Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
WHEN COMMON SENSE FAILS， RULES RULE
WHEN COMMON SENSE FAILS， RULES RULE
Mr. Doolittle has been experimenting with the policy “when common sense fails, rules rule” for the last two months and it seemed to have worked very effectively. His conviction of the policy came from his own firsthand experience in a homeless shelter. The site manager of a homeless shelter in God’s county for 8 years，Mr. Doolittle has operated under the guidance of a church charity which has proudly encouraged all its followers to get involved in organized benevolence.
Mr. Doolittle is trying to gain more insights into human nature while implementing creative ways of governing, which in the shelter, is modestly job-described as overseeing. He believes that salvation should come from a higher consciousness of being than as the result of the lust to rule, or even worse, punish. The lust to rule, to him, is a lower form of social reality, a reality tragically grown out of necessity to impose. Like a car, you need the wheels as well as the brake to move without being killed. His practice ensures that people get plenty of leg room to find out common sense is the brake, and self-governing is the best way to survival in a communal situation, most of the time rather packed.
Most people live in homes, families of spouses and children, in their houses, or apartments. No matter where you live, there are set of rules openly or secretly negotiated back and forth between or among the members sharing that space. In the instance of his own family, he believed that his Mom had more common sense, but his Dad ruled because he was the one who brought home the bacon. But Mom’s governing style has distilled into him a sense of common sense and because of a natural alliance of mother and son relationship, he unconsciously followed his Mom’s vision to navigate through life.
Mr. Doolittle is recently promoted to the senior staff statue-the-coordinating supervisor. Now with all the other site managers under him, he is happily sandwiched between the boss and old pals. He stations himself professionally in an office, where high shelves are fully stocked with used but clean blankets, sheets, towels donated by the Holiday Inn, and food from the food bank. The office used to be a two-car garage and this is where he has contemplated human behaviors and preached his private gospel of God’s grace: “God cannot give us any other help than self-help.” He loves this little quotation by Thoreau--the woods poet. He draws a lot of poetic inspiration from him while alone in the office. There are two kinds books he reads, the little book by Thoreau on Man and Nature and all the volumes of Preys serials by James Pergerson, a good combination of insights in his boss’s eyes.
Thoreau’s poetic simplicity in living in and with nature and Prey’s confessional revelation of predator’s nature keep his mind well balanced. He was drinking his tea when one client knocked emotionally on the door, complaining that the other site manager was giving her a hard time concerning the issue of cleaning the bath room. She got a write-up for not fully completing her chore and it greatly upset her.
“Yes, dear, what’s the matter?” Mr. Doolittle very cordially leaned his head towards the lady to lend her his big, car door ear. He would have an earful of blabla and blabla. He knew that from his experience. And he did develop a good habit to listen with great attention, and polished grace. He had been helping the running of people‘s lives. To him, this is of great importance. In fact, he did not get much of his own to run. He did not have a wife, did not have children, and had no romance at this moment. But he has been spiritually heavily yoked to a mission to serve the poor and the needy and this has been a solid anchor in the stormy water of life.
“Yes, my dear?” he asked again. His very cozy, family oriented attitude took that lady by surprise. She had a conviction that the other site manager was pushing her around, and she got to find some justice.
“Fanny, Ms. Fanny, what’s the matter, my dear?”
“Oh, the bath room, the toil, the stool, and TP in the trash can, oh, …”
“What about it?”
“So dirty and soiled. I am not going to do the dirty job. Why me, people have to clean after themselves. And they haven’t learned to flush the toil yet after they’ve done their jobs. ”
“Yeah, yeah, people are people. We know those people. They take this place as their home and they do the same thing as if they were still in their own houses.”
“No, I don’t think that’s what they think. They wouldn’t do this in their own houses. It is only because they know there is a chore list, and I just happen to be the one to clean the shit. You need to go in and see for yourself who did it. I am not going to do the dirty work. I am not…”
This has been the routine, the number one issue in family shelter. With at least three families sharing a house, some issues bound to come up. Cooking time, loud TV at night, showers either too early about 4 o’clock in the morning, or too late when a line formed outside the bathroom for the morning urges, baby running out of room in winter with nothing on but diapers, smoky stinky socks that knocked people off, and the number one issue, always, the number one issue, who took the Toilet trash out.
“Ms. Fanny, calm down, my dear, would you? Yes, that’s it, calm down. What about I do it , and would that make you happier for the day ?”
Ms. Fanny stood there with her eyes blinking. Her tears were on the verge of dropping. She was not quite sure to wipe them or to let them fall. They were so lovely, they were real tears, tear of sorrow and tears of joy. Mr. Doolittle always thought woman’s tears had the effect of sun on snow. It could melt a hard boiled soul in seconds. Someone like Mr. Doolittle always retained a soft spot for tears, especially female‘s tears. That spot reacts easily to the clouds that carry rain drops.
Ms Fanny became a little bashful. But what else could she do but stuck to her guns that she was not going to clean other people’s shit? She felt a bit too tight in her chest, a squeeze between her conscience and her expensive up-brining. She told everybody she had been a very expensive lady before and led a very expensive life, and used to have three household maids to clean and cook when she lived in Lisbon. But she gave up everything to marry an American, and he dumped her afterwards. She looked at Mr. Doolittle with lamentable eyes and said in a little girlish voice that she appreciated the concerns that Mr. Doolittle showed her towards the issue and she would do her job next time if he could warn other resident to flush the toilet after they had performed their bodily functions.
It was Monday evening. The compulsory house meeting was in process. All the single male residents , or clients as they came to be called, in other two houses, filed one after another into A house, a house three families were sharing. All the chairs were laid out, they were taken quietly. Everyone sniffed off their cigarette butts while having hot coffee in the cups in their hands. Not much conversation was going on. There were female residents and two babies. Men’s rowdiness seemed automatically balanced off towards polite indifference, or rather, intended inattention.
Mr. Doolittle was chairing the meeting. He coughed a dry cough and started “Have we any new comers today?” He cast his eyes to the left and to the right. Two hands raised. “Welcome, welcome to our shelter, you all know the routines, routines , this’s where we begin, let’s introduce ourselves to our fellow travelers, folks.” A light-hearted running down of names by their owners went clock-wise and people were really polite and affirmative in their voice.
“The same thing, as always, the old residents will tell you, our new comers, that we face the same old issues, always the same thing, the shower leaks, toilets flooded, no toilet paper , table manners, cooking privileges, the same things that go in any extended family. We are the big family, one family, of course, female residents and their babies, diapers and tampons. No baby dirty diapers in the trash can in the kitchen. How many times we have stressed that? For God’s sake, put the dirty diaper in a plastic bag and dump it immediately outside in the big trash can. Also, do I have to remind you again that you need to take shower everyday and use de-odorant for your BO’s? We got nine or ten big fully bodied guys in one house, there bound to be overdose of male odors. This is America, and we Americans are used to taking care of our hygiene seriously. Is that so, Ms China, you tell us since you are from a country with a long history and packed with millions and millions of people.” “Yes, ..” Ms. China blushed a little, and jumped into the dialogue with her rather good yet, with a distinctive Chinese flavor of English. She was non apologetic about her English. “Yes, I don’t mind share our wisdom of living in close quarters. The house will be good if everyone of us think of good manners. Good manners are very important when people live in groups. Some people will think good manners are bloody British imperialistic. No, they don’t own good manners. Good manners are natural result of social closeness, crowdedness, and packed existence. Good manners are lubricating the friction of our elbows and we need to own our good manners as part of our identities even when we are in shelters. This is where true manners are verified”. She sat down again and raised her head to Mr. Doolittle.
The door opened and Mr. Lincoln rolled himself in in a wheelchair. He was an old gizzard, as he called himself, a son of a San Francisco whore house madam, he proudly boasting to any one. He always enjoyed house meeting. It was a place he showed his years of life experience, a smart ass in the rough streets. He waves his hands to his fellow travelers as if he was on stage. He was most fond of the new site manager, an oriental woman, he secretly made himself fall for her. He called her Meili (meaning pretty in English) when she was not around. Meili was sitting besides Mr. Doolittle and returned his warm gaze with a vague smile.
Mr. Doolittle cleared his throat and looked at a piece of paper in his hands. It was a list of points to be address at the house meeting. House meetings were stages to him, where communal dialogues were conducted. In a country where individualism was the main stream of thinking, communal living for any extended period of time is always associated with confinements. Such confinements were usually associated with jails, prisons, reform programs or army barracks. Homeless shelters were in many sense truly communal living. The biggest shelter in this city housed about 160 singles, male or female in such closeness that it was tough for some people to adjust to. Homelessness in a way was a freer bargain with nature, as long as space was concerned. But the weather in North Bay was not very negotiable in winter. It rained a lot.
Mr. Doolittle had to address those psychological spots at every house meeting. It was here the voice of common sense was heard. “People complain about things, as always.” Mr. Doolittle took the stage. “We appreciate the fact that those complains brought to our attention, to the staff’s attention first. It is always best to settle our difference through the process of democracy. Our democracy is that everyone has a chance to speak. Well, today, the complain is, let me see, Refrigerator noise. Ah, refrigerator makes noise at night, well, what can we do about it. Do we need to do away with frig, or do we put up with the noise? Or can we do anything about the noise? Haven’t we addressed that issue many times before, through different angles and giving each ample consideration? Oh, yes, we have new residents and we have to do it all over again. Ok, let me see who can address the issue in a fresh light and come with smartest solution?”
