CARRY THAT WEIGHT, BOY

         Works like magic every time! The hot water hits the back of my neck; humors begin to stir in the brain and ideas pop forth. My only job is to grab them and hold onto them until I can get them down on paper. Today’s was hard to forget.

Oh, they had to carry Harry to the ferry,
And the ferry carried Harry to the shore;
And the reason that they had to carry Harry to the ferry
Was that Harry couldn't carry any more@

         Where it came from I have no idea, but that is often the way it happens. A door opens deep in the self-conscious and doggerel I have not thought about for years issues from my mouth. I have never even heard the music to these words, but that did not stop me from singing out loud and clear. I had been in the middle of bleating out an ensemble piece from Lucia de Lammermoor, the Bel Canto opera, when the drunken Harry stopped the show.

         A man just doesn’t start singing about carrying his buddy to the ferry. His inner mind is trying to tell him something, but here I reached a fork in the road. There were simple directional signs indicating the ultimate destination of each of the two paths, but it meant making a choice. I did not have a coin to flip in the shower, so I had to choose by instinct.

         The path to the left was marked “Leo, Pontiac, Easter, Atlantic City 1964”; a graffiti artist had covered up the writing for the right-hand way. That arbiter had scrawled, “More boring gall bladder writing.” An arrow pointed to the back of the sign. ‘ENOUGH’ was spray painted there.

         I tried to fit the rattlesnake into my choice. This serpent was coiled on the floor of a small room in a dream that morning. My dog was standing near it, stretching her body toward it, barking at it. The snake was rattling its hindquarters while its head looped menacingly. I was shouting, “Come, come, come Farfel, come!” and yanking on her leash. I was in the doorway. Farfel was ignoring me. My effort woke me. It was nearing six, time to get up and smell the coffee.

         Was the snake trying to tell me not to go lightly into the past, or was it trying to tell me to bury my current problems? Ransacking my brain, I tried to recall Leo and his 1956 Pontiac. Leo had to be carried many a night. A few good souls would take him home, lug him up his walk and deposit him in a lawn chair. If charitable impulses were strong, they would ring the bell to let his mother know her wayfaring son was home, and then beat a hasty retreat before she called them every name out of some Gaelic hell.

         Leo drove us to Somers Point, New Jersey that Saturday before Easter. There he began one of his infamous bar crawls through the clubs that packed the town across the bay from dry Ocean City. These itineraries always ended either with Leo in a fight, or having passed out. This night he argued with a man who would not let Leo demonstrate his pugilistic skills because the man claimed to have a glass eye. Leo wanted to make sure by feeling the glass. This led to his eviction from the club. By now he was ready for his comatose state, so his friends took him to his car and drove off, over a bridge and into Longport and Margate, seaside communities at the southern end of the island that holds Atlantic City.

         They parked the car and all decided to make it a home for the night. They had a full day of drinking planned for Sunday. Sitting cramped in the back seat, I could not sleep. I excused myself, got out and took a walk, duplicating my father’s feat of using shank’s mare to arrive in Atlantic City; he from the west, I from the south.

         I plodded along, my final resting place being the Melody Lounge on South Carolina Avenue, where a Mr. B and myself had spent a pleasant evening carousing while working on an audit in Atlantic City the prior month. That night I had met a young woman who worked at the place we were auditing. I suppose I had vague hopes of encountering her again, but she had other plans. I could only listen to the band rip off Beatles’ tunes while I slipped in and out of shadows. When the band stopped, I hit the asphalt again for the trek back to the car. Along the way, I came upon a sunrise service on the beach. I did not think the sun needed any help, so I did not disturb them. I reached the parking spot. The car was still there, the residents beginning to stir.

         Here my mind goes blank. Atlantic City fast-forwards to the Grand Union Wednesday morning. I was walking the aisles, my Foley bag strapped about my leg inside my sweatpants, catching my fluids the catheter helped dispense. As the bag filled, it grew heavy and bunched about my knee. I began to resemble a woman wearing loose pantyhose. I would stop and pull up the top strap that held it in place. I had no qualms about reaching inside my pants to do so. As I paid my bill and began to leave, I had to give it one last hitch, but to my horror, I disconnected the hose.

         Earlier I had not tightened the shut-off valve enough and found a wet bed on waking. Now with this latest debacle, I decided I had enough of medical maintenance. I could not wait to get to the urologist later that day. The waiting room of his office was packed with men, mostly older than I am, but I saw none wearing my armor. His nurse took me back and assured me the horrid tool would be removed, and it was. Fifteen minutes later I became a free man, my journey down both roads ended.

         As I rinsed the shampoo from my hair, my aria came back to me and Harry disappeared. My mind drifted to a trip downstate this coming Monday, followed by a dinner that same evening with my friend Pamela. We talked about it on the telephone last night: the menu, how to get to her apartment, then she let me know that she will not be home tonight. She and her girlfriends will drive to the ferry and go into New York City.

         ‘She will drive to the ferry!’ So that is where Harry came from, but why? Will Pam and her girlfriends end up toting the unknown Harry to the ferry? Who is Harry? The now infamous Prince Harry? That should be a sight: Pam and her friends carrying royalty to the Staten Island Ferry. Would that I had a camera. Perhaps I should alert Matt Drudge.

© University of California Marching Band. All Rights Reserved.