A Man Named Haynes

Dedication: In honor of my mom's birthday, this entry is dedicated to her. Happy birthday, Mom - no gift, but...here's a post?

We got our tickets from a man named Haynes. Not Hayes. Haynes. My wife kept confusing the two, and for good reason, I thought – you want to trust a man who sells you tickets, and a name like Haynes just doesn’t lend itself to trust.

Not a car, not a dog, not licorice – you don’t really want to buy anything from a man named Haynes. Maybe you wouldn’t mind knowing him in passing – pat him on the back as you walk by him on a barstool – “Hey, Haynes, how’d you like the Chicago game? Fourteen points in the final five minutes – I told you your D wasn’t built to play a full sixty.” Maybe see him on the street – “Hey, Haynes, how’s the lawn? Drought’s been vicious this year, what?” Maybe even get culinary tips from him – “Now, you want to chop the onions very finely! If you’ve done that, you’re in for one fine bouillabaisse, or my name isn’t Haynes! (applause)” Sure, any of that might be OK – “Haynes” doesn’t have to make a man a pariah – it just makes him an untrustworthy vendor.

But we were hard up and he was willing – a not-uncommon complementary relationship in many business deals. So we completed the transaction and walked the half a block to the concert hall.

“I wonder why Mr. Hayes didn’t need his tickets,” my wife said as the snowflakes began to linger a few seconds on the snub-nosed brim of her black, felty hat before melting.

“Haynes,” I said. “Was it Mr. Haynes, or just Haynes?”

“I don’t really know. Anyway, I wonder why he didn’t need them.”

“I don’t know – he looked dressed for it. Especially those shiny, tasseled shoes.”

“Yeah – maybe his wife was sick.”

“Or his husband,” I said, thinking as much about egalitarian mindsets as I was about his shiny shoes.

“Maybe. He had a gorgeous wedding ring, though.”

“That’s no guarantee.”


Well, wouldn’t you know it, we got to the theater, and the tickets were rejected.

A look of pity settled into well-worn grooves on the ticket-taker’s face.

“I’m sorry, sir, but these tickets seem to be counterfeit. Where did you buy them?”

Haynes!

I could feel my face going red. I turned and ran the half a block to where we’d done the deal with Haynes, knowing full well that he’d have to be less than an idiot to still be there. I found the spot – everything was as it had been, except for Haynes.

I made my way back to meet my following wife, who, though upset herself, had to play consolator to my much more upset psychology.

“It’s OK. Don’t worry about it, David. We’ll find somewhere nice to eat, and we’ll forget about it.”

“Son of a bitch. If I ever find Haynes…”

“Who?”

“Haynes – the guy who sold us the tickets.”

“Was that his name?”

I couldn’t believe it – she hadn’t remembered his name. Probably hadn’t even made her suspicious!

“Of course that was his name. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him.”

“It’s OK, dear. It’s my fault. We’ll buy them on time next time.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s Haynes’s fault!”

“Honey, please. Don’t make it worse than it is. We’ll be fine. Let’s go get something to eat. You’ll feel better.”

But I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted Haynes to feel worse.

We walked along the wide brick paths under the Christmas decorations – white, lacey, and irregular wide-gauge nets of insulated wire strings hung above us, in some kind of whole-street-consistent decorating motif, looking like the branches of a bare tree flattened to two dimensions, with a light at every intersection. There were fake-candle lamps and fake oil lights in store windows. It was like a stage set for a Christmas play, and I began to think of Haynes as the cockney-accented swindler in a dirty top hat with a deteriorating ribbon around it and crooked fingers reaching out of a jacket with too-long, too-wide sleeves.


We sat down in a concert hall of a restaurant that was part Victorian sitting room, part ski lodge. The lights were low, and there were gas lamps on every table. Huge wood pillars cobwebbed this way and that twenty feet above our heads, and the tables and booths were set so far apart you could walk four across between the parties. Some booths were hidden behind a large, attractive piece of drift-tree art that sat on a waist-high stand across the middle of the room. A fish tank near the wall was the brightest thing in the place and cast an ethereal light across a quarter of it. We were seated next to a wall of windows that looked out onto the cement pathway and, beyond that, to the calm black waters of the bay.

