Bob by Bob

By Christopher Keyser

Bob is the voice of the unrepresented, the uneducated, and the spurned.  He boasts no history, no philosophy, or ancestery.  This is a quiet, forgetful story that longs to laugh at itself (and the reader), but somehow cannot muster the strength.  Bob is Bob, and Bob is you too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quiet One to Watch
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393302377

Christopher Keyser

Chris Keyser is an Adjunct instructor of English at SUNY Schenectady.  He is a native of Troy, NY and a long time resident.  His writing focuses on the gritty underbelly of society, contrasting illusion and expectation with reality and disappointment.  Part philosophy part social science, Keyser’s writing examines the fragile human condition that carries about an infinite internal landscape within it.  The contrast between nature and the imagination is a central theme in his works.   He currently lives in Valley Falls, NY with his wife and two daughters.  

Book preview

Preface

BOB ONCE TOLD ME THAT on cold mornings there is a brief time, mere minutes, when the new sun shines on a tree, melts the frost on the ground, and  leaves the outline of the tree’s shadow frozen in the grass.  He said that you only see it if you had been outside all night trying to keep warm.  When I asked him what he thought it meant, he shrugged his shoulders, wiped his lips on his sleeve and spat, Shit, are you stupid?  What could that possibly mean?  That’s Bob.

Before sharing his story, I am compelled to give the reader some background.  I know little more about Bob than what he chose to share with me through his story.  I know he is short, both in stature and temper.  I know that he survived more than four decades in upstate New York weather without a roof to call his own.  I also know that he had so completely acclimated to his homelessness that he took pride in it.  Like a man who puts his scars on display in taprooms, Bob’s hard times gave his life meaning most people cannot understand.  The scars were Bob; the rest of him served only as the vehicle to carry them.

I’m Chum.  That’s what he named me.  I am certain that he never bothered to commit my actual name to memory.  My identity was created, like so many other things, through his own peculiar approach to life.  In his narrative, Bob describes our meetings outside of The Bell, where I took my cigarette breaks.  The name of the newspaper is actually The Troy Record, and I didn’t write the obits, but worked as a copy editor, at times doing graphic design and layout.  The building has a big brass clock hanging at its corner.  During the holiday season, they hang a large canvas picture of a bell off of it like a flag.  That’s why Bob called it The Bell.  Bob left school after the fourth grade and never learned to read. Because of this Bob relied on visual clues to gather meaning out of a written world.  He had no interest in the accuracy of such clues. Don’t change what happens one bit, he’d likely say. 

I grew up in Guilderland, N.Y., and moved to Troy, about twenty miles away, to live with my girlfriend and work at The Record for $8.50 per hour.  I have always felt drawn towards creative writing, but I have no talent for it, which is why I will keep this preface brief.  I keep thinking that, like Bob, I must find an editor to clean up the mess I’ve probably made of his story.  But his trust in me to get it right seemed limitless, impervious to doubt.  That’s Bob too.  From doubt he drew his strength and he exerted it in absolute faith.  I’m really going on too much. 

As explained in the text, the story is written with the use of a voice-to-text software.  Anyone who has experience with this mode of writing knows that even a highly articulate individual will experience transcription issues with the most technologically advanced software of that type.  Bob’s manner of speaking, and his toothlessness, created additional obstacles on top of the squirreliness of the program.  The painstaking effort involved in re-creating his narrative in legible English soon led to the necessity of supervising him while he told his story.  We would meet at the library one or two times a week.  I would take notes, and afterwards I would do my best to recreate his story from the text he produced and from memory and notes.  I would read it back to him later, allowing him to add or alter what he wished, but he rarely had a mind to do so.  Often, he simply described a feeling or an idea and allowed me to just put it in my own words.  Say it like you say, he’d say.  Easier said than done. 

I have chosen not to indicate when my words mix with his own.  First, because I think that it will be obvious to the reader, and second, because I believe that over the course of our eight months writing it, our stories, or at least our feelings about his story, commingled to such an extent that I could not possibly tease them apart.  Our writing process was more like a discussion than a description.  Everything just grew on its own.

The grammatical or lexiconical errors that remain in the story, especially in the first part, are retained to give a sense of Bob’s particular voice.  However, while the dialect writing of Faulkner and Dickens can be amusing, and sometimes insightful, they seldom offer insight into the speaker’s humanity.  Dialect often types the speaker while feigning to give voice to their unique and complex nature.  Bob’s not your street bum; Bob’s Bob.  For that reason I have made no effort at portraying him as such by constantly dropping his g, littering the text with su’pose and d’ya and dat, or attempting clever phonetic renderings of other everyday words.  We’ve enough of that, I think. 

Bob would often say that telling his story was like hiding in a basement.  I have no idea what he might have meant by that, but something tells me he’s right.  He must be right.  It’s up to us to explain why he is right, because he’d never care to do it.

