The Hunger of History

The world you see so much before you
Did not dare exist in the Golden Age
For History had no dearth of tales of courage then
With which to fill its page.

Admittingly, its appetite for observation was capped
With the jottings of nefarious doings
But only for variety,
For the heart of its meal was valor.
Now with grimy bib exposed and ravenously rapt,
Its diet consists of ruings.
The joint’s picked clean of heroics
And the scraps can’t improve its pallor.

Emaciated and untrustworthy,
As those short on sustenance are,
It yet provides the grim fascination
Of a once-full gleaming jar –
To wonder what it might be fed
And mourn for its lacking – that is our fate today
As it sits, banging forks on the table
Now the Heroes have all gone away.

Wicked

Axel Fenn had positioned his bony posterior on the last stool in the corner of The Queen’s Ear over three hours earlier and only now heard Perfidia emanating from the jukebox. It must be someone’s favorite song, he thought, as he realized it must have played at least six times. The repetitious melody had been the backdrop to Jacqueline’s accusation which looped itself over and over like lyrics to the tune in his mind.

“You wicked toe rag,” she had taunted. “If not for me, you would still be in your shell—living in that dingy little flat. How could you have done this to me?”

She had a right to ask the question. He would still have to see Felicity every day at the office, but he felt neither wicked, nor lately shy, and had forgotten how unforthcoming he used to be. Was it only eighteen months since he and Jackie had met at the Bromptons and shared a taxi, originally headed toward two destinations, but ineluctably winding up at her place? Throughout the ride he had stared at her slender fingers. The one bugaboo he had developed during those months was the proximity of her toothbrush and the occasional sight of a reddened tampon in the waste bin of her loo. He’d never been a swinger. He usually arrived home early though they rarely did anything more than watch the telly in the evenings. Over time she had put on a little weight and he had lost a stone. And though certain situations might have left him mortified in another life, he could now suffer a canard with the best of them. Perhaps it was true that Jacqueline had prompted his flowering. In that way, she was partly responsible for his susceptibility to Felicity’s charm.

He thought he had been discreet, but it was a bitter pill to discover his transparency.

When her nagging started to wear away the veneer of his docility, he prepared to leave. Really he just wanted to get some air, to think things over, accept his guilt, prepare a proper apology, et cetera, et cetera. As he stood looking sheepish at the door, she said, “Your fly is open.”

He wouldn’t deign to look until he was out in the hall. She had been right.

He walked aimlessly for half an hour. Then, feeling dry, he stopped into The Queen’s Ear. Ale after ale convinced him he could not go back to her place. She would never accept whatever apology he could come up with. His seventh would be the last. He would go back to his own flat for the weekend.

Helen Forrest sang once again, “Your eyes are echoing Perfidia. Forgetful of our promise of love…”

Axel, tipsy, quaffed the last ale and left the pub. He was thinking of possible reasons for Felicity’s dismissal as he walked toward Victoria Station. But she was an excellent accountant and more than likely old Brompton wouldn’t hear of it.

He was on Jacqueline’s street before he realized he had headed away from the direction of his flat. He felt so tired now. He recalled the tomblike shelter of it, but it was so far away.

As he lifted the brass knocker, he wondered if she’d still be awake.

Empty

Kathia sat at the dining room table. Just sat, looking at the morning paper on the floor and the empty chair across from her. She would have to make a move soon. The hospital had called over an hour ago to tell her David had passed away. On the one hand, she was relieved it was over. She would not have to face a future filled with betrayal and doubt, but on the other, she already missed him.

Phone calls had been made already. His sister in Phoenix knew. His brother would be told as soon as they could locate him. Freddy was next door with Sally. She would take care of him for the afternoon. He had already asked Kathia more than once if Daddy wouldn’t be coming home. Sometimes seven-year-olds couldn’t articulate their feelings but they could perceive when things were not right. David had been in the hospital for six weeks.

Six long weeks, during which Kathia had gone through torment wondering what came next in a situation like this. She knew there was no going back, but it didn’t seem there was any going forward either.

