content='UXFqewnMkAv8VwZr8ZMUeqDGbp2pLOlam6kSJKmwfzg=' name='verify-v1'/> inner elves: May 2007

May 15, 2007

The Old Man's Walk

Every day he takes his walk,
The old, old man with the cane.
Bent and feeble, yet searching intently the eyes of all who pass,
For by their eyes he will know
When to take his walk no more.

Little Boy, You've Been Hurt

Little boy, you’ve been hurt, you are bleeding.
Your father must help you walk to the doctor,
And you have trouble breathing.

You are so frightened that you can’t cry,
Though you try with all your might.

You fell off your bicycle—
You really shouldn’t have been riding it so fast down the hill, you know,
No matter how exciting the parade was.

But you will not die.
You will live to ride your bike again,
And to fall off again and be hurt many times in many ways.

But you will also live to experience the thrill
Of riding down the hill too fast again in the excitement of the parade.

I feel your hurt and your fear now
For I, too, have fallen victim
To the excitement of the parade.

May 14, 2007

Blanket

I have a huge yellow blanket.
Absolutely huge, it’s wool.
I didn’t believe it when I first opened it up,
It just kept opening and opening and opening.

I love to lie under it.
It’s got a feel all its own.
I have dreams of being wrestled to death by it,
It opening out and tangling me all up in it.
What a delicious way to go—exhausted battling a
Huge yellow blanket.

May 11, 2007

Ireland Is Full of Priests

As soon as we touched down in Shannon I thought I glimpsed several priests hovering about the terminal, and I was right. A stout monsignor took my passport, another examined my luggage (though both wore official caps and badges in addition to their smocks).

What’s this? I wondered, some kind of cooperative venture between church and state? But I was more surprised when I started out with my luggage.

Take your bags, sir?” another priest accosted me, and whisked them away from the examiner' s table before I could object.

Following him through the door with difficulty--he had quite a lead-­I spied him relaying my bags quickly to another father, who threw them into his taxi, slapped his hands together, and whisked open the door for my entry.

“This way, please,” he smiled, a burly father even bigger than the monsignor examiner, I thought it best to simply cooperate. One thing that puzzled me was that when I tried to tip the priestly porter, he immediately shunned it, backed away, and seemed rather offended. It’s not money then? I asked myself. Then what in heaven’s name is it, this masquerade? I had read of the strong role the priesthood played in the lives of the Irish, but no mention was made of this kind of infiltration into the daily trades. Ah well, I considered, I’ll ask in Limerick.

We lurched pell-mell for the city as I enjoyed my baptism into left-lane driving, till suddenly a huge haywagon bore down on us and we veered by just to the left. The rickety, overloaded wagon and shag horses were terrible enough, but I was even more struck by ~ brief look at the driver, garbed in a priestly smock and a straw hat! We passed a road crew working in a wide ditch to our side of the road. They were bent with their shovels and picks, and, somewhat to my relief, I noted that they wore heavy woolen waistcoats and flat caps. But as we passed, one looked up absently and turned to watch us go by. I spied under his parted front the ubiquitous priestly collar, and couldn’t doubt the others were brothers of the same order.

But perhaps that’s it! I considered. This is all some kind of social gospel order of the priesthood, perhaps working without pay, maybe filling in for some severe labor shortage, though I can’t say I was very satisfied with my hypothesis.

Buildings of the town began to line the road, which soon became the main street. Now it was unquestionable; everyone on the sidewalks wherever one turned was a priest--everyone! Oh, some wore other habits as well, in keeping with their particular trades or stations, but I was by now totally baffled.

We pulled up to my hotel--I hadn’t said a word to the burly driver the entire trip--and he hastily placed my luggage on the walk. I was about to say something about the whole business, when suddenly two urchins, dressed, of all things, in monks’ habit, dashed from the doorway and snatched my suitcases, scurrying up into the hotel again before I could invent a suitable protest

My driver chuckled, “Heh-heh, they're quick, they are.”

“Yes, indeed,” I laughed. “Now, how much is my fare?”

“Oh no, no, please not,” he objected.

“No fare?” I confirmed, but simply could not stand the mystery any longer. “I beg your pardon,” I said, “but I’ve seen no one since touching down except--well--priests, nuns, and others of your faith.”

“Yes, of course,” the driver looked puzzled.

“Well, that is, where are the others, the laity, the parishioners?” I was afraid of sounding offensive.

“There are few damned here,” my man scowled. His manner intimidated further discussion.

“Oh, yes, of course,” I stammered, and traipsed in after my luggage, past a lobby fountain with a sign: “Help the poor of Ireland,” in which scattered coins lay against a lighted greenish glass bottom, and approached the main desk where I was not surprised to find another father tending business.

“Good morning,” he beamed. “Will you be staying long?”

His lesser size restored my courage and I plunged right to the heart of the matter. “Father, what’s going on around here? Why is everyone I see in some holy order?”

I watched a nun hurry by with a tray of tea for someone in an adjoining sitting room, wearing a white apron and small lace headpiece.

“You mean you don’t know our traditions?”

“Certainly not.”

“Oh dear, are you not among the saved?” he quivered.

“Well, I’m a Methodist, from America, if that’s what you mean,” I semi-apologized.

“My goodness!” the priestly manager flew into a frenzy, flinging his hands here and there, scurrying to and fro behind the desk, grabbing his cheeks and gasping. “Sister, Sister, get the Bishop here right away!” he cried.

A wiry old mitered head soon materialized before me. “You’re not one of us, my son?” he rasped.
“No,” I held firm.

“I see,” he worried. “How very unfortunate. I’m sorry that I must beg you to leave at once.”

“Leave? But I only just arrived,” I objected.

“No, it would not be proper--you see how things are,” he insisted. “There will be another plane leaving Shannon in--let’s see--in about a half-hour. That should give you just the right time to get there. Brother Flanagan, would you please have this man’s things brought to the door and summon a car right away.”

“But, your Grace,” I pleaded. “I simply don’t understand any of this. Why must everyone here be in the church in some official way?”

“Official way? No, my son--God’s way,” the old mitred head corrected with a smile and a wave of his ringed finger.

“But must every Irishman work for the church? every man, woman, and child——?”

“No one works for the church, my son,” he corrected again with a condescending smile. “All are the holy church.”

My flight rose as predicted, and my relief was indescribable to see a stewardess with no ecclesiastical garb whatever ask the passengers for their luncheon selection, shortly to be served.

When she reached me I saw my opportunity. “Miss?” I nearly whis­pered, though I saw no reason for subdued voice since among the other passengers I found not one hint of churchhood.

She listened politely, regarded me for a time, then simply laughed,

“Yes, Ireland is simply full of priests——everyone comments on it. Now, would you like sandwiches or a meal?”

As she took my order I thought I saw a small silver chain glint from under her uniform collar--a finely wrought, delicate one of the kind used to depend a crucifix.

One-Two-Three-Four

One-two-three-four, step-draw-close-tap, the dancer finished his routine with a sweeping bow and a tilt of the hat, Very precise he was, for a hoofer.

“Like Charlie Chaplin,” someone said. A bevy of blondes fawned about him.

“True, Chaplin,” someone else said.

“Take it again,” the cameraman motioned. Then I concentrated on the cameraman
and noticed that he had an equally precise choreography, moving rhythmically, parallel and equidistant to the hoofer, always head on, flinging the half-ton camera dolly about like a toy, duplicating each move, each nuance, suspending the pauses then leaning into a new flow in perfect imitation, But for the camera and the blondes, Chaplin may have been imitating him.

“So what do you make of it?” the man asked.

“Interesting,” I said. “But is this why you invited me aboard your private jet?l mean, why me?”

“You looked ‘right’ at the ticket counter. You seemed not to be going anywhere in par­ticular.”

True, I thought.

“Ever seen anything like this before?”

“No. I never noticed the cameraman’s moves.”

“Most don’t, but they’re essential.”

“Yes, I can see that now. The observer is active, integral to the performance.”

“He creates it,” the man said.

“So one needs to see the performance not through the observer’s eyes, but to see the observer seeing the performance?” I said.

“That’s it.” He lit a cigar and led me down the ramp.

“One thing—how did you get an entire soundstage in there?”

He looked at me. “I didn’t,” he said. “You did.”

I had to ponder that awhile. See the observer seeing the dancer, creating the dance, as it were.

“Create the observer also,” he said. “Look at it this way. Remember the old riddle about a tree falling in a forest with no one around?”

“Was there a sound?”

“Right,” he waited.

“Well, was there?”

Again he looked at me. I felt stupid.

“Of course not. You’re forgetting to create the observer.”

“Wait. A tree fell in a forest, and someone saw it fall and heard it fall. There. Now, did the tree fall, and did it make a noise?”

“Unquestionably!”

I looked him right in the eye. “But how can I know that?” I said.

“Know it? You just saw and heard it!”

“Okay. Now what if I had seen it fall, myself’?”

“Have you?”

“No, but—.”

“Then it didn’t.”

“But if I ever do see one fall—.”

“Ah, now you’re close. You’re beginning to see someone watch a tree fall.”

“Yes, me.

“Exactly.”

“And hear it crash to earth.”

“No, and hear yourself hear it crash to earth.”

I was quiet for awhile then, too.

“One last thing: who said that that guy danced like Chaplin?”

“You did.”

“I did not. Wait a minute—I made someone say it?”

He grinned.

“But why?”

“It was Charlie Chaplin.”

“You’re kidding. He’s been dead for years.”

He grinned again. “I’ve got to go now. Drop you off any­where?” he said.

“Oh, maybe Seattle, Orlando—I don’t know.”

What's a Door For?

What is a door, anyhow? An opening in the wall? No, that’s a doorway. The door is the thing that closes up the doorway. Or opens it up so that things can go through the wall.

That brings us to windows. What are they for? So you can look out, right? And look in. and so the light can shine in today. And shine out tonight.

Which gets us back to walls. They’re supposed to make it so you can’t see or hear people on the other side, and they can’t see or hear you.

Which gets us back to doors: you can’t see and hear each other through them very well, either. Which means a door is really kind of a wall, but with the added advantage that it’s easy to open when you want to go through or let someone else in. and the best part of all, it can be just another part of the wall if you lock it.

Unwise to Interrupt Coffee Hour

One fine midmorning in May when our coffee klatch was settled into one of its usual heated discussions of academic policies over a draught of that brew which won the Golden Cup Award, and from which our dining club takes its illustrious name, Dr. Bjorn Berg-Bjorn, our distinguished philosophy chairman, was reclining his six-foot-seven frame against his chair as was his wont, so that the provincial French piece supported the weight upon its rear cabriole legs alone. He clasped his large hands atop his long head as if to stretch his thoughts as well as his body to their fullest capacities.

