The KCC

     “I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m going to tell you anyway.”  Marrianne was on her third glass of wine.  It was burger and homemade fries night. 
     “Tell me about what?  The last thing I remember is talking about why you don’t like this tastiness,” I said, holding up a glass of beer with the consistency of motor oil.
     “Ugh.  That shit is far too strong.”  She stuck her tongue out and shook her head.  “Blah!”
     “But it’s awesome and it only takes one.”
     “Whatever … it’s disgusting … ANYWAY!!  We just walked away from an absolute mess.”
     “You work for one of the biggest, oldest insurance companies in the U.S., possibly the world.  Everything has potential to become an absolute mess.”  I shrugged my shoulders.
     She rolled her eyes.  “Fair.
     “Soooo … I had a nasty few days.  I mean C-suite level nasty.”
     “Really?” My interest was peaked.  Marrianne never talked about work.  We talked about life.  We talked about food.  We talked about things that weren’t associated with work to decompress from work.  Occasionally she would suggest jobs for me because she knew I wanted out from where I was but we never got into the nitty gritty of work.
     She poured herself another glass of wine.  Luckily I just started my beer.
     “We had a small group reach out to us to insure an event they wanted to have downtown.  No problem.  We just needed to do a little bit of looking into the group to make sure they were viable.”
     “That makes sense.  Underwriters have to investigate what they are going to underwrite.”
     “The name of the group was innocuous.  We thought they were some hippies from Canada that were coming down to hold an event about protecting the environment.”
     My skin began to crawl.
     “Holy SHIT were we wrong!”
     I slowly put my beer on the counter and started rubbing my forehead.  “This was the KCC, wasn’t it?”
     Her eyes grew as wide as stop signs.
     “How do you know about the KCC?”  She almost spilled her wine putting it down on the table next to her.  “Tell me.  How do you know about them?”
     “My sister always sends me these alerts.  Any time I talk about going back to Montreal for a ‘fun weekend’ she sends me stats on how long people are waiting at the border, how many car accidents there are on 87, the STD/STI rates …”
     “Eww,” her nose wrinkled.
     “AND,” I said ignoring her judgmental tone, “information on groups like this.”
     Keep Canada Clean had a catchy name.  It sounded like an environmental non-governmental agency, NGO.  Their stated mission was to keep the streets of the cities, the forests of the countryside, and the tundra to the arctic clean, safe, and sound.  This, as you read deeper into their mission statement, was to be achieved by making sure ‘certain ethnic groups of people’ weren’t allowed to live in ‘certain places’ where they would pollute the ‘purity’ of the place.
     The sad but funny thing about it was they were still, for the most part, Canadians.  As vile as the concept was, except for the rare few, they were still relatively polite.  As mentioned, they were mostly Canadians.  Ironically, the most fervent members tended to be Americans who had moved to Canada, emboldened by America’s recent political leanings.  Also ironic, was the fact that these American’s tended to be the pollutant in the pure area.
     The hypocrisy and mental gymnastics were amazing.
     “See, I knew nothing about them.”  She picked up her wine and leaned her hips into the counter.  “After a bit of research, I found out what they were about and suggested that we pass on this one.”
     “Here, here,” I said.  We clinked glasses and took deep swigs.
     “But that’s when the shit show started.  The rep who got the call did the math.  This would have bumped their commission to the next level.”
     “Really?”
     “Really.  She went to her manager who then came to my manager to asked me to rethink my assessment.”
     “Oh this sounds messy.”
     “When my manager said no, he then tried to go to her manager to get the both of us to say yes.”
     “Is this guy a fucking clown?”
     “Yes.  There were emails and meetings.  It was a mess.  Jack doesn’t like me or my manager.”  She pulled a few fries off the plate and took a healthy bite.  “In the end the question was ‘Do we want to insure a supremacist group who wants to hold a rally in a city with the highest African-American and Puerto Rican population in the state?’.  It was a no brainer.”
     “Congrats for standing your ground.”  We clinked glasses again.
     “Why would they come to us?”
     I took a deep breath.  This is where the ugly came into play.
     “As I mentioned, you work for one of the biggest, oldest insurance companies in the U.S.  It doesn’t really have the best history.
     “As I said my sister sends me all kinds of information.  Lots of the older insurance companies insured slave ships and plantations and slaves as property.”
     Her eyes were saucers.
     “Yeah there’s a list for that, too.  Have to know where my money goes.  Have to know what companies to avoid when I can.”
     “This is too much.”  She picked up her wine and finished the rest of the glass in one big swallow.
     Usually I would go on a long drawn out tirade but the ‘motor oil’ was strong so I was forced to focus.
     “I could be wrong.”
     She poured herself another glass.
     “I’ll have to look into that.  Honestly, I think it’s because there’s a new public relations person who used to live in the area.  Abigail Ainslin or something like that.”  The slurring had started.
     I looked her up on my phone.
     “Holy shit!!!”  I dropped it on the counter and flipped it around to show Marrianne the photo.  “Abigail Ainslington.  Remember that woman from the airport with the bidet and the executive suite?  Airport Abby?*  That crazy hook up I had right before the pandemic made it feel like the world was falling apart?  That’s her!”
     “Do I need to start underwiring your hook ups?”  She slurred.
     “Underwiring?” I laughed.  It was my turn to take a few french fries.
     “Underwiring,” she said again.  I laughed harder.  
     “Oh God Damn it!  Underwriting.”  She made sure to slowly enunciate every syllable.
     I thought back to that night at the airport and tried to imagine anything that would have given me any hint.  The hypocrisy and mental gymnastics of this woman being part of the KCC were amazing.  It was right before the pandemic shut the world down.  Some of us thought the world was possibly ending.  Maybe her thought process was try something you hate to see if you really hate it.  I have found that most people hate things they’ve been told to hate.  When they try things for themselves and face the reality of what that experience makes them feel, life gets a bit more complicated.
     “Next time I’ll have to do a little bit more looking into my hookups to make sure they’re viable.”  I nibbled on a few more fries.
     “After a bit of research,” she slurred, “I’m thinking maybe you should have passed on that one.”  Marrianne pulled the plate of fries back to the center of the counter.
     I rolled my eyes.  “Fair.”

