For
Mr. Steen (one of the two best men I have ever known).
Harry the baker filled my plate with broken bits of warm
blueberry muffin.
“Damaged product.” He called it.
His white t-shirt, white pants and white shoes
matched his white hat and of course his white eyebrows.
“I can’t put the product out for the guests like
that.” He said.
He placed a gob of butter on the blade end of an oven
peel and held it inside the oven. He pulled the butter out after a few seconds
and held it over my plate. He twisted his wrists. The butter slid off the peel
and down onto my plate next to the sweet fluffy damaged product. I put two cups
of tea down on the old desk where he kept his inventory papers. The cover of
his bible was smudged with white flour finger prints. Flour also covered the
papers, the chair, and the floor, and, well, just about everything else in the
bakery including the baker himself.
We never talked politics; he had none. As for
sports, he recollected with fondness the day he watched Joe Louis jog around a
military base in Liverpool, and once his father mentioned with pride that Jim
Thorpe attended a prayer gathering. Beyond that Harry the baker couldn’t name a
single athlete from any sports team-ever.
He talked about the war only when I pried. And even
then, he’d only give snap shots of his experience. I was fascinated with the
subject at the time and manipulated our conversation to it when I could. I told
him how my Grandfather served as a cook in the South Pacific and watched the
Enola Gay take off. Harry opened up
briefly but then shut down like a kite falling to the beach sand just after the
breeze stops. I measured the color in his face to determine when to back away
from the subject. If his flour white cheeks turned apple red I changed the
subject away from the war.
One night he opened up a little and talked about a
day he snuck out of camp. The boredom that makes up much of war overwhelmed him.
The rain had been relentless. He had been trapped in a leaky gunny sack tent
for close to three weeks. The rain lightened to a drizzle, and he took his
camera and caught a ride with the Grave Diggers in the back of Army truck up to
a small village.
All black soldiers from places like Alabama, Chicago
and Harlem made up The Grave Digger Unit dispatched from the 92nd Division.
They buried American and Allied -- and even German soldiers.
Harry sat in the back of the truck and watched the black soldiers uniformed in
army green heave bodies wrapped in white sheets off the back of the truck into rows
of shallow mud-holes.
Puddles of rain water splashed out at the impact of
the body.
He returned to his tent in the afternoon and found a
copy of “Huckleberry Finn” in his sleeping bag. His platoon leader had written
an inscription in side.
“Next time you give yourself permission to
stand down, for your sake, you best keep on going. You must be bored with reading
Moses and Luke; here, try reading Twain.”
I told him he should write about his war experiences.
He scoffed at the idea that anyone would find what he had to say the least bit
interesting. I told him it would be good for him to get it all down on paper
and out of his system.
“You can even rip up the paper after you’ve filled
it if you want. Might make you feel a little better.”
His cheeks started to flush.
“So, I can’t believe you’ve heard of Joe Louis and
Jim Thorpe but not Babe Ruth.” I said quickly changing subjects.
Harry liked jokes. I never once told him a dirty
one. He also liked to hear stories about people both real and un-real. He never watched a television, never sat in a
movie house and his music was limited to hymns. So, I had an endless well to
draw from. He liked some stories more
than others: The melancholic Prince of
Denmark and the sad story of Anna from St. Petersburg, the underdog struggle of
Rocky Balboa and how Darth Vader, as it turned out, was Luke’s father were some
of his favorites. I tried once to tell him some of stories of the actual soap
opera junk that went on in the hotel in which he worked, but he found them
boring and didn’t care for gossip.
“Harry, are you sure you have never read anything
but the bible?”
“Huh? Oh, sure –sure, I’ve read all of John Darby’s
books” he said.
I rolled my eyes, “No, I meant like have you ever
read a novel?”
He looked at me and got serious.
“Back during the war….. I read “Huckleberry Finn” He
said in a half whisper. Then bellowed out with laughter, and I couldn’t help
but laugh too.
He picked up his tea and held it under his nose.
“Ahhhh---Bergamot.”
He inhaled, and then sipped to confirm. He laughed
and slammed the cup down as if he had just taken a shot of aged whiskey.
“I was just thinking to myself that tonight was an
Earl Grey kind of night.”
Many nights I’d find him sitting at his desk reading
bible. I learned not to wait until he finished and instead used the opportunity
to sneak to the back of the shop where he kept the chocolate chip cookies.
People read the bible for many reasons: curiosity,
history, comfort and inspiration. Harry
read it for the thrill. It exhilarated, animated and elated him. When Harry
read the bible, physical injury became an actual possibility. One night I swear
within a span of five minutes he laughed, cried, gasped and even screamed. Then
he threw his hands in the air, stood up, paced and kicked the baking counter. Then
literally jumped back into his chair and picked up the book again. He pinched
the pages with his index finger and thumb; he rubbed the paper as if the words
needed to be forced out to be read. His
chin tilted down the page as he read then stopped suddenly as if held up by
something. He smacked the desk with his meaty palm; then he jumped back up out
of his chair and shouted:
“That’s it--that’s it--that’s what I needed, boy,
that’s good stuff!” He said.
“Reading “The Book of Solomon” again, are ya, Harry?”
He froze and registered what I said and then
bellowed out with laughter,
“HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!”