“Yes, Mr. Willington, what do you say?”
“Check into a hotel room without frig.”
“Good suggestion, but I know you are kidding, aren’t you? Let’s have another suggestion, Mr. Washington, please.”
“Shut that damned thing down and eat spoiled food.”
“Mr. Washington’s suggestion is out of question so far as I can tell. Anyone for it? No? no body? No one is willing to kill the noise and eat the spoiled food. Common sense, common sense. Other suggestions? Mr. Lincoln?”
“Ear plug or learn to live with it. If you make yourself to listen to it, not to fight it, maybe you two can get along. I learned to go along with things instead of forcing it my way.”
“Very well, that’s a very good suggestion. Very good, full of common sense, and constructive and workable. Good. Then we can’t order the frig to be quiet, and we will have to learn to put up with it. Some evils in the life of mortals are necessary evils. One has to come to grip with this half-truth. The other half of the truth is that truthful evils are still evils. We still have to face them as factual truth since God does not seem to think it is not necessary for them to exist. So let’s live with necessary evils and the half truth and be truthful about them.” Mr. Doolittle was very satisfied to be able to deliver his message about the common sense. Such moments of reflection on God or truth always filled him with great delight. When truth was reflected by someone alone, it did not seem as profound as shared with millions and millions. It was a delightful experience to reveal truth to others when they were least expecting them. “Any more to say?” he looked at the faces turning up at him and smiled, “Next, smoke and got shut out. How has this happened?”
Mr. Lincoln raised his hands. He was a Vietnam War vet. He was in a wheelchair and could walk with the help of a walker. He spoke with a strained voice. “I got up to smoke and the door shut up, and I was locked out.”
“Did you lock it or someone locked it after you went out?”
“I did not lock it, I need to come in after a drag, of course I wouldn’t lock it. But someone did it and I was locked out 3 o’clock in the morning, and it was freezing cold and raining. I did not see anyone coming out. I did not quiet know what to do, to see the staff or just knock. To knock on the staff office door, or the door of B house, I waited and waited in the cold until some one came out for a drag.”
“Well, I personally believe this to be only an accident. We don’t encourage you to smoke at 3 o’clock in the morning. If you are quiet, and don’t wake up the house, you are ok with me. But if people start to complain about people coming in and out of the house at small hours, door opening and shutting, then we really have to talk to you to be more considerate of other people. This is common sense to be considerate of others. So, friends, make sure you understand when common sense fails, rules rule. If you people
make too much noise and start to disturb others, you are to face consequences. Ok, next, shower in the morning.”
“Yes,” one hand raised among the clients. “4 in the morning, someone is taking a shower. Is it really absolutely necessary to have shower in the morning that early. Can he take his shower at night? My bed is right next to the bathroom and there is only a very thin wall between me and the shower. I am not able to get enough sleep because I am awaken up at 4 in the morning.” It was Mr. Jefferson talking.
“Well, shower schedule is always an issue with us, one shower for 9 or 10 people in the same house. shower time has been a constant complain, a source of conflict. We will discuss this at our staff meeting next time and give you guys a guideline concerning the shower rules. Yes, Mr. Jefferson, what else do you want to say?”
“I think the bottom line is that when you live in B house or C house, with 10 people sharing one shower, and it is basically a time management. From 5 pm to next morning 9 am people will at any given time need to use the restroom. Especially in the morning, when nature calls, you got to go. I think we need rules about morning shower. I suggest a system that will work better than self determination of when to take a shower. I suggest that at least no shower after 6 in the morning and no shower early than 5am. I really don’t understand why you need to take shower in the morning when everybody will rush to the bathroom. One should take a shower in the evening or before 10 at night. Unless someone comes back from digging the ditches, he can take a shower before going to bed. I know that the women shelter Lily House doesn’t not allow anybody to take a shower in the morning. It really works. We should be able to do it too. If they have the habit of taking a shower in the morning after they get up, they can always change that habit as long as they get one shower a day. I don’t see why they can’t adjust. Come to think and to realize the true nature of living in the shelter, then you don’t have a hard time living with other 9 people in the same house with only one shower.”
“Very well said, Mr. Jefferson, you really got the fundamentals down. I am very impressed how articulate you are. Anyone can be more articulate than him? Yes, consideration for others and for the common peace and good. This is a whole new way of life living with other people in such closeness. But we are bound together for a common goal, that is to safely co-exist, save your money to have your own place and get out. Then we will not go after you about when you can take a shower or when you can smoke. That is the freedom of choice you purchase with your income. Money is the king, and cash speaks. I know it sounds republican, but this is the reality. I would not say it is the truth, but truth only reveal itself in ambiguity. And what we face is true human existence.”
“Who is running this shelter, the republicans or the democratic,” one voice shouted.
“The church charity. We are under the social arm of the church, the incorporated enterprise of the Redemption Worker’s Union. But we do not insist that you are religiously yoked to receive our service. We offer service to all the poor and needy. It is our republic’s heritage since we set our foot on this continent, we were, have been and are, at one time or another of our great history, homeless, until we won our independence for our British Mother Queen . “
“God bless your good heart, Mr. Doolittle.” Said, Mr. Carter and someone yearned. Ms Fanny raised her hand and said with great emotion “Adam took a show this morning after I clean the bath room, and left a mess. And because he was in the shower, my kid had to pee in the corner in the back yard. This is very frustrating.”
“Adam, did you or did not you take a show just before time to close the shelter?”
“Yes, you are damn right I did, but I got a job interview to go and I don’t want to smell bad.” Adam was still in his “Sunday” best.
“Good, good, it is really a common sense to take a shower before the job interview. As an one time thing, I won’t beat on you. But you should not do it everyday. And I personally have the confidence in your common sense not to abuse your shower privilege. Would you not take a shower in the morning just before we are closing? Adam? I know you answer is no, you would not, would you?”
“You damn right I won’t .”
“Yes, I know you. And the kids are kids, when they need to go, they have to go, so if we all bear in our minds try to make things easy for others, others will make things easy for you in return, that’s the golden rule, the rule of common sense.” Mr. Doolittle cleared his throat and looked at his watch.
“Ok, if we don’t have any more complains, let me finish our meeting by reminding all of you that there is no loitering around the neighborhood. It is very important that you remember this. Our neighbors have the right to veto our operation here if they file complains against us with the county. So make sure you all remember, Love your neighbor, and no loiter around the neighborhood. We are very grateful that they allow us to open this shelter here. So be grateful, guys and don’t screw up. Communal life means limited choice and restrained freedom, this is your reality and make sure you suck it in.”
“Then are we being discriminated” asked one client, Mr. Franklin.
“No, no way, we are not discriminating anybody. We only operate under the collective pressure to provide a peaceful shelter life. Our concern here is more on the issue of peace than freedom, which is not in anyway contradictory to the constitution. Full freedom is to the fully responsible citizens. When you don’t pay rent, don’t have a job, don’t pay tax, you are not fully exercising your citizen’s responsibilities. Then your freedom is compromised. This is the fact and come to term with it. The sooner you do it the better and the sooner, the happier you will feel. Well, do we have more to discuss today?”
“Yes, what about snoring, Mr. Clinton snores so loud, all of us have a hard time sleeping. We don’t know how to stop him without causing physical harm.”
“ Well, you all know that snoring is not a punishable crime. I am afraid that we can do really nothing about it. It is like the noise of refrigerator. You either put up with it, or what else, shut it off. Snoring is more difficult. We are really strangers coming together, Even spouse can do nothing about the snoring. I suggest that we make a scale of snoring intensity from 1 being the lightest to 5 the heaviest, and list it on our Intake form, so we would know who is of the heavy snoring habit. And try to group the snoring residents together. They don’t mind snoring if they snore themselves. At this moment, I can’t promise anything, let our common sense guides us and learn to adjust, ok?” Mr. Doolittle looked at Ms. China, and tilted his head. Ms. China shook her head.
“Well, folks, we had a very good meeting, common sense, common sense, if we have common sense, then we don’t need rules, do we? Any more issues? Mr. Einstein? Mr. Kennedy? Well, ladies, we all know that ladies full of common sense, any female issues to cover? No, Ms. Fanny? good, the meeting is over and you all have a good day.”
Everybody stood up , leaving the room, still trying to soak their brains in Mr. Doolittle’s wisdom.
Mr. Doolittle felt very good, he entered the following words in the log book “a good day, all are fine, no fights, no curses, no rats, President day, shelter stays open for the whole day. See you all on Thursday, Guys.”
Mr. Doolittle has been experimenting with the policy “when common sense fails, rules rule” for the last two months and it seemed to have worked very effectively. His conviction of the policy came from his own firsthand experience in a homeless shelter. The site manager of a homeless shelter in God’s county for 8 years，Mr. Doolittle has operated under the guidance of a church charity which has proudly encouraged all its followers to get involved in organized benevolence.
