hear the furnace go on.

No problem, I think. Just needs a few minutes to warm up. I go pour coffee. I notice there are ice cubes in it.

Huh.

I go turn up the furnace again. And again fifteen minutes after that. And again ten minutes after THAT.


*

Martha wakes up at about seven. “Say,” she says, “is it just my imagination…?”

“Yes,” I say, somewhat hysterically. “It’s your imagination. Complete delusion.”

“Or does it seem awfully col…?”

“No,” I say, grinding my teeth, “it doesn’t. Warm and toasty.”

“Like the furnace isn’t …”

“It’s not! It’s not!” I say, frothing at the mouth.

“Hmmm,” she says.

“Right,” I say, despairingly, knowing when I’m beaten, and go call the repair guy.


*

I hang up about fifteen minutes later with an appointment for the afternoon and, I figure, about a $1000 repair bill in the very near future.

Well… I think . . . well, at least, it’s not gonna get worse, right? I’ve had the Eye, the Letter, the Dishwasher, so, now, just seems like things have gotta start looking up. No doubt. Absolutely. 100%.

So, I head back to my office, and walk past the stairway to the basement.

And, as I go I hear, very faintly, a Sound.

Of dripping water.

But that’s for next time.

Onward and upward.





















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#2) -- The Mail

Hello, Everyone,

So, as you know, I’m in the middle of an ongoing series regarding my happy experiences during the last couple of months of 2008 . . . those care free days when Geo-W. was still in the White House, the economy was melting down to a puddle of radioactive sludge, suicide bombers continued to blow themselves up in Iraq, the Taliban was preparing to take over Afghanistan, and…oh, yes!... mega-rich mega-brokers on Wall Street were complaining bitterly that they couldn’t possibly get along on a mere half million dollars a year.

Ah, good times . . .

But, this series is not about all those big national things. This series deal with my own PERSONAL experiences during those giddy days of wine and roses.

Last we left off, I’d just found out that a psychotic killer cyborg-qua-lobotomist from the future was going to jam an ice pick into my left eye. While giggling. And humming Barry Manilow tunes.

It’s the Manilow that hurts.

*

Well, actually, that wasn’t what I’d found out. I actually learned that I had to have cataract surgery. Which, these days, is an outpatient procedure that’s actually less painful than having your teeth cleaned. Well, maybe with a sandblaster. But, the point is, ‘taint that bad.

Except, of course, as I explained last time I have … issues …with eye surgery and I came home from my exam with a mild case of shock. Very mild. Oh, so mild. Oh, so very, Very VERY mild. You betcha. And the occasional fits of hysterical screaming? Heck. Lots of people get those. Particularly in Boston traffic. So, I fit right in.

Anyway, I got home and figured that heck, golly, gee . . . at least the day couldn’t get worse. Right? Not possible. Of course. So I parked the car and wobbled up the front walk. And if my knees buckled now and then and I almost collided with the rhododendron out front, well, fortunately we have no fault insurance. And besides, the plant should have seen me coming. And where the heck was its turn signal? That’s what I want to know.

Anyway, I got to the door and there . . .there . . .

There…

Was the mail box.

*

It was big. And sinister. And ominous. It was stuffed with . . . things. Bills. And junk mail. And credit card offers. And You-May-Have-Already-Wons. And solicitations from guilt-tripping social causes—“At this very moment Baby Seals and Easter Bunnies are being eviscerated by Dick Cheney and former Enron employees and you’re just sitting there and letting them do it (You Bastard.)”

And . . . one more thing.

A letter.

From a University.


*

Now, in another Xcargo column, I have already described my adventures in graduate school. So, today, I’ll just provide the quickest overview of the whole business for those who, alas, may have missed my deathless prose on same.

Suffice to say that, some years ago, I decided to go back to school and get a Ph.D. in history. Don’t ask me why. I think it had something to do with masochism. Or maybe it was an LSD flashback from all that Acid I dropped in the sixties. Except, oh, wait, I was 11 in 1968. And I never dropped any Acid. And if I had, I’d have picked it up and carefully put it in the trashcan. Like the good Cub Scout I was. Keep America Beautiful.

So…

Anyway, I went back to school. I was in a program at a certain University that shall remain nameless. I won’t tell you which one. No sir. I’m way too moral for that. You bet. Besides, I wanna have a lawyer on call first. Never can tell.

I will tell you that it’s a college about sixty miles from where I live. It’s roughly halfway between the Big Important Schools in the Boston-Cambridge area and the Big Important Schools in the Amherst-Northampton area.

This particular school would like to be a Big Important School too. And in a couple of disciplines, it is or will be one soon. Its departments of Education and Geography are world-class. And it has something called a Center “For Holocaust Studies.” No. Really. There is such a thing. And this school does it well.

But, then, there’s the college’s Department in History. And that Department is …

Ah…

Er…

It definitely is. No doubt about that.