* = see Day 170 “There’s This Girl/Something Different”

The Freedom

     “It’s so nice,” I said sitting in the comfortable chair at her kitchen table.  “I wake up, read from my book, stretch a little bit, then have a bit of coffee with some hot chocolate.”
     “I envy you,” said Marrianne.
     It was just another day.  I made a trip to Brisket, Mac & Cheese.  Neither of us were in the mood to cook but we both knew we needed to eat.  The kids were with their father for the next two weeks so she was in pure work mode.  We didn’t really have too much time to hang out.
     When her kids were around her schedule was as follows:
1. Wake up
2. Coffee
3. Kids off to school.
4. Work until the kids get home.
5. Soccer, karate, basketball, track, etc.
6. Home for a late dinner.
7. Kids to sleep.
8. Clean up whatever was left over from the work day.
9. Two glasses of wine
10. Off to sleep.
     When the kids weren’t around her schedule was as follows:
1. Wake up.
2. Coffee.
3. Work until she’s blurry eyed.
4. Unknown amount of wine.
5. Food, if she remembers.
     I tried to stop by at least once a week when the kids weren’t there so she could remember to do something other than sit in front of her computer.  This was a general pulse check.  We usually made a quick dinner and decompressed.  It’s amazing how conversation and dinner with a friend can release stress.
     That night was Brisket, Mac & Cheese.  We had pulled bbq chicken, biscuits, greens, mashed potatoes, gravy, and of course some brisket, mac & cheese.  This was pure comfort food.  I got enough so we could each have lunch and dinner for the next few days.  Plate half.  Eat half.  I typically only ate enough so I could make the drive home and not fall asleep on the way.
     “So, you aren’t on anything?” she asked, thoroughly enjoying the pulled chicken. 
     “Nothing.  No Fakebook. No twitter …”
     “Don’t you mean X?” she interrupted, with a smile on her face.
     “Fuck X and fuck that clown,” I said with a mouth full of tasty beef brisket.  She laughed out loud.  “Where was I?  None of this twit/face/insta/space is on my phone, computer, or iPad.  As I said, it’s so good.  There’s no doom scrolling.”
     “Ugh.  All of the kid’s updates are pushed out via ‘Fakebook’.  They have the local Mom group, soccer group, karate group, you name it.  If I want to keep up with my nieces and nephews or friends across country or back up north, I just pop on and pop off.”
     I looked at her and my eyes turned to slits.
     “Yes,” she admitted.  “Yes, sometimes there is doom scrolling but I try to get back to life as soon as possible.  I’d never get anything done if I didn’t set a timer for myself.  I try to keep to 5 minutes.
     “I would like the freedom that comes with being away from it all for a little while.”
     “It’s amazing.  I got off fakebook in 2016.  It was twitter for a while but then went to the shitter.  It wasn’t that I wanted to step away, I was just tired of being disappointed by people I really liked. 
     “Now if I could just clear out the rest of these apps and narrow down my address book, life would be much easier.”
     “As long as you don’t lose the number for Brisket, Mac & Cheese, my life will be much easier, too.”  She opened a bottle of wine and poured us both a glass.
     “To friends and food,” she said raising her drink.
     “To friends and food,” I echoed.
     “We should get one for the Gram.” She had a smile on her face.
     I looked at her and my eyes turned to slits.  She laughed out loud and took the picture anyway.

