None of This Was Planned

Home > Other > None of This Was Planned > Page 14
None of This Was Planned Page 14

by Mike McCardell


  We didn’t make a phone call. I walked into the barn and saw Emily raking through the hay on the floor of a stall. Almost everyone loves horses but in every horse barn in the world there is someone who not only loves them but cleans up. That’s Emily, in work clothes and a knitted hat.

  “Anything new and wonderful and super?” I asked.

  With her rake still in her hand she goes, “Shhhhh,” and points to the seat inside her little manure-hauling, hay-hauling utility truck.

  On the black seat is a black cat, sleeping. Of course it is sleeping. If a cat is not eating or playing or looking for food or looking for something or someone to play with it is sleeping. Cats are very smart.

  “She’s new,” Emily said. “She got evicted from her last home and now lives here.”

  Nothing could be better than something new under a roof where it was not raining.

  I talked to Constable Conrad VanDyk, who was getting ready for a ride in the storm. “I don’t mind the rain,” he said.

  A good lesson: when you love your job you don’t mind anything.

  ● ● ●

  This next bit is a sidebar but it’s important. Later that day on my way home I went for a haircut. I sat in the chair and the barber asked how my day was.

  “Super,” I said. “How’s yours?”

  “Passable,” he said with a low, unenthusiastic voice. “When I get off work I’ll be better.”

  Wow! If I had had the courage and the time I would have gotten up, excused myself politely and left, but having neither of those I sat and he cut. I felt sorry for him, spending all day doing something he didn’t like. I felt sorry for myself, too, letting him do that thing that he didn’t like on the top part of me.

  I thought of Conrad, the cop on a horse, who loved what he was doing. You could see it in his face and feel it in his voice.

  And I thought of Emily, who had the less regal job of shovelling stuff and feeding and grooming and she loved her job.

  And I thought of John the barber from a few stories ago. He cut hair until he was eighty and if you asked him how his day was on any day he would smile and say, “Wonderful.” John loved meeting people and talking about things that others liked. And he gave the best haircuts anywhere.

  Sorry for the detour, but every journey has them. Now, back to the barn.

  ● ● ●

  Princess the cat opened her eyes when Steve turned on his camera light to take a picture. Sorry to wake you, cat, but as I said, black cat, black seat, no light, no picture.

  Being a cat, she just closed her eyes and rolled over, a very good lesson in life. If things don’t look good one way, look somewhere else—unless you are looking at something bad that needs fixing, in which case you need to open your eyes, focus and fix it, unless you are a cat.

  “We wanted a cat for the barn. We had mice,” said Conrad.

  Of course they had mice. There isn’t a barn on earth that doesn’t have mice.

  “We sent in a requisition form. It went up through the channels and was rejected.”

  This is what I love about people in administration anywhere. In one way or another they are not going to allow a cat to do what poison or traps cannot do as effectively. If you don’t think about that it makes sense. There is no column for a cat in the spreadsheet of any budget.

  A cat can get rid of rodents easily and it doesn’t miss any. Poison on the other hand leaves the little creatures in pain before they die an agonizing death of thirst. Then birds or other animals eat the dead mice and get sick and then other animals eat them and get sick. Brilliant idea.

  As for traps, even the humane ones where the mice crawl in and can’t get out still have to be emptied, and that’s after the mice have spent a while in a state of panic at being trapped. The emptying part, which is done far away by someone else, still ends in unpleasant killing, and then the carcasses go into a landfill, which is always nice.

  On the other hand a cat hunts the mice down, certainly causing a little panic before it kills, but not like a trap or poison, and then it eats them, eliminating the problem of what to do with the dead creatures and saving you bills for cat food.

  So, again, it makes perfect sense for someone in a tenth-floor ­office with a carpet and a beautiful view of the city to deny getting a cat for a barn with doors that don’t reach the ground—if you don’t think about it.

  Fortunately for the barn, the Park Board workers next door moved and couldn’t take their cat with them. So the good police force on horseback took in Princess.

  “Where was she before she was there?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. She just wandered into the park we guess.”

  “What about the superiors downtown?”

  Conrad smiled, a big smile. Even though this was “technically” not approved, and he did the quote marks with his fingers around “technically,” it was okay, he told us.

  Of course it was okay. No one could approve something that was not approvable, but it had long proven to be the best solution for the problem.

  Steve was taking another picture of Princess, but the horse in the stall behind him was curious and nudged the back of Steve’s head, which made taking pictures difficult.

  Then the horse did it again and I took out my phone and took a video of Steve getting nudged, which was much more fun to watch than a sleeping cat.

  And then Emily got in the driver’s seat of the little utility vehicle and drove out of the barn with a load of . . . stuff . . . in the back of the truck. Princess never moved from her curled-up rest on the seat next to her. No one in administration could find a problem with that.

