The train rushes past.

I’m six years old, standing on tip toes in my uncle’s train room.

Uncle Bob was a carpenter, a good one. But everything he made was too heavy – coffee tables, dressers, chess pieces. He once made this picture frame of thick glass and high-lacquered wood. I remember it hanging defiantly over his couch. My mom dubbed it “the white elephant.” Not only did it stand out but if the screws in the wall had ever felt especially evil, it could have inflicted as much carnage as its namesake. My mother never sat on the couch. My brothers and I did, but only in the way that small children pet large dogs.

Now, there are still some record books out there that will tell you that the most dominating object ever constructed by man was my uncle’s model train board. It was an awesome sight. Thick, sanded wood from one end of the room to the other, five feet tall and 8,000 pounds. It’s been 30 years but I’ll put money on the likelihood that the carpet in that room still has deep indentations.

Some would call it overkill but all that weight was necessary. It was a tribute, respect in the form of pressure treated oak. Uncle Bob had created a dais for the coolest toys around – his H.O. model trains. Unlike anything in my room, these were his, built by him, painted by him, his toys. That made them all the more fantastic.

There were four sets of tracks. Track 4 sat on a trestle high against the back wall hills of the train board. This was where the premier locomotives sat, namely the Re-Re Special, named after Aunt Renee. Track 3, beneath the trestle, was a place of perpetual construction. Your broken down trains hung out here with assorted track-side junk. Beyond this was a hillock of cork and a little pond of moss and dried epoxy – clear and deep.

The bulk of the board’s action happened on Tracks 1 and 2. Here, Big Boy was king. He hauled brown and yellow boxcars, Atlantic Rail passenger cars and the obligatory red caboose. Big Boy was the fastest locomotive in the fleet. He had never heard of Track 3 and man, look at that stack! It actually smoked!

There were the specialty cars too, usually the product of me and my brothers dancing and pleading in the hobby shops Uncle Bob frequented.

The guys who ran these places smelled like our uncle – equal parts sawdust, flannel, Heineken, and cassette tapes by The Doors. I remember Phil of Phil’s Hobby House rolling his eyes when I begged my uncle for the Spot Light Emergency Rail Rescue Vehicle. Phil’s look said, “Get rid of these kids, Bill, so we can talk about some real modelin’…and ‘Nam.”

When we got back to my aunt and uncle’s place, the Spot Light Emergency Rail Rescue Vehicle became the toast of the board. Its miniature klieg shot forth a beam of light that, I swear, carried heat. We turned off the desk lamp and shadows shot around the room, making the train board’s hills look like fast moving mountains on the walls. Uncle Bob placed it beside the Re-Re Special on Track 4 when we were through and I beamed.

My brothers and I weren’t the only ones drawn to the specialty cars. Uncle Bob once placed a pump car on Track 1. Two tiny men in blue overalls stood ready at the seesaw bar between them. My uncle gave the track some juice and the men went to work, sailing the car smoothly down the rails.

It was a different story when we got a hold of the controls. One day, I walked into the train room and spotted the pump car on Track 3 with the retirees.

“What happened, Uncle Bob?”

“What happened? You mugs happened! You fired that thing down the track so fast that you burned out the motor and the two poor saps driving the damn thing – their arms are now about eight feet long!”

We liked to run the trains fast, sure, but the resulting damage wasn’t always our fault. The power supply was from Hell. Frightening stuff. It was a heavy black box with a big dial and hundreds of lights and buttons. If you held it just right, you could pick up signals from deep space. The word, “MOMENTUM” was written across the front in big block letters and when you flipped the thing on, a red light glowed right in the center and watched you like HAL.

Now, red means stop. Easy enough.
Turn the big dial, a green light comes on and the train starts down the track. Still with you.

But MOMENTUM had a yellow light that came on when you pressed a button to the right of the dial. It was real easy to hit it accidentally. The locomotive would stop, then start down the track at an ever-increasing rate of speed. No action could stop it. Turn the dials, hit the buttons – any of them – try hitting the yellow light itself, plead with it, say, “MOMENTUM, please, please stop…momentuming!” But it was no use! The power supply cares nothing for 5-year olds! And Big Boy was going to pay the price. It was headed toward the end of the track. Next stop the Berber below. Run! Try to save it! Nooo! Too late!

“Hey! Don’t run the trains off the cliff!”

“But Uncle Bob! That switch…Momentum!”

To this day, a piece of me cringes at the mention of that terrible, terrible word.

My brothers and I got a little older. We got into different things. Ed joined a bowling league at Farmingdale Lanes – a house with, according to our dad, excellent conditions. Graham and I couldn’t testify to that. We were too obsessed with the bowling alley’s arcade to care.

Uncle Bob came to watch Ed a lot. When we were leaving once, he showed us a large hole in the fence at the rear of the parking lot. Railroad tracks beckoned just beyond the property line.

The first time that LIRR Westbound flew past, I felt it through my whole body. It carried a mini-concussion with every passing car. SH-THUMM! SH-THUMM! Through your chest, slamming your very soul into your back. Standing there, watching, without a platform or any sort of barrier in between, I realized just how far from immortality I really was.

When the train was gone, Uncle Bob gave us each a nickel. We followed when he put his on one of the rails.

“Okay,” he said. “Now we wait.”

We tooled around the rails, picking up spikes and assorted bits of track-side junk.

The next train appeared in the distance and we ran for the fence. When we ran back, I noticed the rails were warm and vibrating. We found our nickels. They had turned into mutant silver dollars – crushed, smoothed out and away – Thomas Jefferson with a carnival mirror forehead. I didn’t know you could do that!

I looked up at the retreating train, now a mile on, now two. It seeped into the horizon.

Have you ever seen two parallel lines coming together in a vanishing point? There’s a fascinating eerie about it, like relativity or suddenly realizing that you’re 35. The inevitability makes you dizzy. Uncle Bob was looking at the horizon too. Maybe he felt the same way. Heavy, but good.

When our uncle died, we spread his ashes on that same stretch of railroad track. We each placed a coin on the rails. An offbeat location but fitting for the Last Great American Engineer. Ashes to ashes. Coins to dust.

And the train rushes past.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at brendynschneider.com © 2011-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission from the author. All rights reserved.

When I was four years old, I made a deal with my dad.

“I’ll stop sucking my thumb if you quit smoking.”

“You got it, buddy.”

One of us kept his end of the bargain.

I don’t smoke. It never took. It’s possible that the anti-smoking movement had something to do with it. When I was in 1st grade, they passed around a pamphlet about this poor bastard who smoked so much that large sections of his lungs, nose, throat and mouth had to be removed. I was terrified. I brought the pamphlet home and showed my dad.

“Lemme explain somethin’ to you,” he said, placing the pamphlet next to the ashtray. “I like to smoke. It feels good.”

“But Dad, the guy’s lungs and lips–”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Miss Amols said it’ll happen to us if we start smoking.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an adult. I’ll be fine.”

“But…”

“You see this?” He produced a carton of cigarettes out of nowhere. “BelAir. Light, mild. Breath of spring time. Menthol. Don’t worry so much. Go be a kid. I’ll be fine.”

When he wasn’t looking, I hid the carton. If he wasn’t going to save himself, I would.

“Where’s Brendyn? BRENDYN!”

“I’m in the living room! Playing Q-Bert!”

“Put that on Pause.”

“It’s Q-Bert. There is no Pause.”

“Where are my cigarettes, Brendyn?”