The Maintenance

      “But I was doing fine,” I continued.

     “You were,” she said.  Her voice had taken on a soothing coo.  “In fact, you are.  There were times in the past when you didn’t call, write, or respond to texts.  Thank you for calling”

     “Thank you for coming.  I thought …” I started, “ I thought I had a handle on this.”  My heartbeat was finally beginning to feel less like a jackhammer and more like the sustainer of life it was.

    “Think of this like a lawn.”  Her back was towards the window.  The sun was hanging low in the southern sky peeking through the blinds.  “You can get this lawn to look immaculate.  As long as you do the maintenance this lawn will be beautiful.  You can even skip a few weekends and, though not immaculate, it will still look good.

     “But let’s say you go a month or two months with no maintenance.  That once immaculate lawn will now be unruly, overgrown, and seemingly out of sorts.  It’s not the weeds or the animals that are now living in the grass that are the problem.  It’s not even the grass itself.  They are all just a symptom of what happens when you let things go.”

     “So even though if had it all under control …” I started.

     “If you don’t continue to actively do the maintenance …”

     “The weeds come through and the animals …” I didn’t finish the sentence and let my eyes close for a second.

     When I looked up at her face I saw heartbreak for the first time.  There was a sense of loss in her eyes.

     “Please let me call someone,” she whispered.  There were tears welling.

     “I know how bad this looks but I’ll be fine.  I just need a few minutes … maybe an hour.”  I put my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes again.

     “The animals come back.”  She said, distracting herself.  She seemed to be making sure I had a voice to follow if I got too lost.  “They are not the problem.  The animals and the weeds and the grass are now just occupying space in an unruly area that hasn’t been maintained.  You have to find the issues and manage them so you can then share that maintained self in life, love, and relationships.  Sometimes helping others helps the self but a battery can only go so long before it must be recharged or in the worst case scenario, replaced.”

     She wiped a single tear from her cheek.

     “Please let me call someone,” the soothing coo caught in her throat.

     “I’m better,” I said rolling on my side to face her.  “The meds have kicked in and everything is starting to feel normal.  You can … you can stay if you want to make sure.  I have coffee or tea.  There’s that pomegranate juice you like in the fridge.  If things get worse you can call someone.  I promise.”

     She walked towards the door.  Rather than leave, I felt her sit on the bed and take her shoes off.  She situated herself in a spoon position behind me and put her arm over my right shoulder.  I could feel her breathing as I drifted off to sleep.

The Confession

      I have a confession to make.  It seems to upset quite a few people.  I’m always in my car when I do this thing.  I am normally alone because I have to be.  When people are with me and I do this they look at me like I beat puppies.  They roll their eyes and in some cases yell at me.

