When I first started working in Boston nearly 8 years ago little did I know of the cast of characters that would eventually cross my path.
At the cigar store where I work I have come to believe that every day is just like Halloween.

There were people like Bill the tobacco eater.
His name will tell you all you really need to know about him. And no, I’m not lying.
Bill has always been partial to McClelland pipe tobaccos.
Don’t know why but I guess they just taste great.
Not sure how the people at McClelland would feel about that.
Bill also had the facial pallor of a year old corpse.
Maybe you’re not supposed to eat this stuff.
Then there’s Snuffers, a strange ogre-like man that snorted more nasal snuff than any human being on the planet.
During the summer months he would come into the store wearing sandals on his feet displaying brownish toenails that were not unlike box cutters.
I remember thinking that the guy could climb trees with those toenails.
There’s Mr. D who depending on the day of the week would speak with a slow southern drawl, ala Colonel Cornpone (even though he had a regular Boston accent)
On his Colonel transformation days he would call me, ‘Maakul’. [Michael]
Sounds almost exotic, doesn’t it?
D has admitted to us that he sometimes wears panty hose around the house when he’s alone.
Bet that does wonders for the property value of the neighborhood should some unsuspecting eye see him traipsing around the house wearing a sexy pair of black fishnets.
I know, TMI.

If I really thought about it I could come up with many more names of folks that should honestly be living in the Odd Fellow Home.
There’s Bucky the gap toothed hooker, Head Wound Harry and Creepy Fedora Boy and on and on.

This brings me to Mr. B.
I met him in the first month while working at the cigar store. He was an older gentleman in his mid eighties by the looks of him and was an avid pipe smoker (of the meerschaum variety), a ladies man (really) and one great joke/story teller.
On one particular visit he pulled out a magnifying glass from his old leather satchel, winked at me and said, “Watch this.”
He stepped outside of the front door of the shop into the sunshine and proceeded to light his pipe with the magnifying glass as curious passersby pointed and smiled at the most peculiar Mr. B.
There was something really likeable about the guy, endearing even.
If you didn’t know him you would swear he was deaf as a haddock but it was usually because he often forgot to turn his hearing aids on.
Before he would leave he would always tell us a joke.
In his later years he would pull out a tattered wallet for his ‘cue cards’ as his memory was slowly going south.

A Mr. B joke he once told me:

A woman comes out of the shower and looks in the mirror.
She’s real flat-chested and says to her husband ‘What can I do to make these bigger?”
The husband says, “Get a little piece of toilet paper and rub it up and down between your boobs for a month and they’ll get big.”
“What makes you think that will do it?” says the wife.
The husband says, “It worked for your ass . . . “

I wish this little story had a happy ending and who knows, maybe it does.
I found out the other day that Mr. B died a year ago in December.
He was 91 years old.
I hadn’t seen him in a while a thought about him the other day.
Google confirmed my suspicions when I found his obituary still online.
I’ll remember him for many things but mostly because he never failed to make me smile.
I have a sneaking suspicion that many people felt the same way.
Funny that I’m not calling him by his full name.
He has more videos telling his jokes on YouTube than I will ever have. [Truth]
Farewell, Norris, my old friend.
I tip my baseball cap to the ever present one on your head.
Heaven just got one hell of a cool guy.
Rock the white clouds, you sweet bastard, rock the clouds . . .

As life chugs steadily along it never ceases to amaze me
how many small pieces of our lives get shoved away like so many broken summer fans,
once treasured baseball cards and small gifts and such that meant so much at the time of the giving.
From the books we once started and never finished, to the phone calls we were supposed to make but never did,
to all the relationships we took for granted,
we get caught up with life; be it day to day, night by night, or dawn to sunset.
We are all guilty of this innocent abandonment of connection with the things we once considered ‘golden’.
What amazes me is that this purely human phenomenon  happens without our consent or recognition.
I become aware of it when and old friend calls me out of the blue or I hear a particular old song on the radio.
My mind is jarred and my brain gets pickled in a way that makes me realize that I have all but forgotten ‘the old me’.

