Mr. Fux It

Mr. Fux It

Sitting on the couch reading the paper and getting ready to watch some playoff football, I hear the sing-song voice of Kira, my wife.
“Honey. You never fixed the towel rack in the upstairs bathroom. It’s been two weeks! Can you do it today please? Otherwise I am going to call Fred.”

Fred. Why does she have to throw him in my face all the time? Fred’s our handyman, the guy we call when I can’t handle some fix-it job around our 100 year old house. Fred is number 6 on our speed dial. I hate Fred. Particularly that look he gives me. You know the, “I can’t believe you are such a useless member of the man tribe that you can’t even fix a towel rack” look. Occasionally Fred feels so bad, for Kira, that he doesn’t even charge us. How do you think that makes me feel you bastard! Actually Fred’s a good guy but he is a constant reminder of the man I am not.

Why Kira has not called Fred already is beyond me. She’s a psych nurse, doesn’t she recognize avoidance behavior when she sees it? Maybe her patients are rubbing off on her because she must be delusional to think I can actually fix the towel rack. Hasn’t she been paying attention for the past 18 years?

Doesn’t she notice that in order to put together a Lego Star Wars Tie-Fighter with 327 pieces I need to be sequestered in a sound proof room like a scientist working with anthrax? Doesn’t she remember any of my myriad house fixing mishaps?

If she’s been paying attention, as I have, she would know it will go something like this…

I will pick up my brand spanking new tool box, traipse it upstairs and place it beneath the towel rack. I will stare at said rack. Shallow breathing will begin, my left eye and cheek will begin a twitching dance. A movie of my past home improvement failures will scroll across my brain. My favorite is the tightening or maybe loosening of the nuts on my son Charlie’s bedroom radiator to allow for more heat. Apparently, I loosened or tightened too much not only did I have to call a plumber to fix that radiator, we had to call Bob the painter (speed dial number 7) to fix the dining room ceiling where the leaking water ruined the paint job.

Back to the towel rack. Eventually, screwdriver in hand, I will begin to jiggle the rack which is only loose on the right side. A nickel sized hole has developed and I can start to see the screw and the little blue, plastic sleeve that is supposed to keep the towel rack snug in the ancient plaster walls. I will unscrew, jiggle some more, get frustrated, bemoan the fact that I suck at this, get more aggressive with the towel rack, pull really hard and eventually half the towel rack will come loose along with an Australia sized chunk of plaster hanging on the end of the aforementioned screw. Horrified I will stare at the head sized hole in our plaster walls. For a nano-second I will contemplate tearing the rest of the towel rack out of the wall while screaming every four letter word I know. But cooler head prevails. I will realize if I throw a hissy fit, my three boys, Nick, Brian and Charlie will come running. I will be standing there red faced with the remnants of my bathroom in my hands and at my feet. All of the lessons I have been teaching them about patience and hard work will be for naught.

If the past is prologue as they say, this is more than likely what will happen. Why doesn’t she just call Fred?

As usual with any job that requires tools and wood, thoughts turn to my Dad. If only my Dad were around….I can’t believe Kira doesn’t realize with her psychological insight that my Dad is why I am like this. He’s the cause of my baggage and I am not blaming him this is not one of those things but I do see that the man I am now, is interconnected with the man I thought I should be. My frustrations stem from the fact that in our neighborhood you wore your balls on a tool belt. But I knew early on I wasn’t wired like that. Now that I am a homeowner, it would be nice to know my way around that tool box.

