See Me Feel Me Touch Me Heal Me

I looked at the photos John Hyland posted after the NJ weekend for Mike’s dad’s funeral. In everyone, you guys—my old friends—were touching. Either an arm around a back or just shoulder to shoulder. The kind of human contact at the center of happiness. I am glad there were a bunch of us to mourn Mr C’s passing and to celebrate his life, but, man, I ached for not being there to mark this sad occasion together. There is nothing in my life that comes even close to what I used to have with you guys. I hope hope to be more present to you guys soon. Maybe we’ll move back east. Maybe.

Imogen’s new ballet school is at the tippity top of Jay St. in Brooklyn, right at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. Actually, it is about a block north of the east end of that bridge, and between her school and that massive, deafening structure (the B, D, N, and Q trains rattling above) is a new park. It snakes along the shoreline (a word I would not have formerly used to describe the intersection of crime and toxic waste that was this park of Brooklyn back in my day) of the East River from above the Manhattan Bridge to below the Brooklyn Bridge. It doesn’t quite hook up with the Promenade, but it’s close. Highly recommended as a destination if you are looking for something new and cool to do in the city. It even has a beach, another word I never thought I’d put into the same paragraph with “East River.”   

Between Imogen’s new school and the park along the river are two businesses of note. First, there’s an all rough-around-the-edges café with fifty-pound burlap bags of coffee beans strewn in every corner and tables made out of giant spools and beat up leather couches and whatnot. One afternoon in August, I sat in there with Susan, who was reading, for a few hours waiting for Imogen’s class to finish for the day. I had nothing at all to read (I tried stealing Susan’s book while she was in the restroom, but that didn’t take), and so I people-watched the millennial hipsters who filled the place. Without exception, they were hooked into an electronic device. Mostly laptops, but plenty of phones. Every single person. Number of people reading a book or newspaper? Zero. Number of people talking to others nearby? Zero. Occasionally, sure. But their main action—90% of the time—was staring at their screens. I felt like an alien. Usually, it is impolite to stare, but these people had no idea I was watching. Oblivious. Totally hooked into whatever fascinating thing they had in front of them. Don’t get me wrong. It is not their problem. Let them have this world. They cannot screw it up as much as we did. But I wonder where we’re heading as a species and society when this prototypical public space has become so changed so fast.      

The other business of note between Imogen’s school and the river? I thought it was just a bookstore, but then, when I strolled inside, I discovered that this is the HQ of Melville House Publishing. I had heard vaguely of Melville House before now (how could I ignore the familiar family name?), but I didn’t know much about it. Desks in the back, all open to each other. Spiral staircase to the loft where maybe a half dozen employees sat and did their thing. But up front is a small bookstore full of Melville House books. I love the cover designs; that’s the first thing that hit me. Because I had time, I browsed the several hundred books in stock until I settled on one. It is orange, has a guitar pick prominently on the cover, and it is titled In Hoboken. Christian Bauman wrote it. Ever heard of him? I brought it up front to the young millennial who was staring into a laptop before, during, and after my transaction with her and brought it back to the café to sit again with Susan.

It took me a dozen pages to get into it, but once I dropped into the groove, I was in. The story is about this young folk singer / guitarist who just got out of the army who returns to Hoboken to see what he can get started again with his old friends. Rich would find a ton familiar about it. The Hoboken landscape is lovingly and (I hope) accurately drawn, populated with “suits” who gravitate to the south end of the city, the PATH station and the fashionable bars in its two-block radius. Thatcher is the protagonist (probably too strong a word—read on), and he sleeps on the living room floor of a friend, gets a job in a detox hospital for poor people, and spends the rest of his days at Maxwell’s. While I was in, I really liked it. Bauman is a masterful writer who has created a dozen strong and memorable characters here. He breaks a ton of point of view rules—sometimes switching POV within a single sentence—but in endearing ways. These characters felt real to me as I was reading but, ultimately, the whole thing fell a little bit flat. The old adage: a reader will forgive everything at the start of a story and will forgive nothing at the end. I would have been fine to have just a glimpse into the lives of these Jersey denizens, but then the novel gives us a ton of closure, some of it arriving a bit too coy for my liking.

