Here Comes the Rain Again...
Previously, Chapter 31: Old Man, Look At My Life I'm a Lot Like You Were...
zhaojiankang. Getty Images.Irv and Gloria were very much in love. When Irv wasn't working, the two of them were inseparable, much like Susan and me.
The front door to their house was never locked, providing the mailman and the UPS guy free rein to leave envelopes and parcels on the kitchen counter, where, if Gloria was home, they'd stop and chat. It was a different time. Regular delivery people became trusted members of most families. Many remained at their jobs for twenty-plus years, so you got to know them pretty well.
Every once in a while, Susan and I would drop by the house on Saturday at around noon, and as we walked in the front door, we could hear Irv and Gloria hooting and hollering in the small den at the end of a short hallway. They were reacting to spares and strikes while they watched their favorite, Candlepins for Cash. They were both in bowling leagues and rarely missed the 12 o'clock show on Saturday.
During the work week, when we'd come home for lunch, Gloria would have a sandwich on a plate waiting for Irv. After he found out he had high blood pressure, he kept his lunches simple and healthy. For him, that meant two round slices of chicken loaf on a bulky roll. No mustard or mayo, and no chips. He ate really fast and washed it down with a tall glass of tap water. Chicken loaf was dry as fuck. I don't know how he ate it plain without choking.
Gloria was constantly yelling at him to slow down, "You're not giving Vinnie enough time to eat his lunch!"
I chimed in, "You should try chewing your food, Irv…"
He replied, "When I'm on vacation, I'll chew my food!" He was a man on a mission, and he didn't want to waste any time eating lunch.
After the surgery, everything changed. When I came back to the house at noon every day, I started wolfing down my lunch like Irv did. At 25, I had become a young man on a mission.
As each week passed, I was getting more tired, not so much from the work as from the weight of the responsibility. Seeing Irv battle cancer was difficult for all of us, especially Gloria.
I was focused on getting all the work done, filling out job slips, and I failed to see what Irv's illness was doing to her. Before Irv's cancer diagnosis, Gloria constantly smiled and laughed; in fact, I used to do a pretty good imitation of her unique laugh for Susan, which always got a good laugh out of her. She'd yell at me while still laughing hysterically, "Stop it, Vin!" I had Gloria's laugh down pat, and once I started, Susan couldn't stop laughing.
Gloria was a naturally happy person, and always laughing. Susan took after her in that regard. But once Irv got sick, there wasn't a whole lot to laugh about…
It was Friday afternoon, just after 5:00, week seven. I was exhausted, and when I got back to the house, Gloria was waiting for me in the kitchen with an unfamiliar look on her face. She wasted no time telling me she just received a call from a customer who said she had to jiggle her toilet to get it to stop running. She told me I had to go to the woman's house and fix it right away. I knew the house had three bathrooms, so I told Gloria to call her back and tell her I'd be there first thing Monday morning. Gloria got really upset and told me I had to "go fix it now."
I was so tired, and I knew a small toilet repair could escalate quickly into a larger job, one requiring parts, so I repeated that I'd go first thing Monday morning. That's when she started yelling and demanding "go fix it now."
I was exhausted, and I told her I couldn't; I'd had a tough week and had to go home…
I had never seen her act like that before. She was a little out of control, very unlike her. I was too young to understand what she was going through. And how watching the person she loved most fight for his life affected her behavior. (It's too late, but after losing Susan to cancer in 2025, I get it now)
As I began driving home to our apartment in Easton, I decided to stop by the carpet store in Stoughton that Susan's sister's husband, a lawyer, owned. It was run by Susan's brother, who was there Monday through Friday, selling, measuring, cutting, and banding area carpets.
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I went in and told Susan's brother what happened, urging him to call his mother and smooth things out, help her understand that the toilet repair could wait till Monday morning, that it was no big deal. And, more importantly, calm her down. He said he'd make the call.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot at our apartment and was on my way in when suddenly Susan came running out. In a loud, animated voice, she shouted, "What did you do?"
"What do you mean, what did I do?"
"My mother just called. You're fired!"
I did not expect to hear that. I was shocked. Totally fucking shocked. And just like that, I was unemployed, and all my efforts to hold Irv's place were for naught. My apprenticeship, my relationship with Irv. Everything he and I had been working for, gone…
I wondered what my brother-in-law said to his mother that led to my firing. Or maybe it was entirely her decision. More importantly, I wondered what they told Irv…
In just a couple of hours, I had gone from Boy Wonder to Public Enemy No. 1. Susan and I weren't talking, and I was demoted to sleeping on the couch. I immediately started looking for another job.
Thanksgiving came, and in addition to my job, I lost my seat at the table and spent the entire day alone in my car, sipping a beer and wondering what the fuck happened. In retrospect, I wish I had jumped back in the Irv's plumbing van and gone and fixed that damn toilet…
It didn't take long before I was hired by Wright's Plumbing out of Norfolk, where I became just another low-paid apprentice plumber busting his ass, roughing in new houses in the middle of winter. I took great pride in my work under Irv, but working at a big shop was very different and impersonal. I didn't like it, but at least we could start paying our bills again and put a stop to all the "Past Due" notices we were receiving.
Then Susan told me Irv had been moved to a small facility in Norfolk, where he was receiving skilled nursing care. I wanted to visit him badly; I loved him, but I wasn't sure what they told him and if he would still want to see me…
Here comes the rain again
Raining in my head like a tragedy
Tearing me apart like a new emotion…
To be continued…