“It’s clear enough,” Dr. Berg-Bjorn proposed, “that the good Dean means to further his proposed curriculum changes by one means or another at any cost.”

A man approached swiftly from Berg-Bjorn’s blind side and accosted
the latter in an aggressive, husky voice.

“See here, sir, sit up straight or get out at once!” he barked.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Berg-Bjorn flushed. “I must have forgotten myself.”

“Forgot yourself? Indeed!” the manager’s voice took a sinister tone.

“I made my apologies, now be gone, knave!” Berg-Bjorn exploded.

“What? Knave, you say? We’ll see about that, you educator!” blustered the man, and with uncontrolled force slapped Berg—Bjorn on the latter’s right ear. “Get out, all of you!”

Our philosopher, never known for violence, detonated to his full height and with blinding speed unleashed a most unacademic right fist squarely into the manager’s left eye, knocking the man to the floor like a brick. “Let us adjourn to a more hospitable hall, gentlemen, and leave this disagreeable man to his rudeness,” he said turning away.

We all rose, stunned, to leave forthwith, but the manager, though badly shaken, picked up Berg-Bjorn’s French Provincial chair and brought it down crashing upon the latter’s head and shoulders, sending our chairman staggering against the wall with a thud.

“Now you’ve played me foul indeed,” Berg—Bjorn recovered. “I wasn’t even looking, varlet!”

Whereupon, it is sad to record, our chairman went in a fair way berserk, splitting chairs like matchsticks, upsetting tables, tearing down chandeliers, ripping out sconces and trappings, smashing statuary and dislodging pilasters till we feared to a man the seething Samson would
raze the entire building to rubble around us.

In the space of moments he decimated the main dining room. Not a table or chair, fixture or lamp remained intact, and the righteous, three hundred pound juggernaut wheeled around with bloody eyes and flashing teeth for something further upon which to expend his insatiable wrath.

‘Aha!” he shouted, spying the serving line and kitchen beyond.

With a hideous laugh he bore down upon the seventy-foot gleaming steam table and applied his mighty shoulders. The metal and glass monolith groaned heavily under the force, and at length with a deafening roar overturned and smashed to ruin.

“Haha!” the giant roared. Then he rushed toward the kitchen, tore the door from its moorings and sent it whirling like a boomerang through a partition wall. We could only tremble in wonder at our colleague s inexhaustible fervor and incredible strength as he methodically went about destroying every article of value in the kitchen and returned with a hunk of meat in one hand, evidently torn from a beef in the larder. He stood tall, tearing the morsel savagely with his fangs till it was gone.

“Ahhaayaheeyah!” he bellowed, beating his chest furiously, the cry reverberating through the great space. “Hear me, ye Pharisees. I am the wise Fisher King of the Phoenicians, the courageous Khan, the invincible Constantine and the great Alexander rolled into one! Omnipotent is my wrath! Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

“Bravo!” we hailed. “Magnificent!”

Whereupon, to entertain us, our hero plucked up overhead the jellied manager like a weightless toy, and drawing far back his elastic arms, flung the wretch with ferocious velocity the entire length of the hail, striking down four officers of the law like ninepins in a heap.

“What ho! Well wrought!” we applauded.

Our champion now looked about for something left to rend, but finding nothing, at last dashed his swollen hands together, his wrath visibly diminishing at the terrible and utter deve station about us.
“There!” he shouted toward the manager. ‘That will instruct you in the virtue of philosophy! Now hie thee hence, Pharisee, and take your lackeys withal!”

The manager and the officers scrambled out the door as our liberator returned triumphant, adjusted his coat and tie, and resumed his seat, carefully balancing himself on its two remaining rear legs as was his wont.

“Well, my friends, I regret this inconvenience,” he said.

No one spoke for some time. Finally Smythe-Jones, the chemistry scholar, ventured a quiet opinion: “That was very embarrassing, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, I’ll have to be more careful,” Dr. Berg—Bjorn agreed. “We wouldn’t wish to cause any iii feelings here.” He hemmed to clear his throat. “Now, as we were discussing, how would you gentlemen react to the Dean’s proposed reduction of the general education requirements?”

The Slot Machine

I saw Mac the second I pushed through the post office door. He was hard to miss; his great hulk nearly filled the narrow aisle before the rows of rent boxes, and his heavy cigar smoke filled whatever space he didn’t.

“Hi Miller,” he said around the cigar.

“Hello Mac. Mail up ret?” I asked.

“Naw, these guys are always late. I spend half my day down here just waiting for the mail.”

Something flicked nearby.

“There’s one now,” he said, shuffling to his box. The key was already in the glass and metal door.
“Unh, a bill,” he said, jamming it into his pocket and shuffling back to his strategic watch by the high counter near the outer door.

Another man entered and opened a bigger lower drawer--the kind the big companies in town rented, like Caswells, Schact Rubber, and the First National Bank.

“Hey there, Joe, what’s new?” Mac said. He knew everybody in town; it was his business to.

“Howdy, Mac,” the man replied, routinely snatching up several parcels and tied bundles of letters and stuffing them into a big company bag with a key lock on top. “Had another kid last Monday, you know.”

“Eh? How’s that?” Mac perked up, like a buzzer went off at a switchboard in his head. “Another one, eh? Hey, hey! What’d you call it?”

“Alfred Morris, “ Joe answered proudly. “Seven pounds four ounces.

“Hey, how about that! Why, he’s half-grown already,” Mac joked.

“Yeah, but I still got a ways to go to catch up with you,” Joe countered.

“Eh? Oh, heh-heh, you’ll make it alright.” Ma.c pulled out a note pad and pen. “Al—vin-Mor-ris.”

Joe had gone down to the stamp machine, but he heard Mac’s loud voice like everyone else. Many had now gathered to wait and watch the boxes as shutters of light opened and closed through the small windows. Behind the partition the clerks moved to and fro mechanically, flicking letters which ticked as they struck the front plates.

“You got to put everything down right away in this business,” Mac said, putting his notepad back into his vest pocket. “Trust to memory and you’ll go broke in a month. A million details.”
“I guess that’s right,” I agreed. “Yeah. You know, this mail is really something else. I spend
more time down here than I do at the office as it is.”

“They route everything through Indianapolis now,” I said. “Takes longer if you ask me.”

“You can say that again--say, I had a gal to put a check in that box around the corner there last Thursday, addressed to me, and I didn’t get it for four days!”

“Went to Indianapolis,” I said.

“Can you believe it? Fifteen feet, that box right over there to mine right here, and it took four whole days!”

Mac shifted his weight and fingered his cigar affectionately. Sud­denly he turned. “Hey there, Joe--.” Mac caught the man by the arm, near the outside door. “I put little Alfred on that family plan of yours; he’s covered already.”

“Oh, you’ll take care of it?” Joe said.

“Yeah, it’s all set, no problem. Cost you about three bucks-fifty or four more a month, and give him a little something to start college with. They grow faster’n you can bat your eye, you know.”
“Hey, that’s for sure,” Joe laughed on his way out.

There was another letter in his box by the time Mac shuffled back. “Looks like a bill,” he muttered, turning the key. “That’s about all it is these days, calendars and bills and lapses.”

Tearing off the end, he puffed a quick breath into the edge and squinted into the envelope.

“Eh? What’s this?” he said. He jerked out a single page of coarse yellow notebook paper and unfolded it by the window light. “Oh no,” he groaned softly.

“Not a bill?” I said.

Mac read the letter with his lips. I could only see that it was handwritten, with rude lettering, and brief. When he finished, his hand dropped slowly to his side. He looked confused, like someone had asked a simple question that he couldn’t quite answer. He read it again.

“Accident claim?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“That an accident claim?” I repeated.

“Oh, no, no-—just a fellow I knew over in Bonner Corners a while back, went to school together. His little girl died.”

Mac carefully folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, then gently placed it in his inside coat pocket. For a long time he just looked at the floor. Then he walked over to the counter and deliberately ground out his cigar in an ashtray, then returned and pulled his key from the rental box door and pushed it hard shut.

“I can’t wait on these guys forever,” he said loudly. “I got a business to run. Spend half the day down here as it is.”

Mac pushed through the outer door and held it open as another man brushed by. “Hey there, Freddie!” he shouted. “What’s new?”

Writing about Oneself

When a writer writes about himself, it’s often not conceit but a search for material in a natural, accessible place. And he may be looking at himself not “as himself” but as an observer, as he might look at another. So we may be dealing with two people: the writer and his “subject”. This is especially likely if he is writing in third person, which is assumed to be narrated by a person or persona separate from the characters in the story; but it is also true, if more subtle, when he writes in first person. One might think first person writing is always subjective. But even in first person telling there’s a voice, a narrator, describing the acts and thoughts of a character. What is written is not quite the same as what a person actually “says to himself” when he thinks, feels, speaks and acts. Those thoughts are usually not sentences but words and phrases, structures short of sentences, and the prose writer typically writes in coherent sentences in order to communicate sensibly. (If the writer is writing lyric poetry, however, he might approach the less structured syntax of actual thoughts, of words and short phrases we say to ourselves short of speech.)
My point is that any writer can step back from himself and regard himself as one person regards another, and there’s nothing self-absorbed in doing that. It’s natural, it’s the nearest of subjects, and it’s perfectly normal to do. So one need not fret in journal writing that he is being too self-centered. Many famous writings are about the author.

The Expulsion (after Massacio, 1425)

As I walked in the garden at dusk, on its eastern edge, where the lush, leafy forest path turns to rocky barrenness, a young couple hurried by. They were naked, save for a few leaves hastily contrived to clothe themselves. Seeing me, the man put his hands to his face and turned away, while the woman covered her breasts and groin. She was sobbing.

“Good heavens, have you had an accident” I called. “Can I help?”

“No,” the man said “no one can help. It is finished.”

“We are condemned to die,” The woman said. “We are banished,”

“Condemned? banished? what talk is this?” I aaked, removing my coat and offering it to the woman, who hesitated, then accented it,

“Oh, my fellow man, forgive me!” she burst into tears.

“Forgive yon? for what? You have done nothing against me. What is all this?”

“I have brought us all to ruin, all of us, It’s all my fault,”

“Ho!” the man shouted. “I share the blame.”

“But I made you do it,” she insisted, “You might have gone on but for me——at least you, my darling.” “1 could not have,” he countered • “It was unbear­able before you came, even in the garden. I would rather live by your side in the wasteland than spend an eternity in the garden without you.”

They embraced, and her grief slowed. “We must qc on,” he said. “You are welcome to join us if you wish.”

