Happy Happy Smile Smile Teeth Teeth

A few years ago, I was on the phone with PG&E. I can’t remember the problem, but it wasn’t a social call. It’s never a social call. Before getting to your problem, they make you go through a little prerecorded dance: address, last 4 numbers of your social security number, etc.  We’re all used to this, but it’s still maddening when they ask you the same questions that you just answered through voice prompts. Even though it’s frustrating, I never say, “I was just asked this.” I want to, but I usually don’t feel like being a dick. Sometimes I am a dick, though. I’m human.

After answering all the questions again, the rep throws me a new one:

“Greg, are you still a chemist?”

“Huh?”

"Are you still a chemist."

“Yes.”

I'm not a chemist, but obviously, I told PG&E at one time I was a chemist. It was a lie, of course.

Fast backward a few years, the same thing happened with Comcast but they asked if I was a carpenter. Sans sounding like a folk song, I said yes, again. Carpenter sounds like a pretty good profession, right?

This morning I had an appointment at Happy Happy Smile Smile Teeth Teeth (HHSSTT). They’re not called that but they really should be. I need a dental implant – specifically, the number 7 tooth -- and, after a consultation with a with a Swedish dental implant doctor on the 26th floor of a high-rise in San Francisco whose office looked like the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and who charged $11,500 and calls my personal dentist David, I needed to find a cheap-ass place on the ground floor of the suburbs. This place was it. I like my teeth but $11,500 is a bit much and may cause envy amongst the other teeth if I chose to go this expensive route. I can hear them now: "You spent $11,500 on number 7 and you can barely floss me? Come on!!"

 Located in a small office park in the suburbs, it’s the type of dental business that would have a cheap commercial on local channels that ends with all of the staff staged in a horseshoe position in the company’s parking lot, awkwardly waving to an elevated camera -- doctors in scrubs in the front. It’s the type of professional business that everyone warns you about, even the intangible triggers of your body. Regardless, $11,500 for one tooth is $11,500. That’s a lot. That’s a cheap car payment of $200 a month for 5 years and I already had one of those. I needed a $400 tooth or maybe a fancy $1000 tooth. Gold or natural, it really doesn’t matter.

After filling out an online survey asking how dental implants would improve my life, and answering “other,” which followed with a write-in field to specify my answer of “I would stop looking like a hillbilly,” I made an appointment with a dropdown menu on their website. 3 voicemails, 2 texts, and 1 email confirmation later, guaranteeing I would show up, I arrived at the office of HHSSTT. Squat and angular, the building housed 2 other like-minded medical chains -- one boasting bioidentical hormones replacement therapy (huh?) -- and a café in front for employees to get coffee.

Cheap side chairs hugged the walls of reception, interspersed with small, square tables. Curated magazines of Golf Digest, INC., Better Housekeeping, Ebony and, for the kids, Highlights hung from a rack near reception. Reception handed me a thick stack of forms to fill out and I found a seat farthest away from the other three people in reception.

Answering no to diseases, symptoms, and allergies, and mindlessly signing my signature at the bottom of each page, I handed the clipboard back to reception and waited.

A friendly woman in her 20s greeted me. I followed her back to her office where she proceeded to explain what HHSSTT did. It had been 6 months since rogue tooth number 7 went south. In this time, I educated myself on dental implants and had a couple of consultations. So, I was a knowledgeable patient, dropping industry words like “stay plate” and “bone density,” to let them know I was a player.

As she demonstrated the actual process of a dental implant, screwing a hand-sized tooth into a large jawbone on the top of her desk, my mind went muddy. I knew all this: pull tooth, wait, drill a hole and screw-in new tooth. But what I really wanted to know was how much it cost.  It appeared to be a state secret.

She finished her pitch with the price: “$7500…start to finish,” her voice dropping to almost an inaudible volume. Like the other dentist dropping $11,500 bill on me, I looked at her with an expression that conveyed the words “chump change.” When, in fact, my mind was racing with cheaper alternatives.

She left the room while  I watched a 10-minute infomercial on a mounted TV in the corner, promising to be back with a doctor. As the credits rolled, the door opened. A petite woman in green scrubs walked in and introduced herself as a doctor at HHSSTT. She took a seat and paused. She was thinking about something. 5 seconds of silence felt like an eternity. Finally, she blurted:

“So, you’re a semi-professional scuba diver?”

