Big Mike: The Hero Has Second Thoughts

I was washing dishes Friday night after dinner. The Loved One was just settling in on the sofa and clicking the remote to see what was on TCM. A black and white cop drama, “The Narrow Margin,” was due to start in moments. The little info crawl described it with adjectives like tough, tense and taut. Perfect. “Hurry,” she said.

I rinsed the knives and forks, turned the water off and looked around for a clean towel to wipe my hands on. Couldn’t find one. Naturally, I dried my hands on my pants. Home Economics 101. “It’s starting,” The Loved One called.

Just then we heard something that sounded like a body hitting the floor of the back porch. We turned and looked at each other wide-eyed.

She: “What was that?”

Me: “Um, uh….”

Then we heard it again.

She: “Someone’s trying to break in!”

Me: “Aw, uh….”

Now we heard scratching and pounding.

She: “Go out there and see what it is!”

Me: “Well, uh….”

Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with an excuse fast enough. “Okay,” I said, at last. Only as I walked gingerly toward the back porch did it hit me that I was wearing flip flops. I could have said, Honey, I’ll be happy to go out there and engage in hand to hand combat with a home invader but, gosh, I don’t have my good head-stomping shoes on! I realized, though, she might ask me if I was a coward and I hate to lie to her.

I slid the glass door open and cautiously poked my head out in the pitch black. The scratching and pounding became louder. I took a deep breath and ventured out. I got three steps past the door when I saw a flash of black and white in the dark. Oh good god, I thought, a skunk. Worse even then a home invader carrying rope, a .45 and a switchblade.

At that moment, The Loved One flipped the porch light on. There I stood staring eye to eye at the most enormous raccoon I’d ever seen. Not that I’ve ever seen all that many raccoons. Maybe three in all my life. We didn’t have many of them on the Northwest Side of Chicago. Plenty of cops, firemen, drunks, juvenile delinquents and mafiosi but no raccoons.

Prior to this, my image of a raccoon was that of a cute, cuddly little guy with a striped tail and a black mask. Harmless. This one, though, looked like he wanted to press my nose clear through to the other side of my head. He glared at me for a few seconds, then he bared his teeth. Had I hair on the top of my head, it would have stood up.

The only thing I could think of to do was yell at the guy. (Well, I thought of two things, but turning and running was out.) So I yelled, “Hey!”

The raccoon turned tail and ran. Suddenly, I felt an inch or two taller. I puffed out my chest and walked farther out in the porch, looking out in the direction in which he fled as if to say, C’mon back here and fight like a man!

Having established hegemony over the porch, I strode back into the house like a returning Roman general. I’m surprised I didn’t say, Veni, vidi, vici. The Loved One already was back on the sofa, wrapped up in her comforter and lost in the movie.

Me: “It was nothing.”

She: “Yeah, I know.”

Me: “A big critter.”

She: “Mm-hm”

Me: “A really big guy.”

She: “Hmm.”

Me: “A coon. He bared his teeth at me.”

She: Nothing.

So much for my conquering hero fantasy. The movie was good. A hard-nosed cop guards a gangster’s ex-moll on a train ride across country so she can testify against him. The cop battles thugs and crooked cops. I can’t tell you how it turned out because we both fell asleep before it was over. Ah, we’ll catch the ending again another day.

The next morning, I wheeled out onto Route 446 on my way to the Kroger. I shoved my new Django Reinhardt disc in. Then I saw it. A big old raccoon, fresh killed, lying on the side of the road. I felt a wave of nausea.

Was it my raccoon? Had I caused his untimely demise? If I hadn’t yelled “Hey!” at him, he might be with us today.

Me [to myself]: “Well, it ain’t my fault. He was the one with the guilty conscience — he didn’t have to run.”

But still….

Benny Jay: Super Dog

I’m sitting in the living room, reading a book, when the fly buzzes in and lands on the blinds.

It’s sort of strange to have a fly in the house at this time of year — late autumn and all — and it’s really annoying to hear it buzzing about. But what’s really nuts is how Nicky, the dog, is reacting.

She looks up from her slumber. Rises from her bed. Creeps toward the window.

“Nicky,” I say. “What are you doing?”

She’s tracking the fly.

“What the fu….”

She launches. Crashes into the blinds. The fly buzzes off….

The fly lands on the other blinds. Nicky approaches. She waits. Gets her bearings. Surges….

Bzzz, the fly buzzes away.

Bam. Nicky crashes into the blinds.

“Nicky,” I say, “you can’t catch a fly….”