“Wait,” I said. “I still don’t understand what has brought this misery upon you0 You live in the garden and bring no harm. What drives you from its sanctuary?”

“The Lord God,” said the man.

“The Lord God? for what purpose?”

“We broke the Law. We ate of the forbidden fruit.”

“I tempted it to him,” said the woman.

“No, the serpent tempted you, and you did not know him.”

“I should have recognized him,” she said.

“It was not possible. but I should have, and I should have told you--warned you of him.”

“How could you?” she asked. “Nothing was said of it. No word was given.”

“Ah, but I had a sense. For my part the fault is greater because of it.”

“You never said it,” she said.

“I didn’t expect it, but I sensed that one day ano­ther thing would appear. I didn’t know what form it might take, but I knew that it would be another thing, hideous, and I would know it. I hoped to destroy it.”

“I should have shown you,” she said.

“In time its image faded, I saw only you, and your happiness and beauty. I thought all was right, and good.”

“My poor dear~” she cried.

“Had I seen the thing, had I only seen the wicked thing——!” he shouted.

Again they embraced, and after a time grew calm. “We must no on,” he repeated.

“Wait a little more,” I said. “It’s clear to me tha.t some terrible accident has befallen you both which you do not understand in your exhaustion. Even God could not hold you accountable for something you did not understand. You must go back.”

“That is quite impossible,” the man said.

“Perhaps not,” I replied quickly.

“No, what the Lord has commanded must be obeyed, or even the worse will come of it,” he insisted.

I felt myself growing angry and perplexed. “We must reconcile this matter,” I said. “It is intolerable to think that an injustice should go unreconciled. Please. Give me a moment to consider.’

I sensed somehow that their plight was my own. My mind was awhirl with fear and pity for them, yet I forced my feelings back, and gradually the matter straightened.

“Now, as I see it, you were both victimized by the deceit of another. That much von will agree to?”

“Deceived? Perhaps, to an extent, but we still broke the Law, and must accept our fate,” the man replied.,

“No, wait,’ 1 insisted. “You did not intend to break the law, and no one can hold von responsible for something done with no criminal intent on your part. That is the first rule of law. You knew not what you did, therefore you cannot be held responsible.” My mind was elevated by this truth, and I regained my confidence.

“You do not understand, my friend,” the man said. “I was clearly warned——most emphatically warned.”

“In what way?”

“By the Lord Sod Himself,” he shuddered. “~ voice from nowhere, yet from everywhere, said as if within me, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ He commanded it so, and I under­stood fully.”

“And you accepted this?”

“I thought it strange, but yes, I accented it. I had dominion over all things——the beasts of the field, the birds of the air—— .“

“And you were happy?”

The man paused and looked away • “Not happy,” he said slowly. “I was alone then. I pondered it until I could think no more. For many days, till I grew too weary to comprehend. At last I accepted it, and trusted that If I were ever tried, I would somehow prove worthy, and vowed to myself never to approach the tree, and slept.”

“I see. Very understandable.”

“When I awoke the reward of my trust was with me,” he said, turning to her radiantly, “She was beside me. My love and my life. She was beautiful—more beautiful than all else. Then, from that moment, I was happy.”

His troubled eyes beamed as he held her.

“And the Lord commanded her also?” I asked.

His hands dropped. “No.”

“Ah, and did you tell her”

“No.”

“She knew not, then!” I exclaimed. “She is blameless, for she knew not the commandment. Surely you see it.”

“I did not tell her. I would not trouble her. She was lovelier than the sun and the moon and the stars. I would not lessen her by telling her.’

I was proud of him. “She is blameless, blameless as a new babe,” I said.

“I didn’t know,” she cried. “It’s true, I honestly didn’t know.”

“So, there you have it,” I said.

“But I--,” the man countered, “I ate also, and I did know, but I still disobeyed.”

The man and the woman turned and hurried away in shame.

“Wait, wait,” I cried, running after them. “Stop!” nearly breathless, I caught up with them. ‘Don’t leave, hear me out. Don’t you see? What you are—— everything you are——the Lord made you. What you have, the Lord gave you, and what you knew, the Lord gave you to know. No more and no less.”

“That is true,” the man said. His Law.”

“But don’t you understand,” I answered, “that the choice was not your own? Can you not see the, given what you were, and what you are, that you could have done no other thing? that the Lord gave you this woman, gave you your love for her, gave you your desire to please her, and in so doing gave you your very inability to warn her of the danger?”

“It changes nothing,” said the man. “It is so, perhaps, but I still broke the Law by my own hand.”

“No, no, not by your hand, He gave that also. He gave that capacity, and permitted it——no, forced it to happen; He made it happen from the moment you were created. The seed of your despair was in you from the start, and He planted it! You must not be held responsible. You must not accept it! Any rabbit in a cage with a carrot would have done the same thing. Any living thing will obey its nature.”

The man regarded me with mixed awe and despair in his eyes for a long time.
“You have been deceived from the first——tricked.”

They were speechless, both. After a long time, the spoke once more:

“Perhaps you are right, but it is too late,”

“No, not too late,” I insisted.

“But it is. I cannot be forgiven.”

“You must, and you will.”

“No, never. I am absolutely certain of that, if of nothing else.”

“Nonsense! The circumstances——the extenuating circum­stances of the matter——wait, listen: you harbor no ill against her yet?”

“Certainly not!” he said forcefully.

“Of course not • And against your God, who made you both, and everything about you, you do not hate Him?”

“I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind,” he proclaimed from his depths “Praise Him!”

“Despite what He has done, despite these miserable conditions, despite His withdrawal of love, and support, and. all things from yon--and worst of all despite the with­drawal of eternal Hope from your breast, yet you forgive him entirely?” I cried.

“Entirely, if ever he wronged me, which I could never believe,” he sobbed piteously.

“You see!” I shouted. “You are but a man, and have been sorely victimized, yet you entirely forgive your prosecutor though he forgives you not, his victim! Your Almighty, Great God, ruler of the universe, creator of all things, bestower of love and mercy arid goodness upon all he has made, wills to punish you eternally for a crime instigated by a totally different agent--not you, Madam, who were unaware of the fact and utterly blameless—— the serpent. There we have it! Let me ask you, who do you think permitted the serpent to exist in the garden?”

The man did not answer. “Who, indeed!” I repeated, “Of course, the Evil one!”

“No, no, he did not create the Garden, he did not create the tree, he did not create you--who let him in? Who suffered him to trick you?”

The man trembled and the woman clung to him violently.

“Who!” I pressed.

He opened his mouth to speak, but could not. I waited tensely for what seemed an eternity. The sun had set for some while, and night was nearly upon us in the wasteland. Nearby, something whisked through the sand among the rocks and was gone. Behind us to the west, the lest rays of light silhouetted the far outline of the garden, then receded into darkness.

Sheila and Herm

This is the story of Sheila and Herm.

Sheila was bald; Herm was good-looking with a full head of hair, So he wanted to give the world his good looks. So they got married, and Sheila loved him very much.

Herm played the piano, but then he went deaf, so he quit the Musicians’ Union and became an artist, because you didn’t have to hear to paint great pictures. He wanted to give the world great art. But then he went blind, and he couldn’t tell blue from pink then from any other color, then from dark, so he quit painting and became a sculptor. You didn’t have to hear or see to sculpt great statues.

He wanted to give the world his art, but he lost his sense of touch and had to quit, not being able to hit the right places on the rocks, and finally not being able to find the hammer or chisel, then his hands. So he became a wine connoisseur. At least he had the leisure to notify the world which wines were the best vintages by nodding his head.

But when Herm’s taste went, he couldn’t tell champagne from seltzer water, so he had to give that up, and he became a perfume matcher, but the smell gave out after only a few more days, and Herm began to worry.

They decided to get Sheila a job modeling wigs.

Write What You Know

“Well I know one thing-- .”
“Oh? And what is that?”
“Ahem. Well, I know that—I know—know-- .”
“What? Say it!”
“Uh—I forgot.”

Pearson

I noticed Pearson several times within the past year or so, though never spoke with him but once, recently. You know how it is; one is aware of someone — passing acquaintances for years. so to speak — then one day perhaps by accident a conversation ensues, and the relationship changes, perhaps deepens into a friendship, perhaps not.

That’s the way it was with Pearson. I’d seen him occasionally at a distance in the places I frequent over coffee, at the ball field. while jogging — perhaps at work, though I’m not sure. He always seemed pensive, a kind of citoyen du monde, with a touch of the stoic about him. The kind of fellow I might like to cultivate sometime, I had thought.

We happened to speak. as I said, only recently, during coffee one late summer morning. As usual I was busy over my journal. wrestling over some curious incident I can’t remember now, when he sat down opposite me at my table.

Engrossed as I was, and as quietly as he had approached. I scarcely noticed him at first. When I did reach the end of a line of thought and glanced up, I was surprised to find him there, smiling and shuffling a bit awkwardly, as one often does when forced to an occupied table uninvited.

“Rather crowded this morning: you don’t mind?” he asked meekly.

“No, certainly.” I replied with a sympathetic sweep of the hand. Normally a bit squeamish at the presence of another when lost in thought, I felt no hesitation at the company of one I had come to regard as a likely kindred spirit, and extended my hand without reserve.

“Pearson. Walter Pearson,” he greeted. “Are you a writer?”

Always a question to put me on my guard due to my vexing lack of publication. I replied, “No, not really. I’m a teacher.”

There was more solid ground there; I had a decade’s experience.

The usual follow-up questions came, of course. “Oh really? And what is your subject? Where do you teach? I see. Nice campus,” etc.

I delivered the usual follow-up answers almost automatically, having had plenty of practice. annoyed at the same time by how one’s identity is always linked to one’s career, as if that were the be-all and the end-all of one’s entire being. It hints of one’s income, interests, background. education, mode of existence — in short, one’s life. Tell a person what you do; he will tell you what you are, what you have been, and what you are ever likely to be. Your job is your life, I thought

“At least your public life,” Pearson said.

“What?” I asked, startled.

“Oh, sorry — a nasty habit of mine, speaking out of context,” he laughed. “I mean you teach, of course, but wish also to be a writer — your public and private identities, so to speak.”

“Well, yes, I guess you could say so.” I agreed, “but you haven’t told me what line you’re in.”

Walter’s seeming to know me better than I knew myself was a little alarming.

“Me? Oh, this and that — not a lot, actually.” he fudged.

“A man of independent means, eh?”

“Somewhat, somewhat Many interests, you see.”

I nodded, but did not see, thinking at the same time how often one affirms what is not seen, let alone understood, in polite conversation, and again, how he appeared to grasp my ideas even as I thought them.

