0:00

(Gospel singer wails)

Hey listeners, it’s William. Thank you for tuning into Crack Tales. This is episode 0.1. You may notice that Episode 1 is not up yet. Episode 0.1 is a guilt episode. Let me explain. I first posted that I was going to produce this podcast back February 22, 2020. Little did I know what I was in for. I’m deep in it. I’ve done 27 interviews so far. I’m transcribing and putting together the episodes and so I cannot tell you the date. I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m just going to keep working but Crack Tales is coming. I promise you. So, in the meantime, to give you something to listen to, I decided I’d record a story I wrote that actually took place after my ten years of addiction. I have changed some names and a couple of details, but the events are true. My reactions are true. It’s called The Coyote and the Flood.

1:13

On the shores of Lake Washington in the most elite section of Seattle’s Madison Park neighborhood live Jules and Barry Silver.  Just a few doors down, one finds the CEO of Starbucks who I’m told by a reliable source has Amazon deliveries daily. Walk away from the lake and turn left, walk past the Seattle Tennis Club and look up to your right. There you’ll see the house where Kurt Cobain, Courtney and little Frances Bean rocked Seattle until Kurt left us for an easier place. Easier even than Madison Park. These famous neighbors and the other multi-millionaires within walking distance of the Silver mansion don’t figure into this story, but the neighborhood does. Madison Park is houses behind hedges and wrought iron gates, tailored and trimmed yards, haute couture children’s boutiques and never-less-fancy than a Mercedes or a Maserati lining the streets, unless of course it’s an old Volvo passed down to one of the kids who’ve been recently granted license to drive. Madison Park is an uptown lady.

2:19

If you leave the lady at the shore and travel west, up and over Capitol Hill, you find Seattle’s downtown core and wherever you land, your view will most certainly include multiple Starbucks and practical although late-arriving wheelchair ramps, two on each corner making eight per intersection. Although they may not offer intrigue such as does the day to day in Madison Park; waffle textured sloped openings in the curb do figure into this story as it was these wheelchair access ramps that provided the Silvers their life at the lake. Barry’s dad Dunlop had a construction company and Dunlop himself designed and engineered the first curb wheelchair ramps, and Silver Construction installed each and every one of them. Poof, the Silvers were millionaires!

My father did not invent anything but instead made the best sourdough rolls and pancakes a boy has ever had and sold school and theater seats. 

My mom was a fulltime housewife and mother.  Whenever she took us out to a public auditorium or cinema, we’d check for the rectangular American Seating Company logo on the backside of whatever chairs were present.  Those identical mini-chairs, four in a row, and the block letters was all it took. “My dad makes these chairs,” we’d burst out to each other or to anyone at all close enough to hear, although it wasn’t true. He only sold them. 

Mom, less often bragged about, if at all, at times reluctantly but nonetheless well cared for and contained her sprawling brood. Five children, one of them stillborn, had arrived between 1956 and 1961 and although my father made the money, it’s clear who had the harder job.  Four of us, hungry, clothes-and-shoe-consuming, completely unconscious what-it-takes-to-run-a-house-and-provide-for-a-family were her charge, sucking every bit of energy she had. If that wasn’t enough, in 1971, we became her charge alone.  My father up and died. Hospital. One week. Dead. My mom careened, although like a rock, into both widowhood and single-motherhood, or that’s what we saw anyway. We had food, shoes, clothes, school supplies, medical and dental care as well as regular vacations.  She provided quietly, and cried silently.

5:01

One year after my father’s death my mother bought a house on a street shaded by 100 year-old oaks on the top of Capitol Hill; a turn-of-the-century Victorian whose three stories of stained-glass and oval-windowed front door made the residents appear monied. The truth was that at the time we moved to the Hill, the 1970’s, families were moving out.  White flight.  

The suburbs, which we had gladly left behind in the wake of my father’s sudden departure, were the end-all be-all for aspiring middle-class Seattleites.  

It was this desperate desire to escape the big bad inner city that provided an affordable price for my mother and hence plopped me down into what would prove again and again a land of many adventures, a neighborhood equal in number in both Catholic school boys and super-duper drag queens, hippies and religious cult members, and the mentally ill.  Capitol Hill took us all.

If you leave the queens and Catholic school boys and head east back down Madison Street, a thoroughfare that runs diagonally from the west edge of the city at the shore of Elliott Bay downtown all the way up and over Capitol Hill, you end up back at Lake Washington in Madison Park.  Like most in Seattle, my only visits to the neighborhood were to swim with the hordes at the public beach, the only part of the neighborhood where we could affix our blankets to the sand and stare at Bellevue, the exclusive city across the lake and the home of Microsoft and Bill Gates. From his living room the Microsoft’s CEO has a view of Madison Park. In turn, from the Seattle side, just a half-mile from the public-pillaged shores of Madison Beach, the Silvers had a clear view of Xanadu 2.0, Bill Gates’ private estate.  This was the likes of “not my neighborhood.”

Back up Madison though, Capitol Hill inspired. The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s unconventional conventionalists told us, “Don’t dream it, be it,” and my friends and I tried our best, freaks embracing the freaky. I liked art and even more loved the idea of being an artist and tried a few times, unsuccessfully. I took a blue piece of paper and without any planning, forethought or knowledge of the relationships of colors or composition, how to paint at all really, smashed white and red oils in streaks across the page, one of them shooting straight up in what I later thought of as my “great desire.” My process took minutes and even the paper was unartistic, the most hideous washed out blue. I also matted and framed a magazine cover with Jodi Foster photographed with pink filters and looking butch powerful and I called that art. I was impressed with myself while not many others paid any attention.

