Big Mike: My Very Own Ghost

The Loved One is like a cat. She has a way of moving about silently that has led me to the brink of the heart attack that I deserve more times than I care to remember.

For instance, I’m washing dishes early in the morning, lost in solitary thought about the origin of the Universe, say, or even something important like the Cubs. And then – like that! – my reverie is shattered by a sound. “G’morning,” The Loved One says, innocent as a newborn.

“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!”

She jumps back and stares at me. After a few beats, she ventures a question: “What’s the matter?”

“Jesus Christ! Where the hell did you come from?”

“I live here!”

“You scared the crap outta me! Don’t do that!”

“What do you want me to do, stay in one place all day?”

I wait for my pulse rate to settle down to a less alarming 190. I take a few deep breaths. Then I speak.

“Lemme know when you’re coming into the room. You know I have a bad heart. Y’wanna kill me?”

At which point, The Loved One promises to make noise before she comes into the room, but not before she chides me for being a hyperdramatic opera singer. For the next few weeks, she’ll announce in a sing-song voice “Here I come!” before entering the room. Then she forgets and we have to go through the same business all over again.

She pulled her patented stealth approach on me in public the other day. Every Sunday, we go to the Barnes & Noble cafe for coffee and the papers. I chew up a good three hours doing the puzzles as she clips coupons. Then she’ll browse until I’m finished.

I was laboring over the Quote-Acrostic in the Louisville Courier Journal. I only needed to answer the last two clues – Utah: 2 wds., and Peace Nobelist von Suttner. I was as focused as Benny Jay on an emergency mission in a New York City Starbuck’s.

Suddenly and without warning, The Loved One materialized next to me after a half-hour browse. I’d heard no footsteps, no rustling, no announcement. She simply appeared out of thin air. Naturally, I tailored my response to our environs.

“Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhh!”

“Sorry,” she whispered. She seemed to be trying to conceal something. A book. After waiting for my vital signs to slow down, I tried peeking at the book.

“Whatcha got there?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes you do.”

“You wouldn’t be interested in it.”

After a little more give and take, I discovered it’s the new book by James Van Praagh, “Ghosts Among Us.” Now, The Loved one and I agree perfectly on politics, morality, ethics and even religion. The only real spot of contention between us (besides the height of the front lawn) is her belief that the dead are somewhow still available for metaphysical Tweets. She lost both her parents years ago and is convinced she can communicate with them if only she works hard enough to understand the process.

Ergo, she became a devotee of self-proclaimed facilitator John Edward. Now, it appears, she’s branching out into Van Praagh. Yet she’s embarrassed about it.

Can it be because I’m a devotee of the professional skeptics of the world? I loudly champion Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Elizabeth Loftus and the like. My home science library is filled with books like “The Demon-Haunted World” and “Voodoo Science.” I have bookmarks for Quackwatch and CSICOP on my Safari home page. I even keep the latest issue of The Skeptical Inquirer in the bathroom magazine rack.

When I discovered early on, though, that The Loved One liked to park herself in front of the TV on Sunday nights and watch John Edward tell his audience members how their recently departed loved ones were faring in the afterlife, I decided it would be best not to try to argue the point with her.

Prior to that I’d written off Edward-followers and their fellow travelers as mere saps. Now, how could I call the woman I’d committed my heart and life to, someone whose intellect I admire, a sap? It was a dose of humility for me. Perhaps I’d become as pompous and authoritarian as the priests, rabbis and imams I pooh-poohed.

Besides, I’ve seen a wraith materialze out of thin air time and again. Oddly, it usually wears pajamas, greets me with a groggy “G’morning,” and wants to fix itself a bowl of cereal.

So now I refuse to call all believers in the afterlife saps. I know at least one of them who certainly isn’t. The rest? I’m not so sure.

Benny Jay: A Mighty Load

I’m drinking coffee in a Starbucks in New York City — far, far from home — thinking about this long email I have to write and send back to Chicago….when the urge hits me.

It’s serious. But not too bad. I think I can hold it off.

So I ask the barista, who served me my coffee, where a fellow can find a computer in these parts. He points to a deli across the street: Up on the second floor they have computers — you can rent them out by the hour.

I follow his directions and wind up in a dark, dank, windowless, airless room. There are three old goats, sitting together at a table. None is using a computer. I figure they’re vagrants looking for a dry place out of the rain. One guy has a nasty cough — it sounds like tuberculosis.

I sit behind a computer and start to write. But the urge returns. I ask myself: How long can I hold out? Can I last an hour — about the time it will take to write and send my email and hustle back to the privacy of my hotel room?

