Author: frankisemptiness

April 6th, 2019

This was printed/posted in the Capital Times (Madison, WI) yesterday.

Take it for what it is worth.

“I work with the New Sanctuary Movement. I volunteer to accompany undocumented immigrants to their court appearances. I have escorted immigrants to various county courthouses throughout southeastern Wisconsin. Most of the time, these people have gone to court because they have been stopped for driving without a license. Without exception, these persons have been terrified by the prospect of going to court, primarily because of the possibility that ICE agents will arrest them while they are there. This is not an unreasonable fear. I have seen plainclothes ICE agents in at least one courthouse, and they did take somebody away.

There would be no need for me to accompany these immigrants if only Wisconsin would allow them to have driver’s licenses. Other states do not forbid undocumented immigrants from getting licenses. Why do we do that? These people need to drive, just like everyone else. They have to get to work, to school, to any number of places. They would be safer if they didn’t fear being arrested. We would all be safer if they had licenses and car insurance.

Let’s change the law, and give all Wisconsin residents driver’s licenses.”

 

April 3rd, 2019

I took the Ford Focus to get an oil change. I went to one of those shops where they get you in and out of the garage in about fifteen minutes. Pretty much all they do at this place is quick oil changes. Usually, there is no small talk between the customers and the busy employees. The workers do what they need to do, say what they need to say, and then they send you on your way with a smile. It is almost always polite, professional, and coldly impersonal.

But not this time.

I don’t know the young man’s name. I never bothered to ask him. It is probably better so. He initially struck me as being friendly, but a bit goofy. He greeted me with a toothy grin and quickly went to work on the Focus. I went to the waiting room to wait. Well, that’s what you do in a waiting room.

He came to me after a few minutes with a concerned look on his face.

He asked me, “Is there some trick to starting your car? I thought at first that maybe it was a stick shift, but it’s an automatic. I kept trying to start it, but it wouldn’t go.”

Actually, there is a trick to starting the Focus. The ignition switch is fickle, and a person has to push the key all the way to the left to get the ignition to engage. I explained the trick to him.

The young man smiled, and then he left me and finished his work. He came back into the office to process the bill.

I don’t know how it happened, but somehow we entered into a conversation. I think that he asked how I was. Like a fool, I told him how I was.

I mentioned the fact that I knew a girl who was struggling. I mentioned that she was on probation, and that she generally was in a world of hurt.

He nodded, and said, “You know, I was in that kind of place. How old is this girl?”

I replied, “She’s twenty-eight.”

The young man nodded again and said, “Yeah, she’s my age. I was originally diagnosed with Asperger’s. You know, that’s the highest form of autism. No, I mean it’s the lowest form of autism. Well, whatever. Do you know what I mean?”

I told him, “Yeah, I get it.”

The young man went on, “Well, when I was in school, they pumped me full of all these different drugs. It was bad. I finally told my mom, when I turned eighteen, that I wasn’t going to take these meds any more. She told me, ‘Then I’m throwing you out of the house’. I told her, ‘Okay, then sign the paperwork to emancipate me, and I’m out of here.’ She did that.”

I asked him, “So, it was okay then?”

He deflected the question and asked me, “Is the girl in jail?”

“Not right now, but she’s been there a lot, and she has two years of prison hanging over her head.”

The young guy shook his head and paused for a moment, and then he said, “That’s no good. I did three in and three out. I went into prison at eighteen.”

I asked no questions. I just let it all hang.

I just said, “Jails and prisons don’t do any good. They are just warehouses for humans.”

The oil changer went on, “I was dating this girl. I had just turned eighteen. She was sixteen. We had a party for my birthday. Her dad gave me a carton of cigarettes as a gift. I was still smoking at the time. I thought we were all cool. When I had sex with his daughter, the dad called the cops on me.”

I thought to myself silently, “Sixteen will get you twenty.”

The young man was not nearly done. He told me, “You know, this guy knew that I was with his daughter. What did he expect? I mean, what was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to ask him for permission to screw his daughter? I mean, really, who asks that kind of question?”