We looked over the thin menus inside the thick leatherish covers the hostess had left us as going-away presents. I thought the clam chowder bread bowl looked like it might be my order.

“He probably didn’t even give us his real name, you know,” my wife said to me, not looking up from her menu.

Of course he wouldn’t have given us his real name! It dawned on me that all we really knew about Haynes was that he’d sold us fake theater tickets and that his name wasn’t Haynes. It could be anything else imaginable – Andrecovich, Chevalier, Ramachandran – anything but Haynes. It turned out that you couldn’t trust a man not named Haynes, either. But how could you know if he indeed was or wasn’t Haynes until you’d tried the tickets? Yet I realized that we'd known, when buying them, that they must either be real or fake – therefore, that his name must either be, or definitely not be, Haynes.

“Hi, my name’s Wendy, and I’ll be your server,” said our server, Wendy. She was an attractive brunette in her mid-thirties.

My wife ordered a White Zinfandel. I hadn’t even known we were ordering wine. So I didn't.

I ordered an apple juice.

I saw my wife’s eyebrows rise, but she didn’t say anything.

“The water looks like the sky,” my wife said, and I felt as if I’d just dived out of the hot sun and into a cool swimming pool. I hadn’t even realized I was still so tense.

I looked out at the bay and saw how the lights from the boats, and the dock, rested in it like very large stars.

“Yeah,” I said. “It does.” And I looked at her, into her wide, dark eyes, the irises so dark you can’t tell where they end and the pupils begins, and that’s kind of like looking into the dark night sky, too. And the smile that forms below isn’t unlike the stars that make the night sky beautiful and wonder-inspiring instead of foreboding and despair-inducing.

And it’s a smile that’s surprisingly small – boxier than you’d expect. And that sometimes annoys me when I’m irritated, but makes me smile when I’m not. And right then I wasn’t. I was, at least, had been, tense, and shaken up, and angry, but not irritated. And so I smiled. And put my hand on hers. And it didn’t feel silly or irritating or forced, but welcome and happy and easy.

We ordered jointly, as we do when we’re happy. We ordered a salad and mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce and, for after, a small steak with steamed asparagus and, yes, the chowder in the bread bowl.

We spoke a bit – not about the ticket fiasco, or the play, but about other things. How pretty and neat the salt and pepper shakers were (the salt shaker was yin, the pepper shaker yang, and they fit together to complete the symbol). How the driftwood art reminded us of the beach vacation we’d been casually discussing taking. How cold the feet of the little white Pekingese being walked along the path outside must be.

Following the dog’s paws bouncing along the sidewalk, my eyes landed on something, and I felt my stomach go tight. I realized it was a shoe. A shiny, tasseled shoe. I looked up to see Haynes. He was still in that fancy getup, the low-down, simple thief.

I knew I couldn’t take it sitting down, though a part of me wanted to stay with my wife, in the beautiful restaurant, eating our dinner. But I couldn’t just sit here and watch him stroll by. How would I live with myself afterwards? I sprang up and ran out of the place.

I found Haynes not twenty feet from where I’d seen him. He smiled at me when he saw me.

“Hello, sir,” he said, smiling – too forcefully, I thought.

“Give me back my money,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The tickets were fake. Give me back my hundred dollars.”

I noticed, past Haynes, that the Pekingese and its owner had turned around to watch the festivities.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Maybe you confused me for someone else.”

“Give me back my money, Haynes!”

“My name isn’t Haynes, sir.”

“Right. Of course it isn’t. So why’d you tell us it was? What is your name? John Doe? Mark Twain?”

“Listen, friend, I’m sorry, but I’m sure you’ve confused me with someone else.”

I smiled the confident smile of the beaten and desperate. I sensed my wife somewhere back behind me – she must have followed me out.

