Poetry,
Dancing in Water
For Eiko and Koma
A frame of driftwood
in the current's ebb and flow –
clinging to the frame,
the dancers, stiff as driftwood,
curve slowly into stones
while water runs over
their stilled forms.
In time they come alive,
are rippling reeds,
swaying stem and buried root,
variously wind, tree,
flower, naked breath
that swells behind
the push to give birth.
The dancers are in the river,
the dance is in the river,
the dance is the river.
From outside in I found this story:
she almost died,
and he brought her back to life.
Dried leaves, discarded and scattered –
let them go; new ones will grow.
A cricket perched on a twig,
graceful and humorous
at the close.
Fiction,
Winter Storm
“An Irish dynamo,” the clue read. What could it be, Ceci wondered? The uncertain pencil point rested on the folded paper. What on earth? Mattie would know. I’ll ask here when she gets home. No, she’ll be snippy about it and make some cutting remark about how easy the answer is to see. Why, any school child, she’ll start. Ha! I’ll not ask her.
The wind rattled and moaned through the eaves and shutters as corrugated thunder rolled across the late afternoon sky. Ceci perched on a cream sofa in the middle of the parlor, a room richly decorated long before she’d been conceived. Her tiny feet rested on an antique rug worn by years of use and neglect, and in the hallway a grandfather clock, predictable and accurate, took audible note of the passing hour. Two tattered Queen Anne chairs guarded a fireplace flanked by a mahogany wall of rare books that belonged to her late father. And a ruck of curiosities from long forgotten trips lay here and there beneath a week’s layer of dust. But Ceci didn’t care. Wasn’t her week to dust, it was Mattie’s.
I’ll bet she’s flirting with the meat market man at this very minute. Sure she is. No decent woman’d ever allow herself such latitude…carrying on with a married man. Ha! Mattie was never one to consider refined convention. Winks and grins at them all. No wonder she’s never – a sharp tapping on the window facing the garden abruptly interrupted her train of thought. Naked limbs flailed away like semaphores beckoning ghosts across the pewter sky. Raw day. Glad it’s not my turn to be out in this mess. A reflection from the fire danced across her eyes, her attention wed to the puzzle in her lap. Bandit, a silver tiger tabby cuddled in a ball beside her, took little notice of her musings or the festering storm.
Cocooning herself in a loose-knit shawl, Ceci returned to the puzzle. Four letters…location of the Taj Mahal. Hmm. Wonder if that’s in the dictionary. Probably the encyclopedia. I’ll come back to it. Mattie would know, damn her. Maybe Sophie and Bonnie will close shop early and come home first. They might know. No, they won’t close until five, it’s Friday. That Mr. Thompson stops by on Fridays to browse the magazines, and he always speaks to both of them. Wonder why he’s not asked one of them out? Unattached, I think. Can’t be in there just for a magazine every Friday. Well, there’s Bonnie’s tongue…could run off a herd of elephants. Lucky we sell any books at all when she’s on duty. Humph! But she might know the answer. Hmm. We have a volume of world facts for sale in the store. I know. I placed it in the window not three days ago. Wonder if I should call. She peered long and hard at the telephone, smug in its lifeless existence on the corner table by the hall. Damn. Double damn.
A brass key rattled in the latch and a gust pushed Mattie through the door with two bulging sacks crushed against her generous breasts. Kicking the door shut with a bang, she gazed down the hall toward her sister, graying, dignified and pretending to ignore her entrance.
“Well, did he call, Ceci?”
“Did who call?” Ceci said, still feigning an interest in the puzzle in her lap.
Mattie, sloe-eyed, glared at her sister. Who the hell does she think I mean? “The man you were all a-chatter about at breakfast, dear. Who else would I mean?” Is she suddenly suffering from dementia?
Ceci cut her eyes up toward the dripping shadow in the doorway. Mattie braced and waited. For a moment only the crackling fire broke the silence between the two women. The cat raised his head and blinked.
“I’ve been quite busy with housework most of the day. The phone could have rung, don’t know, but if it did, I didn’t hear it. I just don’t know.” Ceci’s pallid face was the image of a child caught in a lie.
“The bananas were half price,” Mattie’s voice echoed down the long hall where she shuffled toward the kitchen. “Lamb chops were a bargain, too. Got some for dinner tonight.” The cat silently jumped from the sofa and in a gentle canter followed her through the long shadows of the diminishing day.
Ceci had heard all of what her sister had said, but continued to pretend to focus on the crossword. Hoping to blot out unwanted distractions, she began to hum a tune, her eyes roaming across other clues in the paper.
“How ’bout some tea?”
Ceci ignored the request and continued to hum.
“Ceci!” boomed an alto voice from the parlor door.
Ceci jumped like a startled rabbit.
“Oh…didn’t mean to slip up on you, dear. Will you have some hot tea with me?” Serves you right for ignoring me, you twit.
“Why, that sounds delightful, Mattie.” Just can’t stand to leave me alone, can you?
The women sat by the fire, each poised as if waiting for the next ember to pop. The cat settled in between them, its eyelids at half-mast. Like a vaudeville act, the rain tap-danced across the roof, the wind whipping about to the syncopated rhythm of the storm. The sisters continued to eye each other in an unspoken peek-a-boo game. Heads rose and fell, then turned toward the inert tea set, delicate and unmoved. Scones and crumpets on a Wedgwood plate lay untouched as the clock in the hall took measure of the expiring day.
Ceci observed, “Chill rain starting.”
“Goodness yes, just made it home in the nick of time.”
“I was thinking of Sophie and Bonnie.”
“Oh, yes. Looks as if they’ll be caught in it for sure…Glad I missed the worst of it,” Mattie said with a nod. Miss Holier-Than-Thou, always reminding me of her preference for the other two.
“Yes, you were prompt, my dear, I must say. Skip the meat market today, Mattie?”
“Why, heavens no, Ceci. Didn’t you hear me from the kitchen? Got lamb chops on sale today.” She heard me alright.
“Sorry…so, how is Mr. Marcelli today?”
“The meat market man? Fine, I guess. Didn’t ask. Too busy watching the scales. Got to watch with care, you know.” Here she goes, prying again
“I suppose you’re right.” Bet a nickel she flirted with him.
Like souls pondering a checkerboard on a Southern courthouse square, the two appeared engrossed by the flickering reflections on the tea set below.
“Sophie and Bonnie should be here soon. Perhaps I should heat some more tea.”
“That would be nice. I’ll help you put the groceries in the pantry.”
“Why, thank you, Ceci.” Neither moved.
“Mr. Marcelli’s niece just had a baby.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Said there’ll be a grand party following the baptism…more than a hundred people invited. We’re included.”
“How lovely…that should prove to be quite an undertaking for his wife…preparing for all those people, I mean.” Especially the way you’ll stuff your cheeks.
“Oh, he is a widower. Lost his wife about six months ago.” But you already knew that. Ha!
“Oh, dear. How sad.” Cecile’s eyes rose charily, then dropped. Uh huh, and I see you’ve been busy.
“Yes. He said she’d have loved the new baby. She adored children, even though they were never able to have any of their own.”
“How interesting. He must be quite lonely now…wouldn’t you think, dear?”
Mattie’s face flushed. “Well, I…I wouldn’t know about that. Never considered it. Hadn’t thought about it in that light.” Her head shook in small arcs as both struggled for something to say. Mattie flipped her Betty Boop curls and peered out the window. The rain had risen into a serious crescendo when the front door squeaked and banged shut again.
Sophie, a blue-gray image of graveness stood in the doorway in a fusion of rain, perspiration and yesterday’s perfume. Pools of kohl scooted down her pasty cheeks in the fashion of a lugubrious circus clown.
Ceci pretended concern. “Why, Sophie, where’s Bonnie?”
“She had to make a stop at the pharmacy.”
“She have a new prescription?”
“Beats me. If she does, I haven’t heard about it.”
“Perhaps she’s meeting someone there…say, for a cherry coke?” Ceci chirped
“Maybe.” But it’s none of your damn business if she is.
“You know something?” Mattie chimed in.
“No, but she did seem secretive. Told me to go on ahead. Said she’d be along directly.”
“I’ll bet it’s that new railroad man at the depot.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Why not?” two voices piped in unison.
“Well, heaven knows, but we’ll never know unless we choke it out of her.” Sophie chuckled and noticed the cat peering oddly at her from the hallway door.
“Why, Sophie, that’s no way to talk about your sister,” Ceci said.
“Well, you know her as well as I do. Besides, if she’s meeting someone, at least…well...say, Ceci, how ’bout you? Did he call?”
Ceci’s face froze. Her eyes flooded, her chin dropped, and the room slipped back into the quietude of a tomcat on a moonlight prowl.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Sophie offered. Ceci’s tongue lay numb in her cheek. She shook her head weakly.
“Come in and have some tea with us, Sophie,” Mattie shouted, shuffling down the hall for more hot tea.
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, peeling off her rain-soaked coat, “terrible chill out there.” Then, turning to Ceci, she whispered, “Do forgive me, dear Ceci. I meant no harm.”
“I know,” she said in a quivering voice. You’d cut my heart out if you thought you could get away with it.
The front door opened to a drum of rain and rumbles off in the distance. Holding a collapsed umbrella, a caped silhouette in a wide-brimmed hat stood wobbling in the hall like a defeated musketeer. “Damn, it’s awful out there!”
“Come over by the fire, Bonnie, and warm up a bit.” Never could teach her to curb that gutter tongue of hers.
“Soon as I can shuck this wet mess, I will.” She shambled toward the hall closet, her galoshes squeaking as she moved.
Mattie placed a fresh pot of tea on the table and said, “So, what held you up, dear?”
“Had to make a stop,” Bonnie said. She flopped down in a chair and kicked off her shoes. A curious stillness slowly crept over the scene. Mouths skewed and eyes wandered with teacups held in a conventional pinkie pose.
“What!” Bonnie barked. Is this one of their frigging kangaroo courts?
“Nothing, dear,” Cecile said. “We’re just wondering how the store did today.”
“We did okay.” Truth about commerce in the bookstore had long ago been erased from polite conversation at home. Bonnie leaned from her spot just long enough to grab a tea cake and scarf it down before she collapsed on the sofa again in her wet stocking feet. “Whew, what a day.”
“Yes, indeed,” Ceci said, “and where did you linger on the way home, dear?”
The warmth in Bonnie’s cheeks vanished like a dream of passion at dawn. Mattie stood and turned in to the hallway toward the kitchen. “I’m going to start dinner,” she said. “Somebody let me know if there’s any news,” she added, her foxy grin hidden in the shadows of the hallway.
“Maybe I just stopped in the pharmacy for some suppositories.” Bonnie said, her pink tongue slyly removing confectioners’ sugar from the corner of her painted lips. Her announcement was met with painful scowls. “I believe I’ll give Mattie a hand in the kitchen,” Ceci said as she started toward the doorway.
“Me, too.” Sophie quickly followed.
Nosy tarts. Serves ’em right. Bonnie sat alone, feeling empty as she remembered a lingering chill and a new run in her stocking. Closing her eyes, she sighed. The parlor fire hissed and popped as partially consumed pieces of wood fell into growing mounds of ash below. Bandit tiptoed into her lap and curled up. The only one here who’ll give me any peace, she thought.
Dinner commenced with the usual tinkling of silver against china as each contemplated a new line of conversation that might prove amiable tonight.
“So, did we sell books today?”
“We sell books every day, Ceci. What’s your point?” Bonnie said curtly.
“Well, did we return any to the distributors,” she continued, ignoring the rebuff.
“Never on Fridays,” Bonnie said.
“Well…how’d we do with magazines, Sophie?” Maybe she’ll be more civil.
“Usual lookers.”
“Anyone in particular?” Mattie’s forehead furrowed as she waded into the fray.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophie demanded.
“Just trying to make conversation, dear. You needn’t be short with me.” Though heaven knows that’s the best you can do.
“Sorry, Mattie. Yes, we sold magazines today. That fellow who comes in on Fridays bought three.”
“Mr. Thompson?” Cecile asked in a stage whisper.
“Yes, I suppose that’s his name. Awfully chatty, though. Awfully.”
“What’s he say?”
“Can’t recall. Good chops, Mattie. You really outdid yourself tonight.”
“Why, thank you, Sophie.”
“Uh huh,” Bonnie added with a nod.
“What does this Mr. Thompson do, Sophie?” Ceci asked.
“Some kind of insurance business. Why?”
“Oh, just curious.” Ceci tried to hide a grin behind a napkin.
“Say, Ceci, you get any calls today?” The words echoed off the walls like the closing arguments of a prosecuting attorney. Ceci’s teeth clamped down on a thin, whitened lip. Doubt hung long in her face like a bad hangover.
Deflections of heavily engraved silver collided with fine bone china adding a gentle discordance to the air, its timbre mirroring the unpredictable darkness just beyond the vision of the four sisters. The goodness of the holiday season had somehow quietly slipped away, leaving the cold rain to assault the barren scene.
“Mr. Marcelli has invited us to a big party following the baptism of his new niece,” Mattie said.
Bonnie was intrigued. “Oh, really? When?”
“Well, he thought the child might be baptized in three months, so it’ll be awhile. He said a hundred or so people will be invited.”
“Sounds grand. You his date?” Bonnie quipped as she took a bite of lamb chop. Mattie’s countenance quickly betrayed her, her face morphing into the shape of a large fish, hooked and defeated. Bonnie began to cackle like a hyena.
“What’s so damn funny?” The three looked at their baby sister. Bonnie sat rigidly erect as humiliation began to dance across her cheeks. Thunder echoed across the ugly darkness just beyond the walls surrounding the ladies and, again, a hush fell over the room.
Her blouse adorned with the soup of the day, Bonnie stood first, signaling a coda to the evening’s polite dinner exchange. Enough detritus remained across the table to satisfy a pack of hungry wolves with only the fine teacups left empty.
Embers of the dying fire grumbled and burped, sending soot and ashes the way of forgotten dreams as the ladies settled in for evening coffee. Ceci looked around at the others, her eyes wide. “Does anyone know what an Irish dynamo is?”
“Born a naïf. Destined a naïf,” Mattie replied.
“I’m sorry.” A tissue raced across Ceci’s lap to her nose. Her inquisitiveness was understood, but routinely ignored. Mattie thought to herself, Tyrone Power, you dolt.
Dangerously close to the fire on the hearth Bandit sat, sphinx like, its feral eyes fixed on unknown prey in the hallway, its tail flipping like a metronome set in a three-quarter-time beat.
“Salvatore Marcelli. Such a mellifluous name, don’t you think, Ceci?” Sophie’s smile was aped by two others. A fourth died in front of a squad of clinched teeth.
The four women gazed at the fire, the warm glow fading across faces filled with fanciful notions. Each ministered to a conjugal hope hidden deep within where rehearsed remarks roiled like the chilling storm across the fading landscape.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang, rattling the composure of this odd congress. The cat lifted its chin from its paws, its amber eyes intense.
“Who could that be at this hour?”
“And in this weather!”
“Anybody expecting anyone?”
Ceci scurried down the hall to the door and peeked through the leaded glass like a child anticipating St. Nick. Turning, her eyes twinkling, her mouth the shape of an egg, she gasped, “Flowers!”