I got Q-Bert down to the bottom of the pyramid but the snake got me. “Dad, you’re gonna get lung cancer.”

“I won’t get it today.”

“Miss Amols said–”

“I don’t care what Miss Anal said. Gimme my cigarettes!”

I ran. “No!”

“Aw Brendyn! My lungs aren’t gonna fall out!”

Later on, my mom reminded me that stealing wasn’t right and that my dad would just go out and buy a “fresh deck” if I didn’t return the carton. Beaten, I recovered the cigarettes from my dresser, only to spot my mom slipping a pack into her pocket. Jesus. Her too. Had they both gone mad?! What about Mr. No Nose Cancer Face in the pamphlet?

“C’mere,” my dad said, walking into his room. “I wanna show you something.”

He opened the bottom drawer of his dresser and pointed to three tightly-wrapped, rubber band bound packs of cards, each with a masking tape label: “100,” “250” and “500.”

“What are those?” I asked.

“The new barbecue.”

I wrinkled my brow. Then it hit me. “Wait, those are the little coupons on the back of the packs of BelAir. You smoked all those?”

“Just 150 more,” he said, “and we’ll have a brand new barbecue.”

His eyes sparkled with the fervor and burn of 1000 steaks sizzling under a cool Long Island sun. Our barbecue had produced its last warmed-over chop right about the time Roy Scheider shot Jaws. Spiders raised extended families on the burners.

“Y’see Brendyn, these are Raleigh coupons. You save up enough of ‘em, you can cash ‘em in for stuff.”

“What kinda stuff?”

“All kinds of stuff!” He dug out a catalog and handed it to me.

He was right. There really was all kinds of stuff. A few coupons would get you an ash tray, a coffee mug or a lighter with an angry animal on the side. These were for the casual smoker, the pedestrian. A more committed smoker could get the set of tools or the skis. Near the back of the catalog was where it got serious. Jewelry, the easy chair, my dad’s barbecue and on the back cover – Mother of God – the Mount Everest for BelAir smokers: the jeep. For one million Raleigh coupons (and probably as many dollars worth of doctor’s visits), you could be the proud owner of the camouflaged – with optional winter tires – all-terrain jeep.

I had to admit, there was an element of excitement to it all but, well…it was creepy. There were actually toys in there, and coloring books! Is this what happened to Mr. No Nose? Was he gunning for Raleigh four-wheel drive or something more sinister, like a swing set for his kid?

I handed the catalog back. “I think I’d rather you just quit.”

He didn’t. Both my parents kept smoking, and as the years went on, I became a reluctant participant in their habit, especially after the training wheels came off the Midnight Special, the best bike in the universe.

“Hey Bren,” my mother came into my room, her head appearing just above a comic book panel of Jimmy Olsen falling into a cement mixer, “do me a solid, willya?”

I groaned. “Come on. I don’t wanna help you guys get cancer.”

“Cut me some slack, Brendyn. I got dinner in the oven. I can’t leave right now.”

Superman burst through the mixer, carrying Jimmy, cement-y but okay.

“I hate going up there, Mom.”

“Up there” was the deli a few blocks from my house. Its name isn’t as important as the fact that it was run by a pack of large, tank-topped and sweaty (even in the winter) dudes who never knew the location of anything in the store. These cavemen were my introduction to that ultimate branch of humanity: the meathead.

“’SUP LITTLE MAN?”

“Hi. A pack of Salem Ultra Lights, please.”

“SALEM? DO WE CARRY DOSE? HANG ON.”

He sniffed around the inventory above the register and produced a red and white pack.

“HOW ‘BOUT A VICEROY?”

“No. It’s gotta be Salems. We tried that last time. She’ll just send me back. ”

“SLIMS? VIRGINIA SLIMS? I’M NOT SURE WE HAVE DOSE NEITHER.”

I sighed.

“OH WAIT. YOU SAID ‘SALEMS.’ I GOT ‘EM. GOT ‘EM RIGHT HERE LIKE A MOFO.”

He tossed them on the counter and I slid over a five. Ringing up the cigarettes, he peered at me with grizzly bear eyes.

“HOW OLD ARE YOU?”

“Nine.”

“DESE FOR YOU? YOU STARTIN’ EARLY. YOU SHOULDN’T SMOKE, LIL MAN.”

I sighed again. “I know. They’re for my mom.”

“YOUR MOM, HUH?”

He gave me the change, mustering the brain power to raise a single furry eyebrow.

“Yeah. I’m not stupid enough to smoke.”

“GOOD. YOU’RE A GOOD KID Y’KNOW DAT? WATCHU GONNA DO WHEN YOU GET OUTTA SCHOOL?”

“I don’t know.”

“YOU GONNA JOIN THE ARMY WHEN YOU GROW UP?”

“No.”

“YOU GONNA JOIN THE ARMY AND GET BIG. BRASS. BALLS?”

I turned toward the door. “No. I don’t think so.”

“DON’T SMOKE DOSE ALL AT ONCE! MAKE YERSELF SICK.”

Behind the deli, I would lean against my bike, every time, and consider the pack. What was it that drew people to cigarettes? People in old movies? The fire? The smoke? The cancer at the end of it all? I still don’t know.

It’s been years since I hopped on my bike to buy cigarettes but my parents are still at it. I’m 34 years old and I’m still behind the deli.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at brendynschneider.com © 2011-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission from the author. All rights reserved.

My Uncle John’s a wiseass. He always has been. My mother says that when they were kids, they’d be jerking around in church and the older people would turn and around to shush them.

“Shut up!” he’d sneer. “Drop dead.”

He was 11.

At 6, he was charged with escorting their blind grandfather to Babicz Deli. The old boy had been walking up and down Kiefer Street for decades but in the 50s, the town had put in curbs, so he needed a guide to tell him when to step up and down. Payment for the escort service was a pocketful of candy. As soon as my uncle made his collection, he was out the front door and down the street, leaving his grandfather to navigate the curbs alone.

When John got back home, his mother asked, “Hey, where’s Gramps?”

“He’s on his way.”

Growing up, I always knew him as the uncle in San Francisco but he’d come back to Long Island for visits. One afternoon, my older brother Ed came home from McDonalds and our uncle asked what he ate.

“Oh, Uncle John, I was so hungry. I had a Big Mac, extra large fries, rings, another cheeseburger and a large Coke.”

“That’s great, Ed. Why didn’t you just ask them to take you in the back so you could rub your face right on the grill? Save a step…”

Now, the true wiseass, the devout wiseass, knows that there’s more to it than gibes and sheer nerve. On a later visit, a few of us were in my dining room, playing Monopoly. Uncle Bob (John’s brother) was drinking pretty heavily that night and I remember Ed and I being upset about it. Uncle John picked up on it.

“What’s wrong guys?” he asked when Uncle Bob was out of the room.

“It’s just bothering me that he’s drinking,” Ed said, “but I don’t wanna tell him what to do.”

Uncle John looked him in the eye, the way the adults looked at one another.

“Hey, listen. You’re upset because you love him. You care about him, and it’s your house. Let him know.”

Ed chuckled nervously.

“It’s alright.”

I’ll always recall the tension in the air when Uncle Bob walked back into the room. I tore my eyes from my little green house on Baltic.

“Uncle Bob,” Ed’s face was white, “I don’t think you should drink anymore tonight.”

Our uncle was upset. He put the beer down and left the room. I was 13 – still young enough to feel that if you said something that upset a grown-up, you were probably out of line. At 15, Ed wasn’t too far removed from that notion either.

