drug dealers

they are boys i have known a long time. three years which is, to them, an eternity. i think of them, these children, as mine. this is how we all see wild and ephemeral things. the bird outside our window every morning. the rabbits hopping across the front lawn at evening. deer in the woods off the road one over. we have to maintain a special balance to be able to see them without driving them away. i constantly misjudge this line. that's fine. if you have ever touched a real wild animal, had a bird perch, even for a moment, on your hand, you know it's worth however still you had to be for whatever measureless stretch of time.

1. i see the first child walking away from me down the hall just after the first bell. he strolls past the front desk security guard proudly displaying beads, colors, hat. these things say drug dealer. they say gang member. these are the things he is but he is also only a few minutes late for class. he is a student. i say his name and he turns and smiles. his eyes are a mess. his whole face is bloodshot. i motion to the hat and he takes it off. he turns back down the hall but when i say "the flag, too" he tucks the bandanna into his left pocket, out of sight. i am taller and am not practicing to be nonchalant so i catch up to him as he turns the corner. "why'd you come to school high?" i ask, although i already know. this is not our first visit about this subject. he looks up at me and his smile slides around all over his face. this is conversation, not confrontation. "i'm o.g., miss." the words ooze out of the smile. they are not true. there is nothing original about him. he is a walking stereotype of a drug dealer. as for the gangsta aspect, i know he has committed a string of felonies, has used weapons against others, but here in this place i know if i hauled off and smacked him hard across the side of his head he would not hit me back. he would apologize for whatever he thinks i might know that is worth slapping him over. this is not because i'm particularly fierce. this is because i am one of a number of women in the building who share the work of being his mother. so i don't slap him. my tired look says the same thing a slap would. i walk him to the stairwell and tell him to get to class. his face, his smile are less addled. "i'll be here every day," he says, swinging open the door to the stairs. "business is business."

2. the next child arrives to class late and we have the hat/phone/late conversation as he scoots into his seat. he is more impish than most sixteen year old boys and when i walk over to him, tired, glaring, and toss our current story on his desk, he pushes it back toward me gently and looks up with the face of an angel. "i read it already." he pulls out a folded copy of the story. i do not believe he read the assigned seven pages and i am right. he started and could not stop reading. he read the entire story all at once. he waits while i digest this information. he knows me well enough to look right at me, watch my eyes for a sign he's managed to make me cry. the other teacher in the room is asking questions and he raises his hand several times. and then after he does this, he answers those questions the teacher is asking. and he answers them brilliantly. i am leaning against the wall near his desk and watch him reach into a pocket for his phone. he glances at it, then quickly texts back. ordinarily this is when he would ask to go to the bathroom. he would be gone about five minutes and would hand someone in the bathroom something small in a plastic bag in exchange for some cash. instead he looks back toward the front of the room, turns his face to the discussion. i motion to him more than once about the phone. he smiles, nods toward the discussion, raises his hand. the child manages to text these little junkies back while raising his hand and answering questions.

i imagine his texts. why yes, i would like very much to sell you some drugs. however, i am currently very deep in the middle of an exhilarating discussion about a short story by the brilliant author mr. james baldwin and am not in a position to leave my literary companions. we are discussing the limited choices these two young men face and the ways they've attempted to escape the past and forge a new future. we are talking about harlem and heroin and jazz. i am sure you will understand if we postpone our scheduled meeting until after lunch. perhaps you'd like me to bring you a copy of the story. i think you'll agree it's far more brutal and lovely than heroin.

steam

warning: there's a pile of photos at the bottom.

when someone says jamboree you ought to always at least consider whether you can go. when you hear that there will be steam engines, you decide you can probably go and all that's left is to figure out what time. but when you find out the engines will be older than your grandparents used to be, you kiss the dog goodbye, put on your shoes and get in the car.

this is how we end up at hanford mills on a saturday morning, cool and sunny, with a few of the leaves already deciding on a new season, no matter what the calendar says. and there is little left to say about hanford mills during the antique steam engine jamboree except that if you didn't go it may stab at your heart a little to look at these pictures and see what you missed. there will be another september next year and during it another jamboree, but for this year, feast your eyes on the prettiest oil reservoirs you've ever seen and know these cogs and belts and gears, every spinning and whirring hunk of metal, has been hissing and humming and breathing longer than you.

