Day 49

Name: Bo Jacober

Profession: Student, New York University

Location: His dorm room in Manhattan, New York

Question: Why are you here?

Answer:

Bo Jacober is an intricate character. Tough for any novice to tackle.

If I were a cartoonist, I would attempt to represent him by highlighting his 50’s-styled, gold-and-black-rimmed glasses. I would draw his skinny jeans skinnier than they actually were. I’d have him wearing his gray-and-white plaid zip-up hoodie. I’d draw his hair disheveled, but you wouldn’t notice his hair. Your eyes would probably go straight to those glasses, which hang heavily on the bridge of his nose. His skin wouldn’t be clear. There would be a few marks on his left cheek and the right side of his chin. His skin would be a bit darker than the average white guy’s. In fact, you’d almost suspect him of being some sort of first-generation kid, but you wouldn’t be able to put a finger on his ethnicity. Your eyes would return from his skin to those glasses again. And behind the glasses, you’d see the eyes I’d drawn for him. I wouldn’t have to exaggerate those eyes because they’d be big enough without my help. Big and brown. Or gray, if I was entertaining myself with a pencil. There would be an optimistic expression on his face. A big, almost silly grin. You’d see my illustration and think of a seven-year-old upon meeting a Disney star or a favorite athlete. But you wouldn’t be looking at a seven-year-old. You’d just be looking at Bo.

If I were an author, Bo would be the protagonist, simply because I’d have more room to lay him out. To his classmates, he’d be The Man. His teachers wouldn’t like him. He’d never admit it aloud, but he’d enjoy being the kid who never brought his vocabulary book to class. The tale would have a narrative arc. He’d go from being the chubby, undiscovered class clown with long, unruly hair to being captain of the school Comedy Club. He’d host the Homecoming Assembly. He’d be nominated for several Senior Superlatives, but would lose out to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Student Government all-American. This would bother Bo. A lot of things would bother Bo. True to one of his favorite characters, Holden Caulfield, he’d be disappointed in the world. Under the limelight and his goofy smile would be someone who really struggled to get something out of a life that seemed pointless. You work hard, he’d think, to earn yourself a headstone like everyone else. His outward optimism, once a mark of a teenager who really believed in the beauty of humanity and the promise of everything America had in store for him, would become a façade. He’d begin working with a vicious ardor toward short-term goals and see no great reward in the long-run. He’d move to New York City from Phoenix, where he’d hope to break free and snatch opportunity by the throat. But he’d have a tough time making friends. He’d dream of becoming an actor, a real Academy Award-winner. But until he reached that point, he’d be dissatisfied. Even if he reached that point, he’d decide, he would be dissatisfied. Though there would exist this powerful internal conflict, he’d be a good friend. He’d be cordial and welcoming to strangers and a loyal lover. If I were an author, Bo would be a challenge if only for the ending. We would get to the rising action and my pencil would drop. I would beat my head in frustration. I would pace the room for days. Stay up all night. I would attend workshops and perform exercises, but I wouldn’t be able to finish the book, because I wouldn’t know whether the story would have a happy ending as the result of some divine revelation or end up a tragedy. Bo, and not even the author, would be able to decide his fate.

And if I were a blogger, a new-age journalist, and Bo was the subject of my story, I would have him write it for me. I would speak to him for 45 minutes with the intention of publishing every word, but he would have me scrap the whole interview. He would rather have me publish his Oscar picks than reveal some of his less-than-chipper sentiments. I would understand. As a friend and blogger, I would understand. But the problem with this last-minute request would be that little-known to the subject, it would sully the blogger’s plans because, without realizing it, Bo would set himself up for two disappointments in a world that seems to have disappointed him so much already.

Readers, let this serve as my apology. First, because I have failed to do a friend’s character justice. Despite our long talks and close friendship, Bo has always been a series of contradictions to me. As soon as I feel as though I understand him, he throws me off with a single statement. I ask him a question and he has me running in a thousand different directions to tie together his answer, which to me is not one, but hundreds of replies. This is not a fault of his, but a handicap of my own. For this reason, I had hoped he would give me an interview that said it all so I wouldn’t have to. What he gave me was wonderful in its own right, but I should have been able to do better. I don’t feel I have.