I feel a stab bellow my belly. Nope — this is serious.

I look around. In the left corner is a bathroom. I walk in. It’s grimy. The floors are oily. There’s a fly lazily buzzing about. I don’t care. I can’t be picky. I drop my pants — gonna get it over with really fast.

Then I hear the old goats in the other room. They’re talking about the Yankees. I hear the old man cough. He’s hacking up phlegm. Sounds like he’s in the bathroom with me. I realize that the walls are paper thin. If I can hear him, he will hear me. I’m not normally so picky. But I’m suddenly feeling overwhelmingly self conscious — unable to share my personal moment with the cougher and his friends.

I pause to consider my options. It hits me: The Starbucks! Yes, they must have a bathroom. I pull up my pants, dart down the stairs, cross the street — racing between two cabs stalled at the light — rush into the Starbucks and head toward the bathroom that’s in the back.

The door’s locked — damn! The urge is almost beyond control. I stand in one spot and try not to move. Oh, if only I hadn’t been so finicky. Who care’s what the old goats might have thought….

After what seems like eternity, the door opens and out steps the barista who had served me my coffee. “I gotta warn you,” he says. “The smell in there is pretty nasty….”

I’m beyond caring. I hustle in, lock the door, drop my pants and….

I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say it’s a purging, as though a mighty load has been dumped. The relief is beyond my meager ability to describe in words.

I hear someone at the door. They’re wiggling the doorknob, trying to get in. Damn. As much as I’ve done, and I’ve done a lot, there’s still a little more to do. But isn’t that the way of life in general?

I try harder. I’m unaware of time — such is my focus. Someone is banging at the door — his fist like a hammer, pounding hard: Bang, bang, bang. How long have I been in here? Has it been too long? Are they starting to think that I’m a junkie who is shooting up? Or that I have died — you know, like Elvis, sitting on the throne?

I could sit for longer. You know how guys can be. But I’ve spent enough time on this toilet. No need to be selfish. It’s time to relinquish this moment for someone else.

I clean up, wash my hands and rush out the door. There are two grumpy-looking guys waiting in the hallways. They snarl as I pass. I think about repeating the warning that the barista made to me. But I’m too self conscious. Besides, they’ll find out for themselves soon enough…. 

Letter From Milo: At Loose Ends

My wife and younger daughter are leaving town for a few days. They’re going to Michigan for a “gals weekend,” which means a lot of wine drinking and denigrating of husbands for the moms and who knows what for the teenagers. I imagine the kids’ agenda includes a lot of loud music, sunbathing, eating of junk food and perhaps the discreet ingestion of a few illegal substances.

My older daughter will still be here but she’s 21, attends a local university, has a part-time job and a steady boyfriend, so she’s rarely home.

In essence, I will be alone, left to my own devices, at loose ends. There was a time back before my knees were shot, my wind was gone and my conscience didn’t bother me, when leaving me home alone would have been a recipe for disaster.

This temporary abandonment happened frequently in the early years of my marriage. My wife was a dancer and was often on tour, sometimes for weeks at a time. As much as I hate to admit it I enjoyed those temporary breaks from married life. They gave me the opportunity to resume my carefree (a better choice of words than sordid) bachelor life and to give myself over to the Bum Gene which is deeply embedded in the male side of my family’s DNA.

I’m probably exaggerating when I say that most of my alone time was spent in marijuana stupors or alcoholic dazes, but that seems to be my primary memory. Of course, my memory is not as sharp as it once was. I couldn’t have stayed high and wasted for weeks at a time, could I? I mean, I must have done something constructive. I’m trying to think of something worthwhile I accomplished during my wife’s absences and I can’t think of a single fucking thing.

The sad truth is that I gave myself over to the old RIp ‘n Roar — running the streets, closing down bars, toking like a Rasta man, with the occasional all-night poker game thrown in for a little exercise. I reconnected with old street buddies and road partners. I stayed up all night and slept until noon. I nursed monumental hangovers and and spent hours trying to find my car. I once even ended up in the emergency room of of Illinois Masonic Hospital, but I’ll save that story for another post.

To be completely honest, I was always sort of relieved when my wife returned from touring. I had to take a break from taking a break. I was rundown, tired and burned out. I needed a dose or normality and my wife always provided that.

“Milo, honey, you look a little thin.”

“Well, heh heh, I haven’t been eating right.”

“You look tired, too.”

“You know I can’t sleep right when you’re not around.”

(Going through the mail) “What’s this bill from Illinois Masonic?”

“I don’t know. Must be some sort of mistake.”

(Eyeing me suspiciously) “You haven’t been out partying all the time, have you?”