I grew up in a blue-collar Brooklyn neighborhood. Jim Spinner Sr. my father was a union carpenter. He was Mr. Fix it. On any given weekend my dad could be found hanging kitchen cabinets or replacing windows, he even built the hockey boards that became our roller hockey rink. As a kid I was surrounded by guys like my dad. When our car was on the fritz, my Dad would park it in front of 434 East 4th Street, pop the hood, do a little reconnaissance, chat a little with the neighborhood dads who would be drawn to the exposed engine of our Chrysler New Yorker. The conversation would go like…

“Jimmy whatcha doin’?”
“Looks like I gotta replace the carburatah.”
“That’s not so bad. I just had to replace the alternatah and the…”
They’d love to spend the day up to their elbows in grease, to rebuild something just for the fun of it but I have to paraphrase these conversations as I was never there. I couldn’t stand that stuff, I had no idea what they were talking about and I didn’t care. My thoughts were captured by the advertising execs and the Wall Street guys walking up our street to catch the F train to and from Manhattan. I knew at an early age that I would wear a white collar. No, my balls would be carried in a brief case.

Now I live in Middlebury, Connecticut, far removed from the Brooklyn of my youth. I can’t even imagine if I had car trouble today, why anyone (read me) would pop the hood? I can picture, if I were to pop the hood Ian, Pat and I would stare uselessly at the engine.
“What do you think is wrong?”
“I don’t know. See any loose wires?”
“Everything looks okay to me. Better call somebody.”

Realistically the only way my car would get fixed would be if they made cars like copy machines. We could use that little electronic picture to tell us exactly what’s wrong with the car. Otherwise, gotta call Sean at Middlebury Garage. Speed dial #8.

I could choose any of my buddies to show how useless we are but I chose Ian Grice and Pat Lewis because they might actually be less handy than me. It's close. It's something we've talked about, laughed about. I choose those two because I recall our respective wives discussing, in my kitchen, about who was more useless around the house. Talk about emasculation. The conversation went something like this…

Kira: “I just accept it. Jim’s not very handy.”
Kristen: “Oh you think Jim’s bad, you should see Pat, he calls the plumber if the toilet is running!”
Sharon: “I can beat that, my husband, Ian tried to fix our roof. I wound up with black tar sneaker prints all over my brand new carpet! No thanks! I don’t even ask him anymore. I wait until he goes to work and then I call my father.”
Kira: “Kristen, I should give you Fred’s number.”

My Mr. Fux-it fate was sealed early on. I tried to work with my Dad, I really did. In a nod to the genetic gods I took woodshop with Mr. Feuer freshman year at John Dewey high school. I had to show my Dad that I could tell a Philips Head from a flat head screwdriver! Our Final Project was to make a paper towel holder. Freshman Woodshop, a lay-up, especially for the son of Jim Spinner, foreman of the ExhibitGroup NY carpenters. We would be graded on three things. Our paper towel holder had to have a spindle, a shelf and it had to sit square against the wall. For an entire semester I lathed, I gouged and I planed. My shelf fit pretty well in the grooves I gouged and my spindle was basically round and would, Mr. Feuer pointed out, “Thankfully be hidden by the paper towel roll.” It was the planing and the squaring I had trouble with. The more I planed the more off square it got. A shaving here, a shaving there, I just couldn’t get it right. The shavings mounted and with each shaving, there’s less paper towel holder. Regretfully, the next to last day of class, I put my paper thin excuse for a final project in a brown paper bag and took it home on the F train. Talk about a pregnant pause. Sitting there with this glorified toothpick next to me, worrying about how to tell my old man, a man born with sawdust in his hair, that apparently I was unworthy of my birthright? Looks like University of Buffalo!

That night my Dad and I went down to the workshop. Surrounded by circular saws and scraps of wood I removed my paper towel holder from the A&P bag. Couldn’t tell if my Dad wanted to laugh or cry. Imagine how Michael Jordan might feel when his son keeps putting up bricks. He grimaced, tried to make a joke but remained conscious of not trying to crush my spirit, “Well Butch, not sure how much paper that thing can hold. Maybe we should start from scratch.” We decided we should build it together, as it was my school project. Eventually I wind up, like always, being a glorified gopher. The extent of my helping was to go get my father another Schaefer and to feign interest as he explained what we were doing. If only I had paid attention. Then maybe I wouldn’t be Mr. Fux it.