The day he had had the heart attack she’d been out of her mind. When she’d found the pictures on his computer, at first, she was afraid. She was looking into the mind of someone she’d lived with for so long but had never really known. It seemed like hundreds of files – all without descriptive names but numbered sequentially. All of young boys engaged in sex acts.

David had done a paper on Internet pornography for the school, but that was two years ago! He couldn’t explain it as research material – not the way the files were so carefully disguised with numbers and stored in a misleadingly named folder. She was scared.

Then she was angry when she thought of Freddy upstairs.

In the murk of her reactions, she recalled how David had asked her to cut her hair very short in a boyish way and how their sex life had improved a bit. He was taking Viagra – he claimed. But it didn’t last very long.

Then he came home unexpectedly early and found her in the den.

“What’s up?” he asked, all innocence.

She glared into his eyes and said nothing.

The screen saver was playing the melody of the theme from Friends. He glanced at the computer and then looked back at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“How could you?” she asked, “What is wrong with you? You have a child of your own. What if someone had pictures of Freddy like that?”

“That will never happen. I don’t know why, I…” but before he could finish, she picked up a paperweight and threw it at him. It missed and shattered against the wall.

She ran past him, shoving him as she did, and he fell in front of a chair. She was all anger and confusion as she raced into the kitchen. Once there, she quickly surveyed her options and then took a large knife from the drainboard.

When he followed her and with outstretched arms, tried to say something, his words were more excuse than explanation.

She held the knife threateningly and said through her tears, “If you ever touch Freddy, in any way…”

It was then that David clutched his chest and fell to the floor.


She’d only visited him once a week. The difference in their ages had never seemed so vast until the fourth week when she realized he wasn’t going to recover. At fifty-six, he looked like a man of seventy. The enormity of her anger had dissipated on seeing him like that and confusion had filled the space. She knew only that she could never sleep next to him again. She would never kiss him again while he was conscious, and what she felt most acutely was that there would be no vindication. He was escaping retribution. She never told him that she had formatted the hard drive, blindly wiping out all his work, and hers, everything.


At the table, she realized she had probably sentenced him to self-annihilation with the hatred in her eyes that day in the kitchen. A thought crossed her mind. She couldn’t remember now what she’d been searching for when she discovered the pictures.

Something I Heard Before

I listened to the stirring of leaves in the wind
Awaiting the rest to which they'd come,
But didn't.
In a season of wandering I was aware there'd be but one
Movement and it was all movement, mostly for show.
Stillness would reveal weakness
I wanted nobody to see.

Some said, There's no time limit to your grief.
Some said, This will pass, but never really pass,
You will learn to accept the reality of it.
Some said, You are so strong.
I wasn't.

I listened to the wind and knew or thought or hoped
When it calmed, my heart would beat a little faster
And I would smile again,
Not to belie my emotions, not
To stop friends from saying the right thing,
Not because I am supposed to
Develop and change and continue solo,

But because something I heard in another time
Took its hold in memory until movement
Dispelled it. I felt hairs stand; a chill
– not icy death – but refreshing awareness.
I heard peals of laughter.
Sadness became someone else's burden
– and I no longer heard the wind,
Only something I had heard before.

