The Mile High Club

It was a beautiful day in June when Julie showed up at the job. Nearing nine-thirty, I figured she had something to discuss, wanting to do it over my coffee break. This was a bit of a surprise since I hadn’t received a call, letting me know that she was coming. No, she didn’t want to have coffee. She had come to tell me that Danny was found dead that morning when his boss went to pick him up for work at Robert’s house. Oddly enough, it was Danny’s last day of community service. His mother immediately went to him, to try to wake him from his final sleep, finding him on his back with his feet crossed and arms folded across his abdomen. He had gently passed away in his sleep. It was the sixth of June 2006.

This news struck me very hard. Danny and I had been planning to go to the Keys when we stumbled into Julie’s life. The idea was to land a property management gig and take occupancy of a place near the beach or live on a boat, while composing and playing music around town. If we had done that, we may have not had the troubles that we ended up having, and would have possibly struck up something big in the music scene.

Dan had confidence in our act, seeing that as very possible if we got in the right area. He thought the Keys would be the place for that to happen. Then I remembered the list he had made that said, “The final move”, on it. I didn’t want to understand it, I suppose. It didn’t quite register to me what that meant but now I knew why he had spent a lot of time helping me ready the studio room at my house, giving me some lessons and guidance on working in there with the equipment he had given me.

He kept saying, “you’ll figure it out”, whenever I sounded confused about the recording process and with working on his compositions that he entrusted me to publish. He also gave me some art lessons on drawing portraits and scenery so that I could illustrate the children’s stories we had both written. He was making all the preparations necessary for the things he wanted me to do for him, tending to the business that needed to be handled so he could depart from this world. The road was being paved.

                        The strangest thing of all was recalling the dream I had the night before they found him. I was working on my truck but my truck and I were both in the river, in three feet of water. Something swam up along side of me and popped out of the water. This thing was a little over six feet tall, thin, covered in moss and other plant matter, looking very much like a rabbit or something. It startled me very much. Feeling a great sense of danger, I grabbed something and swung at the creature, striking it in the head, which knocked it out. After putting it in the bed of my truck, I took it to someone to explain what had happened. The creature stirred while I was showing it to them, so I grabbed a tool and struck it again, killing it. Then I realized that it was Danny. I had killed him. This really added a great deal to my grief, and was far too much to bear.

                        As if that wasn’t bad enough, Dusty had mysteriously died three days after Danny did. She was found in the yard with a mouthful of grass. The other dog freaked out to the point where the neighbors called the cops. It would have been nice if someone would have looked out there first because when Animal Control came, Jean answered the door and said the dogs were not hers- costing me fifty dollars to get the dogs back, even though one was a corpse.

                        Andy called around the third week of August or so, saying that he’d heard about Danny, asking me to come down to paint for him. Since I was so desperate to avoid going to jail for child support, having not yet received my disability insurance from Social Security, I agreed to do it. It was only to last a few weeks, which was just long enough to gather up the twenty-five hundred dollars I needed to keep from getting put in jail again. He told me to make sure I “bring the old lady along”. In the planning stage, I called my kids and spoke to Cody, whom was receptive when I told him I was going to go to work for a few weeks because of the court thing, and that I would be out of town until then. We would resume our time together then. That particular three weeks was the longest three weeks known to man, a “Key West” three weeks.

                        Memory doesn’t serve up who took care of Jean when we left- maybe it was Aunt Rose. Julie booked a flight and reserved a car, and the bags were packed. Julie and I went to the airport to board our flight. We checked our bags and sat nervously while awaiting the prompt to board. After some time passed, I asked whether she had brought any pot for the drive down the keys to Big Pine, which she assured me she did. This was to be my first time on a commercial airliner, and boy, was I worried.

                        My thoughts of a “friend”, whining about motion sickness and having to take Dramamine to fly, crossed my mind. We opted to wait it out in the bar over a drink. Thoughts turned to crashing, as we boarded. Soon the force of the engines was throwing us down the Tarmac, tipping us back in our seats as the thrust lifted us into new heights. We seemed to just barely hang there, the weight of the plane dragging along behind the engines. Panic struck me for a moment but I stomped it out with other thoughts.

                        Now, I was all about the view of the earth below, and getting into the Mile High club. Curiosity somehow helped me decide it was a fair idea to try it… in the bathroom ALONE. It didn’t sink in, while the full surround of mirrored panels tried to tell me a story of security issues- things like surveillance cameras for anti-terrorism efforts. Aborting the attempt, shaving a few strokes off of my game, I finally realized it wasn’t a fair idea after all- Too Late. It must have been a sight, for who ever monitored the cameras, to see. Hopefully, I wasn’t the only case of that type of thing. It was pretty embarrassing.

We landed, retrieved our bags, and found a brand new Mustang waiting for us at the reception area. There was every rental car company to choose from. The car was gorgeous but that goes without saying- everything brand spanking new is gorgeous…. except for someone else’s newborn baby or someone else’s…. well, anything that belongs to someone else.  Julie drove us out, finding a party store where I bought some libations for the drive. Julie used the lavatory to dig the smoke from one of her cavities. After I smoked four cigarettes in my wait, she finally came out of the restroom and got in the car with me. I had already soaked my shirt through, changing into a fresh one, due to the sweltering heat and humidity.

“I thought I was going to have to come in there, what’d you do, fall in?” I asked her.

She said, “No, I had a hard time getting it out”, handing me a pin joint.

 I asked, “Hard time getting it out? You’ve had two kids- the hardest part of the job should have been washing your hands and drying them off, so you didn’t get the rolling papers wet!”

We got on the road, heading for the highway through the keys. Now, I was expecting a vacation style doobie but then again, if you have to throw it out the window, you don’t want it to be a lot, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, asking, “How many did you roll? And what’s with the pin joint?”

“I could only roll one”, she declared.

“Isn’t it like four hours to Big Pine Key?” I inquired. 

She said, “Yeah but that’s it- that’s all there was”. 

