the best thing

yet another entry about how everyone loves the socially awkward dog

the small brown dog stands very still and stares straight ahead. until the woman in front of him situates herself so that he is looking at her. and then he moves. away. when he is at home, he likes nothing better than to stare balefully into the eyes of his victims but when he is here, out of doors, leashed up and eel-toothed, he will not acknowledge the existence of anyone. the woman is patient and shifts her pink phone camera a bit but all she gets is a brown blur. later, she says. she is a crossing guard and sees us every day. she has time.

the dog already has his picture pasted up a block away in the corner pharmacy, staring blankly ahead, one eye brown, one blue, red lizard clamped in a mouth that looks smiley and is why people like to look at him. he is so happy, they say, so proud. and they love what they see as joy in his predatory little face.

i do not know whether it is because it is summer or whether people who live nearby simply feel comfortable after seeing the dog so many times, feel like some part of him belongs with them, but the last week or so, the shutterbugging has gone wild. we are walking down the street, maybe wednesday. probably thursday. a man is talking to a woman toward the street side of the sidewalk, facing us. he says to her wait a minute and then he runs down the street in front of us. he sits, waiting, across the intersection, snapping photos of the small brown dog with the long orange stripedy eel. he walks along with us a bit, the giant lens of his camera upstaging the camera itself. he asks what sort of dog and then he asks his name. guthrie, i tell him. he says he was going to go get a few photos of dogs at the dog pond in the park but now he doesn't have to.

we walk a few blocks more and turn a corner, up toward the park. a woman waves her phone quickly in front of the dog's face, snaps what must be a bigfoot-like photo of him, then giggles herself away. we head back toward home and see a woman from our building, maybe the one who gives music lessons in the afternoons. she is young and smiling and asks if it would be okay to take a picture of the dog. i say certainly. the dog glares. she takes the photo and we walk around the corner and up the street together. the dog never acknowledges her existence.

the next morning we are walking home past bakeries and grocery stores and laundromats when a man stops next to us at an intersection. he laughs, fumbles with his phone. when the light changes and the dog hurls himself out into the intersection, the man walks next to us, his phone making a tiny movie of the whipping tail and swaying belly and the steady orange stripedy eel. he chats some and laughs more and smiles as he turns up his street.

then yesterday afternoon just past the dog toy store and the little cafe a man yells to us, asks if he can take a picture. the small dog freezes, looks into the distance just a few feet past the man, lets himself be captured. and now, walking back again toward where the woman this morning tried for a picture, we stop again, the dog more tired now, willing to let her take a picture, maybe two. the crossing guard with her walks us back along the block home talking to me, talking to the dog. her family has them. low dogs. we are all of us part of a cult.

and there are the people in sidewalk cafes and the construction workers sitting on stoops for lunch and hospital workers in scrubs taking a smoke break who stop conversations and meals to look at him. there are shopkeepers and waitstaff at several restaurants who stand in doorways grinning like fools when he strolls by. there are old guys sitting on benches or standing in clusters on corners who lean in, arms outstretched, and say to him in my uncle dale's voice i'm gonna get that toy! there are the people who giggle and point and wave and gasp every single day. the ones who clutch at the arms of their companions and discuss the possibilities of what it is the dog is carrying. well, i don't know but it looks like an umbrella. there is the maybe homeless, probably schizophrenic old guy on the same corner most days who stops his ranting about the evils of the world each time he sees guthrie so he can say that is a good dog. good dog he says, loud and garbled, and every time the dog leaves his own focused eelworld and looks up. i want to explain to the man how rare this is, eye contact from this dog, but he is there most days so i suspect he knows.

there are those who promise that the small brown dog is the most precious or adorable or wonderful or simply the best thing they have seen all day. every day someone says that. the best thing. really. i mean it, they say, in case i might not know what i live with. it is strange that he is unaware of them all, completely unreachable strolling down the street, pouring out all that joy without knowing a thing about it. i stroll along beside him, like flannery o'connor with her backward chicken. i am just here to assist the dog.

letter to my favorite fifth grader preparing for the first day of school

                       every two or three years i reread mark twain's great saga from start to finish finding 
                       it as fresh as when i first read it. with the spirits of huck and jim pushing me i have 
                       been up and down the mississippi many times. though i travelled on big boats 
                       rather than intimately by raft i like to believe i've caught glimpses of them. it's certain 
                       they're still there behind some island or up some creek.