*

Anyway, while I was that this School I had to have a committee of three professors to oversee my dissertation. At first, I thought of them as being wise, insightful, and kind. And, I’m sure, that they really are all those things. Not to mention very, very Scholarly. And Professional. And Insightful. It says so. Right on their box. And by their own admission. Quite loudly stated. And re-stated. Again and again and again. So it has to be true. Doesn’t it?

And besides, if, with the passage of time, I came to call them “Larry, Moe, and Curly,” “Tweedledee, Tweedledumb, Tweedle-dork,” and, of course, “The Hood, the Blob, and the Ugly,” well, then, those were just the affectionate little pet names that a student brings to those of his mentors he truly admires.

*

And, so, as I glanced at my mailbox I discovered…right there, between the Visa bill and the Cable ad (“Sign Up Today and Get Our Gratuitous and Excessive Violence Channel For Free!”) . . . was a letter from My School!

Far out!

You see, I’d been having this wee little problem with my School and my Three Professors. Specifically, I would send them chapters from my dissertation and then . . . weeks would pass. Or months. And I’d not hear so much as a word. My emails would go unanswered. My phone calls would go un-returned. I’d thought about trying carrier pigeons, but I couldn’t fit the coop on the roof. And the neighbors kept complaining about the large mounds of guano on the front porch. Which is surprising. Cause you can sell that stuff. Fifty cents a ton. Great source of nitrogen. Could have been a valuable source of income for the Neighborhood Association. And, besides, it wasn’t nearly as messy as the time I had the Bat Ranch in the Basement.

Anyway, two months before, I’d sent them a completed first draft of my dissertation. But, I hadn’t had any response. I had sent them multiple emails and asked about it. But, I’d only gotten a couple of mysterious notes about maybe they’d get around to reading my material after Thanksgiving. Or just as soon as hell froze over. Which ever came first.

So, I was really kind of excited to see that envelop sitting there. I unlocked the door, hurried inside, opened the letter, and …

…learned that my professors were refusing to work with me any longer.

*

I’ll spare you the exact text of the letter. Suffice to say that there was an informational component and an emotional, unstated component.

The informational component was that two of the professors had decided that I was impossible to work with and they would therefore have nothing to do with me ever again.

The emotional component . . . well, that was much more subtle, more complex, more cryptic. But, I think if the text were subjected to rigorous analysis and learned deconstructive review, it would boil down to: “You’re ugly, and your mother dresses you funny.”

Don’t you just love rational deconstructive analysis?


*

In retrospect, I have to admit that it was really rather clever of them. In effect, they forced me out of the program without ever actually having to confront me about it. After all, they could say, I could always find other professors willing to serve on my committee.

Except, the Department is tiny. There weren’t a lot of people to work with. And besides, even if I found a new committee, it would mean starting all over again. It would be years before I finished the research, much less started writing. And, even then, what chance did I have of getting the dissertation accepted when three of the department’s leading lights (including the Chair) had already told me to go suck an egg?

So . . . not to put too fine a point on it … and applying rigorous analytical techniques . . . I concluded …

I was screwed.

*


Actually, I suppose, they didn’t do that much harm. They denied me the doctorate, but, quite simply, I’m not sure that having it would have bought me much. Yes, not having a Ph.D. means I’ll never teach at a Big University and be “Tenure Track.”

But, let’s face it, that wasn’t going to happen anyway. I’ve done a little research and it turns out that of all the major professions, the Academy is the most “ageist.” That is, if you’re middle aged or older, you don’t get a job. Period.

I’m fifty-one.

Then, too, there are not that many jobs out there to get. When I decided to go back to school, everyone said, “Do it! Because all those Baby Boomers are going to retire soon! There’ll be lots ‘o slots open.”

Except . . . guess what? The Boomers can’t afford to retire. So they’ll be there ‘till they rot. And, besides, even if they do quietly pop off to ye ole’ happy hunting grounds of rigor and scholarship, their former positions are not being refilled. The economy is so f*cked up at the moment, and there are so many adjunct faculty members willing to teach for peanuts, that when some Tenured Tracker goes away, most often his/her fulltime job goes away too.

And, finally, you don’t really need a Ph.D. to teach in some places. Community colleges, departments of continuing education, private high schools . . . these are quite happy with the Master’s. In fact, I’m teaching a couple of college classes right now. No body seems to mind that I’m not Doctor Mike.

*

Still…

Still…

It hurt. A lot.


*

I was pretty good with it for the first couple of hours. “Well, at least that’s over,” I said to myself. No more fighting to get even the slightest hint of a response from the Three Stooges. No more grinding my teeth when they did bother to reply, usually with fairly overt insults.

My wife, Martha, got home. I showed her the letter. I said I was fine with it and everything.

“Uh-huh,” she said.

We went to bed. I told her again about how peaceful I felt. “I’ll probably sleep better than I have in months,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” she added.