Essays,
Home
It isn’t rolling hills of carpeted green, nor is it the crystal clarity of babbling brooks and picture-postcarded waterfalls. The Kodak moment is gone – fizzed and flashed in extinguished chemical illumination, the retina-burnt image of time-worn memory. The depths of culture and history you’ll find in other towns and cities can’t be found around these parts no matter how deep you dig, and the ballet and opera are mere optimistic figments of performance imagination.
No page goes wasted in the travelogues that ignore us, and the Lonely Planet isn’t a lonelier place for not making our acquaintance. The sun doesn’t break whimsically above thick-limbed trees; and when the rain falls, it doesn’t shimmer, nor does it refresh cool green grass. It pisses down – puddling and morassing village-squared greenery allowing for duck dominance until it once again shrivels and evaporates in what passes for Indian summer sunshine. There are no red-carpeted galas to flaunt faux fashion; the impecuniosity of wealth and dearth of celebrity make for scant headlines and lack of journalistic interest.
The paparazzi don’t have us on their itinerary!
World travellers and jungle adventurers ignore our whistle-stop station, their mind’s eye fixed on far horizons and yet to be discovered whatevers. The only local event worthy of historical retrospect is no longer taught to eager children but remains book-bound in the newly improved, government-regulated schools. No contrails stripe our skies, and we’re not on the departure board down at Heathrow. You won’t hear our average daily temperature gleefully town-cried by pregnant weathergirls on the evening news. Our travel center is a deserted bus stop with a one-way timetable to Anywhere but Here – the last traveler already having exited stage left. Love has left and is lost, never to return. When romancing the stone, our dry-walled boundaries neither acquiesce nor do they requite.
The low of our farm-yarded husbandry isn’t the call of the wild, and vaunted stabled nativity occur the other side of imagination. No wandering stars, no wise men, no invading armies – popular uprising lies snoring in an unmade bed. Only the shrill whistle of wind rushing down highways and byways serves to recollect, before disappearing to God only knows where via abandoned public footpaths. No cries for change, liberty, or justice – the echo of disinterest falling on deaf ears.
Society has left us behind, the cutting edge of everything having blunted itself on dull tiled roof tops reflecting grey skies. If artistic endeavor had ever been licensed, then it would have been the mono-chromists and not the impressionists that soiled their singularly splattered canvas. Not so much a patchwork of fields and forests, more a patch on an otherwise perfect pair of jeans. The unshone shoe standing out among paraded polished footwear, foiled by its own dull inadequacy rather than eclipsed by the brilliance of others.
Listed on the menu as the chef’s surprise, never the dish of the day; forever the wedding crasher, never the invited. The last fingered delicacy at a children’s party; the silver foiled wedding cake that molders and spoils in the back of the larder. Passed over for cellophane wrapped, supermarket store-bought brilliance, before being thrown into the existential pedal bin of life.
The uninvited guest, the blood stain on freshly laundered underwear.
If it had a smell it would be vaguely familiar but unremarkable. Car farted flatulence, yesterday’s takeaway; the stench of tide-drawn mud and the street-level choke of smokeless fuel and burned wood. Boiled cabbage and cremated offerings adding their aroma to the buffet of industrialized dormitory living. Never more the glory of mother’s cooking, but the half remembrance of plates past and meals left to spoil on mismatched crockery. The squeezed and emptied condiment bottle, the wind-borne crisp packet, the discarded Styrofoam container – a forgotten eye sore, once so necessary but now just so bloody useless.
So if that’s the case, why is it that I yearn to return to this forgotten, much maligned agrarian dystopia?
Why do I treasure the golden age of rural disfunctionality with such spectacular rose-colored clarity and candy-striped fondness? I would give anything to wander its streets and lanes – walk its fields, wait in the rain for the bus I know will never come. Why is it that I long to rekindle the memory of familiar tastes and enjoy the scent of wind-born excellence – fried fish, larded pasties, pub grub, and smoky chimneys? How I long to revisit pubs I’ve never entered, return to villages I’ve never known – yet can recall with boundless ex-patria enthusiasm the halcyon days imagined there.
The cold no longer bothers me, and the rain doesn’t spit in my face. The lack of things to do at the weekend and the interminable boredom of teenage life dismissed – the forgotten trauma of memorialized youth. I know that I’ll be disappointed, that the familiar faces won’t be waiting for me on the platform of cognizance to alight from the memory train that’ll never materialize. Nobody will know my name, and the best I can probably expect is a half glance from a half remembered stranger.
Standing on the corner of the village square next to the telephone booth, watching the locals eye me as they pass, wondering who I am perhaps, or more likely not caring at all. What’s another face in a sea of faces when you’re drowning in your own existence? They’ll never understand that it was the childhood laughter, the scraped knees and plastered wounds of youth that helped to cement what’s traditionally known as village life. The return to family values exemplified by boys playing football in the street, choosing between goodies and baddies when playing at war. Running around neighborhoods with sticks, screaming machinations of machine-gunned excess. Pushed from pillar to post by irate neighbors with perfect lawns, kicked off cricket greens and chased from tennis courts by card-carrying members.
Damn our insolence for daring to entertain the thought that we too could one day be great – grace the courts at Wimbledon or mount the field at Wembley. Where do the football heroes of the future get their start if not on the village green or by dodging commuter traffic?
Just one more time – just one more visit. I know what to expect and can already taste the disillusion.
It matters not.
Right now I just want to go home.
Fiction,
White Lie
“Andrew, I’ve got something to tell you,” my mother said. She stroked the gold locket around her neck. I waited. “Don’t expect to see Tabitha the next time you’re over at Grandpa’s house.”
“Why not?”
“She passed away.” I tried to look surprised but I already knew.
Tabitha was my grandfather’s old cat, an obese red tabby he’d picked up as a stray. She was scraggly and sick when he found her lying by the side of the road. The upper and lower portions of her left eyelids had grown together and fused over an empty eye socket. Not sure he would keep her, he referred to her as “the tabby.” She had a gentle disposition and, as she healed, my grandfather grew increasingly fond of her. One day my grandmother dryly referred to her as Queen Tabitha, and the name stuck.
We lived in a small bungalow out past the edge of town on a narrow road off the state highway. My grandparents lived a couple hundred yards away, back off the road in an old farmhouse. The property had been an active strawberry farm when my grandfather was a boy. He had moved back in after his parents died even though he worked in town as an insurance agent. I asked my mother once why we didn’t live in town like the rest of my school friends. “We’re just simple people, Andrew,” she replied.
It could be lonely growing up out there but there were advantages, too. There were wide open spaces to run, dense woods to explore. There was a slow moving brook out back where I would hunt for tadpoles. I’d trap them in a jar and stare at them through the glass until I finally got bored and set them free. Sometimes Tabitha would tag along and watch silently from a distance, her amber eye blinking in the sun.
My grandfather built me a tree house at the edge of the woods. I was his helper. He patiently guided me as I cut a two-by-four with a hand saw, the blade bowing and vibrating as I struggled to drag the teeth back and forth across the wood. He showed me how to properly countersink a screw. When the house was done, he rigged up a doorbell at the bottom of the tree and wired it so that it rang on top.
My grandfather was a man of few words. I loved following him around while he did his chores. That was what I had hoped to do the previous afternoon when I wandered over to his place. As I got closer I could hear my grandmother yelling. Down on all fours, I crept forward and crouched beside the front porch.
“You must do something about that animal, Harold. I just can’t abide her any longer.” Although we were simple people, my grandmother used big words and spoke in a very formal manner. “She’s grown too old. She urinates on the floors, slavers all over the cushions on my sofa. And her breath…what a foul, fetid odor.”
“What do you want me to do with her, Mary?”
“That’s none of my concern. The animal belongs to you, after all. Take her to the SPCA. I don’t know. Just make certain that she is not in this house come tomorrow.”
“What about Andrew?”
“What about him?”
“The boy loves that cat.”
“He’ll get over it. He’s young, not old and sentimental like you.”
A few minutes later the front screen door creaked open. I slid down to the ground between the porch and a row of bushes. When I poked my head up, I could see my grandfather slowly trudging toward the small outbuilding where he kept his workshop, Tabitha tucked under his arm. I sat in the shade hiding until I was sure it was safe, then I got up as quietly as I could and walked over to the workshop. It was a small square building with a tar paper roof, grey wood showing where the paint had begun to blister and peel off the clapboards. Although the exterior was worn, the interior was meticulously kept.
I looked in the window at the tools hanging neatly on pegboard, coffee cans full of screws and nails and bolts carefully organized by size, the big table saw under the fluorescent light in the middle of the room. My grandfather was nowhere in sight, so I pulled open the door and went inside. Everything looked normal. Then I noticed his old hunting knife resting on a piece of white rag; the blade was covered with blood.
Back outside I heard scraping sounds and a metallic ping coming from behind the building. When I went to investigate, I found my grandfather shoveling dirt back into a freshly dug hole. If he saw me, he didn’t let on. I watched him push shovel after shovel of dirt back into the hole, occasionally stopping to knock clumps of soil off the blade with the tip of his work boot. He was sweating, and his breathing seemed labored. When I called out to him, he looked over at me briefly. His eyes seemed old. He grimaced, shook his head and went back to work without saying a word.
When the phone rang after dinner, I tiptoed out of my bedroom into the hallway to listen. It was my grandmother.
“Oh, my,” my mother said softly. I could picture her lifting her hand to her face and covering her mouth. “How sad. What happened?” There was a long silence, then I heard her gasp.
“He did what? Why? Wasn’t there anything else he could have done?” I wondered if my grandmother had told her the whole truth, admitted that she had banished Tabitha from the house. “Yes, of course I’ll tell Andrew. But I’ll spare him the gory details.”
My mother smiled at me now. “I know how much you loved Tabitha. You’ll miss her I’m sure, but at least she didn’t suffer.”
“She didn’t?”
“No…Grandma found her lying on the floor like she was resting. She must have died in her sleep.” She kissed me softly on my forehead and rubbed her hand through my hair. “Poor Tabitha.”
At first I wanted to tell her – about grandmother forcing him to do it; about the bloody knife; about how sad my grandfather looked as he made Tabitha’s grave. And then I was angry –angry at my grandmother; angry at my grandfather for not standing up to her, for killing an innocent cat; angry at my mother for lying to me, even though it was only a white lie intended to comfort me. Tears rolled down my cheeks. My mother tried to wipe them with her handkerchief but I turned away. I said nothing. Simple people.
Fiction,
The Tail
Maybe it was inherent paranoia, but Urbanksi felt, the whole way from St. Pierre, that somebody was following them. That's why Samson liked him as a partner – he'd kept them out of quite a few speed traps and narrow escapes. In reality the white Taurus probably had only been following them the past few miles. It was unlikely the Feds would use the same tail the whole route; the white Taurus may have switched places with the red VW, or perhaps the yellow Hummer Samson had flipped off.
When Urbanski pointed out the car, Samson didn't joke. While this road wasn't private –the gravel drive was still a couple miles ahead – it was secluded; traffic was rare, and only Kingsley's men traveled it regularly. A few moonshiners and pot growers, perhaps, though Kingsley had driven most of them out of the county. Ignorant rednecks just couldn't compete with the urbane sort of gangster Kingsley styled himself after. Perhaps Southern rednecks, the original thing, could have put up a fight, but Midwestern rednecks are a milder bunch, except for the meth producers, and Kingsley was too well-respected among the latter for any problems to arise. Hell, Kingsley funded a good two-thirds of Illinois methamphetamine production. Even the Feds had to respect that.
That didn't mean the Feds wouldn't intervene; it just meant they had to build a case first. The local law wasn't much help; Kingsley had the sheriff in his pocket, and most of the deputies were scared shitless. Kingsley knew which strings to pull, and usually the first was the children angle. Children created a significant crack in any suit of armor, which was why Urbanski, though married twice, had never had any kids. The way he figured it, only Kingsley was powerful enough to have kids and not worry about anything happening to them.
The white Taurus had no front plate, which meant nothing by itself; Fed cars came with all kinds of markings and whatnot. Urbanski couldn't see who was driving, or how many people were in the car. Samson had slowed down, but the Taurus didn't pass. It slowed down with them.
"Suspicious," Urbanski said. "It's gotta be Feds."
"You think it's that Anderson guy? The suit I met last week?"
"Could be. He look like the action type?"
Samson thought about it. He had long blond hair, like his namesake. "Samson" probably wasn't what his mother had named him; but his mother was dead, his father was missing, and Samson had free reign to name himself whatever he wanted – but it fit, because he was big and bad, and you didn't mess with him if you were in your right mind. Samson's strength and Urbanski's paranoia; they were one of Kingsley's better teams, no doubt about it.
Samson's one annoying habit – or at least the most annoying – was that whenever he was nervous he twirled his hair around his index finger, like some absent-minded schoolgirl. He was doing it now, driving with one hand, eyes on the rearview mirror. The van stayed straight, but Urbanski was looking at the road, waiting for the white line on the right to slip closer. He had a phobia of car wrecks – an odd thing for a man to have in his profession; but it stemmed from his childhood, when he'd survived a brutal wreck that had killed his mother and sister. Only he and his father had lived, both scarred, and both had turned to booze; it just took Urbanski a few more years.
Samson was a good driver, but that often worked against a man – you turned too confident in your driving, you eventually slipped up somehow. That's what'd happened with Urbanski's father. One little mistake.
Instead of mentioning the Fed again, Samson said, "Hell, it could just be someone's lost."
"Heck of a place to get lost."
"It's the perfect place to get lost."
Samson returned to his driving, and Urbanski turned around in his seat. The Taurus had crept a little closer, but he still couldn't see through the windshield. Was the driver motioning at them? It looked like some furtive sort of movement was going on behind the darkened surface.
"I think they want us to pull over," Urbanski said; just then the Taurus honked.
"Hell," Samson said. "Goddammit."
Urbanski reached under his seat and pulled up the Beretta. He chambered a round and rested the gun on his lap. Samson eyed it and shook his head. Samson, Urbanski knew, did not like guns, probably because he'd never had to use one. You didn't shoot at a guy like Samson for fear of pissing him off.
"Don't do nothin’ rash," Samson said. "Remember the last time you shot at someone?"
Urbanski did, because Kingsley would never let him forget it. Urbanski had been doing night duty at a production lab upstate, in a county he'd never visited before. His job had been security, and though he wasn't the best man for it, he was there as punishment for sleeping with someone important's wife. In his defense, Urbanski and the wife had been too hopped up to remember anything about the incident, but apparently the husband had caught them in an extremely compromising position.
Urbanski, no stranger to furtive liaisons, had an idea what that position might have been and complained to Kingsley. Kingsley hadn't gotten mad, but had still put Urbanski on guard duty in some obscure, low-level county for a week. A no-stress job, supposedly; the production level in the county was so small that even the Feds weren't supposed to know about it.
And, truthfully, the Fed's hadn't known about it. But, unknown to Kingsley, the local producers hadn't been paying the sheriff enough protection money, and the bastard had looked deep into his conscience and decided to make good on his career. He'd led a late-night raid, and Urbanski, not expecting to see anyone in the woods that late, fired. Unfortunately, the man he shot wasn't one of the raiding deputies, but one of the lab's crew who'd stepped out for a piss. The sheriff's department used the gunfire as an excuse to move in.
Though Urbanski had managed to slip away – literally, he fell down a gully – the shooting had made the raid far more serious than it otherwise would have been. All production in that county was shut down, and Kingsley had been furious, though Urbanski only caught part of his wrath. The turncoat sheriff had received his dog's head in the mail. Urbanski had merely gotten a talking-to.
