Out Among Humans

They kept the bedroom ready in case of one of their three sons would need to return home.

They could stay as long or as briefly as they wanted, no questions asked.

The couple knew the boys would leave in due time just as they had when they married.

The last son to leave was the first to return. He had made beginner’s mistakes in a business startup, out-of-state banks were calling at all hours.

His mother replaced the metal, barracks-style beds with more comfortable ones. His father cleared a space in the basement where his son would freelance until an offer came along.

At that time an event was unfolding that would mesmerize the world.

We all stopped and watched as the Apollo XI Moon Mission launched from Cape Kennedy. We didn’t breathe until Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon four days later.

How do the events on the Sea of Tranquility connect with those in a modest living room 252,700 miles away?

The boy’s father hadn’t been well for years and decided not to stay up for the moonwalk. If ever a moment was meant to be shared, it was this one. What could it have been but cosmic fate that plopped the young man down next to his mother in front of the TV that evening?

Sharing that unfolding drama along with cigarettes and ice cream and his mother’s lady fingers, was the last memory he would have of her as the still vibrant woman who had raised him. They had a big night.

Other moonwalks followed but the long-married couple didn’t pay much attention. Another son had come home to claim the bedroom and brought children who visited on weekends and vacations.

Explorers like Aldrin, Conrad, Bean, Shepard and Mitchell couldn’t begin to compete with the gravitational pull those kids exerted on their grandparents.

You be the judge about what the boys did when nobody was looking.

There were seven and a half guys in the group.

One of them had been diagnosed with a hole in his heart. He used it as an excuse never to climb the fence and retrieve the basketball. He counted as only half a guy.

They lived in a neighborhood that straddled several school districts. The boys were too far from their schools to hang out with classmates so they formed a group strictly out on convenience.

As a matter of survival, they worked tirelessly on the your-dick is-so-small style of humor they’d need in high school. They had heard that Cruncher and The Holocaust were coming their way and they were nervous.

It was in the spring when the thin, blond kid named Tom got strange. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Tom couldn’t control his mouth.

He’d took to ridiculing one guy’s acne. He made slutty-divorced-mother-with-peroxide-hair jibes that drew blood. His cruelty could have been forgiven if he hadn’t developed a trait even worse.

Tom had become annoying.

He laughed too hard at his own jokes and he spit dumb-fuck insults out of the side of his mouth. You wouldn’t have liked it.

The guys gave Tom more than his share of second chances. None of them expected it and they hadn’t planned it, but one afternoon they took matters into their own hands.

They proceeded to indict Tom. They invoked a jury and held a trial. After finding him guilty they imposed the maximum sentence — they banished him from the face of the earth.

A movie about a lynching “The Oxbow Incident” often appeared on TV. Civics teachers across the country assigned it for discussion in class. The boys began to doubt whether their frontier justice had been just, if they should have entertained appeals.

A decade later one of the group ran into Tom at a singles’ bar — both were back in town for Thanksgiving. They shared several rounds of drinks without bringing up the past.

Tom had tried various lines of work in California and as much as he loved the ocean he was thinking about moving home to finish night school.

He was as thin and blond as always and, now in his twenties, he was as pleasant and sincere a man as you could ever hope to meet.

The man hoped
his call would get lost within the bowels of the city’s communications hub. That would give him an excuse to put off the chore he dreaded.

But that kind of luck wasn’t to be.

Minutes before the Community Development Department officially opened for business, Chris pick up her phone and asked how she could help. “That’ll be simple enough.” she assured the caller.

There weren’t many requests like his so they’d have to do things the old-fashioned way — using pens, paper, staplers, etc. Chris wasn’t apologetic about that, she liked working with her hands.

She told her constituent he would need proof of identity. His passport would do and if he had a driver’s license he should bring that too. They made an appointment for that same day.

She took one look at the tee shirt the man would be selling and disappeared into her boss’s office. “We’ve decided to give you a special unauthorized discount.” she whispered in a conspiratorial tone.

She laminated the certificate he would wear around his neck and punched holes for a string. She slid her card across the desk and said if the police gave him any trouble they should call her.

“Congratulations, Peddler #7!“ The city wishes you every success!”

The word ‘peddler’ caught the man off guard, he didn’t like the sound of it. His mother hadn’t carried him seven months and eleven days so he could be a common ‘peddler,’ All he wanted was to unload a few tees.

The next morning he schlepped his wares to a neighborhood street fair where he found it intensely, acutely, profoundly painful to approach strangers. He experienced an immediate respect for the age-old profession that has helped shape civilization.

A city can issue a license and a badge, Peddler #7 will tell you, and it can give you access to its streets. But what it can’t provide is the grit, the heart and the cleverness it takes to survive out there.

NOTE: By regulation a peddler is not a street vendor. Vendors can set up a stand to display their goods but the peddler needs to keep moving.