inner elves

Huh?

2009-08-18T12:05:00.002-05:00

If I am you,
And you are me,
Then I am us,
And us are we.

No Rush

2007-12-14T16:40:00.000-05:00

No rush is needed, now how shall I say?
No need to flit by like hobble-de-hay,
No call to race through the garden today.

Slow by the roses and bend to their blooms,
Notice the lilacs that waft their perfumes,
And smell how the daffodils sweeten their rooms.

You’ll get where you’re going so soon anyway,
Get there perhaps a bit too soon, I’d say.
Happier be if you don’t rush today.

Place

2007-12-11T17:21:00.000-05:00

I stood with my back to the sudden blizzard that seemed to come out of nowhere and began to blanket the silent field, trying to get my bearings. When I turned, punishing gusts of icy wind whipped new pellets of snow across my face and stung my eyes. I was shaking, breathing in short gasps of the bitter cold, but I couldn’t imagine why. Something had happened, that much I knew, and apparently little else. How did I get here? I couldn’t remember. Where am I? I didn't know. I panicked.

Glancing about for whatever short twists I could endure, I saw only frozen stubble in every direction, and the field quickly filling from the heavy snowfall. I’m in shock, I guessed. Far off to the left I thought I saw a car—not the one I was drove—with its tires facing the sky. I couldn’t see mine. My God, I thought, I’ve had a wreck, a terrible wreck, and I can’t even remember it! Was anyone hurt? Killed? Was I alone? Am I injured? Surely I must be. Am I dead? I didn’t think so, but reality seemed beyond my ability to think.

I tried moving my feet and legs. Aha! I exulted, I could walk! Well of course you can, you idiot, I countered, how do you think you got here from the wreck? My hands were bare but not yet hurting from the cold, and nothing else hurt--not even a headache. My neck seemed a little sore perhaps, but that was all. Yet I could remember nothing. I thought I was somewhere familiar, but didn’t know where. What is this place?

I felt a strange calm stealing over me. I may be freezing. I have to go back, I thought, turning to face the wind and gingerly stepping through the crusted, crackling field in the direction of the car’s underbody I could just see over a distant rise to my left. It appeared to be about a quarter-mile away. The light was fading. I had to reach safety soon or I was afraid I’d pass out and freeze to death. Few had been on the roads; no one knew where I was or what had happened. Barb would probably be home from work by now and waiting, but she would have no way of knowing my life was in danger.

Slowly my memory seemed to return in waves, then fogs of confusion and panic would again flood in. I was on my way home from the campus, I remembered, driving alone on north five, outside the city by a couple of miles. I never even saw the driver of the van—the white van--yes! It was partly off the road, spun around and facing right at me in my lane when I rounded the turn. I had no chance to miss it, but its door was open. Its driver had abandoned it when he couldn’t get it back on the road, and was long gone before I had even hit it. I could remember that clearly now. Thank God, I thought, it was just me. At least I didn’t think there was anyone else in the van.

As night approached, the angry blizzard raged with even greater fury and slowed my progress, blinding me and forcing my eyes to wince against tiny spinning knives of sleet. It was becoming impossible to fix the horizon. The yellow-gray wreckage seemed to recede the closer I advanced.

Then it disappeared beneath the horizon altogether. I realized I was going down. My ankles and legs sank nearly to my waist in deep soft drifts as I half-tumbled into a ravine, and I grabbed onto a tree to stand up. The fading light left little detail to recognize, and I had to blindly trust my sense of balance over the uneven ground. Finally the ravine seemed to level out. Suddenly I slipped on ice under the snow and fell to one knee. I knew I was at the bottom, and the ice was mostly uncovered. I worried for a time about water underneath the ice and feared breaking through, but the small creek was frozen through, and I inched my way across it cautiously.

Finally I reached the other side, which was steeper. But I managed to climb up the slippery bank by grasping some saplings that held firm. The frozen ground held blessing as well as curse; had it been spring the soft mud would have loosed them from my weight as easily as pulling off candles from a birthday cake.

As I gained the top, I approached what seemed to be the top half of a wire fence, a few yards beyond which rose dark firs and large stones. In the gloom I couldn’t see an end to it in either direction. I tried to scramble over the it and managed to get my first leg over, but as I tried the second leg the wire caught my shoe in its irregular rectangles just as I cleared it, and again I fell, pitching forward onto a bank of snow that had drifted up against something hard, cold, and white, and I hit my head with a thud.

That’s the last I remembered till I was dimly aware of an owl plaintively screeching its night call. or was it a child’s or a woman’s voice? “Blaine,” the voice whispered.

I opened my eyes. Had I dreamed it? The blizzard had ended. The moon shone bright in a clear, starry night.

Raising my head, I saw dark roman letters carved into the white stone directly in front of me. As they slowly came into focus. I read my name. Underneath the small glyphs were dates: “Born-- July 10, 1939.” To the right of that, “Died—“ the remainder was covered by the drift. Gasping, I knew at once where I was.

“Blaine,” again I thought I heard my name faintly in the wind. “Blaine!” it was a female voice, louder this time—Mother? No. Mother always trailed down toward the end of my name,”
“Barbara?” I cried. "Over Here!"

With a trembling hand and my heart in my throat I reached out and scraped away the snow. “Died--. . . .” That's all there was. To the right, the stone was as smooth and unmarked as it had been when my parents first placed it a half-century before. Roger, my brother, had died of cancer when I was ten, and his was the first name the glyphs had completed. Mother had told me then that there was a place for me there as well if I ever wanted it. "Here! Over here!" I sobbed.

Ladders in the Fog

2007-06-22T08:27:00.050-05:00

Fog was everywhere, and seemed it would last forever--so thick it was, I couldn't even see my feet as I stepped on indefinite matter. Yet I could not just stand still. I had to move, and I walked around aimlessly. When I stumbled into a ladder, I began to climb. Since the ladder was nearly vertical, I didn't know what it leaned against. Someone's house? Some building? Why was it there? I saw no paint buckets, building materials, or scaffolding anywhere, but as I said, things may have been there except the fog obscured them.

Who owned the ladder, who stood it upright, or for what purpose, I didn't know. Still, I felt I should climb it. I thought if I could climb above the fog, perhaps I could see things more clearly. But the ladder seemed impossibly high--was it a firetruck ladder used in cities? The kind it takes a front and a back driver to negotiate the corners? That might account for its interminable length, but I hadn't noticed any apparatus it was attached to. Still, there might have been. The gray fog had covered everything, swirling like waves around my feet.

How long I climbed the ladder, how many minutes or hours, I couldn't sense. It must have been for hours, even days. It was impossible to know where I had begun. It was impossible to know where I was climbing. It was impossible to know when I would reach the top, or what I would find there. There was only the ladder, my aching feet and legs, and the fog. Yet I continued in my ascent; not to climb from where I was scared me more, and the thought of backing down through the thick fog conjured up such demons in my mind that I imagined them chasing me up, and hurried up the rungs.

Then suddenly the fog lifted. I paused and looked around, and saw other ladders, and people climbing up them just like me! Some were below me, some above. But Some were nearly beside me. And I noticed one fellow who seemed to be stuck on his ladder, with his leg through a broken rung. He was no more than a few feet away, and down a few rungs. I couldn't tell for sure, but he didn't seem injured. When the rung broke, he had slipped and fallen through, but not far. His ladder caught his foot on the rung beneath.

He looked at me imploringly. "Give me a hand here, guy," he said. I reached down to try to help him, but he was out of reach by a few rungs. I backed down on my rungs and reached out, caught his wrist, and pulled him up. He twisted his leg free and took a deep breath. He didn't seem injured. "Thanks," he smiled. "I don't know how long I've been here. You're the first one I've seen this high up, but this damned fog-- ."

I was glad for him. The fog seemed to be lifting further, and our ladders seemed to rise up parallel as twin towers, straight up. I looked forward to the company as I continued upward. But my fellow climber, instead of continuing his climb, couldn't seem to get past the broken rung and gave up, then started down. "Hey," I shouted, "aren't you coming up?" He just smiled and waved me off as he lowered himself rung by rung, and was soon a speck in my view.

Further up the ladder I was nearly killed by another person--a young woman, I think from her scream, who flashed a blur of green and white through space only inches away and in a second disappeared below, sickening me. I didn't know if she had fallen from her ladder, or heaven forbid, had jumped. Or maybe she had risen to the top and could go no further, had reached her destination. I shuddered, took a breath, and thought of retreating downward, since the fog had simply lifted higher, but I still could not see the top. I felt compelled to continue my climb, at least till I could sense the top, the end.

Maybe there is no end, I thought. Or if there was, what did I expect to find there? Would it be worth the tiring climb? As I looked around, I saw the forest of ladders and climbers of the ladders stretching to the horizon, as far as the eye could see. Some were on the way up, some just looking around at this level or that, and some seemed to be climbing down. Sometimes there were two, three, or more people climbing the same ladder, it appeared. On one distant ladder I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Two climbers seemed to be fighting, flinging their legs out and around like boxers, trying to scramble over each other to reach the next rung. A thick-set fellow in a waving, colorful tie bounded down to the fight from several rungs above and, with one well-aimed heel to the jaw of the climber nearest him, kicked the challenger right off the ladder! He went back up, and the surviving climber seemed reluctant to follow too closely behind. He crept up the rungs more slowly, more warily now.

Then, as I regarded the ladders' endless stretch, I saw for the first time some ladders' tops! They just stood erect like all the others, leaning against nothing, or nothing I could see. But they ended, at various heights. They clearly had an end. I couldn't see enough to say if they had climbers on them anywhere along their visible length, or if anyone had mounted or tried their length. They just stood among the others, going nowhere.

Did all the ladders ultimately end like these? I shuddered. Was there nothing beyond their tops? Surely not, I thought. Ladders had to go somewhere, didn't they? Else why have them? And just the effort of climbing them so laboriously, for so long, surely had to have some meaning. Else why do it? And there was the fog, high, high above it all, hiding the tops of many ladders. There had to be something there, above that fog. There surely had to be.

I looked up again at the long, straight rails of my ladder, stared at the endless rungs above me, and felt as if my destiny converged, as the rails, at the vanishing point in the fog above. Again I began to climb the rungs, peering high as intently as I could, up, up into the inscrutable fog which continued to lift, rather than disperse, the higher I rose.

Devon's Dance

2007-06-07T18:05:00.036-05:00

As Devon danced, he chose to drown
and turned around as he sank down,
turned and twisted round and round,
pirhouetting down and down,

Slowly lifted, a hand gestured,
Sad eyes smiled,
Pierrot Lunaire, a harlequin clown,

"Prete-moi ta plum-e," he mimed,
"Ma chandelle est morte,"
And as he danced, lowering down,
he gracefully bowed to curious fish,
and drowned.

The Old Man's Walk

2007-05-15T17:20:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

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.

Blanket

2007-05-14T20:52:00.000-05:00

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.

Ireland Is Full of Priests

2007-05-11T15:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T15:38:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-05-11T15:31:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T15:27:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T15:09:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-05-11T13:55:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T12:09:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T12:06:00.000-05:00

“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

2007-05-11T11:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T11:31:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T11:29:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T11:18:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T08:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T08:01:00.001-05:00

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

The Devil's Weakness

2007-05-11T07:54:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:36:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:26:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:24:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:17:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:15:00.000-05:00

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.

How's Your Portfolio?

2007-05-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

The few,
The proud,
The ma-rich!

Bogey Man

2007-05-10T19:41:00.000-05:00

Close my eyes and what do I see?
Old gray Bogeyman smiling at me.
Grinning away just as big as you please,
Reaching on out like to give me a squeeze--
He coming for me or just trying to tease?
(Making me feel kind of shake in the knees!)
Tatty old ragman, make me freeze;
He got tears! he just like we s--Wait! He talking-- ain’t that, “Please”?
Kind of felt sorry for Mister B.
He not so bad. He not so free--
Goldang, Charlie! that haint’s me!

The Hand of God

2007-05-10T19:40:00.000-05:00

The Hand of God washes clean
The sands of time
Like a silent wave
Suddenly formed
Suddenly gone.

Capture the Rapture.

The Celebrant

2007-05-10T08:22:00.000-05:00

There onee was a man
who liked especially well to celebrate things.

He placed reindeer on his Christmastime roof, and lit them with big lights, and sang mcny carols, and hung out his stocking.

And he stood in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and watched the globe descend, and sang “Old Lang Syne,”
and made many fervent resolves.

He remembered George and Abe,
reflecting on their greatness,

And bought his wife a big heart—shared box of candies to profess his Valentine’s love;

March 17, of course, he marched down 5th Avenue with the “Wearing of the Green,”

And was on hand faithfully to help Christ out of the grave at the Hollywood Bowl annually singing “Hallelujah!”

With a tear of pride, and a sparkler in his hand, he sang “God Bless America” under the July night,

And handed out sacks of treats to neighborhood goblins who dared to brave the wicked, glowing Jack-o on his porch;

Before cutting the November turkey, he asked the Lord’ s blessing at harvest—gathering, and counted his debts; then it was no time till Christmas again~

But of course there was also Father’s Day, and Mother’s Day, and the birthdays with their presents, cakes, and candles;
and Church on Sunday, with the Holy Eucharist renewed, and an occasional wedding, and an occasional funeral,

and yet, yet, there were other days, which seemed to be most of the time somehow, which were nameless, nothing, noxious days, on which not a single person he knew had born or died or done
anything at all worth celebrating.
Those were the rough ones, the everyday clothes ones, the real ones.

Back vs. Tack

2007-05-10T08:17:00.000-05:00

One short section of the quarterback’s arm was exposed: the jersey covered the upper arm to within a few inches of the elbow, and just below the elbow, the forearm was covered by a brace to the wrist.

“You’re arm looks strong, but I am stronger,” scoffed the beefy left tackle. “Look at my hands. They can tear your arm apart.”

The hulking lineman showed the quarterback his huge, violent hands, throbbing with unbelievable strength.

“You’re full of shit and bluster,” the quarterback rejoined. “You could never match my arm. Just try.”

The quarterback stiffened his arm along its entire length as the tackle, smacking his hands on his breeches and flexing his fingers, screwed up his face into a horrible, grinding grimace.
Seizing the quarterback’s upper arm with the left hand, and the forearm with the right, so that he could lock his thumbs for added torque, the tackle groaned and winced and gnashed his teeth as he twisted and strained. The quarterback trembled to maintain his rigidity.

Suddenly, with a loud snap, the elbow gave way, and the lineman tore away the quarterback’s lower arm and hand, sending both men reeling to the ground.

“I told you I could tear your arm off,” the tackle wheezed. “These——these hands of mine——they are——invincible!”

“Damn your eyes, by gosh, you’re right!” the quarterback cried. “But you tried my weak, right arm. My left is much stronger. That’s my passing arm. You couldn’t have done a thing with it.”

“Could.”

“Couldn’t”

“Dare you.”

“Ha!”

Again the tackle lunged, grabbed, twisted, puffed, strained, even plunged both cleated feet into the back’s gut for leverage. He gnashed his teeth to granules inside his mouth and nearly strangled himself on their dust, yet the quarterback’s strong left arm withstood every assault.
He flapped the stump of his right arm against his ribs nonchalantly, waiting for the tackle to concede defeat.

“Oof! I quit.” the tackle collapsed on the turf. “Your left arm is more than a match for these——these hands.”

The quarterback merely shrugged, as the lineman sat on his ass in disbelief, regarding his throbbing, scarred, impotent hands.

“Better luck next time, anyway,” said the quarterback. “I told you my left arm is strong, but you wouldn’t listen. Now you see what it’s all come to. It cost me my right arm to teach you a lesson, but if you’re truly cured of your emptv bragging, I count it a small once to pay. Go ye forth and brag no more.”

The Long Walk Home

2007-05-09T14:39:00.000-05:00

I can’t remember when I started home from Jim’s that late October night, but I told myself I wouldn’t be scared even though the single, high incandescent streetlight swayed wildly in the wind, throwing eerie shadows through the tall buckeye branches to the glazed brick sidewalk below. After all, I was ten now.

I stared as I passed the white frame house across the intersection where some older girls stayed and remembered all the men Jim and I had watched going in and out of it from his front porch in the deep shadows of the summer evenings. And then I spied the old widow Moss’s next door to it, and peered into the shade of her porch where she would come out to swing slowly and walk around the front with a lady I didn’t know.