A year later, the incident was a joke among the guys, though one never knew how seriously Kingsley took it. Maybe, behind the smile, he was lamenting the loss of income, small as it had been. Kingsley could afford to lose some money, but that didn't mean he liked it. Urbanski treaded cautiously around Kingsley ever since and did everything possible not to piss him off. He didn't have a dog, but he had an ex-wife he was fond of. To Kingsley, women and dogs were pretty much the same.
Urbanski stroked the gun on his lap. He wasn't an especially good shot, but then he seldom had to fire a gun. Even among men of the sort employed in his line of work, guns garnered respect. If you had a gun, people took you seriously. They didn't have to trust you, they just had to respect and fear you. Casually pull out a gun, tickle the trigger guard with your finger, and you could get whatever you wanted. It also helped that Urbanski had the scars from the wreck that had killed his mother and sister; even his unkempt facial hair couldn't hide them. The one above his left eye was especially menacing. He looked like a guy who had done hard time, even though he'd never spent more than a night in jail.
"We'll wait and see how long they follow us," Samson said. "If they turn off onto the drive, we'll know they're Feds."
"We should've done something about that Anderson guy."
"You can't just kill a Fed."
"He could've disappeared. Kingsley's done it before."
"He just says he has. If Feds have been disappearing as much as Kingsley lets on, do you really think he'd still be in business?"
"Well," Urbanski said, because he knew there had been nothing they could do about Anderson. The man had merely been asking questions; not subtly, but then the Feds had stopped being subtle a couple years ago. You could spot a Fed a mile away; no one in Central Illinois wore suits out of doors, and for some reason the Feds refused to dress casual. And even then, they would've stood out because they were all young and good looking, clean-shaven, fit. They carried themselves as though they were better than everyone around them. That made their job difficult; if they'd just let loose, the locals would be more trusting. Not that anyone had to worry about that happening any time soon. The Feds made damn sure they alienated everyone they talked to, especially people suspected of working for Kingsley.
Urbanski felt his pulse quicken as they neared the drive. Samson slowed even further, but the Taurus didn’t go around. It crept closer, and now Urbanski could see two shapes behind the windshield. If they'd been in the open, he could’ve seen more details, known right away if they were dealing with Feds. But twilight descended quickly in the forest, and the interior of the Taurus was a murky den in which anyone could be hiding. As he turned onto the drive, Samson almost came to a complete stop. Urbanski held his breath as the van turned right, off the county road and onto the gravel drive. Tires churned rocks into the forest, and a cloud of white dust immediately spawned to life behind them. The Taurus hesitated. There was a moment of indecision, then the car crept around the corner and pulled onto the drive behind the van.
"Shit," Urbanski hissed, barely audible.
"Call ahead," Samson told him. "Tell them."
Urbanski did. He couldn't tell who he talked to – he was bad at identifying voices over the phone – but whoever it was seemed incredulous. "The Feds wouldn't dare," the voice said.
"Well, they did," Urbanski told him. "Just be ready for us." He hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket, then rolled down his window. Dust swept into the van, and Urbanski coughed and wiped his eyes. "Slow down," he said.
Samson did. "Be careful. Let's wait."
"I'll wait," Urbanski said, and turned around on his seat to watch the Taurus. Waiting, as the song went, was the hardest part. Urbanski hated to wait. He couldn't even stand in line at the Wal-Mart. The gun on his lap just made things worse; it suggested that this was serious, that at the end of the wait something bad would happen. If they had to gun down a couple of Feds, even out here in the wilderness with no witnesses, they would have to run. Urbanski had heard stories about running, but had never thought he would have to do it himself. He didn't have much to keep him tied here, but you didn't need much – he had just enough to call it a life. The thought of leaving behind his house, the ex-wife he still talked to, his friends…it was almost unbearable.
Urbanski went cold. The back of his mouth felt dry, numb. His taste buds tingled. He'd been this way that night on guard duty, when he'd first seen the shape moving in the trees. The feeling said, "This shit is going down." For a moment, Urbanski wished it all away – the gun, the Taurus, even the van. He could be at home, watching Jeopardy reruns. He'd been thinking about buying a cat and an inflatable swimming pool. And that waitress at the Steak 'n Shake, Deborah, he'd wanted to ask her out. Sure, she was a few years younger than him, but he had his scars, and women liked that.
He almost didn't notice the Taurus's passenger window roll down. He was lost in his fear, wondering if he'd ever been this afraid, if he'd even come close to this that night he'd accidently shot one of Kingsley's men. He hadn't been on his home turf then; he could've come back to Charleston County and lived peacefully. Now he would have to leave, all on account of some meddling Feds who suddenly decided to take things to the next level.
But he did see the window roll down, and he saw the arm extend. He thought, Don't shoot, keep it cool don't shoot, look for God's sake, look closely. What he said was, "Oh, Jesus."
Completely turned, Urbanski crouched on the seat. His left arm lifted of its own accord, slipped out the window. He wasn't even aware when he began firing; he couldn’t feel anything, not even the Beretta's recoil. He couldn't hear the shots, which was crazy because the gun was fucking loud. He could see the Taurus, though, the windshield cracking, bullets smashing into the hood. He saw the arm draw back inside, slowly, perhaps in shock. There was no gun or badge or anything; he'd noticed that at first, but had let his instincts run away from him. The Beretta hadn't cared if the Taurus's passenger was a threat or not; the Beretta just wanted to be fired, and it fired admirably, until the clip was empty, and even then Urbanksi kept pulling the trigger until Samson grabbed his shoulder and jerked him around.
The van had come to a stop. So had the Taurus, thanks largely to a tree. Samson gripped Urbanski by both shoulders. He was saying something, but Urbanski still couldn't hear. The numbness had gone from his mouth; now it felt thick, wet, like he'd just chewed a bunch of slugs. His hand clenched the Beretta so tightly it hurt; Samson had to pry the pistol away from him, damn near breaking Urbanski's middle finger in the process. Samson dropped the gun on the floor of the van, gave Urbanski one last look, and got out.
Urbanski sat there until he caught up with the rest of the world; he had enough sense to wait at least that small amount of time. It only took a few seconds; suddenly he was hearing again, aware of a pain in his ear, which may or may not have been related to the throbbing in his head and hand. He could taste again, not slugs but vomit, though he didn't throw up. His legs and arms felt heavy, but he still managed to get out of the van. Samson was beside the wrecked car, staring in through the passenger window, and he turned as he heard Urbanski walking up behind him. "I told you to stay in the van."
Urbanski shook his head – it seemed like an appropriate response – and stepped closer to get a better look. The person in the passenger seat was an old man, perhaps seventy. He was still breathing, but wouldn't be for much longer. His face was a mixture of flesh, blood, and glass. The woman in the driver's seat, equally old, was most likely dead; her face was buried in the airbag, but her head was turned at a bad angle. It occurred to Urbanski that she hadn't even been shot – that she'd been a victim of her own reckless driving, killed by the airbag meant to save her life.
He pulled open the passenger door, ignoring – rather, not understanding – Samson's protests. The old man had been pressed against the door; his body lurched against the seatbelt, and he let out a sigh, not his last breath but close to it.
"He was probably just flagging us," Samson said. "Christ."
In the man's hand, the one resting near his wife's body, was a piece of paper with handwriting on it. Urbanski pulled it out and held it up; in the fading light, he recognized what appeared to be a crude map of the area, drawn by someone who had never been there but had merely heard about it.
"They were lost," Samson said. He walked around to the back of the car. "Indiana plates."
Urbanski turned from the Taurus and walked back to the van, still clutching the directions in his fist. He slumped against the vehicle, inhaling the dust that was slowly settling around them. He could hear shouting further down the drive, also the sound of a truck motor turning over. He slid down the side of the van until he was leaning against the tire. He opened his hand and read the directions carefully, several times over, until he was certain he knew where the couple had been going and how to get there. It wasn't that hard to figure out. He'd grown up here; he knew this country like the back of his hand.
Fiction,
Food, Beer, Ammo
“Tell me again why we’re starving to death on this road to oblivion.” She tossed her hair back and laughed, but it was an ironic laugh, as if to show that their self-imposed detour had nothing to do with her. Her disposition, however, was eroding like the road, which was working its fractures from the edges toward the center.
“Just for the hell of it. Back roads, funky small town, down-home-cooking lunch, a kick; that’s all. Small adventure. A three-portage getaway you could call it.” He was referring to the canoeing truth that it only took two portages to separate the real adventurers from the pretenders. Two years earlier, at his urging, they had made such a trip. She had risen to the occasion because she knew it was necessary. It wasn’t any longer. So she felt.
He said, “The town’s ahead; a few more miles if I remember the map. There’ll be someplace to eat there.”
“Whatever. But give me the bit about incompatibility again. It will help pass the time.” She pulled her hair back around to one side and held it there against her cheek. She liked the scent of the conditioner she had used this morning and breathed it in along with the warm, grassy air from the adjacent hay fields.
He cleared his throat and took one hand off the wheel, which he moved through the air, conducting his thoughts as he talked. “Well, it’s just for fun, you know. You see, here we are, cleaned and buffed after four days of resort living and well-wrapped in a confident young-professional identity.” He paused and looked over at the huge hay marshmallows dotting a field. “We’re excessively defined, you might say.” He expected her to laugh with him at themselves.
“You might say that. Most wouldn’t.”
“Well, that’s right. But, the truth is that we’re always enroute from one feeding ground to another. You know, to some milieu that gives us the same psychic nourishment. We go only to those places that certify we’re the chosen. That kind of thing.”
“That kind of thing seems a little fuzzy. You’re falling in love again with trivial ideas. You trot out phrases like ornaments and hang them here and there.” She smiled at her simile; she didn’t play this way so often. “You obviously just want attention.”
He laughed and continued speaking to the windshield. “That’s a pretty good spear. I’ll even admit you’re right; Mea culpa. But it’s obvious that once in awhile we should be somewhere that’s totally indifferent to us.”
“Uh huh. I thought we were just stopping for lunch.”
“Well, the big idea is not only lunch, you see. It’s to make new friends.”
“Oh, God …”
He laughed again, easily, and obviously at himself and waved his free hand at her. “This is not as silly as it sounds. I don’t mean it so literally. You see, what we do … well, we end up in the cafe right at lunchtime, if I’ve timed it right, and successfully encounter the locals. Through one device or another we engage them in common reflections on life itself. They and we gain nothing but mutual appreciation of being in the same boat, even if we don’t see the same horizon.”
“John,” she shifted in her seat to face him, “you sound like some verbally-intense grad student. You don’t have the freedom to fool around with ideas like these. We don’t. They’re joke ideas; they deliver no benefit. And, really, aren’t you just being condescending and pretentious?”
“Sure. We’ll have to transcend condescension and pretension. But there’s something to what I’m saying. It’s an interesting idea. I’ll admit it came from Anna at the office. She and her boyfriend do this kind of thing just to keep fresh, she says. We’re always free enough to explore some idea. We’re as free as we want to be; that’s Anna’s mantra.”
“Oh, groan. Who’s this Anna? I’ve never heard you mention her.”
“She’s the witty one; wears her hair long. She works mostly with Hal. She’s been an associate for a year now. Sharp, but I think a little too unconventional to last. You met her at the last office party; the one at Halleren’s.”
“No, I don’t know her. If she’s given you all this humanity on the same boat stuff, I have to wonder about your hiring.”
“Oh, I’ve just made everything sound a little flaky. Anna’s not. You’d like her as a matter of fact. She’s very aware of things, just like you.”
“If I’m so smart and aware, why am I having lunch in McKinney, population 1,009?” She pointed to a sign on the shoulder of the road. They crested a rise and saw commercial dilapidation running for two blocks on each side of the road. “I not sure I want to sit down in this rural slum for a meal. Really, let’s just head back to the city. Leave all the goofy ideas behind, too.”
“No. No. There’ll be some place that’s okay. I’ll admit it’s a little shabbier than I would have guessed.”
“You’re being kind. Your Anna’s off-the-wall idea has gotten us too far off the track. Let’s just go on.”
“We’ll see. I can’t believe there’s not a decent place to eat. Maybe we missed it.” They were at the end of town now and the road curved tightly to their right. As they went into the turn, a sign appeared just off the shoulder. It was bright yellow with strong black letters: FOOD, BEER, AMMO. Across the gravel parking lot was a sensible brick building with wide, white-framed windows. On one side fluorescent lights illuminated a wall of booths, freestanding tables and a long counter and stools. On the other side the window was full of corn stalks and two stuffed pheasants. You couldn’t see past this display.
“Terrific,” he said. “You have to admit this place looks okay.”
“Food, beer, ammo.” She made it sound like a grocery list. “The choices alone are worth a stop. But you know we don’t have to make any friends, really.”
“Let’s get something good to eat.”
“And drink and shoot,” she added.
Their entry escaped no one; even the cook peered out from the pass-through to the kitchen. What noise there was immediately ceased as they stood rooted a few steps inside the doorway, strange flora swaying slightly under the scrutiny of the natives.
The large woman behind the counter wiped her hands on her apron and spoke loudly. “Sit where you want.” John turned to acknowledge their perfunctory reception but she was heading to the kitchen to deliver a tray of dirty dishes.
Liz prodded John toward one of the booths but he took her arm and moved them to a table in the center of the room. As they took their chairs, he nodded to a senior couple awash in wrinkled gray sitting in the nearby booth. The couple used their license of age to baldly stare. When John glanced over again, they were involved with coffee, pie and whispers. However, above and behind the woman’s head was propped the face of a young girl – five- or six-years old, John guessed – who was standing upon the seat of the adjacent booth. She looked at John and Liz as if they were an extravagant dessert, out of reach high on a shelf.
“Take a look at our first new friend.”
Liz looked up from the menu defensively. “What are you talking about?”
“Girl peeking over the booth.” He indicated with a nod for Liz to turn her head. She hadn’t a chance to see her, however, before a throaty voice pulled the girl back down.
“Sit down there, Nadine, before I smack that butt of yours. I’ve told you about bothering people. Stay down and drink your chocolate milk.”
The woman giving the commands leaned out to look them over. She was forty and worn, in a tight shirt with waitress breasts distorting a faded, silk-screened picture of a panda. Her brown hair was pulled back tightly to the sides of her head. Her face was thin and sharp and angry, as if she spoke only in argument, complaint or confrontation. She was a bar woman. One who talked annoyingly to men for a long time about nothing at all and then went home with one or another. When she saw she had John’s notice, she jerked herself back into the booth.
She said, out of sight and apparently for his benefit, “You bother folks again, you won’t come in here no more. Hear?” She lit a cigarette in the silence that followed, and the smoke burst into a grey bloom over the booth.
“I’ll just have a cup of coffee,” Liz said.
“Nonsense. You’ll be starved before we get home. I’ll order one of their dinners for each of us. Just eat what you want. Let me see. Monday special. Meatloaf dinner; vegetables, potatoes. Terrific. I’ve always wanted to eat a down home cliché.”
“You are what you eat,” she said, and flashed him a superior smile but said nothing further. One side of their table filled with the apron of the heavy woman from behind the counter.
“What you folks going to have?” she asked.
“Two meat loaf dinners. I think I’ll have a beer with mine. What do you have?”
The waitress looked down at him and cocked her head slightly. “You can’t get a beer in here.” She waited expressionless, expecting him to continue with something equally stupid.
“Your sign says beer.”
