My greatest accomplishment - 10/2010

My greatest accomplishment - 10/2010

 

The kids get home from school around 3:15 or so by the time we roll into the driveway. They have about fifteen minutes before we must leave again to take Emma to swimming practice which starts at 4:00. 

At 3:30 I make the first announcement, shouting like a train conductor,“Ok its 3:30 lets go, we’re leaving in five minutes - shoes, jackets.” 

On this particular day I walk out to the car to get some of the school junk from the back seat, drawings, lunch bags, odds and ends left on the seat from the ride home from school. Eddie and John race out. “I’ll beat you,” Ed says. 

I notice Emma is coming out also, swim bag over her shoulder. “They’re fast today,” I think.

“Wait,” I shout, “Don’t shut the door.”

The door slams. It’s too late. My keys, to the car and to the house, are inside.

I try to think. I'm frozen.  “What can we do?” 

I look at the house. A minute passes. 

Finally I try the windows that are reachable from the deck. No dice – all are locked. I walk around the house, the side, front, the other side. I'm done for.

I spy the kitchen window, nine feet from ground level. I attempt to stand on the foundation ledge and push against the screen. It is a hard go. The ledge is slanted. My attempts to grab the sill don't work. Finally, in one motion, I spring onto the ledge and shove at the screen. The screen goes up. I push on the glass; the window goes up. Hallelujah! Finally an open window, but it is nine feet off the ground. 

 

I step back, look again. The kids are behind me, watching, fearful, hopeful.

I notice the hose spigot. I test its strength with my foot. It's fair. I put half my body weight on it, then step back to the ground. OK, now I coil like a shot-putter pushing off with one leg, the other leg on the spigot. Miraculously I am able to grab the sill of the nine foot high window, so in the same motion I continue pulling myself upward with two hands on the sill, like getting out of a pool. My head brushes the open sash as I try to force head and shoulders through the opening. I need to force myself inside more. I push down with my hands. My body raises slightly, extending a bit more of my torso into the kitchen, I try to straighten my arms for more leverage; they weaken. 

I am seventy-one years old. Did I mention that? 

Finally I collapse. With my legs still hanging outside, my ribs crash down onto the aluminum track of the screen. I hear a sharp snap and feel the tear in my rib cartilage. I let out a scream, then several more screams - louder.

“Are you OK?” the kids shout. The three of them are standing on the grass some ten feet below the window.

I keep screaming.

Again they ask, “Are you OK?”

“No,” I say.

 Inside the kitchen, my forehead rests on the sink. I give off a few more moans. I’ve done this rib cartilage thing before, each time thinking I must be more careful. But then I hadn’t counted on this situation. Slowly I pull myself onto the kitchen counter; my knees are in the sink. I lower my feet to the floor. The rib doesn’t feel so bad I think. I spy my keys on the table.

With keys in hand I head back out. “OK, let’s get in the car,” I announce. I am wobbling as I walk to the car, truly hurting, but – honestly - I am also extremely proud of my Spiderman wall scaling antics. 

“Are you OK?” Emma says again.

“Not really,” I say, but what I am thinking is that no one - not one person - in this whole world is going to appreciate what I have just done. I can tell them about it and they will likely respond that I should always keep my keys in my pocket – don’t lay them down in the house. There will not be one word about how utterly amazing that I - at age seventy-one  - could shimmy up a nine foot wall of house siding by merely stepping on a hose spigot and then - believe it or not – actually hoist my full body weight up and into and through the small window opening above the sink. All of this as the three children looked on in both horror, and perhaps awe, from below like creatures from the land of Lilliputians. I mean seriously! But that’s it. It’s over. There is no video. I should not have left my keys in the house.

As we go out the driveway I can’t resist asking, “Was that amazing? Or what?”

“Papa,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, what?” I’m waiting for a question like, “How did you fly all the way up there?” It must have looked amazing from their perspective, from so far below. 