Then I saw the dusky brown house next door that was always vacant, with a “for sale” sign in its yard, next to Nicotine Alley (that’s what the high school guys called it because it was the first place they would get to out of sight of the school on the hill, where they could light up). This was the darkest part of the block, and I could barely see my shoes when I looked down. I peered down the alley and thought for a minute something moved in the inky blackness--no, just a shadow, I thought.

Skipping across the alley as silently as I could, I glanced up at Jim’s dad’s office right beside me, and thought of the painted metal stools and baskets and medical cabinets--and especially the skeleton Jim showed me once when we sneaked in the side door one afternoon. The front window was dark, but its drapes seemed to undulate behind the glass, and where they met I could have sworn a dark crack appeared. I shivered and stepped quickly past.

On the other side of the street a light was still on in Larry Bond’s house. His dad was a tree surgeon and always wore undershirts and boots and parked his big truck out in front. I never played much with Larry, though; his mom was a birdlike woman with a high, crackling voice/and she never seemed to let him do anything fun.

Miss Plum lived upstairs in the chocolate brick apartment building across from the Central School playground. She was probably reading the ‘Declaration of Independence” somewhere in her room right now. And across the street on my side I passed the columns of the Christian Science Church. I stepped down the high curb into Warren Street, remembering how I wrecked my bicycle flying off of it a few weeks before, and crossed Kauffman/Walk 3 over to the towering First Presbyterian Church with its pointed entrances.

But then I nearly stopped. There was a dark side walkway between First Presbyterian and the high wall of the Smith-Field Funeral Home property on the far side which I wouldn’t dream of going back into in the dark. I didn’t even dare look aside as I flew past it, though in the daytime I would often scramble up on top of the wide flat stone wall and run along its whole length without a care.

But at night--this night especially--I walked close to the wall, keeping my head crouched down below it, not even looking at Stultz-Briggs funeral home, the red, turreted mansion above, with its huge, black-framed, curtained windows and faded rose lights dimly glowing within. I crept on to Jefferson Street.

Then I raced full tilt across to Krogers’ and flew through the dark empty parking lot to my own side alley, where I expected a police car to stop and ask me where I had been and where I was going, past the back of the Elks with its garbage cans, beer boxes, and fire escape (I loved to mount its four stories to the roof for a beautiful view of the whole city), glancing down the pitch-dark space behind the building to the junkpile of broken toilet stools, sinks, and pipes that Metzger’s Plumbing threw out behind their store, where I had seen rats crawling in and out of once.

Finally I reached my own back door and peeked in quietly to see if anybody was in the rear of the house waiting for me.

"Woof!" the loud bark broke the stillness behind me, and I jumped around.

“Tuffy!” I cried. “Doggone it, are you still out?”

He wriggled from under the outside swing and pranced up to me, wagging his tail.

“Let’s get you inside, boy,” I said. “You big scaredy-cat, I bet you were scared to death, weren’t you? Don’t you know there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

Here We Go

2007-05-09T14:15:00.000-05:00

"It’s a’comin hard now, I think. It’s just over yonder, past them trees. Round that rock, over that hill, Gamut. Gotta slow down fer the curve before the trestle."

"I know, I know."

"Let the engine go by now—that’s right. Okay, let’s go! Run, Gamut! Hurry now. Don’t stop, Gamut! Don’t drag yer boots, jump, man, jump! Up yerself aboard the jolly boxcar for our hobo ride to glory, man! We’re bound for glory—whoa! D’ya hear them drums? D’ya hear ‘em, Gamut?"

"Ow! Got m’dang spurs caught!" Gamut yelled. He caught one hand on the handle but tripped over on his back and dragged along over the rocks and brush.

"Gamut, I swear you’re the floppingest flipper I ever—git on up here! H’yar ya go, I’ll grab hold of yer belt and hoist ya up, ya damn girl. There. There y’are."

"Oww! m’arrm, m’arrm--!" Gamut whinnied and whined.

"Quitcher sqealin, y’ain’t bleedin or bonebroke, are ya?"

"M’arrm—like to twist right off, it did. N’that’s a fact. This’n’s a gonner. Gonna fall right off my body, it will."

"Gamut, yer the goldangest sissy I ever—Gamut, yer--."

"An it might not last another minute, nossir, might not—whew!--."

Furd took a look.

"Well, might, though, might. Hard t’say. Might."

Shortly thereafter the arm fell with a plop, bounced once off the boxcar floor, and flew out the door, waving goodbye.

“M’arrm’s gone,” Gamut complained. “Told ya it wouldn’t work no more.”

“Now goldern it, there ya go agin, Gamut, bein’ negative. Ya still got yer other one don’t’cha?” Don’t really need both of em, really--.”

"Psst! Hear that? D’ya hear?—ssst! Someone’s comin. I hear em on the roof. Jump, Furd! Aarrrr…!"

"Wait, hold on! T’aint nothin but a coupla rocks just fell offen a--."

Gamut jumped.

“Aw no, aw no!, now just look there at what’cha done, Gamut. Where’d ya go, man? Ya dern fool. Ya dern fool. Aw, Gamut--."

the pencil beggar

2007-05-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

You don’t see them till you’re nearly past, these pencil beggars—
You don’t see them till you see their eyes,
You don’t see yourself there
Till something says, “Go back.”
And you stop, return, genuflect,
And make your humble offering to “the least of these, my brethren,”
And receive a blessing from your own reflection.

The Man

2007-05-09T12:35:00.000-05:00

Smile! There’s The Man!

Bow and scrape to The Man.
Cater to The Man.
Sing pretty for The Man.
Please The Man.

Make The Man think you think like him!

Don’t let him know you.
Don’t let him see you.
Don’t let yourself get into a jam.
Please The Man.

Get busy! Here comes The Man!

You have nowhere to go.
You have nothing to do.
You have no one to be.
Please The Man.

Say “Good morning, your lordship!”

Keep mama fed.
Keep baby quiet.
Keep the money rolling.
Please The Man.

Look out! Here he comes again!

Keep America strong.
Keep the progress moving.
Keep everybody happy—
Keep almost everybody happy—
Keep The Man happy.

Praise The Man!

Ig-luk-um

2007-05-09T09:58:00.000-05:00

John Runyon ran films as “instructive guides,” he claimed, for surviving in the Yukon wilderness. He presented them in his small cabin at the edge of the town of Ig-luk-um which, he proudly reminded his guests, he had built with his own hands, using native materials.

Since most of the guests who came to his soirees were Eskimos, this was not unduly impressive, nor were the films, as a rule, which included Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” and “White Fang,” and “Silence of the North.”

As the Eskimos politely watched the films they made no comment, although Runyon frequently interrupted to point out this or that which he thought needed emphasis or clarification, and to these explanations the guests gave the same polite gravity they gave the films themselves, though they spoke no English and understood nothing but Runyon’s apparent sincerity. But since the Runyon Wilderness Survival series, as his handbills advertised all over Ig-luk-um’s seventeen inhabitants’ dwellings and environs, was the high point of social interaction during the six-month-long northern night, Runyon’s cabin was always filled to capacity.

It didn’t matter if they didn’t quite get it all, he told his Melba, so long as they had been exposed to some of the more instructive scenes. If his films, brought all the way from Seattle at no small inconvenience, began the instruction—planted the seeds, as it were—his readings from the Boy Scout Official Guide after each film “really brought the point home,” he rapped the table.

So to John Runyon the instruction in wilderness survival to his fellow inhabitants of the village was nothing short of the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. If it resulted in only one life saved, he told Melba, it would be worthwhile. If not, well, he had tried.

The Smartest Man in the World

2007-05-09T09:51:00.001-05:00

Jake Barnes had been in school about fifty years when it happened, they say. He was always an excellent student, serious—you know the type—a real scholar.
He listened to I don’t know how many thousand lectures on every field of human knowledge, from the world
S foremost authorities, and understood them all.
He read I don’t know how many hundred thousand books from the world’s most magnificent and venerable libraries. He spoke with I don’t know how many hundreds of fellow scholars for—well, that was just it: it was his life.

Into Jake Barnes had flowed the input of the entire sum of human experience. He had so listened, studied, watched, absorbed, questioned--.

Then one day it happened.

Jake started to smile. He began in the middle of a seminar to speak, and all his fellows began to listen.

He spoke of things old and things new, things changing and things unchanging; things foreign and things remote. Jake Barnes spoke with the tongues of men and angels, and continued to speak.

More came to listen. Then more, then the foremost authorities in every field, as Jake continued to speak and speak, and they took notes, all of them, because Jake spoke faster and faster, as if the pressure to say all he knew was so welling in him—as if his mind was connecting complexities and relationships almost faster than he could communicate them.

Faster and faster spoke Jake Barnes. Faster and faster did they all try to record his wisdom, until it became a physical impossibility to keep up. His words turned to sounds incomprehensible, frenzied, hysterical to those present.

And finally the end came. Jake giggled, then smiled and simply said, “Goo-goo-Ma-ma-da-da-want-play?” He never said another word and died several years later.

A Boss Is Unique

2007-05-09T09:47:00.000-05:00

Byron called Mayer in.
“Mayer, why haven’t you done that report?”
“You never asked for it.”
Byron wrote, “Mayer makes excuses.”

The next day Byron called Mayer in again.
“Mayer, why didn’t you sharpen your pencils?”
“No excuse, sir.”
Byron wrote, “Mayer can’t explain his actions.”

On Moonlit Night

2007-05-08T09:04:00.000-05:00

Things are too clear on moonlit night;
I can see all (and nothing).
It might as well be day’s harsh light
(My tortoise, Gypsy’s, prowling.)

I much prefer a farmer’s night,
Velvet, black and palpable,
Pricked by blue Orion’s light,
Full beacon for the soul.
(And Gypsy’s unexpected pounce!)

Little Island

2007-05-05T14:25:00.000-05:00

Little island in the emerald sea,
hula-hula swish swish,
Little sunny sand beach,
salty-swishy foam.
Lay-lay lu-o a-oh,
lay-lay lu-o a,
Pretty water day-o,
pretty water day.

Doy

2007-05-05T14:23:00.000-05:00

We are here. Here we are. No we’re not.
Don’t say doy. Say anything, but don’t say doy. Doy is the one word you are not to say.
Don’t say doy under any circumstances. It is forbidden to say doy.
Now it’s going. It takes a moment to get going, but now it’s going. No it’s not.
And don’t say doy.

Men Are Strange

2007-05-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

“Do you believe what my Ralph asked for for Christmas? Sunglasses!”
“Men are strange.”
“You’re telling me. Like I’m going to get him sunglasses.”
“Men are truly strange.”
“Well Ralphie boy is. I mean, could he ask for tools or electronics like any normal guy? No. Not even something for that Camero of his. I tell you, Velma, if you ask me, he’s got the hots for someone at the plant.”
“Some men are strange.”
“You said it. I mean, why else would he want new sunglasses?”
“I don’t know. Some guys are so strange sometimes.”
“Well that’s it. I’m sure of it. After thirty-four years, little Ralphie has got the hots for some little floozy down at the plant, and he thinks if he puts on a new pair of shades it will hide his big fat gut and his bald head.”
“He’s not so fat.”
“No? Well, you don’t buy his clothes. And that’s another thing. He keeps trying to get into his old size 36 pants. He’ll never get that flab into a 36 again.”
“He’s not so bald either. I’ve seen balder. Besides, some women like bald guys.”
“You think so?”
“Honey, I know so. But like you say, men are strange.”

Vamp Till Ready

2007-05-05T14:18:00.000-05:00

Not too shabby,
Kinda crabby,
Keep them coming,
Keep them humming.
Will I get there,
Or get nowhere?
I don’t know yet,
I can’t tell yet.

Where’s the party, Artie?
You going to the big dance tonight?
Oh no, Sheil. I’m just staying home and listening to Judy Garland records.
Well, you’ll be sorry then.
Whence and whither?
Thither! Thither! Thither, of course!
Any fool knows that.

White, red, blue and green
Makes you look so clean.
Black, brown, gray and purple
Makes you look so je ne sais quoi.
Whether you agree or not,
It’s a grave matter, quite grave.

Onward, brave men, into the jaws of Destiny!
Fear not for your selves, think of your loved ones.
Little Willy, Tad, and sweet Marie, huddled ‘gainst the impending story,
Defenseless against the Mongol hoards.
But ye, ye men,
Ye Men of Bargle, ye have it in ye
To win the day and save them all from certain horror.

So on, on I say!
Onward into the breach
And the devil plague him in your eyes ye espy.
And cleft him twain, thrain, and again.
Cleft him from s’noggin to s‘toe. Stop nought till s’bell s’run and s’eye’s alight!
A’blinkin and winkin till Thursday.

Post Meridian

2007-05-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

Post Meridian
By Blaine Kauffman

From the far corner of my vision they came, to the river. I could not see them clearly. They were shadowy, flapping things, like dark rags. But I could hear them honking, dozens and dozens of them, in chorus. It echoed across the river and the far hills and back. Honk honk honk—what a racket!!
The late winter afternoon had been getting dark when I finished my shift—clear dark when I punched out. I work too hard. By the time I got home the lights were already on and shining through the yellow trailer windows. I could see Maxine watching her soaps through those pearly-frame glasses she always wears, but I didn’t want to go in. I always just come home and go in, have a couple beers, and go to bed. But tonight I wanted to shoot my new gun from Wally Mart.
She wouldn’t notice anwyay. She never does, never gets off that chair. She didn’t even hear me pull up. It wouldn’t matter if she did, she’d just keep watching her damned soaps even if the trailer caught fire.
The afternoon was already dark blue. Not dark blue exacly, more like a light blue. But dim, like moonlight on new snow, “…/gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below.” What color crayon do you use for snow at night? That colot. Shoot the new rifle. I can hear it crack and echo across the river and back in the indigo stillness. Glassy, hammer-sharp. Like a snare-drum rim shot. Beautiful. Crack! Pow!
I know, kind of ice blue like in snowcones you get t the street fairs. That blue. Zero blue, as in “I’m fricking freezing!”
I thought of that guy, what’s his name? That guy who wrote, “T’was the night before Christmas….” Clemens? Clem—some clodhopper. Yes, “t’was” indeed. I looked around for a snowman but found none. I looked around for a snow fort to have a good fight with my friends and maybe think about whether to throw the really hard ones, the iceys, or just splatter them with semihards and slushballs and powderballers. It all depended, I guess. Did I want to play with those friends again or blow them away? Save the iceys for a revenge barrage if they threw iceys at me first. If they did, they’d be sorry alright.
Don’t even throw anything. Just shoot. Right down at the edge of the river. They’re there, but it’s too dark to see them now. And the honking has stopped. Or maybe just shoot anyway and flush them up. Or maybe lob a couple of rocks over there and see what they do. But they’re not moving now. In for the night, I guess. Safe haven. Where do they sleep? Are they even there? I didn’t hear them take off.
No, they’re not there anymore. They’re not anywhere. I’m just imagining it. There are no snow men, no snow forts to crouch down behind. Not for the past thirty years. The air didn’t smell this way anyway. It’s probably the cirarette. No, probably the acetone from the shop, or the thinners. It gets in my nose.
There’s something so quiet about snowy evenings when you stand alone aoutside and the cold air slaps against your face. Your shoulders hunch up against it and your fanny gets cold, and it doesn’t matter which way you turn, it still bites your skin and makes it tingle. It’s far to the door. Your knees ache. You don’t want to shiver; you fight it, because if you start to shiver you can’t stop for a long time.
That icy blue of late afternoon, it’s good for snowball fights. But it won’t conjure anything. It won’t conjure up anything tonight. I like that streetlamp, though—that one barebulb with the circular white reflector above it, way up on the power pole. Makes good shadows. I got me this thing for Christmas, didn’t I? I mean, I ought to be able to shoot it—hey, there they go again, right down there close to the river! I’m gonna pop one off and let them know I’m watching them. Honk honk!
No cops anywhere. Yep, I’ll just squeeze one off, “and there’ll be one less goose in this world to carry on, to carry on….” Blod, Sweat, and Tears—ha!
Wait a minute. Maxine’d be out here all over me. Might even call the cops. Hey, no “might” about it, she would definitely call the cops. And it might scare Jeff and the baby. Better not. I don’t need that. But they can’t expect me to get me a new rifle for Christmas and then not shoot it, can they? Get her up off of that goddam chair though, I’ll bet.
Man, it’s cold I’m freezing. No, I’m not going in. I don’t care if I stay out here all night. My jacket’s warm enough, but my butt’s freezing on the stoop, and my feet, geez! I can’t even feel my toes. Maybe one more cigarette. Yeah, I’ll go in when I’m good and ready, not a minute sooner. Go in, have me a beer, and curl up in a nice cozy bed and warm up.
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep/ But I have miles to go before I sleep….” Who said that? Jack Frost, hah! Got that one. He writes about freezing in the snow, and he’s Jack Frost. Ha! That’s pretty funny. Stopping on a snowy evening, that’s me. I’m stopping by a damned woods on a snowy evening. With a flock of demon geese. And I’m cold. And I’m fricking crying. And they won’t leave, they just keep coming. And flapping and whooshing and honking and honking at me. It drives nme nuts. And one of these days, “Some one of these days….?” Hey, Sophie Tucker, “last of the red-hot mamas.” Ha!
Okay, I’m going in. Put this thing back in the car trunk, but just for now. “Some one of these days/ you’re gonna miss me, honey.”