                                                                              -thomas hart benton

in just a few days you will begin your first day in fifth grade and i don't know how you're feeling about it, but i hope you're excited. i know fourth grade was sort of frustrating for you. maybe you felt restless and a little bit like what you wanted wasn't quite what everyone else wanted. and i got to thinking about my own fourth grade year and i suppose i know a little bit how you feel.

my grandma claimed she met him.

i hated fourth grade. not all of it. not the part where we learned the whole history of the state of missouri and went on a field trip to the state capitol building which was, and still is, full of paintings by thomas hart benton. they are huge murals covering whole walls and they can make you cry, they're so pretty and sad and full of life and suffering. and i loved all the books i read, but mostly i read them alone. all by myself, sneaky and secret-like. because my school just didn't seem all that interested in the whole learning thing. or reading. you can ask your mom. she didn't like things too much that year, either.

i would sit there in my fourth grade class, staring out the window or drawing in my notebook or secretly reading a book resting on my knees while our teacher would drone on about subtraction. in fourth grade! not fancy subtraction with fractions or decimals or negative numbers. just regular old subtraction that i learned way back in first grade. so i felt like it would be okay to occupy myself with other things. this did not suit my teacher at all. things got really frustrating when my teacher accused me of doing something i hadn't done and then took me outside into the hall while another teacher watched our class. she brought with us into the hall a wooden paddle and she paddled me with it. i didn't cry because i was just too sad to cry. i felt like that moment was confirmation i would never fit in there, would never figure out how to be the right sort of student for sitting in a desk in that room.

you can probably guess that your nanny had a fit when she found out a teacher paddled me at school. i don't think those school people were quite prepared for someone like your nanny, who is mostly kind and gentle but will get a little wild when her children get hit with a board. and although my teacher never did anything like that again, she never really taught me much and she certainly didn't make me feel welcome there in school. and i'm wondering if maybe fourth grade is just a tough year for some folks. maybe kids like you and like me are frustrated in fourth grade because we're already ready for something new, something different. fourth grade sure can feel like a straitjacket for some people. 

that brings me to fifth grade. i walked in the first day pretty nervous. we had just moved to town and i didn't know anyone. fifth grade was completely different. we had four teachers. four! and we went from room to room for our classes the way high school kids do. each room was full of wonderful things to explore- globes, maps, models and charts. i could not imagine even for a second needing to stare out the window or sneak a book into my lap. there was so much to see and so much to do and teachers seemed to want us all to see and do so much cool stuff.

let me tell you, fifth grade teachers are different. because they teach a single subject and they're really good at it, they have fun teaching. they will answer all sorts of interesting questions and if you ask a question your teacher doesn't know the answer to, she will say, "wow! that's a really awesome question but i'm not really sure how to answer it." and then she'll suggest you all go home and try to figure out the answer yourselves and report back the next day. probably she'll show up the next day with some sort of demonstration that answers your question, just in case nobody in your class could find out. you never know. but fifth grade teachers are joyous specialists. they love learning just as much as you do and they want everyone to love learning, too.

in history we made pemmican and in math we dove right into wild fractions with mixed numbers. and my science teacher brought in a cow's heart when we were studying the circulatory system. i looked at a drawing of a human heart in my science book and was amazed that the cow's heart was so similar. because we are both mammals. we have so much about us that's the same, although cows have way cooler digestive systems. fifth grade is when you really start seeing how things are connected and the whole world starts to make more sense. and it was awesome enough then that i can remember it thirty three years later. thirty three years!

the thing that surprised me most was how much we read in english class. out loud. silently. sometimes we wrote our own stories. i tended to write about misunderstood little girls who would one day be appreciated for the very things people hated about them at the moment (especially thier uncanny ability to be right most of the time). and i was surprised that many of the stories we read from real books in fifth grade were about just that. frustrated people, many of them the same age as the girls in my stories, the same age as me. the same age you are right this very minute. and they all had to struggle, had to go through some version of fourth grade or something even more awful, through something that made them doubt themselves and feel hopeless. but then each and every one of them found a way to speak up, step up, change things.

expect a lot from fifth grade. expect a lot from your teachers. it is their job and their passion to give you everything they have and good teachers will know that. you have already realized that you love to learn new things and so you need to expect a lot from your own self, as well. everything you've done in school so far has been preparation for this year. fifth grade is the year of great exploration so wear sturdy shoes and keep your eyes peeled. go out and take on the world! i will be right here waiting to hear all about it.

