Humor

Need a smile, possibly a laugh? Don’t we all. Enjoy!

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Believe it or not, this little story is based on an actual incident. I reworked it into a delusional firefighter’s world.

THE REVERSE ELOPEMENT OF JAMES KELLIHER

Oh Jimmy, my Jimmy! 

Do you remember—on the third day of training—how you rolled me over onto my stomach, grabbed me by the armpits, hoisted me up, my face in your bountiful belly, slid your elbows up through my pits until you could grasp your hands around my back? Lifting my dead weight to its feet, you draped my artificially unconscious form over your shoulder, while slipping your knee between my legs—at first tenderly, then with thrusting purpose. You took my wrist in one hand, encircled my thigh with the other. (Did you feel the thunder, J-man?) Then you squatted as I draped further, fully onto both shoulders. Here it comes: the stupendous quad-busting power lift, launching my limp frame skyward to rest drooping across your massive shoulders. Then the deliriously joyful “adjustments” as you began the fifty foot carry as required in the firefighter’s test. What began as mere stirrings as your brawny arms slid-slipped through my pits grew to full-fledged love with each step of the carry, punctuated by affectionately playful balancing readjustments. The gentle placement of the “victim” into the arms of the receiving crew was gentlemanly and tender. 

I was in love, James Michael Kelleher, all 220 pounds of me. As your sweat-squinting eyes gazed from that beet-red face I could see that my love was reciprocated, that we had achieved a bond, a mating of souls on that 50 foot journey. Why else would your heart thump like our No. 2 Pumper Truck at maximum output?

Oh Jimmy, my Jimmy!

I now stand before your window lit by the fullest of moons. Up there you slumber on the third floor of your mother’s house. Though we have never spoken, even throughout training—not during the Kelly’s cat adventure, nor the Baldassari’s garage fire—I know of your love for me. Surely you felt the increasing flow of pipe No. 7 when we held that hose together during the trash fire behind The Dollar General. And don’t think I didn’t notice your searching, concerned look at my penguin pajama bottoms at the midnight wreck on Route 27. Oh, how my heart ached to see you in your bottoms.

Oh Jimmy, my Jimmy!

It was so easy for me to get the extra key to the station, lift the 24 foot ladder onto the roof racks of my mom’s purple PT Cruiser. I had worked my bench press to 250 and my dead lift to 380 in preparation for this wonderful night.

See how carefully I have wrapped the beams of the ladder so that when they lean against your widow sill no one will hear. I have even cushion-taped the rung-dogs so that as I heave-jerk the pulley line on the extension they will not rattle as joyously as my heart now does. And do you notice that I am in full turnout—helmet to boots—including the 40 pound tank? I’m making it real, so real for you, my man James. And when—like our Jewish classmate Danny Rosen stomped on the glass at his wedding—-when I smash the window, sash and escapement with the business end of the Pulaski axe you will know that love has—at long last—arrived.

Don’t worry, I’ll pay your mother for the damage. She’ll understand. It’s all part of the ceremony, the tradition whenever two Jakes like you and me have it so bad for each other. As I and the Pulaski install a skylight in your bedroom—gotta let out the heat—I imagine that you are thinking that I will lift you off the floor, slip my knee between your trembling legs and give you the old heave-ho as back down the ladder we go.

No, my love. Though you cannot see it from here—this high up—my PT is packed to the gills with all my stuff, including matching sets of pj’s, one for each day of the week. Cuddly flannels, of course. My favorite is the “Five Alarm” style with the authentic hook and ladder. Red against a black background. How hot are you going to be in those bad boys, my bad boy? We may have to run old No. 7 up through this window to cool things down.

Chief Gardiner will be over at 10 to officiate. The whole crew will be there, too. How am I so sure of that? I have placed a timed incendiary device in your Mom’s garden shed. Hope the Chief’s not too hung over.  But that residential shed fire will bring him, for sure.

I have all the municipal paperwork in order. Even your blood test is done. I submitted the sample I took when you gashed your leg during the Plimpton School dumpster fire.