An hour passes. I go upstairs to check the Bulls score on the Internet. They beat the Timberwolves — in Minnesota!  I’m feeling all happy.

I go downstairs. My wife comes home. We’re in the kitchen. She’s reading the paper. I’m eating some yogurt.  “Good news,” I tell her. “The Bulls won….”

“That’s nice,” she says.

“Well, it’s only preseason — but a win’s a win….”

“Hmm,” she says.

The fly returns.

“What’s that?” asks my wife.

“The fly,” I say.

“The what?”

“The fly….”

“In October?”

“I know — weird, huh?”

The dog enters the kitchen. Oh, my god, she’s still tracking the fly!

“She’s relentless,” I say.

“Huh,” says my wife.

The fly lands on the handle to the cabinet where we keep the pots and pans. The dogs eyes are huge. She’s walking, like on tippy toes, toward the fly. My wife looks at me. I look at her.

Whoosh! The dog lunges at the fly. Bam. The dog slams into the drawer. Bzzz, the fly buzzes away.

“She’s trying to catch the fly?” asks my wife. “It’s like a National Geographic documentary….”

“It’s been going on all night,” I say.

“I think she stunned it….”

The fly’s flying slowly. The dog lunges. The fly disappears.

“Oh, my god,” says my wife. “I think she’s got it!”

“It’s under her paw,” I say.

Nicky’s got the fly pinned to the ground. I swear to God I hear the fly struggling to get out.

“The crazy dog’s gonna eat the fly,” I say.

The dog shoves the fly into her mouth and….Crunch!

I look at my wife. My wife looks at me.

“Was that a crunching sound?” I ask.

“Ugh!” exclaims my wife. “Disgusting….”

Nicky sits on the floor, licking her paws.

“She’s gonna throw up,” I say. “You gotta put her in the back. There’s no way a dog can eat a fly without throwing up.”

The dog looks up. Then goes back to licking her paws.

“And you know what the sickest part is?” I say. “The sickest part is that she really likes it….”

Randolph Street: Highway 61–Mood Rings and Revival

Mood Rings–New Orleans, Louisiana

Revival–Moose Lake, Minnesota

Two Ladies–Fairview, Iowa

Profile–Percy, Mississippi

Newsguys–New Orleans, Louisiana

Revival Tent–Moose Lake, Minnesota

This is a personal look at mid-America that I shot between 1976 and 1985.  These were taken along the approximately 1700 miles of US Highway 61 that roughly follows the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minneapolis, then juts northeast to Duluth and along the western edge of Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario.  All photographs © Jon Randolph.

Big Mike: Ma’s Oscar

My mother is in a funk these days. She just turned 88 in August. You’d think anyone that age who wakes up in the morning and still finds herself drawing breath would be immune to the vicissitudes of moods, but no.

This is no mere moodiness, anyway. Ma’s down because she recently learned that one of her grandchildren is suddenly involved in a nasty divorce case. She considers this particular grandchild, let’s call him Rocco, to be the baby of her first wave of grandchildren. Normally when she speaks of Rocco, it’s in tones that imply he’s still a stripling. He turns 42 in January.

Rocco discovered that his wife had fallen head over heels in love with the next door neighbor and had, well, acted out on her feelings. It’s one thing to have an affair. Lots of marriages survive the trauma of one or the other partner sleeping with a third party. But when that third party lives a mere 40 feet away and can be seen by both the wandering and the aggrieved parties mowing the lawn in a sleeveless T-shirt exposing his healthy tan and rippling biceps, it’s difficult to relegate the indiscretion to mere memory.

Perhaps Ma envisioned her golden years as free from such soap operas but, sadly, life goes on as usual no matter how old she becomes. It would have been nice had Rocco’s soon-to-be ex-wife thought What would Grandma say? as she was dolling herself up for that first tryst. But very few people think in those terms and if they did, they probably wouldn’t be dolling themselves up for a tryst in the first place.

Among Ma’s children and grandchildren, of whom there are some 16 card-carrying members, there have been no fewer than 11 dissolutions of marriage. Suffice it to say Ma’s progeny finds the whole “until death do you part” clause problematic.

It’s ironic. Ma spent her whole life married to the same man. She and Dad got married when she was 16 and he was 19. They had to run away to Indiana to get hitched because at that time the state allowed non-resident minors to wed if they were accompanied by an adult relative. So Ma leaned on my Uncle Louie and Aunt Vera to vouch for them.