Then one night I waited for him to finish his
reading. He strutted over to the oven. Again, so delighted with what he had
just read, he reached inside with only a towel rag and grabbed the metal baking
pan. The ‘product’ steamed as he placed the muffin pan on the counter to cool.
He seemed to do the same.
“Harry, what did
you read?” I surprised myself with the
question. It was one of those things that I thought in my head and didn’t mean
to speak. That simple slip changed everything.
He looked as though he had just realized I was there.
“Was it a parable?” I asked.
“No.” He spoke and extended the word in soft prolonged
drawl.
“Will you
tell me?” I was in too deep now.
He continued to look at me perhaps for a sign of sincerity.
I didn’t blink. I waited him out.
“Ok,” he said, “You asked, so I will tell you, I was
reading in Mathew 14: 22-33. Peter tried to copy the Lord and walk on
water.
‘But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried
out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of
him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
He looked at me. He never preached to me, judged me or forced
his beliefs on me. And I had never done whatever is considered the reverse of
that to him. We touched the topic once or twice before but retreated. But now I let him know I was willing to talk
about God.
“Faith?” I asked.
“Harry, why do you believe
in God?” The question sounded stupid.
But I anticipated a
well-rehearsed sermon, a dissertation. I expected him to launch heroically into
the endeavor of the saving my soul with parables and prophecy, principals and
proverbs. I day dreamed that people would reflect upon this moment as the
initial ‘sermon in the bake shop.’
Instead, he said nothing. He
turned and went back to his work. He picked up the muffin tray and flipped it so
the upside was facing down.
“Got to get them out
before they cool and get stuck in the pan.” He said.
He rapped the baking tray
on the counter, and the muffins tumbled out and on to another tray that he had
lined with wax paper. He ignored me. I didn’t understand. Anxiety surged through
my mind. Had I had everything all wrong?
I thought to myself that maybe
my visits to the bakeshop to see ‘poor old Harry the baker’ so ‘he’ would have
someone to talk to on the overnight was just my misguided projection. I played
some of the visits back in my head, and it wasn’t a good. I was embarrassed. Maybe
I was nothing but annoyance to the poor old guy. Night after night I had
interrupted and distracted him when all he wanted was just to get his job done.
If I could have crawled out of the bakeshop and mopped up the flour with my
stomach, I would have. I headed out of the bake shop and back upstairs to where
I belonged.
“Wait.” He said.
He held up a blueberry
muffin. It was a good ‘product’ with good color, good texture, just enough blue
berries visible and it was un-broken. I appreciated the gesture. “No, thanks,”
I said. He put his hand out and stopped me.
“Faith,” He said, in a
clear deliberate voice I had not heard him use before. “Now you asked, so I’m going
to do my best to tell you, Ok?”
I nodded.
“Put all the ingredients in a bowl, the flour,
baking powder and sugar. In another bowl, combine butter, egg, and milk and mix
well. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and with a spatula, stir
until just combined. Do not beat or over mix; it's okay if there are lumps in
the batter. Gently fold the blueberries into the batter and finally stick it
all into the oven to bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Every now and then some of them
break apart in the heat, even for me, and I have been baking since 1931. I have
learned when someone is hungry; it is un-noticed that it is given in pieces and
not whole….”
He tossed the blueberry
muffin at me. It bounced off my chest and I fumbled and caught it.
“If baked just right, it
will not fall apart. But even if it does fall apart you can still eat it”
I put the muffin down and looked up at him. He had
taken off his old reader glasses. I noticed his eyes were sky blue.
“Do you understand?” He asked.
I nodded.
“Good!” He slapped my back and left a white hand
print. The Harry laugh filled the room.
He returned to his work and sorted his muffins on to
a rolling cart. The cart would be brought out into the Palm Garden to be
offered to the hotel guests for Brunch.
I stayed away from the Hotel Bakery for a long time after
that.
Embarrassed.
Can
you eat tomorrow?
Then there were the adventures with Brandon, our
nightly treks to the Casino, days without sleep, the long legged front desk
girl I found in my bed when I woke up, the hostess, the waitress, the waitress,
and the other waitress, there was this house keeper, and there was this
concierge and this front desk manager. The Apple Computer’s Christmas party,
the spring break trip to Key West and the girl with the kissing lips tattoo on
her ass. I could tell you about his attempted murder that I managed to stop and
then the second attempt he didn’t tell me about, but fortunately the target
lived, I could tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me. The dozens of computers
that were delivered that disappeared and on paper weren’t delivered at all. If
he needed gas money he’d take the keys to the vending machines and go floor to
floor and remove the cash.
He found in a purse that someone had dropped in the
front circle. He asked me what he should do with it. I told him to put the ID
out and we can find the owner and return it to her. It was filled with about
two hundred dollars in singles, fives and tens. Maybe it belonged to a waitress
or bartender. He looked at the license. It was nobody we knew. He dumped the
purse in the trash and handed half the money to a homeless guy who walked by
and then found a valet we liked and gave the rest to him. He told valet that it
was a tip a guest had left for him. Noble gestures, but I felt bad for the
original owner who probably worked hard to earn that money. I returned later and dug the purse out of the
trash and dropped it in the mail box just a few feet away. At least I might
save someone from a hassled day of getting a new license.