A few days later, Uncle Bob called us. He didn’t yell. He wasn’t mad. He respected our opinion and apologized. It was Uncle John who taught us that it was alright to stand up to an adult and that when you walk through that fear, a measure of self-respect was waiting for you on the other side.

In the spring of 2003, my head was still cluttered from a breakup the previous fall. I called Uncle John.

“I’m not as doomed out as I was,” I told him, “but, man, some days…”

“Well,” he said, “here’s what I want you to do, Brendy (he’s never paid attention to that final “n” in my name). In your mind, okay, think of a giant book. Then I want you to stab it with a knife, right through the front cover. Now, when you open it, the first few pages are destroyed but the knife didn’t damage the whole book, right? As you get further from the front, there’s less and less evidence that the damage even took place. The tears give way to indentations then maybe, what, folds until your pages are clean again but further along, right? The story, your story is a little bit more experienced.”

“Wow, Uncle John. How’d you come up with that one?”

“Some friggin’ girl tore my heart out in my twenties, and that’s what I thought of to get me through.”

It’s no surprise that these days, he’s a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a practice on Long Island and a master’s degree on the wall. He isn’t one of those “mmm-hmm,” steepled-hands-under-smooth-chin “professionals.” He’s a wiseass. Accent on the wise.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at brendynschneider.com © 2011-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

I was talking to Steve the other night. His family owns Village House of Pizza in Brookline (best pizza in the Boston area, hands down).

“Hey Steve. What’s happening?”

“Oh bro,” he said, leaning across the counter, “I’m dyin’. My back’s been killin’ me all day.”

“Really? Out jammin’ till the break of dawn again?”

“Nah. I dunno how I got it. I just woke up with it.”

“Oh, that’s the creak.”

“The wha?”

I woke up one Saturday morning at one-thirty in the afternoon. I was 18. A bunch of us were over Jen’s the night before watching X-Files reruns and listening to The Stone Roses. I hadn’t gotten home until about four-thirty. Even then, you’re not going to bed right away. There’s Raisin Bran, the newspaper, the records you bought earlier that day…

By the time I walked into the dining room, all bleary-eyed, my dad had been to Finest for milk, Island Recreational for chlorine, and Roberto’s Deli to talk trash with the other Knights of Columbus. He’d also mowed the lawn, which had ultimately woken me up.

He sat there at the table, a lagoon of sweat and grass clippings. The Copiague Youth League t-shirt clinging defiantly to his back, his shorts lightly sprinkled with the ash of his cigarette and his shoes reminding me of Dr. David Banner being driven once more over the edge. And there on the table…I’ll never understand a steaming cup of coffee in the middle of summer.

“Just look at’cha.”

“Hey Dad. Up so early?”

“You got it so easy now, don’tcha?”

“I’ll fill out some more applications today, I promise.”

“You roll in just before dawn, sleep till five.”

My head flew out of the fridge, peered at the kitchen clock then returned to the crumb cake on the second shelf.

“I don’t blame ya,” he said, chuckling. “I was the same way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we’d leave Elmont on a Friday afternoon, drive down to Philly, bowl a bunch of games, take everyone’s money, drive back up to New York. Grandma once found $500 in my jeans when she was doing laundry.”

“Get the hell outta here,” I said with a mouthful of Entenmann’s.

“Yeah! I’m tellin’ ya! Y’think I’m kiddin’. But I got news for you, buddy. Enjoy it now because one day…you’re gonna feel it.”

I shuffled into the dining room, tossed the cake onto the table and shlumped into the chair opposite.
“Feel what?”

He took a philosophical drag from his cigarette. “The creak.”

“The creak? What’s the creak?”

“Wait about 10 – how old are you now?”

“Are you kidding me? Weren’t you there when I was born?”

He laughed, clippings fell to the floor. “Fifteen?”

“Fifteen?! I’m going to college in two months! You never know how old I am.”

“Seventeen? Eighteen? Regardless, give it about 10 years and y’gonna feel the creak. Y’gonna wake up and think, ‘the hell’s that?’ Y’gonna feel it in y’back and when you do, y’better get used to it, buddy. Because that’s it. It’s all over. No more gettin’ up at one in the afternoon. No more stayin’ up all hours playin’ grab ass with y’friends. You’re gonna be an adult and the creak’ll let you know.”

“All over?”

He swept the air with his cigarette. “All over.”

I woke up one morning when I was twenty-six, got out of bed and thought a hanger had somehow gotten stuck to my back in the night.

“What the hell?”

I looked in the mirror. No hanger. My face turned white. I lunged for the phone.

“You bastard.”

“What?” he said.

“The creak! The god-damned creak! I have it. In the back, right? The lower back?”

He laughed.

“But it’s only been eight years! You said ten! I got two more years, don’t I?”

“Sorry,” he sighed. “That’s it.”

I imagined the cigarette.

“Shit.”

Back at Village House of Pizza, Steve gave a knowing nod. “The creak. I never knew they had a name for it. Shit.”

“Shit.”

“To think,” he said, ringing me up, “we used to be out all night partyin’ then sleep here in the shop, get up the next day and be fine.”

“I know,” I sighed, lamenting.

We looked at the eight teenagers playing tag in the 4-person booth.

“All over?” Steve asked.

I smiled, sweeping the air with my slice of pizza.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com © 2011-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

Two years ago, the recession hit the company I was working for right between the eyes. Their solutions were to cancel the summer picnic and get rid of enough employees to fill a city bus. When I told my dad, he took it pretty lightly.

“Ah, what’re you gonna do, Bren? It happens. You’ll snap back. Tellya what – I’ll send you a care package.”

A care package, I thought. Kelly still had her job but some extra food would definitely come in handy while I looked for a new job. Ramen, soup, a little Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, some chocolate, maybe a few of those little sausage/cracker/cheese combos people have out at parties. Who knows? Maybe the guy would toss a few bucks in there too.

“Okay, thanks Dad. We’d appreciate that.”

About a week later, I noticed a large package beside my building’s mailboxes. There weren’t any “Fragile” or “Perishable” stickers plastered across the front – the kind of thing you’d expect on a boxful of this’ll-help-you-get-back-on-your-feet. No big deal. The box was from the same guy who used to ask me how old I was the day before my birthday. Slight oversight.

The next thing I noticed was the sheer weight of the thing. It was like a boxful of steel. In retrospect, I wasn’t too far off. I remember huffing the thing around to our apartment.

“Uhh,” I grunted, hoisting it onto the kitchen counter.

“What is that?” Kelly asked, putting on her glasses.

I couldn’t answer right away. My lungs were still in the lobby of our building.

“Is that the care package?”

“…Yeah. God knows what he sent us.”

There definitely weren’t any Lipton products in there and if there was money, it was strictly nickels. I fished out a knife from “the junk drawer” and cut through the eight yards of masking tape. Opening the box, I spotted a heavy cardboard tray inside – kinda like what you get from a deli when you buy four cups of coffee. I slid the whole thing out and Kelly’s eyes boggled.

“Oh my God!” she said, covering her mouth.

