Following the barks of raised
voices, I walked through the front screen door and up the stairs to my bedroom
where I found a man with a penis much larger than mine, and a short woman1
whose body has never met a razor, in a heated discussion. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of
myself.
It's 7 PM and I'm out of the office
a bit early. On the walk to the
station, wrestling to keep my computer bag on my raincoat shoulder, I thought
about what line I would use today when I get tired of looking for an open seat
on Amtrak Regional 170, save the one seat next to the woman who is feigning
sleep2. I was also thinking about why in the world I still wear a
raincoat when it rains. Today was
what many would give a right arm for - or a right leg. I was promoted, literally
"upstairs", to a corner office with more windows - the envy of my
peers. I did not do the happy
dance in the lobby, because I've learned to be humble during the highs of life
and tolerant of the lows, and that maintaining an "even keel", even
though I'm sailboat free, is practical and sensible. You see, I have apparently been in training because I share
a house with a man named Ecedro.
I don't have to explain, but I will tell you that it's not a romantic relationship
or anything like that. I saw a
sign on a phone pole. It said
"Need
a place to live?
Lets
share a place.
Good
life.
Ecedro.
Cook
across the street."
Much to the annoyance of the diner's manager, I asked to speak to Ecedro
the cook, and we decided to spend a few Saturdays together looking for a house
to rent together - two strangers who seemed to feel comfortable with each
other. Actually, that wasn't the
case. I felt comfortable with
Ecedro, and he would never even think about how he was feeling. He assumes everything will work
out. His internal tattoo probably
says just that. "Everything
will work out. Hang loose
baby." Surely we looked to all like one odd couple, since I only owned
business shirts and he only wife-beaters.
It was 8:22 when I walked in the
door and met the naked pair in my bedroom. We exchanged pleasantries, which mostly consisted of
repetition.
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
Quickly realizing that the dangling
schlong had no particular problem with me, or with standing naked before
strangers, I explained that the bed they had been using was mine. They expressed gratitude that Ecedro
gave them a "place to crash".
I had thought that "hitchhiking across the country" was
eliminated from our vocabulary in 1980, but either I was wrong, or they just
stepped out of a time warp. Here I
considered either possibility equally likely3. They smiled and
walked out of my room, home, and life with their clothes draped over one arm
(each)4. As they passed
I uncontrollably stared at her beautiful left nipple; she paused and kissed my
lips. At that instant, I
understood that body hair is irrelevant in life; for that instant I would have
died for her.
I took off my tie and pants before
heading downstairs, because this is a house tradition of sorts. Ecedro always wears a flowered shirt
and boxers in the house, and I liked the look, so I joined him on the boxer
part. I could hear him puttering
in the basement, whistling and clattering. He's been trying to figure out how a hot water heater, house
heater, and washer/dryer could somehow be combined for more efficiency.
"Always thinking about the
planet," he'd proclaim, "plus, there's nothing more sweet than copper
pipe and melting solder. It's a
beautiful thing."
To him, life is a beautiful thing,
and I have to take him at his word, because he says it as if he knows for
certain.
By the looks of the kitchen, he
probably already had his favorite recipe, cup-of-chili, for dinner. He has a set of open cans on the
counter at all times, each with foil on top, and 3 baggies in the fridge - six
components to cup-of-chili that get scooped into a cup that he puts directly on
the burner.
Cup-of-Chili
Recipe
one tablespoon black beans
one tablespoon tangy chopped tomatoes with
jalapenos
one tablespoon chickpeas
one tablespoon green enchilada sauce
one tablespoon chopped onions
one teaspoon chopped jalapenos
If you'd met the cup in its
previous life, you'd know it had MSU in green block letters on one side and a
cartoonish Spartan character on the other, but such decorations have mostly
been erased by fire except for the top of Sparty's helmet. You might think it strange to even
consider cooking in a cup, then picking it up to eat out of, but when you live
in the world of Ecedro, "strange" would not be found in the S's of
the house dictionary, probably in the E's. OK, that was a stupid line. "Strange" would not be found at all, because
anything you do is what you do and requires no additional labels, I've
learned. I also learned that there
is a 99.8% probability that the dirty cup currently sits on the bathroom sink -
if nothing else, Ecedro is efficient in the use of his time.
We've not discussed it, but mostly
we cook for ourselves - split house expenses but keep food and TP as individual
purchases5.
I opened the kitchen cabinet and
reached for a plate, not yet knowing what said plate would eventually
hold. The cabinet was empty, as
was the fridge, except for beer.
