Levon Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE
“Maturing is necessary but growing up is optional.”
— Jake Roberts
I hated moving. Change gave me anxiety. The closer we came to our final destination the more my palms sweat. My heart raced. I couldn’t tell if it was because of my SVT, (supraventricular tachycardia) or if it was my normal anxious self. I could say there were many thoughts going through my head, but that would be no different than today, as I try to sit down and write this story. My mind is always racing. It is why I don’t sleep. I am not sure how the insomnia began. It has been with me for so long I do not believe I will ever find out how it started. It may have been when the nightmares manifested, or when the bags under my eyes began to bulge, or even when my heart started to harden.
I have tried to tell the story of Levon since I met him as a teenager, when my family moved to Branford, Connecticut.
When I met the old man, I recently moved into the small New England beach town with my mother and father. My three older sisters were in college and my parents wanted to downsize, as well as prepare for retirement. I was 16 years old, and a functioning ball of delinquency like most adolescents. I had a constant feeling that nowhere around you is someone close enough to yourself to ever understand you.[1] It was comforting knowing others felt just as alone.
Moving into the oversized home made me feel like the new kid in the Sandlot. I became a shell of myself, quiet, reserved, and a bit of a loner. The world felt drab and empty after I left my New York City. I was a city boy at heart and was ripped from my roots like a bad carrot. The way I left didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth. I remember my knees shook when I closed the door to the house that helped shelter and raise me. Sometimes things don’t feel right, or at least that is the way I interpreted the ache I felt but couldn’t describe. This didn’t feel right.
I hated the way we left, leaving my friends, and my life behind me. However, the alternative of boarding school, rehab or jail were not any more appealing. So, I followed orders and moved.
My house in Branford stood on a rock. It was set back from marshland with a trail that led to some of the best clamming around. Just over the marsh to the East was the marina. Ships came and went in an orchestrated carousel of shapes, sizes and colors. Some boats were crewed by hardworking fishermen with salt laced beards and whiskey on their breath, other boats were filled with cadres of loud youth looking to escape into the ocean and toss a few Budweiser’s back. The house came with a good size yard where our dog Broadway could play and not run away. Broadway was found tied to a pole on Broadway as a puppy, hence the name. The house was modern in its design but country in decoration. The outside was painted in a cold grey and was littered with hard angles and triangle shaped windows. But the inside’s pine floors, wood shelves and warm hearth gave a completely different vibe. I always said the house had an identity crisis it could never figure out. The house was vacant for many years. I never met anyone who could tell me exactly how long, mostly because it had been abandoned long before most moved into the town. Despite its loneliness, the house was very well maintained and had all of the modern amenities one would expect today. A family owned it for 50 years but was unable to solidify a buyer, until my family decided to take a flyer on the house.
My father said, “It was a deal that even a deaf, dumb and blind man couldn’t pass up.” I was never sure what that meant. My father liked to sound intelligent and boastful, but most of his intelligence came from a few regurgitated lines from Ben Hur and La Vita e Bella. Anyway, I digress. I never liked seeing vacant houses. It reminded me of the Joyce Kilmer poem my grandmother used to recite to me during bedtime. She tried to pass it off as her own, but I knew better.[2]
No one ever gave us an explanation as to why the house wouldn’t sell. However, I later found out.
When we first pulled down Lotus Lane, he sat in a large brown rocking chair on the front porch. The chair was extremely ornate to be outside. The gloss shimmered from afar, making me wonder how it kept such a shine after years of being pelted by harsh New England weather. The chair was out of place on the simplistic Colonial porch. The porch had a white railing attached to a dark weathered wood floor that wrapped around the entire house. He rocked incessantly, at a pace that was far too fast for anyone in a rocking chair to reach… and he waved at us. That was it. He never came over and never spoke.
Most people who will be important in your life usually don’t make it known until after their first impression has already been cemented in your mind. This is god’s little way of reminding us, we are all inherently shallow.
