I am a Bird, and There are Tigers on the White Frames of my Dark Sunglasses

In the subway station at Broad and Spring Garden, I sit on a metal bench next to a young father and his son who could not have been older than two years old. “One, two, three, four, five,” the father spoke slowly, drawing each number out while extending his fingers one at a time to teach his son how to count. Both wore expensive looking gym shoes. Both wore red shirts. While saying the word “twooooo,” the father glanced at me with a smile meant for his son as he noticed me peaking over.

On the train, the man across from me wore green pinstriped pants which, when he sat, hiked up so you could see his ankles. He wore boat shoes, a dark green shirt with pockets and buttons and a collar, a golfer’s beret and dark framed glasses. When I turned to stare at my window, the reflection of him made his glasses appear like sunglasses. He looked like he was staring me down. I turned back to him, only to find his eyes behind the lenses glancing around elsewhere.

In front of me, a girl wearing black socks, tough black shoes and black shorts and a black sleeveless shirt holding a blue backpack and a rugged looking black bike examined my sunglasses briefly before looking away so as not to let me notice. Her fingernails were colored glossy lime green. Her eyes were also lightly colored. She dipped her head to the side in a clever exhaustion. Her bike appeared to have gone briefly through a pain session, as it showed small blips of green here and there. It was also chipped. But otherwise, the bike was enormously black. The tires were thick, like a mountain bike. The tire read “Odyssey Phila.”

A stop later, tons of Phillies fans rushed on board the train.

Before getting off the train, I bid them all farewell and good luck, for I would never see them again. And then I corrected myself and said nevermind, I will see you soon, for I shall write about all of you. And then finally, I corrected myself again and said actually, I’ll say goodbye for good right here, for it will never be the same.

I swung around the metal banisters in the train with my arms outstretched, and I carried my backpack off the train at Walnut-Locust station as soon as the doors opened. I did not look back to watch the train disappear behind me.

Outstanding

I have an Ivy League education and I am applying to the same jobs I applied to four years ago, jobs for high schoolers and high school graduates. And I really have not heard back from any of them.

I graduated with honors in philosophy.

I'm not complaining. I'm just amused.

Ten Letters

My father had a terrible stomach ache one night. It wasn’t the first time, nor was it the first time he had to take a trip to the hospital. I was not worried; he simply had a weak digestive tract. When my mother’s friend Nancy picked me up from school because my mother was at the hospital, I did not think twice of it.

Nancy talked to me about school, her kids, and aspirations for college. She drove me down to the city where my father was staying. When we parked, she led me to a sitting area in a special part of the hospital. My mother was the only person in the room.

The three of us talked. Nothing about this alarmed me, not until suddenly everyone became quiet and Nancy decided to leave, as though my mother had given her a signal.

And then my mother turned to me, her voice suddenly trembling.

“Now Charlie, I need to explain something to you, and I need you to focus.”

I saw the weather change inside of me. A cooling and draining sensation washed over me, and I realized something was different.

“The doctors ran tests on Dad…”

I felt the senses of my body changing faster than my mind could keep track.

“And they found a tumor.”

That was years ago. My father’s tumor was supposed to move at such a slow pace that he would die of natural causes before anything else.

Like I said, that was years ago.

I sat in the family room this weekend working on a crossword puzzle I had started in the plane coming home from Philadelphia to Chicago to see my dad.

“Fifty-two down, four letters… twerp.”

“Torque?” he asked.

“No, twerp.”

“I would say ‘spin.’”

“Spin?”

“Because torque is a physics term…”

“No, Dad. The clue is twerp, not torque.”

“Twert?”

“Twerp.”

“Twert…”

“No. Twerp with a ‘p’… Twerp.”

“Oh, twerp, I don’t know…”

He had on his white v-neck undershirt, his blue sweat pants that were loose enough to cause no pressure on his stomach, and his black slipper shoes. And he had his TPN bag in the black backpack.

“Okay… Seventy-four down, ‘rude person,’ starts with a ‘b’.”

“…Boor.”

“Really? Isn’t that a boring person?”

“That would be a bore, b-o-r-e. B-o-o-r is a rude person.”

“Hmm,” I remarked. And I filled out ‘boor’ in the crossword puzzle. I started searching for another word that would interest him, something he could get.