building

first i ought to say i don't think brooklyn needs a big fat sports arena slammed down right in the middle of everything over on atlantic and flatbush. and i don't believe i'll see the affordable housing that's supposed to be coming with this grand new construction any more than i expect to see the cleaned up and "family-friendly"coney island gleaming with fancy new hotels snuggled up by the high rise housing projects.

big brutus and the rain (and us)

but i am a sucker for machinery, so much so that i married the sweetie at the largest electric dragline shovel still alive today. cranes and tractors and other beasts capable of moving great piles of earth or iron or steel or even trash do to my heart what little kittens do to the hearts of most folks. and because of this i've found a thousand reasons to wander past the mean-spirited construction going on at atlantic yards this summer, including today's five mile round trip trek to sahadi's for a bottle of orange flower water which, sadly, they no longer carry.

cranes in june

there is plenty to do and see along the way and the walk is pleasant, full of pretty bakeries and shops with old and rusted things. but on my orange flowerless return trip i stand a long while at the corner of fifth and flatbush to watch a crane operator drop a big checkmark-shaped piece of metal delicately in place among the other bones in this monstrosity.

the crane is one of two i can see from where i stand, tiny bodies hidden below what they've already built, their red booms stretched like the necks of hungry animals. a cable suspended from the boom point ends at what looks like a bobber you'd tie to your fishing line. the bottom is red and white stripes. the top is a blue field with white stars. at this bobber the cable becomes two cables, stretched wide to affix to the checkmark at two places, not as far from one another as i would have thought. and then hanging from either end of this piece of metal is a length of rope, each nearly as long as the metal itself.

all along the beams that have been welded together, all along the finished part of the skeleton of this arena, there are cables running maybe waist high, affixed from time to time to the beams like streetcar wires. there are men, tiny as ants, fastened into those cables close to the edge where the checkmark hangs like a feather in the sky. the men stand there under it and do not even think about what might happen if that slab of metal suddenly drops from its fastenings. i spend my first few minutes watching them thinking of nothing besides that.

the crane lowers the metal piece once and something is not quite right. the cables lift it silently back up,  swing the whole thing around, then lower it again. the men on the skeleton begin to move like flocks of birds, into two loose groups, shifting with the movement of the metal hanging above them. they move through the sky like it is where they live, which, i suppose, is mostly true. they do not once look down. and when the checkmark descends for the second time men from each group grab the ropes dangling from its sides and guide it to where it will live. from the start of that second try to the moment when metal sits up against metal is not quite five minutes.

there have been blocks in my past, wooden ones and plastic ones that snapped open and closed like alligator mouths. there have been lincoln logs and tinker toys and ring-a-ma-jigs with pieces that click together so easily a three year old could build an arena with them. and i know up close on the corner of flatbush and fifth avenue there is the noise of machinery and the yelling of those men to one another. there is that checkmark of metal hanging above their heads, more than two thousand pounds wrapped in skinny cables, but from where i am standing so far across the street it looks effortless.

drive

a 1970 chevy impala four door hardtop sedan with a v-8 engine is 18 feet of unbridled automotive fury. it is also just over six and a half feet wide. and in may of 1985 my own dear parents handed me the keys to more than 3,500 pounds of detroit steel and said happy birthday. i am telling you this so you will know that i know what i am doing. that i have known for a very long time.

however, knowing what i am doing and having a license to do it are two different things. let me tell you now you shouldn't ever let a driver's license lapse. ever.  because without one it is difficult to get a credit card. buy a house. register a rowboat with the d.e.c. fly on a plane. it is very, very difficult to convince people you are who you say you are if you have no evidence other than the word of your parents who may or may not be of questionable integrity. so when my license lapsed without warning me about what would happen i decided i was not about to stand in a million person line and take that whole driving test over again just to prove to the state i know how to do something i'm not even planning to do so they can give me a license to do it. using the man and the man's desire to keep me jumping through hoops as an excuse to avoid doing something isn't such a good idea, either. but i got myself a fancy state i.d. non-driving. for walking around and buying bourbon and it suited me fine. for a while.