Now, I am confused, really confused. She had spent a half hour in the bathroom, rolling one single pin joint. Obviously upset, I asked, “that’s all there was? What? What do you mean, that’s all there is??? I thought you were going to bring some weed? I saw that man-made phallus you had when I moved in. Judging by the size of it, you could have fit a couple ounces of kind buds in that thing. And that’s it? That’s all you brought? AND it’s SCHWAGG WEED!” I was so upset; I started mimicking a conversation with a fictional passenger:

“Oh, pardon me, what’s that weed you have there, … brick-weed?”

“Oh, no, it’s dick-weed, you fool, my girlfriend, slash genius here, went through the hassle, and risk, of a federal drug charge to bring a cigarette cellophane with a tenth of a gram of the lowest grade weed in Michigan stuffed inside of her cavernous Vagina… vagina… vagina... gina… na… na… na!”

Oh, GOD, how stupid could I be, to let myself be pulled into a void so black? There’s killer pot that they grow up to sixteen feet tall, all over Florida, that we could have gotten hold of when we got off the plane. We would have been better off trying to score at one of the party stores on the way or mail it down ahead of us, as a general delivery, to pick up at the Post office. I was baffled that this woman was in charge of a trust fund, and the life of an eighty-four year-old woman. Thank God, Jean didn’t have a clue what was going on. She would have died from an aneurism or heart attack if she were in a mental capacity to mind. And here I was, guilty by association, and oblivious to what was in store for me next- like a lamb being led to a slaughterhouse by, quite possibly, the world’s finest specimen of a village idiot.

Andy had painted a Fantasy Island kind of picture, where a huge house stood in an image of Paradise. There was a Sports car with a T-top, Sea kayaks, an ocean style fishing boat, among other things, Key Deer being one of them. He volunteered to come pick us up at the airport in his “T-top” but then stated that he had to work too, which was a clever ploy to un-volunteer. He knew that anyone who knows about contracting work would never insist on someone taking a day off of making money while it was there to be made. He was a con but I needed money. So, there I was, once again, ready to fraternize with vermin. The price to pay was, yet, to make itself known.  

Who needs a drink?

The Memorial Day show came and went. When fall arrived, it was time for another Barn Party at a friend of ours that Bruce had introduced us to. The farm was in Rockford and was very popular with a local community radio crowd that we all were a part of- we called them the WYCE crowd.

We were invited to come and play, so Danimal and I loaded up the vehicles with our band equipment. Julie and Casey followed in the Saturn, while Danimal drove my truck, and I drove Julie’s Sidekick.

My luck with incidents involving Deer was unfavorable. As we drove north, on Northland Drive, we all watched as a Deer came lumbering from the hillside, on our right, to cross the road, impeding with my pathway. It hit the front passenger side of the Sidekick and just kept going. It astonished me because there were other drivers on the road with me, and Julie was right behind me watching the whole thing. There was nothing I could do to avoid it. I looked back at her in disbelief, and questioning what to do with hand signals. She just waved me on to continue and not stop.

When we got to the destination, the damage was a small dent in the corner where the headlight assembly met with the quarter panel on the passenger side. There was hair wedged in the cracks of the assembly that would make it obvious it was a Deer, so she could later report it. When she did, the cop didn’t believe her one bit.

Dusty accompanied us to the party, making quite a spectacle as she walked around on stage with us while we played, like she was part of the band. I guess she was part of the band. It was pretty sweet having her there. People were worried that she was going to get after the Chickens, and that she looked pretty serious, sporting all of the classic features of a Grey Wolf.

Time told a different story, and people were all trying to get a small piece of Dusty’s affection throughout the evening.

Danimal had brought an artist from the loft building that was a glass blower. It made sense to me because I knew Danny would drink his share for the night, and that The Glassman, as we called him, would not drink much at all. I wanted him to drive the truck home.

When it came time to leave, the Glassman would realize it was a manual transmission. His foot slipped off of the clutch pedal and the truck stalled out. After a moment or two of struggle, Danny took the reigns, backing the truck into a car that was parked too closely. It only bumped the car but the kid called the cops because he must have had his dad’s car and didn’t want to get reamed out for it.

When the announcement was made that the cops were coming, the Glassman took off from the scene. Danny was arrested for drunk driving and the truck was impounded, costing me two hundred dollars to get out. The exhaust had been damaged where the tailpipe hit the kids bumper and needed to be strapped up since it was folded badly and dragging.

Danny ended up serving a six-month sentence in the Kent county jail but managed to get placed in an Honor Camp Program near Greenville. He did about five months with good time. Danny had already purged all of his excess belongings in his anticipation of moving from the building, storing everything else at Julie Wickman’s house on the Westside of Grand Rapids. Since he had been staying around town with various people, it wasn’t too big of deal for him to serve jail time, giving him time to sober up from years of alcoholism.

Shortly after Danny went to jail, I went to jail too. This was the last time I was imposed on by Friend of the Court. I served a ninety-day sentence. The cops were coming to the house with a warrant when we were leaving the house one morning, passing us as we came out of Alcove Drive. Instinctively, I knew they were coming for me but didn’t say anything about it for the sake of freaking Julie out. The bubbles went up and we were pulled over.

After an exchange of words, I got out for them to take me on their warrant, slipping off my insulated flannel shirt that had a half ounce of bud and a glass bowl in the pocket- in order to help them with less paperwork involving registering my property at the station. The officer appreciated my consideration.

When I was finally released, some 72 odd days or more later, I came home to a disaster. Beer bottles were littering the lower level of the home, along with pot stems and seed everywhere. Food packaging was littered in piles around the sitting areas. Laundry was accumulated in corners of the rooms, along with trash in heaps next to, and around, the area of the overflowed trash cans.

This was definitely not the look of a two hundred fifty thousand-dollar home that you’d find in a sub-division on a cal du sac. When I got to the bathroom, the toilet was a disaster all its own, having not been cleaned since before I left, and had not been flushed for days. There were clothes heaped behind the door near the shower where they had been thrown. It wasn’t hard to figure out that NO housework had been done. Just for fun, I counted the underwear in the pile. There was nine pair in the pile behind the door.

They released Danimal from jail in 2006 at the end of April, I believe. The first day he was out I met up with him at Bruce’s. He set the beer down in the flowerbed as I pulled up with Julie, in an attempt to hide the fact that he was already drinking again. It was sad to see since we talked so much about sobriety, and Danny wanted it so badly but Bruce kept a large cooler full of beer on the back deck next to the hot tub, making it available for anyone to help himself or herself to, which we all did. Sometimes I would grab a six-pack when I needed it after the stores were closed, replacing it later or intending to.

