My round robin experience

A round robin with extraordinary partners … Loretta’s versatility in mood, tone, setting, and character; Tania’s delving deeply into her creative imagination and producing stories filled with color and life; Cathy’s skill for depicting complex relationships out of everday events and crisp dialogue; Randy’s poetic style, at once clean but suggesting deeper layers of complexity; Kate’s powerful poetry, filled with richly-detailed images; Justin’s intuitive feel for how ordinary details in a relationship suggest extraordinary events; Mary Ellen’s tapestry of compelling characters, revealed through action and dialogue; Damaris’s deft use of props to dramatize a tenuous mother/daughter relationship; and Theresa’s fully-grounded settings that stimulate all five senses.

Taken as a whole, the experience came full circle with all the poetry, vivid sensory details, character development, plot, and setting. This session, I had the sense that the bar had been raised, that I was working in the midst of skilled writers who knew how to tap into their imaginations and let it flow through their craft. It challenged me to think more deeply as I attempted to draw on my own craft and imagination – and it put me back in that place where the creative soul has a direct channel to the blank page.

I’m looking forward to working with you all – Loretta, Tania, Cathy, Randy, Justin, Mary Ellen, Damaris, Theresa, and all the others – again and again.

Raw

All of the forces were standing down, awaiting Larry’s instructions to mobilize. He sat at his desk in the home office, his hands laid flat on the blotter. He scoped the front of the house and Wilkins Lane beyond it. When Jennifer pulled up in her bright yellow Camaro convertible, he’d give the go ahead. No doubt, her blonde hair would be flying behind her … She’d never know what hit her, like a Nazi Anschlag.

Right on schedule, the Chevy appeared around the corner and swerved into the driveway. She’d never drive fast like that again, Larry knew – and he pressed the button to send an e-mail to Thelma, a text message to Robert, phoned Samantha. And the others – of course, they’d get the word. Larry walked down the stairs, one step at a time, and sat on the living room chair, looking straight at the door to the garage.

“Good afternoon, darling,” he said when, at last, she opened the door – thank goodness, her pokiness bought him time. He rose from his seat and went over to her – thank goodness, again, that he towered over her. “How was your flight back from San Francisco?”

He noticed that her power of him had evaporated. He felt no stirrings in his pants, he felt no emotion in his heart, just cold-hearted hatred.

“Service on the flight sucked,” she said, scowling. “Last time I pay for business class on a forty-five minute flight. Next time –“

And they all came in, one by one. Thelma, Robert, Samantha, Jerry, Kyle, and Trevor. Behind them was Dr. Feldman and a nursing assistant that Larry didn’t know. They all surrounded Jennifer, each one staring at her.

Jennifer stared at Robert, Jerry, Kyle, and Trevor – and screamed. “Something’s wrong with you all. You’re all conspiring against me. I’m getting out of here –“

But when she ran to the front door, the doctor and the nurse stopped her. “You need to listen to what they say,” the doctor said, “and then we’re taking you to Rehab.”

My solution

The walls had come up on what seemed to Larry a proscribed, meditated basis.

“I’m changing the schedule at my salon, darling,” Jennifer said only two months after they moved into the Pasadena house. “I won’t be home from work until ten, so you’ll need to prepare dinner for yourself.”

A month later, Jennifer announced at the Saturday morning breakfast table, as Larry savored the thought of a hiking day in the Santa Anas, “I’ve acquired a salon in Sebastopol, and need to spend my Saturdays up there. Unfortunately, I need to fly out of LAX early this afternoon, so Santa Ana will have to wait …”

Larry was constipated for a week after this.

“I’m having trouble falling asleep, with all your snoring, love of my life,” Jennifer announced before bed on one Sunday evening, a month later, when she’d returned from the Bay Area a day later than expected, after all she’d had this business soiree in the city – “would you be a dear and sleep in the second bedroom?”

Larry swallowed it all and put himself in the fetal position on their twin bed in the guest room – pining hungrily for their 18-inch king-sized mattress, sure that he never snored. And he vomited quietly into the guest bathroom two hours later. But beauty has its privileges, he reminded himself, and Jennifer did love making love, until one day, a month later –

Larry found Jennifer in bed being violated by two men. At the same time, pumping in opposite directions. Oh – he remembered – these were the slinky movers at that apartment. When Larry told Jennifer that Marlon had been killed … she’d wept on his shoulders. And they’d stood there, torn white t-shirts and low-cut jeans.

He’d sreamed a high-pitched scream and thrown Jennifer’s Pez container at these men. Threatened to pulverize them. Yelled get out of my house, you common trash.

“You’re so emotionally mature, Larry. I you’d been an adult with those men, I could’ve discussed this with you like a calm adult. But no, you threw a Pez container at them. What a child you are,” Jennifer said, her voice calm and even like a lake with no wind.

“As it happens, I have to ask you for an open relationship. I’m no longer able to relate to you and your emotional insecurities. Don’t say anything – I’m too angry with you right now to continue this conversation.”

She walked away while Larry cursed himself. No-fault divorce in California, and no prenuptial agreement. But suddenly, Larry knew the solution to his problem.