Oh shit, she actually read the forms I filled out. Like writing 911 for an emergency contact, I wrote "semi-professional scuba diver" for occupation. No one ever reads these things, and, if they did, they usually don’t mention it. Asking someone for his or her occupation these days could be perceived as invasive and no one wants to be challenged for being ignorant. So, I figured I was safe. I was wrong. Her curiosity was stronger than her tact.

Like her, I paused and stared blankly. At most, I had 5 seconds to think.  If I perpetuated the lie, I was prepared to say I was training to be an underwater welder of cargo ships and ocean liners. I was impressed I came up with this, even though underwater welder has very little to do with a semi-professional scuba diver. I was certain she wouldn't ask a follow-up question, if I chose this route.

If I were to come clean, I would just say, “Aw no, I was just joking, having some fun.” Or, as the Brits say, “I was just taking a piss. You know.”  We’d all laugh and they would talk behind my back when I left. I assume this happens a lot when I leave.

In the end, I chose to come clean and then add a new, existing lie:

“Awe, no, I was just kidding about the scuba thing. I’m a chemist.”

The Dispensary, Part One

The dispensary is located on the corner of a residential neighborhood in one of the most liberal cities in America. Long and narrow with cinderblock walls, the rectangular shaped building was once a pet store, the outside walls still adorned with a well-worn ocean mural. A small parking lot on the south side accommodates three cars, pushing most customers to park on the street – something that angers the neighborhood, at least some of them.

Two guards are stationed on either side of the parking lot. Armed and alert in paramilitary black clothing, they look like they were well paid in-house employees, rather than contracted from a security company. You can tell the difference. People complain they’re intimidating, but when you’re selling a product that’s extremely small, light and has a high resale value on the street, you’re going to need some large men that scare the shit out of you. Also, only 30 percent of dispensaries in the USA have access to bank accounts because of prudish banks, I assume, requiring clients to pay in cash. So, 70 percent of dispensaries are like sedentary Brinks trucks. Hence, lots of security.

On the west side of the building, a glass door leads to a small room. The room is uninviting with blank white walls; a mishmash of office furniture and industrial lighting fill out the room. It feels like you’re entering a government building for social services. Through a secure door on the east side of the room, the dispensary waits.

To the left, a guard sits behind a fold-up table and takes your I.D. before walking through a metal detector. On the far wall, two people sit behind a counter — another guard and a receptionist. First-timers see the receptionist; after that, the guard will buzz you into the dispensary. Both guards wear blue and appear apathetic and disinterested — contract workers, definitely.  The behavior is common.

Standing in front of the security door that leads to the dispensary, I pause. My heart races and I can feel the blood rush to my Scottish head, my rosacea face getting ruddier.  The painted grey door gently pulsates from the loud music within — the dull, sustained bass permeating the small room. What lies within the room? I had no idea, but I was nervous.

Before getting to this place behind the door, I did some research and asked stoner friends for help. When I arrived, I wanted to be someone in the know, someone who knew the language, culture and product. I wanted the staff to give me a secret smile or handshake that said, ”This guy is one of us.” I knew I would never be ”one of us” but I could try to educate myself and blend in.

First on the agenda was what to call it? Marijuana? Cannabis? Weed? Pot? Mary Jane? Broccoli? You get the idea. This was important to me. Every word that came out of my mouth felt awkward and, since I never really smoked Xxxx (it made me dizzy when I mixed it with alcohol), I felt I had no right to call it Broccoli or some other hip, current slang. On the flip side, calling it weed was worse. It conjured bad hippies, heavy eyes and stinky head shops. No way. So, after much reflection, I chose its Latin name, Cannabis Sativa. I dropped the sativa, though, it was too pretentious, and I had no idea what it meant.

Cannabis. I practiced saying it: “Hello, I’m here for the cannabis?” “Hi,  I would like some sticky cannabis.” It didn’t sound right, but it was better than saying, “Where’s the weed, Brah?”

