HillBuzz

Today, we’re going to volunteer cleaning the homes of people who have AIDS and can no longer care for themselves. It’s hard work…and to be honest we hate it.  We hate cleaning, hate getting dirty, hate scrubbing filthy toilets, and hate that anyone in this world has to suffer with AIDS.  Our dear friend Lionel used to clean 23 guys’ apartments for them…on a BIWEEKLY basis.  We don’t know how on Earth Lionel did it…BY HIMSELF.  There are four of us working Lionel’s old volunteer shifts…6 apartments each a month…and it’s grueling.  And, yet, Lionel did it all himself.  Now that he’s gone, someone has to pick up that slack, and that someone is us. When we show up at a door, knowing what we’re about to face, in the bathroom especially, we smile bright, channel our dear friend, and say, “Lionel sent us”. 

We will do this for as long as we live in Chicago.  And if we move, the first day we’re settled we’ll find an AIDS House and get new clients there, too.  Because Lionel sent us.  Now and for always. 

We wanted to make sure cleaning shifts fell on September 11th because we all take this day off work every year, for different reasons. 

Some of us know people who died that day eight years ago in the Towers.  One of them was Jane, a girl who lived on our hall freshman, sophomore, and junior years.  Jane was, in a word, memorable.  She was Thai, and as loud as a mack truck.  She was gossipy, backstabbing, and had a wicked sense of humor that was never endearing.  Jane did that thing our friend Panda does, which might be an Asian thing, something cultural that’s lost in translation:  if you’ve gained any weight, Panda pokes you in the stomach and says, “Lookit how fat you got, Mr. Eats Too Much”.  Then he laughs and laughs, a high pitched, machine gun, rat-a-tat-tat of a laugh.  Jane did the same thing.  If she thought you lost weight, she’d say, “You got so thin. You must have AIDS.  Too much man sex, now you die!”. And then she’d laugh and laugh, too.  In Thailand, maybe all this is funny, but we’ve always found it oft-putting. 

And, to be honest, we never much liked Jane.  Whenever people from college would get together, Jane would always be there, though it was never clear who kept inviting her.  ”Your hair is so ugly, the person who cut it must hate you.  What did you do, sleep with her husband?  She got you back good!”, as the waiter would pass by, catching every word, which was probably what Jane intended.  ”Why did you wear such ugly clothes?  Can’t you afford nice ones?  These look like clothes someone would throw out and they smell like farts.  You and your smelly, ugly fart clothes.  You look like a homeless person!”.  Ha ha ha ha ha.  

Jane also used to laugh at those of us who were struggling while she made, as she said, “the big bucks, silly homos”, in a trading firm in the Towers.  She made fun of those of us living in Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, or Chicago, while she was in “that big apple”.  And Jane was having the time of her life, working hard, laughing all the time, rubbing her success in wherever she could.  

It remains one of the greatest shocks of our lives the afternoon of September 11th when we got a call from our good friend Damyanti telling us she thought Jane worked in a high floor and no one had heard from her.  Of course, Jane had been the first person any of us knew who had a cell phone.  She used to call all of us on it, late at night, and laugh, “Ha ha, guess where I am calling you from?  A CELL PHONE.  And you are answering it on a stupid old land phone.  That’s because you are loser who lives in Cleveland still!  I am big time and you are NO TIME! Ha ha ha!”.  

What’s hard to articulate is that we still, to this day, miss Jane like crazy.  We have a hard time every 9/11 because we think of Jane, in a stairwell somewhere, or maybe under her fancy desk, not knowing what was going on, not knowing what to do, terrified.  And Jane was someone we had never seen scared.  Sure, it was all bravado.  All those rubs and jabs came from a place of insecurity, we’re sure.  She poked fun at others, first, so that no one could poke at her…since she was conscious of her looks, her accent, her height, a lot of things.  We “got” Jane…which is why we always accepted her as part of our extended group, as opposed to other jerks we’ve known that we wanted nothing to do with.  We may have never sought Jane out, but we never pushed her away.  She was the Newman or Kramer to our little Seinfeld gang, but more Thai, only one person, and with a mouth like a dirty sailor. 

