“1971 sucked.  My mom died a month before I turned six, my granny died in June, and my grandpa died in November.  It was a sucking year.  But look, all those things make you who you are.  People are, ‘that’s so terrible.’  If that wouldn’t have happened to me, I wouldn’t be who I am right this second.”  Carla Dawson hushes me with a finger, daring me to challenge her assertion.  She’s already lumped me into the “that’s so terrible” group of misguided folks.

Before I can lie and claim innocence, Jackie Robinson, Dawson’s sister, one year older, echoes her sentiments.  “We wouldn’t be the women we are if things didn’t happen in our life the way they did.”  Robinson talks patiently to me on my left.  I’ve just been tag-teamed by professionals.

Thrown together at a young age by birth and then by death, the two sisters speak with one voice.  Sentences are completed by each other.   Ideas are batted back and forth so rapidly I am unsure whom to quote.  Affirmations are given continuously by repetition of phrases.  Their conversational relationship is the classic call-and-response of a preacher and congregation.

Robinson: “We didn’t like our brother-in-law.”

Dawson:  “We didn’t like him.”

Robinson: “He was always hitting our sister. We’d hear them in the middle of the night.  Fighting.”

Dawson: “Fighting.  Bam!  Bam!”

Robinson: “He’d be punching her.”

Dawson: “Choking her.  Black eyes.”

Robinson: “The whole nine yards.”

Dawson: “The whole nine yards.”

The motherless Dawson and Robinson were shuffled among family members for a short time until they were taken in by their older sister, who already had two young babies and a husband “who was always beating her up.”  The older sister would disappear for long periods, and Dawson and Robinson, still children, were left raising “two littles.”  It was a complicated time.

“It got worse and worse.  A group of girls at school threatened to beat us up.  They didn’t like us.  We would ignore them, they’d be calling us names.  Our brother-in-law saw those girls calling us names: ‘If you let those girls chase you home one more day, if you don’t turn around and stand up for yourself and fight them, you’re going to have to fight me.’  So we were like, ‘oh great.’  He was always fighting our sister, we don’t want to fight with him.  We stop the group of girls the next day and said: ‘We are either going to have to fight or you’re going to have to leave us alone; because if we don’t fight you and we go home, it’s not going to be good for us.’ So we fought them.  We’d never been in a fight.  We were all dusted up.  We didn’t know how to fight.  Next day same old thing.  We had to fight them.  Meanwhile our older sister was gone more and more and more.  It left us with more responsibility.  The youngest ‘little’ thought Jackie was the mom.”

Dawson and Robinson pause to look at each other, catching their breath.  Their heated telling is visceral.  Sweat has broken out on Dawson’s brow.

Any child would be affected by this life Dawson and Robinson were leading.  But the violence and lack of supervision was compounded by the older sister and brother-in-law moving them from neighborhood to neighborhood in Des Moines, causing constant disruption of schools and friends.  Disaster seemed to loom.

“While we were in middle school our brother-in-law was fighting our sister just too much.  Punching her in the face.  Kicking her.  Fighting.  We decided one time after she had a black eye, looking all crazy, and he was upstairs in the bathroom.  Me and Carla were done.  We had had it.  You know when you’ve had it.  I squeezed in behind him.  Carla was in the hallway.  We both stepped up.  We bum-rushed his ass into the shower.  We beat the shit out of him.  I mean kicking him and everything.  We were really really fightning  We were done.  We’d had enough.”  Robinson preaches.

And Dawson answers for the congregation:   “We beat the dog shit out of him.  We said get the rest of your shit and get out.  He never came back again.  Never.”

The End.

It’s a quiet fall day in Des Moines.  The air is crisp.  The sun is shining.  School is in session.  The waiting room at Drake University Student Health Clinic has a smattering of students.  A kind-faced woman behind the counter, multitasking with computer and phone, smiles broadly.  “I’ll be with you in a moment, hon?”  Ah, you know you’re in safe hands.

A few miles away is another woman teaching at North High School.  She’s bent over quietly talking to a student.  “You have to stop this.  You have to handle you.  It’s not about  your friend.  It’s about you handling you.”  The student looks at her with worship.  The student leaves and the teacher fixes me with the same look she gave the student.  I’m thinking I might need to shape up.

And at the end of the work day, after countless scenes of helping young people, the two women return home.  Their home.  A home they share together.  A safe home.  The home of two sisters.

Joe

“Two books of tickets, please.”  You shout over the music and through the small hole in the glass.  Money passes one direction, tickets slide out the other direction.  Vicki Smith looks out at you with a weariness.  It’s late and the season is almost over.  You are another one of the thousands of faces she sees every summer.  An unending lineup.  If she was asked to do a police sketch of you, your nose might appear on the customer’s face immediately before you with the hair color of the man’s hair behind you and the ears of some guy last week.  So it goes.  And that smell of popcorn and cotton candy that makes your eyes almost water with desire?  There’s not enough soap to get it out of her clothes.   But it’s all winding down for the night, and for the year, and for the time.  The end is in sight.

When Vicki Smith pulls the trailer into the homeplace near Stratford at three in the morning, and doesn’t need to drive on to Fort Dodge, or Boone, or Des Moines, or Marshalltown, the carnival season is over.  Thank goodness.  Another season done.  But tonight it’s the Beaverdale Fall Fest and there’s a large crowd in the perfect weather.  Tickets need to be sold.

Smith sold her first ticket many years ago when she fell into the carny life just by chance.  This was certainly not her dream.  Marriage was the snare.  And even that was a bit off script.

“I married Steve Smith in 1976.  At that time I didn’t think a thing about working on a carnival.   Well, first off, I said I’d never marry a Catholic, I would never marry a smoker, and I would never marry a farmer.  And I married a smoking Catholic farmer.”  Smith shakes her head, laughing softly to herself.