With the name settled, I moved onto problems I had with cannabis or, I should say, problems with people who used the product. It wasn’t the product that bugged me, it was the stereotype of people that used the product: white dreads, Bob Marley, Seth Rogen, Snoop Dog, goofy smiles, incense, those patchwork pants you can only buy in a parking lot at a Dead show, reggae, brah, bro, bro handshakes, black lights etc. You get the idea. I was in a bind. The only way to find out was to walk through the door.

The guard buzzed the door. I looked down at my ankle boots and colorful socks and crossed the threshold from asbestos linoleum to hardwood floors? I wasn’t expecting that. I walked in, stopped and surveyed the room: To my immediate left was a DJ, perched above the room like a Pharmacist. He was playing reggae with a heavy beat mixed in. Not good. Colorful, exposed cinderblock walls lined the room, natural light flooding in through the southern floor-to-ceiling windows. In front of the window, a pointy, velvet upholstered vintage Z Gallerie sofa, armchair and side table created a living room setting. A bowl with fruit was placed on the side table, encouraging customers to interact. Opposite the living room setting, a well-stocked display cabinet offered all sorts of cannabis-related products. In the back of the room, a u-shaped checkout counter with evenly spaced checkout stations lined 3 walls. Behind the counter, a single door leads to another room.  I imagined this room full of cannabis and money.

5 Bob Marley posters (4 of them the same) and various bad original art and “trippy” posters adorned the walls. I figured the Marley posters and reggae music was for the stoner aficionados and the tasteful hardwood floors were for the new crowd -  people like me getting edibles. Or, simply, older, white people.

I moved forward, still a little disoriented. There were two lines, demarcated by stanchions. The left line was for online orders and the right for walk-ins.  Having done my homework, I ordered online before arriving and had my confirmation number in hand, like a good cannabis buyer. A handmade sign hung at the entrance of the online line: “No sniffing product, no changing orders.” Sniffing product? Good to know. Even though I knew this meant cannabis for smoking, I still refrained from smelling my cannabis gummy bears.

6 registers were helping a handful of people in both lines. It moved fast. The cashiers were very Berkeley: diverse in age and race and all a little bit high, sly smirks adorning their faces. They were mostly younger and looked like they came for the product and stayed for the job. If dispensaries didn’t exist, they’d work up the street at Amoeba Records. The older employees were all a little beaten, wearing self-dyed organic cotton ensembles in lavender and peach.

A tall, slim man in his 30s with a pointy face and scraggly brown beard motioned for me that he was open, his head nodding downward to prompt me. ID in hand, I bellied up to the counter and said, “Online order. Last name is Kim – K.I.M. as in Mary; first name Greg.” My dad used to say “K.I.M as in Mary” when billing calls to a third number from pay phones. A handful of years ago, I made a choice to be terse and polite when dealing with cashiers. They’re a beleaguered bunch and probably could use a customer or two who are prompt, quiet and polite. So, I refrained from chit chat.

The tall man took my ID, looked at it and typed some info into his computer. He turned, rifled through some bags and picked one. He came back, showed me the product (I didn’t smell it) and I paid in cash.

On the way out, I made sure to not leave through the metal detector. My personal history of doing this usually resulted in some sort of reprimand, so I scooted around the side and said thank you to the guard at the desk, thank you to the guard at the door and thank you to guard in the parking lot. Everyone got a thank you. I was over-compensating.

Walking to my car, I heard the omnipresent sound of a thumping bass. It was way too loud to be coming from the dispensary, so I assumed it was from a car at a red light, the sound organically diminishing as it drove away. I was wrong. It was coming from a parked car. Of course, the car was parked behind me. I got in my car and spied from my rearview mirror two occupants smoking cannabis in the car. They were both young and probably didn’t refer to it as cannabis. Before driving off, I glanced left and noticed a neighbor staring blankly at the thumping car from the porch of her Arts and Crafts bungalow. A Prius and a Tesla were parked in the driveway. Even though nothing was said, it was obvious that the dispensary wasn’t long for this neighborhood. In spite of Berkeley being the most liberal city in America, it also has an exorbitant amount of rules and rule followers. Somewhere in the rulebook, there was a new law, most likely, stating “thou shall not put a dispensary in a residential neighborhood.” However, the taxes produced from a dispensary in one day was probably more than the old pet store made in a month. Money trumps idealism. It stays!