“That’s off-sale. Buy it on the other side.” She nodded to the opening near the rear. “Off-sale only.”
“Sure. Of course. Just black coffee for each of us. Thanks.” He looked to the rear and saw a table of four men in dirty seed caps and flannel shirts laughing among themselves.
The waitress left and went to the kitchen pass-through. “Two specials,” she half-shouted.
She returned with two coffees and put them down without comment. He took a sip and asked, “How long to the city from here?”
“Couple of hours more or less, depending how you go.” She shrugged and returned behind the counter. The mother of the young girl slid out of her booth and walked to the restrooms in the rear. John watched as the four seed caps turned to follow her progress and then huddled closely to bob with their jokes.
“Here you are.” The plates were set down abruptly, seemingly dropped from an inch above the table. “I’ll be by with more coffee,” she said, already turning away.
“Are you really going to eat this?” Liz asked quietly, barely moving her lips. She looked down at her plate and nudged it with her thumb toward the center of the table.
He leaned forward. “Come on. Don’t go elitist on me. This is hearty fare. I haven’t had meat loaf in years. I’ll bet it’s great. Eat your vegetables.”
She offered a grimace and used her fork to pierce a couple of green beans.
He had a few bites, sampled the potatoes, murmured a ‘good’ to Liz and then had to turn, mouth full, to see who had tapped him on the shoulder.
“I can read,” the girl said, moving close, pressing against John’s shoulder. Liz looked across the table but gave her no recognition. John took a napkin to his mouth, set it down primly and said in stentorian judgment, “No you can’t. A girl as young as you could not read. It’s impossible.” He turned away.
She answered back with petulant authority, a bit theatrical but confidant. “I can so. I can read better than kids in school. Better than my brother. My last dad taught me.”
Liz looked away; John turned back and said, “I just can’t believe you could be that smart. Hardly anybody is that smart. Let me see …” John took the menu from the holder. “Can you read this?” He pointed to a line on the bottom: Coffee is not included with dinner orders. No substitutions.
The girl took the menu from his hand and held it close to her face. Her hair fell forward, and she held it back with one hand while she studied the line. She began without looking up, “Cof … fee is not … in … clud … included with di … din … ner, dinner or … ders, orders. No sub … sub … . I don’t know that word. It’s too long.”
He bent toward her, his head brushing against hers. He whispered, a secret truth. “No it’s not. It’s not too long at all. Long just means it’s a bunch of small pieces. Let’s do it one piece at a time. You’ve already said the first piece: sub.” He took the menu from her hand and used his little finger to point at the word. Say the first part again.”
“Sub.”
“Right. Now here’s the next part: `sti.’ It sounds like the first part of stick. Say that for me.”
“Stick.”
“Just the first sound, not the ‘ck’ sound.”
“Sti. Sub – sti.”
“Terrific. Here’s the next piece: ‘tu.’ Sounds just like the number. Say it for me.”
“Tu.”
“Of course.”
“Here’s the last piece: ‘tion.’ It doesn’t sound like it looks at all. It sounds like `shun.’ You know other words with that sound. Like motion or attention … “
“Abortion,” she said and bounced up on her toes.
He didn’t miss a beat. “Right. So say that sound for me.”
“Shun.”
“Absolutely. Let’s put all the pieces together.” He brought his finger to the beginning of the word.
“Sub … stick, no, sti… tu … tion.”
“Terrific. Say them together, fast.”
“Substi … tution. Substitution.”
“Substitution. Wow, are you good. Put an ‘s’ on the end.”
“Substitutions.” The girl held the menu to her chest full of glee. A hand reached over and roughly took it away.
“Nadine, why you bothering these folks? You get back to your booth, you hear?” The waitress pushed against her with her thigh. John placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“She hasn’t bothered us. She’s welcome to stay right here.” The girl pressed into him. He saw her mother walking rapidly to their table, her face one of harsh contrasts from her just-applied makeup. The waitress turned toward her as if John weren’t there.
“Marge. Nadine’s at it again. Get control of this girl.”
He looked up at the mother, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. He spoke to the air. “She was a pleasure, not a problem.” The mother paid no attention to his remark and came around to grab the girl by the arm. She whipped her with words.
“Damn it, Nadine. I’m going to burn that butt of yours. You get out to the car now. Get.” The girl bolted toward the door, rubbing her eyes.
“She was no bother,” John said again. The mother walked away without answering beyond a hissing sound.
Liz whispered with urgency, “John, let’s get out of here.” Not waiting for an answer, she continued, “I’ll use the restroom and meet you in the car.” She got up and the four seed caps bobbed as they looked her over. He sat there eating his meatloaf until she returned.
“Why are you sitting there? I’ll meet you in the car. I’d like to get going.”
“Okay, okay. I’m just going to the other side and look around. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” He handed her the keys. He didn’t look up.
“What are you talking about? Oh, never mind. Just don’t take long.”
He sat for another minute, a few more bites, a sip of water, a sip of coffee. Then he got up and met the waitress at the cash register.
“Your wife didn’t like the food.”
“No, it wasn’t that. Her stomach’s been a little upset is all. Is the other side open?”
“Sure. That’s eleven-eighty.” She stabbed his check onto a small metal spear.
He handed her a ten and a five and said, “That’s fine.” She said nothing. He left it at that and walked to the other side.
The room was large, dark and cluttered. Along the left wall were refrigerated cabinets full of beer, sodas, and milk. Twelve-packs of beer were also stacked on the floor. John walked over, took one from a waist-high column and carried it to the counter behind which was a wall of shotguns, rifles and camouflaged hunting bows.
The man behind the counter was coarsely fat, bald down to his ears and bearded. He was smoking a cigarette as he listened to another man leaning over the counter.
“She’s a goddamned bitch, is what she is.” The speaker was tall, wiry, leathery, two-day bearded and gravel-voiced. He tapped dirty fingers on the glass as he talked. “She had no call…”
John set his beer down on the counter, and both the men looked up. The fat man crushed his cigarette into a lump in the ashtray. He spoke to his companion first, breathing smoke into his face, “Well, you’re right. You’re right. All you gotta do is figure what to do about it.”
“Twelve-pack is all?” he asked, placing a hand on top of the carton.
“Yeah, that’ll do it. I was just going to look at your guns for a minute. Interesting. You’ve got an interesting selection.”
The man behind the counter tapped the beer carton with his fingers and looked John over. He fingered his beard. As if that were his signal to move, the other man came over to a few feet from John’s side.
“What are you shooting now?” the fat man asked. He squinted as he spoke, and the thick flesh above and below his eyes puffed up.
“Well, I don’t shoot anything. I don’t own a gun.”
“You don’t own a gun?”
“No. Never have.”
“You from the city then?”
“Right.”
“Hell, you need one more than we do.” He laughed and his companion’s face took on a smirk of agreement.
John shrugged. “Oh, it always sounds worse than it is. I wonder, if you don’t mind… could I take a look at that one.” He pointed to a rifle with an octagonal barrel, large telescopic sight, an oddly curved trigger guard and a complicated leather sling. “It looks really interesting.” The man watching at John’s side hissed a “shit” through his teeth. The fat man gave a reproving glance to his friend and then leaned forward like a bartender.
“Well, sure you can. That one’s got quite a story behind it. Odd as hell how you just picked it out, Lemme get it down for you.”
The observer on his left had now backed off a step and lit a cigarette. The fat man pulled the rifle down, slid a foam pad over on the counter and laid it carefully upon it. “This here is Lou’s gun, or was until I bought it from him. It’s a twenty-five ought six, single-shot, high-wall Browning with a six by twenty Leupold on it. That crazy bastard Lou could hit a gnat off a mosquito’s ass with that setup. You go ahead and get a feel for it.” He waved his hand over the rifle to suggest John pick it up.
He lifted the rifle to his shoulder, surprised by the weight. He closed his left eye and looked through the scope. He saw only black. Still holding the rifle to his shoulder, he said, “I can’t see anything through this.”
The wiry man laughed but kept his cigarette between his lips. He said, “Just move you head forward and back; the eye relief’s wrong for you. That’s all.”
John shifted his head backwards and suddenly the black circle filled with a blur of colors. “Everything’s blurry.”
“Hand it here for a minute,” the fat man directed. “Scope’s on twenty power is the problem.” He twisted a serrated ring near the rear objective. “Take a look now.”
John replaced the rifle at his shoulder and shifted his head back and forth. The black circle changed to a razor-sharp image of a mounted fish hanging on the wall. He tried to hold the cross hairs steady on the fish’s head, but couldn’t. “That’s six power now,” the fat man said.
“This is something to hold,” he allowed, still keeping it trained more or less on the fish. “It’s a heavy piece.” He removed it from his shoulder and cradled it in front of his chest. He put the rifle on the counter. “You said there was a story behind it.”
The fat man shrugged his shoulders for his companion’s benefit and began speaking in a lowered voice. “Well, you see, this Lou we’re talking of had the Ford dealership in town. Closed down now. Lou couldn’t make it because everybody around here was going into the city to buy Jap. That’s what he said. It was a bit true I suppose. But, he got himself worked up on it, and you could understand why, having to close down after being in town so many years. Anyway, when he finally closed up, well, he kind of snapped a little.” The man took some pleasure in the telling of this, and John pressed him with his enthusiasm.
“What happened? What did he do?”
Both of the men laughed again but just with each other.
“It was kind of nice, if you really get down to it,” the wiry man offered. “Not that crazy, really.”
The fat man wasn’t about to give up the story and left his friend’s point of view hanging there in the air. “Not sure when he started, but what Lou did was take this rifle of his with that fancy glass and made him a real nice blind on the hill just off the road as you head out of town.”
“Yep, that’s what he did for a fact,” the wiry man attested. “He ended up in line with the road, but he still had to work with that down angle, of course. No way you would spot him.”
“So then,” the fat man went on, “if a Jap car would come in or out of town when Lou was on his watch, he would take that piece with its twenty-power glass and, pow, shoot the goddamn mirror off one side or the other. Now those mirrors, well, they would just explode into nothing. One second they were there, the next second they weren’t.”
“Goddamn,” the wiry man inserted, “that was some fine, goddamned shooting. Those cars going forty-fifty as they were. He was shooting at near two and figuring that down angle. That was good work.”
“Yeah, it was,” the fat man agreed.
John was leaning against the counter now and in this natural pause, spoke without thinking. “Shooting the mirrors off. That’s something. I’m glad the guy isn’t around. I’ve got a Japanese car.”
Both men straightened, the fat man saying, “Do you now? Well, that’s interesting as all get out with you hearing this story. But, Lou’s still around. He’s around. Hell, we can just shout out the back door, and he’d come on over. Anyway, when we finally figured out what th’hell was happening, we just took care of things ourselves.”
“How did you know what was going on?”
“We figure he got three, four mirrors before he made a mistake. A good joke, a joke on himself, if you come down to it. Lou didn’t know his cars well enough. He potted a mirror but it was on some Kraut car, and it didn’t just blow to pieces like the rest. The guy pulls into the cafe all crazy, and I go and look, and sure enough there is a neat little hole in the mounting that’s left. Well, I thought on that and of course I figured it quick.
“Well, you’re not going to come down hard on a man over a bunch of cheap-shit Jap mirrors. So we just had a little talk with him about what we thought was going on. I told him I’d just buy that sharpshooter gun from him because I wasn’t going to able to sell him the ammo anymore. He took it fine. Knew we was right, of course.”
“That’s a fantastic story.” He was excited to take it along.
“I know,” the fat man said, moving away a few steps. “I know. Don’t usually tell that story. We’re always private about things like that. Just your interest and all that made it come out. Be best if you don’t think of it as something to tell around, like some kind of joke, you know.” He looked at him with hard judgment in his eyes. Their conversation had ended. He replaced the rifle in the display and walked to the end of the counter. The wiry man followed along on the other side. When John paid for the beer, the money was exchanged but not another word.
When he opened the driver’s door, Liz tossed her magazine on the floor and started right in with vicious, clipped words. “How could you let me sit out here for so long? I had two creeps in a pickup leering at me for the last five minutes. Why I am being punished for some loopy idea of that flake at your office?”
He had not expected the steam. “Liz, damn, I’m really sorry. I am. I was listening to this unbelievable story … about this guy who used to run the Ford dealership. I mean it’s fantastic. But, I’ll tell it to you as we go.
Liz propped her head against the window and closed her eyes. He drove ten over the limit and, because he just could not stop himself from doing so, watched the rise of the land behind them in his side view mirrors (“We could just call out back, and he’ll come on down.”) until the town was well past. He then related his story. Liz did not move her head until he had finished and some minutes of silence had passed. “Wasn’t that something?” he asked softly.
She didn’t turn to look at him. “It was crazy and nothing, John. It was as ugly as our waitress, as dumb as that meat loaf dinner and as screwed up as that mother and her daughter. You’re turning into some kind of weird voyeur.”
“Liz, I’m sorry all this got to you the wrong way. You’re more right than I am. I was following my own fancies.”
They drove on in silence. John grew comfortable with his aloneness. It was those sonofabitches in the pickup that had spooked her.
Neither saw it until it was upon them. A hen pheasant burst out of the roadside grass and slammed into the windshield, a feathered fist swung hard enough to shake the entire car. At the instant it hit, he pushed himself away from the steering wheel. This reaction caused his foot to press hard on the gas and the car shot forward with a jerk. The pheasant’s head lay flush against the glass, its strange, glassy eye looking in and blood dripping down on the glass out of its broken beak. He slowed. He would have to stop. Liz was screaming down at the floor and pounding her fists on the dash. Her screams turned into words.
“John, I hate you! I hate you! You’ve ruined everything. Everything. Get it off! Get it off!” She again pounded her fists against the dash. Tears tracked her cheeks.
He went halfway onto the shoulder. He threw his door open but before getting out couldn’t stop himself from answering the trauma within. “Shut up, Liz!” he shouted at the crouching, shaking figure. “Shut the fuck up! It’s just a goddamned bird! You cowardly twit!” He slammed the door behind him.
John grabbed the pheasant at the neck. It was still warm, and the feathers were slippery with blood. He pulled hard at the bird but it wouldn’t come free. His hand slipped up the neck, and he felt its blood run between his fingers. He didn’t let go. He used his other hand to grasp the bird’s tangled foot, wincing at the cold, lizard-like skin. The bird came free, and the wiper slapped back against the windshield. He held the bird by both feet, took it to the edge of the grass and threw it in a long and gentle arc, its broken wing fluttering awkwardly in the air. He watched it land noiselessly in the grass and disappear. He stuck two fingers into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his hands. He gave them some spit and wiped them a second time. He went back to the car, rubbed the window and the wiper clean and rolled the handkerchief into a ball and threw it toward the grass. It unraveled in the air and floated down on the shoulder; he went and kicked at it. He left it there.
They drove the rest of way without speaking. In the course of the next few days they tried awkward, confuse-the-issue apologies, an expensive, ceremonial dinner and all the ersatz thoughtfulness that covers for lack of care. But nothing worked because neither could find the words to frame the problem. By the end of the week, John had made other living arrangements. He moved his things when Liz was at the club.
Whenever he happened to think of the ‘lunch’ trip, three images always came to mind: the little girl who could read pressing against his shoulder; the fat, bearded man leaning over his counter to tell his story; the broken-winged pheasant tumbling through the air into the grass. Each one of these story-pictures stayed with him far longer than his memory of her.