“You…” I laughed. “You sold us fake tickets, Haynes! Now just give us what we’re due, and you won’t have any problem!”

“Listen, sir, I’m sorry about your situation, but I’m not the man you’re looking for.” He held out his hands and turned them palms up as he finished, emphasizing his empathy. “You should probably go to the police.”

And that’s when I saw the glittering gold on his left ring finger. It was a beautiful ring – not just a typical wedding band, but thicker, and intricately carved.

Though he stood a few inches taller than I, my rage had overcome any physical fear I might have had. It was all I could do to stop from punching him.

“Friend…” Haynes said, as he inexplicably reached out to touch my shoulder.

I pushed back, instinctually, but willingly. He may have been off balance reaching for me, or standing on some ice, or my rage may have been too much, but when I pushed, he lost his balance. He fell backwards, not getting his hands down in time, landing on his hip and letting out a moan.

“Bark!” exclaimed the Pekingese.

In a moment of inspiration, I saw my chance for redemption. A chance to recoup my losses. I reached down and grabbed it. It slid off as if he wore buttered socks. He looked up at me, holding his shoe in my hand, with incomprehension. But what he didn’t do is move his still-shod foot. So I reached down and snatched that shoe, too.

I looked over at my wife. Her expression was almost indistinguishable from that I’d just seen on Haynes. It was not the look of someone to be counted on.

I took off alone down the walkway, the bay water on my right, the cold air a welcome sting in my throat, cooling the fire in my head. I was totally alone. I began to fixate on the bay – on how its placid sheen reflected the occasional shore light like a flawless black mirror.

Like the polish on my new shoes.

I've got a bridge in Lake Havasu I'd like to sell you...

In Oklahoma, the grass and fallow fields began giving way to ground that was barer, with small shrubs scattered about. Also, it became hillier—and not gently rolling hills, but more abrupt changes in altitude, with microplateaus and nanocliffs.

Hungry for breakfast and having seen only dull golden grass contained by miles-distant bluffs for the past couple of hours, I searched for the location of the nearest food on the Garmin. It was 48 miles in front of me. Forty-eight miles later, where one state route crossed another, lay some kind of town amputation—as each piece of a singly cleaved earthworm often begins to grow into a new, whole worm, this collection of buildings seems to lack some of the basics of a whole, healthy town while possessing some extraneities. I didn’t see a town center, or any municipal buildings, but I did find a restaurant and what seemed to be a junkyard.

I entered the restaurant and was told “Hello” by an AARP-qualifying white guy in a mesh hat and flannel sitting at the table near the door next to a similarly dressed and aged man. After I sat down, a man who would win the part of Sitting Bull in any local theater production entered and greeted the two older white men, indicating that the enmity between the white man and the red has eased significantly. However, he did communicate with the waitress in Spanish, so my suspicions have not been completely alleviated, and I fear there may be a rebellion stirring.
Santa Fe is like one of those all-too-short, over-too-soon levels in a video game. It’s surreal. It’s bright and blue and Mexican and Amerdian (Amerindian) and surrounded by mountains so close that an errantly tossed tortilla might get caught on a peak.

As I drove down the blacktop, the afternoon sun was white hot in its aggression, transforming the tar lines on the asphalt into visual lightning bolts.

The diversity of the southwestern states was encouraging to see. Nowhere was this culture of inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance more apparent than in Albuquerque, which, if you can believe it, contained not only a Whataburger but also a Lotaburger, showing that there’s enough room for a rich, diverse citizenry, some prefering quantity of burger, some more highly prizing quality.

Another encouraging discovey I made was of a certain, apparently popular, type of Mexican music that sounded a lot like polka to me. It made me happy to know that such a tradition is still going strong in 2009.

The lack of any natural barriers out here really is amazing. The roads just go on forever - you could run a marathon blindfolded.

Others are deceptively marked, at least on the computer map I had. One of the “county roads” my Garmin recommended I take was pretty much just two tire tracks in the dirt separated from each other by grass. It ran along a rancher’s fence. My Camry, I assume, would be flattered by the Garmin’s faith in it, but some of the potholes looked like something only a flatbed truck or SUV could handle them, so I backtracked the way I’d come.

