Joe Nation's Seasonal Stories

O!

Did you take those pictures, Joe? Did you have a conversation with that woman or offer to buy her something to eat?

I enjoy talking to street people and inviting them to breakfast.

A couple of burgers at the White Castle and a cup of coffee.

I try to have at least one breakfast a week and while most of them appreciate the gesture, some of them are mean drunks and tell me to buzz off.

Gus

I watched her bed down for the night. The next morning (it's on my regular route to and from the gym) I anonymously left her a bag of breakfast -- scrambled eggs on a roll, orange juice, coffee.

Photos are always mine. The shot of her sleeping was made in the morning about 6am.

Joe(I have nothing to complain about)Nation

damn. A side of Joe Nation I had never met. Well done, dude.

I always knew Joe was a standup kind of guy.

Excellent Joe, I love it!!! Made me cry.

Thanks Joe

The third lap around the rink was about enough. He had worn his short jacket and a Red Sox baseball cap and he was freezing to death, but he was freezing to death for love. Love was just ahead of him on the ice in a long red coat worn over a tight white sweater and a short black skirt. God, she was dazzling. And she was having the time of her life or so it seemed.
"Hey Juliet" He said it the right way, jue-li-et, not jewel-yet. "Let's go get some hot chocolate."
"We just got here, silly." She said that in the right way too. She wasn't whining, she was still having fun.
"I'm a idiot. I didn't wear enough clothes. I'm freezing."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" She whipped off the red coat and wrapped it around his shoulders and spun off in a tight circle. "You look like a guard at the Russian embassy." She skated backwards wiggling her fingers at him. C'mere, c'mere, c'mere.

He skated after her, not making much speed at first since his arms were busy holding onto the coat, but he kept trying. She laughed and danced and spun little spins just out of reach. He finally figured out that if he held his hands behind his back, he could hold on the the coat and skate like a racer. He got up to speed and zoomed past her then took off the coat and held it out, a matador in the middle of a sunburned ring.
She charged and when she ducked to gore the coat he caught her up in his arms and planted a very good kiss on her.

That was the beginning of the next lap.

Joe Nation

Oh Joe.

A whole thread of your gems? I'm feeling dizzy....

LUNCH WITH THE GOOD LISTENER


"Listen," she was saying as she sat down across from him in the booth. He was mid-forties unless he had let himself go, she maybe a day younger. His hair had a flattened, unwashed, look about it and it topped a face that had allowed a lot of butter to pass through it. He stared at the menu and said nothing. She, dark hair- severely pulled back, white white skin with black magic-marker drawn eyebrows, a pointy nose and a large mouth with what seemed to be a permanent frown, was speaking. The subject was Chanukah or more precisely, Chanukah at her apartment, who was coming, who was not coming, if they were coming why they were coming, if they were not coming, why they were not coming, if they were coming where they were coming from and who they would be spending the time with previous to their arrival at her apartment. If they were not coming where she surmised they might be spending the time, time lost as far as she was concerned. She was just about to start on what people would be bringing when the waiter re-arrived with their coffees.

She ordered his lunch. He nodded a couple of times and made a little thumbs up sign as an answer to a question about wheat toast. He looked at her. She looked at him for a moment as the CD/ROM in her head spun around to the place she had stopped. There would be food. None of it would be homemade apparently. That was good because at least there was a chance that the food would be good, I mean, did he remember the latkes Aunt Rosalie brought out last year? But it's bad too, and too bad, that people just don't have the time to really cook, not that she had the time either. He looked at his water glass, the ice was melting. Rocking around the Christmas Tree burbled from the P/A and there was the usual clamor of dishes and silverware and conversation. She was going on about going downtown to Barney's Co-op with her sister on Sunday to pick out a dress. Her sister already had two dresses she could wear but she wanted to look and see if anything struck her.

The lunch arrived. She made moves like a chessmaster, placing and replacing everything swiftly, just where it ought to be. She picked up his water glass, did he want it? The ice had completely melted. He looked at it as if he had something to say about it, but she was already handing it to the busboy.

