Extra Innings

I used to try to think about
baseball, but realized
that I didn't know enough
about the game to
really concentrate on it.

I have heard that thinking
about yard work can be
effective, but growing
up in California, I have
seen too many bikini-clad
women watering lawns for that
to do much good.

A few years ago, I concocted
the single saddest scenario I
could muster: The cries of the
last kitten alive inside a
burning pet shop.

I can remember feeling
drowned in an absurd emotional
rush and my tears falling
onto my girlfriend's neck
and shoulders. I'm still
haunted by the sight of
her eyes slowly opening,
forming the most tender look
of concern as she
wiped my cheeks with her
gentle palms.

Sometime later she confessed
that was the morning she
realized she loved me, that
my tears were more endearing than
any flower or any gift that
could be bought. I was
moved to finally make peace
with myself. Last Valentine's
day, I bought her a ring and
a kitten, and on a whim I
bought us both season tickets
to the Angels.

T Jordan - 1993

One person's trash - part three

Listen to this.

Javier Escobedo pushes a gray, wooden-framed cart down a ramp from the loading dock to the parking lot. He has just left the auction floor where he paid $75 for the still mysterious contents of the cart. The cart is taller than he is, and evidently heavy as he struggles to maneuver it toward his pickup truck. He parks the cart behind his truck and kicks the lock tabs on the wheels. He walks around to the front and swings the hinged door open to reveal stacks of computer monitors, VCRs, and other electronic gear. “Nice.” Javier says, and gestures toward the stash. “Better than Tuesday.” He says.

Javier’s business partner is busy atop the ten-foot high pile of large appliances, furniture and boxes of clothing that are cradled tenuously between the home-made iron scaffolds welded to the frame of the 1974 Dodge D200. He’s stacking the merchandise for travel. Javier explains to me that there’s a technique to stacking all the goods so that they can achieve maximum height and still have a stable load. According to Javier, they are sometimes required to repack the trucks at the border as the highway bridges in Mexico don’t follow the clearance standards that we have here in the States. I asked him what happens to the items that still won’t fit in the truck after repacking. “We sell them there.” He says, and thrusts his index finger toward the ground indicating they set up shop on the side of the road, and sell what they can.

Javier starts sorting the goods from the bin, taking handfuls of computer cables, broken keyboards, and anything else that no longer holds any re-re-sale value to the dumpster in the middle of the lot. I turn back toward the loading dock in time to see two women arguing over a rolling cage of clothing. They’re standing in the middle of the dock, some five feet above the parking lot, yelling in Spanish, and pulling the cage back and forth between them. The argument intensifies, and catches Javier’s attention. He abandons his cart and jogs up the ramp toward the women. I move closer too, and witness the larger of the two women take a straight arm swing at Javier who absorbs the hit into his shoulder and back, then struggles to grab the woman’s arms to restrain her. By this time, two other men join the fray, and the scene playing out on the stage becomes part tragic, part comical as everyone grapples to control the two women who have long-since stopped fighting each other, and now just want to be released. Two of the thrift store employees, standing near the entrance of the lot begin walking toward the melee, but they obviously have no intention of getting involved. They walk several steps, then stop, apparently only to gain a better vantage on the theatrics. But by now, it’s all over. The group at the top of the ramp disperse, and the smaller of the two ladies, the victor, rolls the clothing cart down the ramp toward her husband who had been sitting on the tailgate of their truck watching the show. He has the look of someone who has seen the same play many times, knows the ending, and can't wait to get home.

One person's trash - part two

Listen to this.