Black Rock

2007-05-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

I once visited a beautiful wooded lake in western Connecticut, near Watertown, a few miles north of Waterbury on Highway 8. Black Rock State Park, it’s called, where my family camped while apartment hunting for me in July, 1986. I had just arrived to take my new job as Director of the Arts and Humanities Division at Mattatuck Community College. We were pulling our foldout camper, and I drove my Toyota, crammed with whatever belongings I could bring. I would be living in Connecticut on my own until my family could move up from Florida the following year. We knew it would be tough, but that was the plan. There was little choice since I had lost my job. My former college closed that spring. I would have to go, as a bachelor, wherever I could find another job in my field, and the Mattatuck job is the one that came through. I had been offered it only two days before.
We camped at a private campground acorss the road from the state park, and immediately went over to explore its beautiful lakes and rolling woods. Barb said she’d like to return in the autumn; the leaves would be spectacular. And I actually did return, alone unfortunately, to take pictures when the blaze of Autumn in New England began that October. It was evry bit as beautiful as she had imagined.
That scene, that place, became for me an icon, an idyll of New Endland life, from that moment. To think, to dream, to be suffused by the transcendent beauty of that scene, has returned to my mind so many times in the quarter-century since. Barbara mused that she would like to live there, and that became my dream as well…to get out of Florida and move to a New England wood—maybe not that particular one, being illegal in a state park to homestead, but another woods with similar beauty.
I actually found a couple of potential properties for us during the following months, and tried to buy them. My personal mission, apart from doing my duties at Mattatuck, was to be the “pathfinder” for our family, first on the scene and scouting for a future home for us. Barbara had to mind the Florida home and manage the children while she taught her final year needed to vest herself in Florida’s teacher retirement plan.
Every Sunday I scoured the realty ads and went out to neighboring villages and towns with ads in hand to check out properties. As I said, I found a couple of great places: one, a farmette of several acres in Woodbory, with rolling fields, a chicken coop and feather plucker, and picturesque stone walls bording the property, had wonderful trees and picturesque structures and vistas. I tried to buy it, and my offer was accepted. The house needed work, but the property itself was worth the price. I took many photos and flew home to try to get the financing. But in the end I couldn’t swing it. I couldn’t sell my Florida home quickly enough or find affordable loans. I had to withdraw my offer.
Later I found a nice cape cod on a lake, and its back yard abutted the Mattatuck State Forest. We would be assured natural beauty and unlimited woods forever. Again I tried to make an offer, but it was sold that very day for full asking price. Priperties in that area had risen in price 35% in one year, and sales in that part of the state were in a land rush as industry moved quickly in. Houses listed in the morning were sold that same day, sometimes before listing, even. I was crushed that I never got to move to my prized New England dream house, that year or since.
But in retrospect, perhaps it is good that I never got to move there. Later that year it became obvious to me that I couldn’t get along with my dean and my future would be too stressful at Mattatuck. After February I informed them I wouldn’t be returning that fall, and I moved back to Florida after commencement. Right career, wrong job, definitely wrong boss. In the following year I taught courses part-time for Indian River Community College and a branch campus in Stuart. I realized again how much I loved to teach. I had missed that at Mattatuck. By December I was looking again for another fulltime teaching job,
But administrative jobs were easier to find, and paid more, and I had experience.
I dound a division chairmanship plus faculty status as a full professor (almost tenure) at the College of Boca Raton in South Florida. We moved to nearby Delray Beach in July of 1989. Barb got a teaching position at Deerfield Park Elementary School, Deerfield Beach, that fall, and we settled into South Florida for several years. We bought our Coral Springs house the following March and have lived in it for fifteen years as we raised our sons in good schools and neighborhoods. They all attended Florida universities and later settled in Florida themselves. We seem likely to spend the rest of our lives in this state.
But the image of Black Rock State Park’s mystique has never left me. It still occupies my dream as the idyll of a New England life, with such rich history and such a vibrant intellectual tradition, storybook towns and village greens, rolling woods and picturesque lakes, autumn leaves and Christmas charm of a Norman Rockwell painting. It was always my goal to teach at a liberal arts college in New England. But over the next quarter-century I completed my academic career in South Florida instead. Sometimes one takes what opportunities seem at hand rather than forcing choices, and the opportunities I had seemed to be in South Florida for my family and me. I’ll probably never know how things might have been, had we moved to Connecticut. Maybe we would have been better off, maybe not.
Sometimes we drive down though Vermont and New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut on our way home from Eastern swings on our summer trips. And as I pass by my former college site and realize it’s now no longer operating, I think of how I would probably been forced to relocate to another town anyway, after a couple of years, had I remained. Waterbury was also scorned by a magazine for a couple of years as the worst place in all America to live. But I still miss it. I still think of it as my “spiritual home,” my “New England experience.”
However, I’ll probably never live in New England again. I doubt that I would want to now. Once Barbara retires in another five or ten years, we will probably move to central or northern Florida, not to New England. That would be too far from our grandchildren and sons. And there won’t be the same reasons to go, since I’m done with fulltime academic work. It was a dream. It is a dream. And it will always be a dream.

Rush Hour

2007-05-05T14:13:00.000-05:00

Most of the time,
Or so it seems,
The cars never end.
It is as if someone called a convention and no one can find the hall.
They come in bunches as I wait,
If I’m lucky. Bunches suggest there will be a break.
And I can whiz into the morass, join the insanity, and fire up my fight or flight response
With the other adults-turned-animals.
They call it “rush hour,”
Which is optimistic, in my view;As it seems to be growing longer day by day, lenghthening through the morning till ten or eleven, beginning again shortly after two or two-thirty by early quitters anxious to get a jump on the crush, and growing every year,
And seems near blending seamlessly into the homebound late afternoon traffic,
And even continues into the evening. Six, seven,
Then, just when there’s some hope rising,
That all the workers have found their way home,
The partygoers and diners hit the streets and highways, and extend the rush hour into the wee hours of the morning.
Rush hour is usually “over” about two a.am.
When the drunks swerve home…those who try,
Stupidly,
Sometimes without incident and not obviously D.U.I.,
Other times commisserating with a power pole or tree or worse, eacher,
Or another car,
Or a pedestrian.
Lord help the late churchgoers
Still beaming with a benedictory blessing…the sermon went too long,
The altar call cannot be rushed.
The Spirit cannot be interrupted in the pentacostal fervoer for some mere human invention called time—
One o’the clock, two o’the clock—
Lord help them! Blessed as they are, backing in heavenly grace,
They will need all that grace, and skill, attention, stamina, intelligence, wariness, and plain luck and lightning reflexes to muster up and survive the roads this night, to make it home without getting hit by a drunk going the wrong way on I-95.
At 2 a.m.
Or even going the right way. All the angels in heaven and on earth can’t keep those drunks off the expressways, it seems.
Finally, however, in the silent night the streets are quiet at last.
Lit by amber halogen lights like angels’ candles they seem
For just a few minutes.

Then rush hour starts again, too soon—
Five or si in the morning reminds us why they have twelve lanes
As the streets fill again
Before daylight.
:Gentlemen, start your engines!”
the inner voice sounds through the coffee and cobwebs
into the mobile wombs we pop and unpop at or parking spaces—
it seems unendlingly.

But it is not completely unending.
Rush hour actually does pause, or seems to diminish o an almost safe level
At the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Once each week it happens:
On Sunday morning one can still drive in mid-morning to get a newpaper
An pretend he lives in a small town,
Not in the middle of an expressway.
(Of course, if everyone decided to do that….)

I cringed all the time my youngs sons rode their ikes to school,
Praying they would make it without getting hit.
Scott actually did get hit, once,
Riding his bike home from Publix
Where he bagged groceries.
At the ripe old age of fourteen.
But it was his fault;
He didn’t stay at the curb till he had the walk sing
But instead darted to the center island, then tried to bolt onthrough as the light changed.
The driver of the car that hit him couldn’t see him riding past the van beside him and knocked him down,
Knocked him off the bike, stopped, got out to check him—
We think he stopped not from conscience but because a patrol car was right across the intersection and saw it, most likely.
Otherwise that driver, true to the unwritten but universally followed S. Florida NASCAR rules everyone seems honorary members of, would have perobably continued on his merry way
And let Scott be run over by the next guy
And possibly killed
By a hit and run driver.
It happens more han a hundred times a year in Dade and Broward counies alone.
The lawyers here are amoral sharks and everyone knows it.
No one wants to be involved. The courts will crucify them.
The lawyers will ruin them,
And the state will revoke their driving priveleges,
And no one can get anywhere in stretched-out, horizontally-built South Florida without wheels.
If you stop, and admit you made a mistake,
Suddenly your money is gone, your job is gone, your life is gone and everything you held dear,
If you stop, knowing you were probably unobserved,
Rather than speeding away and trying to forget the whole thing.
It must have been a dog, or a raccoon that came up from an adjacent canal, that thump…that thump…
No way it could have been a child.
No way at all.
He who thumps and drives away
Lives to drive another day.

Scott got a $50 fine for crossing the street illegally.
I paid a $300 ambulance call and hospital checkup.
The overzealous paramedics immediately immobilized him to a board,
Taped his head and chest down over his forehead like a pharoah
And trotted their mummy off to the emergency room.
Someone called us at home at some point in this process
And we had no say in the matter:
“Your son Scott has had an accident at the corner of Royal Palm and Soral Springs Drive…I was there before the call ended, almost, barly breathing, my chest heaving…
My son Scott, lying flat on the ground on the corner sidewalk…My God, what a sickening moment!
But he looked up at me with his bright green eyes.
The paras had screwed up and left his mouth, eyes, and nostrils untaped. He could breathe.
And he could talk.
“Hi Dad.”
“Scott, my God! Wat happened? Are you allright? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Oh thank God!”
“Except I jammed my thumb when the guy hit my bike.”
He wiggled his right thumb. He jammed it when the bike went over.
Scott was treated and released.

Mark, four years Scott’s younger, wove in and out of traffic on Sample Road for ten years going to and from three schools on his bike in rush hour.
He never had an accident.
But he sure picked up a lot of thorns, nails, and flat tires
That seemed to occur to him only the next morning at seven-twenty
When he would be late at seven-thiry if I didn’t drive him to school immediately
With his flat tire fixed or not. If not, I’d need to also pick him up at 3:00 when school let out.
Other emergencies forced my diving into the crush of rush hour traffic to rescue my sons from the many showers and lightning storms that came out of nowhere in South Florida day and night without warning.

But we survived.
Yes, we survived rush our in the Megalopolis.
And continue to survive going on fifteen years.
Our sons are grown and gone—
Except when Mark comes home from Florida State for breaks
And his friends begin their phonathons and dropins and comeonovers
And the evening’s entertainments call him to establishments throughout the area as far south as Miami and the Keys
And as far north as West Palm and Stuart
And I worry a father’s worry till the cars come home
And the garage door motor begins its low drone
At two or three a.m.
And everyone in the Kauffman clan is safe for a few more hours,
Alive, with their limbs and organs intact,
Safe from rush hour for another day.
I thank God for his grace and protection of my family
From South Florida crazy drivers and their rush hours.
Oh Henry, Henry, Henry Ford,
You had no idea what you started.
But I don’t blame you.
I blame Sam Levitt, who started the first suburb in the ‘forties on Long Island after the war—and Herbert Hoover, who promised us two cars in every garage and the chicken in every pot.
The little picket fence,
The little house in the burbs we could all escape to at the end of our workday in the city…

But who could know we couldn’t build enough roads to escape each other?
And ho foresaw that every business and human enterprise in the land would insist on beginning work hours at the same time?
Every day!
And that all schools would start at the same time.
And all churches and clubs.
And throwing every registered and unregistered vehicle, motorized and unmotorized, onto the streets and avenues, alleys and expressways of our fair cities
Like ants responding to an invasion,
Cramming into our cars,
Careening through our inadequate concrete chutes and gungles like blundering bloodcells in veins, banging around, trying to get on and off the right ramps, dodging each other like soldiers in trenches dodging bullets.
The other cars fly by, some actually at the speed limit,
Creating stationary targets for the others to ram
As they make up their own rules of the road as they go.
And praying all the while that our vehicles hold together with spit and pluck long enough to get us where we’re going,
Witout asphyxiating us,
Without crushing us,
Without killing us,
Without smearing us all over the windshield or the road,
Without drowning us in one of our ubiquitous canals that gulp down whole cars upon entry!
Without incinerating us in faulty wiring fires that explode in flumes of black smoke from our engines sometimes without warning
And give no time or space to pull over, stop, leap away, or try to salvage what we can before the whole car goes up in flames
As happened to Mark’s Toyota on the turnpike:
Singed his tires to the road it did, melted his dash and blackened the whole interior.
All I could do was sign it over to the road vultures who towed it to the impound at the service area, for charges
Without spearing us through our windshields and pinning us to our seats with road debris
Kicked into the air by the dump trucks ahead of us or hurled from an overpass by an unidentified delinquent for kicks,
And get us home,
At a reasonable hour,
In a reasonable condition of health and mind,
For supper with our family,
In time for the blessing,
Day
After day
After blessed day,
Year
After year
After blessed year;
Until someday,
If we survive,
IF WE SURVIVE
IT ALL,
In one piece,
We can escape the madness,
And retire (to South Florida? To North Floria? To Georgia? To Tennessee? My God, where can we retire to where the carnage promises to be any less?)
And our rush ours will end.

Surely somewhere there’s a better world.
And a better way of moving in society to fill our daily needs.
But where?
And do we have to all die to get there?
And if there were, and people learned of it, wouldn’t we all just go there and create the same tangled mess?
I’m distrustful of those magazine articles that rate “the best places to go on vacation,”
Or “the best places to live”
Or “the best places to retire.”
I figure if they publish them, people will go there en masse and the information will soon be obsolete.
Maybe rush hour is just a paradigm for the way we are
And if we didn’t have it,
We’d invent some other, equally obnoxious way to keep our numbers in check;
Maybe we need our misery we go so out of our way to create
In order to justify our continued existence.
When we pull into our own drive or garage,
When we enter our own domeciles,
It is as if we are saying, “Look at me! I survived another game of it!”
Give the man a T-shirt.

