By estory
The building on the corner of Transverse and Union Avenues was a five story block of apartments built in the seventies and was known as Garden Court. The garden was a small common at the front entrance of the building in the shape of a square, bordered by a boxwood hedge, in which bloomed a succession of flowers correlating to the season; daffodils, iris, daylilies, petunias and finally, as the end of the year approached, chrysanthemums. The apartments in the front of the building had a good view of this if you sat out on your balcony, a selling point used by the real estate agents. Across the street was another building constructed at the same time, on exactly the same floor plan. Since the front apartments faced each other across the street, the tenants discovered that those balconies had very little privacy, and they were seldom used. Most people stayed in their apartments with the window curtains drawn. From the sidewalk below, you could look up at the windows and their red, blue, green, yellow and brown curtains as you walked by.
In the nineties, the building was converted into a co-operative and the apartments were sold to the tenants, or, if the tenants refused, to anyone of the general public who was approved by the co-op board. You bought your apartment, paid a monthly 'maintenance' fee that included the apportioned property tax, a share of the centralized heating and cooling bill, and a parking spot in the lot behind the building in a numbered space that corresponded to your apartment. Each apartment owner was responsible for his/her electric and media bill. Any necessary building maintenance such as roofing repairs, parking lot repaving, masonry or window replacement was assessed and apportioned to each apartment. There was also a contract including a book of the building's rules, administered by the co-op board, that the tenants had to sign. All garbage bags had to be small enough to fit into the garbage shoot. Any re-painting, re-carpeting, re-modelling had to be approved by the co-op board. Any moving, delivery or servicemen were not permitted to use the tenants' elevators; they had to use the service elevator. All proof of apartment insurance had to be posted by Dec. 1. No noise was to exceed your apartment. All holiday decorations visible from outside the building had to be approved. No loud music, barbecuing, picnicking, ballplaying or dog walking were permitted on the grounds. You had to pass a background check. You had to pass a credit check.
The idiosynchroses of these arrangements attracted a motley assortment of somewhat transient tenants who spent very little time outside their apartments. Most of them tended to be single adults, divorcees or widows and widowers. A fair amount of them were either retirees, who no longer had children or spouses and who had sold their single family homes for cheaper accomodations; or young professionals who had not yet married, medical interns or legal secretaries just out of college and paying off student loans. There were few children. Due to the fact that there was limited parking for guests, there were few visitors.
The building's superintendant, a man of late, middle age named Jim Maloney, lived in a basement apartment of the building. He was a stocky man, built squarely, with a bit of an obvious beer belly and somewhat unkempt, salt and pepper hair, with a scrubby stubble on his cheeks and chin. He had a lined face with a scar over one cheek. His eyes were deep set and dark, almost black, and if you saw his hands you would notice that his fingernails were always dirty. He had hairy arms and there was wiry, black hair sticking out of his collar at his throat. In an arrangement common in those days, he was paid a small salary but not required to pay rent. If the tenants had small problems like stopped drains, leaky faucets, faulty light switches or loose tiles in their bathroom floors, they buzzed Jim in his apartment and when it was convenient he would come up and fix their problems. Sometimes they made sure they were home when he came to their apartments, but sometimes this was not possible and he would let himself in and work in them by himself. He had a master key to all of the apartments.
He had his own assigned parking space and in it you could almost always see his car; it was a 1984 Pontiac Grand Prix with a large dent in the left quarter panel, a bit of rust along the lower edges of the doors, a chip in the windshield glass, and crushed in wire rims on the passenger side. Sometimes an old bic cigarette lighter could be seen discarded next to it, sometimes a crumpled beer can, sometimes empty fast food bags. He wore stained t-shirts and blue jeans in the summer, and an old, denim jacket with a button missing in the winter. Sometimes he carried a tool box, sometimes he didn't.
If there were no calls, Jim spent the morning in his basement apartment. It had no windows. If you went down there, you would often smell coffee or toasted bagels in the hall outside his door. Sometimes you would see a garbage bag out there. You could hear the sound of television news and weather programs, talk shows, and game shows. By the afternoon, he would come up from the dark, quiet confines of the basement apartment into the lobby of the building. The lobby was decorated in an eclectic, neutral style and was furnished with various couches, easy chairs and coffee tables. It was part of his duties to clean them, and after cleaning them he could often be seen sitting in one of the couches or chairs, looking out of the front glass at the little garden in the front of the building, or watching the tenants coming and going, his can of pledge and a roll of paper towels on one of the coffee tables. The tenants came and went without hardly addressing him. Sometimes they nodded, sometimes they ignored him altogether.
After a while, he started walking around in the halls. They were almost always empty. The grey doors were all shut and even if he pressed his ear against them, he could hear nothing in the apartments. Sometimes a door would open suddenly and someone would walk out of their apartment to go to work or go shopping. He would pass them in the hall, clutching his tool box, with a quick glance and a nod, nothing more.
As the months went by he started cutting short his time watching television in the mornings and evenings to be in the lobby or out in the courtyard as the tenants came and went to go to work. There was the lady who always came back to the building at six thirty a.m. with her hair all disheveled in a rumpled jacket, wearing sunglasses. There was the tall man in the glasses and grey trench coat, clutching his briefcase in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, who always left at seven and set out at a brisk pace down the block for the train station. He returned every evening at seven, walking much slower, hanging his head. In the summer he traded the grey trench coat for a sports jacket. Then there was the portly black lady who wore the gaudy clothes, prints of yellow, green and red, who always seemed to be humming amazing grace. She would go off at a leisurely gate for the bus stop only to return an hour or so later, carrying things in plastic bags. In the afternoon she repeated this same ritual. The Spanish lady would come down with her black hair in a kerchief at eight, with her daughter hefting an immense back pack. She always looked suspiciously at Jim and hurried on, pushing the shy, little girl toward the bus stop. After the school bus picked up the little girl, she went away down the block. The little girl would return from the bus at four, walk back into the lobby, and go up the elevator alone. The Spanish lady with the kerchief wouldn't return until nine at night. Then there was the young, blond nurse with the striking figure, who left the building in her blue uniform after dinner time and came back again early in the morning. She always looked passed people, down the block, at someone else or something else that caught her attention. The elderly couple with the grey hair always left Garden Court early in the morning, dressed in spandex, and in very high spirits, talking with their heads together around a cell-phone. They always smiled cheerfully at Jim and wished him a "good morning!" They would leave in a strenuous walk and come back around ten just as fresh as when they left. They always seemed to be tanned, even in winter. They would stay up in their apartment for a couple of hours, and then Jim would see them pulling around the side of the building in their dark, blue BMW convertible, laughing and smiling cheerfully in their sunglasses.
Only when he was called to do maintenance work was he invited into the apartments. A Mr. Halloran buzzed him once for a leak in his bathroom and he went up to his apartment, 3C, with his wrenches. Mr. Halloran was a nervous little man with a bald head and beady little eyes who answered the door dressed rather sloppily in a robe and a pair of slippers. He ushered Jim hurriedly into the bathroom, as if he were anxious that Jim would come and go as quickly as possible and not see much of his apartment. The bathroom looked as if several pictures had been removed from the walls; there were pinholes in the faded wallpaper. Mr. Halloran stood in the bathroom doorway blocking it with one of his arms,, breathing impatiently as he watched Jim work. Jim squatted down to get into the cabinet under the sink with is back to Mr. Halloran. In the cabinet he noticed, next to the usual collection of bath tissue rolls, soap bars, mouthwash and shampoo containers, a jar of petroleum jelly and a half empty bottle of baby oil. After he finished replacing the elbow joint and putting the fittings back to together, he gathered his tools without a word and got to his feet, turning to look at Mr. Halloran's face. Mr. Halloran looked away. Then, he escorted Jim quickly to his front door, but before he left, Jim stole a quick passing glance at the living room where two, large photographs of naked women over a couch caught his eye.
A Ms. Backstrom left a message for him to clear out a stopped drain. She wouldn't be home. Jim went up and let himself into her apartment. It smelled of incense. He went into the kitchen and found a cracked plate and a plastic bowl drying on the drainboard, along with a coffee cup with a kitten's face on it. Looking around the kitchen he saw a few drawings of cats, in various ridiculous poses, on the walls. One was sitting in an easy chair reading a newspaper with her slippers on. Another, with curlers in her hair, was standing in front of a mirror, smoking a cigarette. The kitchen window looked out onto the fire escape and he drew back the curtains to see a folded up telescope on a tripod in a small, plastic chair. Next to the chair was an igloo cooler. After he finished snaking out the drain, Jim walked around the rooms of the apartment. The living room had a large picture window covered by a coral colored curtain. He drew back the curtain and saw a pair of binoculars on a small metal table out on the patio. The carpet of the living room was an odd, fluorescent pink color, and very thick. A very large LCD television hung on the wall opposite a red, velvet love seat. The coffee table was made of glass and on it was an ashtray with the remains of a joint in it. He opened the drawer of an end table and found in it a pink cigarette lighter, a package of strawberry flavored rolling paper, a roach clip with a flamingo feather tassel and a piece of paper with names and phone numbers on it. Underneath the television was a shelf with video cassettes; he recognized the titles: 'Sleepless in Seattle', 'Fifty Shades of Grey', 'Saw', 'Brooklyn' and 'Pretty in Pink.' Then, he left.
One day he went up to the top floor of the building and walked to the end of the hall, to the back corner apartment, 5-G. He took out his master key, opened the door, and went inside. The apartment was very messy. There were dirty dishes, pots and pans, tongs, spoons, cups, forks, knives and a casserole dish piled in the sink. All kinds of clothes were strewn all over the bedroom floor; socks, shoes, t-shirts, boxer shorts, jeans, panties, bras and a couple of dresses. The sheets, pillows and blanket of the bed had all been tossed and turned and kicked into a scrambled heap. A plant that had not been watered in weeks wilted in a pot next to the bedroom window, where the thick, brown curtains had been drawn shut. He opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out a black lace bra and a pair of panties. He took off his clothes and put on the bra and panties and looked at himself in the mirror. Still wearing these he walked into the living room, took a bottle of merlot out of the wine rack next to the sofa, got himself a wine glass and poured himself a drink and went back into the bedroom. He put on the TV. He put on the stereo and watched an episode of Charlie's Angels with the volume turned down so he could listen to the stereo. He tuned in a disco station and danced in front of the mirror. Then he took off the bra and panties, tossed them on the floor, got dressed, put the glass in the sink and left.
He took the elevator down one floor and stepped out into the hall. He looked up and down, but there was nobody to be seen and no sound from the behind the closed, grey doors. He walked slowly passed 4-C and 4-B, stopping to listen at the doors. He went on to 4-A, listened, and then went back to 4-B and opened the door with his master key.
This apartment was very neat. Several jackets and coats hung on a rack on the wall next to the door. One of them was a grey trench coat. The kitchen was spotless and all the cooking utensils, china, pots and pans were shining, stacked neatly in their cupboards. He opened the doors to see. The stove looked like it had never been used. He opened the stainless steel refrigerator and saw in the door compartments a half drunk container of v-8 juice, a half drunk container of flavored seltzer water, a butter dish, a carton of eggs, a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mayonnaise. There was a loaf of wheat bread on one of the shelves, next to a sleeve of cinnamon and raisin bagels and a tub of cream cheese. The next shelf held a six pack of Heineken beer, a package of defrosted chop meat, and a bag of potatoes. He closed the refrigerator and went into the living room.
The walls were painted a creamy, coffee color, and the carpet was a textured brown. A tan, leather recliner sat in one corner, next to a book shelf. He noticed among the titles: 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', 'Blitzkrieg', 'Gorky Park' and 'The Shining.' There was a video game system on a coffee table in front of the chair, and an old box TV monitor opposite. Next to the video game console was a Fortnight video game cartridge. He went over to a polished teakwood sideboard and opened one of the drawers. In it was a bowie knife, a bayonet, and a medieval axe. He closed the drawer and opened a larger one under it. In it was a luger pistol, a sawed off shot gun and a box of shells. He closed the drawer and left the apartment, his heart beating, his forehead sweating a little.
He walked down the hall to the elevator very quickly and once inside, pressed the L button. The elevator went down slowly passed the third floor, the second floor, the first floor. It came to a halting stop. The doors slid slowly open.
In front of him was the tall man in the glasses and sports jacket, clutching his briefcase, hanging his head. As the elevator door opened, he slowly raised his head and looked Jim in the eyes. He clutched his free hand into a fist, he seemed to clench his teeth, and a vein popped out at his temple.
| Author Notes | Tenants is the first story in my new collection, Intersections. It is a strange, little story about the contrasts between public and private faces, the shared space in society and the things we hide behind closed doors, the isolation and attractions we have in todays world, and rules we make for ourselves to operate in this strange, contemporary world. I told it in a blank, newspaper reporting style, as if relating a news story, a collection of facts, to wipe all emotion out of it. I think the action in the story is even more stark this way. There is no dialogue, no interaction between people, even in this large, very public space. We are all behind the closed doors, with our hidden idiosynchroses, watching each other from safe distances, attracted but unable to make contact. How did we get this way? Well I like to raise the questions, and let the reader think. Is it what we're hiding? What we're afraid to find? Why don't we help people who need help? I don't know if Tenants is indicative of the other stories in the book. There will be others in very different styles, about different subjects altogether, with different outcomes. Most of them were imagined in New York before I left; certainly Tenants is one of those; but this collection will contain the first true, North Carolina stories I have written. I hope you find them intriguing. estory |
By estory
When George and Arlene Lundy got married, in the 1960's, they took their Ford Falcon and went antiquing for their honeymoon. Arlene was the one had started collecting things. It was something she picked up from her mother, on the family vacations they went on together; collecting souvenir plates of the state capitals they visited, coffee mugs with Currier & Ives scenes painted on them, little lamps with frosted glass shades and artisan pottery they would find in little stores on the back roads of the New England mountains. Those were some of Arlene's favorite memories of her mother: walking around in those little, old stores filled with those marvelous, magical things from far away places and long ago times. She always seemed to be trying to recapture those moments of discovery and the subsequent bargaining with the old shopkeepers that she shared with her mom. By the time she was eighteen, Arlene's cups, plates, vases and pots had filled a couple of shelves in her room. When George fell in love with her, he also fell in love with her love of all these little gems of the moments of her life and the treasure hunting that excited and brightened her mood.