I also wandered Europe on my own. Trains going anywhere to people I didn’t know diverted me from my constant anxiety and instead took me around more tranquil bends to picnics on river banks with olives, local cheese and bread torn into sandwich sized pieces. A temporary vagabond with a two-month Eurail pass, traversing croissants and huge bowls of café au lait, focaccia and Chianti, satiating yogurt dripping with Greek honey, palaces and castles and “Bonjour” and “Ciao.” I could relax for the first time since forever.

8:41

Two and a half months on European city streets brought me home in mid-December. After a days-long existential crisis I registered at Seattle Central Community College to start in January but at the same time received a call from my friend Heidi. Rally Go!, her post-punk new wave band needed a lead singer. Four girls and me, 6’3” inches of scared but passionate aspiring rock star. We wrote our own songs and were cheered on by people completely unlike us, drunken youth banging their heads to our anthem “Mass Brew Action.”  

(Song: Mass Brew Action – Rally Go! 1981)

10:07

In any case, my desire to move around a stage like Chaka Khan made college seem pointless. The next year brought audiences of 20 or 30 kids a couple times a week. Heavily abused stages in dark bars and art galleries lifted us above a bouncing, smashing hoard happy to be banged around against themselves to the beat of Danielle’s drums. Little Heidi on bass and Kimmie and Joanie on guitar, and me, slightly made up for the times, 1981, singing about cat food, drinking lots of beer, and Fifi, FooFoo and Faux Faux Pas. I left Rally Go! after just one year, which I still regret, but I continued trying to make music. I worked in restaurants to pay the bills, the first of which had singing waiters, donuts the size of frisbees and chocolate eclairs resembling footballs. The Sunday Brunch was a hit with huge crowds and therefore I would rise at 4am to peel strips off of what was supposed to be thawed blocks of bacon left out for me, but not early enough, the night before. Halfway through the first box phantom ice knives stabbed and poked all four fingertips on both hands with every new attempt to pull a strip from the frozen bacon block.

11:25

Making music was harder than I had imagined it would be, indeed much harder.  I didn’t play an instrument and although my singing was good, my detector for people talented enough and ready, always failed.  I entered the rock star dreams and basements of many, but always woke up and emerged again into the light of day without any musicians to back my singing. Instead, I did singer jams put together by vocal coaches in my neighborhood. Matzoh Mamma, Capitol Hill’s fabulous Jewish deli held weekend musical events and was my stage for a bit, but eventually proved not the way I wanted to make music.

Then, after a few years of a musically broken heart and my dreams seemingly dashed, I was sitting with my mom in the pews of the Seattle Unity Church listening to the most amazing singing I had ever heard. 

(Song: Total Experience Gospel Choir – Pass Me Not-intro)

I had stumbled upon the Total Experience Gospel Choir. Jai, the commanding and Geri-curled drummer smiled at me while banging out gospel syncopation as my mother and I looked on, heads nodding on the upbeat. I whispered to my mom, “I want to do that!” “Then go and ask them.”  My mom was smart.

After the show, I approached Reverend Patrinell Wright, fearless leader of the choir, icon, life guide. “How do people um…sing in this choir?” My voice sounded weak and nothing like the ones I’d heard pounding on my heart during the concert.

“Just come to rehearsal.  See what we do.”  She turned and walked backstage.  I was left at floor level, neck craning and eyes upward, following her and trying to get just a little bit more.  

13:21

A week later I walked into Prince of Peace Baptist church just off Martin Luther King Jr. Way and never looked back. Confident teenagers and a director who would threaten to throw her shoes at any flat notes brought me to a new way of singing and a new level of joy. Immersed in huge voices and the choir family dynamics, and singing weekly or even more often, changed me. I was being filled up.

(Song: Total Experience Gospel Choir – Pass Me Not)

By 2002, I’d been around the block too many times, a whole other story, but suffice it to say after twenty-some years out of high school and no formal higher education, I realized that college degrees opened doors and I wanted in.  I wanted a career and I wanted work that was professional and rewarding.  I would study Social Work.

When I returned to community college and then university, I was 42 years old. I had lived on my own for 22 years and always worked, paid my way, and only occasionally relied on my mother for help. My mother had died in 1998 anyway so my return to university was as an adult orphan long accustomed to making my own ends meet. In order to manage rent, utilities and food, I had to work but needed something flexible.  I had done catering for many years in the past it was a good fit for this new life of mine.  And then I met Bess, a caterer who hired party workers like myself to help create and serve the food she designed and prepared. Bess was one of many similarly professional women who ran their own catering services in the city. Cooking out of their homes, they hired helpers and servers for each event and had flourishing businesses. Bess also cleaned houses.  She was the caterer and housecleaner for five very wealthy families. After catering for her a few times, she approached me and asked me if I would like to join her as her housecleaning assistant. We would work five days a week, beginning at 5 or 6 in the morning depending on the family and finish in time for my classes. Crazy, really crazy, but I said yes.

Too many mornings during that period of my life I found myself in the home of some very rich person, and while they slept, or the earlier birds had their first cup of coffee, Bess and I began moving from room to room sometimes organizing disheveled family rooms or children’s bedrooms, but mostly just the nitty gritty; scrubbing, dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, swishing of toilets, and mopping.  It varied from house to house of course, as did the income levels. None of them were poor but some were far above the rest. I remember that one of the well-to-do families won the lottery and announced it to us while we cleaned one morning. I tried to be happy for them. Bess was, genuinely. Bess had a better grip on her place in life than I did.