and maybe the best thing about the mill is the herd of old guys, tinkerers, guys my grandma would have called real corkers. some of them have built their own machines and hover over them on the grass all around the mill. some of them are responsible for the care of, or at least information about, the larger, more intimidating dragons inside. it doesn't matter. these guys have the sorts of relationships with these machines that let them give you a lesson on history, physics and math all while making you think they're just visiting with you a little bit.

now, maybe the reason i like these guys is because all of them are, down deep, just different versions of a man i've heard stories from all my life. my own uncle jay can tell a story about anything and can make you believe you're right there breathing the same air as whoever he's telling you about. that man can tell you anything and make you want to hear it again. the way he laughs at something he knows he's going to tell you before he's got the words out will have you hanging on each word, waiting to get at the ones you know are making him laugh. maybe it is the way they sound like him, like everything they say is them confiding a secret, but i do know that when they talk about the pounds per square inch of steam pressure in an engine making things happen my eyes are wide and i am listening to how these machines live.

and maybe it's because so much of what we manufacture today is made to be disposable, made to ease into its own obsolescence without us even noticing, that i don't see as much prettiness in the shape of my laptop, in the way it is held together or in its rubbery feet. maybe a hundred years from now someone will weep over the beauty of the thing, how the keys are so elegant or how clever the clasp is and because i use it every day i just can't see all that loveliness. but i can see it in everything in the mill and i like to get up close to these machines when i can, see who made them and where, even if i can't quite figure out what each one of them does. i can see the perfect roundness of the wheels and gears, see the wood worn to something that is almost beyond wood in its softness.

as a child i would have wanted to live at this mill, steeped in the scents of sawdust and metal and oil, listening to water rush over the mill wheel and all those versions of my uncle jay, soft-voiced and laughing, explaining the whole world.

how to take a dog's temperature

a graphic and educational depiction of what can happen if the odds are against you.

first you decide whether you are person of faith or not. if you are, you do whatever supplicating is necessary to get the attention and favor of your god. you pray or fast or burn a lamb. then you ask for guidance and help on your mission. if you are not a person of faith, take stock of your life so far and consider that without some sort of miraculous intervention you will likely die and will surely be remembered for having been lost during a dog temperature taking accident. determine whether you are up to the task. it is absolutely okay to realize you are not ready to die.

go to the drugstore to get a thermometer. you do not recall the last time you purchased such a thing and you have no idea what kind to get. the clerk glares at you. tell her it's for your dog. tell her rectal, please, because that is what the vet said would give you the most accurate temperature. her glare intensifies and you know she thinks you are going to torture the poor animal. you are slightly bothered by the fact that she doesn't try to rescue the hapless thing since he is right there in the store with you. get some form of lubricant. vaseline. k-y. do not, no matter what your kinfolks may have said, use butter or lard. you do not want to risk losing butter as a thing you love because of this association and your dog already spends plenty of time licking his own butt without you adding seasoning to it. if you can find something with a flip-top, get that. walk home with your unsuspecting dog.

change into clothing you do not ever intend to wear again. this does not mean gym clothes or painting clothes. this means something you are willing to tear off your body and toss directly into a garbage can, if necessary. get a bath towel. this is to comfort the dog and create a work space, not to protect clothing you have already doomed.

sit on a couch with a table in reach. put the thermometer (out of its packaging and carrying case), lubricant (with flip top flipped) and latex gloves on the table. pick up the dog and put him on your lap. recall than when the vet does this, there's a muzzle for the dog, an (generally large and male) assistant holding the dog in a headlock, the vet and you all working to make this happen. realize this is not how things look now and call your husband to see if he knows where the muzzle is. when he does not know, sigh and put on gloves.

place the thermometer on your towel, which is spread over your lap, and pour more lubricant than necessary over it. pick up the thermometer in your left hand. wrap your right arm around your dog's neck, pulling his head gently toward you. lift the aggressively curled down tail up with any free fingers on your slippery, thermometer wielding left hand. realize you cannot see anything under the tail you have just lifted because the tail is in the way. peer around to the side. realize it is difficult to tell what is where from the side. lean as far to your left as you can, hoping to look under the tail. wonder why it sounds like there's a swarm of bees just above your right elbow. realize your dog is beginning his attempt to kill you. admire the recent dental work he had done as this is the first time you can see every single tooth he's got in that larger than you expected mouth. smile and breathe a little when you realize that although he has bitten down on you four or five times at this point, he does not have it in him to actually hurt you and he hasn't even left marks on your skin.