At first, I couldn’t tell much about the old man other than he was old and alone. His house was an ancient white farmhouse. For a house that looked to be built pre-war, it was in incredibly good condition. Not a single shutter hung astray, not a single shingle gone rogue. The porch was swept, and the paint looked fresh. There was another deck on the second level that faced East and the ocean behind us, however, I never saw him out on that balcony. This struck me as odd during the first two weeks I lived at 16 Lotus Lane because it was a beautiful two weeks of weather and not a single person stayed indoors. The entire town was out enjoying the summer weather. The old man was a constant presence on his front porch ignoring his million-dollar view from just on the other side of the house. Why would he stare at the street and forest of pines instead of a Country-Living- magazine-worthy view of the ocean? The house was accented by dark red shutters and a white picket fence that lined the well-groomed yard. I wanted to describe the old man as Boo Radley, but he was too well kept, and the house too well maintained to ever be the fateful grumpy old man at the end of Main Street in Maycomb, Alabama. He had two dogs that always sat near him; a large black Newfoundland who he called Kurt and a brindle colored English Bulldog named Ernest. His mailbox said Levon. He was house 28.
By day seventeen (Yes, I counted) of living in the new house, my mother saw the old man sitting on his porch alone and decided it would be a nice neighborly gesture to say hello. My mother believed that kindness and compassion could change the world. I believed the world just changed. Who gave a shit how it went about the changes? “Not eye, said the blind man.”
I knew I had no choice but to go along with my mother as she bopped her way, in a neighborly strut across the yard to the well-manicured garden. I never saw the old man in his garden, but it always looked as if a team of illegal immigrants spent hours a day fumbling over the hedges, forget-me-nots, sunflowers and an array of lilies that would make a funeral home owner blush.
The two dogs were polar opposite in genetic makeup and size. They stayed loyally by their owner as we walked up the wooden steps to the porch. Up close, the porch and house looked much bigger, the rocking chair even larger, but the man was much smaller. Short in stature, with a stocky build, he stayed slightly hidden in the shaded region of the porch, concealing his most detailed features. He did not say anything as we approached. He did not move. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.
My mother, never one to notice the awkwardness in situations, decided to just go for it. Her blissful ignorance at 60 years of life always made me smile and cringe that someone this inept at social norms was so successful in their professional life.
“Hey! We are the new neighbors from down the road. Number…”
She was cut off. “16, I know. I saw when you moved in. The move go well?” The old man said with an earnestness in his voice that was eerily familiar, terrifying and also intoxicating.
“Yes, all is well. I want to introduce my son Jake. We just moved here from New York. I am Ruth and my husband is Angelo.”
“Nice to meet you guys.” he said.
Then we reached the awkward part in all conversations. This is when all conversations are decided. Immediately after any introduction, there is always a slight pause where the conversation can go one way or the other. You have to be quick, and decisive, and for god’s sake do not mention the fucking weather. Nothing makes me sicker than forced politeness and forced interaction.
This is when the old man should have introduced himself, but he didn’t. It was an odd gesture for a man who appeared to be docile and well spoken. My mother, not picking up on the social cues continued,” And may I ask your name?”
“It’s Levon.”
“Isn’t that your last…” I shot in but was cut off…
“Sport, It’s Levon. It’s what they call me.”
Sport? Who did this guy think he was… Gatsby? It felt slightly demeaning and in any other situation my undeveloped brain would have a petty immature response such as, “at least I can play a sport.” Or even more couth, “Don’t call me Sport, you old fuck.”
However, my filter clicked in and I said… “Okay.”
Levon and my mother continued to speak about his garden and mutual affinity for lilies. We walked away, and despite two entirely different interactions, had a similar impression of Levon. He was lonely.
The first few weeks were weird in the new house. I was used to the loud horns and commotion of the city lights, not the New England country. The crickets were louder than the sirens that echoed off the alleys of a New York City night.
