Last Trip to Brooklyn Home

4-11-15 

“We have a mortgage commitment. Nandy will be contacting you to get an idea of when you can come in for the closing because I know you want to be here for it. Also if you need any help cleaning out please let me know. Hope to hear from you soon.” 

4-13-15 

     It was a bittersweet day yesterday writing an introduction, up the beautiful Han river, for a chapter on Emerson’s (and my) return to teaching at a New York City high school in the '90's. The Eurocentric Jewish/Italian cliques of mealy mouth know-it-alls, with put-downs and a heavy dose of Albanian anti-Semitic sturm und drang, made FDR D.O.A. for me. But to see zombies come alive, thanks to pay-me-off Daily News Hamil (his finger on the pulse of cadavers) on the stoop of fifty years of wasted classrooms was too much to bear; no school leadership team, no participatory unionism, no Sweatfree school, no teacher parking, and no multicultural festival for the bulk. The best thing about FDR was getting out of there early with sanity and a pension, thanks to "Penis" Spitzer. Instead of pretending everything is beautiful (as zombies do) and listening to Jay Black's out-of the coffin drek oratory, I get to make love to my wife in the comfort of our bed 12,000 miles away from the scene of the crime. The catharsis of writing semi-autobiographical It Won't Work sometimes invokes spirits from the past, proving it wasn't just a nightmare; it was real. Look at all the friends I made there in twenty-one years: Jimmy and Richard; period. Facebook photos and one-liners don't count. There are more FDR ESL alumni friends! All of the rumors of curses from Washington Cemetery next door may have been true after all.

4-14-15 

 On the patio in Taichung, I just finished a lox and cream cheese on bagel. I have to sit in the shade facing west on the patio to avoid the shining sun on me and the laptop.

     Catherine asked if I could come in for the closing before June. I replied that we could. Nandy e-mailed saying she got the title report and asked about a sidewalk violation. The city threatened to return on April 2 to see if I corrected the violation; I did re-fix the sidewalk before we left before Sandy and it looked good to me last summer. Nandy asked me to call. I will tonight. 

     I am not anxious to sell the house but I feel no connection to Brooklyn, not that I had the last ten years living there when FDR endeavors became fruitless and the neighborhood filled up with arrogant Ruskies. I am glad that all four of my children have chosen to live elsewhere; it gives me little reason to return after the house sale, maybe just a night in a hotel, a visit with Jimmy and Richard and a trip to a few of our favorite restaurant dinners. We'll rent a car at the airport and get away, north to see Jim Drieu and Selma, and then west to Pittsburgh before we hop to Portland and back to Taiwan. Leona only has the library friends that bind her to Brooklyn.

5-11-15 

     We're back in Brooklyn clearing the house. We have given away a number of items on the street from the house. The kitchen cabinets are empty of plates, pots, and pans, and so is the closet. There is a heavy wooden bed frame upstairs that Alberta abandoned that has to be brought down and outside. The basement backroom has to be cleared out while the basement itself is empty. There's Mom's old break-front to the stationary cabinet and a heavy wood chest of drawers. We put it out and people pick it up. 

 Most important news from yesterday was the "Urgent" e-mail I got to call Nandy: the closing is set for Catherine's Coldwell Banker office on Ave U for 11am this Thursday, May 16, 2015

This morning, 11:00am is the closing on our house sale.

      I will no longer straddle a continent and an ocean with both my feet in Taiwan, though Brooklyn, New York will always be my first hometown. Not one person, save Kathy Forman, Jimmy Kanakas, and Mark Kaplan remains here to welcome me "home" now with the prospect of Tom Keough joining the ranks. Three mishigas friends (Richard Singer, Banks, and Joanne) couldn't bring me up, and Sal couldn't walk five minutes from his home to say 'hello' nor could that fat-assed toad Sanchez find an excuse to leave her seat at FDR to meet me on equal ground. Aside from the restaurants, there is no heartfelt or vocational reason to stay here. Even Jim Drieu, par for the course, couldn't find a way to trip down to Brooklyn for a weekend day. I'm taking it all in stride.