Remover of
obstacles
I arrived yesterday. Roz sent me; why I shall write about another time. I arrived in Birmingham to visit Mel Ball, whom I had met only once, briefly, when he had come to Virginia to meet Tom Nashe, and based on Tom’s sister’s recommendation – he had been a student of hers at the small northeastern Nihilist Brothers school where she teaches art history – we asked him to become part of my burgeoning media conglomerate.
I arrived yesterday. Roz sent me; why I shall write about another time. I arrived in Birmingham to visit Mel Ball, whom I had met only once, briefly, when he had come to Virginia to meet Tom Nashe, and based on Tom’s sister’s recommendation – he had been a student of hers at the small northeastern Nihilist Brothers school where she teaches art history – we asked him to become part of my burgeoning media conglomerate.
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| Ganapati, remover of obstacles |
Mel lives at home, that is, with his
parents, a pair of lazy, lively, benevolent but not foolish trust-fund hippies,
who love their son and what he is doing and are happy to have him around, one
of many coming-and-going hangers on, as long as he pitches in on household
chores, including cooking two dinners a week, clearing and washing up after two
others, cleaning the bathrooms one Saturday per month, making his bed and doing
his own laundry (including sheets and towels, so changing his bed, and walking
the dog as needed, also obeying the house rules which are two (+ 1): do unto
others as you would have them do unto you except neither a borrower nor a
lender be (which means he has to earn his own pin money); and tell your mother
you love her at least once a day – and helping evict anyone in the house that
fails to observe rule #1.
Mel explained his “situation” (all in one sentence, approximately as written above), while he was showing me to my room, which is sparsely but beautifully furnished: single bed with oak head, side, and foot-boards, matching bedside table, dresser, and desk and chair. The floor is also oak but lighter with a small braided rug next to the bed. The walls are white. There is a crucifix on the wall above the head-board and a small laughing Buddha on the dresser. The base of the lamp on the bedside table is a stone Ganesha, the base of the lamp on the desk ceramic fired into the shape of the Arabic letter alif. There is a mezuzah on the door frame. The room, before I began putting my stuff about, was otherwise bare. There is no mirror above the dresser, no picture on any wall, no curtains at the window. The small closet was empty except for the hanging rod, three wooden hangers, and a painted tie, and the hook on the back of the door, the upturned snout of a brightly painted Norse troll. "I made that," Mel said, "when I was 11 or 12, so it had to be kept and put up . . . and used.” All the drawers – dresser, desk, table – were empty.
Mel explained his “situation” (all in one sentence, approximately as written above), while he was showing me to my room, which is sparsely but beautifully furnished: single bed with oak head, side, and foot-boards, matching bedside table, dresser, and desk and chair. The floor is also oak but lighter with a small braided rug next to the bed. The walls are white. There is a crucifix on the wall above the head-board and a small laughing Buddha on the dresser. The base of the lamp on the bedside table is a stone Ganesha, the base of the lamp on the desk ceramic fired into the shape of the Arabic letter alif. There is a mezuzah on the door frame. The room, before I began putting my stuff about, was otherwise bare. There is no mirror above the dresser, no picture on any wall, no curtains at the window. The small closet was empty except for the hanging rod, three wooden hangers, and a painted tie, and the hook on the back of the door, the upturned snout of a brightly painted Norse troll. "I made that," Mel said, "when I was 11 or 12, so it had to be kept and put up . . . and used.” All the drawers – dresser, desk, table – were empty.
"I'll let you get settled. Then
we can decide what we want to do. It'll have to be after supper, since I'm
cooking tonight. That's where to find me; I need to get started. Spaghetti. And
a salad. We always have ice-cream for dessert, always; but there are probably a
dozen choices.
"So come down to the kitchen. If
you take the stairs at the other end of the hall from where we came up, they’ll
take you there. Or wander; you'll eventually find your way. One other rule – sort
of. You can walk through any open door. And you can knock at any closed one, unless there’s a necktie hanging on the
knob. That is what that was for, in your closet, if you wondered. My dad, who
hasn’t worn a necktie since not long after he learned that use for one still
thinks it a wonderful joke. So, if you need some time to yourself, and you hear
laughing in the hallway. . ." He shrugged.
"How
many people are living here now?" I asked Mel, who chopping onions, green
peppers, apples, and tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce.
"Including you, just five right
now. Mom, Pop, me, you, and Kathleen. You may or may not recognize her when you
see her at dinner, but it would be nice if you pretended to. She was one of Jim
Rockford’s girlfriends. Not James Garner’s but Rockford’s – among other things.
"So there are a couple of empty
bedrooms right now – there are six or seven altogether, depending on how you
count them."
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