Thoughts As The Temperature Enters Free Fall

2-15-2023

I first wrote this a couple of weeks back when the free fall was imminent. What's currently imminent is my back operation. Finally. If you are reading this, I'm either in the operating room or recovery. I'm publishing this now because Sunday morning is out, and I cannot promise the following Sunday because I don't know what recovery will be like. My instructions from a couple of folks who have done this: Don't be brave. Take the pain medicine. All of it. As for the following weather report: it's terse, and a bit unsettling. 

February 3, 2023

It's so quiet. It settles so softly yet so urgently this quiet. We are at six degrees above zero heading to minus thirty degrees (wind chill) over the next twenty-four. So quiet. So still. Frigid air settles over the land like parachute cloth. Everything snaps or can snap. Apprehension is the watchword, an anxiety rarely brought on by living like we do. Will half a tank of oil be enough? Will the power go out? Will the pipes freeze? Will we? Jamie is upstairs currently wrapped in an electric blanket, but if the power goes out? I brought in three extra armloads of wood this morning to keep from running outside for more during the coldest stretch. We won't freeze, but damage could occur. The county emergency commission called each resident to warn them of the pitfalls. Stay inside. When the seasons change, when the snows fall, when the rains pound and thunder there is awe and wonder and maybe a soupcon of worry that the roof could leak, but there is no fear. The weather we have now births fear. It's like more and even greater weight continues to press down upon you. There is little escape. It presses down and down. Both hands. Is this what it's like in a desert heat wave? I was once in weather in excess of 120 degrees with no shade, and it felt like this - dangerous - like walking point on patrol, like being pressed under a hot rock, a human panini.

Normally, the drama of the weather fascinates me. I don't watch the weather channel, but I do stick my head out the window a lot, not to mention time spent daydreaming on the bridge, weather permitting. However, this stuff going on outside my house right now gives me pause. Jamie calls downstairs on the walkie-talkie to me in my office, "Minus twenty degrees." I don't want it to linger. I want it to go away. I think of being squeezed by a gigantic python thick around as a truck tire. I went outside to latch the porch door against the growing wind, took off my glove to do so, and my fingers damn near went numb before I got back to the house.  Looking at minus thirty degrees. We're prepared for a black out - lanterns within reach, lots of firewood, extra water, quilts, bread'n'butter - but still it won't be pleasant, and it won't be exciting. It ain't Ukraine, and it ain't Turkey, and it ain't Syria, but it is a notch on the survival pole that I can do without.

Further Annals, Etc. - Ms. Agnes and Lorelei

Her breasts were so big they came atcha like an an eighteen wheeler with the high beams on. The other one's smile was like an abandoned highway. One lived in a Beverly Hills penthouse apartment, the other on the streets of that same city. One drove a Mercedes. The other carried a throw rug with her wherever she went so wherever she was she could simply plop it down and say, "I'm home." As for the penthouse, it wasn't really a penthouse but it was the top floor of a fifties, four story, stucco apartment building, and so the developer called it the penthouse, actually, the penthouse suite. 

It was an interesting period of time. Thanks to a Hollywood career that had more craters than the moon, I was again plying the raw streets as a social worker. This time my constituents were the male and female denizens of halfway houses before going on with the next phase of their lives, if they had one - the homeless, addicts, alcoholics, parolees, ex cons. That same period of time I was also hiring out as a writing coach to folks who could afford my rates, which is how the one I shall call Lorelei from Beverly Hills came into my life. One summer. Two women. One's name I can't remember. One's name I can't use. So. Ms. Agnes and Lorelei shall they be.

Lorelei had been a centerfold in a national magazine who now worked for that same magazine meeting potential centerfolds and welcoming them into the "family", making certain they were met at the airport and escorted through the motions, sure they were both cared for and safe. Lorelei had had a tumultuous and very public affair with a very famous actor, absolutely, positively the love of her life. He was a known curmudgeon and womanizer, but what they had was so special the world should know. Or so she fancied the world should know. She wanted to show what it was like when they were together, just the two of them, away from the spotlight. Oh, how lovable he could be! Not like in the trades. So beautiful. So beautiful. Perfect for the screenplay she was bursting to write, asked around, and hired me to help her write it. So, for a period of weeks, we worked together daily, in the penthouse suite, and, in the evening, I'd go see Ms. Agnes who'd just come in off the street.