Ed doesn’t respond.

“What, Ed?” I repeat.

“Why didn’t you use the ladder?”

“Huh?”   

Looking for it - circa 1985

Looking for it - circa 1985  

 

 It is early evening, a Friday, I’m getting ready to go out (read - looking for a girlfriend). I’m 45 years old, single (read – divorced) and father of two girls - Brett, 15 and Ashley, 13. I’m in the basement of my house, a pair of pants draped on my arm. Moments ago, before the full-length mirror, I spied crow’s feet wrinkles at the top of each pant leg. So I hustled to the basement and got out the ironing board.  After a few presses the phone rings upstairs. I scale the five steps in two jumps. “Hello,” I say.

"Dad!”

“Yes.” I say. It’s daughter Brett.

              "Dad - OK can you pick up Cindy and Robin?”

              "Yeah no problem, what time,” I say

             “Leave in three minutes,” she says.

            “I’ll go as fast as I can, but not three minutes. I'm ironing here.”

The kids are always rushing and every minute counts. Were we like that? Of course not. We took our time - walked everywhere. Isn’t that the claim? Anyway, three minutes - is she serious? Nevertheless, I agree to step on it.

The cat meows at my feet. “Look, Socks, you want food right? You see what that is?” I point to the dry food dish. Socks continues to circle my ankle, meowing with each half-turn, indifferent to the food. “And do me a favor, use the litter box tonight, not the kitchen rug, got it?” I don’t think Socks gets it. I return to ironing, but after one leg I go back upstairs and dial Ash (youngest daughter).

“D, is Ash there?” I say. 

“Hold on," she says.

D is the first wife - ex. She has a boyfriend.

Wherever she’s headed tonight it will not be, as I - looking for it. Such thoughts pass through my mind as I wait for Ash.

Ash comes to the phone. “Ash, where are you sleeping tonight? Sleep at my house, we’ll go for breakfast in the morning.”

“OK, maybe.”

“OK, anyway, I’ll leave the lights on and the key under the mat. OK?”

Back to the pants. The doorbell rings. I step into the almost pressed pants and pull them up, smoothing the left over crow’s feet with my hands. I shout up the stairs, “It’s open!” 

It’s Dennis, a friend, my partner in crime this evening. 

Looking for it, as we mockingly call our Friday night activity, can take any number of forms for the man or woman on the cusp of middle age in 1985. The two main forms are bars and singles events. Bars are a bit less humiliating because one can pretend to be in the bar, NOT looking for it, but just for a drink. At a singles event, our choice tonight, it’s a given that you are unattached and looking, which is humiliation-number-one. Not – mind you - the fact that you’re alone at age forty, nor that it logically follows that every relationship you’ve ever had has flopped somehow – period! But it's this: mere membership in this muster of singulars announces that very fact, by default, the moment you enter. “Hi my name is Ed, I’m single. All relationships I’ve ever had have failed.”

We, Dennis and I, have done this particular singles event for the past two years on most Fridays- which is Humiliation – two: ‘You haven’t met anyone yet?’ In other words: “Hi my name is Ed, I’m single, all relationships I’ve ever had have failed, I’ve been coming here for two years, but haven’t met anyone.”     

It wasn’t always this way of course. Want to know who I really am? I’ll go with the words of an acquaintance of my mom’s, an elderly gentleman (80ish), who when introduced to me extended his hand and blurted out, “You know I was quite a baseball player when I was a young man.” That’s me – not the loser single man but quite a baseball player when young. It’s a fact I usually manage to get across to prospective girlfriends somehow, albeit later in the game.

Dennis enters and immediately assumes the mock-the-singles-lifestyle-tone, “Hey we got to hurry up, we’ll get locked out.”

“No way – remember we’re on the Coffee Crew.”

