Word Addled--Stories and Poetry and Miscellany

Merry Christmas and Other Sorrows of the Season (originally published in StoryHead 1995)

2011-12-06T21:38:00.003-06:00

They, Frank andJulia, had arranged to meet by the dark, lonely walk that ran alongside thenorthern bank of the Chicago River and just under the Michigan Avenue bridge,earlier that day. It was Christmas Eve. They’d been playing phone tag all daywhich, for Frank, was a good sign, seeing he’d been the only one of late who’dbeen doing any of the telephoning (just the fact that she’d return one of hisphone calls suggested interest, didn’t it?) When he finally got through to her(she was between meetings, and Frank was at a Greek diner with gyros juicedripping down his wrist) he didn’t waste words. He said, “Julia, hello, it’sChristmas Eve (Christmas Eve, for chrissake, he thought to himself, I can’tbelieve I’m inviting this kind of trouble into my life, and on Christmas Eve ofall days!) He collected himself. “I would like to meet you “

Hisrequest was greeted with the sort of stony silence that had greeted all of hisrequests since that first (blissful) date, three weeks ago. But Frank wasn’tgoing to give up hope, yet. No—not he, the giver of dozens of long stem roses,not he, the silver tongued flatterer, who had once, nonchalantly compared theglimmer in her eyes to moonbeams striking darkened waters (Frank you’ve got tobe kidding, you fool! she’d told him). No he would never give up. If he had tohe would persist until time itself had forced her to see that he was the manfor her. For wasn’t this—his sort of plodding persistence—the quintessence ofcharm? Frank nearly lost his courage waiting for Julia’s response (he’d nearlylost his courage dozens of times, but bravery he thought, was of the essence).Suddenly he heard her voice say what he’d been hoping to hear for nearly threeanxious ridden and painfully introspective weeks.

“OK.Where?” These words (were they words, or a heaven-sent elixir) caused his heartto beat like an old tribal drum high up in his chest—was that a pain in hisarm?—and for a moment he worried that it might beat itself to death. Juice fromhis gyros worked its way beneath his shirt sleeve, and followed the bend of hiselbow.

“Outsideby the river,” Frank suggested, then added “Just below Michigan Avenue bridge.There’s some benches down there. If you want I can be waiting down there foryou.”

“Allright,” Julia said rather dryly even though it was the last place in the worldshe wanted to meet a guy like Frank—especially tonight—Christmas Eve. She hatedmeeting men in cold isolated places. It gave her a chill just to think aboutit. In fact, this hatred of hers, to meet men in cold isolated places, wasprobably an irrational phobia that most likely had its source in some earlyobscure childhood event that she had somehow managed to forget (or so shereasoned). Nevertheless she associated men in cold lonely places with death. Itgave her a chill just to think on it.

Frank thought heheard giggling in the background. It was that damn cubicle mate of hers, Lana,he thought. Although he’d never met Lana, she always seemed to be gigglingwhenever he got Julia on the horn. Lana’s giggles were anything but innocent.They were high pitched, cynical, malicious. What’s worse they had influenceover Julia. This combined with the fact that they seemed to perpetuallyinsinuate the insubstantiality of Frank’s penis, a premise that Frank himselfwas willing to counter-argue, if only he had a chance, was enough to lead Frankto conclude that Lana had, from the very first, been out to sabotage the sortof wild and inchoate happiness that Frank and Julia seemed destined to create.

“Allright,” he asked, with a sort of paranoia. “What’s that? I mean,” he said,apologetically. “Who’s that giggling?”

“Don’tFrank,” Julia said with a certain asperity. All of a sudden she burst outlaughing too. “Anyway, I’ll see you down there, after work. But right now Igotta go, my office is having a Christmas party!”

“But Julia. . .”

“Goodbye Frank!”

Julia slammed downthe phone but Frank held onto his end a moment longer wondering if what he justexperienced was real or if it was, through some strange combination of mixedtelephone signals and an overworked brain, just a hallucination. Thinking thatit was the former, he hurled the remainder of his gyros into the garbage can,slammed the phone down on the hook, and said “Feliz Navidad” to the whitehatted chef who had cooked his gyros. He then stepped out doors to experiencelife (at least for a moment) with a joyful heart.

“Whowas that?” Lana asked

“Ohit was that Frank guy again.”

“Again!Doesn’t he know quits is quits?”

“He’silliterate. He can’t read the hand-writing on the wall.”

“Whatare you going to do?”

“I’mgoing to go down there. I’m going to meet him by his lonely bench near theriver, and, well, I’m going to put him out of his misery. What other option isthere?”

Outside,it was a cold December evening. A massive front of gray clouds was collectingon the southern rim blocking whatever winter light remained in the sky. ButFrank wasn’t thinking about the exterior light, he was too preoccupied with thelight in his heart, which on the brink of his meeting with Julia, seemed to bedimming rapidly. When Frank came to the crossroads of Franklin and Eriestreets, just beneath the El tracks, he decided to hail a cab. Sure, it wasonly fifteen blocks to the Chicago River, but still, it was Christmas time, andseeing that Frank didn’t expect to receive any presents, he thought therewouldn’t be any harm in enjoying the luxury of a warm taxi ride. “’Tis theseason,” he murmured under his breath. He fished his wallet out of his backpocket, opened it to check just how much cash he had (11 dollars) he then did alittle mental math and figured that 11 dollars would probably be enough to gethim through the evening. If Julia shows, he thought, she’ll have cash; if shedoesn’t show, then what the hell do I need money for? I may as well just killmyself.

Theidea of killing himself wasn’t an idea he took seriously. It was an expressionhe picked up from god knows where. “Kill myself,” he said under his breath.Three young women clad in leather overcoats and loaded down with Christmasgifts passed by. They looked at him like he was crazy, snickered, and said,aloud: “Whatever, you nut.”

“FelizNavidad,” Frank said, tilting his head in a gentlemanly manner.

“Screwyou, pervert,” one young women yelled, flipping him the bird.

AChecker Cab zoomed from around the corner. Frank lifted his hand to flag thedriver, but no sooner did his hand go up, when one of those three pretty womenturned, saw the same cab, and flagged him to a stop.

“Hey,wait a minute,” Frank yelled after the cab, as it passed him by. “I saw youfirst.” The cab driver stuck his arm out the window, made a gesture to Frank,and drove off. It was a bad omen, Frank thought. He wasn’t particularlysuperstitious; nevertheless, it had occurred to him that more things than justa taxi cab were just now passing him by. “The world,” he said under his breath.“The world is passing me by.” He turned, cut up Franklin Street, and ran atmaximum speed toward the meeting place.

Atfive foot three and 102 pounds, Julia Rhodes was a rather petite woman. A faintcrease ran down the middle of her forehead giving her face somewhat of asharp-edged definition. This effect was enhanced by her gestures and facialexpressions which were typically rapid, and infused with a sort of world-weary,cynical intelligence. It was Christmas or X-mas as she liked to say. Theholiday season. Tra la la, and all that. What concerned Julia at this time ofyear was her work schedule and her love life. Both seemed to grow more hecticwith each passing year. That day, everybody in the office, including hercubicle mate Lana was excited at the thought of having tomorrow—Christmasday—off. Eggnog was being served from a silver serving bowl next to the coffeemachine. Christmas decorations were hung from ceiling panels overhead, and aradio was playing Christmas music in the break room.

It’d been anexceptional year for Marshall, Young, and Jones and later that evening, anoffice party to celebrate the company’s recent good fortune was being thrown onthe 40th floor. Mike Wolcott, a colleague with whom Julia had recently becomeinvolved, would be there. He was a tall, dark-haired fellow who wore crisp bluesuits, and spoke with a slight, but charming, lisp. Julia had recentlydiscovered she liked tilting her head up to his. It made the flesh on the backof her thighs tingle with excitement.

Ithad been Julia’s hope that after the office party she and Mike might go back tohis condo on the Gold Coast (Astor and Goethe) and finish up Christmas Eve.Mike had suggested as much earlier that week when he pointed out (they’d beenalone on the elevator and rising to their separate offices) that his family wasin Charleston and he was too busy to get away for the holidays. Julia’s familywas in Boston (she lied)—and since she was equally marooned, he’d saidsomething or another to the effect that—well wouldn’t a quiet get-togetherafter the office party be the perfect antidote to the holiday blues? Theelevator doors opened, Julia stepped off, turned and shook her head.

“Yes,” she said.“It would be perfect.”

Mike clasped hisrather large hands and said, “Great, so be it.” And thus it was arranged.

Julia went outpromptly the next day and purchased a gift for him: an analogue watch that kepttrack of the moon phases; for herself she purchased a sexy green and rednegligee just in case they ended up in bed together. Both gifts were wrapped inblue metallic paper and sitting on Julia’s desk. Julia thought about Frank. Shewished that Frank would just go away and leave her alone so she could go onpursuing Mike without embarrassment. She’d stood Frank up before. She hated todo it to him again, especially tonight, Christmas Eve, but Frank just didn’ttake no for an answer. He didn’t takea hint very well either. She pictured Frank standing all alone in the snowwaiting for her. She shook her head. It was just like Frank, (who was this guyanyway) to pick a spot out in the middle of nowhere and wait. It made herthink: he must be very sad.

Frank,who was never very athletic (that’s one of my life long problems, he thought)winded easily. Barrel-chested, he was out of breath long before he arrived atthe Chicago River. In worn canvas shoes he had run, shuffled, dragged his feet,then walked the last six blocks fighting his way through huge crowds of peoplethat had poured out of downtown office buildings. The people (denizens ofoffice workers clad in green and red, and in the customary black wool trenchcoat) were flooding out of the downtown area and heading by train, bus, cab,and car out of the city as fast as possible to those endless rows of clapboardhouses in the suburbs from which were hung baubles of flashing Christmas lightsand endless armies of plastic santas. Frank had made the observation thatnothing so increases human aggression as the ‘holiday spirit’. That’s anotherof my problems, Frank observed. I lack human aggression. He then blamed hismother for this, because she, too, lacked aggression.

AtKinzie street and Wells street, Frank saw an elderly woman swaddled in soiledred scarves, and hunched over beneath a large plastic cross. Frank felt sorryfor the old woman. “Oh, I would never want to carry her cross,” he thought,whereupon, she spit on him.

It was ten to fiveand Julia sat at her desk waiting for Mike Wolcott to call. She was a bitbewildered—had he forgotten their plans? First of all, he hadn’t come down toher office (he worked on the 38th floor, she worked on the 22nd floor) toescort her, as they had arranged—and second of all, what about tonight—at hishouse? Was that still on?

Lana was preparingto go up to the party. “Are you coming Julia?”

“No not yet, Lana.I have a few things to clear off my desk. I’ll see you up there.”

“Good luck,” Lanahad said winking.

After Lana left,Julia had waited twenty minutes for Mike to show—or call. While she waited shefingered the ribbon on his present and wondered if she had made amiscalculation. When she finally called his office—his secretary answered andinformed her that Mike had left for the party nearly an hour ago. This putJulia, who hated to walk into crowded rooms by herself, in an uncomfortableposition. She debated: should I go or not go? But since Mike was her only planfor the holiday she decided against her better judgement to ascend the elevatorto the fortieth floor, and enter the party—alone. It was, to say the least, aterribly humiliating experience. This is absurd, she thought, slamming her deskshut. I’ve made a huge miscalculation—I should have made alternate plans. Itoccurred to her, that she should probably try to be in a party mood, but shedecidedly wasn’t. She freshened her makeup, counted to ten, but well, thatdidn’t seem to work. What’s worse, as she rose in the elevator she noticed arun in her stocking. It was obviously too late to turn back, nevertheless shehated to be going into a situation like this, feeling handicapped. She checkedher watch and realized that only twenty minutes remained for her to go to theparty, then catch a cab and meet Frank by six. When she got off the elevatorshe couldn’t believe her eyes, because there before her was a somewhat drunkenMike Wolcott, his tie loosened around his neck, staring—no not staring—butdownright lecherously gazing down Lana’s low-cut blouse and Lana placing herlong pale index finger just underneath his collar. Julia had no idea what to door think, but the elevator doors closed and Julia’s decision was made for her.She stood in the elevator, felt for a brief moment, like she was going to cry.She wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to make a go of it after all, stepbravely into the party, push Lana aside, and take over—on the other hand ifthey (Mike and Lana) hadn’t seen me, then maybe we could pretend like it neverhappened, like I never saw them. Before she knew what she was doing, she pushedL for lobby, and felt the floor drop from beneath her as the elevator made itsquick descent forty four floors down.

“Doyou believe in masks?” Julia had once asked Lana

“No,and I don’t believe in Halloween either.”

“Seriously,Lan. You know what I’m talking about. The face beneath the face, that is yetthe face.”

“Areyou crazy? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“WellI have this theory when it comes to men.”

“Sodo I. My theory is, when it comes to men—not to have any—theories that is.”

“Oh,I thought you were going to say, men.”

“Nowthat’s one I hadn’t thought of. A good one too.”

“ButI have this theory that I only apply to men with whom I’m particularly fond of.It’s a theory based on the notion of opposites. That is: if a man you’reinvolved with is too quick to tell you he loves you—then the opposite isprobably true. Or if a man smiles when he tells you he loves you—well thenwhat’s really happening is that the face beneath the mask is essentiallyfrowning and telling you he doesn’t love you, that it’s lust not love, and thatyou’re temporary not permanent. Does this register with you?”

“Itsounds like psychology to me. Or drama.”

“Itmight be. I don’t know. It’s just my theory when it comes to men. And I’ve beenwondering about Mike Wolcott, when it comes to this, because really—he’s so. .. inscrutable. What do you think?”

“Ithink you’re crazy.”

Julia shoved herway through a crowd of departing office workers that had collected in thegilded art-deco lobby of her office building (like water gathering in an elbowdrain, she thought). Slightly drunk from office Christmas parties they werewishing each other happy holiday. Long colorful scarves streamed from the necksof women, bulky jackets were pushed and pulled amidst hugs. Shopping bags weremixed up with brief-cases on the parquet marble floor, and Christmas carols—emanatingfrom hidden speakers high up in the gold-leafed dome-ceiling—caused thedoorman, who wore a red uniform, to tap his wingtipped shoes. “This is it,”Julia said, “it’s now or never.” She had been in a Christmas mood, she’d almostbeen festive, but now, after she’d received Frank’s call, and after MikeWolcott had rebuffed her at the party—and what’s more: Lana, the traitor! Shewas decidedly out of good humor. She wasn’t feeling very giving either. Sheshoved her way through the crowd. Old colleagues called after her wishing her aHappy X-Mas. She kept walking, out through the revolving doors, onto LaSalleStreet and pushed passed a Salvation Army worker to whom, in years past, shewould typically make a Christmas donation, slipping a fifty dollar bill intothe red metal can. This year, she strolled past him in big strides without eventurning her head.

“Merry Christmas,”he yelled after her.

“Merry Christmasback,” she yelled over her shoulder.

She stopped,turned, checked her purse, found some twenties and stuffed them into the redSalvation Army can. A cab pulled up to the curb. Julia leaped for the cab. Shewanted to end Frank with as much dispatch and little pain as possible. I’llgive this whole thing five minutes. I don’t care what harm I cause. Then I’llhead over to Mike’s condo (god I hope I’m not emotionally distorted when I getthere) and see if I can set things straight. As she opened the cab door sheheard the Salvation Army worker ring his bell and yell after her “God Bless youMiss. Stay warm, it’s cold out there!” Instinctively Julia wrapped her collararound her neck and told the cab driver to “Drive,” then added, “head towardthe river.” Without even thinking about it, she noticed—it was snowing.

As Frank arrived,exhausted, at the meeting place (Michigan Avenue & the Chicago River) itbegan to snow. Frank looked down at the chalk-green river from the vantagepoint of the bridge, and saw a barge moving slowly up-river as if it werepicking its way between large ice flows. She’s not here, yet. I’m early. Frankran down the two flights of steps leading from the bridge to the walkwayalongside the river, and was careful not to slip and fall. He thought of theage old admonishment to actors: Break a leg, and wondered, what on earth such anexpression could possibly mean. He was filled with foreboding and realized thatthis meeting with Julia was his only plan for the entire holiday season. Hedidn’t have any family to speak of. His mother was in a nursing home, and hisfather had, after the divorce so long ago, discreetly moved away to somedistant backwater near the Florida Everglades. Furthermore, what friends Frankdid have—and they were indeed, few in number—weren’t the type of friends thatcould be imposed upon. Certainly not, at least, during a cheerful occasion likeChristmas. It doesn’t matter, Frank thought. “Christmas is for childrenanyway.” Frank then considered his own childhood, which had been mostly happy.He wondered—was there just one Christmas—just one in that brief childhood—thatwas so—Frank didn’t know what word to use, but he was looking for a Christmasholiday that he might remember, or rather recover—for a smile—lest Julia, hisonly plan, didn’t show.

Helifted his right foot and pounded it on the pavement. He took his left foot anddid the same. He looked as if he were testing to see if there were any feelingleft in his cold toes, but he knew with the sort of gut instinct that mingledwith the aftertaste of the gyros, that he was jut buying time. Julia wouldprobably never show. Her consent that afternoon, punctuated as it was withshrill (mocking laughter) was too euphemistic. He could read between the lines.She had moved on to other lovers. This little meeting between him and her wasnothing more than a formality. In that way it was no different from a funeral.Nevertheless, formality though it was, Frank was determined to go through withit.

He decided thenand there, he didn’t want speculation to end this relationship. If it was over;he wanted to hear it from her own lips: “It’s over.” That’s the least she coulddo; tell him that. He’d already spent too many nights in bed wondering whetherhis relationship with Julia was a go or bust. (He’d come close to asking Juliathis precise question, several times, but thought better of it. It’s enough, hereflected, to think the outrageous question and let it percolate silentlythrough your gestures, than to actually ask it.) He mouthed the words “it’sover” while he walked in figure-eights around the dark iron benches that linedthe bank of the river. He wondered if he could accept those words. The soundsof the city, of traffic, of shouts and bleating horns rose up all around himlike the sounds of an audience in a huge theater. Frank felt lonely—as if he’dgotten lost on one of its back stages.

“Iwant more sex,” Frank said. He looked over his shoulder to make sure there wasno one listening to him. “Actually what I want is. . .” But he couldn’t saywhat he wanted. At least not entirely. He spotted a snow flake in the distanceand kept his eye on it, watching it fall through a crowd of snow flakes. Helost sight of the flake when it fell into the dark shadows of the parapet andinto the Chicago River. Frank felt a chill. The words “it’s over” came backinto his mind, and all of a sudden he thought of Julia’s hand. He thought of itreaching for his own hand. Oddly enough, as he stood there all alone in theshadows of the icy city, he pulled his gloved hand out of his pocket. Hereached forward, and grasping nothing, reached a little higher—as if he wereasking someone for a lift up. He smiled to himself, and remembered thatsomeone, somewhere, might be watching him. Not wanting to seem like a completeimbecile, he quickly withdrew his gloved hand and put it back in his pocket.

Youknow the thing about Frank, Julia had said to Lana just after they had gone ontheir one and only date (but not before Frank had sent a dozen long stemmedroses to her office) is that he doesn’t think I see him coming. I mean here Iam, day after day. I’m 27 years old. I’ve been hit on by one guy or another forthe last fifteen years of my life. How many does that add up to? And yet—andyet every guy who ever hits on me thinks that he’s the first guy in the worldto get the idea in his head to cross my path. What’s worse, the more remotethey are from any female contact the more outrageous their expectations. Theythink they want a wife, but all they really want is a sex partner. When you tryto have sex with them, they’re uncomfortable. They balk at you, because whatthey start to realize is that in the end they don’t even want sex. All theywant is somebody they can call up on the phone and talk to. Frank’s aparticularly bad case. I try to hold him off. I honestly try to send himmessages. Christ what do I need? A blow horn? But he doesn’t get it. Instead,I’ll probably have to hit him over the head and tell him—it’s over! He shouldbe ashamed of himself. What’s truly depressing is he doesn’t even have enoughsense to be ashamed—to see what he’s like. That’s why I’m done with these guys.Call me crazy for running after a guy like Mike Wolcott, but at least Mike hasbeen married and he’s not delusional about relationships. Like me, he knowsthat not everything was meant to last forever.

“Whereyou going lady?” The cab driver was a dark skinned man with big hands. Thedispatcher was saying something over the radio and the warm interior of the carsmelled strongly of body odor and tanned leather. He was wearing a white scullcap.

“I’mgoing to put an end to a relationship that was never even a relationship tobegin with.”

“Puttingout a relationship, on a night like tonight? That’s some Christmas present. Ihope your man is ready for you. Otherwise he’s going to be in for a bigsurprise.”

“Ifyou want to know the truth,” Julia said, “It’s just some guy who thinks we havea relationship. We never did though. All we ever had was a date, and it was ablind date at that.”

“Andwhy does this man think you love him so much?”

“Isuppose he thinks I love him because one day out of the blue I agreed to meethim for a date. And when that afternoon was over I told him I had a nice time.Stupidly, I gave him a kiss.”

“Soyou led him on then. You said you had a good time with him when you didn’t.After you say this you give him a kiss. Well, tell me, what is a man supposedto think?”

“He’ssupposed to think that a blind date is a blind date, and like every otherreasonable person in the world, he’s supposed to let it be.”

“Inmy country,” the cab driver said. “Things are different. It’s not so easy to beso cavalier about relationships.”

Juliafingered the built in ashtray on the car door handle and went over in her mindall the times she had been in this situation before, rushing toward anestranged boyfriend to say for the last time: “It’s over, nothing personal, butI just want to move on.” And, after a brief hug, doing just that: moving on, inthe opposite direction from which she had come to begin anew somewhere else.She remembers some of the faces of those old boyfriends, she remembers thebreaking smile of one caught in the crossfire of rapidly changing emotions asshe explained to him that it was over; she remembers the final embrace ofanother man whom she’d broken up with after three months of dating; sheremembers how his arms had somehow freed her as they wrapped around her for thelast time. She swore she’d never forget that. She remembers the smell of somemen, the teeth of others, and of some, she remembers the stories of theirlives. But she wants to remember Frank—remember him not as she first saw him onthat day when he showed up at the Chicago Water Tower where they had agreed tomeet, but as she last encountered him moments ago on the telephone: his voicedesperate to get together, his mind lurid with conspiracies that her friendswere out to spoil his chances with her. Most of all she focuses on the factthat he’s a needy, lonely man, and that because he’s needy and lonely she can’tpossibly be whatever it is he thinks she is. She focuses on this, because thisis the point that she somehow has to drill into his mind: “I’m not the womanyou think I am, not the woman of your dreams, not the woman who’s going to saveyou. That woman you’re searching for doesn’t exist. I am a different woman, oneyou’ll never know, not because I don’t want you to know me, but because even ifI gave you a chance to know me it still wouldn’t work, because in your presentstate you’re incapable of seeing things as they really are.” Julia realizedthat she’d been stuck in a traffic jam. She checked her watch. It was near sixo clock and she still had several blocks to go. “Please, you can pull over hereand let me off at the curb. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Butyou still have five more blocks,” the cab driver said.

“Idon’t care. Let me out now. I’ll run the rest of the way if I have to.”

“Whateveryou wish, ma’am.” The cab driver pulled up to the side of the road, and as shepaid him, he smiled and said: “Feliz Navidad.”

“Whatever,”she hollered. She slammed the car door shut and took off running down thestreet toward the Michigan Avenue bridge that crossed the river.

Standingalone by the river, Frank pulled his collar close to his neck and withdiminishing expectations settled into contemplating his life. He thought aboutthat afternoon when they had their first (and last) date. It had been a blinddate, and they had agreed that the place to meet—the place that offered thegreatest convenience—was the Chicago Water Tower. He turned where he was nowstanding and looked north toward the Water Tower. He couldn’t see it, but hecould feel it. He nodded toward the Water Tower, and thought, under his breath,thanks. Though it had been a blind date (his mother’s friend—a widow—shared thesame corridor with Julia in the same high-rise apartment building on IrvingPark and Lake Shore Drive) he remembered ever detail of it. He thought of blindpeople. The memory in their finger tips. He pulled his glove off his hand, andkissed the tips of his fingers. They remembered.

Juliacouldn’t stand the cold, but not wanting to seem prematurely negative, she toldhim that the bench near the carriage stables would be just fine. “You’ll seeme,” she said. “I’ll be wearing a long red wool jacket, with gray ear muffs.”

