Requiem for a Heavyweight Ch. 01

Unfortunately, having already cut his hours in half, nonetheless with his irregular work schedule, exercising quickly became a chore. It was sometimes difficult to work out at five in the morning when often that was the only time of the day available. Besides, staying motivated was difficult without a having a training partner to push him. Home alone with late night television beckoning, ice cream in the freezer, and beer in the refrigerator, exercising was slipping down on the list of things that he must do.

Even though watching boxing videos and watching his favorite boxer, Hank Johnson, temporarily sparked his enthusiasm to put on sweats and pummel the bag, he became increasingly discontent with wasting his time exercising and disconnected with boxing in general. Weary from the routine of push up, pull ups, and crunches, he had a bad case of the doldrums. What if, he wondered, he was experiencing the effects of premature mid-life crisis or Spring fever or some combination of the both? He'd be 40-years-old on his next birthday at the end of July.

Tired of coming home to an empty house, he missed having someone with whom to share his life and the happenings of his day. His wife left him for another man at a time when he was building his career by working 16 hour days seven days a week. It was not surprising that they drifted apart, as it was obvious that he had no time for a wife or for children for that matter, and she wanted a husband as well as a man who had time for children.

Sometimes seemingly more than his wife and/or even his life, his job was everything to him. Ten years later, now that he's older and not working those kinds of grueling hours, he'd like to try again with a woman. Meeting someone to share his life would make his life more complete. Moreover, now not receiving enough satisfaction and mental stimulation from working at AREVR, he needed a change. He needed a new career. At the very least, he needed a girlfriend.

* * * * *

He wished there was one profession that combined his love for boxing with his need for staying in shape and with his fascination for robotics and computers. If such a job existed, working at that would be great, only, not knowing what that job was, he had yet to find it. No matter how much consideration he had given it, he was unable to find the ideal career situation, one that combined his computer and robotic vocation with his exercising and boxing avocation.

He pitied himself thinking about his failed marriage and subsequent divorce. He could feel the depression taking hold of him and he was helpless to stop it. Alone and lonely, as if getting cancer and with him having no way to stop it, he felt sadness and self-pity take hold of him in the way of a deadly disease. Always thinking negatively, needing to change his internal monologue, he needed to think more positively.

'Think positive thoughts,' he silently thought to himself while encouraging himself to chase the blues away. 'Think more positive than negative.'

Maybe, he should get a dog, a dog like Rocky had, a Bullmastiff named Butkus or a couple of turtles named cuff and link. In the way that Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa named his goldfish Moby Dick, he could buy two goldfishes and name one Moby and the other Jaws. Only, he was gone for too many hours to have any kind of a pet. Besides, there was no one to walk the dog.

He could hire someone, a dogwalker slash housecleaner but the thought of someone going through his things in his house was disconcerting. As if he was a mad scientist, with his notes and formulas spread all over the living room, kitchen, and bedroom, he was overly protective about his privacy as well as his inventions and research. Then, there was his blackboard covered wall with mathematical scribbles as if he was Einstein or Stephen Hawking. He'd be devastated if someone erased on of his unproven thoughts.

Perhaps, things would have been different had he and Diana stayed together. Instead of having just the one child, maybe they would have had more children by now. Yet, the chance of reconciliation was nil after she confessed her sordid, extramarital love affair. Something that took him by surprise, he never thought his wife, the love of his life, would ever cheat on him. Yet with him gone 16 hours, 7 days a week, what did he expect?

The divorce felt so final when she moved to California. He didn't want the divorce nor did he fight it when she took her daughter out of state. He wanted to save the marriage, but with him seldom home, one can't carry the weight of a relationship meant for two.

The too high of a price that he paid, she had shouldered their relationship alone when he was working those hours while trying to build his career. He tried to make a go at it by cutting back his hours from seventy to sixty but that wasn't nearly enough. With work always on his mind, even when he was with her physically, he wasn't with her mentally. Now, that she's gone and with his career secure, he cut his hours from sixty, to fifty, and from fifty to thirty-six.