Oh and the most awful thing had happened to her best friend's husband Ziggy. They had been upstate looking for something, she didn't know what, a house, a car, a something. Anyway, just outside of White Plains or maybe Yonkers, he gets this pain in his leg. It was like it was in a vise and he couldn't get it out. They had to stop the car on the highway and she, her friend, was calling 911 and 311 and he was leaning on the car and it was awful, but it turned out to be nothing. Just a cramp, but what a scare.

The waiter brought another glass of ice water. He took a grateful sip and set it down. "Listen," she was saying. He looked at her face, at her hands, the shape of her lips. She was saying how it might snow on Sunday. Yes, he thought, it might.

Joe Nation

Love them Joe!

What grows in stressful moments.

Joe jumped down from the back of the truck and knocked the needles from his jeans. The evergreen smell was thick in the air and there was a hint of eucalyptus and a bit of crushed rosemary from the wreaths. He walked around to the front of the tables straightening the rows of poinsettias as he went. Everything looked good this morning. The early crowd had bought a lot of trees and garland and they had sold out of Everlasting. Alex was putting a Ground Ivy wreath with a violet bow into a bag for a customer. Joe waited until she turned away then told him would be back to the stand in about an hour.

"You're going to go meet with her?"
"Yeh. Got to. My lawyer says."
"What do think it is?"
"Something about a box she got by messenger from my old office."
"And she won't send it up to you?"
"She claims she may have a vested interest in what's in it."
"I think I should go with you."
"And who then would sell all these magnificent growing things?"
"Oh yeah. That why I'm the farmer and you're the smart guy."
"It'll be alright. I'm a big boy. If there's a problem we'll get the lawyers involved."

He reached across the table and picked up sprig of mistletoe.

"Maybe I should bring this?
"Only if you can get her to eat it."

Joe laughed and headed for Park Avenue South. The diner they were meeting at, neutral terrority as it were, was only a couple of blocks up the street. He already knew what was in the box. Kind of. There had been a mix-up in the office after the divestiture. That was an understatement. Over a year later and things were still popping up and falling out of unknown places. After his lawyer had called him saying that his ex had received a box of documents, Joe had called Rachel, one of the few people he knew still at the office and, as it happens, his old secretary.

"Christ. Is it a white box?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen it."
"Because if it's a white box.. ."
"I thought I had signed everything a year ago."
"You did. You did. This is my screw-up. I thought I cancelled them."
"What?"
"Your Christmas cards. If it's a white box, it's your Christmas cards."
"My Christmas cards. The ones that say 'Season's Greetings from JoHanna and Joe, Choo-Choo and Jo-jo?' "
"Oh my God, I'm sorry. The order for the next year always comes when they deliver, it's one of those we-keep-sending-unless-you-cancel things. I'm sorry, things were so crazy, you remember."

Joe remembered Stanley meeting with Bernard and the two of them deciding on the bonuses for the year. It had been a particularly good year for both the firm and Joe. His two hedge funds had gained 106 and 122 percent in a year that the 500 had merely staggered along at about even. He remembered Johanna and the dogs were staying another month in South Beach. She was supposed to be checking on the house on Sanibel, but she seemed to be not making much effort. He remembered the meeting. Bernard was speaking. He went on about Stanley's retirement and the larger decision and it's meaning and how this was going to be best for everyone, that they would be fine, then handing out the envelopes to everyone.

The phone had been ringing when he got back to his office so he answered it with his right hand while holding the envelope with his left. It was JoHanna's lawyer, Arlene. She didn't want to have him served with the divorce papers there at the office. How nice. Could he come by? No, it's alright, he remembered saying, serve me here. He hung up. Why were the surprises in his life not surprises? He had guessed, he was a very good guesser, that Stanley was going to get out and sell everything when he left and he had guessed that Johanna wasn't going to re-arrive at their upper eastside address anytime soon, if ever. And he had guessed that he was due some pretty good money in bonuses that year. Not all his guesses were right.