Poetry,
What We Lose Loving Another
young frozen saplings have no seed
or blooms that mirror the moon
can a flame consume something so virginal
can the canopy of your embrace clothe these naked wounds
or the absence of wet kisses hydrate an Egyptian Lotus
and we, like crows drenched in morning dew
spread our wings over the dead, defending our dowry
Poetry,
Weightless
On a clear night when the moon is down
A skyward glance can sweep me
Into stillness.
Voices mute
Surrounds dissolve away,
I am captured by the silent
Lavish sky.
Captured
In the weightless calm
Of perfect non-responsibility:
In all that vastness
There is not a single thing
I had anything to do with,
And not a single thing
I can do anything about.
Rapt and heedless
The roiling grown-up drifts,
For a moment guiltless
As a child.
Poetry,
The Mexican Colors of Poetry
A Mexican
Obsessed with emotional colors –
Magenta and fuchsia and striking turquoise –
Remembers his land
Where long ago he was happy.
His mind returns to the house
With one door and two windows
That changes its colors from hour to hour.
This house, surrounded by flowers
Of heavenly shades like paradise birds,
Returns every night in his dreams.
But every day in his sketches
He changes the colors
To more fluorescent American hues.
Poetry,
Sirocco
The hot wind writes its name,
swirling grains in the restless vortex,
a mystical, ageless, circular dance.
Where whirling charged atoms
come to settle between gusts
into familiar shapes, frozen waves
in this strangely desolate and arid ocean,
forming idiosyncratic hills and ridges
that defy any notion that time can be tamed.
Fiction,
Stella’s Starwish
I'd been working at Shady Grove almost a year the morning Clarence moved in. It wasn’t a day I would have remembered otherwise, since it started fairly typical with Mama red-eyed on the sofa and Hector passed out on the kitchen floor. Nothing new on the home front. It was wall-to-wall traffic all the way up I-10, as usual. My AC was on the fritz, so the commute was literally hell on wheels, and the only thing my radio was picking up was ET trying to make first contact. Beam me up, I thought. No such luck. When you’re Mama’s only child, young and healthy, you work. Others had careers, I had a job.
After I’d changed into my uniform, Mrs. Jackson took me over to meet the new inmate. “Mr. Savage,” said Mrs. Jackson. “This is Stella. She’ll be cleaning your room.” Mr. Savage bobbed his head at me. They were all polite when they first arrived. Once he’d gotten used to the place, he’d be pinching my butt and hissing dirty jokes in my ear along with the rest of them.
“I’m so glad you’ve decided to join us, Mr. Savage,” I recited. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call. We pride ourselves on prompt and courteous service.”
Mrs. Jackson beamed at me. It had taken her hours of hard work to get The Speech crammed down my throat. The fact that the janitorial staff was never needed for “prompt and courteous service” meant nothing to her. Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation or the Bill of Rights.
“Call me Clarence,” he said. I expected that. While Mrs. Jackson always insisted that we address everyone by their family names so as to “preserve an atmosphere of propriety,” nobody else followed her example, especially not towards the staff. I was always plain old Stella right from the get go.
That morning I went about my normal routine. Cleaning up the public rooms comes first, since most of the old folks s;eep in. I guess there isn’t much point in getting up early when all you’re doing is dying. I always start with the chapel. I enjoy the quiet. Best of all it is cool. There isn't much of that at home. Hector is too cheap to put in central air, so my room is an oven in the summer even with the window unit, which hardly works anyway. I like to sit in the front pew for a few moments before I get on with my rounds, just to gather my thoughts.
After the chapel is clean, I move on to the public bathrooms, the dining room, the rec room, and the TV room. By then most of the old folks are tottering about, so I can start on their bedrooms. When I got to Mr. Savage’s room, I banged on his door and waited. On my very first day of work at Shady Grove, Mrs. Jackson told me to always knock real hard and call out their names. She said we needed to respect the "members' personal space.” I was much more concerned with my own. Some of the men had an uncanny way of popping up stark naked when you came in to clean. I hoped Mr. Savage wasn’t going to be one of those.
“Mr. Savage!” I hollered. I began counting to thirty before I turned the key. That would give him plenty of time to come to the door if he was still in there. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be; Mrs. Jackson liked to take her new “members” for a tour of Shady Grove the day after they arrived. She liked to tell them all about the “estate” and how it had been in her family for generations and all that la-de-dah. So it just about knocked my socks off when the door opened smack in my face. I hadn't even made it to five.
“I can hear just fine,” he said. He was wearing a pair of khakis and a green plaid shirt buttoned all the way to the top.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Some of the members…”
“I understand,” he said. “Come in.”
I peeked into his room. It was neat as a pin. “I’ll only be a minute,” I said. Maybe less. His room was already so clean I probably wouldn’t have to do much more than mop. I waited a moment for Clarence to go away, but he just stood there holding the door open. As I angled past him I noticed that he didn’t smell like a shut-in. Old people, when they’ve been housebound for a while, start to smell musty. Clarence smelled like a man who worked with his hands. Clean and sharp. He watched me as I mopped the linoleum, which made me nervous.
“Y’all are gonna love it here. Everybody’s real friendly, and nice. And when the weather cools off, all y'all can take a walk in the old pecan grove.” I tend to rattle on when I get nervous. “Y'all can even send some pecans home to your loved ones next Christmas. Everybody does.” I took a breath. Clarence was looking at me funny. I noticed his eyes were a clear gray.
“All y’all?” he said. His face was round and pleasant when he smiled, but my feathers had been ruffled.
“You aren’t from around here, are you?” I said, real slow.
His face got serious again. “No, I’m from Maine.”
I'd already taken him for a Yankee. His skin was too smooth for a Texan, even a transplanted one. Old Texans don’t have wrinkles, they have ruts. Still, my jaw dropped. Maine was on the other side of the world. I couldn’t imagine a farther place. “How on earth did you get down here?” The question just fell out of my mouth. Then I realized I’d forgotten my manners, so I had to apologize again.
“No, no,” he said. “That’s a good question. We Yankees find Texas fascinating. It’s the lure of the Old West.”
Having lived in Texas my whole life, I didn’t see anything luring about the West, old or new. But I had a Texan’s pride in my state, which is to say, knee-jerk. The only real requirement for graduation in Texas is to remember the Alamo, which we did every spring, regardless of the fact that most of my classmates would likely have been fighting on the other side.
“See y’all tomorrow,” I said. His smell stayed with me all day. Like Christmas.
By the time I got home, Mama and Hector had made up and were watching TV on one of the velveteen couches. Mama has three of them. With Mama, everything is either too many or too much. Hector had one beefy, tattooed arm draped around her and the other wrapped around a six-pack. The two of them were drunk as skunks courting in Kentucky.
“Yo, mamacita,” said Hector.
I hate it when he calls me that. In spite of appearances, and a lot of effort on his part, Hector doesn’t have a drop of Spanish blood in him. Mama, on the other hand, is a direct descendent of Don Quixote.
Hector tried to grab my butt when I walked by, but I was ready for him. My purse has a five-pound mini barbell in it. Mama never shifted her fake eyelashes from the screen. “That’s disgusting!” she said. Some idiot was chowing down on a plate of worms. She took a swig of beer. “There’s spaghetti,” she said.
Somehow I managed to get back to my room without having to hit Hector again. The house was a classic shotgun with one long central hall going from front to back. It was a simple design, but whoever built it hadn't been sober long enough to read a blueprint. There wasn't a 90-degree angle in the place, and all the doors swung the wrong way, out instead of in. If you weren't careful, you could brain someone – not that anybody around here had any.
I switched on the window unit, but all it did was bitch and moan. Just like my eighth-grade boyfriend – all jaw and no action. But I appreciated the racket. It blocked out the noises Hector and Mama would be making later on. That night I dreamed about the Titanic again. I especially like the part where it goes down.
I liked Clarence. He never asked questions like didn’t I have a boyfriend, and how many boyfriends had I had – and he never, ever treated me like a servant. At first I couldn’t resist boasting. I’d heard Texas described a lot of ways, but never, to my knowledge, had anybody ever called it “fascinating.” As far as I was concerned, Texas was nothing more than a giant griddle –flat as a pancake and hotter than Hades. Of course, I never let on. The fact that he thought it was interesting made me feel good – like I was special, too, somehow. And Clarence was a good listener. When he sat down and cocked an ear at me, it made me stand up tall. In fact, I got so high and mighty it took a couple of weeks for me to realize I didn’t know a thing about him, which was not the normal run of events. Usually, after two or three days, I could recite an inmate’s life story by heart.
“What’s Maine like?” I asked.
“The interior is mostly woods,” he said. “But I grew up on the coast. In my younger days, I was a lobsterman,” he added. "Later on, I built boats."
I should have guessed. That clean, sharp smell was sawdust. I could see him in a workshop, sawing something. Although, I have to say, I couldn’t imagine Clarence pulling those big ugly red things out of the water. With those evil-looking claws grabbing at you, how in God’s creation did you get the hook out? You probably had to bash ‘em upside the head with a hammer, which I couldn’t see neat-and-tidy Clarence doing. Anyway, Clarence didn’t smell like the fishing type. Fishermen drank.
“I’ve never seen the ocean,” I said.
This time it was his turn to look surprised.
“Well,” he said. “It’s big.”
I knew what he was talking about. Texas is big. “I know all about big,” I told him. “I could drive all day and never even make it out of this county.”
Clarence pulled on his chin and thought about that for a while. I could tell I’d impressed him.
“Ayuh,” he said. “I had a car like that once.”
Well, I just about popped my panties laughing.
“That’s a very old joke,” he said, shaking his head. “You must have heard it before.”
I hadn't, but I didn’t want to be shown up by quiet Clarence. Besides, I really had seen big bodies of water. My entire tenth-grade class had taken a field trip to the capital, and on the way back we’d stopped for a picnic on Lake Travis. I told him about it.
“The ocean is a lot bigger,” he said.
“Well, that may be,” I admitted. “But I’ll bet you dimes to dollars you couldn’t swim across Lake Travis.”
Now it was his turn to laugh, though I didn’t know why. “You won that bet,” he said. “I couldn’t swim across a bathtub.”
I gave him a skeptical look. I was beginning to get the suspicion that he had been pulling my leg all along. “You said you caught lobsters.”
“I did,” he said. “Lobstermen can’t swim. The water off the coast of Maine is so cold, if you fell overboard, you’d be dead in ten minutes.” He swirled his tea, making the ice cubes clink against the sides of the glass. “It’s like ice,” he said.
“That sounds real good,” I told him. “I’d like that.”
It was May, and the heat was just revving up. You couldn’t fry an egg on the sidewalk yet, but you could probably poach one. Every morning I would arrive at work just itching to get Clarence into a conversation about that big old ice bath. I swear it made me feel cooler just to hear him talk about it. I’d lean up against the wall for a few minutes after I’d mopped – there never was anything else to do in Clarence’s room – and I swear I could feel that cool sea breeze blowing right over me. He had a way of telling stories that would make me fall down laughing, though I could never remember how he did it afterwards. He would just sit in his chair, pulling his chin. Maybe it was because he’d made me laugh so much that I forgot my manners one day.
“How come you don’t have any pictures on your dresser?” I asked him. Everybody else at Shady Grove had scads of family photos propped up on just about every surface. That’s why it never took me any time to clean up Clarence’s room. There was nothing to dust.
Clarence didn’t answer me. So I just stood there like a moron until it dawned on me that I was way out of line. Stupid me. I’d forgotten Rule Number One: Staff is Not Permitted to Make Personal Inquiries of Members.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Clarence still didn’t say anything. He looked out the window to where the crape myrtles were blooming. Crape myrtles are perfect for this climate. They bloom all summer long and don’t mind the heat. I imagine that’s why Mrs. Jackson’s illustrious ancestors had planted them everywhere. On second thought, it was the gardeners who had planted them. My illustrious ancestors. I was almost through the door when Clarence finally said something.
“My wife died a year ago last March,” he said. “We didn’t have any children.”
Now, I felt terrible. “Oh, I am sorry,” I said again. This time I meant it. Clarence looked so forlorn. All of a sudden I wanted to go over and hug him. Instead, I stood in the doorway like a fool, holding a mop and a bucket in my hands. Clarence shook his head and sighed. “She was from Texas.”
I stood there for a bit, trying to think of something to say that would cheer him up. “Did she say all ya’ll?” I asked. “Like me?”
Clarence looked me right in the eye. “Just like you.”
Hector and Mama were going at it full blast when I got home. She was calling him a hijo de puta, which is the only thing she can say in Spanish, and he was yelling about somebody named Frank. I heard some thumps and crying. But was 101 degrees and after spending an hour getting passed by suits yakking on their cell phones inside Audis that had frickin' frost on the windows, I was in no mood to call the police. So I went to my room and turned on the AC as loud as it would go. I also turned on the radio for good measure. Then I stretched out on the bed, praying for world peace, for a sea of ice, for anything but this. I lay there for a while with my ears cocked – just in case things got really nasty. Then, in spite of the heat, Willie Nelson, and the sound of dishes flying around the kitchen, I fell asleep.
What woke me up was the quiet. The whole world was dead. I looked over at my clock and saw nothing. Outage. In the summer, with all of Texas trying to reinvent Alaska, the power frequently goes out. I got up and went to the window. There were lights on in some of the houses. Maybe it was just a blown fuse. I threw on a robe, since I wasn’t wearing much, and tried to remember where the fuse box was. Or did we have switches?
My door wouldn’t open. I shoved and pushed and kicked, but it wouldn’t budge. Something heavy was blocking it. Finally I started yelling, but nobody heard me; Mama and Hector were probably out cold. Eventually my brain woke up. I went to the window and pushed out the AC unit. Even though it didn’t work, the thing still weighed a ton – kind of like Hector. Then I climbed out the window and hopped onto the lawn.
When I came around to the front of the house, I saw the door hanging open. Hector’s car was gone, so he must have stormed off after tonight’s fight. Total idiot, I thought. Don’t y’all come back now. The house was pitch black, but I knew it well enough to find what I needed. Neither Mama nor Hector had gotten around to opening any of the drawers in the kitchen – except, of course, for the one that had the bottle opener in it – so the flashlight was still where I’d put it when we moved in last year.
The kitchen was a wreck. But, that was to be expected. I hadn’t gone in there for a while, so there’d been plenty of time for TV dinner trays and dirty dishes to pile up. The cans were having a powwow on the floor with some broken plates and there was a bunch of empty bottles on the table. It looked like Hector and Mama had graduated to the hard stuff last night. Or maybe it had been that way all week. I hadn’t been keeping track.
I walked out of the kitchen and headed down the hallway to the back of the house. There was something heaped in front of my door. “Mama,” I said. I shook her as hard as I could. When I tried to lift her, Mama’s head snapped back like a broken doll. I called 911.
When the ambulance arrived, I still hadn’t been able to wake her. I hadn’t even thought about the fuses, so I had to lead the medics through the house with my flashlight. I was glad they couldn’t see most of it. But what they couldn’t see, they could smell. They took Mama straight to the detox unit of the hospital.
The doctor who finally came out to see me looked harried. It was 4 a.m. “She’ll need to stay here for a couple of weeks,” he said, glancing at her chart. “Are you a relative?”
I said yes.
“Good,” he said. “You’ll have to sign some papers.”
“Will she be all right?” I asked.
The doctor took a good look at me. “You aren’t a minor, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I turned eighteen last August.” And if we'd been in China, that would have been God's honest truth.