“I was just a kid.  I was 19.  I had no money.  I was in college.  I met Steve.  And back then you just got married.  That’s what you did.  Listen, I’ve always been overweight.  I had no dates in high school.  When Steve showed me attention and affection, it was like, who else is going to want me, I’d better marry this guy because he’s got money.”  Smith gives a throaty laugh.  Again, at herself.

Steve Smith farmed with his brother Mike.  To make ends meet, they bought a foot-long hot dog stand and went on the road.  They would run to some fair in Iowa or Missouri or Wisconsin, then rush home to walk beans.  A complicated life, but doable.

“When I married Steve I thought I could handle being a farmwife.  And it did work for awhile.” Then the farm crisis hit.  Farming was a dead end.  Bankruptcy loomed.  Smith and her husband climbed slowly out of that hole of debt by buying carnival rides.  Patiently.  Carefully.   And now they have fourteen rides parked in Beaverdale with food stands.  An entire carnival.

“I thought I’d be a farmwife.  But here I am.”  She says this as if she just popped out of a cake, hands raised in the air, and landed on the midway.  To her surprise.

Smith’s daughter teaches at DMAAC in Boone, but drove down to help at the Beaverdale fair.  Smith’s son is at the Clay County Fair where he has multiple food stands.  Smith’s brother-in-law, wife, and adult children are also at the Beaverdale fair because they own and run all the games.  It’s a traveling family reunion that goes on all summer.

But there’s a hard-scrabble feeling about the whole enterprise.   They work doggedly at this summer “fun,” always aware that the cold months of winter are coming.  And, Smith is ironic about her chosen life.

“Do you know why we own a carnival today?  So we have a place to put a popcorn wagon.  Isn’t that crazy?  But, it’s where the money is.”  Smith pauses chewing on that thought.  “We haul fourteen rides around just so we can sell cotton candy.”  She shakes her head.

And retirement?  “A carny doesn’t retire, they die walking down the midway.”  She says as if I should know this.   “We’re still healthy.  But still, this is not a normal life.  But we really don’t know what the next step will be.  It’s the end of the season.  I’m tired of living out of a trailer.  I’m just ready to go to my home.”

Iowa is full of endings these days.  Corn is harvested because it’s dry in the fields.  School buses clank to a stop up at the corner because summer vacation is over.  The sound of marching bands carry from across football fields to sports bars because baseball is winding down.  And the last tickets to the carnival are passed out the window at the Beaverdale Fall Festival.  Without a doubt, it’s the end of the season and time to head home.

Joe

The counter must be the problem.  The lilting music in the background and the four-foot tall goddess perched next to the napkins certainly add to the problem.   But I’m thinking it’s the counter that prevents you from seeing the waiter clearly.

Paramjeet Singh is on the other side of the counter at India Star restaurant.  Placidly he stands.   Stolidly.   With the hint of a Sumo wrestler.  You need to narrow your eyes to take him in without distraction.  But you’re soon distracted.  Sag paneer.  Bengan barth.  Chicken Makhany.   Self-consciously I place my carryout order.  Singh listens patiently.  Does he understand English?  Can he hear my low voice?  Is he writing down that the  customer has unusually large ears?  He smiles at me.  Singh’s smile radiates to his eyes and cheek bones, but doesn’t quite makes it to his lips.

Raised in Ludhiana, a city of a million and a half in the Indian state of Punjab, Singh was brought up just like any kid in America.  Although, his life did take an unusual turn as a young adult.  “I was around 19 or 20 when I began bodybuilding,” Singh says.  “It was my father’s dream that I be a bodybuilder.”

Singh’s father worked in a factory to support his wife and three children.  A coworker was a bodybuilder.   Singh’s father wanted this for his son.  “Indian men are really small.  I was very small.  Very skinny.  So my father sent me to a gym,” Singh explains softly.

And then, like every story of father and son, both are not on the same page at the same time.  Or, as Singh simply states, “I wasn’t interested in bodybuilding.”

Back at India Star, Singh is folding napkins, taking orders on the phone, and seating customers.  Behind him on the shelf is his personal supply of protein powders and supplements.  “Combat Protein Powder” is tucked next to porcelain statutes of Indian gods.  Singh has covered all the bases.

As I sip my Taj Mahal, a beer that comes in a bottle the size of the Ruan Center, I ask Singh to join me.   “I don’t drink.  I have 10 eggs a day.  Chicken.  Good food.  In India, I used to eat 30 eggs.  I was so big in India.  Sweet potatoes.  Fruits.”

So, Singh ignored his father’s request to become a bodybuilder, ignored the coach his father had arranged for him at the gym, and started doing “bad things.”

“Bad things”?

Singh came to America with no English.  His sister is married to the talented chef Parvinder (“Baba”) Singh, who owns India Star.  For the last six years, he has worked for Baba.  “Baba helped me a lot,” Singh says with real gratitude.  Working six days a week at the restaurant, Singh has taught himself English.  An amazing feat.

“Bad things”?  Singh briefly struggled for words and then settled on “fighting with guys.”  That works.  I get it.  It was a troubled time for Singh back in India.

The coach at the gym saw Singh heading down this wrong path.   “My coach called me and I started talking to him.  He made me understand so many things.”  To this day, Singh talks frequently to his old coach.   “We talk about old days, bodybuilding, and old bodybuilders.”  But, ten years ago, it was this coach who got Singh off the street and devoted to the gym.

“I started regularly at the gym.  My mother helped me alot.  She woke up at 5 or 6 and cook food all the time.  And then I did my study.”  The hard work and devotion paid off.  Singh won the Beginner Mr. Ludhiana Bodybuilding Competition.   Remember, Ludhiana is a city of over a million and a half people.

“I stood first in that competition.  I saw tears in my father’s eyes.”