In the car as the two couples left the seedy quicky marriage chapel, Aunt Vera turned around and said, “You know, you’re really not husband and wife yet because you haven’t been married in the Church,” an odd consideration to introduce at that late hour. Ma, being young and scared, took Aunt Vera’s words to heart and insisted that she and her new not-quite husband sleep apart that night. Ma swears this part of the tale is true and admits it was a difficult night to endure. Dad’s not around anymore for me to canvas on his view of the matter. In any case, Ma never has revealed what happened on the second or third nights although the aforementioned progeny ought to be clue enough.

As all but one of her siblings’ marriages ended in divorce and even her own parents’ arranged marriage ended, Ma proudly proclaimed that she was in it to the bitter end. It was her badge of accomplishment that she buried her only husband. Only after Dad had passed away did she begin to claim that not only the end was bitter but the beginning and middle as well. Now when she finds it necessary to muse aloud on the deprivations and horrors she endured through 57 years of wedded anti-bliss, I caution her that it might be wiser to occasionally let the old man rest in peace.

Ma looks hurt when I put the brakes on these conversations. I can see her point — it’s like telling Meryl Streep to shut up about all those Oscars.

Nevertheless, I’m certain Ma fantasizes waiting outside the gates of heaven as the doorman scans her record and his eyes light up when he sees that she was married to the same man for 57 years, right up until the very bitter end. Whaddya waiting for? he’ll say. Step right in. You’ve earned it!

I’m not kidding. Ma has become more religious as she nears the end zone. Sort of a hedging of her bets, I suppose. In fact, the last time she visited me down in Louisville, Kentucky, she asked me if I still believe in god. I hadn’t the heart to tell her I never believed in god but I did admit that as of that juncture I wasn’t among the saved. She closed her eyes, threw her head back in pain and muttered, “Oh no.”

Life didn’t exactly turn out the way Ma would have wanted. What with all those divorces and the non-believers running around, it must seem as though she’s living in the town of Sodom. If I were to say one thing to her in consolation, though, it’d be that very few of us accomplish the one great personal goal we all dream of. She did.

Benny Jay: A Serious Man

The other day I see “A Serious Man” – the new Coen Brothers movie — and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It’s a existential dark comedy about a man who’s losing his mind. I love it. It’s in my mind when I go to bed at night and on my mind when I wake up in the morning.

I want to tell you all about it, but I don’t want to spoil the movie for you. I will tell you this: Michael Stuhlbarg, the actor who plays the main character, is magnificent. All this shit is happening to him and he has this perfect look of deadpan disbelief as he tries to keep his sanity.

Plus, they play “Comin’ Back to Me” this haunting, old Jefferson Airplane ballad I always liked. Hadn’t heard it in years. Soon as I heard it in the movie, I thought: Damn, I like that song! I’ve been singing it ever since.

I love the movie so much I want to talk about it, but I can’t cause no one else has seen it. Not even my wife – remember, I went alone.

I’m not exaggerating. It’s hard to find anyone who even knows about the movie.  And it’s not like I haven’t tried. Wherever I go — whomever I see – I ask the same question: “Have you seen `A Serious Man’?”

Nope.

It’s starting to make me wonder: Do I live on a different planet? I mean, someone must have seen it – right? At the very least, there were other people in the theater with me on Sunday afternoon.

I ask Big Mike, who knows absolutely everything about pop culture, if he’s seen it. Then I remember — he’s stuck in Indiana.  Do they show Coen brother movies in Indiana?

I go to bowling. There’s a ton of guys in the bowling league. Surely, one of them has seen it. I ask Danny, a thirty-something-year-old hipster.

“Huh?” he says.

“`A Serious Man’ by the Coen Brothers….”

Pause.

“You’ve heard of the Coen brothers, haven’t you?’

Another pause.

“They did `Fargo’….

“Fargo?”

“Yeah, Fargo…..”

“Great movie….”

Sigh….

I ask my mother. I know she hasn’t seen it. She and my father used to see movies all the time, but not anymore. They say they’re too loud. The last movie my father saw was “Fahrenheit 9/11” by Michael Moore. During the previews, he got up to tell the manager to lower the volume.

My mother hasn’t seen a movie since December, when my younger daughter and I took her to see “Marley and Me.” You know, the movie about the dog. My mom loves dogs. My dad loves dogs, too. But he wouldn’t got with us cause he said the movie – which, keep in mind, he hadn’t seen — was crap. And he wasn’t patronizing crap.

Anyway, I ask my mom if she’s seen “A Serious Man” even though I know she hasn’t because just talking about not seeing the movie is almost as good as talking about what it’s actually about – if you know what I mean.

“The Cohen brothers?” she asks.

“No, Coen….”

“Who are they?”