By this time in the caretaking game, I was tending to Jean all day long, everything except for changing her diapers and bathing her, which had now become necessary.

Danny would call from Bruce’s in an effort to get me out of the house but I stayed to do what needed to be done. He would get frustrated because I wasn’t there spending time with him, exclaiming, “You’re missing out on life!”  He was swimming in Versluice Lake and doing hot tubs, kayaking the river and playing music, all while spending time with our friends but here I was, his other half in all of that- his muse and his soul mate.

What he really meant was that he was out of time in life, and wanted to spend every day he could with his friend- his “brother of another mother”, Zach. Danny’s health was deteriorating, and he had already spent enough time discussing it.

Danny was now crashing at Robert’s house on Coit Avenue, next to Lookout Hill, while he served his community service to cover the court fees. They came and picked him up every morning except Sundays. Robert was glad to help Danny out, as Danny had helped him out in the past. Since Robert was a Paranoid Schizophrenic, he didn’t have much to do with his days, making it convenient to have Danny around to do things with.

Danny didn’t have any money at all, begging his boss to pay him just a dollar an hour, which he refused. Danny lowered his request to a quarter per hour but was still humiliated with refusal.

Bob had me working on some projects, keeping me busy through the week. His plans to keep me around were out of necessity, involving a renovation on a six hundred some odd thousand-dollar home in East Grand Rapids. Julie sometimes took me to the site since I had no driver’s license at the time from my recent drunk driving incident.

Bob enlisted another guy to be there with me, a show of force but only for appearances and to keep the man-hour clock racking up time. This particular guy, Rob, was not skilled. Everything he did took an enormous amount of time. While he was running baseboard, which was about all he could do, everything else was my job, especially the, so-called, impossible.

Those were the things I enjoyed doing, the things that were challenging and rewarding, to me, as a tradesman. My job was always doing anything that couldn’t be done with satisfactory results or couldn’t be done because no one wanted to be seen as the hacks and imposters to the trades that they truly were. Things like marrying crown molding into rounded and angular walls and ceilings were unheard of.

When lunchtime came we went to East-town and had Gyro’s, at a deli that won awards year after year for their food, making it all seem worthwhile. I loved my trade for all of these things. Feeling a sense of self-worth was probably the most valuable thing I got from it.
Julie Called me while on this job, asking if she could come see me and get coffee. What she would tell me would rip my dreams from my grasp, and rob me of my closest friend. Danny went to sleep... and he never awoke. He was only 47 years old.

Thanks for reading- zach

Couch Surfing [edited-rockford]

After winning the enforcement order, the kids and I celebrated with a big home-cooked meal complete with a toast, to our new independence. 
It was the last time I would see the kids despite the efforts to coordinate having them again. Mindy began to schedule so many things in their days that they were too occupied to think about having time with their dad. Yet, one day, she had the time to take my call, only to prey upon my love again.

Mindy wanted me to acknowledge that the kids were now old enough to find time to see me on their own terms, asking me not to call because it was pressuring them. I didn’t think that would be a problem but the truth was that she had been pressuring them on her end. Only God knows what she said, did, or implied. And only time would tell what damages the kids have sustained at her subjection.  

As for Julie, she continued to complain of back pain. Rather than live accordingly, she opted for the breast reduction plan- the easiest way out, which came with Vicodin. This was the main reason why she had taken the job with, Hunt Construction.

Of course, she did so little, that I am shocked she was never fired. “Double-clicking the mouse”, and smoking pot between web-surfing sessions, seemed to be all she ever did. She smoked so much pot, and masturbated so much, that her fingers were pickled, and her body odor smelled like Marijuana resin. You could actually smell the Chlorophyll coming out of her armpits.

Anyways, Julie finally got her breast reduction, and another bottle of painkillers. Bruce called me, to come and help with getting a roll of carpet, using my truck, which involved an afternoon of drinking that led into an evening of drinking.

Danimal and the guys were all hanging out on the river too. The guys all wanted to hear us perform, so Danimal and I started belting out some of our pieces. It was all part of the routine, and we loved sharing. Some were drumming along on the various drums that were always around, as the sun stole it’s light from us completely.

It was around nine p.m. when Julie called, asking me to come home to help her bathe. The bags that were hanging from her, draining the blood and fluids, along with an obstinate daughter, made it impossible for her to do by herself.

Jean was also in need of attention throughout the day, and with me not being there to perform the duties, it made her realize my importance once more.

Bruce had offered to get me a ride home but I refused, thinking I could get three miles to the house okay. 

When I got in my truck, the radio wasn’t working because a fuse had blown. 
My big idea was to pull a fuse from somewhere else. The courtesy lights seemed like a good option, and I was tickled with myself to be so smart.

Everything was fine... until I turned off of Northland Drive. The lights went up behind me. I kept driving, thinking that it wasn’t possible for them to want to pull ME over- I was good. Yeah, I was excellent, up until I realized that they Did want to pull me over.

My house was so close I wanted to just keep driving and stop to chat there. The house was only another mile away, as Radar Love, played on the radio. 

After a short distance, I realized I was bordering on a fleeing charge. I just didn’t want to have the truck towed, knowing I was going to go to jail for driving under the influence.

The officer came to the window to go through the routine. Eventually I was placed in the car with my hands cuffed behind me. Somehow I managed to get my cell phone from my pocket, calling Julie in hopes that she could come up and get my truck. The officer called for backup, and when he arrived, he went up the road to get her. The truck ended up home without the added expense of being impounded. For that, I was thankful.

When I went to court on Monday, Judge Servass gave me a suspended sentence. It was a comical dialogue between us, since my answer to why my blood alcohol level was a .024, yet, remained to have command of my faculties, showing little sign of intoxication, was that I was German, and Irish- having a natural inclination to hold my liquor. He chuckled at that.     

