{"id":980,"date":"2017-04-08T14:21:17","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T18:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takethepatience.com\/?p=980"},"modified":"2017-04-08T14:22:04","modified_gmt":"2017-04-08T18:22:04","slug":"980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takethepatience.com\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"95 America Street, Chapter 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

April, 2005<\/em><\/p>\n

I started work on Mr. Pemberton\u2019s house a couple weeks later.\u00a0 An annoying realtor by the name of Diane Spencer was also there.\u00a0 She showed up in her obligatory Range Rover with her company\u2019s name \u201cSpencer Associates\u201d stenciled on the side.\u00a0 And of course, out of sheer necessity, she took up two spots in the driveway, forcing me to park farther from the front door and lug my tools a greater distance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I had never met Diane Spencer but I had heard about her and seen her face plastered over real estate signs in the nicer parts of Boston.\u00a0 I heard she was an aggressive, kind-of-hot-for-her-age, back-stabbing bitch that was the most successful realtor in town.\u00a0 I was disappointed Mr. Pemberton hired this dragon but unfortunately, it was probably going to take someone like this to sell such a large, oddball property for the amount it was worth in the part of town it resided.<\/p>\n

She was talking to Mr. Pemberton in the next room when I entered.\u00a0 She was wearing a very high quality, stylish, khaki-colored suit with dark brown high heels that brought her to the make-believe height of 5\u20199\u201d.\u00a0 The light-colored suit help highlight a deep tan that actually looked real and probably recently originated in Miami or some Caribbean island.\u00a0 Her well-placed bangs hid unwanted wrinkles and made her appear a tad more girlish without compromising her mature, commanding presence.\u00a0 Her hair was a product of such constant Newbury Street salon attention, it was hard to tell if it was her actual hair or a really nice wig.\u00a0 Her Maker gave her an attractive slim figure that she chose to look after.\u00a0 She smelled nice.<\/p>\n

Diane walked over to me as if she was the Queen of \u201cThe Castle\u201d. \u00a0She felt it was her duty and her right to tell me not just what to work on but how and in what order.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you should start with the trim first and I know how you painters love to use semi-gloss on the trim but I think satin finish would be more appropriate. \u00a0After that, I would deal with the ceilings.\u00a0 Please don\u2019t use regular ceiling white.\u00a0 It\u2019s too bright.\u00a0 I think a linen white would be best.\u201d<\/p>\n

I put my five-gallon bucket of tools down.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, I\u2019m Chris.\u00a0 The trim will be done after I take care of removing the wallpaper.\u00a0 Or maybe I\u2019ll do the ceilings after I strip the wallpaper.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t decided yet.\u00a0 Unless something drastic has happened, Mr. Pemberton is paying the bill which means he\u2019s the one I take orders from.\u201d<\/p>\n

I picked up my bucket and walked upstairs.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t look back at her as I went.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t need to.\u00a0 I knew she now disliked me as much as I disliked her.\u00a0 I started to work.\u00a0 Twenty minutes later, I could hear Diane leaving.\u00a0 Mr. Pemberton walked up to me shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

He was smiling. \u201cI am sorry about that.\u00a0 Mrs. Spencer is supposedly the best realtor in Boston but she seems to lack some of the more elementary social graces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry if I was too zesty.\u00a0 The thought of all this wall paper removal has me in a crusty mood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re too young to be crusty!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWallpaper removal ages you prematurely.\u00a0 Scientists haven\u2019t proven it yet but I have.\u00a0 I\u2019m only 13 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughed and held his hands up near his face with his palms facing towards me. \u201cAh!\u00a0 Don\u2019t tell me that!\u00a0 I want to be able to claim ignorance when I get arrested for violating child labor laws!\u201d<\/p>\n

You can really learn a lot about someone when they laugh.\u00a0 The beauty of laughter is that your guard is supposed to be down and you surrender control.\u00a0 It should be an unveiled glance into a person in their raw form.\u00a0 Some people try to mask this and choose not to relinquish control while they laugh.\u00a0 When I saw Mr. Pemberton laugh, I could see him as a young man.\u00a0 This is the great thing about laughter with no restraint as you get older, you become as you were many years ago.\u00a0 Mr. Pemberton took this to another level.\u00a0 I could see him as a younger man almost all of the time.\u00a0 He somehow avoided all the artificial restraints we put on ourselves as we age that hide what we are or what we once were.<\/p>\n

I remember reading some old book of wisdom that was either Chinese or Japanese in origin.\u00a0 One thing from it that stuck with me was that it compared a person to a white robe.\u00a0 When a white robe is new, it is pure and free from blemish but as time goes by, it becomes stained, dirty, and tattered.\u00a0 The book claimed this was the way for every robe, every person.\u00a0 For his age, Mr. Pemberton was the whitest robe I\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 A brand new white robe does not impress me.\u00a0 A robe that has been through a long human life of any sort that still appears close to its original glory is something that deeply impresses me.<\/p>\n

