Meeting Mr. Smith

Meeting Mr. Smith (Not his real name)

As I was approaching thirty, I had a boss who was very concerned that I was not married and, even worse in her eyes, didn’t seem at all concerned about my status. Because we worked in Human Resources, we knew a lot of basic information about every employee—enough for her to screen for suitable mates for me. 

“Mr. Jones seems nice,” she would say. Coyly. 

“He’s very nice, just not my type.”

“Mr. Williams is very polite and is going to medical school.”

“He is very pleasant but I think he’s interested in the head librarian.”

“Mr. Smith is single and always pleasant when I see him.”

“There’s something not right about that guy.”

She brought up Mr. Smith quite a few times and I always had the same response: “There’s something not right about that guy.”

I didn’t have any facts to support my claim. I didn’t actually know Mr. Smith although I saw him on almost a daily basis. He was a nice looking man about my age. From what I could tell, he and his coworker from their small department ate together at the same time and place every single day. Then, they sat for a few minutes in the lobby and watched. Everything and everybody. He even watched me. Not in a lascivious way. Not in an amused way. Not in threatening way. His face remained expressionless. I concluded he simply liked to watch. I found something about that creepy. My reaction was always the same even if I was only talking to myself. “There’s something not right about that guy.”

We never spoke until . . . 

One Friday afternoon, Mr. Smith stopped by HR on his way out the door. He needed to check something. I’ve long since forgotten what. He came into my office sporting a warm smile and exuding an appropriate level of charm that appeared genuine and not at all fake or creepy. His conversation was pleasant. He made me laugh. He stayed a little longer than necessary but not long enough to become a nuisance. When he walked out the door, he had won me over.

I told my boss: “You know, Mr. Smith? I was wrong about that guy. He’s perfectly nice.” And, then, I left for the weekend and I imagine she went home relieved at prospect of wedding bells in my future.

So I guess you think you know how this story ends. You guess that just as in any romance novel, my bad feelings turned to love, we married and lived happily ever after. Guess again.

I never saw Mr. Smith after that Friday. I might have noticed that he wasn’t at lunch on Monday but my attention was focused on finding out what was going on that kept my boss, her boss, and his boss behind closed doors for most of the morning. 

Luckily, the secret did not remain a secret for long, Over the weekend, Mr. Smith had been arrested for rape and assault. 

A week before my reaction would have been “I told you so.” But I’d been charmed. And, now I was shocked. Had there been some sort of mistake? In my seventies mindset, I wondered if he had been too aggressive, misread some signal or if a girl had changed her mind. After all, the seventies bar scene was crazy. But then I learned about the breaking and entering charges. Note the plural.

It took years and the invention of the Internet before I learned the rest of the story. In the months before his arrest, Mr. Smith had committed a series of attacks in the western suburbs of Philadelphia each one escalating in terms of violence. There were at least a dozen victims. They had not met Mr. Smith at a bar. They had not invited him into their homes. They had never seen him before. He had broken into their houses or apartments and raped each of them inflicting more and more physical damage than on the previous victim. One of his last victims after a required hospitalization testified that he was a monster. 

He claimed stress at work had caused his actions. He admitted he didn’t handle stress well. He offered alternative recommendations for sentencing to keep him out of jail. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. 

On the rare occasions I drove by the jail that was his home, I wondered how his life was going behind those walls. After twenty-five years I assumed he had been released. I was wrong. He had survived prison for only six years. I couldn’t discover whether he died from natural causes—unlikely in a man his age—or suicide or murder. 

My brain worried that I had bought into his charming act so easily. On an emotional level, I felt only sadness that my initial reaction had been so accurate. I’d been right. 

There was something not right about that guy. 

 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

If I were a psychopath

Handy tip: if you are going to condescend to someone in the global community of social media, you might want to check if they live not in Sri Lanka or Paraguay but within ten miles of your house.