  March 3, 2016

  Earlier in this book I talked about going to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. When we came home my wife and I wanted to do something with our own garden straight away but it was dark and raining and the crows had ripped up the grass looking for grubs and it was late and I was tired. Three weeks later we are still waiting for spring, and when it arrives we will do something.

  But today, March 3, 2016, is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beating of Rodney King. I’m sure you remember him. What ­happened to him led to giant changes in the world of policing and criminals, especially black ones.

  Rodney King had nothing much to put on a resume. He was ­involved with drugs and crime and generally bad stuff.

  On March 3, 1991, he was stopped by the Los Angeles police for a traffic violation. He was not a good guy, and he looked drunk and possibly was on crack or plain old cocaine or some other drugs that made him uncontrollable and gave him extra strength. Before he could be given a traffic ticket he did some things that were perceived as offensive and in a defensive move a swarm of police descended on his defensively violent body and beat him with clubs and boots and fists.

  It would have been just another day in la, but there was a new invention being tested by someone nearby—a camcorder. This was before cellphones with cameras had been invented. The camcorder was a small video camera that used an even smaller video tape and it could do remarkable things, like record the beating of a drug-crazed driver by a gang of violence-crazed police.

  It went viral before the word viral was used by anyone except scientists. It went everywhere and changed how people viewed police who were not being policed.

  Similar scenes are still being shot and watched by millions almost weekly, certainly monthly, proving that the power of the media isn’t great enough to have quick effects, but twenty-five years ago it affected someone: me.

  I was so upset by seeing such uncontrolled nastiness that I had to do something. When I watched the beating on television I thought of some of the things I had seen in New York when I was a crime reporter.

  I thought of police I had seen beating a black guy they had just cornered, ten against one. I thought of a gang of black teenagers that I saw on a street beating an old white m
an. I ran toward them but they fled before I got there. His face was battered and his pockets torn. They just wanted his wallet but they hurt him badly. I can’t be certain, but I suspect he didn’t live long after that.

  And I thought of the prison guards after a riot had been put down, making the prisoners crawl the gauntlet of guards and bats. The guards were in two long lines, maybe fifteen in each. They all had police nightsticks, which were filled with lead, or baseball bats. The prisoners were made to walk between the lines of guards who slammed them on the backs and legs and heads with their sticks. When the prisoners fell they had to crawl along or lie there getting beaten more. If they were unconscious they were picked up and thrown outside the lines. The pile of unconscious prisoners grew higher and higher.

  I watched this from a window in a factory overlooking the prison yard. The story I wrote about it resulted in a grand jury indicting twelve of the guards. The guards did not like me.

  I also thought of old newsreel pictures I had seen of Nazis beating Jews.

  It was not uplifting watching the news of Rodney King.

  So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I went into my backyard, got a shovel and started digging.

  Raking or hoeing or pulling up weeds wouldn’t do it. The real violence I had seen needed something heavier to make it go away.

  I dug and then dug some more. I drove the point of the shovel into the ground with all the bitterness and strength I had, just trying to get over the endless pain that we as people put us as people through.

  The dirt went flying up over my shoulder and the thoughts of nastiness went through my head. I got tired and then I dug some more.

  In a while, and I don’t know how long it was, I was in a hole up to my chest. The anger was not going away but on the other hand I felt proud that I had done something significant, even if it was just digging a hole.

  Then I thought, “How do I get out?” The sides were sloped and the soil was now more mud than dirt and my leg wouldn’t go up that far and when I tried putting my hands on the surface all I managed to do was drag my shirt and pants over the slush.

  This is not good, I thought, but at least I was no longer thinking so much about bad things. On the other hand I was in somewhat of a bad situation. Okay, it wasn’t a serious bad situation but it was pretty stupid bad.

  If my wife came home and looked out the back door she would say, “Why are you in a hole?” That would be an understandable thing to ask.

  And I would say, “I felt like digging a hole.”

  And she would say, “I can’t hear you.”

  That was because I didn’t want to say it loud enough for the neighbours to hear. I would say just a tiny bit louder: “I felt like digging a hole.”

  And she would say, “I still can’t hear you but why are you in a hole?”

  I wouldn’t want to shout, “Because of Rodney King!” because she probably wouldn’t have heard the news and I really didn’t want the neighbours to hear me shouting about someone they might not have heard of while I was down in a hole.

  If I was still in the hole when she came home I wouldn’t be able to ask her to help pull me out because I knew the first thing she would say would be, “Your clothes are filthy. You shouldn’t have done that,” and I would think she was missing the entire point of the social injustice I was trying to overcome.

  Right after that she would add, “You should get out of that hole and take off your clothes but don’t put them into the machine because it will ruin it. Just hose them off. But don’t take them off in the backyard because the neighbours will see you.”

  I could imagine it all: “Go into the garage, but don’t go too far because you’ll track mud inside and I’ll have to clean it up. But just go near the door and take off your clothes. I’ll bring you something to put on. But try not to get them dirty.”