The New Expectations Single Adult Rap Group (ditch the Rap would be my preference, it’s so 1970s) takes in about 200 people every Friday, but well over that number show up and wait in line outside (Humiliation – three) until doors open at 8:00 PM. The tail end of the line always gets shut out (humiliation – three-plus). Those rejected pivot back to their cars with dropped shoulders convinced they would have met their soul mate tonight. To avoid this shut out Dennis and I got the bright idea to sign up for the Coffee Crew, which sets up the pre-event coffee and cookies. Instead of arriving at 7:00 PM and getting into the Humiliation–three-line we show up at 7:45 and budge to the front saying excuse me, knock on the door and are immediately escorted inside. This is Humiliation – Four for me, but Dennis says he likes it.

“I still have to pick up the kids,” I tell Dennis.

“Oh no!” he says, “You’re done for.”

“I’ll make it, but we better take two cars.”

“Of course - you know the rule: cool guys, looking for it, need their own car,” Dennis chuckles.

 “Yeah, duh, you never know when something might turn up,” I mock.

“Yeah, but - remember the other rule: It’s only when you’re not looking for it that you find it,” I say, then continue, “Guess that means we’re not going to find it, because we’re definitely looking for it.” I go upstairs to finishing dressing.  The truth is I have chosen my Friday night outfit earlier in the week. I actually tested out the look on Monday, in the mirror, and then took the shirt and sweater to the cleaners on Tuesday, and picked them up today. I should have taken the pants, obviously.

Dennis shouts up the stairs, “We’re always looking for it.”

“But we never find it - ha ha."

“OK,” I say coming down the stairs, “anyway - you see my keys anywhere?”

“Where’d you put them?” Dennis says. Just then the phone rings.

“That’s Brett,” I say, “I’m not answering, she just wants to know if I left yet.”

“I’ll answer it, I’ll tell her you left.”

“Yeah. OK, I know they’re here because I drove the car here,” I say.

“Hello, your dad left,” Dennis says, unconvincingly.

“Dennis!” Brett screams into the phone, “I can’t believe he hasn’t left.”

“He’s looking for his keys.”

I start talking to God, “OK, enough, where are they.”

Brett on the phone with Dennis says, “He’ll never find them, if I was there I’d find them in a minute.”

She’s right. I slowly pace in circles, trying to think.  I look under the newspaper on the table, fling a sweater off the couch. Not there. I look in the fridge.

“He’s looking in the refrigerator now,” Dennis says laughing. “What the hell are you looking in the fridge for?”

“Don’t ask. I’ll tell you later,” I say, “Ah, my coat pocket. Where’s my coat. They’ve got to be there.”   

“Still looking,” I hear Dennis say, and then he says, “Yeah, I know,” offering sympathy to Brett.

“Ah ha, got ’em,” I announce, triumphant. “OK, we’re leaving right now.”

“Got that Brett? … OK goodbye, have fun tonight.”  Dennis hangs up.

“Ready? Let’s go. We'll take both cars. See you up there,” I say getting into my car. Dennis drives away and I head for Robin’s house, toot twice in her driveway. Robin bounces out the front door.

“Hey, how you doing?” I say.

“Fine,” she says climbing in.

“So what are you girls doing tonight?”

“We don’t know, really” she says. 

“You like the music?” I ask Robin. I know that when Brett gets in the car this music will be switched, but the girls that are not my daughters are courteous enough not to complain, much less start pushing the radio buttons. I’ve got the 1940’s and 1950’s station on but it’s the Easy Listening 40’s and 50’s. The kids call it elevator music, which is not a compliment. “Good music huh?” I say.  Robin giggles. Is she really in pain I wonder? Brett and Ash say it’s painful. Jo Stafford is singing “You Belong to Me.” I love that song. They must at least think it’s nice I imagine, as we head for Cindy’s house.

Cindy gets in the back with Robin. “Hello,” I say.

“Hello.”

