Firm against the wind like grass
Gino is Back in Town


For Sunday, August 10, 2008


Guess who’s back in town? Guess whose relationship cracked like the Liberty Bell? Guess whose relationship crumbled like my mother’s Thanksgiving turkey? Guess whose relationship dried up like a top limb lime? Guess whose relationship fell apart like pressure-cooked pork? Guess whose relationship died like alfalfa sprouts on the moon? Gino is back in town.
My old college buddy, Gino, who moved in with us back in 2004 after he turned 50 and ran screaming from Philadelphia and his family to start anew, is back in Benicia after his nearly-two-year relationship with a San Francisco girl.
“Everything was fine, until I moved in,” he explained. “It was just too much pressure.”
Like radioactive isotopes that get together, they came apart.
I can imagine that just logistically for Gino, living in the city, even alone, considering his line of work, had to be exhausting. He is a carpenter-electrician-plumber-mason-designer who does finish work, remodels, additions. He drives a big open F-250 truck full of expensive tools everywhere he goes. In the city, he had no guaranteed parking. He had to move his many tools from his truck to the garage, sometimes a block away, in several trips, each trip leaving behind whatever he couldn’t carry, unguarded.
Back in Philadelphia his truck was robbed on several occasions, once while at Home Depot, so he’s perpetually anxious about his tools while traveling. Whenever we have parked anywhere, we have had to move all his gear from the bed of his truck to his cab, then put it back again after we bought our 2x4 or saw blade or Dennys breakfast.
I can imagine Gino gingerly trotting up a San Francisco hill at sundown carrying a tile saw, knowing his compressor and his saws-all are alone and defenseless back at the truck, parked around the corner. I can imagine the same scenario in reverse each morning, and gauge the time it would take. I empathize with his angst.
This situation no doubt perhaps most assuredly made Gino cranky at times. Whenever the world vibrates beyond the alpha range, Gino senses it in his bones and grows testy. Usually, he can control his environment and maintain a steady baroque. The hubbub of San Francisco proved too much, however, for this Philadelphia boy.
She, on the other hand, had heavy family complications, extremely heavy, in the millions. All this and that and the other thing, and here he is at our doorstep once again looking for his old bedroom back. Of course, it was as he left it, waiting for Godot.
The rest of the story is the meat of his own personal monkey’s paw inside the coconut of love and not mine to crack open and distribute. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask him yourselves. If you don’t know him, just look each Thursday at the Farmer’s Market for a balding Italian guy buying tomatoes and listening to jazz, looking for that certain someone.
We like having him home. He’s like our grown son that we had when we were two. He carries his share of the household upkeep like a senior member. He built and maintains our vegetable garden. It looks like Eden. Fat, flat cucumber leaves, zucchini vines, zinnias and marigolds sprout up from an abandoned corner of our yard like one of Mother Earth’s reified dreams.
He helped me rescue my deck and build a shade roof, for which I have a permit, thank you very much. Of course I have a permit. Who, what homeowner would build without a permit? That would be silly and wrong. Especially considering how easy it is to acquire all the permits one needs, including electrical, and how kind and friendly, and forgiving, the people are down at the city office.
So Gino’s back. Our dinner volume will rise to normal. We’ll have more seafood in our diet. The dishes will always, every minute of the day, down to the spoon I just used to stir my coffee, be clean, dried, and put away. Greg Brown music will once again fill the air. We will once again loudly and continuously criticize every movie flaw we see. We’ll go to the Chris Club more often. We’ve got a new kick we’re experimenting with – backyard deep-fry. We bought a monster pot and buy our vegetable oil by the gallon.
Gino is for hire, by the way, for home construction projects. You’ll have to negotiate individually for his extended services. Alan Lemone, Mr. Best Cabinets in Town Guy, can hook you up. Or you know where to find me. Google.
Want to turn your living room into your kitchen, your kitchen into your bedroom, your garage into a nightclub with a mahogany bar and recessed lighting? He’s your guy.
We’re sorry for his sad romance. It’s not a funny situation. He’s heartbroken and depressed. I ache for my friend. But he’s also resilient. He’s hard like water.
“It’s life. It’s what happens,” he says. “Try again.”