Claims

2009-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

This is a story I wrote in my "Story Writing" class this past quarter. Its the first story I've written, besides Pelicopter (a kid's book) with Timothy. There are parts that are based on true stories, overall plot with Torry, true, (see below), "Mr. Baker's" story, happened to my husband at a stop sign. And the fruit stickers, hummm.... who would be so crazy? I won't give the story away, go ahead, read on. It's titled "Claims" >>>

I never realized how slow I pee until I was late to work. Sometimes I didn’t mind, thinking, it’s ok to be a few minutes late - the world will keep going. But then other times, times like today, when a particular date is set aside with a certain hour that was carefully recorded on my calendar, I realize these small and pressing details.

I don’t think dwelling on these things helps me get out of my house any faster. Instead, it seems to attract all the worst possible scenarios. Bloody nose. Ripped pantyhose. Missing bus pass. Yet most often, it’s my cats Pepper and Chauncy that are the cause of my late habits.

Of course they pick this morning, this morning with an important engagement of 9:30 am, to be interested in me. The door to my bathroom swings inwards, and it doesn’t latch the greatest, which is fine since I live by myself, but don’t forget, I also live with my pussy cats. Being the “alpha cat” myself of the house, they sometimes like to follow me around, and in to the bathroom popped Chauncy, jogging over to me with his big fur belly. “I’m in a hurry Chauncy!” I said, yet back and forth he rubs against my leg as I try to walk to the counter. Have you ever tried walking as a cat does this? It’s so sweet, and feels nice (especially after you shave your legs) but it’s so difficult because your upper body is moving at a faster rate than your feet and you can do the math.

As if not tripping over Chauncey wasn’t enough of a challenge, he gets stuck in the door on the way out. He and Pepper are amazing the way they can “finger” open the door with their paws. Then when they get it a little bit open, their nose pries it the rest of the way. Well that worked fine today until it got to his tummy. Then, since the size of his middle part was bigger than what had passed through a second ago, the door started closing on him, head and shoulders through, belly and butt on my side.

He starts to panic and his little cat paws go into high gear running, slipping like a child on ice, on the laminate floors. Now I can’t get out of the bathroom until he solved this issue. I try to tell him to back up so the door can get wider because all he’s doing is tightening the grip. It’s like those plastic ribbed things that they put on equipment that is packaged together, or they don’t want you to steal. I’ve seen in on CSI where they hand cuff someone with it and if they try to loosen it just tightens. Yeah, that’s what was going on here, and I was running late. This just can’t happen all the time, I really need to talk to them about this...

Its good that work wasn’t my destination today. If it was, being late would only cause a drama. Instead I was just 6 minutes late to my appointment at the DMV. It’s been years since I’ve been to the DMV. Last time was to get an ID card.

I’ve lived in Arkansas since 1998. I moved about four hours away from where I grew up with the modern thinking that it’s healthy to be somewhat distant from my parents. I have two older brothers. One is four and a half years older and the other one is thirteen years older. We are close, but I am closer to my cats: Pepper and Chauncy.

I do have a few girlfriends, I enjoy hanging out with them but it always seems such a rare occasion. The only reason I would call them my best friends (well, second best friends, Pepper and Chauncy come first) is because they are all I have. They don’t work a full time job like I do; somehow their boyfriends have high paying jobs which mean they don’t have to do much. Plus they are always doing these activities that take all day, even on weekends, or even sometimes when we have plans to hang out. “Oh, sorry Lorraine, I have to do laundry today,” one would say, or “You know, I just started my period. I don’t feel like going out.” I think they are telling the truth.

Enough about them; my commute to work is about sixteen minutes. Sometimes it actually takes longer if the bus driver (I can’t think of his name right now) had gotten a late start (what is his name?). I like to tell people that I started taking the bus because it was “environmentally friendly,” but really I started taking the bus when I was in grade school. My dad always had good intentions of picking me up after school, but had a hard time getting his affairs in order in time. Now that I’m older, and independent from my parents - I could get a car - I’ve always said I would, but driving always seemed so risky. I mean, what if I spill my coffee on me when I am driving a car? I could die. So, I haven’t gotten my license yet, though I had planned to in high school before I was addicted to coffee. But as I was saying, I take the Stage Coach bus to Pine Bluff, where I sit in a chair and help people sort out very important and serious issues. My dad always told me, “You only get one shot in this life. Make a difference, kid.”