Frankalmost said: I’m sure you’ll be beautiful, but restrained himself. “I don’tknow what I’ll be wearing,” he said. “But I’ll see you down there.”

Julia,who was typically late wherever she went, was always careful to show up earlyin situations like this—blind dates. It was important to get a jump on thingswhile she had a chance. Julia wasn’t a particularly suspicious person, nor acautious person, she did, however, in situations like this—like to be prepared.It made her feel as if she had a jump on the unknown. She stood there now (cladin red wool coat and gray ear muffs) in the little park near the Chicago WaterTower waiting for this guy named Frank to show up.

Whileshe waited she chatted with a rather attractive carriage driver and petted thewet nose of a beautiful sable mare named Jodi. While the two women talked, theygot onto the subject of men and Julia listened in amusement as the carriagedriver told her how she was currently sleeping with three men, each of whomwere married. “I actually met them while they were in the company of theirwives, believe it or not,” the carriage driver had said. “You meet all types inthis business.” The carriage driver laughed lightly and rubbed her gloved handagainst the lower jaw of her mare. She looked up at Julia who stared off in thedistance. As the carriage driver talked, Julia wondered about Frank. What kindof man would he be? She hoped he wouldn’t be a loser. As she stood therewaiting, she allowed herself to be moved by the way the raw winter light struckthe delicate yellow face of the Water Tower, which seemed to her as if it’dbeen carved out of a single piece of limestone by an artisan who had a rathershaky hand.

Frankhad showed up exactly fifteen minutes late. He was walking in large strides.His jacket was unbuttoned. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck. He wasn’twearing gloves or a hat. He seemed to be out of breath and perspirationcollected just above his eyebrows. When there wasn’t anyone near the WaterTower he looked around the park and saw two women standing by a horse carriage.They were both wearing red jackets. He figured one of them must be Julia. Witha rather severe smile plastered to his face he approached the women andspeaking to the taller one, said: “Hello Julia, I’m Frank.” He reached out hishand to the carriage driver.

“Um,”Julia said smiling. Her cheeks were blushed with cold. “That would be me.Hello. Excuse me,” she said to the carriage driver, who broke into a laugh.Turning to Frank, Julia said: “Would you like to talk over here.”

“Ohpardon me,” Frank said, laughing rather loudly at his mistake. He reached hishand out to Julia and smiled. “Hello, Julia I’m Frank. Nice to meet you.”

Julia turned to the carriage driver andsaid: “It’s been a pleasure talking to you. Good luck with all youradventures!”

“Goodluck with yours!” The carriage driver said with beaming eyes. Frank didn’t lookso bad, the carriage driver thought, considering he’s a blind date..

“Come,”Julia said to Frank. “Please, let’s talk over here.”

Theywalked over to the bench where they’d originally planned to meet. Withoutsitting down, turned to look at each other. There was an awkward moment ofsilence in which they sized each other up. Frank saw a woman who was fragileand lonely, but who tried to cover up both her fragility and loneliness with asort of efficient, I’m-all-business smile. Julia saw a man who was lonelierthan hell, and nervous, and shy, and he didn’t try to cover anything up. She’dbeen with guys like this before, and it always turned out rotten. But today shedidn’t want to second guess herself. (That’s my primary problem, she had oncetold Lana, I’m always second guessing myself.) Julia liked Frank’s cockeyed andcheeky smile, she thought his heavy lidded eyes conveyed a sense of slow mentalability, but in the spirit of being nonjudgmental and open minded, sheoverlooked that impression. Frank, on the other hand, couldn’t be more pleased.He liked Julia’s long straight black hair, her pointy nose, her sharp cheeks,and her voice which seemed to ring more clearly than ice. As Frank stood theretrying to assess the situation it occurred to him, that if survived the nextfew minutes in her company, it was quite possible, he and she, in only a matterof time, would be naked somewhere and making love. As Frank made thisobservation he felt a quick pressure on his heart. He thought to himself, onlyget through these next few minutes.

“Well,”he said smiling as charmingly as possible. He brought his hands together.“Julia!”

LikeFrank, Julia also realized that if they could make it through these first fewawkward moments unscathed by negative thoughts, then it would only be a matterof time before they slept with each other. She thought about the utilityelevator at Marshall Fields. She had, in the past, made love with men on thiselevator. It was one of her methods of seduction. It always gave her a thrillto get away with love making in a semi-public place. The utility elevator wasone of her favorite public places. If all goes well, she thought, I’ll take himthere. She, too, felt something like excitement grip her heart. “Um, I have anappointment with somebody at five.” She said rather abruptly. It was importantfor her not only to have an out—in case this thing turned into a disaster—butto make the appearance of trying to keep everything above table. “So, Frank,”she said, pronouncing his name for the first time. “This obviously can’t lastall day.”

“That’sok, Julia,” Frank said, in a sort of calming and assured tone which immediatelyappealed to Julia, putting her at ease. “I don’t have an appointment withanybody today. Only you. I mean this is the only thing that I’ve planned forthe weekend, I mean for the day. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned everythingelse in my life, I mean in my weekend is up for grabs. We can do whatever youwant.”

“So,”Julia said. She smiled at his hesitant way of speaking, and all of a sudden shepulled a date book from her purse, and drew a line through an appointment. “Iestimate we have three hours. What would you like to do?”

Frankstood for a moment admiring Julia. “Whatever,” he said. He couldn’t get theidea of sex out of his mind. He especially liked the way she smiled back athim. I still haven’t passed inspection, he thought.

“Doyou like Christmas shopping?” she asked. She was surprised at herself.

Frankshook his head, quite distinctly no, but in a rather vigorous voice he said,yes. He said it again as to remove any doubt from his mind that he likedChristmas shopping. “Yes.”

“Good,”she said, feeling as if her whole body were giving her away. “I love Christmasshopping too!” She returned his gaze and said rather recklessly: “Would youmind terribly, Frank, if we went Christmas shopping today?”

Again,Frank shook his head no and said “Yes, I would love to.”

“Areyou sure?” she asked. “I mean are you sure you wouldn’t rather do somethingelse for the next few hours? Like get a coffee or something?”

“Coffeewould be fine,” he said trying hard to locate the hidden messages in her gaze.“But I’m open for anything, like I said, I don’t have any real plans to speakof, only you.”

“Good,”Julia said, flashing one of her I’m-all-business smiles. “Now where to go? Myobvious first choice is Marshall Fields on State Street. I’ve been going therefor years. Every since I was a little girl. It’s a tradition. We can walk too,”she suggested trying to convey the side of her that was willing to do theunconventional, namely resist hailing a cab. Besides she’d done this type ofthing before, blind dates, and the one thing she hated, was trying to get toknow a stranger in cramped circumstances. “It would be such a nice walk, andbesides the Christmas lights on the trees will make it festive.”

“Wecan take a cab,” Frank suggested, looking at her shoes, which seemedinappropriate for walking. “If you don’t want to walk. I’ve got plenty ofmoney.

We could—”

“No.Walking would be wonderful.”

“Areyou sure,” he said pulling his billfold out of his pocket. “I’ve got more thanenough money.”

“Ibelieve you Frank,” she said, smiling at him. “You can put your billfold away.Let’s walk.” All of a sudden Frank made a romantic connection and suggested,that perhaps it might be a better day to take a carriage ride through the city.

“Toocold,” Julia said, “for that.”

“OK,”Frank said, and smiled. In fact he couldn’t take the smile, that was rapidlygrowing on his face, off it. He was impressed with this stroke of goodluck—with Julia. She looked very pretty that day in her long red wool jacket.She gave off a feeling of vitality and warmth. Shoppers loaded down withunwrapped Christmas gifts crowded Michigan Avenue. He felt very happy all of asudden to be out here, in the cold, with this attractive person, with Julia. Itwas remarkable, he later thought to himself, that she even considered himworthwhile to spend a couple of hours with. Unbeknownst to her, Frank hadn’thad a date in years. “Shall we walk,” she asked reaching quite naturally forhis hand. He felt her hand grab his and grasp it tight. He nearly choked on hiswords. Instead of proceeding further, he merely obliged her, and together theywalked south down Michigan Avenue, hand and hand. Anybody passing by might haveseen one woman with a rather practical look on her otherwise pleasant face, anda man, with droopy eyelids, who looked inconceivably happy.

Priorto Julia, Frank had gone so long without a girlfriend that he’d often findhimself lying in bed alone at night, marveling at the fact that it had nolonger caused him pain to lie there all alone. He’d lay in his bed and he wouldstare ahead of him at the ceiling for hours at a time, musing over the variousshifting conditions of his life. One thing, however, that never changed waslying here, alone in bed. Despite all the changes that had taken place over thecourse of his life, the single fact of his bachelor-hood had remainedunchanged. Sometimes, to his own surprise, he found himself quite inexplicablygiving up any hope on the simple chance of finding a woman with whom he mightspend at least a few memorable months, or even weeks—he wasn’t asking for alifetime. He was only asking for a handful of memories. Sometimes, while he layin bed thinking about this sort of thing, he’d wonder if in fact there wasn’tsomething wrong with him. “Shouldn’t the tragedy of my life, register againstmy own heart with greater force?” He often thought in terms like these, but wasable to quickly forget them. He remembered walking with Julia down MichiganAvenue. They walked hand in hand. He located another snow flake and watched itsquiet descent into the dark river

“WhatI want is that,” he thought. “That feeling she gave me.” It was partly the factthat she had been the first person to enter his life in such a long time,partly the fact that she was so different from him that contributed to thisfeeling. That day, walking south down Michigan Avenue to Marshall Fields was agood example. She liked to shop, he wasn’t much of a shopper, but apparentlyshe was. He hated the crowds, the noise, the crass commercialism, the recklessspending, the overheated department stores, the seemingly endless numbers ofincompetent store clerks, but these very things formed the basis of Julia’snostalgia for Christmas. She had explained to him while they were walking hand andhand to Marshall Fields: “That this is what Christmas is all about for me, theshove and pull of it, the glamorous old ladies in their minks with theirshopping bags full of boxes, the escalators at Fields that rise from theheavily scented first floor where perfume is sold to the upper floor wheregreen and red Christmas negligees hang alluringly from the busts of woodenmannequins, this, for me, is what Christmas is all about!” She turned andsmiled at him, and her smile was gaping wide in a grin of perfectly set teeth,her eyes were ablaze with the heat of her passion, and her cheeks were flushed.When Julia had told him this, he was surprised that he was with a woman who hadthoughts so different than his own. In all the nights leading up to this date,he would find himself lying awake in bed wondering who she would be. He neverimagined anyone like this. The fact that she was so different, that she’d beenimpossible to imagine, made her all that much more real and desirable to him.What thrilled him was the feeling of trying to see things from the perspectiveof this utterly different type of person. To do so, was to love. Frank wasready for love. If that’s how she thought Christmas to be, then he’d try to seeChristmas in the same light.

Theywalked, and talked, and as they made one discovery after another of what theyhad in common, their pace seemed to quicken (that’s at least how Frankremembers it). They’d both gone to Francis Parker High School. He’d gottenkicked out of Parker when he was a junior for setting a fire cracker off in alocker just outside the library. She’d gotten kicked out of Parker when she wasjust a sophomore for smoking dope in an empty hallway, and she’d been caughtred handed by none less than Mr. Robertson, the Principal. “I was sitting therewith my locker door open, lighting up a bong. No one was around. Just me andthe empty hall. Then boom! Out of the middle of no-where I see him wheelingaround the corner. I didn’t hear him coming because he was in his bare feet.”

“Ihated that guy!” Frank roared. “Always so concerned about his own ass, he feltcompelled to crack down on the students!”

“Myfather practically killed me after that little stunt. I spent the rest of mytime at Whitney Young on the west side.”

“Ispent my last years at St. Ignatius.”

“Howwere you accepted at Ignatius after they kicked you out of Parker?”

“Myuncle is a Jesuit. He got me in.”

Itwas her turn to laugh. “What was Ignatius like? Did you have to go to Massevery morning? Jesus, I would hate that.”

“Itwas all right. I actually liked it. I had an English teacher there who actuallytaught me something. We read 17th Century English poets. The puritan, Herrick,“In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress,” and Donne “No Man isan Island Entire of Himself.”

“Werethere any women poets back then?”

“Thereare always women poets. Only they were called Anonymous back then.”

“Thatwoman, your mother’s friend. She was always anonymous to me. Until, sheapproached me and told me about you.”

“Actually, she’s my mother’s bridgepartner.”

“Doyou play bridge?”

“Inever learned.”

“Pity.I never did either. But one day—maybe when I’m old. It seems like such aperfect game.”

“That’sbecause it requires a sense of strategy and partnership.”

Theywalked in syncopated strides past a forlorn cab driver stuck in traffic, who,with a spider tattooed to his burley forearm, yelled after them: “You two lovebirds need a ride some place?” They strided past a homeless man who sat leglesson the pavement jingling a brass bell for donations, and still they walkedquickly, hand and hand, arm and arm, ignoring everybody. They turned west upWashington Street, and ran under the banging El tracks with their hands overtheir ears. They walked quickly along the north side of Marshall Fields. Theydodged around the crowds that collected in front of the windows to watch theChristmas displays of wooden elves and Santa’s. “We’ll see them later,” shesaid, rather breathlessly. They turned south and entered Fields from StateStreet (For, as Julia would later maintain, Marshall Fields should always beentered from the State Street entrance).

As Frank pushedthrough the revolving doors, she pushed and jumped into the same compartmentwith him. They emerged stumbling into the foyer of the store where men’s wearwas being sold. Apropos to nothing, Julia grabbed hold of Frank and kissed him.It took his breath away. They stood there groping each other and didn’t stopuntil some Christmas shopper had made a point to say, in a loud bitter voice:“Look at that couple kissing over there. And it’s beneath the mistletoe!” Whenthey looked up they couldn’t believe it, but indeed they had been kissingbeneath the mistletoe. It was a moment, that happen what might in his life, Frankswore he would never forget. And of course, he remembered it now, out there allalone, on the dark walk that ran alongside the Chicago River. He remembered it,and felt his heart quickening as he recalled what happened next.

Standingthere beneath the mistletoe, Julia said, rather breathlessly: “I have thisplace.” But Frank was out of breath himself, and he was working hard trying tokeep up with everything that was going on, so a moment or two after she said: Ihave this place, he turned to her, and said: “What do you want to do. Do youhave a place?”

“Uhhunh,” Julia said. “I have a place. But you have to come with me first.” Sothere it was. Before Frank knew it, before he could think it, it had happened.She had thought it for him, she had imagined it and now she was executing it.All that was left for Frank to do was follow her.

The Great Corridorthat split the vast perfume section on one side from the fabulous arcade ofjewlery cases on the other side spread out before them. Doric columns rose oneither side of the aisle. They were decorated with candy canes, snow men, santaclauses. Between them (Frank and Julia) and their destination were hundreds,perhaps thousands of shoppers, each of whom was weighted down with shoppingbags, and loaded with presents and more presents.

“Come,” she said,and before he could resist he was being pulled by a force greater than gravity,greater even than the force that was now pulling on his arm. He was beingpulled or rather falling toward that strange vertigo that precedes love; thegreat consummate act arriving Doppler like, shrilly to achieve some sort ofharmonious pitch for only a moment, and then to drone forever on, in an ebbingpitch.

“Thething I like so much about this store,” Julia said. “Is that I used to workhere. Consequently I know it like the back of my hand. There’s all sorts ofnooks and crannies and hidden places.”

Frankscreamed after her. “You’ve got to be kidding?”

“DoI look like I’m kidding?” Julia said, throwing her voice over her shoulder.

“Youdon’t look like you’re serious,” Frank yelled after her.

In a distant,uncrowded corner of the store was a light, beneath the light was a group ofunused mannequins. They were all in various states of disarray. Some were nude.Others were partially clad. Some were missing arms. One or two were bald, athird was missing a head, but around its shoulders was draped a strand ofsilver garland.

Shepushed the mannequins aside and took Frank to a seldom used freight elevator inthe corner. “Where are we?” Frank asked, slightly out of breath.

“Wheredo you think we are? We’re here!” Julia rang the elevator, turned and smiled atFrank. Almost on cue, the bell to the elevator rang, the doors opened andmiraculously it was available and empty. “After you,” she said holding her handout for him.

“Areyou sure we can do this?” he asked.

“Areyou sure we can’t?” She shoved him into the elevator, jumped on board with him.The doors closed behind them. “I hope you don’t have to be anywhere in the nexthalf hour.” Julia pulled the red stop switch and smiled at Frank.

Therewas a wooden stool in the corner of the elevator that an office worker hadplaced there. Julia sat down on the stool, removed her jacket—it was still coldfrom being outside—she removed her blouse and with little ceremony removed herblack lacy bra. “I only wish it were a bit warmer in here,” she said. “Well areyou going to take off your jacket? Or are you going to stand there gaping?”Frank noticed a faint halo of freckles around each of Julia’s nipples.

“You’vegot beautiful breasts.”

“I’mglad you like them. Now get undressed.”

Frankundid his jacket. Julia undid her skirt. Frank tried to pull his shirt offwithout unbuttoning it, and got his head stuck in the neck. He struggled withhis shirt, and felt as if he must look like the most absurd man on earth. Julialaughed, then told him to stop struggling. She placed both of her hands on thesmall of his back, and pressed her breasts against his bare chest. She kissedhim through the linen of his shirt, pressing him into her. “I like you thisway,” she said. “Trapped.” She grabbed his belt buckle and undid it. She undidthe snap and zipper of his pants. She slid her hand into his pants and slowlypulled them off his hips. They fell to his ankles. Frank began struggling withthe shirt, then ripped it off his head and hurled it in the corner of theelevator. Christmas carols were being piped in from a tiny speaker just abovethe control panel. Outside the elevator, Frank could hear an irate femalecustomer arguing with a store clerk over an error that had appeared on her giftregistry. He kicked his pants free of his ankles so that he was clad only inhis wrist watch and socks. Julia sat down on the stool, removed her nylons.Frank was overwhelmed.

“Well,”she said. “I bet you’ve never done this before.”

Frankshook his head no, and this time he meant no. He may have imagined doing thisbefore, but even that was at the extremity of his imagination. He had, however,never actually done this.

Withher mouth open, Julia brought Frank to her. Frank felt her warm lips movelightly across his belly, her hands stroking the back of his legs. The customerwho had been arguing with the store clerk outside, fell silent, and the musicthat had been piped into the elevator, played Frank’s favorite Christmas tune: The First Noël, sung by Bing Crosby.Frank hadn’t heard that tune in years, but hearing it now, with Julia kissinghim, reminded him of his early childhood on the near north-west side of Chicagowhich, for the most part, had been happy and care free—at least up until thepoint his parents divorced. After that, happiness had always seemed to Frank asif it were more and more an intangible thing that you couldn’t force or makehappen, but that would appear from time to time, without warning. He’d come tothink that happiness was perhaps, in the final analysis, too delicate for hisreceptors. He had learned to live, by and large, in the absence of it. However,that late November afternoon, while he and Julia were naked in the freightelevator, and making love, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he washappy. Happier perhaps, than he’d ever been in his life.

“Comehere, Frank,” Julia said. “No bring your ear here, to my lips. I want to tell yousomething.”

Franktilted his ear.

“Doyou love me?”

Hetilted it again to make sure he’d heard correctly.

“Well,do you?”

Frankwasn’t sure who or what he loved, but suddenly he didn’t care. He just shookhis head yes, and said it: “Yes.”

Frankstood there now, waiting for Julia to show. He tried to think positively.“There’ll be other times like that. Like tonight. I mean, really, if she and Iget together tonight, it may be—happiness—only a few hours away.” He stampedhis feet once or twice, “I wish I had bought her a present. What’s she going tothink? And on Christmas Eve!” Frank gazed up at the Michigan Avenue bridge.Julia would be arriving from that direction, he thought. Her office was southof the river, on La Salle street in the Financial District. If she showed up,like she said she would, then chances are she’d be reasonably timely—she wasthat kind of person. But if she didn’t show up (she’d stood him up ten of thepast ten times they’d arranged to get together) then he’d be left standing inthe cold, waiting at least an hour beyond the scheduled time of their meeting,just to make sure he hadn’t missed her. “If she doesn’t show, well then, I’lljust go home. Call it a night.” He cleared some snow that had collected on oneof the iron benches and sat down looking toward the bridge, which she mustsurely cross, in order to meet him. He felt a jolt of pain. He closed his eyes,and lowered his head.

When Julia Rhodescame running along the Michigan Avenue bridge and down the icy steps to thewalk near the parapet and saw the dark figure of Frank hunched over on bench,she couldn’t believe her eyes. He was buried beneath two inches of snow, andlooked as if he had frozen.

“Ohmy god! How awful. I’ve killed him.” Julia didn’t know quite what to do. Butshe was most certain she had been responsible. “If he’s dead, should I pitchhim into the river? But he’s probably too heavy—especially if he’s frozen.Should I call an ambulance? But if he’s dead, they’ll blame me. There will bethe awful questions at the police station, and everything that I’d planned withMike this evening will be botched, and it’s all because of him!” Julia wasangry and upset all at once. She turned and started running, back up the steps.A salt truck on Michigan avenue went sloshing by overhead and Julia was hitwith dirty slush and salt pellets. “Oh god how awful!” she screamed. She triedto wipe herself clean, and when she got to the top of the steps, it hadoccurred to her, that several people would know that she’d been here—includingLana, and the cab driver who’d brought her here—and what would they think whenthey read in their Christmas newspaper that the very man she had intended tomeet was discovered dead. “It’s ignominious. Why is this happening to me?”Julia took two steps down Michigan avenue—in the direction of Mike Wolcott’scondo—then she stopped, turned around and ran back down the steps to whereFrank (dark and immobile) was sitting, frozen on the bench. She walked up tohim and touched him on the shoulder. He was cold as ice and didn’t move. Shebrushed some snow off of him, then touched him again.

“Oh my god he isdead. Jesus, this is awful.”

As Julia stoodnext to Frank she remembered back to her childhood, when, as a fourth grader, aboy who had fallen in love with her, had wandered over to her house on thecoldest night of the year, and was found dead, frozen to death in the evergreenbushes beneath her bedroom window. She wished she didn’t have to remember thatjust now. Especially out here, in the cold, with another dead man on her hands.“What am I going to do?” Julia worried. “I can’t believe my life,” she saidout-loud. “I can’t believe how miserable it’s become. All these men dying. AndI’m always involved.” Julia knelt down near Frank and put her head in his lap.She tried to suppress a sob, but failed, and for a long time she sobbed andsobbed, and when she thought she could sob no more, she continued to sob.

Frankdidn’t believe in miracles, but he did believe in dreams. In this particulardream—his last one—he was sitting on a bench near the Chicago River. It wasChristmas Eve and the snow was falling. It was an incredibly beautiful winternight. In his dream the woman whom he loved, had come to visit him. He didn’tknow why she had come to visit him. He only knew that, while he was sitting onthis bench, she had come and sat down next to him, and told him the saddeststory that he had ever heard. She told him how, when she was a little girl, aboy by the name of Nicholas Todaeka had come to visit her on the coldest nightof the year and died of cold in a pile of snow near her house. She was onlynine or ten years old at the time. The boy had called her earlier that evening,just to say he loved her.

“Ifyou love me so much what will you do for me?”

“Iwill do anything for you.”

“Willyou come to my house right now and stand beneath my window.”

“Yes,”the boy said.

“Ifyou come to my house and throw a piece of snow at my window I’ll open my drapesand let you see me.”

“I’llcome.”

“Butwait a minute. Do you know it’s the coldest night of the year?”

“I’llcome.”

Thestory goes: that night, as she fell asleep she heard pieces of snow beingchucked against her window. “It can’t be him,” she thought to herself. “Thatboy cannot possibly love me so much that he’d come this far to see me on thecoldest night of the year.” She thought that maybe she was dreaming. It was sowarm in her bed, it was so cold outside, she dare not move.