but recently i've become restless as a passenger and the sweetie has been encouraging me to visit the d.m.v. to get myself legalized. so i go every time i have a day off. rosh hashanah. winter break. spring break. summer. i go to the d.m.v. at atlantic center, downloaded license application already filled out and clutched in my sweaty hands. i get in line. and no matter what time of day i go, even thirty minutes before the place opens, there are hundreds of folks already in line. and i know what you're thinking. you've seen me exaggerate before. i am not exaggerating now. i believe that before lunchtime the d.m.v. in brooklyn processes more people than the total population of my entire missouri hometown, including stringtown and oscie ora acres. before noon. so i go and i stand in line until i can't breathe, until i've forgotten my name or until the screaming of miserable children cuts through the backs of my eyes or the anger between others somewhere further up the line threatens to boil over into spitting or purse throwing. and then i trudge back home, determined to go again the next day. depending on the length of the school break, maybe even the day after that.

but because we went wild and bought ourselves a new car in the ancestral homeland a week or so ago we had to do some licensing paperwork and the sweetie was willing to take a day off and do the work upstate, where the d.m.v. is a little quieter. because unlike me, he isn't even willing to attempt to stand in one of those lines. we go to the margaretville d.m.v. together. i cannot keep the terms standing, stopping and parking straight in my head, although i know i will never put my car in front of a sign that says any of those things, just to be safe. i feel clammy. it is a long time since i've taken a test and i think it may be the first time i've ever been nervous about how i'll do. yes, i was that sort of child. we are third and fourth in line, the sweetie and me. the first man is there to license a small farm vehicle because he was yelled at by a policeman. the d.m.v. lady says there's no way to license the vehicle but the man says the cop insisted it had to be licensed. kafka. dickens. dizziness. the man, who has already apologized to us for taking up so much time, finally decides this conversation will not change and goes home. this does not bode well for my own efforts.

the next transaction is quick and then the sweetie gets started with his paperwork and i am at the counter. i have my expired walking around i.d. from the state of new york. i have a notarized copy of my birth certificate. i have read and reread the forms of identification required and i know i have what i need but i am nervous. "you need a social security card," says the lady behind the counter. now, if i knew where my social security card was, i'd hand the thing over to her, but i don't. i do know that as soon as i have a valid license, i can get a new one and i will, but that doesn't help much right now. i smile my best smile and take a deep breath and tell her i don't need the card, that i checked the state website and what i have is sufficient. and yes, i did actually say sufficient. watch cops. awkward formal language is a common response to guilt and fear. she looks me over like she can't believe i haven't gone home yet and she clicks around on her keyboard. she looks surprised, then frowns, then takes my i.d. "this is expired," she says. already at 9:15 a.m. i have made her so tired she can barely think. i tell her i know, but that it still sufficient. i know for a fact it will work for three years after the date on it. she clicks around again and mutters three years under her breath and looks at me like i ought to be ashamed of myself. i am too nervous to be ashamed. she shoves the written test across the counter and tells me to have a seat.

there are twenty five questions. i begin to think like a ninth grader with a learning disability. i figure i can probably miss seven of the questions and still have a shot at driving. i answer them slowly and carefully. the fact that, as a high school teacher, i sit through at least one drunk driving seminar per year is very helpful. i reread every question, make sure i've answered them all. i put my name at the top and stand up. when i had the test over the counter the woman asks if i'm sure i'm finished. she is sure i am not. i was pretty sure but her tone is enough to make my insides feel all silvery and cold. she takes the paper, exasperated with me beyond words. but when she turns back to me everything has changed.

she says that in all her time working for the d.m.v. she can only think of maybe one other person who aced the test. i am so rattled by the taking of the test i'm not sure what she's saying but i can tell by her smile i passed.  i mention i took the test once before when i was sixteen and that i've spent about twenty years of my life driving successfully but she is still happy and i can tell you right now i am happy, too. and yes, i am the sort of person who will text my sisters to let them know i got an A+, perfect, minus zero score on my written test. i am, indeed.

she puts me over in front of the camera and i stand there while we wait for the machine to warm up. she takes my picture and tells me when the formal permit will come in the mail. she hands me my temporary permit. she asks me if i want to see my photo to see whether i'm happy with it or whether i want another. now, this is an opportunity pretty much every single person i've ever met dreams of having. the opportunity to retake a driver's license photo. i can hear a choir of angels. i can see beams of golden light. i look at the photo on the screen. it is hideous. i look like a squirrel-cheeked crack addict. i look like a very tired drunk. it is fine, i tell her. and it really is.