FAKE BARRY by saul lemerond
There is a beautiful woman in my kitchen who says she's my mother, and she's not. I find this strange.
When I was younger, strange things never happened to me. Back then, my life was
uncomplicated. My mother was my mother and everything was much, much simpler.
When I was eleven, on most nights after dinner, I would sit down on the couch in the living room with my mother and watch TV. I would always be on one side of the couch with my tiny boyfeet stretched toward the center pillow, and my mother on the opposite side with her feet stretched towards mine. With the two of us positioned like this, with me being a child and my mom being the woman she was, a game of footsy was always inevitable. We
would sit under the glow of the TV, mingling our toes and tickling each other's feet.
I think of these nights fondly. There was always a softness in my mother‟s eyes and a
warmth to her body. Sometimes, I wonder if this is where my attraction to older women came from. She always gave me a good feeling, and I always felt safe around her.
I suppose I think of these things now because, as I said, there is a woman in my kitchen
who claims to be my mother, a woman who isn't my mother and seems to be having a difficult time excepting the fact that she's not. I know my mother when I see her and this ain't her. This woman is an impostor, a faker, a stranger standing in my kitchen and crying for reasons I don‟t understand. Though, I must admit, she is kind of cute.
“You're in the wrong house,” I tell her. “You walked into the wrong house. I‟m not your
son, but if you tell me your son‟s name, maybe I can help you find him.”Lemerond/Fake
“This isn't the right house,” she admits, looking around a bit befuddled but then locking
her sky blue eyes with mine, “but you are my son.”
She seems quite sure of this as she slowly looks me up and down. I say nothing.
“Barry?” she says haltingly, she looks like a child that's just learned there is no such
thing as Elmo. “Don't…don't you recognize your mother?”
Her crying is steadily increasing. I wish this was a date and not a case of mistaken
identity. Do people this beautiful always come with this much baggage?
“Look,” I say, trying to phrase my response in a way that will not make her erupt like a
volcano of emotional pressure. “I don't know who you are.”
I find this doesn‟t create the desired effect.
“Barry!” she screams. Her eyes are beet red and wrinkles on her face become troughs for
rivers of her tears. “Why are you doing this to me?!”
She runs toward me, and I grasp her wrists before she can grab ahold of me.
“Please!” she pleads. “I love you!”
The only thing I can think of to say is, “I‟m sorry.”
She screams again and her face turns up a shade of red, then her eyes go blank and she
faints dead away. I already have a firm grip on her and do my best to keep her from crashing onto my tile floor. I carry her to my living room, turn on the lamp, and lay the unconscious woman on the lounger.
I must admit, there is a resemblance. She's right around the same age as my mother,
probably a young forty-nine. She has the same wavy blonde hair and cute stubby nose. She has my mother's figure, the figure of a woman who gave birth once at nineteen and then worked hard to make sure no one could tell. Has her fashion sense too; the flower print red dress that flatters her hips and waist is certainly something she'd wear.
She's not my mother, though. I have no urge to tickle this woman's feet and there are
several things she's got that mine doesn't. For one, she's more attractive, there seems to be sort of a glow about her; it's a sexy glow, almost playfully sexy. It‟s the kind of sexy that I like. My own mother was never sexy. I am absolutely certain of this.
I give calling the police a moment's thought but decide against it. She seems harmless
enough. Plus, lately, it has been a rare for a beautiful woman stay over.
********
I hate my job.
*Click*
The clock on the office wall always reminds me of the clocks we had in my house as a
kid.
“Hello, Ms. Phillips, my name is Barry. I‟m calling on behalf of ComPlex. We have an
exciting new offer…” *Click*
It‟s one of those traditional clocks with twelve numbers and three hands. I have no idea
why the hell they even make them anymore.
“Hello, may I please speak to Stanley Johnson? Hello, Mr. Johnson, my name is Barry
from ComPlex and I‟m offering a two-month free…” *Click*
“And a beautiful day to you, Ms. Perchfield. I‟m calling on behalf of…” *Click*
Sometimes, when it‟s dead quiet, I hear the thing tick off the seconds of my life.
“Hello, this is Barry from…” *Click* Tick, tick.
It's almost as if I can make out the rhythm of my sorry existence.Lemerond/Fake Barry/4
“Hello?” *Click* Tick, tick.
“If I could have just a moment of your time?” *Click* Tick, tick.
“I represent…” Tick, tick.
I try to ease my own atmosphere by talking to folks after they hang up on me.
“Good evening to you, sir. Did you know that…” *Click* “…And did you know I‟m letting a strange woman who thinks she‟s my mother stay in my house?”
*Click* “She won't leave.”
*Click* “I don't even know if I want her to leave…she's kind of cute.”
“Oh, god, it's been such a long time since I‟ve gotten laid. Is it wrong that I think a
woman who kind of looks like my mother is attractive?”
“What?!” The voice of a customer comes through into my ear piece.
Oops, lost my rhythm.
“Oh, I apologize Ms…Thomson. My name is Barry and I'm calli…” *Click*
I woke up this morning to the smell of coffee and homemade French toast. I walked into
the kitchen and she was making me breakfast, standing right around the spot where she had fainted the night before.
“I'm sorry,” I said, “but I don't know you. I think it would probably be better if you left.”
At this, she began to cry again, but it was different this time, not hysterical like before.
She put her head down and cried silently to herself.
In the daylight, she didn‟t seem to as look crazy as she had the night before. Instead, she
just looked sad, deeply sad, and I was touched in a way that made me feel as though I had, up to this point, been a complete asshole.
“Look,” I said. “Can I get you some help? Give you a ride home or maybe call someone
for you?” She tried wiping her tears with a dishtowel but they were just replaced by more.
“I have nowhere to go,” she whispered, “and no one to call. You're the only one I have.”
Then she looked at me like I was the last person left on the planet and said, “I love you Barry.”
This broke my heart. Here was a woman who needed my help. A beautiful, lively,
vivacious woman who needed my help and here I was trying to push her out my door. I felt ashamed for making such a beautiful creature sad so I let her stay under the condition that we would have to have a serious talk when I got home from work, which brings me to back my job.
I hate my job. Even when there is not a hot, crazy woman in my house, I hate my job.
People hang up on me all day, and I‟m pretty sure no one at the office likes me. When I first started here, I‟m pretty sure I actually liked myself, thought that I was a good person, and that my existence held some sort of inherent value. This translated into a confidence that allowed me to pick up women and then engage them in good conversation that would make them like me.
Situations like this are no longer an option. Although I am relatively good at my job, it
does not change the fact that it is still a daily exercise in humiliation and rejection. When these things go on long enough, they both start to become something you expect out of life.
I still have hope, though, and I think that's why my co-workers hate me. It seems to me
they abandoned hope a long time ago and find it ridiculous that I haven't, and because of this, they sometimes go out of their way in the hopes of getting under my skin.
Like today for instance, when I came in to find that they've replaced my old desk with
another old desk. I suspect Bob or Fred. Neither of them had said anything to me the entire time I've worked here and are always making it obvious that they don't like me. Replacing my desk with another, similar desk must be their odd way of getting their jollies, as I‟ve been complaining about a new desk for just over two years, and here they are giving me another old desk. They even took the time to find a used desk that looks a lot like my old one. It even has a chip in the right-hand corner like the old one did. In fact, looking at it right now, I'd say it looks more like the old one than the old one did.
This wouldn't bother me as much except that I'm sure most of the women who work here
feel the same way about me. In fact, thinking about it now, this is probably the reason why I'm letting a crazy woman stay in my house. I think it‟s nice to have the female company. Probably, it's also because she‟s incredibly attractive, and I have a thing for incredibly attractive women.
I bet the cute crazy woman will have a good dinner ready for me for when I get home. I
kind of hope she does, the French toast this morning was a nice change. Maybe I should try to keep her around. Sure, she seems a bit crazy, but truthfully, I tend to be attracted to that sort of thing, too. Plus, doesn't everybody have problems? If I went around rejecting everyone who had some kind of problem, I wouldn‟t stand a chance of landing anyone.
It's just a simple case of mistaken identity. Maybe it‟s something we can work on
together. I like her, and she could like me if she could get it through her head that I‟m not her son. I think this might have the makings of a wonderfully productive relationship. If
not…well…then we both got problems and how is that different from anything else anyway?
********
I walk in the door, and she has dinner ready for me like I had hoped. She‟s made
meatloaf—beautiful, wonderful—meatloaf.
“This smells excellent,” I say, sitting down and grabbing a fork. Maybe it's the food, but
she looks even more beautiful than I remember.
She stares at me for a long moment, inspecting me like a piece of fruit with some minor
flaws on its rind. I‟m not bothered by this and happily shovel meatloaf into my mouth. It has been a long time since anyone this attractive has shown me any attention.
“This is really good,” I say, pointing at the meatloaf.
“Thank you,” she says, still eyeing me in such a way that I start to feel as though I may
have done something wrong. Again, I‟m not too bothered by it. There is something about her that I find almost irresistible. I find myself needing her and having to tell her so. But, alternatively, explaining to her that I am not her son seems like a very hard task.
I'm beginning to speak when she says, “You're not my son.”
I look up from my meatloaf. “What?”
“You're not my son,” she says again, and I'd be happy but she sounds accusatory. Her
eyes turn red, her face turns ugly, and she points an index finger at me slowly saying,
“You're…not…my….”
As much as I don't want to, I abandon my meatloaf.
“Wait,” I say, stopping her. “Don't you see this is a good thing? I like you, and I want to
take care of you.” I look her in the eye and smile my best 'I want you' smile.
“But,” she whispers, her face softening again, “my son…”
“You can stay here,” I tell her, motioning to the rest of my house. “We can make this
work. I think you're beautiful, and I want to help you. I'll do anything you want. Get you
whatever you need. I make good money. I'll even help you find your son.”
She looks me straight in the eyes, and I can tell something's wrong.
“But,” she says pointedly, “you're a faker.”
“No, I‟m not a faker,” I say, “but you‟re a hot mess. I want you to understand what you
do to me. I need…” I stop myself as I realize she has the unmistakable look of an unsatisfied woman who wants to run out of my house.
A moment later, she turns and runs toward the living room. I run after her, but she has too
much of a head start. I hear the front door slam shut and, by the time I open it, my beauty has disappeared into the night.
