Bob's Donuts

 In my November 1, 2019 post, I introduced everyone to a strange character named Bob who came over one day in 1976 to buy a dog for his roommate and then kept coming over for a decade. Bob was clearly a lonely man.  Mom was lonely too.  She was still being buffeted by waves of distressing memories and regret in the aftermath of her stormy marriage and costly break-up with career criminal Paris Young. She never admitted the truth of that relationship to her few friends.  It was just too embarrassing to admit to being so naive.  Instead, she bolstered her self esteem by inviting some of the quirkiest oddballs on the planet into our home.  Her expert interrogation techniques drew out their stories, which in many instances were even odder than our own family secrets. Bob was, by far, the weirdest and most disturbed visitor. His story was revealed gradually, over hours spent in our living room, week after week, year after year.

                               Fall of 1976- Bob brought these puppies over to Eagle Street for grooming

At first, the only things we knew was that Bob was Chicago Polish and that he was a Navy veteran who worked as a welder for NASSCO, San Diego's biggest shipyard. He was in his 40's, never married, no kids, and lived platonically with a female roommate in a tiny old house on San Diego Ave in Old Town.  But every time Bob dropped by for a visit, we learned that there were many layers to his story.  He evidently had a very sad childhood. His father never connected with him.  That could have been because his dad was serving during World War II and just wasn't around much. Bob believed that his dad didn't like him because his mother dressed him up like a girl. Whatever the reason, the family did not stay together.  Bob said his mother died and his father remarried to a woman who didn't like him either. Bob enlisted as soon as he was old enough, to get away from the stressful family house.

Apparently Navy life was not the escape he was hoping for. He served during the Korean War Era.  Although he never shared anything about his actual service, one day he revealed the fact that he was forced to leave the service due to his temper.  It took weeks to get the story out of him, but eventually he told us that he would have fits of rage whenever anyone teased him.  He told us that one day he picked up a hammer and threw it at one of the guys who was making fun of him, causing a very serious head injury.  As time went on, we would see firsthand what Bob was like when he was triggered.  

Bob enjoyed the newest electronic gadgets that were coming out in the late 70's.  He would take his paycheck and go buy a tv, a pong video game, and BetaMax videotape players.  He liked to  bring his newest toys over to show them off.  He and Mom got into sharing and trading BetaMax and VHS movies.  He never seemed to spend his paycheck on anything other than electronic things. His clothes were filthy and ragged. He had one pair of work boots. His little Datsun pickup truck was old and dirty. None of those things mattered. But his interest in the newest and best electronics was never ending. 

One night, out of the blue, Bob called Mom on the phone.  He was screaming and crying and yelling.  Mom held the receiver away from her ear, and we could both hear the sound of things being smashed.  Mom asked him what was going on, and Bob answered, sobbing, stuttering, and crying, "Th-th-th-they were m-m-making fun of m-m-me again! Then we heard a Smash!, Smash, Smash! Mom yelled into the phone, "Bob, what are you doing?" He came back to the phone and yelled, "Smashing m-m-my B-B-Beta, and TV with a h-h-h-hammer!" Mom tried to calm him down and talk him out of destroying his things, but it didn't stopped him.  He screamed and smashed until everything was ruined. Then he hung up the phone. The day after his next payday, Bob showed up to our house, opened up the hatch of his camper shell, and brought out all the brand new replacements. He proudly carried each thing into the house, opened the cartons, and showed us his new TV, VCR, and games.  This scenario played out at least a dozen times.  Each time we heard him in the midst of his violent outbursts, I wondered about the servicemember that he injured. I bet that guy, if he survived the hammer to the head, never teased him again.

One seriously gross thing about Bob was the fact that he rarely cleaned himself up.  He smelled terrible.  Not a sweaty kind of terrible.  This man honestly smelled like crap.  Sometimes when he came over and planted himself in one of Mom's recliners, I could swear I saw pieces of dog poop on his shoes, his pants, and sometimes even his shirt.  One time when he came over, he had an actual piece of poop stuck to his hair.  Little sister shouted out, "Hey Bob, is that poop in your hair?" He kind of grunted and reached up to pull it off, and he dropped it into the little trash can that mom kept by her chair for used kleenex. It didn't even seem to surprise him. As a teenager, it made me almost barf. The Poodles that he lived with were similarly covered in their own feces.  I groomed them every few months and it really made me sad to see their paws were encrusted with crap, just like Bob's shoes. We wondered what it was like to be inside Bob's house. One day we found out. 

As time went on, Bob felt comfortable enough to share that he wanted a sex change. He said that ever since he was a small boy, his mom dressed him in girls clothing because she had hoped for a daughter. I guess this somehow imprinted on him. Mom asked him if he was attracted to men or to women.  He said he wasn't interested in either sex at all. After leaving the Navy, he tried to get Johns Hopkins Hospital to give him a sex change so he could be like Christine Jorgensen, but they would not approve it because of his severe anger issues. He said that he tried several times, but could not pass the mental health interview. When he started renting a room in Old Town in the 70's,  he shared his desire with his roommate, a woman who worked as a nurse at a nearby hospital. She started smuggling injectable female hormones out of her workplace and gave him shots.  These shots, for a while, gave him some semblance of female breasts, but after several months, the hospital realized they were missing their drugs and started to investigate.  His roommate decided that giving breasts to Bob wasn't worth losing her job, and the shots abruptly stopped.  Bob never dressed like a woman in public.  He always wore his pee stained, crap-covered blue jeans and ripped, dirty shirts. He was stout, and extremely hirsute.  We could actually watch his beard grow as he sat for hours stuttering out his life story. There were so many layers to this person that we were discovering, bit by bit. Our first impression was that he was a shy, stuttering, smelly, hairy little fat man.  Then we learned that he was extremely angry and prone to violent temper tantrums. And now we knew that he had what they now call gender dysphoria.  

One hot summer Sunday afternoon, Bob called Mom and asked if she could drop off some of the movies she had borrowed.  Old Town was just a couple of miles away, on the way to the FedMart where Mom liked to shop, down on Sports Arena Blvd, so Mom collected the tapes, and us three kids, and headed down Ft Stockton to Juan Street to Old Town.  We had never been to Bob's house before, and I couldn't wait to see it.  San Diego Avenue is the main business street in Old Town.  Bob's place was an old ramshackle house that sat next to the historic graveyard.  Mom parked in the alley behind the house.  The backyard was enclosed with a short sagging chain link fence. Chickens pecked around in the dusty, grassless yard.  Mom told us kids to get out of the car and drop off the tapes.  I grabbed the tapes and the three of us approached the gate.  

As we entered the yard, a giant aggressive rooster ran over to defend the territory.  Little brother quickly retreated back to the car. As the rooster focused on him,  Little sister and I proceeded to the rotting wooden back porch and knocked on the door.  We heard the yipping of a dozen little poodles from inside.  We knocked again, and soon we heard a shuffling from behind the door.  The door opened just a bit, and we were hit with a horrible wave of stench.  Like Bob's smell, only magnified.  The Poodles were trying to get out the door, and I looked  down at them, only to notice the floor, which was a compressed mixture of newspapers and dog poop. Then my sister screamed and I looked up to see why.

There stood round, hairy Bob, with his signature five o'clock shadow, wearing a flowery pink and orange MuuMuu.  His dirty fat feet were crammed in heels. He was wearing a filthy tousled blonde wig, and lipstick and eye shadow that looked like a toddler applied it. It was not a good look for him. When my sister screamed, Bob screamed. P-p-p-put the tapes on the s-s-steps'" he urgently ordered.  Then he slammed the door. We dropped the tapes and ran through the dusty yard, past the scratching hens and the menacing rooster, shimmied out the bent gate, and jumped into the car.  "What the hell happened," asked Mom.  "We'll tell you later, just get us out of here," I answered, out of breath and thinking about all the things I wish I could un-see. 