The Colonel

2007-05-05T14:11:00.001-05:00

In the dark, unfamiliar room I sat with some trepidation at a small desk. I missed my journal. There was only a computer before me. I fingered he keyboard tentatively.
A door suddenly opened. A colonel strode in--mustached, monocled, helmeted, festooned with decorations, and bearing a short riding crop like Patton. I smiled. A condescending sneer formed with a tilt of his mustache as he sized me up.
“Well now,” he began, “you’ve decided you wish to be a writer, eh?”
“Yes, s-sir.”
“Splendid! Honest, humble—progress begins with humility. It so happens you are not alone in your desire, my good man, not alone. Legions end up here for training. Get soft in the belly they do, self-absorbed, that’s what does it—ego, like yours!” He suddenly whacked his riding whip across my desktop. It came from nowhere. I jumped.
“I’ve read your so-called journal,” he scoffed. “Rubbish! All of it!”
“Well, I--.”
“Rubbish, I say!” For an old guy he was very quick; again he whacked the desk, this time so fast it just missed my knuckles before I jerked them away.
“Hey, watch it!” I complained.
“Here’s the thing to do the proper job,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to his near-mutilation of my fingers as he strummed his mustache. He touched the computer keyboard with reverence. Then his expression darkened as he leaned his near my own, and he stared a hole through me like Blackstone. I drew back, but there was no escape.
“Now you’re going to become a writer, boy!” he sneered slowly. And you’re going to do it right now!” (Crack!) “Now type!” (Crack, Crack!))
“Uh, uh—what? What should I say--?”
“Anything, dammit! Anything at all! Now type, you rascal! You novice! You coward! You know-nothing! Type, or I’ll rap your knuckles good!” (Whack whack!) “Type! Type! Type! (Smack, crack, whack, punctuating each word with his whip.)
I reached to the keys, pulled back, reached again, trembling. My fingers fussed and fidgeted and fumbled over the circular depressions, and without realizing what I was doing, I skittered off the following:
“qikd thoiyhaf slu,.k—“
“Good, good, keep on, keep going—“ the colonel urged, warming to the clicking keys like listening to a flowing symphony. I continued rapping, clicking, trying to quiet the whip… “In the dark, unfamiliar room….”
“Ah, excellent! Most excellent!” he exalted. “Keep it going.” I realized my only protection from the crop was the ceaseless click of the keys. To stop, even for a moment, was to risk amputation. “I sat with some fear—“no, I corrected, backspacing, “trepidation—“
“No!” he roared. “Never correct in the heat of fiction, Never! Nevernevernever!” I winced but kept typing as the colonel jumped and stomped his black boots loudly as in a childish tantrum. He fumed. He ranted. He pounded his fists on the desktop in a rage of frustration. Then suddenly the colonel calmed.
“Just type, just type the words like you play a piano,” he smiled--a tolerant, fatherly, patient smile. “My dear man, don’t you understand?” he implored sweetly, “you’re creating something. It is unique. If you revise, if you second-guess yourself, you’ll destroy its spontaneous beauty. Never look back when you’re creating something.”
I glanced up, surprised. “How on earth did you know that I play the piano?”
He totally ignored my question. “Type like you play,” he gestured simply, as if it were the most natural, easiest thing in the world. I couldn't help wishing the computer keyboard were a piano keyboard instead because it was true, I had no trouble making music, ever. I sighed.
“Don’t stop, “ he warned, “Keep the fingers moving… he suddenly darkened anew, tapping the crop near my hands menacingly. “Tut-tut-tut….”
I quickly resumed typing: “…at a small desk….” “That’s right, that’s better…keep the fingers moving, that’s the song of it..” He might have been cooing a lullaby.
“But what will I say?” I implored.
“Doesn’t matter one whit!” He suddenly barked as the smile vanished. “What you say isn’t important. But you must keep the fingers moving. As long as you type, you make words, and the words make images in the mind, don’t you see? The words themselves make images in the mind.”
“But where does the inspiration come from?”
“From the mind.” He fired back without a thought, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“When does it happen?”
“When the mind makes the images. And the mind make the images all the time so long as you keep the damned fingers moving!” Crack! The crop missed my fingers by inches. I typed again.
“Yes, keep the fingers moving. That’s the key, that’s the keyboard, that’s the real secret of writing. One can’t make music without playing; one can’t write without writing. Epictitus said it best: “If you would be a writer, write.” That’s all there is to it. Keep the fingers moving on the word processor, and you will make writings, the journal be damned!”
“A door suddenly opened, then a colonel came in,” I typed.
He peered down, adjusting his monocle. “Ah, right. Haha, good, good. Yes, by Jove, and have some fun while you’re at it, fellow. Dash it all, enjoy the task. Writing should be a pleasure, like pretending, when you were a child.”
I paused to consider this.
“Ah-ah—tut tut tut…” the whip’s tip flickered. “You’re trying to think about it. Bad business, that! Thinking is fine for many things, but it’s deadly when you’re trying to write fiction. Much better to let the fingers just type. Don’t even look at the screen. Just play the keys like your piano…a song, a lovely, sweet song—“
The colonel, despite his bulk, began to sway his arms and pirouette about in circles.
“Get the rhythm going—la, la—let yourself feel the waves flow through you, as when you play a favorite waltz—“
“Excuse me, sir, what is my favorite piece here?”
He stopped instantly, his back hunched up. I realized I’d called back Mr. Hyde.
“Now I suppose that depends on which mood you’re in, doesn’t it, sonny,: Mr. Hyde wagged his head, refusing to rise to the bait.
“Well, yes, I suppose so.”
“To be sure. And so it should be. Your feelings will quicken with the words and moving of the fingers. You will sense the rhythms easily enough.”
Satisfied his point was well received, the colonel moved to the desk and sidled near. “And as in music,” he nearly whispered now,” it doesn’t mean you should never stop. Sometimes silence, a rest, is the most eloquent moment of the song, the silence between tones filled by the mind’s activity, which continues despite the silence, and dreams, and reflects, and anticipates…”
“So too with words. You don’t have to continue them endlessly, pecking along without thought and without pause, but pause here and there. Return the carriage here and there. Let your rhythms of creativity take you to the cadence of the idea.”
I suspected he might actually have something.
“Then when you’ve arrived at the idea’s denouement, hit the period. It’s a good, solid feeling, like a nail’s being well-hammered in. If you think you haven’t said something clearly or completely, hit the semicolon; it’s a good way to restate or elaborate. Or hit the comma, for a breath, or the dash—I love the dash—for a digression—whew!” the colonel dabbed perspiration from his brow.
“You know, I think you have something here,” I admitted. “Let’s see--“ I scanned my manuscript, intending to continue.
“No, no, my good man,” laughed the colonel. We’re all finished here. Next!”
With one firm Crack on my desktop, my work suddenly vanished! I heard a door open behind me. My lesson was over, I realized. I rose to leave.
“Oh, and one small word of advice,” he called to me. “Even though there is little restriction on content today, you really should try--well, never mind.”
“What?” I shouted.
“Nothing, nothing…” With a click of his heels the colonel saluted the newcomer, who had taken my seat at the computer.
“I just don’t know why they sent me here,” the student said. “I’m already a writer. I even keep a journal.”
“Do you now?” purred the colonel with a Cheshire grin, tapping his crop lightly in his palm. I grinned as I left.

The Uppermost Level

2007-05-05T14:04:00.000-05:00

This is a multi-level writing. It may appear to be only a uniform level writing, but it is not. It is a multi-level writing.

The writing itself, identified by its words and accompanying punctuation, exists at several levels.

The levels are determined by their paragraph order, or vertical position on the page. For example, there is the paragraph level above this level, which is referred to as the uppermost level.

Under that level is this paragraph level, called the second-from-uppermost level.
And this level is the third-from-uppermost level, and so forth. With a bit of practice, most readers will be able to identify the correct level.

There is one rather frequent problem in identifying the levels: in a longer work of numerous levels, it may become awkward to precisely name, say, material at the forty-second-from-uppermost level. This is especially inconvenient when the item level at issue is actually closer to the bottom, lowermost level than it is to the top, uppermost level.

For example, in a fifty-seven level work, the forty-second-from-uppermost level might be more gracefully expressed as the fifteenth-from-lowermost level, with equal accuracy. The advantage to be gained from such interpolation is obvious in discussions. When one expresses a comment regarding words or accompanying punctuation as, for instance,

“Nice color imagery there in the sixth-from-uppermost, don’t you agree?” rather than “Nice color imagery there in the twenty-first-from-lowermost, don’t you agree?” the gain in grace speaks for itself.

Of course, if the paragraph level at issue is exactly centered, that is, equally subordinate to the uppermost and superior to the lowermost levels, the proper designation for all but the most exact, formal usage is simply “center.” Thus, in the example above (“Nice color imagery there in the sixth-from-uppermost. . . .”), had the material at issue appeared in a twelve-level work, one might simply have said instead, “Nice color imagery there in center, don’t you agree?.” Despite its economy, with perfect correctness and ease.

Now, regarding the horizontal designation of particular words and their accompanying punctuations on the line itself, as opposed to the multi-level vertical designations of paragraphs, the matter becomes much more complex. Since margins and point size, font style and modifications (italics, bolding, shading and so forth) of the symbols create many hundreds of variables which mitigate against precise expressions of position on the line, it is desirable to greatly simplify the designation in discussions of a word or other symbol as being “leftmost”, “second-from-leftmost,” “center” or “fourth-from rightmost,” and so forth. Although this taxonomy is less precise than vertical identifications, it may benefit from a greater facility. As with all learned conventions, practice should enable mastery in a short time.

And finally, In the matter of whether, in expressing position of words and their accompanying punctuation marks, their vertical or their horizontal position should be first expressed, it is more proper and customary in current practice to express the vertical as the first identifier, followed by a comma, then by the horizontal designator. This convention is not strictly necessary since the identifiers themselves infer either a vertical or a horizontal axis, admittedly.. One may locate “center, next-to-uppermost” just as precisely as “next-to-uppermost, center.” However, the vast majority of current usage of “vertical, horizontal” probably makes it the more expected, therefore the more easily and quickly recognized location to the mind.

Phyllis

2007-05-05T14:03:00.001-05:00

When Phyllis parted the gauzy curtains covering the front window and raised the yellowed pull blind, she couldn’t see through the panes for the frost. Quickly she rubbed circles on the glaze with arthritic fists and cleared a small clean spot, to which she pressed her eye and peered out intently. Not many cars passed by even on a clear day, but the constant snow since last afternoon had discouraged any traffic. Even the snowplow hadn’t yet reached her road.
But Phyllis was sure the postman would try the route. He had never failed before, no matter the elements. And this morning he had to come. He would come. She needed for him to come. He was coming now. These were Phyllis’ thoughts which repeated through her anxious mind like a chant as she scanned the lifeless fields Miracles did happen. They happened when they really needed to happen, as now.
For a long while she watched, and whenever the small clear spot frosted over, she rubbed it clear again. Though it was nearly ten the the morning, it was as dark as late afternoon.
Still she watched. Then it seemed something changed. Some glow in the east reflected dimly, pulsing from snow to sky, sky to snow. She was sure it was the mail truck, the lights of her lifeline. A plow would have shone more steadily, but the little postal jeep always lurched and started in the rutted, stony road, casting its lights about.
Yes, the jeep was coming. She was sure of it. She had to hurry.
Phyllis donned her worn heavy woolen coat and threw her big yellow knit scarf over her head, tossing it over her neck and shoulders as she forced open the front door. She plucked the letter from her purse and held it tightly as she picked her way across the slick stoop. Her gloves should have been in her coat pocket, but she couldn’t locate them. No matter, she thought dismissively. And she hadn’t taken precious moments to put on boots over her thin white socks, either.. All she had for protection were the cotton socks and her black everyday shoes, and the stoop ice was slick. Why hadn’t she salted it?
“Don’t fall, oh God, don’t fall now!” she muttered. But she could not afford to move with caution. Too much was at stake. Twice she started to slip on the icy steps and lurched to the side and her arms flew out suddenly, but somehow she managed to keep herself aright. She reached the ground beyond the steps and plunged stubbornly into deep drifts, marching across the front lane as fast as she could force her aged legs to move. Within moments her bare legs felt like ice, but she ignored them.
To the east the low glow of yellow headlights pierced the blue-gray, swirling snowfall, and soon the postman’s jeep rolled down the drifting road with a throaty purr toward her lane.
“I knew it!” Phyllis exulted. I knew it was him.”
She waved frantically as the postman reached her box, cracked open the door and inserted some mail, then quickly slammed the door shut and prepared to leave. Phyllis’s exultation suddenly turned to panic.
“No, please! Wait!” she cried to no avail against the elements, still too far away to attract attention.
The engine began to accelerate. The jeep’s wheels spun for a moment, then caught hold and began to move the cube-like vehicle forward.
“No!” Phyllis screamed. “You must wait!”
The jeep had gone perhaps ten feet when it suddenly jerked to a stop, its brakes lighting brightly. Then it began to back up. Its small horn honked an acknowledgement of the awkward figure in the snow in an agreement to wait.
Phyllis’ heart leaped with new hope, and she struggled with young wind to close the remaining distance. Gulping the frigid air in great gasps, her lungs ached. Though she had journeyed only thirty or forty yards, her feet were wet and freezing. Phyllis gave them no thought at all. The letter would be mailed.
As Phyllis reached the lane’s end, the squarish door again cracked open.
“Thanks so much for waiting.,” she gasped, extending the letter urgently, “It’s very important to me..”
“No problem, ma’am,” the carrier smiled. “I’ll see this goes out by noon. But you watch your step getting back, though.” The door thudded shut. The little engine pressed on once more, spinning the snow tires into new channels against the trackless expanse. The road lay somewhere beneath. Occasional mailboxes poked just above the drifts, along with occasional telephone poles and fenceposts, to indicate where the lanes peeled off to other distant homesteads on the lonely stretch.
Phyllis squinted against the stinging wind and watched the jeep’s big round taillights fade into the swirling sheets like frightened eyes, as if she were willing the missive on its way by sheer desperate force, urging its struggle through the mounting drifts which rose to the west. Despite the biting wind that stung at her with tiny, sharp needles, she dared not turn around till she could no longer hear the motor’s soft shuffing over the horizon.
When at last she was certain no sound save the whining wind reached her ears, she steadied herself against the mailbox, turned, and tried to follow her former tracks in the deep blanket back toward the house., freezing and exhausted but relieved.
“Thank you, God,” she prayed. “Oh, thank you.”

The Grass Is Green Today

2007-05-05T14:01:00.000-05:00

The grass is green today,
But I have seen it greener..
The grass was yellow last fall drought,
But I have seen it orange and sunset red, streaked with lengthening shadows.
The grass was black on moonless night,
But I have seen it blue by pale moonlight.
The grass was gay and white with Christmas frost,
But I have seen it gray and bleak in winters lost.
The grass is green today,
But I have seen it greener.

Something

2007-05-05T13:59:00.000-05:00

A tensing,
A tensing pierces the fog of faces,
Then a pain, growing, trembling—
A shudder,
Then an easing
A backing off—
A respite.
The pain is gone,
The tension is gone,
But now there is—

Nothing.

No breath,
No heartbeat.
The eyes are open, yet
There is nothing,
A sweet stillness, but—

Nothing.

Featureless faces move in fog
Discs with handles appear
Somewhere starts a low buzzing tone, whining, rising—
Explodes!
Heaving, pounding paroxysms wrack muscles, tear tendons, break joints, but
A beep,
A feeble, faint beep, then--

Nothing.

More discs, cables, hands—Wham!
Shudders, shocks, pulsing light red violet blue green white yellow, then—
From the pale yellow fog featured faces form—beep, beep--
Beeps grow louder, steadier—there are eyes, voices, but—
The pain returns,
The tension returns,
The trembling muscles scream, but

Something.