After the brief, heartwarming ceremony—don’t worry, I have rings—the crew will help carry my gear up to your room. Then, as they stand watching—your Mom nearby, smiling in her hairnet and housecoat—I will take off my helmet and jacket, put down the axe. I will go out into the hall outside your room. A civilian now, I will lay down on the floor, on my back. You will roll me over and within a minute shall have lovingly hoisted me onto those broad shoulders I have come to love like lifesaving itself. Then you will dead-carry me across the threshold of your room and toss me onto the bed. Whereupon I shall surrender myself to the complete resuscitation protocol.

Oh Jimmy, my Jimmy! 

Put out the fire!

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It’s hard to overestimate what baseball meant to a kid growing up in the fifties. This fantasy is not too far afield from some of the wacky hijinks of that era. I hafta dedicate this one to the late great Bill Buckner, victim of the rawest deal ever served up in professional sports.

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A PIECE OF SHEA

Mike, a Red Sox fan. October 16, 1986.  The day of Game Six.

Well, we got it. Not much to look at, but we’re not takin’ any chances. Jeez, he’s got it in a brownie pan. These Mets fans are knuckleheads. Saw this guy on the CNN, says this is from the infield at Shea. He was one of the thousands that flooded the field last game of the ’69 World Series against the Orioles. Famous for the bogus shoe polish scuffed ball. Buncha lousy cheaters. Anyway, this guy dug up a handful of turf near third base, he says, and kept it alive, growing it till it filled this brownie pan. He and his buddies took it to their church and had it blessed. See that got my attention. You bring the Archdiocese of New York into play, the Archdiocese of Boston gotta respond.  We, the Boys from Blessed Sacrament—that’s right: Centre Street, Jamaica Plain—got something to say about that. We figure, right after the National Anthem, we gather round, piss on this, then burn it.  Or maybe burn it, then piss on it. Whatever, you know, kill the effect this might have on tonight’s game.

Oh, so you think this is some kind of joke? That I’m just fooling around here? That I would drive through the night and back from goddamn Roslyn Long Island, break into this meatball’s house and put myself at risk of B&E? Even with my now clean record—thank you cousin Margaret, newly promoted to Assistant DA—I would face a year in jail, maybe two, what with the extenuating non-mitigating circumstances and all. The judge is a Mets fan? Maybe three, four, who knows? And you any idea what fate would behold me in a New York City prison? Child molester, a racist cop has better chances.

No, this is deadly serious. But then, you don’t know what I know. You think this stuff is like a phony voodoo scam, right? Sure, I usta think that too. I mean, c’mon, you know how many rabbit’s foots I flushed down the hopper at the dogs in Revere?

But listen: this past Labor Day barbecue I’m pulled aside by my brother in law Bobby. Naw, not that Bobby. The one grew up in Brockton. Sold hotdogs in the stands for the shitty Pawtucket Red Sox, the PawSox. Bagman for Whitey’s South Shore guy. Moved to New York cuz it was better for his health to maybe not be in the Boston area for a while, know what I mean? Married the Italian girl. Lives on out on Long Island now. Hempstead. That Bobby.

He tells me he got a job with the Yankees. Doing whatever. Janitorial, ground crew, even  found himself selling hotdogs again, which really pissed him off.

So anyway, one day his boss tells him to sweep out tunnel J. So he walks to tunnel H, tunnel I, and wait a minute, there’s no tunnel J. It’s JJ, not J. But he figures this is what the boss meant and doesn’t feel like walking all over to hell and gone so he begins sweeping. This goddamn tunnel goes on forever, and now it’s sloping down. After a while of this, he figures he’s somewhere under the pitcher’s mound. And by the way, there’s absolutely nothin’ down there.  No other corridors, no other doors not even a closet. Half the lights are out, he can barely see and he’s just about to turn around and call it good when he hears a sound, like someone shifting in a chair. Then he notices the light changing, getting a little brighter in the distance and sees there’s a corner. What the fuck, he’s thinking, so he walks quietly to the corner, peeks around and Jesus, twenty yards down, there’s a guard—an armed uniformed guard—sitting at a table reading a book in front of a triple-locked steel door. He doesn’t see or hear Bobby because let’s just say you don’t see or hear Bobby unless Bobby wants you to.

