A Story For My Father
An unlikely story for Father's Day
Hi pops, long time no see. Sorry for the clumsy beginning but I’m uncertain about my feelings and what I want to say to you. Y’know, it’s not like I know you very well. And part of what I’m afraid of is that after “I miss you” and “what a fucked deal you got” what is there to say? Maybe this I guess; even though you’ve been gone for seventy-five years, part of me is still your little boy. So today the grown-up me and the boy you left behind have come to tell you a story about a guy you never knew. His name was Crazy Al.
In the early sixties, I was hanging around at Bobby Vee’s garage behind the house on Carmen. It was a gathering spot for the local bikers and neighborhood troublemakers and Al was both so it figures he would show up there sooner or later. He was younger than us by five years, and slightly in awe of the bigger time trouble we were getting into but eager to earn his nickname — Crazy Al. Al wasn’t really crazy, he was just super bright, untroubled by convention, and trying on life to see where it fit him. Maybe that’s what led him to do some of the crazy things. He was hanging out then with Sean Moynihan, another guy looking for his place in the cosmic mix. They were a pair of raggedy bikers and serious druggies trying on their lives like cheap suits, hoping their youth and beauty would make up for the bad cut and the crappy polyester.
They came up the alley on their bikes, coasting the last yards with their motors cut so all you heard was the chains zzizing on the sprockets and tires kissing the pavement. Then they sat outside in the darkness, looking into the shop to see if they were welcome.
Al had a problem. His bike was acting squirrely, shaking and darting unpredictably, and I was the local hotshot mechanic so after a little chit-chat, he asked if I would take it out for a ride and see what was wrong. I took it down the alley, felt the problem right away, and rode it back to the shop. “Your front end is so loose the steering head bearings are falling out,” I told him. Then I got my wrenches, pulled the front end down, stuck some new balls in the races, and put it all back together. That was the beginning of our friendship.
Years rolled on and I left Chicago for California, the movie business, and my own kinds of trouble. For a while in the seventies, I was living with a traveling commune called The Hog Farm, and while I was on the bus we passed through Chicago and I introduced Sean to everybody. I guess he liked what he saw, cause a few years later he joined up, became Sean Cassady in homage to Neal, married Calico, and they had babies, Casper, J.B., and Joey. Then he got high one time too many so he’s buried on the Hog Farm property outside of Laytonville CA. Remember that, it comes up later.
I hadn’t heard from Al for many years until an evening in 2018 when out of the blue he called me. For two hours we talked like close friends, remembering the days and catching up on our lives. The next day he sent me this:
Blessings Andy,
It is said that we walk in the footsteps of our teachers. I have been fortunate in life that I have found many. Why, I even found a fellow who taught me to keep my steering head tight.
The greatest gift I think I have gotten from my earnest, often relentless search, is the precious moments when I am able to FEEL and to be set aloft by the words ( so inadequate in our species) that I am fortunate to be sharing. Last night was such a night my brother. Blessings
Those blessings were because along the way he had quit shooting junk and become a Tai Chi master, a business owner, and a teacher, along with a few other things. I told you Al was smart.
From then on Al would call me late in the evenings to talk, often with stories from his eventful life, and he sent emails too, with tales of his Chicago adventures elliptically written and often at the edge of comprehension, like this one.
….. While looking at your photo site and enjoying the gathering of people that look like me, having fun and sharing loving kindness and compassion, what should I happen upon? Sean's memorial Chicago sewer cover that I helped JB and Joey acquire. I left a comment on the site for your enjoyment.
Oh Man !
I saw the two shots of the sewer cover I helped J.B. and Joey swipe for a fitting memorial for their dad, our old friend, Sean. I was living in a loft at 16th and Michigan, great loft: 3700sqft - 14 to 17 ft 'tin paneled' ceilings, brick walls, plank floors, and a freight elevator to bring my motorcycle up. I parked it alongside a brick wall and back-lit it with floor spots. It was kinetic art, as I could sit nearby and listen to the sweet metallic 'crinkle' sounds as the engine cooled off and all its happy pieces resumed shape and fell merrily asleep…. I met Calico and the three kids after Sean had permanently 'ghosted' as he used to say when unable to be found … Wasn't it you and I that went to the Summerdale Station to bail him out after an exciting evening he had with one of his 'cheap psychedelic highs' as he named them. … This one with a product called 'Asthmador' which featured in its formula Belladonna, which like arsenic, taken too enthusiastically, could kill you. But you recall our old friend, he had that sort of thing down to a science. It was always funny when he would seal himself in a garage, taping windows and stuffing rags under doors to get high on the lacquer-based paints he used to shoot stolen cars. If the car turned out blue, so would the excretions from his nose or mouth for several days.
It was after his kids had grown into their late teen years, that they visited me at the loft for the purpose of snagging a sewer cover. The area around the loft was pretty empty at the time and, not wanting to stray too far, I found the cover that now rests at the ranch at 15th and Wabash, where there was mostly truck and bus traffic, things big enough they wouldn’t fall into the hole we were leaving behind.
The loving-kindness and compassion I felt after hearing your voice lightened my heart in these 'strange days, indeed, your words - an added bonus as we said in the Temple, dear friend (and you know what's funny? I didn't realize that until now) I wish I had gone out to CA then, but my monkey would screech and swing from the chandelier were I not to pay him close attention - anyways,
Blessings
I saw Al in Chicago in November of 2022. We had dinner together, telling stories and catching up on our lives. Al had long ago put the crazy days behind him, his strung-out years exchanged for day trading, philosophical study, Tai Chi, and long miles on his motorcycle. But his beloved wife Karen had passed away a few years earlier leaving him more than a little empty. Once he had written me “For a long time I was just a ghost on a motorcycle” and I think he still was.
