Harvey and Bud were yin-yang brothers. Bud’s yin pulled him to the pastoral lands of Bill’s forty-two acre farm, to six apple trees and a slate roofed barn, to a Case tractor and feed mill gossip, to an overweight brown and white pony named Babe and four male peacocks from which Bud always gave feathers to the children on Christmas day; and although then traveling to Bill’s farm was only an annual tradition, driving a Model A over dirt roads, the visits were the highlights of Bud’s childhood, they were his secret pilgrimages; and although Harvey horsed around with the pitch forks and loose piled hay, he did not respect the scene, he did not understand the milieu; and thus, with Harvey gravitating toward urban factory life, Bud, looking through prophetic lenses, refused to even wade in those polluted waters, and although Harvey told him he would regret the seven day work week and the small returns, being at the mercy of the weather and the lack of a retirement pension, and although Harvey told him all the reasons for not being a farmer, tried to sell him all the lines that he himself was buying, when my father’s Great Uncle Bill died, Bud took over his small-time operation, and over the years as Harvey gave his youth to the Man, Bud gave his to the earth, and the two drifted apart, each intuitively longing for his other half, but each called in different directions, and although Harvey and Bud never meant to sit across from each other at the holiday table and have nothing to say, that is what they did, and as the years and the drinks flowed, Harvey and Bud’s opportunities slipped away, and their shared history eventually came down to an old photograph of two boys on a sled, Bud sitting in front between Harvey’s legs with his feet on the steering bar, and Harvey, bigger, behind his brother with his arms wrapped around Bud’s waist, and it took the two of them, trading off, to raise my father who was only searching for one solid man and instead received two troubled brothers, and Harvey and Bud would both die as they had lived––fragmentary men.
The only stores Bud ever patronized were pawn shops; thus, for my father’s graduation from high school, his Uncle Bud gave him a pair of gray field glasses he had rummaged from a back-street shop a week earlier. Years later, sitting in the rain at old Municipal Stadium, my father told me that Bud’s real name was Conrad, however, he could not explain the derivative, Bud; but none of this mattered then, in 1956, when his Uncle Bud accepted my father’s hand, outstretched in gratitude, not only for the binoculars, but for the drafty farm house with its hand-pumped water that Bud had opened to my father when Harvey’s drinking turned my father’s father into a maimed and odorous grizzly who struck with ugly black claws; for the ticket to game three of the ‘48 series where Larry Doby’s third inning home run landed just a few rows from their bleacher seats; for the rhubarb pies Aunt Lena, Bud’s second wife, sliced across the middle and split between my father and her husband as they recovered from August afternoons cross-stacking bales of green alfalfa in dusty hay lofts; for the Guernsey cream, skimmed off the top of wide-mouth gallon jugs, in which his Uncle Bud suggested my father drown his pie; for the rope-frame bed and the rag mattress to lay on it that his Uncle Bud salvaged from St. Catherine’s basement after receiving the blessing of Monsignor Kleese; for the grape soda his Uncle Bud had purchased for my father after the deflated crowd, they amongst them, moved away from the black and white television sets in Strauss’ downtown store, still disbelieving that Wertz could hit a ball over four-hundred feet and Mays could catch it; for the lessons learned on those cold morning milkings when ice skims would form over the full buckets before my father could empty them into the tank; for being a man; and for all that remains unspoken, even unthought, but known, known the way the apple knows its seeds and the locust knows its boughs; and so all these stories, this familial history, I learned from my father, not all at once, but in fragments and antidotes told during thirty years of ballpark talk, for nowhere else did my father and I fit together, nowhere else did we stand on even ground. I, with my linguistics classes and rhetorical research, with my two story condominium and bohemian goatee, with my passion for Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, with my amateur sculptures of nude bodies and mad dogs, with my fallen-Catholic agnosticism and forgotten photos of old girlfriends, with my soft-hands and smooth baby-face, with my cerebral leanings and abstract conundrums, with my Miles Davis Kind of