The Way You Look Tonight

2007-05-05T13:53:00.000-05:00

It was well past midnight. The after-dinner crowd had long gone. There had been a spirited group around the grand piano bar earlier, about eleven after the Broadway shows let out, but now there were only two quiet souls left around the grand’s gleaming top. Some suave-looking blond guy with Alan Ladd hair slicked back was billing and cooing his waif-like date. They were lost in each others’ eyes. She looked familier, a winsome, platinum blonde. I thought I’d seen her somewhere before but couldn’t place it. Whatever, they were in a world of their own. They wouldn’t work me with requests. I was just part of the furniture, the jukebox.
According to the folding sign out front, I’m Johnny Hart, “The Toast of Broadway,” The sign used to say “Playing all your Broadway Requests. Stump him and win a FREE DRINK.” It was true. I could play whatever they wanted, from every Broadway musical going back to Showboat in 1924, the beginning. I also could probably have done the whole Gilbert and Sullivan songbook before that, if the truth be known.. That’s the big advantage of playing by ear; you can’t play all that wow’s-em, maybe, but you can style a rendition of just about any tune you hear.
I thought it was a great gimmick, but But Sid, the owner, had painted over that promise when I started deliberately letting people “stump” me regularly each night and he had to pay up with gallons of free booze. What the hell, I argued with him. Let them have some fun. The customers loved it. Besides, nobody wanted to hear some of the unfamiliar tunes they had thrown at me, even though I knew them. I guess I won; Sid had the sign changed. And for my part, I was glad to play my own preferences sometimes and not have to be Mr. “Name That Tune” all the time.
I had been playing a longer set than usual, considering the thin audience—the usual lounge stuff, mostly standards, with some light jazz and the occasional film or show tune mixed in, and of course “New York, New York” every third or fourth selection. Lounge goers never could get too much of that one, like Tony Bennett’s poor heart that he left clear out there in San Francisco (sniff). And every time I began its unmistakable opening bars, the crowds joined in.
“If I can make it there,
I’ll make it any-where.
It’s up to you, New York, Newww Yorrrrrk!.” (Big ending—ta-da! Applause applause.) Thanks a lot, Frank.
But no one was really listening most of the time.. That’s why they call it background music. I don’t mind. I know people come to eat, have a few drinks, and mellow out. There’s no line around the block to hear me play “New York, New York.” I just do a single. I’m not Nelson Riddle’s orchestra. And hell, I don’t even sing. But I belt it out on the Yamaha Grand with gusto, and if they clap once in awhile, I’m okay with it.
It used to bother me when I started out thirty-some years ago, being ignored and drowned out by the clanking dishes and loud conversations, but not lately. During my last rendition of “New York, New York”, I began to get that certain ache in my rear end that urges “Break Time, Johnny.”. Piano benches—even fancy, padded ones like Sid bought me a year ago—get awfully hard when you go at it for a more than a set or two.
Stretching over an hour now, this set had been a real bladder-buster. I looked over at my two lovebirds. I thought I should say something about taking a break then, but they were still lost in each other’s eyes and I didn’t want to break the spell. I started to get up. But suddenly I heard a voice to the left.
“The Way You Look Tonight,”
I looked at the lovebirds. They hadn’t moved a muscle.
“Beg pardon?” I asked.
“Can you play, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’?” Alan Ladd repeated, without breaking his gaze into his lady’s eyes.
Finally, I exulted, someone with class. “Oh yes, Jerome Kern,” I replied. “My pleasure.”.
. The tune was one of my own favorites: an old standard. What a great way to end the set, I thought. then I’ll relax and have a couple of cups of my special coffee to chase the cobwebs away before my next, and last, set at two.
I liked my coffee with lots of cream and sugar, and I always spiked it by melting half a Hershey bar in it when it was hot, and floating a pat of butter on it for bouquet to tickle my nose.. I took a lot of kidding for it from the waitresses, but I drank such cocktails about eight times every night. They gave me energy when I needed it, late into the wee hours, and wired me enough to get through till morning, when I crashed with some fellow vagabond jazzmen over at Jake’s diner on 42nd Street, and filled up on eggs and fried potatoes, then went back to my hole-in-the-wall apartment and slept like the dead till two or three in the afternoon. What a life. I love it most of the time. Hey, it’s Broadway, right? the crossroads of the world!
Tonight, though, looked like it was going to be a slow one. Snow had been falling on midtown Manhattan since mid-afternoon. Pretty rare for it to accumulate before New Year, I mused. It would probably keep the late crowds away.
I struck a few chords and began the melody, warming to the song’s charm. They didn’t write them like this anymore, I thought. The caressing melody was a balm to my jangled sing-along nerves from earlier in the evening. I loved to play this song.
Then I faintly heard the outer lobby’s heavy outer doors swing open—the ones with the big brass handles and Tiffany beveled panes in red, gold, and cobalt blue It was the one accoutrement Sid hadn’t stinted on in the whole place. “A high-class front door’s important,” Sid said.
People were laughing, and soon several hearty revelers tumbled into the lounge, full of cheer and ready for more good times. Several young ladies shivered and huddled to warm themselves, dusting the fresh-fallen snow from their furs, giggling and prancing about like reindeer to shake small clumps of matted white powder from their open-toed heels. A couple smiled coyly my way; others looked around for the hostess to seat them.
Open toes, I thought, in this weather? that’s nuts! New Yorkers don’t dress for snow, and women would rather look good than almost anything, even if it meant risking frostbite. But Sid’s isn’t this group’s first stop tonight. They’re already feeling no pain. I’ll bet they’re with some Homers from Podunk, in town for a convention and looking for a good time. Sid, the owner, continued to greet them at the front desk like old friends, his eyes alight with dollar signs. There must have been close to a dozen altogether. Allegra, the hostess, hustled to organize the seating, directing three busboys impatiently.
These girls— the first party--weren’t bad-looking. Great legs! I noted--showgirls, perhaps. From the looks of their pricey too-light dresses and elegant accessories, even in the dim glow of the art deco sconces Sid got from a condemned theatre down the street, they were uptown types. Some could have been models. Or these days--who knew?--maybe high-powered executives themselves in some multinational corporation. Times have changed.
Their obviously affluent escorts were close behind but had taken the time to check their dark coats and white scarves before entering. One rubbed his hands vigorously. A second, rotund fellow paused to light a cigar. It was wet from the snow, and he was having problems. Probably been chewing on it for blocks, I thought. The guy looked for all the world like Jackie Gleason. A third groomed his glistening few strands of dark hair, carefully pulling them over the crown of his otherwise bald pate. There, that’s got it, I thought. Now no one will notice you’re bald as a billiard ball. And I thought women were vain! One waved cheerfully, and I waved back.
Well, there goes my break, I thought. I should have taken it before this song. If I leave now, Sid, will have a fit. Sid Trainor—Mister Sid to the hired help—didn’t like a quiet bar when cash came in, and it came in now. “Big bucks mean big tips” he always said to motivate the waitresses. That was one of his business mottos. The other was “Kiss their ass and take their money.” These pearls of business acumen had made Sid Trainor’s Skyroom Lounge—the third in ten years after the first two got foreclosed—a fabled success.
By the time Jackie Gleason finally got his cigar lit, Allegra somehow seated them all at table five. There were only five tables out in the open, framed by two rows of high-backed booths along the walls where people could be alone, so table five was the best seat in the house for the big “Floor Show”: me. Johnny Hart, “The Toast of Broadway,” just like the sign out front said. I wasn’t going to get away anytime soon.
Annoyed by this rowdy interruption, I tried to return to my mood and bore down at the keys, determined at least to finish the Kern tune then hop to my break before somebody shouted out for some stupid sing-along tune or yelled for “New York, New York.” Table five looked likely to do just that. If you play piano bar for thirty-six years as I have, you know what some people are going to request even before they know themselves.
I don’t sing, and I don’t usually know the words to songs I play. But I instantly recognized the words this time as I heard them:
“Love-ly, With your smile so warm. And your cheek so soft….”
The voice seemed so faint at first that it seemed remote, even piped in through the ceiling speakers. But how could that be, synchronized with my playing? Not likely. Then I thought it was coming from table five. It was pretty good singing, though--professional. Maybe an actor. But table five was busy ordering. Someone in the lobby? Or was I just hearing things? I started to get concerned.
Then the voice sounded nearer. I looked to my left. Alan Ladd was singing to the waif, softly, beautifully. But it wasn’t Alan Ladd anymore. His hair, though still sleek and debonair, was darker. And his thinner, longer face was unmistakable. It was Fred Astaire’s face. And it was Fred Astaire’s voice, not two feet from me, and my god, Fred Astaire’s suave smile, and he was singing right into the upturned, beautiful face of none other than Ginger Rogers! No kidding, Fred and Ginger, at my piano bar! What the hell was this, some hologram? I was stunned!
Jerking back, I nearly knocked the keyboard’s heavy cover down and crushed my fingers. But I didn’t lose the song. What a shock! Did somebody slip me something in my drink?
It was all I could do to keep playing, but much to my surprise, I did. I know it sounds impossible, but lounge piano players could probably handle Armageddon itself and not lose a beat. Remember the orchestra on the Titanic? We’re just made that way. You go with the flow, and not much throws us off our game. Somehow I continued, and got to the song’s ”bridge”—the middle part, the part I like best. Great chords, great progressions; enchanting, hauntingly beautiful music. I don’t care what age you compare it to. Every jazz man knows what I’m talking about. That’s why they call these tunes “Standards,” Baby, and if you can’t play them blindfolded, even for a couple of dead hoofers two feet away, singing so close you can feel their breath, Man, you can’t do piano bar.
“With each kiss your tenderness grows—Tearing my fear apart—
“And that laugh that touches your nose—Touches my foolish heart-- .”
As he gazed into her eyes, Fred’s insistent passion was melting Ginger’s sophisticated reserve with each phrase. She was falling for every word, every tone, every nuance of the song’s magic..
Even as my left brain fairly screamed for a rational explanation, my right brain continued to control my hands, to sound every note, every chord and flourish of this familiar tune I had rendered so often before. Yet I had never played it like this, never so flawlessly and with such feeling. I was in that “zone” musicians sometimes enter, when I wasn’t consciously playing the keys at all, just listening to the music, entranced. Only other musicians know what I mean. I swear, the piano was playing itself!
Again I asked myself, had I had too much to drink? Or was my butter-and Hershey bar-spiked coffee shorting out my mind? giving me visions? Drinking and drugs lace musicians’ lives like sodas and candy in the heat of a gig. But no, the single Lowenbrau I had with my pizza at seven was hardly enough to cause this--not even allowing for bad mushrooms. Besides, the Lowenbrau was some loudmouth’s tip he insisted they bring me for playing “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music while he stood in front of the piano and “directed” me, moving only his index fingers and grinning like a moron. Its glass still sat atop the piano half empty. I didn’t know how any of this could be happening, but there it was, as in a dream, and as insistently real.

Before I continue with what happened next, I have to say, Sid Trainor’s Skyroom Lounge is not exactly the Waldorf-Astoria. But we do have a dance floor of sorts, and have had for the past three years. At least that’s what Sid calls it—well, he really prefers to refer to it as “The Ballroom Area.” It’s a fake wood gym floor deck he got cheap from another demolition, with beveled edges so the customers don’t usually trip on it unless they get snockered. It’s only about fifteen feet square, out in front of the piano bar, but Sid likes it. He put it in so he could advertise “Drinks—Dancing—Floor Show“ on the front folding sign. And sometimes the customers do like to take a few turns when they start to get a glow on.
Mostly, though, Sid wants me to keep them drinking and doesn’t like it when I get them too worked up and they dance too much. “When they’re dancin’ they’re not drinkin’,” he says. “And when they’re not drinkin’ they’re not payin’.” Boy, that Sid—like a steel trap for business, man. But at the same time I’m supposed to keep them entertained enough that they stay and order more. Overall, he thinks the Ballroom Area is a good thing, as long as they dance off the buzz quickly and order more. I’m supposed to mix the tempo so they go back to their tables every several minutes. The waitresses are supposed to have another round waiting for them whenever they return. That’s the nuts and bolts of our little hustle, and most of the time it works pretty well.
But nobody was dancing now. They were sitting at table five frozen like zombies, their eyes bulging and their mouths hanging open in disbelief as they, too, beheld pure magic and questioned their sobriety, just like me. So it’s not just me! I thought with some relief.
I finished the bridge, and as I hit the repeat and da capo-ed to the start again, I swear Fred and Ginger literally floated from their seats onto the Ballroom Area and started moving as one, just as they had originally in Swing Time in 1936, their sixth of ten films together, and many say their best. The elegance, the grace of it, the feet that seemed never to quite touch the floor, the perfectly matched bodies swaying and anticipating each step, adapting effortlessly to the ridiculous confines of Sid Trainor’s “Ballroom Area,” as if the couple were dancing atop a Fifth Avenue penthouse under the stars of a summer night. It took my breath away.
And as I neared the final phrases, they glided back as smoothly as spirits to my piano and settled like swans onto their seats. Fred held Ginger’s graceful hands before him lightly. They gazed into each others’ eyes.
“Lovely,” he sang tenderly, “never, never change--
“Keep that breathless charm.
“Won’t you please arrange it ‘Cause I love you,
“Just the way you look to-night.”
Why my fingers moved of themselves, why they would not, could not stop playing, I could not fathom. I just had to slowly repeat those final notes, and I slowed way down as I did so, each note now chording, holding--. .I didn’t want the song, the dream, to ever end.
I dropped my eyes to the keys for only a moment, to execute a final tinkling arpeggio. But that was all it took. When I glanced up again, Fred and Ginger were gone, and Alan Ladd now held his lady’s small hands to his lips.
Such a hush followed as my magic couple rose and left
Then suddenly thunderous applause erupted. The Broadway revelers instantly snapped out of their trance as if released from a sorcerer’s spell, then rushed the piano.. They crowded into all the seats around the grand like musical chairs. Sid was beside himself, redirecting more seats, dishes, and drinks. Allegra was running her legs off on reorders. I started to rise, but Sid rushed over to me.
“Johnny Boy! Where you going! You can’t leave now!” he implored. “C’mon, keep it going! Play! Play!”
Oh well, my butt was stuck to the bench anyway, I thought. They’d probably have to pry me off. “Evening, folks. What’s your pleasure?” I asked
“All the Things You Are!” someone shouted. “And sing it.”
“Great song,” I congratulated. “One of my favorites I don’t sing, but you can.” And I began another Jerome Kern tune I truly love.. “Very Warm for May, wasn’t it? About 1940, I believe.”

A Man Who Buys Gas

2007-05-05T13:48:00.001-05:00

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.

Knowing Why

2007-05-05T13:45:00.000-05:00

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.

Brrr

2007-05-05T12:18:00.001-05:00

When the lyric mode hits,
it’s a terrible burr I get
in my increasingly Scottish accent, brrr,
and-- ahem, brrr.

No cure once it starts, brrr,
and damned if I’m not in frrr it now, brrr.
There it is again, brrr. Excuse me, brrr, brrr.

Ahem. Ahem.
Ahem-- .

All clear.

So there it is, you see,
another prrrsona just pops in-- aarrrr! brrr brrr--
this time Adolph Menjou in kilts!

Flurry. Scurry.

2007-05-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

Marv and Bert rode through all of Wyoming and most of West Texas in silence.
“Okay, let’s play a game,” Bert said. “I’ll say a word, then you say whatever it reminds you of.”
“Okay, go.”
“Alright then, Veronica,” Bert said.
Marv thought a moment. “Harmonica,” he said.
“Why’d you say that?”
“Rhymes with ‘Veronica.’”
“Hmm, okay, but it doesn’t have to just rhyme. Let’s try another. Veronique.”
“Huh?”
“Ver-oh-neek,” Bert overenunciated.
“Unique.” Marv responded.
Bert regarded Marvin for some time disapprovingly. “Verona.”
“Pomona.”
No sooner voiced than Bert was all a-twitter. “No no no. You’re just rhyming!. You can say anything in the whole English language, but you’re just doing nursery rhyme words. See-saw Marjorie Daw,” he shook his head from side to side.
Marv didn’t take being mocked too well. “Hey, what about you?”
“What about me.”
“Why do you just keep saying ‘Veronica’? Who’s Veronica?”
“I wasn’t”
“Were so.”
“Wasn’t.”
“Were.”
“Not. I also said ‘Verona’, like Two Gentlemen from Verona.
Marv thought a while. “Okay, now you try it, smart guy: persimmon.”
“Richard.” Bert shot back immediately.
“What? What does ‘Richard’ have a bat’s ass to do with ‘persimmon’?”
“Richard Simmons, get it? The exercise guy on tv?”
Marvin groaned. Soon silence seemed the lesser evil once more.