I put my head on the pillow. Right, I said. I’ll sleep better than I have in ages. Sure. Absolutely. 100%.

*

Amazing what you can find on TV at three in the morning. Did you know that for a low, low down payment of $26,170 you, too, can get a timeshare at Gator Swamp Spa and Resorts?

Comes with its own bug-zapper in the bedroom. And an elephant gun. For the extra big mosquitoes. During the off season.

*

It was about three days later that I finally went to sleep. At least for a while.

And it was about a month after that—just a little before Christmas—that I stopped waking up each night at around two and staring into the dark. For a couple of hours. Listening to Martha’s breathing, watching the green glow of the clock face, feeling eternity slip past, one moment at a time.


*

Ah well. Didn’t mind the insomnia, really. Gave me lots of time to plan out my new video game. “Godzilla Visits The Academy (And Goes Freaking Ballistic).”

Should finally give “Grand Theft Auto” a run for its money, you know?


*

But, anyway, like I said, in a couple of weeks I was getting better. I wasn’t exactly ALL better, and I was still having these embarrassing moments when I’d be found curled up in the fetal position under my desk, but …better.

And the reason? Because of logic. My precise, steely, geometric LOGIC.

My logic was as follows: I am going to have my eye gouged out and I’ve just been screwed out of four years of my professional life. So . . .

It’s gotta get better. Hasn’t it?

Right. Just has to.

And thinking thus, one Saturday morning shortly thereafter, I woke up in a cheery mood. It was a sunny day. I didn’t have to work. Yes, sir. A lovely day. And things were gonna be fine. Just you wait see. It was going to be all butterflies and warm fuzzy puppy dogs for a least a year.

So, I rolled out of bed with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

And noticed there seemed to be icicles forming on my nostrils.

But that’s for next time.

*

Onward and upward.























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#1): The Eye

Hello, Everyone,

So, a few of you have asked “Where the ding-dong doodlewoops have you been these last few years and how come you haven’t had time to write Xcargo? I mean, would it kill you to call once in a while? Let us know if you’re alive or dead? I mean, REALLY.”

The answer to your question is simple. I’ve been busy. Very busy. VERY busy. As in oh-jeez-ya-gotta-be-kidding busy. As in, “Come on, I couldn’t make this stuff up” busy. Or, at least, couldn’t make it up unless I was on serious drugs while watching horror movie DVDs and juggling running chain saws and walking a tight rope. Over a blast furnace. Or Dick Cheney. Six of one…

Anyway, so just to bring you up to speed, and provide a little insight into my existence, I’ve decided to do a new series of columns that will relate the story of my life, and the lives of my loved ones, from November 2008 to New Year’s Day 2009.

I call it, “S*cks To Be Me,” and I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it as much as I didn’t.

It’ll give us yet another interest in common.


*

So, as I say this is my history of the last few months. Now, truth to be told, I may not get all the details right, but that’s ‘cause my brain is fried. But, not to worry, no trans-fats were harmed in the process.

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I hadn’t had an eye exam in a few years and I had noticed that my vision was getting a little worse. Probably needed new lenses, I said to myself. And, oh, by the way, I’ve been nearsighted since I was about six. My parents wondered if I might have a slight vision problem when I started walking into walls. But, of course, they couldn’t be certain because given a kid as spacey as I was, well, you know, walking into walls is par for the course. (THUMP. “Oh, he’s in the living room. Check the TV, would you?”)

So, anyway, I make an appointment to see (or, least, stare blearily at) my local optometrist. She has me sit down at look at one of those of little vision charts. “Okay, with just the right eye, read the lowest line you can see.”

“AQZIB.”

“Fine. Now the left eye.”

“F …I…R…E…E…X…I …T.”

“Uh, Mr. Tucker?”

“Yes?”

“That’s the sign over the door.”

“There’s a door?”


*

Then, after the exam, she said cheerily, “You have a cataract in your left eye that’s the size of dinner plate and could result in total blindness unless it is treated now.”

“Ack,” I said, wittily. “Erk,” I added, perceptively.

“So,” she continued, “what they’ll have to do is gash your eye open with a rusty fish knife, pop the old lens out with a grapefruit spoon, and stick in a coke bottle bottom as a replacement.”

Well, actually, that ISN’T what she said.

Actually, what she said was, “Cataract surgery these days is an outpatient procedure, totally painless, and then afterwards you’ll have nearly perfect vision in that eye.”

But, that’s not what I heard.

Still, as my former dissertation committee members said just before they threw me out of their Ph.D. program, reality is Socially Constructed and ergo in the eye of the beholder.

Or, in this case, the cataract.


*

I wobbled out of her office and into the lobby.

