Calling,
knowing that a long time ago
in October of an earlier
year, I had night-time
acquaintances.
She was my first
taste of grass after
a long winter
and flowed like a charcoal
mare. Tonight she’s
a tree after decades
of twisting, with a winter
nose.
She doesn’t want my voice
at the far end
of a wire; no, she wants
my heat my weight my breath.
(to the Scarecrow & Tin Man)
One night after clouds
sprinkled the fire leaves
making them smolder
I and two shadows,
(friends then. . .now poorly written
letters posted too late to be news),
walked through a white cemetery.
Homes
Were clean there; twilight
showers often bathed
names on granite-storybooks.
Whispering
So that bats that hung low
from winged-trees wouldn’t know
which way to swoop,
we chatted about tomorrow’s
Tomorrow.
Restless birds kept tossing and
turning, recalling triumphs over
worms and bugs — wings aloft —
we ran beneath the blackened
Avalanche
Rippling overhead to the clearing,
its eternity absorbing
the deluge. Hands still protecting
hair, laughing at our
Superstition
We walked across the forgotten
as fire leaves danced to the harmony
of my harmonica and the two
shadows singing Christmas
Carols.
The neighborhood echoed our songs.
Tomorrow’s tomorrow is today and my
long-ago-lost harmonica and poorly
posted letters echo a haunted portent:
Silence.
I think it happened during the Reagan years. It was around the time of power ties and the advent of cellular technology. That was when the i in America became more important than any group pronoun such as us, we, our, them. When self-interest became an ideology was precisely the moment that the we as a nation became a dirty word. America’s current woes stem from an obscene degree of entitlement, a self-indulgent morality, and a despicable depth of greed; the sum of which creates an environment of distrust which is fed a diet of impossible promises by leaders (edited and misrepresented by news outlets (who themselves have self-interest)) and the disintegrating pride to be a citizen of the United States of America.
It’s not a coincidence that the dawn of the internet was cloudy at first; mainstream America had little use for its content. But what ignited the web’s wildfire was the moment that disparaged and isolated men and women of many sexually divergent activities discovered each other through unmoderated global chat rooms; next to stumble through the door were the curious; then, like Alice following Rabbit, children handily navigated the new technology (like a game) and dropped dead-smack into chatrooms like raw meat tossed into the cages of nasty predators. Adults indulged their reputations too long; their admission of ignorance and thus training in the technology of the internet might’ve invoked authorities to act, to infiltrate and prosecute, to protect; but it took adults way too long to grasp who exactly their thirteen year old sons were meeting at the arcade. It’s an example of self-interest both on the part of the child predator and the narrow-minded adults.
The introduction of wickedly-fast download speeds, the steep decline in popularity of “graphical user interface and proprietary software” (think AOL), the advent of simple on-ramps to the internet cable or DSL, and of course the introduction of Yahoo! and CompuServe’s email system provided accessibility to a font of information and instantaneous communication. All this access produced a phenomenal sense of urgency, a global reach, and a sense of self-importance which exponentially exploded once Facebook emerged and quickly became the equivalence of your Christmas Card List. Overnight America went from millions and millions of nobodies to millions and millions of nobodies with friends. And friendship is oft borne by common interests. And conversations around common interests tend to illuminate injustice. Voila! Self-Interest is born.
But what happens when no one outside of your common interest group gives a crap about your injustice?
Deadlock. Lame Duck. Non-negotiable. Blame. Intolerance. Even insurrection, anarchy, bloodshed.
Unfortunately we’ve become a country of individuals corralled in to two political parties neither of which we feel particularly expresses how we really feel. And there we sit, millions of disenfranchised voters waiting for November to express our citizenship by voting for one of two people (our right to vote coerced like a false confession), but neither really represents me.
But maybe, maybe it’s not about me, maybe it’s about us, us with common interests like freedom and liberty and a free market and rights and that once cherished but now forgotten or a provincial joke, the American Dream. Our America will collapse if its forced to support millions and millions of fractious self-interested citizens. We’ve got to agree to disagree; to stop feuding; to reconcile our differences; and to stop the pettiness of self-interest.
We’re in a disaster and we need everyone to come together; it’s called brotherhood.