Oh, brother….

I open The New York Times art section, hoping to find an article about the movie. They’re always writing about movies.

I read an article about Michael Jackson’s new song – apparently, Paul Anka actually wrote it years ago. But nothing about the movie.

My wife comes home from work.

“Did anyone at work see the movie?” I ask.

“Nope….”

“Anyone talk about it?”

“Nope….”

“No one?”

“No one….”

“I can understand that. It’s a movie about Jews. But not just about Jews, like, oh, they’re funny or cute. But really about what it’s like to be Jewish in this country – you know what I mean?”

“Uh-huh,” she says absentmindedly, as her eyes slide toward the newspaper that’s lying on the kitchen table….

“I like to think that to really appreciate this movie you have to be Jewish or at least hang around Jews – you know?”

She looks up from the newspaper and says: “They’re going to have to pay Paul Anka.”

Yes, well, um — so ends that conversation.

Come tomorrow, I have a ton of phone calls to make to people all over town about all sorts of things. I’m sure I’ll find one — that’s all, I don’t ask for much – who has seen the movie.

Big Mike: I Know What I Am — I Think

As if I needed more evidence that I live in a bizarre world of my own creation, The Loved One spent all last night arguing that I am gay.

No, she didn’t find evidence of me logging in to gay match sites — I keep that well-hid…, er, I mean I don’t go there. And no, she didn’t find text messages or emails from DL lovers. Really, honestly, I’m not gay. Sheesh, I feel like I’m 17 again, crowing to the world what a flamboyant heterosexual I am.

Here’s the background. IFC (cable’s Independent Film Channel) showed Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” last night. One of my favorite movies of all time up until the news broke that Woody was raiding Mia Farrow’s adoptive litter for potential bedmates. If you recall, Woody’s character in the film, a 42-year-old comedy writer, has an affair with a 17-year-old girl (“I’m dating a girl wherein I can beat up her father.”) What I originally took to be an envelope-pushing comedic construct then became downright creepy.

Anyway, I told The Loved One that “Manhattan” was chock-full of gorgeous George Gershwin melodies. Sure enough, whenever a familiar tune came on — “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “He Loves and She Loves,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — I started singing along.

The Loved One endured this caterwauling in silence until, about a third of the way into the movie, she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.

She: “You know what?”

Me: “What, angel of mine?”

She: “You’re gay.”

Me: “What the fuck?”

She: “You heard me — you’re gay.”

Me: “What the hell does that mean?”

She: “Oh, I don’t mind. It’s okay if you’re bisexual.”

Me: “Um, uh….”

She: “C’mon. These are show tunes. You’re singing them. You know them. You’re gay.”

How do I respond to that? I thought for a moment of getting up, crossing the family room and ravishing her forthwith on the sofa. Just as a rebuttal, mind you. Who knows? Maybe that’s what she wanted me to do. Of course, I think it would have been more effective for her to say something like, Darling, take me.

But since my lovely bride was wiped out from another long day at the factory, I don’t suspect she was all that interested in putting on the French maid uniform and for me to fetch the handcuffs.

Me: “You’re out of your mind. Gershwin isn’t a gay marker. He isn’t Stephen Sondheim or Mariah Carey, for chrissakes. It’s Gershwin!”

She: “You’re gay.”

Me: [Mumble. Grumble.] “Smart ass.”

The Loved One spent the next half hour giggling to herself at intervals, proud that she’d flummoxed me so. I mean, really, if you can’t convince your wife you’re not gay, who can you convince?

I stopped singing along — which may have been her aim all along. Then again, a less painful method would have been for her to say, “Shut the hell up!”

Still, I couldn’t shake her words from my mind. I know I’m straight. I just know it. I dream of Dana Delany, Lauren Graham and Hannah Storm, not Liam Neeson or George Clooney. Like Isaac Davis in “Manhattan,” I peruse the lingerie ads in the Sunday paper.  And I loathe, just loathe, Kathy Griffin, the “Real Housewives…” shows on Bravo, and every single one of the Kardashians.

Slowly but surely, I started to feel better about myself. I even started singing (under my breath, of course) those famous Muddy Waters lyrics:

I’m a natural born lover man/
I’m a man/
I’m a rollin’ stone/
I’m a man/
I’m a hootchie cootchie man.

I even flexed my biceps once or twice. Gay — yeah sure.

Before I’d gone into my silent funk, The Loved One had been quizzing me about the names of the tunes. She knows who Gershwin was, of course, but isn’t as up on his songbook as I am. Anyway, she was too pleased with herself to continue the trivia test.