“Jeez, sweetie, why would you say that?”

Those wild days are long gone. As I mentioned, I don’t have the stamina to carry on like a sailor on shore leave any more. Now, when I’m left on my own for a few days I tend to lead a more sedate existence. Instead of bars, I spend my time in bookstores. Instead of staying up until all hours of the night, I’m usually asleep by the time David Letterman’s monologue is finished. Instead of guzzling Jack Daniel’s I sip on Cabernet. Instead of dining on pushcart tacos and Maxwell Street Polish, I eat pasta, fish or chicken. And, these days, I always remember where I parked my car.

My wife will leave me alone over the Fourth of July weekend as well. She’s going up to Minneapolis to visit her sister and spend some time with her dear friend Mary Beth Sundsted. I’m taking her absence in stride. I’m a changed man. I may even do something constructive while she’s gone. Still, as the Fourth draws nearer, I can feel the Bum Gene tugging at my sleeve, whispering in my ear, telling me how much fun we can have while the Old Lady’s gone.

Stay tuned.

Big Mike: The Heart Attack I Deserve

If there’s one thing The Loved One and I don’t see eye to eye on, it’s storms.

When we were first seeing each other, back in September 2001, we drove up to Racine, Wisconsin to see where she grew up. It was a close, sticky day with towering thunderheads boiling up on the southwest horizon. We walked barefoot through the sand on Racine’s lakefront, holding hands and picking up stones that caught our eye.

It should have been an afternoon of pure leisure and the joy of new love but I noticed a certain edginess in her manner. She kept looking over her shoulder toward the southwest, as if some midnight slasher were stalking her. I glanced in that direction and noticed the thunderheads moving closer and closer. Soon, the sky was dark, the wind picked up and lightning flashed. I loved it. Something about a storm makes me feel alive and adventurous. “Man,” I said, “this is great!”

The Loved One looked at me as though I’d suggested we attend a satanic ritual that evening. “This is horrible!” she replied, her eyes darting from side to side. “We have to get out of here!”

“No, no!” I protested. By my estimate, the storm was bearing down on us as if we had targets painted on our backs. “I wanna stay right here – we have to see this.”

“Uh uh,” she said, shaking her head violently. At that very moment, the emergency sirens at the nearby Wind Point Lighthouse started wailing. The hair on my arms stood on end. Maybe I’m a loon but I wanted to remain where we were and be drenched by the coming downpour.

The Loved One would have none of it. We ran for the car, peeled away and sought refuge at her sister’s house some miles away. Turns out The Loved One had the right instinct – we learned that a funnel cloud had passed right over the lighthouse. Still, I was disappointed we missed it.

Flash to a August 2003. It was a Friday night and monster thunderstorms were rolling in. We were at her place across Foster Avenue from Amundsen High School. I stood by the broad picture window watching the lightning display. The TV, tuned to The Weather Channel, issued the constant beep-beep-beep of a severe storm warning. Again, it seemed the storms were aiming for us.

“Mike,” The Loved One hollered, “get away from that window!”

“No way, it’s beautiful.”

“Mike, please!” As she hollered, she was busily setting up a fort in the hallway. She gathered all the pillows and sofa cushions in the place and erected a sort of structure into which she stowed candles, matches, flashlights and a battery-powered radio. She herded up the two cats and burrowed herself in to wait out the storm. Again, there were reports that a funnel cloud had been spotted not a mile from us.

After the storm had passed, she razed her fort. “Don’t you ever do that again,” she hissed. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want to get killed? You could even have a heart attack!”

But she and I knew that I can’t be kept from watching a storm.

The Loved One returned home from Bloomington Thursday night because she’d taken the next day off to celebrate her birthday (Happy Birthday, Kitty!) She just beat a line of thunderstorms scudding our way from southwestern Indiana. By the middle of the night, we’d been buffeted. The lightning and thunder kept me awake so I figured, What the hell, may as well watch the show. I went out to the front porch and leaned against the brick wall, taking it all in.

I’d rather watch a storm than any show on television. I recall sneaking out on the front porch when I was a little kid to be near my father during spectacular thunderstorms. He’d sit on an enormous concrete planter and puff away on his Tareytons, his blue eyes flashing with each lightning bolt and thunderclap. I knew better than to say anything to him even though I was terrified. He was in his own world. Those were among the few moments of bonding he and I ever shared.

I thought of the Old Man as the Thursday night storm howled. He would have loved it.