“This doesn’t annoy you, right?” I asked.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Because I would imagine some people don’t like these questions…”

“It’s okay. I might not be very good…”

“I’m not either…” I started scanning the words I hadn’t done yet. There was one that had been bothering me, ‘one of five.’ I knew triplets, septuplets, but I could not remember the word for one of five. This was something my dad would know.

“Okay, what’s the word for ‘one of five’?”

“One of five? Quintuplets.”

“Perfect.” I smiled and wrote in the answer.

“I once took care of quintuplets… The Baer quintuplets we called them, because their last name was Baer, or is Baer. Back then I was not in charge of my practice. Ernie Weis was the lead doctor, and I was second up…”

He speaks with a slow voice of recollection, like a car idling down a street searching for an address.

“We received a call from the hospital,” he continued. “We were there in case any of the babies would need resuscitation. We did not know how many babies there were. Ernie must have been my age at the time,” I commented matter-of-factly. “…Seventy-eight…”

“You were there for the deliveries?”

“No, we didn’t do the deliveries, but we were there in case the baby needed resuscitation,” he repeated. “I remember the first baby came out and wasn’t breathing. Ernie went to work on him. We didn’t know how many more there were. The second one came out and also wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t crying. I held the baby up and whacked her feet,” he said, motioning the smack of his arm through the air down against the feet of an invisible baby. “And the baby lived. Elizabeth was her name…”

“From smacking the baby’s feet?”

“When you hit the baby’s feet…you make the baby cry… To cry, the baby has to take a breath. So you hit the baby’s feet to make her breath…” He leaned his head down on his fist, his elbow on the armrest of the chair. “It was amazing, this person being brought to life…”

I stared at my father in awe. In a moment I saw more heroism in one day of his life than I had likely experienced ever before in mine. “Did all the babies live?”

After a long moment of silence, my father lifted his head up and gazed away, squinting his eyes as if strained by the act of memory, or emotion.

“Not only did they live… They thrived…”

The Rest of Day 21

I was driving to the grocery store when I got a call from an unknown number. I answered it, and a woman asked if this was Charlie Isaacs. I said yes. She said she was with a company, the name of which I did not hear, and she wanted to ask about my resume. Delighted, I quickly tried to find a way to pull over, but there was no place in sight. I explained that I was driving. Since I was still trying to pull over, I was distracted and sounded choppy on the phone. She understood, and she offered to call back. Before I could answer, she offered instead to give me their number. And finally she added that she would call back and leave a voicemail.

So I thanked her and got off the phone. But just then, I considered the fact that my phone has a number of unheard messages, and there might not be any room on my phone. My phone started to ring, and I found a place to pull over. I was halfway into the space, but not perfectly, when I answered the call. But for some reason I heard nothing on the other end. After a moment, the call was disconnected. I pulled out of the space and was so distracted and excited and preoccupied with missing the call that I nearly hit a woman while turning right on Market. It was one of those moments where you stop to let her walk, but she stops, and then you and she both decide to turn, so you almost hit her again. She literally jumped when I nearly hit her the second time.

And so I finally pulled over again and checked my voicemail. I had no voicemail from the lady because indeed, my inbox was full.

Damn it.

After that, I shook it off and figured that she would maybe call back if not today (it was already almost 4:30) then perhaps tomorrow. So I went grocery shopping. I've done it before, but not so officially and thoroughly and for myself before. I bought $36 worth of food. Enough for two weeks perhaps, plus a week of breakfast. Cereal, a burrito, three pastas, parmesan, olive oil, vegetable mixes, chous chous (spelling?), green peas, and bread. Plus chicken. And also spaghetti sauce. And finally one of those environmentally friendly reusable bags to hold onto for the future.

This marks a revolutionary moment. Wait until I start cooking.

Day 20-21

Yesterday I woke up at 7 ish. I had fallen asleep early the night before, around 10 or 10:30. I woke up not tired at all, and with no memory of dreams. Just the distant taste of them.

I hit the road by 9:30. I spent a solid hour walking into businesses to ask abut jobs. Fed Ex, Starbucks, and the Marriott all told me to go online. I also went to a printing company, but they said they weren't hiring. They gave me the form anyway.