“Well then, tell me,” he leaned back. “what do you consider your most important goals?”

The question ripped through my armor like a mortar shell. I’d had some trouble framing them myself recently, and was unprepared. I reached deep inside, through mazes of rationales, excuses, civilities and flippancies, and reflexively shot back with my only weapon: an honest answer.

“I really didn’t know,” I said. That seemed unsatisfactory to me, so I added, “I suppose I would like to become an author.”

“I see. And how would you define author?”

“Someone whose writings are widely read, I suppose.”

“So all writers aren’t necessarily authors, then?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Hmm. But you said earlier you wished at least to be a writer. Now would you define that?”

A pretty waitress brushed by my shoulder before I could answer, nearly spilling some coffee from a pot “Oops,” she laughed. “Almost —.“ I smiled.

“Why, a writer is one who writes, I suppose. How would you define it?”

Walter was also distracted. He looked at me then followed the waitress with his eyes as she laughed with another group nearby. Then he pressed forward with a strange look on his face.

“Why don’t you quit kidding yourself?” he scoffed. ‘You’re not serious about writing. Get off your ass and do something with your life! You only live once, you know.”

I nearly fell off my chair! Where was the easygoing, shy, pensive air of a moment before? I wondered.

“Well, er, Walter, I —"

“Who the hell’s Walter?” he snarled.

“1 thought you said your name was —"

“Ed, Ed’s the name, pal. That’s what I mean; if you can’t even remember a simple thing like a guy’s name for five minutes, how the hell can you expect to write books? No, you’re a teacher alright — full of facts and figures but no imagination to do a damned thing with all of it. Course I hope you’ll pardon my bluntness.”

Walter — Ed — whoever sat opposite me had changed completely and inexplicably before my eyes. Good grief! I thought. I’d seen The Three Faces of Eve and read of other split personalities, but this was the first time I’d witnessed anything like it first hand.

“That’s alright. I appreciate frankness,” I lied.

“No you don’t, you’re scared to death of it That’s why you keep building those ridiculous little sand castles in your notebook there. Know what your problem is?”

“What?” I replied weakly, sensing that he would tell me in any case.

‘You think you’re an intellectual, but you’re not”

Another mortar shell fired, another wall exploded into rubble around me.

“But I never claimed — ,“ I began to object.

“Know what you need? A good dose of reality. Why don’t you and I go out barhopping tonight — maybe pick up a little action besides," he leered. "Say, I know this great topless bar down in —

“Now see here. friend!” I flushed. “Ed, Walter, or whatever your name is —“

“More coffee, fellows?” the waitress returned.

I saw the interruption as a chance to regain my composure, but succeeded only partially when she finished warming our cups and left.

‘Look,” I continued in a lower voice, “I’m a teacher, and I deal with others all day. I came in here for a cup of coffee and a few minutes’ leisure. I’m not interested In discussing my private affairs with someone I just met So if you don’t mind--.”

Pearson lowered his cup and listened, but something profoundly new in his expression and manner silenced me.

“Yes, of course,” he said calmly. “Quite wrong of me to pry. I simply observed you in a quality I wanted to encourage. I’m sure you’re a man of character and many talents.”

I was baffled, appeased, and somewhat flattered, but most of all, amazed. Yet another person — the third in a matter of minutes — sat before me.

“Forget it, it’s nothing,” I shuffled. “I probably shouldn’t be so sensitive. You’re right; I spend far too much time introspectively, writing about my own life instead of trying to write something of interest to others.”

He nodded. “Have you done much writing in your academic field?”

“Well, Ed, I must say that I’ve written a few articles and begun a text, but —“

“Please,” he interrupted, “just call me Frank. All my friends do.”

He said it matter-of-factly, with an easy wave of the hand. I gulped my coffee and nearly choked, looking up with watering eyes, more confused than ever. Walter. Ed, Frank — who was this aberrant creature? I wondered.

Then I was seized by genuine fear. Was he dangerous? I was playing with something I couldn’t begin to understand. Did I dare continue? Were there other identities lurking behind that deceptively sincere, open face? I thought about leaving, but perhaps that would anger him. What should I do?

Pearson — if Pearson he was — seemed stable enough for the moment, but how could I predict when he might switch again? And what triggered these changes, I wondered? If there were signs. I’d obviously missed them completely. Still, he appeared harmless enough in any identity I’d seen, though I knew I didn’t care to deal with ‘Ed” again soon.

“Good,” he said. “That might be a good way to combine your interests. Perhaps you should do more in that way.”

“I beg pardon,” I said.

“Writing in your field, I mean.”

“Oh. Yes. I often think so, too.”

“After all,” he continued, “you put in a great deal of training and effort, and have quite a bit of experience, as you say. You must have quite a lot to express.

“That’s true.”

“And if you have a flair for writing as well — that is, if it’s not too difficult —“

“No, I’ve never had a problem turning out academic papers,” I said. “I did dozens of them for my doctorate, and enjoyed writing my dissertation — always thought about doing more, but somehow never got around to it. once the pressure was off.”

“For course requirements, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Were your papers well-received?”

“Yes, quite well, in fact I was rather proud of them for the most part”

“Well, then, perhaps that’s the answer,” he grew enthusiastic.

“Yes, perhaps it is,” I pondered. Surprisingly, there was real merit in what he said.

“You need to firm up your identity as a scholar and teacher, and concentrate on what you know best,” he encouraged.

“I’ll have to admit, it makes sense.”

“Of course. It makes good sense, and in time perhaps you’ll become a leader in your field. Be asked to lecture elsewhere as well, or even get into educational television —“

”Now do you mean that--?”

“Like that Ascent of Man fellow — Bronowski, is it?”

“Oh, yes, superb series,” I agreed.

“Of course. Or Kenneth Clark’s Civilization, or this Cosmos series — Sagan, I believe?”

I laughed. “You’re talking about a caliber beyond me,” I said, though flattered by the comparisons.

“I don’t think so, not at all,” he insisted. ‘They were all teachers initially, weren’t they? Merely had an extra flair for writing, a way of expressing their subjects in ways that others could appreciate. Am I right?”

“You know, you have a point there,” I said.” ‘Popularizers’, they’re sometimes called. Good money there too, I’ll bet”

“Oh yes. I’m sure of it,” Pearson said, sitting back confidently as I fantasized the attractive, not impossible dream he had laid before me, this odd yet fascinating man of many men. I realized that he had, for all his strangeness, given me more grist for my mental mill than I’d found elsewhere in a long while, at the very least I turned the idea over. Yes. I thought, rather a sensible notion, actually.

I was almost convinced that he had pointed the way. Almost ready to devote my energies to a real commitment, almost convinced that here, at last was a self-identity without any ambiguities or conflicts of focus, when suddenly it hit me like a bomb: Pearson is mad! I’m about to redirect my entire life on the advice of a madman! Am I as crazy as he is?

This idea threw me into total confusion. In my mind’s eye I envisioned a huge jigsaw puzzle composed of a myriad of smaller puzzles in various stages of completion — not one picture, but many; some clear, some vague; some concrete, some very abstract’ some well-lighted, some nearly lost in darkness; but all incomplete and dependent upon all the others at once — a colossal collage of images. I looked to its height and breadth but could see no edges. standing so close to the whole that I could at one time see only this part or that never the entirety. I tried to imagine stepping back, to better survey it but in doing so the whole advanced an equal space, as if drawn to me, somehow inseparably. All this, in a matter of seconds.

Transfixed and befuddled, I slowly remembered where I was, and found myself staring into my coffee. Slowly I looked up at Pearson, scanning the mystery of his eyes. I saw only my own reflection.

He stared in turn at me as if scanning mine, curiously, equally bewildered.

My God, I thought, is he changing again?

What seemed an eternal suspended moment passed. He appeared for the first time almost blank, devoid of any real being, perhaps trapped. I guessed, between or among the identities he had projected, or perhaps dozens of others which lurked somewhere within him. I waited, somewhat fearfully, for another personality to emerge, yet nothing changed. His very breathing seemed stopped.

Then, as quietly as he had come, he rose and left without a word.

Auntie Larkspur

Auntie Larkspur sat down on a stump, pulled out her false teeth, ripped off her hose, and
solemnly vowed to think things over.

“Loon Lake is more beautiful than this,” she thought solemnly.

“Loon Lake is a million times prettier than you are!” she shouted to the surrounding hills. “Crummy hills!”

“Crummy old lady,” parodied the surrounding hills.

“I’m off to Loon Lake,” she announced, “to revel in its sublime beauty.”

With a disjunct motion she popped in her false teeth, pulled up her hose, packed her drawers in a carpetbag, set fire to the cabin, and went to Loon Lake. Auntie Larkspur was nothing if not decisive, and she believed decisive action must accompany decisive thought.

“Ah,” she reveled in the sublime beauty of Loon Lake, “now we’re getting somewhere. This here’s the cat’s meow. I’m glad I came. There’s nothing like decisive action to accompany decisive thought. Think I’ll just pull out these teeth.”

Decisively she jerked out the false teeth and threw them into Loon Lake.

“There,” she gummed. “That’ll keep ‘em quiet.”

“Now why did you go and do a fool thing like that?” questioned Uncle Mack, who had sneaked up on her from behind some trees.

“You’re the dentist,” she said. “You tell me.”

That put Uncle Mack on the defensive. “I must think what Oscar Wilde might say, “he thought, and ran back into the trees to work out a memorable reply. The next day he ran back out.

“Sure is pretty here, though,” he argued.

“One might think so, if it weren’t already,” said Auntie Larkspur, which reminded her of little Ned.

“I sure miss that little feller,” Uncle Mack argued.

“Nature’s philosophy brought Ned low,” she persisted.

No, t’was never nature’s philosophy brought Neddie low,” he agreed, “but time’s unending wile. Oh Ned, poor Ned-—.”

“Nature, I say.”

“Time alone.”

“S’me!” argued little Ned, sprung full-blown upon the scene as had Athena from the head of Zeus, heavily armored and ready for what might come.

“Well, so what?” agreed Auntie Larkspur. “Whatever else happens from here on out won’t surprise me much.”

“Me neither,” argued Uncle Mack.

“Same here,” argued little Ned, being new to such proceedings and not wishing to give offense.

Poor Old Ralph in the Desert

I remember the time poor old Ralph wandered out into the Sahara Desert and never made it back to civilization. Poor old Ralph, he didn’t know nothing about deserts. What do you suppose he did that for? Old Ralph, I just have to believe that he just didn’t know what he was getting into. Well, I mean, there aint hardly anything in deserts. Well you see, nobody in his right mind would pull a trick like that if he knew what he was up to, would he? Course not. It don’t make no sense at all.