My second apology is this: I have begun a project which I am no longer compelled to finish. What once began as an endeavor to introduce strangers and reveal the pit of human nature has become a stress-inducing race to talk to someone by midnight. Despite what is required of my (former?) career, I now dread pressing myself upon strangers to talk to me. I’m tired of the paranoid, suspicious looks from Bostonians who are dubious of my intentions, and I feel as though my interviews with Facebook friends is a sad excuse for an alternative. From dinner until 1 a.m., I find myself sweating and wringing my hands. The purpose of this blog has been lost to me. I spent hours a day transcribing interviews that served merely as entertainment to a few of my closest relations. Almost every night, I sacrifice homework and personal writings so that I can rush to talk to someone about a story that most of my interviewees admit to be “boring” or “uninteresting”. And why? What exactly am I revealing about human nature? What I am discovering about others is being obscured by what I am discovering about myself: I have a fear of admitting when I’m wrong. I believe beginning this blog to answer unanswerable questions was the wrong approach, and the wrong issue to tackle.

This project was built by good intentions, but I don’t feel as though it achieved—or was ever going to achieve—its goal. I realize that would only slight embarrassment, because I do feel as though I am throwing in the towel for the first time in my immediate memory. This disappoints and upsets me, especially because the subject of Day 49’s post, Bo Jacober, as well as my good friend Rachael Miller, both depended on me not to quit. They expected 365 interviews. Though I’m sorry I don’t feel as though I can finish, I’m even sorrier that I have to admit that to them, my two biggest fans.

With that, I sign off for good. If anyone has any interest in taking on this project themselves in hopes of finding some good in it, let me know. The username and password no longer belong to me, but to you. I wish you the best of luck and insight. Thank you to everyone who kept up with me and kept me going. I'll dedicate the book I'll be writing with my extra time to you.

--Sierra Smith

Day 50

Name: Joey

Profession: Elevator repairman

Location: His home in Long Island, New York

Question: Why are you here?

Answer: I get while the getting is good

Joey has a fourteen-foot albino boa that he got for $500. He has a python that bit him when he took it out of the cage. He has a bearded dragon and a tortoise that’s supposed to live 250 years. His daughter has a mouse. His other daughter has a frog that wasn’t supposed to live longer than a month but has been alive for more than a year. His wife takes care of the family Maltese.

Joey also has a pool table in his basement, worth $1200. He spent time explaining to me how he got the pool table, the basement’s light fixture, and a clock for $250. Joey knows how to do business.

The basement was a fixer-upper, he explained. It suffered water damage at least three or four times before he got it right, but now it’s below water level and air tight. Joey prides himself on his basement. After all, he is an electrician.

Joey fixes elevators. Once hired by a company to stay in a complex overlooking New York City and overlook the elevator system, he now owns his own company. He has to run his check-ups at least once a month, so his schedule is at his disposal. He can go to work or he can stay home. Joey likes it that way. He said it gives his freedom.

Joey’s daughter wants to be a musician, so he volunteers with the school marching band. It’s a small band, but a good band. When they travel to compete, Joey helps move the instruments. It seemed as if Joey’s 17-year-old was his pride and joy. But in all fairness, he loves his 13-year-old just the same.

Joey is a working dad, and Joey gets while the getting is good.

Day 51, 52

Name: Ana Benedik, Theodore Benedik

Profession: Retired

Location: Their apartment in Brooklyn, New York

Question: Why are you here?

Answer: We’re growing old together

I talked to my great-aunt and -uncle over Spring Break for upwards of 10 hours completely uninterrupted. Because I had anticipated the length of our conversations, I didn’t dare turn on my recorder (though I should have used it for a quote or two). Therefore, I don’t have anything terribly specific to say about either, but I can provide you with the gist of our conversations.

First of all, you should know that this is the first time in my life I’ve really gotten to know either my aunt or my uncle. I haven’t seen my aunt since I was a little girl, and although I spent some time with my uncle when he moved me into Boston in September, we spent more time worrying about how to clean a cot that rested 6 feet off the ground than political affiliations or time served in Korea.