I slowly struggled with my bags through the compartment quickly losing hope that my usual and coveted southbound window seat was still vacant. As I approached the familiar row of seats I spied an opening, a seat on the window, but, unfortunately, a hurdle across a studious young lad on the aisle.
The train suddenly lurched forward and frankly I don’t recall which struck the poor lad first; was it my laptop bag, my workout bag, my triple-shot short latte or me. But all at once I found myself face first splayed across his chest and lap, atop the physics or astronomy or bio-medical text like a filleted tuna. My arms hung over the back of the seat like a marionette, and my full combined weight crushed his small frame. Before I could begin to stammer an apology I felt two small hands worm their way between our bodies and onto my chest and push me upright as though I were a multi-colored beach ball. I felt the muscles of his chest expand as he lifted me to an awkward, semi-straight position. With this help I was able to tuck my hand under his arm and assist in him in the lift.
He pressed me higher and with a gymnast’s dexterity he leveraged my body between himself and the seat back in front and lowered me into my southbound side window seat next to him as though I were his favorite stuffed animal. Bags, triple-shot short latte and I landed with a thump which caused my fellow passengers to careen their necks to our side of the train convinced they would witness the deer or elk or moose bounce off the train and back into the brush from whence it came.
I sat rigidly still for a moment afraid to draw in even a single breath for fear of losing any semblance of balance. When I finally dared to turn my head in his direction, he had already straightened the crushed pages of his book and quietly resumed his private study. At the same moment the conductor with whom I had become routinely familiar appeared like an aberration soliciting our tickets. My hands had become bound like a criminal by the numerous straps of my assorted bags and I desperately tried to work them free like a trapped illusionist. Seeing my predicament, the lad reached across his lap and took swift hold of my triple-shot short latte instantly understanding its critical importance. Even with his quick help I still could not free my hands and I asked if he would reach into my hip jacket pocket and extract my ticket. He looked at me, quickly turned to look at the conductor who by now had smelled the blood of a stowaway, and reached his small hand into my hip pocket.
Instantly I wondered what else I had packed into that pocket this morning or last night or nights before. Instantly I tried to recall when last I had worn this jacket. When last had I tucked something into this pocket. The moment his hand touched my hip I felt a very unfamiliar sensation. A sensation which immediately catapulted me back years: back to a time when ignorant, curious, hurried hands explored my clothed body: back to a time when eager hands explored the various folds, searching for flesh or muscle or hair: back to a time when familiar hands probed, searching for intimacies.
In a moment his fingers plucked the ticket from its warm pocket and presented it to the disappointed conductor. The conductor quickly scanned its validity and then pivoted and scurried down the aisle. The lad sat stoically for a moment, my ticket in one hand and my triple-shot shot latte in the other, a frail, youthful, poised representation of myself. He slowly turned towards me and began to laugh, quietly at first, then louder. I saw the humor but couldn’t myself laugh. I was terribly embarrassed and in desperate need of the sudden jolt of caffeine. With my free hand I reached across and took hold of the triple-shot short latte and in one quick motion threw the cup back and swallowed its entire contents. By the time I emptied the cup the giddy lad had regained some semblance of composure, turned to look at me, and slowly returned the ticket to its rightful place. However, this time the hand lad paused a moment on my hip. It hovered there, on the bone, warmly, slowly moving as the fingers and their tips dug softly into my flesh. Fingertips kneaded my flesh as though they were kneading sand.
In the meantime I had been able to untie my hands from the baggage straps and quickly moved my hand on top of his, and held his hand for a moment.
“I think we’re okay now,” I said quietly, “I think everything is right where it belongs.”
He slowly withdrew his hand, trailing his thin fingers over my hip, down my thigh, and across the narrow strip of vinyl seat cushion which separated us. It finally retreated onto the crushed pages of his book. He continued to look at me, and then slowly returned to his book.
I turned my attention to the window and tried to watch recognize the blur of landscape which flew past. This was new to me, this embarrassment, this excitement. It dawned on me as the forest blew by that I was not really embarrassed but titillated. Had I imagined his hand on my hip? Had I been projecting some sort of flirtation? He was a youth, and as a youth he couldn’t be so certain of his motivation as I imagined. He was a student, buried in his text until I stumbled into him this hurried morning. What motivation besides accommodation could he possibly have? I was simply an errant traveler in need of assistance. Wasn’t he simply being a good Samaritan? Could someone his age be so certain of himself as to actually grope a complete stranger?