So he gets the hell outa there and wheels are spinnin’. He’s thinking maybe the concession money is in a vault behind that door or something like that. I mean come on, an armed guard a hundred yards under Yankee Stadium? Gotta be somethin’ like that, right?

A week later he’s out for some beers at an Irish bar with some of the cleaning crew and he figures it’s a chance to get some info regarding tunnel JJ. So he buys a round, these guys are gettin’ soaked, patting him on the back, winking at him. After he kills them with the one about the Pope and the crocodile, he slips it in: “So what’s the story with tunnel JJ?”

The booth slams quiet. Not only could you hear a pin drop, you could hear it falling end over end on a windless night. That quiet. These guys are all glancing sideways at each other and one of them finally says. “You must mean Tunnel J.”  They other two firmly agree.”Yeah, there is no JJ.”  “You mean J. Right, Bobby?”  And he is takin’ it in very most assuredly that it would be better for his employment status if he meant J, not JJ. “Oh yeah, that’s what I meant. J. I stutter sometimes, y-y-y’know w-w-what I m-m-mean?” 

They all laugh and one guy says “Oh yeah, I hate J. They keep the used grease from the concession grills in barrels down that bitch.”

Another: “Yeah, heard a couple of years ago a guy wasn’t watching where he was going and slipped. Got hurt pretty bad. So, yeah: be careful, Bobby.”

Oh, man, was he ever going to be careful. And oh, man, was he ever gonna find out what was down tunnel JJ.

Now he’s remembering there’s this legendary custodian, Old Phil the Pill, a real pain in the ass but he’s Casey Stengel’s cousin or some other happy horse-shit. Been around since dirt. There’s even a picture hanging in the break room of him with Joe Dimaggio and the Clipper is swinging Phil’s broom like a bat. Bobby begins brown-nosing him, sidling up to him whenever he can and then asks him to join him for a couple brats at this old Kraut wurst house somewhere in the Bronx, which—what a surprise—happens to be this guy’s favorite.

So he and Phil are having some veener-mit-the-schnitzel, knocking back the hops, and after some good laughs, Bobby shoots the puck like Bobby Orr:

“Hey, speaking of which, I couldn’t believe when I found out what’s down tunnel JJ.”

Phil spit-blows the head off his Spaten. “You know about that?”

“Well, pretty much. What I can’t figure out is why they hafta keep it under armed guard.  I mean why not just lock it up?”

Phil, who at this point is way too loose for his own good and is way too needing of a funny younger friend, lets a big one slip.

“Red Sox fans is why, I figure. Those bastards would commit murder they ever found out.”

Bobby’s confused, but keeps the puck in play.

“Yeah. I hate those bastards.” Raising his glass, “Boston sucks!” 

Phil goes to knock glasses, misses, sloshes half his beer into the basket of rolls and rejoinders with a most convivial affirmation.

“Boston sucks Old Man Yawkey’s shriveled wiener!”

This camaraderie, the warm glow of communal loathing, leads to more spillage from the ancient custodial engineer.

“Hey but you wanna know what is something alotta people, even those who do know, don’ know? Do ya?”

“Like Clark Gable, I’m all ears” This geezer was that old. How good is Bobby at this shit, though, right?

“Don’ tell no one, but—”  He leans in, planting an elbow full into a buttered roll. “They keep it in a glass case in a —what you call it— a vacuum sealed thing, like a museum.”

Bobby’s imagination is now reeling. Takes another shot on goal.  

“You’re shitting me, Phil. But now that I think about it, sure, that makes a lot of sense.”

Phil belches wetly, continues, “Of course. It’s no different than the church keeping those saints’ fingers and shinbones, in the—whatever— what they call it?”

“Reliquary?” Bobby had been to Rome on an “errand” for Whitey so he knew church words like that.