I replied, “I never asked that kind of question.”

The young man piped up, “See?! Nobody would ask that shit!”

It got quiet for a moment.

The oil changer looked at me and said, “I hope it all goes okay with this girl.”

“Yeah, I hope so too.”

The young man shook my hand. He said, “Good talking with you.”

I replied, “Yeah, the same here.”

 

 

 

 

 

April 3rd, 2019

I had to dig through some dusty shelves, full of long-forgotten toys, to get at it. I knew it was there. I could see the box. It was on the very top shelf, and I could make out the faded words on its side. Once I cleared away some other things that we should have thrown away years ago, I could finally reach the carton. I felt like an archaeologist. I was playing at being Indiana Jones in my own basement.

The box had been crisp and white at one time. Now it was stained and torn. On the top of the box was picture of a glorious steam locomotive, and there was the name of the manufacturer: “Lionel of New York”.

It was an electric train. Once it was my train. Then it became Hans’ train. Now it might become Weston’s train.

I don’t have many happy memories from my youth. Maybe most other people don’t either. However, the memory of my parents buying me this train is a good memory. They bought it for me in 1967, when I was nine years old. They bought it at a small hobby shop on National Avenue, back when West Allis was a working class, industrial town, and little, family-run stores were common. If I remember right, we walked there from our house to get the toy. It was during wintertime. I think that we were without a car then. Somehow, we got the box home, and my dad set up the train.

My dad loved trains. He especially loved steam locomotives. He despised diesel engines. A diesel engine, because of its size, can be impressive, but a steam engine is something completely different. A steam engine is a thing that is almost alive. It hisses and roars, and its pistons move like the muscles of an athlete. A diesel engine is a domesticated machine. A steam engine is a wild thing.

I took the box upstairs into the kitchen. I opened it up for the first time in how many years? Twenty? Twenty-five? I found the engine and the tender. I found various sections of track, all of them tarnished from decades of neglect. Buried under everything else in the box were yellowed pieces of paper: an instruction sheet for operating the the train, and an order form to request extra parts from the Lionel Company. The order form stated that shipping costs could be as much as fifty cents.

When Hans was little, I set up the train around our Christmas tree. Hans was fascinated by it. He could watch the train go round and round for hours. He loved it. Later, he and I went out to buy new parts for the train. I remember going with to a hobby shop on the north side of Milwaukee to buy more track, or maybe a new car. My memories are sketchy now, but I remember us waiting for the store to open. We sat in the car with raindrops splashing on the windshield. He was so young then, so small.

Hans got older. He wasn’t interested in trains. He became interested in motorcycles, and in the military. We put the train away. He left to live in Texas. He went to war in Iraq. We forgot the things of childhood.

In November of 2018 Hans and his fiancee, Gabi, had a son. Weston is nearly four months old now. He looks a lot like Hans did way back when. I asked Hans if I should bring him his train when my wife and I come to visit him. Hans said, “Yes.” He wants Weston to see the train.

I laid out the track on the kitchen floor. It didn’t seem to fit right. Maybe we had lost some pieces. The transformer was not the original. I can remember the first transformer for the train. I guess it must have gone bad, and Hans and I had bought a a new one. I was worried that the engine would not work at all. When I first got it, the headlight shown, and a person could somehow make it smoke like a real locomotive. Not any more. I just wanted to get the thing to run again.

I put the engine on the tracks. I plugged in the transformer. It turned it on. The engine moved reluctantly, and it barely made it around the oval track. The track needs to be cleaned.

Hans can take care of that.

Weston can watch.

 

 

 

March 31st, 2019

A couple days ago, my youngest son, Stefan, stopped at our house after working fourteen hours at some hellish foundry in West Allis. He is not an employee of the foundry (thank God), but the union sent him there to do some mechanical work to get the foundry’s ancient equipment functioning one last time, before OSHA shut the place down for good. Stefan stood before me: exhausted, incredibly dirty, and bone tired.

Our two dogs barked noisily at him as he came through the door.

I screamed at the dogs, “Shut the fuck up!”