“Besides myself, there are only two others I will
allow to judge me: god and you, and I don’t believe in god and I just said
‘you’ to make you feel important.”
The thrill of doing the next wrong thing made him
feel alive. I suppose I enhanced the
thrill by telling him how wrong it all was. But I did sit or stand side by side
with him while he did these things. Fuck,
we had fun.
We needed sordid dirty shit. We searched out and
thrived in Casinos and Strip joints, the seedier the better. We spent a lot of
time in a place that we fondly nicknamed the ‘HIV lounge.’ It had glory holes
dug out in the wall in the bathroom. A sign above the top shelf stated that the
establishment had but one rule: “All customers and staff must clean up their
own vomit.”
Brandon explained it better than I ever could:
“It’s a lot more fun watching a naked, stubble
shaved, overweight, woman, with a C-section scar across her stomach and at
least two bullet holes on her back, pick up a dollar bill with her genitalia
than it is watching a 20 year old fake blond with implants and no enthusiasm
wiggle her ass for the tenth time to “‘Girls-Girls Girls’.”
Most nights ended in the Casino at the craps table.
He was a terrible gambler. He played the long shots, the horn bets, the field,
the hard ways etc. I played somewhat after reading a book about the famous gambler,
Jimmy the Greek. Left on my own, I could at least break even, but I was never left
on my own. Casino money was communal. What was his was mine, what was mine was
his. Most of the time I was handing him what was mine and then watching it get
racked away to become what was the Casino’s.
Sooner or
later we’d be checking the car ash tray, seat cushions and floor for change to
by a candy bar or bag of chips for the long ride home. I’d complain about our
continued stupidity of our many trips to the casino and about being broke. Etc.
One night during the long exile to Boston from Foxwoods (this is when we did
all our talking) he asked a rhetorical question that became the mantra of our
dalliances.
“Look…Can you eat tomorrow?”
I thought about it.
There was always hotel food to fall back on. The cooks kept us stuffed
on so much steak and lobster after a while we actually got sick of the stuff
and begged for burgers and chicken fingers, and if worse came to worse we had
the cafeteria food at the hotel. And If I really had to I could borrow twenty
bucks from one of the doormen or valets.
“I guess so, Yeah.” I answered.
“Good, I can too. Did you have fun tonight? Or, at
the very least was it better than staying home in your apartment reading “The
World According to Garp” for the hundredth time?”
I nodded.
“Good, as long as you can eat tomorrow then
everything is ok.”
There was goodness to his evilness. He loosened the
lug nuts on the wheel to a car that belonged to a manager who had ridiculed and
belittled a little Peruvian custodian we were quite fond of. The manager was
indeed a rich punk from a nice town who thought he was better than the little
Peruvian custodian simply because he was a rich punk from a nice down with the
word ‘manager’ on his name tag. He made sure everyone could hear as he
chastised our little friend for forgetting to wear his name tag to work after
being warned to before.
“I want to kill that snot nose punk from Newton.”
Brandon said.
“Actually, I think he is from Westwood.” I said
“Newton- Westwood-Difference?”
I thought for a second. “Nope, I suppose not”
The Manager’s tire wobbled off on Atlantic Avenue
and his car ended up against a fire hydrant. He was not injured, but scared. He
arrived to work the next day; Brandon approached him and feigned genuine
concern. He asked him if he ok, and then at the end of the conversation he
handed the manager an envelope with the lug nuts inside.
“I found these outside on the ground. You should be
more careful. If not, shit like that could keep happening.”
The manager transferred to a lesser position at a
different hotel- in Newton I believe, Ironically.
“I just have different sets of morals from others.” He
said, after I scolded him about how the asshole manager could have died. “And
as to him dying, who cares?”
I arrived at work one night and found Brandon, the
Peruvian custodian and our own security supervisor in the loading dock. They
had backed the engineering truck in and loaded it with a bed, two living room
chairs, plates, silverware, boxes of other goods like trash bags and soaps.
“What’s the address of your new apartment?” Brandon
asked.
“213 Beacon St. Somerville, but why?” I asked.
He jumped into the driver’s seat of the pick-up with
the Hotel Logo on its doors. Our supervisor rode shotgun and the Peruvian
custodian in the back. The custodian gave me the middle finger with a big smile
and then thumbs up. The truck flew out of the loading dock and out of site. I
arrived home in the morning to find my apartment fully furnished. I had been
sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor just the day before.
“Well, you didn’t expect me to bring my girlfriends
to an unfurnished apartment and have sex on your pile of dirty blankets and
couch cushions did you? By the way, I made my own key and don’t use my towel or
my tooth brush, and for hygiene sake I suggest you sleep mostly on the right
side of the bed-- if you can help it.”
That’s right, he used the hotel engineering truck to
move stolen hotel furniture to my apartment, and he had the security supervisor
help him. They punched out from work after they got back to the hotel, and made
sure that the hotel paid for them for the moving job. It was hard work.
I believe he used loyalty as an excuse. He reasoned
it to be the answer for his way of life. Loyalty was his rationalization. He would’ve died with me if I asked him too,
if not for the thrill of it. He disregarded infidelity. “Sex is sex.” He said. “For
me, it’s all just a form of masturbation anyway.” Later would add that “Sex is
sex and Sofi is love and the best masturbation of all.” He also never pursued a married woman or a
seriously committed woman, even when that woman made advances on him.