Singh became even more dedicated to bodybuilding.  Unfortunately, tragedy struck in 2005.  His father died from a heart attack.  This caused Singh to buckle down even more.  In 2006, it all paid off.   Singh won the Mr. Punjab Bodybuilding Competition.  Yes, that’s him with number 94.

Big deal?  Well, the State of Punjab is over 25 million people.  This win was serious stuff, but also filled with sadness.  “My father’s death made me cry on the stage when they announced.”

After the competition, Singh settled down to coach other bodybuilders.  Unfortunately, there was little money to be made in either coaching or selling supplements or any aspect of bodybuilding.  So, he followed his sister to Des Moines.  And this is where he has been for the last six years.

But now he’s training again.  He started four months ago.  Six days a week, up to two hours a day.  Working at the restaurant and training is all he does.  He does not go out.  He does not party.  He has no romantic interests.  Instead, he’s starting to consider competitions.  “Maybe October, I will compete.”  And now his smile makes it to his lips.  Barely.

And his dream?  “I will stay here the rest of my life.  In two and a half years, I will get my citizenship.  Bodybuilding is for my life.  As for money, I need just enough.  Just enough for my family and me.”  Every month, Singh sends part of his earnings home to his mother.  But the mention of his mother causes Singh to look away and then look back up giving me that enigmatic smile.

“I am homesick sometimes.  Old days, old friends.”

A bell rings.  My food is ready.  I collect my carryout from my side of the counter.  And the champion of Punjab?  He is on to the next customer.

Joe

“This is Midday with Mary Brubaker and Dolph Pulliam . . . .”  “The Mary Brubaker Show weekdays at 9:00 a.m. on KCCI TV 8.”  “The Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, hosted by Mary Brubaker.”  “‘Time Capsule’ with John Pascuzzi, Connie McBurney, Rick Swalwell, and Mary Brubaker.”  “Mary Brubaker interviews Jimmy Carter. . . Ted Kennedy . . .  Jane Fonda . . . Ann Landers . . .  Margaret Mead . . . Sean Connery . . .  Anthony Hopkins . . . Arnold Schwarzenegger.  And on and on and on.  Thirty years worth.

Brubaker’s show ended years ago, gracefully, quietly, and gently, as celebrity shows rarely do.  Come on, don’t be upset.  We all go out to pasture.  But what a run Brubaker had.  From her early beginnings on TV as an “exercise girl” (think a local Jane Fonda), to becoming enough of a celebrity in her own right to get a reference by Jay Leno.  Not bad for a Roosevelt High School girl.

So time passed.

Sweltering heat pushes hard against the downtown cement sidewalks.  Dashing into the cool at the north end of the Polk County Administration Building is like a dunk into a cold metal water bucket.  Relief.   Just inside the door of the Heritage Gallery, a woman sits behind the counter.  Almost hidden.  She’s dressed in purple with a colorful scarf tied loosely around her neck.  Her grey-white hair is cut tight and close with stylish flips and upswings.  Then you notice her dark, wide eyes and deep smile lines from her mouth up to her cheekbones.   This gal is a character.   So much so that now she seems to be appraising you just like you were appraising her, and you just might not be up to her standards.

“Hello, welcome.  If you have any questions, please ask.”  The older woman speaks with an inviting lilt to all who enter.

A young woman walks into the gallery.

“Is that a Fringe Festival t-shirt?” the older woman asks.  And then she is off and running as if her life depended on her relationship with this stranger.  “Were you involved with the Fringe Festival?”  “You’re a playwright?  Your name?  Are you still writing?  Are you involved in theater also?”

The older woman hears discouragement in the young woman’s answers.  There’s no work.  There’s no audience.

“Listen, you keep writing, lady.  You have to do it.  They need playwrights.  Nobody is doing plays, they’re doing revivals, and that’s not good.  I have a web site that could help you.”  Names are mentioned.  Contacts written down.  Then the young woman speaks of another friend out of work.  “Your friend does graphic design?  What’s her name?  It’s a shame that good graphic designers can’t find a job.  She needs to come down here to visit me.”

It’s amazing.  In a few short sentences, the older woman has wheedled out the visitor’s name, occupation, and the struggles the visitor is having with her career.   With all the facts gathered, the older woman provides contacts.  And if that wasn’t enough, she then provides a dollop of encouragement.  Okay, fine, but how about when she begins to connect-up the friend of the visitor, who is also out of work?  My Lord, give me a break.

An older man enters.  In the course of conversation, it is discovered that he has a collection of pictures from a local artist moldering in his basement.  Not any more.  He now has a contact who will auction those pictures for charity.  Unbelievable.

“I’m a Gemini,” is Brubaker’s explanation for all this caretaking.  Really?  That’s the reason?

“I really believe in being friendly and helpful.  If everybody just made some effort to be more giving, more generous . . . .  I like people.  I like talking to people.  I like making connections for people.  I’ve met so many interesting people.”

Heritage Art Gallery, Gay Men’s Chorus, 1000 Friends of Iowa are her recent volunteer efforts.   What about a rest?  What about just retiring?  What about not helping folks for a bit?

“I just can’t not be doing something.  My contacts I’ve made over the years can help people.  I believe in volunteering.  Without volunteers, you really wouldn’t have a vibrant culture.  I’m not a couch sitter.”  No kidding.

At 78 years old, Brubaker is in her prime.  Those thirty years of broadcasting appears to have been her first life.  All of her training, knowledge, and life experience are coming together right now in her second life.  One on one.  A person at a time.  She is at the top of this game.

“Some people don’t have a loud enough voice.  How could I live with myself if I didn’t help them make connections to whomever they needed to make connections with?  If I can improve anybody’s life because of something I know that I can share with them, or information I can give them, or an encouragement.  It is a mission.  My art?  It is the art of encouragement.”