Mr. Doolittle is trying to gain more insights into human nature while implementing creative ways of governing, which in the shelter, is modestly job-described as overseeing. He believes that salvation should come from a higher consciousness of being than as the result of the lust to rule, or even worse, punish. The lust to rule, to him, is a lower form of social reality, a reality tragically grown out of necessity to impose. Like a car, you need the wheels as well as the brake to move without being killed. His practice ensures that people get plenty of leg room to find out common sense is the brake, and self-governing is the best way to survival in a communal situation, most of the time rather packed.
Most people live in homes, families of spouses and children, in their houses, or apartments. No matter where you live, there are set of rules openly or secretly negotiated back and forth between or among the members sharing that space. In the instance of his own family, he believed that his Mom had more common sense, but his Dad ruled because he was the one who brought home the bacon. But Mom’s governing style has distilled into him a sense of common sense and because of a natural alliance of mother and son relationship, he unconsciously followed his Mom’s vision to navigate through life.
Mr. Doolittle is recently promoted to the senior staff statue-the-coordinating supervisor. Now with all the other site managers under him, he is happily sandwiched between the boss and old pals. He stations himself professionally in an office, where high shelves are fully stocked with used but clean blankets, sheets, towels donated by the Holiday Inn, and food from the food bank. The office used to be a two-car garage and this is where he has contemplated human behaviors and preached his private gospel of God’s grace: “God cannot give us any other help than self-help.” He loves this little quotation by Thoreau--the woods poet. He draws a lot of poetic inspiration from him while alone in the office. There are two kinds books he reads, the little book by Thoreau on Man and Nature and all the volumes of Preys serials by James Pergerson, a good combination of insights in his boss’s eyes.
Thoreau’s poetic simplicity in living in and with nature and Prey’s confessional revelation of predator’s nature keep his mind well balanced. He was drinking his tea when one client knocked emotionally on the door, complaining that the other site manager was giving her a hard time concerning the issue of cleaning the bath room. She got a write-up for not fully completing her chore and it greatly upset her.
“Yes, dear, what’s the matter?” Mr. Doolittle very cordially leaned his head towards the lady to lend her his big, car door ear. He would have an earful of blabla and blabla. He knew that from his experience. And he did develop a good habit to listen with great attention, and polished grace. He had been helping the running of people‘s lives. To him, this is of great importance. In fact, he did not get much of his own to run. He did not have a wife, did not have children, and had no romance at this moment. But he has been spiritually heavily yoked to a mission to serve the poor and the needy and this has been a solid anchor in the stormy water of life.
“Yes, my dear?” he asked again. His very cozy, family oriented attitude took that lady by surprise. She had a conviction that the other site manager was pushing her around, and she got to find some justice.
“Fanny, Ms. Fanny, what’s the matter, my dear?”
“Oh, the bath room, the toil, the stool, and TP in the trash can, oh, …”
“What about it?”
“So dirty and soiled. I am not going to do the dirty job. Why me, people have to clean after themselves. And they haven’t learned to flush the toil yet after they’ve done their jobs. ”
“Yeah, yeah, people are people. We know those people. They take this place as their home and they do the same thing as if they were still in their own houses.”
“No, I don’t think that’s what they think. They wouldn’t do this in their own houses. It is only because they know there is a chore list, and I just happen to be the one to clean the shit. You need to go in and see for yourself who did it. I am not going to do the dirty work. I am not…”
This has been the routine, the number one issue in family shelter. With at least three families sharing a house, some issues bound to come up. Cooking time, loud TV at night, showers either too early about 4 o’clock in the morning, or too late when a line formed outside the bathroom for the morning urges, baby running out of room in winter with nothing on but diapers, smoky stinky socks that knocked people off, and the number one issue, always, the number one issue, who took the Toilet trash out.
“Ms. Fanny, calm down, my dear, would you? Yes, that’s it, calm down. What about I do it , and would that make you happier for the day ?”
Ms. Fanny stood there with her eyes blinking. Her tears were on the verge of dropping. She was not quite sure to wipe them or to let them fall. They were so lovely, they were real tears, tear of sorrow and tears of joy. Mr. Doolittle always thought woman’s tears had the effect of sun on snow. It could melt a hard boiled soul in seconds. Someone like Mr. Doolittle always retained a soft spot for tears, especially female‘s tears. That spot reacts easily to the clouds that carry rain drops.
Ms Fanny became a little bashful. But what else could she do but stuck to her guns that she was not going to clean other people’s shit? She felt a bit too tight in her chest, a squeeze between her conscience and her expensive up-brining. She told everybody she had been a very expensive lady before and led a very expensive life, and used to have three household maids to clean and cook when she lived in Lisbon. But she gave up everything to marry an American, and he dumped her afterwards. She looked at Mr. Doolittle with lamentable eyes and said in a little girlish voice that she appreciated the concerns that Mr. Doolittle showed her towards the issue and she would do her job next time if he could warn other resident to flush the toilet after they had performed their bodily functions.
It was Monday evening. The compulsory house meeting was in process. All the single male residents , or clients as they came to be called, in other two houses, filed one after another into A house, a house three families were sharing. All the chairs were laid out, they were taken quietly. Everyone sniffed off their cigarette butts while having hot coffee in the cups in their hands. Not much conversation was going on. There were female residents and two babies. Men’s rowdiness seemed automatically balanced off towards polite indifference, or rather, intended inattention.
Mr. Doolittle was chairing the meeting. He coughed a dry cough and started “Have we any new comers today?” He cast his eyes to the left and to the right. Two hands raised. “Welcome, welcome to our shelter, you all know the routines, routines , this’s where we begin, let’s introduce ourselves to our fellow travelers, folks.” A light-hearted running down of names by their owners went clock-wise and people were really polite and affirmative in their voice.
“The same thing, as always, the old residents will tell you, our new comers, that we face the same old issues, always the same thing, the shower leaks, toilets flooded, no toilet paper , table manners, cooking privileges, the same things that go in any extended family. We are the big family, one family, of course, female residents and their babies, diapers and tampons. No baby dirty diapers in the trash can in the kitchen. How many times we have stressed that? For God’s sake, put the dirty diaper in a plastic bag and dump it immediately outside in the big trash can. Also, do I have to remind you again that you need to take shower everyday and use de-odorant for your BO’s? We got nine or ten big fully bodied guys in one house, there bound to be overdose of male odors. This is America, and we Americans are used to taking care of our hygiene seriously. Is that so, Ms China, you tell us since you are from a country with a long history and packed with millions and millions of people.” “Yes, ..” Ms. China blushed a little, and jumped into the dialogue with her rather good yet, with a distinctive Chinese flavor of English. She was non apologetic about her English. “Yes, I don’t mind share our wisdom of living in close quarters. The house will be good if everyone of us think of good manners. Good manners are very important when people live in groups. Some people will think good manners are bloody British imperialistic. No, they don’t own good manners. Good manners are natural result of social closeness, crowdedness, and packed existence. Good manners are lubricating the friction of our elbows and we need to own our good manners as part of our identities even when we are in shelters. This is where true manners are verified”. She sat down again and raised her head to Mr. Doolittle.
The door opened and Mr. Lincoln rolled himself in in a wheelchair. He was an old gizzard, as he called himself, a son of a San Francisco whore house madam, he proudly boasting to any one. He always enjoyed house meeting. It was a place he showed his years of life experience, a smart ass in the rough streets. He waves his hands to his fellow travelers as if he was on stage. He was most fond of the new site manager, an oriental woman, he secretly made himself fall for her. He called her Meili (meaning pretty in English) when she was not around. Meili was sitting besides Mr. Doolittle and returned his warm gaze with a vague smile.
Mr. Doolittle cleared his throat and looked at a piece of paper in his hands. It was a list of points to be address at the house meeting. House meetings were stages to him, where communal dialogues were conducted. In a country where individualism was the main stream of thinking, communal living for any extended period of time is always associated with confinements. Such confinements were usually associated with jails, prisons, reform programs or army barracks. Homeless shelters were in many sense truly communal living. The biggest shelter in this city housed about 160 singles, male or female in such closeness that it was tough for some people to adjust to. Homelessness in a way was a freer bargain with nature, as long as space was concerned. But the weather in North Bay was not very negotiable in winter. It rained a lot.
Mr. Doolittle had to address those psychological spots at every house meeting. It was here the voice of common sense was heard. “People complain about things, as always.” Mr. Doolittle took the stage. “We appreciate the fact that those complains brought to our attention, to the staff’s attention first. It is always best to settle our difference through the process of democracy. Our democracy is that everyone has a chance to speak. Well, today, the complain is, let me see, Refrigerator noise. Ah, refrigerator makes noise at night, well, what can we do about it. Do we need to do away with frig, or do we put up with the noise? Or can we do anything about the noise? Haven’t we addressed that issue many times before, through different angles and giving each ample consideration? Oh, yes, we have new residents and we have to do it all over again. Ok, let me see who can address the issue in a fresh light and come with smartest solution?”
“Yes, Mr. Willington, what do you say?”
“Check into a hotel room without frig.”
“Good suggestion, but I know you are kidding, aren’t you? Let’s have another suggestion, Mr. Washington, please.”
“Shut that damned thing down and eat spoiled food.”
“Mr. Washington’s suggestion is out of question so far as I can tell. Anyone for it? No? no body? No one is willing to kill the noise and eat the spoiled food. Common sense, common sense. Other suggestions? Mr. Lincoln?”