He'd been right about the farm. Walking around the city that night after the envelopes were opened he'd run into Alex as he was packing up the truck. Johanna hated Christmas trees and now that she wasn't coming home, Joe thought he'd buy one. Things hadn't been going too well for Alex and, as a joke, he'd made a little cardboard sign that said "For Sale -Everything." They talked. And, after a couple of trips upstate, and a number of hot meetings with his lawyer, Joe became the principle owner of Macintosh Garden and Farms. Trees, cheese and breezes he liked to say. He pumped a lot of money into the farm, they expanded the vegetable section, got a second and a third truck, hired more people. He doubled Alex's salary. In a year things were humming. And he was about as happy as he thought he ever could be.


JoHanna was sitting the booth by the door. The box, a little bigger than a shoebox and very white, was on the table.
"How's the farmer?"
"Why didn't you just send me this thing?"
"I'm fine, thanks for asking. Well, one, I know it's our Christmas cards from the box and two, I want you to know I don't want you sending them out with my name crossed out."
"Don't forget Choo-choo and Jo-jo."
"That's what I mean. I think you would send them out that way."
"Is this really all you wanted to talk about? Is this really all you have to worry about these days?"
"I don't want you embarrassing me with our old friends."
"You're in a dive of a diner, what if they see you here? Look, how about I just give them to you and you can cross my name out."
"I want you to throw them out, besides I don't have Choo-choo anymore. She got too big and I gave her away."
"Well, let's have a look at them."

He took the knife from it's holder on his belt. Johanna's eyes got as big as piepans, Joe smiled and sliced through the tape. There were five hundred cards and envelopes. As soon as he saw them he remembered the rest.

Staggering through the party in the office, the drinks and the food.
Seeing the order blank on Rachel's desk.
Doodling something about what grows in stressful moments on it before, he thought he remembered, tossing it out.
Opening the envelope and seeing what had been sent to the off-shore account as his severance pay but beyond lawyers named Arlene and dog-owners named Johanna, ---twenty six point three million dollars.

"I had them changed. Rachel says she's sorry they got sent to you instead of my new place."
"What do they say?"

The front was plain, except for the tasteful snow drift Johanna had picked out years before. Inside, proving he was still a good guesser of future events it just said this:

All is calm.
All is bright.

Peace.

Joe

=====
Joe(no relation)Nation

Joe - I like "Lunch with the Good Listener." Your powers of observation and description are always right on the money.

I liked "Lunch with the Good Listener" too. I found the scene so piquant as to be painful.

Yes, osso...I think I know that lady. Painful is right.

I need to read "Stressful Moments" again. So much there, I didn't take it all in on the first reading.

Re Cognition

Red-faced, running through Grand Central, Joe turned up his Ipod to try and drown out the incessant holiday muses blaring out across the Christmas Eve hubbub. He double-timed it down the stairs, through the turnstile and headed for the Times Square shuttle. He looked down the long corridor trying to see the Next Train sign. He didn't see the man with the magazine until it was too late to avoid brushing into him. "Oh, sorry." Joe said, "'cuse me." and he hurried on towards the platforms. A train was just arriving, it would be the next to leave. The doors opened and there was a mad rush of people out of the cars and towards Grand Central where they would grab a Metro North Train for Yonkers or beyond. He waited for the mob to subside then joined a dozen other people picking seats for the short trip over to Times Square. He looked at his cellphone to see what time it was. You couldn't make a call from underground but the thing could always tell you how late you were. Everyone in New York, whether they were in motion or not, was late for some where else. He had told them he'd be there by five. It was ten 'til.

Out on the street, traffic was a mess. Blowing snow had been falling most of the day, the forecast had been for mostly cloudy, but what are you going to do? It was just another in the series of things that had gotten in the way lately. The world seemed out of synch somehow, here he was rushing somewhere to really go nowhere. Shuttling but not moving. One more meeting led to three more meetings led to much excitement over one more meeting. The whole thing, this whole life, seemed circular and enclosed.

"Uh um, hey, excuse me. Hey"

It was the modern condition he told himself, there were factors that... .

"JoeBo?"

His head snapped up at the sound. It was the man with the magazine. The lights made it hard to see his face clearly. No one had called him Joebo for years, not since the Sixties or the part of the Seventies that everyone thought were part of the Sixties. There was a sound in his head like a teakettle's whistle and he shook his head a bit to try and stop it.