Don’t be fooled.  None of this volunteerism and good deeds erases the pain that accompanies living 78 years.  Death of a mother.  Death of a father.  Serious family illnesses that need daily attention.  Personal struggles.  All of these problems are still there.   They sit like unwelcome guests in her living room.   And she knows those guests will get more cantankerous as time goes on.  Brubaker once did an interview with Dolly Parton: “I asked if she feared old age, and she said that she didn’t want to get old because she wouldn’t have all her friends there . . . said they would all be gone.”

Brubaker pauses quietly.

There’s a tape of an interview that Brubaker did with Tony Bennett sometime in the early ’80’s.  Towards the end of the interview, Brubaker asks Bennett a question that caught him off guard.  “What do your kids think of your fame and fortune?”  Bennett gave a nonresponse to her question — a question that really asked him to measure his worth beyond wealth and celebrity.  Clever.

A grandmother enters the gallery with her small granddaughter.  The grandmother has clearly been run ragged by her charge.  The grandmother is quickly seated.  The granddaughter is given something to drink.  And Brubaker gives the grandmother suggestions as to where to go to let her granddaughter run for the afternoon.  The grandmother sighs with relief and gratitude.

Enough of this.  Brubaker smiles at me with her smile that travels to the cheekbones:  “So, Joe, do you know who you should interview next . . . .”  And she gives me a contact.

Joe

Here’s a novel thought — people make mistakes.  Usually not big mistakes.  But mistakes, nonetheless.  Frankly, I’ve made one mistake already this morning (was I really just rude to a hard-working guy downtown trying to do a survey at the market?).  Heck, it’s not even 10 a.m. and I’m off and running.  When it’s a politician’s mistake, it’s great fun for all sorts of reasons, one being that we’re just happy that it’s not us.  But, even for politicians, the mistakes usually start out small and ordinary, then just get worse.  Why?  Because they adopt the strategies we all adopt.  “I didn’t do it.”  “He did it.”  “Let’s pretend nothing happened.”  Denial, blame, and silence.  Not good strategies.  And once you adopt these lame approaches, there’s no going back.  Suddenly you find yourself hiring a former Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice to defend your honor.  “I am really really really a good guy.  See, the judge said so.”  Are you kidding?  If that technique didn’t work on the playground, it won’t work in real life.  Trust me.

What to do instead?

In the criminal prosecution world, there is a strategy for dealing with a mistake made by a witness.  It’s called “removing the sting.”  It is amazingly simple.  You bring the mistake up with the witness on direct examination before the defense counsel even has a chance to point fingers.  Then you have the witness admit the error and take responsibility.  That’s it.  You remove the stinger before the defense counsel paints the witness as a bad guy who made a bad mistake.  Yes, it seems counterintuitive for a witness to admit he or she messed up as a method to get the jury to believe the witness.  But it works.   I’ve seen it dozens of times.  Just take out the stinger and the jury forgives.

Naturally, I’ve consulted an expert in this area.

Lawrence Soder is a fourth-generation bee keeper who has a stand in the Downtown Farmer’s Market.   Soder Apiaries out of Saint Charles.  He’s selling amazing honey for money and giving away advice for free.  Yup, that’s a bee outfit.

Soder is a strong, big-boned man.  Tough, weathered skin.  Slightly squinted eyes from working outside.  And a boxer’s hands.   A man you’d like in your corner.  Besides being an expert on bee keeping, he is also an expert on the deadpan delivery: “My ancestors were all carpenters.  Being Swedes, as cheap as they are, they took the extra wood from carpentry and they threw it into bee-keeping equipment.  That’s how we became bee keepers.”  Is he serious?  Should I laugh?  Not a muscle moves in his face to give me a clue.

Why is he a bee keeper?  “Guilt.  I’m trying to make up for my childhood.”  No smile.  This interview may be taking a turn in the wrong direction.

Are there health benefits from bee stings?  “My wrist sounds like a bag of peanuts.  I’m stung on the arm all the time.  Can you hear anything?”  He cranks his wrist up and down and looks at me expectantly.  Is that a grin?  Am I being filmed?

How does the beehive work?  “Every October, the worker bees gather up all the drones in the hive and drag them to the entrance to kick them out.  The drones’ slogan should be ‘I’m here all week except in October.'”  Finally, I see the squint in the eyes becomes tighter.  Is that his sign for uproarious laughter?

Let’s get to our point.  What about stings?  Does he ever get stung?

“If it’s a really mean hive, or one you bumped, when you open it up about fifteen bees will hit you smack in the face.  But, every time you open a hive you’re going to get stung.  When I was working yesterday, I got about ten stings.  Honey bees have a barbed stinger.  There’s a pulsing vein that puts the rest of the venom into you.  You have to scratch that out.  You’re a lot better off if you scratch that out as soon as you can.”

So, Soder takes me to his farm six miles out from Saint Charles.  Bees swarm and buzz in the hot sun.  White sheets on the clothesline snap in the wind.  Freshly bailed hay sits in his field.  And ripened peaches hang heavy from the trees in his small orchard.  Iowa Paradise.

He gives me an oozing honeycomb to eat, perhaps to make me more delicious to the bees, and then he opens up a hive.

Hold it!  Where’s our bee gear?  Where’s our protective masks?  Where’s our smoke machines?

Apparently I’m not sweet enough for even a nibble.  “And, heck, if you do get stung, you just scratch the stinger out and the pain goes away in 10 minutes or so.”  Good advice.

Joe

Thirty-three is an auspicious age.  Even if you’re not going to be kissed by Judas, it seems to carry its own baggage.   You know exactly what I mean, right?  Each of us takes out the yardstick to measure ourselves at different times of our lives.  “Where am I professionally?”  “What do I believe?”  “Did I really marry that guy?”  Thirty-three is just one of those yardstick times.  By thirty-three, you feel you have to decide on a direction.  And many times the only options seem to be fishing in your long johns  off the Grand Avenue bridge or working at a job you secretly hate.  Let’s consider a different picture.