The Silvers, without winning any lotteries were already at the top, being the wealthiest family on our list. Entering their house for housecleaning was always a joy because it was spotless. No children’s messes to fix, no bad habits to clean up after. The Silvers were refined, and had to be in their roles in society as the access ramp king and queen. They were socially conscious, not about sustainable fuel or recycling or anything so basic as that, but, instead, conscious of how they were perceived socially. One way they retained their image was to rarely let people see them. Formal dinner parties yes, occasionally. Bridge game for Jules once a week, yes, but only every four weeks at her house. The Silvers had three children but I saw no evidence of any warm relationships with any of them. Family visited their house only once or twice a year, Christmas and maybe during the summer so the grandkids could swim in the pool.

All of this to say that the house was clean, always.  Bess and I visited once a week, but Mattie, an eighty-year-old woman who, when I met the Silvers, had worked for them for 43 years, still came most days of the week. Her full-on housecleaning duties had been reduced to ironing the bed sheets and keeping Jules company in the 6500 square feet that made up her lonely castle.  Barry went to work every day, but the Jules was a housewife, a slightly asocial housewife.

I think this description of the Silver’s house, sold in 2010 for $6.7 million and now listed at over $22 million after a total rebuild by the 2010 purchasers, offers a fairly accurate image.

This from Zillow: “Beverly Hills glamour at waters edge. A curving wall of glass captures the constant change of reflections of water and sky ~ every turn an adventure of extravagance used with great restraint. Exquisite details with powerful moments of drama. Lavish master suite ~ his and her salons. French doors in the guesthouse cabana open to the black bottom free form pool. Significant entree for strong art collectors. 120' frontage. Brilliant azure lake hues...Bellevue city skyscape...Cascade mountains. Walled and gated. Impressive dock ~ water, power, lift. All brick; slate roof. A perfect backdrop for a Black and White ball. Hollywood Drama! Volume! International in its profile. Full lower living quarters.”

That last line “full lower living quarters,” begins this story.

20:23

It was seven o’clock in the morning, or so (I never looked at my watch while housecleaning or I would have committed suicide when faced with however many additional hours of drudgery lay before me). I had my hand elbow deep in the toilet of the tiny half-bath that sat off the kitchen. The half-bath was tiny, just toilet and sink, but all done in mirror black tile, black enamel toilet and sink, and all of it accented with gold –gold faucet, gold hot and cold handles, and an antique gold-framed mirror. It was always a challenge to finish that bathroom, as dust would inevitably and immediately settle back on the black tiles making them appear ignored, not to Mr. Silver’s liking.  

While I stressed out in the half-bath, hand in toilet, through the open pantry door I heard Jules and Bess talking.

“Well, we’ve finally finished the renovation of the apartment in the basement. Slightly later than we wanted but it’s done.  Thank goodness.”

“Um, hmmmm,” said Bess but with a bit of heavy breathing as she was scrubbing the already immaculately spotless six burner, restaurant scale gas range.  

I had never seen the basement. A door in the foyer opened to a white shag carpeted stairwell upon whose walls hung art. Amazing art, but in the Silver’s collection, it was only stairwell worthy.

“We need to find someone to live down there,” Jules said with no hint of desperation or even annoyance for the task.

21:45

“Oh really,” Bess said. It meant nothing to her and she had spent so much time in so many houses like this one, with people like the Silvers, she’d been at this 27 years, that their lives came and went without much effect on hers. Her job was to say, “Umm hmmmm.”

“Yes, we want someone on the property.”  Someone?  They want someone.  On this property? The property that was surrounded by a high painted brick wall, electronic entry without the need for keys, on the lake?! With a pool!  Who in Seattle has a pool?!  Someone? The need someone?! I swished that toilet water with new vigor and renewed motivation. 

The two additional hours passed so slowly for me. I was constantly worried that I’d hear Jules on the phone talking with a service agent who provided live-in help. It was agony to do that time and as soon as Bess got outside, I grabbed her arm.

“Bess.” I tried to sound calm and not needy. “I heard Jules say she needed someone to live in the basement apartment.”

Bess looked at me. She knew immediately what I was thinking. “They do.  They want someone responsible living here, so Jules won’t be alone when Barry travels, but also so the property won’t be left without someone here when they leave town. You know they are gone to Palm Springs every winter from the end of December to late April or May.”

I had only been working for them since September and wondered allowed, “So we won’t be working starting the end of the year?”

“Oh no!” Bess assured me. “We need to clean every week even when they are gone.” 

Ummm, ok. 

“And they also go out on their yacht every July and August so they want someone here during that time too.”

All I could think was, “July. August. Pool. Lake. Mine.”

23:55

“Bess, I think I’m a really good candidate to live there. They know me, you know me, and they trust you.  I’m in school so my life is calm and I’m dependable and I really want to live there.  Can we ask them?”

“I think it’s a great idea William.”

The next thing I know I’m sitting across from Jules and Barry at their glass top breakfast nook table overlooking the patio and pool. By breakfast nook I mean 225 square feet just off the kitchen with marble floors and windows stretching all the way to the ceiling. Sunshine and my future pool parties shine through the window and tease me on the tabletop.  

Jules and Barry are cordial - not really stiff but definitely stayed, and they’re happy, smiling. I don’t even remember the beginning of the conversation as it is overshadowed by the agreement Barry makes.  

