O Losantiville, Don't You Cry For Me(Verse 2): Quality Control \ Habitat for Humanity Part 1

True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but realizing our kinship with all beings. - Pema Chondron

Anyone who lives in or around Cincinnati knows instinctively it is a problematic city; and its history, from what I've begun to read, bears this out. The geography is perpetually under erasure: the various visions and monied specials interests have managed to twist the place so much it has to struggle to hold onto the remaining bits of unique character it has left.

But Cincinnati is where I am. At least for the time being. And while I wasn't planning on wintering in the Ohio Valley, there are worse places to end up than in the company of family and friends, in the shadow of a city whose geography is familiar and whose peripatetic combination of culture and anti-culture (think about what Gene Roddenberry said about what happens when you mix matter and anti-matter) long ago made an imprint of my soul.

And while Losantiville may not have been my first choice of winter havens, the fact is my only real plan was to go south, down around Port Charlotte, and spend the winter pushing up sea shells with my toes.

This may be the universe's response to my arrogance at trying to take a vacation.

One of the things that fell into my lap was an opportunity to work on a Habitat for Humanity house through the church My Dear Sweet Ma attends. Not being much of a church goer myself, I have, over the years, had a fairly volatile relationship with churches and with organized religion in general. When explaining my position I often say that I have rejected the metaphor for God that I was raised on, and finding no other that explains, describes, or satisfies, I resort to talking about the universe. (When speaking or writing about the larger mysteries, it's important to rely on language that is both specific enough to offer detail but vague enough to allow for new insight.) I'd heard of Habitat for Humanity, of course. And I liked the idea of pitching in to help someone have shelter that needed it.

The church is located about 5 minutes from where my mom lives, and they were warned of my arrival. I went Friday afternoon -- work was to begin at 2pm and I arrived a few minutes early -- to help cut and stack the wood in preparation for the actual work the following day. The weather forecast for the entire weekend was sunny with temperatures in the mid to high 60's. I stayed away from the power tools, opting to do the leg work of moving the woodI saw this as primarily a common sense move. While it's true that my Grandpa Dunn was a carpenter, and a fine one at that,it's also true that I'm not. Of all the genes that could have passed on, the one that didn't was the one that could have made me NOT a klutz and NOT inclined to hit my own -- or, gawd help them if they happen to be in the way, someone else's -- fingers. But to be fair, I haven't had much practice either.

At least, that's what I told myself.

Everyone I met and talked to was polite. It's large church, and for all any of them knew, I could have been a member; none of the people I met knew my Dear Sweet Ma, though they claimed to have some recollection of the surname. After some initial cutting and after more folks showed up, I ended up working with a nice guy named Jim. We were, according to the project leader Dave from Crossroads Missions out of Louisville, "Quality Control." Jim and made sure that everyone else was cutting enough of the different sizes of wood and that they were stacked in the right place. I ended up doing that particular job because no one else wanted it,and I suspect that Jim ended up in it for the very same reason. It's not difficult to figure. The other men wanted to be around the power tools and the women there didn't want to be relegated to a seemingly less strenuous job.

I didn't mind, though; I have learned not to define my gender identity by the seeming manliness of my job. One guy in particular seemed to enjoy the fact that he was doing something more manly than either Jim or me... especially since Dave, the project leader said when he was trying to find volunteers for Quality Control --

"I need a couple of women to carry this clipboard and just make sure the men are cutting enough of everything and putting them in the right place."

Every time this guy, who was entirely too young to be as bald as he was to be that pleased with himself, would bring some wood over he'd smirk and ask if he'd done it right. But he was wearing a shirt that identified him as affiliated with Turpin High School, so I took into account that he was probably not ever encouraged to have manners.

The work got done, though, right around sunset. Since I didn't hurt myself or anyone else on Friday, I decided to go ahead show up again on Saturday.

Chicago Intermezzo 2: First World Problems, Part 1 (Juan of the World)

Throw away the lights, the definitions,
And say of what you see in the dark

That it is this or that is that,
But do not use the rotted names. 
                                                       -- Wallace Stevens

from www.worldarchitecture.org

The area of downtown Chicago around Union Station turns into a ghost town after one in the morning. And when you're pushed out into the night when Union Station closes -- at one in the morning -- there are few options for places to go. The bus stop shelters are already taken, and the nearest 24 hour anything is a Dunkin Donuts manned by a grouchy old man of Middle Eastern descent with a cell phone ear bud that he talks into all night while listening to gangster rap. None of those things are issues alone. But when those are combined with a clear contempt for customers and an even clearer contempt for anyone trying to find a place  to wait out the night, any other option is preferable.