Our mismatched but extensive collection of plates, bowls, cups and
saucers seem to have found a new home.
"Ecedro," I yelled down
the steps, "where did you put the dishes?"
"Uh, the dishes are gone. Sorry man. Don't come down, OK?"
"Relax. I won't come down. The dishes - they grew feet? Learn to drive?"
"We hired a new cook," he
stated, as though the conversation was disrupting his concentration.
"Excuse me?"
"We hired a new cook at
work. He's Guatamalan. Illegal. He has two kids and a wife and nothing. I gave the dishes to them from us. I made sure to tell them about
you. They need to know Americans
are good people. Plates are
nothing. I'll steal plates from
work. Show love, man, eh?"
"Right, Ecedro," I
respond, wearily but authentically, "Show love."
"You are my brother," he
replied, followed by the scrape of a striker as he lit his blowtorch back up.
That was Ecedro's way of saying
"thank you for understanding me" -
you are my brother. He tries
to say it straight and simply, but he understands the consequences of the
things he does, so it usually serves, at least partly, as a request as well as
a statement. Often the sentence
ends not with a period but a lower case question mark.
Ecedro spent most of the night in
the basement and I didn't actually see him. I watched some American Idol as I did a little work I
brought home on my laptop, and fielded two phone calls on our dirty little
house phone6. The first
was some guy who told me to stay away from his sister, and before I could ask
what her phone number was, he hung up.
The second was a squeaky woman's voice who asked if I still had dishes
for sale. I told her, for some
reason that "Elvis had already left the building." Now, I'd never say anything that deconvoluted to anyone at work or in my
family, but in this house, I feel like I'm just visiting in Ecedroland , so I
can be free and silly without bounds and no one particularly thinks anything of
it. It is wonderfully liberating,
but sometime it's hard to keep this side of me suppressed when I'm with the
straights.
The next set of interruptions for
the evening was two different people who stopped by. Neither seemed to notice the boxers. The first was a girl in a green tank
top and denim miniskirt. I'm
pretty sure she said her name was Bejewel, but I wasn't about to ask her to
repeat it. She said she stopped by
to "return this plant".
I hadn't recalled seeing "this plant" before, but asking for
more information in such situations, I've learned, only digs the hole
deeper. At 10 PM, on the dot7,
the second visitor knocked or landed or whatever and, I kid you not, pointed a
bandaged finger on a bandaged hand at the African violet I had sat on the TV an
hour earlier and said "I came by to see if you were done with the plant
yet." I suppressed the urge
to ask if I was being Punk'd, motioned that he help himself, and went back to
my database with no further words spoken.
At 4:32 AM, I was awakened by a
loud crack - hopefully not a gunshot.
I listen. Silence lulls me
back to sleepy-bye land.
At 4:56 AM, I swear that, as I
awoke, I heard someone "shushing" someone else. Nothing follows.
At 6 AM my alarm goes off and I
sense, while my eyes are still closed, that I'm not alone. Ecedro is sitting on the corner of my
bed. With his head cocked to see
my face, his curls rest on his flannel shoulder.
"Wake up sleepy head" he
says, like a comfortable wife. He
hands me a very nice omelet, and toast.
It is a beautiful thing.
It's served in a hubcap, which has obviously been extensively scrubbed,
at least on the inside. As I stare
at the omelet I detect black beans, chickpeas, onion, and at least a pepper or
two.
"Sorry about the plates, Bud,"
he said, "but I had to do it.
I know the red plate was a favorite of yours. We OK?"
Almost a mantra for me now, I said,
"Sure, Bud, we're OK."
Then two things happened, at the
same place and the same time, or so close that I can't tell you which happened
first. The one thing that happened
was that I remembered looking into the fridge last night and there were no eggs
in there. The second thing that
happened was that some big thing jumped out from under my bed into the hallway.
"Oh yeah," Ecedro happily
said, "I traded our African violet for two chickens. Good deal, huh? Now eat up, you're gonna be late for
work, and so am I!"
A touching moment8; life
with Ecedro is always a surprise.
I share this breakfast-in-bed story because, for some reason, my mind
has tried to accurately replay that moment in time repeatedly. Was I thinking about the empty fridge
when cluck popped out from under my bed, or did the picture of the empty Frigidaire
shelves just happen to have decided to form right after the fluttering
began? We can neither understand
nor control what our minds do with their free time, and it certainly seemed
unimportant, but the brain returns to the scene often. One night, Ecedro and I were swatting
skeeters, sitting on the front porch with two cold ones, and I told him about
how this instant had become my mind's recent obsession - replacing the
"I'd like to teach the world to sing" soft drink commercial. Ecedro turned away from me, to try and
seriously think about this. Silent
minutes passed. Then he turned
back with a decision formulated.