24:47

“Well,” I tell the both of them, looking earnestly from Barry to Jules and back again, “currently I live with friends and I pay $100 per month.  I clean for them once every two weeks.  I’d love to keep my expenses close to that.”  I’m talking about a six-room, fully equipped, 800 square foot apartment on Lake Washington, with a pool. “You know, I’m in school and…”

Barry looks at the table and then at me.  “I think we can do that.”

“Ok!” I spit out. I am beaming and about to explode.  

Six hours later I am home, in my tiny room, studying. My phone rings and I pick up.  Helllloooooo…my seemingly charmed existence causing the closing number of a feel-good Broadway to exit my mouth.

“Hi William.  It’s Jules.”

“Oh, hi Jules!”

“Hi. Listen, I have talked with Barry and we cannot rent the apartment for less than $500 per month.  That would include all the utilities and the cable television. Also, if you’re living here, we don’t want you to be the housecleaner anymore. We want to keep it completely separate.  I’m really sorry, but $500 is the minimum.”

“Ok!” I blurt this out before thinking, before composing any tone. I just went from proposing with purpose that I pay $100 per month, presenting that as completely reasonable, to jumping up and down with glee at the $500 offer.

“Ok, well, then we’d be glad to have you downstairs.”

“When?” I can barely contain myself.

“It’s ready when you are. You can pick up the keys any time. You know the back gate code, right?”

My new home has a back gate code. What the actual fuck?

The move in was easy. The house had a parking lot all its own allowing me to back my friend’s van right up to the gate. The neighbor’s cat, Cedric, (Yeah, I know, Madison Park!) introduced himself by jumping in the van and sniffing my boxes. I thought it a good sign. Maybe I could get a cat.

This season of my life was rich. I was studying at university and interning at Lifelong AIDS Alliance. I was finally working directly with people who I could help. Classes were interesting and challenging and my eyes were being opened in so many ways as my journey into social justice awareness began. I was happy. And, I was still housecleaning.

Another family Bess and I worked for lived in The Highlands, a gated fairyland in north Seattle. Maeve was the daughter of old money and Richard was her lovely and quirky husband. The first time I met them, catering their huge family Easter luncheon complete with imported farm animals for the kids to pet, I made my approach to the house only to find Richard feeding an entire package of Oscar Meyer wieners, one by one, to his two senior citizen German Shepherds. “Hieeeeeeeee,” he said, looking in my direction but then quickly back to the package of wieners.

Across the street from Maeve and Richard’s sprawling estate was the home of Maeve’s mother, Lilly. Lilly was 92 when I started working for Maeve and Richard and was still alive when I finally moved on years later. Lilly’s place was something to behold, a sixties, one story ranch house one story sprawling on a cliff above Puget Sound. Lilly didn’t do much except talk with Bess, who visited regularly and handled most of Lily’s needs; meals, hairdresser, gave a good ear. I met Lilly a few times when Bess needed some help with moving heavy boxes or putting old clothes on a high shelf, or the time when Lilly decided that she wanted wall-to-wall carpet in her huge expanse of a living room, displacing the ancient and incredibly beautiful 14x20 foot antique Persian carpet.  What?! And what was to be done with this masterpiece?  

“She doesn’t want it,” Bess told me, “We’ll just throw it out.”

“Umm, I want it!” I said with the same abandon with which I agreed to pay $500 instead of the original $100 for my new lakefront home. This carpet was worth a fortune and stunning, and it was about to be thrown out. Shag, in blue would take its place. Whatevs, gimme that thing! My living room, just big enough for this mammoth carpet, was made regal in an instant.

29:17

Life on the lake carried on wonderfully. The first year, as I’d been told, the Silvers departed at the end of December and returned in May. I had this incredible property to myself all through winter and spring. May and June they were home and then, once again, as promised, Jules and Barry departed on their yacht on July first and didn’t return until September. July and August in Seattle, on the lake, with a pool, by myself. Parties, yes. BBQ’s yes.  Swimming yes.

I finished my undergraduate degree. I entered grad school. I began working and I continued to live in luxury. Life was sweet.

By December 2006 I had lived on the lake for more than two years. I had adjusted to the space, that huge space. I had become accustomed to my new neighborhood, to all that it brought to me but I also felt like a fraud at times. My address alone brought me prestige.  Because I had a phone line installed, my public record as a new resident at 420 East Highland Drive caught the attention of the Seattle Supersonics, the city’s then quite prestigious and popular professional basketball team. I received a letter, “Dear Mr. Borden. We, the management of Seattle’s great Supersonics cordially invite you to join us courtside for a game. Simply contact us and we’ll hold your seats.” They wanted me to buy expensive season tickets. Me. Housecleaning, social worker, student, recovering crack addict me.  

420 East Highland Drive was some powerful shit. I called my nephew Stanley and asked him if he wanted to join me, court fucking side.

(Basketball game sound effects)

31:19

In December 2006 Seattle was hit by what became known as The Hanukkah Eve Storm. I don’t know all the facts but I know that it rained, and rained, and rained, like I’d never seen. I left work on December 14 and recall the gutters on either side of Madison Street as I headed down the long hill to my house, four-foot-wide flash floods on either side of me. It was scary. I just wanted to get home.