I go back to the kitchen, sit down to her meatloaf, and wonder if she's coming back.
Looking down at my fork, I realize it's not my fork though it looks remarkably similar. Why'd
that hot mess bring her silverware into my home?
********
I hear the doorbell and wake up. She's at my door and looks terrible. Her face is swollen,
tiny red veins spider web her eyes, her flower print dress is dirty and wet, and she‟s shivering from the cold. Without thinking, I grab a blanket and wrap it around her. She grabs me, I hold her so close I can feel her warm breath on my neck, and I'm excited.
“I don't know what to think,” she says, looking right in my eyes, confused and
vulnerable.
I put a finger to her lips and then kiss her, fully and deeply. She tries to pull away, but I
don't let her. After a couple of seconds, I feel her body relent and she kisses me back and I feel a warm buzz flood out from my chest and out through my extremities. The moment of electricity between us lasts as long as I've heard moments like this should. After what seems like an eternity, I let her go. There is a softness in her eyes and a openness to the glow of her body.
“We need to get some rest,” I tell her, and show her to my bedroom.
********
I do not hate my job so much. Even if they have replaced the old analogue three-hand
clock with a clock that is also old and analogue and three-handed. One that also ticks. One
exactly the same as the old one.
I don't let it get to me. I have a beautiful woman, and it feels good. It's been too long.
A man taps me on the shoulder. It's Bob, he works in the cubical next to me. His wellmanicured hand holds a black pen in my face and he proceeds to speak the first words he's ever spoken to me in our three years of working together.
“This isn't my pen,” he says. “I know my pen when I see it, and this ain't it. Did you take
my old pen and replace it with this one?”
“No,” I say. “Why would I do something like that?”
Anger swells in the lines around Bob's eyes.
“I don't know,” he says. “Why don't you tell me?”
“I don't know anything about your pen,” I say. “Besides, what does it matter as long as it
works?” I look up innocently and ask, “Does it work?”
“It works fine,” says Bob, “but that's not the point. I want to know what happened to my
pen. I want to know what sick bastard would take my pen and replace it with a different pen.”
His excitement is mixed with small drops of spittle that fly from his mouth and lands on my
shirt. “You trying to play tricks on me, Barry?”
With my new woman in mind, I smile and say, “Screw the pen, Bob.”
“Hey!” another voice rises from the cubical next to ours. It‟s Fred, another coworker who
has neglected to speak a word to me since he started working here sixteen months ago, “Shut up!At least neither of you woke up this morning to find out you were sleeping in the wrong house.”
“What?” asks Bob, placing his pen back in his front pocket and turning toward the sound
of Fred's voice.
“I mean that when I woke up this morning, someone had replaced my house with a
different house.”
“A different house?” asks Bob.
“Yeah,” says Fred. “It looks like my house, but it's not. I know my house when I see it.”
“How the hell could something like that happen?” I say.
“I don't know,” he says. “I'm wondering if maybe Bob did it.”
This makes me laugh.
“Hey!” This voice was from our supervisor coming from around the corner. “I don't know who the hell you people are, but if you don‟t start to do the jobs you‟ve all come here to
pretend to do, you're all fired!”
********
When I was younger strange things didn't happen to me.
“Hello, my name is Barry. I'm calling on behalf of ComPlex.”
“You're not Barry.” The voice over the phone seems pretty sure of this. “I know a Barry
when I hear one.”
“You couldn't possibly know that,” I say. “You‟ve never met me before if your life.”
“Look, Barry…or whatever your name is. If you‟re going to lie to me about your name,
then how can you expect me to trust that you‟re being honest about anything else?”
“My name doesn't matter,” I say. “What matters is the wonderful offer we have for…”
*Click*
This has been happening all day. Why the hell does it matter if I‟m me or not? If I‟m
someone else, does the customer still not get the same terrific offer? Do they not get the same first two months free? Do they not get ComPlex‟s excellent service plan? I know for a fact that I am me, but what the hell should they care if I‟m me or not? It‟s not like my boss cared earlier today when I talked to him. Perhaps it didn‟t help that he called me in on a bad day.
“You're not the one I want,” he said when I walked into his office. “I wanted Barry.” He
picked up a piece of paper off his desk and waved it at me. “Every performance review on this floor is absolutely terrible, but I‟m going to have to say his are by far the worst of the bunch.
Could you go back out there and send Barry in here for me, please?”
This confused me, as I‟m the only person here named Barry.
“You wanted Barry,” I said, trying to clarify.
His eyes turned to slits, “I do want Barry.”
“I am Barry.”
“You don't look like Barry.”
“Well,” I said, “I can assure you that I am.” My boss looked at me and then down at his
paper again for more than a few moments, obviously not finding what he was looking for.
“I don‟t care if you‟re Jesus Christ!” he yelled. Spit flew from his mouth and he again
waved his piece of paper at me that did not look like my performance review. “Not with
performance reviews like this one. You need to shape up or you're gone, do you understand me?!”
I nodded, and he motioned toward the door for me to leave. As I walked out his office,
his final command followed me out into the hallway, “And if you see Barry out there, tell him to give Bob his pen back!”
If I was still alone in this world, days like today might bother me. But, I'm not alone. I
have a lover at home who wants me, who will do anything for me, who has confessed to me that I am the most passionate lover she has ever had.
The day before yesterday, I drove home on a street that had just that day, been replaced
by a new street that for all intents and purposes, looked just like the old one. I did this in a car that wasn't mine, though luckily there was a key on my keychain that worked in its ignition. I thought this was strange and mentioned it to my lover.
“It doesn't matter, Barry,” she said, pressing her body against mine, “as long as we love
each other.”
Then I kissed her and we made love, once in the kitchen, then again in the bedroom. We
lay awake in bed all night, caressing each other‟s bodies and gazing into each other's eyes.
We were in the living room when I said, “I love you,” and tickled the sides of her belly.
She screamed, I laughed, we feel off the couch, and she started tickling my feet.
I went to tickle hers and found her feet had been replaced with someone else‟s, but the feet were still beautiful so I tickled them anyway, laughing as she laughed.
There is a beautiful woman in my kitchen who says she's my mother, and she's not. I find this strange.
When I was younger, strange things never happened to me. Back then, my life was
uncomplicated. My mother was my mother and everything was much, much simpler.
When I was eleven, on most nights after dinner, I would sit down on the couch in the living room with my mother and watch TV. I would always be on one side of the couch with my tiny boyfeet stretched toward the center pillow, and my mother on the opposite side with her feet stretched towards mine. With the two of us positioned like this, with me being a child and my mom being the woman she was, a game of footsy was always inevitable. We
would sit under the glow of the TV, mingling our toes and tickling each other's feet.
I think of these nights fondly. There was always a softness in my mother‟s eyes and a
warmth to her body. Sometimes, I wonder if this is where my attraction to older women came from. She always gave me a good feeling, and I always felt safe around her.
I suppose I think of these things now because, as I said, there is a woman in my kitchen
who claims to be my mother, a woman who isn't my mother and seems to be having a difficult time excepting the fact that she's not. I know my mother when I see her and this ain't her. This woman is an impostor, a faker, a stranger standing in my kitchen and crying for reasons I don‟t understand. Though, I must admit, she is kind of cute.
“You're in the wrong house,” I tell her. “You walked into the wrong house. I‟m not your
son, but if you tell me your son‟s name, maybe I can help you find him.”Lemerond/Fake
“This isn't the right house,” she admits, looking around a bit befuddled but then locking
her sky blue eyes with mine, “but you are my son.”
She seems quite sure of this as she slowly looks me up and down. I say nothing.
“Barry?” she says haltingly, she looks like a child that's just learned there is no such
thing as Elmo. “Don't…don't you recognize your mother?”
Her crying is steadily increasing. I wish this was a date and not a case of mistaken
identity. Do people this beautiful always come with this much baggage?
“Look,” I say, trying to phrase my response in a way that will not make her erupt like a
volcano of emotional pressure. “I don't know who you are.”
I find this doesn‟t create the desired effect.
“Barry!” she screams. Her eyes are beet red and wrinkles on her face become troughs for
rivers of her tears. “Why are you doing this to me?!”
She runs toward me, and I grasp her wrists before she can grab ahold of me.
“Please!” she pleads. “I love you!”
The only thing I can think of to say is, “I‟m sorry.”
She screams again and her face turns up a shade of red, then her eyes go blank and she
faints dead away. I already have a firm grip on her and do my best to keep her from crashing onto my tile floor. I carry her to my living room, turn on the lamp, and lay the unconscious woman on the lounger.
I must admit, there is a resemblance. She's right around the same age as my mother,
probably a young forty-nine. She has the same wavy blonde hair and cute stubby nose. She has my mother's figure, the figure of a woman who gave birth once at nineteen and then worked hard to make sure no one could tell. Has her fashion sense too; the flower print red dress that flatters her hips and waist is certainly something she'd wear.
She's not my mother, though. I have no urge to tickle this woman's feet and there are
several things she's got that mine doesn't. For one, she's more attractive, there seems to be sort of a glow about her; it's a sexy glow, almost playfully sexy. It‟s the kind of sexy that I like. My own mother was never sexy. I am absolutely certain of this.
I give calling the police a moment's thought but decide against it. She seems harmless
enough. Plus, lately, it has been a rare for a beautiful woman stay over.
********
I hate my job.
*Click*
The clock on the office wall always reminds me of the clocks we had in my house as a
kid.
“Hello, Ms. Phillips, my name is Barry. I‟m calling on behalf of ComPlex. We have an
exciting new offer…” *Click*
It‟s one of those traditional clocks with twelve numbers and three hands. I have no idea
why the hell they even make them anymore.
“Hello, may I please speak to Stanley Johnson? Hello, Mr. Johnson, my name is Barry
from ComPlex and I‟m offering a two-month free…” *Click*
“And a beautiful day to you, Ms. Perchfield. I‟m calling on behalf of…” *Click*
Sometimes, when it‟s dead quiet, I hear the thing tick off the seconds of my life.
“Hello, this is Barry from…” *Click* Tick, tick.
It's almost as if I can make out the rhythm of my sorry existence.Lemerond/Fake Barry/4
“Hello?” *Click* Tick, tick.