Stefan eyed me warily, and said, “You sound a little grumpy.”

“Yeah, I am. The girl went to jail this afternoon, and your mom and I had to bring home all of her stuff from the motel”, as I waved my hand at a pile of bags and boxes.

Stefan rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen.

I offered him a beer. He took a swig and winced. He asked me,

“How do you drink this? What’s in it? 8.4% alcohol? Christ, this stuff is brutal.”

I shrugged. “It’s what I got in the house.”

Stefan nodded, and he took another drink. This time it seemed easier.

I asked him, “So, where were you all day?”

He stared at me bleary eyed, and said, “Motor Castings.”

I thought to myself for a moment. I wasn’t sure if that was the same foundry where my grandfather worked for all those years. I couldn’t remember.

Stefan said to me, “What a hellhole. I guess OSHA went in there and did some checks on the maintenance guys there. They all got miner’s lung. They all got an inch of black dust at the bottom of their lungs. I heard that OSHA told the company to fix up a bunch of things, or close down. They are closing down.”

I asked him, “So, why were you there?”

He replied, “Well, the maintenance guys there don’t want to fix the hard stuff, so they go to the union to get guys to crawl under their fucking nasty machines and get them running again. That’s what I was doing.”

“Why do they bother if they are closing down?”

Stefan drank some more. “They have one last job to do for NASCAR. They need the shit to work one more time.”

I said, “I’ve been in foundries before. They are all nasty: dark, dirty, dangerous.”

Stefan nodded. “The only guys who work there are the undocumented, and the guys who are high as hell. With your hard hat pulled low, and dark glasses on, and a scarf around your face, nobody can tell that you’re all fucked up.”

We changed the subject. I told Stefan about the latest, scary developments concerning a girl we love. He shrugged, smiled grimly, and said,

“You almost have to laugh. She made her choices. Things happened. It wasn’t your fault. You’re collateral damage. You just got caught in the line of fire.”

Yeah, I guess so. I don’t like to be labeled as collateral damage. That sounds pathetic.

I asked him, “What are you doing now?”

He sighed. “I’m going home. I need to sleep.”

“You want something to eat?”

“No, I’ll just go.”

“Okay, well, be careful driving home.”

Stefan smiled,”It’s only a ten minute drive.”

I told him, “A lot can happen in ten minutes.”

He said to me, “I got to get something out of your garage. Close the door on it after I go.”

“Okay.”

He got what he needed.

I hit the switch on the garage door opener.

He shouted to me, “Thanks! I love you!”

“I love you too!”

The door closed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 28th, 2019

“I’m only happy when it rains….
I’m only happy when it’s complicated
And though I know you can’t appreciate it
I’m only happy when it rains
You know I love it when the news is bad
Why it feels so good to feel so sad?
I’m only happy when it rains
Pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
Pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
I’m only happy when it rains
I feel good when things are goin’ wrong
I only listen to the sad, sad songs
I’m only happy when it rains
I only smile in the dark
My only comfort is the night gone black
I didn’t accidentally tell you that
I’m only happy when it rains
You’ll get the message by the time I’m through
When I complain about me and you
I’m only happy when it rains.”

“I’m Only Happy When It Rains” from Garbage

Her left hand was completely wrapped in gauze. She burned the back of her hand on Friday. I don’t completely understand how she did that. Since then, she has had her hand bandaged up. Karin has been changing the dressing on that hand each morning. I haven’t been involved with that process. That has been between the girl and Karin.

I did get a glimpse of the girl’s hand a couple days ago. My own hand hurt just from looking at hers. It was raw and ugly. A nasty burn. There will be scars.

Scars aren’t always bad. They are proof positive that somebody is a survivor.

I drove the young woman back to her motel room yesterday morning. As usual, she played the Sphinx during most of the ride. When she is nervous, she only gives me name, rank, and serial number. She might answer my questions, but with the absolute minimum of information. I have grown adept at reading between her lines.

As we wound through the streets of Racine, I asked her, “How is the hand?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Does it hurt?’

“Not really.”

That surprised me. How could that wound not hurt?