I used to check a daily post by author Terry O’Dell. I had a morning routine I loved which concluded with a visit to her Facebook page where she posted a word of the day and followers provided fake definitions. Light-hearted fun until . . . 

I decided to change a word in my comment. I backed my cursor up and in the eyes of any conscientious member of the grammar police committed a capital crime. I failed to convert the “a” before the new word that started with vowel to “an.” I hit the post button and went on with my day.

I don’t usually get comments on that page, so I was interested to see what someone had to say. What he had to say started this way: “Come on people. This page is run by an author. Let’s get our act together.” Then, he went on to explain the rule regarding the use of “a” vs. “an” to me. In detail.

Being condescended to is one of my hot buttons. So, ignoring the unwritten law that you never respond to negative comments, I shot off a snotty retort. What a jerk. Me. Him too, but also me. I referenced my two graduate degrees and the nine (at that time) books I had published and sarcastically asked: “How did I miss learning that?” I could have noted that I used the rule correctly on the next line of the post but I wanted to show some restraint.

He tried to make light of his remark in one or two comments. I was not appeased. I blocked him but before I did, I whiled away the afternoon—there was a pandemic going on—checking out this jerk. I mean gentleman. Let’s be honest, I mean jerk.

I felt elation when I saw his address. I could be on his doorstep in under half an hour. I knew what his house looked like. Thank you, Google Earth and Zillow.

I learned where he worked and in what department. He’d been there many years without a promotion. I discovered the hobbies he enjoyed and the church he joined. I do not know how often he attended but it was there in his sixties he married for the first time. I found the name of the widow he married. She had grown children and I learned a lot about them too.

I became fascinated not by the information I retrieved but by the amount of information I uncovered. And, how easy it  was. 

He and his wife had recently moved so I knew the price of both houses. I expected to find that info. What I did not expect to find was on the realtor’s website, the realtor who had neglected to remove the virtual tour of the couple’s new house. So I checked out the floor plan moving from room to room including the main bedroom where he would sleep never knowing the price he was paying for making that snide remark on Facebook. But, only if I were a psychopath. And, let me state for the record, I am not. (References available upon request.)

I didn’t need to shoot him in his sleep to get satisfaction. I got that when I checked his profile on Linked-In. There in the first paragraph, I spotted the error. Didn’t he know that the rule is use “a” before a consonant and “an” before a vowel? Come on people . . .

© 2024 Jane Kelly

My Time with the Mob

I don’t really know very much about the Mob with a capital M. My philosophy is that the less you know about the Mob the better. I still haven’t seen every episode of The Sopranos.

However, unlike Justice Potter who remarked about obscenity—“I know it when I see it”—I, apparently, don’t know the Mob when I see it. At least I didn’t back in the 80s and 90s an era of New York Mob superstars: Carlo Gambini, Paul Castellano and John Gotti. They were all over the news even after death. I’d seen the stories but really hadn’t paid any attention. As for the New Jersey mob? I knew it existed but wouldn’t recognize a name or a face if I walked onto a room full of Jersey mobsters. 

Which brings me to . . . 

Late one Sunday afternoon a couple of friends and I arrived in a northern New Jersey town too early to show up at a party. Eating was always a good way to kill time. Starbucks was not yet an option in New Jersey so we looked around for a restaurant. Pre-Internet that meant driving around searching for one. Let’s call the one we found Ristorante Italiano because it’s generic and that was not its name.

In retrospect, the first sign that the place we selected was unusual? We could not even get a glimpse of the interior. The windows were covered and if the door had a window it was small, placed high and filled with tinted glass. The details are gone from my memory but the general impression is clear. We had no idea what we were walking into.

As we stepped through the entrance, everyone, and I do mean everyone, in the restaurant turned to look at us. They continued to watch as a very pleasant maitre d’ rushed forward not so much to greet us as to stop us. It was a small place with a dozen tables or so and we could see that just about all of them were occupied. So, we didn’t question him when he said they were full. Maybe we looked as if we were starving, harmless and clueless. We weren’t really starving but his other two assessments were dead on. He relented and told us the owner wasn’t there that evening. We could sit at his table. 