The Question

Sitting here in this balcony, overlooking this crowd, I am suddenly conscious that I am all that I see, all that I hear.

My mind goes out through this space and becomes extended as it touches each thing here. I own it all and am it all. I can further extend myself to ages past and future, all that I have ever been or could be, all experiences of all men of all times. These things am I.

And yet, there are the others, sitting in those rows below. They are self-contained; they do not extend as I do. Surely each is no more than a part of the trappings of this place. Their heads contain them, but my head does not contain me. I am larger.

This morning as I looked in the mirror, that is a stranger there. It is not me. I’m much more alive than that, better looking than that fellow, that weary-looking old man. I am young and vital. How could that pallid, sickly-looking head ever contain me?

Suddenly the speaker finishes. He asks for questions. My mind races. I have a question, yes. I have a question. But should I raise my hand? Or should I rise to speak across the vast space between me and the speaker, across the others’ heads below? My question rises within me. I must ask. I must communicate-- .

“Yes?”

The speaker recognized my hand! Across the space he is directing everyone’s attention to me! I am standing—my God, I’m standing up here in front of the others and they’re all staring at me. I must speak, I must!

“I—I couldn’t help but wonder—as you spoke—I felt that—that is, could the news media networks be converging to the degree that—that—they have reached the point, whereby==whereby-- ?” My head! My head! My heart! What’s happening?

“I don’t believe I understood your question,” the speaker said, and everyone is still looking at me—looking, and whispering--.

“I mean—that is—well, thank you very much!” I say through my choking throat, the pressure on my body nearly more than I can withstand. I fell I must sit down, yes, sit down immediately.

Now I look out at the rest. The walls, the platform, the others—they are not me at all. I try hard now to become lost, to hide in a space so small that no one can find me. My body is embarrassed that it can’t get me out of it. It tries to pretend that I am not within. It looks this way and that at the others, as if it, too, were wondering what had happened.

Could they forget? Could my body forget what I had done, in that one brief moment when I had taken control of that physical frame and exposed it to such shame? Can my body live, so long as I am within it?

I must be very, very quiet. That’s it. Very quiet, and very careful. I must never again come out in the open where the others can see me. I must remain behind my body’s eyes and ears, and nose, and hair, and so on, where I can still know what is happening, what is going on out there around me, around this room, across the vast spaces of the world, the past, the future. I can still watch, and listen, and extend myself out and touch each thing as before, and own it all. These things I can do yet, and be—but I must be very, very still.

Mother's Rumor Mill

I was in the printing office when I got a phone call from home. My wife was desperately trying to reach me. “You’d better come home right away,” she said. “Your mother’s died. They found her lying in her bed.”

One day when I was in the middle of a lecture, Marie, the secretary in the Registrar’s office, called me out of the classroom. “You’d better come downstairs right away,” she said.

Dr. Custer was waiting for me at the foot of the long staircase, a worried look on his face. I knew what was coming. “Blaine, I’m terribly sorry to have to tell you this. We got word a few minutes ago that—your mother has—passed on.”

I was taking a shower last Wednesday when the phone rang. It was Lottie, our cleaning lady at Mother’s house. I thought for a time she was laughing; her voice sounded like that. “Oh dear, Blaine, Mother’s gone. Come quick. She’s lying here by her chair. Come quick--!”

Mother has died so many times, I’ve lost count. She keeps dying almost every day. Whenever I’m busy doing anything at all, wherever I go, she up and dies again. If she keeps it up, I’m afraid it’s going to endanger her health. I’ve told her about it several times, but to no avail. “Mother,” I’ve said, “you’ve just got to stop killing yourself.”

How to Lose the Trade

The phone rang, and I answered.
“Hello. Do you play piano for banquets?”
Yes, for two free meals and fifty dollars I allow myself to be cor­rupted--temporarily. How many times do I have to play ‘Bill Bailey?”
“Maybe eight or ten.”
“Make that three free meals and sixty dollars."

“Hello, is this the Mr. Williams that plays the organ?”
“Speaking.” Sounds like a wedding.
“Well, my boy friend and I are getting married June 24, and I wondered if you would play for the wedding.”
“Sorry, I don’t do weddings. Once in a while a reception, if there’s plenty of booze.”

“Hello, is this the Williams that teaches organ lessons?”
“Yes, but I don’t teach them much anymore. I’m tied up doing brain surgery.
“Oh. Well, I got me this here organ--fella give me a pretty good deal--always wanted to learn to play one, y’know.”
“I see. Why don’t you get an instruction manual with the lettered cardboard strips that fit over the keys and the colored adhesive plates that you stick on the pedals and teach yourself?”
“Oh, I don’t want to learn to read music. I just want to learn to play by ear.”
“I see..”
“Yeah, I always pick out a few tunes after work, y’know--?”
“From your ear?”

“Hello there! Is this the fella tunes pyannas?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, what d’ya charge?”
“Twenty dollars.”
“Can ya tune mine?”
“I think so. Pianos are a lot alike.”
“Well, when can y’do it?”
“Where do you live?”
“North Webster.”
“Oh. Hmm, I’m afraid I’d have to charge another fifteen for that
trip. That’s an hour each way from here.
“What! Thirty-five dollars? Shucks, I only paid me fifty for the whole pyanna. G’bye.”
“Toodleoo.”

“Mr. Williams, I have a boy who will be almost four and one-half this April, and he just loves music. Now, tell me honestly, am I just being silly to think of getting him started on the piano this year? I mean, what is the average age--I know they start them at six or seven sometimes, don’t they——I mean, I started from Mrs. Briggs--Alice Briggs—­do you know her--over on Henry Street--I started with her myself when I was only six--or was it seven?”
“It was six.”
“I beg pardon?”
“You should."
“What?”

“Mr. Williams, I wonder if five is too young to start my little Freddy on the organ?”
“Well, madam, yes—-that is, if little Freddy falls off the bench and breaks his little neck on the pedals.”

“Mr. Edward Williams?”
“I have a daughter who will be starting third grade this year, and we bought a lovely spinet a month ago. You do give piano lessons, don’t you?”
“Well, I’ve cut down pretty much because of my fulltime work.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Teaching at the University.”
“Oh really? How marvelous! Music?”
“No, sex education and Communist theory.”

“Hello?"
“Hi there.”
“Are you the Mister Williams who advertised for piano lessons ?“
“The same. But that was last fall. I’m not taking any more pupils because of the demands of my regular work. You see, I--.”
“Well, our Louise is just a genius at the piano and she simply hates her present teacher and demands to take from you. She just loves the way you play.”
“Well, that’s very flattering, but--.”
“I tell you Mister Williams, she just won’t think about anyone but you."
“Well, I appreciate how she feels, but—-.”
“Perhaps you know her--Louise Del Mario? She was runner-up to Miss Indiana in the beauty pageant last year?"
“Shall we say this Saturday afternoon at two? My wife goes shopping.”

The Curve

I was driving down the highway and started into a wide, sweeping curve——the kind that seems to go on forever. After what seemed like minutes I was still in the curve, and the only change I could see was that it seemed to be getting tighter and banking steeper. I had to decelerate to maintain my lane without slipping onto the rocky beam, and my foot poised momentarily over the brake while the car slowed into control. I began to feel uncomfortable.

“Where does this end?” I muttered, unable to see anything but rocks and trees immediately ahead. My hands gripped the wheel, and I caught myself chuckling at the idea that I might be driving around a vast circle. I shifted in my seat and paid greater attention.

What could have been on the mind of the wiseacres who engineered this monstrosity? I puzzled, and suddenly real­ized to my horror that the road was now banked nearly ver­tically, as on the high margin of a test track, and that if I wasn’t moving nearly seventy, or if I had to stop for any reason, I would quickly plummet and smash to pieces against the rocks to my left——which were actually below me.

Impossible! I panicked~ yet the curve continued.

Sweat beaded my face as my mind raced for a rational answer. I realized then that I was alone on the road. I hadn’t seen another car since the curve began. The last one, which had been following me about a half-mile behind, had turned off on another road before I entered the curve what had to be several miles ago. I hadn’t seen anyone ahead of me for hours.

Glancing down at the speedometer, I was stunned to see the needle edging steadily lower: 65--60--55--.

As I looked up I couldn’t believe my eves. The curve was relaxing, but inversely, having gone imperceptibly past vertical. I was driving in some kind of gigantic loop—a carnival-loop arrangement--upside down.

Every muscle in my body shuddered. My legs went into spasms as my right foot vibrated against the accelerator. By every natural law my car should have fallen off the road as surely as if I would fall if I tried to walk on the ceil­ing. Yet gravity was as constant in this bizarre warping
of physical laws as if the curve had never begun. And the rocks and trees had remained normal in their appearance throughout. The sky, bright blue, remained overhead--or at least so in relation to my body, my feet, the car--in short, everything had gradually inverted, turned completely over simultaneously, without the slightest jarring or disorder. Everything appeared normal, yet the old, right-side-up world was gone.

The threat was more terrifying by the absence of any immediate danger, and though my body was racked by spasms, I still had the presence of mind to conduct a coherent inquiry. I had surely imagined it all. I had lapsed out momentarily and negotiated an opposite curve at some point while absently considering something else. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember what. I hadn’t been dr1nking. No medicines. No chance of monoxide from the exhaust I had recently had checked.

Well then, I concluded, whatever happened, it seems to be over now. Strange ideas sometimes overtake one on long trips. Silly. Irrational. But they do happen. I took several deep breaths and resolved to try to put the whole insane idea out of my mind.

The curve eased into a gentle arc. I could now see far­ther down the road each moment. At last it straightened out completely, and ceased banking to the point that I felt I could safely pull off onto the beam and rest a moment, as soon as I could find a convenient spot along the rock-bordered roadway. I was now moving only about fifty, and my spasms were beginning to subside. My breathing returned to nearly normal, yet I longed for a change from the ominous sameness of the rocks and trees that endlessly flashed by to either side.

In the far distance I saw what I thought was a widening, a clearing, and I sped on toward it, only be find that the highway began to gently fall into a long, straight down grade, ever steeper.

Again my pulse quickened, My car canted into the drop faster and faster, I eased the brake. I floored the brake, to no effect whatever. Suddenly my veins turned to ice, , I released it and pumped, and pumped again. Nothing. I hit the clutch and tried to downshift. The gears were locked! I snatched the emergency brake to its full travel as easily as if it had been detached from its cable, There was nothing I could do to slow down, as the needle sped to 65—70--
75--80.