'No wonder why she left me,' he thought while laughing to himself. 'I'm hopeless.'

* * * * *

He threw himself into his work after the divorce trying to forget what a shambles his personal life was and it worked up to a point. It worked until he stopped working so hard and so many long hour days. From half of the equity proceeds received from the sale of the house, the overtime checks earned, and by not going out and spending his money foolishly, he had amassed a sizable savings. Now, he had plenty of money to do what he really wanted to do, continue working on BART while dabbing in boxing.

As a diversion from boredom, he invested in the stock market and acquired a modest portfolio of successful investments, mostly blue chip stocks with some high-risk ones too to give it a fun aspect. Mindful of black October and the crash of 1987, as well as the financial meltdown of 2007 and 2008, he curtailed his impulse to buy too many risky stocks. He used the programs that he developed on his home computer to chart blue chip and growth stocks against an algorithm he designed that helped him chart and pick stocks based upon the current events in the world. Turning into quite the financial analyst, his professors at MIT would have been proud of him.

He harbored no pretense of understanding commodities and was bored by low yield bonds. During his analysis of the sometimes too volatile market, he paid particular attention to the headlines in the daily news. He'd look for the current event tidbits that someone not as attuned to the market may have skipped over. Usually, unless one was psychic or born lucky, he knew that there were no hunches and that by the time he acted upon an instinct that he had, a million others were already all over it and dumping their stocks to buy that one.

Using the reverse of that premise, he rejected the favorable stocks, the hunches, and bought the ones that others dumped instead, usually at bargain prices. His strategy worked and although he was not wealthy by any means, he could be considered well off by many. His thinking of the obscure rather than the obvious gave him his advantage.

His way of analyzing stocks for potential investment was contrary to many brokerage houses. Yet, many brokers and their clients lost fortunes during the crash. Conversely, Ken's sense, flair, or talent, whatever one would call it, earned him a more than modest return on his investments during and continuing through those months and recessionary years after the market made its initial correction and subsequent adjustments later.

Notwithstanding, not socializing with anyone after his divorce, he found money wasn't a medicinal cure for loneliness. His married friends stopped inviting him to functions after he rejected their obvious overtures to fix him up with available women. After his divorce, his single friends didn't understand his sense of loss, his vulnerability, his inability to cope with his newfound freedom, and his reduced sense of responsibility. Besides, his daughter was three-thousand miles away from Boston, Massachusetts in sunny Las Angeles, California.

He forgot how to be happy after not having any fun for so long. Though it added to his loneliness, he couldn't resist strolling through FAO Schwartz's toy store on a Saturday morning to check out the new toys and to see the happy faces of the children playing. He always found something new to buy and send to his daughter. A momentary release of his sadness, being around children gave him a sense of what it would be like to be a father taking his daughter to the toy store. Only, even though he was ready this time to have someone in his life, he'd have to find a woman who wanted children.

* * * * *

He missed Elizabeth, his five-year-old daughter. Maybe, he could plan a vacation on the West Coast and spend some time with her, only he dreaded meeting her new husband, a lawyer. He thought of Liz's smiling face and he missed her laughter. Whenever he saw her in the photos that Diana sent, she looked so different than she did only a few months before. He remembered how she loved swinging on the swings, sliding down the slide, and digging in the sandbox at the park. A dull ache of remorse and loneliness consumed him. He had it all but he sacrificed it all for his work and his career.

Suddenly tired and giving in to the fatigue, he closed his eyes and fell asleep. Awakened from his sound sleep after eleven hours, he was late for work. He never slept eleven hours and couldn't believe it when he looked at the clock. Unable to remember when he had slept as much or been absent from work last, he called in ill. He remembered when Lizzie had contracted that high fever. He recalled the day spent waiting at the emergency room of Children's Hospital in Boston.