The thrust of the novel, though, is that we all need each other. That solo artists end up miserable and those who seek to make connections (even if they don’t survive to the novel’s final pages) make a bigger difference that anyone else. And so throughout the book, we have these solo folkies playing “wooden music” (love that term—I hadn’t heard it before) who come alive when their friend comes on stage to provide a few harmonies. A rule of good fiction writing is that action occurs in scenes. And, unless you’re Jack London (when is the last time you reread “To Build a Fire”? If you answered more than, say, six months, get reading!), those scenes are built on interactions among characters. True to that rule, In Hoboken drips with characters who orbit each other and continuously collide, aggregate, and pulverize. Life, in other words, as previous generations knew it:   

Most of the room behind the stage at Shannon was filled with an old brown couch. Thatcher sat on one end working through his second gin and lime and something in a plastic cup, talking to a serious kid in a flannel shirt writing in a notebook.

“That’s the Village Voice, Mary Ann whicpered to Loum pointing at the serious flannel.

“Listen,” Thatcher was saying, using his free nad to emphasize, “it’s not a direct line on the heels of this or that, per se. It’s a new thing, man, altogetehr new. He took a slug of his drink wating for the serious flannel to catch up with his notes. “Having said that, let’s be clear: there’s tradition, and our embrace is real. But it’s varied, man. You got your straight up Johnny Cash and your Jerry Lee Lewis boogie-woogie shuffle beat over here”—he held his hand out and wiggled his fingers—“and your Pretenders and The Clash and whathaveyou over here”—the hand moved, fingers wiggling; serious flannel licked his lips—“but down here, man, from out of nowhere, down here it’s The Weavers, baby, standing straight across the stageand singing the truth, man, singing the truth.” Thatcher took a drag on his cigarette. “And we’re all of that, man.”

“Good God in the morning, he’s excellent slinging the bullshit,” Mary Ann whispered. Then, even softer, “Who are The Weavers?”

Thatcher leaned closer to the kid. “You seen how we line up straight across the stage? That’s The Weavers, man, comin’ at ya.” Flannel nodded his head—good shit.

James stiuck his head in, pointed at Thatcher. Let’s go, son. We have to clear the room and warm up.”

Thatcher shrugged. “We’ll talk more after the show, he said and shook serious flannel’s hand.

With the kid gone, James squeezed himself and guitar in.

“You just kicked the Village Voice out of the room,” Thatcher said.

“Nothing for him to write about if we suck,” James said.         

As you can see, there’s a lot of fun to be had just bouncing along with Thatcher and the gang as they try to get something musical and romantic going among their group of about a dozen friends. NYC is ever present, and a couple of chapters are set in Boston. It really feels as if Bauman has the feel of it right, and that's huge.

The big question is what is worth anything in a world where the painter who lives downstairs with his mother creates art that nobody really likes. A world where the musicians play and sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn’t but nobody seems really fazed either way. A world where people seek connection but also destroy big pieces of each other by being careless with themselves and others. That is the part that I really don't think this book gets right at all. Actions have reactions and then fallout. Gatsby nails it, of course.

I am almost finished watching the first season of Stranger Things. One of the happiest aspects of this series for me is that it is set in the mid-1980s, and era conspicuous for its lack of cell phones. Sure, the inability to instantly communicate is a big plot driver, but these characters are invested 100% in the line of sight around them. They go into a café, and people notice them. One goes missing, and people care. The boys play D&D (I highly recommend the opening episode just for the depiction of some mad DM skilz on display) and talk to strangers. That café in Brooklyn near Imogen’s school? I have the feeling that the main monster in Stranger Things could walk in there, muster up its best scare, and not a single hipster would notice. Just not real enough.

I do wonder where we’re heading. Notwithstanding the collapse of the Earth’s ecosystem, the end of evidence-based decision-making, and our embrace of technological alienation, we might yet be on the cusp of some golden age. I have never been one to adapt well when things of value seem to be slipping into oblivion without a fight. That’s what it kind of feels like these days. Stranger Things and In Hoboken both take me back to a time when a guy like me—an introvert who craves human contact—could walk into a café and expect to share in a space with others, even silently. I generally don;t like being observed. I like to glide about unnoticed. But I guess I like it to be my choice. And I guess I like to think I live in the world that contains connected people, even if I am not among them.
Like Father Kelly's old line: "Relax, Bill. You are among friends. They are not your friends, but you are among friends."