So, here I am looking at a new beginning of sorts with the love of my life.
We will be picking up from where we left port so many oceans ago.
Our rare romantic dinners were filled with conversations about our three girls, their dreams,
wishes and ultimately our plans to try like hell to help them get there.
Those numerous transient conversations were never about us,
never about Michael and Pamela and how ‘they’ were doing.
I like to think that we were confident enough to know that nothing was being lost in talking about the girls.

I loved her.

She loved me.

It was an unspoken thing.

And I bought dinner. (always)

I don’t say all this in a dark and stormy ‘my-daughters-took-my-wife-away-from-me’ kind of way.
Life happens.
Children are born.
And more children are born.
Priorities are established and life continues on . . .  in a different way.
I guess what I’m really trying to say here is that I was blessed to be married to a woman
that could see the same pictures of life as me.
That doesn’t happen to many people, hence the alarming divorce rate, perhaps.
Our priorities were exactly the same.
Maybe that’s why my Pamela is still the best friend I could ever hope for.
I may even go so far as to say that she still ‘melts my butter’ and truth be told she heals the tattered soul in me.
Although she doesn’t even know it.
That is the beauty of ‘her’.
She just doesn’t know, never has, never will.
Amazing.
I want her to run away with me very soon because I want to tell her how much I have missed ‘us‘.
I think we have succeeded in raising three incredibly awesome daughters.
But now it’s time for M&P.
Destiny is a crazyass thing and what’s done is done and I pray we‘ve done right.
But maybe now is the beginning of the best part of our lives.
As long as I have my true companion, I think I’m gonna be alright.
Actually, I know I’m going to be alright. . .

For the sake of a Needle . . .

~m

You’re in 6th grade and  you’re a dorky kid with acne, a really bad haircut,
blackheads that populate your face like buckshot and the fashion sense of Pee Wee Herman.
Every teacher’s nightmare, you are a somewhat uninspired student that only dreams of playing the guitar
and reading books.
This particular year takes you by surprise,
gets your freak on, because there’s this girl you see when you walk from class to class in that stupid straight line.
She smiles at you and you smile at her.
Yeah, that’s groovy, my man.
Hormones declare war somewhere inside your hideous purple pants with those terribly-coloured maroon pockets.
And although you’re no slave to fashion, these pants are cool.
You want her (or so you think) but you’ve yet to say so much as a word to her.
It seems too awkward.
You, are awkward, too.
Today she’s wearing an emerald green ribbed turtleneck with a matching green tartan-plaid skirt.
There’s a white bow in her dark brown hair and you discover that her eyes are chocolate brown, just like yours.
She has a nice smile and lips as crimson as a sun-ripened tomato.
You almost imagine her sitting in her room, gazing out of her window and wondering if she’s pretty.
And she is.
‘If you could read my mind, love.’ – Gordon Lightfoot
[you throw up in your mouth a little bit at that one lyric]
In one day, you find out that her name is Kathy and that she isn’t going out with anyone.
Her BFF Debbie says to you, She thinks you’re cute.
Ask her if she wants to go steady, you say.
(Does anyone ‘go steady’ anymore? You wonder to yourself.)
The next day Debbie gives you a small envelope and says, “This is from Kathy.”
Inside is a short letter of boyfriend acceptance and a small picture of her from the yearbook
(definitely not suitable for framing)
So, we’re going out, you think.
In that same train of thought, a switch fucks up, trains collide and you think, now what the hell am I supposed to do?
As a 6th Grader you are no good at romance and you’re even worse as a student.
The days pass like honey through a sieve and you see each other several times during the day.
The relationship has inextricably moved to the ‘greeting’ stage.

Hi, you say.
Hi back, she says, smiling.

It’s all good.

This goes on for what seems like two years but in reality is two weeks because you are too damn obtuse to know what to do next, what the girl really wants.

Hi, you say.
Hi back, she says, now sounding kinda pissed off.

You haven’t done anything.
No.
Really.
You. Have. Not. Done. Anything.

Debbie stops you in the hall a few days later and says, “Kathy has a message for you. She says, ‘sit on this and rotate’.”
She walks away and you’re left standing alone in the antiseptic smelling and all too shiny middle school hallway wondering what the hell ‘sit on this and rotate’ actually means.
It must be good, you think.