Could I have your attention please?  Ladies and Gentlemen.   A local boy out of Grimes, Iowa.  With a bachelor’s degree from the famous Lawrence Conservatory of Music.  And a master’s degree from the even more famous New England Conservatory of Music.  Performing solo today but sometimes as a member of the duo “The Snacks”.  Playing for the lunch crowd at Lucca, but tomorrow at a wedding or at an art opening or at any function, right here in Des Moines.   Let’s give it up for Michael Pfaff.

Yup, that’s him at the far back.  No, he does not play some strange vegetable instrument.  That’s a grand piano under Lucca’s creation of produce art.  And, yes, Pfaff is not a big man and does seem to get lost amidst all the heirlooms.

“I was very small as a kid.  My friends in school one time locked me in a tuba case . . . .  I was the only one who got detention.”  Pfaff gives a small smile.

Pfaff is friendly, mellow, thankful for his gifts, and aware of the hard work he did to master those gifts.  He speaks with pride of his educational pedigree, but then in the next breath dismisses it all.  “I graduated from Lawrence and had nothing.  I didn’t know standards.  I didn’t know pop songs.  I didn’t know how to set up a PA.  How to collect receipts for traveling.  How to build a web site.  You’ve got to learn pop songs.  When I went to the New England Conservatory, I studied with a guy who spent his life studying two notes.  Really?  You’re not going to entertain anybody with this.  l have to be able to play Giant Steps.  I have to be able to play the Beatles.  Jazz for the sake of jazz is stupid.”

Pfaff was offered an internship at Lincoln Center in New York City.  “When I was a freshman in college, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra came through to do a clinic.  They wanted four kids to do a transcription from a song, and they’d review you.  I was one of them.  The guy before me did some monster Coltrane transcription.  I was next.  Marcus Roberts was the pianist.  It was a slow blues that I played.  On the vibraphone.  It was awesome.  It’s like when you raise your hand, and you know they are going to call on you and you have the right answer.  The business manager called Wynton Marsalis and told him that he had to have this kid come to New York.  So I had an internship at Lincoln Center.”

And again, Pfaff dismisses this accomplishment.  “I had a couple lessons with Wynton.  He was cool, but I wasn’t there yet.  I was just trying to keep up.  I would have said to me.  ‘Don’t play those scales.  Don’t play with the metronome.  Let’s jam.  Just jam.’   I just did enough for him to show I didn’t suck.  I had it up here, but I didn’t have it out there.”

He speaks about his gig at Lucca.  “A teacher at Lawrence told me if someone paid me $200 to paint a painting, you don’t paint a $200 painting.  You paint a priceless painting.  You just happen to get $200 for it.  Like today, my only thought was I get to play the piano.  This is awesome.  I found enough change to plug the meter.  Here I am.  I’m thrilled.”

Words are beginning to tumble on words.  Pfaff on music: “Music is a way to expand our brains.  Yes, I know that sounds like I’m high.  But it’s true.”  And playing the piano: “You don’t just play a scale.  You play the root.  You hold down a note against a note.  It is a relationship to the other note that is important.”  And teaching: “I have one student now.  I want to teach more.  My young students learn by learning the Spongebob Squarepants Song.   Because it’s all notes.  Why not?”

With a wife and a young son of nine months, Pfaff struggles to make it all work.  His phone rings.  “It’s either my wife or a bill collector.  Usually, it’s a bill collector.”  He laughs at himself and his situation.  But the sense of real problems, real struggles, are not so casually turned off with the phone.  Did I tell you he’s thirty-three years old?  He’s most commonly asked, “When are you going to get a job?”

Then Pfaff has to excuse himself to play.  It’s time to go to work.  Time to do what he does.    He seems to bow his head in prayer over the keyboard.  Transfixed.  Focused.

The clink of flatware, china, and glasses resonates off the brick walls of Lucca.  It registers high and provides a lilting quality to the air.  The low murmur of diners’ voices provides the bottom — the backbone.  And the jazz piano?  It floats in the middle.  The bare bones of the Beatle’s “Yesterday” is laid out methodically by Pfaff.  “Did everyone get the structure?” he seems to say.  And then he takes the tiniest thread, some meandering small note, and is off and running.  Structure is gone.  “Yesterday” is left in the dust.  And the piano keys race.  The sound becomes lighter and quicker.  The concentration more intense.   Pfaff appears to lift up in his shirt and tie and pull our emotions veeringly higher.  Up and up.  There it is at last . . . !  Ah, we can breathe.  It’s descending.  A familiar musical phrase.  An echo at first.  The true notes come dancing in.  Slow.  Languorous.  At last, we are back with the Beatles.  All is resolved.

Wipe your brow with your napkin.  Did this thirty-three year old, with enough change to plug the meter, just give you a priceless painting?

Joe

Congressman Steve King’s recent comments are confounding.  You know, his statement about the “dreamers” having “calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert.”   It is so strange that you begin wondering if there is a play within the play.  Without a doubt, to believe that bad people are identifiable by their calf size would certainly keep our streets safe from all those exercise fanatics in Des Moines.   But really?  Are we missing the end game in all this chicanery?  Is King a pawn being used as a feint or is he just a reflection of the lack of civility in all of us?  Got me.  But does poor behavior have to be the last word?

Let me tell you a story.

Marwan Gazali is from Hollywood.  He is an actor.  A fairly successful actor.  Stints on popular TV shows and roles in movies make up his resume.  He has an agent.  He has a manager.  And he’s on a roll.  People want him.  You can see why from this headshot from the movie Excelsior (and, by the way, when was the last photo taken of you in armor?).