It’s crowded in here. Crowded, loud, gritty, and poorly lit; but for some reason, I love it. The auction room has the same vibe that causes the visceral turbulence in a concert hall seconds before the main act hits the stage. In addition to the auctioneer’s voice echoing from the PA, a hundred or so bidders yell toward the front of the warehouse attempting to out-shout one another and draw the auctioneer’s attention. There are arguments amongst groups of men, but no fights are breaking out yet. I’m told by one of the bidders that most of the others have unwritten agreements between them as to who can bid for what types of merchandise on any given day. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays you agree to bid on clothing, tools, and small appliances, and Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, you can only bid on consumer electronics, large appliances, and furniture. The arguments break out when someone fails to stick with their agreement – say, if a bin of furniture is about to be sold for far less than it’s worth, and, despite not being your ‘furniture’ day, the temptation to place a bid is just too great. In addition, I’m told there’s a hierarchy amongst the bidders that is constantly in flux, depending on their perception of their own seniority on any given morning. If someone sees himself as the senior potential bidder of a particular lot, and it’s at a price that can’t be passed up, all bets are off, all agreements null and void. So there’s more than one way to pick a fight here on the floor, and, according to my source, there are plenty of them.

The atmosphere here is about as far from Sotheby’s as you can get. And while an upscale auction house relies on high quality offerings, impeccable standards, and established decorum, this auction relies on quantity over quality, the momentum of mayhem, and a climate of spirit that rides somewhere between promise and anarchy.

Privacy Please

Waking to a familiar voice,
"Whispers dig deeper." she
says, squatting down on me,
breathing hot into my ear.
I stare through red eyes at
the neon sign and think of
eating breakfast alone,
getting a glass of water,
finding a new lover.

Stepping into my shorts.
her arm on my back as I
stand to a tilting room
and a sonic boom. I don't
look at her as I walk toward
the kitchenette. Scaring her
with a 9 a.m. beer
might tear her out of
bed, but not out of this
cozy room.

Opening the refrigerator.
A pathetic giggle mixed with
a rusty burp as I realize
how stupid it was for me to
put the beer on the bottom
shelf. I lean into the
head rush and turn into the
spin. Knees on linoleum,
head on vegetable crisper.

Footsteps or heartbeats
echo then stop, a door
slams, the room grows
dark and cool. I blink and
squint to see the
privacy sign spinning wildly
on the handle.

T Jordan - October 1990

Sandy Bottom

It's Saturday night. My phone
rings and I let the machine
pick it up. It's the
girl who broke up with
me two weeks ago calling
"just to say hi and see how you are."
I make a toast in the direction
of her voice and slosh some
vodka on the couch.

So-called friends tell me she's
dating a surfer from
Hermosa. There aren't any
waves in Long Beach. Not
anymore. Not since they built the
breakwater, and, more
recently, poured gravel along
the breaker shallows to
protect the shoreline from
erosion.

I look at my hairy gut and remind
myself that at least my
knees are still good. I
picture this girl
and her surfer rolling
around inside sandy
sheets, and her thinking how
hard and adorable her new
hairless friend is -
at least for a while. At
least until she discovers
that this guy can't write
poetry or tie his
shoes without Velcro.

Then she'll call me again,
and this time I'll answer.
We'll take a walk down to the
ocean and sit near the water's
edge, and listen carefully over
the silence of the beach
at night for the ripples
lapping against the gravel.
I'll read her a poem, we'll hold
hands, and track sand back into
the bedroom.

T Jordan - June 1987

One person's trash - part one

Listen to this.

Welcome to commerce on the fringe - the thrift shop yard sale. It’s been called the last stop on the dumpster express. Donated items and things that can’t be sold at a regular retailer go to a thrift store. What can’t be sold at a thrift store comes here. Five mornings per week this parking lot is the auction site for tons of post-consumer jetsam. Dozens of people bid on rolling carts chock full of clothing, computer parts, stereo components, toys, tools – you name it. Some bins sell for as little as $10, others for more than $100. There are no guarantees here, no returns. Some of the items may work fine; but many will be tossed in dumpsters immediately as the bins are sorted. All that sorting goes on here in the lot following the auctions, and it makes for a lively, somewhat frenzied scene. Trucks piled dangerously high are loaded then driven south to Mexico where the items are resold in flea markets, antique stores, and yet more yard sales.

This place is both a salvage yard and a treasure chest; and to those who make their living selling merchandise that even thrift stores can’t move, it represents something even more profound - hope.

I’m going in... stay tuned.