Several months later someone decided to take Jean’s 2004 Saturn Ion up to the Circle K convenience store for another jumbo but it was raining, which caused for some slick roads if you were in too big of a hurry to get to the store before it closed, and back before anyone knew you had left. If it hadn’t been for the front wheel drive, they would have never been able to get the car off of West River Drive after careening into a Fire Hydrant (a detail revealed by studying the scene).
 The trunk was half caved in, and the driver’s side rear tire was completely folded up underneath. Nobody would have a clear idea of the damage until the next day.

A ride was called for them get out of the area before any cops showed up, especially since this person didn’t have a license. It’s the only way the auto insurance would have paid for the damage. The next day an officer came by the house to see why there was a disabled vehicle sitting on the road, and to write a report because it was clear that there was an accident.

Mostly, what made it clear was that there was a broken hydrant, and that the township wanted to know why they needed a crew at two in the morning to cap the water flow. And since there was a car sitting across the road with a massive wound, it was only natural for them to begin by tracing the ownership of that vehicle, which belonged to an elderly woman with a bad state of Alzheimer’s. For some reason the bill for the hydrant repair was sent to me.
It was this situation that caused for the decision to be made, that no one was allowed to crash at our house anymore. My friends were saddened, mostly due to the fact that they were homeless, and needed the daily chores in their lives to remain off of the streets where danger lurked everywhere. And it was convenient for me, mostly due to the fact that I needed bodies to perform labors that my doctors did not permit me to do. And a meal and a place to crash once in a while wasn't much to ask for. Then again, not helping yourself to things that aren't yours isn't something that should have to be written in black and white. Some things are already written upon your Heart and Soul...provided you can Read.

The next day, Bruce showed up to go look at the situation, with a cocktail in his hand but he found that a cop was there, to do an accident report. Deciding not to stop, he went up two more houses, to a garage sale, where he milled about until the officer left. After seeing the mess that had been made of the vehicle, we quickly realized that it was going to need to go to a body shop, and that it needed to be hauled away with a flatbed truck. Comstock Body shop got to deal with the task, sending a flatbed to pick it up.

Julie was not excited about what had become of the brand new car. She wasn’t excited about having to claim responsibility for it either but it was the only way it was going to be repaired because no one owned up to it, and even if they had, I'm certain that this person had no way to remedy the problem. With the possibility of becoming the center of attention regarding her affairs, that she’d rather not have questioned, she had no choice. The only thing I could do to help was to not criticize any part of it and resolve not to let anyone else use the car... she left the keys in it, not me. The next day I had to tell everyone to get out. That was hard.

Strangely enough, offering envelopes were showing up more frequently from, the local Catholic Church, that Jean belonged to. Since I retrieved the mail, they found the trash very quickly. Surely they were aware of Jeans memory issues, taking full advantage of it.

Often she would say, “I could eat something”, even though she had just eaten. Once, a pile of Pistachio shells were in front of her, and Pistachios were still in her teeth- she had eaten a whole bowl of them. When I told her she had eaten them she scoffed with, “I beg your pardon”. It always made me chuckle.

Jean had a piano, that she would play once in a while but whenever she went past it, she would ask, 
“Who’s Piano is this?” 

I would tell her that it was hers but she would deny ever knowing how to play. The piano would make a noise as if a key was struck, her dead husband communicating from the spirit world. It had to be because we had it looked at, thinking it was a mouse. No mice or sign of a mouse was found.

zachery s. polk

"Dusty" -edited 6/7/2017

The real estate thing proved to be another scam, preying on people with the lure of seemingly easy money: “Come get a real estate license. You can make big commissions. Our courses are only 2500 dollars!” Arrgh! I suppose that’s what you get when you take the way out that seems easiest- and that’s closer to broke.

Nobody seems to have a sense of pride or respect for honest work anymore. My hard work was really getting me nowhere but my foolish pride and my resentment towards my ex-wife, were killing me slowly but surely. It was no secret to me that I was no better than those I criticized.

My labors earned me a room of my own in the basement, which I converted into a music studio. In reality, I had been assigned a task to turn a utility area into a usable den but my fantasy of having a career in the media, conveniently replacing Danny’s loft space studio, kept me from seeing that. I think The Fabulous T-Birds were playing in my head while I set to building a bulkhead around the ductwork of the furnace. The framing needed to be built in order to drywall. It needed plenty of soundproofing and some carpet. Julie had me build a closet that she could grow pot in as well. Danny helped me build some counter space, appropriate for the computer, keyboards, and appliances, which included a Tascam Four Track Analog recording system that he had gifted me.

One day, while Danny was making plans to move out of the building, Andy was making plans to move in. He quickly befriended Sean Adams, and his band mate, Mike. “Ace music Dave” was there bringing orders of guitar strings to musicians that day. Mike’s girlfriend, Laura, was painting a recreation of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, on the walls of their studio space. It wasn’t hard to tell that she was there spending time trying to save their relationship. I think I was the only one that picked up on life budding elsewhere in the room. Taking it upon myself, I tried to warn them about Andy but they were already under his spell. The guys were snowed.

That’s when Dave changed the subject, telling me about a guy interested in selling his DJ business. Julie agreed that, since it came with a listing in the Yellow Pages, it was a good investment. Danny and I weren’t interested in the DJ business. We only wanted the P.A. system that was for sale. It was a great buy, and we happened to need it for the upcoming Memorial Day show. The guy selling it wanted us to go do a DJ gig for a wedding reception, saying he’d loan us the speakers to do it with, and that we could think about buying the business. We said we would do the gig, and that we would think about the prospect of the DJ business. Julie called him back two hours later, saying we’d take the business off of his hands, and asked where to meet up with him to do the transaction. Now, it appeared as though we were the owners of “AA Bands and DJ’s”.

The wedding gig was on a Saturday, and was being held at a Country Club, in Jenison, which threw up red flags to me but Julie said there was absolutely nothing to worry about. She said it would be an easy two hundred bucks.

It seemed like I was the only one around the day Andy actually moved into the building, so it was me that ended up stuck with helping him move his things, which also meant helping him move his things from the woman’s house he was leaving. Judging by the looks on her face, she had been mistreated for the last time.