“Loyalty will get you.” I warned him in Atlantic
City. But he didn’t believe me. He
actually laughed at me and told me that such a thing was impossible. He looked so deep into me that I felt sure
he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I lied with every nerve and fiber and
everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find good in me, and he did. The
good he resented and wished he could be, but in reality I had none.
Anne and I had met in a parking lot. Brandon
introduced us, of course.
“Hey, you are cute. And a red head too.”
He just walked over to her car; we were all trapped
there in the parking lot. 10,000 people exiting at once, so we just stayed in
the spot and waited.
“I’ve got a girlfriend, but my friend over there,
he’s good looking and a great guy, and he has been moping all summer because he
is lonely and too shy to ask anyone out….So, why don’t you come over and say hi
if you feel like it. I promise we aren’t serial killers or anything. I mean, we
are in the parking lot at a damn Cranberries concert for crying out loud.”
And so she looked over; our eyes entangled. And she
was indeed a cute red head dressed in tight jeans. She blushed when I reached
out and shook her hand hello. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and sleep.
Not fuck. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of
the phrase. Of course I’d want all that messy fun stuff too. But I lacked the
courage, I was gawky and she was desperately patient and I was hopelessly
boring and she didn’t want to talk about my friend Brandon but wanted to know
about me, so that was definitely a plus. I think Brandon had found out about
his new job in Philadelphia by that time and was trying to find me someone
before he moved. Anne used that word: love. I said it was too. I lied. We lived
that lie for four years. She clung and smothered me with her unconditional
love.
The entire thing played like a bad Alanis Morisette
song scratched out onto a piece of paper ripped from a notebook crumpled up and tossed into a gutter on a
street where rain water would wash it down into the sewer and some constipated
rat would use it for toilet paper. Then again, it could have been love.
“Riders on the Storm”
October 25, 1999 marked the end of things. Anne and I waited in the emergency room at
Mount Auburn Hospital. She buried her
face hard into my shoulder. Her nose pressed deep into my muscle. The blood had
slowed somewhat but still seeped up through the white paper towel.
A television showed a live shot of a leer jet in
flight. The news anchor said that the pilot had not radioed in a response in
almost an hour even though they had made numerous attempts to contact the
plane. The emergency waiting room was crowded. A Latino man with a pot belly
sat hunched over in discomfort with his head in his hands and his elbows on his
knees while his wife rubbed his back. He looked up at me and I returned my eyes
to the plane flying aimlessly across the television screen. I let go of Anne’s hand for a moment and
rubbed my eyes. She reached up and took my hand back into hers and continued a
quiet cry. The bandage around her hand turned Sanguine red.
In spite of everything that happened in my life I
had never lost the feeling that I could turn it all around; if only I did this
or if only I did that, I could make everything ok. What a fucking joke.
“She managed a single laugh. “Who would have thought
from the first time we met that we'd be sitting here?”
I closed my eyes and actually thought about it; how
I did end up here with her?
I walked home from work that morning. I looked forward finally to a good
sleep. I would open my bedroom window a
crack to let the smell and sound of the rain in, and sleep on through to the
afternoon. I’d also have my apartment
and privacy back, or so I thought. The breakup seemed impossible no matter what
I tried. She refused to leave and camped in my bedroom for 2 straight weeks.
She wouldn’t even step outside the apartment for fear that I would lock her out
and prevent her from getting back in.
I finally took the coward way and called her mother
and explained that I was trapped. I just wanted to be a lone. I just wanted to
be single. Her mother and father arrived and stunned, embarrassed, she left
with them. Anne didn’t say a word. She walked to the door. It was the first
time in our entire relationship that she didn’t say a word.
But now, finally-finally-finally-I had my apartment
back, and I was single to boot. No more damned relationships I promised myself.
I planned to sweep away the shattered pieces of my life like spilled cat litter
my cat kicked onto the bathroom floor. But then I opened my bedroom door. She
sat there on the bed. I stood again deflated
and completely frustrated. I started into her right away.
“I give up. You fucking win. Ok? We can get fucking
married tomorrow. Whatever the hell you want.”
I said. “Are those the words you
wanted? I mean, who the fuck cares about what I want? Not you, not Brandon, not
my mother, not anyone…who gives a fuck…you all win…take- take - take…all of you.”
I tossed my keys across the room. They hit the
mirror on the closet door and cracked it. She jumped at that broken glass
sound.
“I stayed up all night and wrote you poems.” She
said. Her voice and hand both shook. She removed yellow pieces of note book
paper from her purse and put them on the dresser. “I made you cookies; they are
out in the kitchen. Do you want me to help you un-wind, you want a quick blow
job?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, grit my teeth and clenched
my fist. I wanted to smash something.
“Ok, Ok, never mind. Look, I just want to stay for
today and I promise then I will leave ok?”
If an outsider met us for the first time the
outsider would believe her to be the sane one in our relationship. They
wouldn’t know other side of her: the crazed
banshee who knocked me down a flight of stair from behind, who drove us into a
ditch, who smashed me over the head with a coffee mug or who stabbed me in the
leg with a kitchen knife.