Of course, there's the Day's Inn on the corner of Canal and Harrison; but rooms there start out at $159.00 a night (not including the city tax rate on hotels).

My other option, and the best one I could come up with since there was a threat of rain, was further down on Harrison Avenue; and it was one I am very familiar with: The Greyhound Bus Station. Since I didn't have a ticket, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I got booted. Experience told me that overnight they do ticket checks to make sure that everyone there actually belongs there. Union Station opened again at 5 in the morning, and I knew better than to think I could get away with staying at the bus station all night no matter how much I moved around.

At 3 in the morning, the announcement I didn't want to hear rang out over the intercom: ticket check. The security guard and off-duty cop were making their way around, looking at everyone's tickets. It was time for me to go. Although it was little comfort, I was not the only one ejected into the night; but I was the only one that didn't have an idea of where to go. The handful of people who exited the station at the same time I did clearly had ideas on where to go and wasted no time in getting there. They dispersed and disappeared into the darkness. As I turned the corner at Harrison and Canal, a cold spitting rain started to fall.

I made it to Union Station's main entrance before the rain got too heavy. There were already a few people in front of the station, waiting for it to open, but I was able to find some shelter from the weather huddled behind a cement doorway under the overhang. It was almost 3:30. If I was lucky, a custodian would unlock the doors maybe ten minutes before 5. Any other options meant exposing myself to the weather and potentially losing a spot that, even if I had to stay on my feet, was, at least, shelter.  So I stayed put.

With that part of Chi-town still being a ghost town at 3:30 in the morning, I leaned against the doorway, my back to the wind and rain, and allowed myself to close my eyes and enjoy the relative quiet ...

which was broken by the sound of a truck (sans muffler), the tumbling open of rusty door hinge and the shuffle and tumble of fast food wrappers, the clinking of bottles, some muttered conversation, and a quick slam of the door. The truck sped off before the intoxicated idjit realized Union Station was closed.

I quickly discovered why when he did his best attempt at a sober stride up to the door, reached out to open as if he expected it to swing wide open to greet him, only to be denied.

"What? Not open? How can it not be open? This IS the train station, right?"

He looks around, waiting for one of the three of us huddling out of the weather to answer.

Right??"

I nod, hoping mainly that stating the obvious will shut him up.

"And it's CLOSED?"

Again, I nod.

When'll it open?" He sets down a bottle of beer that he'd been hiding in one of the inside coats of his pocket. I raise my right hand, palm open and mutter "5." Then I nod towards the very visible signs on the inside doors indicating the station's hours.

He immediately got his cell phone out and called someone. Having no luck, he muttered something in broken Spanish and punched in another number.

"Oye!" He said when someone answered. He went on to explain mostly in English that the station was closed. Whoever he talked to was clearly not impressed.

"What you mean, you're not picking me up?!"

Apparently not. He hung up, cussing in two slurred, broken languages. He dialed a few more numbers, to no avail. Finally, someone picked up. But she would have none of him either. I say she because first he tried sweet talking her, and he didn't even blink when the bottle of booze at his feet exploded from being shaken and placed heavily on the sidewalk.  The sweet talk quickly faded, though -- I got the feeling she had been the recipient of his "Baby please..." before -- and when he could not use game to talk her into driving downtown from West Elgin to pick his drunk ass up, he tried another tact.

He offered her jewelry.

Yes, really.

Personally, I'm shocked she didn't wet her panties right there and promise to chauffeur him around all of Chicago and collar counties wearing a thong.

When his phone battery died, he dropped it on the ground, stomped on it, and walked out into Canal Street, hoping to catch one of the taxis that had been driving by and slowing down a bit hoping for an easy fare at the end of shift.  Naturally, when he was trying to actually hail one, they would have none of it. He even managed to stop two of them by narrowly avoiding getting ran over. Neither of them would have anything to do with his too-hyper-to-just-be-drunk ass.

Maybe he should have promised them jewelry.