“Yeah, thassit: wreck-quill-berry.” He’s about to be no good, so Bobby begins to slash at the goalie’s pads. At this point his only hope is that there’s a diamond ring around this finger.

“But I still don’t get why they chose to keep that part of the saint’s body.”

Phil explodes: “Hah-hah-haaah! He warn’t no saint! Thassagoo-one! Nosir! Fact it’s pretty damn well known that the Babe was quite the swordsman. The Sultan of Swat? More like the Sultan of Twat! No, it ain’t the finger they got down in that hole.”

His arms fly up, sending the roll four feet into the air. A passing waitress kicks it under the bar. Returning the elbow to the table, he now butter-glues it to a napkin which waves like a flag with each gesture. 

“You catch me right on that, brother?”, he semiphores.

Dawn rises over Marblehead. Holy shit, thinks Bobby. The Yankees are keeping Babe Ruth’s dick in a vacuum-sealed glass case under armed guard down in the bowels of Yankee Stadium. He needs confirmation, but before he can unload one final slap-shot from the blue line, Phil, out of control now, continues,

“But here’s th’other more important part.” He looks around like a bad guy planning a bank job out on the sidewalk in front of the bank. This is some old-school shit. Complete with stage-whisper.

“You know about the opening day ceremony?”

Bobby plays the co-conspirator, shakes his head in eager, overly wide-eyed anticipation.

“Before the first home game, every spring, the owners go down there and they have a li’l ceremony.”

Phil is all worked up, like he’s got the Enigma Codes in his Members Only windbreaker. Again with the look to the left, the look to the right, all slitty-eyed like the evil janitor from Scooby-doo. Bobby plays up the suspense, leans in over a half-eaten cold white sausage.

“As I heard it, from someone who knows, the owner goes down there with a bottle of champagne, they open the case, they make a toast, which goes something like this;” He raises his empty pilsner glass. ‘Boston Sucks!’ Then he bends over and kisses it. Yup, thass what they do. Every year since ’24. The Colonel, then Dan, then the TV guys—what assholes—and the Steinbrenners since then. I hear George tried to make his wife kiss it in ’74 on accounta she’s part owner but she was so disgusted she punched him inna nose.”

Bobby is stunned. He literally does not know whether to shit or go blind. He, a Brockton, Massachusetts boy, Red Sox blood running red through his veins, who as a young man fell to his knees with the rest of us and lost huge chunks of his very soul to the agony of The Impossible Dream of 1967. That Bobby. Has uncovered the inner sanctum within which is contained The Curse of the Bambino. Who could have guessed Ruth’s Root could wield such power down through the hallowed halls and bases on balls of history? But unquestionably it do. I mean look at the Sox record and weep my fellow flagellants. It do. It most decidedly do.

Then Phil uncorks a screwball into the high outside corner.

“Yeah, George can be a horse’s ass. Women don’ like ceegars, never mind one that’s sixty years old.”

What the—.  Bobby thinks fast.

“So when did they get the cigar? How do they know it’s the real thing?”

“Dunno. But who cares? It’s worked, ain’t it?”

It sure as shit has. 

“Oh, and by the way, they wrap it in a piece of Joe Dimaggio’s shirt when they kiss it.  They say it’s the Babe’s spit on the cigar makes it work so you want not to be screwin’ that up with the owners drool.”

Oh, you bet your sweet ass they are drooling. 

Mother of God. The Curse is real.

Yup. And that’s why I’m standing here with a can of lighter fluid and a piece of Shea Stadium infield from 1969 in a brownie pan.

Now if only McNamara will play Buckner at first. We really need his bat tonight.

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Oh, Portland. We moved here in 1996 and joyously entrenched ourselves amongst the vibrant Creative Class, acting, dancing and raising our children to act and dance. And sing their hearts out. So we loved it. But there’s no denying the world of the arts is infused with Identity Politics and a fair amount of Woo. Just writing the preceding sentence labels me as a Fascist Trump supporter. Actually just existing as a straight white male condemns me to an extraordinary amount of suspicion and prejudice from the more politically strident CC types. Whatever. Hopefully this all balances back to some kind of sanity in the future. Meanwhile, in Portland housing costs have risen so sharply that packs of artists are having to live in small houses and apartments in a bizarre reversal of Meerkat Manor. Seriously, I know people who have never had their own place for thirty years of independent adulthood. Yikes.

