Requiem for a Dennis the Menace

You know that kid?  A lot of neighborhoods have one: an ever-curious ball of energy who's always running up and down the block, excited about some new scheme to pass away the idle hours of the day.  Ever since I moved to my current neighborhood that kid has been Derek.  I'll see him out there on my way home from work, smashing his trucks into each other, or trying to get in on a game of basketball with some bigger kids.  Occasionally he'll make me a little apprehensive, like the time I saw him messing around with a power drill, or when he decided to take a large shovel and start digging a hole in the dirt of one of the more messed-up parts of the sidewalk.  He's always asking me questions: "Where are you running?", "What are you carrying?", "Is that your daughter?" (referring to my wife, who for the record is four years younger than me).  Often he'll launch right into the next question without even waiting for an answer.  Many times I've wondered what kind of person he'd turn out to be when he grew up.

Last night as I was taking the garbage out one of my neighbors happened to mention in the elevator that there was a memorial for Derek down the street.  Drowned, she said.  Just the previous evening.

Ever since then my life has been a constant stream of images that I'm still trying to process: Derek's teenage cousin explaining what happened in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone, complete with the exact times of the phone calls, while she carried a small dog in her arms; the memorial in front of Derek's house, with its toys, pictures, candles, and "R.I.P." spelled out in red-white-and-blue wax on the pavement; the cops pulling up later in the evening to make Derek's relatives turn off the music they'd been playing from a car stereo as they gathered to remember him.

He was eleven, and tiny for his age.  It happened in a backyard pool in East Hampton.  He'd run off again, and in the space of a few minutes he was found lying beneath eight feet of water.  According to a news report the police are doing an autopsy, but they don't have reason to believe it was anything other than an accident.

Even though it happened out of town, even though he'd only existed on the periphery of my busy life, I still find myself wondering if there was something I could have done---some advice I could have given.  I hate the part of me that sees this as something that was always a potential consequence of Derek's behavior.  That voice may be trying to make me feel better, but I don't WANT to feel better.  Not just yet, anyways.  Then there's the part of me that's trying to see if there's a lesson to come out of this story, as if anyone's life---no matter how short---could (or should) ever be reduced to something so pat.

Like I said, I'm still trying to process all of this.  I needed to get it all down somewhere though, just to keep it from swimming around in my head in circles any longer.  Now I need to find out when the service is.

Rest in peace, little guy.  I hope you're somewhere now that has more answers to your questions than I ever did.

Wish I Was There...

I'm writing at the end of the day instead of the beginning today, since I ended up getting in here late this morning.  The reason for that was because I forgot to move my car last night, and as a result ended up having to spend a half hour driving around the neighborhood looking for a space.  I should really know better by now, but I suppose my memory will never be perfect.  It feels like the parking situation in Bed-Stuy has gotten noticeably worse every time I've forgotten to move my car the evening before.  Some streets are even lined with double-parked cars that are sitting around specifically in anticipation of the street cleaner coming through.  It's enough to make me want to give up my car entirely (or buy a space in the lot nearby, although I still balk at the notion of paying $200 per month for something that STILL isn't technically worth it in opportunity costs when compared with the gas I spent looking for a space and the time I wasted doing it).  Along the way there were a few near misses, and at one point I'd actually parked my car and gotten out of it before seeing the "NO STANDING" sign that somebody else had already parked in front of.

It's times like this when the density of New York starts to bother me.  I've said in the past that I don't think I'd be able to enjoy life in a small town, and I still believe that's true in the long run, but every so often I feel a desperate need to get away from here, and this is one of those times.  It's been a couple months now since I've left the city, actually---I feel like I'm overdue for a trip.  Going to visit my brother in California over the Labor Day weekend, and heading out to Iowa the weekend after that may help, but I can't commit to anything sooner, since I have NYRR runs scheduled for the two weekends before that.  I really wish I could take more than a long weekend's worth of days off, too, but I'm still working off all the time I took for my honeymoon, and I don't feel like getting myself in any deeper just yet (plus I'm going to need to take off a couple days around Christmas anyways).

There's also the notion of just taking some time to hang out at home, since it feels like one social responsibility or another has been tugging at me.  Then again, the prospect of staying at home might not be so appetizing once the contractors invade my apartment in the near future.

Plus, when you come right down to it, is being "away" necessarily even a relaxing, restorative experience?  In order to reach whatever haven you're heading for there's going to be a trip involved, be it by car or plane or train or whatever, with all the attendant stress those modes of transportation entail.  Worse still is the trip back, where the deadening grind of the commute steadily unravels what peace of mind you managed to gain from the trip.  Okay, so I'm being cynical here: not every trip is stressful.  In fact, some can be quite pleasant.  There's no way to be certain when you leave, however, what kind of travel experience you're going to have.  I'd be the last one to argue, though, that something shouldn't be done because you're uncertain of the outcome.  I guess I'm just arguing in circles now.

I'd love to get upstate sometime soon, before it gets cold.  There's so much more space up there, and the lousy cell coverage actively encourages me to cut the cord and engage with the world around me.  My family has a place up there, but I'm not sure that any of them have been to it yet this year.  The house was my grandfather's legacy, and now it would appear that his descendants are too busy to enjoy it the way he did.  It's an old barn that my grandfather converted into a two-story home by the sweat of his own labor, and I have many fond memories of making the trip up into the mountains, through the trees, to a place where there are blueberry bushes to pick in the daytime and millions of stars to gaze upon at night.  It's a quiet place: a place where drive-in movie theaters can still be found, and where being early to bed and early to rise can reward you with the sight of deer grazing in the fields.  There's even a baby grand piano up there...  It might need tuning, but it still plays well enough.  Plus, there are miles upon miles of potential runs to take, with hardly any traffic to worry about.  Maybe I'm romanticizing it too much after being away for a while, but I feel a powerful need to return there soon.  I may have to wait a month or two, but I desperately want to find a way to make it work somehow.