Untied

Roy told me on the one day that we were alone and shopping in New Jersey malls for luggage to replace my tattered bag for my return trip and to fit all the books and movies I’m taking back with me, “Artie has no reason to make a move now. He’s got a good deal paying only nine hundred dollars for the use of the whole house.” So back at my apartment when Adrienne is talking loudly on the phone with her sister Felicia, and trying to calm Felicia, who is apparently ranting again about how her ex-husband Charlie is such a shit because he won’t come up with his quarter of the mortgage, I don’t feel her distress.
Roy says to me in a low voice, “Never, ever get involved financially with family.”
Tears are welling in Adrienne’s eyes and I’d like to sympathize, but either my brother or she has already explained to me that Felicia was having her mental problems when the four of them went in together on the house. It was a bad deal from the outset. Charlie soon grew tired of Felicia’s seemingly convenient seizures and walked away from her and the two kids. When she left the house, she rented her half to tenants at a profit which she shared with nobody, but since they have left her extra income has evaporated. Adrienne separated from Artie when she took up again with Roy after twenty-four years apart. She moved in with Roy who has been living in my apartment while I teach in Mexico. Artie is the only person still living in the house in Staten Island.
Now, trying to sell the house is presenting difficulty. And I had to pick this week for a visit home while Adrienne is going through PMS.
They have adopted an affectionate pitbull called Babette, who licks my face every morning at six-thirty. I always had a cat for a pet. I’ve never been a dog person. Babette’s wake-up call doesn’t bother me too much because I don’t enjoy sleeping on my couch. I get up earlier than I have to when I’m going to school, and the arguing begins early each day.
She doesn’t trust him because he has always flirted with other women. She makes innuendos that he has more free time at work than he lets on. She says he is never available when she calls. He says it is a park ranger’s duty to be out in the field a lot.
He doesn’t like her having three hour liquid lunches with her boss and clients. She says it’s one of the things an insurance broker has to do.
Each of them makes twice as much as I have ever earned in a year – teaching or working in an office when I lived in Manhattan. I only maintain the apartment in my name as a storage place for all my stuff. I pay a small portion of the rent to keep all my books and belongings behind all the things they have moved in.
As Roy leaves earlier for work than Adrienne does everyday, I have gotten to spend some time alone with her and she tells me how she can’t take the pressure anymore. She keeps a bag packed so that at any moment she might decide to leave. Roy’s three marriages ended when he left each wife. Adrienne says, “I’m not going to be Number Four. If anyone leaves this time, it will be me, and I can take care of myself. I wouldn’t suck Roy dry for alimony like the last one.”
When I point out that that she is not Number Four but actually Number One, she says, “You know, I never really thought of it that way.”
“Well, you should,” I point out, “Why do you think all those marriages failed? Who do you think he always talked to me about when they started to sour?”
On my next to last day in New York, I have the apartment to myself. They are both at work and Babette is in Doggie Daycare. I watch old videotapes of my vacations with Jason and I’m well aware of the urn containing his ashes on the bookcase filled with the volumes of his stamp collection, but I can’t feel his presence in the place anymore. My new luggage is already packed and ready to go. The old black bag with the broken zipper stands empty in a corner. Lying on top of it is the blouse that Adrienne decided not to wear to work. I think of how many places that black bag has been and how it helped me begin the second half of my life.

Graduation Day

After seven months, we finally completed our course in Teacher Training. Looking forward to sleeping a little later next Saturday.

And now we begin Semana Santa;
almost a whole week of no work, no
studying. Well, I'm pretty sure I will
be sitting in front of a computer
screen for part of this week.

Next project: working on my Spanish
and getting my naturalization papers.

Semester

Days and days of endless days –
Nobody breathes. Nobody sways.
In one ear and out the door –
They’ve had so much. They want no more.

The driest lessons die in rehearsal,
Without dynamics for dispersal.

Teacher, teacher, how do you say…?
As if in the end there were only one way.

Those who’ve traveled play on the edge;
Those who haven’t cadge and hedge.
Please, please, por favor, they beg.
You could spit wooden nickels and stand on one leg.

Often I wonder just what I would give
To come out on top but it’s all relative.

At the end of term, when work is done,
It’s the end of time. The course is run.

Actividades released with a sigh;
Reglas observed with the wink of an eye.
It’s cyclical, circular, goes round and round.
It ends and begins without a clear sound.

There’s a point at mid-term, however, that’s fine
When for one afternoon I know this is mine.

All that comes later and what went before
Just grind the key which opens that door.

The Setting Sun

Tom Cruise is visiting his parents who have recently embarked on a stay at an exclusive Upper East Side town house type nursing home. They are showing him its features and vast layout. It’s almost time for dinner.

They introduce him to some of their kooky new friends, moneyed people who dress oddly and behave a bit bizarre.

He starts to wonder if he could feel secure with himself leaving his parents here. Although the place appears sumptuous, Tom doesn’t think his parents are near as ‘gone’ as he sees the other ‘inmates’.