There were many pieces of musical merchandise, mainly brand new electric guitars that still were in their boxes. Every bit of it was hot. Chet, his boss, was storing a lot of this loot in the basement of his home. The story was, so Andy wouldn’t sell it all for drugs while he was supposed to be getting clean from Heroine and Crack Cocaine- just another con job on Chet. It worked well for a while but Chet was just as much of a crook, robbing people with a smile and some paint equipment. Andy swore that he was no longer using but everything, other than his words, said something else entirely. One of those things that spoke to me was the motor home he left for abandoned in the lot at the building we moved him into. It was eventually towed to the impound yard and sold for scrap.

As people progressed toward leaving the building in the weeks that followed, Andy was liquidating the things he had been accumulating. Story was that he had to move back to Florida to help his mother, meaning he wouldn’t be there very long. He had survived shooting a near fatal dose of bleach into his arm almost two years ago, and now was on his way to spend time with his mother while his body was yet to realize he was walking dead.

He offered to sell his P.A. equipment to me for seven hundred bucks. The lighting system, a good size mixer, amplifier, a pair of one thousand watt Yamaha speakers, light cans, miscellaneous lines and patch cords, etc. It was a great deal that I just couldn’t believe- too good. He knew Julie had the money to pay for it, and I was right in the middle of gearing up for the show. It just made sense at the time, so she bought it for me. She liked the music room so much that she bought a mini fridge with a tap handle and a carbonic system for a pony keg to put in there too. Yeah, I really thought I had things made now.

Julie went with me to do the wedding reception gig in Jenison. The father had called beforehand to explain what music tracks they wanted, and when they wanted them to be played. It was pretty exciting for me even though it was a wedding reception, which almost every band dreads. I had spent days going to thrift stores, buying all the music tapes and CD’s I could find that might be good additions to a DJ library. I just couldn’t remember, did he say NO Hawaiian shirts or did he say WEAR Hawaiian shirts?

We arrived and set up. I first smelled a rat when, after an hour, we were never offered a drink or any type of hospitality. Having never done a wedding gig before, I was under the impression that it’s a celebration regardless of whether you are “just” the DJ or not. Not even a glass of water was offered to us.

At one point, some of the girls came and gathered around to have their pictures taken with me. Little did I realize, they were sent by the father of the bride. They were gathering pictures to use against me.

The next day I received a phone call from an irate Dutchman who felt like stiffing someone on his wedding expenses. He was yelling, demanding his two hundred dollars back because I showed up wearing long hair and a Hawaiian shirt! It didn’t settle well on me, since I had just been woke from sleep, so I was irate as well but more so.

Julie took the phone from me and somewhere along the conversation, agreed to refund him his precious money. This only confirmed my fears, and I was quick to chalk it up to one of the reasons nobody likes doing weddings, moving on with my renewed opinion about Jenison.

Now my attention was on satisfying myself over the DJ service purchase by calling the guy to discuss the Yellow page listing, which was tied to his phone number. I smelled another rat. The problem I now had, was that my life had become so infested and overrun with rats, a simple extermination wouldn’t work well enough. He ended up stiffing me on the whole transaction and walking away with the money we gave him, and the DJ business. This was going to require something more drastic but I didn’t know what.

It seemed like a good idea to focus on my work with Bob, and with making woodcrafts from the scraps on the floor, among the so-called waste. The magic in my artistic vision spotted the table leg scraps that had been made when they were cut to length recently. I cut the four sided, hollow blocks into cubes, and transformed them into a pair of Dice. They made a desktop pencil caddy that I found pretty darn cool, looking just like Dice frozen in action.

There were some cedar pieces among the scraps from the fabrication of round top window casings that, to me, looked like birds flying. It was an abstract vision that gave the artwork to me. It happened to be Julie Wickman’s birthday, so I took to making a wall mount shadow box display using the “birds”, and some scrap beadboard for the back panel. A glow of pride warmed me that afternoon as the artworks took shape.    

A birthday party was planned to be held in the bar portion of Holly’s Landing- a hotel on the Grand River, off of Ann street. A Blues band was playing that night, surprising me when I got there. It wasn’t very busy, which made it nice because the crowd was fairly small, having about forty people but then again I wasn’t really paying close attention to the crowd.

My focus was on presenting my gift and getting into party mode with the music, dancing and beer. The cardboard box I had wrapped the shadow box in had something that I had written on it, which was something to the affect of it not being a Mel Gibson Blow-up Doll. It was my attempt at being funny because Julie was a big Mel Gibson fan at the time.

When I presented it to her, I took her into a side room to do it. A few of her friends, in their curiosity, followed us to be part of the unveiling. Hoping for a big reaction, I didn’t want to just leave it for her to open later. Perception, having been contaminated with alcohol, was that she didn’t really think much of it.

Maybe it only looked nice to me, sort of like a new parent with their infant. Oh well, it wasn’t going to stop me from what I would do later on, which was throw myself at her once again, especially since she was such a good person, and the perfect representation of everything I wanted in a partner for life. She had a job, owned properties, had a child, and a crafting hobby, and she wasn’t an addict. That was the big one, and exactly the reason she didn’t want me around for much more than a place to crash when I was too drunk to find my way to my own part of town. She trusted me in her home, and with her adopted son, Simon.

Occasionally, she would call to have me service her home or rental property or to bring her some delight. It was like I was looking in the window at something I wanted but could not afford for myself. Life went on.

In the meantime, I was at the end of the rope with everything. My court battle regarding the enforcement of my, so-called, visitation was won but after only a few visits, it all blew back apart. Before actually winning, Mindy had agreed to allow me to see the children but only under her supervision. Having her chaperone the children didn’t stop me from taking advantage of the opportunity to see them. We had a mediation at the Kent County Friend of the Court building, where we spoke with the mediator but when I had my chance to speak, Mindy was rude and impeded on my communication, to which I exclaimed that she needed to “shut the phuk up”. The facilitator did not approve of this, recommending that I go to anger management classes. 

Mindy had gotten me into this before after busting our home in  fit of rage.

The police arrested , because that is what  do in Michigan. The man always goes  jail, regardless. Thanks Governor. 

Well, after laughing it off, to my self and a few friends, I was threatened to comply. I never did nor will I ever again.