Pee Bottle

Early Saturday evening, a man driving an old Buick parked in the Eastmont neighborhood of Oakland. When I hear something as innocuous as this, I think, “There was parking?” That’s how my mind works. I like the particulars. I know, I know.

He got out of his car and quietly closed the door, his left hand pushing the face of the door while the right created resistance by pulling back on the handle. With the click of the lock, he turned and used his bum to slowly finish the job. This is how you silently close a door. He was a pro.

Scanning the neighborhood, his head swinging left to right, he walked behind his car, paused, looked around again, and walked quickly toward an unkempt hedge that demarcated two properties. Pressing his body closely against the hedge, he unzipped his pants and pee’d - his hips thrusting forward in a concave position.  After one last look, he zipped up, walked back to his car and took off.

Across the street, a person looked out the bay window of their house and saw the man get out of his Buick and pee on the neighbor’s hedge. Instead of flashing their porch light, yelling an inaudible noise or just doing nothing, they got their phone and filmed the incident. For posterity? I don’t think so. They went straight to nextdoor.com, a Facebook-like app for neighbors to discuss neighborly issues.  In this case, the issue was public urination.

Instead of erasing the video or keeping it as a, uh, keepsake, they posted it on nextdoor.com with three questions marks (???) as the title. No context is given, just the question marks.

When I stumbled upon the post, wading through “gunfire or fireworks?” and “lost dog” posts, it had racked up 97 comments. Yep, 97. This wasn’t unusual for the Boomer and late Gen X users who dominated the app. They were angry and wanted their neighborhoods to miraculously change overnight. When it didn’t, they took their frustrations out on NextDoor, which meant posting about cars that don’t use their blinkers to lone people walking by their house that looked suspicious. Hard hitting stuff.

Comments varied, as you may have guessed, from indignant (“Why is he doing to this in our neighborhood?”) to descriptive (“Gross bastard”) to punitive (“You can end up on the Sex Offender Registry for that. It’s like flashing someone”) to the thoughtful and extremely liberal (“Maybe he has prostate problems”). Even though the aforementioned is sweet but misguided,  the truth was probably simple: he had a few drinks – soda, water or alcohol – and needed to pee. Simple as that. Yes, he should’ve found a park,  or even pee’d in a large mouth plastic bottle, clandestinely,  but he didn’t. It’s not the end of the world.

A few days later, I’m parked in front of a QuikStop on 14^th Avenue. An old concrete trashcan and a poorly functioning air/water machine stand next to the entrance. Walking through the front door, you notice a new roll-up door, installed to combat the rash of cars that recently drove through the front door. Two in one week. 

I go there every day after dropping my son off at school. The owner calls me babu, which I like a lot, and their 44-ounce sodas are always plentiful and the soda to carbonated water is perfect. That’s important.  Between babu and the free-flowing soda, I see a lot of this place.

Placing my soda in the cup holder, I attached my charger to my phone and search for a suitable playlist on Spotify. There needs to be a soundtrack for my 10-minute ride home. A man passes the front of the car holding a half-gallon plastic water bottle that’s half full with pee. It catches my attention. He stops in front of the garbage can and tosses it in. That’s what I expected him to do. Oh, no. In actuality, he twists the lid and pours the pee in the trashcan, taking at least 10 seconds to drain.  Mouth agape, I watch every drip flow into the trashcan. I’m astonished. This trashcan has just become the grossest trashcan in all of Oakland.

 I watch as he walks back past the car — empty bottle in-hand — following him until he disappears behind the building. Even for me, a person that regularly pees outside and who keeps a large mouth plastic bottle in his car for these types of occasions, I’m aghast. He’s breaking all the rules of the unofficial pee bottle community. You don’t pour pee in a trashcan nor do you leave an errant bottle full of pee on the side of a freeway on-ramp for men in orange vests, who are working off tickets or DUIs, to pick up.  You just don’t. You secretly dispose of the urine in drain or gutters for the rand to dilute and clean or for the sun to evaporate. We have rules. Follow them.

When I got home, I checked NextDoor to see if anyone posted a video of him.

The Old Preacher

The blond wood table with tile inlays separated us. My mom sat at the head of the table and me on the side, in front of glass block windows. Both of us sitting in cheap peacock chairs. To my left in the living room, a lone wingback chair with arms, covered in silk fabric from the 80s, showed signs of wear. Even though it’s soiled with blood from dad’s thin-blood arms and a waft of urine is detectable as you near, my mother promises they were expensive chairs. It’s the last vestige of the fruitful years. I don’t mention the smell.

