—by Benny Jay on March 31st, 2009
I’m talking to my Dad on the phone and he doesn’t sound good. He says he has a crick in his neck and it’s very painful. He sounds tired. He’s 83. I worry something’s wrong.
So I drive to his house and I walk in as my Mom and he are finishing dinner. He doesn’t look good, a little too pale.
He says he has to lay down. But he’s too tired to move. He slumps in his chair. My mother stands at his side, to keep him from falling to the ground.
She gently pats his face and asks: “Are you all right?”
No response.
“Can you hear me?”
He starts to snore.
“Is he sleeping?” I ask.
“Who falls asleep like this?” she responds.
She calls 911. An ambulance and a fire truck show up, red lights flashing. Four paramedics walk into the house. They call out his name. He’s still slumped over. They lift him from the kitchen chair, put him in a wheelchair, and strap him in. It scares me to see him helpless in that wheelchair. “He was in the paratroopers,” I tell them. “He used to jump out of airplanes.” They wheel him out of the house and into the ambulance….
By the time I get to the emergency room, he’s sitting up in bed, wide awake. It turns out he drank two Scotches on top of taking a painkiller — Vicodin — and that’s what knocked him out. My mother’s taking the blame cause she gave him the pill.
Everyone — especially me and my mom — is relieved to see him strong. As different doctors and nurses enter the room, my parents repeat the story.
“It started with that crick in his neck,” says my mom.
“It hurts,” says my dad.
“He shouldn’t have taken the painkiller with the Scotch,” says my mom.
“Ever hear of anything like that?” I say.
“It’s still painful,” says my dad.
“You know what you do for a crick in the neck?” I say. “Take a tennis ball and rub it where it hurts.”
The doctors and the nurses leave the room. It’s just me and my parents.
“They’re talking about you in the hallway,” I tell them.
“No they’re not,” says my mother.
“Yes, they are. Hold on — shh.”
I put my head out of the curtain lining the room and pretend to be listening to a conversation in the hallway. I bring my head back into the room and say: “They’re saying: `Who would take Vicodin and Scotch for a crick in the neck?’”
My dad ignores me. “The crick is painful,” he says.
“Try the tennis ball. I’m telling you — it loosens up the muscle….”
Another doctor comes in and my dad asks her what she would do for a crick in the neck. “Apply heat,” she says.
“Heat’s good,” I say, after the doctor leaves. “But, the tennis ball’s better.”
My dad looks at me with exasperation and says, “Benny, stick that tennis ball up your….”
I can’t tell you how good it is to get back to normal.
—by Milo Samardzija on March 30th, 2009
I was sitting in the admitting office of the
Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, waiting to set up an appointment for a physical. I had made the mistake of coming down on a Monday, which is the busiest day at the hospital. Thursdays and Fridays are best. There are generally no lines at the end of the week and you can be in and out in 20 minutes.
The reason I was at the VA was that I had given up my health insurance a while earlier. My wife and I are both self-employed and our incomes have taken a serious hit over the past year and a half. Along with the rest of America, we are feeling the effects of The Great Meltdown. We had to cut expenses somewhere and decided this was a good option. As a combat veteran, who was exposed to
Agent Orange, I’m
entitled to VA health care. After all, I risked my life, limbs and sanity in
Vietnam (where, I believe, the
USA won the
Silver Medal,) why not take advantage of any perks the government might offer?
A veterans’ hospital is a strange place. Like the late, great
James Brown sang,
This is a man’s world. The only women in sight were nurses, doctors, and clerical workers. The patients are almost completely male, which makes sense when you consider that the armed forces, especially the combat forces, are predominantly male, too.
If a VA hospital is a man’s world, it is a damaged man’s world.
It is where soldiers who were injured in the service of their country come for treatment. One of the reasons they come to the VA is that most health insurance plans have a devilish stricture known as “a pre-existing condition.” I’m sure I don’t have to explain this asinine clause to any of my readers, but a
pre-existing condition is enough to exclude most wounded veterans from traditional health care insurance. Many of them have no choice but to turn to the VA.
