Mickey Hadick

My wife and I went out to dinner on a Saturday night. It was back in November, but we had an unusually cold November this year. We were downtown, which has more of a nightlife these days. After dinner, we walked down the block to a nightclub for a drink.

As we neared the nightclub, a man yelled "Sandusky". I heard him distinctly, but I didn't think he was talking to us, but the word hit me because I spend a bit of time in or near Sandusky, Ohio. I assumed he was talking on a cell phone.

He yelled "Sandusky" again. He was just a few feet away, now.

"Are you talking to me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "Do you know where Sandusky is?"

I pointed South. "That a-way."

"Have you ever been to Cedar Point? Do you know the artists there? I'll draw your picture, just like they do."

This stopped us momentarily, and he flapped paper in our face and showed us a pen. "I'll draw your picture, and then you can pay me whatever you think is fair."

I muttered something in my confusion, so he kept talking:

"I just got out of jail, and I don't have a place to stay, and I don't have any money. I need $24.50 to stay at the hotel by the highway, so I'm trying to draw pictures to raise cash. I don't have any family nearby that I can call."

My wife was all too eager to be drawn into this conversation. "Did you try the city mission?" she asked. "It's just down the road."

"They're full. They aren't taking any more tonight."

"So where are you going to stay?" she asked.

"I don't know," the guy said. "I'm going to keep moving. Everything will be closing soon, so I won't be able to get warm."

He was drawing us as he spoke. He had a blue, ballpoint pen, and some scrap paper. He made a rough, outline sketch of us. It was not masterful by any means, but it reminded me of us.

"So if you'd give me $20, I'd really appreciate it," he said. I took out my wallet. "$10 would be cool, too," he added. He was cold and shivering. While he drew the picture, his hand shook, and now his teeth chattered a bit as he spoke.

I offered him three dollars. He took it, but was visibly disappointed. He left quietly, without thanking us, but I don't blame him. I was disappointed too. I should have given more. It was not a great picture, but it was a reasonable likeness.

Labels: story

The problem with hookers is that they don't always look like hookers. They don't always dress like the over-the-top hussies you see on old episodes of Starsky and Hutch or Beretta. Unfortunately for me, television is the extent of my training about dealing with hookers. There really needs to be a life manual for these sorts of things.

The other day I had just parked my car on the street downtown when a woman approached me asking for help. She was older (fifty?), petite, and thin. She had blonde hair, big glasses, and was wearing a lavender jogging suit. She said her car had broken down about a mile away, and needed a ride. She didn't have any money so she couldn't take a cab.

She spoke with a near-spastic intensity that reminded me of one of my aunts, so I decided to help.

During the ride, she elaborated on her story. Her daughter had a problem at college, and she had driven there and given her daughter all of her money, and then broken down on the way home. She still had an hour of driving to complete, and had no friends in this city, but some friends from home had wired her money so that she could get her car fixed.

When we got to where she had said the car was broken down, she asked me to take her a little farther, into one of the neighborhoods near the highway, to a party store where she was expecting the money. I became suspicious: the car was not where she had said it would be.

She asked if she could have a couple of bucks, because she had driven that whole way from the college without money, and was thirsty, and really needed a coke. Just a couple of bucks was all she needed. She'd be really thankful, and she knew I was already doing plenty, and I didn't have to give her anything, but she really wanted a coke if I could spare a couple of bucks.

As we pulled into the party store parking lot, she looked at a man leaving the parking lot in a pickup truck, and he waved at her. She waved back. I saw recognition in the man's face. Not joy; just recognition.

Nothing of her story was playing out. The car wasn't where she said it was; she needed a ride to somewhere else, she knew someone in town, and if she was being wired money, why did she need two bucks from me?

I thought she's either the neighborhood whacko, a crack head, or a hooker. Somehow, hooker seemed right. It's one of those instinctual things.

I gave her the two bucks and bid her adieu.

Labels: story

When I played hockey, most of the guys on the team would blow their nose by closing one nostril with a finger and blowing, spewing phlegm across the ice. We called it "coach's handkerchief," but it always creeped me out. I would sneak tissue onto the ice, hiding it in quiet places in my uniform. I was lucky I wasn't abused by them in the shower.

I have seen, on more than one occasion, grown men blow their nose into the sink in the men's room at work. I just barely understand this, but only just barely. It is, technically, probably, as equally hygienic as using tissue, but it's just one of those things that creep me out slightly. It's like someone that brushes their teeth in the kitchen sink. It just doesn't seem right.

Do you say, "bless you" when someone is bent over the sink blowing their nose? Small talk is tough enough in the men's room without some weird breach of protocol. I don't quite know what to say, so it's imperative that I don't make eye contact. When you're shoulder to shoulder at the urinal, all is right with the world. Just don't make any sudden movements, and don't glance in their direction, and everything will be all right.

But when the guy is bent over at the sink, if the timing is wrong, he's going to stand up and you can't help but look. Dumb ass. It's not like I wash my hands in his cubicle, or pee in a jar while waiting for the elevator.

Labels: standup

When it comes to ending telephone conversations, I have lost the ability to hang up the damn phone. It becomes an awkward series of...

"Okay...see you...take care...talk to you later...have a good evening...alright....later...mm-hmm...goodbye...bye.

It doesn't matter who the other person is, be they a close friend, old friend, remote acquaintance, service manager at the auto repair shop, my son, my daughter, or a wrong number. I've become too polite on the phone, and the endings become like a ping pong match between two mediocre players, back and forth, volley return, over and over again, because no one has a smash shot they can use to hang up the God damn phone.

There is, of course, one exception to this rule, and that is with my wife. After twenty years, we end our conversations like this:

"Is that it?"
"I guess."
"Bye."
Click.

It's over in two seconds. Hell, we don't even say hello when we call.

"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"Did you bounce a check for $215.37?"
"I guess."
"Okay."
"Bye."
Click.

I need to imagine that the entire world is my wife, and that there is no reason for pretension or ceremony. I need to end every phone call like it's just another conversation in an infinite series of phone calls, mundane, boring, intrusive, and annoying. I need to say goodbye and hang up.

I'm done.

Labels: standup