“look who’s talking!
you don’t even have a
girl!”
“you don’t know what I
have.”
“you’ve got nothing but
your hand.”
“I’ve got two hands, Teddy.”
I grabbed him by the shirt and
pulled him in
close.
“and just for laughs I just might
kick your ass, real
good.”
“you’re just pissed because
you’ve got
nobody!”
I let him go.
“get out of here…”
Teddy turned and
walked off.
he’d gotten off easy that
time.
next time I’d kick his ass
from stem to
stern.
it was 1935.
I was standing in my parents’
back yard.
it was a Saturday
afternoon.
my father was in the house
listening to the radio,
the Trojans were playing
Notre Dame.
my mother was in there
doing something and
nothing.
I walked in through the back
door.
my mother was in the
kitchen.
“Henry, I saw Teddy
leaving.
he’s a nice
boy.”
“yeah…”
“I saw Teddy
all dressed up to go to
the dance.
he looked so
nice!”
“yeah…”
“Henry, when are you going
to get a nice girl to take to
a dance?”
“I only dance with them in
bed!”
“YOU DON’T TALK THAT WAY
TO YOUR MOTHER!”
it was my father.
he had been standing there.
it must have been half
time.
“don’t bother me,” I
said.
“I’LL BOTHER YOU, I’LL BOTHER
YOU SO YOU’LL NEVER TALK THAT
WAY AGAIN!”
“is that right, old man?
come on then, bother
me!”
he stood there.
I stood there.
nothing happened.
“ALL RIGHT,” he screamed,
“GO TO YOUR ROOM!
NOW!”
I walked past him, on through
the house and out the
door.
I walked down the street.
I had no money, I had nowhere to
go.
I just kept
walking.
it was a hot summer day
and I just kept walking,
3 blocks, 4 blocks, 5
blocks…
then I passed a mongrel dog
going the other
way.
his fur was matted and dirty
and his tongue hung out of
one side of his
mouth.
I stopped, turned and watched
him trot
off.
then I faced the other way and
continued my
journey.
classical music and me
I have no idea how it began.
as a boy I believed that classical music was
for sissies and as a teenager I felt this even
more strongly.
yes, I think it began in this record
store.
I was in my booth listening to whatever I
listened to
at that time.
then I heard some music in the next
booth.
the sounds seemed very strange and
unusual.
I saw the man leave his booth and
return the record to the clerk.
I went to the clerk and asked for that
record.
she handed it to me.
I looked at the cover.
“but,” I said, “this is symphony
music.”
“yes,” said the clerk.
I took the record to my booth
and played it.
never had I heard such
music.
unfortunately, I no longer
remember what that
piece of marvelous
music was.
I purchased the record.
I had a record player in my
room.
I listened to the record
over and over
again.
I was hooked.
soon I found a 2nd hand
record store.
there I found that you could
turn in 3 record albums and
get two back.
I was fairly poor
but most of my money went
for wine and
classical music.
I loved to mix the two
together.
I went through that entire
2nd hand record
store.
my tastes were strange.
I liked Beethoven but
preferred Brahms and
Tchaikovsky.
Borodin didn’t work.
Chopin was only good
at moments.
Mozart was only good
when I was feeling
good and I seldom
felt that
way.
Smetana I found
obvious and Sibelius
awesome.
Ives was too self-comfortable.
Goldmark, I felt, was very
underrated.
Wagner was a roaring miracle
of dark energy.
Haydn was love turned loose
into sound.
Handel created things that
took your head and lifted it
to the ceiling.
Eric Coates was unbelievably
cute and astute.
and if you listened to Bach
long enough
you didn’t want to listen to
anybody else.
there were dozens
more….
I was on the move from
city to city
and carrying a record player
and records along was
impossible
so I began listening to the
radio
and picking up what I
could.
the problem with the radio
was
that there were a few standard
works they played over and
over.
I heard them too often
and could anticipate each note
before it
arrived.
but the good part was
that, at times, I heard new
music that I had never heard
before by composers I had
never heard of, read about.
I was surprised at the many
composers, fairly unknown,
at least to me, who could
produce these wondrous
and stirring
works.
works that I would never
hear again.
I have continued to listen to
classical music via the radio
for decades.
I am listening as I write
this to Mahler’s 9th.
Mahler was always one
of my favorites.
it’s possible to listen to
his works again and
again without
tiring of
them.
through the women, through
the jobs, through the horrible
> times and the good times,
through deaths, through everything,
in and out of hospitals,
in and out of love, through the
decades that have gone so
swiftly
there have been so many
nights of listening
to classical music on the
radio.
almost every
night.