“If I could have just a moment of your time?” *Click* Tick, tick.
“I represent…” Tick, tick.
I try to ease my own atmosphere by talking to folks after they hang up on me.
“Good evening to you, sir. Did you know that…” *Click* “…And did you know I‟m letting a strange woman who thinks she‟s my mother stay in my house?”
*Click* “She won't leave.”
*Click* “I don't even know if I want her to leave…she's kind of cute.”
“Oh, god, it's been such a long time since I‟ve gotten laid. Is it wrong that I think a
woman who kind of looks like my mother is attractive?”
“What?!” The voice of a customer comes through into my ear piece.
Oops, lost my rhythm.
“Oh, I apologize Ms…Thomson. My name is Barry and I'm calli…” *Click*
I woke up this morning to the smell of coffee and homemade French toast. I walked into
the kitchen and she was making me breakfast, standing right around the spot where she had fainted the night before.
“I'm sorry,” I said, “but I don't know you. I think it would probably be better if you left.”
At this, she began to cry again, but it was different this time, not hysterical like before.
She put her head down and cried silently to herself.
In the daylight, she didn‟t seem to as look crazy as she had the night before. Instead, she
just looked sad, deeply sad, and I was touched in a way that made me feel as though I had, up to this point, been a complete asshole.
“Look,” I said. “Can I get you some help? Give you a ride home or maybe call someone
for you?” She tried wiping her tears with a dishtowel but they were just replaced by more.
“I have nowhere to go,” she whispered, “and no one to call. You're the only one I have.”
Then she looked at me like I was the last person left on the planet and said, “I love you Barry.”
This broke my heart. Here was a woman who needed my help. A beautiful, lively,
vivacious woman who needed my help and here I was trying to push her out my door. I felt ashamed for making such a beautiful creature sad so I let her stay under the condition that we would have to have a serious talk when I got home from work, which brings me to back my job.
I hate my job. Even when there is not a hot, crazy woman in my house, I hate my job.
People hang up on me all day, and I‟m pretty sure no one at the office likes me. When I first started here, I‟m pretty sure I actually liked myself, thought that I was a good person, and that my existence held some sort of inherent value. This translated into a confidence that allowed me to pick up women and then engage them in good conversation that would make them like me.
Situations like this are no longer an option. Although I am relatively good at my job, it
does not change the fact that it is still a daily exercise in humiliation and rejection. When these things go on long enough, they both start to become something you expect out of life.
I still have hope, though, and I think that's why my co-workers hate me. It seems to me
they abandoned hope a long time ago and find it ridiculous that I haven't, and because of this, they sometimes go out of their way in the hopes of getting under my skin.
Like today for instance, when I came in to find that they've replaced my old desk with
another old desk. I suspect Bob or Fred. Neither of them had said anything to me the entire time I've worked here and are always making it obvious that they don't like me. Replacing my desk with another, similar desk must be their odd way of getting their jollies, as I‟ve been complaining about a new desk for just over two years, and here they are giving me another old desk. They even took the time to find a used desk that looks a lot like my old one. It even has a chip in the right-hand corner like the old one did. In fact, looking at it right now, I'd say it looks more like the old one than the old one did.
This wouldn't bother me as much except that I'm sure most of the women who work here
feel the same way about me. In fact, thinking about it now, this is probably the reason why I'm letting a crazy woman stay in my house. I think it‟s nice to have the female company. Probably, it's also because she‟s incredibly attractive, and I have a thing for incredibly attractive women.
I bet the cute crazy woman will have a good dinner ready for me for when I get home. I
kind of hope she does, the French toast this morning was a nice change. Maybe I should try to keep her around. Sure, she seems a bit crazy, but truthfully, I tend to be attracted to that sort of thing, too. Plus, doesn't everybody have problems? If I went around rejecting everyone who had some kind of problem, I wouldn‟t stand a chance of landing anyone.
It's just a simple case of mistaken identity. Maybe it‟s something we can work on
together. I like her, and she could like me if she could get it through her head that I‟m not her son. I think this might have the makings of a wonderfully productive relationship. If
not…well…then we both got problems and how is that different from anything else anyway?
********
I walk in the door, and she has dinner ready for me like I had hoped. She‟s made
meatloaf—beautiful, wonderful—meatloaf.
“This smells excellent,” I say, sitting down and grabbing a fork. Maybe it's the food, but
she looks even more beautiful than I remember.
She stares at me for a long moment, inspecting me like a piece of fruit with some minor
flaws on its rind. I‟m not bothered by this and happily shovel meatloaf into my mouth. It has been a long time since anyone this attractive has shown me any attention.
“This is really good,” I say, pointing at the meatloaf.
“Thank you,” she says, still eyeing me in such a way that I start to feel as though I may
have done something wrong. Again, I‟m not too bothered by it. There is something about her that I find almost irresistible. I find myself needing her and having to tell her so. But, alternatively, explaining to her that I am not her son seems like a very hard task.
I'm beginning to speak when she says, “You're not my son.”
I look up from my meatloaf. “What?”
“You're not my son,” she says again, and I'd be happy but she sounds accusatory. Her
eyes turn red, her face turns ugly, and she points an index finger at me slowly saying,
“You're…not…my….”
As much as I don't want to, I abandon my meatloaf.
“Wait,” I say, stopping her. “Don't you see this is a good thing? I like you, and I want to
take care of you.” I look her in the eye and smile my best 'I want you' smile.
“But,” she whispers, her face softening again, “my son…”
“You can stay here,” I tell her, motioning to the rest of my house. “We can make this
work. I think you're beautiful, and I want to help you. I'll do anything you want. Get you
whatever you need. I make good money. I'll even help you find your son.”
She looks me straight in the eyes, and I can tell something's wrong.
“But,” she says pointedly, “you're a faker.”
“No, I‟m not a faker,” I say, “but you‟re a hot mess. I want you to understand what you
do to me. I need…” I stop myself as I realize she has the unmistakable look of an unsatisfied woman who wants to run out of my house.
A moment later, she turns and runs toward the living room. I run after her, but she has too
much of a head start. I hear the front door slam shut and, by the time I open it, my beauty has disappeared into the night.
I go back to the kitchen, sit down to her meatloaf, and wonder if she's coming back.
Looking down at my fork, I realize it's not my fork though it looks remarkably similar. Why'd
that hot mess bring her silverware into my home?
********
I hear the doorbell and wake up. She's at my door and looks terrible. Her face is swollen,
tiny red veins spider web her eyes, her flower print dress is dirty and wet, and she‟s shivering from the cold. Without thinking, I grab a blanket and wrap it around her. She grabs me, I hold her so close I can feel her warm breath on my neck, and I'm excited.
“I don't know what to think,” she says, looking right in my eyes, confused and
vulnerable.
I put a finger to her lips and then kiss her, fully and deeply. She tries to pull away, but I
don't let her. After a couple of seconds, I feel her body relent and she kisses me back and I feel a warm buzz flood out from my chest and out through my extremities. The moment of electricity between us lasts as long as I've heard moments like this should. After what seems like an eternity, I let her go. There is a softness in her eyes and a openness to the glow of her body.
“We need to get some rest,” I tell her, and show her to my bedroom.
********
I do not hate my job so much. Even if they have replaced the old analogue three-hand
clock with a clock that is also old and analogue and three-handed. One that also ticks. One
exactly the same as the old one.
I don't let it get to me. I have a beautiful woman, and it feels good. It's been too long.
A man taps me on the shoulder. It's Bob, he works in the cubical next to me. His wellmanicured hand holds a black pen in my face and he proceeds to speak the first words he's ever spoken to me in our three years of working together.
“This isn't my pen,” he says. “I know my pen when I see it, and this ain't it. Did you take
my old pen and replace it with this one?”
“No,” I say. “Why would I do something like that?”
Anger swells in the lines around Bob's eyes.
“I don't know,” he says. “Why don't you tell me?”
“I don't know anything about your pen,” I say. “Besides, what does it matter as long as it
works?” I look up innocently and ask, “Does it work?”
“It works fine,” says Bob, “but that's not the point. I want to know what happened to my
pen. I want to know what sick bastard would take my pen and replace it with a different pen.”
His excitement is mixed with small drops of spittle that fly from his mouth and lands on my
shirt. “You trying to play tricks on me, Barry?”
With my new woman in mind, I smile and say, “Screw the pen, Bob.”
“Hey!” another voice rises from the cubical next to ours. It‟s Fred, another coworker who
has neglected to speak a word to me since he started working here sixteen months ago, “Shut up!At least neither of you woke up this morning to find out you were sleeping in the wrong house.”
“What?” asks Bob, placing his pen back in his front pocket and turning toward the sound
of Fred's voice.
“I mean that when I woke up this morning, someone had replaced my house with a
different house.”
“A different house?” asks Bob.
“Yeah,” says Fred. “It looks like my house, but it's not. I know my house when I see it.”
“How the hell could something like that happen?” I say.
“I don't know,” he says. “I'm wondering if maybe Bob did it.”
This makes me laugh.
“Hey!” This voice was from our supervisor coming from around the corner. “I don't know who the hell you people are, but if you don‟t start to do the jobs you‟ve all come here to
pretend to do, you're all fired!”
********
When I was younger strange things didn't happen to me.
“Hello, my name is Barry. I'm calling on behalf of ComPlex.”
“You're not Barry.” The voice over the phone seems pretty sure of this. “I know a Barry
when I hear one.”
“You couldn't possibly know that,” I say. “You‟ve never met me before if your life.”
“Look, Barry…or whatever your name is. If you‟re going to lie to me about your name,
then how can you expect me to trust that you‟re being honest about anything else?”
“My name doesn't matter,” I say. “What matters is the wonderful offer we have for…”
*Click*
This has been happening all day. Why the hell does it matter if I‟m me or not? If I‟m
someone else, does the customer still not get the same terrific offer? Do they not get the same first two months free? Do they not get ComPlex‟s excellent service plan? I know for a fact that I am me, but what the hell should they care if I‟m me or not? It‟s not like my boss cared earlier today when I talked to him. Perhaps it didn‟t help that he called me in on a bad day.