When I walked into their one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for the first time, I was shocked to see my aunt. She was larger and older than I had remembered. Surgery and spinal issues left her bent over and unable to move her neck. She was forced to walk with a cane, and not yet 70 years old, was incredibly immobile for her age.

Before I could even use the restroom, we started what would become an intimate 6-hour conversation, with my uncle and first cousin (first removed) piping in only on occasion. Ana, known as Annie among friends and family, was one of six children. Each of her siblings was an average of seven years apart, though the family was remarkably close, and squeezed in two rooms for most of their childhood. At one point, she said, poverty forced her mother to place two wooden chairs against the bed so her brother had a place to sleep alongside his sisters. Annie’s father was an uncompromising disciplinarian who the family still believes to have been involved in the Italian Mafia. (No known photograph, she pointed out, reveals his left ear, which was missing.) Where her father was unrelenting, however, her mother was understanding and forgiving.

Aunt Annie spent a long time talking about my grandfather, who died in 1998 from cancer. The two grew up close, despite the seven year age difference. She laughed about her inclusion in all of his personal affairs, which he extended to her even though she was a little girl in comparison. When he played baseball with the boys, he made sure she had a spot on base. When he learned to drive, he had her ride in the back of his convertible like she was one of the gang. She said he provided his five sisters with protection at school, where no one dared pick on them for fear of dealing with Tony. In repayment, Annie and her sisters would run errands for him at the snap of a finger, and they didn’t mind. He also provided the sometimes harsh household with laughter. He taught the girls to laugh, despite their father’s aversion to humor. When their mother died, her brother moved to Arizona, providing Annie with a sense of loss she could hardly bear.

Eternally optimistic, Annie seemed to have not one complaint about life after moving out of the house. She always kept a steady job, and her resume was as varied as they came. She planned to be a flight attendant, but ended up being a receptionist, working at a Jewish charity (though herself a devout Catholic), and handling merchandise at a clothing store. She traveled to Europe, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii several times over.

In her thirties, she met her now-husband, Teddy, and they dated for twelve years before getting married.

Uncle Ted, giving me an interview the next day, spent most of his time working at the New York City Post Office or serving in the military. A proud German and yet extremely patriotic to America, Ted spoke to me about his marriage, his adolescent shyness, the Republican Party, and Catholicism. The topic conversation switched every 60 seconds. When he got broken into over a decade ago, he became paranoid and now three locks adorn his apartment door and bars line the windows. He advised me to carry pepper spray or a knife in my hand when I walk outdoors. He doesn’t share. He loves his wife, his best friend, but was intimidated by her “sexiness” when they were dating. He angrily argued that anything “without the decency to shit in a toilet should be shot.” He lamented over the modern school system, which he said was too liberal for the good of America. He has kept a log for 12 years of every movie he has ever watched and what he thought of it. He has to finish whatever is on his plate or he is mentally uncomfortable. He couldn’t go without meat for a day. He has dimples that are visible whether or not he’s smiling, and he urged me to give a good report of him to my mother whenever he did me a favor. He’s the only person I’ve ever known to violently defend the Nazis in a modern WWII film.

It made sense that the two had married. My uncle dressed my aunt’s handicaps with the attentions of a young lover. She was quiet, unassuming, and he made them friends with his boisterous laugh and attraction to strangers. Fights ended with Annie throwing her hands up with a smile and sighing, “Oh, Teddy!” and her husband looking into her eyes, repeating for the third time that day, “You know you’re the love of my life, baby.”

Despite the photo of Jesus laying against their lamp (the only visible art), the life that now exists only in that small apartment, their propensity to preach, and their belief that veganism is a cultish and inexcusable behavior; despite their inability to adapt to modern technology, literature, and forward-thinking; despite the embarrassment my uncle causes himself when he yells across a restaurant , and my aunt’s deteriorating health; despite all of this and much more, some part of me can’t help but want to be the one member of the couple my aunt and uncle are and always have been.