Mostly Anecdotal

On a recent visit my son parked his car behind my wife’s, and so, unless we wanted to do a butterfly we’d have to take my car to the movie. My car is more comfortable than my wife’s, but I use the space behind the drivers seat as a temporary trash bin.

“You parked behind Gail’s car,” I said.

“And,” he said.

“Well, unless you want to do a butterfly we’ll have to take my car to the movie,” I said.

The butterfly is the name we gave to a frequent maneuver on the British comedy Butterflies. The car someone wants to take is always the one blocked in by the other cars. In the show it is usually Adam’s and Russel’s job to perform the maneuver. The maneuver is what rights the situation. The butterfly, is the alpha and omega of driveway management.

That’ll teach you to throw trash back there,” he said.

I grabbed a garbage bag and while handing it to him said, “Why should I care, I don’t sit back there.

He reached as if to take the bag, smiled, and then let it fall to the floor.

“I guess you know what this means,” he said, as he captured my last pawn. He now had a pawn while I had nothing but my King. The winning plan is to escort the pawn to the eighth rank and there promote it to a piece, most likely a Queen. The game was in its eighth hour and I was tired. I’d been winning earlier in the game and then lost my advantage, and now it looked as if I would lose.

When you begin to lose your mind shuts down like a body when it dies. Thinking is difficult. You’d welcome an out-of-body experience. You’d like to be somewhere else, but you don’t really want to give up. You’re opposed to the idea. You have a responsibility to the game and to yourself to fight on.

You look at the board again with fresh eyes and you understand, it’s the opposition, that’s the key. You have the opposition in a King and pawn versus King ending. All you have to do is carefully maintain the opposition and the game will end in a draw. You look up, and there he is wearing a George Bush smirk, though at the time, some 30 year ago I didn’t know about the Bush smirk. My opponent still thinks he’s winning, he doesn’t know about Bush smirk either, but he’s wearing it.

You smile, he’s not sure if you’re about to resign or . . . You wait a moment and then say, “Yes, I know what it means. It means the game will end in a draw.” He looks back at the board and then at you. He sees what you see, but he plays on a few more moves. You demonstrate that you understand how to maintain the opposition. He says nothing, but circles a draw on the scoresheet and pushes it to you for your signature.

He looked like a bulldog coming across the street toward my front door. He was snarling and drooling and kicking up chunks of pavement. His teeth were showing, and I could see that he meant business. I looked away, but when I looked back he was still coming. He was on my front porch in no time. It was his front porch now. He rang the bell. I considered not answering, but while I was thinking about it my hand turned the knob and the door opened.

“You can’t put your garbage out on both sides of the street,” he said, still snarling.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t know.”

“We get paid based on cans we empty and there’s no profit in emptying the same cans twice. You have three over there.” He pointed at my row of cans. “I emptied them when they were on your side of the street,” he said.

I looked across the street, he was right there was my green recycling container full of cardboard that wouldn’t fit the first time I filled it because it was filled with newspaper and cans and bottles. The other two cans, also mine, once filled with standard fare were now filled with the remnants of a small construction project we had undertaken. They held bits of scrap lumber, empty paint cans, and such.

The city provides one recycling can, and one regular garbage can. You can request an additional can for an eight dollar a month surcharge. We pay the surcharge. Most of our neighbors survive with one recycling, and one regular can, we don’t. I know we should; I know we need to get off the consumerist treadmill and start living the simple life. I know we’d be happier, the environment would be happier, but our piggy habits are hard to break. Some of our neighbors also have additional cans, we are a select club, we consumerist assholes.

I’ve done it before, I’ve had a little extra trash and after he emptied it on our side of the street I refilled the can and put it on the neighbor’s side, but this wasn’t just a single can it was all three. One of my neighbors on the other side of the street was outside when I was taking my extra cans out. I was embarrassed, what must she be think? She looked my way, and although she was close enough to say something she just smiled and waved. When I started back across I saw her walk to our side of the street and retrieve a can, her can, a can that was emptied when the truck passed on our side. She was going to refill it to be emptied again on her side. She is definitely a member of the club.