I can still see him saying that to me with his crooked mustache as the XXIV Summer Olympics played on the TV in the background (I had never heard of South Korea until that summer). My father was a special man, but he never stuck with the same profession for very long. As children, we wanted to believe him every time he claimed to have a new career path. We, of course, wanted him to be happy with what he did from 9 to 5, but we wanted him to gain skill and contacts in a job, not just change business cards. After a while, the whole town knew his reputation - he was like the weekly comics in the paper. “What’s it going to be this time, ol’ man?” they would say. The only thing my father was consistent on was always being inconsistent, always hoping but never meaning what he claimed. In one and a half months he went from being in the real estate (“Now that’s an investment!”) business, to selling computer software, to being an actor. One time he thought it would be a good idea to open up his own chain of smoothie shops, for the “healthier” demographic, as he would say. Our attic was filled with blenders for years.

Speaking of which, one of the things I hate most is the smell of a blender. Not the products inside it, but that gray, metal, overheating smell that a blender creates after it’s worked for a few seconds. Not only do I know this thanks to my childhood, but there was a period when I bought this great product - it was a barrel type jar of weight loss milkshakes - with all sorts of proteins and slimming products. It was called “The Tight Weight.” I used it devoutly for the first five days! Now it sits by my TV chair, making a great holder for all of my pistachio shells. The pile of shells got so big the other night while watching the last episode of The Bachelor. Did you watch that? It had me on the tip of my chair, gnawing at my pistachios and then when those ran out, chewing on my finger nails. (Honestly I didn’t know who he would pick. Kate or Jennifer- I really just didn’t know).

Anyways, despite the smell, I would use the blender more if I thought of it. I think another reason that I avoid it is because so many blender recipes require fruit. I’m not against fruit, but I am afraid, or well, I just can’t stand the little stickers they put on fruit. I never had a traumatic instance in my childhood or anything like that, but I cannot, absolutely cannot, eat an apple with a sticker on it. Actually, I can’t even wear a Band Aid. Electrical tape works best, it’s thicker. I can sometimes handle thicker sticky things, but those fruit stickers are so thin! Why can’t they just stamp all fruit like they do the Sunkist lemons?

Where was I? Oh yeah, I was saying my father was a good man. I don’t want you to think he wasn’t. Yet I think I fell flat into his style of uncommitted living. It seems that with his lifestyle inevitably comes the blindness of convincing yourself that you’re just “cautious,” that this other agenda, be it laundry, public transportation, career path, or another wife, is a better route than the one previously thought wiser. My father never called me a let down because what kind of let down would be able to recognize that? But it is so frustrating to live in fear! I don’t want to be like my dad in that way. I’m tired of not following through with anything.

And there I sat, in a plastic blue chair at the Department of Motor Vehicles, applying for a driver’s license for the first time. Yes, I was nervous; yes I didn’t feel like going through with it as the intimidation of sitting in a car, performing, in a sense, for some unknown person in the passenger seat with a clipboard. But I was going to go through with it. A few days ago I wouldn’t have imaged that I would be sitting here, because a few days ago, I wouldn’t have been sitting here. That didn’t make sense. Or did it? Let me explain.

This previous week at work, before my appointment at the DMV, was rather routine, all except for Wednesday, which started the same as the other four work days. My morning schedule consisted of checking documents of yesterday’s clients. For instance, on Wednesday it was Mr. Baker, Mr., or as he said, Don Gibson, Miss Pedro, and Mrs. Fidenchi. Yesterday Mr. Baker had gotten hit by an uninsured motorcyclist. He was feeling remorse for the cyclist’s children that weren’t able to spend Thanksgiving with him, due to his divorce and his medical bills. I was able to help Mr. Baker work through that discouraging situation. It’s amazing how one psychology class at the community college back home really has helped me in this job.

This Wednesday was somewhat unlike the rest, although I didn’t know it when it started. Within a few minutes, I was set up; coffee to the left of my keyboard, headset now in place, swivel chair adjusted to the perfect height. Then the phone rang. “Thank you for calling Allstate Insurance. This is Lorraine. How may I help you today?” I answered in a pitch slightly higher than I normally use.