After seeing so very many sick children, he counted his blessings when realizing that he didn't have a complaint; he should have a complaint. He thought of all those people who couldn't walk or see, truly, he should have a problem. He was healthy and relatively happy. Other than a good woman, a dog, children, and a family, what more could he possibly want? For sure, a woman in his life would be nice, but it was difficult to meet the right woman, someone who doesn't have all the baggage of an ex-husband and children. In the way that some man was caring for his daughter, he didn't want to care for someone else's child.

He was glad that he had taken the day off and decided to make good use of it. As if seeing his old self for the first time in a long time, he looked at himself in the mirror. As if taking stock of himself and an inventory of his good and bad qualities, he was ready for a change.

'Today is the first day of my new life,' he thought. 'Today, I will take control of my life. I will replace negative thoughts with positive ones,' he thought. 'Continuing this internal dialogue of negativism is asinine. I'm young, wealthy, and attractive, I should be happier. There must be a woman out there with whom I can share my life and it's time that I found her.'

* * * * *

Suddenly, feeling the need to go shopping, other than food shopping, something he seldom did, it had been several months since he had bought anything. He had been too wrapped up with work to notice his clothes were as thin as rags from being worn and washed repeatedly. With him a typical nerd, and as forgetful as he was preoccupied when deep in thought, Diana, his ex-wife, took care of everything in the way that his mother had done for him before her.

Fortunately for him, Diana enjoyed shopping and so had done all the buying. Pissing against the wind, while he was trying to save money to invest money, she enjoyed spending money. Cheap with himself but not with her, the only time he received any new clothing was at birthdays and Christmas. Now with her gone, divorced from him, remarried to someone else, and living on the other side of the country, it was up to him to buy the things that he needed.

He remembered how Diana shopped at the mall for hours with her friends when she was depressed and always returned home feeling better and excited to show him what she had bought. He thought of the times she went shopping for hours without buying anything and recalled the times when she bought out the store only to return most of what she bought the next day. Unable to understand the lure that stores held over shoppers, especially over women and women with shoes, he dreaded shopping at the mall.

Aside from needing a whole new wardrobe of clothes, in the way that it did for his ex-wife, he hoped that this clothes shopping adventure would alleviate the boredom and depression that he was feeling. First things first, before buying clothes, tired or riding his bike around Cambridge and taking the mass transit everywhere else, he needed a car. With Diana always having a car, he didn't need a car. Only, even though he knew a lot about robots, he knew very little about cars. Yet, he knew the person who knew everything there was to know about cars.

From his two-bedroom condominium in Boston's Back Bay, the second bedroom that he used as his office, he went to breakfast at Barney's Bacon. A greasy spoon, it had good, inexpensive food with freshly brewed coffee. Unable to find a good cup of coffee anywhere, either it was too weak or bitter. Barney knew how to make a good cup of coffee. Instead of his coffee sitting on a burner for hours, with his coffee continually selling out, he made fresh coffee every few minutes.

Oblivious to his stares, with him taking the day off to decompress, he enjoyed watching other people rush to work, no doubt, in the way that other people had watched him rush to work. He never tired of watching the parade of humanity walk by the diner's windows. After breakfast, instead of taking a train and a bus out to the mall in Burlington or to Chestnut Hill, he headed for downtown, Boston's retail district that extended from Washington Street to Newbury Street. Even though he knew the stores would be more expensive there than at the mall, the quality of the custom merchandise was better on Newbury Street, a hop, skip, and a jump from where he lived.

Born at Boston City Hospital and growing up in the Italian section of the city, the North End, Ken loved Boston. Whenever traveling, he always looked forward to returning home and sleeping in his bed. A micro New York, what he loved most about Boston was the compactness of the city that allowed him to walk or ride his bike from anywhere to almost anywhere. Too overwhelmed by immense size of New York, and with the justification of knowing the area so well that it lent him a naïve sense of security, he felt relatively safe roaming Boston's narrow, city streets.

* * * * *

Each street held a special memory. Charter Street was where he lived so long ago, where he attended grammar school at the Elliot and junior high school at the Michelangelo, where he graduated with honor and excelled at math and science. He used to go sledding down the slippery brick slopes of the historic Copp's Hill Burial Grounds in the winter and stole fruit from the peddlers in the famous marketplace in the summer. Morning, noon, and night, the streets were always filled with crowds of people.