Taking a cigarette break outside, he meets Jennifer Jason Leigh, who has come to visit her parents. They are attracted to each other but she makes a snide remark about his jacket, says her father has one just like it. She enters the house and he soon follows, only to be waylaid by the snooty director, who says she hopes he is not planning to wear his jeans into the dining room. Tom flashes back on an ancient gentleman he saw wearing jeans and a woman who was wearing a denim skirt, but the director explains that that was Mr and Mrs Dennehy and says they have a special dispensation. She hints that dressing that way has improved their sex life. Sex life, Tom thinks, why they were likely in their eighties!

Afterward, Tom is in a pair of brown pants and is being shown a medallion by one of the inmates, who drops it and it rolls under a buffet table. The old man immediately drops to his knees and crawls under the table to look for it. As Tom gets down to help him, fearing the old codger might hurt himself, he notices the man is wearing green socks, one lighter than the other. Someone has dropped a dollop of mousse, which the old guy somehow avoids, but Tom, forging ahead, gets it all over his pants. However, he does retrieve the medallion.

Seeing his clothes soiled, Tom is upset and sees it as the fault of the establishment. After all, in such a ritzy place, why didn’t someone clean up the mousse?

The tailor/valet, Charlton Heston, steps forward and offers to take care of Tom’s pants. He says he has a pair that will look better. They just need a nip and a tuck. He also suggests lending a jacket which is not quite so out of fashion.

In fitting Tom for the pants, it becomes obvious by the tailor’s movements and touches that he is an old queen, albeit a nice person with wisdom, who explains obliquely why the place works – how it fulfills the needs of its inmates, who have arrived at a place in their lives, where, to stay in an average standard nursing home would seem like defeat. This place is voluntary and basically designed by the inmates themselves. “They’re happy here,” he says in a sad sort of way.

Later, Tom and Charlton are taking a cigarette break together and Jennifer passes again. This time she is all sweetness, having visited her parents and seen that they were comfortable and happy.

“I like your jacket,” she says.

“My father lent me the other,” he says, “And he told me he bought it from a friend. You know, I think it might have been your father’s originally.”

“They try so hard,” they both say at the same time.

A woman about to come up the steps of the brownstone, and seeing old Charlton with the two younger people, asks if there are any vacancies in the place. She seems like the wrong type of client, the type that would abandon an ailing parent.

“You’ll have to check later. They’re all sun-bathing at the moment,” Charlton says.

The woman glances up at the setting sun, steals a look at her watch, and in a huff, walks away.

Relax and revisit a favorite book

Sometimes you don't have the time to revisit favorite books in which you found refuge from the workaday world, and a nicely worded summary/review helps take you back there for a few moments.

Found a wonderful blog called Book Addicts that does just that. This blogger has read many of my favorites including Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Taylor, David Lodge, and Muriel Spark, and the blog provides brief insight into many of their novels and the works of others, British, American, and from elsewhere.

I love this blog and recommend it highly.

Love Misplaced

Auburn hair, casually tossed, playing with fire
She doesn't know how dangerous she is
Or perhaps she does.
Long, but not too long, red fingernails
Tattoo her intentions on the side of her glass
The amber colored liquid might be all that's left
Of her previous victims
Or it might just be sweet courage.

Wasn't I in love when I walked in here?
Was I not just out to get some cooling air?
Did I not intend to set things right this evening?
Could I not defend myself 'gainst curly auburn hair?

She says her name is Tess
I think of Thomas Hardy
Who gave up writing prose when things got rough
I also think of someone waiting for me
To return although she said she'd had enough
Is what I'm feeling now misplaced desire?
Enchantment, lust, or could I be in love?

For her, it seems inconsequential as she tosses back
Those tresses once more and catches
A glimpse of herself in the mirror behind the bar.
Yes, she knows she has the power
Yes, she'd like to claim another conquest
Yes, I'd like to...
No, I can't. There's someone waiting for me,
But I copy down her number just in case.

I walk home alone with firm resolve
And find her sleeping on the couch
This is not the first time this has happened
We always have been able to move on
But not tonight.
There was something in the air this evening
That blew away the options of repairing
Something that was always here
Is gone.