They were married on a bright, blue and white Sunday in early October when the leaves were just beginning to turn; George would always remember with pleasure those colors whenever he thought about that day. The church was one of those simple, white steepled churches with tall, pointed, clear glass windows and it was full of light. Arlene, with her taffy colored hair done up in a fancy style and in her white, lace trimmed dress and veil, looked especially beautiful, unforgettable, something he would always look back on as a moment of his life. The reception was a lively affair with music and dancing that went on to the late hours. Everyone said it was a great time. In the morning they set out northeast through Connecticut and into Massachusetts on their little trip.
It was on the afternoon of that first day of their first trip together that she found the Tiffany vase that became her prized possession.
"She always kept it on that cherry, queen Anne table," George would tell his daughters many years later; "The one she put out in the entrance hall. It was the first thing you saw when you came into the house."
"It's a beautiful vase," Marie would demure as she thought about her mother. "She had an eye for things like that. That one had a real, elegant form to it, slender and drawn up on top, like a flower coming out of the ground. And it had that beautiful peach-rose colored graduated tint to the glass."
"People would ask her about that vase," Donna put in. "I mean, total strangers."
George sighed, leaning back in his chair, holding his cane. "I don't know if it was the vase, or because she found it on our honeymoon, our first trip together. But she loved that vase."
"That's right, she always said she found it on the first trip you took together," Marie concurred. "She told everyone that story."
"I still remember the time she found it," George went on, remembering. "It was a nice, fall day. She was wearing that dress that I liked, the sky blue pastel that matched her eyes, and that dark, blue plaid jacket. She looked beautiful. She was happy. She loved going in those antique stores. She turned on the radio in the car and I remember the radio was playing that song, 'California Dreaming.' She liked that song."
"'California Dreaming'" Donna said, "Yeah, she liked that song."
George went on. "I remember we were on this road north, in the country. The leaves were changing. We had breakfast in one of those little pancake places. That was some breakfast. It was one of the best breakfasts we ever had, out on the road. Real, buttermilk pancakes, with real, New England maple syrup. Good coffee. I remember her telling me, 'We've got to remember this place.' She was looking at the map, reading off the names of the towns she wanted to look in. Old Sturbridge. Concord. I remember thinking, how pretty she looked, with her face all brightened up, looking forward to those shops, with her hair all done up, in that dress."
Marie put an arm around his shoulders. "You guys had some good times together. You were happy."
George looked at his daughters. "Yeah, we were happy. After that, we drove on up a ways towards Old Sturbridge and we came to this little shop. It had one of those old wooden signs. 'Trinkets and Treasures'. I remember that."
"You remember that?" Donna asked him, grinning.
"Yes. And there was a cigar store Indian standing next to the door. 'Let's stop,' she asked me. So of course I stopped for her. There was this old, white haired lady in the place. A nice lady. It was full of all those old things your mother loved. Hurricane lamps, fire place dogs, chandeliers, grandfather clocks. Your mother walked around, you know, like she did, picking stuff up and putting stuff back down, looking into all the shelves and corners. 'My mother would have loved this place,' she whispered to me. I just followed her around, thinking, 'God, she looks so beautiful. I wish she would stay like this forever.' And then the old lady asks her if she's looking for something special. 'No,' your mother said, 'I'm just looking.'"
Donna chuckled to herself. "That's what she always liked to tell them. She was always 'just looking,'"
"She would know when she found it," Marie put in, looking at her father. "Right dad?"
George looked from Marie to Donna. There was something of Arlene in both of them, he decided, but more in Marie, he thought. "Yes, well. Then the old lady said to her: 'Come and take a look at this. It's special, and I don't just show it to everybody. But you look like you could appreciate something like this. I got it at an estate sale in Boston. One of the old sea captain's families.'"
Donna rolled her eyes. Marie was looking at her father.
George continued. "So she takes us to the back of the store. There are these chandeliers over our heads. Lamps all over; you know, the old ones with the fancy, stained glass shades. The stuff you see in mansions. Your mother's eyes lit up when she saw it. And on this back table, she has all these vases. She picks one of them up from the crowd and its that beautiful, sunrise colored vase," he said. They all looked at it, on the table in the front hall. "'It looks like a Tiffany,' She turns and looks at me with this excited look on her face. 'It is a Tiffany,' the old lady says, and she showed your mother the mark on the bottom. I'm thinking, this is going to be expensive. This is going to cost me some bucks. Not like some of the other things your mother bought, you know? But the way your mother was looking at that vase, the way she took it in her hands when the old lady handed it to her, I could see how much that vase would mean to her. Well, I couldn't let your mother down. So I took out my wallet and bought it. We had to cut one night off of our trip for that vase, but she didn't care. Neither did I. She talked about it all the way home."
"I wonder what it cost you," Donna said, looking at the vase on the table.
George shrugged. "I don't remember. It doesn't really matter. It made your mother happy. I think of all the things we bought together over the years, that vase reminds me of her the most." He looked around at all the plates, cups, pots and vases, the ceramic figures, around the house. Then he settled on the Tiffany vase.
"I could see that," Marie said, looking at her father. She put her hand on his arm.
"Did you ever have it appraised?" Donna asked. She was looking at the vase.
George shook his head. "We didn't care about things like that. She didn't buy stuff to resell. They weren't like investments. She loved hearing about where they came from and how they had carried on to her, over all the years. She'd tell people about the stores she bought the things in, the old men and old ladies who sold them to her, the stories of the families who used to own them. She was always wondering, she told me once, about the things those old vases had seen or overheard, in all those old houses, over all those years."
"She told me once that they reminded her of grandma," Marie said, "And all the times they used to go antiquing together when she was a girl. 'Treasure hunting', she called it."
George sighed. "Yeah. She used to go around with her mother, when she was young. She was close to her mother. They were a lot alike." He looked around at all the things around the house again. "She sure did collect a lot of stuff. Some people might say it's just junk. But they were something, to her. And now, when I look at them, they remind me of her, and all the trips we took, the stores we looked in together, the people we met, and how much fun we had. How happy she was."
"It's been three years since she passed, dad," Donna said. "It doesn't seem like three years." She looked around the room at all the old lamps, vases, cookoo clocks, hummel figures and plates and mugs her mom had collected and sprinkled around the shelves. "It all looks exactly the same. It's like you left them exactly where she put them and didn't once change a thing." She looked at her dad. His eyes were watering.
"God, I miss her," George said, wiping his face with his hand.
"Oh dad," Marie said, leaning over and giving him a hug.
Donna rubbed her head. "Well dad, what we want to tell you is, we don't think you should be alone here, anymore."
Marie turned and looked up at her sister. Then she looked back at her father. "We're worried about you," she said.
Donna went on. "You've been complaining about going up and down the stairs. We don't want you to fall, again. You've got that bad leg, you know. Maybe you should downsize. Sell the house and move into an apartment."
George looked up and shook his head. "I don't know," he said.
"Do you ever think of what you're going to do with all this stuff?" Donna asked him.
He turned and looked at her. "What should I do with it?"
"You could sell some of it," Donna said, "Some of it might be worth some money. Then you could get a smaller place. Assisted living, maybe."
George straightened up, holding his cane. He looked around the room. "I'd never sell it," he said, incredulously. "It's my life. It's her life. Why would I want to sell my life?" he turned and looked at Donna. Marie put her around him, looking at Donna.
"Of course, dad," Marie told him. "You don't have to do anything. I'll look in on you. I'll make sure you're OK."
Donna was looking at the vase.
George died a couple of years later. Marie called him, and when he didn't answer the phone, she drove over. She let herself n when he didn't come to the door, and she found him on the kitchen floor. The medical examiner said it was a heart attack. It had been quick.
After the funeral, Donna and Marie met at the house to figure out what to do with everything. They walked through the house looking at all the things. They went upstairs and looked through the bedroom. They looked out into the yard. They went downstairs and looked through the basement.
"There's a lot of stuff," Donna said, her hands on her hips.
"The house is different without dad in it," Marie said. "It's funny. I don't want to remember it like this."
"What do you want to do with it?" Donna asked her. "We've got to do something with it. There's taxes to pay on it."
Marie sat down in a kitchen chair. "Yeah, I know. The taxes are high." She looked around at the faded, floral wallpaper. "And then there's the maintenance. I don't have the money for it."
Donna sat next to her. She looked at her sister. "Neither do I. I don't think there's much to consider."
Marie shook her head. "We've got to sell it, right?"
"I don't think we have a choice. The sooner, the better, really."
Marie sighed. "Oh, God. What will we do with all the things?"
Donna shrugged. "I suppose we could take a few things we wanted. But I've just got that apartment. I don't have much room. And how are we going to do it fairly? They're worth all kinds of things."
"I'd like to keep some of the things," Marie said, looking at the mugs and plates on a kitchen shelf. "Something to remember them by."
"Well, pick out a couple of things, and I'll pick out a couple of things. They'll have to be of similar value, to make it fair."
"And then what?"
"I'll put an ad on Craig's list," Donna said. "Maybe an antique dealer will come and look at it. I'm sure some of it is worth some money." She was looking at the rose colored vase in the hall.
An antique dealer answered the ad and met them at the house the following Saturday afternoon. He was a somber, business like, middle aged man dressed in a grey suit. He introduced himself as Bob Allen, and shook their hands. Marie and Donna ushered him into the living room. He looked around, his eyes roving over paintings, plates, figurines, pots and clocks. he paused for some time on the Tiffany vase.
"Nice place you have here," he said. "You have a lot of things."
"Yes," Marie said nervously. "You see, it's our dad's house. He just recently passed away."
"Oh," Bob said. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"We're looking to sell the house," Donna told him, "So we have to clear out the things."
"Sure," Bob said, "I understand. Happens all the time." He turned around in the middle of the room, looking around at the lamps, knickknacks, plates and vases. "Anything you want to keep? Most people keep some things."
"We've split up what we could," Donna told him. Marie sat down on the sofa and folded her hands.
"OK," Bob said. "Let's get down to business." He looked more closely at a row of plates on a shelf over the fireplace, one of the lamps, the hummel figures. "Well, I'll be honest with you, right off the bat. I have an antique store in Hartford. I deal in a lot of the things you have here. I have tons of it. Honestly, there's not a lot of money in most of it. I mean, the Hummels, the plates; I have plenty of those at the shop. I couldn't give you more than $50 for them."
Marie looked up at him, a disappointed look on her face. "Our mother collected these things," she said, in a cracked voice. "They were her treasures. Our dad kept them after she passed, to remember her by."
"I understand," Bob Allen said. "I understand completely; I do. But I've got to have some room for mark-up." He looked at Donna, then at Marie. "They might sit in the shop for months. These days, people just don't buy much of that anymore. They don't have the room. They don't have the extra money. Kids these days, they just don't care about things like this."
"Would you take $75?" Donna asked, looking at Bob with a poker face.
His face was just as blank. He closed his eyes and shook his head, slowly. Then he opened his eyes. "I really couldn't do more than $50."
Donna looked at Marie. Marie looked like she wanted to say something, but she sat still. Donna took a deep breath. "Alright. We'll take the $50."
Marie sat back in the sofa, closing her eyes.
Bob looked at a lamp with a stained glass shade. "May I?" he asked. When Donna nodded, he picked it up and turned it over, scouring the base. Then he righted it and set it back down. He shrugged. "It's not a Tiffany. Not a Handel. Probably just a reproduction from the 50's or the 60's. These days, people go for the big name stuff. I don't know. I'll give you $50 for it."
"OK," Donna said. Then, she said quickly, "We do have a Tiffany."
"Yeah, I know," Bob said, turning to the vase on the Queen Anne table. "I saw it when I came in. May I?"
He picked up the vase carefully when Donna nodded, and examined the base. He looked at it closely, then he carefully put the vase down. "It has a Tiffany mark," he said. "No chips or anything."
Marie looked up at Bob, her eyes watering. "That was our mom's special piece. She found it on our parents' honeymoon. My dad told us it reminded him of when they first got married."
"You don't say?" Bob said, smiling a little. "That's some story." He looked down at the vase.
"We'd like to get something for that," Donna said. Marie looked up at her. She unclasped her hands.
Bob looked down at Marie. "I understand. Well, it's a nice little piece, I'd have to say. Your mom took good care of it. It's the nicest piece you've got. It's got a real, nice glaze on it, a nice, art-nouveau kind of look. Probably made in the early 1900's. The color scheme on it is actually kind of rare. It's nice."
Donna looked down at her sister. "What do you think, Marie?" she asked.
Marie shrugged. "I don't know."
Donna thought for a moment. Bob looked at her. "Would you give us a grand for it?" she asked him.
Bob smiled. He chuckled. "A grand?" He looked at Donna and shook his head. "That's steep. I don't know if I could do a grand on it. I need some room for mark up you know. I mean, I've got to resell it, and I have to make some money on it. I don't know if there's anything to made on it at a grand." He looked down at the vase, putting his hands on his pockets.
"It's a Tiffany," Donna said, firmly.
"Yeah, it's a Tiffany," Bob said, still looking at the vase. Then he looked up at Donna. "I'll give you $400 for it."
"No!" exclaimed Marie, looking at Donna.
Donna looked down at Marie. Then, at Bob. "750," she said.
He sighed. He shrugged. "I couldn't do more than $500," he told her. "I just couldn't."
Marie shook her head, looking up at Donna. "I don't know," she said.
"$500 cash?" Donna asked him.
"I'll tell you what," Bob said, gesturing to some coffee mugs with Currier & Ives scenes on them. "If you throw in the coffee mugs, and those plates, and that picture of the sailboat, I'll write you a company check right now for $700."
"Well?" Donna asked Marie. "We've got to clear the place out."
Marie looked up at her and shrugged. "I don't know," she said.
"You're not going to get a better offer," Bob told them.
Marie bowed her head. "What else can we do?" she asked.
"OK," Donna said.
The shop that Bob Allen had was on Main Street, in Hartford. It was called: 'Odds and Ends.' It had an old fashioned, multi-pane front window in a wooden frame, filled with Tiffany lamps, Meissen porcelain, old pendulum clocks, cast iron toys, dolls, doll houses, cast iron banks. The sign was an old, wooden bracket sign with an image of a bull on it. If you opened the door, a set of old fashioned bells rang cheerily. One day the bells rang and a couple came into the store; a lady wearing a tartan skirt with a white blouse, and a man in grey slacks and a blue, pastel shirt with leather shoes. When Bob came up from the back of the store, they were looking through a table of lamps with stained glass shades. The woman leaned over the table, looking closely at the glass work, turning price tags. The man stood behind her with his hands in his pockets.