Then he yelled "FUCK IT!" and threw the rest of his hidden bottles of booze into the street. The shattering glass and murdered booze echoed in the night. After that he ran a block towards Harrison, hoping to catch another taxi. On his way back towards Union Station, he nearly ran into yet another taxi that narrowly avoided hitting him. I was surprised ... and relieved... when this driver, who was clearly desperate for a fare, agreed to take him off into the night. It was 4 in the morning. The rain stopped and I could feel the first inkling of moonset and sunrise in the temperature of the wind and a faint change in the color behind the clouds.

Carlinville Intermezzo: The Story Of R

The train station in Carlinville, Illinois is nothing more than a ventilated brick box. Cement floor, a single bench, no heat for the winter and not even a fan for warmer weather. I got there around 11:30 in the morning. The train to Chicago wasn't going to arrive until 3:30 that afternoon. The sky was cloudy, the temperature cold, and it was spitting a particularly unforgiving rain that made me grateful for I didn't have to walk the miles from Litchfield.

Nothing about Carlinville impressed me enough to get wet wandering around to explore it. I noticed one clearly No-Tell-Motel on the way into town. (The sign listed a price differential between single and double beds, and the ambiance suggested that there should have also been a price differential for hourly and nightly rates.) I also took note of several bars, none of which looked trustworthy enough to carry my pack into. Other than the rail, which rolled by a deserted grain elevator, there was very little left to describe. Like every other town that grew up along Route 66, it was impacted by completion of the I-55 corridor. And it was clearly impacted again by changes in the railroad industry.

I was alone in the brick box for about 20 minutes before he hurried in and asked if I had a cigarette. And if I was slightly inclined to dig deeper into Carlinville -- named, according to an optimistically written Wikipedia page, after a former Governor -- talking to R would have changed my mind.

He assured me that if I was looking to get laid, that all I had to do was walk down the street.

"Ah," I said. "So they're trying to fish outside of the gene pool?"

"Gene pool. Yeah, man You got that right!"

A man on the run from something has a distinct body language. Jerky movements. Disheveled look. Given the mostly pale demographic of the town and -- except for the Indians who worked in the hotels and the Mexicans who did the service industry grunt work -- R stuck out simply because he was black.

After I was unable to give him a cigarette, he asked where I was going and where I'd come from. So I gave him the quick and dirty version. Hearing that I walked from Staunton to Litchfield elicited a wide-eyed shake of the head.

"Why'd you do that?"

"I had to get here."

"You didn't have a car?"

"If I had a car, I wouldn't need to catch a train."

That seemed to satisfy him for the most part. It also gave him a door to prove the current events of his life more interesting than mine.

R was not from Carlinville. He was from Springfield, Illinois, but came there via St. Louis. And he did it for a girl. The part that seemed to surprise him, even though he was standing in a brick box train depot waiting for the train that would take him back to Springfield with his few possessions in a 33 gallon garbage bag, was that it didn't work out.

"She's a white girl," he said. "And she's... you know... not thick." He repeated this several times throughout the story, as if he was trying to convince himself that it should have, and for those very reasons.

The story unfolded something like this: he met the woman he was trying to escape the day after he got out of jail. R explained that yes, "It was drug related stuff," but that he had cleaned up his act since and was no longer doing whatever it was that got him locked up. But, he admitted that, upon his release, he was on the hunt for the one thing he couldn't get while he was incarcerated. And it just so happened that he got call from a former cellie who had a girlfriend who had a friend.

"I was looking for a one night stand," R maintained. "But it didn't turn into that."

Upon his release, R had been sent to a half-way house to ensure that his rehabilitation would take. After one night with this girl -- whose name, I have to admit, I don't remember -- she took it upon herself to harass his Parole Officer and the Missouri State Department of Corrections to secure his release from the half-way house so that he could move in with her. When calling St. Louis didn't help, R, said, she drove from Carlinville to St. Louis five days a week in order to visit him and track down the dodgy P.O. Naturally, the development seemed to work to his advantage, so he didn't argue. And while he never uttered the word, the confluence of events must have seemed to him, at the time, serendipitous. And when his parole officer secured his release from the half-way house... making it clear that his only reason was to get the woman off his back... R thought he'd stumbled onto the love of his life.

His first indication that something was amiss was when he showed up in Carlinville and discovered that not only did his true love have two kids -- from two different fathers -- and that both of them were medicated for educational and developmental issues, but that she also lived with her sister, her sister's flavor of the week, and HER two kids.

To hear him tell it, his one true love did nothing except sleep all day, eat ice cream and want to fuck. She didn't want to deal with her kids. She didn't want to deal with her sister's kids. Apparently the sugar she ingested while watching Maury Povich was only to be used in the pursuit of more ice cream and sex.