When I had attended, and this is funny, I was shocked at the caliber..or lack of, of the "men". It became obvious that I needed to form and deliver my own reprimand...

So, I sent the court a bill for my time, pro-rated at a reasonable fee, only after they sent me a bill for the course. The problem was that I had paid a fine, which should included all fees. What they did was bill me. They wanted me to pay for the class that I should have been teaching. What they had made it appear as was, shifting the money remitted to them for the fines, to the class. Clever.

I was then forced to pay the fines, AGAIN! That's the #dutchmafia of Grand Rapids. It's a very real thing.

In the meantime I have a second family court battle. My oldest child’s mother, Mary, came by the house to push off her youngest child, Heather, onto me as if she was mine. She had steadily maintained that I am the father of Heather regardless of the fact that I have had a Vasectomy since 1994, when I was married to Mindy. This added to my feelings that the wolves were trying to tear me apart. It was only natural, and convenient, to numb my pains with alcohol and camaraderie while grieving over one more nightmare, which served as a convenient excuse to continue self medicating.

Really, I don’t think I ever dreamed of being so popular with women. A paternity test was finally done. Several weeks went by before the results came back. It wasn’t until then, that I was released from that accusation. Now, Mary is fully cared for in a home for a Psychiatric illness that plagued everyone in our families for so very long. The bad part is, Sarah, was negatively influenced by her mother all those years, which constantly chipped away and destroyed my attempts at nurturing our relationship. It continues to be an obstacle that I hope time will, someday, heal.

The good part is that Sarah’s Great Grandmother influenced her positively, thank God. Sarah was the only one on her mother’s side of the family that ever graduated, never becoming pregnant or involved with drugs, and went on to get accepted into the Air Force. She was tested and given the opportunity to go into Intelligence but decided to become involved in the weather, as a Meteorologist.

My consolation prize is that she became very well educated, and takes after me, so I am told, despite my attempts to gain custody of her before Mindy compromised my life by using my Attorney, Betty Bronkema, in that custody effort. She secured her to handle her divorce from me after my accident. This complaint has never been properly filed. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered how to file a serious complaint against an Attorney or Judge.

Cody and Scarlett were thrilled to be able to see their father. Our first meeting place was at a park down the trail from our home, on the Rogue River. The kids were ecstatic to go there, especially since I announced that we were to fish, bringing Dusty along with us. Mindy ignored her though, and Dusty knew it.

Dusty was not able to understand why Mindy did not give her any sort of acknowledgement, while I set the kids up to fish. Scarlett showed huge excitement, a bit more than Cody. It was obvious that she did not get to go fishing much, if ever. So while they casted and giggled, I took pictures and shot video with Julie’s camera.

Dusty was in obvious pain, so I decided to take the dog for a walk through the river, taking the camera to get some pictures of my kids from the opposite bank. We found a shallow spot to cross upstream, wading in to some deeper areas along the way back down to where we could get a good shot.

The cold water flowed around Dusty’s hips, supporting some of her weight, as it became a bit deeper. Dusty became a bit more lively with the joy she was experiencing from the therapeutic effect of the water, cooling her hips. It must have helped to relieve her pain. It seemed obvious in her radiance. Dusty smiled and smiled.

Scarlett and Cody continued to fish but there was no action at that time of the day for them. Cody wanted to get his feet wet with Dusty and I, while Scarlett wouldn’t put the pole down for anything. She didn’t care if she had caught one or not, having so much fun just going through the motions of being able to fish.

Scarlett continued to cast and retrieve her spinner, while her mother sat in the grass with a book, and her allergies. It was nice to see her endure the aggravation she had, sneezing and hacking, scratching and tearing. It was all part of my plan for my time with the kids, and to make it inconvenient for Mindy, since she was making an inconvenience upon US. The prize for the day was when I climbed up the bank from the water. Dusty carefully climbed out too, only instead of shaking off the water where she was, she walked over to Mindy, stopping directly in front of her to shake it off there. She was an arms-length away with her book, sitting in the weeds, as Dusty made her testament against her “mamma’s” cold heart, covering her with the river’s mud and wetness. It was biblical. Julie was filming the scene as it happened, capturing screams and all. Never, since the divorce, had I been happier to see Mindy than that moment.

The Rogue

Needless to say, I maintained the caretaking and cleaning in our home, needling for sanctions and demands to be put on the child, to pitch in. There was a huge battle that resulted in the police coming to the house. Casey had called them but the neighbors may have as well. Her claims were of child abuse. Before leaving that night, the officer stated that it was clearly a discipline problem. Well, it remained a problem. The courts should mandate some counseling in these cases because it manifests into a burden on society, and reverts back to the thing about acorns. I call it Frig Newton’s Law.

As for Casey’s brother, Kenny, he had moved in with his dad, virtually, as soon as I was living there full-time, escaping from the rigors of sharing a home with an implied living standard. Casey’s claims of being groped and molested remained to be ignored by her mother, which should have said something to me. Kenny stayed at his dads but continued to come over to leach, stealing his mothers weed, beer, and porn she kept along, with raiding the house for money.

When he did come over whether family function or not, he would always ask for things that were not in the house, requiring a special trip to the store. These were things like whole milk instead of the two percent we had. And she would send him to the store in the finest vehicle we had in the garage instead of … his own vehicle or the bike.

When Kenny was invited to family dinners, that I cooked, he would only eat a cut of beef that was a prime rate cut, and he had to have it cooked to a blackened burnt mess that ruined the cookware. This added a huge portion to my anxiety and psychiatric issues that I could just barely handle as it was. I felt that they were trying to kill me.

One day, Danimal came around to organize a kayak expedition. Bruce agreed to let us use a few of his kayaks, and to drop us off at the Rockford Dam, on the Rogue River. When we got there, we launched amid Spring Steelhead fishermen and a mob of others with a clear case of Spring fever. It was the first of April 2005.

Julie and Casey took the two man ‘yak, and Danny and I both had Daggers. None of them had the boots that fitted them to keep the water out of the cavity. My big idea for the safety of the girls was to bring my cell phone, placing it and all other dry items in a re-sealable plastic bag.