Bob smiled. "Good afternoon," he said. "Can I help you with anything?"
The man looked at the lady. The lady looked at Bob and flashed him a smile. "We're just looking," she said.
"Anything in particular?" Bob asked.
"Well," said the lady, with a glance at the man behind her, "We're interested in Tiffany's."
Bob's smile grew broader. He lifted his arms from his sides, with the palms of his hands turned up. "You've come to the right place! How much are you looking to spend?"
The lady looked at the man. The man shrugged. The lady looked back at Bob. "It depends," she said.
"Some of these Tiffany's, I've got between three and five thousand on them," Bob said.
"That's a bit rich for us," the man said, looking straight into Bob's face.
"I've actually just acquired a great Tiffany piece," Bob said. "I picked it up at an estate sale. It's not a lamp. It's a vase. It's right over here." He turned to a Queen Anne table covered in glass vases. In front was the peach-rose sunrise Tiffany vase that had once belonged to George and Arlene. The lady and the man followed Bob to the table; the man's hands were still in his pockets. Bob picked up the vase and carefully held it up.
The lady looked over it. Then she looked back at the man. "We were really looking for lamps," she said, uncertainly. "We were really looking for dragonfly lamps." But she bent over the vase with some interest.
"Yes, well," Bob said, shrugging. "The lamps. The dragonfly lamps. They're in the ten thousand dollar price range, and I don't have any. Everybody knows about the lamps. But Tiffany actually made all kinds of decorative objects. They also made vases."
"I like the color," the lady said.
"Isn't it lovely?" Bob intoned. "It's actually a rare color scheme. Rose-peach. They called it Sunrise."
"Rare?" the man asked, looking over the lady's shoulder with an interested expression.
"Oh yes," Bob said firmly. "Quite rare. I think you'll look for a long time before you find another one like this."
"Does it have a mark?" the lady asked, looking sharply into Bob's face.
"Oh yes." Bob turned the vase over carefully. He held the bottom up and the woman leaned over and looked at it closely.
"It is a Tiffany mark," she said, looking back at the man.
"You said you got it at an estate sale?" the man asked. His face had a serious expression that did not change.
"Yes," Bob said. "Actually, it's an interesting story. I bought it from two sisters who were selling their parents' house. Their father had just passed away. They told me their parents had been collectors; they had a pretty big collection of all kinds of things. They needed to sell it all off. But they told me this particular vase, their parents bought on their first trip antiquing together, on their honeymoon. After his wife passed away, their father kept it because it reminded him of her. It reminded him of their honeymoon."
The woman looked back at the man and smiled. "That's such a good story. That's romantic. It's like it was a symbol of their love." She looked at the vase with renewed interest. The man shrugged. He may have smiled a little.
"Exactly!" Bob said, enthusiastically. "It's so romantic. It has a great story to go with it. Really, one of a kind."
The lady gave a hard look at the vase. She smiled. "I like it," she said. "I like the story." Then she looked back at the man.
"How much do you want for it?" he asked, matter of fact.
Bob put the vase carefully back onto the table. "Well, it's a Tiffany, and it is a one of a kind piece. And it has a great story to go with it. You won't find another one quite like it. I've got a thousand dollars on it."
The man shook his head. "That's steep," he said. "A thousand dollars." He did not take his hands out of his pockets.
The lady took a deep breath. "It is a Tiffany," she said to the man. "It's a one of a kind piece. And I like it."
The man thought for a moment. "Would you take $500 for it?"
Bob shook his head. "Oh no. It's worth a lot more than that. You just don't find pieces like this."
"What about $600 cash?" the lady said.
Bob laughed. "Cash? No. I really couldn't take less than a thousand for it. I take credit cards." He looked at the man.
The lady shrugged. "It's steep, but it's worth it, I think. It's a Tiffany."
The man twisted his face, wryly. "Alright," he said, taking his hands out of his pockets. "You've got me. The lady likes it."
Bob laughed, picking up the vase. "You have a good eye," he said to the lady.
Bob wrapped it up for them and they carried out to their car. "That was some story, about the man and his wife that used to have it," the lady said, as they got into their car.
"It was a lot of money we paid for it," the man said, starting the car. "Maybe we could tell that story to the people up at the Antiques Extravaganza. We'll have to play it up to make anything on it."
"Don't worry," the lady said. "It's a Tiffany. It'll be a good investment."
| Author Notes | This seems like a simple story. But what's really going on here? As the Tiffany vase passes on from George and Arlene and into this antique shop, and on to the two dealers, we see their life, the moments of romance in it and the happiness they shared, symbolized in this one vase, reduced to the mundane bargaining between people for whom it means nothing more than money. And we have to ask ourselves; how much of our own lives is like this, sitting on our shelves, hanging on our walls, in this day and age, and what will become of all these little parts of our lives when we are gone? How much will we too be reduced to an exchange, and the happiest moments of our lives, symbolized in our little treasures, be lost to the sales slips? I wanted to keep a Spartan style, with dialogue and hand gestures liberally used, to indicate the psychology behind the actions, the inner souls of the characters. This is very much in the vein of Raymond Carver and his grim, taciturn view of the hollowness of modern life. estory |
By estory
I tell you, I don't know how it happened. You know how it is. My boss kept calling me; we had a meeting with a client and the details kept changing. He called in the morning and wanted to know if I had all the points in order. Then he called before lunch and said they moved the meeting to later in the afternoon. In between, the school called with some message about a traffic incident that would delay the opening an hour, and then there was an alert on the weather app; I think it was a severe thunderstorm warning. I checked my messages. My sister in New York called about her divorce; my mother in Florida called about my sister's divorce; my brother in Chicago wanted to know how I was doing, and if I had heard about my sister's divorce, and my father in California called asking if my mother had heard about the divorce. Ed called. Ed's the new guy I've been dating. He had a chance to get tickets to Hamilton and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Then my boss called again. He reminded me that the meeting had been moved and that I should have all the points in order. He said there was a lot on the line. Then Tom called, wanting to know what was going on. Tom's my ex. A real prick. A control freak.
I think there might have been a message from my son, but then there's always a message from my son.
I called Ed and let him know that Tom called me. He wanted to know what Tom said and I told him what Tom said. He told me I should get an order of protection. So when I got off the phone with Ed I called my sister in New York and told her that Ed said I should get an order of protection. She asked me why and I told her that Tom was still calling me and she asked me how many times a day Tom was calling me and I told her at least a couple of times of day. So she told me maybe I should get an order of protection.
My son sent me another message. He said he wasn't feeling well and that he wanted to talk to me. I really didn't think anything of it because he's always wanting to talk to me.
I called my boss and I told him I had a couple of questions about the points in the contract with the client and he told me he didn't understand why I still had questions with the meeting just about to happen. I told him I just wanted too make sure I had everything right. We went over the points and he told me he had a call on another line and that he would call me back. Then the secretary called me and told me my boss didn't have time to call me back and that I should head to the meeting.
So I called a cab.
Then I called Rita to let her know that Tom was still calling and that Ed had said I should get an order of protection. Rita said that I should listen to Ed but that she had customers and that she couldn't talk. She said I should call her after work and that maybe we could go out for a couple of drinks and talk. So I put it down on my 'events' list.
The school sent me a message reminding me of my daughter's soccer game that Saturday.
Then there was another alert from the weather app. It was another warning about severe weather.
The cab driver called and said he was within ten minutes of my location and asked me to confirm the reservation. That's when I remembered the dentist's appointment and I sent a confirmation on the app. And then I checked the event planner list and looked over the yoga class schedule and the school soccer schedule and the scheduled meetings for work and the dates with Ed and then I remembered the Hamilton show and called Ed to ask him if he got the tickets and he told me he was still working on it. He would call me back later.
Then I got another message from my son. It was a really weird message. It was like 'NEED TO TALK NEED TO TALK' and he sent an imogi with an angry face on it. So I sent him a text message explaining that I was really busy, I had an important meeting and I couldn't take any calls. I said I would talk to him after the meeting.
The cab came and I got in and started going to the meeting. I had a little trouble with the app and the driver helped me with it. I got the destination entered and then Ed called and said he got the tickets. So I pulled up the event planner and put 'Hamilton' on the events list.
My boss called and asked me if I was on my way and I told him I was on my way.
Then I got another message from my son. It was another really weird message. He said he was sick and tired of being ignored. He said I never had time for him. He said he was sick and tired of trying to get my attention. He was sick and tired of the whole fucking world. So I was going to send him a text back reminding him that I made breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, I did his laundry, I paid the bills. I was going to tell him I gave him all the extra time I had. I had problems of my own. I had a life of my own. I had problems with Tom and I had just met someone. I was going to tell him to try to understand.
But then we got to the meeting and I never got a chance to send the message.
While I was at the meeting the phone kept vibrating. I had to turn off the ring tone. My boss would have freaked out if the phone rang. But I set it to vibrate and I know there were at least three calls. I could see all the messages were from William, my son. But what was I going to do? I couldn't just walk out of the meeting. My boss would have killed me.
Needless to say, he shot me a couple of dirty looks as it was. Well, I got out of the meeting and tried calling my son but there was no answer.
Then my daughter called to remind me to take her to soccer practice. So I called another cab and went back to the train station. On my way to the train station, my boss called and asked me what had been my problem at the meeting. See what I mean?
When I got to the train station I called Rita to let her know that I couldn't make it for drinks because I had to take my daughter to soccer practice. Then I think I tried to call my son again but there was still no answer.
I was on the train home when Rita called me. She asked me if I had heard the news. I asked her what news. She told me she couldn't tell me. She just couldn't tell me. Just go to a news app, she said.
So I went to the news app and there was a story about a shooting. A boy had just shot seven people in a college parking lot. It was my son's college. Three people were dead, four had been taken to a hospital. Two were in critical condition. The gunman had shot himself.
I called William but there was still no answer. That's when I started getting nervous.
Then the police called and told me William had been the shooter. I couldn't believe it. I told them I didn't think William had a gun. He would never do anything like that. He couldn't do anything like that. I started freaking out.
So then I checked the last message he had sent me. He sent me a message that said: 'NOW YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME. NOBODY CAN IGNORE ME. BET YOU WISH YOU HAD CALLED ME.'
| Author Notes | This story is in a very different style; I wanted a density, an intensity to the language, but also a sense of the isolation of the narrator, relating the events whirling around her. This modern day stream of consciousness kind of thing was somewhat inspired by Roy Kessey's story in the 2007 edition of Best American Short Stories; Wait. It's roots are probably in the stream of consciousness writing of James Joyce in his novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake. But this story is a story of the maddening intrusion of life into our lives through cell phones, our immersion in this technological phenomenon, and the separation from real life and real life relationships, even with our immediate family, that beg for our attention. Ours is a world of figures competing for our attention, from long distance, through cell phones and text messages, pulling us impossibly into divergent directions until it is literally beyond our control. And the whirlwind of events spins into a maelstrom, a catastrophe. estory |
By estory
"He looks important," Theresa said, decidedly; "I bet he was someone important."
"Who looks important?" Sal walked over and stood behind his sister, looking over her shoulder. She was holding a black and white photograph of a sharp nosed, finely chiseled, clean shaven man in a dark jacket with a white shirt and a necktie. He had a high forehead. Deep set eyes. A serious, if somewhat dismissive, look on his face.
"I think it's a picture of our grandfather," Theresa continued. She said this reverently, staring at the face in the picture that she held with both of her hands, almost as if it were an icon.
"How do you know?" Sal asked her, putting his hands on the hips of his finely tailored slacks. He always wore collared shirts and dress pants, even in private settings. Now he leaned over to take a closer, interested look at the man in the picture.
"I found it in a box of mother's things," she answered solemnly, as if revealing a connection that would illuminate mysterious family origins. "It must be her father." Every week she went to a stylist, as she had done since childhood, and now she brushed a wave of her caramel colored hair out of her face. She was as well dressed as her brother, even though they were alone in the house.
"Hmmm," Sal mused, as if trying to remember if he had seen that face before, or what he had heard about him. "It could be, I guess. He died before we were born, so it's hard to say. I've never seen a picture of him before."
Theresa turned then, still holding the picture with both hands, glancing between Sal and the face in the picture, recognizing something in the faces she hadn't seen until then. "You look like him, a bit. I see a little of him in your face."
Sal studied the important looking face. "You don't say," he said.
"Oh yes, definitely. You have his nose. You have his forehead."
"And what about you?" He turned to look at his sister with a discerning eye.
"I have his eyes."
Sal's lips curled into a wry smile. "And what does that mean?"
Theresa shrugged. "Don't you wish you knew more about him? He looks important. Mom was the one with the money, remember?"
Sal looked around the well furnished room, remembering. "Well, mom didn't talk about him much. What makes you think he was important?"
"I don't know. It just looks like a picture of somebody you'd see hanging in a bank, or something. The way he's dressed, the way he looks."
Theresa and Sal were going through their parents' house. Their mother had passed away a couple of months before and they were clearing it out. Neither of them had been there in years, and the sight of it, like a Tuscan villa, on its well landscaped lot of palm trees and bougainville, had sharpened their feelings of entitlement. The house was in Florida; Sal lived in Raleigh, where he had a good job in research triangle park working for a software firm. Theresa had flown down from New York. She had played softball for St. John's University, majored in sports medicine, and got a job as a physical therapist. Her boyfriend was playing AAA ball. They were always travelling; if you called, all you got was the machine and a message to leave your number after the beep. Sal was busy too. He had recently bought a condo in one of those new, luxury buildings downtown; a place with a gym, a pool, a terrace restaurant and bar that overlooked the NC State campus. He had a BMW convertible and was dating a graduate student at the college. He had ideas of striking out on his own, getting his own office, being his own boss. He could see himself in a picture like that, hanging on the wall opposite his desk. He wondered what Jessica would think of it.
He looked around the room at his mother's baroque furniture, the entertainment center, the exercise bike, the four poster bed and the Gustav Stickney desk. "Sometimes I wonder how mom came into it all," he said out loud.
Theresa put down the picture and sat in the chair at the desk. She looked down her nose at her brother, smoothing back her styled hair, crossing her stockinged legs, pointing the toes of her designer shoes at him. "Don't you wish you knew more about him?"