He led us past the other diners to a round table at the rear of the restaurant not far from the door to the kitchen. Not a traditionally good table but ideally situated for a quick getaway should an undesirable type such as a law officer with a warrant or a mob enforcer with a gun come through the front door. 

We may have noticed the clientele was predominantly Italian but if we did we would have seen that as a positive. Where better to eat Italian food than at a place where well-heeled Italians ate?

The table was too big for a party of three but we settled around one side of the table that we were lucky to get. The food was delicious and the conversation, lively. We laughed a lot—about what I have no idea. I don’t recall if we ever questioned the professional affiliations of the other diners but if we did we knew enough not to laugh about that.

After a great meal, we moved on to the party that had brought us to town. Except for the red sauce (or gravy if you prefer), we didn’t think much about the experience.

Until . . . 

Within weeks or maybe months of our visit to Ristorante Italiano, the New York Times noted that several high-ranking members of the leading New Jersey crime family had been arrested. Where did the feds get the evidence for the indictments? Wiretaps especially the one that had been in place for many months at the owner’s table at the Ristorante Italiano.

My friends and I were not included in the indictments. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

My Life in Crime

Picture 1969. Hippies. Drugs. Psychedelic music. People having wild times at wild parties even in the least wild of locales. 

Then picture a sober, twenty-year-old plainly-dressed girl sitting with a similarly attired friend and four completely sober, clean-cut, twenty-ish, varsity rowers exchanging ghost stories in an old summer rental house at the New Jersey Shore. You would probably think that would be the least likely spot for a police raid on August 23, 1969. You would be wrong.

It wasn’t even midnight when a fellow named George sauntered into the all-purpose room where we had gathered. “There are police swarming around the building. I wonder what’s going on.” 

Turned out we were what was going on.

I don’t know how many cops burst into the apartment but I do know it was more than needed. They weren’t exactly taking down the Weather Underground.

I briefly considered hiding but figured I wouldn’t get away with it. I let a long-forgotten officer lead me outside. I didn’t resist. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t look around to see if I knew anyone in the crowd that gathered. To tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I don’t recall anything about the walk from the house or the ride to the police station. It couldn’t have been very long. I vaguely recall being rushed inside. Only then did I learn why I was there. 

Someone had turned up a radio in the back of the house. I couldn’t hear the music, but apparently the man next door could. He called the cops. 

All six of us in the house were charged with a noise violation. The cops couldn’t even find an instance of underage drinking in the group. We had to be the tamest crowd assembled on the entire island that night.  

Probably afraid we would get ahold of some transistor radios and hit the streets endangering the ears of innocent victims, the police did not offer us the opportunity to post bail that night.

My friend—I’ll call her Betty—and I were separated from the male criminals in our party, or should I say gang, and driven to the County Jail. I didn’t consider escaping because I had no idea where we were and, frankly, I was not wearing comfortable shoes. 

Besides, it was a summer Saturday night at the Shore. The jail would just be a somewhat subdued party with other kids. Right? I’ll repeat the term County Jail and let you figure that one out for yourself.

We pulled into a classic prison yard surrounded by brick buildings. I’d seen places like this in the movies (black and white films only) but never expected to visit one. Especially in the middle of the night in the back seat of a police cruiser.

Our custody was turned over to a male policeman that today I could not pick out in a line-up. I might not remember his face or his name but I do remember his attitude. Not good. He had no patience for hardened criminals like us. He made us sign what looked like a guest book but we weren’t fooled. There was no space to rate or comment on the service. 

After a few formalities—no mug shot, no fingerprints—he called a female officer into his office and told her where to put us. “Not with her!” The matron’s face contorted with horror. Sadly, her only power appeared to be over us. I came to suspect she might not be in the right line of work but she did her job and introduced us to our new life inside.