Bob usually worked the all-night shift at NASCCO.  He got off work after 7 AM.  Sometimes on the weekends he would come straight to our house from work.  Once a week or so, he would stop at the Winchell's Donuts up on West Washington St and buy a dozen donuts .  It was always the same scene.  Bob would let himself in the house and with a big grin, present the big box of donuts.  He would walk over to Mom's desk, put the box down, open the lid, and stand back silently, arms folded across his chest, looking at whoever was in the living room. We kids loved donuts.  Mom rarely bought them for us, unless she was using them to entice us to go to church or to go to the Doctor for a shot. As much as we loved donuts, we knew that if we didn't act fast, the donuts would be inedible.  Because after opening the box and looking at us, Bob would reach in with his greasy unwashed hands and pick up each donut, turn it over and around, and then put it back in the box, before taking a couple for himself.  So we learned that if we wanted an unblemished clean donut, we had to immediately praise and thank him for the treats, and then get on in there and get the ones we wanted. There could be no second helpings, because as soon as we picked out a donut, he would start in with the contamination process. 

One summer morning in 1979, Bob came over bright and early. Mom was busy in the kitchen, but the front door was open, so Bob let himself inside. He had a big cardboard Winchell's Donuts box, and as usual, he proudly pranced through the door, set it on the desk, opened the box, and took a couple steps back. Little brother, sister, and I came over to see what we could choose from, and to our great surprise, the  entire box was filled with luscious glazed round jelly donuts.  A whole dozen! The most coveted donut, yet the rarest, because they were more expensive. We didn't know what the special occasion was, but we were thrilled!  "Ooh, jelly Donuts!  Thank you Bob," I laid the praise on thick.  The three of us moved in and each of us grabbed a donut.  

Suddenly, Bob's smile turned into a frown.  He moved towards the desk, pushed the cover down, and grabbed the box with nine remaining jelly donuts. "M-m-m-my donuts! Th-Th-they are m-m-mine," he screamed.  Little brother ran out the front door and took off.  Little sister and I stood in shock as he clutched the box to his chest, squishing it, screaming over and over, "M-m-m-mine! Th-th-they are m-m-my donuts!" Jelly started to squirt out of the crumpled box onto his clothes and his hairy chin, and red gooey globs started dropping to the floor.  Mom came running out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. Little sister and I quickly retreated down the hallway. Mom took one look at Bob, with his smashed Winchells box and donut jelly dripping all over the place and calmly asked, "Oh Bob, what happened to your donuts?" 

"Th-th-they took them! Th-th-they took my donuts. M-m-my donuts," Bob exclaimed.  He was furious and broke into tears.  My sister and I were ready to lock ourselves in the bathroom at the end of the hall if necessary, so we stayed just outside the bathroom door watching what was happening in the living room.  Before Mom could calm him down, Bob, still clutching the ruined box of donuts to his chest, ran out of the house.  He jumped into his truck and sped off. 

"Well, I guess we won't see him for awhile," surmised Mom and I took a paper towel and started wiping up the mess he left for us.  His instant rage was unexplainable, and really frightening.  I looked at the jelly donut that was still in my hand and thought to myself, "jelly donuts are good, but not good enough to put up with crazy temper tantrums from the nut who brought them over." And then I ate it. 

Less than an hour later, Bob's pickup truck pulled up in front of the house.  We were all in the living room as he headed up to the porch, holding a new Winchell's Donut box.  He let himself in, pranced over to the desk, opened the box, and stood back, his arms folded across his chest,  just like he always did.  Inside the box were a dozen shiny new jelly donuts.  He looked at us.  We looked at him and didn't move a muscle or say a word. After at least a couple silent minutes had passed, he moved towards his box, closed the cover, looked at us, and said, "M-M-MY D-Donuts!  We learned our lesson, and never took any of Bob's donuts again. And to this day, any time I see a jelly donut, I think of Bob and his donut meltdown on Eagle Street.