Driving into the mountains, approaching Yuma from the east at sunset, was beautiful—the sun setting behind the mountains left the sky above a brilliant rainbow of low-frequency visible wavelengths, all suddenly obscured by the monolithic, monochromatic, monodimensional, jagged-edged range that looked like someone had torn off a piece of black construction paper and pasted it to the base of the horizon. However, like one of those dual, mutually exclusively messaged illustrations, where it’s either a young girl or an old lady, depending on what you’re brain is categorizing the lines as, as I stared at this truly magnificent explosion of color and contrast, I realized that, approached from an inverse point-of-view, it was fear-inspiring, as it could also be conceptualized as resembling a beautiful color palate whose bottom portion had been torn off to reveal a black no-man’s-land beyond, from which the headlights of escaping cars dimly appeared and other cars foolishly entered, their brake lights disappearing into its gaping maw of voidity. Alternately, it looked as if termites had eaten through the bottom of the horizon on the set of The Truman Show, and true night slipped in for the first time. Additionally, it should be noted that one should not have been embarassed to admit that it struck one as if the end of the world had been blasted through, and now travel to and from whatever else was out there was possible by automobile.

Having headed north from Yuma and then turning east at London Bridge, I was driving through weather in the mid-seventies, headed for the snow falling up in Flagstaff.

Nearing Flagstaff, I passed a guy driving a car with New York plates, and I got the same kick-in-the-gut feeling of humility I get when I see some guy wearing shorts in weather so cold that I’ve yielded to pants. It’s the same feeling I’d get when I’d see a white guy from a non-English-speaking country getting by living in India—he’s not only white like me (the title of my autobiography, perhaps?), but he’s also getting by with a foreign language. I nodded at this man from New York and said, with grudging respect, “You win...You win.”

I also saw a car with Ontario plates...but those people are crazy.

Having pulled into a rest stop somewhere above 5,000 ft, I got out and took some pictures of the snow. Returning to the car, I passed a guy wearing a flannel shirt with a shirt underneath, pants, boots, and a hat. He said to me, “You get the award for being inappropriately dressed,” as he looked at me in my winter coat, tennis shoes, and shorts. So that was nice. It was still 33 degrees, though. Still, after the New York-plate incident, I was taking what I could get. (It was 70 when I’d l begun climbing that mountain an hour before, and it would be in the mid-sixties when I’d return to the base a few hours later. )

Of Gettin' Out of Dodge, the Gang Dalton, and Adventures Courtesy of Sam Walton

Stopped in to the Carr Audio store in Larned, KS, where I had been told they might have some kind of camera repair kit—dust had finagled its way onto an inner lens and dirtied almost all pictures taken using the zoom. I found two women in their 60s there. One asked me if I needed help.

“Yeah,” I said, “do you know if there’s a camera shop around here?”

“In Larned?” she asked. Then she laughed. So I laughed too. Then she told me maybe I should check Wichita, which I found out is where she does her boutique shopping. A guy in a Dodge City Radio Shack would later confirm Wichita as the camera-shop capital of Kansas, at least in popular opinion among those living along a three-hour radius of it.

“I think what you’d need to do is go to a specialist, like in a camera shop.”

“And there aren’t any...?”

“No, we haven’t had one for five years. I think the closest one’s in Wichita.”

Finally, I got the hell outta Dodge, although after spending more time than was in any way conceivably necessary in the Dodge Wal-Mart. Especially the parking lot. Hunted for the power cord to the GPS navigation unit for about half an hour. At least it was 60 F outside, or the repeated trips between the interior of the car and the trunk would have been even less pleasant.

Finally found it on the backseat underneath a bag.