I had no plans for the evening other than reading and television, making dinner, and preparing for the next day at work. The rain poured as I went about my evening. I remember at one point, 10pm or so, thinking about the pool. Would it be overflowing? Jules and Barry were upstairs, but since we avoided one another if we could, this storm didn’t bring us together either. I decided to check the pool and patio, just out of curiosity. The rain hadn’t let up all night and my walk up the stairs from my apartment and across the patio to the pool was a wet one.  I remember thinking how strange this strong rain was, how insistent, how unrelenting. The pool indeed was full. To the brim. I didn’t know what that meant but it was only spilling over a bit onto the patio. My apartment was the basement of the house remember. I had only two windows, one on the kitchen door and one in the living room that looked out onto the stairwell leading up to the yard. I could only see the sky if I stood right below the window and looked up. I remember thinking when I moved in that this was a big drawback, no view of anything. Had it been any other apartment I would have immediately rejected it on this window situation alone. But, although I couldn’t see it, just outside and up those stairs lay paradise and it was mine. I could live without a view.

The apartment had cement floors, but they’d been artfully treated, colored in powder gray, and finished with high gloss. They were understated and elegant.  I had opted for only one carpet; the gargantuan Persian rug Lilly had thrown out. My apartment was comfortable and elegant. Six rooms including the kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and my 20x40-foot bedroom which was lined with four walk-in closets on each side. On one side of my bedroom was a door that led to a utility room filled with all kinds of equipment, lights blinking chartreuse. I’d guessed it was air conditioning or pool equipment. The room also had tons of built-in shelves which I had quickly filled with all my, let’s face it, way too many, small kitchen appliances.

In the bedroom I had a huge wooden sleigh bed adorned with a green jacquard bedspread and a baker’s dozen pillows. I’d hung gauzy curtains across the width of the room dividing the 40 feet in half making a bed chamber of sorts. Housecleaning for the rich had given me Architectural Digest sensibilities and when I could, I indulged them. In that bed I felt like some country’s prince.  

On that December night, grateful to be home and safe, warm an in my bed, I drifted off to sleep.

(Alarm sounds)

What the fuck? It was one o’clock in the morning and I had to be up for work at 7am. What the hell was that?

(Alarm sounds)

It was coming from behind the bedroom wall.  Close. Really close. Oh, it stopped. Thank god.  Back to sleep.  

(Alarm sounds)

Fuccccckkkkkk!

I sat up in bed and stared at the utility room door. Was it that blinking machine?  I had lived in the same house with that machine but never paid it any attention.  Now, I would have to see what it wanted. I only wanted to sleep. And then, it stopped. 

I felt relief wash over me and sank back down into the bed. I swear I dozed off but in the blink of an eye.

(Alarm sounds)

Reluctantly, I threw back the covers and took hold of my favorite pillow, silently climbed off my sleigh bed and tip-toed making my way to the living room. Maybe I thought if the machine didn’t hear me move, it too would go to sleep?

I lay down and closed my eyes. Nothing. I hooked the blanket around my feet to keep the cold out and secured the top of the blanket around my neck. Peace and quiet. Nothing. For at least twenty minutes I heard nothing and fell back to sleep.

(Alarm sounds more quietly)

Through the closed doors of the living room, my bedroom and the utility room wafted a now much quieter muffled tone, not assaultive but niggling, enough to wake me up and keep me awake, no break in its call. This time, it continued without stopping.

Looking at the clock I saw 3:17am and realized I had less than four hours before having to get up. I stomped back to the utility room and yanked open the door, this time ready for battle. I saw neon green lights and one large red one flashing rapidly, and the blaring was hurting my ears. Like the fighter I was, throughout my entire life, yes I slapped at the machine. Remember, I didn’t know what the machine was let alone how it worked or what its buttons were for. I slapped and poked desperate to make the noise stop. And it did. Nothing but the desire to sleep filled my mind. Back to the couch.

My clock radio, still on the nightstand next to my bed in the other room sounded at 7:00. Although the alarm was set to play my favorite stations, I fought. I wasn’t ready to wake. I opened my eyes but kept my face on the pillow. You know those moments at first waking when your eyes are open but your mind is still dreaming. The floor looked odd. I sensed it before I made out the image clearly. The carpet had a different texture. Colors, faded from years in Lilly’s west facing living room, were now dark and rich, and shimmering.  Shimmering? Shimmering, what…what is that?! It looks like…water!

6 inches deep, wall to wall. My living room was filled with six inches of water. My eyes moved from one side to the other and then to the door that led to the hall that led to the kitchen and the bathroom and the laundry room and my bedroom. My apartment had one continuous gorgeous floor, level throughout the six rooms. Six inches of water in my living room meant six inches of water in six rooms, over 800 square feet of floor. I closed my eyes and willed it a dream. Willed it to be anything else.  

38:34

Just across the living room I eyed my outlet strip, six plugs filled it and the red light on the switch was illuminated, but the strip sat under six inches of water. 

I had to get up. But would I die? Would I fall to my demise being shocked in my living room pond? Still to this day sort of amazed that I did this. I stuck my right foot out from my blanket. I loved that blanket, a knitted jewel tone green my sister Kelly had given me. And who would my favorite blanket go to once I was found dead on the shores of my catastrophic error in judgment, the watery aftermath of my slapping at a noisy machine in the wee hours of the morning. It all came to this. Electrocution.

I held my breath and dipped just my big toe. Nothing happened. No, it’s true, nothing happened. Did electrocution require a bigger hunk of body. Maybe the electricity needed deeper water. Who knew? I didn’t. I plunged my entire foot underwater, and nothing happened. Although still alive, I did not exactly feel relief. Death seemed like it might possibly have been an easier route. My not being electrocuted meant I needed to face this, this soggy disaster of my own making. I swished out of the living room and splashed across the hall to the stairwell that led up to the main floor of the house. I did not want to climb. I did not. Stair by stair, my feet dripping on the low-pile neutral tone carpet, I made my way to the top. The door was locked and so I knocked. It was early, but the Silvers always rose for breakfast before Barry left for the office. I heard the slide of feet across the marble of the entry hall. 