“You're not the one I want,” he said when I walked into his office. “I wanted Barry.” He
picked up a piece of paper off his desk and waved it at me. “Every performance review on this floor is absolutely terrible, but I‟m going to have to say his are by far the worst of the bunch.
Could you go back out there and send Barry in here for me, please?”
This confused me, as I‟m the only person here named Barry.
“You wanted Barry,” I said, trying to clarify.
His eyes turned to slits, “I do want Barry.”
“I am Barry.”
“You don't look like Barry.”
“Well,” I said, “I can assure you that I am.” My boss looked at me and then down at his
paper again for more than a few moments, obviously not finding what he was looking for.
“I don‟t care if you‟re Jesus Christ!” he yelled. Spit flew from his mouth and he again
waved his piece of paper at me that did not look like my performance review. “Not with
performance reviews like this one. You need to shape up or you're gone, do you understand me?!”
I nodded, and he motioned toward the door for me to leave. As I walked out his office,
his final command followed me out into the hallway, “And if you see Barry out there, tell him to give Bob his pen back!”
If I was still alone in this world, days like today might bother me. But, I'm not alone. I
have a lover at home who wants me, who will do anything for me, who has confessed to me that I am the most passionate lover she has ever had.
The day before yesterday, I drove home on a street that had just that day, been replaced
by a new street that for all intents and purposes, looked just like the old one. I did this in a car that wasn't mine, though luckily there was a key on my keychain that worked in its ignition. I thought this was strange and mentioned it to my lover.
“It doesn't matter, Barry,” she said, pressing her body against mine, “as long as we love
each other.”
Then I kissed her and we made love, once in the kitchen, then again in the bedroom. We
lay awake in bed all night, caressing each other‟s bodies and gazing into each other's eyes.
We were in the living room when I said, “I love you,” and tickled the sides of her belly.
She screamed, I laughed, we feel off the couch, and she started tickling my feet.
I went to tickle hers and found her feet had been replaced with someone else‟s, but the feet were still beautiful so I tickled them anyway, laughing as she laughed.
A PALONIAN FUNERAL by steven prusky
Stanislaw and Celina grew up aliens in their own homeland. They
were first generation U.S. born Polish. Other ethnic populations in Detroit,
the Irish, Jews, Italians, Albanians, scorned them as second rate trespassers;
threats to their own transplanted cultural roots. Stan and Celina grew up
together near Lasky Park by Davison and Conant Streets in the two square
mile Polonian cluster called Hamtramck. The small city surrounded by a
bigger city was one of many tightly knit urban enclaves in Detroit struggling
to thrive like circled wagons under siege. Stan and Celina were reared the
old country way.
Their immigrant parents spoke only Polish to the pair. Stan and
Celina thought in and spoke Polish. Their families fed them every
impromptu, etude, barcarolle, mazurka Chopin wrote from the musical
pantry of their High Fi sets. All the old Polish holidays were honored; Cud
nad Wisla, Pentecost, Three Kings Day, Corpus Christi. Standard fare at
holiday feasts was old country kartoflanka soup, Goulash, Golumpki, kiska
sausage, potato pancakes with sour cream, Sernik cheesecake. An émigré
Polonian mother was Madonna; an Isabella “La Catolica.” Her matriarchal
will ruled every facet of a migrant family‟s life. All agendas, thoughts,
hopes, decisions, dreams, habits were blessed or rejected by Matka. Polish
fathers, Ojciecs, were rigid, unwavering, fearless, aloof. They loved their
children less tenderly, though not less; easily annoyed by trivial adolescent
needs their wives had more patience for. Stan and Celina cautiously walked
a high strung social tight rope without a balancing pole. They respected
their parents‟ old world traditions, yet struggled to join in with their
established, more liberal second and third generation Americanized peers.
In the afternoons, after Mass, both families spent Sundays, sometimes
well into the evening, at one or the other's home. The women shared the latest community gossip. They chuckled over the parish priests that drank
too heavily from the sacrificial wine casks. “Billie Jackobilski is in jail
again for fist fighting, drunk, in a nearby bar,” Stan's mother chuckled in
classical Polish.
“The old Reichold Chemical plant in Ferndale had another explosion,
killing Tadeusz Szymanski and five others,” Celina's mother solemnly
slurred in a south Poland dialect.
Occasionally the women nipped from a bottle of Madeira hidden in
each other's cupboards. The tired, labor worn men lazed about drinking
beer, joking, poking fun at their wives plumping bottoms, ridiculing their
gangly kids comically swatting at shuttlecocks while the women cooked.
“Utrzymują wasz punkt widzenia birdie,” Stan's half drunk father teased as
Stan concentrated more on Celina's feminine grace than connecting with her
merciless shot over the badminton net.
The families ate Smalec Hors d'Oeuvres, full course dinners of
Kielbasa, Pierogis, Golabki, Bigos. They sipped aperitifs after; Armada
Cream Sherry for the women, the best Polish vodka found Stateside for the
men. The fathers proudly bragged on each other‟s child. “Celina excelled
in Calculus last year,” her father boasted.
“Stanislaw is a starting lineman on the football team as a freshman at
Hamtramck High,” Stan's pop replied in stuttering English. “On jest
fachowy materiał,” Stan's father continued. Stan was embarrassed. He had
no illusions he‟d make pro.
Both kids ignored their parents blathering after dinner. They‟d peck
at those old fashion polish dishes while silently longing for pizza, hot dogs,
hamburgers and fries. Later, they'd cloister in each other‟s bedrooms,
sneak down to steal canned Pabst Blue Ribbon beers from the cooler under
the back yard shade tree to share. They swapped personal secrets, traded
pulp fiction books, split up candied treats each had stolen from the Jewish
owned corner store on Joseph Campau and Caniff Streets. Their friendship
molted more intimate than lovers. They grew up "heads-together", intimate
friends. What better way to start a love affair?
Celina matured into a curvy, olive skinned Polish Venus by Sixteen.
Stan noticed the change in her after dinner one typically muggy Michigan August afternoon. Her long, straight black hair shined. Its tips kissed her
waist. Her smooth shaved legs emitted a halo like the howling moon. Stan
could smell her pheromones a room away. She sat on his side of the dinner
table. After the plates were cleared away, Celina angled her chair to face
him, confronting him with her fresh new woman-hood. Her autumn brown
eyes narrowed to a visual swoon, oozing rich hormones in his direction.
Her mini skirt rode up her muscle toned legs when she sat facing him. She
provocatively crossed her legs; her skirt crept higher, revealing a quick peak
at her fluid inner thighs. She angelically stared at him as if she had just
reconfigured the four virtues of the Australian Southern Cross. Both
families spotted her inviting body language with silent glances of approval.
It was inevitable, their parents thought, they were meant to be. He looked
up from her naked legs to her eyes. She proffered him a Mona Lisa
smile--amused?
Two weeks later Celina's mother died. It was at this woman's old
country Polish style funeral Stefan and Celina learned to equate life with
loss. To the dead woman‟s relations and friends, living stopped until they
ceremoniously placed her where the dead belong.
This was a Polish Catholic wake. What Pole isn't Catholic except for
the few Polish Jews left after the Nazis thinned them out? At these vigils,
Polish funeral homes supply a padded bench for mourners to kneel on at the
bier. When you first enter the parlor you are obliged to approach the body
first, kneel, make the sign of the cross and move your lips in prayer as death
intimidates you a few inches from your nose. Cold air streamed down like
Arctic wind from a vent directly above the casket to keep the corpse cold.
Few mourners pray there long. Why fellowship so close with death when
you are so alive? Stan knelt, made the sign of the cross, his lips motioning an
imagined prayer, got up and waited for his father to do the same. All
through Catechism, First Communion, Confirmation, Stan never learned to
pray. After father knelt and faked his prayer too, they found Celina and her
father. Pop hugged his old friend, slapped his back, whispered his regrets.
Stan wrapped his arms around Celina. She drenched his suit shoulder with
her tears. They held the cathedral service the next day.
At St. Florian's Roman Catholic Church on Poland Street, Celina‟s
mother laid in an open casket below the altar. She was married to Celina‟s
father on that same spot over twenty years before. During the Mass, the
300 or so people in the pews knelt, sat when prompted, bowed their heads as the boys choir sang Haydn's Te Dium. The old bobshas prayed, kneeling
the entire time, their lips barely moving in silent supplication for her soul.
These devoted ones, all old Polish women dressed completely in black,
probably even down to their cotton panties and holster type bras older Polish
women wear after age has fattened their breasts and gravity has finished its
work. They pinched a prayer bead for every Hail Mary or Our Father
whispered. For a few, the beads went full circle from one end of their
rosary to the other. When finished, they kissed the cross that joined the
string of beads together, then started the cycle over again. Stefan didn‟t
realize the dead demanded so much prayer. With the well-practiced dignity
celibacy inflicts on some priests, Father Czarnecki stepped up to the elevated
pulpit that towered above the faithful, as if the font of all Godly wisdom
only emanates from such heights. This priest, who married Celina„s
parents, Stefan's parents, baptized and gave First Communion to Stefan and
Celina, eulogized. Catholic epitaphs, like their sermons, are intentionally
short. The priest probably takes for granted few listen. When the Mass
ended kneeling benches under each pew rattled and slammed to the stowed
position. The oak kneelers noisy echo's rumbled from the European styled
cathedral‟s high arched ceiling as if the sky and earth had briefly quaked in
honor of this woman's passing. The mourners peacefully shuffled past the
casket to say their good-byes. Some kissed the dead woman's cold
forehead. Celina and Stefan joined the procession, stricken by loss and
Niagara sized streams of tears.
The weeping ended past the cathedral double doors. Low chatter
began. Mourners dried their tears, the women removed their babushkas, the
men loosened their out of fashion ties, the delight of life returned to the
living as everyone gleefully hurried to the Polish Century Club hall in
anticipation of the celebration.
The Polish in Detroit hold the patent on gaiety after funerals.
Drinking, eating, dancing, laughter, more drinking; a burial is as joyous an
affair as a marriage, birth, V.E. day. It‟s a celebration of life, living--a brief
respite from grief. Although the dead are dead, those left behind who knew
the departed live as if the dead are still alive inside their intimate circle of
universal memory. A Polonian's death includes a life time claim on the
loved left behind. The wake, the prayers, the solemn Mass was over. The
drinking, feasting, dancing, laughter--these post mortem rituals and joyous
celebrations were more a festival dedicated to the living less that portion of
their hearts Celina's dead mother took with her. Life long grief could wait a night; there was a festival to be had first.