As I mentioned, the hospital was crowded that Monday. I couldn’t help but notice that a surprising number of people waiting for treatment were maimed. I’m talking about amputees, double amputees, men with limps, men with walkers and canes, blind men, disfigured men, and a few who appeared to be insane: men who talked to themselves, made wild gestures, or drooled.
As I was sitting in the waiting area, a man in a wheelchair rolled up next to me. He was an elderly black man with a blanket covering his legs.
“How you doing, brother?” he asked me.
It was a question that veterans understand on many levels. It wasn’t simply a conversational ploy. It was an existential question about the state of your universe – your mental, physical, and social well being. The old man was asking if I was eating well, getting enough sleep, making ends meet, having
nightmares, or suffering from any of the horrors associated with war.
“I’m doing fine,” I answered.
“Where was you at?”
“Vietnam.”
“I was in Korea.”
“That must have been tough.”
“It was, brother. I never been so cold in my life. Lost all the toes on my right foot. Had a hole in my boot.”
“Damn.”
“I understand ‘Nam was hot.”
“Yeah, real hot. Rained a lot, too.”
“I’d take hot over cold anytime.”
“I would, too.”
“You can hide from hot but you can’t hide from cold.”
“You’ve got a good point there.”
“I live with my daughter. She always keep the thermostat too low. I tell her, ‘Turn up the heat,’ but she say it’s gonna raise our electric bill. I tell her, ‘Fuck the damn electric bill, it’s too cold in here.’ Man, I hate the cold.”
A few moments later they called the old man’s name and he rolled away to meet his appointment.
As I looked around the spacious waiting room, I noticed that it was a truly diverse place, blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, young men, old men, middle-aged men, all in the same boat. I saw a white man pushing a black man in a wheelchair. I saw black men drinking coffee and chatting amiably with white men. I saw young men, probably
Iraq veterans, companiably exchanging war stories with men three times their age. I heard raucous laughter, saw handshakes and high fives. I saw men comparing old wounds and scars. I saw a mixed race group rush over to help an elderly man who had fallen.
I saw joy, humor, and dignity among men, who by all rights, should have been in states of regret, sorrow and despair. I reflected on the fact that if it’s true that the military is the least segregated institution in America, then a VA hospital proves that shared experience and shared adversity can often trump hatred and intolerance. That was the good thing about a veteran. It made you part of something that seemed pure, somehow divorced from much of the ugliness that pervades out society.
Despite the bitter cold of that March morning, I had a warm feeling when I left the VA hospital. I felt that I had somehow reconnected to the great and generous soul of humankind. But it was a long walk to my car and the cold started getting to me. I buttoned up my coat and put on my hat. Damn, I hate the cold.
—by Big Mike on March 30th, 2009
My visitors of last week – my oldest pal Sophia, her husband Danny, and their two kids, Matty and Arianna – left yesterday afternoon. While they were here, the place was a madhouse. From Sunday to Sunday, only the Louisville Zoo hosted a more cacophonous symphony of barking, roaring, whining, giggling, guffawing, meowing, and flatulence.
The Loved One was only able to take part in the distemper for one full day and parts of two others.
As noted here previously, she drives in from
Bloomington, Indiana on Friday nights and leaves on Sunday afternoons.
Now I’m alone.
Solitude is more indicative of the writers’ lot than all the pens, pencils, word processing programs, or alcohol in the world. Good old
Benny Jay has constructed a book-lined garret in his North Side manor. He pounds out his
political pieces and
books there as well as opuses for this communications colossus. He’s tied in to all corners of
Chicago, taking calls on separate phones like a bookie with two minutes to go before the starting bell. He’s greeted every morning by an avalanche of emails. He’s constantly communicating with the outside world. Yet, he’s pretty much alone all day long.
Conversely,
Milo, Gary’s Greatest Writer, does his work in the basement. He’s banging on doors constantly (and electronically,) trying to convince business owners that his advertising copy will make them jillionaires. Again, by the end of the day, his throat is sore from all the yakking he’s done. And again, he’s been all alone.