“Hi William.” It was Jules, dressed in fashion sweats and her baseball cap of fat black sequins. I hated that hat. I couldn’t believe she didn’t know how silly it looked. This hat, on the head of the woman who decided she didn’t like pink marble and so had every surface in her bathroom, and the tub, replaced with black granite. Tons of pink veined marble jackhammered and removed, then carefully replaced by an intricate puzzle of granite in the deepest black. Extravagant and classy. And, she would wear this disco ball cap day in and day out.

“Jules.  There’s water all over my apartment!”

She peered past me down the stairs. No change in her expression.

“Barry, William’s apartment is flooded.”

Barry approached the stairs pushing his arm through the sleeve of a powdery yellow sports jacket. He too peered past me.  

“Well, call the people” he said.

The people?  The people?  What people? Oh wait. Of course. The Silvers and their money have people. Barry pulled on his coat and walked to the front door. “Bye love.” I learned later that he had a flight to catch. Jules looked back at me and said, “Ok, I’ll call the people.”

I had a workday ahead of me. Clients, back-to-back for the morning, and three more after lunch. And sexual health was at stake. I was the supervisor and counselor for Comprehensive Risk & Counseling Services – CRCS, or “the Circus” as we liked to call it. Men would meet with me for an hour at a time over 6 months. After spending the first session answering a barrage of questions about their sexual activities, their likes and dislikes, health conditions, worries and fears and joys, they would relay to me a vision of what they would like to have as their reality. All wanted love and most wanted sex. Most were getting sex, and only some had found love. We talked a lot about love and I came to realize just how much our desire to be loved affected our risk taking. So many stories of lovers refusing to wear a condom. Bareback or nada. I was always surprised how many took the risk in order to hang on to love.

Six inches of water weighed heavy and I decided that I needed to cancel my appointments and take that day off. I mean, the people were coming. I thought it would look better if I were there, mopping and squeegeeing and whatever else the people were going to do. My clients phone numbers were all at the office however, standard privacy regulations, so I needed to go.

I dressed quickly in wrinkled clothes from the dryer. Things like clothes in the dryer seemed like nothing before. Now, with my house under siege of floodwater this machine with clean clothes was like a FEMA rescue parcel. Something dry and clean and not affected by the sloshing menace that followed me throughout what had been my paradise. Flip-flops were the next natural choice.  

I waded through my kitchen and as I opened the door to exit, a whoosh of water flowed over the doorjamb to the drain that sat just a foot from my kitchen door. That flow of water offered thirty seconds of hope, until it stopped. I had thought for a second that I could simply let all the water in the apartment drain out the kitchen door and, problem solved. When the people arrive Jules will meet them and see empty floors. My credibility and my standing would rise. I had solved the problem. Magical thinking at best, delusion in reality. The kitchen floor had a slight incline. There was no way the water could flow out. This thirty second ray of hope was only due to the water’s depth, high enough to reach even the top of the slight incline. There was still six inches throughout the apartment. Perhaps three or four gallons had drained.  My six-room pond remained.

Get to the office. Cancel appointments. Get back. Help the people. I could only think in one-step objectives. The bigger picture was too overwhelming to even consider.

I hopped into my car and threw my office keys and cell phone on the passenger seat.  I was willing it to end, to have the whole thing not be true. And then… Myt God, what if Jules came downstairs while I was gone? What is she calls out for me? What if she finds me not there? I needed them to know that I was committed to solving this disaster. I decided to call her.  

 “Uhhh, Jules, hi!” Higher pitched than normal and a bit too friendly. Tone it down. “It’s William. I just want you to know that I am popping (popping is a light verb, good in catastrophes) - popping down to my office to cancel all my appointments for the day so I can help out as much as possible at the house.”

“Ok good. William, um, did you do something with the sump pump last night?” 

Fuck. “Ummmm.  Ummmm.  No-o-o-o-o.” 

“Oh ok.  I just wanted to know because we need to tell the insurance company.”

“Ok.”

“Ok, thanks William.”

Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck. Fuck.

I lied. I fucking lied. I lied to Jules. Jules who has only ever been kind and generous to me. I lied. My cell phone was a brick. Redial. 

“Jules, hi, it’s William again.”

“Oh, hi William.”

“Jules, I just lied to you. I don’t know why. I’m not the type of person who lies.  I don’t believe in lying. I believe in rigorous honesty. I just got so nervous. I’m so sorry. It’s just that last night I was really sleepy and that buzzer kept going off and I had to get up early for work and I was so rattled by the noise of the alarm and I just stumbled into the utility room and I don’t really even know what I did.  I just hit the machine. Two or three times. And the noise stopped.”

“Ummmmm.  Oka-ay.”  

“Okay.  I just wanted you to know.  I don’t lie.  I’m sorry.”

“Goodbye William.”

(Song plays: Taps)

Tears on my cheeks as I climbed up and over Capitol Hill coasting down Madison and pulling into the parking lot of Lifelong AIDS Alliance. Up the stairs and through the front door and tears and fuck and what am I going to do? And then Andrea was standing in front of me. 

“William. William what is it?” 

47:23

Bawling and chest shaking and panting and wild eyed.

“Come. William, come in my office.”

Andrea held me. That kind of blessed social-worky reaching out which is reinforced by appropriate professional boundaries but so soothing. I cried.

“William. What is it?”