“Sure, whatever you want, stay the fuck
forever. I’m exhausted. I worked all
night I’m going to sleep, is that ok with you? Can I have your permission? I
promise I will get up and do whatever you want and say whatever you want, just
let me sleep a couple of hours” I whipped my shoes against the wall. She
started to tear up.
“Oh, come on, we are way passed tears. Cry all you
want, but then again, why the fuck are you crying? I told you--you win!”
“I’m not crying. I’m just going to take a bath, is
that ok?” She said.
I looked at her and for a moment I had the desire to
comfort fuck her, and it pissed me off that I wanted to. Instead I ignored her
and fell back into my ghetto style bed. The bed consisted of the queen box
spring and mattress that Brandon had stolen from the hotel that I put on top of
four milk crates, also stolen from the hotel, along with the bed sheets,
blankets and of course pillows. My apartment was basically a recycled hotel
guest room from the silverware and dishes to the soap, tooth paste and towels.
“Whatever.” I mumbled.
I dreamed of exploding Pine trees. The blast of the
last one startled me awake. I heard water being rippled from the bathroom. I
looked at the digital clock on my T.V and realized that I had been asleep for
almost an hour, a long time for a bath. I didn’t like it.
I got up and walked to the bathroom and the door was
locked.
“Hey, open the door, I got to pee” I said.
“Ok.” She said.
I waited.
“What are you doing? I told you to open the door”
“Just let me finish my bath, I’m almost done”
“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR AND OPEN IT THE FUCK NOW.”
“Just go away, please. I’m ok. Just go back to
sleep”
I took a step back, surprised how close the feelings
of anger and fear were to one another. I hit the part of the door where I knew
the little metal bolt was. I didn’t have to hit it hard. It popped as if it
wanted to. My momentum carried me in to the room and I almost fell into the tub
on top of her.
Naked and pink, she raised her arm and shielded her
eyes as if I’d turned a light on in a dark room and blinded her.
A thin red worm appeared on her wrist. The red worm
just sat there on her wrist for a few seconds and grew fat. When it looked as
though it would burst it squirmed down her forearm across her elbow and off
into the water. It splashed red into the water turning it a tepid pink color. A
razor blade like the one my father used to use in his razor was on the floor.
She had wrapped it with toilet paper to make it easier to hold.
“Please, just go back to bed. Just let me alone. I just
want to finish my bath. I’m almost done.”
The cuts were deep. The blood oozed and flowed into
the tub. The pink water darkened.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“NO!”
“What the fuck do you mean ‘NO’? You’re bleeding to
death.”
“NO-NO-NO…Please, they will lock me in the psych
ward.”
She stood up in the tub. She had sliced about a six
inch gash across her inner thigh just above her knee. This cut made no sense.
Had she practiced? Had she punished herself before heading to suicide? Had she
needed to find out if the blade would work? The blood spilled out and down her
thigh. I grabbed a towel and pressed it to her leg.
“Too fucking bad.” I said.
“Please. Ok. Look. I’ll make a deal. Take me to the
emergency room yourself. We can say that the glass shower door broke. Otherwise
I know they will lock me away for 30 days with the crazies, and I can’t handle
that. Please, do this for me and I will never bother you again. You owe me this
much. You asked me to marry you. Remember?”
For some
insane reason I think that she drove us to Mount Auburn Hospital.
There was breaking news that showed a live shot on
the television in the emergency room; F-16 fighter jets escorted an
unresponsive plane across the country. It was a Leer jet and its engines
operated, but condensation blocked the windows. I closed my eyes and wished I
were anywhere else but there in that emergency room, even if I could be on that
plane. I looked across the room at the
Spanish man who looked my way but was no longer looking at me but at the blood
that had started to pool at my feet.
The doctor looked younger than me. He was at best
Anne’s age. I remember thinking of something a nun had said back at high school
about the day one realizes that youth has passed. She said the cops, doctors
and priests look younger. Doctor Doogie examined her wounds. He listened as she
explained about the shattered glass shower door. I expected a look of sympathy
of some sort. Instead his eyes accused me. He told me to step out, so he could
speak to her. He thought that somehow I had done this to her, that I had abused
her. I suppose in a sense he was right.
Her mother and father arrived. I didn’t say a word. They told me to leave. I
listened. “See, when someone tells me to leave I fucking listen.” I wanted to
scream. I don’t make cookies and slice my wrists. I watched the T.V. as I
walked the distance of the emergency room. They showed pictures of everyone on
board the ghost plane including a famous golfer, all of them flying dead in the
twilight towards the Dakota Mountains to disintegrate.
But, enough of all that.
SOMBRAS DA ALMA
I walked out of the emergency room and up the black tarred drive onto Mount Auburn Street. I made my way down to the Charles River and walked along the bike path for a bit. A night bird flew in front of the clouded moon and I thought of my friend the Duke and how he would have found such an image mystical. I cut back on to Brattle Street. Music, car horns and laughter echoed in a muffled vibration from the square just beyond. The distant sound of an amplified acoustic guitar triggered the memory of a happier time. I once lived in a Catholic Rectory just outside the Square. On a good day back then I’d spend fifty cents or a buck downstairs on a paperback at the used book store and head up to the Square with Tolstoy or Somerset Maugham or with Raymond Carver or maybe even Robert Parker. I’d find a spot on the side walk with my back to the wall of the subway entrance and listen to Flathead play his guitar and sing about Molly. I’d sit next to the guy who used homemade signs with a funny one liner to solicit change. Instead of writing the standard slogans: “Homeless please help”, or “Vietnam Vet etc.” He tried a more clever approach; his signs read “Spare a dollar so I can buy some pot” or “Need some change so I can buy some booze the - Sox are depressing the hell out of me.” That was the old Harvard Square. Some things should never be allowed to change.