We hope the religious people are right and there really is a Heaven where everyone finds peace, because when we die we want to hear Jane before we see her, cussing someone out up there as usual, telling Fatty Arbuckle or someone, “Oh man, I know why they called you Fatty, it’s because you are so fat.  No wonder you killed that woman you were on top of!  You so fat, you kill people by sitting on them, you fatty!  Ha ha ha. So fat!”  Lionel, we’re sure, is already leading a choir of angels, making the most gorgeous music, spinning colors out of light and dancing on rainbows, more fabulous and beautiful and charming than ever.  Jane, of course, is up there blowing raspberries and poking people in their stomachs and asking everyone why they are so fat and why they’re wearing whatever it is they are wearing.  ”Why’d someone bury you in that?  It so ugly?  Everyone hated you! Ha ha ha”. 

9/11, hopefully, will ultimately be long enough ago that people no longer make everyone who died that day into saints.  As we repeatedly say, not everyone who dies is automatically a magical and perfect person.  Our friend Lionel was magical…because he really and truly did lead an EXCEPTIONAL life.  His shoes were large and mighty, mighty hard to fill — as evidence by the fact that it takes FOUR OF US just to do the volunteering he did ALL ON HIS OWN. In death, we could never make Lionel any larger than life than he ACTUALLY WAS when he walked this Earth. 

Jane was Jane, and was an original.  She died on 9/11 with many other people…all of whom were human…none of whom were perfect.  Some were Lionels.  Some were Janes. Some were in-between, some were better, some were worse…it was a hearty mix.  We could go on for DAYS reliving what that day in September 2001 was like for us…not knowing where people were…hearing about Jane…hearing about other people we knew of, but were not friends with, who also died…dealing with the fallout of 9/11, emotionally, politically, financially, you name it. 

But, if you are old enough to read this, you remember all this…in your own life.  You don’t need us to tell our story, because you have your own.  And, honestly, we don’t want to relive that day again.  We will always remember it.  We will always mark it with a volunteerism day — one of five each of us commits to every year, rain or shine, without fail (joining Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, and our individual birthdays…five days, no matter what, that we give to others in thanks for all the blessings we’ve had in this life). 

This year, we’re also doing it because Lionel’s not here to pitch in himself, so we’ll have to work a little harder to carry the difference.  

In years past, we volunteered at soup kitchens or as reading tutors in public schools on 9/11…and we always let Jane sit on our shoulders all day, telling us to work harder, making fun of how slow we were washing pots, telling us what sissies we were for not wanting to get our hands in the filthy water, laughing that we were “just a bunch of girls…where is your makeup, girls?  Where is your purse?  You must find it to paint your nails and be pretty, you GIRLS!  Ha ha ha!”  If you knew her, you’d be smiling, because she really did talk like that.  Imagining a tiny Jane on our shoulders, berating us in her sing-song way really did motivate us to work harder, the way it always had…the way it does when we’re on treadmills or running to catch a train or struggling with some problem we can’t work out.  There’s Jane, the way she’s always been, pushing us, competing with us, demanding better of us always. 

Jane was no saint, but she was a big part of our lives.  We’ll never forget her.  We’ll never forget 9/11 and everything else about that day.  We won’t forget all the people we’ve lost in life, who occupy our thoughts on days like today, and Christmas, and Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving.  

The rest are actual holidays, and in time we think 9/11 should be as well…a national volunteerism day where we all go out and do something a lost friend or loved one used to do to help others, now that they aren’t here to do it themselves. 

It’s our tradition to turn a terrible day into somethin positive…and to spend another day with the spirits of the people who were big parts of our lives but are gone now.  

Today, in all we do, Lionel and Jane sent us. We will work hard all day cleaning for those who can’t do it themselves anymore.  We will be at it from 9am to 7pm easily.  And, tonight, we’re going to order in a large After School Special Sausage and Marshmallow pizza from Pie Hole (Lionel’s favorite) and some Cashew Chicken from Joy’s Noodles (Jane’s favorite).  

No politics for us today.  No post but this one, most likely.  There will be time for all that tomorrow. 

Today Lionel and Jane send us out into the world to work hard, kick ass, and take names. We’d love it if you do something like that too — instead of sitting around watching the MSM revel in the circus of its perpetual memorial coverage. We’ve had 8 years of that sad song, smoldering ash, “Remembrance’ euology.  

Time for the phoenix to rise…for folks to get off their fat butts…and get out there and DO SOMETHING worthwhile today, in the spirit of all those who are no longer with us…and who would love to have today to GET STUFF DONE too!

“Hey fatties, move those butts!  I can see you from here, so lazy!  Eight years is long enough to cry…you work now.  Work hard.  Make something better or I’ll haunt your sorry ass!” 

Love ya Jane…you drove us nuts and brought many an unsuspecting date of ours to tears…but you sure were an original!