Pieces of my Parents, Remnants of Me

The sticky sweet stench of horseshit and heracy permeates the landscape in my dreams.

It always starts with me walking in the early morning hours, the night hiding my sins in purple-black obscurity as I stagger down 13th Street from Hoyt east to Broadway. I reach the apex of the slight incline around Rockefeller when I see it: one tail-light of my dad's beat-up 1962 Mercury Comet aglow way off in the distance, the right turn blinker flashing for no good reason, stone cold dead at the curb near the Broadway 7-11. At first it appears empty, but as I inch closer I can make out a silhouette behind the wheel; really, just a disheveled clump of hair slumped over the steering column.

A siren in the distance grows louder, closer. Instinct has me accelerating from a stumble to a jog and then a sprint. The siren careens 'round the corner and just as I reach the passenger side of the vehicle, the officer rolls down the window of his cruiser and fires an automatic weapon at the Comet's windshield, the spray of glass knocking me to the ground. Johnny Law then aims squarely at the gas cap and grins: Bam! My dad's car is engulfed in flames now as I stare at the cop staring at me. He slowly removes a black leather glove and then his Ray Bans. Oddly familiar. And then I wake up, sheets damp, head pounding. This cycle repeats itself every few weeks and has for some time. There hasn't been any variance that I can recall, nor am I aware of this repetition during the dream itself, no anticipation or foretelling of events, it's as though each instance is the first time, every time.

Back in the waking world, I embarked on a journey into my ancestry this past week, both figuratively and literally. Jetting across the country to Seattle to partake in what has become an annual get together of my siblings this past Saturday. The sibling shindig has been going on for nearly a decade now, though it was my first. There are other opportunities to see them - holidays and such - but this is the one day that it's just us (no kids, grandkids, in-laws, etc.). And really, except for L., who I grew up with, and to some extent S., who lives near L. in Arizona, I'm just now getting to know this brood. It was enlightening, sharing stories and the drama of our respective lives, and it put me into a nostalgic frame of mind. Or maybe I was already there.

After the sibling thing, L. and I headed up north to Bellingham, WA to check out my father's early childhood hometown, peruse the landmark drug store our great uncle ran back in the day, and in general walk in the footsteps of dear ol' dad as a toddler, when he could still walk without weaving. It was enjoyable visiting an area that has grown and changed over the years - the Fairhaven section is a happening little hamlet of shops, coffee bars, and restaurants - and yet still pays homage to its history. Most places never seem to maintain that balance and are the poorer for it.

That's not why we came to Bellingham, really. The primary driver for this trip down memory lane was not simply to tip-toe through baby daddy's tulips but rather to locate and visit the grave of our paternal grandfather, who died less a year after our pop was born. We didn't pinpoint his final resting place at the Bayview Cemetery, despite diligently combing through the section their map claims was his. He died in 1925 and a lot of the tombstones from that period had decayed to the point of being unreadable, so we assumed one of those must have been granddad's. The following day, however, L. logged onto findagrave.com and discovered recent pictures of our grandpappy's slab in relatively fine shape, eminently legible. We were already an hour's drive back down south at this point, though, and weren't up for making a second pilgrimage just to see what we were already staring at online. Still, had it not been a Sunday the day before, we'd have stormed the cemetery office, demanding excavations and DNA tests! This was, after all, the man whose sir name we'd have proudly worn had my dad's stepfather not later adopted him, saddling us all with the putrid moniker weighing me down to this day ("putrid" is an appropriate adjective given our step grandfather's generally miserable, SOBesque demeanor).

Monday, I had a wonderful lunch with a childhood friend I'd recently rediscovered on Facebook. I hadn't seen him in over 36 years, so we had a lot to catch up on! These were my good memories of childhood, outdoors playing with the other kids. It turns out that we were both mostly oblivious to the acute dysfunction burning up the inside of the other's home, each fearful that it would boil over into the streets and expose our family's festering wounds to the neighborhood, unaware that we were in fact not so distressingly unique in that department. Domestic dysfunction might be as unique as a snowflake when viewed through a microscope; however, it's often sadly similar seen through everyday eyes. But outside, with the other children in the 'hood, I was free to be ... well, a kid. And so was he. We had some great times together and it was good to reflect on them.