The transformation

Flames shot out of the toaster, Marlon grabbed the appliance with his bare hands, his eyes bulged out of his head, Larry chased him around the kitchen into the hallway into the dining room to the foyer up the stairs into the guest bedroom where Marlon jumped out the window and landed in an upside-down Corvette. His head rolled off to the side and landed in the poi pond.

Larry sat up in bed and gasped for air. He looked at the clock, 4:41. Jennifer lay beside him, sleeping on her side, strands of blonde hair winding around her head like Medusa, wrapping around her face and neck, her nose, her mouth. Larry’s heart pulsed in his head, and he felt his head ache.

Jennifer murmured as if to wake, but turned her head to the other side, as if thinking better of the matter. Larry slithered out of bed and tippy-toed over to the bathroom and sat on the john, waiting for the inevitable stream to begin. But it would not begin. He was still shaking from his nightmare, his heart still raced, and his stomach churned. With a seizure of the stomach, he knew that every second counted, and turned around and puked into the toilet. When he was done, he found liquid feces on the floor behind him.

“I’ve had enough,” he said, perhaps a little too loudly, he thought, fearing that Jennifer might’ve heard. I’m going to the office now, he thought to himself, getting away from this prison. Every day seemed to bring a new way that Jennifer retreated – and ran toward Marlon. Larry could fight any man – any living man – but not a ghost.

What had happened to the willowy widow he’d wedded? She’d depended on him, even confided Marlon’s serial infidelities to him, and he’d given her a cocoon. Now she ran away from his cocoon and back to Marlon – Marlon’s ghost.

The house

“First of all,” Jennifer said as they unpacked her mother’s china in the dining room. “I’d like to keep my own name.”

Larry sniffed. They’d been married for three weeks, had a terrific wedding in Malibu and then a fabulous time together in Maui, And now they were unpacking their boxes in the Pasadena house Larry had bought for the two of them.

What’s in a name, Larry thought? A rose by any other name, Shakespeare wrote. Besides which, he had his beautiful bride – all that flowing blonde hair, the curvy hips – and who was he, with his Fred Flintstone body, pasty white skin, and thick black glasses? Who was he, to nitpick on such an issue?

“I’m fine with that,” Larry said at last. “So you’ll be Jennifer Conner?”

“Oh, no, darling” Jennifer said, placing the Wedgewood onto the cabinet’s glass shelves. “I’ll stay with Jennifer Vanderhosen. It’s how I’m known down at the hair salon.”

“I thought you’d change the name of that store, sweetheart,” Larry said. “Marlon has been dead for three months now, and you need to move on.”

Jennifer put a serving platter down on the dining room table and faced Larry. “But sweetheart, it’s how all of my customers know me. If I change the salon’s name, I’ll lose half my customers. Trust me, I’m a smart businesswoman now.”

Funny, Larry thought – she hadn’t played her businesswoman cards when they were courting. Right from the moment Larry knocked on her door, telling her that he and the other E.M.T.s had pulled Marlon out of the upside-down Corvette – she’d played the role of helpless female. And before they’d signed the prenuptial agreement, he hadn’t even thought she could add two and two. But now, now she was the smart businesswoman.

Security

"Don't pout, Bradley," my mother said at the kitchen table. "And be a man, for once! If you'd listen to me and do things just the way I say, everything would be fine and everyone would be happy. But no, you have to do things your own way and that's when things go wrong, Bradley!"

"But Trudy, I just wanted to make sure your drink was right before giving it to you!”

"Who ever heard of a bartender taking a sip from a customer's drink? That's silly, Bradley. Just do what I tell you and nothing else," she said.

Marcie and I looked at each other. She had that look in her eyes, "Is this real or just bad acting?" that she would get on our visits to Santa Barbara.

"Bradley, I'm going into the living room to watch Fox News. You come with me."

Sotto voce, I whispered to Marcie, "That's R.W. News to you and me."

From the other room, my mother said, "I heard that! You think I don't know what R.W. News stands for, Elliott? Well, I'm your mother and I will not be spoken to in this manner! You will have respect for me and my political choices if you expect me to have any kind of respect for those liberals you seem to love!"

There was no winning. "All right. Marcie and I are going for a walk."

We headed out the door, but just as it was about to close, Dad walked around the corner.

"Dad," I asked, knowing his answer but asking anyway, "why don't you come with us to view the ocean sunset?"

He was pouting again. I groaned. Didn't he realize just how pathetic it was? And here I was with my new wife, God knows what she was thinking -- "Is this what I have to look forward to? Will he be an outrageous bitch or a wimpy pouter?" Run for the hills, Marcie.

"No," Dad said, all 74 years of him whimpering, "I can't. Your mother doesn't want to be alone."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," I said, echoing my mother. "It's not as if she can run after you. She's 75 pounds overweight and has two artificial hips. Just let her sit in that Archie Bunker chair of hers and rant until she goes hoarse."

"Another time," Dad said and closed the door.

"That's unbelievable!" Marcie said. "He needs to grow a pair."

"If I ever become like one of my parents, take me out back and shoot me."

"Your father is so weak. Why doesn't he just stand up to that bitch? The way she was ranting, I wanted to push her fat ass off the balcony and watch her fall to the ground. In slow motion."

"He's just as bad as she is. They feed off each other. The only reason they’re still together after 52 years is that no one else would have them."

Speaking up

Leila screamed, terrorized by the scene before her: Howard, face down in front of his apartment, dead as a door nail, a large kitchen knife protruding from under his body; Grace, white-faced, blood on her hands, splattered on her neck, down her cleavage, her eyes blazing and poring into Leila. The hallway zoomed out like a mile-long tunnel and zoomed back in, hitting her direct in the face. Ceiling shadows menaced her like scampering tarantulas, a sudden itch in her back startled her into turning around, sure that a violent murderer would soon seize her, and Grace's eyes penetrated right to the bottom of her stomach. It lurched and seized her abdomen; she vomited her dinner. Spinach from the salad she'd eaten only forty minutes ago blew out her nose, landing on the white wall beside her.

Grace flexed her long, tenacious fingers -- claws that caused Leila to retch even more. Grace’s blonde hair falling into her face, wet-streaked with perspiration falling down her blood-stained face. Before Leila even stopped vomiting, she was on Leila, grabbing her by her long, dark hair, pulling her head back. Leila choked on vomit, struggled, spit on Grace's legs. She looked above her, weeping for the impending doom she was so soon to reach. And then the fight came back into her.

With her free hands she clubbed Grace in the knees, pulled one of her legs in one direction, the other in the opposite. Grace fell forward on top of her, pulling hair out of Leila's head, falling on top of Howard's back. Leila kicked at Grace, pulled herself free, and with all her might slammed her fists into Grace's back.

“Go to hell!” Leila shouted out at Grace.

Cash

Anna wished, as she dusted the bedroom furniture, that Marvin would help with the housecleaning. All he could think of these days was that damned Saturday afternoon poker game and that idiot family of his. He wouldn’t dare lift a finger around the house. No laundry, no cleaning, no cooking, no shopping, no nothing from Marvin these days. Who did he think he was, the lazy bastard, and why’d she ever marry him? When she finished the dusting and started on the windexing, Anna wanted to spit, she was so mad.

Anna picked up the photos of Marvin’s family. That mother of his with her plastic surgery and cellphone, that lunatic father who never passed a woman without coming on to her, that pretentious sister who never lifted a finger herself around her own house – and never gave an ounce of affection to those bratty children that Marvin doted on, why would Anna ever be surprised that Marvin had turned out to be such a good-for-nothing? She removed all those damned photos and then Marvin’s box where he kept his rings and things (that college ring from the West Virginia University he was so proud of, made her puke) – and looked inside the box.

Stashed inside was a roll of $1000 bills, at least twenty of them. She counted out $23,000. Where’d he get money like this? And then she looked underneath, the secret compartment she always knew was there, but Marvin didn’t know she knew – and found a little black book, A to Z filled with names of girls like Tiffany and Buffy and Jennifer and Madison and Stephanie and Gertrude – all in handwriting that was new and fresh, as if he’d written the numbers down only yesterday.

Anna picked up the box and threw it against the wall. She pulled those damned photos of Marvin’s damned family out of their frames and tore them into shreds. And she took the $23,000 and put it in her purse. Before she left, she wrote a note. “I’ve had enough and I’m out of here.”

Being alone

That gnawing, empty feeling scraped the bottom of Paul’s stomach. The sound of suitcases being dragged out of the closet punctured the silence inside his head. The last drop of saliva evaporated inside Paul’s mouth, leaving it sand-dry. And for the twelfth time in two hours, he ran to the toilet with dry heaves, only to relieve himself yet again – this time, how could the bladder be anything but completely empty?

Paul heard the rubber wheels of the suitcase roll over the grout lines of the living room’s tile. He looked across the apartment. Jonathan stood there, his face an icy mask dripping in hostility.

“Where will you go?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Jonathan replied, his voice as flat as the glassy reflection of his eyes. “Just as long as I’m as far away from you as I can possibly be.”

“I told you I was sorry. What more would you like?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing more that I want from you, ever. I’ll send Jean-Louis over to get the rest of my things. You’d better not sell anything.”

“Please don’t go,” Paul said. “I depend on you. This apartment is a black hole without you in it.”

“You might’ve thought about that before you slept with Noah. The first time, the second time, the hundredth time,” Jonathan said. “And now I have to deal with HIV because of you.”

“I’m sorry, sweet –“

“Never call me sweetheart or anything again. Just disappear from my life. For good,” Jonathan said, and turned away from Paul and left the apartment.

Gone, and dead silence from every corner of the apartment. Paul put his head in his hands and wept until he tasted the salty cream of the tears through his nose. He knew Jonathan would come back, how could he not? And then Paul looked down at his pants, where he’d had an accident. And never knew it.

Keepsakes

The rhinoceros figurine had stood on Mabel’s foyer table for fifty years, staring at any unsuspecting visitor who dared enter the cottage on the craggy shores of Maine’s Peak Island. Mabel had inherited it from Grammy when she died back when – in ’19? And then there were the Royal Doultons sitting in the glass case. Mabel had bought those, one by one, from the savings she’d put together from teaching normal school to all those teenaged girls. Mabel wondered where they’d gone – probably off to marriage, then motherhood, most of them grandmothers now. The balloon lady was her favorite.

