Pain

I suppose I knew something like this might happen.

Falling down and going boom was sure to have consequences. My body wants a word with me.

Damn.

I joked about it. Joked about it. I should have known. My parents were right, they said (careful to quote their parents), “There no fool like an old fool.”

What would make me think I could fall over backwards onto a sidewalk, and then get up without angering, insulting, disturbing or annoying some section of my body.

It would be a section that naturally didn’t expect or anticipate it. A part that was innocent, guilt-free, and not perfectly okay with the surprise inversion of itself, as if that kind of thing happened all the time.

My skinny behind, for example.

“No, a warning isn’t necessary, Ed, just throw yourself down on the sidewalk whenever you feel like it, we’ll be all right. No problem. Remember how we used to do that, boys, about, what was it, sixty years ago?

“Sixty years ago, Ed. That’s why you had elbow pads and wore snow suits.”

You can’t fall down, even after fifty, and not hear from some (sarcastic) part of your body.

The pains took three days coming. I almost thought I had escaped. When I woke up the third day, like I had gotten away with something, like I had raided the cookie jar and nobody had noticed the missing cookies. I thought, I still had no pain. Whoopee!

“Hey, some cookies are missing over here,” said a part of me on the third day. “I’m going to have to deliver some pain because of those missing cookies.”

Let me explain, I said to myself, quickly.

Sunday, when I reached for the door handle of the restaurant, I had the handle of my stand-alone cane in my left hand. (You get that when you graduate from the grocery-cart cane, which you get when you graduate from the wheelchair.). I was planning to temporarily abandon the handle of the cane, to use that hand, my only functioning hand, to grab onto the handle of the door.

“Do I want to hear this?” my body is saying. “I don’t need this. I’m late by, what, three days. Three days, you haven’t had pain.”

Now, just let me finish: leaving the stand-alone cane to stand alone, which I was pretty confident it could do, I planned to pull the door open, stick my right foot and maybe the right cheek of my…well, my right cheek…into the wide open space created by the opened door…ow, what was that?

“The cookies are gone. It is three days. I’m delivering pain here….”

…Then, I would return my left hand to the stand-alone cane, which would still be standing where I had left it, and use it…ow… to balance my body as I strolled blithely into the restaurant.

“Sorry. This is…”

To this day, I don’t know what went wrong with that plan.

“Sorry, this is the third day. I haven’t time.”

Did the stand-alone cane get distracted by the décor of the restaurant and lean in to get a better view? Or, maybe my efforts with the door required more strain than I anticipated, more struggle, perhaps a step I don’t recall. Or, did a bad man come into the restaurant and move the stand-alone cane just away from my grasp. Ow.

“C’mon, you know what you did.”

I fell backwards, and from a slightly inclined plane leading up into the restaurant. The inclined plane (which I hadn’t noticed before) went from the restaurant floor maybe a inch down to the sidewalk, so there would be no tripping over a step. So my body was already tilted to fall…Ow. What was that?

…While I fell, I resolved not to hurt my head, if possible. I remembered that of all the parts struck by the stroke, the head seems to have healed faster—the right arm was the slowest; it still just is, sort of, there—and caused ow, ow the most dramatic changes in my attitude.

Fortunately ow, I have a crooked back, which I think absorbed the blow, so my head bounced no more than three times.

Ow. That hurts. Was that sidewalk pain?

“Yeah. And do you know you’re paralyzed on the right side?”

Yes. I know.

“So, you know that the right side is hurt more that it’s saying, with the pain, I mean?”

Well, I assumed. Yes I guess I knew. I couldn’t imagine I could fall like that…ow…and not eventually hear from you, some part of you …owah.

“So, you know, you could be hurt more that you know.”

Yes.

“And you’re taking chances?”

No. Ow. I mean, I’ve stopped. Look, my girl is a nurse. She told me. Even if I don’t remember. I know she told me. I just forgot. Ow, dammit. Look, just let me have this one, sort of, slide. I’ll be careful. I will.

“You’ll stop all this wise-ass nonsense, pretending you’re not a stroke survivor for long, and bounding into restaurants and such?”