  So you can see why I had to get out of the hole, quickly.

  I came up with a plan. I would stick the shovel in the bottom of the hole, use it as a pole, push myself up so I could put my hand on the ground, then dig my knees into the muddy side of the hole and push and pull my way out.

  Didn’t work.

  I had a better idea. I picked up the shovel and started digging away at the edge of the top of the hole, putting the dirt in the bottom of the hole. Brilliant. I could stand on the dirt and reach the trench I was creating.

  Not so brilliant. I was undoing the greatness of the hole. How could I brag about the size of a hole I had dug to overcome a bad feeling if the top was lower and the bottom was higher?

  You probably know guys are basically nuts. We have things to prove, like running for president, winning wars or digging holes. And here I was turning my giant feat into half-hearted, wimpish semi-defeat.

  On the other hand, my idea was working. The more I dug the trench at the top the more dirt was going in the bottom, which got me closer to the top.

  I climbed out. No, truly I crawled out. The hole was wrecked. It was no longer the greatest hole I had ever dug. I was filthy and I hadn’t changed anything in the world. I felt just as bad about the news but most of the anger was gone, and I had learned a universal truth. You can’t be angry and exhausted at the same time.

  However, the next time I was very upset about something I would put on a pair of sneakers and run around a track until I couldn’t run any farther. No anger, no dirty clothes and my wife would be happy thinking I was exercising.

  Luckily for me I haven’t gotten that angry again since then.

  Unluckily for me my wife keeps wanting me to take up running.

  The Next Day

  Now I had a hole in the backyard and it was difficult to explain to my wife. It wasn’t even a good hole. One side was lower than the other.

  “Why?” I was asked.

  “A fish pond,” I said. “I’ve always wanted a fish pond.”

  “No you haven’t,” my wife said.

  “Yes I did; I just didn’t tell you,” I said.

  “Well I hope you do something because it doesn’t look good.”

  I read about fish ponds. This would be a lot of work and I did not want to do a lot of work, I just wanted a fish pond.

  That is another universal truth. Between the desire and the having of what you desire there is time and space. There is also sweat, worry, money, scratched fingers, elation and despair.

  This was one of Einstein’s unwritten theories: getting what you want is directly related to how much time and space you have in your garage or workshop or life to devote to it. If he had written it on his blackboard it would have been wwmis, or Wishing Won’t Make It So. I know you have heard of that.

  The formula takes a lifetime to work out and usually at the end of it you have run out of time, or if you do finish it you don’t have the space to display it.

  “You are not putting that in our living room.”

  All of the above goes into making a fish pond. Warning: don’t try it unless you have a lot of time and space, and the ability to accept failure.

  I have written about this before but in case you missed it here it is again. If you do know the story, no you can’t get back your money, but you can skip to the end where there is something new.

  A friend gave me a rubber tarp that had come out of another fish pond. She also gave me an old pump. I didn’t know that to make a natural pond nature needed help.

  I’m ready to put in the tarp, but wait! You must protect the tarp from stones and roots so first you have to line the hole with newspapers. I only read one paper a day. This will take a lot of days.

  Early the next garbage day, in the rain, I walked up our street going through the recycle bags of my neighbours. This included many, nay most, of the neighbours I did not know, but I do know that many of them looked out their windows and saw me going through their garbage. I also know this was followed by many of the
m making phone calls to others with this news.

  News is a very exciting thing to hear, especially when someone who is somewhat, in a small way, known because he is occasionally on television is seen garbage picking

  There are still people who talk about this to their friends. A few times I have had to explain it but to all the rest they have their story, and their story is better than real life.

  This is another life lesson. The National Enquirer makes a lot of money with stories that are shocking to read. I like to read them, too. My mother-in-law loves the paper, but the stories would be dull if the whole story was told, so don’t tell it.

  There were many National Enquirers in the papers that I picked up and then used to line the mud walls of the hole. On top of them went the tarp, just like those who slip the Enquirer inside the Province. No one will ever know.

  Regarding the tarp, have you ever gotten frustrated trying to straighten a large bed sheet? Don’t try to arrange a tarp in a hole.

  Then I filled in the dug-out part of the top of the hole with rocks. Wait, that looks dumb. One part of the rim of the pond has rocks, the rest doesn’t. Where do I get more rocks?

  Many construction sites and many scratched fingers later, more rocks. Remember Einstein’s unwritten theory about Wishing?

  Then, after running a garden hose in the hole for a long, long time, the project was finished—or just beginning.

  The next day, once the chlorine had evaporated, I went straight to the pet store.

  “Would you like these koi? They’re twenty dollars.”

  “For all of them?”

  I left with twenty feeder fish, poor things that are born to die in the mouths of other fish. I would save them.

  After I’d put the plants—which cost far more than the fish—in the pond, in went the fish. I was so happy. It started as a project to relieve pain and now it was bringing pleasure.

 

‹ Prev