The Doctor, sensing (perhaps) my discomfort—maybe it was the fits of uncontrollable hysterical weeping, but you never can tell—followed me out and reassured me about the surgery and explained that her diagnosis really was great news because my insurance would pay for it all and afterwards I’d have things like depth perception. Which is a handy if you are, say, driving and you happen to discover (just a little too late) that the big blur to the left is actually a 16-wheeler hauling toxic waste, high explosives, radioactive isotopes, and several large crates of crazed attack gerbils. Who are grumpy. All at the same time.

Okay, I said, and started the process of making appointments. When all was said and done, I was set up to go on December 15.


*

I then headed for home—wrestling, as I went, with a major attack of sheer, unadulterated, super-charged, purified, new and improved . . . terror.

Here’s why. I have an interest in history. I’m not, according to my former dissertation committee, a Fer-Real historian. That requires a level of mental constipat…eh, that is, scholarship for which God or Nature did not prepare me.

But, I do have just enough knowledge of the past to be all too aware of what cataract surgery USED to be like.

Now, today, it really is an outpatient procedure. You go in. They sedate you. The doctor makes a micro-incision and performs the repair. Then, the incision closes up all by itself. When I had mine done, I was reading again that evening.

BUT, that’s today.

Not that long ago, it was quite a different story. And not a pretty one.

It used to be that cataract surgery was a major undertaking involving fun things like the total removal of lens in the eye, stitches in the eye itself, and, then, wearing huge glasses for the rest of your life. And you still didn’t see so good.

Did I mention the STITCHES in your eyeball?

Think about that a little. Go ahead. Savor the image.

*

It didn’t help matters that when I was very, very young, I actually saw a couple of people who’d had this kind of surgery. I remember one of them, a little man who worked at a newsstand downtown, whose lenses where so thick and so powerful that his eyes seemed vast, as though they occupied half his face.

I’m sure he was a really nice guy. But, to me in all my vast experience as a four-year-old . . . he looked like something out of a Japanese Monster Movie.

*

Now, as I understand it, modern cataract surgery only began in 1949—just sixty years ago, as of this writing. I’m 51, remember, so that’s not too long before I was born. Or, anyway, way too close for comfort.

But, taking up the story again, ‘round abouts ‘49, a British doctor noticed the interesting fact that when some British pilots had gotten bits of their Plexiglas cockpit domes into their eyes during crashes and dust-ups with the Beastly Hun (that was back before Germans were cool again), the material was “inert.” That means the eyes didn’t seem to mind the stuff being in there.

Well, if that was so—thought the good doctor—then you could build a new lens out of transparent plastic and put it into the eye itself. Good-by coke bottle bottom glasses. And good riddance.

But, you still had to get the eye open first. With a knife. And then close it up afterwards.

Did I mention STITCHES in the eyeball?

Good. Just checking.

*

So, all through my childhood, the standard operating procedure for cataract surgery was that they performed the operation with a (gulp) scalpel, then they sewed up your eye (double gulp), and then they put you in a bed with sandbags on either side of your head. So you couldn’t roll over. And disturb the stitches.

As in STITCHES.

As in little bits of string. Sewn into and through your eyes.

As in . . . ARGH.


*

But, all through the 1960s and 1970s, doctors figured out new and better ways of opening up the eye, removing the cataract, and installing a new lens. By the 1980s and 1990s, it was painless. And they’d figured out how to do microsurgery so they didn’t have to open up your eye with razor blade any more. And they’d come up with soft lenses that can slip into the eye with a minimum of fuss.

Actually, the lenses are pretty terrific all by themselves. They fold in half, you see, so they can enter the eye through an incision no bigger than a ladybug’s left nostril.

Very cool, really.

*

So, today, except in extreme cases, cataract surgery is quick, painless, easy, and completely safe.

And my rational, logical, coherent, and well-informed brain knew all that.

Except…except …

My irrational brain was going…

THEY ARE GOING TO PUT STITCHES IN MY EYE!!!!

*

While driving, and well before I got home, I had also invented this fascinating image . . .

Basically Freddy Kruger in a white coat. With a dental drill. Talking about corneas.

Ah, the gift of a vivid imagination. Wonderful, really.

*

Anyway, that’s where I was, psychic-spacewise. Not a great place, but, what the heck (I figured), at least I’ve made the appointment. Might as well get it over with. And, besides . . . besides . . . after that shock, the day just couldn’t get worse. I mean, it just couldn’t.

Could it?

Naw. Not possible.

So thinking, I pulled into my driveway and looked up the walk to the door. And, there, in the box, was . . .

The Mail.

But that’s for next time.

*

Onward and upward.
























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

Martha

She loves birds.

We have feeders in the back, on the porch, and in winter we fill them with seed. Sometimes, then, at breakfast, she watches them out the glass door that opens off the dining room. She watches them move, flitter, dash from one side to the other.

Sometimes she will call me out from my office. “There’s a cardinal!” Whispered urgently. Commandingly. Or “A blue jay!” Sotto voce. I’ll come. I’ll look. I’ll see a flash of color. A streak of red or blue. Nothing more.