Gundy and the Golden Egg

2007-05-05T12:15:00.000-05:00

When the old king announced that “He who can climb the pole and grasp the golden egg at its top shall marry my daughter,” many came from near and far to try. But none could climb the high pole, cut smooth from the tallest tree in the forest. Not even the strongest, bravest knights in the kingdom could scale its length, for it was heavily coated from tip to base in the thickest, slickest goose grease the royal cook could gather. And strain with all their might and mettle, all the strong men slipped and slid to its base in turn. And as each landed with an embarrassed thud, the crowd moaned.
“It cannot be done!” Sir Goodfellow pronounced.
“Impossible!” Sir Manly proclaimed.
“It must be bewitched!” Sir Stout bellowed, and everyone gasped, for there were indeed many marvels abroad in those days.
At last all the knights had finished their futile attempts, and the King stood. “Since no man present can scale this pole, I must withdraw the challenge,” he announced.
“Sire, I claim the right to try,” came a small, meek voice from the crowd.
“Claim what right? Who dares to address the king thus?” boomed the Royal Chamberlain.
“It is I, Gundy,” Gundy the peasant said, and stepped forward, and everyone laughed.
“A skinny little runt like you?” they scoffed. “A peasant? really!” others derided. “Why, you’re not even as thick as the pole!”
“Begone, fool!” boomed the Lord Chamberlain.
But Gundy was determined. “Sire, I accept the challenge,” he stood his ground.
“Guards!” the Lord Chamberlain motioned, and the guards started for Gundy.
“Hold!” ordered the king. “The offer was open to all.” And the guards withdrew.
“Oh very well then,” said the Lord Chamberlain. “Give us a good laugh at least.”
So drawing a deep breath for courage, Gundy approached the pole, turned, and clapped three times.
Instantly forty other peasants in the crowd pressed forward and formed a human pyramid around the pole, which Gundy scurried up nimbly. He snatched the golden egg then skipped to the ground.
“Amazing!” the crowd resounded. “How resourceful!” “Huzzah!”
Astonished, the king said, “A bold plan, audacious sir! You have indeed won the hand of the princess. But how did you get all those other peasants to help you?”
“I promised each forty pieces of gold,” Gundy said.
“Forty pieces of gold? Where on earth could such as you lay hold of such treasure? They will surely tear you to bits when you cannot pay them.”
“But Sire, I believe this golden egg is worth much more than that,” Gundy said. And he married the princess and lived happily ever after.

Richer

2007-05-05T12:14:00.001-05:00

No one can get ahold of everything at once,
consume everything at once,
consider everything at once.
The richest man alive can eat only three meals each day
and still must breathe and sleep.
In many ways I am richer:
I need not fear so many others
nor build high fences,
nor concentrate on material things.
I have what he has not:
I have freedom.

Gray Day

2007-05-05T12:13:00.001-05:00

Gray Day,
Black mood.

Facts

2007-05-05T12:11:00.001-05:00

What is my line, you ask?
Why, I deal in facts. Facts, sir. Facts, I say.
And the fact is, I deal exclusively in facts.

Now you may agree or disagree—it’s of no consequence to me either way, sir,
For the facts are plain: I deal in facts, that fact is clear.
They’re no mere sideline, but occupy my attention fully.

And what, specifically, are the facts?
Why, that I do in fact deal with facts, sir;
Those are the obvious facts in this specific case.

Of course there are, in fact, other, less obvious facts as well—
For example, that some facts are more subtle than others—
Faugh! it matters not a fig! for none escape my assiduous eye, no!

I deal with them all, sir, facts great and facts small,
Facts grandiose and facts infinitesimal.
In fact, I am proud to state, I ignore no fact at all.

Time Is a River

2007-05-05T12:10:00.001-05:00

Time is a river
We sail upon our tenuous craft,
Threading through the spaces of our awareness.

If we try to sail upstream, we struggle against its current.
If we try to course ahead, we miss its markers.
At times it runs straight and true,
At times rough and perilous,
Then broadens and pools languidly as if still.

But time is never still. It brings us unrelenting to both our greatest joys
And sorrows—still,
The river is our kindly friend,.
And if we but respect its twists and turns
And avoid its hidden rocks and flotsam,
It will take us safely to the sea.

A Mighty Engine

2007-05-05T12:09:00.001-05:00

A mighty engine
Once begun,
Will run and run,
And run,
And run.

Tribute to George Malevich

2007-05-05T12:07:00.000-05:00

Disappointment

2007-05-05T12:05:00.002-05:00

Of course it’s not an issue,
But please hand me a tissue.

Doctors Scare Me

2007-05-05T12:05:00.001-05:00

All doctors scare me. I’m afraid somebody’s gonna look me over, tell me I’m dead and don’t know it, call me on it, take all my money and kill me.

Writing about Onesself

2007-05-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

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.

I Would Like in My Last Breath

2007-05-05T12:01:00.000-05:00

I would like, in my last breath,

To play a song or write a poem

To say to all, “I loved you

As I could, and wished you well.”

I Live in Two Worlds

2007-05-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

I live I think in two contrary worlds.

The first I understand but do not like,

The next I do not understand but like.

And neither would exist for me alone.

You Used to Be My Closest Friends

2007-05-05T11:57:00.001-05:00

They used to be my closest friends;
I saw them often.
They elude me mostly now, though—
Sometimes I spot one off to one side
In my reverie,
My pen sometimes snags one as it flits through my underthoughts
Like a firefly in a dark field,
Teasing and glowing
When it’s pushed up by some curious feeling or shift,
Suddenly—simply—
There!

What wild horses could not drag into view
Is simply there (where?)
Then gone (why?).

Who are you? What are you?
Unseen images, phantom forms so gossamer fleeting,
Yet tantalizing, fascinating, curious to behold?
And why do you beckon your novitiate so seldom with arcane rite
To your society so little late?
Your secret siren sound so seldom late?

You used to be my closest friends--

You used to be my closest friends!
We played together, stayed together, you and I—
We loved each other, teased each other--
Day and night we pleased each other—
Constant companions, you and I, inseparable comrades!

And I knew you well, Shadowface, and you, Lightform,
Sighsong, Laughtear, Pixiedust. Where is Mister Blue, I wonder?
And who killed Cock Robin?—WHO GOES THERE?

Be ye Friend or foe? Who ye be I’d like to know.
And where oh where oh where did ye go?
Why did you leave so suddenly, my Friendfoe? Without a word, without a sign—
No smile, no tear, no warning at all.
Did you all leave together? I wonder.
It seemed so. Such sudden exodus, such haste!
And wherever did you go? Say no, no. These tears beg to know—Ah!
But I see something, I do believe—
Ah, ha-ha, ho-ho—

Sly things! You were only hiding from me!
All these years just watching me,
Never far, and watching,
Watching—over me,
Guardians—over me.

Why?
I believe I know:
You were waiting for me!
Waiting, hesitating, so polite and not wishing to impose, intrude—
Aren’t you the little Miss Manners though!
I never knew.

Well here I am! Welcome, welcome, shy friends!
Come out, come out, wherever you are,
Come out, my friends, be ye near or far,
Come all, come round, we can play once more!
Be friends anew, as friends afore.
You need not fear, I will not tell
One soul indeed (I didn’t before).

I missed you. Missed you all since you left,
Left me in a world of ideas without feeling,
Facts without love—mechanistic toys—
Plastic supergirls, boisterous superboys—

Please come back, draw nigh again—
I’ll own you all and hide no more.
I promise, I will hide no more.

El Nino

2007-05-05T11:52:00.000-05:00

One bright morning Pepe sat in his wooden high chair spooning his oatmeal as usual into his round face. Maria, his mother, was making broth at the stove and singing happily. She turned to admire her dear boy. “Peppito,” she crooned, “mi Niño.”

It was a beautiful day. Outside the window, Maria could hear some shaker parrots chattering as they flitted about building a branchy nest in the church tower in the nearby square. A bluebird flew down to the window, landed on the sill, and cocked its head at her as if to ask some question.

Mauricio, the old mailman, had just turned his new aluminum cart into her front walk and was approaching the door. The leather mailbag it carried had grown too heavy upon his shoulder a few months ago, and his arthritis was flaring. It had been a wonderful thing when Luz, his postmistress, had presented him with the new aluminum cart to ease his burden—the first mailcart in his district. Mauricio had resisted at first, from pride. “Oh, but they’re using them everywhere in the big cities now,” his fellow workers had assured him. And he had gratefully relented. His co-workers had clapped as he took the handle and pushed it back and forth at the small ceremony. Since he had begun using the new cart, a smile had returned to replace the former grimace of pain as he made his rounds with a new lightness in his step, easily rolling and steering the cart before him.

Paco, the family toy Shnauzer, had been resting his head on his paws under the kitchen table, his designated ambush redoubt, when he sensed Mauricio’s approach as soon as the cart turned onto the walk. The sentinel sprang to his legs from his rest, on and skittered across the tile floor, his salt and pepper body of fluff charging toward the front door. “Brroo—roof-roof!” he barked excitedly and leaped to scratch the worn wood. But his leap was suddenly stopped in midair. “Roo-- .” Paco hung suspended, a small furry sculpture of thwarted fury and purpose unfulfilled.

In the pan before her, Maria saw the simmering broth just as suddenly stop in midboil. She whirled around to her darling boy.

“Peppito, what’s wrong?” she cried, rushing to snatch him up to her shoulder. In the middle of the child’s considerable baby head his coal-black eyes bulged beseechingly upward to his mother for aid. His pumpkin cheeks puffed out to his ears in a rainbow of pallid pinks and reds, then yellows, then blues, then purples, until it seemed they would burst. “Oh, my baby, my sweet, darling boy!” Maria swooped the child to her shoulder in one motion and began to pat his back vigorously and shake him gently up and down as she swayed from side to side. “There, there, you ate your oatmeal too fast, you naughty child,” she scolded. “Now just see what you have done! Oh, dear! Oh dear!”

Paco’s left paw had stopped just inches from the inside of the door, where it remained, while on its outside, only a few more inches from Paco’s slathering, bared little teeth, Mauricio’s bony right fingers clutched the day’s letters aloft in a graceful tableau as his left held the mailbox lid upright to receive them. In the nearby square the shaker parrots hung silently in orbit like hummingbirds around the old church tower in the square, and the bluebird cocked its head quizzically looking in at the scene like a beautiful, stuffed Christmas ornament. All the world was frozen in time as Mother Maria stroked and patted, bobbed and cooed her little Peppito.

And finally, with a heave of his little chest, the multicolored child let out the loudest, longest “Burrraaappp!” of which any child had ever relieved himself.

“There, there,” Maria cooed, “There’s my good boy!”

When the baby finished, his little body with its huge head seemingly beginning to return to normal proportions, a deep sigh and long yawn ensued, and he fell fast asleep in the comfort of his mother’s gently rocking, soft, warm embrace.

Mauricio dropped the letters into the box and quietly smiled under his gray mustache to hear Paco’s little cannonball body fly into the door on the other side harmlessly with a muffled thump and scratch its snare drum roll of flying paws , growling and barking. The doorbell chimed from Mauricio’s pressing, and the broth on Maria’s stove resumed its soft gurgling. The shaker parrots spun noisily again about the church tower in the square, and the little bluebird on the windowsill flew up to a cherry tree bough, hopped to face the idyllic cottage, then cheeped to confirm that all the world could continue its wondrous song.

So Unexpected

2007-05-05T11:51:00.001-05:00

So unexpected—
The warmth of it—
And so nice, to feel
The hand upon my shoulder lightly,
The lovely arm across my neck,
Spanning across three generations,
Silenty settling upon my soul
As a kitten brushes by.

Insufferable

2007-05-05T11:49:00.000-05:00

“We was sitting around jawing and somebody says what would you buy if you won the lotto,” Neils said.
“Were,” Johann corrected.
“Huh?” Neils said.
“We were sitting….” Not “We was sitting….”
“Well ‘scuse me all to hell. So I says I’d buy me a new car—big old Cadillac maybe--.”
“Said.”
“So I said—I says—dammit, Johnny, shut yer flap! I’m trying to say a story here!”
“Tell,” Johann muttered to the next table, at which sat an old lady reading. She smirked without looking up.
“Oh yeah? Well now, Mister Prissy-pants, what would you buy if you win?” Satisfied he had shifted the scrutiny, Neils sat back smugly.
“Won. I suppose I would buy a new car also.”

Imperative

2007-05-05T11:47:00.001-05:00

Little
belittle.

Charles

2007-05-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

Charles was ninety-nine
The day before his birthday,
But he looked like a movie star.

It so enraged the other residents of Merry Lane

That they bumped him off the east balcony
As he balanced on one leg for Tai Chi
At sunrise.

On Work

2007-05-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

Work is glorious
When not laborious.

Tomorrow Will Be a Writing Day

2007-05-05T11:39:00.001-05:00

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-p;aying 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, 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 to be in glorious, prodigal voice!

On a Rock on a Ridge

2007-05-05T11:35:00.000-05:00

When I sat on a rock, on a ridge,
I saw something
I didn’t see elsewhere.
I saw something, heard something—

I looked around; on a distant hill
There were other trees, other ridges—

A squirrel grabbed a small pine nut, scampered to another rock,
Turned, froze on me—
Then in a blink, vanished.

What I saw, gone.
What I heard, gone.

I looked behind, upward
There were higher trees, higher ridges—

I might see something, hear something, even more there—
Something more again, just there.

I See

2007-05-05T11:33:00.001-05:00

I see.
I think.
I imagine.
I remember.

I cry.

The Gift

2007-05-05T11:31:00.001-05:00

She approached, a small girl

Bearing flowers in a spring bouquet

And knocked lightly on my door.

They were for me.

But I, standing behind the door,

Said nothing, answered not,

And she went away.

Writer's Block

2007-05-05T11:08:00.000-05:00

Ralph and Bill grabbed a booth near the back of the diner, where they wouldn’t be disturbed, ordered coffee, and began to tackle Bill’s problem.

“You sounded pretty urgent on the phone,” Ralph said. “What’s up?”

“I thought I needed some advice. I’ve been going nuts lately trying to figure this thing out.”

“What thing?”

“Let me put it this way,” Bill said. “Ever hear of a high diver who couldn’t dive?”

“No.”

“A skater who couldn’t skate?”

“No again.”

“How about a writer who couldn’t write?”

“Now that I’ve heard of. Don’t they have a name for that? Writer’s cramp--?”

“Writer’s block. I haven’t been able to come up with a decent idea for a story for months. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Hmm,” Ralph considered. “Well, I can understand your frustration at least. Guess it’s pretty common, eh?”

“So I understand, but knowing that isn’t much comfort.”

“What does it feel like?”

“It’s kind of hard to describe, a little like amnesia, I guess. Your imagination just doesn’t work. Nothing comes into your thoughts except what you’re looking at at the time, or remembering.”

“I see. But what do other people write about, if it’s not what they observe or remember?”

“As far as I can tell, they just make it up.”

“Out of thin air?”

“Yes, so it seems.”

“It just comes to them, just occurs to them, out of the blue, whenever they want it to, the inspiration for a story, or a novel?”

“No, not really. It’s usually prompted by an event: something someone says, something that happens. The writer reflects on it and the inspiration comes from that. Some people get inspired by listing things they’re interested in. Others, I’ve heard, play a game called ‘what if--?’”

“’What if--’what?”

“You know, what if a dentist worries he’s going bonkers and knows the statistics about dentists’ high suicide rate, but he can’t get out of his practise due to his bills and family needs, loans, people depending on him, etc. What’s he going to do to keep from becoming another statistic?”

“What if the sky really was falling?“Exactly. What would people do? What would happen?”

“And what made it happen?”

“Right.”

“It sounds to me like the ‘What if--?’ game is a pretty potent trigger for the imagination. But I take it you’ve tried it and didn’t like it, right?”

“That’s right. For me it doesn’t work very well.”

“Why not?”“I can come up with ideas easily enough, but they’re not stories I’d like to develop. It’s a personal thing, and again, it’s a little hard to explain, but let me put it this way: suppose I did write a story about that make-believe dentist. What would I need to do? First, I don’t know anything about dentists or their anxieties, so it would be pretty hard for me to identify with this guy’s mental state as he begins to deteriorate.”

“So you’d worry about credibility. But can’t you empathize with somebody who’s hovering over people’s open mouths, infections, rotten teeth and gums, blood and bone all day, day after day? causing all kinds of discomfort and strain despite his best efforts to prevent it? I mean, it’s a ‘mission impossible’ to help everyone who comes through the door, and save their teeth, from what I understand.”

“I guess so, but suppose I could describe his anxiety and stress, how do I know how to describe what he might do?”

“People under stress they can’t escape try all kinds of things short of killing themselves, don’t they? I mean, playing racquetball, jogging, going on a cruise--?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Say, you’ve got a better imagination than I do! Why don’t you write the story?”

“Me? No, not me, pal. I’m not a writer.”

“Well why not? I mean, everyone writes, right?”“I wouldn’t want to do it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not something I’d like to do. It’s not me,” Ralph chuckled.

“I guess that’s my point. Not everything I might imagine would be what I would want to develop into a story, even if I could. I guess I’m looking for material I’m interested in saying, something
I relate to, that makes me feel something, that makes me laugh or cry or get goosebumps when I think about it. Something, I guess, that interests me.”