I descended a set of stairs and fished a brown token out of my pocket for the turnstile. I waited briefly on the empty platform until a train in red trim appeared. It screeched in a sound that metal and steel would make if it had the ability to be tortured. I boarded the empty subway car inbound. A recorded voice droned that it was taking me next to Central Square. The interior dimmed in neon as the train crawled into the tunnel. I took a seat in a corner and closed my eyes.
My mind was in some sort of survival mode distracting me from what happened earlier because my memory started the second half of a walk down memory lane double feature with the pleasant images and sounds of a Green-line conductor who used to tell jokes the on the trolley from Lechmere to Kenmore Square. He occasionally give a slurred rendition of “Take me out to the ball game” over the intercom system; or, he’d serenade passengers with “Charlie on the MTA.” I retrieved the conductor’s distinct happy voice in my head:
“Did he ever return? No, he never returned And his fate is still unlearned He may ride forever ‘neath the streets of Boston He′s the man who never returned.”
I remember being on board to a Sox game and hearing the collective groan of those on board when he announced that his impending retirement in a months’ time. I purposely exited the front of the car to try and glimpse what the conductor looked like, but the black curtain partition that shielded the driver from the rider had been drawn. I could only see the cuffs of blue uniform pants and white canvas Cuck Taylor high tops.
A loud mechanical recorded chime broke my memory and brought me back to the harsh reality and a canned voice about as different sounding as possible from the singing conductor of my youth announced that we had arrived into Central Square.
The train doors parted. A well dressed man in suit and long coat boarded.
He sat in the seat across from me. I closed my eyes. I childishly hoped he could see my displeasure by how tight I squeezed my eyelids and lips at his seat selection on the otherwise empty train.
I hadn’t slept for close to two days.
“Rough night?”
I opened my eyes and looked across. The shadowed silhouette in the chair across from me nodded at my blood stained pant legs. I turned my hands palm side up on my legs and looked at Anne’s smudged blood. If only we had parked somewhere else at that concert.
“Something like that.” I said.
“It's dangerous to need someone like that. You're trying to save her and she's hoping you can. It’s like you both prayed for different destinations but still arrived at the same disaster.” He said.
My heart pounded. “Did you follow me from the hospital?”
His smile was bright and his teeth perfect. He shook his head.
“You were the one who called me for help remember?
I didn’t say anything.
“If you must know, I really came because her mother called me. She’s such a nice lady. And when I got to the hospital she even asked me to check and make sure you were ok can you believe it? So, here I am. Are you ok?”
The train slowed as it climbed out of the tunnel and into Charles Street Station. Back Bay lit up in sprinkled blue, red, purple and orange lights like a giant had dropped a string of Christmas lights on the ground. The well-dressed man stood and stepped forward and looked down at me.
“No, it is not too late.” He said, knowing my question from the look on my face.
“But you have to want it.” The train stopped and the doors opened.
"I don't want to be this way." I said. My stomach sank.
“Then don’t.” He said.
“Look, in a different world, you could live a lifestyle that allows you to do things like fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart, without hurting them or them hurting you. But trust me; you really don’t want to live in that world anyway. What is most important is what you do in the next five minutes and then the next five minutes after that. Live your life like that for a it till you get your direction, and never put yourself on auto-pilot; you saw what could happen with that. I mean, it’s inevitable that you will still go home and sooner or later you’ll be bored. You’ll be lonely. You will meet someone and fall in love yourself this time and then comes the real test. What will you do when you are the one who wants to take a bath?” He smiled like he couldn’t help it, like he had told the first joke in history. Call me if you need me or if you just want to talk.
Then he walked off the train.
The doors closed. The train headed back down into the tunnel towards Park Street.
I opened my eyes at Park Street. I rode the escalator up and stepped out in front of the Church with the high steeple that had been used as a support beam to stitch together the sails of the U.S.S Constitution. I hesitated out of habit as I passed the head stone of Sam Adams. “Nil desperandum, (Never Despair) he was fond of saying.”
I crossed over Tremont and turned down Water Street at the Parker House hotel. This was the same hotel where Dickens once read his new stories to Thoreau, Emerson, Longfellow, Fields and Hawthorne. The streets comforted me. I passed the Old South Street Meeting House where the insanity tinged orations of James Otis inspired Adams, Revere and Warren to change the world.
I only had one place to go.
I headed to Long Wharf.
- The Skins Game (flash back)
By October 15th, 1993,The overnight bellman job became comfortable. I could work it the rest of my life. That terrified me. Dutch, was the other overnight bellman at the time. He convinced me to get out of my isolated rut and stop by the a birthday party being held for a very friendly and attractive girl who worked at the front desk named Kelly. I relented and left for my overnight shift a little early.