For birthdays and Christmas and well, any given time during the year, my dad will send me a can of Spam. It won’t be by itself but in partnership with things like cards or gift certificates, you know, stuff you normally get from parents through the mail. My dad throws in the Spam as a goof. I think it stems from how my brothers and our friend Jay used to blow up cans of Spam on the Fourth of July. Our rationale was Spam’s disgusting, how can it even exist? Let’s just blow it up. I still have a videotape somewhere of Jay and me hosing off my car because the explosion sprayed the back windshield with bits of fake beef. The aroma of scorched Spam and gun powder hung heavy in the air that day, my friends. My dad always got a kick out of that. So, I think mailing random cans of Spam to me is his way of keeping the joke going. Sometimes, there won’t be a can at all and the birthday card will simply read, “HEY BUSHEAD! SPAM! SPAM!”

As I mentioned earlier, Spam, or the reference to it, has been always been sent in conjunction with something else. When Kelly and I opened that care package, we saw a game change. Apparently, when one of his sons becomes unemployed, the gift of choice is a sixteen-can case of Spam.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I muttered.

Kelly broke into hysterics. “I didn’t even know something like this existed!”

Yep! Leave it to my dad to find a case of Spam, and not just the standard stuff you see next to the mustard at the grocery store. No, we’re talking assorted flavors. Flavors! Smoked Hickory Spam. Bacon ‘n’ Cheese Spam. Chicken Spam. Steak ‘n’ Onions Spam. Barbecue Spam! They friggin’ barbecued it! The fine folks at Hormel decided to crack one of these things open, throw it on the grill, put it back in the can and include it in the Spam Party Pack.

“Dad,” I said into the phone. “What am I supposed to–”

“Didja get it?” he laughed.

“No, I got something else. This isn’t a care package.”

He laughed again. “Sure it is! You ever eat the stuff?”

“No. You know I don’t. Have you?”

“Nah but it’s good eatin’. Spam brought people through the Depression, y’know.”

“Dad, what am I supposed to do with this?”

“I tol’ ya – eat it.”

I remember looking at the case, horrified. “Where did you find this thing?”

“Hey, this is Florida, Bren. That’s how it is. It’s not like up there in New York or Boston. They have stuff like that down here on every aisle. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I can’t imagine how much it cost to ship something like this, Dad. It weighs a ton.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Times are tough for you right now. It’s the least I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, if you don’t want it, blow the whole thing up for all I care.”

It sat on our window sill for five months. Goodwill wouldn’t touch it. We couldn’t throw it out. It was kinda food and it didn’t seem right to waste it. We toyed around with the idea of mailing it back but that didn’t seem right either. It was a gift – designed to help us through tough times. So, the months went by.

One day, my friend Greg was up from New York. His eyes touched upon the window sill and he gasped.

“My God!”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is that Spam?”

“Yep.”

“A case of it!?”

“My dad sent it to me back in July as a care package.”

“You’re the luckiest guy in the world!”

“Why?” I asked. “Do you want it?”

“Are you serious?”

“Are you serious?”

Greg finally peeled his eyes away from the window sill. “Bren, my girlfriend friggin’ loves Spam.”

“People actually eat this stuff?”

“Lisa grew up on it,” he said, approaching the package like it was Vishnu. “Spam is huge in Poland. Both our families love it. Look at this! Hickory?”

“Hickory.”

“Barbecue?”

“Barbecue. Chicken too.”

“You sure you wanna just give this to me?”

“Greg, I’ll even carry it to your trunk.”

Now, some care packages from my dad have had a little more edge; they’re a little more perilous. It was June of 2001. I was on my way to the John Hancock Observatory for my Observation Deck Representative position. It was sixty floors above street level. I talked to tourists, pointed out the city’s historical attractions and set up function rooms for private parties. On slow days, I worked on my first novel. It was the best job in the universe, hands down.

Before catching the subway into town, I checked my mail and noticed a care package from my dad. I tucked the box under my arm and sprinted to the train. With my apartment key, I cut through the six yards of masking tape and emptied the Styrofoam nuts into my book bag.

Peering into the box, I made eye contact with a smiling cartoon bottle rocket.

It’s a good thing I was the only person sitting in the car.

“Oh no. This is very illegal.”

Getting to my feet, I knew that I’d be late for work but the very real alternative – taking that box with me into a Boston skyscraper only for it to be inspected by heavy security – was far worse. I took the next train back to my apartment and dropped it off.

Later on the phone, my father laughed and asked, “Didja get it?”

“Yeah, I got it, all of it.”

“Nice little assortment, huh?”

My eyes jumped from the helicopters to the whistling bottle rockets to the roman candles, finally resting on the 6-inch-in-diameter pink cake. A laughing Japanese business man was flying across the label – the result of a giant “100!” exploding over Tokyo.

“Dad, you mailed fireworks.”

“Yeah, I know how much you miss the Fourths we used to have on Long Island.”

“I know but Dad, mailing them is illegal.”

“Legal down here.”

“Not in Massachusetts! And I’m pretty sure the other states along the way consider them illegal too.”

“Bren, in Florida, we got supermarkets full of fireworks. It’s unbelievable. You gotta see the stuff they got down here. Where you gonna light ‘em off?”

“I can’t light ‘em off, Dad! I’d love to but I’m in the middle of a city.”

“You got a roof?”

“Yeah.”

“Shoot ‘em off from your roof.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s not conspicuous. I can’t believe you used the federal government to assist in the trafficking of fireworks.”

“Ahhhh. ‘Trafficking.’”

I could imagine him, waving the thought away with his hand.

“Dad, what if they had gone off along the way?”

He laughed. “Don’t be such a worrier. They didn’t, did they?”

“No.”

“Come on. It’s not like I sent you heroin. Get a bunch of your friends together and light ‘em off. Have fun.”

Looking back, I wish I had. Growing up, I loved fireworks. We all did. That’s really what led to our sinking M-80s into the phony meat of Spam cans and letting them rip. Setting off a few six-stage, 8-ounce rockets would have been a great nostalgic trip. My friends and I could have found a place to do it too. No doubt. Unfortunately, the whole box met a two-part end, first in my bathtub then in the dumpster around back. Yeah, I wimped out. Sorry Dad.

However, I’ll end on this note – I’m starting a new job next week. Dad, if you decide to mail me something in honor of this new shot at employment, I promise to call some friends, find a park and set fire to whatever it is. You have my word.

Readers, stay tuned.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com

© 2010-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

When I was very young, maybe five or six years old, I had this little red plastic walkie-talkie. The word, “INFORMATION” was written across the front. Lightning bolts struck either end of the word.

One afternoon, I stopped my big wheels (complete with skid-out! brake) and took a real good look at the walkie-talkie. What was this word? Why lightning bolts? Was “INFORMATION” electricity? Was it something I could send to “the guys on CHiPs”? We radioed back and forth a lot, after all.

Mom was in the house, making dinner. The chances of an in-depth Q&A session about this new word were real slim. As all kids know, the hour or so before dinner is a treacherous slice of time. The table has to be set, the dishwasher always has to be emptied. If I went in there now, the side of the house might have to be painted. The word wasn’t that important.

Dad wasn’t home from work yet. My brother Ed was up the tree, across the street with our neighbor Vinny. They couldn’t hear my questions about the world earlier on. No reason to believe this would be any different. Who else? Aunt Renee was still at work too. Wait! Of course! Uncle Bob.

My aunt and uncle lived on the ground floor of our house. It was great for visits but their proximity was especially favorable since they had Cinemax and Showtime. We only had HBO upstairs. This was the 80s. Cable was king.

Uncle Bob didn’t have a job like the other grownups. He was a carpenter, which had some strange rules attached to it. There was lots of wood – large, flat, thick, small, thin, long, sanded, carved and usually marked up with a lot of heavy pencil. I couldn’t add in any of my drawings though. Most of the time, he advised that I stay away from “the merchandise” altogether.