He hawked newspapers in the financial district when he was eleven and shined shoes in North Station's Boston Garden when he was thirteen. Through his teenage years, he worked as a busboy at many of Boston's finer restaurants and as a stock boy during the Christmas retail rush at every major department store. Always working, he learned the value of money early. Never wanting to be as poor as was his father, he wanted to own a house or a condo instead of having to rent.

Concealed by darkness in the North End's Slide Park with Maria, he had his first sexual experience on his fifteenth birthday. While hoping for an autograph, he recalled the hot summer days waiting outside Fenway Park to catch a glimpse of Red Sox ballplayers coming to and leaving the ballpark. While waiting outside of the park, he hoped to catch a homerun ball hit over the green monster by any player on either team. Recalling the fun times spent sailing on the Charles River, if he closed his eyes he could still hear the free concerts conducted by Boston Pops at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade.

Young and impressionable, the political protests and peace demonstrations held on the Boston Common was a memory not easy to forget. Seeing and smelling the beautiful flowers while walking the quaint pathways of the Public Gardens made him feel privileged. The continual parade of wide-eyed tourists walking along Newbury Street made him smile at their obvious joy of visiting his beloved Boston.

The arrival of college students in August with their departure in May was a sight to behold. With cars double parked with their emergency lights flashing, a caravan of U-Haul vans filled every street. Students from around the world flocked to Boston to attend Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Boston College, Brandeis University, Northeastern University, University of Massachusetts, Bentley College, Babson College, Emerson College, Tufts University, Suffolk University, Wellesley College, Berklee College of Music, Curry College, Fisher College, Simmons College, and dozens of other universities and colleges that made Boston a college town.

Even though it was impossible to find a parking space, it was amazing to see a relatively small city bustling with so many young people. Every weekend, there was a party somewhere. With doors open as if the city was having a multi-block party, students when from door-to-door and dorm-to-dorm. Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll was everywhere. Not only was Boston a college town but also it was a party town too.

* * * * *

Ken attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology ten years before the federal government started their school loan subsidy programs. Back when he attended MIT, a time just after Federal subsidized student loans really exploded, students either had to pay for the school themselves, have their employers pay, or win scholarships. Fortunately, Ken didn't have to worry about how to pay for college. He won a scholarship. He was gifted when it came to electronics, math, science, and computers.

When it came to electronics, math, science, and/or computers, there wasn't anything that he didn't know; subsequently there wasn't anything that anyone could teach him. He nearly ruined his health trying to maintain his perfect grade average, which required a short hospital stay until he fully recovered. When it became apparent to him that his way of learning didn't correlate to the institutes policy of giving grades, he dropped from college before the end of his junior year.

Even though he didn't need a college diploma, the feeling of failure festered in him for nearly twenty years. It didn't matter that he earned many times more than any classmate who would have graduated with him. It didn't matter that he was highly regarded in his job and respected in his industry. It had helped him to learn that he was in good company. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen of Microsoft fame were college dropouts, as were Larry Ellison of Oracle, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer fame, and Michael Dell of Dell Computers, and Ted Turner, the creator of CNN.

Billionaire Oprah Winfrey dropped out of Tennessee State University. Famed writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald left Princeton University because of poor grades. Famed clothing designer, Ralph Lauren, only finished two semesters of college before joining the U. S. Army. College didn't work for their and his type of intellect. There wasn't anything to learn that he already didn't know or couldn't figure out for himself.

Never mind attending college, billionaire Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Records, and other Virgin brand names fame, dropped out of high school at 16-years-old. Other famous and successful people who dropped out of high school were Jay-Z, Al Pacino, Jim Carrey, Wolfgang Puck, Walt Disney, Coco Chanel, and Abraham Lincoln. Mega superstars, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, John Lennon, Tom Hanks, don't have college degrees either.