Every day, as I drove back and forth to my new school, I saw Levon sitting on his front porch with Kurt and Ernest. He would wave and sit there. Almost a year went by before we had an actual conversation. It happened as I snuck out my back window to smoke a blunt by the water. It was routine for me, like my glass of wine at night. As the blanket of night engulfed the small beach town I ran to solitude. The nights were troubling for me, so I self-medicated the best way I knew how.
The ocean had a calming effect on me, like Vicks Vapor Rub for the soul. One night, while down by the water I sensed in my stoned- paranoia someone was near. Although, when I turned around and peered through the nighttime mist, I saw no one. I smelt pot. I thought it was my own but then I saw the orange glow coming from the jetty, about 100 yards away. I froze in the dark chill of the night unable to make a decision between approaching or minding my own business. So, I minded my own business and pretended as if no one else existed in this world but me. I tried to not look in the direction of the fellow stoner, but just like when you tell kids not to snoop for Christmas presents, and they do regardless, I turned and stared down the glow. To my surprise, the person was coming closer. The image slowly became clear as the distance between us disappeared.
Like a scene from a movie, the stranger approached through the descending fog onto the beach where the moon shown down on the glossed sand. It wasn’t that dramatic, but wouldn’t you know it… Levon appeared, hobbling closer. He wore a tattered University of Rhode Island hoodie, which lost all of its elastic from years of wear, a pair of dark blue Levi’s and boat shoes. He was dressed like a frat boy but was easily in his 60’s. His joint was tightly rolled, the obvious skill of a man who has been rolling joints near the ocean for a while. Anyone who smokes pot knows that joints in windy situations are about as compatible as an emotional woman with an insensitive man. He moved slowly down the beach. It was a walk that seemed so familiar to him… he knew every iota of sand that was strewn throughout the beach… he knew where to step, and how hard or soft to step. It always helps if you know where to step next.
When you see someone doing something that is out of character, despite the fact I didn’t know the crotchety old man or his character, it always takes you back. Seeing an easily 60 plus year-old man smoking a joint at midnight on the beach was something that was out of character. It is like seeing a teacher in the grocery store and you say, “What are you doing here?” Failing to realize they do in fact, eat food, just like you.
I turned toward him as smoke billowed from his joint creating a cloud in the already hazy night. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to be like, “shit I am busted,” but really… so was he. Either way, what did this lonely old man care? I felt social, so I sat down with the man on the rock wall behind us. We did this without speaking, as if we just knew it was time to sit.
“Who are you?” He said as if in the middle of a conversation.
“Jacob, I mean Jake, Ruth’s son, your new…” I was cut off…
“That’s not what I asked, Sport.”
“How many nicknames are you going to have for me Fitzgerald?” His bushy eyebrows raised but he didn’t turn.
“My first question,” he blurted, now in a lower and raspier voice that was new to me.
“Sorry Levon, I don’t get what you are asking.”
“Yes, you do.”
“You struggle with hearing? Or just…” He cut me off again…
“I see it Sport. I see it. I hear it too. Who are you?”
“What is that? A fucking Haiku?”
“No, you little brat Haiku’s are 5,7,5. And you knew that too, you pretentious little…” I cut him off…
“Okay then, who do you think I am if you know, if you see it too?”
“There he is.”
“I am too high for this right now.” I mumbled to myself.
“I just want to know who you are. You are obviously Jake Roberts who lives at 16 Lotus Lane, but I want to know WHO you are. What do you see? What do you hear? You observe, don’t you? Your observations are what make you who you are. How you convey them creates how you are perceived. So, when I ask, “who are you?” I want to know what you see and hear in this world. Your eyes are old kid, but your heart is still young… Tell me.”
It didn’t make any sense. I didn’t know how to respond. No one ever asked me this before. But what caught me in my one-track mind was his allusion to my heart and mind. It was as though he was so hurt by age; the innocence of youthful eyes, ears and heart were like medicine. Some expect the old to be grumpy, some wise, and some jaded. But what I find is they are all of the above, they just wear their pain on wrinkled hands and heavy eyes. The heart can only take so much pain after all the years of living. However, it can only know the pain of life, if it has enjoyed the blessings life provides as well. A well-worn body shows a well-lived person.