I slowly pulled my attention from the window to see him foraging in his backpack. He withdrew a yellow highlighter and placed it in his mouth. He continued to dig through his backpack and withdrew a pen which, when he attempted to also place in his mouth. When he realized that his mouth was already holding the highlighter he looked confused. I reached across and took hold of the highlighter. His jaw loosened and I extracted the highlighter remembering a time not long ago, in Rome, when I had taken hold of a newly lit, slightly moistened cigarette from the lips of Antonio. I held the highlighter as though it were on fire and watched as he deposited the ballpoint in his mouth, smiling slightly. He slowly stowed his backpack beneath his seat and withdrew the ballpoint.
“Are you studying medicine?” I asked.
“Chaucer” he replied quietly.
“Chaucer? I wouldn’t have taken you for a lit major” I responded, immediately regretting my profiling.
“You expected me to be studying medicine or physics or astronomy maybe?” he said, acutely aware of my gaff.
“I guess so,” I stammered, feeling caught, “but I guess there’s time for that given your age.”
“Or given I’m interested in it regardless of my age,” he said turning his attention back to his text.
I quietly handed him his highlighter and turned my attention back to the window wishing I had sipped my triple-shot short latte so I’d have something to occupy myself. Now all I had to think about was how old or silly or short-sighted he must think I am. What an old fool he must think I am. I turned back to him.
“Thanks for helping me out there. I don’t normally behave like that.”
“Neither do I,” he said without looking up.
“Of course not,” I said wondering if he meant being helpful or forward.
“You don’t seem the type,” he said as he was highlighting text “to be so rushed in the morning,” and then looking up from his book “you seem to be the more organized, routine type,” and then turned back to his book.
All this, I thought, from one interaction? Could he possibly be so perceptive? Or was I blatantly disheveled?
“You’re right” I admitted, “this morning was terrible.”
“But it’s gotten better, right?” he asked.
“Yes it has, especially now since I’ve had my coffee,” I replied. “My name is Tom,” I offered and extended my hand.
“Scott,” he said and extended the hand which moments before had found its way into my pocket. His hand appeared small yet strong. A confident hand, smooth, marbled with bluish veins which mapped its top. I studied the crisscrossing veins like a road map thinking they would take me somewhere new. They converged into one main artery which disappeared into the thick flesh of his forearm. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“I wish it could’ve been under different circumstances,” I admitted, hoping I didn’t sound too interested.
Going back to Chaucer he said, “under what kind of different circumstance?”
“Well, not so bumbling to start,” I answered, “I’d like to think that first impressions play an important role in how we are perceived.”
“And what’s wrong with being perceived as bumbling?”
“I don’t think bumbling is particularly attractive,” I replied, laughing slightly.
“I think bumbling is very attractive. It shows that you’re not perfect. It shows that you need help every now and then,” and then Scott turned to look me straight in the eye, “and I think that that is very attractive.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. Very attractive he said. Me, in state of total disarray is something that he finds very attractive. I turned back towards the window and remembered in painful clarity the number of hours I have primped and preened myself into a dizzying fervor trying to look my absolute best before hitting the bars at night. Selecting just the right jeans and just the right t-shirt, or just the right tie and suit. And here Scott finds embarrassment attractive. “Well, I think helping a teetering stranger says plenty about your character.” I said turning back to him.
“Like what?”
Cornered like a child about to be caught in a lie, Scott pauses for a moment reflecting on how this happenstance began. Turning in his seat to face Scott he said, “Helping someone in need is an act of kindness. Kindness is a quality we all share, yet few ever display it and even fewer have the chance to feel it. Your kindness felt strong, careful, and conscientious; important qualities to share with those close to you.”
My earliest recollection of my dad came when I was four or five and he had come home from working as a second shift foas foreman at a drop forge plant. He was sitting at the kitchen table eating poached eggs and dry toast, washing it down with a boiler maker. “The Twins” as
he would refer to them with great affection were my dad’s undoing; he would drink when manic, especially near the end of an episode, when his aching bitterness and resigned sarcasm hinted at a common premonition: he would soon retreat to his basement work shop for days on end tortured by his emotional evolution, and his inescapable march down the steep stairs of depression. He must’ve been in the throes of mania when convention insisted they marry upon discovery that his rakish bullying on the back seat of his Packard on a rural road outside Thorp not only massacred her wide-eyed naiveté but abolished any hope of extricating herself from beneath the clammy, sour-smelling, incoherent beast. Her surrender of modesty produced more than forty-five minutes of vintage 1955 passion.