They reveal themselves to her. Their friend and protector. Not to me.


*

Conversely.

She hates the squirrel that lives out back in the neighbor’s tree, and who comes and gorges himself at the feeders. She wouldn’t mind, I think, if he were not so clearly making a pig of himself. If he only ate what he needed and then left the rest.

But that is not the way of squirrels, and he gobbles up the seed until his cheeks bulge and his stomach sways.

Thus, there is a war between them, my wife and the neighbor’s squirrel. When she sees him she yells or bangs on the window. He rears up and regards her for a moment. Then, face down and tail up, he goes back to the trough.

She opens the door and the squirrel finally dashes away (but not too fast). Sometimes she throws something after him. A stale piece of bread or something that she was going to put out for him later. It falls into the snow in the yard.

In about an hour, he’ll be back. And the whole thing—the feeding, the yelling, the tail in the air, the tossed crust—will repeat itself.

Sometimes, I think they enjoy it.


*

For many years, she was a teacher. Now she is teacher of teachers. Do not make the joke about those who can’t, teach, and those who can’t teach, teach teachers. I’ve seen people make it in her presence. They have not done it twice.

More importantly, do not say such things to those who were her students.

They might well slaughter you.

*

They adore her. I mean her students.

For twenty years now she’s been in the Department of Education at Tufts. She takes young people who are often little more than children themselves and, somehow, makes them into teachers. She equips them, I don’t know how, to deal with adolescents and parents, school boards and politicians, lesson plans and No Child Left Behind.

It has been hard on her, these last few years. The Bush administration confused excellence with obedience. Men and women who could not tolerate their teenager at home, never-the-less were certain they knew best how to manage classrooms of a hundred of them.


*

Then there is the academy itself. Martha is not, technically, a professor. She is, technically, a Lecturer. This means she cannot obtain tenure. She cannot vote in certain important assemblies. She is regarded, in ever so polite a way, as Not Quite Top Drawer. Or Dwawer, as they like to say, in the counterfeit trans-Atlantic accents of a certain class of academic.

This is because Martha is, well, a mere technician. She has actually taught in schools. She works with real students. She goes out into public schools and finds placements for student teachers.

These are lesser things.

The REAL educational academic works in theory. And abstraction. And grand insights. And, if possible, never sees a human being. Or, at least, not a student.

So . . .

So she is not tenured. Will never be tenured. And, sometimes those of her colleagues who are say things, “I think we’re seriously under-theorized here.” Meaning that her wisdom, derived from actual evidence, must not be as good as their dogma, derived from wishful thinking.

But, here’s the rub. In times of trouble, when this student is in crisis, or that funding has vanished . . . it is to Martha that they turn.


*

As I say, her students adore her. For years after they’ve left her classes, they send Christmas cards and email.

For some reason she is a particular favorite of those of her students who are minorities—the young men and women who are, as they say now “people of color.”

I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because she never manifests that evangelical and self-congratulatory tolerance of diversity, so common among Right Thinking People, so obviously synthetic, so loudly proclaimed. She is not, in other words, like one of her colleagues, a white middle-class woman with a Ph.D. and a six-figure income, who once slipped and began to lecture a black woman on what it was “really like” to be “Coloured In America”.

*

Some of my wife’s students have announced that they are adopting her. She is to be, they say, their mother.

One of these is Faith.

Faith is a tall, thin, energetic “woman of color.” She is bright and intelligent, very Southern, and her eyes glow with barely suppressed mischief. She has taken to calling Martha “Mom.” My son, David, is “Little Bro.” Recently, I’ve been promoted to “Dad.”

This leads to some interesting situations, many of them engineered by Faith herself. Recently, we took her for her birthday to a little tourist town up the coast. It’s a place with ocean views and small shops. I quite like it, but it tends to attract a—shall we say?— unadventurous crowd. Don’t get me wrong. The tourists are not evil. They are not bigoted. But they are very, very suburban.

We went into one of the shops. It had tall shelves reaching almost to the ceiling. That meant that you could hear the other customers in the place, but you might not be able to see them.

I was coming around a corner when I heard Faith yell cheerily, “Oh, Mom! Did you see this?” She was holding some piece of Mexican tinwear. “Isn’t it terrific? I’m going to have to get that.” Then, “Dad! I left my purse in the car. Would you tell me where you parked so I can get it?”

Around me I heard the amused murmurs of my fellow customers.

I told Faith I would get the purse and she could stay there, with “mom.” Next to me, a woman of my age said, smiling, “Or Dad will just end up paying for it.” I nodded. She turned the corner with me. She saw Faith.

Her smile froze like water on a windshield in February.

*

As I say, it has been hard for her, these past few years.

A bunch of reasons for that. David has gone to school and is no longer in the house, which is good and inevitable, but still …hard. And then there was the fact that I went back to school, and it proved such a disaster, and she had to watch.