“Hi. I need to get my car fixed,” said the lady on the other end of the phone.

“Great! That’s what I’m here for.”

“Yeah, alright,” she muttered.

“Can I get your auto insurance policy number, please?”

We exchanged legalities, numbers, and digits. She owned a 2005 Toyota Hatchback and lived in San Francisco. She said she lived near the Full House homes when I asked her if she had a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn’t know where those were, but at least I had a visual.

“Have you filed a police report yet, Terri?” I said as I picked a piece of Chauncey’s hair off of my skirt.

“It’s Torry I said. And yeah, someone filed a report.”

“You didn’t? So it was the other car that filed the report?” I clarified.

“No, it was an eye witness. Look, I don’t really feel like talking about the details. My hood is smashed in and my car needs to be fixed.”

“Oh that is such a shame. I am so sorry. Why didn’t you call it in?” I asked because I didn’t understand.

“Because,” she hesitated, “because some guy tried to commit suicide-”
“Oh my goodness!” I couldn’t help but interject my shock for this situation. “Wow. I hear big cities have things happen like that but, my goodness, I didn’t imagine…”

And as I discussed Terri’s stressful situation, I had this detailed image in my mind of a distraught, disheveled, lost, and confused man jumping in front of her car, his body becoming mangled up on top of the hood as a crumpled newspaper would in a fireplace, ghastly complimented by the sound of black rubber squealing as the car skidded to a halt on the rainy pavement.

“So you slammed on your brakes and he- he-” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence, just as he had finished his life. She interrupted me.

“No! No! Let me rephrase this; all you need is the report? Doesn’t matter who turned it in?” she said so brashly.

“No?!” I exclaimed, since I zoned out on the rest of her sentence after “no.” “No?!” I repeated again, referring to her murdering this man. I could barely wait to interrupt her. “You didn’t stop?!” I questioned with what must have been heard as an accusing tone.

“I wasn’t in the car!” she screamed.

“Who was?”

“Nobody! Ok, now as I was sayi-”
She kept going, but in my mind all I could see was this car, on this steep, steep Californian hill rolling down, careening towards this man, about to end his life. This time I see him as an old, conniving man who has broken into her car and messed with the emergency brake after she left the vehicle alone. There he stood at the bottom of the hill as a target for the car to hit as it gained momentum…

“Hello?”

“Yes, I’m sorry ma’am.” I said.

“Don’t call me ‘ma’am.’”

“Yes, ma’am. Excuse me for a moment, please,” I said briskly because of the situation that had arisen. You see, this was one of the first phone calls of the day, since I had recently arrived at work. Inside the office, the heater hadn’t found a comfortable temperature so I had kept my wool jacket on. In the time of the brief, but expressive conversation I had been having with my client, one that I was completely absorbed in, the heater had obviously kicked on full blast and the office was as warm as a sunny day. The lady on the phone waited in silence.

All of a sudden, like a space much smaller than my body, I was trapped in my jacket, overheating faster than I could cool down. There was this large wrinkle in the center back of my jacket and my forehead had a flash of heat that I knew was directly in connection to this jacket. I attempted to shimmy the jacket off of my shoulders, which in turn made it worse as my arms became restricted to a tyrannosaurus rex position. After getting one arm almost out, I was now in another wicked web. The cords from my head set had besieged me and were wrenching my collar as my chair rocked back and forth with small and growing panic attacks. Soon the storm passed with one final, graceless flail and flick as my jacket landed, half-inside out, crumpled on the floor. All too fast, this brought back the image of the mangled hood. Demolished man.

“Sorry ma’, I mean, I’m back.” I stumbled ever so ineloquently. “So this is a problem with an emergency brake then? You would have to contact the Toyota dealership for tha-”

Again, she interrupted me, almost reluctantly this time, “It’s not an emergency brake problem. There is this man who lives in my building. He hates his life. He decided to torture us all and end it by jumping off the roof of our six story building. Instead of hitting pavement, because that would have been too easy, he hit the electrical lines. That caused an explosion, slowed his fall, and re-directed him on top of my damn hood! A neighbor of mine heard the explosion, watched his apartment’s power go out, and filed a fucking report. OK?!”