Blue and Kerouac beatitudes, with my graduate school moratorium and fears of commitment, with my dead-end psychoanalysis and reflective scrutiny, found little to say to a worker, to a man who washed after work instead of before, to a man who has too many projects to know the beauty of a snowy Saturday afternoon wasted reading Chekov’s stories in an avant-garde coffee shop, to understand the liberation of sitting all day in front of Caillebotte’s Paris: A Rainy Day at The Art Institute of Chicago, to listen to the wind while standing on your head in the Wyoming desert, to waste time; to the man who knows how to fix a broken furnace, a wrecked car, a noisy drier; to the man who lives in antidotes, who disparages complexity, who sees a messy oak tree where I see a primeval archetype; to the man who answers riddles pragmatically. And I too once wanted to do those things, I too want to see that way, I too tried to do what he did, but I could not, and thus, with he embarrassed for me, and I embarrassed at his embarrassment, we have passed awkward holidays and strained birthday parties, and have managed the best we could, and yet, the ballpark is where we talk, the ballpark is the frame of our only real relationship, and it was there, in old Municipal Stadium, that my father told me about those aforementioned binoculars and about that September day, nine years later, before my father would beget me, his only child; before the first season since ‘59 that the Indians would finish ahead of the Yankees, when, after climbing onto the old barn’s slate roof, after loosing his footing and falling thirty feet, his Uncle Bud, lying in a rented hospital bed in the farm house dining room, with wiry chin hairs needle-like below his dentured mouth, shirtless and doughy, attired in threadbare blue pajama bottoms strapped at the waist and matted brown slippers, called my father a son-of-a-bitch bastard and lobbed a feeble fist at his sagging brown eyes.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Archive #3
As previously stated, one of my motivations in starting a blog is to gather together the poems and stories I have written over the past 25 years. I want to get them all together and posted on the web primarily for the sake of knowing where they all are and feeling some comfort in their accessibility.
So with that said, here is "Part One" of a story I wrote some time ago. I decided to post it in parts so as not to tax the one or two readers who might be kind enough to actually read it. If I am speaking of you, thank you.
The Value of Baseball
The Value of Baseball
Part I:
Harvey rolled like a pinball. In 1934, four months after leaving school at sixteen, he worked twelve hours a week unloading flatbed produce trucks at Patruli’s Deli. During his off time, Harvey leaned against rusted piers under the Market Street bridge with the other men––the German, the Slovak, and the Lithuanian immigrants––groping for steady work. Interchangeable, expendable men slouching fifty feet below the bridge and just outside the yards, clad in filthy, drab work cloths and boots of worn leather with their steel-toe caps peeking out here and there like patches of gray primer beneath chipped paint, smoking cheap tobacco in hand-rolled cigarettes and green Lucky Strikes and hitting off hazy homemade booze until it did not much matter that the bearded Croat in the booth had posted the NO sign for the fourth day that week; and until it did not much matter that even when the man did give the order to insert three or four guys to this mill or that yard, that the Croat would not so much as spit at you if you were unfortunate enough to carry no vouchers from those already inside; and until it did not much matter that even mill work was unlikely for a two-bit punk like him. And so, blunt and vagrant, time passed for Harvey, and just when he figured he could stand under that bridge no longer, just as he was about to abandon ideas of mill work, to hit the open road, to pick up and jump trains to California, or Texas or somewhere different, to slip out of the mill before ever slipping in, Harvey caught a bone. A bone tossed by a grimy man with forearms bigger than Harvey’s thighs who saw Bud’s kid brother walking to Patruli’s and remembered his visage from when they used to skip rocks at him until he would run away, and from when they used to wet-willy him until he would cry; and thus, the next morning, Harvey walked aside this man, aside this heavy plate and black iron worker who looked just as filthy that morning as he did the night before; aside this stoic figure of labor who casually wore a leather tool belt over his shoulder and who carried a dented and scratched lunch pail––an industrial