You talk to Bobby Collins, the oldest kid in the neighborhood and ask him what it means.
He laughs, holds up his middle finger and says, “Sit on this and rotate.”
While Bobby pees his pants from laughing so hard, you start laughing too as you slowly begin to understand the absurdity of love [life] [courtship] [and ultimately, the female gender]
You realize you have much to learn about this ‘going steady’ thing.
In your mind, you can hear Beaver Cleever saying to his older brother,
“Gee, Wally . . .  girls are kinda icky, huh?”
You don’t really believe that and you just can’t stop wondering what it would have been like just to hold her hand.

Now and then someone comes into your life and changes it.
They improve and inspire it, smoothing out the rough edges and pushing you towards
your own personal creative and artistic dreams.
For me, the writer, I have been blessed to have met Mira Bartok, a gifted artist, musician and writer.
How we met is a long story and not fodder for this particular post.
Mira has a memoir coming out this January [1.11.11] called, ‘The Memory Palace‘,
a story about growing up with a gifted, incredibly talented but schizophrenic mother.
I was honored that Mira sent me an ARC [advanced reader copy] of the book
which I devoured in less than a week.
Mira’s words and images took me on a journey I won’t soon forget.
For me, the memoir confirmed the idea and thought that, ‘Love conquers all.’
I refuse to give anything away except to say that this book literally took my breath away.
It’s about love and forgiveness, music and art, memory and the present tense, home and the homeless.
This book changed the way I feel about the many panhandlers I walk by every day in Boston,
a city filled with sad stories and sadder characters.
Watch the promo trailer and please, please, please leave a comment.
If you could pass the Youtube link on to several friends, I would be forever grateful.
When someone does something wonderful for my writing and creative life, I need to return the favor.
This book is incredible, as is Mira . . .
[and her husband, my dear friend and multi-talented colleague Doug Plavin]
just watch . . .

There’s a subdued purple crimson suggestion of a new day off to the east and I can’t help but wonder
what today will bring.
It’s yet another pedestrian Monday morning;
another chance to make the pieces somehow fit, a seemingly impossible task.
But there’s always that “what if” that keeps us all steadily on track.

I took a nice long stroll yesterday with my wife through a cemetery right near our house.
I cherish these walks because they set me straight,
keep me sane and burn calories (something my physician loves).
It’s quiet and peaceful and my wife and I consider the many folks there our personal friends.

Over the years, they’ve been privy to our most intimate conversations;
our quandaries and concerns, our aspirations and clandestine dreams.
As we walk and try to somehow figure it all out; this life,
this frantic situation we always find ourselves in.
Most days, we leave the cemetery with more questions than we came in with
making me wonder if that’s the way it’s really supposed to be.

The cemetery is surrounded by water and my wife sees a lone swan off in the distance,
floating silently on the water.
There’s no breeze and the murky water appears to me as black glass; static and dim,
the reflections of indigo sky above screaming of a visual paradox.
So much like our lives, I think.

“I wonder where the other one is.” She says.

“The other one?” I ask.

“Yeah, they always travel in pairs. Like us. That’s the way it is with swans.”

“I didn’t know that,” I say, “I only see one.”

“Me, too,” She says.

My wife scans the area surrounding the pond and seems sad the swan is alone;
an almost bittersweet sentimentality.
Our conversation veers off on another relatively impossible tangent as we continue our walk
around the winding cemetery road,
both of us unconsciously searching for the second swan.

~m

During my lunch hour today I wanted to drop off a fountain pen for repair.
This meant a walk to Downtown Crossing in the shopping district,
an area swarming with people today due to the warm summer weather.

The Bromfield Pen Shop is a place I have dreams about with all their pens, cool ink and exotic paper.
It’s the only place in Boston to take a sick pen; the patient of the day: a Mont Blanc fountain pen.
As I walked down Washington Street, grilled sausages, onions and red and green peppers assaulted my olfactory senses.
I was hungry and had multiple thoughts of mustard.
Spicy, brown mustard.