On Jim O'Connor's epic poem, "The Whale"

2011-01-11T06:25:00.003-06:00

he’d tell them that this poem was going to confirm his stay on earth

he was made for doing such a work

it’d be a word of warning, the poem would be

possibly it’d be a political statement who could say

but one thing is for sure:

it’d be a tract railing against the state of things:

for he was always railing against the state of things—

how things had changed for the worse

how people coming up these days lacked values

that he’d known as a youth

everyone corrupted by a permissive culture

everyone indulging their own idiosyncratic whim

because that’s what they were told to do

exploit their idiosyncrasies for fame

eternal renown: dough

he railed how if things didn’t change soon

the shit would hit the fan—literally—

there’d be an uprising: he likened it to a mutiny

the little guy heaving his cutlass in the salt-marsh

each and every soul would march against the man in all his guises:

the man being a trickster who posed

as politico-advertising-guru-spin-meister-impresario

a chameleon who courted fools with sex fame and fortune

but when it came time to deliver the goods he came up short

he was a chameleon therefore who should and would

be struck down once and for all: dead

whereupon a return would be forged to universal morals

agreed upon by an authority akin to the church

and a sense of man’s puniness would be restored—

which he argued had been lost on the day

the stars had been blotted out by luminous urban street light

but man’s puniness his fundamental insignificance

these were the grand themes of his poem

and when completed it would be a masterpiece

what’s more he wouldn’t make it public unless it proved

an epic beyond compare trust me he would say

i’ve had poems published in years past

you know i was once well known in the journals

recently i told a noted publisher

who wanted the rights to my out of print collection

that i’ve burned it all burnt it all in an inferno

compared to this epic everything else i’ve written—

all my poems—are minor not worth my name

but this work, my epic, i’m made for it

and when completed it will win me posthumous fame

From a letter to John Berryman 1/15/1972

2011-01-03T13:54:00.006-06:00

Dear John,

Last time you visited we got caught in the storm on our sail to Mackinac. Do you remember how we saw that whale emerge from the depths of Lake Michigan off the coast of Green Bay? Do you remember how we were battered by eight foot waves the whole night and the clouds parted and a gap in the night sky was formed by the clouds into the shape of a woman’s leg and the stars shining like a studded-fishnet stocking all the way up her thigh? It was there for a moment and then the clouds closed up again in the storm: ‘a genuine nor’easter’ you called it, and then emergent, snapping its teeth the whale? I almost fell in like Jonah but held onto the wires. Remember how you said your avatar Henry would sail the sloop The Innisfree and encounter that whale again? Were we so drunk we thought it real that phantom depthling? Or was it indeed real only to be cast back from the depths in the net of your stalking verse. If you don’t write your Henry into it, I shall, by god! A belated Happy New Year to You.

Yours ever,

Jimmy the yachtsman o’th’Innisfree.

From the Letters of Jim O’Connor to James Laughlin at New Directions Publishing (3/29/1974)

2010-12-29T14:55:00.004-06:00

Though I write poetry, I am not a poet. Though I am called a poet, I am not a poet. Though I have been published in the journals, I resent that I have been published in the journals. Though people ask me to quote poems to them I now refuse to quote my poems. You know what I resent? I resent having some muse inside of me, which like a snake perpetually shedding its skin, forces me, almost against my will, to write these poems down on little scraps of paper. I write these poems not because I want to or because I like writing poetry, I write these poems because it is the only way I know to silence or at least to calm down my muse. If I refuse to write these poems down, then my muse begins to undermine me. The muse speaks to me unrelentingly. I tell it to shut up, it speaks louder. It breaks up my sleep. It undermines my ability to think. It’s as if the voice, which is an uninvited voice, speaks to me outside of myself and commands me to write what it tells me to write, down. It’s an authoritarian muse and I resent its presence in my life, and I resent the work it forces me to do. When I’m not writing to silence my muse, I drink to kill it. In answer to your question: why don’t I publish these poems, I say I don’t publish them because I don’t author them and because I don’t author them, I don’t authorize you or anyone else to publish them.

James Fanton on the early poetry of Jim O’Connor. From American Outlaw (Yale, 1989)

2010-12-26T21:05:00.002-06:00

What is astonishing about O’Connor’s poetry is the oracular vision he presents of a poet seized by a muse with such force that every poem he writes reads like a direct transmission from his muse, who we come to see, over time, is a woman, a young graduate student, Anne Burroughs, whom he had befriended in a bar, and then tragically killed in a traffic accident he had upon leaving the bar. The story is: O’Connor was drunk, drove off with the graduate student in a blizzard and plowed into the back-end of a snowplow on Ogden Avenue. O’Connor suffered serious internal injuries, but she was killed instantly on impact: flying through the windshield of the 1972 blue Pontiac LeMans, her body landing in a roadside ditch fifty feet from the twisted wreck of the LeMans. O’Connor’s poetry changed after that accident. He himself observed, five years after the accident, in an interview conducted with John Berryman, that he wrote poetry to rid himself of Anne Burroughs’ voice. In a sense his poetry becomes an act against poetry. It’s a contra-poiesis that becomes by its very nature an exorcism. What makes it remarkable is that it does the opposite of what it sets out to do. Though his poems attempt to destroy poetry, they themselves become remarkable poetic constructions; though the poet seeks to root out his muse and silence her, his poems, by contrast, give extraordinary expression to that muse whom we must call by her name, Anne Burroughs. Though the poems of Jim O’Connor are the oracular divinations of a male poet hell bent on the eradication of poetic statement, they become the wild confessional poetic testament of a doomed poet, Anne Burroughs. Though Jim O’Connor signs the poems, we come to see the that true author of this remarkable poetry is Anne Burroughs. It becomes clear that she, through the mediation of O’Connor, rivals the strangest poems of her precursors: Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

The Model in the Magazine Ad

2010-12-22T09:23:00.002-06:00

I open the magazine and find her staring at me

I can't decide what it is about her

but we establish an instant intimacy.

She smiles just so as in:

"Just so’s you know, this is between you and me."

Her eyes, not batting a lash, stare unblinkingly

waiting to see if I'll concur and I do and now we're friends.

She gazes into my eyes and sees literally down

into the garbage chute that is my soul.

It's a trash heap down there and believe me I'm filled with shame

but her eyes say trust and I do and now we're friends.

That she has the courage to do this, moves me.

That she is also pretty and well dressed while she does this

is inexplicable

She sees how I'm all bound up and naked

and twisted so it hurts.

She unloosens, just a little bit,

the knots that bind my hands and mouth.

I say, thank you.

She understands and now we're friends.

She gets all of my failings, my failures, my hurts.

She sees my life has been a shitstorm.

She sees my expiration date has gone past

She does not judge.

I know I'm an asshole, I tell her.

I know. I know.

She listens to me pour out my heart and does not blink.

I'm evasive, I explain to her.

I can't be counted on in a crisis.

I've never learned how to tell the truth when it really counts.

Hush, she says. Hush.

I commit an afternoon of my day

to looking at her I have nothing else to do.

She speaks to me in truth. Her eyes

are pretty blue and beneath the cream gauze of her blouse

I see she's naked.

See, her eyes explain, I can hold my nakedness

close to you. You may look through the gauze of my blouse

and see what you see. It's all there for you.

Even though it's shit outside and in,

I feel like sunshine.

The Age of Lice

2010-12-14T19:01:00.007-06:00

Thumb calloused by

brick course and trowel

he feared the buggers and said so.

He routed them out in a rage,

and scraped my scalp clean.

Between forefinger and thumb

he twisted and turned my bobbed head to see

in the bare bulbed light

whether any remain clinging by a hair.

He sudded me up in a hot spray

and wacked me dry with a buffing towel.

Plucked clean like a bird no delicacy there—but love, somewhere,

perhap more rage than anything but rage at what?

At the louse and nit? or at the nit wit who

passed it in a leaping moment on the basketball court

or at foolish me who was later tangled tress to tress on the wrestling mat

with Jimmy Theron whose sister, he said, had crabs?

The intimacy that nit begat

and the mind is dumb

The Woodsman

2009-01-21T21:40:00.008-06:00

It was morning when the woodsman stepped out of his hovel. He wielded a large axe. He also had a long bow that required incredible strength to pull it back. The woodsman, living close to the earth, pulled the bow with the greatest of ease and shot a buck. Later he gutted the buck with a Bowie knife and strung it up by it’s hind legs to let it bleed. It felt good to acquire what one needed for food in such a rudimentary way.

The hovel the woodsman stepped out of was made of pine logs that he had set. First he had chopped the logs down with an axe. He plundered the virgin forest for his timber. The trees that he chopped down had grown for centures in virgin soil and he knew the lumber was of superior quality filled with sap that would harden like resin over time. He had hauled the logs out of the ancient forest by hitching them to a couple of mules, when he reached the river, he created a raft of the logs and floated them downstream to the site where he was to build his cabin. The site was on high ground, near a lake. A small stream flowed a hundred yards down hill of him. He was very happy with the site. He knew he would be able to fetch water, but never be in fear of flooding. How lucky, he thought, to find such a place. He had cleared the site of trees and brush and packed the soil by making his mule team drag a heavy log back and forth on the site applying pressure to the soil. He had no help in this, and he came naturally into understanding how to do this work. It was good work.

In the wilderness he was plagued by the wildest and most mysterious dreams. He thought the dreams were slowly turning him into a saint.

In the morning with the sun up he laughed at the thought. He loved women too much to be a saint. Besides that. He didn’t believe in god. He only believed in the truth of the wilderness which said: we live only for a moment and then we die. Nothing cares that we lived. Nothing cares that we died.

He hewed the logs of branches with a broad axe and an adze. He chopped out the notches and saddles at the ends of the logs leaving a foot or so on either end for the sills. There was plenty of work to do and it was good work. He drank from the stream with a tin cup or with his hands which were caked with dirt and tree sap. One of his fingernails had been mashed that morning and it still painfully throbbed. Off in the distance above the mountains rose the snow cap mountain that gave him comfort. He didn’t know why the mountain comforted him, but in this land, all alone, it was like a friend to him. It was someone he could count on. He even found himself addressing the mountain in the first person.

Hey hill, he liked to say. How do you like the house I am building in your shadow? How is the snow up there? Are the mountain sheep summering on your high pastures?

In the autumn the sheep would come down from the mountain and he would shoot them with his long bow in view of his cabin. It was nice to take them this way, he thought. There is no difficulty in packing them out of here, otherwise. He hung the carcasses out on posts salted and drying in the sun. In the evening he stored them high up in the trees to protect against bears.

In the evenings that followed during the summer he built his cabin, he piled the branches from the pine and burned them. The smell of pine was thick in the air and the sap snapped and cracked and popped in the heat of the fire. The cabin he built was 20 feet by 18 feet perfectly suitable for his needs. He set it so it was true to the compass. The longer walls faced east and west with windows on either side. The door and one of the windows faced south to let in the light and the air. Opposite the door was a stone fireplace he built from granite stones pulled out of the stream that fed the lake. They were heavy but he carried each one of them up the hill from the stream by himself. It is my time to live, he thought. I will be dead soon enough. It’s good to work.

He laid the logs one on top of the other alternating the direction of the thick end of the log and within a week he had the walls of his cabin built. They were eight logs high. He tapered the north and south walls to a point and carefully set the logs across the ends to form the roof joists. He elevated the heavy joists by using straps hooked to the mules and while they pulled the logs rolled up a ramp he built for that purpose. When he was through with the structure, he thatched the roofs, and mortared the joints between the logs with a dirt and grass mixture. While he worked he thought of his home life back on the farm in Illinois where he lost both of his parents one winter to illness. He nearly succumbed too, and lost part of his hearing from a prolonged fever. His parents had been subsistence farmers and after they died he had to scrap to survive. He came north in search of work. The forest await and in the cities wood was needed. He headed to Canada. Lac du Bois. He settled in a small village near Souix Narrows. He hooked up with a French-Canadian named, Michel Tremblay, who was a logger and who helped the woodsman get a job with the lumber company. Tremblay spoke in a dialect and it took all of the woodsman's patience to make sense of what the Frenchmen said. But he wouldn't miss it for anything in the world.

Do you work here?

Yes sair, the French Canadian said trying to explain it to the woodsman. I work on de boom mebbe tree or five summer.

And how do I get a job on the boom?

Can you stan’ on de log, my frien’?

Yes. I think I can. If it’s tied on both ends.

The Frenchman laughed. Hokay, my frien'. If that’s so, I guess we can use you. Go on down on de stream where de watair ain't so deep, an' tell Simon I sent you dere.

The woodsman looked down where Michel Tremblay indicated.

Over there?

You go on dere. Don’t be scare’. Simon he put you on de las' joint of de firs' beat. Dose hemlock doan run so fas' today. Doan you raf' anyting but de diamond rabbit track.' Simon he show you how to raf' de log, an' bimeby I betcha you can do him jus' as well as hanybody helse. Strong faller like you will be hokay. Simon will show you how you grab delog wit' de pickpole an' pull him over, an' den you wind de rope aroun' de toe an' pull him tight. Den you put on de wedge an' drive him in wit' de mallet. If dat rope ain't tight enough you wind him aroun' de mallet an' pull on dat an' dat make de rope tighter. Dose log, you honderstan', haf to be raf' tight. If dey ain't de log she's turn over an you can't see de mark. An den you fall in de watair and mebbe not come back up for haire. You honderstan’?

The woodsman shook his head yes. Of course he understood. What other choice did he have? He needed a job this far north and if listening to the broken English of this French Canadian was how he got his job, then it was all the same to him. With that he was hired on the spot.

The woodsman found rather quickly, that he had the right body for this sort of work. It felt strange to be this lucky—that he found the exact work he was built for. It made him wonder if there weren’t other loggers in his family’s past. How else explain it? He had been blessed with quick reflexes, physical intelligence, and a low center of gravity that helped him stay on top of the logs. Michel Tremblay himself had nicknamed the woodsman,Water Spider, for his seeming ability to straddle water and not fall through. The woodsman learned to like the work and in the evenings he lay in a small cabin with the other men listening to them snore on the bunk. He lay there and think of everything that happened to him during the day and he made plans to be better the next day more physical, more agile, to work smarter, to get more done safely. Always stay on top of the logs, he exhorted himself. No matter how fast and furious they come, keep your eyes open and your feet spinnnig upon the logs this side of the water. By the end of the summer he was the head foreman. Michel Tremblay was so intent on keeping the woodsman, he made him a 25% owner in the company.

In the early autumn, as they prepared for the winter cut, the woodsman met a woman named Holly. He had just received his paycheck for the summer and wandered into town for a meal. He stopped into a restaurant which was named, appropriately, the Lawg Caybun. He had sat down to eat. She served him moose meat and a stack of pancakes. When he ordered beer, she brought him beer. When he ordered shnapps, she brought him shnapps and smiled. His dog—a mutt with more labrador retriever than anything else—guarded the door. Earlier that day, the woodsman had watched his dog attempt to hump a coyote in heat that had come down from the mountain, tail between her legs. The dog and coyote rubbed muzzles, and then his dog, Britt, attempted to mount the coyote. The woodsman had seen it happening, but a noise—a bald eagle splashing into the lake for a perch—spooked the coyote, and what had started ended just as suddenly. He actually felt sorry for his dog at the missed opportunity. After he had a shot of schnapps, he pushed his money on the table. She collected his money, counted it up, then grabbed his hand and walked him upstairs to a room swaying her ass as she went. It was the nicest room he had slept in since he left his parent’s home years earlier. Her bed had springs, and as he lay in the bed, memories of his boyhood home flooded his mind. He’d been chopping trees, running them down the rivers, living on wild meat for so long he forgot that once upon a time long ago he had slept on a box mattress and bedsprings. She pulled off his boots which had twenty five or so eyelets running up either side. They were strung together with leather laces. She also pulled his socks off and massaged his feet pushing her thumb and forefinger deep into the sensitive tissue near the ball of his feet. She found pain he didn’t know he had and tended to it. She removed his pants and started working on his calves which were tense with musle and hadn’t been touched by another hand, including his own, in what seemed like years. He thought he would faint with pleasure. She worked both sides of his thighs, top and bottom, with her good strong hands rubbing all the sorrow and pain that had accumulated in them from being alone so long by themselves untended. Then she massaged his back, stepping on him and balancing as a logger balances on a rolling log in the river. He laughed at the thought, as did she when he told it to her. Her arms were out at her side balancing as she carefully moved to and fro on his back, getting with her feet the nerves in his deep tissue which had been too long deprived of human touch and consideration. When she was done stepping on him, she grabbed his forearms which were corded with muscle and began massaging them, she moved to his calloused hands and mused at the strength of his fingers. They alone could crush her if they so desired, she said. She removed her dress, and the frilly slip, and pulled her underdrawers which were made of silk, off her bottom. She was a large, mottled, and round woman; a rash radiated from her neck to the upper part of her chest. Her cheeks too, were filled with blushing red. When she moved, she jiggled. He reached out and touched her flesh and she was the softest person he had ever remembered touching. His own body had been brutalized by too much hard work and there wasn't a spare piece of flesh on him. Her body by contrast was warm, soft, gentle. He felt, as a result, as if he had suddenly left the wilderness behind and entered a more civilized place. She moved with spunk and good humor and laughed easily. She smelled of slightly sour milk, but behind that smell was a whiff of fresh bread mingled with the smell of earth and the lovely slightly perfumed odor of the crenelated mushrooms that his dog liked to root out of the forest floor. It reminded him, more than anything, of mysterious life. There was nothing mysterious about her actions though, and yet he felt mystified nevertheless. She stroked his cock with her hand and a moment later, with her hand she put him inside of her. She started to move, at first slowly, and then more quickly up and down on him. She pressed her hands into his chest which was covered with dark curly hair. She rocked back and forth, sweat breaking in tiny droplets from her forehead as if she had been cooking instead over a hot griddle. The bed squeeked beneath them, she was filled with lust and sport. She was hot inside. Hotter than bacon grease. He worried his dick might crack under her blows but it held like a good piece of timber. She guffawed and pounded. At one point she slipped off him and before she could get back on, he shot his wad clean across the room. It hit the wall paper on the opposing wall one foot below the ceiling. He thought nothing of it and then she got back on and continued. It occurred to him that he would probably tell his dog Britt all about it on the walk home back home. Hiya, she screamed, when he withdrew a second time. Watcha doin’ black scout! She slapped him hard in the face. It felt good to be slapped in the face, his teeth cutting the inside of his cheek so he tasted blood. She tried to get back on but he pushed her away and on second thought returned the clout to her face for good measure. He roughed her up more than he intended the redness already coming to her cheekbone where his fist smacked. She was right, he could snap her in two with just his fingers. But he didn’t. He wanted to keep her for more later after he got paid next season. When he left, his semen was still dripping down the wall. He noticed it was burgandy wall paper with large velvet-heart shaped patterns. His semen shot smack dab in the middle of one of those hearts. He always was a good shot, he thought with a bit of lusty pride. He was still adjusting his suspenders. She cursed him for messing the place up, then pushed him out and slammed the door behind him. Was that a smile? he wondered. Did she smile at him one last time before he was gone?

“The way her tits swang all heavy, boy, you would have been proud of me. I was a hell of a sight better than you were today and that coyote you tried to hump before it was all scared away. And I don’t blame her, the way you are—even wilder than a wild coyote. Well good for us, ole boy. One of us got it tonight. That should hold us until the end of winter provided we two survive that long.” It was a comparatively long monologue to which the dog merely panted and barked.

tereu

2008-11-28T19:36:00.003-06:00

It was said of him that

after his first great poem

something inside of him (call it his muse

if you please) had dried up.

He even said so himself,

his wan fingers twirling

the empty air in front of him:

“Something has gone out of me,

I’m all dried up.”

I imagine him from time to time

sitting on his park bench

deep in the heart of London.

How difficult it must have been

to make such a sad confession

(or admission

of an omission, if you please).

I imagine him speaking

in low husky tones as if to tempt

the traffic sounds of London

to drown the sound

of his own voice speaking:

Tereu! Tereu!

D-Day Documentary --for B.F.

2008-11-10T23:06:00.009-06:00

I’ve seen the grainy black and white

film footage that somehow robs

the things done on this beach

of a certain clear reality.

I’ve watched these films in my apartment

and the beaches did not smell like death

or gun powder or burnt flesh or vomit or piss

but of boiled potatoes

and roast beef and corn on the cob

that I had stewing on my stove.

And I was not wet with sea and loaded down with artillery

and screaming for oxygen

and terrified so it tore my heart out

to be here at war

pressed close to the hardness

of fallen friends, foes fallen and no turning back

But forward, forward into the fire.

Sitting on my couch my feet kicked up

A cold Budweiser dripping within reach

I watch these films and I’m caught

by their raw power like art

to focus my eyes on the horror of these grim events

and by their power to hold my rapt attention as if

this battle and they—the falling soldiers—are beautiful

flickering darkly across the incandescent screen.

see it running, the deer in evening light

2008-11-06T09:30:00.010-06:00

It wasn’t the carcass slung on the rack he shot the deer for

Or for the butcher wrapped venison sunk deep in his freezer

Or even for the dried pelt with its coat of straight brown fur

Stuck with tacks to the pine slats of his sub-basement floor

But for the dream dreamt of dropping a deer with which he

Rocked himself to sleep each night behind his half closed eyes.

the diver

2008-11-05T22:40:00.004-06:00

Beneath the surface of the water

Was a fairly large volume of water

When it moved the surface of the water

Moved.

Above the surface of the water

Was a fairly large volume of air

When it moved the surface of the water

Moved

Creating mariad waves, wavelets, and ripples

Of unbelievably complex and evolving patterns.

Upon the waves was reflected light and shadow

The ceiling or the passing cloud.

Beneath the water contained by a pool

Was the cement bottom painted blue

And a line of darker blue delimiting the lane.

Can we say that standing on the edge of the pool

She was an object of pure flesh and beneath the flesh

That which makes the flesh flesh?

She stands there now. Attenuated, inviolate, one

And below her that volume of air and water.

What is she standing there?

Is she the thing she imagines: a drink of water and she at the edge?

Or is she a composite form of her self and of all her interior selves?

It happens in a moment.

She leaps from the platform

A thing of the air

Aiming for the volumes below.

his ambition

2008-11-03T19:32:00.018-06:00

It was his ambition to record

Man’s brokenness. It was the way

He put it that so impressed:

“We know man is fallible and have

An idea of where to take him.

But his essential brokenness has

To my mind remained underrecorded.”

We were sitting in the shade of a café

Sparrows collecting around our crumbs.

He was eating a salad and drinking a claret.

“The old saying that god sees even that

These sparrows are fed. This is the literature

I’m meant to write.”

And write he did.

Just as the prophets stumbled off

Into the wilderness to eat bugs

And keep faith with those in the dust

So too did he

Venture out into an exile of sorts:

He rode the city buses.

Notebooks in hand he recorded

In indecipherable miniscule script

The voices—mad, victorious, broken—

Of the CTA commuter.

He liked from time to time to show

Them off—what he called his little notebooks.

He kept a whole closet full of these.

They were crammed with stammering monologues

And conversations recorded "exactly verbatim":

Place names, human names, the names of pets

And names that sounded unhuman.

“Herein”, he would say, flinging the door to his closet:

“The true history of Chicago.”

There were countless notebooks at last count

Stacked neatly one on top the other

The sum of his literary life’s labor.

An orderly Babel—charting some as yet

unforeseen catastrophe.

Occasionally he’d pull one down and read

Falling into some pantomime of rant and madness

He’d end up laughing hysterically.

Was it at them he laughed? Or with?

I could never tell.

Was I to laugh along?

Who knew?

When I asked what he intended to do with this history,

He looked at me a bit confused.

“Intend? What do you mean intend?

It’s enough that they are being made

The rest is for god to read.”

his hat

2008-11-01T23:15:00.007-05:00

His hat, dusty chapeaux, sat upon his brow

And cleaved the air like a ship’s prow

Forty four years from 1950-1994

He wore it in all those pictures:

Candid, improptu, posed and cunning;

Wedding, funeral, babtism and accidently

Caught standing in a crowd while Kennedy’s

Cavalcade passed through flecks of tickertape.

And on nights when pictures weren’t snapped

No record kept, he wore it still

A silent sentry that forged his identity:

The man in the bowler cap.

It travelled high in the air for he was tall

And went about the the city in all directions

Sidewalk-bound or by taxi

Bus, car or bicycle it followed him

To the opera first Saturday of each month

Where he kept his subscription til diabetes

Struck him down;

To church on Sundays and

Each day at work where he plied his trade downtown

In what?—what did he do? Financials?

In sybiosis it sat atop him

Protecting his balding pate from sun.

Washed out by storms. Blown by wind.

Crushed by the weekend’s newspapers

And retreived more times than he can remember

From tree branches to which it took flight

For it had a fancy occassionally under the right

Blowing conditions it was a jay or a crow.

It sits there now as it has these dozen years

In the shop, Brims: New and Used, atop a coat tree.

What’s it doing there all by itself

Idle after all those years of adventure

As if it were a watchman in a watchtower waiting

For you to amble through the doors in search of a hat?

Go ahead, try it on.