Me? I pound away at the keyboard in the basement, just like Milo. Except for last week, my Murray Hill Pike ranch house is normally as quiet as a Chrysler showroom. Every couple of hours or so, one cat or the other will steal into the litter box positioned behind my office area. The sudden sound of scratching usually makes whatever hair I have left stand on end.
We’ve all
learned the last few years that one of the most pernicious methods of torture is the
imposition of solitude. Enforced, extended loneliness makes human beings
crazy. Some of the effects include visual hallucinations, the hearing of voices, self-mutilation, and a grab bag of other psychoses.
Yet guys like Benny Jay, Milo, and I have elected to sequester ourselves all the live long day to gather the pennies that society showers on us literary craftsmen.
Solitude won’t make us crazy; we already were crazy.
Big Mike’s Marital Bliss Update
Last week, if you recall, I opted for domestic tranquility over the First Amendment. I concluded
my Saturday post by writing that the question of whether The Loved One would be compelled to revisit our dispute over my Tuesday post (not linked because it no longer exists) was one of those definitive challenges of marriage. In essence, I was holding my breath as I signed off on Saturday.
You’ll all be happy to know (although not in a million years more so than I am) that The Loved One didn’t utter a peep about the affair while she was home for the weekend. Whew – I finally get to exhale.
Allow me to crow. I would have had neither the smarts nor the discipline to finesse the situation as I did had it happened even as recently as ten years ago. It’s a good bet The Loved One wouldn’t either. Sometimes I wonder if marriage isn’t an operation best undertaken by those past the age of fifty. And why isn’t a written and practical test mandatory before a couple gets a marriage license? We do it before people get drivers licenses. I’m willing to bet that lousy marriages have caused more death and destruction than all the auto accidents since World War II.
Anyway, I feel that The Loved One and I both aced our own test. Congratulations, Kitty - we did it!
—by Benny Jay on March 29th, 2009
It’s the Illinois Prep Top Times annual state high school indoor track championship and I’m down in Bloomington, Illinois ’cause, you know, I just eat this stuff up.
Here’s the deal. I’m gonna share a room at the Hampton Inn with Caldow, my old pal the track coach. The high schools with the smaller enrollment are running on Friday and the schools with the bigger enrollment are running Saturday. Caldow’s skipping the Friday meet. But he knows we’re sharing a room — I think….
The Friday night meet goes longer than expected. But it really doesn’t matter cause it’s just off-the-charts. They got this kid Zack Riley — remember the name — a high jumper out of Herrin, Illinois. Which is somewhere south near — I don’t know — Kentucky? The kid’s killing the competition and I swear I don’t see how he does it. He’s a wispy thing, light as a feather. Jumps about seven feet. Can’t really call it jumping. He just sorts of floats over the bar.
Anyway, by the time I get back to the hotel it’s nearly two in the morning. The clerk at the desk — call him Waldo — gives me my key. I wander up to my room. Only the key doesn’t work. I swipe it one way, then another. I flip it over and swipe it again. Nothing. I know I’m clumsy with technology, but I remember mastering the key swipe thing about a decade ago. So something’s definitely wrong.
Back I go to the front desk, where Waldo — by now we’re old pals — breaks me the bad news. If the key doesn’t work that means Caldow’s got the door bolted. And there’s nothing we can do short of waking him up with a phone call. Don’t think I’m not tempted. But I start feeling guilty about it cause I know how hard it is to fall asleep in the first place, much less after you’ve been awakened.
That’s how I find myself blurry-eyed in the lobby, watching Middle America walk through the door. I’m thinking — there’s a lot of people up late in Bloomington, Illinois. Where’s all action?
I start chatting with Precious, a shot-putter from Chicago. She’s got her own situation. She left her luggage in another girls’ room — now they’re sleeping and she can’t get in.
“I knocked on the door, but they don’t wake up,” she says.
“Why don’t you just go to sleep now and get your clothes in the morning?” I ask.
She looks at me like I’m crazy. And I remember: I don’t understand teenagers and teenagers don’t understand me.
We’re just sitting in the lobby chatting about this and that when in walks Billy, an assistant coach. He’s a young guy — still in his early twenties.
“Hey, Billy,” I say, “can I sleep in your room?”
“C’mon,” he says.