Then, finally, there have been the Times. Our age. The last eight years . . . 9-11, the War in Iraq, so much more.

On some level, I don’t think she really minded the fact that Washington went Conservative during those years. She’s a liberal, but she can reach out to the other side . . . so long as it is real. So long as it, too, is idealistic. So long as it strives for some sort of good, though she may not agree on the definition of good.

But, Washington for the last eight years has been so very much not idealistic, not concerned with good … its ideology not conservative but merely hateful, a faux-conservatism that disguised blatant greed and power-lust as Family Values and Morality.

So, she has suffered.

There is still a part of her, you see, that genuinely believes in the virtue of men and women . . . despite all the evidence to the contrary.


*

I think, on some level, she remains the girl she was in the sixties. I’ve seen pictures of her then. She was oh-so-achingly young. Her hair was long and straight. She wore bright colors and jeans. She drove a VW beetle. She had the albums of Peter, Paul, and Mary. She believed . . . as God was her witness . . . that things might be made better.

I wish I had known her then. I wish I had been at the same place, been the same age . . . but, such are the cruelties of circumstance. At least I did meet her, finally, in 1979, when we were both at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I believe she was in the very first class I ever took there.

I tried to speak to her after that first class . . . and she was off like a shot. Out the door. Across the campus. And away. I’m not sure she slowed down until she was in her apartment with the door bolted.

It took me two years to land a date.

But that’s a story for another day. When I have a lot more time.


*

We married in 1982.

For some reason, she’s stayed with me ever since. Again, I’m a little mystified as to why. Her friends are confused as well. Sometimes they ask, meaning it as a joke, “Did you have to marry him?”

We’ve also heard the same thing from some of my co-workers, but not as a joke. “How do you stand it?” asked the woman who did package ads sales at one magazine, during the Christmas party.

Then, the woman realized what she had said, and quickly tried to make it funny. “I mean, you know, not that it would be bad or anything . . .”

Except, of course, sometimes it really IS bad. I have not, as they say, been able to give her the moon and the stars. I have not always been as kind, as strong, as gentle, as …well, anything…as I should have been for her.

Yet she has remained.


*

I do not deserve her.

But that, of course, does not mean I will let her get away.

*

One last story. This one about me rather than her.

Several years ago, I was at one of the magazines for which I worked. I found myself in a conversation with a number of other editors. These included a woman of about my own age, also married, and with a bawdy sense of humor.

Listening to us, from across the room, was another woman. She was quite young, though older than her years. She had been the daughter of a Yugoslavian diplomat. She had traveled the world as a child, and worked now in the U.S., while her country split into warring parts.

Anyway, the older woman asked me about my future plans. If I intended to retire and so on. It wasn’t a serious conversation, so I made a joke of it. I said I hoped to be a decadent old bastard.

She laughed and said, “With the young mistress?”

No, I replied, if Martha found out, she’d kill me. The older woman laughed.

But, then, from the other corner of the room, came the low, musical, slightly accented voice of the Yugoslav.

“Men,” she said, “always say that when they don’t want to admit they love their wives.”

Ah…


*

She was right.

Very well.

I shall admit it here.

I do. Enormously.

More than words, here or anywhere, can even begin to say.


*

Onward and upward.









Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

Intermezzo And Inauguration

I write this (in my head) while seated in a dentist’s chair.

The dentist in question, plus an assistant, a hygienist, and the Lady Out Front Who Does The Billing are all . . . ALL … trying to insert various instruments of mass destruction into my mouth. I think that was an oil derrick that just went in a moment ago. Hard to tell, though. Could have been an aircraft carrier.

Oh, and there’s a nasty grinding sound as the dentist does something singularly horrible to me involving two fillings and a crown.

Great stuff.

Particularly since I hadn’t meant to write it at all.


*

It’s like this: you’ll recall that I’m re-starting explosive-cargo. You’ll recall as well that I was doing a quick recap on my life and the lives of my family so everybody could catch up with events. Last week, I did my son, David. And he’s almost forgiven me for it. Not quite. But almost. And I suspect after a couple of decades in therapy, he’ll look back and laugh. It’ll be a pained, hysterical laugh, but a laugh just the same.

This week I’d originally planned to move to Martha, my beloved wife … “the idol of me life” . . . who has (for reasons beyond the comprehension of mere mortals) actually stayed married to me for … uh, er . . . 25 years now. (YIKES.)

But, then, I remembered that this is Inauguration week. And, as everybody knows, it’s a ye ole historic occasion. As I write this, Barack Obama is becoming the 44th President of the United States of America.

They say upwards to two million people are watching him take the oath. Millions of Americans more sit fascinated in front of their TV screens. Billions of others, in the every nation on the globe, follow the proceedings with breathless anticipation.

And me . . . ?

I’ve got an oil derrick in my face.