But first slap it against your hip.

Don’t be shy! It’s braver than it looks.

Get the dust out.

Slap it again and it’ll find its natural shape.

Now put it atop your head.

That’s where it properly belongs.

Afix the feather—this hat was made for flight.

It’s a good hat for day and night and for travels

About the city and work in the Financials

For casting indelible shadows

In daytime or in night

In the dark, in darkness or in the darker still.

cat and mouse

2008-10-27T22:34:00.004-05:00

It would have been nice had you called me.

Such were the things we said to each other back then.

One playing cat and the other mouse.

Now things are different.

My friend told me a truth

That I found quite interesting.

We were riding in a car through the mountains a long

Stretch in silence when he said: fiction is

Primarily about relationships.

Not truth? I asked

The truth of relationships, maybe.

But I prefer nonfiction, instead, he said.

It follows the contour of the world in

Way that I can comprehend. When he said that

He applied emphasis to the “I” as if

He had set it off in italics.

It would have been nice had you

Called I told her or she me.

Such were the things bandied

About in those days filled with friends and love

And who knew it would all be gone one day

A cup—shall we call it a cup of joy or is that

Too silly what we had. Call it what you want

Sooner or later it would all be drained.

I pointed out to my friend

What’s nice about fiction is

Staring into the universe of the book.

Each character a mouse

Wending its way through the maze of plot

While we, catlike, wait for it to pull

The bait, and snap.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had been together

You told me even as you went to follow

Another.

The bait has been pulled.

And snap.

Now we converse in my imagination.

I set you up in my mind and always

You exist in mild oppositon to me on the

Theory that it’s always better to push an

Idea against resistance than follow the current.

I told my friend: relationships

Are based on fictions not truths.

At least our relationship was.

Yours and mine.

The fiction that we would somehow

Always be happy together.

Now the cat

Is out of the bag.

And I live in an non-fiction book.

The "I" of me somehow italicized.

As to the mountains.

What can I say: from the road they were dark

And jagged but I couldn’t help wondering

If someone weren’t up there in the cliffs

Peering down as our car, mouselike,

Wended its way through the pass.

the leap

2008-10-21T21:47:00.002-05:00

I am a man leaping across

the river from mossy stone

to mossy stone tumbling

through anarchic night

see me there—airborn—

as I traverse

the burbling brook see me

flying

broke free from

terra firm—a moment of time—

but flying—caterwauling—see me there!

See me!

yellow rock

2008-10-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

It’s August now

and the sun is just sun

and the moon is moon

and this hard yellow rock

in the palm of my hand

is a rock

that I found in Turkey

pulled from the rubble

near the ruined temple

of Aphrodite

I brought it back

with me

many years ago

carrying it in my right front

pocket

hoping it would bring love

sexual—and otherwise—

to my home, my life

I put it (then forgot it)

in a blue plastic cup

that said

Chicago Cubs

the cup contained (among other things)

miscellaneous keys for lost doors

that no longer needed

locking

a few old stamps

long since out of circulation

and a thin black comb

that claimed to be

unbreakable

I have since found love

sexual—and otherwise—

and now today—this morning

I rediscovered this yellow rock

in it’s plastic cup

it was just a yellow rock

among lost keys

Blade

2008-10-17T19:18:00.001-05:00

Here where the clean blade breaks

green grass as virgin as the sea

Bertrand the Belgium bricoleur

turned part-time tulip cultivator

leans towards the land

his wood handled plow held

like a harp in his bony hands.

He sways and jerks behind his ox

and drops brown husked tulip bulbs

from a cloth sack that’s slung

like a rope around his neck.

It ties him not to the blue dome above

but to the damp dark earth below

Air Born

2008-06-13T08:22:00.006-05:00

by El Fotopakismo

He looked across the gate at all the people. Had they noticed him? Most were asleep, those that were awake looked bored out of their skull and couldn’t care less what happened just as long as the airplane showed up soon. He thought about his behavior. I’m a perfectly regular citizen, he thought, but if a woman shows up—particularly an attractive one—I’m always going out on a limb to please her. It’s small minded of me and ridiculous to be so deferential to a potential sex partner. He wished he could think beyond such grim necessity as finding a partner. It’s the thing that stops me from doing other things of greater merit. As a boy, he was obsessed by the great explorers. How they sublimated their own provincial desires to do something far greater—how they pointed the way to what was possible if one only looked beyond the daily need of finding a mate (which for him, had become a task infinitely greater than scaling Everest). He was put in mind of adventurers like Captain Scott who attempted to traverse Antarctica and died in the snows. Wow! Or the snow leopard on top of Kilimanjaro that Hemingway wrote about. Who had braved the heights to discover that leopard? He admired Hemingway too. Look at everything that guy had been able to accomplish: all those books, the living in seemingly every part of the western hemisphere, the participation in all those wars, the friendships with the Modernists in Paris, the great fish, the great kills in Africa, and how many men had he killed? He’d heard an estimate put at twenty six. It wasn’t for naught, what he gave he seemed to absorb in equal measure. He’d been wounded countless time—for his body was a tool: instead of letting it get dull and rusty, he put it to use and then at the end he killed himself in the most primitive way imaginable: a shotgun pointed at the chin and angled towards the brain, he pulled the trigger with his toe. It was so unlike the modern salesman who travels from hotel to hotel unscathed only to die or rather wasn’t the word in this case, ‘expire’?, like he was likely to expire in slow shallow breaths the will to go on leaking from the hole that was his mouth until he was done, finished: dead alone, unmoored, unmourned. Oh.

Or what about Shackleton—what dream, what life force led the great Shackleton and his men into the seas of Antarctica where their wood boat was marooned by ice?—and instead of perishing as it seemed most certainly they would—Shackleton and a handful of scouts set out across the blank ice guided by stars and a will to survive only to encounter the bitterest trial of starvation and cold—yet they survived and returned to rescue the home party that had encamped near the boat. As if this weren’t enough, Shackleton returned again and again to the Antarctic, stirred by some insatiable want or claim that was greater than he. Or what about Neal Armstrong and all those astronauts of the Apollo Missions. What grit and courage it took to launch in a tiny vehicle off into the unknown. Galileo, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Einstein, Picasso. What dreams and inner fire propelled these men—and yet his dreams seemed meek and mild by comparison. I’m happy to get by he thought. I’ve always been happy to just get by. I don’t have the insatiable want those heroic men had. I don’t feel I have a claim to want what those men wanted: and yet wasn’t it all partly about naming what you wanted? All he wanted was to slow his travel schedule down a bit and find a woman. He knew in his heart that his life would change once he had a partner. Then I can go and think these other thoughts, but until I find someone to settle down with I’m afraid I can’t think of anything else.

He thought of the great poem by Dylan Thomas. He had memorized it while he was still a student at college. Yes, he remembers it now. That’s one memory resurrected from the past: that I used to memorize poems. His favorite poem, was Dylan Thomas’ poem: And Death Shall Have No Dominion. He could still quote a portion by heart:

Twisting on racks when sinews give way

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan’t crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

He still liked the poem, he was surprised to say, and he thought it applied to those heroic souls who naturally wanted what they couldn’t have, but obtained it anyways. Of course, those guys often died in cruel and violent ways: just look at Hemingway, though Elvis, dead of pills, was a different matter. Nevertheless, nice as the sentiment is it didn’t make sense, really, for death always wins out. It had dominion over everything: weak and strong alike. No way around that, he thought.

But Dylan Thomas, how he could put the word to something. Once when he was in Greenwich Village, he went to the Whitehorse Tavern to pay his respects. It was one of Dylan Thomas’ last watering holes. He remembers the night. He wandered around in the rain all night looking for the place and when he finally found it, it was twenty minutes until closing time. He ordered a beer. He looked around the place, saw a few white horses on the shelves over the bar, and then in a voice barely audible he uttered the lines from the poem that he just said: Twisting on racks when sinews give way/Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break. It was good to know a poem or two he thought. It was nice also to pay homage to the dead who had become our friends in a way because their words had become part of our lives. That’s the gist of what he told the bartender. He was drinking Laphroig. The bartender let him drink a few extra on the house after closing time and then shooed him out at three am. At that point the rain had stopped. He hailed a cab and was back at his Midtown hotel, and early that morning he packed his bags and still a little drunk he was off to the airport to catch a plane. Always a visitor, he thought. Never at home.

I suppose my yogaist would be impressed with these lines. At some point, he might try and figure out how to work them into a conversation with her. Do you like poetry? she might ask him. Yes, as a matter of fact, and this is my favorite poem.

I like poetry too.

What kind of poetry do you like?

Well for one, I like all the songs of Joni Mitchell and if you study the lyrics closely you’ll see they’re every bit poems.

Yes.

What do you like?

Dylan Thomas.

Oh, I’ve heard of him.

Do you know any of his poetry?

No, do you?

As a matter of fact, I do. At which point he’d quote the poem. He loved to say it full throated. Afterwards he might even tell her that Dylan Thomas was an alcoholic. He wrote, among other things, Under Milkwood.

Never heard of it.

I’ll read it to you one day, you’ll like. I’ll read it right around Christmas which is a good time for that piece.

Wow. You really know a lot about him.

As I’m sure you know a lot about Joni Mitchell.

It had made him happy to have the yogaist spend some time by his side. He felt less lonely all of a sudden. She was attractive and what’s more she possessed personality, single-mindedness, what some called character. She was a character. A persona. She had chosen him. He could swear she liked him. Why else would she go through all of this with him. What’s more he was starting to feel an attraction for her. Where she had been sitting against the wall, the girl with the tattoo and her boyfriend now sat. He felt a diminishing attraction for the tattoo girl now that the yogaist was filling his heart. He worried. I wonder if they’ll come over here now and take my yogaist’s seat. Unlikely, he thought. If there’s not enough room for them to lay out next to each other, they probably wouldn’t be interested. They were laying together against the wall. The boy was reading a fashion magazine and the girl was reading a book. They were still plugged into a single earplug of a shared headset listening to her iPod.

He liked taking a proprietary interest in the yogaist. I wonder if she has someone. She was awful pretty even if she were wearing those Ugg boots. Across from him was the woman who had been chattering on the cell phone. She had laid her head back on the chair closed her eyes and fallen asleep. Her mouth sagged open. Her boy’s head was on her lap sleeping as well. Now that she was unconscious he could take a more careful look of her. Jesus christ, he thought, she’s every bit as pretty asleep as she is chattering on her cell phone, though he noticed that she wore face powder—and with her hair done up like that, she was probably using hair spray as well—both turnoffs for him. The man reading the Financial pages was also asleep and his son, leaning against the man’s shoulder was playing a hand-held digital game that made irritating noises. No problem, he thought. I can handle noises like that now that I have something going on in my life. He thought of the yogaist: what vitality she possesses. The nerve of her to come over to me and insist that I start doing yoga with her. He was suddenly very impressed with her. The fat man across the way was eating a large ice cream cone and drinking from an extra large Coke. The fat man was returning his stare. He didn’t budge from looking at the man even as his head bobbed slightly to the straw and sucked up more Coke. He had probably watched me perform yoga with the yogaist. What was her name? he wondered. He was always forgetting to get the name. Her bag was next to his feet. He supposed he could lean over and check to see if there were some name tag associated with the bag, but on second thought he would ask her. It would be an invitation to talk. He would ask her what her name was, she in turn would inquire as to his name. He would tell her what his was then they might talk a little about work. What do you do? he would ask. She’d tell him, then she’d ask him about his work. They’d go from work, to where do you live, to what do you like to listen to, to zodiac, and favorite foods and sports and on and on the inquisitional questions would continue until the spark of more spontaneous conversation caught fire or the opposite took hold: silence. He often feared silence on these early encounters. He thought empty space in early conversations was often too morbid, and often led to the quick demise of budding possibility. He knew that it was all a matter of perspective. If he was talking to a woman who was more comfortable with silence than he, then early silence might not dampen so quickly the possibility of love—but invariably his own discomfort with conversational silence would leave him tongue tied whether he liked it or not—and once that happened, he had to disengage, get a drink, stand up and walk around. But sitting there staring at his hands wondering how to respond to his interlocutor was too much to bear. He kept looking over at the heavy man now eating his ice cream. I wonder if he saw me doing yoga with my yogaist. He must be wondering how I did it. With a body like that yoga must be all but impossible. Certainly, no one would sit down with him out of the blue and urge him to begin, what was it she was showing me? The Mountain Pose? No, he was too much mountain, too consumed with eating to do anything like the Mountain Pose. He looked at his watch. He’d been sitting here for hours. How long is it the yogaist has been gone?

Air Born

2008-05-06T22:51:00.011-05:00

Flickr Yushimoto 02

I’m a consultant, she said. A cursed job. 10 years ago when I took this job I thought it would be great to travel see the world. In ten years I’ve only seen the inside of hotel rooms, stinky conference rooms, and airport terminals where I’ve wasted more than my share of life. How does one live a life so long in aircraft terminals.

I agree.

You agree? How so.

I’m a consultant too.

You are!

She seemed genuinely surprised.

Yes, of course I am. What do you think I am?

I don’t know. You’re dressed like a surgeon or something. I saw you sitting here and couldn’t figure out why no one would sit next to you. And then I thought. why not. He seems like a nice guy. People just must be intimated. What do you think?

I don’t know. I wake every morning and examine my face in the mirror and I see nothing to disturb the soul other than I’m getting older. Where you headed?

Chicago for one, then down to Memphis.

Business?

We have a shop there but I’m not headed down there for business. In fact, I’m renting a car in Chicago and then me and a couple of girlfriends are headed on a pilgrimage.

Mecca?

Elvis Presley. Graceland. Have you ever taken a pilgrimage?

I’ve never been to Graceland if that’s what you mean?

But have you ever traveled anywhere just for the hell of it. Not to see the mountains or anything, but to visit some crazy place like Graceland.

I’ve been on one pilgrimage that I can think of. The Grand Canyon. Otherwise, no. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a pilgrimage.

Everyone goes to the Grand Canyon. That’s not a pilgrimage. That’s a right of passage. Part of what it means to be an American. I’m talking about going on a trip for the sake of nothing.

Then, no. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a pilgrimage. Unless you want to call all the useless places I’ve been to for my work a pilgrimage.

What’s funny. Me. I don’t even like Elvis Presley but I’m going to see where he died anyways.

I like Elvis. I mean some of it. I like the Sun Sessions. A lot of the other stuff I can do without.

What are the Sun Sessions?

Blue Moon, That’s All Right Mamma, Mystery Train. . .

Like I say, I don’t even like Elvis.

I’d sing for you, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t come out right.

Good. I hate public displays of singing. Karaoke drives me nuts. Do you like Karaoke?

No. Though I can’t say I have much experience with it.

What’s fun for the singer isn’t necessarily fun for the rest of the audience who has to endure it.

It gets you drinking I suppose.

I suppose.

If you don’t like Elvis, then why are you going?

Like I say, it’s a pilgrimage. My girlfriends and I are going for fun. Something to do. A piece of nonsense. Graceland seemed like the perfect nonsensical place to go. Who knows what it’ll be like. I might even find I like Elvis or that he’s still alive.

He was something else.

Yes.

My mother collected all things Elvis.

Hmph. That’s funny.

For her it wasn’t funny. She loved everything Elvis ever sang. Even all those awful Hollywood B-sides. She used to play those over and over. She loved the way he danced. I remember the day he died.

You do? I was hardly born.

Well, I was just a kid when he died. When did he die? Just after Ford pardoned Nixon or something? Or was it later than that? My mom. It nearly killed her. She thought the Colonel had something to do with it and she was upset he was never charged.

With what? Didn’t he overdose on drugs?

With negligence maybe. She thought that the Colonel was a poor steward of such talent as Elvis.

She sounds like a pistol.

Thankfully, she had her Hitler memorabilia to fall back on. And of course, Elvis’ death only drove up the value of everything she owned.

Oh. Another reason why I’m going to Graceland. . .

Tell me.

Because my girlfriend got it in her head to do this trip. She’s planning the whole thing. She teaches high school English where they make her teach Beowulf and Chaucer. She says Chaucer is all about a pilgrimage and so she wants to do one herself. There are all sorts of people taking pilgrimages these days. You could read about it on the internet if you want to.

He smiled at her. Then looked out the terminal at the snow falling.

Would you like to try another yoga position?

Do I have to?

Of course you do. As long as we wait here we may as well make the most of our time, don’t you think?

I don’t think.

You can even call it part of my pilgrimage. By the way. I have a journal and you should be forewarned. Everything you tell me may end up in my journal.

Have I told you anything? I don’t recall?

Yes. You told me your mother collects Hitler paraphernalia. I think that’s a little scary don’t you?

I would, I suppose, if she weren’t my mom. But she’s my mom. What can I say. We called her Sweet. And she was, sweet.

Where did you grow up?

Iowa.

Wow. That’s an incredible place.

Have you been there?

No. But I’ve always wanted to go there and see all the farms.

It’s nothing to look at believe you me.

There’s where I disagree with you. Every place is a place to look at. It’s the only attitude that has allowed me to survive so long in my business.

What shall we do next great yogaist.

May I recommend we bring metta into your life?

Metta?

It translates loosely as ‘loving kindness’.

Then by all means.

Here’s how you do it. Let me pull out a matt. You can do it with me on my matt. Okay, here.

You travel with a yoga matt?

Yes. It’s essential for my sanity. Now first you sit on your duff. Right here on the matt next to me. Go ahead.

I’m on my duff.

No. Get down here on the matt next to me. Like this.

Okay.

We’re going to try a very simple asana. Do you know what an asana is?

No.

It’s a yoga position. We’ll start with something simple that I think you might like. It’ll get your blood flowing a little bit which is a good thing. You get so bottled up sitting in an airport like this. The blood just curdles around the ankles.

I’ll say.

So here’s how. First take off your Crocs. It’s good you’ve got loose fitting clothes.

I do it to pass quickly through security.

Smart. Now sit with your back straight and touch the bottoms of your feet together.

I’m too old for this.

Give it a try anyways. No need worrying about being perfect. It’s good enough to be good enough. We can work towards perfection without worrying about achieving it.

Sounds like a good plan.

Okay.

Now first. This may sound strange but please just go along with me a moment if you will. I’m only trying to help.

I’m going along. I’m putty in your hands. Wood putty perhaps, but putty nonetheless.

We must learn to hold ourselves in the embrace of loving awareness. That’s ultimately what yoga is all about.

It seems so threatening all of this stretching.

It’s liberating, really. Trust me.

I see.

We have to set ourselves up in a receptive, nurturing posture. Do you think you’re ready for something like this?

For a what?

For setting yourself up into a receptive, nurturing posture?

Time will tell.

My favorite position to start is the Bound Angle Pose.

I already hurt just thinking about it.

It’s not that bad, believe me but we may need a little space so don’t be afraid. Ultimately, all that’s required is that you do a gentle backbend.

Okay.

Now what I want you to do is try to hold yourself.

Now I've got to hold myself?

Hold yourself. Try to hold yourself in an embrace of loving awareness. Do you know what I mean. Go ahead close your eyes and take notice, without judgment, of the emotional weather in your heart and the precise physical sensations that accompany it.

My heart feels like a clenched fist that's just gone fifteen rounds battering my opponent's granite jaw.

Ouch. That's a good place to start. But I want you to go to a place where the fist opens up into a hand that gives. Open the fingers of your heart one at a time. You have just gone fifteen rounds. I've taken the glove off your hand. Breath in. Breath out. I'm cutting the tape. Your hand-heart is bruised, but it's filled with love. Unclench what the hand holds and release the love it contains.

This is better than air travel.

You’re cute, she said.

Thank you. You’re the first person to tell me that in years.

I don’t believe it’s been that long a guy like you.

Are you trying to make emotional weather in my heart or focus my attention on it?

A little of both, maybe. Now. Do you find this matt comfortable?

Enough.

Good. Get down like this with your legs and arch your back gently, watch me. There you go, very impressive.

In wrestling we called this the bridge.

You’re good at it.

I’m a quick learner.

Okay, now let’s focus this intention. You can do so by uttering these metta phrases. Repeat after me: May I be peaceful and joyful.

May I be peaceful and joyful.

May my body be well.

Breath with me and say it again synchronizing your breath to the phrases.

May I be peaceful and joyful.

Peaceful and joyful.

May my body be well.

Body be well.

May my clenched fist open itself.

Clenched fist open.

May it release giving love.

Giving love.

Now hold it there and focus your attention on the physical: feel your aching hip joints, the pulse in your throbbing knees, undersand the burn around your exhausted eyes, and the fatigue of your tired brain. Now slowly let yourself go into a space of ease and well being. You are a bird. Remember? A red winged black bird. We are in a grassy meadow on the edge of the forest. The breeze is gentle, cool, and filled with the smell of clover.

* * *

He had been sixteen years old. He just learned how to drive and as a reward his parents decided on a road trip with him as the primary driver. They had taken a car trip from Iowa. He drove the whole way. Ames to Sedona. 1,500 miles. He’d had his license less than a week.

His father was anxious that they get there without a hotel because he didn’t want to spend money on the hotel. It wasn’t that he was cheap, only that he never had a lot of money. They lived a hand to mouth existence. What’s more the vacation was planned on a whim, and as such, his father tapped their bank account of what little reserves he had managed to save up the past few years. It wasn’t much, but a vacation was over due and the kid needed practice driving.

He was allowed to give up the wheel anytime he please, but if he wanted to, he could drive as far as he wanted. I’ll chase the sun, he thought, as it falls over the western rim.

Not long into the journey, his father had asked him if he wanted to change drivers, take a break.

No.

Suit yourself.

He was suddenly afraid that if he yielded the driver’s seat he wouldn’t get it back. He was also afraid that he would appear weak. He wanted so much to be strong, unbreakable like his dad, he wasn’t about to break down and hand over the wheel, so he drove at first with joy stinging his heart nearly eighty miles an hour down the straightway of I80 heading west and then with increasing fatigue and concern as the journey became more complicated once he got out of Nebraska and he realized without admitting it that all he wanted to do was take a nap and get some sleep.

He stayed in the left lane with his foot firmly on the gas pedal passing truckers also heading west. The first part of the trip was pure exhilaration. His father sat at his side, his mother in the back-seat. It had always been his father at the driver seat, his mother the passenger and he always drove in the back. But now he displaced his father, his father displaced his mother who had become in the position of the child. His father had never been voluble. He spent most of the trip his elbow hanging out the window, staring at the fields of corn, which gave way to pasture, and then mountains followed by desert. His father, when he talked, spoke of the land. “Wow, look at those fields,” he would say. Or, “That’s an awful lot of corn that farmer planted. It ain’t nearly as tall as ours back home, but they don’t have the rain that we do.” He guessed that his father spoke in a normal voice to keep everything calm in the car. He was certain his mother sat in the back seat in a quiet state of unrelieved panic. His father had asked him: “How does the car handle?” It was an honest question from one man to another. He took a moment to answer, and in measured tones he had said: “Drives nice.”

“It’s a good car.”

“Yes.”

“Pontiac makes a good car.”

* * *

Now get up and sit down. He tried to release himself from Bound Angle Pose but he felt stuck. Glued in place. His thigh muscles were burning as if shredded.

You're kidding me, he said. This is supposed to be relaxing. I've been twisted into a pretzle and I can't undo myself. Help.

She reached over and gently supported him as he moved out of his position. Her hold was firm and filled with care. She turned and looked at him. He smiled at her. Listen, she said. Do you mind doing me a huge favor?

Anything.

Can you watch my bags? I need to go to the bathroom. It's been hours since I.

Go. Go. Please, go. I'll watch your bag.

I'll be right back.

You better be right back or you'll be arrested for leaving your bag with a stranger.

Thanks.

With that she was off, across the walkway towards the bathroom and instead of dodging into the ladies room, she just kept walking until she was out of sight. She had a funny walk, he thought. He had seen nothing like it exactly. It made him nervous to see her walk away like that and sooner than he thought, she disappeared.

Air Born

2008-04-24T22:11:00.012-05:00

Paul Lithgow (Flickr)

Let’s do this again, she said. Are you ready?

I’m ready when you are.

Now that you see how it’s done, we’ll do 10 Mountain Poses. No rush, though. Follow me with your breathing and let’s take our time with this.

Okay. I’m game.

Close your eyes.

Closed.

Okay. Hands on hips. Pause. Up in the air. Pause. Deep breath. Bring your arms down. Slowly. Your head, touch it. You are touching home. Completing a circle. Now back down to starting position. And squat. Pause. Breath. Now stand. Again. Hands on hips.