“I.  I.  I totally fucked up. Last night in all that rain I was having a problem in my apartment with the pump. It was, it was buzzing and it kept waking me up. And I had to get up early for work and it kept waking me up.”  Sob.  “I went into the room and I turned off the machine to make it stop blaring at me. And this morning my whole apartment was flooded. And then I lied.”

“What? Who did you lie to? What?”

I was just talking to Jules Silver, my landlady, on the phone and telling her I was coming here to cancel my appointments so I could spend the day at the house helping to clean it up. And she asked me about the pump and I lied and said I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh William.  It’s going to be ok.”

“And then I called her back and I told her I had lied.”

“What? You did?” I swear I saw her smile. “Well. Well. I’m sure it’s going to be ok. I’m sure.”  

She patted me. I thought, she knows I’m fucked. She’s being a social worker.  I’m fucked.

It felt good to return to the apartment. At least I could be useful. I could actually show by my helpfulness that I was not a bad person. That I was worthy of this apartment on the lake and that I shouldn’t be punished for my stupid mistake and careless behavior. I would show them. 

The water in the kitchen was gone and my apartment shoreline had retreated to just outside the bedroom.  I heard whirring and glug-glugging and men talking.  The people! A crew was spilling out from the utility room door and three men of different ages, all mustached, were looking through the door at the back of the room, the location of that damn pump.

“Hello.  I’m William.  I live here.”

Not one friendly “hello” made its way to me. Just a nod from the youngest. Did they know my crime? Did they know its severity? Did they know more than I knew about my future?

“What’s going on? Is there something I can do?”

“Well, um, you have lots of stuff. Lots of stuff. Those closets are full and all the boxes on the floor need to be moved out. In fact, it would be best if you emptied the closets completely, you know, for air circulation. “

Fuck me.  I was born in the year of the rat. I’m not a hoarder, but I like my things. And I liked my mother’s things, and so I brought many of them to my house after she died. I also like crafts and I think any old thing can be crafted into another more artful thing. I save everything. Things found on the street, things people throw away. Things I should probably have thrown away. I had 10 doors worth of closets and every closet was full. Was this mustached water whisperer serious? Empty all the closets? I opened the first door of the first closet and there it was, that of which Water Whisperer had spoken. Soggy bottomed cardboard boxes. The ones in this closet were filled with papers. Papers including the unfinished, um, actually the never-really-ever-even-seriously-started journals from my teenage years. I’d always wanted to be someone who wrote journals, but the process bored me and I never could find anything to write other than the activities of the day, banal at best. I had 12 of these things, first or second pages written on with some drivel about something and then the rest blank.  Maybe they could be used to construct a cool kitchen grocery list station?  I don’t know. Crafting! What I did know is that the contents of these boxes would need to be transferred to another container before being moved. The water line on the cardboard was six inches off the floor. Who knows what I’d find at the bottom?  Who knows just how many of my umm, journals had been ruined?

Just a couple hours later the water was gone and the floors were dry. It was so the opposite of what I had woken up to. Just the sight of those dry floors brought my breathing back to normal.

52:09

But, the closets had to be emptied and so the next three days were spent transferring five double closets of junk into plastic bins and up the stairs outside to the side patio. I did this by myself. I sat in my pity and misery and fear transferring papers and baubles from cardboard boxes to new plastic bins I had bought at K-Mart. The mundaneness of the task worked alternately depending on the hour to take my mind off the anxiety-producing and fear-inducing reality that I had caused who knows how many thousands of dollars of damage to my luxury apartment in which I was very lucky to live. And then at other times during those three days, having no need to think about any of the particularities of the objects I was moving, my mind went through the fantastically horrifying scenario of the Silvers asking me to move out.

They would open the door at the top of the stairs in just a few days. Jules would call down, “William.” I would not want to go, but what choice would I have? I would look up and there she would be in her sequined ball cap, no smile. She would step back from the door as I reached the top of the stairs and hand on handle would wait until I passed and then she’d close the door.

Barry would be at the kitchen table, it’s glass top holding his cup and hers, coffee having been finished already. He’d have the newspaper in front of his face and would take just a minute to lower it. He’d be smiling. He was always smiling.  Not a gregarious smile, just a fixed upturn of the corners of his mouth as if smiling was the natural response to life.

“Good morning,” he’d say.  And then Jules.  

“Well, how are you, William?” Julie would ask. And I’d get the sense that everything was and would be ok. That they were just having me up to chat about life or their imminent Christmas departure. I could go there, so easily. Barry would say nothing, but he would continue to smile, eyes on the newspaper now lying in front of him on the table. Jules would have a white paper in front of her lined with text. She would push it gently toward me. Nothing rushed.

“William, we need to ask you to move out. We can give you 20 days to find a new place and this is an invoice for the damage to the basement. You don’t have to pay it all at once of course, but we’d like to set up clear terms for the payment of the invoice.  Do you think six months is enough?”

The paper would read: “For the devastating damage caused by your ungrateful and negligent behavior in our fine basement apartment, after we have given you so much. Total due, $10.000.00. The invoice would be clear. One line item that represented the punishment for my selfish decision to ensure my own peaceful sleep. My time in paradise would end with a $10,000.00 invoice.  

During the repair, my apartment was filled with fans. 17 high-powered, whirring monsters. The apartment became a blustery chamber of slapping plastic taped to the floors and furniture stacked upon itself. The fans needed to be there for days or maybe even weeks.  We’d see. 