I met Ms. Agnes when she was coaxed in by another worker. She had managed to acquire a small propane heater to ward off chilly nights, but it had been stolen earlier that day by some guy who punched her in the face, grabbed the heater, and ran. She could not remember whether she had spent the night with him, but he cold-cocked her hard when she looked the other way and scuttled off. "People ain't mean," she said, "But livin' like make 'em cruel to the point of death."

Lorelei augmented her income as a model in various states and stages of dress and undress. Even now, twenty years later, those breasts continue to amaze me. Kind of like a singular statistic, you know, like the tongue of the blue whale weighs six tons. Can you believe it? The tongue alone weighs six tons! She wouldn't tell me her age, of course. She was in her forties, I'm sure, but lookin' very very fine regardless of two score plus. And maybe plus again. I'm not sure, but the photographic range was astonishing from coy to near porno. Oddly, her sexuality was not on display when she wasn't modelling. It was like being in the room with a sculpture by Michaelangelo, the David, for instance - awesome but you don't touch it. It doesn't even invite you to touch it. Yet, it's naked. What it does: It says, "Stand back. Breathe. Just take it in." 

She amazed me, Ms. Agnes did. She actually missed the street and intended to go back out. While we spoke she packed and unpacked her worldly goods on a decrepit baby carriage she pushed in front of her. 

"Room ain't safe." She tried to explain. 

"The street's safe?" I asked.

"Safer."

"But you were punched and robbed out there!"  She shrugged. 

"People livin' home get punched, too. They don't? I don't read the papers? What inside a damn room gonna do for me? I still got to hustle lunch.  A job? Me? What I know how to do and who's gonna hire me and why do I want to work for 'em anyway? For a 'partment where the door ain't lock and the landlord ain't do shit? Don't need no Goddamn landlord. I got my rug."

 "What about when it rains?", I asked. 

"I get wet." 

"What about sick?" 

"Coroner know where I am."

A few months after working with both these women I left Los Angeles for good and settled on a creek in a valley in the Catskill Mountains. Decades later, from this vantage point, I am astonished at the parade of so many fascinating characters throughout my life. As a young teen I remember standing on the street corner in downtown Baltimore checking out all the passersby, making up stories about them, finishing their conversations. I'm still at it. My mother used to say, "You got a mouth? Use it." The key is to know when not to use it. One of my pleasures has been the ability to talk to anybody. Forget attitude. Just listen. I worked in the White House knee to knee with a sitting President of the United States, and I've talked with a bushman around a campfire in the jungle. The key? Get them to talk about themselves. I don't need to tell them what I know. I already know it. I need for them to tell me what they know. Whatcha got cookin' interests me a lot more than what I've got cookin'. I tend to over cook, anyway.

Even Further Annals of a Social Worker

I first wrote about my stint as a social worker a few blogs back. Folks wanted more. Here's more. 

After graduating from Morgan State College (now, University), I went to work for the Baltimore City Department of Public Welfare, Childrens Division, Emergency Care Squad. There were only five of us for the entire city. When a child was reported in difficult straits, abandoned, neglected, brutalized, or otherwise abused, one of us would be called to ensure the child's safety. Most of my clientele were Black, but two families come to mind who weren't: Miz Homewood's and the DeCosmo kids.

Miz Homewood was a thief with three sons. She'd been intimate with all three and taught them well.  When she came into my life, her two oldest were serving prison terms for breaking and entering, and her youngest might as well have been. He was in reform school, now due for release, so, since he was still a minor, I went to the mother's apartment to do a quick home study. There was no place else for him to go except for foster care which, it turned out, was better than going back to mama or the street. But, this was an official visit and had to be done to keep things official. 

Her apartment was the second floor of a small brick building that should have been boarded up, originally built to house slaves, a fact that caused her a fair amount of grief. She was immediately on me to find her some place else where "they ain't". "I don't want my boy raised like this," she told me, completely oblivious to the irony. As low as she was, she needed to know someone else was even lower. Lyndon Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Emptying pockets was Miz Homewood's specialty: yours, mine, hers...