I asked her, “Can you move it?”

She replied, “Well, with this on (she pointed to her bandage) not really. Without it, I can pick up things. I can’t close it like I can with my other hand.” She then demonstrated how she could close up her right hand.

I stopped at a light. As it changed to green, she continued to speak,

“The doctor at the emergency room told me that I wouldn’t be able to hold a beer or ride a motorcycle. Neither of those two things are going to happen any time soon.”

I glanced at her. I couldn’t tell if she was smiling or not.

I changed the subject. I told her,

“Last night I went to the VA. I visited with the guys in the psych ward.”

The girl nodded as she stared straight ahead. Years ago, she had gone with me to spend time with the vets at the hospital. She knew that I went there often.

“Well, I sat and listened to one of the vets talk all about his seizures, and about his problems with his doctors. He talked to me for almost half an hour. Then he asked me, ‘So, how long have you been here?’ I told him, ‘About an hour.’ Then the guy asked me, ‘What room are you in? Wow, you just got here! I guess that’s why you are still in normal clothes.’ I told him, ‘Man, I just helped to bring in the snacks. I am not currently a patient.’

The vet seemed embarrassed, and he said to me, ‘I just thought you were here, you know, like us. No offense…’

I told the guy, ‘It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I am glad to talk with you.’ ”

I glanced at the girl. She still stared straight ahead, but she had the faintest trace of a smile on her face.

I laughed and said, “Yeah, I know. You’re not surprised by that at all.”

She gently shook her head in a way that said, “Oh, so typical…”

We listened to the radio. 102.1. “Sounds different.” That’s the slogan for the station.

An old song from Garbage came on: “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”.

I sighed, “Oh yeah…”

The girl told me, “That was my favorite song in kindergarten.”

“I like it too. The singer, she has a great voice. The back up band is really good too.”

The girl replied, “Yeah, they are all from Madison.”

“I thought the singer was from Scotland.”

The girl shrugged, then nodded.

We got to her motel. I helped her to bring her stuff up to her room. The room was dark, even after the young woman turned on a light. Her belongings were scattered in a haphazard way. Disorder reigned.

I told her, “I’ll see you later.”

She stared at me blankly and said, “Okay.”

“Okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 25th, 2019

I should have just kept my mouth shut.

I was sitting in the Mocha Lisa Coffee Shop in Caledonia. I like to go there. It’s kind of artsy-fartsy. They have lots of crafts on display, along with other artwork. They even have paintings from my brother hanging on their walls.

I had my mug of black coffee in front of me as I sat down at a table. I had planned to write a snail mail letter. Then a soldier walked past me. I looked him over.

The guy was tall and exceedingly fit. His uniform had all the right badges, and it had been ironed recently. I think he was airborne/ranger. It was obvious to me that he was a lifer, and that he was most likely a recruiter. I was right, on both counts.

He went over to a nearby table, and the regulars asked his about his work, and how he selected new recruits. He explained that guys with neck and/or facial tattoos were not accepted. Also, people with massive holes in their earlobes did not make the cut. I found this a bit odd. Those kind of folks might make excellent killers. In any case, the locals were doing their best to massage his ego.

That irritated me. I am by nature a contrary individual, and I find it difficult to listen to people talk shit. So, I roused myself from my chair and stood facing the Army recruiter. I asked him,

“When you recruit people, do you ever tell them about the costs involved?”

He gave me a funny look (as did everyone else). Then he asked,

“Costs? What do you mean?”

I replied, “Do you tell them what it will cost them to join up?”

He still didn’t get it.

“What are you talking about?”

I sighed. “My son went to Iraq. He killed people. He did not come back right.”

The soldier told me, “That’s dependent on the individual. Each person reacts differently.”

I said slowly, “That…is…not…really…an…answer.”

At this point two women intervened. One of them wore glasses, and she went immediately to the recruiter and said, “THANK YOU for your service! Can I buy you something? A coffee, maybe?”

He shook his head. She scurried away to get him something he didn’t want. However, she also looked at me and said, “And thank you for your son’s service!”