Y’know, Dad, maybe as part of losing you I grew up a hoarder of life’s experiences. I keep thousands of pictures, emails, and mementos, even voice messages as touchstones for what has happened. When it was time to tell this story I started going through them looking for clues, and sure enough there were old messages from Al. Good ones too, because even when he got the machine, he would likely tell it a story. Listening to them now, I heard Al speaking of mortality and loss, mixed in with the other things, not what I had noticed the first time around.
The last time I heard from Al was this text dated Nov 17th, 2022, so written a week or two after our dinner: So very good. A rare moment of stimulation and intellectual intimacy that I haven't enjoyed in a while; my fault, I must confess. I am in a discussion group meeting on Zoom. A small group, around ten at most, but often quite engaging. An eclectic group, only about a third 'academics' and yes, even participants like me. We have one who achieved her PhD in the classic languages of Greece and Latin and taught at her Alma mater, Univ.of Chicago
phooey! ……Wrong button .....I'll finish later. My purpose is to show you something you may be interested in. Grok that! Blessings
He never finished that thought. Time went by but I was busy and didn’t notice until May of 2023 when I suddenly looked up and said “Wow, I haven’t heard from Al in way too long.” I wrote him right away, but nothing came back and I started feeling uneasy. I sent more texts and made phone calls, but all went unanswered, and I knew something bad had happened. I wrote one last email, acknowledging that I understood I wasn’t writing to him exactly: “This is Andy Romanoff, an old friend of Al’s. I’m trying to determine what has become of him. I would really appreciate it if someone would tell me.”… but no one wrote back. His phone line stayed active, so someone was paying the bills but they didn’t seem interested in his messages. I called a few more times but I never heard from Al again.
In the absence of a story, we make one up. It was clear something bad had happened to Al and I had a story that explained what it was. Al had told me several times that he was having memory issues but I hadn't paid much attention to him. The stories he told me made sense and he knew my name so I chalked up his concern to normal aging. Now though, I told myself he had lost it and was stuck in a home somewhere. I looked all over the net trying to find him other ways, but nothing, there wasn’t a trace of Al anywhere.
Running out of ideas, I pulled up an aerial view of his neighborhood hoping I could find a neighbor to call, and dammit, Al’s house was for sale. Heart in my shoes, I called the Realtor and learned that the sale was a probate, that they couldn’t give me any information. I ran down the probate attorney and he told me the same story. It was a dead-end, and it stayed that way. Al was missing but not exactly gone so he didn’t leave my mind. Something would touch a trigger and Al would spring to life, what happened to him deeply puzzling.
So finally it’s time to talk about us. You died when we were both so young, me 7 and you 37. No wonder I carry the emotions of that locked away with only a boy’s understanding. When I wrote Stories I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You a few years ago I told the story of your death and the fallout from that. The book is filled with my angry years and the pain I caused others when you permanently ghosted. I told it as a story of resentment and anger for how your wife, my destroyed mother handled things and the long trail of consequence that led away from the wreckage of your death. What I didn’t talk about then was the mysteries I was still living with — live with now, because I did not recognize their existence. Death rips gaping holes in the fabric of our reality whether we notice it or not. With time we patch them up as best we can. We weave new scrims to keep something between us and the unbearable unthinkable, but behind them, the feelings are always there. Waiting.
A few weeks ago, I went to dinner with friends. One of them a prosecutor in Chicago many years ago. Talking about Chicago woke Al in my consciousness and hoping my friend might have ways of learning things I told him the story and asked for help. He called me a few days later telling me nothing had come up in the databases, but there was a Lake County Public Guardian's office. If Al had slipped into dementia without relatives that office would have taken over. So I called and told them my story, and they were compassionate so they ran a search. But the search turned up nothing, there was no record of Al. And that left only the unthinkable. Al was dead.
Until now I had pictured Al living in a home somewhere, maybe in a memory care unit. I imagined finding his location and going to see him, imagined him recognizing me through his fog, calling my name, and taking comfort in the fact that someone cared. Now it was time to imagine his death.
Dad, I have imagined your death many times. In the bathroom at the lawyer’s office lying curled on a white tile floor while the ambulance attendants tried to keep you going. I have imagined your surprise at death coming for you in your prime and your sweet life slipping away. How impossible that must have been even as it was happening. Did you protest? Was the pain in your chest unbearable or could you accept it even as it was taking you? Did you have time to think about Mom and LJ, and me? Did you have time to form unspoken thoughts? Did you know what was happening? Did you even know it was going on? I’d like to know about all of that sometime.
Often I wonder what our lives would have been like if you had lived. Certainly, I would have gone down a different path. From everything I know you were gentle, a family man, and without question you loved me. Growing up with you around would have changed a lot.
Al tells a different story about his life. At dinner in Chicago he told me this: “…So my dad was a drinker, and when I got a little bigger, I knew the day would come when I would be as big as him. And when that happened one night I swung on him. Then for a long time, we didn’t talk very much. And then one time I went to the house, and when I saw him I was shocked. He was so diminished it was clear he was dying. So I sat down with him and for the first time ever I tried to talk with him. I didn’t know what to say so I told him about a new guy I had just hired and about this and that and then, after about 45 minutes, it was time to leave. When I was leaving, I touched his shoulder and it was the first time I had touched him since I punched him. That evening my mom had to take him to the emergency room and he died there that night. Later she told me that he motioned to her to come over and when she did he managed to gasp out “Al’s doing OK as a businessman” and then he died.”
We didn’t have much time together you and I, but we had it better than that. Al, sorry you had a rough road with your dad. Love you Dad.
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