First off, we had to pick up our bedding. I shudder recalling that I ever touched the thin mattress let alone clutched it to me as we were led to our cell block. (Note to self: create a list of phrases you never thought you’d use.) To get there we were paraded through a row of cells. Male arms—in my memory they were big, strong and hairy—extended through the bars of each one. Hands made grabs for us but luckily none connected. I remember foul sounds and I can only imagine they were matched with foul words. As with the cops, I couldn’t pick any of the inmates out of a line-up which is, I suspect, where they were most likely to be found over the years. These were not kids who partied too hard.  These were criminals. In a county jail. Imagine that.

People might tell you they’ll never forget the moment those cell doors clanked shut behind them. I do. However, I didn’t forget that Betty and I ended up in a jail cell built for three. We had to share.

“I don’t know why he put you in with her,” the matron mumbled as she locked us in. The look on her face and the tone in her voice when she said “her” made me think that our new roommate—excuse me cellmate—was not incarcerated for playing loud music.  The guard did not stick around to answer our questions. There was no introduction, no orientation. 

Our cell, was brightly lit but the rest of the cell block was dark and silent. Betty and I could have had our pick of accommodations. Instead we would be occupying bunk beds across from a woman lounging in what I assumed was the premium spot. To be fair, she was a large women and needed the bigger cot. She didn’t make a move to greet us. Her only action was leaning forward occasionally to spit into a styrofoam cup. 

I am generally a big chit-chatter but I was a little distracted by a digestive system that was betraying my outward calm. So, Betty took it upon herself to get to know our cellmate. Since there were no doors in the cell I could hear her attempt at prison chatter over the churning of my stomach.

BETTY: “What are you in for?”

CELLMATE: “I cut up a woman.”

BETTY: “Where is she now?”

CELLMATE: “She’s dead.”

We couldn’t help assuming that there might be some cause and effect between the cutting up and the death. Neither of us made any further attempt at conversation.

We knew the boys—excuse  me our partners in crime—had arrived when Billy yelled out. “Don’t worry, girls. We’ll get you out.” A nice show of bravado but completely implausible since he and the others were being led to their cell. 

The night was so long we could have been in Stockholm in midwinter. At least that is how it felt. Wake-up time was signaled by the arrival of the same prison matron carrying a metal tray filled with . . . hard to say. Our cellmate assured us the gelatinous glop, tastefully presented in a battered metal tray the same color as the food, was edible. She wolfed it down. My stomach urged me not to risk it. My brain agreed. Surely we’d be out by lunch.

I won’t go into the details of how, in the ice age of banking, our bail money arrived because I have no idea. I assume Western Union was involved.

Neither will I share the details of our release although I can testify the traditional walk of shame has nothing on the ride of shame when the police car you’re riding in stops outside the Catholic Church just as the last mass is letting out.

Speaking of testimony, I’ll skip ahead to the trial. 

I didn’t usually feel entitled but I do generally feel lucky. So, I took it for granted when a friend’s father’s friend, who happened to be on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and who happened to be on vacation at the Shore, and who happened (I assume) to be licensed to practice in New Jersey showed up to defend us. Spoiler alert: we were acquitted and our record expunged.

I suspect the powerhouse defense could have been a detriment but the prosecution did have a pretty weak case. They tried to impugn Betty’s and my morals when the prosecutor asked “What room were they in when you arrested them?” 

The cop feigned distress as if he hated to say it. “The bedroom.” I guess they wanted to expose the sweet little college girls as shameless hussies engaged in all types of wanton behavior. 

Our attorney wasn’t going to let that happen. Even before I’d watched twenty seasons of Law & Order, I knew that was irrelevant. Our attorney took a simpler approach and established that there was no bed in this “bedroom.”

In today’s world, we’d probably sue. We’d been arrested for playing music that we couldn’t hear, paraded through a crowd of onlookers, denied our one phone call, forced to spend the night in the county jail and made to share a cell with an alleged murderer.  