The fear was that the kayak could flip and cause someone to suffer a serious injury, maybe a head injury. And, since the Rogue River is a category three river with lots of rocks and boulders, it goes without saying that it’s dangerous. Never mind that Dan and I didn’t consider drinking to be an added hazard potential.

So there we were on the Rogue, passing through the areas where fishermen were hoping for Spring Steelhead, and on top of the world in the great outdoors, waiting to laugh at the first one to flip over.

We drifted in the current past the areas where people were, and into the seclusion of inaccessibility where we could tip our beers. My forty-ounce bottle seemed to taste great, and Dan and I were in our comfort zones loving the moment. The day was beautiful, yet only in the fifties, which gave the impression that the water was anything but thirty-something-degrees. As we approached Childsdale, I noticed the artificial flies lost to the branches by fly fishermen. Taking advantage of being on the water to collect them, I gathered as many as I could safely reach.

Danimal was hurrying along in the lead, and the girls trailed along behind me when I heard the first screams of the day- curses against the frigid waters.

Casey had leaned too far when she tried to duck a branch instead of staying in her position and using her hand to push the branch out of the way. Apparently the water was shockingly cold. My challenge was to conceal my outbursts, quietly relishing their discomfort. In a kayak, it’s always head first. The icy temper of the Rogue River only made it that much more amusing to me. I only wish Danny could have witnessed any part of it, as it was only a matter of time before they went in. What I did not expect was to receive my own dose from Mother Nature. What was good for the Witches almost earned me stitches.

Bruce’s earlier warnings to go left at the fork in the river were abandoned for the right. This didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time because, from where I could see, the left side was a walking route that was strewn with boulders. I didn’t feel like getting out.

The water sped through what used to be a dam. It had been washed out and removed. The river broke off in two, around a small piece of land, and reconnected. Right as I was trying to go through, Julie and Casey came through in a panic. We all realized Bruce was right but it was too late. They almost ran into me but I pushed them back away from me, which put them in the best spot to descend the eight-foot falls to safely pass through it. It didn’t look like too big of deal, so I followed suit. As I went over the fall, I knew it was a mistake because I couldn’t get into the main current, which swiftly took me to the bottom and spat me out the right side and rolled me upside down. The kayak instantly filled with water. In my struggle to gain control of it, and grab onto something to help pull myself out of it, I lost my paddle. It didn’t dawn on me how important the boots were until this point. The current had grabbed the kayak and was yanking on me to follow down stream. I managed to wrestle the thing while being bombarded by the falls. It would have been so much easier to just go to the left, and get out for a minute, like I had been told to do.

The fishermen quietly resented our being there as they fished the riffles. My paddle had to have drifted past them but they weren’t having anything to do with helping. We had molested their hunt for Steelhead. Now, I realized how Bruce might have gotten hold of so many kayaks. They were probably inexpensive. No one wants a kayak without it’s boot, otherwise they’d buy a canoe. Oh well, I was still happy to have their use. I can’t say that I blame them for not lending a hand but I totally resented their resentment.

As I drained the kayak, it wasn’t surprising that all of my belongings and findings were gone. My pack with the phone, smokes, snacks, the flies, and my bottle of beer, were all gone. Down around the bend, where Childsdale road crossed the river, Danny and the girls landed and waited, wondering what happened to me. Suddenly, they spotted my beer bobbing in the water as it moved along with the current. Since it was half full it was upright, which was good because the cap wasn’t on it. “There’s his beer,” they said. Dan retrieved it, and then noticed my pack floating along behind it. Soon after, I caught up and we wrung ourselves out, continuing down stream toward Bruce’s house on the Grand River.

The girls entertained me by flipping three more times, finally deciding that the smart thing for them to do was to get out of the river. They beached the ‘yak and found a trail to get them somewhere that was dry, and hoped to use a phone to have someone pick them up.

They were pretty upset but not nearly as upset as they were to find themselves being. It was the trail they chose to take that added insult to their humiliation. My pleading with them to stay the course to Bruce’s was useless, so I said I’d see them at Bruce’s and come back for the kayak later, planning on going down the river a second time but without them. This would also give me a chance to scout the trail they had taken, telling me the story of what happened on their adventure.

When I went back for the kayak, I investigated the trail. They had told me the story but I needed to see for myself. It was a heavily used Deer run that took them through places only a Deer could manage. There were large areas of it that were so trodden that it looked like they had a Deer festival. There were places where it was like soup because it was so wet and tore up, impossible to step through because it would suck even the best-tied boots right off of your feet. Other areas were all Hawthorns, briars, brambles, Blackberries and wild Roses. The Deer had serious numbers, judging by the looks of the torn earth.

Anyone that’s hunted them knows you can’t follow a Deer run very far at all. They ended up walking over a mile through the thickest of brush and mud. The last stretch of their hike was uphill, although so uphill that it was more like a cliff, having a 70 to 80 percent grade, which had a stretch of Hawthorn bushes about seventy-five yards deep before they got to the foot of it. It was like having to hike through the Mangroves. They had little choice but to ascend.

At the top of their climb, the summit, I guess you would call it, was an extravagant looking home that was nicely isolated. The view below was beautiful, facing east over the area. The stonework that covered the exterior looked very handsome, and the entrance was a grand set of double doors with double leaded glass detail. I only got a close up look when they drove me to the home explaining their misadventure. (This is where I started the hike back down to retrieve the kayak, getting to witness their experience).

And, oh, how they told me about it. No one was home, they thought but, finally, a man came to the door in a robe, looking like the guy from the male enhancement commercials on television- huge smile on his face. My guess is, that he was surprised to find two females, covered in mud, soaking wet and disheveled, interrupting his “private time” but he let them use the phone. After all I had been through with these girls I was pleased with the whole thing, especially being able to complete the journey in peace- twice. No sounds but the birds and the babble of the water on the rocks of the Rogue River. It was fifty-five degrees and I was absolutely an element of nature and happy in those moments.

As for Danimal, he hurried on ahead with enthusiasm fit for a Novice, and in an effort to get away from the girls, completing the voyage back to Bruce’s Holler.

On one hand, I can’t say I blamed him because the girls were a wet blanket, unless you were drunk, which was part of the problem because I didn’t necessarily want to be.