There were the green bottles too. H-e-i-n-e-k-e-n was written across the label. They smelled like his breath. I couldn’t touch them either.

The cool thing about carpentry was the schedule. It wasn’t 9-5. Sometimes he went to a place called “the shop” but he was home a lot so we could shine flashlights into space, fly kites, and of course, answer questions.

I found him in his kitchen, sprinkling flakes into his fish tank.

“Hey, Uncle Bob. What’s ‘information’?”

He put the fish food down and I handed him the walkie-talkie. Now, he didn’t handle it the same way other adults would. He turned it over with careful hands, gingerly catering to my belief that this little plastic box was no toy. This was a long-range transmitter/receiver, the same kind of hi-tech device used by “the guys on CHiPs.”

“Sure enough,” he said. “‘Information’ is something communicated from one person to another.”

I remember looking at him, wrinkling my face.

“Okay,” he searched the ceiling for the right words. “You just came in here and asked me what something meant, right?”

I nodded.

“And I told you the meaning of the word. Both your question and my answer – that’s ‘information.’”

“So, it’s like, talking?”

“Yeah, it could be. But it’s an idea, Bren, an exchange. If I put food in the fish tank, the fish know I’m feeding them. What’s telling them to swim to the surface is the information of the flakes on the water.”

I remember the feeling of my brain opening up. Understanding shined on my face.

“You catch on?” he smiled, handing back the walkie-talkie.

I nodded and walked back outside, looking at the toy with new eyes.

Not long after that, I realized that the walkie-talkie was not transmitting my “INFORMATION” back to “the guys on CHiPs” but the conversation with my uncle stuck with me. For a long time, I didn’t know why.

Just after he died, the lesson’s underlying message finally dawned on me. There’s the stuff about communication – its design, its function. But when “INFORMATION” is peppered with respect, patience, and a keen sense of timing, it becomes something far greater.

So Uncle Bob, out there in the Great Beyond, thanks for introducing me to wisdom.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com

© 2010-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

Last year, I called my dad and asked him what he wanted for Christmas. It was usually an easy call. He’d say, “Nothin’. Don’t get me anything.” Then we’d talk about something else. Last year was different.

“Purple shorts.”

“Purple shorts?”

“Yeah. Extra Large.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I can’t find ‘em anywhere down here.”

“Dad, if you can’t find them in Sarasota, what makes you think I’m gonna be able to find them in Boston…in December?”

“Oh c’mon,” he said. “You live in a major metropolitan city. You can’t tell me nobody up there has purple shorts.”

“Well, maybe in the summer but–”

“Send me down a can of beans too. I hear they’re good up there. That’s what you people eat up there, right?”

“…Beans and purple shorts.”

“Yeah, extra large.”

He did have a point. Boston’s a big city and though I’d never seen anyone walking around the Bay State wearing a really big pair of purple shorts, there had to be some kind of demand for them, right?

Filene’s, nothing.

Macy’s, nothing.

City Sports – the girl behind the counter who looked like a chewed on Alicia Keys just laughed at me.

“What?”

“Oh, nuthin’. I don’t think we have those here.”

She was right. City Sports was too pedestrian for a serious pair of shorts. My father didn’t want some paper-thin crap. He wanted the unparalleled. I had to get serious.

That meant Ramone’s Inc.

Ramone’s has since closed but in its day, it was the epicenter for hip hop gear in downtown Boston. I stood across the street, watching the customers. They weren’t messing around. Everyone looked like Dolemite, even the girls. I was a skinny white man with glasses on. I took a big breath and scampered across the street. Everything I did felt like a scamper.

Isaac Hayes oozed around the racks inside.
Filene’s had ceiling speakers. Macy’s had ceiling speakers. Ramone had Bose woofers and tweeters with chrome rims.

A giant man and his tree-like friend stood cool beside the register. I approached them, feeling like a fabric softener commercial.
HIYA FELLAS!

“‘S’cuse me,” I said.

“Whassup?”

“Yeah, umm, do you guys carry shorts?”

The oak tree laughed but the giant kept his cool.

“It’s winter time, B.”

“No, I know,” I replied. “It’s my dad. He lives in Florida and he wants purple shorts.”

The blood crept around my neck and I felt like that near-sighted kid from Revenge of the Nerds.

“You can try over on discount but I don’t think we got anything like that right now.”

I walked back to the discount rack, hearing them snicker. Giant posters of Biggie and Tupac glared at me. I wanted to kill my father. What the hell was I doing in Ramone’s looking for purple shorts? This was karma for all the times I sent people Mahogany cards during the holidays as a goof. Now, I was the goof, the Great White Goof shopping for his retired father in Ramone’s Inc.

I sighed and looked through the rack. There were gold shorts in L, about thirty Knicks shorts in XL but nothing in purple, not even jogging pants I could cut in half.

My first and only visit to Ramone’s had come to an end.

“No luck,” I said, passing them at the register. “Thanks anyway. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry you.”

My brother Ed swears by Marshalls. I’ve seen him do it too. Some of the coolest clothes ever thread together have been in his back seat while signaling out of a Marshalls parking lot. I have no idea how he does it. To date, the only time I have ever bought anything in Marshalls was last year. Purple shorts XL, discount rack. Ramone, respect.

They were marked down a dozen times. When I took them to the register, I half-expected the cashier to pay me. Maybe balloons would fall from the ceiling and sirens would go off since the shorts – velour, no less – were finally leaving the store.

“Boy,” the cashier said. “We’ve had these for a while. My Goodness.”

“It was the last one over there too.”

“Well, they’ll look very nice on you.”

“Thanks,” I smiled. “I love purple hats!”

She wanted to tell me but decided to keep it to herself. It was a gift, really. When you’re in customer service, the only thing you have that successfully combats the monotony of it all are the crazies that come in from the cold. It passes the time. I could hear her on her smoke break later on: “During the holidays, you get all kinds.”

A few weeks back, I called my dad and asked what he wanted for Christmas this year.

“C’mon Dad. Another pair?”

“Hey,” he said. “This is Florida. You can’t just have one pair of shorts down here.”

Unbelievable.

“And don’t forget the beans this year.”

I thought of the cashier at Marshalls. You do get all kinds…and sometimes they’re members of your own family.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com

© 2009-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

The ’87 Lincoln pulled up to the curb, slowly, warily. My grandfather sat next to me in front of his garage, shaking his head.

“Hi Ed!” came from the driver’s side window.

“Whaddaya say, Ed?” my grandfather called back.

When I was ten, everyone was named Ed. I was once painting the main room of my grandfather’s VFW with my brother when he turned to me and said, “Hey, Bren! You’re the only guy here not named Ed!”

He was right. My brother, my father, my grandfather and his two best friends – all Ed. “Brendyn” wasn’t “Ed.” It wasn’t even close. When you’re ten, the last thing you want to be is different.

Back in front of the garage, my grandfather and I watched his friend pull back and forth against the curb in a painstaking search for the perfect parallel park.

“Remember,” my grandfather said, “Herkins can’t hear outta his left ear so talk on the right side, loud. Betcha five bucks he talks about the goddamned peas. The guy gets up at dawn, drives 10 miles out of his way just to save a nickel on a can of vegetables. The jerk.”

I grew up thinking my grandfather hated his friends. They were jerks, dummies and morons. Yet, these dummies never failed to visit my grandfather. Maybe that’s why he complained. They never failed to visit. They were there every day.