****

He was happy all of a sudden. He felt joy in his heart, a smile breaking across his face. It amazed him how accidental and suddenly joy could grab hold of him. It was always around a woman, he thought. Not any kind of woman, usually it was with a woman who was more attractive than he thought he deserved but who nonetheless seemed keenly interested in him. In fact, he wondered if that could pass as his definition of happiness. He thought of Immanuel Kant and his Foundations to the Metaphysics of Morals which he was required to read as a college student. It had been so difficult to understand that book. He broke his head trying to make sense of it. In the end, what he walked away with was this simple phrase: Treat no person is a means to an end, but an end in themselves. It seemed an unattainable moral standard and frankly he didn’t know what the hell it had to do with happiness. He liked his definition better. It seemed more to the point and descriptive of the joy and cruelty he would discover in his life: Happiness is a woman prettier than you deserve who nonetheless takes a keen interest in you.

He remembers one particularly beautiful woman, Leanne. It hurt him now just to remember her name. He sat in her bathroom as she applied makeup. She wasn’t wearing clothes and she said under her breath: The only reason why you’re here is because you want to fuck me.

I missed that. What did you say?

Hmph. You know it’s true.

No.

Yes it is.

He denied it, but she was right. He had spent weeks working with her, desiring her—and then suddenly, this had come about.

It all happened in a moment. She called him one day to come over. She wanted to talk. She also needed some things moved around and would you mind helping?

Of course not, he said on the phone.

With address in hand, he sped across town hardly believing his luck, half-worried that that was all she wanted to do was talk and use him as her personal helper.

She needed some chairs moved from her basement locker onto her back porch. He carried them up for her, then dusted and cleaned them off. She also asked him if he would mind installing an air conditioner. He obliged her in this as well. Also, would you mind moving my couch so we can put the table there? She pointed with her finger and he moved the couch. He did it without complaint, in fact he moved her stuff and felt joy in his heart just to be near her. She even told him he was pretty strong.

They talked a while. Then she opened a bottle of wine. They sat on the back porch in the furniture he just moved and cleaned, watching the people pass in the alley below. A car with a broken muffler drowned out their speech, and left a cloud of exhaust that lingered in the air. A squirrel on a telephone wire was suddenly running away from a crow that was dive bombing it. He took it all in, and talked more compulsively than he should have. The subject of dinner came up. They went back and forth trying to decide—she didn’t have a lot of money just yet for reasons she didn’t want to go into. He said of course he’d pick up the tab. Money wasn’t a problem. Finally they agreed on a restaurant.

Hold on a moment, let me change.

He followed her into her apartment, the screen door slamming behind, and sat in her living room while she got dressed. He watched the evening sunlight darken against the wooden slats of her floor. He looked around hoping to understand something about her, but there wasn’t much to look at. A run-down couch, an old TV, a non-descript picture on the wall which was a satellite image of earth with the words, in jubulant calligraphy: The Blue Planet. Just then, he heard her call out. Hey, what are you doing over there. You don’t have to wait out there. Come on over here.

She called him into the bathroom—he walked quickly, almost stealthily.

She was applying makeup.

Sit.

He sat.

When I get stressed I like to relax.

He sat there on the tub worshipping her beauty unable to say what he wanted to say because what he wanted to say was beyond saying. He was speechless. Dumbstruck. Struck dumb. She stepped out of her clothes preparing to change. Without missing a beat, he kept to the particulars. What do you think of this person at the office? he asked. What do you think of this and that person?

She listened to him carefully, and nodded. She said this one was okay, that one she didn’t like too much.

How much longer do you think you’re going to work here?

I don’t know.

Why are you thinking of moving on?

I haven’t thought about it. Oh wait, maybe I have. Sure doesn’t everybody think of moving on eventually? You don’t want to get stuck working at a place like this forever believe me.

Seriously? he asked. He had never heard of anyone talking like this about his company. It surprised him. He just assumed he’d grow old at a job like this.

Of course you don’t want to get stuck. It’s a boring job, really. And not really all that remunerative. This is a dead end job, or a stepping stone. For me it’s the latter.

He became alarmed sensing that she was bored with the work-related questions. So he just shut up and sat there speechless watching her apply her makeup. Against his will, he started twiddling his thumbs. He felt he was sitting in the presence of something utterly unattainable. Her breasts were heartbreaking. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.

When she stepped away from the mirror she grabbed his hand and smiled.

You can deny the truth of what I just said, but your eyes can’t deny it.

What are you talking about?

You want to fuck me. Not talk to me. I can tell.

Not true.

Most guys would have said the opposite, she pointed out. You, however, just won’t say the truth of what you feel. But you don’t need to. I can see that you like me.

His heart sank.

I won’t hold that against you. Do you still want to do dinner?

Yes.

Then why don’t you stop babbling and eat me.

Oak Photos (Flickr)

Her bed, though small, seemed capacious. A veritable kingdom. She took gum she’d been chewing out of her mouth and stuck it to the wall. Her mattress lay on the ground, and though he should feel scrunched in lying next to her, he felt as if he occupied a wide open space. What was it Hamlet said? He tried to recollect: I could be bounded in a nutshell and consider myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams? But this was not a bad dream. It was just the opposite. He was having sex with an apparition and so like Hamlet under the sunny dream of Leanne, he was the king, or rather a prince of endless space. That was the joy of this, he thought, while she lay on the mattress his head crushed between her legs: it opens the mind. Another moment he thought: This is such a diversion from daily life where we can look but not touch, where we can think but not say. Here in this bed we are liberated to speak what we think, to do what we desire. To hold in our hands that which is real. This was a drug, he thought, and under the spell of it words were untethered from the great weight of duty that they were always tasked with: freighting meaning about to accomplish one thing or another. They were never let loose to say the unsayable: to speak the dream. But now, in her small bed he began dreaming in the lightest language he could dream: this wasn’t a bed but a great green lawn stretching to the horizon—on the lawn were scattered daisies and daffodils. It had been a wet spring. Magnolias were bursting in the night. Lilacs were on the bloom, there was jasmine in the air. Everything was green green and more green. No more of being nothing. This was something. He heard her sigh. He had made her sigh! There were kites in the sky. Redwing black birds twirred and twittered. A song was coming through the window—was it a flute that chased the melody? Impossible to say, he muttered as he plundered her. Impossible to say. And then she fell asleep. She was completely knocked out, or was she dead? No she was still breathing. He listened carefully trying to decipher meaning from her breathing. Was it an elated breath or a spent breath? He lay down next to her—his brain thrumming. He wanted to do it again, right now. But she was unconscious from sleep. He lay next to her wondering what all this meant. She lay dead asleep apparently at ease with what it meant. He always had to try to fit it all together. Did she imply she was leaving the company? Did she really pass out or was she faking sleep? Was this a goodbye or was she staying and somehow declaring her love for him by falling asleep like this? Why had she picked him? That was the most difficult point for him to understand. Sure he had desired her beyond imagining but he had never once expressed this desire. Maybe all she wanted was to talk and for him to move a few things. Maybe all along she had just wanted him to install her air-conditioning. He didn’t even know if she had a boyfriend. He assumed she didn’t, but he could have been wrong. Maybe she had never intended this. Maybe she grew impatient with the way I was looking at her. Maybe she just capitulated, gave up against the ferocity of my desire. I’ll never know, will I?

He lay awake until early morning then fell asleep embracing her. When she stirred, he came to life again and again he felt the world opening ever more expansively beyond. She took her shirt which lay near her bed, put it on and walked to the bathroom. He heard her pee. She took a shower. He got dressed. When she appeared again, she was more lovely and radiant than ever. She smiled at him and said: well, that was something.

Yes.

You’ll have to go, though. Someone, a friend is coming to visit at 8:30 this morning. He went over to her. Kissed her and then she politely led him to the door.

Thank you, he said.

For what? she asked.

Of course. For what?

He departed in a stupor and slept the whole day. He called her that evening to see how she was. He had waited because he wanted to give her (and himself) time to savor what had just happened. When she picked up the phone she explained she couldn’t talk because she was going to the movie with friends. He called again late that night but she didn’t answer. The following day he hoped to run into her at work but when he checked her schedule he saw she was sent off to Arkansas for the first part of the week, and Texas for the second part of the week. He knew from conversations with her that next weekend she was leaving for two weeks to vacation in Puerto Rico. He tried desperately to get a hold of her before she departed, but he had failed. When she returned to the office after a three week hiatus he was gone on weeklong sales call and he kept missing her. He assumed since he wasn’t getting her calls that that he was merely missing them. He kept checking the hotel phone—having the concierge ring his room—to make sure it worked. When he finally returned to the Chicago home office, he went to check her schedule and discovered that she was no longer with the firm. He drove to her apartment but she had moved out. No forwarding address was left. Who she was, where had she gone to, what did she do with the rest of her life, he never knew.

Once the stabbing pain of her absence subsided--it took years--the memory of being with her that afternoon, the light against the floor boards, the feeling of her body in his hands--it still thrilled him to think on it. It was a wonderful gift—this memory that she had given him. It was one of his finest possessions. It had become an end in itself, divested of person, it was a perpetual dream--a perfect space he could visit again and again. He called her name out: Leanne. And for this he felt a king, or rather a prince of infinite space.

Okay, the stately woman standing next to him said. He could tell she was a coach of some sort or another. Maybe she was a trainer. He opened his eyes and peeked at everyone scattered around the terminal No one seemed to notice him or care about what the two of them were doing. For all they knew she and I are life-long partners going through our stretches for the day.

One last time, she said. Hands on hips.

Hands on hip.

Hands up in the air.

Up in the air.

Deep breath.

Okay.

Now bring your arms down.

Coming down.

Slowly.

Okay.

Your head, touch it.

Touching.

You are touching home. Completing a circle. Now back down to starting position.

He went to starting position.

Now squat. Deep breath. Pause. Okay, stand.

When he stood up. She turned and smiled at him. They were smiling at each other. Who cares what happened some time ago in my life with a person who left me. It's about now, he thought. Not something I did with a woman named Leanne years ago. Time to live in the now. What a better time to start than now.

You’re a quick learner, she said. Her voice was pleasant. Complimentary.

Thank you.

I can also tell you’re easily occupied.

Yes, he said. All this waiting and now the yoga. It zones me out.

What are you zoning too, if you don’t mind me asking?

He didn’t mind her asking at all. It was a free world. Go ahead ask away.

Well what?

Well, he said. Unlike you and your method, I try and keep a blank mind when I meditate. So I was thinking of nothing at all.

LaVeta Jude (Flickr)

Air Born

2008-04-19T12:20:00.009-05:00

They stood there a moment and then she said as if not speaking merely to him but performing for the whole terminal:

You are standing on a branch. Perhaps you are a young bird with new feathers and the green world with it’s dandelions and clover and wild mysterious smells beckons. Close your eyes and I will narrate exactly what you see next.

Tweet.

Stop that and pay attention.

The smells. . .

Uggh. Please pay attention.

He tried not to pay attention. In fact, he was too frightened to pay attention. What will they all think of me now standing here like a fool? Doing what some crazy woman is telling me to do. Hey wait. Wasn’t she just sitting over there against that wall a moment ago? What’s she doing standing by me? I’ll call the authorities.

Okay, she said, in a brave voice that wasn’t quite as serious as she hoped it to be. The Mountain Pose. Put your hands on your hips please. He was impressed with how direct and. . . stately she was in this pose.

He put his hands on his hips in emulation.

Heels together.

He put his heels together.

Toes out.

Is this ballet or yoga?

Good question. Most men wouldn’t think to ask that. Let me guess you have a daughter.

No.

Good. But to your question: looked at from one angle, ballet and yoga aren’t all that different from each other but, from another, there are immensities between them. If this were ballet we’d be in First Position. But this is the Mountain Pose. Remember, we’re doing yoga.

Heels together, toes out. I’m in first position for Mountain Pose.

Good. Now hold it.

When do we get to do ballet?

Next time. Now close your eyes for this.

He stood next to her, glanced at her and she was staring back at him, patiently waiting for him to close his eyes.

Okay close your eyes please. . .

In my time. In my time, he muttered. Before he did so, he scanned the terminal. He noticed a man and a woman dressed in the uniforms of airline staff step behind the podium. How did one do a job like that day after day? he wondered. There must be some clique of airline workers, a society of friends, a camaraderie in this business that helps make the job endurable. If you worked in an airport there must be places where you went to unwind with other airport staff. He hoped those places weren’t in airports, but feared for them that they might be—the one or two cantinas scattered through airports serving margaritas and beer. He spent so much time in airports around these workers and yet he knew next to nothing about them. Airport workers were essentially invisible to him, just as he must be invisible to them. He hoped he was invisible, that he passed unnoticed. He always aimed to be unobtrusive. It wasn’t modesty, something closer to the humility he felt in the presence of others involved in their own work tasks. The two airline staff members were shuffling through some papers. He hoped it meant that there would be an announcement any moment of an impending departure so he could end his yoga lesson.

Close your eyes so you won’t be distracted. Please, if you want to do this right, you have to listen to me.

Suddenly, without further ado, he did as he was told and waited for an announcement that flights would resume any minute. He was tired, he wanted to go home.

His eyes were closed and he worried that again he would be asked to fall into himself as Rosemary had asked him to do, falling into himself to recount some miraculous moment that never happened in his forgotten childhood on a miserable, mostly fallow scrap of land called his childhood home in Iowa. He worried that he would be asked to let go—and the worry wasn’t so much that he’d be asked, but that he would disappoint when he said no. We are too soon together for disappointment to intrude. But sooner or later it always did, didn't it.

Who am I? he wondered. He stood vertical in an inviolate space, his eyes shut to the world, listening to a woman he didn’t know and all the ambient noise of the airport. Who am I and what am I doing acting like a fool in front of all these people? Be humble, and considerate. That’s the only way to be. We are here but briefly and then we are gone, no need to stir the pot more than it needs to be stirred. What if a customer of mine should suddenly appear at the terminal and see me standing here with my eyes shut preparing for Mountain Pose or First Position or what? What if others in this terminal suddenly saw me like this: how could they not suspect me of terrorism, or of collusion with a terrorist; how could they not look and worry that a malleable lunatic was in their midst? Is she a terrorist? Of course she isn’t. Wait, maybe she is. I’m terrified, he thought. He felt a tingle of fear ripple through his body. He couldn’t identify the source of the fear exactly but it was a combination of her and of him doing something not only out of character, but completely mad. If I were in my right mind I would tell her to go to hell, but it’s desperation making me do this. Desperation, loneliness and what? What is it that makes me obey? He was intrigued. Why not listen? Why let the setting of this gloomy place tamp you down? Follow your instincts. He remembers telling his colleague about the woman, Linda Looking Girl, he met at the bar, and how he fell under her spell: we only live once—why the hell not? It was a statement of fact and bravura. He normally was capable of the facts but less capable of bravura. With bravura comes sex. Do I really think I’m going to get laid like this? Does anyone ever get laid by a stranger in the airport? He’s traveled enough to have heard stories. Actually most of the stories he knew about people getting laid in airports came from paperback novels he had purchased at the airport. But he had never actually heard of anyone getting laid in an airport. The security was too tight. Where would we do it anyway? Am I speaking in the ‘we’, the ‘Royal We’ already? We’ve only just met, we’re just passing the time with a moment of yoga. Who said this was about we? What’s more, if it were about sex there was no where to hide with these crowds.

He remembers reading a book and one chapter was about a woman performing fellatio on a dude in the airplane’s toilet. It seemed plausible while he was reading it, a real page turner. He read it as if the page were transmitting holy fire: he laughed when the man came—the wonders of fiction, how it diverts the eye from the merely factual. He believed every word of it too. At least the probability of such a thing happening: sex on an airplane. But in retrospect the blowjob on a plane was obviously a fantasy. The airplane toilet is barely large enough for one—and how would you get two in it without someone noticing? So it didn’t happen, or if it did happen, it happened in an earlier more accommodating era of air traffic. Sex with an air stewardess used to be a common fantasy, he supposes. Much like sex with a nurse. Though sex with the nurse has deeper historical precedents (think all those wounded soldiers being nursed back to health) and will probably survive longer as a sex fantasy than sex with a stewardess. But this woman here is neither a stewardess nor a nurse, so what am I doing listening to her?

I’m weak, he thought. It’s my fundamental problem. I don’t know how to say ‘no’. Sure, I scare them away if they never say hello to me, but once they break the ice I do everything in my powers to be welcoming and pleasing. I can’t help it. At heart, I’m a curmudgeon, but in practice I’m the nicest guy you’ve ever met. In that way, I am a natural salesman. I’m perfect for my job, he thought. Better that I do what I do than something like what these other’s have to do: work in the airport. Always better to be passing through these airports than to have to actually work in one. What would it be like coming to this place day after day, greeting travelers as they prepare to take off for some distant place, and you’re stuck, always stuck in this job handling baggage or pushing a dust mop, or processing tickets and baggage or working security dealing with nervous, anxious, terrified customers?

Her voice is intimate all of a sudden. It speaks close to the lobe of his ear: You see a bird in flight. A moment ago the bird had been perched on a branch right next to you. You hear it’s wings flap, it’s off through the green maze of leafy branches flying. You follow the bird with your eyes and you can because it’s a red winged black bird. You follow the little blotches of red on its wing as it flies off into the green shadows of the forest. You watch it fly away and feel panic. You panic because the bird flying away from the nest is your mother. You don’t know if she’ll ever come back. There was something about the way she lured you out to the branch, then took off without feeding you a worm. Why did she lure you out without feeding you a worm? You’re too hungry. You start to scream for her and your voice comes out a chitter, a twir. You are a bird. Your wings are your arms, your hands on your hip. Now it’s your turn. You raise your wings over your head and reach for the open space beyond. You don’t know that she’s not going to return but there’s something about the way she left the nest encouraging you to step out on the branch with her—the ground, a tangle of growth and shrubs far below. Your instincts tell you if you don’t venture forth she’ll be gone forever.

You take off and as you fall you feel lift beneath your wings. It’s a miracle that you don’t fall but gather the wind beneath you and fly. You move your wings again and dart toward the open spaces ahead. Your reflexes are sharper than you imagined, navigating with sudden twists and dips, avoiding the branches and leaves. You follow your heart and find yourself in an open clearing and you land on the ground. Wow that was fun, you think. That was the most wonderful, the most exciting thing you’ve ever experienced and you’re just a young bird. How wonderful to be a bird. The first day of flight. It’s like discovering gold. What fortune—this flight! What joy lie ahead!

She interrupts: I know this is yoga. I know you’re supposed to clear your mind and all that. But I always say, if I’m going to meditate I’m going to do it my way. I like to tell myself stories. Most often I imagine I’m in some crazy wilderness. Today, we just happened to be red winged blackbirds taking off on our first day of flight. Wasn’t that fun? If you look across the grassy field you’ll see me watching you. Tweet.

Tweet.

He lowered his arms to his side and sighed. It was a happy sigh. He felt mildly exhilarated. Not by the yoga but by the company of this woman.

Wasn’t it fun? she asked.

It was fun. I felt I was a bird flying. What could possibly be more fun?

He opened his eyes and smiled brightly at her. He felt strange, but okay with feeling strange.

Now you can thank me, she said.

I will.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you for getting me to move around and stretch my wings.

You’re welcome.

Do you feel better now?

I do.

Tweet.

Air Born

2008-04-09T22:14:00.017-05:00

He often had the luck of the empty seat on the airplane. His routine was to show up early enough to get a good spot in the line to determine seat position. Since he was an experienced business traveler, and also, since his company refused to fly him business class despite the amount of air travel he did, he’d invariably trained himself to be one of the first people at the terminal and one of the first in line to claim a seat. When he had the opportunity, he picked a seat near the front of the plane. First on; first off, was his philosophy. He also thought it was a slightly quieter ride in front of the wings rather than behind them where there was so much draft and engine hum. Also, he didn’t like the foot-traffic to the toilet at the back end of the plane where lines of anxious people who waited to go to the bathroom tended to collect. If, while boarding, he happened to find an emergency exit with extra leg room near row nine or ten, so much the better. He liked to claim an aisle seat so he could roam about in the aisle as needed once airborne. An aisle seat also gave him an opportunity to stretch his legs when the aisle was clear. He seldom brought carry-on luggage beyond a laptop so over-head storage bins weren’t an issue. Once he settled in, he’d intently watch the rest of the crowd from the terminal usher onto the plane.

There were always two seats to the left or the right of him depending on which side of the plane he occupied, and he’d look carefully at the faces of the people boarding the plane trying to guess who in this lineup would sit down next to him. He was a big enough guy, broad in the shoulders with just the hint of an intimidating face, to discourage anyone to settle down next to him. And in fact, people didn’t settle down next to him. Only after the plane became crowded and a call for filling last seats went out would someone ask if the window seat were available. Of course a window seat is available, suit yourself. As the plane became ever more crowded and the call from the steward became ever more insistent, other empty seats on the plane would be filled, but never his. He never quite knew why he had the luck of the empty seat, but suspected that his face with a natural scowl and the broad shoulders was part of it. At the last moment someone might sit down next to him, but more often than not if only one or two seats were left available on the plane, one of those vacant seats would be next to him. It happened with such regularity that he likened it a law related to his physical being and presence. I’m mildly feared, he thought. Nothing wrong with that certainly, especially if it provides me with a little extra space on the plane. If the space next to him were finally taken, he noticed it was most often taken by a woman who usually was under twenty five years of age and who, once seated next to him, kept to herself or if she chose to speak often addressed the passenger in the window seat. I’m a nice guy, he thought. I couldn’t be nicer or more gentle. Those who get to know me realize this, but those who are unaccustomed to me appear to be afraid of me.

The same laws applied in the terminal as well. Usually, no matter how crowded the terminal, there was always at least one seat available either to the left or the right of him. Despite the crowded terminal and the long uncomfortable wait, the seat next to him had remained empty. He was grateful for the empty space. He was against blocking seats with a bag or a jacket and he did nothing to deter fellow passengers from sitting next to him, nevertheless this seat remained open and free. No one had even inquired about its availability. He thought to offer it to one elderly lady who was loaded down with luggage and looked as if she might drop dead any moment, but her scanning eye caught a free seat near the priest and she shuffled her luggage there.

The seat adjacent to the priest had probably remained open because he was a priest, or so the man reasoned, and the terminal was probably filled with more than a few lapsed Catholics who might be a bit shy of the priest not to mention the certain number of folks that must harbor animosities to the Church in the wake of the Scandal. It was a terrible thing to witness—the isolation of the priest, the reduction of Church membership. In his youth, the Latin Mass was in its final efflorescence and priests were revered. He himself remembers being an alter boy—an acolyte—with red and white vestments. The goal was always to stay awake long enough to ring the bells at transubstantiation. If only we could be transubstantiated, how wonderful that would be. He’d take his transubstantiation right now, without further ado. It had been a fantasy of his—being, not just an angel, but a fully incarnated angel rising on spires (what is a spire anyway) towards heaven. It beats this type of flight any day. No waiting around in airports. Oh, he’d probably be laughed at by the priest if he joked about being transubstantiated. At the very least, he’d be shooed away.

That’s what he remembers from his days as an acolyte: being shooed away by the priest when he attempted to peer into the Church’s golden tabernacle where the communion wafers and wine chalice were held. Body and blood of Christ. Amen. The words still nearly trembled upon his lip. In an act of reflexive memory he bowed his head and nearly said a prayer. What would I pray for at this point in time? He wished he had something to pray for. Oh sure, he had plenty to pray for. Too much. That’s why he wasn’t sitting next to the priest. He felt guilty at all the years that had lapsed by and still no confession, no amelioration of sin, no intercessor speaking on his behalf to clear his soul. One day I’ll do that though, he thought. I’ll go to Church—preferably one with a Latin Mass—which incidentally he had read in USA Today was making a comeback. I’ll go to the Latin Mass. I’ll confess my sins behind the closed doors of a traditional confessional. I’ll light a votive candle for my maternal ancestors and I’ll donate a large sum to a Catholic charity.

What were my sins? My chief sin, he thought, must be that of hypocrisy. He remembers as a child reading all about hypocrites. He didn’t understand what they were, and still doesn’t quite grasp the concept but he surely must be a hypocrite. If not a deadly sin, hypocrisy was still high up on the chart. He watched the lady, stumbling, shuffling off to the priest. Good for her. It must be some consolation to the priest as well to have that elderly woman sit down next to him in semblance of close confidentiality, almost supplication, he thought. She assumes the posture of a supplicant. He mustn’t feel so much a pariah with her by his side. Too bad about that. About the priests and what’s become of them nowadays always in the news for the wrong reasons. The old lady was so tired she looked as if she might drop her head on the priest’s shoulder and expire. Instead she merely yawned and stared blankly at her worn out shoes. He noticed her eyes were heavily mascaraed and her soft wrinkled cheeks were delicately powdered.