“Good,” said the doctor. “Go to the main desk. They’ll have the papers ready.”
He hadn’t answered my question. After I signed the papers, the nurse told me that I should probably take a couple weeks off work. It might help Mama to have someone there for support. I asked her if Mama was going to be all right.
“That depends,” she said.
There wasn’t much I could say to that.
I called in sick and told Mrs. Jackson I needed some time off. She grumped about unreliable help, but didn’t say I was fired. Thank God for small favors. Then I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I needed to talk to somebody. I got into the car and drove to work, hoping that Mrs. Jackson wouldn’t catch me on the premises. I’d have a hard time explaining my miraculous recovery from the plague. Clarence looked so happy to see me, I felt like bawling.
“I thought you were sick,” he said.
“No, my mother’s not well.” I said. “I’m going to have to take care of her for a couple of weeks.”
Clarence waved me into his room and shut the door. He pulled up a chair for me and then sat on the edge of his bed.
“Is there anything I can do?” he said softly.
I just looked at him, sitting there in his green plaid shirt. Even first thing in the morning his eyes were clear and bright. He didn’t look like the sort of person who had ever gotten falling down drunk, or tried to pinch his step-daughter’s butt, or carted his mother off to detox. He looked like…Maine. “No,” I said. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Clarence sighed and nodded. He knew I was in over my head. And what made me love him is that he didn’t call me out on it. He respected my decision to keep my problems to myself. And I knew that whenever I wanted to talk, he’d be there. In the end that was all I really needed. Just knowing Clarence was there was enough.
We sat for a moment. Then Clarence got up and took something out of the top drawer of his dresser. He handed me a little box. “Open it,” he said. "I was saving it for Christmas, but now seems to be a good time."
Inside the box was a rusty-looking thing with five points, like a star. The top of it was covered with tiny pimples. I didn't want to know what was on the bottom. It looked like something one of those weirdos on TV might eat if you offered him enough money.
“It’s a starfish,” he said.
It didn’t look even remotely like a fish. But, then again, lobsters don’t look like anything you’d want to put in your mouth either. “Did you used to catch these things, too?” I asked.
"There's a note," he said. "Underneath."
I lifted up one corner of the starfish with tip of my fingernail and saw a small square of paper. A Star for Stella, it said.
“Um,” I mumbled. I wasn’t good at getting gifts.
"Make a wish,” he said. “It’s a star.”
“I don’t have anything to wish for,” I lied.
Clarence looked down at me. “Follow your dreams, Stella,” he said. “While you still have them.” He held out his hand for me to shake, an unusual gesture for him. He’d never touched me before. I said goodbye to him then.
“Y’all come back now,” he said.
“Ayuh,” I replied. “I’ll send you a post card.”
When I came back to work, I was excited about seeing Clarence again. Hector had disappeared, and Mama seemed to be doing much better without him. She had lost that gray haggard look, and she'd even whipped up a batch of chicken fried steak on her first night home. But with Mama it was hard to get hopeful. Within a month or two she’d probably be slugging it out with her next Hector – or maybe the same one. Anyhow, I was glad for the peace and quiet, even if it was temporary. I’d brought Clarence a big Stetson, just for laughs. I was sure he wouldn’t wear it.
It was early, so I put on my uniform and started on my rounds. The chapel was quiet, as always, but this morning it was filled with flowers. There was a casket on the dais. Oh, no, I thought. Mrs. Perkins has finally died. Delia Perkins was in her nineties and as fragile as a china teacup. We all expected her to go any minute.
I walked over to the casket and peered inside. Lying within the pale satin interior was a man in a suit and tie. He looked familiar. “Is that really you?” I said. Some idiot had put glasses on his face. “Oh, Clarence,” I whispered. “I bet you never wore glasses a day in your life.”
All at once, I had to sit down. I must have sat in the front pew for an hour. That’s about how long it takes me to make a decision. On my way out I gave Mrs. Jackson my notice. She didn’t look at all surprised. “You can’t count on young people nowadays,” she said.
When the chapel was opened for the service, the glasses Mrs. Jackson had placed on Clarence were missing. On his head he wore a big, black Stetson hat. A note was tucked into the hatband: Gone fishin'.
On Christmas Eve, a post card arrived at Shady Grove Estate addressed to Mr. Clarence Savage. A box was kept in the main office for letters and cards such as these. In her spare time Mrs. Jackson would sit at her desk and inspect them for return addresses. She liked to write the letters of condolence herself. It gave Shady Grove that genteel touch for which it was famous. She held the card a moment in her hand, automatically looking at the picture. Inappropriately, given the time of year, it was a photograph of waves crashing violently against dark, jagged rocks.
“Not very holiday-like,” she murmured. Mrs. Jackson turned the card over. It was postmarked Southwest Harbor, Maine. There was no return address. “Dear Clarence,” she read. “You were right. It’s bigger than Lake Travis. Wish y’all were here. Love, Stella.”
Poetry,
Pearly Gates
They work for Diablo. How do you know? Notice the curled lip
when she speaks. More snarl than smile, wouldn’t you say?
Now that you mention it. Some have the habit of interlocking
fingers & squeezing their knuckles white. Tell tale. Then the
passing of the buck, not the móola, of course. They’d never
squander an opportunity to squeeze more dollars past white
knuckles & pocket those greenbacks with a finger snap & a
snarl. No sir, the bucks they pass are the fallout from their
misdeeds. Their fiberglass eyes don’t quiver, dance or flinch.
Not one bit. What sort of problems will they face in heaven?
I don’t think heaven’ll be their biggest concern (chuckle).
Anyway, Diablo hasn’t seen the Pearly Gates for quite some
time, now.
Poetry,
Ontario, California
Orange groves flow the valley floor, blossom scent
carried through small farms, grange, nascent union hall,
main street of small shops, train depot, Mexican
shacks across the tracks. Grandfather owned
a quarter of today’s sprawl – before strip malls
and mega churches. Suburbs and eminent
domain upturned the groves until the house
he built with my grandmother was the last
one still bordered by small lots of orange trees,
as ramblers and split-levels sprouted like
noxious weeds. My very own park, amidst
the newly paved neighborhoods, I found
it magical to visit as a child,
despite the traffic fumes. Each branch as thick
as my arm, festooned with enough fruit to keep
me sick for days.
As a young man, grandpa
made daily deals, traded horses, bartered
for this and that, became a master carpenter,
union leader, a roughneck dandy, tan banned
Stetson fedora, decorated with
a quail feather, and always his easy
tweed jackets he wore with certain grace.
A quiet man, slow to anger, he could boil.
He fought the union and its lackeys,
the scabs and the busters, and any other sorry
son-of-a-bitch who tried to cheat him
or his sons in a deal.
His father marked him
as an idiot, said he’d amount to nothing.
He was now, own sweat of his brow, without need,
traveling the world, but still cutting out coupons
from the Sunday inserts. Sitting in his red
leather chair, slowly reading Leaves of Grass
through a magnifying glass. He was then
a creaky old man when I knew I loved him.
Nearly deaf at the time, he told me stories
of killing frosts, working through nights with my
uncles Howard and Lee, hustling smudge pots
to the groves, fearing they might be too late,
but always getting in before the rot.
The words came easy, animated voice,
playful narratives, wry ironies,
quiet rasp to laugh to cough. My only
lesson in the way a man can show love
to a young man with true tenderness not
mediated through a chronic disease.
I listened. I loved to listen. Sometimes
he’d finish one of his stories and see
that I’d taken in every word, his eyes
glassy, he’d look to me and say, “You’re a
good man, Charlie Brown.” And I believed him.
Poetry,
One Last Leaf
The way one last leaf
Upon a Winter’s branch
Held by will alone
If not by chance
Reminded me of the coming cold
Branches will break too
Before I grow old.
Poetry,
Nudes
The artist sketches
the shadows and lines
of lips and breasts –
the women always shift
positions. Most have a leg
lifted in mid-dance, nude
pirouettes, then spent
he drapes their torsos
over a charcoal chair.
In the dimming studio
lights the curves
and arcs of the elbows
are not unlike the wings
of moths. Silver against chalk,
they do not so much fly
as survive. They are saving
themselves from drowning,
they are gasping for light
as he gazes at the flicker
and clink of their soft bodies
sounding against the soft
bulb of his canvas, calling them
names they will never understand
why he says they are beautiful.
Poetry,
Indian Charm
Her big eyes bordered with kohl
made blackness dance with other colors,
without much harmony and with charm
Her native plaits hurried
lifeless flowers into effusive steps
Rapt, I watched her rapturous
bangles become carousels of pure passion
on her jewel-girt arms
An ornamented navel, a moon
fluttering on an angry sea,
like sacred rice
on a twisting plate
Her reed-like hips winding,
faltering, lingering, whirring in delirium
Seductive expressions
Jingling toes ravished with delight,
belly celestially panting,
bosom echoing bridal heartbeats
Body swaying and swinging to the
magical serpent-like flute
Her feet bending like weeds
billowing in a serenading wind
Long fingers and hands now
like swans gliding on a smooth lake
now like a cobra ready to sting
then like hungry crocodiles
she hosted the feast of her beauty
and fed my promiscuous eyes
Poetry,
He Came Upon the Shrine
He came upon the shrine
after hardship
and saw in it only stone.
So far had he come for this moment
and so lost he felt now that he was upon it.
He stared at the lines on his hands,
each scribble open, gray and ugly,
each mark a passage in time.
The shrine had one door
and two tiny windows cut in stone.
He entered holding his breath,
the floor recently swept,
the door recently oiled.
There was nothing in the room.
He felt the blisters on his feet,
the taste of blood in his mouth,
a sting of sweat in his eyes.
He sat on the floor, sighed,
perfectly satisfied.
Poetry,
Governed by Chance
It is the day Stewart needed help carrying boxes
from his old residence to his new home.
It has not yet happened. He has not yet asked my help
carrying boxes down two flights of stairs
and placing them in the back of his truck.
This is because the house waits for him
to notice his name upon the mail box
or that its street number is his favorite number,
even if the instant he reads the five digits
is the instant he knows it to be his favorite number.
The walls are some shade of sky blue
that exists only at seven twenty-three a.m. on April ninth,
with inexpensive prints of Van Gogh’s haystacks
tacked to the wall to cover where the board is dented
from thrown objects missing their intended target.
The woman who was the target
returns to the house after midnight
having seen the reflection of her frayed nerves
in water beneath the flamingos’ long legs
at the zoo with her three children
of three different fathers the day before yesterday.
She returns from the neighborhood where she remembers
laughter residing on a clothes rack in a resale shop
and she purchases that laughter and wears it
to be a sun that dissipates her morning fog.
Stewart will like this woman’s skin,
for both its dark color and the story her scars tell,
when they meet at the city landfill while discarding
the last vestige of their pasts that prevent them from seeing
that they truly live in heaven, which, for them,
exists beyond a field of pungent haystacks
in the guise of a home with sky blue walls
and a five-digit address that wins the only lottery
they ever wanted to play.
Poetry,
Father Daughter Memories
he gazes at the faded paper
mimeographed program
found in an envelope plucked from
overstuffed picture files
father-daughter dance
cheap stereo music
echoes in his head
tinny tunes from bygone eras
remembers that afternoon, his
shy ten-year-old baby girl
unbraced overbite
freckles dotted her nose
hair combed long
robin’s egg blue barrette
complimented her eyes
sipped lemonade punch
nibbled bland tea cookies
awkwardly attempted to waltz
until she whispered, “I don’t like
this song, Daddy.”
she and her friends collapsed
in giggles afterwards
patent leather shoes eager to
do the Twist, squeal at I Wanna
Hold Your Hand
a few weeks later
he passes on the envelope
eager to see her grown-up reaction
she smiles at baby photos
pulls the crinkled program
studies it, puzzled
“You were ten,” he prompts
points to the year. Plaintive tone
wills her to recognize this fond moment
she shakes her head no, stuffs
paper back into its folder
pas de deux memory denied
Poetry,
End of the Affair
The fruits sweet
Trees fully leafed
hikes lunches wine nights
early awakenings mornings entangled
I sit in the sour decay
bitter pits remain
once green forests
now charred stumps
and ashes.
Fiction,
Doing Penance
Woodrow eased off the Fourteenth Street bus and hobbled towards Jimmy's 24-Hour Diner. The early morning air still had a chill, and he pulled up the collar on his oversized khaki jacket. He knew if he got to the restaurant before the morning crowd, Mr. Jimmy would have a cup of hot coffee and a warm honey biscuit wrapped in aluminum foil waiting for him around back.
"Good way to start the day," he muttered, imagining he was talking to the new kid they let into the shelter last night, the one called Mama's Boy. "I got me a sweet deal with Mr. Jimmy," he advised Mama's Boy as if he were walking next to him. "He give me food in the morning and let me use his bathroom if I don't mess with his customers."
After Woodrow used the toilet, one of the kitchen staff brought a to-go coffee and a foil-wrapped package out to the loading dock. Woodrow sipped the still-steaming black coffee and unwrapped the foil with the anticipation of a child tearing into a Christmas present. Sometimes he'd find a few strips of crispy bacon or a sausage with his biscuit. This morning a slice of well-salted ham awaited him.
"Oo-wee," he sang. His body tingled as he bit into the meat. He would have done a little dance, but he knew he had to save his energy for the day's work. "My dancin’ days be like yesterdays," he explained to Mama's Boy. "They ain't never coming back."
He wiped the crumbs from his face with the back of his hand and smiled. "Mr. Jimmy a good man." He spoke softly, so only Mama's Boy would hear. "You find a friend like that, you respect him. You hear me?"
After finishing his breakfast, he threw the foil and cup into the green dumpster and, without saying a word to anyone, marched down Fourteenth Street until he could no longer see Jimmy's. "Well, boy, time I got to work. Now you just stand back and watch how it's done."
Woodrow walked up to a well-dressed man carrying a briefcase. "Beautiful morning, sir. Got any spare change so I can get me some breakfast?" The man reached into his pocket, handed him a couple of quarters, then hurried on.
"Thank you very kindly," Woodrow shouted back. He turned. "See? With a man in a rush, you get right to the point. But always find time to be polite. Never know when you gonna get return business, know what I'm talkin’ about?"
The next few people turned Woodrow down, avoiding eye contact. "That's all right. I figure if I collect on one person in ten, I be doin’ fine by time night come. The important thing is to stay calm. You slip and lose your temper, you no good to no one."
Just then one of his regulars approached him with a crisp dollar bill. "Always good to see you, Woodrow," the middle-aged woman said.
"Yes, Ma'am. And bless you."
He turned his head to speak to Mama's Boy. "See how being polite pays? That's what I been tellin’ you."
Woodrow felt his mind drift while continuing to approach people. He stopped thinking about Mama's Boy and let his thoughts wander to Woody, Jr. He must be nearing thirty-five, he thought. Probably got a whole mess of kids by now. Sure would like to see them.
For years he imagined meeting Woody on the street. They'd recognize each other instantly and hug like no time had passed. Woodrow wiped his eyes and approached a woman carrying a cane. She raised it slightly as he neared. He nodded, flashed his smile, and walked on.
"You got to know when to back off," he whispered. "No good come from scaring folk, especially women. No good a'tall."