knight so long clad in the armor of the trade that Harvey could not have imagined him looking any other way; aside this progenitor of scarred and bruised children who ran wild in the streets jumping free rides on the back of milk trucks and playing football with an old soup can before belly-flopping into the murky Mahoning River; aside a worker so unaware of leisure, happiness, and holiday that he clustered the concepts with that of death and tossed them all down to be trampled by duty and obligation; aside a grown son whose own father had incinerated in a coke furnace during the long-shift; aside his precursor; and, indeed, from seven o’clock that drizzly Wednesday morning until three-thirty in the afternoon forty-seven years later, between which time begetting three children from a wife who broke vertebrae after slipping on bathroom tile, between which time cultivating a dry hacking cough which eventually would lay him to rest, between which time enduring two severed fingers and the unstable knees of a laborer, between which time learning how to hide flasks in toilet tanks and tool box drawers, between which time tattooing welts on his forearms with the leaping embers that accompany the welder, Harvey worked sheet metal. When Harvey crossed the threshold that last afternoon, he wore a gold-plated watch presented to him by the owner, he carried a pension booklet passed to him from the shop steward, and, most importantly, Harvey held the memory of that summer afternoon, in 1956, when he spoke to his eldest son, my father, about an apprenticeship in the trade and hooked my father into that same shop that entrapped so many good men into three bedroom homes and American automobiles, into little leagues and booster clubs, into Florida vacations and Fourth of July cookouts, into black coffee and tomato juice, into Sunday mass and visits to Catholic cemeteries, into twilight double-headers and high school football games, into cheap domestic beer and cigarette coupon booklets, into January first kielbasa in sauerkraut and wedding tables covered with platters of kalalcity and pizzelles, into a way-of-life, a structure, out of which a man develops pride, loyalty, security, perseverance, and comfort, and it was these qualities that turned good men into pigeons, that blinded the prophets and sages, that allowed the structure to crumbled upon them as the mills collapsed and their understanding of how the world worked, of order, of logic, of life, ceased to exist like a flame extinguished, like an alarm silenced, like a scream muffled; and these men watched Youngstown wrest into a ghetto of aimless middle-aged workers by US Steel and Republic Steel, and even Bethlehem Steel, one by one shutting the gates of their antiquated mills and leaving for Asia, Mexico, and the south-western United States where trade unions carried the stigma of greedy workers and ruined industry; but my father, who somehow stayed afloat while his comrades sunk into ruin––lost their homes, their families, their dignity––refused to abandon Youngstown, refused to extract our family and float south where skilled welders worked for half of his wage and felt lucky. The shop somehow prevailed over the erosion which surrounded its dilapidated buildings and sweaty men. My father still worked, and thus he was still able to believe in honesty and loyalty and the creed of the worker––if I work harder, if I work longer, if I do a better job, I will prosper––and so much did my father believe in these ideals that even in 1981, well after the mills had abandoned the valley, well after the lifeless ex-workers ceased to be angry and settled into the despair of shattered existence, when the shop, which once operated six days a week with three shifts of forty men crews, was operating merely one shift of ten men––a ghost town of five B workers, four foremen working labor on the floor, and a one-armed shop superintendent––my father declined an opportunity to quit and open his own sheet metal company––risks demeaned prudence. Instead, he followed his creed and held strong to his belief that the shop would be there for him, but beliefs and creeds are intangibles which have never spoken with a strong enough voice to throw down a crooked owner increasing profits and ignoring deferred maintenance, forlorn buildings, and antiquated equipment; and who alone dropped the company so deep into a chasm that after thirty-five years of physical labor, my father lost his job, and the bank sold the foreclosed property that was what I had always known as the shop to developers who dreamed of a trendy Mahoning River district, and who left one building standing amongst piles of rubble when they drifted away in the night.