He didn’t have a choice, really. With no driver’s license and two hip replacement surgeries, mobility didn’t play a very central role in my grandfather’s life.

“They’re thinking about you, you old grouch,” my grandmother would say, a deep knit in her brow.

When his friends dropped by, they were being thoughtful. Then again, maybe visiting my grandfather was like taking that back pill or asking the men down at the pier if they were catching anything. Maybe it was just another box to check off on the Daily Things To Do list. If that was the case, I’d be ticked off too.

Herkins got out of his car and started down the driveway.

“Fer crissakes, here he comes,” my grandfather mumbled.

“Hey Eddie, I was just over at the A&P.”

“You don’t say.”

“Hey!” Herkins came to an exaggerated stop, smiled big and pointed at me. “Who’s this – your grandson Edward?”

“No, I’m Brendyn,” I said.

Herkins cupped his ear. “What’d he say?”

“I tol’ya,” my grandfather said, “the right ear.”

“His right or mine?”

He waved his hand and said, “Edward and Graham aren’t here, Ed. This is the middle guy, Brendyn.”

“Ohhh. How are you, Brian?”

“It’s Bren-”

“Skip it,” my grandfather mumbled.

“I’m fine, Mr. Herkins. How are you?”

“How am I?”

Old people always repeat the last thing said when they’re upset about something.

“I’ll tell you how I am,” Herkins said, sitting down. “The goddamned A&P up on Hempstead Turnpike – you should see the price they’re asking for lima beans. What a racket!”

“Worse than the peas?”

“Worse than the peas? I gotta drive all the way to East Meadow just to save a couple dollars.”

My grandfather frowned and looked at me. I tried not to laugh.

“You gotta watch these people,” Herkins folded his arms. “They’ll stab you right in the back.”

Ed Herkins was once at his doctor’s office and the conversation turned to his bedside radial clock. This was the old fashioned kind where the hands and numbers glow in the dark. Herkins had heard somewhere that the clock emitted “radiation beams.”

“Is that true, Doc?”

“It is, Ed, but it’s not enough to cause you any harm. Don’t worry about it.”

Herkins did worry. With this confirmation, the clock would have to go. He wanted this radiation machine as far away from him as possible. When he got home, he went straight to his bedroom, grabbed the clock…and moved it to his wife’s side of the bed.

An ’89 Bonneville rumbled to a rest behind Herkins’s car. Ed Goldberg got out and started down the driveway.

“Whaddaya say, Ed?” my grandfather waved.

“Who’s that with you, Eddie – Josephine?” Goldberg asked.

Josephine was my grandmother.

My brother Ed always said that Goldberg sounded like Deputy Dog. For me, his coke bottle glasses got in the way of the comparison.

“Oh! It’s your grandson!” Goldberg said, shaking my hand.

“Hi, Mr. Goldberg.”

“When the hell you gonna get those goddamned eyes fixed?” my grandfather asked.

He had good reason to be concerned. One night, about a year before, my grandfather and his fellow veterans were spilling from their VFW hall. It was just a block from my grandfather’s house so he walked home after the meetings. As he stepped from the curb, Goldberg backed into him with the Bonneville, knocking him down.

“Eddie! I just didn’t see you!”

“You jerk!”

There was no lasting damage but my grandfather never let him forget the incident.

Back in front of the garage, Goldberg began waving his hands. He had pressing news.

“You know who passed away, Eddie?”

Ed Goldberg was Elmont’s obituary column.

“What’s that, Ed?” Herkins cupped his ear.

My grandfather turned to him. “Shaddap!”

“The Commander at Malverne’s American Legion,” Goldberg said. “Lou Goner.”

“Yeah, well, good,” my grandfather replied. “Goddamned pain in the ass.”

I knew who Lou was. My dad and I once dropped in on one of my grandfather’s lodge meetings. There weren’t any stag films going, as I imagined on the car ride over. It was just a bunch of old men hanging around. One of them was Lou Goner. When we arrived, he walked up to me, very excited.

“You’re Duke Schneider’s grandson!”

It wasn’t a question. He declared it.

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“You’re the guy who works on the fishin’ boat! How’s the fluke fishin’ right now now? Still low?”

Another declaration – this one wrong – followed by two questions I had no idea how to answer.

“Uhh…no, that’s Ed, my older brother. He’s a mate on the Laura Lee.”

“Oh,” his face sunk then sprang to life. “Oh! You’re the trumpet player! You’re in the marching band and play in all those competitions, you betcha!”

I smiled. “No, that’s Ed too.”

“That’s Ed too. So, what do you do?”

What did I do? I didn’t know what I did. What do you do at 12? I was confused by pretty girls and fiery old men.

“I act,” I said, finally. “I wanna be an actor.”

“An actor?”

Lou looked away, squinted, then turned toward the group of guys next to the pool table and said, “Okay, let’s get the cards.”

My grandmother came out from the back door with four cans of soda. Herkins and Goldberg cheered.

“Hey, hey! There she is!”

“Here’s your better half, Eddie!”

“Hi Ed. Hello Ed.”

She handed out the sodas and turned to my grandfather. “Well, that’s it. Ron Gilman will have to find his own way down to A.C. The Ladies Auxiliary just voted him off the bus. Forty-two years old. He oughta be ashamed of himself.”

“What happened, Grandma?”

My grandfather turned to me. “What happened? Huh!”

“Ron is the young fella in our group,” my grandmother explained. “We all go down to Atlantic City every few weeks and he’s always been in charge of the movies on the bus. They’re usually pretty good. Well! Coming back on Tuesday, he put on an X-Rated movie.”

Think of it. Forty old people on a Greyhound, just south of Perth Amboy. Their eyelids are heavy, the credits to Yes, Giorgio are just wrapping up, the air is hot and stagnant, and the faint aroma of Bengay floats just above the seats. Ron, completely ripped over the life choices that have brought him to that bus decides to become an historical fact.

“That’s awesome!” I threw my head back and laughed.

“It’s not awesome!” my grandfather replied. “We don’t need to see that! We’re old!”

I get to thinking about my own friends. I wonder whose garage we’ll be sitting in front of when we’re in our seventies. Will the A&P still be cheating people with their peas? Who’s going to hit whom with their car? Will any of us be offended when Ron’s son throws on a porno?

I do know that history likes to repeat itself. If we’re anything like my grandfather and his friends, I’m looking forward to that new first name majority.

***
Read more about my grandfather here:
The Duke
You Get No Bread With One Meatball
Basement Archaeology
***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com

© 2009-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

Last November, I started getting emails from this guy down in Florida. He asked that I not use his name so I’ll call him “Hank.” Feeling nostalgic for his old home town, Hank had been researching Elmont and stumbled upon The Phantoms of Bowlaire and Elmont Ghosts here on Dadity. To his shock, the stories took him back to his own Bowlaire experiences in the 70s.

During his first week as a bar back, the regulars began sharing stories about the bowling alley. Initiation, he thought, a way of “screwing around” with the new guy.

Then, one night, Hank got to know the place a little better.

The late league had finished. There were a few stragglers, hanging around on the settees but most had gone home. Hank was leaning up against the front desk with Joe, the manager’s brother-in-law, when they heard Rocky, Bowlaire’s watch dog, barking from the mechanic’s office.

Rocky was a large, German shepherd – intimidating on the outside but always gentle. If he was barking, someone had broken in.