Yes. Yes.

“You know, I’m not authorized to do this.”

Just this once.

“An awful lot of people are asking favors—big favors—for you.”

I know. I’m ashamed. I’ll be better.

“Well. Maybe once.”

Thank…Ow…OW…Oooh…Okay, all right, I deserved that.

Falling

Falling



I mustn’t have fallen much, as a kid.

Or, I overfell, to the extent overfalling is possible, and got fed up with, or maybe frightened of, or just considered myself more or less done with falling as an activity worth pursuing.

I mean from, say, the age of 12 to…well… only recently. I’ve returned to the study. I’ve become something of a reluctantly insistant faller.

I guess I should have paid closer attention to some of the intricacies of falling, because now, it’s coming up—the subject of falling down—again, and again, and so is the humiliation attendant to it, and the risk, and the debates, all of which you stand an excellent chance of losing when you are arguing from the perspective of being on the floor.

Maybe I was humiliated a lot, as a kid.

Nah. I think of all people, I would remember that.

As I contemplate falling, which I usually do in the endlessly embarrassing time between the second I realize I have lost the ability to grab, seize, or reach a rescuer, and am thus destined to create a scene, at least, and, hurt myself at worst; and the moment of brain-rattling inevitable impact, I am forced to review my actions. None of the reviews are good, because the results are the same. By the time my head hits the pavement—and one of them actually rattles—I am struggling with self-hatred, self-doubt, and an illogical crisis of faith.

I think falling down would be easier (a) if you were alone, as long as you avoided breaking or cutting anything; (b) if you were in the company of total strangers, who luckily had the kindness of passersby who would help you up and then be on their way; (c) or, I suppose, with a member of your immediate family, as long as he or she is not the person who warned you that if you were to do this or that, “…you likely would fall down; then, who would have to risk bodily injury struggling to help you up? I’ll tell you who [no, please, no…]. Me.”

I talked Susan into going out to dinner one recent Sunday evening. I can’t remember what argument I used—any one of them might have succeeded, I’ll never know—but it was a summer Sunday, when you still can find a parking spot and a table anywhere in Huntington (though, not near each other).

We had made it through back-to-back weekend weddings of sons—her fourth child; my fourth child—without the slightest complications (thanks to the four recently-wed people), and I, the magnificently unemployed, was suggesting celebrating our good fortune by doing what we used to do all the time, going out to dinner.

Susan was tired. She had been to the beach, which somehow makes you desperately fatigued. She was on call from 11pm until 7 am, when her regular Monday would start (from 7 am until 3 pm, and so I bit my tongue), but she said, “Yes.”

We aimed for Riley’s, but Riley’s was under renovation, so we aimed next door, Besito’s. Susan helped me out of the car (about which I talk to my right leg all the time: “You know, you could at least try…”), and over the curb (“…now, I know you can do this. You do it at Push-me-pull-you [my name for Gold Coast Physical Therapy, a name I cannot remember when I need to] all the time, on those fiberglass steps.).

Susan asked me to, “Stay there until I park the car and walk back.”

She was probably a bit more emphatic than that.

I don’t know if I agreed. I might have appeared to, but Besito’s has a number of tables
outside, with people seated at them in such a comfortable, even romantic way, they couldn’t possibly want to have a man with a four-poster cane standing near them for more than three, maybe four minutes. I thought, anyway.

I lasted two minutes, before I made for the restaurant door. I figured if I got inside, and better yet, secured a table, even sat down, Susan would be uplifted, pleased beyond measure, even proud of me.

Amazing how being an invalid warps you, makes you think you can make your date proud of you.

The fall began while I was busy working on the fantasy. I didn’t even know, yet. I was busy. I had to release my grip on the cane in order to open the door. As the door opened, I had to step back to allow it to open further, making my hand and my cane just shy of grasping distance.

So, I commenced falling. Of course, once you start falling, you cannot stop. There isn’t time to explain your situation or make any excuses for it. All those romantic people you were sparing are now going to pay more attention to you than less, and you are going to be embarrassed. You might as well use this time to get used to it.