The steering began to vibrate--that sickening flutter one feels when control begins to fade. My only hope was that for as far as I could see, the road was now straight. But I couldn’t see very far since the hill kept cresting steeper and steeper beneath me. 85—90—95—100! I fairly plummeted now with no steering at all, my tires barely skimming the pavement. Then I realized that I was headed straight down.

Suddenly my speedometer dropped to zero, I understood as suddenly why: the wheels were no longer turning, having nothing to turn against. I was in a straight nosedive, and the upper curves of my car were making an airfoil, a wing, of the whole car. I was literally flying into the air, away from the road surface.

Had I not survived the incredible curve only moments before, I would have fainted; but having undergone that with no explanation, and survived, I now found myself beyond fear, strangely calm.

“I am mad,” I told myself. Yet for the first time in years I felt supremely in command. The irony was too great. I laughed uncontrollably.

There I was, hurtling straight to hell at God knows what velocity——yes, velocity was the only word now, not speed, for speed was irrelevant——and flying, yes flying into the sky as the road pulled further and further from beneath me, and I was feeling in command? Wait. Wait.

Suddenly I saw the light, a perfectly logical reason settled upon me. I thought, I’m not flying away from the road; the road is inverting like the curve.

Looking at my hands as they gripped he steering wheel, I was tempted to let go altogether, and why not? But I checked the impulse. Logically, I could simply twirl the wheel like a child’s toy one way or the other, with no real effect, send it spinning to its limits. Yet my sense of touch told me somehow the vehicle continued to respond to my grip, to my steering. Then I realized that, logically, if I was falling, or dropping, at a great enough velocity (which by the blur of my peripheral vision I believed that I must be by this time), I should be feeling weightless, like an astronaut or skydiver. Yet I still felt a normal gravity against the seat. Then I must be flying after all!

Instantly the problem of the resistance of the steer­ing wheel was clear. The tires, as extensions into the void, were now serving as rudders, less resistant to the air if left straight.

What, then, if I turned them? I pondered the idea. No! The steep rocks which continued beside me even at my height of several hundred feet, as I estimated, would catch the car and smash it like a candy wrapper in a moment. I craned my head against the window and looked up as high as I could. The rocks formed an endless, straight chasm, I had no idea how far or how deep. Yet the sky remained above the road as far as I could see.

I must emphasize that during this entire experience I had never ceased to “drive.” That is, during it all, my hands and feet had remained poised on their respective parts: the wheel, the accelerator, the brake, the clutch. Further and further I rose from the road, now a mere black ribbon below and ahead of me between the canyon walls, like a perfectly— channeled dark stream. It was as if the road had throughout eternity carved and sliced its way down, down through the rocks of the universe, cleaving time and space, bisecting all matter into a left and a right hemisphere. And now, at the end of my life--for I clearly knew these to he my last moments in this world--I was silently and serenely rising to another dimension, another place.

Such were my thoughts. I grew surprisingly unconcerned about the whole affair, so convinced had I become that, having passed from this world’s petty logic, from this world’s insignificant natural laws, there was nothing to do hut wait--perhaps even to try to enjoy this incredible apotheosis.

I realized also that my fears throughout had been of pain——the pain I dreaded when it would end, as I now knew it would--and upon the ties I had tried to preserve my life to return to: my wife, my children, my friends, my career. Yet now that I understood the absolute silliness of even clinging to a shred of hope, those fears had utterly vanished,

I would die instantly, painlessly. My life would be as an instant in the lives of those I left behind me, their lives instants in themselves——all life, indeed, all time, all events--instantaneous, a momentary flicker among the infinite stars, unnoticed by any intelligence, and of no consequence whatsoever.

There was never so serene a moment. The thought of prayer flitted into my consciousness, but I dismissed the idea as ludicrous. Prayer was for the living, for those who hoped for change, for those who rose and went to work, turned off clocks, took showers and watched television and
went to bed, not up and drove to work the next day and--drove, I thought! Drove! Tried to exercise their intellects, their senses, their muscles, all their human instincts upon that machine called their family car——one of the most remarkable inventions of all time, more traveled through time and space by more people than any other mode of conveyance, perhaps more than all others combined. The car had a history, a soul, the collective soul of the billions who had used it to extend themselves through time and space——and the myriads who had perished an it——their souls were part of the car as well, every car——my car!

My hands stroked the wheel reverently, musingly, pleasantly, much as the hands of a connoisseur might stroke a small sculpture. Still I felt like holding on. It was somehow comforting, a wonderful peace. I smiled. Then I felt moved to press the accelerator, that remarkable magic invention that made it all go. I pushed, not timidly, but confidently, as if moving away from a stoplight.

To my unspeakable amazement, the engine surged forward, propelling the car yet faster through the endless chasm! It was as though I had fired a booster rocket in space. I let up slowly. The motor wound down, though the momentum main­tained itself normally.

I wonder, I thought hesitantly, I wonder if-- . I poised my foot atop the brake pedal for a long time, then pressed it down firmly.

My body jerked forward in the seat. My arms pushed back against the wheel, my head and neck resisted their forward thrust. My car slowed. Steadily, positively, I was braking-- against what Force, what energy, what matter, I had not the slightest inkling, yet I was controlling my car!

Suddenly I became again aware of the chasm walls to either side They had become previously merely a uniform blur, a stable backdrop of nondescript yellow-gray. But now I saw them begin to differentiate one from the other, and to take form again as I continued to smoothly decelerate. Then I again perceived their rockiness, then their individual var­iations as the miles quickly slowed.

I focused my attention on where the road had once been, but had since become a mere hairline crack, then an indistinguishable figment of my imagination. I was stunned to see it again, so close that I could once more discern the center line no more than a few thousand feet below!

Slowing with each second, and maintaining a steady pressure of the brake, I suddenly detected a sickening acrid smell of searing metal and grease. I eased my foot slightly and sensed the wind then, blowing hard against me. I feared the car would fly faster, but it did not. The odor faded. I decided to try the brake again gently, in spurts, and it seemed to work. I slowed, and at the same time headed down, down, gradually down, and I was in command!

Moments later, in my concentration--I had no idea how long, since time had lost all meaning--I sensed a faint hope spring somewhere from my innermost being. A hope that by some insane blend of circumstances I might be able to place the car back on the highway, and despite all reason, to find again some semblance of the reality I had convinced myself was forever lost. I dared not hope to return to my family or former life--my experience was clearly a metaphysical one by which death was inevitable, if I hadn’t died already. But they might at least find me, bury me. Yes, I hoped they might bury me in the earth--my earth, the sweet earth of all humanity.

It was coming. The road was coming up fast. It would soon he over. I was ready.

No, yet there was something more--some perverse will. I would not submit to death without an act, a final act. Against all that mitigated against hope, I tried to believe that I might yet somehow be able to set the thing down aright. Yes, there would be something of real achievement in that, I considered.

I continued to brake, to maintain control.

How long had it been? I wondered. How far had I come in this strange new place? Could it have been only hours, or was it days, or years? Nothing could measure this infinity, save the road——the road!

It rose toward me steadily, widening. A few hundred more feet, perhaps, a couple of hundred——no! I was coming down too fast! The trees slashed obliquely by my periphery. I was practically dropping onto the road!

Instantly I thrust down the accelerator, and instantly sped ahead, sweeping simultaneously up toward the horizon, levelling out of my nosedive with my airfoil car! The falling slowed! I relaxed my thrust, and by trial an’ error found that I could rather accurately control my descent.

Suddenly I heard a loud “tick” and glanced down. My speedometer needle had spun ahead to 120 miles per hour and struck the pin. I hit the brakes carefully, but now the tires screamed and vibrated. 100—90—70--. I urged the brakes carefully. All tires now touched the paving!

I was driving on that incredible road! I was alive! I was driving again!

I knew nothing anymore. Nothing at all. Yet I believed that I was really driving down that highway again, and that somehow I would continue to exist, whatever came.

Incredibly, the terrain again looked as I had once remembered, before the curve. The grass and trees stood out to either side, and the pavement dipped and rolled normally, solidly beneath my tires.

Suddenly something came into view down the road, and grew larger. It was a sign—white. I strained to read it. Soon it became legible:

SLOW/DANGEROUS CURVE.


I glanced ahead where the highway turned and saw the start of a wide, sweeping, bending curve—the kind that seems to go on forever.

With everything left in me I screamed and hit the brake and swerved the wheel. I spun wildly onto the beam, skidding uncontrollably hack end forth across the rough, loose rocks and raising huge yellow dust clouds.

My car struck something. I lurched forward violently. My car swerved back to the left with a crunch. My head struck the windshie1d and roof support, then whipped back, then I heard my neck snap and couldn’t raise my head. The car spun, I couldn’t move my hands, I couldn’t move the wheel. The sign flickered into my windshield like a spear and I saw the glass shatter, then a loud sound registered in my ear and continued to echo into silence.

A Poet's Frustration

I would that my words soared, birdlike,
Not lie as muddy, quaint stains upon the page, turdlike.

The Devil's Weakness

I thought it somehow unique, that I was able to beat the devil that would have at my soul, not by strength of will, but by out-running him--by feigning, as on a football field, then out—running him around end. For a moment I know that the devil was a human, not a divine, thing. Though it seemed to sap my entire strength, I beat him, and I knew that I would then live. It was as if a slow—moving animal of the plains suddenly discovered that he could outrun his lion pursuer; he would no longer fear to stand and eat.

Summer School at Saint Francis

The young priest with an Irish smile
Reveals the Lord in the auditorium—
With such glib, learned cheer, why not convert and join the fun?
The young Notre Dame football star with close-cropped neat blonde hair and well-scrubbed nails talks confidently and intimately of the soul, explains matter-of-factly, with a condescending grin, how things are, what God wants, how to go about it.
Always smiling—life, death, a bit of hand—slapping in purgatory and you’re in; you can’t lose!
God will win from the fifty yard line
If the devil doesn’t concede first.


What shall the bulletin board bring today?
New lettering? new colors? new pins and papers?
Will it tell us “Books Bring Happiness?”
Or “A Rich Vocabulary Is the Key to Understanding?”
Or introduce us to “Prefixes and Suffixes ?“
Or will it tell us only to “Get Hooked on Reading” like the black and white polkadot paper bloated fish about to take the black yarn and bent-nail hook from his green cork ocean?
Do kindergarten teachers love children?

Long sits this vast room of empty chairs,
Rows and rows and ranks and files, quiet, benign, a cemetary of thoughts.
On the stage no speaker strides; from the lectern comes no words;
The silent grand piano looks absurd.
In this room are many ghosts;
Dim the lights and know them.