He thought of Mama's Boy at the shelter last night. The kid looked so skinny you could almost see through him. He twitched and shook, like he was drugged out or so scared he feared someone might steal his pants right off him. "Seen that happen," he said aloud. "They stole the pants right offa some white boy while he sleep on his cot at the shelter." He shook his head. "Ya got to sleep with one eye open, boy. That for sure"
He remembered trying to warn Mama's Boy to get a cot near him, as far as he could from the one they call Mojo Man. But the boy laughed. "You want me sleeping near you, Gramps? I ain't that way." The boy left with Mojo, didn't even stay the night. Probably out cattin' around and gettin' high.
"You got to work smart if you want to make it, boy." He recalled saying those exact words to his son once. Woody, Jr. didn't listen either.
Woodrow hobbled after a young couple walking hand in hand. He spoke to the man. "You a lucky one. I had me a good woman once. Now she with Jesus." He lowered his eyes.
The young man looked away, but his girlfriend whispered, "Give the poor man some money, baby. I feel bad for him."
Woodrow accepted a handful of change, offered thanks, and turned to Mama's Boy. "You see what I mean by smart? Never talk direct to the lady if she with a man. You don't want to seem threatening."
The afternoon sun warmed the air. Woodrow wanted to take off his jacket, but he didn't have any place to put it. Besides, he feared he smelled bad being out in the sun all day. He hoped the jacket might cover the odor. He approached a bearded man in jeans. "Excuse me, but I wonder if you could help me out this fine afternoon?"
Reaching into his pocket, the man gave Woodrow a quarter.
Woodrow looked into the man's face and smiled. "Now I offer you a chance to feel good about yourself; surely that's worth more'n two bits?" He laughed, as did the man, who took out his wallet and handed him a couple of singles.
"That's what I'm talkin’ about." He conjured up Mama's Boy once again. "You got to size 'em up, you see? Some folks need what I call follow through. You can see it in they eyes. But be careful. You got to know when to lay back." Self-control, he thought. It took him a lifetime to learn it.
As the day progressed, Woodrow tried flattery – "That sure is a beautiful child you got there, Ma'am," patriotism – "I served my country in Vietnam," and the direct approach – "I need just two more dollars for lunch." When he guessed it was about two o'clock, he stopped at the Krispy Kreme where his friend Alice always let him have doughnuts from the morning if he bought coffee. She knew he liked the jelly-filled ones. After he ate two, he joined her out back for her break and bummed a cigarette. One smoke a day is all he allowed himself. "Too expensive a habit," he told Alice. "You should quit."
"You'd have to buy your own, then."
He smiled.
"What are you saving your money for?"
"I got plans," he said.
After finishing his smoke, he excused himself and used the bathroom, washing his hands and face thoroughly. Taking a pack of gum from his pocket, he split a piece in half and popped it into his mouth, chewed rapidly, and spit it into the garbage before saying good-bye to Alice and returning to the streets.
"It's important to smell good," he advised Mama's Boy. "If you smell like a ashtray, folks won't get near enough to give you they money."
He approached a few people before receiving a handful of change. One person who refused Woodrow lectured him about getting a job.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Woodrow continued explaining his philosophy to Mama's Boy as if nothing had happened. "No booze when you working. Folks smell alcohol, the money stop."
Woodrow tried recalling how long it had been since he'd gone to an AA meeting. Didn't seem worth it any more. For over a year he had gone every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and church on Sunday. That was after Sissy had left him and took Woody. He even got a lawyer to try to let him spend time with the boy. But she could never forgive him. She wanted nothing at all to do with him. He didn't fault her.
It wasn't the booze or the drugs that caused his craziness, no sir. It was him that beat her so bad, she spent near a month in the hospital. The boy stayed with Sissy’s mother. He tried speaking to Woody, but that woman would hang up on him. When he called Sissy at the hospital, she'd do the same. She couldn't forgive him, and he couldn't forget.
As bad as she hurt, she had refused to press charges. But when she got out of the hospital, she took Woody and moved in with her family. She didn't care how many meetings he went to or how much he apologized. Probably the smartest move she ever made.
He sent her money for more than a year, but he had used his savings for the lawyer, and then he lost his job when they closed the plant. He spent most of the next two decades in an alcoholic haze, sobering up in jails and shelters and rehab facilities before returning to the streets. That was before he made his plans. Now alcohol had no hold on him. And he worked sun up to sundown, like a righteous man.
When the streetlights blinked on, Woodrow felt his pockets full. He'd keep what little he needed for bus fare and supper at the church, and give half of the rest to Pastor Jerome as a donation. The remainder would go into a savings account with both the pastor and Woodrow's names on it, so neither could withdraw the money without the other signing for it. Woodrow had already made out his will, leaving his savings to Sissy and Woody. The pastor promised he would find them when the time came.
It was starting to get dark, and the chill had returned. "That'll do," he told Mama's Boy. "You don't want to be on the streets when the crazies come out."
Woodrow walked slowly towards the bus stop, feeling alone for the first time all day. Although the street was crowded with people, he approached no one. He wondered if he'd see Mama's Boy at the shelter. Maybe tonight he could talk some sense into him.
Previously published in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Issue 1, 2009
Poetry,
Dirty Laundry
Without a washing machine,
She had plenty of time
To talk to the laundry
In the Spring of 1950.
Behind the old shotgun house,
She worked in the back yard
With galvanized tubs, wicker baskets
And three clotheslines strung
On rusty metal poles
Stuck in the dusty red Alabama clay.
“I hate you,” she told her husband’s work shirt
As she drowned it in the soapy water
Giving it an extra squeeze for good measure.
Wringing out her son’s underwear
She said, “Don’t you be growin’ up like him.”
She pinched a clothespin on the hem
Of her daughter’s green cotton dress and warned,
“Be careful who you marry girl.”
She stared at the clothespins sitting on the line,
Examining her, as a murder of crows on a telephone wire
Look at a wounded possum on the side of the road.
She startled when the damp wash on the clotheslines
Snapped like flags in a gust of warm wind,
Reminding her of slaps
And slamming doors.
Fiction,
Adam and Eve on a Raft
At 6 a.m. the Seattle airport bustled. Jerry had wandered about for three hours, watching people and planes come and go and listening to the noise level rise; he had another three hours to kill before his plane would leave. In the rush to make his now-missed flight, he’d cursed the hotel’s desk clerk for forgetting his 1 a.m. wake-up call, the cab driver for taking his sweet time, and the airline steward, a blank-faced kid with too-short sleeves, for not letting him board the plane – the damn thing was sitting on the runway, the boarding tunnel still in place. Still fuming, he hadn’t even flirted with the blonde at the counter who told him the next plane to Oakland was at 9. Her lips curled; she’d said, "We'll upgrade you to first class, Mr. Ammons. Have a pleasant day."
So he'd checked his luggage, had a drink in the bar, wended his way through a couple of shops, and sat, finally, in an uncomfortable blue chair in one of the dark little side rooms. Like a cave, he thought, studying the pebbly ceiling. Stalactites or stalagmites – he never could remember. An old man, newspaper on the floor at his feet, sat in the corner, head back, mouth open, snoring softly. One shoelace was untied. Jerry looked around, got up, tied the man's shoe, and sat again. He dozed, jerked awake, looked at his watch. It was 6:25.
He walked into the restaurant and saw her sitting next to the window, sipping a cup of coffee, reading. He'd noticed her upstairs when he was arguing with the guy with too much wrist showing about getting on the 3 a.m. flight. She had walked by; he saw her profile for a split second – slim figure, brown bangs, hair wavy and loose around her shoulders – but nothing registered. Here she was again, and he remembered. Not quite remembered at first – rather, recognized with that part of memory that functions before the eye and brain can complete the connection and provide detail.
The scene was like a painting: brown-haired woman against dawn-lit window; bamboo-patterned wallcovering; copper salt and pepper shakers; thick yellow mug, half-filled with coffee; plate with English muffin, cantaloupe sliver, mint sprig; knife, fork, spoon; bud vase, empty; opened book, hardcover, thick and old-looking.
He remembered her name, started to say the wrong name, Daffy, caught himself and said, "Daphnia. Daphnia?"
She looked up, her eyes pulling away from the page, her arm moving to hold the book open, hand resting on the tabletop, a dancer's gesture, middle finger and thumb almost touching.
She said, "Jerry. Of course," glanced down to finish reading a sentence, and looked up again, smiling. "Jerry. Ten years? Fifteen."
He shook her hand and sat across from her. They'd been a threesome in college: Jerry, his girlfriend Shirley, and her roommate Daphnia, Shirley's "country cousin." Shirley and Jerry were juniors and, to Shirley's dismay, she was forced to share a dorm room with her uncle’s only child. Shirley had groused, "She's from Hayfork, Jerry! Hayfork! The sticks. The middle of nowhere." Daphnia was seventeen, a freshman – in more ways than one, Shirley moaned.
"Well," Jerry said. "You're looking good. Has it really been fifteen years?"
"Afraid so," said Daphnia. She folded her hands.
Jerry studied this Daphnia, squinted and tried to see the old one. Daphnia squinted back. He laughed, "You used to wear braids!"
"I did," she said.
"Do you ever see Shirley? We lost touch after I transferred to Northridge."
"Not in years. She's married now, two or three kids, lives in Cincinnati, I hear."
The waitress brought another mug of coffee and stood at Jerry's elbow. "A couple of eggs, basted, rye toast, fresh orange juice," he said.
The waitress said, "No basted. Over easy?"
"Over easy." He shook his head. "Cincinnati!"
Daphnia nodded. "Yes, the middle of nowhere." She laughed. "You two gave me a hard time, you know."
Jerry smiled, put on a sheepish, bad-little-boy look. "I guess we did. But, you were fun to tease, big-eyed country girl, wet behind the ears, first time away from the farm. You showed up with your braids and your John Denver records."
Daphnia wasn't smiling. "I never lived on a farm."
"I know. I know. But we weren't completely terrible, were we? We took you for a cable car ride, a walk across the bridge, a hike up Mount Tam, bike rides in Golden Gate Park. That was fun – you were like a little kid with a new toy."
Daphnia smiled again, leaned back in her chair, and thoughtfully chewed a bite of muffin. She wore a nubby gold sweater that matched the gold flecks in her brown eyes; Jerry wondered whether she knew that. He thought she might. The old Daphnia had paid no attention to her wardrobe – she always wore jeans and a t-shirt, her thick brown hair in braids or hanging straight, pulled back in barrettes.
Nowadays, Jerry always wore something blue. He'd had his colors done, though at first he felt foolish letting Angie talk him into it. She’d said, "Put your best foot forward. Dress for success, Jer. You'd better believe all the CEO's have had their colors done."
He had to admit that it was worth it; he felt better, looked better; the job went better. The color girl said he was a Winter. She told him, "Find your blue, Jerry Ammons. Find the right tint of blue, and wear something with that tint every day as a kind of signature.” Then, her eyes serious, her voice quiet as if letting him in on professional secrets, "A tint is a color with white in it."
His signature tint was a pale robin's egg blue, a tad lighter than the blue of his eyes. Sometimes the only robin's egg blue he wore was in his argyle socks; no one else could see, but he knew it was there. Once he'd forgotten, rushed off to work without his blue, turned around halfway there, changed his shirt, and got to his meeting half an hour late. But everything turned out fine; he made the sale.
Daphnia said, "Yes, we did have fun. To tell you the truth, I was grateful to you and Shirley for letting me tag along. When we were kids, every couple of summers or so, she'd come to visit for a week. I was in awe of her; she was so sophisticated, so old. It's funny how parents always want their kids and their friends' kids, brothers and sisters, cousins, to be friends; it hardly ever works. Shirley and I never hit it off. Things were too dull in Hayfork for her. A trip to the library or the park just didn't do it. She hated the heat, sat around with a damp washcloth laid across her forehead. Poor Shirley. And then she got stuck rooming with me that first year." Daphnia laughed.
Even her voice had changed; it was smooth, silky. He told her, "You're different, aren't you? Your voice is different, your clothes. You." Daphnia was probably an Autumn, he thought.
She shrugged, "Maybe you just weren't really seeing or listening to little Daffy, the hick from the sticks." She pushed at some muffin crumbs with her fingers.
Jerry ran his thumb and forefinger down the edge of today's blue, a woolen tie set against a soft gray oxford-cloth shirt. He reassembled his sheepish grin. "You knew we called you Daffy."
"Of course."
"You were 'Daphnia, the crustacean, not the flower.' We teased you about that. What was that story again?"
"Not much of a story. My father's hobby was – is – entomology. A daphnia's a water bug. Never met anybody else with my name. We always had bugs around – live ones, dead ones, bugs in glass cases, bugs in plastic sleeves in binders. Shirley didn't like the bugs; maybe that’s why she resented me. I remember I brought a particularly obnoxious-looking beetle to hang on the wall in the dorm room – partly for Shirley's benefit."
The waitress approached, carrying Jerry's plate. Daphnia leaned forward. "Listen, she's going to say, 'Here you go.' Why do waitresses always say 'Here you go'?"
The waitress set down the plate. "Here you go," she said. She refilled their coffee cups and walked away.
Jerry and Daphnia laughed. Jerry held up a bite of egg. "Adam and Eve in a boat!" he exclaimed. "Remember that? We went to breakfast at the Red Roof, and you ordered Adam and Eve in a boat."
"On a raft," she said, not smiling now. "Adam and Eve on a raft. Soft-boiled eggs on toast. That's what I'd always called them." She shook her head. "I guess I was pretty green."
Jerry reached across and patted her hand. "That was part of your charm, Daphnia. Really. So, how about you? Married?"
"Not yet. And you?" Daphnia sipped her coffee.
He thought about Angie, about the triangle of sweat on the back of her leotard, just below her waist. He fingered his tie. "Not exactly," he smiled. "So what do you do? Where are you living?"
"Graphic design. Tell me some more about you."
"Sales. Software. I like it. Still in the city, San Bruno, actually. Not so much fog there, not so many crazies." He raised his glass of orange juice and drank it down.
Daphnia glanced at her watch and ran her fingers around the edge of her book. Jerry felt awkward, uneasy. He'd never felt like this around Daphnia before; she had been the awkward one. He remembered the times Shirley and he got rid of her so they could have the dorm room to themselves for a while. They could always count on Daphnia to go the library; she cheerfully ran errands for them. He'd sit at the desk in the corner, Shirley fidgeting, rearranging the books spread across the desk and the floor. He'd say, "Daphnia-the-Crustacean-Not-the-Flower, would you run to the libe and see what you can find for me about Lithuania in the sixteenth century – politics, especially? Get me five, six books and copy some encyclopedia stuff." He'd give her a handful of change for the copy machine and off she'd go. They knew she’d be gone at least two hours.
"What're you reading?"
"Wuthering Heights. My airplane book."
He raised his eyebrows.
"The perfect airplane book. I've probably read it fifteen times. It's like sitting down for a chat with an old friend; it makes the time fly." She leaned down and tucked the book into her bag.
Jerry scraped some purple jam out of the little plastic tub and spread it on a triangle of toast. The Muzak played a tango. Jerry frowned and glanced at the ceiling. "Care to dance?"
She smiled a charity smile. "Still play tennis?"
"Some. I'm into racquetball, mostly." He gave her a serious look. "We did have some good times. Remember the talk-all-night marathons? We'd tell secrets. Along about four in the morning, we'd get silly or sentimental or both. I remember telling you and Shirley about shoplifting a slingshot when I was a kid, how scared I was, even more scared to take it back. You," he smiled, pointing his fork, "you told us your deepest, darkest secret. Your eyes were so big, I thought you were going to confess to murder or sex in the cloakroom with your Sunday school teacher. You said, 'I've never seen a man naked.'"