Gazali comes from a large family out of Lebanon.  Beirut, to be exact.  His dad, now deceased for three years, was a cop.  His mom’s job was to feed and manage their eight children.  Gazali had a different dream than his parents.  He wanted to act.

“Acting?  I want to do it not for fame, not for name, not for money. . . .   It’s my passion.”  Gazali speaks with intensity.  Not surprising.  He began acting by age six, when he starred in a kid’s program in Beirut.  During this same time, there was a civil war in Lebanon.  He and his childhood buddies, instead of collecting Pokemon cards, collected ammunition found on the streets of Beirut.  “The shells just got bigger as time went on,” Gazali says somberly.

At eighteen, he applied to be an airline steward for Emirates Airline.  There was a small catch, however, he’d never flown on an airplane.  When asked in the interview whether he would be frightened to fly, he responded: “Look around you.  I’m from Beirut.  I was born here.  What worse is going to happen on an airplane.”  And so he became a steward.

Eventually, Gazali ended up in Hollywood.  He hustled, he did any kind of work, he lived in dumps, and he sacrificed.  After roles in some short films, he was eventually noticed.  Success at last.  He became a full-fledged actor.  A dream accomplished.

See, a nice story with a nice ending.

I wind my way into the depths of the suburbs on a dry and hot August day.  The sun-burnt grass and singing cicadas dominate the senses.  I knock on a flower-decorated door and am ushered into the shadows of the interior.   There is much gesturing and retreating by an older woman named Toufica as she maneuvers me onto a back porch.  No English is spoken.  I am gently deposited in a chair after both my cheeks are patted and kissed.

Gazali appears.  He is in Des Moines for the summer.  After his father’s death in Beirut, his mother and a sister came to Des Moines.  Why?  Because his family was here to care for the them.  Brother Jay, amongst other jobs, runs Gazali’s, a wonderful restaurant in the Drake neighborhood.  And brother Mario (along with his singing Irish wife) runs Open Sesame, the wonderful restaurant in the East Village.  They take care of their mom and sister with the help of other family members.  It’s complicated.  Ju Ju, the sister, needs special attention and recently broke a bone in her knee.   The family responsibilities are heavy and just got heavier.  So, Gazali came home to help.

Toufica, Gazali’s mom, comes and goes from the back porch.  Each time with food.  Each time apologizing in broken English for the intrusion.  Fruit and yoghurt.  Cherries.  A special tea.  More kisses for me.  More gentle pats on my cheeks.  Ju Ju appears.  Her involuntary verbal interruptions are met with hugs and reassurances from her brother.  She sits as close as possible to Gazali.  This part is not complicated.  And the fact that Gazali is frequently cast in Hollywood as a Jesus figure blurs my perception.

My visit is over.  I prepare to leave.  Apparently, this is not the end.  Toufica slips me a small gift, food is bagged and placed in my other hand, and I am told to fetch my wife for lunch with Jay at his restaurant.  Are you kidding?  I’ve worked for the government for 31 years.  We don’t do gifts.  Toufica smiles with a look that does not concede any ground.  Lunch it is.

What can I say about all this?  Immigrants.  From Beirut.  Right here in Des Moines.  Unfortunately, I was so amazed by their kindness, their hospitality, their caring for each other, and their love, I totally forgot to check the size of their calves.

I’d better go back for another visit.

Joe

The long hair is what first catches your eye.   Dramatic for a man of middle age.  Caught in tendrils by sweat, it frames his angular face and hawked nose to make him even more exotic.  But it is the energy coiled that really grabs your attention.  An energy that is just slightly scary.  It might be a controlled rage. And it might be directed at you.  Suddenly he flies into motion.  Jumping and kicking and spinning in the air.  1000 boards smashed with his hands and feet in one afternoon.  2000 boards.  5000 boards.  We all stood with mouths agape and gladly counted ourselves as followers.

For countless years, lawyers, teachers, magazine editors, carpenters, and businessmen made the pilgrimage to the  Eric Heintz Black Belt Academy.   We were there to learn Tae Kwon Do.  We were there for fitness.  We were there to get away from the pressures of work.  We were certainly there to exorcise as much as exercise.  Pick your demon.  But confusion as to motive did not lead to confusion as to who was the boss.  Eric Heintz was the master.   Period.  For good reason. We all knew he would walk us out of the wilderness.   And he did.

For me, it was fear.  Fear of the bully.  Straight out of my childhood.  But to show up in the courtroom, with knuckles bloodied from breaking bricks, and with bruises from sparring, it was a wonderful antidote.  And when I would slide back into fear, Heintz would admonish me to act with virtue and restraint — unless virtue and restraint was not an option.  Then he assured me I could release my wrath.  I didn’t even know I had a “wrath” to release.  Apparently I did.

Looking back over the years, it was a simple matter of belief.  Not just the belief that you could break two stacked bricks, or you could fly in the air and execute a side kick, or you could defend against three attackers at once.  It was much more mundane.  Heintz simply believed in you.  And if he believed in you, how could you not believe in you?  It was a wonderful thing.

And then it all came to an end.

Surgeries, botched and otherwise, left Heintz extremely ill.  Fed by a tube, his days were numbered.   He was a dead man, according to the doctors.   And it was the close of an era.  The Eric Heintz Black Belt Academy was no more.  I went on with my life.  And Eric Heintz faded gently from my universe.

20 years passed.

The Buddhist priest, tethered by a feeding tube, gingerly sat on the couch and smiled.

“Everyone’s life is full of burdens, aches and pains, catastrophes, losses, . . . fill in the blank.   There is no solid ground beneath your feet.  Being in a certain kind of shape doesn’t help.  Having a whole lot of money or a job with status or prestige in the community, doesn’t help.  Basically, you’re just kind of out there and you’re going to be a bug on a windshield at some point.”