     “What the hell are you doing?”  “What are you thinking?”  “Not with me in the car?”  “I have places to be.  We don’t have time for this shit!”

     I’m not trying to do anything nasty.  I’m not doing it to be a clown or a pain.  I have to admit, I love doing the posted speed limit.  

     This hasn’t always been the case.  Most of my cars have seen speeds north of 120 miles per hour.  There have been acts of raging stupidity on two lane dirt roads with no visibility.  There has been hydroplaning in summer and sliding across ice in the winter.  I have been lucky enough to have walked away from every accident I’ve been in where I was the driver.  

     I don’t know what prompted doing the speed limit.  It could be that there was a significant gas savings.  Adaptive cruise control may have helped.

     For those who don’t know, this is where the car uses its sensors to gauge the space between the car in front of it and itself.  It then uses those sensors to keep a set distance between the two vehicles.

     This means if the car in front of me slows down, the car I’m driving slows down.  I found this out by renting a car when mine was in the shop.  At first I hated it but by the end of the weekend I loved it.

     When I got my car back I embraced the local cruise control life.  I wasn’t slamming on my breaks when I came around a corner and a police car was parked with its radar focused making its quota.  I wasn’t racing other cars just to meet up with them at the next stop light.

     In the past I used cruise on the highway.  I had a 50 mile drive on a relatively straight run for about 8 years.  Would typically leave the house at 5:45 in the morning.  There weren’t many cars on the road until the last 5 miles.  When you have to squeeze every last gallon out of the tank, every little bit helps.

     Turn the interior lights to their lowest setting.  Keep the heat and AC off until you absolutely need them.  Keep the windows rolled up.  Turn off the radio.  Pin the cruise somewhere between 55 and 60.  This can add an extra 5 to 10 miles in a pinch.

     The adaptive cruise control in the rental just let me set it and forget it.    I could just put my mind on autopilot.  My main car doesn’t have adaptive cruise.  It’s 14 years old.  I’m happy the Bluetooth connects to my phone most days.  It’s just regular cruise control so I still have to pay attention to make sure my hood doesn’t end up in the trunk of the car just ahead of me.  

     BUT that’s the thing about doing the posted speed limit.  There aren’t a lot of cars just ahead of me.  They are WAY ahead of me.

     The cars behind me, though, that’s a different story.  I have seen people get unreasonably upset when they are behind a car that is driving the speed limit.  This is especially true when they can’t pass.  I have had lights flashed at me.  People have beeped their horns like they were an ambulance headed to the hospital with a life and death emergency.

     I didn’t set the speed limit.  I didn’t write the rules.  The rules were written for me and have always been imposed on me.  I think that’s why I’ve hated them so much.  It’s amazing how people react when you embrace the rules they’ve set and then expect them to follow the rules they’ve set for you.

     When people finally do get a chance to pass I have been flipped all manners of the middle finger and called every derogatory name you can imagine.  I am not a complete asshole.  If I realize people need to pass and it’s safe enough to do it, I pull off to the side and let them pass.  I know what it’s like to really have to get somewhere faster even if you don’t want to be where you’ve got to go.

     The angriest people seem to think the rules are for OTHER people to follow.  If you check the history of the most ardent rule follower you will typically find the most historically egregious rule breaker.  Hell, I’ve been north of 120 miles/hour many times. When you check to see who wrote the rule, you will find a person who themselves could never follow it.

     I mean they set the limit.  They wrote the rules.  But the rules were written for other people, people like me.  The rules were written to be imposed on other people, people like me.  I love doing the posted speed limit especially when the people who wrote the limit for me are forced to follow that same limit themselves.

The Saab, The Suit & The Shake

      In June 2016 I took my car to my mechanic.  I felt a bit of a shake in the wheel.  I was in the Monday suit because it was Monday and I was on the way to work.  He came out with a look of concern.