No one stayed sober long. The crowd feasted on a typically endless
Polish snowball dinner of Pstrag, Krokiet, Sandacz, Dziczyna, Baranina,
Szaslik. The band played traditional old country polkas. The dancing
began. Celina walked over to Stefan, no--her being slowly flow toward
him. She was a striking woman, even in grief. Her black three inch heels
supported a second skin of tight silk stockings as if the hose were painted
around her slightly exposed thighs like black gold. Her short tight black
skirt revealed every curvy bit of her as if there was no need to undress her
ever and expect more. Her black Chiffon top accented her raven flowing
hair as if a brook of jet black endlessly spilled from her crown. Her eyes
were pools of brown, her lips a pout. The evident loss expressed on her
sullen face silently begged he be compassionate this night. She sanctioned
he take her hand to dance. He understood this was no lusty sultry
invitation. They held each other close each slow dance. Her arms
surrounded his neck, clutching him with the surprising strength of her
sorrow. He wrapped both arms around her waist, resting his hands on her
hips. His testosterone level leapt over tall buildings, the Alps, the Statue of
Liberty, yet he knew tonight there would be no where to land. They drank
together at the bar between dances. No one cared they were under age.
They lightly kissed a few times between drinks, arm in arm. He smoked his
first cigarette with her. “This is a bad time for us, you know that,” Celina
said. “My mother is dead. I'm torn apart inside, just console me! All I want
from you tonight is to be held, understood, comforted. I have a lifetime of
loss to live. Cure that for me…if you can.”
“I have no antidote for sorrow Celina. I hurt too. You know how I
feel for you. I know you feel the same,” Stan claimed. “You‟re right,
we‟ve picked a bad time.” She turned away, teary eyed like an abandoned
pup left in a dingy back alley with no light to guide her to the street. Not
even his affection for her glowed enough to distract her from her pain.
He understood the implications of Celina's sorrow. Although Celina
celebrated too, the memory of her mother alive was too fresh, too
overwhelming for anything to happen between her and Stan that night--or
maybe ever. She‟d mourn alone, well beyond the last dance, the last drink,
her last glance at Stan as he left with his family. There would be no more
Sunday afternoon family dinners, traditional holidays, no shared lusting
glances; such is the effect of a Polish mother's influence on those her death abandons. Celina chose to wait and live another day; probably not with
Stan.
Stanislaw and Celina grew up aliens in their own homeland. They
were first generation U.S. born Polish. Other ethnic populations in Detroit,
the Irish, Jews, Italians, Albanians, scorned them as second rate trespassers;
threats to their own transplanted cultural roots. Stan and Celina grew up
together near Lasky Park by Davison and Conant Streets in the two square
mile Polonian cluster called Hamtramck. The small city surrounded by a
bigger city was one of many tightly knit urban enclaves in Detroit struggling
to thrive like circled wagons under siege. Stan and Celina were reared the
old country way.
Their immigrant parents spoke only Polish to the pair. Stan and
Celina thought in and spoke Polish. Their families fed them every
impromptu, etude, barcarolle, mazurka Chopin wrote from the musical
pantry of their High Fi sets. All the old Polish holidays were honored; Cud
nad Wisla, Pentecost, Three Kings Day, Corpus Christi. Standard fare at
holiday feasts was old country kartoflanka soup, Goulash, Golumpki, kiska
sausage, potato pancakes with sour cream, Sernik cheesecake. An émigré
Polonian mother was Madonna; an Isabella “La Catolica.” Her matriarchal
will ruled every facet of a migrant family‟s life. All agendas, thoughts,
hopes, decisions, dreams, habits were blessed or rejected by Matka. Polish
fathers, Ojciecs, were rigid, unwavering, fearless, aloof. They loved their
children less tenderly, though not less; easily annoyed by trivial adolescent
needs their wives had more patience for. Stan and Celina cautiously walked
a high strung social tight rope without a balancing pole. They respected
their parents‟ old world traditions, yet struggled to join in with their
established, more liberal second and third generation Americanized peers.
In the afternoons, after Mass, both families spent Sundays, sometimes
well into the evening, at one or the other's home. The women shared the latest community gossip. They chuckled over the parish priests that drank
too heavily from the sacrificial wine casks. “Billie Jackobilski is in jail
again for fist fighting, drunk, in a nearby bar,” Stan's mother chuckled in
classical Polish.
“The old Reichold Chemical plant in Ferndale had another explosion,
killing Tadeusz Szymanski and five others,” Celina's mother solemnly
slurred in a south Poland dialect.
Occasionally the women nipped from a bottle of Madeira hidden in
each other's cupboards. The tired, labor worn men lazed about drinking
beer, joking, poking fun at their wives plumping bottoms, ridiculing their
gangly kids comically swatting at shuttlecocks while the women cooked.
“Utrzymują wasz punkt widzenia birdie,” Stan's half drunk father teased as
Stan concentrated more on Celina's feminine grace than connecting with her
merciless shot over the badminton net.
The families ate Smalec Hors d'Oeuvres, full course dinners of
Kielbasa, Pierogis, Golabki, Bigos. They sipped aperitifs after; Armada
Cream Sherry for the women, the best Polish vodka found Stateside for the
men. The fathers proudly bragged on each other‟s child. “Celina excelled
in Calculus last year,” her father boasted.
“Stanislaw is a starting lineman on the football team as a freshman at
Hamtramck High,” Stan's pop replied in stuttering English. “On jest
fachowy materiał,” Stan's father continued. Stan was embarrassed. He had
no illusions he‟d make pro.
Both kids ignored their parents blathering after dinner. They‟d peck
at those old fashion polish dishes while silently longing for pizza, hot dogs,
hamburgers and fries. Later, they'd cloister in each other‟s bedrooms,
sneak down to steal canned Pabst Blue Ribbon beers from the cooler under
the back yard shade tree to share. They swapped personal secrets, traded
pulp fiction books, split up candied treats each had stolen from the Jewish
owned corner store on Joseph Campau and Caniff Streets. Their friendship
molted more intimate than lovers. They grew up "heads-together", intimate
friends. What better way to start a love affair?
Celina matured into a curvy, olive skinned Polish Venus by Sixteen.
Stan noticed the change in her after dinner one typically muggy Michigan August afternoon. Her long, straight black hair shined. Its tips kissed her
waist. Her smooth shaved legs emitted a halo like the howling moon. Stan
could smell her pheromones a room away. She sat on his side of the dinner
table. After the plates were cleared away, Celina angled her chair to face
him, confronting him with her fresh new woman-hood. Her autumn brown
eyes narrowed to a visual swoon, oozing rich hormones in his direction.
Her mini skirt rode up her muscle toned legs when she sat facing him. She
provocatively crossed her legs; her skirt crept higher, revealing a quick peak
at her fluid inner thighs. She angelically stared at him as if she had just
reconfigured the four virtues of the Australian Southern Cross. Both
families spotted her inviting body language with silent glances of approval.
It was inevitable, their parents thought, they were meant to be. He looked
up from her naked legs to her eyes. She proffered him a Mona Lisa
smile--amused?
Two weeks later Celina's mother died. It was at this woman's old
country Polish style funeral Stefan and Celina learned to equate life with
loss. To the dead woman‟s relations and friends, living stopped until they
ceremoniously placed her where the dead belong.
This was a Polish Catholic wake. What Pole isn't Catholic except for
the few Polish Jews left after the Nazis thinned them out? At these vigils,
Polish funeral homes supply a padded bench for mourners to kneel on at the
bier. When you first enter the parlor you are obliged to approach the body
first, kneel, make the sign of the cross and move your lips in prayer as death
intimidates you a few inches from your nose. Cold air streamed down like
Arctic wind from a vent directly above the casket to keep the corpse cold.
Few mourners pray there long. Why fellowship so close with death when
you are so alive? Stan knelt, made the sign of the cross, his lips motioning an
imagined prayer, got up and waited for his father to do the same. All
through Catechism, First Communion, Confirmation, Stan never learned to
pray. After father knelt and faked his prayer too, they found Celina and her
father. Pop hugged his old friend, slapped his back, whispered his regrets.
Stan wrapped his arms around Celina. She drenched his suit shoulder with
her tears. They held the cathedral service the next day.
At St. Florian's Roman Catholic Church on Poland Street, Celina‟s
mother laid in an open casket below the altar. She was married to Celina‟s
father on that same spot over twenty years before. During the Mass, the
300 or so people in the pews knelt, sat when prompted, bowed their heads as the boys choir sang Haydn's Te Dium. The old bobshas prayed, kneeling
the entire time, their lips barely moving in silent supplication for her soul.
These devoted ones, all old Polish women dressed completely in black,
probably even down to their cotton panties and holster type bras older Polish
women wear after age has fattened their breasts and gravity has finished its
work. They pinched a prayer bead for every Hail Mary or Our Father
whispered. For a few, the beads went full circle from one end of their
rosary to the other. When finished, they kissed the cross that joined the
string of beads together, then started the cycle over again. Stefan didn‟t
realize the dead demanded so much prayer. With the well-practiced dignity
celibacy inflicts on some priests, Father Czarnecki stepped up to the elevated
pulpit that towered above the faithful, as if the font of all Godly wisdom
only emanates from such heights. This priest, who married Celina„s
parents, Stefan's parents, baptized and gave First Communion to Stefan and
Celina, eulogized. Catholic epitaphs, like their sermons, are intentionally
short. The priest probably takes for granted few listen. When the Mass
ended kneeling benches under each pew rattled and slammed to the stowed
position. The oak kneelers noisy echo's rumbled from the European styled
cathedral‟s high arched ceiling as if the sky and earth had briefly quaked in
honor of this woman's passing. The mourners peacefully shuffled past the
casket to say their good-byes. Some kissed the dead woman's cold
forehead. Celina and Stefan joined the procession, stricken by loss and
Niagara sized streams of tears.
The weeping ended past the cathedral double doors. Low chatter
began. Mourners dried their tears, the women removed their babushkas, the
men loosened their out of fashion ties, the delight of life returned to the
living as everyone gleefully hurried to the Polish Century Club hall in
anticipation of the celebration.