“Ear plug or learn to live with it. If you make yourself to listen to it, not to fight it, maybe you two can get along. I learned to go along with things instead of forcing it my way.”
“Very well, that’s a very good suggestion. Very good, full of common sense, and constructive and workable. Good. Then we can’t order the frig to be quiet, and we will have to learn to put up with it. Some evils in the life of mortals are necessary evils. One has to come to grip with this half-truth. The other half of the truth is that truthful evils are still evils. We still have to face them as factual truth since God does not seem to think it is not necessary for them to exist. So let’s live with necessary evils and the half truth and be truthful about them.” Mr. Doolittle was very satisfied to be able to deliver his message about the common sense. Such moments of reflection on God or truth always filled him with great delight. When truth was reflected by someone alone, it did not seem as profound as shared with millions and millions. It was a delightful experience to reveal truth to others when they were least expecting them. “Any more to say?” he looked at the faces turning up at him and smiled, “Next, smoke and got shut out. How has this happened?”
Mr. Lincoln raised his hands. He was a Vietnam War vet. He was in a wheelchair and could walk with the help of a walker. He spoke with a strained voice. “I got up to smoke and the door shut up, and I was locked out.”
“Did you lock it or someone locked it after you went out?”
“I did not lock it, I need to come in after a drag, of course I wouldn’t lock it. But someone did it and I was locked out 3 o’clock in the morning, and it was freezing cold and raining. I did not see anyone coming out. I did not quiet know what to do, to see the staff or just knock. To knock on the staff office door, or the door of B house, I waited and waited in the cold until some one came out for a drag.”
“Well, I personally believe this to be only an accident. We don’t encourage you to smoke at 3 o’clock in the morning. If you are quiet, and don’t wake up the house, you are ok with me. But if people start to complain about people coming in and out of the house at small hours, door opening and shutting, then we really have to talk to you to be more considerate of other people. This is common sense to be considerate of others. So, friends, make sure you understand when common sense fails, rules rule. If you people
make too much noise and start to disturb others, you are to face consequences. Ok, next, shower in the morning.”
“Yes,” one hand raised among the clients. “4 in the morning, someone is taking a shower. Is it really absolutely necessary to have shower in the morning that early. Can he take his shower at night? My bed is right next to the bathroom and there is only a very thin wall between me and the shower. I am not able to get enough sleep because I am awaken up at 4 in the morning.” It was Mr. Jefferson talking.
“Well, shower schedule is always an issue with us, one shower for 9 or 10 people in the same house. shower time has been a constant complain, a source of conflict. We will discuss this at our staff meeting next time and give you guys a guideline concerning the shower rules. Yes, Mr. Jefferson, what else do you want to say?”
“I think the bottom line is that when you live in B house or C house, with 10 people sharing one shower, and it is basically a time management. From 5 pm to next morning 9 am people will at any given time need to use the restroom. Especially in the morning, when nature calls, you got to go. I think we need rules about morning shower. I suggest a system that will work better than self determination of when to take a shower. I suggest that at least no shower after 6 in the morning and no shower early than 5am. I really don’t understand why you need to take shower in the morning when everybody will rush to the bathroom. One should take a shower in the evening or before 10 at night. Unless someone comes back from digging the ditches, he can take a shower before going to bed. I know that the women shelter Lily House doesn’t not allow anybody to take a shower in the morning. It really works. We should be able to do it too. If they have the habit of taking a shower in the morning after they get up, they can always change that habit as long as they get one shower a day. I don’t see why they can’t adjust. Come to think and to realize the true nature of living in the shelter, then you don’t have a hard time living with other 9 people in the same house with only one shower.”
“Very well said, Mr. Jefferson, you really got the fundamentals down. I am very impressed how articulate you are. Anyone can be more articulate than him? Yes, consideration for others and for the common peace and good. This is a whole new way of life living with other people in such closeness. But we are bound together for a common goal, that is to safely co-exist, save your money to have your own place and get out. Then we will not go after you about when you can take a shower or when you can smoke. That is the freedom of choice you purchase with your income. Money is the king, and cash speaks. I know it sounds republican, but this is the reality. I would not say it is the truth, but truth only reveal itself in ambiguity. And what we face is true human existence.”
“Who is running this shelter, the republicans or the democratic,” one voice shouted.
“The church charity. We are under the social arm of the church, the incorporated enterprise of the Redemption Worker’s Union. But we do not insist that you are religiously yoked to receive our service. We offer service to all the poor and needy. It is our republic’s heritage since we set our foot on this continent, we were, have been and are, at one time or another of our great history, homeless, until we won our independence for our British Mother Queen . “
“God bless your good heart, Mr. Doolittle.” Said, Mr. Carter and someone yearned. Ms Fanny raised her hand and said with great emotion “Adam took a show this morning after I clean the bath room, and left a mess. And because he was in the shower, my kid had to pee in the corner in the back yard. This is very frustrating.”
“Adam, did you or did not you take a show just before time to close the shelter?”
“Yes, you are damn right I did, but I got a job interview to go and I don’t want to smell bad.” Adam was still in his “Sunday” best.
“Good, good, it is really a common sense to take a shower before the job interview. As an one time thing, I won’t beat on you. But you should not do it everyday. And I personally have the confidence in your common sense not to abuse your shower privilege. Would you not take a shower in the morning just before we are closing? Adam? I know you answer is no, you would not, would you?”
“You damn right I won’t .”
“Yes, I know you. And the kids are kids, when they need to go, they have to go, so if we all bear in our minds try to make things easy for others, others will make things easy for you in return, that’s the golden rule, the rule of common sense.” Mr. Doolittle cleared his throat and looked at his watch.
“Ok, if we don’t have any more complains, let me finish our meeting by reminding all of you that there is no loitering around the neighborhood. It is very important that you remember this. Our neighbors have the right to veto our operation here if they file complains against us with the county. So make sure you all remember, Love your neighbor, and no loiter around the neighborhood. We are very grateful that they allow us to open this shelter here. So be grateful, guys and don’t screw up. Communal life means limited choice and restrained freedom, this is your reality and make sure you suck it in.”
“Then are we being discriminated” asked one client, Mr. Franklin.
“No, no way, we are not discriminating anybody. We only operate under the collective pressure to provide a peaceful shelter life. Our concern here is more on the issue of peace than freedom, which is not in anyway contradictory to the constitution. Full freedom is to the fully responsible citizens. When you don’t pay rent, don’t have a job, don’t pay tax, you are not fully exercising your citizen’s responsibilities. Then your freedom is compromised. This is the fact and come to term with it. The sooner you do it the better and the sooner, the happier you will feel. Well, do we have more to discuss today?”
“Yes, what about snoring, Mr. Clinton snores so loud, all of us have a hard time sleeping. We don’t know how to stop him without causing physical harm.”
“ Well, you all know that snoring is not a punishable crime. I am afraid that we can do really nothing about it. It is like the noise of refrigerator. You either put up with it, or what else, shut it off. Snoring is more difficult. We are really strangers coming together, Even spouse can do nothing about the snoring. I suggest that we make a scale of snoring intensity from 1 being the lightest to 5 the heaviest, and list it on our Intake form, so we would know who is of the heavy snoring habit. And try to group the snoring residents together. They don’t mind snoring if they snore themselves. At this moment, I can’t promise anything, let our common sense guides us and learn to adjust, ok?” Mr. Doolittle looked at Ms. China, and tilted his head. Ms. China shook her head.
“Well, folks, we had a very good meeting, common sense, common sense, if we have common sense, then we don’t need rules, do we? Any more issues? Mr. Einstein? Mr. Kennedy? Well, ladies, we all know that ladies full of common sense, any female issues to cover? No, Ms. Fanny? good, the meeting is over and you all have a good day.”
Everybody stood up , leaving the room, still trying to soak their brains in Mr. Doolittle’s wisdom.
Mr. Doolittle felt very good, he entered the following words in the log book “a good day, all are fine, no fights, no curses, no rats, President day, shelter stays open for the whole day. See you all on Thursday, Guys.”
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Mr. Professor and Mr. Leo Stump
Mr. Professor and Mr. Leo Stump
Mr. Leo Stump went to see Mr. Professor. Mr. Leo Stump’s Dad, before he died, told Leo that if Leo ever did dream to write as a writer, he should go to see Mr. Professor. Mr. Professor, Leo’s Dad said, although unrecognized, was nevertheless self evidently great in mind and soul. Mr. Professor was Leo’s Dad’s hero, and Leo trusted his Dad’s judgment. So he laid his simple heart and big dream onto Mr. Professor’s fat lap one sunny spring morning.