Miz Homewood, native daughter of West Virginia or Tennessee or someplace like that, called herself a back porch Baptist because she loved the Lord but loved to sing and dance and sip her whiskey, too. "It don't hurt none to frolic." Wasn't gonna give neither up. She also had no teeth, not an incisor, not one molar, stumps maybe. I never wanted a closer look, and all she wore was a ratty, chenille bath robe. She assured me, "I'm gonna f*** you 'fore we're through." I assured her she wasn't, although I remember motoring down the hall to get away from her which wasn't easy given that back then suit, tie, and cordovan brogans were normal attire, even on the mean, hot, Summer streets of southwest Baltimore. Nothing Nike about it, but I did leave her cackling in my wake. 

That's not the worst part. The worst part follows.

While her youngest was in reform school he left the care of his prized flock of homing pigeons to his mother. I didn't see any. Where were they? She beckoned me into the kitchen where she opened the oven door to reveal a number of baked birds, stomach side up, little claws reaching for the sky. She didn't say anything, but her gummy jaws moved back and forth. I'm sure I recommended foster care, although what ultimately happened to her son I can only guess, as is the case with all my clients. I wonder what happened to them? Did any of them escape? Did he? Have I passed him on the street and not known it?

                                        ************************************

The DeCosmo kids (there were three of them - Karen, eight, the oldest, a younger sister and still younger brother) came into my care when child services was called to a rundown apartment where these three children seemed to be waiting patiently for someone to pick them up. They had been bathed and dressed well, their nicest clothes, hair fixed and combed, plus there was enough food to last them the day plus an extra large box of Rice Krispies, their favorite cereal. It was a Hail, Mary play by the parents who could not find work and had no money, so desperate and incapable they concocted this scheme to park the kids as safely as they could, report their whereabouts as abandoned children to the police (who would then call in child services), and drive off to find employment while living in their car. These were not ragamuffins but cared for little creatures who could no longer be cared for. I was an emergency care worker, and here they were. We were immediately drawn to each other. 

Even after all these years I wonder at their comportment? All three remained calm and agreeable, and I could already see the oldest, consciously or not, assuming the role of Older Sister, fixing her little sister's dress, brushing back her baby brother's hair. What had their actual family life been like? All of them had reddish hair and freckles. They did not want to be separated, so I needed to find a home that would take all three, preferably on a continuing basis. I managed to find one, and, once they were officially in that home, my job was officially over. I'd provided emergency care, and others would take over from here. I was supposed to let go, but this is one of the few times I didn't. I wanted to be a staple for them as long as I could and so visited them periodically, stayed in their lives awhile. I don't remember how it came about but the three of them were transferred to a convent, so I no longer had access to them. Then the time came for me to move on. 

Morgan State had been my saving grace. They accepted me provisionally when I'd run out of other options and my life had ground to a screeching halt. I'd failed so many times - high school as well as college - I had nowhere else to turn. But, Morgan was there. Morgan accepted me. I wrote my first play at Morgan. Morgan jump started my life. I graduated magna cum laude and was accepted to Yale for grad school. Yale? Me? That's right. Yale! Given my pathetic academic history, how could I turn Yale down? I couldn't. Being a social worker was and remains the best gig I've ever had. It was a tough choice, but I had to make it. I would need to say goodbye.

I thought of the DeCosmo kids, wondered, again, what would happen to them, wanted again to see them so literally went and knocked on that convent's formidable front door.

The door was so thick I marveled that the knock even went through when suddenly it flew open and there stood a force so potent it pushed me back. A nun in full regalia glaring at me as if I were sin incarnate or a turd on the hem of her habit. How dare I knock on this holy timber! Who are you? What do you want? What I wanted was to see the DeCosmo kids one more time, to thank them for the delight they brought into my life - Some day I will be a father - how they'd helped to soften my days with their smiles - And this is what that will be like. 

Sister probably shouldn't have relented, but she did, and I spent the next hour chatting with the DeCosmo kids about this 'n' that. A sister may have overseen us, but I have no memory of that. There was still no word from the mom and dad, but those kids were quite resolute in believing their parents were coming back for them. Yes, the sisters were very nice, and there was plenty of food. They had Rice Krispies. You did have to chip in and help at table, though. This is school, too.

I heard from an ex co-worker a couple of months later that the parents had come back and collected them. Word was there were jobs and a home in a neighboring state. There was no word of charges brought.

Nearly sixty years have passed, and I still have their school size photos on my bulletin board.