he parents of Robert Quincy Miller, Mr. & Mrs. Harry
& Ellie Miller, both died in a tragic car accident along the I-94 between Chicago,
IL and their home above Harry’s Repair Shop & Garage servicing the city of Kalamazoo,
MI.
Two vehicles were heading in opposite
directions in the early morning hours. A mild weather pattern from the south
caused this particular morning to be several degrees warmer than it had been in
weeks. Given the warm air, the snow along the road was evaporating so rapidly,
it was creating a thick fog that seemed to chase the occasional car before
setting back in again. Too thick to see across the width of the road let alone
for a deer to see headlamps. Both cars were sedans and likewise, being driven
by two couples.
No witnesses could testify beyond the obvious
forensics of tracks in the snow and unbuckled adults but what Bobby has buried
deep in his childhood toy box of broken memories is an argument that morning
and the female passenger, his Mama, hitting her husband over and over.
The argument was about his father not telling
his mother the family business will be bankrupt if they cannot catch up on the
utilities and affording a regular plowing service. Both bills and snow have
piled up and once again, they can’t afford to have their snow plowed from their
lot.
Of course, they need to plow the snow away from
the garage doors in order for cars to pull in and get services, making the
Miller’s their only income. Last year, Bob helped his dad Harry shovel
driveways for three days until they could save enough money to afford a plow
truck to dig out their garages, drive, and house out after a bad storm. Not
only did Bob and Harry both incur a minor case of frostbite in their toes, a
numb-like tingle Bob still feels today in his left leg, the Millers got
ticketed for plowing snow into their neighbor’s lot and another ticket for
putting snow in the street. When Harry explained to the ticketing officer that
he in fact hired someone to do the job, the officer threatened to have Harry
taken in for obstructing justice.
Most the income they brought in over the next
several days went towards saving for that ticket. Finally, Dad left a little
early from work and meant to walk down to the city and pay his ticket while
giving the city a little piece of his mind. The payment he brought for the fee
only made it as far as his favorite Irish pub. He did make it down to the city
that same day, after giving a police officer a piece of his mind who happened
to be walking his beat past O’Malley’s Tavern and arrested Harry Miller for public
urination, intoxication, and attempting to assault an officer with the change
in his pocket.
As Bob’s mom took in this story that fateful
day, she could bear no more of this life for her family. It wasn’t that her husband drank their fine money.
She knew he wasn’t ever going to be able to pay the city for something he
didn’t feel he owed.
She throws her fists in a fit of rage, the last
strike catching the driver’s wheel…and as
if on purpose, according to
witnesses, they cross over the median, head-on into an oncoming vehicle. Dead
on impact, all except young Bobby Q. Miller. That was then, in the winter of
1962.
The only survivor was a blue-eyed boy, at the
time age 6, named Robert Quincy. He woke up in a hospital alone after his
parents were put in the ground.
Then, a few days shy of his seventh birthday in
the spring of ’63, he became an official ward of the state and spent the rest
of his childhood bouncing from rejection to rejection, one foster family after
another.
Miller is a popular name. Robert Quincy even
stayed with a foster family of Millers once when he was entering middle school.
Well, they made him spell his name Meuller “it’s just so the public knows to
differentiate you from the rest of our stock Bobo,” says Mr. Miller, “You can
change it back when we’re done with you.” Bob hates being called Bobo.
He promised himself that whether Miller or
Mueller, Robert Quincy knew a real Miller from a fake one and he attempted to
climb out his bedroom window seven different nights until the police finally
stopped bringing him back. With no objections from the Miller family, Bob was
put back in the child welfare system awaiting a new, temporary family
placement.
Bobby’s real dad and mom were both only
children; he has no aunts or uncles or cousins. For all the Millers out there,
Robert was on his own island with a shared, common name.
A
positive from the last name issues he had with the Miller family, he realized
how names were just labels for people and not an extension of he, Robert
Quincy. The person he felt to be, would
certainly still be he, were he not Robert Quincy called, or something like
that recalls Bob from reading a play by his good friend Will “Shax” who, thanks
to Shakespeare, though while Bob remained mostly alone in his childhood, he went
from Robert to Bobby to Bob & every name-change an attempt to fit in.
Kalamazoo remained his home though the
different foster families provided him with life in both urban and suburban
cultures, schools, and demographics. For now, the independent, adult Bob
prefers the city.