I wish I could remember the name of
the piece I first heard in that
record booth
but it evades me.
for some odd reason I do
remember the conductor:
Eugene Ormandy.
one of the
finest.
now Mahler is in the room
with me
and the chills run up my
arms, reach the back
of my neck…
it’s all so unbelievably
splendid,
splendid!
and I can’t read a note of
music.
But I have found a part of
the world
like no other part of the
world.
it gave heart to my
life, helped me get
to
here.
transport
I was a scraggly bum most of my
life
and to get from one city to another
I took the buses.
I don’t know how many times I
saw the Grand Canyon,
going east to west
and west to east.
it was just dusty windows,
the backs of necks, stop-offs at
intolerable eating places
and always the old
constipation
blues.
and once, a half-assed romance
with no socially redeeming
value.
then I found myself riding the
trains.
the food was beautiful
and the restrooms were
lovely
and I stayed in the bar
cars.
some of them were
so grand:
round curving picture
windows
and large overhead
domes,
the sun shone right on
down through your
glass
and at night you could
get
stinko
and watch the stars and
the moon ride
right along with
you.
and the best, since there was more
space
people weren’t forced
to speak to
you.
then after the trains I found
myself on the
jetliners,
quick trips to cities and
back.
I was like many of the
others:
I had a briefcase
and was writing on pieces
of paper.
I was on the hustle.
and I hustled and hounded the
stewardesses for drink after
drink.
the food and the view were
bad.
and the people tended to
talk to you
but there were ways to
discourage
that.
the worst about flying was that
there were people waiting for
you at the airports.
baggage was no problem:
you had your carry-on bag,
change of underwear, socks,
one shirt, toothbrush, razor,
liquor.
then the jetliners stopped.
you stayed in the city,
you shacked with unsavory
ladies and you purchased a
series of old cars.
you were much luckier with the
cars than with the
ladies.
you bought the cars for a
song
and drove them with a classic
abandon.
they never needed an oil
change and they lasted and
lasted.
on one the springs were
broken.
on another they stuck up
out of the seat and into your
ass.
one had no reverse
gear.
this was good for me,
it was like playing a game of
chess—
keeping your King from getting
checkmated.
another would only start
when parked on a
hill.
there was one where the
lights wouldn’t go on until you
hit a bump
HARD.
of course, they all died
finally.
and it was always a true
heartbreaker for me when
I had to watch them towed off
to the junkyard.
another I lost when it was impounded
on a drunk driving
rap.
they sent me an impound bill that was
four times larger than the purchase
price
so I let them keep
it.
the best car I ever had was the one
my first wife gave me when divorcing
me.
it was two years old,
as old as our marriage.
but the last car was (and is)
the very best, purchased new for
$30,000 cash. (well, I wrote
them a check).
it has everything: air bag,
anti-lock brakes, everything.
also, 2 or 3 times a year
people send a limousine
so we can attend various
functions.
these are very nice
because you can drink like
hell and not worry about the
drunk tank.
but I’m going to bypass that
private plane, that private
boat.
upkeep and rental space
can be a real pain in the
butt.
I’ll tell you one thing, though,
one night not so long
ago
I had a dream that I
could fly.
I mean, just by working
my arms and my legs
I could fly through the
air
and I did.
there were all these people
on the ground,
they were reaching up their
arms and trying to pull me
down
but
they couldn’t do
it.
I felt like pissing on
them.
they were so
jealous.
all they had to do was
to work their way
slowly up to it
as I had
done.
such people think
success grows on
trees.
you and I,
we know
better.
betrayed
the big thrill
was being quite young and
reading Of Time and the
River
by Thomas Wolfe.
what a fat and wondrous
book!
I read it again and
again.
then a couple of decades
went by
and I read the book
again.
I disliked the poetic prose
right off.
I put the book down and
looked about the
room.
I felt ch
eated.
the thrill was gone.
I decided to leave town.
I was in Los Angeles.
two days later I was sitting on a
Greyhound bus
going to Miami.
and I had a pint of whiskey
in one pocket
and a paperback copy of
Fathers and Sons
in the
other.
torched-out
the worst was closing the bars at
2 a.m.
with my lady.
going home to get a couple hours
sleep,
then as a substitute postal carrier
to be on call at
5:30 a.m.
sitting there with the other
subs
along the little ledge
outside the magazine
cases.
too often given a route to
case and carry,
starting 15 or 20 minutes
late,
the sweat pouring down
your face,
gathering under the
armpits.
you’re dizzy, sick,
trying to get the case
up, pull it down and
sack it for the truck to
pick up.
you worked on sheer
nerve,
reaching down into the
gut,
flailing, fighting