Boaz Bloom and Tumble-Down Row, Part Four

November 19, 2007, 1:00 pm; posted by
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The last of the Best of Job, continued. Lost? Read part one, part two, and part three.

I learned that Boaz’s main mission in life was the collection and redemption of aluminum cans, which he placed in the basket of his brown Ross bicycle. That was how we first talked. He had rested his bike along his path (He never rode off his trail; he’d tenderly dismount, carefully lower the bike to the ground, and hoof it in search of cans, which he’d turn in at the IGA for the Iowa 5-cent deposit. They had some arrangement, I guess. His bike was crap in a succession of crap — Becky said he got a different one every year or so from a yard sale, and some people in town made it their tradition to throw old bikes on the lawn in front of his trailer. They were always funny-looking and sometimes funny-sounding but he kept pretty good care of them. Too long an aside? Sorry. Patience with me?…) and walked over to pick up some Coors cans from the well — and he nodded at me in a very kind way. I nodded back and his face exploded into a smile.

What a reward, a smile from Boaz.

Every time he smiled, he drew in a satisfied breath that made a little wheezing sound. He wasn’t a serial smiler but he wasn’t stingy with them either. As he returned to his bike with an armful of cans, I asked him if he wanted my Sprite can. He peered at me through his thick glasses, standing over his bike. “You betcha,” he said, drawing in a breath and smiling widely, as he looked around excitedly for a place to put his silver haul. I still had over 1/2 of the soda left but successfuly had it finished by the time he had walked over.

And it was thus. I built a bridge to Mr. Bloom over a river of Sprite.

 

Boaz, for all my affection for him, was not well. I mean, aside from over 30 years of compulsively riding the same route day in and day out in search of cans, he had some very interesting and unconventional ideas. He told me on more than one occasion of his absolute certainty that Hondas were meant to destroy America. He wasn’t racist against the Japanese or anything, but he had an elaborate theory that every Honda was rigged as a bomb, set to go off at the same time. Rush hour, probably, he posited, they’ll all go off, killing their occupants, creating roadblocks and confusion. Garages would be blown sky high, and fires would engulf everything the Hondas were near. Mass carnage, dontchaknow?

Then, while we were all scurrying around dealing with exploding Hondas, the Japanese would invade. “But I don’t mind sushi,” he’d say with a grin.

And oh…the Wrigley’s sandwich. As he got to know me better and found me to be a willing ear, he’d spend pretty much my whole lunch break with me. He religiously turned down anything I offered him, but would instead pull from his pocket a fistful of gum wrapped in newspaper and sit next to me. He did this thing, see, where he’d make a Wrigley’s sandwich — sticks of Doublemint, Big Red and Juicy Fruit placed back to back, then stuffed into his mouth.

“What’s that taste like?” I asked, trying, lazily, to hide my grin.

“Big Red is the winner usually,” he responded, as he sucked the sugary saliva to the back of his throat. “But Doublemint won once, so I keep waiting to see if he can repeat.”

 

“About 40,000 nickels,” he said in response to my question about how much he paid for his first car. He always had a complex way of saying simple things. And he’d never had a pickle, but he’d had a few pickled cucumbers. I think he resented the notion that being submerged in brine for long periods of time changed the essence of what a cucumber was.

 

Boaz was from Florida, I learned, and had come to Missouri with the Forest Service to dismantle old railroads and return the ground to its natural state or whatever. He told me about finding fish fossils under the railroad ties. When they were done fixing the fields, he stayed in Chap.

I coaxed from Ginnie, the gal at the post office, that the reason was lost love. Some girl back in Florida had married another man while he was gone, a real spurious event. Her family was in severe financial trouble, and a suitor with all the answers, and all the shekels, had come along.

Boaz never had a chance to fight; she had a new last name and zip code by the time he’d heard anything about it. He had been notified through a letter Ginnie had sorted. He was crushed, and the town was pretty hushed in talking about it. They were always pretty protective of their little oddity.

I guess Boaz and that girl were really in love. But these things happen sometimes, right? Romance can be a cruel world sometimes, and I pity the person who loves without thick skin. But if you knew Boaz, a spent man tinged with remarkable intelligence, whom you knew would die where you met him, you’d wish you could get some answers.

–TO BE CONTINUED —


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