Today, Bob eats a bagel stuffed with egg, ham,
bacon, American cheese, and dripping with butter. His cholesterol is high and
he maintains a scruffy beard to hide his extra chins. He is successful for a
working man and owns his dad’s old business. He wears green Carhartt pants and
a light brown Carhartt jacket. To show he has a little more unique style to
offer the workman world, he sports a thin hoodie under his extra-large jacket
that is gray and lined with a light purple.
His work boots are the only pair he owns and
are brown, as always, and with thick soles, as always. The steel toe boots he
wears are comfy and serve a purpose, as do his choice in clothes.
Across
from him is his partner at work, play, and life. Adorning a Carhartt jacket and
Carhartt pants as well, Bob loves this man so strongly, he began dressing like
him out of adoration and a lack of person style. Kenny and Bob are not public
about their last 8 years together but still spend every day together, working
at Harry & Bob’s Garage. Bob applied for the license to re-open his dad’s
shop after taking out a small business loan the week after he received his
college diploma.
Today, both mechanics, Kenny and Bob both also
share a wood-working hobby. That’s how they met. It was at the 3rd
semi-annual Woody-Wood-Workers Convention, or the 3Oak3 as anyone that’s gone more than once would know to call it.
Every so often, like when Bob has been under
the belly of one of his never finished vintage rebuilds for too long or when
Kenny is patiently peeling his skin off while on the phone with some irate
woman who had her car in for a tire rotation and is now yelling about a noise
her engine is making, blaming their garage, either one will call out with
typical inflection or drawl on the word wood,
“You got wood?” while the other, no matter what they are in the middle of
doing, has to yell an answer, in equal or greater measure, the response: “THREE OAK THREE!”
The catch phrase came about around the same
time “Got Milk” and AOL’s “Got Mail” were increasingly popular and I guess this
was the wood hobbyists’ way of being hip.
Any convention makes weird people come together
and feel normal for a while about being different. Bob and Kenny go to every
convention they can afford.
Picture over a hundred other burly, drunken men
shouting off the wrap around balcony of a log cabin the size of most Victorian
mansions lining West Main Street, all while patting each other on the backs,
spilling beer, and for no reason other than comradery and a shared love of
woodworking. Imagine this scene and see a glimpse into the few good memories of
Bob’s mind.
Regardless of the phrase explanation or their countless
fits of laughter spawned by the pleasure memories involved in yelling 3OAK3! it wasn’t just a catch phrase.
It was more than an inside joke.
Wood, like cars, were a foundation for
companionship for Bob and Kenny. In fact, Kenny had the sign above the garage
redone on their 4th anniversary to include Bob’s name alongside his
Dad’s. All done in wood carving and burns for a shading effect. Even the hearts
made by carving a less than sign and the number three used to flank
“<3Oak<3” seemed to appear masculine on that rustic sign above their two
lift, 3-door shop.
Kenny suggested less than signs look like the
letter “K” for Kenny, just without a spine. Kenny says this can be their
reminder for the backbone that Bob and Kenny each gave the other after they met.
Now, as best friends, lovers, they know they’ve somehow found themselves, too.
Bob and Kenny enjoy being mechanics. It gives
them time to be in close quarters together. Adding, they both love a dirty man
at work.
Sure, Bob is overweight, but who isn’t that’s
pushing 60. That and he’s always found books to be a better companion.
Especially compared to the girls he’d tried experimenting with to fit in with
the other boys, before dropping out of high school.
Bob ran away on his eighteenth birthday from
his last suburban foster family, disappearing into the city. Bob was 4 months
from graduating high school, with honors, but knew if he stayed a day longer,
he’d never make it to his graduation anyway.
His foster family, like so many others, treated
him as a sub-sibling, sub-child, and that meant servant status. They worked him
until late hours of the night, woke him for more chores before school, and was
never being paid or allowed to seek employment outside of the home’s endless
“fix this” lists.
While hard work ethic certainly stemmed from
his long hours of labor, it was the emotional battles he had to have with his
foster parents that took their greatest toll.
After being told he was a burden and a mistake
over and over, at some point as a teenager, he wholeheartedly believed his
foster family’s lies.
They
would make him believe that he should have died in that car accident along with
his parents.
Kenny brought Bob out of his inner world,
convinced him if he was good enough with machines to fix almost anything, maybe
he too, could be helped to feel accepted by Kenny. Together, they could build
what was too broken to repair. Plus, they already knew how to do a job cheap: do it once by doing it right.
Ever since that day that Kenny and Bob met,
bringing a light back to Bob’s world, when Kenny says something, Bob listens.
If someone mentions the word Ken or Kenny, Bob’s face lights up.