The Polish in Detroit hold the patent on gaiety after funerals.
Drinking, eating, dancing, laughter, more drinking; a burial is as joyous an
affair as a marriage, birth, V.E. day. It‟s a celebration of life, living--a brief
respite from grief. Although the dead are dead, those left behind who knew
the departed live as if the dead are still alive inside their intimate circle of
universal memory. A Polonian's death includes a life time claim on the
loved left behind. The wake, the prayers, the solemn Mass was over. The
drinking, feasting, dancing, laughter--these post mortem rituals and joyous
celebrations were more a festival dedicated to the living less that portion of
their hearts Celina's dead mother took with her. Life long grief could wait a night; there was a festival to be had first.
No one stayed sober long. The crowd feasted on a typically endless
Polish snowball dinner of Pstrag, Krokiet, Sandacz, Dziczyna, Baranina,
Szaslik. The band played traditional old country polkas. The dancing
began. Celina walked over to Stefan, no--her being slowly flow toward
him. She was a striking woman, even in grief. Her black three inch heels
supported a second skin of tight silk stockings as if the hose were painted
around her slightly exposed thighs like black gold. Her short tight black
skirt revealed every curvy bit of her as if there was no need to undress her
ever and expect more. Her black Chiffon top accented her raven flowing
hair as if a brook of jet black endlessly spilled from her crown. Her eyes
were pools of brown, her lips a pout. The evident loss expressed on her
sullen face silently begged he be compassionate this night. She sanctioned
he take her hand to dance. He understood this was no lusty sultry
invitation. They held each other close each slow dance. Her arms
surrounded his neck, clutching him with the surprising strength of her
sorrow. He wrapped both arms around her waist, resting his hands on her
hips. His testosterone level leapt over tall buildings, the Alps, the Statue of
Liberty, yet he knew tonight there would be no where to land. They drank
together at the bar between dances. No one cared they were under age.
They lightly kissed a few times between drinks, arm in arm. He smoked his
first cigarette with her. “This is a bad time for us, you know that,” Celina
said. “My mother is dead. I'm torn apart inside, just console me! All I want
from you tonight is to be held, understood, comforted. I have a lifetime of
loss to live. Cure that for me…if you can.”
“I have no antidote for sorrow Celina. I hurt too. You know how I
feel for you. I know you feel the same,” Stan claimed. “You‟re right,
we‟ve picked a bad time.” She turned away, teary eyed like an abandoned
pup left in a dingy back alley with no light to guide her to the street. Not
even his affection for her glowed enough to distract her from her pain.
He understood the implications of Celina's sorrow. Although Celina
celebrated too, the memory of her mother alive was too fresh, too
overwhelming for anything to happen between her and Stan that night--or
maybe ever. She‟d mourn alone, well beyond the last dance, the last drink,
her last glance at Stan as he left with his family. There would be no more
Sunday afternoon family dinners, traditional holidays, no shared lusting
glances; such is the effect of a Polish mother's influence on those her death abandons. Celina chose to wait and live another day; probably not with
Stan.
SUPERIOR by richard stolorow
This was the place, the finest car camping in the world with deep clean floored woods on one side, and over the sand bluff on which the tent was perched vast Lake Superior in all its wildness and simple beauty. And it was wild, I knew it, years ago before the bear proof refuse cans when a black bear and cubs were a common sight, ambling up the campground road, or atop a picnic table or sitting once in the woods a hundred feet away, watching us eat our dinner, the four doors of the car open to receive us in case the bear moved closer.
So there was always a car, and that was our civilization, that and the road to Grand Marais, an eighteen mile drive over sandy road through forest and beside the great lake. And there lay the little harbor town with the lighthouse and coast guard station, and a few bars, grocery, and motel. It was here we stopped and here we ate a meal on our trips out, and here writing post cards overlooking the bay and taking them to the quaint PO where there was never a line, just one very friendly middle- aged woman and no hurry, seemingly all the time in the world.
The camping was that way too, timeless and relaxed after the initial push to choose a site and set up the tent taut and proper in case of rain, and facing the water so we might have the pleasure of waking to look down the length of the sleeping bag to see Superior sparkling in the morning light. And there was firewood to gather, downed limbs and small trees which we found on desultory forays through the woods, often allowing ourselves to become slightly lost and surprised when we finally regained the camp road, pulling a long load of wood to see how far we’d strayed from our site. Then there was dinner to see to, wrapping potatoes and carrots in foil, cutting a chicken for stew, making the initial fire, watching the sun take forever to fall toward the lake.
Then time was suspended. The night was starry, the days balmy, breezeless, and we walked down the beach until we were far from sign of human life. I always liked to take my clothes off then, and plunge into the incredibly cold water. It was good, drying in the sun, and later washing clothes and drying them on rocks beneath our campsite, the denim smelling fresh, the cotton shirts stiff and pleasant against the skin.
Love was made here, and friendships and there were drinks and strong coffee and songs with the guitar and there were arguments and occasional storms, and cold winds across the campfire so it was difficult to boil water, and then hot days and black flies swarming on the inner pant legs where the leather boots had left a residue. And occasional deer, though they were rare to see, and no bear after the cans were improved. The old pump eventually gave way to water spigots, and we noticed the faint taste of chlorine and mourned the loss of innocent times when we thought the old pump had creative powers and the woods were primeval.
And so I had come here often over the thirty years and camped with a variety of lovers and friends and alone, always with a kinship to the cold deep lake upon which I rarely saw a ship and almost never a pleasure craft, but hunted out pretty rocks and deer tracks and loons in pairs on the big water. And I’d gone many times down the log slide, running and tumbling the three hundred feet, and amazed at the difficulty of return, calf muscles aching, catching breath looking out over the clear water, tempting myself in a crazy mood to run down again, as if the gravity itself were pulling me back. And, too, I’d taken the long walk in the woods to the white birch forest, and up the endless beach far from home and looked out over Superior as if it were a reminder of mortality, and it always seemed to heighten my awareness of my life and make me glad for it, even the limits of time, and feel a part of a great thing and want to write about it and sing and come here often, after long journeys, to this same shore.
And so I had come here again and on an interesting occasion, for my old friend had ended his life at his own place down state in a river of his choosing, and at a time which was right for him; and I had after a year come to collect his ashes and place them in that river, and then drive north to my own place, intending to camp and celebrate not death, not my missing of him, but my own life and history, even as it continued, and without getting caught in the small vortex his death made, drawing me down.
The weather reports were interesting too, a cold storm to cut across the peninsula at night, but enough good weather beforehand to set up camp, grill a few cheese sandwiches, drink a couple of scotches. The wind when I arrived was from the woods so the tent overlooking the water would be protected in part in the rain. I went through the usual routine, set up the tent, gathered firewood, walked by the water collecting rocks. I found tiny ripe blueberries in the sandy woods, and had my first cocktail over my one-match fire started with white birch bark kindling and dry fallen twigs. I congratulated myself on the remarkably empty campground, on the fortuitous wind, on being here, not at his lonely beautiful river, but at my place, where life and death had a balance I had in more sober times imagined I understood. The grilled cheese went well, I ate and put away what the rain might harm, and went inside for an early sleep, full of food and alcohol and satisfaction.
Then the scene changes. I woke to a howling wind and the sound of rain hard against the tent. I felt the damp walls at my feet hugging my bag, and when I turned on the flashlight I could see the tent had collapsed toward the lake, pulled up in part from the sand, and lay across my legs letting in water. The wind had shifted in the storm and now came in a fury off Superior. I assessed. I’d been asleep for about three hours, and if the storm would only abate I might be able to finish the night, falling back to sleep and fixing things in the morning. I curled up still dry and listened to the storm.
After a half hour there was no relief. Instead, the rain had begun to soak the sleeping bag, and I felt the cold water reach my legs. I did not think much about it,but realized my camping was over and that I must throw the wet things into the back of the truck and drive to civilization. It was very cold outside the bag, and in the actual rain I began to shiver. I took relief inside the cab, with little trips out to manage my equipment. Soon I was driving down the wet sandy road, soaking but with the heat blasting at my body. I made Grand Marais and woke the motel owner, and there, piling my drenched clothes by the door to the room, I showered and went back to the sleep of the defeated.
It was a brief adventure and the next day I was able to realize a few things. For one, the tent was damaged beyond repair, ripped by the storm. It was an old tent, and deserved the retirement to a dumpster in St. Ignace I granted it. For another, I compared my scotch-fraught confidence, my delight with blueberries and wind direction, grilled cheese and life, with the mood as I’d awakened in the motel. There was a small lesson here, the power of nature, the not escaping the significance, even, of my old friend’s life and death. It was larger than I, and no amount of cocktail and good luck would dissuade it. There had been love, and then death, and that was a storm I must be willing to live with.
I was willing, and as I crossed the big bridge I was amazed again at the expanse of blue the Great Lakes provide. The soul stretches out to infinity and a thousand times the body plunges and drowns in the vast water. And the dot of consciousness survives, though only for a time, to love this water, for as long as it is able, until it gives in to the embrace of things larger and more powerful.
THE TRAVELERS by foster neill
On a windless, cloudless day, a father and daughter set out on a journey over mountains,
across the desert, and through the woods to meet the sea where it started. For this purpose they rented a minivan and packed a cooler with cold cuts and sodas:
From his perspective, the father driving, the road appears to be melting on the horizon in
the midday sun. It appears to go on forever, which in some ways it does. Without
thinking, he repeats in his mind “All roads lead to Rome. All roads lead to Rome.” And
then thinks, “If I circle the earth will I come back to where I started?” The hum of the
automobile and the warmth of the sun lure his mind into a comfortable meditative state.
“Are we almost there Dad?”
His daughter pulls him back from his daydream. “No, we still have a long way to go.” he
replies, wondering how long he had been hypnotized by the journey and how much
danger he and his child were in while he was under the influence.
“How long? How long? she asks, but then the road rises before them and she can see it
goes on further than she can see and there is no ocean in sight and the two of them go
silent.
This child, like every child, lacks a clear sense of time despite the glowing green clock
staring back at her from the dashboard. She sees the road now, but only briefly and it is
not the road her father sees. Already they are surmounting the rise. She is too short. Her
view again consists of a windshield of sky and the interior of their rented vehicle. It is
both foreign and dull to her.