I was limited on time so I dropped off the pen and didn’t chance a look at the new inks
that had undoubtedly come in.
I am a big-time sucker for creatively colored inks.
Thank my lucky stars I didn’t have the time to spend money I don’t have on inks I really don’t need.
And ink is sooooo cool.
You have no idea.

I left the pen shop and walked up Bromfield Street when I saw a sign for a tres cool sandwich shop.
I walked in and saw a line longer than the bank on payday.
I would settle for a grilled chicken sandwich from Burger King. (yummy, right?)
I sat down to eat and noticed an older black man panhandling right outside the front door.
This guy was a bit different though.
He wasn’t asking for money, though he did hold a large BK cup in his hand.
I watched through the glass as he mouthed ‘hello’ and ‘have a nice day, now’ to the many people walking by.
He was polite and generally unobtrusive for a needy guy.

And he was needy.

He stood about my height (5’8”) and had on ratty clothes, the overall effect topped off
with a weathered Boston Red Sox hat.
His toothless smile seemed almost innocuous. . . inviting.
You almost wanted to forgive him though he’d done no wrong, if that makes any sense.

As a rule, I don’t give money to street people.
I might offer a piece of fruit or a bottle of water if I have an extra.

I reached into my BK bag and took out an order of French Fries that I hadn’t ordered.
I brought them up to the register and told the woman that waited on me that I hadn’t ordered them. She waved her hand in a ‘no comprende’ way and said ‘keep them’.

I haven’t been eating fries lately and decided my windfall would be a snack for the man outside ‘working the street’.

I ate my lunch and continued to watch this man smile, say hello, give directions and take whatever this unblinking society would give him.
I finished my sandwich and grabbed the bag with the fries (still sufficiently hot) and left.
I walked up and handed him the bag and said, “Here, eat these. You do eat fries, don’t ya’?”

You would have thought I’d just given him a winning lottery ticket.

He smiled and said, “Bless you, my brother. Bless your heart.”

I walked across Tremont Street and through a warm, sunny Boston Common back to work,
oddly happy to have been sincerely blessed.

~m

*a repost from a time I can’t seem to forget

This morning, the highway was filled with a multitude of disembodied headlights, each one searching through a seemingly inexhaustible mist, an optical illusion a bit tough to handle at 6AM when you’re still sleeping.
I made it onto the train and stared out the window at the relentless sheets of rain.
The dark and rainy skies made me think of a night many years ago when I went to my parent’s house after a slew of frantic phone calls from my mother.
She would freak out on a fairly regular basis back then.
At the time, she was in the late beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and I was still in total denial.
I pulled into the driveway and saw her silhouette standing in the open doorway.
I remember thinking she looked peaceful standing there
and not the frantic woman I’d just spoken to on the phone.

I called her name.

“Mom?”

No response.
As I walked up the stairs, I could see her staring off into the distance, detached and trance-like.
I stood next to her to try and see what she was looking at when she said,
“Look. There’s million’s of them.”

“Millions of what, Mom?” I asked.

“Stars,” she said, “Can’t you see them?”

In the front yard there was an old oak tree, the leaves still dripping from the heavy rain.
Behind the oak, I could see the front porch light from the Jacobson’s house
up on the hill illuminating the thousands of falling raindrops.
Stars, I thought, it’s raining stars.
I took off my glasses to see the world, if only for a moment, through my mother’s eyes.
A simple oak tree was being transformed into an impressionistic masterpiece right in front of me, thanks to a few misfiring neurons located somewhere in my mother’s brain.

“It’s beautiful, Mom.” I said.

“Yes. It is…” She replied.

I didn’t realize it at the time but the raindrops falling from the tree closely echoed the neurological avenue my mother was currently traveling down.
The drops of rain falling and disappearing into the waiting earth were so much like her failing memory,
a collection of antiquated shooting stars ultimately destined to crash and burn, their celestial beauty gone all too soon.
As we stood silently on the porch, an internal cog clicked inside me.
It was a frightening moment of absolute realization.
My phase of denial had finally come to an end.