The seat adjacent the man had remained vacant not because he was a cast-off or pariah, but because of what he represented. In this way, he was not unlike the priest. Others had warily eyed the seat next to him, but then, upon seeing him, they moved on to a different position in the terminal. It confirms my feeling again and again, he thought. I’m part of the business class not to mention my size, my age and my sex: I'm a man. I just naturally intimidate and so people refuse to fill the seat next to me. This is why I won’t walk around the terminal even though my bladder is starting to give me problems. I don’t want to lose this empty space next to me. It’s an unasked for perk that comes with grooming and presentation. How else explain it? He looked around him and saw everybody else suffering in the over-crowded space. No one had any elbow room, but he did. The plane was already two hours late and the snow fell without abating. It could be several more hours of sitting here so best enjoy the space while you have it. In fact, he hadn’t notice any planes landing or taking off in the past 90 minutes or so. He wondered how long he could hold off on a bathroom break. He shouldn’t have had that large coffee. He was dehydrated too, and if he remained dehydrated too long a head-ache might follow. He hated being under hydrated and yet airports just seemed to dry you out. It was a terrible thing what the air in airports did to you. More often than not it made you sick, or if not sick—ill tempered.

Just as he was starting to feel gratitude for the empty seat next to him, a woman threw her bags on the ground near his feet—the baggage bumped his leg and forced him to re-orient his position on the seat. He felt compromised all of a sudden and a tad upset. This is where it all starts. Compromise here and it’s all down hill. Before you know it you’ll be a pretzel twisted in a space that’s already too small for a natural grown man. He nudged the bags slightly so they wouldn’t intrude into his zone and he lifted his eyes to the perpetrator.

Excuse me, she said. She had walked in as if in a hurry and was all out of breath—though he could swear he had just seen her a moment ago sitting on the floor near the other end of the terminal. She was very tall, almost stately—why are women ‘stately’ he wondered and men just tall? And yet, looking up at her, sensing a force greater than himself—he couldn’t quantify her size any more appropriately. She threw her hair back and sat down next to him with an oomph.

She was wrapped up in a parka. She was wearing Ugg boots. He never liked the things and he thought they were only half appropriately named. Their full name should be ‘uggly’. She wore her elastic hair band around her wrist, and started flicking her hair out of her face and throwing it back. When she shifted in her seat and bumped into him, he glanced briefly at her expecting some apology but none was offered. She immediately put herself in yoga position. Then turned and smiled at him.

I saw you trying to do yoga. I do yoga too.

I was doing yoga? he blurted. When was I doing yoga?

A moment ago I saw you.

Oh come off it.

You were! You know I’m right!

He looked quickly at the beautiful woman talking on the phone across from him and worried that this sudden social encounter might somehow handi-cap him in her eyes. As of yet, she hadn’t even lifted her head to notice. He tried to be brief and dismissive as possible.

You aren’t right. You’re wrong.

You need to work on your flexibility though, she told him.

I wasn’t doing yoga.

You had your legs crossed and your hands on your knees. We call that Half Lotus.

You’re kidding, right.

No. I believe you’re kidding me. The way you tried to fold your feet into your lap is yoga.

I was only doing that because of the cramped quarters not because I’m some sort of yogaist. For a moment he debated if he should tell her he clicked his Crocs 3 times and said: there’s no place like home.

You don’t have to be a yogaist to practice yoga.

Well I wasn’t practicing yoga.

I saw you.

Hmph.

I noticed you doing the Mountain pose. You were doing it crudely, but you were doing it.

I was doing no such thing.

I was sitting right over there watching you in broad daylight. You put your hands on your hips then you reached for the sun. Only you can improve your method. Here let me show you how. I’m not an expert, but here. Stand up.

No thank you.

Please stand up. Don’t ignore me. DO as I say. She removed her parka and was wearing a tee-shirt underneath. On the tee-shirt was the silhouette of a mountain and a man climbing it. It reminded him of the Woodsman. How uncanny, he thought. Does she know what I’m thinking to be wearing a tee-shirt like that. She smiled at him and offered her hand. Please stand up. Let me show you how to get more from your Mountain pose. She reached for his hand, and as soon as he felt her hand in his he didn’t know what else to do. Something inside of him that had been rigid for a very long time, yielded. He smiled at her and did as she said: he got up.

Thank you.

No.

Thank you.

Don’t thank me until you do this.

Okay. I’m ready.

Here watch me.

Air Born

2008-04-02T19:21:00.010-05:00

ONLY THE PIMP WEARS A GREEN SHIRT. What the hell does that mean? he wonders. Is it the name of a band? A song lyric? A statement of revolt? Or a statement of fact? He does his best not to show alarm. He looks carefully at the boy who seems humorless, a bit dangerous, and wonders who is raising this child. Who could possibly be raising a child wearing a shirt that essentially says, I am a pimp? Does a 12 year old really know what a pimp is? Can a 12 year old know such a thing? He looked at the boy and was half-tempted to ask him if he indeed knew what a pimp was. More interesting, on second thought, would be to discover whether the kid knew who the current president was or could he, say, identify the 50^th state? He imagined the boy launched into the world with the label ‘pimp’. Once labeled a pimp where does one have to go but up? Was up possible though, under the conditions?

No, he said to the boy.

No, what?

No. I’m not giving you a dollar.

Please.

He said please! Impossible to believe such a kid could be possessed of manners.

No.

Thank you anyways, sir. Have a nice day.

With that the boy was off.

Was it some sort of joke? A prank to send a boy to him asking him for a dollar? Was the green shirt part of the prank? He looked over to the man next to him who was now reading the Wall Street Journal. He seemed not to have noticed. He was oblivious; locked in his own world of thought. The woman on the cell phone, beautiful though she was, didn’t seem to notice either. She had her own pressing concerns gossiping with some other soul at the other end of the wireless signal. Towers punched into the landscape from one end of the country to the other broadcasting what? An enormous cacophony of blab. Who knows, with a mother like that, he thought, her kid may end up wearing the same green pimp shirt as well in a few years. Across from him was the fat man who was snoring so much his goiterous throat moved in and out like billows shaking to the compression of a mighty squeeze. What was it that woke you up in the middle of the night? Apnea. Yes. He must be one of those who suffers from sleep apnea—the curse of the overweight. The priest was off staring out at the tarmac and thumbing (was it nervously?) a Rosary. Hail Mary full of grace save our plane from catastrophe. Then there were the two young lovers playing with the I pod. He looked over his shoulder to see if the young lady’s tattoo—bounding infinitely around her navel, looping around her bare midsection and coiling around buttocks to her tailbone—was still exposed. When he turned he noticed the tattoo girl was gone. As was the boy. Gone! They were both gone. A sudden disappointment welled up in his heart. He felt breathless all of a sudden. Perhaps I am attracted to her a bit, he thought. I’m attracted to her youth. Her future. Her. . . her. Oh, he didn’t want to admit what he was attracted to. But they were gone and in their place sat an Asian couple—Chinese? Korean? he couldn’t say, though he suspected Korean. They were watching a portable DVD player that showed the Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Oh great, he thought. Let’s watch one catastrophe that befalls a ship—and then what? Will we be tempting fate? Will the Titanic’s catastrophe presage our own, our plane scaling the billowing snow storm only to suffer a bird strike or too much ice on the wings and return spiraling downward in a plume of fire? He had read somewhere or overheard in a conversation that James Cameron’s Titanic had been banned from domestic in-flight video showings precisely because it was a metaphor for what might happen to those on the plane watching it. He can almost hear the stewardess saying: There will be no disaster movies on this airplane, lest we tempt the gods.

He watched the pimp boy trudge off. He didn’t trudge exactly; he walked quite calmly and a little swiftly away. The nerve of him, the man thought: to stand there like that and beg him for money. He followed the boy with his eyes crossing the broad walkway until he disappeared into the men’s room which was kitty-corner and just down the way from the gate. He kept his eye on the men’s room entrance to wait for the boy to emerge. He must be working for someone, he thought. There must be somebody putting that kid up to pan-handling. Someone who makes him wear that offensive shirt as well. In this circumstance, who’s the pimp? He wondered if he should report the kid to the airport authorities. Who were the airport authorities exactly? he wondered. He hated the word authority, and yet in cases like this shouldn’t the authorities be consulted? He wished at that moment that he was traveling with someone. This is a case—and he felt it more and more often these days—where he saw something that he wished he could share with someone. Only he never had anyone to share his observations with. I wish, he thought to himself, I had someone to travel with from time to time. All of this traveling alone, and living alone is not healthy. Whom do I share my adventures and observations with? Worse, no one had committed to sharing their observations and intimate thoughts with him. It was too singular a life not to have someone to share it with. He felt the poignancy of the loss—was it a loss if you never had it to begin with?—of not having a companion. If he had a companion, he would lean over and secretly point the boy out. What do you think that was all about? he would inquire. Why do you think he came up to me like that? Why was he wearing such a shirt? And what does it mean? ONLY THE PIMP WEARS A GREEN SHIRT. Isn’t it all so alarming. And his companion, he imagines a woman with a commensurate world view—possibly his same age—agreeing with him on this point. Yes alarming, she might say. I wonder if we should consult the authorities.

I hate to consult the authorities, I never liked the authorities.

Nor have I. Yet under the conditions, a boy running around with a shirt like that asking for money, it’s disturbing to say the least.

I’ll say.

Who knows. He disappeared into the men’s room. Maybe he was soliciting sex? Maybe he’s not the pimp. Maybe he’s the prostitute.

Disgusting.

Yes.

Then why did he approach me? Do I look like someone who would be interested in having sex with a boy? I don’t think so.

Nor do I. At this she might laugh. I don’t see it either, but who knows what that kid is doing or seeing or why he picked you to approach and not someone else.

Like that priest for instance.

Like the priest, she might say, laughing at his joke. There must be a reason he clutches that Rosary so.

I thought it was because he was worried the plane might go down or praying that it might finally show up.

It may be, on the other hand, that he knows about the boy and is praying for the strength to resist temptation.

Yes, he thought, the strength to resist temptation. Life was filled with temptation. Just then, the boy emerged from the men’s room. His hair appeared to have just been washed. It was wet and combed back. His shirt was turned inside out. He strode over to the pedway, and instead of getting on the walking surface, he jumped up on the hand rail and rode it all the way to the end like a disenfranchised adolescent. When he got to the end he jumped off and rode the hand rail back in the opposite direction. Occasionally he looked over at the man and smiled. The man found this more alarming than he could say. He dropped his head to his hands and tried to compose himself. With my luck, I’ll probably end up getting seated next to this miscreant. That’s the problem with all this waiting, he thought. People get stir crazy and when people get stir crazy anything can happen.

He thought back to Rosemary. He smiled at the thought of her all the sudden. If she were here, she would be my companion. Her bad back would make this situation difficult, but still she would somehow laugh through the whole thing. It'd be interesting to know what she would make of all this. She was always filled with so many wonderful observations. It’s too bad things never worked out between us. He now wishes that they had worked out. In retrospect, he thinks he liked her more than he thought he did at the time. I was foolish to let her go. I didn’t let her go, let’s face it. She moved on because she saw better than I did that we were ultimately incompatible. We weren’t incompatible, he thought. We were a match. When we were in synch there was nothing like us. She even said so herself. She was fond of looking him in the eyes and telling him that she saw her own genetic past staring right back at her. You and I are more alike than you think, buster, she liked to say. We must have ancestors in common. We’re part of the same tribe. I feel it in my bones when I’m with you, like I’m home at last. He would smile and say, au contraire. He could be flippant about her affections because he didn’t feel it as strongly as she did and when he seemed most heartless she would very warmly, though sadly push him away and say: it’s too bad you don’t see it. It’s too bad you don’t understand. He never protested this. He didn’t see the need, and his silence seemed to confirm a truth. She was right. He didn’t understand, and it was too bad.

He understands now, though. Hell, he understands only too well. Was I born to be an idiot and miss it, he thought. What was I thinking? I felt so distracted at the time. What was I distracted by? I was distracted by her. I couldn’t quite understand her energy level. She was so rich with emotion, so vibrant with laughter. He never got over the suspicion that he didn’t merit her attentions.

He’d like to contact her now and let her know that he finally gets it. They were compatible in a weird, though sensible way. He did feel the way she did, he was only slow to realize it. It was a time bomb that just took a little longer to go off for him than for her. She should understand that it might take him longer to get it. She always used to sigh because he was so damn cool, emotionally.

I don’t get you, she would say. Her exasperation was real.

What don’t you get? I’m as simple as a light bulb.

Maybe one that is turned off or dead. But I wish sometimes you might turn on. Some

light inside of you.

He could contact her when he got back to Chicago and remind her of this conversation. Tell her that he has finally turned on and now he gets it. The problem is she is too far gone from him. . . . moved on to other cities, other partners. Was she married? Did she have kids?She wanted kids. She was convinced that they would have beautiful kids. Where was she living? He had lost track. It was irresponsible to do so and now he wouldn’t know how to find her even if he tried. It serves him right. They had ended their relationship just before he had taken this job and the travel had made it easy for him to get beyond the emotional loss. It was nice to always be gone and not risk seeing her about in the neighborhood. One day he heard from someone, he doesn’t remember who, that she had left for Brooklyn. That was the last he knew of her whereabouts. And frankly, she could be anywhere. Even Anchorage, he thought.

Now, with all the years of travel between them he felt empty. I’m hollow. I’ve become. My life is. I feel so. ‘Useless’, is the word that came to mind and it wasn’t a jingle or a mantra. I wish she were here by my side as I wait for my plane. I wish I could talk to her right now. Not just about that boy wearing the crazy shirt, but about so many things. I wish I could tell her about how my client’s son Ricky has leukemia and how I’m contributing to his health care program. If Rosemary and I were together it would be a donation that could be made in both of our names. Instead, he kept the donation anonymous. He didn’t want his client to think that he was contributing to win over his business. He had met Ricky one day on the golf course. He and his client were golfing and his son came along. It was a beautiful summer day. They were on a golf course overlooking the Cape. Ricky was just growing his hair back after a go around with chemo. He remembers Ricky being funny as hell. There were seagulls flying over the golf course and Ricky was making all sorts of jokes about the birds and leukemia. Death and dying and laughter were in the air that day. The kid seemed smart beyond his years. He and his client were laughing so hard at the kid’s jokes they couldn’t finish 18 under 120. How old was that kid? No older than this one here with the porn shirt. He looked over at the kid riding the pedway hand-rail, but he was gone. Moved on to other stranded travelers. He didn’t hold it against the kid that he was wearing the green shirt. It was merely a sign of the times. Pornography was everywhere. But my god, he’d do anything in the world to see his client’s son survive. He laughed at the thought then stared back at the woman talking on the cell phone waiting for her to lift her eyes.

Air Born

2008-03-26T17:49:00.006-05:00

sunset by Ivano Mak (Flickr)

He hoped he’d make it to Chicago tonight, though with the weather conditions such as they were, snow and more snow, he worried. He’d been held up many times in the past. He’d missed his flight several times even this past year—his batting percentage on this account wasn’t bad, though. He figured he was 95% on time to the airport. Occasionally he showed up late. He had either under-estimated the traffic and distance to the airport, or the lines of people waiting to be processed at the ticket counter or the security gate. He didn’t have any strategy for dealing with the long cues winding through the rope corrals: all the people gathered around like cattle at the gate waiting for the final destination. He couldn’t stand in these lines without thinking from time to time of cattle at the slaughterhouse and whenever he thought of cattle being rounded up for the final call he was so saddened by the dire inhumanity of man towards beast he vowed to give up meat forever. On the other hand, the great machinery of animal death would occur with or without his participation and as long as he had cravings for hamburgers and steaks it didn’t seem likely he would ever really forgo meat. He’d even dated one or two vegetarians in his life. He’d dated a teetotaler as well. This last category was the most difficult to get used to. He wasn’t a heavy drinker but he liked to have a beer or two in the evening. He even liked wine—especially if he was expensing it, and once in a while, on a special occasion he enjoyed a drop of whiskey. He feared whiskey, worried that he liked it too much, that it might unloosen his tongue, and once unloose who knows what things he might be capable of uttering. That being said, he liked a drop of whiskey per night and the idea of dating someone who didn’t drink at all seemed to him like an untenable match.

He once dated a woman who ‘foreswore’ alcohol—that was her exact word:

I forswear alcohol.

What do you mean? he had asked her. They were at a restaurant on their first date and with wine list in hand he asked her what she preferred: a cabernet or a zinfandel.

To which she responded: I forswear alcohol.

He thought she was joking or that he had missed her meaning under the conditions of the strange locution.

You what?

I forswear.

You swear?

No. I forswear. They’re two different words.

Okay, since I never heard anyone use that word ‘forswear’, you’ll have to excuse me.

Well, there you have it. We won’t be needing any wine this evening because of my forswearence.

Did she really say ‘forswearence’? he wondered. It’s possible. She had said quite a bit of things in the brief time their tryst had lasted.

For instance, not long after she used the word ‘forswearence’, she had asked him to ‘ball’ her.

Excuse me?

They had been standing outside his car and he fumbled for the keys. They had just finished their dinner and he had had a couple of whiskeys. Under the conditions he didn’t trust his ears. He worried he was hearing things that weren’t being said. She stood next to him her body pressed to his. He remembers a warm west wind blowing against his cheek—it was the green air of spring—and against the opposing cheek was her cheek. She must have been on her toes for she was considerably shorter than he, if he remembers correctly. He looked down at her or caught her eye, looking askance at her wondering if he heard what she said.

Yes, she said, grabbing him. You heard me. I want you to ball me.

You want me to ball you? he asked, looking at her and still fumbling for the keys. When he finally got the door open, she slid into her seat. He walked around the back of his car and couldn’t decide whether to be happy about this latest, unexpected turn of events or whether to be frightened. Who do I have on my hands here? he wondered.

Who did he have on his hands?

Her name was Linda. At least that’s what she told him. He immediately nicknamed her “Linda Looking Girl”. In retrospect it seems foolish to have named her that, but under the conditions—romantic love, it was the best he could do to express how he felt about her. He had met her at a club, La Jolie, just a couple of nights earlier. At that point she hadn’t forsworn alcohol. She was every bit as drunk as he. It was long beyond midnight—they slouched together in a chair, their faces intimately close as they spoke above the music. I like you, she was saying above the music.

You what? he shouted back over the music unable to grasp what was being said.

I like you because you seem to understand me.

I what?

You understand me.

It seemed impossible. He even said so.

Impossible.

No, it’s true, she reassured him. He revisited this point several times in the ensuing years to try and make sense of it.

You understand me. And yet what did this understanding consist of? A willingness to stare unblinkingly into her eyes as she rattled on about one thing or another he couldn’t possibly comprehend: partly because he was drunk, partly because he couldn’t hear everything she was saying, partly because he flat out didn’t understand a word she was saying? Or did this understanding consist of his willingness to bend closely to her face—both of them strangers to each other, yet suddenly intimately close as if they had been together forever. In fact she had even said: I feel like I’ve known you forever even though we just met. You remind me of Mickey Rourke.

Of who? he worried she’d said, Mickey Mouse.

Mickey Rourke.

Who was Mickey Rourke, he searched his memory, and just as it failed she helped him.

Rumble Fish. You remind me of Mickey Rourke in the movie Rumble Fish? Have you seen this movie?

A waiter came by and deposited two more drinks on the table next to where they were sitting. He fished his wallet out for cash, and went back to smiling at her.

Do you know this movie, Rumble Fish? It’s my favorite movie.

As a matter of fact, he did know the movie and he told her so.

Yes. It’s one of my favorite movies. Matt Dillon and. . .

Mickey Rourke! That’s who you remind me of. You have something that he has. The way your eyes are hooded, the way you talk. You don’t seem to care what goes on around you. You’re a shaper of the situation you’re in. Not a mere participant.

What?

Not a mere participant. I like that about you.

After this comment they started to make out. Why not? What did he have to lose? Or as he later told a colleague of his who was semi-interested in his personal life: You only live once, right? So when she told me I reminded her of Mickey Rourke what was I to do but kiss her. I tried to act like that Rourke guy as much as possible. I found myself trying to think like him. What would Mickey Rourke do in a situation like this? It was crazy, but if that was my calling card with Linda Looking Girl then I was going to play the part as much as possible. So when we were sitting there, I asked myself: what would Mickey Rourke most likely do in a situation like this and it was at that point I kissed her, right there in the club all these people around. It was surreal.

Even so, at least in sober moments, he was never the type to enjoy public displays of affection. His comment to himself upon seeing young lovers necking in a coffee shop or on a park bench was invariably, find a hotel room, or: can’t you at least do that in the privacy of your own car? Now that he was drunk, it was after midnight and her beautiful eyes had beckoned him across an alcoholic haze, he thought why not participate in this act of public sexuality? He closed his eyes, put his face near hers. He inhaled her perfume which was so lovely it nearly made weep. The wonders of womanhood, he thought. Her hair was soft in his hands, he put his hand behind her head and drew her towards him. They dueled with their tongues and pressed lips. A moment later she was in his lap, and he was slumped back in the lounge chair frantically making out as if catching up for lost time. Who knows how much time passed while they made out—a minute, an hour—but it was if he was born for the first time. He felt himself coming alive. A moment later—disbelief, terror—a friend was dragging her away and she was gone out the door. Rescued. What just happened? he wondered. His lap was still warm from her body. The scent from her hair lingered in the small intimate space just beyond him. He pulled a long dark strand of hair from his mouth and frowned. He looked around: the debris and chaos of the drunken night was manifest when the bartender suddenly turned the lights on and made the announcement: Last call. It all seemed so garish all of a sudden. Who was she? Why did she leave? Where had she gone to? A moment later and she was there in front of him again with her phone number on a napkin. Call me tomorrow, she said. She kissed him one more time, he reached for her hair, smelled it again as if to remember her and she was gone.

Now here he was with her on a date. And I want you to ball me was still rattling around in his brain. What sort of locution was that coming from a woman? he wondered. The dinner had been mediocre and he worried his breath smelled of garlic and whiskey.

He got in the car and no sooner did he sit in the car seat then they resumed the position they had found themselves in two nights earlier at the bar. She straddled him, and he reached with his hand and noticed a hole in the crotch of her panties. Was it an accident, he wondered, or had she planned this? A moment later and her panties were off. Another moment and she was on her seat and he was in her mouth. He couldn’t believe what was happening. It was a late summer night, the sun had gone down but there was still magenta, lavender and orange hues sparking on the rim of the horizon. Details popped out at him: how shiny the maple leaves looked in the shadowed night of early spring, a red winged black bird perched in the notch of a tree twirred, a donut half-eaten and folded up in a Dunkin Donuts napkin lay next to a garbage can. People passed by on the sidewalk and seemed not to notice, or if they did notice he tried not to notice them noticing him and what she was doing to him. If he knew this is how events would have unfolded he would have planned it differently, he thought. He tried to imagine Mickey Rourke in Rumble Fish. Who was this Mickey Rourke guy? and how strange all of a sudden that he should play Mickey Rourke in someone else’s fantasy: a role for which he of all people seemed ill suited to see the least. But wasn’t she also a part of his fantasy, even as he remembered her now waiting in the airport terminal snow falling on the tarmac? He remembers her yellow cotton skirt hiked up just over her waist and the beautiful curve of her hip bending into the deepening shadows of the car. She was so small she could kneel crouched up on the seat with room to spare. Later he would discover the memento of her panties crumbled under the passenger seat and he would drive around town for an hour not knowing what to do with them.

He had come sooner than he had planned. It dripped off her nose like. . . expectorant. It was an accident, he explained and with that he started to laugh. He stepped outside of some role he had tried on and became himself all of a sudden. She was upset because some it got on her dress and in her hair. He might have survived the evening had he not laughed. He couldn’t help but see the situation as comical, and with that, the erotic moment had passed. It was the whiskey, he thought. The damned whiskey.

Why are you laughing at me? she asked. Why? Why? What is so goddamned funny! You ruined my dress!

It was a reasonable question. Certainly Mickey Rourke would not have laughed in such a situation. He felt somehow as if he had disappointed her. In his imaginings—when he dreamed of being with a woman—he never imagined disappointment. But in his real life disappointment always lurked just around the corner. Disappointment was like the light that had been turned on at the bar just two nights earlier as the bartender announced last call. The diverted eye was redirected to the chaos and debris of the fallen objects all around.