After my lunch, L. and I visited the graves of our maternal grandparents. We had been there before as children, but still needed help to find the right "garden" in south Everett's Evergreen Cemetery. Luckily, it was Monday and the office was open. We eventually found grandma and grandpa, after some miscues and a personal escort to the location. (The escort got confused herself; the sections are not marked on the grounds, only on the associated map, and the map itself wasn't nearly detailed enough given the byzantine layout of the grounds.) This was the only grandma I knew (she died when I was eight). This grandpa died two years before I was born, but L. knew him briefly (she was five when he passed).

We drove through almost all of the streets of our hometown of Everett in between all this grave "digging." I had weaved a similar path a dozen or so years ago and have since made the journey virtually courtesy of Google but it's always revelatory making the in-person drive-by, interesting not so much because of the things that have changed but rather thanks to the things that haven't, and there are still quite a few falling into the latter category (probably the reason Everett hasn't been able to transform itself over the years, despite numerous concerted efforts toward that end).

Each time through Everett, I discover at least one thing I'd missed in previous treks. For instance, Washington elementary school is now a retirement home. The old brick building is still intact in the center of the compound, with newer structures surrounding it where the playground once stood. The iron monkey bars are long gone, though! As my sister remarked, we might one day come full circle and end up as child-like codgers, playing out our last days running around the grounds here just as we did in our youth. Ray's Drive-In on 14th and Broadway is still hanging in there as well. I recall eating out at Ray's on numerous occasions as a kid. In more adult matters, the Blue Moon - right across from Ray's - and the Doghouse Tavern still remain, though my dad never claimed either as favorites of his (taverns in Washington State can only serve beer and wine, you need to go to a "lounge" to get the hard stuff my dad used as fuel). Several members of his "posse" were known to frequent these dives on occasion, at least one of them - Darlene - enjoying the ambiance and denizens enough that she owned a Blue Moon "tavern" jacket.

So here I am now back in Philly, out of the cold dampness of the Pacific Northwest and into the sticky oven that is the Mid-Atlantic on this particular day in late May. The unofficial summer season kicks off tomorrow afternoon with the mass exodus "down the shore." And me? Well, I'm newly chock-full of my origins and now contemplating time's forward direction. I think I've finally hammered home to my psyche one unavoidable fact of nature: the future's the only past we can affect by our actions. In short, "Get over yourself and move on with life already." Amen.

Everett

I'm stained with the stench of my home town tearing,

from the Bel-Nes Cafe to the Sportscenter Lounge.

Viscous remembrances of paternal delrium,

dripping down Hewitt and Broadway and Hoyt.

I'm born from the edges of Herfy's and heartache,

from C. Van's, cirrhoses and China Doll strokes.

No cruising Colby, I'm merely Wetmore and walking,

eyes burning head down holes through the cracks.

His revelry on Hewitt dries to Strand Hotel sickness,

let loose of his feelings into porcelain streams.

I'm the sour-mash scion of a Foster Brooks plumber,

in the shadows of a pulp mill and a hangar and a hate.

Racing the Neighborhood Now and Then Briefly

Dipping one's toes into the murky waters of childhood memories is therapeutic, so I'm told. It's also pretty exhausting. Case in point, remembering life at Everett High School (that's it to the right). It was my first. It didn't take - neither did the second, Cascade High.

What's a family to do with an unmotivated 16 year old who'd rather play hooky ... at the public library reading every book he could get his hands on? Why, have him get a GED and on to Community College, of course! That's it to the left. Guess what? It didn't take any more than the high schools, so off to the Navy I went.  Just after I had protested the recently mandated selective service registration by refusing to do so! 

Story of my life with higher education, as I'd do that same dance at a number of institutions over the next 17 years trying to catch that elusive degree. And story of my life with sticking to my political principles. But my heart's in the right place.

I tell ya, it's kind of creepy being able to tool around your old neighborhood courtesy of Google maps street view. It's too bad the technology wasn't around 40 years ago. I'd like to be able to cruise the homestead over time, watching it morph from how it was to how it is. I imagine in 30 years that this'll be a handy feature for future headcases (ya know, the ones being fucked up right now) as well as anthropology/sociology or city planner/architecture buffs. Then again, that'll play havoc with revisionist history (at least with some of the visuals your defense system might have since re-purposed for sanity's sake).


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My neighborhood has changed surprisingly little over the years. The biggest single difference seems to be the walling off of individual properties. Fences and landscaping were for backyards when I was a kid - now a good half of the homes on my old block have big ol' fences around the front along with trees, flowers and shrubs winding around and through the enclosures, all neatly trimmed and weirdly isolating. Everything was so open when I was young!