*

In some ways I don’t really mind. This was the only time I could get the appointment. And, besides, when I did make it, some months ago, I didn’t connect “January 20 the Dentist Date” with “January 20 the Most Important Historical Event In Recent American History.”

Besides, you can always catch it all on the news tonight and . . .

And . . .

And who the Halibut do I think I’m fooling?

I HATE IT.

*

The dentist has this little wheel thing on what looks like a scaled down rotary saw. He’s busy whacking away at this molar in the back that needs to be filed down to a nubbin.

And there’s this lovely smell. Sort of like … well, when you were a kid, did you ever roast a grasshopper with a magnifying glass? Sort of like that. But with the faint and delicate tang of raw rubber in a hot box.

This is the way that human teeth . . . and other things . . . smell when they burn.

If, per chance, I should kick the big one, and the gleeful heirs decide on cremation, would you remind me to hold my nose? Thanx loads.


*

I’m missing the Inauguration . . . well, at least on TV. I wouldn’t actually have gone to Washington, of course. But I am missing the live broadcast. Which saddens me.

Actually, it’s been interesting to watch the coverage of the new Presidency for the last few weeks. I’ve tuned in now and then, on those rare occasions when it hasn’t made more sense to get your news from the ‘net.

Mostly it’s been pundits telling us what to expect from the incoming Administration and/or the Inauguration. CNNers gaze at us mournfully and repeat the endless series of trials that await the new President (the economy, the war, global warming…ad infinitum), usually with the distinct overtone that Nothing Can Be Done. Fox bombastoids sneeringly pronounce Obama a new Clinton…or, at the very least, Out Of Touch With American Values. Whatever the h*ll that means.

Yet, if you looked at them closely, you detected hints of nervousness, a fearful glancing to the right and the left, an uncertainty…

Perhaps they realize, however dimly, that the upcoming Inauguration will be a Real Event, which will genuinely fascinate the American People, and which will genuinely effect us for generations to come.

It is not, in other words, one of their Manufactured Incidents, one of their little circuses designed not to reveal the news but to conceal it.

Instead, it is authentic. It is beyond their control.

And they hate it.


*

A tooth explodes. Bits and pieces of enameled shrapnel bound about my tongue. “Excellent,” says the dentist.

For this . . . for this . . . I am missing the Inauguration.

Later, I will see parts of the Inauguration on the replays. I will watch while the President Elect becomes the President in Fact. I will watch while he puts his hand on a Bible and swears to defend the Constitution. Every president does, of course, but some mean it more than others.

The thing that strikes me most is actually not the President himself but his wife, who stands next to him while the oath is administered. Her face is animated, she smiles or looks out at the crowd, holds her husband.

And this is different. How often we have seen Presidential spouses wearing what I’ve come to call “The Nancy Reagan Stare,” that look of manufactured adoration, unblinking and unreal, while the icy politician within pretends to be the dutiful helpmate.

This woman, as she stands in the cold beside the 44th president, is alive.

That intrigues me.

*

After that, I will watch the live broadcast of limos and buses making their way through the streets. I will watch them arrive at a massive reviewing stand. Dignitaries of various sorts make their way into its copious interior. In a moment, parades will begin.

The broadcaster narrating the affair will refer to these men and women as VIPs—“Vee Eye Pees”—Very Important Persons. Dems and Reps and everything in between. I have hated the term since I heard it as a child. You see, if someone is a VIP, surely that implies that someone else is not important at all.

The camera will come in for a close up on the VIPs emerging from the limos. They are little different from what you’d expect. Chiefly, there are of two sorts. First, are the Men, white haired and white skinned, the sort you find on stamps and boards of directors. They emerge blinking into the light. They wave to the crowd, not seeing the people within it.

Second, are the Women, striding purposely forward. They wear their business suits and stern expressions. They make a cult of their own toughness and their own success. More than anyone, they worship at the shrine of Our Lady of the Perpetual Career.

I wonder, do either of them glance out at the men and women who line the streets? The two million strong who watch them? Do they ever suspect . . . even dream! . . . that those uncounted multitudes might even now be judging them?

And that they might be found wanting?

*

I will watch as well while the Bushes leave the White House and board the helicopter that will take them away. There is an uncomfortable similarity to the Fall of Saigon, the Huey helicopters whisking ministers and orphans to overburdened aircraft carriers and exile.

*

Similarly, I will watch former Vice President Dick Cheney as he is wheeled into the reviewing stand. He threw his back out “moving boxes,” and so attends the event in a wheel chair.

He will sit and scowl, looking rather like Davros, creator of the Daleks in Doctor Who.

I think, on some level, he is the most interesting vice president the country has ever possessed. If I were still a historian (had not, that is, been cast from academic heaven by the holy angels of my dissertation committee), I would want to study him.

Alone among vice presidents, he was not really a politician. There was no kissing babies for him. He wouldn’t have glorified Joe The Plumber. He was a pure technocrat, interested solely in the exercise of power, and very much his President’s unelected prime minister.