     “Where did you drive this from?”  I had just come from a weekend at my Mom’s place, 55 miles up north.
     “The family spot,” I said matter of factly.  “You know. I stay up north every once in a while.  Help Mom out with errands and groceries.”
     “Didn’t you feel the wobble?”  Their eyes widened.  His apprentice had joined him.
     There was a spot on route 8 south where you could just open up.  There was no place for the police to hide.  On a good day, like that day, I would drop from fifth to third gear and the Saab would roar to life.  She would jump from 70 to 100 miles per hour in a matter of seconds.  That morning there had been a bit of a shake.
     “Yes, I felt a little wobble,” I said, neglecting to mention the 100 mile an hour morning.  “That’s why I’m here.  Is it another bald spot on the tire?  Are we at threads already?”
     It had been 4 years and 92,000 miles.  The majority of the service had been oil changes.  This was the replacement, the in between car.  The engine had blown on the first Saab due to overwork and general neglect.  I felt obligated to get it fixed because my lack of maintenance was the reason the engine blew in the first place.
     Three weeks after the repairs were done, it was destroyed by a tree on a back road in northwestern Connecticut. 
     The car between Saabs was a Nissan Altima.  That car ran for 4 years and 104,000 hard highway miles.  This was when I first experienced the shake due to tire wear.  The Altima did what it was supposed to do until it didn’t and eventually couldn’t.  This car, this inexpensive little Saab, was supposed to be a holdover until I could afford the car I wanted.  4 years and 92,000 miles later, I still wasn’t there.
     “You’ve got to come see this,” the mechanic said, shaking his head.
     New tires for the Saab were $600.  If I could get away with replacing the two bald tires today for $300, I’d be back in a month to get the other two when I had some more space open on the credit card.
     I walked onto the shop floor.  The tires didn’t really look all that bad.
     “See this?” He walked over to the front driver’s side tire and gave it a good shake.  It was solid.  No movement.
     “Yep.”  I said.
     He walked over to the passenger’s side front tire.
     “You see this?”  He barely touched it.  The whole wheel wobbled.
     “Oh shit,” I whispered through my teeth.
     “If you hit a pot hole just right, this wheel will fly off.  2 of your brake pads are at 3%, 1 is at 10% and one is at 5%.”
     “How is that possible?”
     “Because your back right brake is frozen open.”
     “I,” I started
     “You’re e-brake is disconnected.”
     I felt my shoulders drop.
     “What are we looking at?”
     “Give me a few minutes to write this up.”
     My shoulders were at my knees.
     I went back and sat in the lobby.  I immediately began looking for cars online.  As much as I loved this car, it had only cost me $2800.  It was supposed to be the holdover car.  It had taken me back and forth to work for a solid 4 years and had taken 92,000 miles of craziness.  As much as I loved the car, there had to be limits.  I couldn’t justify, let alone afford, more than $600.
     “We can have you up and running for $1800.”
     I heard the laughter before I realized it was me.  “Can I get it home?”
     His eyes widened.  “The tire could fly off.”
     “Not up north,” I clarified.  “The local spot.”
     “I mean you can but, I really wouldn’t recommend it.”
     “I … I,” I stammered over my words.  I was in the suit.  What I was about to say didn’t make sense.  “I just don’t have it.  I don’t have $1800 to spend on a $2800 car that will need another $1500 in 6 months.”
     He looked at me with the eyes of a man who just lost a sale but he also seemed genuinely worried.
     “Yes, you can get it home, but DON’T take the highway and, for god’s sake, don’t go over 35.”
       I just wanted to make sure I could get home.  I didn’t have to head back north for a little while.  I had a local place to park the car and lay my head.  Once I got there and took a few deep breaths, I could take time to make time to make a delicate decision without an immediate sense of urgency upon me.
     The suit and Saab may have been solid but they hid the fact that if I hit even the smallest bump in the road, the wheels would fall off.

The Q-Tips

     “It looks like she got a ride home from one of her friends,” I said as I sat back down.

     “I just can’t … wow,” Karen said, looking deep into the middle distance.

     The waitstaff was wandering from table to table making sure everyone was ok.  Two or three of the bussing staff were cleaning up the area closest to the dance floor.