For Burney

Perhaps you’ve had the opportunity to be the first person on your block to own a really cool item. Did this propel you to the level of popularity you had hoped? I’ll sure bet it did. I remember when my neighbor, Burney was the first person on our block to get a powered lawn mower. It was 1970, and back then, powered mowers were usually reserved for lawn care professionals, those wealthy enough to have a lawn larger than a welcome mat, or, in Burney’s case, someone with a delicate self image who believed that owning cool things would make him likeable. Anyway, Burney’s new mower fulfilled every desire he had for popularity, and made him an instant celebrity. I’m surprised the local paper didn’t stop by to take a picture of him proudly perched over his ½ horsepower gleaming green beauty. Not only could he now mow his 350 square foot plot of sod in less than 45 seconds, but he could effectively scare every cat within ear shot into the next county. Yep – Burney was sitting on top of the world.

One afternoon while I was hanging out with Burney on his front steps, he brought out his little baggie of tobacco and rolled up his cigarette like he always did. He said he had to smoke outside because his wife didn’t let him smoke in the house. I was five years old – what did I know from tobacco? All I know is that whatever kind of tobacco he was smoking, it sure smelled a lot different than the kind of tobacco in my parent’s cigarettes. He used to smoke his cigarettes differently too – taking long drags on them and holding the smoke in his lungs for a really long time. Sometimes he’d burst out in coughing fits and have to take a slug out of his can of Coors to quiet himself. He'd take a long pull on the can, then fling his head forward with a resounding Ahhhhh. "Don't drink beer, Tommy. But when you're old enough, make sure it's cold. Ice cold." Yeah, Burney was a really funny guy. One day after smoking a cigarette on the porch he decided to mow his lawn. I reminded him that he had just mowed it before lunch, but he didn’t seam to want to listen to me. He just laughed a little, pulled the rip cord on the mower and started her up. He started coughing again as the mower blew exhaust toward him, so he walked away from the mower to get his Coors. As soon as his back was turned, the mower started moving forward. It rolled straight off the lawn, over the sidewalk, off the curb and into the street right in front of a car. The car managed to stop with a skid and Burney looked toward the sound, dropped his Coors, and ran into the street. He was a fast runner for an old guy of 30 or so, but not fast enough to grab the mower before a car coming from the other direction smashed into it and sent it sailing 50 feet through the air and careening off a parked van.

Some of our neighbors heard the raucous, and came out to see what was happening. Both drivers from the cars ran over to Burney who was frantically trying to turn what was left of the mower off. I don’t know why, but it took three people two minutes or so to shut down that engine. I stayed on the curb, watching the whole incident go down. I remember the three men trying to yell above the noise of the mower, all the while black smoke billowed from the exhaust. They finally shut it down and lifted it onto the sidewalk. They talked for a while, exchanged their versions of what had just gone down. During the commotion my mom ran out of the house, thinking the car skid and resulting casualty may have been me. She stood next to me until things calmed down a little then took my hand and brought me back inside our apartment.

The next day I walked over to Burney’s house and found him working in his garage. He had several Coors lined up along his workbench, and was bent over the warped carcass of his mower, sweating and talking to himself. I didn’t say anything. I sat on a stool and watched him for about twenty minutes. He didn’t even know I was there. Finally he glanced toward me and blinked. “Hi Tommy.” He said. “Hi.” I replied. “Is it broken?” I asked. “Naw, just banged up a little.” Burney said, looking back down at the heap of twisted metal. “Heck of a wreck though yesterday, huh? Did you see how this thing flew when that car hit it?” “Yup.” I said. Burney paused, looked past me for a moment as if he was formulating a thought, then gave me a half smile. “You’ll probably tell this story to your kids someday.” He said. At that age I had no real concept of time or any notion that I’d ever be a father. “Uh huh.” I said. “Well, do me a favor if you do tell this to someone okay?” “Uh huh.” I said. “Tell them that I got the mower up and running the next day, and it worked just fine. Will ya do that for me?” “Sure.” I said. “Thanks Tommy. You’re a good boy.” And with that, Burney leaned back over the mower, tightened a couple of bolts and started it up. It looked and ran just like new; and Burney spent the rest of the afternoon mowing every lawn along our street; stopping only occasionally to take a sip of ice cold beer offered by his gracious neighbors.