To hear him tell it, she screwed him raw. And in every way possible. And when he was too exhausted to get it up "I'm not as young as I used be, you know" she would insist that he do something else to fill her appetites. And then she expected him to take care of the kids, who wouldn't listen to him. And then she expected him to make her a sandwich. And then clean up the house. And then go buy her some ice cream.

I was waiting for him to admit to something involving a ball gag and a french maid's outfit.

Instead, he told me about changing the sheets on the bed.

Apparently, there was a day when his own true love actually left the house -- for reasons he didn't explain -- and he took it upon himself to change out the sheets on the bed. She had told him he could find clean sheets in a Santa Claus bag in the hall closet. He found the bag and starting digging through pillow cases and sundry unmatched soft goods until he stumbled upon something that wasn't so -- soft.

Actually there were several.

"I'm telling you," he said, "the bitch could open a dildo flea market!"

He found out later, however, that not all the dildos were for her. Apparently she was hoping that R's time in prison made him a more amenable catcher to a stiff pitch.

R would have none of it.

And while he didn't say directly, the eventual decline of the relationship -- he reiterated several times that he was in love with her but "The bitch is crazy, and those ain't my kids!" -- began with his discovery of the toys and his denial of her strap-on passion.

Even love has it's limits.

O Losantiville, Don't You Cry For Me: Asynchronous/ 2 Poems From the Road

I am open to the guidance of synchronicity and do not let expectations hinder my path. - The Dalai Lama

I woke up this morning to snow -- a light dusting on rooftops and car windshields that's lingering even though the snow turned into a cold rain. I woke up mindful of loved ones up and down the east coast, and mindful of the people I don't know who, even when the weather is fine, have trouble finding shelter. I'm mindful of people like Roger, who I met in the Chicago Greyhound Station and who I will write about in an upcoming post.

While my time in Cincinnati hasn't been bad, and it's taking me longer to scratch up money for the travel fund than I would like, I have been busy trying to find the good work of the world to do while I am here. I'm making some progress in that regard, and I'll write about that as it presents itself.

 Central to the ideas laid out from the onset of this blog, nearly 10 months ago, is the belief that philosophy without application is a mental puzzle, a brain teaser, and nothing more.  It's easy to say among similarly thinking friends that you need to put up or shut up. But it becomes a different discussion when you start preaching to someone besides the choir.

What this means for me is that I have to dig in, while I'm here, and find a way to positively impact the world around me, even if that means contradicting some expectation or another. Yes, I'm looking for teaching work -- and writing gigs. Teaching is part of the good work of the world, but there are other things. I'm still looking for other things to do. And from what I can see, I don't have far to look.

Not by a long shot.

Whitman By Moonlight, The Crossing St. Frank, Plus 2

On Monday, November 5th, I will be adding a new chapbook, Whitman By Moonlight. This one will be for sale or for trade or in exchange for donations to the travel fund. I still have copies of The Crossing of St. Frank.

If you're more of an ebook reader, you can now purchase St. Frank on amazon.com for Kindle:





2 Poems From The Road (Not in the chapbook!)

Shadow of Our Fathers

Downhill side street

leading to the cemetery on Boot Hill.

This place is watched over by it's dead

and the dead do not care care

that the living are waiting to roll them over

and move in.

Do not let the city fathers know, and

do not tell the church matrons either.

The sewing circles and kaffeeklatsches already

have a notion; and they are dangerous enough.

They whisper among themselves with eyes cast towards the ground.

Old men rooted on coffee shop stools know, too.

They grumble back and forth between news reports

that blame the President for the drought

and gastric rumblings they dare not blame on the cook.

There is talk of jack-booted thugs trying to nationalize the granaries,

but only from the agribusiness barons.

The dead do not care – so we necromance ours upon them.

Just one more layer of make-up on the corpse

so we can tell one another “He looks asleep.”

It is true then: the dead do not watch us

though we try and see through their dried eye husks

and tell ourselves the vision is crystal clear

as the fog wraps around Boot Hill

temporarily saving the dead from our intentions.

Three Days in Litchfield

Feet bleeding through my socks

the smell of fir and field grass

and new morning dew

pressed into my skin

with lavender scented Epsom salts.

Bone sore, from the top of my neck

to the tips of my toes,

bobbling like and old man

locked in a cheap motel –

waiting for some signal from the weather

hoping money doesn't run dry

like this past summer's rain.