I walked into the pub on the far side of Quincy Market near City Hall. The door closed behind me, and I found myself subjected to the awkward thirty second silent judgment that befalls a stranger first walking into such a place. I recognized most of the people. Some knew my face but couldn't quite remember from where, such is the anonymity that goes with working the 3rd shift. I found a spot in a corner and ordered a Diet Coke. I avoided eye contact and looked up at the Bruins game on one of the overhead T.V. I planned to sneak out the door back to my comfortable seclusion when the 2nd period ended.The bar was equipped with several television sets. All but one had the Bruins on, still, several men hovered under the one that didn't. The men were hushed and then let out a loud burst of cheers. I looked to see what they were watching and to my surprise were watching a Golf tournament.“Golf!?” I said out loud as Dutch walked over to check on me.“Do you play?” He asked and clanged his beer bottle to my glass in salutation.“Nah.” The only thing I can think of more boring than playing Golf is actually watching it on Television. I mean, what did George Carlin once say…Oh yeah, ‘You ever watch golf on television? It’s like watching flies fuck!’ We both laughed.“I pretty much agree with you. But watch what you say about playing golf at the bell stand. All the guys are big time golfers…”“Really? I thought just the bell captain was. I never associated guys from South Boston, Somerville and Quincy as being patient or sober enough to walk around in the sun all day in funny clothing hitting a little ball with a poor excuse for a hockey stick.”Dutch laughed; “Who said anything about patience or sobriety-- but actually this tournament they are watching isn't half bad because of what is at stake. It’s called a ‘Skins game.’ These are the best golfer’s in the world. Once a year they get together and play this big - off the record - kind of tourney.” He said.“You mean, so not only are they watching Golf, but exhibition Golf?…..Ugh.”“Yeah, yeah, but get this; there’s a big twist to it.” He said.He leaned in closer to my ear as if he was sharing the punch line to a dirty joke about nuns.“It’s a cash game.” He leaned back with a big grin.
“The first six holes are worth $25,000, seven through twelve are worth $50,000, thirteen through seventeen $70,000, and the last one, hole 18 is for $200,000 – kill or be killed competition. These guys have the world’s biggest egos and trust me, there’s some heavy off camera boozing going on to boot.”
We both looked up at the set. It was the last hole. The camera focused on a guy who looked to be about my age dressed in a old school golf uniform. He wore an ivy cap and patterned pants that were a cross between plus fours and knickerbockers. Even though I knew little about the game, it was easy to recognize that this man had mastered a level of grace and style on par with the likes of an Orr or perhaps Ali.“Who is that?” I asked. The golfer struck the ball with a fluid swing. He held his club pointed even after the ball had flown away as if he were trying to guide it by remote control and not leave its destiny to some gravitational auto-pilot.”“That, my friend, is Payne Stewart. He’s the best. He just won 9 skins for like $280,000. Not a bad night for getting together with some buddies and having a couple of pops. But that’s ok, I hear he is a good tipper. A buddy of mine down works the door in Miami and said Stewart gave him a fifty just to go run around the corner from the resort and get hot dogs for his kids.”Kelly the birthday girl from the front desk came over to us. Kelly looked like she could play the lead role in a chick-flick; she had the girl next store look, wholesome, naturally pretty, but she also had a kind of independent self-assured glean in her eyes. She and Dutch hugged and Dutch formally introduced us. I, of course, lost my entire vocabulary as we shook hands. All I could do smile. This amused Dutch who laughed after she walked away.“Well, I hope for your sake you play better in a Skins game.”
The clock above the bartender indicated that it was close to 11pm which meant it was time for me to get to the hotel. I headed to the mensroom. I noticed this attractive couple holding hands at a small table. I recognized the woman right away.She waited tables in the hotel restaurant. I even remember the first time she walked across the lobby on my first night of employment to drop off her shift receipts. She had the look I liked: petite, coltish figure, sad eyes, dazzling constant smile, long brown hair and a tear drop shaped ass. The other guys called her “pretty” or “cute.” They are the guys that keep Hugh Hefner in chlorine and are more into the big breasted, round hipped, bimbo bunny trophies men desire most and go to great lengths to attach to their arms so they can strut around the local mall, but not me. I prefer to almost a fetish desire the perky breasted, tender tushed type. Plus, her nose was slightly too large for her face, her perfect imperfection. What can I say -- I like women with big noses and nice asses.
I watched as she flirted with a guy in a suit. They looked happy, attractive and in love; all smiles, hands touching and caressing.“The King and Queen of the Prom of Hotel High.” I muttered to my sarcastic self.
Feeling good and sorry for myself, I walked out into the night air. The image of the couple in the bar was frozen on the big screen in my little mind.“Why couldn't I have a girlfriend that looked like that?” I thought… "God...I wish could be like the guy at that table.”And that’s exactly what happened. The pretty waitress with the perfectly slightly large nose became my girlfriend. And the guy in the Pub she played kissy face with…. Well I found out he and I had a lot in common including an exact taste in women… his name was Brandon.
Tree
huggers
I opened my eyes at Park Street station. I rode
the escalator up and out in front of the Church with the high steeple that had
been used as a support beam to stitch together the sails of the U.S.S
Constitution. I crossed over and then up Tremont and turned down Water Street
at the Parker House hotel where Dickens once read his new stories to Thoreau,
Emerson, Longfellow, Fields and Hawthorne. The streets comforted me; the tour
narration I had recited on so many occasions played on cue in my head. I passed
the Old South Street Meeting House where the insanity tinged orations of James
Otis inspired Adams, Revere and Warren to change the world.