Daphnia laughed. "You said, 'I can take care of that right now!' I was so embarrassed, I ran out of the room."
Jerry smiled, thought well of himself and then remembered the night Shirley and he took Daphnia to a party and abandoned her when they got in the door. They watched in amusement as she wandered from the edge of one group to another, nursing one flat beer for hours. She'd worn a red-and-white flowered dress that night. Jerry thought she looked pretty and feminine, but she was still gangly, skinny, out-of-place Daphnia. Shirley, in crisp black wool slacks and gray turtleneck sweater, muttered, "I don't believe that dress." They heard her tell one of the sorority girls, "Daphnia the crustacean, not the flower," and they doubled up with laughter.
Daphnia sighed and checked her watch again.
Jerry asked, "When's your plane leave? You still haven't told me where you live or what you've been up to." He leaned closer, caught her eyes with his. "You’ve changed so much. You're beautiful, Daphnia. I never saw that before."
She smiled. "I still have an hour. Thanks for the compliment." The old Daphnia would have blushed. She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. "I seem to remember something about a snipe hunt."
"Ah," he said. "I wondered if you'd bring that up."
"It was April, a cold and foggy evening, drizzly. You and Shirley prepped me for days. You said, 'Snipes are small brown birds that can't fly. They make a soft, high-pitched chirp, and they've got bright red tail feathers. They hide in the ice plants and tall reeds in the sand dunes. They're easy to catch, once you spot one. The game is to pull out a red feather; it's painless, honest. First one with a red feather gets slave help for a week.'"
She sat back, one elbow on the back of her chair. "I can't believe I was that naive. You and Shirley dragged me out to Ocean Beach; I didn't really want to go, but I always felt privileged when you took me along. Hah! It was pretty dark, but still early. The ocean waves made white flashes in the fog; the salty air was filled with the sounds of gulls and foghorns, waves rolling. We sat on a log, quiet for a few minutes. It was kind of magical, noisy and wet and cold, yet somehow comfortable and safe. Then we started looking for the stupid birds. We stumbled around in the sand and the mats of ice plant, poking with sticks. I remember getting tangled up in the knots of seaweed, vile, slimy, snake-like stuff."
Jerry remembered slipping away with Shirley and laughing hysterically as they drove back to school.
Daphnia's face was pink now; she wasn't blushing. Jerry leaned back and let her talk. "After a while I realized you were gone, and I knew you'd tricked me. I didn't even call out for you. I was mad, started to cry. Suddenly, I was terrified. There were new noises – hisses, scratchy sounds. I noticed suspicious-looking characters lurking nearby. It was like a nightmare. I ran all the way back to the dorm, freezing, my feet soaked, my arms and legs caked with sand and salt. And you...you both thought it was hilarious." She pointed a finger at him.
Jerry shook his head and raised his hands in an "I give up" gesture. "That was mean. Honest, I didn't know you were so upset. When you walked into the room, you..."
She interrupted. "I was seventeen, Jerry. I was a hick from the sticks. And I was so mad at myself for being gullible. I swore you'd never get me again. And I also swore I wouldn't let you know how scared I was. Or how hurt."
"Well, you got even," he said. "You were pretty cool toward Shirley and me after the snipe hunt, but the last week of the semester we had a good talk. We talked about childhood games, croquet, hide-and-seek, statues. You said, 'Did you ever play runsheeprun? It's like one word, runsheeprun.' And then you explained the rules: 'It' takes somebody to a hiding place, comes back, and draws a map in the dirt with a stick. Then everybody else takes off, and the first person to find the hidee gets to be 'It.' So we decided to play, just the three of us. At three in the morning."
They had sneaked out of the dorm, stuck a matchbook in the front door so they wouldn't be locked out, and went to the tennis courts. It wasn't foggy that night, and the moon was nearly full.
"Yes," said Daphnia, grinning. "I took Shirley and the flashlight; we jogged a couple of blocks up the street, and I left her behind a huge eucalyptus. I jogged back, drew a beautiful map on the back court. I'd remembered to take some chalk along."
Daphnia traced a map on the tabletop with her finger. "Here's the dorm, here's the bike rack. Come back down this way. Go around the telephone pole on the corner – I guess I threw in a few detours – and then straight ahead." She traced an X. "Find her in eight minutes, and I'll buy pizza."
Jerry said, "Well, I couldn't find her. Your map had me going in circles. Shirley got tired of waiting and finally came back to the tennis courts. You were gone, of course, and when we got back to the dorm, the door was locked." Jerry rolled his shoulders back. "Well, I guess we deserved it."
Daphnia grinned again, "Most fun I had all year was seeing you two walk in that morning. I remember saying, 'Find any snipes, I mean sheep?' You weren't amused."
"Well, let's say Shirley wasn't amused."
"Maybe that's why I never hear from her."
The waitress circled their table. "More coffee?"
"Half a cup," said Jerry. "Daphnia?"
"No, thanks."
Jerry said, "Not to change the subject, but do you get up here often? I fly in once a month for a couple of days. Maybe we could meet for dinner."
"Maybe," said Daphnia, still pushing her finger across the tabletop. She gave him a half smile and stood abruptly. "Excuse me a minute. Little girls' room."
Jerry watched the crisscross of luggage carts out the window. He took out his pen; when she came back, he'd get her address and phone number. He should have sent Shirley to the library. Cincinnati, two or three kids. He drank the last of his coffee as the waitress brought the checks on a tray and set them in front of him. "Here you go," she said. He turned to look for Daphnia, checked his watch again, and picked up the checks. On Daphnia's, she'd written in her large childish scrawl: "First one back with a red feather!"
The sky was bright now. He studied the tabletop, the empty coffee mugs, the smile of melon rind on Daphnia's plate; he tucked the pen into his pocket, pulled a twenty from his money clip, smoothed his blue tie, got up and went to catch his plane. He hoped Angie would be there to pick him up.
Poetry,
Childhood Memories
In the snow, a path I perceived around
An old carousel, now gone,
Tracks of a dog and child,
Was it only in my memory?
Recollections become clearer,
Home for Christmas, a
Drawer in a childhood
Desk…now empty,
An old copper kettle that whistled;
A blur of past garden colors
Passed suddenly past my mind,
I felt the smoothness of stones on a path,
Rain sprinkled a flowing river,
Ripples appeared under lily pads,
Yellow flower pollen covered
Dry pine needles strewn
Loosely, over faded deer trails.
I sat on a bench, smoking my pipe,
While my reminiscences staggered sadly past
My presence, I sighed at the ancient
Scenes as they passed by like an old movie,
Then I softly wept.
Poetry,
Traffic Light
Abstracted images flow
Through my head
Like rush hour traffic,
Stop.
Go.
Red light, green light
Yellow – proceeding with caution
Yellow being the primary color
Of my life now,
A constant foreboding of things to come
Things to fear.
It’s abrupt change
When you slam on the brake
Like a car crash
You can’t look away
You’re running on empty
But have a couple of miles
Left
In you.
Press the pedal
Down to the floor
Glide graciously
Into the other lane
The guy in the car next to you
Flips you off,
Yells silently behind
The fingerprinted window
Annoyed at you,
At the next
Damn yellow light.
He stops.
You don’t.
Poetry,
The Best System
Any given night, you can see them -- gray or gold or green lamps glowing from the top of poles, or from the gables of the house, or the barn, or on weary houses that have only ever seen one bloodline on their deeds.
Rarely does a person need the light but for a signifier: we're here, we made this, this is ours.
When you work on a farm, you get tired and by the end of the night you want only to sleep. If you don't want to sleep, you make for the woods with a bit of scrap wood and some beer or whatever you have. You bring some friends. You build a fire. Whoever has the best system in his truck pulls up right near the flames, opens all the doors and lets the music spill out. There you drink, talk, hook-up, smoke and, if you get drunk enough, maybe you'll dance.
In the city, you can't build these fires, even when the work has been just as long and just as hard.
Poetry,
no peace
caught
between the driftwood of flesh and bone
second shift america
between the two meat cutters
from the deli
smelling of dead flesh and coleslaw
bullshitting the evening bus ride home
i watch them banter
in their boar’s head hats
and greasy smocks
they talk the tired talk
of the eternal weekday
fuck this and fuck them
spreading their pent up ire
society at their mercy
after a twelve hour shift
because there is no one else left to serve
only monday they say
like there’s been a death in the family
but the rest of us sad assholes
know what they mean
and when they get home
bitch better have dinner
on
the
table,
man
because i’m hungry
and them kids better be in bed
because i ain’t playin’ tonight
the way i feel, there’s gonna be hell to pay
my stomach is rumbling too
i want to tell them
or maybe it is something else
a fire or unresolved passion
but the meat cutters are talking about
mixing beer and tequila together
they are playing each other samba music
one ear bud in each ear
the sound carries all over the bus
and there is no peace this evening
for any of us
the meat cutters
me
the lady with the pink hair
the giggling Mexican woman on her phone
the jobless and weary
the gap-toothed union saint
asleep at the wheel
or the teenage girl, alone,
writing s.o.s.’s
with her thumbs
on one of those glowing devices
meant to make our lives
so much
simpler.
Poetry,
Charades
I touched you
and you turned
into a pile
of wet leaves.
I was about to guess
wet leaves
when the wind
blew you into midair.
Then I was about to guess
just wings with no body
when I noticed light
shining through you
the way it shines through
windows into empty rooms
where there were no rooms
before I’d touched you.
Poetry,
at dawn
time is still
sun is introduced at water's
far edge, in pink hues
in arabesque
rippling the ocean –
dawnlight, a little hallelujah
the man is alone
slowsilver laps at underbelly of his boat
like a heartbeat
and he feels like a painting
one that is alive
with the whole open world
in an obtainable landscape of blues
the smell of the sea
is a cloud bank of memories
he breathes
he knows he will simply
fade
into autumn fog
Poetry,
Bird’s Egg
It’s clear that those dowdy wrens disregard me,
nothing other than the bringer of the parching,
sun-struck fern, once green, now gray.
I perched on my chair just to confirm
that their nest was viable
despite my blundering watering.
The bird’s egg (there may be no chick alive in it)
is almost smaller than a pearl, and any jay
might smell mealtime if it was to be so found;
but in the morning from my kitchen
window I still hear the phtttt of a mating pair, of wings
not quite like June bugs, tottering like drunks,
not quite like prodding hummingbirds.
I’d tell you that I long for peace and quiet.
You’d dismiss me with a platitude.
I hear their hush. I feel the cool
of mitigated summer atmospheric cells.
I know the morning with its languished
moon and late-in stars. It would be weird
to envy them, those birds, so mindful
of their place, so dedicated to their slants
and dives that they forget their feathered
compasses. I breathe the atoms circling
me. They rush right through. I could sit stoic
like some ancient Greek or red-and-yellow
robed Buddhist knowing every day’s
mandala’s washed away like chips
of patterned sand, each day’s
familiar. My outcry, my inroad is
to fly blank, accepting space.
A traveler who finally finds the
well-worn road back to the point
from which we came.
Poetry,
Baptist Graduate House, Chicago, 1959
The summer I met Calvin
he’d just finished med school.
By chance, we lived
in a converted mansion
where we shared communal chores.
I’d watch his dark strong hands
mincing onions, folding napkins,
stirring pots of thick tomato sauce,
imagining how those hands
would save a life.
You’ll be damaged goods,
my mother had warned,
if you’re seen with colored men.
Late one afternoon,
I wandered stifling rooms.
I hated Chicago's dog days, hated
reading 16th C. texts I didn't understand.
As if by silent bidding, Calvin appeared,
his arms, dark wings around me,
his cheek against my sun-bleached hair
in the familiar way of lovers.
I've wanted to do this all summer, he said.
His heart-strength in the seamless air
stanched the flow of self-pity.
To summer’s end, we never spoke
about that moment, but prepared
the evening meal in the ordinary way.
Outside these walls, any possibility
would be too dear.
First published in author’s book, Down to the Quick, Plain View Press, 2007
Visual Arts,
Three Sparrows
Sparrows are small, passerine birds of which eight or more species nest in or near buildings. The House Sparrow, in particular, inhabits cities in large numbers.
About
Front Porch Review is a quarterly online literary magazine. It is the creation of Glen Phillips of Park Ridge, IL, who toiled in the vineyards of educational and IT publishing as editor, writer, product designer, subject matter expert, business manager, and other menial roles not worth mentioning. After forty years of such effort, he decided that the best he could do for the common good was to build an electronic front porch displaying the significant artistic work of our older generation, men and women coming late to the creativity game but still with something of value to express.
A front porch ─ typically a formal, mannered appendage can also be concrete steps, wooden planks, iron railings, cardboard boxes, even a wool rug at the entrance of a Bedouin's tent. Whatever its form, a front porch is where we, young and old, congregate; where we assemble, gather, mingle, congeal, where we get together. And once there we speculate, pontificate, prevaricate, and expostulate; occasionally we speak words of universal truth.
A front porch is not a kitchen table. A kitchen table is for family matters, a front porch is for societal issues, those concerns which transcend time and space, about which we all have opinions but rarely a viable solution. Through short fiction, poetry, essays, and photography, these opinions describe the world from the vantage point of acquired knowledge and experience, assets not yet earned by younger creators. The message, not stylistics, dominates.
Envision its contributors sitting on a porch of your own device, each offering a manuscript or photo intended to intrigue, beguile, fascinate. Sit beside them, attend to their words and pictures, and discover shards of wisdom.
And in the words of my attorney: All future rights to material published in Front Porch Review are retained by the individual authors and photographers.
Glen Phillips
Publisher
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We publish thoughtful, provocative fiction, poetry, essays and visual arts.
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Accepted material will be edited. If changes are deemed significant, the contributor will be notified and given an opportunity to accept the changes or request that the piece be withdrawn from publication.
Send submissions to glenhphillips@att.net. Send 1 prose piece, 1-5 poems, or 1-4 photos at a time. For prose or poetry, type or paste your submission into the body of the e-mail message. We will not open any unsolicited print attachments. Photos, however, should be sent as attachments. Include your name and e-mail address.
Please expect to wait up to one month for a reply. Occasionally, with e-mail, there are technical difficulties. We cannot be responsible for delay or loss of submissions. To check on the status of your submission after one month has passed, please send a message to glenhphillips@att.net
By submitting your work to Front Porch Review, you grant us the right to archive your work online for an indefinite period of time. You retain all other rights. Once the issue featuring your work has been published, you are free to republish your work as you wish, online and/or in print. You are also welcome to create a link to Front Porch Review (http://www.frontporchrvw.com/) from your personal Website.
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As they are free, online versions of Front Porch Review do not cover production costs. Excellent issues are the result of generous reader support. If you are interested in contributing a donation, please send your check payable to:
Glen Phillips
837 Parkwood
Park Ridge, IL 60068
Thank you, thank you for any amount.
Contact
I want this magazine to be appropriate for the intended audience. Therefore, I hope you, the reader, will react to the published material. I hope you will send your reactions, questions, concerns, or suggestions for improvement to me at glenhphillips@att.net. By doing so you will help the various contributors improve their skills, and you will help me publish the magazine my audience wants.
If this is your first experience with this magazine, and you want to be notified when the next issue is available, e-mail me at glenhphillips@att.net.
Glen Phillips
Publisher