Urine and shit accompany us into this world and they’re there at the end, along with blood. Behind the closed door of my mother’s room, blood, urine and shit were prevalent. It had been 6 months since the EMT’s removed my dad’s lifeless body from their bed. Since then, the room remained untouched -- a smelly, stained homage to my father. For now, the door remained closed and that was ok. It takes time.

With death comes honesty and secrets. You learn of DUIs, infidelity, cousins being uncles and painful childhoods. As we sat at the table, I parsed what was new information and what was old. I knew about the mill town where she grew up and the mill where her parents worked the day and night shift. I knew my grandfather gambled and drank instead of watching the children. It was a very southern story, one similar to a John Sayles movie or a Dorothy Allison book.  I didn’t know about her religious background, though, which was quite substantial, given our religious background was zero to nil.

The more you attended church, the more pious you were. It is a competition. If this were the case, my mother started out on the top. Church consisted of Sundays, Saturdays, Wednesdays and everyday for 2 weeks during revival. The latter was jarring. 2 weeks? I questioned:

“Was the revival in a tent?”

“Yes.”

“Why are they in tents when you probably had a church that could accommodate the congregation?

“I don’t know.”

“So, a revival was not open to the public?”

“No, not really, but if an outsider came, I think it would be OK.”

“Man, I had that all wrong.”

And I did have it wrong. A week prior, while visiting in-laws in Michigan, I attended a tent revival. This new information sheds light what I experienced.

Across from Budd’s All Tractors on E. Michigan Avenue in Jackson, Michigan, a patch of grass sloped gently to the road. At the top of the hill, on level ground, a large white tent was erected. A small sign at the foot of the dirt road leading to the tent said “Tent Revival This Saturday.” I made note of it.

Upon returning to my in-laws’ lake house, I announced there was a tent revival on Saturday and that I planned to attend.  Intermittent churchgoers and used to my eccentricities, they were intrigued but not concerned. I don’t think there were private conversations that asked, “Now, why does Greg want to go to a church revival?” Supportive and non-judgmental, they let me do my own thing.

Encouraged by their silent approval, I thought about what to wear. Since I was on vacation, I had a limited wardrobe: shorts, t-shirts, a pair of cotton pants and a button-up short sleeve shirt. I could make it work. The cotton pants with the short sleeve shirt, my nicest sneakers and a straw hat – it would suffice. The straw hat was essential to the outfit. In my fantasy, it would be a sticky-hot revival and all the men would fan themselves with a straw hat or a fedora and women with a makeshift fan. That’s how you did it at a revival.

As I approached the dirt road leading to the tent, I was late, I’m always late. I didn’t really want to do this, —my nerves getting the best of me, but after a pep talk, I pulled into the makeshift parking. Instead of Packers and Studebakers of the past, I got Fords and Chevrolets. Packers and Studebakers were part of the fantasy. I was already disappointed.

The walk to the entrance in the south side of the tent involved more pep talks. Getting in the door was always tough, but once I was in, I was OK. I always assume walking onto a roomful of strangers is similar to walking into a bar in the day, the light from outside announcing your arrival.

From the outside, the twin pole tent was roughly 60’ by 30.’ Draped in a white, thick vinyl with symmetrical translucent windows wrapping the lower half and a series of ropes and sandbags appeared to keep the tent erect. It was a clear, calm day, so it didn’t look like it would take flight from wind and make the afternoon news.

A bearded man in his early 30s was at the door. Dressed in slim, brown corduroy pants, a pressed dressed, a woven brown tie and suede boots, he was not what I expected to see. Because everything was a little flawed and ill fitting, I assumed he got them at a thrift store. This was not due to economics, but a choice. At first look, he could’ve been the touring mandolin player in Mumford and Sons, but his unbridled enthusiasm lent itself to a youth pastor – the guy that drove the bus on retreats and who never got pissed at the teenagers in the back. “ Awe, they’re just young,” he would say.