“Where are we?” she asks.
“We're somewhere in the desert.” he replies. “When we see great trees all around us we'll be almost there.”
Behind them dark mountains jut up from the earth. It is as if the two of them were driving
away from the night. The little girl tells herself “We are going so fast. We're going the
fastest that anyone can be go.”
On a windless, cloudless day, a father and daughter set out on a journey over mountains,
across the desert, and through the woods to meet the sea where it started. For this purpose they rented a minivan and packed a cooler with cold cuts and sodas:
From his perspective, the father driving, the road appears to be melting on the horizon in
the midday sun. It appears to go on forever, which in some ways it does. Without
thinking, he repeats in his mind “All roads lead to Rome. All roads lead to Rome.” And
then thinks, “If I circle the earth will I come back to where I started?” The hum of the
automobile and the warmth of the sun lure his mind into a comfortable meditative state.
“Are we almost there Dad?”
His daughter pulls him back from his daydream. “No, we still have a long way to go.” he
replies, wondering how long he had been hypnotized by the journey and how much
danger he and his child were in while he was under the influence.
“How long? How long? she asks, but then the road rises before them and she can see it
goes on further than she can see and there is no ocean in sight and the two of them go
silent.
This child, like every child, lacks a clear sense of time despite the glowing green clock
staring back at her from the dashboard. She sees the road now, but only briefly and it is
not the road her father sees. Already they are surmounting the rise. She is too short. Her
view again consists of a windshield of sky and the interior of their rented vehicle. It is
both foreign and dull to her.
“Where are we?” she asks.
“We're somewhere in the desert.” he replies. “When we see great trees all around us we'll be almost there.”
Behind them dark mountains jut up from the earth. It is as if the two of them were driving
away from the night. The little girl tells herself “We are going so fast. We're going the
fastest that anyone can be go.”
THE COMING STORM by cate stevens-davis
The afternoon sun beats down hot, sparkles off the surface of the still lake and blinds me as I lay on the dock even through my dark sunglasses. I've laid in the sun for two days already and the stillness makes my muscles stiff. I sigh, shift position on the beach towel, feeling the hard wood press into my hipbones and ribcage. I think of the scrape of my skeleton against my insides, the hard angles of bone.
I am not alone by the water, but there is enough room that even with my fingers and toes stretched far from my body I cannot touch the others, an assortment of Frank's aunts and uncles, his late father's old money relatives. They sit comfortable in sturdy wood chairs and lie on fluffy towels behind me on the wide platform that connects the dock to the beach, a small patch of sand at the base of a grassy hill. Now and then I feel their shadows or the drips of water that slip from their skin and hair as they come and go from the water, but I pretend I'm alone.
I listen to the soft swish of the waves against the time-rounded rocks that surround the dock. The water comes ashore reluctantly, rippling wind-blown from the calm center, and I feel a similar surge in my blood, a desire to get somewhere, but I'm cornered by Frank's family as much as the lake is caught between rocky beaches. The lake gently strokes its captors and the passivity of its movement rubs off on me, makes my limbs heavy and sluggish. I've brought my pencils, a fresh stack of paper, but I can't bring myself to draw.
This place, tucked between two tiny towns in the gently curving hills of northern Michigan, seems lost in time. A handful of years ago, after the war, the men of the family, Frank and his uncles, built a new guest house. To hear the story from Frank, I thought it sounded rough and romantic, though living in the little two-room shack is not: the outer walls made of mesh screens lined with plastic that ooze water and insects even when it's not raining and the roof sags in the center, no doubt weighted to its limit by dead leaves and standing water.
The main house, a dozen yards or so from the glorified shack built for guests, boasts a brilliant yellow coat of paint and little else. Frank and his rich family seem proud to lack comforts like real heating and running water, to have changed so little since his father built the place. It's almost a vacation from being rich, a quick jaunt on the other side of the tracks. Even the photographs that line the cottage's walls are relics from another age, once black and white but faded to sickly grays and yellows.
It's 1950 already, I think. Who lives like this?
Frank brought me north to introduce me to his history, his summer retreat for every year of his life. He's told me a hundred times that this place thrums in his veins like his own blood. He wants to be buried in the cemetery that looks over the water. I long for New York. This is too much wildness, nature unrestrained and yet unearthly still. This is a place where nothing much happens and no one seems to mind it.
I push away from the dock and stand slowly, stretching and rotating my arms until the shoulder joints pop. One of his aunts, a much older woman in a green plastic lounge chair puts her trashy novel aside and smiles up at me, squinting against the sun.
“Going for a swim, Peggy?” she says, sitting up. Her graying pubic hair waves in the gentle wind off the water, trickling out from under her bathing suit to dust her inner thighs. “It feels good after being in the sun so long.”
“No,” I say, shaking sand off my towel, collecting my pencils and paper. “I really don't like to swim.”
*
Frank had lured me to the lake with the promise of rest, a little peace and quiet. At the time I believed I wanted it. Though we'd been dating for a while, I could never afford to take time off from my job as an illustrator to go with him. Now that I'd been accepted into art school, I had a short break before classes. The timing was perfect, Frank insisted.
“I never see you,” he said in bed one night, fitting himself around the curve of my hip. He spoke in a whisper, wary of his landlady overhearing him. She was old-fashioned, hated the idea of girls in the rooms. “Run away with me.”
“Run away where?” I stroked the soft brown hairs that dusted his forearm. “Europe?”
He laughed. “Up north. To my lake.”
I turned to look at his head, next to mine on the pillow. The joke was gone from his blue eyes. I could feel the tension in his skin as he waited for me to answer.
“Meet your family?”
“Lay on the beach.”
“Be on my best behavior?”
“Sketch by the water.”
“Walk on eggshells?”
“It's a part of my life I want to share with you.”
I sighed, closed my eyes. “I'll think about it.”
Frank inched closer, wrapping his arms tight around my waist and settling his face against my neck. “You'll come?”
“I only have one bathing suit. It's old.”
“Nobody cares, Peg,” he said, kissing my throat. “I don't care.”
“You know I'm not very good at sitting around.”
“You'll learn. A few days soaking up the sun and you'll be addicted like the rest of us.”
*
Frank stays busy, running errands for his aunts or taking his younger cousins out to let them drive his car, and he never invites me to come along. His sister, Lucy, had at first seemed like she would be a good diversion, but she was hugely pregnant and craved the easy silence of the woods. After one interminable evening of sitting with her, I had had enough.
I interrupt one afternoon, just as Frank and one of the uncles stroll toward his car. “Where are you off to?” I say and in almost the same breath, “Can I come?” Even to my own ears it sounds whiny, pathetic. I wouldn't want to spend time with me either.
He smiles and pulls me close, kisses my forehead. Fatherly. I bristle. “Just going to the farm stand,” he says. “Boring stuff. Why don't you go down to the water? Everyone else is there.”
The uncle waves as they drive away. I stand watching until the car disappears at the end of the tree-lined drive, down the only road that led to town, if a tiny cluster of ragged buildings could be called a town.
I have a vague memory of him warning that it would be like that, that he doesn't often see these people. I don't care. I can't relax. The lake itself is postcard-pretty, but a hundred years of forest growth towers from every direction. Everything is still, quiet; even the wind is barely a breath in the tops of the evergreen trees. No one seems to share my claustrophobia or feel the ever-present crush of green and dirt and water. Even among the steel and glass of New York City I have never felt so small. Where are the car horns? The street lights? I crave fast living.
I duck into the guest house to change, pull a sun dress over my faded black suit. Wearing the flimsy dress is like slipping into another life, playing pretend. Part of the costume, I guess. As I guide the light fabric over my head I feel the tight heat of sunburn between my shoulders, the only place I couldn't reach with my own hands. His aunts all laughed and slathered sunscreen on each other's loose wrinkly skin before settling down to read and swim, but I was too shy to ask. And no one offered.
Back in the main house I idly browse the boxes of crackers and sift through the bowl of ripening fruit that seems permanently affixed to the dining room table. Frank had raved to me about the quality of the food in this place, the succulent tomatoes and sweet cherries, but I can't taste the difference. I have city taste buds. The tomatoes taste like tomatoes, the cherries not quite as good as I could get at the grocery store, not as round and red and sweet. I leave the fruit and the crackers and turn on the television. It's too quiet in the cottage, in the dark woods that ring the lake. Even the crackle and fuzz of the local news station is better than any more of the crushing, aching quiet.
It must be a slow day in town. The news runs on a loop, repeating the same four stories. No word about the outside world. I watch three segments before his car crunches on the driveway and the kitchen door swings open. His arms are full of groceries but I wedge myself in between them to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss his mouth. I feel his lips curve into a smile before he nudges me aside with one lumpy bag to set his load down on the counter. His uncle has already set down a bag and ducks out just as fast.
Frank hugs me with both arms and kisses my hair. “How's the water?”
“I didn't swim,” I say against his shoulder and he stills. I know when I lean back to look at his face he'll be frowning. “Your family hates me.”
He does frown, sandy eyebrows pinched over his nose, almost touching. There's a new tightness to his mouth. “They don't hate you,” he says. “They don't understand you. Why you are the way you are.”
“How am I? I'm trying to be nice. I say all my pleases and thank yous.”
“I know. I know.” He pulls me close again, rubs my hip with one big hand. “But there's so much here to be happy about and you look miserable all the time. Like you can't wait to get home again.”
“Nothing here moves or makes noise. Everyone wants it to stay quiet and I'm the one lumbering around disturbing everything.” I tuck my head under his chin, feel the steady pulse under his shirt. “I don't like to be this still.”
He rubs my back as we stand. “I want you to love it here. I thought...I wanted to share it with you.”
“Then show me,” I say. I don't want to whine but I do. “Some me something that moves. Something you're not related to.”
“They're my family. I'm only here once a year.”
“I know.” I push back from his chest and draw the back of my hand across my eyes, embarrassed to be tearing up. “I know. It's fine.”
He smiles, kisses me again. Probably thinks that's the end of it.