“So what are you guys doing?” I ask again, not really caring if they answer. I assume that they are going to someone’s house and that eventually as the news travels the male counterparts will appear outside, mingling around. Somehow the boys will get noticed and sooner or later they’ll all be either inside or outside, depending on the parental presence and a variety of other variables. The good thing is that everyone is either fourteen or fifteen - no cars as yet. It’s foot travel or parental chauffer only.

“We don’t know what we’re doing,” Cindy says.

“You like this music?” I ask. It’s the Four Lads now, “No Not  Much”, another personal favorite. They’ve got to love this I think.

“It’s OK,” Cindy says, meaning no. Robin is quiet, having already answered the question.

I pull into Brett’s driveway and she is out the door before the car stops.

“Dad!” she says, climbing into the front seat.

“Yes, I know, I’m three hundred million hours late. Hey wait a minute, I liked that song,” I say as Brett changes the station. "Plus Cindy and Robin liked it, didn’t you girls?” My protest is ignored. Cindy and Robin offer a faint giggle, but no comment. Brett is furiously pressing buttons on the radio. 

"Anyway, do you have an appointment somewhere, at a specific time maybe, somewhere you have to be by an exact time?” I ask. No such thing, I’m sure.

“Don’t worry about it Dad. Does anyone know what we’re doing tonight?  Dad, why are you going so slow?” Brett asks, all in one breath. I continue at the same speed. One thing I still rule is the car speed.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” Robin says.

Cindy adds, “Me neither.”

“Where to next?” I ask.

“Stephanie’s  ... go Dad,” Brett says, urging me to speed up.

“Relax B, we’ll get there. Anyway, your hair looks good.” B just had her hair cut.

“Oh God!” she says and takes out a comb.

Stephanie and Darcy are next and that’s all, apparently. After Darcy I start down the road again.  I anticipate further instructions.

“Wait, does anybody know what we’re doing tonight?” Cindy asks.

Suddenly all hell breaks loose - high pitched screaming. I quake in my seat. 

Everyone is shouting, “Turn it up, turn it UP!”

The truth is I like this song too. I let the music seep in as my car rolls slowly on. I don’t know if it’s the radio music or the sweet soft sound of the five girls catching every word, and then the excitement when they hit the chorus. I wanna know what love is …but the joy reaches into my chest on this long stretch of street called Cathedral Avenue until eventually the frenzy subsides slowly, as  the song ends.

“Dad, where are you going?” Brett says.

“What? Melanie’s, no?” I say.

"We still have to get Laura and Debbie.” 

"OK, anyway - I'm just saying - I haven't got all night. You know I'm doing something tonight also."

"Like what?" Brett says.

"Looking for it," I blurt out trying to be funny.

This brings a chorus of giggles, which is a little like - humiliation - five.

September 4, 2007 - My first official day of retirement.

September 4, 2007 - My first official day of retirement.

 

Though I retired in June of 2007, that summer found me with a wrenching computer job that I offered to do for an adult student/friend of mine. The result being that I couldn't declare myself fully retired until I submitted final invoices for, as they say in the business, “services rendered.” I didn't bill like I would have billed Exxon-Mobile Oil, but instead charged a rate that was on par with what one gets for mowing lawns. In all I felt it was fair - remember landscapers make a good buck these days. So I was happy that I did the job, that I finished, that it worked (I hope) and I was grateful for the money. 

Now (September) I begin my official retirement, the retirement about which so many people asked, “Have you got something to keep yourself busy?”

                     I Have Lots to Do

I certainly think so. For starters there is daughter Ashley and her three kids with whom I estimate 10 hours per week as an official babysitter / personal assistant. No invoices submitted there. 

 

Add to that another 10 hours with her family when, by choice, I seek out their company because a thought pops into my head that I miss them, like this morning when I got out of bed at 8 AM and raced the four miles up the road to the Florham Park Dunkin Doughnuts so I could meet the family for coffee at 8:20, after Ash drops Emma(5) at school.