“Life is precious.  But if you start taking it so seriously that you must get some kind of control and maintain it to have value, for you to be safe, that control is not going to happen.    Deep inside we think horrible things can happen to other people, but at the same time we don’t think it could happen to us.”

“Well, it does happen.  But, you can still laugh at a joke.  You can still enjoy what you enjoyed before.  And even if you can’t, you can take a hard look, or a soft look, around you and find something else that will satisfy whatever in yourself that needs attention.  You can find it.”

“Each of us is going to have pain and each of us is going to die.  It is just a question of how you want to spend your time.  It may be a matter of minutes or longer.  Nobody has any assurances.  But, do you want to spend your time saying, ‘I’m really hurting’?  Or can you let go of the absolute need to have something solid under your feet and be a happy, fulfilled person?”

The locks are shorn.  The muscle is gone.  A tube is connected to his insides.  There’s no leaping.  There’s no spinning.  No boards are broken in a demonstration of masterful technique.  Instead there is laughter and talk.  A lot of it.  As I take my leave, the man who became a Buddhist priest after falling deathly ill, Tetsugen Eric Heintz, grips my hand.  It is a grip of sinewy steel muscle.   One more reminder that nothing is as it appears.  And he laughs and tells me to watch my step.

Joe

Way to go, George.  You’ve been born at last.  8 pounds, 6 ounces of joy.  Congratulations.  You survived the media hype with barely a spit-up.  Now you will be getting all sorts of presents and well-wishes from just about everyone.  Precious stones, beautiful artisan works, and the latest in baby fashions.  Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Of course, you won’t really know what’s going on.  But, be patient.  In a blink, you’ll be ready to either become a poorly behaved prince or an adored royal.  Your call.  Confused?  Ask the ghost of your beloved Grandma Di about confusion.

But I have a special gift for you.  Before you say “no,” I’m going to up-sell it just a little bit.  Okay, how’s this?  I guarantee that if you accept this gift you will have no problem weaving your way through the moral ambiguity of your soon-to-be strange life.  Yup.  My promise sounds grandiose, but I’m not kidding.  Listen, at some point you’re going to be driving down the nine circles of hell wondering which is your exit.  That happens to everyone who is given too much. But this gift will guide you out of Dante’s mess with barely a singed hair.    I promise.  Still hesitating?  Okay, if you are ever wondering whether your car can clear the embankment, whether you’re too much for one woman or man to handle, or whether you should drink, sniff, or inject the latest concoction, this gift will do the trick.  Scout’s honor.  You on board?  Great.

My gift to you is a job.  In Des Moines.  Working for Louie.  No, not tomorrow.  But perhaps when you’re out of  trainers.  Certainly not much later than that.  Let me introduce you.

Yup, this is Luigi (“Louie”) Baratta.  As you can see, Baratta has no problem talking.  Yes, you’re right, Baratta is quite animated and I know that can be scary.  And, yes, Baratta laughs more in a day than your paternal grandfather has laughed in his life.  But that’s the point.

Baratta runs a small restaurant on the skywalk downtown — Something Italian.  His specialty is pizza to die for.  When I tell you he “runs” it, I mean he is there laughing, talking, cooking, every day from before the sun comes up until the lunch crowd is long gone.  This guy works.

You need to understand that Baratta was born on the south side of Des Moines to Italian immigrant parents.   Italian was the only language spoken in the home because that’s all his mom and pop knew in those days as they struggled just to survive.  But, George, this is important: these are sharp folks who know how to navigate the world.

“My dad went to school up to the sixth grade.  Smartest dude ever.  Way smarter than I am.  This guy didn’t have nothing.  Couldn’t speak a lick of English.  He made a good life for himself here.”  Baratta speaks while he quickly and efficiently cuts slices of pizza.

So, what’s in it for you, George, to come under Baratta’s wing?  Let’s count the ways.

1.  Baratta will teach you about work.  “You have to work to get what you get.  Very seldom are you going to get lucky.  I start my kids from the very bottom.  They clean some tables.  Go around and say hi to some people.  Wipe the little counter tops off.  Clean trays.  Work their way.  Then maybe they can start rolling dough.”  Now, don’t get nervous, George, but, after working for Baratta, the next time you parade through London in a horse-drawn carriage, you’ll be thinking about the guy who cleans up the horse poop.  That’s a good thing.

2.  Baratta will teach you about building a community of loyalty.   “I worked forever growing up. I worked for Giudo Fenu, when he had the Hotel Savery, and then Frank Graziano.  I’m thinking: ‘Damn, two hard-core Italians.’  I still do things they told me to do.  They were real smart people.  George Formaro then helped gigantic.  Joe Gatto helped.  He is like the consignere.  He’s a big part.  I’ll  call him all the time: ‘Dude, I have a party for 600, what do I need to do on this?  [imitating the Godfather voice] Heh, this is what you do . . . .'”  George, even you are going to need help.  So buck up.  And we all need a Godfather.

3.  Baratta will teach you about discipline — and, tangentially, Italian: “When we are at a function, and my kids are getting in trouble, we can yell at them in Italian and no one knows we’re yelling at them.  It’s great.”  (Lots of laughter — “no, no, my kids are wonderful.”)  Yes, George, it’s good for you to hear “no” . . . in any language.

4.  Baratta will teach you about family.  “I live in one house.  My mom and dad live right next to me.  And my sister lives on the other side of them.  It’s the best thing ever.  My wife, Sara, loves it more than anybody [this last statement has not been fact-checked, but is within the realm of possibility] . . . .  My mom was a tailor her whole life.  But she cooked all the time.  We still eat there every Sunday.  At 1 o’clock.  Whether she’s sick or not sick, there is always food on the table.”  Your family is going to be crazy, George.  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.  But whose isn’t?  Every Sunday, you got that?