Mr. Professor was Leo’s Dad’s good friend. An unpublished writer, Mr. Professor had filled many stacks of paper with passionate handwritings. He wrote stories, poems, fables and plays. But he had never taught in any universities. He acquired that title because anyone seeing him, felt the power of his intelligence and knowledge. He seemed to have carried in his high forehead a room full of old books and manuscripts. But his own manuscripts were never accepted by any publishing houses, and he had since then given up publishing them. When suggested to him that he could self-publish, he rejected the idea as vain. Besides, he did not have the money to do it. Now that he was retired and lived on SSI, and had all the time on earth to write, he found that his writing had become almost his only and lonely world. He showed his writings to Leo’s Dad, and they enjoyed many long afternoons in the clouds of smoke and creativity. Leo’s Dad loved professor’s writings and wanted Leo to study with him many many years ago. But Mr. Professor refused. He said to Leo’s Dad that to have too big a dream overburdened the simple minded. And when simple people had bigger dreams than their simple minds cold handle, it spelt nightmare. Mr. Professor’s encouragement of Leo to remain simple and proportionally ambitious kept Leo growing into an uneventful kid, and then an uneventful young man, and then an uneventful middle-aged man. Now Leo did not want to remain simple any more. He had already acquired a kind of sophistication through life and maybe this expanding of experience as well as conscience would qualify him to dream a bigger dream now. “Dreams never die, they come in at night”, his Chinese girl friend warned him, rolling her slanted eyes， “Dreams were the fever of the heart that remained forever young, they were the Viagra for the soul.” Leo went to see Mr. Professor and told him about his belated dream of becoming a writer. Mr. Professor looked at him straight in the eyes:
“Why a writer?”
“I always have sentences flowing in through my head. If I don’t put them down on the paper, my head would explode, and my heart splintered.”
“Then, do put them down on paper.”
“I have tried, but I have problems. I have blocks. My mother’s voices always shout at me. No, no, this is not right. Don’t say this, this is poor English. No, ….I just can’t put any sentence down without hearing her.”
Mr. Professor shook his head and said, “That’s your Dad’s problems too, but the “sorcerer” in his case was his mom, your grandma. She had always wanted him to write and publish his writings. But your Dad was deadly against her wishes. For many years, your Dad could not write, because your Grandma’s voice was always there. He said he could not stop her voice either. It was not encouragement that he hear from her voice, but rebuke, a disappointment. It was her own dream, not his, your Dad hated to have the same dream as your grandma did. And your Dad hated to be challenged, especially by his own mother. He seemed to have developed a kind rebelliousness against her wishes, any wish, as long as it came from her. So she simply became his curse of creativity. He would just block his creativity simply to upset her. And he had no power to stop such foolishness. He said he would like to take his own chance to invoke his own muses, and he never had the luck to fulfill it until your Grandma died. ”
“He did pick up writing though, did he?”
“Yes, then when he married your mom later in life, your mom refused to recognize her mother-in-law’s dictatorship in arts, and secretly set out to destroy your grandma’s mission to turning her husband into an “starving artist”. She said with religious earnestness that he had to bring home the bacon regularly and the mouths in the house be feed not by divine fantasies but by milk, butter and bread. Your Dad did write sporadically, a line or two in his off-days, but he always dropped his line half way because your mom’s voice was telling him that he was not cut out to be a writer. But then, your grandma’s voice seemed louder than your mom’s. And I believe, towards the end of your grandma’s life, your Dad did come to me. He told me that he was so tired of fighting two women at a time. I think your grandma was winning in the end. One of her husbands was a celebrated poet and they made consorted effort to seduce him into writing when he was in his teens. Yet, all in vain. But writing had become part of his battle, to either pursue or not to pursue. He did develop critical faculty towards writings. Now all the troubles seem to have disappeared since the deaths of both women in his life. Thank God. He could eventually write without voices in the head. But he was not very productive, only managed to put down short lines and wrote a fantasy story of a rape. It was a piece about a rape victim seeing white lights. He never wrote long pieces after that. That’s why he wrote poems. He said he carried your mom’s voice and his mom’s voice with him anywhere he went for too long. It was such a struggle just to shut these two women’s voice down.”
“Yes, my mom didn’t like us spending our time bringing no money. She kept the house, fed us and he got to bring back the bacon. By the way what do you think my Dad’s poems? Are they good?”
“His talents were not proportional to his ambition. His head was big but his voice was weak though violent. That’s why he never quit his day time job. You will make a good student now that you Mom and Dad both died, and your grandmother long gone. Who are you reading? Herman Melville?”
“Yes and no, I used to read him, my Dad loved him, he said I could not talk about writing if I had never read Herman Melville. but he is too tough, all the names in his writings sound alien. I ‘m reading Harry Potter now.”
“Well, then go home and read old Herman’s Mardi before you come to me again, that ancient Herman, he is still the best. He is the reason why your Dad and I are fast friends,” Mr. Professor told Leo.
“You know what makes a good writer”? Leo remembered a conversation with his Dad, who had been gaining a lot insights about frustrated creativity. “Spleen, spleen, spleen.” His Dad said with a fervent outburst that was so rare all those years Leo had known him.
“Spleen, that average 6 oz. blubber, that is where the creative fever burning, cooking the emotions as an electric stove. It is in the guts, where the gut feeling storms occur, the red, blue, and white pulp stuff ferment, red blood flow and infections of the mind start. Have you ever seen your own spleen? I did, in my dreams, in my dreams, I saw it, purple and gray. Thick with red desire to rush to the heart. That’s where the creativity’s shrine is, when spleen is at full tide, great waves crush the soul and great writer like old Herman was transformed from a melancholy young dude to a seaman, and his young talents to write, or rather to yell, to shout, to howl, burst forth. It is from his spleen, that first earthquake of creativity shook his guts. He said that himself. Yes, from the spleen, my boy, the Chinese write from their 9 pieces broken intestines and meshed liver, the Greek write from two parts of broken hearts. Do you feel your pains in the spleen? If you do, you should start to get ready to write. It is not in the brain, not in the head, nor in the heart, it is in the spleen. It is in there that ink turns spleen bitter activities into art, into poem, into prose, into saga, into great pyramids of inflammations of guts. A good writer digs the guts out of his characters he has created from the spleen, from his own spleen.” Leo remembered his Dad’s near cannibal delight in his passionate speech one winter evening when a hail broke out in the North Bay, California.
“Your Dad used to write light short pieces that scratch armpits and pull mustache, a teaser kind of writing, a sort of leisure, cream puff writing, good for the old ladies with pink tea cup and pumpkin pies.” One day, after the April 1st Fool’s day, Leo paid another visit to Mr. Professor. Mr. Professor stood himself up before Leo and looked down at Leo with a faraway look.
“He wrote this:
Lying between the hours
I play with hands
Of time
My ideas
In boiling water
Sprout from coffee grounds
No, no, no, no, I told your Dad he was losing his maleness. He is becoming a soft poet. He told me that he was having mad sex with another woman, who was not your mom. And he was not suffering from spleen pains anymore. There was ‘tender sarcasms’ in his writing, His own words, I swear, his own words. Needless to say, some men channel all their virility into writing, they call it the sublimation of sexual energy. I think writing and having sex share some commonality, both being creative, reproductive. Males are not equipped with the birth channels to give birth to an infant. But they have their own artistic womb, the incubation chamber for his spleen quakes, and rhetorical tsunamis. So, they give birth to words, books, thoughts and arts. That’s the closest thing to “giving birth”. That’s what makes a real writer, the wish to want to get pregnant, to carry an idea as a baby for nine months and to see it be delivered to the world. And they most of the time get impregnated by a woman, a female, whom we call muse.” Mr. Professor turned to Leo and asked him if he knew woman. “I mean, truly knowing. Only a heart breaking woman can get your spleen burst, and then your vision will appear”.
“My mom broke my heart many times, but I can’t write it, I am speechless when I am thinking of it.”
“Well, if your mom failed to initiate your into literary creativity, I don’t see who could, and who would.”
“You, my Dad told me to see you if I wish to learn to write.”
“Me, no, my boy, I don’t think I can teach you. You either have found out about writing now, or you would never get it. How old are you?
“I am 45.”
“Gush, you have such smooth hands and pale features. Do you suffer from any pains now?” Mr. Professor sounded almost maternal.
“Look at your hands, they are so slander, fine nails, long and well-preserved. Have you ever dug a ditch, laid a tile, or flip a bloody slap of beef ? A real writer needs to dig, rip, cut, dismember. Like a worm in the intestines, he goes through every inch of the tunnels of darkness, around every corner of twists. You need to be a butcher, see blood and flesh, dripping with emotions and with liveliness, with breath of fire, a big heavy blob of red passion from the spleen, soak yourself in that juice of imagination and emerge, submerge. Rub it on you , rub yourself in that pulp, rub spleen flavor on your characters, you need dynamics, you need to be infectious, blood-boiling, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,”
“You understand? Don’t kid me. How can you understand? You tender turkey. Your life is like a long nap, your brain is too quiet, your vision too tender, growing up in a small town with more chickens than people.”
“So? Jack London used to live here right next to this neighborhood, and Glen Ellen has only 992 people, not much bigger than our town.”
“Jack London, you talk about Jack London? He is a wolf, he lived in a wolf house, he gnaws, howls, fights and kills. He got white fangs and iron heels, and he burnt down his wolf house.”
“Did he? I heard it was an accident.”
“You heard, what do you know about him. He is no small town kid, he is from San Francisco. A sailor on horse back, a wayward seafarer.”
“Yes, Sir. Do I have a chance to break myself in in writing?”
“You can surely hope, and that’s all you can do at present. But be advised, my boy, writing is a very painstaking process. The agonies of writing are enough to put a gun in Hemingway‘s head. Are you insured? My boy?”
“No, I don’t have the money to insure myself, besides, I am still too young to shoot myself.”