Sal shrugged. "I don't know. I just never thought about it before, I guess."
Theresa leaned towards him with a penetrating stare. "Don't you wish you knew more about where we came from? I mean, who made us what we are. What they did. What kind of people they were. I've been thinking about it ever since mom died. I've been thinking about it a lot."
Sal looked out of the window at the carefully designed and manicured yard with its flower beds and shrubs, its fountain and statues of cherubs. "Dad always said he and mom's families had come from Italy. His father was a bricklayer. That's how he ended up in construction, I guess. I don't remember mom saying what her father did. I suppose it doesn't matter now. I mean, I'm a software engineer. You're a physical therapist."
Theresa shook her head. "But I think that's sad. I think it's sad that you don't know and don't care where you came from."
"I wouldn't say that," Sal said, shifting his weight. "It's not that I don't care. But if he was important, why wouldn't mom tell us? Is it going to be worth it, digging into it?"
Theresa picked up the picture again and looked at the face in the photograph as if she were trying to find her way home from somewhere, trying to lay claim to something. "I just think it's real sad that we've come to this point in our lives without knowing what our roots are. Without really having a foundation. A reference point." She put down the picture and got up, smoothing out her neat little Versace dress. "I don't know why mom never talked about her past. Her father. But now that I've found this picture of him, I'm dying to find out who he was and where he came from. He looks important."
"I remember mom saying that they lived in Brooklyn," Sal said, "and that he died of a heart attack trying to row his boat back from a fishing trip in Sheepshead Bay, when his motor conked out."
Theresa scowled and waved her hands dismissively. "That's not what I meant. That's just part of the story. Aren't you curious about who he was, what kind of family he came from?"
Sal walked over and looked at the picture again himself. He tried to imagine him at a desk in a bank, ordering around his servants in the vineyard of his villa. "You're hell bent on this. But how are you going to find out more about him?"
Theresa thought for a moment, a determined look on her sharpened face. "We could hire somebody."
"Like a detective?"
"Sure. You give him pictures, names, addresses. Tell him things you've heard about from the family. He does the research. Figures things out. Connects the dots."
"I've never hired a detective before," Sal said, folding his arms. "Where would you find somebody like that?"
Theresa smiled shrewdly. "Just leave it to me."
"What do you think he'll dig up?"
"We'll never know unless we let him dig. Maybe he was a craftsman. A glassblower. A winemaker. Maybe he was a merchant. A merchant of Venice. Wouldn't you like to know about that?" She looked persuasively at her brother.
"Maybe," Sal said, looking at the picture with renewed interest. "Well, if you want to give it a try..."
She jumped up triumphantly and gave him a hug. "Thank you," she said. "And in the end, you're going to thank me. You'll see. It could turn out that our name is on a bottle of famous wine, and we never knew it."
"Yeah, sure," Sal said. But he was smiling a little.
After a few weeks, Theresa called him from New York. "I've hired a geneology detective," she told him in an excited voice. "He's on the case already. I gave him grandpa's picture, his name, and the address where grandpa and grandma used to live. He told me that's actually a lot to go on, and he said he'd call me when he gets some results. It should be soon. He's going to check the city records, check the records at Ellis Island. He said if he finds out what boat he came over on, he can trace it all the way back to where it left Italy. He can find out what town he came from. And then he can even look at records over there and go further back. Isn't that exciting?"
"I'm impressed," Sal replied, pacing in his condo. "But how much is this going to cost? It sounds expensive."
"It's money well spent," Theresa decided. "We're talking about our family history. Who knows what we're connected to? We might have ancestors from Florence who had something to do with the renaissance. You can't put a price on that."
"No, I guess you can't," Sal said, looking out of his window. "Well, the moment of truth is coming for sure. Maybe he can show us our family crest, a coat of arms."
"That's what I'm talking about."
"I could have a banner made with the coat of arms on it," Sal demurred. "I could hang it from the porch of the townhouse. I could have it printed on my china. Jessica would love something like that."
"Cool. I was thinking of taking a trip to Italy, to see the ancestral town. Maybe visit a church, find a gravestone or a sepulcher. Maybe there's even a villa we could visit."
"Maybe I'll go with you," Sal replied. "I'd like to see that myself. Take Jessica along. Imagine the stories we could tell people when we get back."
"Imagine the posts we could make on Facebook and Twitter," she said.
"Keep me posted," Sal told her.
It wasn't long before Theresa called him again. "He found the boat," she declared. "He told me he found where the boat sailed from, and the village grandpa came from. He's going through the archives of a church there."
"Sounds like quite a story," Sal said. "I can't wait to hear it. I told Jessica about it, and she can't wait to see who he turns out to be. She said she would be thrilled if I turned out to be descended from a duke, or something. Did he say how much longer this is going to take?"
"I told him to take his time," Theresa told him. "Get all the details. We want to find out as much as we can, right? 'No problem', he said. He's doing real thorough research, and it takes time, he said."
"May as well go the whole nine yards," Sal admitted, "Now that we're in this far. I can't believe he can get access to all those old records. That really is amazing."
"Aren't you glad you listened to me?" Theresa asked in a triumphant tone.
"I guess so," Sal said. "After all, finding the church they attended. Is it a historic church, or something?"
"It must be. Everything over there has a history attached to it."
"I mean, does it have a Michaelangelo, a frescoe painted by Titian? A saint's relics? Some of the churches over there supposedly have the bones of the three kings or the nails from the crucifixion. I looked it up online."
"He didn't say, but I suppose it might. I'm sure he'll tell us everything when the investigation is over."
A couple of months passed, but finally Theresa called Sal with the news that the detective had informed her that the case was complete. He had compiled everything at his office in New York and Theresa had made an appointment for them. Sal was excited. He flew up from Raleigh in a new suit, with Italian shoes. They took a train to Manhattan, bubbling over with anticipation.
The detective's office was seven floors up in an old art deco building on Seventh Avenue, not far from Penn Station. It had an impressive lobby with a marble floor and a brass, revolving door, with classical embelishments all around the moldings and wainscoting. A blazing chandelier in the grand European style hung from the vaulted ceiling over the receptionist's desk. The receptionist, however, was a rather grim looking lady in a dark suit, who directed them quickly to the elevator. On the seventh floor the corridor was dark and dense, a place very different from the entrance. They found the detective's office and opened the door, entering a cramped, dingy space in which the old, mid century modern furniture was covered with dust. It was all a bit disconcerting, and Theresa and Sal hesitated until a gruff voice from an inner room bade them sit down.
The detective, a Mister Scalia, presently appeared from the back room; he seemed a bit disheveled, and his thread bare polyester jacket smelled of cigarette smoke. He was portly, with a bald head and a face that looked worn by much tension and many disappointments; huffing and puffing as he gathered his papers on his scratched desk. Theresa and Sal glanced at each other. He looked nothing like a Columbo or a Rockford or a Kojak. He looked up at them with the proverbial beady eyes.
"Ah, Miss Littieri," he said in his gruff, smoker's voice. "Nice to see you at last."
Theresa's face had gone blank. She turned to Sal and introduced him. "My brother."
"Ah," said Mister Scalia, forcing a smile as he leaned back in his chair. He extended a hand. "Nice to meet both of you." He looked down at the papers on the desk. There was an unexpected air of dissolution in the silence.
Theresa leaned forward at last. "You told me you had completed your investigation," she said, expectantly.
Scalia continued to look at the papers in front of him, his elbows resting on the desk and his hands clasped above them. He grimaced habitually. "I have, I have," he said, nodding. He paused, seeming to shrug a bit. "I don't know what you two were expecting, but I do have the story of your grandfather here. I must say, it turned out to be...rather colorful." He looked up at them from under his eyebrows.
They didn't know what to say. Sal looked at Theresa. She looked back at him, as taken aback as he was. "This isn't quite what we anticipated," she said, uncertainly. "Is it good news, or bad news?"
Scalia shrugged again. "Well, we may as well start at the beginning. Like I say, I don't know what you were expecting, but it was a rather...colorful story." He picked up one of the papers. "I had everything documented. Photocopied documents. That way everything is indisputable." He held up grandpa's picture. "The man who called himself 'Joseph Catallano' came to Ellis Island on June 11, 1919. The name of the ship was the Stella Rosa. He was registered as a second class passenger. He came over with a woman he portrayed as his wife, but I couldn't find a marriage document attesting to that fact."
Theresa and Sal looked at each other again. "That's strange," Theresa said, rubbing her chin apprehensively. "As far as we were told, they were married."
Scalia never looked up from his papers. "The Stella Rosa sailed from Palermo. Palermo Sicily."
"Oh, Sicily," Sal said, as if expecting somewhere else.
"Palermo Sicily," Scalia repeated, firmly. "The odd thing is, he registered as 'Joseph Catallano, Monte Mare.' I didn't find a record of a Joseph Catallano in Monte Mare. But I did have this picture you gave me to go on. Monte Mare is a small village; only a couple of hundred of residents from old families, and the town hall had a collection of photographs from them on microfilm. I looked through them one afternoon. I found a picture of an Anthony Falcone, that matched the portrait you gave me."
"That's weird," Theresa murmured.
Scalia went on. "There was a record of Anthony Falcone in the church. I went through those and there is no doubt your grandfather was him. He was born in Monte Mare in 1892. There is no record of him, no death certificate, after 1919. He left his home town for Palermo that summer, changed his name, and sailed for New York as Joseph Catallano."
Sal leaned back in his chair. "Wow. I wonder why he changed his name?"
Scalia smiled. "Another interesting thing I found is a wedding certificate for Anthony Falcone in the church at Monte Mare. He was married to a Maria Castagna on April 14, 1917. There's a picture of them. There's also a record of a baptism for a Michael Anthony Falcone on Sept. 16, 1917."
"Oh my God," Theresa gasped. "He was married and had a son there. He got someone pregnant and they made him marry her. And after the baby was born, he left them both with someone else; our grandmother, and came to New York."
Sal shook his head. "Geez," he said.
Mr. Scalia made an off hand gesture. "It certainly looks that way."
Theresa closed her eyes. "I wonder why he did that?"
Sal leaned forward, scowling. "What did he do for a living?"
Mr. Scalia shuffled the papers on his desk. He wiped his mouth quickly with his hand as he read from the page in front of him. "He's listed in the village records as a helper of his father, and his father is listed as what they called a 'dubious merchant.' They often listed smugglers that way."
Sal fell back, deflated, in his chair. "A smuggler? Are you sure?"
Scalia winced. "That's what the records say, yes. Like I say, I don't know what you people were expecting. People expect all kinds of things. Men of letters, officials, soldiers with records of bravery and medals of honor. The fact is, most people I've come across are just regular people."
"Regular people?" Theresa asked, frowning.
Mr. Scalia shrugged. His expression seemed like that of a judge who had seen all kinds of people come before his bench. "Forgive me, Miss Littieri. I think most people get caught in the struggle of life. They meet, they make love, they have to deal with the consequences. Sometimes they can't deal with the consequences. They make decisions; whether they are good decisions or bad decisions, they have to live with them. Most people like to think of themselves as heros, as stars, as people to be looked up to. But in real life, they make mistakes, they have failings, they don't live up to the expectations."
"Oh God," Theresa said, covering her face with her hands. "I didn't really expect this."
"I'm sure you didn't," Scalia replied, matter of fact. "I'm sure you went into this with all kinds of anticipation."
'Well," Sal told him, "It's not your fault."
Scalia looked him in the eye. "It's nobody's fault, Mr. Littieri. That's the nature of my job. I'm given a mystery and told to solve it. I go by the facts. Sometimes it's good news, sometimes it's not so good. That's life."
| Author Notes | These two pretentious siblings have their come-uppance in this cautionary tale, as they discover that their roots are not quite as illustrious as they imagined. In many ways, there's a little bit of all of us in them; we like to think of ourselves, as the detective pronounces at the end, as heros and stars, people to be looked up to. But in the end, we all have failings, we all make mistakes that pull the rug out from under our own feet, and it is not until we recognize this fact that we can move on to the redemption and transformation that life demands of us, as the next story in this series will attest. estory |
By estory
I opened my eyes. The window was grey; it was overcast. I was lying on the couch. The coffee table was covered in beer cans. There were more beer cans scattered across the carpet. I sat up.
It had been another night. It was another day. I asked myself: 'How had I come from there to here?' There was no answer.
I got up off of the couch and began to pick up the beer cans. The room smelled of cigarette smoke and I felt sick to my stomach. I put the cans in the sink, poured myself a glass of water and sat down to think.
I knew the refrigerator was empty. The phone was blinking; it was full of messages. Messages from my boss: Where was I? What was I doing? What was going on? I was fired. I got up and went back into the living room and sat down to think.
Ten years ago, fifteen years ago, before this had happened, I was a church going kid. I went to church every Sunday, with my parents. Then I stopped going to church, much to my mother's dismay. I fell in with the wrong group of people, I guess. That's what they always say.
I closed my eyes and tried to think. Where did I go wrong? I remember standing outside of the school cafeteria, with these kids. None of us knew who we were, where we were going. It was winter, I think. We were wearing coats. Our breath hung in the air like white clouds over our heads. The trees were bare. You could see the sky in between the branches. Someone passed me a joint and I inhaled it. After a while my head seemed to float up with the white clouds. We were laughing.
When I got home, my mother said I smelled like smoke. She asked me if I had been smoking. I said no. Then she set my dinner plate in front of me.
After that, we started drinking. We used to go down to the railroad tracks, after dark. Jimmy's brother used to buy the beers for us. We'd sit there in the dark, smoking, drinking, and laughing. None of us knew where we were going.
I opened my eyes. I remember, when I was a kid, we were sitting around the dining room table. I think it was Thanksgiving. One of my uncles asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I think I told him I wanted to be an architect.
My father wanted me to become a carpenter. He bought me a tool set, I remember. He tried to show me how to drill holes, how to hammer in nails, but I'd hit them in crooked and he'd yell at me. After a while, we both gave up.
My mother prayed for me. I used to sneak in the back door when I came home drunk. I snuck in that back door all through college. But she told me she prayed for me that whole time.
I got up off of the couch and went over to the window and took a drink of water. The block looked like it always did. The old cars were parked in a row in front of the houses. The office building across the street was empty. The railroad tracks at the end of the block seemed to come from nowhere and went off out of sight. There were two guys sitting down on cinder blocks there, drinking beers.