For some reason, I burned the candle at both ends slowly holding onto the idea I didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem mixed with the unconscious desire to wear myself out…to become a wretched old man. I wanted to look exhausted, burnt out and down trodden. I didn’t know why. The tired old man with eyes sagging low and hands worked to the bone, was attractive to me. I see them, and I see a life well lived. I see a man who has seen things. I see a man who has loved. I see someone who has survived the worst the world can throw at him and come out on the other end flipping everyone else off.
The pause lasted much longer in my head than reality.
Up close his face was made of granite, however, his hands were smooth. The usual protruding spider veins and calluses were absent. His nails were well manicured. He spoke slow but harsh, his words drawn out by an airy tone. He was so wound up when he thought, but when he spoke; it was tranquil, like with each passing syllable he was able to breathe a little easier.
I attempted a stuttering answer of immaturity.
“I don’t know; I am who I am. I see people for who they are…yeah I know cliché… and I am allergic to incompetence.”
“Allergic to incompetence,” He repeated.
“Yeah you know what I mean. I don’t care if you are stupid that’s not your fault it’s god fucking you in the ass, but incompetence drives me crazy. There is no excuse for incompetence.”
“I understand Sport.”
“But I also think everyone is too damn serious all the time. I get maturing is necessary but why isn’t growing up optional? I don’t know… ‘I am just far more certain about what I am against than what I am for.’”[3]
“Mandela…Good, good.”
Didn’t think he would catch my plagiarism.
He continued, “It’s okay to feel that way, ‘Something is odd if a person is not liberal when he is young and conservative when he is old.’”[4]
“Mandela, I suppose?”
“You catch on quick kid.”
What the hell was this crazy old man talking about? My skepticism about his overall sanity rose but I did not run… I should have run.
He gently put out his joint, gingerly stood up and gracefully disappeared back into the night. As he slowly faded away, I yelled, “Isn’t smoking at your age bad for you!?”
“I ain’t in it for my health kid,”[5] he said.
When I woke up, I wanted to convince myself it didn’t happen. But the next day when Levon winked at me I knew it was definitely real.
This was our first chat on the beach that turned into many. Eventually, I brought whiskey down for us to drink. Levon would bring his tumblers. Each night the sun gradually set as a soft moon left a shadowy glow across the skipping waves. It was our happy place, like two kids who snuck out of the house at night to giggle and play games without the burdensome eyes of their parents. But what started as a coincidence became something more.
During the day, Levon would come up with a way to signal that night we were meeting. Some days it was a wink, some days it was letting Kurt shit in our lawn, some days I found a lily petal on the porch. I think he enjoyed the game. There were days when he didn’t contact. I never asked about it. I never pried into his life. I think he appreciated this part of our relationship. People should not have to speak about what they do not wish to mention voluntarily. He was a good listener and pushed me in my thinking. The way he talked was reminiscent of Lord Henry from The Picture of Dorian Grey. He had words of wisdom with an underlying cynicism that made sense if impressionable and damning if weak.
Our ability to listen without speaking was imperative to our relationship.
The relationship was slow building. Levon would ask me to tell him about my day. At first, I gave the generic, “It was good,” response I usually yelled at my mother, as I slammed the door behind me trying to get upstairs as fast as possible. It wasn’t because I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother, it was because I was young and immature and didn’t realize her hearing about my day was all she waited for at 4:05 each evening.
The last thing I remember from that night was the smile Levon gave as he walked away. It was a sincere lie. We all wear masks. Some intentional and some not, but the deliberate veil of happiness[6] is the most seductive of all masks. I was okay with his honest lie. Society has lost the value of a white lie, however be wary, you can never trust an honest man.
[1] Irving, John. The World According to Garp
[2] Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
[3] Mandela, Nelson. A Long Walk to Freedom
[4] Mandela, Nelson. A Long Walk to Freedom
[5] Helms, Levon. The Band
[6] Keats, John. Ode on Melancholy