The other woman went up to the soldier, stroked his arm, and gazed at him with something approaching adoration. She also told him breathlessly, “Thank you for your service.”

I asked him, “So, do you explain to them what they are going to experience?”

He answered obliquely, “It’s different with every person. I don’t know what your son experienced. I’ve been in the Army for twenty years. I was in Iraq too. (and I’m all right).”

I told him, “I was in the Army too, way back during the Cold War. I flew Black Hawks.”

I don’t know if the recruiter or anyone else heard me. There was no reaction whatsoever.

The woman with the glasses returned with the recruiter’s coffee, and she gave him the biggest smile this side of heaven.

I continued to speak.  “So, do you tell them that might have to kill somebody?”

He replied, “People enlist for all sorts of reasons. We answer whatever questions they have.”

“What if they don’t even know enough to ask the questions?”

“Well, like I said, people join for all sorts of reasons. Some just want to get their education paid for. Some people come in with a certain idea in their head, and it doesn’t matter what I tell them. It goes in one ear and out the other.”

The woman with the adoring eyes said to the recruiter, “My father fought in Vietnam. He’s on full disability now.”

The recruiter perked up, and said, “Well, he’s being taken care of. People keep saying that we don’t take care of our vets.”

I chimed in, “I go to visit the vets in the psych ward at the VA hospital in Milwaukee every week. They are being cared for, but I want to know if the people who you meet know what they are getting in to.”

The adoring woman rolled her eyes and said, “Do any of us ever know what we’re getting into?”

The soldier told me, “We tell them that there might be trauma.”

The woman spoke again, “Well, we all have trauma. We make decisions and we accept the consequences.”

I butt in, “Okay. I just want to know if these people, especially high school kids, are making informed decisions.”

The recruiter looked me straight in the eye and said, “We talk to them about everything. We talk about deployments, everything.”

At that time, The person who was to meet with the recruiter arrived, and my conversation with him was over. However, somebody else wanted to bend my ear.

The woman with the adoring eyes took me aside.

She told me. “We all have free will. My father went to Vietnam. Your son went to Iraq. They both experience the consequences.”

I replied with pain, “My son sleeps with his AR-15. He can’t sleep without it.”

She nodded and replied, “My dad can’t sleep either. He can’t even go to a 4th of July parade because of the noise. He has no regrets.”

She continued, “The recruiter, he’s just doing his job. He’s chosen to serve his country.”

I asked her, “So, I can’t ask him hard questions?”

The woman replied, “Well, you can ask him hard questions, but it kind of sounded like you were attacking him.”

“Oh?”

She went on, “I felt like I needed to defend him.”

“So, is he a hero?”

She smiled sadly, “I think he’s a hero.”

She said, “We all have free will. We make choices. You did whatever it was you were doing.”

Then she walked off.

I walked back top my table and stared at my coffee cup. I was confused and hurt. I kept thinking of my son, and of the boys in the psych ward. I thought about the costs.

I left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 21st, 2019

Karin and I were just about ready to go to church yesterday. We try to go to daily Mass at St. Rita. Usually, we also participate in the morning prayer prior to the liturgy. This is our spiritual practice. Karin is much more consistent and diligent with it. I’m kind of a slacker.

As we were leaving, Karin got a phone call. It was the boyfriend of a girl that we love. I’m not exactly sure if the young man qualifies as a “boyfriend”. His status with the young woman seems to fluctuate. Their relationship is rather fluid. At a minimum, the guy is a good friend to her, a person who really does care about this girl.

The young man was in an utter panic when he called Karin. Karin put him on speaker phone so that I could hear what he had to say. He spoke quickly and emphatically.

He asked my wife, “When was the last time you had contact with her?”

Karin told him that it was during the previous morning. The girl had seemed to be upbeat and in good spirits.

The young man said, “I talked to her right after you did. She was going to take a shower, and then I was going to pick her up after work. We were going to go to dinner, and then hang out.”