~m

Some thoughts from many years ago (2006)
Seems like yesterday . . .

We had my father over for Easter dinner on Sunday.
My sister wanted to pick him up and bring him over; something I believe she had to do.
I think she fears there won’t be many more left to share.
Sadly, I would have to agree.
Actually, I would have agreed over a year ago.
I have to give her credit for going through the rigmarole of getting him ready,
seated safely in the car and bringing him over to our house.
I’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt.

My father has a difficult time walking these days reminding me more of Charlie Chaplin than the man I once called “Dad”.
It’s an unfortunate physical side effect of a brain at war with total neurological disintegration.
We eventually got him into my living room and plopped him down in my favorite chair:
one, because the chair is just so damn comfortable
and two, because when we finally let him go, it would be impossible for him to miss it.

We all sat down to eat and my sister and I filled his plate with ham,
green beans and Au gratin potatoes, all of which we cut up into pieces to make it easier for him to feed himself.
And feed himself he did.
He ate everything on the plate.
Either my cooking was really good that day or where he’s currently staying is really bad.
Whatever the case, it was wonderful to see him enjoy a meal.
He didn’t speak a word as he ate.

My wife caught him stabbing at an empty spot on his plate.
She gently rotated his plate to where the food was and he was none the wiser.
Mission Accomplished.

The rest of the afternoon went off without a hitch.

After eating, we ushered him back to my chair where he fell asleep; perhaps shuffling through his own little world of monochromatic movie screens and silent dreams . . .  a sleeping Charlie Chaplin.

We woke him an hour or so later and got him back into the car.
As I fastened his seat belt, I looked at him as he peered over the rims of his glasses and I said,
“No Boston Marathon for you tomorrow, young man.”

I’m sure he didn’t understand a word I said but knew enough to do a little chuckle and mutter, “Yeah”.

He plays the game so well most days so why the hell can’t I?

For me, the Easter cupboard was somewhat threadbare in terms of holiday revelations
and personal epiphanies but I did get to marvel over the way my Dad still gets through his days.
In many ways, he’s graceful in a way I may never be.
As long as his surreal movie keeps playing,
I’ll continue to watch him as he shuffles through his seemingly silent and black and white world,
just like Chaplin.

~m

[photo courtesy of Kelly]

I’ve been mulling over in my mind the past several weeks wondering if I could
crystallize my many thoughts into one fine black point.
The little voice inside my head just said, “Are you really serious?”
Since the night I wrote ‘Boxes’ my world has changed dramatically.
On one level, there is this welcome sense of relief regarding the final end for my father and his long fought ordeal; another level acknowledges a deep sadness knowing and accepting the fact that he is truly gone.

I took a ride yesterday afternoon to North Cemetery where my mother and father are now buried.
It was unseasonably warm with a cobalt-blue sky, a Cape Cod-like sea breeze and enough
brilliant sunshine to make me start daydreaming about the summer months ahead.
This place where the earth now wraps its arms securely around my parents has become
hallowed ground for many reasons.
For me, it is a tangible point of communication, a visible portal to somewhere I’ve never been,
a place where special things happen and are accepted for all that they are.
It was no different yesterday as I stood staring at the rose granite bench bearing the names:
Virginia A. & Walter M.
Best friends, I thought.
The engravers had paid a visit and finished the stone.
The circle was now complete.
I was alone in the cemetery and sat down on the sun-warmed bench, stretching my legs out into the sunshine.
To my right was the small flag stuck in a holder that now marks my father as an American veteran.
I was sitting for less than a minute when the wind picked up.
The tiny flag began waving gently and touched my arm.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, smiling at the thought.
The flag continued to wave, touching my arm, my soul, my heart.
It was sitting there that I began to finally accept the finality of these past few weeks.
The stone was done, seeds were planted and tears rolled down my cheeks watering the dry earth below me.
As I stood up, the breeze ceased and the flag drooped down.
I kissed the palm of my hand and placed it on the warm rose granite bench that now held their names.
“You’re finally home, Dad,” I said to an empty cemetery.
I got in my truck and drove away a different man then when I originally came in and
for the first time in many years, something felt right.

~m