Monday, November 26, 2007
Pop Star
I’m back - and better than ever! We had a whirlwind tour of lesser Porchland, including a few local playgrounds, a small handful of finer hippie-friendly dining establishments, some of the coolest doughnuts (NOT “donuts") I’ve ever et, a healthy portion of painful overstuffing at Scott’s very gracious folks’ house, and generally plenty of lounging, laughing and catching up. And now I’m back and though I’ve had a few items to attend to in the interim and a bit more precious time with friends, I did want to launch this little dinghy of a story that I’m hoping you enjoy. With all the nice time I’ve had lately with Z, I’ve been feeling particularly paternal - and that led me to think that this story might be entertaining today (and as an added incentive, there are photos to follow):
My sensors went off as soon as I saw them - two white men, dressed shabby and walking none too fast, one with a very well-seasoned backpack clinging to his shoulders and one toting a rumpled clutch of opaque plastic shopping sacks. Their faces, though freshly shaved, were weather-leathered, and their shuffling gait bespoke a much more than passing familiarity with the sidewalks.
Zach’s fingers were wrapped softly around one of mine as we toddled together down a side street toward the closest-to-home playground, meandering and exploring, idyllic innocents on a late-summer’s mid-morning. Crisp shadows below us and warm sun on our shoulders, we soaked up each other’s company, hand in hand. But my hand closed reflexively around his when I heard someone shouting hoarsely. “Bill!” The voice was as cracked and sunbaked as the pavement beneath us. “Bill!,” he repeated, “hey!”
Bill must have been the scruffy dude with the knapsack and unkempt mustache who was ambling along just in front of me. He stopped, searched down the source of the hail across the street and behind us, and shouted back “Wazzup?,” with an eerily-similar voice, ambling randomly out into the street. The man across the street - I could see him now, sloppy and shabby and shuffling like his friends - shouted again: “Ya got any, uh, change? I, uh… need… some....” His voice faded into traffic and gravel.
Zach’s fingers around my own felt tender and vulnerable. He seemed to be ignoring the whole exchange going on around us; I could not. “Waddaya need?,” Bill shouted back again, his hands rummaging in well-reamed pockets on his way to meet his friend. The dude who’d been walking with him just stood and watched, his shopping sacks drifting inconsequentially back and forth in the breeze. Bill and the guy who needed change met in the middle of the quiet street and swiftly concluded some small transaction; Bill then returned and went with the sackman into our playground.
Into our playground. I suppose I knew they were going to go there, but really, the temerity. This is a playground for children. I’d like my two-year-old to be able to enjoy it without wondering if some wino is going to befoul it for him. I wasn’t happy about it, but it sort of felt inevitable as I watched them slip through the gates into Argonne playground.
By the time Z and I arrived at those gates, Bill and his buddy had already ensconced themselves, with moderate discretion, at the picnic area just inside the fence, around one of several heavy tables cemented into the small plaza. Buddy had already taken off his white leather track shoes, which were grimy and worn into laceless grey apostrophes. He was just in the process of unfurling a newly-appropriated set of laces, so clean and white that his shoes looked positively wretched in comparison.
As we entered the seclusion of the playground’s curtilage, Zach insisted on opening and closing the big heavy iron gates for me. It took every ounce of his strength and concentration. As Z worked the gate, brow furrowed and shoulders squared, Bill and his buddy paused, looked up, and watched us with lugubrious eyes. Once he had safely closed the gate, Z turned around with a big grin, grabbed my hand again in a grasp both eager and tender, and pulled me toward the heart of the playground. Bill shouted after him, “Way to go, big guy! You’ll grow up to be big and strong like your dad!”
I was suddenly swept up with the tenderness of the moment and couldn’t restrain myself - I answered back: “He’ll do better than that, he’ll be kicking my ass soon enough!”
Bill replied, guffawing to the back of my head as we entered the playground: “I don’t think so, Pops!”
I kept on walking, didn’t turn around, but Bill had pulled me up short. Had he really called me - Pops?
Here’s a guy who’s sort of a bumbling good-natured real-life equivalent of Bluto, and he’s talking about me. I mean, sure, I’ve got a kid and I’m not entirely fresh out of the gate, but really? Pops? It sounds so archaic, so stodgy - it evokes bow ties and bowlers, or speed racer’s avuncular mechanic, or Arthur Fiedler. It just didn’t feel like it spoke to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the implied compliment to my strength and virility, even from Bill’s smeary, intemperate lips. So sure, thanks for the vote of confidence - you think I’m strong enough to defend myself from my own thirty-month-old son. That’s great. Regardless, I’m somewhat unsanguine about my new sobriquet. I don’t mind being a dad at all; in fact, I rather enjoy it - but “Pops” isn’t quite the same. Eruptive, archaic, and non-palindromic - it’s not so much nickname as typecasting. If Bill really thinks I’m the “Pops” type, I think one of us needs to retune his stereotypes.
Wasn’t that fun? and now, as promised: PHOTOS!
This is a close-up of a telephone pole in Portland; I think it had been used as some kind of impromptu fastener-storage facility. But I could be wrong.
Here’s a nice shot of several of my niece’s Ara-the-little-mermaids, one of which must be within arm’s reach at all times.
Back in my own neighborhood, I just always liked this sign and finally got a decent shot of it:
On saturday we visited some friends who took us to a wonderful playground with many excellent play structures, a long fast concrete slide, and a tunnel to the Berkeley Rose Garden, which afforded this opportunity:
Finally, for those who wonder whether Z really had fun with his cousin at thanksgiving, I offer you this:
and with that, I think we’d done enough damage for the night!