Hence this little meditation on a Portland couple’s therapy.

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THE LISTENING SHELL

Sam wasn’t sure when his masculinity had turned toxic. But he sure as hell was going to do something about it. If it meant kicking in someone’s teeth, so be it. Hunting down and killing the alien invader if necessary. Nobody messes with his man-chemistry without paying the price. In fact, he could feel his burly hand get a grip on the throat of his enemy as he jammed a .45 between their ribs and delivered hot lead. Or the cold steel clang of battle axes rending chunks of grisly Northern Invader flesh. Bloodthirsty screams of vengeance and justice and freedom. 

You know, guy stuff like that.

Lisa regarded him cooly. She was assessing whether it was possible for him to change enough to live with. She was so done with residing in a house with six roommates—and their rotating partners—all sharing one hardworking little toilet. She desperately needed a place with no more than one other ass gracing the throne. Of course she’d prefer to be by herself, but studio apartments were way out of reach. 

She and Sam had been a couple for six months now, so it seemed like the thing to do. But she needed to get some things straight before the big move. Her life coach, Feather, had given her some tools. Or as Feather earnestly called them: couplehood facilitation and nurturing enhancements.

Lisa realized she shouldn’t have thrown around the phrase “toxic masculinity” more than once, but it sure did seem to get his attention. He’d grown intensely quiet, and his jaw clenched. She thought she heard him whisper “get a grip.” That was a good sign. He was struggling to understand what it was he needed to do. She fervently hoped he really wanted to be in a couplehood that experienced The Flushing—no, what did Feather call it?— oh, yes: The Flourishing.

Feeling that she had expressed her heart-song with lovingness, Lisa passed the Talking Stick to him and picked up the Listening Shell.

He fought his way through dense red clouds of steaming anger, looked at her amazing breasts, sighed and shook his head.

Lisa! Oh, Lisa! He knew, knew so well what she meant. He, a gentle soul, also had to put up with that same stupid macho from other guys. He had been bullied. He, too, had been objectified, gas-lit and tone-policed. Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah: made to feel unsafe. Why, he was practically one of the girls. If he hadn’t always shown his best side, well, he was sure willing to do whatever it took to get up inside that. . .took to get it up inside. . . took to accomplish the goals she laid out. Hopefully laid out on the futon. Y’know this Talking Stick would make a sick handle for a battle-axe.

She smiled softly. He was trying. He really was. Let’s see: They were each paying $500 a month now, and a one-bedroom in a decent nabe could be found for $1400, so if they didn’t party too much, and she worked a few Saturdays, she could make it. Plus—big plus— he would cover the two-month security deposit. The thought of frantically peeing in the rain out behind the shed one more time or going without a shower on a date night, and then having Stinky Sam sex, was unacceptable. He was trying. That’s all she asked. And they always had the Talking Stick and Listening Shell to work things out, didn’t they? She had a vision of that radiantly clean new toilet seat hovering over Sam’s head like a halo. Gazing affectionately at him, she brought the ruffled pink shell to her lips.

Damn, she wants me to go down on her. Wait. Maybe she’s tricking me. This might be a test.

Not to worry: he had his own tricks. He held his eyes open until the ever-present cloud of cat and dog dander brought stinging tears. He then thought hard about losing the big game against Central and…sobbed like a child. 

Tossing the Listening Shell aside, she rushed across the Safety Circle and held him in her loving, money-grubbing arms. He embraced her tightly—dang those were fine tits—and dropped the Talking Stick, the better to—tearfully, mind you— grab her ass.

The Stick of Talkingness bounced once, then came to rest, its red-leathered business end penetrating the soft, pink ruffled depths of the Listening Shell.