At one time I thought he might be the future of the American executive—the gray man behind the scenes, the appointed and non-democratic Head Of Government—as opposed to the President, selected by ballot and hanging chads to be the (irrelevant) Head of State, allowed out now and then to proclaim that this Mission is Accomplished, that Course To Be Stayed.

That could still be the future. It will depend greatly on this new President, on the power of the Bush-era elites to smear him, and on the willingness of Americans in general to let it happen.


*


And the smearing has begun already, hasn’t it? From the Right … and the Left.

On some level, the Right is the better. It, at least, is more honest about what it’s doing. The more or less open appeals to racism (“Obama the Magic Negro”), the ubiquitous references to his middle name (“Hussein”), the whisper campaign begun during the election and continued to this day that he is a crypto-Moslem (or at least un-America) . . . all these are happening as the Tom Delay branch of the GOP seeks its return to absolute power.

(One wonders, in the end, will that form of the GOP, perhaps under a new name and as a new party, find itself meeting in sheets under a flaming cross?)

But, the Left is not to be forgiven. Already . . . already . . . one hears the fashionable disillusionment in their voices, sees the weary (and oh so trendy) cynicism in their eyes. Obama will be not liberal enough . . . not radical enough . . . not Green enough . . . not, well, fill in the blank.

This is not to say that he will actually be illiberal, or non-Green, or fill-in-the-blank. But complaint is their forte, and all that remains to them now that they have so thoroughly abandoned any attempt at actually impacting the world for the better.

*

But isn’t just politics. It is the American system.

As I sit watching the crowds and the VIPs in their glass booth, I will recall the teachers in local schools who refused to let their students view the Inauguration during class time because “education doesn’t pause for history.” As though history were not education. As though their endless and repetitive worksheets were.

But, the teachers are not alone. As I watch the Vips behind their glass staring down at the parade below them . . . and as I consider the men and women (oh so sophisticated) that I met in the academy and the world . . . I can almost hear their thoughts. How, they think, banal.

The parade begins and soon winds by them. It is an endless succession of high school marching bands, police on horses, police and firemen with bagpipes, Masons and Shriners, church groups and youth clubs . . .

How banal. How bourgeois—you can hear them thinking. What, after all, is more pathetic than a high school marching band? An assembly of asthmatic nerds tinkling on triangles? What is more prole than a policeman or a fireman with a bagpipe? The man who maintains antique conceptions of honor, and plays Amazing Grace at the funerals of friends? What is more absurd than a Shriner? A little man in a fake fez and a miniature car?

Except . . .

Except . . .

The high school band did not lead us into Iraq. The firemen and policeman clawed survivors out of the rubble after 9-11. The Shriners founded and funded the hospitals that provide free care to children when our noble elite graciously declined to give a damn.

*

The exploding tooth is finished now. The assistant is now occupied sweeping up the remains. She sticks a suction tube in my mouth and I hear the little clattering of tooth bits going down the pipe.

“There, looks great,” says the dentist.

Really?

“You see,” he continues, “sometimes you have to take everything down to the beginnings to build back up again.”

Well…

Couldn’t ask for a better metaphor, could we?

*

A few minutes later they have me bite down on some ghastly substance that falls somewhere between silly putty and fresh mud. The remains of my tooth will leave an impression and they’ll make the crown from it later.

The dentist goes off to commit some other act of toothy carnage. The hygienist gives me a moist towelette so that I can clean up later. She warns me that my lips may be dry for the rest of the day.

I rise unsteadily from the chair and wobble into the lobby. My coat waits for me on a peg in the wall. Shortly, I exit into the bitter Boston winter, crunch my way over the ice in the parking lot, and go home to watch what remains of the Inauguration.

And, as I go, I think . . . if I were the historian my dissertation committee emphatically assured me I was not, I would compare the day to another Inauguration, this one 180 years ago. I mean, of course, that of Jackson in 1829.

It may have been the most famous Inauguration in American history. Jackson, you see, was many things . . . including a racist and something of a bastard . . . but he was also a genuine populist. He invited his homespun followers into the White House. To the horror of All Right Thinking People, they came.

And, at that moment, the American landed elites who had ruled for so terribly long, began to suspect that just maybe their day was past.

*

Oh, yes, I can hear Those Who Know Best already. The academics, the pundits, the intellectuals…They are saying, no, Your Analogy Is Flawed. It Lacks Proper Grounding In Historical Methodology. You Are Under-theorized. Your interpretation is clichéd, and you, yourself, are Inane.

Probably true.

Yet . . .

And yet . .

*

Later, I will sit at home, nursing my face and watching television.

Watching the endless faces, of all colors and shapes, lining the streets.

And I will wonder.

Our elite? Does it have the wisdom, the insight, and the understanding to look at those millions in DC and be, in however small a way …

Afraid.

*


Until next time,

Onward and upward.












Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker