Member-only story
Bob the Straightener;
Or, Miracle on Arrow Street
My friend Bob was always straightening things. If he saw a crooked painting on a wall, he would level it. If he saw a fork or spoon askew on a table, he would line it up perfectly. He once spent ten minutes correcting the angle of a pole in a park. He was obsessed with straightening the world.
His dream was to travel to Pisa.
Many people thought Bob was nuts, but I believed he was saner than most. As others were busy setting other people straight, Bob displaced this instinct onto objects, knowing in his wisdom that facts, like maps, only give a partial representation of reality.
There are two things I remember about him: his gentle nature, which I can best describe as a calm acceptance of others’ opinions; and how, after each correction of the leaning world, his face would crease into a splendid smile as he uttered, “There.”
Bob and Cross-Eyed Rudy never saw eye to eye. Their mutual animus had roots as far back as Kindergarten. All through the years, I tried to keep their paths from converging, but as both were friends of mine, I could not avert the occasional catawampus encounter. Rudy was a hand-shaker, but when it came to Bob, he would step back and say, “Don’t you touch me.”