I wasn’t sure how to talk to a bulldog, I didn’t want to take the full cans back, I didn’t want my garbage stacking up, but there he was still snarling and giving me the evil eye. I decided on a course of action, I’d grovel.

“I’m sorry,” I said. He was unmoved. It was clear I would have to do a lot better than just I’m sorry.

“We simply don’t have the time” he said. “I’m not going to work extra hours for nothing and that’s what happens when people like you put their trash out twice. Get another can from the City if you need more, and pay your fair share.”

The problem with that is that I feel guilty enough with the extra can I already have, I can’t imagine what the neighbors would say if we had three regular cans and a recycling can.

I donned my most sincere face and said, “I’m really sorry, and I understand that it’s not fair to you and It will never happen again.” The scowl on his face relaxed just a bit and his hackles were down. “I would really appreciate it if you could take it this one last time, and like I said It’ll never happen again, honest.”

He cocked his head to one side and looked at me. I could tell he was considering my request, but had I said the right thing, had he already made up his mind, he hesitated, “just this last time he said,” and then turned and left. I thanked him again, as he was walking away and went back inside. Would he change his mind on the way back across the street to his truck. Would my apology hold, he got back in his truck and pulled forward a few feet, stopped next to my cans and emptied them both. The truck for the recycling can will come later in the day, the question is will I be taking the final can back full or empty.

I hear a beep. Something’s battery needs recharging, but what? Is it the alarm that goes off at noon each day? The alarm is a problem I should fix, but I’d have to figure out how it works all over again. It is the type of thing that you deal with so seldom that you forget how it’s done. There are other things like that I suffer from, but it’s not noon, and so it couldn’t be the alarm and so I expand my search.

First, I look to see whether the phone is in its cradle. It is, but a visual check is not enough and I rise to examine it and then reseat it just in case. I return to my desk, but a few moments later I hear the beep again. It sounds like the beep a phone makes when its battery is low. It must be a cell phone. I look at my phone sitting on the desk next to me. It can’t be my cell phone, can it? The sound seems like it’s coming from the right, or maybe behind me. I plug my phone into a charger anyway. Moments pass and the beep returns. I’m sure now, it’s behind me, but where exactly and what. Then I remember, my iPod is in the book bag directly behind me. My analytical mind triumphs—I take it out of the bag and plug it in.

The phone rings, a ring not a beep, it’s the Power Company. “What the hell,” the man says, “are you recharging your world again.”

I assure him I’m not, “just a few small items,” I say “I’m surprised you noticed.”

“Be sure to unplug them when you’re finished,” he says, “not only will it help with your power bill but we won’t have to build another coal-fired plant as soon as we would otherwise, and we know how you’re opposed to coal-fired plants.”

“How do you know I’m opposed to coal-fired plants,” I ask.

“Google,” he says.

He’s on the phone, but I’m sure I sense a conspiratorial wink at the other end of the line. I hang up. I’m pleased that the disturbing beeps have ended.

What, another beep. I look at my iPod just to make sure I didn’t dream I plugged it in, and then I yell, “Gail there is beeping in our room and I can’t find it.”

“It’s probably my phone,” she replies, “it’s in my purse.”

I turnaround, there is her purse, a few inches from my book bag. She arrives removes the phone and plugs it in to recharge. “I sure hope the Power Company guy doesn’t notice,” I say.

She looks puzzled, but she knows me well. “I hope not,” she says and leaves.

There are some things you need to know before I begin. Like Stavros the Wonder Chicken, “sometimes entire paragraphs just appear in my brain right before I fall asleep.” It also happens to me sometimes upon awakening. I’m going to start writing them down, and sometimes I’ll share them. So here it is the beginning of a story I’ll never write.

When he walked into the room, he had an erection. Fanny Assingham had been standing just outside the door with her friends, and she had smiled at him. But, it was the sight of his Mother, and of his Father, as well as his brothers and sisters that took care of his rising star, and not in a good way.

Imagine there are nine inches of snow on the ground—the temperature is 27 degrees Fahrenheit and suddenly, with no warning, it’s the middle of the summer, well that’s how it was.