Saw where the Dalton gang hid out—well, probably only used it a few times, said the curator. Until most of them were shot dead. But they were bank robbers, so that’s an occupational hazard. Something about the whole town coming out and shooting them on one of their heists—must have been a red state. I didn’t do much research, first of all because I was in a hurry to move before the sun set, and secondly, because the place freaked me out. The gift shop/former barn was fine, but the house was done up as if it were 1900. As far as I can tell, the gang consisted of three brothers and possibly a sister and her husband. And maybe one other guy. A couple of the brothers had been federal marshals, but then a third brother had been arrested, and, they claimed, mistreated while in jail. They used that to justify their engagement in some after-hours train robberies. And I guess it paid better, so they went into it full time. Anyway, the barn was connected to the house by a tunnel (really a ditch that had been covered with plywood and then dirt) through which they could escape to the barn, and thence, on horseback, if the police showed up at the house. It is obviously neat to have a secret tunnel in one’s house, but, as I said, I didn’t stay in the actual house very long because the only other person around was the employee, who was at the other end of the tunnel, in the barn, and the house was completely silent and made up as if the Daltons had just left. That was weird enough—with pictures on the table and some fake food in the kitchen—but the horror movie coup de grace was a little baby doll sitting on the made-up bed. I don’t know why five or six adults hiding from the cops would need to put a baby doll on their bed after having made it, but in this recreation, at least, there it was.

The guy manning the barn/gift shop wore a cowboy hat and vest and talked with a strong and kind-of-overdone western accent. When he greeted me I proceeded to reply somewhat hesitantly, in order to let him know that I wasn’t a five-year-old who needed to be patronized with the Old West accent. Then, as we began talking about his old sports cards and the book “The Physics of Baseball,” I realized that the accent was gen-you-wine. He was a nice guy, though, and we bonded over baseballic futility. (I told him I was a Pirates fan, and he admitted to rooting for the Royals.) Maybe that’s why he let me walk down the tunnel without having to pay the $4 charge, although at the time I wasn’t so sure it wasn’t so that he could viciously murder me, in keeping with the decor of the place.

Also, “yegg,” meaning a burglar who robs safes, or a safecracker, was dictionary.com’s word of the day that day. Here was one of the two accompanying quotations:

"A train robber is better than a public yegg" has been the campaign slogan of A.L. Jennings, train robber and member of the famous Dalton gang, who was nominated in today's primaries for County Attorney over a half dozen opponents.
-- New York Times, 1912-08-08

I told the curator that I was on my way to Albuquerque, and he had about a thousand suggestions of what to do in New Mexico—he was a big fan. He did admit, however, to having yet to see one of the state’s (main?) attractions—the burial place of Billy the Kid.

Of Quietude, the Cosmos, and Manure

Nebraska state bird? Western meadowlark. State motto? “Equality before the law.” State smell? Manure. Seriously. OK, I didn’t smell it in Omaha, but I stopped at two highway-side gas stations, and each time there was a distinct manure scent in the air. I’d stopped at gas stations all along the way. I’d stopped at gas stations in Kansas. I’d stopped at gas stations in Iowa. I’d stopped at many many gas stations in central Pennsylvania. I’ve never noticed such a scent. Each time I stopped in Nebraska, I did. (Also, the Internet seems to think that Nebraska’s state soft drink is Kool-Aid. Do you maybe mean “state fun drink” or “state pasttime drink,” Internet? When did Kool-Aid become a soft drink? Aren’t they carbonated? (dictionary.com says they are usually carbonated, but we all know it’s just covering its rear.))

Roads in Nebraska are also audacious. Maybe more so than Iowan roads. They just go where they want— no curving around anything. No weaving or diverting for hills or mountains or bluffs or buttes or anything.

An amazing thing that I photographically documented—I found a gas pump that had no pay-at-the-pump credit card facility. And I was able to pump first and pay later...AFTER DARK!!

Kansas may have even more stars than Iowa. It was amazing—on an unlit state route that ran through farming fields, I stopped and got out of the car and stared up at the sky. I could see more stars than I’d ever seen before—a big swath of them across the night sky. And even with a bright, though crescent, moon. And it was amazingly quiet. Not even any animal sounds. With fields that stretched for miles on each side. I don’t know what makes so much noise where I usually hang out outside, but it was noticeably much quieter than I’m used to. It was very impressive. You give up some things when you live with light and noise pollution from all the modern conveniences. I wondered what it would be like to camp out in those fields. I was kinda afraid a buffalo would sneak up on me and attack, however.