“You never know, you never know, be prepared, if you wish to take up writing seriously.” Then they left together to have some coffee in Starbucks.
They took seats by the window which commanded a view of a sun flooded street. “You said you are 45?” Mr. Professor asked without expecting an answer. It was more a question of an after thought, like a casual greeting “How is the weather?” Mr. Leo Stump however, answered with conviction and eagerness, “Yes”.
“45, Nietzsche was 46 when he died a great writer. And you are writing stories on school notebooks? Yes, I know, it makes no difference what papers you write on. But writing is no merry spring outing. Even the greatest writer old Herman Melville ached at completing a book of monumental size: “Who will read me?” In his time, peopled wrote, not type, no typewriters were invented. You are already in the digital age, everyone write with Words. Yet, you don’t, you still write with pen and school notebooks.” After they brought their hot coffee in paper cups to their little table, Mr. Professor resumed their discussion: “Herman did the number, he said that in a book of one thousand pages--twenty-five lines each--each line ten words--every word ten letters. That’s two million five hundred thousand a’s, and i’s and o’s to read!” Mr. Professor took a deep sip and looked at Mr. Leo with sympathy.
“Yes, I know, my Chinese girl friend calls writing building the Great Wall with bricks of word.” Mr. Leo smiled apologetically.
“Sure, sure, watch your I ‘s and your t’s and your grammars and your own marriages.”
“Why about marriages?”
“People become greater writers before or after marriages. It either inspires them to write about happiness, or about tragedies. It is the turning point when they shed tears and have revelations about God, that sort of thing.”
“How many times you are married, sir, if I may ask?”
“Me?” Mr. Professor was a little taken back at Leo’s straight forwardness.
“Three, three, good or bad, enough shit to fill a big pot.”
“I guess so, my Dad cared little about marriage. He lived alone after my Mom died.”
“What about you?”
“Never married, but I have lived with women, if that means something.”
“While, you may expect some Oscar Wilderian wisdom, then. You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”
“I don’t think so. I can live with them, and I can live without them. It works for me either way.”
“Maybe you will be a late bloomer, a upcoming writer if you really believe in yourself.”
“I just start to lose hair but gain weight. However, I think I am going to grow a beard.”
“Ok, ok, show me something tomorrow, something that you have put down on the paper.”
“Yes, sir. I know my father had always wanted me to write.”
“ He is six feet under, and with a bigger dream than he can ever handle. What has become his dream?” Mr. Professor wiped his mouth over a paper napkin.
“Top soil, I guess.” said Leo.
“Then don’t you mind about him now. Be advised, young middle aged man, Just go home and write if you have nothing else to do and no woman to love.”
They walked out of the coffee shop into the sun lit street.
Leo sat at the table. He cleared the top and laid out a stack of paper. Then he went to the window and drew the curtains. He liked to feel at night when he wished to write. He turned on the lights, and took out his ball pen, he made a pot of coffee and lit a cigarette. He closed his eyes and started to activate his brain power. He was sending signals to invoke his muse and trying to receive his first line that would knock his potential readers over, something like “to be or not to be, that is the question.” Or, “Had I rather be a fool than a wise man.” But all the great lines seem to have been snatched away by higher powers. After a while, he decided that his muse was not on duty and felt compelled to use a cliché, a conventional opening that always convey some sense of immortality and eternity but without a copy right: “Once upon a time.”
One had to put his first foot out, whatever, so as to be able to walk. The first sentence was like a first step. Only after this first step was taken, then the mind started its journey. One should not bind his feet with rules and tips to write. “ Just get over with it, and the story would follow as naturally as the running water.” Leo self helped his efforts.
Once upon a time I was walking my dog Sammy one sunny spring morning in downtown Porkville. I was invited by a stranger to have coffee in the restaurant with him. He came to me, and introduced himself as certain Mr. His name now escaped me. He said he and his friends by the table saw me walking with the dog and it made a very lovely picture on this sunny spring day. They were interested in knowing me and wanted to know if I would grant them the honor of having coffee with them. It was a very cordial and polite invitation. Warm engaging smiles on his face, I could not find any reason to say no and so I said the pleasure was mine. I tied Sammy by the rail and walked in after the new friend. For the convenience of recalling the story, I need a name, and so he got his, Mr. Kent. There were four others, Mr. Marlboro, Winston, Chesterfield and Redding. Mr. Kent seemed to be the host, and he ordered some fresh coffee and a piece of cheesecake for me and he looked at me and said,
“I don’t believe you are married?”
“Charmed.”
“Would you like to be Mrs. Redding?”
“Is that a question or a problem?”
They burst laughing.
Leo put down a full stop, and then his pen. Yes, Mr. Professor was right in warning him that his Dad was trying to put a big dream into his son’s small head. He did not have enough imagination to fantasize what was in that Mr. Kent’s mind to speak the way he did. This was a story his Chinese girl friend told him. It did happen to her and she told him as a joke. He liked the way his Chinese girl friend smart talked to those guys. With laughter still ringing in the air, they chatted away about weather and communism. Then the group dissolved and the story ended. How easy it was to come to the end of the story, to put a full stop to it. Leo remembered what his Dad said about the spleen, the intestines and the crawling into a different person’s chamber of emotions and transforming himself into that character: to speak in that voice, and to behave in that manner. This was the part he had always fantasized, he was directing a life, creating a disaster, or making up a belief, initiate a Gospel of private salvation. This way he felt that he was in control over the life of his characters. He was telling them where they should go and what they should do. As if he was driving a car, he steered the wheel. He carried his characters into a bar, to a hotel, to a jail or to a car crash. Or he could even take them to commit suicide. He enjoyed that part immensely, and that is scrawling, scrabbling, sort of writing.
Yet, in this story, he did not quite know where to take them. They were so flirty yet friendly with his Chinese girl friend, those over well-feds, to borrow a unfit name for them from Nietzsche, those “over”-men. They needed a twist in their bowls. There was too much ego gas in their intestines, and they needed a rip. Leo needed to take revenge on the paper at least, to find judgment on the paper . This has always been done by writers of vengeance. Now he felt his spleen movement. Why his spleen should make a statement about this episode of his girl friend. She was not so much as even kissing him. She thought the episode as trivial and funny, “They are so free speechy”, she commented. She was a good sport when it came to encounters with “small town celebrities,” a category she threw about with disdain. Well, he did not even know whose armpits he was scratching. Leo was very frustrated. Old Herman’s words suddenly loomed large as a ship wreck into his mind: “It is the world of mind, wherein the wanderer may gaze around, with more of wonder than Balboa’s band roving through the golden Aztec glades.” Last night before turning the light off, he did followed Mr. Professor’s instruction and read old Herman in bed.
Somehow he felt better, at least, his mind had wandered, his soul had pained, his fingers had scratched the pen. There were satisfactions in just putting whatever in the mind down on the paper. He felt that action of scrawling on the paper alone had elevated his mind above mediocrity, had defeated his mom’s voice, had lent much comfort to his deceased Dad, and to himself, a good battle even if just to be defeated. Now he could fully identify with the tortured doubts of a would-be writer, his self-chosen rite of initiation.
Of course, the next day, Leo and Mr. Professor met again in Starbucks. They seemed to be closer in a secret delight that Leo had failed to produce a writing, let alone a good one. Mr. Professor was much tender, his eyes addressing the wounds that Leo suffered from a realization that he was not much of a writer. Mr. Professor brought Leo an walnut maple scone to go with his dark French roast and showed a poem Leo’s father wrote to Mr. Professor before he passed away:
Count not the ways
Not the words
Not the days.
My love
To you
For you
Of you
Begins,
Ends.
“I smell a poor spleen here.” Mr. Professor commented, “I do, too, who has he really been in love with though, I have always wandered. ” Mr. Leo Stump nodded.
“literary seduction”. Mr. Professor volunteered his diagnosis. “In the end of his life after his stroke, you Dad felt such impotence to create and he really wished that he had the courage to die. He said dying to him was ‘a private choice, a public duty,’ and he gladly fulfilled both with a diligent heart one day after throwing a party for himself to celebrate his own death. Of course at that time, no one suspected the party was truly a farewell party.” His eulogy, the last piece of his writing appeared in the paper a week later. “A non apologetic busy loafer, I had made a lot of noise before finally dreaming myself into heavenly quietude….. ” Mr. Professor recited the first line, without any emotion in his voice. Mr. Leo Stump had relived this story many times before and he had come to terms with it. Maybe there was some comfort to be had for Mr. Leo Stump of his Dad’s un-materialized dream that a “greater book” had indeed existed in his brain than in the discount tray in Barnes and Noble in bound form, beyond the criticism of Mr. Professor.
Mr. Leo Stump went to see Mr. Professor. Mr. Leo Stump’s Dad, before he died, told Leo that if Leo ever did dream to write as a writer, he should go to see Mr. Professor. Mr. Professor, Leo’s Dad said, although unrecognized, was nevertheless self evidently great in mind and soul. Mr. Professor was Leo’s Dad’s hero, and Leo trusted his Dad’s judgment. So he laid his simple heart and big dream onto Mr. Professor’s fat lap one sunny spring morning.