Take me home immediately, she directed.

She put her clothes back on, folded her arms and stared moodily out the window as he drove her the few miles back to her apartment. At a stoplight, she pulled a tissue out of her purse and furiously tried to wipe herself off. He had her phone number still. He would call her in a day or two to see if she’d like to give this one more try. In the meantime, he’d just keep his mouth shut. As he pulled up to her apartment, she quickly got out of her car and ran, little steps, in her heels to the gate of her complex. He noticed suddenly that she was more beautiful than he had realized and with that he drove away.

* * *

A boy of twelve years (5^th grade?) stood suddenly in front of him with his hand out. He asked for a dollar. He was wearing a green shirt that said:

ONLY THE PIMP

WEARS

THE GREEN SHIRT

Air Born

2008-03-12T22:49:00.028-05:00

photo by rabataller (Flickr)

He crossed his legs in Buddha position, closed his eyes and started to meditate. For a moment, a small gap of time, he may have meditated. He felt for a moment he was letting go. Only let go, he thought, and the time will disappear. He stared off into a web of feelings and began navigating, wandering around. Was that the Woodsman he saw carrying an axe. He wore a red and black checked flannel shirt. A bow was slung around his shoulder, a quiver of arrows and a Bowie knife attached to his calf right above his heavy leather boots. Or were they moccasins made from deer skin? Come, the Woodsman seemed to say. Beckoning with his finger, he pointed to the pine treed hills. On the hills was the log cabin, just as he built it. You could see it quite clearly, the mountains in the back-drop, nestled up against a ridge, the virgin hemlock trees rising from a forest that had stood unscathed for how many eons? What is an eon? A moment of time as grand as an ancient tree, he thought. Maybe longer. You could see a wisp of smoke from the chimney built from river stones. Was it beckoning? Yes, it beckoned. The woodsman trudged off. Follow me and remove the wrinkles from your soul. Yes, that’s it, he thought. Remove the wrinkles.

His eyes opened suddenly and he sneezed. He sneezed two more times. A tendril of expectorant dangled embarrassingly from the tip of his nose. He quickly pulled a napkin out of his pocket and blew his nose. He looked around to see if anyone noticed. It appeared unlikely. Folks around him were too busy dying of boredom or stinking the place up with their containers of fast food and stinky socks. Then he noticed a priest staring at him. He hadn’t noticed the priest before. The priest sat two rows over and was staring right at him. What’s a priest doing here? A priest on a plane? I’ve never been on a plane with a priest before. Is it a bad omen? he wondered. Surely it must be a bad omen what other kind of omen could it be? A good omen? There was no such thing as a good omen was there? Just the word ‘omen’ suggested menace, danger. There was the good priest, and yet in this context—in the context of the airport—the potentiality that he might be on the same plane—there was nothing good about him. He had become an omen. It was obviously an omen. Should I be scared. He was scared. Not very scared, just slightly. On the other hand, just because one’s scared and feels there’s some sort of ominous threat out there in the world doesn’t mean in fact that there is an ominous threat out there. One’s feeling about reality and reality itself are often two wildly different things. That’s a thought for you, he thought. Just keep that in mind. Go ahead, be a little scared because the priest is staring at you, but don’t worry. Everything will be okay. Reality doesn’t care two cents about whether a priest is on the plane or not. Priests have to fly after all, don’t they? They’re people too, aren’t they? You don’t think they just stayed holed up in their churches or their priest's rooms all day, do you? They’re people just like us with families and errands that force them to travel.

'Priest's room' by All K (Flickr)

He folded the napkin and replaced it in his pocket. He tried crossing his legs again, but suddenly it seemed silly: there wasn’t room for this sort of thing and more to the point he wasn’t a meditator. Meditation was something, he thought, probably made sense. He believed it probably did increase one’s inner peace. But it wasn’t peace he was searching for. He had other things on his mind.

Like what? What other things do I have on my mind?

He closed his eyes again and tried to search for some definitive item he might find in his mind, but his mind was blank. A blank slate, he thought. Nothing in it. Too much traveling. Last week alone he was in Fort Worth, San Jose, Seattle, and Boston. This forthcoming week: it was back to Cleveland, then up to Buffalo and finally home to Chicago. The week after that it was Indianapolis for three days, followed by a two day sales call to Fargo. After that Boston then down to Miami. When he finished Miami he returned to Chicago for a few days. After Chicago it was back to Cleveland then off to Saint Louis. From Saint Louis he headed to Fort Worth again and from Fort Worth he was back in Florida, this time in Orlando. After Orlando he went back to Boston. From Boston he was scheduled to go to Toronto then on to Winnipeg, and Banff. Then down to Seattle from Seattle down to San Jose from San Jose to Fargo and after Fargo it was back home to Chicago. He loved Johnny Cash’s lyric, I’ve been everywhere man, I’ve been everywhere! He often thought of it when he contemplated his schedule. It was too much territory for one man to cover but he couldn’t say no. If his boss asked if he’d like to go on a new sales call to expand his territory he immediately agreed. At some point, he realized it didn’t matter. His job was about striking out and finding new partnerships. That’s what he signed on for and that’s what he’d do. It was who he was. It was a monastic existence, like that priest's! His boss merely sat in the office day after day, a sedentary man slightly overweight, pointed his finger to the green hills and said go. Besides, his boss liked to say: 'I don’t fly. Never have. Never will. I’m superstitious of planes. Terrified of them. No I won’t take pills or drink alcohol to ease my fear of flying. Instead I’ll make you go. That’s why I hired you. If I could do it myself I would happily do so, believe me what it costs to send you scurrying about!'

photo by DitB (Flickr)

He felt packed in all of a sudden, a terrible feeling, but one, unfortunately he was used to all this travelling. He stood up and stretched raising his arms high up in the air and standing on his toes. He tilted his head back and forth like a prize fighter just before the bell. He yawned for oxygen and frowned. What a day, he thought. He tucked in his shirt and shifted the tension of his pants off his crotch. The snow was falling on the tarmac as the daylight, a pale and diminishing gray gave way to an ever diminishing gray. He felt his stomach rumble and considered whether or not to eat.

One part of him hated to get up from where he sat. The terminal was over-crowded, in fact the crowds had migrate over to the neighboring terminal. Another part of him wanted to walk around, get the blood circulating. He sat down and thought about it.

I’m a hollow person he thought. I don’t have anything inside of me. He couldn’t decide if such thoughts were pretentious or not. On the other hand, he couldn’t help having them. He knew if he looked closely, such expressions would prove hollow; not he. Yet he had these thoughts all the time. I’m hollow. He never said it as if he meant it, he merely iterated it mindlessly as if it were some pointless mantra. If it were a jingle—it would be his jingle. In the mornings while his brain was still recompositing after a night of on again off again REM sleep, he said the word hollow in a sing song voice—he muttered it—hollow hollow hollow. What’s hollow? The tree is hollow. What’s hollow? Balsa wood is hollow. Is balsa wood hollow? he wondered. What is balsa wood? Something to make airplanes with. Airplanes are hollow and so are airports. He looked around him at the terminal. He was hollow and so was everyone else. The airport was hollow. It was a nice airport, he thought. It was attractive, clean. The architecture was steel and glass—with a lovely hint of airport modernism. It wasn’t so bad, this airport. In fact, aesthetically he liked it. What was bad about this particular airport—and all airports for that matter—was that it was a public place fraught either with a terrible sense of anxiety or it’s pair, terrible boredom. Anxiety was one pole, boredom the other. Positive/negative. AC/DC. Only there was nothing positive about this sitting here in a crowd of people luggage strewn about the place. Across from him was that mom who kept chattering on her cell phone oblivious to everyone around her including her kid or kids. Did that boy really belong to the man reading the Financial Times? It seemed unlikely, but maybe so. She kept chatting as if she were in the privacy of her own home and he thought to catch her eye again, but no doing. He glanced away and out the window towards the snow.

That’s the problem, he thought, with all of this. No one has any time to be home anymore, and so the home has to be, perforce, brought into the public space. The evidence was everywhere to be seen.

He liked that word, ‘perforce’ and he used it often while talking to clients: ‘if you perforce try their product you will see that it is both more expensive in the long run, and less effective than ours. That’s why we have been in this business for seventy five years, longer than any other company!'

The interior of the car was an analogue for the living room lounge chair and audio system that the long commuting schedule prohibited one from having. All these public places had become substitutes for home. Starbucks. Wasn’t it interesting, he thought. Starbucks was a corporation that didn’t have a jingle. They didn’t advertise on TV or the radio. It was addiction to coffee that kept people coming to Starbucks. The woman chattering on the phone was drinking out of a Starbucks cup. Probably a skim latte something or another. He preferred black coffee and he didn’t care where he got it. Years ago, he swore by Folgers on a percolator. But, like everyone else, he had moved beyond the watered down drip. Now, he preferred Columbian bean from fair share growers hand ground on his own mill and expressed through a Krups machine that sputtered and fizzled as it pushed steam through the coffee grounds. But the coffee had a crema layer and was reliable and good. When he traveled getting coffee was the big challenge of the morning. He preferred the larger cities to the small ones as a result. Though in the larger cities his hotel was often just down from the convention center far from any diners or coffee shops.

The thought of coffee, of his espresso machine made him homesick all of a sudden. I travel too much, he thought. I’m never going to get ahead with all this traveling. Who am I going to find and marry if I’m always on the road like a wandering Jew or sailor or hobo or seagull or anything else that wanders? No place is home. All places are just places and there’s no place like home. Just click your heels three times and say it again, there’s no place like home with your own coffee pot and another pot to piss in that is all your own. What happened to that Woodsman? he wondered. How shall I find him again? The Woodsman was here a moment ago and the house on the mountainside was so close at hand. The illusion of places in the wild, he observed: they either seem farther or closer at hand, but never just where you think they are. It was just like time in the airport: it either moved too slowly or too quickly depending on whether you were stuck waiting for a plane or running, trying to catch one just before it lifted off. Click your heels, he thought. That’s all you need to do to pass the time. He sat back in Buddha position, strained his back slightly against the chair, closed his eyes and tapped the heels of his Crocs three times the spongy rubber heels making a solemn thump thump thump.

Air Born

2008-03-05T19:22:00.010-06:00

The obese man had packed up his McDonalds, waddled over to the garbage can and disposed of the cardboard and paper packaging, along with the cup, the lid, the straw, the ketchup and mustard packets that he had tore open with his teeth and squirted into the lid of his Big Mac container like a tube of toothpaste. Where was this guy from? he wondered. Where was he going? What a life to be so over-weight. Does he not realize he has a choice: that he’s not doomed to be overweight the rest of his life? Too late now, though, he thought. Hard to turn back and be thin again after a lifetime waddling on the edges of one’s feet because the inner thighs had grown so large a waddle was the only locomotion possible.

Then there was the woman jabbering on the phone. He had to admit, she was not unlovely. In fact she was intensely attractive. Perhaps it was her attractiveness which annoyed him or rather he allowed himself to become annoyed by her as a way to fend off the power of her beauty. She kept talking and talking. It was relentless how much she could talk but what was it she was actually saying? She was clearly the mother of the young boys maybe 3 and 5 years who were running around with the Matchbox car. He concluded that they were partly to blame for his feeling of claustrophobia. The mom sat surrounded by luggage her legs kicked up on one of the bags. She wore a simple red tee-shirt and blue jeans. Everyone else was swaddled with winter clothes. She seemed to care less of the weather conditions. She had her hair up, it was a gorgon of curls. He thought it astonishing, particularly as the lobes of her ears and her long neck were revealed. The long neck muscles and tendons strained beneath her skin like carved soap, he thought all of a sudden, her head tilted towards the phone which she held intimately to her ear. She was lovely no doubt, but would she please stop chattering. The kids ran up and down the aisles banging on the glass windows, playing tag, screeching—they were playing keep away: one kid stole the car from the other and around and around they ran stumbling into his bag, knocking it over. He repositioned his bag, took his coffee cup and moved it off a small table into the hold on his chair handle. A moment passed and running through the aisle again, they knocked his bag over again. He looked over at the mom but she didn’t take any notice. She was jabbering away into her cell phone, having, as far as he could surmise, an absolutely inane conversation with her sister about which presents should be returned to the store.

yes yes yes no uh hunh uh hunh sure I dunno go ahead why not ha ha ha ha that’s what harry says yes oh my god you’re kidding me no you’re joking please okay so yes yes no but

On she droned. He supposed it passed for conversation, but what type of conversation? Was their any content exchanged? Any information? The woman spoke in confidential tones, she absentmindedly searched the ends of her long black hair for splits and when she found one she gave the hair follicle a gentle tug letting it drift down to the floor. The flotsam and detritus of an ever decaying humanity, he thought—that’s what these spaces ultimately are: the repository of what’s lost while waiting for planes that don’t go: flaked skin, dried mucus, exhaled C02 from still living bodies, the release of other gases, mites, dandruff, hair, finger-nail clippings, lice, germs, sweat, bacteria, blood, bed bugs, remnant fecal matter, urine, semen, viruses, endless amounts of lint and god knows what else as we make our slow descent back to cosmic matter. What volume of this stuff (exhalation, expectoration, sternutation, persperation, salivation, ejaculation, menstruation, parturition, lactation, exfoliation, epilation, lacrimation, eructation, flatulation, regurgitation, urination, defication, secretion, spontaneous exsanguination, and suppuration) was shed unto the floors in the terminals of airports like this all over the world? And the trouble they must have keeping places like this clean. He saw the janitor staff—they blended in with the crowds pushing dust brooms on the shiny terrazzo floors, automatic mopping machines sucked up spills where it all sloshed around in the primordial soup of the machine’s detergent. Where does all this effluvia go? he wondered. Down the drain, through the rivers and out towards the sea whence it all came.

On the woman talked while her kids scooted between the bags dodging this way and that banging into things, screaming, laughing, falling crying. Why can’t she get off the damn phone, he thought, and control her kids. It’s just the way with parents these days. They’re self-absorbed by all this electronic gadgetry that takes them away from the more fundamental task of tending to their children. He thought back to the phrase, it takes a village and thought—yes it does, with parents like this woman who lets her kids run wild, strangers can’t help but get involved.

A gentleman sitting off to his right was reading the pink sheets of the Financial Times. He looked over his reading glasses at him, then disapprovingly at the woman then back at him. In a comradely moment he nodded and seemed to imply that these children were seriously out of control—and with a mom like that, no wonder! A moment later one of the boys—the older of the two leaped into the man’s lap, screaming:

“Daddy, Benjy is going to Chicago with his mom. He’s going just like us, on the plane.”

He looked closely at the woman trying to get her attention but either she didn’t see him or she sensed he was angry and chose to ignore him. Am I angry at her or do I want her to acknowledge me? He imagined what she must be like? Empty, he thought. Beautiful but empty. But those eyes. They were anything but empty. They were filled with restless energy, with searching inquisitiveness, with longing and disappointment. They were eyes not unlike his, he thought. In fact, he was no different than any of them. Let’s face it, he thought. You sit here in judgment but you are hardly different. You’re no better. After all, you consume the same products they consume. You listen to the same music. You read the same news, and know many of the stories of the same celebrities. Brittney Spears is having a nervous breakdown, that much he knew. She was the latest in an endless procession of stars to be having a nervous breakdown at the end of their formative career with the knowledge that what lies beyond is merely the void of the rest of their lives and the endless diminishment of their vast resources—spent mindlessly on stuff. He knew the stories of weight loss and loss, was just as titillated by Oprah’s fluctuations in weight as he was by the death of Heath Ledger: A good actor meeting a tragic end. But once ended what does Heath Ledger know or care? Nothing—though his legend grows perhaps faster on account of his untimely death.

No he wasn’t any different. He had his apartment which was furnished with many of the same items as everyone else who shops at Target. He had blue bathmats, nice pull down shades, a Ralph Lauren comforter with 1,200 thread-count Egyptian cotton. He collected cuff links that he purchased at Men’s Warehouse. He owned a set of martini glasses that he had purchased at Crate and Barrel. He wore shoes with Vibram lug soles from Chernin's and a polyester jacket from NorthFace. He drove a 2001 maroon Saturn which he kept parked on the street outside his apartment. He collected guns: he owned a Remington .350 magnum with a Capo sight, and a browning double barrel twelve gauge that he purchased at K-Mart. He too had an Apple laptop, an I pod, a Blackberry, he loved to shuffle between his electric gadgets, and he often envied others their newer more beautiful technology. If I could only afford it, he thought. I would be the first person in line to buy new technology as it was created. Yet here he was, cursing those who were absorbed using their hand-helds!

I don’t go to church and maybe she does and maybe that’s how we’re different. But still I’m not brainwashed by all of this consumerism. I haven’t been zombified by all of this buying. My coffee is personal to me even though I bought it at Starbucks and while I drink it I let my mind go in whatever direction it wants to go. Oh don’t ask me what I’m thinking, he thought in reference to Rosemary, she was always asking him: tell me what you’re thinking.

I’m not thinking about anything.

Oh sure you are. Your mind is somewhere else I can tell.

No it isn’t.

Yes it is.

No.

Yes.

No.

Listen. If your mind were here you would have followed what I’ve been telling you for the last fifteen minutes but I can tell you're not here. You smile and nod your head but you're not paying any attention.

My mind is here.

Let Noxzema cream your face so the razor won’t.

No it’s not here.

He looked over at the board and saw no time was yet posted for his departure. There wasn’t even anyone at the podium of his terminal.

I was telling you something important.

The woodsman was crossing a stream. This is a very important part right here, he thought. The logs had fallen across the stream and though they were huge they were rotten and large slabs of moss had collected on the bark. This is very important the woodsman thought. The greenery of the deep forest was blinding. The smells were terrific. One false move and you can slip off this log into the fast moving stream below. He looked up at the overhanging branches and considered if any of those branches were strong enough to get him across the stream. Why do I want to get across this stream anyway. Oh yes because of the way the land opens up on the other side of the stream while it becomes impassable on this side.

I took a bit of codeine today and I’ve been out of it. Hello are you listening to me?

There is nothing to report, he remembers telling her. There is nothing to report of growing up in farm country.

Oh please. There must be. I grew up on a suburban block in the middle of a thousand clapboard houses and I have an infinite number of things to report.

Then report away.

But I’ve already told you everything. It’s your turn to share.

Okay, he thought. He took a deep breath and gave it a try: I liked to lay down on the grass and stare at the sky. I could do that for hours on end. I could do it in the sunshine, I could do it in the snow. I wasn’t even afraid of thunderstorms. Laying in the mud watching the clouds fly overhead. That was my childhood. See I told you there was nothing to report. He ended suddenly as he started, as if he had shyly flashed his nakedness then covered up.

She smiled at him.

You’re kidding me, she said.

Land of sky blue wa-ater.

No I’m not kidding you. Why would I kid about something so stupid.

That isn’t stupid.

Yes it is.

No it isn’t.

Yes.

No.

Was I in love? he wondered.

He stared at the woman on the phone. She paused her torrent of words and lifted her eyes to his. She smiled quietly at him. He smiled back, confused. At this she dropped her eyes back to her split ends and resumed her talking.

Air Born

2008-02-27T23:23:00.011-06:00

He was born in Iowa—that’s where most of his family was. He wished he could say he had a happy childhood. It was neither happy nor sad, merely bland. Whenever he thought of his childhood he had a hard time picturing it. His dad. His mom. The house. That he could picture. He could also picture the school bus picking him up to take him to school, but that was about it. Once or twice—in the heat of a romance—his lover had asked him: what was it like growing up on a farm in Iowa? He always thought it a strange line of inquiry this type of question.

What do you mean what was it like growing up on a farm in Iowa? Same as growing up anywhere else I suppose.

When this solicited a frown, he had merely said it was fine.

No, seriously, he remembers one girlfriend saying, pressing him for details, trying to get him to open up. What was it really like? Give me details. Childhood on a farm.

Why do you ask?

I’m only trying to get you to open up.

I’m not a can that you can pry open.

It’s only a question. Just a bit of conversation. What was it really like growing up on a farm in the middle west? Can you tell me just one thing that you liked about it?

To humor her, he thought about it a moment. Here, let me close my eyes. He closed his eyes and tried to fall through time down the ladder of memory hoping to discover some unforgettable moment that he could share with her but either he was disinclined to fall or there were no memorable moments because a second later he opened his eyes and said,

Just as I said. It was fine. Nothing to report. Nothing, as far as I can remember. It was all of a piece. It was a farm, what do you want me to say? That it was paradise on earth? Because it wasn’t.

The woman doing the inquiring was Rosemary. She was a lovely woman with brown hair that curled at her shoulders. She wore turtle neck sweaters in the winter that showed off her attractive figure and in the summer she wore these tantalizing sleeveless blouses—on one arm, just above the elbow was a small tattoo of a heart and on the other arm was tattooed a tragic mask with a tear pouring out of the eye. He spent long hours staring at both of these tattoos—puzzling over them, what kind of a crazy person would tattoo these things to their body?—but never once did he ask her about them or what they meant.

Rosemary was so vivacious and filled with life that he was intimidated by her much of time they were together. She chatted on endlessly about all sorts of things. She liked to tell the story over and over again how once, for instance, she had gotten drunk fallen down a huge flight of stairs that led up to the night club she was exiting and broke her back. She still managed to get to her feet, stumble to the curb and hail a cab to drop her off at the emergency room. She told the story as an object lesson, though what the object of the lesson was he was never able to determine: that she was resilient beyond belief? that she was an obsessive occasional drinker? that she could live through this and laugh about it? The docs there had seen nothing like it and they told her so. The X-Rays confirmed what she suspected: a broken spine bone. She said she heard it snap. She beat the odds on recovery as well. Within four weeks she was on her feet again and going at the world full tilt as if nothing had ever happened to her. What was one supposed to do with that kind of grit, he thought. Had it been him, he’d still be laying on his back complaining of pain. She laughed about it too, and even though her back still gave her incredible pain, she didn’t let it get between her and what she wanted to accomplish in life. Her goal was nothing less than to become Secretary of State one day.

He thought her a little bit crazy at times and at times he even thought her a bit unhinged. On the other hand, he doesn’t think he’s ever known a smarter person. He often wondered why she shared all of this energy with him. He seemed plain by comparison, in fact all of her talking gave him a complex. I’m not nearly as smart. What’s more she was assertive when it came to sex and she used him, that’s the way he later phrased it to a colleague of his after he had disappointed her, she used him for her own sexual pleasure.

That doesn’t sound all bad, said his colleague married fifteen years who was intrigued by the possibility.

It is bad, he pointed out, if you’re the object—the tool of pleasure and all you want to do is come home and watch TV or go to bed exhausted and unmolested.

To which his colleague pointed out: you’re foolish to complain. Foolish, foolish, foolish.

Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer.

The fact is she could talk about anything under the sun. She talked a blue streak, a red hot streak and a yellow streak all at once. She loved to chatter and laughed compulsively at the funny, crazy, maddening things she had experienced in the day and during her life.

I often have nothing to say, can’t think of a thing to say, and there she is describing her day as if it’s comprised of a full life time. It doesn’t seem real to me. I don’t believe a person can experience so much.

She often liked to extemporize on her own childhood which seemed filled with a seemingly endless number of characters chief of which was her father. She grew up in Chicago. Her father was a tavern keeper. He had even visited her father’s bar and if he had been intimidated by Rosemary’s energy he was downright frightened by the father. He had a sense of humor, of wit, of repartee that was deflating if you didn’t know how to deal with it. You’re father has a rapier wit, he later told her.

Oh.

The thing is.

Yes.

The thing.

No, go ahead. He liked you.

The thing is. No sooner do I meet him then he wants to slice and dice me. It was a hello right? Not a jousting contest.

She distinctly frowned at this statement. This is one thing he could say for certain. He had disappointed her with that comment.

Mydans, Carl, photographer.

He doesn’t remember exactly how he and Rosemary had hooked up. It was probably at a party, but one day he saw her at a coffee shop, they exchanged hellos as if they knew each other forever. He sat down to chat with her and before he knew it they were in the middle of a full blown romance.