 

 Of course there’s plenty of other stuff to be done - there is house maintenance, cleaning, vacuuming, the annual dusting requirement (ha, ha), straightening up my own house, a three BR Cape, such as picking up piles of  “stuff” left about from the day (or month) before.  

 

There’s yard maintenance (mowing, raking, planting, weeding, trimming etc.), plus recycling – sorting bottles and cans and newspapers and cardboard, opening and tossing junk mail (regular and email), exercise at the gym or outdoors, brushing teeth and other personal maintenance functions, eating meals, and of course shopping for food, a little reading here and there (I read lots, but don't always finish books.) My most recent completed book, “Truth and Beauty,” by Ann Pachett, read that some months ago, this year, I believe. 

 

Oh, and I do genealogy too and I created a website called "townscrapbook.com" for my hometown of Warwick, NY. Both of those things I have promised to do more of after retirement. And I write as a hobby so I often tell my kids when their assignments overwhelm me. “Ash,” I say, “I’d love to help you out but remember - I’m a novelist, I have work to do.”  It brings a chuckle, but seldom releases me from duty - but then, I wouldn't want it to. 

                   
                           Mornings at Quickcheck

Every morning I buy a 95 cent cup of coffee at QuickCheck and read the newspaper. That usually takes an hour and is most pleasurable. Why, I am unsure. Is it the coffee addiction or the newspaper addiction or just that I now have endless "free" days? Finally, I proceed to one or more of the items mentioned at the beginning of this piece. Regardless, I honestly do feel very relaxed now like I cannot remember feeling, since “who knows when.” Part of the reason is that the temptation to procrastinate does not seem half as sinful. After all I no longer have work pressures like pressing course preparation. I can always do, what I need to do, tomorrow. I’ve got forever. Obviously, at times, the finite nature of life escapes me. 

 

I get the feeling that will change. 

                     
                            Even the Sun Will Retire

Read yesterday that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. It’s got 5 billion more years to go before the sun explodes into a “red giant” and sucks up Mercury, Venus and most likely earth, but not the planets beyond earth. Earth, itself, is on the cusp, but it doesn’t take a seer to see that the good old earth will have seen better days. Among other things, the oceans will boil, making earth inhabitable to say the least. 

 

So none of us have forever.

                           Celebrating Retirement at the Beach 

Last year, this time, Labor Day (2006), I was at the NJ shore, on the boardwalk. It was early evening, a perfect day but for the knot in my stomach that related to my classes beginning the next day. I shouted to daughter Ash, that next year we were going to come down again on Labor Day, drink a beer and look at the ocean and reflect on the blessings of not having to worry about class preparation for beginning school the following morning - which is what we did yesterday (next year now, 2007) – more or less.

                          That's Enough Sun
After a few hours at the beach in Point Pleasant we moved the picture perfect moment to the porch of a seaside restaurant in Atlantic Highlands. I ordered a draft of Sam Adams, Ash got a white wine and Tom a … something that I never heard of, with rum and lots of limes. We leaned back, brought guarded smiles to our lips.

 

It was perhaps a minute later that Eddie (age 3) lofted his cloth napkin over the railing into the water. Various reprimands were offered – not good restaurant behavior, ocean pollution, and the possible killing of fish or birds that might try to eat the napkin. Eddie offered no defense. He assumed a guilty, not listening, posture.  

 

Johnny (1.5) was surveying the toys placed before him (knife, fork, spoon, sugar packets, salt shaker etc) and asked (a high pitched Yiiiieee! is the bulk of his current vocabulary) for one specific toy. We offered a sugar packet but he issued a few more Yiiieees so we handed over the spoon, whereupon we discovered that a one year old really can make a large exciting (for him) racket banging a spoon on a table. Actually, we knew that. We were having no luck finding a suitable toy so we decided that removing Johnny from the table, in shifts, was the best solution. Each adult got ten minutes or so away from the table. As the honored retiree I got to go third. In the meantime I surveyed the water and the drawbridge that stretched over the Sandy Hook inlet. I kept one eye on Eddie who was now standing on his chair leaning over the railing, ostensibly looking for his napkin. A chorus of “No no’s,” were directed his way, along with one “you don’t stand on chairs in restaurants.”     