Other than that ... The same old plum trees still line the edges near the curb, the hospital and high school look pretty much frozen in time (okay, some minor nods to technology with the signage). Same corner stores and whatnot (well, they have new names and likely new owners, but look otherwise alike). More cafes and coffee shops, a vacant lot where we played pick-up ball kitty corner from our block is now a fancy little park.

It's easy to slip back in time. And out of the house, they were usually good times for me as a kid. Man, I can just see the Big Wheels riding down the street, the banana seat bikes with playing cards in the spokes, our Evil Knievel plywood jumping ramps over three(count 'em) trash cans (well, on their sides) in the alley, army forts built in the backyard thatch of bushes. Buying paper kites from the corner store and flying them all over the place. Building wooden hydroplane models. My best friend Brian lived with his grandparents and we'd use his grandpa's tools and paint to craft these hunks of wood into passable miniature replicas.

Hydroplane racing was HUGE in our neck of the woods, certainly back then anyway (this was '68 or '69). Miss Pay-n-Pak and Miss Budweiser were the Yankees and Red Sox of that particular universe. Remember, we didn't have professional football or baseball in our state back then. You had to go clear to Oakland, California to find such things and the A's were indeed my team as a kid (a great team to have in the early 1970s). But they could be only so much my team given their geographical distance. So we had Soccer (go, Sounders!) and Hydroplanes.

Brian was always the Budweiser and I was always Pay-n-Pak when we 'raced' each other on our bikes, dragging those hunks of wood we had lovingly crafted behind us, pretty much destroying them in the process. I hated the Miss Budweiser. When I started to drink, I always loathed Budweiser beer too. I'm pretty sure it was the red-neck image and awful after taste but there's something inside me that always harkens back to that rivalry. Turns out, the boat owners, drivers and crews were incestuous, with Miss Budweiser and Miss Pay-n-Pak pretty much interchangeable apart from the sponsor's name slapped on the sides. What did we know?





Any time you wanna race hydroplanes, Brian - give me a shout, if you're out there.

Camelot on Hewitt

I'm a bit slow.

Slow to learn, to latch onto new ways of doing things. And slow to come to grips with unpleasant realities. Which makes me a notorious procrastinator with a see-no-evil set of blinders on my psyche that you had better not fuck with.

I have, I think, finally accepted that my boat's already 'round the bend of middle age, driven by an unyielding current, try as I might to row against it (I had more success stemming the tide with the aid of my Dorian Gray complex but I haven't seen it much lately).

Of course, if you go by average life expectancy, I made that turn into the mid-life crisis several years ago. After all, I'm in my late forties now and though I'd love to live into my mid 90s, the oddsmakers say it's not likely.

But, Christ, there is some hope. My mother's still hanging on at age 80, a life-long dedicated chain smoker and practicing alcoholic. A stroke at age 42, no visible means of support. Yet there she is. Somehow preserved in the far reaches of western Ireland, perhaps with the help of the boys back east at St. James Gate. A woman of full-blooded Norwegian descent, yet with a single minded determination to be Irish. If that keeps her going, more power to her. Could that work for me? I've tried being who I can't and it nearly did me in.

And that's contrasted with Dear ol' Dad, who missed seeing his 53rd birthday by 19 days when he came down with a touch of Cirrhosis (it was going around - I think he caught it off a contaminated glass or bottle). Were I him sharing his fate, I'd have five days shy of six years left. He was clearly a more accomplished alcoholic than Mom, try as she might. She drank beer and cheap fortified wine - he indulged in that kind of 'soda pop' only when he 'wasn't drinking.' Sadly, that is not an attempt at exaggeration or humor but simply how it was: he occasionally stopped drinking and when he did, he drank beer. She's become a willy veteran who can beat you with experience, but he had pure God-given talent, he didn't even have to try.

My Dad had a gift.

He was a local legend. The Prince of Hewitt Ave, regaling the denizens with tall tales of sorrow and shots of relief. The rest of us passed through that world but only he belonged; more than that, he ruled - as long as a paycheck lasted, after which he came home into temporary exile to rule again once the means allowed.