I turned around and the room hadn't changed. It still smelled like smoke. The beer cans were still there. The messages from my boss were still on the phone. I sat down and took another drink of water, trying to clear my head, trying to piece together how I got here. Trying to think of how I was going to get out of it.
After college, I got a job in a supermarket. I was not an architect. I was still drinking. When I wasn't drinking, I would walk around the streets, with my jacket buttoned up and my hands in my pockets, like someone who had gotten lost and trying to get somewhere. I'd walk up to the top of the parking garage by the railroad station and from the top of the parking garage I could see the church steeple of the church I used to go to, across town.
I remember, I used to remember how we used to sit in that church on Christmas Eve, in the candlelight, singing 'Silent Night.' I remember remembering going out after the service, one time. It was a cold night. The stars were bright. I remember how bright those stars were, on that cold, Christmas Eve night. It was like God was listening. Like he was seeing into the future. I remember how beautiful that Christmas Eve night was.
Then I climbed back down the parking garage and walked home. I passed a deli and I went in and bought a couple of beers and drank them before I got home. My mother asked me where I had been. 'Walking around,' I said. 'Walking around where?' she asked me. 'Up to the parking garage,' I told her. 'What were you doing on the parking garage?' she asked me. 'Nothing,' I told her. Then, she put my dinner plate in front of me. She sat down next to me. 'You know,' she said to me, 'You can come back to church with us on Sundays. The door is always open at church. You can ask Jesus to come into your life, anytime.' she said.
I looked at her. She had that look in her face of a mother who saw me when I was a baby in her arms. When she would rock me to sleep and dream of all things I would do with my life.
'Yeah, I know,' I told her. Then, I looked down at my plate.
I got up off the couch and picked up the rest of the beer cans and took them into the kitchen and put them in the sink. I washed out all of the beer cans and put them in the empty carton in the pantry. I emptied the ash tray. I finished the water. I opened the refrigerator door. The refrigerator was still empty. I needed something to eat. I looked out of the window. The sky was still overcast, still grey. The two guys were still sitting down by the railroad tracks. They had opened two more beers. I needed to get more beers.
And I was going to have to look for another job.
We started out drinking three beers. Then it became six. Then we lost count. Jimmy got busted for DWI and lost his license, and after that, I started drinking alone.
Whenever I came home drunk, my dad would get pissed. He'd threaten to throw me out. My mother would stand there watching. After I walked away, she'd follow me. She'd tell me I could go back to church. She said Jesus would always take me back. She told me she was praying for me.
I moved out into my apartment. At first, I remember, it was great. I could come home from work, sit down, crack open a beer, and sit there without hearing anyone complain about it. I could crack open another beer and look out of the window at the railroad tracks. I could crack open another beer and put on some music. I could crack open another beer and another beer until I forgot where I was, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be and hadn't yet become, how I was going to get there.
At first, I made it to work without any problems. Then, I slept though my alarm clock and then I slept through a couple of phone calls. I missed an hour, I got in two hours late. The manager called me into his office and gave me a verbal warning. Then he called me into the office and suspended me. Yesterday, he called and fired me.
I said to myself: 'What the hell am I going to do now?'
I got up and put on my coat. I didn't know where I was going, I didn't want to know where I was going. I just wanted to be going somewhere. I figured I would get some beers and I could figure it out after that. Or I could just wait for the sky to clear. If the sky cleared, I could sit in the sun and dream that I was somewhere else. Anything was better than sitting in my apartment worrying about it.
When I got out onto the street I started walking towards the deli. I looked in the windows of the stores I passed for help wanted signs but I didn't see any. The bills for the telephone and TV would come in a week. The bill for the gas would come the week after that. The rent would be due in three weeks. Then there was the insurance. I needed groceries. I needed to get something to eat. I needed to get something to drink.
All kinds of people passed me in the street. I looked into their faces. I thought of asking somebody, anybody, for help. I thought of asking the pretty girl for a date. But none of them looked into my face. None of them said anything. They just walked right passed me.
I went into the deli and bought a six pack. The guy behind the counter told me: "That'll be six seventy five." I asked the girl standing next to me for the time. "Three thirty," she said. I said: "Thank you," and went back outside. I started for the parking garage.
Along the way to the parking garage I noticed that it was starting to clear. I started to walk faster. There were all kinds of people walking around the streets, people with jobs, people with girlfriends and boyfriends, married people, people with friends, people with families to come home to. I thought to myself, it would be nice to be one of those people. But I was not one of those people.
My mother said that she was still praying for me. She was in her kitchen, making dinner, making one of the dinners she used to make for me, praying for me. I thought to myself, it would be nice to go home and just start over. But I knew I couldn't just go over there after drinking a six pack.
What the hell was I going to do? I asked myself. Where was I going to go?
I got to the parking garage and started climbing the stairs for the top deck. When I got to the top deck, I put down the beers and looked around. I could see the steeple of the church where I used to go when I was a kid. I remember my mother saying to me I could always go back to church. I could ask Jesus to come into my life. But I knew I couldn't go into the church after drinking all that beer.
I took a deep breath. The air was fresh, clean. I looked around. The clouds were breaking. The sky was clearing. There were patches off blue in between the clouds. The edges of the clouds were gilt with gold. I looked back at the church steeple. I looked down at the bag full of beers.
I knew that if I drank one, I would end up drinking all of them. I didn't want to drink all of them. I didn't want to fall asleep drunk and wake up with the coffee table covered in beer cans. I wanted to start over. I wanted to go home and tell my mother I was starting over. I was asking Jesus to come into my life. I wanted to see the look on her face. I wanted to feel her hug me for the first time in ten years.
I looked over at the church steeple shining in the sun. I folded my hands and said: "Jesus, come into my life. I'm a sinner. Forgive me. I want to quit drinking. Help me quit drinking. Help me to get out of this mess. In Jesus name, amen."
Then I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And all of a sudden, I felt like leaving. I felt like leaving the beers in the bag on the top floor of the parking garage, and going to the church.
So I turned around and without even looking at the bag of beers, I started down the stairs of the parking garage. It was funny. With each step that I took down the stairs, I felt lighter and lighter. I felt that I was free.
On the way down the stairs, I passed a man in a suit going up the stairs. He looked up at me with this look on his face that he was afraid I was going to ask him for his wallet or something. I could see that he was thinking that, but I just felt glad to be alive, glad to be in the world with all of these people all of a sudden. So I said: "Hello," and he smiled. "Hello," he answered, surprised, and started to smile as I passed him.
That made me feel like I was free to shake someone's hand, free to say 'hello' to people in the street, free to be who I wanted to be, free to go anywhere where I wanted to go. As I hurried along the streets across town, I nodded or said 'hello' to everyone I passed. Some nodded back. Some said 'hello'. For the first time since I was a kid, before I started drinking, before I started smoking, I felt like I was one of them. It was a funny feeling.
By the time I got to the church I felt like a different person. I stopped outside the steps of the church and looked up at the steeple. I saw the cross at the top of the steeple. It was an empty cross. I closed my eyes. "Thank you, Jesus," I said. Then I opened my eyes and looked at the door. For a minute, I just stood there. There were people walking by me, looking at me. I knew they were wondering what was going on with me. I hadn't opened those doors and gone into church for a long time. I hadn't felt like I felt when I used to go church for a long time. I heard a voice asking me: 'Do you really want to go in there?' I looked back up at the steeple again. The steeple was all lit up in the sunlight. The stained glass window above the door was sparkling like a rainbow in the light. I wanted to feel what it was like to stand in the light. I walked up the steps of the church, opened the door, and went in.
For the first time in years, decades, I stood in the narthex as the door closed behind me. I was amazed that the church looked like it did when I had last been there. The wooden pews with the hymnals in them went up in rows towards the altar. The wooden boards, in the shape of stained glass windows, that held the numbers of the hymns stood on the walls on each side of the rows of pews. The sanctuary, covered in red carpet, rose up in shallow steps into the nave. The lecterns stood on each side of it. In the middle was the altar, made of wood, with the Lamb carved onto the front panel. On the altar was the empty cross, the communion wafers and the communion chalice, covered with a white cloth. Behind the altar was the wooden trellis carved with the image of Jesus, risen from the tomb. On each side of the altar stood the candleabras. Above the altar was the rose window, glittering in the light. On each side of the church were the stained glass windows. Each showed a scene from the gospels. Mary and Josef with the baby in the manger, in the stable. The adoration of the magi. Jesus walking on the water. Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. The crucifixion. Jesus risen, standing outside the tomb on Easter Sunday with Mary Magdalen.
The church was quiet. I walked up the aisle and sat in one of the pews. I looked up at the face of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. His face looked so sad, I thought. I thought of how Jesus had suffered and died for the forgiveness of sins. My sins. I didn't want to sin anymore. I wanted to start over.
I heard a door somewhere in the church, and sat up. Someone was walking towards the nave. It was the pastor. He was dressed in black with a white collar at his throat. He came out of the choir and saw me. He looked surprised. I couldn't tell if he was smiling or frowning, but he walked down the aisle from the altar towards me.
"Can I help you?" he said. I could see that he was smiling. He sat down in the pew in front of me, looking at me.
"Well," I said, "I used to go to church here, when I was a kid."
"Is that so?" the pastor said. "Great. But you haven't been here in some time, is that it?"
"No," I said.
"What brought you here today?" the pastor asked.
I fidgeted. I looked down at my hands. Then I looked back up at the altar. I tried to think of how to say what I wanted to say.
"My mother has been praying for me. She told me I could always come back to church. I could always ask Jesus to come into my life."
"That's right," the pastor said, still looking into my face, still smiling. "Is that what you want to do?"
"It's like this," I said, "I've been drinking. And I don't want to drink anymore. I just got fired from my job, and I don't know what to do. But I know I don't want to drink anymore. I left a six pack up on the parking garage. I saw the church steeple from up there. I remember what my mother said and I came here. I think I want to start over. I want to ask Jesus to forgive me, and start over."
The pastor reached over the pew and patted my hand. "You did the right thing," he said. "If you want to start over, you have to start someplace. Maybe the best thing to do to start off with is to say a prayer and ask the Lord for some guidance. Do you want to do that?"
"O.K." I said.
"I'll pray with you," the pastor said. I folded my hands and closed my eyes. I didn't know what to expect, but I thought that anything would be better than going back to the parking garage, opening the beers, drinking them one after the other, and getting drunk. Anything would be better than waking up the next day with the same problems.
"Lord," I could hear the pastor praying, "There is a man here who is caught in the addiction of drinking. He wants to get out of it. He wants to ask you to come back into his life. Come into his life, O Lord, and give him the strength to break the bonds of drinking, and guide him into a new life, free from that addiction. Let him experience another chance. He's lost his job, so let him find another one. Let someone share your compassion with him, and offer him another job." The pastor paused, and I opened my eyes. He leaned towards me and asked quietly: "Would you like to say something?"
I bowed my head and closed my eyes again. "Forgive me," I said. "I made mistakes. I stopped going to church, and I started drinking. I want to change. I want to ask you to come into my life and change me."
"In Jesus name, amen," the pastor said.
I opened my eyes and unclasped my hands. I did not feel any different from a moment ago, but I felt like doing something, going somewhere. I felt like I was free to do anything, go anywhere. So maybe that was different. I looked at my hands. Then I looked up at the pastor. He fished something out of his wallet.
"You know," he said, "There's an AA group that meets in this church, on Thursday evenings. Thursday evenings at seven. You know what AA is?"
"Alcoholics Anonymous," I answered.
"That's right." He handed me their card. "There's a phone number on there, in case you need to talk to somebody. Any time of day or night. If you think you need help, you can call that number. If you like, you can come to their meetings. There's people there just like you. People who know what you've gone through, and what it's like to stay sober."
"Thanks," I said. I looked at the card. Alcoholics Anonymous, it said. It felt like I already belonged. like I had someone to talk to. I stood up. The pastor stood up with me. I held out my hand and he shook it. "Thanks," I said again. "Maybe I'll try to go to that meeting."
"Good," he said, "That sounds good."
"Well," I said, "I think I'm going to go home now. I want to tell my mother what happened to me."
He nodded. "She's been praying for you. I'm glad you have something good to tell her. Good luck, son. And if you ever want to talk, you can always stop by my office. Of course," he said, smiling, "You're always welcome to come to church. Services are at 8 and 10 Sunday mornings."
"Thanks," I said, "Maybe I'll do that."
I left the church and stepped out into the air outside. It was getting dark, but there was a star hanging over the building across the street. The air felt fresh and clean. I felt light. I felt like going somewhere and I started walking to my parents' house. There were people walking around in the streets; people going shopping, people walking their dogs, people going home.
I got to my parents' house and walked up to the door. I stood there for a moment, trying to think of the last time I had been there and had a good visit. Then I rang the bell.
My mother opened the door. She looked surprised to see me. "What brings you here?" she asked me. "Are you O.K.?"
I looked up into her face. The face of the woman who had brought me into the world. The woman who had always been there when I was sick. The woman who had been praying for me. "Mom," I said, "I just wanted you to know, I'm trying to quit drinking."
"Oh Charlie," she said. She looked like she could see that I was struggling and that she wanted to help me through it. "Do you really mean it?"
"Yes," I said. "I just went to the church. I said a prayer with the pastor and asked Jesus to come into my life."
My mother's face brightened. "That's wonderful, Charlie," she said. "I've been praying for that for a long time."
"The pastor gave me an AA card," I said. "I think I'm going to go to the next meeting."
"That's great Charlie," she said. "That's a good first step." She turned and looked into the house. "I can't wait to tell your father. He'll be happy to hear that."
"Mom," I said, looking into her face as she turned back towards me, "There's something else. You see, they fired me. The manager of the store fired me when I didn't show up for work yesterday."
She shook her head but she didn't take her eyes off of my face. "Well, why don't you call him and tell him you're going to join the AA? Tell him you're trying to do something about it?"
"I hadn't thought of that," I said, "Maybe I'll call him. That's an idea."
"Do you want something to eat?" she asked me.
"Sure," I said. As I stepped through the door, I said: "Mom, I just wanted to say thank you for praying for me."