He went on, “I got to her motel, and I called her. I didn’t get an answer. Then I texted her, and I didn’t get an answer with that. I knocked on her door. She didn’t answer. Finally, I went to to the manager to see if they would check on her, and they refused to do it. The management told me to call the police. I didn’t want to do that. I stayed there for forty-five minutes, and then I left.”

He continued, “I have been trying to get hold of her again this morning, but I get nothing. I’m at work now. Could you please try to contact her?”

Karin told him that we would.

I had a terrible, sinking feeling. I thought to myself, “She finally did it. We’re going to make a trip to the morgue.”

Karin asked me, “What should we do? Go there? Call the police? Should we call her?”

I replied softly, “Call her.”

Karin did that. No answer. The message went straight to voicemail.

Karin said, “I’ll text her. She never answers calls. She might respond to a text.”

The girl did respond. She told us that she was feeling a little sick. Otherwise, she was fine.

Karin told her to contact her friend, seeing as he was freaking out.

With most people, it’s not a big deal if we can’t reach them. That just happens. With this young woman it’s different. We have over a decade of experience with her health problems and intense drama. When we have been unable to contact her for any extended length of time, it has meant that something really bad was happening.

Karin and I went to church. We were grateful that it was a false alarm, but it was an alarm nonetheless. I don’t recover from these emergencies (real or otherwise) very well any more. I get an emotional hangover. It’s like tearing open a wound that has never quite healed. The most recent incident dovetailed into earlier crises, and I felt all of it again.

Karin and I sat down with some other people in the narthex for the morning prayer. I had to get up after a minute or so, and go into the sanctuary of the church. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t pray. I sat in a pew by myself, and tried to subdue feelings of fear, anger, and sadness. I didn’t how to direct those emotions. They were just there, and they were intense.

A young man named Mike came over to talk with me. Mike is a novice at the church. He is in training to become an Augustinian priest. He is a wonderful person, and he thought that it would be a good idea to wish me a happy birthday. It was my birthday, but I wasn’t feeling it. Not at all.

Mike said, “Hey, Karin tells me that today is your birthday.”

I shrugged.

He looked at me more closely, and asked, “Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head and looked away from him.

At that point, Mike sensed the Sith energy that was emanating from me. He figured out that I was emotionally radioactive, and he moved away.

Karin came into the pew just before the liturgy started. She gently took my hand.

I wept. As soon as she touched me, the dam broke. It wasn’t a noisy, sobbing kind of thing. It was all silent. I just felt hot, salty tears roll down my cheeks, and I could do nothing to stop them.

After Mass, we went out for breakfast. I still couldn’t focus or listen. We had a decent meal, but I wasn’t really there. To a certain extent, Karin was eating alone.

In Zen we talk about being in the moment. We talk about how the past doesn’t really matter, because it doesn’t exist any more. It does matter. Trauma from the past comes back to join up with any new trauma. I tried to be in the here and now, and failed. It was just too hard.

Are things better? I took the girl to see her probation officer this morning, and it went okay. My anxiety was still there. It will take a while for me to lower my guard with her. Maybe I never will. Maybe I will always be scared with her.

I don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 18th, 2019

I took a young woman to do some shopping at Walmart. I don’t like going to Walmart. I always get a bad feeling in that place. I don’t know why that is. It’s not a rational thing.

I asked the young woman if she wanted me to go into the store with her. She told me that I probably wouldn’t want to stroll down the aisles with the feminine hygiene products. I agreed with that. She went in by herself.

For the first time in a long time, the weather was sunny and relatively warm. I didn’t want to sit in the car, so I stood around and waited for the girl to finish her shopping. Time dragged.

Another woman pulled up into the parking space next to me with her SUV. She got out of car, looked at me funny, and then walked briskly into Walmart.

I started examining a bulge in the sidewall of the passenger side steer tire. I hadn’t noticed it before. The bulge worried me. A blow out on a steer tire is generally not a good thing. Then I checked out the other tires as I circled the Focus. I was bored, and I looked at the windows, the scratches in the paint, and a crack in the front bumper. I was lost in thought when I heard a woman yell,

“Can I help you?!”