It woulda’ had to have been really quiet, though.

Driving through Kansas at night was disorienting. I had to keep squinting and unsquinting to try to get my bearings. I felt as if I were at sea—the fields stretch so far and are so flat that you can eventually see light in most directions—kind of like staring off into the cosmos. Some light sources are probably twenty times closer than others, but they all look equidistant, just of varying size or brightness, just as some people have imagined stars to all be on the edge of the same sphere (or hemisphere) surrounding us. It was also kind of like being at sea but in sight of the lights on shore—all blackness except for dots of light on the horizon.

The Inequity! The Inequity!

Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards is so upset, he went so far as to criticize Roger Goodell after learning the NFL commissioner made $9.759 million in 2008.

"I don't see him out there getting hit or nothing like that. The commissioner makes $9 million, so you tell me where the balance is? He doesn't put his life on the line, he pushes a pen.
from Ross Tucker at si.com (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/ross_tucker/02/17/freeagents/index.html)

"To what is this prelude?" I wondered with eager anticipation. "Finally, the hard-hitting statement we've needed, from that spokesman for egalitarianism, defensive end Ray Edwards, that will lead the way to a state where financial remuneration is based purely on the danger of the occupation! Finally, timber cutters, fisher(people (including kings)), and pilots (and navigators) will get the money they deserve for putting their lives on the line each day they go to work! Pizza delivery people, truck drivers, and farm workers will be compensated for the risks they take to perform their duties."

"What was that title again?" I asked as I scrolled to the top of the page.

"Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards pushes to raise hazard pay for military personnel"?

"Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards to launch campaign promoting fight club for successful Wall Street bankers"?

But no, it was just "Free agency is changing, and NFL players aren't happy about it". And Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards was just promoting a pay raise for Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards (and, presumably, others like him who must wait another year (one more than had been customary) before becoming unrestricted free agents unless a new NFL collective bargaining agreement is reached before March 5.)

Oh well. Let's wish him luck. The last player to die on the field was Chuck Hughes. That happened in 1971. Of course, Korey Stringer died of complications brought on by heat stroke while practicing in 2001, and Chicago Bears defensive end Gaines Adams died of an enlarged heart during his team's offseason. In 2005, Thomas Herrion collapsed after a game and later died in the hospital. His death was attributed to ischaemic heart disease, or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. And others have suffered permanent injuries, including spinal cord injuries, while playing.

If we count all presumably football-induced deaths (and therefore, Stringer's), and even those due to pre-existing conditions that were exacerbated by the physical exertion required by playing the game, like Herrion's, (but not those, such as Adams's, which have no clear link to playing) I estimate that we maybe get a maximum number of one death every two years (or 0.5 deaths per year). If there are 32 x 53 = 1,696 players on active NFL rosters at any one time, then we have a rate of 0.5/1,696 = .000295 NFL players dying per season. I would assume it's less than that, but let's say, worst-case, that's what it is. That is higher than truck drivers, at a slightly lower risk of .00025 (according to this Money Central report: http//moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/p63405.asp). Are NFL players paid more than truck drivers? Mostly, I would guess they are. But the NFL death-on-the-job rate is four times less than that for loggers (at .00117). Are loggers paid more than NFL players? One would certainly have to assume so. And, of course, the average American worker has a chance of dying of .00004, which is about 1/8th the risk of the average NFL player. But how much does the average NFL player make? Around $900,000/year. (http://www.ehow.com/facts_5005211_what-average-salary-nfl-players.html) and (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_salary_of_an_NFL_football_player) Is this more than the U.S. national average salary of $45,600? Yes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_average_salary)

Is it more than 8 times the U.S. national average salary? Yes. In fact, it's over 19 times as much.