She didn't say anything. She just hugged me.
| Author Notes | I thought this story would make a good Easter story. It is a story of redemption, a prodigal son story, and it has a happy ending, which I think is important to have, once in a while. There are stories with happy endings. I wrote it as a narrative, in a very personal style, in as honest a style as I could render, because I think it gives the story an authenticity, a weight, that is important in a story like this. At the beginning, it is in a rather grim rendition, with grey, flat, repetitions that give a sense of running in place, of being in a trap. Later in the story I tried to open it up a bit more to give it a sense of moving on. Throughout, no matter how grim the feel, I tried to write in some chinks of light, some foreshadowings of hope. I hope you enjoy it, and find it somewhat uplifting in this strange Easter time. And let us pray that the scourge of the coronavirus passes us by. estory |
By estory
Bobby Lee was on his way to his first date with a young woman he had met on an internet dating site. What he liked about her initially was her picture, of course; she was cute, she had a good figure, and she had an alluring smile. Her name was Taylor, Taylor Anderson. She put her age at 23 and she looked every bit of it, with wavy, blond hair and a tattoo of a butterfly on her shoulder. In her bio she said she was a graduate student at NC State. She was going for an advanced degree in education, with a minor in sociology. There was a playful confidence in her blue eyes and she sounded smart. Bobby asked her if she would have dinner with him in a restaurant downtown and she agreed. She would meet him at SoCa, in Cameron Village, at six o'clock.
Bobby was a bit old fashioned and decided on wearing a pair of pressed grey slacks with a burgundy colored button down, collared shirt. He bought a small bouquet of late summer flowers at a shop on Glenwood and began walking briskly to the restaurant as the late afternoon light cast long shadows along the sidewalks of the city. He passed bars and cafes in the university district and there were beautiful girls from the colleges sitting with young men everywhere, tipping back drinks, talking and laughing. He thought optimistically that there was an aura of love in the air. He imagined himself sitting with Taylor, looking into her angelically blond framed face over a glass of chardonnay, talking about travel, novels and photography. He had been a liberal arts major in college but had parlayed that along with his experience in retail while at school to attain a department manager's position in a national chain. He thought of himself as rather young to have worked his way up the ranks so quickly, and he felt that Taylor must be impressed with his success when he told her about it.
He arrived at SoCa early and asked for a seat at one of the outdoor tables, explaining cheerfully to the waitress that he was anticipating someone to join him at any minute. He laid the bouquet gently on the table. As he expectantly watched the faces of the young women from the university walking past the restaurant, or those of the couples seated around him and conversing merrily about trips to the beach, shopping or love, he rehearsed in his mind how he might chivalrously offer her the flowers, comparing her beauty to theirs. Her face would light up, she would thank him graciously, and then sit opposite him, impressed. She would lean towards him with an interested expression. She would tell him of her plans; to become a teacher, travel, and marry someone able to provide for her and her wonderful, beautiful children. It would be the beginning of something enchanting and expansive in his life. His meaning and purpose would come into focus at just this magical moment, defining everything that had up to now, seemed so abstract and indefinite to him.
It did not seem to him at the time to be an ill conceived or irrational dream. The laughter of the young women around him, raising their glasses to their friends or lovers, seemed to confirm this. It was autumn and as the sun began to set the street was slowly darkening into the pleasant gauze of evening. One by one the lights of apartments in the buildings clustered around the restaurant winked on, and strains of music could be heard from open windows. It was Bobby's favorite time of day. He had been longing to share this sense of the intimate hours with someone; a girlfriend, a lover; for some time and he felt with a gladdening heart that soon he would be able to.
Out of the clustered silhouettes of figures approaching down the sidewalk, he spotted the features of his date. Taylor's pretty face, framed by that shining, blond hair, was unmistakable. She paused as she came into the shade under the restaurant awning with what looked to him like vulnerable, innocent confusion. Bobby noticed with some satisfaction that she was wearing an off the shoulder black blouse and neat fitting blue jeans. She took a cell phone out of a trendy calico bag and checked the time. He allowed himself the pleasure of observing her in this vulnerable state for a moment, then he called her name. She recognized him and walked over to the table with a disarming smile. Bobby stood up to greet her and offered her the bouquet he had bought.
Instead of reaching for them, Taylor laughed. This surprised him and he began to apologize. Taylor held out her hand. "No, no," she said quickly. "It's not the flowers. It's just that I've never been offered flowers on a first date like that before. And I've never seen anyone dressed like that. Do you always dress like that for first dates?" She pulled out her chair and sat down.
Still holding the flowers in his hand, he sat down with her. "Well," he said, with a sudden air of uncertainty, "I really wasn't sure of what to wear. I didn't want to be too casual. But you look....great."
She gave him a wry look. "What's wrong with casual?" she asked. "I insist on it. I don't believe in being formal. It's all kind of superficial, don't you think? I like being real."
Bobby tried to smile. "You would look great in anything," he said, putting faith in his compliments.
But Taylor shook her head staring boldly into his face and still wearing her wry smile. "Thanks, but you don't have to pay me compliments on my looks. I'd rather find someone who is interested in who I am, rather than what I look like. Looks are shallow."
The waitress rescued him. "Can I get you anything to drink?" she asked.
Bobby took a deep breath and tried to make a new start of things. "Sure. Taylor, would you like to have a glass of wine, or something?"
Taylor looked up at the waitress, her blue eyes flashing. "No alcohol for me, thank you. I like to keep my wits about me." She gave Bobby a look like she wanted to keep at arm's length, at least for now.
"Oh," he said. "Well, I'll just have some ice tea, then. How about some ice tea, Taylor?" It seemed like a harmless request.
She shrugged. "Too much artificial sweetener for me. Do you have any pomegranate juice?"
"I'm afraid not," the waitress said. "We do have apple and orange juice."
Taylor wrinkled her nose. "Just ice water for me, thanks."
"I'll get those for you and be right back," the waitress said, handing them the menus.
"You certainly are serious about your diet," Bobby said, trying to sound impressed as he opened his menu.
Taylor frowned. "I think it's important to take care of your health. I only eat natural foods. I'm vegan actually. Vegetables are really much more healthy for you than animal foods, even dairy. For breakfast, I have a kale smoothie. Salads for lunch. Stir fry eggplant, zucchini, nappa or broccoli for dinner. Fruit for dessert."
"Wow," Bobby said. "Impressive. I couldn't last a day without bacon myself, but I like people with convictions."
She leaned towards him, staring up into his face so that he leaned back. "Mental health is just as important. I practice yoga everyday. It clears my mind of negative thoughts and channels my positive energy."
"I've never tried yoga," Bobby said, shrugging.
Taylor shook her head. "That's a shame. You should try it. I've been much more relaxed and focused since I took it up."
"I never thought of it as something for guys," Bobby remarked. "I don't know if I have the time for it. I'm a manager at this store, and I put in a lot of hours there. While I'm off, I like to drive. That's what relaxes me. I take a drive along the outer banks, or up into the mountains."
Taylor's nose wrinkled again. "Just drive? For no reason?"
"Well, there's the scenery," Bobby tried to explain. He thought maybe he would impress her with his car. "I have a nice little mustang that I bought when I got my promotion. A convertible. It's fast, it's fun. Maybe you'd like to come along some time."
"Fossil fuel burning cars are poisoning the planet," Taylor stated, staring defiantly into Bobby's face again. "You'd be better off with yoga."
The waitress came back to take their order. Bobby deferred to Taylor. "I'll have the stir fry mixed vegetables, the ramen noodles, and a tofu salad," she said firmly, handing the waitress her menu.
"And for you, sir?" the waitress turned to him, pen in hand.
"I think I'll have the Teriyaki steak, medium well done, please. Ramen noodles are fine with me too. I'd like to have a side order of panek pater. And a Kirin beer to go along with it."
As the waitress left, Taylor leaned back in her chair. She looked at Bobby as if she did not know quite what to make of him. There was something in her eye that belied a certain attraction, but the way she wrinkled her nose you could she was displeased about something.
"I never eat anything with a face," she said, flatly. "I can't believe that someone as good looking as you would want to do that to poor, helpless little animals."
Bobby sighed. He folded his arms and this time he looked past Taylor at someone else, walking by the restaurant in a pair of jeans and a jacket. "Well, what can I say. I like to have a good steak once in a while. Sorry. But it isn't a crime, you know."
There was an awkward silence. During it, Bobby noticed the Pro Choice button on Taylor's purse. He shifted his feet under the table, restlessly.
"It's not even good for you," Taylor continued, leaning back towards him as if trying to convince him of the elevated nature of her opinion. "Red meat is loaded with cholesterol. It'll give you high blood pressure. Heart disease. All you have to do is look into that sweet, little cow's face and the look in her eyes should be enough to melt your heart."
Bobby grimaced, looking back at her with a gathering distaste. "I don't really think about things like that, to tell the truth. I just want to enjoy my steak. I can think of other things that melt hearts too, you know."
She shrugged, dismissively. "It's your life," she said.
"I know. I'm pro life myself."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Oh Lord," she sighed. "You've got to be kidding me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means it's such a typical attitude for a man to have. You're always making demands of us. In the end, it's our body. We should have a constitutional right to determine what we can or can't do with our own bodies, in matters that affect our lives."
"And what about the rights of the baby? Or men? There would be no baby if it weren't for us either. It's our child too. We should have a say in it."
"Oh my God," Taylor gasped. "Did you vote for Trump?"
"I sure did," said Bobby, frowning himself now. "Make America great again."
"How could you vote for someone as bigoted and mysogenystic as Trump?"
"I could never vote for someone as crooked as Hillary Clinton, I can tell you that."
"Well, I for one, think it's high time we had a woman president. You men have messed up the world enough in the last five thousand years."
"What makes you think a woman will do a better job?"
"We certainly couldn't do a worse job, that's for sure. At least a woman president would sign legislation equaling pay and promoting women for leadership positions."
"We'd be better off if you did a better job raising kids. We don't need women basketball stars or corporate executives. We need good mothers. When I think of how my mother lived her life for her kids..."
"But that's just it. Why should a woman live her life for anybody else? We have a right to be what we want to be; doctors, lawyers, mechanics, astronauts."
"Astronauts?"
"Why not? Why should you men be the only ones allowed to make headlines?"
"Is that what you want to be? An astronaut?"
"I actually want to be either a teacher or a social worker. I think young girls need mentors and advocates. Not only girls. People of color, immigrants...do you know that women make up 56% of the population but only 38% of the high paying, tech sector jobs? Or that African Americans are 30% of the population but only 10% of those jobs? If a group makes up 30% of the population, then 30% of the jobs in any company should go to that group."
"How about the jobs going to the people who are qualified for them?"
"By whose definition? White male Anglo Saxon protestants?"
"Give me one good reason why a quota should be used instead of qualifications."
"It isn't fair. Just like health care isn't fair. Health care should be a right. Universal free health care for all."
"Nothing is free, Taylor. Someone has to pay for it. Your taxes will pay for it."
"What they're actually proposing is taxing the corporations."
"And what do you think the corporations are going to do? Pass the cost onto the consumer. Raise prices. In the end, you'll end up paying for it."
Taylor got up from the table, picking up her bag. "You know what? I don't think I'm going to enjoy your company. Good day." With that, she turned on her heels and began striding down the street with a purpose.
"Same here," Bobby called after her, getting up in turn and heading away in the opposite direction.
The people at the other tables rolled their eyes and shook their heads, as the waitress returned with a tray holding their dishes. She stood for a minute holding the tray, looking around for her customers. "What happened to them?" she asked out loud, to no-one in particular.
"They had an argument," a young woman said to her.
"I'm surprised they didn't throw their glasses at each other," a man sitting at a nearby table said.
The waitress snorted. "Really? And I thought they looked like such a lovely couple."
"Well," someone else chimed in, "They weren't what you would call politically compatible."
"What does politics have to do with love?" the waitress called over her shoulder, as she headed back into the restaurant.
| Author Notes | The narrow focus on the polarized politics of our time end up consuming the passions of this young couple, hurling them away from each other and nipping in the bud any suggestion of romance. I deliberately sketched the sensibilities of these two as high contrast as I could to illustrate how far from the heart they've both come. There is no room for compromise here, no willingness to overlook shortcomings. Just a dismissive attitude and a complete obsession with self absorption on both their parts; the old fashioned man and the liberal young woman. I know it's a bit incendiary, but controversy is something I don't like to shy away from. I'd like to think of myself as more pragmatic myself than either one of these two; but with age comes a degree of softening of attitude, I think. In some ways I guess it might be true that youth is wasted on the young. In this case, maybe it is. The style is a definite nod to James Joyce around the time of Dubliners, one of my favorite short story collections. estory |
By estory
My name is Chloe. My father left when I was ten. Maybe that had something to do with it. I came home from school one afternoon and my mother informed me that he had run away with Mrs. Jefferson, our next door neighbor, and the mother of my best friend, Timothy. Timothy never spoke to me again. It felt like something inside of me had died.
For some reason, I just never felt at home with my mother, after that. Whenever I looked at her, in her plastic curlers and faded robe, with her cracked fingernails and tattoos, smoking cigarettes in her living room chair, I couldn't help feeling that somehow she was some kind of stranger. It didn't help that she always seemed to be on the look-out for another man in her life. I'd have questions about my homework, problems with other girls at school or I'd be sick and she' be lounging on the couch with the produce manager of the supermarket or making out with a life insurance salesman in her bedroom. She'd call me into the kitchen and there, sitting in the place where my father had once sat, was a man she had met on an internet dating site. While they talked and laughed and drank, I'd concentrate on my bowl of spaghetti, tuning them both out, making believe I was in a restaurant listening to the idle gossip of strangers.
Afterwards, when the men had left, she would barge into my room, where I was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out where I fit into this sitcom. "You could have said something," she'd snap at me, "Instead of sitting there like you wished he wasn't there. You could have said he looked nice. You could have asked him to tell you a joke." As if I were just some prop in her scheme, a means to an end. It was a relief when she left and closed the door, leaving me in the dark again, where I was invisible. Then I could be anything, anybody I wanted to be. A stewardess on an airplane. One of those girls in a beauty pageant. One of the daughters of the couple in Last Man Standing.
My favorite times were the nights my mother went out on dates and left me alone in the apartment. I'd make up a plate of Ritz crackers smeared with peanut butter, pour a big glass of Coca Cola, and binge watch Roseanne or Big Bang Theory until it got so late I would fall asleep on the couch. There was no-one to remind me that my father was gone, that he had run off with the neighbor's wife; there was no-one pretending to be my mother. I was on my own. I sometimes wished those nights would go on forever, but then my mother would come home, turn off the TV, turn on the lights, wake me up and tell me to go to bed. I had school tomorrow.