The whole romance lasted six months at most. He seldom had a romance that extended beyond the six month period. He didn’t know why this was exactly, though it was often the case that the girl would find herself less and less intrigued with him and before six months were up she had left for a different man. It was all the same to him. As far as he could tell, he had never been in love. He didn’t understand the sort of obsess ional love that brought couples together sometimes with disastrous results. There was one couple he knew—they were so obsessed with each other they had gone after each other with all sorts of weapons: bottles, knifes—it was hand to hand combat. The abuse was shocking. He had heard them screaming in the middle of the night at each other. Their voices came through the walls and he wondered what held them together. Surely, no relationship can sustain this for long he thought. And yet there they were in daylight hours so in love with each other they were inseparable—she had a black eye, he had his arm in a sling. How can you live like that, he thought. And yet here was evidence of it: obsessive love that was greater than the hate and anger that threatened to split it a part. Better to leave off quietly in the night, he thought, the way he always seemed to leave, or worse, waking morning to discover the worse: she had gone. No explanation. So long. See you later. It was nice while it lasted. But where was the. Where was the. Oh, you know. The. The passion. Where was it honey? It was no where to be found. I’d rather you took swipes at me. Instead, you fell asleep in the chair while I told you of my day. Shame on you.

He sat there in his chair thinking about it. What was there to think about? Why was there any thought whatsoever about this sort of thing? Hell he was in an airport. He was waiting for an airplane. He was suffering from a lack of oxygen. His back and legs hurt from sitting too long. He was tired of staring at humanity. Wasn’t that enough? He was forced to think about things like this on top of it? Give me a break, he thought. Leave alone. He waved his hand as if swatting something away and went back to watching those children chasing each other with the matchbox car. The snow fell on the tarmac. There was no end in sight.

Air Born

2008-02-20T23:19:00.029-06:00

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

He sat in his blue nylon exercise clothes and it was funny he should be wearing this training outfit since he wasn’t an exerciser. He hated exercise—the monotony of it, the aches and pains that came with exercising, what’s more it was next to impossible to find a gym that he wanted to work out in. He thought hotel gyms were dirty, the equipment wasn’t always safe, and it often had the same smells in it as the hotel cafeteria. Also, he didn’t like sharing the cramped exercise rooms of hotels with other people of equally poor coordination and conditioning huffing and puffing and sweating and stinking. No, exercise wasn’t for him, though he liked exercise suits. They were comfortable and they helped him get through security.

He traveled frequently enough so moving through security with efficiency was a high priority. In many ways, he dressed like a surgeon. He was shorn of any metal that might trigger the alarm. Instead of belts with buckles, he preferred pants with a draw string. He liked jackets whose zippers were plastic but for the metal phalange and more often than not he just wore hoodies. If he was tired, he pulled his hood up and then he could lay his head against any surface without worrying whether it was dirty from some previous body. He liked wearing plastic Krocs on his feet. They were comfortable enough but they could also easily be slipped on and off. He liked to slip his shoes off when he got on the plane to let his feet expand or contract with the pressure on the plane. He never carried coins in his pockets, nor did he wear a watch. He carried a wallet that easily allowed him to flash his ID.

He hated security. Nothing new in that. He tried to dress and look as bland as possible. Secretly he worried that he might becoming bland. It’s fear, he thought, that keeps us honest in all this. What was it Hamlet said, something of a bare bodkin in his famous speech. It was fear of the bodkin that kept you honest. He sat and wondered a bit about that word. What did it mean? What was a bodkin? For him, he supposed, his ‘bodkin’ so to speak, was airport security. He was mildly intimidated by security. It was the part of travel, and by extension, of his job, that he least liked. How many times had he awoke before dawn and he lay in bed a few extra minutes in the privacy of his room, and he would say to himself: soon the day will begin and with it that great public ordeal of passing through airport security. The two moments of his day couldn’t be more radically opposed. The one, a moment of absolute privacy and quiet; the other a moment fraught with crowds, suspicion, worry, stress—and it all happened out in the open for everyone to see.

He had once or twice been pulled aside and patted down and had the wand waved over him. Both experiences were more humiliating and unpleasant than he had anticipated and they had left a mark on him. He had felt accosted, publicly singled out and eviscerated. There he stood, his arms up in the air. Strangers putting their hands on his body. The wand was being waved over—but instead of a magic wand, it was a wand that sought out malevolent things: guns, explosives, knives, who knew what else. At a moment’s notice, the wand could become a billy club meant to subdue him. When he was pulled out of the crowd, he couldn’t help wondering what it was about him that had drawn the suspicion of the security guards in the first place. Did he really look like someone who might blow up a plane? What does such a person really look like? He just wanted to get home as soon as possible. Go back to bed to that private moment beneath the sheets where he was alone, by himself, lost to the world.

He certainly didn’t want to blow anyone up. He didn’t love humanity, per se. In fact, airports turned him against people. He found he could strongly dislike someone because of some irritation that person caused him in the airport. However, in a pinch he could like anyone. Heck he even liked his clients many of whom weren’t so easy to like. They were often small minded, uninteresting, protective of their margins, bland. Yet, he could say he figured out a way to like all of his clients. It was part of his survival mechanism. If I’m going to do this job: sales, I better figure out how to like the person I serve. And indeed he had. He sent his customers cards to commemorate their personal victories, or holidays or birthdays. He was filled with remembrance. How’s Ricky doing? He had asked one of his clients this very question yesterday morning. Ricky had a rare illness of some sort and was receiving blood transfusions awaiting a kidney transplant. Ricky was only ten years old. It was a tragic story, yet he took the time to pay homage to Ricky’s courage and to the courage of his customer.

No, he would never blow up a plane. He had better things to do. He might even prove a hero should he be called upon. He thought about it often. What if a terrorist should suddenly take over the plane. He girded himself for such eventualities. He referred to such occurrences as eventualities. Should my plane eventually be taken over, I guarantee you I would do everything humanly possible to stop the terrorist’s mission. He had told friends and colleagues not to mention folks who sat down next to him on the plane that he wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing himself to save the plane in the event of a terrorist attack. So why were they—why were these security guards pulling him aside to wave that wand over him?

HeHedfasdfasdfasdf He supposed afterwards, that it may have been related to the fact that he hadn’t shaven and his beard, which was dark and grizzled, gave him a slightly dangerous, or demonic look. Subsequently, he made every effort to shave before he went to the airport. Even if he had an afternoon flight, he would make sure to drop into some restroom or his hotel bathroom prior to flight and scrape his beard off. He hated shaving but he shaved often because he had such a heavy, quick growing beard. The razor scraped his skin which was probably more sensitive than most, though he had no way of proving this. Despite his skin’s sensitivity, he was aggressive with the blade because only multiple swipes seemed to get the hair follicles beneath the skin. He remembers all of a sudden, Broadway Joe Nameth with the glass knees. Broadway Joe and all those Noxzema skin care commercials. “Let Noxzema cream your face so the razor won’t.” He sang the jingle now, as he sat there in the terminal watching the snow fall on the tarmac. Broadway Joe dropping back—in Super Bowl III was it? Nameth had predicted they would win didn’t he? It was Miami. And there was Joe dodging around the pocket being hunted down by defensive linemen, and now pushed out of the pocket and at the last minute finding a man open in the end zone and hitting who in the end zone? He couldn’t remember the receiver’s name. He had a terrible mind for details. He was good at big picture stuff, but it was the little picture stuff that gave him trouble. He can almost see the ball flying in slow motion through the air parting the arms of a defender and landing in the embrace of a receiver who pulls it close to his body his toes hitting turf before he falls out of bounds. God it was so beautiful when it was done right, he thought. He wants to lean over in the chair and tell the guy next to him how football could be so beautiful and filled with grace it sometimes tore his heart out, the beauty. But the man next to him was absorbed reading the financials in The Wall Street Journal. Better to leave him alone than pester him with an inane observation.

As to doing anything malevolent on a plane, no. Not he. He had better things to do. Like get home and watch football in the privacy of his apartment, or better yet wonder about that fleeting image he had just caught site of moments ago: the image of the Woodsman who stakes out into the wilderness, saying goodbye to all of this and proud, all of a sudden, to be a Woodsman at last: one with the land in a sacred unity. There he stands now on the great plains looking upward at the jets that streak in the sky overhead to open arms.

Air Born

2008-02-13T17:30:00.019-06:00

In the evenings he lay in a lean-to near a campfire, exhausted from his labours, but content. He drank Hamms beer and watched a tv show of people sitting in an airport while astroids sparked in the sky above and wolves howled from a distant ridge. What is an airport, he wondered? I have never seen such a thing in all my life. In the airport people were collected around a board that flashed the incoming and outgoing flights. He noticed that the furniture in the terminal was designed by Herman Miller. It was aluminum cast arms and legs with leather or vinyl backs and bottoms. Some benches had arm rests which prevented lounging for a nap others were more accomodating. The tv scanned the terminal and he was fascinated by what he saw. One day, that will be the future he thought, then he lay his blanket out on a nest of pine boughs and quickly fell asleep too tired to think another word.

Credit & Copyright: Marc Sylvestre

In the wilderness he was plagued by the wildest and most mysterious dreams. He thought the dreams were slowly turning him into a saint.

Hey hill, he liked to say. How do you like the house I am building in your shadow? How is the snow up there? Are the mountain sheep summering on your high pastures?

In the evenings that followed during the summer he built his cabin, he piled the branches from the pine and burned them. The smell of pine was thick in the air and the sap snapped and cracked and popped in the heat of the fire. The cabin he built was 20 feet by 18 feet perfectly suitable for his needs. He set it so it was true to the compass. The longer walls pointed north and south. The door and one of the windows faced south to let in the light and the air. Another window was on the east wall. Opposite this window was a stone fireplace he built from granite stones pulled out of the stream that fed the lake. They were heavy but he carried each one of them up the hill from the stream by himself. It is my time to live, he thought. I will be dead soon enough. It’s good to work.

He layed the logs one on top of the other alternating the direction of the thick end of the log and within a week he had the walls of his cabin built. They were eight logs high. He tapered the north and south walls to a point and carefully set the logs across the ends to form the roof joists. He elevated the heavy joists by using straps hooked to the mules and while they pulled the logs rolled up a ramp he built for that purpose. When he was through with the structure, he thatched the roofs, and mortared the joints between the logs with a dirt and grass mixture. While he worked he thought of his home life back on the farm in Illinois where he lost both of his parents one winter to illness. He nearly succumbed too, and lost part of his hearing from a prolonged feaver. His parents had been subsistence farmers and after they died he had to scrap to survive. He came north in search of work. The forest await and in the cities wood was needed. He headed to Canada. Lac du Bois. He settled in a small village near Souix Narrows. He hooked up with a French-Canadian named, Michel LeBlanc, who was a logger and who helped the woodsman get a job with the lumber company. LeBlanc spoke in a dialect and it took all of the woodsman's patience to make sense of what the Frenchmen said. But he wouldn't miss it for anything in the world.

"Yes sair," the French Canadian said trying to explain it to the Woodsman. "I work on de boom mebbe tree or five summer. Gene Mann was de boss dere. When I go up dere for job Gene say to me, 'Can you stan' on de log, my frien'?' 'Yes sair,' I tole him, 'if she's tie on bot' hends.' Gene laf at dat an' he say, 'Hokay, my frien', I guess we can use you. Go down on de stream where de watair ain't so deep, an' tell Tobey - dat's his boy - I sent you dere.' I go down dere an' Tobey he puts me on de las' joint of de firs' beat, an' he say, 'You go on dere. Dose hemlock doan run so fas' today. Doan you raf' anyting but de diamond rabbit track.' Tobey he show me how to raf' de log, an' bimeby I can do him jus' as well as hanybody helse. You grab delog wit' de pickpole an' pull him over, an' den you wind de rope aroun' de toe an' pull him tight. Den you put on de wedge an' drive him in wit' de mallet. If dat rope ain't tight enough you wind him aroun' de mallet an' pull on dat an' dat make de rope tighter. Dose log, you honderstan', haf to be raf' tight. If dey ain't de log she's turn over an you can't see de mark.

When he awoke from his nap, he noticed a dribble of drool running down the corner of his mouth. He wiped his mouth and looked around to see if anyone noticed. Three kids were running around the terminal playing tag. Their mom was gabbing loudly on the cell phone. An announcement was being made from the check-in booth. He was disoriented a moment and then he saw. He was in terminal 34. That was Walter Payton’s number, he thought. The great Walter Payton, a childhood idol. Now he’s dead, a memory wrapped up in statistics which were being overwritten by statistics even as he sat in this terminal. He yawned, stretched and drew a blank.

Air Born

2008-02-10T22:48:00.004-06:00

He turned his head slightly and looked again at the girl's partly exposed torso and the ink of the tattoo that followed the curve of her flesh. What a relief. . . and then. . . I’m too old to lust after such a young body. It’s not lust, he thought. It’s interest. Curiosity. Boredom. Habit. Perhaps, he thought a moment later, this is why I'm unable to understand the youth of today. Look at me, he thought to himself, I’m already referring to these kids as the 'youth of today’. I was young once and it wasn't that long ago. I used to hate it when my elders used that expression around me: "the youth of today". What kind of phrase is that, he wondered? The youth of today. It sounds like a rock band--and not a very good one at that. And this word, "my elders" is that what I am? what I've become? An elder? But this youth is different, he thought. They are technologically plugged in in a way that I and my generation—graduating class of 1987—have never been plugged in. What does it all mean to be hyper-plugged in? Switching between phone-calls, e-mails, the reality of the street and the reality of the computer screen. Yesterday, as a matter of fact, he almost ran someone over who was crossing the street while dialing on their cell phone. He was in Cleveland driving down to the bottom of a hill. The road ahead had a bend in it and as he came through the bend into the intersection wich had a green light, a woman ambled into the road. The woman hadn't even bothered to lift her head to check and see if on-coming traffic was rushing through the intersection. He honked, beep beep, swerved, and barely missed her—he felt like a bowling ball hooking at the last minute just missing the pin. As he passed her by, he checked his rear-view mirror, to see if she was wobbled, thrown off her balance. As it is she hadn't even lifted her head from her phone which inexplicably angred him. She’s safe, unscathed by me and yet she’s an automoton wandering the streets absorbed by a virtual world but ignoring the one that could kill her. It would serve her well if she had been hit, wake her up. Only he didn't want to be the one to do it.

That was it, he thought. The problem with it all. People so plugged into alternate realities they no longer believe in, or take seriously the reality they physically inhabit for better or worse. Who needs to believe in heaven? Heaven is now a game you can play on your computer--and it is better than this life! Is that what this is? This alternate reality—an analogue for heaven? Were people once as absorbed by the notion of heaven as they now are by all these gadgets? No, he thought a moment later. Far from it. People always switching, what they call multi-tasking, never staying in the same mode for long. Sentences broken mid-conversation, eye contact snapped and the intimate human moment lost as the head is lifted to the television set in the corner or dropped to the Blackberry--and in this case what becomes of human connection? It was a legitimate question, he thought. How come no one was asking it? He read the papers. He watched the news. In two different corners of the terminal he saw it now: CNN was being broadcast. Cooper Anderson and his look-alikes going at it without cease. Who were these people that spent their adult life in front of a camera—and the evidence of multi-tasking was everywhere present on the tv screen. The perspective constantly shifted between Anderson and his simulcra while a ticker tape of other news and information scrolled along the bottom of the screen. It was a mode of being—addled by technology, switching back and forth between conversations never stopping and finding stillness—that everyone seemed enthralled by but no-one was asking the important question: is this really how we want to live?

It wasn't attention disorder, he'd been assured time and again, what these kids were suffering--and the whole population seemed to be suffering all of a sudden--this enamorment with alternate realities made possible by a cursor and an illuminated screen and other handheld gadgets, it was a surfeit of choice--and people today wanted everything. But what is everything? And can you have it staying in one place plugged into Ipod, Blackberry, computer, TV and People magazine?

Air Born

2008-02-08T21:02:00.003-06:00

It seemed like blizzard conditions out on the tarmac. Too bad, he thought. I’m never getting out of here. His plane was already late and he didn’t expect it to arrive any time soon, though a plane at the next gate over had unexpectedly arrived, loaded up, and took off. He hoped something of the same might happen to him—then he yawned, not because he was tired, but because he needed the air.

He was trying to remember being young, though he couldn’t remember why. Then he remembered the young couple who were still laying across the chairs listening to their Ipod. He tried to jog his memory. What was I then, when I was their age? He dwelt on this thought a moment then let it pass. He stared across from him at the man eating the Big Mac. He could smell the Big Mac from where he sat—smell the slightly sweet, slightly sour smell of the ‘special sauce’ comingled with the greasy smell of the burger and the fries. He had long ago foresworn MacDonalds, and was often fond of saying that if I were alone on a desert island and all there was for food was a MacDonald’s restaurant I’d happily starve or eat the raw sea-food that washed up on the beach. That being said, the jingle: "Two all beef patties" had lodged itself into his brain years ago and even now he couldn't see a Big Mac without quietly, almost against his will, singing the jingle to himself. How is it possible, he thought. After all these years--how many has it been? 30? 35? I can still remember that jingle but so much else from that time of my life: the sound of my grandmother's voice, the look of my childhood bedroom, the feel of having my whole life ahead of me--all these things have vanished completely from my memory. I can't even recall the sound of my father's voice.

The man eating the Big Mac was unbelievably heavy and slovenly—though at first glance one didn’t appreciate his true immensity. What was it that kept a person from grasping how vast some truly heavy people were—on first glance? Was it the way they wore their clothes? Their posture, an inherent grace, or was it the way the mind was set: to expect humans to fall within a certain range of sizes—and if the person in question exceeded this range the brain automatically registered the person as smaller than he was? It was a question for psychologists, perhaps, he thought. In any event the man eating the Big Mac was even larger than he had at first thought. He took long slow bites at the hamburger. With surprising daintiness and care, he nibbled the fries. He ate and enjoyed the hamburger and made it seem a larger more expansive meal than it was. I have never seen a human nibble McDonald's fries so carefully, he thought. After each french fry the man licked his finger, then he picked up another fry, dipped it in ketchup which he'd squirted into the top of his Big Mac container and proceeded to nibble it carefully. He slowly stuffed the fry into his mouth--nibbling it like a squirrel nibbles a nut. Again, he licked his fingers then he picked up his napkin and wiped the corner of his mouth. He paused a moment, then reached over and grabbbed the extra-sized pop and sucked thoughtfully from the straw. He set the pop aside and he could see the man quietly belch. He paused as if ruminating over something, and then, after a moment, he picked up the Big Mac and took another bite. He chewed the bite carefully, as if searching for bones, or savoring the flavor, or—was he trying to maximally extract nourishment from the burger letting his saliva do as much of the digesting as possible. A swallow. A pause. A reach for a fry. Dip. Nibble. Dip. Nibble. Wipe. Pause. Sip. Belch. Repeat. The man was so fat it was disgusting. Yet, he thought to himself. Let's be truthful here. I'm hardly different. Everywhere he looked he felt somehow as if he saw a reflection of himself. These crowds, he thought, will do that to you.

Air Born

2008-02-07T23:14:00.001-06:00

The snow sifted down. It moved this way and that. For a while he tried to track a single snowflake against the blur of other snowflakes in the storm. It was the duck and the rabbit phenomenon, he thought. He looked at the snow falling. Either you followed a single flake drift this way and that, or you saw great volumes of snow flowing on currents of air but it was impossible to follow both. It was either the duck:the single snow flake; or the rabbit: the great volume of snow being pushed on currents of air. He also thought of Heisenberg and his great principle of uncertainty. He had first learned of this principle in college and hadn’t explored it beyond the class where the idea was first presented to him, but the idea that you could either say where a subatomic particle was or where it was going but you couldn’t say both—that you could only see one side of reality: the duck, for instance, or the other side: the rabbit, thrilled him. It thrilled him on two accounts that you could know reality with incredible precision from one vantage point, but from another vantage point it was absolutely inscrutible. He loved that word, inscrutible. In these times, he thought, what is needed is that which is inscrutible. He felt, all of a sudden, that we lived in all too literal times. We always knew the exact value of everything we encountered—but what we refused to deal with or face was that which was inscrutable. The known was analysed and judged, and if it was unknown or inscrutible it was judged to be bad—but that’s only because we’re in rationalist times, he thought. We live in an era where everything not only must be known but it’s value must be appraised. He was a fan of the Antiques Roadshow. He loved to watch historical objects have a monetary value placed on them, but what none of the appraisers talked about was the inscrutable vision that some lost unknown artist brought to life in the form of their artifact. What’s necessary, he thought, is to make that which is inscrutable known-not in the sense of understanding it—but in the sense of bringing to the fore that there are some things we’ll never understand: deep wells we’ll never be able to plumb—and this is one of them and we’re all better off for these alternate, unkowable and unquantifiable things that nevertheless bring value and comfort beyond words. Now look at me, he thought. One minute I’m whistling the Hamms jingle from forty years ago, the next moment I’m contemplating this sort of stuff. What a thing the human brain is!

Air Born

2008-01-29T22:56:00.005-06:00

He stared at the television screens which broadcast CNN. Everybody was sitting in the terminal watching the news or eating fast food, or working on their computers, or listening to their Ipods, or talking on their cell phones, or they were typing rapidly into their hand helds. There were also one or two people huddled around a portable DVD player watching a movie. The world had gone towards the technological, it had left the life of the woodsman behind—just as surely as the city had left the dark night behind when the streets became lit with orange luminescent lighting. But I want to be a woodsman, he thought. I want to live wild, close to the earth in a hovel. I want a simpler life he thought. This travelling wore him out. It made him feel disconnected. When he returned to Chicago he was going to ask his boss to consolodate his territory so he could bring this travelling under control. The far west would work for him or the east coast, or, for that matter, the midwest—drivable from the city. Just no more airport terminals.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the woodsman. It’s hard as hell with all the noise in the terminal but he does his best. There the woodsman stands in the shadows of a huge tree. Behind him are the jagged contours of a snow covered mountain. It was an image directly out of a beer commercial, but it was a place to start. Hamms: Born of the land of sky blue wa-ater, the jingle flowed into his brain then he switched back to the woodsman. That’s the way to be, he thought: a woodsman comfortable in the untrammled wilderness; a woodsman who emerged into his own only while in the woods. The problem with this life unlived away from the wilderness is that life has no scale to match itself against. It was matched neither against the eons of time reflected back down from the stars, or the modest hovel which shrank to obscurity against the mountain back-drop or the shape of man rendered tiny opposite the collosal forest. Instead, we were matched against the fleeting moment, some bland skyscrapers, and digital flickering images that though ubiquitous, were nevertheless more evenescent than a fleeting mayfly. Worse, he matched himself against the sales figures of his competitors, and his position in the hierarchy of the organization. Sales calls required that he be polite, and a touch obsequious. He was always called upon to smile, to radiate calm, optimism and happiness, but in his heart he was none of these things. He awoke in the morning and confronted in the bathroom mirror while he shaved a mildly serious expression that often became a scowl but he wasn’t unhappy, no, in his heart he was happy enough—he just wasn’t naturally chipper in the way rewarded by his profession. He was prematurally gray. At least I’m not bald, he thought. But he was gray, slightly out of shape, no he was positively soft, particularly in his abdomen. He wished he were more tone, but the exertion wasn’t worth the result. He could live with a little tummy. A thick line ran vertically from his forhead and creased on the left side of his nose right near his eye and it reflected the worry line of a perpetually knit and concerned brow. A permenant creases ran along his upper lip downward towards an at times disapproving and mildly jowly chin. Hamms, Born of the land of sky blue wa-ater. He wished he had more imagination for this sort of thing. A lack of imagition was probably one of his greatest weaknesses. I try to think more broadly, but I’m always brought back to the advertising jingle. A natural salesman afterall. Hamms, Born of the land of sky blue wa-ater. Now that it was in his ear, he couldn’t get the jingle out. It was not of the moment, but of all time, he thought. The jingle would outlast the trees.

Air Born

2008-01-24T23:05:00.003-06:00

He was staring at the television screens which broadcast CNN. Everybody was sitting in the terminal watching the news or eating fast food, or working on their computers, or listening to their Ipods, or talking on their cell phones, or they were typing rapidly into their hand helds. There were also one or two people huddled around a portable DVD player watching a movie. The world had gone towards the technological, it had left the life of the woodsman behind—just as surely as the city had left the dark night behind when they lit the city streets with orange luminecent lighting. But I want to be a woodsman, he thought. I want to live wild, close to the earth in a hovel. I want a simpler life he thought. This travelling wore him out. It made him feel disconnected. When he returned to Chicago he was going to ask his boss to consolodate his territory so he could bring this travelling under control. The far west would work for him or the east coast, or, for that matter, the midwest—drivable from the city. Just no more airport terminals.