“Okay, I hear you. So why not list your interests till you hit on something you do want to write?”

“I’ve tried that, too. Easier said than done.”

“And why is that?”

“Because when I start listing my interests, I get bogged down in just writing about my memories and personal experiences, people and places I’ve known--I guess reality takes over. It doesn’t stimulate fictional images or scenes.”

Ralph paused for a long time. “You know what I think?” he said, looking Bill squarely in the eye.

“What?”

“I think you don’t want to write anything down because you’re afraid of it.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of failure, of rejection, afraid some editors won’t like it, afraid you’re no damn good as a writer.”

Bill looked down and said nothing. “Maybe so,” he considered.

“You should write what interests you and not worry if somebody else won’t like it. If it interests you, chances are it will interest others, even if it doesn’t interest everybody. Editors are paid to know if it will interest their readers, and if it won’t, that’s no skin off of your teeth. You just keep sending it around until you find someone who thinks it’s something their readers will be interested in, and they’ll send you a check.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. What are you interested in writing about, by the way?” Ralph asked as they got up to leave.

"I’m not sure,” Bill said, “but I feel a lot better now about my chances of finding out. I should have seen it for myself.”

“You were probably too close to it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Bill admitted. “Say, I thought you didn’t know that much about writing, you said. I’d say you know quite a bit. You sure you’re not a writer on the side?”

“No, I’m no writer. But it didn’t take much to see the answer to your problem. Sometimes you just have to get a different perspective.”

“Thanks a lot, Ralph,” Bill grinned. “Let me get the coffee, okay?”

“You got it.”

The Tidy Writer

2007-05-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

Writing’s a great tidier. When I sit down to write, I find that my room gets cleaned from top to bottom, my papers get sorted and filed, and every pin and paper clip gets carefully put in its place. I refuse to even think about writing until everything is in order. In fact, so thorough am I that sometimes I run out of time and write nothing at all!

With such a powerful influence acting upon me at the commencement of each literary effort, I simply do not understand why other writers, I am told, often find their desks heaped to overflowing with books, papers, clippings and such, when my desk is so neat. How could they find anything in such a clutter? How can they find any place to write? I, on the other hand, know exactly where each item is: my pen, my blank page, and my coffee cup. It’s all I need, and I have plenty of my vital “writer’s space.”

Of course, other writers might have to accomodate the sheer bulk of many notes and manuscripts, readers’ correspondence, publishers’ contracts, royalty checks and such; and I suppose no author can avoid the vanity of having a copy or two of his published books lying about.

But thank goodness I’ve avoided anything of the kind. I have carefully erased any hint of literary enterprise going on in my room, and I’ve bound and secreted my entire ouvre of journal notes safely away, far under my desk where no one is likely to notice, along with a mere single copy of my handful of published stories and poems. Even Emily Dickinson, with her small tattered sheets of poems, couldn’t outdo me for squirreling our works safely away.

Thus, I have utterly escaped the untidiness of authorship which has claimed so many of my fellows! and my thoughts are likely not to attract any nosey, curious eyes in my lifetime.

Three for the Stack

2007-05-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

Babble

So in this new best of all worlds there need be no further arguing. We will say, and say simply, what occurs to say, and no more, and no less.

Thus the gray walls of the old castles stand still, their ghostly generations spectral in the rose sky. And that same sun which shown on all their days shines today. Not as bright perhaps, not as clear, but alone and sovereign o’er the earth.

Foundation Slope

One feller, Joe, I think they called him, sat on a stump and looked at the way the end gable of Mrs. Butler’s yellow house sat straight across and up and down on the cement foundation, even though the foundation got higher where the yard sloped down towards the alley.

Yes, I think his name was Joe. Yeah, Joe’s the one. He just stared at that one end of her house for a long time and must have thought about how they could get it on so straight that way. Foundations are level. ‘Course Joe wasn’t; he kinda leaned to one side most days, and anybody coming by could see he was leaning to one side while he looked at the house. I mean, he had his head over onto his left shoulder almost. I’m surprised he didn’t fall off the stump or starve the blood supply to his brain that way and keel over, you know. Some people are just that way.

Well, I don’t know, he stared at that end of Mrs. Butler’s house for it must have been the better part of a half-hour, but he must have got whatever it was he was thinking about all worked out in his mind, because he finally straightened up and shook his head, then got up and went about the rest of his business.

Commercial

“Hey there wup wup!” Snerd clicked on the remote’s mute button with his fat thumb just as the commercial began: “Friends, have you . . . ?”

“Damn, almost.” Snerd took a breath. He glanced at the screen while the commercial played through, deliberately trying not to get enough of its content to be able to describe it to anyone else, determined not to let the sponsor’s visual appeals penetrate his consciousness and still manipulate his thoughts despite having blocked the sound. Snerd was well aware of the sophisticated trickery employed in the making of commercials: the market tests, the sample viewings, the meetings and measurements. You had to get it shut down right at the beginning. If any part of the commercial sneaked through, that part succeeded for the sponsor. One point for their side. Snerd was just as determined not to let that happen to him.

He resumed the regular program as it returned--a skill nearly as difficult to master as muting the commercial and requiring just as split-second a mastery of the mute button again, to toggle the sound back on without missing a word of dialog of the new scene.

After settling into the new scene, however, Snerd’s mind began to drift to other things, and he laid the remote on the table at the far end of the couch, with his iced tea. Only a few moments later, or so it seemed, the next fade to black sent Snerd sprawling across the couch and fumbling for the mute button just as another smiling face appeared and parted her lips to speak--mute!

“Aha. Gotcha!” Snerd sneered triumphantly.

Ig-luk-um

2007-05-05T10:56:00.000-05:00

John Runyon ran films as “instructive guides,” he claimed, for surviving in the Yukon wilderness. He presented them in his small cabin at the edge of the town of Ig-luk-um which, he proudly reminded his guests, he had built with his own hands, using native materials.

Since most of the guests who came to his soirees were eskimos, this was not unduly impressive, nor were the films, as a rule, which included Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” and “White Fang,” and “Silence of the North.”

As the eskimos politely watched the films they made no comment, although Runyon frequently interrupted to point out this or that he which thought needed emphasis or clarification, and to these explanations the guests gave the same polite gravity they gave the films themselves, though they spoke no English and understood nothing but Runyon’s apparent sincerity. But since the Runyon Wilderness Survival series, as his handbills advertised all over Ig-luk-um’s seventeen inhabitants’ dwellings and environs, was the high point of social interaction during the six-month-long northern night, Runyon’s cabin was always full to capacity.

It didn’t matter if they didn’t quite get it all, he told his Melba, so long as they had been exposed to some of the more instructive scenes. If his films , brought all the way from Seattle at no small inconvenience, began the instruction--planted the seeds, as it were--his readings from the Boy Scout Official Guide after each film “really brought the point home,” he rapped the table.

So to John Runyon the instruction in wilderness survival to his fellow inhabitants of the village was nothing short of the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. If it resulted in only one life saved, he told Melba, it would be worthwhile. If not, well, he had tried.

The Grade

2007-05-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

When I was a junior at the University of Illinois, I took a course in short story writing. The professor was one Dr. Quinn, a polished, urbane, thin man of utmost reverence for the work of Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and other greats of the genre. I imagined him to be one himself, from his manner.

For several classes he simply read to us, pointing out the strengths, occasionally noting weaknesses, of excerpts from those writers as we listened and learned--some of us. Always the brownies, we, like all students in small classes those days, fairly nodded ourselves into neck spasms and tried to be little quinns ourselves in receiving such elegant gifts.

But there was another interchange going on as well as the class communicated our responses with glances to each other, not always respectful, and whispered snide remarks about Quinn's pomposity and effete demeanor, and sometimes snickered under our breaths.

One young, chubby fellow wannabe who looked about as literary as a Roman wrestler was particularly ineffective at covering up his disdain for the proceedings. Before class he told me had written already, and published. In fact, he said, he created a popular comic strip hero of the day whose identity I can't recall, "Dragon Man" or something, but which I had heard of at the time and was duly impressed by.

I thought that this budding professional, this holy man (all who published were holy, to me, a poor unpublished mere mortal) was sure to get an "A" on every thing he submitted, ipso facto. But in fact, he got straight "D's" and "F's." I gleaned that his snideness and disrespect was noted by Quinn and influenced the grade accordingly, until I heard him read some of his work. It was really not of the type to be appreciated by anyone with a vocabulary above the second grade.

In time we all read our own stories, of course, before the class. I was thrilled to be the first called to do so, on the first submission, by the mighty Quinn. It was a validation when I saw, as he handed me my first effort, graded, a big read "A" across the top. I read it aloud with pride, a little personal piece about going exploring under my hometown's Jefferson Street bridge across the Little Wabash River in Huntington, Indiana as a child. I had "fictionalized" it, cloaked it in indecipherable anonymity, I thought, by calling it "Silver Bridge," and in its pages I described my first encounter with crayfish ("crawdads" we called them), slipping on the slippery floodbanks of mud which formed under the cement arches and falling into the muddy water reaching for flotsam and jetsam with branches, throwing skipping stones and so on--the predictable images and anecdotes of every boy's Huck Finn period in countless hometowns across the land. It must have reminded Quinn of his own childhood. I was thrilled he'd liked it.

From that moment forth my writer's confidence only grew. Each work I submitted earned an "A." Each round of reading found me trotted to the lectern, and I began to feel I could do no wrong; my highest mark was assured, and I was the class golden boy, the next to join, in time, should I deign to do so, the Whartons and Hemingways, Faulkners and Cathers of the literary pantheon. Someday my stories would be read by other novitiates and wannabes in future writing courses everywhere, and pointed to as models by other Quinns with the same reverence. And the beauty of it was, I didn't even half try. The writings came easily to me, and I seldom revised them before submission. I had always done well in writing courses from my freshman year on, always gotten "A's" on my compositions, always just whipped them off a few hours before submission and been cited and fawned over publicly by my professors for the exemplary efforts.

By the time I wrote my final short work for the course I had become an arrogant snob. I don't even remember what I wrote, only that I dashed it off with even greater recklessness than the others, supremely confident that whatever I condescended to remark would continue to astound and impress. The language, the diction, as I recall, had become stilted and polysyllabic. I sensed I had mastered the music of the Masters themselves and heard in my mind's scenario Quinn's then-familiar voice invite me once more to the triumphant read at the lectern.

Then came the day of the last class. But instead of the expected collegial glance from my professor as the class began and he started returning the papers, I received my final submission in my seat, handed to me with the briefest glance of Quinn's sympathetic eyes, and I knew something was terribly wrong even before I lowered my gaze to the small, embarrassed "C+" floating above a sea of negative redinked comments and slash marks, the result of thoroughly frustrated editing and justified total repudiation by an offended reader.

I was crushed. I don't even remember what I wrote, to deserve such wrath. Needless to say, I was not invited to read it to the class. Quinn was too civilized to be vindictive, too tactful to humiliate me publicly. He did, however, ask our class "Dragon Man" originator to read his latest narrative, which I don't remember but for which he had received his highest grade of the semester, a "B-", as I recall.

So the nettle in the toe of our mentor got his big moment. As I slouched low in abject despair, he read his story with the same crudeness and insensitivity he had demonstrated all semester, and it was indeed as unpolished and sophomoric as the rest of that luminary's oeuvre. Quinn was totally unimpressed with Dragon Man. But it did demonstrate Quinn's evenhandedness and generosity to the class, as I'm sure the professor intended. Quinn was too civilized and above it all to let himself be thought of as petty, either by others or by himself.

Others read as well, that last class, but I didn't hear them. I was devastated. After a few concluding niceties and wellwishes, the course was over, and I was the first to exit, race to my room, and chew on my sorrow.

At length the notes Quinn had entered became intelligible to me:

"This is a great disappointment. You have written much better work all semester. You are certainly capable of much more detail and sophistication than demonstrated here," etc., each upbraiding criticism knifing through my pride like a dagger plunged again and again, annihilating my writer's ego, knocking me off my accustomed, privileged position at the lectern forever.

I couldn't stand it. I made an appointment, tried to maintain my author's dignity as I entered his office, and handed Quinn my ink-bloodied manuscript for whatever explanation of the grade he could offer. Always gentlemanly whether in class or office, my ego-smasher considerately reread my work and his comments, then turned to me.

"Well, Mr. Kauffman, I hope I'm not being too harsh, but this is clearly not up to your early quality. Frankly, it reads as if the narrator is an overstuffed, snobbish bore. In contrast, your earlier submissions were fresh and direct, in your own words. I was disappointed, as I'm sure you are, but these things happen from time to time. You might have been rushed. I sincerely hope you will return to your usual fine quality in future work because I know you are certainly capable of it." He handed it back to me with genuine smile, with no hint of malice, and wished me well.

There was nothing for it; all hope was gone. The grade would stand, and I would receive an "A-" for the course in my mailbox a few weeks later. The minus would stick out of my heart like a spiritual lance for years, reminding me of my less-than-golden status among the short fiction writers of the world, and when the names of Wharton, Cather, Hemingway and Faulkner were sounded in the halls of academe, the name of Kauffman would remain unheard.

In the fullness of years I have come to change my perspective on that chastening event. I have become in turn a published writer, an English teacher, and a professor of literature myself. And I have grudgingly come to accept, gratefully, Quinn's integrity and honesty and admit that he was right. My final writing for his short story writing course was not my best work. In fact, I suspect that the grade was, if anything, a gift. No, it was more than a gift; it was a concession to me, a tribute to a talent he saw in my earlier submissions and did not wish to crush brutally and send me into silence.

I think Quinn's humanity got the better of him, cracked through his exquisitely-refined sense of quality for one brief moment, and allowed him to say that a "D" was a "C."

A writing teacher has no other way to communicate the totality of his feeling for a pupil than through his grade and comments, no other way to encourage or discourage, than the grade, as I have found out through personal experience, and no other way to say, "I care about you. I care about your life and your hopes and dreams and the development of your potential as a writer and as a human being."

The Descent

2007-05-05T10:41:00.000-05:00

It was one of those zoom-in, zoom-out features like one finds on TV, which found Mister G. Hampton Bley descending comfortably toward a midtown Manhattan street from a glorious autumn afternoon sky. Down, down, and down he floated, free as a feather, into the slots framed by the taller monuments to free enterprise, down into the canyons’ shadows, slowing now confidently like an elevator as the lower stories approached.

Nearing street level, however, Mister Bley noted the first minor concern of the trip forming below. He was descending directly into the street itself. The yellow roof of a cab was about to slip in directly beneath him, and a canvas-covered delivery truck lumbered and chugged along determinedly behind the cab. Oh dear, Bley thought. He hadn’t reckoned the traffic in his plan.
Still, this little lapse in his usually impeccable planning was a small inconvenience.

He simply closed his eyes and focused his energies, and with the body English of a skilled skydiver, veered his trajectory slightly to the right, with plenty of vertical space still remaining, so as to land squarely on a broad, uncrowded stretch of sidewalk along Fifth Avenue near the cathedral. Plenty of room there, he noted as the walk rose to meet his polished oxfords. A bent crone egressing from her confessions skittered down the cathedral steps and crossed herself hurriedly as she looked up in surprise.

“Ah, terra firma,” he mused. Checking himself over, he flecked away a small piece of lint from his cuff and straightened his tie and bowler.

But of the crowd which quickly gathered in a circle near him, however, he could make no sense at all. The faces of what he had at first thought might have been a welcoming committee were unknown to him, and they wore not the easy smiles of greeting but a most curious, intense concern. Moreover, instead of meeting his inquiring gaze, they all ignored him and stared downward at his shoes.

G. Hampton Bley would make no sense of this rude coven whatever, till he, too, glanced down and beheld in horror his own mangled remains, sprawled and askew as a ragdoll. His first impulse was to look away, but like the other onlookers he was drawn to the eggshell face, which, though badly bruised and flattened to one side by the trauma, nevertheless grinned amiably upward with its well-groomed moustache and delicate brow.

Oh dear! he shuddered, Humpty-Dumpty’s had a great fall, and sensed himself growing lightheaded. Then he became lightbodied as well, light as helium all over, and before he could think of any appropriate farewell or apology to excuse himself from his new friends, he involuntarily began to rise above the awkward scene, slowly at first then shooting straight and swift as a rocket up, up, and up through the canyons’ shadows into the grand, unrestricted freedom of a most glorious autumn afternoon sky, like one of those zoom-in, zoom-out features one finds on TV.