locate what you think, from where you sit, looks like the gateway to your dog's rectum. insert thermometer into this small, clenched space about an inch. be sort of impressed that it shoots out almost immediately and travels a fair distance across the couch. listen to that swarm of bees. it's getting louder and deeper, like a lion or a tiger or a helicopter about to crash. keeping your dog in your right arm grip, still holding the tail aloft, reach over with your gloved and, by now, very slippery left hand to grab the thermometer. reorient it to make sure you have the business end directed toward your dog's business end. try three more times to insert the thermometer and be proud of yourself that you're catching it sooner and sooner as it sails out of the backside of your dog. realize that putting a thumb on the outer end of the thermometer might keep the thing in place. insert thermometer for the fifth time. keep thumb steady. make a mental note to look into why your hands shake so much and wonder whether that will affect your dog's temperature.

notice that as soon as the thermometer is in place your dog stops struggling although he has achieved a facial expression of such incredible detached contempt you almost do not recognize him. look at the clock. watch the clock for three minutes. remove the thermometer, but do not yet release your dog. you will have to read the temperature to be sure you do not have to retake it. 102.5. although this is at the high end of normal, be aware that you and your dog just walked two miles and then wrestled a great deal. release your dog. destroy or clean and then put away all supplies. return to the couch. your dog will curl up beside you and go to sleep, having forgiven or forgotten all that transpired only minutes ago.

a streetcar named 3321

when i visited all those cranes and then strolled on down the cobbled street to the fairway, i didn't have a clue what was waiting. i had forgotten how close the place was to the statue of liberty, how anyone could just look out and see manhattan sitting there all shiny and tall. my brain was all abuzz with so much pretty sprawled out there like it was nothing, like it didn't demand notice. i was giddy with cranes and some sort of public transportation graveyard i'd walked past on the uneven stone street, was thinking about the shiny black harlem line bus that looked more like a '56 cadillac than like a bus, chrome streaming off its sides like you wouldn't believe. i had just walked past the statue of liberty, watched people walking by with little kids and none of them looking at any of this and then i turned onto the back patio of the fairway.

it is sitting right there, right in front of me. it looks like it has been waiting, like it is expecting me to stop by. and when i see it i yell out, "oh!" just a little, sort of quiet, but people sitting on the patio eating sandwiches turn to see if i am okay. i can't quite figure out what it is doing there on a stretch of pavement between the back patio of the fairway where people are eating lunch and the ferry dock to manhattan. nobody told me about any of this. but when the people see that i am not hurt, they go back to visiting and to their meals and this is the thing i cannot understand. there is a streetcar sitting there not more than a few feet away from any of them, pale green with wings on the front of it like mercury. and sure the front window is gone and the metal is pitted with rust but it is something i would not hesitate to hop on if it went sailing by me and stopped. i would run to catch it. and i do not run for anything. i cannot pull my eyes back into my head.

the streetcar is tall and i can see some sort of tropical plant leaning in a back window, peering over the very last wide bench. i walk on around the side, toward the ocean. the breeze swoops in salty and warm. the sea birds are yelling. there are three streetcars all end to end, in a soft curve on the pavement. i do not see what i will later learn are the trolley tracks below them that got them where they are now. but i see them standing there, ringed with nothing more than those metal parade barricades and a couple of signs saying danger. i am the only person leaning in the doors and peering through windows. staring danger straight in the face.

i consider hopping over a barricade and wandering around inside. there is nothing inside i can't see from where i am, but i'd like to see it up close. it is noon. i'm pretty obvious. but nobody seems to see me like nobody seems to see these old trolley cars resting here. if i went inside, i might become entirely invisible. or maybe then they would finally see me. what is that crazy woman doing in that trolley car? doesn't she see the signs? i figure having folks yell at me through mouthfuls of food might somehow cramp the adventure i have fallen into so i just keep walking and taking photos.

along the back of the cars, on the fairway side, i see where the plants are coming from. they are the border between the patio and the cars. a protective layer between people having a nice time and some huge relics nobody has the cash to move. bright and thick-leaved things, the plants have grown up next to the cars but unlike the people eating lunch, they seem interested. sidling up against the metal and glass. they are like me. they want to get in there and wander around a little.