A wonderful line from \u201cRed\u201d portrayed by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption<\/em> comes to mind.\u00a0 To escape from Shawshank Prison, Andy Dufresne is forced to make his way through a 500-yard-long sewage pipe which prompts Red to say, \u201cAndy Dufresne – who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.\u201d\u00a0 Life is often like this sewage pipe but no one seems to make it through clean except Andy Dufresne and Thomas Aloysius Pemberton.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry about the feisty Mrs. Spencer.\u00a0 I\u2019ll put this house on the market when I<\/em> am ready to,\u201d he assured me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny thoughts as to where you\u2019ll go after you sell this place?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell if I\u2019m not dead, I guess I\u2019ll move south but not Florida like everyone else my age. \u00a0I\u2019m thinking something like Charleston or Asheville, maybe.\u00a0\u00a0If I am dead, then my hope is to make it to Heaven which I hear is the best retirement community that money can\u2019t<\/em> buy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething tells me you won\u2019t be dead.\u00a0 Asheville?\u00a0 Where is that?\u00a0 In the Carolina\u2019s somewhere?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat made you consider Asheville?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been through there a few times and it always seemed like a charming place, big enough where there\u2019s interesting things to do but small enough to be relaxed.\u00a0 And it\u2019s earned some impressive superlatives recently from a bunch of magazines.\u201d He laughed and continued, \u201cAARP Magazine said it was one of the \u2018Best Places to Reinvent Your Life\u2019.\u201d He laughed a little harder, \u201cRolling Stone said it\u2019s the \u2018New Freak Capital of the U.S.!\u2019\u201d Now he could hardly talk, \u201cAnd Self Magazine rated it \u2018The Happiest City for Women\u2019 and God knows I love being around happy women!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWonderful!\u00a0 So you can be a reinvented freak that\u2019s chasing after happy women!\u00a0 Damn, I may be moving with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He walked away, still laughing, with his hands in his pockets.\u00a0 That was another great thing about Mr. Pemberton.\u00a0 No matter what kind of mood he was in or what the situation was, he so often had his hands in his pockets.\u00a0 Some people look unconfident when they do it but with Mr. Pemberton, it gave him a regal, gentlemanly air.<\/p>\n

I labored on with the wallpaper removal, spraying on stripper and scraping it off, cursing the slimy mess I became part of.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t help that I am a very neat person that enjoys organization.\u00a0 Purposely making a mess that sticks to me goes against my very nature.\u00a0 It was a struggle to not look at how much more I had to do as I went.\u00a0 I tried but always failed to not constantly observe my slow pace and calculate how much time remained.<\/p>\n

A few hours later I went downstairs to eat my lunch.\u00a0 It was sunny and in the high 40\u2019s which was warm enough for me to take my lunch outside.\u00a0 I sat on the front steps that faced south and into a welcoming sun.\u00a0 Mr. Pemberton came out with a cup of tea for me.\u00a0 He left the front door open so we could hear the jazz he just put on. It Never Entered My Mind<\/em> by Miles Davis was playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt Never Entered My Mind by Miles Davis.\u00a0 This is a song that deserves to be called pretty.\u00a0 Miles recorded it in \u201956 but the song is originally from a musical called \u2018Higher and Higher\u2019.\u00a0 This is my favorite Miles Davis recording.\u00a0 I remember hearing this song for the first time as I drove into Boston for the first time.\u00a0 I only meant to visit here but my visit has lasted almost 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are you from originally?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cKansas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat made you come to Boston?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Interstate 70 eminently<\/em> marched through my family\u2019s farm, my parent\u2019s decided to sell the land off in chunks.\u00a0 They actually made a decent profit doing it that way.\u00a0 Although we hated it at the time, they put an exit right next to our farm which created an artificial modern little hub of commercial activity.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t that far from Topeka to begin with but now with the new highway, the time was cut in half which made our area even more desirable.\u00a0 Over time, hotels, gas stations, car dealerships and housing developers were willing to pay decent money for land in that area.\u00a0 So my parents sold off the cows and farming equipment and patiently, slowly sold off the land over the next 10 years.\u00a0 When they were done, they took their new found wealth to Florida and retired in ample comfort.\u00a0 I decided to leave right when they made the decision to start selling the land and the cows.\u00a0 The life I knew there was dying and I couldn\u2019t stand to be an audience to its slow, agonizing demise.\u00a0 I called up a friend from the war that lived in Boston and he invited me to stay with him for a while so I packed a few things into an old pickup truck and headed this way.\u00a0 I drove back roads as much as possible.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to use or benefit from the very thing that had ruined my family\u2019s way of life. \u00a0But as it turned out, this very thing brought my parents more money than if they had kept farming.\u00a0 A fine example of making sweet delicious lemonade out of some sour highway lemons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April, 2005 I started work on Mr. Pemberton\u2019s house a couple weeks later.\u00a0 An annoying realtor by the name of Diane Spencer was also there.\u00a0 She showed up in her obligatory Range Rover with her company\u2019s name \u201cSpencer Associates\u201d stenciled on the side.\u00a0 And of course, out of sheer necessity, she took up two spots … <\/p>\n

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