5.  Baratta will teach you about simplicity.  “My parents were just regular southern Italian people.  As a result, I love normal southern food.  Nothing crazy.  Normal red sauce, white sauce, lasagna, manicotti, meatball, sausage that normal people know of.  Just nice, southern peasant food.  That’s the best.”  George, the lesson is clear, just keep it to a red sauce or a white sauce.   End of story.

6.  Finally, Baratta will teach you about achieving the good life.  “This restaurant is my dream.  If I could do this the rest of my life and be happy, why change it.”  So, what’s your dream, George?  That’s the question.

And some day, George, when you’re the boss and worried about the unsettled Middle East, global warming, and international terrorism,  I want you to remember Baratta’s last excited announcement to me as he smiled and gestured and appeared to taste his words:  “You know what we’re eating tonight?  Meat loaf sandwiches.  I’ve been thinking about them all day.  I’m going to put barbecue sauce in there and  some prosciutto.   A little country Italian meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy.  Nice and easy.”

“What’s for supper?” The perfect question when your life is upside down.   Just another lesson from Baratta.  Nice and easy.

So, when should we expect you?

Joe

Come, sit next to me in the back of the room.  Don’t worry, you won’t have to say anything. Yes, I know it’s after work hours and we should be at home with our families.  Oh, I’m sorry, you were actually going to the bar to hang with your buddies?  It’s okay.  Just sit and listen for a bit.

Look at that guy up there.  He’s way too young and hipster-looking to be a judge.  My goodness, he can’t be much older than the kids in the room.  And look over there at her.  She’s way too young to be a juvenile delinquent.  Lord, it’s uncomfortably easy to see her as your own daughter of many years ago.  And the probation officer near the front?  Now he’s the right age.  He radiates an implacable force.

Juvenile Drug Court on Wednesday night.

Chairs scrape, adolescents squirm, and parents sit with stolid faces.  A low murmur drifts around the room as they wait for the start.  Judge Witt begins by requesting an accounting.

Young men and women stand up and catalog their drugs of choice and their dates of sobriety.  “Marijuana last smoked on May 3rd.”  “K2 last used June 10th.”  “Benzos taken two weeks ago.”  Illegal drugs and legal drugs taken illegally.  Not exactly something to write home about.

“Nobody wants to be in Drug Court.  When I first got here, I hated it.  I can’t tell you how much.”  Riana Johnson somberly reflected.  “But they got my head straightened.  It was crooked you know.”

Johnson is infectiously joyful.  Her large smile and brown eyes, with just a touch of sadness at the corners, dominate her face.

She is on-fire with enthusiasm on Wednesday night.   She is radiant.   She shouts out to the group:  “Look where I am right now.  I’m here.  I’m alive.”

Her story isn’t so radiant.  Eight foster homes, abuse, kidnappings, addictions.   The horror of homelessness along the Des Moines River, the dangers on the street, the failed treatment programs, the running away, the violence, the anger.  A lifetime of suffering crammed into 18 years.

“Every time I got high I was happy.  I needed to do it to hide all the pain . . . to hide all the hurt. . . .  Eventually I ended up in the hospital almost dead from alcohol poisoning.  It’s a miracle I’m even alive.”

Johnson made it into Juvenile Drug Court here in Des Moines almost two years ago.  “The first time I went to court I was really scared.  All these rules.  Get your school work done.  Get your work done.  Listen, I stopped working a long time ago.  But once I started doing school I started feeling a lot better.”

“John Hawkins (the Juvenile Court Officer assigned to Johnson) talked to me.  I hated him.  I hated the judge.  I didn’t want anything to do with them.  I get that I almost died.  Being so close to death is scary.  John Hawkins changed my life.  He said to me that one day I’m going to thank him.  ‘No, I’m not.  I’m not going to thank you.’  Well, I’m here and I’m thanking him.”

Hawkins is no-nonsense, buttoned-down, and serious.  Although, if you watch closely, a smile is constantly leaking from his military demeanor.

Hanging in his office, next to two paintings of color and light, are leg and arm restraints.   The dichotomy of his trade.

“Juvenile Drug Court, in a nutshell, is probation on steroids.  It is an intensive, community-based supervision program for kids who have significant substance-abuse problems or addictions.  We try to keep the kids at home as long as possible.  But some kids don’t let us.”

And Hawkins’ role?  “I’m dad, probation officer, in some cases big brother.   In a lot of ways I’m the realist in their lives.   Sometimes I’m the mediator between the kid and the parent.   I’m the advocate and at the same time the adversary.  I’m the first one to give the kid props . . . but if the kid won’t comply, I’m the first one to say here’s where we are.”

Back at the Wednesday Drug Court, Hawkins is clear in his message to the juveniles: “If you hate me, then so be it.”

Of course, those audience members don’t know that earlier that same day, Riana Johnson was again without a home.  She made a call for help.  Hawkins and another juvenile court officer drove 30 miles, helped her move her belongings to storage (on the hottest day of the year), and made sure she was safe.  Just another day for a juvenile court officer.

Tonight, Judge Witt wants more for the juveniles in his charge:  “You have to figure out something more than stopping using.  You’ve got to figure out something more than making it through this program.  You’ve got to figure out your dreams and how you’re going to accomplish them.  You have to choose.”

Johnson has chosen, she told me.  “I want to be a speaker.  A motivational speaker.  I want to help others.”  She smiles broadly leaving little doubt that she has the charisma to achieve her dream.

“Riana has graduated the program,” Judge Witt tells the audience.  “Her case has been dismissed.  She’s moving towards helping others.  Case closed.”

Riana Johnson radiates with the sudden applause.  And she twirls around at the front of the room beaming with delight.  “Thank you, thank you , thank you.”

Joe