Whack. Rattlerattlerattle.

Two men lifted me up, following a brief discussion interrupted by my insistence they get on with it. I said I didn’t want my girl to see me like this. All the people but me seemed to think about how I felt; I said I’d feel a hundred times worse if Susan found out. One very nice lady said, “Aren’t you Ed Lowe?” Thinking maybe they would work faster, I said, “Yes.”

Talk about mixed emotions.

They got me up, these fine people, and then, two Suffolk police officers showed up out of nowhere. “The police?” I thought. This was maybe three minutes from the moment I decided to open the door. “She’s going to freak.”

I insisted I was fine. The police offered assistance. Worse, they were genuinely concerned. I declined, thanking them, thinking, “Please, disappear, please.” The manager graciously showed me to a table. I hurriedly sat. I ordered a fake beer. I did something with the cane.

Susan came, smiling. Big smile. Big, wonderful smile. Happy. Oh, God.

I couldn’t stand the tension. I told her.

“WHAT?”

“Want to split a…uh…you know…uh…that..”

“Guacamole?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Guacamole.”

“That’s going to distract me, make me forget…?”

“Yes, guacamole. I’ll have to remember…”

The Choice

I know my way around the average bar.

It’s not something everyone would brag about, or even be proud of, or even be cognizant of, but I do; have; and am.

For decades, I even kept a personal coin for the expertise: I called myself a, “saloonist.”

From the setup to the cleanup; the mundane preparations, the hopefully smooth operation, the sadness, the madness, the sometimes electrifying drama, and the often disgusting cleanup after, I have seen, lived, or imagined, in my 50 years as a regular, the way the world works, in a bar.

Try as I might to not star in a untoward bar scene that, as time wears on, grows increasingly unflattering with each re-retelling; or, mindlessly inexplicable; or, downright dunderheaded, I have not been immune.

I have been terribly careful. I’ve been suddenly quiet. I’ve disappeared. I have been clever, cowardly, non-confrontational, apologetic for breathing, for looking this-or-that way, for having a mustache, for drinking a Guinness with ice cream cake, for being a newspaper columnist…

But, still, I have not been immune.

Two of my own bar stories involve hats.

Peter McGowan, who made a fortune in the early 1960’s with PJ’s, on Main Street in Farmingdale, used to have a rule that nobody could wear a hat in any of his places. Pete, who later served time as The Supervisor of the Town of Islip, held that hats caused trouble. That didn’t bother me in the 60’s. I didn’t wear a hat.

But in the 70’s, I did. In the summer I wore a 80-cent, blue, crushable, fishing hat; and in the winter, a standard, warm, Donegal, Irish tweed cap.

The 80-cent hat got me into 80-cent trouble with a Newsday advertising guy. An unwritten rule said that advertising people, the big shot businessmen who made lots of money, drank on the south side of the oval bar at the Garden-City-Bowling-Lanes and Restaurant. We poorly-paid editorial employees gathered on the North side.

One day, an advertising guy named John wandered over and stood next to me, talking, violating the rule. By-and-by, he took my fishing hat off my head, put it on his head, and declared it to be his hat, now.

I couldn’t remember for the life of me what Pete McGowan had said twenty years before, but it sure seemed important, now. Had I remembered, I would have bequeathed the advertising salesman the hat. He had it, anyway.

Instead, I said, “Give the hat back.” He said, “No. Do what you gotta do.”

Not having any expertise with this sort of enterprise, I hit him rather harmlessly in his ample, and strangely firm stomach. My fist bounced back so fast, I had to step out of its way.

“Is that it?” he said, incredulously.

“Yeah.” I said rather glumly. “That’s pretty much my whole show.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m keeping the hat.”

That was in the 70’s. I should have remembered it.

One day in Garrity’s, in the next decade, while I was busy ordering lunch and trading stories with Bernie Tanzillo, a tall man entered to my left. He whisked my Donegal Tweed cap off my head as he passed me and placed it on his own head. He then took the far left barstool in the U-shaped bar, and commenced conversing with no-one-in-particular about nothing-in-particular, as if he hadn’t done what I knew he had. He laughed, when somebody said, “Well!” like comedian Jack Benny.