I headed to Long Wharf.
I walked in through the employee entrance. No one
was in the security base and I didn’t care. I knew where I needed to go now.
The odor of the baking muffins turned my stomach. I fell over a trash barrel in
the empty cafeteria and heaved. I felt a hand on my back and I continued to
vomit.
Harry helped me into the Bake Shop He got me a cup of
water and went back to his work. He put a new batch of muffins into the oven to
bake.
The bible was
open and part of it underlined. I brushed the flour off the page and read.
“Again he stooped down and wrote on the
ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away
one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman
still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her,
“Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
I looked up at Harry the Baker. He seemed old. He
was always old, but now he seemed less, a live.
“I’ve waited for you. I’d thought you quit and moved
on but they told me you still worked here and just worked less overnights. I
took your advice and wrote part of it down.” He said. “You were right, it
helped.” He took three deep breaths, each longer than the last, and handed me an
envelope with a letter inside.
I looked at the words and began to read it out loud.
“Dear
Friend,
You
asked me once why I believed in God. You asked me if there was a moment beyond
what my father had passed on to me that made me a believer. If there was
something I could share with you besides the bible. So I wrote this for you and
I want to thank you because I realized that I wrote it for me too. This is what
happened in the war. I took it from my journal that I hadn’t read since I wrote
it.
October
25th, 1944.
We
couldn’t get all of the dead. Some stayed. Bombs exploded. Sharp metal and wood
fragments rained down. I survived by
standing upright, in that, I hugged a fir tree while kept my body under my
steel helmet.”
The
towering forest fir trees been splintered and looked like a giant had meandered
lost in the woods sticking snapped Popsicle sticks into the ground as he went
along. Spongy brown needles and rotted logs filled the ground for miles and
miles. The forest seemed stuck at a constant twilight. I looked around, I
couldn't see far because the forest was so dark. The forest was soaked in cold
rain and sleet. We lived in the mud. Fires were unheard of.
Artillery
slashed the trees on the night they bombarded my camp. One soldier died with
the pit of his stomach ripped open, another had his head blown completely
off. And another had his back broken by
shrapnel. Then the bombardment stopped. I had been spared. But it was just a
pause for time to reload. In a few minutes a second bombardment would begin and
I knew my life would end.
I closed my eyes and prayed. But it didn’t work. I felt all alone. God, I
thought, was not everywhere after all. I know, because he wasn’t there. And
then I heard the wounded yell and I knew at that exact moment where I was. I heard the buddies of the wounded yell. And
I had learned that if it were their buddies who yelled, there was no longer
need for a medic. I squeezed my eyes shut even harder and did my best to bury
my face in the bark of the tree.
A
mortar shell hit the ground about 10 yards away where a guy I used to chow back
at Camp Barkley was
hugging. The explosion disintegrated him. The best I can describe it was like a
fat June bug impacting a windshield on a car doing 100 mph up the highway. He
just splashed orange and red and then splattered away. I waited for a boom to
follow and closed my eyes. Instead there was silence. I was terrified. What
happened to the noise of the shells? Where were the screams of the wounded… Why
the damn silence I thought? Were my ear drums punctured? Did I get killed?
Death was supposed to be loud — I thought.”
I
coughed and my mouth and nostrils filled with frozen dust. I gasped to
breathe. A sick guttural sound formed in
a part of my stomach I had never felt before. I tried to understand. The sound
turned into a cry and the cry turned into a sob. The sob vibrated up through my
chest and came out in a pathetic baritone howl.
All those explosions, reckless, senseless evil, it overwhelmed me. I
flushed my mind for hope. I finally opened my eyes. The forest ground was
covered by a floor of ashen dust and dirt and blood. I decided to stop fighting
it. I decided to die…that is, if I wasn’t dead already I thought. I let my
hands loosen from the tree. I took off my helmet and stepped out away from my
tree. I kept my eyes shut the entire time.
Then,
I heard HIM. He asked me four questions.
‘Do
you believe? When are you going to make up your mind? When are you going to
love you as much as I do? And then he laughed. Why are your eyelids closed?
It’s
alright; I’m going to bring you out, because a little part of you is inside of
me, and it will never die.’
If
you asked me to tell you what he looked like. I couldn’t tell you. All I could
see was his smile.
In
the morning I woke up and a kettle of hot water was set up over a fire. There
were metal army cups and tea bags. A scout from the 9th Army
wandered in from the woods. His entire unit had been killed. He hugged a tree
so hard that his palms bruised and bled. He had to hold his cup with both
hands. They were too swollen to grip. He had learned tree hugging during hail
storms in Maine. I married his sister when we got home.
My
friend, you called me a hero once and I got mad. I apologize for my anger, but
I stand by what I said. I am no hero. You see, I came home.
When
that moment arrived and I knew I was going to be alright, well, I pray you can
find such a moment. Your visits and our talks have been a blessing to me. I
look forward to your stories and have a confession to make: I break a muffin
every now and then for you. And although I like your jokes, the dirty ones that
the pastry chef tells are much funnier.
Sincerely,
Harry, “The crazy baker from
the cracker factory.”