Joe grabbed a bowling pin and they ran to the back hallway. Nearing the office behind storied lanes 13 & 14, they could hear Rocky’s temper swell. Hank expected to see a would-be burglar pinned to the corner of the room but when they threw open the door, there was only Rocky, barking and snapping…at the air. Joe yelled but the dog ignored him.

“We were both a bit apprehensive about getting too close to him,” Hank said, “figuring that Rocky had lost it. We inched closer and kept yelling his name. He stopped and slowly started looking around. He looked right at us but then again, more through us, and made a charge. I thought for sure that I was toast. Never had I been bitten before, but I thought this was it. He ran right at us, then past us, and out the door.”

Rocky ran the length of the house and stopped behind lane 32. He looked up at the ceiling and lunged, baring his teeth, barking and biting.

“What really freaked me and Joe out was how the dog slowly started to stare at the ceiling, looking farther and farther toward the direction we all came from, as if someone had a flash light shining up there. Rocky finally recognized that we were there and started his usual tail wagging and licking. He was back.

“I asked Joe, ‘What the hell did we just witness?’

‘He said, ‘John.’

‘…John who?’

‘John, the ghost.’”

In the five years since my father had worked there, the ghost(s) had acquired a name.

Concerned that Hank was some sort of internet fabulist, I ran his story past my dad. He corroborated the location of the mechanic’s office and where the 32nd lane had stood. He even had his own dog story:

“There was this guy who used to walk his dog around Elmont. When I was a kid, my friends and I, we’d call the dog his wife because you’d always see them together. Well, one day, he’s walking by Bowlaire and he doesn’t have his dog with him.

‘Hey! Where’s your dog?’

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I never bring him around here. He doesn’t like the bowling alley.’”

A few weeks later, I got another email from Hank.

It was a busy night. Charlotte, the bartender had asked him to run over to the walk-in for a bottle of Almaden. The walk-in was a large freezer, or in Bowlaire’s case, a big, cold closet on the far end of the snack bar.

Hank walked across the bowling alley and ducked behind the snack bar lady. He looked around the walk-in but couldn’t find the Almaden.

Back in the bar, he said, “Charlotte, I didn’t see it. I think we’re out.”

“Oh, you didn’t look hard enough.”

Back across the house, behind the snack bar, into the walk-in. Still no Almaden.

Returning to the bar, he could see the customer losing patience.

“Hank, please, go look again.”

With a sigh, Hank shuffled back across the bowling alley. He opened the door, gave the freezer a cursory glance and was just turning away when he heard a crash behind him. There on the floor was the bottle of Almaden, shattered to bits.

“It didn’t break in front of me,” he said, “but behind me. There was no way for it to fly off the shelf, unseen, make a hard right-hand turn in mid air, and shoot past my head through the doorway.”

Was the woman working the snack bar playing tricks?

“Hardly likely since there were customers sitting three feet from us at the snack bar, and I do not think that a 60 year-old lady (who) could look like anyone’s grandmother would do something like that.”

Maybe one of the customers? Then again, how would they have known which bottle Hank was looking for? Who could have stayed just one step ahead of him? Perhaps it was a mischievous entity named John.

Hank disappeared for a little while after the Almaden story. I started to wonder if he had gotten second thoughts about emailing me. The whole dynamic is a little strange. You work at a bowling alley when you’re seventeen and witness a string of events that cannot be explained. Then, thirty years later, a total stranger hits the internet with ghost stories that sit right next to your memories. Sometimes it’s a small world in the strangest of fashions.

Hank returned in March and apologized for being away. His job had gotten the better of him through the winter and he just hadn’t found the time to write. Lousy jobs.

The Rocky story had been good, the Almaden story got me thinking but the next one had me looking over my shoulder. Hank called it The Candle in the Restaurant story.

“I was working as usual, cleaning things up for the 9pm league play when I was paged to go to the bar. It was the usual. The bartender (Joe) needed more beer. The beer was located in the basement of the restaurant.”

On this night, the restaurant was closed. Hank walked over to the wrought iron gate entrance and jimmied the lock.

“It was very dark. The light switches were not located at the entrance as you would think, so I had to walk in the dark, down a hall, maybe 25 feet or so in length, just to get into the main dining room. At the end of the hall you would have to make a left turn and kind of feel your way around the corner to find the kitchen door entrance which was right behind a bus boy station. I did this so many times that I really knew every corner, but once you made the turn it was completely black. Ginger navigation was required.”

In the kitchen, he turned on the lights then went downstairs into the basement and across to the far wall where the beer was kept.

“As I bent down to pick up the case of beer, I heard music, very faint music. I didn’t think much of it at first, but then it hit me. Where in the hell is this coming from, because it was not possible to hear the bar music from the basement, and even if I could, (this music) was not what was playing in the bar as I left. It was dinner music, or elevator music, REAL easy listening. I quickly put the case down and (ran) up the stairs.”

Back in the kitchen, Hank spied the stereo system above the kitchen door. It was on. With fear in his steps, he threw open the door to the dining room. The music was loud and the room was no longer dark. Beyond the legs of overturned chairs and bare wooden tables stood the corner booth, set for dinner – a table cloth, white and pressed, two place settings, silverware, wine glasses and one lit candle, the wick and flame stone still.

Hank ran.

“Where the hell is my beer?” Joe asked.

“Who the hell is screwing with me?” he shot back.

Hank explained and something in the account struck Joe. He had the snack bar attendant watch the bar and returned to the restaurant with Hank. There was the candle. There was the easy listening, out of place in tension.

Hank swallowed.

Joe turned to him. “I have better things to be doing than to have you waste my time.”

“But-”

“Get the f’in beer and put the room back.”

That’s when the candle went out.

“Joe!”

The stereo fell silent.

Joe ran from the restaurant and Hank was right after him. Just outside the gate, they saw two bowlers leaning up against the lockers.

“You see anyone come out this door?!” Joe yelled.

They shook their heads.

“I said did you see anyone come out this door?!”

“No.”

“Nothing.”

All of Bowlaire’s employees were called into the bar. No one beside Joe and Hank had been in the restaurant. No explanation could be found.

Hank speculated. “How long do you think it would take to walk down a hall that was 25 feet or so? Maybe 15 seconds? Then turn a corner and enter the kitchen (albeit in the dark and more slowly than normal). Maybe another 10 seconds tops. Remember I had done this many times before, but I’m being generous here. Turning the light on in the kitchen and running down the stairs – 5 seconds (even if I walked)? Then walk to the back of the basement – another 15 seconds? Hear the music and run back up…”

45 seconds in all, from the gate to the rear of the basement.

“Even if someone ‘jimmied’ the gate right behind me, without me hearing them (which was impossible, but let’s play it out) and followed my every step just a few feet behind, then waited for me to go through the kitchen and down the stairs, they would have had less than 30 seconds to set the table, light the candle, turn on the music and get out unseen. Oh and by the way, you needed a chair from the restaurant to reach the stereo above the doors, and there was no step ladder in there.”

Even if Joe had been in on a rather elaborate, perfectly timed prank, two questions remain: Who shut off the music and even more fantastic – who blew out the candle?

“If this was the only ghost story of the place, maybe by now I could have been persuaded into believing that I was taken. But this was Elmont Bowlaire, and (this story) was just one of many strange things that took place there.”

If you were there, or if someone you knew saw something that defied explanation, contact me at brendyn.schneider@hotmail.com. Maybe when all the tales are in one place, some sense can be made of the ghosts of Bowlaire.