She’d tell Norman and Seth to pack them in paper and then bubble wrap. She wouldn’t risk any breakage, that was for sure. Mabel sighed when she looked out the window. The surf was rather wild today. It always was in August, but especially this year because of Hurricane Camille. Wild sea, it was. Mabel sighed again. She’d miss the salty brine from the ocean, the mist that clouded her windows. She’d miss her Victorian cottage and rocking on the front porch swing.

Mabel grabbed her cane from the door handle and headed back to the kitchen. Thank goodness, she’d moved downstairs last winter after the fall. She’d only broken her ankle and said, I’ll be fine, just leave me be, but Seth had wagged an index finger at her and said no, you need to move your bedroom downstairs. Her favorite nephew, now he was like her father. At least as strict as he’d been. Mabel hadn’t been upstairs since Norman and Seth had brought the bed down.

But she wanted to go upstairs, one last time, and look at the room she’d shared all those years with Hester. Hadn’t been the same since ’62 when Hester had gone. Seven years it was, alone in this house without Hester. And now she’d be going, too, this time to the rest home Norman and Seth had found for her. Mabel sighed again. Hester was the lucky one.

Skin

Why did Larry always have to scratch his behind at the worst times? Here he was, about to say “I do” to Jennifer and his butt had to itch. Right in front of three hundred people, too.

He was actually marrying Jennifer, the willowy blonde he’d first touched when he informed her, your husband is dead in a car accident. He wanted to pinch himself – right now, in the behind – he couldn’t believe he was getting married, and for love, too. Paunchy, bald, chinless Larry Sanderson was marrying Pasadena’s most beautiful widow.

As the priest made his way to the vows, he thought about their courtship – from the shock of Marlon’s accident, to the tender and familiar touches of friendship at the funeral, the kiss at the reception that lit a spark between them. And the chance meeting at the Beverly Center’s Sunglass Hut, the afternoon of reckless passion in his small flat off La Cienega, the walks on the beach, dinners in Malibu, Pasadena, and Oxnard … and the proposal, when she said yes. And this wedding.

Oh, the hell with it, Larry decided. He was in love, so who cared? He put his right hand behind him and scratched the hell out of his butt.

A little boy

She didn’t look like a Mrs. Vanderhofen to Larry. To Larry, women named Mrs. Vanderhofen should have sagging breasts, rotund waists, and wear polyester house dresses with knee-length stockings and sensible shoes. Not like this woman, with the quivering lips, narrow-bridged nose, soft chin, round shoulders, and a figure so petite, she might be a large porcelain figurine. But she wasn’t Mrs. Vanderhofen to Larry, not really – she wanted him to call her Jennifer. And she did look like a Jennifer to him.

After he placed her on the sofa, convulsing in a maelstrom of tears, sobs, and heaves, Larry stood back and asked himself, should he do anything? Get her a glass of water, give her a handkerchief (he didn’t have any), sit down and pat her on the back? He might’ve delivered this news a hundred times in the past eight years, but right now he felt like such a little boy, standing here in front of this delicate princess, having no idea how to help her. And for the first time since he’d started this job, he wanted to help.

The three movers went back outside and left Larry alone with her. She began to talk, mutter unintelligible things. Something about a Tiffany, Pasadena, the moon, and leaving. Leaving? That’s right – she didn’t live at their house. So they were separating when all of this happened. Easier for her, Larry supposed. And then he sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him and cried into his chest.

Moody

Thursday afternoon, three men brought the furniture into the new apartment on La Brea. Jennifer couldn’t help but admire each of them – Fernando with the golden smooth skin, the curly black hair, the ever-so-slight paunch that suggested a cuddly teddy bear to cozy up to in bed; Johnny with the tight navy t-shirt, big chest and biceps, narrow waist, and chiseled face that had Jennifer imagining surrendering, on her back on the mattress; and Josh with the tight, wiry body, fair skin, dark hair, and the penetrating eyes that took Jennifer to a place where all that energy could be unleashed. All three men dripped with sweat, their t-shirts stuck to their chests, and had to wipe their hands and face each time they brought a piece of furniture into the new apartment. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, separating from Marlon.

Jennifer was making up the bed and the boys were bringing in her boxes – the last of their job, but she didn’t want them to leave, at least not without having some sort of refreshment on her new patio, sitting in chairs with their legs spread wide apart, not knowing how gorgeous each of them was – when she heard a knock on a door with a Midwestern “hello, is Mrs. Vanderhofen here” and made a silent curse at the marital assignation that these boys heard, and walked to the door and saw this chinless man with a bald pate, narrow shoulders, big stomach, and wide hips, clearly some sort of official who wore dark blue polyester, but not a policeman, no badge after all –

“May I help you?” Jennifer said.

“My name is Lieutenant Sanderson, Mrs. Vanderhofen,” the man said.

“Jennifer, please call me Jennifer. What ever do you want.”

“You may call me Larry, then. But I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mrs. – Jennifer. I’m sorry to report that your husband was in an automobile accident on the I-10 a short time ago and was killed when his car flipped on the highway,” Larry said, as much of a quiet monotone as he could muster.

Killed – Marlon killed, Jennifer thought in an instance. Freedom, independence – but then she became dizzy. Marlon dead, his beautiful form without life, his eyes an empty shell. His mind no longer existed, that laugh with the cascading chuckles would never laugh. Gone – all gone. And then Jennifer screamed and grabbed onto Larry’s shirt and pounded his chest.

