“Ok kids, our stop is coming up. Everyone ready?”
The subway was loud and DJ did not answer with words. Instead he began to bob his head, slowly at first, then at a quickened pace, moving in a deliberate, methodical, manner. Up down, up down, up down. He continued bobbing as he picked at the edge of his red seat with an index finger. Much like a squid’s curious tentacle might, he pushed forward with his probe, eventually curling his fingers under the plastic edge to plum the area beneath his seat.
“Jesus Christ, DJ. What are you doin’? It’s nasty under there. Nasty. Give me your hand.” I pulled his hand from the lip of the seat but, within a moment, he wriggled away. “Don’t stick your fingers down there again, DJ. OK?” He bobbed his head.
Gee looked up towards me waiting for her cue to stand up. I remained seated as she leaned towards me to speak over the din of the subway car, “I’m ready, dad!” We shared a smile.
“Don’t get up just yet, you two. We’ll stand after the train stops. OK? Here, hold my hand.” On each side I placed my hands out, palms up towards the ceiling. Respectively Gee and DJ deposited their miniature versions of my hands in my own. They were warm. DJ’s deposit felt funny. Looking down, I slowly opened my left hand and spied a blackish pink lump of chewing gum perched like a bubble at the end of his right index finger.
“What tha…?”
I recoiled then, recovering, grabbed his gum enhanced hand between my index finger and thumb, “DJ, what the heck? That’s just gross. Gross. Give me your frigg’n finger.”
He stopped bobbing and, in a not so fluid motion, jerked his newly capped finger away from my grasp. First feigning a desire to hold his hand against his chest he lunged forward forcing me to reach out and stop him from falling off his subway seat. He then thrust the dirty blob across my chest towards Gee. He was going for her long brown hair which, unaware of the incoming attack, swayed peacefully in time with the rocking motion of our subway car.
Like DJ, Gee was quick. She lurched away, bumping the arm of the rider next to her. She squealed, “Ewe! You’re disgusting. That’s someone’s gum, stupid! Get it away from me. Daddy, get it away!”
I grabbed for DJ’s hand and, in the process dislodged the wad of blackened gum. Masked by the sound of the train, it silently plopped to the floor, falling like a little turd to the smooth surface in front of us. I still had a couple of seconds before we arrived in Harvard and, as the train began to slow, I zipped open the front pouch of the well-worn (and well stocked) backpack resting between my feet. I grabbed a wipe and, taking hold of DJ’s hand, thoroughly rubbed the remnants of the gum from the tip of his finger. There was a pinkish piece stuck under his nail as well. I scraped it out with my wipe-wrapped finger.
“DJ, that’s just gross. Gross. How many times have I asked you not to poke around under the seats, huh? There’s tons of germs under there. And that gum is dirty. It was is someone’s mouth, you know, and it could make you sick; really sick.”
I looked from DJ to the wad on the floor. The gum had been recently chewed as it was still gooey. It took root to keep from rolling as the train continued to slow.
DJ shrugged, “But daddy, I didn’t know it was there until I pulled it out and it was stuck to me. It stuck to my finger.” He held his index finger up and stared; as if amazed his finger had survived such an attack. I shook my head side to side and smirked before grabbing his hand and giving his finger one more wipe, “No more, deal?”
“Deal.” He underscored his agreement with renewed head bobbing. Up down, up down, up down.
As we entered the station I used the dirty wipe to scoop up the gum from its restful spot on the floor. I jammed the newest member of our team into the mesh pouch hanging from the side of the backpack. It joined other bits of dirty napkins and travel trash from earlier this morning.
“And when the train stops we’ll hop off, OK? Oh, and who remembers the name of this stop; the stop where we’re getting off?”
DJ continued bobbing away like a slow motion bobble head. I rubbed the top of his head as the woman in running shorts and Nike tee shirt seated across from us smiled at the older sister younger brother scene. Apparently she’d enjoyed a front row seat to our show. Her light brown hair was pulled into a pony tail, tucked through the back of a Red Sox cap. Her hair was long. She had a radio or cassette player Velcroed to her left arm with headphones pumping rap music into her personal bubble. Our show must have appeared as a silent movie with, what sounds like, Lil’ Kim as the soundtrack. Though no one asked, I would have gone with Sargent Pepper’s.
As the kids stared out the windows of the decelerating train I stole an additional glance at our audience of one. She was looking to the left, towards the nearest car door. Her forehead was moist with specs of sweat sprinkled just above long thin eyebrows. A Harvard athlete, I wondered. Her cheeks and neck were flushed red and blotchy from, I assume, a long run; a run which had deposited her at the end of the subway line in time for a front row seat at the Gee and DJ locomotion show. She breathed deliberately. Every couple of breaths she sat straight and inhaled deeply. She had pushed it. I’m guessing she’s probably closer to Gee’s age than mine. She shifted a Gatorade bottle from one hand to the other and placed it on her bare right knee. Her left knee sported a slim vertical scar. I imagined the coolness of the bottle’s bottom must have felt good against her sweaty skin. I turned to face Gee, “Well, Gee, what stop?”