I opted for a stay at the Marco Polo hotel on Aurora, the old highway that cut through Seattle from north to South. The hotels on the strip were mostly run down and many inhabited, sometimes just for hours at a time, by drug addicts, prostitutes and pimps. I’d frequented Aurora in days gone by, but that’s another story. The Marco Polo but was slightly cleaner and just a bit more respectable than most. It was the motel at the south end of the strip and therefore the closest to the city center. It was cheap too. I ended up there for five days. I returned to the apartment every day to check on progress and to try to show Jules and Barry that I cared, that I was really responsible.

I was still 100% certain that Jules and Barry were preparing their announcement that I would be evicted and charged for the damage, so I just carried on doing what I could day to day, knowing the end was near. On one of my visits back to the apartment, I was moving bins back down from the patio, trying to find some sense of peace when I heard the door at the top of the stairs open.

“William?  William, are you there?” Jules’s voice was a bit strained.

This was it. My life was about to change and the good fortune I had stumbled into, however undeserved, was coming to an end.

“Hi Jules.” I walked to the bottom of the stairs.

“Come up,” she said. I reached the top of the stairs and braced myself for what had been inevitable since the first sighting of the floodwaters. I needed to face this. I had been anxious for over a week. I needed to be done, but simultaneously I felt such grief for the loss of this place, this situation, my only chance ever to live on the shores of Lake Washington. My mind raced to visions of my car packed with my belongings, nowhere to go. 

57:27

“They found Cedric yesterday.” Jules’ voice wavered and looked into my eyes, a rarity.

If you remember, Cedric was the cat that lived with the family next door to us and the lone driver of my welcome wagon. Cedric had visited many times since that first day and frequently I’d find him sunning himself near the pool. He was an old guy, but regal and perfectly at home in his regal surroundings.

“They found Cedric; it says it right here in the Madison Park Times. They found his body on the lawn next door. Apparently, it was a coyote. It’s a tragedy. I thought you should know. He won’t be visiting us anymore.”

It took me just a second but I realized that what she was there to tell me was that in the months and years to come as I continued to enjoy my lakefront existence, it would be without Cedric. Fans whirring below and repair bills on their way to the Silver’s accountant, Jules was sharing her grief with me about the demise of the next-door neighbor’s cat. Priorities.

I heard myself say, “Oh my gosh no! Not Cedric. Not our Cedric. I loved that cat. He was our little friend.” I reached out and touched Jules’ arm and gave it a little squeeze. A tear, God knows from where, ran down my cheek as well.

“Oh also,” Jules tone was lighter. “We’re spending Christmas at the Palm Springs house this year so we’ll be leaving on Sunday. Back in April.

She closed the door and I heard the lock click. I paused, and then, true story, I did a silent jig down the stairs to my apartment.

59:29

Thank you for listening. Once again, rest assured that Crack Tales podcast is on its way! I promise.

If you want to support us at Crack Tales, there are some very easy things you can do. First, you can go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe to Crack Tales. That’s two words, crack, tales. The more subscribers the show has, the more it is seen by other people, which increases its visibility of course. 

Now the second thing you can do is leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. You get to choose how many stars you’d like to give us and even more helpful is if you would write something about it. I know that there are only two pre-season episodes that you can rate us on, but that would be ok. The more reviews, the more people see it, again.

The third thing is, spread the word, anyway you can. Talk about the podcast and this episode, post it on your social media, mention the website, www.cracktales.com. That’s c-r-a-c-k-t-a-l-e-s.com. All your support will be greatly appreciated.

First and foremost, I thank you, the listeners. I’m honored. 

I also want to thank David Current and Anne Rutledge who have been lifelong friends of mine. Dear, dear, true friends, and who taught me how to edit while I worked for them in their film production company. I’m still using those skills today and I’m forever grateful for everything that we share as friends. Both Anne and David have helped me view the construction of this podcast in a different way. Thank you, Anne and David.

Another person I owe great thanks to is Marilyn Smith Layton who I was a student of back in 2002 when I returned to community college. And Marilyn’s spirit and teaching style are such that people like me struggling along were encouraged to explore and imagine and write. And I’m just really grateful to Marilyn. Plus, she’s just a fabulous person. 

Also due honor, respect and a mountain of gratitude is the Total Experience Choir who did so much for me and who have given so much to Seattle and the world. Reverend Patrinell Wright, founder and director of the choir taught me about singing and about being a human. I am so grateful for my time under her tutelage and for all that she gave me. Thank you Pat! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Also, with whom I dodged flying shoes and with whom I learned to sing, and love, and be part of a big and very real family. Sherri, Mikko, Gena, Tenisha, Vanique, Kinshasa (who got her wings way too early), our drummer Jai, Patrick, Joe and his boys, little sangin Lori, X, Trina, Jarred, Mary (my tenor buddy, who also ascended and is greatly missed), her daughter Lulu (Maelu), Shaunyce, Grandma, John, Jackie, Robert, Bobbi and Sheila. And there are more! There are many more. Thank you all.

A quick shout out to my lifelong friend Cornell White who has provided music for the proper season of Crack Tales which is coming. You’ll hear more from him in the upcoming episodes and he can be found on Soundcloud if you search CornellWhiteMusic, all one word.

And finally, to those who have helped with transcribing, THANK YOU! You’ll be mentioned properly when the real season airs, but your work has got me where I am with this process so thank you. If you want to help out, transcribing is another way to do it and it is sooooooooo easy. Really, all you do is listen and read a long to a text and make corrections, it’s that simple. We NEED transcribers desperately. Shoot me an email at cracktalespodcast@gmail.com or you can hit me up on Facebook: William David Borden. 

Alright everybody, thank you so much and we’ll you soon!