Bob doesn’t hesitate to respond to Kenny
because of his trust in him and no one else. He barely thinks about an answer
because they have the same lighthearted conversations day-in and day-out. This
day, they’re both talking with food in their mouths but Bob, as always, has his
stuffed like a squirrel in both cheeks, pieces falling out while he speaks and
waving his left hand around for more effect.
Bob trusts Kenny and himself, no one else.
Kenny handles their shop customers and is the only person Bob talks with
outside of the random, occasional customer that makes it pass Kenny’s watchful,
protecting gaze.
When Bob isn’t talking and just chewing on a
mouthful of bagel sandwich, he places that left hand on his left hip while
tapping his left leg and foot up and down to the beat of the music playing on
the cafe radio. Continuing to chew, he looks around the room at nothing and
everything, trying not to get caught in Kenny’s offered gaze. He gets so
squeamish when Kenny tries to be romantic in public. Bob’s face changes with
each angle change of his attention.
Each new glance he takes: the corner in the
ceiling, an uneven table leg, out the window at the airplane passing above the
head of his city, all receive a random facial contortion. A squint at the
table, a wince at the plane above, and a crinkle of his nose at the cracks in
the ceiling…Bob wants Kenny to think he is deep in thought about some abstract
idea or political process he’s solving during brunch but really, Bob’s not
thinking of much beyond enjoying the way the salt on his bagel melts in his
throat as he swallows large bits of bread and meat.
Life has taught Bob enough lessons to know that
one shouldn’t spend too much time thinking, ruminating about the past but more
time doing, having something to show for
their time spent. Least, that’s the only lesson he can remember his daddy
saying, the one lesson that he can still hear his father’s voice speaking.
Bob has spent the last five decades trying to
have something to show for his life spent, given, &/or stolen from death’s
clutches. Bob believes that dark angel’s hands were full, carrying his parents
away, and too heavy carrying the other morbid vehicle’s now eternal passengers.
Four at a time, no room for a six year old boy. Instead, he was left for dead
by death. Bob must be meant for something more…lasting.
The music on the radio has since changed but
Bob’s foot keeps tapping, he gets so nervous in public but Kenny insist it is
good for him, for them and their relationship, too. He rubs his nose out of
nervousness and uses the back of his hand. This helps him to hide his face
while he changes its expression to something more numb, presentable, less
readable.
“Been eight years Bob,” Kenny nods eight times
as if recounting each year in his head, “since we’ve been close friends, closer
business partners.” Kenny kicks Bob lovingly under the table.
“Don’t do relationships,” replies Bob on cue.
He grumbles each time Kenny brings up his recluse lifestyle. “Don’t know
nothing about you nor you me; eight years?” And he kicks his lover back, even
softer than Kenny’s nudge.
“You’ve got wood, Bob, stop stacking it up and
make use of your own cord” Kenny grins ear to ear with his typical reply.
“Three Oak Three, Ken…” and Bob waves his hand
and simultaneously lowers his head, as if to tell Kenny he’s had enough of this
conversation and would rather squint at the white smoke trail left by the
airplane. As if the sky itself has been separated in half by a road of dense
fog, slowly, it dissipates against the blue mid-morning sky. Bob breathes
deeper. He coughs and watches a piece of food shoot out of his mouth. He places
it between his fingers and then returns it to his mouth, chewing this time,
more consciously, with his mouth closed.
Anniversaries—Bob doesn’t need a calendar for
most of the annual dates he remembers, he cannot help but remember. There’s no
aid for forgetting tragedy. If there is one thing left for Bob in life, one
goal he wants to reach before he’s done…is to know that he’ll be remembered for
something, that he will have shown his dad and mom that they didn’t die in
vain.
This
tragic history both molds Bob’s reclusive nature and his deep, inner drive to
leave behind a visual form of his existence. This desire is probably made even
more intense because he won’t be having children. Kenny is his companion,
partner, soul. Sure, they are both nervous about public opinion affecting
business and/or their personal life. This is compensated by Bob’s voice— a
deep, slightly quiet, somewhat raspy, and a bit unnatural attempt to hide what
feels exposed.
Nevertheless, Kenny sees him softening day by
day and this is a good thing to Kenny. He wants Bob to retire, sell the shop,
and consider leaving the city. They’ve labored there, their whole adult lives.
“Why not leave behind our past as a beginning
of the list of physical things you can leave behind?” Kenny suggest. But, Bob’s
concern isn’t with getting older—only getting softer in old age.
He puts his hand back on his left hip in silent
protest to the question while tapping his left to his own, inner beat.
A soft rock tune, most likely.