And every NFL player makes at least $325,000/year, which is 7 times the average U.S. salary.

So, if we're equating salary to death risk in order to judge fairness, then the average NFL player is doing much better than the average American. And, as compared to the average truck driver, or the average logger...well...

But that damned Goodell! When's he gonna earn HIS money?!!

Oh, so I'M the Asshole?

1:20 a.m., Bombay

Ring. Ring.

“Hello?” I say as I pick up my American phone and wonder who would be calling me on it.

“The recent financial crisis has put many hard-working people into debt. If you are in debt and have been looking to consolidate your debt, we are here to help. We offer…”

“Beep.” (‘Cuz I pushed “1” on a hunch.)

“…”

“Hello? Is anyone there? You can’t plant me in your penthouse – I’m goin’ back to my plough…back to the howlin’ old owl in the woods, huntin’ the horny-backed toad…”

“Hello. Thank you for holding.”

“You are welcome.”

“So, you are having problems with debt?”

“With debt?”

“Yes. You held on the line to receive help consolidating your debt?”

“Yes I did.”

“OK, let me tell you that this program is supported by the federal government, and this call is being recorded for quality assurance. By the federal government.”

“OK.”

“So, how much do you owe?”

“I owe…lots.”

“OK. How much is that?”

“Like…many dollars. Lots of pounds. A whole lotta euros.”

“And how much – can you give me a number?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen thousand?”

“Seventeen thousand?!... Yes!”

“OK, and…”

“Euros.”

“Seventeen thousand euros?”

“Yes.”

“How much are you paying now?”

“For what?”

“Are you covering the full amount for your bills now?”

“Well, not for the ones I don’t pay.”

“OK, and…can you tell me how you got into this situation?”

“Well, you see, what happened is…I bought things…I used my credit card. I bought a lot of things…but I didn’t earn enough money to pay for them. Now, I don’t have to tell you what happens when you go on like that for a while…”

“…right. OK. My name is Joshua, and I work with a program supported by the federal government that helps people consolidate their debt. We work with a group of 17 or 18 lawyers to consolidate your debt and lower the amount you have to pay. What if I told you we could get your seventeen thousand dollars down to nine thousand?”

“Pounds.” (I know I said euros before – European money confuses me.)

“Pounds?”

“Yes. Seventeen thousand pounds.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Pounds sterling. British pounds.”

“What?”

“British currency.”

“…OK. So what if we could get your debt down to nine thousand dollars?”

“Nine…OK. That would be nice.”

“And you would pay two hundred dollars per week. If you did that, you could be out of debt within a year.”

“OK.”

“And if you paid more, you could be out sooner.”

“Yup.”

“If you paid three hundred dollars per week, you could be paid off just over six months.”

“OK.”

“So you would be able to pay two hundred dollars per week?”

“Umm…how much is that in pounds?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Pounds. British financial currency. British money.”

“I’m talking about America.”

“And when did we say I was…”

“America. Dollars. English.”

“…Umm…Wait…What language do you think they speak in England?”

“You know what? You’re an asshole.”

“When – at what point in the conversation did you ask me if I was in America?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Wait. I just…no one told me I had to be in America…You’ve…hello? You’ve left me, haven’t you? Hmm…”

Frank and fries

Stopped in to Omaha to lunch. I’ve seen Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Krakow, Warsaw, Rio de Janeiro, and Mumbai, but Omaha amazed me—mainly due to the fact that it looked younger than I am. The city, frankly, looked like it shouldn’t quite have its learner’s permit yet. It didn’t even have any stubble...of course, it didn’t look as if it had completely filled out yet, either. The major downtown buildings—more than a few of whose exteriors consisted mostly of glass—looked new and free of grime...or really any deterioration at all. I can see why the Denver-based sports reporter who came to Pittsburgh when the two cities’ teams played in the AFC Championship Game before Super Bowl XL described Pittsburgh as old and dirty—compared to pubescent Midwestern or western cities, it is. That’s much the same reaction I had to Pittsburgh when I first visited after having spent the first six or seven years of my life in the suburbs—that it was old and dirty. But I had never been to any municipalities of such size, so I figured maybe with size came grit. But if this guy’s from a city as clean as Omaha, he must know that that’s not the case. And according to Wikipedia, Omaha has about a 25% higher population than Pittsburgh.