The television for a companion

Gideon's book for recrimination

and Whitman for salvation.

The plumbing is good.

The bed is bug free.

There is rain coming

and the Carlinville train

is 10 miles away.

O Losantiville, Don't You Cry For Me- Intermezzo: By Way Of An Introduction

So tie me to a post and block my ears
I can see widows and orphans through my tears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears. - Mumford and Sons, The Cave

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. -Lucretius

Even in my moments of deep solitude, I am keenly aware of the fact that I am not alone. Maybe the only way to understand the difference between alone and lonely is to have experienced both and until you have the discussion is purely theoretical. Being Out there have been times when I felt absolutely lonely; but I have never really felt alone. I'm lucky in this regard, because I am fortunate enough to have friends who tolerate me and loved ones who tolerate me even more.

I rarely write about the angels who have taken it upon themselves to look in on me from time to time, who worry for my well-being but who understand that I will do what I will regardless of how little common sense it seems to have. As a matter of fact, I've been accused, more than once, of not having a lick of common sense at all.  If anything, I am occasionally plagued by a certain blindness which looks an awful lot like naivete or an over-abundant faith in my own ability. Mostly though, I recognize that even the most assiduously laid plans are flawed.

When I set out in January and took to carrying my home on my back like any good turtle does, I did it in part with the realization that while I maintained the same obligation of CHOICE that I also was letting go of a lot of a priori notions, ideas people take for granted, in order to follow what I can only describe as THE WHIM OF THE UNIVERSE -- because I have long rejected the metaphor of the white bearded Almighty sitting on a cloud and because I realize that no matter how much good a person tries to do in the world, shit falls on the just and the unjust alike. Which is to say: while I believe that some of the good we do in the world may come back to us, and I do think any negative energy we put out into the world attracts negative people and negative events,

I reject the notion of "visualization" a la The Secret which has somehow managed to be labeled as self-help. 

Yes, we are responsible for our actions and their impacts.

Yes, it's important to be active and to be aware of our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. (Half of this begins with language... not only the words we use to communicate, but those words we use when we are thinking to ourselves.)

But if you decide to "visualize" yourself driving a Mercedes Benz, you will not necessarily end up driving said high end automobile. If you haven't figured that out yet, go listen to Janis Joplin. Even she knew better.

Sorry. 

And since we're on the subject of metaphors -- and with the understanding that all lines that are drawn in the sand are arbitrary -- let offer the one that, for now, offers some explanation of how I go about things.

Probably of no surprise to anyone who knows me, I tend to think in musical terms.

For more time than I cared to admit, life felt out of rhythm. I felt it. I think my now ex-wife felt it, too. When I set out in January, in as much as I was leaving a life that had ceased to work towards the growth of either me or my then wife, I was also searching for an appropriate rhythm.

Not someone else's that sounded good. Not one that was unnatural for me or ran contrary to my soul. I went in search of rhythm that was mine, my own, and no one else's. You can insert here the metaphor of "the path" as well. And as Joseph Campbell pointed out, if you can see the path in front of you it isn't of your making. The same goes with finding an appropriate rhythm. If you take on someone else's just because you like it or even because it makes sense, that doesn't mean it's the one you ought to be humming.

Ah... but back to the angels. And no. I don't mean the winged messengers of Gawd Almighty. I mean those folks who do the good work of the world, who care about others, and who find ways to show it. In my case, I have been visited/helped by more angels than I can possibly justify deserving. \

People I meet along the way, who have made a permanent impression on my mind, and on my heart.

People who have helped me without having a good reason, other than being simply good folk.

People who love me in spite of maybe not understanding me.

One of those angels, for example -- one I have not written about much -- gave me a heads up about the taxi service that saved me a long rainy walk from Litchfield to Carlinville.

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Sometimes, in spite of my (albeit humble) confidence in my ability when I'm out, the universe gives me a hand. In this case, is was in the form of someone who ... not wanting me to sleep out in the rain because it would have taken me much longer than the estimated 5.5 hours to walk 15 miles and I would have had to seek shelter somewhere in between... pointed me in the direction of a questionable but effective cab company that, for the cost of $24 and a lingering sensation that I was about to be become the victim of a team of sadistic rural serial killers, would drive me there.

Along the same route I would have probably walked.

You know who you are, angel. Thank you. You are proof that the universe can, indeed, be kind.