Mr. Professor was Leo’s Dad’s good friend. An unpublished writer, Mr. Professor had filled many stacks of paper with passionate handwritings. He wrote stories, poems, fables and plays. But he had never taught in any universities. He acquired that title because anyone seeing him, felt the power of his intelligence and knowledge. He seemed to have carried in his high forehead a room full of old books and manuscripts. But his own manuscripts were never accepted by any publishing houses, and he had since then given up publishing them. When suggested to him that he could self-publish, he rejected the idea as vain. Besides, he did not have the money to do it. Now that he was retired and lived on SSI, and had all the time on earth to write, he found that his writing had become almost his only and lonely world. He showed his writings to Leo’s Dad, and they enjoyed many long afternoons in the clouds of smoke and creativity. Leo’s Dad loved professor’s writings and wanted Leo to study with him many many years ago. But Mr. Professor refused. He said to Leo’s Dad that to have too big a dream overburdened the simple minded. And when simple people had bigger dreams than their simple minds cold handle, it spelt nightmare. Mr. Professor’s encouragement of Leo to remain simple and proportionally ambitious kept Leo growing into an uneventful kid, and then an uneventful young man, and then an uneventful middle-aged man. Now Leo did not want to remain simple any more. He had already acquired a kind of sophistication through life and maybe this expanding of experience as well as conscience would qualify him to dream a bigger dream now. “Dreams never die, they come in at night”, his Chinese girl friend warned him, rolling her slanted eyes， “Dreams were the fever of the heart that remained forever young, they were the Viagra for the soul.” Leo went to see Mr. Professor and told him about his belated dream of becoming a writer. Mr. Professor looked at him straight in the eyes:
“Why a writer?”
“I always have sentences flowing in through my head. If I don’t put them down on the paper, my head would explode, and my heart splintered.”
“Then, do put them down on paper.”
“I have tried, but I have problems. I have blocks. My mother’s voices always shout at me. No, no, this is not right. Don’t say this, this is poor English. No, ….I just can’t put any sentence down without hearing her.”
Mr. Professor shook his head and said, “That’s your Dad’s problems too, but the “sorcerer” in his case was his mom, your grandma. She had always wanted him to write and publish his writings. But your Dad was deadly against her wishes. For many years, your Dad could not write, because your Grandma’s voice was always there. He said he could not stop her voice either. It was not encouragement that he hear from her voice, but rebuke, a disappointment. It was her own dream, not his, your Dad hated to have the same dream as your grandma did. And your Dad hated to be challenged, especially by his own mother. He seemed to have developed a kind rebelliousness against her wishes, any wish, as long as it came from her. So she simply became his curse of creativity. He would just block his creativity simply to upset her. And he had no power to stop such foolishness. He said he would like to take his own chance to invoke his own muses, and he never had the luck to fulfill it until your Grandma died. ”
“He did pick up writing though, did he?”
“Yes, then when he married your mom later in life, your mom refused to recognize her mother-in-law’s dictatorship in arts, and secretly set out to destroy your grandma’s mission to turning her husband into an “starving artist”. She said with religious earnestness that he had to bring home the bacon regularly and the mouths in the house be feed not by divine fantasies but by milk, butter and bread. Your Dad did write sporadically, a line or two in his off-days, but he always dropped his line half way because your mom’s voice was telling him that he was not cut out to be a writer. But then, your grandma’s voice seemed louder than your mom’s. And I believe, towards the end of your grandma’s life, your Dad did come to me. He told me that he was so tired of fighting two women at a time. I think your grandma was winning in the end. One of her husbands was a celebrated poet and they made consorted effort to seduce him into writing when he was in his teens. Yet, all in vain. But writing had become part of his battle, to either pursue or not to pursue. He did develop critical faculty towards writings. Now all the troubles seem to have disappeared since the deaths of both women in his life. Thank God. He could eventually write without voices in the head. But he was not very productive, only managed to put down short lines and wrote a fantasy story of a rape. It was a piece about a rape victim seeing white lights. He never wrote long pieces after that. That’s why he wrote poems. He said he carried your mom’s voice and his mom’s voice with him anywhere he went for too long. It was such a struggle just to shut these two women’s voice down.”
“Yes, my mom didn’t like us spending our time bringing no money. She kept the house, fed us and he got to bring back the bacon. By the way what do you think my Dad’s poems? Are they good?”
“His talents were not proportional to his ambition. His head was big but his voice was weak though violent. That’s why he never quit his day time job. You will make a good student now that you Mom and Dad both died, and your grandmother long gone. Who are you reading? Herman Melville?”
“Yes and no, I used to read him, my Dad loved him, he said I could not talk about writing if I had never read Herman Melville. but he is too tough, all the names in his writings sound alien. I ‘m reading Harry Potter now.”
“Well, then go home and read old Herman’s Mardi before you come to me again, that ancient Herman, he is still the best. He is the reason why your Dad and I are fast friends,” Mr. Professor told Leo.
“You know what makes a good writer”? Leo remembered a conversation with his Dad, who had been gaining a lot insights about frustrated creativity. “Spleen, spleen, spleen.” His Dad said with a fervent outburst that was so rare all those years Leo had known him.
“Spleen, that average 6 oz. blubber, that is where the creative fever burning, cooking the emotions as an electric stove. It is in the guts, where the gut feeling storms occur, the red, blue, and white pulp stuff ferment, red blood flow and infections of the mind start. Have you ever seen your own spleen? I did, in my dreams, in my dreams, I saw it, purple and gray. Thick with red desire to rush to the heart. That’s where the creativity’s shrine is, when spleen is at full tide, great waves crush the soul and great writer like old Herman was transformed from a melancholy young dude to a seaman, and his young talents to write, or rather to yell, to shout, to howl, burst forth. It is from his spleen, that first earthquake of creativity shook his guts. He said that himself. Yes, from the spleen, my boy, the Chinese write from their 9 pieces broken intestines and meshed liver, the Greek write from two parts of broken hearts. Do you feel your pains in the spleen? If you do, you should start to get ready to write. It is not in the brain, not in the head, nor in the heart, it is in the spleen. It is in there that ink turns spleen bitter activities into art, into poem, into prose, into saga, into great pyramids of inflammations of guts. A good writer digs the guts out of his characters he has created from the spleen, from his own spleen.” Leo remembered his Dad’s near cannibal delight in his passionate speech one winter evening when a hail broke out in the North Bay, California.
“Your Dad used to write light short pieces that scratch armpits and pull mustache, a teaser kind of writing, a sort of leisure, cream puff writing, good for the old ladies with pink tea cup and pumpkin pies.” One day, after the April 1st Fool’s day, Leo paid another visit to Mr. Professor. Mr. Professor stood himself up before Leo and looked down at Leo with a faraway look.
“He wrote this:
Lying between the hours
I play with hands
Of time
My ideas
In boiling water
Sprout from coffee grounds
No, no, no, no, I told your Dad he was losing his maleness. He is becoming a soft poet. He told me that he was having mad sex with another woman, who was not your mom. And he was not suffering from spleen pains anymore. There was ‘tender sarcasms’ in his writing, His own words, I swear, his own words. Needless to say, some men channel all their virility into writing, they call it the sublimation of sexual energy. I think writing and having sex share some commonality, both being creative, reproductive. Males are not equipped with the birth channels to give birth to an infant. But they have their own artistic womb, the incubation chamber for his spleen quakes, and rhetorical tsunamis. So, they give birth to words, books, thoughts and arts. That’s the closest thing to “giving birth”. That’s what makes a real writer, the wish to want to get pregnant, to carry an idea as a baby for nine months and to see it be delivered to the world. And they most of the time get impregnated by a woman, a female, whom we call muse.” Mr. Professor turned to Leo and asked him if he knew woman. “I mean, truly knowing. Only a heart breaking woman can get your spleen burst, and then your vision will appear”.
“My mom broke my heart many times, but I can’t write it, I am speechless when I am thinking of it.”
“Well, if your mom failed to initiate your into literary creativity, I don’t see who could, and who would.”
“You, my Dad told me to see you if I wish to learn to write.”
“Me, no, my boy, I don’t think I can teach you. You either have found out about writing now, or you would never get it. How old are you?
“I am 45.”
“Gush, you have such smooth hands and pale features. Do you suffer from any pains now?” Mr. Professor sounded almost maternal.
“Look at your hands, they are so slander, fine nails, long and well-preserved. Have you ever dug a ditch, laid a tile, or flip a bloody slap of beef ? A real writer needs to dig, rip, cut, dismember. Like a worm in the intestines, he goes through every inch of the tunnels of darkness, around every corner of twists. You need to be a butcher, see blood and flesh, dripping with emotions and with liveliness, with breath of fire, a big heavy blob of red passion from the spleen, soak yourself in that juice of imagination and emerge, submerge. Rub it on you , rub yourself in that pulp, rub spleen flavor on your characters, you need dynamics, you need to be infectious, blood-boiling, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,”
“You understand? Don’t kid me. How can you understand? You tender turkey. Your life is like a long nap, your brain is too quiet, your vision too tender, growing up in a small town with more chickens than people.”
“So? Jack London used to live here right next to this neighborhood, and Glen Ellen has only 992 people, not much bigger than our town.”
“Jack London, you talk about Jack London? He is a wolf, he lived in a wolf house, he gnaws, howls, fights and kills. He got white fangs and iron heels, and he burnt down his wolf house.”