New Teeth

2007-05-05T08:56:00.000-05:00

The night before, Den Pettigrew had dreamed that his teeth had sprouted another set of teeth over them, as well as another set behind them, and another between them, which nearly filled his mouth with teeth and made chewing even the simplest foods extremely difficult. As the newer, brighter teeth were, however, advanced over the older, duller teeth in front, the effect on his smile was a positive one, as several friends in the dream had commented.

The Box

2007-05-05T08:49:00.000-05:00

Joe Sistrunk finished four cabinets by about two-thirty Tuesday afternoon and was enjoying a cone-cup of water from the back of the crew truck. He checked his watch: two- forty. Time to get busy with the slow but routine cleanup of his cabinet mess around the sawhorses so he could check out and go home at three.

"How 'ya doin?" a drywaller passed by.

"Hey," Joe said. He didn't talk much to drywallers.

Finishing his cleanup faster than he had intended, he checked his watch again: quarter to three. Well, maybe he could look busy fiddling around with his tools and supplies. He was really looking forward to a cold shower and a hot meal, and maybe a little TV if he could stay awake that long. That was when the foreman had sauntered over.

"Hey, Joe, load up that box before you clear out, okay?" The foreman turned his head and spat a plug of Red Man nonchalantly over his shoulder toward a dumpster near some crates and a waist-high pile of debris nearby.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Joe said. He groaned as the foreman turned away, but not loud enough to be heard. He drained another cone-cup from the back of the truck then gave it a careless toss in the direction of the nearby coil of chicken wire that served as a makeshift trash bin.

Looks like there's nothing for it, he resigned himself. The others had done it from time to time, he had noticed, but so far he'd managed to look busy enough that he hadn't been tapped for the honor. He made a mental note to slow down the next day, whatever he was doing, and stretch things out till closing. After all, he was a cabinet man, not a damned cleanup boy. But he'd do what they asked this time. Work hadn't been that easy for him to come by the past few months, at his age. He needed this job for at least a few more weeks till something opened up down south, where a buddy had promised him he would get in touch soon.

Joe strolled over toward the task and grabbed a deep-sided, flat-blade coal shovel which was leaning against one of the crates, then looked at the pile a few feet distant.

What was this stuff? he asked himself. He had seen it there every day since he came to the site several days before, but this was the first time he had ever seen it up close. From where he had been finishing out the cabinets perhaps twenty yards distant it had looked like ordinary construction trash, but now he wasn't so sure.

The pile looked like an aggregate of dark caramel sand, gravel, sawdust, wood, and sundry castoff parts stuck together in a semi-viscous ooze. It was hard to say what was in it. But whatever it was, they didn't want it sitting there and had gone to no small efforts to remove it every day.

The next day, come to think of it, it had grown back up, but he never had seen anyone throw anything on it, no trucks dumping on the area he knew about. He was a bit perplexed to account for it existing at all, yet every day there it was again, always in exactly the same spot.

Well, so what, he thought. It didn't matter what it was or how it got there; it was up to him to get it in the big green dumpster box and knock off for the day.

Joe slipped the big shovel in the side of the pile nearest the box, taking a shallow, slight load to get the feel of the weight. It was much heavier than he would have guessed. He heaved it over the top of the high rim of the box, where it fell with an ominous, hollow thunk, meaning the dumpster was completely empty.

Strange, he thought. He'd seen these big dumpster boxes filled high each time before they got hauled off on a big flatbed. This was going to take awhile.

He sighed, then took a bigger load. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the foreman eyeing him with interest. He dumped the load, got another with more determination, and dumped it. The foreman went off to talk to some of the others who were knocking off for the day. Probably going to split a six-pack, Joe thought slowing down a bit.

After fifteen or twenty minutes he didn't seem to be getting very far. The material was too thick and heavy to be just trash. Every once in awhile he thought he recognized something familiar in the load, like a razor blade or lead pipe elbow joint--even what looked like a rat's head once, he'd sworn. But that was probably the heat, and the sticky, grainy ooze that obscured everything yet curiously fell from the shovel cleanly into the box.
He felt a slight shudder, then shrugged it off. He must be seeing things, he thought. Then he began to feel angry and put upon. How come they had the nerve to make him do this, anyway. He was a cabinet man. This was turning into a long day.

He hadn't been sweating all day long, but droplets were forming now on his brow, and he knew his tee-shirt was soaked and stuck to his chest and back as he twisted. The pile was getting smaller, though, and the thunking inside the box was definitely turning into a soft thud. The bottom must be covered at least, he thought. It didn't matter; when the material pile was gone, he'd have done enough. If there wasn't anything more to fill it up with, he'd be done.

It was then that Joe noticed the pile had been shifting on him as pieces loosely fell into previously vacated space, like fine sand, so as to re-form itself, as it were. But it was definitely smaller. The shifting was curious, though; this material wasn't just sand. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, wherever it was going, it definitely wasn't like anything he'd ever handled before. He thought some of it even flashed reflectively, like glass or quartz. But the aggregate didn't look like it should shift down. It felt so solid, but whenever he removed a bite and turned to heave it into the box, whenever he turned back to the pile, it had perfectly re-formed, without him even hearing or seeing it happen.

Once, he even pulled a shovelful out and waited. Nothing happened. The cavity he had removed held its shape. But no sooner had he turned his back and turned back to the pile than it had shifted back as smooth as quicksand.

Oh well, he thought, he wasn't trying to sculpt a statue. What did he care what it did, as long as he got it in the damned box and called it a day. A faint hunger began to gnaw at him. He wasn't using his usual muscles for this work, and his slight apple juice carton and pastrami sandwich lunch hadn't given him much energy reserve.

To make matters worse, the pile before him seemed to emit a fresh, deli-like aroma--a blend of hot fresh-baked bread and ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese, with a hint of green peppers. He shook his head and adjusted his cap over his long, thick gray hair. There was no way, he thought. No way he'd give in to a crazy impulse he had for a moment to stick his finger in and give it a taste. Not after what he had seen in it, or thought he had. But for all that, it really did look like molasses in the golden late afternoon, and the sun behind its edges seemed to shine through it translucently, revealing lumps that made his mouth water and his stomach growl. This is crazy, he thought. He stuck the shovel in and heaved it over into the box--thud.

Behind him he heard pickups and cars start up and roar off as the others left, most of them. Joe straightened up and wiped his brow, then looked around to see if he could sneak a cigarette. The foreman was nowhere in sight, so he reached under the rolled-up tee-shirt sleeve where he stowed his Camels and pulled out the flattened pack.

Ah, one left, he discovered with pleasure, and worked the crumpled pack of matches out from under the cellophane wrapper where he kept them. They were pretty damp from the sweat, but he'd make one of them work. He knew how from lots of practise.

Before he got the match struck, however, the foreman came around the crates.
"
How you doing here?"

"Not bad, just about got it, I guess--what's left of it, anyway."

The foreman looked at the pile disdainfully, then back at Joe, as if to say, "You finish guys are all alike. Can't do any real work, can you."

"Well, let's wrap this up pretty quick. I got to get back to the plant before five."

"You got it," Joe pitched the shovel in deeply and hurled a huge load into the box. He kept his boot over the unlit cigarette till the foreman left, then reached down for it. It was squashed flat and broken open from the twisting. "Aw, crap," he grunted in disgust, grabbing another load.

Four o'clock came and went, and at some point Joe realized he was probably alone at the site, except for the damned foreman who was undoubtedly keeping an eye on him from some hidden spot. He fell to with a passion then, working harder and faster than he could ever remember doing, literally heaving and thrashing at the pile. Clunk-swing-thud, clunk-swing-thud! Slowly the pile was disappearing before his sweat-filled eyes as faster and faster he worked the shovel.

He sank each thrust in deep to the ever-smaller aggregate, tossing it back to the hilt and shifting the handle side-to-side to fill each load to overflowing, then straining upward with a mighty heave over the dumpster rim. In time the thuds became softer and softer. He knew it must be getting full, and the pile was almost gone. Shadows began to lengthen across the site. Joe could feel a slight, welcome breeze stir as evening came on. Just a few more shovel loads and it would all be over.

As he neared the bottom, Joe smiled. He felt a little lightheaded from the effort, and thought he must look like he fell in a lake from the sweat that soaked his jeans and socks, but he briefly enjoyed the satisfaction that he had showed the foreman he was no sissy. Despite his age and the less physically demanding work he had earned through years of effort, coming up through the ranks, so to speak, he had pulled his weight and more. This must be some kind of stupid rites of passage, he thought. Prove to the others he was one of the guys. Probably some of them put the foreman up to it, he thought, making him do this scrud work today.

Well, so be it. He checked his watch. The foreman would be happy; it was twenty till five--plenty of time if they left now. Too bad in a way, he thought. He might have liked to stand around for a few minutes and have a beer with the foreman if there were any left. But he figured the tailgate party and the beers were long gone. Yeah, too bad. He could picture himself joking around with the guys about it, them slapping him on the back and laughing over a few suds--yeah, that would have been great. Well, maybe tomorrow.

Suddenly Joe shivered hard, no longer warmed by his reveries. The breeze had become a chill wind, and his salt-sweat clothes began to sting.

With the last scraped bits the ground showed clear at last. The foreman was walking over impatiently. Just in time, Joe thought, scattering the final bits over the rim with pride.

"Guess that about does it," he grinned and leaned against the shovel, crossing one leg wearily.

The foreman scanned a cynical eye over the bare ground where the material pile had been, as if he'd make Joe get every last speck he could find before he'd give any grudging approval, then grunted and spat a plug of Red Man on the ground with a practised "thwock." Then he took a couple of steps and climbed up on a side rail for a look inside.

"This ain't full," he said simply, climbing back down.

"What?"

"Hell, this box ain't half full," the foreman scolded.

Joe clambered up the side and peered over, bitter and confused. Who the hell cared if the box was full or not?

What difference did that make?

In the waning light the inside of the box was nearly dark and looked like a bottomless pit. The air near the rim had a still, tunnel-like quality, and he thought he heard a faint hissing sound. He wiped his eyes and looked again. The debris was scattered in little piles across the floor of the box in a way he couldn't believe, except for one pretty good-sized heap against the end he'd been throwing toward. Still, he knew he'd thrown in more than was there. Hell, it should have filled it and then some! He climbed back down and ached all over.

"Must have settled," Joe said. "But don't make any difference does it? We got the whole pile in and you can still make it to the plant by five."

The foreman stared at Joe like he was some kind of idiot, took a couple of steps away, then turned back.

"You just don't get it, do you. I can't send this box out half empty. You ever see me send a box out wasn't full? I mean, you seen 'em go out every day, ain't you? Every one of 'em topped off good." He warmed to the subject. "Damn!" he checked his watch, "I'm never going to get to the plant before dark. Now finish the damned job!"

To punctuate his dissatisfaction the foreman screwed up his cheeks and thwocked out a huge slurry of Red Man that narrowly whistled past Joe, who turned and suddenly stumbled back.

There it was. The pile had re-formed completely, a good ten-foot high heap of glowing, gleaming, pulsing sludge that flared out at him like a treasure trove newly unearthed, sparkling in the last rays of the sun after having been buried for centuries.

Counters' Hall

2007-05-05T08:38:00.000-05:00

from Notes from the Space and Time Museum

". . . . There were many counters at work as I passed through. Some were counting real-time events on their clickers and seemed busy but calm. Others were frantically trying to count particle motion events and going crazy. One was being carried out babbling past me even as a replacement was being hurried in.

"In one corner a morose teen was counting happy times and appeared bored to tears, not knowing what to do. He hadn't clicked his clicker once, not once. I guessed he had forgotten. The only thing for him was time, I thought. One day he would snap to and remember everything. Then he would hope and dream again, and wish for all things, and then he would have something to click about. But he sure couldn't see that at the time. Man, what a sad sack he was, probably about fourteen or fifteen. Another year or two, I smiled to myself.

"I think the saddest group I passed, though, were the old men counting their money, because they kept stealing it from each other's piles before any of them could get an accurate total, and they couldn't leave till they did. It was really ridiculous; they couldn't buy anything with it in Counters' Hall anyway, at least not anything they needed.

"The only happy group I passed were the young mothers, counting their diaper changes, meals, spills, cleanups, rockings, pickups, and all the other tibulations of motherhood. Their fingers fairly flew over the clickers without a moment's rest. Yet they were laughing and alive and glowing with joy, for they also were permitted to count their love and care for their babes, and their hopes and pride in them, and these more than offset all the tribulations and trials.

"I was gazing at one who, nursing contentedly, looked up at me with a smile as I peered down at the most beautiful child and moved by. I was about to utter a compliment--and then I was out. Whiteness closed over the Hall of the Counters like a shroud where the exitway had been, and outside only historians continued to click inhumane acts, frustrated by having to rely on the fading, incomplete recollections of others. . . ."

Whiteness closed over the Hall of the Counters like a shroud where the exitway had been.

Romany Song

2007-05-05T08:37:00.001-05:00

Alone in dusky stillness, curious to touch the light and sound
of a faint distant song, I stumble toward the carnival glow,

But tripping nearer, raucous fury! blinding flash!
a jarring retreat to the twilight smile,
the sweet material breath wherein the soul rests,

Then hears the carousel once more upon some unseen stir
and wanders innocent toward life's freeway Siren,
a toddler unattended, a porch too small.

The ebb and flow, the rise and fall, the soul's pulse as it seeks its own--
exploratory alurums and excursions, then rapid retreat to desperate sanctuary--

All brave advances mired in confusion,
the rhythm unestablished, activity without cadence--
a most disjunctive tune.

People

2007-05-05T08:36:00.001-05:00

People are more interesting than most of what they do,
certainly more interesting than anything they have.
People are more interesting than most of what they say:
"Telefunken Interlochen bladderblotter, Dave."

Song of the Ring-bell Man

2007-05-05T08:34:00.000-05:00

Wheeze-whack. Tick.
Wheeze-whack-ding. Ticktick. "Ooh!"
Wheeze-whock-ding. Ticktock. "Aah!"

Unk-whop-clang. Tickticktick. "Ahright!"
Unk-whack-claang. Tocktick. "Mahma wantsa Cuhpee doll.!"
Unngh!-thwack-claaang! Tockatock tick tick "Mah heero! Mmmm!"

Tap. "Hee-hee."
Oof-flutter-plop. "Tee hee hee--ahem."
Tapatap. "Haw!"
Ooof!-shwang-thud. Ting. ticktick. "Huh?"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap.
"Uuaaaarrgh!"-swooosh-thunka-claaang!!! "Omigod!"
Tock, tock, tick-ticktick.

Tower

2007-05-05T08:31:00.000-05:00

After negotiations had broken down inconclusively for the morning, I proceeded to my classroom, contemplating my imminent lecture on Ambrose Bierce.

Suddenly I felt a smart "ping" on my right cheek and noticed a small, white, ovoid pellet tick on the sidewalk and bounce into the grass. Whirling up to my right, into the sun's glare, I glimpsed the unmistakable blue serge suit and thick glasses of the Administrator peering over the roof of the Tower with a peashooter.

Immediately as I did, the sniper ducked down and hid, his mouth a tight dot amongst cheeks chocked full of beans, more ammo against a misfire.

I was astonished. So it's come to this, I thought, the Administrator of the university taking ambush potshots with a peashooter at the faculty! I was appalled. It must have been awfully hot up there on that roof, in that dark suit.

I shouldn't have been surprised. I had heard of other incidents and realized it was just his way of making a point. What else can one expect from a man who locks himself in a broom closet to ponder and stands silently in a doorway for hours. I need have no more fear of him.

I continued on to my classroom and resumed my attention to my preparatory remarks on "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," ignoring several other ticking sounds behind me.

Seer

2007-05-05T08:30:00.001-05:00

"Some feller jumped off'n the bridge last night," Meg said.
"That so. Did ya see it?" Nub said.
"No."
"Did ya hear it?"
"Nope."
"Then how do ya know?"
"I just know."

Six Brothers

2007-05-05T08:29:00.001-05:00

Five brothers,
Four brothers,
Three.
Two brothers,
One brother:
Me.