Outsource of Love

9781301512065

Chapter 1

The Single Guy

With utilitarian, unmasked and unwieldy honesty, I will begin by explaining who I am. First and foremost, I am a thinker. I would have people comment to me when I was walking the street uptown as a young boy, Hey, Why look so serious? I never explained, even though I thought I needed to, unless the person was aggressive about it. Then I'd just say, I'm thinking. I usually just smiled and tried to not look so serious as I walked away.

Moral never enters as a doable word in my consciousness as a young person and student, but I knew it was always there. In a small town I grew up in, every student was indoctrinated with the term, moral, usually without even hearing the term. Most never used the term unless well in age and then it seemed such an easy word to come out of their mouths whether in line at the grocery store, buying a prescription at a drug store, or getting gas for their car. In school, we knew it as we knew or did not know the algebraic equation that was on the board for the day in math class. No wrapping on the head with a large college ring by the female teacher, who attended a once all-boy school and acquired a nice, large, blue-stone ring to prove it, the size of which was only meant for a guy’s hand. But moral was doing your homework; and if you didn’t, trying not to lie about it so much that the teacher knew you were lying. Not lying was an important indicator that the person was genuinely moral. An easy explanation would get you by; a complicated explanation meant trouble from the female teacher. Some just never learned, so a good wrap on the head with that large, beautiful collegiate ring would suffice as a lesson. Algebra was a good a subject as any to teach right from wrong for generally there was only one correct answer to an algebraic equation. No shifting to make a wrong answer right. I realize now, thinking too much leads to thinking too much kind of problems, or more exactly undue, self-made stress upon having scruples. It did for me, or I did it to myself. Finally, going to a class reunion after the high school years is an experience in which the moral biding of words, the moral friendly looks on the faces, and the moral refraining of actions played a communal role, jointly humbling all human expression for the hours back together again. Most inwardly would agree it is a worthy experience for the human soul, to see in the face of others just how aging is a part of life. It becomes a social phenomenon you never realize until you attend a class reunion years a few years later. It can be torture,but a torture bringing an enlightenment that is really not important to growing into adulthood gracefully but one that must be endured if you want to be know as an anybody who is a somebody by all those other graduates. It is the last kind of torture that high school can bring to the human body; and it is endured with a smile just like the years in high school were endured with dignity. There were good times, there were bad times, but mostly there were many awkward times, the beauty of which lingers in the secret mind of all of those who were there.

I go home, or I try to go home, at least once a month. But it is more like once every two months. It is so much better now than that I no longer live in Boston. Then I never got home but at Christmas, Easter, and summer vacation. And it was a long trip to get home, 6 hours to be exact. Rochester is not Boston but Boston is not Rochester. Boston does not have the friendly, non-educated workers that infiltrate your working community. Boston does not have the potholes that line the streets in spring, which can destroy your car’s shocks with one drive down the street. Boston does not have the small center of business in the downtown area, so small that it takes only one or two buses to drive around it from one street to another. Here, the name Golisano is important. Here, the name Xerox is important. Here, the name Kodak is important. But there are other names just as important. It is a city where it doesn’t take big money, old money, or intellectual money to have a name. Even the Institute of Technology has a renown name as one of the best place to learn computers and technology in the world. It is a four-year university offering the 4, 5, or even 7-year degree. Computer technology is more what you know and have expertise in than any degree earned. Bill Gates proves that. But environmental engineering is my work.

I come home to a quiet, suburban household. The home never had much noise. Soft spoken words were the only kind of communication in a household dominated by a husband and wife who always loved each other; who were childless for many years, and who became a couple who longed to share their love with a family of their own. I came along in their late thirties, an adopted child who never knew what it was like to not have a family. Me casa es su casa, equal rights with full citizenship of love, responsibility and happiness, along with the practice of the Christian religion was the only house I knew. One time when us boys were young, my aunt, my mother’s sister, was taking care of us and she indicated it was time to go to bed. I spoke up and said, You’re not the boss. She didn’t look at any one of us three boys but just said, I’m not the boss! I strongly replied, No, You’re not the boss. I’m not the boss, she replied, Well, who is the boss? I said, Daddy, he’s the boss. A story that was repeated each year when she came to visit, a story that solidified my position in the family, as a full member with territorial rights. Having shown my territorial rights to the household, I established myself as a full member of the family just as each of my two other brothers did in their own time and way. In any regard, my two other brothers always laughed when my aunt came to town and told the story again. You could tell by the look on their faces, they approved of my assertiveness, even at a very young age. They wanted to be assertive too, just as assertive and positive boys as I was, a healthy trait my parents promoted in the household.