My turn for recess supervision with Johnny. I decide to venture some 30 feet out onto the dock clutching his wrist and pointing out a variety of educational items – wa-wa (water), boat, rope, birdy etc – when the drawbridge starts to open. I hurry back to the table.

“Wanted to watch the drawbridge and drink a beer,” I offer apologetically to my co-workers. We all take a sip of our drinks. Ash gets up to do her shift with Johnny.

                         What's that You're Drinking?

I lean back. “What’s that you’re drinking?” I say to Tom.

“Caipirinha,” he says.

“Huh?”

“Caipirinha.”

 

“Hrrumph, never heard of it,” I say. He looks at me as if I might be kidding. I wasn’t. Screwdrivers, Seven & Seven, Tom Collins, Slo Gin Fiz,, Whiskey Sour and Scotch and Soda, were the drinks I knew. The new drinks made me think of a lot of new things that I’m going to avoid or simply not bother to learn, namely iPods, DSs, Blackberries, Blue Ray to name a few. I’m sorry to say that I gave in to a cell phone. I lived, fine, for so long without one, why would I need one? “So I can get you,” Ashley informed me, so I relented.  

The drawbridge went up – then down. Our dinners went down too – hurriedly - and we headed for the car and the ride home on the Parkway. I expected a standstill traffic jam, but we sailed home at 6 PM on Labor Day Monday. Perfect end to a perfect day.

                         September 17, 2007 - two weeks later

 

Not much has happened as far as my new retirement life is concerned. Halfway into September already and I’ve yet to settle in to a new life.

For a long time now I have tried, with little success, to develop a routine that would one day take on a life of its own, something that would both inspire and propel me toward what I could think of as achievement, eventually becoming automatic-pilot-like, in other words, (key word here) effortless. Now that I’ve retired maybe I can do it. Anyway I think I’ve got the start of it pretty much down – that would be the effortless part -  coffee and newspaper.

It’s Monday morning, a week after Labor Day and I’m in the Quick Check lot with coffee and the newspaper opened. My cell phone rings.

“Can you come over? One fish in the aquarium is eating the other fish, he’s already k-i-l-l-e-d two (the word "killed" is a no-no, must be spelled). The kids are hysterical, I’ve got to take Emma to school. Can you go and buy another tank so we can separate them? Quickly”

This, I’m thinking, might be the best of what I’ll get as far as the achievement part of a new life is concerned. It is, and though not exactly effortless, my response is kind of automatic, or propelled.   

 

I eventually complete the task: come over, watch kids, buy another tank, separate the fish. Done. 

I’m a single man - Summer of 1976.

I’m a single man - Summer of 1976.              

 

As a single father, in my thirties, I was always looking for companionship, someone who would accompany me on a dreamy romantic getaway. I even had a book that I picked up at a garage sale; the title was something like America’s Best Romantic Hotels. I consulted it often and daydreamed as I flipped through the pages. Regardless, romantic companionship generally eluded me for extended stretches, and so I did my traveling primarily with my daughters.

                           Down the Shore
               I remember one adventure that took in the whole Jersey Shore, north to south. It started in Ocean Grove and ended in Ocean City.
               In Ocean Grove we stayed at the Castle Arms Hotel, which was on Main Avenue, across the street from my childhood vacation residence, The Main Avenue House. The year was 1976, which would make Brett seven years old and Ashley almost five. Asbury Park was still alive and well at that time and after dinner we walked up the boardwalk to see the amusements. I played Skeeball and tried to win a prize, or two, but for some reason found that I had lost my touch. I was no longer an ace at Skeeball after being such a crackerjack as a child – or was I? I wondered. Perhaps it was just my father’s encouragement, given so lovingly to his youngest child, that I remember. Still it seemed easier when the Skeeball alley was waist high and the ball rested like a cantaloupe in my hand. Everybody said I was great at Skeeball and I cashed in lots of tickets for prizes, or so I recall.

