When Bobby Kennedy Was a Moving Man

A story based on the premise that Bobby Kennedy is sent to Seattle, Washington, to be a moving man when the gods are unable to decide where to send him for eternity

Like many writers, I supported myself with a wide array of jobs over the years: prison teaching, of course; teaching in the inner city high schools; construction work; furniture moving; sewer pipe laying, and mobile home installing come to mind. I remember one speed framer I worked for named Chainsaw Hansen. This was back in Coralville, Iowa. Speed was more important to Chainsaw than was building safety. Hence, when he sighted down a newly framed wall, he would knock out studs that were out of line by judiciously employing a chainsaw.

Chainsaw only employed graduate students and ex-convicts. If this wasn't augury, what is?

Next to writing and prison teaching, I have a passion for the wilderness. I am something of a magnet for bears, including bears who growl at me. My dog, a lovely sweet golden, is named 'Three Bears' in commemoration of an incident, one morning, high up in the Olympic Mountains.

I also love to canoe up in North Central British Columbia. I look back on a nine day solo canoe trip in the lakes and rivers of the Cariboo Mountains as one of the high points of my life.

On a subsequent trip to the same region, I heard wolves howling, intermittently, all night long. They were regrouping after thunder storms. You could hear the little pups yip-yipping. I felt safe that night, spiritually safe, in a way I rarely feel. I used to feel the same sort of safety when I was teaching in the prisons-- when count was cleared, the door was closed, and I was finally alone with my ten to twenty-five convict-students. I suppose the connection I feel is that of the outcast. I chose to be a writer, I see now, not only because I love the craft, but because I never really felt that I fit in. Even when I was playing team sports and getting good grades and appearing, from the outside, as if I fit, I never felt that I did. The same sense pervades the criminals I taught, and I often used to think, 'There but for the grace of God go I.'

My life has not been perfect. I just completed a year of chemotherapy and have been hospitalized seven times during the past two years. On three of those occasions, my life literally hung in the balance. But disease, while difficult to live with, has taught me a bit about patience (I am an impatient, driven man) and a few things, I hope, about compassion.

I am, in most regards, a lucky man. At the age of 22 I wrote my first story. It was, needless to say, horrible. Just atrocious. But the work was mesmerizing and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Thanks to the affluence of our country and our era, I have been able to pursue my passion. Few are permitted this luxury.