In the AV aide charges,
Limps to the rear bearing a microphone stand,
whips a key, unlocks a door,
bursts forth behind a juggernaut projector and charges out
Soon another door opens;
In charges Gimpy dragging two old chairs to the stage,
Slams them down, shoves the lectern,
Pounds a microphone onto the stand,
And heaves an overhead projector out the door—
His asymmetrical steps fade down the hall.

Trailing down from Bonaventure to the plains,
Across the Globe-studded weedpatch that was a lake,
Onward and upward past Our Mother,
Stepping smartly aside B & G trucks and tractors,
Striding down the mall to the Troub, past the library, past the birds, past the trees, benches, lawn chairs and shade,
Past the smiling, swishing, mellow pale sisters,
Past the smiling, swashing, nervous tan novitiates,
Striding down the mall to the Troub,
From the tower of knowledge to the pit of snackland,
Where study is out and smailtalk is in.


There are four nuns.
One is pretty.
What’ s a nice young nun like you doing in a place like this?
A man trips by and jostles her chair--the excusing, the smiles--
Does she really belong to God?


Doctor Essix presents a problem:
the lack of spirituality in modern life, the paralysis of everyone to correct it, the wasteland that is today, the stoic stance that endures all, somehow.
It’s all so clear, so lucid, so incontrovertible-—and what can be done about it, after all?
Well, first, we can study the background material surrounding the literature (we have collected tons of clippings, snapshots, and letters over the years),
Then we can interpret the literature
(asking the students first, of course, and enduring their naive obser­vations which don’t even correspond to our notes),
Explain to the students what the author didn’t realize that he said.

Then, what else? We’ll have a test Friday
to see how well the parrots mimic our notes,
to see if they, too, have grasped the essence of the literature. Ah, literature! It’s too sublime,
too sublime for words.
But alas! it must be intellectualized
(that’s where we come in—to make it intelligible to the students).
Thank God! we’ve found our calling.
We can’t write it, but we can teach it.
We have a most impressive set of notes, books, criticism, secondary materials—everything needed to counter the most troublesome remarks they may ignorantly insist upon.
The students are getting more troublesome each term, it seems.
Mi, well, we try.
If they won’t have it, so much the pity.
-

Vroom! down the hall
Whish! down the stairs
Nudge through the jam of wide-bottomed elementary teachers toward the parking lot’s single exit,
Smiling through windshields, we grit our teeth and curse softly and coast a bit further, jockeying for takeoff;
Mature grad students, we.

Most of the ladies are fat, middle-class teachers
who smile a lot, nod a lot, and understand little.
The professor must couch his terms carefully so as not to offend. They block my thought even as they block my aisle at class’s end.

Sitting in the eternal classroom, the air conditioner faltering,
The professor droning, the chair hardening,
The fluorescent lights brightening, the Brownies piping,
The students sweating, the art class upstairs pounding,
The brain numbing, the ignorant stalling,
The guts churning, the eyes aching,
Learning are we of truth, life, the need for love.


Bonaventure is a pleasant enough place,
clean, modern, air-conditioned,
with a touch of the old in its uneven roofline and rounded, warm corners.

The corridors are nice, if bare—pa stel—And the third floor art hail is a showcase,
with a painting by Elizabeth Barrett and a towering heap of nuts,
bolts, and brads outstanding in my mind—
Altogether a sz~tisfactory setting for an outrageous experiment in humanity. But alas, the education is the same as elsewhere: an interminable lesson
in turning off—Academe.
Academe in the rooms, polluting the air, betraying the architecture, obscuring the people, crushing the inspiration and the delight, killing the promise.

Poor Mrs. Murders all,
Sweet as a puppy, fat as a hog,
Clucks like a hen, walks like a wren,
Studies like a bear, stacks up her hair,
Nice as could be, personality—
but fat as a hog.


Nadya the Egyptian and her occidental blonde twin-­I can see their profiles down the front row,
Their hair streaming down over the lithe backs—
Beautiful, feminine, lovely—
Their small chiseled features smooth as desert drifts, subtle, delineated,
Their large eyes see just so, just so.
They are so thin, so antique, so faraway—
The lyre and the auios-­One dark, one light~ the day, the night; complete.

Spiller,
Dapper little dandy,
Intense little eyes and curlywavy hair,
You’re a cracker, Spilier-diller, but the curse touches you also:
you’re too short.
You teach art; I write;
But we’re still short, aren’t we?
Too short for engineers, firemen or chiefs,
Too short to be honest, without our art to hide behind.
Move quick, make a name, run fast-­maybe no one will notice.

The Personnel Office looks like a bank office—a blank office with a cardboard secretary
and a recording for a loan clerk to fend off the poor with a sincere smile
The big boss is never in—“He’s on vacation just now, but if you care to try later—“

One day on Bonaventure’s third floor
As we discussed Browning’s doctrine of love, All of a sudden the building trembled—
through the concrete one could feel the tension.
Why, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole pile didn’t tumble at any moment, cave in to a yawning chasm and disappear forever—
Why, the air conditioner even slowed for a moment! it was terrifying, simply terrifying,
Till I remembered the steel girders and beams, the glass and sturdy brick, and the modern, efficient design.

Mister Bradburn is five feet tall.
He is going to quit teaching in the fall
and go to work for an encyclopedia firm of long standing. He walks with a lilt, has never a tilt—good for you, Mr. Bradburn; go write em, boy!
He’s been everywhere—all over Europe, too,
and he knows all about it.

He is the inscrutable, honorable professor of modern China.
His moustasche is Chinese, his eyes slant, and he is very handsome.
He understands China.
He plays around with a first-rate, long-haired beauty who’s studying art; he’s been trying to put the make on her for about a month now, in between fooling with an older teacher with a well-preserved figure.
Today he dragged the chic young student down to the Troub, and couldn’t find a seat for their coffee, so he had to share her with some other horny students; he was squelched.
But he bore it with Chinese stoicism.
More power to you, Chaing; I envy you your goal (and proximity, apparently, to success!)
Long live the Republic of China and its secrets,
and may your children know their parents.

Giggle along with Giggles Keho
Giggle along some more.
Giggle along till you nearly gag
With giggles and gaggles galore—
Oh, there’s Miss Ifney now! Halloo, Miss Ifney! how’s your stiff knee?
Where have you been?
we’ve missed you greatly,
Hasn’t been the same since you ye gone.
Top drawer, Miss Ifney-­the door, Miss Ifney?
so sorry, so sad, forlorn.

Jack Sprat’s another.
He’s found his cloister at St. Francis.
His wife’s to support him while he gets his Masters’
Then his mother.


Miss Bernbaum dresses pertly, winces a lot, and moves in high heels, And under it all she is mad and bites her nails.
She doesn’t find her spirit here—most vexing.

Mr. Buber, really—
You shouldn’t think such thoughts, and if you did, you shouldn’t show them, Mr. Buber.
People talk about your walk.
Control, Mr. Buber, control.


They’re building a new science building,
And for the life of me I can’t see how they’re going to get to it unless they walk across the lake
(of course, at Saint Francis anything is possible).
It has a dome on top—I thought it would be an observatory, but it’s all cement.
You wouldn’t want a cement dome on an observatory, would you? Perhaps it’s a planetarium.
Things are, after all, rather self-contained here....

Point Pelee

Groundhog

Shortly outside Roanoke, on Route 24, we saw a big groundhog or beaver, or some such critter, Standing at attention near the roadside, doing a “way-up”.
There was a drainage ditch nearby, swampy and with thick summer vegetation, arid I suppose he lived there.
But he had little or no fear of cars, and when we circled hack to get a picture of him, he was gone, not so much out of fright, I think, as out of the private conviction that he d fascinated enough crazy drivers for one day

Coldwater

In the old Michigan town of Coldwater,
Which, just over the Indiana line, 1 had connected with selling booze to Hoosiers on Sunday,
We had a bite to eat.
At a drive-in off the shady, tree-lined street.
Aged, tall boughs bent over to meet high overhead,
Providing an idyllic canopy for our picnic.
I would love to see it in an early morning mist, or after heavy snow humbled the boughs..
And the houses--the old Victorian hones, were preserved and lovely, as few are anymore.
They gave warmth to a century that has moved away from such grace..

Detroit

Detroit surprised me.
I thought the town was a worse-than-Calcutta slum from one end to the other.
But it isn’t.
We drove through a low-rent neighborhood on the way from the expressway to the Ambassador Bridge, and it was pretty.
It was wide, with shady boulevards and well-kept brick homes.
The bridge itself surprised me, too.
I remembered it from a prior trip many years ago as an eyesore, thick-looking and dirty.
It isn’t.
It’s soaring, airy, and majestic.
And the river beneath, connecting the Great Lakes, was blue and clean to the eye, as are were the lakes.
1 had to change my mind about Detroit.

Then, when we came back on our return trip, Coming from Port Huron to the fourth, And driving through the heart of tie city on the freeway, I formed yet a different impression of Detroit. It is a city of speed, Of savage, unpredictable drivers,
And there is no beauty there. One feels trapped there, Drawn into the heart of the city at ever—increasing speed and tension, There one feels breathless, struggling and tugging to escape to the outskirts and freedom. On a Sunday afternoon in the summer, the city freeway is no place for nervous men. I let my wife drive. She has youth.


Donna

It was at the 1867 Cafe we met Donna, Donna of the smiling eyes, blue as the Great Lakes, twinkling as she filled our orders.
She wore an old—fashioned Canadian dress and white bonnet,
And looked as Hester Prynne must have looked in old Boston.
And, though a bit on the hefty side,
Had warmth and private, charming, selective radiance.


Leamington Pier

There was some unpleasantness that night, As we walked back from the long end of the dock on the boards, the waning light had Al but vanished, Inc the lake rippled, silent and deep.
A gang of boys-- three or four I guessed-- danced out onto the pier, letting the air received whatever vulgarities moved them. Finally one, alone and ahead, twirled about suddenly and yelled something toward us.
“Well Hallo there,” he wolfed at my bride as we passed.
I was startled and indecisive, My heart raced. We walked on without confrontation. I was afraid.
We walked and she talked, but I didn’t hear her voice, but rather the footsteps coming back through the boards from the pier’s end. where the gang would be coming back. There were few others on the pier.
I tried not to be rushed in my step, but when we reached the shore, even then I dared not turn, hut. rather took her home quickly and went inside, and regarded the mirror in our room.
He meant nothing, that boy—— perhaps drunk, perhaps merely rude, he forgot his unconscious challenge immediately, I imagine.
I did not.