“Harvard? Is it Harvard, daddy?”
“Correctamundo, Gee. High five.” She slapped my right hand as DJ kept up the bobble head routine. “And look, DJ agrees with you!” He ignored us as Gee and I shared another smile.
“DJ, high five. High five.” Spying a ready target he stopped moving his head and wound up, cracking first my hand and then a smirk before yelling for all to hear, “High five!” We laughed as the Red Line came to a stop at Harvard. I shook my afflicted hand in mock pain, scooped up the backpack and tossed it on my shoulder. We stood and as I tried to grab hold of my children’s hands, DJ muscled over to my right side, switching places with Gee. Gee obliged the move and, once in their new positions, they took my hands.
“Ok, here we go.” As the car doors slid open the runner gave Gee a little index finger wave and a wink. Gee returned the gesture with a shy little waive of her own. Witnessing this exchange, DJ stopped and then tugged at my hand, stepping towards Gee’s coconspirator. Still holding onto me he leaned towards the runner to hold up his right hand, inviting her to smack it, “High five.” She hesitated, perhaps recalling the chewed gum’s role in the recently concluded locomotion show. Then slipping into a nearly contained smile she gave him a little high five. He beamed at her before turning his attention to me, “She gave me one, on the hand.”
The runner and I exchanged our own smiles before I scooted off the train with Gee and DJ.
“Hurry up. Let’s go!”
The doors closed immediately behind us. Our hands formed the links of a little three person chain as I tugged Gee and DJ away from the train and towards the center of the platform, “Whew, that was a close one, huh?”
As the train began sliding into the black tunnel with the runner Gee looked back towards the emerging blur of red, white and glass, “That lady was nice. She waived at me.”
“She gave me a high five,” DJ crowed. As we walked down the ramp he held his right hand in front of his face examining the invisible remnants of his most recent high five and perhaps, the memory of the chewed blob of gum.
“She was nice, wasn’t she? She waived at you Gee and she gave you a sweaty high five, DJ. Hey, DJ.” He craned his neck upwards as I continued, “Why don’t you share the lady’s high five with Gee? And give Gee a high five too. You know, if you do, then you’ll all be connected; starting with Gee’s waive, the lady’s high five to you and your high five to Gee, like a little circle. Go ahead. High five.”
DJ wasn’t interested. He pulled his hand back and protectively jammed it into his armpit. He scrunched his round face into a puckering frown and proceeded to squeeze his right hand between his left arm and body.
Tired of the little brother routine Gee barked, “You mean it all started with that gross gum stuck on his finger! He’s contaminated! With germs! And I don’t want to touch his gross finger. It’s disgusting. He’s disgusting!” Gee stuck out her tongue. DJ responded in kind.
I shrugged and sought to move forward, “Alright, alright. Come on kids, let’s keep moving.” We started walking away from the tracks. “You know, DJ, it’s OK to be nice and share a thing like that, like a high five. It doesn’t take anything away from you. And, ya know, sometimes you get a little something in return.”
He wasn’t buying it. The three of us walked the rest of the way down the ramp, through the turnstiles and up the escalators towards Harvard Square. We continued to hold hands, with one un-held hand securely tucked into an armpit. We made our way to the top of the last escalator as it deposited us under the Red Line’s grimy steel and glass exit. The noise of Harvard Square greeted us. Sunlight arced through the glass ceiling covering the end of the escalator and made its presence known by reflecting off tiny specs of dust swirling around us. We moved from under the glass ceiling and swirling specs to the warmth of Harvard Square’s red bricks.
“Feels good, huh?” I looked down just in time to catch Gee and DJ closing their eyes and tilting two softball sized faces skyward to catch the rays of the sun. As if frozen in time they stood still, smiling and drawing in the warmth. I obliged them as crowds continued to belch out from the subway exit flowing towards the Mass Ave. cross walk. Men, woman and children slid past like a school of salmon slipping around three well anchored rocks poking their tops through the surface of a newly swollen stream. Beginning at the curb the surge of people grew to engulf us, each member of the swell waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. As the crowd flowed and then clogged around us Gee and DJ were jostled back into reality. Eyes open, they scanned their transient neighbors and then looked towards me.
“We’re waiting for the crosswalk light,” I volunteered, “When it turns green we’ll cross the street and go, first to my very favorite store, and then we’ll get a snack and go to the park, OK?”
“Will you read to us in the store?” DJ asked.