"You have a mind that is old
and deep and knows to focus on the highest issues of man," he proclaimed.
This is when I got this the scar
that you see across my lips, the same lips that beautiful nipple had earlier
kissed. I can't tell you which of
us fell first - probably at the same time, but maybe me first. We both fell off of the porch and onto
the concrete below, laughing as little ones whose tummies would soon ache from
laughing pains, as he explained it all to me.
"I don't know why you can't
figure it out, bro. Your mind saw
this as the opportunity to determine absolutely which came first . . . (wait
for it) . . . the chicken or the egg."
Reader, "I am sorry"
seems so inadequate. But as I
stand here before you, I can swear on a stack of hubcaps that I kid you
not. After laughing and bleeding
for almost 20 minutes, Ecedro drove me to the emergency room for my stitches.
The next day, the managers met with me to outline my new job
responsibilities. It was a perfect
day except that I was really hoping to wear my one gold tie, which I love, but
when I left in the morning, Ecedro was asleep on the sofa, and had it tied
around his forehead. Peace, baby.
Anyway, the managers explained that
I should expect a few bumpy moments in the next few weeks, because I wasn't
exactly "next in line" for a promotion, but they needed me because of
my talents. They used words like
"level-headed". They
really did need me, particularly at executive meetings, because they've seen me
in action. They know that, when
voices became raised, I'd not get caught up in the emotions, but could treat
all people, words, and ideas with the respect that drains out of the strainer
called anger9. I don't
think anyone at work knows I was a problem throughout school. I had seriously hurt a kid in 8th grade
because I didn't like him, and was destined for probably a not-so-good life.
But then I met a phone pole.
That night, when I walked up the
front walk, home at last, I saw something new - Ecedro standing at the front
door waiting for me. I'd never
seen him out of his wheelchair before, but from the smile as big as the serving
plate that I used to have, I could sense that the wheelchair wasn't local, and
he was somehow wireless. There he
was - standing. I never knew he
was taller than I. As I opened the
screen door, I was struck10 by the lengths, elbows, and tees, of
shiny copper.
"Well, what say you?" he
asked as he smirked.
All I could do was look. He had constructed, with copper pipe,
extensions for both legs, copper "feet", and an interesting pair of
things that might be called crutches11.
"I love copper," Ecedro
said (possibly editing his inner tattoo), as a chicken crashed out the front
door.
"Well go get him!" It was the only thing I could think to
say. Lame.
I dropped my computer bag on the
porch and ran to get two cold ones.
Within minutes . . . OK, tens of minutes . . . we figured out how the
Ecedro/bionic man could be configured from a standing position to a
sitting-on-the-porch position.
(Note to self: buy four hinges.)
This was when my cell phone rang, with the ring tone announcing that it
was my mother.
"Hi, Ma, what's up?"
"Well, first I wanted to tell
you that I really enjoyed Ecedro's phone call today (?) and I am happy that you
live with such a nice roommate.
Your father and I did discuss your12 request (?, or better yet, huh ?) and we have decided that we will loan you the money for a new hot
water heater."
By the time I tried to formulate a
scowl for Ecedro, he had started rolling down the porch. The rhythmic sound, alternating copper
and boxers against paint-bare wood, almost reminded me of a steam engine. It was a shame to be scuffing up all of
that polished metal so early in the evening.
Fortunately, I'm still, at least
for the moment, faster than he is.
FOOTNOTES___________________________________________________________
1. She had thick black hair that flipped up on the ends. The hair alone reminded me of a style I
had seen on an old pornographic post-card. The fact that she was naked may also have contributed.
2. Yesterday the line I used was
"If I don't sit down soon, I'm going to hurl."
3. This would be a good place to
apologize for the excessive use of quotation marks.
4. I never had the chance to
explain to them that the wallpaper was there before we moved in.
5. I don't know what prompted me to
point that out, but there you go.
6. That's what it is, and that's
what we call it.
7. That's what we call the digital
clock.
8. Ignoring the "our" that preceded "African
Violet" . . .
9. Pretty good, eh? You're right - sophomoric. For the phrase "with the respect
that drains out of the strainer called anger", cross out everything but "with"
and "respect".
10. figuratively
11. These things could surely be
patented. If you're a patent
lawyer, call me!
12. your (pleural)!
You may be asking how I can distinguish in a conversation between your (singular)
and your (pleural) and, well, I just can.
©
2012 John Allison
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