     “I thought they were just playing around until she slapped him.”  Karen put her right hand over her mouth and blinked like she was trying to bring herself back from deep space.

     “I didn’t see it.  I heard it,” I said, “ but I knew it was bad because I heard it over the music.”

     Karen had finally convinced me to stop by a new local spot she found.  It was between my house and my Mom’s place so I had no excuse.  There was a band playing she had heard about from one of her colleagues.  She was there for support.  The colleague was interested in the bass player and didn’t want to seem like a groupie.  Karen wanted me to stop by so if her friend got wrapped up with the bass player she wouldn’t be the single woman in the bar.

     I felt like the only person in the bar still wearing a mask.  It was me and one other woman but her mask fell just beneath her nose.

     The band was used to catering to an older crowd.  The songs were late 60’s through mid 70’s pop tunes with one or two popular songs from the early aughts and the mid-teens.  You could tell they were used to the older crowd because you could still talk to people next to you and hear yourself think while they played.  The music didn’t pin you to the wall or push you out the door but you could feel it and like it.

     It was like they had set up a dj a bingo night.  There were a lot of older folks getting up and dancing.  When I was younger, I worked at a movie theater.  There were certain showings that were mostly the older crowd.  It was all silver, grey, and white hair.  It looked like a sea of Q-tips from the back of the theater.  The dance floor looked like a sea of Q-tips moving to the groove.

     The couple in question was in their mid 40s or early 50s.  They had been handsy and flirty most of the evening.  The drinks had been flowing like water.  The incident came out of nowhere and was over in seconds.  By the time I turned around after hearing the slap, he had already flipped two tables near the dance floor.

     There were a few tense seconds where it seemed like this 6-foot-tall man was going to attack this 5-foot-tall woman and the few people around him.  The band stopped playing and stepped back from the edge of the stage.

     He balled his fists so tight it seemed like his fingers were trying to push through his palms and wrap around themselves.  You could see the gravity of the situation set in his face.  The dance floor split as he stormed out.  You could hear his vehicle tear out of the parking lot.

     The older women in the crowd tried to make sure the younger woman was ok but she was already on her phone.  She ignored all of them and kept to herself.  In about 10 minutes her friend arrived to take her home. 

     Everyone tried to pretend like nothing happened but you could feel it in the air.  The band started playing. Karen’s colleague decided to stay and take time to make time with the bass player.  I walked Karen to her car.  Her gaze was still deep in the solar system.

     “Are you ok?” 

     “I just … I thought of Tony … “.  There was a sinking feeling in my chest.  I’d known both Tony and Karen for years.  I had been there for both of them during the divorce.  I was the one who hadn’t taken sides or played politics between the two of them.  I was friends with Tony and Amber, his current younger girlfriend.  I had also seen Karen through her various attempts to date since everything was finalized.

     There were things neither of them had told me.  I was hoping not to hear the worst.

     “Did things get that bad between you and Tony?” I asked quietly.

     “No.  It was the opposite.  There was nothing.  It was like he crawled into a void of emptiness and silence.”  She leaned against her car and let the darkness of the night wash over her.

     The light of the police car broke the darkness.  It did a quick drive through the lot then got back on the road after a quick talk with security.

     “Is it crazy to wish,” she said, “that there was just something more near the end?  I didn’t need flipped tables or public slaps.  I just …” her voice trailed off, “I just wanted him to feel something, anything.”

     She put her head on my left shoulder and exhaled.

     “Don’t get me wrong I’m not advocating domestic … “

     “I know.  I know.”  I said putting my hands up in understanding.

     “You’re gonna to be all right,” I said, now looking straight at her as she leaned against the driver’s side door of her car.

     “You’re damn right I will,” she said with solid confidence.  Her thousand-yard stare was coming into focus.  Her eyes met mine with a smile.  Her hug was deep, strong, and resilient.

     She beeped her horn as she turned to head home.  I used my remote to help me find my way to my car.  Karen’s hug felt like her soul had pinned itself to mine.  I wasn’t pushed out the door.  I could feel it and I liked it.