“You’re not leaving me?” says Precious.
I shrug. What can I do? It’s either Billy’s room or the parking lot.
It’s a small room with one big bed. Billy takes one side, I get the other. I’m thinking: Abraham Lincoln used to share beds with a law partner. Back in the day.
I wanna tell Billy all about it. But he’s asleep. Dude put his head on the pillow and — bam — he’s in sleepy land. I hear him snoring. Not really loud. Thank goodness for that. Tell you the truth, I’m envious. Oh, to be young and fall asleep in a heartbeat. I lie there thinking about stuff. Think about that kid Zack Riley. I wonder what it’s like to fly through the air? I think about the Bulls — what else? They play the Pacers tomorrow. Oops, make that later today. I notice it’s light in the room. No wonder! Billy’s laptop’s glowing. Probably radiating me and him. I look at the time. Three o’clock. Damn! I think I’ll go to the bathroom and read “A Passage to India.” That ought to knock me out. Hell, don’t even have to go the bathroom — there’s almost enough light to read it right here. What with Billy’s freakin’ computer glowing….
Ring! Ring! Ring!
What the fu….
I’d been sleeping. Somehow or other I managed to fall asleep. Now I’m fumbling to kill the sound. It’s the phone. By the bed. I pull it to my ear.
“Yeah?” I say.
“Billy?”
It’s Bob, the coach.
“No, it’s Benny,” I say.
“Did I wake you?”
How can I possibly answer that question in a way that won’t end in sarcasm?
“Devyn’s coming up,” he says. “She needs the key to the van.”
“Great….”
The clock says it’s 7:15. Four hours of sleep. I roll on my back and look at the ceiling. Billy’s still sleeping. Of course the phone didn’t wake him. Dude could sleep through a tornado.
Knock, knock.
I crawl out of bed, stumble to the door and look through the peep hole. It’s Devyn, Daddy Dee’s daughter.
I lower my voice and growl: “Who is it?”
“Devyn….”
“Devyn who?”
“Devyn Tee….”
“I don’t know no Devyn Tee….”
She looks puzzled, like she’s thinking — oops, wrong room.
Hee, hee. I open the door. “Fooled ya,” I say.
“Pops — that’s not funny,” she says, as she marches into the room.
She sees Billy just rousing. “Oooh, you and Billy shared a bed….”
“It wasn’t like that….”
She grabs the key and is gone.
Down in the breakfast room, I see Caldow. “Nice play, Shakespeare,” I tell him. “Lockin’ me out.”
“I swear — I didn’t do it on purpose,” he says.
I tell him I shared a bed with Billy. He says he had to share a room with Billy at another meet. “I woke up and he was hugging me,” says Caldow. “I think he likes older white guys…..”
I can see he’s happy with that joke cause a few seconds later he repeats it. I can’t blame him. A good joke is like a good horse — you wanna ride that baby forever.
Hours and hours later, after the final race of the day, we’re eating at a Steak `n Shake somewhere in the middle of Illinois. Caldow points to me and says to Billy: “Which one do you like best?”
“Man, I feel like I’m in a love triangle,” says Billy. “I feel like the inside of a reverse Oreo cookie….”
I like that joke so much I repeat it a few times. Matter of fact, I’m repeating it now. But, as I was just telling you, a good joke is like a good horse….
—by Big Mike on March 28th, 2009
The email came in on Thursday, prefaced by no fewer than six sentences composed entirely of the single word, Please.
It was from The Loved One. To refresh your memory, she’s staying in the town of Bloomington Indiana during the workweek while I remain in Louisville trying to sell our home. Ergo, the email.
She’d read my post of Tuesday, March 24, and wasn’t happy. Entitled, “A Fallen Idol,” it recounted the accidental revelation that I dabble occasionally in a pastime that is common, winked at, relatively harmless, and, by the way, a tad illegal. I say it was accidental because in the course of a conversation, I’d forgotten that my 13-year-old niece Arianna was sitting at the lunch table. Without thinking, I let slip the dabbling in question. Arianna promptly raked me over the coals for engaging in such a pursuit when she’s warned ad nauseum not to do so.