Suddenly, a mighty bolt of lightning came straight down not 200 yards from me. It struck the top of a tall pin oak in the neighbor’s front yard. It issued a sharp, earsplitting crack as it cleaved the hard wood. The hairs on my arms stood out like needles. Them came a boom so loud and jarring that if it didn’t sound exactly like the end of the world, it’ll do until I hear the real thing.

My heart jumped out of my chest, grabbed me by the neck of my T-shirt and hollered, “Let’s get the hell outta here, you idiot!” All the parts of my body that are normally small suddenly jutted out. Conversely, all those parts that I like to think are rather massive became miniscule.

I flew back inside and hollered, “Holy fuck! That scared the living crap outta me! Didja hear that?”

Of course The Loved One, buried under a mountain of quilts and comforters in the bed and surrounded by flashlights and cats, had heard it.

“I thought I was gonna have a heart attack!” I said as I bounded into the bedroom.

“Good,” she said. “Now you’ll learn.”

Randolph Street: Highway 61 – On the Road of the Heartland

Six more from my look at Mid-America in the 70’s & 80’s.

“Starfire” Silver Bay, Minnesota

“Trailer Park” Hannibal, Missouri                        

“Schurman’s” Lancaster, Wisconsin

 ”Parkway” Arcola, Mississippi

 ”Texaco Station” Vicksburg, Mississippi

  “Highway 61 near Clarksdale, Mississippi”

Big Mike: My Guy-ness Suffers A Blow

Even though I’ve spent most of my life avoiding guy-hood, I still find myself occasionally trying to be a guy.

Yeah, I know it sounds funny for this hairy, lumpy, scratchy, gassy human being to deny his basic man-ness. I’ve howled in these precincts before about how I’m not at all interested in being a guy, since most of the members of that species are, well, dicks. I still subscribe to that mid-1970s, Alan Alda-ish, men-can-be-feminists-too philosophy that has been so roundly pooh-poohed by the money-grubbing, gun-toting, god-fearing, let’s-bomb-everybody-just-for-the-hell-of-it gang that has held sway since the age of Saint Ronald.

I’ve had a lot more women friends than men friends throughout my life, mainly because I find women more interesting. I can count the number of good male friends I’ve had as an adult on the fingers of one hand. And not a one of them is really, unabashedly, undeniably guy.

There’s Benny Jay, of course. Yet he becomes as helpless as a newborn in the face of technology, tools and cars. My pal Danny, whom I now love with all my heart, became my friend only when he married my oldest and dearest friend Sophia. Tim seems to fit all the prerequisites for guy-ness – up to and including his almost insatiable libido – but his preferred bed mates are burly men. Gary, Indiana’s Greatest Writer, Milo, drinks, plays cards, has fired a rifle and brags about his prowess with the opposite sex. Guy, right? Well, lemme tell you a little secret – Milo’s lovely bride would knock his nose to the other side of his head were he to cross her well-defined boundaries.

I can’t stand the women that American guys salivate over. If you took the sex symbols of the last 15 or 20 years and marched them into my bedroom, all of them clad in string bikinis, I’d merely flip the page of the book I was reading. No lie. Go back to Carmen Electra, and Pamela Anderson, then consider today’s hotties like the purposeless Heidi Montag and the cerebrum-less Megan Fox. Not a one makes me twitch.

But today, I found myself deflated in the guy world. The Loved One and I are trying to sell our Louisville home so we can move back in together near Bloomington, Indiana, where she has scored a fabulous new job. As always, when you try to sell your home you start to believe that every little problem or flaw in it reduces its price by another ten or twenty thou. So, you spare no expense to get it fixed. For instance, whenever we turn on the hot water in the basement sink the pipes start making a racket that would make a space shuttle liftoff sound like a lullaby.

I couldn’t figure out what the problem was so The Loved One leaned on me to call the plumber. I finally got him out here this morning. He checked out the sink and the pipes, making clucking sounds and sighing with concern as though he were an oncologist examining a chain-smoker. The calculator in my head started smoking by the time he uttered his tenth cluck. I imagined him ripping out the pipes all the way out to the water main under Murray Hill Pike.

Finally he said he had to go out to his truck to get his tools. I buried myself in my laptop, trying to pretend that The Loved One and I weren’t about to be driven to debtor’s prison.

Fewer than ten minutes later, he came up carrying his bill. “All done,” he announced.

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. C’mon. I’ll show you what was wrong.”

I followed him back downstairs and he flipped on the hot water. It gushed out without making any banging or cracking noises in the pipes at all.

“Great,” I said. “What was it?”

He leaned over and fished around in the garbage can next to the sink. He brought out a tiny, frayed rubber ring, no bigger around than the width of his thumb. “Y’had a bad washer.”

“Huh? A washer?”