“Did he? I heard it was an accident.”
“You heard, what do you know about him. He is no small town kid, he is from San Francisco. A sailor on horse back, a wayward seafarer.”
“Yes, Sir. Do I have a chance to break myself in in writing?”
“You can surely hope, and that’s all you can do at present. But be advised, my boy, writing is a very painstaking process. The agonies of writing are enough to put a gun in Hemingway‘s head. Are you insured? My boy?”
“No, I don’t have the money to insure myself, besides, I am still too young to shoot myself.”
“You never know, you never know, be prepared, if you wish to take up writing seriously.” Then they left together to have some coffee in Starbucks.
They took seats by the window which commanded a view of a sun flooded street. “You said you are 45?” Mr. Professor asked without expecting an answer. It was more a question of an after thought, like a casual greeting “How is the weather?” Mr. Leo Stump however, answered with conviction and eagerness, “Yes”.
“45, Nietzsche was 46 when he died a great writer. And you are writing stories on school notebooks? Yes, I know, it makes no difference what papers you write on. But writing is no merry spring outing. Even the greatest writer old Herman Melville ached at completing a book of monumental size: “Who will read me?” In his time, peopled wrote, not type, no typewriters were invented. You are already in the digital age, everyone write with Words. Yet, you don’t, you still write with pen and school notebooks.” After they brought their hot coffee in paper cups to their little table, Mr. Professor resumed their discussion: “Herman did the number, he said that in a book of one thousand pages--twenty-five lines each--each line ten words--every word ten letters. That’s two million five hundred thousand a’s, and i’s and o’s to read!” Mr. Professor took a deep sip and looked at Mr. Leo with sympathy.
“Yes, I know, my Chinese girl friend calls writing building the Great Wall with bricks of word.” Mr. Leo smiled apologetically.
“Sure, sure, watch your I ‘s and your t’s and your grammars and your own marriages.”
“Why about marriages?”
“People become greater writers before or after marriages. It either inspires them to write about happiness, or about tragedies. It is the turning point when they shed tears and have revelations about God, that sort of thing.”
“How many times you are married, sir, if I may ask?”
“Me?” Mr. Professor was a little taken back at Leo’s straight forwardness.
“Three, three, good or bad, enough shit to fill a big pot.”
“I guess so, my Dad cared little about marriage. He lived alone after my Mom died.”
“What about you?”
“Never married, but I have lived with women, if that means something.”
“While, you may expect some Oscar Wilderian wisdom, then. You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”
“I don’t think so. I can live with them, and I can live without them. It works for me either way.”
“Maybe you will be a late bloomer, a upcoming writer if you really believe in yourself.”
“I just start to lose hair but gain weight. However, I think I am going to grow a beard.”
“Ok, ok, show me something tomorrow, something that you have put down on the paper.”
“Yes, sir. I know my father had always wanted me to write.”
“ He is six feet under, and with a bigger dream than he can ever handle. What has become his dream?” Mr. Professor wiped his mouth over a paper napkin.
“Top soil, I guess.” said Leo.
“Then don’t you mind about him now. Be advised, young middle aged man, Just go home and write if you have nothing else to do and no woman to love.”
They walked out of the coffee shop into the sun lit street.
Leo sat at the table. He cleared the top and laid out a stack of paper. Then he went to the window and drew the curtains. He liked to feel at night when he wished to write. He turned on the lights, and took out his ball pen, he made a pot of coffee and lit a cigarette. He closed his eyes and started to activate his brain power. He was sending signals to invoke his muse and trying to receive his first line that would knock his potential readers over, something like “to be or not to be, that is the question.” Or, “Had I rather be a fool than a wise man.” But all the great lines seem to have been snatched away by higher powers. After a while, he decided that his muse was not on duty and felt compelled to use a cliché, a conventional opening that always convey some sense of immortality and eternity but without a copy right: “Once upon a time.”
One had to put his first foot out, whatever, so as to be able to walk. The first sentence was like a first step. Only after this first step was taken, then the mind started its journey. One should not bind his feet with rules and tips to write. “ Just get over with it, and the story would follow as naturally as the running water.” Leo self helped his efforts.
Once upon a time I was walking my dog Sammy one sunny spring morning in downtown Porkville. I was invited by a stranger to have coffee in the restaurant with him. He came to me, and introduced himself as certain Mr. His name now escaped me. He said he and his friends by the table saw me walking with the dog and it made a very lovely picture on this sunny spring day. They were interested in knowing me and wanted to know if I would grant them the honor of having coffee with them. It was a very cordial and polite invitation. Warm engaging smiles on his face, I could not find any reason to say no and so I said the pleasure was mine. I tied Sammy by the rail and walked in after the new friend. For the convenience of recalling the story, I need a name, and so he got his, Mr. Kent. There were four others, Mr. Marlboro, Winston, Chesterfield and Redding. Mr. Kent seemed to be the host, and he ordered some fresh coffee and a piece of cheesecake for me and he looked at me and said,
“I don’t believe you are married?”
“Charmed.”
“Would you like to be Mrs. Redding?”
“Is that a question or a problem?”
They burst laughing.
Leo put down a full stop, and then his pen. Yes, Mr. Professor was right in warning him that his Dad was trying to put a big dream into his son’s small head. He did not have enough imagination to fantasize what was in that Mr. Kent’s mind to speak the way he did. This was a story his Chinese girl friend told him. It did happen to her and she told him as a joke. He liked the way his Chinese girl friend smart talked to those guys. With laughter still ringing in the air, they chatted away about weather and communism. Then the group dissolved and the story ended. How easy it was to come to the end of the story, to put a full stop to it. Leo remembered what his Dad said about the spleen, the intestines and the crawling into a different person’s chamber of emotions and transforming himself into that character: to speak in that voice, and to behave in that manner. This was the part he had always fantasized, he was directing a life, creating a disaster, or making up a belief, initiate a Gospel of private salvation. This way he felt that he was in control over the life of his characters. He was telling them where they should go and what they should do. As if he was driving a car, he steered the wheel. He carried his characters into a bar, to a hotel, to a jail or to a car crash. Or he could even take them to commit suicide. He enjoyed that part immensely, and that is scrawling, scrabbling, sort of writing.
Yet, in this story, he did not quite know where to take them. They were so flirty yet friendly with his Chinese girl friend, those over well-feds, to borrow a unfit name for them from Nietzsche, those “over”-men. They needed a twist in their bowls. There was too much ego gas in their intestines, and they needed a rip. Leo needed to take revenge on the paper at least, to find judgment on the paper . This has always been done by writers of vengeance. Now he felt his spleen movement. Why his spleen should make a statement about this episode of his girl friend. She was not so much as even kissing him. She thought the episode as trivial and funny, “They are so free speechy”, she commented. She was a good sport when it came to encounters with “small town celebrities,” a category she threw about with disdain. Well, he did not even know whose armpits he was scratching. Leo was very frustrated. Old Herman’s words suddenly loomed large as a ship wreck into his mind: “It is the world of mind, wherein the wanderer may gaze around, with more of wonder than Balboa’s band roving through the golden Aztec glades.” Last night before turning the light off, he did followed Mr. Professor’s instruction and read old Herman in bed.
Somehow he felt better, at least, his mind had wandered, his soul had pained, his fingers had scratched the pen. There were satisfactions in just putting whatever in the mind down on the paper. He felt that action of scrawling on the paper alone had elevated his mind above mediocrity, had defeated his mom’s voice, had lent much comfort to his deceased Dad, and to himself, a good battle even if just to be defeated. Now he could fully identify with the tortured doubts of a would-be writer, his self-chosen rite of initiation.
Of course, the next day, Leo and Mr. Professor met again in Starbucks. They seemed to be closer in a secret delight that Leo had failed to produce a writing, let alone a good one. Mr. Professor was much tender, his eyes addressing the wounds that Leo suffered from a realization that he was not much of a writer. Mr. Professor brought Leo an walnut maple scone to go with his dark French roast and showed a poem Leo’s father wrote to Mr. Professor before he passed away:
Count not the ways
Not the words
Not the days.
My love
To you
For you
Of you
Begins,
Ends.
“I smell a poor spleen here.” Mr. Professor commented, “I do, too, who has he really been in love with though, I have always wandered. ” Mr. Leo Stump nodded.
“literary seduction”. Mr. Professor volunteered his diagnosis. “In the end of his life after his stroke, you Dad felt such impotence to create and he really wished that he had the courage to die. He said dying to him was ‘a private choice, a public duty,’ and he gladly fulfilled both with a diligent heart one day after throwing a party for himself to celebrate his own death. Of course at that time, no one suspected the party was truly a farewell party.” His eulogy, the last piece of his writing appeared in the paper a week later. “A non apologetic busy loafer, I had made a lot of noise before finally dreaming myself into heavenly quietude….. ” Mr. Professor recited the first line, without any emotion in his voice. Mr. Leo Stump had relived this story many times before and he had come to terms with it. Maybe there was some comfort to be had for Mr. Leo Stump of his Dad’s un-materialized dream that a “greater book” had indeed existed in his brain than in the discount tray in Barnes and Noble in bound form, beyond the criticism of Mr. Professor.
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