It was one of my personal favorite posts for this communications colossus. In it, I grappled with my status as a role model for an impressionable, adoring young girl. I concluded by writing that I have no good answers for any of her pointed questions.
I’m being cagey here because of the email. The Loved One begged me to remove the post. She argued that the mere mention of the pastime could lead to dire consequences. Lose of jobs. Imperiling future employment opportunities. Loss of health care coverage and worse.
My first impulse was to stiffen my spine and refuse to delete it. I girded for the fight. I’d cite the
First Amendment. I’d invoke artistic license. I’d pick apart her arguments with the precision of
Clarence Darrow or
Johnnie Cochran. I’d crush her silly demand as easily as I’d snuff out a cigarette butt with the toe of my shoe.
Luckily for me, I’d been enjoying a beer when the email came in. I planned to get to work immediately on my brilliant rebuttal but first I had to return some of the ingested beer to the
water cycle. I stood in the porcelain-tiled room, performing that time-honored post-libation ritual, thinking about how unfair The Loved One was being to this sensitive virtuoso. As the seconds ticked by, I entertained delicious images of The Loved One slinking away in defeat, having been humiliated by my unassailable logic. Consequences, huh? I’d show her the consequences of trying to squelch a literary craftsman!
Would
Mark Twain have stood for this?
Phillip Roth? For pity’s sake,
Salman Rushdie went underground for years in defense of his right to publish freely.
Then I zipped up. Suddenly, the thought occurred to me that The Loved One really wasn’t trying to smash my windpipe with the heel of her jackboot. Sheesh, she’s just a caring, somewhat scared working person trying to keep our family income level north of the poverty line.
Do I really want to crush her? Humiliate her? Would I enjoy watching her slink away in defeat?
Like that, I decided to delete the post.
Deleting a Google Blogger post is awfully easy. Physically, that is. A couple of button clicks and the post disappears as if it had never existed. Still, there was a pugnacious, righteous part of me that resisted fiercely.
The second – and more important – consideration was the fact that, golly gee, I really do love The Loved One! Even if I disagree with her reasoning (and believe me, I don’t buy a word of it,) this means a hell of a lot to her.
Is my pompous dedication to some ideal of literary purity worth more than her sense of well-being? The answer, I reminded myself and my recalcitrant button-clicking finger, was no. I clacked the delete button and the post was no more.
I dashed off a response to The Loved One’s email. I did it, it read. I want to keep peace in the family. Now, I never want to hear another word about it again. Ever. Please.
I feared rehashing the argument might stir up my blood.
My old pal Danny, whose family is visiting me this week, laughingly reminded me that many wives just might find the urge to revisit the contretemps irresistible. Hmm. The Loved One, I suspected, might indeed wish to explain herself in greater detail after returning home on Friday night. I told Danny I hoped she wouldn’t. All I need to know is that removing the post means a lot to her.
It’s Saturday morning now. She hasn’t mentioned it yet. The hammer may fall soon. Then again, maybe it won’t. So goes the challenge of marriage.
—by Jon Randolph on March 27th, 2009
Fridays are for
Randolph Street on
The Third Word. Sundays are for a higher
calling at the
Bethel AME Church, 4440 S. Michigan Ave. Photojournalist
Jon Randolph shot these pix on April 1, 2007.
Jon Randolph’s lens is a window to Chicago. Join us every Friday for
Randolph Street. We’re here every day for the lives, loves, and characters of The Third City.
—by Milo Samardzija on March 25th, 2009
I went to a memorial service this past Tuesday for a dear friend who passed away at the biblical age of 101. His name was Morris “Morrie” Rosengard and he was the oldest man I ever knew.
How in the hell does someone live to be 101? I’ve read articles and seen news stories about people who have lived for more than a century and when asked about the secrets to their longevity they always say something like, Never had a drink in my life. Don’t smoke. Went to bed early. Didn’t eat red meat. Went to church twice a day.
That wasn’t Morrie, not even close. Morrie liked to drink, smoke cigars, and eat red meat. For all I know he had impure thoughts, too. His favorite vice, however, was gambling – cards, horses, sports, casino games – he loved them all. That’s how I met him, at a poker game, more than 30 years ago. His nephew, Bruce Diksas, was hosting the game. Bruce had been telling me stories about Morrie for years. I had expected to meet a colorful character and I was not disappointed.