“No, no – can’t be true, I don’t believe you,” she said, losing strength, and Larry grabbed her convulsing body by the shoulders and waist, led her to the sofa, and placed her on it.”

Jennifer began to hyperventilate, looked up at Larry, whoever he was – then at the three boys, who stood in the doorway, mouths and eyes wide open. Who were these men?

I open my mouth and out comes ...

“Goddammit, Larry,” Sgt. Wilkes said, stepping back and leaning down. “Did you have to throw up on me?”

Larry now had his head down to the ground, vomiting the last chunks of bile onto pavement. Shards of glass dotted the pavement. Larry saw a smashed rear-view mirror off to the side. Right next to it was a severed foot. He threw up some more. Yes, he’d had blueberries for breakfast.

He stood up and gazed at Sgt. Wilkes, pink-faced and staring at him like he’d just thrown up on his … oh, wait a second, that’s just what he’d done. Wilkes turned around and went into the ambulance for a towel and wiped himself off.

“Let’s get the body out, Larry, you okay for that?” the sergeant said, and when they got the equipment out, their surgical masks, protective gloves, and gear, it took a while – but they got him on the stretcher. Before they covered him up, Larry took a good look.

A handsome man, Larry thought – just the kind of guy who’d probably spend the weekend surfing at the beach. Lanky torso, blond hair, good musculature, nice chin, nose, and mouth. But the blue eyes, they had a frozen expression of surprise. And something like guilt in them.

“Marlon Vanderhofen,” Detective Smith announced, shuffling through the registration papers and his wallet. “Pasadena. Looks like he’s married. Jennifer’s her name. Got to go to the house, I suppose. She’ll have to identify the body.”

“I’ll do it, Jack,” Larry said. “I saw the body first, and I live over in Pasadena. And I’ve done this a thousand times. Know all the reactions, know how to handle every last one of them.”

The morgue was right on the way to Pasadena. He’d head straight out there.

In a nutshell

Whoa, Marlon thought on his way back from Tiffany’s beach pad in Malibu, that was one hell of a break from Jennifer. Surfing and … you know. Glad his brother gave him cover so he could spend a few hours at the contest and the rest of the time dancing in Tiffany’s sheets. God, her milky-white skin and hourglass-shaped back, those ski-sloped hips and the porcelain-fine breasts. And the soft, unblemished skin. Delicious.

Driving the avocado Corvette across L.A. on the 10, he could barely keep his hands on the wheel, so much did he want to reach down to his crotch and remember what it felt like, lying on top of Tiffany, her squeaky moans as he thrust and then, just then, timed just so, the explosion inside, the moans accompanied by something like a seizure, the communion of musk, perfume, sweat, all sticky and sweet and soft. So delicious.

What the hell, Marlon said, I’m on top of the world. Got me a great retainer for that screenplay about the Jewish nuns in the Nazi war factory, don’t have to work until they finish the production, got Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in the leads. Why the hell not? Traffic was light, so he reached down and pulled himself out of the Tommy Hilfigers – hey, lucky he wore no underwear and these were cargos – and started thinking about Tiffany … delicious.

This wouldn’t take long. He remembered the golden light through her west-facing shades, the cobalt blue of the ocean’s horizon, the reflection of light from her blonde hair beneath his lips – delicious, so delicious …

Forty-seven minutes later, the E.M.T pried open the passenger door of the Corvette. When he saw the brown-gray body with the shorts pulled down below the knees, the left foot stuck behind the accelerator, the head nearly sliced off the neck, he turned around and puked on the sergeant.

An interesting juxtaposition

It’s like, you know, my name’s Jennifer and I live with my hubby Marlon in Pasadena. Totally retro neighborhood, don’t you love it? We got ourselves a nifty wifty mid-century pad goin’ on here, like we got the real family thing goin’ on. And boy, aren’t we happy – or weren’t we, ‘til that maggot looked up at the stars one night at the beach when I was visiting Mama and dropped his eyes down on Tiffany. Like they totally got it on, don’t you know? Totally freaked me out, when I read his e-mails that one afternoon he was showering after we got it on …

“Jennifer, darling,” Marlon said from the kitchen. “Time to go to your parents. How long will you be?”

Wish he’d be like quiet now, you know what I mean? I’m writing you this letter, and don’t plan on getting ready for dinner until I’ve told you my story.

“Marlon, honey,” I said, my voice as silky as a spider’s web, “I’ll be just a few minutes longer. You play the piano, honey. I totally get off on that Mozart you were playing.”

That Mozart – I hated it. But it was fifteen minutes long, and sure enough, Marlon started into it a minute later. Not that he didn’t have to, and like, didn’t he know it? After I confronted him about Tiffany and smashed his dead grandmother’s Royal Daultons into his great-uncle Lloyd’s bust, he promised he’d never see her as long as I didn’t leave. I promised I’d never leave, long as he dropped Tiffany. But then, hey, didn’t he promise he’d be faithful until death did we part?

Tuesday was only three days away. Already had my apartment lease signed, ready to go. Marlon was heading out to Malibu for a surfing contest, would be gone until Thursday. And the movers were coming at ten in the morning – already arranged, they’d wait until the green Corvette was out of the driveway before coming up. But until then …

“Okay, Marlon, sweetheart,” I called over the balcony. “I’m ready. Honeybunch, let’s go to dinner. I have a special surprise for you when we go home.”