As she told me this story, I knew that I should have been feeling pity for this lady, but I wasn’t. I knew I should have felt the disgust that she did in her tone as this man inconvenienced them- not only her but the electrical company, the witnesses, and the neighbors. But I wasn’t. I knew I should have thought, “What a shame, poor man.” But none of these crossed through my mind at that moment.

Instead I was thinking- My God. This man is my hero. He is my Obi-Wan Kenobi. My Mr. Miyagi. My American Idol. Not because I had a deep desire to end my life, no. But because of the courage and commitment that was shown in going through with possibly the scariest thing I could imagine facing.

I must have been sitting there in silence, really in awe, but to Torry, all she heard was a silent phone receiver. I believe after the heated emotion just momentarily displayed, she retreated, felt semi-bad for her tone, and after a deep breath, in a near silenced volume she said, “Well, he didn’t die. The bastard got up and walked away.”

And I think for the first time in this situation, as if I had been there all along with her as she discovered this bizarre chain of events, knowing her every bitter and selfish thought, I heard her chuckling. She realized, maybe through my lack of verbal words, how ridiculous this insurance claim really was.

It wasn’t anyone I knew, anyone close, anyone that I would have expected to inspire me to get my drivers license. My father’s lack of commitment might have aided the decision as well as the desire to step up to the plate because so many people in my life hadn’t. Mainly it was what had dawned on me in the conversation with Torry. My inquiries might have been a blight to her day while her story was a turning point in mine. Courage doesn’t always look like what one might think.

The 9th Inning

2009-07-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

TRUE STORY: happened at Steiner and um... Oak street.
Meth addict Strike 1: Run around his apartment complex naked, with his face duct taped and screaming.
Strike 2: Chase other renters at the apartment complex with scissors.
Swing and a miss: Decide to jump off the 6 story apartment complex in effort to end the misery, but unintentionally get tripped up on the way down by electrical wires which slows the fall and caused an explosion (which is how the neighbors know what happened) ending with a cushion of a car hood (deeply indented) which actually didn't end "it" and the meth addict walks away.

Pile It On

2008-09-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

I work with a man name Tom at Nomads in Hayes Valley every weekend. This man is unique and full of stories. Hence, one of the motivations for this new blog. Welcome. Enjoy!

About Tom, he's got stories. Last Saturday he told me one about a shoplifter that happened a year ago.

Tom was working with another employee at the store, it was busy. A man had about 5 pairs of jeans to try on, and went to the back to try them on in one of our two dressing rooms. The man didn't want to buy any, so its natural to think they just didn't fit. Tom saw him walk out of the store, at a quick pace, and stiffly.

Tom had a pair of jeans in his hand, folding them as he walked to the dressing room. Strange thing was, there were no pants in there. *$@%!! Tom threw the jeans he was holding across the store (probably hitting some innocent customer) and left the store yelling "Thief! Thief!"

He chased this man, who was a stalky, Irish male, up Hayes Street, over to Grove Street and around about five blocks, screaming "thief!" the whole way.

He got to the culprit, who finally stopped as Tom caught up. I think Tom realized that this guy could beat him up, at which point he had no plan, being the slender man he is. Yet firmly Tom said, "Lets go back to the store, shall we?" as he pointed Nomads direction.

What had happened is the man had slipped on all five or so pants under his own pair and walked out; about $600 worth of merchandise.

As this man did the walk of shame back with tears in his eyes to Nomads with Tom walking behind him, all the local merchants and employees were standing in their store entrances, hands on their hips I'm sure, watching. Humiliating. Not to mention all the customers in the store watching the commotion as Tom ran out.

The man changed back into his one pair of jeans, saying that the ones he tried to take "were just so nice," and was ready to leave. Just as he was exciting, his wallet fell out of his back pocket. I think it was loose because of all the changing and running. Anyways, it fell out on the floor without his knowledge. Tom, being the blunt man that he is, picked it up, threw it at the man's head, hit the back of his head as he said "You forgot your wallet!" Scampering is the next word that comes to mind.

The funniest part, I think Tom was more upset about this man messing up his denim piles than actually trying to steal something.

Story Catcher

Claims

The 9th Inning

Pile It On