Morrie was a pharmacist by trade. For years he had a drugstore in Bridgeport. Rumor had it that as well as filling prescriptions, Morrie ran a 24-hour, high stakes poker game out of the back room of his store. That may or may not be true, but it was true to his character.
Morrie was a wonderful man, but he was no angel. Some of the people he associated with were not candidates for sainthood either. He was friendly with people whose names you’d regularly see in the newspapers, and I’m not talking about the society pages. He knew “connected” people, bona fide members of the Chicago Outfit, guys who made their livings the hard way and often took long vacations at government expense.
Once, at a wedding, a short, stocky man came up to Morrie and chatted with him respectfully for a few minutes. When the man left, Morrie leaned over to Bruce and whispered, “That’s the meanest man I ever met in my life.” Coming from Morrie, who had rubbed shoulders with some of the toughest, most brutal men in Chicago, that was high praise indeed.
As a matter of fact, in the 1960s, Morrie had some legal problems of his own. But they were just bumps in the road. He took them in stride, just like everything else in his life. Not much fazed Morrie.
I was in my 20s when I met Morrie and he was already close to 80. He was born in 1908, the last year the Cubs won the World Series. He lived through World War I. He saw Ty Cobb play baseball. He roared through the Roaring 20s and survived the Great Depression. He served his country honorably in World War II. The US Army was in dire need of pharmacists, men trained and experienced in the phamacological arts. When I asked Morrie what he did during the war, he replied, “I passed out rubbers at Pizmo Beach, California.”
Morrie lived through VE Day and VJ Day. He lived through the Korean War, the War in Vietnam and the wars of George Bush. He was born when Teddy Roosevelt was president and lived long enough to see Barack Obama inaugurated. He was around when horses were the main means of transportation and when Neil Armstrong took a stroll on the moon. He had, literally, seen it all.
I made it a point to call Morrie on his birthdays. I had a nice chat with him on his 100th birthday. When I called him on his 101st, his wife sadly informed me that Morrie was in the hospital. He had fallen down the day before and broken both of his legs. When I asked how he was doing, she said, “He knows what he’s up against.”
Morrie was a gambler, someone who knew the odds and understood probabilities. He knew what was coming. But even the most cold-blooded, experienced gambler sometimes relies on luck. Maybe, just maybe, he might spike an ace on the river. Unfortunately, Morrie’s long run of good luck had finally run out. There was no miracle ace.
I was honored when Morrie’s family asked me to make some comments at his memorial. Here is a transcript of my remarks.
I guess everybody here knows that Morrie enjoyed a friendly game of cards on occasion. I also understand he was very fond of horses, although I don’t know for a fact that he ever sat on a horse. I met Morrie more than 30 years ago at a poker game. He was introduced to me by his nephew, Bruce Diksas, who was hosting the game.
Bruce told me a lot about Morrie over the years. I felt like I knew him before I ever met him. When I did finally meet Morrie, I was impressed. He was smart, friendly, a good conversationalist, and a real gentleman. I’ve considered him a friend ever since.
I didn’t see Morrie as often as I liked. Usually it was just a few times a year, at card games, the race track or small gatherings. But every time I ran into him, he brought a smile to my face. Some people are like that, they just have a natural magnetism that draws people to them.
Anyway, I want to get back to our friendly games of cards. Despite being more than twice as old as most of the players, Morrie was usually the first to arrive and the last to leave. And when he left, he usually left with more money than he came with. I should know, a lot of that money was mine.
Now, some people will say that Morrie lived a good life, a long life, an interesting life. I agree. He had a good run. But as far as I’m concerned he left us too early, because now I’ll never be able to win my money back.
I’d give almost anything to sit down at a card table with Morrie again, and watch him sip his scotch, smoke his cigars, laugh at a good story, or tell one himself. He was wonderful company and I’ll miss him dearly. It was an honor and a pleasure to know him. Rest in peace, old friend, you deserve it.
