A Teaching Moment

Posted byjimmcgarrahPosted inLiterary

A Teaching Moment

Note: This is an excerpt from a longer work entitled The End of an Era and that book chronicles my life in the early 1970’s after I returned from Vietnam, spent a final three years at college, and took a job with the Department of Social Services of New York City. The city ran a rehabilitation camp for homeless bums in a small town called Chester in the Catskill Mountains. It was called Camp LaGuardia. I was hired as a “recreational therapist” based on my Sociology major. I knew nothing about alcoholism or homelessness, except for my own post-war difficulties with both.

            “BANJO IKE IS DOWN…I REPEAT, BANJO IKE IS DOWN…”

            –From behind her desk, Rosemarie sang out over the PA system. Feedback from the microphone tangled with her shrill voice and made most of her message unintelligible. But, the squeal shocked me awake as surely as if she had yelled “incoming”. I caught a few additional words clearly… “AMBULANCE…OAK TREE…HELP…” and bolted from the old train station that served as the recreation department as if it were on fire.

The camp ambulance roared from its berth in the Quonset hut that Camp Director Peckinpaugh designated as a fire station, whining and careening down the one lane road to the train tracks, and then along the cinder walking path past the recreation building to the lone oak tree. I beat it there by a minute or so. Randall Crowley, an old drunk from the Bowery in the City, nicknamed Banjo Ike because he walked the campgrounds strumming a cigar-box banjo, lay comatose beneath the tree. Approaching his motionless body, I treated it like a battlefield casualty, feeling the artery in his neck for a pulse. I had seen so many men laid out like this in Vietnam that the situation didn’t seem unusual to me.

As a matter of fact, my numbness, a by-product of being immersed in a sea of violent death for too long, continued years after the war. I don’t mean having control of my emotions, like a Star Trek Mr. Spock, so they didn’t get in my way and distract me from making good decisions. My emotions simply shut down at the first hint of any trauma, as if my brain had been injected with Novocain, and the practical action of survival rituals took over.

I slapped his cheek lightly. He moaned. Three empty lemon extract bottles stood guard around his head and a fourth was clutched in his right hand. Their significance was lost on me. I felt along his torso and the back of his scalp for injuries but found none.

Tommy and Roger, our two EMT’s, slammed on the brakes, ran over with a stretcher, threw him on it like they were loading a sack of grain, placed the stretcher in the ambulance, and drove out the main gate to the hospital. It all happened that quickly. We never even spoke. I was left alone with only the sound of a slight wind rustling the leaves above my head and the echoing siren.

At lunch, Director Peckinpaugh called a special staff meeting. Attendance was mandatory.

“I’ve called the hospital and once again Banjo Ike will live. But, since this has happened before and since I’ve given strict orders that no inmate is allowed any type of cooking wine or extract, I’d like to know what dumb ass brought these in for him this morning.” The director held up the four empty bottles. The room remained silent. “For the idiot who can’t read, notice the ingredients list begins with 40% alcohol. Luckily for us, Mr. Crowley has enough of a history with this product that it only put him in a coma.”

Pale and shaking, a side effect of the brain Novocain wearing off, I left the camp after the meeting. I swear the thought of anyone getting drunk on lemon extract never crossed my mind. I could have, should have, confessed. But I couldn’t afford to lose my job, and Peckingpaugh didn’t seem that interested in finding the culprit anyway. Maybe I missed the workshop meeting on alcohol-laced cooking products, although I had caught the one on Bay Rum and other after shaving products.–

End of excerpt: Anyway, I’m trying to make a point here I think.

I chose to learn a few things from this experience above and beyond the obvious fact that stupidity can kill. I had seen that concept in action many times in Vietnam but forgotten it because no one was shooting in Camp LaGuardia.

First of all, a person will accept most job offers if he needs money or wants power and status but will beg for any job that gives him both of those things even if he knows deep down, he is unqualified for it. Why? His ego tells him he deserves such a good deal because he was meant for something “bigger and better” or because he is deluded enough to believe he can be of value given the opportunity. Sadly, some people may display a true sincerity in either reason. Notice I’m excluding the people who are basically just corrupt, ambitious pricks (think Stephen Miller). They are lost already.

Second, many people who wield power tend to hire those they believe can be controlled, and if someone views the concept of control to the include manipulation, they will look for weakness in character to exploit. I’m not saying Peckinpaugh was this kind of ruthless boss as such. I’m saying he was hired by someone way up the food chain who was and his appointment benefitted that that corruption.

Third, I defer to my father who died many years ago, but left me with a multitude of pithy sayings. In the overall scheme of things, one saying applies here. “Water seeks its own level.” It took me a long time to figure that one out, but it is a true principle proven time and time again in human history. I was unqualified. Peckinpaugh didn’t know or care what qualifications and experience I needed as long as I showed up and his boss in New York City didn’t care about either of us as long as we served him loyally and didn’t bother him with questions or suggestions. When Banjo Ike went down, it became a danger to the smooth flow of this river of incompetence and corruption.

This a teaching moment. I’m not going to attempt a long-winded reflection of how we might explain or understand the application of this analogy to the current Trump administration. I’ll let you apply your own reasoning here. Suffice to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day Banjo Ike wakes up from his coma. Let’s hope so.

Published by jimmcgarrah

Every single person on this planet is unique in many ways and yet, most people consider themselves normal (i.e. conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected). This dichotomy is how good writing works. It contains uniqueness in the characters or narrator and a normal progression of ideas in themes. Thus, a story will be appealing if it has unique specificity in a normalized world of some kind and that creates a universal connection between writer and reader. This symbiotic connection as an oxymoron, normal uniqueness, has always fascinated me, not only on the page but more importantly, in life. Over the past twenty years I have written a dozen books. None have made me famous or rich, but I am proud of the work. It has been published by respectable literary and university presses. My editors have been talented and conscientious and brought the best of what I do to the page. But publishing is not all of my writing life. I have long wanted a private space where I could more fully express this exploration between individuality and society normalcy without regard to the business of writing, the correction of images, the political implication of phrases, and while considering there might be an audience to some of what is written, not worrying about whether it would sell. Therefore, I give you my very first and likely last, public blog. It will explore whatever I feel like exploring at a given time in whatever form I choose—maybe a poem, maybe an essay, maybe a story, or possibly a simple “fuck you” to the world. Read at your own peril and comment whenever you want. I encourage dialogue as a learning tool for writer and reader alike. I do not expect agreement with all my ideas. That would eliminate the entire uniqueness side of my inquiry. This is a free space for us all.

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