                            Rocking on the Porch

                Returning to the hotel we lingered a while outside on the lawn as the guests watched from their rocking chairs on the front porch. One guest, an elderly gentleman named Andrew, ventured out to speak with us. We were a rarity here, the two children especially, but even myself at age 36. Most of the clientele were seniors. Andrew said he was here for the whole summer. In the winter he lived in Staten Island.

                “Do you want to see my room?” Andrew asked, after we had talked for a while. 

 

                “No, that’s O.K., thanks,” I said, “I guess we’ll just go to bed.”

 

                A few minutes later when we walked into the hotel, there was Andrew standing in the lobby. “Take the elevator,” Andrew said. Actually I wanted to walk up the stairs, but we got onto the elevator because Andrew seemed to want to show us the ropes. “My room is small," Andrew volunteered as the elevator ascended. "But it has a bath,” he added.

 

                “That’s good,” I said. It turned out we were on the same floor.

 

                “Dad,” Brett said as the elevator door opened, “He wants to show you his room.”

                         Andrew's Room

                “O.K.,” I said, and we followed Andrew as he beckoned us down the hallway. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Andrew’s room, but honestly I just wasn’t thinking …about Andrew. Brett, age seven, was more perceptive, less self absorbed.

There wasn’t much to see in Andrew’s room. It was very neat. There was a bed, night table, one dresser and a closet with no door. Its opening was covered with a cloth drape that hung to the floor. Andrew slid the drape to the side and we peered in at the neatly hung clothes, three or four summer shirts and a couple of pairs of pants. We acted as if we were prospective home buyers, very polite, low-key, responding our approval with variations of, “Hmmm,” and "nice." Andrew turned toward the bathroom, and extended his open hand, “And here is the bathroom.”

 

                “Hmmm, nice,” I said.

            

                “It’s nice,” Brett added. Ashley, age five, was silent.

                The tour complete, Andrew stood in front of us and said, “It’s a nice room.”

                “It is,” Brett and I said. Ash was still quiet though she turned and looked in each direction with us. Her hands hung in front of her, palms on her thighs, rounding her dropped shoulders, the five-year-old speechless pose.  

                          I'm a Single Man

 

                Then Andrew said, as if apologetically, “I’m a single man.” 

                I took it to mean that he always had been so. He was plain without exception, just a man, single and from Staten Island who summered now at the shore, in this sparse room without color, or trimmings or company the likes of which, I now recognized, adorned me so splendidly. 

                I offered a humble gesture of gratitude and placed my hands on the shoulders of the two children at my side. I did not feel proud here. It was sadness - true - but more a sympathy with, not for, Andrew. I had seen enough of life at age thirty-six to understand the difference between Andrew and myself – that it could be very little. I knew that this was not a tragedy that I was looking at here and yet I still felt a small fear push into my head that someday that I might be standing alone as Andrew now stood before me and hear myself say much the same thing – an aging soul trying to break through a feeling of invisibility, to present a little part of myself, to someone - to someone who was young  

                 Thanks for Showing Us Your Room 

                As best I could, I offered a word of praise for Andrew. “Thank you so much Andrew. Thanks for being friendly to us. That's very nice.” Then I took a step toward him and put my hand on his shoulder, then shook his hand. “Thanks for showing us your room,” I said.

                I hoped that I wasn’t overdoing it. Andrew seemed to appreciate our visit. Brett added her own support to my comment. “Yes, thanks” she said and she and Ashley both extended a small handshake to Andrew.

                The next morning Andrew was on the porch when we all came downstairs. We bid goodbye to him here and told him that we would see him maybe next year. We fussed over him and his porch friends oohed and ahhed over the girls.