“Of course I will. I’d be happy to, DJ. And when we get there we’ll walk around and find the kids’ section and you can pick out a book for me to read to you. You guys have to pick it out together though. And remember, I can never find that doggone kids section. So I think I probably get lost unless you two help me when we get there. Will you help me find it so I don’t get all lost and all turned around in there?”
Gee rolled her eyes, “Daddy, we’ve been there like a hundred times. How can you even get lost anymore? We just have to go down the stairs and look around like we always do, then go to our book section or just ask someone. You’re silly, daddy. Really silly.”
Not to be outdone, DJ jumped in, “I’ll find it for you, daddy. I can help find books to read. I’ll show you. We have to go down the stairs.”
I pulled them together into a little squeeze, “Well you can both help me, OK?” The light turned and we crossed Mass Ave. continuing our walk of about 100 steps from the subway to the end of the block. As we made our way to the entrance of WordsWorth we were in agreement.
At the entrance to WordsWorth we were presented with two sets of stairs; one up, one down. “Gee, you pick.” Without hesitation she led us down and into the first floor of my favorite store. We made our way past a homeless man sleeping in the corner of the platform at the bottom of the stairs. Withdrawing his right hand from his left armpit, DJ held his nose, “It smells.”
Holding my gum-free index finger to my lips I whispered, “Hey let’s be quiet here, OK?” I nodded to the homeless man curled in a swirl on his piece of cardboard. At one point in his life he had been a child greeted by the arc of sunlight. It smelled a bit of urine and, though summer was everywhere, the store’s homeless sentinel wore a winter coat. His hooded head was tucked safely into a corner as far away from danger as possible. “He needs to sleep and, inside, people need quiet to read.” DJ nodded as Gee quietly pulled open the first of two doors. Before crossing the divide their glances both returned to the homeless man.
“I feel sad for him.”
“Me too.”
We stepped through the doors to find the store crowded with young and old alike. We were greeted with a different type of warmth. The aisles were jammed with readers, some sitting, some standing; most holding books cracked open in a personal hunt for new words and thoughts. The smell of the newly cracked bindings mixed with the scent of summer sweat and perfume, enveloping us. It reminded me of studying with a pretty girl on a Sunday morning at the school library; a mixture of curiosity, desire and expectations; of expectations only recently coming into view. I breathed deep, replacing the lingering smell of urine with the scent of a small piece of heaven.
“OK you two, now where the heck is the kids section? Could it be … over there?” I asked, pointing towards the first floor travel section.
“Yes!” yelled DJ. He released my hand and bolted forward, running away from the last known location of the kid’s section towards the travel section. He took a sharp left into the first aisle. Gee and I waited a moment to see if he would return. He did not.
The kid’s section was upstairs but Gee shrugged and followed after DJ, turning the corner to find him readying himself to sit on the floor with a photo book featuring Barbados, by coincidence, the country in which he had celebrated his first birthday. As DJ assumed a place on the floor Gee plopped down next him. Cracking open the book they took turns flipping the pages and commenting on the images.
That was easy.
“Hey, you two. Do you want to come with me to the front desk so I can ask for a book or do you want to stay here?”
Gee looked at DJ and then at me, answering for the two of them, “Stay here, daddy. Stay here.”
“OK, fine, but you can’t leave this aisle, deal?” They nodded. “Please be careful. And be gentle, with that book, OK? And move back towards the wall so no one trips over you. I don’t want you to get hurt.” They scooted back and continued flipping through the world of Barbados.
As a parent perhaps I should have been concerned about potential kidnappers or perverts in Harvard Square but, here in WordsWorth, I found no reason to be worried. In this place I felt comfortable balancing Gee and DJ’s independence with close monitoring as I feared the risk of dependence and over parenting as much as any other risk. Here in WordsWorth the worst that might happen is a Harvard student might try to persuade my children to become Democrats or, perhaps, consider Green Peace as a future career path. I wasn’t worried. If they became Democrats, well, that was their choice. I’d still love them. Nonetheless, I kept stealing glances in their direction as I made my way to the customer service desk next to the cashiers.
Arriving at the customer service desk I assumed a position in the short line. It moved quickly and, after a brief wait, I was greeted by a pretty lady, a few years younger than my 40+ years. Her reddish hair was pulled back in a bun to show delicate ears filled with multiple piercings. She sported dark rimmed rectangular librarian type glasses allowing her green eyes to better survey the bookstore landscape. The glasses worked well for her. Her lips were full and accented with glossy lipstick. She stood on a lift so her head was above mine aligning my eyes with her neck. She wore a white blouse with short sleeves and a high collar, unbuttoned enough to allow me to see a remnant trail of sweat between her small breasts. Through her white blouse I could see she wore a sheer bra, presenting the actual shape of her breasts as opposed to the Wonder Bra shape. The real shape – no matter the size – is always more beautiful than the lift and separate version.