The Sport Center Cafe and Lounge usually stood in for the Prince's royal palace, Dad's Savings and Loan and the Port in his Storm. It was, to my vantage point as a child, a foul place. The only 'Sport' was hard drink in the Lounge, though they served food in the Cafe, required to rate a liquor license. "Booths for Ladies" in the window just to the right of "Paychecks Cashed." One sign unnecessary, the other essential. And cashed they were, his crown restored and a coronation celebrated all around once again. I see that the "lounge" portion of the Sport Center is now a biker heavy metal bar/club offering 'Booze, Grub and Rock-n-roll'. Indeed. Not so different, it all depends on how you define these things. The "cafe" portion is now The Whammy Bar, a name much more apropos, don't ya think?  The Sportscenter might have served as Royal Palace, but this Prince had several other estates from which to rule when the mood struck, the The Bel-nes further west on Hewitt, the London further east, and the Townhouse on Broadway being ready standbys.


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But then the paychecks slowed, finally stopping for good. Hewitt and the bars became Broadway, the State Store next to the B&M.  Liquor store booze outlasts the stuff in the dankest of dives, it was the simple economics of the dole.

After Dad's reign, Hewitt sometimes came to him, the possibility of free spirits leading them to our door. The Prince with no kingdom was still a soft touch.

Our door. Our little middle class house on the 1300 block of Hoyt. The folks somehow kept up payments while living on Food Stamps, Government Cheese, Booze, Pills and Smokes. It mystified me then how we managed. But I didn't know what I didn't know and blocked out the rest. My sister kicked in, other family members too. The folks meanwhile successfully mined various social security, 'disability', and unemployment loopholes, squeezing the last drop from those sponges into our coffers. My parents rolled their own smokes, made their own beer, Mom even braided the living room rug from old coats. Frugal and budget minded in their own twisted but inventive way.


Our clothes and toys were often secondhand chic, even when Dad was gainfully employed (he was an early adopter of direct deposit, into his Sport Center Lounge 'savings' account). Back then, we made the Saturday thrift store shopping rounds while he "cashed his check." The shopping invariably finished long before Dad was done cashing his fill.

I remember what should have been terrifying rides with Dad to the state store, usually one of his free loading subjects at the controls, their contribution to the cause. Occasionally
Dad drove, at least back when he still had a car. Until a motorcycle broadsided him while he was passed out at a stop sign, signaling the end of his days behind the wheel. After that, usually Leonard drove, sometimes Hal - every now and then Darrell or Olive tagged along. A vague Night of the Living Dead tinge clung to them, which was ultimately I think their bond. You knew the clock was ticking.

Why was I privileged to join in their reindeer games? I'm not sure - perhaps I asked to. I was 8, 10, somewhere in there. Doesn't seem like something a prepubescent guy would aspire to circa the early 1970s but my motivations and memories of that time are fractured. I do remember I was the only sober one along for the ride, indeed usually the only one not completely blind drunk. And I have hazy images of us weaving through the B&M supermarket parking lot, scrapping shopping carts and pedestrians, practically plowing into at least one patrol car, before defiantly skidding to a halt in front of the promised land of big clear glass bottles and little brown paper bags.

These were carefree days before drunk driving lost favor with the public and the law. Back then, just "Tis. tis. tis." Sad smile/shaking of the head. "Everett's royal rummies are out and about, for shame." Then back to their lives, leaving us to ours. Hey, speak for yourself, pal. They weren't rummies. Unless that was what was available. Whiskey was the preferred stuff - 'you know what kind - the cheapest.'

For the last several months of dad's motoring days, you could hear him coming at good distance - mufflers were not foremost on his mind in those days: when it finally fell off, he didn't bother replacing it, or perhaps didn't even realize it was gone.

Sometimes he drove me to Carver Middle School on the way to his bottle/bag promised land - Rrrrgghh!, Rrrrggggh!- my dad the race car driver, muffler perhaps still hanging by a thread being dragged behind us. Once or twice I was greeted at lunch recess by the sight of him slumped over the wheel George Michaels-style, his snoring a distant echo of the car's unrestrained combustion. Hey, isn't that your Dad? Oh, um, yeah - he races at all hours - it's tiring work, clearly. My appetite for school, at one point my sanctuary, really started to diminish from then on in.

I was born into a lubricated lineage and given a craft, a calling.



Mom and Dad were, in their own way, like the Barrymores of inebriation (come to think of it, the Barrymores had that market cornered as well). A fermented dynasty. Long shadows to escape, big shoes to fill.

I didn't and don't have the gift. I have no kingdom or subjects, no Hewitt Ave and no Booths for Ladies. There is a dive near where I live now that has a bit of the Sport Center's royal majesty, and I fashioned it as a surrogate for years. But I didn't and don't have the gift.

I'm slow to come 'round to things, it's true. But perhaps now there's still time for me to be middle aged.