I hated school. I hated lunch and recess most of all, because that's when I would have to sit at a lunch table in the cafeteria and listen to the other kids talk about the birthday presents their fathers had bought for them, the ball games their fathers had taken them to, the basketball games their fathers had watched them play. "Hey Chloe," they would say to me in their little heckling voices, "When was the last time your father took you bowling? Oh, that's right. You don't have a father." At least during math class or English I was lost in the rows of faces staring up at the blackboard or lost in the book I was reading. In the uneasy silence, I could be Hermoine in Harry Potter, if only for three quarters of an hour at a time.
Puberty brought a fresh onslaught of problems, a new set of unknown variables I had to adjust to. My mother continued to be unhelpful. By then she was dating Ralph; a garage mechanic she had met in a bar. They spent their time 'discovering' themselves; at the movies, at classic rock concerts and amusement parks, but mostly, it seemed, in all night diners and pubs. I didn't like him. He was greasy and always carried an open beer with him. Around that time, I had grown my tits, and I couldn't help feeling that he was checking me out when my mother wasn't watching. Yeah, he was a creep, I decided. I spent a lot of time in those days locked up in my room or out at the library. There were boys who checked me out there too, and I couldn't help getting the creeps about them as well. Without any guidance from my mother or advice from a father, I had to feel my own way along, in the dark. I took to wearing oversized black sweatshirts, cut my hair real short (I didn't like my hair anyway), and baggy, camouflage cargo pants. I'd sit in corners listening to punk bands on the pods I bought myself: MXPX, Less Than Jake, Green Day, Taking Back Sunday. It was like being in a cocoon. The only place where I felt safe.
While I was still in High School Paul Braun asked me out. I was surprised, and didn't know what to say right away. It wasn't like I was putting out or anything. He wasn't bad looking, he wasn't a bad kid. He even had a job in the supermarket, like one of mom's old boyfriends. But somehow the idea of love, the impending possibility of it, scared the hell out of me. I don't know. It was like I could already see him running off with one of cheerleaders, or envision myself as my mother, in an old bathrobe and plastic curlers, arguing over money and booze and cigarettes. I told him no. Of course he was devastated. But the worst of it was all the rumors starting to circulate that I was a lesbian.
The truth was that I didn't know what the hell I was, but I just couldn't take all that crap anymore. I was hardly speaking to my mother, I was hardly speaking to anyone at school; there just wasn't anything left for me in that scene. I counted off the days to graduation on the Clash calendar hanging in my room. I got a job at an FYE outlet and started saving money. After graduation, I stuffed a couple of hundred dollars in the back of my backpack, bought a Greyhound ticket, and left for Seattle. I didn't tell my mother. I didn't even leave a note. Somehow the thought of her looking around and realizing that I was gone, wondering where I was and what was happening to me, was oddly satisfying.
I didn't speak to anyone on the whole trip. In Pittsburgh, a middle aged man covered in tattoos got on the bus and sat next to me, but I pulled my hoodie over my head, buried myself in my ipod and cold shouldered him to look out of the window at the endless reel of broken down dairy farms, abandoned factories, trailer parks and strip malls that flashed by. The sky, overcast or partly cloudy, seemed just as endless, just as forbidding. I found myself wondering if somewhere, in one of those trailers, there was a kid like me, lost and in pain. I wondered whether their parents were divorced, what bands he/she listened to, whether or not they had any friends. We crossed the Mississippi and then the sky and the country opened up. It was so wide, so empty, that I wondered if I had made a mistake. It felt far away, too far away, beyond the point of no return. The middle aged man with the tattoos had gotten off at Des Moines, and I found myself looking around at the other passengers. Maybe I was looking for a kindred spirit, someone I could relate to. But the cast of characters that populated the bus were more representative of a nation of drifters than anything else, people that had been cut loose from their moorings, wanders who had lost their way, castaways shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere. There was the young woman in the gothic clothes and black mascara, reading a book about death. There was the man in the jacket that didn't fit him, trying to get people to play cards with him. There was the southern lady talking to herself about the kids she had left behind, sneaking drinks from a paper bag. The two girls going back to college with their cellphones. The Mexican guy who didn't speak a word of English. The black woman in the Obama shirt singing Supreme's songs. It was hard to imagine striking up a conversation with any of them, and like I said, I ended up keeping to myself.
After we passed the mountains I told myself that I had seen the country, really seen it, and that it was an accomplishment in and of itself. I mean, wasn't that a bucket list item for a lot of people? But I couldn't help feeling that I hadn't gotten very far, somehow. I was still sitting by myself with the hoodie pulled over my head. I found myself wondering if Paul had found someone to go with him to the Prom, if my mother had realized I was missing. If she had called the police. I still had no idea what I was going to do when I got to the end of the line and got off. I hadn't found a single friend in all those states full of government buildings flying flags that I had just passed through. Was this, I thought to myself, what Lewis and Clark had discovered on their epic journey through the Louisiana Territory? Is this what the pioneers had come for, running away from whatever it was that they were running away from? Is this really where the Baxters really lived?
Seattle was a disappointment. I got off the bus and looked up to see the famous Space Needle, half shrouded in fog. It was cold, cloudy and raining. I walked through the puddles in the street. I got a cup of coffee in a coffee shop. I bought myself something to eat in McDonald's. I sat in a corner by myself, trying to decide if this was better or worse than where I had come from. I distracted myself with my music. Then I walked on through the city. I found a place to sleep in a homeless shelter I came across somewhere downtown. It was full of kids like me, in hoodies and backpacks, who had somehow made the journey from all kinds of crevices and corners of America to this place. All kinds of people who had no idea who they were, where they were going, with nobody to talk to. Only when they turned out the lights and I could lay there in the dark listening to my music did I feel invisible again, in my cocoon.
They served a breakfast of hash browns, biscuits and corn flakes at the shelter, and I sat at one of the tables with my stuff to eat it. A kid in a dark blue sweatshirt and jeans with holes in them, with a soiled ski cap on his head, asked me where I was from. He had a funny look in his eyes. he asked me how long I had been in Seattle. He asked me what I was going to do here. I shrugged. He told me Seattle was an expensive town. He leaned over and whispered that he knew where I could make some money. I got up, grabbed my backpack and left. Another girl followed me. Near the door she caught up with me. "Watch yourself," she said to me. "He's one of the ones selling himself. He wants to get you into turning tricks. They pay him to find new girls. Everybody's looking for new girls." I stared at her a minute, pushed open the door, and left.
I went back out into the streets, looking up into all the windows of the apartment buildings, the windows of the office buildings of all kinds of corporations, the windows of the grimy cars going by, wondering if there was anybody out there who actually had a heart, a soul, in the world. Was there really such a thing as love, or was it only a myth? In the park where I sat eating my McDonald's burger and fries for lunch, I saw a couple of stray dogs eating a squirrel they had killed and it seemed to me that this was the law of nature that governed this planet I found myself on: dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, every man for himself. I felt sick. I shouldered my backpack and stumbled out of the park. No matter how far I had run, nothing seemed to have changed.
As I started off again into the unsettled streets with their endless parade of nameless faces, I heard a voice behind me. "Hey," a young woman's voice called to me, "Are you alright?" There was something in the voice I had never heard before. I turned around and saw a girl, a thin girl in a blouse and a long skirt that came down to her ankles, coming after me. She was carrying some papers. She looked like she felt sorry for me.
"Are you talking to me?" I asked her. I didn't know what to make of her, but I stopped and let her walk up to me.
"Yeah," she said. "I saw you in the park. You didn't look too good. Are you alright?"
Maybe I frowned. "What do you care?" I said. I was ready for anything. But I guess I was mostly ready to hear what she had to say. There had to be something to this life, after all.
"Well, I do care," she said. She handed me one of the papers she was carrying. There was a picture of a shepherd and something written across the top: 'I was naked, and you clothed me,' it said. 'I was hungry and you fed me. I was in jail and you visited me.'
"My name is Cathy. I'm a social worker with the St. Luke's children's ministry. I saw you in the park, and you looked like you were going to be sick. You looked like you came from somewhere else and you have no place to go."
I looked up into her face. There was something in her eyes I had never seen before. "Yeah, well, I wasn't going to be sick," I said.
"But you've got no place to go," she said gently. "How long have you been in Seattle?"
"A couple of days," I told her.
She looked around at the wilderness of a city around us. "Listen, it's dangerous to stay on the streets of Seattle. I don't know where you came from, but it's dangerous here. Especially for girls."
I was ready for anything. I was ready to run. But for some reason, maybe because of the look in her eyes, I didn't run. "I'm staying in the homeless shelter downtown," I told her.
She shook her head. "The city shelters aren't much better. Listen, I know a place where you will be safe. You'll be comfortable. We don't ask questions. We've got counselors, food, everything. What do you say? It's three blocks from here."
I stiffened. "What makes it so different?" I asked her.
She smiled. "We do what we do for the love of Jesus," she said.
"For the love of who?" I had heard the name of Jesus, of course, but after all I had been through, what with my father leaving and my indifferent mother, my lonely journey across this vast, wilderness of a country, it sounded weird.
"Jesus," she repeated. "We do what we do because Jesus saved us, and we want you to know He can save you too."
"Jesus doesn't love me," I said to him incredulously, almost laughing. "Nobody does."
"Come with me and I'll prove it," Cathy said. "What have you got to lose? Where else do you have to go? Do you want to go back to that shelter? Go back to where you came from? Come on. Why don't you tell me your story while we're walking."
I hesitated. For all I knew, she could be like that kid in the shelter. "How do you know I've got a story?" I asked her.
"Everybody's got a story. Even I've got a story."
"Why do want to hear mine?" I looked up into her face, into her eyes. But this girl had the funniest look in her eyes. Like there was something in them. It was like she came from outer space, or something.
"Tell you what," she said, "If you will listen to my story, I will listen to yours."
"If I like your story, I'll go with you," I told her.
"Deal," she said.
So she bought me a cup of coffee and we went into the park and sat on one of the benches. The workers on their lunch breaks, sanitation men, ladies with baby carriages feeding pigeons swirled around us while Cathy told me that her parents divorced while she was in high school, and that she started drinking and smoking pot with her friends to get away from home. When she went away to college, she started popping opiods. It got so bad she dropped out, lost her job, and kicked out by her mother. She had taken her mother's credit card to get pills, she told me. It was while she was on the streets, those very same streets we were on, homeless and on drugs, that she met someone from St. Luke's. They gave her a place to stay and get sober. It was there that they told her that Jesus loved her, in spite of everything, and that Jesus would give her a new life.
"So this is my new life," she said, smiling at me. "Much better than the old one. Finding kids on the street running away, lost in hell, with no place to go in the world. Telling them that God loves them, that if they take his hand, He will help them start over."
While she talked, the sun came out. I pulled off the hoodie and brushed back a lock of hair from my face. I looked around the park. It seemed to have become a garden. There were flowers blooming in the bushes that I hadn't seen before, birds singing in the trees I hadn't heard before. The windows of the skyscrapers rising above the trees caught the sunlight and they glittered gold; no angel could have looked prettier.
"All right," I said. "I'll go with you."
And in St. Luke's I found my Sutter's Mill, so to speak. For the first time in my life, I read the gospel and one night, it seemed like I heard Jesus tell me that He loved me. That He would give me a reason for living. That was three years ago, now. In the bible class, I sat next next to a kid named John who came from St. Louis. His parents were both alcoholics and he had run away from home, just like I did. We sat in the cafeteria and talked. He told me he used to live on a farm, in Missouri. He wanted to lease some land and get into organic farming. He wanted to have kids. A family.
St. Luke's got him a loan and he did start that farm. I married him and we are out there together, on our south forty, growing spinach and lettuce and carrots and cabbage. There's not much money, but we have a baby boy now. A whole new life.
| Author Notes | I hope that you came to like Chloe, and the story she had to tell. The pioneer motif is a story of people looking for a better life, just like her; people leaving behind pain and struggle, and I thought it was the perfect motif for this story, her story. And she tells this story of her generation, adrift in a society and culture that seems to be built on a crumbling foundation in a vast wilderness very like the kind of world the pioneers ran from and struggled with in the west. It was a bit difficult to write Chloe; I had to push myself to create this female character as a male writer, one of the few female characters I have done, and I am curious to hear especially from the women out there what you think of her. For me, she has turned out to be one of the favorite characters I have ever created. Not least because the story has a happy ending. After a long struggle, Chloe finds her south forty. estory |
By estory
"Listen," I said to my son Brandon, "Will you at least think about it? What do you mean, there's nothing to think about? It's our land. I know, I know; you have other ideas. But will you at least think about it? Think about what this land has meant to our family. What it means to me. What it could mean for you. Before it's too late. You know, once it's gone, it's gone."
I hung up the phone and walked out onto the porch. I took a deep breath. It was getting dark, but I could still make out every wrinkle of that field stretching away to the horizon, where the line of distant trees marked the end of it. I knew it by heart, I'd driven over it in the tractor so many times. I could hear the tobacco plants growing. I watched the fireflies weaving between them, winking on and off in their mating dance, the same dance they've been doing on the farm since the beginning of their time here on God's good Earth. They looked like they'd come down from the stars. At least, that's what it felt like to me. And now it was looking more and more like the whole thing was going to pass out of my hands altogether and become something else. A housing development. A shopping center.
My wife opened the screen door behind me. "Earl," she said, "What was that you were talking to Brandon about?" She seemed concerned for me and Brandon both. I knew that.
"Talking about the farm," I said, "Whether he wants it or not."
"Earl," Shirley said gently, "You know he doesn't want it. He's said so already. Why do you keep thinking he's going to change his mind?" I could feel her hand on my shoulder, like a butterfly or a bird. Something bringing peace, but ready to fly off at any moment.
"I just can't bear the thought that this land is going to leave our family for good, on my watch."