Then, suddenly, the staccato French horn of one of Gershwin’s more renowned tunes sounded. The Loved One perked up — she obviously liked it.

She: “What’s this one?”

Me: [Grimacing. Defeated.] “The Land of the Gay Caballero.”

She: “Gay Caballero! Perfect! See, I told you. You’re gay!”

I was defeated. I retired to the bedroom, lay down and opened a book. I only got through  the first few paragraphs of a Truman Capote short story before I fell asleep.

Benny Jay: A Woeful Weekend

The weekend starts on a downer — we go to a pizza joint on Western Avenue that my wife hates.

She only goes there cause it’s on the way to the movies and we’re hungry, but we only have about an hour before the movie starts. So the plan is — eat here fast and get to the movie. You know how it goes….

They sit us in the back next to a long table filled with a big, loud family. There’s this little kid — maybe three — running around howling.

His mother’s grabbing for him. But she’s too lazy to get out of her chair and she can’t quite get him.

“Come here,” yells the mother.

“No,” howls the kid.

The mother lunges. The kid scrambles. She collars him.  The kid wails — a piercing wail. This is all a foot or two from our table.

I can’t take it. We walk out without being served. Then we realize we have nowhere else to eat if we want to eat before the movie.

Trapped!

We take a seat in the front of the restaurant. Right under the stereo. It’s blasting the world’s worst music — `80s rock `n roll. Okay, maybe Muzak’s worse. But you get the idea.

We eat a greasy pizza. I feel all slimy. My wife is talking. I’m distracted by the TV set above her head: Yanks versus Twins. Can’t stand either team. Is if possible for two teams to lose one game?

Go to the movie. District Nine. It’s loud and stupid. Really stupid. I can’t blame my wife for making me see it cause it was my idea to go.

That’s Friday….

Next day my wife wakes up in a tizzy of self flagellation. Here in a nutshell is what she’s saying: “Can’t find an earring. One of my favorite pairs. A gift from my sister.  It was in a box on the bed stand. Should have kept the box in a dresser. What happened is I knocked the box over and the earring fell out. Oh, why didn’t I put the box in my dresser? Cause I’m lazy! That’s what happens when I’m lazy….”

And so on and so forth.

It’s driving her crazy. She’s on her knees looking for that earring.

Relax, I tell her. Go about your day. The earring will find itself, as long as you’re not looking for it.

Like I’m the Zen master or something.

That night we go to the Raven Theater on North Clark Street and see “Death of a Salesman.” Unbelievably good performance — one of the best productions I’ve ever seen. Really. Go see it. The acting’s sensational.  I can’t say enough.

Only it’s so good it’s depressing. Cause, let’s face it, it’s a depressing play. Too close for comfort in a lot of ways. It’s almost painful to watch. Puts me in a sad mood.

So let’s total it up: my wife can’t find one of her favorite earrings and I have the blues.

And it’s only Saturday. Still got Sunday to go.

Wake up. Earring still lost. Still kinda blue. Drift around, looking for that earring. Decide to see “A Serious Man,” the latest movie by the Coen Brothers.

Bike across town to see it. It’s an updating of the Book of Job. Meaning misery and affliction. I mean it’s a great movie — maybe their best. But I need to sit through the Job saga like I need the proverbial hole in my head. Walk out feeling even bluer than when I went in. Should have seen “Zombieland,” or some other hilarious piece of happy idiocy.

Go home. Eat dinner. Chicken. Good, I love chicken. But then my wife and daughter put on “Desperate Housewives.” God, I had that show. I hate the sound of that show. Gotta get away from that sound.

Go upstairs. Start reading Sherman Alexie’s short stories about alcoholic Indians on a reservation.

No, seriously. This is what I have subjected myself to: The crushed American Dream; a pitiless God; alcoholic Indians. I’m insane.

I hear screaming from the basement. My wife is bounding up the stairs. She’s ecstatic. No, beyond ecstatic. Whatever that is.

“I found it! I found it!” she’s yelling.

Yep, she found her earring. Found it in the bottom of the vacuum cleaner bag. That’s right. She opened up the vacuum cleaner and looked through the bag. At the bottom — amidst the dust, dirt and dog hairs — she found her earring.

She hugs me and tackles me and knocks me on the bed. She jumps up and down.

“I’ll always put it away!” she exclaims. “I’ll never make that mistake again….”

“I told you,” I say.

Even though I’m not sure what exactly I told her. But as long as things are going well, I might as well take the credit.

“Yay!” she’s screaming.

What’s that they say? Oh, yes: All is well that ends well….