My first reaction was laughter, too, but I still don’t know the reason. I looked at him; acknowledged his existence. He didn’t seem to care what I acknowledged. I said something to Bernie, but I have no memory of what I said, or what he said, or even whether he said anything. I think I was feeling alone.

Bernie resumed his story, I think, while I looked attentively at him, having no idea what he was saying. The head waitress, Laurie, served me my opened fresh ham sandwich on a hard roll. I looked at it as if to say, “And what do I do with this?”

Thinking only of my hat, I managed to eat the sandwich, and wash it down with a 7 oz. Budweiser. I also think I convinced somebody that I was listening to Bernie. I finished and said, loudly, “Joe, I think I’ll have one more of those little beers before I go back to the paragraph factory.”

It was Joe’s Gavitt’s place. He gave the beer to me. I drank it slowly. I said aloud, to the guy in the corner, in a surprisingly steady voice, “I’ll be going back to work soon. I’ll want the hat.” And I raised my beer to him.

“Naa,” he said. “The hat’s mine, now. I’m keepin’ the hat.” He showed no emotion.

“Well, just so you know.” I said, returning my attention to Bernie, who was talking to Laurie, ignoring me, as if my life weren’t on the chopping block.

What had gone wrong? This didn’t happen in Garrity’s, certainly not to me. I was a trouble-free customer. I hadn’t said, “Boo,” to this guy.

When the moment to leave came, my mouth operated absent direction. It said to the man, “Can I ask you a personal question?” My face showed nothing.

My brain suddenly said, “Mouth! What are you doing?” My mind began telling my mouth muscles to stop it, stop the mouth. “The mouth is operating without supervision!” some part of me yelled. My mouth prepared to keep moving.

“Sure,” said the tall man, who had gotten taller.

“No! No, mouth, no!” my brain pleaded.

“Okay. Are you willing to die for the hat?”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. We’re dead.

The question came out clear and slow. I heard it. The questioner sounded seriously curious and inquisitive, not daffed, not plum crazy. Several surrounding conversations stopped. The man looked at me with a new expression.

Quick, Joe Gavitt grabbed the hat off the man’s head, saying, “You crazy sonofabitch,” and put the hat in front of me. I didn’t know who was the crazy sonofabitch, but I stared at the guy as if I did. I didn’t look at the hat. The whole thing took maybe 11 seconds and with the argument going on inside me, it seemed like an hour.

I saluted and walked out to a really ridiculously large, body-rotted, 440 cu. in. Chevy Suburban. I locked all the doors before heading back to the paragraph factory, shaking uncontrollably.

Garrity’s



The parking lot was known for its ruts.

You wouldn’t suppose a parking lot along such an up-and-coming commercial-industrial major boulevard would be rutty, let alone characteristically rutty, but Route 110 wasn’t quite so up and coming yet. Tradesmen and commercial truck drivers still had a few front row seats in the bars along the already exceedingly trafficked road, especially the one with the most ruts.

The little lot on the corner of 110 and Gazza Boulevard looked as if God had allowed his nephews to dump out their boxes of trucks and cars in Farmingdale, in the ruts, in front of, beside, and behind an old, green farmhouse named Garrity’s.

Four of those bars would disappear in a decade, replaced by, first, gourmet delicatessens and pizza places; and then, by bank branches and chain restaurants, all with meticulously paved parking lots; nary a rut in sight.

But as the 1970’s grew into the 1980’s, there still were a few lots made of ruts, populated by the bumpier, ostensibly unsophisticated members of the social order that accompanied the ruts; people rather used to ruts.

The vehicles at Garrity’s looked rather individually arranged—seemingly haphazardly, so to speak—according to the depth and breadth of the prevailing ruts and the prevailing mood of the operator. A Volkswagen Rabbit might straddle one big rut on a diagonal, while a nearby pickup truck took three or four ruts; a large truck, five; and a tractor trailer, eight.