Harvey rolled like a pinball. In 1934, four months after leaving school at sixteen, he worked twelve hours a week unloading flatbed produce trucks at Patruli’s Deli. During his off time, Harvey leaned against rusted piers under the Market Street bridge with the other men––the German, the Slovak, and the Lithuanian immigrants––groping for steady work. Interchangeable, expendable men slouching fifty feet below the bridge and just outside the yards, clad in filthy, drab work cloths and boots of worn leather with their steel-toe caps peeking out here and there like patches of gray primer beneath chipped paint, smoking cheap tobacco in hand-rolled cigarettes and green Lucky Strikes and hitting off hazy homemade booze until it did not much matter that the bearded Croat in the booth had posted the NO sign for the fourth day that week; and until it did not much matter that even when the man did give the order to insert three or four guys to this mill or that yard, that the Croat would not so much as spit at you if you were unfortunate enough to carry no vouchers from those already inside; and until it did not much matter that even mill work was unlikely for a two-bit punk like him. And so, blunt and vagrant, time passed for Harvey, and just when he figured he could stand under that bridge no longer, just as he was about to abandon ideas of mill work, to hit the open road, to pick up and jump trains to California, or Texas or somewhere different, to slip out of the mill before ever slipping in, Harvey caught a bone. A bone tossed by a grimy man with forearms bigger than Harvey’s thighs who saw Bud’s kid brother walking to Patruli’s and remembered his visage from when they used to skip rocks at him until he would run away, and from when they used to wet-willy him until he would cry; and thus, the next morning, Harvey walked aside this man, aside this heavy plate and black iron worker who looked just as filthy that morning as he did the night before; aside this stoic figure of labor who casually wore a leather tool belt over his shoulder and who carried a dented and scratched lunch pail––an industrial knight so long clad in the armor of the trade that Harvey could not have imagined him looking any other way; aside this progenitor of scarred and bruised children who ran wild in the streets jumping free rides on the back of milk trucks and playing football with an old soup can before belly-flopping into the murky Mahoning River; aside a worker so unaware of leisure, happiness, and holiday that he clustered the concepts with that of death and tossed them all down to be trampled by duty and obligation; aside a grown son whose own father had incinerated in a coke furnace during the long-shift; aside his precursor; and, indeed, from seven o’clock that drizzly Wednesday morning until three-thirty in the afternoon forty-seven years later, between which time begetting three children from a wife who broke vertebrae after slipping on bathroom tile, between which time cultivating a dry hacking cough which eventually would lay him to rest, between which time enduring two severed fingers and the unstable knees of a laborer, between which time learning how to hide flasks in toilet tanks and tool box drawers, between which time tattooing welts on his forearms with the leaping embers that accompany the welder, Harvey worked sheet metal. When Harvey crossed the threshold that last afternoon, he wore a gold-plated watch presented to him by the owner, he carried a pension booklet passed to him from the shop steward, and, most importantly, Harvey held the memory of that summer afternoon, in 1956, when he spoke to his eldest son, my father, about an apprenticeship in the trade and hooked my father into that same shop that entrapped so many good men into three bedroom homes and American automobiles, into little leagues and booster clubs, into Florida vacations and Fourth of July cookouts, into black coffee and tomato juice, into Sunday mass and visits to Catholic cemeteries, into twilight double-headers and high school football games, into cheap domestic beer and cigarette coupon booklets, into January first kielbasa in sauerkraut and wedding tables covered with platters of kalalcity and pizzelles, into a way-of-life, a structure, out of which a man develops pride, loyalty, security, perseverance, and comfort, and it was these qualities that turned good men into pigeons, that blinded the prophets and sages, that allowed the structure to crumbled upon them as the mills collapsed and their understanding of how the world worked, of order, of logic, of life, ceased to exist like a flame extinguished, like an alarm silenced, like a scream muffled; and these men watched Youngstown wrest into a ghetto of aimless middle-aged workers by US Steel and Republic Steel, and even Bethlehem Steel, one by one shutting the gates of their antiquated mills and leaving for Asia, Mexico, and the south-western United States where trade unions carried the stigma of greedy workers and ruined industry; but my father, who somehow stayed afloat while his comrades sunk into ruin––lost their homes, their families, their dignity––refused to abandon Youngstown, refused to extract our family and float south where skilled welders worked for half of his wage and felt lucky. The shop somehow prevailed over the erosion which surrounded its dilapidated buildings and sweaty men. My father still worked, and thus he was still able to believe in honesty and loyalty and the creed of the worker––if I work harder, if I work longer, if I do a better job, I will prosper––and so much did my father believe in these ideals that even in 1981, well after the mills had abandoned the valley, well after the lifeless ex-workers ceased to be angry and settled into the despair of shattered existence, when the shop, which once operated six days a week with three shifts of forty men crews, was operating merely one shift of ten men––a ghost town of five B workers, four foremen working labor on the floor, and a one-armed shop superintendent––my father declined an opportunity to quit and open his own sheet metal company––risks demeaned prudence. Instead, he followed his creed and held strong to his belief that the shop would be there for him, but beliefs and creeds are intangibles which have never spoken with a strong enough voice to throw down a crooked owner increasing profits and ignoring deferred maintenance, forlorn buildings, and antiquated equipment; and who alone dropped the company so deep into a chasm that after thirty-five years of physical labor, my father lost his job, and the bank sold the foreclosed property that was what I had always known as the shop to developers who dreamed of a trendy Mahoning River district, and who left one building standing amongst piles of rubble when they drifted away in the night.
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