There were three of us. I was first in rank order, adopted by a couple, now called mom and dad, having wrongly assumed they were going to be childless forever. Two boys were born shortly after, one and a half years apart. God is good, my father would softly say whenever good fortune came to his family, as it did when he got a good government job, and as it did when a good salary accompanied the job, which allowed for nice family vacations to far way exotic places for the whole family. My mother would invite her two older sisters to join in vacations Go with God, was the other words repeated on the lips of the wise man that my father was, knowing to not holler too much at strong-willed but good boys, for hollering could only make them even more obstinate and might make them become more bad than good. But now that I’m older I understand he just said it because he knew not exactly what to say so Go with God would suffice. I was not as strong-willed as my youngest brother, so I did not hear it as much as he did. When we got to the know-it-all teenager stage, it became a frequent remark out of my father’s mouth, along with, Someday you will see. Later it became a natural saying that was repeated on our own lips each time we would depart from a visit to the homestead, for it was not a homestead as much as it was just a home. Go with God, came back to us with a wave from the hands of our mother and father, standing in the driveway. When one would return home, the other brothers tried to return home too. We were all in our twenties, single and living the good life, for our parents had provided us with the necessary tools to find a good job and a good life.

A habit I have as a young unmarried man was to dream during the early morning hours before I got up for work. It was the best time to dream for it was a time when I could actually remember what I were dreaming and even make it linger longer if the pleasure was strong. I always felt lucky that God allowed me this one simple pleasure of knowing what I had dreamt the night before. I never have nightmares. Free moments during the day, even at work, allowed silent reminiscence of these private moments giving me simple pleasure. Those night when it center around my favorite syndicated TV show in reruns, I might have a wet dream when the memory allowed contemplation of an exciting Navy career and appeal to women in general. I was Commander Rabb, uncovering and representing legal cases in JAG, as the TV show was called, without my even having to make my hormonal level peak. My strong muscular body in the Navy uniform was tight in just the right places as it was with most Navy men. The women who appear as Navy personnel also had a uniform that promoted Navy recognition but it did not afford them the accentuation of the positive as it did for the Navy men. Many Navy men found the luck of the role in this distinctive uniform an opportunity to be admired and loved by women in general and Navy women in particular. The affinity was natural in my opinion during these early morning dreams and one that the average Navy men took advantage of in promotion of their sexual athleticism. JAG was never one of the My shows, as I called them, during it’s primary seasons on national TV, but now that it is in syndication, I find it a refreshing break from the usual heavy talk and mundane one-upping each other that happens so often in the FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and the like News Networks. The list of shows referred to as My Shows was actually one show, The Rockford Files and it too was in syndication when I lived the Rockford Files, as I watched it. While Rockford was more my father’s age, I lived every moment of that show; alive and real, it was the bumbling attitude of a man who lived within and just a little outside the law but kept himself honest, even when it was hard to do so, that attracted him to me.

Today it’s JAG. I never turn on the TV to hear or see the news anymore. After a while, news is just only so important in a person’s life. Within a half-hour, news is not new anymore, so I turn the channel to something more relaxing. With the kind of news we have today, I find it’s all so draining of the ability to relax and not be under stress, something I now guard against. I now get my news from National Public Radio while driving to work.

JAG nourishes the necessary relaxation these days and the after-pleasure that lingers pushes me to see it again the next night. I don’t perceive I have any control over my dreams, or that I can make it happen, that is, dreaming about JAG, especially with me as the main character. I don’t know, but somehow it comes vivid within my subconscious around 4:00 AM in the morning. Actually it was my father who got me into JAG. He watches it as an x-armed service man. He was in the Army but he loves all of the military-type shows on TV. The History Channel keeps him busy with the specials on World War II. He was in the later stages of the Vietnam War, but never went to Vietnam. He never particularly liked programs on that war.

