New York Cab Ride
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

CABBING

New York City
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

TAXI NYC

DSC_7917
Originally uploaded by Charlie Roberts

NATURAL IN BACK

Chelsea Barbers is hopping.

I stumble in - with my canes. I enter the barber shop like a key-lit actor in a well staged film sequence. Haircuts stop. Men stand up. A barber peels back from his chair and pipes "What happened?"

I am determined to get to a chair, to rest. Yet through the noise (fending off a different barber asking to remove my coat) the rearranging of men in waiting room wooden chairs (like I said, the place is hopping) I dimly feel relief that I present as someone that had something "happen" to them - a cute ski accident, a drunken fall down the stairs!

Whoa! Was that a scrape! But I'm still here! Pass me the bathing suit sports illustrated ... no sideburns, part on the side, natural in back!

But instead, I mumble as I tumble in the wooden waiting chair - canes clattering...

" just having a few problems".

I sit.

I'm so sleepy and achy -like I haven't been to bed in days.

I look down at my belted pants and my t-shirt - I used to fill them out. I used to have to suck it in to wear this shirt. Today it hangs slackly.

I had a good body - it occurs to me now.

There are four barbers today, four customers in the chairs, and about eight men waiting.

All the men are cute. You have to be a little self involved to find your way to Chelsea Barbers. It's been written up in GQ and Esquire.

Today I feel like I know I'm in the right place - I'm just not so sure I'm wanted here.

I ask the guy next to me if he is waiting for Max too. I ask this loudly - like the drunk at a quiet party.

"No, I'm not" he whispers - looking down.

So I pull back.

I see my hair in the bottom corner of a mirror across from me.

It was good, it was right - to get my haircut before seeing my family in Florida tomorrow.

I'd had the delusional idea that I looked swarthy and arty like ... Keanu Reeves.

I look like Beetlejuice.

Max is ready for me.

I need to use both canes to get to the chair. Max is humble and meek with me today.

Usually he's kind of snotty. I kind of like it when he's snotty. But today I have the halo of the fighting spirit. This dims Max's snottiness.

After my haircut, I hail a cab on 23rd and tenth. An elegant woman (mid seventies) stands beside me and tries to hail a cab for me. I roll my eyes (inwardly).

I flag down a cab and as the cab pulls over the elderly woman steps in front of me and waves to the cab as if it was her resourcefulness that snagged the taxi. She runs to open the passenger door without asking me if I would like help.

I get inside the cab, pull my legs up, and the elderly lady wants to shut the door for me - but I offer a stressed out "thank you" to her and manage to shut the door myself.

Slam.

As the cab pulls away I see the elderly woman expression. It's upbeat but slightly shaken.

A smile with a bad after taste; Saintliness with a dash of uncertainty.

7

Hi Charlie, I love the pics of your dad;

you look so much like him.

I wanted to say that I'd love to read

your blog if you're open to it.

I think it's semi-private now.
I think about you often these days,

and the little writing of yours that CAR

has shown me was beautiful and profound.

Love to you,

Bostwick

Hey Bostwick!

Please feel free to check out my blog.

I close it (now and then) depending on my mood.

When I assume no-one is reading it - it's easy for me to post.

It's getting harder to write

as I run around healing
myself. Sitting down for hours at a time

to write isn't the best choice

for my cold skinny legs.

_______

The pictures of my Dad are in honor of him.

He took off yesterday at 7 pm.

He'd been ill for about six months

and he slipped away sitting in a chair

as my mother made dinner.

He just took off.

I hope he's okay.

Love -

CHARLIE

me and dad

dad

HOT DOGGING DOWN THE EMOTIONAL SLOPES

My father died tonight. He died at 7 (or 8?)

He is lying (alone) in a funeral home right now.

I just spoke to my mother. She sounds clear as a bell and loud and strangely normal.

She tells me,

"I was feeding him. and I asked him if he wanted an egg, and he said, one. So I made him some bacon and some eggs with some butter and salt. I brought it over to him but he wouldn't eat it.

He was sitting in the new $1200 chair I bought him and I thought, I'll just let him sit there - we'll build him up tomorrow.

And then he was dead. I can't figure it out. I can't figure out how it happened. I’ll have to think about it. I'll figure it out tomorrow.

But it's late now. It's cold. It's sixty degrees out here on the deck and I'm cold. So I'll call you tomorrow, hunnie...

...Okay?"

My mother (like my aunt) is impervious to emotion. No matter how dire the situation, it is spoken of with flat and unemotional practicality. Bad news is delivered like you're getting instructions and scolded at the same time.

My aunt left this stony message - "Charlie?! Your Dad died. Call your mother but use her cell phone, the home phone isn't working."

(click)

But my sister reached me first.

I was sitting on a rolling stool in my kitchen. (I cook my food and eat it next to the stove because it's too much effort to carry the plate to a table or counter).

I was eating my fish dinner and my cell phone rang and I knew - could feel - that something was up.

As soon as my sister said, "Charlie?" and then pause - I knew my father was dead.

And I dreaded hearing it because I didn't want to experience how I felt about it. I didn't want to manufacture an emotion. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel- how I felt. I didn't want to know.