The bearded man handed me a program, and pointed to an empty seat in the middle back. I took of my straw hat, waved it in front of my face a few times and placed it on my lap. The back of the tent rested against my fold-up chair. It was slightly pitched to the center, rubbing the back of my head, forcing me to slightly hunch. The chair was precarious, at best, so I was careful not to shift weight dramatically. I was already feeling a bit vulnerable, so I wanted to keep the chair intact and me upright.

I let out an inaudible sigh, air flowing out of me. I was here. Let the blasphemous fire begin.

A man in the congregation seated to my left, stood up, walked to the entrance and retrieved two books.  He returned and gave me a bible and a hymnbook. I thanked him and he returned to his seat. I had forgotten my glasses, rendering the tiny type of the bible and the hymnbook useless.  The songs I could pickup. I was a musician and had 6 sporadic months of church-going in 7^th grade, when my parents got religious so I knew I could mumble through the verses and nail the ‘amen’ choruses. Amen, Amen, Amen was my favorite church song. I was hoping we’d sing it.

The bible was different. Without my glasses, I was lost. I didn’t know the books of the bible, the paragraphs, the sub-paragraphs, the verses and such.  When the preacher said “Open you bible to Leviticus, paragraph 3, verse 2,” I panicked. My knowledge of the bible was minimal. I knew it started with Genesis…In the beginning and was comprised of two books: the Old and New Testament – the Old Testament being more violent and used in popular culture when it was about to get ugly. The first 4 books of the Old Testament was the Hebrew bible, I think. The author of the bible, I cannot tell you. I assume it was Jesus or a ghost rider -- maybe a prophet or a close friend. Or it could be God or magic, like the Book of Mormon that came from a drumlin in New York.  I was lost, either way.

I spied my neighbor on the left, the man that gave me the books. He had opened the bible a little more than 3/4s. Leviticus must be near then end of the bible. I did the same, concealing the book close to my face, to discourage wondering eyes. It was blurry but I’d fake it.

As I mumbled verses from the bible and sang hymns littered with Jesus and Amen, I surveyed the crowd. My expectations were hard-living men, farmers and women in house dresses corralling too many children. In reality, it was men in cargo shorts and oversized t-shirts and women in bland dresses and low heels, their head covered in berets or scarves. The berets were the only interesting part of the crowd. It gave it a cult-like appearance or a poetry reading in Greenwich Village in the ‘50s, which was good.

The preacher stood behind a podium in the middle of the rectangular tent. Chairs formed a semi-circle around him, eventually aligning into straight rows. Every seat was taken.

Dressed in brown polyester Sta-Press pants, a yellow short sleeve shirt, buttoned up to the top, and old, scarred wingback shoes, the preacher leaned into the podium, accenting a point with a closed-fist rap in the air. Standing 6 plus feet and sporting a closely cropped flattop haircut, he was long, sinewy and wildly. At 75 years plus, he was the epitome of “dad strength”  -- someone who would rather pop you on the chin than listen to you babble about your ideals. If I visited his home, I would be sure to find a full ashtray in the living and an autographed framed glossy of vintage Clint Eastwood on the wall: “To Verne, Don’t take shit. Love, Clint.” This guy had to be named Vern.

Behind his left shoulder stood a man similar to the person who greeted me when I arrived. Bearded with disheveled hair, he wore corduroy pants, worn, leather shoes and a suit-vest over a dress shirt – very similar to the man at the door. Like Mike Pence standing behind Donald Trump at the State of the Union Address, he was stoic and unwavering and loomed large, floating over the preacher’s left soldier, possibly whispering in his ear, “It’s our turn, Old Man.” He was a player in the church, but, for now, I wasn’t sure how.

The old preacher warned of an angry God, punching the air with every God and Jesus. I scanned the area around him for props. If there were to be pyro-techniques and snakes, there would be flash pots or a wicker basket full of snakes near – even a Bic lighter and a can of lighter fluid would do. Nothing. 30 minutes into the sermon, and there were no snakes, speaking in tongues, healings or fire. I was restless — covertly checking the time on my phone, knowing these things lasted about an hour. An hour was long then enough for pious people, too. I wasn’t alone.

Beard #2 got tired of standing and took a seat. While the preacher veered off topic, going on about a bus trip that he and his wife took in the Fall to see the leaves change, beard #1, who was still standing at the door, exchanged annoyed looks – lots of moon eyes, slight shakes of the head and air giggles. It was obvious that the old man’s sermon was running overtime, imposing on beard #2’s time at the pulpit.