I spun around to see the lady with the SUV glaring at me, and aiming her pink camera in my direction.

“What?” I muttered.

She went on, “If you keep looking into people’s cars…”

I blew up at her, “IT’S MY OWN CAR!”

She circled around me warily, still giving me a steely-eyed stare.

“You’re looking pretty suspicious.”

It was my turn to glare. I watched her get into her vehicle. She gave me a sideways glance.

I smiled and waved.

She drove away quickly.

Somehow, that shook me up. I was still upset when the young woman came back out of the store. I took her to her motel, and then I drove home, hoping the steer tire would make it that far.

I told my son about the tire, and also about the incident with the female vigilante in the  Walmart lot. He laughed, and said,

“Well, how was your day, besides the fact that you got racially profiled?”

I also told Karin about my encounter with the SUV lady. Karin looked at me and said,

“Well, you do look like a bum. You don’t look like you should own a nice car like that.”

That was comforting.

Both my wife’s comments and Stefan’s joke made me think. I was being profiled. It obviously wasn’t racial profiling. I guess it was more of an economic profile. The funny thing is that I may have more money in the bank than the SUV lady will ever have. But I had that hobo aura, and she just assumed that I was trying to bust into my own vehicle. I don’t think she ever believed that it was my car. She just decided to make a hasty retreat.

That was a strange and thoroughly unpleasant experience. I will have to remember how it felt the next time I think somebody else is up to no good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 16th, 2019

I took a young woman to Walgreen’s early on Saturday morning. She needed sterile gauze. The girl got scalded, and had an evil burn on her left shoulder that was oozing. I went with her into the store. I am not sure if that was helpful. We looked with uncertainty at a variety of different types of gauze and tapes, and then we asked a guy wearing a white lab coat for his opinion. Nhan, the white coat guy,  told us what to buy. Apparently, we didn’t explain the situation to him adequately, because I had to go back to the Walgreen’s later to get the correct type of tape.

While we were at the store, I looked more closely at the young woman. She looked rough. She had deep, dark rings under her eyes. The girl had already had a busy week. She had a chemical burn near her right eye that was just starting to heal. She also had four staples in the back of her head. They were behind her right ear. They were from a fall that seemed inexplicable. When I looked at her, I saw red burn marks that ran across the left side of her mouth, her throat, and down to her chest. I asked her about them.

She seemed frustrated and embarrassed. She told me,

“Those are from the shower at the motel. It suddenly got super hot, and that is how I got burned.”

Okay. Sure.

Is that what really happened? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. All I know is that this woman has suffered some truly nasty injuries within a very short period of time.

A suspicious person might think that she was using drugs. I’m a suspicious person. I’m suspicious mostly because I want this young woman to survive. Is it possible that she just had a terrible run of bad luck? Yes, that is possible. Is it possible that she has been so fucked up on some chemical that she did not even realize that she was being injured? Oh yeah, that could be too.

Like I said, I don’t know. I can’t know. In this situation, not knowing scares me. It scares me a lot.

Later yesterday, I took this young woman to stay at a different motel in Kenosha, since she needed a new place to live, and our house does not qualify with her probation officer. The motel is not so bad. Her place is right next to Lake Michigan, and she has a nice room.

I left her feeling uncertain. She had all of her stuff, but was she okay? I had no idea. I still have no idea.

When the girl checked into her room, she noticed that the refrigerator had a freezer. She remarked with a smile,

“Now I can get ice cream!”

I didn’t sleep much last night.

This morning I texted her: “Are you okay?”

Hours later, I read, “I’m OK.”

I wrote back to her, “Should we buy ice cream after your meeting tomorrow?”

Hours later, she wrote back, “Sure.”

That’s a win.

 

 

 

 

 

March 14th, 2019

“I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver
Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there”

from “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode

I had no idea what this guy looked like. All I knew was that I had to pick him up at Voces de la Frontera at 7:00 AM to take him to his court appearance. He apparently had my cell number, because he called me when I was maybe a quarter mile away from the Voces office.

Generally, I don’t like to answer the phone while I am driving. I recognized his number, so I picked up.