Shirley didn't say anything after that. She went back inside and left me out there to mull over my loss. She knew the farm had been in my family for generations. She knew it when she married me. She was the one who bore my kids, Brandon and Lizzie. All the while those kids growed up she knew what I was thinking, what I went out there on that tractor for, every day. A Jackson came over to Johnston county, North Carolina, from North Ireland, in the seventeen hundreds. We've been on this land from before there was country, and ancestors of mine fought for this land in the Revolution, and the Civil War. My grandfather was in the First World War, and he went through the Great Depression. My father was in the Second World War. Then there was the sixties. The seventies. We never lost our hold on it. I always thought I would hand it over to my kids, and that when I went to the grave, I could go to my ancestors in peace. It never occurred to me that I'd be selling it to a developer and moving away. That I'd never see this land again. That my own kids would turn their back on it.
"Earl," Shirley called out from the living room, "Why don't you come on it and have a glass of ice tea?"
Well, there was nothing more to wrestle out there with by myself, so I went back inside and closed the door and sat next to Shirley in my chair. The glass was already on the table. The Price Is Right was on TV. Shirley liked the Price Is Right, but lately it was starting to get on my nerves.
"Honey," Shirley said, "I know you want the kids to take over. But you've given them both the chance, you see? You have to let them live their own lives, at some point, and learn to live with that. What will be will be. You're 65, Earl. You know you can't do this forever. You've got to do what's right for you, and for me too. I'm getting old too, Earl. This is a lot of work here, you know that."
I wiped my face. "Yeah, we're getting old, Shirley, I know that."
"The man made you a good offer," Shirley continued. "You said yourself it was a good offer."
"It isn't the money, Shirley," I said, putting down the ice tea. "I know we could use the money. But money isn't everything, you know."
"Well, we could take that money and buy ourselves a nice, quiet, little place," Shirley said. "We could just have a little garden, and a little yard. Just enough you could mow with your tractor. Someplace where our grandkids could visit us. It would be nice to take it easy."
I sighed. "You think I don't want to take it easy?" I said. "My back hurts just getting out of bed. My fingers bother me. My knees bother me. But I would feel better if just one of those kids, just one, would think enough of this place, all the work I've put in here, the fact that it's been in the family so long, to want to keep it going. To me, a farm is something worth keeping going."
"The tobacco business isn't what it was," Shirley told me, looking over her glasses. "You know that. People are smoking less and less. They say it's not good for you. Every year the prices go lower and lower. You get less and less for killing yourself out there."
I took a drink from the ice tea, rubbed my face with my hand. I leaned back in the chair, closed my eyes and opened them. "I've been thinking of switching over to soybeans. We could always switch over to soybeans, or sweet potatoes. That's not it. They could keep it going, somehow, if they really wanted to."
"Oh Earl," Shirley said. "I just think it's time you accepted the fact that neither Brandon or Lizzie is going to keep it going. And we've got a chance to take care of ourselves. I think you should tell that man you've made up your mind. Just sell it to him and take the money and move on. It's almost a million dollars, Earl. We could buy a little place, maybe even not that far away, and have plenty left to be comfortable. We wouldn't have to worry."
Almost a million dollars. Yeah, it sounded like a lot of money. And you think I didn't want to take it easy? But that wasn't it. Just looking over that field, that's been in our family for generations, and seeing a strip mall and a parking lot, or rows and rows of little houses, with people in them from who knows where, who don't know nothing about this land and what it's meant to us, who don't even care; that was enough to make me sick. And what was really tearing me up inside was that neither Brandon or Lizzie, my own kids, cared either.
I don't know what I was dreaming about when I used to see them two riding their bikes between the rows of tobacco plants, or pushing them up in their swings, so high they could see to the end of that field, like I could. What does any father dream about? Everybody wants a better life for their kids. Everybody wants them to be happy. That wasn't it either.
There's something that's changed in this world, something that's changed for the worse. These kids these days, they don't go to church with us like I used to go with my parents. They don't follow you out to the barn, follow you around on your chores. They don't sit around the kitchen table Sunday nights playing Go Fish and laughing it up together the way we used to do. No; today they're off on their own. They sit up in their rooms with their cell phones, talking to people who aren't there. They go off to college and learn about computers and satellites and they go on the internet and they let it all carry them away to all kinds of places I never imagined, all kinds of ideas and people I'd never entertain myself. They get degrees in science and communications and they become people you don't even know. They move to the big city. They forget where they came from. They don't want to be like you. That's what hurts. That's what makes you wonder what you banged your head against the wall for, all those years.
"It's the developer," Shirley was saying, holding the phone out to me. "He wants to know if he can come out and talk to us again. He doesn't know how much longer he can keep the offer open. There's other opportunities out there, he says."
"Tell him I'm out," I said, picking up my jacket. "Something's come up and I'm outside. I'll get back to him as soon as I can."
I went out there and just walked around with my hands in my pockets, walking passed the tobacco plants, looking up at the stars. In the dark, the tobacco plants looked like people standing out there in their overcoats, watching me walking around, trying to tell me something. It's like they were saying: 'This will be the end of us, you know, if you sell this place. You'll never see the likes of us again. We're dying out, little by little, farm by farm, because you people are selling out. Forgetting where you came from.' I felt half crazy, half terrible, all the same time. I felt like apologizing to those old tobacco plants, for my kids. Telling them I don't know what's got into them. How it was my fault those kids didn't learn to love the land like I did. My fault they moved to the city and became a software engineer and an investment banker. I stood looking up at the stars in the dark, wondering what happened to those kids, whether there was some way I could get them to understand, get them back.
The next day I called them both up, one last time. "Look," I told Brandon, "Before I sign the papers, I'd like to talk it over with you guys one more time. It's just that, once I sign the papers, then that's it, and I want to give you a chance to hear me out, and maybe change your mind. I know you've thought it over. I know you have your own plans. I just want you to listen to what I've got to say about it, before it's too late. Yes, your mother thinks we should sell it. I just want to talk it over with you. Because you guys are my kids, and whether I leave you the farm or a house in the suburbs and some cash, I think we should talk it over. Sunday. It'll take as long as it takes for us to decide. No, we can't wait. The guy's saying he has other opportunities. He wants me to say yes or no. Alright. See you then."
"Well, Brandon will be here, and I think you should be here too," I told Lizzie. "It involves you too. It's a big decision and I don't want to make it without you. No. The guy wants me to make up my mind. I don't know. Your mother thinks we should sell it. Well, I think we should talk it over. Brandon's coming over Sunday, and I think you should be here too. OK."
Shirley was looking at me over her glasses as I hung up the phone. "Oh Earl," she said. Then she turned around and went back into the kitchen.
"Look," I called after her, "It can't hurt to talk it over with everybody. I just want them to think about what I have to say about it. Then we'll do what we've got to do. But once I sign, then it's over and done with."
Saturday night I sat out there on the back porch by myself. Shirley didn't come out. Well, this is it, I told myself. Fifty years I've been at this. Two hundred years of the Jacksons all together, here in this spot. Fighting for this land, working for your family. And this is what it's come down to. A piece of paper with my signature on it, my signature, and it's all gone. The homestead, the houses, the barns, the names; they'll all be forgotten. The bulldozers will come and tear it all up, push it all out of the way. They'll cut in roads, utilities. They'll bring in trucks with brick and lumber. They'll put up townhouses. Dozens of them. The people who move in won't even think about it. It'll be like it was never here. They'll call it Jackson Park. They won't even know who the Jacksons were. And we'll live out our lives in a little place somewhere that used to be someone else's land. Brandon will move to Cary. Lizzie will move to Charlotte. They'll be doing things I know nothing about, that have nothing to do with our people. But they'll be happy, right? And I'll have all that money. At least I'll have the money. Shirley can take it easy. Hell, maybe I can take it easy too.
But somehow I could see those tobacco plants turn their backs on me, like they was pissed at me for selling out. I could see my father, my grandfather, shaking their heads. Maybe my great grandfather. I could hear them all telling me: 'I can't believe you did it, Earl. I can't believe you went and sold the farm.'
But what else am I supposed to do?
Sunday afternoon, Shirley and I were sitting in the living room. She was knitting one those needlepoint things. I was watching a movie. She kept looking at me over her glasses. I kept getting up at the commercial breaks and looking out of the window. Sometimes I'd go out back and look over the tobacco plants.
"Earl," Shirley said, "You've done your part for the place, you know. You've done your piece."
I turned and looked at her. "Have I?" I answered.
Lizzie showed up first. She went to meetings all the time now, I thought to myself, and it was a force of habit to show up ahead of time. She did have a nice, red Honda. It sparkled in the driveway like a ruby. Not a farmer's daughter's car, that's for sure. She had Shirley's good looks, I thought, as she came up the walk, but she looked nothing like her in that business suit.
"Hey dad," she said, smiling, putting down her phone.
"Hey," I said. "All we have to do is wait for Brandon."
"I hope he isn't too long. I have some things to do for the office."
"On a Sunday?" I asked.
"That's the way things are today, dad," she said.
"Well, don't let them work you too hard," Shirley said, getting up. "Especially on the Sabbath. You want some tea?"
"Sure, mama."
"Are you sure you want to stay in a job where they make you work Sundays?" I asked her as we sat down.
"Well daddy, that's what you've got to do to get ahead, nowadays."
I shook my head. "I never work Sundays, and you can't say we ever lacked for anything. When you have faith, the Lord provides."
Lizzie looked at me and smiled. "Oh daddy. If only my bosses had faith like you."
Just then I saw Brandon's black ram pickup. At least he looked like a farmer's son. A Stettson and jeans. "Well, here's Brandon," I said. I turned off the movie and we all went and sat around the kitchen table.
Brandon sat there, not looking at me, not looking at anybody, and shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, daddy. It isn't for me. I've got a career of my own. I'm doing what I like to do."
Shirley looked at him. She looked at me.
"I just want you kids to understand that once I sign the papers, the farm is gone. It's been in our family for two hundred years. This is your last chance to keep it in our family. This is it."
Brandon shook his head, still not looking at me. "I know how you feel, daddy. I really do. But farming just isn't my thing. I wouldn't be able to make a go of it anyway. It's such a struggle. And I don't want to struggle like that."
"You wanted them to have a better life, Earl," Shirley said. "You said so yourself."
Lizzie leaned forward. "You don't have to worry about us," she said. "I think you and mama should do what's right for you."
"That's not it," I said.
Brandon finally looked at me. He looked like me, sometimes, I thought to myself, with that square jaw and those eyes, like he was thinking of how to chew you down on the price of seed. "How much money did they offer you, dad?"
I leaned back in the chair. "Three quarters of a million dollars."
Brandon and Lizzie looked at each other. Then they both looked at me.
"Dad," Brandon said, "That's a lot of money. I wouldn't even think about it. You and mom can retire, get yourself a nice, little place and take it easy. you don't have to worry about me and Lizzie."
Shirley said: "That's what I've been trying to tell him."
"You don't understand," I said. "I know all that. I realize that. What you don't realize is how special a farm is. Without farms, there's no food. Forget tobacco. We could grow soybeans. In fact, I've been thinking of it doing it myself. This farm's been in our family for generations. It's what our ancestors did. It's what they fought for. What gets me is that you two are turning your backs on it all. You want nothing to do with it. That kills me. What I want you to think about is that once I sign the papers, this place is gone. For good. They'll make a development out of it. Sure it's a lot of money. I just want you to understand that if I take it, you lost your chance on the land."
Lizzie looked at Brandon, then at me. "Dad, we get that you put your heart and soul into this place, we really do. We appreciate what you did for us. We had a good life here. But you gave us an education, and we took that, and we made something of ourselves with it. We can't use the land. We think you and mom should take care of yourselves now. Take it easy."
"You deserve it," Brandon said, looking at me.
"We'll be happy for you," Lizzie continued, "We really will be happy for you. Don't worry about us. We'll be fine."
There was a silence. They were all looking at me, like I was crazy or something, like I was trying to hold onto something that wasn't there anymore.
"Earl?" Shirley said, looking at me.
I took a deep breath. I clasped my hands on the table. I looked down. "I guess I was hoping this place would mean something to you. And I guess it don't."
Brandon leaned over. "Dad, we're proud of you. We're proud of how we lived. Right Lizzie?"
"Yes," Lizzie said, squeezing my hand. "Of course we are."
Shirley looked at me. I looked at Shirley. "Well, Earl?" she said, "Are you going to tell call that man and tell him you're going to sign the papers?"
I looked at Brandon, then Lizzie, and then Shirley, my wife. I sighed. "Well, I guess there's nothing else to do."
Lizzie smiled. "Dad, you should be happy. Three quarters of a million dollars."
Brandon laughed. "Good for you, dad. Don't spend it all in one place. Geez. Three quarters of a million dollars."
Three quarters of a million dollars. Less fees and commissions. There's always fees and commissions for somebody in these things. The man came with the papers in a suit, like he was going to a funeral. We sat around the dining room table and Shirley gave him a glass of ice tea. He spread the papers on the table and set the pen there in front of me and smiled. I picked up the last piece of paper and started reading. I figured for two hundred years we've been on this land, I could take my time. The man cleared his throat and looked at the clock, the way these fellows always do.
"What is it, Earl?" Shirley asked me. She was looking at me over her glasses.
I didn't say anything. I just picked up the pen and signed my name in the designated space.
When I was done the man took the papers from me. He was smiling. He held out his hand. "Congratulations!" He said. He handed me the check and I looked at it. Six hundred and forty five thousand dollars.
"We're rich," I said, looking at Shirley.
"For once in our lives," she said.
The man laughed.
The last night I stood outside in the middle of those old tobacco plants, by myself. I looked over the old barn, the one my grandfather built. I looked over at the house. I thought about all the times I had gone up and down those rows in that tractor. How many times my daddy had done it. How many years my grandfather did it with a horse and a plough. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'That's that. Time to move on.'
We drove over to the new place, Shirley and me, the place we bought in Wilkesboro for three hundred fifty thousand. When we got out of the car, I looked at it. A ranch house and a screened in deck, a garage, rose bushes, a one acre lot. 'Is this what three hundred fifty thousand dollars comes to?' I asked myself. 'Is this what you end up with after two hundred years?'
| Author Notes | This is the first real North Carolina story that I've done, a story of an old farmer whose children don't want to carry on with farming, forced to sell the farm that's been in his family for generations. It's a story that speaks of generation gaps, of the disconnect from children from parents, changing values in society, and the loss of one way of life being swept away for another. Its also a story of tensions in these families undergoing this change. And its a story that's taking place all over rural America, maybe more so here in North Carolina, where growth is so fast and strong. It's a narrative told in Earl's own words, plain and stripped down and hopefully, you'll understand what he is going through. estory |
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