She gave me an efficient customer service smile, “What may I help you with today, sir?”
Before answering, I stole a glance over my shoulder to confirm Gee and DJ had not been kidnapped by Democrats. I turned back towards the pretty lady and returned her smile with a little shrug. “Hi, I’m a looking for a book. It’s called ‘The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need’ and I’m, ah, hoping you can tell me where it is. Thank you.”
She was very businesslike, quickly typing the name of the book into her computer. As she did so she looked over my shoulder towards Gee and DJ asking, “Yours?”
“Yup, girl eight, boy four. They’re keepers. Yeah, I think I’ll renew their contracts.” I turned to look at my children.
“Cute.” She responded with a smirk. “Do you know the author’s name?”
I shrugged, “Excuse me, ah, no. Sorry, I don’t.”
“I have two myself. Two girls. A bit younger than yours. They’re with my mom now; on days when I work… Oh, OK, here it is. ‘The Only Guide To a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need: Index Funds and Beyond–The Way Smart Money Creates Wealth Today’ by Larry Swedroe. It’s in the business and finance section. It’s a frequently requested title.” She looked up, “Are you a student at HBS or something?”
“Me? No. Though I graduated from Sloan a while ago, so I kinda like finance.” I shrugged, “That was a pretty long time ago though so, ah, thanks for making me think for a moment I can still pass for a student.”
She smirked her half smile. She gave smirks. I gave shrugs. Without thought an exchange rate had developed; one smirk for one shrug.
I continued, “And, I guess I’m a pretty good saver. I’ve been doing the index fund thing for years now.” She smirked the second half of her smile inviting me to continue, “And, well a friend and me, we ah, we just sold our little company so I’ll be able to save some more going forward. And I, ah, did some digging and this is one of the best investment books around; this and ‘The Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham.”
Without thinking, she typed The Intelligent Investor into her computer.
“We have ‘The Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham as well. Same section; business and finance.”
“Oh, no thanks. I have the Graham book already so I’m all set with that one.”
“I see,” She looked over my shoulders and then turned her attention my way, for the first time taking a measure of me with her green eyes and librarian glasses. What did she see I wondered? I wore a Lillehammer Olympics tee-shirt, tan cargo shorts, brown metal glasses and simple white sneakers. A light brown backpack with a little green snake embroidered on the side was draped over my left shoulder. My short hair had not been combed since Gee was born so it stuck out at various angles. When it grew long I looked like Don King. Now, though, it was short. I was fit and tanned from our recent trip to the Caribbean. Probably not much to look at but I suspect I looked happy. I was. As she eyed me I tried a smirk. She already had smirks; she wasn’t buying.
She nodded thoughtfully, “Ok, well, you know what? Why don’t I go grab the book for you so you can keep an eye on your kids, OK?”
“Ah, wow, yeah, that would be great. Just great. So, yes, thank you very much.”
“Please wait here. I’ll ring you up when I return.”
She left as the gentleman behind me sighed. I turned and watched DJ pull a second book from the shelf. Gee was on the floor engrossed in the Barbados book. She was old enough to remember Barbados.
Green eyes returned, handing me the book. “Is this it?”
Her fingers lingered as she handed me the only guide to a winning investment strategy I would ever need. Her fingers were tan and strong looking, tipped with a French manicure. I flipped over the book and nodded, “Yup, you got it. Thank you. And I like your nails.”
She smirked before going into transaction mode, activating the register next to her station, “Step over here please and I’ll ring you up. Cash or credit?”
“Oh, cash please. I’m not really into credit cards, ya know?”
Her actions came to a stop and she rested her French manicured fingers on the counter top in front of the register. Standing on the lift she was still taller than me. She leaned forward just a bit as a Cheshire cat smile formed across her face. She smelled of strawberry; and of expectations. A faint latticework of very attractive tan lines appeared along the corners of her eyes. She appeared prettier than when I first saw her. She peeked over her glasses as if looking over a divide, “Hmm… so let me get this straight. Sloan, sold your company, investment books and now no credit card. Well, you don’t look the part but I guess it’s safe to say you must be kinda rich or something, huh?”
In one motion I tilted my face to the left, leading with my chin to point over my shoulder towards Gee and DJ before turning back to green eyes. I gave her another shrug, “Well, I have those two; and they’re healthy and happy and I love them and, when they’re in school I know their spelling words, so, yeah, I guess you could say I’m pretty rich.”
“No I meant…” She stopped midsentence and looked away; at something outside the store.
A longer than usual moment passed between us before she returned her gaze to me.
Starting with a smirk, she broke into a full smile, the first of our exchange, “Well then, I guess I’m pretty rich too.” She became even prettier.
I gave her my last shrug, “I guess you are.”