My father’s been struggling since July. And because of this struggle, I haven't been able to make a connection to how he would get better. All this effort to keep him from falling backward... and for what? He seemed in pain, a lot of pain. He couldn't (shouldn't) drink alcohol anymore. He wasn't interested in food. Couldn't control his bowels. He seemed lost at times. He didn't always recognize neighbors. But still, even for all of that, my dad didn't want to die.

My father was still purchasing things (on the internet). (Later -we found a catalogue bookmarked to a very expensive sport coat for traveling (wrinkle free!) Where did my father imagine he was going?) His will to live- to continue to enjoy (with moody crankiness) the every day stuff -coffee -the newspaper, the game on TV - frankly it impressed me.

When I would see him (this past year) I would think... if it were me, I would just let go. My dad had no interest in letting go.

I’m on the phone by my Talapia.

My sister says to me over the cell phone

"Charlie? (pause) Dad died".

Died.

Died.

Strange and impressive to use that word. Like using the word mortgage when you buy your first home - or wife, right after you're married.

Died.

My dad died. The word died has an intimate smell and color to it (now).

My sister and I hang on the phone allowing the pauses their full due, daring the other to shape the conversation in a specific way.

And I think (as we talk) - I would be terrified for how my world had just instantly changed, but lately I've become an expert on (taking on) the unthinkable so I stare down the death abyss like a seasoned warrior.

My hand clutching my iPhone, I spin away from my talapia and ride the moments - hotdogging down the emotional slopes.

In my gut, I am worried for my dad. Death is a scary thing. Is he scared? Does he know what to do?

It's cold when your dead at first (I think). His body is cold and tiny on the white condominium carpet. Did my mother handle it right? I bet she didn't.

I allow myself to bawl, and it comes easily. I try to say to my sister,

"He was so.... tired."

But I am incomprehensible through my sobs and sloppy ALS voice.

"He was so what?" my sister asks.

"He was so... tired"

"He was so hungry?" she asks again.

"Tired!

TIRE - ERD.

He was so tired."

I'm really weeping (now) and later I realize that I was actually thinking about myself. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of trying to figure away to keep death at bay.

I'm so tired I'd just like to ... just give in.

I think about my Dad's cameras. The thousands of slides and photographs that will have to be sorted - his clothes.

I call my brother.

My brother asks If I'm alright and then wants to talk travel plans. My brother releases nothing emotionally.

I call my neighbor Jackie and ask her to come over.

I tell her my dad died.

Jackie, a repentant alcoholic and italian, is the opposite of my stoic mother and aunt.

When Jackie hears the news, she suffers.

We make my bed and she tells me how lucky and blessed he was to be home when he died. When I describe his life - she reminds me how fortunate he was.

"Not many people get a chance at a life like that, Charlie."

She gives me a hug and tells me she'll take care of the cat while I'm in Florida.

And lying in bed I realize, I'm not devastated, because my father left a while ago.

But I did have one good conversation with him last week on the phone. I described the three restaurants I was going to in New York for restaurant week. I described the outstanding service at Tocqueville, which I'd already been to, and my father listened brightly because he went out to lunch and dinner five days a week and sometimes nights too - in fancy restaurants all over Manhattan with an expense account from Time Magazine. His quiet knowledge of the New York restaurant scene created unacknowledged awe from me. He didn’t care he knew about it. I did.

When I described to him the joy of getting top notch service, my father listened and was far, far away from death.

He said,

"Now you see? We just can't get that here down in Naples, you just don't get that kind of service here!"

as if good service was the one thing keeping him from a night out.

My father wanted to live.

no deeper than that

My body is trickier and trickier.

This doesn't alarm me (exactly). I simply pile more things onto my "get better" list.

1. My feet are blue- buy a heated food massager.

2. I am exhausted - research Chi Gong.

3. My legs are weaker - buy a stationary bike.

4. My stomach muscles are lax- get a girdle.

I think.

I think as I have always thought.

My mind is a grayish maroon. My mind is continually on the edge of mild discomfort.

My mind is undisciplined. Along the way, my mind calls for action (large and small).

My mind is no deeper than that.

My mind circles - looking for a place to land - until sleep does the trick.

I think - I hope- this dimness will save me. My mind has kept my temperament in solid edgy

denial. Maybe the gray maroon will keep me from despair.

I have always held onto the idea of transformation. This idealistic grasping has led me on some dubious paths. It might help me now.

I sit a folding recliner chair (a Lafuma) in my apartment and face the Manhattan skyline.

I breath deeply.

I need transformation.

I need the magic formula.

I need the magic word.

My life depends on an answer to a riddle.

I not only have to figure out what the answer is, I have to figure out what the riddle is.

I was never bright. I didn't test well. But I enjoyed learning. Tutoring helped me enormously.

I need special help, now.

Is the answer, "There's no place like home"? or "To your own self be true" or "Reality's what you make of it" or " a rose is a rose is a rose" or "THIMK!"

Remember "Thimk!"

Stem Cells

All stem cell procedures are not the same. Monterey uses autologus; taken from your hip and cultured over night before replacing through holes bored in your skull. although i heard, now they're putting the cells into the spine.

Some use placenta cells, some fetus cells, others are making breakthroughs in re-engineering skin cells into pluripotent (undifferentiated) cells which become nerve cells.

I emailed the american company but haven't heard back. there should be a report out from Monterey in March. am waiting. no one who has had the procedure is shouting from the rooftops yet.

cheers charlie!