The sermon ended with a fist-pound on the podium and a long, slow survey of the congregation, as if to say, “I’m watching you. Behave.” When he came to me, our eyes locked, my blood pressure rising precipitously. It was awkward and awesome. He was frightening.

The old man introduced beard #2 as the youth minister and took his seat when he got up. Both men did not acknowledge each other. Reading the fidgety room, #2 announced that he had just a few housekeeping points and conceded that the revival was running long, slowly turning his head toward the old preacher and smiling. Some of the congregation laughed. Speculating on their relationship, my heart warmed knowing that teasing was a show of affection. They liked each other…I think.

While the offering plate filtered through the crowd, #2 reminded the congregation to follow and comment on the church’s various social media platforms, much to the chagrin of the old preacher. #2 thanked us for attending and blessed us in God’s name.

On the way out, I stopped at the “merch table,” to return the books. There were bibles and brochures. No t-shirts.  I reflexively picked up a bible and leafed through it, like browsing a magazine in line at a grocery store. No one was behind the table.

I returned the bible and moved toward the exit.

“You can have that if you want,” a man said, walking over to specifically greet me. During the sermon, I received lots of stolen glances. I knew someone would approach me.

“That’s ok, thanks. I’ve got plenty at home.” This was a lie, of course. I was in no mood to tell the truth and keeping the bible out of politeness would be wrong.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“I’m from Oakland, but I’m just passing through town and thought I’d stop by.” Another lie. “Passing through town” was a nod to drifters —lone men wandering America looking for work and salvation. However, this era was long gone. He didn’t question my fantasy.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he replied, not acknowledging my evasiveness. Expecting him to say more, we awkwardly stared at each other.

“Well, thank you and good luck,” I said.

On the way out, beard #1 was still standing at the door, bidding adieu to the congregation. I shook his hand, thanked him and walked to my car.

Among the Fusions, F-150s and LeSabres, my Prius with California plates stood out. I started the car and reflected on what I just experienced, the omnipresent breeze of cold air flowing from the air conditioner; my straw hat resting on the passenger seat.

Two rows over and a few cars, the old preacher sat in a late ‘70s Chrysler LeBaron with white leather seats. Like me, he passively watched the people pass, constantly nodding and acknowledging, forcing a grin. Maybe he was counting the day’s take from the offering plate.

Lost in thought, I imagined the old preacher as a young traveling evangelist minister in the early 1960s, packing up after a day of preaching. After loading the tent, chairs and pyro equipment in the trailer; feeding the snakes live mice and paying off the ringers who spoke in tongues and those who were healed of a physical disability, maybe he stopped at a bar on the way to Chelsea or Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti and blew the take on liquor and women. This was my fantasy. This is what I hoped. The old preacher needed some good memories.

On the way out, I passed the preacher’s car. Still sitting quietly, lost in thought, we nodded.

Dumping

Redwood Road in Castro Valley splits East Bay Regional Park District and East Bay Municipal Utility District for 8 miles -- EBRPD to the west and EBMUD to the east. At Pinewood Road, it snakes west, uphill, for 2 miles, ending at Skyline Boulevard. This 10-mile stretch of road is the least used road in the Bay Area. This statement is unofficial and unauthorized, of course, based on my daily use of the road. It’s also littered with industrial, construction and household trash from dumpers. Dumping is this year’s opioid epidemic.

After dropping my son at school, my dog and I drive to the foot of Redwood Road. Peppered with trailheads, we used to hike miles into the urban backcountry of the East Bay, not seeing another person along the trail. Now, my dog is old and his back legs weak, so, if we stop at a trailhead, we walk about 100 yards, stop, and return to the car. Hiking is now about standing around waiting for the dog to poop, nothing else.

Even though we no longer utilize the hiking trails along Redwood Road, I still mosey across the 10-mile stretch every morning, the dog in the back. He can no longer enjoy a walk, but he still relishes an open window in the backseat of the car.  I enjoy the solitude of the road, never breaching 30 mph, while listening to a curated Spotify playlist.