“Yup.”

“You mean I could have done this myself for less than a dollar? Fifty cents maybe?”

“Yeah. That’s if you knew what was wrong.”

He shoved the bill toward me. A hundred and twenty-nine bucks. “Sorry,” he said. “That’s the minimun I can charge you.”

Grrrr. I felt like a blonde being raked over the coals by an unscrupulous auto mechanic. A real guy, I figured, could have figured this out. Suddenly, I wished I were a real guy.

Of course, maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I need to remind myself that I’ve never wanted to be a guy. Yeah, that’s right. Phew. I feel better now.

I think I’ll enjoy this sense of relief for a little while. I’ll wait a few hours to tell The Loved One about the $129 bill. I’m afraid she’s gonna knock my nose to the other side of my head.

Benny Jay: Scaredy Cat

Man, this is dumb. I’m watching “Candyman,” the scary movie from the early 1990s.

Usually, I don’t watch scary movies cause I’m a scaredy cat. But I’ve heard so much about “Candyman.” It takes place in Chicago. Plus, I’ve got this great strategy for watching it. I have the sound off and the subtitles on. That way I know what’s going on, but I don’t hear the eerie soundtrack. Now that’s how you watch a scary movie!

Only my wife shows up. She’s sitting on the couch and I’m sitting on the rocking chair. And she says: “Turn up the sound — you can’t watch a movie without the sound.”

Easy for her to say. Movies don’t scare her, even scary ones. The time we saw “Silence of the Lambs,” she was eating a big tub of buttered popcorn. They had this girl trapped at the bottom of a deep, dark well and I decided: That’s it — I’m outta here. So I stand up to leave and my wife looks up — a big scoop of greasy popcorn in her hand — and says: “Where ya’ going?”

Did I mention that she was about seven months pregnant at the time?

Anyway, I won’t lie to you: “Candyman” is scaring the shit out of me. It’s all about this monster — Candyman — who comes out of the walls to kill people by ripping them up with this rusty hook he has instead of a hand.

I leave my rocking chair and flop on the couch. I’m practically in my wife’s lap. I close my eyes whenever I think Candyman’s about to pop out of the walls. For the really, really scary parts, I start humming to myself — you know, hmmmm. So I can’t hear or see.

Candyman winds up hacking — oh, I don’t know — a half a dozen people. It’s really hard to keep track. Then he turns this woman into his wife. I’m not exactly sure how he pulled that off — it must have happened when I had my eyes and ears closed. But by the end of the movie, she’s hacking up people. “If they make a sequel,” I tell my wife, “they’ll call it Candychick.”

She actually laughs at that one.

When it’s over, I’m too scared to move. Except I have to walk the dog. What the hell — she’s got to crap. It’s not her fault I watched “Candyman.”

Did I mention it’s nighttime? Well, it is. Almost midnight, in fact.

My wife comes with me. Usually, she stays at home when I walk the dog. But she’s too scared to stay home alone. Not after watching “Candyman.” Turns out that 26 years of marriage to me has made her a scaredy cat too. Who knew?

We head out the door and up the block. Ever notice how many wackos and psycho jobs you get on the street after dark? Well, we’ve got tons around where I live. There’s this guy who stands on his porch — even in the winter — smoking cigarettes. Never says nothing. All you can see of him is his cigarette glowing in the dark. As you walk down the street, the glow moves in your direction, like he’s watching you pass.

Then there’s the guy with the gimpy leg and the cheesy Hungarian accent. Sounds like Bela Lugosi. As we pass him, he says: “Nice dog.”

Yeah, you probably want to slice her up — you sick fuck.

We walk for about three blocks. The dog does her thing. I scoop it up in a plastic bag, and look for a garbage bin. None to be found.

“Hold the leash,” I tell my wife.

“Where you going?” she asks.

“I gotta throw this out….”

“Don’t leave….”

“What? I’m supposed to stick this in my pocket?”

I walk up a dark side street and cut down an alley. Really dumb move. I don’t see a whole lot of scary movies, but from the few I have seen this I know: You never, ever go into a dark alley. It’s like teenagers going to the cabin out by the lake.

I creep up the alley, open a dumpster and toss in the plastic bag. It lands with a thump. I let go of the dumpster top — it shuts with a crash. I turn around. There’s a man standing right behind me, a bloody knife raised in the air.

“No,” I scream.

Too late. The knife plunges down….

Actually, none of that really happened. Instead, I scurry back to my wife and we hurry home. The cigarette smoker’s got a friend up on his porch. The guy’s holding a banjo — probably keeps an ax in the case. Remind me never to watch another scary movie….