It took me half an hour to find parking. Finally, I found a space and made it to my apartment. I applied to two hotel jobs online, only one of them actually inquiring about the Ivy League school I attended. One of the hotels had me take a questionnaire. These tests are not always easy. Most of the questions want to know if your solution involves you tackling a problem yourself, you following the instructions of a supervisor, or you working with others. You spend so much time wondering what response the hotel wants. Do they want someone who knows to alert upper management? Or someone that will focus on the problem even if it means leaving a busy lobby understaffed. I found myself putting down my honest answer at times simply because deciphering the correct answer was too difficult. I was interested in the fact that though the questionnaire had a timer in the corner, you could click a button to hide the time.

I tried to hang pictures in my room. I unpacked bags and boxes. It surprised me just how quickly I was able to move through the boxes, identifying what would be of interest in each one and which boxes I could round off to holding nothing of immediate value. It's also amusing how many things you forget about. I discovered so many artifacts of my college life that had completely forgotten within just two and a half months.

I enjoy the painting job that Mel and I accomplished.

I work with the tutoring service to fill out background checks and so forth. And I need to figure out these quarterly estimates for taxes that will need to do since I am not an employee of the tutoring service but rather, an independent contractor.

I fell asleep later than usual. That and graphic dreams were what kept me asleep on the couch until 10:15. I had a dream of death and a dream of marriage. I am not prepared to describe these dreams because of how gruesome and controversial and provocative they are. I realize I risk forgetting some details, but I think it will be okay.

I'm off.

Oh, and because of me being exhausted and watching tv, I did not get any writing done yesterday.

Maybe today...

Also

And I've started writing. Re-writing.

Tighter, and with a taste of a fight

Yesterday I interviewed for a job as a tutor. And I got it.

Today I sent in the agreement form and the policies and procedures form. I began work on background checks. $30 an hour. Not bad.

I bought four journals. Two came together as small note journals that fit in your pocket. One is a mileage log so I can keep track of my driving during tutoring to be used for deductions from taxes. The last one is a dollar and cent memo pad so I can keep scrupulous notes of every single expense. I hope to apply my little knowledge of budgets to begin to make projections of expenses and goals and targets and rainy day funds, and so forth.

I was in Miami for a fraternity convention the past several days.

Today, Mel and her mom went to Montreal. I agreed to feed the cat.

I'm preparing to go grocery shopping. And then cooking. This shall be an adventure for sure.

Yesterday I realized that indeed, I had nearly quit drinking caffeinated sodas entirely. I considered the impact that change had had on my moods, my behaviors, and my tendencies.

My dad is proud of me for getting the job. Very proud of me. I try to call him every day. Sometimes I catch myself searching for his approval, as though I were making up for years of concealing any interest in that distant seal of approval. He sounds a little happier than he had been previously. I believe I will be visiting him this weekend while Mel and her mom are gone.

Last night I believe I had a repeat dream. I was part of some squad, and we were fighting. Who? and in what fashion? I don't know. Not strictly physical. There was magic involved. The repeating part was that I was able to collapse my surroundings like a house of cards and buckle my world back in time. It was meant as a trick, a combative move, an ejection strategy. I was delighted. Elated. Though I felt some disheartening at the prospect of embarking again on the path before me. But I woke up with bliss, excitement, for perhaps the world were not so limiting and definitional in its rules and regulations. Maybe the human spirit, the human fight, can transcend all barriers.

When i dream, I think I am a fighter. And I wake up with the delirious memory and taste of enthusiasm and desire and heavy thirst. In my dreams, I recall, I am exhibiting stronger control, like my own video game action figure. I may be making some conscious decisions.

Several nights ago, I had another repeat dream. This one repeated not a device or event, but a setting. I was in a terrible, rundown schooling area, a place with meager physical structure and struggling students and a less than capable or satisfactory staff. I was engaged in the act of wading through the dim, dangerous climate. I was to park a car, move through an alley, and pass through space when space is dark and dingy and everything is threatening. Modern gargoyles in the form of lurking bodies and voices hovering around the walls and in the crevices and in the corners. Confidence is not simply my card. It is the spirit within which I need to reside. It is the moving carpet, the protective cloak. It is the inner stamina. Stamina....

The moving back in time took place, now I believe, because of some object. The object was like a gold model of an old punting boat, or a Viking crew boat, something slender and long, perhaps with many oars, perhaps actually now with a cabin, and yet the object morphs in my mind into something I recently found in a bag on the curb outside an apartment in Rittenhouse. A gold Mezuza.

What does the Sh'ma prayer have to do with time?

Who am I running from? How am I redirecting my powers? To what avail?

And then I wake and I am left to gather the possibility that in fact these things are impossible.