The morning bell rings and the reality of my small apartment in a building generally occupied by senior citizens collapses in on me. I consider myself fortunate to having seen the ad and being the first person to be allowed to see the small apartment being released by a couple moving to Florida. The apartment was perfect and the aging couple living here must have approved of my All-America look. My apartment is located on the front side of the building facing the street which allowed me the opportunity to see what is happening in the street from up high, but it also provides me with automotive and city bus noise at the early hour of the morning. But the noise provided just enough commotion to make the dream linger to the point of knowing. It all seemed real, even in the hours of daylight, for I discern my looks as in like kind to Commander Rabb, tall, dark, and average in perfection. I am a normal guy as he is. I am an intelligent guy as he is. I was a sincere guy as he is, or at least that’s the way the TV makes him out to be. And I am also a guy waiting for life to happen as I am making life happen for me. Commander Rabb is a fail-safe kind of guy just like me. He did not take risks unless it appeared to offer the kind of opportunity where risks provide greater reward than the danger of the risks. That's me too.

My usual morning routine goes smooth. I don’t have to be at work at any exact time. If I come in late, I can make up the time at lunch or at the end of the day. But there is no exact time that I had to be there, my job is more in terms of the work I accomplished, allowing me to not have to put in exact hours, just report in committee meetings the direction and results of my part of the group work. I am a conscientious worker and a detailed worker who generally accomplished allot in the hours I work. I am meticulous and a good visualizer who contributed much to the direction of the study’s factor analysis; and since I knew computers I am good at troubleshooting the software program when it got boggled down with too much data. The older men appreciated us younger-generation guys, well I should say workers, because there is one female colleague who is working on a PhD. at Rochester Institute of Technology in Information Systems Design. She is very useful when it came to tweaking the large computers for our specific uses but she is even better at putting the finishing touches on the large government grant applications that are continually being made. Most of the data we use come from GIS, you know, the Government Information Service, GIS. I am working on a Great Lake database, while other committee groups are working on other national and becoming more international projects.

Lancaster-Envir Corporation bids on government contracts. We are very successful and very well known in the environmental world. Our executive head, Dr. Alan Trevor, is world famous and the man who first put definition on the recognition that the world is becoming a smaller place in terms of one country environmental policies influencing other countries environmentally. It’s a small world, as he paraphrased. Older and in the office in name-recognition only, he still drives the direction of environmental concepts. We call him Dr. Trevor, when he does come in, but he is one of two who gets this title attached to his name, even though all of the rest of s also have the PhD. Dr Yerkey is the other who oversees all projects in general. The rest of us all talk on a first name basis otherwise. Halfway from the old school, he still expects us to show respect by using the proper title recognition. Most days, I’m just Craig to everyone.

I like to talk about dress, but never at work, I should say, using myself, as the example of what to wear or not wear. I can cover the topic quite easily from both slants. There are day I realize that my combination of tailored clothing worn with non-tailored items just don’t quite make it and I am the first to say so. The group I meet with after work finds the topic conversationally acceptable as I do. The catch is this, that is what attracted us to each other to form a group that meets all the time in the first place. We like talking about men's fashion as much as we like to wear it. We all get the magazine, GQ, Gentleman's Quarterly. Who says fashion is just for women.

Dressing in the morning, I always put on shoes made by Kenneth Cole before I go to my job. I use to wear suits. I started out with good major department store suits and then graduated to specialty stores suits, which carried designer names. I now have a closet full of suits that are too expensive to just give to The Goodwill. No one else would care for them the way I do, or wear them the way I do, so I keep them. I will have a beautiful suit to be laid out in when I die, the truth of which is too silly to realize. Yet, I have taken to putting them in proper garment bags to preserve their quality.