A Cleaning Lady- updated 4-12-17

Chapter The Cleaning Lady

Julie was assisting me with the legal aspects involving my parenting time with my kids, and also helped me along in my pursuit of my Social Security benefits and medical needs. Living with her allowed me to need less assistance, since I was closer to all of the doctors and professionals that I needed to deal with. This also put me within reach of those persons, though dysfunctional, who supported me as an artist, keeping me in the social circles that met my diverse needs.

Danimal and I performed property management for many landlords, Bruce included. Bob was also game, only because no one else could stand to work for him, always having to play his twisted head games, which I knew but I was using him for the money, and to get away from the everyday things I was doing- sometimes, needing a change.

Luckily, I had the ability to let it roll off of my shoulders, which really got under his skin. It only made me laugh and pity him when I saw how hard he worked, and how upset he would get, while trying to upset me- though not in his face.

It was later that it would take affect, when I was home to feel the pain I denied him to see.

There were a few personal clients that held me in exclusivity for their home repair needs but not enough to keep me busy with them full time. One such person was an elderly Latina lady. We met by way of her daughter, when she had applied for a cleaning position at Julies/our house. For some reason Julie thought it would be a good idea to hire a cleaning lady.

This was a ploy to get me to shut up about things but when she found out that cleaning didn’t involve doing dishes, laundry, and cat boxes, like I had explained to her, the whole thing was pointless. And she was left to stew in her own juices.

Face it, if you wash dishes and do the laundry, why wouldn’t you clean the toilet and vacuum? Telling myself that enduring this was necessary for my children to understand that they were loved, and that the distance between us was circumstantial, kept me pushing onward.

Nothing would keep me from my goals of getting my kids back, getting my disability insurance, never having to fear being sent to prison for four years for child support again, the "child support remedy act." Now, I was working at gaining my independence and security, and in a large sense, my freedom.

The woman who had applied for the cleaning position had taken a shine to me, giving me her mothers address because she needed some repairs done to her home that couldn’t be delayed any longer. The floor needed linoleum in the kitchen, hall and utility room, and there was damage to doorways from a nephew with psychological issues- and a cocaine habit.

The home, because of the wear, looked like it was long abandoned by squatters. She gave me the job but it wasn’t until about two days into it that she revealed that there was a flooring supply company that had given her a quote that was much more expensive. When it came time to pick up the goods, I went to a carpet and flooring store on the northern end of Alpine avenue to do so.

What I learned was that, these were condescending, and unfriendly people. This was indicated when I questioned why they had so many reducers in the material package. They were obviously hoping to do the installation. When I got to the installation part of the process, I found out that the material was short of the length needed. It was apparent that they were going to put seams in four places, which was unacceptable- to me.

It didn’t help relations any when I called to express my sentiments regarding every seam taking life expectancy from the product. These were high traffic areas, dining room, kitchen, hallway into the laundry and half bathroom, as well as leading into the garage.

They denied any wrong-doing, only to add remarks to the affect of me being an under-bidder and a cutthroat, which are fighting words in the construction business.

The truth was that they were over-charging her on goods and services, intending to hack the install in order to skimp on the product and the challenge of the installation, which only sets her up for repeat business a lot sooner.

Had they been kinder to me as a tradesman, they may have gained an asset.

Winning the battle against them was a moot point but winning the battle with the installation, using my problem solving skills, was especially satisfying. It was doubly satisfying when they later paid the homeowner a visit for a follow-up in the name of customer service.

Success is always the best revenge, (which I have to keep reminding myself while I write this effort), so there was no need to fire back at them over it. They saw that I laid the goods intact where it mattered the most, placing the seams in the least area of traffic.

The cleaning lady had quite a bit different game in mind for
me. This involved getting me to her Sparta home, under the guise of giving her a price to tear up and replace carpeting and linoleum in the kitchen, living room, hall and bathroom, as well as paint three rooms which included her bedroom. In the interest of developing a word-of-mouth customer base, I couldn’t refuse to look into it.

The true extent of what she wanted wouldn’t be fully known until I got there.

It felt like a good Idea to take a buffer, so I brought Larry along for the look-see. Since he was also a skilled painter, who worked regularly, I thought he could give a better perspective of what the cost of painting would be, while I surveyed the rest. The reason, primarily, (other than the premonition), was the fact that I was disabled in 96, causing me to e removed from the skilled trades, which made me out of touch with the current market.

 What we found was a rat's nest of a ranch style home. The place was rank with animal wastes- both kinds, fresh and stale.

She had recently vacuumed, indicated by the smell of burnt rubber, improving the room. She was surprised that I had brought someone with me, judging by an exuded nervousness about her.

Showing me the areas of interest, she slowly coaxed me into her bedroom.

The bed was made in an interesting contrast, way out of sorts with the rest of the house. Her motives set in as she planted the seeds she intended to germinate in my imagination.

Instinct told me to bring Larry as a buffer, and boy, was I right! It would have been so much more comforting to be wrong even though there were more horrors than just that.

There were tables at the ends of the sofa and in the opposite corners of the room, harboring neatly squared off piles of poop, some white from age, some with globs of hair, some mutli-colored with tiny maggots on them.


Even a blind cleaning lady could have seen. How can you not feel the tapping on the vacuum as you moved it into them?

There were roach carcasses left from completing their cycle of life.

This could have easily been a stage, set-up for a horror film- "Walking Dead," even. Larry and I kept glimpsing at each other with screaming eyes. How could this be a cleaning lady?

A flash of setting up on a future job with the stench from her hovel radiating from our drop cloths and tool kits, scrambled through my mind.
My imagination came up with the call that I would receive, saying that they now had an unusual roach problem, which caused me to reach for my cell phone as if it had vibrated.

Faking a call, I declared a plumbing emergency across town.

There were several calls from her for the next two weeks that
all went to my voicemail. Thank god for today's cell-phone technology.

Strangely enough, I cannot become intimate with someone in the presence of cleaning supplies... or cats- scarred upon scarred. I'm definitely damaged goods, unless You have Oregano.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to read comments. I pay very close attention to my efforts. I am working on refinements. Keep in mind these are mostly rough drafts, and will become to be much more colorful and dramatic. I know how to paint.   -Zach 4-12-2017