Besides occasional RVs from Chabot Campground, the road is lightly sprinkled with rain-or-shine bicyclists, EBRPD work vehicles, and the lone sports car, taking advantage of a cop-less, underutilized windy road. That’s it. It’s normal to pass less than 5 cars while traveling the 10 miles. It can feel like traveling back in time - before traffic usurped weather as the news of the day.

Dumping usually occurs within the first 2 miles of the road: small and large mounds of roofing material, household garbage and car parts located on dirt pullouts and trailhead parking lots. Clear video footage, license plate identification and/or photos of the dumpers breaking the law doesn’t equate to a fine or jail, so must dumps are at the end and beginning of the 10 mile section of road. There’s not much risk involved. Dumpers are lazy because of this. Deeper dumps — parted cars and large appliances — are farther along the road, the sheer weight of the materials requiring more time and multiple people to unload the cargo. Car axels tend to be heavy.

Traveling this road for multiple years, I’ve become somewhat of an expert on dumps, not dumpers:

·        The Mound: This is the most common dump. More than likely, the materials are pushed from the bed of a truck. When the materials reach the height of the truck bed, the goods are tossed on top of the mound, spilling down the opposite side of the truck. These types of dumps tend to attract other dumpers.

·        The Drive-By: Mostly household garbage in bags, this dump is tossed out of a speeding car, resulting in bags spotting the side of the road for up to 200 yards.

·      
      The Guilty Type-A: This is my favorite small dump. Transported in the trunk or backseat of car, the dump materials are mostly household goods – paint, plastic children’s toys and garbage. Instead of throwing out it the window, this unique dumper places the goods in a small, tidy pile, taking up as little space as possible. I wouldn‘t be surprised that if it contained a note saying “sorry.” This person has problems with clutter and messiness, but not enough to properly dispose of the items.

Dumping is mostly an Oakland, CA problem, that’s what I thought. I was wrong. After seeing articles about other cities in the USA dealing with the same problem and talking to friends in the Bay Area who live in the suburbs and complain about dumping, it appears that it is a new phenomenon or, more likely, the internet has exposed something that was always prevalent. T

Oakland reacts to the problem with an app: See-Click-Flix. An app to report dumping and other public nuisances.  In a perfect world, other than Oakland, it looks like this: see a dump, take a picture and hit send. Dump gone. Pretty simple. If the dump is removed immediately or even within a few days, it’s a large miracle — comparable to curing poverty.

In comes another app to complain about the problem with See-Click-Fix: Next Door. Next Door is like Facebook but for your neighborhood, demarcated by zip codes. When the idea of Next Door was pitched to backers, it probably emphasized stronger, safer communities, some sort of online neighborhood watch component and local referrals for household services. In reality, the aging Boomers and Gen X Boomer-sympathizers who mostly use the app, speculate whether the bang they heard was a gunshot or a firecracker; why a man is sitting in a car in front of their house and dumping. Dumping is reported to See-Click-Fix and then complained about when it sits untouched for months.  A post on dumping regularly receives 100s of replies.

Commenting on Next Door or any social media platform, regardless of how neutral or innocuous the comment is, will lead to diverse comments – comments I don’t want to hear. Even though I have valuable information that will help expedite the cleanup of dumped goods, I stay quiet. If I were to comment, I’d list two solutions for expediting pickup of dumped goods:

1.     If possible, move the dump to the center of the road. The ensuing traffic jam will result in multiple calls to DPW and immediate cleanup.

2.     For large dumps, find an object with a large face to write on. Think appliances and plywood. Bring a can of spray-paint and write “Fuck” in large letters. More than likely, our puritan society will be outraged and the calls will flood in for removal. It works.

You can see why I don’t post this solution on Next Door.

A year or so ago, Oakland hired experts in the field of trash and dumping to find out what the hell was going on. Where they found these experts, I don’t know. Prior to hiring the experts, Oakland blamed out-of-towners and the homeless for the problem. Of course, Oakland was wrong. The experts said 3% of dumping was from the homeless and the rest was pretty much pinned on the residents of Oakland — people who work in construction, trash removal, restaurants and yard debris removal.

Driving on Redwood Road this morning, I saw the spoils of last night’s dumps: dented car bumper, disabled Big Wheel, drywall, etc.  As the road winded to the top of a hill, I thought: “Maybe I’m an expert.”