I giggled.

The nerd

Paine headed out the door to meet the school bus in his polyester white-striped shirt, medium blue slacks that were too short for his long legs and big feet, black-framed glasses as thick as coke bottles, and a Porky Pig pen in his shirt pocket along with a calculator and a slide rule sticking out of his back pocket. He had pasty white skin and really hairy arms. Already at seventeen, he had straight black hairs poking out of his shirt. Even when it was buttoned up to the top.

He carried his books and notebooks on his right side in the usual way. Just as he expected, Marty del Prato jumped in right behind him when he passed the del Prato split-level with the white siding and maroon front door and shutters. Marty had a husky chest, big curly hair parted in the middle, and walked like Demon Wilson on “Sanford and Son.”

“Hey, Paine Goode, whatcha doin’ at school today? Reciting the Gettysburg Address?” Marty said, poking Paine in the side.

“Leave me alone,” Paine answered, picking up the pace.

“Oh, whatcha goin’ to do, buddy? Slap me with your calculator?” And then Marty grabbed Paine’s glasses, threw them to the ground, and stepped on them.

“I’m going to tell your mother on you, you cretin.”

“I’m scared, Paine, I’m really scared … she ain’t been at home for a week,” Marty said, laughing and then turning away from him. “You idiot nerd.”

“No one calls me a nerd,” Paine said. He jammed his elbow into the back of Marty’s head. Marty fell to the ground, hit his head, and passed out. Paine took the slide rule out of his back pocket, straddled his legs across Marty’s chest, and rammed the slide rule down his throat until blood came out.

How long will it last?

John passed Exit 329, his old favorite where they sold the Indian River oranges and grapefruits. One visit, many years ago after Mom and Dad had moved down to Tybee Island, he’d gotten them a bushel of grapefruit. Mom’s fat round body had jumped up and down with a big “Oh, goodie!” and Dad had smiled and laughed, “I love grapefruit.”

Thank goodness he’d gotten the progressives last week. Now he could read the speedometer and see the exit signs before being on top of them. What timing, eh? And he could drive at night, even as late as five in the morning. He stopped at Exit 267 for a late dinner – very late, indeed – and gotten mushy chicken with stale cheese and watery green beans. He’d eaten every last morsel. Now, on to Tybee Island. He’d be there by seven.

They’d reach the Savannah hospital by eleven. John wondered whether Mom was still alive. Dad had told him, come quick, she’s in surgery after the cerebral hemorrhage – don’t know whether she’ll make it through the night. But if she does, Dad said, she’ll probably make it. John wondered if it’d be worth it. As bad as that stroke was, what would she be like?

Today, two years later, looking back on that overnight drive, John sighed. He knew what Mom was like. She could talk, lift her right arm, but that was about it. And no end in sight, John thought – in that dreadful Savannah nursing home where no one smiled. Not really, not those big broad smiles of joy and delight that used to light up that impossible woman’s face, not the laughter that enjoyed all sorts of jokes, except those about Republicans – none of those, just subdued courtesy and a harsh, gravely voice that spoke over the damaged vocal cords. So how long would this last, John asked himself …

I want more

No broken bones, no damage to the eye, just ugly black and blue marks and a throbbing headache. Whew, Michael thought on their way back home while calling Carol, his mother, and then Jim, who just came in from Florida – could’ve been a lot worse than this. Michael spent the afternoon in bed while Dan took over some of the chores. At least, they had an extra day to get ready for the party. And then the next morning, after Jim had come in from Florida and the other Jim had flown down from Philadelphia, and Brenda and Carol and Barbara and Rue and Kathy all came over to fuss over Michael’s injury – it was so nice, being pampered, Michael had to admit – the next morning, Michael was up and ready to go.

And go the troop did, setting up the party, tent and bar and food and liquor and soft drinks and it’s-a-secret the birthday cake. And the boys and girls all had their party naps and awoke refreshed (but not the two Jims, who ran late on their chores) and then the guests arrived, one by one, and so did the gifts.

“Over to the piano, please,” Michael said, kissing this one on the left cheek, that one on the right, the third one on the lips (reserved only for close friends, of course). And the gifts began to pile up.

In the dusk of the evening, no one could really see Michael’s bruises around his eye, and no one really cared, because they all loved Michael anyway ... and it was a fun party, for those who remembered it. Always pile on the booze, Michael and Dan would say – that’s what makes a party thump, not the music or the pretty boys or the scintillating conversation. It’s the booze.

“I’ll have another margarita,” this guest would say, and then the laughter would rise once again.

“Get me some whiskey, baby, and don’t be stingy,” another would say, that one putting on her best lesbian Greta Garbo accent.

“I want another gin and tonic,” a man with pince-nez and a white beard that made him look like Santa Clause. “So refreshing in this August weather.”

And then the skies opened up and the party got drenched. Well, Michael thought – at least they all got doused before they all got doused.

Sneaky

The skies opened up on their way to the hospital.

“Honey,” Michael said, holding a cold compress to the side of his head after wiping away the blood – it seemed to be coagulating, thank God – “I think we need to postpone the party until tomorrow evening. Forecast is for thundershowers all day.”