Chum, Troy, N.Y. 2016 

Part 1     

If you wanna hear a story, I got one.  I suppose every man’s got one, but this is a hell of a tale, people tell me.  Must have told it a thousand times, but each time I tell it I leave something out or add something in, you know, bullshitting.  A couple folks told me, Bob, you gotta write a book or something.  And I’m all, Like you’d read it!  Beside, no one’s ever really heard the whole story cause, like I said, different folks hear different stories each time I open my gums.  It would take a year to tell the whole thing, and who’d wanna spend that much time listening to me flap on?  So, I figured I should just go ahead and write it down and be done with it.  Reading folks reading old Bob, bullshitting.  But I probably shouldn’t cuss.  Maybe I wanna see this in the paper or something.  They'd take that out anyway, the paper people would. Not much to do with this story I suppose, and it's a hell of a story, like I said.  I don't read the paper, but I see it blowing around often enough.  Never was much of a reader.  I can hardly write my own name backwards if you want the truth of it, but if you knew this story you'd wanna write it down too.  Because, now this is being honest, don’t laugh at a man just trying to be honest, because, it ain’t really happened until someone writes it down.  It’s true.  Jack or John might be whispering, but no one’s listening, you see?  Being truthful, I ain’t actually writing it, though, if you wanna get close about it.  I found one of those microphones you plug into the computer at the library. I'm just talking into it and it knows what I say, mostly.  A hell of a thing technology is, I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have stuff like this.  A dumb old seal like me must have mostly stayed quiet, or at least no-one had to read what he was thinking about.  I honestly don't know whether this thing is working too hot.  Never was much good at spelling.  I remember that I before he except but for see.  Also, that you gotta put the lines into these things called paragraphs.  Should think about doing that soon, I suppose.  Heck, now there's all these red and green squiggly lines. I'm thinking that means something ain't right. Big deal, don't change what happened one bit.  Not one bit.  Now, how do you do that paragraph?  New paragraph.  What’s that?  Enter.

There we go. So, like I was saying, my name’s Bob.  I was born in the hospital one night like most people.  Heck, that's not important either, like I wasn't born.  Anyway, if you figured out I was born on your own then we can move past that.  I was born.  What else is there to say about it?  People tell stories and get all gushy about being born, like they had something to do with it.  Then they talk about they folks as if anyone gave a rat's ass about what you were thinking while you were shitting in your underoos.  But, I guess that's bookie or something. Well, my folks were fine, and I was born.  I'll leave it at that.  New paragraph.

Okay, they can take that out too.  I'll have to find someone at the paper to clean this mess up.  Okay, so as I was saying I was born in nineteen-sixty-one. I'm fifty-four-years old and my folks are dead now about six or seven years.  They weren't bad people, but we never got along too good.  My father was the quietest man you ever met.  But, boy, he didn’t have to say nothing to you that the back of his bony hand couldn’t explain like a goddamned professor.  My mom never said much either, but she could smack you like a nun.  Never wasted words, is what I mean to say.  But they’re dead so I guess they're doing fine with that.  I was always getting in trouble with my mouth, and that is important so don't take that out.

Like I was saying, I'm fifty-four-years old and my story begins about three years ago.  Well, if you wanna get really close about it, my story began fifty-four years ago, but even that don't work.  I suppose it started a hundred years ago, maybe a million, but I ain't got nothing to say about that.  I wonder how people write those big books. I never thought it would be such a pain in the ass to write a story I done told a thousand times, hardly without thinking even.  All that talking about a man's life, remembering stuff that don't matter no more, thinking about dead people.  Taking something big and making it small enough to fit on the page. I'm going to read one of those books one day, end to end.  First I gotta learn how to read.  Probably won’t happen.  I can only imagine what's in them.  Once, when I was young, I asked my father where the candle flame went when you blew it out. He smacked me so hard he loosened a molar.  I imagine it's something like that.

Three or so years ago I was sitting on the steps outside the Saint Paul’s Church watching folks go by.  It's a busy corner, if you ever been there you'd see lots of folks going about their dailies. I’d spend a lot of time there, when I wasn't working, which was most of the time.  I wasn't lazy, and I can’t say I was much of a drunk.  I could tell that's what most folks were thinking when they passed me, Look at the drunk.  If I’m drinking it don’t mean I’m drunk, just like if you’re walking past don’t mean you got someplace to go.  But these folks, they see me having a nip to keep out the cold and they think I’m a lazy good-for-nothing drunk.  I imagine lots of folks would be surprised to learn any different.  But not much point in harping on it.

I’m just sitting there watching folks go by and having a nip to keep myself warm.  It was November or December, cold like a chill on the inside, nothing but a little Smirnoff can numb the bite of it.  Jesus, how does anyone tell a story when there's just so much?  If I talk about this and not about that, how do you know what I’m talking about?  It’s like tying your shoes before you put on your socks, for christ sake.  I was having a nip to keep out the cold watching folks go by like I said, it was about noon, and this lady starts screaming like she’s shitting out her liver.  This one Jack was walking by when it happened, dressed like a christmas ham, he almost jumped when he heard it and ran away like some fancy cockroach.  I remember thinking what kind of man gets spooked in public like that?  Probably ducked in the first martini bar he saw to tell the bartender about how he almost got a scuff on his shiny ass.

This lady is bellowing somewhere in the alley.  It's cold, like I said, so I get off the steps and take a look.  The alley was like any alley around here.  I won't bother going on about it.  If you've never seen an alley, I suppose you won't care much about what happened in one.  One thing I can say is that it was the day before garbage day and the dumpsters were stuffed full.  It's better in the winters; they don't stink much.  There was this one summer I fell asleep near a Chinese place and woke up with flies worming up my nostrils and flapping in my mouth.  Since the dumpsters were so full, the lids were kind of open and I couldn't see down the alley to where the lady was hollering. I sat back down and took a drink.  I had been nursing the bottle and