The place was intentionally not-named for its proprietor, Joe Gavitt, although it appeared to be named for him. It bore his wife, Jean’s, maiden name, “Garrity.” The choice was Gavitt’s not-so-subtle way of telling his father what he thought of his refusal to lend Gavitt the last $8,000 to buy the place.

When Gavitt eventually invited his father out from Gerretson Beach, Brooklyn, to celebrate his payment of loans and witness his success, the father heard dozens of patrons calling Joe Gavitt, “Joe Garrity,” and him, “Mister Garrity.”

Gavitt would answer without correcting them. But for a few neighbors from his home in Farmingdale, patrons thought his name was Joe Garrity.

At Garrty’s, even the stories had stories.

I was very comfortable there. Very comfortable.

I wore a jacket and sometimes a tie, true—and in the winter, a cap—but I could have been literally surrounded by shirts of flannel, chamois, canvas, and denim, and be as comfortable as a puppy.

Even more so than in Garden City, where the tradesmen and deliverymen and I sometimes felt overwhelmed at Leo’s by the proliferation of insurance salesmen and stockholders…well, especially the stockholders.

Nobody who didn’t do whatever they did understood what stockholders did, if anything, or what they fabricated, or traded, or made. Yet, they had been catapulted from a job as a barback out of college to a role of global currency expert on Wall Street, two years later.

They conversed with each other, mostly, and sometimes talked about each other mockingly—when the subject was out of earshot. I talked to them, even entertained them, but I did not understand what their expertise was, or gain any knowledge for the conversational exercise. They were foreign.
Still, I got two stories, maybe three a year out of Leo’s.

Garrity’s? Two newspaper stories was a slow January.

Warren Berry, formerly of the former Herald Tribune, discovered the place while researching the environs of the new Newsday location, which was tough, because it overlooked the National Cemetery on one side and the new Pergament warehouse—acres of warehouse—on the other.

However, a determined Berry worried that we wouldn’t have a place to eat, free of pretension and members of management, and he found Garrity’s. But the following autumn of 1979, when Newsday moved, I might just as well have parked a desk at Garritty’s.

There were drivers, mostly, Drake’s Cake and Met Food Drivers, and independent drivers that went out of their way to lunch at Garrity’s when they visited Long Island.

Then, well, employees of Black Angus Meats (with special guest, Sal The Butcher); a gym teacher from Uniondale; the Contract Renewal Guy and the Payroll Department Head of Republic Aviation; Gerry Cesspool; Tom Horan, the president and founder of a boiler dealership; two or three firemen; one steadily employed lather; and teams, ever-changing teams, of, first, operating engineers, to dig the hole for, say, the Royce Carlin Hotel, under construction up the road; then, the union concrete workers and lathers, who made the footing for the hotel; then waves of steel workers, framers, bricklayers, carpenters, sheet metal guys, plumbers, electricians, finishers; all to spend a half year, and then start over again when, say, the giant postal center project got cranked up, and they all came back.

Once, a fearfully massive, impossibly-tall, old-Buick-broad-shouldered, 19-year-old, ironworker confided in me—as if it weren’t already clear from his pained expression—that he hated, hated, drinking boilermakers (a shot of Four Roses whiskey, washed down by a 7 ounce beer). The taste was killing him.

“Okay,” I said, after hesitating a bit. “I’ll ask this, as long as you promise not to cripple me or dismember me: why do you do it, then? I mean, what? Do ironworkers have a rule?”

He looked at me, puzzled. I mean, stunned, baffled, befuddled, like I didn’t know which way North was. He said, “Yes, ironworkers have a rule. Are you serious?”

If you liked stories, Garrity’s was as close as you could get to heaven.

Joe Gavitt and Eddie Siscaretti presided over the lunch-crowded bar, Eddie absent three fingers that he’d left inside a New York City Sanitation hopper. Each of them traded insults with the patrons served full restaurant dinners at the bar. They had about a half-hour to get down a heaping plate of pot roast and mashed potatoes and corn and a hot pepper and two boilermakers, before they went back to work. Then, they came back after work, to see if everyone was all right with their day.

I made only one mistake in all that time at Garrity’s. Somehow, I got away with it. But I scared myself good.


Next: The Choice