“But of course,” Dan said. “I was going to suggest it myself. The two Jims are arriving this morning. I’m sure they’ll be okay with it, and everyone else, too.”

They reached Emory University Hospital in fifteen minutes flat and went right to the emergency room.

“Good morning,” the nurse said, her mouth round and mushy like an overripe cantaloupe, “what can I do for you boys this morning?”

“We’re here for a facial and a foot massage,” Dan said, dripping his words with as much sarcasm as he could muster. “Why do you think we’re here?”

“Everybody’s a wise guy this morning,” the nurse said, who began the laugh and cast them a smile. “Insurance card, driver’s license, credit card please. Have a seat.”

The nurse, whose tag identified her as one Donna Gertler, took forever – fifty minutes, fifty-five minutes, who knew – to enter the information. And then she asked what happened, and Michael relived the whole tail. He’d rather forget, but he had to go through it.

“No,” Nurse Gertler said. “You didn’t force it before the board came up. Insurance might reject that. And you can’t say it was the third board that hit you. It was the first, right? And when you tried to split it, it broke and hit you in the head right away, right?”

Michael looked at Dan, Dan looked at Michael, and they said in unison, “Yes, Nurse Gertler.”

It was an accident

Michael woke up and opened the patio door to a sticky August day with air as thick as soup. He let Dan sleep a little longer, thinking that since it was his day, he might as well enjoy a few more minutes before the onslaught of chores and houseguests and family members and you never know what. Michael put his tattered cargo shorts on and an old Banana Republic t-shirt. The work he’d be doing, he’d better not wear anything he cared about.

After putting the coffee on and brushing his teeth and petting the dogs and feeding them, Michael headed outside. Chore numero uno, the trash down to the street – and the recycling, too. It was recycling day. So he took both down to the driveway and placed them on the curb.

“Oh, shit!” Michael said, looking down the street at the neighbors’ gargantuan piles. “Bulk trash pick-up today.”

That’s right. They’d been saving these things for a month now, and had to get rid of them. If they didn’t, the guests at the party tonight would be falling all over the old lumber wood. So Michael traipsed on back up the hill – at the top, he realized his t-shirt had already soaked through, and only two minutes outside – and grabbed a pile of two by fours. When he got down to the curb, he thought, he’d have to split them in two, otherwise the trash people wouldn’t take them.

The first one split real easily. Michael stepped in the middle of the board and lifted the one side until it split – and so it did. And so did the second. But the third one presented more of a problem. No matter how hard Michael pulled, he couldn’t split the two by four in half. But Michael wouldn’t give up. The trash had to go, and it couldn’t go like this.

He closed his eyes, breathed in through his nostrils, and said to himself, “Mercy, let me get through the next five minutes,” and he lifted the short side of the wood with all the might he had. But he slipped off the middle of it, but while he did, the long side finally split from the short – yes, finally it broke. But it flipped up and hit Michael on the side of his head.

He had a dull sense of softness on the left side of his face, a milky wetness, and a blurry view outside that half of his body. And then he tasted the blood in his mouth.

Running back up to the house, he bumped into the Jeep and tripped on the step up to the kitchen door. When he got there, he yelled out, “Dan! I’ve had an accident! Come quick!”

And then Dan came out, eyes squinting and yawning. “Good morning, honey. How’d you sleep?”

If I won the super lotto

He’d get rid of the stupid popcorn ceiling. That was the first thought Marvin had when he opened his eyes that April morning. Marvin nudged Samuel awake.

“Honey, you’ll never guess what I dreamed.”

Samuel’s eyes became cloudy slits and he murmured something Marvin couldn’t understand. But then he stretched his arms above his head and said, “You won the lottery or something.”

“You know me so well,” Marvin said, laughing. It really was a great bedroom, even with the popcorn ceiling. French doors out to the patio and pool, a nice big closet. And Samuel, lying in bed next to him. How many years, twelve years now?

“Oh, boy, Marvin wins the lottery,” Samuel said, also laughing. “So how much and how quickly will you go through it all?”

“I couldn’t possibly go through one hundred million, Samuel. But first things first, I’d pay off the cars, the mortgage, set aside a few mill for retirement, buy a house in San Francisco, get a Manhattan apartment in Jackie Kennedy’s building, you know …”

Samuel sat up in bed and put his hands on his hips and made like a washing machine. “What about me? What about my needs?”

“Oh, you’ll be along for the ride, honey. Give me a kiss.”

And then, after Samuel gave Marvin a chaste peck on the lips, Marvin said, “Now turn over and let’s celebrate the right way.”

The errand

“God, not Southampton Hospital,” Jerry said. “I’ll have to drive through seventy-five minutes of traffic on 27 to get there. Ten miles and longer than an hour.”

“No way around it,” Tom sniffed. “You got to get the stuff. But you’ll have to excuse me from the trip, however. No sense in two of us sitting in weekender traffic.”

“I wish we were staying until Wednesday,” Jerry said. “Then I could wait until the traffic subsides. But no, I have to pick up the box tonight, of all times.”

Jerry headed out the door. The screen door banged and Lester barked. And then Jerry turned around and came back inside. “Okay, Lester, you’re coming with me. We’re going for a ride.”