Upon parking my car on the brick road upon which sit shops in a higher-class, commercial area of Omaha, I heard the sound of the Gator Bowl, where the Cornhuskers were taking on Clemson, emanating from speakers perched above a couple of bars across the street. I avoided the bars, which looked to be filled with former frat boys on beer number five, and walked to the nice little boutiques. I was looking for a restaurant to my liking and found one, but unfortunately Ahmad was serving none of his Persian cuisine on New Year’s Day. Disappointed, but still hungry, I continued on, seeing an East-Asian mother and two children being photographed crossing the street by their father. I laughed at such people who must photographically document everything, then took out my camera and snapped a picture of the street.

Walking by the Spaghetti Works, I found that it didn’t open for another three hours. Then I ran into a blond man, about six-foot-one, wearing a winter hat and a jacket. He stuck his hand out and asked my name. I thought of how much money I was willing to part with in the name of interstate relations. I told him I was Mike. He told me he was Frank. I assume only one of us was lying. He asked me where I was going. I said I was just looking around. He said we could do that together. I looked to see who could help me when he began mugging me—the East Asians, along with everyone else, were nowhere in sight.

He suggested we sit down at the Spaghetti Works outdoor tables. This is where I learned that he has been living in the shelter for about a year. This is also where I noticed he wore three jackets over a button-down shirt and a T-shirt, two winter hats, and a small 2” x 2” x 2” clock somehow secured in a chaotically wrapped string that hung from his neck. This isn’t too make fun at his expense, as he was either maybe mentally retarded, certainly mentally ill, probably a combination of both, or the best actor I’ve ever met. This may sound callous, but I wasn’t completely convinced the latter wasn’t the case throughout our shared time. However, I was pretty sure he was sincere, especially after he greeted a stranger who was walking by, then, later, walked over to an old safe that apparently belonged to the Spaghetti Works, asked, “Should I open it?” did so, then said, “Look! There are millions billions dollars inside!”

Sufficiently confident no subterfuge was at hand, I thought it would be nice to buy him lunch and spend some time with him, so we got up from the bench, heading for a coffee place he knew. As we went to turn the corner, a police car being driven in an agitated manner crossed the intersection in front of us. Another one honked agitatedly at the car that was blocking him from following his friend. A third police car approached from the orthogonal street. They came toward us and converged on a man who was just leaving the ATM after having looked as if it was not cooperating with him. He tried to walk unsuspiciously away, and, when they approached him, he looked at them innocently enough for my tastes. However, not for theirs, as they had him stand against the wall and handcuffed him. One of the policemen motioned across the street to a shop, which made me think maybe something had happened there and someone had identified the now-manacled gentleman—however, I had been over there earlier, and all the shops had appeared closed.

Whatever it was, I didn’t want to stay around long enough to find out. Who knew what would transpire next? Frank, however, felt as if entertainment had been dropped into his lap, evidenced by his suggestion that we sit down on a bench about thirty feet from the action and take in the drama. I wouldn’t have wanted to remain there if I had been alone, but I especially didn’t want to be near that with someone who was in the habit of talking to strangers and touching things most people wouldn’t.

When we got to the coffee shop (Starbucks), he ordered conspicuously but fairly competently, and we sat down. That’s where he recommended to me a song by Roy Buchanan called “Running Out,” and also whistled a few bars of it. Several times.

He also told me his father was a German scientist.

And a cowboy.

After a lunch of French fries in a nearby diner, I told Frank I should be leaving. He asked if I
could spare any change because, as he put it, “I’m poor.” I gave him the change that remained from the ten we’d purchased his coffee with, and he took it and quickly said goodbye the way I’d probably done a hundred times to my parents. I felt a little insulted, but that I'd helped out a good guy.