They found themselves in a stone-cold courthouse in Green Bay with a couple of bar friends to witness. My mother clutched a small handful of wildflowers they bought from a farmer’s road stand that morning. My mother was a beauty queen back in 1955, with full, red lips, wavy, blond hair that fell over her shoulders, and bright, anxious blue eyes. She stood looking at my father, the barrel-chested, dark-haired, first-generation Norwegian she met less than one month before. I’m certain that neither one of them intended for the wedding to be the result of a quickie in the back of a sedan on a country road, but in 1955 it was more important to uphold convention than it was to be in love. No one ever questioned their motives in getting married, instead hoping and wishing them the best of luck in the new life together. They never won the prize of a 1960’s nuclear family, a foursome driving a new sedan, owning a new house in a new sub-division, boys going to the standard public school, belonging to a crisp, new Catholic church, it just never happened. It never worked out and eventually corroded beyond what was once recognizable as a relationship, and turned physical, my father opting for punches and slaps instead of hugs and kisses. I want to believe that it was hard for both of them, especially my mom, of course, but also my dad, landing punches onto the delicate face; the face of a woman that once he had found so attractive that he invited her to share his rumble seat. I want to believe that neither of them was a monster, that neither of them hated the other, that maybe, in the beginning they held the same blind, young hope that life would work itself out.
It started with a cymbal crash, or it might’ve been a car accident, or even the frying pan falling out of my mother’s hand as she scrubbed the caked egg. But it struck with velocity, as though it had been tossed, no, more like it had been thrown, aimed at the floor, or better, the cupboard, for it never made its mark, instead falling short and striking the edge of the table and finally the floor. My eyes shot open and I listened only to hear the sirens race toward the accident, but the suburb was four-thirty quiet, and the only sharp wheeze I heard bumped first against my door, then slid slowly down to the floor, her form eclipsing the bright kitchen light. As though the car she was driving careened out of control and struck some child in a cross walk I heard her whisper some apology and asked him to think about me. I slipped out from my bed and crawled over to the rag rug, and put my face to the door. His voice was a distant gush of slurs and profanity, italicized by the growling. She stayed there, mashed against my door, her long, painted fingers clutching the same rag rug on which I sat and which had slid half-under the door, clutching, as though her whole life was that simple rag rug.
Suddenly the door thumped with a low, heavy sound, like dropping a melon on the table. I dropped to the floor and pressed my face into the colorful coils, and saw his black, steel-toed Oxford’s sparkle in the bright overhead light. I saw the swift shadow, perhaps a bird and heard that same heavy thud, and watched as crimson rain sprinkled the linoleum. The color spotted the vinyl floor slowly, as though it were being restrained somehow, pulled in, withheld, and swallowed. It was quiet for a moment, the shiny black Oxford’s rolling as though they were standing on the deck of a heaving ship, the scarlet rain drops preceded by a sniffle. Through the whole time I had held my breath until I exhaled with a small sob. My mother’s face grew enormous as I saw her eyes and bloodied nose drop to the floor, pressing herself to the door. Her hand waved him off saying, “Ssh, he’s awake, he’s been listening. . .” Her bright blue eyes caught mine and we looked at each other for a moment. As I began to move towards her, to . . . I don’t know what, help her . . . again I saw that fluttering shadow, except this time it was no shadow, but a black, heavy steel-toed Oxford, and it landed its iron nose at the back of her head and crushed her face into the crack at the bottom of the door. Her eyes didn’t close, but opened further as though she were releasing any blind hope and I moved quickly away from the door and crawled under the bed. I heard his heavy steps move off and watched as the kitchen light was turned out.
It was months before I could sleep in my bed, often crawling under it once she turned out the lamp and closed the door. I suppose the worst part though was for her: For me to see her like that, in a position of no hope, no dreams, just the flat end of a hand or the blunt toe of a shoe.
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 