"It's me, uh, Paulo." The man grinned at him. "I thought that was you back there. How are things with you?"

How are things with me, thought Joe, I was just wondering that myself. How are things with me? There were things about the man with the magazine that he thought he remembered, there was a sagging in the eyes and the face was rounder and balder but it did seem like someone he knew.

"No one calls me Paulo these days. Just Paul. Hey, Paul. heh, heh."

The whistling grew louder, lower in tone but louder. Joe's lips moved but nothing came out.

"I haven't got much time, uh, well, that's not true, but I know you don't, so I just want to say thanks to you. I never got the chance to give the recognition. You know. So. Thanks."

Joe reached for his Ipod to see if it was on or off. It was off. His brain seemed off as well, he kept sending messages asking who the heck this guy in front of me is and his brain kept sending up scenes of coffee house singers and protest marches and granny-dressed hootnanny girls clapping hands and smoke and posters with fists and serious faced people around tables covered with burlap.

"I still sing that song of yours, you know, the Pond song." He leaned in over Joe's head. "Do you? You know, ever think about it.. 'Throw a penny in the pond', hey?"

There was a cloud of dust inside his head. His brain had found the files. At one of those tables in one of those coffee house backrooms, Paulo was sitting, bent over, convulsed in tears. Additional information not available...... something about the universe and you, making reality as you want it to be, hippie dippie stuff.

"Yeah, that's it." Paulo leaned in closer. "Throw a penny in the pond, and watch the ripples go, the Universe responds, the answer's never no."

When was that? And who was that? Joe watched the movie in his head. There he was on stage, slightly out of focus from the grass, lifting the crowd over his head. They flew around and around and held their arms out and embraced each other and swooped and soared with the bass line. "Toss a poem to the wind, fly to where it may, Providence takes notes, and sweetly moves your way." There was a cascading bridge of thunderous chords followed by a thin, almost silent, tickling of E's and D's to the end. There was Paulo, sometimes called Apollo, and uhStevarino, Billbo from whom came Joe Nation's JoeBo, along with LouieLouie and the girls, Mary, Annie, Kathie and Patrice or more properly MaryLou, AnnieLou, KathieLou and PattieLou. It was crazy and wonderful and wild. The JoeBo Nation, and nothing was going to stop them from changing the world. Not the uptights, not the normals, not the frigging war. No matter what, they joined hands over the burlap, looked right into the centers of their essence and knew this that they had was eternal.

"Say yes to the universal vibe, you said. I've been doing it ever since."

"Good for you." said Joe.

"What?" replied the man with the magazine. Joe's eyes cleared. It wasn't Paulo. The man looked away, shaking his head and moved down the car a little way. Couldn't be Paulo.

"Times Square." the P/A announced, "First, last, and only stop on the train. All out for Times Square, the Center of the Universe, Happy Holidays everybody. Grand Central next" The passengers grinned a little as they exited the cars. Joe walked about twenty steps before turning to look back. The man with the magazine was sitting on an end seat. He shook the magazine's pages and settled back waiting for the doors to close.

Joe looked at him. No. Couldn't be Paulo. He headed back to the train just as the doors shut. As the cars eased away he flipped open his cellphone, it was still ten 'til.

Joe(happens everyday to me)Nation

What I like best about these stories: 1. They exude the essence of New York as I recall it. 2. The humanity of the author. 3. The organization of the stories. I just now read them all, and I applaud you, sir.

Theres a kind of economy in the wording that is what everyone should strive for but only a few can pull it off. Joe, gotta say, you write damn good stories

How bout some seasonal horror..

How about the guy who dropped 358 of 359 Christmas cards, which had been lovingly hand addressed in perfect calligraphy by his wife, in the wet slush of their driveway. Panic stricken, he snatched them up out of the soup, raced to the corner Post Office and dumped them into the letters slot before remembering that it was his job to purchase and place upon each envelope a stamp.

Imagine the horror when their own mailbox began to be filled with smeary, returned for lack of postage, cards.

I just thought this up so now I have to go think some more, but I'll bet he doesn't sleep upstairs for several days.

Joe(try to blame the dog somehow)Nation