But the worst indignity? The song on the radio? “ Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Note to self: the big C

Some thoughts on the occasion of the two year anniversary of your cancer diagnosis.

On the afternoon of March 16, 2022, you called your doctor’s office to say that you found a lump in your left breast and to ask what the next step was. “The next step is you come here at ten tomorrow morning.” And, so began a journey that has taken longer than you ever imagined and is not quite over. In a way it is never over but it looks like you can finally move it to the background.

Here, in no particular order, are a few thoughts about what you learned.

Anyone can get it. No one in your family ever had cancer of any kind. You had absolutely no fear of getting cancer. Kellys did not get cancer. Apparently they do. You were diagnosed in March, 2022. Your brother was diagnosed in the summer of 2023 and gone before Thanksgiving. Your genetic testing was clean and you still got it. Remind people. Anyone can get it.

Before talking about cancer, assess your audience. Preface any conversation with “I don’t know if you’ve experienced this yourself or been with someone who has . . . .” It is amazing and distressing how often you will find yourself talking to current patients, cancer survivors or their family members.

One of the greatest revelations was just how many friends you had and how wonderful they were. If able to thank them in an Oscar night speech, the music would play you off before you could name ten percent of them.  To list the kindnesses shown would take the entire show.

Everyone’s cancer is different. Everyone’s reaction to cancer drugs is different. Don’t compare yourself to other patients. There are many reasons Facebook groups are helpful. For one thing, they let you see people who have much worse situations: medical, financial, familial, professional, social. Every aspect of life is affected. If you don’t have the same struggles, feel grateful not guilty. If you seem to be having a harder time than others, it’s not your fault. Do not feel guilty.

Admit you worry about your hair. Losing hair is the least of a cancer patient’s problems but you discovered hair is symbolic. You had no issue with going bald during chemo. Hair of some variety would be back. But thinning hair from long term medications was more upsetting. It could be a warning about what else the drug might be doing inside your body. But, even more importantly, it symbolizes that things are different now when all you want is for things to be the way they were.

You tried to find some humor in a very serious topic. You should be allowed to laugh when your pants drop to your ankles in a public place. Even if no one was there to see it, empirically, it was funny. It’s ironic when your hair starts coming back on your upper lip first, then on your scalp. There were other funny occurrences. Admittedly, not many. You just need time to think of them.

You had to introduce yourself after chemo. You didn’t recognize yourself so how could others recognize you? You never took offense. You took the offense and told everyone who you were. The same person you were before - just smaller and grayer. At least you will be after all the brain fog clears. You hope.  Brain fog is real. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

The Ghosts We Know

A little background. I am a slider. Or at least I claim to be a slider. Sliders can only claim slider powers. There is no scientific proof that we exist. 

For years, I didn’t even know that there was a term for my totally useless super power. I did know there had to be others with similar experiences somewhere out there. I might have met one or two of them in my lifetime. The topic doesn’t come up in conversation easily or often. And, it is not met with universal interest. 

Then, over twenty years after the Internet arrived—being quick on the uptake is not one of my super powers—it occurred to me that I could search for people who turn street lights off. And that is when I discovered the term slider.

Street Light Interference. Scorned by science. Debunked by experiments. A phenomenon whereby individuals by their mere presence cause street lights to go off well beyond a frequency that chance would dictate. 

I demonstrated this ability to a friend one night in the parking lot of a suburban office building making him walk with me back and forth under a street lamp. Walk under it. It goes off. Walk under it again. It goes on. Repeat. Many times. The experiment never failed. I am not sure he was convinced. Actually, I am pretty sure he wasn’t but he was kind enough not to debate the issue, then or when it came up a few times in the course of our friendship.

Within a year or two, our friendship came to an abrupt end. We argued. I assumed I would never see him again.

Then came the worst thing possible when you have unresolved issues with someone. He died. Unexpectedly. Before he even got to have a fortieth birthday. 