Tommy Hilfiger, I don’t like, although you see him on everyone these day. You don’t get the real quality with him and some of the other popular new names on the market today. I’m a Chaps, or Ralph Lauren guy. I guess you can call me a classic dresser. I’m now into Burberry, as I am looking for names that says, I know who I am. I don’t like the look that says, I’m like everyone else, or I’m the current trend." Just like Pendleton says classic, I like Burberry for that reason. I have discovered the English are the best at dressing classic. I have a few Pendleton's, winter, wool shirts, but don’t wear them much any more.

One of my friends dresses in Italian. It looks good on him, but, when he’s not around, us other guys say that it appears to make him look older or in the mafia. Where’s mafia? someone will say. We all laughed. We knew he’d have to know, making it for an even better laugh. We all started kidding him when one of the guys asked him, What’s your fashion statement, Jeff? Somehow along the way his name got changed to Rocco. He likes it! was repeated, meaning the name too.

He’s got a girlfriend, so I guess his girlfriend likes it too. He’s a banker and when he is not in a good Italian suit, he’s in Italian casual. We kid him about that too. And well, he’s Italian, so what can you expect! His last name is Gugino, Italian, with dark skinned and dark hair. We’ve decided it’s the banker’s job that draws the pretty girls more than his dress. We’ve shared this with him too. Why is it that when men get together, they have to laugh?

Classic can say old money, you know I said to the guys more than once, and sometimes I add, It’s definitely has stood the test of time. They don’t bother to look at me any more when I say it, I’ve repeated it so many times. My Dad tells me some day I will wish I had the money I spent on clothes, like maybe I could be a millionaire if not for my spending habits. I look at him seriously like I’m really considering stopping this overspending of mine, but then I get back to my real life and I continue in my bad habits as he would call them. Why do children look seriously at their parents when they have no intentions of taking what they are saying to them seriously?

Others dress just as nice as I do, without designer names and for less money. So far I haven’t decided to change though. Those time when I visit Macy’s Department store in the mall nearby, I’d inevitably run into a woman who is dressed classic, especially in the fall. I go there not to buy but to get an idea of the latest line of men’s clothing. Rochester, I have realized, is a city with proper citizenry. Just like Boston; it has beautiful old park like Boston has old Forbes Park, or New York has old Hyde Park. Sometimes this woman dressed in classic is young and I really admire her but, generally speaking, the woman is older and I think to myself, She still has good taste. A proper, straight wool skirt, a blouse, a nice cashmere sweater to match the tweed of the skirt and a pair of low-heeled, classic pumps probably by Easy Spirit on the older lady, or a pair of Donald J. Plyner low, no-back heel on the younger lady; it all makes a fashion statement that somehow connects to me.

My hair is poker black. It’s the kind of hair that never brushed to the side, even during those years when young boys wore their hair with a part. It just hanged as bangs in my eyes. My mother kept it cut short. Hairstyles today allow my hair to be attractively punk, from the thick unruly waves that give me an avaunt-garde, acceptable look, even in my places of work. Who knew! The other guys are a little jealous since the likelihood that I will go bald appears nil. I spend money to have an expensive cut, for the cut can make all the difference, especially with my kind of hair. Most guys don’t know that secret. I go to an up-scale salon in the Melburn section of the suburbs. I can generally spend as much as $120 a cut with all the detailing and highlights on the tips. It can cost $150 to $300 if I have nails buffed and pedicure softened and clipped. Hair is important I say as an excuse. Single, looking for female options, or just opposite-sex if the female isn’t exactly what I want. I agree with my settled-in group that I hang out with - we all have the money to be good to ourselves.

I wonder if I am really trying to say, old money, in the way I dress. I’m not from old money but I am from a family, which is respectable just the same. Family gravestone is one thing that shows a family background if solidly-built. From the Protestant graveyard to the Catholic cemetery we visited when I was a child, we’d see grave sites, well-kept by family members with good-sized stones. I liked the one that said The KARL Family the best, my father’s father. His grave had his wife and the one daughter that never married buried there. The unmarried daughter had a beautiful, old-Hollywood name. I have seen Ingrid Bergman, Betty Grable and Joan Crawford ’s old movies and Play it again, Sam. They were definitely very dramatic and stunning actresses. Karl is still a familiar name in the town in