Pixie

She couldn’t have been over twelve to fourteen,
Thin as a rail, lithe and nimble and rhythmic,
And slightly, ever-so-slightly curving in her flat doll’s figure.
And of rich, dull, brownish yet shiny hair in a long pony tail, and a pert nose, and pale mouth without makeup,
Tawny, smooth features, innocent eves and smile, and small, perfect teeth.
Our pixie hopped from car to car, Swinging her thin, long arms in an arc behind her as she skipped and flirted with the Canadian boys in the sunk cars
who roared and raced around the restaurant and seldom bought more than a token something to drink as an excuse for love-loitering.
She was a daughter, an embryo of a fine princess, appropriately shy, a bit coy, at the age and stage most nearly perfect as a girl—noy a woman yet, but no longer a child-- an exquisite girl.


The Girls Practicing

Four girls sat on the sunny private beach
in front of one’s mother’s house
On Lake Huron,
In the sand,
And talked about things and people—— mostly people.
Hims and hers—— but mostly hims.
A her came later, and wasn’t very welcome,
And failed to make the grade and soon left,
While the others combed their hair
and brushed the sand,
And got tanned, and practiced.

Fergie's Buffalo

From the field journal in a quaking hand, Thursday:

‘This buffalo I’ve been following now for nine days has slender, cleft hooves, sharp, too small for hi~ weight. It’s a wonder he doesn’t sink in the frequent patches of soft prairie mud and tall grass he seems to prefer. I do, even in my boots, but he doesn’t. Curious.”

And again:

“He looks terribly stupid in the face, covered with matty beards and curls; thick, stranded, stinking hair the color of dried blood--unkempt-­nothing graceful or lovely about him. He seems to know I’m here. Sometimes he just stares at me for hours. His foul breath steams in the early morning.

From the next day’s field entry:

“He will move ploddingly, then suddenly dart off like a wild bushpig when some primitive semblance of a thought reaches his dim brain, clattering off across the flats broken-field style with his eyes popped till the whites surround them, like a halfback on a busted play, spooked to death by little or nothing apparent. Keeping up while remaining hidden difficult.”

Later that evening, in the tent:

“This buffalo is incredibly dumb. I doubt he knows night from day. I’m certain he’s never thought about it. Stupid, dull, senseless beast! How can one justify his existence?”

And from an entry labeled “Midnight, after a bottle of hooch:”

“Surely his only raison d’ètre is to make coarse, stringy meat for the cougar or a rude robe for the Indian winter--sport for the pony boys? a dark icon for a Remington or West?”

A final entry, Saturday, in a sure hand:

“In form and dignity the buffalo of the plain is at one with his own chips--a bad sketch. . . a natural blunder.”

Interspersed among these highlights appear several cryptic notations and marginalia:

“This, after thirty—four years!

“‘The Long, Unhappy Life of Fergus Bestwick’. He never charged; I never fired.”

“The program was little more than a slide show, a firstrate flop. . turgid. . .squamous.
The Times:

“The buffalo correspondent for Animericana had a dirty job, but someone had to do it.”

“Fergus Bestwick--of the Indianapolis Bestwicks. He had never even been west of Illinois till that time.”

“An unfair assignment, a bad mismatch.”

Later the following excerpts were found from the minutes of the editorial boardroom meeting of Animericana magazine, dated August 15:

“But he does know what he’s writing about, that’s the point. Bestwick knows his buffalo! “--chief editor Bob Walsh.

“Like Scudder knew his fish.” ——assistant editor Bill Barry.

“Well, I don’t know, it seems too intense. “--publisher Howard Hannah.

“He looked him in the eye and the buffalo blinked first! “--pressman Joe Wyznecki.

“He was not ‘buffaloed’ . “——Barry.

“I say we print! “--Wyznecki.

In the December 4 Herald appears the first and only review, page 17:

“After a delay of several weeks the Kiwanis Travelogue series of Tuesday night reluctantly presented Fergus Bestwick’s’Animals of the Plain.’ Bestwick, a freelance writer-photographer for the now-defunct Animericana magazine, was awarded the right to present the show following a vociferous court battle this September and early October.

“Following an organ medley by Booneville’s own Guy Short, Bestwick strode onto the high school auditorium stage in safari drag and flung what some said was a buffalo skin over the lectern. The audience of several rows then saw a sequence of over two hundred slides showing a single buffalo in his western Nebraska habitat. Several dozen of these seemed almost identical, depicting the beast staring at the camera at close range. Others were blurred, some were apparently abstract. All were accompanied by an animated, at times rambling narrative which one audience member called ‘disturbed’.”

“Tim Hayden, Kiwanis President, apologized to the audience following the program and promised to sue the receivers of Animericana s assets for a full refund of ticket prices.

Bestwick, during a perspiring postshow interview, however, called it a triumph’, dismissing the choruses of boos and catcalls which punctuated the presentation as ‘orchestrated by the opposition’ and ‘sour grapes on their [Kiwanis~] part.’

“He said that at no time did he feel intimidated or threatened, despite the shredding of the buffalo skin by ‘hired stooges’ during a projector lamp change. Bestwick said he would probably not sue for damages. ‘I couldn’t see their faces,’ he reported, ‘only their forms, five or six of them. It was very dark.’”

The next spring, following a record flood of the Midwest after months of heavy snow accumulation, Fergus Bestwick returned to western Nebraska in quest of what he termed “the personification of evil.”

The wheels of his rented safari wagon spun over the soft mud flats of several counties in giant crisscrossing patterns reported by several pilots of small aircraft.

After several weeks he located the beast near a farmhouse, “staring at me quizically.” He felled it with one shot and returned to Indianapolis.

When questioned about the incident several months later, he was quoted as answering, “What buffalo?”

I'm a Dreamer

I’m a dreamer.
I dream I’m younger.
I dream I’m richer.
I dream I’m taller, thinner, handsomer.
I dream I’m smarter.

I dream I live where I want,
when I want,
how I want.
I dream I write, I dream I play, I dream I paint and sketch and
walk through interesting places.
I dream I travel.

I dream I love.
I dream I’m loved.


I dream it’s different than it is.
I dream I’m happy.
I dream I’m happy

Tommorow Will Be a Writing Day

Tomorrow, I believe, will be a writing day.
Not a lawn-mowing day,
Not a shopping day, or a bill-paying day,
Not a car-fixing, computing, or piano-playing day,
Not a day of puttering or sputtering around town
Gathering up supplies and groceries,
Getting gas or oil,
Galumphing around on foot or bike,
Clearing the mind,
Refreshing the goals,
Reflecting upon what has been or what may be,
Seeking answers—
And seeking answers—
Forever seeking, never quite finding answers—
Those things are for every other day, but
Not for tomorrow,
No, not tomorrow, for


Tomorrow, I believe, will be a writing day.
Tomorrow will be a writing day because
I am in voice!
At last in voice!
Finally surprised in glorious, prodigal voice!

Shower Talk

9:00

“The journal is the writing,” I told myself. It’s my safe haven, the one place I know that I will write every day and the one place I’m confident that I can’t fail. And I’ve tried to convince myself repeatedly that if I write regularly there, I am a writer.
The trouble is, I never quite believe it. To call a journal-keeper or diarist a writer is like calling a Special Olympics participant an athlete. It’s a rationalization—though a humane one perhaps--a denial of the obvious. Writing notes isn’t being a writer, even if they run into thousands of pages as mine have.
“Yes, I’m an author,” I hear myself saying.
“Oh really? What have you published lately?”
“Well, er, I don’t actually publish, but I do keep an extensive journal.”
“Hmm, I see.”
So it’s out. I’m a writer but not a real writer. I’m a closet writer. Oh, if only I could instead answer, “I did a little story recently about a New York piano bar, Fred and Ginger.”
And it’s true, I did! “All the Things You Are,” from the old Jerome Kern tune, is one of the best stories I ever wrote. But I wrote it last year, and that’s not “recently.” And I wrote dozens of other short manuscripts over the years, but haven’t tried to publish any of them.

Okay, so let’s just say I’m not a writer and be done with it! No one but me cares anyway. But can I accept that? Of course not. I have to believe that I am a writer, or at least could be a writer someday, whether published or not, whether paid or not, whether read or not. Even if I must delude myself completely and forever, I can’t admit defeat. To do that would be to give up the one goal I have had for personal creativity for over four decades. I can think of none other to take its place. I can’t give up my dream.

I’ll just have to keep trying, I guess. Try to imagine, try to create, try to loosen up and fantasize a bit. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. I must believe that But it’s devilish hard.

Things I’ve Learned about Life Dammit Anyway Department
By Blaine Kauffman
1. It helps to keep busy.
2.
The end

10:00
I’m going to Sam’s Club and get some gum and granola bars then pick up a burrito for supper tonight. And maybe pick up--who knows?--a floozy, a Mexican doozy.

What? Hey, at least I’m imagining something. Probably from a Jimmy Buffett tune.

A Man Who Buys Gas
By Blaine Kauffman

Yes, I am a man who buys gas. The kind of stand-up, confident fellow who grips the nozzle straightaway and forthrightly. I make no bones about it. I squeeze the handle firmly. I do not flinch at the pump’s antics, like when it says “printing receipt” but no paper comes out, or flashes “please see attendant.” I pump the gas, replace the nozzle, and drive away. That’s just the kind of man I am, and I make no apologies.
Sometimes a do forget the cap, but it doesn’t matter. I can get another cap. The important thing is to be the right sort of fellow, the sort who has “the right stuff” as they say. So if you’re looking for that kind of man, you’ve come to the right place.
The end
11:00
Okay, I’m getting there. Two small bursts of imagination, and the key in each was slipping into a role, a voice, saying something I might have said anyway, but not in my journal voice, not in my normal voice. Taking a role. I must step aside and adopt a role. That’s what’s hard, to break out of my reasonable voice and thought and “become another person.” But it seems to be vital. Otherwise nothing can be imagined, only recorded. To imagine, I have to step out of myself and become a different speaker. How can it be at once so difficult and so instantaneous?

Two down. Not bad. I am beginning to hope again. Who knows, It may get easier as I do more. Visualize, visualize, visualize. Sing! Relax. Dream. What do you see? Whom do you hear?

Knowing Why
By Blaine Kauffman

If someone climbed a tree and won’t come down, why? Do you know why?
I don’t know why he won’t come down. I’m sure I don’t. I even doubt that he knows why. In fact, I’m sure I—he—has no idea why. Knowing why is not something I am aware of, certainly. I mean, er, no. No, no, no! You’ll not find me claiming any such thing, I can assure you.
The end

Three down, not bad. I may dig out the voice recorder software again. Dramatic voice? Lyric voice? All I know is it’s definitely not the journal voice. But stepping aside from myself as it were, “going into character,” jumping into that dark water of creativity with both feet can be more than a little scary.