Not that his life was really spotless. It was only that he considered it so. Not that he really considered anything.
Michael Potts was impervious to legal niceties, moral turpitude, and common sense.
Whatever he did was okay with Michael Potts. If those around him thought otherwise - and they often did, it didn’t trouble him.
If he broke a law, it was because the law was stupid. If he broke a heart, it was because girls expect too much.
If he broke anything, it was because stuff happens.
Certainly, none of it was his fault. He was spotless.
The first story I remember about him was an incident that happened in his early twenties.
He was drunk. So were his friends.
They were stumbling across a very tall bridge above the Rocky River when one of his friends dared him to hang by his hands from beneath the bridge for . . . oh, I don’t know how long, some unknown period of time.
Bulletproof as usual, he took up the dare. The fall was something like a hundred feet. He didn’t break every bone in his body, but he did break quite a few.
I heard the story from one of his friends who was working for me as a key-line artist. He said Michael was recovered and looking for a job. Maybe I could hire him?
"Does he have any skills"?
"Well he's real strong and he's got a lot of energy".
I didn't have any openings for that.
I did know someone who might. I called my friend, Rick. Rick was renovating the old Puerto Rican Union Hall to be a photo studio for him and his wife, Tina. The old hall was big. There was a lot of demolition to be done.
Rick hired the kid.
Michael's first assignment was cleaning-out
a cavernous junk-filled room, along with scraping out crumbling plaster and pulling down the drooping ceiling. Rick left Mike to his work and went on to other business.
When Rick returned, he said it looked like bomb went off. Rick had planned on keeping whatever seemed salvageable.
Everything was gone.
After that, Rick decided Mike needed more supervision.
Carpentry was next. Rick was at one end of the measuring tape - Mike at the other.
Rick asks ,"What you got"? Mike answers, "8 and some extra marks".
A lesson in basic arithmetic and how to read a measuring tape followed.
Michael was not embarrassed by his failure with numbers. "Numbers are stupid, anyway".
Nevertheless, he did learn some rudimentary mathematics, though he remained impatient with measuring. Precise measuring seemed to him unnecessary fooling around - "Can't we just get to cutting"?
Rich worked with Michael for many years. He taught him how to hang drywall, install HVAC, do electrical wiring, hang windows, mix concrete, and much else.
Rick also made full use of Mike's ample supply
of brute force and endless energy.
It was a good arrangement for both, despite occasional havoc and the ongoing necessity of anticipatory supervision.
Eventually Mike learned enough to try it on his own. He bought the property just behind the Studio intending to renovate it and later to sell it.
I think Rick may have loaned the down-payment and co-signed the mortgage. I know he loaned tools and consultation for the project.
Rick wanted Mike to succeed.
It seemed to me, as a crass outsider, that Rick had started thinking of Mike as his idiot son and as his responsibility.
Rick would never say any such thing.
I went once, a little curious to see how the work was going. I found Mike teetering atop the tallest ladder I've ever seen, twenty foot, maybe more, vigorously pounding nails into the stripped inner-roof of the old two-story house.
He didn't appear to be a bit concerned about wobbling precariously at the roof-line.
It was typical Michael Potts nonchalance.
More nonchalance was discovered a few years later.
Early on, Mike decided the chain-link fence on the south side of his property was too close. He tore it down, rolled it up, and threw it in the dumpster. Then he built a new fence two feet further out.
When the State of Ohio discovered the vandalism to their fence they fined him two thousand dollars and made him replace the fence in its original position.
Mike shrugged, some people are just unreasonable. That fence was too close.
Bills were too high, too. At one point Mike stopped paying them. Instead he tapped into the gas and electric lines on his own.
Eventually his enterprise was detected, disconnected, and fined. Stuff happens. What can you do?
Sometime later, Mike went into a side-business
of selling marijuana, only to his friends at first; then he branched out, advertising his business with a printed business card complete with phone and address.
He distributed the cards to countertops all over town.
Rick visited him at regular intervals during his three-year stint at Marion State Prison; trying to convert him to responsible citizenship. Mike agreed. He'd do better from now on.
He probably meant it, but for Mike, responsibility was an abstract concept, kind'a hard to get the hang of.
Many, many, young ladies can attest to Mike's poor understanding of responsibility.
Michael attracted young ladies like moths to a flame.
Sure, he was reckless, but he was also tall and handsome.
It was only that he hadn't met the right young lady, a lady such as themselves. They'd get him on the right track.
They all left in tears.
Mr. Potts couldn't understand the fuss. Girls expect too much. Oh well, there's always more girls around. Look, there's a cute one. Hey babe . . .
I haven't heard anything about Michael Potts lately.
Wherever he is I'm sure he's spotless - as usual.