“Hi, is this Frank?”, he asked haltingly in a thick Spanish accent.

“Yeah.”

“I am at Voces.”

“Okay, I’m just turning on to National Avenue. I’m a couple blocks away.”

He hung up.

Nice.

It was not the best possible morning to pick up a stranger at Voces. Voces had planned a major political action that morning at the state capital in Madison. There was a public hearing scheduled at the capital about giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, and Voces wanted supporters of that idea to go there. They had buses waiting on the street in front of their office to take folks from Milwaukee to Madison. There were all sorts of people milling around, and I had no idea which person in that throng was going to be my passenger.

I found a place to park, and then I shoved my way through the crowd into the office, and I called out the guy’s name. No response.

Then a woman who was working there, who seemed rather stressed, looked at me and said,

“Oh, him. He was just in here. He is probably waiting outside.”

I followed her out the door. She pointed him out to me.

The man was a bit younger than me. He was thin and edgy. He had the kind of a haircut that my Army son would call “high and tight”. It was very short on the sides and back, but a bit longer on top. The man clutched a briefcase, and he wore what had to be his best clothes. I greeted him, we shook hands, and then we walked to my car.

I had been told that he did not speak English. I found this to be true. He had a minimal understanding of English. Mostly, he spoke Spanish to me with a smattering of random English words, spoken with a strong Spanish accent. I have been studying Spanish, with limited success. To my surprise, I understood enough of the language for us to have an intelligent conversation, at least most of the time. That made me very happy. He liked that too.

He seemed very tense. His hands were always restless. I asked him,

“¿Cómo estás hoy?” (“How are you today?”)

He looked at me nervously, and said,

“Estoy preocupado. Estoy preocupado por la corte.” (“I am worried. I am worried about the court.”)

I would be too.

We had to drive north to another county, mostly cow country, for his court date. That gave us time to struggle with the language. I mentioned to him that my wife was from Germany. That got him wound up. He has two nieces living in Germany. He wanted to show me pictures of them on his phone while I drove on the freeway. I indicated that wasn’t a good idea. It was getting very foggy as we drove north, and I had to watch for the right exit.

We got to the court house early. That’s okay. It is better to arrive to a court appearance early, rather than late. We sat in the car until the court house opened at 8:00 AM. He had time to show me his photos of his nieces. We had time to have a long and interesting discussion about racism in Europe and America. I learned a few things.

Once we could enter the court house, the man totally depended on me to find the right court room, and to guide him through the process.  He was a very intelligent person. It was just the language that confused him. I understand that sort of thing. I had the same sort of experience in Germany many years ago.

We entered the court room. We sat down on a bench. He immediately made the sign of the cross. I did the exact same thing after he did it. Then he asked me if we should ask somebody about an interpreter. I told him that we should talk to the lady who was acting as the court clerk. The man was concerned that we would do this together. I assured him that we would.

I spoke with the clerk. She was friendly but disinterested, and then she talked about the need for an interpreter with her co-worker in the court room. This other person, who seemed to be very busy on his computer, explained that my friend would have to return in April, which is when they would have a Spanish-speaking interpreter available. This is not unusual. That court only has an interpreter available once a month. That’s it. If you don’t speak English, you have to appear there on one specific day in any given month.

My companion got some paperwork that he barely understood. I worked with him, so that he knew for certain when his next court date would be. As we left the court house, he became animated, and kept talking about going some place for breakfast.

“Vamos a desayunar. Yo estoy pagando!”

(“We are going for breakfast. I am paying!”)

So, we went. His GPS guided us to an IHOP near Miller Park.

My friend ordered a combination  breakfast. I got the country-fried steak. We prayed before we ate. He drowned his pancakes with strawberry syrup. I worked through my eggs and some mystery meat.

We talked while we ate. I told the man about my oldest son, Hans, and his time as a soldier fighting in Iraq. He told me that he understood, and that he would pray for my family.

I took him back to Voces. He shook my hand as he got out of my car.

I am grateful to him.

Jesus bought me breakfast.