*
Read more about Elmont Bowlaire by clicking:
The Phantoms of Bowlaire
Elmont Ghosts

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com

© 2009-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.

The name “Timmy Tickson” is an alias. His real name remains safely anonymous.

It was my first bike, my first real bike. The training wheels were off and I knew how to fly. I could stop with the best of them too and not by crashing onto the lawn. No, no more of that. After studying the techniques of the kids around town, I was doing that swing-yer-leg-around thing like Bruce Jenner.

I was going places: across Montauk Highway to Tanner Park, over Scudder Avenue to the schoolyard swings and up to J&G Deli for my parents’ cigarettes (This was a few years before school passed out a pamphlet about a guy who smoked so many cigarettes, his lungs and part of his neck were removed). Bell Air Kings for Dad? No problem. Salem Ultra Lights for Mom? Sure thing. Cocoa Puffs and milk for us all? Back in five minutes. Clock me.

I was the captain of the fastest starship in all the Milky Way. That’s right, friend. You can read it right there on the chain guard.

The Midnight Special.
Don’t step.

I even had a theme song when I rode it.
It’s just a midnight speh-shullll, ridin’ through yer TOWWWN.

God only knows why I sang it in a gritty Texan accent. This was Copiague, Long Island. I guess I was thinking of those Chevy commercials.

Well, with this Lone Ranger-Silver relationship in mind, consider the sudden charge in the air on that Saturday morning when my mother called from the driveway, “Hey Bren! Where’s your bike?”

“In the garage.”

“No, it’s not. Didja put it in the backyard?”

The blood rushed from my face. I had docked the Midnight Special next to the lawn mower not even an hour before. My God…

“You left the garage door open, huh?” she asked.

I closed my eyes. I left the garage door open.

Running from the living room, I denied the inevitable. In the summer time, you left the garage door open. That’s the way it was! Ed did it. Our parents did it. We all did it! When I got to the garage, I found my mother standing in the doorway.

“I think someone took it,” she said, a “tough break” expression across her face.

Wait! Of course! It was a lesson. She hid the bike so I would learn the value of prized possessions.

“Okay, okay,” I smiled. “I’m sorry. I’ll take better care of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My bike. You hid it, right? To teach me a…”

She hadn’t.

I could feel the tears, hot behind my eyes. “Mom, someone took my bike?”

“Look, you only got back from J&G a little while ago. Go talk to your dad. He’s around back, working on the filter. See if he’ll go out and look for it.”

Now, the history between my father and our pool filter was the stuff of legends. People quote chapter and verse the battles of Midway, Saratoga and Wounded Knee, but none of these approach the levels of ferocity and anguish fired between my dad and the old Hayward.

“God Dammit!”

As I approached the side of our pool, I noticed water cascading from the pump, onto the ground and into the neighbor’s yard. Old Lady Helen’s property sustained annual collateral damage resulting from the Filter Wars.

“Hey Dad?”

“Good,” he said, stanching the water with a rubber-lined cap. “C’mere.”

His cigarette though wet, still smoldered from the corner of his mouth.

“I’m gonna go unplug the filter then plug it back in. I want you to watch this meter.”

“But Dad. Someone stole-”

“You wanna swim this summer?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Tell me when that meter hits 60. You kids wanna swim every summer but I’m the only guy who ever wants to fix the goddamn thing. ”

He walked to the side of the house and the filter flipped off. When it came back on, I could hear a low and hellish growl.

“Where’s the needle on the meter?” he asked.

“Zero.”

“Ah, the hell with it,” he groaned, pulling the plug. “You people will just have to go to the beach or something.
“Do me a favor. Help your mother while I’m out looking for the bike.”

I followed him around to the front of the house. “How did you-”

“Don’t you think I hear things? Don’t spend the whole day watching TV either.”

Our neighbor, Anthony was in the front yard, helping my mother bundle sticks. As my dad stepped into the car, Anthony turned to him and said, “Hey Ed, I saw a kid standing behind the van across the street a little while ago.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Medium build, short blonde hair. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but yeah, maybe he was eying the bike.”

“Thanks Anthony,” he said, then pointed at me. “Help your mother.”

My father was gone for a half hour. When he pulled back into the driveway though, my smile sank. The Midnight Special wasn’t with him.

“Well, I think I know who took your bike,” he said.

“Who?”

“You know a ‘Timmy Tickson’?”

I did know Timmy Tickson. He was tough. Not only could he fight but rumor had it, he actually knew karate. He’d walk around town in a gi. This was 1983, before karate was a force of good. The Karate Kid wouldn’t be out for another year yet.

“I think he took yer bike.”

“You got smokes?” my mom asked.

“No,” my dad replied. “That’s why I came back. I left them by the filter.”

I followed my dad around the house again. “Why do you think it was him, Dad?”

“When a kid has a new bike, he rides around, showing it off. So, I asked around. Kids up by the school, down by the ball field, around Hawkins Boulevard. A boy in that last group said he saw this Tickson kid riding around on a new bike a little while ago.”

“I know who Timmy is but I don’t know where he lives.”

“I do. Same kid told me.”

My dad lit a cigarette, gave the pool a nasty look and started for the front yard again.

“Timmy knows karate, Dad. If he has it, I don’t think he’s just gonna give it to you.”

“Oh, he’ll give it to me.”

“Off again?” my mom asked as he gave her a cigarette.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go kill this kid.”

“Bring back some smokes!”

The next hour was tough. Though my mother had released me from the yard work, I couldn’t sit still in front of the TV. What was going on? Was my father killing Timmy Tickson? Maybe fighting the kid’s dad too? What if Timmy didn’t have it after all? For all I knew, my bike was halfway to Jersey.

I sat on the front stoop, singing a lonely song. “It’s just a…midnight speh…shull…ridin’ thru-”

Wait! His car! My father was coming down our block. He was pulling in the driveway and in the back seat…the Midnight Special was in the backseat! My father had found the Midnight Special!

He got out of the car with a smile and tossed me a pack of cigarettes. “Here. Give these to your mother.”

Mom appeared at the door. “Hey, how’d you make out?”

“Snot-nosed punk actually tried to stonewall me,” my dad said, sliding the Special out onto the driveway. It glimmered in the late afternoon sun and I winked back.

“The kid comes to the door-”

“Was he dressed like a ninja?”

“Gimme those butts,” my mom said to me.

My father continued. “I say to him, ‘you Tommy?’ and he says, ‘Who are you?’ I ask him, ‘you get a new bike recently, Tommy?’”

“It’s Timmy, Dad.”

“The kid’s not answering me. So his father comes to the door. Big dude. ‘Can I help you?’ So, I say, ‘Yeah, I think your son may have my son’s bike.’ The dad looks at this kid like he’s gonna knock his teeth out, right? He says, ‘Timmy, this true?’ Now the kid’s sweating. He isn’t saying anything. So, we go around, open up the garage and there it is, sitting there – The Midnight Marauder. The guy says, ‘I’m really sorry, sir.’ ‘That’s alright, boys will be boys.’ I take the bike and as I’m puttin’ it in the car, the father turns around and whacks the kid in the head.”

My mother looked at me. “See how lucky you are to have a good dad?”

“Yeah. Thanks Dad.”

“Buddy,” he said, “for now on, close the damn garage door, okay? Too many Tommy Ticksons running around.
“I gotta get that filter running before it gets dark.”
He hit the seat of the Special. “Now, git out there! Go on. Go be a kid.”

I did, with the sun in my face and my father’s fake Texan accent ringing in my ears.

***

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