So, although I do not routinely try to communicate with the dead, one winter night on a cold beach I sent an unspoken message. “I know you have a big family and a lot of closer friends to get around to, but when you have a minute, could you drop by and give me a sign that things are good between us?” I did not expect a response. I didn’t even feel sure about the whole afterlife thing.

Not long afterwards I was at a restaurant in Boston that we had visited together. I saw the seats at the bar where we sat were open and took one of them. He had only been dead for a short time. Maybe only weeks. 

So, he was on my mind when I was in the restaurant and when I went to retrieve my car from a multi-level parking lot. 

I got in the elevator with one other person, a businessman who positioned himself in a back corner as far away from the button panel as possible. I stood in the middle on the opposite side nowhere near the panel. The doors began to shut and suddenly bounced open, the way they do when they hit the arm of a latecomer trying to hold the elevator. But there was no arm. There was no latecomer. No one got in. We could see no one was in the lobby. We were alone. Or were we?

The other passenger uttered a sentence I’d never heard before. “Looks like we’re riding with an invisible man.”

“Don’t worry.” I told him. “I think he’s with me.”

We both chuckled.

I exited the elevator liking the idea that I had an invisible man in tow. 

Smiling, I walked forty yards down the ramp before I realized I was going in the wrong direction. In the instant that I turned to reverse direction, undeniably simultaneously, the overhead light at the top of the ramp turned off. Not my doing. I was too far away.

An overwhelming feeling of relief washed over me. 

Do I believe the light going out was my friend telling me all was good, we were good? I did at the time. Over the many years that have passed, did I consider that the light’s snapping off was a mere coincidence? My brain did. But I remember the warm feeling I experienced. Do I believe I got a message from the other side saying all was okay?

I choose to believe I did.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Some Thoughts on Cancer

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that the largest part of 2022 would be devoted to chemotherapy and then surgery, I told myself—and anyone who would listen—that 2022 was going to be the best year of my life. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

Having no recent experience with friends or family members going through cancer treatment, I was somewhat naive. No, let’s face it. I was an idiot.

I had two major misconceptions about the process. I knew it was tough but:

1) I thought I would get chemo, feel horrible for a few days and then take off to visit friends, return to chemo, feel horrible, go visit friends . . . . You know, as the shampoo bottle says, lather, rinse, repeat. That is not how chemo worked for me.

2) I thought I would do my five months and the experience would be over. It was not. 

As many of you know, cancer is what brings us to the doctor’s office but, for many of us, it is the side effects of the drugs that keep us coming back. 

I have found myself disabled in a variety of ways for two solid years. I should have been out and about months ago but, although my cancer responded well to the treatment, my body did not. It has been a long haul. I have declared my period of physical limitations over before and found I was mistaken. Nonetheless, as I approach the two year anniversary of my diagnosis, I am declaring my restricted lifestyle over once again. 

I feel silly complaining because I realize many have worse side-effects for a much longer time—all the while trying to maintain a full-time job and raise a family. The timing was lucky for me. I just had to worry about myself.

People often ask what I learned from a bout with cancer. My standard reply is I discovered that either I have an incredibly positive attitude or I am the dumbest person on earth. Possibly both. Turns out I am an optimist. No one was more surprised than I was. 

Maybe I am more of a pragmatist than an optimist. Many people have grown to hate the phrase “it is what it is.” But you know what? It is what it is. I don’t think about cancer very often. I am forced to think about the treatment. 

Anti-cancer drugs inflict indignities on a body that I could not have imagined but don’t ask me to list them. As the side-effects fade from my body, they also fade from my memory. Turns out there is a whole world out there beyond the hospital grounds.

I saw an old New Yorker cartoon where the doctor tells the patient that, excuse the paraphrase, I can cure your back problem but you might find yourself with nothing to talk about. I can’t wait.

As I approach my two year anniversary, I will try to record some more thoughts. With any luck, I will be able to look back at my notes with surprise. All that happened? It was so long ago, I barely remember.

© 2024 Jane Kelly