Jerry passed the village, and remarked on the maples, elms, and oaks lining Main Street. East Hampton was always lovely in August – and then he passed the Harriett Beecher Stowe house, St. Luke’s Episcopal (Uncle Arnold had been a priest there back in ’38), and then made the turn toward Bridgehampton. Traffic not to bad ... not just yet.

And then he came to a halt at Watermill. Ironic, he thought – this is where he’d be bringing the stuff back. He’d promised Harry that he’d give Mickey the St. Jude medals. But when the funeral home picked up Harry’s body from the hospital, they forgot about his box of personal effects. So Jerry had to go get it. And keep his promise to Mickey -- and to Harry.

Defiled

“Ya know, Aloysius, the moron that drove that stake into the Martin Van Buren tree ought to be burned at the stake,” the captain said, his arms leaden, feeling that if one more burden fell onto his shoulders, the desk beneath would crash to the floor, the floor to the level below, and the building with it, as if imploded by a contractor’s seeded bomb.

“Ya can’t do nothin’ about these low-lifes, and ain’t no sense tryin’, Captain Culpepper,” Aloysius said, noting the curvy hips on Deputy Sarah Jane Hamilton. His thought, yeah, it was bull crap, driving a twelve-inch stake into a one hundred sixty year old oak tree, but it’d live. Wasn’t so sure about the captain, however.

“Got to put my best man on it,” Captain Culpepper said. “Get me Detective Gertler. He’ll find out who did this, and he’ll string ‘im up before a defense attorney gets at ‘im and he falls through the cracks of the judicial system.”

Aloysius laughed, but kept it to himself. The captain was what, six months from retirement after forty-five years on the force? Let him chase windmills, this oak tree criminal wasn’t getting caught. Aloysius had better things to do – with Deputy Sarah Jane.

The frying pan

"Are you very sure of this, Edward?” Mama said, her gray eyebrows rushing together over her pointy-rimmed 1950s eyeglasses. Edward remembered the eyebrows, auburn back in those years when world affairs hinged on a German shepherd launched into outer space.

“Mama,” Edward said, looking across the room from the metal chair where he sat to the steel bed where his mother lay, “we’ve talked about this for weeks now. The time has come for you to be in Palo Alto. Since Daddy died, there’s nothing left for you in Modesto. Shady Pines is a perfectly lovely facility.”

She relaxed her eyebrows and the blank expression came back into her eyes. “Very well, I’m certain you know best.” Mama nodded at the chinless social worker who stood by the door, who walked over to the bed and motioned for Mama to sign the forms.

“Edward,” Mama said, once Miss Van Buren walked away, “be sure to bring my dresser, and your grandfather’s watercolors. My jewelry is in the box on the bed, and I need to have my address book. You’ll have to send notecards to all of my friends, and arrange with the new facility to have HBO and Showtime added to my cable package. And what’s their library like? We need to make sure I have access to a good library.”

I stared at her. Her friends had died, I’d sold her jewelry, and she couldn’t even hold a book upright any longer. All she could do was watch television, and even that was restricted to soap operas and Joan Rivers reality shows.

“Don’t dawdle, Edward,” Mama said. “Do as I say. And remember, I’ll be expecting you to feed me dinner every evening at the new place.”

Perhaps the weekly drive from San Francisco to Modesto wasn’t as bad as I had made it out to be. And perhaps I could speak to Miss Van Buren.

Poetry

Dried leaves rustling beneath my journey’s feet,

I squint through the resting oak’s arthritic branches,

A low sun that fights its way across the vermilion-azure sky.

Breathing in damp moss from earthy gathered mounds,

Embracing the leaves’ destiny with the ground,

Alongside I become one with the earth.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Brisk air casting its talons into my nostrils and lungs,

I feel the dying year’s homily make its way into my soul.

Give me a season to rest, I hear the earth’s petition,

And I promise you a verdant renaissance.

In the hints of rebirth that cool air and crackling leaves echo,

I say good night and good morning.

Today's headline

“Surpluses help, but fiscal problems for states goes on.”

I don’t feel like reading the New York Times this morning, although it is the first of the month and I’m allowed to read ten – no, five – articles for free. So I’ll go to Huffington Post and see what they have. Nothing interesting, just liberal diatribes by Marlo Thomas, Jeffrey Toobin, Robin Williams, and of course Arianna Huffington. Not that I disagree with liberal views. It’s the diatribes that I find tiresome.

So I’ll go to CNN. Nope, nothing interesting, just McNews. Same true at Motor Trend, but hey, I love cars. But I just bought a new one and paid off the other one, so we don’t want new cars for years. Bore, bore, bore. The Internet has nothing on it. Just like television. All four hundred fifty-nine channels, nothing to watch.

Why was life more interesting as a little boy? I always had something to watch on the tube, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette always had some interesting article to read. There were Andy Griffith and I Love Lucy re-runs, Speed Racer cartoons, Fred Flintstone three times a day, and of course Laugh-in. Sock it to me, Tricky Dick. And if we weren’t watching shows, there were the Watergate hearings – Sam Ervin, John Dean (loved Mo Dean’s tied-back blonde hair), Howard Baker, and of course ... Martha Mitchell.

I think if Martha Mitchell had lived, she’d have been the first woman elected president. And the news and TV would’ve been a hell of a lot more interesting, with her candor and humor. Bring back Martha!