*
I don't want to steal his car, so I walk. I don't know where to go, so I follow the fork in the road that leads away from the water. I turn my back on the glistening surface of the lake, head instead for the road cutting through the thick darkness of the woods and walk until my legs burn and the soles of my feet sting. I follow one road to another, ignoring the street names burned into wooden planks and happy families in passing cars.
If I don't look around, I can pretend I'm walking down a city sidewalk; trees for buildings, chirping birds for strangers' chatter. I'd give anything to hear a police siren. My feet and ankles turn a musty brown from the road dust and the muddy puddles that collect in tire ruts, though it hasn't rained since I've been at the lake. The air is heavy, stale.
One road I choose ends abruptly at a thick chain hung between two trees. A sign warning trespassers dangles loose from the chain, rusted and barely legible. Beyond the barrier two tire tracks lead deeper into the woods, winding around the trees and disappearing from view. I think about stories in the newspaper about hikers lost in the woods, one wrong turn and they're never seen again, or they show up thirty miles down the road a month later. Somewhere down the path a bird hollers, like an invitation. I climb over the chain.
Thin plumes of dust rise from the sun-dappled tracks as I walk. Maybe if I go far enough I'll forget to notice the crackle of dirt and dried mud on my skin. Maybe I'll learn to like it. Now I just feel dirty. I miss the clean straight-forwardness of asphalt and cement, the crisp angles of a city sidewalk. The dirt road I follow is uneven, strewn with sticks and pebbles, sometimes flooded with mud.
I pause to listen to a metallic jingling from the woods behind me. A dog bursts from a patch of ferns, mud splattering under its white paws. Some kind of hound, a Beagle maybe, small and penny-colored with a white chest. It trots toward me, tongue lolling in a canine grin. I squat down to receive it and the dog licks my face, its entire hind end shaking with the ferocity of the long wagging tail.
The dog is streaked like me with dirt and dried mud, wearing a collar that might have been royal blue when it was new. It wears two tags, one a rabies vaccine receipt from two years ago, the other engraved with a phone number and a name, Copper.
“Not very original,” I say, scratching the dog's chin. I know a dozen other Coppers back home. He doesn't seem to mind, instead shakes his head, the floppy ears smacking against his face. The dog is the first thing I've seen up north that I think I'd like to draw.
Copper lets out a brief howl and trots down the tire ruts ahead of me. I follow, tired of the woods but not ready to return to the yellow cabin just yet. He stays close for the first few yards and then takes off running into the underbrush. I hear him howling and snapping dry twigs as he goes, the noise growing louder he gives up his chase and races back to the trail. He trots down the road until something, a squirrel in a tree or the passing scent of some other creature, sets him off and sends him careening into the forest once more.
We walk this way, the road bending around a number of thick trunked trees, until the dog tires and falls behind. I stand and wait for the panting hound to catch up, noticing for the first time that only his white chest glows in the failing light.
“I need to get back,” I say to no one, maybe to the dog. Being lost seems childish now. The allure is gone. “This road will never end.”
Around us the insects begin to hum. Copper sniffs something at the side of the road and then sits to scratch his ear. He doesn't seem concerned and when he starts to walk again, I follow.
*
Some time later, when the forest seems to teeter on the edge of full darkness, Copper howls and breaks into a happy lope. Ahead I see a log cabin, the front porch light glowing through the trees. I trot after the dog, to make sure I don't lose him. Copper feels like the only friend I've made since I came up north.
“There you are, you silly dog,” a man sitting on the porch steps says. The porch light makes his white hair appear yellow like aged paper. He doesn't sound angry and laughs when Copper lunges forward to lick his face. “God knows where you've been wandering. Always home for dinner, right?”
“Excuse me,” I say, stepping out of the woods and into the clearing that surrounds the small cabin. Dead leaves crack and shudder under my feet. I walk close enough to hear the buzz and zap of insects against the overhead light. “I'm sorry, I followed your dog.”
“Oh,” the man says. “Hello. You lost?”
“Yes. Wandered away from the cottage.” My heart thunders along in my chest. “It's on the lake. My boyfriend's family.”
“It's a big lake. Lots of cottages.”
“I know. It's yellow. The cottage is.”
“But you don't know where it is?” He exhales through his nose.
“No. I was walking and I saw the chain.” Am I annoying you? I think and it makes me smile. “I just followed the trail.”
But no. He waves the offense away with one hand like cigarette smoke. “Do you know the name? The cottage's?”
Every house on the lake has a name: Slice of Heaven, Eagle's Rest, Northern Comfort. Every family has a special sign made, to hang on the road in place of an address. I can see the yellow cottage's sign, yellow with a blue sailboat. But the name? I'd laughed at it at first, thought it was silly.
“Safe Haven,” I say. It sounds ridiculous, spoken out loud.
“Oh.” The man smiles, I hear it in his voice and see the flash of his teeth. “That's not far. I'll give you a lift. Do you mind if I feed the dog first?”
He waits, holding the door for the half-second it makes me to make up my mind. I'm tired of the outdoors. Inside his cabin smells like fresh-cut wood and seared meat. Copper stands on his hind legs in anticipation and the man groans a bit as he bends to set a bowl on the floor. I study his kitchen, the cast iron pans and color photographs of men holding large fish that line the walls. All of the men are smiling, the fish gaping open-mouthed, shocked and straining against the thick air.
Me too, I think, nodding at the photo.
“You're out here all alone,” the man says.
“Sure,” I say. If he lunged at me could I defend myself? I think I could. I think I could get away. My hands tingle.
He steps to the sink and begins drying dishes. There's a hole in his towel. As he wipes the plate in his hand ceramic peeks through, flashes of white. “No boyfriend?”
“He's busy.” I shrug. “Family. I don't think they like me.” I look back at the walls, the glossy speckled body of a huge trout dangling from a line, hooked through the mouth. If I drew this place, all the fish would have my face.
“That's too bad,” he says. “Complicates things.”
“My first time ever coming up here.”
“You don't like it.” The bowl scrapes against the linoleum floor as Copper licks it into a corner.
“No. It makes me miss home,” I say. “New York.” As if that explains everything.
The man nods, lips pursed. “Well. Safe Haven's no New York,” he says. “But New York's no Safe Haven.”
“It's quiet here.”
“Is it?”
The man's hands stop moving and he stands, head cocked. He smiles and I hold my breath to hear whatever it is he's listening to. Electric lights buzzing. The dog licking the bowl clean. My heartbeat. A room full of nothing. I want to run outside and scream until my chest burns.
Copper takes a long drink out of another bowl, water sloshing onto the floor and dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He sits down at the man's feet expectantly, still dripping.
“Done?” the man says and the dog hops to his feet, tail swinging. He doesn't look at me when he speaks again, maybe he's not even speaking to me. “Let's go.”
He drives down a short driveway to the main road, trees looming sinister in the headlights. I stare out at the dark, full dark that covers everything in its blackness, and I'm surprised when he turns into the yellow cabin's driveway only a few minutes later.
“The back roads are kind of a maze,” the man says. “Get you far away from where you should be and not so far at all.”
“Thanks,” I say. I reach for the door handle but don't get out of the car. “I'm Peggy.”
“Ben.” The man shakes my hand, gruff and hard.
I could run away with this man, I think. Pay him to take me to a bus station, slip away home. My heart thunders against my ribs as I open my mouth to suggest it but he starts to rub Copper's ears and I'm sure he doesn't even notice when I get out of the car.
*
I wake the next morning to the sound of thunder. I've slept only a few hours, up late staring at the darkened ceiling above my bed. I didn't know what to say to Frank when I got back to the yellow cabin, wanting hurricane anger and getting only a strained smile.
“I was worried,” he said, winding his arms around my waist. He held me carefully, close and at a distance. His passion seemed all dried up, left back in the city.
Lucy patted my arm and led me to the table, dinner kept warm in the oven since the meal hours earlier. Guilt burned my throat until I swallowed it down. She sat at the table while I ate, shook her blonde head over the state of my white dress, smiled when I told her about the dog and the man. Further down the table, Frank's fingertips always tracing the names carved into the table's rough surface, his lineage on display. Later he kissed me goodnight and told me that he loved me before heading to the bedroom he shared with his uncles. Had he even asked if we could share a bed? The distance at night was worse than during the daylight hours.
Now he rubs his hand over my arm, cushioned by the thick sweater I have to wear during the cold nights. It's old habit to wake up to his smile. For a moment, I imagine that we are in his apartment in New York, that nothing has changed and he never brought me north.
“I want to show you something.”
I sit up but don't push back the blankets. “What?”
“It's coming fast. Hurry.”
I get up slowly, dress with unhurried deliberateness. Legs into pants, feet into socks into boots. Frank waits by the door, watching, unmoving, until I'm ready.
I follow him down the stone steps from the cottage's lawn to the dock. Thunder rumbles like an engine turning over. It seems to come from the air and the water at once, everything alive and moving with noise. I think this as I watch his hair blow in the wind and then realize that my own hair is swirling around my face. My blood surges.
“You wanted this? Movement,” he says, almost shouting. “Noise!”
He takes my hand and lead me to the end of the dock. Our footsteps shake the wood. The wind is high and the water rough, white-tipped waves rolling and cresting high on shore. All around is the sound of the wind and the water. When he puts an arm around my shoulders and points across the lake, I see his lips move but cannot hear what he says. I smile and the wind is rough on my cheeks, makes my teeth sore.
The sky is thick with black clouds advancing. Slivers of lightning spark above the tree line, followed close by booming thunder that seems to rattle the air. I laugh and Frank laughs with me, his arms tight around me.
He leans close to my ear to speak, his breath curling against the sensitive skin of my face as his hands roll one sleeve of my sweatshirt up past the elbow. “You'll feel the hair on your arm stand up. When it does, it's time to go.”
When I nod, he pulls away. The storm is a living thing, a herd of hoofed beasts galloping closer and closer. I can see it advancing, rolling like an avalanche towards us, inescapable. The noise rises, water whipped into a fury by the wind. Rain begins to fall, slowly at first and then with all the frenzy of the thunder cracking overhead. Pelting droplets sting the exposed skin of my face and neck.
In the path of the storm, I clutch his hand, feel a prickle like electricity in his skin. He squeezes my fingers and I turn to gaze up at him. He stares back down at me. I feel the shudder of his tensed muscles, see his lips curl into a smile.
“Now. Run.”
